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harrywritingsbyme · 4 years

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Wanna Make A Baby?

Based Off Of This Ask

And This One

This One Too

A/N: Older!Harry, dad!Harry, small!Y/n, and breeding kink all rolled into one The fluff is adorable and the filth is filthyyy! Enjoy🙃

It wasn’t uncommon for Harry to dream. He dreamt just about every time he closed his eyes and fell asleep. Dreaming was actually one of the highlights of his night. The first was being able to sleep next to you, and the second would be dreaming. When it came to the subject matter of his dreams, it varied every time. The only constant in his dreams would be you; that’s why he loved it so much. You’d be there right by his side doing whatever you were ‘supposed’ to be doing in his dream. At times, dreaming was a way for his mind to reveal his deepest thoughts and desires. And that’s what was happening this go round with Harry.

In his dream you were there(of course), along with himself and two other people. As he walks out of the backdoor to you guys’ home and into the spacious backyard, his eyes go straight to a play structure that was in his line of sight. As he emerges from the house even more, he hears a small voice calling out to him. When Harry looks in the direction of the voice, he sees a small child coming down the slide of the large play structure with a big smile plastered across his face. Once the little boy is back on the ground, he immediately sprints over to Harry. While the boy is running over to his father, Harry crouches down so that he’d be on the little boys level and he waits for him. As the boy approaches, Harry’s able to get a better view of his features and he couldn’t believe his eyes. This boy, which Harry confidently presumed to he his son had just about every feature he had when he was that small. The only things that were missing were the straight blonde hair, and the green eyes. Those features were replaced by yours and he couldn’t be happier about that. After talking to the little boy, he agrees to play with him before pressing a kiss to his chubby cheek and sending him on his way so that he could talk to you for a moment.

As the little boy runs back to the play structure, Harry stands back up and looks to his right, he sees you sitting contently in the shaded lounge area of you guys’ backyard. You had a book in one hand, while the other was delicately placed upon your very swollen and pregnant belly. There were no words that could be used by Harry to effectively and accurately describe the beauty that was radiating off of you. He would talk about how pretty you’d look if you were pregnant but now he was seeing it. The sight of you captivated Harry and drew him in. As he got closer and closer, Harry was able to fully take all of you in. He got to see every little detail. When he was right in front of you, he got to see the small floral print that was littered across your flowy dress. He was able to see your more rounded facial features better. And most importantly, Harry got to see your left hand that was adorned with the glistening diamond ring and wedding band he’d put on your finger almost three years ago resting right on top of the swell of your belly that was temporarily housing his child. He had the perfect view of the two things that symbolized your love for one another. Harry then sits down next to you and he sponges a light kiss to your exposed shoulder. Him doing this results in you sending a soft smile in his direction, which fills his body with a warm feeling. Harry then does the thing that he’d been wanting to do since he first laid eyes on you. He lifts his hand and brings it up to lower it down onto the upper curve your belly.

Unfortunately, the moment he places his hand on your belly, is the exact moment he wakes up. His eyes shoot open and he’s instantly transported back to reality. He’s in the bed that he was lucky enough to share with you. Once his breathing stabilizes a bit and he takes in his surroundings, Harry’s hand begin to wander. He slowly but surely pulls his arm that was draped across your frame up and he begins to push his hand around your midsection. As he does this, he’s actively searching for some type of a bump. Even if it was a small one. To make sure his mind or hand wasn’t playing tricks on him, Harry brings it all the way up to your side and glides it down to where the lower hem of the shirt you were wearing began. He pushes his hand beneath the fabric and brings it back down to your stomach. It didn’t take long for Harry to realize that you weren’t in fact pregnant and that it was all just a dream.

That’s the one thing Harry hated about dreams; you always wake up at the best part. When he came to the realization that you weren’t pregnant, his heart sank a little. He didn’t realize how much he wanted his own little family until now. He wanted to watch your body swell as you carried his child. He wanted to watch you be the best mother in the entire world. He wanted to have a child of his own that he could shower with love and affection. Harry wanted to be a dad and wanted to have every last thing he had in his dream. But he didn’t want to have to sleep in order to get it. In that moment, Harry felt like everything was taken from him. The only thing that he had left from that dream is you. This feeling inadvertently caused Harry to tighten his grip on you. Even though he didn’t want to wake you, Harry needed you more than ever right now. He buries his face into your neck and he begins to pepper soft kisses into your skin. He also coos softly into your ear for you to wake up. And it did do the trick.

“What’s going on?” You grumble through your sleep. You could barely keep your eyes open but you could feel Harry’s mouth moving against your neck and his arm around your waist.

“Just wanted t’say hello to my beautiful wife.” Harry hums, continuing to keep his face burrowed in your neck. Even though you were one of the sweetest human beings Harry’d ever met, you were still a bit cranky in the morning. And since he intentionally woke you up, he had a little bit of schmoozing to do.

“Well it better not be before 8 am, because if it is I’ll kill you.” You grumble back to him, moving around a little bit so you could turn yourself towards him.

“If I tell you that it’s 8:01 will you still kill me?” Harry asks jokingly (kind of).

“I guess you’re safe.” You concede through a yawn, pushing yourself further into his body.

“Good, and it’s actually quarter past 10.” Harry continues, looking over at the clock sitting on your bedside table for the actual time.

“You’re in the safe zone now.” You hum happily. “How’d you sleep?” You continue, beginning to feel awake enough to have a conversation with Harry.

“Slept fine, but I had a pretty interesting dream though.” Harry simply replies.

“Tell me about it.” You say back, lifting one of your legs and swinging it over his waist. You then push yourself up and over so that you’re sitting on his lap on top of him.

“Have I told you how beautiful you are?” Harry admires, sliding his hands up underneath your shirt to latch onto your hips.

“I think so, but I’m always open for compliments.” You smirk, bringing your face down to his.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.” Harry hums back, slightly lifting his head to peck your lips.

“Thank you baby.” You coo softly. “Now tell me about your dream.” You say excitedly, lifting yourself back up to sit in his lap. Even though you were still a bit tired, you didn’t want to stop talking to Harry.

“Alright.” Harry sighs, removing one of his hands that were on your hips to help lift himself up a bit. “So to make a long story short, we had a family. We had an adorable son who looked like the both of us, more like me, but still like the both of us, and you were pregnant. Which by the way, you looked even more stunning than I could’ve possibly imagined.” Harry explains, deciding to just give you a quick rundown of his dream rather than go through every last detail.

“That sounds nice babe.” You sigh softly, taking in everything he just said to you. Hearing him talk (and dream) about starting a family with you really warmed your heart. From the onset of you guys’ relationship you knew that you wanted to have a family with Harry. But now after being together for a total of almost 4 years and being married for about a year and a half of them, you were starting to realize that you and Harry were ready to take that next step in your lives and relationship.

“Yeah, but it made me think a bit more and I’m starting to feel like m’running out of time.” Harry says on a more sorrowful, but truthful note.

“I thought the little guys never expire.” You reply, trying to get a better idea of where Harry was coming from. You weren’t expecting such a good and happy dream to make him sad like this.

“I mean late in life Y/n. M’getting older.” Harry explains further with a slightly frustrated huff.

“You’re in your 30’s Harry.” You say in an attempt to reassure him.

“Yeah, but 40 is right around the corner.” He reminds you.

“Then you’ll be a dilf.” You reply, trying to show him the bright side of getting a little older.

“You’re right, I would be a hot dad.” Harry agrees.

“Exactly! So being a dad a little bit later in life isn’t so bad babe.” You reason, trying to cheer him up a bit more. You wanted him to really know that there was nothing wrong with being a dad at his age. You weren’t going to tell him this because if you did his head would swell to be the size of an actual planet (even though it wouldn’t take that much considering that he already had a pretty sizable head; upstairs and downstairs), but you thought that him being a bit older than you and being a first time dad was pretty hot. You couldn’t put your finger on why exactly you thought it was hot but you just did. Add onto that the fact that you’re married to him and you have successfully opened the floodgates.

“You’d be an even hotter mom though. Like milf to the highest power.” Harry says bluntly.

“Well thank you for your honesty.” You chuckle (and not so secretly roll your eyes) at his statement. After being with Harry for as long as you have, you weren’t shocked in the slightest at his comment. Him not making a comment like that would be more shocking.

“M’serious babe! You’d even be a milf before the baby even arrived. Like your body is already perfect now, but just imagine how much more perfect you’d look with our baby in here.” Harry rations as he ever so slightly presses his thumbs into the sides of your lower stomach . “You’d be nice and round and delicious. Y’know how much I like having something to grab onto.” He continues. As he talks, his hands move up your sides and right to your chest where he wraps his large hands around your breasts.

“Well those won’t be yours anymore.” You say sternly to him before smacking his hands away through your shirt.

“What about this?” He asks, gliding his hands back down and around to your ass.

“You can keep that for yourself I guess.” You sigh in compliance. “I swear, it’s so hard sometimes to figure out who’s the oldest in this relationship. For a man thats knocking on 40’s door, I’d expect you to be a little more tame.”

“What can I say.” Harry begins, tightening his grip on the flesh of your ass before pulling you higher up onto his lap. “I just have a hot wife. Like your personality is amazing and I love you so much for being the sweetest human being alive but you’re gorgeous. I can honestly say that m’gonna want you ten times as much as I already do once you’re actually pregnant.” Harry’s says truthfully. The both of you couldn’t deny that he was in fact telling truth. There were a couple times where he accidentally blurted out how bad he wanted to get you pregnant.

“Are you just saying all this because you wanna knock me up?” You ask him playfully.

“Is it working?” Harry asks in response to your question. He meant every last word that came out of his mouth, but he was hoping that it’d soften you up a bit so that you’d give him the green light when it came to commencing the baby making process.

“Maybe, but you still have a little ways to go.” Now you were just fishing for some praise; and rightfully so. Harry always wanted to hear you praise him. Whether it be in the form of moans, screams, and/or whimpers, or in the form of words; Harry just loved to be praised. Now it was your turn.

“You’d look so beautiful baby. You’re absolutely glowing and gorgeous now, but you’d have an unmatched glow once you’re pregnant.” Harry explains in awe, continuing his “campaign” to butter you up. He honestly couldn’t believe that your already elevated level of beauty could be raised. “But if I’m being honest, m’gonna miss y’tummy like this.” Harry explains the ‘downside’ to your more rounded figure during pregnancy.

“Why’s that?” You ask confusedly. One minuet he was saying how much more beautiful you’d be if you were pregnant, and now he’s saying that he’s gonna miss your figure now. Which one was it?!

“M’just gonna miss seeing and feeling my cock in y’little tummy. Y’still gonna be irresistible, m’just gonna miss that.” He explains.

“Don’t worry baby, I’ll feel it in there. I always do.” You reply to him. When you say that, Harry can feel his cock twitch in his pants.

“Are you gonna let me put a baby in there?” Harry asks with a little pout.

“I’d love to have a baby with you baby.” You coo in response, bringing your hands up to his cheeks to squish them together a little. You then bring your face down to his before puckering your own lips and pressing them against his. His lips then begin to move languidly against yours. As the kiss continues, your need for each other grows. You were keeping your bodies as close to each other as possible too. Your arms were now around his neck and his arms were tightly wrapped around your back underneath your shirt to keep you as high up on his lap as possible. As Harry kissed you, you could feel his cock hardening beneath you. He was already a bit swollen from the images of your body that were ingrained in his mind. Now he was getting even harder at the prospect of being able fill you up and get you pregnant. All he wanted to do now as fill you up with his cock, and ultimately fill you up with his baby.

Keeping one arm wrapped securely around your smaller frame, Harry maneuvers you both so that he’s kneeling on the bed. He then lifts himself up with you still being in his lap and pushes forward so that you’re lying back against the bed with him on top of you. When he does this, you can tell that things are getting heated so you quickly push at his chest to momentarily stop the kiss.

“Just because were having baby making sex doesn’t mean that I don’t expect you to completely ravish me.” You say pointedly, making sure he knows the exactly what you want.

“I would never give you anything less.” Harry replies with a smirk before smearing his lips back onto yours. As he kisses you this time, he shifts his weight over onto one arm and he uses the other to push your shirt up your body. Once it was all the way up to your chest, he swiftly pulls away from your face and tugs the shirt off of your body. This leaves you completely bare other than your panties which is the next clothing item he has his sights on. He wastes no time hooking his fingers around the sides and he yanks them down off of you. He instructs you to lift your legs up and once you do this he rips the flimsy material the rest of the way off your body. He tosses them off to the side and he focuses back in on your now exposed body. As he admires all of your features, he imagines what they’d look like once he gets you pregnant. When he looks at your breasts, he thinks about how much larger and sensitive they’d be. He also thought about how the soft and supple flesh would fill his hands perfectly. When his eyes drifted a bit lower to your stomach, he had a very clear picture of how you’d grow as your pregnancy progressed. He was looking forward to seeing your belly grow. When he reaches your thighs and hips, he immediately thought of how much more of a rounded figure you’d have. All of these things made Harry’s mouth water and his cock twitch. “So beautiful.” Harry breathes before bending down to lick into you.

“Oh my god baby!” You moan, feeling his skilled tongue lick into you. You could feel the tip of his tongue circling your entrance and prodding at it. This only made you want and need him even more. “Need you inside me so bad.” You cry out to him, tangling your fingers in his hair to pull him up. When you say this, Harry sucks harshly on your clit before coming back up. He then shoves his boxers down to reveal his extremely hard cock. You could see his thick shaft standing proudly between his legs and you could see a small bead of precum beginning to emerge from his slit. Before coming in closer between your legs, Harry pushes back against your thighs so that your legs were spread as wide as possible for him. He places a tight grip on one side of your waist and he wraps his free hand around his cock.

“Ready baby?” He asks, pushing his cock down your folds and stopping right at your entrance.

“So ready.” You pant, lifting your hips up a little against his cock.

“Good girl.” Harry hums before slowly beginning to push into you. As soon as he begins, your moans get louder.

“Oh my god! You’re so big!” You cry out to him, feeling the very familiar sting that came along with his cock stretching to fit inside your walls. Once he was a little bit inside of you, Harry’s hand leaves his cock and goes to the other side of your waist. Hearing you moan out to him like this from only having about an inch of his cock inside of you unlocked the raw and primal desire Harry had deep down inside of him. Add his desire to get you pregnant to this and he was a beast. Without warning Harry tightly grips onto your waist and he slams the rest of his cock into you. You then let out one of the loudest screams you’d ever made. The slight pain of him slamming all of his cock into you at once felt really good. You felt stretched, and you felt completely full. You could feel this fullness all the way in your stomach.

“Feel me in that pretty little tummy baby?” Harry pants smugly, already knowing the answer to his own question. All you could do was feverishly nod your head against the bed. You were too caught up in how full you were to even form a word in response.

“Good.” He simply states. And with this, he goes straight into pounding into you. The both of you could feel the raw passion radiating off of each other with every thrust. Even though Harry was shoving his cock deep into you over and over again, the both of you had one goal in mind. A baby. That’s what you both wanted, and this was how you two chose to get it. As he continues to thrust into you, Harry lowers himself down onto you. He wants you to really feel how deep he was inside of you. And he wanted to feel it for himself. Even though this is a slight change in position, it doesn’t stop Harry’s hard thrusts. He continues to slam his cock into you over again, pushing you both closer and closer to the edge with each one. You could feel his cock deep inside you, and Harry could feel his cock moving deep inside you. The two of you could also hear each others cries and moans, along with your praises better. You could hear his whimpers and moans at how good you felt around him accompanied with his growls of how he was gonna cum deep inside you.

All of this made you want to sit on top of him and ride his cock for some reason. Even though your legs were mush, you still wanted to ride him. You wanted him to release every last drop of his cum inside of you and you knew just how to get him there.

“Wanna ride you.” You pant in his ear, continuing to claw at his back as his thrusts continued. Instead of verbally replying to you, Harry immediately lifts himself from you and flips you both over so that your straddling him with is cock still lodged between your walls. You were feeling an extreme warmth and tightness forming in the pit of your stomach and you were going to explode at just about any moment. It doesn’t take more than a second for you to start feverishly moving yourself up and down on his cock. Watching you become so desperate for a release pushed Harry even closer to unloading all of his cum into you.

“M’gonna cum soon baby.” He pants, lifting his hands from your hips to grasp your breasts in them.

“Don’t cum inside me baby. Forgot t’take my pill last night.” You whimper, continuing to push yourself back and forth against him. Even though you were just about completely out of it, you still had a little bit left to mess with Harry. When he heard this, all Harry could think about was the possibility of getting you pregnant right then and there. It was taking so much for Harry to not cum in that moment. While Harry’s trapped in his thoughts, you tug at one of his hands that were clasped around your breasts and you lower it down to your stomach which brings his attention back to you. Your next sentence lights a fire under Harry that pushes him right over the edge. “When you cum in me, our baby’s gonna be right in my tummy and I’m gonna grow and grow with our baby from all your love.” You pant down to him.

At this, Harry removes his hands from your breasts and then flips you both so that you’re on your back and he’s on top of you. He wastes not time in getting back to slamming his cock into you. As he thrusts, you can feel his cock continuously slamming into the deepest part of you. He watches as your body quivers below him and he could feel your walls contracting around his cock.

“Cum with me baby.” This was all Harry had to say in order for you to fall apart on his cock. Which in turn caused him to release as well.

“Fuck!” You scream, feeling not only your extremely powerful release, but also feeling the thick and warm ropes Harry’s cum splashing against your walls.

“That’s it baby, take all m’cum.” Harry pants. He could his body become weaker and weaker with every rope of his cum that flooded your body. “Tighten up f’me baby.” Harry instructs, bring his hand up to your face to give you a couple light taps. Once he feels your walls clenching around him, he brings his arms around you back and he lays himself down so that you’re lying on top of him.

Once he does this, the both of you lay there for a good five minutes. You two were not only trying to gain feeling in your bodies, but you both were wrapping your heads around it all. There was a possibility that you two were going to have a baby.

“I just know you’re gonna spoil the shit out of this kid.” You sigh, finally coming back to for you guys’ post sex chat.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you spoil the shit outta me!” You reply with a laugh. “And I expect nothing less with our baby.” You continue

“Well you’re my baby and you’re going to be carrying our future baby. So you both will be my babies that I love more than life itself which means that I’ll spoil you both rotten. Which speaking of babies, how many are we looking at? I was thinking 2.” Harry ponders.

“Same.” You agree. “What if we have twins though?” You continue, thinking about all of the possibilities.

“Then 4 kids.” Harry replies

“When you said that, my uterus trembled.” You tell him truthfully.

“M’pretty sure that was just an aftershock from my dick.” Harry says proudly.

“I doubt it.” You say smugly.

“Do I need to come over there and fuck yeh again? Because I will.” Harry says matter of factly.

“You’re getting older babe, don’t want you to kill yourself.” You laugh, bringing your hand up to his cheek.

“You’re gonna get it later.” Harry says, reaching up to pluck your hand off of him. “Just because you’re younger than me, doesn’t mean that I can’t go all day long.”

“I’ll be waiting patiently.” You hum. “Don’t want you to break a hip or anything.”

“Now y’really gonna get it.” Harry grumbles before sending a quick swat to your ass.

The both of you had a feeling that this wouldn’t do the trick. But judging by how well this step of the baby making process went, you and Harry were more than willing to do it again.

Masterlist

#Harry Styles #harry styles smut #harry smut #harry styles imagine #harry styles one shot #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles blurb #harry styles fic #harry styles fanfic #harry x reader #harry styles x reader #harry styles x you #harry styles x y/n #harry styles writing #my harry writing #concepts of h #harrywritingsbyme

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superhero--imagines · 3 years

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Part 1 here! / Part 2 Here! / Part 3 Here! / Part 4 Here!

A/N: I can’t always do tags since these parts are long but if you want to be tagged just lmk @thecrazytealady

* Honestly, everything feels so normal

* You’re sitting in the stands of a football stadium as a sea of graduates pass in front of you

* Well it’s mostly normal except for all the stares you get

* “You’ll get used to it” Kate tells you from your right side, you’re not sure when it happened but somehow you’ve become her favorite little member.

* “Sometimes we stare back to mess with them” Irina says from your other side with a teasing grin.

* Irina also seems to really like you, she’s probably you’re favourite

* While everyone else treated you like a child (which in a sense you are), she treated you like an adult

* You hope you can save her if things go exactly like they did in the book

* You’re hoping your close friendship with Edward changes things

* “Oh look there they are now-“

* And right on cue Alice was called first, then Edward

* An entire group of cheers erupt from your section, a few stands above you sits the entire Cullen clan

* Apparently the rest of them have already “graduated”, Alice and Edward are playing a year younger

* You catch him after the ceremony on the -pretty cold- field along with your-

* aunts?

* You’re not really sure what the official family structure is.

* “So what is this, your thirtieth time graduating high school?” You whisper to him after handing him his graduation present

* Some sheet music you know he’s been eyeing and a card that says “you only graduate once”

* You think he’ll appreciate the joke

* “It actually only my sixth” he grins, he so close you can feel a ghost of a breath on your ear

* You notice a couple of boys, adorning similar green graduation gowns staring at you. When you meet their eyes they hastily look away.

* “Hey Edward, what are those guys thinking right now?”

* He follows your line of sight and grins even wider

* “They’re thinking that it suddenly makes sense why I’m not interested in anyone at this school when I’m already dating someone as beautiful as you”

* And if you were anyone else you might have realized how you and Edward look when you’re together to everyone around you

* And it might have been the first sign that things have started to veer of the future you imagine

* But of course you don’t, and you say:

* “Really? You want me to believe two teenage boys used such eloquent language?”

* He laughs

* “I might have picked some.. kinder diction.”

* You both laugh, another private joke that would be referenced for years

* “And where’s my graduation gift?” Alice asks, you hand over a brightly wrapped package, it’s a magic 8 ball and a Chanel scarf, Edward already read Alice’s mind and assured you she would love it.

* “That’s hilarious” she says with a laugh, she hasn’t even opened the package, already seen what’s inside with her gift.

* “Are you coming to our graduation party tonight?” When she notices your confused expression she gives a pointed look to Edward. “You didn’t invite them?”

* Edward rolls his eyes

* “I didn’t think it would be that fun,” he looks to you and explains. “It’s just a party Alice likes to throw to help us fit in better.”

* “It also to commemorate graduating and going to college, which is Infinitely more fun.” She grins, a hand on Edwards shoulder

* He turns his attention to you, his mouth quirked in a lopsided smile

* “Do you want to go?”

* The party scene in Eclipse sure looked fun

* “Sure, sounds like a fun time.”

* It’s decided you’ll drive up with Edward after they all split up, and go to the party with him.

* You’re telling Kate and Irina when they get a look on their face

* “Is that not okay?” You wonder if it’s about Tanya, and how maybe she doesn’t like you spending so much time with Edward.

* “No it’s fine it’s just... will you be alright with all those humans?”

* You had done fine on the stands, but a house party was different, you guess it’s probably easier to eat someone when there are so many dark corners and so many suspects to pick from

* You wrinkle your nose, honestly you don’t get what the big deal is, sure they smell kiiinda nice, but the scent is comparable to one of your deers.

* Also, who knows where these people have been and what they’ve been eating. The thought of eating an alcoholics blood makes you scowl.

* “I think I’ll be fine” Irina laughs, and rests a hand on your shoulder

* “We’ll tell the others, do you want me to bring you a drink later on?”

* You shake your head, you ate a little bit more since you were going to be around so many people today.

* “I should be fine, Edward will probably drive me home, but if not I can always run”

* You always forget you can run faster than a car now.

* “I doubt Edward will refuse the opportunity to spend more time with you.” Irina smirks and you roll your eyes

* You’re both just friends, stuck in family’s where everyone seems to be in a relationship (except for you that is)

* There’s only so much you can take watching Eleazer and Carmen’s pda

* “I’ll see ya later” you excuse yourself to find Edward, who seems to be talking to a group of boys

* “So what’s their deal, are they your cousin or something?”

* “Um... they’re a family friend”

* Looks like Edwards confused about your family structure too

* “They look older are they in college?” Another asks, Edward hesitates, well you are older but you’re not really in school

* “Are you hooking up with them?” Edward winces

* “No we’re not close like that.”

* You decide now is a good time to intervene in the conversation

* “Hey, are you ready to go?” Edward looks relieved to see you

* “I’ll see you guys tonight at Alice’s party” he offers a polite smile before leading you towards his car

* When you’re finally out of earshot, you say

* “You know, I always thought we were the closest of friends” You think he’ll grimace at your teasing but instead he grins.

* “Do you enjoy being the subject of several teenage boys imaginations?”

* “I mean, it’s not-not a little bit flattering.”

* On the drive back to his house Edward takes you through town and points out every mundane landmark like you’re on a safari tour

* “And that is the grocery store I never visit, and next to it is the diner I had to pretend to eat food at during my mandatory “senior breakfast””

* “So what you’re saying is, this is the worlds’ most boring town.”

* “I would say boring adjacent, the town we’ll move to next doesn’t even have a major grocery store”

* He’s definitely talking about Forks.

* You must have killed quite a bit of time with your impromptu tour because when you get to the party it’s in full swing

* You and Edward stand in a corner and play your favorite game

* “Blonde girl in the corner.” He says

* Edward picks someone, and you have to guess what they’re thinking. You’re never right but it’s still funny

* “Hmmmm I’m going to say she’s thinking... ‘This is what all the hype was about? Can’t believe I’m wasting my Saturday night HERE.’”

* He laughs and shakes his head

* “She’s actually thinking about how the object of her affections hasn’t noticed her once, and has been spending all his time with someone else instead.”

* You totally miss the meaningful look Edward gives you.

* You make a face, unrequited love was the worst

* “Well that sucks, I wish there was some way we could help.” Edward only shrugs

* “They’re human problems, for us even if the person we love doesn’t love us back, we just wait a a decade or so, and they usually change their mind.” He grabs your untouched red solo cup

* “I’ll go get us some more drinks.” For a second you wonder if maybe Vampires can drink alcohol, but then you immediately deflate.

* Oh right, the human act, you almost forgot.

* You’re standing by yourself when the “unrequited love” girl from before approaches you, another girl with hair the color of caramel in tow

* “Hey, I haven’t seen you around before, do you got to our school?”

* Any person could see this was a hostile encounter

* anyone except you that is

* “Nah, I’m taking a gap year right now.”

* “Oh?” Miss. Unrequited lights up at that. “Didn’t get into your first choice school?”

* “No my parents died.” You say it causally, but they both freeze at that. So much has happened, colleges and your parents are the last thing in your mind. You notice the reaction though “It’s been a while though, so everything’s fine now”

* You give your best smile and the girl in front of you seemed flustered

* “How do you know Edward?” Miss. Caramel asks, while her friend takes a long sip from her cup.

* “Well- I guess he’s a family friend, but really I met him through Carlisle.”

* “Through Carlisle?

* “Dr. Cullen,” you quickly supply, to them he’s just the local handsome doctor. Not exactly someone who they’re on a first name basis with. “Yeah, Carlisle talked about Edward a lot when I was in the hospital.”

* Before you can scar either of these girls further, Rosalie appears by your side

* “Hey! Glad to see you made it!” She gives you a side hug and turns her amber eyes to the girls in front of you. “Amber, Bethany glad to see you. What are you guys talking about?”

* Both of the girls fall speechless in front of her, probably from her beauty you guess.

* You still get the urge to shield your eyes when you look at Rosalie.

* “Edward.” Rosalie rolls her eyes

* “Of course, the most perfect man alive.” You snort at that.

* “Perfect my ass, I saw him snort drinking yesterday and he sprayed the whole counter top.” Rosalie raises a well groomed eyebrow

* “Really?” A smiles tugging on her lips

* “That’s not even the worst part, do you know he took 43 minutes to clean it up.”

* Rosalie laughs, and the other two look at you with awe.

* “Edward Cullen snorts?” The caramel Coloured hair one, Bethany asks.

* “To be fair I did say a pretty good joke”

* “What was the joke?” Amber asks, and you grin.

* “What did the vampire say to the girl?” They look at each other and shrug

* “What”

* “See you next month” The two girls don’t seem to think it’s good, but Rosalie is dying of laughter

* “He must have hated that!”

* “Oh I’m sure he did, that’s why I said it” Rosalie laughs even harder

* By the time Edward comes back, it’s basically just a two way conversation with you and Rosalie roasting the ever loving crap out of Edward, with two humans eagerly watching

* “One time while we were eating Edward just kept complaining about how “existence is agony and how none of us have a soul” like dude, we’re eating, could you just chill for a second please?” Rosalie says and you laugh

* “I have the perfect Edward impression” you clear your throat and set your face to the best “I’m constipated and existence is agony” face you can manage “I’m an outsider. No one can understand me. No one has thoughts like I do. Existence is agony”

* if Rosalie could die she would have died of laughter, she’s hunched over and every time you think she’ll stop laughing she starts another wave.

* “To be fair, I don’t think anyone has thoughts like mine” You turn to see Edward behind you, he’s actually got an amused smile as he hands you a red solo cup.

* “It’s Henrietta,” he whispers in your ear. “ I figured all the laughing might have made you thirsty”

* “For an outsider like yourself, that’s awfully kind of you.”

* The laughing did make you thirsty, it also explains what took him so long. You wonder if he ran all the way to your house to get you a drink.

* Rosalie doesn’t say anything just grins as she watches you two, Edward’s eyes flick from you to her, and you wonder what he’s experiencing right now

* You’re not going to lie, his narrative of mind reading was your favourite part of midnight sun

* “Do you want to dance?” Well that question came out of nowhere.

* “Sure”

* Queue you and Edward awkwardly waltzing on the makeshift dance floor

* “Who taught you how to waltz?” Edward asks as you step on his feet yet again, you’re glad he’s a vampire and can’t feel pain.

* “You. Right now. I’m learning from the school of life experience.” You grin and he rolls his eyes

* “Here,” he picks you up, and places your feet on top of his. “Better?” You nod and laugh

* “They’re kind of cute right?” Rosalie says to Amber and Bethany, a twinkle in her eyes. Amber sighs.

* “Yeah they are.”

* Rosalie feels kind of bad. She didn’t mean to rub it in her face, but she doesn’t like anyone being mean to you. She already kinda liked you from The game night , and after tonight she REALLY likes you. It’s nice to have someone else on the “roast Edward squad”

* “Oh look, it’s Bradley from the swim team, should we go over and say hi?” Bradly was definitely single, and Rosalie loves playing matchmaker “Sure”

* Edward drives you home at the chaste time of 11:30

* “Did you have a good time tonight?” He asks, walking you to the front door. Ever the gentleman.

* It’s not like a thing alive could hurt you anymore.

* “Yeah it was really fun!” He let’s out a sigh of relief and a nervous smile.

* “That’s good, you’ve been seeming kind of... off lately so I was worried”

* Ah, so he had noticed. You had been feeling off lately. Only four more years with him at most until he moved somewhere far away.

* “Yeah, I’m just a little jealous I guess.”

* “Jealous of what?” His eyebrows thread together. And you sigh.

* “You get to go to college and I can’t.”

* You really are jealous about that, While you’re stuck in the house, Edward will get to move forward and make all sorts of relationships and memories

* His mouth purses, and you feel bad. You shouldn’t have said anything, there’s nothing he can do about it after all.

* “Ah, don’t worry about it, I’m just glad to be here with people who care about me.” That only makes him frown more. But he offers you a small smile.

* “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He says and then he does something really unexpected:

* He kisses your forehead, before retreating back to his car. You watch his car wind away down the circle driveway from the porch. A hand on your forehead where his lips touched and a flutter in your heart.

* Man, Edward was so unintentionally smooth, no wonder Tanya was still hung up over him

* Wait, was Tanya still hung up over him?

* Somehow you found her behavior not consistent with someone with unreciprocated feelings

* The days pass on by, Edward’s around more now because it’s summer break.

* Likewise trips to the Cullen residence are also more frequent because it’s summer break

* You oddly enough spend a lot of time with Rosalie, you mostly roast Edward but occasionally you reminisce about human stuff

* “What do you miss the most?” She asks and you think for a minute

* “Probably Italian food, maybe alcohol” She let’s out a moan

* “Oh my god, how good does mushroom ravioli in a creamy Marsala sauce sound?”

* “Good enough to kill for”

* By extension you also get close to Emmett, but in a totally different way

* “Alright hit me with everything you’ve got!”

* “Uh are you sure about this Emmett?”

* You’re both in a clearing about thirty feet apart

* “Yeah, just show me what you’re made of” He giving you a wicked grin, no doubt glad to have someone new to spar with.

* You shrug, he is asking for it

* He doesn’t even make it a foot forward before he crumples to the ground. You’ve been holding back so long, it almost feels good to not have to contain all your body’s grief

* You reel it back in when he taps out. You expect him to look at you like you’re a monster but he just grins

* “You’re really something else kid”

* You even get close to Esme who assists you in drawing up a schematic for a barn, and Jasper helps you build it.

* “I think the door should go here” he tells you

* “But then it would be facing the fence and that doesn’t seem right”

* He scratches his head and you stare at the architect sketch in your hands

* “It’s supposed to be right here” Alice tells you, already searching through the future for the correct placement.

* And of course you and Edward continue your piano cat and mouse game, where you each start a piece and wait for the other to catch up to your playing.

* Maybe it’s because things are going so well that you can’t help but wonder what went wrong with Tanya and Edward

* So one night, when you’re sitting together in the library, you ask her

* “Tanya why do you hate Edward” She sputters

* “I don’t hate him!” You raise a skeptical eyebrow and she sighs “it’s just- it’s embarrassing !”

* She tells you about how Carlisle had told her about his son, and how he was the last to be without a mate, and was very depressed

* “I thought of it like I was doing a service you know, we would date for some time and have a brighter perspective on this life.”

* You can already guess how this story ends, but you ask “So what happened?” She huffs

* “Well he flat out rejected me, told me I wasn’t his type, can you believe that? A forever 17 year old telling ME I’m not his type.”

* Yeah for a woman like Tanya who was every man’s ultimate fantasy that does seem pretty mortifying

* “Is it-“ you meet her eyes “is it okay that I’m friends with him then?”

* Her eyes soften and she beckons you into a hug

* “Of course it is little one,” she kisses the top of your head “and if it ever happens to grow into more than that that’s okay too.” You wrinkle your nose

* “I wouldn’t bet on that Tanya.” She rubs your shoulder

* “Well you never know, and if that happens, and for some reason he’s lost his mind at tells you you’re not his type don’t take it personally, there’s something seriously wrong with that boy.” You laugh

* The days pass by in a blur.

* Edward starts college studying veterinary science, and every day he comes back and teaches you what he learned

* “Sometimes I feel like I’m getting more out of this than you” he tells you as you do his homework

* “It be like that sometimes”

* You start experimenting with other animals blood, mostly chickens, ducks, and geese.

* You also have a moose now so that’s cool

* After many faithful years Henrietta passes away. You stayed in the barn with her all night, and planted a pine tree over grave.

* “All things die in the end huh?” You whisper as you stand over the first deer you befriended, and Eleazer rubs your shoulder

* “Not us” he whispers

* “Not us” you repeat

* You and Edward are lying next to each other in your bed, both of you pretending to sleep

* “What was it like when you turned?” Edward’s the one break the silence. He always is when you do your dreaming sessions

* “It was... nice” it really was, the venom was warm like a blanket, lulling you into a peaceful last sleep. This surprises him.

* “Are you some kind of masochist?”

* “Well what was it like for you?” You roll your eyes. He goes on a long descriptive tangent, but in short: it was absolute agony.

* “Well that’s weird, I wonder if Alec had some kind of special venom or something.” He flinched at the mention of Alec but doesn’t say anything else.

* The days pass on, just as they always have, but something starts to feel off. Both in your household and in the Cullen’s house. Some sort of tension

* You think about asking Edward or Eleazer about it, but decide against it.

* Maybe you’re just being paranoid

* One day you’re getting blood from the kitchen, when you notice the entire coven is sitting on the kitchen table

* Weird, but maybe they do this all the time and you just never noticed.

* “(Y/N) can you come here for a moment?”

* Well crap

* They all ramble over each other for a few minutes, and you only catch bits and pieces of what they’re saying

* “Everyone here loves you-“

* “It won’t be forever-“

* “Carlisle might even get you a blood bag or two-“

* “Enough!” Tanya roars and immediately the others fall silent, she looks at you with warm eyes and a kind smile

* “(Y/N), the Cullen’s are leaving,” ah, so it’s already time for them to go, Tanya explains how the Cullen’s move around more often than your coven does, on account of Carlisle’s job. Well you knew this was coming. It was nice while it lasted

* “-And that’s why we think you should go with them”

* Wait what.

* “You want me to leave?”

* “No of course not!” Irina shouts, wide eyed, she’s sitting the closest to you. “It’s just-“

* “We see the way you look at Edward,” Eleazer says. Oh not this again, how many times do you have to say it. YOU BOTH ARE JUST FRIENDS.

* “Like you want what he has.” He finishes

* Oh

* “We’re too late in the cycle to send you to school, Irina and Kate have already gone, and it will be another ten years before we decide to move.” Carmen says, her teeth digging into the flesh of her lip. “A lot of things could happen in ten years,”

* The Volturi could want you back on ten years

* “so we think you should go with the Cullen’s and get an education and have a normal life-“

* “Normal-adjacent,” Kate interjects, because life was never going to be completely normal for you ever again. Carmen grins,

* “Normal-adjacent life, you’ll get to have friends, and you could study whatever you want, you don’t have to learn secondhand from Edward.”

* “And you can come back whenever you want!” Kate reassures. “If you decide you don’t like it, and that it’s not what you want, you can always come back, we’ll be right here.”

* They all stumble over each other to reassure you that it’s your choice, and if you decide to stay that’s fine too. But there’s only one question on your mind

* “Do the Cullen’s already know about this?” The table falls silent.

* “Yes, they do.” Tanya says

* “And what do they think about the arrangement?” All eyes trail to Eleazer, so he was the go between for your Covens

* “I think they’re all pretty excited, Carlisle wanted you from the start.”

* Carmen sucks her teeth and lightly slaps him on the arm. “What it’s true, you know Esme’s been cross with him ever since she met them, she wants you too.”

* They’re all looking to you waiting for an answer. You’re not sure what the right thing to do is.

* You’re not stupid, you know things have changed from the original story line, you know the Volturi isn’t going to want Bella as much now that they have you.

* But still... you do want an education, a chance to do everything the way you always imagined

* You also kind of want to see Edward and Bella’s love story play out. Especially now that he’s your friend

* Also you think you should really deter him from watching her sleep, that crap was creepy as hell

* You sigh, there’s really only one choice

* “I’ll go with the Cullens’.”

#twilight #twilight imagines #twilight reader insert #twilight headcanon #twilight imagine #twilight saga #edward cullen x reader #edward cullen imagine #edward cullen #Rosalie cullen #Emmett Cullen #Alice cullen #the cullens #midnight sun #alec volturi #Volturi imagines #superhero—imagines

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moon-light-jukebox · 4 years

Text

“If you want me to, I will.” [Hotch x Reader]

masterlist

Summary: Reader has worked for Aaron Hotchner for the past 6 months as the babysitter to his son, Jack.

Pairing: Hotch x (Female) Reader

Word Count: 7.4k – she thicc

Category: Smut/Fluff…and some angst because of who I am as a person.

Content Warning:

A/n: We all know that Hotch’s favorite album is the Beatles "White Album." And I have odd choices for songs that I use as lullabies. This idea came into my head and never left. This video of Billie Eillish singing part of the song is the closest to the structure of how I imagined it. Okay, okay, look, I know Roy wasn’t diagnosed until season 10. But I am taking creative liberties because I needed Jack to be younger.

Meaning this would be set around season 7. Hotch would be about 41, Jack is around 7; so, I made Reader around 26, giving them a 15-year age gap. Please don’t check my math. 😌

y/n = your name. y/l/n = your last name. italicized texts are Reader’s thoughts.

-- If you want me to, I will. --

I was disoriented when I woke up. This isn’t my bed, I thought groggily. Wait…this isn’t even my house.

“Y/n,” a deep voice rumbled beside me.

I jackknifed up into a sitting position, eyes wide and my face flushed with embarrassment. “Mr. Hotchner!” I quickly brought my hand up to my cheek to make sure I hadn’t drooled in my sleep. Because that would really be the cherry on top of my embarrassment. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to fall asleep. This is so embarrassing.”

Mr. Hotchner had been crouched down, putting himself level with his living room couch; the same couch he came home and found me sleeping on. In all the months I’d worked for the Hotchner/Brooks family, I’d never seen Mr. Hotchner smile anytime he wasn’t talking to his son, Jack. He always looked incredibly serious and sometimes incredibly sad; but the normal scowl was missing from his face as he looked at me, I noticed, watching him rise to a standing position.

“It’s fine, y/n. It’s after 1 o’clock in the morning.” He shifted, turning to go open the gun safe he kept in the part of the living room where his desk sat. Mr. Hotchner, or Hotch, as he kept telling me to call him, was the Unit Chief of the Behavioral Analysis Unit with the FBI. Which was just a very fancy way of saying he was a profiler that was in charge of all the other profilers. Some people just look like the jobs they have; Mr. Hotchner was one of those people. “Thank you for staying late, I didn’t think things were going to run this long. I didn’t even know you were here until I called Jessica a few hours ago.”

“Oh, right,” I mumbled as I began to gather my things from the coffee table and put them into my bag. “She called me a little after 4; something happened with her dad, I think.” I zipped my bag shut, standing up quickly. “I didn’t mind helping out, Mr. Hotchner.”

He made a sound that was almost a chuckle. “You don’t have to call me Mr. Hotchner, y/n. I know I’m a lot older than you, but that makes me feel ancient.”

“You’re not that much older than me,” I protested.

He looked incredulous. “Y/n, you’re still in college.”

Well, that stings a bit. “I’m in graduate school,” I said, my voice dampening a little bit. “I’m almost 27.”

Mr. Hotchner blinked at me. “Really? I thought you were younger than that…”

“My age didn’t come up in the numerous background checks you did on me?” I scoffed, immediately wincing as the words flew out of my mouth. “Oh my god, I just keep making this worse.” I slung my bag over my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hotchner. For falling asleep on your couch…and for every moment after that. I’ll just go now.”

"Y/n," he called. "hang on, it's really late, and…I still need to pay you."

Jesus. “It is late, Mr. Hotchner, that’s why I need to head home.” I forced an awkward laugh. “I have class at 9 am.”

He pushed his hands into his pockets, regarding me in a way that made me squirm. I wasn’t used to a person paying attention to me the way Mr. Hotchner did. It didn’t make me uneasy; I just felt like I couldn’t hide anything from him…which made me uneasy. “What classes are you taking this semester?”

I don’t know why it stung so much that he knew virtually nothing about me. I’d worked for him for 6 months; he wasn’t obligated to know anything about me other than how I took care of his son. “I’m actually done with my course work this semester,” I mumbled. “I’m a TA…in a class that starts at 9 am.” It doesn’t matter, you’re just tired. “You-you can just pay me for tonight the next time I’m over. It’s not like you’re gonna stiff me.” I walked over to the door and threw a very quick “goodnight, Mr. Hotchner” over my shoulder before I scurried out.

I missed the quiet “Aaron. You can call me Aaron.”

The entire drive home, my thoughts were on Aaron Hotchner. None of this was what I expected when I took this job. I had been in graduate school for 2 years now. I had already gotten my master’s degree and had been accepted into the Ph.D. program. There are many branches of psychology, but I had always been fascinated with cognitive psychology; it seemed only natural that that is what I would pursue in graduate school. Once it became time to focus my interest in preparation for my dissertation, I decided to study the cognitive decay in Alzheimer's patients. We knew that they lost memories, but I wanted to explore how their basic cognitive functions were affected in certain settings.

As part of my program, I was a TA in an intro psych class, and I conducted my research at the hospital connected to the university. That’s where I first met Jessica Brooks. Despite getting a stipend for my teaching assistant work, I had been taking odd jobs to help make ends meet; D.C. wasn't cheap. When I mentioned that I had experience with kids, Jessica had immediately told me that she was needing help caring for her nephew in the wake of her father, Roy's diagnosis. She wanted to keep him at home, which was both admirable and time-consuming.

I wasn’t prepared for the gigantic background check that I was subjected to. I very quickly learned that my potential employer had some power at the FBI. Jessica had raved to him about me, so he agreed to meet with me. When Jessica told me he worked for the FBI, I was expecting a bureaucrat, kind of short, receding hairline, soft from sitting behind a desk all day.

Aaron Hotchner was none of those things. He was a total cliché; he was tall, dark, and handsome. His eyes were such a deep brown they were almost black, his hair was black, and he towered over me. His hand was firm when he shook mine. I initially thought he didn’t like me because of the scowl he wore on his face; now I knew that was just his default expression. I’m pretty sure he invented Resting Bitch Face. I think it was my meeting with Jack that sealed the deal. We had clicked right away. The 7-year-old was impressed by my knowledge of both DC and Marvel comics. I could still remember our first meeting so clearly; when in a move that I now know is so much like his father, he had asked me an interview question of his own.

“What is Spiderman’s middle name?” the boy had asked with a suspicious squint of his eyes.

This kid is poser checking me, I had thought with amusement. “That would depend on which Spiderman you’re referring to. Assuming it’s Peter Parker, his middle name is Benjamin.”

We were best friends after that.

I loved Jack; I really did. And I was paid well enough that he was the only child I babysat for, the rest of my time spent working on my research and plotting my dissertation. It was clear that Aaron Hotchner loved his son, and he felt guilty for not being around more. He was fierce and intimidating any other time, but once he was with his son, his entire face would transform. His smiles came easier, his eyes twinkled, and he didn’t seem so scary anymore.

None of that is why he made me nervous, though. What made me so nervous is the fear that one day I was going to spend enough time with him for him to see the feelings I had so stupidly developed for him.

The very next night, I was hiding in the kitchen floor in Aaron Hotchner’s apartment.

“Ready or not, here I come!” the little voice called out before his feet started stomping loudly across the floor.

From my position behind the kitchen counter, I tried very hard to remain silent, despite my amusement. Jack Hotchner was many wonderful, wonderful things. Sneaky was not one of them. Which is why I wasn’t surprised when I heard his little feet hurry towards me, and I didn’t lose my balance when he turned the corner and launched himself at me. “Oomph!” was the only reasonable sound to make when a tiny human slammed into you.

Jack was delighted. “I FOUND YOU!”

My response was cut off by the sound of the front door opening. Jack was off me in a flash, barreling towards the living room. “Daddy!”

Mr. Hotchner made a similar “oomph” noise when Jack jumped on him, confirming my theory. I rose to my feet quickly, smoothing down my clothes.

“We were playing hide and seek, Daddy!” Jack informed his father. “I found y/n every time! She never found me once!” His chest puffed out with pride, making my face break into a smile.

“You’re just an excellent hider, Jack-attack.”

Mr. Hotchner’s eyes settled on my face then, for just a moment I saw something so sad in those eyes that the breath seized in my lungs.

He cleared his throat, seeming to shake off whatever he was thinking before smiling at his son. “I’m glad you had a good time with, y/n, buddy.”

Jack nodded vigorously. “I helped make dinner!”

“You did?” He questioned in fake astonishment. “When did you make dinner?”

“Tonight!”

Mr. Hotchner looked at me quizzically. “Oh, um, I wasn’t actually supposed to watch Jack tonight…but Jessica called and asked if I could. It was really last minute, and she’d already bought some stuff to make dinner…” I trailed off. “I hope that’s okay. Jesus Christ, y/n. You’re a 26-year-old woman, get it together.

His attention moved from me to his son. "Jack, go get changed into your pj's. It's almost bedtime." When Jack's mouth opened to protest this great injustice, his father went on. "You can tell y/n bye when you're done."

So much for a speedy escape, I thought. Instead, I just smiled at him. "Yep, I'll be right here, little man." Satisfied with this, Jack jumped out of his father's arms and ran towards his room.

“Why did Jessica need you to come over? Did something happen with Roy?” He looked genuinely worried, walking into the kitchen to stand near me.

I reached out and put a hand on his arm without thinking. "Oh, oh god no, nothing like that." Realizing I was touching him, I snatched my hand back like he'd burned me. "Sorry. She…she-um had a date."

His eyebrows rose so high they almost hit his hairline. “A date?” he asked, disbelief dripping from his words.

I chuckled. “That’s what she told me.”

He walked back into the living room then, leaning back against the couch, crossing his arms over his chest as he focused his dark gaze on me. “What about you?”

“…What about me what?”

“Does Jessica ever have to cover for you when you have dates?”

If Aaron Hotchner hadn’t made me so nervous, I might have picked up on how he phrased that question. As it happens, all I could do was fidget under his gaze. “Oh,” I chuckled nervously. “Ah, no. She doesn’t have to do that. I don’t really date.”

That had one of his eyebrows rising, his arms crossing across his chest. "Why?"

Because I want you to crack my back like a glowstick. “Um…you know, it’s hard to find the time.”

Thankfully Jack chose that moment to come barreling out of his room, charging full force at me. “You’re still here!” he exclaimed.

I smiled down at him when his arms wrapped around my hips. I put one hand on the back of his head, the other on his back, giving him a squeeze. “Of course I am! I couldn’t leave without telling you goodbye.”

“I wish you didn’t have to go,” he mumbled.

My throat worked as a sudden wave of emotion hit me. "Oh, Jack," my voice was thicker than usual when I spoke. "I don't like leaving you either, but you'll see me before you know it. I promise."

Once we had finally pried Jack off me, Mr. Hotchner went to take him to bed. He turned to me when he scooped Jack up in his arms. “Thank you for today.”

“It’s no problem, Mr. Hotchner.”

“You know you don’t have to call me that,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine. “Most people call me Hotch. Or you could call me Aaron.”

I didn't know what to say to that; all I could do was give him an awkward smile. I was gone before he came back into the living room. I didn't want to leave, I never did, but I couldn't risk being alone with…Aaron.

The following Thursday night, my phone started ringing just after 11:30. Glancing at it, I saw it was Jessica. “Hey,” I said in greeting.

“Hey, y/n,” she said, sounding frazzled. “I have a huge favor to ask. Dad’s home health nurse had to leave early tonight.” “Is something wrong with Melinda?” I hope not. She’s the sweetest.

“No, I don’t think so. But she needs to go home and there’s no one to sit with Jack. But Aaron isn’t home yet…”

“I’ll be there in 20.”

Which is why I was now in Aaron Hotchner’s apartment after midnight in a pair of shorts that were so short I only ever wore them at home and a t-shirt that I had had for forever. Jessica had sounded so upset when she called, I hadn't even thought to change. She had promised to be back as quick as she could; she said that Mr. Hotchner was flying back from a case, and she didn’t expect him until 5 a.m. at the earliest.

When I first arrived, I had tried to watch TV, my mind too wired to sleep, even though I had class at 9 am in the morning. Sighing, I glanced over at the clock to see it was just after 1:45 in the morning.

“Fuuuuuuck,” I whined out loud. I have to go to sleep; even if it’s just a little nap. I remembered Jessica had left some chamomile tea here for the nights she stayed over to watch Jack. Finding the kettle and the tea itself was no problem; the problem presented itself when I had to get a mug to put the tea in.

I had never considered myself a particularly short person; sure, I had to stretch to get things from time to time, but everybody did that. Looking up into the upper cabinets in the Hotchner house had me reconsidering that. The mugs were on the very top shelf and try as I might, I just couldn’t seem to reach them; my fingers kept grazing over the ceramic.

“Goddamnit,” I mumbled in a huff. What is the point to put mugs way the fuck up there? Some of us are a perfectly normal height…but noooo I have to work for giants. I braced my hands on the countertop as I heaved myself up on to said countertop. Once my knees were in place, I got the offending cup without further problems.

I blame how focused I was on my task for my not hearing the front door open, or the footsteps that followed. Which is why I had a mild heart attack when I heard a voice that sounded highly amused say from behind me, “What are you doing?”

Several things happened all at once, and very quickly. I let out the most embarrassing squeak in all of history, I lost my balance on the counter and the cup fell from my hand. The cup crashed to the floor and shattered. My fate might have been the same but two large hands caught me, gripping my hips from behind. I looked down to see his long fingers wrapping around my waist, gripping me tightly; my difficulty breathing then had nothing to do with how scared I was.

“I��m sorry,” Aaron said softly, still not releasing me. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“No, I get it,” I said lightly, attempting to act like I wasn’t going into cardiac arrest because he was touching me. “You’re a very stealthy FBI agent. It was bound to happen.”

He chuckled before his hands pushed my hips so I was twisting around, my legs shifting until I was sitting on the countertop, staring into the same dark eyes I thought about far too often. They weren’t as harsh as they usually were; tonight, they were soft and warm, and they made my pulse race a bit faster.

I moved to get off the counter when the hands that were still on my hips stopped me. “Hang on, let me clean this up first. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

Fantastic, I thought, hiding my face in my hands. It seems I was incapable of not making a fool out of myself in front of this man.

He worked quickly while I debated changing my name and fleeing the country; in the next moment, he was standing in front of me again. "What's wrong?"

“Oh, nothing,” I said, not moving my hands. “Just dying of embarrassment.”

Aaron actually laughed at that, moving closer to stand between my thighs, his hands coming to rest on the countertop on either side of my hips. “Why are you embarrassed?”

I dropped my hands then. “Because this is becoming a pattern! First, I fell asleep on your couch, then I almost fell off your counter and cracked my head like an egg.” I bit my lip, shifting under his gaze. “I’m sorry and thank you for catching me.”

“I didn’t mind,” he said softly.

He still had that soft look on his face, but he was smiling too like he was enjoying my embarrassment. He probably is. I had never been this close to him before. I didn’t know his eyes weren’t just one flat color of brown, but that lighter shades of brown whirled throughout. I had never felt the heat of his body before, but now I was so close I could smell him. Why does he have to smell good? I whined internally. If he just stunk, I could get over this.

This was exactly why I tried very hard to stay as far away from him as possible because I lost the ability to think clearly whenever I was with him. I couldn't stop my eyes from moving down to his lips. I was eye level with him from my position on the counter; all I had to do to brush my lips across his was lean forward, so that’s exactly what I did. His body stiffened slightly at the first touch of my lips to his. I pulled back, ready to apologize when his hand wrapped around the back of my head and pulled me back to him. There was nothing soft about this kiss. His free hand gripped my thigh, my hands held on to his shirt, trying to pull him closer. My tongue brushed against his mouth before he sucked on the tip of it, causing me to shudder. He took a step forward as his tongue twirled around mine. I could feel him when he settled against me; he was hard, and I found myself shifting my hips to rub against him.

The shrill ringing of his phone broke us apart suddenly. He was panting, his cheeks were slightly flushed. I thought I heard him let out a “fuck” under his breath as he reached into his pocket and grabbed his phone.

“Hey Jessica,” he answered.

Now that our moment was broken, I felt very self-conscious. What the fuck did I just do?! He is my boss. He is Jack’s dad. Aaron took a step back and I slid off the counter. This turned out to be a very bad idea on my part; my body brushed down the front of his, causing me to bite my lip to silence the moan that threatened to escape.

“Yeah, I landed a little while ago,” he said as I left the kitchen.

WhatthefuckWhatthefuck. I heard him end the call with Jessica before he quickly walked into the living room. A look of relief washed over his face when he saw me. “I thought you’d try to slip away.”

“I thought about it,” I told him honestly.

“Listen, y/n, about that in the kitchen,” he began.

I held up my hands. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Hotchner. I don’t know why I did that; I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” I was giving him an out because I couldn’t handle hearing the rejection I knew was coming. “I just…I guess we got caught up in the moment? And you’re really tired, I’m sure. I’m so sorry.” I was rambling now. “If you don’t want me to watch Jack anymore-“

“Y/n, no,” he interrupted. “No, this…you’re right, it was just a heat of the moment thing. It happens. I’m sorry I lost myself for a moment.” He cleared his throat, his face still set in softness. “Jack loves you. He doesn’t need to suffer for any more of my mistakes.”

Mistakes. The word hollowed me out and left me cold. I just nodded. “Right,” I said in what I hoped was an even tone. “Just a mistake. I should get going. It’s really late.”

Which is how I found myself driving home at almost 3 in the morning with tears running down my cheeks. A mistake.

Things went back to normal after that night. I continued to avoid Aaron Hotchner at all costs and he…did whatever he did. I tried to hide the hurt whenever I did happen to see him, but it was so hard when I could still feel the tingle from his lips on mine.

A few days after the “mistake,” I was babysitting Jack again. He’d went to bed at his normal 8:30 and all was quiet. I decided to do some TA work while I waited for Mr. Hotchner to come home. I was halfway through grading an essay when I heard the first noise come from Jack’s room. Lifting my fingers from the keys of my computer, I waited to see if I heard another sound. I didn’t have to wait long; not even a minute passed before I heard a strained cry. Jumping up, I hurried down the hall to Jack’s bedroom.

Cracking the door open I called, “Jack-attack? Are you okay, little man?” I didn’t see him right away; he had hidden under his covers and curled up into a little ball. “Hey, Jack. It’s just y/n.” I sat down on the edge of his bed. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

I saw the lump under the blankets start to move hesitantly before I saw his brown hair peak out of the blanket near his pillow. His eyes were wide and with the light shining in from the hall, I could see tears gleam in them. “Oh, buddy,” I cooed. “Did you have a bad dream?”

The boy nodded. “Yeah…there was a bad man…and my daddy didn’t come save me.”

I felt my breath seize in my chest. Jessica had told me a brief version of what happened to Jack's mother a few years ago. "Jack, you know your dad would always do whatever he had to do to come to save you." I shifted my position on the bed until I was sitting beside him. "He'd never let anything bad happen to you." Jack started inching closer to me. I held out my arms and smiled when he lunged for me; I wrapped him in a tight hug, rubbing circles on his back.

“My dad just isn’t home a lot anymore. He has a lot of work to do,” he mumbled into my shirt.

“Your dad would be home if he could, Jack.” I couldn’t quite keep the sadness out of my voice. It wasn’t fair to either Jack or his dad that he had to be away so much.

“I know,” the little boy whispered. “I just miss him sometimes.”

“Do you want to call him?” I offered. “I don’t think he’d mind.”

Jack just shook his head. “No, it’s okay.” He turned his face up to look at me. “Will you stay with me?”

I moved so he lay beside me with my left arm still squeezed around him. “Of course, bud.” I scooted down the bed so I was reclining instead of sitting straight up, pulling the cover-up over him again. "Do you want me to read you another story?"

He just shuffled under his covers, looking at me with the bashful innocence of childhood. “Can you sing to me until I fall asleep?”

I wasn’t the biggest fan of singing in front of people, but how could I turn this little face down? I just nodded. “Do you have any requests?”

“Nope,” he answered with a little grin on his face.

Unfortunately, at that moment every single lullaby I had ever know left my head. I couldn’t think of a single traditional lullaby. So, I decided to improvise. I started singing slower songs I knew, some of them might not have been appropriate for a 7-year-old’s lullaby, but I don’t think Jack cared that much.

He was almost out, drifting on the edge between deep sleep and awake. My arm was still around his shoulder, he was still snuggled to my side. I decided one more song would be enough, which meant I pulled out my second Beatles song of the night.

“Who knows how long I’ve loved you?

You know I love you still.

Will I wait a lonely lifetime?

If you want me to, I will.

For if I ever saw-“

I glanced up, immediately sensing there was someone else in the room. To my horror, Jack’s father was standing in the doorway, staring at me with an unreadable expression on his face. I swallowed nervously, then I turned to press a kiss against Jack’s soft forehead before I gently detangled myself from him. I straightened my clothes that to my further embarrassment had shifted around because I was laying with a wiggly child, then, attempting to keep my face impassive, I walked to the door, moving around his father as I exited.

Mr. Hotchner walked into the room and checked on his son, while I moved into the living room to gather my things. I wonder if he just left the money by the door, I mused. If he did, I could just make a dash for the door. I mean, if he didn’t, he could always just pay me next time. Sadly, my plans were escape were foiled yet again by the man in question entering the room.

"Sorry," I muttered. "I know he was up past his bedtime. I put him down at 8, but he had a nightmare." I was babbling, not meeting his eyes, my gaze very intently focused on my bag. "He asked me to stay with him until he fell asleep…" I finally looked up, shrugged, and said, "He's very hard to say no to."

“You don’t have to apologize for being nice to my son, y/n,” he said softly. “That’s one of my favorite songs on the White Album, you know.”

I hadn’t known that. “Mr. Hotch-“

He took a step towards me before I finished speaking. “Y/n, please, I can barely handle this as it is. Please call me Aaron.”

I just blinked up at him. “So, ‘Hotch’ is off the table now?”

That had a soft smile curving his lips upward. "That was a limited-time deal. You should have been quicker." I saw his hand rise up slowly, so slowly that I would have had time to move away…but I just couldn’t. He brushed my hair back from my face, his eyes were two pools of black in the dim light, they were swirling with something that made my stomach flutter.

“Aaron,” I breathed, having no idea what I was going to say.

He let out a soft sigh, turning his eyes upwards. When he brought them back down to mine, his hand slid from its place near my ear to cradle the back of my head. His eyes searched mine for a moment before his shoulders dropped slightly. “Fuck it,” he muttered before he leaned down and sealed his lips over mine.

I might have thought this kiss would be questioning or unsure, but there was nothing unsure about it. Aaron kissed me like he was starving for me. His teeth caught my bottom lip and tugged as he pulled away. “It wasn’t a mistake,” he breathed before bringing his lips more firmly against mine.

My hands began to move over his body; one of my hands grabbed his tie and used it to pull him closer to me, the other reached up to brush against the short, soft hair on the back of his neck. “It wasn’t?” I questioned when we broke away for air.

Aaron’s lips moved across my cheek, leaving soft kisses until he reached my ear. “No, sweet girl, it wasn’t.” His mouth moved down to my neck; his kisses turning into bites that were sure to become brushes. I didn’t care, I needed him. My hands moved to his shirt, quickly trying to undo all the buttons.

His hands moved down to the waist of my jeans, deftly flicking the button open before sliding the zipper down. “Is this what you want?” he asked as his hand touched my lower stomach, his fingers brushing over the elastic band of my panties.

“Yes,” I said, still working to free him from his shirt. “I want this so much.”

The fingers of his free hand rose up to tap my chin, forcing my eyes up until I met his gaze. "I want to hear you say my name again." His other hand lifted from my stomach to slide over the flair of my hip until he was gripping my ass. "Whenever I laid in bed that night after I had you pressed against me in my kitchen when I stroked my cock, I thought about you moaning my name.” The hand that was on my chin pulled away, skimming down my body until he was grabbing the other side of my ass. “So, say it. Tell me what you want.”

“I want you, Aaron.” So, so much.

His hands moved to the backs of my thighs, then he lifted me up his body, startling me. Jesus Christ, how strong is this guy? I threw my arms around his neck as he started walking us down towards his bedroom. A giggle escaped my lips. “I could have walked, you know.”

We had already entered his room; he tossed me gently on the bed before he turned to close and lock the door. He walked to stand at the side of his bed, his eyes devouring me. “I couldn’t give you a chance to sneak away again, sweet girl.” Aaron pulled off his tie before he finished unbuttoning his shirt, shedding it on the floor.

Fuck. Fuck, he’s hot. I pulled my own shirt over my head, and his body was on top of me before it even left my hands. Aaron's mouth moved down to my collarbones, his hand slipped behind my back to unhook my bra. Once the straps were down my arms, Aaron lifted himself up on his arms to toss it away, his eyes running over my body. "You're so beautiful," he said softly like it wasn't the sweetest compliment I'd ever been paid. He leaned over again, his lips skimming down to my chest before he wrapped his lips around one of my nipples.

“Fuck, Aaron,” I moaned.

He gave my nipple a flick with his tongue before he lifted his head. “Ssh, sweet girl. You have to be quiet. Can you do that?” He kissed his way over to my other breast. “I can’t do this if you won’t be quiet.”

“I can be quiet,” I whispered right before I bit my lip to smother my moan at the feeling of his mouth on me. “Maybe.”

His breath puffed against my skin when he laughed at me. My hands threaded through his hair when he brought his face back up to mine. My mouth opened eagerly for him, my tongue slicking over his while I tried to grind my body against him. Aaron was smiling when he broke the kiss, shifting up onto his knees. “Well, I appreciate you trying to be quiet at any rate,” he teased.

My response died in my throat when his fingers yanked my jeans off my legs, bringing my panties with them. I was totally bare in front of him. His eyes raked down my body in a way that would make me self-conscious with anyone else. How could I ever be self-conscious with a man who looked at me like I was the most beautiful thing in the world?

But when he started to kiss further down my body, I grabbed his arm, attempting to pull him back up to kiss me. “Aaron,” I whispered.

He pressed a soft kiss to my collarbone. “What’s wrong, beautiful?”

“You don’t…you don’t have to do…that,” I mumbled, feeling my face heat up.

Aaron braced himself on his arms and stared down at me. Enlightenment dawned on his face a second later. He leaned down to kiss me softly. “Do you not want me to?”

I bit my lip, feeling more flustered. “It’s just…I’ve never…and I know that guys don’t really like-.“ My words were cut off when he placed another kiss to my lips, still incredibly soft, but with more force than before.

"If it makes you uncomfortable, I won't," he said quietly. "But I can assure you, I can't think of anything more I'd rather do than lick your pussy until you cum all over my face." He skimmed his lips over my cheek to my ear. "And once you've come down, I want to slide my cock inside you and feel how soft and wet you are." His kisses moved down to my neck, his mouth sucking on my pulse point. "Then I want to fuck you until you're whimpering against my lips to make you cum again.”

I felt my core throb at his words. No one had ever said anything like that to me before. He lifted his gaze when he got back to my breast, flicking my nipple with his tongue. “Is that what you want too, sweet girl?”

I have never wanted anything more, I thought; but I was so far gone that all I could do was nod.

He gave me a soft smile, moving down the bed further to settle between my thighs, pulling them further apart. I felt a kiss pressed to one thigh, then the other. His hot breath washed over the part of me that was already so wet for him. “You’re beautiful here too,” he murmured before he pressed a kiss to my clit. I lifted my hips at the sensation, causing him to chuckle and move his hands to wrap around my thighs, his arms anchoring me in place. A second later I understood why he braced my hips. The second he flattened his tongue and licked the length of my pussy, my hips started moving involuntarily and my fingers tangled in his hair.

I felt a puff of air against me when he laughed again, and it made me smile. I didn’t expect Aaron Hotchner to be fun…or dirty in bed. All thought immediately left my head when he parted me with his tongue, dipping into my entrance before spearing his tongue into me. I felt the vibration when he moaned against me. "You taste so fucking good, y/n," he said, his voice still hushed. Giving my entrance one last lick, he moved up to my clit.

He spent time moving his tongue around me, learning what made me squirm. When he started fluttering his tongue quickly over my clit my hands started tugging on his hair and my thighs tried to snap together.

“Aaron,” I whined, attempting to rock my hips against his mouth.

I think he understood what I needed better than I did. His left hand released my thigh and moved down to my heat, just below his mouth. I felt his fingers brush over me before he pushed on inside me, causing my back to arch off the bed. “Aaron, Aaron, fuck.” He added a second finger, pumping them in a rhythm that complimented the movements of his mouth.

I wasn't prepared for when his lips closed around my clit, sucking lightly, while his fingers started to curl inside of me. “Oh my God," I moaned out, louder than I should have. "Aaron, I'm going to cum." I started pulling on his hair so hard it must have hurt, but he just moaned against me, never slowing his pace. "Aaron, fuck, please. I think…I-I-“

My words broke off as the band inside of me snapped, my pussy clamping down on his fingers and my back arching off of the bed, my mouth hanging open in a silent scream.

Aaron slowed his motions, slowly bringing me through the orgasm and back down to Earth. With one final kiss to my thigh, he rose and moved up my body until his face was hovering over mine. His lips were shiny with my arousal, they also looked a little swollen, but more importantly, they were smirking at me.

I’ll give him that one. Reaching up I cradled his jaw in my hands, bringing his mouth down to mine. I tasted myself on his lips and tongue when he licked into my mouth. Despite the powerful orgasm he had just given me, I was still desperate for him. I broke away from his mouth. “Aaron, I need you.”

He pressed another kiss to my lips before he lifted up and stood at the side of the bed, undoing the buckle of his belt. My eyes were fixed on his movements, watching as he unbuttoned his slacks and slid them down his legs. His cock was a thick pipe outlined in his underwear. He hooked his thumbs into the waistband before he spoke again. "I'll give you everything you need, greedy girl." Aaron pushed his underwear down, his cock springing free before he climbed back on the bed.

He was so much thicker than I expected he would be. I moved my hand down to wrap my fingers around him, pumping his length. He let out a groan and lowered his forehead to mine. “Baby,” he muttered. “I…fuck. I have to get a condom.”

“Aaron,” I whined. “I want to feel you inside me. I’m on birth control. Please?” The thought of anything separating me from this man was abhorrent to me in that moment.

I saw his willpower crumble. “Are you sure?”

So sure. “Please,” I begged lifting my head to kiss him. “I want you to fuck me.”

With a groan that I will remember for the rest of my life, he shifted his hips forwarded, allowing my hands to guide him to my entrance. Aaron kissed me then, slowly and deeply has he started to push inside me. My hand flew away from his cock, both my arms wrapping around his body to pull him closer to me. I felt my nails digging into his back.

Aaron broke our kiss with another soft moan that sounded like my name. “I knew you’d feel like this,” he whispered, pressing deeper inside me. “I knew your pussy would be this fucking tight, this fucking hot, and so fucking soft." He started moving in and out of my pussy, going in a little further each time. “You still have to be quiet, sweet girl.”

“I’m trying,” I moaned, my pussy already starting to flutter around him when he finally pushed all the way inside of me. “Aaron, fucking Christ.” I felt him everywhere, and I somehow still craved more.

He grabbed my thigh, pulling if further up his side, allowing himself to sink deeper inside of me. “I know, sweet girl. I know.” He started a slow pace, pulling almost all the way out of me before slamming back inside me.

My head was thrashing against the pillows, my teeth digging into my bottom lip. “Aaron, I need you to fuck me harder. Please.”

He groaned at my words, placing a sloppy kiss to my mouth before pulling back. He pulled one of my legs up until it was over his shoulder, the other still wrapped around his waist, and then he started to move faster inside of me.

I braced one hand against the headboard as he pounded into me. “Oh my god, Aaron,” my voice was a low whimper as I looked down to see his cock sliding in and out of me. “You feel so fucking good.”

“Baby, I want you to reach down and rub your clit for me while I fuck your tight little pussy.” His pace started to speed up as he spoke. “Can you do that for me?” He groaned when I complied, the stimulation to my clit causing my pussy to flutter around him. “Good girl.”

My fingers began to work frantically. “Don’t stop, Aaron. Don’t stop,” I begged. “I’m so close.”

“I know, sweet girl, I can feel you. Your pussy feels so good squeezing around my cock. You’re going to make me cum.” His thrusts were starting to get choppier, one of his hands braced on the top of the headboard while the other held my leg on his shoulder. “Do you want me to cum inside your pretty pussy, sweet girl?” He groaned loudly when my walls clenched around him. “It feels like you like the idea of that, don’t you baby?”

My fingers continued their pace, my head thrashing, my body trembling. “Yes. Fuck, Aaron. Please cum inside of me. Please.”

Aaron felt it first and acted quickly; his hand moved from my leg to cover my mouth. “That’s it, cum for me, baby.”

I thought my orgasm earlier tonight was powerful. It was nothing compared to how I felt when I came around his cock, only to feel him find his own release a moment after.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, y/n,” he breathed, giving a last few jerks inside of my body, pushing against the fluttering aftershocks of my orgasm. He rolled off me, careful not to drop all of his weight on top of me. To my relief, he quickly gathered me in his arm, pulling me against his body, pressing a soft kiss to my sweaty forehead.

My ear was pressed against his chest, allowing me to hear his heartbeat slowdown from its frantic pace and his breathing even out. I turned my head and pressed a kiss to his chest while his hand continued to stroke my back.

“That…that was amazing,” I said, looking up at him. “If I knew you had that in you, I wouldn’t have run out of the room every time I was alone with you.”

He laughed softly, his eyes sparkling. “Well, at least you’ll know for next time.”

My thoughts sobered at his words. Next time

“Hey,” he said, his hand cupping the side of my face. “No, don’t go away. I just got you.” He kissed my forehead again, then the tip of my nose, then both of my eyelids, before he tilted my face up further so he could press a kiss to my lips. “We’ll figure this out. We have to. I care too much about you to let you go.”

“I care about you too,” I replied, snuggling against his chest, my eyes suddenly feeling heavy.

I was almost asleep when I heard his voice rumble again. “Will you sing Beatles songs to me when I can’t sleep too?” His voice was sleepy and teasing.

I smiled into the darkness, not bothering to open my eyes. “If you want me to, I will.”

Permanent Taglist: @rachelxwayne @pinkdiamond1016 @sickeninglyshoujo @justagirllookingforherplace @nanocoool

#Aaron Hotchner #Aaron Hotchner x reader #Aaron Hotchner imagine #Aaron Hotchner x you #Aaron Hotchner x y/n #hotch x you #hotch x reader #hotch x y/n #criminal minds #criminal minds smut #Aaron Hotchner smut #SSA Aaron Hotchner

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howtosingit · 3 years

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Fic: On An Ordinary Sunday

TK and Carlos spend a Sunday morning at the park.

Written for @911lonestarweek - Day 1: “You’re the only one for me.” + Romance/Fluff

2K | Also on AO3

- - - - -

The summer sun shines brightly in the blue Austin sky over Butler Park, the heat from the blazing inferno having little effect on TK after years spent rushing into flaming structures with little ventilation. He may have made the switch to the paramedic team a while ago, but some things will never leave him, and he’s always thankful for his experience as a firefighter when the relentless Texas sun threatens to roast him alive during the hottest months of the year.

Besides, he finds that he has little reason to complain as he scans the cityscape before him, the constant murmur of the Texas capital all around him. The fresh, gentle breeze feels like a salve against his skin after a long week of wild calls and less-than-adequate sleep, and he sinks down onto the large, soft blanket beneath him, letting the sound of children in the nearby playground lull him into a state of serenity as he rests his eyes beneath his sunglasses, his breathing deep and body relaxed as his anxious mind stills for the first time in what feels like forever.

That is, at least, until a groan from his right pulls him out of his newly acquired Zen-like state. The corner of TK’s mouth slides upwards until he’s wearing a slight smirk, trying to press down the laugh that he can feel crawling up his throat.

“You alright there, babe?” he asks, turning to glance at the man lying next to him on the blanket.

Carlos merely groans again, the sound barely audible from where he has his face hidden inside his balled-up t-shirt that he’s been using as a pillow ever since they sat down on the lawn.

TK bites down on his bottom lip, reigning in his smile as best he can, even though Carlos can’t actually see it. He reaches out, dragging his fingers gently along his fiancé’s bare back, slick with sweat. He feels Carlos shutter beneath him, another groan pulled from deep inside him.

“You know, if you feel so terrible, we could’ve just stayed in bed this morning,” TK reminds him, scooting a little closer to press his lips against his partner’s shoulder, resting his chin there as he stares at his favorite head of wild curls.

“Nuh-uh,” Carlos whines, turning his head slowly towards TK and squinting against the harsh sunlight. TK takes pity on him and brings his left hand up to shield his eyes from the sun, watching as Carlos blinks sadly up at him. “I promised.”

TK rolls his eyes, his heart nearly bursting with all of the fondness he feels for the man laying next to him. When Carlos had realized just how much the week was wearing on both of them, he had vowed to take TK on a relaxing date during their joint day off. Now, here they are, having made plans a few days ago to spend the morning at the park together, just the two of them enjoying the sunshine and, when they get to it, a picnic lunch.

“I know you did, and I appreciate your commitment to never breaking your promises to me,” TK tells him, leaning in to press his lips against Carlos’s loose curls, his fiancé letting out a small sigh at his touch. “But, Carlos, you made that promise before you did multiple tequila shots with Paul last night. I would’ve understood if you needed a morning in bed.”

TK watches as Carlos closes his eyes again, and it’s only because he knows him as well as he does that TK can practically feel the guilt radiating off of the other man. He leans in, pressing the tips of their noses together. “Don’t you dare feel guilty about it either.”

Carlos scrunches his face, letting out a soft whine when the action no doubt causes his head to throb painfully.

“I just don’t like it when I lose control like that.”

TK pulls back, watching as Carlos opens his eyes to stare at him. He gives him a calculated look. “You don’t like it when you get drunk, or you don’t like it when you get drunk around me?” he asks. His fiancé doesn’t answer, which is all the answer that he needs.

“Carlos, babe, I love that you love me so much that you’re willing to sacrifice a fun night out with our friends for my sake, but you know that I would never ask you to do that. In the three years that we’ve known each other, I can count your wild nights on one hand.”

“I just don’t want you to feel left out or like I’m rubbing it in your face,” Carlos explains, his voice small.

“I mean, you know I’m not the only one in our friend group who doesn’t drink, right?” TK reminds him, running his fingers through Carlos’s curls to soothe him. “Besides, I cannot tell you how much fun I have watching you let loose with Paul and Mateo. They’re some of my favorite memories of you, and I wouldn’t trade for the world.”

“You’re really not mad?”

TK’s heart thumps in his chest at the question, Carlos’s uncertainty nearly splitting it in two. He leans in again, pressing their lips together this time, hoping the act will be enough to reassure the other man. “Of course not.”

When he pulls away, he can tell that Carlos is more relaxed as he lets TK continue to play with his curls. A shadow falls over them as the sun darts behind a small cloud for a moment, and a memory from the night before suddenly flashes through TK’s mind.

It’s not every day that he gets a chance to tease his well-controlled husband-to-be, and TK refuses to miss an opportunity when it presents itself.

“However,” he begins, dragging the word out as he runs his fingers down Carlos’s face, tracing his beautiful features, “I would prefer it if you didn’t flirt with the bartender the next time you decide to let loose.”

“What?!” Carlos cries, shooting up into a sitting position so fast that TK swears time jumped ahead a few seconds. “Fuck!” his fiancé yells, pressing his palms against his face. TK is sure his brain is swimming in his skull, and it can’t be a comfortable feeling.

“I’m joking, I’m joking,” he assures him, moving to sit in front of Carlos, running his hands along his arms to soothe him. “Breathe, Carlos, in and out.” He bites his bottom lip, the guilt rising in his chest at his failed joke.

It takes a few moments of deep inhales and exhales, but Carlos finally lowers his hands, his face pale and pinched.

“I’m so sorry, babe,” TK laughs, the sound thin as he scoots closer, sliding his hands down to grip Carlos’s wrists. “I promise you didn’t flirt with the bartender, I was just kidding. It was a bad joke, and I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d freak out like that.”

“I would never flirt with someone else,” Carlos says, his tone serious and his eyes wide as he stares at TK. “I would never hurt you like that, you know that right? Even if I was so drunk that I could barely stand, I wouldn’t. You’re the only one for me, Ty. The only one.”

“I know, baby, I know,” TK says, shaking his head as he takes Carlos’s face in his hands. “C’mere.”

Carlos sinks into him as TK wraps his arms around him, his fingers once more finding their way into his curls.

“You know, that’s actually exactly what you told me last night, too,” TK finally says, his tone bright as he fills in the gap in Carlos’s memory.

“I did?”

“You did. When you didn’t come back to the table after a few minutes, I went looking for you. Found you talking the bartender’s ear off. He seemed pretty relieved when I finally pulled you away, actually.”

“Oh god,” Carlos groans into his neck. TK clutches him even tighter. “I don’t even remember any of that, or what I might’ve said to him.”

TK flushes, his smile growing as he presses it into Carlos’s dark curls. “I, um, I think it was mostly about me?” he explains, shaking his head a bit at the memory. “He definitely seemed to know who I was when I came up, and you may have said something like, ‘See, Tony, I told you his eyes were like green stars,’ though it was very slurred so I can’t be totally sure that was it.”

“Oh god.”

“I know,” TK says, rubbing his hands up and down his lover’s back. “And then on the way back to the table, you told me I was the love of your life. Many times, actually, and with so much conviction you spilled half your beer all over yourself because you weren’t watching where you were going.” He chuckles when Carlos shakes his head against him. “Tony’s going to be so mad you’ve forgotten him already, you two really seemed to be hitting it off.”

Carlos pulls back to glare at him, and TK admires his willingness to commit to that action while thoroughly hungover. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“Just a bit,” TK teases, darting forward to press a quick kiss to his lips. “Sue me for loving how disgustingly cheesy you get when you’re drunk. I don’t get to see it that often.”

“I just like people to know how special you are,” Carlos mumbles, his lips pulled into a pout as his eyes look everywhere but right at him. “And I like to tell you how special you are to me.”

TK practically melts at his fiancé’s confession, his heart pooling into a liquid puddle at the bottom of his stomach. No one has ever loved him the way that Carlos loves him - so open and honest and completely without shame - and even after all this time, the knowing still doesn’t stop the awe and affection that he feels when he gets to experience that level of unyielding devotion.

“You’re the only one for me, too,” he says, just because he wants to make sure Carlos never has any doubts about how committed he is to what they have, and how much their love means to him, too. “Nothing could ever change that.”

“What if I tell you that I need to go throw up in that trash can over there?” Carlos asks, pointing to a bin along the path to their left. “Would you still want to marry me then?”

TK doesn’t even hesitate. “Not only would I still want to marry you, but I’d even stand next to you and rub your back while you do it. 'In sickness and in health,' right?”

Carlos smiles, reaching up to rub his forehead as he inhales deeply, his nostrils flaring. “Okay, that’s good to know. I mean, I’m not going to do it because I have too much self-respect in the daylight, but it’s still good to know that you wouldn’t call off our engagement.”

TK chuckles, sliding back over to his original spot on the blanket. “Here, lie down again. My offer of back rubs is not conditional to you emptying your stomach in a public trash can.”

Carlos slowly crawls back down onto the blanket, burying his face into his t-shirt again with a barely audible sigh. TK removes his own shirt this time, bunching it under his own head as he scoots closer to his fiancé, lining up their bodies, skin touching skin. It's a little too hot for it, but he wants to be as close to Carlos as possible, and he's willing to suffer the heat. Without a word, Carlos takes his right hand in his own, linking their fingers together where they rest against the blanket.

TK presses his lips to the solid shoulder in front of him, bringing his free hand up to drag it along Carlos’s spine, providing him as much comfort and security as he can as his fiancé sleeps off his unexpectedly wild evening.

And under the midday Austin sun, on an ordinary Sunday, they’re both finally able to relax.

#tarlos #tarlos fic #911 lone star #tk strand #carlos reyes #I wrote a thing #lonestarweekend #lsweekend2021

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lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks · 3 years

Note

Oh my gosh so I also headcannon Jack as autistic! But im not comfortable with writing it yet because idk how. Im not autistic; my little sister is and i know a few things jack could have trouble with... but hes a grown ass man so i just dont know. Im definitely taking notes on what you write him as but could you give me some pointers?....maybe?

Im mostly referencing to Bitter with this

aaaa yeah it definitely presents differently in adults who've learned to mask, personally I don't plan to put certain things in specifically to talk about how he's autistic, I write with the background knowledge of what traits he displays, and then express them when relevant, it's relevant a lot with Jack simply due to how much it affects his life

now this is going to get long, so bare with me, because this is a whole lot more complicated than you might expect

there's really no one correct way to write Jack, since there's no one way that autism presents itself, the way I write him is based on a mix of myself and some people in my family, so I can give you a basic idea of what angle I personally come from

for one, I change the way I write about facial expressions and how emotions come across to Jack, in Jazz's chapters I'll write about the exact emotion she can see on their face, with Jack's I'll go with an obvious base emotion, but then if the person is expressing something more complicated, I'll describe their face in physical details

eg;

Jazz POV - Danny was upset, but his face was tight with frustration

Jack POV - Danny looked sad, but his eyebrows were furrowed and his mouth was set in a hard line

it's a subtle difference but it's one I try to maintain throughout Bitter, Jack's POV is based on how I have trouble reading non-obvious expressions, although in my case I also have trouble looking people in the face when I talk to them, that's harder to write in an emotion driven POV story, so I made Jack better at that than I am

his interest in machines is quite obvious, since he's an inventor, and he looooves infodumping on people, he gets very excited about his passions very quickly and his mouth runs off with him, something I also have trouble with, it hasn't been a prominent trait for Jack in Bitter, because he's so out of his element he's mostly confused and in a way, almost grieving his own death, so he's been far quieter than he usually is

his special interest is obviously ghosts and machinery, and in Bitter I cover that he's got a degree in engineering, physics and mathematics. He's good at them, I like to look at it as though Jack rolled high in intelligence and low in wisdom, he's book smart, he knows things that are straightforward and have firm rules, he's less comfortable in topics that are more wishy washy and vague, biology is complicated and has too many variables, he finds it difficult to grasp, there's no one standard rule that applies to every body

I also struggle with vague and unclear directions, I need a solid structure and clear instructions, my strength is in sorting, organising, alphabetising and colour coding, I like things to Look Right, I stick to a particular routine with very specific things, and it's viscerally uncomfortable and even distressing for me to have that order disturbed, I nearly had a meltdown at work because someone had done a part of my job incorrectly, and I had to fix it, it made me genuinely upset on a personal level, it was MY system, NOBODY should be touching it, NOBODY should be moving things around, they do anyway, and I spend a portion of my shifts just frustrated and on edge because of it

Jack also has issues socially, he often says or does things that other people find uncomfortable or embarrassing, I reference that in Bitter, where Jack assumes everyone is mad at him because he said or did something stupid, this I have much experience in, while in the middle of a social situation it's easy to just do what comes naturally to you and not realise it's off putting to other people, because people often play polite and you can't tell that they're uncomfortable, even though people around you find it painfully obvious

sometimes it's easy to see in hindsight after you've been told you made something awkward or uncomfortable, but in the moment if nobody says anything about it, you can remain either totally oblivious, or become anxious and second guess every interaction you have

Jack is the oblivious type, he's fortunate to live in a family that is fairly understanding, they might get frustrated with him, or embarrassed by him, but they don't really take it personally, they KNOW he means well, they know he cares, and Jack does care, he cares a lot, he feels things a lot, he's incredibly empathetic

this is a trait that a lot of media likes to ignore in depictions of autism, because I guess it makes people with autism seem 'too normal', when tv shows always want to be like 'hey wow look at this clever asshole! isn't he clever, but also an asshole! but you can't hate him because he's ✨autistic✨ and he can't help it'

that bothers me a lot, I mean some people with autism do have trouble relating and empathising with people, my brother is one of them, but some people with autism really empathise a lot, some of us feel things very strongly, I'm highly empathetic and it's a real struggle to cope with

so yeah, it is a very complicated thing, so you need to go in with an idea of what their character struggles with, how it affects them, and when it's relevant in the story, also autism falls on a very wide spectrum, some people, like myself, are able to mask well, but that creates a big issue with identity, when you start to wonder how much of you is real and how much of you is mask, then you have to decide if you want to lower that mask and accept the social consequences of expressing yourself naturally

I have a friend who presents a little more obviously, he's very rigid in his ways and he talks like he's reading from a script, I have another friend who can socialise just fine, but will go into a total meltdown when a plan gets derailed and she doesn't know what to do next

another friend I have is highly social and incredibly boisterous, she stims with her whole body, dances around a lot, she's chaotic and that can be off-putting to people, she's had to spend a lot of her life holding that back, she's only recently started learning how to be herself shamelessly

my brother was incredibly social when he was younger, and people always really loved him, but most of that is mask, he's socially anxious and just wants to be alone most of the time, and he's a total prick to his immediate family, I don't take that personally any more, since now I understand that he's so blunt and brutally honest because he isn't masking with us, but also he still needs to be called out when he oversteps, autism might be why he has difficulty empathising, but it's not an excuse to be a complete asshole, even people with autism need to be called out on shitty behaviour, it isn't a get out of jail free card, our self expression shouldn't come at the cost of hurting other people, most of us are more than capable of learning to not be an asshole

I know this is like, A LOT, but these are the things that need to be considered when writing about autism, it is an all encompassing thing that permeates your entire life experience, I absolutely welcome people like you to try to write about it! Because I think it shouldn't be a taboo subject, and I appreciate that you asked for advice and that you want to do it respectfully, you've probably seen first hand how difficult living with autism can be, having a family member on the spectrum, so you already have some experience to draw from, I don't know your relationship with your sister or how old she is, or where on the spectrum she falls, but if possible you can ask her about her experiences in particular situations that you're having trouble writing, if that's something you and she are comfortable with

I hope this helps, just remember to keep an open mind and listen to any feedback you might get, it is very VERY easy to misrepresent autism so don't be too hard on yourself if you don't quite get it right, if someone gives you a critique, take it in stride and use it to become better ~ you can even express that in an authors note, that you want to write it accurately and invite anyone with experience to share their opinion, because like I said, it is different for everyone and my experiences are not universal, and you're welcome to run something by me every once in a while if you aren't sure about it ❤️

#asks #autism #danny phantom #bitter #jack fenton #this shit be COMPLICATED y'all

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delu-jean · 3 years

Text

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐄𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧: 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

(Jean x fem!/reader) -> Angst -> 4.7k

Notes: Sorry for updating a lot later than expected! Here’s chapter eleven, and twelve will be out as soon as I write it. Hope you enjoy!

Ⅹ > Ⅻ

During the night, you had no dreams or nightmares. It was simply peaceful, calming, and warm. Having him beside you (though he was on the floor) gave you the utmost comfort. He was really here with you, resting to the side, while you did the same. Such a feeling that was yearned for, had finally found its way back to you. The first night in what seemed like forever where you actually slept through calmly.

You woke up the next day to see the sun peer in. Through the crack of your blinds, highlighting the walls of your cozy room. The birds, though silent, remained present as the wind rustled quietly. Jean lay on the floor. His hand still clung onto yours from the night before. His grip felt secure and gentle when holding yours. His hair laced over the pillows, as his body was barely covered by the sheets. Only now did you realize how much of a mover he was. Though that was the case, he still miraculously held you through the night. Without causing any discomfort whatsoever.

You wanted to sit in this moment for a tad longer, but knew you would have to ready you both for the day ahead. You tried to slip out of his hand, but to your failed attempt, he gripped even tighter. He really wasn’t going to make this easy. You tried yet again, using your other hand to assist. Regardless, his one hand and few fingers kept you grounded. You thought that was the end of things, but he then pulled you in. Locking you in a tight embrace. You shook your head, both flustered and disappointed. You needed to get away from him, yet here he was, keeping you captive.

“Jean...Jean I need to get up-”

“Not again...no...never,” he mumbled.

It seemed as if he was sleep talking. If he was conscious, he probably would’ve laughed at you by now. You were sad to hear such words. He had gone through so much trauma to the point he couldn’t let go of you.

“I’m not leaving...not yet at least...so Jean, don’t worry and please let me go,” you cupped his cheek as it sank into your touch. His head now leaning towards you, and his face at a closer range. Smiling at the reaction, you then heard a knock coming from outside.

“Hm...I have to go now,” he seemed less tense than earlier. It must’ve been because of your words since he actually let you go. You got up, put yourself in a cardigan, and quickly tied your hair. Maybe this time it was actually Reiner, for goodness sake you would now need to leave a candle there. Just in case next time, it’s a crazy psycho and not Jean.

You opened the door, ready to attack if it was anyone threatening. Though hesitant, you let your guard down, opening the door even wider.

“Ah Y/n! Long time no see,” you stared at the woman, flowers in one hand, while treats in the other.

“Alexandra, what are you doing here?” you smiled shocked.

Alexandra was also a person from the military. An Eldian soldier who commanded her own squad. Though your rank was a tad higher than her’s, she was never too far from you. You both conversed here and there. Though you weren’t as close to her as you were with the warrior unit, you were both mutually acquainted. Enjoying each other’s company from time to time.

“I just came to drop by. If you’re busy, I can come sometime later today,” you didn’t want to be rude and reject her. Even though Jean was over, you assumed that if he had heard someone else (other than you) in the house, that he would keep quiet.

“No no no, I insist. Come in, I’m free,” you led her inside for her to then place the gifts on the table. Now that you thought about it, this was the second time she had been to your house. That being said, you were surprised she still had this place memorized. Not only that, but you were surprised she had come out of the blue. Did she have something important to share, what drove her to come?

“Curious are we?” she laughed as your eyes widened, embarrassed.

“Of course not-”

“Haha, you’re not a very good liar Y/n~”

“I guess you’re right about that,” you grinned as you started to prepare tea. She was just such a lady, and plus, tea complimented any situation. So why not make some now?

“Hm lovely. Earl Grey if I’m correct?”

“Haha, yes you are,” you then placed a cup down. Pouring the tea as she patiently waited. Crossing her legs and setting the treats she brought across the table.

“I’m sorry I’ve come so early in the morning, it’s just that my squad is going to be shipped out sometime tomorrow...so I wanted to say my goodbyes before then.”

“What do you mean? I know you’ll come back,” you smiled as she followed hesitantly.

“Yeah...of course I will,” you then set the teapot down, as she took a sip.

“Hey so...I heard that someone might be getting married,” you start to drink your tea, eyeing her suspiciously.

“Who?”

“Who else but you,” you choked on the beverage, wondering as to how she would know such a thing. You then tried to play things cool, hoping the subject would slowly avert.

“I’m still not understanding?-”

“You and Reiner silly. It’s been going around everywhere...didn’t you know?”

“No...I...I didn’t know that others knew?...”

“Ahh I see. Well, from what I know, the town seems content with such a proposal. The ladies have been talking about what kind of future you both might have, even with the limited time. Not only that, but Reiner’s mother seems ecstatic with both the arrangements, and attention being given,” you then bite down on your tongue. Never would you have thought things would escalate so quickly. Rumors that weren’t even confirmed, yet spread like wildfire. She then placed her cup down, grabbing one of the deserts to munch, and then covered her mouth. She spoke, trying to keep her manners while also enjoying the treat.

“So, have you prepared a wedding dress, did he give you a ring yet, or are you both going to wait for the day of?”

“No...I haven’t been given a ring, nor have I gotten anything.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah…”

“Hm...well okay. Let me ask you a different question.”

“Of course, whenever you’re ready,” she then finished, and took a sip. Eyeing you as you sat uncomfortable, not sure what her next approach would be.

“You do like him, don’t you?”

“Um...well...I...I would say-”

“You know, I’ve always thought the both of you were...how do I say it, cute. Very cute actually.”

“I’m sorry, what?” you laughed a little, thinking she was being sarcastic. Whereas she was being quite serious.

“You two have always seemed so close. You both respect each other, take the time to have one on ones, you also put in the effort to see each other’s families, and just...so much more. You’ve always seemed like a couple, or, couple goals to say the least. Not only that, but you seem to genuinely care for each other. You give words of affirmation, and he gives you acts of genuine affection.”

“How would you know such a thing?” your brow cocked as she sighed.

“My dear, it’s called observation. Speaking of observing, you can’t deny that Reiner is very attractive.”

“I-”

“I mean, he’s a total catch. He’s a very good looking gentleman. One that actually takes care of his hygiene. He’s presentable most of the time, and treats you like the lady you are. Giving you the respect which you deserve. Very attractive in my opinion. Chivalrous, yet understanding of a lady’s worth.”

“I agree with that,” though your feelings for Reiner were platonic, what she stated was...somewhat true. Just disclude the whole “wanting to kill you,” along with the “using you as a way to cope,” and vice versa.

“So you do like him?” she asked as you sat there, not sure about what your response would be.

“Well…” a question then sprung in your head. You put your cup down, to then eye her yourself as she locked her gaze. Awaiting for whatever your answer would be.

“Alexandra what if...what if there was someone else?”

“Someone better looking than Reiner?”

“I...I guess so,” you chuckled as she stared at you in shock.

“No way...did you get with Porco? Wow...you surprise me the more I get to know you-”

“Wait a minute, you think Porco is more charming than Reiner?” You cut her midway through, baffled to say the least. Now you were the person in shock as she smiled cockishly. Proud of such a statement.

“Well...yes...yes I do,” she said shamelessly as you now laughed.

“Wait, but why? I’m genuinely curious,” you said, obviously having a different opinion.

“First of all, his undercut is both sharp and clean. Not only that, but the dirty blonde really suits him. His build is nice, along with the fashion he portrays. Though not too out of the ordinary, you can tell he puts in the effort to look his best.

The energy he gives off is adventurous, dark, and mysterious, you know? But at the same time, he also seems like a gentleman. One who’s misunderstood, yet has a soft interior. His eyes seem to hide an excruciating pain, yet his smile is one full of brightness, and laughter,” you were surprised about how philosophical, and passionate she was when describing Porco...Porco of all people. No offense to him, but you would never see him in such light.

Regardless, she seemed proud to say such a statement, as she then asked you:

“And you? Just what about Reiner intrigues you? I understand for some reasons, but more than Porco?” you nodded to then state:

“I can’t guarantee my description will be a full fledged english essay. But oh well, here it goes,” she listened intrigued, ready to hear your rebuttal.

“Well, he does have a beard. Though Zeke’s is fuller, Reiner’s compliments his face structure. He has a very um...broad build, the blonde suits him well, and over all, is a very sweet person. Compared to Porco, I would say he has a much more timid nature. Don’t get me wrong, he can speak his mind, but is a little more sensitive when doing so. That being the case, I feel as if he’s more relatable. Though, I may be saying this because I’ve known him for longer, outside of Marely of course, I just think he’s the better option-”

“The better option, so he is an option. Meaning that you feel attracted to him. Leading to the conclusion that you like him,” she grinned maliciously as you panicked.

“Um well...I wouldn’t say that…”

“Interesting...but my point still stands haha. If you ever need someone to help you prepare for the occasion...if I come back...I’ll be sure to aid you.”

“Of course,” she then stood up, placing the flowers in a vase. Grabbing her bag, her coat, her hat, standing before you.

“But before I go, just who is this other person?...Are you really seeing someone?”

“I…” you weren’t sure what to say to her, as the hesitation rang in your voice.

“No...I just wanted to know what your thoughts would be,” You know you should have told her yes, but you just couldn’t. You didn’t want to add any more fuel to the fire, and if you couldn’t even tell the warriors, telling someone else shouldn’t have been an option.

“I see, well...farewell Y/n. Let us meet again, and if not here...somewhere else…”

“Yes, of course,” you smiled happily as the door then shut.

You were glad that one, she came to visit you, and two, that things were now over. You sat in your seat, stretching out your arms to hear another knock. Except this time, it was coming from behind you. Your head then flung backwards, your smile growing even wider as your chair tilted.

“Good morning handsome~”

“Good morning beautiful, how are you?”

“Greater than ever, how about you? Did you sleep well?”

“Magnificent. Also yeah, I did sleep well...surprisingly,” you both laughed a little, as you then got up, placing breakfast for the both of you. Though a little full from the meeting before, you still wanted to enjoy a meal with Jean. After all, it had been so long since the last time you did. And plus, that was during your time as a cadet. You weren’t able to enjoy such a feast in the morning.

You both ate in silence. Both of you trying to enjoy the food, and each other’s company. Letting the peace around settle in. Once you had finished both eating, and cleaning up after yourselves, you then decided to speak, asking:

“Did you hear the conversation I had earlier? I’m assuming you probably woke up because of it,” you didn’t ask how much he heard. You instead wanted to see how much he did hear from the man himself. He put the cloth he was holding down. Similar to you, he wanted to see if you’d tell him anything from the conversation. So he asked:

“Was there anything important I should be informed about regarding it?”

“No…” you lied guiltily, but you didn’t know how to handle it otherwise. He then decided to hint you with what he knew, by saying:

“Hm...Is Reiner really your type? Do I have to buff it up, go blonde, and grow a stache?” he then touched his face as you laughed. Both out of silliness, and nervousness. You felt worried knowing he heard that much of your conversation. Meaning, he knew you hadn’t denied Alexandra even once.

“Haha no! I love you just the way you areeee!”

He then looked at the ground, leading him to stand up.

“If that’s the case,” he leaned against the wall, staring at you intensely.

“No? Y/n, why did you say no?” you sighed in defeat, seeing that he most definitely was on your tail.

“I can’t tell her I’m dating a ‘devil’ from Paradis,” you said, trying to make an excuse.

“You wouldn’t have needed to tell her that...just saying yes should’ve been a good enough answer. You didn’t have to say no.”

“I know…”

“Then why did you?..”

“I just...I’m not even sure myself-”

“About this...us?...” he stopped himself while clenching his fist. Though he was annoyed, he didn’t want to push that onto you. He knew you cared about your relationship, and plus, it sounded petty for him to say.

“Never mind...it’s not a big deal.”

“I see…” you agreed, still feeling guilty as he then asked:

“You’re not planning on marrying him...right?”

“Hm,” you think to yourself. Though your mind had run blank, he certainly did not as it ran with rage. Seeing you hesitate when the answer should have been obvious. He just couldn’t handle it, along with his sense of inferiority. Though he had matured, there were still times where acted otherwise. This being one of them.

“I can’t believe you didn’t say no, almost immediately-”

“You know I won’t Jean…”

“Then why didn’t you tell off your friend? You didn’t deny the proposal, or your affection for him.”

Jean wasn’t jealous, rather, frustrated. Frustrated that you weren’t using your words (yet again), nor telling him any of your thoughts. It's like watching a movie with no audio, he wasn’t able to understand your actions even when seeing them. Without any coordination, communication would never reach his side of the spectrum.

He scrunched his eyebrows, and pinched the bridge between them. Though that was the case, he was trying to be patient with you. After all, this was something new and he didn’t want you to feel pressured. Nor did he want you to feel like it was completely your fault. Even if it was, he wouldn’t have known unless you told him so.

“Look Y/n...I really don’t want to fight, especially over something like this. But in order for me to understand things, even if it does hurt my feelings, I need to understand your thought process. That way, I’m able to clear up any misunderstandings. You tend to keep your mouth shut, and that’s not something that we need as of right now. You know how I feel, now it’s your turn,” you were still hesitant, feeling pressured as he approached you. He looked into your eyes. His stare was desperate, yet understanding. Patting your head as you gazed upwards.

“I’m sorry for acting like that...but you know...your actions do hurt me, especially when I don’t know where you’re coming from. So can you please...try to explain?” he pouted as you sighed, ready to convey how you felt. He seemed excited seeing that you were somewhat ready, feeling like a proud father...which was something he didn’t feel often (having both Connie and Sasha). It was a weird metaphor, but the only one which could describe the moment.

“I wasn’t sure if I should tell her. Although I do trust her, it could get out. You never know. Plus, I didn’t want to deny the proposal yet. I still need to talk things out with Reiner, and his mother” he seemed a bit disappointed, leading you to then hug him.

“But I can promise you, it’s something that won’t happen. I love you, and you alone,” he then wrapped his arms around, returning the favour. Him hovering over your top half, as you hugged his torso, still in your seat.

“I see...thanks for that but...I think I’ll still go blonde-”

“NO! I like your brown hair, it’s cute!”

“Cute eh? I guess I’ll keep it then,” Him then smirking at the ego boost, as you sat flushed.

“I love your hair as well.”

---

After breakfast, you both decided to make plans. Heading out for a walk in the park, wanting to spend more time together. If anything, you could conclude it as being a date. You went out for lunch, and strolled together while conversing. Though walking was a great thing, so was sitting. That being the case, you both sat on a bench. Hands intertwined, feet swinging, and him calmly humming. Moments had passed in such comfort for him to ask:

“What’s happened in your life? Well, other than becoming part of the military, and all of the boring stuff.”

“Nothing much, how about you? What’s been happening in yours?”

“Ah...I can’t say too much about that,” he nervously said, as you backed off, understanding it wasn’t something to be said aloud. You both then sat awkwardly, only for you to ask something that you had been curious about.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened? After I left...the truth if possible,” you knew Jean was a truthful person, you trusted him, but you also knew he would sugar coat things to make you feel better. That being the case, you wanted honesty. No matter what. Afterall, you deserved to hear such criticism if needed. It was the least you could do to attone.

“I guess I’ll start off lightly. Um...we did find the cellar, the one which Eren’s father resided in. We also took back Shiganshina, though now mainly used for military purposes...I think. Not only that, but your horse has been doing fine.”

“Violet? How about Buchwald?”

“Yeah, him too. They’re pretty good friends in my opinion,” he looked at you to see that you weren’t content. It seemed as if you wanted to know more, rather than being shielded by the lightness in his words. Since you could make your own decisions, so could he. Deciding that he would tell you instead of keeping you from things. Things that you honestly...deserved to know.

“After you died...I barely slept. I couldn’t eat, train, or even walk for that matter. I was pretty malnourished during that time, refusing to have a meal. I did that feeling guilty that you couldn’t have it with me. You passed and yet I still lived?...it didn’t seem fair no matter what was said. I was pretty grumpy as well. Angry, sad, and confused. Not knowing what to do.

When Marco died, instead of mourning, I instead used it as a way to motivate me. To push myself even further for humanity, so that his death wouldn’t go in vain. But with your death...I couldn’t even. It was too painful to even bring up. Thinking of it as my motivation, seemed both coward like, and sickening.

Everyone else was pretty moody as well. Not sure how to approach such rogue behaviour from me, nor how to accept your death. Even though I made the biggest ordeal, they still mourned. However, even though that was the case, what matters is that you’re alive now. We’ve also talked things through, and now I’m here...with you,” he grasped your hand, smiling softly. The guilt that now built in your stomach, remind you of the pain you put him through. Not only that, but the anguish which held him captive for so many years. Though you put him in such a position...he was still willing to forgive you?

You stared at him. His eyes broken, yet also...in the process of healing. Although you couldn’t change the past, maybe you could alter the present, concluding in a better future for you both. You smiled as his thumb caressed your knuckles, loving the warmth. You sat there for a second, to then ask:

“Tell me...is Berthold alive?...in Paradis?” he then stopped, as he looked at the ground. You understood the answer, based on the actions given.

“How did he die?”

“Armin...ate him-”

“What? That’s only possible if-”

“We had spinal fluid? I know,” you sat there spooked. Just now finding out Paradis had such information, climbing up the latter as you spoke. They’d probably catch up to your wits eventually. Though that was the case, and you could have worried even more, you decided against it. Knowing this wasn’t the time to.

Instead, you decided to focus on Bertholdt. He was really gone...though you assumed it would have been better than being held captive, it still hurt. He must have felt so much pain going through that. Not only did he get eaten, but he was alone. None of you were there to help, nor witness such a sight. It saddened you as your eyes teared. The sweetest person, the only person who didn’t want to fight, was finally taken out of it in such a brutal way.

Jean saw the distress that struck across you, as he then wiped your tears. Trying to console you the best way he could. He knew what it felt like to lose a friend, heck he even thought he lost you. It was a process that hurt a lot...but one that would come to pass.

“What about everyone else?...”

“Hm...everyone is fine...especially Sasha and Connie. Those two are still as lively as ever,” he smiled as you followed suit.

“I’m glad they’re still the hooligans they were.”

“Yeah…me too.”

“How did you get here?...and why are you here?” you asked, genuinely wanting to know.

“Shh...it’s a secret,” he joked, obviously trying to avoid the question. After he answered, you could feel the tension in the air. One not wanting to tell the other everything just yet. You both trusted each other...yet felt as if your intentions...were something to keep behind closed doors…. For now at least.

Jean then sighed, gripping onto your hand even tighter. He, along with you, tried breaking the ice. Him with his actions, and you with your words. Though it felt a little awkward, you still wanted to carry out your conversation.

“You know, even though I tried pushing things aside...after leaving...I could never get over the departure. Separating from you, our comrades, and the place that made me feel...happy...normal...and well...loved,” grinning he then draped his arm over you. Your hand then grabbed his which lay on your chest, both intertwining whilst you both were even closer.

“Also...I’m surprised you didn’t move on. Especially after all of that time,” his expression then changed into a curious one.

“What do you mean?”

“Well...you thought I died. Not only that, but you're quite the ladies man. So I wouldn’t see you having much to...any difficulty actually.”

“I could never Y/n...though it sounds childish, you were my first love. I couldn’t imagine leaving you for someone else, even if you had passed. I would’ve died an old stallion,” he dramatically said as you burst out laughing. He loved seeing the face you’d make when you were happy. How lovely the corner of your lips would lift, the way your eyes crinkled, as your brows lifted the slightest bit. He was glad he could see such a sight, and that he was the cause behind it.

“Who said you won't, ya horse!”

“HEY! I’M NOT ONE!” laughter continued to fill the atmosphere. Both you and him adding your humor to the mood. Laying your head on his chest, and moving in closer.

“You know, if we ever do part ways...don’t feel bad, okay?” you stated.

“What do you mean?”

“It can apply to anything but...I mean death to be more specific. You never know what will happen in the midst of battle.”

“Hm...I guess so”

“But, the guilt will live with me forever. No matter what because...I just love you that much,” you smile to yourself and nod.

“I too, love you just as much...Jean. And I always will.”

---

While you two were enjoying your moment, being yourselves, cherishing each other’s presence, Zeke was not having any of it. He didn’t hate the sight of you being with someone else, it was just that...he thought your priorities lay elsewhere. Both in loyalty, and worth ethically. That being the case, he decided to do the only logical thing. Crash. The. Party.

So, he crept behind the both of you, clawed his hands, and placed them on your shoulders screaming:

“BOO!”

“WHAT THE HECK!” you then smacked his arm, quickly squirming away from Jean.

“Heh, good morning to you as well, Y/n. Now, who’s this we have here?” Before you could respond, Jean sighed, extending his hand. He knew that if he let you talk, you would be put in another awkward position.

“My name is...John. A friend of Y/n,” you wheezed internally. He just had to pick the most generic name, one which sounded like his own. Zeke grabbed his hand, and shook it.

“Ah...nice to meet you John. Anyways, Y/n...Reiner has been looking for you all morning. His face seemed urgent, so I think you should go see him,” though Jean wasn’t pleased, with both Zeke, and the fact you had to leave (him for Reiner), he approved of the notion with a small nod.

“I’ll see you later, Je-John.”

“Yeah...same here,” he then walked the other direction, leaving both you and Zeke to walk towards HQ.

“Were you lying, about Reiner?” hand in his pocket, as the other smoked up a storm.

---

“No, I wasn’t. He actually was looking for you.”

“I see.”

“Also Y/n, just for the record, know that I’m not dumb, nor oblivious. I know what stunt you two were pulling off, trying to lie to me, tch,” he said, clearly annoyed. You inhaled the smoke of cigarettes. Not sure what to tell him. But you were also...laughing a bit. Actually enjoying his reaction since you’ve never seen Zeke so frustrated out of work.

“I see I’ve upset you?”

“Whatever you rascal. How long have you been with him?” he smiled as your hands clasped.

“We really are just friends. I met him at a pub, nothing much has happened between us, nor will anything in general,” he sighed as his tone became a lot firmer. Though he didn’t believe you, he still had something to say.

“You need to be more careful. If it were someone else who had seen, even more rumors would've been speculated, you know that? Plus, friendship or not, know where your priorities stand,” you choked on your saliva, trying to cough as his words caught you by surprise.

Before he could say anything more, the gates to HQ then opened for the both of you to see...Reiner...running as fast as he could.

“Reiner?...”

“Y/n! You’re here!”

“Yeah...I am….”

“I need you, let’s go,” he then dragged you elsewhere as Zeke stomped on his cigarette.

“You may need her...but does she actually need you...Reiner?”

Ⅹ > Ⅻ

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professorspork · 3 years

Note

blek

BLEK!!!

*inhales*

Blake is the best, smartest, most capable, most insightful person alive and also a complete moron, the only cool member of RWBY and also a huge dork, someone destabilized by trauma in a way that still affects her day-to-day decision-making but also someone who has worked really hard for it to no longer get in the way of her fierce advocacy and natural charisma

Blake is EVERYTHING

which, I understand, doesn't really narrow it down for the purposes of this meme.

I actually struggled with Blake at first; of all the superhell ficlets I wrote, hers is the one I feel least captured the essence of of the person whose POV I was in. and that was largely a structural thing, as the prompt was actually about Ruby and Jaune's friendship and I was using it as a bridge for what I'd decided the series would become, but it also nagged at me because I LOVE BLAKE and I felt irked by the idea that I hadn't done her justice. it wasn't until I wrote her monologue about Adam in the Jaune section that I really felt like I'd managed to get my arms around her. (And then, of course, I wrote the Yang section, where YANG got to get her arms around her, ayyyyyy wink wink.)

I suppose... when I think about Blake, I think about commitment. in a few ways! she's dedicated and dogmatic, which can sometimes be a huge flaw if she's hyperfocusing on the wrong thing (i.e. "I'm the kind of person who runs away from my problems" becoming a recurring self-fulfilling prophecy) but is mostly a tremendous credit to her. like, going back to the beginning with these girls-- Yang said she wanted to be a Huntress for adventure, and Ruby wanted to help people, and Weiss understood she had A Lot To Make Up For and wasn't sure where to start, but Blake... Blake wanted to end racism and create an equitable, more just society and save the world. She has an actual moral vision for what justice should look like, not just an Urge To Help. (This is also the trait that saved her from falling into the trap Emerald got into with Cinder, when it came to Adam-- she believed in the movement and the goal more than she believed in him, and so she was able to walk away when he betrayed her ideals.)

but I also think about commitment in terms of just straight-up scrappiness. every ounce of peace Blake has managed to attain has been hard-won, and once she gets it, she works really, really hard not to backslide. once Yang gives her the lecture about burnout, she takes it to heart-- even when things are at their worst with the White Fang in Menagerie, we don't see her work herself to the bone in the same way. the whole thing about her flight from Beacon is that, like. Blake's failing isn't that she's flaky and toxic, it's that she's convinced she's toxic and flaky when she's not-- which is an entirely different issue! but after Sun puts his foot down about how she pushes everyone away, again, she takes it to heart. she doesn't shrink from conflict after that-- if anything, she throws herself at it with Yang so hard that Yang's like "please stop, you're just making it worse by bending over backwards for me." she learns from her mistakes, and she's not... tremulous, or unsure. not anymore. and because she's Been Through It, she's a steady presence and a soft place to land for her friends when they're hurting, because she knows exactly what it's like. she's been there. Ilia tries to murder her and her whole family and she STILL forgives her, because her sense of empathy is so well-developed. after all, if she learned to forgive herself her worst mistakes, who's so bad they can't earn her forgiveness? even with Adam, she doesn't actually wish him malice-- all she asks, over and over again, is for him to move on and leave her alone.

Blake is also both the kind of person who will mercilessly roast her crush with sick burns, AND the kind of person who covers her mouth when she laughs because she's genuinely charmed and gets all sheepish and embarrassed over it. even when she was at her most aloof and standoffish, it's because she was too busy reading cheesy paperback romances to be social--which says a lot about where her actual priorities are.

but again, I find myself just waxing rhapsodic about why I love her and what I think she's about, instead of how i WRITE her. This meme is hard! so, okay: in serious conversations, Blake is tender and frank; in casual ones, she's deadpan and sarcastic. uhhhhhhhh the one thing she finds hotter than an unshakeable code of ethics is a blonde acting like a total goofus dweeb okay yeah i'm tapped

#blake belladonna #rwby

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showrunnerihardlyknowher · 3 years

Note

today i astral project giant, curious merboy w/ frightened researcher into your mind. tomorrow? who knows

Tomorrow is when you get your request filled you babey boi

“E-easy now, l-let’s ju-woah! Hey!”

It was too late for Stella’s squirming to do her any good as long, clammy fingers tightened themselves around her already battered body to lift her much higher than she would have appreciated. She couldn’t help a small wince when she felt her arms be uncomfortably squeezed against her ribs, the left side of which was undoubtably bruised from her topple earlier. The grip only pressed more at her pathetic struggles, forcing out her exhale much rougher than intended.

“Pl-lease,” she gasped, practically immobile in the creature’s hold which seemed to be the desired affect, “y-you’re hur-hurting me...!”

And just like that, the pressure that had once been constricting her disappeared. Even more wonderfully, solid ground seemed to return under her shaky legs which she was grateful to collapse. Or so she thought. A couple inhales sucked in to clear the splotches that pulsed in the corner of her vision revealed she had merely been traded from one hand to the other, trapped high above in an open palm as opposed to a clenched fist. Best not to look a gift horse in the mouth, she supposed.

Or fish, she supposed again.

With a shaky sigh, Stella forced her eyes up (and up and up) until they met with wide ones, blinking down at its tiny capture. She couldn’t keep up the staring contest very long, however, not with how unnerving those black scleras were. Instead, she found her gaze shifting towards its mouth that could certainly fit her inside in one bite, perhaps even a rowboat if it tried. At that moment, it chirped at her, something loud and grating and immediately making her cover her ears for protection, but not without getting a glimpse of those jagged fangs.

From a scientific standpoint, this was one of the most stunning discoveries in her career, hell, in anyone’s career in the history of marine biology. A genuine mermaid...er, man, if she were to assume based purely on physical observation. A dozen questions ran through her mind focused on understand how on earth each component of his body functioned. Respiratory, circulatory, vision, hearing, homeostasis, smell, bone structure and density, muscle to fat ratio, everything and more!

Unfortunately, she doubted those inquiries would be answered anytime soon, if ever.

The monster chittered again much more quietly, practically a rumble in his throat as his other hand hovered closer. Try as she might to flinch away, there was really no where else to go besides down into the icy waters below. She watched the thick claws adorning each finger inch closer, bracing for the sensation of being flayed like some sort of sick vengeance for all his seafood brethren she had ever eaten. Actually, given his size and muscular build alone, there was no way this thing was a vegetarian, so there better not be any judgement on that front!

Surprisingly enough, the claws just missed nicking any part of her skin in favor for the pad of his finger to rub against the top of her head, slowly, hesitantly even. Stella grimaced at the action but let it be, holding still as best her trembling form was able to while his petting built up more confidence, now sliding from her crown to where the coils ended at her shoulders. She let out a yip when he yanked her hair in an attempt to rub the foreign texture between his thumb and forefinger, immediately releasing the frizzy locks at the sound of her distress.

His curiosity didn’t stop there, however. She was well aware of the irony of the situation--the researcher being studied by the subject and all that (at least, she hoped that’s what he was doing rather than sizing her up for a meal). Considering this was her first time ever encountering a merperson during one of her weekend escapades along the coastline, it wouldn’t be too hard to imagine this was his first time meeting a strangely sized hybrid species as well. Maybe those local legends about sea monsters and sirens held a little bit of truth after all, he was certainly as destructive as the stories foretold of these deadly creatures.

And, the scientist side of her couldn’t help but reason with the merman. She was, after all, encroaching on his natural territory in a foreign vessel, was it truly so unexpected for it to attack? ‘Attack’ was perhaps too strong of a word. Investigate was more like it, the way it grabbed and shook her tiny boat in an effort to see what was inside this weird, floating habitat until she came tumbling out on deck. On the bright side, at least Lorelei coming down with strep the night before saved her research partner from meeting the same fate as her right now. On the downside, she was going to meet said fate alone, her true ending forever a mystery outside of these waters.

The question was: what the hell was her fate meant to be? The way his fingers and touches roamed her body continued to reassure her that she probably wasn’t going to be a menu speciality for another few moments, but beyond eating her, what other uses could he have for her? He pinched her legs and arms to bend at the joints, especially fascinated at how articulate her lower half was in comparison to his own. It was almost like he was looking for a tail where one should obviously be, trying to piece together how these two split fins could work together as one. His fingers brushed against her waist and trailing up to her neck. Gill placement, maybe? From just how close his nails were coming to her jugular, Stella feared she might just get a few extra breathing slits if she so much as hiccuped.

It was all well and good until the fingers glided back down over her chest, pushing past the soaked lapels of her coat to the swell of her cleavage, his claw eagerly slipping under the buttons of her blouse to pop a few off. Stella turned bright red, her body heating up so much that she was sure he could feel it against the cool flesh of his palm where she sat. With an indignant shriek, she slapped the digit away from her body, quickly covering herself with her lab coat as best she could.

“No, thank you!” She scolded, leveling a glare with the creature. “Don’t do that!”

She didn’t even have time to register what consequences might befall her actions of threat displaying a massive sea predator, not with how his ear fins flattened against his head and he jerked his hand away as if she had burned him with her touch. In his defense, he did look rather guilty, rumbling again in his throat like he was offering an apology. He tilted his head at her, repeating the noise and it was then she realized he probably didn’t actually know what was wrong, rather he was asking why it was wrong. Oh, yeah. Different species, different cultures, different takes on reproductive accessories.

“You just, y-you don’t touch people like that, okay?” He grumbled something at her and though she didn’t understand it, she knew that tone well enough to roll her eyes. “Because I said so. Why d-”

Stella froze. The monster was still pouting at her reply, but her lengthy pause paired with her suddenly shocked expression made him chirp again in question. She searched his eyes, now well aware of the deep blue iris hidden within the inky abyss around it.

“You...c-can you understand me...?”

He furrowed his eyebrows before giving a single nod. Uh, yeah, duh? I’ve been responding to you this entire time, haven’t I? is what the expression conveyed.

“Holy shit...” she whispered. A smile was quick to tug at her cheeks, looking back at him with twinkling brown eyes. “Holy shit! You can understand me! Y-you’re...you’re intelligent!”

The creature narrowed his gaze and she quickly held up her hands in a placating motion. “I-I mean, obviously, you were always intelligent, just i-in terms of, like...you know, whatever, let’s just start over, um...” She ran a hand through her newly tangled mess of curls, shaking her head in disbelief. “Oh my god, I don’t even know where to begin!”

A quick look down at her capsized boat had her reconsider. Stella wondered how much of her research and equipment inside was totally trashed as a result of being broken or waterlogged. Oh well. Literally none of that mattered right now, not when filters could be replaced and notes reprinted and one of the greatest specimens of her lifetime was three inches in front of her.

Biting her lip, she glanced between the boat and the merman. “Actually, do you, um, think m-maybe you could fix...that? And maybe put m-me down while you’re at it...?”

For a moment, he only blinked at her, silently debating her request. It was long enough to make her start to shift nervously, wondering if she had managed to misread the entire situation and was foolish to make such demands when she was still considered a food source. Thankfully, he complied and righted her boat with ease, gently depositing her on the slick deck. The rocking of the sea still caused her to slip and fall ass first on the ground, though it mattered little to her with the way her legs still felt like jelly.

A shadow engulfed her, trilling ringing in her ears from above which made her groan. “I’m fine, just...give me a minute here.” Slowly, Stella sat back up and pulled her legs towards herself until she could sit criss-cross, digging her (thankfully) waterproof handheld from her pocket to pop out the stylus, tapping and scribbling on the screen. The creature lowered himself deeper into the water until only his shoulders and above were visible, swimming around to the edge of the boat to try and see what she was doing on the tiny device. He braced his hands on the side of the hull, nearly capsizing it again, which was probably what he did the first time when she had been down in the cabin, and only letting go when Stella cried out at being toppled for the umpteenth time.

When the boat ceased most of its swaying, she fixed another sharp glare at the creature who hunched a little further into the salty waters. “Okay, rule number one, no more touching this boat. Got it?” She was half tempted to add or me in there, but...well, they could cross that bridge if something came up about that later. Regardless, he nodded at her and she sighed, repositioning herself to lean against the cabin door for a little extra stability.

“So, ever play twenty questions?”

#g/t #g/t writing #g/t fluff #my writing #giant/tiny #gianttiny #macro/micro #ask #ratpaps #mermen babyyyyyyyyy #another story in which i name my characters after my favorite students lmaooooo #send more prompts this is fun :D #yes i specifcally called you baby to piss you off nerd #also yes i spelt specifically wrong but i dont feel like deleting and rewriting the tag

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andypantsx3 · 4 years

Text

conspire | 3 | practice

pairing: Todoroki Shouto / Reader

length: 13,307 words / 5 chapters

summary: Shouto Todoroki had definitely only asked you out in order to ward off his horde of interested suitors. So why does he keep actually taking you out on suspiciously realistic dates?

tags: romance, reader-insert, fake dating, misunderstandings

warnings: aged up characters, eventual smut

Fake dating Shouto Todoroki was an absolute whirlwind, but it certainly came with its benefits.

As weeks passed, you found yourself with a compliant test subject and plenty of data for the work you were doing on his support item. You’d confirmed that you could use this work as your submission for your senior project -- developing a support item without any input, direction, or critique from a professor -- and you’d set to the task with enthusiasm after that.

Shouto caved easily enough to the tests you’d put to him on your first “date” and you’d had way too much fun getting him to freeze and heat things for you, strapping him up in all the nodules and wires as you’d promised. Over the course of a few weeks, you’d analyzed the absolute crap out of the cryogenic structure of his ice crystals and tested the limits of his temperature control to your heart’s content, pleased that the amount of time you were spending together also played into your cover story.

It turned out his quirk worked as you’d suspected, which was incredible. Shouto’s power allowed his body to work like a heat pump, directing thermal energy against the current in which it naturally flowed at will. He used the energy from one side of his body to alternately push energy into or draw energy from the other side of his body, in order to create a temperature gradient strong enough to induce ice or flames.

He was basically like a really good looking, high-powered air conditioner.

The discovery was overwhelming and gave you limitless possibilities as to what kind of support item you could build for him.

The problem was, there were maybe too many options.

“You can watch my quirk training, if you need more direction,” Shouto had suggested one night when you were tucked up doing homework together. He’d really taken to the role of doting boyfriend and put in appearances often, taking you out on a series of other mind-bendingly good dates and showing up to your dorm on school nights with homework and small, thoughtful gifts like bottles of tea.

Through his efforts, he’d become something like a close friend.

You’d discovered over the course of your time together that Shouto wasn’t as quiet and serious as you’d initially suspected him to be, and you quite liked the sides of himself that he chose to unveil. He had a tendency to be blunt and was strangely oblivious given how observant he could be, and he had a little bit of a short fuse when the match was properly lit. He was still kind and thoughtful for the most part, but as he grew more comfortable with you it was like a flip sometimes switched and out crawled an inner gremlin, eager to tease and fluster you.

To your eternal mortification, he’d most definitely caught on to the fact that kissing you was the fastest way to fluster you, though in your defense, being kissed by a man who had no romantic interest in you was certainly a mind-boggling concept in and of itself. He’d thankfully only kissed you a few other times--once, weirdly, when you’d been almost sure no one else was around--though he sometimes watched you with a look in his eye like he was scheming up ways to make it happen again.

He was a very convincing fake boyfriend.

You had agreed to follow him to quirk training the following evening, and showed up to take your place on the sidelines of beta field that afternoon in a thick coat with a thermos of warm tea. Deep in your bag, you’d embarrassingly stowed an extra for Shouto, a habit formed by all of your time spent together.

He was there when you got there, clearly having come straight from class, and huge walls of ice already dotted the field, one or two twisted into melting spires. Slick trails of water ran down their sides where he’d blasted them with his fire, pooling into the cracks of the earth at their bases, and singe marks scored the grass around them.

Shouto seemed to brighten when he caught sight of you, and he came padding over to where you were making yourself comfortable on the cold ground.

“Anything in particular you want me to test out?” he asked, but you shook your head, unearthing a notebook and a pen from your bag.

“No, just do your thing,” you said, uncapping your pen. “I’m just looking to observe how you usually move around and channel your quirk. I rewatched all the sports festival footage from the last couple years but your style changes wildly between them, so I want to get a feel for how you currently do things.”

He looked somewhat embarrassed. “You watched those?”

You let a teasing smile flit across your lips, curious to see what kind of mood he was in today. “Oh yeah. Loved the one where you got totally stomped by Bakugou.”

To your amusement, his eyebrow twitched. “I let him win.”

Men and their fragile egos. You suppressed a smirk and stretched leisurely like a cat in the sun, tipping your face back to look up at him. “Sure you did.”

A look of annoyance passed over his handsome features, and he huffed, taking a threatening step closer to you. Something glinted in his eye, and that was all the warning you had before he leaned down and pressed his mouth over yours.

You instantly dropped your pen, fisting a hand in the jacket of his uniform to pull him closer. It briefly crossed your mind that no one was around to observe the two of you, and that this kiss was perhaps wasted effort on his part, but then he did that thing with his tongue you liked and all rational thought fled from your brain.

Shouto kissed all the sass straight out of your mouth before drawing back, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.

“I’ll thank you to keep quiet,” he said, and you could only stare at him dumbly as he smirked and made his way back onto the field.

Confusion eventually washed over you as he set about practicing with his quirk, and you could only pay half a mind to what he was doing.

What had that been about? You checked your periphery to confirm that no one else was around to have witnessed his assault on your good sense, confusion only mounting when there was no one in sight. You knew he wasn’t actually interested in you, but that kiss had felt like something a real boyfriend would do to shut a mouthy girlfriend up. Was he getting so used to your little charade that he hardly minded? Did it affect him so little that it hardly troubled him at all?

You pushed your thoughts down for examination at a later time, forcing yourself to keep your mind on Shouto’s quirk training.

You took careful note of the graceful way he moved, the raw power with which he released both sides of his quirk. He was faster than almost anything, able to maneuver around the field with deadly precision, unbelievable power called to his fingertips within seconds and wielded with brutal efficiency. He was, much like his quirk, two halves of some contradictory whole, combining incredible strength with unexpected elegance to create a combat style that had quite likely never been seen before.

You sketched out several notes on his movements and jotted down a couple vague ideas for support items that came to mind as you watched him.

After a while, Shouto seemed to come to the conclusion that you’d had enough time to observe him and started messing around instead, creating enormous ice waves to slide down for your amusement, looking like a very strange surfer on some still mass of ocean. You laughed as he shot down a slope faster than he’d clearly expected, throwing up another hill of ice to slow his descent.

He came sliding over to you, huffing a little after hours of exertion. “You’re acting like you’ve seen better.”

You smiled. “You just looked funny.”

That wry twist at the corner of his mouth was back. “You do it, then.”

You stared at him. “What?”

He held out a hand, wiggling his long fingers. “You’ve had your fun judging me from over here. You do it if you’ve got opinions.”

A stab of panic shot through you. “Absolutely not.”

Something like a challenge glinted in his eye and he surged forward, scooping you up into his arms easily. You panicked, instantly trying to twist out of his hold and get him to drop you, but he just walked back onto the training field, one arm barred across yours in a steely hold. You tried to get a foot against his hip but his grip was too tight to allow you movement enough to do it.

“Shouto, you had better drop me or I will straight up murder you,” you grit out, gripping his sleeve in terror as a crackling noise started where his feet met the ground.

“You had better hope I don’t,” he tossed back as a platform of ice formed under his boots, carrying you up to the top of one icy wave. Your rise was horrifyingly quick, and you were torn between being absolutely terrified and impressed that this is how he maneuvered around all the time. You gripped him in horror.

“I will never forgive you if you do this,” you threatened, staring down the steep drop hundreds of feet to the ground. “Nothing you could ever do will make up for a betrayal like this.”

“I have some ideas,” he said. Then he took a step off the top.

You became aware of a piercing scream and realized it was coming from you. You wanted to press your face into Shouto’s chest and close your eyes but you were too terrified to even look away from what was happening as the two of you slid down the ice at hundreds of feet per second, hurtling at the ground like a rocket. You couldn’t believe you had laughed at him if this is what it felt like to do what he did.

You felt Shouto tense underneath you, and the arm under your legs flashed notably colder, before another layer of ice formed, evening out the wave into a less precipitous curve, slowing your slide and carrying you easily to the field. Gravity seemed to catch up to you again and you slid down a little in his arms. Your heartbeat pounded in your chest and your hands clenched in the fabric of his costume, even as you slid to a stop, soft grass rustling underneath his boots as he stepped off the ice.

“You’re a dead man, Shouto Todoroki,” you promised, hands still fisted at his sleeve. And he was, just as soon as you could let go of him.

Another smirk crossed his infuriatingly handsome features and you found yourself a little mesmerized by the sight of him.

He hefted you higher in his arms. “But if I was dead, how would I do this?” he asked, then pressed his mouth to yours again.

Well, he certainly had your number. Your plans for murder were instantly wiped from your brain like notes from a whiteboard, and you moved a hand to his collar to pull him down to you. His mouth was hot and he was excruciatingly gentle, working you over thoroughly, until you could hardly remember your words, never mind a flawless plot for murder.

Shouto shifted carefully and you became aware of grass under your back. Then he was moving over you, pressing you into the field with the solid weight of his body. His mouth left yours to pepper a trail of kisses in a slow line down your neck, and those long fingers tugged down the zipper of your jacket, coming up to pull down the collar of your sweater to allow him better access.

You squirmed mindlessly under him, letting out surprised little gasps whenever he found a spot that you particularly liked. The chill of the evening washed over you and you pressed yourself into him for warmth, sighing when his left side flared hotly. He bit down carefully over your pulse where it beat wildly in your throat.

“Y/N,” he groaned, and a vague thought came to you like this was somehow strange for the two of you to be doing, some reason why you shouldn’t be. You couldn’t remember why. “Tell me if I should stop.”

He pressed his mouth back to yours again, a calloused hand making its way up the side of your sweater and disconnecting your thoughts again. This felt too good to be wrong, why shouldn’t you do this? A thumb brushed under the fabric of your bra, catching a nipple, and you jerked under him, letting out an embarrassing noise. He made a noise low in his throat and did it again, tensing when you shuddered under him again.

He let out a harsh breath, then your sweater was torn upwards and your bra quickly followed, a warm mouth closing over one nipple. You swore, the heat of his mouth so unbelievably good against the cold air, arching into him as he swirled his tongue.

“Oh my god,” you managed, fingers tangling desperately in his hair. You hooked a leg over his hip, anchoring him against you harder. Your own hips raised without any input from your brain, and you swore again when one of his thighs pressed tightly to your core.

He moved to your other breast, laving over the hardened peak, two toned eyes watching your face with undisguised interest.

“Shouto,” you gasped out, drawing him back up to you to kiss him. His chest pressed into yours, the strong line of his body pinning you down everywhere, and the weight of him was unbelievably wonderful over you. Why had you ever thought you shouldn’t do this?

A blinding light suddenly flickered on over you, searing even through your eyelids where they’d fluttered closed. You jerked apart in shock. Blinking blearily, you realized it had grown dark and the field lighting system had just kicked in.

Shouto sighed and crawled off of you, leaning back on his knees to stare down at you. You blushed, the implications of what you’d just done pressing down on you, realizing your entire chest was exposed to him in the harsh light. You yanked your sweater back over you, struggling a little bit to get the band of your bra back down. Shouto placed a hand on your hip.

“Uh,” he said, something like a flush rising to his own cheeks, “That’s what you get for laughing.”

You choked out a shocked laugh, staring up at him. “That’s what I get for laughing?”

He smiled again, climbing to his feet and pulling you up with him. “I imagined my girlfriend would be more supportive.”

You gathered up your bag, hardly daring to look at him. “You picked the wrong one then, I think.”

His smile turned soft, something almost private. “I think I did okay.”

Warmth flashed through you again and you had to push down the well of thoughts that bubbled up inside you like a spring. You tried to ignore the niggling at the back of your brain as bid your goodnights and went separate ways to your dorm buildings. One thought refused to be pushed aside, however, following you as you made your way to your room, lingering as you readied for bed and turned out the light. You couldn't sleep for a long time as you tried to dredge up an answer.

What the hell had that been?

#bnha #bnha x reader #todoroki shouto x reader #fanfic #todoroki x reader #boku no hero academia #todoroki shouto #smut

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whitecatindisguise · 3 years

Text

Taking It Too Far

So I've watched Fan Friction episode and immediately I was struck by how wrong they approached the subject. Hiro was right to be upset, but the producers didn't give him the right reason. This story is an attempt to right the wrongs. That, and there are also other changes to the basic episode plot because 1) I didn't remember everything and didn't really have time nor mood to rewatch it, 2) I thought some things would be better if changed a bit.

Anyway, I hope you like it and enjoy yourselves.

AO3 link here

... and there, inside the lab, was Captain Cutie’s beautiful girlfriend, Karmi. The two locked eyes and-

“Hey, Fred. What are you doing?” Hiro popped out from behind the man and looked at the other’s screen. He squinted his eyes, skimming through the words. “Is that-?”

“A fanfiction about us? Sure is!” Fred cut in enthusiastically, grinning wildly. “And I gotta tell you, man, it’s amazing! The plot, the characters, the action, the characters!”

Hiro rose one eyebrow, clearly not siding with the other’s enthusiasm. His gaze wandered back to the screen and he stopped dead.

“Why am I called Captain Cutie? And why Karmi is my girlfriend? Who wrote this?!” He asked angrily. Him and Karmi? Never in a lifetime!

“I don’t know, but they post as KHeartsQT.” Fred waved his hand dismissively, his focus solely on the story.

Hiro hummed and moved the cursor to the author’s name and clicked on it, recoiling the moment a pop-up window showed a profile picture.

There, on Fred’s computer screen, his greatest nemesis was staring back at him.

***

“I can’t believe it!” Hiro burst into the main lab, stomping past Honey Lemon and almost bumping into confused Wasabi, who barely managed to jump away. Without a word of apologise, the young teen approached his working space and shoved his backpack onto the desk, sitting down heavily on the chair.

“What’s up with him?” Go Go popped a balloon as she stated at the clearly upset boy.

“Nothing. He just doesn’t like Karmi’s fan fiction.” Fred shrugged as he strolled inside and flopped onto his armchair. “Can’t really relate. It’s amazing! And did you see how she named me? Flame Jumper! Not as cool as Fredzilla, obviously, but points for awesomeness.”

“Oh, I read it.” Honey Lemon chimmed in. “It’s really well-written. Although, I don’t know why my name is Tall Girl. I’m not that tall, aren’t I?”

A series of weeeeell’s and ummmm’s echoed in the lab and the ginger-haired woman dropped her head down in response.

“She called me Chop Chop.” Wasabi added. “I can see where it’s coming from, but it makes me sound like some character from the kid’s show, and not a proper superhero.”

“Speed Queen.” Go Go spoke from her side of the lab, tinkering with some kind of miniature scooter. “Sounds cool.”

“All of you have normal nicknames. But she called me Captain Cutie. And made herself my- ugh- girlfriend.” Hiro cringed as he spoke. “Who even gave her a right to write about us? I don’t remember giving my permission, do you?”

“Calm down, Hiro. It’s just a story.” Honey Lemon put a hand on his shoulder but he shook it off.

“Well, maybe I don’t appreciate being put in a story that’s clearly fake and totally unrealistic?!” He snatched his backpack and stomped towards the door. “I’m going to work in my lab. Away from that nonsense.”

With these words, he stormed out, his angry footsteps and muttering audible until he turned the corridor.

“Wow. Talk about negative energy.” Wasabi commented, as they stared at the door.

***

In the coming days, Hiro’s mood only got worse. Everyone on the campus seemed to enjoy Karmi’s story, some even starting to ship Karmiutie, as they began to call the imagined pairing between Karmi and Captain Cutie. Hiro couldn’t even take a step without someone saying something about the story or the ship, or, which happened more often than he would like it, mentioning both.

Karmi seemed to love the attention. Other students called to her on the corridor, expressing their enjoyment of her story and some even daring to ask whether she and Captain Cutie really were a couple. Hiro didn’t stay to hear the girl’s response, stomping away angrily, to the confusion of the students.

With everything going on, he was unfocused and started failing classes he usually had no trouble with. Professor Granville seemed to be both upset and concerned about this change. He couldn’t tell her what bothered him, however, so he made an excuse about not feeling well lately. He wasn’t sure she believed him.

To make things worse, his upset state started to affect his superhero work as well. He kept making mistakes leading to the whole team getting into trouble and only barely managing to catch criminals they encountered. This only led to his mood worsening.

The young teen was walking down the hallway, trying to tune out the conversations revolving around the newest chapter of the fan fiction, when he suddenly collided with someone and they both landed in the floor, stunned by the hit.

“Hey, watch where you’re going!” He heard an annoyingly familiar voice and he looked up to see Karmi picking herself up from the floor, snatching her phone from where it slid off during the crash.

“I was. Which you would notice if you wasn’t gaping at your phone, producing those abominations of yours all the time.” Hiro seethed, picking himself up from the floor.

“Excuse you!” Karmi huffed in response. “What’s your problem?!”

“Oh, I don’t know?” Hiro replied, anger seeping into his voice. “Maybe that you write about real people and forcing them into fake relationships to release your crazy fantasies? Or maybe that you give stupid names which don’t fit the characters at all?”

“For your information, everybody loves my story. I even have some faithful fans that comment on every chapter, like Fredelicious24.” Karmi replied defensively. “And since nobody knows what their real names are, I’m allowed to use whatever I want.”

“I’m sure Captain Cutie is thrilled to be called that.” Hiro rebounded, rolling his eyes at the nickname.

“Maybe he is!” the girl shouted back. “What do you know, anyway?”

“Ugh, forget it!” The dark-haired teen shoved his arms apart and stomped away, trying to ignore the whispering from the students who watched the encounter.

It was around lunch time, when his friends found him, sitting alone in the cafeteria, poking his food with an upset expression.

“Hiro, what’s wrong? We heard about your argument with Karmi.” Honey Lemon started, as they all took their seats.

“Yeah, so? Are you also going to tell me what a jerk I am? I heard it at least twenty times by now.” He huffed, impaling one of the fries onto the fork and biting on it angrily.

“We just want to help.” Wasabi replied, eyeing as the teen gathered several more fries and stuffed them all into his mouth, munching aggressively.

“But we can’t, until you tell us what’s going on.” Go Go added.

Just then, several students passed by, the pieces of their conversation about Karmi’s story and the Karmiutie ship reaching their eyes. Hiro grunted and picked up his tray, pushing the chair away.

“I’m going to eat in my lab.” He said and walked away.

“That is highly insanitary!” Wasabi called after him.

Honey Lemon looked thoughtful, as she stared at the retreating back of the young teen, and gazed at the group of students, who had now taken over one of the tables nearby.

“Of course! Why didn’t I notice that before?” He exclaimed triumphantly. The others looked at her questioningly. “Come on, we have to talk to him!” she gathered her stuff and rushed off, others staring in the direction she went.

“So... Do we follow or...?” Wasabi asked. Right then, Fred’s phone buzzed and he gasped.

“The creepy knife-lady escaped from prison!” He exclaimed. They shared a look.

“Guess we’ll talk to Hiro after that.” Go Go commented, as they left the cafeteria.

***

To say the action went well would be a major understatement. Not only did Momakase escape, but she also cut through Go Go’s disks, left Honey Lemon and Fred stuck in the goo, Baymax lost one of his leg thrusters and rocket fist, and Wasabi’s blades needed a serious repair.

Hiro was trying to help, but the conversation with Karmi was still fresh in his mind and he couldn’t properly focus on the fight. It was pathetic, even he had to agree.

He angrily took of his helmet and shoved it towards the wall. It hit the divider with a metallic clang and fell to the floor, leaving a small dent in where it met with the structure.

“Your body language indicated extreme anger.” Baymax spoke from behind. Hiro huffed.

“Oh yeah? How did you figure that one out?” He asked, sitting on his chair with arms crossed.

“You are making a face expression known as frown.” Baymax said. “Your body is tense and you are-“

“I was being sarcastic, Baymax.” Hiro interrupted. Baymax blinked.

“I am not programmed to recognise sarcasm.” The robot replied and Hiro groaned.

“Hiro? You there?” Honey Lemon called out and the whole gang entered his garage, suits off.

“Just peachy.” The young teen answered, starting to take off Baymax’s armour.

“Don’t worry, dude. We’ll get the crazy knife-lady next time.” Fred patted his friend’s shoulder comfortingly. Hiro glared at him and the man slowly backed away.

“We’re worried about you, Hiro.” Honey Lemon spoke again, her eyes matching her words. “Is it about Karmi’s story?”

“What? Noooo.” Hiro waved his hand nonchalantly. Everyone stared at him, unimpressed.

“It’s totally about the story.” Go Go said.

“Definitely.” Wasabi agreed.

Hiro sighed and turned away, hugging his arm.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He mumbled.

“Your body language indicates discomfort.” Baymax spoke.

“Hiro... You are clearly upset about it.” Honey Lemon said. “And I think I know why.”

“Y-you do?” Hiro asked, but backed down really quick. “I-I mean, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, Honey Lemon, why would he be upset with it! The story is epic!” Fred joined in, unaware of Hiro’s frown deepening as the male kept on talking. “The plot is amazing, there are so many cliffhangers and, of course, the cherry on top being Karmiutie, of which, by the way, I am the president of the fanclub and-“

He was interrupted by the slam of the door and he blinked, only now noticing they were left alone in the garage, Hiro nowhere to be seen.

“Way to go, dumbass.” Go Go commented as she popped a balloon.

“What did I do?” Fred blinked. There was a collective slap as everyone else facepalmed.

Honey Lemon put on a determined face and followed the way the teen went. The others followed, saying their greetings to Aunt Cass on their way past, making a beeline towards the back and up to the living area. Hiro was, unsurprisingly, sitting by his desk, tapping furiously at his laptop.

“Hiro?” The ginger-haired woman softly spoke up. The said teen huffed in response.

“I though I made it clear I don’t want to talk about it.” He said angrily.

“She’s not letting this one go, so you might as well stop being stubborn.” Go Go crossed her arms and leaned over the doorframe, clearly making sure his only escape route is blocked.

“Hiro, please.” Honey Lemon kneeled down to find herself at his eye level. “We just want to help.”

“There is nothing any of us can do to help.” The teenager mumbled, looking away. “Besides, it’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. And you have every right to be upset.” The woman replied softly.

Hiro pointedly looked back at his laptop, attempting to ignore them. The redhead didn’t back out, however.

“We were all so caught up in how good Karmi’s story is that we failed to notice how upsetting it is for you. After all, it’s your hero persona she chose to pair herself with.” Honey Lemon spoke up. The tapping of the keyboard stopped, but the teen didn’t turn around yet. “And, knowing the characters are real, people started to assume the relationship is real, too. And that’s wrong. What Karmi is doing is wrong. You can’t just- what’s the word they use for saying two characters are in a romantic relationship...?”

“Ship.” Helpfully suggested Fred.

“Yes, thanks, Freddie.” Honey Lemon smiled thankfully and turned back to Hiro. “You can’t just ship two real people. It’s wrong. It shouldn’t be acceptable.”

“And yet I seem to be the only one who has problem with that.” The teen mumbled, his back still to his friends.

“I think it’s because the story is about our superhero personas.” Fred interjected and everyone, even Hiro, looked at him in confusion. “I mean, superheroes themselves feel like fictional characters. And, even though everyone knows we are real, it’s still hard to distinguish that if we’re also the characters in a work of fiction, which, by definition, means it’s not real. It creates somewhat a paradox and people just don’t completely realise the fiction part actually refers only to the story itself and not the characters.”

Everyone stared dumbfoundedly at the millionaire, who blinked and starred back.

“What?” He asked.

“We just didn’t expect you to say something so... thoughtful.” Wasabi finally said, the others nodding in agreement.

“Hey, I can act smart too, you know?” Fred argued and then promptly took out an unwrapped candy from his pocket, have it a testing lick, shrugged and put it in his mouth. Everyone shuddered.

“Aaaand the usual Fred is back.” Go Go commented while Wasabi tried to not puke.

“Even if what he said is true, it’s not like I can just go and tell her to stop.” Hiro picked up the conversation to take their minds of Fred and the candy. “What should I even say? Hey, Karmi, you know this story you write? You should stop because I don’t like you shipping yourself with this guy, whose name is definitely not Captain Cutie. Cool? Cool.”

Fred snorted but Go Go quickly elbowed him in the ribs to stop. Hiro groaned and hid his head between his arms. Honey Lemon approached the teen and put her hand on his shoulder.

“Maybe not as Hiro you, but if you explained it as your superhero you?” She suggested, smiling encouragingly.

“I am not going to change into my armour just so I can talk to Karmi.” He replied sternly and sighed. “I just- gonna have to live with it... somehow...”

“If you have a problem with something or someone, you should speak up, genius.” Go Go said.

“Talking is the key to the healthy communication.” Baymax agreed.

“Ugh, fine.” Hiro said. “I’ll talk to her. If I see her on a patrol or something.”

“Hiro-“ Honey Lemon started to say but the robot cut her in.

“I’ve found a disturbing information in the local news. Playing it now.”

The screen on his chest turned on and a reporter appeared, speaking about some message being sent to their station this afternoon. The view changed, and they saw Momakase, grinning at the camera.

“Welcome, Big Hero 6.” She said, looking far too happy about something. “I advise you to come to the Akuma Island. And make haste, unless you want something bad happen to someone’s girlfriend.”

She smirked and stepped aside to show a chair. And on this chair, tied up and sputtering curses, was-

“Karmi!” Everyone, sans Hiro gasped.

“She’s not my girlfriend!” Hiro shouted.

***

“Okay, we go in, take Momakase down, free Karmi and get out of here.” Hiro said as Baymax flew them towards the remote island. “Baymax, as soon as you are in range, scan the place for both Karmi and Momakase.”

The robot didn’t reply, but the teenager knew he acknowledged the order and will get to it whenever it’s possible.

“Oh, this gives the perfect opportunity for you to talk to Karmi about you-know-what.” Fred piped up from where he was held by the scruff of his costume in Baymax’s right hand.

“I’d rather focus on the current problem first.” Hiro mumbled back.

“I’m just saying.” The millionaire shrugged, but, luckily, dropped the subject.

Several minutes later, they were creeping the abandoned hallways of old Krei Enterprises facility, Baymax leading them in the direction he sensed Karmi from. Momakase, surprisingly, didn’t turn up on the scan.

“Karmi is inside.” Baymax said, stopping in front of the metal door.

Hiro nodded and looked to Wasabi and Honey Lemon, pointing his head towards the door. The woman tapped the keys on her purse and produced a green-coloured ball. She plastered it to the frame and pulled on one side, the goo expanding to create something like a line. Each one of them, except for Wasabi, caught the goo-line and held strong, while the said man cut through metal around where the goo was stuck. When the cut was finished, they pulled the piece out, managing to not hit it on anything, hence making their entrance silent.

Baymax put the cut-out metal aside and they climbed through the opening one by one. In the middle of the room, under a single spotlight, stood a chair. And on this chair, quite unsurprisingly, Hiro had to say, was Karmi, tied and gagged.

As soon as the teen noticed the heroes, she started to squirm and let out muffled noises, trying desperately to communicate with them. Hiro secretly turned on his voice-modulating device, motioning for the rest of the team to do the same, before approaching the captured girl. It was in situations like this, he was glad he once decided to equip their armours with both face-covering visors and voice modulators. It lowered the chance of being recognised if they had to be around people who knew them personally.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get you out in no time.” He reassured Karmi and reached for her gag. As soon as it was off, Karmi gasped and screamed.

“It’s a trap!”

At this precise moment, purple-coloured bars rose from the floor and circled around the heroes and Karmi. They all whirled around, shocked by their sudden appearance.

“Like stealing a candy from a kid.” A familiar voice said from the shadows, and Momakase strolled into viee, a smirk on her lips.

“You think you can keep us in here?” Hiro asked and nodded at Wasabi.

Before going in, they decided they were not going to use their names around Karmi, since figuring out new nicknames would take too long, and Hiro was not going to use their fanfiction names, for obvious reasons. So they agreed on silent communication instead, which, so far, worked perfectly well.

Wasabi approached the bars and slashed at them with a cocky grin, but just as fast he jumped back with a pained yelp, when the bars zapped him.

“What in the world?!” He squeaked, rubbing at his arm.

“Did you really think I would use regular cage, knowing of your abilities?” Momakase laughed, strolling slowly along the bars. “You’re not getting out of this one.”

“Oh really?” Honey Lemon challenged and quickly produced a pink-coloured chem-ball from her purse. She let it drop to the floor and quickly side-stepped, as it bounced off the bars and hit the chair, acid eating through the wood.

“I told you it’s not a regular cage.” Momakase smirked and looked extremely pleased with herself. “This one was created by our mutual acquaintance specifically to hold you lot in place.”

“Mutual- what are you talking about?!” Hiro asked angrily.

“I believe he goes by the name Obake.” The woman replied and watched the heroes faces morph into horror as they recognised the name. “Well, anyway, it was nice to chat and all that, but I have to go. As for you...” She produced a small device from her pocket and pushed the button, the lights in the room suddenly turning red and the alarm ringing. “Have fun getting out of here before this whole place blows up.” She waved her hand at them and ran away, leaving them to their doom.

“Ohmigosh-! This place is going to blow up! We’re stuck in a impenetrable cage in a building that’s going to blow up any second now and-“ Wasabi spoke in a high voice, his eyes wide and breath hitching.

“Calm down.” Hiro said. “We’re getting out of here in no time.”

“How?!” Wasabi squeaked. “You saw what happened. My blades don’t work, and neither does the acid!”

“We just need more strength, that’s all.” The teen replied calmly and turned to Baymax. “Initiate Overdrive Mode.” He ordered.

At those words the robot started to change. Pieces of armour hid, others extended. A moment later, a completely unrecognisable Baymax, sans his colours, stood in front of the group.

“That’s... I wrote about it!” Karmi breathed out, astonished. “You read my story?!”

“Can we talk about it after we escape?” Hiro suggested, and Go Go noticed how he shuddered slightly at Karmi’s exclamation. “The sword, please.”

Baymax reached his had to his back and produced a heavy-looking blade. He took a swing and sliced right though the bars, Hiro grinning at the performance.

“Good job. Turn it off before it drains all of your power.” He said and Baymax swiftly came back to his original look. “Now everyone hop on and hold on tight. We don’t know how much time we have and I’d rather not risk running back the way we came from.”

One rocket fist later, they shot out of the roof. And not a moment too soon, as the facility blew up just as they managed to get to the safe distance. Baymax flew them back to the city and they all jumped off to the ground.

“Um... Thank you... For saving me.” Karmi mumbled, blushing as she took a glance at Hiro. The teen was painfully reminded she had a crush on his superhero persona.

“That’s what we do.” He replied, looking away. Honey Lemon came closer and gently nudged his shoulder, an encouraging smile on her lips. He sighed and turned towards Karmi. “Actually, there is something I want to tell you. It’s... it’s about your story.”

“My- YOU READ IT?!” The girl squealed, her eyes almost turning star-shaped.

“Of course, it’s amazing and-“ Fred was painfully elbowed in the stomach by Go Go before he could say anything more.

“I... How do I..?” Hiro scratched the back of his neck as he searched for words. “I read some of it, and you’re really talented but- I don’t really feel comfortable with it, you know?”

“I don’t understand...” Karmi cocked her head to the side in confusion. “Why?”

“It’s because of how you portray us. Portray me.” The teen elaborated. “I’m not- we’re not a pair, Karmi. I know it is a work of fiction and it’s not real, but writing that you are my girlfriend, having all those people read it... It’s not right.”

“Oh...” The girl looked down, suddenly not able to meet his eye. “I didn’t mean to-“

“I know.” He reassured. “I know you really want this to be true, but this is not the way. How would you feel if someone wrote a story about you and put you in a romantic relationship in said story? No matter if you like this person or not, it’s wrong to ship real life people.”

“I- I’m sorry.” Karmi said, still looking away. “I guess I was so caught up with my own fantasy, I didn’t stop to think how would you feel about it.”

“It’s alright.” Honey Lemon spoke up, smiling kindly. “You didn’t know.”

“But I should have thought about it. And I didn’t.” Karmi admitted. “I.. I will delete it once I get home. I’m sorry I upset you.”

“Thank you.” Hiro smiled thankfully at the girl. “And I meant it, you’re an amazing writer. Maybe you could still write about us, just no shipping this time.” He winked and Karmi blushed.

“You... still want me to write about you? Even after...?” She asked, puzzled by the suggestion.

“Between the two of us...” Hiro leaned closer and whispered to the girl’s ear. “I wouldn’t trust anyone else with our story.”

Karmi blushed fiercely, mumbled something that sounded like “thankyouihavetogonowbye” and ran away, her cheeks red. The heroes looked at her retreating figure.

“You didn’t mention the name.” Go Go pointed out as they started on their way back to Fred’s manor to leave their armours there.

“I can live with Captain Cutie.” Hiro shrugged with a smile.

---

That's it. I hope you liked it. Reblog if you did. I live for reblogs.

#big hero 6 the series #hiro hamada #baymax #honey lemon #go go tomago #wasabi no ginger #karmi #momakase #episode rewrite #kitty mom writes

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clownao · 3 years

Text

Rereading Korosuu Chapter 4 (the ChibaHaya chapter) from the perspective that Hayami has feelings for Chiba

And boy, is it a ride.

Check out the previous post

Listen, I’m a big ChibaHaya shipper but I never believed they liked each other romantically in canon. One of things I like the most about their dynamic is how great they are even without the typical shippy stuff like blushing, stammering etc. They work well both platonically and romantically.

So I never tried to go MiDDLe ScHOoL cHiBaHaYa is CanOn but then I read the Chinese translation Ch4 of Korosuu. And boy oh boy did it make me think Hayami has ✨feelings✨ for Chiba. (And he doesn’t.) I literally did not expect that, but once I saw things from that perspective, I can’t stop lol.

Keep in mind I’m analysing a Japanese -> Chinese translation in English, and I don’t have the Japanese raws, so the word choices may be off. And I am probably overanalysing but yes, I will eat these ChibaHaya crumbs for the tiniest bit of information.

Also keep in mind manga Chiba is more social than Hayami (you can check Fumiko’s posts for more information, she’s the Chiba expert haha). So while these two may have the same responses (eg. smiling because of what the other said), it weighs differently.

So Hayami was originally going home, but stopped when she saw Chiba trying to figure out a problem. And so she helped him pump the balloons to act as Chiba’s targets. They discussed for a bit, then they both said they were surely getting closer to their “answer”.

And then they both smiled. The translation is “速水露齒而笑。千葉也回以微笑。” which is “Hayami grinned, and Chiba returned with a smile”. But notably, the translator used “露齒而笑” (literally: grinning with teeth) for Hayami and just “笑” (smile) for Chiba. “笑” and “微笑” (which also means smile, but a little softer) are used five times in total, and considering they’re interchangeable in Chinese, the translator probably used them to add variety. But “露齒而笑”? That’s different. That’s the only time the translator used this term to describe someone smiling. And “grinning (with teeth)” feels more joyful than “smiling”. And it’s used to describe Hayami’s reaction.

Hmm.

By the way, let’s count how many times they smiled in this chapter. Hayami smiled 3 times, Chiba also 3. And literally every time they smile it’s in response to something the other did/said. Chiba smiles more than Hayami in the manga, so the fact that Hayami is smiling so much in front of Chiba... hmmm...

As mentioned before, Hayami stuttered when Chiba praised her. In the translation, she barely stuttered anywhere else. Hmm.

After a very long time, Chiba lifted his head and turned to Hayami.

“Hayami, you’re brilliant! So it was like this all along! Why have I never noticed something so simple?”

“Wh-what?”

Yeah. She stuttered after Chiba called her brilliant/amazing.

And then, of course, the most telling paragraph follows.

Hayami felt bewildered upon seeing the suddenly agitated Chiba. Even though she had always been looking at him in E class, she hardly recalled seeing him so delighted.

She had always been looking at him. Whoa.

The Chinese translation is “雖然一直在E班看著他”, special focus on “一直” (always) and “看” (look). Like, okay, it could mean “from her daily observations, she didn’t recall seeing such an expression” or “looking after him” or “knowing him from school” but this phrasing just makes me think she’s staring at him in class. And you know what, Chiba actually sits behind Hayami in another row. So she has to turn around to “look” at him, which is a deliberate action. Of course the translation used “E class”, which also means training and other misc stuff and not just conventional lessons.

Either way, she’s been observing him. She’s ALWAYS been observing him. Continuously. And she knows she’s never seen him so joyful. And the translator (and maybe Matsui?) felt the urge to point it out.

After complimenting Hayami, Chiba proceeds to explain his new theory. And thus the passage:

“So what do you think?”

Chiba turned to Hayami, a smile quirking on his lips. He lightly prodded the pages of his notebook with his mechanical pencil.

“That’s brilliant!” Hayami also used an excited tone to reply as she looked down at the diagram.

“If you weren’t there, I probably wouldn’t have thought of it. Even though it’s really simple once you notice it...”

Hayami used a smile to respond to his words.

The word “也” (also) is used in Hayami’s happy response to China. Granted, it may be a translator thing, to add word variety and connectives, but the sentence makes perfect sense without the 也.

From this we can infer Hayami’s mood is affected by Chiba’s, and probably vice versa, but Hayami’s case is specifically mentioned.

Next day, Chiba stays behind to practice again. And he looks sad because he’s failing.

Hayami thinks “I suppose even people like Chiba will feel uneasy when thinking about official operations” (一旦設想正式行動，即使是千葉這樣的人類也會感到不安吧。) This makes me !!!! because it sort of implies Hayami thought Chiba won’t be nervous. She thought of him in a positive light, only for him to disprove it. Also, the use of “吧”. “吧” is commonly used in dialogue, so here it implies Hayami is thinking the whole line despite the lack of speech bubbles, not some omniscient narrator saying it.

Then Hayami tries to encourage him.

“Relax. If you think it’s right, then it has to be.”

“Even though hearing you say that makes me happy...”

^ this is one of the most mutual shippy moments in my opinion. Hayami has total faith and trust in Chiba, and Chiba literally told her that her trust in him makes him happy. It just feels... kinda shipbaity. The sentence structure “雖然你這麼說讓我很開心啊……” (Even though hearing you say that makes me happy...) feels like something out of a romance novel (especially in Chinese), even though the words don’t exactly have a romantic meaning.

Chiba says Hayami’s words makes him “happy”, but he’s still troubled by the shooting problem. Hayami trusting Chiba despite Chiba not trusting himself makes him happy. Oho. That... can be interpreted in a shippy way.

When Hayami sees that Chiba is still troubled, she “nonchalantly” says “to fill in the gaps using intuition” (看著無法消除不安情緒的千葉，速水若無其事地說。”無法確定的地方，用直覺填補就好了喲。”)

I believe there’s a typo here, since the next line is “千葉帶著的表情抬頭看著速水”, which is “Chiba lifted his head to look at Hayami with a xxx expression”. So the translator accidentally left out his expression (the sentence doesn’t make sense otherwise), but we can easily infer Chiba’s feelings from the following lines.

Chiba basically thinks “Intuition? What? She’s talking about things unrelated to this shooting problem again.” He doesn’t say it out loud (no speech bubbles), but he probably shows his doubt through his facial expression that the translator unfortunately left out.

And Hayami wants to prove him wrong.

So Hayami roughly glanced around the classroom, and quietly uttered, “Vase, tape, Korosensei.”

Before Chiba could ask “what are you talking about?”, Hayami swiftly pulled out a pistol from her thigh and shot three bullets with surprising speed.

Hayami hits all three targets without aiming precisely. Naturally, Chiba is in awe, calling it a “miracle”. Chiba says even though he, out of everyone in 3-E. can shoot the furthest target using calculations, he can’t imitate Hayami’s perceptual(?) type of shooting.

And then:

Hayami shot a stunned Chiba a smile.

The word for “stunned” (目瞪口呆) literally means “eyes wide, mouth frozen”, but that’s just a Chinese phrase for being stunned.

Honestly, to me, I feel:

Hayami wants to help Chiba -> Chiba is in doubt -> Hayami wants to prove him wrong and show off -> she quickly shoots her targets based on intuition/emotion, not even waiting to hear what Chiba has to ask -> (she wants to show off lol) -> when she sees he’s in awe, she smiles (smugly?)

ALSO, Hayami may have gained confidence after Chiba praised her by saying she’s brilliant, and that may be why she shot so quickly (since the adrenaline rush or something.)

Hayami then says something:

“And if at that time, you’re not confident in your theories, in the end, I’ll still shoot according to my gut feelings. (Basically saying if you can’t do it, I can do it for you.) We can do what the other cannot do. If we team up and become partners, there’s no target we cannot hit.”

Chiba gazed at Hayami’s face for a moment, then smiled and said, “Thanks.”

Wow. What surprised me is that Hayami’s the one with the speech— she’s the more serious and reserved out of the two. For her to say something so “sentimental” when she’s usually like “I respect you”, wow...

By the way, “凝視” (gaze) is used. It can mean stare, but it usually means gaze. Also he gazed at her face (臉). This is specifically mentioned. Mmmmm.

And I can’t get over “將兩者合為一體的話一定能順利地進行”. It means “if we combine two into one, it’ll definitely proceed smoothly”. They’re... MERGING lmao. It’s so shipbaity.

There’s also more stuff, like how they agree on something without speaking, but that’s... typical ChibaHaya stuff. And that’s it.

SO:

Possible hints of Hayami’s feelings towards Chiba:

1. Hayami immediately helped Chiba with practice even though she was intending to go home

2. SHE LOOKS AT HIM IN CLASS. Bro. I can’t make this up.

3. Hayami is happy when Chiba is

4. SHE STUTTERED WHEN HE SAID SHE’S BRILLIANT

5. She wanted to prove him wrong by showing off (this is a stretch)

6. She low-key put him on a pedestal (?) because she thought he won’t be nervous (this is also a stretch)

Possible hints of Chiba’s feelings towards Hayami:

1. He was very noticeably happy, perhaps a side he only shows to people close to him

2. Chiba says Hayami praising him makes him happy

3. He gazed at her face. Yes, her face.

But I don’t think Chiba likes Hayami that way. Like, he didn’t stutter when she praised him, he just said he’s happy. Hayami is usually very chill and calm, and even quieter than Chiba, so when she stutters because of Chiba, hmm...

Of course all of this is immediately disproven by the mini comic, with Ritsu claiming they reply to their emails a day late and their heart rates don’t go up when next to each other. Psssh. Okay, Ritsu. I mean, we can always hc Ritsu is protecting her friends’ privacy by lying about them. And of course Chiba and Hayami can stay as purely friends. I like their dynamic either way.

This concludes my rambling overanalysis of them. If you read till this point, I congratulate you <3 also reblogs appreciated :DD

#assassination classroom #ansatsu kyoushitsu #chiba ryuunosuke #hayami rinka #chibahaya #ryuunosuke chiba #rinka hayami #korosuu #spent too much time on this #chibahaya brainrot is real

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sloppy-butcher · 4 years

Note

Jealous David king and jake park headcannons I demand of you (in the least demanding way possible uwu) 🥺❤️

haha don’t you worry anon. i got you owo. thank you for the ask and thank you for waiting for so long <3 hope these are good enough for you <333

its kinda nsfw? its only kissing but like.. yknow..

Headcanons for Jealous! David King and Jake Park

David King

Don’t let this guy's tough exterior fool you, deep down inside he is really a sensitive fellow. You can tell when his mood shifts merely, by the way, he looks at you or by the way his hands flexes on your knee. He has a keen sense of all others around you, watching like a hawk for any signs of trouble or danger even if you were only surrounded by friends. He acts broody and unbothered - he has to when considering what labels life has put on his because of the masculine physique, but truly, he is smart and knows when your graze lingers on another for a suspicious amount of time.

David is naturally friends with all other survivors - he’s the dedicated bodyguard. An intrinsic desire to protect those weaker than him (which happens to include almost every other survivor) drives David to befriend all other survivors and instinctively they flock to him. He is safety, he is light and all things good. So when David notices that you start to hang around another person more than you would with him, laughing more and touching their shoulder as you talked, it takes a lot for him to get angry. Sure, his chest puffs out and he marches over to you, draping his beefy arm over your body and leaning into your conversation, but he never actively pushes the other person away or even throws them a glare. He hopes that through these simple gestures you will understand what he is so upset about.

If by some miracle, you do not pick up on his souring mood, David would shift his tactics into overdrive. He’s a big guy and he knows it and he certainly knows how to use it. When next you are in a trial with him and the other survivor in question, David arrives shirtless. You lose blood at the sight alone, feeling weak in the knees and light-headed. He was heavenly, glowing in pride, and god-like beauty. He was foolishly brave for exposing himself in such an indecent (but not unappreciated) manner, and you made sure to scold him every chance you got. “Why are you doing this?” You whisper-shout at him from the other side of a gen. David shrugs, passing a cool eye over the third party member who shuddered under his gaze. He stretched his chest and tensed his arms accentuating the glorious muscle. “No reason.”

He would become overly-protective of you to the point that it was self-damaging. He’d throw himself recklessly between you and the killer, going in for risky hook saves without a care for the killer's whereabouts. It was you he only cared about - only you. He had just unhooked you from your second stage and had led you to the corner of the area to heal. Though your clothes grew red with blood, you bit back the whimpers of pain and instead looked up at the man you loved. You knew something was wrong. “David,” You called, a small hand reaching up and cupping his bruised face gently. At your touch, he softened and hummed, leaning into your palm, seeking your comfort and warmth. “Why are you acting like this?” For a moment he debated where to ignore your question or not. But at the look in your eye, the desperately sweet and tender embrace of compassion, he relented and sighed, feeling horrid guilt crawl up his spine like sickening spiders. “You do love me, right?” He asked, attention downcast. Had you not trying to be quiet you would have gasped in disbelief. “David, of course! A thousand times, of course! How could I ever love anyone else when you exist?” You lift your other hand to his face and careful brush back stray strands of brown hair. Still, he refuses to look at you. Of course, you loved him. Yet he still allowed himself to doubt you - he felt ashamed. You lean forward and press your forehead to his, trying with all your might to radiate your love for the stupid man. After a moment he smiles and finally brings his eyes up to yours - they were filled with tears.

“Oh, my love.” You coo closing the distance and kissing him tenderly. He gives in to you, pushing back with force restricted, he had much more to give you but restrained himself and allowed you to lead. A large hand finds its way up to your back and offers you structure as the embrace deepens, tongues flickering about and dancing in each other's mouths. David feels heat replace shame and love replace jealousy. There was no way this was not real love for if it was then you were the greatest actor in all the world. After a few minutes, you break apart, a trail of saliva connecting your two lips. He's panting hard, trying to remain aware enough to hear you speak. At this point, he wanted nothing more than to bury himself in you, bleed into your love like how the sun breaks the evening sky. “I should get you jealous more often,” You hum, feeling him chuckle in response.

Jake Park

Jake is a most peculiar case. He acts aloof, floating above all other humans and their mortal troubles in an untouchable manner. To be jealous of another person is a complete waste of energy and time for him. He looks down at melodrama and scoffs at things so simple. But if you can get Jake to open up, to get him to take you in and love you, then his whole previous attitude changes.

Jake is never overly clingy, never the first to initiate any form of physical affection - in front of other people that is. In the quiet woods when the only eyes are yours and his, he reaches for you like a child with fingers twitching and expression desperate. Do not shun him away and he will bloom under your light. He is a thirsty man, always in need of your watering embrace. While you are in the presence of other people, however, Jake is more reversed, only ever standing near you and only occasionally holding your hand. He watches you constantly and notices immediately when your gaze shifts to another survivor and stays there for much longer than his liking.

He wouldn’t call it being jealous - it’s more like he’s being overprotective. If you are found sitting alone at the campfire, he practically sprints over and sits beside you without a word or a look. If you are on-hook, he will drop all previous activities to travel across the realm to save you before anyone else has the chance. It is sweet and enduring, to be doted upon so totally and devotedly, but you start to realize his true intentions when one day you catch the look he gives the other survivors.

Never had you seen such a dark expression on your man before, the lines around his gentle hazel eyes growing incredibly heavy and dirty. He glares pure poison at anyone near you, spitting at them with nothing but a mere downward twitch on his mouth. The others would react violently, hands raising up in a defenseless gesture as they backed away from you and your fuming partner. You’d feel pressure on your shoulder and looking over you’d see Jake pushing himself into you, his attention following the retreating survivor. Jake was digging a trench between himself and the others, isolating himself in the saddest and heartbreaking manner.

“Why are you so angry, Jake? What has happened to you?” You ask him one evening while the two of you sit alone in a forest clearing, earning nothing but a soft ‘hmm’ from the man as his hands worked masterfully on repairing his toolbox. You sigh and shuffle closer, knowing full well that he could not deny you if he felt you so near him. He visibly stiffens as your hand overlaps his, fingers snaking into his own. “I have never seen you so angry before. Has anyone hurt you? Want me to go beat them up?” He laughs at your suggestion, finally relenting to your advances and passing you a soft side-eye. At the comfort of your furrowed brow, Jake felt his jealous boil and seethe and eventually soothe - you were so calm and understanding and he felt terrible for harboring such negative emotions.

“I have seen how you look at the other survivor. How you... long for them.” Jake falls despondent and quiet, retreating back into himself where nothing could hurt him, sinking down to a place where would he be safe. Just as the total blackness would threaten to take him all, you grabbed his hand and pulled his head out of the murky water.

“Jake. You are the only one for me. The others come and go but you,” You cup his cheek in your hand, “, are forever.” All the world leaves his body at your words and he leans into you. “You must stop shutting yourself away from everyone else,” You scolding tone failed as it barely had the strength to stand on its own as he distracted you with his expression and Jake closes his eyes and covers your hand with his gloved one. He moves it over his mouth and you feel him start to kiss your palm. You shiver at his butterfly touches. “I’m sorry.” He breathes in between kisses, talking directly into your skin. His other hand moves towards your head and suddenly he’s pulling you towards him, facing you completely. Gaining confidence he glides up your arm and to your eagerly offered neck. His lips are cold and there is hard stumble on his chin that tickles your sensitive neck wonderfully. You gasp as he bites down, teething you until he left a red, sore spot. He grins at your reaction. Jake then spends the next few minutes branding you with his mark, awarding your skin with the sign of his presence there. You were his alone and though you may wonder and gaze out the window at passers-by, you would always return to him.

#its himbo and feral hours #dbd imagine #dbd headcanons #dbd x reader #dbd david king #dbd david king x reader #dbd jake park #dbd jake park x reader

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olivemeister · 3 years

Text

OKAY NEO THOUGHTS NOW THAT I’VE BEATEN IT AND HAD TIME TO MARINATE. no spoilers for another day bc i haven’t finished it yet, but i did go “no, why shan’t i? i have the internet” and watched the secret endings on youtube so those and the secret reports will be discussed. yeah. so here’s some thoughts. i’m going to talk a lot about the more contentious things, i think. and again i haven’t finished another day so nothing to do with that, but of course major ending spoilers for the main scenario.

these are my opinions both as a writer and a media consumer, so there’s kinda two levels here. it is very freeform “as i think of it” structurally so my sincerest apologies if it’s all over the place. i am trying to keep specific topics confined rather than splattering the same plot point/whatever all through the post, but it’s not like i’m posting a peer-revied academic essay here. it’s also fucking enormous and i would say sorry but that would be a lie.

the majority of the game, i actually really enjoyed. the localization was excellent and i can’t praise it enough. i know people threw fits over the “horrible overstep” of... teenagers using slang. but did you know, in real life, teenagers use slang? even in japan, there’s slang? wild but true! the dialogue was great, and while i can’t say much re: the jp cast since i played in english, the newcomers for the english cast were spectacular. i actually think the newcomers were, in some cases, stronger than the returning cast. even in characters where i didn’t like the voice (nagi had to grow on me, i admit it), they were a fantastic match for the character’s personality.

the emotional beats re: character deaths, typically, landed the way i think the writers wanted; kanon’s death in week 3 had me devastated even though i could see it coming a mile away. i think that’s a testament to the best parts of the writing; as soon as i understood how the current game was being run, i knew it was fairly inevitable that every other team would eventually lose. odds would be that, barring something like someone changing teams or a team merger, the majority of the other teams would be completely wiped out. i knew far in advance that kanon would likely not make it to the end of the story, but it still fucked me up when it finally happened not just because i cared about kanon, but also because of how much the other characters cared about her. some character deaths affected me far less, of course. i think kanon was the epitome of “this hit exactly as hard as the writers wanted it to”, but i do feel they fell short with others. ayano’s lack of development really hurt my ability to be saddened by her death, especially when it was so clear that she set up her own possession as a trap for shoka. it undermined things for shoka in general, because while she was devastated to lose ayano, the game did a poor job at making their relationship tangible and meaningful. i felt worse (not necessarily sadder, just worse) about motoi’s death, and i didn’t like motoi. speaking of him...

the biggest issue i have with the game is a chronic square enix issue. kubo is the Man Pulling The Strings, whatever, this is fine. the problem is that he, minamimoto, motoi, and arguably susukichi are the only characters in the game with dark skin. they are all morally grey at best. i don’t think i need to elaborate on why this is an issue. we’re not going to pretend that racism and colorism don’t exist in japan. i’m just going to say that all of the dark-skinned characters are either totally evil, excessively violent, and/or morally dubious. this is my biggest qualm, but i don’t feel it needs more elaboration. yes, i know motoi turns it around in the end. yes, i know susukichi ultimately changes sides as well, and he’s ultimately portrayed as sympathetic. minamimoto is........ his own beast. but the fact remains that we don’t get a single major character who’s darker and unambiguously heroic.

second big issue is that while i understand the decision to keep shiki off camera until the very end for emotional impact, i feel like this was to the detriment of the story and to the detriment of said impact. she was mentioned, sure, and she was briefly seen from the shoulders down in a cutscene long before her introduction, but i feel that this was ultimately for the worse. her absence in the plot made her a borderline non-entity that can easily leave the audience going “why should i care about this?” on what’s supposed to be a huge emotional cathartic moment. yes, people should know this is a sequel and neku and shiki’s friendship was a crucial part of the original game, and much of the endgame of neo makes no sense if you’re unfamiliar with the original, but their interactions in the ending felt incredibly shallow. and i think this is because of how little shiki appears and how isolated she is from her other friends. eri is unseen and unmentioned. she doesn’t interact with rhyme. she hardly interacts with beat, using him as a translator at best. her other relationships are just... stagnant at best, ignored at worst, and despite having had just as vital of a role in the first game as beat did, she does nothing of import onscreen. her only narrative actions are “fix mr mew (mentioned but not seen)” and “be sad about neku”. so, functionally...

for some reason (we know why) the story decided that the only thing that was important to shiki was seeing neku. but by holding off on this reveal of her, we lost the impact that their meeting could have had. because the game refused to show her it didn’t show how much his absence was affecting her, which leaves their reunion feeling incredibly hollow. shiki was gone for upwards of 90% of the game. if not for the first game, this reunion would mean nothing; the narrative does a terrible job of reminding the audience that neku and shiki have a strong relationship and i don’t know if it’s that they expected the first game to have done the heavy lifting, or they thought that what neo gave us was good rather than “good enough”. imo this was an enormous failure and i wish we had gotten more for her both as part of the plot and as a character.

this was an issue present with rhyme as well imo, though to a lesser degree. i think they should have given up the ghost much sooner on confirming that the shadowed figure was rhyme; it was obvious by the time they showed us her silhouette, so i don’t know why the narrative held off on showing her. they didn’t have to introduce her to rindo (or give her the name splash screen) yet, but people who played the first game and are paying attention know it’s rhyme, so why bother hiding her? most of what rhyme accomplishes in this game is off-camera as well, but she has double the screen time that shiki gets.

the shiki thing is another symptom of a common squeenix problem these days, which is poorly-handled implied romantic interests. and i think that was also present with how the end of the game treated shoka. rindo and shoka as an implied romance in general did not bother me; more than a lot of squeenix protags, and perhaps primarily because of the excellent job the english cast did, i actually was unbothered by the suggestion of budding romantic feelings because it felt genuine. they actually felt like a pair of teenagers who were starting to be interested in each other, trying to play it cool and prioritize. this, and shoka’s characterization in general, is really helped by the reveal of swallow’s identity; it retroactively heightens her closeness to rindo specifically and offers enormous insight into her decision to help the team covertly. however, i think this budding implied romance was severely undermined by having other characters comment on it, especially because it felt so out of place timing-wise whenever someone commented. it was never warranted; there are times where they seem to be... not flirting, but not doing a good job of pretending there isn’t an interest. this is not when comments come. the comments come when they are having a totally normal interaction that does not suggest any non-platonic feelings whatsoever.

up until the final day, i had fairly ambivalent feelings about the idea of them as the designated hetero pairing. i felt it was a vast improvement from recent shoehorned romances in squeenix properties. the ending made things much more contentious to me, specifically how shoka is vanished by joshua. the audience should at least have the suspicion that he’s reviving her, but the circumstances surrounding it are the problem more than joshua being a deus ex machina. it’s not the first time joshua was a troll re: reviving someone, but the context of why shoka’s revival is necessary is, well... unnecessary.

they barely foreshadow the shinjuku rules re: reapers, and i will freely admit it’s not remotely ooc for shoka to hide something like that until she can’t any more. but they seem to be just a contrived excuse for shoka to be taken away... and from the framing of it, not from the player, but from rindo. which, i don’t know that i need elaborate on why i wasn’t fond of that. and i won’t lie - i know everybody beefed it in those cutscenes, including beat and neku. but when the dissonance noise grabbed shoka it gave me the exact same vibe as the demon tide grabbing kairi in kh3, and i don’t think i need to elaborate more on why that would put a bad taste in my mouth and make me fearful for shoka’s future treatment in the game. i was worried that the narrative was going to yank her away from rindo like a prize being snatched from him, and it did! while i do also think it’s ic for joshua to fuck around the way he did when reviving her, it also seems contrived and brings up a major question.

if shoka is still playing by shinjuku rules, why does shibuya’s composer have the ability to overturn her erasure? yes, i know, shinjuku is gone, but its composer is still active. surely joshua having the authority to do what he did indicates that on a cosmic bureaucracy level, shoka is a shibuya reaper. the secret reports offer a potential that joshua exploited a loophole by waiting until the second after the shinjuku rules resulted in shoka’s soul being dissolved in order to snatch it up, so perhaps the explanation is that her erasure meant she was technically no longer a shinjuku reaper and no longer beholden to its rules. but that doesn’t answer a different question that honestly bothers me more than the admittedly sorta insignificant question of whether or not joshua overstepped in reviving shoka.

shinjuku’s game has ended because shinjuku has ended; why are its rules still in play for former shinjuku reapers? i am aware that shiba is the conductor “legally” and he has made changes to shibuya’s game, but they’re careful to specify that the “ex-reapers are erased at the end of the game” rules are from shinjuku and do not apply to shibuya reapers. is she considered by the higher plane to be joshua’s underling and not hazuki’s? the secret reports confirm that the transfer of personnel from the destroyed shinjuku to shibuya was authorized by the acting conductor (uzuki) and this is standard procedure, everything was done properly. so “legally” the formerly-shinjuku reapers are shibuya reapers, right? hanekoma notes in particular that it’s a culture clash leading to the shinjuku reapers being designated as such and that they’re only nominally shinjuku reapers. why are a defunct game’s rules still active?

the biggest issue is that shoka’s threat of erasure was unnecessary from a narrative perspective, especially given how quickly it’s introduced and resolved. what was the point of putting this in the story if five minutes later the issue is just dealt with, no effort, minimal tension, by a (narratively speaking, don’t come after me joshua fans) minor character who doesn’t even appear until after the plot is resolved? i honestly wonder if it was just the writers deciding joshua needed to do something so that his appearance in the ending wasn’t just shallow fanservice for people who wanted to see the original gang. joshua’s lack of action is also presumably going to be contentious with fans; i’ve read the secret reports, and i don’t feel that they sufficiently justify why he doesn’t make any moves to protect his city despite being positioned both in his own dialogue and the secret reports as someone opposing shibuya’s purification. i will talk about this a little later re: kubo’s motivations though.

i also think it’s kind of stupid that joshua sets up “find her and you win” and then... rindo doesn’t do anything in that regard. he just bumps into her in the scramble. i know i already said i hate the idea of her being a prize to be won in a game but if they’re going to set it up, why make it pointless in that regard? it feels so unnecessary. joshua portrays shoka’s revival/return as something to be earned, and unlike the ending of twewy there’s no recognition that he was actually just fucking with them.

this is similar to my mixed feelings about kubo’s defeat. on one hand, i wanted to smash his face in personally, i have hated him the entire game. on the other hand, having him jesus beamed and rewritten out of existence without any warning or chance to resist was fucking hilarious and i actually laughed out loud. my speculation as to why he didn’t get a boss fight is that developers worried about people having trouble suspending disbelief over the party being able to defeat an angel. ultimately i think the only way this could have been done was to have it be a boss battle where your victory doesn’t matter, like the week 1 fight with susukichi, and have hazuki curbstomp kubo in the post-battle cutscenes. ultimately, i feel like this was a lesser of two evils; i don’t think the “you lose in the cutscene” approach would have necessarily been significantly better than what we got, i recognize that “the battle didn’t matter and you lose in the cutscene after” is a contentious game trope. and i would understand people struggling to accept the cast defeating a being from a higher plane without intervention from said higher plane. the only benefit would be the catharsis of getting to slap kubo around, which admittedly i kind of miss. having him as a secret boss was an option i guess but i think it would bring more questions than it was worth.

kubo’s motivation is also just bizarre; i understand that it’s given as him getting overzealous after carrying out his orders to purify shinjuku, but why? i feel like this could have easily been fixed/rationalized by “shinjuku’s surviving reapers fled to shibuya, leading kubo to consider shibuya to be an extension of shinjuku”, but that’s solely speculation. i do not know why kubo decided to also start an inversion in shibuya. they didn’t give me enough information. his conflict with joshua is inexplicable and almost entirely offscreen via the secret reports. i do not feel like i have a grasp on why the plot of the game even happened. hazuki’s involvement is iffy; i can’t say whether he initially approved of kubo’s overstep and changed his mind, or if he just took his time collecting his errant underling. the secret reports suggest the former, and hanekoma noting that the contentious nature of the previous game’s events gives a speculative explanation for why no action was taken if hazuki was actually making moves against shibuya rather than kubo being out of line. hazuki could damn well have been lying, there’s a precedent for composers being full of shit and telling bold-faced lies to protagonists, though in the previous game these lies were all eventually uncovered. this leaves me to believe that ultimately, hazuki’s statements regarding kubo acting outside of his given authority were mostly honest. but what i don’t understand is why joshua took such a hands-off approach.

yes, he says he figured the main cast had it under control and would have stepped in had things gotten worse, but this appearance and statement comes long after rindo fails and shibuya is destroyed in multiple timelines. why did he not step in in the first timeline? i can speculate, but the game and secret reports do not do a great job in explaining why the proxy vs. proxy game even happened in the first place. kubo is hazuki’s underling, which makes joshua higher in the pecking order than kubo. if hazuki was capable of exorcising kubo instantaneously, why didn’t joshua just flick him off the board like a flea before he even got started trying to cause an inversion in shibuya? in the epilogue of a new day joshua is seen in conversation with hanekoma, who’s taking shinjuku’s inversion seriously, which seems at odds with how easily his fellow composer ends the problem.

retroactively, i guess i could rationalize this as him realizing that either shinjuku’s composer must be responsible for said inversion or that potentially shinjuku’s composer has been compromised in some way. and i can rationalize him failing to immediately jesus beam kubo as well - it’s possible that, as kubo was initially acting under the orders of another composer (assuming hazuki is still technically “legally” one/at the bureaucratic level of one), joshua’s hands were somewhat tied re: what actions he could take without potential consequences. it could be that joshua would get in big trouble if he took disciplinary action against another composer’s underling, but 1. the legal transfer of personnel should mean kubo is joshua’s underling, not hazuki’s, see the shoka problem 2. hazuki’s status as a composer is questionable given that his territory is now purified and its game is defunct 3. given that kubo was acting outside of his original composer’s turf and outside of his initial orders (purify shinjuku) at this point i feel like that isn’t likely. it could be that he was trying to avoid a conflict with hazuki himself. it may be that he considered it hazuki’s responsibility to retrieve kubo, but that’s at odds with him choosing a proxy to combat kubo’s and his claims that he totally would have done something, really, he swears. they don’t give us much info at all as to why joshua entered a game with kubo in the first place. i have reason to believe that something’s fishy in the secret reports, and i would like to see the japanese text, which i’ll mention again in a few paragraphs.

i know the absence of shibuya’s composer is partially, and perhaps primarily, “there wouldn’t be a plot if joshua fixed it”. but it really feels like they just kinda tucked joshua in the corner and hoped fans wouldn’t be like “hey where is shibuya’s composer and why is no one mentioning them?” that part is probably for the same reason we don’t see shiki until the very ending, teasing the audience by holding off on revealing him until the last second, but it’s jarring to me that shiki is mentioned but neither neku, beat, nor any of the reapers (!) think “we should contact the composer”. even if just to say “we can’t contact the composer, he is unreachable”! i guess it’s to avoid people remembering how significant joshua is and thinking too hard about it, because joshua is simply too powerful of a character to be running around freely. the plot falls apart when you have a character who’s so strong and, in his own words, kind of omnipotent, who could trivialize the conflict in an instant if he took action.

i feel like they surely could have given a more explicit reason for him to not be involved in the story, even if it’s a reason like “he’s in trouble with the higher plane”. which could have easily been set up! hanekoma is clear in his reports that shibuya’s impurification is highly contentious in the higher plane; people are big mad about it, potentially people higher in the chain of command than a composer. this could have been easily utilized as an explanation for why joshua is hands-off; he’s on a shit list and needs to step carefully as a result. but it’s just not addressed. hanekoma is unreachable according to his reports, and he notes that people are trying to contact him for help. are we just to assume that people have looked for joshua to ask for help in the past but it was so long ago that it isn’t even worth mentioning now to the newcomers? according to other reports, the higher ups are pissed with joshua about his game with kitaniji and are turning a blind eye to what’s happening with kubo in shibuya as a result. but this doesn’t explain why the members of the shibuya UG never discuss the composer. hanekoma’s reports have him confused as to joshua’s lack of action as well; he knows the context of what’s going on in shibuya but doesn’t understand why joshua is staying silent.

that said! the fact that hazuki’s motive for the destruction of shinjuku is never stated does not bother me too much. he’s placed in a position very parallel to joshua in the first game, and he even says he felt like he was following in josh’s footsteps. when you add his seemingly-genuine inability to understand why people care about shibuya, i feel there’s enough evidence to... not dismiss, but nudge this aside as “He Too is a misanthropic bastard”; shinjuku’s destruction is a parallel to the intended destruction of shibuya in the first game. hazuki just carried on where joshua had a change of heart. the secret reports complicate this; it might be that someone fucked up in transcribing, but the reports i read online state that shibuya’s composer, i.e. joshua, was responsible for the destruction of shinjuku due to a game with kubo. this does not make sense given everything else, including hazuki’s own statements and later reports, so i’m setting that aside for the moment as either an uncaught mistake either in translation or transcription online (most likely) or hanekoma not knowing the actual truth until receiving the post-purification shinjuku reports. hanekoma also suggests that hazuki’s goal was also the purification of shibuya, but as he’s not shibuya’s composer this is certainly not his jurisdiction so i’m curious as to what exactly happened there.

EDIT: i’ve been informed by a helpful anon that this is not a mistranslation, the japanese secret reports do state that it was a game involving joshua that resulted in shinjuku’s inversion. with that in mind, i have figured out how to rationalize this and it solves a lot of problems: if it was a proxy game between joshua and kubo, then joshua must have been the opposition to shinjuku’s inversion. though you could argue that joshua is responsible for the end result, he didn’t destroy shinjuku; his proxy lost, probably because kubo’s had the support of shinjuku’s composer. kubo’s overconfidence in running rampant in shibuya is now explicable and he may have been trying to rub it in that joshua lost.

if hazuki was still backing kubo post-shinjuku, this could explain why hazuki felt he could make decisions about shibuya’s fate and wander around it; joshua had already overstepped onto his turf to meddle in purification, so he was returning the favor. at this point in time, i figure that joshua’s proxy was either tsugumi’s brother (shinjuku’s conductor) or coco (she’s noted to have inexplicable powers for a rank-and-file reaper, but joshua’s opposition to her killing of neku throws this into question), and if we truly had a scrapped “shinjuku’s final game” plot then joshua’s proxy could also have been neku. kubo’s proxy was presumably shiba. this actually answers a few questions that i couldn’t rationalize when i assumed joshua was uninvolved (why would shinjuku’s composer be running a game against kubo when they wanted the same thing?), so i’m gonna chalk it up as an absolute win.

i think hishima as a character was... sort of nothing. he was just there. yeah, it was kinda funny how he dressed shiba down, but i don’t know that the plot needed him. his role in the endgame could have easily been given to tsugumi without much fuss, and i feel tsugumi deserved a much bigger part in the narrative given how much she was hyped up by solo and final remix. she was so prominent and anticipated that the fans called her hype-chan for years before we had a name for her. this could also be folded into the problem with hiding shiki until the very end; it feels like we missed a whole sequence with both of these characters simply because the narrative refused to show us shiki. instead, we’re told that shiki showed up and fixed mr. mew, and somehow this freed tsugumi. i think the fact that they don’t even give a flashback of this crucial event after shiki’s proper introduction is just a questionable decision. the story tells us that tsugumi’s release from the plushie is of the utmost importance and shiba can’t be swayed without her, setting it up as a vital event, but it happens offscreen with no real interaction with the main cast. it also only happens after multiple failed loops, even though rindo’s interference is what prevents the meeting between coco and shiki to repair the plushie. i don’t understand this from a logistical standpoint; if coco isn’t pulled to escort rhyme, she must have met with shiki and released tsugumi in timely manner, but tsugumi does not appear until after you replay to get coco back to her original schedule. you could wave it off as “she didn’t get there fast enough”, but i can’t accept that as a reason given the circumstances; it’s not like she would have to look hard to find shiba. this one’s flawed writing; i know in a meta sense why she didn’t appear, it was to build tension etc etc, but in-universe it’s a plot hole.

coco being so absent from the plot is also somewhat conspicuous. i wonder what reception of her was like in japan and if that influenced her lack of presence in the story. i honestly don’t even know if she was received well by the english audience, all i know is that i did not like her at all in final remix. not from an “i don’t like the villain because they’re doing bad things” perspective, from an “i don’t find this character compelling and i think they’re annoying” perspective. also curious as to whether or not her speech patterns changed in the japanese dialogue since final remix; i found her far less jarring and obnoxious in neo and i think it’s enormously because she stopped talking verbally in internet shorthand. overall, coco’s retool was imo a change for the better, but she’s barely there for me to appreciate how much of an improvement she was. it feels like there’s an entire narrative we were set up for by a new day, yet it’s almost completely missing. the ending of a new day laid out this framework for neku and minamimoto to be forced allies in an unseen future game. i had mixed feelings about this conceptually, but the narrative setup was fairly transparent. not only does this not happen, coco’s motivation in a new day and what ultimately happened were so lacking to me.

i feel like something got lost and we were originally going to actually see and perhaps play the shinjuku game that ended in disaster instead of just getting a summation and brief flashbacks of the survivors fleeing. this kinda ties in with my complaints about how hyped tsugumi was by solo and final remix, and then she turned out to have a very small (albeit crucial, via her trailer ability) and mostly unseen role in neo’s story. retroactively we learn that rindo’s visions are from tsugumi, but this is something she does entirely off-screen. all of coco’s scheming was for nothing, because joshua was a deus ex machina and whisked neku away the second he died. this feels to me like cut content or rewrites; there’s a whole game’s worth of story that just happened off-camera and we got to hear a little bit about it. it wasn’t enough, imo. i think doing it as a midquel is still possible, but it’s a hard sell to create a video game with a downer ending and we know shinjuku’s fate is already set in stone... even though a new day ended on the tragic cliffhanger of neku’s death, it’s a little different since it’s coming as an optional postgame sequel hook after victory rather than the entire narrative you fought through ending in failure. i suppose it could be done with a Distant Epilogue now that we know shiba and most of his surviving reapers will return to rebuild shinjuku. ultimately i really think that if not for the concern about neku overshadowing the new cast, shinjuku’s purification could and should have been the prologue to neo. it would be a tough balancing act, but i do think it could have been done right and it would have done a lot for narrative tension with his absence if we had a prologue following him that ends in a cliffhanger re: shinjuku’s purification. neku’s role in the story was done decently i think re: how big said role was, but a lot of circumstances surrounding his absence, legendary status, and reappearance leave much to be desired.

frankly, i just don’t like how much they glossed over neku’s three year absence. we’re given a vague explanation of what he was doing, but it isn’t actually an explanation. definitely again feels like a plot rewrite situation; there’s this huge blank space of neku doing nothing because there used to be a story that we were going to play through and it got scrapped for whatever reason. overall i feel neku’s characterization was very odd and perhaps a little inconsistent in this game; he didn’t have much of a personality at all, which i struggle to reconcile with the original game. we don’t see how he reconciled with coco, it’s just dismissed entirely as “no we’re good now”. how are we good? why did you forgive her for playing murder games instead of just explaining shit? i know he forgave joshua for his gatekeep gaslight girlboss behavior in the first game, but we had context as to why he made that decision. also what the fuck was keeping him from coming back to shibuya, i don’t feel like that was sufficiently explained either? for someone who was so hyped up by the narrative, i was a little let down by how insignificant neku ended up being to the plot as a whole. and again, his personality seemed very watered down and neutral despite the seriousness of the situation. why was he so mellow? the circumstances of his return i did really like, because... well, we’ll talk about character relationships i guess.

i already summed up my feelings on rindo and shoka and i think i’ll leave them on the note of “unnecessary elements dampened my potential for overt enthusiasm, but overall i feel neutral-positive about the suggestion of romantic interest” which is a lot more than i can say about a lot of (semi-)official pairings. on a broader and more platonic scale? generally i have positive feelings about the new cast and their interactions; i feel like their development is more understated than neku’s in the first game, his character arc is very in your face and the neo cast is not nearly as overt, but you can see the difference in how the team interacts across the three weeks. rindo and fret’s established friendship, not to be dismissive of it, does exactly what it needs to. i mean this in a completely positive way. it’s an established friendship, they feel like friends, and they serve initially as anchors to one another in the beginning of the game as a “you’re the only person i know in this chaos” setup. this contrasts neku in the first game in an excellent way because of how it highlights their biggest character flaws, which i’ll talk about later; it’s important to rindo’s fatal flaw that he has someone to fall back and rely on in the beginning of the game in the same way that it’s crucial for neku’s development that he’s surrounded by strangers who he must learn to trust and rely on in order to survive. rindo and fret can lean on each other in the beginning of the game, and as people who have known each other for some time, are able to recognize and appreciate each others’ positive changes.

i do love the development of nagi’s friendship with fret, particularly how it’s sometimes but not always remarked on when she shelves her initial aloof attitude with him. i prefer when a narrative is more subtle on that kind of thing; pointing it out every once in a while is okay, but i don’t want it shoved down my throat via dialogue that characters are developing an emotional bond. we can see that nagi is slowly becoming more receptive to fret and less likely to dismiss or disparage him. it seems like their initial relationship is that of two people who have opposite struggles; nagi is notably closed off in the beginning, but fret immediately approaches her with an unearned and offputting level of familiarity. their slow and understated (more noticeable with nagi than fret) development towards accepting each other as friends is mutually beneficial to them even outside of the context of their personal relationship; nagi opens up a little with everyone, not just fret. placing two people with very different perspectives on how to interact with new people in close proximity helped both of them grow. i’m sure other people have different perspectives, but i do not feel like they were being teased as a pairing which i enormously appreciate, i am tired of “pair the spares” shit. (minor note: i also appreciate how while fret’s crush on kanon was very overt and strong, she was also fairly clear that she considered him a kid and his feelings were never going to be reciprocated because of that age gap. i know, the bar is low, but thank god.)

i love how, despite nagi now having been confirmed as older than beat, as soon as beat joins the narrative he takes this hard stance of “i’m the one who’s already been in this hellscape so it’s my responsibility to help the newbies”. he really embodies the big brother role so well in this game; he knows a little more about what’s going on, this isn’t his first rodeo even if it’s not exactly the same, so he considers himself to have an obligation to protect the others. he serves as sort of a physical and emotional rock for the team from the second he joins, becoming an excellent support for them both as a combatant and an older brother figure. he has experience in being both of these things, and i think beat’s writing is some of the best in the game.

despite his position as a former player who’s back in the UG, he meshes with the newbies perfectly. he doesn’t overshadow the rest of the team despite having more lived (ha) experience in the reaper’s game, he doesn’t feel like he’s on a different level from them or anything like that. he fits in while serving an important unique role that he can only fill because of his prior time in the UG. it’s completely understandable and reasonable why rindo remains the team leader despite beat’s presence. he’s had a three year gap since his last game and doesn’t even understand how he returned to the UG. he’s not a fish out of water, he knows the UG and the game. but he’s really truly gotta shake the dust off, and he’s trying to figure out what happened to him in the first place because he knows he shouldn’t be in the UG at all. he didn’t have a huge bump in intelligence since the first game, but it’s hard to dismiss him as a complete idiot. he has both large and small perceptive moments where another narrative might have chosen to keep him as the dumb muscle. in fact, his firm convictions serve an important role for the others - beat knows he didn’t die and can’t be convinced otherwise, and his confidence that he’s a living player is part of how rindo and gang realize they also aren’t dead. he’s clearly not simply a comic relief character. another story might have positioned him as more of a mentor figure, but he plays to his strengths and serves to ground the team instead. beat is honestly a highlight of this ensemble cast to me. i’m unsure as to how much of that is simply because he was one of my favorites from the first game, but i really truly love beat in this game.

shoka and neku’s late introductions to the team mean they have far less “we are now firmly allies and friends” interactions with the rest of the ensemble for unavoidable reasons. i will say that the excellent casting and localization for the english version, particularly shoka, has done a lot to mitigate that issue; yes, the plot doesn’t develop her relationships with the team as a whole as thoroughly as some of the others, but the combat interactions with her are so genuine that i found myself shocked when writing this because, well, those combat lines did so much legwork making her role in the party seem earned and cohesive. i had such a strong sense of her place in the team that just isn’t reflected in the cutscenes, and i find that very interesting but i’m unsure as to whether it’s good or bad; i think it’s incredible that the combat dialogue did such a good job fostering this air of “we are a unit” for these characters and it really is a testament to the skill of these actors, but i do wish it was more prevalent in the cutscenes itself. beat’s established relationship with neku and their relaxed nature with one another does a lot to ease neku’s entry into the group; he has an “in” with a firmly established member and a well-written dynamic with him that helps him out here.

as a nekubeat appreciator i feel very fed and i hope there’s an uptick in interest for the pairing following neo. i love how beat, who throughout the game is constantly forgetting who people from 3 years ago are (doesn’t recognize his former superior bc she’s wearing a suit now and can’t even remember her name), immediately recognizes coco despite her changing her entire aesthetic specifically because he’s so angry with her for killing neku. he’s ready to throw down the second he sees her, which gives this feeling of “he’s been waiting for this moment for 3 years”. because the narrative never addresses beat’s change in style, particularly that he wears his hair like neku now, i choose to believe it’s because the last time he saw neku was immediately after coco shot and killed him. it could be that this shit’s been haunting him ever since neku died. my city now, if you don’t talk about it in the game i make shit up. both their cutscene interactions and combat quotes do an excellent job of maintaining the sense that these two have been close friends for a long time and distance hasn’t changed that. they fall right back into old ways with one another immediately.

even outside of the context of me being a nekubeat shipper, their relationship and continued partnership (UG game context partnership) feels very genuine. neku and joshua call each other partner, but it rings hollow. i’m sure it’s partially the lack of screentime that makes it so they don’t feel like partners any more than neku and shiki do, but the game doesn’t even try to push closeness the way it does for shiki - more on that in a minute. beat is the only one of neku’s partners that seems to have retained the same strength in their bond with him despite the three years; shiki and joshua are super absent in the plot, which really undermines their relationships with neku. i’ve already talked about my problems with shiki’s lack of focus and how i feel it harms her relationship with neku, but as for neku’s relationship with joshua, i think neo has taken an interesting approach that i feel will have a mixed reception.

it actually feels like neku and joshua ended this game on worse terms than the first one even though joshua was a far more benevolent figure this time around. neku is very clear about wanting to return to the RG despite this meaning he will have no access to the UG (outside of potentially text-based communication since rhyme paved the way for RG residents to bust into the RNS and... however it was that shoka’s fanGO account worked, since she and rindo were fanGO friends long before his entry to the UG) and doesn’t show any hesitation or reluctance in stating this desire. he seems quite content with not having joshua be a part of his life, as opposed to the first game’s ending where he extends an open offer to joshua to join his friend group. i understand how this would (and will) let a lot of people down, but i actually think it’s for the best. i have no real opinion on neku’s capacity for forgiving joshua after the first game, good or bad, but i think putting distance between them in this game is the correct move.

i take this viewpoint especially given that after the first game, joshua did in fact choose this distance - neku invited him in, and he did not take the offer. it was his decision to not join neku’s group in the first game’s ending and he continued to remain separate from it in the three year gap; he may have masqueraded as a fellow player and peer in age, but joshua is not and has never been an actual peer to neku, shiki, and beat. his life experiences are so different from theirs that i would struggle to suspend disbelief that they have enough in common to maintain a close friendship. he intervened when neku was killed by coco and placed him in a safe area and gave moral support in the ending, and i think this is the most we should expect of a reforming (not reformed but in-progress) misanthrope like joshua. he’s an enigmatic figure sure and largely benevolent if inactive in this game, but he isn’t a good person and he clearly considers himself to be on a different level from neku and his peers. hanekoma notes that joshua’s somewhat reluctant to continue to remain separate from neku’s group, but i think the narrative places him both objectively and in his own mind as someone who is just... from a different world. joshua chose distance, he chose to cut contact, and this is the consequence of that decision. i think that’s a good lesson to teach; it may not be a given, but it’s natural that sometimes a friendship you ignore will fade. it doesn’t necessarily mean the time you spent didn’t matter, but you shouldn’t be shocked if a plant you don’t water wilts away.

i feel like that wasn’t the intended takeaway, that it was just questionable writing that i’m reading too deep into, but that’s how i feel about the situation.

i’m also incredibly grateful that hazuki was introduced as an age-appropriate option for joshua and i hope they’ll draw attention as a bastard boyfriends ship, both because i think it’s very funny and because i have opinions about shipping joshua with the teens. i know it’s contentious and i’m not going too deep into it, so what i’m going to say is this. the secret reports state in plain objective text that joshua downtuning his vibes aged him down and his true appearance is older. neither the narrative nor supplementary info state anything about how old josh was when he died or how long he’s been a reaper/the composer (reapers ageing is ??? as well, we don’t know if it’s not a thing or if it’s optional or what). however, it is firmly canon that he is older than 15. if that canon upsets you then that’s your problem to either work through or ignore indefinitely. suffice to say, joshua and hazuki do not have the schrodinger’s pedophile issue and i wholly support and strongly encourage that over the alternative for this reason and again because i find it funny and think they deserve each other. i hate to say hazuki is a healthy choice for joshua because i think both of them are just walking messes, but they are actual peers on the same tier of the higher plane pecking order and more importantly the disaster they could be as a couple has infinite potential.

on the girls side of things, i am still mad about eri’s absence not just because it’s a relationship shiki had that just got ignored. i know the story wants us to believe that neku and shiki have something but shiki and eri had more. i’m sorry writers you made a more compelling f/f ship by accident in the first game and i am not invested in the one you weakly suggested between neku and shiki here. if you made shiki have more of a role in neo maybe i’d feel differently, or maybe you would have screwed it up worse. we’ll never know. i think it’s a shame that they couldn’t make me care about neku and shiki as a pairing, but it is what it is.

i was briefly worried that the game would try to suggest something between kaie and rhyme because sometimes people lose their minds when a boy and girl stand next to each other, but i was quickly set at ease with that one. they felt like two people who are starting to straddle that line of acquaintance/friend in a believable way despite how little interaction between them we see, and i appreciate that. i was also briefly worried that fret would develop a crush on rhyme based on his initial reaction at being introduced to her, but again quickly dismissed. can you tell i’m a little gun shy about strangled “him boy her girl” romances in fiction these days? yeah. i’ve been let down too much recently by bad writing.

i think all of the party members could have benefited from more development with one another outside of combat lines - i would like to see more interaction between nagi and shoka, or neku and fret, etc - but that would come at the expense of the narrative’s pacing. i think it could have been done by tweaking certain details, but ultimately i can accept this as a sacrifice made in the interest of keeping the narrative from getting bloated.

i wanna talk briefly about the new main cast a little.

rindo’s ups and downs re: development are much more subtle than neku’s were, but with the secret reports in mind i feel his arc is actually pretty excellent. i think we could have done with a little less of fret pointing out rindo’s increased confidence and how he becomes more assertive, i think the audience is smart enough to notice that on their own. but i’m a huge fan of how the narrative quietly places rindo in this position of a leader who fears that responsibility, but nonetheless has to grow and accept it. hanekoma’s reports may spell it out in plain text postgame, but the narrative already told us in our own way that rindo’s development stalled when someone else entered the cast who could take over for him and this is demonstrative of a(n understandable) lack of maturity and failure to grow. neku’s fatal flaw was his rejection of others, and so he was forced by the narrative into a position where he had to learn to trust them; rindo’s is that he relies too much on them and the narrative forces him to stand on his own.

while i think this is a little muddled (he was right in some instances to not make hard solo decisions; thinking specifically of ayano, it was absolutely the right call to ease shoka into this inevitable loss rather than forcing her into the situation unilaterally) and i wish we saw more consequences of his initial waffling behavior, rindo’s indecisiveness is an actual flaw that i think a lot of people can relate to and i think it contrasts him wonderfully with neku without being heavy-handed. rindo working through it from “relying on others to make choices for him -> still valuing the input of others but not wholly dependent on them -> capable of making difficult calls without anyone else to support him” was subdued and while it had realistic hitches in the form of other characters who he could consider authority figures, it was steady and imo very good. he’s a teenager coming into his own, stepping out of this world where others in his life - motoi as an0ther, shoka as swallow, presumably his parents, teachers, etc - have made the big, scary decisions for him or guided him through them, and into a place where there aren’t these people to guide him. he’s surrounded by people who either don’t know anything more than he does, or don’t care about his best interests; he’s clashing and changing and it forces him to grasp and accept his own autonomy rather than falling back and relying on someone else to fix things when it’s too frightening or difficult.

we can talk cultural differences re: the level of autonomy and responsibility that’s right for teenagers but i’m not really interested in drawing hard lines there. this is a coming of age story; as he approaches maturity, rindo is learning how to be an adult. i think that’s a classic and important narrative concept and it’s done well here.

fret, interestingly, is imo a case where the subtlety didn’t work out. to me, there wasn’t a huge distinction between flippant “telling you what i think you want to hear” fret and “genuine” fret. his initial interactions with kanon don’t seem different from their last conversation; maybe he comes off as less initally honest in the jp version, or maybe this one was a writing fumble. maybe it’s just me, and other people don’t feel the same way! he seems to be a far more static character in a strange way; the narrative tells us that he’s developing via other characters’ dialogue, but it doesn’t seem to support that. to me it’s a failure of “show, don’t tell” - i don’t take a hard stance on “show, don’t tell” as some kind of holy rule of writing, there are plenty of situations in a narrative where telling is perfectly acceptable and i think rigid adherence to showing and not telling can result in a bloated narrative, but in this case i feel like that’s where the narrative failed. it failed to support fret’s development outside of other people telling him he’s changed. i like fret, but i feel like in this ensemble cast fret and nagi kinda serve more as nominal protagonists and are more strong supporting characters than true leads.

as for nagi, i love how, despite it being low-hanging fruit, not only are there no real digs at nagi for being a vocal fangirl of a visual novel dating sim, it actually ties perfectly into her character as someone who understands people. dating sims are about people and relationships. how people interact, the importance of conveying your feelings, the consequences of bad communication; that’s what nagi is obsessed with. and rather than this being a detriment and making her avoid others, it ends up priming her to have healthy friendships because her gaming taught her to value knowing other people. it takes her time to actually open up, but rather than the video games closing her off to others they actually set her up to be an excellent friend. elestra in general could have been a subject of enormous mockery, but instead it’s viewed in a very neutral way and is given the implication of universal appeal by fret picking it up in the epilogue. nagi’s not in the spotlight for most of the game, but the payoff of her monologue to fret about being human was immense and was one of the best bits of dialogue in the entire game to me. it’s not going to be as iconic as hanekoma’s “open up your world” and “enjoy the moment”, but i truly think it’s one of the only parts of neo’s dialogue that approaches its level.

shoka is a character that i think is better on the replay, and i say this as someone who was very fond of shoka the first time around. i thought she had a lot of personality in her mannerisms alone, and i firmly appreciate how she wasn’t a one-note tsundere character. she had some of those minor elements, but subdued and with a reasonable context - she’s hot and cold with rindo and his team because she’s supposed to be working this rigged game to erase them, but she’s already rindo’s friend in a different context and is struggling to reconcile these two parts of her life. knowing her motivation as swallow gives so much retroactive depth to her actions; she was circumventing the game itself not just because she was exhausted by it or unease with shiba like some of the other turncoat reapers, but because rindo was her friend from before the story even began.

i will say that i didn’t actually fully call swallow being shoka simply because at first i had the impression that it would be rhyme (before rhyme’s role in the story became clearer), and admittedly by the time the climax hit the mystery of who swallow was had kind of dropped out of my mind completely, but i think it does a lot to develop shoka. whether this development being retroactive is strictly good or bad as an issue is subjective; neo is a game that has a built-in chapter select, so replaying the game and rewatching the cutscenes with the full narrative context is incredibly easy. however, for a lot of players, if you’re replaying the game it’s with a specific goal of getting something you missed earlier in-game, so you’re rushing through those cutscenes trying to get to that completionist bit. i think a line could have been walked re: giving more of a hint that shoka was swallow before the very end without fully giving it away, but i definitely think the rewatch value is more subjective and based on how you specifically play the game. if you’re here looking to watch all the cutscenes again now that you know everything, shoka being swallow is a huge treat regarding changing the context of her behavior - if you’re fast-forwarding trying to find a pig, it’s totally wasted.

i would have liked to see more of shoka’s backstory and interaction with the other shinjuku reapers for sure, and i wonder if this is another thing along the lines of “we were supposed to see more of shinjuku’s final game than we did”; if we’d gotten more of shinjuku, we certainly would have seen more of its reapers. i talked briefly about how i feel like ayano’s death didn’t hit the way i think it was intended to, but if the game had let us see more of her as a shinjuku reaper i feel like the entire plot would have benefited. it would have benefited shiba as well honestly; they tried to have him as a repentant “now i shall fix what i destroyed” character at the very end, but i don’t feel like they did a good enough job portraying that he had changed and he was brainwashed so it fell flat. if we’d seen more of shiba as the compassionate leader who deserved the loyalty of his reapers that they say he was, the contrast would have done a lot to help define the tragedy of his backstory. overall i think this is another “we lost a chunk of the plot in rewrites or something” issue, which i admit is not based in anything like interviews. it’s just my speculation because it feels like something that was supposed to be here got left behind - i can’t say if i’m right, or why it happened if so. it just feels to me like the shinjuku reapers besides shoka went fairly undeveloped not because of writing/lack of screentime alone but because we lost big pieces of shinjuku content entirely. it’s insane that we only learn in the secret reports how tsugumi became trapped in the mr. mew plush to begin with; to me, this screams “we had to cut something”, and the more i think about it the more convinced i am that we were originally meant to see more of shinjuku’s inversion. hell, the secret reports just flippantly inform us that tsugumi’s brother was shinjuku’s conductor and he’s why she survived - but he goes unnamed and unseen, mentioned only in a piece of postgame content that many players may never unlock.

shinjuku’s final game is just left as this incredible story that was never told, with a cast who we barely see. again, it doesn’t bother me that they never explained to us why hazuki purified shinjuku. but i do wish we could have connected with its reapers to see how they reacted to its impending fate; who was on kubo’s side, who was trying to protect shinjuku? who knew what was happening, and who was just swept up in the chaos? how did the purification affect them emotionally after their escape to shibuya? just from the secret reports we see that tsugumi’s brother is this tragic hero of another story, the conductor opposing the executor and fighting to save his city before ultimately sacrificing himself to keep his sister alive. this is enough content that it could have easily been a standalone, but it wasn’t. i think that’s a damn shame. i’m sure there are people who are already chomping at the bit to write about shinjuku’s tragic final game and it’ll make a stunning fanfic in the right hands, but this is a big gap for fanfiction authors to be filling in.

this was mostly a narrative thoughts dump, but i wanna say just a couple of things about the combat: overall i liked it! i was significantly overleveled for the vast majority of the game partially because i was having fun with the combat, i feel gameplay was very intrinsically motivating. because of how the food system worked, being overleveled didn’t mean too much since it only affects HP, but i also was eating constantly so i was in fact just OP for much of the game. so i suppose, take my gameplay commentary with a grain of salt because i was busted quickly. if i hadn’t been such a powerhouse from early on, i expect my gameplay experience would have been much different.

my biggest complaint: there were some significant issues in enemy design related to battles being timed and the timer having consequences. some enemies were a reasonable/intuitive pain, say, elephants being bullet sponges and chameleons having an invisibility mechanic. these things made them challenging, but in a sensible way. like, of course a big honkin’ elephant has a ton of HP. i think that chameleons in particular could have been tweaked; you have to be very close to them when they’re invisible in order to lock on, and i think this could distance could have been extended a bit to minimize frustration. likewise, it felt like party members that get grabbed by a t.rex were trapped for ages; i feel this could have been tweaked as well. i know a lot of people had issues with wolves for this same reason, but their comparative frailty and my pin choices meant that i quickly overcame wolves and they became a minor nuisance at best until endgame introduced a beefier wolf. even then, i found t.rex noise to be much more of an issue because of their sturdier nature and higher damage output. these are minor gripes; i didn’t like seeing these enemies, but i didn’t hate seeing them. no, here’s what i hate: rhinos and pufferfish.

to me, these are the most annoying enemies in the entire game outside of maybe a handful of bosses. i feel they were poorly thought out in general. the tendency for rhinos to put themselves against the arena walls and the delay on pufferfish exploding after their HP hits zero do not mesh well with that battle timer. i find myself very frustrated by these enemies because it feels like i’m being punished not for a lack of skill or bad decisions choosing weak pins, but simply bad luck. very few pins can circumvent the rhino’s front guard and the hitbox for their guard feels enormous, so i can’t imagine i’m the only player having difficulty herding them out of corners to actually damage them or get beat drops. there’s a postgame dive with a big noise rhino, and it was my worst experience with the entire game because it just kept backing into a corner. i quit that dive multiple times because of how much time i wasted with the rhino; i changed my pins like crazy trying to take advantage of elemental weaknesses or use pins that could circumvent the guard. but it wasn’t about what pins i was using, it was just bad luck with hitboxes. when i finally got the gold rank on that dive it wasn’t that i did anything significantly different, the rhino just didn’t park its ass in the corner that time.

as far as i know, and i hope i’m missing something that someone can enlighten me on, there is no way to prevent pufferfish from inflating and exploding outside of a killer remix. i have not discovered any way to make them explode faster. the amount of time it takes for them to blow up seems to vary not by species but by individual, i’m not sure if it’s being triggered by proximity to a party member or what but i know sometimes one of those little shits will inflate and chase me across the entire arena before finally exploding. in a chain battle, that wasted time adds up. the pufferfish issue could have been severely mitigated, if not entirely fixed, if the gap between HP hitting zero and explosion was just the time it took for them to inflate. that would have basically eliminated my needless frustration with them. but instead i just... don’t know how to make them pop faster.

in normal combat, your post-battle score is primarily just bragging rights/making yourself feel good to have gotten a good grade. but when it comes to dives, where the timer directly decides how many of the finite friendship points you get, the appearance of a rhino or pufferfish specifically is something i approached with dread and disappointment. i already mentioned the postgame dive giant rhino specifically being a nightmare, but this was a reoccurring element for me through the entire game with just normal rhinos. i know rhinos are a returning enemy and kept their front-guard schtick, but the shift to a 3D environment has made them a much more (imo needlessly) difficult opponent.

regarding the pin system itself, i was enormously disappointed to learn how the multi-pin input worked. it turns out that you can only have multiple pins using a single input no matter how many multi-pin wields you unlock; gone were my dreams of having 2 Y-input pins and two ZL input pins (i played on switch). the inability to multi-pin wield uber pins regardless of how many uber slots you have filled is also a huge bummer. i feel like in the postgame i should be able to be an absolute god of destruction, but this didn’t pan out.

this seems to be a switch issue, but autosave was the MVP of the game because i had a few cutscenes crash or freeze (the one with kubo’s reveal seems to be a common source of a crash on the switch version as it fails to load the 3D cutscene); this was annoying and needs fixing, but it was slightly mitigated by autosave kicking in immediately after boss battles. i was crushed thinking i was gonna have to go through the shiba fight again after kubo crashed my game, so the relief i felt upon loading up again and going right into the cutscene was immense. don’t get me wrong: cutscene freezes and particularly crashes are a big problem that a game like this shouldn’t have launched with, but at the very least i didn’t lose my progress on that crash. related, i appreciate the ability to speed through cutscenes you’ve already seen, but i do wish we had the option to skip them entirely because that would have saved me from the freezes that i had to manually close the game and lose progress for.

a more minor complaint that i admittedly am unsure as to how to fix (maybe utilizing the d-pad instead of having it be camera/target select alongside the right stick?) is that i do not seem to have much control over which character my camera centers on in combat. typically selecting the pin that’s equipped to them will focus the camera to them, but every once in a while i’ll be locked to someone whose pin is rebooting while my other party members are actively attacking on the complete opposite end of the arena. i have no idea why this happens. if i’m missing something please let me know. the static nature of the overworld camera took some adjusting to, at first i was offput but i got used to it quickly. if camera was fixed position in combat it would have been a nightmare, but it being fixed in the overworld isn’t the same beast.

this has gotten obscenely long, so props and condolences to everyone who has made it this far. i wanna end on a high note because i want to reiterate something: i have so many criticisms here and that’s actually praise. i enjoyed so much of this game that i’m critical of where it fell short specifically because it’s such a strong contrast to how much i felt it did right. the main story was pretty strong in general, though some character interactions were lacking. the plot itself i didn’t talk a lot about because i thought it was good. there wasn’t much to say, they did a good job! the dissonance noise being created from deleted timelines was great, i loved that. i don’t feel like predictability makes a narrative bad, so it’s not like i was upset when it turned out replay was (gasp) part of a dastardly scheme. for me, foreshadowing is an excellent thing even if sometimes i wish it was handled a little differently.

i vastly prefer this game’s vague sequel hook with minamimoto over how final remix ended a new day; that sequel hook i hated and it had me so worried about neo. thankfully a lot of my fears didn’t come true, and i am very happy overall with the game we got. if another game is greenlit, i would hope it progresses with a mostly new cast; as long as we stay in shibuya some supporting characters can and should be staples imo, like kariya and uzuki, and i hope to see more of what’s being set up with minamimoto even if not necessarily with him as a protagonist. but overall i think twewy’s worldbuilding lends itself much more to a rotating cast if it develops into a full franchise; that’s just the nature of the UG, and i would like to see further installments taking advantage of that and allowing characters to have a complete arc and then retire from the narrative naturally.

i’ve got some pigs to erase and some bosses to slap the pins out of, which i’m sure will take me some time. another day certainly has a secret boss and/or time trial boss rush, so i’ll take a look at that sucker soon as well. i’m looking forward to continuing my playthrough, and i expect to sink quite a few more hours into this game. i really truly enjoyed neo despite my qualms, and i’m leaving the main storyline behind for postgame stuff with almost entirely positive feelings and a hopeful stance on the potential future of the series. i know this was a long-ass post, which is why it’s beneath a readmore, but to anyone who cared enough about my thoughts to keep reading the whole thing... thanks for the time you spent, hope you got something positive out of it!

#neo twewy #neo twewy spoilers #this turned into a behemoth. im so sorry #I CHECKED AND IT'S OVER 11K WORDS #I'M SO FUCKING SORRY

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welllpthisishappening · 3 years

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Hello there, I see you're back on blue-line drabbles! I love them, I am obsessed with this universe. I don't know if I ever came back to say hi after I read all your big fics, but somehow I liked each even better than the last! I don't know how that's possible! But anyway, I think one of the best signs of a good writer/good story is when you're not ready to leave the world once you've finished, and Blue Line is one of the few fanfics I've read where even well after I've finished it, (cont)

(cont) I want to keep living in it and I end up writing my own fic of it in my head (strange, I know). Anyway, for whatever reason, I got really invested in Roland and Lizzie's relationship. Like, how did they end up dating after knowing each other for literally Lizzie's entire life? How did the adults react? Do you have any Lizzie/Roland stories up your sleeve? They would not go unread :)

————

Hello, yes, listen, this ask has lived rent free™ in my head since I first got it and I cannot properly convey how absolutely, goddamn wonderful it is. I am a broken record of outdated references , but it continues and will always amaze me that people are not only interested in Blue Line (more than three years!!! after I originally started posting) but are also interested in other characters in the story who are, for all intents and purposes, original characters at this point. Like the overall size my heart becomes when reading something like that could potentially cause a serious medical condition.

But, like, in a nice way.

So thank you, thank you, thank you. It genuinely warms the cockles of my entire soul. And, like, if you wanna share those fic ideas of the fic, you’ll never hear me say no. Just like I will never turn down the opportunity to write more stuff. Which is what’s under the cut. This stuff includes:

Roland and Lizzie’s first kiss, what I hope is some legitimate banter, more kissing, obvious flirting, and Roland being something of a sap.

Also, uh, it’s entirely possible that I have also already written: Roland and Lizzie’s first “I love you,” their wedding and some other stuff where their kid is involved. Seriously, guys, I am always down to write other relationships in this ‘verse.

————

It was, she figured, something almost passably close to, sort of resembling, definitely inching somewhere nearer to—

Assured.

Unavoidable.

Inexorable

Inevitable.

That was a bad word. That last word. The third one was pretty impressive, honestly. Vocabulary, wise. She’d have to remember that one later. The last one, though. Made teeth Lizzie wasn’t even aware she possessed ache as she ground them together, a pronounced tension in her jaw that was likely affecting her shoulders as well. That word. An awful word. Boasted less-than-positive connotations, letters practically dripping with lack of self-control and overtly aggressive infatuation, but if the world expected her not to be a little in love with Roland Locksley by the time she turned fourteen and noticed that slight indentation in his right cheek every time he smiled, well, then the world had another thing coming.

Dimple, that was the appropriate description. Another word. More words. Too many words. All of them bouncing off the slope of her skull and scratching at the back of her brain, nearly distracting her from what should have been the very pleasant buzz lingering beneath whatever biological thing made up her top and bottom lips.

Which were parted in an emotion very similar to overwhelming surprise.

That was stupid.

The whole thing was stupid. God, maybe she was stupid. No, that wasn’t true. She’d made Dean’s List last semester. Stupid was—

A stupid word, really. Despite the blush rising in her cheeks and the wide eyes practically boring into her soul, bated breath that didn’t make any noise because that was what bated entailed, and no one else glanced in their direction. Not once. No one else noticed.

That the whole world had flipped upside down.

Or right-side-up, maybe. Depending on how the next five minutes or so went.

Because the last two minutes and twelve seconds, give or take, had seen Roland Locksley tilt his head and let his eyes flutter closed before his mouth found hers for the very first time — at midnight for God’s sake. On New Year’s Eve. Or New Year’s Day, she supposed. His parents were standing on the other side of the room.

Suggesting that Lizzie had ever been just a little in love with Roland was a rather monumental lie.

As far as those things went.

“So, uh—” she started, only to find blood in her mouth. From her teeth. Wayward and unpredictable, as they were. Biting down on the side of her tongue and Lizzie hated going to the dentist. Doing irreparable damage to her teeth on what was now legitimately New Year’s Day, in the middle of an annual party, was not on her schedule.

Metaphorical as it might have been.

She liked schedules. Had plans. Focus, even. People always said that about her — how focused she was, liked to throw around the word drive with startling regularity, as if they were amazed she wasn’t simply willing to rest on her laurels or the pair of last names she proudly toted around with her. As if Lizzie expected doors to swing open on a glance.

Rather than consistently preparing herself to knock them down.

She liked the challenge of it all. Appreciated the way disbelief always spiked something in her blood, and that was likely equal parts genetic predisposition and a product of her childhood, but right now, Lizzie was simply prepared to fight for the schedule she’d never allowed herself to mention to anyone else before and it wasn’t like they weren’t friends.

Talked outside the group chat, even.

That meant something. Definitely meant something. Had to mean something. Her lips felt like they’d been doused in liquid nitrogen.

She didn’t know all the scientific properties of liquid nitrogen, but it always made that rather impressive cloud of steam-type stuff on cooking shows. So, it seemed very likely that it did something similar to cause whatever was happening in the region directly surrounding her mouth. Buzzing and tingling, and whatnot.

When had Roland last blinked? Lizzie couldn’t remember. That would have been impressive in any other situation. Right now, it was sort, kind of, totally— Pissing her off.

Color dotted his cheeks, no sign of the goddamn dimple because he wasn’t smiling, presumably couldn’t do that when it was clear he was so intent on pulling his lips into his mouth, and that felt a little insulting. Her tongue had just been in that mouth.

Lizzie was fairly confident in the abilities of her tongue, so she wasn’t all that pleased to be replaced by a pair of lips that could have been doing much better work against the side of her neck.

“If you sit here right now and tell me that you are,” Lizzie lifted a finger, “one, sorry,” another finger, “two, anything even remotely resembling regretful,” another finger, wiggling close enough to Roland’s nose to make him just a bit cross-eyed, “or, three, too old for me, I will throw my heel at that bruise I know exists on the back of your left calf.”

His lips twitched.

He really had impossible eyelashes. Seemingly made so he could glance up from underneath them, to meet Lizzie’s steely expression with what she refused to believe could be cautious hope. Passable optimism, maybe. She’d have to look up what liquid nitrogen did, later.

“I’m standing.” “I hate you.”

“You wanna go in order, or how do you want to work this?” “Where else are you bruised?” Roland laughed softly, a shift of his shoulders and tiny burst of air between barely parted lips. Feeling that tiny burst meant they were standing very close to each other. How they were standing remained another mystery.

One of those great ones, Lizzie figured. The kind referenced when people talked about the sweeping potential of life and love and— Ah, fuck.

“Please don’t threaten to attack me anywhere else,” he muttered, before quickly adding, “you gotta know this was not my end game, Liza.” Narrowing her eyes did nothing to temper the…tempest. Swirling in her gut. Threatening the back of her throat. Eating away at vocal cords and vocal boxes and the structural integrity of her entire goddamn larynx. Possibly her tongue, too, just to be especially efficient.

“Really? Might’a been mine, actually.”

She’d always liked his eyes.

How they could widen, and it wasn’t like...a normal brown. Nothing about the way he looked was ever dull. Drifted toward regularly excited, and the sparkles were probably a figment of her over-active teenage imagination, but Lizzie liked to think sometimes the sparkle came from her. Because of her, even. When she’d call because he always wanted to hear about her latest lecture and he’d call because sometimes Western swings were exhausting and loneliness-inducing and—

She knew.

He knew.

They knew each other.

Grand scheme, the sparkle-prone eyes still weren’t particularly close to the dimple. On the list of things Lizzie liked. What left butterflies fluttering in her stomach and her heart hammering against her chest. Sparkle was probably a solid fourth. Behind the precise way his curls fell toward his eyebrows when he didn’t have time to get his hair cut. Which rarely happened during the season. Right now, it was happening right now. Well-defined strands that Lizzie knew felt even smoother than she’d ever theorized between her fingers, and she wasn’t sure what she was going to do with that information.

Obsess over it, probably.

For at least the next week, or so.

Still. Eyes. Eyelashes. Too long and too bright, and that was the wrong description order and she was starting to teeter. On the edge of a rather dramatic free-fall. Into feelings and possibility, and this was way too dramatic. For both of them.

“Don’t do that,” she mumbled, a scrunch of her nose that apparently demanded his thumb. Brushing against the bridge, and there wasn’t any caution there. No obvious fear or concern. For the way it left Lizzie’s lungs pinched, and there must have been a limit.

To everything her internal organs could cope with in a limited span of time.

“What was the last one on the list?” She swallowed. “Too old.” “Yuh-huh.” “Pretty flimsy as far as excuses go. You realize I’m not asking you to marry me right now, right?” He choked. On what, she wasn’t entirely sure. Only that it made her stomach heave and her teeth dig into her lower lip, and that was— “Because I know I said, end game,” Lizzie continued, giving in to the need to fill empty space with the sound of her own voice, “but that sounds like several pop culture references all at once, and you know how much I—”

“Hate to come across as disingenuous.” “Mattie’s the pop culture reference machine, anyway.” “Please don’t talk about Matt when I keep thinking about how much I want to kiss you again.” Her eyes, that time. Widened. Bugged. Did something unnatural. “Yeah?” “You’re kidding me, right?” “You’re not an old man.” Rolling his eyes, Roland’s tongue dragged across the front of his teeth. To torture her, apparently. “I was in college when you were a freshman in high school.” “Yuh-huh.” “Liza.” “Nah, nah,” Lizzie shook her head. Crossed her arms. Tried to stand up to her full height, but even the heels didn’t do much to add to the overall intimidation factor. Roland was doing an awful job of fighting off his smile. “Pulling out ancient nicknames is not—” “—It’s not a nickname; it’s literally letters in your name.” “Nick,” she leaned forward, “name. All personal-like.”

Making mistakes was not something she enjoyed very much. It was that Jones competitive streak. Plus, the Vankald stubborn streak. Created a monster of determination, who knew what she wanted, and feeling Roland’s fingers graze her cheek as a strand of hair hung limply in the minimal space between them was the result of Lizzie’s mistaken movement.

Even as much as she might have wanted it.

Goosebumps prickled her arms. Stole whatever oxygen she’d managed to get in the last forty-six seconds, or so. Her eyes fluttered. Head tilted. Towards the touch and the warmth, and for someone who spent so much time on the ice, he really was impossibly warm.

“This is your fault.”

He didn’t move his fingers. Cupped her cheek, instead. “You were doing that eyebrow thing.” “Expand on that for me.” “Lifting ‘em. Happens sometimes. When you’re listening intently. Like you’re a little amazed by new information. They’re these stupid little arches on your face. Drives me nuts.” “The compliment was in there somewhere, I’m sure of it.” “I am so much older than you, Liza.” “Shouldn’t’a played out a bunch of teenage daydreams at once, then.” She was legitimately worried about the state of his tongue. Barely biting back her laugh, Lizzie let her eyes lift. To find Roland gaping at her, drooped shoulders and puppy-dog eyes. And that goddamn dimple. “C’mon, this isn’t...do you think I haven’t made out with people before?” “Wouldn’t classify what we just did as a makeout.” “No?” His eyes darkened. Shivering was probably not a good move, right? Right. Definitely. She wasn’t shivering. It was just...January. And inside. With dozens of people around them. “I would not, no,” Roland said, and the drop in overall volume was some sort of trick. Or, something.

“How many people do you think you’ve made out with? Ballpark it for me.” “No.” “Is the issue a lack of appropriate numbers to tally that mark, or—” She bit her tongue, again. At the flash of amused frustration sweeping his face and polluting the molecules of whatever air was hovering between them. Permeating was a better word. Lizzie really needed to work on all of that. Words. Being slightly less jealous of potential make outs that didn’t have anything to do with her and definitely happened because there had to be other people out there in the world who simply could not cope with the existence of that dimple.

“How many people have you made out with, then?” “Scores,” Lizzie snarled, only to get immediately scoffed at. “I’m really, incredibly popular.” “Oh, I’ve got no doubt.” “Boatloads of guys. Lining up to,” she pointed an imperious finger at her mouth, “make out with this.” “Your well-defined chin?” “I’m going to take my shoe off.” “Draw attention with a move like that.” Whatever fight she had didn’t immediately die. It just, sort of, fell. At her feet, threatening all the bones there and there were too many. All of them far too fragile. For whatever metaphor she was running with at the moment. “And we’re not trying to do that, huh? Draw attention.” “Shouldn’t you be out sowing wild oats?” “Really know how to charm a girl,” she grumbled, and that got her a smile. No scoff. Not even the hint of a smile. The whiplash was hurting her neck. “Trust me, the oats have appropriately sowed. If I was ever particularly inclined to farm work.” “I’m starting to be vaguely embarrassed by all of this.” “Good.” Wasn’t quite a scoff. Was more like a half-hearted laugh, and a tinge of desire and that was better than the other emotions, but the decreasing level of Roland’s eyebrows gave her pause. “What about the status of your oats?”

“Well sowed, rookie season,” Roland said.

“You’re going to change the name on your jersey.” “Not sure that particular fact has a lot to do with anything else. Seven years, Liza.” “I’m perfectly capable of doing math, you know I took that stats class once.” “Because I double checked everything you turned in.” “Makes you slightly less of an idiot than the vibe you're giving off right now.” “A freeway or compliments.” Pulling in a deep inhale through her nose, Lizzie didn’t miss the way Roland’s gaze fell. To the neckline of her dress, lingering on the jut of her collarbones for a few seconds longer than a strictly platonic friendship should allow, and they were friends. Still. She knew that as well as she knew that he believed she thought he was simply being clever with nicknames.

And not making vaguely incorrect My Fair Lady references.

Because he’d always been a little annoyed that Eliza had gone back to Henry Higgins. Instead of Freddie.

It was really impossible not to be a little in love with him at all times.

“You’re really going to hyphenate?” Roland nodded. “Think of all the new jerseys they’ll sell.” “By the box-load, and Gina’s gonna buy the entire stock. She’s—that’s really nice, you know.” “Just a fact. Little late, but—” He shrugged. Lizzie’s smile threatened to split her face. In that same nice way, she’d been talking about. Her lips were still buzzing. She might have been buzzing. With adrenaline. Happiness. The near-desperate desire to find some type of closet and get her fingers back in Roland’s questionably long hair.

“Of naming conventions.” She couldn’t begin to guess what the record was for shoulder shifts in an emotionally charged conversation between two people who were simultaneously ignoring the point of the conversation, but Lizzie also knew her eyebrows had been halfway up her face as he’d detailed the reasons for making his jersey say Mills-Locksley. From here on out.

Maybe that was the top of the list, actually.

He was a good guy.

Had always been a good guy. The best guy, really.

Falling into that chasm wasn’t nearly as terrifying as Lizzie expected it to be.

“Why’d you do it?” Roland’s lips disappeared. His tongue moved, again. She was staring at the area around his tongue. So, like, his mouth. Directly at his mouth. “Because, I uh—have wanted to?” “Oh, don’t phrase that like a question.” “Wanted to,” he repeated, a statement of fact with a certain amount of conviction. Enough to make Lizzie’s pulse sputter. “Which is kind of freaking me out.” “Come back with more compliments.” “Your dress nearly made me fall over.” “Better, actually,” she laughed.

He ran his fingers through his hair. “Made sense at the time.” “Be more specific.” “Kissing you,” Roland said, enough emphasis that he leaned forward half an inch as well. It was a miracle their noses didn’t collide. Not the most impressive miracle, but—counted. “If I tell you that you might be my best friend does that make the lamest professional hockey player alive?” “Yes, absolutely.” “Matt might challenge you to a duel if he hears me talking like this, you know.” “God, Locksley, didn’t we just talk about the Mattie rules? Also, that made it sound like Mattie wants to kiss you too, so...”

He chuckled. Fingers still tugging on the back of his hair, like he was trying to ground himself in the pull and the self-inflicted tension, Roland looked up. Back at her. And Lizzie didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Held her position and prepared herself to defend the schedule she’d only ever allowed herself to hope for in the silence of that one corner in her brain.

Filled, as it was, with memories. Of conversations that didn’t have anything to do with hockey. Others that did. Arguing over blue line placement in the brownstone and college rankings. Of movies watched on two different laptops in different corners of the country, bad jokes, and consistent updates, that deep-rooted understanding that came from a life full of expectations and the exact opposite. No overt pressure, but the need to prove yourself anyway, if only because of the name on the back of the jersey, and Lizzie was going to have to buy a new jersey.

“You like me? Yes, or no?” Roland smiled. Wide and honest, the kind that ensured the dimple was on prominent display. “Yes.” “I am a grown adult? Yes, or no?” Crinkles appeared around his eyes. From the smile.

“Yes.” “Meaning I get to make my own choices. Romantically, or otherwise. Yes, or no?” “Obviously.” “Wasn’t one of the options.” “Yes,” Roland corrected, fingers trailing over the bend of her elbow. Lizzie hadn’t uncrossed her arms. Or remembered when she’d crossed them in the first place.

“Ok, good. Same page, then.” “Liza.” “Locksley.” Lifting her eyebrows wasn’t a challenge, per se. Was closer to instinct, really. Specifics didn’t matter, honestly. She did that thing with her eyebrows, and he did that thing with his mouth, the same one she was staring at and hoping would move closer to her, and then—

Well, it did.

Hands found Lizzie’s hips, pulling her forward sharply enough that she let out a soft grunt. From the feel of hips bumping against hers, and she honestly wasn’t sure who hissed in their next inhale, only that it did something to the flutter-like state of her pulse and the erratic nature of her heart, and it was slow and fast and good and great and not a single person noticed.

Miracles were arriving en masse, apparently.

Pushing her fingers into Roland’s hair got Lizzie another hum of approval, the first brush of his tongue making her lips part and her head fall to the side, but then his hand was wrapped around the back of her neck, and she could not be expected to pay attention to anything except the semi-consistent swipe of his thumb against her skin. It left more goosebumps. Caused another chuckle, the kind that rumbled through her and resonated around her, a tiny bubble of that same cautious optimism from before.

Like a spark.

Fanning flames and threatening to burn everything because if this didn’t work, then Lizzie wasn’t sure what would, and that was scary and overwhelming and terrifying was a synonym, but she really was working with very limited word-based resources when Roland’s thumb kept moving. Tracing her. Committing the feel to memory, and she wasn’t sure when they’d established the rocking pattern they were moving in, but something deep in the center of her trusted it.

Someone who regularly strapped knives to his feet and raced around at top speed knew how to stay balanced. And she was a stubborn idiot. Who got what she wanted.

“Is part of liking me because I told you I didn’t think it was embarrassing that you still got a little emotional about Miracle on 34th Street?” Laughter pushed past her lips. Took root in the pit of her stomach and the spaces between her ribs. Laced through her heart. In the kind of way that cemented itself. Right in the middle of Lizzie. Right in the middle of this. Them.

There was a them, now.

“Was definitely a factor, yeah,” Roland said, not bothering to pull away. “You, uh—you snuck up on me a little, Liza.” “Peak romance.” “Want me to talk about your dress some more?” She shook her head. “Unnecessary. And you didn’t.” “That might be part of the problem.” “Nursing old crushes, you mean?” Her hair hit her cheek. And his hand. He couldn’t seem to let go of her. “Nah, this wasn’t like...there was no torch, not really. I—I wasn’t hanging posters of you on my wall if that’s the picture you’ve painted for yourself.” “Kinda disappointing, admittedly.” “Pick a lane, babe.” No sparkle, that time. Just flash and want and the very thin line Lizzie’s lips had become. “Be more specific,” Roland repeated softly. “You’re not standing on a pedestal. Just you, Rol, as is.” He waited. That was fair. There should have been more. Should have been a detailed list of all the reasons the grown-up version of her liked so many parts of the grown-up version of him, but that all felt a little extraneous when she was still thinking about closet-type possibilities and that stubborn streak was a mile wide, anyway.

Roland nodded once. “Good.”

Both of them jumped. At the pop of another champagne bottle and Lizzie never understood how Regina managed to order so much champagne every year, but she felt a bit like she was floating on the bubbles, and they didn’t decide. Explicitly. To keep the whole thing—

Secret.

Another bad word. With bad connotations and shadows that clung to the definition, but this was them and only them and, for right now, that was enough. And if no one noticed the way Roland’s hand drifted over the small of Lizzie’s back during David’s speech, then that was a miracle she was willing to accept.

#blue line rambles #blue line one shots #these really are just original characters at this point #i have also written:#matt and claire meeting for the first time #henry and ella meeting for the first time #stuff about peggy and jeremy humbert #and i've got a whole list of will x belle stuff #in case it wasn't ovbious people still aren't responding to my emails #oh! also roland and lizzie's engagement #i wrote that too #also if you are so inclined: wilder days by morgan wade played like four times while i wrote this #mylifeisalifestyle #laura rambles

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