#its unspoken the way that they understand each other but its so meaningful and real when they /do/ say something/do something | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ktheist · 4 years

Text

1 | friend in me.

“don’t confuse your party friends with your real friends.” (x)

muses. party friend!jungkook x reader ft. bestfriend!taehyung ft. ex-boyfriend!namjoon

genre. university au. fwb. f2l.

words. 6.1k

warnings. mentions of break up, mild exhibition, alcohol use, future mentions of joint, future smut, mature content

alternative title. to my dear friend.

final part. exclusives only (x)

note. this fic hasn’t been showing up in searches no matter how many times i repost and it’s got a special place in my heart so i really want it to reach the audience, that’s why i made a few changes in hopes to beat the odds lol. enjoy!

striking up an unlikely pact to look out for each other’s backs at parties, is the last thing you expect to do with jeon jungkook. sure, you may or may not find a reason to laugh at his lousy antics and corny pick up lines - he’s also a great kisser but that’s besides the point.

the point is, you’d like to keep him as that - the friend that you meet at parties and parties only. so when you see him on your campus grounds, naturally your first instinct is to stop, turn the opposite way you’re heading and where he’s coming from - and start fast-walking to the other end of the campus like the devil is after you.

except that devil comes in the form of denim jacket, white undershirt and wavy dark hair that easily falls over doe eyes that seem to sparkle when you freeze at the sound of your name and turn around to face him with an awkward smile.

he breaks into a mini jog, leaving his friends that you’ve never seen before, behind. your own friends who you’ve been walking with and ditched at the sight of him, gawping at you and the new face from the spot where you decided to leave them at.

why couldn’t they have gone on their merry way - regardless if you’d paused and trekked to the opposite direction you were heading to?

jungkook skids to a stop in front of you, pretty pink lips quirking after he tilted his head to shift his hair out of his eyes instead of pushing it back with his hands.

“hey,” he greets, glancing down at his scuffing vans before meeting your gaze again, the tip of his tongue running over his bottom lip before retreating back into his mouth, leaving a sheen of moistness on his lips, “i didn’t know you went here.”

willing yourself to smile, you push your hair to the back of your ear before wrapping your arms around your chest, “yeah,” you drag out with an awkward chuckle, not as oblivious as he is of the stolen glances coming from the people passing through the walkway.

“what are you doing here though?” you notice his own friends that he ditched waiting for him several feet away - a group of attractive men and women who clearly belong to the equally high place group from your own faculty.

and yet here he is, talking to you - the ghost with rounded glasses sitting atop her nose and faded chapsticks on her lips. out of all the days you could have looked more zombie-esque, jungkook had to show up at your faculty today.

he’s nice enough not to point it out though as his lips turn into an ‘o’ shape. if you focus, you’d probably see the light bulb going off in his head as the answer to your question hits him. though at this point, you’ve already been hit by your own realization of the reason for there being more people walking around with mechanical appendages and remote control of every kinds. it must be-

“we’re here for the robocup tournament,” he grins, excitement apparent in the way his eyes seem to widen as you can almost hear the screws in his brains working before the question tumbles out of his mouth-

“what about you? are you joining?”

you want to laugh.

and that’s the thing about jungkook - he’s so good at reading you that he knows something’s up. brows knitting together, “what’s... up?”

the shaking of your head is purely reactionary - you’ve made a few friends who came around to compete at times your faculty was the one to hosted it, like now. it’s not as serious as it seemed to be but it’s not entirely something you joke around either since it involved someone’s blood, sweat and tears to make the cut but-

“guess you haven’t heard about the long standing tradition of the circuit breaker’s string pulling. the competition’s rigged.” despite your too willing trip down memory land, you still let your eyes dart around in case anyone’s listening. after you’re sure no one was, only then do you finally go on, “every year, they pick a judge’s kid as part of the team - even if they weren’t enrolled in seollyu and were in some other non-robotics related university, they’ll get close to them and keep them around until the competition. one year, one of them even went as far as dating a judge’s daughter when they couldn’t recruit her into their team.”

swallowing down the bile, you pretend not to notice the complete downturn of his lips as you roll your shoulders in a shrug out of the need of having something to do that doesn’t require focusing on the conflicted, purse lipped frown on jungkook’s face.

“oh wow, we never heard anything like that in beongju.” he murmurs, eyes drawn to the grass a feet away as he contemplates.

“it’s okay, what matters is you guys have fun.” you wave a dismissive hand, smile more natural but still sporting its awkward tucks.

“yeah,” jungkook nods before he meets your gaze, smiling in a half-hearted attempt to ease his own mind, “who knows? maybe this year, beongju will come out victorious.”

you nod, chest blooming with hope - a wishful thinking perhaps, “maybe.”

it’s when his eyes twinkle with a different kind of excitement that you know the matter of the competition is past him, and that’s your cue to go.

“hey, are you-“

“i have a class to-

you both stop at the same time, staring at the other for the longest moment before jungkook offers for you to continue, “you first.”

“um,” you would have deflect it back to him out of politeness. that is, if you didn’t know that he was going to ask you if you were free. possibly to grab lunch or a smoothie somewhere. but that’s the thing, outside of parties, you’re a completely different person altogether. right now, you’re the all-work, no-play study-hard. none of your equally study hard friends are aware of how you are at parties - none of the people you know, know how you are at parties because you made sure to attend only those you’re sure you wouldn’t run into acquaintances. of course it’s difficult and there are a few familiar faces you can identify as people from your faculty at every party but barely which is a safe amount. so it doesn’t make sense to break the unspoken, mutual understanding of the core you and jungkook’s friendship is built on. he might have forgotten how important it was for you that you were strictly ‘fun’ friends, so it’s your job to remind him, “i have class right now.”

you take a step back in preparation to bolt towards said nonexistent on-going class, “but hey, good luck on robocup. oh yeah, what were you gonna tell me?”

jungkook’s “oh - uh,” shouldn’t have sent waves of relief to you the way it does, but when he mumbles a “nothing - it was nothing.” you couldn’t help but suppress a grateful sigh.

on any other occasion, with a person completely separate from jeon jungkook, you would have pressed on - encouraged them to say what they initially wanted to say. but instead, you shoot him a smile, “oh -okay. guess i’ll see you around?”

“uh,” it’s clear as day that he doesn’t want to just leave it up to chance to bump into you in this big building with at least a thousand occupants coming and going everyday throughout the competition but the way smacks his lips shut tells you he there’s something holding him back, so he settles with a, “yeah... see you around.”

“you know,” you pause, tendrils of reluctance forbidding you from relaying the tale of how you and jungkook met in hopes it was indicative enough but judging from the way jisoo has her eyebrows raised, lisa with her knowing smile, taehyung and jimin expectantly waiting but with the first actually shooting you an meaningful stare - it seems like you have no choice but to say it-

“we spoke a few times at different parties and realize we have the same party mutual and get invited to the same parties so... we decided to hang together... at parties.”

“hang,” lisa echoes, underlying tone couldn’t have been more obvious as she grins from ear to ear.

“please, no way in hell do you just hang with jeon fucking jungkook when there’s booze and a dozen of empty rooms involved.” jisoo comes barreling through like a bulldozer, hands in the air as she squeals at whatever scenario her mind is cooking up in her head.

laughter trickles out of your mouth as you hide your face in your palms in an attempt to avoid jisoo and lisa’s eyes and the things that they’re hinting at with a mere gaze.

“why?” taehyung’s baritone finally hits the air as he leans back against the recliner. once the silence settles in a second later and all eyes turn his way, he adds, “not that it’s any of our business but,” he shrugs, “he’s not really your crowd - not any of our crowd.”

that’s the million dollar question. taehyung hates beers and crowded places - which is a surprise given his social butterfly-ness among all five of you. jimin, jisoo and lisa do go parties - those that your closest friends would be at. otherwise, they aren’t adventurous as you.

maybe jimin has a another side that you don’t know - it’s a known fact that he has other friends. dance friends, drinking friends, and whatever type of people with similar interests who flock a certain direction.

just like how you had jungkook and the group of friends you hung out with at parties.

“i mean, my dance friends aren’t exactly your kind of crowd either,” jimin interjects from the floor, head lulled to the back to look at taehyung, “remember how you wanted to avoid hoseok at all costs after i brought you to a practice once?”

“yeah,” you instantly second, hand gesturing to the man in a ‘exactly what he said’ manner before turning to the taller guy, “everyone makes friends where their usual friends aren’t.”

“i guess,” he cedes after what felt like the longest pause in your history of friendship.

it is that moment, just as your muscles begin to relax, that your phone dings with a notification. unbeknownst to you that you still command the attention in the entire room, you cluelessly let check out the new text message.

koo: we lost ):

“it’s him.” lisa announces, the bed shaking as she scoots away when you try to swat her thigh.

“and she has him saved as koo,” she - without any trace of intentionally constructed pun, coos, hands clasped together next to her tilted head as she bumps it with jisoo who’s mimicking her gestures.

“he just texted to say he lost,” you clarify, shaking your head at the two girls’ antics.

not that it changes anything as jisoo leans her whole body against lisa, an arm on her forehead in a troubled manner, “now i wish i had a boyfriend.”

lisa hums in agreement, her long limbs extending to wrap around the older girl’s torso as she rests her chin on top of jisoo’s dark brown tresses.“me too, sweetie. me too.”

typing out a ‘i’m so sorry. it’s okay they don’t deserve your talent anyway ):’ with a mixture of emojis, you hit send just before turning to what jimin is saying.

“...go to one. i heard alpha sig is having one tomorrow,” then he turns to you, as though you bear an abundance of knowledge about which place is having a party and on what day, “right ____?”

it takes you a moment to piece together what he said. you didn’t hear the beginning but you’re sure it’s something along the lines of jimin setting the two lonely singles to break their 2 month no-party streak and maybe get that boyfriend they wanted.

“jimin, i’m not sure,” you say shortly before turning to the two girls,“not that that many good, upstanding citizen of men go to the parties i went to though but maybe there’s a miracle waiting for you girls,” you smile in genuine hopefulness while referring to an entirely hopeless place. but it turns into an emphatic one as the two girls fake cry about the minimal chance they have to get a - in what you could make out of jisoo’s fake bawling - hot, sexy party boyfriend. whatever that meant.

you don’t have the time to confirm it when your phone dings again.

koo: thanks i can always count on you to be real w me 🥺🥰

another grey bubble pops pushes the text you’re reading upwards.

koo: you coming to alpha sig’s party?

koo: we have to be here for the closing ceremony tmr anyway

koo: help me make good memories before i leave seollyu 🥺

you suppress the urge to roll your eyes at that. he’s only been here for one day and he got invited to one of the most hard-to-get-in parties on the campus.

naturally, you and jimin were invited from your underlying reputations. and naturally, whoever you bring is invited too.

except you’re not a fan of going to parties that you know you’d meet the exact people you didn’t want to meet.

lisa peeks at your phone the second time - and you didn’t even notice until she screams, “___’s going to alpha sig’s!”

“oh my god, will he be there?” jisoo leans her entire body over lisa in a reckless abandon to get a peek of what the younger one saw only to have you hold your phone away.

“um? privacy? anyone?” you offer while jisoo pouts.

“duh, she’s going because of him.” lisa says im a matter-of-factly, “otherwise, she wouldn’t even entertain the thought of going to any party infested with people we already had to see sober.”

“am not.” you counter, the matter of replying already long forgotten as you cross your arms over your chest, phone tucked in between the side of your boob and hand, “if i’m going, it’d be because i want to!”

“so you’re going?” jisoo blinks, eyes twinkling with hope. so are lisa’s.

you have no choice but to turn your cheek to a laughing park jimin on the floor. his pupils disappearing behind his lids. clearly, he’s not going to back you up. so you turn to the only other person who you thought would.

“if tae’s going then i’ll go,” you declare, already feeling the triumph of what the man would choose from his precedent choices. “not that you guys need me to get in since jimin’s already-“

“sure.” the taller man announces.

you’re forced to make a double take while your jaw drops in your lap along with jisoo and lisa’s while jimin blinks in surprise from your periphery.

completely conscious of the gazes boring into his skull, taehyung attempts to casually shrug it off as a- “since you guys are going, you know.”

jisoo yelps in celebration before going “great, who’s up for some chicken?” shooting up and sending the mattress shaking as she takes big steps over your legs and hops off the bed. hands planted on her hips, she glances around the room with the residue of a pleased smile from the decision of all five of you finally going to a party together.

“me!” lisa follows suit with the exception that she’s crawling on her hands and knees to get off the bed.

“me but i don’t want to get up.” jimin whines, unmoving from his spot which is lying on the fluffed pink carpet as taehyung’s birthday present to his otherwise creme themed room.

“come on, park. get your ass off the floor and to the parking lot - get it, park jimin goes to the parking lot?” jisoo begins tugging on his wrist, the sight rather comical considering how she’s trying to make a man twice her size sit up, let alone move to get to the car seeing as he’s the only one with one.

lisa shares a doubtful look with you and taehyung at the poorly made pun, questioning why jimin seems to be the only one chuckling but then again, he’s always been the easiest to entertain.

after huffing and puffing, jisoo finally plucks the boy off the floor. but getting him to walk the distance from his apartment to the car is another feat.

it’s when their voices echo in the hallway, and you and a certain taller man is left in the room, do you notice the difference in this silence compared to the rest as he pushes himself up.

“are you going for real?” you finally ask, throwing your feet over the bed.

taehyung’s lips pucker as he contemplates the pros and cons, “what’ll i do if i don’t go? binge watch maze runner and be reminded of the fact that all third movies suck?”

maybe he doesn’t hate parties as much as you initially thought. after all, it’s been a year since he vomited all over kim sowon while making out on the couch at alpha sig’s.

you grin, elbowing the man as you both make your way out of the room, “hey, maybe you could find yourself a girlfriend while you’re at it.”

taehyung’s laugh doesn’t reach his eyes but you chalk it up with the jitters of the thought of having alcohol course through his veins and surrounded by bodies on the dance floor, “huh, yeah.”

the day fly by between getting to classes and getting lunch - it was a feat to convince everyone to go to dumpling place just a little bit off campus but you’d managed and subsequently successfully avoided running into jungkook for the day.

“bih, what the fuck?” lisa gawks, jaw descended to the ground as she stares at your mini black crop top that stops a few inches above your high-waist ripped jeans.

if you didn’t show up to classes in sweats and oversized sweaters, round glasses and hair always up in your laziness to make them look presentable - every day, maybe your ability to throw on some eye make up and highlights over your foundation wouldn’t have been so much as a surprise.

unlike you, your friends have always been on top of their game when it comes to appearing like functioning members of society. the clothes they have now have also been worn to class before - that’s how you know their confidence is sky high while yours require a little bit of help depending on what you wear.

why they decided to adopt a munchkin like you into their otherwise perfect clique, you’ll never know - but maybe it had something to do with you looking like a lost puppy in your first year with your round glasses and the thick books you carry around. it was a matter of time you ran into someone and drop them - that someone being jisoo.

after that, the rest was history - your prejudices towards groups of attractive people have never been so diminished.

your hair bounces gently as you hop into the passenger seat, giggling shyly at the attention you’ve garnered with your otherwise usual getup for a fun time.

“if i knew you won’t have any problems surviving off skinny jeans and cute tops, i would have burned those baggy clothes a long time ago.” jisoo confesses, red lips curled into an impressed ‘o’ as she takes in your appearance.

you gasp, truly offended to know your day-to-day choice of outfit has never been any of your friend’s preference yet only now do they make it known - talk about fake friends! “don’t you insult my comfy clothes like that!”

a light bump on her shoulder forces her to tear her gaze away and turn her cheek to the grinning girl next to her, “maybe she has a reason to dress cute.”

and just like that, the two breaks out into coos. sending you signals with their entire face muscles as jimin chuckles from the driver’s seat.

“but you know, this is how ___ usually dress up for parties even like before she met jungkook.”

you send praises to the gods for sending you this blessing of a friend as you fix the two girls a smirk, posing like a model as much as the cramped space allows you, “nah, i got it from my momma.”

an onslaught of protest - denials - mixed with cheers erupt as you begin to poorly mimic that of models with your limbs pointing in every direction and body bending in weird angles. it doesn’t take long before laughter tumbles out of everyone’s mouth, the front seaters included - taehyung had achingly turned in his seat to attend your fashion show while jimin stole glances in the rearview mirror.

yoo jeongyeon is the first to wave you over. if there’s a grey area where party friends and real friends merge together, it’ll be her. you’ve gone to parties together and had fun - though the last time you did, you ended up waking up on the same bed with some guy on the floor.

jin? jun? jeong? j-something grinned when he woke up to the sight of you two, “so... can i get you girls’ number?”

jeongyeon didn’t bother to hold back her grimace and you’d strutted into the bathroom as if you didn’t hear him.

“kim taehyung, lisa manoban and kim jisoo.” she studies each one with an impressed, “how did jimin and ____ manage to haul your asses out and over here?’

“the single life they’ve been walking has finally slapped them in the face and they finally want-“ you get cut off by lisa’s fake chuckle that sounds every bit forced.

“-wasted.”

“-boyfriends!”

they end up saying at the same time. while jisoo is finds no fault in her confession, lisa’s face is heating up - coming second next to you when it comes to shying back into her shell when topics like these come to light.

“taehyung too.” jisoo hooks her hand around the aforementioned man’s arm, stopping him from slowly disappearing into the crowd like a certain park jimin has, her other one around younger girl.

“jeongyeon, you have introduce us to cute guys or we’ll end up dying from all this single-ness!”

at that, the woman burst into laughter, hand on her stomach as she tries and fails to suppress it.

“i don’t know,” she wipes a tear from the corner of her eyes, “isn’t that more of ____’s specialty?”

“uh,” it takes a heartbeat for you to register what jeongyeon is saying before the same heart in your chest crashes against the ground at her next words.

“everyone knows,” a meaningful smile quirks on her lips, “about you and-“

“i- uh, i think i heard jackson calling me - something about a group project.” you quickly say, cursing yourself for the less than plausible excuse to get away.

and the three girls think so too as they call you out for it but you don’t stop until they’re out of earshot and out of the spotlight, ending up at a table full of booze.

you pop a can open, letting the bitter taste wash over your suddenly dry throat. the alcohol hasn’t got to you yet but you know it will and maybe that’s the only thing you have going on as you walk around, waving to people you know and lingering to talk with some, noticing that most of them are halfway to getting drunk.

some time later, you spot jisoo, lisa and jeongyeon dancing with some of your close friends. beer in their hands. you wonder how they’re going to find a boyfriend or even a hook up if they just keep to their circle - that was the clear as day distinction between you and them.

where they feel the most comfortable surrounded with familiar faces - regardless of whether they like them - you find comfort on a room full of strangers and the knowledge that you wouldn’t see them anymore after that.

but that wasn’t the case for jungkook. after one too many parties and several ‘hey, i was hoping i’d see you’s, a sense of camaraderie starts forming. of course, rules don’t apply where it would in a normal, socially sober setting.

you were friends as much as you were fucking like rabbits. finding comfort in mornings where you wake up without a sense of recollection, a throbbing headache and a lump of body underneath the sheets only to sigh in relief upon finding out who it was as though to say ‘oh thank god it’s you and not some rando i won’t know how to politely kick out while emphasizing that i have class in like 5.’

you embark on a visual searching journey to look for the same boy who wouldn’t mind if you had to shut the door in his half-awake face on mornings you had to get ready for class and still smiled at you later that night when you meet at a different party - until your gaze lands on a pair of brown eyes.

instead of wide and doe-like, the one that captured yours are hooded and heavy, boring into the windows of your soul. all of a sudden, you’re brought back to the same time last year. back when you were just a freshie with a stomach full of butterflies as you shyly look away from those piercing eyes.

but now, all you feel is your stomach rearranging and bile almost rising to your throat as you take a swig of the beer before melding into the crowd.

alpha sig is known for their closeness with circuit breaker, having been been sponsored by your own faculty for those with outstanding achievements to stay on-campus.

but none of the circuit breakers ever come to these parties - or at least, he never did.

almost as though the stars and planets aligned to manifest your only thought, a familiar voice wraps around the syllables of your name. and you would have continued on your merry way and pretend like you didn’t hear anything, if only you’re not in a hallway where there’s least people and subdued music compared to the dance floor you just escaped from.

“i heard you’ve been around,” kim namjoon stands at the end of the hallway, decked in plain gray t-shirt underneath a leather jacket and black pants. he takes easy, casual steps towards you with a dimpled smile that couldn’t have been more vain, “but i couldn’t believe my ears,” his shoulder line jolts as he shrugs, “well, until now, at least.”

“who would’ve thought? the cute ___ who blushed from a simple peck would have this side to her.” he stands a good half a head over you, his cologne’s changed from the last time you’d come in such a close proximity like you are now.

“yeah,” you drag out in a half-singing voice, face schooled into an unfazed expression, “i mean, it’s better than going around tricking girls into sleeping with you, right?”

at that, his smile instantly drops into a hard set frown as he lowers his voice, “i didn’t ‘trick’ you into having sex with me,” his lips quirk up at possibly a recollection of that night, “as i recall, you begged me to take your virginity.”

“that was before i knew your shitty motives to get brownie points from my dad just so you could win a stupid competition,” your voice is equally low and threatening, body heating up from the remembrance of those unreplied texts and the look in his eyes when you approached him that monday after the tournament - like he didn’t even know you.

namjoon laughs - the sound dripping with mockery as he throws his head back slightly, “come on, that was like a year ago. get over it.”

that’s it.

that’s when your mind is the clearest. no amount of beer could tell you otherwise - that this man right here doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt on the occasions that your friends begin spilling hot tea about the leader of circuit breaker and the things the members have done to win. they didn’t know about you and namjoon - nobody really does. you should have known those late night meetings and nothing but a polite smile when you pass in the hallways - were all red flags.

ones that you willfully ignore in the guise of ‘i’m not ready to tell everyone yet’s and ‘it doesn’t matter, if nobody knows, right? as long as i know you’re my girl’s

“you’re a dick.”

you push past him, cursing internally when he doesn’t budge and you’re the one who ends up with an almost dislocated shoulder.

it is only when you’re pushing a through the sea of bodies and swatting hands that try to grope your ass, does a certain doe-eyed, bunny smile enter your vision.

almost instantly, the urge to pinch the hand on your lower back disappears after knowing who its owner is. you’re pressed up against each other - the dance floor doesn’t allow much room for personal space and you’ve shared your personal spaces with each other far too many times to need that kind of distance from each other.

“i was looking for you,” the alcohol in his breath doesn’t feel all that repugnant as he nears his mouth to the shell of your ear, igniting a fire that kim namjoon had set up with the previous exchange.

he stands straighter, lips puckered sulkily as he swayed your bodies together, “we lost and everyone in my team had girlfriends or boyfriends to comfort them-”

your hands that cup his face and digs into his messy tresses make him clamp his mouth shut. the gentlest protrusion of his adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows in anticipation.

he asked and you shall grant it.

girlfriend. fuck buddy. what difference does it make?

“i know, koo. i’m sorry you wasted your time on that dumb competition.” you purr, noticing how his gaze becomes glazed as he steals a glance at your lips before meeting your eyes again.

a heartbeat later, you’re pressing your mouth against the softest pair of lips you’ve ever known. mentally, you make a note to ask what he uses to keep them smooth and kissable.

he snaps out of his stupor a moment later, hands snaking down to grab your ass like he’s done this a million times before and knows just how to get you moaning into his mouth. almost as natural as breathing, he slips his tongue past your lips tasting you.

another moan escapes you when he begins kissing down your chin, trailing sloppy kisses on your neck and suckling on the one spot that gets your heart palpitating on your chest. hands tucking on his pleated outer shirt for the sake of having something to hold.

you bring jungkook’s face to yours, noticing the sheen on his pinker lips before pressing another deep kiss. he doesn’t to think twice to react. one hand on your free hand slipping underneath your crop top. when someone shove into jungkook, almost sending you tumbling backwards and ending up doing the same to another person - jungkook curses. “fucking drunktards.”

a giggle escapes your lips, “pot calling the kettle black? we were probably bumping into people on nights we were shit faced drunk.”

“probably.” he shrugs, fingers lacing around your wrist as he guides you off the dance floor and into the kitchen where he doesn’t waste a second in hoisting you up onto the counter and slips in the space between your legs.

“hello.” you murmur, resting your forehead against his, cheeks hot and body aflame.

“hey, beautiful.” he fixes you a lazy grin, lips drawing closer to your mouth but before he manages to close the hair breadth’s distance, he stops.

“wait.” he murmurs against your lips, eyes glued to them as though he’s picturing another part of him on them.

“what?” you whisper, just as enticed by his own lips as your try to pull him closer with your arms that’s wrapped around his neck.

“are you drunk?” are his next words and you’re well aware the basis of where it spurred on.

once upon several parties ago, you’d included stopping you from putting on a risque show if your drunken self ever abandoned your self-restraint. jungkook, on the other hand, doesn’t love attention per se but he doesn’t shy away from it either.

“i’m not,” you assure, drawing closer to his lips by the second like moth drawn to flames. but you have enough sense to tilt your head to steal a glance towards the direction where you’ve been feeling a hole being drilled into your skull. your heart skips a beat when you catch namjoon’s eyes - he’s leaning against the wall with his friends either standing or sitting on the couch, beer in one hand.

“but i need your help to make someone jealous.”

jungkook follows your gaze towards namjoon and his friends a few feet away. it doesn’t take much for him to piece two and two together - especially after your a apparent animosity while telling him about the competition being rigged.

“ah,” he hums - you could just hear the smile in his voice. your knees weaken at the touch as you begin kissing the patch of skin closest to your lips which is his jawline. “i don’t know if i should be sad or happy that you’re finally agreeing to have sex in public with me because of some what’s-his-face guy.”

“not have sex sex,” you correct, delight filling your chest when he shivers - whether it’s from your touch of the image your words are painting in his head, you’re not sure, “but make out with me like you’re a kiss away from fucking me senseless?”

“i thought that’s a given?”

not needing to be told twice, you find yourself being devoured like a little rabbit in the arms of the beast. the background around you blurs together as you inhale jungkook’s scent, feel the warmth seep from his body to yours. your hand snakes down in between your bodies with one goal in mind: the gentle protrusion brushing against your own crotch.

“fuck a show,” jungkook hisses harshly against your mouth, breathing becoming labored as you caress him over the layer of his jeans, “where’s the closest room we can get to?”

you nod in agreement, hopping off the counter and tugging on your top to keep your nipples from being exposed after jungkook’s hand fall away from your breast at your retreat.

“they might have empty ones upstairs.” you tug on jungkook’s hand, making your way to the staircase and trying not to step over drunken bodies making out on the ground or simply passed out.

it’s when you get one foot on the stairs, that a clamoring thud erupts from somewhere on the dance floor - the air that was once blaring now pin drop silent. jungkook’s cheek presses against your back as he wraps his arm around your torso, a peck landing on your shoulder, not telling you to move but not really interested at the reason you paused to peer through the gaps of bodies that seemed to be looking at something just around the corner.

“shut the fuck up, dickhead!” a voice thunders against the walls after another thud that sounded like heavy equipment falling against the ground - and possibly breaking.

“must be those football guys fighting over a girl.” jungkook comments, uninterested.

on any other occasion, you would have agreed and gone on your merry way but it’s the unsettlingly familiar baritone that made you freeze in your spot in the first place. it’s with a rattling realization and the sight of jisoo among the throng of people, calling out “taehyung, leave it!” that gets you to trudge back to the floor, vaguely aware of jungkook trailing from behind with a “what’s wrong?”

eyes bore into your skull as you finally push through the throng of people and burst onto the scene. jisoo has her arms around taehyung’s while jimin appear miniature as he stands between the taller man and an unnervingly calm namjoon. the latter wipes a trace of blood from his busted lower lip as chills run down your spine when the man’s eyes falls on you, lips curving into a vain smile.

“why don’t you ask her yourself?” his voice drums against the walls - loud and clear to those who are watching which is basically everyone here.

“come on, ___, everyone wants to know if you begged me to be your first and how we fucked in the back room of the student lounge.”

#bts smut #jungkook smut #bts scenarios #jungkook scenarios #bts fic #bts fanfiction #jungkook fic #jungkook fanfiction #jungkook #bts #bts x reader #jungkook x reader #bts imagines #jungkook imagines

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nomoregoldfish · 3 years

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I Promised You The Moon rant

Just binged it and this was from the episode by episode reaction/discussion with my partner in crime @glossyboy.

First of all, Oab stole the show, singlehandedly, which he's not supposed to. I don't think anyone expected it including himself. In the very top post when I searched his name on tumblr, he said this lol

But the truth is he played one hell of "villain" that required a very nuanced performance and he delivered it in a believable and graceful manner. Jai became the catalyst of the entire season and his rather complicated relationship with Teh was the highlight of part 2.

EP 1

From the very beginning it's clear that part 2 is very much a Teh's story rather than a balanced story about two young people's journey as a couple in the next chapter of their lives. It makes me uncomfortable they made Oh-aew clingy and pessimistic without giving him any character development.

The best part is probably the opening scene where they went paper-rock-scissors to decide who's gonna buy condoms. It felt authentic, the expectation, the hesitation, the mischievous act, all fits their characters well. Other times ep 1 was more like two adult kids playing house, literally in an empty giant ass upper middle class apartment.

EP 2

It's great that they poked the femininity vs. masculinity issue through Oh-aew, but stopped right there at the surface. Missed a perfect opportunity to go head-to-head with the controversial topic, start a debate, crush the stigma of femininity, bring something new, be a real game changer of the BL genre, and most importantly give Oh-aew some concrete character development. Part 1 showed us a gay character that's very comfortable with his sexuality and femininity, that's almost revolutionary in Asia, not as a comic relief but a leading role. Oh-aew questioned his own sexual identity once in that bra wearing scene, it's straight out of comfort zone, BOLD, and transgressive. So I expected more from part 2.

That's it? And they're already sophomores? Can't believe Oh-aew's character has been marginalized like this. It's pathetic.

But I love the brutally honest conversation at the end where Teh vented his rage and despair regarding his frustration of acting. He was acting like a dick because he's disappointed, and scared. Teh again was not afraid of showing vulnerability, making the reconciliation very realistic and touching.

EP 3

Dare I say I freaking love ep 3! The unresolved (partially sexual, but not entirely) tension between Teh and Jai was over the roof! And the built-up to their kiss was very authentic, which paled Teh and Oh-aew's much sidelined storyline, including the long anticipated sex scene (still can't believe it happened right after Jai explicitly instructed Teh to do it after the two spent a whole night bonding, like wow! Totally TRANSGRESSIVE and to some extent, kinky.) Teh looked up to the senior, idolized him, wanted to be good for him and make him proud, thirsted for the validation from him, which was mixed with affections. The workshop diary was a brilliant idea to let them open up to each other and eventually bring them close. This was what a meaningful arc of a story looked like. By contrast, there isn't a single moment between Oh-aew and Teh in part 2 that made me go "Damn it's soooooo hot!"

I know Jai/Teh wasn't the endgame but I appreciate the storyline so much. It's a very bold move considering it broke the over-glorified "one true love in one's life" fantasy of its target audience, mostly young cis women. The popular narrative of "you can only love one person through your life/one true love" in romance fictions/chick flicks was totally smashed. And it wasn't written just to stir up things between Teh and Oh-aew, it wasn't a silly fling. Instead, it's meaningful, complicated, natural, and realistic, delivered by nuanced and excellent acting from two young actors. It's hilarious that fans hate Jai with a passion and call him names.

And big news, Jai is bi?! Bravo! He's radiating bi vibes since his first appearance.

I kind of gave up at this point, the season wouldn't do Oh-aew any justice. Like my partner in crime pointed out, the costume design literally threw some "incongruous female fashion pieces" on Oh-aew, made him dye his hair red, without...making any actual point of his personality or his character development. Wardrobe was supposed to make a point in storytelling. Yes, PP wearing pink is cute, and? There's nothing else for Oh-aew. Unfortunately he's reduced to this sulky, crying, and wronged partner in a failing relationship.

EP 4

Oab again was killing it. The tension between Jai and Teh...from the rehearsal in front of Oh-aew to the dressing room pep talk, was incredibly intense and hot AF.

Was it a manipulative relationship after all? Oab was so good at conveying a character with many faces. Jai's a mentor to Teh, also a good friend, their relationship was genuine. He's also ambitious with his own goals, he used, challenged, provoked Teh in a way that benefited them both. It made sense the title of part 2, I Promised You The Moon, was from Jai's script. He promised Teh what the junior wanted the most, a bright future in acting. Teh's unconventional and unspoken feelings for Jai was the best part of the entire season in terms of creative writing, it's complicated, fragile, delicate and completely heartbreaking.

The after talk in the hallway was so well-written. It's funny (Teh joking about playwrights always write about their EXs is gold), intimate yet meticulously controlled, no one lashed out or wept. Both knew what they signed up for and Jai particularly made it clear about his motive and the purpose of the "special workshop" beforehand (or right away.) Yet it's no one's fault that Teh got carried away. He's younger, he's immature, he's more into it, it's totally natural. It's so romantic when Teh's singing karaoke in the bar with Oh-aew, yet he couldn't help but desperately staring at Jai on the floor, knowing he and the man who just turned him down were never gonna happen, they were done, but he's still madly attracted to him and his talent. He fancied Jai, at least the idea of Jai, a playwright, a director, someone knew him better than himself. That hurt beautifully.

EP 5

Teh/Oh-aew endgame at this point was pretty meaningless. Oh-aew as a leading character never got any solid character development over a span of four years. What happened between Jai and Teh wasn't just "cheating", though they surely made it look that way, like Teh's empty promise of "I won't see him again after the show ends". No matter how Oh-aew and Teh eventually reconciled, there's no emotional connection, no sparkle anymore between the couple.

But I knew for a fact they had to. Otherwise it's too much of a risk financially for the series. The creators had to take the easy way out like most traditional romances—one of the most contrived and formulaic trope where the male leading character made a mistake (usually cheating) and realized he's wrong, he deeply hurt the female leading character (Oh-aew was merely a girl substitute in part 2), then he completely changed for hell knew what reasons, started doing every nicest thing in the world to try to "win" the female character back. It has been feeding the emotionally-deprived cis female readers/audience who are frustrated with heterosexual relationship irl for decades. The formula that made romance outsell other genres of fictions combined in the 60s and 70s still sells today, under the name of boys' love. It's pathetic to see Oh-aew confess to Bas that he always "lost" to Teh. Love shouldn't be some kind of game or competition, there isn't winner or loser in love. Love is spontaneous. Oh-aew didn't lose because Teh developed feelings for someone else, and he didn't win when Teh begged him for reconciliation. People change, people move on.

And as predicted, they went for it. The ending was so absurd and tedious.

Overall, Jai's probably the hardest villain to play, he needed to be REALLY GOOD to be "the bad guy", to make his role conceivable. Oab absolutely nailed it with his talent and experience. He's not even my type or extremely good looking yet I'm 100% SOLD. I immediately re-watched the scene of him kissing Teh back hungrily at the end of ep 3 like I used to re-watch Teh/Oh-aew's steamy make out session at the end of episode 3 part 1. Coincidence?

I like some parts of both seasons for the same reason, each challenged and tried to break some outdated/contrived narratives in the BL genre. Part 1 took on the sexuality taboo by showing two same sex characters sexually attracted to each other, no more "I'm not into boys, I just happened to fall for someone of the same gender" or "pure love" bullshit. By staying true to the characters' sexuality and actually showing it with explicit, intense (and beautifully shot) scenes, the gay characters were normalized. They weren't just pure and innocent, no one was. And it created two of most unconventional gay characters in Asian pop culture, Oh-aew, a beautiful boy who's very comfortable with his own sexuality and femininity, not passive at all, taking initiative to pursue what he wanted; and Teh, a sensitive, caring and vulnerable boy who cried a lot, he's confused but also sweet and brave.

Part 2 tackled the "You can only love one person through your life" trope with a very nuanced story of "cheating". Yet neither carried out what they started. Part 1 fell short of a revolutionary piece that stayed true to "adolescent sexual turmoil", dismissing bisexuality and becoming a typical unrealistic BL fantasy in the end. And Part 2, ugh, forced a "happy ending" that almost no one digs. I understand it's extremely difficult and risky to disrupt the established norms of a genre. But sometimes being transgressive and progressive could be the same thing. A story, an artwork, has to challenge something in order to create something new and compelling.

#i promise you the moon #i told sunset about you #ipytm #oab oabnithi #billkin #pp krit #rant post #asian lgbtq dramas #lgbtq #i promised you the moon

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morsartis · 3 years

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Lights Part 2

It’s been a few months since your encounter with Boldir, you won’t say ‘chance’ because it had been arranged, and you’ve been simply continuing with your life. As it turns out Boldir lives in a little apartment downtown not too far from the bakery you frequent. She’d seen you going there and recognized you, apparently it was Mallek and Dirk’s cyberstalking that led her to seek you out officially. You aren’t sure if you should feel grateful for their paranoia and less than morally applaudable methods bringing Boldir back into your life. It’s not as if you’re happy those two are stalking you but you are happy to have a friend back. It sits on the back burner of things you worry about- not so much a pressing thought as a pop up.

The two of you have slowly been getting to know each other again. Outside of his control you aren’t the same person that Boldir was familiar with, and even she has changed outside of Alternia’s influence. Some things remain unchanging, such as her fashion sense and love of conspiracies but its noticeably not driven by a need to survive. She’s more relaxed. Though there will always be that part of both of you that is still on guard against threats. That’s willing to do the morally dubious to survive. It’s an unspoken acknowledgement between the two of you. There’s blood strewn between you from what you’ve both done in Alternia’s harsh nights to sleep through another harsher day. You don’t think any one of your neighbors or any manner of people you’ve interacted with understand it the same way Boldir does. Or any of your old friends do. You know that no one would suspect you capable of half the things you did. Some nights you still wake up with horror numbing your body and terror screaming at you to move. Those are the nights you make yourself something strong to wake up to and settle in for feeling like shit through the entirety of the day. To say you’re working through it is a hopeful mantra. You hope that there will be a day these feelings will be but a distant memory. As it is you’re wide awake and nursing a coffee like it’ll burn your unsavory memories away with enough exposure. You’d decided to go to the mall today since you hadn’t been in some time. Mostly you were just looking for a way to kill time. Sitting on a bench watching the other mall goers flit about you were starting to regret your decision. Everything here was just making you feel worse and even more exposed. What you wanted to do was crawl your way under your blankets and stay there. Getting up you tossed your drink into the nearest trashcan and went looking for the right exit. You had to pass one of the little mall theatres and suddenly stopped. Now wasn’t the time to miss her. And yet you were frozen remembering the taste of popcorn and the comforting darkness as the credits rolled. Of her hand in yours. It had been a while since you had an episode so bad you missed Polypa like one might miss a limb. The breath you took rattled through you thinly and you knew you had to get out of there before you got any worse. It took a conscious effort not to break out into a dead run. Instead you were walking briskly, eyes glued to your own feet, as you rushed towards the exit. You tried hard not to bump into anyone but even so you still managed to do it. Just a clipping of shoulders and elbows. Head shooting up you went to apologize only for the air to leave your lungs entirely.

She looked wonderful, black cargo shorts and her signature tank top. The chip in her horn was still there but it wasn’t the jagged wound of your memories- instead it looked tended to. The edges softened to keep it from being so glaringly obvious. Her hair was still the messy black you came to appreciate but this time it had a sort of neatness to it. Polypa looked right at home. Tongue tied you could only stare with wide and disbelieving eyes. There was movement out of the corner of your eye- slow and deliberate- but you only had eyes for your moirail. Or rather, former moirail. A hand carefully hovered near your cheek and you could feel the tears stinging against the corners of your eyes. Her lips pulled taut into a thin line and her hand pressed firmly against your jaw. Then her other hand came up to do the same. There was the rustle of plastic and you were vaguely aware of the bag dangling from her arm as her hands cupped your face. As she took a small step closer.

“Polypa?” Your voice cracked and you shut your mouth with a click of teeth. She wasn’t your moirail anymore. She wasn’t. It didn’t make you want to collapse against her any less. The harsh lines of her brows seemed to soften at that as she carefully guided you closer and you had to wonder exactly how pitiful you must have looked.

“Where’s your scuttlebuggy?” She asked quietly. Your shoulders trembled.

“I walked.” The walk had seemed like a good idea at the time. A way to clear your head. Now it seemed like the worst decision you ever made.

“Okay.” She was wrapping an arm around you so tightly you were forced to walk pressed flush against her side. A protest bubbled up your throat and promptly died on your tongue when you saw the few trolls scattered about blatantly staring. Against you Polypa’s chest rumbled with the hint of a warning growl. You were reminded of all the times you’d been in a similar situation back on Alternia, though those times you’d been the one doing the comforting. Had Polypa ever been given the chance to return the favor? There was that first time but you’d been so out of it he’d stolen your words and warped them to fit the narrative. The realization helped sober you just a bit. This was the first time she was seeing you break. The real you. Your entire body shuddered as the realization settled into your mind. This was it. If Polypa didn’t like what she saw it was over. The comforting memories of the two of you together would be overshadowed by this. This simple but momentous moment. Your tears were finally getting to the point of blurring your vision as the two of you exited the mall. She was warm, you thought to yourself, not the same warmth a human would give off but warmer than you remembered. And she was still tugging you along pressed tight and held firmly in her grip. How the two of you managed to walk all the way back to your house you weren’t sure. It seemed as if one minute you were walking away from the mall and the next minute Polypa was taking your house key out of your fumbling fingers to open the door herself. Again you could feel a protest bubbling up. A warning that she had to leave now because you couldn’t handle it if all this amounted to was you getting your hopes up. As she shut and locked your door behind you both the words stilled in waiting on your lips.

Why had she locked your door?

“Force of habit, come here.” She replied forcefully, you hadn’t even realized you’d asked her that out loud. As Polypa gathered you back up close again she took in your little home. It wasn’t much of course. Just what you’d managed to scrape up and get when you started out here, but it was nothing to be ashamed of. With a careful precision she walked you through the house and straight into your room. In moments you were being sat on your bed as Polypa knelt down to unlace your shoes for you. The action had you feeling rubbed raw. Fresh tears spilled down your cheeks as she carefully pulled off your shoes and set them aside. Her face was impossibly soft as she looked up at you.

“Is this okay?” There was something raw in the way her voice just barely trembled. As if this was just as meaningful to her as it was to you. With a choked sob all you could do was nod. She was careful as she crawled onto your bed with you- kicking off her own shoes as she went. There were the beginnings of translucent olive colored tears in her eyes. A desperation you felt just as keenly mirrored in her actions.

It broke what little restrain you had as the agony of it all overwhelmed you.

“I missed you.” She whispered as you laid barely awake and hollowed out curled up close and warm against each other. You squeezed her with what little strength you could muster, voice long gone from your feelings jam. Me too, you wanted to say. A few more tears tracked down your face as Polypa settled in closer. You two still had so much more to talk about. To discuss. To figure out. But it could wait. As you finally drifted off into a well deserved sleep you knew she’d be there when you woke up. It was the first time you slept like the dead since coming here.

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Infinity Train Season 4 Struggles To Communicate the Importance of Communication

https://ift.tt/32DtSc4

This article contains spoilers for Infinity Train season 4.

Infinity Train has a short, but complex history. After a somewhat neglected run on Cartoon Network, the show received new life on HBO Max for a third season. Following that, however, it seemed unclear whether the show could nab another renewal. But enough online attention was garnered to achieve that fourth and final year. (HBO Max also seems to have a much more energetic desire for animated content than other similar networks and streaming outlets).

The first three seasons of Infinity Train are raw, honest, and stark. Its first season follows a young girl coming to terms with her parents divorce and the fleeting, ephemeral nature of memory. The second is a curveball, in which a “reflection” of the girl from the first season comes to life and fights for her own freedom–a wild meta-tale about autonomy, identity, and independence. The third season, which focuses on two chaotic, long-term train passengers, is about abuse, manipulation, (male) toxicity, and violence unchecked.

The expectations for this fourth season, which features two Asian-American kids who find themselves trapped on the train’s bizarre universe, were pretty high. But the thriving potential and expectations laid out for this final season never come to bare. Infinity Train’s “Book Four” (which is how the show brands its seasons) fizzles, with a sort of epilogue feel to its proceedings that never quite reaches the dark, raw highs of its predecessors. The fourth season is ostensibly about the importance of clear, honest communication. But the irony is that the show fails to communicate itself clearly.

Infinity Train season 4 follows Ryan and Min-Gi who are stuck in different places in life, post high-school. Once close friends, connected by their love of music, the two saw life in different ways: Ryan is an idealist and an adventurous, “think before he acts” sort, while Min-Gi is more grounded, level-headed, and cautious, to the point of freezing up. This literally happens when Min-Gi runs from Ryan right before a big high school talent show, a moment which buttresses the unspoken rift between them.

Min-Gi stays home, studies, gets accepted into college. Ryan takes to the road, doing various shows anywhere he can, and seems to make some modest success, despite losing several girlfriends along the way. Ryan returns home to see Min-Gi working at his parents’ restaurant, and the two catch up, with low-key tension surging between them. Impudently, Ryan rushes off with the restaurant’s keys, and Min-Gi chases him. The two rush onto a train, then somehow find the doorway into the Infinity Train. This is how our protagonist duo finds themselves onboard the mystical, mysterious caboose.

What makes Infinity Train’s previous seasons work so well was how they start out somewhat basic but quickly leap into unexpected places with depth and nuance. Its highs are immensely high; its lows are dark, sparse, and painful. Its protagonists are self-assured but deeply lost, and in their quest to find themselves, they both open up new layers about themselves, as well as the nature of the very quixotic train itself. This fourth season doesn’t quite do this.

There’s a unique wrinkle in this venture, in that Ryan and Min-Gi are paired with the exact same “number” (the mysterious number that appears on passengers’ hands that “countdown” positive character improvements that leads to their freedom), an occurrence that is clocked by the show as particularly strange. But there’s no real internal, or external, revelation into why the train decided to pair them together like that. (To be fair, I think the train conductor did have a reason, but the bold choice to have this season take place prior to the other three muddles things; in the midst of Ryan and Min-Gi’s journey, Ameila’s takeover of the train happens.) But unlike the protagonists of the previous seasons, Ryan and Min-Gi never venture off to examine the train as a whole. In effect, Ryan and Min-Gi’s journey is surprisingly straight-forward, a kind of winking idea to what essentially any person’s journey on the train would look like.

It’s a bold move to portray a “regular” journey for a final season, but it’s disappointing in that it never takes this (non-train) time to really explore its characters in new ways. The contrasts between Ryan and Min-Gi are pretty boilerplate–the free spirited, snap-decision maker vs. the grounded, level-headed thinker is as common a duo as it comes. But the more concrete revelations of these characters never quite make an impact.

Min-Gi mentions that his parents never paid any attention to him and ignored him and his dreams. There’s hints of a darker sense of parental neglect here, but it never gets laid out. Likewise with Ryan, who speaks often of the pressure his parents put on him to study, work, and go to school. With no other info about the way he and his parents specifically conflicted over this, it feels abstract. The first episode, “The Twin Tapes,” sporadically has the emotional heft of these interpersonal dilemmas, but never really examines them in the characters themselves, not in the way that Infinity Train often allowed its characters to feel.

In effect, these characters are talking around each other but not really communicating; neither seems to react or (try to) understand the others’ perspective. They aren’t introspective about each other, and the frustrations and issues that Ryan and Min-Gi vocalize during their journey feel more like soliloquies than conversations. They talk but they don’t communicate; as a result, their potential characterizations aren’t communicating, and therefore not connecting, to the audience.

This is disappointing because perhaps the one thing that seems to be the gel of this season–Ryan and Min-Gi’s relationship–never elevates itself to the level a final season should. The two fight a lot, and those fights are valid, emotional, honest, clunky, anodyne, awkward, tedious, immature, silly, and fraught–the multi-emotional ways interpersonal spats tend to be. But they’re never revealing.

I don’t think I’m overstepping here to say that there is at least some queer subtext between the two; an early moment in the first episode has Min-Gi blush profusely when Ryan gives him a hug of appreciation. But in that same episode, Ryan’s rotation of failed girlfriends suggest that the queer angle is merely one-sided; fair, but Infinity Train never addresses that either. If Infinity Train was mandated to play down that angle (a common reality due to the pressures and demands of studios and networks), then there’s always the nature of two friends of wildly different personalities clashing before coming to an understanding.

It’s basic, but it can work. As mentioned earlier though, there’s little revealed about the history of these characters at an individual level, so their interpersonal tension never goes anywhere meaningful. The previous three seasons used various sci-fi/magic/fantastical methods to delve deep into the particular pasts and truths of its protagonists, presenting multiple sides to their current problems. Book Four never does that beyond the first episode, and it feels like we’re missing something. Ryan and Min-Gi just cycle through bouts of random verbal fights and endearing truces–right to the very end.

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The catty nature of this conflict could work though, if the storytelling here wasn’t so clunky, something that Infinity Train is usually very good at managing. There’s moments where the show struggles to engage in conflicts organically, and is forced to make its characters act dumber than necessary. I don’t know how even the most impulsive characters would decide to “dig underground” to try to sneak into the building (weird train logic not understanding). When Ryan’s number goes down, Min-Gi, who is usually reserved and low-key, spends an uncomfortable amount of time belittling Ryan as the one who needed to learn a lesson, not him.

Season four’s most dramatic moment is centered around a museum that hosts an malevolent force which compels its victims to act and say terrible things, but the force is not particularly well explored. It’s stunningly, beautifully horrifying: a series of hands contorted into a grotesque monster. The hands have numbers on them, too, an horrific implication that comes close to fruition with Min-Gi in its grasp. But the rhythms of the scene are somewhat shoddy; Ryan escapes by accident, and has no idea how to get back to Min-Gi to save him. Ryan’s desire to save him causes his number to go down and his path home opens up; he thinks about leaving, and his number goes back up, closing off the path.

It’s a moment worth exploring, sure, but it never gets its due because Min-Gi eventually escapes the hands monster, but blames Ryan for leaving him. He didn’t, but the season puts so much dramatic emphasis here that it sort of represents the most significant tension of the characters. But it just comes off awkward, especially since that (misunderstood) anger is barely present in the next episode.

But that’s on purpose, I think, to try and get at the deeper, more complex issue of the lack of clear communication between these two. And it’s definitely worthy of a topic. But it never quite wraps its head around that point, and that’s partly because the season never gets into why they don’t talk. The queer subtext is out. They never get too much into their pasts, only hints. The estrangement angle and abandonment issues are under-explored. Their connection is over their shared love of music, but that feels like a singular weak connection, in comparison to the stakes. They’re friends, but Infinity Train fails to explore the full extent of their friendship and the nature of the understated conflicts between them. There’s certainly a lot of emotional drama between them, and it’s played as earnest and honest as possible, but there’s little information about them to heft up that drama. By the end, these characters are still ciphers.

Kez, the floating, talking bell that “guides” Ryan and Min-Gi, feels more well-rounded. Her wonky, circuitous way of talking feels like a quirky character trait at first but is revealed to be a purposeful method of ignoring the problems she causes and not taking accountability of them. The enemies she made chase after her (and by proxy, Ryan and Min-Gi). She’s ridiculed by “other” friends for her unreliability, then is called out by the humans when it’s revealed she was only stringing them along to satisfy Morgan, a talking castle. And that’s happening because a passenger, Jeremy, bonded with Morgan and Kez for five years in the midst of deep, deep grief and self-blame for an accident that killed Jeremy’s wife and sister.

Kez’s style of talking inadvertently spurred Jeremy to accept and move on from the accident, sending him home. But that triggered an assortment of resentment between Kez and Morgan, as well as the ire of the other train denizens on their heels. Kez’s final admission, saying sorry, eases all those tensions, which feels a little simple for past grievances, but at the core there’s depth and history there, even implied, which provides a richness to those characters that Ryan and Min-Gi lack.

That’s the thing: Kez’s dilemma, in that lack of communication, forgiveness, and atonement, is the thematic parallel of the tension between Ryan and Min-Gi. But while Kez’s story has enough implications around the edges to feel interesting, Ryan and Min-Gi, the season’s protagonists, don’t have enough of it to match the powerful moments of seasons one through three.

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Season four is certainly fine as is, and has plenty of funny moments, as well as quietly honest ones. But it never quite provides the impactful revelation or scenes that Infinity Train usually provides to transcend Ryan and Min-Gi into something singularly clear and open. Communication and clarity is the key to any relationship, but Book Four mumbles its story straight to the end–not as clear as the bell on Kez’s head.

Infinity Train season 4 is available to be streamed on HBO Max now.

The post Infinity Train Season 4 Struggles To Communicate the Importance of Communication appeared first on Den of Geek.

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bisexualsilver · 4 years

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Also... when do you think flint and silver both respectively knew they were deeply invested in the other..? I think they have on-going moments of "oh shit, they did this and I'm helping them...I'm in deep" oddly enough silver was probs more in denial? He focused on personal interests like $$$ & survival while pretending he wasn't ride-or-die for flint, but I think that flint on the surface claimed silver was a means to an end, but privately to himself acknowledged that he liked silver (1/2)

(2/2) they're both morally gray in v diff ways, silver focuses on his own actions (& later those he cares about - crew, Madi, flint) in the context of "who wouldn't do this when between a rock & a hard place?" in terms of survival where you can only depend on yourself, which is why he has such trouble leaning on others. Flint has gone his whole life knowing in order to be 'good' you have to act & be a certain way, so when that fails him, he purposefully goes against the old rules, knowing that-

(Shit ask 3/4) - that what the world believes is Right has grievously done him wrong. Flint wants to fight the entire world for its strict black & white views because he tried to follow it, but it punished him for it. Although we don't know much of silver's backstory, he seems to have always known no one but him has been on his side. Flint decides if they'll cast him out then he'll become everything to be feared, while silver lived drifting in between places & w/o ties to bind him to anything

(4/4 sorry this is the last one!!!) Silver figured that people might not want him but he could talk fast & charming enough that maybe they'd forget that long enough that he could get by. And their initial 1st impressions are based on these extremes,but once they begin to know each other they can no longer assume the worst of each other. Silver says how he knows flint so deeply & that they have given their absolute friendship to one another... anyways now I'm stuck thinking about flintsilver...

hello sorry this took me so long to answer!! my brain has been shit this past week. don’t apologize i love thinking about these two. also i’m gonna put this under a read more cause it got long

i’m pretty sure i had a headcanon for this three years ago fuck if i remember now. i agree that there definitely wasn’t a moment where they suddenly realized what they meant to each other, it was something neither of them expected or could have prevented. although in terms of meaningful moments i do feel like the shark hunting scene is a big turning point for flint in terms of seeing silver in a different light. it’s between the end of s2 and s3 that he started to have more respect for him and then accepted that they were fundamentally partners. but early in s3 he was also too deep in his own grief and depression to acknowledge or think about what silver meant to him beyond an unconscious sort of camaraderie, and it isn’t until late s3 and s4 that you see him mellow out and start to look at silver in a different light and accept that there’s more to him than he first thought. one of the most important moments is flint telling silver about his backstory, cause he’s saying “i trust you with this and i know you will not judge me for it”. and silver doesn’t! and s4 flint is so much softer towards silver in a way that’s almost painful to watch. he realized how much silver meant to him but also knew silver wasn’t ready for it, and he was prepared to stand by him and madi and be their equal and have it be unspoken

and i feel like silver was in denial or unaware about his feelings right until the end (and i mean the last shot we see of him). from the start we do see silver as someone who’s smart and cunning and who can fend off for himself and for whom flint was just a means to an end, but by s3 he is forced to change that mindset and care about and rely on other people. he Loves his crew and they love him, but i think he’s also wary of flint and he mystifies him as something beyond human. i used to cite the cage scene in the maroon camp as one of the turning points for silver, cause by that point he isn’t ready to trust him yet, and then he is forced to by the circumstances, and he sees that flint is a solid partner and someone he can rely on. and, of course, the line “there is an element of this journey into the dark i’m only now beggining to appreciate. how good it feels”. that’s silver getting to a place where he’s starting to understand flint’s mind, and letting him know he’s right there with him. silver thought flint was a monster, and now they both are monsters in their own right

but silver never told flint about his story, and that speaks to his inability to come to terms with his own past. given the importance that flint’s own story had narratively, it also signifies that he’s not ready to face that part of himself and his own relationship to flint (even though flint accepts that he cannot tell him). silver cared deeply about flint and knew they were something beyond partners and friends, but he was unable to voice what he really meant to him and put a name to it. and that’s the real tragedy of black sails!! i feel like he only came to terms with it years after stopping the war and sending flint away, and he was filled with both regret for loving him and letting him go, but relief that flint was with someone who (in his mind) deserved him.

whoo anyway i am filled with silverflint feels on this fine friday morning, yet again.

#black sails #silverflint #bs meta #anon #answered #black sails anon #my meta

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quintessence-sentimentalist · 4 years

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Hey, thanks for answering my Hay LinxEric question. Now, how would you fix IrmaxJoel?

Sorry for the delay on this—I haven’t been in quite the right mindset for the in-depth analyses as of late, and the question of how to fix this couple is a tricky one.

Don’t get me wrong, it is a very good one. Compared to a number of the other relationship fix-its I’ve considered (CxC, Nigel x Taranee) where I haven’t had a particular attachment to the couples, I actually have a lot of feelings about and adoration for Irma and Joel. And while that can also be said about HLxE, my perspective on Irma x Joel is a bit different.

Namely, the fact that I love their platonic relationship as it was presented in canon, and would actually have been pretty aligned if they were kept that way for the rest of the series.

(But of course, we couldn’t even have that, as any sort of acknowledgement of their relationship was wiped out of existence, and then referenced out of nowhere and without explanation many, many issues later with Joel thinking on how “Aw, we used to be friends, but not anymore.”)

I’m not saying I don’t ship them romantically (I do, and we’ll get into my fix-it of that later on in this ramble), but it wouldn’t have necessarily been a deal-breaker if they didn’t end up together. Admittedly, I’d probably be eating those words if Irma and Joel were still hanging out by the time Stephen (or, really, any brand-new love interest) came into the story, if only because throwing Irma into a romantic relationship without any real on-page emotional buildup doesn’t sit right with me no matter how I slice it. To be fair, that’s also just a me thing, because I prefer my ships to have a strong personal foundation over having the characters be drawn together primarily because of looks, etc., so there’s definitely room for different views.

For me personally, though, the only way I’d really be behind a non-IxJ endgame is if a) Irma didn’t end up with anyone (which could have been great! The other girls were single at various times in the series, but having Irma be the one who’d never been in any sort of relationship would have been good to show that it’s more than okay to not have a significant other at that age), or b) Irma ended up in a relationship with someone else with whom she already has a long-established emotional connection (i.e. I’m not counting an old summer camp crush that we’ve only just learned of when it’s convenient to the in-story events). Seeing as that second option pretty much leaves us with either the other girls (which is fair) or Martin (not as sold on this one, but it’s a little bit better than their animated series counterparts), that would potentially have to be a fix-it as well.

Regardless of Irma’s relationship status—in a similarly meaningful one or not in one at all—let’s look at a fix for platonic Irma x Joel. Honestly, this one can just be summed up as LET THEM REMAIN CLOSE FRIENDS.

Really, it’s… it’s not that hard. Kandrakar knows that I love these girls and their bond, but I also like to see their lives outside of Guardianship, and that means that they can have other friends beyond each other. (Which they did try to do with Taranee and having Luke and Sheila, and I appreciate the effort, even if it wasn’t really executed in the best way.) Irma and Joel were something special, with their shared adoration for Karmilla and complementary senses of humor and, frankly, the fact that neither of them initially considered each other in a different sort of light. They had so much in common, their personalities resounded with each other so beautifully—all these qualities building up to what I’d dare call soulmate material—and all either of them can think is, “Hey, this is an awesome friendship!” And I adore that.

Which is why I can’t fathom why they’d suddenly do away with a relationship that had been lovingly (and largely platonically) tended to on the side for a number of story arcs.

I’m going to caveat that I have only read New Power and beyond but once in my life so far, and a good number of years ago, to boot. I have no actual recollection of whether or not there was any sort of explanation for why the two of them stopped hanging out (besides that offhand comment that they just don’t anymore, which was given to us… oh, three or four arcs later?). No idea if there was any sort of confrontation between Joel and Stephen and Joel out-of-character gets jealous—I wouldn’t put it past them to have done this (which is awful), but given the notoriousness of vanishing things without any warning that inspired this whole damn fix-it series, there’s a fighting chance for it to have gone either way.

Regardless of what actually happened in canon, there is no concrete reason why Irma having a healthy, happy friendship with someone of the same gender as her new significant other had to be done away with. Even if it could be argued that Irma and Joel had romantic chemistry and ooooooohhhh that could be a threat to her new relationship (um, no.), the two of them had already dealt with those potential feelings back at the end of the Book of Elements/beginning of the Ragorlang arc, and while they didn’t deny that the potential was there, there was unspoken agreement that both were more comfortable as friends at the moment. If we were to use that attraction as a justification against keeping their friendship around while one or both were in other relationships, it just wouldn’t—in a very apt turn-of-phrase—hold water. And there isn’t a reason at all to drop it if there’s no romantic relationship(s) happening whatsoever.

So yeah. Base-level fix-it for Irma and Joel is keep their friendship.

But let’s take it a step further and look at a fix-it for an IxJ romance. I’ll admit that I volleyed around a couple different thoughts about this, even going so far as being sold on an end-of-series-payoff slow-burn like I originally thought we got with Cornelia and Peter (back when I thought the series ended at issue #74 like the Philippines comics did). And while that could have worked for them, I thought back and realized that so many of the canon ships had big moments like that. Will and Matt have their Big Damn Kiss after facing off against Cedric and Matt discovering the truth. Hay Lin and Eric have their joyful spur-of-the-moment kiss when Hay gives him the CD he wanted. As mentioned, Cornelia and Peter have their supposedly-final issue culmination of long-brewing chemistry. And of course, let’s not forget Cornelia and Caleb’s fairytale romance in the early days.

Really, all the relationships—except Taranee and Nigel, although the tradeoff for that was long, drawn-out conflict—officially kick off with a fireworks-level big bang. It’s a Moment when the couples come together, something to be remembered. And with Irma being Irma, loveable loudmouth as she is, it’d make sense for her to have something like that as well—a blurted confession, maybe, or a deep, passionate first kiss.

That’s why I’m of the camp that would have a quiet, but no less meaningful resolution to Irma and Joel’s romantic feelings.

We all know Irma’s the outgoing type—natural comedian always on-hand, outspoken to a fault, passionate and unabashedly loud. But a number of times over the series, we’ve seen her have to get introspective or at least a bit more low-key (oftentimes in the wake of an outburst that hurts someone else). These quieter moments usually offer some great character studies and development for Irma, and I’d like to think that, if given the chance to accept and want to act on her deeper feelings for Joel, it would happen in a similar way.

Just give me the two of them hanging out like usual, but maybe with not as much chatter. Joel is playing his guitar, Irma’s kicked back with a magazine that she’s only half-paying attention to as she listens. Eventually, the magazine drops further and further from her face as her gaze drifts fully to Joel and that goofy face he makes whenever he hits that one chord and that warm fond feeling she gets…

Her thoughts skitter to a sudden stop, but she tries not to let it show outwardly. It’s been a long time since Irma’s thought of Joel in any more-than-friendly terms, probably not since the mix-up with the note to Karmilla that first brought the idea to her mind. It had been an accident, and maybe she hadn’t fully realized—or at the very least hadn’t been ready—to confront those feelings by that point, but the inklings were there. And they’re still here, and maybe a little bit more than just inklings, and maybe she’s actually ready to admit them.

So Irma sets down the magazine altogether, and carefully slides a little closer to Joel’s side. The movement doesn’t go unnoticed, but he looks up only in faint curiosity—not at all startled or displeased. Irma just returns with a small smile, maybe a little nervous (is this too much too fast? Does he even feel the same way anymore?). But there’s no need for worry—or even words, for that matter—as the two of them have always been so in-sync, and are in perfect alignment on this in particular. That’s clearly proven when Joel grins back and carefully shifts his body and guitar so Irma can comfortably settle in right next to him.

(There are words later, of course, if only to make absolutely certain they’re both on the same page, and just because hearing it out loud makes it feel so real. And really, things don’t change that much in their relationship—they still laugh and crack jokes and tease each other to no end, just with a bit more cuddling and kisses and comfy quiet between them, where neither feels the need to fill the silence just because.

And because I’m predictable, a situation wherein Joel gets clued in to the Guardian Secret would involve Joel being very understanding and patient… and also terrifyingly aware that he is never again going to win in a water fight against his girlfriend.)

So. Apparently I had more thoughts on Irma and Joel fix-its than I thought, but I also have zero regrets and too damn many feelings.

#quintessential asks #thanks for asking!#quintessence-sentimentalist's one-woman mission to fix W.i.t.c.h. canon ships

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prettytoxicrevolver · 4 years

Text

Catch Me | Mark Fischbach

Warnings? None? Bad writing? lmao I’m sorry

Requested? Nah

Summary: Mark will always be there to catch you

Word Count: 2,057

Bold parts are the lyrics to Catch Me by Demi Lovato which I highly recommend listening to while reading this :)

You lean up against the couch, your knees tucked into your chest and a book propped on your thighs. You and Mark had taken a trip to your local bookstore earlier that day, and picked out books for each other to read that day and see if you liked them. It was your idea of the perfect day, and so far you were loving the book Mark had picked for you.

He sits next to you, leaning against the back of the chair reading the novel you picked up earlier that day too. For most of the day you had been able to focus but as Mark had begun to get further into the book and react to the plot, you became more distracted by him. But distracted in a good way.

You scan the features of his face, his brows are furrowed, lips in a straight line as his eyes run across the page. You’re pretty sure he can feel your stare because he looks over at you with a confused face.

“What?” He asks, his head tilting to the side practically mimicking Chica in the cutest way possible.

You smile at him lovingly, shaking your head lightly.

Before I fall too fast

“Nothing,” You say, the soft smile growing when his appears on his face. He sits up, closing his book and leans towards you.

Kiss me quick but make it last

So I can see how badly this will hurt me when you say goodbye

His lips meet yours in a gentle kiss. Not too long and not too short but meaningful nonetheless. When you pull apart you smile shyly before reattaching your lips again. Your books both fall from the couch as he slips in between your legs and a smile is fighting its way to your lips. He pushes you further against the couch, hovering over you before leaning down and kissing you again.

Keep it sweet, keep it slow Let the future pass and don't let go

There wasn’t any want or need. Just simple and innocent bliss. You and Mark had always been like this, slow and easy, calm and sweet. You always felt pure happiness around him.

But tonight I could fall too soon under this beautiful moonlight

Suddenly you’re transformed back to your first date. Mark always had this effect on you, like you were floating and thinking of past times to make you smile. It was a beautiful picnic under the stars that you wouldn’t forget in a billion years. But you're so hypnotizing

You were incredibly nervous. Stumbling on your words and smiling awkwardly but he didn’t seem to mind. The way he continued the conversation with such ease had you in awe. He would look at you with such intense but caring eyes, making sure you knew what you had to say was important.

It was one of the best nights of your life.

You've got me laughing while I sing

The topic switched to music and how he was taking singing lessons in hopes of exploring more on his newly found talent. You told him that you loved to sing but haven’t sang in front of anyone in years.

“Sing for me.” He whispered quietly.

You looked up at him uncertainly but when he took your hand in his and nodded slightly you knew you could trust him. You started to sing your favorite song and when you look up at him again he makes a funny face causing you to giggle as you sing.

You've got me smiling in my sleep

You flopped down on your bed after he dropped you off at home that night. You found yourself smiling the entire time getting ready for bed and even through the night as you’re sleeping. You were surprised someone could have such an effect on you.

And I can see this unraveling Your love is where I'm falling But please don't catch me…

You woke up the next morning the smile plastered from last night still permanently there. He had an effect on you that you couldn’t understand. You were falling. See this heart won't settle down Like a child running scared from a clown

But you couldn’t be falling right? It was one date and yet you already knew you were in way too deep. You wanted to run as far as possible but you also wanted to run straight into his arms. You weren’t the most experienced in this department and to have this many feelings all at once was a bit scary. You couldn’t quite make sense of it.

I'm terrified of what you do My stomach screams just when I look at you

Your brain was telling you no while your heart was screaming yes. Your stomach twirled and your hands shook. You couldn't fall because who would pick up the pieces when he leaves? You had become so used to being alone, to becoming heartbroken you had thought it was inevitable. Was it inevitable with Mark? Or is there a different ending? Run far away so I can breathe Even though you're far from suffocating me

You shake your head to snap yourself out of it. You try to push the thoughts to the back of your head. Running away from your problems seemed easiest at this moment. It was all too new, too difficult to deal with and not enough information to actually get an answer.

I can't set my hopes too high 'Cause every "Hello" ends with a "Goodbye"

You only thought like this because there are chances of a bad ending but there were chances of a good ending too. You just didn’t want to get too ahead of yourself. But you also couldn’t help yourself. But you're so hypnotizing

You’re traveled back to your 6 month anniversary. He picked you up at your house, telling you it would be a night you would never forget. As you drive to the first destination you watch him as he focuses intently on the road. One hand intertwined with yours, his thumb running across your knuckles lightly, you couldn’t help but be captivated by his every movement.

You've got me laughing while I sing

You sing along to the music on the radio when Drag Me Down by One Direction comes on. You look over at Mark and he smiles back at you. You sing as loud as possible with Mark sitting next to you making up random lyrics and making you laugh till you can’t breathe.

You've got me smiling in my sleep

The night continues on with a beautiful dinner, a walk on the pier, and stargazing. As Mark parks the car in front of your house you notice that it’s almost one in the morning. You couldn’t believe that it’s been that long. The time flew by as you spent it with your love. You knew no matter how long you and Mark would be together, he would always have this fairytale effect on you.

“Do you want to stay over tonight?” You ask shyly. You weren't one to usually ask this but this night was too perfect. You couldn't let it end here.

He looks surprised before shaking his head yes. We get out of the car and quietly creep into your house and up to your room. You kick off your shoes and climb into your bed as Mark flops down next to you. He opens his arms and gestures to you to snuggle into him and you gladly accept.

“I love you.” He whispers quietly after a moment. Your heart beats frantically out of your chest at those three simple words. You knew from the moment you met the brown eyed beauty that you loved him, you were just scared.

“I love you too Mark Fischbach.”

You snuggle further into his chest trying to hide the smile that is clearly evident on your face. He holds you tight, and you drift off to sleep in his arms.

And I can see this unraveling Your love is where I'm falling But please don't catch me…

You wake up the next morning to an empty space beside you where Mark was just hours ago. You look around to see if he left a note but sadly find nothing. You reach for your phone on the nightstand and check to see a text but you're left empty handed. You try to shake it off as a simple mistake or he had an emergency and had to leave quickly but after a day passes and you haven't seen, haven’t talked to, and haven’t received one text from Mark you start to worry.

You knew you shouldn’t have fallen this fast for him when you knew deep down he would eventually leave you in heartbreak. But you couldn’t help being hopeful. At the time, the more you got to know each other, it seemed the ending might changed. Perhaps it was better off this way. So now you see why I'm scared

You’re pulled out of the memories and back into reality when you hear Mark calling your name. You sit up and he looks at you worriedly.

“What’s wrong darling?” He asks, cupping your face lightly and searching your eyes for an answer. You take a deep breath and consider what you’re about to say before speaking your mind.

“Why did you leave that day?” He knows exactly what you’re talking about without having to explain it.

You two didn’t talk much about that day. Your hearts couldn’t seem to take it. You seemed to have an unspoken trust and took it slow after that day. You just never had closure. It kept you on your toes.

“What if you leave me again?” You ask suddenly, incapable of holding in your questions any longer.

“I won’t.” He promises while taking your hands in his.

“I was broken when you left after you told me you loved me. How can I fully trust you?” You can practically see his heart just shatter at the words.

I can't open up my heart without a care

“I can’t just let you in,” You whisper.

“And I can’t let you go,” He answers quietly back.

His hand finds your cheek again and his thumb brushes lightly across your face. Chills are sent down your spine and your heart settles in your chest. You knew, threw the worst it was still going to be you and him. His lips brush against yours gently and you look up into his warm chocolate brown eyes.

But here I go, it's what I feel And for the first time in my life I know it's real

You nod to yourself before attaching your lips once again in a passionate kiss. You melt into him, and he moves closer to you, your heart suddenly speeding up again in the best way possible. But you're so hypnotizing

In one kiss you remember every small detail that you adore about him. His smile, and mesmerizing laugh. The way he throws his head back and hits the closest thing to him when he giggles.

You've got me laughing while I sing

In one kiss you remember every time he’s ever made you laugh. How you know he tries to make you giggle with stupid jokes when you’re sad. And kisses you to make you laugh as you sing. He’ll do anything to make you smile.

You've got me smiling in my sleep

That smile. You remember every smile you’ve ever shared. How you catch him staring, and a soft smile spreads across his lips. Or when he has the biggest smile in the world with his eyes crinkling and teeth showing proudly.

And I can see this unraveling Your love is where I'm falling So please don't catch me

“I love you,” He whispers pressing kisses all over your face.

“I love you.”

As you wake up the next morning in his arms you knew you had fallen in love and it was the greatest feeling in the entire world. You had made the best decision to pick the biggest dork to love. And you were lucky that he loved you back. If this is love please don't break me I'm giving up so just catch me

And you know he’ll always be there to catch you.

#markiplergame #markiplier #mark edward fischbach #mark fischbach #markiplier imagine #imagine #bravebesson #unus annus #unus annus imagine #youtube #youtuber imagine #youtube imagine

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theculturedmarxist · 3 years

Link

An old adage known as Betteridge's law of headlines asserts that "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."

There's a Bloomberg story trending on Twitter right now about China having the ability to control the weather, with the headline reading "Has China Mastered Weather Modification? Should We Worry?"

According to Betteridge, no.

It just goes on and on and on. Every single day the western mass media are bashing us in the face with stories about horrifying scary things other countries are doing which we all need to be afraid of, and from which we must turn imploringly to our own kind and beneficent rulers for protection.

Today China is controlling your weather. Yesterday the Russians were hacking your mind. The day before it was Kremlin microwave guns. Before that it was Chinese super soldiers. Tomorrow Venezuela will be using communist gamma rays to ruin your performance in bed.

And on and on and on and on. And, strangely, at no time will these media institutions warn you about the fact that your government is constantly murdering people in other countries every single day while you and your neighbors struggle to survive.

Right now the hot topic in US lefty discourse is the fact that Americans are struggling financially and medically as a result of Covid-19 and the ensuing lockdowns, yet the US government is doing virtually nothing to help with this. Americans received a piddling one-time $1200 payment eight months ago, and now after all this time they're looking at receiving an even more ridiculous one-time $600 stimulus check.

There's also the debate that's been raging in US left circles over the call initiated by commentator Jimmy Dore for House progressives to force a floor vote on Medicare for All legislation, a big part of the argument being that it's more important than ever to start pushing for a normal healthcare system in the United States right now. Millions of people are being thrown off their employer-provided insurance during the economic downturn and it is both a necessary and opportune time to either implement universal healthcare or at least draw public attention to which elected officials are standing in its way.

Both the campaign to get the US government to implement a proper healthcare system, and the fight to get meaningful financial support during the pandemic, will fail. Necessarily.

They will not fail because there's a lack of public support for these things. They will not fail because of the number of seats controlled by members of a given party in the House or the Senate. They will not fail because "It's just not realistic right now".

They will fail, ultimately, because an entire globe-spanning empire depends upon keeping Americans struggling financially.

The US has a system of deliberately institutionalized poverty because if wealth were more evenly distributed in the most powerful nation on earth, there'd be no ruling class to ensure the domination of the globe-spanning empire. Plutocrats wouldn't be able to use their massive wealth advantage to buy up influence over the political class and control public thought by purchasing mass media outlets and other mechanisms narrative control in order to ensure the continuation of the global status quo upon which those plutocrats have built their kingdoms. The system would belong to the people.

This is the real wall US progressives keep crashing into in their fight for economic justice in America. Ultimately their efforts to work within the official political system to implement economic justice fail because that system is set up to preserve economic injustice. It's not ultimately about this or that political faction or any one particular politician, it's the fact that there's a massive amount of power riding on the ability to keep Americans too poor and powerless to interfere in the operation of the nation which serves as the hub of a massive global empire.

It's like attempts to end the war in Afghanistan. Anyone who isn't a brainwashed dupe knows there's no legitimate reason for western forces to continue that 19-year occupation, yet whenever there's a major push for withdrawal something always comes up. We can't leave because of Al-Qaeda. We can't leave because of women's rights. We can't leave because of Russian bounties. The official talking heads of the political/media class agree that it would be great to withdraw from Afghanistan, but for this or that blah blah reason, "It's just not realistic right now".

The unspoken reality is that those troops are in Afghanistan primarily due to that nation's prime geostrategic location relative to the most powerful nations who oppose the dictates of the US-centralized empire, namely China, Russia, and Iran. The fall of those unabsorbed governments is the only thing that could ever bring about a military withdrawal from Afghanistan.

In the same way, the American left is fed all kinds of reasons for why they need to remain impoverished for a few more years until conditions change in some way, when really the only reason is because there's a massive globe-spanning power structure which depends on their remaining impoverished. It's a larger-scale version of the real reason why Palestinians need to remain oppressed instead of treated as equal citizens in Israel: there's just too much power riding on the control of that crucial geostrategic part of the Middle East for a population with no loyalty to the empire to be given any control over what happens there.

American leftists and progressives will keep crashing into this wall, over and over and over again, every time they try to work within the official US political system to ease the crushing poverty and inequality in the wealthiest nation on earth. If by some miracle they are able to overcome all the many, many, many obstacles built into the plutocrat-controlled system and put themselves in a position to implement policies of economic justice by following all the rules to a 't', there will be an antisemitism scandal. There will be a Russia scandal. Someone will say they were raped. Whatever needs to happen to keep the people from obtaining wealth and power which could disrupt the global world order which depends on endless warmongering that benefits zero ordinary Americans.

Americans will never succeed in fighting economic injustice by appealing to the official US political system, no matter how many charismatic lefty politicians they find and no matter how energized their grassroots campaigns are. Only direct action outside the system, with the people using the power of their numbers to force real change, stands any chance of changing this.

But the bastards have bolted shut that escape route as well. People are prevented from using the power of their numbers to force real change by a highly sophisticated domestic propaganda operation controlled by the media-owning plutocratic class and heavily influenced by sociopathic government agencies. As long as people are being successfully propagandized by mass media manipulation into accepting the status quo, they will never rise up and make it change.

So the US left needs to address the problem of establishment narrative control first, before any change can even begin to occur. This can happen by way of a grassroots information rebellion with a sufficiently forceful push to help their countrymen realize that they are being propagandized. Trust in the mass media is at an all-time low and our ability to network and share information is at an all-time high, so we absolutely do have the ability to pry the rapey fingers of the establishment manipulators out of the minds of the public and help people see that they can have something better. If enough people awaken to the lies of the propaganda machine, they can shrug off the oppression machine like a heavy coat on a warm day, without a shot fired.

But it needs to happen soon, because our rulers understand this as well. This is why we've been seeing escalation after escalation in internet censorship protocols being rolled out by government-aligned Silicon Valley tech giants; they know they need to cut us off from our ability to wake each other up. And they know they need to hurry, because we're already rapidly beginning to do exactly that.

That's where you need to place your emphasis if you ever want economic justice, America. On overthrowing the establishment propaganda machine, and doing it now. Save yourselves and you might just save the entire world.

#imperialism #institutional poverty #medicare for all #universal healthcare #manufacturing consent #narrative control #jimmy dore

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writinglionqueen · 5 years

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My King | Pledge

After your sword fight with your king, after a night filled with him holding you, making it feel like everything was good again, once more, after your tears had subsided and he sang to you, everything fell into a lull.

Like...a silence, thick as stone fell between the two of you...like a wall...but not as quite separating as it once had. He treaded carefully about you, as if anything would set you off. And you....you for once didn’t understand where the two of you stood.

But, you’d allowed him into bed, allowed him to wrap his arms around you, allowed him to hold you and love you before he had punished you. Not as though it had never occurred, however.

It had happened. It had caused a rift between you and him. It had scared you, because, for once, he had hurt you, raised a hand to you. A promise broken.

He must’ve realized that. For he had changed from your threat.

He acted like the Drew you first met. The Drew who held you tenderly. The Drew who made sure you never seen him angry or downright brutish. The Drew who held you as if you’d break.

But you had been broken.

But it was by his doing and he knew that. He had that guilt in his eyes ever since you held the dirk against his throat and told him how you’d kill him if he ever did it again. He knew he had screwed up...and he had screwed up big time.

He’s done a lot to make it up to you. He had the servants bring breakfast to bed, full of your favorites as the two of you ate together. Even in a tight silence. He told the council to not bother him for he was going to spend the day with you. He walked with you to the library and you allowed him to hold you as you read silently to yourself. Lunch was silent as well as the time before and after dinner.

It wasn’t....uncomfortable silence, though....not really.

However, the silence was deafening. You didn’t like it. But you could tell he didn’t like it either. You didn’t know how to fix it. You didn’t know how to break down the rest of the wall that stood between the two of you. You didn’t know what you needed to accomplish for that wall to be completely demolished.

So you kept quiet, even as you got yourself ready for bed, getting out of your dress piece by piece. You could feel Drew’s eyes on you, though, every step of the way, even as you made your way to your bed, sitting upon the edge to wait and see what your king would do.

Drew said nothing as he strode to your side. Your eyes watched his every step, you watch his calm, solemn expression keep to his features as he knelt before you. You watched in surprised as he took his dirk from its sheath and presented it.

You were...confused to what he was doing until he pressed the pommel to his forehead, bowing his head...like he did when he took his oath as king.

“I, Drew McLean Galloway McIntyre IV, king of Scotland and all her people, here swear upon this holy iron in my hand to give my queen fealty and pledge my loyalty,” he said with confidence, he said with certainty as he turned the blade so the tip was pointed towards his heart and it’s handle was presented towards you. His grey eyes were lit with the flames of the hearth and of his passion that you could feel, dripping from his words. “My queen, if I ever raise my hand against you again, then all I ask of you is to take this iron and pierce my heart with it.” He bowed his head again, waiting for you to take the dirk from him....to say something...anything.

You could only look between your king and the dirk.

You did understand what he was doing. You understood at what length his actions had caused him to kneel before you....showing you he was sorry....begging to be ended if he were to ever smite you again. You knew what this meant...he was deeply sorry and he was demonstrating it to you...the length he would go to tell you...to show you how sorry he truly was.

But you remained silent. Even as you watched him look to you, uncertainty dimming the fire in his eyes.

“My queen,” he murmured. “Is....is this not enough? Can you....can you not see how...sorry...how hurt I am for doing what I did?” You kept quiet as you contemplated his actions....you contemplated what he’s shown you of his true nature, his “duty” it is to be your king, your husband.

Was this not enough to show you that he meant every word? That he would end his life if he dare hurt you again?

You knew he meant it. Every word. You’ve found, with time, Drew was one to say what he meant...do as he set out to do. Your king was always straight forward, but always allowing actions to speak louder than his words. It would take some future convincing on your part....but....deep down, you forgave him the moment he looked sorry the yesterday in the training field. You forgave him when he pledged himself to you just now...you forgave him even as his dirk was sheath once more.

“My queen...do you still want me?” he asked. The pain in his voice, in his words, was enough to break you. You’ve never heard him hurt like this. You’ve never seen him so hurt...so vulnerable, so pained emotionally like this...ever. It was new. But it was him and it was real. He was sorry and he meant it.

“What you did...hurt me worse than any pain I’ve ever felt,” you said quietly. “I should....should hate you for what you did. That I should fester in that hate....but I don’t want to.” You leaned forward, pressing one hand to his chest, right over his heart while the other one cupped his face. Drew gripped the hand that felt his heart beating steadily. His eyes held his pain, unshed sadness that you wish he would release. “I love you Drew...from....from the moment you handed me that circlet you made...to our ceremony...to....making love to me after...then here; making this place feel like home. I no longer have the feeling of...longing for my old keep...you’re my home here, Drew.” The last part you whispered, afraid to cry once again for your pain. But, this time, it wasn’t by Drew’s doing.

Instead....it felt like a weight was lifted from your shoulders, out of your bones and lungs and you could breath again, knowing Drew understand how much being hurt by him was worse than anything you’ve ever felt.

Your king clenched his eyes shut, knowing how deep the pain he caused ran...but knowing you were willing to forgive him.

“And you’re mine,” he whispered back. “Without you...I don’t know what I’d do if....if I lost you as well, my queen.” You closed your eyes at that, pressing your forehead to his, feeling his shuddering breath mingle with your own.

The pain was seeping out from the both of you, slowly but surely. It wouldn’t be gone...erased from memory easily. It was going to remain there as if etched in stone...all the two of you needed to do was move past this. Learn from it. The past can’t change but the future was still uncertain. The two of you know now what it takes to not hurt the other....that his pledge was still there....and your promise lingered in each other’ minds.

It would definitely be discussed, revised, in a way to benefit the both of you. A compromise needed to be struck in order for the two of you to be happy, to not let this terrible scar in time haunt you two.

And as you thought of it, Drew knew it as well. It was unspoken as your eyes opened to see his storm and fire and passion there, ready to take on your might and power and love...allowing each other’s strength, each other’s weaknesses to engulf the other as you embraced in his strong arms that felt like home and you kissed him deeply with your love as he took you to bed that night.

The two of you made slow and sweet love that you felt in every fiber of your being, down to your core...you even thought you could feel it in your soul. Something so deep and meaningful like his pledge. It made you weep to feel again.

Drew let you, asking if he was alright, to continue and you told him not to stop, to keep on loving you and holding you and embracing you and he did, with everything he had.

And, after, he held you in his arms again, whispering sweet nothings and promises you knew he would try and keep now, as he stroked down your body, still on its euphoric high. You cuddled into him, feeling his heart beating fast and for you with his own love that tried to escape his chest.

For once you feel asleep with a heavenly smile on your face, knowing the two of you would overcome this scratch in time, take on his pledge if you see fit, for you are his queen and he was your king.

The two of you had pledged that already; to love each other, to take care of each other, to take on each other....

Till your lives shall be done.

And it wasn’t over yet.

~End~

(please know that the pledge Drew gives is the fealty pledge [I don’t know how fealty pledges are worded] from Outlander and his question of being wanted comes from the show as well. Everything else is my idea)

Tag: @adriennegabriella @alwaysbenhardysgirl @amariemoore @andie01 @annoyingasian @artemisapalla316 @aspiringhorrorfilmmaker @balorstrowmanblackmurphy @biforbecky2belts @blackmoonrising @br0th3r-n3r0 @burning-coco @calicina @calwitch @claymoreme @darlingambrose @dcnmarvelgamergeek @demonqueen29 @desstehhnee @detectiveramen @drewmcintyreinarefereeoutfit @finnsauroraborealis @fireyegale @fivefootxo @flawlessglamazon @haharollins @hardcoresweet45 @homeorbust @i-have-saracasm @itsicantbelievethis666 @kalliravenne @king-drew-mcintyre @lilred91 @littledeadrottinghood @littlesuperstar @lolorockstar101boom @madamaholmes @madebypointlesswerewolves @meishaabae @meremaidqueen @moxleysbaby @moxley-unhinged @moxtiel @neversatisfiedgirl @new-zealand-chic @nicolewoo @nothinginlifebutgreif @number1120 @queenofthearchitect @reigns420 @rollynch-roman-empire @sassymox @sassyspacedust @savemeroman @scuzmunkie @shieldgirl18 @snowtroopergirl @softmoxymuffin @superrezzy00 @taryn-dibiase @thatpanpal @the-beastslayers-queen @thehoundsofjustice @thewrestlingwarehouse @theworldofotps @trashofambrolleigns @trent7thirsting @twistedbeautifully @unprettypeony @voidstrugh @writing-reigns @writtingrose @xbreezymeadowsx @xladyxfatex @xprincessofthefallenangels @yaint-me @youcantreignonmyparade

#drew mcintyre #drew mcintyre x reader #such mass #my king #my king series

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bowieandqueen11 · 5 years

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Make the World Go Round/ Body Positive Queen Headcanons

Prompt: Could I request Queen headcanons on how they react to the reader being insecure about their body or having stretch marks ❤️

Thank you my beautiful anon, this is really important! <3

Brian May

It was a sultry day in mid-August, and the pool was as flat and as shimmering as any mirror, lying on the edge of the house without a ripple in the silver-blue water as if time itself had been frozen.

From the tall pines around the edge came not a sound, no movement of branches, no birds calling, it was only you and Brian alone in this perfect bubble. In the turquoise watery mirror was only the constellations, starlight so old and young, and a few littered rocks surrounding the edge as if you had both reached the edge of a mountain trail, the cool breeze welcoming as Brian’s arm burns where it lays comfortably against your hip.

‘Brian, I don’t know, the others will be here soon.’

Without a warning, Brian makes you yelp in surprise as he pulls you tighter against his chest, his other arm landing against the small of your back. His fingers splaying firmly against your skin makes your breath hitch in your throat, and distracts you from the giant leap forward Brian takes until the giant splash sprinkles like dew drops onto the sandy shore and you emerge from the bright blue depths.

You sigh lightly as you try to stay upright, two heavy arms coming to wrap themselves like a vice around the top of your back, his head nestling down lightly to hit against the top of your chest, thin humming streams escaping happily from his lips as your fingers lay splayed against his hips as they bump into yours, his baggy navy shorts floating and entangling coolly against your fingertips

‘Why would it matter if the others are coming over, love?’

His eyes wander up to yours, their look distant as if lost in a daydream as he smiles tenderly at you, before he winks and jumps suddenly up like a superhero through the water to wrap your legs around his waist. Panicking slightly as his chest bumps hard against yours, his hands reach down to tug your thighs further against his abdomen, making sure you stays afloat, your fingers coming to rest familiarly against his skin as you swallow thickly.

‘Because I’m only in a swimsuit, Bri. I don’t want anyone else to see me like this.’

‘Like what? Beautiful? Ethereal? The most stunning person in this entire galaxy?’

As you look into his eyes, bright and beautiful in contrast with the darkness behind him, properly looking and understanding the unspoken love that pours out with his gaze, he smiles at you.

‘You are incredible, and stunning and perfect just the way you are, y/n, so please, never think about yourself like that again, because I surely don’t.’

Roger Taylor

Gazing up serenely towards the scorching heat of the sun, letting its rays fall down upon the blazing blush covering the warm roundness of your cheeks, you sigh contently as you see the emerald green and white striped kite Roger’s guiding fly over your field of vision, dancing high and restlessly in the wind in sunlit silence, which you break as you start laughing at Roger being pulled through the tufts of grass by the strong breeze, his short wheat coloured hair madly blending in with the bushes of the meadow, blowing his locks up in spikes in every direction, his shouts of glee mixing with the wisps of the wind as the kite spiralled was exactly what you wanted to hear after a long week at work.

Turning towards your laugh with a wide grin spreading across his face, knowing his eyes are bright with laughter even through his dim sunglasses, he winds in the reel of the kite, walking over to the plaid blanket you’re lying upon whilst you stay there, appreciating the way his light white half-unbuttoned shirt ripples with each step, allowing you full view of the slightly tanned skin of his chest.

As his footsteps draw nearer, crunching the thin summer blades of grass and daisies with each step, he slowly flops down beside you, pulling himself up onto one elbow in order to appreciate the way the flowing dress you were wearing hugged your skin perfectly. His hand crawls over your waist slowly, teasing you, each inch of skin tingling with goosebumps as his fingers gently twirl across until he finally wraps his arm around you, snuggling his head into the curve or your neck.

He snuggles up against you, rolling you both over so he can run his hand up and down the plushness of your side, pushing the ticklish fabric of your dress up with his fingertips so he can place his palm against your thighs, loving the way your skin flushes in reaction to his meaningful touches, before tickling further up towards your stomach.

‘Wait, Rog, stop, you know how uncomfortable I am with you feeling my stretch marks.’

He stops for a second, a frown covering his face as he gazes at you with such compassionate devotion before the crinkles at the side of his eyes rise once more and he pulls you tightly against him, placing a soft kiss against the tip of your nose, before tracing a path to the side of your mouth.

He pauses for a moment, and you see the rays fall down upon the slightly dazed, far away look in his crystal blue eyes, intense with understanding and desire, before he murmurs against your plump lips, ‘you’re so incredibly beautiful, you know that love? So incredibly smart, and independent, and warm and loving and it honestly aches in my heart sometimes how an angel like you could fall for a man like me. So please, never worry about your stretch marks, because they just make you the ethereal being you are, and I love every single one of them.’

Freddie Mercury

Turning fearful suddenly, Freddie’s face turns into a quick and anxious frown. ‘Y/n, please tell me what’s wrong, what has you so upset my love’. Stumbling over his words in a panic, his hands grasp at your face delicately, trying to wipe away as many unwanted tears as he can reach with his thumbs before settling for grasping your hands tightly, littering each knuckle with soft peppering kisses and pulling you tight against his chest, ignoring the soapy bath water that splashed against the floor as the two of you moved.

‘Freddie, how can you love me? How can you bear to see this?’

Staying silent for a moment, one thick finger running slightly over the curve of his chin as he gazed out the windows, pondering, a steady look of determination on his face.

‘Y/n, you are the most divine, lush creature I’ve ever seen, and I must have turned into a real rotter of a boyfriend if I don’t remind you of that everyday, because I love you with every fibre of my being’.

Distracting you, Freddie ripples a wave of soapy water your way, hitting your chin with a loud thud. The mock face of fear as you slowly turn to face him sets you both off in another wave of sobbing giggles, the light laughs music to his ears.

Your hands reach up to gently entangle in his short, soft brown hair, enjoying the feeling of running your fingertips through his locks as he closes his eyes in bliss, before tracing your finger down the edges of his face towards his protruding chin and placing one wet and dripping palm against the edge of his jaw.

He leans in, placing his forehead delicately against your own, and you can feel the twinge of heat radiating from the slight blush on his face as you squeeze your eyes closed, running your finger down his jawline towards his mouth. Placing his rounded swollen lips against your own slowly, as if afraid to break the magic, his moustache gently tickles your upper brow as you passionately embrace his touch.

‘You are so so beautiful, and you’ll have to remind me to let you know every single day, because you’re stuck with silly old me now, y/n.’

John Deacon

‘Sweetheart, are you in here?’

John knocks lightly on the cream door, three little raps as light as feathers before pressing his ear against the door, his breath shallow and quick as his eyebrows furrow, trying to hear any sound from you.

‘If it makes you feel any better, Roger managed to slip over in the pub today and knocked Brian down with him on his bottom. He tried to blame Freddie for it, but he’d tripped over his own tie he had thrown down onto the floor when he had tried to take his shirt off a few seconds before’.

Hearing nothing but silence, he bites his tongue, chewing the inside of his cheek as he reaches for the auburn handle. However, he stalls listening to your sniffles as you lie on top of the duvet, rubbing the goosebumps that litter your arms like painful pricks, trying to hold the tears that threatened to leave your swirling, distant eyes.

One small crystal bead escapes from their cloud behind your eye and its warmth slides down your cheek and rolls off your chin. Then another. And another, cascading like a waterfall. Sniffing every ten seconds, they fall, and fall, and you let them, scared and feeling terribly vulnerable and alone in that enclosing room.

Entering the room, he freezes for a moment, his eyes drooping in unbearable sadness as he sees you lying there, your back facing him and your shoulders heaving. His legs take two massive strides over to fall onto your legs, his thin fingers dancing their way up your hips and over the curves of your side to reach your shoulders, pulling you up against his beating chest. As his hand rises up to fall into your hair, his tired fingertips curling into you and letting your warmth flow through the gaps, his left hand swirls nonsense but tender patterns against your back before coming to tighten against your muscles.

He tries to blink away the tears that sting against his eyes, his lips quivering to see you so distraught, and to have no idea how to help you, his angel. He held you in silence, rocking you slowly as your tears stained his clothes.

Finally he lifts a hand to gently cup your cheek, pressing a warm kiss against the tip of your flushed nose before whispering ‘what’s wrong, my darling?’

‘J-John’, you manage to snuffle out, reaching up to rub your eye with your fist. ‘Why are you with me? Why do you care about someone like me, someone who looks like this?’

John sits there, his mouth hanging unhinged at shock to realise the reason you had been so distant had been because of this, and he had been so stupid and selfish to not have realised before now, to not have showered you with the love and devotion you deserved every day. Cold shivers of shame flicked up from the pit of his stomach and burnt up inside his throat before shivering down his arms and deep into his heart.

‘Y/n… why didn’t you tell me about this? You are ethereal, y/n, you are the most gorgeous, beautiful being that could ever exist in this universe, my own personal angel. Stop doubting yourself, because in my eyes, you are beyond perfect, and why do you think I wrote You’re My Best Friend for you?’

He leans down to kiss you, and the world and all its troubles fall away. It was slow and soft, comforting in ways that words would never be. His hand rested below your ear, his thumb caressing your cheek as your breaths mingled, pulling you closer until there was no space left between the two of you, and never would be again.

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c-is-for-circinate · 5 years

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An M9 major arc breakdown: part 1

Arc 1: Who the fuck are you? (I think we might be mercenaries??): episodes 1-25

I was going to do a nice gloss over what I see as the four major arcs of the Mighty Nein story so far in one post, and then I realized that I am (*ahem*) long-winded, we’ll say. And there’s a lot to be said!

Instead, a separate post for each arc, why not. [I will stick links to parts 2-4 here when they’re written and posted!]

So: arc 1. Covering 24 episodes and, according to critrole stats, about 35 in-game days, this arc manages to be both one of the longest and one of the shortest. It covers levels 2-5, and everything from the first meeting in Trostenwald all the way through leaving Hupperdook. It’s a lot! And I thought a lot about trying to split it up, but the more I looked for a breaking point in these episodes, the more every possible division felt really arbitrary, and reinforced the idea that this chunk of episodes has the same theme at the center all the way through.

The arc of these episodes is specifically the progression of the Mighty Nein from not being a thing at all to maybe, sort of, somehow being a thing. It’s full of great character moments, and lays the groundwork for, I suspect, pretty much every important thing to happen throughout the entire campaign, (with the possible exception of some of Caduceus’s stuff, but even then, I have suspicions), because Matt is Good At His Shit. It’s also super interesting in terms of the entire show, because even though it establishes everything, the unsteady conclusion it seems to reach about who the M9 might be or might become gets almost completely (seemingly) thrown out the window by the very next arc--but more about that in the next arc’s post.

In this arc I think we need to take just a moment to get meta in terms of players vs characters, because this is the one part of the story so far where that division is actually, actively important. There’s two big reasons for that. One, the players are still learning who their own characters are, even as the characters are learning each other. Two, there is one single, central, and encompassingly important fact that the players all know that the characters don’t, and resolving that disconnect shapes the tone of this entire arc.

The members of the Mighty Nein are going to be together for a very long and very epic journey. It’s a fact. Even if individual characters die or choose to leave, the group itself is destined for something big, because everybody at that table has every intention of playing straight through to level 20 all over again. What’s more, everybody at that table is already family in nearly every real-life way that matters. The audience knows that this group is going to be something special, expects them to become family in their own right before they’ve even met. The DM knows. The world itself probably knows, in-game--a group of strangers meet in Trostenwald and somewhere on her celestial plane, the Raven Queen is probably watching a bunch of fate-threads tangle together and make a mess of her pretty fate tapestry all over again. The only people who don’t know how meaningful this group is going to be, to the world or to its own members, are the characters themselves.

And that leads to a fascinating dynamic, where these characters run into each other in Trostenwald, and then stay together for reasons even they can’t necessarily fully explain. They never sit down and say, “okay, let’s be mercenaries together”--they get kicked out of Trostenwald and say, “I guess let’s go to Zadash together, maybe?”, and then they just...never break up. The number one question for the whole first chunk of this arc is, “Why am I even with these assholes?” Sure, the easy answer is, “because the players have decided the characters are going to be,” but that’s boring and kind of besides the point. Yes the players have decided that the characters are going to be together--and that creates a story where the characters and the players both have to figure out why as they go along.

The way this plays out is different for each character, but there are some commonalities:

Caleb and Nott both have long-term goals, and even though neither of them knows it at first, they both have the same long-term goal: somehow get back to the way the world used to be. The trouble is, this is a really distant goal for both of them, something that requires the kind of intense magic they don’t understand and barely even believe in. Their short-term goals are a much more basic ‘survive and also keep this other person alive long enough to figure out how to achieve that long-term goal’, and that’s what they say they’ve signed up with the rest of the group for. It’s a relatively simple answer that ends up getting ever more complicated in reality.

Caleb and Nott’s relationships with the group actually parallel each other a lot at this early stage, and it isn’t just because they come as a prepackaged duo. Both of their long-term goals have an undercurrent of desperate loneliness that they’ve each been living with since their lives fell apart. In theory, getting what they’re after will help fix that one way or another--but in the mean time, suddenly they’re surrounded by people, and they can’t help but care. They just also don’t trust the rest of the group, because how do you trust people at all, ever? Nobody’s been particularly kind to either of them since everything went to shit, and if the universe had any kindness to begin with it never would’ve happened in the first place. But there’s this undercurrent of...maybe, if they learned to love and trust this group, they’d find out they don’t need what they’re trying to get to begin with, because they’ve already got the secure love and acceptance they’re really craving. Maybe. Certainly neither of them have started to figure that out yet. They can barely admit to liking their compatriots at all.

What’s even more tricky is that neither of them actually have much of a plan for getting from their short-term survival goals towards their long-term goals. Nott literally doesn’t know how Caleb could turn her back into a halfling--she just has faith that he can, if he gets powerful enough, and it leads to things like the stolen letter for an academy Caleb would not set foot in again for all the love or money in the world. Caleb is so bad at bridging the gap between what’s in front of him in this world right now, and the big nebulous world-shattering Thing he wants to eventually achieve. After all, what’s in front of Caleb right now doesn’t matter, or it won’t once he twists the whole world into a new shape anyway--except that it is in front of him right now, and needs to be survived and dealt with, somehow, and that’s distracting in its own right. So the whole first arc is full of moments like Caleb trying to take the spell scroll and Nott trying to steal Fjord’s letter, where they’re grabbing at an apparent immediate step towards their long-term goals at the expense of the people around them, and maybe even to the detriment of those ultimate aims.

Basically, for Caleb and Nott, being with this group is supposed to be a means to an end--but they don’t really know how being with this group is going to help them achieve that end, they’re just...pretty sure it will. Somehow. They’re definitely eating better now, and maybe if Caleb gets into that library it’ll help, or something, maybe, he hopes. The unspoken question for Caleb and Nott both, as Arc 1 progresses, is--do they actually think being with the group is going to help them achieve those all-important goals, or do they just like being here? Nott will follow Caleb anywhere, because he’s her way out of this goblin life, but she doesn’t encourage him to leave to progress somewhere else. Caleb argues with himself when he’s alone, but he always stays in the end. Is it practicality? Is there a plan? Or did they just accidentally fall in with a group of people they actually like, and the group’s constant shenanigans are a useful distraction from having to admit what they're apparently willing to sacrifice for the sake of being here rather than alone?

Fjord and Jester, meanwhile, both claim to have long-term goals, but they sure don’t show any indication that they care about pursuing them. Which makes sense, because Jester and Fjord show up in Trostenwald with personal quests that are devoted to a very nebulous, hypothetical sort of belonging (contrast with Caleb and Nott, who want to belong in very specific ways, in places they once already lived). Their worlds have both fallen apart, too, but far more recently and a little less dramatically. They’re not looking to get back to what they once had, they’re looking to replace it.

Or, to be more specific: Fjord’s entire adult life thus far has been defined by his job. Being a sailor wasn’t just his profession, it was his identity. It’s what he did; it’s where he lived; it’s where he found the only person who ever really cared about him or called him family; it’s where he found his self-worth and his social worth, the first and only place he ever felt valuable to anyone else in the community or the world at large. Heading up to the Soltryce Academy to figure out what’s up with this sword is about finding a whole new self, with a new purpose, a new job, a new person who can tell him what he’s good at and good for and where he belongs now.

Jester’s entire life has been defined by her mom. Marion is her entire world. Jester literally doesn’t know anybody outside the Lavish Chateau, and aside from the Traveller, the few people who do know she exists at all are servants or coworkers of her mother. Jester’s world is tiny, with Marion at the center of it. If Fjord’s self-worth is caught up in his job and what he does, Jester’s is entirely determined by making people joyful and happy, and the only two people she’s ever really had the chance to please in that way are her mother and the Traveler. So she’s looking for her other parent, to replace the one thing she’s always had right there.

In many ways, the particulars of what Fjord and Jester are pursuing don’t actually matter that much. Fjord doesn’t need the Soltryce to give him a job or a purpose. He jumps headfirst into the mercenary business almost overnight; they’ve been in Zadash less than a week before he’s chatting with the Gentleman about professional networking like a man who’s about to pull out his company business cards. Jester doesn’t need a dad, she just needs people to love her and be delighted by her presence. It turns out that this team of people just so happens to address that core need for both of them, and that’s enough for Jester and Fjord. They’re in this head first.

The thing about Fjord and Jester is, though, neither of them are asking any questions about the long term either. Because rolling with the Mighty Nein is hitting all the right buttons to get at the root of what they need, they’re both super blase about letting certain details go without question. Why does Fjord have these new powers he’s now starting to understand? What kind of relationship does Jester actually want with a parent? And where does the rest of the group see this whole situation going in the next weeks, months, years? Jester and Fjord aren’t asking--and that makes sense too, because if they’re not asking, then they don’t have to face the answers. If Fjord doesn’t ever make it to Soltryce, nobody can tell him he’s not good enough, and if Jester never quite gets around to meeting her father, she doesn’t have to find out why he never came back. If they don’t ask questions about the group, maybe nobody will ever remember to leave.

Beau and Molly would be so pissed at being grouped together here, which is not actually why I did it, but is a nice additional nuance. (Part of why they hate each other so much is because they’ve got a lot in common deep down--they both care very deeply and project an image of not caring very much at all, and it pisses both of them off constantly.) The truth is, Beau and Molly are both with the Mighty Nein because they literally have nowhere else to go. Caleb and Nott are trying to regain their old lives; Fjord and Jester are trying to replace their old lives; but Molly and Beau don’t really have lives besides this, or at least not lives they’d admit to.

These two are the closest thing to Professional Criminals in the group when it all gets started--Nott and Caleb might steal and con to survive, but for Beau and Molly it’s been an actual job, with coworkers and workplace etiquette, and bigger heists with full crews arguably similar to the M9 in the past. The circus was Molly’s everything and it got smashed to bits within the first four episodes, but the core Mollymauk of it all means that his life fundamentally doesn’t change with its loss. He is still on the road skipping from place to place, living out of bedrolls and carts and inns if there’s good luck; he’s still slinging bullshit and the odd con, doing a good turn when he can and keeping an eye out for coin; he’s still messing around with a couple of swords, trying not to get beat up or thrown in jail or run out of town, killing a bit when necessary; he’s still embedded in the middle of a group of walking disaster weirdos full of Issues and interpersonal conflict who somehow have to live together and rely on each other with all their broken bits and strangeness. Beau played local contact for every reasonably-sized crew of criminals to come through Kamordah, and not a one of them ever kept her around for the long haul, but she knows seedy underbellies and she knows how to punch people for pay and she knows about honor among thieves and she knows how to trust fundamentally untrustworthy people just exactly as far as she can throw them.

So just the basic everyday operation of being part of the Mighty Nein, the important job skills and general lifestyle, is more in line with what Beau and Molly have already been doing than it is for anyone else in the group. There’s also less conflict with their overarching long-term life goals. Neither of them have any, besides ‘keep doing this as long as I can’. I don’t think either Molly or Beau have any real vision of what a future even looks like, Beau because she’s young and too busy rebelling against to think about building towards, Molly because with no real past he barely even has a concept of change or becoming anything other than what he is. The most either of them can really picture would be a life they don’t want: the Proper Lionett Daughter or Lucien Whoever-The-Fuck. Those are nightmare scenario lives that belong to other people, and Beau and Molly will run from them literally as far and as fast as they can.

While Caleb and Nott are avoiding the question of “is this group really going to help me get what I want?” (because the answer might mean they should leave, and they want to stay); and Fjord and Jester are avoiding the question of “should I actually try to find the thing I came looking for in the first place?” (because real answers are so much scarier than unsolved questions); Beau and Molly are determinedly avoiding the high school guidance counselor question question of “where do you see yourself in five years?”. They have no long-term plans, and neither of them want any. What they’ve got going on right here is good. They don’t have to be alone (which Beau has been all her life, and Molly has never been once, and they both want so badly to avoid). They get to stay in constant motion, running and fighting and drinking and earning money and occasionally experimenting with illegal ethereal-plane-enhancing substances, and that’s just fine.

Yasha doesn’t quite fit in with anyone else because Yasha is gone so damn much, but also because she doesn’t quite match any of the categories. Her whole life fell apart, just like practically everyone else’s, but she’s not trying to get it back, and she’s not trying to replace it. And Yasha does have somewhere else to be, a path she thinks maybe she ought to be following if she could just figure out where it is. She keeps coming back because Molly is the closest thing she has to family; she keeps coming back because fate keeps bumping her into the group and saying she should; she keeps coming back because it’s good coin and easy killing-things work and they’ll have her; she keeps coming back because she likes them, because Caleb is awkward with people but lends her his cat, because Jester is bright and smiling and also loves flowers, because Beau fights next to her and Fjord respects her and Nott gave her flowers once, and that matters.

As Arc 1 progresses, as the players get to know their characters better and the characters get to know each other, they begin to collectively answer “Why am I with this group?” with another question: “Just what is this group, anyway?”. It’s a little out of order and a little bit of a mess, just like the party itself, just like life, but the truth is that the members of the Nein find themselves more or less attached to this merry little band before they’ve even really defined what said band is. The characters become a group by accident, by fate, by will of the players, because they’re all desperate for things and avoiding things and because why not. Many decisions about what kind of group they become, though, are a lot more deliberate.

‘Mercenary’ is the first thing they pick up, and they specifically don’t choose it for themselves. (It’s also the first thing they lose when the next arc starts, or maybe at the very end of this one.) They roll into Allfield in the middle of a gnoll attack, and Bryce offers cash for gnoll ears before they can even ask ‘what’s in it for us?’. They already had weapons in hand to deal with the threat--it’s impossible to say what the team would’ve done without that offer, and they were all broke as fuck and badly in need of money anyway--but they didn’t present themselves as swords-for-hire until someone was already asking to hire them.

Allfield teaches them that they can be mercenaries (and gives them an excuse to stay as a group), while Zadash begins to teach them what kind of mercenaries they want to be. It becomes very clear very quickly that this group does not like institutions of power (something I’ve already written about at length). They do a single job for the crownsguard and then immediately turn around and start working with back-tavern insurgents and underground smugglers. While their individual opinions may vary, collectively they do Not Like The Empire.

They also establish themselves as a group that does not trust in general, either the outside world or each other--and furthermore, a group that will push and investigate and uncover answers every time a mystery pops up. They don’t take the Knights of Requital at face value, they investigate around the back end; they track down the Gentleman just because he’s there. They demand answers from each other, from Molly baiting a trap to catch Nott stealing from Fjord to the whole group teaming up to demand ‘Lucien’ explain himself. Caleb doesn’t trust Callie, and Beau doesn’t trust Caleb, and nobody trusts Fjord’s stone-swallowing, and there’s no resolution, only more questions.

Likewise, they are not trustworthy. While they take jobs and generally deliver on what they pay for, they also ad-lib and change direction for their own benefit, and their loyalty to their employers is debatable at best. The argument over the spell scrolls in the High Richter’s house is a major division at the time, but by the time they’re clearing out necromancy for the Gentleman, nobody really sides against stealing the journal or Yasha’s sword. They just come up with a plan together to cheat the Gentleman effectively. When they clear out the merrow in his safehouse in the swamp, they have no problem taking as much of his stuff as they can. They are out for themselves, and the jobs they take are a means to their own ends, not particularly important in and of themselves.

The M9 feel very small, as a group, in the face of a world that’s very big, and we see that tie back in with the past two points over and over again. So much of the Zadash part of the arc involves the stirrings and edges of the war with Xhorhas, and the Nein’s almost instant response of, okay, we want to stay as FAR FROM THAT AS POSSIBLE. The major powers of the world are big enough to crush them, and they are afraid of that--but, the attitude seems to go, the major powers of the world are also big enough to miss noticing them, and that matters too. They steal the dodecahedron and disappear off into the shadows because they know it means something huge, and that’s scary, and therefore grabbing this piece of it might somehow protect them or the world in the long run. They’re able to do it because they’re small, because in this clash of international titans they’re still nobody.

Lastly, this group desperately wants to be doing something moral, they just don’t necessarily know how. They debate over whether the Knights of Requital are good guys, over whether they should help the crown, over the right thing to do with the Krynn assassin. They are so much more comfortable working for the Gentleman, who’s a criminal right there on the surface but doesn’t appear to be actively hurting anybody, than assisting the local law. Even when it’s not a job, or maybe even more when it’s not a job, they find themselves going out of their way to be good people: rescuing Kiri, helping Callie, finding ways to help Horace and Dolan after the attack on the spire explodes everything. For a group of self-proclaimed mercenaries, there’s a constant undercurrent of...should we be doing this? Is this the right thing to do? Should we totally betray our employers because that’s the right thing to do? They’re not loyal to anybody in particular, except maybe each other, but they’re struggling to find some kind of ideal or guiding principle to be loyal to.

All of this culminates in Hupperdook. The group is finally unbending a little, coming to trust each other that little bit more. Beau talks about her childhood, and Caleb says Astrid’s name, and Nott says Yeza’s, and Fjord talks about the orphanage where he grew up. They go down into a prison to fight a whirling death-robot, and it’s sort of because Rissa’s dad promised them a reward but also sort of because Rissa is Theirs Now, and more than anything it’s to save the parents of a bunch of penniless near-orphans. It’s a way to say fuck you! to the Imperial system; it’s a way to combine two jobs at once for their own purposes. It is above all a very new-feeling exploration of the idea that, small or not, they can in fact actually make a meaningful difference in the world. They have power, and that power can be used for good.

It’s by far the least mercenary-like job they’ve taken. Between the bail money they pay for the Schuesters and the additional cash they leave with them to take care of Kiri, they probably spend half as much on the whole endeavor as that new fancy crossbow was worth to begin with. They did something good, and it feels better and more right than all their fumbling maybes.

Aside from Trostenwald, where crisis came to them and the whole story was about getting themselves out of trouble, Allfield and Hupperdook very much bookend this arc, and that makes a lot of sense, because there’s a very similar feeling to both jobs. They’ve done something dangerous, and saved lives, and helped people--regular, good people who hadn’t hurt anyone to get into the situations they were in. They made some profit doing it. Those things are not mutually exclusive, and maybe, maybe they can build something of a career path out of finding the places where they intersect.

This first arc doesn’t exactly conclude--because with an ongoing show like this, nothing ever quite concludes--so much as it reaches a point where many of its primary themes and issues begin to look as though they could, in theory, someday be resolved. There’s a visible path ahead that combines altruism and self-interest. The group members are talking to each other, slowly and carefully. There are still a lot of unanswered questions about who everyone is and what they want, but it seems like the group might just be heading in a direction towards those questions at least eventually getting asked.

It’s maybe the most optimistic place the group’s been in so far, which is of course why this is the point where everything in the whole world comes crashing down--but that’s for the next arc.

#critical role #driveby meta attack #mighty nein #campaign 2 spoilers #mostly only for the first block of episodes

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usa1chan1 · 4 years

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Girlfriend - Modern Arno x Reader

Hi! this is the first fanfic I ever wrote I was happy with it at first but now I kind of hate it so I just felt I would put it up somewhere and hope for the best lol I know it probably sucks but I can only hope to get better with time and I'm terribly sorry for anyone who likes Elise for using her as a villain in this but I've been jealous of her since day one so...

You and Arno had known each other since you were children. Best friends the two of you were but you always felt more towards Arno but in being so young you put off the feelings not quite understanding them. After Arno's father died, he was taken in by Francois de la Serre as his ward, you both remained the best of friends but someone new was added into the equation; Elise de la Serre. You were not sure what to think of Elise at first you were kind and polite but as time grew so did yours and her feelings for Arno and she became aggressive, rude and cold to you. Arno never seemed to notice the change in Elise’s behavior towards you which sadden you that your oldest friend and love took so much interest in Elise that he failed to notice the way she treated you. Soon after Elise and Arno started dating and you tried to be happy for Arno, but it was difficult. One morning you were off from work while Arno was at work and Elise was out, you decided to take a shower after waking up a little earlier than normal. You grabbed your clothes and a towel and made your way to your bathroom. You set your clothes on the counter and your towel on the rack, you faced the mirror and started brushing your teeth before showering. Whilst brushing you put on some music to pass the time and to entertain yourself. Finishing up on your teeth you turned on the shower making as hot as you could take it. When you got in a song you hadn’t heard in years came on

“ah Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne I haven’t heard this in forever!”.

With your shower and song starts, you hopped in and started singing along, not knowing a certain assassin got home earlier than expected.

“I’m home!”

With no response, he called out

“(Y/N)? Elise?”

Walking further into their home he heard the shower and singing.

“hey hey you you! I don’t like your girlfriend!”

“no way no way! I think you need a new one!”

“hey hey you you! I could be your girlfriend!”

“hey hey you you! I know that you like me!”

“no way no way! You know its not a secret!”

“hey hey you you! I want to be your girlfriend!

“oh, geez listen to me ha-ha if only he saw me that way, I’ve seen him all these years, but instead, he only has eyes for the girl that goes out of her way to ruin my days”.

With that last line, he moved up against the door to listen better to the girl’s woes.

“So, come over here and make your girlfriend disappear! I don’t wanna hear you say her name ever again!”

“she’s like so whatever, and you could do so much better I think we should get together now”

“maybe if I was half as pretty as Elise, he would’ve chosen me… Nah probably not ha-ha”.

Arno sat there dumbfounded all these years he has ignored the one girl who waited patiently by his side and helped through everything. He made up his mind there and then that he would speak to Elise as soon as possible to break things off and scold her for the bullying his best friend.

“There’s no other so when’s it gonna sink in? she’s so stupid, what the hell were you thinking?

“oh, mon amour I don’t know what I was thinking, I saw nothing more than a pretty face”

“How did I not know she could sing this well in all the years I’ve known her, I really was blinded by Elise and to think she’s been treating (Y/N) this poorly and (Y/N) sat by to let me be a happy god I’m so stupid”.

The shower came to a halt and Arno decided it was time to stop eavesdropping and go find Elise, he slipped away without a sound just Intime for (Y/N) to leave the bathroom and start her day. (Y/N) made her way down the hall and to the kitchen to make some breakfast. After she finished breakfast, she grabbed her keys off the counter and made off for a secondhand bookstore she loved to try and get her mind off Arno.

“God I haven’t been this bad about him in a while I must be more depressed than normal”

She started her car and made for the bookshop.

Finally reaching the shop she parked and walked in ringing the bell on the door

“Bonjour Mademoiselle (Y/N) ça fait plaisir de te revoir ma chère, Comment puis-je vous aider?”

Asked the owner greeting the girl who frequented his shop

“Bonjour Monsieur Lacroix, that’s not necessary sir! You know me I’m just always looking for more books!”

“very well ma chère I’ll be here if you need me”

Walking further into the bookshop savoring the aesthetics and smell of books you heard talking in a near cubby of shelves. You could only make out murmurs and a few words, getting closer the conversation became clearer.

“Elise I’m sorry but I can’t do this anymore, I know you're angry but there is nothing I can do about the way I feel”

Arno? What’s he doing here? With Elise none the less, I never knew either of them knew this place existed. So much for my little safe haven away from home.

“This is because of her, isn’t it? That little slut came onto you, didn’t she?”

“no, she didn’t I just realized a little too late that the girl I loved was with me long before you came into the picture”

Is he talking about me? This can’t be real; I must be dreaming. My thoughts were interrupted though by a loud clapping noise, did Arno just get slapped?

“fine Arno jokes on you I’ve been cheating on you for months with Enjolras!”

She was in such a rage she rushed past without noticing you, quietly you moved to the entrance of the book cubby. Arno was sat there head down looking more defeated then you’ve ever seen him. Without looking up Arno quietly said

“Elise I’m done I’m not arguing anymore”

“I may not be here for an argument, but I would like an explanation as to your best friend as to what just happened cher ami”

Arno’s head snapped up at the sound of your voice

“mon chèrie? What are you doing here?”

“I practically live at this shop Arno me and the owner are like family, now what just happened between you and Elise?”

“I don’t know how much you just heard but I broke things off with her and she was not very happy and then to find out she has been cheating for months on end, I really am a blind idiot”

“Why did you break things off with her you two were perfect for each other?”

“no, I was wrong about her especially after she just admitted to cheating”

“well I’m sorry mon ami, is there anything I can do to help you?”

“There is one thing, as creepy as this may sound, I came home earlier than expected today and without even meaning to while trying to see if anyone was home, I ended up hearing your beautiful shower performance- “

Cutting him off embarrassed you said

“you heard all of that??”

“oui mon amour as I was saying it helped me realize what was really there, and that was you... its always been you”

Without a second thought, you threw yourself at Arno for a long meaningful hug, breaking from his deep embrace you both shared a wordless loving gaze and with that one gaze years of unspoken feelings came out at once. Arno gently lifted your chin up lowering his lips down to yours, the kiss was gentle and sweet and everything you could have hoped for over the years

“well finally after hearing dear (Y/N) talk about you for years young man, I’m and happy for the both of you”

You embarrassedly broke apart from each other and you went to give the old man a hug

“merci Monsieur Lacroix”

You let go of him and waved goodbye whilst grabbing Arno’s hand, you left the bookshop you loved dearly with no new books for you found something even better today you found your fairy tale prince

FIN

#arno dorian #arno #arno dorian x reader #Assassin's Creed #assassin's creed unity #elise de la serre #Elise #assassin's creed x reader #assassin's creed unity x reader #x reader #first fanfic #arno victor dorian

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zutarawasrobbed · 5 years

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After The War (Zutara Exchange 2019)

My exchange piece for @addictofreading I hope you enjoy! This is Chapter one of two. I hope to have Chapter two done by Friday at the latest.

Rating: T

FF.net

AO3

Chapter summary: Katara needs time to deal with the consequences of facing her mothers murderer. Zuko knows somewhere they can go.

The wind is calm as the waves hit the sand. The moon is at its highest point and the stars light up the sky. Ember Island always has the best views. Katara hates admitting this though. For so long she saw the Fire Nation as the root of all evil. But the past few months have changed a lot. Three months ago she arrived in the the Fire Nation and within those three months, she had an epiphany—the Fire Nation was no different than any of the other nations. A nation itself is not inherently evil, she realized, only the people and their actions can determine the outcome of a nation.

In three months Katara learned the bending practices of her tribe at the price of learning bloodbending. But she also saved many Fire Nation villages. And as a result she learned about the people and that they aren’t so different from her after all. She had an enemy who became her teammate. That teammate took her on a life changing journey, and then that teammate became her friend. They now take residence in the very home of the man who they are meant to defeat in the upcoming month. And the irony doesn’t stop there. You see, while people see her and the Fire Lord’s son as friends, they are only seeing half of the picture. Because only a week after their newfound friendship, it turned into something more.

After Yon Rha

Katara spent the first week after the confrontation of Yon Rha wrapped up in Zuko’s arms crying her eyes out from flashbacks she thought she buried over years of self determination and distraction. Zuko thought it would be a good idea to wait a few days before sending word to the rest of the gaang where they were so that Katara could have the time she needed to breathe.

The first night after the confrontation, she and Zuko found shelter in a dam cave looking over the bluffs of Whale tale Island. Aside from the howling winds and drops of rain, it was otherwise quiet. Night came and so did the memories.

Katara started hyperventilating and crying hysterically. She was having a flashback. And it scared her. She never felt so much in such a short amount of time. It was like a dam broke and all the emotions she locked away for years came flooding out of her mind. She couldn’t breathe. The whole room was spinning. A minute later Zuko entered the room and gave her a look that said more than any words ever could. He understood. And with that look, she knew she could breathe.

It was the first time she had gotten to mourn Kya’s death. As a child, there had been no time; After Kya’s death she didn’t have time to mourn, the war was in full swing and the tribe was panicked and shocked at the news of their chief being slaughtered. The people were told a different story from the truth. The people were told that Kya’s death was planned from the beginning to wreak havoc amongst her people and create unrest. They never learned the truth. They never learned the real target was Kya’s daughter for being born a crime.

Katara didn’t have time to ponder that or take in the lie she would have to continue to feed her people over the years. She didn’t even flinch when her father left. She understood. If Katara had been old enough she would’ve joined him and taken out all her anger on the nation that took her mother from her.

But her father was gone, the new chief was leading their tribe’s army to protect their land. So there wasn’t time to grieve over her slaughtered mother and neglectful father—all she could do was get to work and help lead her people. She grew up too fast and she knew that. But she didn’t realize just how much of a toll this would take on her. And she never imagined she would be feeling all of these emotions while splayed in the arms of the man whose father took both their mothers from them.

She could hear the steady heartbeat rumbling in Zuko’s chest. It comforts her. Like a lullaby telling her it was all going to be okay. This lullaby helps abate her tears. It soothes her and makes her feel at home… Who would’ve thought she would find a home in the arms of the enemy, in the heart of the enemy? Whoa. easy there Katara. You’re entering enemy territory…

She woke up with her head on his chest and to the sight of a peaceful firebender holding her in a manner so gentle, she could break it with a whisper.

It doesn’t take long after her subtle movement, for his eyes to open. And when they do, Katara swears she feels fire being bent up her spine to her cheeks. Have his eyes always been this gold?

The second night they arrive at Zuko’s old family vacation home in Ember island. The air was stale from lack of use over the years and doors were closed to rooms Katara could only assume held bad memories from a tortured past. One room called out to her. It turned out to be Azula’s room as a child. Strange how so much could be said about a person through the possessions they held as a child. The room was decorated modestly. What stood out was the headless doll which Zuko said was given to her from their Uncle. The more she analyzed the room, the more stifling it felt and anger took the place of curiosity. Azula had a childhood. She did not.

After what felt like hours of contemplation, Katara decided this room was too much for her to handle, and sought out the comfort she was given yesterday. She felt a pull in her chest she dare not name, and found Zuko in his room doing the same thing she was... Remembering. He didn’t hear her come in. He was too transfixed on the small dagger he always kept with him. The look in his eyes was glassy. A look she knew all too well from looking at her mothers necklace. The room was dark by choice, she knew the feeling, this old room must hold too much pain for him. Where the pain came from was unclear. Was it from good memories that went sour over time? Or was it bad memories that festered as he got older?

As soon as she exhales in solidarity with his pain, he turns to her, and the emotions explode like a boiling volcano waiting to erupt from the pressure, building inside.

That night was a repeat of the first. With one key difference. This time when she cries into his chest, Zuko doesn’t stay still. This time she can feel his hands in her hair. Caressing each strand as if it were mere strands of gold. It’s soothing? Soothing is not a word she would’ve ever associated with a firebender. But that’s what this is, and Katara is not one to lie. So she admits it to herself. Zuko is soothing her. Zuko is… soothing.

Morning comes and the sun casts a light into Zuko’s childhood room. It’s a strange feeling, waking up at dawn. But she finds she kind of likes it. She likes feeling the calm that comes with the light of the sun rising and the knowledge of the moon setting. Her pillow is also quite comfortable; its constant rhythm is a melody she’s coming to memorize. Katara knows this could be potentially dangerous. Using her former enemy’s chest as a pillow, and the melody of his heart as her song. But feeling his arms wrapped protectively around her and a gentle hand cradling her head to his heart. She can’t find it in herself to care. In fact… She revels in it.

The third night is not like the first two. Zuko is there holding her again. It’s become a silent understanding between the two. They keep their distance in the sun, they come together in the night. Tonight is different. Because while Zuko holds her to his chest as gently as he has before, she does not cry... And as she feels sleep taking over her, she hears something other than their joined heartbeats. One word spoken before sleep takes her. One word whispered as if the wind itself was sending it to her ears.

“Beautiful.”

This is bad. This is dangerous. Katara knows she’s in trouble. Last night’s word could’ve been from a dream, a thought, or even wishful thinking. There was no way Zuko would ever think of her in such a way. She is a peasant, she is a waterbender, she is- ‘“beautiful.”

No! I am not-

“-Beautiful.”

She’s in trouble…

The fourth night is tense. The message has been sent with Appa to meet them at Zuko’s old family vacation home on Ember Island. The peace of the past three nights is gone. In its place is a tension with questions and the knowledge that their sense of privacy and peace will soon end. Zuko is still holding her close. Only this time, Katara can swear he is holding her to his chest for not only her comfort, but his own. There is a new sense of intimacy tonight. She can’t stop thinking about how Zuko called her pretty. What did this mean? This unspoken agreement between them was becoming more and more complicated. And the silence was starting to get stifling rather than comforting.

What if I made the wrong decision? I bloodbent again. Am I a monster?… I’m a monster-

“You’re not a monster, Katara.”

She stills. How long was she talking out loud? How much did he hear? But these thoughts come to a close as she realizes Zuk isn’t done talking.

“You’re beautiful.” He says these words as if they’re indisputable facts. His voice is groggy. It’s past midnight. He must not even know what he’s saying.

At least that’s what she tells herself to excuse what she did next. It was quick but no less meaningful.

Katara gently removes herself from Zuko’s broad chest to look at his face. His eyes are open, but they’re clearly clouded with exhaustion. His eyes widen as he sees her looking at him with such softness. She reaches her hand slowly to cup his face. He stays still, unmoving, his eyes still wide with questions she herself didn’t know the answers to. So she doesn’t try. Instead, she lets her actions speak for her her as she presses a gentle kiss to his scarred cheek.

It’s quick. Lasts no more than two- maybe three seconds. But it’s enough for both of their body temperatures to heat up. More Zuko than her, obviously. His body suddenly feels like an inferno, but she doesn't move away. She’s too shocked at what she’s just done to move.

“Katara, I-”

“Don’t.” She quickly removes her eyes from his face and prepares to flee from the situation she just thrust herself into. He stops her before she can.

Morning comes, and so does the memories of last night. Last night wasn’t the same as before. This time there was a bed and they were actually cuddling. No more hardwood floors. No more using cloaks as blankets. Instead they were in an actual bed with silk sheets and feathered comforters. Instead of gripping onto Zuko’s tunic for purchase as the tears rolled down her face, he’s holding her from behind with his arms gently encircling her exposed stomach.

It got too hot in the middle of the night so they both decided it was best to shed some clothing. Katara lays in only her wrappings, while Zuko wears only his pants. She hates to admit it, but she’s never felt more comfortable in her life. She feels safe. She feels warm. She feels… like home. Very dangerous indeed.

The evening breeze is warm, but chilling at the same time. They decided to get dinner in town tonight. They walk in silence, side by side. So close to touching but not quite. They spent the day away from each other trying to gather their thoughts. It was Katara who broke the silence and suggested eating out. Stupid decision, really. It’s one thing to spend time alone in a house together but- okay, yeah. She can admit it doesn’t get much more intimate than that. Except you let him sleep with you last night… In a bed… Okay, that was a good point. You also cuddled him, too. Don’t act like you didn’t sniff his hair and touch his abs when he was asleep. Okay, her brain really needed to stop calling her out. It’s not fair.

Dinner was served and Katara was surprised to find out that ocean kumquats were very similar to sea prunes and that Zuko seemed to enjoy them. Apparently being banished for three years leads people into trying new things. But that’s not what’s important. They had to talk. It seems Zuko knew that better than her and decided to break the silence.

“The rest of team will be arriving in two days…”

“I know.” Katara sighs in defeat. She did know. But she didn’t want to think about that. Things were too complicated now. She wishes she could go back to hating Zuko. That was simple. Back then, there was no gray area. Now, all there ever seems to be is gray. But not between good and evil. Not between love and hate- she doesn’t think hating him would even be possible at this point. But maybe… Maybe she never did. Questions like this only make things harder…

“I’m sorry for last night.”

That got her attention. Apparently the shock on her face was evident enough for him to continue, “I mean. I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry for betraying you back in the caves. I’m sorry for hunting down your friends—I never wanted anyone to get hurt—I still don’t. I never meant for anything to happen-”

Katara could tell he was just saying whatever words he could get out of his mouth. It was kind of adorable actually... A lot of things have been adorable about Zuko lately… “I’m not.”

Those words shut him up. “What? What do you-”

Katara reaches across their table and grabs his hands.

“I’m not sorry for last night. I wanted it. Nothing happened, but…” a blush started heating her face. “I know what you’re feeling.”

Zuko gulps. “You do?”

“I think so… I hope so.” She whispers the last sentence to herself. She needs to be more upfront. They’re too similar. She knows he’s not going to make the first move because she won't either. But someone has to. Someone has to start talking and stop avoiding things. She knows where their avoidance comes from. Fear.

Fear of losing someone. They both lost someone. Their mothers. Their homes. Themselves… The idea of talking about something that could change everything they’ve both worked so hard to create is what stops her—what stops them. Zuko’s never backed down from a challenge before. She knows that because she’s seen it with her own eyes. Watching his undying determination to get what he wanted was really inspiring. Even while they were on opposite sides, she could always admire his strength. He never gave up and neither did she. They never backed down from a fight. But emotions… That’s a different story. They both lost so much. They only just found each other. She knows how he’s feeling.

He’s feeling like he’s finally found a piece of himself he didn’t even know was missing. Someone who understands him, through and through. Someone who can see what he’s thinking before he does. Katara knows this because she feels the same way. She wants to tell him she understands. Tell him that she knows the fear in his eyes because they match her own. But one of them has to make the first move… So, she goes first.

“Zuko, I-” The words die on her lips because another pair are very much in the way at the moment. And she has no desire to stop them. Everything around her stills as she finally gives in to what she’s been holding back inside her for so long.

Kissing Zuko was not like kissing anyone else. Kissing Jet was rough and passionate, but that’s all it was. He was her first kiss and she’ll always cherish that first experience. Kissing Aang was… well, it wasn’t really anything. The first time they kissed was a do or die situation. She didn’t really think much of it. It just was. Never in a million years would she think he actually felt something for her. She thought he understood where they stood. She was his guide, he was her responsibility. To say him kissing her at the invasion was a shock, would be an understatement. It was surprising but also very abrupt. She didn’t really have enough time to react. All she knew was that when it was over, it wasn’t what she wanted. But Zuko…

Kissing Zuko was like swimming in a hot spring slowly boiling over. It felt hot and cold at the same time. Push and pull, water and fire… Balance. It felt like two puzzle pieces finally coming together to make something amazing. It was soft and gentle. Yet strong and intense all the same. Passion was there. But not overwhelmingly so. It was perfect. You will marry a powerful bender.

Both she and Zuko pull back at the same time as soon those words flew through her mind. Did he hear it, too?

Little did Katara know that Zuko was hearing something similar in his brain as well Destiny is a funny thing, Prince Zuko.

That night they don’t leave each other’s side. They spend the rest of the evening watching the stars on the beach and when Zuko gives her a shell saying it reminded him of her, she kissed his burnt cheek and rested her head on his shoulder with his arms around her keeping her close to his chest.

#zutara #zutara exchange #zutara fanfiction #zuko x katara #Zuko and Katara #@addictofreading #my writing

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airquietworks · 5 years

Text

Expecting! (IzuOcha)(Part 1)

Summary: “In other news today, pro heroes Deku and Uravity made a big announcement: they are having a baby! The two heroes appeared on a special cover of Hero Life, which featured the couple posing nude. The pair are expecting….”

The world may never be the same. Izuku and Ochako have to answer for their choice to have a child. Navigating pregnancy and heroics is no small task, but together, they are determined to succeed.

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Chapter 1: Love, work and burdens

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“Alright. Comfortable? How about we just start with your names for the recording?”

A brief pause. Her subjects subtly squeezed each other’s hands. She jotted that down into her notepad. Every detail mattered.

“Ochako Midoriya.”

“Izuku Midoriya.”

Hearing their names said aloud made the whole situation seem all the more real. She was actually doing this. She was actually interviewing Deku and Uravity, the most famous hero couple on the planet! She felt a strong urge to gush and squeal about this opportunity.

But she would not do that, of course. She was Kyoko Chijie. She was a professional. She had gotten her awe and fangirling out of the way prior to the interview. She was ready. Ready to cut straight to the hearts of these two heroes – in due time.

“Now, let’s start from the beginning. What was your reaction when you found out you were pregnant?”

Her subjects’ faces remained calm, but their nerves were evident. Neither of them was quite willing to look directly at her. There was a mild flush staining Uravity’s cheeks at the question, as she gingerly ran her fingers on her enlarged belly.

“Umm…well…” Uravity began weakly, voice barely above a whisper. “I was pretty…pretty happy.”

“Definitely happy,” Deku echoed, only marginally louder. He did not elaborate.

There was an awkward pause after that. Kyoko watched Uravity’s eyes stay glued to her lap. She was so unlike the indomitable person who appeared on television. It was strange; Kyoko had seen her ace plenty of interviews before.

But this was different. Uravity rarely, if ever, talked about her personal life. The two heroes were notoriously private about their relationship.

That was what made this opportunity so magnificent. They were giving her a glimpse into the world behind their heroics, in an effort to control the message about their future child. It was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to understand how these professionals functioned. More importantly, it was a chance to expose the difficulties and dramas that heroes experienced behind the scenes.

That was her angle, anyway. She hoped she could get there in time. If all went well, she could push herself to the very top of the journalism world. She would be fair, but she fully intended to get the answers she needed to write the story of her career.

Kyoko could feel her pulse rising from the thrill of it all. She thrummed the six fingers on her right hand across the page – a plain Quirk which paled in comparison to the mighty paragons she was talking to.

Indeed, their physical presence and wholesome good looks were intimidating. She was built to be as unnoticeable as a fly on the wall; they were just plain built, truly at the pinnacle of humanity.

But she could work against those anxieties. She had the skills to intimidate them too, she knew.

For that, she put on a soft, wide smile. She would have to pull out all the stops, lest the interview go awry.

“Hey, take all the time you need. We can take a break any time,” she suggested, finally managing to attract the rescue hero’s eyes. “We can take this nice and slow. I’m not going to hit you with anything too surprising. I just want to share your story the best I can. And it will honestly reflect what you share with me.”

The heroic couple exchanged another meaningful look. Without a word, they nodded to one another, reaffirming some unspoken commitment. Their shoulders relaxed a little. It was not much, but it was a start.

“So then…” Kyoko began anew, hoping to stir a little bit more comment. “Let’s try this: describe for me the moment when you found out you were pregnant.”

Uravity took a deep breath. She squeezed her partner’s hand again.

“Well, we had been trying for a while. A few months. But it hadn’t really worked out.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Deku supplied. “In our line of work…well…it’s tough.”

“Why is it tough?”

The two flushed at the question. Kyoko smiled knowingly. She could not resist the prod.

“Well…you know…it…” Uravity stuttered, trying to find the right response.

“It can be tough to find opportunities, I imagine?” Kyoko offered, saving the two of them from further anguish.

The two nodded with energy, red fully engulfing both their cheeks now. Kyoko laughed a bit at their expressions.

“Sorry if that was a little awkward. Let’s move on. So, you had been going for a while. When did you know?”

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Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Ochako swung her hand out wildly to stop the blaring of her 6 a.m. alarm. Her head was pounding, far more than it usually would in the early hour.

She struggled to disentangle herself from Izuku and climb out of bed. He was recovering from a night shift, and there was no way she would wake him up early if she could help it. Sleep was too precious - and rare - a thing for them both.

Unfortunately, she had an early morning briefing to attend to, even if her work ran late the day before. Such was the life of a pro hero.

Queasiness rose sharply within her as soon as she stood up and made her way to the bathroom. She stumbled into it in a fugue, missing the light switch on her first two tries. When it finally flickered on, she collapsed onto the floor in front of the toilet, preparing for the worst.

She waited, hoping the lump in her throat would pass without her hurling up. She had already puked for the past two days, and she did not need this right now. Or ever. There was already too much she had to worry about without wasting this time in the morning.

The churning in her stomach and throat started to wane, miraculously without her vomiting. With the illness abated, she stood up and searched the medicine cabinet hanging over the sink to find anything for nausea.

Her eyes stopped when they saw the home pregnancy test sitting on one of the shelves. She gingerly reached out to grab it, her mind twisting at the possibilities it held.

She thought her nausea might be due to overuse of her Quirk, perhaps because she was getting older. But she had never been sick in the mornings like this before.

Could it be something else…?

Her hazy head tried to think. When was her last period? It seemed so long ago.

Ochako went about pulling the kit apart. They had been trying for months, but she had neglected to keep testing without any early success. Her heavy eyelids were wide now, pried open by a burst of energy from the prospect of life-changing news.

When she finished, she laid the stick out, frantically reading through the instructions for how long it might take. She groaned a little at the recommendation – ten minutes.

She might find out she was going to be a mother in ten minutes.

Ochako took a bracing breath, trying to cool her expectations. She had done this song and dance before. She did not need to get her hopes up, not until she confirmed it.

It was no good for her schedule, but she could not bring herself to do much beyond waiting idly for the test to finish. The minutes seemed to drag on forever. Her stomach started to churn again, kicking around painfully.

Thoughts of a child started to dance through her mind. For months, she had dreamed of what it would be like. To raise a child of her own. To hold them in her arms. To see them grow and change. To watch Izuku be a dad.

Even through her pain, she could smile at that.

The stick on the counter started to change. A second pink line appeared on its surface. She was pregnant – or at least 99 percent likely to be pregnant.

In spite of her pounding head and painful stomach, she could not stop the burst of happiness exploding within her. She grabbed the stick with a shaky hand, feeling the tears beginning to well up at the corners of her eyes.

She looked back into the darkened bedroom. With a deep breath, she walked back inside, moving over to their shared bed. She flicked on a bedside lamp and leaned over him, watching over his peaceful features.

Ochako sat down on the bed next to him, smiling down on the man she called her husband. She loved seeing him like this – at ease, with none of the worries of the world weighing him down. It was a rare sight to behold. The chiselled lines of the face looked beautiful in the low light.

She reached a hand out, stroking along the edge of his hair.

He had made her promise. No matter what, she needed to tell him as soon as she knew.

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“We’re partners, after all.”

Kyoko watched the dreamy look the pair exchanged. She grinned, scribbling the image away into her notes.

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Ochako leaned down and gently pressed her lips into his, trying to awaken the sleeping beauty.

She followed that with a light pinch to his side, a more surefire way of getting him to wake up. He could be a heavy sleeper, but she did not want to frighten him out of slumber with a loud noise.

“Mmmhm,” he groaned, cracking his eyes open slowly. “…Ochako? What time is it?”

She could not stop herself from giggling at his dozy face. He could be so cute when he was waking up.

“It’s 6:30. Sorry, I know it’s early, but you made me promise.”

“Promise…what?” He interrupted himself with a yawn, his eyes blinking back closed.

She decided it was best to be blunt. She hardly had the energy or patience to be anything but.

“Izuku, I’m pregnant.”

That got him awake. His eyes flew open, staring at her intensely. He blinked at her and reached a hand out to rub the dreams away from his eyes. “Come again?”

“I’m pregnant,” she repeated, a little more slowly, beaming down at him and holding up her precious colored stick.

“You're…you're…” he sat up quickly, staring down at her, his eyes alight with a passionate flame. “Am I dreaming?”

“If you are, I am too.” She leaned a hand down to pinch his arm again, in case he was still doubtful. “You’re going to be a dad, Izuku.”

The radiant, weepy expression that exploded across his face made all of her fatigue melt away. He cried without shame, fat tears streaming as he hugged her tightly against himself.

“Thank you,” he whispered next to her ear. It was quiet enough to make her doubt if she was meant to hear it. She responded anyway.

“For what?”

“For making my life so wonderful.”

She did not have long; she had work to get to. But she gave herself ten minutes to bask in the bliss of the moment with him. Ten minutes of tear-soaked kisses, love-filled murmurings, and idle strokes across each other’s skin.

It was more than enough to get her through the long day.

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The memory sent a warm glow through the pair. They visibly relaxed, their eyes much more focused on each other and on the bump large on Uraraka’s belly.

The memory was important for the story, but it was not exactly juicy. It was sweet, certainly. But it was surprisingly mundane. No fretting, no accidents, no catastrophes getting in the way: just two people in love enjoying the process of creating a new life together.

It was a start, but Kyoko was determined to go deeper. They were two of the greatest heroes of this generation. There had to be more to it than that.

“That’s really sweet,” Kyoko said earnestly, flashing a toothy grin their way. “But I have to ask, since I guess it was planned: why did you decide to have a child? Especially considering the field you work in.”

Embedded in the question were the underlying facts that would make this story explode, no matter how it was delivered. Women pro heroes did not commonly have children, let alone in their late 20s. It was considered too big a hurdle in an extremely competitive field. A hero stood to lose millions of yen. Time off would mean a big ranking hit, at least when they were a top pro like Uravity.

Hero culture also tended to idolize youth, or at least the appearance of it. Pregnancy tended to work against the idealized images women heroes needed to cultivate. Sexism could be a pain that way.

Male heroes could get away more easily with parenting. As long as their partners were not famous, information on their children was kept pretty under wraps. Most media outlets respected that. Nobody wanted to lead villains to attack the children of heroes.

But generally, extraordinary people were not supposed to do ordinary things like having kids. They were taking a wrecking ball to their own myths. People would feel betrayed. There would be outrage.

There would be clicks.

“Well, it wasn’t an easy decision to make.”

Uravity’s voice snapped Kyoko from her internal musings. She chided herself for letting her mind wander. She had to focus on the now. On getting the answers.

“Neither of us had really imagined being parents growing up,” Deku added. “We were both set on being heroes from when we were young. But over time, the idea became more…appealing.”

There was passion in the tone of his voice. Kyoko seized on it.

“I’m sure you both interacted with plenty of children during rescues, right?”

“We have,” Uravity answered steadily, adorned with a wistful smile. “We both ended up spending time helping to take care of children. And I guess we slowly kind of fell in love with it.”

“Kids can be a lot of work. But they have this incredible spark in them. Every child I’ve met has given me hope for the future.” Deku’s eyes were on the horizon, looking beyond anything in their cozy room. “I just…I wanted the chance to have my own. Really raise someone.”

“And I want the same thing,” Uraravity chimed in, her hand tensing to squeeze his. The two shared a significant look, exchanging the unspoken language of lovers.

It was, again, cute. But their feelings surely had to be more complicated than that.

“So, getting ready for a child is a lot of work and you two certainly lead pretty busy lives. How are you feeling now, with the child getting closer?”

The two glanced at one another again. Deku’s face fell a little bit as he pinched his chin in consideration of the question.

He glanced back up at Kyoko, the prior warmth in his face gone. His expression was one of the utmost seriousness. Too serious. “Scared.”

The room filled with Uraravity’s ringing laughter. Deku looked back, flashing a grin. Kyoko quirked an eyebrow up, starting to feel a little like a third wheel.

“He ain’t wrong!” Uravity exclaimed between chortles, her notoriously rare country accent coming through. She took a couple of deep breaths and brought a hand to her face, seeming to realize she committed a personal faux pas.

Kyoko waited patiently. She wrote down the strange exchange – and tried to wrap her mind around them taking their fears so lightly.

“Sorry, it’s kind of an inside joke,” Uravity muttered, bowing her head slightly. Deku did the same. “We’ve been running ragged worrying about it. We needed to find humour in it all.”

“It’s a frightening concept,” the green hero added, reaching out to take his wife’s hand once again. Kyoko furiously scribbled in the detail. “Us being parents, especially in a line of work where we put our lives on the line every day.”

She watched Uravity squeeze his hand back tightly. Their casual intimacy was a sight to behold, stringent as they tended to be in public.

“But at the same time, it’s very exciting!” Deku continued with enthusiasm. “It makes us want to work harder to protect our future generation.”

The two smiled at one another, any trace of nerves completely dissipated. Kyoko watched the two in rapture, the love in their eyes plain for all to see. She held her breath, unwilling to do anything that might disrupt them.

“If there’s one thing I know, it’s that Deku and I can get through anything together. We make an unstoppable team!”

Uraraka punctuated her statement with a cocksure grin and a raised fist, her right hand thrusting outward. Her partner followed suit, laughing all the while.

At that moment, Kyoko wished desperately she had thought to film this. She was scared to push her luck, but now regretted not trying.

It was certainly bracing, seeing two of the generation’s greatest heroes so lost in the throes of casual romance. They were far more different in private than she might have expected.

This was not exactly the anxiety she had thought she might pull out of them. She needed to find that, the worries that Deku and Uravity would have for their futures.

Kyoko’s mouth set into a hard line.

“Well, that’s great,” she replied softly. The words seemed to snap the pair to attention as if they just remembered she was even there, which was not necessarily a bad thing. “You two really seem like you got this down.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Uravity responded sheepishly, withdrawing her outstretched hand. “It’s been pretty difficult to adjust.”

“I imagine for you especially.” Kyoko eyed Uravity’s swollen belly, impossible to disguise under her large shirt. “So how have you managed your pregnancy while still doing hero work these past few months?”

The gravity hero’s face fell, her upbeat demeanour rushing away quickly. She took a deep breath and folded her hands together in front of her.

Kyoko leaned forward, almost reaching the end of her seat. She kept her eyes narrowly zoomed in on every bit of body language playing out on Uravity. She prayed this question would yield the drama she wanted, the truth behind all the smiles.

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“GRAVITY-!”

“NO! NO PLEASE DON’T PLEASE, JUST LET ME-”

“PILEDRIVER!”

Uravity let go of the gargantuan villain just 20 feet above the ground, arms sore from the act of holding him to her. She released her Quirk just before letting go of him, causing him to plummet to the earth headfirst, the air filling with his screams before he crashed into the concrete. The blow instantly sent him unconscious. It was a heavy-handed move, but somewhat necessary to halt the eight-foot-tall beast from continuing his rampage through the downtown shopping district.

Uravity caught herself with her Quirk, causing her to jerk upwards from her own rapid descent. She felt her stomach churn at the maneuver, but she was no worse for the wear otherwise. With the villain down and out, she let herself gently float down.

She was conscious of all the snaps of cellphone cameras as the civilians started to crowd around the felled villain, the jewelry he had stolen sparkling under the bright sun.

Right. Time to nail it for the crowd.

She landed gracefully onto the pavement next to him and turned to face the lights. She stared into a camera held in the trembling hands of a teenage girl.

Uravity gave her a bubbly grin and a thumbs up.

“Sometimes, you gotta bring these villains down to earth!”

The crowd ate it up, letting out a thunderous roar of approval. She waved, soaking it in, trying to stand tall for all the future newspaper photos being taken.

She kept beaming to the people, even as the bile rose up in her throat.

“Well, you certainly handled this one quickly. Didn’t even have a chance to lend a hand.”

Uravity jumped a bit, turning slightly to see her boss and mentor, the draconic shapeshifter Ryukyu, approach. She breathed a sigh of relief as the dragon hero draped an arm over her protégé. Despite Ryukyu’s tall, imposing figure - even in her human form - her presence was a comfort.

“I can take it from here. You can float out if you want to,” Ryukyu whispered into her ear, peeking an eye out from behind her blonde bangs.

Ochako was actively fighting back her own queasiness. She could see television cameras starting to make their way through the crowd.

“Thanks,” Ochako whispered back. She turned to address the crowd, giving one last parting wave. “Sorry, folks, but I got another mission to attend to. Stay safe!”

With that, she triggered her Quirk on herself and leaped high into the air, her stomach rumbling deeply in protest.

The rush of the wind did little to aid her raging gut. Ochako floated until she found an empty rooftop. She did not land gracefully this time, stumbling as she released her Quirk, before immediately hurling her stomach’s contents onto the cold stone.

When the puking finally subsided, she stumbled over to a raised area around the rooftop door and sat down to rest her back onto it. She panted deeply, breath short, throwing her helmet off and wiping the sweat from her brow.

She unzipped the back of her costume, letting the fabric loosen around her to give much-needed relief for her skin. The outfit felt tight, even without the added padding to disguise her protruding belly. The disguise worked, for the most part, other than the odd tabloid accusing her of getting fat.

“Damn it,” Ochako muttered under her breath, stroking her belly through her suit, feeling the raised flesh.

She really was getting fat at this point. She thought she had mentally prepared for it, but experiencing it was something else entirely. One simple fight was enough to completely knock the wind out of her. Her complicated maneuvers sent her puking to a degree she had not experienced since high school. Being pregnant completely made her out-of-sync in her hero work.

She buried her face into her palms.

“This sucks.”

“So why are you doing this?”

Ochako snapped to attention. “Doing what?” Her tongue slipped on instinct as the question shot lightning down her spine. She hurriedly turned, her mind whirring in preparation.

The piercing stare of a human-sized Ryuko kept her in place. Ochako sat there for a moment, staring back at the dragon hero like frozen prey. She was struck by how out-of-it she must have been not to have noticed Ryuko follow her, using the massive wings of her dragon form.

Ochako finally moved, scrambling to stand back up. The heat from the sun suddenly felt far more pronounced, the sweat prickling at the skin on her forehead. She put on a carefree smile, hoping she could manage to fool her mentor.

“So…what’s happening with the scene?”

“I’ve got Neijre on it. Thug’s knocked out cold and on his way to the hospital, but should be alright. Everything is being returned.”

“That’s a relief. I thought I might have overdone it.” She had been so desperate to end the encounter quickly. She did not know how well she could have held her Quirk if she had just settled on keeping the villain afloat to wait for help.

“It seems you didn’t.” With that, Ryuko stepped forward, shifting to lean on the same wall. She tilted her head down to Ochako, leaving little room to look away. “So again – why are you still doing this? You’re pregnant. You can take it a little easier.”

Ochako did her best to keep on a bubbly mask before the astute eyes of her boss.

Ryuko was one of the few Ochako had confided in about her pregnancy. Thankfully, she was endlessly supportive and oddly enthusiastic about it. But Ochako could feel the tension between them rise as the pregnancy progressed and Ryuko asked more and more frequently about her well-being.

But Ochako refused to back down. She was not going to show any weakness. She was going to follow her plan and stay in the field for as long as she could.

“Well, it’s my job, after all. And we’re still pretty busy.” Ochako took a couple of steps forward and stared out into the sprawling metropolis before them. “They still need me. And I’m still doing fine.”

She turned to give Ryuko an enthusiastic thumbs up, much like the one she had given the crowd earlier.

“You don’t have to worry about me!”

There as an awkward pause at that point. The heat started to make Ochako’s head throb, a wooziness overcoming her. Ryuko went a little fuzzy in her vision and she could feel her thumb start to shake. She shook her head to clear it. She had to keep it together.

With a fearful jolt, Ochako realized she had completely zoned out while Ryuko had started talking. She refocused, hanging onto each word as the hero approached.

“…I’m just worried. I haven’t seen you get this worn out since your internship days. Maybe we should dial your load back a little…”

“NO!” The offer was like a slap in the face. “No, please, it’s alright. I’m fine. Maybe let me call it early today and I promise I’ll be alright tomorrow.”

She punched upward awkwardly, hoping to sell the act despite the pulsing beat of her head. She had promised herself she was not going to let her pregnancy impact her workload before it was absolutely necessary. She had scheduled everything out and it was way too early to be thinking about reducing her workload. There was a budget to keep, after all.

Ryuko quirked up an eyebrow. Her narrow eyes squinted at Ochako, judging the performance. Ochako tried to maintain the façade, keeping a wavering smile on her face.

A headrush came over her. She stumbled to the right, walking forward to rest against the wall. She narrowly avoided tumbling to the ground.

“Ochako!” her teacher cried out, shifting forward to place a pair of comforting hands on her. Ochako feebly tried to wave her away, but found that she could not summon much energy.

“I’m just…a little…woozy, that’s all.”

The world was spinning. She could feel her trademark queasiness start to claw up her throat again.

“Not too warm…I can carry you to the ground, but I want to try to secure you properly first.”

The words were muted as if going through a filter. She lost track of Ryuko’s hands.

Ochako blinked hard. The face in front of her stopped swimming, Ryuko’s concern coming back into focus.

“I'm…fine. Just give me a bit.” She closed her eyes. It was a relief to let the world fade away for a moment. Her throbbing head pulsed, but she managed to rein in her upset stomach for the time being.

There was a brief, merciful, quiet lull. She was glad she had loosened up her oft-tight costume. She heard her boss take a deep breath. Something pleasantly cool pressed into her hand.

“Water, if you need it.”

Eyes still closed, she wrapped her hand around the bottle, lifting it up and chugging it down. She finished by splashing the water on her face, a slap to set the world back straight.

Ochako opened her eyes to see Ryukyo still hovering over her. Her small lips wavered, words dying before being uttered.

“I trust you to know your health best, Ochako. But…can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.” Her headrush was fading, but she still could not bring forth more energy in her reply. There was no use disguising her own exhaustion at this point.

“How long do you plan to keep this up?”

Ochako took a moment to consider her response. She had to be careful, but an irritating migraine made it hard to think.

“As long as I can. Another month or two, at least.” That was a question she could answer with practiced ease, at least. Izuku asked her about it constantly.

“Are you really willing to keep risking the wellbeing of yourself and your child? Even when you start fainting after one tough fight?”

Ochako balled her fists at the question. She bit her lip as she tried to rein in a desire to blurt out a more crabby response. Ryuko was just looking out for her. She could not get too upset if she was going to be convincing.

“This is a one-time thing. I’m going to be okay.” She glanced upward, noting Ryuko’s crossed arms and a deep frown. “The world still needs me.”

“And what about what you need?” Ryuko glared down with a cold rage Ochako had only seen directed at villains. A shiver went down her spine. She had not imagined she would ever be on the other side of this. “The world will be fine. You can take a break.”

Ochako could not take it. She was actually starting to shake as she tried to control her boiling blood. She shakily stood up, intent on proving her continued strength to the woman who had helped shape it.

“I can still do this. I’ve been through worse. I may be pregnant, but I can still fight!”

She was almost panting trying to keep herself steady. Her head and stomach throbbed in protest at her movements, but she did not heed them. She could battle through the pain. She had to.

Her last stand appeared to be working. The anger on Ryuko’s face melted away. Her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head, as if befuddled by the hero before her.

“Does you think your pregnancy makes you…weaker?”

Ochako blinked rapidly at the bizarre question, immediately regretting it after the corresponding pulse in her head. Why did Ryuko have to ask something so weird right now? She just wanted to rest without an interrogation.

She shook her head again to clear it. Her tongue let loose, no longer caring for eloquence.

“Maybe,” Ochako murmured. She momentarily closed her eyes, remembering all the aches and pains her belly kept giving her as she tried to do her job. “But it doesn’t matter. I can work through-”

“Why would you ever think that?”

Ochako’s eyes widened as she stared forward. What kind of question was that? Ryuko was completely unreadable, her face drawn into a hard line.

It was hard to think through her aching head. “I…it does make this tougher than it used to be. It…it hurts more than it should. But I-”

“What else?” Ryuko prodded, stepping a little closer, staring down pointedly at the visible baby bump.

Ochako gulped, rubbing a hand down the front of her outfit. “It…I can’t move as much as I’d like to. And I…” She winced as her head pulsed again. Why could she not control it? It made it so hard to think. “It’s fine. I can do this.”

Her stomach rumbled again and she cursed as she was forced to lean against the nearby wall. “I can do this. I’m fine,” she repeated, more for herself at this point. The world went fuzzy again. She blinked hard, hoping she could stay in control. “She did this. I’m strong. I’m stronger than this.”

A pair of mighty arms wrapped around her. Face to face with a warm shoulder, Ochako found herself unable to fight against the raging waters within her. The dam burst open.

The sobs ripped her apart, making her quake into Ryuko. It was ugly and she lamented it, but could not find it in her to stop anymore. She was worn down and her head was in pain and she could not muster the strength she wanted. The strength she needed.

“Being pregnant doesn’t make you weak,” Ryuko said in a gentle whisper, usually reserved for when she spoke to a frightened child. “Needing time, managing your workload, taking rest – none of these things make you weak.”

Ochako closed her eyes. The faces of her parents drifted through her vision. Whatever injury, setback, or obstacle they faced, they worked through it. They could scarcely afford not to. Her mother had told her she had even worked right up until the final months of her pregnancy. It was their lot in life – and probably why she never got any siblings.

“I want to be able to do this,” she whispered, as frustrating, hot tears poured forth from her. She disentangled herself from the embrace and leaned herself against the wall. She furiously massaged her temples, trying to get a grip again.

“…I don’t know who she is, but…”

Ochako buried her watery eyes into her palm. Nothing slipped by the dragon hero.

“I doubt she would want you to do this,” she continued, closer, taking a place on the wall next to her. “I know how important managing your money is to you. But you have the privilege of being a hero. Take advantage of that.”

The gravity hero let her hands fall to her sides. She struggled to blink back the tears in her eyes. Ryuko was smiling now, gently, any trace of anger completely gone. She had an amazing ability to switch on the fly – an ability Ochako had tried hard to mimic.

“You give your all to the world every day. It’s okay to be a little selfish once in a while. You especially.”

Ochako took a deep, shuddering breath. She wished she had the energy to protest. But selfish sounded nice right about now. She wanted nothing more than to curl up next to Izuku in bed and take a load off. For a week.

“My mom never got a chance like I did,” Ochako muttered lowly. She swallowed right afterward, trying to find her voice. She had worked so hard to give her parents the life they deserved. It was hard to talk about the old days now.

“And she gave you what you needed to get this chance. You earned it. She would want you to take it.”

Ryuko poured a hero’s confidence into the gentle words. Ochako wiped away at the fresh round of tears trying to leak their way out from her. She wanted to be done with crying already.

They stood in silence for a few moments. Ryuko did not impose, but hovered over Ochako as she rested, as powerful a guardian as there ever was.

When the aching subsided, Ochako stepped forward. She turned with a defiant glare, uncaring of the wetness on her cheeks. She was ready to challenge Ryuko again.

“Four more weeks.”

Ryuko had the gall to laugh before she flashed Ochako a sharp-toothed grin.

“Two. I’ll give you more office work than you’ll know what to do with after that.”

“Three.” Ochako kept her eyes steady. She would not falter.

“Fine, but no more solo patrols. And you watch yourself better than you did today. Lay off the advanced moves.”

Ochako nodded and extended a hand outward. “Deal.”

Ryuko smiled, her lips getting more lizardly as she extended a claw to answer the handshake. The partial transformation was not enough to phase Ochako, although it made the grip extra hard.

“You’re unbelievable.” Ryuko shook her head as she withdrew her claw, morphing back into her gargantuan dragon form. The pink dragon was always a sight to behold, her large claws loud against the rooftop. “Your kid’s going to get some of the fire in that belly.”

Ochako flashed her best heroic grin upward, gently running a hand across the life forming within her.

“For him, I have to be at my best.”

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This was the gold Kyoko was looking for. A real story of the struggle in balancing a hero career with pregnancy.

“So then what happened?” she asked quietly, knowing Uravity needed little prodding at this point.

“I lasted those three weeks before getting forced into office duty,” she answered while absentmindedly rubbing her belly. “I didn’t want my pregnancy to be a burden for anyone else, so I only told a few close people by that time.”

“What did you do to keep it a secret around the workplace?”

“My office is pretty private. Being popular has its perks. Otherwise, a lot of sneaking around and baggy clothing. I got a lot of weird looks.”

“What kind of reaction are you expecting when your colleagues find out?” Kyoko paused in thought, directing a glance toward Deku, who had been quiet. “For both of you.”

“Well, we’ve told quite a few of our friends already…” Deku trailed off, eyes rolling skyward toward the past. “Todoroki…Yaoyorozu…Tsu…they’ve all been quite supportive so far.”

The names floated through Kyoko’s head. It took her a moment to process the heroes matching them; it was strange to see them referred to so casually.

“And Ground Zero?” She parsed a missing name of someone close to them. Someone who always delivered big reactions.

Deku chuckled a bit at that. “Kacchan was…supportive in his own way.”

“Oh?”

“He would never let you know it, but he can be a big softie about kids,” Uravity added, smiling all the while.

The thought of Ground Zero, of all heroes, being a “softie” in any context boggled the mind. Sure, he was popular around kids, but he was always on edge even around them.

“Err…wait, are you going to quote me on that?” Uravity suddenly looked nervous, staring down at the recorder sitting on the table between them. “I’ll never hear the end of it if that goes into print.”

Kyoko could not stop the smirk which arose on her face. “I’ll keep your concerns in mind, but you know I can’t make any promises on that one.”

Uravity sighed. “I knew you were going to say that.”

“Let’s get back on track,” Kyoko suggested, quietly flipping through the notes she had made and the questions she had prepared. “…you talked about how happy you were when you found out you were having a child. But we all know pregnancy can get messy. How has it impacted your relationship?”

It was a neutral question – Kyoko tried not to lead her subjects when she could help it. Still, she knew the emotional highs and lows of pregnancy could run roughshod over even the strongest relationship. She hoped the question would garner some rare intrigue about the inner workings of the power couple, maybe even the struggle they must go through to keep their relationship together, given the strain of their careers.

But to her surprise, Uravity actually smiled brightly at the question as she glanced over and squeezed her partner’s hand.

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“I don’t know how I’m going to do it, Izuku.”

She let her weary head fall onto the papers in front of her. The charts, numbers, and letters splayed out on pages that seemed to float in the air, surrounding her like a cluster of bugs. There was so much to try and process; it was completely overwhelming.

Raising a baby was going to be so much work. The hit it would take on their pocketbooks was no small calculation. Even with their substantial wealth, Ochako made sure every penny was accounted for carefully, with a mind toward the future. There would be a strain, between providing for themselves, for their parents, and for the multiple funds she wanted in place for their child.

But that was the least of her worries. No matter how she sliced it, she could not figure out how they were going to manage a new work-life balance. They knew they were going to have to hire help if she was ever getting back into the field. But the thought of that made her heart churn with guilt and shame.

Her parents had always been there for her, even as they worked themselves to the bone, without being able to hire anyone to help look after her. Why couldn’t she do the same?

“How we’re going to do it.”

The correction startled her from her thoughts. She lifted her head but stopped moving when a familiar set of fingers started digging into her shoulders. She tensed for a moment, but then Izuku hit just the right spot and she turned to jelly, slouching into her chair.

“Better?”

“Mmhyeah.” She let out a breath and closed her eyes. She wished she could just fall asleep like this, but the thoughts rattling around in her mind refused to let her. “I need…to figure this out.”

His fingers stopped for a moment, instead gently drumming along her skin.

“I know you’re worried. I am, too. When I think about everything that could go wrong…” his voice trailed off into the distance. She could practically hear his mind turning over the same possibilities hers had.

“But then I just remember something.” His voice was bright and airy again, floating to happy heights she could not fathom at the moment.

“And what’s that?”

One of his hands left her back, reaching forward to grasp onto one of her hands. He gently laced his fingers through hers, her fist loosening to allow it. The clasping was such a practiced movement between them at this point, hardly worth considering. It was as natural as breathing.

“Somehow, I’m with you,” he whispered lovingly into her ear, her body reacting with an instinctive shiver.

“And you’ve got me. And together, we haven’t lost yet. That’s how I know we’ll get through this.” Those words came on with more fire, the passionate warmth that rarely failed to stir her to her core. It was in large part what made her fall in love with him, after all.

She shook her head, before letting it fall into her own arms. For once, the words did not move her in the same way.

Ochako sighed, closing her eyes again to the collage of papers in front of her. “You’re crazy.”

The barbed words pricked her tongue as they left. She realized they were a little mean-spirited, wrapped up in her frustrations and exhaustion. His words were sweet, after all, even if they seemed naïve.

“Sorry,” he said quickly, his hands leaving her, much to her annoyance. He shuffled over to sit down beside her, grabbing a chair and moving it close. She cracked open her eyes, met again with an overbearing wall of white.

“What can I do to help?”

His question was so darned earnest. That was Deku, to a tee. Always trying to find a way to make her feel better. To make the world feel better. Somehow, it annoyed her that he was not as miserable as she was.

“You can make your son less hard to carry,” she grumbled into her arms, not daring to turn to look into his face as she let loose a torrent of steam. “You can make our budget less complicated.”

He did not say anything in response. It was quiet, but not foreboding. There was calmness to his silence.

She heard the ruffle of papers, quite a few of them. That finally made her lift her head to see his eyes running rapidly across their mutual work on the pages.

“How…how much have you been working on this since Monday? I thought we were saving more of this for the weekend,” he murmured, scratching at his chin. “Where did you even find the time?”

“I managed to squeeze it in.” She did not meet his eyes, trying to sound casual about it. It really was not a big deal, in her eyes. They had to be ready for this baby. What were a couple of late nights and skipped lunches to do that?

“Ochako, we’ve talked about this.”

His voice took a harder edge. Gone was the naivety, replaced with the stony tone he’d used on missions.

She balled her fingers inward. The last thing she needed was a confrontation.

“Deku, I’m fine,” she assured him, throwing up a smile on her face. His own expression remained stoic and unphased, clearly seeing through it. “I can handle this.”

“We can handle it if we do it-”

“There are some things you can’t do, Deku.”

That finally got him to budge, his steely gaze melting under her fiery words. He shrunk into himself, his eyes roaming her form, down to the swollen gut.

It was a burden he could not bear.

“I'm…I need to do this, Deku. I can at least do this much. You…we’ll have a lot on our plates when the baby comes. I just won’t rest easy if I can’t manage this.”

She busied her hands and eyes with the papers in front of her, pulling them close to her. Already, guilt started to gnaw at the edges of her mind. But she pushed it away easily with all the other emotions competing for attention.

Numbers, plans, babies, work. Just focus on what was in front of her. She could do that. She could manage that. She would do her best for her son.

A dark splotch bloomed onto the page. Then another. It was getting harder and harder to read now. Perfect. Could she not even handle this?

“Ochako…”

She did not react when he put a hand on her shoulder. She went limp as he put a hand to her face and brought her eyes to meet his, thumbing a tear off her cheek. Despite her hard words, he handled her with extraordinary gentleness. His own eyes were soft, speaking of his love without words.

She let him embrace her, enfold her into the familiar warmth and comfort of his arms. She cried quietly, her breath hitching as she tried to calm herself.

“I hate this,” she murmured, closing her eyes and trying to steady herself against him.

“I know.”

“I hate that I can’t stop crying.”

“It’s completely normal, Ochako. There’s nothing wrong with it. Pregnancy affects people’s emotions, and has been shown to increase a woman’s likelihood for depress-”

“Deku.”

“Sorry.”

He did not say anything for a time, letting her ride out the storm as best she could, providing a solid surface for her to hang on to. In time, her weepiness did recede. But the moment could do little against the overwhelming anxiety and stress hanging over her head, ready to swoop in and claw at any moment of weakness from her.

“What’s this really about, Ochako?”

She took a deep breath. She could not find it in her to summon up her walls. Not that they could ever withstand him, anyway.

“Do you think we…we might be bad parents?”

His arms clenched a bit around her back. He did not answer right away, settling on rubbing soothing circles.

“Err…what makes you ask that?” His voice was shaky, losing some of the certainty he had in embracing her.

“It’s just…with us being heroes and all, I’m having a hard time finding a way for us to handle a kid, too. We’re going to have to be away so much. I’m just…worried we won’t be there for him as much as he needs us. That we’ll miss things.”

She disentangled herself from him to regard him properly. His arms went limp around her as he put on his thinking face. He could see her nerves reflected in him, too.

His eyelids stole away his eyes from her. His silence was an answer.

He took a deep breath before muttering out.

“Do you remember that time in Osaka?” Izuku asked as he finally opened his eyes. They no longer reflected her fears; there were steel and fire inside them now.

She blinked at the question. Her mind conjured up images of the scene. Multiple collapsing buildings from a surprise villain attack, while they were still in third-year on a school trip. They had both leapt into the fray, working in tandem to lift rubble and pull people to safety. It was their first real mission together, and despite their inexperience in live rescue operations, they had passed with flying colors.

“How could I forget?”

“And that time right after we moved in together? When I got hurt.”

She frowned at that. After a joyous unpacking, they had gone out for a night on the town. But an enterprising villain had managed to stalk them to their new hideaway and pierce an unsuspecting Deku through his chest. She had to fight back in an instant, punching out the foe before turning her full attention toward first aid.

Ochako traced a finger along his chest, in the spot where she knew there was still a scar.

“Yes,” she replied softly, the memory stirring unpleasant things within her.

“…And that time we both got called to do that big raid in Tokyo?”

“What are you getting at, exactly?” She interrupted him. The spirals down memory lane were not happy ones. They were full of hardship, of sadness, and in her current state, they were not helping.

“Whenever I start thinking about how things could go wrong,” he paused to grab one of her hands, gently rubbing his thumb along her palm. “I just think about everything we’ve already done together. I think about how often we were really unprepared.”

Izuku beamed at her.

“But I think about how we got through it. Every time.”

He let his other arm fall, grasped her other hand, and brought them both up. He held them aloft, gently rubbing her fingers – and atop the band of gold that bound her to him.

His words froze her in place for the moment. She waited, hanging onto him.

“All the times I saw you out there, never giving up. They made me want to do better. And together, well…we got through a lot when I really think about it.” His smile radiated incredible warmth. It was hard to look at him with how brightly he blazed.

“When I think about what we’ve been through…a child doesn’t seem like it’ll be so hard.”

How could he always warm her heart so? She laughed because she could not think of much else to do, before grabbing onto him tightly.

“Do you remember what you said when we had our first joint interview?”

Her mind conjured the memory. A brawl in the midst of a bank robbery. The pair leaping into action. A knock-out combo move caught on tape. A couple of reporters attaching themselves as the heroic couple tried to sort out handing the matter off to the police.

A barrage of questions. Deku, bless him, suddenly nervous at the recognition. Herself, less abashed and more media-savvy, taking the plunge.

“Remember, Deku and Uravity are unstoppable together.” She quoted herself and laughed into his chest as she recalled the childishness of her own early heroics. She had been so high on adrenaline.

“It’s still true,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her forehead. Her skin tingled pleasantly at the point of contact.

“Thank you,” she whispered, closing her eyes and just letting herself enjoy being close to him. Here, at least, the world’s worries seemed so much farther away. No matter what lay on the horizon, she would have him to lift her up. Just as she would do for him.

He held her close, stroking a hand along her arm. He eventually let it wander down her form, pointedly rubbing her pronounced belly.

“It’s the least I can do.”

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It was moments like this which made Kyoko want to be a journalist.

It hardly took much prodding to get them through the story. Eventually, they let out a full dose of what the world only saw in glimpses. They were completely in-sync, filling in the story, bouncing off of one another masterfully. Behind their masks, their relationship was rock solid.

It was easy to see why they worked so well together in the field. And just how much they loved one another.

They were not just heroes. They were so much more beneath that surface.

“…And we’ve been doing better since then,” Uravity continued, beaming at her husband. “Well, mostly fine. It’s still pretty hectic, and I’ve gotten a bit stir-crazy now that I’m starting desk work. I’ve had my bad days.”

“Me too. I find myself getting so worried when in the field thinking about our child. And he hasn’t even been born yet!”

Their bond was something to behold. The gossip-rags would have a field day if they ever got this kind of interview. Kyoko had gone into this hoping for more salaciousness around their baby as it related to their profession. She certainly got enough to work with that angle, but…

Well, that seemed dull compared to the radiance of their love and the bizarreness of seeing these two paragons of justice work through pregnancy like any other parents might.

In this, their humanity truly shined. They were so much more than their costumes. That was what she would have to write about.

She smiled to herself, thrumming her six-fingered right hand on the page again. Perhaps they were not as far from her as she thought.

“Well, I think that’s everything I wanted to ask you.” She flipped a page in her notebook, hoping to get one last kernel. “Was there anything else you wanted to say?”

“Just that we really appreciate all the support we’ve gotten from friends and family so far,” Ochako said with gusto, pink cheeks rising under the weight of her smile.

“Got it,” Kyoko replied, jotting down the notes quickly. It might be hard to squeeze the line in under her word count, but she would try. “Thank you both so much for taking the time to talk with me.”

Ochako stood up, followed quickly by her husband. “It was our pleasure. That went a lot better than I thought it might.”

“Thank you for doing this,” Izuku said, giving a smile her way. It was a refrain she had heard often in her career, but coming from him, it was enough to make her blush like a schoolgirl.

“Don't…uh…don’t mention it. Just doing my job.” She idly grabbed her phone to give herself something else to focus on. Seeing the time, she sighed, knowing what was coming next.

“Well, I have to turn you over to one of our freelancers who will be handling the-”

The doors slammed open behind her, causing the two heroes to jump slightly in surprise. Kyoko saw the familiar flash of short blonde hair, marked against a bombastic pink dress.

“I HAVE ARRIVED AND YOU TWO ARE FABULOUS!”

Kyoko slammed her palm into her face.

———————————————————————————————————–

AN: Special thanks to Mika, whose artwork inspired this fic, and to Neon Pixel for commissioning the original art piece. Link to it here: https://stirredbrew.tumblr.com/post/183727397704/art-commission-done-by-the

Thank you to thatguy99998 and Deadliest Sin Bin on the IzuOcha Discord for editing this!

Yes, I’m alive; sorry about the gap between works. Hope you all enjoyed the fic! There will be four chapters, which I hope to release every Sunday. Please leave a like and a reblog if you liked it. ^_^

#my hero academia #izuocha #fanfiction #midoriya izuku #uraraka ochako #romance #shipping #pregnancy #fluff #so much fluff #boko no hero academia

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