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writingwithcolor · 3 years

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Iam wanting to write a story about a girl who has asthma, a learning disability and is considered by society to be less than average. She is also a little over weight. When she has been given immortality other immortals shun her and want her dead. To escape from this she goes to a martial arts temple in China. She is also an American. I was wondering how I could incorporate both cultures in my story?

Overweight Chinese American girl with asthma & learning disability, martial arts, & China

Disclaimer: I’ve written this response assuming that the main character herself is Chinese or Chinese-American.

Some stuff I’d like to discuss point-by-point:

Being an Asthmatic

Asthmatics don’t exactly have the best representation in media, so I’m worried about a non-Asthmatic writing a story where the main conflict is centered around the MC’s method of coping with ableism.

Especially considering how we’re portrayed as stereotypical nerds/geeks for not being absolute athletes (haha maybe because pushing ourselves that far will literally result in an asthma attack-)

I have a feeling that in addition to the point where Chinese people are already stereotyped as nerds, having her be asthmatic as well does mean you’ll have to be more careful in how you present her. We already have the whole “model minority, East Asian = nerd” thing going for us.

Being “overweight”

America’s definition of “overweight” looks different for all kinds of people!

Someone who’s statistically considered “overweight” by American standards might pass as being “average” (in American standards once again) and vice-versa! The existence of the word actually insinuates the existence of an ideal weight-- pretty fatphobic.

If you mean to say that she’s fat, chubby, and/or plump, then do so. Don’t dance around the term just because it’s deemed ‘undesirable’ by our Eurocentric beauty standards.

(Additionally, being chubby is associated with the nerd trope as well. More to watch out when developing her character.)

Mod Rune mentions the specific way you’ve phrased how as a result of her being overweight and asthmatic, she’s “considered by society to be less than average” and she’s shunned/wanted dead specifically for these two reasons.

Being disabled =/= incompetency or being less than an abled person. Once again, an OwnVoices situation would make sense; However I would still worry about infantilizing Asthmatic/chubby people this way.

The plot… oof.

I’m worried that your method of combating the already-delicate conflict (that she’s looking for a way to cope with her feelings of inadequacy induced by ableism/fatphobia), is pretty insulting. You specifically word her trip to China as an “escape” which I feel could have a much better reason-- your excuse as is sounds to lead into a story of “refinding myself at the home of my birth culture” or something like that- especially with the fact that she’ll be doing this at a martial arts temple. A very cultural aspect of China.

Martial Arts?

That being said; Even though a Chinese martial artist does feel rather stereotypical, it does help with asthma (source: me and Taekwondo)

Specifically, according to this study from NCBI on the correlation between asthmatic children and Taichichuan, results have shown that “12 weeks of Tai-Chi-Chuan could improve the pulmonary function, decrease airway inflammation, and improve quality of life in children with mild asthma”.

However Northern Shaolin, Hung Ga, Wing Chun, and other Chinese forms of martial arts could work as well! Please do research on the specific techniques and differentiate between them. Appropriating Chinese martial arts on top of the fact that it’s already rather tropey- very bad.

A different plot?

Perhaps don’t send her off to China to quote, "escape from how other [immortals shun her and want her dead]".

I think a better motivation for this change in landscape would be “She wanted to train to get stronger and improve her health with how it was negatively impacted because of her asthma.”

The thing with a lot of disabled people is that-- we don’t want to have to “keep up” with abled people. We don’t want to need to take all these extra measures just to be able to function ‘normally’ (or at least the one defined by society). I feel that the motives in your original plot panders to that idea that she must get stronger or else she’ll never be accepted by the other immortals. A Chinese-American asthmatic myself, I’d much rather see her self-worth measured through her own growth as an individual than how well she ‘fits in’ with non-asthmatics.

Marika mentions that people also often do martial arts for culturally-relevant exercise-- so this could also be a way for her to reconnect with her birth culture.

Sophia also mentions that being overweight has little on one’s skills as a martial artist; So it shouldn’t be used as an argument as to why someone shouldn’t be taking on a certain expertise. (Seconded, as someone who did kendo: some of the better kendoka were overweight and had more precision than I did --Jess)

Incorporating TCK Culture:

Look for stuff written by actual Chinese-American third-culture kids!

Every little part of life- from the stories parents tell their kids before bed to the kind of food we eat daily- is 100% influenced by both our caregivers and the community we live in. For me personally, we’d have hotpot dinners with other Asian families during the Lunar New Year and I’d typically be sent to Chinese school on Sundays as well.

Mods Jess and Lesya touch up on some TCK elements in this ask as well! (Wanting to Learn More About Culture Because of Chinese Name) However your MC celebrates her cultures will also depend on how assimilated into America her family is.

Like I said earlier: look for materials that Chinese-American TCKs and immigrants have written! There’s no better way to learn about certain customs than getting them from the actual source.

My ending thoughts!

These are honestly traits that I’d love to see more, as an asthmatic Chinese-American myself who has done martial arts in the past, haha.

Be extra careful when a ton of your character’s traits are found in East Asian (Chinese) caricatures! Be sure to flesh her out as a three-dimensional character as this description that you’ve given us (regarding her conflict) makes me go >.>-- I don’t like it as is.

Give her motivations for herself that aren’t purely to conform to others (per the submissive Asian girl trope). Having a bullied Asian girl does feel like it plays into this, so please don’t have her measure her worth as an individual based off of the standards set by abled people!

Do tons of research on Chinese martial arts! Marika mentions huge points below that I want you to consider when giving her a specific speciality-- just saying “a martial arts temple” doesn’t cut it.

(As always, any reader feedback/additions would be appreciated!)

~ Mod Emme

These are my thoughts as someone who has practiced various styles of Chinese martial arts.

While the quality of the instructor and the student’s efforts are crucial, I think you need to be clear on the following:

The style of martial arts your character will be doing

Their physical limitations

The type of learning disability they have.

Different fighting styles suit the limitations of different body types in different ways

A person who is overweight may find styles with explosive movements that put weight on vulnerable joints like the knees to be painful. Styles that favor stable stances may be more feasible than those that emphasize movements with lots of air time, crouching and jumping.

A person who is inflexible will need a style that encourages them to keep limber to avoid getting hurt.

A person with diminished lung capacity will need a style that safely challenges their endurance.

Different learning disabilities might make certain styles more or less difficult to learn

ADHD may favor fast fighting styles with complex move sets and a wide variety of weapons.

Issues associated with memory retention may make styles that emphasize sparring easier than those that focus on memorizing forms

Make no mistake, the culture of a style will be as much of a consideration for your character as the Chinese and American cultural influences. Do your research, and inquire with practitioners as to what styles would work well for your characters.

The tumblr blog How to Fight Write would likely be a good resource on the physical logistics of different styles.

- Marika

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folkdances · 2 years

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okay margot i may have not seen a httyd property since i was in elementary school but. what is your favorite dragon and why. my favorite was whispering deaths i cannot remember why. i think i thought the name looked cool and that big ball with tail and lots of teeth was an ingenious dragon design the likes of which i had never seen before. also it was long and twirly yknow what i mean? moved like a ribbon

cleb i would like to preface this by saying this is the best ask you could have ever ever sent me

okok i think my most favourite dragons ever and of all time are the stormcutters like sorry i cannot imagine anything sicker than this:

girls who are LITERALLY owls!!! also i think their fire is really really good it's a cyclone shape and it's really great 👍 also just how big they are & the structure of their feet fascinates me always and forever it's so good anyway this technically answers your question but i'm going to keep going this post ended up super long though so it's under the cut 😁

rumblehorns are really good imo can u believe they made a beetle a dragon. anyway it's really fascinating to think about how it can fly because their wings are pretty small for their size? as in thin length-wise. also the fact that they are tracker dragons makes me so crazy yesyeyseyses

also huge fan of deadly nadders which is a normie answer but hello have u seen them..

hi baby.. the movements on these guys are so good like u can really see the parrot influence obviously one of the best parts is in httyd2 when stormfly starts nesting on eret fdjhdf also the fire!! the fact that it comes out in such a constant stream!! and ALSO just thinking about the logistics of how the tail works is so fascinating because i think they were going for a porcupine thing but porcupines cannot actually shoot their quills while nadders can so how do they do that and how do they regenerate so fast! my theory is they're made of some genre of keratin but that's not really fast-growing idk it's an enigma!

another really great one is scauldrons look at them literally

they're really funny to me because (a) they are SO thin it's unreal like where does all the flesh go when it's not being used to shoot water and (b) ok so we know water is really heavy right but we also know scauldrons can fly i'm not sure for how long but they definitely can do it um from what we have seen they're not the best at speed or maneuvering (obviously) but they compensate for that with their necks anyway what i mean to say if they are so heavy especially when they have the water in them HOW DO THEY FLY LIKE THAT!! THEIR WINGS ARE SO TEENY TINY HOW IS THAT SUSTAINABLE!!! also there is also the question of how they heat up the water that much but whatever!

ok now here is my good friend the timberjack hehe

i am so fascinated by them did you know their wings are so sharp they can cut trees with them. i love how thin their actual bodies are compared to their wings too.. also i think i'm not sure but i'm pretty sure timberjacks are somewhat related to typhoomerangs because they're built really similarly what with the thin body and the massive wing ratio

and ok yes i WILL talk about whispering deaths because they RULE! HELLO BEAUTIFUL!

the rotating teeth are really good like it makes sense ofc why they would be burrowing dragons (FASCINATED by how fast they can burrow btw) again the wing to body ratio fascinates me but it's whatever because they shoot RINGS OF FIRE!?

on a sidenote: screaming death.. what a sicko i'm obsessed with u

also OBLIGATORY skrill discussion i'm not as obsessed with it as some of the others on this list but wahoo girls that will shoot lightning.. their concept art is all reallyreally good look

hai..

also ugh fine ok i will talk about night furies 🙄 they are my other first most favourite but like that's normie talk because they're everyone's favourites :-) like look this is really really great

really sooo great toothless i love u i would die for you we do NOT talk about the third movie EVER they cocked it up SO badly literally will die for my 'the light fury should have been a aquatic animal' agenda but it's whatever and their stupid little babies suck and i would drop-kick them if asked to. i could fix the light fury .. no one gets it.. do you guys want to see the concept art (it's MY post I get to choose what images you people look at)

like this is so great . we could have had it all. it's still not perfect but it's better than whatever nonsense the third movie gave us one day i'll write a post about how much her design sucks and then you'll all see!!

#mail #kaetor #sorry this is so long .. do u still love me #httyd

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mochegato · 3 years

Text

Capturing a Dream

Chapter 12 – That Holds In the Pain

Chapter 1 Chapter 11

“Is that… IS THAT ONE USING A YO-YO!” Marinette whisper screamed to Adrien. Her head was just visible around the corner of the warehouse they were hidden behind, observing the robotic henchmen that the Toyman had fashioned into marionette looking dolls.

Adrien poked his head around the corner just above hers and grimaced. “Yes, I believe he is.”

“That little… that… How dare he!” she seethed, glaring at the robotic marionette. “You can’t just… you can’t just steal someone’s shtick like that.”

“Apparently you can,” Adrien commented, turning back to the rest of the Team.

“I feel like this is a personal attack. Using marionette dolls, using a yoyo… what did I ever do to this guy? I’ve never even been to Metropolis before,” she groused. “Usually I’ve at least met someone before they decide to harass me.”

Adrien scoffed. “No you haven’t. With villains, I’d say it’s about half and half.”

“You get harassed a lot?” Conner asked.

“It’s not uncommon. Paris will do that to you,” she shrugged.

“What the hell is up with Paris?” Wally asked in confusion.

“Nothing… anymore. You know, doesn’t really matter right now. How’s it going?” Adrien asked Robin.

“I’ve almost hacked into the security cameras,” Robin answered quickly. “And done.” He moved slightly so the others could gather around him to look at his phone, which was precariously linked to the security camera wires running outside the warehouse. He flipped through a few screens before stopping on one with a view of the marionette henchmen waiting in the main section of the warehouse. He angled the phone for them all to see it.

“Oh, that's...” Marinette started.

“That's a lot,” Conner finished for her. It was definitely more than they could handle without using superpowers or super suits, although if they could distract Marinette and Adrien, they might be able to get away with it.

Robin noted an estimate of how many there were in the warehouse and continued flipping through cameras. After a few more he stopped again. “That your friend?” He tilted the phone toward Marinette and Adrien.

Adrien nodded. “That’s her.”

Marinette grabbed the phone, almost dislodging the wires connecting it to the security system. “Is that a play pen? Are you kidding me? What the hell is this guy’s problem? I kind of get the toy inspired henchmen, I mean, if you’re called the Toyman, it makes sense, but a play pen? Really?”

“Mentally disturbed is kind of a prerequisite for most villains,” Wally pointed out.

“Hey, can we get a still of that, please?” Adrien asked as politely as he could. “For… scientific purposes?” He gave Robin a huge grin.

Wally chuckled and shook his head, but Robin gave him a cold stare. “Oh come on, you’d do it if it were one of your best friends,” Marinette rolled her eyes. “How are we going to make fun of her for the rest of her life about this if we don’t have pictures?”

“Pictures or it didn’t happen,” Adrien nodded sagely.

Robin huffed. “Can we focus please? We’re supposed to be trying to save your friend.”

“Right,” Adrien nodded, letting him change the subject but pouting internally. “Anyone have any ideas?”

Marinette turned back to the marionette sentries. “They're all robots, right? Being controlled by one guy, we think?” Her voice was distant, as if she was still in thought.

Conner did a quick scan of the area. There were only two heat signatures. From the security cameras, those had to be the Toyman and their friend. “Yes,” he confirmed.

“Electronic, right?” she continued, more quickly this time. She turned to them with a glint in her eyes that Adrien immediately recognized. Conner stared at her for a few seconds. He’d seen that look before. It was familiar. He knew it meant something good. He just wasn’t sure why he knew that.

“Everything he has must be digital or electronic. Which is great for ensuring that everyone working for you is of like mind, more specifically, his mind. But terrible when things like an EMP goes off. Because then, it’s just the Toyman, all by himself.” She looked over toward the Team with a grin. “I don’t suppose any of you boys would know how to make an EMP, would you?” She was already well aware of the answer, having seen Wally and Robin both do different versions in the field with parts they found around them at the time, but she had to play dumb.

Wally nodded excitedly. “I can, if I can find the parts.”

Adrien nodded toward the warehouse across from them. “I bet there’s parts in there.”

“We just need to figure out how to get in without drawing attention to ourselves,” Robin observed staring at it.

“There’s a window up there,” Marinette noted, pointing to a tiny window way at the top of the warehouse. “If I can get up there, I can fit through. Open the door from the inside.”

“And how are you planning on getting up there?” Conner asked.

“Well… I was thinking… climbing might be an option,” she drawled out, pointing to a pile of boxes leaning up against the side of the warehouse.

“That’s not going to get you in,” he pointed out.

“No, but lucky for me, I have a rather tall conspirator who looks like he works out quite a bit.” She was still staring at the window, trying to figure out the logistics and missed the way his cheeks darkened slightly. Robin did not miss it. He narrowed his eyes at Conner and smacked his shoulder. Conner glared back at him.

“Think you can lift me up? Maybe even throw me a little?” she asked excitedly, turning back to him.

Conner straightened up and looked back between the window and her. “You sure? It could be dangerous if I miss or if you can’t get a grip.”

“I trust you.” Her voice was heartfelt and her eyes shone with confidence, like there was something more there, but whatever it was Conner couldn’t figure out.

He nodded. “Let’s go then.”

Working with Marinette was significantly easier than he had anticipated working with a stranger would be. They worked like a well-oiled machined, seemingly able to anticipate what the other was going to do and react accordingly. Instead of awkward fumbling to get her into position, it was a graceful act. She was crawling through the tiny window within a matter of minutes.

A few minutes later Adrien’s phone pinged. “She says that she’s at a door at the southwest corner of the warehouse.” They headed to the corner of the warehouse hidden from the marionette sentries.

As soon as he was through the door, Wally started running around, trying very hard to keep his speed to a reasonable level. Marinette slapped Adrien’s shoulder to get his attention. “Hey, Alya texted. Here look,” she said a little louder than necessary and pointedly turned away from the rest of the warehouse to look at the text. Wally looked over to Robin uncertainly, but Robin nodded at him. Wally instantly zoomed around the warehouse, cataloging and locating all the items they would need for the EMP.

He was back by Robin’s side in an instant. “Right, I think we’re good to go. All the parts are here, just a bit scattered. The only issue is one of the parts is going to take a bit of effort and noise to get out.”

“How much noise?” Conner asked cautiously.

“A lot. They’re going to notice.”

“We’ll need a distraction to cover him so he can work,” Robin stated, looking around them to see if there was some distraction he could use.

“How big of a distraction are you looking for?” Adrien asked hesitantly looking over to Marinette. He nervously fiddled with his ring.

“Large enough they can’t ignore it, but not enough to cause too much damage,” Robin answered.

Marinette put her hand on Adrien’s shoulder, and subtly shook her head. She looked around the warehouse. “It’s a baking supply warehouse…” she noted examining the bags on the shelf. Rows and rows of different sized bags of flour in a variety of flour types.

“Going to bake something for them, Mari?” Adrien grinned at her.

Marinette’s eyes narrowed at an industrial sized fan. Her eyes quickly flicked to the flour and a lighter propped on an exposed bracer by the door, left there for employees to grab as they left to smoke. “Depends on your definition of bake.” She looked back at him with a determined glint. “Did you know flour is flammable?”

“We are not setting the warehouse on fire,” Conner exclaimed.

Marinette looked at him shocked. “Of course we’re not. Do you know how huge that explosion would be? And how many baked goods we’d be denying people from that amount of destruction?” she exclaimed in horror. “We only need one bag to make a point.”

“I’ll go with you,” Conner volunteered.

Marinette nodded as Robin set his mouth in a frown. “Grab the fan, please?” she requested as she grabbed a small bag of flour. “Give us eight minutes. I’ll text Adrien when we’re ready then within a few seconds you should hear a big bang.”

Wally groaned and dragged his hand down his face. Robin came up next to him staring at the mechanism Wally was working on with a concerned frown. “What’s wrong? Is it not going to work?”

Wally looked at him confused for a second. “Huh?” His face suddenly smoothed out in realization. “Oh, no. Of course it’s going to work. I just realized, I’m definitely not getting new cupcakes everyday next week.”

Marinette laughed and made her way through the door. “Good luck, guys. See you on the other side.”

Adrien nodded to her and turned back to Robin and Wally. “Let’s get the rest as ready as we can then. What can I do?”

Marinette and Conner snuck around the far side of the warehouses, moving quickly but quietly. When Marinette seemed to slow down and examine an area with interest, Conner finally spoke up. “Okay, what are we doing here?”

“I need this,” she patted the industrial sized fan, “to blow this,” she held up the small bag of flour in her hands, “into the air. Then we need to light it on fire and take cover right quick.”

“Shouldn’t we have brought a larger bag if that’s what we were going for?” he asked looking at the small bag in her hand skeptically. “I could have carried the fan and one of the large bags.”

She smiled at him and glanced quickly down at his arms. “I have no doubt,” she said almost absentmindedly. She flicked her eyes back up to his, her cheeks reddening slightly. “But this is enough. Anything larger and we’d be looking at taking out the entire complex.”

“Flour is that explosive?” He looked at the bag in her hands in awe.

“Extremely. Lucky for us.” She stopped and looked around. “This should be good. Far enough from the warehouses, it won’t blow them up, but close enough to get their attention.”

Conner nodded and started looking for an outlet. “I can plug it in here and we should be able to hide behind that.” He nodded toward a concrete half wall.

Marinette nodded. “We should probably move further away from that then. I don’t think you understand just how big this explosion is going to get.”

Conner nodded but stared at her for a few seconds. “You’re sure about this? With flour?”

Marinette smiled at him. “I grew up in a bakery. Trust me. You learn the most interesting things.” She ripped the top off of the bag of flour. “Okay start up the fan and point it up and out.”

Conner nodded and turned on the fan, still standing slightly in front of the fan. Marinette moved behind the fan and grinned at him as she dumped just a little bit into the fan. She laughed as the flour flew right into Conner’s face. “Things like don’t stand next to flour when a fan is on.”

Conner narrowed his eyes at her but started chuckling too. Chimera already taught him a lesson about how easily flour spreads. He should have remembered it. “At least it wasn’t the whole bag,” he acknowledged, starting to dust himself off.

Marinette’s laugh calmed down into a sweet smile. “Trying to set the air on fire. Not you. Come on, get behind me.” She slowly emptied the bag into the fan’s current. After a few seconds the air in front of the fan was thick with particles of flour hanging in the air. There was more flour on the ground than in the air, but there was enough for what they needed. “Ready?”

Conner bunched up a piece of paper into a ball and nodded. They moved behind the half wall and prepared themselves. Conner took a deep breath. This was the moment of truth. He lit the ball on fire and threw it into the flour cloud.

The explosion seemed to happen in slow motion at first then all at once as one particle ignited the next, which ignited the particles next to it, escalating at an expediential rate until the entire cloud was lit up and pushing out. Conner’s eyes widened in surprise as the blow back came for them. He dived on top of Marinette, forcing her between the ground, concrete wall, and himself, protecting her from all sides.

When he finally looked up, his ears were ringing from the explosion. He definitely had not been properly prepared. Thank god they didn’t use a larger bag. He looked down to check on Marinette, but stopped when he saw her wide, blue eyes. It was mesmerizing and confusing. Just seeing her eyes shouldn’t make him feel this way and he couldn’t figure out why it did. She was mouthing something worriedly at him. He furrowed his brow trying to make out what she was saying. He finally figured out she was asking if he was okay when he felt her push him back to sitting and crawl around him to check his back for any signs of injury.

He felt his skin tingle where she ran her hands over his shoulders and upper back, before working their way into his hair at the back of his head. It felt brilliant and like a betrayal at the same time. He moved out of her reach and gave her a weak smile. It felt nice to have her fret over him and touch him, but not as nice as it did when Chimera did it. They stood up just in time to see an army of marionettes descending upon them. “We may not have thought this through,” he whispered to her, or at least thought he whispered. He’d actually screamed it at her.

She nodded, keeping her eyes on the robots in front of her. She held her hands up in surrender. She slowly unwrapped the white ribbon in her hair and waved it around. “Parlay?” she requested with an unrepentant grin.

Conner gave her a flat look. “Really?”

“You want to take on that many? By ourselves? We just have to keep them distracted and ourselves alive for another few seconds.”

Conner sighed and turned back to the marionettes, raising his hands grudgingly as he did. Before the marionettes could advance on them, they all froze for a second before falling to the ground. Marinette and Conner looked at each other uncertainly for a second, waiting for them to do something. When they didn’t, Marinette grinned at Conner.

“Now it’s just the Toyman,” Conner said.

Marinette nodded at him. “Let’s go get him.”

“Should we wait for the others?”

Marinette shook her head. “They’ll catch up.” They reached the door to the warehouse at the same time as Wally, Robin, and Adrien. They found and tied up the Toyman easily. Without his army of robots behind him, he surrendered without a fight. Finding Chloe only took a matter of minutes after that.

“Finally! It took you long enough. Do you know how long I’ve had to sit here in this? It’s been ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. Who are those losers?” Chloe scoffed, glaring at the Team members.

Wally crossed his arms and leaned toward Conner. “Can we give her back?” he asked, not trying to be quiet.

“Yes,” Marinette nodded.

“No,” Robin answered.

“Eh,” Adrien shrugged.

“Hey!” Chloe yelled. “Now get me out of this!”

“If you don’t like who’s rescuing you, you’re welcome to stay in there,” Adrien threatened.

“Fine, fine, whatever. At least they’re cute. What happened to the things?” she asked. She flicked her hands in the general direction of somewhere else.

“The marionettes were taken out by an EMP these guys created on the fly, and the ‘mastermind’,” Marinette spat the word out sarcastically, “is bound and gagged outside.”

“Rather lackluster fight, really,” Adrien mused. “Turns out the Toyman isn’t much of a threat once his toys are taken away. August was more of a threat.”

“What do you say, Chloe?” Marinette prompted her as she held the door open for Chloe.

Chloe scowled at her and flicked her ponytail over her shoulder, heading through the door. “Let’s get out of here before something bad happens?”

“Chloe…” Marinette started in a warning tone.

Chloe scoffed at her. “We’re thanking each other every time we save one another now?”

“Yes! Yes, that’s what we do,” Marinette’s exasperation was clear. Conner chuckled at her expression. Marinette’s eyes flitted over to him for a second, her cheeks turning slightly pink before focusing back on Chloe.

“Every time?” Chloe gasped.

“Yes, every time!” Marinette groaned.

“That seems excessive,” Chloe shook her head. “Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. What a waste of time.” She continued toward the warehouse exit, not bothering to look back at them.

“So… she’s like this all the time, huh?” Robin asked Adrien quietly as they followed her out.

“What? No… She’s being nice right now,” he answered seriously.

“That’s why her kidnap count is so high,” Wally nodded knowingly.

“Definitely a contributing factor,” Marinette agreed.

“I heard that,” Chloe announced loudly.

“You were meant to,” Marinette yelled back. Conner looked over to her with an amused smile, but quickly schooled his face when Robin raised an eyebrow at him.

“I’ll make sure to get that picture to you,” Robin whispered to Adrien as they made their way through the exit and into the flashing blue and red lights waiting for them outside.

Just before she made it through the door, Conner grabbed Marinette’s elbow. “Hey, I just wanted to say sorry for earlier. Telling you guys not to come. You did great for a civilian.”

Marinette beamed up at him. “Thank you. But… whoever said I was a civilian?” She winked at him and twirled with a cheeky grin back toward Adrien and Chloe as they were loading her into an ambulance so a doctor could check her out.

<><><><><>

“Try not to get kidnapped… until you get back to Paris at least,” Marinette instructed Chloe in mock seriousness as she gave her a hug goodbye.

Chloe scoffed, but returned the hug, pretending to do so halfheartedly. “Of course. Getting kidnapped in America is so boring. Who has time for that?”

Marinette rolled her eyes. “Come on. There were boring akumas too. And not all of our villains are that…”

“Pathetic?” Nino offered, slinging his arm over her shoulders.

Marinette quirked her head to the side contemplatively. “Not the word I was thinking but… I’ll go with it.”

“Hey, I got to meet Batman. I’m counting it as a win!” Alya gushed. “I got a picture of him! And the Batmobile. How awesome is that?”

Marinette grinned at her as she hugged her. “Maybe next time I can introduce you properly.”

“Yeah?” Alya’s eyes brightened with an excited glint. “That would be amazing! Think you can get me an interview?”

“I don’t know… nobody else knows my identity, other than Black Canary, so it would have to look like something he did on his own. You figure out a plausible excuse for that, and I can probably make it happen,” Marinette agreed.

“Yay!” Alya cheered, pulling her in for a long tight hug. “See, this is why you’re my favorite person. You always look out for me.”

“Hey! What am I?” Nino protested.

“The love of my life,” Alya reassured him, wrapping an arm around his neck and planting a kiss on his cheek. “But she’s still my favorite person.”

Nino rolled his eyes and groaned. “I guess I get that. As long as you two don’t start kissing behind my back.”

“So you want them to do it in front of you?” Chloe asked, looking up from her phone.

Nino sputtered, his cheeks turning red as the rest of the group laughed at him. Marinette moved over and wrapped him in a hug. “Don’t worry, Nino. We won’t start kissing behind your back.”

Nino gave her a deadpan look. “I’m not going to miss you, Dudette.”

“I will,” Alya pledged, jumping onto Marinette, knocking her over with a hug. “So much. You stay safe. Love you, girl.”

Marinette grinned back at her. “Love you too.” She turned to Nino. “And you too, even if you won’t miss me. Have a good trip and keep them safe.” She gave him a meaningful look with her last sentence.

Nino nodded in understanding. “You stay safe too. Love you, Dudette. And of course I’m going to miss you,” he said seriously, ushering Alya and Chloe onto the train back to New York so they could catch their flight home.

Marinette turned to face Adrien with a watery smile. “I think I’ll miss you most of all, Scarecrow.”

Adrien chuckled and looked down. “It was nice working with you again. As a team. I’ve missed it.”

“You know, you could probably join the Team… if you really wanted,” she offered.

There was a smile on her face, but Adrien could see it was strained. He offered her a soft, unstrained smile back. “Not remotely interested. My superhero days are behind me.” He looked down as he shook his head gently. “Don’t get me wrong,” he continued, looking back up to meet her eyes, “I loved every second of it, but I think now I need to focus on healing. After everything we went through…”

Marinette looked down guiltily and nodded in understanding. Adrien hooked his finger under her chin to encourage her to look up. “Because of what my dad… Gabriel did. Not because of anything you did. You aren’t responsible for my struggling, no matter what you think. And I’ll keep repeating that until you finally believe me. If it wasn’t for you… I don’t know what I would have become. I would probably still be fighting him, in and out of the costume. He’d still be making me miserable.”

He moved his hands so they were firmly on her shoulders, offering support and encouraging her to keep facing him. “Don’t ever think for even a second that any of what we went through, any of what we’re still going through, is your fault.”

“I’m sorry I left. I left you to heal alone,” she said quietly to the floor.

“Oh, Mari,” he pulled her into a hug. “You didn’t leave me alone. I have people there for me. I have people I can talk to. You made sure of it. You still do. I have people helping me. You’re one of them, even if you don’t think so. I’ve always been surrounded by people, but for the first time, I’m not alone. You made sure I was going to be taken care of. You check on me constantly. You did not abandon me.

“I’m getting the help I need. I needed to stay in Paris. I needed familiarity to heal. You needed a complete break. You needed to be away from all the reminders. A fresh start. And you needed it just as badly as I did. Don’t feel guilty for seeking the help you needed, too.”

He took a breath and squeezed her closer for a second. “Can you do something for me?” he asked quietly. He waited a beat before he continued. “I need you to try to let go of the guilt. Which isn’t easy, I know,” he rushed to assure her. “I was wearing mine like armor, but I think it was more of a barricade, holding in the pain. I thought it was protecting me from getting hurt. I still kind of do. But I think it was really just isolating me, preventing me from seeing the world as it really is.”

He pulled away to look her in the eyes, studying the eyes he knew better than his own, eyes filled with strength but also self-doubt. “We learned so many lessons as heroes, but… but I think I’m starting to realize not all of them were real.” He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly with a mirthless chuckle. “Guess therapy is doing some good after all.” He shook his head lightly and looked back at her with a concerned gaze.

“I’m slowly realizing a lot of the lessons we were taught, lessons we thought the universe was teaching us; about how the world was for us, that we needed to suffer to be heroes, they weren’t... it was just my… Gabriel. They weren’t universal lessons or miraculous lessons. They weren’t real. It was Gabriel punishing us, not the universe. Gabriel manipulating the way we saw the world. But he’s gone and we can make our own rules now. I’m still coming to terms with that. It’s still hard and uncomfortable and I hate it… but I also don’t?”

He shook his head again, his eyes settled back on her. “I’m still working on it. And I just wanted to let you know because… I just… you… you seemed to internalize the lessons even more than I did and…” he looked away and pursed his lips, trying to think of the words he wanted to say, the message he wanted her to take away. He looked back at her with compassionate determination. “I won’t let him dictate my future or how I see the world anymore. And you shouldn’t let him do it for you either. We defeated him. You defeated him. Don’t let him win this. He made us suffer, not the universe. Don’t let him make you think we can’t be happy, that you can’t be happy. I’m happy, mostly. And I just… the thing is you’re amazing at giving advice, but you’re shit at taking your own advice so… I just thought maybe if you promised to do it for me…”

A whistle sounded, cutting off the rest of his sentence. Adrien looked back at her for a few moments, studying her carefully again, looking for any sign that his words finally made it through to her. After a few seconds he gave a defeated sigh and kissed her temple before he hugged her again. “That’s my cue. I love you, Marinette. I’ll see you in a few weeks, okay? But if you want to talk before then, don’t hesitate. You have a phone, a laptop, a tablet, a Zeta tube, who the hell knows what else in your base, and a Kaalki. Do. Not. Hesitate.”

She nodded and squeezed him back. She pulled away and gave him a kiss on his cheek. “Have a safe flight. Love you.”

She watched him as he walked onto the train and disappeared with a final wave. Her eyes stayed focused on the door he disappeared through long after he was gone. They continued their focus long after the door had closed and the train had started moving. She didn’t notice the change in scenery until someone accidentally knocked into her with an apology and guilty smile. She waved them off with a kind smile and turned toward the exit, stumbling slightly in a daze.

She walked another block before her breath started getting uneven. She stopped to lean against a building, her brow furrowing in confusion. What was going on with her? Why did her chest feel so tight all of a sudden? She looked around her, hoping to figure it out, but there was nothing there. It was just her. Just her and her thoughts. She gasped again and leaned harder against the building. She shook her head. She needed to get home. She looked around again, this time to confirm nobody was watching her and ducked into a hidden alcove. She put on Kaalki’s glasses and Trixx’s necklace, whispering the transformation words.

She stepped through the portal and breathed in the familiar air. She took another step and let her head rest against Conner’s doorframe, her bag dropped to the floor with a thud loud enough she was sure he had heard it. After a few seconds, she collected herself enough to knock lightly on his door. She barely had time to take a bracing breath before his door swung open and Conner appeared in his pajamas. “Chi! I wasn’t expecting you to be back tonight!” He pulled her into a tight hug. He let his arms linger around her, keeping her close as he pulled away slightly, just enough to look at her so he could ask her about the visit.

He hesitated momentarily when it seemed like she clung to him tighter as he tried to pull away. But just as soon as he noticed, she loosened her grip. “Yeah, my friends just left.”

His bright smile quickly gave way to a concerned frown. The smile she offered him didn’t reach her eyes and her voice was a bit too happy to be real. “How was it?” he asked carefully.

Although her smile got bigger, it didn’t get any brighter. “It was great. We had a lot of fun.”

He nodded cautiously. “That’s… good…”

“Yeah… good,” she agreed, looking away. She tapped her fingers together nervously.

“Chi?” She didn’t look up, but she did stop tapping her fingers. “Chi, are you okay?”

She looked back up at him with a heartbreaking smile and nodded, her eyes shining with uncertainty. “Yeah, I think I… don’t know.”

He pulled her back in for a tight, protective hug. “Did something happen this weekend?” he asked darkly. He was working incredibly hard to keep his anger tempered and his body relaxed so she wouldn’t be able to sense how angry he was at whoever caused her to react like this. He knew, he knew, seeing her friends was going to end badly and now she was just barely keeping in the tears. These were supposed to be her friends and yet every time she saw them, she came back a little more threadbare, a little more broken. Whatever they were doing to her, it had to stop.

She curled into his hug, taking some time to let his presence calm her before she spoke up, her voice so quiet, even with super-hearing he had to strain to hear her. “I’m… I’m really not sure. I didn’t think so but…”

“Do you want to talk about it?” She shook her head after a few seconds, just holding him tighter. “Chi, whatever happened, whatever your friends said…”

She shook her head stronger this time. “It’s not like that. It’s… I don’t know. Everything was great and then… I couldn’t breathe. I… I don’t know what happened.” She shook her head again, more gently this time as if to clear her head. “I think I need to talk to Black Canary, but first I just… I needed this.” She stopped herself before she said what she meant, she needed him.

His anger melted away and turned to concern. She didn’t talk to Black Canary, not for therapy. Batman and Black Canary had encouraged her to go. Batman made vague references that talking with her might help her after different emotional outbursts in battle. He shuddered slightly remembering the video of her fighting the mind-controlled Superman. His comments were subtle and deceptively casual, meant to encourage her to decide it for herself without putting pressure on her.

Black Canary was much less subtle in her encouragement, going as far as to threaten her position on the team if she didn’t seriously consider it. She was stopped each time by Batman from enacting it, but it didn’t stop her from pushing it whenever she could. Each time, Chimera closed off more, backed away further, as if the idea of opening up was a physical threat to her. It had always confused Conner.

If anyone was going to have an issue discussing emotions, he would have bet on him over Chimera. She always seemed so open with her emotions, but the more he thought about it, the only emotions she seemed to share freely were positive ones. The negative emotions she kept a tight grip on, as though she thought they would cause physical and psychological torment if they ever escaped. And from the few times she did discuss them, when consoling one of the Team about something they were feeling, it didn’t seem too far from the truth for her. If she was actually planning on talking with Black Canary, even if she was just seriously considering it and didn’t actually go… this weekend must have hit her hard. And honestly, he didn’t know if that was a bad thing after all.

He looked back in his room. They really needed somewhere to sit down so she could calm down and relax. But there was just a chair and a bed in his room. There was no way she'd be okay with that. That left the common room. “Why don't we move this to the couch? We can put on a movie and ignore it,” he offered. She didn’t respond. The silence was broken by a beep that sounded like it was coming from her glasses. “That means you’re going to lose one of your magics, right?” he whispered into her ear.

She was motionless in his arms for another beat before nodding. The couch was out then. She’d want to keep her identity and the fact that her appearance changed, a secret. He looked back at his bed. There wasn’t really a choice then. “How about my room instead? I don’t have to look at you while you recharge, if you don’t want me to,” he offered. He looked between the bed and the rug on the floor. He grimaced slightly. He really had no idea which she would prefer. “You want to sit on the floor or the bed? I can throw some pillows down for us.”

She looked between the two a few times. “Bed would be more comfortable,” she finally decided.

He nodded unseen by her, his heartrate picking up at the words. They might have woken up cuddling on the couch a few times, but they’d never done it intentionally and he wasn’t sure what this meant. Had anything changed? Were they still just teammates? Is this what teammates did? It definitely wasn’t something he did with Robin or Wally.

He piled up some pillows for them to lean against and nervously got onto the bed, positioning himself so Chimera would be able to lean on him comfortably. He fought to relax is body from the tension that instantly took over, unsure if he was allowed to enjoy this or not, afraid he might enjoy it too much if it didn’t mean anything, afraid he wouldn’t enjoy it enough if it was the last time.

Chimera crawled in after him, laying her head on his chest and wrapping her arm around his waist, squeezing him as if afraid he might leave her alone. He tightened his grip around her, reassuring her that he was still there for her. He wasn’t going anywhere. He never would. He fought the urge to nuzzle into her hair. That was definitely going further than supportive teammating.

He scrolled through a few shows and movies until he found one he knew she liked. “This okay?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah, good choice,” she answered just as quietly. She knew teammates don't watch a movie like this. But right now she didn’t care. She needed this. She needed his steady heartbeat and his rhythmic breathing. She needed his scent and his touch. She needed him. She suddenly felt incredibly unsafe and unsure, like the world was getting upset around her and she wasn’t even sure where the hell that came from. She just knew she needed to feel safe and there was nowhere in the world she felt safer than with him, in his arms. She had no idea when that happened, hell, she didn’t even know she felt that way until just then, she just knew it was true.

He smiled gently at her. “Told you I had good taste,” he teased lightly.

His smile widened at her playful scoff and small smile. “Can you… can you close your eyes?” she asked quietly. Conner immediately closed his eyes. Even with his eyes closed, he could still see a bright, teal light flash quickly. Chimera moved a little bit before resting back against his chest. “Okay. You can open your eyes.”

He obliged, focusing on the movie, but let himself shoot quick glances at her new costume. “Is it… is it okay for me to…” He motioned to her costume.

Chimera chuckled lightly and buried her head in his chest a little. Conner could just catch a dusting of pink on her cheeks. “Yeah, it’s okay. As long as I don’t have to move.”

Conner smiled at her and nodded. “Understood.” He took in as much of her costume as he could. Orange this time with black boots and gloves, but most importantly, he could see her eyes. An incredible shade of blue that seemed more familiar than it should… He blinked a few times and focused back on the movie, her eyes were making his heart rate speed up again and he really needed to calm down.

They watched the movie for a little while before she finally spoke again. “You were right. There was an explosion. Nobody was hurt, but there was an explosion,” she admitted. This game was dangerous, she knew it was. She was daring him to figure out who she was. But at this point she wasn’t sure she cared anymore. “And we… I destroyed some… things.”

Conner chuckled and rested his chin on her head. “Yeah, us too. Does that mean we all win? Or we all lose?”

She shook her head. “I’m not sure.”

“The explosion helped save someone, so I’m calling it a win. We protected someone and, you know, sometimes you need to destroy a little in order to fix something.” He looked down at her fondly. He picked up her hand with his free hand and started playing with her fingers until he realized what he was doing and let them drop. “And sometimes you have to cause a little damage to prevent more, like firefighters, you know? Set a small fire to prevent one that would destroy the entire forest. You told me that. I think you were right.”

He looked down at her expectantly. Any second now she should chuckle, at least crack a smile, tell him he should never doubt her, that she’s always right, but instead she sat up and blinked at him a few times, her face completely devoid of any emotion. She looked away absently, seeming to stare at nothing. “I’m going to lay down,” she finally said woodenly.

Conner stared at her in disbelief. His brow furrowed in surprise at the unexpected reaction. “What? Why?” What the hell just happened? She was smiling. Why was she upset again and why couldn’t he say the right things? Why did she keep hanging out with her friends if they kept doing this to her?

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” She scooted to the edge of the bed and stood up.

Conner lurched forward and grabbed her wrist. “Chi, no. Just…” he paused at her reaction. She seemed to curl further away from him, like she thought his anger was directed at her. He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down again, forcing his body to relax and his face to smooth out. “Just, wait… please. Stay. We don’t have to talk anymore. We’ll just watch the movie, no talking, no thinking. I’m terrible at both anyway.”

He knew he convinced her when she let out a barely audible huff. She turned back toward him. Her eyes flitted up to him for a fraction of a second and returned back to the bed next to him. She wet her lips and gave the tiniest of nods before crawling back over to him and laying her head back on his chest. Conner cautiously settled his arm around her shoulders again. He was pretty sure she needed comfort, but wasn’t sure if it was welcome from him.

She nestled further into his chest almost imperceptibly, but enough for him to notice in his hyper vigilant state. He took that as a sign he made the right call and relaxed further. He wrapped around her more, cocooning her, protecting her from whatever was going on in her head.

After a few minutes he leaned his head closer to her ear and whispered, “I really want to say what a complete idiot that guy is but I promised I wouldn’t talk.” He smiled proudly at the giggles he could feel more than hear from her.

Tags:

@mickylikesstuff @mystery-5-5 @roguishredaxion @vroomtaka @laurcad123 @just-an-observer-ignore-me @emimar7 @moonlightstar64 @maribat-writing-and-prompts @aespades @yokomisaki @glastwime859 @mysticknown @glastwime859 @fan-writtenen @stackofrandomstuff @jalaluvsu @ultimatetornshipper @charme-de-malchan @lozzybowe @deathwishy @too0bsessedformyowngood @kokotaru @ichigorose @nathleigh @dorkus-minimus @ira-sairain @jayjayspixiepop @woe-is-me0

#Capturing a Dream #maribat #connette #connorette #konmari #marikon #Marinette x Conner #conner x marinette

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slythergirlimagines · 4 years

Text

Just Us With Some Hugging -Part One

Prompt: Prompt #1- Fake dating with Prince Zuko!

@darthsokaaa thank you for your request! I hope I did it justice! Who doesn’t love some Prince Zuko;) Masterlist

Just Us With Some Hugging- Part 1

You and Zuko had been close since birth. Your mothers had been best friends and the closest of confidantes, and because of this you had spent nearly every moment of your life with Zuko. As you grew up, Zuko became a trained fire bender and you became a trained warrior. Even during his exile, you were checking up on him through letters.

It had been nothing to pick his side over Ozai’s, and easier still to join forces with him against Azula to place the rightful Fire Lord on the throne. As soon as Zuko was crowned, he named you a member of his personal council. For three years, everything had remained somewhat peaceful, and Zuko and you had fallen right back into your friendship as if you’d never spent any time apart.

That’s why when Zuko had all but manhandled you into this conference room, you didn’t expect anything unusual. Maybe an important meeting, or just some time to catch up and talk. Never in your wildest dreams could you have predicted that he would ask you to pretend to be his girlfriend.

“What?” You say, blinking in shock.

“Y/N, it would just be for the duration of the Peace Celebration. Just a short little weekend, nothing much.” His face is a little flushed, his cheeks a light pink. Zuko has always struggled to ask for help, particularly anything dealing with emotions. Anxiously, he starts rubbing the back of his neck.

“I know it’s a lot, but think about it! We’d get to have a fun trip to Ba Sing Se. And it’ll be a fun party! We’ll get to see everyone again, they’re all coming this time.” He gestures with his hands. It’s almost endearing.

You’d be lying if you said the idea didn’t have any appeal. It’s been a long time since you’ve seen any of the Gaang. After the war, everyone had spread out and getting together had been nearly impossible. This would be the first Peace Celebration that everyone would be able to come to.

If you were extra honest with yourself, the idea was appealing for another reason entirely. Somewhere along the endless years of friendship, you had fallen in love with Zuko. Maybe it was seeing his growth as a person, or maybe it was his devotion to Fire Nation and righting Ozai’s mistakes. Maybe it was just that he was the single most attractive man you’d ever seen.

Regardless, you were in deep. And that was really the reason that you couldn’t say yes, as much as you might want to. You knew if you let yourself get that close to Zuko, it might ruin everything. Your friendship with Zuko was one of the most important aspects of your life, and you would never forgive yourself if you let your own feelings ruin what you all had.

“Zuko, I really don’t think...”

“You know, I’m kind of the Fire Lord, I could command you.” He says quietly. His voice is huskier than normal, and heat instantly floods your face.

Why was he doing this to you? It wasn’t fair that he was able to do...well to do that! He had no idea how much power he held over you, how you would do anything for him. And now that he had asked like that, there was no way you could say no.

Something in your expression must have given away your broken resolve, because Zuko’s face breaks into a huge grin.

“Thank you!” He exclaims, jumping up and happily running around the table to throw his arms around you. He’s warm, like all fire benders are, and hesitantly you hug him back and tuck your head under his chin. You’ve never been particularly affectionate friends, but the embrace doesn’t feel as unnatural as it probably should.

“I haven’t even said yes yet.” You grouch. You can feel the reverberations of Zuko’s low laugh in his chest. It’s too much, being in his arms like this.

“I know you.” Is all he says in reply. His words send warm tingles down your spine. With a final sigh, you pull away from Zuko, breaking the hug.

“Why do you need me to do this again?” You ask. Your eyes trace over his face, memorizing the contours and lingering on his scar. He used to act so ashamed of it, the scar he never asked for. Now he wears it like a badge of honor. You knew his troubles stemmed from his perceived lack of honor, but you can’t help but feel he was wearing his honor the entire time, right here on his face.

“I told you. Uncle drives me crazy with his matchmaking. He keeps telling me that ‘A single tea leaf makes the worst tea.’ Or something like that. I don’t even know what he means!” Zuko throws his hands up in defeat, breaking your trance. You snort, but don’t comment. Frustrated as he may be, Zuko loves Iroh.

Zuko had briefly mentioned the matchmaking to you before, but he had always played it off as a joke. You had no idea that Iroh was being so serious about it, or that it bothered Zuko so much.

“Why don’t you just tell him that you’re too young to settle down? You have a Nation to run, after all.” You interject.

Zuko looks at you and rolls his eyes.

“You know Uncle. He never listens when it comes to this stuff. I told you about the girl in Ba Sing Se he made me date!”

You force down the irrational swell of anger that builds in your chest. Zuko had mentioned the date in one of his letters, and it had bothered you for reasons you never wanted to think about.

“We need to talk logistics here.” You recross your arms. “What’s our story? How are we going to pull this off in front of our friends and your uncle?”

Zuko begins rubbing the back of his neck. The sleeves of his red robe fall down a few inches, and you quickly avert your eyes before you’re caught staring.

“I don’t think it will be too hard.” Zuko says. He’s too nonchalant about it all, which is mildly infuriating. He sees the irritated look on your face and hurries to explain. “I mean, we’ve been friends forever and we’re always around each other. It was bound to happen right?”

Your heart stutters and nearly stops. Did you hear him right?

Zuko clears his throat.

“I mean for story purposes that is.”

“Right.” You say. There’s a long awkward pause. You’ve never been comfortable with silence, so you hurry to break it.

“So one day we just decided ‘This is it.’ And I jumped your bones?”

The sarcasm lightens the mood, and Zuko laughs. His amber eyes twinkle in the light, like they’re shining.

“How come you jumped my bones?” He teases.

“We both know I’d have to make the first move, you’d never do it.” You challenge him.

A weird static energy settles in the room, reminding you of Azula’s lightning. Zuko has never looked at you so intensely. You swear the air is crackling.

“Right.” He says, and is it your imagination or are his eyes flickering to your lips?

The spell is broken by one of Zuko’s men opening the door.

“My Lord, I’m sorry to interrupt...” He trails off, looking between the two of you.

You and Zuko both notice the lack of space between you, and jump apart.

“Right, no it’s fine.” Zuko says, clearing his throat and gesturing for the man to come in.

You take the opportunity to leave while you still have some dignity left.

“Oh, and y/n?” Zuko says before you’re out the door.

“Yes, Zuko?” You ask. You hope the blush isn’t too noticeable on your face.

“I’m glad you said yes, because I already told Uncle last week.” His face splits into a cocky grin, and his scar crinkles.

Your infuriated scream echoes through the whole palace, mingling with his delighted laugh.

_____________________________

You’re already reconsidering this arrangement by the time you reach Ba Sing Se. Zuko looks astoundingly good when he’s more relaxed, and there’s no way you’ll be able to control yourself like this. Today he wears the clothing of a fire nation commoner. The deep red is striking against his skin and dark hair. It also highlights his scar and the amber of his eyes.

Ba Sing Se is gloriously overdecorated. There are flowers and banners covering every visible inch of the city, and they blend together in a colorful blur as the train moves through the city. Zuko smiles, face turned toward the glass, eyes taking in all the festivities. It’s been too long since you’ve seen him look so peaceful.

He turns from the window and catches your expression.

“What?” He asks, self-consciously.

Your voice is too soft when you answer him.

“Nothing. Ba Sing Se looks good on you.”

You have no idea where your boldness comes from, as Zuko shifts uncomfortably under the complement. Before you can tease him about it, he switches topics.

“Ok, so we’re really going to have to sell this thing, aren’t we?” He starts, making you roll your eyes.

It’s a typical Zuko move to save the panicking until right before. You had already done your fair share of freaking out, and had already done your meditation. You were a lot calmer about it all than you expected to be.

Of course, you knew that would probably change the moment you had to start pretending, but for now you were ok.

“Meditate Zuko. Deep breaths.” You tell him, giving him a gentle kick to the shin. He rolls his eyes, but takes the advice anyways.

“It’s going to be okay.” You tell him. “We just have to be us with some hugging. Or handholding. They know us and they know how we behave normally. We just have to act natural.”

Zuko nods, and a strand of black hair falls in front of his eyes. He flicks it away, and then settles deeper into his seat.

“Just us.” He says.

“With some hugging.” You amend.

He cracks an amber eye open and you shrug at his expression.

“It’ll be weird if we don’t touch each other at all.” You say.

“I didn’t know you had such a deep desire to touch me.” He says, with extra emphasis on the word “touch.”

Your body begins to tingle again. This has been happening more and more frequently with Zuko, where one of you says something with a double meaning. The electricity settles in again, but is broken by the abrupt stop of the train.

An enthusiastic stewardess comes to escort the two of you off the train. She’s pretty and she notices Zuko immediately.

“Welcome to Ba Sing Se!” She chirps happily, more at Zuko than you. You can’t help your irrantional flare of jealousy.

Zuko, noticing your aggravation, slings an arm over your shoulders and smirks.

“Yes, sweetheart. Welcome to Ba Sing Se.”

You give him a hard elbow to the ribs, and laugh at his grunt of pain.

Iroh is waiting with open arms when you get off of the train. He immediately takes Zuko off of your hands, and tries to smoosh Zuko as close to his body as he can. Zuko does a very un-Zuko thing and hugs back with as just as much force. It warms your heart to see them interact. Iroh breaks the embrace and hugs you next.

“It’s so good to see you both again!” He says. “And with such happy news.” Iroh wiggles his eyebrows and winks at the two of you.

“Uncle!” Zuko groans, throwing his hands up exasperatedly.

“Sorry, Sorry. Couldn’t help myself, y/n.” Iroh chuckles.

“It’s ok!” You try to say brightly, but it comes out breathy. If you don’t get it together, you’ll expose your own lie before anyone else can.

Zuko takes your hand in his, and shoulders both of your bags on his other arm. You do everything you can not to think about the fact that Zuko’s incredibly warm hand is wrapped around yours. You definitely don’t think about what this hand has done before, or what it could do if it wanted.

“Uncle, where are we staying?” Zuko asks.

For once you’re grateful to the heat of Ba Sing Se, for it camouflages the fact that you’ve started to sweat.

“We’ve set up a lovely house for you two and all of your friends! You’ll all be together.” Iroh says, bouncing around.

“Is anyone here yet?” You ask him. You can fight the excitement bubbling up inside you. You hadn’t seen your friends in a long time, and soon they’d all be here!

“Everyone but Aang and Miss Katara.” Iroh says. “They’ll be here later.”

You have an extra pep to your step as you wind through the streets of Ba Sing Se. Zuko laughs at your enthusiasm, and squeezes your hand. Iroh notices and practically starts glowing. A stab of something goes through you as you think about the lie you’re telling, but it all fades away as you let yourself enjoy the moment and the warmth of Zuko’s hand.

_________________________________________

In an effort to keep peace and spread good will, Ba Sing Se had been selected to host the annual Peace Celebration- a celebration honoring the peace ushered in by the Avatar, the end of the war, and the continuing efforts to preserve it. Ba Sing Se had been the natural choice to host the whole affair. Not only was it the biggest city, but it was the most neutral. And Ba Sing Se certainly knew how to throw a party.

You and the group were currently sandwiched tightly around a table. The whole Gaang was here. When you had arrived at the house, it had been a nonstop hug fest. Everyone had been so glad to see each other. Toph had taken you to your room across from hers, while Sokka had taken Zuko to his. You had fully expected the shakedown from Toph about your relationship, but she had said nothing. That scared you more than anything, because it could only mean she was waiting for the right time.

Zuko had told you about Toph’s ability to sense lies, and you had been privileged enough to see it first hand. If anyone was going to figure out your secret it was Toph.

You had wanted to get Zuko alone and tell him about your fears, but there hadn’t been time. Aang and Katara had arrived and then everyone had to get ready for the party. Now you were all here, and it was basically life as usual. Except for the fact that you were anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Katara and Aang were making eyes at each other, Sokka and Toph were competing to see who could hold their liquor better (Toph of course was winning), Zuko and Iroh were engaged in a discussion of the rebuilding of Ba Sing Se, and that left you and Suki to make awkward conversation.

You admired Suki a lot, but you hadn’t really gotten to know her well. Both of you had been sitting in silence. Suki takes a slow sip of her drink, and twirls the edges of her short brown hair.

“So you and Zuko?” She asks, nodding her head at the arm Zuko had wrapped around your shoulders.

You take a long sip of your drink, and then nod.

“Yeah.” You say quietly.

You had been waiting on pins and needles all night for this. Toph had yet to spring her trap, and Suki’s question seemed to catch the attention of the entire table.

“Yeah! Tell us how that happened!” Sokka says, half of his drink spilling over the rim of his mug. Like Zuko, Sokka has grown into a man since the war, well a childish man but a man none the less.

“Well...” You start.

“It just happened.” Zuko interjects, saving you. You start to take another sip to finish your drink. “And then y/n jumped my bones.” He laughs.

The surprise of his statement chokes you, and you start coughing. Zuko breaks into carefree laughter, and starts patting your back. The Gaang quickly joins in laughing, except for Toph, who cocks her head and stares with unseeing eyes at Zuko.

“I’m...going...to....murder....you.” You tell him, as you try to catch your breath. Zuko smiles warmly at you, and reaches up to smooth a piece of hair behind your ear. Your heart skips a beat, as he catches your eyes with his.

Toph and Sokka resume their contest, and you sigh with relief. Maybe she’ll be too drunk to tell or care if you’re lying. Zuko catches your eyes again, and it’s all you need to know that you guys are on the same page. Crisis momentarily averted.

“Come on, let’s dance.” Zuko says, pulling you away from the table.

“Zuko? Dance?” You hear someone mutter behind you.

“Zuko, if we act too different they’ll find out!” You hiss at him when you’re a distance away from the table. You try desperately to wiggle out of his grip.

He ignores you, and seamlessly incorporates you with the other dancers.

“I just want to dance with my girlfriend.” He bends his head down, whispering in your ear. “Is that too much to ask?”

He has a wicked grin on his face when he pulls away, and you would give anything to be able to bend him across the room.

“It is when you never do that! You never danced with Mai.” You point out, and then instantly regret it. Mai was a sore spot with Zuko. You watch as Zuko freezes, losing his buoyancy from earlier.

“I would’ve. She always said no.”

You shuffle closer in your embrace trying to offer him some comfort. You always put your foot in your mouth.

Zuko and Mai’s breakup had been awful. The relationship had been bad for a year, but when it finally came to a head, it had been explosive. Zuko had been positively horrid to deal with for weeks.

“Oh.” You say like a genius, but it isn’t really your fault that you can’t speak in coherent sentences with him holding you like this.

“Yeah.” Zuko says, and you know that if you don’t act now he’ll brood for the rest of the night.

“Well I’m a hell of a better dancer than Mai, so you’ve definitely upgraded.” You say flippantly.

Zuko smiles at you and pulls you closer.

“I certainly did.” He says.

Maybe it’s the alcohol, your close proximity, or the fact that Zuko has just told you that you are an upgrade from your biggest rival, but something in you snaps. Without warning, you find yourself leaning up and pressing a kiss to Zuko’s lips.

(A/N: I’m doing a part 2! This just seemed like a story that needed to be broken into two parts! Let me know if you enjoyed it and don’t forget to submit a request if you want me to write something! I do write for multiple fandoms! I’m currently working on my other requests so keep an eye out for those this week! You should be able to see all the fanfiction I’ve written by clicking on my tag slythergirlimagines)

#slythergirlimagines #zuko x reader #atla #atla fanfic #zuko #iroh #katara #aang #sokka #toph #fire lord zuko #fake dating #fanfic #avatar the last airbender #prince zuko #prince zuko x reader #prince zuko x you #zuko x you

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bluerosesburnblue · 3 years

Note

I hope you don't mind this ask, but... Any theories / speculations about the most recent story update for KHUX?

Oh, I don’t mind at all! I’m glad you asked, actually, because I’ve had some thoughts, though not many new theories of my own, unfortunately. That being said, I can definitely go over how some of my old theories and some of the fandom’s hold up and my thoughts on a few of the new theories I’ve seen floating around

One thing that I’m consistently proud of is how my old guesses about Darkness’s true nature just keep ending up almost right barring some slight details. I made the claim back when Re:Mind first came out that Darkness could be a hive mind of entities that plant bits of themselves in others, and then refined that back in July of 2020 by likening it to a parasite that worms its way into people’s hearts and incorporates itself into them to control them. This past update confirmed that the Darkness we’re fighting is one part of the hive mind that wormed its way into Ven to force him to act out, and that by doing so it detached itself from that hive mind and became incorporated into Ven’s being (which Ven can then shape). So I gotta say I’m pretty pleased about that part

All that’s left to be seen from the July post is if Darkness has a connection to Verum Rex/Quadratum, but I doubt that that will be touched on by the KHUx finale. Though I will say that it’s pretty interesting that the Master of Masters tells Darkness about “a world [he] can’t even conceive,” which seems like it could easily be referring to Quadratum, which also means that Darkness knows about it

That’s pretty much all I have to say on the Ventus/Darkness/Vanitas connection, but there’s still more to cover in this update

One thing that I’ve been trying to figure out is who the cloaked figure right at the start of the update is, Luxu or the MoM. Measuring the sizes and my old guess based on the KH3 Secret Reports both say Luxu, but this brings into question “when,” exactly, the True Dandelion scene takes place as it doesn’t have the dark haze around the edges that they give flashbacks, but is clearly the real-world set of pods as they’re not destroyed AND it’s missing the pod that Maleficent already used. The True Dandelion scene has a lot to unpack, but this scene at the start does make me wonder if Luxu and/or the Master have a way in and out of the datascape that doesn’t involve the pods, otherwise the numbers don’t add up

Also related to the post of mine I just linked is the idea that the Black Box is the datascape. I believe that this might still hold true. It’s interesting to note that they show the scene from Back Cover where Luxu is given the box in the first place just prior to the reveal that using the lifeboats to escape starts the process to seal it off and have the real Daybreak Town fall to darkness, and the Master’s “hint” to Luxu involves this very process. Why would Luxu be forbidden to open the box? Quite possibly because it contains the infected datascape meant to seal off the vast majority of the Darkness hive mind. And several Dandelions. It is both the “hope” mentioned in KH3 through those Dandelions, as well as a trap to keep Darkness out of being able to interfere for quite a long time

Now, the questions that I’m sure are on everyone’s minds are “who is the True Dandelion,” and “who are the ones who use the lifeboats?” Let’s start with the True Dandelion, as there’s far less moving pieces involved in that one

I won’t take credit for coming up with any of these options, I’m just going to discuss the logistics of them. So the candidates for the True Dandelion in, what is in my opinion, the least likely option to the most likely option, are:

Kairi: I’ve seen this one floating around and... honestly don’t believe it at all due to the sheer amount of logical contortions that you have to do to make it work. To wit:

Where the hell would she even come from if it was Kairi? As can be clearly seen with Ven, is stated to be true with Subject X, and is implied to be true of Lauriam/Elrena, those who travel to the future using the pods will regenerate their bodies at the age they were when they used the pods. Which would make Kairi at the oldest a four-year-old. Four years prior to KHUx was when Brain was told that he was a Union Leader. So she either would have been just born immediately prior to the war and was just... stolen or something? And we never saw? Or just after the war, where she would probably have to be the child of a Dandelion that got teen pregnant because they’re supposed to be both kids and the only survivors? Or Luxu and Ava’s kid somehow? Like, what? The timeline is just insane with that

If she was born before the war... you would assume that the True Dandelion would be, you know, a Dandelion. Which would mean that Ava handed a Keyblade to and recruited a literal toddler. This would also retcon Aqua being the one to accidentally pass the ability to wield a Keyblade down to Kairi and I refuse to make theories predicated on “the author will retcon this.” You just open up a huge can of worms doing that

The body wrapped in white looked a hell of a lot bigger than a four-year-old to me

I am sick to death of “this character was secretly from the Age of Fairytales~” being employed by the narrative. It’s happened at least three times already (four if you count Luxu). Enough already

Ventus: Ven has some hints, though some notable contradictions to it being him

On the one had, the sheet that the True Dandelion is wrapped in is extremely similar to the one that Xehanort wrapped him in when planning to leave him on Destiny Islands in BBS and there’s a possibility that Xehanort may have found him in that very sheet if he regenerated wearing it

On the other hand: Ventus might not have even been a Dandelion in the first place (he definitely wasn’t a Union Leader, but I don’t know if it was ever said whether he was selected as a regular Dandelion or not), and there’s the timing of the scene that I mentioned above. It’s definitely after Maleficent used her lifeboat but before anyone else used theirs (when you would expect Ven to remain with his friends) and, since the scene doesn’t have the flashback effect, it’s implied to be happening concurrently with everything else, so Ven should still be fighting Darkness in the datascape while it’s happening and eliminating him from being this particular person

Strelitzia: Oh, boy, have we got some nice old hints to Strelitzia, but still a few logical contortions, just like Ven

The white sheet is coming back up again. Namely, the fact that we still have an unexplained scene where Strelitzia appears to Lauriam in a dream wrapped in a white cloak, though it’s of a different style than the one that the True Dandelion is in. That scene also featured flower petals being blown into the wind, much like a dandelion seed (though, notably, the petals that are blown aren’t Dandelion seeds)

The question is, yet again, one of timing. How would Luxu get her body? While she was only introduced in KHUx, her scenes are all flashbacks to before the war, so we know that she was struck down in the real world, not the datascape. We see her body dissolve into light and her heart be released. Now, technically you only need a heart to time travel (actually, a heart is the only thing that can time travel), but Luxu is clearly seen putting a body into the machine. A machine that only allows for time travel because it destroys the body. If he had her heart, he wouldn’t need to use the lifeboat because she’s already in a state to time-travel on her own and this eliminates the possibility of him putting her Nobody into the machine, because without a heart it would just evaporate her body leaving... absolutely no heart to go to the future with

Now, Luxu theoretically could have grabbed her heart. We know that he was hanging around Daybreak Town at the time while observing thanks to his fight with Ava, but Strelitzia is struck down just after the fight with Ava starts so it’s very likely that Luxu was too preoccupied to retrieve her heart before it was gone. Speaking of Luxu’s fight with Ava...

Ava is my current top pick for the True Dandelion candidate due to the sheer number of questions it answers and how few it raises

Ever since KH3 came out, the question of “where the heck is Ava?” has been buzzing around as a major mystery. Her last chronological point of appearance is the same as the other Foretellers: the Keyblade War itself, where she’s shown leading her Union to battle. Notably, she seems resigned to her part in this, and this is the first and only time we see her after her battle with Luxu where he reveals to her the Master’s true plans. Melody of Memory seems to imply that the other Foretellers managed to skip to the future by going to another world, Quadratum (or at least this is the most likely explanation as there’s not enough pods to send all four of the other Foretellers AND the characters that we know end up in the future to their destination). However, Ava isn’t with them and Luxu knows what happened to her

It would be easy to write this off as them trying to drop Ava from the narrative or her not being important, but her chess piece is included in the “Eraqus and Xehanort foreshadow the next saga” chess game on the far right of the board and Nomura confirms that they represent the Master’s six apprentices, i.e. the five Foretellers + Luxu. So, Ava is necessary in the upcoming saga and yet, she didn’t get to the future the same way as any of the Master’s other apprentices leaving her open to get there via a lifeboat

Ava is the very founder of the Dandelions, who all of the others look up to and defer to and was spoken of heavily in the scene just prior to the True Dandelion reveal. That’s grounds for being called the True Dandelion if I’ve ever seen one

Luxu would very easily be able to ensure that Ava would be able to make it to the future. Just like with the Master of Masters, he already has the memories necessary for her to use to regenerate a body, and either her Keyblade or her mask would make for effective mediums that wouldn’t be too difficult for Luxu to take. If he put her in the white cloth, he probably took her mask off already

Ava hasn’t been around for the events of KHUx, so there’s no timeline discrepancies if it’s her

So, now that we have an idea of who the True Dandelion could be, let’s talk about the rest of the lifeboats and how they might fit together. For the purposes of this discussion, let’s assume that the True Dandelion can’t be one of the Union Leaders and that their battle with Darkness is taking place at the same time as Luxu is sending off the True Dandelion. I’ll be referencing an old theory of mine, while making additions now that it’s clear that there’s two sets of lifeboats: the Data Set and the Real Set

Right now, there’s an equal number of Real Pods and Data Pods: 5 each. For the Data Pods, of the seven that we started with, one was used by Maleficent and one was damaged in the battle between Maleficent and Lauriam. As for the Real Pods, one has been used by Maleficent, and one has been used by the True Dandelion. This leaves us with five each.

We can narrow this down further by eliminating people that we know end up in the future. These are:

Ventus

Subject X, who is most likely Skuld based on her description

Lauriam

Elrena* (of note with Elrena is that we actually have no idea where the hell she is at the moment or how she’s going to get into the pods. Furthermore, while every other lifeboat user sans Maleficent has been shown to have amnesia upon waking and Lauriam/Marluxia directly indicates as such applies to him, too, in KH3, Elrena/Larxene’s KH3 scene and character file short story both indicate that she recalls Lauriam and possibly Strelitzia, though she also seems surprised at the idea that she’s part of an ancient Keyblade legacy. I won’t deny that there’s a possibility that she doesn’t use a lifeboat and ends up in the future by other means based on the discrepancies)

So with three confirmed cases, we’re left with one ambiguous case in Elrena and three more possible candidates: Ephemer, Brain, and Player. Four people, and two pods

I want to make it clear that despite what I brought up against Elrena, I do think that she’ll be using one of the lifeboats if only so that KHUx has narrative consistency. They introduced Elrena, they made her part of the investigation on Strelitzia’s whereabouts, so it only makes sense that they need to show us where she ended up for a satisfying conclusion. So let’s slot Elrena in for one of the lifeboats. That leaves one between Player, Ephemer, and Brain

My best guess is that Player won’t be using a lifeboat at all. Not only are they a create-a-character that would be a HUGE pain to try and incorporate into future entries in the series without making a “canon” version and thus ruining their appeal as an avatar, but we haven’t seen or heard mention of them at all in the games set in the present-day. There’s zero indication that they made it, which makes them the most easily eliminated as a lifeboat user

That leaves Ephemer and Brain, and I still believe that Ephemer will be the final lifeboat user, and for the same reasons as stated in the theory I linked at the start of this section. Not only does Brain have the same facial sprite as Eraqus, but he wields the Master’s Defender which will be later passed down to Eraqus and I believe that this eliminates him as a time traveler, despite the fandom’s popular opinion that it confirms it

Because I don’t believe that Brain is Eraqus’s grandfather, but rather his distant ancestor who inherited the No Name and passed down both Keyblades through the ages

So let’s resolve some plot threads taking everything I’ve stated and linked to above into account

My Big Guess for the KHUx Finale

Ventus will use the fact that Darkness is tied to his heart now to give it a physical, but still mostly amorphous form that he, the Union Leaders, and Player can finally take down. Darkness will be sealed inside Ven’s heart, where it will lie dormant until he reaches the future. Eventually, Xehanort will extract it in the form of Vanitas and it will follow Vanitas’s life cycle, ending in him being reabsorbed into Ven at the end of BBS. Darkness, now back in Ven’s heart, will make brief contact with Sora during the events of Re:Mind

Lauriam, upon learning that the world will be sealed with the use of the lifeboats, will attempt to rescue his partner, Elrena. Both will take lifeboats out of the datascape and into the future, whereupon they will be recruited into Organization XIII by Luxu’s current incarnation, Xigbar, likely to keep an eye on them. I believe there might be a squabble among Ephemer, Skuld, Brain, and Player among who will use the final lifeboats (each person nominating others besides themselves), but ultimately they will settle on Ephemer and Skuld

Skuld will wind up amnesiac in the future Radiant Garden and is discovered by Ansem the Wise and his apprentices and dubbed Subject X. She becomes Xehanort’s favorite test subject due to the similarities in their amnesia and possibly some lingering memories that he has that don’t quite belong to him (KHDR Xehanort certainly seems to want to meet his “old friends” very badly)

Ephemer’s heart will wind up in the Keyblade Graveyard as I mentioned in an old theory, unable to manifest a body due to the lack of a medium present. Through this state of being just a heart (and possibly related to those old talks about him being “unchained”), he will be able to enact the Light of the Past moment from KH3, and may very well be revived for future events in the series

This leaves Brain and Player behind in the datascape. However, you may remember one detail that I brought up, but neglected to fully expand on until now. There is a difference between the Data Pods and the Real Pods. While all of the Real Pods have been used up at the time of my proposed sequence of events, the Data Pods have not been. One was never used, only damaged. This leaves open the possibility that it can also be repaired (Also, I’m just gonna say it. Player’s met someone recently who has a magic hammer that can repair anything... might not come back but also totally could). Brain and Player could then repair the final pod and, in a callback to when Player was sent to Game Central Station, have them both agree once again that Player is the more expendable person in the scenario. Brain will take the repaired pod, leaving no way out of the datascape for anyone else, while Player stays behind to be sealed away for the time being (this could also be a callback to the original KHx, where Player also stayed behind to take part in the war instead of fleeing with the Dandelions, as they refused to leave their party behind)

When Brain escapes, however, he will be met with a Daybreak Town with no Real Pods left, as Luxu used one on the True Dandelion. Now that the seven pods have all been used up and the real Daybreak Town is falling to darkness, Luxu will take a corridor out as the Master instructed, but bring the newly appeared Brain along with him (either that or Brain emerges after Daybreak Town falls, either is possible) and bequeaths the No Name onto him. Brain, stranded in the past while all of his friends have been sent to the future, will be Luxu’s new apprentice and rebuild the fallen Daybreak Town as Scala ad Caelum, then pass down both of his Keyblades: Master’s Defender to his biological descendants, and No Name to his apprentices

As for the Master of Masters? I think he’s already taken an eighth lifeboat (you’ll note that there’s space right in the center of the cluster where one more could theoretically fit) and had done so before the start of the original KHx. He’ll be revived at some point in Xehanort’s young adult life to goad him into his insane plans as seen in Re:Mind, then duck into Quadratum to hang out until the next arc in the franchise, as hinted at with his appearance in the KH3 Secret Movie

(He is most definitely not Sora. He’s clearly bound to the same rules of time travel as everyone else which means that Sora couldn’t go back in time to become him as that would be long before the point in time where Sora was born and that breaks KH time travel rules. Not to mention that the Master talks about Quadratum in this update like he’s never seen it before until it came up in the No Name’s range of vision. Sora is literally in Quadratum right now, he’d definitely know what it was already if he was the Master)

And I do believe that should cover everyone’s whereabouts by the end of the game and into the next arc of Kingdom Hearts with minimal plot holes

This is just my best guess, putting together details that I’ve been accumulating for the past year and a half or so into what sounds like a coherent sequence of events that bridge the gap between KHUx and KH3 and beyond. There may be some details I get wrong, obviously. Nomura has been known to be... unpredictable. But I think, based on the evidence we have at hand, that this is the most logical series of events to end the game on and I’m really interested to see how close this gets to the actual finale we see

#anon asks #liz answers #kingdom hearts #khux #i hope that my big guidelines post didn't intimidate you anon #asking me my thoughts on things or if i can do a lore explanation are totally fine!#those guidelines only exist because people were shoving their own theories and opinions AT me without it actually being a discussion #felt like i was being talked over #but something like this is actually encouraged so thank you!#i hope you uh... enjoy because this is a LONG one #about 3500 words and that's not including my old posts that i linked to

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obwjam · 3 years

Note

thoughts on giant matt murdock?

funny you ask... a couple summers ago i actually started writing a little blurb about this that never really came to fruition that i am going to include under the cut ☺️☺️☺️ and i haven’t watched TV marvel in over a year now but:

giant matt would totally be a huge bitch to any tiny he discovered

the tiny would have been doing things seemingly under his nose but matt would sense it every time

soon he would feel the tiny’s fear and soften up

he would be intentionally aloof but he would also leave out food for the tiny. kind of an unspoken friendship

the tiny would just accept this and not question it

matt would hide the fact that he’s daredevil even from the tiny but one day he comes home just absolutely wrecked and the tiny is very scared and concerned

the tiny tries to help the best they can and it doesnt do much but matt is appreciative :)

now enjoy the blurb!

You considered yourself lucky.

You felt bad saying that, too. But most borrowers have to tiptoe around the human they live with, only going out in the wee hours of the morning just to get by. You didn’t have to deal with that. The human you lived with was blind.

It was a borrower’s dream. No need to hide, no need to leave things exactly how you found them. You could stand on the counter with the human while he cooked and take pieces of fresh food right under his nose and he’d never even know! As long as you didn’t make a lot of noise, you were safe.

You had been living here for a while. Your last place was blown to bits. Hell’s Kitchen was not the safest place to be, and you found that out the hard way. But you struck gold wandering into this place. It took a few days to figure out the human was blind, and that was only because you thought he had left for the day but he was actually just in the shower. He looked right at you on the counter but kept walking to his room, completely unaware of your presence. From then on, you… others would say you pushed your luck, but you liked to say you were taking advantage of your situation. You drank hot tea. You ate fresh fruit. You would even climb up onto the couch and listen to the radio with the human. You were bummed you couldn’t watch TV, but you were pretty sure he didn’t even own one. You hung out so closely with the human that sometimes you felt like you were really friends; that you really knew him.

You were out one day, borrowing while the human was lounging around on the couch. You were trying to push something across the counter to make a stepping-stone of sorts to some supplies, but you pushed too hard and the ceramic made an awfully loud screeeeeeeeench across the counter. The human’s head whipped around, his blank eyes staring directly at you. You froze in place, chest heaving, reminding yourself that he couldn’t see you, he couldn’t see you, he couldn’t--

“You’ve really been pushing it lately, you know.”

Your breath hitched and you let a small YIP! escape your lips. Surely he wasn’t actually talking to you. Maybe he was just monologuing to himself. You stepped away from the ceramic and slowly started to tiptoe back to your hole in the wall.

“I’ve stopped myself from saying anything before, but it’s really been getting out of hand, don’t you think?”

It was like your legs forgot how to move. You stood there, a feeling of deep sickness entering your stomach. The human slowly got up and started walking right toward you.

“I mean, I don’t really mind when you listen to the radio with me and stuff like that. But, really, when you start to--”

He stopped just a few feet away. Matt Murdock was now staring directly at you, and while he’d been this close to you before, he never really focused on you all that much. He had heard the tiny heartbeat in his walls since the moment you moved in, but he didn’t think anything of it. He was shocked to learn about the existence of tiny humans, but considering midtown was recently leveled by an alien attack, things like this weren’t all that crazy anymore. You never really did much damage -- he understood that you were just trying to get by.

But now, with his full attention on you, the pace of your heartbeat and the shakiness of your breath scared him. He had never felt such an intense level of fear before. He could hear you breathing so heavily and so rapidly he thought you were going to pass out.

The human began to reach his hand out, and your trance was broken. You took off for the wall, but suddenly you were lying face down on the ground, head throbbing in pain. Something just got in your way.

Matt hummed sympathetically at the way you so helplessly fell down when you hit his hand, but he had to remind himself how rude you were getting. Slowly, he pinched your torso between his fingers and dropped you into his palm.

As soon as you landed on this unfamiliar surface, you tried to find a way off. But he lifted his hand up to eye level, for whatever reason, and jumping was no longer an option. You had to face him. Somehow, his face was painted with wonder, even though he couldn’t see you… or could he?

“H-how-how did you know I was--I was even here? You can’t-- you’re…”

Matt scoffed. “You don’t need sight to see.”

You raised your eyebrow, but the logistics weren’t important to you. All this time… he knew you were here, knew you were borrowing right under his nose… he was pissed. He was definitely pissed.

“P-please… don’t--don’t put me in a jar, I--I promise I won’t-- I’ll never steal from you again! I’ll move away! Please! Just--just don’t hurt me!”

Your fear was so intense that Matt was starting to feel some of it himself. The more intense your shaking became, the more his heartbeat climbed. He almost felt like his entire body was going to rattle with you. And he was starting to sweat… this little guy was absolutely terrified.

“I’m… I won’t hurt you,” Matt said, but he knew his words meant nothing. He wasn’t sure what to expect when he caught you, but he probably should have considered the high likelihood of crippling fear on your end. Matt was used to people being scared of him, but this… this was completely different.

Tears began leaking out of your eyes, and you felt so pathetic. All the times you had walked around right under his nose… he was just pretending not to see you. He knew everything you ever took, everything you ever touched.

“How long were you going to keep taking things from me?” Matt asked out of pure curiosity. He realized after the fact how angry he sounded.

Your words got caught in your throat. “I--I--uh--I mean… as long as I could…” you said that last part so softly that no normal human would have been able to hear you. “B-but I can give you your stuff back! Not the food, obviously, but-but whatever you need, I--I can--”

Matt chuckled. He knew it wasn’t an appropriate response, but he couldn’t help but find the whole situation a bit funny.

“No, no, you don’t have to give my stuff back. I don’t care about missing paper clips and shoe laces,” he said with a laugh.

“Wh… what do you want with me then?”

Matt paused. Honestly, he had caught you because he was pissed. But after getting a sense of you, he didn’t have it in him to keep being nasty.

“I want you to be honest with me. No more taking my food while I’m in the middle of cooking. I can leave some stuff out for you.”

Your jaw was quivering. What were you supposed to say to that?

lol and that’s as far as i ever got

#asks #marvel g/t #g/t #i got really deep into marvel tv for a while but once i started a new job last october i just completely stopped #but now that it doesnt exist anymore i could just finish it worry free lol

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hopeshoodie · 3 years

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I can’t believe it took me until part 8 to do my favorite boy but

Here are the pros and cons of dating

Noah

Cons

Noah is really non confrontational, so he tends to let issues fester. It’s not that he’s trying to let things build up, it’s just that he doesn’t think they’re important enough to bring up. He won’t start a fight about them when they’ve built up, but if MC is angry about something he’ll mention that there’s a bunch of things he’s let go but not have specifics. It ends up coming out like ‘yeah well what about all the other things?!’ ‘what other things!?’ ‘I don’t remember!!’. He’s not actively keeping track of all her mistakes, he genuinely does forgive and forget, but then when tensions come to a boil he needs to point out that there has been conflict that he just ignored. He’s not trying to guilt or gaslight MC, but sometimes it feels like it. If she thinks especially little of his intentions, it feels like he’s just pulling things out of thin air to be mad instead of focusing on the issue. That’s not what he’s doing- he just doesn’t address little things until they feel like big things. But of course he hasn’t done the introspection to truly understand how doing this is hurtful or articulate that he doesn’t mean it to be.

When he and MC disagree, he lets things go wayyy too easily. This is fine if MC is a really mature, self-reflective person who can see that she’s crossed a line after the fact. But if MC is a little more selfish/immature, like Lottie, this is a huge con because he doesn’t give her accountability that would help her grow. We saw this with Hope- she wasn’t able to recognize how harmful her temper was when she was dating Noah because he never pointed it out, he just rolled over. If there’s a genuine problem- financial, emotional, logistically, he’ll ‘let it go’ until it’s a way bigger problem (and much harder to solve).

Sorry that most of these cons are about how he fights with people, but that’s what we saw in-game lol. I’d love to know more about how Lucas or Rahim fight with their partners. But when you’re arguing, Noah tends to focus on really little details of what you said instead of listening to the whole thing and getting a sense of the bigger picture. So let’s say the issue is ‘Noah, I need you to tell me when you’re borrowing my car because you took it to the gym and then it went from having enough gas to get me to work in the morning to being on empty. This morning I had to stop for gas and that made me late.” The issue there is actually ‘please tell me when you’re using my car”, but he fixates on the gas part and says “well fine I can fill up your tank”. So he focuses on little details that he can fix instead of acknowledging the actual problem.

He internalizes things so fucking hard. Yes he intellectually knows that when MC gives him feedback on things she’s talking about his BEHAVIOR and not him as a person, but he definitely feels like shit about himself if he makes a mistake and MC calls him on it. He’ll definitely beat himself up about things for weeks after it happens, and his internal dialogue in general is pretty toxic.

I can see him being a bit of a workaholic. Not in the same sense that Camilo is in Boat Party, but Noah definitely will go into the library on a day he’s scheduled to be off if he has projects to work on or will stay late because he got engrossed in research. Same thing now that the library’s closed because of COVID- it takes him two times as long to put everyone online and work from home, so he’s spending more time working than ever. He views it through the lens of the ‘greater good’- getting that display set up for the patrons is more important that seeing his wife two hours earlier because many members of the community outnumber one person. Plus he just cares so much about his work that he has a hard time seeing it as an inconvenience to other people.

He loves his family so much. Even when MC and he get married and have kids, he struggles to prioritize them over his siblings and parents. So if his little brother Arlo needs money, Noah won’t hesitate to give him a loan even if he and MC are struggling financially. If his aging mom or dad can’t live alone anymore, Noah will invite them to move in with his family, even if their house isn’t big enough to accommodate more people. I can see this being a huge point of contention, especially in that second scenario where MC would have to take on a caretaker role as well. Noah just wants to help people so bad and has a hard time saying no, so that can sometimes impede his partner.

He’s really used to living on low income, and so he has a lot of frugal habits and concessions that he thinks are normal that someone more middle or upper class might find irritating. These are all coming from my experience and things partners have complained about- but think things like only eating out once a month or refusing to turn the heat on until it’s dangerous or making his own laundry detergent. He grew up doing them out of necessity (and still does, student debt on a public librarian’s budget? I couldn’t do it), so he doesn’t realize how strange or frustrating his habits might be to someone who isn’t used to it. He also has a really hard time justifying spending excessive amounts of money, so if MC has lavish taste there’s going to be some conflict.

He doesn’t like initiating anything. Conversations, activities… you know *smirk emoji*. He will, but the ratio of when Noah suggests something to when MC does is like 1:8

My boy is beautiful, and his clothes look lovely, but he has 7 outfits that he rewears all the time. The closest thing to fashion is him putting a different button up shirt underneath his vest. It’s definitely a joke at work that he wears the same sweater, button up, and quarter length shirt just in different colors. You know that vine where the teacher walks into the room wearing the same shirt in different colors, saying the same ‘hello’ for like a million days. Noah’s coworkers remake that with him, because that’s exactly what he does.

He’s a bit of a homebody, and loves routine. For me, massive plus, I love that. But for someone who wants to party regularly or be spontaneous, I can see constantly changing plans and going out with people being really draining to Noah. He has a small group of close friends, so he’d struggle to remember MC’s friends' names if she has more than five. Don’t get me wrong, Noah will take MC to galleries and dates at least three times a month, but it has to be discussed and scheduled in advance.

Pros

Honestly, what isn’t a pro about him? Noah is a steadfast, thoughtful, and kind person. His politics are about taking care of people, providing them dignity and respect, and building community. He loves his family and is incredibly patient. He’s incredibly smart but not at all classist or condescending about it. I know this is supposed to be about how the islanders affect the person they’re dating, but oh my god he’s such a good person I love him. Let’s just say the pro for this is his positive aura.

He’s really good at group dynamics and listening, so he goes out of his way to make everyone feel heard and valued. If someone says something and no one acknowledges it, he’ll specifically engage with them so they’re not left hanging. If someone’s trying to get a word in but can’t, he’ll get everyone’s attention then say ‘so and so had an idea’. He’s not one to boisterously laugh in group settings, but he always makes eye contact and smiles if you make a joke that flops or say something he agrees with. If people are teasing about something, he picks up if it’s gone too far really easily and will gracefully change the subject/tell them to knock it off.

He’s super conscientious about respecting boundaries and ensuring the people around him are taking care of himself. If MC and him are long distance and texting after 10pm, he’ll be like “I love you, but we’ve both got to sleep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow”. He’ll always check and make sure people have eaten when meeting up with them, and if they haven’t he’ll insist they get food from somewhere. 100% gives you his jacket, brings you water bottles, in general just wants you to take care of yourself.

Above all else, Noah just always ensures the people around him feel safe. The last thing he’d want to do is make people uncomfortable, so safe driving, safe spaces, safe sex are all musts. He’s really good in crisis situations because he can calm people down and encourage them to think critically.

Building off of that, he’s really aware of how much of the housework is being done by who and always tries to ensure he’s doing his part. I bet that was a big thing he ripped on Rahim for- Rahim expects his woman to clean up after him and do the bulk of the domestic work, and Noah knows that’s bullshit. I think Noah likes cleaning, anyways, and will usually take laundry/disinfecting bathrooms/cleaning dishes over cooking or running errands. But the mental load of keeping track of recipes/groceries that need replenishing and keeping up with kids needs, he’s aware of the imbalance and does his part. Obvious plus, because it sounds fucking exhausting to date a man. He fucking hates vaccuming though, and will splurge on a roomba.

He has a dry sense of humor that’s very based in puns and hyperbole. Sometimes it’s hard to know when he’s joking or not, but he never makes you feel bad for missing a joke or dwells on something for too long. He absolutely subscribes to the Mcelroys’ No Bummers rule, there are some things you don’t joke about and he’s happy to shut down inappropriate comments or ‘jokes’. He definitely prefers physical gaffs and dumb ways of saying things, so his favorite comedians are John Mulaney and Chris Fleming. While humor isn’t an important part of how he relates to other people, Noah enjoys being around funny people and won’t shut down their energy like Rahim, Marisol, or Hope.

This is just me projecting again but Noah is generoussss. Even though he doesn’t make a lot of money at the library, he still has a ‘mutual aid’ budget each month (and goes over it often). He’s the first one to give money to panhandlers, donate to gofundmes, and give friends/family personal loans. That definitely gets him into sticky situations sometimes, because he has a hard time saying no and can get taken advantage of, but ultimately I think it’s a pro because he’ll never forget where he came from and always prioritize helping other people.

He has a really pretty, deep singing voice and this is a pro to me because fuck I meltttttt.

The shit he says to his partner or spouse? THE most romantic thing in the world. You think Mr. “you’re made of stardust” doesn’t shower his lover with the most meaningful lines at random times? You think he’s not quoting sappho and jane austen when he’s at a loss for words? You think he’s NOT going to turn over in bed on a lazy Saturday and say ‘this is the most perfect my life will ever be’? It’s not even prompted either, yes he’ll compliment Bobby or MC when they get all dressed up for date night, but more often he’ll profess his adoration in the middle of dinner, then take another forkful of food.

Fantastic with kids, and this is a huge pro because people who can work with kids and be patient/positive with them make me so fuckim soft. But if/when (hopefully when because if MC didn’t want kids I don’t think it’d last) they had kids, Noah is happy to be on bottle duty, wake up early to the baby, and generally be a really involved parent. He’ll take a big chunk of paternity leave, and generally be there as much as humanly possible. Even when they have multiple little tyrants running around, he always makes time to be alone with MC and make sure she’s not taking on too much.

He’s basically a lesbian, which is definitely a reason I love him so much. Hear me out- loves milfs, loves 80s music, communicates affection through meaningful glances and playing with hair but will die before explicitly saying any of it, crushes on his best friend for the longest time but never makes the first move, puts way too much emotional meaning and personal metaphors into objects and then presents them as gifts, is into fandoms and actively collects pop figures, is attracted to assertive/powerful women, wears beige skinny jeans, wears VESTS….. That’s a lesbian. He’s a bisexual man, but he’s also an honorary lesbian.

A really good confidant. Noah’s an amazing listener and never judges people harshly- his life philosophy is as long as you’re not hurting anymore or yourself, everything else is details. So you can definitely tell him secrets and confess regrets to him and he’ll listen with those soft eyes and gentle nods. Talking to him about mistakes always feels like unburdening yourself. And he’d never tell your secret to anyone. Doesn’t matter if you cheat on him, lie to him, or die, he’s never going to tell anyone your secrets.

#litg #litg noah #pros and cons

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myherodreaming · 4 years

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Okay sooooo Todoroki , Tamaki and Shinsou when starting a family. Like fron being told that they are going to be dads to the moment the baby says its first words ? They all are going to have girls and Todo has twins because I'm weak to the knees with that hc. Sorry for bothering you

Omg no, it’s not a bother at all!!!! Dad AU is like my favorite thing of all time, I live for it tbh! And I also got your ask about writing for Mirio instead Shinsou, and I can definitely do that, no worries, it’s really sweet that you took the time to do that, I appreciate it ^^ When I start writing for Shinsou I’ll be sure to let you guys know! (Also - I’m not going to name the kids bc I suck at that, sorry!)

TODOROKI SHOUTO

For Shouto, even deciding to take the next step forward in your relationship was huge for him - fatherhood has a different weight for him than it might for someone else. He just knows that when he becomes a father he wants to do the best thing for his child(ren) and be the father he wishes he could have had.

So when you tell him that you’re pregnant, it’s a Big Deal to him. He immediately gets a little teary-eyed and holds you soooo tight. He just buries his face in your neck and murmurs, “I’m going to be a dad.” When he kisses you, you’re both smiling into the kiss.

He’s thrilled, but also super aware of the responsibility it is. From day one he does not take it lightly. He is reading up on everything about taking care of babies and making sure that everything is ready for when the baby comes.

He is the most caring when it comes to morning sickness or any other discomfort you might be feeling - he will do whatever he has to do to make things easier for you.

He pays special attention to your stomach nearly every night, talking softly and promising that he’ll do his best as a dad and saying how much he already loves him/her.

And then you find out that it’s actually TWINS and he is SHOOK - in his mind this kinda changes everything. He was mentally prepared for one baby, but not quite two so it takes a short adjustment period.

But the two of you talk it out and formulate plans for financially and logistically taking care of two babies, and it puts both of you really at ease again, and honestly he just starts to get excited that now there will be two babies to love, and that can’t be so bad, right?

And before he knows it, you’re calling him to say “This is it, it’s happening, I’m in labor *general panic ensues*” so naturally, he rushes home and takes you to the hospital, and he wants to freak out too, but he keeps a calm face hoping it will help you to stop panicking so much, he hates seeing you like this.

He holds your hand the whole time, lets you scream at him, and prays you don’t break any of his bones (you have quite the grip, it turns out)

But all of that is forgotten when you both hear first one, and then another cry, and when the nurse sets the babies on your chest for you to have a look at them, Shouto peers down too, and he is instantly in love in a way he hadn’t realized was possible.

You and your two beautiful, perfect baby girls are suddenly everything in the world to him. He looks at you with wonder in his eyes and presses one soft kiss after another to your lips, then ever so gently kisses each tiny forehead.

The two of you pass the babies back and forth and coo at them and just look down at their tiny scrunchy faces in awe - you can hardly believe this is real, it all feels like a dream. Finally the nurses come to take the babies away so you can have a bit of a chance to rest and you suddenly realize how tired you are.

Shouto spends the entire night in the hard, uncomfortable chair by your bed, and every so often he’ll just reach out to brush the hair away from your sleeping face. He just loves you and your daughters so much.

Life with two babies is hard. It definitely takes some time to work out the best way to take care of them both, but somehow, the two of you do it. You make a great team, and that’s especially evident now.

He’s such a caring, attentive father - he wants to make sure each and every need is met and that both of your girls get plenty of love. He’s always kissing their chubby cheeks and blowing raspberries on their stomachs to see them giggle. It’s heartwarming to watch.

They both say their first word on the same day - one is “kitty” because she’s obsessed with your cat, and the other is “Daddy” (he’s gonna pay for that later but he’s so over the moon he doesn’t even care)

Bottom line, sometimes he worries whether he’s really the best father he can be for your girls, but you’re always the one to assure him that he’s doing the best you could possibly hope for and you wouldn’t change a single thing about your life right now.

AMAJIKI TAMAKI

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to Tamaki that you’re pregnant, because the two of you have been hoping for a baby for a while now, but you know your husband and so you know that you have to tell him as gently and carefully as possible because you know he’ll still freak out.

You take his hands and smile at him, and he can tell something is up so oh god he’s getting nervous already, but your soft voice calms him like it always does. “Tamaki, I took a test today. I’m pregnant.” And he’s just... blink. blink. realization. When it hits him, his eyes go so wide, and he covers his face with his hands and leans into you.

You wrap your arms around him and ask if he’s okay, and he finally takes his hands away from his face so he can hold you close and murmurs, “I’m just so happy.”

And he is - he’s absolutely over the moon, nothing can ruin his high. Whenever he’s cuddling you, his hands are always at your belly, giving it feather-light touches as he talks softly to your baby.

Your morning sickness does make him a bit nervous, and he’s always there to rub your back and make sure you’re okay, he wonders if you should stop working now and you just laugh - you’re on desk duty anyway, you’d go crazy if you stopped working with 7 months of your pregnancy to go.

He’s always asking you how you’re feeling and doing everything he possibly can to ease your workload at home. He takes on most of the work in the nursery because there’s no way he’ll let you be around the paint or the heavy lifting involved in assembling all the furniture.

The closer it gets to your due date, the more worried he gets about all the things that could potentially go wrong, and you end up having to reassure him a lot.

When the day comes, he’s a MESS. He feels like he’s floundering around while you’re the one taking charge which just makes him feel worse, but he gets you to the hospital and he refuses to leave your side the whole time despite the urge to puke which never quite leaves him - he knows you’re going through much, much worse. He keeps talking to you, and finally it’s over.

When I tell you he cried when he saw your daughter for the first time - he took one look at the little tiny face and the teeny pointed ears and just lost it. Part of him wanted to curl up into a little ball to process all of this, but that would mean he had to take his eyes off of you and his daughter and that is one thing he will not do.

He gives you a very salty, wet kiss before he settles in next to you, half-sitting on the bed so he can get the best view possible of this impossibly tiny little human that was created by the two of you. He doesn’t even know how long the two of you spend, just looking down at her.

He doesn’t even care about any hospital rules or whatever, he just crawls into the bed next to you as soon as the nurse leaves, and cuddles up to you, telling you to sleep now because you’ve had a long day and you deserve it. Meanwhile he just lays there with you in his arms and thinks about you and your daughter.

He is the sweetest Dad ever. He always makes time for her, even when he has to go back to work he talks to her and kisses her little face and helps you out as much as he can.

HE IS SO PROUD OF HIS DAUGHTER. He wants to show her off to everyone. He cannot get enough of her.

Her first word is some form of the word “butterfly” because he points one out to her whenever he sees one and one day she saw it first and pointed to it and tried to say “butterfly” and his heart exploded in his chest, rip Tamaki.

He tells you every chance he gets how happy he is, and how he wouldn’t trade his life for anything.

TOGATA MIRIO

(Have you seen Mirio with Eri? SWOON, he’s going to be the best dad EVER)

The two of you have spent so much time with Eri that it isn’t long after you’re married that you decide to have a child of your own. It just seems like the natural next step.

The two of you are sitting there side by side waiting for the test results, and you’re practically shaking in anticipation, he has his arm around you to keep you calm - but you snatch up the test the moment the timer is up and when you see the positive result you both SCREAM.

He is cheering and spinning you around, he is so excited to take this next step with you because he can’t wait to watch you be a mom to your child. Then he sets you down very carefully because he’s remembered that there’s a baby inside of you and he wants to be gentle.

He is the one kissing your stomach at every opportunity, telling the baby how much he loves it and how excited he is to meet it. He has full blown conversations with your stomach, which makes you laugh, but you can’t helping feeling all warm inside when you think about what a great dad he’s going to be.

He is right there every step of the way, helping you out with whatever you need and taking care of anything that he can so you don’t have to. He just wants to make life as easy for you as possible since you are growing an entire human being.

He goes all out with the nursery, making sure that your baby has the best of the best in everything, and as many toys as possible. The room is stuffed to the max, you can hardly move in it.

You wake up in the middle of the night and realize that this is happening so you shake him awake, and he immediately sits straight up - he practically carries you all the way to the hospital (you have to remind him that cars exist)

Once you’re there, he’s right by your side, chanting as much encouragement as he can at you and insisting that you squeeze his hand as hard as you need to. Seeing you in so much pain is very hard for him, he nearly cries (and it’s totally not because you’ve just crushed his hand), but soon enough it’s over.

When he sees your little girl for the first time, it’s all over for him. He’s absolutely smitten. He just wants to hold the both of you in his arms forever. He alternates between kissing each of your foreheads, saying “I love you” over and over again.

It feels like the two of you are in your own little world, floating on a cloud of happiness. Even with all of the struggles that come with taking care of a baby, you face everything together, and your little girl makes it all so worth it.

She’s so cheerful and happy all the time, the sound of her laughter makes Mirio’s heart practically beat out of his chest. Making her laugh is his new single mission in life.

Now, you know that Eri is absolutely smitten with her. She sees her as much as possible, always playing with her and making her giggle. So when her first word is “Eri”, it doesn’t really come as a surprise, but it sure stings a little. She’s so cute when she says it, though, that it passes quickly.

Mirio is just BIG HAPPY. He couldn’t ask for a better life or family, and he makes sure that he tells you that every day.

#I AM SO SOOOFFFTTT #mha x reader #bnha x reader #Todoroki Shouto #Todoroki Shouto x reader #Todoroki x reader #Amajiki Tamaki #Amajiki Tamaki x reader #Amajiki x reader #Tamaki x reader #Togata Mirio #Togata Mirio x reader #Mirio x reader #request

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chibivesicle · 3 years

Text

Golden Kamuy chapters 267 & 268. Filling in the gaps and learning how Tsurumi was involved in the gold.

After a few chapters that I was expecting to be more rewarding falling flat, things are starting to pick up. We first learn about Kiro’s involvement and how his relationship with Wilk became strained. Before they broke Sofia out of prison, Kiro decided to tell Sofia more details before actually reuniting with her. It is unclear if this story was relayed to Sofia via the milk ink or if Kiro wrote this with regular ink meaning anyone could have read the information. What this page does tell us, is that Sofia learned this information prior to meeting Asirpa and Ogata likely knows something about what was written. Noda wouldn’t just throw him in the background for no reason.

I wonder if this information was already shared between Kiro and Ogata?

The chapter title page has an image of Wilk, Riratte and Asirpa as a family. Clearly, a visual parallel with Tsurumi, Olga and Fina indicating that the two men have fates that are intertwined.

When Kiro saw Wilk holding Asirpa, he knew that something was different; he loved her and his family and as a result his priorities would change. Kiro is not happy with this while Huci smiles next to him.

This is an interesting story since Tsurumi is retelling what Kiro wrote to Sofia, clearly in Russian. Tsurumi is dominant and in charge of things as he makes Sofia when he mentions the man Kimuspu. The last remaining person who knew where the gold was hidden. At the same time, somehow Tsurumi learned of this information.

The panel informs us at certain key members of his elite inner circle knew about this, Kikuta in the back, potentially even working for Central at that point in time, Usami close to Tsurumi and Ogata and Tsukishima in the front with Ogata also more distant from Tsurumi.

This confirms what Ogata told us all the way back after the Barato arc with Hijikata. That he referred to how Tsurumi knew what happened to the seven Ainu men without indicating if he was there or not. I loved how Ogata just said that Tsurumi was the intelligence officer who examined the crime scene. Time and time again Ogata speaks but only gives enough information to catch someone’s attention.

The flashback told my Tsurumi who wasn’t there at the time is in part based on what he knows from Kiro as well which is something to keep in mind. The men convened at Noboribetsu, clearly in a kotan close to where Ariko is from.

The group of men were meeting to discuss it and Wilk is leading the discussion. Not surprising at all since he is a natural leader. His back is to us in the middle panel as they talk.

The rest of the men are revealed. The first man who speaks is clearly Ariko’s father, Siromakur based on those eyebrows. The cast of the soon to be doomed men are revealed with a wide range of beards and eyebrows. I’d guess it took a lot of effort to find seven Ainu names and this might be why this plot point is so late, as it is known that Noda avoided names currently in use to be culturally respectful. I will note that Mesira, Irenka and Ratci all have no light or sparkle in their eyes, making them look like they may have had more bad experiences. Sukuta looks like a nice guy.

Maybe it is just me but Oskeporo gives me major Kirawus vibes? I want to see your eyebrows Kirawus! Are you related to Oskeporo? They are both wearing dark clothing, my brain wants to say Oskeporo has a blue attush with white trim.

It looks sort of similar to Kirawus’s - or maybe he’s also from the Kushiro region? In the next chapter we learn that Oskeporo is from Nemuro. That is pretty close to Kushiro since Kirawus was working in Nemuro at the fisheries when he met Hijikata.

Anyways back to the main events. The men realize they need to find the old man, Kimuspu quickly so no one beats them to him, since of course people told other people about it. . .

As they head out Kiro finds Wilk and he’s pissed off. The text bubble tells us he’s beyond upset and he’s got a clenched fist. Finally, we are getting some clarity on why things broke down between Kiro and Wilk.

Even though Kiro had integrated himself into the local Hokkaido community, his best friend left him out of things. Of course, Kiro was always dedicated to their original greater cause as he’s Tatar/Karafuto Ainu and perhaps knows that Sofia is in prison in Karafuto?

Wilk tells the other men to go ahead and so that he can talk to Kiro one on one. Kiro is hurt and angry being excluded from these plans. It indicates that knowledge of their meeting was more well known than Wilk likely would have preferred. Ainu told each other about the gold, the old man, and the leaders meeting to discuss it since Kiro found him easily. Or did Ogata tip him off? Was this the beginning of the cat alliance?

Wilk tells him that they should change focus to only protecting Hokkaido based on logistics. This ignores the places where they grew up and therefore the other ethnic groups.

Tsurumi then asks Asirpa if she understands the difference between a regional ethnic nation that shares land borders with Russia and other countries making them difficult to defend. Which is the exact same reason Tsurumi wants to make Hokkaido an independent state and why Hijikata also likes it. From a strategic perspective it does make a lot of sense, but it excludes most of the minority groups they were fighting for all these years.

This exchange between Kiro and Wilk explains so much of why Kiro said Wilk changed. He sees it as a betrayal and abandonment of the Russian far east and Karafuto. Wilk calmly states they will encourage immigration of different groups.

This is clearly upsetting to Kiro as his skin is covered with the chaotic screentone. This is always used when a character is upset and reeling from learning something that they don’t want to hear. I love the fact that a very similar screentone is used in Ogata’s flashback in 165 talking to Yuusaku. Ogata appears calm but there is emotion behind his ice cold responses.

Interestingly, the screentone with the curved lines is only used with Ogata specifically, and it doesn’t show up again, but both show an inner turmoil.

Kiro argues that because Wilk’s village immigrated to Hokkaido, that is why they failed in part due to going to a place they were unfamiliar with and different ways to survive.

Wilk replies that he understood by the Karafuto Ainu immigration failed and just says ‘we need to avoid repeating those mistakes’. Really? Why do you tell us what they are Wilk? Does he really have an answer for that or is he just saying this hoping Kiro will calm down?

Kiro is quickly able to point out flaws for some of the ethnic groups and Wilk has a cop out of an answer, it will be up to individuals to make that choice. Kiro may be upset, but I think he is correct by telling Wilk his priorities have changed with the birth of Asirpa. These men have known each other for most of their lives and acted in an organization where they had to trust each other deeply.

I do like the switch to see Asirpa’s reaction, she loved her father but she definitely saw Kiro as an uncle figure and did no know about their falling out at all to change her opinion of them when all of this started.

Wilk artfully dodges Kiro’s question by saying he’s being realistic. I don’t think Wilk wants to confirm what Kiro said in stoic Slav fashion. If anyone has been following my meta for some time, you’d know I’m a huge fan of Kiro, so I like the next page. Knowing Wilk, he calls him out on it - he found a place to call home, he loves his family and his priorities have shifted to protect his current home. But Kiro is still holding a torch for Sofia, and wants to break her out of prison and help his own people. The fact Wilk doesn’t even respond tells us Kiro is right.

Asirpa quietly reflects on this. It clearly explains so much about what happened and in a way Kiro showed her Wilk’s original plan with the intention to help the partisans. Tsurumi summarizes the legitimacy of these contrasting goals. His position in the chair reserved for the priest as well as his contemplative expression makes me think that Tsurumi is confessing to his own feelings that are divided within himself.

The page ends with Tsukishima watching things blankly, a frown and stress lines under the eyes - how is he feeling in this very moment?

The flashback continues as Kiro loses it mentioning that Sofia is still waiting for them. This must mean that Kiro has continued to keep tabs on her or maintain some knowledge/limited communication with her. He charges towards Wilk and the two fight, but Wilk manages to get him in a headlock victorious.

Asirpa then is able to tell Sofia that she knew that Kiro had feelings for her, so of course he’d want to go back for her. Of course she didn’t learn this until Kiro died but it does make a lot of sense. Sofia listens closely, but it is still unclear how well she understands Asirpa speaking Japanese.

The fight ends with Kiro on the ground and he lost his shoes in the fight somehow. It is unclear if this is a drawing error by Noda since Kiro is frequently shown bare feet, partly to signal his death in Karafuto, but other times he seems to like having free toes.

Asirpa’s explanation is that Wilk knew the Kiro loved Sofia and he avoided Kiro. It a way it would be a dick move to have a family that he loved, while Kiro can’t do anything about the woman he loved who was their comrade in arms.

Sofia looks so sad here, two men she loved and cared about are dead in this entire mess. The chapter ends with a beat up Wilk tying Kiro to a tree and we see him now barefoot. Did Wilk take his shoes off to prevent him from chasing after them? I don’t know or if Noda accidentally gave Kiro shoes a few pages prior.

But now we finally know the event that lead Kiro to tell Inkarmat that Wilk changed. And we as the readers know he changed. Kiro is pissed off at Wilk and this was the rift that separated the men and their goals for the gold.

Kiro realized that he and Wilk now had different goals and it was what ended their friendship. The next chapter starts with a somber and sad looking Kiro writing the letter. Which now we can see is an ink letter. He reflects on how that was the last conversation he had with Wilk, which likely wasn’t how he had wanted it to go.

Wilk tells him this is for Asirpa’s benefit and her happiness. Apparently, he decided to gift Asirpa with this path based on the fact that he felt Sofia was a good leader/role model. I mean besides the fact that Sofia gave up her chance to live a normal domestic life. It is clear Wilk was impressed with Sofia and her character but it still shows that Wilk is putting her in a situation she didn’t ask for.

Yet, Asirpa isn’t upset by this. She echoes Wilk’s way of thinking which is just like Koito Sr. So in a way she has more in common with Koito and his role to do things his father expects from him. Though Koito’s older brother already died in the service so it isn’t like she has a younger sibling.

Tsurumi seems to suggest that Wilk could have just slid into obscurity and live his life in peace and quiet. Does this mean that Tsurumi wanted to live in peace and quiet with Fina and Olga?

Asirpa boldly tells him that it isn’t possible as the Ainu would disappear. As the Ainu are intrinsically linked to the kamuy. The Ainu must respect the kamuy and in return if they forget them they will disappear.

In reality this was the assimilation of the Ainu into Japanese society, losing their links to the kamuy and their cultural identity.

Tsurumi finally responds that the fate of those wanting to protect the kamuy was not good. He looks like he’s barely able to control himself as he’s got his deranged look on his face. So scary that Sofia and Asirpa are shocked.

The flashback then continues from Tsurumi’s point of view. Though we need to realize he may not be telling the truth. The fact that Tsurumi was able to track down Ariko Sr. implies that the secret wasn’t super secret! Good job of keeping things under wraps Wilk and other Ainu dudes. Tsurumi starts off with flattery to get comfortable with Simorakur.

For example he clearly comments about his son being in the army and making sure he is sent the knife to remember his identity. Interesting the other men with Tsurumi are Usami and Kikuta. Tsukishima and Ogata are no where to be seen.

Tsurumi is told he is too late, the other men went in search of the older man and therefore the gold over a month ago. Of course Ariko’s dad decided to leave the group because of the disagreements that began to occur as some of the men threatened the families of others including Cikapasi’s grandfather. Not sure why bringing Cikapasi into this part of the narrative makes sense since he was fine in the story as an orphan who found his family in Karafuto. . . . I wonder if this was supposed to read that the man was Sukuta and he had a younger brother and grandfather. With Cikapasi being the younger brother . . .

Tsurumi turns on his charm and calls Simorakur, a polite Mr. Ariko (obviously Ariko-san in the original) and ties the loyalty of his family to the Japanese to be important. That his family is serving the government in a good way.

The tells Tsurumi that the six men all had pretty big egos, and drastically different viewpoints so they were not a good alliance. But that one man was able to draw them together and resolve conflicts easily and he was a natural leader. That man of course, was Wilk. The flashback allows Tsurumi to learn about this natural leader who is also knowledgeable and even used a fact that Tsurumi told him when talking to the men.

The next page shows Wilk as a mystery to Tsurumi at first. Of course, he’s got the cross scar on his face marked likely to link him with Christian symbols and he’s offering his hand to the viewer, not unlike how Asirpa first offered her hand to Sugimoto.

Tsurumi is impressed and wants to know more about this man. Of course the big reveal is when he learns who the Karafuto Ainu man is. His eyes go white in shock and likely out if his desire to kill him. We also get an even better view of his torn sleeves. Likely the kidnapping of Koito happened recently and he did a poor job of repairing his white uniform.

So, Koito was kidnapped in Hakodate, recently but Usami wasn’t involved in it. Did Usami just join him? As Koito’s flashback only reveals Kikuta, Tsukishima and Ogata. Not surprisingly, his calm exterior is shaded with the hatched screentone again, just like Kiro in the last chapter.

Tsurumi then tells Asirpa and Sofia that he shot a single poison arrow at Wilk, his eyes completely white. He tells Simorakur that Wilk was a partisan fighting against the Russians and had come to Hokkaido for the gold for the partisans.

And he quickly departs and watches as he lead Tsurumi, Kikuta and Usami to the gold. They hear gunfire and are unable to keep up with everyone else. In the morning they find one of the men stabbed with a makkiri. So Tsurumi knows that Wilk didn’t kill any of the men.

If we go back to chapter 70 Ogata tells Hijikata what he knows as Hijikata implies he knows that Kiro is likely a partisan. Now it is hard to tell if the knife in chapter 268 matches one in 70. But Ogata makes it clear that all of the knives had notches on them.

Does this mean that Wilk actually did damage everything? Or did Tsurumi make this up to frame Wilk for the deaths so that Wilk appeared guilty? Or did Wilk actually do this out of cultural obligation? I want more information since right now Tsukishima and Ogata aren’t involved.

Did Ogata find Kiro and untie him from the tree? Did the cat alliance form while he was out of the range of Tsurumi?

The chapter then ends with Tsurumi telling them that Wilk skinned himself, removing his face and putting it on another dead person’s severed head.

Yay! This now at least lines up with Asirpa’s statement that they found her Aca’s nose and ears to identify he was one of the dead.

A long time ago I had reasoned that Wilk disfigured himself by cutting off his nose and ears, but this is a much more gruesome way to fake his death. Did he know someone like Tsurumi was onto him? My biologist brain really wonders how he was able to do this with out a sterile environment and way to protect the healing skin and face and protect the muscles and argh it just seems far fetched to me from a biological perspective. I figured the nose and ear part would make more sense since GK has had ear removal and off page nose removal.

But hey this is GK! People seem to have great healing abilities! So might as well extend this to Wilk’s entire face.

What these two chapters have show is that Tsurumi has let his own emotions control his place in the hunt for the gold.

I wonder when Kikuta started working for central and if he told Ariko what really happened to his father. Or did he always keep this secret from him and instead betray him, which is in part why he felt so guilty when Usami beat the crap out of him before sending him off to be a double agent?

Kikuta does have more of a moral compass that Usami and we now know he has some sort of inspirational role he played with Sugimoto before he joined the military.

I am still underwhelmed by these developments. I was hoping for something bigger but right now Tsurumi looks like a man who was already angry at the Japanese government for the death of his family in Russia, who then doubles down on it when he learns the man leading the Ainu was Wilk so he goes after him.

At least we know why Kiro was so upset with Wilk and why he felt like Ogata had to kill him so that they could take Asirpa to Karafuto and to meet Sofia.

#golden kamuy #Golden Kamuy manga #tsurumi tokushirou #asirpa #sofia #tsukishima hajime #Usami Tokishige #warrant officer kikuta #ariko rikimatsu #ariko simorakur #cikapasi #wilk

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itsthenovelteafactor · 4 years

Text

Umbrella Patrol: Part 1

Still in a TUA headspace, and really enjoying Doom Patrol! I feel like there is a lot of potential for fun crossovers between these shows, and some neat parallels between them. Here are some very disorganized ideas because I’m too busy to write out an actual fic:

note: these are primarily based on s1 of Doom Patrol and s1&2 of tua because I am still in the middle of watching Doom Patrol s2. I would love (love! love! love!) to chat with other people who like both of these shows, but know i am still in the “avoiding s2 spoilers” stage. I might do more of these after I finish s2, hence “part 1″

- they would not get along well in the beginning because, let’s face it, neither group has a very good track record for getting along well with anyone ever. (love them all to death) would a fight break out? probably. would all of the team members and powers and general chaos get so confusing for everyone involved that they would have to stop fighting to try and figure out what was going on? most likely.

- Five definitely knows about the Doom Patrol from when he worked at the commission and was probably very relieved to not have been the person assigned to deal with the whole De-Creator/Re-Creator debacle.

- Vic is probably at least aware of the Umbrella Academy because they were pretty famous as kids, but has no idea what really happened to them after except there was this huge scandal a few years ago when one of them wrote a book about how they were all secretly assholes? Something like that.

- Allison is a fan of Rita’s work (I’m thinking she played one of her characters in a remake), but remembers hearing that she was kind of a terrible person? She isn’t sure. I feel like it’d be awkward initially but they’d end up vibing and talking about acting and Hollywood and having the team braincell.

- Diego: So... you’re a robot. Cliff: Yeah. Klaus: Not that there’s anything wrong with that!! Diego: Our Mom’s a robot.

- Cliff is like “well, I nearly died and then the guy who I thought was my mentor did an experimental procedure on me that left me in a body that I’m uncomfortable with and feeling like a monster and a freak and I’m unable to interact with people and be seen as normal because of it and am also incredibly strong and worry about accidentally hurting the people I care about and oh, turns out the guy who I trusted and thought was my mentor turned out to be the worst person ever who was only using me as a means to an end” and Luther’s just “same hat!”

- There is definitely confusion around the whole “we travelled back in time to the 60s were not actually from then - can you imagine we’d be so old now?” and “we are actually from the 50s/60s we’re just long lived due to a series of horrifying experiments that were done to us wtf you’re all literally children”

- Dorothy sees Five and is like friend! My own age! And Vanya tries to gently explain that Five is mentally 58, he only looks 13 and that’s how they figure out that Dorothy’s actually over 100 years old. Somewhere in the confusion Five ends up agreeing to attend a tea party.

- Klaus meets Danny. Enough said.

- But also,,, let’s say more because it makes me very happy to think about. Klaus meets Danny and just feels so at home and gets to talk about fashion with Maura and drag his siblings into singing karaoke and the Hargreeves get to show off their A+ dancing skills

- TBH, they all try to explain what’s been happening with them and the Hargreeves all thought “well out lives couldn’t be any weirder” and then they hear about the puppet show and are just like “...okay, nevermind. we were mistaken. please continue” while for the most part the Doom Patrol are like “okay, butler’s a chimp, that guy’s in love with a mannequin, all checks out”

- Larry and Klaus talking about their time in the military and dealing with homophobia. Larry and Luther talking about isolation and taking care of plants.

- Vanya playing the violin while the Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter paints.

- They at one point get drunk and have a “who’s father figure was worse” competition but somehow halfway through it devolves into Jane and Diego each being that one John Mulaney bit (do you want me to kill that guy for you?? because it sounds like he sucks, and I’d totally kill that guy for you)

- Cliff definitely has some Robot-envy around Grace like, wow she looks and moves like an entire regular human wtf Niles? she shows him how to make smiley-face pancakes.

- I have no idea how this would work logistically but Ben and Larry would vibe you can’t change my mind.

- There was definitely some crossover between members of the Cult of the Re-Creator and Destiny’s Children (I’m not sure which one was first chronologically, but I was thinking about the one guy who was like “this is way better than last cult I was in” and how funny it would be if he was talking about Klaus’ cult) . I feel like Klaus and Dr. Harrison have a very weird kind of bond over it.

- Vic “I am literally asking for the bare minimum here in terms of heroics please could you all just follow simple instructions for twenty minutes so the world doesn’t literally explode” and Five just *acknowledging nod of mutual frustration*

- Mr. Nobody keeps talking about crossovers and some guy from My Chemical Romance. no one quite gets it.

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haifengg · 3 years

Text

Summary: You show up to your first night shift but you didn’t really manage to adjust your sleep pattern.

Genre: Fluff!

It was literally your first nightshift ever.

as you assigned for it you were just a little bit worried but mostly excited.

seeing common places at strange times of the day can be really interesting

different lighting, people and an overall different feeling...

but since you did never work the night shift before you don’t quite know what is going on at your company during the night

other coworkers have warned you about it, saying the nightshift is usually busier than the day shifts

but it pays much better so you thought ‘why not give it a try?’

you arrive at your company’s building a few minutes late

checking in through the main entrance showing the security your employee badge and walking straight up to your office

which you usually didn’t share even though it has two workspaces

due to staff shortage you are used to getting everything done yourself and also keeping you busy for 8 hours straight

but today there was aöready someone there

so you carefully opened the door and entered the room, not sure if you maybe made a mistake and messed up the date of your shift or something

“Hi, ehm, today’s the 16th, right?”

The man gets. up and looks at his phone

“Yeah it’s march 16th. Oh you must be Y/N? I got told we would be on the night shift together. I’m Seungsik.”

You shook his hand and then walk past his chair to get to your desk

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know there would be someone else here. Is it really that busy at night they need to people?”

“Sometimes. But you can never really tell beforehand. Just see what happens and roll with it.”

So you roll with it

and turns out: tonight would be a chill night

for the first three hours or so the two of you would work on the emails and papers that come in and get the paperwork done which the dayshift left for you

around 1 am Seungsik gets up and stretches

“You want some coffee?”

“Yes please. I feel like I am falling asleep any second.”

He snickers. “But it’s only 1 am. You have 5 hours ahead of you.”

“I deal with that once I get to it.” You joked and he left the office laughing, saying he would be right back

“So do you work here fulltime?”

You shake your head and take a smal sip of the steaming hot coffee and immediately regret it

“Part time.” You answer. “I am a student but I work every shift I can. You?”

“I study part-time and work here the rest of it.”

“So you study logistics or something?”

“That sort of thing.” He leaned back in his chair

You decide it is time for a break so the two of you get comfy in your chairs

Seungsik has his legs crossed and his security badge resting in the pocket of his dress shirt

you put your scarf on your thighs like a blanked about an hour ago

sitting like this you chat for a while about this and that until you find out you both study at the same university

“How come I’ve never seen you on campus our departments are not far from each other.” he exclaimes

“Not far? It’s the other side of the campus. Across the track fiel. How is that not far?”

“You see”, Seungsik sais. “I study logistics and not architecture. What do I know about numbers?”

You admit: “Touché.”

half an hour later you get back to work

a ton of emails did roll in while you talked

you are busy with that for the time being

But something is different than before though

since you talked with him that much and you got along so well you wondered if it would be okay to ask him for his instagram or number maybe?

Just to see if he is wroking any other shifts or ask work related questons ofc

but that yould be so weird, right?

after all you didn’t know each other and is older than you as well

you aren’t studying in the same semester

perhaps he even has a girlfriend? You didn’t ask him about so you wouldn’t know

at 3 am you start. yawning non stop

your eyes tearing up everytime and you sniff

“You good?” Seungsik looks at you amusedly

you shake your head once more: “Yeeah, I’m good!”

He laughs “Yeah sure.”

His fingers move quickly over the keyboard, filling out forms routinately while you barely manage to answer and email without too many typos

Minutes pass and you don’t even notice how your lids slowly fell shut and your minds starts drifting away

“You can go to sleep.”

His words woke you up and you twitch awake

“What?” You look around blinking. “No, no I can do it.”

Seungsik looks at you with softly smiling eyes reassuring you it’s alright and that he means his offer.

“It’s alright, there’s not much to do. I can take care of it myself.”

“What if someone checks by?”

“That never happened to me during night shift. At htis time people are just doing the bare minimum to keep this place running until the morning. Just sleep.”

After a bit more of ‘No, I will get through this’s and ‘But you will fall asleep as well’s you finally give up and settle in your chair

“but if there is anything you need an extra hand with you wake me up??”

“Yes of course. Don’t worry.”

the clock on your computer showes 5:30 am when he wake you up

the sun is about to rise and lime-washes the buildings infront of the window in a slightly lighter shade of blue

the last half hour of your shift nothing happens so you eventually gather your things and take the elevator down to the entrance

on the entire way you guys don’t say a word to each other, now both desperately trying to stay awake

after signing out you halt at the door

“Seungsik?”

He turns around “What is it?”

“Would it be very weird if I ask you for your phone number? Just for work related things of course! If I maybe have questions or to check when or if we’re are working together again?”

“It wouldn’t be too weird. I wanted to ask you about yours as well. Just -” He pauses

“Just?”

“I wanted to get your number for personal reasons. But if you only want to be colleagues than that’s fine with me! I didn’t even ask if you have a boyfriend maybe or a girlfriend. Either way would be great for you.”

You laugh and suddenly feel that huge relief

“You can have my number for such purposes! Working with you was a lot of fun, thank you.”

“Not that you worked much but yeah I can just give that right bak at you.”

“But you told me it was okay to sleep!”

he cackled and his laughter chimed across the street making some people turn their heads towards you

“I know I know. Now give me your number or I will miss my train.”

And just like this morning comes

Masterlist

#can this please happen at my company #pretty please #all i am asking for is having seungsik as my coworker pleasse #bruh as if #victon seungsik #kang seungsik #victon scenario #victon scenarios #victon imagines #victon seungwoo #seungwoo #sejun #victon sejun #do hanse #victon hanse #byungchan #victon byungchan

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let-it-raines · 4 years

Text

your wonder under summer skies (10/?)

Summer in Storybrooke, Maine means one thing for its residents: tourist season. This year, for Emma Swan and Killian Jones, it means relationships ending and friendships changing all the while they attempt to figure out just what their relationship is. It’s somewhere straddling the line between friends and lovers, and there’s no guarantee of a soft landing if they fall into new territory.

rating: mature

ao3: beginning | current

tumblr: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |

-/-

“Swan? Let’s do what?”

Emma’s lips are parted, and he keeps waiting for her to finish her sentence, to say something. He was rather interested in hearing what exactly she was about to suggest that they do, but she’s no longer paying him any attention.

What could have possibly gotten her attention?

Killian twists his head around to look behind him, and it would be impossible to miss Neal.

Neal and Tamara and the way that they’re standing hand in hand in line for the Ferris wheel like some kind of cliché out of a bad movie that plays on TV every Saturday night.

Well, fuck.

Killian’s hands fall from Emma’s hips before he moves them to her shoulders, tugging on them and trying to get her attention. It doesn’t work at first, but then she’s blinking and shaking her head before snapping her mouth shut, her lips pressed into a firm line.

“Hey, let’s get back to my place, yeah? The fireworks will be soon, and we don’t want Liam and Elsa to get the good spots. Liam’s got that huge head, so he might block the view.”

Her laugh in response is pathetic, and she obviously knows it from the way she overcorrects and attempts to make her laughter genuine. It falls flat. She’s an open book to him sometimes, he wishes all the time, and right now, he knows the path her mind is about to take.

He would know. He’s pretty much paved the damn path for her.

“What the fuck is he doing here?” she hisses, eyes slanting.

“It’s a holiday. Everyone here spends it at the pier.”

“Not Neal. Never Neal. He told me every year that he would never come with me. That asshole.”

Emma pulls away from him, and he loses his grip on her shoulders as she storms off toward Neal. Her swan falls off, and he has to lean down to pick it up.

Bloody hell.

Is he ever going to get to quit chasing this woman?

“Emma,” he shouts before cursing under his breath. He doesn’t need to bring attention to them. “Swan, hey.” He has to jog to catch up to her, tugging on her wrist and pulling her back and away from the main path until they’re standing between two booths.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to go yell at that fucking bastard for showing up here with her.”

“That is not going to make you feel better.”

“Really? Because I think getting to tell him that I absolutely despise him would make me feel a hell of a lot better.”

“For a moment, yeah, but then it all goes away and he gets the satisfaction of knowing that he is still affecting you like this.”

She scoffs and rolls her eyes. He may be a stubborn ass, but she’s the exact same way.

“Really? You’re telling me this? You, who if I remember correctly, had sex with me to forget about your ex when she showed up, is preaching about momentary satisfaction not being good enough.”

Killian flexes his hand and tries to keep it from balling up into a fist. He’s got the stuffed swan in his left hand, and it’s already straining from how he’s clenching it. Damn thing. He hates how easily it hurts now.

He hates that this is the way Emma is about to be, but if she’s going to have to realize that he’s more than capable of giving what he gets.

Stepping closer to her, Killian dips his head down until his looking into Emma’s eyes. “Aye, that I did, but I was not the first to do it and I also regretted treating you like that. I think it may be smart for you to remember that before you decide to throw stones at me because you’re upset with Neal.”

Her jaw clenches, and her eyes cut away from him. He can feel the heat radiating off of her, and her chest heaves as she breathes. There’s this part of him, something he knows is primal, that can’t look past the way her breasts look as they move or the way that he can see her stomach when he looks down. She’s been wearing a bloody bikini all night, the flannel shirt on top of it not at all buttoned, and he’s tried not to think too much of it.

He has spectacularly failed. The woman is a temptress.

But she is also his best mate, and none of that is what he should be focusing on since it doesn’t even make the list of his priorities at the moment.

“I think I need to be alone.”

“Swan – ”

“It’s…you’re fine. We’re fine. I’ll be on the rooftop at ten like I’m supposed to be so we can all watch explosions in the sky. I just need some time to breathe.”

“Emma.”

She finally looks at him. “I’m not going to talk to Neal. I promise. See you later, okay?”

“In half an hour, love. I’ll save you a seat.”

“Good.”

And then she’s walking away and turning in the opposite direction of Neal and Tamara. Killian, however, can’t seem to do that.

He’s seen Emma upset more times in the past month and a half than he has in the past five years. There have been times when she’s broody and annoyed and mad as hell, occasionally at him, but it’s never been like what he’s seen lately.

It’s never been heartbreak that she’s been attempting to hide.

If he’s honest with himself, he’s never cared this much either.

Right now, though, all he can think about is what a fucking idiot Neal has to be to cheat on Emma and to keep doing things that are going to upset her.

She doesn’t deserve it. No one does.

Well, Neal Cassidy might.

He and Tamara are still standing in line at the Ferris wheel, but Killian now realizes that they’re not in line at all. They’re simply standing there talking with Neal’s hand on Tamara’s ass as she throws her head back in laughter.

If Emma wanted Neal to come here every year, Killian can’t understand why he wouldn’t. They were together for half a decade, and the man couldn’t come once? It’s not asking much. Hell, it’s barely asking anything.

But he’s here with the woman he was sleeping with behind Emma’s back?

Maybe he should have let Emma tell him off because that would feel so damn good right now.

Breathing in, Killian pushes down the urge to walk toward Neal and decides to walk past him. Momentary satisfaction, he reminds himself. If he discouraged Emma from doing it, he can’t be the hypocrite.

Damn does he want to be.

Fortunately, or unfortunately really, for him, Neal seems to want to let him have the opportunity.

“Hey, Jones.”

Fuck.

Killian stops walking and slowly turns on his heels. Cassidy is walking toward him, his girlfriend staying back where they were standing, and Killian is definitely going to rip the head off of this swan before the night is over.

Better it than Neal, he guesses.

(Logistically. He would much rather rip the bastard’s head off, but he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life in prison.)

“Cassidy,” Killian greets, but he doesn’t offer anything else.

Neal smiles and laughs before sticking his hands in his pockets and shrugging. Is he trying to look nice? Because it sure as hell isn’t working.

“Can I talk to you for a minute? In private.”

“You can talk, but you can talk here. I’ve got somewhere to be in a few minutes.”

Neal’s eyes narrow, and he looks down at Killian’s hand. Out of instinct, Killian wants to pull his shirtsleeves down and cover his scars, but that’s not what Neal is looking at.

“Look, man,” Neal sighs, that same, insincere smile on his face, “I saw you walking around earlier with Emma, and I feel like I’ve got to warn you.”

Oh, this asshole definitely deserves to have his head ripped off.

“Pardon?”

“You and Emma.” He shrugs again while Killian straightens his shoulders. “I always kind of knew you two had a thing going on, but I didn’t believe it until I saw you walking around with her earlier. I’m cool with it and all, but I don’t think you know what you’re getting into with her. There are a hell of a lot consequences when it comes to choosing to be with Emma, and they’re not good ones.”

Killian swallows as his teeth start to grind. What kind of bastard is this man? Who the hell does he think he is to tell Killian that there are consequences to being with Emma? Killian wants to laugh, he really does. He wants to laugh and tell Neal that he has no idea what he’s talking about since Killian is most definitely not with Emma.

Mostly, he wants to knock the man’s front teeth out and break his fucking nose. He used to not be this bad. Killian was rarely a fan, but Neal had his redeeming qualities. They could have been friends in a way.

He doesn’t mourn the lost opportunity there.

“What could you possibly know about choosing Emma?” Killian sneers, stepping into Neal’s space. “Because it seems to me that you didn’t, that you did the opposite of that, and for you to think that you have any right to what she does with her life has got to be the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard.”

“So, you are fucking her then? I was right.”

It’s like he’s just been slapped across the cheek.

“What could possibly make you think that?”

“You wouldn’t be defending her like that if you weren’t.”

He scoffs and closes his eyes, his breathing heavy. “You said there were consequences to choosing Emma, aye? Well, I would still choose her every damn time even though I’m not with her. You, on the other hand, left, and the consequences of that mean I never want to hear about you trying to interfere with her life again. Go spend time with your girlfriend, Cassidy. I’m sure she’d love to know that you’re still hung up the woman you left to be with her.”

“Fuck you.”

Killian bites his tongue and focuses on the feel of the stuffed swan in his hand to keep him from doing something stupid.

“Emma has always deserved better than you. It’s a shame it took you hurting her to see it. Fuck off, Neal. I think it’s time that you moved on.”

“Neal?” Tamara calls from behind them. “Is everything okay?”

Neal blinks, slowly, and then the smile on his face transforms from sinister to charming. “Just catching up with an old friend.”

And then he walks away and goes back to Tamara.

Killian has no idea what just happened. All he knows is that he’s pissed off, still desperately wants to break Neal’s nose, and he doesn’t know how he’s going to act normal around everyone when they’re watching the fireworks.

He just really needs a damn drink.

But he is not paying for an overpriced one when he’s got perfectly good rum at home.

It’s easy to get back to his apartment once he gets out of the crowd. It’s quieter, too, and he can hear voices coming from the rooftop already. The darkness of the night makes it impossible to tell who’s up there, but he’ll find out soon enough. When he walks inside and makes his way upstairs, Skipper is asleep on the couch. He doesn’t bother to do more than lift his head when Killian comes in. Some guard dog.

Killian puts the swan down on the kitchen island, reaches into the cabinets for a bottle of rum, and takes a long sip. He doesn’t need a glass, not yet.

“You planning on sharing that?” Emma asks.

Shit. He didn’t even know she was here yet, but she’s sitting in the dark corner of the living room with her knees pulled to her chest.

“Do you want some?”

“You don’t have my wine, so yeah, yeah I do.”

She stands from the chair and walks over to him, grabbing the bottle out of his hand before taking a long, slow sip. She’s usually not much of a rum drinker, but it does happen on occasion.

“Why aren’t you up on the roof with the others?”

“Didn’t feel like climbing up there yet. You know, it’s really a shame that the fire escape is not on the side of the building that your room is on. Would have saved me once or twice.”

“I’ll have a talk with whoever built this place a few decades ago.”

She huffs and takes another sip before putting the bottle on the counter. “I wasn’t ready to see everyone. I don’t know. I felt like maybe I couldn’t keep it together, and I…well, I felt really damn pathetic.”

“Hey, hey, no, don’t do that. I – ” Killian sighs and reaches forward to put his hand on her shoulder, squeezing. “Do you want to go to my room and talk? I know we don’t have our slushies, but I think it can still work.”

“To talk or to…”

His lips press together. “To talk, love. Come on.”

Killian gently pushes Emma out of the kitchen until she’s walking toward his bedroom. He grabs the swan off the counter as a last-minute thought before following her. She doesn’t turn on the lights, so he doesn’t either. Instead he moves to open the curtains on all of his windows so that moonlight filters through. The fireworks will be starting soon, and he doesn’t want to miss them. He’s got a pretty good feeling they won’t make it up to the roof tonight, but he’s fine with that.

His mattress squeaks as Emma settles down, and it shifts when he joins her, the both of them settling against the headboard and under the comforter. It’s silent for awhile, and while Killian thinks Emma is going to take the lead, he finally realizes that she isn’t.

For once, it might have to be him making the first move.

Out of the corner of his eyes, his scars flash silver in the moonlight, and all of the sudden, Killian has this unbelievable need to share something he hasn’t talked about in years.

Something he’s never wanted to tell Emma before, but now, it’s all he can think about.

“Do you know how I got the scars on my arm, love?”

She twists her head. He’s not looking at her, but he can feel her gaze on his face instead of his arm. “No.”

“I was in an accident.”

“When you were in the Navy?”

Killian clicks his tongue. If only.

If only it had been that. He imagines that might be easier to deal with when it’s all said and done, but that’s not at all what happened.

“It was a car accident, actually.” He swallows and braces himself. If he focuses on simply staring at the painting of a sailboat hanging above his television, he might be able to get through this. “I was with my girlfriend at the time. Her name was Milah. We’d been out to dinner, and I was driving us back to my place. The roads were empty. I swear, I’d never even seen them that empty, and our light turned green so I started driving when an SUV ran a red light and crashed right into us in the intersection. I don’t actually know what happened after that, but the police report said we flipped several times before hitting a tree.”

A soft, small hand brushes against his own, and he spreads his fingers so Emma can twine hers together with his. It’s the most comfort he’s felt in ages, so he doesn’t stop himself when he brings their joined hands to his lips.

“Milah died in that accident, while all that happened to me was my hand getting caught in the door and shards of glass leaving some pretty nasty scars. I don’t even know how I stood up again after Liam told me she was gone. I didn’t think I would survive. I was so young and in love, and I thought she and I had the entire world in front of us.”

Emma squeezes his hand, and really, it’s better that way instead of her trying to say anything.

That’s not why he’s sharing this.

“I was so heartbroken. I’d never felt pain like that before, but then, as I started to make funeral arrangements, I got a call from her husband telling me that I was not welcome. I didn’t know she had a husband, that she had a son either, and it was like I was grieving two different things: the woman I’d lost and the woman I thought I knew.”

“Killian.”

“Don’t,” he whispers, pulling their arms over Emma’s shoulder and tugging her closer. “Don’t say anything. I don’t want pity. I simply felt like you deserved to know this about me and to know why I am so unbelievably fucked up when it comes to relationships. I loved a woman who lied to me for years, and I loved her still even after I knew about it. That anger you feel toward Neal? The one that’s mixed with betrayal and sadness and this underlying love, I have felt it. Sometimes I still do, and you are not pathetic for feeling anything that you’re feeling. I don’t care how many times we have to have this conversation. I will tell you the same thing every damn time.”

“Maybe one day I’ll actually be able to listen to you and believe it.”

“It takes time, and while I’m sure one of our friends is much better equip to understand emotions, I know that I understand you, Emma. I always have, and though you piss me off half the time, I’m never going to judge you for anything.”

She sighs, her shoulders moving with it, and then she leans her head over to his shoulder, strands of her hair tickling his chin, and Killian tugs her closer before brushing his lips against her forehead. There’s a loud whistle outside and then an explosion of light that flickers down over and over again as the fireworks show starts. the view isn’t quite the same from in here, the height of the windows not quite right, but he’s not going to complain. There are things much more important than lights in the sky.

“Do you want to hear something stupid?” Emma suddenly asks.

“I always want to hear something stupid.”

“I’ve never won a stuffed animal before. Hell, I’ve never even had one as a kid.”

Suddenly, he gets why it was such a big deal to Emma that Neal come with her to the festival. He understood, partially, but sometimes he forgets that Emma’s childhood wasn’t ideal. It was hard and painful from the few things he’s been honored to hear from her, and even with how much his sucked, it wasn’t like Emma’s. He at least had a few good experiences before his mum died and before his father became one of the biggest asses in the world.

It’s not a competition in who has had a shittier life, but it does help him keep on understanding her. A few days ago she made some off-hand comment about having a few minor run-ins with the law as a teenager, something about stealing food from convenience stories, and it clicked in his mind why she doesn’t like when Neal works at the pawn shop.

She doesn’t want to fall back into her past, and she doesn’t want to take any risks that are going to lead her there.

Knowing that and knowing that Neal must have known too, makes Killian seriously regret not breaking the man’s nose.

“It’s not stupid, love. If it’s important to you, in any way, it’s important to me.”

Her laugh is lost amongst the sound of the fireworks, but he still hears it. It’s a good sound to be able to hear.

“I always wanted to get to play the games as a kid, but I didn’t have the money. So, I don’t know. It was nice. It was stupid, but it was nice. I’ll have to find a place to put it in my apartment even though I’m not sure where in my apartment it would go.”

“On that chair in your bedroom where you put all the clothes you’re supposed to put up but never do.”

“Shut up. Just accept that I’m thankful for it. Don’t make fun of my laundry habits.”

“Sweetheart, I’ll win you however many stuffed animals your heart desires. No questions asked.”

“Then I expect several next year.”

Killian laughs into her hair as something unfamiliar settles in his stomach. “It’s a deal.”

-/-

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