#anyway focusing on dumb shit like this is the only way i'm making it through this trial | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

miyuhpapayuh · 1 year

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2. Downhill

Stevie decided to switch to a rather late schedule, due to her lack of motivation to get out of bed early enough for her original eight o'clock class, on Mondays.

So now, her schedule for the beginning of the week starts at ten and ends at twelve. She just doesn't have it in her to be in peoples' faces that early in the damn morning.

Tyler left about an hour ago, with her boy toy. Her classes start earlier than Stevie's on Mondays, anyway.

She saunters down the stairs and grabs her keys, heading out the door.

She pulls her oversized sweater up on her shoulders and hop in the car.

She puts the key in the ignition and it takes longer than usual for it to start, causing her to roll her eyes.

"Come the fuck on," she smack the dashboard, believing that it's doing something for the engine. The car rattles for a second, before starting up.

She sighs and pulls out of her driveway.

Her first class went by rather quickly, considering the fact that it was English. She hates that class and the teacher gets on her nerves.

Now, she's sitting in her government class about to fall asleep.

"Stevie, stay awake please." She sits up in her chair and rests her head in the palm of her hand, sighing. She stares at the clock on the wall and internally rejoices, seeing that there's only fifteen minutes left.

"What's your take on our government, in its present state?"

"It's a hot mess, like it is every year. Same shit, different day."

She turns her nose up at her language and focuses her eyes on another student. Stevie zones out, again.

Pretty soon, class is over and she grabs her bag and walks towards the cafe.

She spots a tall figure near the far wall, standing in front of a short girl. Upon seeing the red hoodie, she knows it's Rod.

Smirking to herself, she keeps walking, almost making her way completely past them until he calls out after her.

She flips her hair over her shoulder and turns slightly, making eye contact with him.

"Hey, I was waiting for you." He says with a soft smile.

She looks between him and the girl, who has a smug look on her face.

"You seem preoccupied, though. I don't wanna intrude—"

"Good, don't." The girl cuts her off, rolling her neck and clicking her tongue, like she'd just done something.

Stevie blinked twice.

"Girl, don't get hurt over no boy."

Rod laughs and grabs her hand, making her face flush red and look down at their intertwined fingers.

"She looks like she'd beat your ass, too." He pushes past her and they start walking towards the double doors.

"Who was that?"

"I don't even know her name. She came up to me, talking ‘bout she thinks I'm cute and wants me to give her a call." He shrugs.

"You gave her your number?" She asks.

"I didn't. You came just in time, cause I was about to make a dumb ass excuse on why I couldn't give it to her."

She giggles and he pushes the door open, allowing her to walk through first.

"Boys." She sighs, spotting Tyler and heading over, while Rod drags his feet behind her.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He asks.

"Instead of just telling her that you didn't wanna give it to her, you were gonna come up with something stupid."

She sits down in front of Tyler, whose focus goes directly towards Rod.

"Oh, this is him?" She asks with a smirk on her lips.

She smiles and nods, looking back at him and patting the seat next to her. He takes it.

"In the flesh, honey."

"Wow."

"So, I've been talked about?"

"Absolutely—"

"Not." Stevie cuts her eyes at her. She scoffs.

"She told me all about you. Of course, I'm her best friend and I get all the details." She winks and stands up, pulling her bag over her shoulder.

"Where are you going?"

"I have a date, dear." She pulls her lipgloss out.

"With?"

"Aaron."

Stevie scrunches her face up, trying to picture his face.

"Big hair?"

"And, big somethin' else." She applies a thin layer and tosses it back in her bag.

"You don't work today?"

"I do. I just come in a little later. It's still a full eight hours, don't worry.”

"Y'all be pulling long hours, huh?" Rod asks.

"Only a few days out of the week, yes. It helps with the bills and shit."

"Respect."

"Appreciated. Now, I'll leave you two... to it. It was nice meeting you, Rod." She puts emphasis on his name, before sizing him up.

“You too.”

"I'll see you at work, Stevie." She blows her a kiss and heads back towards the double doors.

She sighs and crosses one leg over the other.

"So, that's the famous Tyler?"

"Yes. The very colorful, inappropriate best friend of mine." He chuckles and looks at her.

"You act like you don't hold those qualities, ma'am."

"Don't act like you know me, sir." He makes the goofiest face.

"Oh, I think I'm cracking through that wall you've got built up." She turns away, hiding her smile.

"Yeah, whatever."

"Yeah, whatever." He mocks her, and she smacks his arm.

"I'm playin'. I got a question, though."

She raises an eyebrow.

"You really ain't gon' tell me where you work?" He asks, again, making her laugh.

༺═───────────────────────────────────────═༻

"He what?!"

She sits down in the big green chair on the far left side of Joes' office and listens to him tell her that John is no longer employed at the coffeehouse.

"I was really tired of him bothering you, so I gave him an ultimatum; either leave or I fire him. He took the latter choice, so he'll be able to get another and not have sexual harassment on his work record from me. You, however, if you want to, should put out a restraining order against him if you feel unsafe. I can't be everywhere you go, ya know?" He explains, rubbing his temples.

She sighs.

“Yeah, I guess I should take care of that. Do you have his information still on file?"

He nods. "Find me when your shift ends."

She nods and stands up, dusting off her dingy, coffee stained apron and heads out to greet those entitled brats that call themselves customers.

"There she is,"

She walks all the way out and finds Rod standing at the counter with a smile on his face, making her blush a little.

Her co-worker gives her a knowing smirk, before pulling the customer in front of him into her line.

She grabs her black hair tie and pulls her hair into a high ponytail. He makes a face.

"Hello, beautiful."

"You're too funny, did you know that?" She asks, leaning on the counter.

He cracks a smile. "I did not know that!"

It's pretty slow today, so they're able to continue the conversation.

"Well, now you know!"

"You're happy to see me. I can tell."

"I haven't said that."

"You don't have to," he leans on the counter now, "your face says it all."

"It's written all over my face, huh?" She quips.

"You don't have to say a word, babygirl." He replies, this time, filling her stomach with butterflies.

"Anyway, what can I get you?"

"I honestly just came in here to see you, but let me get a cheese danish."

She shakes her head and squats down behind the glass counter, pulling a danish off the tray, slipping it into a paper bag.

"Alright, that'll be three dollars and fifteen cents."

He pulls out a five dollar bill and hands it to her, and she gives his change back.

"Thanks." He says, grabbing the bag from her.

She leans on the counter again, nodding her head.

"You're welcome."

"So, I'll call you later. If that's cool?"

"Yeah, that's cool. I get off at ten." He smiles, again.

"I remember." He winks at me and heads towards the door, before saying "have a good day."

"You too.”

The line starts growing and she starts rushing back and forth, between making coffee and pulling sweets out the cases.

Three hours and some change later, the workstation is a hot ass mess and Tyler is late.

She sighs, knowing that she's probably still with that boy.

"I'm so sorry, I'm late!" Tyler says, coming busting through the door.

Joe stands by his office door, pointing his finger at her.

"My office. Now."

She looks between Stevie and Tracy, another coworker, and rolls her eyes.

Stevie squeezes hers shut, hoping she doesn't get into too much trouble this time.

Since the rush has ended and there's barely anybody in here, she stands in the hallway, right in front of his door.

"I lost track of time, and I had to go home and change and—" her babbling comes to an end as he raises his hand, signaling for her to hush.

"I have given you a lot of chances, Tyler. You cannot afford another screw up. Are we clear?"

"Yessir. I'm sorry."

The knob on the door twists and she scurries back to her register, grabs a rag and a spray bottle, beginning to wipe her station down.

"I hope you know, you aren't slick... at all."

"Why were you late?”

She gives Stevie sad eyes.

"I'm a dummy, that's why."

"Huh? What happened?"

"I had sex with Aaron," she lowers her voice, "and we didn't use a condom."

"Oh God." Stevie sighs.

She palms her forehead and leans back onto the counter, "what am I supposed to do? I can't have a baby right now."

"Did you take a pregnancy test?"

"No. I just left and came here. Plus, it's way too early to even tell, I'm just freaked."

I shake my head.

"What you shakin' your head for?"

"Cause, you need to be more careful."

"I'm not listening to this, right now." She walks away and Stevie continues cleaning her area.

༺═───────────────────────────────────────═༻

Another hour and a half goes by. They're at their designated spots, serving customers and keeping conversation to a minimum.

Stevie sighs and heads to Joes' office, knocking twice, before opening the door.

"It's a little slow out there, did you want us to stay and help you do anything?" She asks, leaving the door cracked, turning around to look at him.

"You girls can actually head home." He rubs his chin and looks at her with sad eyes.

"Why, what's wrong?" She asks.

"The shop is being shut down." He explains, making her breathing stop for a second.

"What?! Why??"

"I don't bring in enough business, and I haven't in a very long time. My little shop is played out, now. It's old news and they're getting rid of it."

"You can't do anything?" He shakes his head.

"I had a deadline to meet, and I screwed up. It's outta my hands, babydoll. I'm so sorry.”

"What the fuck," she rushes out of the office and towards the bathroom, reaching the sink just in time to throw up everything she'd eaten, today.

She grabbed a wad of tissue and blotted her mouth. She wipes her face and washes her hands.

Untying her apron and walking back to the front, she tosses it on the table.

Joe's explaining to Tracy and Tyler what's about to take place. Their faces say everything their mouths aren't able to at the moment.

"I'm really sorry, girls. But, there's nothing more that I can do. I have been at this place for the last forty-five years and I've made just enough to retire. It hurts that this place won't be a business anymore but, I'll do everything in my power to make sure you girls find jobs. Good ones." He stresses.

They all nod. Tracy wipes her tears away, while Tyler storms off, down the hallway.

Stevie trails behind her and opens her own locker, grabbing her belongings out.

She'd never really kept anything there, besides her apron so her locker was always pretty empty if her bag or jacket weren't there.

"This is some shit." Tyler angrily pulls her jacket on and slings her bag over her shoulder, while Stevie pulls her jacket on and walks back towards the front.

She hugs Joe and heads outside, before becoming too emotional.

She'd been keeping her tears at bay for a good week and is trying to keep it that way.

Pulling her keys out of her purse and unlocking the car, she sits inside, leaning back in her seat and closing her eyes.

The passenger door opens and closes, and a sigh comes with it.

Starting the car and pulling away from the lot, Stevie glanced at Tyler's red face.

"How did this happen? He was just talking to me about how I can't afford another mistake, and now he's out of business?"

"I don't know. I really don't." She shakes her head.

"That's all you have to say?" Tyler asks.

The heat starts flowing through the vents, taking care of the thin icy sheen on the windows, too.

"Ty, what do you want me to say? I've been getting hit from both sides with bullshit! I don't have time to sit around and figure that out, and I didn't even have time to grasp this situation. So yes, that's all I have to say."

The fifteen minute drive seems a lot longer than usual tonight. Tyler and her occasional huffing was driving Stevie up a fucking wall, and now she's actually thinking about what her parents said to her.

"Why did you have to do that? I don't wanna think about them, and you just had to fucking say something. I was fine!" She sighs, feeling her eyes water.

"If you were, you wouldn't be crying. Don't blame me for any of this, cause it's not my fault. I'm just tryna figure out why you're trying to be a brick wall. You've been changing a lot, and it's because of those crazy ass parents of yours."

She sighs, keeping her grip on the steering wheel tight.

"I know I gave you attitude earlier and I'm sorry, but you gotta let these emotions out. It's not good."

Pulling into the driveway, she grabs her bag and hood out without a word.

"So, you're ignoring me?" She gets out and closes her door.

"I heard everything you said, Tyler. I promise. I just wanna lay down."

She throws her hands up and they head inside.

Going straight to her room, she falls flat on her bed, not even bothering to change her clothes or anything.

She looks over at her poetry journal and sighs, not even having the energy to write.

She eventually falls asleep.

༺═───────────────────────────────────────═༻

Obviously blowing off her classes wasn't what she planned on doing, but she'd been out job hunting for the last hour or so.

Joe gave every one of his employees a list of coffee shops to check out, amongst other things that they'd qualify for.

She and Tyler have only had this one job, so it'd be kinda weird for them to do anything else.

She crosses the third name off her list and sits back in her car. She'd been up to her neck in frustration since last week and it just won't let up.

Her phone starts ringing from inside her purse. She sits the list on her dashboard and pulls it out to answer it.

"Hello?"

"Stevie, please don't hang up." Her father’s voice comes through, making her mood even more sour.

"What could you possibly want?"

"For starters, you need to lose that tone in your voice. I understand that you're upset, but I'm still your fat—"

"No, you relieved yourself of that duty, remember? I don't have parents anymore.”

He just lets out a heavy sigh. She decided to continue.

"For your information, cause I'm sure your coward of a wife didn't run it by you, I pay for everything by myself. I pay my own phone bill, I pay half the mortgage for this house and everything else that I desire. I haven't asked you for anything, since I graduated. You haven't done anything for me since I graduated, so you can stop hanging a dark cloud over my head and just leave me alone. That's almost as annoying as you saying that you aren't my father anymore."

She pulls the phone away from her ear and hangs up, punching the steering wheel, as she's overly frustrated.

Picking the list back up and staring at it, coming across a place called Claire's Coffee.

She follows the directions to the shop and heads inside.

The place has a cozy feel to it; plush red beanbag chairs, black bar stools sitting along a black and white marble counter. A chalkboard sits along the back wall, with big paintings of fall sceneries or cheeky NY styled borders.

A girl stands behind the counter, with a pencil tucked behind her ear and a coffee cup in her hand. Her complexion is that of mocha, while her hair is a cinnamon red.

"How can I help you, love?" Her golden irises stare up at her, making her smile.

"Yes, I'm looking for Claire."

"Well, you've found her!” She cheeses and holds her hand out, making Stevie laugh.

She places hers into her surprisingly warm one, admiring her gold toned nail polish.

"I'm Stevie."

"I love your name, it fits you."

"Thank you! I don't get that a lot."

"What can I do for you, today?"

"I saw the 'help wanted' sign outside, and I wanted to fill out an application." Her eyes light up.

"Oh good! We've been looking to expand our team. I'll go ahead and give you this," she looks behind her and grabs a stack of paper that's less than an inch thick and hands it to Stevie, "it's basic information about the job, the usual security questions and information for your direct deposit."

She rolls the paper up and looks around, "do you have a rubber band?"

Claire nods and pulls one off her wrist.

"Thank you. Is there a certain time period, where I need to have this back to you?"

"Within the next ten days, if not sooner. That way I have time to train you and get you set up, before the holidays come around and we get slammed. You know how these Christmas shoppers get with their coffee sales!" They share a laugh.

"Thank you so much, Claire. I really appreciate this."

"No problem! My number is at the bottom of the first page, if you have any questions."

"Alright, I'll see you again soon." She says, heading towards the door.

"Have a great day!"

Stevie steps outside and heads back to hercar, kinda in a better mood.

She drives back home and finds a red box at the door. She hops out, lock her car and grab the box before heading inside.

"Tyler?" She calls out, but no answer.

She closes and locks the door behind herself, and sits the box on the counter.

She pulls the top off the box and gasps, as it's filled to the brim with stacks of money and a note.

She picks it up and reads it.

I've never apologized for any of the stuff that I put you and your mother through, because I've never known how to do that. Obviously, I had some issues with my parents and I let my heart become a brick wall and stay that way, even after I was married and had you.

I'm truly sorry for what I said and how I acted. I'm a total asshole and if you don't forgive me, I don't hold it against you. I just wanted to give you this and I guess let it be.

I love you.

- Dad.

She tosses the note back in the box and puts the lid back on it, picks it up and heads upstairs.

"What a card."

@soufcakmistress @504queen @ghostfacekill-monger @hearteyes-for-killmonger @uzumaki-rebellion @blowmymbackout @supersizemeplz @chaneajoyyy @captainsaveasmut @cocoa-puffs @nahimjustfeelingit-writes @daddy-killmonger @twistedcharismaaa @prettyisasprettydoes1306 @headcannonxgalore @quietstorm-thundathighs @sheabuttahwrites @thegifstories @blackerthings @becauseimswagman1 @cecereads209 @nayaxwrites @xsweetdellzx @blackburnbook @darqchilddaydreamz @killmongerdispussy @trippyscotch @emjayewrites @unfriendlyblkhotti3 @blackpinup22

#soulff #rod x stevie #90s romance #miyuhpapayuh #poc writers #blackwriters #black romance #black fiction #black!reader #joey badass fic

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twiceskzmixx · 9 months

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<< Masterlist >>

07. When will I get to meet him?

Or in which Bahiyyih is the #1 Hyuka hater

Not edited

Word Count: TBD

Warnings: a little angsty not very much

a/n: ik this is a little to kai-yn focused but don't worry some jeongin-yn moments are coming soon :)

Also this chapter was supposed to go up on Friday but I scheduled it for the wrong Friday and didn't realize.🥲

Anyways, Im going to [try to] spam update this on labor day weekend so, keep an eye out🩵

Walking to the building of your supposed "enemy" was a bit strange. Sure, JYPE didn't set up the rivalry as much as Hybe did (according to Sunoo at least) but there's always the idea that these people aren't your friends. Though as much as the men and women in suits want as little interactions between idols of different companies, they can only do so much without breaking some law.

Jeongyeon told you about it once. How those people in suits were so insist on making sure Jeongyeon didn't interact with Jimin to avoid a dating rumor. She, and Jimin, of course doubled down on it, purposely making it seem like they hate each other for the shits and giggles while still talking to each other often. That was until BigHit became Hybe. You were a trainee at the time but you still saw Jeongyeon often. Often enough to see the way she stopped talk to Jimin less and less.

JYPE might not put as much effort into this "rivalry" but Hybe does. Even though you're inclined to believe Sunoo's being a bit dramatic, he tells of stories of Hybe researching what other companies do to perfect their idols.

Approaching the cafe, you can see Kai waiting outside, a smile growing on his face as he saw you. The two of you wordless as you head inside and order your drinks.

"I'm glad you accepted my invite," Kai sighed. "I know that sometimes talking about things in person are better than over text."

"Yeah, that's how I feel too," you responded, not wanting to make eye contact. "There's no way for Dispatch or anything to know we're here, right?"

Kai shook his head, "The windows are one way and the workers have to sign NDAs before they can work here." He paused. "Don't want to get accused of breaking JYP's dating ban?"

"That actually doesn't exist," you chuckled.

"But Yuna told me it did?"

"Yuna didn't know it was fake until last year. I remember her bursting into my practice room with her contract in hand surprised."

"You two are close?"

"Very," you smiled. "We joined the company at the same time. I was with her when they told her she were going to debut. Literally screamed as soon as they walked out."

"Yuna is that type of person," Kai smiled. "Do you have any other non-NMIXX idols friends?"

"Sunoo and..." you trailed off. "Your sister, Hikaru, and most JYPE artists."

"How did you meet my sister? She never told me how."

"Through Hikaru," you paused. "I used to train at Avex with Hikaru but I when I left I didn't really get the chance to see her until she debuted in Kepler. Hikaru was very excited for me to meet the Kepler girls but the only day I was free was when seven of the nine girls were busy, Hikaru and Bahiyyih being the only ones who weren't."

"That's not what Bahiyyih told me," Kai laughed.

"What did she tell you?" you asked.

"It doesn't matter," Kai smiled. "Bahiyyih's always stretched the truth out since she was little."

"I'm pretty sure that's just because you're siblings."

"No because she only does it me! Never to Lea, only me."

A silence feel upon you two as the barista handed you two the drinks you ordered. Kai smile seemed to fade away as he looked at you a little more serious.

"If you want to say something, then say it," you'd have to be dumb to notice the way the words were on the tip of his tongue.

"How have you been doing?" he asked.

"Truthfully, not very well," you looked down at the drink. "It's hard you know? Having the entire world say that you suck and that your music sucks and never being able to get away with it. The amount of 'jokes' that make fun of you for simply breathing wrong. I know that was included on the description of being an idol but I never thought that it could get like this."

"You wanna know something Soobin loves that I hate?" Kai smiled a bit as you nodded. "The phrase 'I know what you're going through'."

"Explain a little?" you asked before taking a sip of your drink.

"For Soobin, that's his go to phrase, he always uses it no matter what. To me though, I don't get it. For all the times that Soobin's been in distress, I never knew what it was like to be him."

"I'm a little dumb, what are you getting at here?"

"I'm saying that I don't know what you're going through. I am not you and I'm not going to pretend to be you. I have no idea what the hate does to you or any of the other NMIXX girls, but I do know, that you guys are ome of the most talented groups i have ever seen," he smiled. "I know my word might not mean a lot, but trust me when I say ever idol under the company thinks the same."

"I don't know what else to say but thank you."

"You're welcome."

#hyuka x reader #yang jeongin x reader #huening kai x reader #i.n x reader #skz x reader #smau #stray kids smau #tomorrow by together smau #txt smau #tomorrow by together #twiceskzmixx: what is love?

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thetwistedrope · 1 year

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I know this is a dumb question, but would you mind explaining the Kemetic afterlife in layman terms? I still can't wrap my head around some of the concepts.

tl;dr: it depends on the era

pre-dynastic egyptians, the Buto Burials, show that there was still heavy focus on cattle, and ppl were buried wrapped in cow skins with a small amount of stuff. likely, to get them through the afterlife? to get them to wherever they needed to go. texts are sparse.

earliest dynastic eras of AE mostly focused on the king, a lot of egyptologists believe that the afterlife was only available to the king in the earliest eras of AE history, but i personally don't feel like we have enough information to really say that.

either way, you crawled up into the sky with teh gods. you are both saved by the gods and the enemy of the gods. you consume the gods and become a god. there's a lot of ladders.

the pyramid texts of the OK become the basis of coffin texts in the MK. tbh, a lot of the texts are really similar. i've flipped through both the PT and CT, and they are very similar. you still go claw and caojle your way to the gods until you become an akh.

later periods, the afterlife moved more into the ground, into caverns. BotD materials p much focus on this aspect of the afterlife, and by the latest periods, you get the Book of Earth which is... as the name suggests, funerary texts about the afterlife in the ground.

egyptologists will tell you that they prepared tombs and texts to get them through the afterlife, and that this persists throughout all of AE history. and that these things seemed necessary to be able to even become an akh, but i've personally never been a big fan of assuming that you need a bunch of physical shit to get to the Hall of Two Truths. it just doesn't sit right iwth my that commoners were somehow barred from an afterlife because they didn't have money. instead, i prefer to think that rich ppl needed to jump through hoops because rich ppl are awful at adhering to ma'at :)

anyways, after you die you're nothing but a shadow, a really weak spirit that isn't fully Established. your goal as a spirit is to become Established, to become an Akh. a "shining one." akh are represented by stars, because in the OK, you went into the sky when you died and became a star (which, again, goes against the idea that only the king could get there omg).

in order to become an akh, you gotta make it to the Hall of Two Truths. in order to get there, you need all that shit you were buried with (supposedly). you end up going through a journey of the duat, you meet different guardians and are supposed to know the right things to say to get through the gates and make it to the Hall. traditionally it's believed that the path to the Hall is treacherous, because the Duat has a bunch of things living in it that would love to eat you, but my personal experiences of the Duat haven't bore that out (esp in the modern era, idk maybe it was all spooky n shit in the past).

but also, i'm really not down with suggesting that poor ppl just get picked off because they didn't have money.

Naydler posits a different theory, that the process of going through the Duat and meeting all of the guardians and such helps you to become prepared for the Hall, and you only reach the Hall if you're actually ready to become an akh.

The most well-known part of the Hall is the negative confessions (sometimes called the 42 truths of ma'at, which is not a good name for them) and the weighing of the heart.

the confessions are really meant to be heka that fully transform you into someone who will exist within the structures of the Field of Reeds (sometimes called... aaru). by reciting them, you become the person the heka says you are. if you're not an absolute shit person, the heka should be enough (imo) to get you through the process.

after you say the heka, your heart is weighed and if you're "good enough" O welcomes you as an Akh into the field of reeds. from there, you can sorta.... do all sorts of things. but basically, after you become an akh, all of your physical trappings are no longer necessary to sustain you. you're able to come and go btwn the Duat and here, and you're able to partake of the offerings the gods receive each day (lol).

you are established there now, so you don't need to be fully established here. that's why the most dangerous time for a dead person is right after they die up until they pass through the Hall. this likely informs why later kings were not too concerned with robbing old tombs to refill their coffers. similarly, it mirrors the way that the AE ppl seemed to view akhu veneration. you would focus on specific ppl who are within a generation or so fo yourself, and then anyone who is beyond that point tended to get moved into a collective "past ancestors". the egyptians may have done this because after a point, you don't really necessarily /need/ the direct assistance of your remaining kin, because you are now fully established in teh duat.

i could include here what happens if you don't pass the weighing of the heart, but i'm gonna be real with each and every one of you: most of yall don't have shit to worry about. whatever trivial mistakes you're making in life are not what gets you fed to ammit. i'd say to not trouble yourself with that and just focus on being the best you you can be. care about others around you, care about yourself, don't be an exploitative shitbag, and you'll be fine.

idk, hopefully that helped.

#asks #afterlife #duat #kemetic

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disdaidal · 8 months

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🍱, 🍛, 🥮 for this bad boy and 🔪, 📌, ❤️, 🖊 for this one! <3

Ohh, Melia, you are spoiling me tonight! 💜💕

🍱 Do you read your own fics?

Recently, I've been reading my own fics more and found it quite enjoyable (self-indulgent stuff enjoyable? who'd have thunk?), but there was a time I avoided doing it as much as possible. 😅 I didn't want to go through my own stuff just to get to cringe at all the typos and mistakes I'd possibly-and surely-have made. 🙈

🍛 Have any comments, tags or reactions to one of your fics every made you laugh or cry or both?

I haven't gotten that many comments to my fics overall, but a couple of comments were left that made me grin like an idiot. 😁 I miss that feeling.

🥮 Do you have any writing milestones you're working toward?

I was actually supposed to answer this question in this reply, but had apparently mistook the emoji for another. 🙈 Anyway, my current Witcher/Gallahir wip that I've been writing for a while now (and talked plenty of about recently) is probably something akin to that. I've written it a lot, I'm still actively working on it and I can hardly wait to finally post chapter one on ao3- which I hope will be soon. So, yeah. :D I don't know if it's going to be anything special but to me it has been pure joy writing it so far, so I hope it will be that also to those who ship it with me.

🔪 Fuck marry kill 3 tropes (asker’s choice of tropes).

You didn't give me any tropes to fuck marry or kill, soooo~

Soulmate AU - Fuck. I swear I can never get enough of it. Two souls being bound to each other and stuck with each other. Usually comes packaged with Hurt/Comfort, which I absolutely also can never get enough of.

Mutual Pining - Marry. There is a reason why I love bringing this into my own writing. I just love reading about two people having feelings for each other, but they're so dumb and awkward it almost hurts (except it doesnt, it makes me giddy).

Mpreg - Kill. Okay, so, while I have read a few of these actually (:D) and while I do enjoy the omegaverse stuff in general, I usually lose my interest very quickly the point they start bringing kids into the scenery. It's just not for me I guess. D:

📌 If all your fics/WIPs fell off a ship and were drowning (go with it), and you could only save one, which would it be?

I would save my current Roommates AU. :P I've written so much of it already, why would I suddenly want it to drown??? I'm willing to sacrifice everything else to save it. *cries*

❤️ Who is your favorite character to write for and why?

With ST, Billy has been my obvious choice because I relate to his anger issues, being an older sibling etc. Writing him just felt so natural at times, it almost felt scary.

With Gallahir, I seem to keep switching sides because I guess I find both characters a little relatable in their own ways. Or then I just project a lot onto them, heh.

And since I remember last writing Valeveira (RE3) before these two (again I didn't publish shit), I found Jill quite relatable as well. She's very focused and goal-oriented to the point of neglecting everything else in her life (relatable), and she can be also a sarcastic hard ass, which I also found quite relatable, haha, so yeah.

#thanks for the ask!#hotdadlicense #fic writer asks #<333 #replies #oh gosh it's 4am in the morning i should probably sleep #i gotta wake up for work around 8 :P

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tapedsleeves · 8 months

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i know its from months ago but i want you to know that you posting a brossoit/hellebuyck fic makes you the only mfer out here who GETS me. love you MWAH! terrific work, im obsessed with it

OMG THANK YOUUUUUUUUU this made me cry and not just from the migraine pain that also made me cry today. thank you thank you, this was lovely to wake up to!!!!

just for you, i'll tell you about the squeakquel that may or may not happen:

LB visits Connor in Michigan

Connor is immediately like "oh shit what do I do do entertain this guy who goes to interesting places for vacation" and tries to distract him from the fact that Connor's favorite thing to do is fishing and he thinks he's like... a not so interesting person?

LB doesn't realize what's going on at first, just thinks that Connor is really into him at first, and then like, four or five days pass and Connor is still like, jumping his bones but the crazy in his eyes doesn't go away, and they have a.... argument? talk? discussion? about it. and eventually LB is like 'dude i came here to spend time with you, not to be entertained by you, i'm like. a full grown person. if i get bored that's on me." and connor is like "uhm. i just really like you"

and then they end up cuddling on the porch swing in the evening watching the fireflies glow and listening to the cicadas sing holding hands and shit. it's nice.

have an excerpt (that's basically like, 100% of what i actually have written) under a readmore!!!

Connor’s waiting in his truck at the airport for Laurent’s plane, an iced coffee from Starbucks sweating in the cupholder. It’s not as hot as it could be - it’s only midmorning, but it is humid as hell. Connor can feel his hair try to frizz up through the layer of product he’s got in it.

Finally, he gets the “deplaning” text from Laurent, and goes to meet him at luggage claim with the coffee.

He’s shaved,or at least trimmed his beard since the last time he saw him - an Instagram post of Laurent in an old timey car holding the cup from his cup day. It was dumb, but Connor had watched it twice anyway.

“Hey,” Connor says. Laurent looks good, even plane-rumpled. He’s in a short sleeved shirt that shouldn't be legal on him - clinging to his shoulders and chest, and some very nice stretchy joggers. Comfy plane clothes.

Laurent smiles when he sees him and his smile widens when he sees the coffee. “Hey,” he says, dragging out the syllable in a way that could only generously not be described as flirtatious. “Is that for me?” His eyes flick from the coffee in Connor’s hand to Connor’s face, rapid, like he’s trying to make Connor talk faster.

Connor hands the drink over. “Yup,” he says. “Where’s your stuff?” Luggage is already circling the carousel, but Laurent hasn’t been paying any attention to it, focused on Connor and the coffee. Laurent takes a drink, his throat working. Connor tears his eyes away so he doesn’t do anything inappropriate in the airport.

“It's probably gonna come out last.” Laurent says, turning to mirror Connor’s stance, looking at the carousel. He tips his shoulder into Connor’s arm, like he wants Connor to put his arm over his shoulder. Connor doesn’t. “Mine’s always at the end. Shitty luck like that.”

“Or you just travel a lot.” Connor says. Laurent hums, taking another drink of the coffee. It’s already halfway gone. Connor had planned to carry Laurent’s bags so he could have his hands free for the coffee, but it looks like now he’s just going to be slightly ridiculous about it.

Laurent makes a noise in his throat, urgent, and points his hand. “That one.” he says.

Connor follows where he points with his eyes and then confirms “Between the one with the weird giant bow and the one with the lady’s whole face on it? With the gold band around it?”

“That’s it.” Laurent says, so Connor jogs over to pick it up. When he picks it up off the carousel, nobody else yells at him, and when he holds it up by the handle at Laurent, Laurent gives him a thumbs up from where he’s stood, next to the exit.

Connor extends the handle and wheels it over.

Laurent is laughing when he comes back, coffee all gone now. “Get yourself a big strong man,” he says.

“You’re plenty strong,” Connor says. “And your arms are longer than mine.”

Laurent looks at him appreciatively, even though Connor didn’t put on anything special for this trip - is just in a plain white shirt and some cargo shorts.

#connor hellebuyck/laurent brossoit #hrpf #hockey rpf #ask me!#oh man anon this made my whole day really got into my brain and made me think about like...#why i write fic in the first place #and why i like writing sex that's not like #the most intimate thing that's happening in the fic lol

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waheelawhisperer · 2 years

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So I made a post discussing RWBY's rough power tiers a few days ago, and in it I promised to elaborate on my statement that Yang is significantly more intelligent, both in general and as a fighter, as well as more technically skilled than many people give her credit for, so here it is. To start with, I'll freely admit that I'm not an expert on fighting (I know just enough to know I don't know shit), so don't expect, like, deep dives into the precise details of Yang's strikes or footwork or whatever. Instead, I'm going to start by explaining why Yang is smart in general using non-combat examples, talk a bit about her fighting style and how she uses her weapons and Semblance and why that demonstrates her intelligence, summarize the tactics we've seen her use, and then break down some of her various fights as best I can. I also haven't watched the show in its entirety since a couple months after the end of Volume 8, so it's entirely possible that I'm forgetting details or am just not putting something together that would be clearer if the show was fresher in my memory. Spoilers below.

To start with, Yang's trailer literally tells us not to judge her by first impressions and stereotypes, but a lot of people seem to have decided that she's just the standard dumb blonde anyway, even though she fights intelligently in that trailer and we get our first evidence that she's smart in other ways as early as the second episode of the damn show. Ruby points out that students at Signal forge their own weapons (The Shining Beacon, part 1) and mentions having designed Crescent Rose herself. Given the way Huntsman/Huntress culture (and Remnant in general) focuses so heavily on individualism and self-expression after the Great War, this implies to me that designing your own weapons, rather than just building them, is part of this process, but I can't remember if that was ever explicitly confirmed. I also don't think it was explicitly stated that Yang attended Signal, but it's the reasonable assumption to make, given that Ruby did, Yang lives on Patch, and both her father and her uncle teach at Signal. There's no reason to assume that she attended Pharos (the other known combat school in Vale), which means that I am as confident as I can be without an official source that Yang designed and built her weapons. Girl had an engineering degree at age 15 and used it to build fully functional collapsible shotgun gauntlets that are more subtle and more easily hidden and transported than almost any other weapon in the series. The way her weapons can pass/function as jewelry mean that she's armed anytime, anywhere, and just has to activate them instead of drawing them like the other characters (or, god forbid, summoning them from freaking rocket lockers). Oh, and when she lost an arm and Ironwood sent her a prosthetic, she modified it to match Ember Celica with one freaking hand (her non-dominant hand, to boot). She added a gun that mirrors Ember Celica so closely that it doesn't mess with her balance or hinder her in a fight with significantly less than half the dexterity available to someone with both arms (seriously, doing any moderately complex manual task with only one arm can be extremely difficult. Even something like building a moderately complex Lego set or detailing a model locomotive can be a giant pain in the ass, much less modifying a robotic arm so complex that it can mimic the function of a biological arm perfectly). If that wasn't enough, she also kept a motorbike in working order for the entire duration of a road trip across a whole damn continent, which involved traveling through massive stretches of wilderness, and repaired a hoverbike she'd never seen before that day IN AN OUTPOST! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS! And it only took her a single night, despite needing to do so with the knowledge that her and her friends could only stave off the cold for so long and they needed transportation back to Atlas or they would die. Yang is an engineering genius.

She's also a good student. As if the above paragraph wasn't evidence enough of her academic ability, she's also one of two characters out of the main eight who got into Beacon (the best, most prestigious, and most selective Huntsman Academy out of the four) through normal means, by graduating from a prep school before passing a "rigorous entrance exam" (Welcome to Beacon) (Ruby was explicitly bumped up two years by Ozpin, Weiss was tutored by Winter, Jaune cheated, and Blake, Ren, and Nora passed the entrance exam without having attended a combat school). The only other one confirmed to have followed the standard combat school -> Huntsman Academy track is Pyrrha. Once we actually see her in school, Yang is the only one who knows what the hell she's doing: Ruby is clearly lost and spends half her time dicking around, Weiss is writing down everything that might possibly be relevant at any point in the future instead of just taking notes on what's important, and Blake is just staring at her notebook like "What the fuck is this?" because she's been a terrorist for like five years and probably hasn't been in a formal education environment since she finished elementary school. The quality of Yang's schoolwork never becomes a plot point, unlike all three of her teammates: Ruby struggles (understandably) because she got bumped up two years, Weiss has a stress-induced meltdown if she gets anything less than full credit on an assignment, and Blake just goes "Fuck this shit, I'm outtie," as soon as she learns that the furry rights activists are working with Torchwick, neglecting her schoolwork and even her own health to the point where it's negatively impacting her ability to function and her relationships with her teammates. Yang, meanwhile, is quietly doing just fine in the background.

The above image demonstrates the contrast between Yang and her teammates: Yang is paying attention and has her materials out, ready to take notes if the professor says something important that she doesn't already know, Weiss is scribbling urgently away, Ruby has given up entirely, and Blake.exe has stopped working. She's also the one to explain the history of Mountain Glenn in Volume 2, whereas the rest of the team are the ones who needed it explained.

We also know that Yang likes books. Ruby mentions that Yang used to read to her every night before bed (The Shining Beacon, Pt. 2), and at no point is this treated within the narrative as a chore. When we see the room Yang shares with Ruby in Volume 3, she has several books on her desk, and her side of the room contains more books than Ruby's. Her first choice of independent leisure on the Argus Limited is either a book or a magazine, I can't remember which, and I'm too lazy to go back and check. The only time she doesn't seem interested in a book was during The Shining Beacon, Pt. 2, when discussing the book Blake was currently reading as part of an awkward conversation she clearly didn't want to be involved in anymore. Even then, that's hardly proof she doesn't like books, just that she doesn't like that one at that moment. I love books. I've read voraciously since I was old enough to read. I still couldn't stomach half the books I had to read in any of my English classes, because many of them were boring as shit to a boy aged 12-18, who was more interested in reading about dragons, boobies, and explosions.

Screenshots for proof regarding the sisters' room:

Yang's also pretty good at games, given the way Volumes 3 and 6 imply that she regularly kicks Ruby's butt at them and the way we see her both outplay Ruby and set Weiss up for victory before immediately reversing it on her during their Remnant: The Game match. Admittedly, Weiss doesn't know the rules of the game and Blake is obviously distracted, but Yang displays a clear tactical flair regardless.

For the record, there's more than one way to display intelligence, but I won't touch too much on Yang's emotional intelligence since that seems to be a bit more widely accepted within the fandom. She's very in touch with both her emotions and those of others and is well aware of the impact her self-expression has on those around her (see her immediate internalization when she feels her outbursts have made her friends uncomfortable, for example). She frequently provides emotional support for all three other members of her team and is remarkably mature and perceptive for someone who's repeatedly noted for not even being old enough to drink.

Okay, we've established that Yang's a smart cookie. How does that tie into her fighting style? Well, first of all, she's one of the very few characters in the show who uses her available tools to augment her fighting style, rather than define it. What do I mean by that? Well, her fighting style is based heavily on real-world martial arts (boxing and kickboxing mainly, occasionally incorporating techniques from other martial arts like judo and capoeira), and thus her base techniques don't require anything beyond a functioning body, meaning she can fight effectively when disarmed or when her Aura is depleted. Her equipment and Semblance add new dimensions to her fighting style (the gauntlets give her a ranged option and more mobility, for example, and she makes great use of the sticky grenades she gets in the Atlas arc), but by and large, they're mostly used to enhance her core techniques.

Contrast this with any of her teammates, all of whom struggle much more when disarmed. Ruby's struggles with unarmed combat are a plot point in at least two separate Volumes and a character short, Weiss is reduced to relying entirely on glyphs without the ability to infuse them with Dust, and Blake suddenly loses the ability to swing around like she was bitten by a radioactive catgirl and is limited to using her clones to give herself the chance to kick someone in the nuts. All three of these characters built their fighting styles around their weapons and Semblances, as did many other characters in the show, even experienced Huntsmen like Winter and the Ace-Ops. Yang did not.

Of course, it's worth noting that this comes with its downsides, but it's clearly a trade that Yang intentionally made after considering those downsides. She's consistently shown to struggle with fighters that can outrange her and iirc Monty himself posted that she was weak to kick-based opponents (see: Nora in the food fight, Junior and Melanie in her trailer, Mercury, etc.), but she also demonstrates an awareness of that weakness and has put work into compensating for it.

In combat, Yang displays a wide range of tactics, including, but not limited to, the following: splitting up a fight so that she's only facing one or two opponents at once, taking advantage of (and outright manipulating) the terrain, switching up her approaches, and psychologically manipulating her opponents (Elm, Adam). All of the tactics I listed previously are demonstrated at multiple points throughout the series. Additionally, Yang's team combo moves require effective coordination and a great deal of teamwork and trust to pull off, at least according to their Amity Arena card bios. Bumblebee "[requires] more trust than the other combination attacks" (Amity Arena Bumblebee card) and Freezerburn "is unique among Team RWBY's team attacks in that it is more tactical than offensive... However, the setup is the most dangerous of the team attacks as Weiss is a sitting duck while creating the ice floor and Yang is an easy target while crashing down with her burning fist. To minimize risk, the two have to execute their roles in perfect sync and extreme speed which requires lots of practice. Seeing as how they pull off Freezerburn perfectly now, it looks like Weiss was successful in making the carefree Yang surrender to her will" (Amity Arena Freezerburn card). While I know the last sentence makes it seem like Weiss was the one who made Yang put in the work and like Yang didn't care, it's still a clear demonstration that Yang is capable of tactical operations and of executing with extreme precision under pressure. She worked hard enough to use Freezerburn perfectly instead of slacking off and is one of two members involved in a combo described as primarily tactical.

I'd like to elaborate on my point about Yang splitting up fights as well, because it's an incredible display of intelligence and tactical understanding. If you've ever been in a real fight, you probably know that it's hard enough to keep track of one opponent, much less two, much less literal double digit numbers of goons. Having friends is a huge, huge, huge advantage in a fight because it lets you flank your opponent, juggle aggro, and force the enemy to react to you instead of letting them dictate the pace of the fight. Being a total badass with years of martial arts experience doesn't mean you won't go down if someone cracks a baseball bat or tire iron across your skull, and that gets a lot easier to do when you have to focus on his friends. It also makes ground fighting a much riskier proposition, because choking one dude out takes time and won't help you when his five friends are kicking you to death while you do it. Now, anime fights function a little differently, but Yang still makes her life (and her choreographers' lives) easier by cutting down on the number of opponents she has to fight at once, allowing her to leverage her superior dueling ability to quickly take out mooks and minor antagonists before their allies can arrive to reinforce them.

I've seen people imply that Yang is a dumb brute who takes hits to power up her Semblance and just flails around like a Bloodborne boss (for some fucking reason...), but nothing could be further from the truth. She does this once, in her fight with Adam in Volume 6, which was the correct choice in that instance. Otherwise, her normal response to an incoming attack is, situationally, one of the following: dodge, block, or parry, and we see it over and over again. I'll go into more detail during fight breakdowns, but I wanted to get that out of the way first. Yes, Yang gets hit. That's part of fighting. What she doesn't do is get hit on purpose. She gets hit because she's facing competent opponents (or, perhaps, "dangerous" in the case of the Grimm), often in groups, and when two people fight (and I mean really fight, not just one person throwing a punch and laying the other one out), most of the time, they both get hurt. It happens. It happens to street brawlers, it happens to kids having slap fights, and it happens to elite martial artists. Getting hit, getting hurt, is part of fighting, and Yang's guard understandably tends to slip the more she has to keep track of and when the people she cares about are in danger, just like everyone else in the show, but when she's fighting on her own, she doesn't throw herself into a blow, either to power herself up or protect someone else, she makes her opponents work for every hit. She's smart enough to see that guarding still drains Aura (we see it in the Adam fight in Volume 6) and she takes that into account. Aggression is not stupidity, and is in fact a very powerful tool, something Yang understands better than most of the fandom and a trait Qrow displays as well.

Now I'm going to break down some of Yang's fights and explain how she fights with both skill and intelligence, starting with her trailer. My brain is too small for me to create gifs and stuff, but you can probably follow along well enough by searching for the fights on YouTube or something.

Yellow Trailer

The Yellow Trailer's gonna start off with me going off on a bit of a tangent because I absolutely hate hate fucking hate the way it opened up, namely with Yang hitting Junior with the nutcracker. Like, that's sexual assault, my dudes. It's not cool. As an owner of a pair of testicles and someone who has suffered that exact type of assault, this scene always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I think the intent was to establish Yang as Tough Badass Woman, and admittedly it succeeded fairly well, but it's not the way I would have gone about it. I think that if I had been writing this scene, I would have just had her grab him by the collar and drag his face down to her level, which is still perfectly acceptable and effective shorthand for "I'm tough and intimidating" without crossing the line, but this trailer was made back in like 2013 and attitudes toward such things were very different back then. Women assaulting men was seen as funny, rather than serious, and Rooster Teeth in particular had built their name on the type of dudebro comedy where sexual assault and physical violence were treated as integral parts of slapstick comedy (iirc one of the most common requests on RT content was "no more rape jokes", Gavin in particular has taken considerable physical abuse for the sake of comedy, and... most of Red vs. Blue). While obviously RWBY is RT's flagship series at this point, back in 2013, it was really just Monty's pet project that hadn't even proven itself commercially viable, and the attitudes of both the time in general and RT's content at that time in particular kind of bled into this trailer.

Anyway, Yang taking physical control of Junior is a fairly standard start to a "protagonist visits seedy information broker or otherwise interrogates someone intended as mostly unsympathetic but in possession of valuable information" scene. Information don't come cheap, and unless Yang's rolling in dosh we haven't seen on screen, she can't exactly pay for it, and that wouldn't exactly be the best way to show our protagonist is a badass anyway, so why not have her beat up a few criminals? Even then, she's ultimately willing to let the situation deescalate... but Junior isn't. He overtly threatens her while his armed henchmen surround her, at which point she throws him off balance with a little psychological manipulation and takes a shot while he's completely open, both neutralizing the biggest threat currently available and demoralizing the henchmen by removing their leader from the fight. She shows enough situational awareness to knock him away from the bystanders and buys enough time for them to flee before the henchmen jump her.

Now, she's still surrounded by thugs, so she goes the only direction that isn't occupied by an enemy (up) and attacks the terrain to knock the goons off their feet and turn a situation where she was facing a double-digit number of armed opponents into a series of smaller fights (there are rarely more than 2-3 goons in range to attack her from the shockwave slam to the end of this sequence), which is much more manageable. Once FreeJ Khaled up there pulls out the gat and starts spraying and praying, she dodges and weaves, hunkering down and making herself a harder target. She slides across the floor quickly, precisely, and with good body control, identifies the biggest threat, and eliminates it ASAP.

Now the twins show up and Yang really shows us what she's got. She immediately goes on the offensive (successfully!) despite facing two opponents, attacking the ground and surrounding terrain to split the twins up and knock them off balance (she's not missing. She shoots rockets out of the air later on. She's deliberately splitting them up). It doesn't work as intended, and the twins briefly get a flank off and land a few attacks, because they're also good at what they do, at which point Yang goes back to her previously-effective tactic of removing one opponent so she can take out the other. If you look closely, she activates her Semblance before punching Melanie and then deactivates it right after, using it only briefly to gain an advantage and otherwise relying on her technical skill. Miltia goes down in short order (because Yang just purely outclasses her in a 1v1, to the point where all she can do is defend). Melanie fares better, though by better I mean she maybe gets one or two decent hits in, while the rest are blocked by Yang's forearms, before finishing her off too. The sequence between Melanie and Yang is my favorite in the whole fight, because we get to see Yang switch up her approach to incorporate kicks, demonstrate some absolutely fantastic footwork, and finish Melanie off with a grapple and a kick, two things we haven't seen as much as her punches, once she sees an opening.

Junior's part of the fight is pretty short, but we still see Yang aim her gauntlets with enough precision to shoot his rockets out of the air, briefly struggle with the range of his club, and then close the distance with the same boxing-style approach she used earlier to deal with DJ Spray-and-Pray and pull off a fantastic example of a Dempsey Roll, dodging both of Junior's attacks and going into her combo. You may have heard of the Dempsey Roll from Hajime no Ippo, but if you haven't, it's a technique used by famous boxer Jack Dempsey meant to allow him to put the power of his whole body into his punches while also maintaining forward momentum and progress. It may seem hard to follow, and people with boxing backgrounds much deeper than mine have explained it much better than I can, but the simple summary is that it requires a lot of precise, technical movements and a lot of in-ring intelligence to pull off, and the fact that Yang can do it means that she's really fucking good at boxing.

Team RWBY vs. Giant Nevermore

Not gonna go too in-depth in this one, but I want to point out several things here. First, once the Nevermore breaks the bridge Team RWBY is standing on and they regain their footing, Yang is the only one who attacks the Nevermore immediately. While everyone else is waiting for Ruby to come up with a plan, Yang already has one. It makes sense - she's the one who graduated Signal and thus has the most training and experience as an actual Huntress, whereas Ruby went to Beacon early, Weiss has so little actual combat experience that she has to remind herself which foot to lead with, and Blake has mostly been fighting racists and robots instead of Grimm.

When her initial plan (shoot it) doesn't work, Yang jumps into its mouth and shoots rockets down its throat - changing her approach - hitting it where it's vulnerable, where she identified and took advantage of an opening, before jumping out of its mouth and letting it crash into a wall - using the terrain to her advantage. We see her look behind her before jumping out, so we know this is deliberate. Moreover, she takes one look and immediately deduces her part in Ruby's plan (it's unlikely that anyone could have told her, given that she was engaging the Nevermore from before Ruby came up with it until that very moment) and executes it perfectly.

Team RWBY vs. Team JNPR (Food Fight)

Not too much to say about this one either, but Yang does hear Ruby yell "Turkey" and immediately knows what to do, which implies that either she's smart enough to figure it out on the fly or that things like this happen often enough that she's learned from experience. That said, the whole food fight is played for comedy, so I'm not leaning too heavily on it as evidence, except for the part where she utterly dumpsters Ren, who we see is a skilled and technically precise fighter whose style is based on East Asian martial arts in his fight with the King Taijitu, first with the power of panty shots and then with the power of violence. Seriously, Ren gets worked. Poor boy lands maybe two meaningful hits before Yang whoops his ass. And it's not like Ren's a bad fighter! He's skilled enough to earn a license before most people are halfway through their time at a Huntsman Academy!

Anyway, then Yang gets yeeted into low orbit by Nora and does her best Sputnik impression, thus ending the flow of useful data from this fight.

Yang vs. Neo

This fight tells us so, so much about both Yang and Neo. There's a fantastic reddit post here that I bookmarked ages ago that breaks down the technical details much better than I ever could, so I'm just gonna focus on the way Yang, again, demonstrates situational awareness by holding her rockets until she's got a clear shot at an enemy that doesn't risk hitting volatile Dust, repeatedly changes her approach until she find something that works (the grapple, at which point Neo (I think?) manages to kick out of it and then instantly ends the fight, because Yang was now a threat and she was done fucking around), and still simply gets beaten by a superior fighter. Yang threw every trick in her repertoire at Neo and still lost. That doesn't mean she's bad, or stupid, or letting her anger get the best of her. It just means she ran into a better opponent.

Yang and Weiss vs. Flynt and Neon

This fight's really interesting to me because of the way Flynt and Neon play it. They're one of only a few teams that we see come into a fight with a defined strategy (get in their opponents' heads by being as annoying as possible and split Weiss and Yang into favorable one-on-one matchups) and they execute it well. Weiss does not do well vs. Flynt because she struggles to get past his trumpet, but her Dust, glyphs, and overall ability to manipulate the battlefield would've given her an extremely favorable matchup vs. Neon (good luck skating around once Weiss has coated the floor in ice, for example). Yang struggles with Neon, but could have absolutely dunked on Flynt, given his general lack of close-quarters threat and her demonstrable ability to close with him despite his trumpet's spacing tools.

Team FNKI clearly wins the early rounds, but the fight swings once Weiss goes down. Yang vents her anger, stops letting Neon get to her, and starts using some of her tried-and-true tactics to close with Flynt and then remove Neon. Yang initially tries to split her opponents with her rockets and then tries to close with Flynt on the ground (technically, she was in the air, but she was so low to the ground that it was very similar to running, and I want to distinguish this approach from what she does next), showing good tactical sense by prioritizing the less mobile opponent with low Aura. She then changes her approach by going high, using her aerial mobility to avoid Neon, who is confined to two dimensions, and destroys the terrain while Neon can't close with her. Neon is visibly off balance by the time Yang lands and starts running toward Flynt, allowing Yang to reach Flynt and eliminate him. Now that the terrain is no longer flat and smooth, Neon can't maneuver as effectively and is easy prey.

I've seen people argue that Yang just got mad, got lucky, and got the W in this fight because Neon was clearly getting to her early on, but I disagree. I think that argument would be more credible if the tactics Yang used hadn't been previously demonstrated in her earlier fights and if later fights hadn't continued the trend. We see over and over that Yang uses these tactics, and the fact that she was mad here doesn't mean she's suddenly forgotten how.

Yang vs. Mercury

This is one of my favorite fights in the show because it's just two incredible superpowered martial artists going at it with a badass soundtrack blasting in the background. The early part of the fight mostly serves to show this off, with both Yang and Mercury trying to find a way past the other's defenses with minimal success. There's a lot of blocking and dodging here, with Yang demonstrating, again, solid boxing fundamentals, until she catches Mercury with a counter similar to the one she used on Melanie in the Yellow Trailer and knocks him off the stage (using the terrain to her advantage). Even when Mercury gets serious and really goes on the offensive, Yang is able to block or dodge most of his attacks until he starts setting up his Steam Dust move. Mercury clearly has the advantage during this midfight sequence, but Yang holds her own pretty well. Once Mercury starts walking away and Yang gets her second wind, she rushes him, staying low, and dodges two attacks and blocks another while setting up her Dempsey Roll. You can see by the expression on Merc's face that he is not having fun here, and I don't blame him. The Dempsey Roll is very hard to get out of, and she's absolutely pummeling him with it.

Someone with a better technical background than mine could probably break apart the techniques used in this fight more effectively, so all I'll say is that Yang fights this extremely well and makes good use of her ranged options, switching up her spacing and demonstrating impressive control of her body.

Yang vs. Taiyang

Not the biggest fan of the conversation framed by this little sparring match because I think Taiyang is completely wrong here, which is worth a post on its own, but the fight itself shows us that Yang still has a ways to go before she hits her ceiling as a fighter (she loses round 1 with Tai and he points out that her balance could use work, which is really saying something when you consider how incredible her footwork has been in the past) and that she's taking steps toward that improvement (she wins round 2). She incorporates more kickboxing techniques here, giving us a preview of her progression as a fighter.

Yang vs. Ursa (Volume 5 Yang Character Short)

First things first, I just loved seeing OG Yang in the new style. She looks so pretty! She always does, but you know what I mean.

Anyway, we don't learn much from her brief exchange with Ruby, but then an Ursa shows up and Yang engages it. We see, again, that Yang focuses on dodging and blocking attacks, picking her openings and maneuvering in three dimensions to open up opportunities to attack. Her ability to think in three dimensions is extremely impressive, given that half the time I forget to use the damn jump button in Elden Ring while sitting on the couch and not facing imminent threat of death by roid-raging grizzly bear.

Once again, Yang's performance suffers once she has to protect someone else, but we do get to see her bounce off the tree to attack, taking advantage of the environment and using her Semblance (I think? We see the red eyes, but her hair doesn't flash, so I'm not sure if she actually used it. Still, the actual damage is consistent with that done during other uses of her Semblance, and based on previous fights, this seems like a situation where she'd bring it out) to finish the Ursa off.

Not a lot of new knowledge to gain from this fight, but it shows that a lot of what we see in other fights is a consistent trend.

Yang vs. Bandits

This fight is the first time Yang gets back in the saddle after losing her arm, so to speak, and thus it's suitable that the whole scene gives me Western vibes. We see from the fight that Yang is transitioning away from her boxing background a bit into a flashier fighting style that incorporates more kicks and elements of judo and Jeet Kune Do that she's presumably learned from Tai. This fight is meant to show that she's starting to take Tai's advice about going around things instead of through them, as seen at the very end when she propels herself over her target and strikes him from behind instead of meeting him head on.

I actually don't think Yang's "new" style is as effective as her old one from a real-world perspective, so I'm going to go on a tangent about the differences between fighting for real and fighting on screen, as well as what the narrative wants to tell us about her new style. The purpose of a real fight is to hurt another person and/or prevent them from hurting you. Style doesn't matter, only results, and so martial arts designed for true self-defense instead of competition fighting focus on breaking another human being as quickly and efficiently as possible, by maximizing the potential of the human body such that proper technique can mitigate the advantages of strength and size against an opponent lacking in such training.

Fighting on screen, on the other hand, is all about providing a spectacle for the audience. Moreover, if you're performing a live-action fight, you specifically want the participants to not get hurt, because otherwise your actors/stunt crew will both be potentially unable to continue filming and highly likely to sue your ass. Film crews have a lot of tricks they use to make it look like blows are landing when they actually aren't, and live-action fights are choreographed in such a way as to minimize risk to the people putting on the show. Add in the fact that on-screen battles often incorporate fantastic elements that cannot be replicated in real life (find me a dude who can block bullets barehanded or shoot lasers from his eyeballs. I'll wait), I can forgive a little martial inefficiency for the sake of being visually interesting, and thus Yang's evolving style relying more on flashy kicks doesn't bother me too much.

A brief note: kicks, while very visually impressive, are typically not as useful in a serious fight as a good punch. Kicks are dangerous to use because they require you to give up your footing and open you up to grabs and counters. They're good against off-balance opponents, but someone who's ready for it will have an easy time blocking it, and a failed kick opens you up to more punishment than a failed punch. Don't get me wrong, kicks are a valuable tool. They let you maintain and control distance/spacing, they have longer reach, they hit harder, and they require different defenses from punches. Low kicks in particular can be a very valuable tool in a fighter's repertoire because they allow you to effectively strike at the opponent's ankles, shins, thighs, groin, midsection, etc. without sacrificing your balance and footing to the same degree as a high kick and are harder to defend against. Yang kicking is not a bad thing, but she already used kicks more effectively and more safely during the Poser era than she does during the Maya era, though this evolution to her style is certainly more visually spectacular (note that I did not say interesting, because I'm sure plenty of people find accurately-replicated techniques more interesting than cinema-style fights, and that's perfectly fine).

I think that what the narrative is trying to tell us with this fight is that Yang is becoming a better fighter, that Tai's training and advice have helped her improve, but that she hasn't reached her ceiling and fully embraced the evolution of her style. From a cinematic standpoint, I am willing to buy that, even if I think it's a devolution from a real-world perspective. I think we're also supposed to take away the message that Yang is working to overcome her PTSD and has made enough progress to fight for real at this point, though obviously she still has a ways to go, just like with her technique.

Yang and Blake vs. Adam

Man, this is my favorite fight of the series, bar none. It's not the best fight in terms of animation, plotting, choreography, soundtrack, rhythm, etc. (that honor goes to the Yellow Trailer), but from a narrative perspective, I absolutely love it and it's such a powerful culmination to a number of different storylines. This fight shows us the continued evolution of Yang's skills and identity as a fighter, and since Yang's the one I'm focusing on with this post, I'm gonna skip the early part of the fight where Blake duels Adam in favor of starting with Yang's entrance.

The entrance is fantastic, by the way. There's nothing like telling your girlfriend's abusive ex to fuck off by hitting him in the face with a motorcycle to make sure he gets the message. Anyway, if you watch this fight in slow motion, you'll see that Yang absolutely gives Adam the business, no contest. Everything he throws at her gets blocked, dodged, or deflected. He doesn't break her guard until he activates his Semblance and throws her away. Yang utterly demolishes Adam's ass every time she gets in close, even when he brings out that fucking anime-ass ninja run shadow clone shit. Still, guarding doesn't mean she's totally avoiding damage, and she seems winded after getting to her feet at the end of the sequence.

Yang's still making great use of her boxing fundamentals, ducking and weaving, keeping her guard up to protect her face and torso, sliding around using her characteristic excellent footwork, and so on, but she's also incorporating more kicks and grappling into her fighting style, which is intended to represent her evolution into a more intelligent and complete fighter. That said, the most interesting thing about this to me is the way she's using her gauntlets for short-range movement much more than she has in any fight except her character short up to this point. We already know that she's smart enough to change up her approach, and I think this is an iteration on that previously-established tactic that also incorporates Tai's recommendation that she find a way around obstacles instead of through them. She's taking that quite literally here, using her maneuverability and agility to flank Adam and strike him from angles where he can't defend himself.

Okay, now Blake has caught her breath and joined the fight. What happens next? Well, Adam continues getting his ass beaten, that's what. He gets a good Semblance-empowered shot off on Yang, but then the Bees hold hands and he loses his goddamn mind when confronted with incontrovertible proof that Blake thinks Yang has a bigger dick than he does. Once again, the Bees are the ones who land all the significant hits, at least until the end of the sequence. The conclusion here baffles me, because instead of continuing with what was working before, Blake decides that the best way to deal with a counter-fighter is an attack that's slower and more telegraphed than that stupid cane attack that Margit the Fell Omen holds until the end of time to punish panic rolling in Elden Ring and yeets her broken weapon at Adam, and then Yang decides that the flaw with that plan was that the projectile wasn't slow or vulnerable enough and throws Blake. Honestly, this decision still doesn't make sense to me at all, because both of these fighters should be smarter than that, and I'm also not sure why Yang jumped across to catch Gambol Shroud like Blake couldn't catch it her own damn self. Yeah, she transitioned into the Bumblebee combo, but the expression on her face, the sound she makes, and the way she commits so hard to it makes me think she views this as an opening that leaves Blake vulnerable, and I don't really see it. Maybe I'm just dumb, idk. Other than that, though, the Bees work really well together. Their coordination is incredible. As someone who used to play League of Legends and faced the constant struggle of getting teammates to stop inting, I can tell you firsthand that obtaining this kind of coordination with another person without even talking is extremely difficult and comes from either a very close natural alignment in terms of philosophy or hours and hours of practice, which really speaks to both Yang and Blake's skill and discipline. Anyway, Adam invites Blake on an impromptu rock climbing adventure, and Yang gears up for Round 2 of the solo fight.

Adam lands a couple nice hits here, but Yang is still mostly successful at guarding and dodging and retains the situational awareness to track Blake's position even though Adam is losing his shit and coming after her constantly... and then we get the iconic "Gotcha" moment, which turns the context of the whole damn fight on its head. Yang played him. Yang straight-up played Adam. In a callback to their first meeting, she baits him in, sets up a counter, and disarms him. She's so smart. This is really the fight that made me think Yang is strategic as well as tactical: she demonstrates a solid long-term plan that emphasizes her strengths and her opponent's weaknesses and works toward it throughout the fight.

This also brings me back to the point I made about how Yang's equipment compliments her fighting style instead of defining it. Adam is helpless without a weapon, desperately trying to retrieve his sword, and that leaves him vulnerable. Yang, on the other hand, is still good to go. Also, she threw his sword right where Blake was waiting to ambush him, showing that even while pulling off her picture-perfect Bloodborne parry, she still knows exactly where her partner is. Not much left in this fight, so I'm gonna skip over the part where Adam lives out the dream of a solid 75% of this fandom and ascends to heaven after being double penetrated by a pair of hot ladies because I've unironically seen people argue on this very site, as well as on reddit, that Yang and Blake committed murder here, and thinking about this level of galaxy brain take burns out my synapses.

I've seen a lot of debate on Yang and Adam's relative power levels, and this fight leads me to believe that they're extremely close, but that Adam has the edge overall. Yang is, frankly, more skilled and more intelligent, but that's not the only thing that matters in a fight, and Adam's reach, speed, and Semblance go a long way toward offsetting that. Their Auras break at roughly the same time despite Adam facing Blake beforehand, which leads me to believe that either he's got a lot of Aura or that he managed to eat away at Yang's Aura while she was guarding. I think it's the latter, because taking a hit on your forearm or shin or whatever instead of a more vulnerable area is still taking a hit - it still hurts - and we see her visibly stagger or wince on even successful blocks in multiple fights, but I don't think we have official confirmation regarding Adam's Aura levels.

Team RWBY vs. Ace-Ops

Last fight I'll go over because to be honest every damn fight in Volume 8 was pretty lackluster imo and I'm starting to get tired, so I might as well wrap this up. I enjoyed seeing Team RWBY in a big teamfight, though I wish they'd emphasized the team part more with literally combination other than the Bees, but oh well. Yang and Elm trade blows and then Blake gets grabbed and Yang whips out the ol' psychological manipulation on Elm, just like she did on Junior and Adam, baiting Elm into releasing Blake and going after her instead. Frankly, I think Blake could've escaped with her Semblance here, but maybe I'm misunderstanding exactly how it works. To be honest, I don't think whoever's in charge of the choreography really knows what to do with Blake, especially in recent Volumes, and she's had an overall lackluster performance in fights as a result.

I have mixed feelings about the middle sequence of this fight. There's a lot of good in it. Elm gets to show why she's arguably a top-three Huntress in Atlas by landing a few good blows on Yang and Blake and the Bees had fantastic teamwork, even though I'm still not sure how the hell Blake got Yang's grenades off of the rock and onto her clone in the time she had, but Blake also got captured again and didn't clone out of it, so I'm not the biggest fan of that part.

Finally, Yang and Blake finish Elm off after Yang spends the better part of the fight damaging the terrain to prevent Elm from using her Semblance effectively and then launches her into the air with a single, momentary, strategic use of her Semblance (oh, look, more things she's been doing since the Yellow Trailer). This fight showcases a couple of interesting trends with Yang's Maya-era choreography. First, she really likes dodging low, sliding almost like a baseball player, which I think is the result of her boxing background. If you watch both this fight and the Bees vs. Adam fight, you will see Yang go low while Blake goes high over and over again. Yang can and does dodge high, but I think it's clear at this point that her preference is for staying low to the ground, especially when fighting alongside Blake. The other trend is that she really loves those sticky grenades she got in Atlas and will use them any time she gets the chance. In this fight alone, she uses them to obscure Elm's vision and set up the finisher on Vine, during which she also uses his own equipment against him. She's also happy to make use of the grenades against Salem, random Grimm, and anything else that comes her way.

Well, that's it for me. I'd have gone over more fights, but this post is already longer than the list of pretty ladies who want to kiss me on the lips, so I'm gonna wrap it up. I doubt I'm saying much that's really new here, to be honest. There are plenty of other tumblr users who have gone over these points, many of them more eloquently than I did, and I'm not convinced I've done much more than synthesize their arguments into a singular post, but this is what I feel demonstrates that Yang is very intelligent in multiple ways and a skilled fighter who's both tactical and strategic in battle.

#rwby #analysis #yang xiao long

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theladyofbloodshed · 1 year

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Obviously your blog is mostly centered around the shit storm that is ACOTAR. I'm curious, how do you feel about TOG? If you've read it that is. I've always preferred TOG to ACOTAR, mostly besides Dorian owns my heart, it also seemed more sculpted I guess (that's not the exact word I was looking for, but it works), and less focused on "romance" or whatever the fuck this wasn't meant to be a pun but the fact that it was my first thought for word choice is funny. Feysand and Nessian are, even tho romance is something that happens throughout the series and becomes more of a focus in later books, and I just preferred Celaena overall to Feyre. I know the series has its issues and isn't perfect by any means at all, my very strong prescription rose-colored glasses aren't that tinted. 😂 I read the series for the first time when I was a teenager, technically I read ACOTAR at the same age but we'll overlook that for now, the characters and the story have a special place in my heart and I'm not sure if it's actually good-aside from it's clear problems-or just my aforementioned rose colored glasses.

Totally okay if you don't answer questions about SJM's other series, if you do answer pls be gentle despite telling myself I'm not I'm Soft 😂. I trust your opinion, which is why I'm asking despite being Soft. Hope you have a better day tomorrow and Hercules is an incredible choice after a difficult day. 💜

Buckle up, this will be long!!!!

Weirdly, I was living in Copenhagen and I was in a group for young people new to the city and somebody wrote about making a book club. 4 of us turned up - one from USA, one from Netherlands, one from Spain, and me - so we were just chatting about books in a coffee shop and somebody recommended throne of glass. I'd tried to read books like divergent and the mortal instruments and did not like the "chosen girl who is the best at everything" cliche so I was like HARD PASS. (At that point Empire of Storms and ACOMAF had come out that year).

I didn't think about that book again but I did keep going to the library and I read Maze Runner which I loved and still pair with my time in Denmark lmao.

Anyway. I also did reddit gift exchanges and one year (maybe 2017/2018), somebody sent me Tower of Dawn and ACOTAR. I didn't touch either for ages. They just sat on my shelf because neither appealed.

Anyway, in a bid to read the books piling up on my shelves, I started acotar and my thoughts were "this girl is so dumb" "i cannot believe she can be this stupid" "my goodness she is annoying". I then borrowed the others from a library and was a fan of the side characters rather than feyre THEN I moved onto ToG.

I really enjoyed the first book. Loved a fun competition between assassins. I wanted her and Nox to get together rather than Chaol or Dorian. 2nd one felt off? Then the rest felt like a different series. I'll be honest, I did enjoy them but it didn't hook me the same way ACOTAR did. Cannot pinpoint why.

Feyre is annoying. Caelena is annoying

Rhys is annoying and abusive. Rowan is annoying and abusive.

Side characters make both series.

One thing that I really didn't like about Tog was how Kaltain was made to be that mean, man-hungry girl in the first... she didn't need "redemption", she was literally just a courtier set in a time where women needed to marry up. Again it was SJM's nasty side coming through like she did to Nesta/Elain in book one.

I loved Lorcan and Elide. They were probably my favourite chapters to read. Plus Manon's. I really enjoyed tower of dawn too - Yrene and Chaol were also one of my favourite couples.

This is so disjointed, sorry.

Overall yes i liked tog but I've only read it once. Don't love it enough to write fan fiction, but also there's not enough to make me angry like acotar.

#anon asks

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sketchy-scribs-n-doods · 1 year

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ughh ty for ur amazing tags it was so disgusting how they were 1. telling on themselves claiming poc and fat people aren't attractive and 2. wishing racism and body shaming on an actor in the name of justice(??). not that im surprised anyway their crowd was the one that demonized lucas and ignored caleb for years. one of my favorite characters is patrick and he wasn't allowed even a nightmare sequence he was just forgotten by the narrative and brushed off. a Black victim of abuse not even given a voice, just forcibly suppressed and used to move the plot along to fuel jason's satanic bullshit. he is ignored by the large majority of the fandom that focuses all their attention on white boy of the week but think hating billy is enough to compensate for their favouritism and racism. i hate how poc are treated in this show but its not enough for ppl to just direct all their performative criticism on a character they want actual racist harassment directed at them too. so disgusting.

i don't normally beef on the internet (i much prefer throwing hands irl actually, but ppl seem to enjoy hiding their shit behind a screen lol), but i really did such a hard double take at those tags.

i really can't fathom tearing down another character because your fav gets shit. i fully understand that characters like lucas and argyle don't get a lot of attention and that's likely a combination of a) the duffer's own bias sidelining those characters, and b) fans' bias in ignoring poc. that doesn't mean i'm gonna throw hands with your average eddie or steve stan or whatever, i don't find that productive. i'd rather engage with fans that already enjoy my fav or are open to consuming content about them and encourage (in this long winded example) eddie stans to enjoy argyle content without making them feel guilty about their blorbo.

same goes for every time i see someone thinking that if they kick down billy it will elevate nancy or lucas or max or eddie or steve. it's petty, it doesn't work, and the only things that result from it are a) an echo chambers where all your fellow salty mutuals will yes man you, or b) ppl who like what you just talked shit about are gonna roll up asking what your damage is. lo and behold.

even putting all of the dumb nancy vs billy nonsense aside (and for the record i think the duffers badly wrote both characters in different ways), those fucking tags were just. SUCH an accidental slip reveal of what that person really thinks. i don't think they're a horrible person or whatever but they're definitely a dick and think that as long as they hate the right character they're correct and good.

like you said, wishing bigotry on a person/character just because you don't like them is a weird fucking thing to say. at that point i barely care what the context of the post was. can you imagine saying that out loud in a room full of fat ppl/poc? i don't think any of them are gonna come to the conclusion that you mean it as a roundabouts insult against a popular hot white actor/character and go 'oh yes haha you're so right i totally think fans hating him for being brown/fat is preferable'. i personally would have torn down whoever said that shit to me irl, that's some white ass performative activism i don't have time for, but it seems like ppl don't think about how the shit they say would sound out loud irl to the very ppl they seem to be trying to support

nevermind that any given piece of billy fanfiction and an awful lot of fanart explores the trauma billy has gone through more than it goes 'ah yes blonde boy hot'. we can have tho conversations without being pricks saying shit in bad faith about it. like, most billy fans i see are huge fans of patrick and mourn his lost potential. because we know how the duffers treat their abused characters.

this shit isn't a contest, but often the shit you say about a character affects ppl who are similar to/identity with that character. if in your pursuit to hate and spit about a character, you say shitty things that make poc, fat ppl, abuse victims, etc., feel like you're insulting them or just using them as props for your wokeness, then you need to take a step back and ask yourself if maybe you needa chill and reevaluate what you're doing. it's not a good look, and neither is the mindset that revenge and punitive 'justice' should be prioritized above healing, growth, and connection.

(like c'mon we can redeem fictional war criminals but we can't let an 18 year old being abused by his dad work through his racial biases? like the latter isn't a much more common situation that happens irl to real abused teens with bigoted parents? alright)

anyway, i'm glad you appreciated my tag rambles, i really was just word vomiting in a fury lol

if you love patrick and enjoy the idea of patrick and billy interacting, i have a # patrick mcckinley tag and a # kingr*ve tag for each respectively (i lump all my patrick and billy stuff under their ship whether platonic or romantic bc patrick stuff is scarce enough as it is). cheers!

#billy hargrove #apologies for the wank but oof today was a doozy #poc fans of billy once again and holding your hands in mine #srry if this is a bit of a late reply anon i had class #ask sketchy

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doodlevich · 2 years

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♥*♡∞:｡.｡WIP Wednesday｡.｡:∞♡*♥

Thanks for the tag @imikhailotakeyouian <3

I'm writing a couple of things right now but my fav is a currently untitled WIP that is written in the style of Ian and Mickey's journal entries and focuses on their journey through couples counselling. Their entries alternate, and it's currently about 6k words long and it might go to 7or 8 depending on how I decide to wrap it up!

This is a cute, funny, quirky lil fic so far <3

04/09/2022

(Mickey)

I can’t believe I’m fucking doing this shit.

I have homework. What the hell? Haven’t had homework since before I dropped out of highschool, and I didn’t do it back then either.

Ian really wants me to do this.

Fuck.

Asshole’s got me by the balls, as usual.

Not sure when Ian turned into one of those sad sacks who thinks a shrink is worth his time, but our stupid neighbors told him about this ‘couple’s therapist’ (fancy talk for professional BULLSHITTER). Somehow he’s got me going along with it and now I’ve got FUCKIN HOMEWORK!!!

She told us her name was Dr. Young, but that we could just call her Rose. I asked her how come she’d spend so many years in school to get those dumb letters tacked on to the end of her name, if she was just gonna let dicks like us just call her by her first name.

So bitch looked a little like a grandma, like a nice one that didn’t probably didn’t flick ash from her smokes on her grandkids. She was way too calm, and Ian said it was “soothing” but I thought it was freaky.

Anyway, Rose asked us about a million questions, and I thought about making a run for a couple of times. Turns out we were only in there for 45 minutes, but it felt like being back in fucking prison.

Not only does she want us to start writing all this shit down, she wants us to spend the next two weeks making lists about what Ian and I are greatful grateful for. Like… about one another. Which is WEIRD. Like I already married the guy for fuck’s sake!!

Isn’t that enough to prove that I wanna be with him? We’re supposed to share the list next time. Ian will be all pouty if I don’t do it.

Whatever.

I’ll do it.

04/09/22

(Ian)

The couple’s therapist was a lot less intimidating than I thought she’d be.

I really didn’t think Mick would actually agree to come with me, but he sat through the whole session and everything.

Kinda impressive.

It’s not that we need couples counseling or anything. In fact, I think we’re less likely to strangle each other now than we’ve ever been. We’re good. Solid.

But I think we’ve still got our own individual shit to work out. ‘Gallaghers don’t do therapy’- yeah, look at where that got us.

I guess we’re trying something new.

The homework we got after the first session is to keep a journal (not my first time doing that, but this one will be less rambly), and make lists about why we’re grateful for one another. Mick’s eyeballs almost popped out of his fucking head when he heard that we had homework.

I don’t know if he’ll do it. I think he might. If he does, I’m gonna be very interested to hear what he writes. I have lots of shit to be grateful for when it comes to Mickey- I’ve just never thought about it in list form.

Here goes nothing.

(This fic pretty much needs a a few more entries and then it'll be ready! I'm having a blast writing it, very excited to share it! <3 If you like what you read and want to see where it goes, stay tuneddddd...)

I'm not sure who's already done this, so I tag all you creative babies out there to show me what you got! ♥♡♥(ꈍᴗꈍ)ε｀*)♥♡♥

#wip tag game #gallavich #gallavich fic #gallavich fanfiction #shameless fic #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich #ian and mickey #not my art

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sun-bloom · 2 years

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Why am I here?? (in a non-dramatic way)

Lately, I've been feeling weird about talking. Whenever I speak, I'm not so much focused on what I'm saying but, instead, on how I'm saying it. I analyze the pitch of my voice, I regulate my breathing (bc if I don't sometimes I hold my breath), I worry about my pronunciation, and, after all this, eventually I forget what I'm actually saying.

Sometimes I don't even know what my natural speaking voice sounds like because I'm convinced I never use it. All my focus on how words come out of my mouth has made me feel like my speech is something that I've practiced and am now performing rather than something that comes naturally.

The best thing I can compare it to is how Bumblebee talks in the Michael Bay Transformers movies, assembling thoughts through other people's voices on the radio. I go through conversations cycling through memories of things I've heard other people say and have most of my mental effort go to trying to imitate how they said it in the most natural way possible.

Not to be annoying and make another comparison but, when I am able to speak without overthinking everything, it's like a baby learning to walk. Everything goes well for a few steps, but they're most likely going to fall over if they don't grab onto something soon. If I talk without thinking for too long I'm most likely going to: talk for way too much, say something dumb, start pronouncing stuff weird because the thoughts have kicked in and I'm wondering what my voice sounds like again, forget what I'm talking about mid-sentence, etc. My only hope is for someone to interrupt me.

Now I have a job where I work from home 2-3 days out of the week, no one in my house really talks to each other, I only see my boyfriend on the weekends, and I don't really have any friends. Shit sucks! I think I'm talking less than ever! Even though I'm not the best at communicating my thoughts, it still feels weird to be so lonely.

So anyways, with all this, I wanted to get on here and kind of have a little public diary. I guess I want it public bc even though I don't really expect interaction, I at least want to have my thoughts out there. I don't know why tbh. I guess having this public makes me feel like I am talking even if no one talks back.

It was nice to come back here and see my old blog. I've never actually posted but it was nice to see the little ~aesthetic~ I was trying to build when I was 16 and how it's not that different from what I like now. (not sure if that's embarrassing to admit or not) Whatever, I'm kind of proud of myself for not being too cringy online lol. Who knows how long this will to write out what I'm thinking will last but I hope I do it at least a few more times. I have some stuff I want to say and no one to say it to.

Thank you for reading <3

#has the mobile app always been ugly like this #I remember when the blog default mobile layout first came out and thinking it sucked #it looks the exact same #always threw me off that you could have an elaborate theme and then just an ugly 2 tone layout gets default status #shout out theme makers

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whatstheoccasion · 2 years

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teasing gojo headcanons

a/n: this has been living in my mind rent free throughout all of february/march and it's finally peaked ♡

nsfw under the cut! minors please do not interact.

gojo x afab gn!reader.

tags/warnings: nsfw, use of sex toys on m, public foreplay (gojo is fully clothed tho), switch gojo, switch reader, soft degrading. cursing. brief phone sex. mentions of rough sex, cunnilingus. reader masturbating. afab gn!reader= no pronouns, but reader has female genitalia. this is filthy but still vanilla. if i'm missing any tags please lmk!

word count: 1,3k.

masterlist — playlist

️️Satoru Gojo, who's all teasing smiles and cocky remarks with everyone he meets, truly believing he's always the smartest and strongest person in the room, is absolutely losing his shit right now.

He already thinks he's insane for letting someone else take literal control of him like this, from afar and hearing every one of his moves like a hawk. He's torn between thinking this trust is too much, that you're getting too close to comfort for him and he's not only letting it happen, but encouraging it– and then he thinks that this is just another experience, that's not as deep as he thinks, that he could laugh and forget about it the next day.

He walks tall in the middle of the busiest Tokyo street, fancy black leather mask covering a heart shaped gag ball, the tiniest bit of spit shining on the corners of his mouth.

A sultry giggle on his ear sends shivers down his spine, and he's alert again, aware of his surroundings.

He quickly looks around– people walking their dogs, getting out of their jobs and loud friend groups are naively walking around, none of them are you. He lets out a sigh, heartbeat arising louder than the cars passing by. Who is he kidding? He couldn't forget about you even if he tried.

The gag is a lovely shade of baby blue, one that rivals his pretty eyes, and it's a sight that makes butterflies flutter nervously in his stomach.

It matches his cock ring deliciously, one that has a jewelry string attached to one side, diamond so cold to the touch that causes Gojo to falter his steps whenever it vibrates, meets his heavy balls.

He pulls his hood all the way up. It's cold outside, but it does nothing to lessen his erection or clear his mind. He feels dizzy, eyes losing focus behind his glasses, from the pleasure and pain of having his hard dick taped to his body.

"It's to hide it better, 'Toru." You told him this morning after kissing him dumb, delicate hand against his naked chest, you lean into him. "Don't want no hasty interruptions, do we?"

Swallowing is hard, saliva pooling in his mouth and surrounding the toy, but he's trying his damn best to keep his lips pressed together, and pushes through. He continues to walk, simply passing by innocent bystanders with a raging erection hidden on his pants.

He hears you giggle on his earphones again, surely you noticed how he's trying to avoid touching people as subtly as he can, and he hates that he can't reply with anything coherent anyway.

Gojo's veins feel like fire burning his body up, he's picturing you laying on your bed naked, phone on call with his and sweet, syrupy eyes enticing him.

You tease him. "Sucks being tall and big now, huh?", and he recognizes your low tone. It's the one tone you're not aware of, voice dripping honey whenever you're this turned on. "Can't blend in with the crowd, not with your height."

He focuses on the sound, forgetting the words you say. It rubs his ego the wrong way, even if his throbbing dick betrays him.

Gojo would kill any curse a hundred times over if it meant he could reply to you right now, saying something– anything that'll make you shut up, but he knows talking is useless at the moment.

So he continues to walk, abs clenching with every step, but the convenience store is finally on his sight. "What's the matter, 'Toru? Can't keep up?"

Gojo walks into the shop with your voice resounding on his head, ignores with a scowl the small talk the vendor tries to make, and walks out.

He squeezes the bag of Lays, finding stupid how much into this he is. How he wants to pull down his mask just a little bit, to make that man and everyone in Japan realize what's actually going on with him, how there's someone out there who's touching themselves to this, to him. How sticky his boxers feel at the sound of your voice, at what you're doing to him.

Gojo's bites the inside of his cheeks when you tempt him, body tense but mind hazy. Telling him to lick the ball, play with it like how he does it to your clit, your nipples.

He stops in his tracks, food already in his hands, when the tide breaks and he suddenly remembers how he can tease back.

Sure, he's now vulnerable and turned on and you're not there, but he was only in this position because you brought it up. This is your kink he's experimenting, surely you are as horny as he feels right now.

So he tests it out, mumbling, adding a special whine to his tone. It's incoherent but loud, he makes sure of that.

He hears a gasp– one, two seconds, and you stop giggling.

He smirks while listening to your own heavy breathing on his ears. For a moment, he swears he feels it damp his ears.

"Try to keep quiet. We don't want to get caught, baby."

He moans again, louder. This time your nickname falls from his lips, and he thrives to push all your buttons. Just thinking about going home to you, the deliciously sloppy wet sounds of your pussy under the fast movement of his fingers, his tongue, the cute way you moan his name when he's pleasing you like no one else could. Like no one else will.

He really needs to go home. People have started to notice something was up. The swell of his boner is barely, painfully hidden, but his precum is starting to– God, he'd be blushing if he were anyone else– wet the front of his pants.

But he can't give up just yet. He walks a little faster, but his mind is running. He's thinking about what you'll do to him once he gets home, how you'll tease until all he can think about is you, your name and body as close as any religion has ever felt for him.

His high moans turn into low ones, genuinely deep within his chest. Gojo salivates at the thought of you bouncing on his cock, your sweet ah-ah-ah's loud in the room, desperate hands gripping his shoulders and naked thighs wiggling on top of his hips, jumping on his wet dick like you're possessed.

He thinks about you sitting on his face, chastising him for teasing you back– puffy clit smooth yet hard, so warm on his tongue. Gojo thinks about sucking it, licking it, gently scraping his teeth around it, sucking again. He wants to abuse the pretty pink nubble.

He pants thinking of your dripping hole, pussy throbbing on his chin, sticky cum all over his face. He wants you to jump on his dick until the slaps hurt his sensitive balls, until cum drips out of you and onto his thighs. He wants to hump you from behind, naked pussy wetting his clothed dick, ass rutting fast against him until you make him cum in his pants. He wants you to bite and scratch and mark him, make it hurt. He wants to make a mess out of you.

He wants to eat you. He wants to fuck you, the thought making his steps speed up towards your house.

Your face heats up hearing his moans through your speaker, heart beating frantically. You take one hand to your nipples, touch feather-like on them at first and then pinching, trying to keep your own moans in.

Your pussy throbs between your thighs, and you put a pillow between them, shamefully rutting on it. The faint beating of your cunt against your ruined underwear begging for Gojo's hands, face, dick. Begging for Gojo.

Curse him. He was supposed to be the needy one, not you. You somehow find it in you to tell him just that. "You're gonna get it now, Satoru. I want your ass here now."

Gojo is already outside, but he smirks, mouth dripping wet past his mask. Yeah, he wants to see that go down.

#jujutsu kaisen headcanons #gojo scenario #gojo x reader #gojo x you #gojo smut #gojo satoru x you #gojo headcanons #gojo satoru x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #whatsthethrist #jujutsu kaisen smut #this looks horrible on desktop but im sacrificing it bc it looks decent on mobile

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itsdanii · 3 years

Text

Rejecting you and regretting it

genre: angst to fluff

warnings: slight cursing, rude behavior (resolved), do message me if I forgot any.

ft. sakusa kiyoomi, tsukishima kei

Sakusa Kiyoomi

you're not oblivious to the fact that kiyoomi is a very conscious person

that's one of the things you loved about him

he was hygienic and he always made sure that his health was his utmost priority

but one downside is that kiyoomi had the tendency to push people away because of his straightforwardness

you were used to it and in fact, you were one of those people he tolerated

but everyone has their bad days

and unfortunately for you, today was kiyoomi's and since you were always attached to him by the hip, he unintentionally snapped at you

what's worse is that he snapped at you the moment you confessed to him

"Omi!" you shouted happily as you entered the gymnasium, giving Komori a small wave before making your way to where Kiyoomi was sitting.

He looked at you with a frown. He wasn't wearing a mask since they were training awhile ago and only took a quick break. "Y/n, what are you doing here?"

You sat beside him making Kiyoomi grimace and slightly move away. You frowned at him, completely displeased at the action. "I just wanted to give you a visit. Plus, I have something to tell you."

You started to fiddle with your fingers nervously. You practiced your confession several times already but doing it seemed harder than you thought.

"What is it? Talk, I'm not in the right mood to socialize right now."

Out of panic, you quickly blurted out a rather loud, "I like you!" You immediately covered your mouth with your hand and stared at him wide eyed.

The other players looked at you with sympathy, knowing what's about to happen. Out of all days, you really had to confess today, when Kiyoomi was in a pissy mood after several fangirls pushed themselves against him this morning, not minding his personal space.

Kiyoomi stared at you with a serious expression before standing up. "I don't like you. Leave."

"But Omi.."

"You're irritating and you always bother me when it is clear that I don't want your company." He turned around and left you on the bench, your head casted down in humiliation.

You whispered a small sorry before running out of the gym with tears falling from your eyes.

For the next few days, you did your very best to stay away from Kiyoomi. You changed your route to school knowing that your usual route meant that you have to pass by his house. Even if you got scolded several times for being late, you did not stop.

You sat near the door so you can easily exit the room after class. You even stopped eating with Komori and Kiyoomi during breaks and lunch. Even your usual routine of visiting the gym during practices was stopped.

At first, Kiyoomi didn't mind. He knew that you'd come back in a few days just like you always did. You like him after all, right?

But when a few days turned into weeks, He started getting bothered. Why weren't you pestering him like always? Why did you stop visiting him? You said you like him, right?

It was the second week that Kiyoomi took action. He woke up extra early to wait for you infront of your house, aiming to confront you about your behavior.

When you went out, your eyes widened slightly upon seeing Kiyoomi waiting for you outside. He was wearing his face mask while staring at you intently, letting you know that he purposely waited for you.

You looked down and was about to walk pass him when you felt him tugging on your wrist. Your gaze snapped to his hand, not believing that he was indeed touching your skin.

"Sakusa?"

His eye twitched at the weirdness of you not calling him like usual. Sighing, he stepped a little closer to you, hand still holding your wrist to ensure that you won't run away from him.

"You're ignoring me," he said while eyeing you. "Why?"

You took your hand from him and furrowed your brows. "I'm just doing you a favor. I don't want to be a bother anymore. Isn't this what you wanted?"

"I-"

"It's fine, Sakusa. You don't have to force yourself to apologize just because you feel bad or obliged to."

He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. "I'm not apologizing because I feel bad."

"Then what? You're apologizing just to make fun of me? I know I said I like you but that doesn't mean that you have the right to-"

"You don't get it!"

At this point, you were both raising your voices. Some passersby were looking at you two weirdly, some even running as to not get caught up in the fight.

"Get what, Sakusa? Why don't you tell me so I can understand?!"

"I like you!" Kiyoomi exclaimed. "I... Fuck. I like you, okay? I wasn't in the mood when you confessed and I rejected you without thinking. I messed up. The moment I saw you walk out, I knew I fucked up real bad and I-"

"Om-"

"And I thought that you'd come back the next day to bother me again like usual. I wanted to apologize but my pride-"

You sighed as he continued to ramble. With fast movements, you stood on your tiptoes and encircled your arms around his neck to pull him down to you, kissing him over his mask.

When you let go, Kiyoomi was silent. His eyes were wide and you thought that you went over board. Panic made its way to your face as you try to find the words to explain.

"Sorry, I didn't me-"

This time, he was the one to cut you off. Kiyoomi took off his mask and bent down to kiss you on your lips. One of his arms snaked around your waist to support you while the other settled on your nape, angling you to him.

"Be my s/o."

Tsukishima Kei

Everyone in Karasuno knew how much you like Tsukishima

In fact, you remind him everyday

You often give him fresh strawberries from the market and even bake him strawberry cake

Sometimes, you would put little sticky notes on his belongings and write some encouraging words like "you can do it", "I believe in you" or "take it easy!"

On his birthday, you even gave him a hoodie with a dino design (which he secretly loved)

There are times that you knew Tsukishima gets irritated when you visit and even snaps at you but you didn't mind. You liked him and a small snap will not discourage you

But what you didn't know was that it would only take one conversation to completely shatter your heart

"-And they're back," Sugawara said as he saw you enter the gym, a bubbly smile present on your face as usual.

"Kei!" You skipped your way towards Tsukishima and handed him his water bottle which you voluntarily refilled with hot water.

He only gave you a 'tsk' and took the water bottle. Adjusting his glasses, he stared at you from head to toe as if analyzing you, a small blush appearing on his cheeks.

"What are you looking at? Have you finally come to realize that you like me back?" you cheekily asked, poking his bicep.

"No. I was just wondering how someone could look so ugly."

Despite what he said, you forced yourself to giggle, covering your upset feeling with an eye roll. "Oh shut up, Kei. You don't have to hide it, you know? Don't worry, I'm not going to reject you."

You winked at him causing Tsukishima to blush even more.

The rest of the boys snickered and laughed at his reaction which made Tsukishima more embarrassed than he already is.

"Just confess to the girl already, Tsukishima. Can't you see she's trying hard to win you?" Daichi said with a small chuckle while patting Tsukishima's back.

Tsukishima just huffed and pushed his glasses up. "What's there to like? They're nothing but an eyesore anyway."

"What?" you asked in disbelief.

Having a playful banter with Tsukishima was normal in your routine but this was the first time he called you such an offensive term. Does he really think of you that way?

"Oh come on, stop acting dumb. I don't even get why there are guys running after you. I mean, there's really nothing much to look at, right?"

Everyone grew quiet at what he said, clearly not expecting Tsukishima to be at such level of rudeness.

You swallowed the lump forming in your throat as your insecurity skyrocketed. "I try hard every single day to look presentable to you. I-"

You paused for a moment to laugh pathetically at yourself. "I exert a lot of effort to make you notice me. I cook for you, I give you gifts. Heck, I even stay after class to help clean the gym so that the task would be easier for you and I'm not even asking for anything in return."

Tsukishima glared at you sharply that you immediately felt extremely smaller than him. "I never asked you to do those things for me."

"Can't you at least show me that you care?" You wiped your tears with the back of your hand. "Because I'm slowly getting tired of this push and pull game."

"Don't you get it? I don't like you. Why don't you stop pushing yourself to me and start getting a life, hm?"

"Tsukishima, that's enough!" you heard Daichi yell at him.

"Y/n?" Sugawara was immediately beside you, his hand rubbing circles on your back in attempt to calm you down.

"No-" You lifted your face up to meet Tsukishima's eyes. "I think he's right. I should stop being a nuisance and focus on myself."

"I'll leave you alone. I'm sorry," you said before giving Tsukishima a bow and leaving the gym with everyone's eyes following your figure until the door shut.

Everyone could only look at Tsukishima as he cursed under his breath.

"Shit."

The moment you left the gym, you headed straight to the comfort room to let your tears out. You stared at yourself on the mirror as tears cascaded down your cheeks.

"You're beautiful," you reassured yourself while pointing at your own reflection. "What he said doesn't make you any less. Know your worth."

You wiped your tears and splashed your face with cold water before getting out and heading to class without sparing Tsukishima any glance.

You ignored Tsukishima, stopped visiting the gym and focused on yourself. You even made made friends with some of your classmates that you didn't bother getting associated with last time because you were too focused on capturing the attention of Tsukishima.

Unbeknownst to you, a certain male was eyeing you as you interact with other people. He blamed himself for pushing you away. He didn't talk to you, thinking that you only wanted space for a couple days before bothering him again.

He knew that what he said was out of line and he regret everything he did. He even asked Yamaguchi and the rest of the team for advice but all of them responded with the same answer - apologize and tell you how he feels.

Tsukishima gripped the pen tightly as he watched you laughing at something your classmate said. The said classmate was too close to you and it was obvious that he was trying to flirt with you.

"Tsukki?" Yamaguchi called out. He followed Tsukishima's gaze and sighed. "Why don't you go and talk to them?"

"Tsk. Why would I do that? Can't you see they're enjoying his company?" Tsukishima bitterly said.

"You'll end up losing them if you don't do something about it now. Who knows, they might already be lo-" Yamaguchi stopped as Tsukishima instantly stood up and made his way to where you are.

Taking your wrist, he pulled you towards him, heading out of the classroom.

"Tsukishima, what the hell?!" You tried to resist but his grip on your wrist only tightened.

You gasped as he suddenly stopped, trapping you against a wall with his arms beside your head.

"I'm sorry." Tsukishima closed his eyes, balling his fist as he bowed his head. "I said hurtful words to you and no amount of apology will take those away but I want you to know that I regret every single one of it."

You bit your lower lip as you felt yourself tearing up once again. "Do you really think that I'm ugly? I was hurt, Kei. It's just.."

"I'm sorry." His hand made its way to your cheek, cupping your face while he wiped your tears with his thumb. "You're not ugly."

You shook your head and averted your gaze from him, a sob escaping your lips as you felt yourself falling for him deeper. "Don't. Just stop. I'll accept your apology but please just leave me be. I won't be able to stop my feelings for you if you keep leading me on."

"But I don't want you to stop."

"What?"

"I've fallen for you." He tipped your chin up with his hand making you look at him and you were surprised to see the vulnerability in his features. "Please look at me again, y/n. Keep loving me because I swear that I'll do things different this time. Give me a chance."

You can't help but encircle your arms around him, burrying your face on the side of his neck as you nodded repeatedly. "One chance, Kei."

Tsukishima hugged you tightly, lips pressing on the side of your head. "One chance." He leaned away from you and held your face with his hand, eyes boring to yours admiringly.

"You're beautiful."

Likes and reblogs are appreciated ❤️

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