#this is so long bc its actually like three themes in one. sorry. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

8aji · 1 year

Text

it only takes one day and i'll run straight into your arms. // f.t.

pairing: husband!toji fushiguro x reader, ft. megumi

wc: 1k

synopsis: despite the initial fear, who says blackouts can't be used as a bonding moment.—or, toji tries his best to open up while holding the both of you in his arms

tags/cw: fluff, dad!toji along with husband!toji, mentions of past child neglect (towards toji).— let me know if i missed anything!

a/n: with a readability score of 73/10 (Ik) here's a fic i started writing in march of this year and finished yesterday bc we had a blackout and that's quite literally the theme of this one. i missed writing for jjk but its been a long ass while since i checked the manga so the characterisation is definitely off mwah!

m.list ˖ tags ˖ byi/dni

A loud yelp filled could be heard, followed by the pitter-patter of little feet running to the living room.

Megumi dropped his toys as soon as it happened, flinching like a cat scared by a loud noise. Tears pooled his green eyes as he ran towards the living in search of you.

“Are you alright?” you asked, kneeling in front of him. As soon as he heard your voice, he flung himself into your embrace with his eyes closed tightly. He was lucky enough to have met you halfway down the hall; the pitch black prevented him from looking too far ahead.

Megumi wasn’t scared of many things, but he was terrified of the dark. It was a common fear in children, the way common household items turned into eerie monsters once the lights went out could for sure be scary, the inherent absence of light presented itself as a threat. You would’ve never imagined his fear actually stemmed from all those horror stories Gojo had insisted on sharing that one time he babysat Megumi, lights off and all, just a torch which made his piercing blue eyes even scarier.

Regardless of where he was, once lights went out he’d go after you or Toji for reassurance,

His spiky hair tickled as he nuzzled his face against your neck, holding onto your shoulders for dear life. Any movement you made his grip stronger, forcing you to sit on the floor instead of moving to the couch like you planned, crossing your legs so he could easily cuddle up to you. Despite the little sniffles, you could feel his heartbeat calm down the more you continued to softly rock him in your embrace.

“Sorry I took so long,” Toji spoke, making his way from the garden through the sliding doors to where you sat. “Thought I could fix it but the whole neighbourhood’s out.”

As soon as he heard his voice, Megumi perked up a little, pulling away from your chest to look up at his dad, extending his arms and doing grabby hands at him. Toji picked him up effortlessly from your hold, kissing his hair before following you to the couch.

“You okay?” your husband asked. He raked his fingers through Megumi’s soft strands, the same way you did with his, hoping to calm him down; despite both your efforts he was still a little shaken. He took a minute to think of a response, hesitating whether to nod or shake his head, before he decided to nod, not without nuzzling his cheek against Toji, who hummed at his response. “And you?” he turned to you.

“’m fine,” you mumble, you hadn’t realised it had gotten this late, though it wasn’t surprising considering you spent all this time worrying over Megumi. “A little sleepy though.”

Toji stretched his left arm, beckoning you to come closer and of course, you caved in, there was nothing compared to the feeling of laying close to your two favourite boys. You sighed in satisfaction at his warmth, chuckling at the way Megumi easily crawled between the both of you yawning before stretching and closing his eyes; fear can really tire one out. That L-shaped couch was truly a great investment, it fit the three of you quite perfectly.

“He rubs his face against us like cats do,” Toji whispered, careful not to wake his son up.

“He’s also tiny,” you mention, brushing away a few strands of hair away from his face. “Like a kitten.”

“You think he’ll be short?”

“Toji you’re almost 6 feet tall.” You looked at him in confusion, brows furrowed in amusement as if your statement was explanation enough, but just in case it wasn’t, you continued. “No, he won’t be short.”

It was his turn to chuckle, looking fondly at the kid between the both of you, still unable to believe that someone as messed up as him was able to create something so pure and beautiful.

“’ don’t wan’ him to grow up,” He muttered, feeling a little vulnerable at the weight of his words. “’ think I’m scared of it.”

You knew he felt weird telling you this; even if he shouldn’t, being uncomfortable was almost a reflex to him. After years of neglect, Toji couldn’t help but struggle to properly communicate, keeping his walls up no matter how much he wanted to tear them all down for you.

But that was okay, he didn’t need to talk all the time, not when the both of you managed to feel each other just by locking gazes.

You cupped his cheek with your free hand, smiling as he nuzzled against your skin just like Megumi did; the apple doesn’t fall far away from the tree, after all.

“‘don't want him to not need us,” he continued, now feeling more comfortable because of your touch. “‘don't want him to leave us behind.”

“He won’t,” you tried reassuring him, even if you knew that little voice in his head would tell him otherwise. “He won't stop loving you, I promise.”

To think someone could love him. The thought still made him want to cry.

The bittersweet feeling stuck with him even after the lights came back on; it made the two of you jump in surprise, waking little Megumi in the process. You stayed on the couch for a couple of seconds before you managed to find the strength to get up, walking behind Toji as he carried Megumi to his bedroom.

“See? You're okay,” he whispered against his son’s hairline, who was hesitant to be left alone once again. “And whatever you need we’re just next door, it's okay to be scared as well.” He said goodbye with one last kiss and waited next to you for Megumi to cuddle up against his sheets to leave, smiling at the small I love you daddy his son mumbled between yawns.

No matter what or when or where, Megumi will always look out for your's or Toji’s warmth to reassure himself that everything’s going to be alright.

#master collection.#jjk collection.#toji fushiguro x reader #toji x reader #toji fushiguro x you #toji x you #toji fluff #toji oneshot #jjk x reader #jjk x you #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen x you #jjk fluff #jujutsu kaisen fluff #tw past neglect

862 notes · View notes

jade-of-mourning · 8 days

Text

just rewatched the first three episodes of lok and i'm obsessed again. korra is SO CUTE she's buff she's passionate she's self assured she's sassy as fuck she's the whole world to me omg.

welcome to republic city & the revelation do SUCH a good job of establishing the character of the city and really, introducing the new world!!! the revelation has been one of my favorite episodes of lok for a long minute because of its noir aesthetic, the art in the cityscaping, the insane cinematography and composition of the korra/mako & chi-blocker fight! the way that mako's revelation of his and bolin's backstory is a direct parallel to the fradulent backstory of amon!!!! (and the potential behind the firebenders-killed-my-parents stereotype as inflicted on a firebending kid,,,)

AND THE WAY KORRA IS IMMEDIATELY SMITTEN WITH MAKO IS SO FUNNY. the way that it just does not occur to mako at all to romantically like korra at all — he sees that bolin is not in their attic and automatically assumes that he's flirting with korra and is just entire amused at the concept like okay,,, then korra offers to help him find bolin and he goes "nah i got it" and i'm like dude,, if i were in your position i would literally be hanging off of her bc she's so cute wdym Nah I Got It you do not got it you are a hot trauma mess let the pretty girl help you. actually he's aro what.

also i'm yelling about how bolin was written as, y'know, an actual human being with feelings and nuance in characterization in these first few episodes. the show could never make me hate you bolin. and the way mako looks so tired all the time especially in his initial introduction just looking at his side profile, and how he word for word goes "i think i'm gonna turn in; you kids have fun" at korra and bolin STOP. mako physically picking up an equalist and hauling them off the stage like a ragdoll bc they were going to harm bolin is the truest shit of all time. sorry i still think mako should've been a girl but in that moment where he asks if bolin is alright and bolin goes "YES MAKO I LOVE YOU" i agreed bc i love him for who he is in canon too

THE SETUP FROM A LEAF IN THE WIND guys the way the airbending philosophy translates over into an entire theme of the season,, how tenzin and korra's relationship already evolves so much over the course of one episode and how they recognize their own faults and acknowledge each other's perspectives; they were always meant to help build one another into better more empathetic people. i just love watching their dynamic so much um kind of the most important part of the show. also the way that korra sees what mako does in the ring and connects it to what tenzin told her about airbending and how it finally clicked for her,,, sorry i'm once again thinking about the sheer potential that makorra could've been until it got absolutely trashed in about one episode from now LOL. (i'm joking it took about another season before that happened but still.)

talk to me please i need to yell about season 1 again and esp the first three episodes because they had so much potential for so many good things and just never got the time to explore it in its entirety,,,, AAAAAAA never getting over the visuals the personality in the animation the background paintings the music just hgnajdsgbhkbsjdgajs SEASON ONE KORRA I LOVE YOU. also my chest hurts sm what

#lychee's brain trash #sorry about this absolute batshittery this is why i shouldn't post on tumblr #THIS IS ABSOLUTELY INCOMPREHENSIBLE i just need to put it out in the world #THINKING ABOUT LOK AGAIN.#i think that it deserves its own tag on my blog bc i make so much shitposting #something among the lines of #lok the unbelievably messy & sincere shitfest you are

11 notes · View notes

georgieluz · 8 months

Note

Julian!! I’ve missed you!! Sending a virtual hug and a few asks for the ask game!

❤️💛💚💙🖤🎤🎵📺🔐🧟‍♀️🍇💌🖇️🔍🪐🌚

I just realized… there’s a lot… haha sorry about that 😅 hope you’re doing well!

hiiii!! i missed you too!!! first of all, lemme return the virtual hug and then i'll get to answering!!

❤️ how tall are you?

5ft4. guess i'm joining george, johnny, frank and harry in the smol boys club

💛 what is your favourite feature on yourself?

maybe my hair? idk i feel like so many people talk about how lucky i am to have such thick fluffy hair that if i didn't choose that it would be the equivalent of cursing them and all of their families

💚 where are you from?

dwi'n dod o gymru!! actually it's fitting that the emoji is green because green and red are the welsh flag colours and i'm welsh!

💙 do you have any siblings?

just me, unfortunately

🖤 favourite hobbies outside of your blog?

archery! i used to be on my university team and we would shoot three times a week but i've graduated now and feel like i'm cheating on them whenever i shoot with my local team

🎤 have you been to a concert?

yes! i've been lucky enough to go to quite a few. some of my favourite artists that i've seen live are: my chemical romance, the libertines, epik high, vixx, kim hanbin and day6

🎵 favourite artists?

the libertines, the strokes, pulp, the cure, epik high, kim hanbin, onewe, hoppipolla, sunmi and woodz!

📺 last show you watched?

transatlantic (i'm still a wreck bc of these characters)

🔐 something no one would guess about you?

ohh this might be the toughest one bc i don't actually know how people see me so i wouldn't know what they would guess about me but maybe that i studied and competed in dance my whole life? (if you can guess what styles of dance i'll give you a prize)

🧟‍♀️ scariest thing that’s happened to you?

i don't wanna make this too heavy so i'll leave out the actual scariest things but the other week i may or may not have had an encounter with a ghost in my museum which is said to be haunted

🍇 a word your friends would use to describe you?

texted two of my friends and one replied "unnecessary" and the other said "an idiot of an enigma" so that went well lmao

💌 why did you start this blog?

because it had been so long since i had friends who loved band of brothers and i missed having an online community where i felt comfortable and happy and enjoyed engaging with people in

🖇️ what are your favorite asks to answer?

honestly i like all of them! i love interacting with people and so any asks are fun! writing asks, character discussions, get to know me asks, i'll take the lot of them!!

🔍 what character do you enjoy writing for the most?

lately it's been eddie jones!! every single idea i've had lately spawns around him and forms its own little solar system that revolves around his existence. i think it's bc i'm a little bit obsessed, but i also think the themes i enjoy writing most work very well with him so it's just the perfect match. but i also adore writing nix, he's my favourite hot mess and i love writing him. harry and tab are two i love writing who i didn't realise i loved writing until i saw the amount of times i'd written something focused on them when the work wasn't supposed to be anything massively to do with them lmao

🪐 favourite shows / series of all time?

ohhh another tough one, but i'm gonna have to say band of brothers, star trek, and lost, but succession is probably gonna end up being up there eventually but i need to give it a few years to settle before deciding. there are definitely others but they go in and out of order a lot and those are the three that always stay at the top no matter what

🌚 a show you’d tell people to stay away from?

honestly idk i think it's down to individual taste so if i knew someone didn't like a certain genre i could tell them to avoid shows based off of that but i usually don't tell people to stay away from a show unless there's something genuinely harmful in it

thank you so much for asking all of these!! it was fun to answer them and hopefully i haven't rambled on too long!!

for this ask game!

#julian's ask games #julian's inbox

23 notes · View notes

mallahanmoxie · 9 days

Text

okay taylor swift the tortured poets department first listen rank/review (except im only doing like. top ten bc im not ranking all that) (alternative a half hearted attempt at a should've-been selection)

the prophecy

how did it end?

the albatross

fresh out of the slammer

i can fix him (no really i can)

florida!!!

the black dog

fortnight

cassandra/robin/peter (it's the same to me - cass has the most interesting instrumental, robin's theme is cute, peter makes the most sense re: past albums)

so long london

somewhere in there is a real album and im sorry to see she fired the person who was supposed to tell her when to stop. i dunno if it's the vault tracks or her unprecedented fame that's convinced her a 31 track album was okay (it'd have to be functionally distinct to its counterpart to be a second album and as it is it's a bside at best), but the length is baffling and the songs inside are not good enough to justify.

as it is, the white side is altogether too mushed together and indistinct to hit anything but bland. in spirit, it is about four to five songs spread thin across three tracks each. so many of them could've been condensed (fortnight up to down bad lol, loml-so long london, but daddy i love him-i can fix him, etc) to a stronger effect because they either sound the same or touch on the same topic. you could conserve the three musical lines you've kept (old west pseudo country, 80s tunes, general swift ballad—which are fine! i like the old west best) and open more ground to the better part of the album, which is the folk/high school blend of the black album. it's still rife with needless tracks, but this one approximated the most to songs i would like. i do think i actually like the prophecy, but it doesn't even crack top 25 taylor tracks. the rest are in desperate need to be scraped or seriously reworked.

final verdict: girl get an editor and keep antonoff to a maximum of five for the love of god. this needed at least a year to perfect and a much firmer hand.

#first listen rank #it's so frustrating bc like you've got so many years in the industry under your belt you KNOW you gotta get rid of the fluff #do you not think you can write fluff anymore? think again #can you believe they tried to sell this to me as red meets folklore?#this cannot even look treacherous in the eye

2 notes · View notes

crazyexdirkfriend · 1 year

Note

What's the behind the scenes for shag etc? 👀 (also the icon on your blog theme is so cute...)

ty ty! it's from chapter 2 of two short hours etc. in case anyone didn't see it. okay this might get long so read more time

I have so many behind the scenes for that. Firstly: the playlist. this is what I made because my huge dirkjake playlist isn't thematically consistent. but to elaborate on the Lore of my choices:

dirt-emma blackery is actually the song that gave me the idea for the fic, and then down for the count-bowling for soup played afterwards. the key being snarky bits like "then you came on twitter saying i'm bitter, honey have you looked in the mirror" "how far down will you go on me, ONLINE" "guess things go sour after they pass their sell-by-date"

dead girl walking (reprise) was initially on my playlist for calvariæ and strip away my conscience (FIFTY SHADES OF MORALLY GREEEY) was on my two short hours etc. playlist, but both made the migration over thematically

someone gets hurt is solely on this for POOOOR LITTLE ME ALL TRAPPED IN THIS FABULOUS SHOOOOW. jake in a golden bird cage of his own making.

the bit where jake walks out on stage to endorse karkat with the back light is based on the music video for taylor swift's "i bet you think about me" when she...well comes out with a back light to "the voice is so loud, saying 'why did you let her go?'" it's very revenge dress moment for jake here. rip princess diana, she would have loved my fanfiction where dirk and jake hunt each other for sport.

i'm on it by the cast of nashville is on this because "the only over i'll be is over your shoulder" is why i have jake make those stupid billboards to haunt dirk with.

god is a freak is on this. but dirk is god in this scenario. WEIRD YOU'RE ACTING LIKE MY BOYFRIEND :///

Some other behind the scenes lore, like deleted scenes: I was supposed to rehash the scene where Roxy (and Jake) comes out as NB but it didn't fit in the end. Here's the excerpt I did write

There was also supposed to be a scene where Jake sent Dirk this meme but I forgot to put it in. I instead complained on Twitter about forgetting to put it in and then my third level lecturer SENT ME MY OWN TWEET and then offered me work. I am still haunted by this fact. I have no idea why this happened. Deep deep lore. Here's the image btw

This scene was also supposed to be in it but I had no idea where to go with it. Raccoon was supposed to be a series regular.

This note on the final conflict scene is the only time I used the term "emotionally devastate." The fic was unnamed until literally 3 days before its release bc I couldn't think of anything other than "the blood between us is horrendous but in a vacillating manner as opposed to a xenophobic one- (Troll Taylor's Version)" which was way too long considering no one ever types the full name of shag emotionally devastate etc. anyway lmao

The billboards and the bloat advertising on the dating apps are things I've had Jake do before in RP, both deliberately and accidentally. I find it so infinitely funny to think about the idea of Jake believing so hard that Dirk would never love anyone other than him that he (hope powers) makes it functionally impossible for Dirk to move on. Dirk looks for him in nothing and finds him there anyway. Buys a drink at a bar and Skaianet sponsors Orange Crush now. Is on a date with some guy who is like "hold on, you're jake english's ex? you broke up with jake english? sorry I could never date anyone stupid enough to let jake english go" (shoving breadsticks in purse). I think Jake would also set up Tinder so he pops up every three swipes but when Dirk swipes right on him eventually he just gets a Skaianet helpdesk bot

Other behind the scenes hmm. I spent the vast majority of 8-10 weeks not writing this and 4 weeks actually writing the bulk of it, but most of the time was spent hand wringing on discord because I was convinced that this fic would not be received well so I'm actually hugely pleasantly surprised that people have liked it!

7 notes · View notes

alkhale · 2 years

Note

ALK !!! KAPFM CHP 9 BLEW MY MIND. SHSHSHSHHS SORRY THIS WILL BE LONG BC !!! UUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!

When okkotsu said “Even if you cannot be separate, you have to imagine it so.” , “In this manner, you can easily remember…That you are still two.”

I felt like that sentence felt familiar before i realized that you titled chp 4 by “i want my life in two” AND somehow the cycle of that two different lives are oddly similar ?? Like how mirai found someone that she likes (chi & okkotsu) ; that someone was taken away (the kamo clan & the villagers) ; she went on a rampage (trashing around the small shed & the village massacre)

chp 4 ends with = (A finger stuck itself into the series of tapes, starting to wind it back.) and as the summary for chp 7 goes : The stories that unfolded each time, however, as of late, did tend to be quite a bit different. Perhaps because of one character that did not quite belong with the rest. (1) Gojou Satoru.

YOU YOU YOU MIND BLOWER AHHHHHHH. I love love how you do this thing with naming the chapters that follows the theme of the story u wrote, it may seem like a minor detail but i rlly rlly love it omfg like

atcit : the mc’s rule of threes

memos : hoku as a protagonist has a goal to paint the best story and if u combine the title of the current chapters together and it can already form a prologue of a story which coincides that hoku just joined the strawhats and is painting for the strawhats’ journey

kapfm : mirai is essentially stuck in a loop/ limbo of a monotonous life (even tho it involves more than plenty of adrenaline for sorcerers & non sorcerers) and theyre not even bothered to think much of it unless its rly rly important for the future/ whatever that is in scope in their curse technique and someone new in their latest lifetime who seems like he wont ever fit in her standard script of life. and not only that but, some chapters may seemed like it mirrored the other but its not !!! like one of those games of finding the abnomalies in 2 similar pictures and its bc of that one ridiculous op guy 😭

hmmmmmm how should i put it, ik that its 2 entirely different series and themes but mirai and hoku is actually a good foil for each other SHJSJSJS dunno if anyone else noticed and may sent sth about them both in an ask

Like, mirai’s ability to see the future and is convinced that it is set and even if it changed it wont necessarily be a good thing for everyone involved; and it wont be an exeption to the strongest sorceror in the new era vs hoku’s plan to draw the best story in a world and the boy who she is convinced could overcome his predecessor (i.e gold roger) but that conviction itself it sth that has been set from the very beginning bc luffy is the protagonist and she thought of herself as a bystander and wont make sth as small as ripple

i probably didnt explain any of my thought even tho i just wrote a paragraph HSHSHSJSH IM SORRY BUT TLDR-ing MY THOUGHTS ABT THEM THIS WAY = once u open a book, the stage and ending has been set for the characters, theyre essentially “doomed” to that ending; no matter how much you flip the coin it will always land on tails/ heads and it will always be one of them and never be other but for the one who flip the coin, they may ruled out themselves out of the possibility that they’re (one of) the anomaly and could change sth around them

I just, love all ur stories & ur ocs, and i love u too🥹

anon, i just want you to know that you've absolutely made my night, like you have literally no idea

work and everything else have all melted away after reading this and the spews of thoughts/theories/connections, it always makes me so, SO HAPPY when you guys do stuff like this because i put those lil things for my own love and its just ;-; really, really rewarding to know you all enjoy them too

THANK YOU FOR NOTICING ALL THE LITTLE CONNECTING THREADS, i also love naming chapters with a little extra thought and trying to follow the chosen lyrics for that moment in KAPFM's case

sometimes they hint stuff ;)

GOJOU BEING THE ABNORMALITY IN TWO PICS IM CRYING, yes, because he is exactly that and if only mirai could see the headache he will become :')

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING AND PLEASE LOOK FORWARD TO MORE

#KAPFM #gojou satoru #mirai #gojou satoru x oc

34 notes · View notes

philzokman · 11 months

Note

also guess who’s travelling and needs fic recs again 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

omgomgogm IM SO GLAD U ASKED :D i haven’t been reading much fanfic due to exams and illness and also bc i got Reallt into classical literature for a while shit is so hype but i have a few :D

purple - skk

pink - sskk

red - death note

1. the irreplaceable things by blowingyourmind

‘Dazai was introduced to two very important figures in his life that night, One being the dog he nearly ran over, and the other being the fiery redheaded veterinarian who coddled said dog’

THIS SHIT IS INSANE !!! INSANE I TELL U!!!!! au where dazai (pm boss) falls in love desperate hatred!!! for vet chuuya and it’s so ☹️☹️ like the main romance is adorable the side plots are fucking insane (there’s a dog ring ???????) (atsushi does stand up comedy for about three paragraphs KFHAKDHD) it’s genuinely a fucking ride. the authors also really good like even when there are the occasional mistakes it’s Very clear what they mean and i definitely wouldn’t say it removes anything from the story at all HIGHLY recommend KFHSJSHD

2. He’s got a dream by blowingyourmind

‘soukoku tangled au’

i…havent read this yet (a very common theme on this list KDHSH) BUT !!! it’s i think going to be the next fic i read :D it’s a tangled au. A TANGLED AU. SOBS. BREAKS DOWN. THEOWS MYSELF OFF A CLIFF !!!!!!! and it’s written by the same author as rec one who i already love sososo much it looks very cool KFHAKDHD

3. yokohama public high school - almost as crazy as their pep rallies by blowingyourmind (SIDE NOTE: i did not realise all of these were by the same person LFMAODJSH WHOOPSIES (ive been very out of the fanfic loop recently </3))

‘The story of how Chemistry teacher Dazai Osamu fell helplessly for coach Nakahara Chuuya, and the student body's many attempts to get them together.’

again i. haven’t actually read this BUT ITS A TEACHER X TEACHER AU. SOBS ONCE MORE. BREAKS DOWN ONCE MORE. THROWS MUSELF OFF A CLIFF ONCE MORE !!!!!!!!! i fucking love teacher x teacher aus they’re so hype oml KFHSJSH same author as the other two which i. didn’t realise. BUT. i mean it’s a good author what can i say LMFAOHDHSSH anywho it looks sick

4. would kira have gay sex? by itiaskia

no description needed KDHAKSH fun fact! this fic was the catalyst for me pursuing an english lit degree. take that in for a moment LFNAKDHDHSH it’s like 200 words long and idk i think most ppl have read it by now but it makes me giggle FJSHJDDH

5. collide by onizenmaru

‘All it takes is one chance meeting and Atsushi's life slowly becomes tangled up in Akutagawa Ryuunosuke's.

‘This has to be some kind of cosmic joke.’

i haven’t read this fic either😔 but it seems good !!!! it’s also on my reading list but it seems really really sick :D i’m pretty sure i’ve read some of the authors other works too but i might be wrong KDHSJSDH within the like two paragraphs of scanning i did i also saw an ‘oh. oh’ moment but idk what it was about LFMAODJSHDH but the writing seems really good from what i’ve seen :D

anywho!! hope u enjoy so sorry the list is predominantly fics i haven’t read + one crack fic that’s like 2 words long LMFAODJDH this is more of a ‘what am i reading now + what am i going to read!’ list rather than recs but i hope u enjoy them anyways :D if u read any please keep me updated omg i love talking about fics AND TALKING TO U :D KFJAKDHDH i’m going to sleep now (i’m not) BUT ENJOY :D

6 notes · View notes

persnickett · 1 year

Note

Hello ily ♥️😘

Also! ✨ 🌠 🌿 🎀 🎉 💞 💎 📡 🤲 ☯️

💟✉ - I had to improvise bc I couldn't find the love letter emoji 🙈

I know there are a lot there lol, but what can I say? Your mind is wonderful and I'm curious 😇 So take your pick, and if any of these take your fancy, I'd love to hear your thoughts 😍

♥️😘

OMG HI, my darling. Thank you for this! I am so sorry for the long wait - and how stupidly long this got lol. But ily2 and here is my answer at last. ❤️

✨What's a fic you've posted you wish you could breathe life into again and have people talking about it? (or simply a fic you wish got more credit)

Oof. Well there are certain fics I have worked really hard on, but I feel the notable example does get its fair share of credit and love and discussion (a big thank you to everyone who has read and engaged with me <3 ). But I guess I put a lot of work into An Apprenticeship, Of Brick and of Bone, Bad Moon a-Risin' too , and will always appreciate anything people want to pick up on and come and chat to me about on those. (I mean, the same is true for any fic ever, quite honestly lol – but) Those fics I’d say do also sort of have some subtlety or backstory to them that doesn’t get explicitly laid out in the fic, particularly An Apprenticeship, so there might be some fun things to talk about there if anyone is picking up on any Vibes they want to share.

Ok Edit: I wrote that whole answer out and then I went to grab the links and realize all those fics actually have not too bad interaction in comparison to my others lol. (thank you again, y’all <3). So, if this question is meant to be about the fics that get the least interaction, here’s something kinda fun: I sorted my stats page by hits in reverse, and in keeping with my weird experience that Holiday Themed Fics Seem to get Less Interest, these three tmrss fics have the lowest hit count. Three Cryptids Walk into a Bar Northern Crossing I Like you a Latte (After that it's drabbles, which seem to make sense drawing less traffic to me, for some reason, and then a New Year's themed fic 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️) As for Die Hard, the lowest hit count that goes to a full fic and not just a drabble, is this one: The Weather Outside is Frightful

Does anyone else experience this with their holiday themed fics? I’m really interested in this lol.

🎀give yourself a compliment about your own writing

Hmmm. I have a pretty big vocabulary. Is that a compliment? Lol It’s *Nerdy* with a capital N, how about that? Lol. There’s a lot of nerdy semi-obscure word play, reference humour, and I fall in love with the characters and get obsessed with every minute little detail about them. So if you love obsessing over nerdy details too, my fic just might be for you! lol

🎉how often do you celebrate completing & posting a work? how often do you give yourself the credit/validation that you seek from others when you post? (if you don't, you should!)

This is a sneaky wife-scolding moment, @dream0fspring, and frankly it’s fair. I mean the short answer is, I don’t. OP is right though, that writers definitely should. We have talked a lot about this in DMs (because you put up with so much from me <3) but at least in terms of my WIP, I tend to celebrate the success of completing the hard work of posting a chapter by rewarding myself with more work – ie. setting the deadline for the next one. I also have a tendency to set my deadlines by estimating how long I will likely take to finish a chapter, and then trying to shorten that timeline as much as possible because faster is better, and working comfortably and at my own pace would be lazy and somehow feels like a ‘failure’. To ‘hustle’ or something, idk. This is a really important question though, because I have learned a lot about myself and my workstyle and the importance of motivation and self care through writing, in ways that apply to my life outside of writing - how I approach workload in my rl job or life admin tasks and responsibility, etc. I think it’s something we could all benefit from examining in ourselves from time to time. Are we happy with the way we treat ourselves in terms of effort and reward for the different kinds of labour that come into our lives each day, and would we be happy to see somebody else, say a friend or loved one, treat themselves the same way? It’s a great question. Afraid I’d have to throw it back out to tumblr though – does anybody have ideas on how they celebrate publishing to share?

📡why is writing and sharing your writing important for fandom?

Most of you reading this will probably know that I have a little collection on my ao3 of random snippets I call Snickits, bearing the Henry Van Dyke quote “The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best”, it’s about that fear of the vulnerability of putting ourselves into something and then offering it up to the world but I think that’s part and parcel of sharing one’s gifts. Obviously if we all gave into that voice that tells us ‘but mine isn’t as good/as big/as angsty/as funny/as worldbuilt/as proficient in English as xx’s fic’ and let it be a reason that we didn’t share it, there would be no content and there wouldn’t be a fandom at all. <3 Incidentally, (off topic, but hey this is already long af), there’s no fandom without readers, either, and this is something I’ve been seeing a lot of chat about lately with comments too. Comments and feedback are what let writers, or songbirds, know you heard and appreciated their song. They are super important to keeping fandom being a thing and a big reason many writers write here instead of going off to make money on original fiction. I see so many people say the reason they don’t comment is because other people’s comments intimidate them or seem smarter or more ‘creative’. That just breaks my heart to know somebody had a reaction to something someone wrote, was touched by something they created, and wanted to let them know but then *didn’t* because they felt themselves unworthy. (And then the image of the author on the other end, posting to the sound of crickets and thinking the same thing.) If anyone is a nervous commenter and reading this, please know it takes basically no more than a ‘omg!’, ‘this was my favourite chapter so far’ or ‘haha the moment xx happened cracked me up!’ to make a writers’ entire day. <3

🤲what do YOU get out of writing?

Is it weird that this question stumped me so much I left it to last? I feel like I spoke to this a bit in my last reply to this ask game but there are SO many reasons people write. Escapism, activism, therapy, self expression, to inform, to entertain. I guess for me it’s a bit of the first and last. It’s a hobby, and it’s the one I chose because it fits the best. Words have always been sort of my one thing I feel like I *have* as it were – as a skill, to offer to people, to make an impact with etc. We all have our skills and strengths and interests and words and language have always been one for me. (Don’t know if it’s related but I’m an auditory learner and will remember everything I hear too, which I understand isn’t all that common lol). I’m also introverted, so I’m far more likely to sit down at a keyboard and think about what I want to say than to get up on a stage and shout it out to a crowd (though yes I get up on a stage and do that set to music sometimes lol, shhh, humans don’t have to make sense). I guess writing is my way of feeling competent and effective at something, and fanfic (and feedback) is a way I feel like I reach people and offer them, and the world, something. I know I already mentioned that as a character driven writer, I find the depth to which I imagine different characters with different personalities reacting to the circumstances in my stories is a way I’ve come to feel like I have a better understanding of personalities different to my own, and it lets me have a better appreciation for, love of, and patience with, the people around me in every day life, too.<3 Writing is amazing!

☯️how do you think engaging with each other through tumblr, twitter, comments, kudos, creates healthy fandom experiences? How do you deal with that if you're not a social person/experience social anxiety?

Hmm. I feel like there’s kind of two different situations here. Comments and kudos are something I associate with Ao3 (I’m not sure if they have kudos on other platforms like ff.net or wattpad) and quite specific to writing, and I think engaging with authors on their stories to show that you liked it with kudos or that it made you think or feel or simply enjoy something, with a comment, are super important motivators to keep writers writing, and keep fandom being a welcoming space that embraces and encourages new writers starting out and fosters opportunities for them to explore and practice and build their skill. But then, tumblr and twitter are social media that can be used for fandom interactions with the people you meet who share your interests, but can be quite separate from writing, or at least they are in my experience. As a writer I don’t always get to engage with fan artists, and that’s one of the big plusses for me with tumblr, because I can’t do art at all and I really respect and admire fanartists hardcore. I don’t really use twitter. I’m intrigued to see it here being touted as a space for healthy fandom interaction when it has the reputation for basically being the opposite lol. I’m a highly drama-allergic person so I guess it’s possible that arguments and fanwank and ship wars are perceived by some people as a ‘healthy’ way to express things, and to each their own I suppose. But while I find respectful, calm discussions in fandom as intellectually stimulating and fascinating as the next fan, I do feel that so often that isn’t the goal, so much as finding a fight to have. And the problem there is negativity breeds negativity. I'm a firm believer that car horns ought to be made obsolete because they don't do what they were intended for anymore, which is warn somebody that another vehicle is coming around a bend on a one-lane dirt road. They're just a big loud 'fuck you' button these days, and hearing it directed at you can plant a seed of negativity that can set off your whole day and definitely makes it very tempting to hit that button on the next person that bothers you, and so it spreads out and spirals. Fandom wank feels like that to me. It might *feel* like ‘venting’ lets things out, but therapeutic psychology actually tells us distracting yourself with something positive is a just as effective, if not moreso, way to feel better without focusing on the negative – and definitely without passing it on to others in a chain reaction of yelling and fist flailing lol. I perceive fandoms that embrace a lot of opposition and ‘warring’ as actually toxic rather than healthy, and more as things that will wind me up when I came here with my leisure time to let go and relax, rather than as ways to ‘get things out’. I’m also concerned that behaviour toxifies a space, and can put negative thoughts into people’s heads that weren’t there to begin with and didn’t need to be there at all (it’s all fiction at the end of the day lol) when they might have logged on to the internet feeling perfectly fine. So I’ve never been one to go looking for an argument, even if I’m feeling some kinda way on any given day. And from what I’ve heard, that means twitter isn’t really the place for me lol.

As for having social anxiety – yeah I do. But funnily enough interacting over the internet mostly takes care of that for me. I’m far less nervous when I have time to sit and think what I want to write out and say to somebody, than I am when I feel put on the spot in person. Not to mention the added option of anonymity on the internet. So that’s how I deal with it lol, it’s probably a large part of the whole reason I’m here using it!

💌share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

Well, I’m three chapters away from finishing The Blood Culmination . That is definitely feeling pretty momentous after 5 years (omg). And then, the sky’s the limit for what I want to work on next, I guess! Which is pretty damned exciting. Like maybe 10% scary, 90% exciting. Or 90% scary, 10% exciting *insert Owen Wilson in Armageddon meme here*.

I do have my ideas, as you know.😈 Maybe I should take a poll on what I should write next lol. Something spicy, mayhaps? Maybe the next big thing won’t even be fanfic at all… !!

With apologies again that this got so long, luckily some of the things you asked already came up in my other post here.

For anyone else who wants to do this, these questions are all from the ask game found here

❤️❤️❤️

#writing be like #ask game #snick talks (apparently)

4 notes · View notes

zaggyzoo · 2 years

Text

ok let's go. tumblr user zaggyzoo currently watching dramas recap (or whatever):

love in contract (ep. 9): as we say in italy, this is just fried air. i feel like every episode progressively gets worse, but not even in a "this show is Bad" way, it's just sooo mediocre. to me. mediocre premises, mediocre characters, mediocre plots, mediocre love triangle that i hoped we had left back in 2017. every episode i feel like nothing happens at all and I can't wait for it to end and i think the reason i didn't drop it yet is bc it's the only show that isn't on fri/sat/sun. and tbh things do happen, the problem is that they're all things you could've guessed from the third episode and they're just. not up to the quality of the type of drama it wants so badly to be. djjdjdjd wow sorry i don't even hate it but it's just sooo mediocre.

one dollar lawyer (ep.8): my bestie <33 love this show wow. they had a bit of a too long and emotional heavy two-episodes backstory that could've have been maybe managed differently but i get why it was necessary and now we're back to the silly antics soo I can't wait to see the new episodes!! it's genuinely so funny and it even made me think the courtroom scenes were soo fun to watch. made me think of while you were sleeping, which i loved watching so 🙏 that's high praise hfhdjdh

the golden spoon (ep.5): wow i'm three episodes behind on this helppp i do enjoy watching it (even though it has its flaws) but i never feel like starting an episode. helppp it feels like a chore even though i want to catch up. so uhm sjhdhdhdh but anyway i think this is very korean in themes, I don't think this story could work in any other context quite as well. and i also like how sungjae character is an interesting protagonist, as in, interesting how his character is, considering the usual role of a protagonist and its relationship with the viewer (that makes sense to me sorry). but in contrast I don't quite like how they didn't give the same treatment to yeojin as a villain 🤥 but maybe it's too early to talk (i hope)

gaus electronics (ep. 6): soooo silly djjdjd <3 the comedy is so slapstick and i think sometimes it could be finer, to be funnier. like for my tastes, it doesn't make me laugh out loud the whole episode, but i AM entertained for a good portion of it so 😌👍 also better kiss scene than most romantic dramas rn like 🙏😳🙌 and the 45 min format is really fitting

under the queen's umbrella (ep.2): this just started so 👁️ but i missed watching a period drama so much sooo i want to enjoy it fjjfjf gye seong must be protected at all costs 😭 btw actually surprised they went there! like i called it, at the end of first episode, but still ! i hope they're respectful and treat it with dignity and respect and the preview of next ep it looks like it but i'm still scared a bit 🤥 anyway why did i think it was a comedy when I start it fjfjfj also chani mean girl slay

may i help you (ep.2): the happines-park-hyungsik-ification of lee junyoung.... 😳😌🙌☺️🙏😼😖 sooo glad to see him act with hyeri, and it looks like a good one?? i'm shook. the start was a bit confusing but I think it was intentional, and i was then pretty neutral about the show but in the second episode there's a scene that is just soooo cute and made me think. oh this is good i enjoy this ! junyoung comedy king tbh. ALSO interesting how kdramaa usually like to have older actors with younger actresses, while he's often paired with older actresses à la lee jaewook 👁️ they do have the same charm i think... tbh while watching alchemy of souls i did think junyoung could do that role too so fjfhjfjf (love jaewook btw no hate 😭) OH ALSO it's so funny always to me to see how different catholicism is in korea from here lmaoo and i guess I don't really get how it ties in with the supernatural aspect of this show, that part leaves me a bit 🤔 but it's probably also too soon so we'll have to see

#stream of consciousness ienfjcjcuuc #i think there was more i had to say but i have to go to work soooo bye be good guys i love you

9 notes · View notes

togamicrying · 1 year

Note

honey you e got a big storm coming

35, 39, 47, 48, 51, 56, 83 hee hee

MAPLE.

35. A character who should’ve got more character development?

like. sooooo many of them lol. can i say the entire cast of v3? because honest to god that's my answer -- even my faves in v3 leave Something to be desired

beyond that, i actually think that thh and gbd do a really good job of stretching characters to their maximum narrative utility before killing them off, and i do feel like in both games the most narratively flexible ones are the ones who live. i think if i had to say anyone from those games it'd probably be leon or sayaka just because the way the free time events work in trigger happy havoc work mean they get like three events and then they die and you never get to know more lmfaoo (but even then i still don't think their characters are Lacking in the way that the v3 cast is for me. sorry for being a v3 hater lol)

39. Smartest murder plan?

komaeda's, obviously LMFAO. god every time i replay sdr2 chapter 5 im struck by it all over again. like they literally had to guess!! even with nanami revealing herself! even then! they still had to be like well. hope his luck actually worked out! king popped off and the entire trial is SO good for advancing the plot and tying off hinata's dynamics with BOTH komaeda and nanami! the moment of sickening clarity when hinata realizes that he DOES understand how komaeda's brain works, and knows what his intentions really were? nanami and hinata's final goodbye? uuuugh sdr2 chapter 5 i love youuuuu.

rest under the cut bc Long.

47. A headcanon you have about a character?

*pushes two million unfinished drafts of Togami Headcanons to the side* i am going to talk about komaru. i think she's a butch lesbian and every time she's depicted as feminine in fanart my soul dies a little even though butch komaru exists solely in my head. i also think she's really sporty, but i've talked about that elsewhere hehe.

ok i'll talk about togami a little bit. it's 100% projection but i think he's agender. not in a way where he like. actively thinks about it -- even at Full Self-Actualization i'm not sure if i ever see him actually realizing it and actively thinking about himself in that way -- but i just dont think he as any particular connection to being a *man* outside of how it plays into his attraction to other men/his family's expectations of producing heirs. like he just kind of is how he is and doesn't feel compelled to make any particular effort to present as masculine. i could make a joke here about his gender just being Togami, but genuinely i do think that rings true. he's not a boy or a girl but a secret third thing (byakuya togami™️) does this make sense. like. to anyone (<- projecting and insane) whatever. i think he would look nice in a floor length skirt.

48. Favourite OST?

i... usually play the games on silent :X legit i know like 3 songs including mr monokumas lesson. just tried to remember what beautiful days sounded like and the wii sports theme is what my brain supplied (<- embarrassed)

i WILL say that i think drv3 has the best opening track of any of the games. its so jazzy and fun hehe

51. Character you thought you were gonna dislike but loved in the end?

mmm. hard to say, honestly? it's been so many years since i formed first impressions of the thh and gbd casts that i kind of dont even remember what i first thought of them? i have a lot of v3 characters who i thought i would like and wound up feeling kind of ehh about, but that's not the question lol

i think, Big Terrible Writing Choice aside, i was really surprised by how much i wound up actually *liking* korekiyo? like okay OBVIOUSLY they took his character in a terrible direction but before that when he's just like, a weird little freak? that ruled lol

in terms of characters that i've had full turnarounds in opinion over the course of 2012-2022? i remember not particularly liking/caring about kirigiri, sayaka, fukawa, souda, or gundam when i first read the playthroughs of their games, and now they're some of my favorites hehe. but that's less about me going *into* the games thinking i wouldnt like them -- because in both cases i went in completely blind -- and more about them growing on me like a fungus over successive playthroughs lol

56. Best free time events?

ok. take this with a grain of salt because i'm stalled out in my sdr2 replay rn so i haven't redone the free time events for that game in awhile/haven't done any v3 ftes besides maki's and ouma's because im a hater.

i think kirigiri has really good fte's. i love that she gets a little sillay in them and how subtle her progression from "why are you talking to me" to "i care deeply about you" is. i also really appreciate how the game cutting her off as an option for free time at certain points serves to make that progression feel really natural with the game's actual plot. love you miss kirigiri.

mondo's are really great as well, he's such a fun guy to interact with and him talking about wanting to be a carpenter and loving his stupid tiny dog and being too nervous to ask girls out all add such levity to his character and make it SO sad when he dies. like damn that biker gang leader trapped in a murder game really is just like. some guy in high school :-( i also loved that they brought him wanting to be a carpenter back in dr:s! made my heart soar uuuuugh i love you mondo, sorry i never ever talk about you

komaeda gets an honorable mention for his botched love confession. buddy you did So Bad.

83. Least favourite chapter?

[staring myself down in the mirror] i will not hate on v3 this time i will not hate on v3 this time i will not hate on--

chapter 4 of v3 was soooo boring guys. i hated the virtual world and idk if it was just me but the controls for it were just. nightmarish. whatever lets talk about the games i do like.

i also agree with @ovidiomedes about thh's c3 kind of dragging. it's one of my favorite trials, but the actual chapter is. really slow lol. i think part of that is due to the anticipation of chapters 4-6 which are some of my all time favorites across all three games, but i think it has larger narrative problems that contribute to that dragging feeling ://

#op #asks #THANK YOUUU MAPLE THIS WAS SO FUN

7 notes · View notes

nonbinarygerard · 2 years

Note

Cough so um I noticed on one of your posts you may or may not have said something about your comics and I would like to say

I am very interested O.O in your comics OWO UWU OWO (that was me blinking cough cough ignore my strangeness)

omg bestie!!!! i will tell you all about it!! sorry for the rant i never shut up

so i haven't started writing the comic yet i think i will next year (?) but it's about two lesbians, Stell and Kiki, in an underground noise rock (kinda) scene at a college. To me, it's going to be about what music, or really making art, means to people. it's not about becoming famous or wanting any of that. it's just about how being in a band can change your life. but i want it to be about more of an avant garde music scene. artists making crazy shit. breaking all the rules. going wild. its not about being good. its about pure creativity. bc i feel there is a lot of stories written about punk music and though i love it, i want to write about music and art i really love, art that's weirder and experimental. i want the art to capture that too.

i now need to actually write it and make it good lol.

before i wanted to do it as a novel but honestly writing music is so hard in prose. it always sounds so abstract and vague but in a comic, i think you can really portray the motion and atmosphere and velocity of music without actually having to write songs. i can draw the vibes and make some super cool stylish art. I've realised i love telling stories. i do it to myself all waking moments of the day, im always living in my head but when i write prose i miss drawing and when i draw i miss telling stories. idk why i never thought about really combing the two for myself but i realise oh i can just buy a sketchbook and write comics.

I just i need to get better at anatomy and perceptive and all the things that come with illustration bc ive mostly just done portrait painting or paintings zoomed in on details. i don't do a lot of simplifying, i do a lot of complexifying. now my goal in life is to write comics bc i honestly love writing dialogue and i love drawing.

my fics are really just plays in which i put description around the dialogue lol. i do like writing descriptions sometimes for like 10k words but not for 80k works for each novel i want to write. descriptions doesn't really come naturally to me.

so this is a long way of saying i want to write comics bc literally so many of my problems in my fics would just be solve if they are comics.

i really want to make a dnd campaign mcr comic if grant morrision was the DM set in the danger days world after they died but korse is bringing them back jus to put them through hell again haha. its tomb of horrors but killjoys themed. if you dont know tomb of horrors a very infamous dnd campaign known for being the most hated campaign by players and the most loved by DMs lol. it has a death pit in the first room lmaoooo. just a lich walking the corridors. its very insane. I used to DM dnd for three years so i know what im doing. also grant morrsion would make an excellent and insane DM so i need to draw grant's madness. Anyway that will might happen next year idk.

too many ideas not enough finished projects lol. im trying to get better at finishing things bc i now know im an adhd autistic and im trying to hack my brain to finish things.

bestie if you have read this far my cruise fic ship epilogue is actually a snippet of mcr having a dnd session haha. i couldn't stop myself

but in the meantime i will start drawing small comics for fun to improve and if i dont think they suck i might post them.

sorry for the very long rant honestly i just never shut up and just talk for hours

#txt #ask

5 notes · View notes

three-bunnies-in-a-trenchcoat · 10 months

Note

OK ok. many things 2 say. i just woke up and read ur answer so bare w me i have a lot

first of all. yeah people really fuck with malons character and the tropes they stick to her are boring at best and misogynistic at worst and it makes me Very Upset. shes one of my favs and shes actually rlly interesting if u squint (im abt to make 2 posts abt that lol) but noooo shes Time's Wife and The Boys Mother and nothing more . when it comes to Time L/U its weird bc it takes the heroes shade into account (which is fine! it is canon!) but imo the heroes shade completely fucked her character to shit and disregarded her entire story of oot and mm and. hhhh. i dont like that version of her becoming the Main Interpetation. please stop making her a brooding asshole please consider her as shes written pleaaaase 🙏🙏

i dont blame u for finding oot and mm dull. theyre long and old and not quite story-heavy as sksw and botw but im just insane about its themes and characters so if u ever have questions i can prolly answer them (and itd make me super happy lmao 🕺💃)

i didnt even know the shortened names were a completely fanon thing what !! hell world ig aaaagh

and OK THANK YOU!!!! there is a MASSIVE difference between tired and sleepy and he is TIRED if anything !!!!!!!! the entire game is about how devoted link is to saving zelda that it caused the reincarnation cycle OF COURSE HE WOULD BE TIRED. OF COURSE HE WOULD SACRIFICE SLEEP FOR THE SAKE OF HER. OF COURSE!!!!!!!!! i will say that there is this interesting thing w sksw in that, like... you start out being told link is someone who is very carefree and almost lackadaisical. he lives with his head in the clouds and takes things at his own pace and he likes to stop and smell the roses and whatnot (see: everything zelda says at the beginning of the game abt him not practicing and not rlly taking it seriously and etc etc etc). hes too late to see her at the forest temple and impa tells him he was too late to SAVE her and THEN we get that iconic "am i late?" "no. youre right on time." scene, and then it ends w ghirahim saying hes "far too quick" at the end of the game. what im getting at is that hes trying so, so hard throughout the game to be the hero zelda needs, and he gets better and better and better (albeit at his own expense). i DO think the impa scene was the major turning point and fucked up his view of himself ("why would i need to take care of myself when she still needs to be saved?") but point is. he is trying so hard. yes hed be tired and itd almost certainly be self imposed but sleepy? LAZY??? did you play the game past the opening .

you and me have the same brain abt sksw link i think. no more sleepy soft sweetheart link i want sksw link with a good heart who is still ultimately so sooo tired and weary bc he is putting everything he is into saving his friend but who also wont pass up the opportunity to fuck with people or wreck shit if he wants to.

ok sorry for the long messages. Why am i not following you what hang on

Dang :/ you really can't have anything in this place, huh? (Also I'd love to hear what you have to say on the hero's shade (even if its just in the context of lu), because I do quite like him (although the version that exists in my head is admittedly a bit-- different))

It's not that I don't want to watch it its just that I know after about three hours I'll be giving up (yeah I can replay a game I've already finished three times for six straight hours but GOD FORBID I try to watch a new show or listen to a podcast :/)

Yeah the names are shortened. yall could've been creative at least? It feels like it reduces them down even further, if that makes sense

YES he's getting faster and faster but at what cost!! Buddy you're going to make yourself sick!!! Take a break once in a while!!! (I say while actively writing several fics in which he Does Not Take A Fucking Break)

At this point sksw link simply has no shits left to give. Like yeah he'll help people but. Wouldn't it just be so much easier to give this love letter away as toilet paper? And also like I know it's just restrictions on how many words they can get in the boxes. But he seems like a pretty blunt guy. I think someone who's a quote unquote "soft sweetheart" would at least be willing to use more than three words at a time (and he wouldn't walk closer to better hear a private conversation, cough, pipit and his mom, cough, and then lie about it)

#the main thing that interests me in ss isnt like. the characters and such. but rather the lore and the fuckery of the timeline.#so im not as qualified to speak on it as i would like :/#also im just bad at grasping stuff thats not laid out directly in front of my face #mb and strawberryrosewood scream about hats

1 note · View note

time-is-restored · 11 months

Text

do u guys think it maybe says smth that im currently getting more narrative + emotional fulfilment from dostoevsky that Hates You as compared to the fucking football sitcom.

anyway patho au thoughts below <3 <- (it actually turned into a manifesto abt my thoughts abt Original flavour pathologic. will add au thoughts in a reblog otherwise this is gonna be unconscionably long LMAO)

the thing about the Macro Metaphor™ (oh yeah baby this is gonna be a POST) in pathologic is like. at least w how i experienced it pathologic had to be a video game because it had to give its players the closest thing to free will that is possible in a world that has been crafted from the ground up to give you An Experience™.

and the fact that what little free will we APPEAR to have is largely an illusion cast by various dialogue trees stating that we are doing something unexpected is . very much the point! to get anything out of pathologic you have to 100% buy into the fiction as presented to you. bc the game is incredibly meta, that includes buying into the idea that what u are playing IS at its core a video game made by ppl w a very specific and esoteric mission statement, who are doing their level best to funnel u towards the themes + questions that they find most important within this narrative.

. okay ive gotta talk about The Loop actually strap the fuck in (note: a lot of what follows is copied + pasted from me explaining my feelings abt pathologic to someone who Has Not Played pathologic, so sorry if im being over explanatory at points!)

so in clara's route there's a specific bit of dialogue u can get w the developers where they say clara is 'the only one out of the three [protagonists] that could accomplish a True miracle. who could break the loop.'

the 'loop' in question is. kind of hard to pin down. but its basically referring to the inherent contradiction at the heart of pathologic existing as a game: the developers wanted to explore how it is impossible for a miracle to exist in anything other than a temporary moment of spontaneity. if you try to cage it, it is no longer a miracle, it is a process which has consequences (in the game, this consequence is - at least according to some povs - the plague):

SO they give the player a closed system of a world, in which free will is By Definition impossible (you can't do anything the developers haven't explicitly programmed in), and essentially ask you to perform a miracle. on one hand, they admit to hoping that you can do it. on the other, they acknowledge it's impossible, without some Other miracle interceding.

thats why, in this same conversation w the developers, they talk abt the other healers' endings like they are simultaneously predestined, and like they can be changed after all! like here:

^ put a pin in that 'except for a lapse of judgement, but we're not concerned with that' comment!

SO. this is what's so interesting about CLARA being (apparently!) able to break the loop

bc the only thing that concretely sets clara apart from the others (they all have a bunch of superficial differences, but im pretty sure its not bc she's a girl, or a child, for example) is that she has no backstory.

she wakes up with no memory of her life, no real understanding of herself outside of what she is being accused of being (a thief, and a plague bearer). she is able to lie (state something about herself that has nothing in the game supporting it) without lying (state something about herself that has nothing in the game contradicting it).

due to pathologic's own rules (in this case, im literally just referring to it being a video game that was coded by a team and then released on steam), there is no way for a character to truly do something unexpected. clara acknowledges this specifically and gets rlly morbid abt it here:

however! because pathologic is inherently a conversation between the developers and the players, and the developers can't actually control OR react to the completely internal experience the player has while playing the game, there is a level of free will here that can't actually be eroded!

the game can TRY to account for as many different dialogue options, quests, endings, general opinions abt the world + its characters, but bc the total amount of code has to stop somewhere before infinity, it can't get it 100% right. there are emotions + opinions abt pathologic that u are going to experience as a player that pathologic itself cannot or has not accounted for!

clara's miracle is that she's (in universe) as unrestrained by the programmers as the player is (out of universe). she can't be caged any more than u can! YOU can't be caged bc u literally don't exist in the world that the developers have 100% control over, even while they spend several hundred hours of gameplay trying to convince u that u do. and CLARA can't be caged bc there's literally nothing to tie her down! she has no degree of verisimilitude that she has to stick to, no bounds on what is reasonable vs unreasonable for her to do. we ultimately don't know enough about her for her to ever be 'out of character'.

pathologic is inherently a role playing game, but when clara (or, technically, you AS clara) rejects the role she is given, you break from one of the most restrictive shackles the game has had weighing u down in the past two playthroughs. daniils often a prick to ppl he shouldn't be, burakh can't be neutral about His Fucking Town Dying, etc. if u took those things away from the characters just to give the player more freedom AS a player, the game would be compromising with you - something that pathologic explicitly refuses to do (14% of ppl who play the game ever beating n1, etc).

but clara can say fucking ANYTHING!! like. i cannot emphasise enough that you, as the player, as clara, lie about the fact that you have an identical twin, and then summon this twin into existence. its literally the first thing you do in the whole game!

because that's the rule!!! the player cannot be allowed to say something about the world that isn't true, without the explicit and recognisable intent of telling a falsehood! but NOTHING that clara says can be demonstrated to be false, bc there's nothing to check against!!! the executors EVEN imply that the version of clara you meet throughout the game (the one u call the 'evil twin'), IS actually clara, and those conversations are the PLAYER talking to the 'original' clara. which means that by PLAYING the game, you are in equal parts replacing + rewriting clara!

again, this isn't even CLOSE to the degree ur able to transform the other protagonists - the opinions they do/don't have abt their own fate + endings are explicitly laid out to u in black and white. daniil can think the polyhedron is beautiful, OR he can be afraid of it, etc. while you can CHOOSE to change ur mind between each conversation, there is no 'both' or 'neither' option at any point. you have to pick from what ur given.

like . this is the dialogue u get after asking abt what the haruspex's route was 'about'. the line before this says 'Executor: Diverging branches. He was the only one who could attain true freedom. He wasn't facing the kind of dilemma that the ever-deceived Bachelor found so dismal.'

its like. this is simultaneously the most obtuse thing these fuckers say in the whole game but also!!! there were feelings involved!!!!!!!!!

the 'loop' is that there is no freedom, and yet there is love. the game is not real but you get attached to the player characters as if it is. you see things through their eyes, and start to agree that these pre-determined, tragic resolutions to an explicitly harsh binary choice are correct, for the characters enacting them (HENCE THE 'except for a lapse of judgement' comment! pull that pin back out! yes, anyone who plays the bachelor's route is able to CHOOSE to guide him towards another ending. but how many of those players are able to genuinely sit with the bachelor's ideals + fears, and convince themselves that that is an action he himself would take! not you, but dankovsky! the developer's aren't concerned with any given instance of the player abusing their authority over the healers' lives. they're INTERESTED in taking that authority and choosing not to abuse it. to commit to the world as written. to make the impossible choice).

clara's route is like yes obviously there is a journey programmed in here there is an ending just like there is for every other character, and clara (the npc, when you don't play as her) argues for it just as strongly as you do when ur playing her + taking her over. but what's JUST as inevitable is that someone will push past that, will play through her route, will separate her out from the developer's (admitted!) confusion + rush + muddled intentions, and make a true miracle happen! its a loop! but its a miraculous one! the miracle is that you played the game at all!!

look at this! look at clara staring her fate as written in the eye, and saying 'fuck off, im busy!'

the miracle is the fact that the developers, while making a game about how you cannot cage a miracle/force one to persist, gave the player enough freedom to prove them wrong. the miracle is the fact that clara rejects her fate-as-written, to be the plague bearer, to destroy the game and everyone involved in it, and instead DEMANDS to be a miracle-worker who can and will save the town and all the lives within it. the miracle is that you save everyone that it is possible to save. the miracle is that you want to save them at all. the miracle is that the player finishes all three routes of pathologic. the miracle is that anyone who experiences this game, first-hand or second-hand, whether they finished it or not, now has a totally unique experience w and interpretation of that game. freedom clawed from the jaws of a closed system.....

the miracle! is art!!!!! is the inherent flimsiness of communication, both symbolic and written and visual and auditory and!!!!!!!! the miracle is that you're playing a game made two decades again written in RUSSIAN while the game developers pull out literally every trick in the book to make you have a TERRIBLE time and want to give up and you DON'T!!!! you refuse to give up on what they're telling you! you refuse to not let this experience matter, in however small a way!!!!!!!!!

the miracle is that the game devolpers could not build a tomb foreboding enough to keep the players from diving in head first, crashing face first into spice traps and vats of acid and plague bearing rats and fucking homing-missile knives and. idk. mummies or some shit what the hell do you find in a cursed tomb

the miracle is that the game means something to you even when the game is actively trying to force u to give up + let go of any sense of agency and control. 'your actions are meaningless, you are helping no one, this bloodshed is inevitable and in many concrete ways you are making it worse' -> 'OH BOY DAY FIVE <3'

the miracle is also that clara convinces like seven fucking people to die for her but. y'know. this might as well happen.jpg

its like. this is simultanoeusly the most obtuse thing these fuckers say in the whole game but also!!! there were feelings involved!!!!!!!!!

the 'loop' is that there is no freedom, and yet there is love. the game is not real but you get attached to the player characters as if it is. you see things through their eyes, and start to agree that these pre-determined, tragic resolutions to an explicitly harsh binary choice are correct, for the characters enacting them (HENCE THE 'except for a lapse of judgement' comment! yes, anyone who plays the bachelor's route is able to CHOOSE to guide him towards another ending. but how many of those players are able to genuinely sit with the bachelor's ideals + fears, and convince themselves that that is an action he himself would take! the developer's aren't concerned with any given instance of the player abusing their authority over the healers' lives. they're INTERESTED in taking that authority and choosing not to abuse it. to commit to the world as written. to make the impossible choice).

clara's route is like yes obviously there is a journey programmed in here there is an ending just like there is for every other character, and clara (the npc, when you don't play as her) argues for it just as strongly as you do when ur playing her + taking her over. but what's JUST as inevitable is that someone will push past that, will play through her route, will separate her out from what the developers wanted from her, and make a true miracle happen! its a loop! but its a miraculous one! the miracle is that you played the game at all!!

#pathologic au #this is VERY long under the cut open at ur own risk #the bulk of this was written in an absolute frenzy to vee my dear friend vee. they tried so hard to understand what the fuck i was going on #abt <3 anyway hi. i think lyth activated some sort of sleeper agent code phrase in my mind w this au i haven't been able to be normal abt #this game OR noonethinkslikethisuareabrokenperson trio in w e e k s

0 notes

1990jeevas · 1 year

Note

WAAAH TY FOR RESPONDING DAMIEN HOPE I'M NOT TOO LATE!! thank you so much for everything you said i really agree SO much with everything you said... Like welcome home is so good i got my non horror friend fan browsing the website yesterday... the art... the concept... the execution thus far... it's just so good... and like ill still be patient no matter what but i do kinda hope the next update doesn't take too long to come out cause i WILL become the joker. I'll do it. I'm insane now

AND HMMMM... as for any "theories" of my own it's hard to say, cause, well, like you, Bro I Don't Know. We Just Got On This Ride!! Y'KNOW WHAT I MEAN?? about those three characters with julie you mentioned though, sorry if you already knew this, but i believe somewhere on the site it mentions those are julie's sisters, who still live in the cave julie grow up in!! i think that's all it says about them though :O very interesting... (and i agree their designs are delightful RAAWAAUUGGHHH....)

i will say i am very interested to see stuff relating to the theme of memory that's been set up!! and to take what clown directly says in his blog about welcome home, "You are to accompany a colorful cavalcade of puppets as their beloved neighborhood begins to skew and distort into a nightmarish memory that they can barely recall." AND I DON'T. have any. like. Smart. Commentary? on why i think that's so. cool. and has so much potential. But. WAAAUGHH!!!! PLEASE IT'S SO GOOD!!!!! AND I LOVE HOW IT'S NOT JUST LIKE. Raaugh these puppets are possessed by!! DEAD KIDS and actually KILL PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!! like a lot of horror projects that use kidsy and cute aesthetics are 😭😭 there are so many cool places this could go and i am literally. so excited.

SORRY IF THIS GOT TOO LONG MAN!! no pressure to respond to this or all of this at all, im just umm so normal about this thingy already ok ^_^ 😭😭😭😭😭

omg no dw about being too late it takes me ages to respond to asks anyways lol

but ya i totally agree with all of ur feelings on this!! im so excited about where this story is gonna go and how the characters will develop etc etc

and no i didnt know they were julies sisters tysm for telling me!! tbh i did end up skimming some chunks of the page just bc reading hard on my brain a lot of the time so i probably just missed that detail but im happy to know thats who they r :3

anyways i totallyyyy get where ur coming from on the puppets being possessed by dead kids thing, if there is one thing that does kinda annoy me about horror projects a lot of the time is how often gimmicks r reused without adding anything interesting like i can get behind the dead kids puppets thing if its done in a new interesting way but it rarely is which is a bummer bc i love puppets and cutesy stuff in horror 🤷‍♀️

#shit self #asks #calli tag 🍉#zincellia

1 note · View note

ahtsumu · 3 years

Text

the mystery of love ; kuroo tetsurou

pairing: kuroo tetsurou x f!reader

synopsis: kuroo tetsurou does not believe in soulmates. he believes in science, himself, and sometimes other people. but that doesn’t mean he can’t believe in love.

tag(s): sweet summer lovin’, friends to lovers, inspired by call my by your name, university student!kuroo tetsurou, lab intern!kuroo tetsurou, so much pining lol, fluff, angst, slow burn ; warning(s): profanity, mentions of alcohol ingestion (it’s legal bc they’re in italy!), suggestive themes ; wc: 4.8k

a/n: happy birthday tetsu!! i hope you guys like this. i really enjoyed writing it ♡

Kuroo Tetsurou does not believe in soulmates. He believes in science, himself, and sometimes other people. At least, that’s what he tells you. Sometimes you treat this information as a source of hope; other times, you’re not sure what to make of it.

This, you realise with his shoulder pressed against yours and both your bodies sprawled across his wrinkled bed sheets, is one of those other times. You turn your face to look at his.

“What?” he asks, one side of his mouth curling up in a smile.

For a moment, you wonder what would happen if you just said it. You could blame the alcohol. Get away with it scot-free. While you mull the option over in the dead silence of his room, your brain suddenly registers the music still playing from the living room. The low bass reverberating through the walls. How close your lips are. The sound of his breaths.

“Earth to Y/N?”

And like that, the little what-if that rose in your mind falls back with its tail between its legs. You bite your lip, look around his room like the walls have a script printed on them. Unfortunately, they do not.

“I was just thinking about my shirt.” It’s not great, but it’s the best you can do while still feeling the vodka and orange juice burn in your stomach. And smelling it on yourself.

Kuroo’s laugh booms through the room and you can’t help but giggle along with him. “I said I was sorry!” he says, hazel eyes twinkling with mirth. He pauses and glances at his closet, then nods his head in its direction. “Take a hoodie. Your pick.”

A smile–– one you try to downplay but fail miserably to–– creeps up your face. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Kuroo replies. “You can also shower here if you want. It's the least I can do after spilling my drink all over you.”

When you emerge from Kuroo’s bathroom in one of his thinner hoodies, a lot soberer and drying your hair, he’s not on the bed anymore. Quietly, you step out of his room and look for him through the house. People are crashed everywhere–– on the sofa, over the kitchen counter, even propped up against walls. The floor is covered with plastic cups and mysterious pools of liquid. Wrinkling your nose, you try your best to step around the messes, looking in every corner in the house for the raven-haired boy.

You find him back in his room, actually. He’s back on his bed scrolling through his phone, the light illuminating his sharp features. When he hears you close the door behind you, he looks up, eyes immediately zeroing in on the black hoodie over your torso. The corner of his mouth twitches up.

“Where’d you go?” you both ask at the same time. He chuckles; you grin. Crawling back onto the bed, you tell him to go first.

“I went around to make sure nothing’s broken,” he explains. “Perks of being the only sober intern in the house, I guess.”

A beat passes.

This house is rented. You forgot about that. All his expenses are paid for by your mother’s lab. You forgot about that. He fits in your world so well, like maybe he’s always had a spot there, that you forgot that Kuroo Tetsurou is only here for the summer.

“Right.”

Kuroo raises a brow. “And you?”

“I went to look for you.”

He smiles and holds his hands out like a magician at the end of a trick. “Well, you found me.”

“Yeah,” you muse. “I guess I did.” Aren’t you lucky.

With that, something shifts in the air. A contemplative expression crosses Kuroo’s face. Maybe he’s realised how his words come out sometimes. Kuroo often says things that sound like they have more than one meaning and it used to throw you off, but now you just go with it. You’ve even picked up that habit yourself. “Do you ever wish that you’d met someone earlier? Maybe under different circumstances?” he asks.

Sighing, you fall back against his mattress and stare up at the ceiling. Telling the truth feels easier when you can’t see him. “Yeah. All the time.” A few seconds pass. “Do you think we would’ve been friends if we went to the same college?”

He also lies down. You’re both back in the same positions you were in an hour ago, but something’s changed. “No,” he admits. You’re not surprised–– that’s what you’d expected. “I’d be a junior and you’d be a freshman. We probably would’ve never met. And even if we had, I wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out with a… freshie.” He chuckles softly at the end. “And look at me now,” he adds softly, more to himself than you. You look over at his face. A contemplative smile rests on his lips.

That urge to just say it returns.

“Kuroo, I think––”

“You’re my favourite p–– oh, my bad. You first.”

And it goes away again.

“Um, uh,” you stutter, “how long do you have left here?”

Kuroo raises his brows. “On this planet? Hopefully a while, Y/N.” He sees your unamused expression and drops the front. “Three more weeks.”

Your eyes widen. Eight weeks have already passed. Blood rushes to your ears. Eight entire weeks have already passed, meaning that in three weeks, Kuroo Tetsurou will leave forever. And in four, you will, too. Except you’ll come back. You’ve done so every summer since you were born, probably will do until you die.

But this place will never be the same as it used to. Not after him.

“Y/N?” Once everything comes back into focus, you see the concern riddling his features. “Everything okay?”

“Hmm? Yeah.”

Say it.

“You didn’t have too much to drink, right?”

Say it.

“I just got buzzed. What about you?”

“The only drink I was planning on having all went to your shirt.”

Say it.

“Kuroo.”

“Yeah?”

Not yet.

“Let’s go on an adventure.”

At two AM, everything is different. The streets feel different, the villas look different, and you–– you can’t put your finger on it but Kuroo Tetsurou has changed, too. He sits behind the wheel of your father’s white 1953 Cadillac with the convertible roof down, unruly hair blown back by the breeze, a euphoric grin stretched over his face. In the passenger’s seat, you sit with an equally large beam and your hands raised into the dark sky.

“Where to, Miss?” he shouts over the wind.

“The stars,” you shout back with a laugh. Kuroo’s cat-like eyes briefly flit over to your side profile, lips curving to form a smaller, more tender smile. But you miss that–– your gaze falls on him just a second after his return to the road.

“I heard you say Jack’s,” he says, smirking.

The 24/7 diner sticks out like a sore thumb in the row of sun-baked stucco and stone buildings with its bold neon lights and shiny exterior. During the day, it seems gaudy, way too American for a small town in northern Italy. But at night, this place feels like home. You’ve been stumbling into Jack’s completely shit-faced since you were sixteen. Of course, all those other times had been with the kids of your mother’s coworkers. All those other times, you could hardly remember what you even ordered when you woke up hours later.

But this time, you walk in with Kuroo Tetsurou at half-past-two in the morning, the chemicals running through your bloodstream epinephrine and dopamine, not ethanol; if you’re drunk then it’s on a feeling and your only poison is the boy next to you. You study his face and consider that thought. No, he’s not poison. He’s the antidote.

“Y/N!” the server exclaims, rushing over with two menus. “And Kuroo! My two favourite customers, but together this time!” Giovanni ushers you two to a booth by the window and takes your orders, purely for show, of course. He knows your orders by heart: the Lorenzo for Kuroo and the Quentin for you.

“With fries on both, please,” Kuroo adds, throwing you a wink. “Aren’t I a gentleman?”

“You only did that to have more for yourself,” you reply drily. Having him over at your house for dinner every night made picking up his idiosyncrasies so unbelievably easy. You know them like they’re your own. You know him like he’s your own.

Kuroo clutches his chest and pretends to be offended, then changes the conversation to what happened at the lab today, or rather, yesterday. That your mother and the other researchers are so close to finding a cure for the strain of virus that’s recently hit crickets in southern Italy.

“You should drop by again sometime,” he says. “Last time you came around was, what, two weeks ago?”

Your face breaks in a grin. “Are you saying you’ve missed me? Chemistry getting boring?” you tease, drawing a loud laugh from him.

“Sodium hydrogen, you little shit.” Your mother’s used this one on you before, but hearing it from him makes you giggle anyway.

Giovanni comes back with two plates, each loaded with fries. You both say your thanks and he retreats to the kitchen again, but not before wiggling his eyebrows at your reddening faces. Wordlessly, you grab your fork and knife and transfer at least half of your fries onto Kuroo’s plate. Kuroo stares at you with the slightest smile. That look sends your stomach into flips.

“What?” you question nonchalantly, cutting into your burger.

“Nothing,” he says, mirroring your actions. “Nothing at all.”

It’s hard to imagine that after spending almost every day together for eight weeks straight that there’s still more to learn about each other, but there is. You tell him more about your real home. Your best friend who called you at 3 AM last night because of timezones. Stories from every summer before this one, when you were a different person in the same place you are now.

He tells you more about Kenma, his best friend from high school. How they played on one of the best volleyball teams in Japan. Stories from training camp, literature class, the metro ride home after school–– you listen to every single one in rapt attention. There’s not enough time in the world for all the things you want to know about Kuroo Tetsurou, so you take what you can get. If only you’d known him before you’d known him.

“If we’d met earlier here, do you think we would’ve been friends?” you ask after paging Giovanni for the check.

“No,” he replies, picking up a few remaining fries with his fork instead of his fingers. The corners of your mouth turn up. That’s your thing. He considers the scenario seriously. “I think we met right when we should have.”

“What about the future?” you press, leaning into the conversation. “Let’s say we meet in two years here, instead of now. Would we be friends?”

Kuroo sets his fork down, eyes you steadily. “What’s this about?”

You blink. “What?”

“What’s with all these hypotheticals today?” Perhaps worried that he came off too harshly, Kuroo adds, “I thought I was the scientist.”

“I just… it feels like I’ve known you since forever.” This feels like it was meant to be, you don’t say. And I want to know you forever.

A sigh–– fond, but still a sigh–– blows through his lips. “Don’t tell me you believe in soulmates,” he says with a wicked grin.

“Are you calling me your soulmate?” The question, shamelessly genuine, painfully hopeful, leaves your mouth without you intending it to and you regret it instantly. Because Kuroo Tetsurou has told you many times that he does not believe in soulmates.

Is it so bad to dream, though?

You watch him carefully but he doesn’t say anything, just continues smiling wryly like you’d intended to tease him. Like he knows that you know better. But you don’t.

“Are you?” he suddenly replies. Sharp eyes hold yours, daring you to respond. Do you dare?

At that moment, Giovanni returns with the check. “Who’s paying?” he asks, unaware of the tense exchange that just occurred across the table. Inaudibly, you sigh in relief. Kuroo is about to say that it’s on him when he catches himself in the middle of his sentence, looks your way, then back to Giovanni. He says you’ll go Dutch. You nod in approval.

“So,” Kuroo drawls once you’ve both paid for your meals. “Where do we go from here?”

Good question.

Kuroo Tetsurou has never been to an outdoor club period. And though he’s been clubbing, he has never once gone dancing in his lifetime. You tell him that’s about to change as he parks the car in a lot near the venue. Before him, all your summer nights were spent here.

“You’ve been here for two months and you haven’t been to an outdoor club yet?” you ask while unbuckling your seatbelt. That can’t be possible. If you’d been in his shoes… an attractive college student in a foreign country for the summer, you would have gone wild.

“Nope. I’ve been a little busy, y’know, spending my days in a lab, handling chemicals, studying viruses, washing lab equipment, writing up reports for your mother and her colleagues, working on my own research on the side… the usual.” He flashes you a bright, sarcastic smile.

“Poor baby,” you coo, ruffling his hair. Kuroo laughs while you continue messing with the dark locks. “Was your first full day here the only tourist-day you’ve had so far?” His weekends, you already know, are spent either lounging around cafés, pools, or the great outdoors with you or the interns. But you’d assumed he’d had time to do some exploring on his own.

Kuroo nods. “And my guide wasn’t even that great,” he mutters, shooting you a dark look. “She sped through every attraction and hardly spoke a word outside of the tour to me. I think she hated me.”

You giggle and open the door, letting the music from the outdoor speakers infiltrate the bubble inside your car. “Maybe she was just nervous!” you say as you get out. That’s a lie.

“About what?” Kuroo follows suit, the gravel crunching beneath his feet. “I was so friendly to you and you just brushed me off each time.” He pouts.

But you don’t reply. Instead, you just grab his hands and pull him towards the venue. As you step into the boundaries marked by fairy lights and rustic wooden fences, Kuroo stops in his tracks and tugs on your intertwined hands. You glance down before up, trying to memorise how his hand looks around yours in the few seconds you can steal.

“Y/N,” Kuroo says. The strobe lights paint his skin pink, blue, purple like it’s a canvas. “Tell me why you were nervous.” Grammatically, it’s a command. And yet it sounds like he’s begging.

“What’s it mean to you?” you ask, feeling your heartbeat speed up in your chest. So what if you just… said it? What would happen?

“Everything?” he replies with a cheeky smile. The odds that he seriously means that are slim. But… they’re there. You shake that possibility out of your mind. That’s just the hope talking.

“Depends how convincingly you say it.” You tug on his arm. “C’mon. Let’s dance.” But he doesn’t budge–– he just continues to stand by the entrance of the club with an expectant look on his face. People are starting to stare.

“Fine,” you say with an eye roll. “I’ll tell you." Kuroo smirks, something self-congratulatory ready to leave his mouth, but then you let go of his hand and dance backwards into the throng of moving bodies. “But first, you’re gonna have to dance with me!”

You allow yourself to be swallowed by the lively music, the people, the moment. Seconds later you’re deep enough into the crowd that you lose sight of Kuroo. Something in you says that he’ll show up soon, though. For now, you let yourself breathe. Forget about the heaviness of what-if’s, the itch to confess, the dread of the aftermath. Feelings are a lot like gravity. Sometimes they keep you grounded, other times, they weigh you down. This is one of those other times.

You dance up to a friendly-looking group of teens your age. Three guys and two girls. You shout your name and follow up with how it’s nice to meet them, hoping one of them finds you nice enough to keep around. Dancing alone in a club is one of the worst things that can ever happen to someone. Luckily, one of the girls–– the one wearing a purple wig–– pulls you in for a hug, drunkenly shouting back, “Bianca!” Bianca pushes you into their circle next to one of the guys and, just like that, you two start moving to the beat, feeling it in your feet, shoulders, hips. At one point, you turn around and take a good look at his face. The guy’s cute enough, but he’s not Kuroo. Still, you say nothing as he moves closer to you and grabs your hand, lifting it up and motioning for you to twirl.

Suddenly, a pair of hands grip firmly onto your waist and pull you out of the circle. “Hey!” You look down, suddenly realising they’re Kuroo’s. A shiver runs down your spine. He spins you around to face him. His lips are set in a firm line, eyes completely devoid of humour, nostrils slightly flared.

“Hi,” you say quietly, testing the waters.

“Hi,” he replies curtly. His hands are still on your waist. Selfishly, you choose not to point that out. Instead, you try to defuse the situation with a light question. Playful tone.

“Where were you this whole time?”

“Looking for you.”

“Well… you found me.” You flash him a sheepish grin. A peace offering of some sort.

“I did.” He doesn’t take it.

“Lucky you.”

Irritation finally seeps through his features. “You just left me on the dance floor!” he snaps. “And then when I find you after searching the entire venue, you’re dancing up on some random guy!”

“It was in good fun!” you retort, wriggling out of his grip. “And I wasn’t dancing up on him.” You want to ask if he’s jealous so badly, but you take a good look at his face and decide against that.

“Fun?” he asks incredulously. “Worrying about losing you, worrying about myself getting lost, then having to worry about that guy after finding you isn’t very fucking fun to me, Y/N!” The words fly out of his mouth like daggers without pause. Once finished, he looks at you with a disappointed gaze, shaking his head lightly, chest rising and falling with each heavy breath.

“I’m sorry,” you say, looking down at your shoes. It doesn’t matter if you disagree with him–– a sort of shame drills itself so deeply into your conscience that all you can think about is making things right again. “I didn’t think my actions through.”

A second passes. You wonder what he’s thinking.

“Hey, look at me.” Kuroo lifts your chin up with an index finger. Your wide eyes meet his narrow ones. Just as a pink beam glides over his face, his gaze softens, falls down to your lips. And then you feel his thumb on your chin, barely grazing the skin of your bottom lip. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down. The revelry in the background fades to dull beats against your eardrums. Suddenly, you register that he smells of, as usual, blackcurrant and amber.

But now you also smell of blackcurrant and amber.

You’re wearing his clothes. You smell of him.

Kuroo’s eyes crawl back up to yours, wide like he’s just been caught in the middle of a crime. You blink expectantly, ignoring the furious way your heart pounds in your chest. Shallow breaths puff through your slightly parted mouth.

“I am.” It comes out barely a whisper. C’mon. Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me––

You gently touch the hand he has on your chin. Kuroo jolts back like he’s been burned. “I’ll, uhm, I’ll be in the car,” he stutters, looking away from your face. He pushes through the sea of people, leaving you all alone on the dance floor, body doused in blue light, fingers touching the area his thumb had been as if preserving its print.

Kuroo hardly notices you slip into the passenger’s seat minutes later. He’s got his forearms hanging over the steering wheel and gaze fixed ahead into the darkness, mind probably running off to a place he wishes his body was, too.

As soon as you’ve buckled yourself in, Kuroo starts the car.

The entire drive home is silent.

Once Kuroo pulls into your courtyard and parks, he turns off the engine, unbuckles his seatbelt, and steps out of the car. Wordlessly, you follow his actions and meet him by the stairs to your door.

“Hi,” you say quietly. He doesn’t look at you.

“Hey.”

The two of you stand outside your front door in silence as you both consider what to say next. This can’t be the way it ends.

“I shouldn’t have… done that,” Kuroo says first.

“Done what?” You choose to play dumb. Call it selfish, but you want to hear him say it. Maybe then it’ll feel as real as it had been. Kuroo sighs and leans his shoulder against the stone wall, crossing his arms over his chest. There’s no way he can dance around what happened. Perhaps the past two months can be summed up as the development of a strong friendship with skilled doublespeak and metaphors and just enough artistic licence, but this can’t. And Kuroo knows that. He can’t feed you an alternative truth like he’s done so many times before. What’s more, he can’t lie to himself anymore. So maybe it’s better just to not speak at all.

Your eyes burn holes into the side of his face. Fine. You’ll concede first. “I was never nervous.”

Kuroo blinks, turns his head around to look at you. “What?”

“I was never nervous. I was playing it cool because I didn’t want to risk befriending you and getting attached.” I’m still playing it cool, you don’t say. And I’m already attached. “Guess I just came off as a bitch instead.” You laugh. “But can you blame me? You were this cute, older guy. Smart, too, since you were interning with my mom. You were my dream guy.”

An amused breath blows out of his nose. “Were?” he questions, grinning, only remembering the fragility of your platonic relationship a second later. “Um––”

“Are.” It slips out of your mouth without you realising. Fuck. Kuroo stills. It’s too late to take back your words now, so you might as well just keep going. “You still are my dream guy.”

Seconds pass and neither of you says anything. Sweat gathers in the palms of your hands. You start to feel your heartbeat through your neck. The buzz of the cicadas grows louder. Oppressive. Behind Kuroo, the sky is starting to turn pale blue and pink in the horizon. That means it’s almost sunrise. The night is almost over, and, hopefully, so is this awful conversation.

“And… you don’t feel the same.” Funnily, you feel like you’re lying. You’re telling Kuroo how he feels and you think you’re lying. Does that make sense? None of this night even feels real. God, you hope this has all just been a dream. Mustering a soft smile, you say, “That’s okay. Thank you for the party. And the adventure.” It was fun while it lasted. You feel the house key in your pocket and turn to unlock the door. “I hope this doesn’t change anything between us, Kuroo. Can we still be friends?” The words leave your mouth feeling like barbed wire. You know damn well you can’t still be friends.

And suddenly, you feel his calloused hands around your cheeks. Suddenly, his hot breath fans over your face.

“Can I kiss you?” he murmurs.

Your eyes close instantly. “Yes, please.”

And suddenly, his soft lips are on yours.

Kuroo breaks the kiss seconds later. “Fuck,” he whispers, resting his forehead against yours, touching the tips of your noses together. “Y/N, I don’t want to be friends. Fuck.” A dry chuckle leaves his mouth. He pauses to collect his thoughts but decides that that can wait. Instead, he presses another kiss to your lips so fervently that he backs you up against the wall with no space between your bodies. You wonder if he can feel your heartbeat like this, chest to chest. Kuroo’s hands travel down your waist and rest on your hips. His tongue runs across your tongue, your teeth, the insides of your mouth. You gently suck on it, drawing a satisfied moan from him. When the kiss ends, you see that his lips are red and cheeks are swollen. A warm feeling spreads through your chest. “I thought I could be happy just being friends with you but I can’t. I want you so bad it hurts. Not to mention, when I saw you in my hoodie?” His fingers pinch the material. “I thought God was testing me or some shit.”

“Sure didn’t feel like you wanted me that way,” you retort, still breathless.

“In my defence,” Kuroo says, thumbs tracing your cheekbones, “I was very scared.”

“Of what?”

It looks like he’s about to tell you, but he changes his mind and doesn’t answer. He grabs your hand and pulls you back to the car with a cheeky grin. “I’ll tell you only if you tell me where we can watch the sunrise.”

Kuroo holds your hand, stroking your thumb the entire drive there.

After a short hike, you plop down on the grassy hillside, supporting your body with outstretched arms in the back. Kuroo sits down beside you with one of his hands covering yours, fingers intertwined like a honeysuckle vine around a hazel tree. You tell him that you grew up running along this hill with your parents. It used to be your playground. Maybe, you think, it’s time to make new memories here.

“Beautiful,” Kuroo breathes, a wonderstruck look in his eyes. The sun’s just risen halfway above the pink and blue horizon, the saturated orange casting the entire city below gold. It’s not just the city, though. He’s also gold. He’s just as beautiful. You watch him with a soft smile on your lips, noting how his wide eyes and slack jaw return to normal as he stares off into the distance. After resting your head on his shoulder, you fix your eyes on the sunrise ahead. You wonder what he’s thinking so quietly about.

“Penny for your thoughts?” you finally ask once the sun has finished revealing itself.

Kuroo blinks, returning to reality, but continues to stare straight ahead. “I was just thinking about… soulmates.”

You lift your head off his shoulder. “Don’t tell me you believe in soulmates now,” you tease.

“Hmm.” He turns to look at you, the sun turning his hazel eyes the colour of honey. That same wry smirk from Jack’s returns to his face.

“You wanna know why I was so scared?”

“Pray tell.”

“Because I’ve never felt this way towards anyone.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“No,” Kuroo laughs, laying his head down in your lap, looking up into your eyes. “I’m serious. I used to purposely stay away from girls in high school. Same in college. Same all the way until you somehow wormed your way into my life. That’s why we wouldn’t have been friends.” You cock your head to the side.

“Why?” you ask, running your fingers through his hair.

Kuroo’s eyelids flutter shut. He inhales deeply before talking. “My parents are divorced. The years before the divorce were… very ugly.”

(He spares you the details of the midnight arguments, the smashed plates, the holes in the walls. He spares you the details of how he only ever knew how to fall asleep with his head sandwiched between two pillows, how he hasn’t seen his sister in a decade, how he’ll curse and snap but never yell because he always feels like a child again around the noise. That’s for another time, if you’ll have any.)

“I still remember all the fighting and yelling. For the longest time, that’s all I knew about marriage and relationships.”

“Did you think all relationships were like that? Fighting and yelling?” you ask.

“For a while, yeah. I’m still a little scared of that, to be honest. Ending up in a relationship where all you do is fight.” Kuroo sighs. “But that’s not the only thing. I thought I wouldn’t know how to love someone, growing up like that.” At that, your fingers pause in his hair.

“Wait,” you say, furrowing your brows. A wave of immense sadness (not for yourself, for him) washes over you. “You think you wouldn’t know how to love someone else?”

“Thought.” Kuroo cracks open his eyes and smiles up at you. “I’m in the process of changing my mind.”

#kuroo tetsurou #kuroo tetsurou x reader #kuroo tetsurou scenarios #kuroo tetsurou imagines #haikyuu!!

691 notes · View notes