#which links to pro life bullshit
Note
Do you ever wonder how exactly there came to be such a transphobia problem in British feminism?
Not really. Pretty straightforward IMO.
Britain is highly patriarchal and pretty much just an oligarchy at this point, given the majority of people in charge were born rich and went to one of a handful of private schools. Fair amount of them are also journalists to some degree, or work with journalists on the regular, so when those pesky feminists wanted to dismantle their little boy's club, they stoked up a culture war to give them a new target.
A great example is the NHS. There's been issues lately with supply of oestrogen. I have a former classmate who is a raging transphobe and in her fifties. She's constantly on twitter talking about how the reason she can't get her hormone replacement therapy for her menopause is that trans women are taking all the oestrogen. Her source? A right wing newspaper linked to half of the current PM's cabinet. The real issue? The Tories have been systematically gutting and selling off the NHS since they came into power, which is causing shortages now, because the Tories want the NHS to fail so they can say 'see? NHS doesn't work. Time to privatise the whole thing' and make a mint doing it.
So basically, the minority we should actually be worried about - the 1%ers who have had everything handed to them on a silver platter all their lives, including some of the highest powers this land has to give, and are using that power to take our country apart for profit in the houses of parliament - have convinced a decent portion of feminists that a minority with basically no power is the root of all evil.
And so, using their institutional power (being the law-making elites) and their influential power (clickbait articles they've usually written themselves), they've convinced a portion of feminists that the upper-class, born-rich, bred for rule, blue-blooded bullies who thrive off the patriarchy aren't the problem, trans people are, and so the sect of feminists they've successfully turned against trans people are now fighting to uphold the patriarchy on behalf of the Conservatives and calling it feminism.
#this is an oversimplification tbh but it's also a tumblr ask that i'm trying to respond to promptly#really i could write a whole essay about this#but all the ties are right there#TERFism is closely linked to the alt right for a reason#and the goals just reinforce that#no matter what age someone transitions they have a problem with it#which is just another way of saying they don't want people having bodily autonomy#which links to pro life bullshit#they're talking about 'third spaces' just for trans people#which is a thinly veiled attempt to just push trans people out of society entirely#if a trans person decides to not have a surgery or hormones for whatever reason they label them a fetishist#and they talk about protecting the children. usually by calling trans people gr00mers with no basis#which again is just them saying trans people shouldn't be near children with extra steps. which ALSO pushes trans people out of society#and there have been so many issues with transvestigators 'clocking' trans people#because 'WE CAN ALWAYS TELL'#and then half the time the person they've 'clocked' is cis but like... is a woman with short hair. and the response is she looks 'male'#at which point... just say you want all women barefoot and pregnant. it saves time.#and then they claim to be feminist or pro choice or whatever... but they still don't want bodily or medical autonomy#unless you want something that they approve of#and then we've got the tories just reinforcing this with BS legislation and articles in the guardian#that are just them saying 'look at the evil trans people! they're the root of all evil!'#and these TERFs are like 'you're so right. they're the problem here.'#meanwhile the tory is destroying everything behind them as they turn their weapons on the trans community
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Pairing: Todoroki Shouto x Gender Neutral Reader
Rating: Teen+
Tags: Reader-Insert, Stalking, Kidnapping, Attempted Kidnapping, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Psychological Torture (There is a plot for a character to get kidnapped and assaulted, but it doesn't actually happen), Sex Toys, Happy Ending
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A late night meal delivery to Pro Hero Shouto goes terribly wrong, leaving you trapped in a room together with no obvious means of escape.
You find yourself holding out hope not just for a rescue, but also for Shouto to somehow stay oblivious to the massive crush you've had on him for months now.
With the outlook for you future growing increasingly hazy, one thing becomes pointedly clear:
You can't keep things bottled up forever.
---
"It's true we don't know what might happen to us," Shouto admitted, his mismatched eyes locked onto yours; intense and mesmerizing. "But we'll face it together, okay?"
"Okay," you swallowed thickly. "But I think you definitely pulled the short straw as far as teammates go."
"Really?" Shouto asked, his eyes shining as he stared at you. "I don't think I could have chosen anyone better if I tried."
---
Continue reading below or follow the link to Ao3!
Society is built on a series of white lies, little untruths we tell ourselves to make life seem more bearable. Things like how good will always prevail over evil, that hard work equates to success, and that your Quirk didn't dictate the direction your life took.
You had some increasingly strong suspicions about those first two platitudes, but the fact that you had a teleportation Quirk and had only ever been hired for courier work left you feeling very certain that the last one was absolute bullshit.
Last month your boss had commemorated your third year of employment at Über Munch, a meal delivery service for Heroes, with a mesh bag half-full of dollar store candy and a keychain with the company logo on it in lieu of something you would actually appreciate.
Like a raise. Or a day off once and a while.
So you were feeling pretty unenthusiastic about work these days now that you knew how little your effort was actually valued by the suits down at the corporate office. You had never been this tempted to quit before and knew it would likely be a smart move to start sending out resumes and have something else lined up for when you eventually snapped, but it was hard to actually put forth the effort when you didn't totally hate your job most days.
Your Quirk, Revisit, allows you to instantaneously travel to anywhere you've walked before. It made some aspects of your job easier, like quickly delivering meals directly to Hero agencies in the major metropolitan area; but it didn't make it effortless. Some orders were just more difficult to fulfill than others.
A call from Fat Gum always requires multiple trips from a handful of different restaurants to fulfill, a task that left you winded and lightheaded from both the quantity of food you had to carry and overusing your Quirk. But he always tipped generously, which was more than you could say for other Heroes. Accepting an order from Vine would guarantee that you would end up dumped on the edge of some overgrown forest with a bag of vegetable samosas in one hand and a compass in the other, rewarded for all your trouble with an evangelical comic tract once you'd actually managed to track her down.
But then there were the clients you didn't mind getting calls from. Mt. Lady never ordered meals, she just wanted someone to drop off a bottle of her favorite bargain brand rosé on her days off so she could focus on relaxing. She'd answer the door in an old pair of sweatpants with a clay mask pasted thickly across her face, a rom-com blaring in the background as she accepted her delivery. It was a charmingly domestic view of a woman most often seen splashed across the covers of beauty magazines.
And then there was your favorite client of all, Todoroki Shouto. Every Tuesday and Thursday the same request would ping across the screen of your work phone: cold soba with extra ginger to be delivered to his agency precisely at eight thirty, which was when he took a break from his nightly paperwork. You'd started to become friendly over the course of your routine interactions, sharing courteous greetings and anecdotes from your respective work weeks. Shouto's stories were always more engaging than yours, but he was polite enough to laugh and offer commiseration at the appropriate points as he unpacked his dinner.
You tried to appreciate Shoto's companionship without interpreting his gentle smiles and welcoming demeanor as anything other than what they were; a show of kindness from a good man. But every time Shouto gifted you with a glimpse of his pearly whites you couldn't stop the sudden hitching of your breath, mind racing with snippets of impossible dreams you couldn't help but crave.
It was easy to let yourself imagine being with him; waking up in a tangle of limbs as early morning light streamed across your bedspread from between the too-wide gaps in your blinds. Knowing your breath was sour from sleeping but kissing him anyway, too needy for his attention to wait until after you'd brushed your teeth.
But you know life isn't like it is in the fairy tales. Princes don't marry peasants and pedigree Heroes don't end up with minimum wage service workers. You'd keep on delivering Shouto's noodles twice a week until inevitably, a year or two down the road, the tabloids would be saturated with news of his engagement to some super model or socialite. That was what was expected; what he deserved.
But you could, and would, fantasize about what could have been if things were just a little bit different. If you were richer or more successful. If you hadn't been too scared to take the entrance exams for placement at a Hero School. If you existed in the same social stratosphere as each other.
They were nice, those little flights of fancy you allowed yourself; the small sprinkles of sweetness that made the bitter taste of reality more palatable. You made time for one more brief daydream; a vision of gentle sighs and entwined fingers, before you dug your phone out of your pocket. Thumb swiping across the screen, you bring up your work app and see a new notification light up your screen: a request for cold soba with extra ginger.
With a weary sigh, you clutched your phone to your chest, screwed your eyes shut, and disappeared in a shower of sparks.
You'd become a regular feature around Shouto's agency, recognized on sight by the security guards and night cleaning crew. So the sudden appearance of a new receptionist next to the doors to Shouto's office was a jarring change in an otherwise predictable delivery routine. A sharp looking woman had replaced his usual assistant, the round-faced and rounder-bellied Mrs. Yamori; a devastatingly friendly and heavily pregnant woman with a heteromorphic gecko Quirk.
Customer service smile firmly in place, you approached the desk, checking the gleaming name plaque set in front of her.
"Hello, Ms. Yokubou!" You greeted cheerily, startling the receptionist who had been focused on sorting through a small pile of mail. "Did Mrs. Yamori go on maternity leave already?"
"How am I supposed to know?" The woman snapped, carefully placing a small box at the top of the stack. "I'm here to help Shouto, not spread office gossip."
"Right," you coughed nervously in the face of her hostility. "Well, I have his dinner. So I'll just go ahead and knock."
"Dinner?" She hissed, swiveling her chair to face the monitor on the left side of the desk. "There isn't any mention of dinner on his schedule and I certainly didn't call you."
"I don't know what to tell you. I deliver Mr. Todoroki's dinner every Tuesday and Thursday at this time," you sighed, pleasant demeanor slipping as this conversation eroded what little was left of your patience after a long day.
"Well, not today you don't," Yokubou sniffed, waving you away with a dismissive hand. "Shouto is simply too busy this evening. You may go."
"Listen, even if I wanted to go, Über Munch guarantees delivery to Heroes. That's sort of their entire business plan."
"I told you that your services won't be necessary!" Yokubou screeched, reaching her hand towards the receiver on her desk. "Don't make me call security!"
"Would you, actually? They know me down there and it seems like getting a third party involved might help speed things up a bit."
Yokubou's brow twisted as she pulled the desk phone up to her ear, but whatever sort of retort she had poised on the tip of her tongue evaporated the moment Shouto's office door opened and he stuck his head out curiously.
"Shouto!" She crooned, rolling her shoulders back to push her chest further out, the top buttons on her fitted blouse struggling under the added pressure. "I'm so sorry to have disturbed you! But I have everything under control and-"
"There you are," Shouto sighed in relief as his gaze landed on you, pointedly ignoring the antics of his receptionist. "I was starting to get worried."
"Sorry I'm late," you said, holding the bag out for him to take. "This is normally the part where I would apologize for your food getting cold, but it was already cold to start with, so I'm just going to skip that bit."
Shouto accepted his dinner with an amused huff, fingers brushing yours as the bag changed hands.
"Would you like to come in?" Shouto asked, pushing the door to his office open wider. "I need some help on today's crossword puzzle. There's a lot of pop culture questions that I don't know the answers to."
"You can't, Shouto! Not tonight! You're far too busy!" His receptionist said, shooting to a standing position and grabbing the pile of mail into her arms. "There's something important here that needs your immediate attention."
"Is there, now?" Shouto hummed thoughtfully, shifting the bag with his soba into the crook of his arm so he could accept the towering stack of mail.
"And I'm sure you need privacy to open classified mail," Yokubou insisted, squeezing herself into the space between you and Shouto.
"It'll be fine," Shouto assured her with a tight smile. "I'll just save all the top secret letters until I'm alone."
"But-!"
"That will be all for today, Ms. Yokubou," Shouto dismissed, reaching around her to place a palm between your shoulder blades and guide you into his office.
"No! You don't understand!" Yokubou wailed, clawing at the stack of mail Shouto held securely to his chest, trying to pry the missives away from him.
"I understand that it has been a very long day and you must be exhausted. Go home and rest and we'll talk about your lack of professionalism first thing in the morning," Shouto said sternly, shutting the door quickly behind him and engaging the lock with one swift motion. He ignored the pounding knocks that shook the door in its frame and the repeated frantic cries of 'Shouto!' as he made his way across the room, depositing the contents of his arms down onto his desk before collapsing into his office chair with a bone weary sigh.
"Well she sure is…something," you offer diplomatically.
"Fired is what she is," Shouto laughed dryly, scrubbing his hands furiously across his face. "That woman has been an absolute menace since day one. I tried to give her a chance to settle in, but it's beyond obvious that this job isn't a good fit for her."
"She only started on what? Friday?"
"Saturday," Shouto corrected, prying the lid off of his dinner and happily sniffing the ginger-covered noodles. "And since then she's thrown away all my fanmail, canceled a joint interview I had with Creati, and she keeps finding excuses to barge into my office. I've had to start locking my door."
"Yikes," you said, wincing in sympathy and a fair amount of second hand embarrassment. "How long is Mrs. Yamori supposed to be gone?"
"Too long," Shouto groaned, pulling out a set of disposable chopsticks and snapping them neatly in half. "Do you think I could convince her to come back to work early if I hire her baby too?"
"I'm fairly certain that's illegal. Child labor and all that," you laughed, pulling one of the guest chairs up to the front of Shouto's desk and spinning the abandoned crossword around to glance at the clue columns. "Plus, babies cry a lot. It would probably be pretty disruptive."
"It couldn't be worse than my current situation," Shouto grumbled, the faint sounds of Yokubou's wailing still audible in the background.
"I suppose the dental coverage for a baby would be pretty cheap," you muse, penciling in the answer for number thirty-two down. "They don't have any teeth."
"I wonder what's in that mail pile that had Ms. Yokubou so wound up," you pondered, tapping the pencil eraser against your cheek thoughtfully.
"Good question," Shouto said, using the cheap paper napkin to dab primly at his lips even though you were fairly certain he didn't get a single particle of food on his face with how carefully he ate. "I thought she had slipped a confession letter into the stack, but all that's here is official mail and a couple of packages."
"Maybe one of those then?"
"Maybe," Shouto mused, separating out the parcels in question. "But I am expecting some deliveries. My Mother's birthday is coming up and I'm having her gifts shipped here so she doesn't stumble upon them when she visits my apartment."
"I guess the only way to know for sure is to open them," you say, tossing your pencil down in defeat and refocusing your attention onto Shouto as he picked up an envelope mailer and ripped open the tab. Reaching into the envelope, Shouto pulled out a small paperback novel.
"It's the next volume in her favorite book series," he explained, setting the book aside with a smile. "I pulled some strings and got her an advanced copy."
"The ladies in her book club are going to be so jealous!"
"I know," Shouto grinned fiendishly in delight, the mischievous glint in his eye making your stomach muscles clench wickedly.
"And uh, what's in the last box?" You ask, trying to focus on anything other than your misplaced desire for the man in front of you.
"Let's see, shall we?" Shouto said, slicing open the packing tape with a large set of shears from his desk drawer. Carefully reaching in through the layers of tissue paper, Shouto pulls out a long glass bottle. It's overly ornate, with pink tinted glass and gilded edges, the sort of thing your grandmother would have proudly displayed on her vanity while smacking your small hand away for trying to touch it without permission.
"It's lovely," you say, only half-lying as you watched the golden tassel tied around the middle sway back and forth. "What's it for?"
"Perfume, I think?" Shouto guessed, face scrunched up as he examined the bottle closely. "I ordered the type Fuyumi told me to, but I don't remember it looking like this on the webpage?"
"Maybe it's a limited edition?" You suggest. "Or they noticed who was ordering and upgraded you to the deluxe version with like, extra ambergris or something?"
"I hope not. That would throw the fragrance completely off balance," Shouto winced, viscerally imagining the perfume you described. "Better check and make sure this isn't the deluxe edition."
And with those words, Shouto grasped the stopper on the bottle and pulled; a plume of thick yellow smoke billowing out from the mouth of the bottle. Gasping in surprise, you accidentally inhaled the spreading vapor; skin prickling painfully as you lost control of your limbs and tumbled to the floor. The last thing you saw before your vision blurred and unconsciousness claimed you was Shouto reaching out across the floor towards your prone body; shirt pulled over his nose and mouth in an effort to filter out the unknown gas.
Untold minutes passed before the smoke finally dissipated. And when it did, there was no trace of you or Shouto left. Just a shiny pink bottle with it's stopper wedged firmly in place, glimmering cheerily in the warm light of Shouto's office.
You woke up suddenly, contorted into an uncomfortable position on the floor with your clothes clinging to your clammy skin. Head pounding and stomach churning, you take in a deep breath and then promptly regret it as you inhale a lung-full of incredibly potent incense smoke.
"Ugh," you coughed, nose twitching as you got hit by another low-hanging cloud of patchouli. With one last sputter you shifted your focus to examine the room around you. The walls were an eye watering bright pink and every horizontal surface, from the tables to the numerous book shelves mounted to the walls, were stuffed full of flickering candles and arrangements of waxy-petaled lilies.
"Are you okay?" Shouto asked, voice calling out from behind the other side of the circular bed frame you were laying next to.
"I dunno'," you mumble, pausing to let out a tiny belch that seemed to help settle your stomach. "I think so?"
"Good," Shouto stated, voice still commanding despite its breathy quality. "Can you walk?"
"Let me try," you said as you went to roll over onto your side, only to discover that your body wasn't responding the way it should; your limbs dragging and heavy. Panic flooded your body, blood thrumming hotly in your ears as you once again tried, and failed, to roll. Exerting more concentrated effort than you ever had before in your life, you managed to slowly rock over onto your shoulder; body now facing towards the bed.
Whatever gratification you felt from your accomplishment was quickly forgotten as you realized that your heaving gasps of exhaustion were slowly pushing you off balance, sending you toppling face first into the shiny wooden bedframe. Your forehead landed with a dull thunk; the shock of the impact intensified by the headache throbbing sharply behind your eyes.
"Ouch," you hissed through your teeth, sucking up the pain as best you could. "Moving appears to be beyond me at the moment."
"That's okay," Shouto said, his voice dropping a decibel or two into a more comforting timbre. "Wait there. I'll come to you."
The one good thing about your fall was that it positioned your head closer to the foot of the bed, so you could watch as Shouto grasped handfuls of the carpet in his fists, pulling himself slowly into view with great heaving breaths. His strength finally gave out an arms length away from you, his fingers creeping along the floor until they collided with yours.
Tears prickled in the corners of your eyes, the embarrassing result of too many big feelings fighting against each other to be felt first- sadness and frustration and fear and utter relief when Shouto's fingers curled around your own.
"You don't need to cry," Shouto soothed, his thumb rubbing small circles into the back of your hand.
"I don't think I can stop," you sobbed, sucking in huge lungfuls of the incense-spiked air.
"That's okay, too."
"Yeah?"
"Mmhmm," Shouto hummed. "I'm told that crying can be very therapeutic. Do you feel any better?"
"No," you snorted, trying to downplay the telltale blubber of mucus collecting in the back of your throat.
"Do you need to cry some more then?"
You nodded as emphatically as you could with the feeble muscles in your neck, and then opened your mouth and let out a piercing wail; tears streaming down your face and soaking quickly into the plush carpet fibers.
"Can you use your Quirk?" You sniffed, tears dried and tacky on your skin. You'd tried to wipe them away but only managed to poke yourself in the eye instead. "Because mine isn't working."
"No," Shouto growled in frustration, eyes narrowed at his hands as though they had personally betrayed him. "I'm hoping we'll regain control of them once our bodies recover."
"If we recover," you mutter dismally, shifting your gaze reluctantly towards Shouto when you felt him squeeze your hand tightly to gain your attention.
"It's true we don't know what might happen to us," Shouto admitted, his mismatched eyes locked onto yours; intense and mesmerizing. "But we'll face it together, okay?"
"Okay," you swallowed thickly. "But I think you definitely pulled the short straw as far as teammates go."
"Really?" Shouto asked, his eyes shining as he stared at you. "I don't think I could have chosen anyone better if I tried."
At Shouto's insistence, you began doing little exercises in an attempt to kick start your muscles back into working order. You started small, with toe curls and rotating your arms in little circles. Everything was slightly numb and hard to control, a little like how your cheeks felt after you had a cavity filled at the dentist.
"I'm scared, Shouto," you whispered as you lifted your forearm a paltry couple inches off of the floor. Shouto had already graduated to doing floppy bicep curls, but that was the difference in athletic ability between a Pro Hero and someone who's preferred marathon experience involved popcorn and a handful of movies. "Where do you think we are?"
"I don't know," he grunted from exertion, sweat beading at his temples. "But I have a couple of theories about how we got here."
"What're you thinking?"
"It's obviously some sort of Quirk at work," he gasped. "You're a Teleporter, right? Could it be something like that, do you think?"
"No. It's not teleportation," you groaned, arms collapsing limply onto the floor as you burned through the last of your energy. "I'm in an online chat group with a bunch of other Teleporters and we all have the same basic experience. And this is not it."
"Really?" Shouto said, pausing in his exercises to join your brief respite. "That's fascinating."
"Yeah. I guess rearranging all your atoms is a complex enough process there's just one way it works correctly."
Shouto huffed, staring up at your reflections in the large mirror that covered the entire ceiling. "What's it like? Teleporting, I mean?"
"I- it's sort of hard to explain," you say, wrinkling up your nose in thought. "So, like, imagine if people were made entirely out of sand."
"That sounds awful," Shouto grimaced. "Can you imagine what it would feel like if your tongue was made out of sand? Everything would taste gritty."
"It isn't literal," you huff. "You can imagine anything small. Rocks, sugar-"
"Rice," Shouto interrupted, nodding resolutely.
"Yeah, sure. Rice. Imagine people are made out of rice. Teleporting is like, if every single one of those grains just scattered," you try to wave your hand around for emphasis but only succeed in making it flop on the ground like a dying fish. "But they aren't lost. I know where every single last one is, no matter how far away it wandered. And I can just pull them all back together again, wherever I choose."
"And it doesn't make you feel like all your muscles have atrophied?"
"No, not at all," you say, letting your head loll from side to side in an exaggerated shake. "I'm just- letting myself fall apart. I'm like ice when it starts to melt; shifting and warm."
"Oh," Shouto said, a sudden ring of clarity in his tone. "That's a nice feeling."
"Yeah, it is."
Eventually, you and Shouto progressed to being able to move around on the carpet. Shouto had worked himself up into a crawling position while you had adopted the much less elegant solution of wiggling around like a worm. You could tell by his puffed up cheeks and pointedly averted stare that he was barely holding back laughing at your expense.
"Don't you dare laugh at me," you warned him, butt stuck up in the air as you wiggled your shoulders from side to side to achieve forward momentum.
"I'm- I'm not," Shouto lied, wheezing with every inch he crawled towards a distant dresser.
"Please," you scoffed. "I went to middle school. I know what it looks like to be laughed at. You could at least have the decency to do it to my face."
"Right, sorry," Shouto apologized, turning his head to look at you and promptly losing all composure; crashing to the ground as his laughter wracked his body and threw him off balance. He landed hard on his shoulder, still too uncoordinated to break his fall well.
"Ow!" He snorted out between guffaws, body shaking as he rubbed at his shoulder with limp fingers. "That- that hurt."
"Serves you right," you mutter peevishly, pushing your derriere further into the air to power your next creep forward. "I'm going to beat you to the dresser. That'll teach you to laugh at me."
"No," Shouto gasped, stumbling back onto his hands and feet. "I'm gonna- gonna get there first."
"Oh yeah?" You countered, summoning up your go-to school yard taunt like the paragon of maturity you were.
"Yeah," he shot back, the call of competition doing a lot to sober his demeanor as he rocked on his hands and took a shaky shuffle forward.
"Hey, Shouto!" You called, waiting until he was looking at you before you wiggled your butt from side-to-side as much as you could without toppling over. Shouto, not anticipating your underhanded maneuver, collapsed face first into the shag rug, the long fibers muffling his delirious cackling.
"Cheater!" He cried out.
"Winner!" You laughed, sliding forward onto your belly and making a good headway towards the dresser, steadfastly ignoring Shouto's calls for a do-over.
Shouto had predictably rallied and beaten you to the dresser like the finely tuned muscle machine he was, but you were proud to say you had given him a run for his money. The two of you now sat propped up against the dresser, bodies slumped against each other for an additional layer of support. You'd passed a fair bit of time by guessing how many flowers were crammed into each vase and then counting to see who came the closest.
"Aaaaaand that's another round to me!" You proclaimed, nudging Shouto sharply. with your elbow when you heard him grumble discontentedly.
Todoroki Shouto, it turned out, was a very sore loser.
"One more time," he pouted, looking around the room for another cluster of lilies to tabulate. "Best fourteen out of twenty-seven."
"Yeah, I can agree to that. Because I've already won fourteen times," you reminded him smugly.
"This game is silly," Shouto grumbled, managing to cross his arms across his chest petulantly on the second try. "I don't want to play anymore."
"Fine by me," you yawned, only slapping yourself in the face a little as you tried to cover your mouth. "I'm getting tired anyway."
"Go ahead and sleep," Shouto said, nudging your shoulder with his own until your head slid down into the cradle of his neck. It was wildly uncomfortable and far too intimate for your level of acquaintance, but you'd sooner eat your shirt than complain about it. "I'll take first watch."
"Watch for what?" You grumble, already well on your way to being unconscious. "There aren't even any doors."
"Or windows," Shouto added with a frustrated sigh as he dropped his head down onto yours, smushing your cheek into the hard edge of his clavicle.
"Righ'," you mumble as your eyelids droop shut. "No win'ows."
"And I suppose if anyone was going to come in and kill us, they would have done that while we were lying defenseless on the floor."
Your eyes shoot open, all traces of exhaustion banished as you pry yourself away from Shouto and scramble into a more upright position.
"What's wrong?" He asked with genuine concern. "I thought you were tired?"
"I was, until someone started talking about us being killed," you laughed dryly, eyes darting around the room suspiciously, cataloging all the places a person could be laying in wait. There weren't a lot, but the privacy screen next to the chaise lounge was looking a little too sinister for your liking.
"No, I specifically said that we likely wouldn't be murdered."
"Yeah, but you still mentioned the killing part! And now I can't stop thinking about it!" You babbled anxiously, trying to calm your rabbit-fast heartbeat with a couple of deep breaths. "This is probably the closest I've ever been to being murdered before, so a little bit of panic feels justified!"
"There is a strong correlation between kidnapping and murder," Shouto nodded.
"Do you- do you think that's comforting?" You screech, hysteria ratcheting up another few notches.
"I- no?" Shouto said, voice pitching high in uncertainty. "But it is statistically significant!"
With a pitiful whine, you drop your head down into your mostly stable hands, doing your best to hold back another round of water works. Shouto, at a loss about what to say, drops his hand onto your back.
"There, there," he says, rubbing his palm slowly down your spine
"Now this- this is comforting," you sigh, arching your spine against his trailing hand.
"I'm glad," Shouto smiled. "This is how I pet stray cats, too. It's good to finally get some feedback on my technique."
"Now that we're back on our feet-," Shouto began, watching anxiously as you stumbled and were forced to grab onto a floor lamp for support. "-mostly, anyway. I think it would be a good idea for us to look around the room more thoroughly."
"Sounds good," you say, glancing at the lamp cord and wondering how far you explore while keeping your makeshift crutch plugged in. "Is there anything in particular we're looking for?"
"I'm not sure," Shouto said, setting his sights on the dresser drawers. "We know so little about our current situation that any information at all would be helpful."
"Right," you said, still unsure about what exactly to do, but not wanting to hinder Shouto's progress any further. You decided to inspect behind the privacy screen that had made you uneasy earlier. It was a tall thing that stretched far over your head, white wicker edges nearly scraping the mirrored ceiling.
"Finding anything interesting," you panted over your shoulder as you took another baby step towards the screen, dragging your support lamp along with you.
"No!" Shouto yelped, slamming the top drawer he'd been staring into shut. "I mean, yes. There are things. But they aren't important. They're uh-," he paused to cough uneasily into a loose fist. "They're- intimacy supplies."
"Ah, sex toys," you nod, turning back to face your destination and give Shouto what little privacy you could to work through his embarrassment. "Say no more."
"I- yes. Thank you."
"But that opens up an entirely new realm of possible explanations," you grunt, tired but excited by your continued progress across the room. "Like, did we get knocked out by the gas from that bottle and dropped into a love hotel or something? As a joke?"
"A love hotel?" Shouto screeched.
"Yeah. They're normally all schmaltzy and themed like this," you explain, gesturing vaguely to the abundance of bright pink decor. "Normally that theme isn't Barbie Escape Room, but I'm not here to kink shame."
"I think you maybe should have taken on the dresser inspection. I'm completely out of my element here," Shouto lamented, holding up a large paddle for you to see. "I can't even begin to imagine why there's a cutting board in here."
"Oh, that's not-"
"Actually," Shouto interrupted, holding up a hand to halt your explanation. "I don't think I want to know."
Shouto continues to rifle through the drawers, utterly befuddled and horrified in equal turns when you finally reach your destination.
"Alright," you said, mustering up the courage to peer behind the screen. "Let's see what's going on behind here."
You push the right side of the screen back slowly with your still weak arms, panels buckling at the hinges as it folded itself up like an accordion.
"Any murderers tucked away back there," Shouto teases, weighing a comically large steel buttplug in his hand.
"Not a murderer, no," your voice trembling with mounting horror as you step out of the way, allowing Shouto to see around you for the first time. The wall behind the screen was full of pictures of Shouto, hundreds of them pieced together into a collage of obsession. Magazine covers, promo pictures, and selfies from Shouto's official social media accounts were all present in the mashup; but far more distressing were the inclusions of what had to be candid shots of the Hero.
Blurry and over processed snapshots of Shouto shirtless that had been taken through his apartment window, spoon hanging from his mouth as he ate a cup of yogurt.
A far away street shot with him and a friend- you couldn't tell who it was exactly because they had been scribbled over with a pen so many times they had worn a hole in the paper; the bright pink of the walls visible through the missing space where a person should be.
Classified photographs detailing the injuries sustained in the line of duty that had been copied from official Commission files; terrible, gruesome things of Shouto bruised and bloodied and at his most vulnerable.
"You have a stalker, Shouto," you whispered.
"Oh," Shouto said numbly, the butt plug falling from between his fingers and hitting the top of the dresser with a loud thud. "Then this isn't a love hotel then," he paused and swallowed thickly, eyes glazed with an emotion you couldn't recognize as he stared at the wall behind you. "This is supposed to be my prison."
Things had only gotten worse from there. Now that you realized the purpose of the room, you were unable to unearth all sorts of hidden features that made your skin crawl. Hooks carved into the delicate filigree on the bed frame that were obviously made for handcuffs, a box of truffles with tiny syringe marks poked into the bottom, and a set of menacingly sharp sewing scissors tucked away in the bedside table drawer.
Your stomach was churning painfully, but you couldn't tell if it was from hunger or fear.
Not really knowing what else to do, you fumbled over towards the bed and collapsed onto it, nearly sliding off the slick satin duvet cover. A frantic scramble had kept you from dropping onto the floor, but it was a near thing. You watched as Shouto slid down onto the ground, a blank look on his face as he positioned his hands by his ears and began doing crunches.
"Are you- are you okay?" You ask from your sprawled out position on the bed. You'd tried to make eye contact with him through the mirror ceiling, but his gaze remained stubbornly averted to a blank spot on the wall you couldn't understand his interest in.
"I'm fine," he grunted through clenched teeth, forcing his shoulders up off the floor.
"You don't have to be."
"Yes I do!" Shouto bellowed, startling you as he threw himself down onto the floor, hands fisting in his hair in frustration. "You're trapped in here because of me! It's my responsibility to get you out safely and I can't do it if I'm like this!" He said, waving a hand down at his sluggish body.
"None of this is your fault," you assure Shouto, sliding to the edge of the bed and peering down towards him. "You're just as much a victim here as I am."
"You shouldn't even be a victim in the first place."
"Yeah, me being here obviously wasn't what your stalker had planned," you said, suppressing a shudder as you stared briefly at the collage of photos before reaching down and taking Shouto's hand into your own. "But I'm glad. I'm glad that it's me here with you, instead of- instead of them."
"I'm glad it's you, too," Shouto whispered, squeezing your hand tightly. "And not just because you don't have any plans to torture me."
"Being trapped in a room with me is torture enough," you joke, lazily swinging your interlocked hands back and forth in the air. "There's no need to overdo it."
There are faint memories of some long ago humanities class echoing in the back of your brain; something about needing to have your basic needs met before you're able to consider any other, arguably more important, matters. So while you understood that you were likely waist-deep in mortal peril and should be very worried about your long term health and wellbeing, you were far more concerned about the fact that you really had to pee.
Like, right now.
"Hey, Shouto?" You clear your throat nervously, not entirely sure how to broach the subject of bodily fluids with the top-ranked Hero laying on the bed next to you. "I, uh- have something I need to say. But it's sort of embarrassing?"
"Oh?" Shouto asked curiously, turning his head to face you, your noses nearly brushing. "What is it?"
"Well, I just- I know that a lot is happening right now, and I don't want to burden you anymore than I already am, but I just don't think I can hold it in any longer."
"Tell me," Shouto whispered breathlessly, his eyes wide as he watched you nibble on your lower lip nervously.
"I-"
"Yes?" He said imploringly, face inching closer to yours.
"I really need to pee!" You cry out loudly, sending Shouto reeling back from the force of your sudden screech.
"Oh- uh," he stammers. "That's, hmm."
"God," you whine, covering your face with your hands. "This is so embarrassing!"
"There's no need to be embarrassed," Shouto rushed to assure you, grasping your wrists gently to pull them away from your face. "I'm sorry, I should have reacted better."
"It's fine," you mutter sheepishly as you peer up at him from under your lashes. "It's gross and uncomfortable and I shouldn't have just blurted it out like that."
"No, it's not that- I was just caught a bit off guard. I thought you were going to say something different," Shouto admits with a wistful sigh.
"Like what? That I need to poop?"
"No," he snorts, pushing himself to the edge of the bed and standing with relative ease. "Don't worry about it right now. Let's just focus on finding a place for you to relieve yourself."
"I'd suggest just picking a corner like animals do, but that doesn't seem like a viable option in a round room."
"We'll just have to get creative then, won't we?" Shouto smiled, lifting up one of the largest vases of lilies and flipping it upside down; water and flowers spilling onto the floor at his feet in a soggy clump.
Shouto had originally set up your makeshift chamber pot behind the creepy stalker screen to give you some semblance of privacy, which was incredibly thoughtful of him. But the idea of peeing in front of one Shouto was hard enough, there was no way you could ever possibly bring yourself to pee in front of hundreds of little Shoutos pasted onto the wall. So the two of you combined your minimal strength together and managed to pull one side of the tall dresser away from the wall, creating a triangular little hidey-hole you hurriedly wedged yourself into.
"Don't look!" You called out over your shoulder, already pulling your zipper down before he could spin around fully.
"I won't," Shouto promised, staring dutifully across the room. With nothing more engaging to stare at, you join him in spectating the wall you were squeezed against. The pink paint had some sort of iridescent sparkles mixed into it that caught every flickering candle flame and created a hazy sort of glow that did nothing to help alleviate the headache you'd been nursing since you first woke up. The effect wasn't any less assaulting up close, so you were in the process of averting your eyes when the light behind you suddenly shifted; Shouto's dark shadow passing over you and catching on some strange divots on the otherwise smooth surface of the wall.
Hesitantly, you raise your hand and run your fingers across the wall, watching the route your fingertips take as they follow the nearly invisible grooves.
"Letters!" You gasp in excitement. "Shouto! There are letters on the wall!"
"Where?" Shouto demands, appearing over your shoulder in a flash, heedless of the fact that you were still mid-piss.
"Ahhh! No peeking! NO PEEKING!"
"Sorry! I'm so sorry!"
After you had emerged from your commode and dunked your hands into a bowl full of lily water to cleanse them, you and Shouto set about moving the dresser further from the wall to accommodate both your bodies as you squinted thoughtfully at the letters.
"They're really hard to make out through the shimmery paint," you grumble, waving a candle around to see if a different light position would make it any easier to read.
It didn't.
"I think that's the point," Shouto hummed thoughtfully. "They used paint and a dresser to hide the message, so they really didn't want us to discover what's written here."
You both stared at the shimmery wall for a moment longer before inspiration suddenly struck.
"I have an idea," you said, wobbling away to the other side of the room on stiff legs and returning moments later, the box of drugged chocolates tucked underneath your arm.
"Take one," you instructed Shouto as you pulled the lid off the box; selecting a dark chocolate truffle for yourself.
"I know things seem bad, but poisoning ourselves isn't the answer. Yet," Shouto added grimly, staring down into the box with a deep frown.
"I'm not gonna- ugh! Just watch!" You huff, placing your truffle onto the wall and smearing it over the letters with firm strokes. The chocolate transferred easily onto the wall, leaving brown streaks across the pink paint but skipping over the recessed grooves of the letters.
"Clever," Shouto smirked proudly, a sight that you stared at for longer than was strictly appropriate; permanently etching every last detail of this moment into your memory.
Chocolates in hand, you and Shouto began scribbling across the wall like two poorly supervised toddlers, the message slowly coming into focus as the number of truffles in the box quickly dwindled. The message was much larger than you had originally anticipated and you were a bit worried that you were going to run out of chocolates before the message was fully revealed. But in the end you were left with half a truffle and a bit of doggerel poetry outlined in cocoa:
A love confession you must tell,
If you wish to break the bottle's spell.
Sweet nothings alone just will not do,
You're trapped until your words are true.
"Well, I don't know what I was expecting but it certainly wasn't rhyming couplets," you admit, rubbing your sticky hands onto a nearby tufted throw pillow.
"The bottle," Shouto stated confidently, following your lead and wiping his hands on a decorative curtain. "The one I opened in my office earlier. The poem leads me to believe that we're inside of it."
"I- I suppose that makes sense," you admit, thinking back on the bottle you'd briefly seen. "You opening that bottle is the last thing I remember before waking up here."
"Removing the stopper must have been the trigger for the Quirk that trapped us to activate."
"That's why Ms. Yokubou was so insistent about getting into your office! She knew about the bottle!" You gasped, spinning to face Shouto. He didn't look too surprised by the revelation.
"She knew what the bottle did and likely intended to be here in your place," he nodded somberly. "Ms. Yokubou is definitely the most likely suspect."
"Really?" You scoff incredulously. "'The most likely suspect?' It's blatantly obvious that she's the one behind all of this."
"I took an oath to uphold the presumption of innocence. Ms. Yokubou isn't guilty unless she's proven so in a court of law," Shouto insisted with a sour look on his face, his morals at war with what he knew was true.
"Well, I didn't take an oath," you informed him proudly, puffing out your chest and resting your hands on your hips. "So I'm free to say that she's a creepy, rotten, low-down, guilty, bitch."
"Yes, you certainly can say that," Shouto grinned brilliantly. You tried to return a smile with similar intensity, but considering how rough you looked in the ceiling mirror after a full day of work and captivity you're positive it's no match for Shouto's natural radiance. But from the small sparkle you saw appear in the corner of his eye, it seemed that Shouto appreciated your efforts just the same.
"Are your hands starting to tingle?" You ask worriedly, staring down at the sharply prickling skin on your fingers.
"We need to wash the remaining chocolate off. Now," Shouto ordered, shoving the vase you had rinsed your hands off earlier into your lap; dunking his hands into the water after yours.
"I wonder what was in those truffles," you mutter in concern as Shouto's fingers worked defly over your skin, doing his best to scrub the chocolate residue off with firm strokes. You tried to return the favor, poking at the back of his hand with your clumsy digits, but it was growing increasingly difficult to will your fingers to bend.
"Likely just a tranquilizer," Shouto assured you, pulling one of your hands out of the water to check on how clean it was before lowering it back into the vase with a frown. "Whoever put me in here-"
"Ms. Yokubou," you filled in.
"-seems to have wanted me docile, not dead."
You tried to focus on the muted feeling of Shouto's hand on yours instead of the red hot anger roiling in your belly. It was a testament to the strength of your ire that you barely registered Shouto's gentle caresses.
Shouto had taken it upon himself to push the dresser out of the way so you could more clearly see the poem on the wall from a more comfortable position on the bed. The dresser had tipped in the process, drawers falling open and spilling their contents out across the ground; shiny new dental tools and lacy-edged corsets mixing together in a heap on the carpet. You had thought it had been an accident at first, Shouto simply underestimating his returning strength, but then you had seen the malicious glee spread thickly across his face and understood it had been a calculated act of wanton destruction. He dropped down onto the bed beside you, glaring at the mess he had made on the floor.
"Oops," he said unapologetically, kicking the pile of lingerie with a sneer. In a show of solidarity, you swept your arm across one of the bedside tables, sending an oil diffuser and a copy of the Kama Sutra crashing to the floor.
"Oh nooo," you said flatly, swiping at a teetering wine glass that escaped your first attack. "Clumsy me!"
Shouto's smile was a forced thing, too-fast and insincere compared to his normal grins. You watched as his shoulders slumped, head hanging down towards his chest as he ran his hands through his hair in frustration.
"I hate it here," he admits after a long moment of quiet. "I can't stop thinking about what could- what would have been happening to me. And I- I just-"
His foot jostled one of the hooked dental probes laying on the carpet, both your and Shouto's eyes locked onto it as it skittered across the floor and hit the baseboard with a tinny clang.
"We need to get out of here," you swallow thickly, hand blindly reaching out for Shouto's across the bed. He squeezed your fingers too tightly, your joints aching in protest; but you didn't tell him to stop.
"So, if we're interpreting this poem correctly then Ms. Yokubou-"
"The unconfirmed suspect," Shouto corrected.
"-the suspect intended keep you trapped in here and torture you until you were convinced you loved them."
"That seems to be the case, yes."
"That's so fucking awful, Shouto."
He didn't respond, staring thoughtfully at the words on the wall with a furrowed brow instead.
"Ms. Yoku- I mean, whoever did this obviously has some sort of feelings for you, but not really? They want you, but not the actual you," you ranted, the bubble of rage you had kept pushed down inside had finally built up enough pressure that it was spilling out against your will as you stomped around the room. You took a special sort of pleasure in grinding the discarded lilies down into mush with every lap you took.
"They don't care about what you think or- or feel, they just care that they get what they want, even if it destroys you. I just- I don't understand? How can they believe that they love you when they're so willing to hurt you?" you whispered brokenly, furious and devastated on Shouto's behalf.
"And I know that is an emotionally charged situation for you, but could you please say something?" You beg, sagging down onto the bed beside him, exhausted from your outburst. "If you don't, I'm pretty sure I'm just going to keep talking until I drive us both crazy. Which, admittedly, doesn't seem like it would be a very long trip at this point-"
"It can't be that simple," Shouto suddenly blurts out, putting an end to your rambling.
"What's not simple? Driving you crazy? Because I have some high school teachers with stories you wouldn't believe."
"No, not that," Shouto said, waving a hand dismissively. "I'm talking about the poem."
"What about it?" you asked, squinting at the rhyme inquisitively.
"It says that only a true love confession will break the bottle's spell and, presumably, set us free."
"Yeah, and that's sort of a huge issue? A forced love confession is just coercion," you explain. "You can't create genuine affection like that."
"Exactly," Shouto agreed, "And that would be a problem if the kidnapper was the one stuck in here with me. But instead, by some incredible stroke of luck or karma or kismet; I'm in here with you."
Between your persistent headache, bone-deep exhaustion, and the thick fog of panic blanketing your mind there was no possible way that you were interpreting Shouto's words correctly.
"What do you mean?" you said, swallowing thickly as you braced your heart for the let down you knew was coming; the walking back of his words, the incredulous laughter once he realized what he was mistakenly insinuating.
"I had a plan for this," Shouto sighed, a melancholy sort of sound. "There was supposed to be dinner. And music. And flowers. Not lilies, though," he rushed to assure you.
"Thank goodness. I don't think I ever want to see another lily again for as long as I live."
"Same here," he laughed dryly. "But we would have had a good evening together. Better than this one, at least. And at the end of the night I would take your hand in mine, just like this," Shouto said, cradling your hand between both of his. "And I'd finally tell you what I've been too scared to tell you for weeks now."
"Which is what?" you whisper breathlessly, precariously hanging on his every word by your fingertips; moments away from slipping and plummeting down into something- some feeling that couldn't possibly be real. You weren't that lucky. You weren't that anything, really.
"I'd tell you the truth," Shouto promised, his eyes shining with a soft sincerity that made your chest ache with longing. "That I am totally, irrevocably, head-over-heels in love with you."
You opened your mouth to respond- how exactly, you weren't entirely sure. Cheer, maybe? Cry? Ask him if he was serious? But the actual sound that came out was a prolonged scream as every muscle in your body twisted and burned.
And then, all you saw was darkness.
You woke up suddenly, contorted into an uncomfortable position on the floor again. But there was one immediately noticeable difference between waking up in the bottle and now, and that was the fact that your limbs were hopelessly tangled up with Shouto's; the two of you twisted together like a fleshy pretzel.
"We have to stop meeting like this," Shouto smiles down at where your head is pillowed on his chest, his heart thumping quickly beneath your ear.
"Nope, not allowed," you mumble in complaint, trying to push yourself off of his chest. You weren't able to make much protest with how loudly your muscles were protesting, so you just settled back down and tried to ignore how your heart skipped a beat when you felt his arm squeeze you tightly into his side. "I'm the funny one here. You're not allowed to have better one-liners than me."
"Apologies," Shouto said, your body rocking gently along with the quiet laughter that shook his chest. "I did have a bit of time to think of it though. It's taken you a little while to come around."
"You didn't move me?"
"No? Why would I?" Shouto asked, tilting his head to the side easily; obviously less inhibited by the soreness of his muscles than you were.
"Well, we're out of the bottle now so I thought…" you trailed off uneasily, unsure of what words you could put together to push this conversation along. It wasn't like you really wanted to talk about what happened; to pop the bubble of happiness that was filled to almost bursting inside of your chest. But you knew that the longer you drew it out the harder it would be to face reality; to acknowledge that Shouto discovered a loophole, a convenient lie he could believe just enough to free you both from that bottle.
Maybe he just loved you like a friend? Or worse, like a sister? Maybe that kind of affection was enough to have met the nebulous requirements for the Quirk to deactivate? The poem didn't have any footnotes that you could see, so maybe it wasn't quite as strict as you and Shouto had theorized. Maybe you could have gotten away with professing your love of Rock and Roll or sleeping in on the weekend?
You wish you would have experimented a bit more inside of the bottle and maybe saved yourself the devastating experience you were currently thrust into: staring literal heartbreak in the face as you gazed helplessly up at Todoroki Shouto.
"Thought what?" Shouto asked, the edges of his sweet grin slowly dipping down into the start of a frown.
"Well, we're out of the bottle now. So I don't expect- I won't hold you to anything you said. I know it was to just get us out. So, uh- thank you for that. But you don't have to keep pretending. It's okay," you assure him with a watery smile. You'd never been particularly skilled at lying and were even worse at it when you were emotional, and right now you were feeling very emotional.
But instead of looking relieved like you had expected him to be, Shouto looked positively exasperated; his face creased into a deep scowl.
"You don't believe that I have feelings for you?"
"Well, I mean, not like you said- not romantically," you explain, panicking internally as his expression grew even more displeased. "Just- like a friend?"
"I see," Shouto huffed. You could practically feel yourself withering under the intensity of his disappointed stare. "Is that how you see me? As just a friend?"
"I mean, we are friends, right?" You laugh nervously, growing increasingly concerned that this conversation might just torpedo your entire relationship into smithereens.
"Yes, of course. Very good ones I think," Shouto said, his hand coming up to cradle the side of your jaw gently to keep your attention firmly on him. "But is that all we are?"
"I wasn't aware there was any other option," you whisper honestly, your gaze jumping between each of his eyes, trying to see if one color was less intimidating than the other. But both gray and green burned with a deep intensity you couldn't fully comprehend.
"Really?" Shouto deadpanned. "I've been inviting you to stay with me in my office alone, after hours, for months now, and you didn't take that as a hint that I was interested in you?"
"I just thought you wanted some company while you ate," you admit quietly, still staring at Shouto much like a deer caught in a set of headlights. "And that you were like, really bad at crossword puzzles."
Shouto groaned miserably, closing his eyes and letting his head fall back onto the floor with a loud thunk.
"I didn't want just anyone's company," he sighed. "I wanted yours, specifically."
"Oh," you replied, stunned. "Then why didn't you, you know? Ask me out? Let me know that you were interested?"
"I thought about taking a more direct approach," Shouto says, staring up at the ceiling despondently. "But my friends told me it was inappropriate to ask someone out while they're working."
"That's true," you conceded. "So what was your plan then, exactly?"
"I was trying to make you relaxed enough in my presence where you would feel comfortable asking me out,"
Shouto said, shifting uncomfortably at your incredulous expression.
"You could have waited one thousand years and I still wouldn't have been able to muster up enough courage to ask you out," you laugh dryly. "But even if your plan had worked, I still signed an employee code of conduct when I started working at Über Munch. I'm not allowed to flirt with customers."
Shouto hummed thoughtfully, tightening his arm around you once more. "I guess maybe it's a good thing we got stuck in that bottle together then, huh?"
"Too soon," you chastised him immediately, eyes wide as you shook your head quickly from side-to-side.
"Right. Of course. Sorry."
Once you were able to move without crying in pain, you and Shouto had reluctantly pried your bodies apart and started acting like responsible adults. Shouto did his official Hero thing and reported your bungled kidnapping attempt to the police while you called in to work.
You'd ended up needing to use one of the Personal Victim Leave days you'd been accruing, which was fine. This was the exact sort of scenario you were supposed to use them for, but you still felt a little bitter because you had been hoping to cash all of them out at the end of the year to pay for holiday gifts for your family.
The next few hours were a blur of commotion as you were interrogated by so many detectives you were pretty sure they had to be bussing them in from the surrounding precincts just to have the opportunity to interview Shouto. But the attempted kidnapping of a high-profile hero was likely a large enough case to elevate someone's career into the big leagues, so you couldn't fault them for their efforts; as self serving as they likely were.
Eventually, you and Shouto had been escorted out of his office so they could start photographing the crime scene; officers delivering you down to a line of ambulances waiting to take you to the hospital for an After Quirk Exposure check-up. All you really wanted to do was go home and sleep for a week, but everyone had a story about some second cousin's friend who skipped the routine examinations and ended up turning inside out or something hours later.
Most of those stories were probably urban legends or some sort of Hero Commission propaganda, but either way they made you just wary enough to agree to climb onto the gurney and accept a juice box and pack of cookies from the paramedic without raising a fuss.
You and Shouto were separated at the hospital, the attending physicians swiveling your gurneys off into separate wings. Shouto was whisked away to the private Hero section of the hospital while you were shuffled into the ER with the rest of the civilians, shoved into a curtained off nook and left to your own devices with a small cup of ice water and a dwindling phone battery.
It was a testament to your exhaustion that you were able to fall asleep even with the cacophony of sounds from the ER filtering in behind your privacy curtain, waking only when the nurses arrived to wheel you around the hospital for one screening or another.
You were on your way back from your third exam, some sort of organ scanning thing you had never bothered to learn the name of, when you noticed that the nurse had pushed you past the corridor that led back to your shrouded nook in the emergency department and towards the elevators.
"Am I going for another test?" You asked in confusion, watching as she swiped her key card across a scanner mounted next to the elevator control panel, selecting one of the numerous unmarked buttons after the scanner accepted her ID with a high-pitched beep.
"No, you're all done for now. We're just waiting for final results to come in," the nurse explained, pushing you out of the elevator doors the moment they opened far enough. "It's been requested that you be moved into a room for security reasons."
"I don't understand. Am I in danger-," your query was cut off as you were pushed into your new hospital room where Shouto was awaiting your arrival, neatly tucked into his own hospital bed. You could tell from the overcrowded cluster of monitoring equipment that they had shoved his bed closer to the far wall to make room for your gurney to be positioned next to his.
"Ah, there you are," Shouto smiled in relief as the nurse engaged the locks on your bed wheels. "Thank you so much for your assistance, Nurse Yamamoto."
The nurse blushed tomato red under Shouto's direct attention, doing her best to hide her burning cheeks behind her clipboard.
"It- ah, it was nothing. Just um, ring the buzzer if you need anything and I'll be back to check on you in an hour?" She stammered nervously, the end of her sentence pitching up into a questioning tone.
"That sounds perfect. Thank you again," Shouto beamed, flashing his teeth in a wide grin that stunned the poor dear so severely she attempted to exit the room by pushing on a door that had to be pulled to open. You grimaced internally in sympathy for her, knowing full well that she would replay that fumbled exit over in her mind every night before she fell asleep.
Once the nurse was safely down the hallway, the squeak of her rubber soled shoes far enough away that you knew she wouldn't overhear, you spun to Shouto with a disbelieving look carved deeply into your face.
"Did you just charm a nurse into letting us be roomies?"
"Please. I didn't just charm a nurse," Shouto scoffed, crossing his arms defensively across his chest. "I also lied a little."
"I can't believe you're this big of a menace," you laugh, flopping back as far as the stiff hospital pillows would allow. "Your PR team must be incredible."
"They better be, for how much I pay them."
You hummed in acknowledgement, looking around his room with a critical eye, noting the immaculate condition of all of the decor and medical equipment, as well as the humongous TV mounted on the wall opposite you; a muted nature documentary flashing across the screen. A large bouquet of blue and yellow flowers were laid next to Shouto's bedside, as well as a carafe of some hot beverage; likely coffee based on the small mountain of tiny creamer tubs stacked up next to it.
"So there's no actual security risk then?" You mumble quietly, fiddling with the edge of your thin knit blanket, doing your best to swallow down the worried lump in your throat. "No sign of Ms. Yokubou or anything?"
"Nothing yet, I'm afraid," Shouto admitted, his face pinching tight with guilt as he examined your anxiously twisting hands. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to worry you unnecessarily."
"It's alright. I've just never been someone's potential target before. It's got me feeling sort of jumpy."
"Understandably," Shouto was quick to assure you. "I guess I'm so accustomed to this sort of thing I didn't really stop to think of how scary it might seem to someone less used to it."
Shouto averted his gaze to the TV for a few moments, flipping to the programming guide channel to allow you the illusion of privacy to collect yourself while you discreetly dabbed the tears pricking the corner of your eyes with the edge of your top sheet.
"So, uh- what was your motivation for moving me in with you then?" You ask, trying to set the conversation back on track after your emotional derailment. "Did you already miss being stuck in a room with me that much?"
"Not quite," Shouto huffed in amusement. "I came to the realization that this was the first time that you and I were both off the clock in the same building. I thought it would be a shame to not make the most of this opportunity to legally fraternize."
"I'm…not sure I'm entirely following your line of thought here," you say, brow furrowed. "You want to what, exactly? Have a date in the hospital?"
"That was my intention, yes," Shouto admitted, rubbing at the back of his neck bashfully. "But hearing you say it out loud makes me realize how silly it sounds."
"No!" You say quickly, shooting up stalk straight in bed, startling you both with the ferocity of your cry. "It's not silly at all! It's kind of sweet, actually. That you can't wait to spend time with me."
"It's just- things are going to get really busy for the both of us now that we're tangled up in a criminal investigation. And I'm not sure when we'll eventually get the chance to be together again,"
"You're right. We should make the best of the time we have together," you nod, rolling onto your side to face Shouto more directly. "And I can say with full confidence that this is the nicest place you've ever taken me. There's a bathroom here and everything!"
"There is!" Shouto laughed excitedly, reaching over to pull the flowers at his bedside into his arms. "And I got these for you, too."
"Really? They're beautiful, thank you," You beam, tugging the collection of blue blossoms into your arms, running a finger softly across a fuzzy green leaf. You notice a card tucked in amongst the blooms and pull it with a quick tug; snorting in amusement at the cartoon stork carrying a blue-bundled baby printed on the front.
"Ughhhhh," Shouto groaned when you showed him the card, scrubbing a hand down his face in frustration. "I asked the gift shop for any bouquet without pink flowers or lillies and this is what they sent. Give it to me and I'll throw it away."
"No!" You cry, pressing the card against your chest away from Shouto's wiggling fingers. "It's mine now, you gave it to me. I'm going to scrapbook it."
"Please don't," he begged, leaning over the rail of his bed to make a closer swipe at the card.
"Or maybe I'll laminate it. Keep it in my wallet for good luck," you muse with a hum. "Would you sign it for me? That would really increase its sentimental value."
"You want my autograph?" Shouto asked, arm paused mid-grab as he stared at you searchingly- for what, you weren't entirely sure.
"No. I want you to sign the card you gave me," you clarify, pulling the card away from your chest and sliding it into his hand. "That's just good manners."
Shouto pulled his hand back, eyes softer than they were just a moment ago as he opened up the side table drawer and pulled out a hospital issue pen.
"You're right. I apologize for my oversight," he said, quickly scrawling on the inside of the card with a speed born from years of practice. You snatched the card back from him as soon as he held it out, excited to see the message he wrote.
'Congratulations, it's a boy!
(The boy is me)
Love, Shouto'
"I'm definitely laminating this," you whisper to yourself, cheeks aching from the force of your smile as you tuck the card safely back into the bouquet and clutch it to your chest protectively.
"So, what else do you have planned for our date?"
Dinner was up next, not because you were necessarily very hungry with the swarm of nervous butterflies you had fluttering around in your stomach; but because a member of the kitchen staff had let themselves into your room to take your meal requests.
"You know, I sort of thought by how much fancier the Hero rooms are that you guys would get better food too," you say, spooning another mouthful of the thin vegetable broth into your mouth.
"All the hospital food comes from the same kitchen. The meals for Heroes aren't any better in quality, but we are permitted to have as much as we want," Shouto explained, prying the lid off of a pudding cup and giving it a tentative sniff. You decide to follow his lead and shift your focus to your dessert, a parfait that was mostly yogurt with a bit of granola sprinkled on top.
"This is actually turning out to be a pretty good date," you say when the TV starts showing a commercial for a local refrigerator repair service.
"You think so?"
"I do," you assure him. "We've even hit two of the major date features you mentioned before. We're having dinner together and you got me flowers. The only thing missing is the music."
"I can fix that," Shouto says as he reaches for the TV remote and punches in the code for a music channel. A music video starts playing; starring a man with bright green skin wearing sunglasses on the beach, flanked by a line of women in bikinis.
"Girl, I think your Quirk must be Twerkin', because your booty really knows how to work it-," The man sang, slapping the right buttcheek of the dancer closest to him.
"So romantic," you sigh, holding a hand to your chest dramatically.
"I'm changing the channel," Shouto grimaced as the camera panned away from the singer and zoomed in on the background dancer's wobbling butts.
"You can't! 'Twerkin' Quirk' is officially our song now, Shouto!" You laugh in delight, soaking in his misery like sunbeams on the first warm day of Spring.
"Everytime I think something else couldn't possibly go wrong, it does," Shouto lamented, a pained look on his face as they began spraying the bikini dancers with champagne while they gyrated next to a sports car with spinning neon rims.
"It sure does seem that way," you agree, fishing out the lone blueberry from the bottom of your parfait. "I'm probably going to have to reevaluate my opinion of this date now."
"Has it finally sunk low enough to earn the 'Worst Date Ever' award?" He sulked, flinging the remote down onto the end of his bed irritability.
"It's definitely cinched the nomination for 'Most Memorable'," you tell him with a smirk, putting your dessert cup down so you could reach across the space between your beds to offer him your hand. The feel of his hand in yours was already a familiar thing; your fingers at home twined together. "But I don't think any date could be bad, so long as you're with me."
"I think you're giving me too much credit, but I'll take it," Shouto grunts softly, deflating down into his pillows to watch the finale of the music video.
"I'll let you take as much credit as you want so long as you take me on another date."
"Agreed," Shouto replied instantly. "And I promise, it'll be better than this."
"I don't think you'll ever be able to top this," you laugh brightly, heart thumping happily as you bury your nose into your flowers and watch as the singer on screen smears oil across his chest while a confetti cannon fires behind him.
"But I can't wait to see you try."
#pigeoncoos#bnha x reader#bnha x y/n#bnha x you#mha x reader#mha x y/n#mha x you#bnha x self insert#mha x gender neutral reader#todoroki shouto x you#todoroki shoto x reader#shouto todoroki x reader#shouto x reader#todoroki shouto x reader#shouto x you#shouto x y/n
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This is gonna be long, honey soooo… buckle up.
We have Desmond linked to the God of Wine, Dionysus / Bacchus with this fic (show some love and kudos this please, I adore this concept).
However, what if Desmond by chance ( Isu bullshit) that he absorbed when he touched the Eye as he time travels back In the Renaissance before the Auditore family execution event, it manifested in him having demi-god traits but with two Gods I have in mind.
1. Aphrodite or Venus, goddess of love, beauty, pleasure and procreation. Accidentally becoming a matchmaker for people like Des incidentally shoved a man by mistake who the man then bumped into a woman, BOOM! the two madly fell in love at first sight and married with children or his charm increases, making people fall in love with Desmond. This adds angst if Desmond discovered this power, He has low self-esteem and is severely traumatized (fuck you William for that). He would believe they really don’t love him especially the assassins and it’s just a illusion they do. Actually they do, the power only boosted his charisma but Desmond doesn’t know this shhhhh.
2. Eros or Cupid, god of carnal love. 16 year old Desmond with his newfound freedom after running away from the Farm. It’s no surprise he could be a sexually liberated man especially he’s a hot bartender to hook up in the back alley of Bad Weather. He might dabbled in BDSM, he’s a switch, but preferably doms. He also got a vasectomy to avoid impregnating a woman no Elijah in thishe believes that he shouldn’t have children, after having narcissistic father and possibly an emotionally neglectful mother can do that. An ability to sense lust or desires of a person in eagle vision could be possible.
With that being explained, regardless of which God, these abilities have pros & cons. Desmond when he is in the Renaissance, he’ll be low-key but he can’t stand out and without the currency to have a peaceful life, we needs a job. By some gift of the universe or it hates him. He ended up as a bodyguard of Rosa in Fiore by saving some courtesans from aggressive drunken men while in his clothes devolved in rags by the heat of the Eye when arrived, making him look like a beggar, good thing it was night time so his face wasn’t seen by the girls.
Its been weeks doing this job, Desmond have saved plenty coins but not enough to buy land far away and live his life maybe as a farmer or open a tavern. Lately, he been feeling unwell, no matter he drank to quench his thirst, his throat is dry as if he been in dessert with no water survive and started having hot flashes. It could just because of the clothes he donned, not a single silver lining of his skin is shown except the upper part of his face and hair but he was assumed it was if it were the fact he started having wet dreams, from memory of his many hook ups in New York or some constructed with people with no faces. He gets aroused, yes, but he has self-restraint but he also frustrated and losing his rationale.
“Dezmund~” Bianca, a courtesan who been attempting to lure him to bed. The other courtesans entertaining the patrons who had too much wine, too busy to notice the two, giving them a sense of privacy. “Bianca” he nodded with one brow raised at her. Bianca practically started to entice him with her usual flirting to him. You know what, fuck it, he thought, he proceeded to ———————
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Yeeeaaaahhhh…i won’t be too detailed so it won’t be overbearing. So giving you the mental picture is that Desmond used his knowledge of BDSM, blindfoled and tied Bianca and used her mouth to empty his frustration while he is still completely clothed. He gave her sweet aftercare and realizing his symptoms are gone and his mind is clear and —- oh fuccccckkkkkk he unintentionally created a chain reaction after this event involving himself more to the Brotherhood, the Auditore family and Leonardo
Anyway, thanks for reading this till the end, mwah <3
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Additions by teecup:
… that sounds like Desmond has the curse of an Incubus, needing to ‘unload’ his pent up energy to another person.
And you know who would be fascinated by it?
Leonardo Da Vinci.
Perhaps it was during one of the times that Leonardo went to a brothel to find ‘inspiration’. Maybe it was because he had been nursing a crush on Desmond who was unattainable to his eyes, a simple bodyguard meant to keep everyone safe.
He would see the complicated expression on his face. The frustration in his eyes.
And the flushed cheeks.
Oh, Leonardo would be smitten but he’d try to act like a friend, as any attraction he might have pales in comparison to his worries concerning Desmond’s wellbeing.
Desmond sees him and finds himself being unable to lie to Leonardo.
He needed to tell someone about his problems and he trusted Leonardo.
So Leonardo listens and…
Things start to snowball from there.
At first, it was simply Leonardo trying to help Desmond while studying his ‘affliction’.
Then it became more for the thrill and pleasure they would receive from one another.
Desmond becomes Leonardo’s muse and sometimes his model…
Maria Auditore saw Leonardo’s potential and started commissioning him…
Federico comes in to get one of the finished commissions and… finds Leonardo and Desmond in a very compromising situation.
Instead of leaving… Federico decided to join in.
And Desmond knew that Federico was hiding something but it would be a while before he realized that during this time, two years before the fated day that the Auditores would be executed, Federico was already on his way to becoming a member of the Brotherhood…
…
Also… maybe Leonardo and Desmond have an open relationship which will give us more option for Desmond to ‘partner’ up with (like maybe… La Volpe??? XD)
#desmond needs to have sex#for his health#lol#it would be funny if#all the persons desmond has sex with#find their true love afterwards#only leonardo doesn’t#because…#it’s actually desmond#they don’t realize it though#ask and answer#leodes#mentions of#desmond miles x oc#desmond miles x original character#desmond miles x original female character#assassin's creed#desmond miles
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Chapter 7 of Book 1: Beautiful Ghosts is out now!!!
Summary: After sneaking off to practice her waterbending, Katara gets captured by Zuko. While in captivity, she begins to feel something new
Here’s an excerpt:
As Katara slowly began to open her eyes, she felt something was off. She tries to move but was unable to before realizing she was tied to a tree. She tries breaking free, to no avail. She was trapped. Looking around her, she quickly spots the two ships she saw earlier, with the pirates from the market crowding around it, now looking straight at her.
“Finally, you’re awake” she hears a familiar voice. Turning her head, she sees Zuko, followed by a whole team of Fire Nation soldiers. She looks at him with a mixture of annoyance and rage. At this point, Katara, Sokka, and Aang have dealt with Zuko and his soldiers four times. Following their first encounter at the South Pole, Zuko had tracked them down to Kyoshi Island before burning it to the ground, tried shooting fireballs at Appa while they were in the air, and attempted to capture Aang himself at Roku’s temple. But, right now, as he stood in front of her while she was tied to a tree with nowhere to go, this was the first time since their interaction at the South Pole that they stood face to face. If looks could kill, Zuko would’ve been long dead.
“Just tell me where he is, and I won’t hurt you or your brother” Zuko commands, doing his best appear intimidating. He probably expected Katara to beg for her life. “Go jump in the river,” she barks, not taking any of the bullshit he throws at her. Appearing to think for a second, his voice suddenly softens, seeming to try a different approach to appeal to her.
As Zuko speaks, he walks around Katara, using his soft tone like a prime master of seduction and desire. Although she didn’t quite understand it at the time nor would she have acknowledged it to begin with, but she was undoubtably feeling turned on by this approach Zuko was taking. “Try to understand. I need to capture him to restore something I’ve lost – my honor”. She jerks her head away from him, trying to appear unamused. She was hoping that by not looking at him, it would be easier for her not to immediately fall for his trap.
As Zuko got closer to her body, Katara could feel his breath on her neck as he spoke, which triggered an unfamiliar feeling in her body. While she appeared to keep up the appearance of being unimpressed, it was starting to take a lot in her just to keep it up. She was a fourteen-year-old girl who, at that point, never had a boyfriend nor even kissed anyone before. She never had another guy around her age show any interest in her like that. And here Zuko was, speaking like he was, trying to appeal to her sense of empathy, but was instead triggering something that she would’ve rather kept under lock and key.
Remembering her as the water tribe girl who knew his games and played them like a pro, Zuko deduced that treating Katara like an equal might serve him better in the end. He softens his voice even more, making even harder for Katara- who was mentally fighting her body’s new sense of desire- to resist. She bites her lower lip in attempt not to show him what he was doing to her. “Perhaps in exchange for your friend, I could restore something important that you’ve lost”. What the hell is this guy talking about, she silently mutters to herself, her brain still fighting against this feeling her body was experiencing for the first time. For a second, she thought Zuko was going to kiss her. Maybe she wanted him to.
Zuko didn’t realize it at the time, but Katara was so close to breaking. His soft, seductive tone and the effect it was having on her body was intoxicating. Had he just kept going like that, she probably would’ve given up and told him where Aang was within a few minutes. Perhaps if he even offered himself in exchange for Aang, she would’ve been more willing to comply.
If you want to read more, here’s the link:
Thank you so much for all the support! Next update will be up soon!
#avatar the last airbender#atla fanfic#canon divergent au#archive of our own#avatar fanfiction#fanfiction#book 1: water#katara#zuko#zutara#zutara fanfic#zutara fic#ao3#ao3 fanfic#pro zutara#zutara fanfiction#zutaranation#spicy zutara#spicy fanfic#katara deserved better
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Do you think Tenshinhan and Yamcha gravitate towards each other so much because they see themselves in the other? Like yeah, there’s mutual respect there, but maybe the respect is much deeper.
Tenshinhan probably sees he’d be just like Yamcha if he wasn’t so single-mindedly focused on training, loosened up and enjoyed life a bit more. He would also fall behind in his prowess, which he simply can’t allow. Tenshinhan has questioned how Yamcha can forgive Vegeta for what he did and probably thinks its a shame that Yamcha is so lax about life and martial arts as a whole. But he likely admires his easy going attitude as well. Without it, Tenshinhan wouldn’t have become part of the group in spite of Roshi’s efforts and Goku’s respect. Yamcha has a good heart and he’s willing to let by-gones be by-gones. He forgave Tenshinhan, he forgave Vegeta and he was kind and supportive of the people who wronged him at one time or another. And in spite of being one of the weakest links among the group, when the chips were down he went to help out against the saiyans, the cyborgs/androids and even Cell. That takes courage and Tenshinhan likely recognizes that. He sees that while Yamcha has given up the arts, he’s happy in his life and he can’t wish for more than that for his friend.
Yamcha, for his part, likely sees himself in Tenshinhan if he was more focused on training. He’d be much more powerful, yes, but he’d end up a recluse striving for a goal he knows deep down he could never reach no matter how hard he trains (unless someone pulls out the “the real super honest hidden potential unlock for real this time guys” power up out of their ass at some point). He’d miss out on all the time shared with Goku, Bulma, Oolong, Krillin, Roshi and the rest of the gang. To him, life is more than training in solitude to be the best. And while he might wish Tenshinhan were more social and lighten up, he admires the man’s tenacity, determination and drive to someday surpass Goku, no matter how impossible the task. In a world where Earth’s martial arts have become the equivelant to pro wrestling without the self awareness thanks to Mr. Satan, its good to have someone like Tenshinhan and Chaozu keeping the traditions and teachings alive. And there’s no one better than those two in all honesty. All the previous martial artists are either too old or too weak to do it. And Goku, Vegeta, Gohan and Piccolo are all pulling bullshit power ups and transformations out of their asses that no Earthling can really compete with. The current generation of Earthling practicioners are far too ignorant to be worthy of continuing the legacy like Tenshinhan is doing.
They’re polar opposites in how they think, live their lives and view fighting in general, yet they’re probably the only two people on Earth who truly understand and respect the other’s choices and mentality. One accepted his position in life and the other always strives to be better.
#dragon ball#dragonball#dragon ball z#dragonballz#dragonball z#tenshinhan#tien#yamcha#tien shinhan#lots of headcanoning in this#but fuck it i like reading into relationships and coming out with readings that can fit with what we see in canon
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hi!! just coming into your inbox because i saw you posted about the show ramy & i also loved it & have nobody to talk to about it. i know ramy youssef said he might make a season 4 but it's not official and i can't stop thinking about what a season 4 would be...fatherhood? but also he still owes a bajillion dollars due to that diamond piece he lost, right? idk. i welcome any and all thoughts <3
Hey dudette! Thanks for the follow, I'm in a pretty similar position so I feel you lol. The girl who introduced me to the show was a girl from a dating app and we don't really talk anymore so I don't have a lot of people to talk about it to either, thanks for hitting me up!
If the series ended where it left off, I'd be down with that, but I also can't deny I'm curious as to where the Hassan family + their friends end up after the third season. Putting my theories under read more cus it's a lot.
Here's what I'm thinking: it takes a really long time for Zainab to come around, but by the last 1-3 episodes she kind of accepts that Ramy is the father of her kid and she can't deny that, nor take that away from her daughter, and she can only come to this conclusion after a lot of time spent as a single mother (which comes with pros and cons) and a lot material proof that Ramy is a changed man; yeah he's still got his vices and flaws, but we all do, and he's not fucking his cousin or doing deals for the Israel mob anymore and he's finally found a nice balance between being a peaceful, average American millennial and being the firstborn son of an immigrant, which is definitely not an easy pattern to break.
Dena gets married, for sure, but the majority of her character still revolves around her studies and her career. There's scenes where her fiancé (I forget his name) gently drags her away from her studies to go on cute little dates or to remind her to eat dinner or to take her to diners for breakfast and catch up and pray and all, flirting with her over text and calling her on Facetime every now and then and linking up on weekends and vice versa, and it's established pretty well that he has a life of his own and is doing pretty well with his roommates and stuff. He and Dena get married a little after she passes the bar.
Farouk and Maysa have to sell the house, and it's super bittersweet. Ramy and Dena help them move all their stuff into this cute little 2 bedroom apartment, the second room doubling as a guest room and as a room for when one needs space from the other. It's weird not having the kids around and it's a little closer to the city than they like, but it's got a lot of perks too. Maysa can drive for Lyft and make friends easier cus everything is Right There, Farouk actually finds his rhythm as a con man, which complicates things a little but also, we all know he's a good and smart guy and would eventually know the law well enough to skirt around it, so it's a start. Their marriage improves a lot too cus they're finally humble enough to talk to each other about real shit.
Uncle Naseem doesn't accept being gay fully till like, the last three episodes. Post retirement of course. Ramy finds some old love letters while helping him clean and move the rest of Naseem's shit from Jeweler's Row and just smiles and nods to himself, dropping aforementioned shit off at his apartment with nothing but a little extra bundle of cash; both as a way of saying "sorry about the bullshit" and "don't explain; I know." and it's cool. As a cherry on top, he might have even made up with that guy at the gym, or he might have found a new guy.
Shadi should meet up with Steve at some point and get into the DJ scene proper; it's hard for him when Farouk and Maysa have to move into a smaller apartment without him, but he finds a decent and diverse group of rave bros during a set one night and it saves him from having to spend the rest of his time in the U.S. on the street. He falls for a cute black hippie chick during one of his sets, and they move in together. It's a little small and cramped but he has her and her cat has already fallen in love with him so how can he have any more reserves? This is just where god wants him to be,
I can't speak for any of the minor characters, or the cousin that Ramy stopped fucking, but yeah. This is my take. If you wanna talk more, feel free to DM!
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🎷🦐
“ℌ𝔢 𝔥𝔞𝔡 𝔩𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔢𝔡 𝔴𝔢𝔩𝔩 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔩𝔞𝔴 𝔬𝔣 𝔠𝔩𝔲𝔟 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔣𝔞𝔫𝔤, 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔥𝔢 𝔫𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔣𝔬𝔯𝔢𝔴𝔢𝔫𝔱 𝔞𝔫 𝔞𝔡𝔳𝔞𝔫𝔱𝔞𝔤𝔢 𝔬𝔯 𝔡𝔯𝔢𝔴 𝔟𝔞𝔠𝔨 𝔣𝔯𝔬𝔪 𝔞 𝔣𝔬𝔢 𝔥𝔢 𝔥𝔞𝔡 𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯𝔱𝔢𝔡 𝔬𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔴𝔞𝔶 𝔱𝔬 𝔇𝔢𝔞𝔱𝔥.”
| 𝔐.𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱 | ℜ𝔲𝔩𝔢𝔰 | 𝔑𝔞𝔳𝔦. |
Gender: Male reader (Could be read as NB as there are only a few mentions of gendered language)
Character(s): Yan!Tartaglia x reader
Summary: You are a craftsman who meets the unfortunate fate of catching the eye of a fatui harbinger, he seems to have taken quite an interest in you.
Warning(s): Mentions of dog bites, dog attacks, stalking, Ajax tracking you, mentions of violence, a little gore, minor character death
Words: 1,351
This got deleted like 2 times and I was just about to give up but three times the charm ig. Also, I hc that all or most of the harbingers have at least 1 borzoi or any other "royal" breed, so that feeds into this plot. Forgive for the poor writing, I am doing this on a laptop which I am not familiar with
Go check this post out btw! I just want to know what new ideas you guys would want in the future. [Link]
Fem-aligned, yaoi/fujoshi supporters, pro/comshippers, mlm fetishizers dni you will be blocked
They say don't bite the hand that feeds but that's bullshit, no one deserved a fate like this. You were a no-one. You only worked as a weapon craftsman in Snezhnaya. Mostly making or repairing weapons for fatui soldiers with an occasional avid traveler, for fairly cheap.
You lived well, mora wasn't an issue most of the time, but you would doubtlessly be working for most of your life before you could retire. So, what an immense surprise it was when one of the fatui harbingers pops into your quaint shop one day.
The 11th of the harbingers waltzing through your door with two soldiers behind him. A smile that held no hint of friendliness in it. His eyes scanned over the premade weapons before landing on you working behind the counter. Upon hearing someone approaching you to go to leave your work and greet them when you stop midway. The smile on your face drops instantly into a worried frown as you realize who stands before you.
He had requested you to fix his bow and ordered a few other smaller orders of weapons. You thought that would've been it, you would just fix the bow and never have to work with the unsettling harbinger but no. He came back a week later, then the next week, and the next. Each time he would try to prolong the time you two talked.
You thought barely of it, of course, it was weird but were you really going to question the intentions of a harbinger. To you, he just had a brief case of puppy love that would pass.
Well, it didn't. It got worse, way worse. He would start to bring you bags of mora, flowers, and other gifts. You always rejected them not wanting it to seem like you were reciprocating his love. For one, you were already married to a kind-hearted man, and second whatever he had for you clearly wasn't healthy.
For a while, you put up with his weird attitude but then he started to get way too close in your personal space. His touches always lingered a little longer than comfortable, his dead-like eyes boring through your head, he was snappier, and would start to get mad when you rejected his presents.
It reached a boiling point when he grabbed your waist pulling you flush against him. In an instant your fist connected with his jaw as you weaseled out of his grasp. Reaching for a nearby weapon that is laid on your sketching desk. Childe's guards were ready to strike but quickly put their weapons down when their boss waved a command.
With a nod, they backed down and returned to idle stand behind him. When you looked back at him you expected to see an angry look on his face but instead, he looked excited even happy. The feeling of wanting to vomit arises in your throat, but you still stand firm.
"Plea- Please leave now." With a shaky voice, you command the barbaric man and his guards to leave. To your surprise, he listens. He turns with a smug grin and a wave out the door.
And for the second time, you were foolish. You thought again that maybe he would leave you alone but no. Although he didn't show up in your shop as much, he still sent fatui spies to your shop, you would find gifts wrapped in the finest paper at the steps of your house. The gifts from him never got opened you just threw them aside in the trash. Wanting nothing to do with the ginger haired harbinger.
So, what broke the camel's back? You really didn't know. Maybe he got bored, impatient, frustrated, jealous, or whatever. But something snapped inside him that day. From the beginning the day left off, just the air felt stuffy. You left your spouse at home with a goodbye kiss as you rushed off to open your shop. That day no fatui agents came in, only a few adventures in need of weapons. The snow falling outside felt heavier, and time felt as if it went 10x slower.
Finally, the time came when you could go back home, so with the twist of a key, you locked your shop and trekked your way back home through the inches of snow. But when you got to your house the door was wide open. The handle that was ripped off the door now laying in the snow. Dread filled you as you carefully stepped into the house with your polearm clutched in your hand.
What awaited you flipped your life upside down. In your living room sat Childe in your loveseat with your dead spouse laying on the blood-drenched rug. The smell of iron leaks into your senses, making you gag at the horrendous aroma.
His eyes snap up to yours, and that same ominous manic smile adorns his face. "Welcome home, my love!" He cheered as he stands up to hug you, his arms spread wide. There was no comfort in his voice, it made your ears want to bleed, like nails on a chalkboard.
After the shock wore off the fact that the love of your life had been killed registered in your brain. You felt sorrowful but another emotion gravely overshadowed that. Anger, rage, and hatred bubbled up covering all the sadness you felt. Animosity for Childe was all you felt at that moment.
The grip on your polearm tightens, the sight of him getting closers acting like he hasn't done a single bad thing. It makes you fucking pissed. But you knew there was no way for you to beat him in a fight, you couldn't go up against a harbinger and win. So, you did the only thing you could think of, letting your flight or fight take control.
Your pyro vision lights ablaze, your polearm swings out in front of you creating a wall of fire blocking Childe from getting to you. Without taking a second glance you rush out into the blizzard-like weather. Through the howling winds, you hear him yelling after you to come back and stop running but you don't even when your lungs feel like they could collapse or when your body feels so numb.
The goal was to get out of Snezhnaya because you couldn't dare to look at that place anymore. The mere thought of stepping foot into the city made you shiver. You don't really know how long you have been walking maybe a few hours? Frozen snow clings onto your clothes as you cling onto yourself. The storm was getting really bad, you could barely hear nor see anything. Droplets frozen onto your lashes weighing them down, your eyes feeling droopy. For a while you couldn't hear anything till the sound of dogs barking makes your heart drop.
It was the sound of at least 3 dogs getting closer to you rapidly. You were so exhausted that you didn't even try to speed up, you just hoped that they weren't after you, but nothing was ever on your side was it.
Flickering pain shoots up your arm as you twirl around to see a dog. A Russian wolfhound of course. You just wanted to cry at that point, the only people at this point who were allowed to own those breeds were royals or the harbingers. The guess was that these were Tartaglia's hunting dogs. If they were his then he would follow the steps of these dogs.
The dogs latched ahold of both your arms, the third grabbing onto your back and pushing you down into the frigid layers of bloody snow. You couldn't take it anymore the fatigue and scalding pain overtaking all senses. Black splotches start to cover your vision, ringing in your ears almost blocking out the sound of snow crunching around you.
Before your vision could go out completely a hand grips your hair pulling you up to meet the face of Tartaglia, his unnerving smirk still resting on his freckled face. "You thought you could run darling? Your fucking mine" was the last thing you heard before your head gets thrown into the snow below again and darkness takes you.
Fun fact for those who made it this far, but I really love borzoi! I love sighthound in general and have researched them a lot, but borzoi has got to be my favorite. Maybe I'm biased because I have a little borzoi puppy, but they are such a goofy breed, and I would never regret getting one.
#childe#childe x male reader#tartaglia x male reader#childe tartagalia#tartagalia genshin impact#male reader insert#male insert#genshin x male reader#genshin impact x male reader#male reader#yandere mlm#yandere male#yandere childe#yandere tartaglia#x male reader#genshin impact#male reader fanfic#genshin imagines#genshin
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BakuDeku ft.
Truth Quirk
AO3 Fanfic Recommendations
Disclaimers!
None of the stories linked below are mine.
Some contain mature content.
Credit to @kamiartstuff for art.
Note: If you read any of these stories and like them please let the author know with a kudos and/or comment!
objective truth by mamalade
Summary: Iida and Uraraka have turned to him, waiting for a response to the conversation he hadn't been paying attention to.
Instead of the apology he was expecting to spew, he instead says,
"Kacchan is beautiful, today."
-----
Izuku gets hit with a truth quirk, as one does. He seems to be handling it well — until Katsuki shows up.
Complete | 4 Chapters
The Absolute Truth by Glon_Morski
Summary: “What words did you say, exactly? Share with us. Show us how much of a monster you really are, Ground Zero.”
I told him…
‘Shut up!'
…that I have a time saving idea for him…
‘Shut up!’
…that if he wants to have a quirk that badly…
‘Shut the fuck up!!!’
…he should take a swan dive off a roof and hope for a quirk in his next life.
The pain blooms on his throat this time as the characters that write the answer carve themselves into his skin.
***
In which Katsuki is captured by villains who want to expose him as a 'false hero' (as per Stain's ideology) and use a truth serum-like quirk to do it.
Complete | 5 CH | Mature Content
Honesty by The_Fangirl_Sunstorm
Summary: Bakugo braces for the tirade of blame and anger that he knows he deserves. Instead Izuku’s voice is calm and gentle.
“I’ve already forgiven you.”
***
Or…leave it to Izuku to use getting blasted by a truth quirk as an opportunity to prove to his boyfriend that he doesn’t hold their past against him.
One Shot | SFW
Nothing but the truth by jasminflower69
Summary: While saving a young woman in a bus accident, 3rd year Midoriya Izuku gets hit by a quirk that makes it so he can't help but tell the truth. Of course he ends out blurting out in front of the whole class that he thinks Bakugo is cute.
One Shot | SFW
truth, spilling from his mouth by vannral
Summary: It’s not really a sudden realization, not really, but Katsuki still thinks it’s bullshit.
— — —
In which Katsuki gets progressively more grumpy about his feelings for Deku, and then the matters get a whole lot worse when he’s hit with a Truth Serum Quirk. Explosions and feelings happen.
Complete | 3 Chapters | Mature
honesty is the best policy? by smuTWeedHiraeth
Summary: Deku and Bakugo are pro heroes and prefer to fight crime as a duo. They have known eachother since childhood and have a rough past. One day all of Bakugo’s secrets start falling out of his mouth against his own will.
One Shot | Contains Smut
#bakudeku#truth quirk#quirk accident#bkdk#ao3 bakudeku recs#ao3#fic rec#ao3 bkdk#bakugou x midoriya#bakudeku recommendations#fanfic recommendation#archive of our own recommendations#pro hero au#normal au#bakudeku forced confession#ua students bakudeku#truth telling quirk#ao3 fic rec#honesty#forced confession#archive of our own#ao3 bakudeku#bakudeku fic rec#bakudeku fic recs
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Hello!
AKA the Forever-WIP Post
We're The Rusanya Collective, or just "Rusanya" collectively. We're a protogenic-endogenic (or, to simplify, recursigenic) system of over 300 folks, many of who consider themselves factual fictives and/or soulbonds.
We'd like to think we're some form of queer for the most part, but we haven't really had a good chance to interact with an offline culture yet (we plan to work on this AT SOME POINT but we just got a promotion at our new job and like, are trying to recover from retail & other assorted bullshit).
We like to look at pretty art on this website and read & write stories even if we don't do that much anymore and listen to podcasts. We like video games and watching TV & movies and working on our headspace & simply plural and trying to be happy on our social media while being open as an Autistic system.
We have a cat who is called Cookie. We have a double BA in psychology and social justice from which we graduated in 2020 with. We are just learning to cook in general but especially with a slow cooker, which is better for our ADHD. We actually like living in our current apartment, which has been much better for our overall health (especially mental health) which is important to us.
We don't really have a DNI but we do block if we feel like we don't want you here. You could've been a bigot or maybe you just set us off talking about potato salad one too many times.
Links to Stuff
Throne Wishlist - Please?
Cash App - You can also just straight up tip us on this Tumblr but, welp, if Cash App makes you feel better we want that option to be available.
Our Pillowfort Account, Our SpaceHey, Our Cohost, & Our Aethy Account (18+) - If shit hits the fan with Tumblr, these are where you can maybe find us. If you are mutuals with us or we know who you were/are while we were at university you may also message us for our Discord but we cannot guarantee we will actually hand it out 'cause of our personal anxiety stuff.
Sideblogs
@rusanya-does-edits - Our new edit blog!! We made it because we've made so many of them we just figured this would be easier on us. XD
@rusanyas-sunshine - We're bringing this back because we've realized we have a lot of things we need to hear and none of them are supposed to be mean.
Directory for headmates' sideblogs. We don't use our own sideblogs too often, but we like having them anyways. Feel free to follow and block whomever if you want to keep up with certain folks or avoid others.
Other
We're the queue mutual lol, that is to say, we use both the queue and fast reblog options. Good luck with that!
Our dividers were made by @hypnosiacon, tysm for these! They're great and we like swirlies lol.
Please, please, PLEASE send us asks! We have been needing to update this for ages, but generally, these are the requisite things to keep in mind when doing so. We have those needs for personal safety/wellbeing, but like, it's also very much case by case too so if you need something just...say so? And we want to have fun too! Small talk, infodumps about special interests, cool shit, anything really, those can also go in the ask box.
If you are sending us an ask in reference to another being, please see these guidelines and read through them before you do.
If you are asking us why we do not tag posts as default, please see this specific post before you do, but feel absolutely free to ask for a tag on a per-post basis and try to link/indicate the post for us.
We probably aren't gonna bitecha in the mean way unless you're being a jerk. It can take awhile for us to get through asks but, well, we do try!
We play ClanGen sometimes, we have Pluralityclan so far, our general tag is "#rusanya plays clangen" without the quotations. We are open to others suggesting lore and details for cats who do not have planned lore/details or in-depth lore/details.
Hm. Besides that, we have a bunch of userboxes and cannot remember for the life of us where some of them have come from (except the pro-MOGAI and romanticizing plurality ones, we made those ourselves a long long time ago on our defunct account)!
------------
♤♤ anendoandfriendo ♤♤
~ Art from picsart ~
[A sparkly signature image. The background is the endogenic system flag, recursigenic flag, and protogenic flag. The endogenic flag has the treblesand on it. Amber from Genshin Impact is on the left side of the image; Cinderella from Disney's Cinderella and Aquamarine Hoshino from Oshi No Ko are on the right side. The words "They/Them (pl.)" sit in the bottom corner of the image.]
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zelda/link/sidon polyshipping fic where Link's fin'amor "when made public, love rarely endures" bullshit has led him to the conclusion that, after Zelda's first post-calamity appearance in the Zora court goes over fantastically well and much better than his own, the best course of action is to conspire with... Muzu probably to arrange Sidon and Zelda's marriage. In Link's mind, the pros of this are simple:
Sidon is a Zora, and the Zora are well known to be polyamorous, so it's not like marrying Zelda, who is Hylian royatly, would prevent him from having children or becoming king someday
Sidon marrying Zelda would do a lot to strengthen Zora and Hylian relations, which is one of Sidon's stated goals as Prince of the Zora
Zelda living in Zora's domain puts her in a location that maximizes wealth of resources, safety, and "having a climate that is actually hospitable to Hylians" (plus, a palace is so much better than Link's filthy peasant stink-house back in Hateno)
Zelda marrying Sidon would also give her more legitimacy when she eventually retakes the Hylian crown
Link gets to spend the rest of his days standing near both Sidon and Zelda as part of their guard! This is clearly the best possible outcome! It's win-win-win!
Muzu, like all Zora, is under the impression that Hylians are not only strictly monogamous, but also mate for life, so he's a little skeptical of this arrangement but when Sidon and Zelda seem to hit it off he's on board, mostly in an attempt to understand what Mipha thought was so special about having a relationship with a Hylian.
Meanwhile, since Link keeps leaving them alone together to go hide in the bushes (he's known to forage at any opportunity, neither Sidon nor Zelda question this at all), Sidon and Zelda both come to some very different conclusions.
Zelda sees how well Link gets along with Sidon, and upon hearing Sidon speak so highly of Link, out of a desire for Link to choose his own path in life, resolves to... Encourage Sidon and Link's budding romance, as much as it pains her, so that Link may finally be free of his duty and choose happiness for himself for a change.
Sidon, on the other hand, sees how well Link gets along with Zelda, and upon hearing Zelda speak so highly of Link, resolves to do everything he can to support his very best friend and his strange monogamous hylian ways! If Link has decided that Zelda is the only one for him then it is his duty to support them and bring them closer together!
Zelda and Sidon individually enlist Muzu for help in their endeavors.
#probably gonna call it ''muzu's torment nexus'' because most of the fic is just gonna be him suffering#somewhere in the afterlife revali and mipha are drinking mimosas and revali is just#''that guy. you wanted that guy. the 'oh the best possible outcome is that i'll pine forever' guy. him.''#and mipha's just like ''no no he's got a point'' and revalli is just#''nevermind i totally get why you wanted him now''
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I blame @kenmoos for the Free!AU fanart (which is fucking amazing by the way go check it out) and @notasimp4joey for morphing that into a swimmer!Steve/rockstar!Eddie, and when I say blame I mean I am kissing you guys on both cheeks for the inspo and hope you are having a great Valentine's day, or just a good fucking 14th day of February 2023 if you're not celebrating (like me). 😘😘
Summary:
Gold Olympic medalist Steve Harrington decides to retire at 25 years old and become a newbie swim coach.
Eddie Munson, frontman of the well-known rockband Corroded Coffin, is also 25 when he realizes it's getting too embarrassing to be an adult who never learned to swim.
Technically, they are strangers. But not really. Not with the way they have secretly followed each other's careers over the years.
AO3 link
Steve's POV
To the great surprise and devastation of his coaching team, his parents and the general public who follow swimming, gold Olympic medalist Steve Harrington decides to retire at 25 years old. Officially, it's due to a shoulder injury; in reality, he's completely exhausted and sick of all the pressures and bullshit of pro sports, of waking up every day at 5am to train, of never getting to eat what he likes, of not remembering when was the last time he actually enjoyed swimming. Sick of feeling like if he lets himself relax for even a moment, his performance will slip and he'll disappoint everyone. Might as well just get the disappointment part over with, on his own terms. No more expectations, no more worrying about that every single minute he's in the water.
After pondering his further career options for a while, and turning down several prestigious pro coaching positions (after which, his father just stops calling), Steve settles for a job as a coach for newbies at a swim school. The school principal, Nancy Wheeler, makes him an offer without even pointing out that he's massively overqualified for the job. Later, as they talk over lunch, she explains that she knows what it's like, needing to make a drastic change in your life. Steve doesn't pry further, but he did catch a glance of a cute young woman's photo in Nancy's wallet as she paid for her coffee, and he thinks he understands.
Steve absolutely adores his job. For the first time in forever, he's excited to wake up in the mornings again. Most newbies are kids, and he loves that he can teach them the joys of swimming without being the asshole who drills a child to swim 50 laps at 6 in the morning and scold them for so much as making an unnecessary splash, like his coach used to (god forbid pro swimmers have any fun during training). He also loves helping the occasional adult students who don't believe in themselves at first, like maybe if you don't learn swimming as a kid you never will, and seeing the excitement and glee on their faces when they can finally complete a lap on their own, without a kickboard keeping them afloat.
***
Steve's getting ready for a private lesson, putting away all the buoys and kickboards the kids he was teaching left floating around the pool despite him yelling after them to tidy up after themselves; in vain, because they no longer pay attention to him, babbling excitedly about some game they're going to play together as they head for the doors. He's not really mad at them, never could be. It's great that their group has become such tight friends over the past few months. Plus, it's actually kind of fun to swim around the pool, chasing the floating objects and throwing them towards the edge; no pressure, no timing, no roaring crowds.
He wonders about his new student, another adult - Edmund Mason, apparently, is the name; must be some truly loaded guy, paid to have the whole pool to himself for all his lessons. Steve's just gotten out of the pool when he hears the locker room door open, and speak of the devil, the guy comes in. Black swim shorts, multiple tattoos on his broad chest and muscular arms, long curly hair up in a messy bun, a kind of deer-in-the-headlights look in his huge brown eyes - oh. Oh.
That was definitely not the real name he signed up under, and it makes sense why he'd book the whole pool. That, or Steve is having a very vivid hallucination, because no way did Eddie frigging Munson, of all people, sign up for Steve's swim classes.
Steve was never really a Corroded Coffin groupie; couldn't afford to, with his lifestyle, between the training and trying to attend evening classes at college. He's never been to a concert, but he's followed their music from the start, buying all the albums and singles on both cassette and vinyl and then CDs as they started coming in, and never missing a magazine with an article about them.
Because in addition to loving CC music, Steve used to have a massive, massively embarrassing crush on their frontman. The guy who not only wrote mindblowing tunes and lyrics, whose slightly growly voice sent shivers down Steve's spine, but who was also so unfairly hot. And cute, in a way you wouldn't expect of a rockstar. Steve's seen him giggle and give the dorkiest answers during interviews, goof around with his band onstage between songs, get down on one knee in front of screaming fangirls reaching for him and kiss their hands and call them "my ladies". There were rumors that he was queer, which he never bothered to deny, merely smirking at the interviewer and replying with his signature phrase, "I don't kiss and tell, sweetheart."
Eddie seemed to live his life completely uncaring about image and expectations and all that bullshit; Steve admired that and was, admittedly, always a bit jealous. Eddie was the real deal. And never in a million years did Steve expect to meet the real deal. And even if he did, he never expected Eddie Munson to look so fucking… nervous?
After a moment of just silently staring at each other, Steve silently scolds himself. The guy is just like any other adult who's come to his class. Maybe worried about getting in the water, maybe embarrassed that he has to take a class that's essentially, for the most part, designed for children. He really doesn't need Steve gawking at him like an idiot. So Steve lets his face slip into the most reassuring and welcoming smile he can muster, and he grabs a towel to dry his hair with one hand, steps forward to offer his other hand to shake.
"Hi. I'm Steve".
Eddie's POV
Eddie Munson, frontman of the well-known rockband Corroded Coffin, is 25 when he realizes it's getting too embarrassing to be an adult, living in LA of all places, who never learned to swim. Because of course he never did; a perpetually horny queer teen from small town Indiana, going into a locker room full of hot naked guys? A wet dream, in theory. In reality, a fucking nightmare. So it's not like it's his fault that now he cannot even approach a pool during parties, because people keep pushing each other into it as a joke and he might actually fucking drown from that.
At least these days he's loaded with cash enough now to amend this unfortunate predicament while sparing himself the embarrassment of prying eyes. Making up his mind, Eddie finds a swim school closest to home and enrolls for private lessons under a fake ID he sometimes uses for anonymity. He really doesn't need a crowd of fans waiting for him outside the lockers every day.
***
In hindsight, Eddie really, really should have asked for the coach's name in advance. He's heard the rumors, of course, that Steve Harrington had retired to become a regular swim coach at some school in LA. But he'd never imagined that fate would be so cruel as he exits the locker room (with private cabins, thank fuck) into the pool area, and sees the guy getting out of the water.
For a moment, Eddie seriously considers just turning around and quietly leaving and never coming back. But in that moment, the guy lifts his head, and well, Eddie's completely and utterly fucked. No way can he just act normal around Steve fucking Harrington.
It's not that Steve's famous; Eddie's been around a fair share of famous people. It's just that this is the dude whose magazine pics he stared at for longer than he'd ever admit, even back when Eddie was 16 and Steve was still in the junior league. His best friend at the time, Chrissy, used to buy them for him, because it was possible for a girl to buy magazines about swimmer boys and not get as much as a raised eyebrow. (It was a very mutual arrangement, since Eddie used to get her magazines that were acceptable for guys to buy.)
Those magazines were very much part of the reason for Eddie coming to terms with the fact that he did not want to kiss girls. And to be totally honest, that swimwear ad Steve did two years later, all dripping wet, running his hand through his gorgeous hair and grinning at the camera, was no longer just for looking at.
Eddie's had a fair share of experiences after his music career unexpectedly took off, both with girls (which he wasn't particularly into, but he was 20 and touch starved as fuck, sue him) and later, as he gained confidence and learned to navigate the scene, guys (and he was really, really into that). But seeing the man he's had multiple wet dreams about, all hard muscles, dripping wet and gorgeous just like in that swimwear ad, nearly turns him back into an 18-year-old blushing virgin.
Steve's already noticed him, but maybe he should run anyway. But in the end, he doesn't, because Steve suddenly smiles and walks towards him, and Eddie's dragged forward by his feet like a moth to the flame, unable to resist; and Jesus H Christ, now he's standing in front of a shirtless and wet Steve Harrington - so much fucking chest hair, he must have shaved it all the time back when he was pro - who's casually introducing himself. Like he's a totally normal stranger. Like Eddie doesn't have his name burned into his brain along with the exact shape of his abs and pecs and everything that fit into that tiny swimsuit he used to perform in by some kind of miracle.
The one functional braincell he's got left makes him grasp Steve's hand and shake it.
"Hey," he manages to somehow match Steve's casual tone. "Eddie. Nice meeting you."
__________________
I don't know if there will be a continuation. No promises. I WANNA TRY, but I am good with one-shots, terrible with multichapter WIPs bc inspiration strikes me once every few weeks and runs away the next day.
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i got tagged by @gretagerwigsmuse for this ask tag so here we go! thanks for the tag (from quite literally one of the coolest people ever)!
nickname - so my name is so very common but my last name isn't and it's two first names with double letters (it's LL, and you could probably guess what it is lol) so growing up (even though I was the only girl in my grade with that name) i was always addressed as my first and last name in like a sing-song voice? idk one of the TAs at my elementary school started doing it and it stuck. my dad calls me boopy loopy (a derivative of boop-a-loop from when i was a baby). first grandchild and only granddaughter privileges have deemed me "baby girl" to all of my extended family which is somewhat of a subtle flex if you ask me.
sign: leo sun, scorpio moon, pisces rising. cursed. i'm aware.
height: 5'1 and certainly done growing.
last thing i goggled: "succession of the president" (one of my friends and i were in a heated debate on who would be president if the pro tempore of the senate happens to bypass the presidency. i was right (so humble of me, i know) and it's the secretary of state if you were wondering).
song stuck in head: love of my life - harry styles
number of followers: 2,151 which amazes me that you all stick around for my bullshit?? on a real note, i'm so grateful for you all!
amount of sleep: 6 and a half hours... the life of an overwhelmed college student the week before finals 🤭
lucky number: hmm. not really a lucky number but just my favorite one to write?? i LOVE writing the number 8. i do the two circles on top of each other instead of that figure eight bullshit because it's way more satisfying.
dream job: i want to be a district attorney eventually, but right now my passions lie with the prosecution of special crimes as an assistant district attorney! i still have a year and a half left of undergrad, three years of law school, and at least four years of slop work with the DA before i can probably achieve that, but they don't call me bullheaded for nothing! have also dabbled in writing things under an anonymous pseudonym just for shits and gigs alongside this too.
wearing: a large sweatshirt with a student org on it that i'm certainly not in, but stole from my student org's closet because it hadn't been claimed yet, black nike running shorts i've had since my freshman year of high school (because i go to an SEC school and the american south is fucking 68 degrees fahrenheit right now), and some white running shoes. not the most stylish, but comfy i guess.
movie/book that summarizes you: i really relate to nadine in the edge of seventeen which isn't good at ALL but that damn scorpio moon in me sees so much of my own turmoil in her. i also relate to a lot of the feelings in the angst that i write (published on here and still sitting in my google docs) because it's so hard to verbalize the overwhelming sadness and guilt i feel sometimes? idk. but on a much lighter note, the live-action cat in the hat (the terrifying one) and the movie surf's up with the penguins sculpted my childhood and my sense of humor so we're able to cope with humor! 🤪
favorite song: UGH i despise this question. absolutely hate it. i'll gi you a top three of all time from the past two years maybe? so in no particular order, pool by paramore (which is where the title of 'cause no one breaks my heart like you' came from lol), chit chat by beach weather, and perfect places by lorde! i have so many others and would LOVE to give y'all the link to my spotify if you wanna check some of them out! oddly specific named playlists are my niche attachment.
favorite instrument: i love the versatility of the piano, but i'm gonna have to go with the cello. the amount of times i've listened to bach's cello suite no. 1 in high school so i could be "deep and intellectual" is a testament to how far i'll go to force myself to like something. it would be borderline offensive to not put it in there.
aesthetic: i've been DYING to speak on this. i love love LOVE 70s vibes (the flare pants, denim/corduroy jumpsuits, velvet everything, conversation pits. you know. the works) and also love the kind of cool aunt who travels and no one really knows that much about her vibe? like dakota johnson but less of an industry baby? the aunt from the ramona books by beverly cleary kind of thing? it's really hard to explain but my pinterest encapsulates that perfectly. i swear!!!
favorite author: i LOVE maya angelou, sonia sanchez, amy tan, and a few others! i recently read yusef salaam's memoir and loved it! i also want to get more into poetry and other classics but just haven't really had much time to read much of anything other than school readings or proofreading my own works.
fun fact: okay so i have a literal dent in the middle of my head? like i've had it for as long as i can remember and when i was little, i used to fill it up with water in the shower. it's like my literal fun fact that i accidentally disclose whenever i've had a few tequila shots and am literally bouncing off the walls with half-written thoughts in my head. i’m kind of obnoxious, if you couldn’t tell 😵💫
tagging a couple of other people because this was actually so fun?? i hope you all enjoy this as much as i did!
@hangmanapologist @sunlightmurdock @callsignvalley @currentlybradshaw
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Grey's Anatomy: Everything Has Changed (19x01)
And we're back!
Cons:
Nick is so boring! I still don't care, I wish they'd phased him out between seasons, it would have been so easy to do. You know how Meredith is gonna be less of a prominent focus this season, what with all these new interns? Apparently she's only going to appear in about a third of the season's episodes. If that's the new normal, or if she's leaving for good after this season and the show continues on, they should have just given her a new off-screen boyfriend who we never got to meet, or something. I miss Andrew DeLuca. Heavy heavy sigh. The point being, this episode shows Meredith and Nick rehashing the drama from the season finale months ago, where Nick walked away and went back to Minnesota, and Meredith stayed in Seattle. The degree to which I do not care about this cannot be overstated. I hope we don't spend too much time with Nick.
Teddy and Owen are back and already bickering with each other, so that's... fun, apparently. Turns out Owen conveniently got all criminal charges dropped and he's back, he just has to be supervised for six months? Look, you know I'm not a fan of Owen, and I'd just as soon brush past all his drama and bullshit, but that's so much buildup for so little payoff! Is that really the end of the whole saga of Owen performing unauthorized death with dignity on people? Yeesh, what a waste of time.
Pros:
This show is good at renewing itself again and again; there have been so many characters over the years who got folded in as new leads that I grew to love as much as the original gang, and that's a super rare thing on TV! Bringing in a whole new crop of interns is something we've done before, but never with so much emphasis, I don't think.
And to be honest? I'm on board! Obviously one episode isn't enough to fully get into the nuances of these five new characters, but I was impressed by how much they're already sticking with me. There's the one that Link slept with, there's Griffith whose mother died at this hospital when she was born, there's Harry Shum Jr. as the cocky kid "Blue" who is bound to get his ego knocked down a peg, there's Derek's nephew, quintessential screw-up who Meredith says reminds her of Amelia, another black sheep in the family with a spark of genius...
There's a lot of promise here! We're seeing the beginnings of friendships, of rivalries, dynamics with the attendings. I could see myself getting really attached to these newbies, the same way I found myself really attached to Jo, or any number of other characters who were folded into the show after it had been on the air for a long time. We'll have to see!
But turning to the characters I already know and love... Schmitt! Getting to be chief resident! I'm so proud of this guy, I can't even stand it. The comedy bits about him hating his residency with Jo were great, as was Jo's vindictive anger at him stepping away. Jo was in fine form as comic relief this week in general, honestly, laughing with infectious delight at Link's sleeping-with-an-intern situation.
And Meredith, while I am not a fan of the romance stuff with Nick, I do like seeing her in charge, seeing her do a good job. For years now, they've been tamping down on the super high octane personal drama with Meredith: yes, she still nearly died of COVID and all that, but her internal emotional life has mellowed down quite a lot. I really like that as a way to keep this character around after so many years of the show, and seeing her in a mentorship role, making the speech to the new baby interns, was really neat!
The actual medical issue at hand here is dealing with several brain dead patients who are potential organ donors. One of the interns (Derek's nephew) makes a terrible mistake and communicates with the wrong family, nearly depriving a mother of the chance to say goodbye to her son before he is cut open in order to save another person's life in a triple transplant surgery. This causes no end of strife, but in the end the transplant goes forward and is successful. I liked the intern, Blue, who gave the heartfelt speech about his dead sibling who donated their organs when they died in a crash, and got the mother to agree, before turning around and saying "yeah, I made that all up." Good stuff. I think if I had to pick, he'd be an early favorite for me, among the new intern crowd.
And that's where I'll leave off for now. Much to consider in how our various characters will be developed: the new faces, old faces, Grey Sloan Memorial's second chance as a teaching hospital... chaos awaits, and I'm along for the ride as always!
8/10
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yea winter and Johnny Depp are very similar, they both take their stylings from how homeless people layer (most non-Black fashion is literally make an object pulled from the poor Black experience but pricing it where most poor Black people could never afford it, “luxury” is just anti-Black classism) and both do DARVO when someone with less power than them tries to hold them accountable.
I do not have the power to “cancel” winter in anyway so I do not understand pinning me as the violent one when I cant do anything to winter. winter and followers have “cancelled” me with the power winter has through social capital. winter and the abuse by proxy is violent. also why we acting like I called an actual proBlack person a c**n like winter has the fucking Beatles as his header like y’all acting like Im coming for Rick Owens Malcolm X when winter barely know any theory and Malcom X wouldve called winter a c**n too and Malcolm X was calling Jackie Robinson a c**n like and Malcolm X aint even the most the radical Black person from that era like 🛑 stahp (also this is a prime example how Twitter is slightly more “progressive” than Tumblr cause calling a violent Black cis man a c**n wouldnt be dragged for this long 🤣) like he couldve just taken the initial crit a while back and got over it but i bruised winter’s ego so winter continues to enable violence onto me that I cannot do onto winter or would need to cause I can fight my own battles, winter hiding behind a block and using Black MaGes he tokenizes as shields, disgusting.
this is gone too far and everyone sees all of this even if they don’t like my posts or winter’s cryptic shade he throwing at me. people see what has been happening on both sides so yea anyone enabling winter in any way at this point aint shit to me. people are afraid to be vocal about winter cause they see what is happening to me for so long. like im not the only Black person who dont fuck w winter, like goddamn. i dont wish this bullshit on any Black person who actually isnt a non-Black apologist.
the other thing, i admitted have a slightly above beginner knowledge of fashion history. I like fashion a lot more now cause I can sew but I more deep dive into theory and art. So my slightly above level fashion history I know can keep up with winter and other platformed microcelebs on here but none of come even close to me when it comes to art, craft, film, theory so again none of this shit is merit based.
people gain social capital by enacting anti-Blackness, enabling anti-Blackness indirectly or centering non-Black content/non-Black content creators. In this global anti-Black world, power can come from social capital. like if I did not need to post non-Black content to get likes to gain social capital to use to b00st Black f*nding on here, i would only post Black content. And you say, oh some blogs only post Black content. yes but the actually pro-Black ones dont have a lot of social capital to use because they are also “cancelled” for calling out the anti-Blackness on here and the radical chic/neoliberal ones or the very conservative ones are the most popular.
it is not “cool” to try to materially help Black “publicly” online and no one wants to admit that aloud, that’s why they only share Black f*nding when it won’t affect their social capital much. everyone knows if you post Black f*nding often, the algorithm fl*gs your account and brings traffic down on your account, which in turn affects your social capital. like ppl truly do not care that Black f*nding is life or death. yes a like can materially affect ppl, Black or non-Black. posting non-Black designer & non-Black art is more important than tryna materially support poor Black ppl everyday? like it’s not much labor for some of y’all to copy paste a link or text. yea Tumblr is a sea of anti-Blackness and abuse apologism.
this bs w winter could be settled easily but winter has too much hubris. the reason winter and others get more likes for posting the same thing as me is because winter and others have a lot of power for being anti-Black and a lot of anti-Black non-Black followers. I will continue to run a blog that is better than all of the ppl who hate me on here combined. 9 out of 10 ppl on Tumblr are very anti-Black.
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My husband, Austin Michael Rowsell, disparaging my gender during our marriage ceremony on Wednesday, January 18, 2023.
He also stole our marriage license, which I had to report to Magna, Utah PD (USA) as stolen, as well as to the the Salt Lake Marriage and Passports supervisor Allison Dodge and Mountain Vista United Methodist Church pastor Philip M. Rogers.
Austin Michael Rowsell (Ausedia) and his sister Faelisa Ranae Rowsell also tried to force me to violate the falsely-obtained but still legally-enforceable protective order.
I have neither met nor desire to meet Faelisa Rowsell, Haveign Lamb Rowsell, Adelbert Jack Rowsell (the adoptive father that beat my husband/Austin), Hannah Rowsell, or for sure Tristan Galvan, or even Zaiden Adelbert Zayn Rowsell, the four year old now maybe five year old child of Faelisa Ranae Rowsell and Tristan Caleb Galvan, since my husband told me the four year hits him, too. Btw, Zaiden's name is listed on Faelisa Ranae Rowsell's Instagram.
Austin Michael Rowsell falsely accused me of domestic violence on our marriage night, landing me in jail fo five days and with a permanent no-contact order, which will not bode well when applying to NASA'S aeronautics program and optometry school in the future.
This is the second time I've had a romantic partner have a problem with speaking for my gender. It ain't happening this time.
Please see the following links for evidence:
https://www.twitter.com/pnkstarrykisses for police reports and screenshots.
And please report my husband's GoFundMe, as it contains libelous statements regarding my character, in addition to the fact that I simply don't trust my husband to take the leftover funds and donate them but rather use them for diapers and gaming accessories. A small defamation case like this doesn't cost 55 thousand USD for an attorney. You can do these types of cases pro-se, tbh.
Also, apparent Epidemic Sound cancelled their contract with Ausedia long before I informed them of Austin's foolishness.
I also messaged individuals privately via FetLife when Austin aka TotingGames publicly posted a slanderous message in the group "Salt Lake Ageplayers", knowing I disliked the leader, -LittleLolly-, for allowing underaged members in her group. I run/own a group called Utah Young Kinksters and Ageplayers and ID EVERYONE before admitting them to ALL and ANY group activities.
The rest of that shit with Salt Lake Ageplayers was reported to the police.
I'll also be suing Faelisa Ranae Rowsell and Adelbert Jack Rowsell under Utah's "heart balm" (aka "homewrecker laws") as well as Faelisa Ranae Rowsell for witness intimidation and criminal harassment.
If you let a person run their mouth long enough, they'll incriminate themselves.
My husband falsely obtained a protective-order at my personal and my brand's (Peachtree, Rainy Diapers LLC, Strawberry Castle LLC) expense, falsely obtained free-low-cost representation with false domestic violence allegations that landed me in jail on our marriage night with a slew of other bullshit I'm not going to be quiet about.
He even used YouTube's Legal Department to contact me using third-party contact and whined to them via Twitter when they stopped communicating with them. I'm going to sue YOuTube as well for allowing Austin to make false copyright claims on my digital property.
Additionally, Epidemic Sound cancelled their partnership/contract with Ausedia. Either Stephen Setchell is going to tell me why ES did did so voluntarily, or ES will be supoenaed for the reasoning.
If my husband doesn't drop this lawsuit bullshit, I'm going to clean him out and rip the ground from under his feet, leaving to walk on his knees throughout life and eating out of garbage, like he has done me, until he commits suicide. Why is'nt his family giving him money? Even my own fucked up covert-narcissist mother gave me $300 dollars when i was dealing with fake Utah landlord Bernard Evans.
Fool.
Not that i wish that on him, but that's what white people do when they're in trouble. They kill themselves.
All of this because I held him Austin accountable for disparaging my gender twice in one day, one of those times in which you can see here in this video.
Also, you need a court order to remove statements and videos from Tumblr, so this was a calculated post. The next was a personal website.
In the words of Swoop, this isn't drama, this is dangerous.
Austin can drop the falsely-obtained protective order and this "defamation lawsuit" or I'm going to take everything in an annulment and unfortunately, leave my husband eating off the ground.
This is not something I desire to do.
If you are an attorney wish to represent me pro-bono or for a low cost and some publicity, I live in the state of Utah (USA), and can be contacted at [email protected]
I don't expect things for free, but will certainly appreciate the offer.
If Austin's attorney wishes to contact me in regards to dropping 1) divorce proceedings, 2) a stupid defamation lawsuit in which I'm going to sue everybody involved, and 3) pare me of having to speak about very personal matters in court, including my husband's ability to perform and Austin agrees to some things and gets himself some help instead of using the courts to FORCE him into it, then that can be discussed privately between Austin, myself, and a mediator if necessary (*I* will make that call), recorded electronically, Austin knows my legal email address. It will not be listed here, as it contains my real name.
That is all.
This matter will be kept private for Third District Court Presiding Judge Mark Kouris to view, as well the general public.
I have the right to protect my name and myself as well as my family.
I don't why Austin is pretending his family is so important now, when only six month ago, he was looking for a way to run away from them and detach from them forever, he told me himself in both text message and person.
~Peachtree<3
#colleenballinger #mirandasings #swoop #domesticviolece #falseallegations #peachtree #kpop #divorce #annulment #jail #abusesurvivor #mentalhealth #childabuse #childabusesurvivor #austism (Ausitn says he is autistic. We'll see. i don't believe that either. i also don't believe he isn't fucking his sister and told him so, directly to his face. Trauma bonding is one thing but a grown woman with a four year old and a long-time romantic partner and a married man have no business being so obsessed with one another like unless they're fucking which is NOT uncommon in thee types of situations. I often wonder if Zaiden is my husband's child and not homeboy's. I will be ordering a paternity test in court. It wouldn't surprise me if the test came back positive.)
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#1
Monday, July 10, 2:54AM
(I am a night owl, this is normal for me).
I haven’t read a book since high school, four years ago. I have no real excuse why, I think I’ve just fallen into the doom scroll trap many of us have succumbed to over the years. A dull moment will pass, and like a sleeper agent, I’ll come-to fifteen minutes later mindlessly tapping the instagram explore page without any memory of actually opening the app. I’ve become so used to this constant stimulation that it is physically uncomfortable to eat a meal by myself without a youtube video playing in front of me. I’ve tried using the screen time settings and temporarily deleting my apps, but I always come crawling back. I probably ought to take an absolutist approach and wipe my accounts entirely, but somehow despite all this bullshit, the pros still outweigh the cons…I think? I really do connect with my friends on these apps, and I really do learn new things watching random videos. All this to say; I want to try one more time to unglue myself from my screen, and this is my plan.
This guy I follow on instagram, Reece Taylor (we were briefly in the Blue Devils together before covid shat on everything) (I’m not sure I’ve ever actually spoken to him in real life), posted a link to his personal blog, and I was like ‘yes, this is rad, I want to do this too.’ So now I’m gonna attempt to make a blog as a form of accountability. Why post my run-on sentences online instead of just keeping a personal diary? Well, because I want attention.
My plan is to maintain this blog (which I expect all my friends, family, and fans to read) where I will document my ungluing journey. This will include: climbing more rocks, making more art, reading more books, and staring at the wall while I eat my sandwiches.
Tonight, in the first installment of my journey, I’m proud to announce I have started to read a book: The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan—A book who’s 1993 movie adaptation I adore, but that I have shamefully never actually gotten around to read. I’m about fifty pages in now, and I am alarmed how many words I am coming across for the first time (unmoored? expurgated?? flummoxed???). My mean ex always nagged me for not reading enough, and I’ll admit he was right, I’ve been missing out on a lot. It feels good to fall into a book again. Stay tuned for my next blog entry, where I will pretend to be a Goodreads reviewer.
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