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kodzukyan · 3 years

Text

better with you (until it kills me)

notes: it's always missing baji hours here </3 fluff, angst; alternative ending: always, always you

summary: four times you think you are in love with baji keisuke, and the one time you tell him.

wc: 3.7k

You're reasonably sure the only reason he chooses you to pair up with for the Japanese literature project is that you sit next to him, but it surprises you all the same. You don't think you have much of a presence in class, but you don't think you can say the same about your new partner, Baji Keisuke.

His slicked-back ponytail and thick frames make his presence seem like a poindexter, but there's something about his bruised knuckles and his fierce aura that makes him feel ferocious. You've noticed him hang out with the school delinquent on multiple occasions. You also think you've seen him laugh wildly as he beats up some of the local thugs who crowded around the said delinquent he's friends with.

He isn't who you expect him to be at first glance, and that intrigues you more than you like to admit. You're too nervous to openly ask, so you settle for stealing glances at him from the corner of your eyes.

So, when he really decides on you and submits the partner form, you don't know what to think.

In the time that you two are partners, you've discovered a couple of things about him. First, his handwriting and kanji absolutely suck. Despite that, he writes a letter addressed to someone named Kazutora every week without fail. As if that isn't endearing enough, it gets even more so when he pouts at the complex characters that he often gets wrong and the inevitable smile that breaks out whenever you show him how to write them correctly.

("Oh, thanks! I would probably fail my kanji tests without you and Chifuyu. Kazutora probably can't even understand what I'm saying," he laughs rambunctiously.)

Second, he's genuinely an unexpectedly good partner in terms of being punctual about meeting up. However, despite being on time, there is little progress on the project. Your work times often end up in discussions about random life topics rather than the project itself.

(“Do you like cats?” he asks out of the blue one day, head on the table and books already forgotten.

“Uh, yeah, I guess so,” you humor him because you’re also tired of researching Japanese literature.

“Wanna see my cats? They’re all strays,” he sits up suddenly, eyes lit and smile bright.

You nod, and he proceeds to take out his phone to show you pictures of his cats. You note his lock-screen is a picture of all his cats, and his camera roll is just full of his friends and mom, motorcycles, and the said cats. With shining eyes full of excitement, he tells you their names and their personalities in detail.

"Do you think cats recognize their names but choose to ignore us whenever we call them?" he resumes the conversation after he finishes showing you his gallery. He leans back as he balances his pencil on top of his pursed lips.

"Maybe. Depends on the cat? Maybe they just hate you?" you mimic his pose. You suppose thirty minutes of work is enough progress for the day.

"Ouch," he grimaces as if it shatters him directly in the heart.)

Third, sometimes he comes with his hair down and without his glances, with stains on his clothes that he claims are ketchup, despite it not smelling like that at all.

("Uh, hey, sorry I'm late today," he offers sheepishly as he runs a hand through his unbound hair.

"Oh, it's okay," you finally say after you take in his shaggy appearance. You try not to think about how handsome he is despite the bruises forming on his face. "Are you… okay?"

"All good! The ketchup bottle just randomly exploded," he laughs nervously and awkwardly. "Anyways!! The project!!"

You stare at him dubiously but nod anyway. "Okay, if you say so…")

Fourth, he has an extremely charming smile, especially when his fangs are in full display. To some, it may look fierce and menacing; to you, it looks cute, especially when his eyes are always brimming with life and his laugh is full of vitality.

More often than not you catch yourself staring at him because he's just so intriguing.

You try to ignore your racing heart when your stolen glances become shared ones, and he flashes you a grin softer than the smiles you've seen.

-----

“Uh, hi.” You say shyly as you enter through Baji’s window. It’s not frequently you seek out Baji at his own home, especially through the window he keeps open almost exclusively for stray cats to seek shelter.

“What the fuck?” Baji drops the stray cat he's cuddling as you give a slight wave, causing the cat to meow loudly at the sudden change in demeanor.

“Sorry to drop by unannounced. I, uh, just wanted some company.”

You feel vanishingly small as you awkwardly laugh and piece together some words that make sense. Home is supposed to be full of warmth, but your home is more of a house with people than a home with love. It’s a truth you’ve long accepted, but some days, it feels a little extra cold.

Therefore, you run, and somehow you end up here, in the comforts of Baji’s room.

Maybe you are currently a stray cat, feeling a little more lost than found. Maybe you find that he’s the sort of comfort that warms you a little when your heart feels heavy. Maybe you are just a little bit in like with him, and he is the first person you want to see whenever you’re feeling down.

The room is silent aside from the soft paps of cats moving around and the periodic meow. Then, he pats the spot next to him, and you make your way there. As soon as you sit down, he hands you a cat.

“Here, hold her. She’s nice,” he comments as he places the calico cat he dropped earlier in your lap, petting her as she adjusts to her new position on you.

She narrows her eyes and softly purrs in your lap as Baji pets her, and this makes you feel more in the moment than in your head like you’ve been. Your initial baffle turns into a smile as she purrs louder when you pet her, and just like that, you feel a little more found than lost.

You lean on his shoulder as you continue petting the calico cat in your lap. You keep your eyes on her as she climbs onto his lap and nuzzles him in an attempt to hide your burning cheeks and your drumming heart from your proximity.

“Thanks for giving me a home when I don’t want to be in my own,” you tell him softly, airly, almost as if you’re letting him in on a secret.

He stops playing with the cats for a moment and pauses. Feeling his intense stare, you peek through your lashes up at him. His broad grin and sharp canines are in full display, and his smile looks a little more boyish than wild. He tousles your hair as he laughs aloud boisterously before he props his head on top of yours.

“You’ll always have a home here.”

-----

It all started when a group of thugs looked at you inappropriately and made some comments that made you uncomfortable. You grip the ends of his sleeve just a little harder and press yourself behind him, trying to make yourself impossibly small. Baji, seeing your small form and downcast eyes, removes your hand from his sleeve and places it in his hand. Knowing Baji and him knowing you and your every mood, he does not stand for it. He simply flashes you a reassuring grin before he squeezes your hand and runs straight at them.

He throws the first punch, and you could just stand there in shock as he pummels through them and beats them up. He has cuts and bruises everywhere, and you’re certain he’s taken on a few nasty hits on his ribs. Though you’re equally confident that these thugs are absolutely 100% in worse shape than he is.

“Oh my god,” you sob frantically as Baji wobbles back to you, ferocious smile on his face softens as he sees you. He pats your head when he notes your teary eyes. You’re not even sure when you start crying, but the tears just don’t seem to stop. “Are you okay? Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Are you -”

He clutches your tear-stained face in his hands, “Look at me.”

Your eyes meet his, but you can barely see him over your tears as you continue your incoherent rambling.

“Hey,” he tries once more, voice more frantic as he struggles to find words. He finally just squishes your cheeks and yells, “Do you think I care about anything else but you right now?”

Your eyes widen, and the tears forming fall freely onto his hands. Oh, oh, oh, you think to yourself as your beating heart rapidly thumps at an exponential speed, maybe he’s also falling. When you meet his steady gray eyes, the shocking realization that maybe you’re not the only one dumb and possibly in love stops your tears.

He sighs in relief when your tears gradually stop, and as if all the tiredness accumulated in his body hit him all at once, he falls down onto the ground.

You try to catch him as best as you can, and with the combined effort of mostly himself and partially you, he breaks his fall. He lays sprawled out on the ground. After you check for wounds and find none too serious, you sit with your knees tucked under you by where he lays and moves his head onto your lap.

All around you are the battered bodies of the thugs you’ve encountered, but all you can see at the moment is him and his gray eyes that disappear into crescent moons as he flashes you a grin. He’s too tired to move, but he raises a fist up into the air in victory anyway.

“I got you.”

-----

"Wanna go on a ride?" he texts you.

It’s almost midnight when he texts you, and it’s probably way past when you should stay up. But your heart flutters at the thought of adventure, at the thought of him, so you quickly respond, “Okay, but be quiet! Don't wake my parents up again, stinky!!!”

You can already imagine his sheepish smile when he sends you a "that was once!!! my bad" back.

After sending him a quick ":p", you silently put on some clothes more fitting to go out than your pajamas. The sound of his motorcycle announces his greater-than-life presence long before his text does. Grabbing two scrunchies, you sneak out your window.

He only greets you with a goofy smile and a wave, hair free-flowing in the wind. Under the moonlight, his gray eyes twinkle with vigor and youth. It knocks the air out of your lungs as you glance at him because he's beautiful, ethereal, and alive. He smiles smugly when he catches your stare, but he holds his hand out for you to take.

"Hi," you whisper under the twinkling stars as you put your hand in his.

"Hey," he whispers back as he curls his fingers around your hand before adjusting to interlace your fingers together.

The quietness and intimacy of this moment drown out the world - the sound of cars driving by, of cicadas flying, of the world standing still. The only thing keeping you from floating is his hand and the sound of your heartbeat.

"I got you a hair tie." You offer softly with an equally soft smile, eyes pointing to the scrunchies on your wrist.

"I got you a hoodie," he responds as he nods to his motorcycle. "Because I knew your dumb ass would, once again, forget to dress for the winds."

"I'm dressed decently enough. You, though… please tie your hair… It hurts like hell when it whips in my face," you laugh lightly.

He rolls his eyes. "That's also what you said last time before you ended up stealing my hoodie, and I ended up being cold!" he complains, but there's a certain fondness in his voice.

You only stick your tongue out childishly at him. You would rather bite your tongue than admit that you are always slightly underdressed for the occasion so he would keep giving you his hoodies.

He tugs your interlaced hand and pulls you closer, and as you stand so close to him, you think close isn't quite close enough. The two of you linger in that position for longer than what should be appropriate for friends, but you think you have been tiptoeing around that line for a while now. Your heart races, and you're sure your erratic heart is beating fast enough to generate heat to keep you warm against the cold winds.

He pulls away first, moving to grab his hoodie before he roughly puts it on you. He laughs when you complain about your ruffled hair, but as his hoodie and scent engulf you, you could only shyly smile. He takes a scrunchie despite complaining about how poofy it is. As he settles in his bike and you settle in behind him, arms tight around his waist, you think this is probably what holding the universe in your arms feels like.

He rives his bike loudly despite your warning, but you find that you could care less right now as he takes off. You are young and dumb, but the wind is running through your hair as the two of you are chasing the moon, and it makes you feel so alive. Neon lights and starlit skies blur together as he speeds through familiar roads, and the brisk winds drown out your loud laughter. It feels like you're feeling everything at once, but your head is so clear.

You think you can understand why he loves riding so much because the only thing that you can hear is your loud heartbeat, and the only thing that matters is you're living.

He finally stops at a local 24-hour diner. The moonlight shines through the window by your table. You are still feeling the wild wind in your hair, cold air on your face, and the warmth of Baji’s back on your arms. It's way past midnight now, and the yellow lights of the diner feel a little more homey than dingy. He’s munching on some fries, occasionally waving one in your face whenever he’s trying to make a point about something. As you watch the various expressions on his face, a smile makes its way to your face.

“Hey Keisuke,” you grab a fry and jab it at him in the middle of his sentence. He stops his mid-word as he stares at you, head tilting slightly and mouth still gaping. There is a particular word that you keep thinking of whenever you think of Baji, a feeling that lingers and fills your heart up. You know what it is. You think you know at least, and in moments like these when you’re just watching his goofy self munching on fries while boisterously laughing at something dumb, all you can think of is those four letters.

“You’re my best friend,” you whisper before you eat your fry. Best friend, you think, encompasses a lot of things and feelings as you stare at his childlike grin, heart fluttering and mind blanking because all you see is him. You hope he knows, hope he gets that best friend is a loose term because he is so much more.

When he meets your eyes and his gray eyes crinkle in mirth and laughter rolls off his lips, you think he does.

“I know,” he smugly nods before he drops another fry into his mouth. “I guess you’re pretty cool too.”

You stick your tongue out at him and feel a warmth in your heart that matches the pinks of his cheeks. Maybe it’s adrenaline still in your blood, maybe it’s the moment, but it makes you devious, brave even, as you lean over and chomp down on the fry he's holding.

He stares at you with his mouth wide open, looking absolutely flabbergasted and offended. “Hello? That was my last fry!”

“Sorry,” you giggle, not feeling all that sorry at all. You know he’s not truly that offended because he has that stupid grin on his face, because he’s always soft with you. A part of you does feel a little sorry when you see the small pout that arises on his face. “I’ll treat you to yakisoba later?”

He turns away from you, face still slightly sulky as he huffs silently.

“No? You don’t want yakisoba?” you ask. You still find it amusing that Baji Keisuke, the first division captain of the Toman Gang who would punch someone on the streets for no reason other than just because he feels like it, is pouting because you stole his last fry. If anyone from any rival gangs sees Baji Keisuke now, they probably wouldn’t believe this is the same person.

“Fine,” he huffs softly, “But don’t think one yakisoba is enough.”

“Then,” you begin, your heart pounding loudly in your chest as you work up the courage, “What about this?”

He turns to you in confusion, and before your courage runs out on you, you crash your lips onto his before you pull away.

“Repayment,” you mutter meekly, eyes avoiding his because you’re sure he can feel the heat radiating off your cheeks from where he’s sitting.

“Hey,” he tugs on your hand under the table. When you finally look at him, he continues, “Just one isn’t enough.”

He kisses you again.

-----

Home is supposed to be the place you come from, but you think it's more like a place you find, pieced together from scattered bits of feelings, emotions, people along the way. Somewhere along the lines, home becomes less of a place and more of a person. Your home becomes the boy with the sharp canines and long hair that gets tangled by the stray cats he keeps, the "I love you" declared loudly with kisses and the longing looks in between, the comfortable warmth of his body next to yours as you chase sunsets and live in your own infinity. Your home is Baji Keisuke and the constant image of him in your mind and the infinite pieces of him in your heart.

Infinity, though, is awfully short, you think, as you see him lay surrounded by bouquets, eyes closed in eternal slumber. He's always looked good in white, but when his tan complexion is nearly as pale as the white roses surrounding him, you think white is an awful color on him. His eyes always shine with possibilities and promises, and while you've always joked that his sleeping face is cute because he always looks so innocent, adorable even, all you want now is to see him awake.

His heroism and love for his friends are always something that you love about him, but in turn, it feels so incredibly cruel to you now. For as short as he has been in your life, he becomes pieces embedded so deeply in it that it makes you whole. You cannot imagine a world where there is no Baij, where he isn’t there to punch a hooligan on the streets or feed stray cats at night or hold you when your world is crashing. You cannot imagine a life where he isn’t here to shine a bright light in your life without his laughter and goofy personality. Suddenly the world blurs around you, and you can't breathe as droplets of water hit your clenched hands on your lap.

You hold his hands. Cold, cold, cold, when they used to be warm enough to light a fire in you. There are so many things you want to tell him, say to him, but the speech you prepare in your head drowns in silence as your voice gives out on you. All the words in your head just come out as broken sobs. You feel the sympathetic and equally broken glance of his mom as she embraces you, but all you can think about is that he won’t open his eyes.

Baji Keisuke has always been bigger than life, you think, because he becomes a part of everything in your life. There are traces of him everywhere - him with his cats on your lock-screen, the random memes he sends you at night, the little notes he leaves you written in his ugly penmanship with love. When you think of these things, you feel like your heart is breaking all over again.

People tell you to be strong, and while you want to retort because how can you when he’s gone?, you find that you cannot say a word without crying. You’re tired of crying too because your eyes are already so, so raw, but it seems like all you can do is cry. When you think you've finally run out of tears and your tears finally stop, a new batch takes over even at the slightest things that remind you of him. You feel so pathetic because you can't do anything without water leaking from your eyes, and you hate yourself for being so weak.

You tune out the somber tone of his friends and the broken tone of his mom because you don't want to accept a reality where he isn't here. But luck is never on your side because he never opens his eyes again, and you never get to tell him how much you love him. All you get are flashbacks and memories of him and emptiness in your heart and soul. You tell yourself you have to be strong and smile and live for the both of you, but you can't. Not when he isn't here, not when he isn't with you anymore. Every time you think about that fact, your heart breaks again.

"Hey, stupid," your broken sobs ring loudly in the deafening silence, "I love you."

The words you’ve wanted to tell him for so long are finally in the open, but there is no answer.

#baji keisuke x reader #keisuke baji x reader #baji x reader #tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo revengers x y/n #tokrev x reader #baji fluff #baji angst #tokyo revengers imagines #tokyo revengers fluff #tokyo revengers angst #i... i just really miss baji :(#come home you stinky head </3 #i'm sorry if he's ooc :(( in my head he's just really dorky and soft w his s/o HAHA #rissa told me to make it angst so i made it angst 👍#sometimes i write things

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familyfriendlyweed · 3 years

Note

hi there ! was wondering if you could write some hc’s on what it would be like to go trick-or-treating with cc!p!benchtrio ? ? tysm in advance if you write this ^_^

hiya! thanks for requesting! <3 i tried my best to write this before halloween, hehe. hope you enjoy!~ ♡

trick-or-treating with cc!bench trio (all)

tw - Tommy refers to all of you as "boys", also mentions you potentially having a peepee but the reader is gender neutral :D

all of you had celebrating halloween together in mind since Ranboo arrived at UK

and as the days started becoming cooler, windier and shorter, you only grew more excited!

all of you planned and prepared your costumes in secret, not telling anyone what you'll be dressing as

these were the very last days Ranboo will be staying in UK, and this made all of you sad, but you tried your best to push away these thoughts away and celebrate this halloween from the bottom of your heart!

you agreed to not stream the trick-or-treating, as views weren't in your heads at the time. you guys just wanted to have fun!

Ranboo was dressed like a vampire, Tubbo - a zombie, and Tommy - a pirate :D

you all decided to go with the more classic costumes, since if they're done well, they could look really original!

the trick-or-treating of course couldn't go without a sprinkle of chaos here and there

"you press the doorbell!"

"pussy!"

"move aside, i will press the fucking doorbell!"

"did you guys ever go trick-or-treating? pressing the doorbell is a part of the whole thing, y'know..."

some people that opened the door ended up recognizing you, so they took pictures with you guys, and you were more than glad to do so!

after a couple of hours of walking around the neighborhood, your legs started growing tired, and you all sat on a bench in the park to count your candies and to announce the winner who has the most candies

you all walked in the cozy light coming from all the houses, surrounded by other people trick-or-treating or just taking walks. the night was filled with laughter and cheerfulness.

"okay, i think it's time to make a tiktok." Tommy spoke, plopping down on the bench. you all looked at him, giving him looks. he looked back at you guys :

"whoot? we haven't checked our socials for like four hours, people will start to think we were kidnapped or somethin'!"

as idiotically it sounded, you had to admit, you guys had to share something with your fans already. all of you were content with the few hours you all got only for yourselves.

"okay! then let's count the candies and see who got the most!" you exclaimed, sitting down next to Tommy. Ranboo and Tubbo joined you guys as Tommy got his phone out.

"hello tiktok! me and the boys were trick-or-treating!" he showed you, Tubbo and Ranboo to the camera and you all waved, "we will now all count our candies, and see who got the most, and therefore has the biggest d-"

"okay, okayy, that's enough!" Ranboo laughed, as you and Tubbo giggled, "man, i sure hope it's not me."

"Ranboo, pussy man, he was even scared to press the doorbell!" Tommy exclaimed, pointing at Ranboo as if accusing him of something.

"well- well someone gave you got an apple, so beat that!" Ranboo huffed, crossing his arms.

"DO NOT LISTEN TO HIM BOYS! FREAK MAN IS LYIN'!! I GOT ALL THE CANDIES!!" Tommy yelled at the camera, trying to throw the apple to Ranboo as the rest of you three died of laughter.

in the end the one who got the most candies was you!

“not faaair! Y/n’s got the biggest amount because they’re the cutest!

“yeah, i mean, look at them!”

“shut up! i will share my candy, jeeez!”

you being a good friend, shared some of your candy with them so all of you could have about the same amount

to wrap the night in a neat bow, you guys took some pictures back at Tubbo’s place

they came out amazing, you posing with your own carved pumpkins and other various halloween decorations

pictures posted on instagram, you all plopped down exhausted, and watched some classic halloween movies, like “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, “Corpse Bride” and “Beetlejuice” before going to sleep <3

#bench trio x reader #bench trio headcanons #mcyt x reader #platonic mcyt x reader #dream smp x reader #platonic dream smp x reader #platonic bench trio x reader

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twistedtranslations · 3 years

Text

Cater Diamond - Full of Lies

You can unlock this story by getting Cater’s SSR Scary dress

Big thanks to Rym and Apollo for proofreading!

Translation under the cut

Chapter 1

Main street

/Notification

Cater: Oh? A message on MagiCam? Who would've thought it was that girl! How nostalgic~ The picture those ghosts took at Ramshackle dorm made our college's Halloween event trend -> Jumping onto the bandwagon and posting a lot -> Huge success for Cay's follower-catching strat! So far it's been going well but… Mixed within the comments and DMs of my new followers are a lot of old aquaintances. Even some classmates from middle and elementary school are here.

Cater: "Hey! It's been a while! Oh, would you like to come to our college? Cay welcomes every single one of you! You can always come over to hang at NRC's Halloween event!"

Cater: And now some emoji full of feelings! (^○^)♪ (ゝω・)☆　d(’ｖ｀*)b

Cater: Everyone is really so casual and easygoing~ Well, it's easier on me, so I'm not complaining.

???: HEY!

Cater: Where did that loud and rowdy voice come from? I've got a bad feeling about this…

Front Gate

Sebek: Humans, don't crowd around the young master! Get out! Leave!

Boy A: Hey, what are you doing, sweptback bro! Don't interfere with our Draconia Challenge.

Boy B: We're putting our lives on the line to show our bravery by uploading a picture of us touching The Malleus!

Boy A: Huh, since when did Malleus disappear?! It's that sweptback bro's fault.

Boy B: Don't be so angry. After all the effort of having a sweptback, let's show the world a huge smile on that face!

Sebek: For humans of your social standing to use the name of the Lord of the esteemed Valley of Thorns in vain…Besides, my hair is swept back like this so I have an unobstructed view to find those like you who behave rudely towards my young master! You shall receive punishment for insulting the Draconia… no, for insulting the young master. My thunder shall shock you all to bits! HAAAAA...

Cater: Okay, stop! I'm part of the Halloween Committee. It's forbidden to fight. Why don't you try talking to this lad if something's up?

Sebek: Don't interrupt me, you frolicking human! I will shock you to bits as well!

Cater: Won't you create a scandal for the Draconia family if you were to harm an ordinary human with magic?

Sebek: W-Well… You're right. Besides, didn't you just say you were part of the Halloween committee? Both the young master and master Lilia are both performing the same duties… They ordered me to listen to the orders of the other committee members. Ok, I shall talk this out.

Cater: Even though you are crossing your arms and puffing your chest out, you are being apologetic right? Anyway, these are our college's precious guests. They have no intention to harm Malleus.

Sebek: These magic-less weaklings were making a spectacle bothering Young Master with a toy. I cannot forgive that!

Cater: Malleus is like super famous, and he's an admirable being, right? So just for this festival, it should be fine to interact with our guests as a little fanservice right?

Sebek: Stop messing around. The young master is a dreadful being who makes everyone kneel and bow down to him. AND THAT'S WHY I WILL NEVER LEAVE HIS SIDE AND PROTECT HIM ALL MY LIFE!

Cater: You're just obsessed!

Boy A: Hey, interfering our Draconia Challenge aside, what are you two squabbling about?

Sebek: Hm? You humans are still here? I told you to leave.

Boy B: Huh? You've got some nerve, talking rudely to us like that!

Cater: Come on guys. Why don't we take some pictures together since it's finally Halloween! We, Heartslabyul are those who rise from the soil in the darkness, the underlings of the night~

Boy A: Wow! Now that you mention it, you do look real good for the camera!

Cater: Cheer up everyone and gather! Let's decide on a pose~~~ Happy Halloween~

¨*shutter noise*

Cater: (Ugh… This is exhausting)

Chapter 2

Classroom

Kalim/Cater/Lilia: *Sigh*… I'm tired….

Cater: This year's Halloween was exhausting. Mainly due to our guests being rowdy..

Kalim: It was fun entertaining the guests, but I was really troubled because Jamil got in a foul mood.

Lilia: Even we, three most gentle boys, have been worn down. The other students must be at the limits of their patience.

Everyone: *Sigh*…

Cater: Now that you say it, by chance all the members of the light music club are also part of the Halloween Committee. Let's have our usual relaxing tea time while also discussing some countermeasures.

Kalim/Lilia: Agreed~

Cater: I got this! Trey's home-made pumpkin pie! It's moderately sweet, so it's my favorite!

Kalim: I have kunafa. It's a cheesecake from the Scalding Sands. It's delicious when it's hot!

Lilia: Oho, these are all sweets befitting of Halloween. As the last one, I have prepared this. Licorice!

Cater: You're always bringing the same thing! You know me and Kalim don't like that.

Kalim: The smell makes my nose shrivel up~

Cater: But you know, since it's black, it does feel like Halloween. Oh, right, let's take a picture together. It's super charming to be in costume and have themed food.

*shutter noise*

Cater: #TheBestHalloween #SelfmadeCostume #HomemadeTreat #LightMusicClub #NRCHalloween

Kalim: The best? Didn't you say you were exhausted earlier, Cater?

Cater: I never said it wasn't exciting and for things like SNS, isn't it better to exaggerate a bit?

Lilia: As expected of you. We live in a period where everyone is connected all around the world. It is most wonderful to spread happiness instead of complaints.

Cater: Oh. The picture I just uploaded got an amazing response!

*notification*

Cater: Another message from that girl. Was she the kind to keep track of people's activities?

*ringing noise*

Cater: This time it's a call. (How persistent…)

Kalim: Cater, is it from one of your friends? You can pick up if you want.

Cater: Hm~… More like an acquaintance from the past? But it's alright? We're at a very important meeting, after all.

Lilia: We are only eating sweets, taking pictures and uploading them to MagiCam though…

Cater: It's the age of social media where everyone can keep in contact at their own pace, you don't have to go through the pains of having to response in real time to a phone call.

Kalim: Do you have that many people who want to get in touch with you? You're so well connected Cater~

Cater: Well, if you look the amount of aquaintances I have, that might be true? My dad's a banker. The bank he works at has branches all over the world. Therefore, whenever he transferred to a different branch, our entire family would move with him. We moved once every two years, so I kind of feel like a pro at quickly packing things?

Lilia: Commonly said, you are a family who moved a lot for the sake of the breadwinner.

Kalim: So the reason why you have so many friends is because you have travelled around the world since young.

Cater: Yeah, the girl just now said we are friends as well. Having to change schools frequently, I got to meet more people compared to someone staying at one place. From the best to the worst… a lot of people. However, they all had something in common.

Kalim/Lilia: …?

Cater: If I left there, they remained there. That's why I'd rather have a casual and happy time with everyone than to deepen a friendship. It’s like a circus troupe, you know, having fun hanging with people all over the world and then leaving. That's why MagiCam is the best! People from my school from three years ago contacted me out of the blue. My social circle is expanding as well. Cay is getting popular!

Kalim: Even if they're far away, you don't have to hold back you know? I got it! I'll lend you my magic carpet, so you can visit your friends whenever you want.

Cater:… I expected no less of you, Kalim. I'll take you up on that offer next time.

Lilia: I feel like I understand you.

Cater: Hm?

Lilia: The relations between humans are eternal. They are things that cannot be severed. In a new place with no trace of your existence, new relations will continue to be forged. That in itself is nature. However, I think the more precious a relation is, the more lonely it becomes. Why does it feel that way? I have lived a long life but the reason is still unknown to me. But just as Cater said, there may be a perfectly logical explanation for not getting too attached to one person in particular.

Cater: Lilia, what got into you suddenly? What I wanted to say was-

*ringing noise*

Lilia: Hello, this is Lilia speaking? What business do you have?

Cater: He just casually picked up the phone during our conversation.

Lilia: Oh, Sebek. What is it? You are so loud. Right now, I am in a meeting with Cater and Kalim. WHAT?! MALLEUS?!

Kalim/Cater: ?!

Chapter 3

Hall of Mirrors

Silver: Stop pushing. It's forbidden to enter the Hall of Mirrors.

Man A: Huh, really! I came all the way to the Isle of Sages to see Malleus Draconia.

Man B: We are doing the Draconia challenge now! Why can't we enter~

Girl C: He’s inside right! An actual Draconia, the Actual Malleus!

Everyone: MALLEUS! MALLEUS! MALLEUS!

*Lightning and thunder*

Silver: It's a rare event that Master Malleus is participating in. He also agreed to interact with the guests... For it to come to this... Everyone, it’s better if you leave. You have angered master Malleus.

Man A: I paid a lot of travel expenses, did you know that? This is the price of fame.

Everyone: MALLEUS! MALLEUS! MALLEUS!

Exterior Hallway

Cater: Did the visitors who wanted that MagiCam glory end up angering even Malleus himself?

Sebek: Yes. At first he was gentle and calmed me down when I got angry… but a fool grabbed Malleus by the horns and made fun of him by saying "Look! It's a bicycle from the olden days!"

Lilia/Cater: Gh!

Cater: I don't know if they're brave or just reckless. Were the dark clouds and thunder rampaging in the sky above the Hall of Mirrors due to Malleus' anger? You don't think he overblotted, right…?!

Lilia: Do not worry. Using that amount of magic power shall not make him overblot. He is simply irritated. Back when he was young, mountains would be destroyed by his lightning whenever he threw a tantrum.

Cater: Hahaha… that's on a totally different level. I guess it was a good idea to have Kalim fetch the professors.

Sebek: Upperclassman Vil noticed something was up and isolated the young master. He also casted a defensive spell so the tourists wouldn't be harmed. And it seemed that Upperclassman Jade is persuading the angry young master with some unique methods... Even so, those humans who can't seem to understand the gravity of the situation keep stirring up the young master, they're uncontrollable.

Lilia: This means we must use our last resort. We must put in effort to suppress the onlookers and avoid the worst situation.

Cater: Wait a second, Lilia. I thought of something. It's not like people there dislike Malleus or anything. Despite that, it doesn't mean that they like Malleus as well... They're just interested in trends. Just like my old acquaintances.

Lilia: ?

Cater: First, I'll take a picture of Lilia, who's wearing the same clothes as Malleus!

*shutter noise*

Cater: Next we use something catered to influencers. We'll elongate Lilia's picture with a photo editing app!

*swiping on phone*

Cater: Now we just add some text to finish it up. And then upload a cropped version to MagiCam!!

*Phone SFX*

Cater: #AWildMalleusAppeared #DraconiaChallenge #UnexpectedlyAtSportsGround #NRCHalloween

*Phone SFX*

Hall of Mirrors

Man A: H-Hey. Look at the Draconia challenge tag.

Man B: It seems he's at the Sports Ground now. As expected of Malleus. He's much faster than we are!

Girl C: Okay. Everyone, let's move!

Everyone: YEAH!

Silver: What happened? Master Malleus should still be in the Hall of Mirrors.

Cater: Fu. With this, I hope the storm has passed…?

Vil: Good grief. Accidents are an unavoidable part of stage plays. Letting yourself get influenced by the guests is so amateurish. My work here is done. I will return to the dorm to straighten up my appearance.

Jade: My, that was a close call. Malleus is extremely powerful. I persuaded him to the best of my abilites, trying to get him to understand. But there was no one to turn to if it had failed. Well then, I will also return to my station. I wish everyone a wonderful Halloween.

Malleus: I caused many disturbances between different racial groups during a mere school event. I should restrain myself more…

Sebek: The young master has done nothing wrong! It was the fault of those inferior humans!

Silver: The young master told us to avoid hostility between fae and humans. Why are you getting more hostile?

Sebek: WHAT DID YOU SAY SILVER!

Lilia: Malleus. Did you forget our promise from long ago? Call for us when the tranquility in your mind is disturbed. Even if we are not related by blood, we are still a family. Got it?

Malleus: Lilia… My apologies. To everyone.

Everyone: …

Cater: ….Family…huh.

Flashback

Lilia: But just as Cater said, there may be a perfectly logical explanation for not getting too attached to one person in particular.

Flashback ends

Cater: (That was full of lies. For a guy who grew up and lived in the same place, he never had to deal with rebuilding relations over and over…He would never understand my worthless and meaningless feelings.)

*ringing*

Cater: Hello, Trey. What's up? Huh? Are we doing our rehearsal for our night show at the stamp rally now? And Deuce, who is also part of the Halloween Committee, was at his wit's end due to the lack of manpower. So Ace is helping him out? Darn, Ace is definitely going to extort me for a favor later!

Cater: Argh! And is Riddle on the verge of a rampage? I'll be back soon, Trey. Please calm him down! I am currently at the site of the biggest crisis yet of this Halloween Week! No, for real! I'm not lying. That's why you don't have to be so cold to me, 'kay? URGH, TREY, YOU'RE SO CRUEL!

Cater: Now that Diasomnia's turmoil has settled, let's change the mood and continue on with work. In any case, we’ll still separate after the fourth year… It would be different if I repeated a year though. Anyway, I should just enjoy the moment to my heart's content! I'll surprise everyone with this charming skeleton costume! I'll show them what I'm capable of!

Cater: Happy Halloween!

#twisted wonderland #cater diamond #Lilia Vanrouge #kalim al asim #sebek zigvolt #vil schoenheit #jade leech #silver #malleus draconia

674 notes · View notes

mrslittletall · 3 years

Note

saw your whump post, honestly the "I'm fine" screams Hornet to me, so it'd be cool to see that! - dooblebugs

Title: The Idol Fandom: Hollow Knight Characters: Hornet & Little Ghost Word Count: 2.825 AO3-Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30941981

Summary: After the Hollow Knight is freed from the temple, Hornet does her best to take care of the ones that are still left in Hallownest. Everything should be fine... until it isn't.

(Author's note: @dooblebugs

I thought about using canon verse with “Almost everyone lives AU” or your Mer AU. But ultimately, canon verse won, because I still miss some context for the Mer AU. I hope you enjoy.)

Hornet opened her eyes and jumped on her feet right away. Her day would always start with hunting and gathering food, preferably before Hollow woke up and tried to move, and it was a whole other problem trying to haul a bug their size back into bed, especially when they rigorously ignored their wounds.

While Hornet trusted Quirrel and Cloth enough to leave Hollow in their care for a while, she always felt better if she could look over them personally. However, the longer she hesitated with leaving, the longer she would need to come back, so Hornet left the house in Dirtmouth they had inhabited for Hollow's recovery and went towards the crossroads.

The little pitter-patter of tiny feet next to her prompted Hornet to look down. Ghost had decided to accompany her again. They always would. She could tell them a hundred times to stay behind, they would never listen. For a vessel meant to be void of mind, Ghost was one of the bugs with the strongest will that Hornet ever had seen.

“You will still come with me, even if I say no, right, little Ghost?”, Hornet said, shouldering her needle. Ghost didn't nod or sign at her, they simply stared, with their unblinking, never changing expression. It was enough for Hornet to know that they wouldn't leave.

“Alright, but don't get into my way.”, Hornet said. At this, Ghost swung their nail and jumped in front of Hornet in a pose that depicted a challenge, then their nail went down on the ground in a strike, the swing of it breaking through the calmness of the morning.

“I know! I know! You've beaten me twice, but... I have gone easy on you.”, Hornet half hissed. It was a blatant lie and she knew it. The first time she had simply underestimated them (or she simply had become tired of fighting) and the second time... she had given it her all and they still had remained victorious. In a sense, Ghost was the new king of Hallownest, but they didn't seem to put any mind on the title. They didn't even seem to be wanting to be celebrated for being the saviour of Hallownest. They simply joined Hornet every morning for hunting and went off on their own afterwards, always coming back to play with their friends in Dirtmouth.

As the both of them jumped down the well, Hornet couldn't help but think about that there wasn't much to rule anymore. This kingdom was in shambles. It had been two weeks and the dried off infection still crusted the crossroads, too little bugs alive to care much about cleaning the place up. It was becoming more and more difficult to get food, because so many of the infected had simply been reanimated husks, without any meat left in them.

They surely would have to wander to Greenpath again, hopefully finding a few vengeflies and mosscreeps to bring home.

Hornet was used being alone. She had been alone for a very long time. She had managed. She never was lonely... well, maybe a little lonely and now there was a bunch of strangers up in Dirtmouth who relied on her. Hornet never wanted for anyone to rely on her. She had seen what happened when bugs relied on someone and... there wasn't a solution.

She looked down on Ghost again, they had their nail on the ready and stared vigilantly in front of them. They must have crossed this crossroads a dozen times on their journey, still expecting to be attacked by the infected every given minute. Hornet could understand that it was hard for them to let go of old habits.

She was the same. She never let go of her needle as well. Even with the infection never being able to come back, she had to remain vigilant. She would protect her siblings, no matter what. She wouldn't, no she couldn't, let anyone down.

“We are nearing Greenpath.”, she said, only to cut through the silence between them. She knew it wasn't Ghost's fault that they didn't have a voice, but after years of not being able to talk to anyone, Hornet barely could stand the silence, when there was someone she could talk to. “Remember, when we hunt the mosscreeps, take their leaves as well, for the herbivores.”

While Hornet was able to eat plant matter as well, it never had been satisfying to her. She was the daughter of a spider and a wyrm, both predators, and therefore she usually would hunt for food. She was unsure about what kind of diet Ghost and Hollow needed, but they seemed to be content with the prey she brought back, so she wouldn't change anything about it.

“And remember, we can't hunt too much. The population needs a chance to recover.”, she said as well. The infection had done a number on the whole of Hallownest... it wasn't a surprise that there was such a food shortage. In fact, Hornet had cut her own food intake in favour of her siblings and anyone who couldn't hunt or still needed to recover. That bug, Tiso, came to mind. Had a far too big stomach for having been utterly destroyed by the colloseum of fools. Why Ghost had dragged him back to Dirthmouth, she would never understand.

Ghost showed that they understood with a little nod of their head and the both of them entered Greenpath. It was a MUCH nicer place without the infection, but they still had to pay attention, the fool eater plants were easy to overlook (not that Hornet had ever overlooked them, but Ghost tended to forget...) and there were some predators still around, though they were no match for her needle. The problem was to avoid them to not hunt too much. Like she had said to Ghost, they needed to give the population time to recover, if they wouldn't want all to starve beforehand.

“We get only enough for everyone back in Dirtmouth.”, Hornet said again. “Then we leave again. Let's search for some mosscreeps first.”

The both of them jumped and slashed their way through the vegetation of Greenpath. While Hornet preferred to use her needle, Ghost had found a lot of new ways to move around since the first time they fought and they dashed (literally leaving their shell behind and somehow phasing through time and space) and jumped with wings that reminded Hornet of her father... and she got a bad feeling in her guts every time she saw them.

After a bit of time, they had managed to hunt two vengeflies to bring back, Hornet keeping them cocooned up for transportation and were now searching through the vegetation for some mosscreeps. Finally, Hornet found one and struck it down with her needle, preparing a cocoon for it again, when Ghost picked something up from the grass.

“Ghost, what do you have there?”, Hornet asked. The item was too small to be prey and they tended to hoard stuff they found. It probably was just something that was completely worthless nowadays, only generating Geo when given to this historian in the City of Tears. She still wanted to know.

Ghost came over and laid the thing they had picked up in her outstretched hand. When she looked down on it, she froze.

It was a King's Idol, the item that the citizens of Hallownest had crafted to worship her reclusive father. Each of them looked different, but they all shared the general shape and depicted his most salient feature: The horns that resembled a crown.

Staring down at it, something in Hornet broke. It might have been the stress she felt since Ghost had arrived. Or the fact that Hollow recovered from years of abuse from both the gods of Hallownest. Or that she was running on an empty stomach most of the time. But once she saw that thing, all her frustration crashed down on her at once.

You!”, she hissed. “It was all your fault! You knew that the plan wouldn't work! You knew that they would suffer and you still have let it happen! The teacher, the watcher, my mother, all sacrificed for nothing! And then, in the moment you were needed the most, you vanished, you damn coward! We needed you! I needed you! I hate you. I hate you and I can't even say it to your face anymore!”

Hornet threw the king's idol on the ground with so much force that it skipped on the ground and then fell on her knees, slowly getting aware of the tears on her face and the presence of little ice cold hands patting her arm.

“I am fine.”, she said, wiping the tears away. Just a moment of weakness, nothing else. Even though she could feel the judgemental stare of Ghost, she was fine. She had to be. “Seriously, I am fine.”, she continued once more. “Let's continue hunting.”

As Hornet was putting her composure back together, she didn't notice how Ghost continued to stare at her, picking up the idol from the ground, and only starting to move again once she called out for them.

The hunt had been more or less successful. At least they had found enough prey that nobody should go terribly hungry (at least when Hornet halved her own portion again). As usual, hunting had taken the better part of the day. Hornet would have liked to go hunt at some different locations, but the Old Stag from the stag ways wasn't around lately, apparently he was taking care of some personal business. With him not being around, it was just too far to walk to the Fungal Wastes or Deepnest, at least not when she wanted to come back the same day.

Currently Hornet took in her meal in Hollow's room with Ghost present as well. She was busy thinking about if there was another route that would make sure she could hunt elsewhere but Greenpath for once, when she felt a nudge. When she looked down, she saw how Ghost offered them a half of their mosscreep, holding the prey up in their little hands, seemingly eagerly awaiting for her to take it.

“I can't take this, Ghost.”, Hornet said. “You need all the food you can get, you are still growing.”

Ghost cocked their head and for once their eternal deadpan expression was on point. Hornet knew how ridiculous her argument was. Ghost had been born before her. They hadn't grown in years. Their body had been unable to grow because they didn't had access to void. “You know what I mean.”, she defended herself. There was the possibility that Ghost would start to grow as long as they stayed in Hallownest.

Ghost offered their meal a little while longer and then gave up with a little frustrated stomp of their foot. It was then when Hornet felt another nudge... this time it was Hollow, who had simply watched the scene unfold in front of them, offering their part of their meal.

“Oh no, not you too, Hollow.”, Hornet sighed. “You need the food much more than me, you are still recovering. I won't accept anything from you.”

The both vessels shared a look and once again Hornet asked herself if they could talk to each with some kind of void telepathy, before both of them looked at the ground in defeat.

“I am fine.”, Hornet repeated herself, she knew that. “Really, I am fine...”

Hornet awoke the next morning... not because her stomach cramped and she had trouble sleeping because of it, but because someone nudged her. She cracked one eye open and murmured: “It's barely morning...” She just craved to go back to sleep, to forget about the day in front of her for a few minutes longer, but the nudging got more and more intense, until she shouted: “Fine! I am getting up! Stop bothering me!”

It was Ghost in front of her and immediately Hornet stopped being annoyed. What if something had happened? “Is something the matter with Hollow? Or is a threat approaching the village?”, she asked, already fumbling for her needle, once again forgetting that Ghost was more than capable of defending the village themselves. They just looked too much like a little, defenseless child, even though Hornet had experienced otherwise.

Gladly, Ghost shook their head, though this put Hornet right back into annoyance. “Then why have you woken me up?”, she said, falling back down in her pillows, ignoring the urge to close her eyes and looking at Ghost again, making sure to give them a judgemental stare.

Ghost did grip something under their cloak (wings? Hornet never knew what this thing around the vessels was) and after a bit of struggling, they produced a jar... a jar filled with honey. The smell actually made Hornet's mouth water. Honey was one of the few things she liked to eat that wasn't meat, mostly because she had trained in the Hive in her youth.

Though, as lucky as she felt about having more food, she couldn't help but scold Ghost. “Ghost, did you get this on your own? The Hive is dangerous, even without the infection! What if the Hive Knight would have found you?”

Ghost shook their head and then outstretched their hand, showing Hornet a shiny little charm. A charm she remembered. The charm of the Hive. “Wait, you have been there and challenged him already?” Hornet wanted to be surprised, but Ghost couldn't really surprise her anymore. When they could surprise her somehow, then it was that they were full of surprises.

“Anyway... I guess I have to thank you, though I don't approve that you sneak out at night into the Hive.”, Hornet murmured. “At least we have more food for the group now..”

Ghost rigorously shook their head and pressed the jar in her hands. “For me?”, Hornet asked and Ghost nodded.

“But... Ghost, I appreciate it, but I don't need.. the others need the food much more than...”

Another shook of their head and a stomp of their foot along with crossed arms and a slight turn around. Hornet suddenly felt very small, she had never seen them that upset.

“Alright, alright...”, she said. “Maybe I have eaten insufficient lately...”

Ghost nodded again and gave the jar of honey another press, so that she had to hold it firmly in her hands.

“Alright alright...”, Hornet finally gave in. “I will take your offer, Ghost.”

As she opened the jar, her hunger became more and more apparent and soon she dug in and had finished the whole jar in what felt like no time and finally, for once, she didn't feel overly hungry. Satisfied even.

She then saw Ghost holding up something. A little rock with a few letters written on it. Lately Cornifer had given them writing lessons, though it still was a work in progress.

“Fine?”

That was the word they had painted on the rock (where did they even have the colours from?).

“I am fine.”, Hornet said. “This time for real. I am sorry, Ghost, I shouldn't have lied to you. I just feel so... responsible for everyone. I can't show weakness in front of anyone.”

Ghost shook their head again and then got something out. Hornet recognized it as the King's Idol they had found in Greenpath. They tossed it at the ground, just as she had done and then hit it with their nail, leaving a notable crack in it.

“You as well don't have the best memories of him, right?”, Hornet said. Both of them had been left behind, though in a different kind of way. Ghost had been discarded and Hornet had been left with responsibility far too huge for her age.

Ghost nodded again and gave the King's Idol another smack, so that it landed in front of her. Hornet took it into her hands and stared at it. She did miss him, that she had to admit to herself, but she also knew that her anger and her disappointment were real and there was no reason to hide it in front of Ghost.

She squeezed the Idol until it cracked into two pieces and just watched as they fell down. “Thank you, Ghost.”, she said. “But make sure to not tell Hollow about this.”

The way Hollow idealized their father... it would break their heart seeing his image being defiled like that.

Another quick nod and then Ghost actually got another one out, their face clearly saying: “Wanna break another?”

A grin crept over Hornet's face. She would never get her mother back or escape her responsibilities, but at least she could vent out her frustrations, even though it took her sibling for her to realize.

“Oh you bet I want.” (Author's note: Little Ghost is kinda fun to write. I think they are a character mostly showing what they feel through body language and it was fun to come up with how they would act. I also like to think that they can stare very judgemental, even though their expression never changes, a stare of them can make anyone falter. Hornet's relationship to PK is... complicated. He hasn't actually been a bad father to her, but as the infection came back and depression took over, he left her alone more and more and she got angry about it... especially when he decided to just vanish. She felt utterly betrayed by it and it is a huge source of her frustration and anger. I put in some little references to the game in there, try to find them if you please.)

#hollow knight #fanfiction #hornet #little ghost #march of the whumps #request fill #hornet has issues #whump #emotional whump #ask answered #thx for the ask #littlewritesstuff #Anonymous

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cotccotc · 4 years

Text

┈┈ 𝐬𝐤𝐳 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐬/𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐜 *:･ﾟ

✩ ot8 reaction headcannon, 2.5k words (eek sorry)

✩ genre/s: **fluff**, humor, established relationship, ot8 x gender neutral!reader

✩ warning/s: MOBILE TUMBLR HATES ME (some gifs & author’s note might not appear),,,, my terrible sense of humor/commentary, a couple of them are suggestive if you s q u i n t

✩ a/n: idk if the concept makes any sense but it does in my mind \_( ‘-’ )_/ also seungmin’s part is the exact same kinda similar to a brief scenario in my txt soobin “brightest blue” fic... but it’s fineee. also i’m sorry that some are longer than others! enjoy :))

chan:

chan is definitely extremely interested in the music you listen to.

in fact, sometimes he’d probably insist that you show him your current playlist from start to finish lol.

i can imagine y’all hanging out at the dorms, maybe even mid-cuddle, listening to some of your recent favorites.

but there’s this ONE SONG--

your absolute JAM

you get up from your seat or the bed and start completely jamming out.

he stays where he is so he can watch you have the time of your life.

i guess nobody told him you’re a professional lip syncer… awk...

you grab a hairbrush and hold it up like it’s a microphone.

honestly you’re thriving,,

he’s kinda stunned. not in a bad way, but he’s just so mezmorized by how cute (and maybe a lil sexy) you are when you dance like no one’s watching.

there’s a particularly awesome beat drop toward the end of the song, which leads you to do some equally awesome head banging.

he’s cackling at this point, which drives you to act even sillier.

*ending pose*

once the song ends and you’re trying to catch your breath, he slowly starts clapping for you.

“the song was great, but the performance was even better,” he’d say, coming off a bit sarcastic. but he means well!

you start to get a bit self-conscious and shy as you put yourself together again.

he’ll try to comfort you, standing up to wrap you in a hug.

“don’t be embarrassed!” (cue soft chan),

“baby that was awesome”,

“you should join a rock band!”, etc.

overall, he’d love it when you share your music taste, and this event will probably set off a chain reaction of similar jam sessions in the future.

minho:

ok so we all know minho’s a cat person, blah blah blah...

but what if you got super excited about a really cute dog?

let’s say you’re on a walk at a park, holding hands, and talking.

all of a sudden you see someone walking their dog…

and when i tell you this is the cutest, tiniest dog on the face of the earth,,,

you immediately stop walking and squeeze minho’s hand. you point to the dog and start freaking out because it’s so cute.

he’d say something silly like, “what are you talking about? it looks like a rat.”

you disregard it because you’re just so excited about this puppy!

“can we pet it?” you ask.

“... fine” he replies, smiling at you, despite his attempts to act uninterested.

y’all go over to the woman walking her dog and ask if you can pet the puppy. when she says you can pet him, you immediately sit on the ground, ready to have the best puppy playdate of your life.

minho’s still standing, watching you with loving eyes.

of course, you start talking to the puppy as if he’s a baby. minho laughs, trying to stifle all the uwus emanating from his heart

the puppy climbs onto your lap and licks your face just a little bit.

you look up at minho with wide eyes, saying “awww, isn’t he so cute!”

he’d playfully roll his eyes because why would he cheat on cats like that…

then you tug on his hand, motioning for him to sit with you. he does, reluctantly.

you place the puppy on his lap to see what happens.

the dog loves him! (of course, because what living thing wouldn’t love lee minho?)

the puppy is licking minho all over as he makes faces of disgust and struggles to pull him away.

you laugh out loud, happier than ever at the two very good boys in front of you.

he smiles again, completely endeared with your excitement despite being covered in puppy spit...

so, it doesn’t matter what kinds of animals you two prefer, since you’re the cutest thing he’s ever seen. (aww)

changbin:

i feel like changbin is the type to not be ashamed of/shy about showing you the songs he’s writing.

...except for right now.

he just got home from the studio, dropping his bag onto a table… but some papers fall out.

you attempt to grab the papers, but changbin stops you and grabs them himself instead with a subtle hint of nervousness.

pretty suspicious if you ask me.

“what’s up?” you ask, a bit confused about what just happened.

he’d try to play it off like nothing suspicious was going on, but you know his poker face.

it’s too cute not to notice.

he likes to play all tough but you (and everyone else tbh) know him better than that.

you go to grab the papers, but he steps away. you try again… and again, and again, and again.

you become increasingly more frustrated and impatient with each attempt, until changbin holds them up high in the air where you can’t reach them. he has a look on his face that says ‘haha! gotcha!’

you’ve never done this much jumping in your life.

but you’re not a quitter.

“okay… i give up,” you say, returning to a stationary position and placing your arms around his neck.

however, just as he lowers his hands to your waist, you snatch the papers!

“AHA!” you exclaim.

all he can say is “damn it!” as you scramble to the couch with the papers in your hand. you sit facing away from him, attempting to speed-read the lyrics sprawled across the pages.

he follows you to the couch, trying to take the papers back from behind.

“binnie, these are so good!!”

“thanks… but were they worth betraying your innocent boyfriend?”

“yes. every word.” you finally hand him back the papers with a smirk.

he’d curse under his breath, ditching the papers in favor of tickling you instead.

what a terrible punishment!

hyunjin:

we all know hyunjin is a drama queen,,

you can be a bit of a dramatic person yourself (who isn’t?).

so when you lose your favorite sweater, you’re immediately going on a wild goose chase around the dorms, because that’s where you had it last.

you’re practically talking to yourself. double checking everywhere you’d been. retracing your steps like a mad person.

you need this sweater!!

you let out a little “urgh!” as you begin getting frustrated.

hyunjin would ask what’s wrong, and when you tell him, he’d GASP.

he’d be like:

“have you checked under the bed?”

“the couch?”

“what about over here?”

“over there?”

this boy will not REST until the sweater is back in your possession, wasting no time in matching your level of concern/dramatics...

… if not exceeding it.

y’all have practically torn the whole room apart at this point.

until finally, you find it in a random drawer (of course smh)

“I FOUND IT!” you’d exclaim, flopping onto the bed and putting the sweater on,

to which you’d receive a “YAY!” in return

tired and leaning against a wall, he’d say something like, “thank GOD! now, why do you need it so bad?”

and you’d simply and softly respond, “... i got chilly~”

he wouldn’t give a verbal response, but his face would go from relaxed to ‘bruh’.

you knew he’d be shocked at your statement, but you choose to tease him instead with a smile.

he would then opt to tackle you in the bed, fumbling with the covers and vowing to make you as warm as humanly possible.

jisung:

jisung definitely loves showing you the music he’s been working on, just like changbin.

except… this time, the lyrics aren’t necessarily what you’re used to hearing.

you can tell jisung’s a bit nervous as he presses play, choosing to keep his eyes on the floor as he nods his head to the rap.

you’re listening intently, as curious and excited as you are every other time…

but then you realize that it’s about you……

the lyrics talk about letting someone into his life and his longing to be even closer to that person than he is now.

therefore,,,, u w u

you giggle, which prompts him to look up at you almost immediately with anticipation about your reaction.

you decide to wait until the end of the song to react, but you can already feel the excitement bubbling up inside of you.

the song ends, and you’re sitting in silence alongside jisung. “so… what did you think?”

“well… i think…” you trail off, looking into jisung’s eyes.

with a bit of a squeal you leap up from your seat and essentially attack him.

you straddle his legs (don’t get any *ideas* this is FLUFF for goodness sake) and wrap your arms around his neck, locking him into a big hug.

“i love it, baby. so, so, so, much,” you respond quickly and genuinely.

he laughs, his arms wrapping around you.

he’d probably remark, “you scared me for a second!”

you laugh in response, apologizing for your delayed reaction.

deep down, he’d feel so relieved that you liked the song and its sentiment.

he’d also be so happy to have you, his overexcited sweetheart, in his arms.

however, at the surface, he’d prefer to tease you. “next time, don’t make me wait so long!”

felix:

ok so y’all send memes and tik toks back and forth all day every day. it’s just protocal.

also,,, you could literally be in the same room, and he’d still just start sending you tik toks he’d saved just to send to you and see your reaction.

but there’s this o n e

you can’t quite explain why but when you watch the tik tok that your boyfriend sent you from across the couch, you laugh harder than you’ve ever laughed before.

whatever humor you may have, this tik tok completely encompasses it in a beautiful, stupid way.

before you know it, you begin cackling.

felix knows that you’ve always been a bit embarrassed of your laugh (who isn’t, right?), so when you start letting loose he’s a bit caught off guard.

still, he joins in (at a smaller scale, of couse).

he always wants to see you happy, but this is a whole new level of cuteness in his eyes.

your laughter subsides a bit...

until you decide to watch the tik tok again.

believe it or not, it’s even funnier the second time!

you double over, laughing so hard that no sound is even coming out of your mouth.

“are you okay?!” he’d ask, laughing harder now at your actions.

he’d put his arms around you so he could hold you up.

you’d mouth out a “no” in response.

there are practically tears forming at the corners of your eyes.

he’d continue looking down at you with a beaming smile, holding you up until your laughter comes to a full stop.

“was it really that funny? i can’t even make you laugh like this.”

you’re almost dazed, your stomach hurting (in the best way possible). you try to steady your breathing.

after a few seconds of recovery, he’d whisper in your ear with a deep, silly voice...

“...wanna watch it again?”

it’s safe to say you won’t fully recover for a while.

seungmin:

on days off, you watch dramas with seungmin to take both of your minds off of work/school/whatever’s been keeping you busy.

however… of course you can’t go a whole episode without laughing hysterically, and it’s all because of seungmin.

it could be the most dramatic, intense, or heartbreaking scene in the show but he would make it into a full blown impersonation comedy routine.

ESPECIALLY if the drama is in a foreign language.

this boy will reinact all of the subs in the stupidest way possible.

but, today he’s a bit exhausted, snuggling up against you and not saying much.

our boys work too hard :(( (but wbk)

...so you decide to take his place.

you start off kind of hesitantly, waiting to see if he’d even react. when the main characters start to have an argument, you begin reading the subtitles in a silly voice.

you hear a soft giggle from your boyfriend has be tightens his arm’s grip around your waist.

you begin to use different voices for each of the two characters, alternating between a nasly, high pitched one and a lower one with voice cracks. this makes seungmin laugh harder, going from a giggle to his usual open-mouthed chuckle.

he’s so cute >_< ,,anyways…

as the scene intensifies, so does the volume of your impersonations.

“yOu’Ve bEtRaYeD mE!”

“BuT yOu LiEd tO mE!”

at this point seungmin is cackling despite his heavy eyes and unwillingness to move. he’d be so caught up in your routine that he’d forget he was even tired.

you look up at him to see that big smile and those sparkly eyes you love so much, which motivates you to be even goofier!

you sit up, leaving seungmin’s grasp. you begin making hand gestures to match your overdramatic tone.

the scene comes to a climax, in which you recite the final line with more ferver and fake passion than ever before. you finish it off with a fist in the air for ~emphasis~.

as you hold this pose, you hear your loyal audience member begin to cheer for you. he claps, whisper-shouting “ahh” to create fake crowd noises.

“what a show!” he would commend you with an expression of sarcastic awe on his face.

you’re really glad you decided to cheer him up…

but not nearly as glad as he is to have you with him on a day like this.

jeongin:

jeongin’s smile could literally melt anyone’s heart. everybody knows this.

i don’t care who you are, if you see jeongin smile, you either smile or cry and there are no other options.

i don’t make the rules.

so, when he shows you the ‘lovestay’ version of his latest dance practice, you’re bound to go insane with adoration.

as soon as his solo comes up and the camera zooms in on his sweet, smiling face, you give his cheek a little poke

you say, “that’s you!”

“shut up,” he’d respond, giggling.

“wait, i missed something,” you say with a sense of urgency. you take the phone from his hands, rewinding a few seconds.

he’d roll his eyes at you, getting a bit shy.

you resume the video until the boy in the video holds up a finger heart, at which point you press pause.

“look how cute!” you exclaim, looking up at jeongin and pointing back and forth between him and the screen.

“stop it!” he’s blushing (and you’re screaming internally at how cute he is) as he tries to refrain from making a big smile.

you poke his side, resulting in a small fit of laughter that forces his bright grin to peek out.

he swats your hand away, putting his arm around you

(partly to show his affection and partly to make you hold still)

you place your head onto his shoulder, resuming the video for the final time. “you’re too cute. i can’t help it.”

“but you’re the cutest...” he murmurs, almost inaudibly to someone who isn’t as close to him as you are now.

heat rises in your face.

you: “...stop…”

him: “hah!”

touché...

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tsuzuruchipalace · 3 years

Text

rating mankai company based on character design

Note: I will take into account hair, color scheme, sprite poses, mostly outfits that are not from plays or scouts, and memorability. This is half an objective view and half my personal opinion.

Disclaimer: I curse a lot for comedic effort. I am mean because I am funny. No, you cannot disagree.

Spring 🌸

sakuya: you get what you see. a literal spring babey. his hair and color scheme’s a little generic, but he’s mankai’s poster boy, so that’s understandable. speaking of generic, his main pose is just this emoji 🧍‍♂️ his outfits tend to be kinda basic, but any outfit with a mostly pink top gets him bonus points. 6/10

masumi: okay his hair is elite. probably one of the most memorable character design aspects among the cast. his mole and eyes also make him very pretty. love my boy’s dark color scheme. unfortunately, points must be docked for baiting us with the emo fit, then as the story progresses, he starts dressing like the trust fund kid he is smh. 9/10

tsuzuru: i love you tsuzu but. my mans is so basic. if he didn’t have such a great personality, he’d be as bland as untoasted white bread. the saya of a3. his best design aspect is the fact that he doesn’t dye his roots. his outfits look comfy, but not necessarily eye-catching. 4/10

itaru: everyone who starts a3! with no knowledge of these characters has one (1) thought about itaru. sec sea man. so obviously there’s something appealing/good about his character design. i think part of the appeal is his fuck-all demeanor. obviously, his eyes and hairstyle are attractive, but the way the artists draw him gives him an air of not caring, which is also attractive in a way. his dyed tips are also nice. he looks kinda lame when he dresses professionally, but his casual outfits hit. especially the ones with light pink. 8/10

citron: although i’m not a big fan of the “character is foreign and therefore must talk and dress different and be funny” trope in these types of media, his fashion does make him stand out from the other characters who tend to have more basic clothes. citron’s summer, travel, and autumn outfits SLAP and anyone who says otherwise has bad taste. his hair and eyes are interesting, but his overall color scheme can be a bit repetitive. 7/10

chikage: i hate this guy’s fucking bowlcut. fucking salad bowl lookin ass. every outfit is the same turtleneck and sneakers in two alternate colors. his outfits are so plain. only thing i like is his casual outfit glasses. HOWEVER. that’s the point. he’s supposed to look boring and blend in because he’s a spy. it’s a smart design, i just don’t like it so im docking points. stay mad about it. 5/10

Summer ☀️

tenma: im yawning. you think tsuzu was boring? this guy has orange hair and i still find his design boring. that’s how you know he’s basic. he’s got generic messy shounen protag hair. he could be from any property. if i drew fanart of him, people would ask where he’s from. he either dresses like your slightly homophobic frat boy classmate or a grandfather who gets his shit stolen by the asshole kids next door. 2/10

yuki: he has the r a n g e. all of yuki’s casual outfits hit. they’re all different, but cute in their own way. to no one’s surprise, one of the best styled characters. though i like his general color scheme, i’m personally not the biggest fan of his hairstyle. it’s okay, but a little plain at times. but i think it suits him well. 7/10

muku: i love him. muku’s design is what i love about this game. you see him, and you immediately know what his character archtype is supposed to be. he’s the soft, cute boy. and if this was a mediocre series, that’d be all muku is. but since this is a3, he’s so much more than that. he’s smart, passionate, sensitive to others’ feelings, and protective. a3 does a great job designing characters that look exactly like their archtype, but having a much more developed personality than that. getting back to the actual subject at hand, i love his hairstyle and color, as well as his outfits. you can never go wrong with light pink hair. i may be biased but fuck you. 10/10

misumi: another great memorable design. his eye shape and hair style are really unique. his outfits also elevate his design. street fashion is always a plus for me. though sumi’s design is special in the world of a3! where most of the characters are just. guys. regular lookin dudes. i think that outside of the game, his design would not be as unique. 8/10

kazunari: personally, im a fan. maybe it’s cause i have an affinity for blonde anime boys. but his hairstyle is pretty unique and his trendy looks set him apart from most characters, even outside this game. and he has a pretty lovable expression in his sprites. his fatal flaw is that his fits are either a hit or miss. they’re either really cute or wtf. at least he’s memorable. 8/10

kumon: i love that he reminds me of an owl. his hair and eyes are very cute and his color scheme is great. and i think they did a great job making him look related to juza, but still very much his own character. but he dresses like your classmate from middle school that looks like a nike-sponsored highlighter. yeah, he’s the sporty one, and i like the windbreakers but... i cannot excuse his summer fit. also, i find his design a little tame compared to some of the other characters in the game. 6/10

Autumn 🍂

banri: i hate his hair. i hate it so much. i know in canon it’s nice and he takes good care of it, but it looks so fucking greasy. the style makes him look so greasy and it makes me mad. he looks like an asshole. i mean, he is, so it fits. if this dumb bitch changed his hair more often, i’d like his design so much more. you saw this coming; his love for cheetah print is fucking repulsive. BUT, maybe unpopular opinion, minus the animal print, his sense of fashion is not bad. why do yall clown on it. if the fit is fresh, the fit is fresh. anyway, he looks like an ass, but objectively his design is kinda eh. 5/10

juza: im sorry im DEADLY fucking biased when it comes to juza, but he’s so handsome. his hair is a such a rich, pretty shade of purple and his eyes are so mesmerizing. his hairstyle is so attractive. his face is so pretty. yeah his design isn’t crazy unique, but the simplicity just works. im so sorry im this man’s whore i didn’t choose this life... but i can stop being a simp for one second to say that he has a boring fashion sense. i mean it’s kinda hot how simple his outfits are but his travel fit is good-- wait a minute i just remembered the fucking sandals. docking one point. 9/10

taichi: okay shut the fuck up i LOVE taichi’s design. so eye-catching and fun. as i’ve said i love street fashion, and taichi’s lil e-boy fits are right up my alley. that shade of bright red goes so well with his fashion sense, making a really cohesive design. with his main outfit, you can tell he purposely dresses like that to be trendy and it’s so smart. 10/10

omi: im sorry omi stans but his design is kinda,, boring. i legit had such a hard time identifying him when i first got into this game. the scar saves it a bit. but... only a bit. he’s just got. hair. and a dad outfit. i mean his tits are huge, but i don’t think i can call that a character design aspect. kinda forgettable design. i don’t dislike it though, so he ranks higher than tenma did. 3/10

sakyo: im not sure why but i really like sakyo’s design?? the contrast of his light hair and his dark clothes is nice. also, megane rights. even when i thought he was an npc during my first playthrough, i really dug his design and thought he was memorable. i actually cannot pinpoint a reason why. i wish i had more constructive things to say... but upon thinking about it, he has a karen haircut, which kinda dampers my thoughts on his design. i like his moles, but i honestly did not notice them until the game pointed them out. 7/10

azami: azami has a damn good design. i don’t think anyone can deny that. the long hair, the contrast of black hair and bright blue eyes, his eye shape. all very eye-catching design aspects. and the street fashion style strikes again. the color scheme matches well with everything. this review is lame, but there’s really only good things i can say about his design so. 10/10

Winter ❄️

tsumugi: it’s so late and im so tired of looking at these sprites. anyway, tsumugi’s design is okay. i think his color scheme’s a bit limited and his outfits are a bit meh. he has a more respectable bowlcut than chikage, but it’s still a bowlcut and it’s still boring. i think the best part of his design is his eyes, they’re very soft and kind. but other than that, tsumugi looks pretty basic. 5/10

tasuku: tbh, i didn’t even realize that the godza member tasuku was the same character as the winter troupe guy in the game’s opening until the middle of episode 3... yeah. im slow. ooooooor... tasuku has the worst fucking design in the game. yeah i said it. come at me, but tasuku’s design fucking sucks. i literally thought he was a minor character until they forced me to realize he wasn’t. his fashion sense is... questionable at best. i look at that man’s hair and think he doesn’t shampoo. he looks so bland i could dry up from looking at him. im sorry but his tits do not make up for the sheer fucking snorefest of his character design. he’s so boring i won’t elaborate anymore. 1/10

hisoka: ya get what ya see part 2. i like that i can tell he’s the sleepy and mysterious character just by his design, but honestly, that’s a character trope im generally not a big fan of. so i wasn’t thrilled by hisoka’s design at first. but it’s effective. i like the hairstyle with the white hair, but i’m not too fond of his color scheme. his outfits look comfy and soft though. it makes sense, but it’s nothing too memorable if you compare him to characters outside the game. 5/10.

homare: ah, now this is a memorable character design. his hairstyle annoyed me in the beginning, but now i love it. it’s so unique and fun. and i like the purple. i also like his outfits. very classy. but honestly, most of his charisma lies in his face. i think that the pure eccentricity of the hairstyle is enough to put him in the top tier without considering any other element. you really could not find this design in any other media. fuck it. i don’t need to consider anything else. 9/10

azuma: i’ll be honest. im not a fan of long-haired anime men. especially the pretty, flirty types. i don’t know, i just don’t vibe with them. originally, i didn’t like azuma’s design, but now i do. i don’t know how, but i think it’s because azuma is just that powerful. his ponytail makes it more bearable for me and i like the way his bangs frame his face. he just has pretty eyes and face. unfortunately his color scheme is a little too repetitive for me and his casual outfits are a little boring. 6/10

guy: maybe it’s because he looks dead inside, but i love him. i don’t even know this character that well yet, but i think his deadass expression is great. the darker under-eyeline sets him apart from the other characters and i love how he dresses. i think his hair is kinda eh. i personally like it, but objectively, it’s meh. it’s a solid design, but ngl it’s nothing special when i really think about it. 6/10

#for legal reasons this is a joke #this entire post should be underlined with a /lh #i love them all very much im sorry for being mean #except for chikage he deserves it #long post #a3!#a3! act! addict! actors!#A3! Actor Training Game #mod tsuzu talks

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bengallemon · 3 years

Text

DETERMINATION 2 - GENOCIDE’S KNIGHT (Part Three)

Nothing to say up here other than I almost cried a little writing the last bit.

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Frisk quickly takes Celest and Luna, hiding behind the couch. Cross moves to sit on the couch, taking a more relaxed pose as the door slowly opens. Dust’s eyes widen as soon as he sees Cross sitting on his couch, smiling thinly.

“Hi Dust! Long time no see, huh?”

Dust growls a little. His eyes harden into a steely glare.

“What. Are. You. Doing. In. My. House.”

Cross’ expression doesn’t change, still showing some sort of pleasantness.

“Well… I needed a place to crash for a little while. I didn’t realise I was in Dusttale. I just went into the house closest. I… had a feeling it was empty.”

Dust’s expression shifts into something more relaxed and slightly playful, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

“What happened to that disgustingly precious, innocent little angel, Dream? Did ya get tired of him, too?”

Cross’ face darkens, his gaze cast to the floor. His hands tighten, causing Dust to become aware of the state they’re in. They look terrible. Cross’ tone is soft, showing slight hints of fear.

“… no…”

Mood change noted. What the hell happened?

“Anyways… you didn’t happen to see a human run through here, did you?”

Cross’ eyes flick back up, making direct eye contact with Dust.

Since… Since when were both of his eyes red? It used to be just the right one. Now the left one as well?

“Perhaps.”

Dust’s expression sours, disdain dripping from his voice.

“Well that sure as hell doesn’t help.”

“I… have some questions I want to ask.”

Dust snorts.

“You came to the wrong guy. ‘Sides, I’m busy looking… for a friend.”

“If you at least listen and give your thoughts I can tell you if I’ve happened to see them at all.”

Dust frowns, walking inside, shutting the door behind him. He chooses to lean against the door, wondering what Cross is talking about.

He doesn’t know. Surely, he doesn’t know what they did. What I did.

Cross takes a deep breath, having several reasons for what hypotheticals he wishes to present before Dust.

“If… someone did something really bad to you… how would you feel about it?”

Dust tries his best to keep his expression neutral, his voice level. Despite that, a hint of weariness creeps into his tone.

“I’d… I’d be mad at them. Probably also scared.”

Cross’ expression stays completely blank, praying that Frisk stays silent behind the couch.

“That… I mean that makes sense.”

It’s a start. Make no sign you know anything, keep it as vague hypotheticals. Just vague hypothetical situations and circumstances.

“If… if they were willing to change, prove they could be better, would you let them?”

Dust is taken aback slightly.

“Well… it depends on what they’ve done. If, hypothetically, they committed mass genocide over and over again, I don’t think they’d change from that.”

From behind the couch, Frisk begins to feel hopeless. Same with Chara. Their spectral form dims a little.

“Damn.”

Don’t worry. This’ll work. I know it will.

“Wouldn’t you have to consider your actions in response to them, as well, before making a decision?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“… Returning to the hypothetical circumstance of a long loop of repeated genocide, wouldn’t they be tired of it? Wouldn’t, after some time, they feel like they want to repent for their sins?”

“Maybe… what are you getting at?”

“If… for example, your response is to kill everyone as well, even if it could possibly be justified by trying to stop them from massacring all life around them, you’re… doing the same thing they are.”

Dust’s eyes widen as his eyes turn towards the floor.

WAIT. I… They did genocide. But I did as well. Am… I the same?

“If I… were to do the same as that, but want to change, go back and make everything better… Then… they’d want the same thing, right?”

Score. I’ve got him. Now to get them together and settle this.

*DETERMINATION.

“Yeah. They want to change, so do you. Therefor, giving them the chance to do that, and working with them, means that a better ending can be achieved.”

Chara’s eyes widen, realising what Cross was doing. Dust tenses, the realisation hitting him.

HE KNOWS. But… why is he so calm about it? What is he doing?!

“Anyway, I answered your questions. Where’s the kid?”

Cross chuckles a little.

“Bold of you to assume I know where they are. I do, though.”

Dust sighs.

“They’re behind the couch, aren’t they?”

Frisk tenses up completely, terrified, knowing Dust had found them. They’re worried Dust will mercilessly kill them.

“You can stand up now, Frisk.”

Silent and horrified, Frisk stands up, Luna Light and Celestial Star in their arms.

Dust’s breath gets caught in his throat upon seeing the ‘genocidal maniac’ right in front of him, yet with two children in their arms. One of them stares mutely at him, the other fast asleep.

“What.”

Frisk is still silent.

“See? They’re willing to change. A better ending is close, all you have to do is work with them and grasp it.”

Dust growls, instinctively getting ready to eviscerate them, before remembering the kids Frisk is holding. His hands unclench as he exhales slowly.

“I… Kid. Is what he’s saying right?”

Frisk nods, before scrounging up the courage to speak.

“We- I want it to end. Just… One more run. A pacifist run is what I want. After that, no more Resets. Just life on the Surface, with everyone there. Happy and alive.”

Dust sighs, knowing how much they’ve changed now. How much both of them have changed. From psychopaths to exhausted souls. There is no presence around him.

Strange… Paps would’ve forced me to kill them by now. Where is he? Is… is he finally gone?

“Alright. I… I have a proposal. One more run. You have to free us all, and nobody dies. No one. Not even after we’re all free, okay? If you do that… I promise I won’t kill anyone either, during or after the run. Deal?”

Frisk’s eyes light up. They smile a little, albeit faintly.

“Deal.”

Cross yawns.

“Alright, my job here is done.”

Dust glares at him, although it’s obvious the glare is playfully innocent.

“What do you mean, ‘my job here is done’?”

Cross smiles again, warmer this time, however still showing distrust.

“I’m gonna have to go, since I’m not a part of this timeline. I’ll see ya in the next one, though. I said I needed a place to crash, I’m gonna crash with you for now.”

Dust sighs.

“Okay, but I have some questions of my own. Now get the hell out of here so the kid can Reset in peace.”

Cross gently takes Celest and Luna from Frisk, opening up a portal to a small white space right outside of Dusttale.

“I’ll be back very soon. See ya… maybe in like a few minutes or so.”

Dust smiles.

“Yeah, in a few minutes probably.”

Cross steps outside of the timeline, the rip closing behind him. Frisk stares blankly, absolutely bewildered.

“You should Reset now, kid. Don’t wanna keep him waiting too long. See ya… in the next timeline.”

Frisk regards him with a calmer look.

“Okay.”

Meanwhile, the whole time, Chara has stared in silence, dumbfounded by the whole exchange.

“WHAT THE HELL?! HOW DID HE DO THAT? HOW DID HE REASON WITH SANS SO WELL LIKE THIS YET WE COULDN’T?! THIS MAKES NO SENSE?!”

Before Frisk, a yellow button comes into being. A rectangle with the word ‘RESET’ in it. A small tear falling down the side of their face, Frisk lightly presses the button. It flashes for a brief second, before everything fades to black.

Frisk opens their eyes, sitting up, now amongst the golden flowers in the Ruins. Meanwhile, Dust sits up in his bed, looking around, before hearing someone. A vibrant and happy voice he missed so dearly.

Frisk walks through the corridor until a familiar flower springs up in front of them. Dust watches the door to his room open, his younger brother, albeit much taller, looking at him.

Tears begin to roll uncontrollably down both of their faces.

“Frisk? Why… why are you crying?”

“Sans? What’s wrong?”

On the other side of the dimensional barrier, hearing the words and reactions, Cross smiles, tears falling down his face as well. Celest wonders why her father is crying, and why she doesn’t feel any sadness from him. Only overwhelming happiness. Luna is still asleep.

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YAY HAPPY ENDING FOR THE DUST FAM. Right now at least. Cross and the kiddos will stay there for a few days, until he reckons Shattered’s noticed he’s ran away.

Anyways here’s the RECOLLECTION designs for both Nightmare and Shattered.

EYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY they look great so yeah. Fun fact, I’m thinking of setting RECONCILIATION primarily in Dusttale! The next segment will be both Frisk’s pacifist run and Cross and Dust vibing together. They’re gonna have an important conversation. This is also gonna include my headcanons about Phantom!Papyrus, aka I interpret him as a hallucination. He exists to drive Dust to kill, but is driven away by happiness. Phantom!Papyrus absolutely will have no power when Dust is near his actual, living brother. Nor does that thing deserve it.

ANYWAYS IT’S 1AM HERE I NEED TO SLEEP.

Credits:

Celestial Star and Luna Light belong to @help-im-a-gay-fish (also hi how ya doing hows life)

Dark Cream belongs to @zu-is-here

Cross belongs to Jakei

Dream and Nightmare belong to Joku

Shattered!Dream belongs to shattereddreamsau AKA galacii/galacii-gallery

Dusttale belongs to askdusttale

The DETERMINATION Series is an alternate timeline, separate to canon Dark Cream and Gayfish’s timeline with the twins.

FIRST

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a-fallensoul · 3 years

Text

Supernatural Ending

The ending was so fucking sad and bad that it got me in tears and angry, it's a half of my life show, I never stopped watching it in 15y and i'm never gonna forget how they helped me during bad times...

This is going to be long...

But, My Jack... That was the ending?... Seriously...? They betrayed us, they didn't give us the boys ending, they give us Chuck's ending (15.04 pay attention to Becky, they even show us parts of those endings in 15.09, No Cass, No Eileen, one or both dies), so nothing of what the boys did in 15y, the sacrifice, all the pain, suffering, hopelessness, the lost ones, nothing of that really matter because in 15.20 they (the writers) let Chuck win, they destroyed 15y of storytelling, erasing Castiel and Eileen from the life of the winchesters and killing one of them... that was just unacceptable...

I love monsters and scary stuff, thats why I started watching Supernatural but somehow the show manage to become something more than that, the narrative change, evolved, and i ended up loving and caring way too much about Dean Winchester, the guy with this huge tragic story arc, i mean I love Sam too, but, the writers made me care too much about Dean and then Castiel appears in the picture and Jack dammit, it was just PERFECT...

They give us a simple show about a journey of two brothers on the road "saving people, hunting things, the family business" that later expanded to more than just two brothers, more than blood family, more than just hunting things...

Dean

Throughout his entire life Dean Winchester saw himself like -destructive, angry and driven by hate- like Cass told him in 15.18, and we saw it too... Since season 01 (01.06) that was a background story, Dean saying that on several occasions and thinking he doesn't deserve good things, the inner struggles, abandonment issues, hopelessness... And no matter what happened, he always saw himself like that ( he even vocalized those words on a few occasions )... other Hunters, friends/family that he truly cares about tried to talk him out of those ideas and he didn't listen. Cass confront him telling him why he's worth saving 04.01 but nothing, Amara (The Darkness) told him and try to help (15.15 they talk about this) failing, even Sam, his brother that he cares too much to even bring the apocalypse just to save him, told him throughout the entire series that he's way more than that, and nothing... no one could make him think otherwise...

Damaged and Broken Dean, a hopeless guy playing with girls and trying to find death in what he does, he is too tired of the job, that life, everything, and this was on 02.09...

Castiel

In S04 an Angel of the lord appears in the show, you know, the one who gripped Dean tight and raised him from perdition, Castiel (and the first to say to Dean what he thinks of himself in his own words 04.01), so with Cass understanding Dean in a personal deep way with just one look of him, showing him that he's worthy to be saved, that he's important, that he matters (a personal issue that both of them shares and I will talk later) created the famous "profound bond" that they share, and that was the beginning of their relationship (in subtext, context, queerbaiting or not), and this relationship made Cass change to even defy God's orders and the other Angels... for them but mostly for Dean, Castiel the “Self-hating Angel of Thursday” - “The one off the line with a crack in his chassis” and the only Castiel of all the other version to do so (exact words in 05.18 and 15.17).

Cass plays a crucial part in the show and in Dean's life, you can see how Cass becomes Dean's rock and vice versa ... But in 15.18 we all saw something way too beautiful and perfect but heartbreaking at the same time...

Destiel going canon

For 12y we saw Dean and Cass becoming more than just friends, their characters grow to support and find each other when they needed the most. This “profound bond” between them was what both needed... the personal issues that both have:

Dean is afraid of being left behind by his loved ones, to be alone, so he pushes people away when he gets scared, because if he shuts them out it hurts less...

Cass loves too much and he's afraid of being unvalued, unloved, that no one would want him to stay so he leaves before he's unwanted...

But Dean needs people to stay by his side no matter what and Cass, he needs to be asked to stay before he believes there's nothing left for him there...

So no matter how much they fight they always end up together and this game that they have show us a lot of hints of their relationship.

There are many declarations between them, sometimes are vocalized others are with less words and more driven by actions but neither are completely direct until...

15.18 the last episode with Cass and the most emotional one, he said to Dean “The good and the bad, you have done it's because of love... you're the most caring man on Earth, you're the most selfless, loving human being I would ever know... I cared about the whole world because of you... You changed me, Dean...” (...) “Why does this sounds like a goodbye?” ask Dean, knowing that something is wrong, and Cass says “Because it is (...) I Love You” to which Dean answers “Don't do this, Cass” trying to stop the goodbye, not wanting for him to leave, not again, not in this moment (that's how I interpreted his words and performance by the atmosphere of the moment, the words, feelings, tears and physical pain on Dean), Cass says “Goodbye Dean” and pushes Dean to a side, making the ultimate sacrifice for the one he love... leaving a bloody handprint on Dean's shoulder (a callback from the first time they meet 04.01 and part of the speech was a answer to Dean's prayer in 15.09) and he's left both touched and stunned over Cass's confession but this soon shifts into pure sadness leaving him in the floor crying not knowing what to do, say or think... Dean doesn't answer to the love confession, he is too shocked, but at least we had one with a reaction...

There's something important to notice here, the line “Daddy's blunt instrument” in that confession was used once in 03.10 from Dean to Dean in a dream, he never spoke of that with anyone, not even Sam for obvious reasons... how Cass knew about that...? In 09.03 we hear Cass saying to Dean how he appreciates their talks and time together... So for Dean, the guy who never opens his heart to anyone, to get Cass as his confidant, is just not nothing... it means something...

Jensen/Dean was scripted to say “I Love You” in 08.17 first and that changed to “I Need You”, they thought it wasn't a good time for Dean or the moment, and we respect it, actually i loved the “I need you” more, because it gave a lot of meaning to the next seasons dialogues between Cass and Dean, even the fights...

Still, this is one of the most beautiful declarations of love that I've ever watched on small or big screen between two men... (or one...) but, Becky was right (15.04), we all knew...

Dean and Cass ending (2 of the 4 main character in the end of the show) left me with a massive hole in my chest, queerbaiting or not, they did share this "profound bond" since they met, the writers play with that throughout 12y and 12 season, they even made Cass a "Last minute Gay" (personally I don't think he is homosexual, He is an angel, therefore, not Human genders are attached, I think he's just Deansexual), they pushed all those feelings and history of 12 seasons to a side in the last episode, like they didn't matter, but they did! for Them and Us... And it was a beautiful but incomplete story to see, Dean and Castiel deserved a chance to be happy..

We saw them, and they are worthy of being seen. At the end, that's what we all want, to be seen by the ones we love and be loved in return...

Cass's Dean

Those last words from Cass, his love for him, meant so much to Dean that finally, at the end, he changed too, Cass changed the way Dean sees himself... Cass's love made Dean overcome what he thought he was, his love made him feel everything he ever wanted...

Since Cass appearance in the show, we saw Dean, a problematic, man-whore, jerk, with no meaningful relationship whatsoever that thought he didn't deserve good things and with a death wish, become something more and way past that, queerbaiting or not he overcame all that at the core of himself, because of Cass... and that's a fact.

Then in 15.19 we got glances on how broken Dean was... the pain of what he just lost... now there's no Cass next to him again, just Sam and Jack, the rest of the world is lone gone and Chuck won... This episode was so good, full of sadness but again Dean being who he is we kinda see him mourning Cass in his own way, just some hints... Dean always turns to drinking when something like this happens, when Lucifer calls Dean posing as Cass he runs to Cass with excitement only to find out it wasn't Cass. Near to the end and after the fight against Chuck, they exchange some word, but one of those stood out from the rest, when Chuck (now former God) asked to them if they're gonna kill him, calling Dean the Ultimate Killer, answering -That's not who I am- implying a massive change in his core self.

Those words right there show us how Dean changed... those words from Cass... Was all that Dean truly needed to believe what he was, what he always has been, The old Dean would have killed Chuck in a heartbeat but not this Dean... not Cass’s Dean...

Dean and Castiel changed each other, they changed the world, and they changed us too...

Sam and Eileen

Sam and Dean share the pain of almost everything that happens in the show but he was emotionally stronger/stable than Dean, so he was fine even when he wasn't... And so it will be...

At S15 and after a few encounters with Eileen in S11 and S12 Sam develops a deep relationship with her until Chuck appears in the picture with his "control over her" thing... and they separated because she thinks she can't be trusted, in 15.18 she's killed by Chuck... Sam is in pain, his new love has died but he manages to stay calm, he's sad but still fighting... in 15.19 he's sad for Eileen, Cass and everyone, they feel defeated but by the end of the episode he completely forgets her... In 15.20 he doesn't even know who she is, so the deep relationship they had is like if it never existed...

The Writers Fuckup

E19 ended and there was no Cass or Eileen, actually in the last minutes of the episode we saw how the narrative made Dean and Sam forget about Cass and Eileen completely by not asking Jack to bring them back too...

E20 the last episode of the show there's like zero recognition of Cass or Eileen, they barely name Cass 2 times, no feelings or reaction attached... Nothing to Cass's love confession or sacrifice, we do not even see them mourning their “best friend” of 12y the one who sacrificed for them and Dean after the confession does nothing (they make Dean completely forget about him, until at the end when he was like, Cass, yes i remember that guy... in heaven with a beautiful side smile)...

We all know Dean and how he is with this type of things and feelings, he's just not good with them, but everytime that Cass has died in the past Dean just loses control, he ends up exploding when it's about Bubu, but not this time and this time was the most personal and important of all. So no reaction from Dean is a completely out of character move and the same for Sam with Eileen...

Season 15 is full of feelings and too much heart, is the final season and we can feel it... in 15.03 Cass break up with Dean with very sad words, and Dean made him feel like that, but we can see the pain of this goodbye on Dean's face and he's just too stubborn to say something... 15.04 we see a glance of what’s to come thanks to Becky, she tried to warn us and we didn't listen... in 15.06-07 Eileen is back with Sam like together Together, 15.08 Dean and Cass got a moment alone with Rowena in Hell while she gives them a couples therapy session, pretty hilarious to see but with a lot of weight for them, in 15.09 they have to go to purgatory, Dean finds himself alone, time is running out and he's on his knees praying to Cass, crying, apologising for everything he did and said, he's desperate to find Cass NOW!. Sam's fighting against God and showing us those possible futures, Eileen saying goodbye, 'cause she doesn't trust herself around the boys... And so much more.

The End came and it felt weird in general, even empty in some parts like, the Winchesters not doing anything to save Cas from the Empty like they have done in the past, the stupid dead of Dean, they took everything from him, they remove the possibility to try a different life like he was trying to (the CV in Dean's desk, he was trying to do more than just hunting, he wanted more from life), Since season 02 after something big happens we see how Dean doesn't want the hunter life, he is tired but he keeps fighting no matter what... They're free of Chucks control and yes, maybe that means that as they're no longer the protagonist of Chucks story, they are gonna have a -normal life with normal people problems- like Garth tells them in 15.10, and probably a normal hunters death, but they are still the last of their kind, -Heroes, like in the old days- words from Fortuna, (Goddess of Luck in 15.11) while she give them The Luck of the Old Heroes something that was completely forgotten in the narrative of the next episode, Jack not bringing Cass back with the rest of the world, Eileen disappearance of Sam's “happy ending”, with Eileen being allegedly alive, Sam does nothing to go and find her... In heaven Baby's plate are KAZ, like WTF with that change, what is the purpose of putting those plate from S01/02 now... and something more weird from this episode is that Dean is almost always the main character but in this episode it's Sam, it was all about Sam's ending, the Roadhouse was from Ellie not Bobby's, what is he doing there and why Dean goes there and not to other place more meaningful for him like to his house with mom, the Bunker, the Barn (i wish)? and last but not least Vampires didn't exist in John's journal/Bestiary he thought they were extinct in 01.20 they talk about that...

A few things weren't so bad, callbacks of the first episodes, the words that Dean and Sam shared, the promise of not resurrecting him back even when neither of them wants for this to happen, the unconditional love between the brothers... Sam having a normal life doing what his brother told him to. Jack fixing heaven creating a special type of Heaven just for Dean, -The Heaven that you DESERVE- Bobby's words in 15.20, Bobby with the eyebrow thing and long pause after saying Cass name to Dean -Well (...) Cass Helped- Dean smiling when he hears Cass name (even in the end they keep throwing us this type of scenes)...

A few good things don't change a bad episode from being bad... overall the episode didn't feel like a Supernatural episode it was hollow out of character and a complete disappointment...

The Queerbaiting

The queerbaiting in this show was in another level, all those continues references about stuff that only LGBT+ people would understand, the inspiration behind Dean Winchester character, other characters recognizing the “boyfriends tag” between Dean and Cass, hints and specific reaction of Dean with other male characters and with Cass pushed in the show too vigorously since 01.04, the long stares between Dean and Cass (i love those), Dean opening his heart mostly to Cass and Cass to Dean, the writers keep throwing girls to Dean and he keeps like.. Hot, she's really hot, okay bye... the famous 08.07 scene, all this and more was deliberately put there...

Remember, these are fictional characters created and directed to say and act in a specific way in the show, so nothing of what we saw in 15y was a mistake or us imagining things where there's nothing to imagine.

After all the character development Dean and Cass had, He was ready to say it in 15.09 and maybe, just maybe, Cass didn't let him talk because of the Empty deal that he had, can you imagine that... Dean was ready...

The signs of Dean being Bi were all over the show, in season 08 Dean developed PTSD for Cass and That scene in 08.07... Dean's confession in 10.16 where he said he -wants to experience things, people, and feelings differently or even for the first time-, Remember when Cass died and Dean was pissed all the time but Cass came back and Dean was so happy and hipeted about it 13.06... and what happened in purgatory 15.09 when he opens his heart to Cass, Dr. Sexy... and there are more of this in 12 seasons...

The Perfect Ending

“The Perfect Ending” just doesn't exist... it would be for it to never end, we just care too much... but if they have to die, well, they can die of old age after helping the new generation and living their lives or something like that... I'm glad that I even got to see what we saw, the boys journey against evil and all the love in between (15.20 wasn't a good episode it didn't feel right i'm gonna salt and burn it most of it...). Supernatural is not a perfect show but the beautiful thing about perfection is that it's imperfect too...

I do Choose to believe in a different ending one with Cass and Eileen in it, why?... Because the boys deserve to enjoy the world and people that they helped to saved, they deserve to be loved... and i refuse to think otherwise... THIS IS FOR MY PEACE OF MIND

#supernatural #destiel #destiel is finally canon #destiel is love #spn #15x20 carry on #i need you #i love you #dean winchester #castiel #sam winchester #spn 15x19 #eileen leahy

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csykora · 4 years

Text

After ‘84, Igor felt the pieces were beginning to fall off the Red Machine.

He hated being called a robot as much as he hated being called a soldier. He didn’t know what the world wanted the Green Unit to do on the ice or off it, how they had to behave, before someone would believe they had feelings. On the worst days they were too tired and numb to feel anything else.

When he’d met Bobby Clarke, who he thought looked like a hockey angel with a blond halo and no teeth, Bobby commented about the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. Igor didn’t know how to say that he’d definitely never been allowed to go to Afghanistan, and under the uniform he didn’t deserve to be a soldier, for good or bad. The national team was a tool of the Soviet government: at the same time it was a comfort for ordinary people in cold little apartments in mining towns where the players grew up and also a prop in the illusions that kept everything how it was.

The illusion went skin deep: every time they left Russia, Igor was issued a snappy winter coat and brand-name Western clothes, so no one would think the Soviets looked poor.

[A black and white photo of the Green Unit posing, smiling except for Igor, in matching windbreakers with saddle shoulders and bold stripes. This was a hot look, about 10 years before the Soviet Union Costuming Department thought it was a hot look]

Underneath the coat or the beautiful red sweater, everything was a mess. At one point, at a tournament in Canada, a Canadian player would hit Igor from behind. It wouldn’t have been so bad, except the Soviet management hadn’t provided enough hockey pads. Igor was wearing a partial set he’d borrowed from a high school team that played in the host arena earlier that day. (Across Europe and Canada I bet there are grown men, still hockey fans now, who have no idea they once owned game-worn gear from the world’s top scorers. To Igor’s fans those pieces might be worth as much as he ever earned in his CSKA career.) He would play the rest of that tournament with broken ribs.

The only outsider he’d met who seemed to understand, however briefly, was their friend Vanya. Asked what it was like playing against those Russian robots, Wayne said,

“Robots don’t hurt when they lose.”

By June 1985, Slava was recovering from that knee injury that had sidelined him for half the last season. He and his little brother Tolya, now a CSKA rookie, drove back for the start of training. Their car was hit, and Tolya was killed. Slava thought about leaving that season, but their parents told him to keep going, and just try to live for two people.

In November, the players at Arkhangel heard a rumor: someone had written an article, in a Soviet paper, that criticized the hockey program. Anything that wasn’t awe was criticism. Someone got their hands on a copy, and Igor, Vova, Sergei, and Slava huddled around their usual table that evening, hiding each other as they read it in turns. Igor reread it twice. He’d read Canadian and American papers that dragged the Soviet system, but never something like this, that got it--almost--right. It didn’t have all the details to understand the illusion--how they trained, how Tikhonov acted behind Arkhangel’s walls--but it guessed some.

Glasnost was beginning, a long rustling cracking thaw opening new streams of information and communication like Igor had dreamed. The Canucks drafted him that year, and then Vova. The Devils had dibsed Slava and Lyosha a few years before, and the Flames wanted Sergei. There was a place for them, waiting, if they could ever get to the NHL. But there wouldn’t be any thaw in Arkhangel as long as Tikhonov ruled it.

The ’85 World Championships were held in Prague, and ’86 in Moscow. Igor played both, and nothing else. For two years, no one saw him outside the Soviet Union.

In December of ‘85, CSKA was supposed to tour North America. Igor was dressed and ready. Then he heard his passport, which he had used a hundred times before, had run into problems. Coach told him not to worry, but to stay behind in Russia and--how convenient--keep training for the championships in Moscow. Igor woke up at three in the morning to watch the games he was supposed to be playing. He learned that Canadian journalists were asking about him: apparently, he had tonsillitis. Igor wasn’t entirely sure where his tonsils were.

Two months later CSKA played in Sweden. Strange, how his tonsils still weren’t better, and his passport was still missing. Two nights before they were set to leave Tikhonov called him into the office, in front of the team, and told him so. But the next evening Tretiak, now a more senior officer, came out to visit the barracks. He hugged Igor and promised him he would do what he could to get the passport by the time they were supposed to leave the next morning. Igor went to bed hoping. At 4:30 AM the coaches woke him just to tell him the passport wasn’t there yet, so the team really would be leaving without him.

The third time it happened, he was told to go back to the passport office to file everything all over again--maybe he had fucked up his passport. He didn’t bother. Taking away travel had been one thing. But doing it in front of the team, in front of the Green Unit, so that he knew that they knew that he had let them down somehow, broke his heart.

He was still allowed to play inside the Soviet Union. As long as he was with CSKA, the other Greens treated him the same as always. If they had known how bad things were going to get, Igor thought they would have done more sooner, but he knew that they didn’t understand what was happening. In between games, he spent his days in office buildings, being grilled about suspicious activities like listening to rock music, calling his mom too often, or kissing Canadians.

“I was at fault all around. That I gladly gave interviews to journalists. That I liked the NHL...that I like rock music. That the living standard there impressed me. All this was raked up into a pile. I was the enemy. Because, you see, if I liked the American way of life, then in general I was an American by heart. All of this they said about me.

By nature, I am clearly a Russian. I do not like everything in America. It cannot be that somewhere is as in a fairytale, and somewhere else is total darkness.

Particularly, it seemed, my [friendliness] offended the preservers of government secrets….I also knew a little English. Therefore I had the possibility to rub elbows with whomever I might come in contact: hockey players, journalists and even immigrants. And, they assumed, to each of them I could give important information--everyone getting an equal share, no doubt, in order to be fair.”

He couldn’t talk to his friends from other countries, or his Russian friends either when they traveled without him. On the street outside between the rink and the party offices, none of his former fans would speak to him, except to ask or tell him their opinion if he really was a traitor.

He was wanted everywhere but home. Obviously, no other country believed that a 25 year-old athlete who had been the best in the world six months before had been brought down by tonsillitis multiple times in a row. There’s only so many tonsils a person can have. Obviously, every other country thought Igor must want to defect, the one thing he did not want and couldn’t convince anyone of. So each host on the international hockey circuit was bouncing on their toes, first Canada, then Sweden and so on, thinking maybe the Soviet Union would slip up and let him come to their tournament, he'd defect, and then they’d get to keep him. Obviously, the Soviets noticed that, and squeezed tighter.

Each time the team left on tour, he was told to spend his time alone training harder and hope. If he was good enough, maybe he’d make the next tournament. His body, always a battle-ground with Coach Tikhonov, became a hostage situation. The more Tikhonov told him to train, the less he ate. Eventually he was eating mostly fruit, and restricting his water intake.

He stopped pretending to defer to anyone. He used to be the sober one between his hot-head wingers, and now he egged every fight on. Sometimes he faked an American accent, calling Coach “Tikhonoff” the way American broadcasters had at the '81 Olympics.

One day at the rink he bumped into figure skater Lena Batanova, who “knew nothing about hockey and could not have cared less.” She had been through worse training than he had growing up, only to win two World Championships, and then be slighted from a third. They understood each other without having to say anything.

[Igor washing dishes in their Moscow apartment, turning to glance at Lena pressing up him.]

That summer he stayed up late talking with his friends, and realized he wanted to marry Lena. He asked her the next morning, and she said yes. Behind Igor’s back, Slava, Vova, Sergei, and Lyosha went to Coach Tikhonov’s office, and told him that they would play every other day of the year if they had to, but they would be going to Igor’s wedding. Coach wouldn’t allow the three days for a traditional Russian wedding, but he had to give Igor one.

Waking up the morning after the wedding, Igor checked the mail and found a summons to appear before the Central Committee of the Communist Party. His friends, who I imagine lying hungover on his and Lena’s new couch and floor, rushed for their unused books to help him study up on Communist doctrine, in case he got quizzed. This is presumably when Lena woke up, realized she’d married a whole line of hockey players for their one communal brain cell, and rolled back over. Igor reported the next morning, probably with flashcards Vova had made for him in his pocket.

The Party officials congratulated him on getting married and gave him the wedding gift they were sure no one else would have gotten: his passport. We have to guess the logic here, if there was one. It’s possible the Party thought he wouldn’t risk his wife, or that two years had just been enough to realize the team wasn’t working without him.

But he was allowed to go to Canada for the Calgary Cup before the end of ‘86, and everyone had questions about his two years of tonsillitis. Igor, for the first time in his life, didn’t talk. But that just left the hockey world to gossip. Two months later it was announced he’d be in Quebec City for another tournament, and right before they arrived a Quebec newspaper printed a version of the night out with Gretzky--with quotes, they claimed, from Wayne. This time the tournament organizers called someone from every team up for a pregame presser. I imagine Igor shrugging at his KGB handlers and sliding away to the stage: nothing could stop him talking now.

Except the Canadian journalists. They wanted to interview Team Canada first. Igor stewed, and then looked up to see an oncoming Wayne. Someone had asked him about the alleged quotes in the article, which Igor had snagged a copy of to read the second they let him loose in Canada. Apparently Wayne hadn’t.

“‘Believe me, Igor,’” Igor remembers Wayne blurting out. “‘I didn’t say what was printed in the paper. I’ll tell them it didn’t happen! But what is your position now?’”

“‘Do not worry,” Igor promised him. “‘Now, everything is okay.’”

“Oh, awesome,” (I’m assuming again) Wayne said. “So do you want to come over later and hang out in my mom’s basement?!”

“If the KGB pulls a gun, then call me.” --Wayne Gretzky

Weirdly, I’ve never seen this inspirational quote cross-stitched on someone’s wall.

The next Canada Cup was held in August ‘87 in Hamilton, Ontario, which is like, basically next door to Wayne’s parents’ house. So the afternoon before the first game, Wayne sent his dad Walter to the hotel where the Soviet team was staying. Walter asked in Ukrainian if he could chat with Igor, who had to come down to the hotel lobby to meet him, since visitors were absolutely not allowed to wander up to players’ rooms. Walter invited his son’s friend over for dinner. Igor cut eyes at the KGB agent in the corner, and said he had to go upstairs and ask Coach. Tikhonov said no before Igor started talking.

Igor came back downstairs and apologized to Walter, who thought hard for a minute. He told Igor to ask what if the whole Green Unit went to Wayne’s house for team bonding? Coach Tikhonov considered, and said no, and Igor went back to Walter.

Walter hitched up his suspenders, and announced to the KGB that he would talk go to Coach Tikhonov now.

He told Tikhonov he would be honored if Coach came to dinner at his house that evening, and if Coach felt like it, he might bring the boys over too. Tikhonov said he’d love to.

Tikhonov, Igor, Vova, Sergei, Slava, Lyosha, and a KGB operative spent a delightful half hour packed in a car together driving to the Gretzkys' house, where Walter and Phyllis were throwing a cookout. Walter and some of his local buddies had barbecue and corn on the cob on the grill, and Phyllis had quizzed her son about his Moscow trip before throwing up her hands in despair and making a big batch of her mother’s Polish dumplings and sausage.

Nothing makes me happier than the image of Wayne Gretzky, beaming from ear to ear, handing famously fussy little Igor Larionov a piece of barbecued corn on the cob. Igor had to explain that yes, they had corn in Russia, but they ate it on a plate and not like squirrels. Walter offered him a beer, and Igor looked to Coach Tikhonov before saying no. Tikhonov allowed the players to have a soda.

Wayne started asking him how everything had been since the last time they hung out, and didn’t get why his friend wouldn’t talk to him at first. Igor might answer one question, and then act like he didn’t understand. Sergei and Vova really didn’t speak English, and kept elbowing Igor to explain what was going on and why Wayne was smiling at them like that, but Igor was still pretending he only spoke Russian and hesitated to translate for them. Finally Wayne realized Igor was clamming up every time Tikhonov got within earshot.

Wayne went to Walter to change the game plan. Walter would use his Ukrainian to ask Coach Tikhonov about his many amazing accomplishments, while Wayne told the whole party he wanted to show the other boys his medals, which were all down in the basement. Unfortunately the Gretzky family’s basement was very small, and housed Wayne’s many, many medals, so only two people could possibly fit down there at a time: one Gretzky, and one Russian. Tikhonov thought about it, decided he didn’t care about someone else’s medals, and gave the okay.

Just in case, Wayne deputized his dad’s buddy Charlie, who did not speak Russian or anything like it but was somebody’s dad from suburban Ontario, to chat up the KGB agent.

So Wayne began to escort the Green Unit, one by one, down to his family’s basement. At the bottom of the stairs, he handed them a beer. The two of them chugged their beers together, trying not to take suspiciously long or laugh too loud, and then ran back up to change out for the next boy.

Nothing happened that night. It didn’t change anything, except that Tikhonov never found out. The Greens had been able to get one over on him, because they didn’t have to do it alone.

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#green unit #igor larionov #wayne gretzky #slava fetisov #sergei makarov #vladimir krutov

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toorusquill · 4 years

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hi i wanna congratulate you on 1k, i hope you gain more bc you def deserve it ! uhh so,, me + konoha, i think konoha's vibe and charisma would help me relax therefore make me more outgoing and comf around him. he would tease me and i'd def fire back. there's alot of skinship too, just to be connected to each other. and we'd prolly open up to each other with insecurities and i'd be his hype girl 24/7 and vice versa. being with him erases the uptight me and helps me be more chill ❤️(1/2)

i think dates with him would be pretty chill, no need for elaborate planning (but sometimes one of us def plan secretly to surprise the other) usually its those dates where you binge a show until 2am or sleep in on the weekend where we just have the comfort of each other. uhh,, i like arts, true crime, mythology, and reading people (like looking at random peeps and trying to figure them out). thank you so much, i hope you have a great day ! stay safe ❤️(2/2)

vera’s au assignments

your au: detective + spy au!

wherein you’re a detective and konoha’s a spy from the same agency

---

- okay i imagine that the two of you are frenemies at first because your workplace was just not the best place to foster romantic connections. that AND the weird rivalry spies and detectives have (”which one is more important to the company?” “which one has a harder job?” that kind of thing)

- except with the two of you, it’s more intense because you guys like to rile each other up a lot. you definitely are forced to become partners with him because of a higher-up being tired of you guys squabbling all the time. over time you get to know him and whether you want to admit it or not, you actually really like him!! and you don’t know if that blurs into.. romantic territory but you don’t act on it

- UNTIL you guys get assigned on a new case and your work hours with him extend. you’re now investigating a very high-profile crime: a stolen painting from a museum. besides all the paperwork you and konoha have to do, also frequent the museum that got stolen from now,, and if it weren’t for your jobs it would’ve basically been a date.

- you get a tip-off from someone that the thief is holding an auction for it at an underground party and you two have to pose as a couple for the event!! and this little situation really puts the two of you in a predicament because you don’t want to cross the lines with each other.

- so at the bidding, after you guys actually enjoy your time with each other (hey, dancing with him when both of you are all dressed up), you eventually have to blow your covers and it causes a big commotion. at this point konoha doesn’t care about hiding his feelings anymore so before he chases after the criminal, he grabs your hand, kisses it, and tells you in a teasing, BUT genuine tone

- “we should do this for real next time. meet me at the Ritz lobby next friday?”

- you’re so stunned and also really flustered that you just stutter out a yes before yelling at him to chase after the thief aw.

---

ending note: thank you so much!! <3 i hope you liked this, i enjoyed writing this for you :> (spy + detective AUs are my cup of tea hehe)

#haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu headcanons #konoha #konoha akinori #konoha x reader #konoha akinori x reader #konoha akinori imagines #konoha akinori scenarios #konoha akinori headcanons #vera hits 1k #vera's au assignments

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taeguboi · 4 years

Text

BTS Crush On You: Truth or Dare [Jin version]

I decided to make another series to keep myself occupied with as I also make my other series ‘a care package to you’

This one is a mixed sleepover with the boys and some of your girl friends in which [member’s name] has a crush on you.

I seem to keep starting with Jin hahah oops oh well

Crush On You: RM // Suga // J-Hope // Jimin // V // Jungkook

Care Package To You: RM // Jin // Suga // J-Hope // Jimin // V // Jungkook

New Fiction Masterlist here

The initial scenario

Tonight had been planned for ages. You, all your girl friends and the boys. Everyone had been so busy lately with their heavy schedules of work, studying, the lot and everyone agreed that on the next night they were all available, you’d have a sleepover at one of your friend’s shared student houses (which was to be free with it being the holidays,) just like old times and to take time out from your young adult lives.

For some reason, you were never too old to be playing the classic game of truth or dare. In the spacious living room, already in your pyjamas, the group of you sat in a wide circle, some on the floor, some on the sofa, and sleeping bags were scattered everywhere. Many drinks had been consumed and now a space in the middle had been cleared for one of your empty bottles.

One of your friends spins the bottle and you all watch to see who it chooses….

Dare

“Alright, Seokjin-hyung…” begins Jungkook as the bottle spins to the eldest boy’s direction. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare” replies Seokjin.

“I dare you… to kiss y/n” says Jungkook, knowing something that the rest of you don’t.

A while ago, Jin had accidentally let it slip out to Jungkook when the former had had a few to drink after the two were at the end of a night out with you and y/f/n.

They had just seen that the two of you got to your door safely from the taxi and throwing themselves back into the taxi, Jin started acting a bit what Jungkook thought as odd.

“She’s a good un’ that one” began Jin.

“Who? Y/f/n?” asked Kook.

“What? No, I mean Y/n” slurred Jin.

“So you’re saying y/f/n isn’t a, quote, ‘good un’’?” chuckled the younger.

“You… you know what I meant” sighed Jin, feeling rather sleepy sat on the taxi seat, his head wobbling with the bumps of the road.

“I suppose… So did something happen back there? I mean for you to be talking about specifically y/n like this…”

“I wish!” boomed a drunken Jin then becoming aware of the volume of his voice. Jin cleared his throat, opened his eyes, sat up and started again. “What I meant to say is… she’s… nice… you know….”

“Oh my goodness, Seokjin! You have a thing for y/n….” replied Jungkook only to be interrupted by a prolonged -

“SHHH!”

Ever since this little admission, Jungkook - only very occasionally - would tease his hyung. Whilst he kept it to himself, Jungkook would often startle Jin by the things he said, often putting the elder on edge that his big secret would get revealed.

At first Jin tried to laugh it off like ‘I was drunk’ and ‘I didn’t know what I was saying…’ but Kook knew better; he had always believed that a drunk mind spoke a sober mind and that when his friend was trying to laugh it off, there wasn’t an ounce of truth in his eyes whenever he tried to say he didn’t like you as more than a friend.

Back to the game, Jin could feel his heart flutter; he had always wanted to kiss you ever since he realised his feelings for you, but now it was actually going to happen, he had a sudden urge to make his excuses and leave the room. But he didn’t.

“Uh…” is all he can nervously say. “So, how do you, like, want to do this?” he asks you awkwardly, rubbing his neck.

Now this causes most of the group to laugh out loud. Not in a horrible way; Seokjin had kissed many girls and the group had him down as quite the expert on the subject… why was he being so shy now?

“Oh come on Jin, really?” laughs one of your friends, unable to believe what she just heard.

“Hey!” he exclaimed defensively. “I was trying to be polite!” he continues folding his arms.

You can’t help but join in with a small giggle because bless him, but then you interrupt the laughter.

“Okay, thank you Seokjinnie for being so considerate” you smile, nodding excessively to prompt the noise to quiet down. You stand up and walk over to him and sit next to him as Taehyung who is sitting next to him shuffles over to make space.

The next thing Jin knows, you’re already initiating the kiss. Whilst he can hear a few of your friends going “wahey!” and all the rest, he suddenly feels like this whole sleep over is some sort of dream because of how surreal this feels.

But now he’s a little worried. Even whilst kissing you, all of his initial worries run through his mind but even more exaggerated. What if this makes the friendship weird? What if he acts weird? Are you even enjoying this? What if the look in his eyes after you kiss him gives everything away about his feelings?

Although all this runs through his mind, he actually manages to keep his cool because what you see and feel is a completely different story. You wouldn’t even guess that he is feeling flustered; no shaking, no general awkwardness, nothing like that.

Afterwards, Jin does his best not to overthink any of what just happened. After all, that wouldn’t be good for his brain, and after all… it was probably nothing to you.

Truth

This part is much longer than the dare lmao I’m sorry

It’s a few hours after the game of truth or dare and most of your friends have dozed off now, asleep in their sleeping bags or passed out on the sofa from staying up so late. Jin however, couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. It was only a dare kiss, so why was it everything he imagined?

You’re still sitting next to your friend Seokjin and you found you were having trouble sleeping after trying to at least doze off. Maybe it was the hard floor that made it difficult or the sudden shiver down your spine that made you feel chilly since 15 minutes ago… maybe it was something else.

You get up to pour a glass of water, hoping that someone else might be awake and show that they acknowledge you are, but there isn’t much response as you return to you sleeping bag - apart from a movement from Jin’s sleeping bag.

“Hey, ‘Jin?” you whisper, causing him to shuffle again. “Are you still awake” you ask in an even quieter voice.

“I’m awake” he replies, turning over to see you, eyes squinting a bit at the light still on in the room. He must have had his eyes shut longer than he thought despite not actually falling asleep.

“I can’t sleep” you tell him.

“Me neither”

“You wanna talk or something?” you ask unknowingly simply holding that glass of water… okay it was a beer, you got a beer instead.

Talk? You want to talk? About what? Inside, he panics a little, yet on the outside he manages to calmly reply “sure” as he sits up.

The two of you spend the next hour or so talking the night away about everything and anything. How this was a nice catching up session amongst your group of friends, stuff about your jobs and studies, how drunk Jimin got tonight and the antics he got up to, the latest episode of a tv series you both like.... How tonight was fun....

“You know what?” you say, grabbing your beer bottled which was emptied a good half hour ago now. “Let’s continue the game of truth or dare...”

“But everyone’s asleep y/n; there aren’t exactly many dares we could do that wouldn’t wake them up...”

“Well y/f/n seems to have fallen asleep with her phone in her hand, unlocked...” you joke

“Y/n!” exclaims Jin through his teeth “We’re not sending fake messages from our friends to their mums” he laughs softly.

“Okay, okay...” you sigh, a little disappointed despite your idea being in jest. “How about we take in turns, just truths?”

“Alright then” replies Jin, no idea how he’s managing to keep his cool, though he can feel his cheeks heating up a little.

“Would you rather...”

“I thought this was turth or dare?” he asks. “Well, truth or truth” he corrects himself.

“Well... you will have to answer truthfully” you reply, bringing a small smile smile to his face. “Would you rather be the funniest person in the room or... the most intelligent?”

Before he answers, Jin involuntarily has a quick something of a reality check. You’re talking normally to him, he can talk normally to you. He can and will just talk to you as a friend and not worry about this. He will just be himself.

“Aren’t they really one in the same?” he asks puzzling you a little.

“Are they?” you question.

“Yeah, to be funny, you have to have some intelligence, right?”

“What about slapstick comedy?” you fire back at him.

“What about the fact that I am already both of those things and therefore I don’t need to choose?” he jokes, placing the back of a hand under his chin to pose.

“Modest!” you chuckle. “Alright I’ll leave the ‘would you rather’ thing for another time... Let’s see...” you hum trying to think of a question, and then you can’t help but wonder about earlier. You aren’t sure why this thought comes to you but you kind of wanna know...

“How was earlier for you?” you blurt out, mouth acting ahead of your mind.

“Shh!” he hushes you, not unsimiliar to the way the hushed Jungkook in car that night.

“Sorry” you whisper apologetically, hand over your mouth.

“No, I’m sorry, sorry it was just a bit loud and it might have woken the others... Uh what I meant to say was....”

And then Jin stops again and his mind has another sort of reality check / epiphany; this is silly. He’s a grown man and he’s been living in this carry on of never talling you or even showing you how he feels, keeping it all inside, hung up on someone who might not even like him back in that way... is this one of those ‘now or never’ situations??

He hadn’t noticed how long he had paused for until you took him away from his thoughts by saying “Jin? Seokjinnie..??? Seokjin Kim..??” You wave a hand in front of his face, wondering if you can get him out of his trance. Is he just tired, or...?

“Sorry” he apologises again, gently moving your hand away from in front of his face and resting it down, leaving his hand on top of yours.

“Are you sure you want to know the answer to that?” he asks you.

In return, you give him a confused expression; what did he mean by that?

“Sorry, I’m royally fucking this up” he apologises - again.

“Okay, firstly just stop saying sorry” you nervously laugh because again, bless him.

“Okay, sorry” he replies making the both of you laugh quietly again.

“What’s up?” you ask

‘Right. Now or never’ he reminds himself internally and again, his thoughts put him on a delay and leave another silent patch.

“Please just answer the question” you plead as you start to worry if it was actually that bad for him that he doesn’t know how to tell you.

“Okay, it’s like this” replies Jin with a sigh to prepare himself to answer the question truthfull just as you had asked.

“Oh God, you hated it didn’t you?” you mumble with dread.

“No!”

“Shh!” you hush, mirroring the way Jin had just hushed you.

“So when you said did I enjoy earlier, you meant...”

“Yes, the kiss!” you quietly exclaim, getting impatient for the answer.

“And you’re sure it didn’t weird out our friendship?” he asks, still beating around the bush. However, he quits stalling upon seeing the unimpressed expression on your face. “Right... here goes... That kiss... that kiss felt... amazing” he admits, finally.

“Phew!” you sigh with relief.

“I believe it’s your turn for our little game of truth or truth, so... I’d like to ask you the same question: How was earlier for you?”

“I... liked it too”

“Only ‘liked’ it?” he challanges with a smile. “Maybe I need to remind you of how earlier was for you...”

“Maybe you do” you smirk, almost mischeivous in the way you smile back at him.

“Maybe I do” he smirks back, hand hovering over your cheek.

You guide Jin’s hand to stay cupping your face, and you both lean in for first a quick kiss, then another short kiss, followed by grins on your faces, followed by more kissing...

...followed by one of your friends waking up. It’s Jungkook.

“Oh my god! Yes!” he blares excitedly. “Guys! Wake up! It’s finally happening!”

*******

Crush On You: RM // Suga // J-Hope // Jimin // V // Jungkook

Care Package To You: RM // Jin // Suga // J-Hope // Jimin // V // Jungkook

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sea-side-scribbles · 3 years

Text

Fanfiction: Sympathy For A Downer

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22737214/chapters/73811022

Chapter 53

Arthur asked his questions and quickly left. The whole situation was quite upside-down: Arthur wanted to leave and Nick would've loved to keep him for a while longer. At least that's what it looked like to Arthur, who was very happy about it. However, he didn't want to risk being confronted with Morrie again. What if the Make Believe wanted to take a closer look at this curious reporter? Arthur didn't want to lose his new job after all. Unfortunately, this way, he got no statements from Morrie for his article. Arthur was annoyed by that as soon as he left the house, only comforting himself with the image of the next meeting with Nick. And then finally without a task.

He made an effort not to show it, but the interviews with Nick were rather complicated. It was hard not to ask anything that somehow concerned them both too. He had been assuring Nick over and over that he didn't have to answer, but it didn't seem to bother the rockstar as much as it did Arthur, who instead felt like he gained information about his lover's emotional life by trickery, rather than earning his trust. Therefore, he avoided asking too many questions about his private life, what Mrs. Oliphant would probably pick at. Nick of course was a professional and had his stock answers ready for situations like these, but then it felt as if they were putting on an act. Arthur was rather glad when it was over.

He finished his article just in time for the next issue. His boss, who was visibly busy, shortly looked at it, said a simple "Oh, splendid, splendid" and he was dismissed. In the evening, he went back into the tunnel suite, eyeing the chocolate and waiting for Nick to come by. Later, he fell asleep and woke up alone. Then he waited until noon. After all, he had missed Nick before and didn't want it to happen again. But nobody came.

Arthur stared gloomily at the chocolate, as if it should've summoned Nick. Then he felt more and more strange in this brightly colored room. It happened to him sometimes, when his lover wasn't there. As if Nick's presence changed him, as if he could become a part of Nick's glamorous world through him. Without him, he fell back into his own world, as a Downer that lived in the dirt and darkness, in the ruins of the once glamorous town. Without Nick, that matched him better. Because he felt like hiding himself away again, he wrote a message for Nick: "I'm next door if you need me". He planned to stay nearby, because he was sure that Nick would come today. When he slowly left the suite, he hoped that he would run into the rockstar yet, stopping again and again, until he reached his safe house.

There he caught his breath, as if he had been running from mortal danger. Only here, he felt really safe, in his own customized hideout, that nobody who was still in one's senses would enter. That he now couldn't leave anymore because he wanted to wait for Nick. He passed the time with rummaging in his numerous loot and crafting some useful things for himself. After a while, he even enjoyed it, thinking he really should've become an engineer. Or better, an inventor. But wasn't that the same? Inventor sounded better. He invented a lot of things, actually. Sadly only Downers would buy his stuff. Or burglars. That shop wouldn't go too well, he thought smiling to himself. Like that, he diverted himself, wondering about what Nick would say if he saw his little gadgets. That he could give Nick's smash hits a literal meaning if he wanted.

When he had used up everything he could find, it was already late in the evening. Arthur now worried that he had somehow overheard his lover and went back to the suite. There, his note lay on the bed, just where he had left it. Well, we still have all night, he thought and took another long shower. The misadvantage of crafting was that he could barely get the lube off his hands. Getting out halfway clean, he hoped that Nick would let him get away with it.

Dressed in a new suit, he sat down on the soft, round bed and waited. Then he thought it would look better if he was doing something, when Nick came, so he started to dust the room. There wasn't much, but enough to busy himself with it. Passing by the golden statue, his gaze rested on it. It was a tiny version of the one that decorated the Avalon Hotel entrance. Perhaps he only had it to test the pose. Or to remember himself of the good old days. Arthur picked it up and slowly turned it around, eyeing it from all sides. He saw his own reflexion in the golden coating. Then he put it back at the exact same spot. It took some more time until he was able break away from it and continued cleaning. After he had rounded the entire suite, Nick was still not there.

Alone, he sat back on the bed, considering to pay him another visit. But he abandoned the idea, because of the risk, and because the rockstar was probably busy. Where was he? Did he really have no time, even for a small visit, just to say that everything was alright? Perhaps he had, and was already on the way here. Arthur, who was tired from crafting, who was only kept awake by impatience, crawled under the blanket. In his mind, he played Nick's new songs. The sang him to sleep, bit by bit. The next morning, he was still alone. He brewed himself a coffee at Nick's bar and waited for a very long time. Still no rockstar.

Frustrated, he mused what to do. Another day in the tunnel? Nicky could come by any moment, but yet he wanted to go outside again, making sure the town was still standing. So he left another note, hoping that he could convince Nick to wait for him until he came back. It didn't have to be a long walk anyway.

With Sunshine and Mojo by his side, he left the hatch and wantered along the rainbow colored road, imitating the Wellies that mindlessly strutted by. A few greetings here and there, a little smalltalk about the weather later, Arthur was certain that everything was the same. Everyone looked high and happy. Later, someone mentioned Nick's new record and engaged Arthur in a conversation. "You know, deep inside, I always knew he was a decent bloke. All these rumours and shittalk about him, I never believed it." "Me neither", said Arthur, not quite persuaded. "Some people are so dense", the Wellie said as if he had to defend himself. "Yeah...but not you, I guess". "And not you. I reckon I'll see you tonight too?" He eyed Arthur. "Uh..where?" "At the concert, of course! I guess whole Hamlyn Village will be there, but trust me, most of them are frauds." "I know what you mean." Arthur had no clue. "Stay away from fake fans, you hear me?" "Sure..." Arthur rather backed away, but the chance to see another concert was spinning in his head.

It was probably the reason why Nick had no time. Perhaps he could get into the backstage area somehow? With his press pass it was now easier to visit these events. He would've liked to ask the guy about the time and place, but he didn't want to come out as a fake fan or something. Other Wellies could tell him more though.

He had to pass another way too big amount of time, before he finally stood in front of a stage, with a camera ready, and waiting some more. Unfortunately he didn't find a way into the backstage area and now he was standing in between the screeching fans, trying not to get squashed. They came closer and closer to the stage and the Bobbies had their hands full pushing them back. Arthur's heart was pounding heavily up to his throat. This time, he had enough Joy for a couple of hours and was sure not to lose his head again. What could go wrong though, was that he could burst with impatience. Two days without Nick! And now only seeing him on stage! Nick would have to make up for that.

When the band finally arrived, the shrieking increased to an earpiercing level. Arthur barely heard the music and felt merely lost in the chaos. Fixing his eyes on Nick, he remembered having a camera. With shivering fingers, he took the first picture and his flash lightened up for a few seconds. Nick promptly turned into his direction. Arthur tried waving at him, and it looked like Nick understood. The rockstar threw himself into a pose that Arthur simply needed to capture on camera. Soon, it seemed like they were playing a game, with Nick adjusting his choreography for him. Arthur would've loved to eternalize every second with his camera anyway, but the concert had just started.

Nick was in high spirits today, Arthur found, watching him showing his affection to his recovered friends. He kept whispering to them, sometimes put his arms around them and blew kisses after solos. Arthur assumed he was simply happy to have them back, like he said in the interviews. And he probably wanted to make up for everything. That he lay on Morrie's piano during a love ballade and darted ambiguous glances at him, he found was a little bit too much. Still, he took photos of that moment. It was only a show after all.

Nick felt awesome. With the fans in front of him and the band behind him, he could truly forget everything else. Finally, he wasn't alone on stage anymore. He fooled around with his friends, kept thanking them again and again, also remembering himself not to neglect his fans. Even Arthur was there, Nick could see his flashlight. He also gave him attention and looked forward to see the photos.

While he was dancing along, suddenly a fan jumped on stage, grabbed him and sticked their tongue into his throat. Randomly gagged like that, Nick didn't find it too bad. It was spicing up the show, and after all, a true fan deserved a reward for sneaking past the Bobbies. So he returned the kiss with passion. The other fans freaked out, probably most of them wishing they could switch places with the lucky sod on stage, and many reached out their hands. Nick thought it would make a great photo. Letting go of the fan, his gaze fell on a familar face and he startled. Kitty Bates was standing in front of him.

She was all aroused, with her cheeks red, and her voice shivered a bit when she asked: "Will you do it now, Nicky?" The music became quieter, lurking. The band was probably expecting another surprise act. Nick quickly switched off his microphone. "C...can't we wait until after the gig?" Kitty wasn't amused about that. "I've been waiting long enough!", she hissed. "Do it now, or I'll tell everyone what you did!" "This is blackmail!" "You promised, Nicky! And this moment is perfect!" Nick stared at her, but her expession was merciless. He couldn't draw it out any longer. It was getting awkward, everybody was waiting for something to happen. And if he wanted to save this gig and his career...

Defeated, he switched the microphone back on and went down on one knee. "Kitty Bates...", he said with regret. All noises had vanished off the concert hall. He only heard his suit rustle and his own breath. "I can't imagine my life without you. Since we met...you've been my Joy", he lied. It had once been true, now all these words were delayed. "I promise I'll be yours...forever." It sounded awful to him, but Kitty's eyes watered. There were some "Awwws" from the audience, probably from those who weren't bursting with jealousy. So far, so good, but he still had no ring. From sheer necessity, he grabbed his necklace, pulled off the pendant and presented it to her. "Will you marry me?", he forced his tongue to say. Then he gave her the mic. Her sobbing echoed through the hall.

"Yes...yes, I will! I want to be your wife, Nicky!" she cried and gave him her hand. Nick had to slip the pendant on her finger. It looked rather weird, but nobody saw it from far away. Then he got up and wrapped his arms around Kitty, who was bursting into tears. They received applause for their show, the band accompanied it, but Nick was afraid what Matt and Morrie thought right now. And Arthur.

Somehow, he persuaded Kitty to leave the stage. She was followed by Bobbies, making sure that Nick's new wife won't be attacked by the many rivals. They continued, but this gig's magic was gone. Nick was afraid of the end. He played the happy rockstar as good as he could and avoided certain band members. Chris and Brad had no idea what was going on and were still in a good mood. He once got a slap on the shoulder from Chris, if out of pity or out of happiness, he wasn't sure. He had tried to find Arthur again, but his flashlight was gone.

Arthur didn't take a single photo of this whole scene. He only stared with a gaping mouth. Firstly, he waited for Nick to reject that woman and hand her to the Bobbies. When nothing likely happened, he started to worry. And when Nick fell on his knee to say all these awful things to her, he felt like he was about to faint. He was watching the scene from start to finish, always expecting that it would turn out to be a spoof. But there was no hint. Only the feeling of being betrayed that grew inside him. Nick had worn this ring all the time, letting it dangle right in front of Arthur's face. The mere thought gave him nausea. He had enough photos to fill an album, he needed to get out of here.

When the band left the stage, Nick followed Chris and Brad. "I hope you won't regret this", Chris just said when Matt suddenly grabbed Nick's arm, turned him around and slapped him hard in the face. "Matthew!", Brad shouted. The bassist normally wasn't the aggressive type. Chris placed himself in front of Nick, who kept quiet and held back tears. "Hey, what's wrong?" "Keep out of this, Chris! This is about me and Nick!" "Just calm down, okay?" Brad tried. "You know what you did!", Matt snapped at Nick. "Do you have any shame?" Nick couldn't take it any longer. "I don't want to marry her!", he sobbed. "Believe me, I don't!" Now everybody was confused. "Then why did you propose?", Chris asked. "She blackmails me..." They exchanged glances.

"Uh...guys?", Virgil approached them. "How about an encore? The fans are a bit upset. Soon we'll have another bill for a damaged stage..." He stopped and eyed the scene in front of him. "Nick, what happened? Where's Morrie?" "I get him!", Matt seemed to be eager to leave the scene. He ran past Virgil to the dressing rooms. Brad gently squeezed Nick's arm. "Don't worry, Nicky. We'll deal with her later. Just take another Joy and forget her." Nick nodded and digged into his pocket while Chris gestured to Virgil that everything was under control. Nick popped two pills and moaned as all colors exlpoded in front of his eyes. The world was full of rainbows. "I can't see anything...", he muttered. Then he stumbled outside. "Whatever." Chris and Brad exchanged glances before they followed him.

The first minutes of the encore, Nick was in a trance and kept forgetting the lyrics. Then the effect died down and he felt both tired and excited at once. After finishing the song, he threw up behind the stage. "Shit", Brad held him so he won't fall over. Chris palpated Nick's forehead. "Do you need a flash?" "No, no...I'm okay...I'm okay...", Nick muttered, who was feeling a little bit better. "Virgil, do you think we need another encore?", he heard Matt ask. "No chance..., no chance...", Brad said before everything turned black.

Nick woke up surrounded by his band and Virgil, and turned around, trying to orient himself. He felt horrible. They gave him another black pill. "Take your Joy. Take your Joy. Yeah, there you go..." It was getting better. They helped him up and he was able to walk home with them, even thought it all felt like a dream. At home, he fell on the first couch he saw. "I'm so tired...", he muttered. Somebody patted his back. "Sleep well, Nicky. We'll talk tomorrow." It was Virgil's voice, that had such a soothing effect on him that he dozed off.

A few seconds later, he jumped up again. Arthur. He had no clue. He could hurt himself. Nick struggled his way outside, with a nasty feeling in his stomach. The next hatch wasn't far away though. Only the way felt much longer and his fear grew. How much time had passed? How long had Arthur been alone? He reached his suite, but it was empty. "Arthur?", he rasped. He was too weak to shout. He crawled to his hideout and used all the strenght he had left to knock at the door. Then he slid down on the stone floor. Colored dots danced before his eyes. The door opened, just when Nick's stomach had decided to turn again.

"What the...?", Arthur jumped aside. "Nick!", he hissed, "What are you doing here? Did you forget you're getting married?" "I don't want to marry her", Nick squeezed out. "She blackmails me...she..." Arthur was confused. "Why don't you fight back? I bet a rock idol like you can afford a lawyer, right?" Nick pressed a hand on his head. "Too much Joy...", he said, then he curled up into a ball. Arthur's anger vanished when he considered that Nick was just about to die of an overdose. He ran to his chest where he kept his supplies and came back with a syringe.

"This is gonna sting a little", he said, hoping he wouldn't hurt him too much. Nick whined loudly, when the syringe touched him, but perhaps he was only complaining about his general state. Arthur could see no injuries. He had no idea if flash even worked for Nick, with all the drugs he probably had in his blood. He lifted him up and put him down on one of the pallets. The rockstar calmed down. "You don't want to marry her?", Arthur asked again. "No...", Nick moaned. "No, I don't want to...." Arthur gave him a kiss on the cheek. And then another. He lay beside Nick and pulled a blanket over them.

Sometime Nick awoke again and tossed around, feeling horrible again. He startled Arthur awake. "Nick, what's wrong?" "My Joy...I need...my Joy...where is it?" Nick rummaged around in his pockets. Arthur palpated him and quickly found it in an inside pocket, that Nick couldn't find in his state. Nick clumsily reached out for the Joy, but Arthur instinctively pulled it away from him. In this very moment, Nick was a Downer. Arthur could deny him the drug, make him see the truth.

"Arthur?", Nick whispered.

He was still helpless, but he could get agressive without his Joy, and then Arthur would have to lock him up somewhere until he was completely sober. Still, he could leave the room and lock it up. Nick would be caught. But he would surely hate Arthur after that. Arthur himself had had a choice. Nobody had made him a Downer. And wouldn't it feel better if Nick would choose this truth all by himself?

With a heavy heart, he gave the pill to Nick. His lover popped it and relaxed. His breath got calmer, the stress faded away. Arthur lay back down next to him and waited. "Oh...yeah...that's much better...", Nick sighed after a while. Arthur put an arm around him. Nick turned around and looked at him, beaming. "I'm so happy that I found you! I was so worried about you!", he sighed. Arthur was still worried. "So...you really didn't mean it? The proposal?" Nick's eyes widened with horror and he began to avoid Arthur's gaze.

"I had no choice." He rammed his fist into the mattress. "Goddamnit, what should I do?" Also Arthur's mood dropped. "What does she have on you?" "Oh..." Nick covered his face with his hands. "Just some bad luck! If only I didn't go...! If only I listened to Virgil! This is my punishment!" Arthur petted his arm. "There must be a way..." "If I remembered....", Nick whined. "Damn Party Favors!" "What happened?" Nick moaned, curled up and made another woeful noise.

"Let me help you", Arthur went on. "You know, I don't want you to marry her, too. If I can prevent that somehow, tell me." Nick laughed bitterly. "Only Sherlock Holmes could help me now...", he muttered more to himself. "Pardon?" Nick looked at him again. "Can you solve a murder, Arthur? Or hypnotise me so that I remember what happened?" "I can try", Arthur said, who'd rather do that than nothing. "But I need some more information." Nick scratched his throat. It was obvious that he felt very uncomfortable talking about it.

"Nick, trust me, whatever happens, we face it out together. And if you...were up to something...I guess I'm the last person that should judge you." Nick's eyes were pleading. "Do you think I could hurt anyone?" "No...honestly, not at all. But I know that in this town, you have to do things, that..." Arthur sighed deeply. "Well, things that you regret. We take Joy to forget them." Nick ruffled his hair. "Oh, Arthur, I swear, I didn't do anything! I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time! Because I was high...again." "That sounds more like you", Arthur said and tried a smile. It worked. Nick's mouth corners twitched a bit.

He silenced for a while, pondering. Then he asked slowly, approaching the topic: "I guess...you heard that...Richard Bates...is dead?" "I...think it was in the press..." Arthur sometimes read newspapers he found on a bench. "Foggy Jack got another one, was it him?" "Uh....huh...maybe...you know, the night it happened, I was there, with Kitty." "Oh, Kitty Bates", Arthur understood. "She's his...sister?" Nick gave another bitter laugh. "No...his wife. And a passionate Lightbearer fan. Anyway...Because I was high I can't remember what happened that night. I swear, I've been with Kitty all the time, but she believes I killed her husband to marry her myself. And if I don't do it, she'll tell everyone her story!"

"Could it be that she did it herself?" Nick stared at Arthur, surprised how quickly he went along with him. "Well...she is quite bonkers...but a murderer? I don't think she could do it." Arthur fell quiet, musing. "You see how hopeless this is?" Nick shook his head. "And I thought she'll forget." "Forget...", Arthur muttered. "Nick, that's it! She must forget!" Nick gave him an unwitting look. "How?" "Well...I could use Oblivion! It doesn't erase all memories, but I guess it could do with the most recent ones. It could work!" "Isn't that...dangerous? What if she gets insane?" "More than she already is? I mean, what choice do we have?" "And how do you plan to give it to her?" "I could put it in her tea or something...Don't look at me like that. You know I can break into houses. This time I'll do it for us!" "Oh, Arthur, if something happens to you..." Nick took his hand. "I'll take care. The alarm systems are rather primitive and I'd go at night, when she's asleep. Come on, I risk my life every day. I could just as well risk it for something helpful this time." "Oh..." Nick embraced Arthur. "You really are a life saviour. What would I do without you?" Arthur kissed him. "She'll leave you alone soon."

Nick began to smile. He held Arthur for a while longer, then he let go and his expression turned sadder. "Arthur...I...I don't know how to say it...but I must go. I dashed off to look for you. Nobody knows where I am. I'm sure they worry about me." "They aren't in danger, Nick. You're a grown up man, you can do what you want!" Nick shook his head. "The last time they saw me, I was out of my mind. They'll think I jumped off a cliff or something." "But you didn't", Arthur insisted. "You can tell them tomorrow what happened." Nick fought with himself, but Arthur was done waiting "Well, If you can't stop thinking about it, it's pointless." He crossed his arms and stared at the wall.

Nick eyed Arthur, who didn't move anymore and looked rather hurt, and decided he didn't want to leave like that. Even though he couldn't stay for long. He pulled himself together and hugged Arthur again, kissing him, apologizing. Arthur clutched him, as if he would never let him go again. After all that stress, they needed extensively kissing and petting to get in the mood. Nick let Arthur crawl onto him and Arthur savoured the moment, making Nick moan and beg for release until he couldn't take it any longer himself. And yet it was Arthur, who was begging in silence when Nick put his clothes on and left the bed. "Be careful, my King", Nick said and drew out the goodbye kiss.

When Nick was gone, Arthur searched his supplies for Oblivion.

#we happy few #whf #wehappyfew #nicklightbearer #nick lightbearer #whfnick #whf nick #whfarthur #whfarthurhastings #nickxarthur

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brokenjardaantech · 3 years

Text

rk1700 december day 15: snow

written for @rk1700december. day 15: snow

rhea is female connor. cronos is rk900.

also on ao3

----

Cronos comes back from training one day to Rhea shaking a… thing. With a mansion inside of the clear impenetrable sphere and the suspended white particles, a scan tells him that it is something called a ‘snow globe’ except that it is shaped like a lamp. He sits on the floor behind Rhea and pulls her into the space between his legs, adding a kiss onto her cheek when she is close enough, and he knows the snow globe really has her attention when she doesn’t turn around to return the kiss as usual. He presses their cheeks together, and their skin at the points of contact retracts automatically for an interface. Where did you get this? he asks. Aren’t you cold watching it?

Rhea frowns. I don’t… it cuts off from there. Can you turn off the lights?

Their quarters plunge into darkness with a thought from Cronos, and he watches Rhea slide her pinky underneath the bottom of the lamp and turn it on with a click of a switch. Light spills out of the mansion’s windows, reflecting off the flakes which start spinning automatically propelled by the invisible swirl of the liquid in the globe and shrouding the room in a warm, mesmerising shade of yellow. When the raw brightness of the lamp becomes too much, they both look up at the same time just to see the swirling spots of brightness on the ceiling, on the wall, on each other’s face. It should not be this warm, this magical - mansions of that style are empty, remnants of a time long passed; snow means cold, cold means heat loss, heat loss means… means death to Rhea. Does Rhea know this, or are facts and logic ignored in the face of a beautiful sight? Why does he, advanced as he himself is, also feel the same despite having the ability to pre-construct - in great detail, nonetheless - how they would slowly waste away if left out in the open, how he would have to give up on maintaining Rhea’s system so that she could die before him and live her whole life knowing that she was loved?

Anchor won’t let that happen, Rhea’s voice pulls him out of his downward spiral. She’s brave enough to protect us from our creator. She won’t… she won’t… her uncertainty grows. I think…

Cronos shushes her. There is no use speculating, he feels hypocritical when he says it. We have other things to worry about.

Such as?

My training. The conflict that Anchor still refuses to tell us about. Your condition.

Very true.

Rhea wriggles in his arms. They both stand, he lets her drag him towards their bed, and she places the snow globe lamp on the bedside table before flopping down onto the bed, bringing Cronos with her. They cuddle close together without compromising their view on the light show, and although Rhea falls asleep not long after, thoughts do not stop swirling in Cronos’ head like the flakes in the snow globe.

A few days later, he still hasn’t figured out where the snow globe came from. Neither the item itself nor the box it came from bear enough evidence for him to reconstruct the events of its arrival into the room as if it materialised out of nowhere. Again the grey backdrop of his reconstruction software, he watches the yellow outline of Rhea’s figure wake up from her nap, see the box on the floor and, instead of pinging him to check if it is anything explosive or harmful, open the cover and slide the block of shock-absorbing material out of the container. The material comes off soon afterwards, and he sees Rhea’s reconstruction stare at the particles suspended in the globe for a few minutes until - presumably - most of the snow has fallen, after which she picks it up and switches it on just to drop it onto the shock-absorbing material; even without a face, Cronos can sense Rhea’s shock and panic as she carefully takes the lamp in hand once more before assuming the posture he found her in. He blinks, colour returning to his vision, and he immediately sends a report to Anchor. A few hours pass during which she forwards updates from site security regularly to him, Cronos preparing his mind for an upcoming wing-wide sweep which will remove him - and Rhea, by extension - from their quarters for at least half a day as all the reports return inconclusive, but it isn’t until a full day afterwards that the human brings two armed escorts with her and orders them to not only bring the androids to another room but also stay with them at all times. When he asks her about it, he can feel her eyes scanning the room and landing on the origin of their troubles, and her gaze does not soften even as it sweeps over Rhea who flinches and hides behind Cronos.

‘Someone managed to sneak an unauthorised item deep into this facility without being detected,’ a biotic field so weak that it is barely detectable fizzles and expands from her body until it fills the entire room. ‘This is a security breach and I’m not risking your safety.’

‘Then why didn’t you come earlier?’ he puts an arm around Rhea and guides her towards the door even as he says so. ‘Why now?’

‘Use your processors, Cronos.’

The door slides shut behind them, and the click that follows and the change in the colour of the hologram signify the lock engaging. They are locked out of their own quarters. Next to him, Rhea shivers, making Cronos realise that they don’t even have the time to grab her jacket.

‘C’mon,’ one of their escorts says and gestures towards the direction they should go with their gun. The uniform and helmet are designed to hide as many identifiers as possible, and now Cronos can’t even scan them to know if they’re human or android. ‘This way. We’ve got your new place stocked up.’

Their new, hopefully-temporary quarters is no different from their old one apart from the standard-issue bed which now feels a bit narrow, but since it also means more cuddling and snuggling with Rhea underneath layers of covers, he isn’t complaining about his current situation despite the lack of answers on Anchor’s part.

Who did answer his questions, on the other hand, is Elijah.

Cronos, the email reads, it’s nice to hear from you. For the sake of keeping things pleasant, I have decided to ignore the fact that the snow globe you mentioned seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, and to answer your first question: yes, I do have experience with snow. A lot of it, in fact, as my childhood home is quite famous for being cold and harsh in winter, and our winters remain long despite the influence of climate change. Since the environment I grew up in was not exactly… child-friendly, it had always been better for me to focus on the unique patterns of snowflakes than the death and lifelessness it symbolises - easier on my poor young brain, and one needed all the hope and discovery they could find in the cold land far up north.

As for your second question about the warmth you feel when you look at the snow globe: I have always found it ironic that winter coincides with traditions and customs that, under more pleasant circumstances, should provide warmth and support to a person, be it familial love or that between friends and/or lovers, and I must apologise for not being able to provide a more substantial answer as my personal experience with said traditions and customs are sparse and in between. Those I did experience, however, I remember clearly to this day. I will not discuss the details here as it will pose a security risk and be a breach of Alliance protocol, but should you wish to pursue the matter further, feel free to ask Anchor about it. Councillor’s approval. Signed, Reed

Cronos wonders if Elijah knows that Anchor would probably kill him if he tried to talk to her right now but sends him a reply anyway to thank him for his input and direction. Their skins receding at their points of contact, he interfaces with Rhea and plays the recording of the snow globe’s projection in their original quarters on a loop until it puts both of them to sleep so that he doesn’t have to think.

Their return to their quarters comes as suddenly as their departure. Anchor, as usual, provides little to no explanation apart from a simple ‘the situation has been handled,’ and therefore as Cronos watches Rhea crawl all over her original home to examine whether everything is in place - even the snow globe is, in fact, and Cronos has to ask about it - he decides that a visit to the human is needed, one way or another. Rhea has already turned on the lamp and is ready to switch off the lights as well when he asks her if she wants to follow him to find Anchor, but she willingly goes with him under the condition that she is allowed to bring the lamp with her (and of course he lets her; he rationalises that if Anchor allowed the lamp to remain, it means the lamp is safe). Finding the human in a large facility is, however, another can of worms in its entirety; it is after fifteen long minutes of wandering around and probably annoying the brains out of site personnel by asking them about Anchor’s whereabouts that they stand in front of a locked door leading to the observation deck. Taking a breath he doesn’t necessarily need physically, he holds Rhea’s hand tight in his grasp and knocks with his other one. A few seconds of silence. He feels Anchor’s biotics sneaking up from the minuscule gap underneath the door and gives him a poke. The lock disengages with a click.

‘Come in.’

Cronos interfaces with the touchpad to open the door. Rhea lets go of him and barrels in, stopping next to the human only when she realises that Anchor, who is sitting on the floor parallel to the floor-length windows, doesn’t seem to be interested in her and is staring at the floodlight-illuminated barren landscape outside. She kneels to place the lamp in front of the human, and that is when the latter turns and nudges the lamp towards the android. ‘Keep it,’ she says, her eyes not leaving the view once. She sounds… tired. ‘You seem to like it.’

As usual, Rhea turns towards Cronos to indicate that she wants him to answer for her. ‘She does,’ he replies. ‘Is that why you left it in our quarters?’

Anchor lays her gaze on him. ‘Ripping an object a person is attached to without said person’s consent has been proved to be traumatic. My orders are to take care of the two of you, and that means no unnecessary harm from me.’ She leans forward to place the lamp in Rhea’s arms properly. ‘I might agree with the Administrator in a lot of things, but this is not one of them.’ A cock of her head as the rings of her eyes seem to glow brighter, but it can be a trick of the floodlights outside. ‘Why are you here anyway?’

‘Do you know where or whom did the lamp come from?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do we want to know?’

‘No.’

‘Why?’

Anchor shrugs, her face carefully blank. ‘There’s a fight out there. No use dragging you into all that.’

‘What fight?’

‘None of your business. Hopefully, at least. Any more questions?’

‘Yes, actually,’ he sees Rhea shaking the globe again. ‘When we turned on the lamp, it… snows in the globe. Logically, snow is associated with winter, and Rhea and I should have felt cold when looking at the artificial snowfall. However, both the scene and its projection brought us a warmth that should not be associated with snowfall. Is it a normal reaction? Elijah suggested asking you about this strange phenomenon.’

The human looks at Rhea and watches her entertain herself with the snow globe, and for a few seconds there is silence. Then, gesturing to the space in front of herself, ‘Sit down.’

Cronos mirrors her posture and sits down leaning against the glass with his legs outstretched. Seeing that her - what exactly is his relationship with Rhea anyway? - successor is on the floor, Rhea crawls underneath his arm without being prompted and snuggles close with the lamp balanced in her lap, a small smile on her face as she lays her head on his shoulder and continues looking at the particles in the snow globe softly like it both contains all the answers and is the most lovely thing in the universe.

‘One way to explain it without breaching my vows is that a… holiday where people celebrate together coincides with winter in the northern hemisphere of earth,’ Anchor’s line of sight turns towards the landscape outside once more. ‘Some places snow, some places don’t, but if we’re talking about stereotypes, yes, it snows while everyone stays indoors to enjoy their time with their loved ones. Snow-blanketed outdoors, fire-warmed and brightly-lit indoors; good, warm food, companionship, a chance to meet with one another - these are just a few images and expectations of the holiday.’

‘And to you?’

‘Sort of similar to this. Food, people I wanted to be with, warm on the inside, cold on the outside. Sometimes we exchanged presents, sometimes we didn’t, some were even worse.’

‘“Worse?”’

‘Try running away from an incompetent father and a bitch of a mother with your sibling even though you know a blizzard is coming. Worst winter ever, but that was also the last one we had to suffer through with our parents, and it got substantially better afterwards.’

‘Do I want to know the details?’

‘No.’

‘Understandable?’ he can’t imagine two humans surviving the cold, but then again humans are not supposed to be able to control dark energy either, and here they are. ‘Then what were the other winters like?’

‘I just described it to you.’

‘Yes but…’ Cronos struggles to convey that he wants to know more without sounding too eager, ‘I want more details.’

‘Details, huh?’ Anchor’s voice now matches the blankness of her face. ‘You sure you want to hear about earth? There isn’t much worth reminiscing.’

‘They will all be new to me.’

‘Fine,’ the human straightens herself. Her eyes turn glassy. ‘There was no snow the first time I truly celebrated the holiday, but it rained starting from the afternoon and continued well into the night. I wanted to study for my exam and had been doing so since the beginning of the holiday, so I thought… I could spare a day with my sibling. He busted arse for the past ten years of his life trying to raise a kid even when he was just a kid himself as well and getting a high school diploma and earning extra cash to feed the two of us because we ate so damned much thanks for unexplained space magic, and that was the first winter he didn’t have to worry about our heat cutting off in the middle of the night and giving us hypothermia.’ A pause. ‘I sneaked downstairs the night before to put the present for him next to that tiny-arse tree since it was so small that there wasn’t enough space underneath to shove that box into. He wants an actual holiday, I wanted to give him one, so I even got the damned book wrapped in recycled paper. It was just a sodding book I had seen him eye when we had walked past bookstores, and he cried - legit cried - because I gave him a damned book he wanted and wrapped it up nice and tidy with no tape. I learnt on that day that people can actually cry and look so happy at the same time. Then we had brunch, he watched me play some video games before going for a nap, he woke up, we had dinner, we watched the movie version of a book associated with the holiday as he sipped on hot chocolate, and we went to bed. All without being scared once that we would need to brave the chill to get some last-minute groceries - supplies - or that we wouldn't have enough money to keep ourselves full the week after.’

She ends it there, and Cronos gives himself a few minutes to let that sink in. ‘Sounds like you love each other a lot and celebrated it through the holiday.’

A dull thud. Cronos draws his eyes away from the lamp falling out of Rhea’s limp hands and follows Anchor’s gaze just to see clunks of ice slightly larger than the nail on his thumb hitting the ground, turning into smoke before they can hit the floodlights, shattering on the reinforced glass of the observation deck and subliming under the heat, and soon the ground is covered in a thin layer of broken pieces of dry ice. Mars’ own version of snow.

‘Is this normal?’ Cronos asks.

A small smile appears on Anchor’s lips. ‘Every single summer.’

----

the snow globe/lamp in the fic:

#rk17cember #rk1700 #dbh connor #dbh rk900 #oc: anchor/anna #detroit: become human #groom lake aftermath

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rureikia · 4 years

Text

Chapter 1

[Previous] [Contents] [Next]

"Why me?"

"Because you're single and you're my life long best friend! Friends have each other's back, no?"

I stared at Sumiko and instantly shook my head to reject the idea, "Then I don't want my back anymore. I don't want to go."

"Ah (Y/N) please." She clasps her hands in a prayer pose.

A long, tired sigh escapes from my mouth, but she stays stubborn and chooses not to listen to my aspect of the situation, "Uwaaaah, Sumiko what do you not get? I do not go to those sort of events. Who do you think I am?"

Even after I had given her the belated answer she didn't like, Sumiko decided to lean on my work desk further and pulled a rare puppy-dog expression.

She's not actually like this, trust me. Sumiko is much more mature than me, but today she's extremely persistent in acting like a crazy aunt because of this silly little blind date thing.

"You're a bland person (Y/N), that's what I think. And you're literally only going as a substitute so you don't have to uh - date anyone," she explains, "Tag along, you might even enjoy yourself for once. You never have fun anymore, and it'll be like the old times!"

Her hopeful smile doesn't affect me, rather made my eyebrow twitch. Thus, I returned back to my computer screen and continued typing up work as a way to defocus my mind off her, "I don't know what you mean. Of course I have fun, I just don't really like blind dates."

"Goukon is fun though! And you're single."

Right, she doesn't need to mention that I'm single over and over again like that...

"Aha, but you said that I don't need to date anyone." I contemptuously reminded her.

Her expression changes from my words, "Oh, whoops... Yeah whatever! Well, the point is that our other girl can't make it, and we can't have one guy hanging 'cuz it'll be really awkward being the only partner-less one."

"Mm, I see."

"You know what? If you join, I'll even pay for all the stuff you order in the restaurant we're meeting at."

Oh actually, that's something I love to hear on an overworked Friday... Especially since I'm a person that will never be made out of money and buy luxuries.

This statement was the only part that caught my attention fully. Because it's free stuff. That particular free stuff being my hearty dinner for tonight.

I raised a brow as a sign of piqued interest, "Everything...? Are you sure? Really?"

"That includes drinks, yes..." Sumiko looks at me with a proud face, "Absolutely everything."

Smiling curiously I was beginning to consider accepting the offer, "Is there anything else?"

"What do you want?" She says.

For a second, I put a finger to my chin and looked up at the ceiling to hum a heavy brainstorm teasingly.

There was this one idea I had which was going to turn this into a sort of win-win situation for my remaining hours left here. And so I chuckled at Sumiko in this suspicious style whilst her smile instantly wiped off her face - a pensive expression replaced that smile.

Even when watching her quick shift of emotions, I kept beaming as my mind made the decision.

"Here." I said.

I had grabbed the four large piles of documents that were all 5cm thick.

Earlier, it was idly lying next to my computer, waiting for me to start on it. And now, I placed it in front of Sumiko, where she then gawked at me.

You know what made it better? That loud flop sound it made after being dropped.

"W-What?" She gasped.

"Haha, you can do my work."

With my clenched fist raised in front of my face, I furrow my brows in determination. She on the other hand glared at me with threatening intent.

"Thank you very much!" I said, "I'm very excited for this event now Amaya Sumiko! But take your time, do your best!"

"Why (Y/N) -!! You little rascal, you're taking advantage of this aren't you?!" She exhales heavily in disbelief through her mouth.

My chin moves to rest elegantly over on my two intertwined hands that were put up on the desk, "So, when is it? Tell me more, I'm so very excited for this. Is it after work? Seven? Eight? Or are we going wild and starting at nine? Which restaurant is it? "

"God. You're never funny when you do this." She pretends to throw the documents in my face, I however pretended to act scared by shielding myself with my arms. Afterwards, Sumiko continues, "I won't be the one picking the restaurant, but this other guy is gonna do it and he'll text us the location probably an hour before it starts at eight."

"Oh so in three hours to get work done?" I ask.

"...Yeah. I guess."

"Then you better get all that work done or else you'll be working overtime instead of going on dates haha."

She scowls at me and I grin with my teeth showing.

I soon observed her storm off to the opposite side of the office where her own work station was whilst I was still jokingly beaming behind her.

...

I went back to thinking of what could happen with me and the others over in that meetup. I think it won't go awfully too perfect for me, not that meaning I will be pessimistic about it. Ah I'll say it a bit clearer - what I mean is that I won't really be interested in finding someone there since I prefer to meet someone by chance and not choice.

Haha, to be honest... I haven't dated for a while or done anything like this. Well I haven't been in a stable relationship in general for a while. So I'm now kind of nervous...

I've been on a couple dates here and there but never actually got myself a significant other ever since my first real relationship. And it made me a little teary-eyed as I thought my first real boyfriend was probably also my... (sniffs)... Final...

I'd grow into an elderly person and not understand the concept of romantic love anymore as I haven't experienced it in absolute decades by then. Ultimately, I will live life as a lonely senior with dozens of pets to keep me company instead.

If you put yourself in a positive mindset, it sounded quite nice, living with animals until death. But I do not carry that positive mindset so it ended up not sounding very nice.

I did want to find someone before my parents send pictures of potential partners for me to meet and greet... In fact, they've already started - and no matter how many times I tell mom that I'm not interested at the moment, she persists.

Mom wants me to find someone, get married, live in a better house, be financially stable and add new children to the family tree one day, all that whatnot!

Of course, I know she's just worried about my future, but how am I supposed to find love if I basically forgot how it feels?

In addition, there was also this. My lack of feeling for romance is often what makes all the dates I've been on every blue moon, only be a date. Only one date, never another one again. I just can't seem to identify a sort of love with other people, and it makes me afraid about my future.

I guess another factor for my lack of dating experience may be due to my specifically high-level standards I have raised. Because ever since three years ago, I now tend to struggle to find a suitable partner that would make me feel as much emotions as my last one did.

After all, I can't lie to myself that me dating my ex-boyfriend was something I think during some of my nights, not that I wish to reunite of course. But I think about how it's a little strange that he's the one of the only people I'm not related to I've known for a large portion of my life and also the one I strived for more than my current career.

The most important thing to me is my job. But back then, the most important thing to me was him.

From the beginning of middle school, I've known him and I proceeded to get to know him at high school too. So in a way, we were childhood friends, right?

We lived in the same neighbourhood , him actually living right opposite me - we went to the exact same schools too, middle, high school and college. It was like we were meant to be or something haha!

Well... His name was Kita Shinsuke.

He's definitely the I'm-so-perfect-and-good-looking-but-don't-know-it kind of guy, if you get what I mean.

Kita was respected by so many people. He's responsible, always got excellent top tier grades, talks very polite Japanese, always was the teacher's favorite, was even captain of our high school's volleyball team and mentioning it once more, he was quite good looking too. For a bit, I kept having this stigma that his existence was simply unfair and unbelievable... He can do practically anything and wouldn't react that much as if he's some kind of snobby prince. But soon, when I observed him more, everything was done unintentionally and he was simply like that.

...

Often in stories, dramas or anything similar, two kids that live closeby, or have known each other since young are portrayed as something incredibly sweet. Most commonly called this concept of childhood sweethearts.

Two kids would routinely go to and from school together, possibly holding hands, picking sticks that look like magical wands from the ground, buying ice pops in the summer, blowing bubbles, they'd get told off by the elders, constantly spark up trouble together and they'd pet the stray cats etcetera, etcetera. These two would enjoy each other's presence obliviously not knowing what would develop in the future. Because once those kids grow up, only then would they realize what they share is a friendship that has actually been blooming into love.

I guess that's my summary of one of the examples of childhood sweethearts, but I have yet another one to mention!

Two kids in a love-hate scenario this time, to which I think is a little more complicated.

In this case, one party doesn't like the other at first. However, the other party would take somewhat interest whilst still not liking them too. So throughout time, these two will glare and click their tongues in irritation, not even batting an eye of respect at one another. And so their initial relationship therefore being rigid and competitive - but likewise, once they grow up and become more mature, they come to realize they're used to each other's presence so much that it's odd to not live without it! Suddenly they're like, (gasp) Oh!! It must be true love!!

Maybe if fate had given me a childhood sweetheart like that, I could walk around with hearts in my eyes like what you'd see in television shows.

But me and Kita weren't really like either of those.

We really and truly were just two separate lives that lived coincidentally close.

At my younger age, I'd be at home reading manga, watching Doraemon and singing the opening song for Cutie Honey Flash, as Kita would be doing all his homework, playing sports and helping around his house.

It was definitely during middle school. That's when I started to notice Kita a bit more. I mean to be fair, he went to the same school as me, we left at the same time and we also lived in the same area, who on earth wouldn't notice? And at some point, we were put in the same classes miraculously too.

He was for sure a very good boy. Always completed work to his full potential with that annoying photographic memory of his, often did lunchtime duties and was consistently showered compliments by the teachers! Gah! Wasn't fair!

He sat next to me in year 2 middle school which was probably the year I began liking him even more. Because I would turn my head and just see him and then my whole peripheral vision was also still just, him.

Kita and me never bickered at that time slot nor did we talk too much - come to think of it, I think it's either because I was too scared or because of his introvertedly noiseless attitude. Well, more or less I disliked arguing so I thought if I ever argued with a boy like Kita, it would end in the worst.

There was actually this one memorable time, still set in 2nd year middle school, where me and Kita were the ones chosen by the teacher to hand out the numbered vests for P.E. as everyone was going to join in for soccer. There were around 45 vests in total, Kita handed out a pathetic number of 6, then left to go play ball as the other boys asked him, subsequently leaving me behind to do the rest...

I was therefore running around angrily, trying to hand out all the remaining vests for everyone.

Funnily, the less vests I gradually had, the more I got angry since it reminded me how the one that handed the majority of these, were all me.

It was only when I finished handing them out and the teachers told us to find a partner to stretch with, I bumped into Kita again purely by accident.

Looking at him made me mad. At that second, I wish I had scolded or ranted to him or even thrown my numbered vest to his face to the very least, but we partnered up automatically and I had no time or build-up of confidence to do any of that. Instead, I just copied how he was stretching with a scornful face.

He was stretching with complete concentration adding onto this air of tranquility as if he forgot what he just did, and I was weakly doing the same whilst trying to keep my petty thoughts in check.

By the time I twisted my torso to do a different stretch, I glanced at Kita where he was doing a stretch with the opposite arm. And I stood there, watching him, with a slightly open-mouthed expression, similar to a fish.

I was baffled how he was wearing the same tattered and ugly green vest as everyone else in class and how he was wearing just our school's plain P.E clothes - yet somehow, the wind gently brushed his hair, the sunlight made his dark eyes brighter and I saw how he was noiselessly mouthing numbers to himself to count his seconds of stretching.

Similar to a movie, time stopped. Everything turned slo-mo and my heart had a strong twinge at the sight of him.

It was right then, that was the promising moment I fell for Kita.

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tfw-no-tennis · 4 years

Text

hxh RESUME

back at it again w/the hxh, heres my recap of the last few eps

ok so i totally forgot to recap that one ep at the end of the hunter exam arc lets see what i remember from like 3 wks ago lollll

i thiiiiink i left off in the middle of ep 21 lol. i really dont remember much tbh so im gonna skim the ep to refresh

exposition time! its so wild that if you lose ur hunter card That It like u cant get another or retake the exam hgabjdfuhasjf Ls

also the fact that you can sell it is rlly interesting

leorio & kurapika backing up gon as he confronts illumi again :’) good lil family

illumi u fool. gon is a shounen protag. he can do anything he sets his mind to

the fact that gon thanks illumi for telling him where killua is....hes literally THAT polite like...what a perfect boy

hisoka just fuckgin stepping out of the shadows....ok bitch

the fact that gon fucked up illumis arm that bad with one hand....boi is STRONK

AUGH AUGH AUGHHHH HISOKA IS SO CREEPY AUGHHH I HATE THIS BIIIITCH

ok but like is illumi implying that hisoka is a fr p*do bc uhhhhh thats so nasty oh lord. pls stay away from gon, and killua, and like everyone as a matter of fact

EWWWWWWWWWW I HATE HISOKA HES SO NASTY. PLS STOP MAKING P*RNO FACES IN RELATION TO 12 YR OLD BOYS.

no but rlly what IS hisoka gonna do now. im assuming he’ll show up p soon (tho probs not in the zoldyc arc like i thought bc its shorter than i thought)

ok the fact that they have the internet is hilariously wild to me for some reason....it just seems like this would be one of those fantasy shounen worlds with very little tech (a la one piece) but lol nope we can just google shit hvbhjdhjdfks

gon: it was fun when you beat me up for 3 hours and broke my arm! seeya dude!

i love gon he is so chill and doesnt seem to hold grudges except when it really matters (like hisoka and illumi)

hanzo has.....ninja business cards....thats amazing hvbhsdjkujfnd

dont worry pokkle, leorio was basically carried thru the hunter exam by various people and also won by default. he still deserves his license tho

an exotic game hunter sounds pretty cool! i wonder if we’ll see pokkle again. kinda doubt it? that sounds pretty firmly non-combat based, and therefore probably pretty far from any plot lol

so gons dad is a bigshot huh.....whatever hed be a bigger deal if he didnt abandon his son tbh

gon swinging his feet on the bench....sooo cute

so ging could restore a bunch of ruins but he couldnt raise his son...ok

im just gonna be bitter at this guy for abandoning the most perfect boy vhbhjfbsjhdhbfsk sorry dude but being a good hunter doesnt make up for being a shit father

gon is so precious ;_;

WHAT WAS SATOTZ GONNA SAY TO GON???

why does it look like theyre googling things on MS paint

ah yes, padokea, on the continent of Africa But Sideways

idk if i talked abt it before but the world map is WILD lmao i love how its all the continents/landmasses scrambled around.....im super curious abt that weird island in the top center of the map, thats the only thing that immediately sticks out as not having a real life equivalent

the music in this show is so charming :’) i love the main theme sm

gon is sooo precious i literally cant get over it. and his hurry to rescue killua is so sweet....and i love how naturally charming/charismatic gon is....pretty much everyone he meets likes him, especially leorio and kurapika, who basically adopted him after knowing him for like a day, and continue to be completely taken by him

ok wtf is satotz & co talking abt......do they know something abt ging that they arent allowed to tell gon???? shouldnt gon have access to the same info now that hes a hunter? i need ANSWERS

i bet this whole thing abt the hunter exam not rlly being over is a metaphor abt the hunter exam NEVER truly ending bc youre always being tested, or st

ok the ED continues to be So Much like especially the last shot where the 4 main characters look like theyre posing for a JC Penny catalog while the singer goes FULL metal-screamo

ok ruth and i just rewatched the next two eps woohoo

i love that there are tourist busses that take people to the front gates so they can like pose for pics and stuff vhbhjafdsfkj and its like ‘ah yes here are where the local assassins live!’ thats so funny yet it makes so much sense

i love that leorio passed tf out during the bus ride. big big mood

gon is so cute...hes like ok yes i understand that we’re not supposed to go in but i think they can make an exception for me bc im very polite.

those 2 dudes r so ugly and so dead god bless

that bigass buster sword....sir please

ruth and i rlly thot that the old guard guy was gonna turn out to be grandpa zoldyk or st lol

the fact that the dog managed to eat All their flesh but left some clothes....skill

also the dog is named mike but it sounds like the guy is calling him miku hvbjdfssk

this cant be the first time some morons have been killed here likeeee

i cant believe nobody has visited the zoldyk estate in 20 years damn they all rlly b havin no friends. depressing

the whole gates thing is wild. also that part where gon gets the math wrong on the weight.....BIG mood kiddo

ok the part where gons on the phone w/the butler is soooo good oh man. i love how gon just calmly dials the phone again after hes hung up on the first time and then YELLS....and leorio and kurapikas faces r so good

also the butler guy unfortunately has a point, it isnt foolproof that gon is here Legit....but he IS let him see his tiny bf :(

as ruth pointed out, the butler guy is reminiscent of kuro from one piece. same vibes

maybe if leorio was jacked like he is in the manga/1999 anime he couldve opened the gate that first time around....Ls

god i love this shows approach to Everything so far,....as ruth put it, half the time its like ‘oh wow they should do [x]/i wish theyd do [x] but ofc they wont cause its a shounen’ but then they DO do [x] and its like damn thats dope

anyways i love how gon is increasingly approaching situations with his Plucky Shounen Protag Attitude in full swing, and he pretty much gets shot down every time. BUT his general determination to see killua bc killuas his FRIEND and hes gonna RESCUE HIM is still a good and pure motivating force

like here, when hes climbing over the wall and hes like whatever i dont wanna have to deal w/being tested thats bullshit, i wanna see killua, my intentions are pure, im gonna try my luck with the dog....i was like ok yeah he’ll get over and like tame or defeat the dog and the guard will be suitably impressed bc nobodys ever done That before, and then gon will continue on to get killua

but NOPE instead the guard calls him down and explains that gon Will Die if he tries that, and then the guard will die too for letting that happen. and gon is like oh shit my actions have consequences for people other than me, wow.

and THEN the guard takes them in to meet the dog. and hot DAMN that is a scary creature. not even really a dog tbh. they did an excellent job making the dog Legit Scary and not just like, big and flashy looking....those eyes are so soulless, and the proportions are freaky

and the guard says exactly what i was thinking - that gon would use his Country Boy Woodland Creature Skills to workaround the dog....but then the subversion - this creature is NOTHING like the woodland critters gon is probably used to dealing with. theres no way gon stood a chance here. the guard just saved him from a really unfortunate death

i love all the Super Heavy Stuff in the servant house that seems so inconvenient vbhjdkfasjfld. also forgot to mention earlier but the guard guy being Absolutely Ripped was wild and kinda funny

training montage! gon continues to be so cute. and i love so much how leorio and kurapika are like no, you rest, we’ll take care of this. good parents!!!!

and then!!!! they sync up and use the power of gay love to almost open the gate. but then gon uses the power of Improbable Shounen Protag Healing Speed to toss that arm sling off and help out

i feel like leorio was side-eyeing gon like w8 a sec u broke that arm like a few days ago that aint right.....

oh man i almost forgot abt that scene with the zoldyks torturing killua :( :( this poor kid he doesnt deserve that

also mom zoldyck seems truly awful but i must say her aesthetic does fuck. the victorian-lookin outfit paired with the futuristic cyclops visor thing....excellent. also im betting this face bandages are from killua cutting her face

this family is so fucked up hvbsjdhjfbakdfn

killua telling his mom that gon is definitely gonna make it there :’) hes got such unshakable faith in his bf thats so good.....

back w/the gang, and immediately they run into more trouble in the form of the young girl butler, whose name i dont know, but i love her....her design is SO good oh man. a non-caricature black person? who also isnt sexualized? in MY anime??????

i love how gons approach to conflict is currently ‘let more powerful person beat me up for hours straight in hopes that they get tired or something idk bro’ like....i love him lol, is it in an effort to show how determined he is? he doesnt even try to dodge her blows or get around her....id be tryin to hop that fence lol

oh shit the tiny zoldyk kid from earlier is spying on them....she was w/the mom so im sure thats not good

when he punches the rock part and it breaks....strong boiiii

oh man that little flashback from when killua first came back and told her that he made a friend ;_; bruh

i love butler girl :( she wants to let gon but knows it isnt allowed....and as soon as she starts to waver BAM here comes mom zoldyck JFC that was so sudden and jarring....im assuming butler girl isnt dead cause that would be lame and anticlimactic

also IS THAT NEN??? NEN>>>??? NEN??? HM? NEN?????????

im so annoying abt nen i need to make one of those ‘is this a pigeon?’ memes w/’is this nen?’ bc thats me anytime anything remotely weird happens lmao

i do think its rlly nen this time tho

anyways shit is wild, cant wait to meet the full zoldyck family

PREDICTION CORNER:

as i said above i doubt hisoka will show up now bc this arc is a lot shorter than i anticipated. also im doubting that illumis even gonna show up honestly

i think we’re gonna have this OP for a while, as the part just at the end shows gon and hisoka fighting in what looks to be an arena, and ik the next arc is the heavens arena arc, which im assuming is the tournament arc....

also i have no idea what that weird building in the OP is but my guess is that its the building w/the heavens arena in it bc its tall and,,,,heaven

i predict there wont be much fighting in this little arc bc how tf else is it so short. at this point i rlly think gon is just gonna grab killua and go lmao. im super curious abt how thats gonna go down, considering that killua is currently strung up just bc he wont apologize...so i cant imagine his family would just let him leave w/gon. i wonder if killua will fight them, or if gons determination will impress them and then theyll let killua go (doubt it)

thats basically it....we’ll see abt the next few eps holla

#lj watches hxh #hxh #woohoo continuation

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