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og-danny-dorito · 4 years

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Bucky Barnes SFW Headcanons

a new hyperfixation to avoid my growing anxiety with my personal life? yall already know whats up, and i'm feeling angsty so brace yourself

PUBLISHED : 2 - 17 - 20

S F W :

- to start off of a positive and happy note (jk you already know thats not how it works) its very likely that upon first meeting, any touch directed towards him is met with an alarmed grunt and/or a slap of your hand away

- anything unsolicited makes him nervous and uncomfortable, so if you really do want to pat his shoulder or hug him or something like that you'd have to ask if it's okay first. now it's pretty easy to see the reasoning behind this but for those doubting it i will explain

- big man has been trained to kill in hand to hand combat and advanced weaponry and countless other things, meaning that he's pretty much wired by this point to have a gut reaction that automatically goes to the fight or flight instinct. it doesn't make logical sense that he wouldn't get uncomfortable and jumpy at loud noises and unsolicited touching since his ptsd has accumulated over the years to MAKE him react like that. he doesn't want to accidentally punch you in the teeth

- like yeah he's all tough and shit and could break the a dude’s neck if he really tried, but the issue is that once his walls are broken down he's sort of akin to that of a regulated killing machine having to redo its wiring to be “normal” again. the transition itself would be traumatic, but the process of initiating it would be even more difficult

- so that means that in the first few months of his recovery, he probably would do a lot of absent-minded staring and just long spells of silence where he just doesn't do anything. it's sort of like a reloading point for his brain, and he starts to pick up the habit of daydreaming a lot. sometimes you'll have to say his name a few times to snap him out of it, but when he does come to he looks a little embarrassed

- it's not that easy to elicit an emotional reaction out of him. you'd have to be fairly close with him to actually get most responses out of him that are more than a word long, and so thus starts my favorite trope; hard depressed kill man falls for person who just Keeps Trying

- it's not that easy to get under his skin, but meeting him somewhere normally and constantly talking to him will probably start to make him feel more encouraged to speak in the sense of making normal conversation

- he's a little awkward so in this case patience goes a long way (as does with pretty much everything with him). it gets to the point where after a month or so he may feel weird if he doesn't talk to you at that specific time of the day. if he's grown that fond of you he'll even go out of his way to ask a few people where you are

- part of him hates getting this attached for a number of reasons. there's that nagging feeling in the back of his mind that his environment is temporary and getting attached to the things and people there will hurt him more than he'd like. while he knows that it's not temporary, that he's not leaving anytime soon and probably won't for a while, it all goes back to the killing machine thing

- when he was under hydra’s control, the only thing that was certain was the base he resided in and it's hard to come out of a state of mind where the only thing you know to be continuous is your continued existence as a tool. the place itself brings back horrible memories, but you get what i mean

- so initially he may resist conversation for that very reason

- he tends to pick up on details more than anything, and most of your smaller traits tend to make him quickly used to you. like for instance, if you're prone to pursuing your lips and narrowing your eyes at something odd you've heard or seen, he might find it cute mentally and then immediately correct himself for it. if you tend to snort a little and roll your eyes when you laugh, he's going to notice that and MAYBE try to pay more attention when something funny is said to hear it again

- i would generally think that he doesn't really have much a type or preference at all. in fact, i'm pretty sure the only thing he seemed consciously aware of that he likes in a partner is ability to understand. cause if you can't forgive him for the things he's done and see why he does what he does now, he can't bring himself to feel like he needs to go through all of his self hatred and doubt more intensely than he already is

- he probably is asexual as well but that's sort of iffy considering he's canon been in sexual relationships so that's a maybe. but he's definitely demiromantic. it's not that easy for him to find people attractive anymore. when he starts to get to know you better he starts feeling some sort of way and picking up on MORE details that you may not even notice yourself

- bucky is also incredibly skilled at remembering things you might've said a month ago and completely forgot about. some find this off putting and that's understandable, but when it comes down to it, its a product of sorta okay memory

- “My cousin almost flipped his car over this week.”

- “Phillipe?”

- “Uh, yeah. How did you...?”

- “You mentioned him two weeks ago... when he almost fell of your roof the week before.”

- “I did?”

- remembers dates, names, eye colors, and a multitude of other things, so sometimes he'll just mention something important you may have forgotten and pretend like he definitely wasn't paying too much attention to you. it's surprising how good his memory is even though he can't remember any of his past. so this most likely means that he has issues with remembering events and how they happened, but not the details of them. like how you can remember your shirt color a few week s back but not what you did while wearing that shirt

- and on that note, he kinda shuts down if he gets a weird flashback in the middle of something. they're mostly triggered by smells and sounds, but sometimes if he sees something while he's walking down the street he'll just stop and stare at it. it's best just to stop and stare at it with him, or alternatively if you don't want stares, act like you're taking a picture. but don't talk to him while it's happening cause it'll interrupt the train of thought and derail him completely

- he tends to talk a lot about things if he's grown very invested in them (he's very good at keeping focus). if you're out walking together or just sitting down he might stare and absentmindedly reach out to touch you before stopping himself at the last minute. gently grabbing his hand and placing it wherever he wanted to touch makes him flustered every time. that and hes super soft but is afraid to be vulnerable around anyone

- just gently grabbing his hand makes him all mushy, and it’s more often than not that he finds himself weak when someone shows pretty much any form of affection or endearment towards him

- probably not into pda though, not that much. he will hold your hand if you want to, but don’t expect to like sit in his lap or like straight upstart kissing in public cause any attention in a public setting makes him nervous

- really likes a kind of homey s/o. someone who likes to cook or bake or whatever makes him feel a little bit like he doesn't have to worry about something for a while. like if he comes home and dinner is just waiting on the table for him or you’ve already drawn a bath for him and/or made the bed or whatever, he literally appreciates that above pretty much anything else

- love language is most likely acts of service. hes not very good with words unless he like thinks it out beforehand, but pretty much buys you gifts all the time because he likes seeing you light up when you see them. he does try to spend as much time as he can with you but either anxiety gets the best of him or hes literally too busy, and so it ends up being more distant with him coming over a few times during the week, even if you live together. and we already know the deal with physical touch so im not gonna restate my strong belief in “big man has trauma no touch big man unless A S K”

- but a lot of the things he does are situational. one day he may be very down to be super affectionate and the other he’ll be painfully distant, but the main issue with all of it is that hes very very bad at communication

- this poses an issue for a number of reasons, but his responses and reactions are more physical than anything. so for instance, if hes uncomfortable with something he’ll start to shift and stare and be very tense the whole time it’s occurring, or if he’s feeling a bit more sad or depressed he’ll isolate himself and consistently stand slouched or look as if he hasn't gotten enough sleep. it’s mostly body language, but after a while he’ll feel safe enough to tell you how he feels about certain things

- this takes a while to actually happen, but when it does he manages to just,,, say things that are on his mind. like you’ll be reading or scrolling through your phone or whatever and he’ll randomly be like “The table has a lot of scratches on it.” it’s just observations he has, but usually it translates to him wanting to change the stated fact. best thing to do is just to roll with it, since hes practically learning how to communicate again and he’s picking up on things socially

- now let's get to the “a little fluffy” and “kinda-already-known” shit, shall we?

- miscellaneous headcanons;

gets jealous pretty easily in the early stages of your relationship, but only ever indicates this by staring the person in question down and refusing to admit to it later

likes having his hair put up into cool hairstyles and likes colored rubber bands (or hair ties if youre not where i'm from). seriously, he may loose his shit if you just like put cool braids in his hair one day like hes a viking or whatever

kind of tone deaf but his singing is more of like this raspy and slightly more “Misty Mountains” vocals sounding

is touch sensitive, so even doing something as small as like rubbing your thumb on his arm makes his hair raise on end

doesn't like his metal arm at all and quite obviously wears long sleeves all the time to hide it, but occasionally wears short sleeves when he's feeling less insecure

oh, super insecure btw and THATS why he feels all mushy when someone is kind to him because he KNOWS he's a freak and that he's weird but you're not still being sweet??? too pure, must protect

gives great hugs since he practically smothers anyone he meets with them, but is also basically a walking heater

is terrified of the idea of taking care of children or just anything weaker than him, but is good with them since they always hang on his arms and hold his legs when he walks

super strong

likes sweets a whole lot, specifically fruity sweets like apple pie or peach cobbler. never bring those wallmart cakes or whatever near him cause it'll be gone in like an hour flat unless you tell him to leave you some

- in conclusion, he needs therapy and probably won't be very responsive when he's not sure what to do. it doesn't mean he loves you any less, but he may have a hard time communicating it to you. all he really needs is some patience and a bit of understanding, and he'll get better with the whole s/o thing soon enough. cause you mean the world to him, and he doesn't want anyone or anything to make you feel like less than that

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heartbreakgrill · 4 years

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Circles; Harry Styles Pt. 2

“Remember Frankie? From World History? She has a baby now,” you remarked, voice like lyrics over the rhythm of your white tennis shoes and Harry’s leather boots stepping in time on the concrete bike path.

Leaves occasionally fell, crunching under your feet, sticks and stones on the path being kicked or broken away. The fall wind blew gently, waving strands of your air in front of your face. You had decided against lipgloss, luckily because your hair was so unruly. Harry’s curls, a beautiful feature of his which you always admired, were flopping with each step. You found your eyes trailing from his cheek to his hair consistently, simply admiring. He didn’t catch on much, his own focus glancing between you and the ground beneath his feet.

Lunch had been wonderful. He took to you the local pub, where you sat in the corner, knees bumping against each other after every movement. You shared a basket of fries, ate your own sandwiches and drinks. You caught up on everything: Your studies in London, who your friends were these days, the last boy who broke your heart. He told you about Louis and Niall, and only a little of Liam and Zayn. He explained the sketchiness of his management, the stress of touring, but his excitement on stage. You admitted to have listened to his two albums the night before and told him Little Thins became a quick favorite. You told him about your plan to move to New York when you finished University in order to delve into the world of international journalism.

After lunch, you didn’t want to leave one another, lingering in front of the door, still chatting, when you remembered the local bike trails. (“Gosh, I haven’t been there in forever.” “Same here.”)

So, now, you were strolling along, hands in pockets and elbows bumping somewhat. He replied to your comment about a forgotten classmate with, “God, its strange to think about people we know having children. Were only 19.”

You shrugged, “That’s normal around here, I guess. People settle down straight away, let go of their dreams for simpler, easier things.”

“I could’ve done that,” Harry spoke with a whispery tone. “Sometimes I wish I would’ve.”

You didn’t want to poke and prod at a comment that could turn into something bigger and moved on. “You’ve got money. Be happy.” Of course, this was a joke.

Harry laughed, “Money cant buy happiness.”

“Oh, I’m sure it could buy mine.” He glanced at you inquisitively. “Well, Im constantly stressed in London because of work and school. Its stressful and exhausting paying for my apartment and class and food and life.”

Harry frowned somewhat, “That’s part of the reason I hate it sometimes. I’m so lucky and undeserving of all I get just because I can sing and I’m attractive. You work so hard for what you have and you still struggle. It’s unfair.”

You retrieved your hand from your pocket and pushed him lightly, “I’m just confused as to who said you were attractive.”

He blushed deeply, his eyes downcast and shy. Suddenly he met your eyes and shrugged his shoulders. “You did say I was cute.”

Your own cheeks quickly turned red. “I’m gonna avoid my problems.” Your pace quickened and you began to walk away from Harry.

He giggled, emitting a grin on your face, and walked fast. Harry reached out and grabbed you around the waste, spinning you around in his arms. You caught yourself on his shoulders, feeling his warm breath combat the cold on your cheeks. He grinned cheekily down at you, eyebrows raised.

“I didn’t lie,” you unashamedly spoke. “Ive always thought you were cute. Hell, the only reason I came to the bakery so much was because of you.”

“What about the muffins?” He mused.

“Harry, a girl gets sick of eating muffins every single Saturday for 2 years in a row.”

He chuckled, squeezing your waist gently. But, then, his eyes fell slightly, his lips molding into a frown. His grip loosened and he almost stepped back. But, he didn’t. “Do you wanna go on a date tomorrow? With me?”

“I’d really like it if you could get Niall’s number for me, but I guess you’ll do,” you whipped your head around in exclamation.

He scoffed, laughing loudly, before pulling you against his chest. You just stood there, hugging each other lightly, though you were shivering in the breeze. Soon after, he walked you home and even kissed your cheek prior to leaving. You giddily walked up to your bedroom, bare of much decoration because of your schooling situation. You closed the door and leant against like a heartsick teenager. You felt the same way you did two years ago, head over innocent heels for some stupid boy. You didn’t know if this would work, given your future career and his present one. You didn’t know what his favorite color was, but he did telll you his favorite way to drink tea. You didn’t know who his childhood cartoon crush was, but you knew that when he looked at you, your stomach was in flames.

You didn’t know what you would regret in the future, as no one does. So you decided to jump.

Harry had definitely gone on Pinterest.

When you opened your door (only knowing he would be arriving at the time he did because you spent the entire afternoon, night, and morning texting one another) you immediately smelled the sweet fragrance of men’s cologne. It was nice, slightly overwhelming, but nice nonetheless. He held a bouquet of red roses, your favorite because you told him you were a fan of cliches. He wore a jade green button-up, short-sleeve dress shirt. It was obviously new, given away by the fact that there were creases in his sleeves. (His favorite color was ocean blue, by the way, and yours was the color of his shirt.) In his other hand was a picnic basket, which he held up to you after he handed off the roses.

“It’s freezing outside, Harry,” you giggled whilst motioning him to step inside. He did, following you into the kitchen.

You set the roses up in a vase as he replied, “I know. But its okay because I have a really nice idea.”

“Okay, I trust you,” you spoke reassuringly. You turned towards him from your spot by the counter.

Harry’s eyes trailed over your figure, clad in a long-sleeve, ocean blue wrap top tucked into a pair of blue jeans which stopped just above your black ankle boots. Gold jewelry dangled above the neckline and from your ears, your hair tied up in a low messy bun which took too much effort. “You look lovely, by the way.”

“You, too,” you grinned, meeting his eyes. “Guess we both thought of impressing one another.”

“I went to three different stores to find this,” he spoke as you began to lead him back to the front door.

“Uh, me, too. Don’t act so special,” you grabbed your coat off the rack and slipped your arms through it. Harry laughed.

You bid farewell to your parents, who were watching television in the living room. They gushed over Harry, about to ask him a million questions when you said, “Dinner reservations, sorry, got to go!”

You grabbed his hand and pulled him out the door. You didn’t let go, and neither did he, but he had to in order to open your door. You hadn’t expected this and hesitantly slid into the passenger seat. “Thanks.” You told him once he started the car.

After a few moments of adjustable, comfortable silence, you piped up again, “So, where exactly are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

You arrived to a park two towns over after half an hour. It was massive, with lookout spots all over the hills. He parked in one with the trunk of his mum’s car facing out over the countryside. He opened your door for you, again, and led you to the back of the car.

“Okay, Ted Bundy,” you giggled lightly, walking ahead of him.

“Oh, please, I dont want to kill you,” he scoffed, popping the trunk. “At least not until the nights over.”

“Why not?” You held his eyes, not yet looking to the trunk.

He shrugged, “Because I have to get a goodnight kiss first.”

He left you stunned, cheeks red and eyes wide. Harry sat down in the trunk, leaning back against the pillows and blankets decorating the small space. You grinned at him, as he was awaiting your reaction. He leant a hand and helped you settle next to him. You both crossed your legs in order for him to set the picnic basket down. He shut the trunk, the heater cranked up and the radio playing.

“Were wasting so much gas,” you laughed, shedding your coat.

Harry took it from you, folded it, and set it on the folded down back seats. He took off his own, “Dont worry about it. I’m rich, remember?”

You tossed your head back with a loud laugh. The hours flew by from there on: He had made finger sandwiches, which you ate with liberation, and homemade lemonade packaged in a thermos. His mother helped him melt chocolate and cover strawberries in it. He had even made a mini cake at the bakery and packaged it all nicely for you two to share. You talked about everything you hadn’t already discussed: Music, books, television, his supporting act on tour, your favorite professors. You told him about your dumb job waitressing, about the lady who had tipped you one-hundred euros.

Once you were done, you helped him pack up the trash. He set the picnic basket in the front seat before shutting off the car. The sunroof was closed, but the stars were visible through it. He laid down on the blankets, head smushing the pillows. You sat there for a moment, feeling slightly awkward, before he motioned for you to lay down, too.

You cleared your throat, face hot and body stiff, before doing so. There were barely a few inches between you, but Harry made sure there were none. He wrapped an arm around your shoulders and tugged you into him. You took the liberation to lean your head on his chest and lay your arm across his stomach. No words were exchanged, but they didn’t need to be. Everything that you could learn had probably already been said: Deeper stories, moments, could be exchanged later. A bond was now established and you already knew what was coming.

For now, you could only enjoy the moments that he was here: His hand in yours when he drove you home; hand in yours as you led him to the front door; lazily smiling down at you; a gentle, comforting hug; his eyes flickering between yours, your lips; his breath fanning closer until he stole his goodnight kiss.

“Guess you can kill me now.”

TAG LIST: @mantlereid , @boxofteenageideas , @dinosaursandsocks @ashhdaniellee95 @heartbreakcity @sadhwstudent

#harry styles x y/n #harry styles blurb #harry styles x you #harry styles x reader #harry styles fluff #harry styles imagine #harry 1d #harry styles fanfiction #harry imagine #one direction imagines #one direction

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flatstarcarcosa · 4 years

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pacrim cliff notes as decided by my dream, and my brain while idling in the bg when i was at work:

*ozai and iroh were drift compatible. they had 20 drops, 20 kills. really, it was always iroh having to put more effort into keeping the sync rate under control, something he secretly tired of.

*lu ten dies in an unrelated incident. ozai and iroh are on a drop, in a completely different country when lu ten ties while trying to get people to a kaiju shelter in a different unexpected attack.

*iroh puts significant amounts of effort into blaming himself. and ozai. and the military. pretty much everyone, when he’s in the anger stage of grief. it’s not a pretty sight and he ends up saying things to ozai he can’t take back.

*ozai genuinely had no idea how much silent resentment there was between them. in this au his biggest sin is being a bit too self involved and having trouble seeing things around him.

*well, that and the fact that he’s gay and repressed and was closeted enough to try and marry a woman and have two kids with her. azula is five and zuko is seven when he finally sits ursa down and tells her.

*he loves her, he does, he just. doesn’t love her in the way that he should, or that she deserves. she comments she always had a sneaking suspicion based on their troubles with trying to get pregnant, and the fact that as soon as they had the two kids and lucked out with “one of each”, he immediately stopped fronting on trying to be intimate.

*she is course, saddened by it. she allows herself a bit of anger and he allows her to have it, but otherwise, it’s a fairly amicable split. they end up with completely shared custody of the kids, ozai moves into a four bedroom apartment and lets her keep the house they’d bought, and he maintains the mortgage and all expenses for it. it is his way of trying to still do right by her, and she allows him to do it in the same way he allowed her to be angry. sometimes, she is still angry.

*ozai spends around two years in limbo while they try to find a replacement co-pilot for him. it’s not a good two years. the divorce happens during this time and an amicable divorce doesn’t mean there’s not a lot to deal with. the kids don’t understand. they’re too young to understand complexities of comphet and how it affected him, and they’re too young to try and do so without understandably just blaming him. but, ‘we’re getting a divorce but we still love each other’ is just as awkward.

*during this time both ozai and ursa begin noticing the separate issues with their kids. azula has a growing mean streak, she directs a lot of it towards zuko. zuko is too eager to please and bullied at school because of it.

*by the time the military gets around to me, and i come into the fold, ozai and ursa have been sharing the kids every two weeks for over a year. except, well. in theory, really. zuko developed a severe phobia about kaiju after his cousin’s death, and azula has convinced him he’s going to be specifically killed by one.

*except, she convinced him he’s going to get killed by a kaiju the size of a labrador, which caused ozai to find it more funny than alarming at first. until it got to the point that azula will NOT stop tormenting zuko, and zuko wakes up with night terrors about it, and now has a compulsion about making sure all the doors and windows are sealed.

*exhausted, and exasperated, ozai frequently defaults to “i’m sending you back to your mother”, using it as a punishment for azula. it is the biggest bone of contention between him and ursa because “she thinks IM the bad guy and it’s ruining my relationship with my daughter!”

*as such, azula tends to spend most of her time with ursa, and zuko with ozai. the two kids aren’t together as much as they should be, and it’s only because it would take too much time and money and effort to officially change the custody agreement that ursa doesn’t bother to contest it. she could, really, and she’d probably win full custody based on ozai’s work schedule alone, and the kids now being 7 and 9 but still young enough to need significantly more one on one time than they get from him.

*i’m still toying with the idea of just going full IndulgenceTM and merging this with my pacrim au for me n lester so i haven’t really thought up much for me aside from being super pissed about passing the tests, and unable to refuse them, really.

*the first time we drift, when it’s the initial real thing but ‘not actually in a drop’ drift, ozai comes out of it completely forgetting what it’s like to drift with someone for the first time. he also never knew what it was like to drift with someone that’s an unknown. i’d simply grinned at him and said “have fun with this, by the way” and boy was i being a super dick with that one.

#txt.txt #reezai au: synchronicity

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redrobinfection · 5 years

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(15) Horror Movies

SociallyAwkwardFox’s Spooktober - Day 15 “Horror Movies”

~*~

Tim loves his boyfriends. So, so much. But one thing that Jason and Dick both love that Tim just can’t wrap his head around: horror movies.

They’re watching one right now, the third of a trilogy Jay and Dick love, and Tim is sandwiched between them on the couch, feeling faintly ill.

Jay and Dick are the kind of people that get that something from a horror movie, the adrenaline or the enjoyment of their terror or whatever it is that hooks people. Tim isn’t and he gets nothing but is a sick feeling in his stomach and the impression that all the color has been sucked out of the world.

It isn’t the scenes themselves that get to him, because as terrible as it is to admit, he’s seen and experienced thing just as terrible, maybe worse, in his time as Robin. All of them have. Brutal serial killings, human trafficking tragedies, figurative and literal monsters left and right, not to mention the rogues. A run-in with Scarecrow’s fear toxin? That would make most horror movies seem like a pleasant summer picnic. Chasing and being chased by Killer Croc in the sewers in the dead of night? Monster B-flick gold. And the Joker? ‘Nough said.

No, for Tim it’s more about the way the scenes are presented - the cold, dark filters; the unnatural lighting; the haunting music and grisly sound effects. It turns a factually horrifying scene into an garish exaggeration, like a scene from one of his nightmares - you don’t fully believe its real, but it still strikes a chord deep in your psyche.

He can handle one movie. Easy to shake off. Maybe two, in the daytime. But tonight they watched three, using their one night off from patrol to stay up into the wee hours of the morning–as if they would ever think use that time to catch up on sleep or something.

Three-quarters of the way through the third movie, Jason notices Tim getting twitchy and asks if he’s okay.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s just getting late. I keep nodding off and then every time someone screams, I jump awake again,” Tim tells them, playing it off with a laugh. Dick and Jason laugh with him.

“No problem, Babybird, we’re almost done. We’ll let you sleep in peace soon enough.”

“Did you mean 'rest in peace’, Jaybird?”

“Ugh, Dick, staaaahp.”

They laugh and kiss over Tim’s head, then come at him from both sides when he makes a disgruntled noise for being squished between them, showering him in kisses and noogies and awkward side hugs. The warm moment of affection between the three of them almost distracts Tim away from the grim mood affected by the movies. Almost.

When they settle down into bed an hour later, Tim snuggled between the two of them–all of Dick’s limbs wrapped around him and Jason drooling onto his shoulder–the sick feeling, mental and physical, doesn’t budge. Tim spends the rest of the night staring up at the dark ceiling, mind circling the imagery of the movie in endless spirals. He closes his eyes and pretends to be asleep when Dick gets up at 4:30 to pee, and again at 5:15 when Jay startles awake for a few seconds at the sound of a car alarm blaring down on the street. When they all get up at nine the next morning, neither Dick nor Jason seems to be the wiser to his deception.

Tim spends the next day exhausted, but makes up for it with a jam packed schedule–keeping busy always helps–and copious amounts of caffeine. That night he goes out for a quick patrol, then turns in early, hoping to make up for lost sleep.

He can’t. He’s still awake, his mind bombarding him with the images of a decapitated zombie child crawling toward a screaming young woman in the grey rain as “mama, mama” whistles in the wind; the sounds of a man sobbing as he clutches his dead partner in the snow–her womb torn out messily–and the smells he imagines a child clinging to their mother’s green, long-dismembered corpse would experience when Dick comes in at three AM. He’s still awake–and pretending he’s not with every Bat-trained skill he has–when Jay comes in a half hour later.

He’s seen just as bad in real life–and how messed up is it to say that?–but here the imagery is also accompanied by such a deep sense of sorrow, lasting pain and depression. Lives, minds, souls ruined. He’s still wide awake as dawn begins to light the sky. He extricates himself from their sleepy dogpile while Jason and Dick are still in the deepest stages of sleep and heads down to the gym to get a few hours of training in to pump him up for another exhausting day.

He struggles through day two, barely functioning as he makes his way into night three. He volunteers to stay on comms for the night, citing some bullshit excuse about a sore ankle he wants to rest to keep Dick from worrying and Jason from asking too many questions. He stays up late, working on case docs, hoping that if works himself to utter exhaustion that he can just pass out at dawn. He tells Dick and Jay he’s doing it to make up for not going out, and they seem worried, but he promises he’ll rest in the morning.

He doesn’t. Daylight doesn’t bring any relief from the wild thoughts and images that pop into his head any time he tries to quiet his mind. He pretends to nap on the couch until Jay and Dick leave, then goes into Wayne Enterprises and works late.

He goes out as Red Robin that night–night four–but turns in early after he gets a call from Alfred asking about unexpected telemetry from the vitals sensors in his suit–racing pulse, high rate of respiration. He excuses himself with claims that he’s in a bit of pain from his “sore” ankle. It’s a lie. His body and his mind are hitting their natural limits, his anxiety levels increasing and his organs screaming for rest. He meditates for the rest of the night, feeling somewhat refreshed the next morning.

Day four is like a bizarre dream, time zooming past or crawling by in fits and starts. He loses his appetite and even coffee starts to lose its appeal, the smell of it making his stomach twist. By five PM swears the shadows at the corner of his office have started to ooze toward him and he jumps at every little sound.

That night he skips dinner, disables all telemetry in his suit, and goes out for solo patrol. Just a loop around his territory. Then he’ll stop, take a sedative, and pass out for twelve to fifteen hours. Sweat it out as the drugs force him to stay under no matter what nightmares may come.

His patrol is patchy, if that makes any sense. Some moments he is clearly aware of where he is and what he’s doing, and then there are whole stretches of time that are total blanks. Halfway through his loop he gets sidetracked to a neighborhood outside his scope after he hears about of a drug deal going down outside a middle school.

He handles the would-be dealers–high schoolers dealing to middle schoolers who were lucky Red Robin caught wind of the deal before Red Hood did–then retires to the roof of the school for a breather. He sits down between two AC units and lets his head fall back against one for a few moments…

—

Tim slowly comes awake to the sounds of quiet conversation around him, gentle fingers combing through his hair, and a soft bed under him. He blinks his eyes open, squinting in confusion at the overhead light of the room he shares with Jay and Dick. Who left the lights on? Wait, why is he in his uniform? Did he forget to take it off before he dropped into bed?

“Dick. Dick, shut up a second, I think he’s coming around. Tim? Timmy? You with us?”

Tim turns his head to the side with a grimace. His neck is sore like he slept hanging off the side of the bed half the night.

“J-Jay?”

The hand leaves his hair and Tim turns his head minutely to see Dick sitting beside him on the bed, running both hands through his own hair, expression a blend of relief and worry.

“Holy cow, Tim, you scared the crap out of us. What were you thinking?” Dick demands of him. Tim blinks, confused.

“Whoa, whoa, ease up, Dickie, give 'im a sec to reboot, 'kay?” Jason chides, settling down near Tim’s bare feet–-oh, someone removed his boots, gauntlets, belts and cape and unzipped the collar of his suit. He rubs a soothing circles into the arch of one foot. “Hey, Timbo, you know where you are?”

“The 'partment,” Tim answers slowly. Did he hit his head on patrol?

“Yeah. You know what time it is?”

Tim blinks. It’s dark outside, so he knows it’s nighttime, but when he tries to think back to the last time he remembers he can’t get it straight. He was on patrol? Which patrol? He can’t remember. Did he get drugged? Shot?

“No? You know what day it is?”

He doesn’t. He starts to panic. What happened to him? He tries to sit up.

“Easy, Tim. Just rest for a minute,” Dick soothes, easing him back down with a hand on one shoulder. Tim flops back, heart racing. He’s missing something, something important, something awful he should remember.

“Breathe, Tim, don’t force yourself,” Jason chides. Dick’s hand returns to his hair and Jason lies down beside him, now rubbing circles into his exposed hand.

Dark spots cloud his vision and he starts to shake. Why can’t he remember? Now that he’s more aware, why do his joints ache and his limbs feel like they’ve been filled with cement? Why does he feel so cold? Is he dying? Is he dead?

“Jay, he’s hyperventilating.”

“No shit. Timmy? Tim? Breathe with me okay?”

“Breathe with Jason, Tim. Nice and slow.”

“Hey, fo– on m–”

“Ti–”

Their voices fade out along with the sensation of fingers feeling for a pulse and hands pulling off his suit. Darkness fills his vision until there is nothing left but the darkness.

—

When Tim comes around again it’s with a hiss for the bright overhead lighting of the Batcave’s med bay. You’d think with all their resources they’d invest in a light dimmer at some point.

“There he is. Rise and shine, Timbo,” Jason’s voice calls from his left. He groans and tries to squeeze his eyes closed.

“Ah, ah, ah, no falling asleep again until you endure the wrath of Big Bird and Alfie. They’ve got a lot of choice words for you, Babybird,” Jason chides, squeezing his hand. Tim tries to curl onto his opposite side but freezes with a gasp when a sharp twinge in his right arm informs him of the IV inserted there. The numb, slightly clammy feeling on his right index finger speaks to the presence of a pulse oximeter clip. Did he get injured, he wonders?

No. Bit by bit, Tim’s head clears and snatches of memory come back to him. He’d been on patrol. He stopped to rest. No dinner. No sleep. Wayne Enterprises. Disabled telemetry. Solo patrol. The teenaged dealers. A middle school.

Disabled telemetry. Shit.

“H-how long was I out?” Tim asks, croaking around the dryness of his throat. He turns back to Jay in time to see Alfred and Dick walk into med bay, expressions stern and relieved in equal measure. Jason snorts at whatever expression Tim makes in response to theirs.

“About a day, in and out of it,” Alfred replies smoothly, voice cool and unamused as he raises the back of the bed to help Tim sit up. “You gave Masters Dick and Jason quite the fright, not to mention myself, going out alone and under the radar the way you did. I thought we had taught you better than that, Master Timothy.”

Tim shrinks in on himself. You know you’re in trouble with Alfred when he calls you by your full first name. “Sorry, Alfred. Dick. Jason. I haven’t really been myself the past couple of days,” he admits, thinking back on the past week. He cringes internally as he thinks about their last free day and all the stupid things he did in the resulting funk.

“I imagine you wouldn’t be, skipping meals until you passed out from exhaustion,” Alfred lectures sternly as he deftly removes the IV and pulse oximeter. Dick looks sad and disappointed. Jason looks unconvinced.

Tim shakes his head. “I wasn’t skipping meals - mostly - I just wasn’t sleeping very much.”

Dick raises his eyebrows. “Define 'very much’? Why weren’t you sleeping?”

“Uhhhh, well… not at all?” Tim replies shrugging with an apologetic grimace. Alfred shakes his head as he leaves med bay and Jason’s eyes blow wide. Dick makes a sound of indignation.

“Not at all?!” Jason echoes. “What the hell, Babybird? What were you thinking!”

Tim scrubs his hands over his face and deliberately ignores the question in favor of asking one of his own. “What happened? I remember stopping to rest on the roof of Parkview Middle and then briefly waking up back at the apartment.” He looks around the med bay then takes stock of himself. He feels fine now, but he vaguely remember feeling like he was dying the last time he was fully conscious. “Did I get hurt?”

Dick doesn’t look happy about the redirect, but shakes his head and takes a seat on the edge of the gurney. “Well, after me and Jay got home at four AM, realized you weren’t there, and found your suit was missing, we called Alfred and Babs to see if you’d been out that night.

"Alfred said he hadn’t heard from you, and neither had Babs, but she eventually tagged you in a couple of surveillance feeds along your route. We tried to call you on comms: nothing. Then Babs tried to find you on live surveillance: still nothing.” Dick’s expression is dark and his eyes drill holes into Tim.

“We were freakin’ out, Timmers,” Jason continues. “Like, did you get hurt? Did you get kidnapped? We tried to check your telemetry and got fuck all. No vitals, no location. Dickie here was nearly shittin’ himself thinking you’d gone and gotten yourself killed or somethin’”

Tim’s face heats up in shame.

“In the end we pulled out the nuclear option and activated your subdermal GPS beacon,” he explains, gesturing to the stretch of skin on Tim’s arm under which the small capsule resided, a measure they all–Bruce included–agreed to take in order to avoid situations just like this one.

“We found you on some random-ass roof four blocks off your route, passed the fuck out. When we tried to check on you, you nearly cleaned Dickie’s clock, kicked me in the cup–it still hurt, even with the cup, so thanks for that–then tried to throw yourself off the roof. After we got you to calm down and wake up a bit, you seemed to recognize us, understand where you were, and we escorted you home.

"Everything was fine until we got into the apartment, at which point you threw yourself across our bed, cowl up and belts on, and passed out again,” Jason explained, rolling his eyes at the ridiculousness of it. “You weren’t outwardly bleeding and your pupils reacted appropriately to light, so we thought you were just a little tired or whatever. When you woke up again, you were disoriented as fuck and freaking out. Then you went completely non-responsive and we freaked out. We brought you down here just to make sure you didn’t have a brain bleed or a punctured lung or something.

"A million scans and some bloodwork later and Alfie concluded you that probably hadn’t been taking care of yourself,” Jason concludes, pinning Tim with a severe look of his own. “And now we’re hearing from you that you haven’t been sleeping? Cough it up, Timbo. How long?”

Tim clears his throat and shifts his legs restlessly. “About five days.”

“Five days!” Dick exclaims, jumping up from the end of the gurney. He rounds to the other side, across from Jason. “Why?”

Tim shrugs and looks away. “I dunno, I just haven’t been able to fall asleep. I couldn’t shut my brain off.”

“Why didn’t you tell us you had insomnia?” Dick asks.

Tim shrugs again. “What would you be able to do about it?”

“Make sure you didn’t do something stupid like stay up all night filing reports or go on patrol with all your tracers turned off, probably,” Jason replies wryly. He stands up, bracketing Tim between himself and Dick. He narrows his eyes.

“You know, I can tell when you’re keeping something from us, Timbo. Spit it out. What’s been so heavy on your mind that it hasn’t let you get a wink of sleep for nearly a week?”

Tim tenses and curls in on himself subconsciously. “Nothing. It’s not important.”

Jason laughs mirthlessly and Dick frowns. “If it’s important enough for you to lose sleep over it, then it’s important to us,” Jason insists.

Tim mumbles under his breath, avoiding eye contact.

“What?”

“It’s nothing,” he mumbles a little louder.

“What was that? I couldn’t hear you, Timbelina,” Jason belts loudly into his ear.

“It’s your damn horror, movies okay!? I couldn’t sleep after we marathoned that trilogy on our night off,” Tim shouts back, scooting down the bed and throwing off the sheet. He swings his legs over the side, stands up, and only sways a little as the room swims around him for a second.

“The movies? They scared you?” Dick asks uncertainly as he steadies Tim with hand around his upper arm.

Tim shakes him off. “No, they’re just depressing as fuck. We see enough horrible stuff in our line of work, so sue me if watching it presented in a way intended to be emotionally gripping as possible puts me in a bit of a funk.”

He moves for the doorway, pretending not to be embarrassed that his ass is hanging out of the back of his hospital gown, only to be stopped by Dick darting in front of him, closely followed by Jason. They’re both watching him with concern, worry, and a tinge of guilt. Tim deflates. This was exactly what he hoped to avoid.

“Babe. You never told us they bothered you,” Dick starts while Jason says, “A bit of a funk? It must really bother you if it’s keeping you up for days.” They look at each other, then Dick nods to Jason. Tim sighs.

“What’s really going on, Tim,” Jason asks.

“That’s really all it is,” Tim replies, crossing his arms. “We watched the movies, I didn’t sleep that night and then it kind of snowballed from there, the sleep dep feeding the funk.” Looking at it objectively, after a good night’s rest, he can admit that the situation never should have escalated past that first morning; he should have taken a sedative and a day off right then and there to avoid falling deep into the funk.

“Is it really that bad? Why didn’t you tell us you don’t like scary movies?” Dick asked, looking for all the world like a kicked puppy. Tim groaned.

“It’s really not a big deal. Not usually. They don’t scare me, they just kind of… I dunno, haunt my thoughts for a while afterwards. You know how it goes; I overthink everything,” Tim admits, waving a hand dismissively. “And I didn’t tell you guys because I didn’t feel like being made fun of for being 'too scared to watch a scary movie’. Who would have believed me if I said they’re not scary, just emotionally disturbing?”

Dick opens his mouth like he’s going to object but Tim cuts him off. “No, don’t even try to tell me that you would. Look at Jay, at least he’s honest with himself.”

They both look at Jason, who is nodding along, looking chagrined. “Yeah, I’ll admit, if you’d said something, I probably would have teased you about it.” He gives Tim a look Tim can’t decipher. “You’re an odd one, Timbo, but there’s no arguing with the results. If it bothers you, it bothers you, whether it’s frightening or not. But if it bothers you so much, then why watch with us? You could have just told us you don’t like horror and gone to bed.”

“And not spend time with you guys?” Tim asks incredulously. “We get one night off together every two weeks, and you think I would just give that up and go to bed alone?” He shakes his head at them. “I put up with it because I wanted to spend time with you guys and I wanted you guys to do something you both enjoy. I didn’t want to be the wet blanket in the room that put a stop to that.”

Both Jason and Dick’s faces fall on hearing this, and in that moment Tim is done with this conversation. He tries to skirt around them, but Jason blocks his path.

“Move, Jason, I need to pee.” He does. IVs are great and all, but sleeping for twenty four hours through one, maybe two liters of fluids equals one very full bladder. He’s grateful Alfred didn’t stoop to inserting a urinary catheter just to punish him, even if it would have done him a favor in this one thing.

Jason crosses his arms obstinately.

“I will pee on you,” Tim warns.

Dick steps between them and places his hands on Tim’s shoulders. “Tim, it means a lot to us that you would put our enjoyment above your own, but it hurts a little to think you don’t trust us enough to let us know when something’s bothering you.”

“What Dick said,” Jason seconds. “Yeah, we’d probably tease you at first, but eventually we’d get that horror makes you uncomfortable and picked something else to do. We care about you just as much you care about us, ya know?”

Tim looks away, uncomfortable.

“Look, we’re not trying to blame the victim here, we’re just saying give us a chance next time, okay?” Jason clarifies, tone softening. “We deserve the opportunity to prove ourselves assholes or saints for ourselves, yeah?”

Tim snorts softly. “Yeah.”

They smile and Dick draws them both into a hug, sandwiching Tim between them. “Good. And we’re sorry, Tim. We should have noticed you weren’t having a good time and asked.”

“You did,” Tim admits, “But I told you I was 'just tired’ and you guys bought it. That’s on me.”

“Yeah, well, dealing with you–the guy who lies to Batman–we should have pressed the issue no matter how convincing you were,” Jason replies, pressing his face into Tim’s hair. “And you shouldn’t feel like we won’t take you seriously. That’s mostly my bad for teasing you so much.”

Tim presses his face into Jason’s chest and shakes his head. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” Dick says softly at his back. “But it will be.” Tim feels Jason smile into his hair and nod. He lets them hold him tight and close for a long minute.

“And no more horror movies around Timmy!” Dick exclaims belatedly, making Tim and Jason laugh.

“Definitely. We’ll save it for our solo dates, right Dickie?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Okay, this was nice and all,” Tim begins, squirming a little, “but I wasn’t kidding earlier; someone needs to let go now or I’m going to pee on Jason.”

“Eh, I’m fine with that,” Dick replies lightly.

“Dick, you dick!” Jason shoots back, but he doesn’t pull away.

“Stop making me laugh! I’m really going to pee on him!”

#my writing #christmasriverswrites #jaydicktim #spooktober 2019 #saf's spooktober prompts #polyamory #ot3 #my writing in the raw: barely edited #organic and covered in typos #does spellcheck count as editing?#tw brief mentions of gore #tw horror #tw sleep deprivation #tw panic attack #this is how I personally feel about horror movies; they don't scare me but i go into this horrible headspace and sometimes i just can't stop #thinking about how awful life can be sometimes #how messed up some psychological states get #it's not just horror; i don't like to watch a lot of fiction and non-fiction crime shows for the same reasons--i just overthink *everything*#maybe it's just me and i'm a weirdo but for the sake of fiction tim will be weird with me on this #this is four THOUSAND words. when. where. why. HOW. did that happen. it was supposed to be 800 max. *facepalm*#i betcha with the ''keep reading'' i'll get like 8 notes max #prove me wrong tumblr

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chemicalmagecraft · 4 years

Text

The Gamer Hero, Deku Chapter 20

We were gathered back in the arena field. Midnight explained to us how the next part of the sports festival would go. For the teams who won the cavalry battle, there was the combat tournament. The rules were simple. In each fight, we had to either incapacitate our opponents or remove them from the arena. And before the tournament, there would be other games that everyone could participate in. Even the tournament combatants could attend them, but Midnight-sensei suggested we not do that, because we should conserve our stamina. That really wasn't an issue for me, but I decided not to participate in those battles because it could be unfair to the others. Before we drew lots to see our placement, Ojiro raised his hand. "I'd like to withdraw from the tournament!" he declared.

"Oh?" Midnight said. "What brought this on? You do realize you're probably going to miss out on a chance to be scouted, right?"

He grimaced. "I don't even remember the cavalry battle. I don't want to move on to the tournament if I didn't even really do anything."

"Whoa, that's so manly!" Kirishima yelled.

The other member of Team Shinsou, Nirengeki from class 1-B, raised his hand. "I'd also like to withdraw, for the same reason..."

Midnight grinned. "I like your spirit! Alright, you two are out of the tournament! Now we need to get some students to replace them!"

After that, it was agreed that Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu and Shiozaki Ibara from 1-B would take their places. We all drew the lots, deciding who we'd fight and in what order. It was just my luck that I was in the first match against Shinsou. And then I'd probably have to face off against Todoroki after winning that...

"Midoriya, right?" someone asked me from behind. I turned to see Shinsou.

I opened my mouth to say something, but Ojiro's tail wrapped around my face before I could. "Don't say anything," he cautioned me. Shinsou snorted.

I removed Ojiro's tail from my face. "Because of his Quirk, right?" I asked. Shinsou stiffened. "If I had to guess, it's a mental Quirk. Some sort of mind control, tied to... people responding to something you say?"

He sighed. "Yeah, that's about right..."

"It sounds amazing for hero work. Too bad the entrance exam was robots, huh?"

Shinsou stared at me incredulously. "You... don't think my Quirk is villainous?"

I shrugged. "Quirks aren't really villainous. Well, if you have a sentient Quirk like Tokoyami's Dark Shadow that actively wants to be a villain then you could make that argument, but Quirks are normally controlled by the user. They're tools." I pointed at him. "If you use your Quirk for hero work then you have a hero's Quirk, and if you use your Quirk for villainy, then you have a villain's Quirk. Still, your Quirk would let you deescalate hostage situations and other villain attacks without having to fight, and even if you have to fight then there's always the possibility of a villain slipping up in the middle of battle. To be honest, I'd place a mind-controlling Quirk like yours pretty high on the list of Quirks I'd like if I didn't have mine."

Shinsou's face softened. "You know, Midoriya, you're the first person I've met who didn't call my Quirk villainous."

"You should probably sue your Quirk counselor for malpractice, then."

He chuckled, then turned around. "You're a good man, Midoriya. I won't bother you again."

"Wait." He stopped. "I think it's only fair if you know a few things about me. First, there's a pretty good chance, depending on how our Quirks work, that your Quirk won't affect me right or might even just fail to work on me."

He raised an eyebrow. "How so?"

"My Quirk, The Gamer, works somewhat along the lines of RPG logic, meaning that among other things I have passive skills that grant me various affects," I explained. "One of them is Gamer's Mind, which came with my Quirk. It says that I have immunity to psychological status effects."

"I... see."

"I mean, I'll try not to get hit by your Quirk anyway because that's very unspecific, but I just thought you should know. I also have two other passives I think you should know about, Physical Endurance and Damage Reduction."

"So let me guess, physical attacks are useless on you."

"Not useless, but they do so little that to you it might as well be. Magical attacks aren't included in Physical Endurance, so comparatively speaking that's my weakness."

He sighed. "I guess I know what I'll be doing during the break."

I Observed him. "You have affinity for the sonic element, by the way. I'm guessing it's either because of your voice-based Quirk, or if any of your relatives have a more traditional sound Quirk, or maybe both?"

"So I have sound magic?" he asked. I nodded. "Good to know. Thanks, Midoriya."

"Was that really a good idea?" Ojiro asked after he walked away.

"Even with what I told him, he's probably not going to beat me, considering our stats and abilities," I said. "And if he displays more than just dependence on a powerful supporting Quirk, then he's more likely to get in the hero program."

"I guess..."

xoxoxo

"Seriously, are you two fucking dating yet?" Kacchan asked Tsu and Uraraka now that we were in the stands watching the pre-tournament game.

"What makes you think that?" Tsu asked, blushing slightly.

Kacchan raised an eyebrow. "Fucking seriously?"

Uraraka hid her blush behind Tsu's hair. It was easy to do, between Tsu having a lot of hair and the fact that Tsu was literally sitting on Uraraka's lap and snuggling up against her. "In my defense, I like body heat because I'm a frog," Tsu muttered.

Kacchan shrugged. "Sure, why not?" He then turned his attention back to me. He knocked on his seat in the passcode, so I invited him to my party.

acridThermogenesis: hey dont be mad

acridThermogenesis: but i may or may not have eavespropped on your conversation with half and half

acridThermogenesis: *eavesdropped

acridThermogenesis: what the actual fuck is my name deku

I sighed. I really should have noticed him. Actually, one of my elementals should have told me he was there.

conjuringGamer: Don't eavesprop on other people's private conversations, Kacchan!

conjuringGamer: This is your punishment!

acridThermogenesis: oh fuck you and your stupid references

conjuringGamer: How, exactly, do you get what this is a reference to anyway?

acridThermogenesis: fuck

acridThermogenesis: you

acridThermogenesis: and why the fuck did you never tell me that you were related to the ex number two hero

conjuringGamer: WDTAU

acridThermogenesis: the fuck

conjuringGamer: We Don't Talk About Undertow

acridThermogenesis:

acridThermogenesis: fair enough

acridThermogenesis: and in my defense

acridThermogenesis: half and half has been glaring at you for gucking ever

acridThermogenesis: 8fucking

acridThermogenesis: **fucking

acridThermogenesis: fuck why cant i type today

conjuringGamer: You do realize you used to be worse to me, right?

conjuringGamer: And I can certainly handle myself against Todoroki in a fight, if that's what you were worried about.

conjuringGamer: Or I could've just ran with Illusion Barrier.

acridThermogenesis: shit i dont know man

acridThermogenesis: stop busting my nub or whatever the fuck trolls say

acridThermogenesis: im sorry

acridThermogenesis: fuck it ill say it without the stupid accent so you know im serious

acridThermogenesis: I'm sorry, Deku.

conjuringGamer: Don't worry, I forgive you.

conjuringGamer: I was just messing with you.

acridThermogenesis: WELL DUCK YOU THEN

acridThermogenesis: fuck

acridThermogenesis *FUCK

I chuckled a bit. Annoying Kacchan was fun sometimes.

Uraraka Ochako: Um.

Hatsume Mei: Well this is awkward

Tokoyami Fumikage: I Think You 4cawt To 4emove Us 4om 4 Pa4ty, Mid4iya.

"Duck," Kacchan muttered.

"What?" Tsu asked. Uraraka snickered, then spat out a long strand of green hair.

xoxoxo

I walked down the corridor to the stadium. It was time for the first match. I took a deep breath, then felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around to see All Might in his emaciated form. "Good luck, young Midoriya."

I nodded. "Thank you, All Might." I turned back to the opening and walked into the stadium.

"AND ON ONE SIDE," Mic-sensei shouted over the roar of the crowd, "WE HAVE THE KING OF MAGIC, MIDORIYA IZUKU!" I walked up to the stage and saw Shinsou emerge from the other side of the stadium. "AND ON THE OTHER, WE HAVE THE ONLY STUDENT FROM GEN ED TO MAKE IT TO THE THIRD ROUND! MASTER OF THE MIND, SHINSOOOOU HITOSHI!" I looked at Shinsou's level.

Give 'Em Hell, Kid

LV 19

Shinsou Hitoshi

"No hard feelings, right Midoriya?" he asked me. I shook my head, careful not to talk. To be honest I was looking forward to seeing what he'd thought of for me.

"WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, LET'S START!"

Shinsou smirked. The roar of the crowd died away, replaced by a ringing in my ears. He started to walk forward, and I heard the sound of his footsteps over the ringing. It was very loud, almost like the sound was reverberating all around me. Before I could react, I felt like all my sense of balance was lost, and I had an extreme feeling of nausea. I clutched my stomach, trying my best not to topple over. "Neat, huh?" he asked me, his voice amplified like the sound of his footsteps. I grimaced. My head was swimming. "I got the idea from my mother's Quirk. She can disturb people's inner ears with the sound of her voice, making them disoriented. I figured I could mimic that with sound magic. Judging from your reaction, I did pretty well."

I braced myself on an air platform and gathered my thoughts. It looked like he was taking his time moving because he had to concentrate on the spell, but it seemed like he was starting to get more comfortable, so that might change soon. Tactician told me that the effect the spell had on me manifested in the status effect Dizzy. I used Healing Hands on my head, causing the nausea and balance loss to fade. The ringing stayed, though. It felt more like it was the medium for Dizzy than a part of it. "Sonia," I thought.

"No use, Izuku," she replied. "Can't work with magic sound."

"Yeah, I figured it wouldn't be that easy." I kept up the Healing Hands with my left hand, though I knew that that meant I couldn't use it for any magic aside from the healing spell.

"It looks like you figured out a way around that. I wonder if you can keep it up while fighting me, though." He raised his hand and snapped his fingers at me. I Flash Stepped out of the way of the resulting shockwave thanks to the improved reaction time my high DEX gave me, but crashed into the ground when I was struck with Dizzy again in midair. I groaned. Flash Stepping shouldn't have caused Healing Hands to fail... "Looks like your healing spell can't keep up with it when you go that fast."

"That's probably it," I muttered as I started to get up. I noticed my mistake when the ringing in my ears stopped. For a second I felt very faint, like I was about to pass out. I almost fell back down. The feeling passed after a second, with a popup saying that the status effect Brainwashed had failed to affect me because of Gamer's Mind. "Ah."

Shinsou smirked. "So you are immune to my Quirk, but it still stuns you for a second." The ringing returned, and with it Dizzy. I noticed that my Healing Hands had slipped when Shinsou tried to use his Quirk on me. I put them back up, keeping both hands up this time.

"Limit Break!" I shouted, the glow of my Healing Hands getting brighter. "Healing Fists!" I jumped at Shinsou.

"Wait, what?" Shinsou said, then just barely managed to duck out of the way of my punch. The effort broke the spell, making my hearing return to normal. "Right, that's it." He took a deep breath and screamed at me with sonic magic. The shockwave hit me dead-on, blowing me back a bit even though I'd braced myself. I retaliated with a blast of wind strong enough to blow him to the edge of the arena. With a small gesture, I had Dune shift the ground under him, dumping him out of bounds. "Dammit."

"THE MATCH IS OVER!" Mic-sensei shouted. "Man, what was up with Midoriya? Did he eat a bad omelette or something?"

"If I had to guess, Shinsou did something," Aizawa-sensei said. "He either found a new use for his Quirk or made some sort of disorienting spell."

"If it was magic, wouldn't there have been some sorta glow?"

"Not all magic glows, Mic. You know this. You've literally used non-glowing magic."

I walked over to Shinsou. "Sorry about that," I said as I offered him my hand.

He took it and pulled himself up. "I'll consider it payback for the ear assault. Speaking of which, how're your ears? Would probably suck if I deafened you."

I gave him a thumbs-up. "I'm good, thanks to my Healing Hands. Though you might want to test it again with me or Shuzenji-sensei around, if you're really worried about that."

He nodded. "Probably a good idea."

xoxoxo

After making sure that Shinsou wasn't hurt from when I knocked him down, I went back to the section of the stands where class 1-A was supposed to sit. Ojiro was waiting for me by the door. "Midoriya!" he shouted. "Are you okay?"

I grinned. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Deku!" Kacchan shouted from his seat. "The fuck was that?"

"Shinsou can use sonic magic now," I told him, then sat down next to him. "What you saw was him wreaking havoc on my inner ears."

"Damn." He chuckled. "So that was probably more difficult than your next fight's gonna be."

"What do you mean be that?"

Kacchan snorted. "We both know that between your ungodly physical defense and your elemental magic, the only person in the tournament who can match you in a straight fight is me, maybe also Uraraka but I'm gonna fucking destroy her. Half'n'half-"

"His name is Todoroki," I reminded him.

Kacchan rolled his eyes. "Todoroki might come close if he actually applies himself, but all he's really done is throw ice around. I'm guessing from what we already know about magic and Quirks that while Half'n'half's Quirk has ice magic acting to freeze shit, the ice itself isn't magical, meaning you can use an elemental on it easy. And even if not, can he really fucking put up with your bullshit as well as I can?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right..."

"And even though Tape Dispenser-"

"Sero."

"-might have a chance of winning against Half'n'half, can he even do a fucking thing to you?"

I thought about that for a moment. "It's probably arrogant of me to say that there's no way for him to beat me, but it isn't really likely, is it?"

"No fucking chance of that happening. Now shut up, the match is about to start."

Todoroki and Sero walked into the arena. As soon as the match started, Sero shot tape at Todoroki, wrapping him up. It looked like he was about to throw him, but...

Todoroki, without even moving, created the biggest wall of ice I'd ever seen with his Quirk, obstructing my view of the arena. It was so big that it cast a shadow over half the stadium, and Mifuyu told me the ice actually extended far above the top of the stadium. I scowled, my breath fogging up from how close the ice was to my face. "Kacchan," I ordered.

"Right." He summoned Pyra, and they started warming up the suddenly very cold area with light streams of fire. "You might wanna keep the water from drippin' on anyone, Tsu," Kacchan suggested.

Tsu just shivered and sluggishly buried her head in Uraraka's chest. "K-kero..." Uraraka wrapped her arms around her gently.

"Fuck. Right, you're a frog..." Kacchan sighed, then sent a few more flame strings around Tsu. "Deku, can you leave your water elemental here?"

I nodded, summoned Rayne, then slapped the metal railing meant to prevent us from falling onto the field. A microsecond's worth of Lightning Embodiment later, and I was on the other side of the railing and far enough to the left that I didn't crash face-first into ice. I stormed up to the arena, but looked toward Midnight before actually getting up on it. She was iced over...

"G-g-go r-right ahead, M-M-Midoriya," she shivered. I nodded and summoned Mifuyu and Blaise, who started helping Midnight, then stomped over to Todoroki.

"That was excessive, even for you!" I shouted, then shoved him away from Sero, who he was trying to melt out of the ice. With a gesture, I ejected him from the ice, grabbed him, then started warming him up. I checked up his sleeves and pant legs with probably a little more force than was actually necessary to make sure he didn't have any frostbite, then turned back to Todoroki when Blaise took over warming Sero up. "You do realize that your ice can kill, right?" He looked remorseful. Good.

"I was going to thaw him..."

I sighed. "I don't just mean Sero."

He tilted his head. "What?"

I stared at him incredulously for a moment before waving my hand in the general direction of the giant iceberg in the middle of the stadium.

"I'm aware that I used a bit too much force, but I made sure to stop the ice before it reached the audience."

"And if you didn't?" I demanded. "If you overdid it so much as a bit more, then people would have died. Hell, if anyone in the audience has a Quirk that makes them more susceptible to the cold, then they could be going into shock as we speak! I've got an elemental keeping an eye on Tsu, and Kacchan's keeping everyone warm, but that's still an issue!"

Todoroki blinked. "Oh."

"Why did you do that?"

"I was annoyed from talking to my father, and I took it out on Sero. I apologize."

I clenched my fist. "Limit Break: Sublimation," I intoned. My arm buzzed with One for All, and steam rose from it. Without even looking away from Todoroki, I swung my arm back, shattering the iceberg into powder with a combination of ice magic and sheer force. The powder was quickly vaporized by the vapor magic I'd also put into my punch. "I sympathize with you Todoroki, I really do. But if this is the way you're going to act then I'm going to beat you." With that said, I turned around and walked through the mist I'd created to get back to my seat. With DEX only a little out of human bounds, I vaulted up the wall to the stands, nimbly pivoting on the railing and landing back in the chair I was sitting in before.

"Damn, Deku," Kacchan whistled.

"How's Tsu?" I asked Uraraka.

Uraraka stroked Tsu's hair gently. "Tsu-chan fell asleep. Should I wake her?"

I shook my head. "It's probably best to let her sleep, at least for now." I turned back to Kacchan and Observed him. "Do you need me to restore your MP?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "Normally I wouldn't take you up on that, but I've seen Uraraka training and I'm pretty sure that if she was one hundred percent and I wasn't then I would fucking lose."

Uraraka beamed. "Wow, Kacchan! That was basically a compliment! And it wasn't backhanded or anything."

Kacchan rolled his eyes, though he had a small grin on his face. "Fuck you, Round Face."

#bnha #bnha fanfiction #fanfiction #The Gamer Hero Deku #Gamer Hero Deku #GHD CH20

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tumblunni · 6 years

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Bellsprout...

It.. So fragile...

Thos feets, so little! Its so thin! Its a literal lil noodle! It sways in the wind so much when it walks, its feet dont even move like feet but more like leeches which are my Favourite Worm for how dumb their mannerisms are. Seriously they go up and balance on their tail and periscope around and then they streeeetch and somersault to reach stuff! Theyre like actual living slinkies except they go up the stairs too! Bellsprout's rooty weirdness has that same kind of animation in its walk cycle, but the bizarre speculative idea of a monster made of like four worms all tied to another worm for a torso?? Its just so goofy how itll streeeeetch out the one wiggle foot and periscope it around too even tho it doesnt have eyes so its more like i guess its just very uncertain balancing on its squiggles and uses the roots on the end to detect whether the ground is stable? But then after the slow step of introspection before walking its just like PITCH FORWARD AND BECOME A BICYCLE! rapid flailing legs maximum speed like that basilisk lizard that runs on water! Its like its scared itll pitch forward if it ever stops? And then it does a little balance wiggle at the end and its just so cuuuuuute!

And AAAA its other animations when its not walking too! Its SO FRAGILE!! i want to protect you my baby!! It wiggles in such a cute battle dance cos it struggles to stand upright aaaa! Its head is so big and like all of its organs are in there NO WONDER its so wiggly flop! And its feets and hands are just so weak but it tries so hard!! It must be like a tiny bug landing on your hand or someone thwapping you with a singular taglitelle. And the leafs are even cuter cos theyre animated so..damn.. FRAGILE! everything is so soft in this art style aaaagh its killing me!! "I'm a powerful monster" nooo you are made of hugs and sunshine with the very barest shreds of physical form. But aaaa bellsprout is trying so hard it has so much personality like i wanna support it in being strong and scary and tell it someday it really does become badass and also able to fly for no easily explained reason! But THE LEAFS! OKAY THE LEAFS!! They're so much flatter and thinner than i expected? Like theyre just super generic primary coloured children's show doodles of leafs and the anime never really drew them with a good sense of 3D movement and width and stuff. I dunno if the models in sun and moon really showed a similar thing cos i never used a bellsprout? But i know this art style is just suuuuch a pretty fusion of the realistic shading in Go and the cartoon aesthetic of the main games that i'll wanna catch every pokemon for the first time ever! ITS LEAFS ARE LIKE TISSUE PAPER THIN SOMEONE PROTECT THIS CHILD!!! aaa and the wiggle animation is so cute cos they bend at angles in a sort of S-pattern like waving a fan in fancy style? Or i guess like how you might imagine wings to work if they only had one feather. Bellsprout is such an interesting well executed speculative biology idea and i never even realized before!!

And of course its BIG DOPEY FACE!! seriously its so cute how just adding two dots to a pitcher plant instantly makes it an awkward cute version of a horse head. THEY SOMEHIW MADE A NON SCARY SEVERED HORSE HEAD ON A STRING. I CAN NEVER UNSEE THIS NOW!! And then it has a mouth on the end of the nose and again this sounds terrifying when i put it in words but in actuality its FUCKIN AMAZING GOOFBALL SNOOTBEAN!! Just.. Lil dot eyes and really long face and then a big goofy happy smile at the end and aaaawwwwwww bebby

Oh man now im remembering why i didnt like bellsprout as a kid! I think it was entirely cos its evolutions changed to being just the head and then not having a mouth anymore even. And the grumpy badass eyes instead of bean! Tho as an adult i can appreciate that it must have taken a lot of effort to find a way to badassify such a goofy concept! And i feel proyd of bellsprout growing up to be the apex predator of the jungle who eats tigers n stuff. U go bebby u achieve u dream!! But still the wiggly noodle feets were SO CUTE and the bean eyes were SO CUTE and its a shame theyre the two things that go. Even if it does possibly make sense that the feets are so vestigal if its just a temporary stage before it learns how to fly. I mean birb feet are little? Tho they dont outright lose them when they grow up. Tho a birb that was just a limbless orb with a grumpy face like victreebell would actually be real cute! MAN IM GOING SO OFFTOPIC

Anyway in summary Let's Go has made me appreciate Bellsprout more and i am no longer sad that i cant get oddish in this version. Tho i still find it super cute in this art style TOO and i wish i could hug both the classic plant bebbys! Smoochie smorch u r my cat now and i will feed u all the snacks here is your scratching post and fluffy bed. OH YEAH THAT REMINDS ME did you guys see the drifloon that sleeps in a dog bed in sun and moon?? Its in ilima's house! I like to headcanon that maybe its the ghost of his mom's stoutland in the picture? Cos why would a family of normal type specialists have a drifloon? PRIME GAME THEORY YEAH! oh and the magnemite in a cat bed in one of the hotels i think?? Also Prime Bebby. Please consider all these good friends. And also imagine my super beloved bellsprout who shall be joining them soon! Seriously aaaa i went from neutral opinion on this pokemon to WHY CANT IT BE THE STARTER WHY CANT IT SIT ON MY HEAD within like FIVE SECONDS OF GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE

Godddd im so excited to see more footage of more mons so my heart can explode again and again! Im gonna straight up die from the power of these cuties!

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survivorkalokairi · 6 years

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Episode 1: “How do I bond with people” - Mitch

Dylan C

https://youtu.be/MiBLiRlSzFc

Stephen

It’s round one and I’ve already learnt a foreign word for pee, this seasons gonna be great

Cam

hello everyone and welcome to HOLY FUCK by cameron, your local certified sick kid

so first of all

I HAVE DYLAN AND MATT SUMMERS AND MITCH ON MY TRIBE

which is all fine and dandy

ABBEY IS ON? THE OTHER TRIBE?

which is also fine and dandy

blake is super sweet and i adore this newbie already!! he's like "im so overwhelmed im in two games"....... sweetie

BUT ALSO

so i message jay to idol hunt

"first in line"

i say "this is door 9 all over again!"

i wait about 15 minutes

go through the path, dee dee dee dee dee

"fountain or pay an offering to the statue"

me, in my hellenic witchcraft practices, knowing the goddesses really like offerings, gonna offer aphrodite some food (sorry hera)

guess what aphrodite gives me?

an idol. she gives me an idol. i'm truly blessed. this is ridiculous. i got the idol the very first idol hunt of the season.

i'm shaking.

Dylan C

oh my god how to I play a game with my close friends sksjsh (i’ll make a Proper confessional later)

Brittany

i've been doing duolingo for, like, an hour now and there are so many ways to say the. i've counted around 4. it's pretty fun though, and everyone on my tribe seems really cool and nice cx

Zabbey

Wow ok so my tribe is really cute and wholesome so far. I'm playing with JG, Timmy and Stephen which is cool bc i lowkey know them all but I've never played with them so thats fun! I cant really speak on the newbies since I havent really talked to any of them yet but I'm excited to get to know them! It's wild knowing cam and dylan are on the other tribe, I hope i get to play with them too!

Stephen

Cal is the best, i would love to work with Cal, JG, Timmy, and Zabbey. But i’m still gonna gove the other new guys a chance, still very early days to start making alliances. That being said I’m still very happy we have had a majority on a call, make some ties. *glares at atomic “all-stars”*

Zach

So uh...so far nothing. Unless I’m completely out of the loop. I really like my tribe mate Zabbey. She seems cool and we have the same sense of humor. I really hope to align with her, but we’ll see how it goes. I also really admire Maynor for volunteering to sit since he has to work today. So far I think our tribe vines well. No tea to spill yet, but I’m sure there’s more to come.

Alex

Many people werre talking about drag race and I've never seen it and I kinda knew this would happen to me at some point in mylife when I end up being the bad gay who hates Lady Gaga and hasn't seen drag race and we're here folks. lol I guess I'll stay quiet and hopefully noone will find out

J.G.

Night one was, interesting to say the least. I was a little worried because I knew that I had to work during the first hour of the game and with new people I did not want to miss out on the bonding opportunities. Shockingly few were active among the noobies mostly Zach and Cal. The vets on my tribe, I actually know which is wild. Stephen and I have played together in the past, not together but there is for sure no bad feelings, that I know of. Abbey and Timmy I have never played with them but I know of them from the community. I have always wanted to play with them and excited for this opportunity. I know from a viewer this will come off as boring but I do feel that sticking with the vets is going to be smart at least in the early stages but mark my words, if I have any say, Abbey will be the last boot before merge. There is no way hell, I am letting her get any where near merge, I am not dumb no what she can do. Sorry Abbey, you're queen but the queen is not gonna stay queen. I really want to make a three tight alliance with Stephen and Timmy and ride with them but they could always tip off Abbey and use it to their advantage so I need to just chill and let things play out. I feel that if we are to go to tribal in the early stages, I can picture two noobs being easily targeted for inactivity. Oh, let's also talk about how I got freaking 20% disadvantage night one like I always do, and then turn around to get a 10% advantage the next day. I'm mess but I'm gonna keep eating these grapes because they're pretty good.

So I was really sure I was going to be in the first alliance of the season amongst the vets but nope that didn't happen. I am in a unprecedented alliance with Abbey, yeah the person I said I want to make sure gets out before merge and Zach. Our alliance is called Two Gays and a Bi-by ... iconic as fuck. With a smaller tribe starting size with 8, smaller alliances are key plus I feel that we can easily pull some side votes for numbers to honestly keep our alliance alive and active. This makes targeting Abbey really hard cause it could turn Zach against me. I will have to be very cautious, how I go about this. I also talked to Cal and was making sure I connected with him cause I know he was putting work in on Timmy and Stephen last night. That is something I will have to monitor. That can not be allowed to happen. I think working with Timmy would be fun and cool but it's looking like that if after a early not so active noob goes and we need to find another target, I think Timmy would be a fine first threat to knock out leaving Stephen and Cal up in the air.

Cal

Lots of stuff! I was late to the party at the intro but got to chat with Timmy, JG, and Stephen. I learned about their past in the community as well as talked about the many moods of trying to learn greek. One such mood is probably me always confusing the "pi" sign and the one shaped like the letter "p" leading to accidentally translating baby as fool. Ironically I really don't want to be seen as either while a baby or fool especially since I'm new. I've really enjoyed meeting my tribe mates but I'm afraid to see where the pleasant meet and greet ends and the game begins.

Maynor

My thoughts on this tribe is that i like everyone and i dont want any of them to leave. Ive been trying to talk to everyone n try to be social player since im sitting out the first challenge.

Blake

welp. i still dont really know whats going on but... IM HAVING FUN. Ive talked with Dylan C a bunch and we have gotten to know each other pretty well. The greek challenge? a MESS. I havent been able to do a lot and the little i have done is not even worth mentioning. I hope the next challenge is a little easier for me but until then... YAY!

Maynor

Last night Brittany and I started talking and decides since we are newbies that we will work as a duo to keep each other safe since the game has newbies & returning players. As of right now she is my #1 but i am talking to others.

Maynor

Second day has been very interesting. Ive been talking to Cal and J.G. pretty much all day seperately. And both want to align and J.G brought up maybe doing three person alliance and he said we should try n bring in Cal. In my head i was like yes. So now its an allince of me, Cal, and J.G. which is great. If its all 100% (my end it is) then this is going to be great.

Timmy

Wow, I haven't made a confessional yet. WE WON IMMUNITY!!! I'm very relaxed now, but also I don't think I would have gone anyways so woot woot. I did the worst on my tribe so that's not too great (pretty sure the 810 from the post was my score), but I still did better than the entire other tribe so wooo. I'm so happy to finally be in a game with Abbey and I really want to work with her and we have been talking already about the nothingness that has come from our idol hunts so that's good. I still haven't talked to Zach or Brittany so I need to do that soon, Zach seems nice in the tribe chat but Brittany seems nonexistent at the moment even though she did well in the challenge.

Cam

well i may have won a main season last night

but let me tell you

WE DID NOT WIN THAT MY DUDES LMAO. we were literally beat ten times over. i hope the f tribe feels good about how much they squished us. they... earned that. truly.

but now jay says... there's an announcement? and this is what immediately ensues

On 7/21/18, at 9:29 PM, Jay 🐠 (Kalokairi Host) wrote:

> but first there will be an announcement

On 7/21/18, at 9:29 PM, Cameron Culpepper (Atomic Admin) wrote:

> oh no

On 7/21/18, at 9:31 PM, Dylan R. wrote:

> oh cool

and it was just announced! so there is redemption. this is nice! i'm less worried about work now. like obviously i'm gonna do my best? but... if i fuck up at least there's a CHANCE.

oh yeah and the idol. day 2 in the game, still haven't told anyone, so that's pretty cool! we'll see how long that lasts.

dylan c and i had a conversation about how if we don't work together neither of us will hold it against the other but like... im pretty sure we're gonna work together anyway.

wouldn't it be cute to make f3 with dylan c and abbey? god that's the dream. but it won't happen.

Maynor

The alliance is official between me, JG, and Cal. Are alliance name is MEW but greek that looks like mew. I like both and i hope they are ride or die as i am with this alliance. But just so we could have one more vote, im keeping my ally, Brittany, secret for now.

Mitch

Welcome to Greece! I consume goat cheese, so I'm something of a Greek expert myself you know. I'm very excited to meet all of my tribemates but now I'm probably going to talk about them individually since Idk what else to do

I haven't played a game in so long I have no fucking idea how to socialize oh my god. I feel like everything I type is awkward and sad. At least the first challenge was relatively easy since I never had to type anything and have free time up the wazoo . But fuck we got crushed lmao. I dunno what secret they used but I take comfort in knowing that they were probably worried about us doing the same thing. Maybe I probably won't get voted out for having a score of 600 but WE SHALL SEE

Alex - Where is he? He did the challenge but he hasn't said a word ever. I want to keep him but uh Blake - 15 exp huh. 15? :| I only got increments of 10 where did the 5 come from Cameron - Aaaa. I enjoy Cameron and hopefully he enjoys me Dylan C - Oh this distinguishing between Dylans will be fun. But hopefully this Dylan and I can... meet in the middle somewhere yes Dylan R - One of the 4 people who have spoken to me! This kid is GOING PLACES and I'm glad to help him along for the ride Maddie - She is camping and I completely understand. Matt - I mean sure Matt and I KNOW each other but do we really? It's not like we were buddy buddy in Navarino. Unless he thinks we were? If he does... uh oh

How do I bond with people

Cal

Maynard just brought together me and JG together to start an alliance all while the results of the immunity challenge was finished. I was nervous but not only did we win but we have an amazing three that is called ΜΞΨ(after the first letters of our names), which is called that thanks to me! I just thought it'd be fun to name it like a frat since we've been learning greek and also hopefully dominate! JG and Maynard are great guys and I'm excited to work with them as ΜΞΨ but I also am keeping in mind ΜΞ(me lol) in the game for when we do have to go to tribal! Mu Xi Psi out!

Dylan R

For the first tribal, I'm obviously worried. As for targets, I'm not sure there are any at this moment. I guess I'm voting based on tribal performances, but I would be open to other people's suggestions. I would consider myself closest to Matt, Dylan C and Mitch so those three are who I would want to vote with.

Stephen

I found half a “special idol” in the mangroves! While I am happy and I will still search for the other half I do have to decide if I want to tell anyone. In a previous season I told one person and they betrayed me (thanks tim) but in the end that led the person who had other half to reach out to me. However I can’t expect the same thing to happen this game, every games a new game. So I think I’m gonna keep it to myself, if somebody else tells me or is revealed to have the other half I might tell them, but for now I’m just gonna search for the other half and be content that no one can use the whole thing against me.

Zach

We won the first challenge!!!! I was expecting it to be a lot closer tbh. But I have an alliance of 3 that I’m fairly confident in! I wouldn’t say I completely trust them yet though. Both of them have played before and so it’s scary to think that they might just be playing me. I guess time will tell. I’m also curious to see what other alliances will show themselves when we finally start talking and going to trial. Also a little worried that I might be playing to hard out of the gate. We’ll see and I’ll probably get used to playing as time goes on.

My mom (Jay) has officially cancelled me y'all. My tribe freaking won by over 13 to almost 2k. Holy crap. Like did the vets on the other side never play this comp before? Like with maybe a little work and patience, you could get easily 1500XP without really grinding maybe more. I am honestly perfectly o.k. with these results I wanted us to win badly because of having to go to work tonight, I did not want to bother with the stress of that. Plus, the night before my work had an emergency so I am definitely not in a place ready to emotionally invest and make a move in the game. ΜΞΨ is an alliance that formed between Maynor, Cal, and myself. The alliance names from the first letter of our names in Greek to kinda make a frat/sor name. Maynor approached me wanting to make a final 2 and go really far. I am down with this for now of course, this game is constantly changing and moving. He asked me if we wanted to make a threesome to help our odds and asked me for suggestions. I suggested Cal because I knew I wasn't in any other alliances with him yet and this will allow me to keep an eye on him making sure he doesn't get close to Timmy or Stephen. Before I went off for the night Stephen and I officially talked about how the vets probably should create an official thing because it wouldn't hurt for us to work at least together in the early stages of the game. We decided that it should be discussed and formed today. Once that happens your boy is literally in an alliance with everyone besides Brittany and she actually did really well in the challenge. This scares me that she is either close to others or just someone I am not gonna be able to connect with. I heard from others that people are forgetting she's here, at the least she is a competitor. Either this is gonna blow up in my face or gonna allow me to position myself really well going into merge. Mama mia, my tribe isn't going tribal but I feel I made some of the biggest moves. Time will tell, I guess

Zabbey

SO A lot has happened since I last confessed!!!! I am now in a baby alliance with JG and Zach which is wholesome. Zach is super hype and its v endearing and im a stan. JG also said him and Stephen have talked about a vet alliance which would be the easier way to go but I don't really want to. I don't want to play this game based off of outside relationships, I'm not necessarily going to align with Cam and Dylan is we make it onto the same tribe. In more impotant news ya bITCH FOUND THE IDOL! My literal third search! Timmy told me that he was looking in the hotel rooms so I was gonna do that but then Jay said roof and I was like why not and my witch ass gave that offering and got me a sexy idol! I don't plan on telling anyone about it unless I absolutely have to!

Blake

I'm realizing now that im probably going to be seen as invisible the whole time bthrfnm dont know if thats good or bad LOL. But I finally have an alliance and its with people that I actually enjoy talking too :) Me, Cameron and Dylan C formed a group called Bicons (Bi Icons LMAO) and they seem to be really loyal. I have no idea what im doing but i hope people find me funny and want to keep me hfuiejf. (I HAVE NO IDEA WHO IM GONNA VOTE OFF)

Maddie

I came into this game after 2 nights had already gone by. I am really scared that I will be voted out tonight because I would be the easy since not very many people know me.

Dylan R

The first tribal is the most important tribal, at least from a game perspective. That’s why I’m taking a gamble and trying to target after Blake. We need people who will win challenges, and after his score of 15 I’m not sure if he’s best suited. I need 4 votes to tie. I believe I’ll have Alex & Maddie, so right now I’m focusing on the fourth vote. Dylan C seems wary about this vote, so I’m trying to convince her now. I told her that “other people have mentioned Blake” when really it’s just me lol. I don’t wanna tell anyone else, simply because I don’t want people thinking I’m playing too hard, so I’m hoping the votes will tie or the votes will be spread. I’m taking a bit of a gamble because this could put a target on my back, but I do love gambles so I can’t resist. This will probably come back to bite me, but it is redemption island so I guess that’s always a fallback.

Cal

Missed a lot of discussion about past games because I was meeting up with someone impromptu. It's daunting but also exciting to face the experience of some of my tribe mates. It's the feeling of a glorious revolution of the new players against the old! I aim to learn as well, but also have really enjoyed speaking with my tribe but fear people are getting wind of the ΜΞΨ alliance since me, JG, and Maynor are speaking a lot. I gotta figure out my mist! Mu Xi Psi out!

Stephen

The tribe chat: Jay is about to get represented by an agent!!!!! ajdnfkksxjsnxxcz

Cal in my PMs: I just got laid

............okay cal. I guess he ws just being friendly? But things like that are sort of a hot topic for me, but I don’t think thats something he needs to know. And its probably not something to get into in confessionals. Maybe if we become besties we can have a dnm about it later.

Dylan C

https://youtu.be/8oaTFmpiv0I

Dylan R

Ok so like. Convincing people is hard lol. New tactic: I told Alex that people are targeting him in hopes that it’ll ignite him enough to save himself. I want Alex as an ally, but if he can’t save himself then I don’t want him as an ally

Brittany

so i'm late to making this confession but we won the first challenge and i'm still so?? happy about it?? and by a lot too, and there i was panicking and speeding through duolingo lmao. hopefully this is a sign and we stay doing this well lol

J.G.

Yeet,one last confessional before the round is over. I am honestly really anxious to see what happens at this tribal whether a vet or noob will go. While I do not think that this will be a prevalent theme in decision making, it something I am keeping in the back of my mind. I don't want people to be able use that against me to vote me out. That's why I will feel really inclined to stick with the vets if a vet is voted out tonight over a noob. Who knows what that tribe will do they have several options.

Finally, officially the vets (Abbey, Timmy, and Stephen as well as myself) finally came together to form an official alliance called The Nursing Home. I am really keeping an eye on Timmy and Stephen, they give me some minor sketch vibes but it could just be me over analyzing.

Well, 1 week down, several more to go.

Dylan C

I’m getting a concerning amount of radio silence form some cast members. Is it because they’re inactive or ignoring me?? Lmao mattI'm so excited to be on Kalokairi! This has been a lifelong dream. Who wouldn't want to live on a gorgeous Greek island, where every piece of drama or sadness is resolved by breaking out into 70s Disco Pop and choreographing elaborate dance routines featuring wacky props like scuba fins? And to be able to play the game of Survivor while doing it? Wild!

My tribe is literally so wholesome. The other "veterans" are all so fantastic, and the newbies are so pure and fun and I love talking to them. The only person I haven't gotten to speak one on one to is Alex, and it seems like that's the case for the rest of the tribe. After getting THWUMPED in that immunity challenge, it's nice that we can all come together in a cohesive vote to hopefully power through in the future.

I found a leather necklace at the market, but it doesn't actually do anything until I combine it with another part. I'm not sure if my best strategy is to keep it hidden or let everyone know I have it in case they're also looking for it, but I think I'm going to keep it to myself while I search a bit more.

I'd really like to work with Cameron long term, and I have a crush on Dylan R okay that is all goodnight.

Cam

so i've been wrestling with the decision on whether or not to tell Dylan C about the idol.

I still haven't told him. Day 3! Nobody knows but me. that's pretty cool.

it's pretty quiet around the vote right now? everyone is still asleep i think, and morale is a little low following last night.

-----

I didn't submit that before I left for work, rip

Cam, certified short term memory loss haver

Alex was unanimously eliminated.

#episodes

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alteregowo · 7 years

Note

Hi! I love Dan and Phil, individually and together, but I think they're not trying to hide a romantic relationship. Don't you think that after ten years, they'd finally come out if they were? I mean there are a lot of gay couples on youtube and it would not be that big of a deal today than it was in 2007. Just wanted to hear your opinion on that. Have a nice day!

before i answer, disclaimer: i have ADD and this post might get messy since i find it difficult to concentrate and phrase myself properly (and english isn’t even my main language!)

well, i’m not gonna try and force my own views down your throat or anything but let me ramble a bit about why i wholeheartedly believe dan and phil are in a relationship;

i think i’ll start with the very fact that they recently moved to their third shared home together. say whatever you want to say but if they were indeed just friends, considering they’re in their mid 20s and 30 dont you think they’d want to move out separately and get going with their lives? and dont you think they wouldn’t be so keen on making comments about keeping living together in the long run (or forever…. a forever home say whaaaat).

now, you might argue with the good ol’ “but they benefit from living together regardless of relationship status”. fair enough. however, let me point out that it has became as clear as day especially in 2017 that they share a bedroom. i don’t know about you but i don’t think two strictly platonic friends who just moved into a duplex would want/ need to share a bedroom unless they’re uhhh mayhaps in a relationship and love to cuddle? i know a wild concept…….

and i’m sorry but if you want to argue against the shared bedroom fact with the shoebox phil claims is “his room” i have nothing to say but shake my head. no way phil actually lives in that room that has no windows and no space to move around and why is the entire room crammed in this one corner… where is the rest of the room……. and why is that room has no personal touch to it…. it’s literally just AmazingPhil props and things……… feels much more like a set to me than an actual bedroom. (also we saw phil’s mirror and hair straighter in the moon room aka “”dan’s bedroom”” which i think we can all collectively agree is simply “the bedroom”)

another thing that strikes me is how dan joins phil’s family vacations (especially in 2017) and how he seems to become part of the family much more than anyone who’s classified as “platonic” to phil would have. dan is just as much of a lester as cornelia is? dan joins the lesters just as much and as frequent as a spouse would. in fact, dan joins the lesters so much on their adventures that if im not wrong, the longest dan and phil spent apart in 2017 was not more than a weekend? that’s whack!

now these were just three things that were very prominent in 2017 regarding the belief whether dan and phil are in a relationship or not that were “behind the scenes”as in going on in their personal lives, kind of? i mean sure we see the shoebox on AmazingPhil and the moon room in some liveshows and we get pictures from their shared vacations but now i will move on to what we see on screen across their channels

i’ll start this with a throwback to the boncas bc i think that damn speech is enough to debunk any “uwu platonic” argument, ever. i don’t think phil would have done THAT if dan didn’t mean a whole lot to him and i think saying the universe would rip in half in they go apart is a concrete proof that they themselves can;t and don’t want to imagine a life in which they are not joint at the hip.

moving on to gamingmas, which i will forever find so significant?? they broke a lot of boundaries during that month regarding of invading personal space, a bit of a more mature humor (esp on phil’s account), casual touching and a whole lot of flirting and a lot less (almost none at all) looks straight into the camera to show they are aware this is filmed or to do a “wtf is this lol” kinda thing. gamingmas was a turning point. i will forever firmly believe they did all of that in an attempt to normalize this kind of behavior on screen (and it definitely worked!)

dan and phil continued the vibes of gamingmas well into 2017 and the casual touches, lingering gazes and flirting (as well as expressing affection towards males in specific) is now the normal running theme over at dapg to a degree where we don;t even lose our shit anymore. we joke and meme but nothing strikes us as overwhelming bc we are “used” to it, which i think dan and phil aimed for i genuinely think they wanted to get to this stage of showing more comfort and more intimacy on screen without everyone and their mothers going whack over “pHaN iS rEaL!!!!!1″ and for it all to come across as oh so casual and chill!

so now you ask, “they go through all that why not just come out lol”

WELL, in my honest opinion, dan and phil will never officially come out as a couple. and you know what, maybe things would have been different if The Video didn’t leak and get spread around (twice, mind you.) but things happen and one thing lead to another and after all they have been through and how they were shaped as people and their experiences with guarding and protecting themselves and their privacy any sort of statement about whether or not they are a couple or just friends or even paid actors (let alone labeling themselves and their sexuality bluntly) is highly unrealistic. so if you are waiting for a coming out video or whatever to convince you that won’t ever happen i’m afraid.

dan and phil value their privacy and they have every right to do so.

so yes, maybe in the early days of 2009/10 they were very flirty all across social media and on camera and maybe just maybe you need to consider the few following things regarding why they stopped with that:

The Video leak. like honestly? can’t and won’t find any more justified reason to feel the need for privacy and shielding yourself and making comments on how ‘het’ you are for instance just to brush off the most intimate thing imaginable that since has been glorified and memorized by millions(?) of people who were never meant to even know this video and that declaration of affection even exists. is it scary. and i fully understand the “no homo howell” phase and how awkward they appeared together on camera for awhile, very very proud of how far they;ve came esp in 2017 though.

the radio show! is it a little tied to The Video leak since the second leak happened when the radio show was still fairly new but before they moved to london (into their second shared home coughs) they weren’t all that big, you know? but with the popularity of the radio show came the increasing popularity of their youtube channels and their followers/ subscribers count went up and up and their content became exposed to a much larger range of audience and these new audience/ fans were not familiar with the past (at least not at first glance) and dan and phil needed to leave “good” impression (not that being flirty and dumb wasn’t good impression but it wasn’t all that professional and now they’ve grown big enough to be in need of professionalism.)

these two things were a turning point to how dan and phil view themselves on camera and their content itself (phil sticking to the AmazingPhil PG persona) (dan with his struggles with creativity and integrity zzzz) and really, considering their story (and how well known the early days are, and how dan and phil are aware to that…) it suddenly makes perfect sense why dan and phil aren’t in any sort of rush or need to ever come out.

however though, i think that the “post baking universe” as in the halloween 2016 baking video, the boncas speech, the european leg of tatinof, pinof 8, and gamingmas were a prep to this switch in dynamics we have seen in 2017 and that keeps very steady so far. feels as if late 2016 was so “wild” bc they were testing the waters and our reactions to see if they wanna pull through with this change.

so, even if they will never officially come out, their dynamic both on and off screen screams that they are literal boyfriends and they don’t need to spell it out for us to know and see. anyone who cares enough about their relationship status and look at their content with it in mind can very obviously and easily see how in love these two dorks are. same love from the early days of 2009/10 only now it has shifted into a steady, secure, safe, most wonderful thing and you can see that their love towards each other in filling their hearts with pure joy.

so yeah, dan and phil are definitely in a relationship and that doesn’t seem to change anytime soon, if ever at all.

(THAT WAS SO MESSY IM SORRY BUT I HOPE MY POINT CAME ACROSS?)

#Anonymous #phan #sorry this is so dumb #i feel so demon.... no phannie...........#hpw can people doubt their love in the year of 2017 is beyond me #haha it was fun to ramble though i missed ranting about dnp i havent in ages

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wonkyuna-blog · 7 years

Text

Save Myself

Genre: Fluff, M / M

Im Changkyun x Yoo Kihyun Summary: When you’re so used to caring and emotionally providing for someone else you often lose sight of who you are and what you want for yourself. Changkyun, forced from the relationship he carried on his own shoulders, now seeks to reclaim his individuality and rebuild a life for himself.

Word Count: 7.2k+

Warnings: Toxic relationship

/// Author’s Note /// My piece for @mxnetwork for the Lyrical Writing thingy! I chose Save Myself by Ed Sheeran

Changkyun rolled back to his side of the bed, panting and chasing after his breath. He looked back towards you, sweat gleaming off your skin almost glittering in the moonlight shining through the open window. It was sweltering in the middle of July. Too hot to function but Changkyun would never pass up makeup sex. He felt really guilty that y/n had been home all day with the broken ac unit while he was at work. When he had returned home to your shared apartment you ripped into him about not calling someone earlier while you basically melted from the heat.

“I’m sorry baby, I had no idea or else you know I would have taken care of it immediately. Did you try calling anyone from the HVAC place?”

“No, obviously not. That’s your job. I haven’t had the time to do much of anything all day since I was practically dying of heat exhaustion!” You huffed at him.

“Ah, you’re right. I’m so sorry. I’ll call someone in the tomorrow and get it fixed as soon as possible, okay?”

You took a deep breath, content. “You had better, or I’m leaving.”

“No, please! Listen, I’ll send the company an email right now then wake up first thing in the morning and call so they get my message either way, okay? Everything will be fine y/n, I promise.” Changkyun waited for your answer while he fidgeted nervously. The tension was growing too much and he felt like bargaining anything just to have you calm down.

“Fine, but you’re still going to have to make this up to me.” You turned to face him and gave him a look he knew all too well.

“Whatever you need baby, let me make it better.”

You looked so beautiful under the moonlight. The room was painted blue from the softness of it caressing every surface unhidden from shadow. Changkyun had hoped this would quell the fire in your heart from him letting you down, again. He wanted to make everything better for not taking care of you like he should have been. Checking the AC unit before he walked out the door in the first place had been on the back of his mind but he didn’t think to actually look. He had been running late anyway trying to clean up the house so you could relax comfortably while he was gone. You had both been together for almost three years now and he knew that as long as you were happy, you both were. He tried pulling you into him so you could fall asleep together, wrapped up and safe; but you pushed him away and grunted, “too hot.” You flipped to your side facing away from him and remained silent.

That following morning Changkyun woke up early to contact someone that could come out and work on the cooling unit. It was only a small dent in everything he had planned today, though he knew he could work through it with little issues. Today was the third anniversary of your relationship together and Changkyun had taken off work for the entire day to spend it with you. He excited himself thinking about holding your hand and going to your favorite places, eating the most delicious food, and spending the day reconnecting with one another. He started the day off with making you breakfast. Changkyun was waiting for the food to finish cooking as he set the table. You stepped into the dining room after just waking up, puzzled. “What are you doing?”

“Y/n! I hope you’re hungry because I’m cooking us a huge breakfast.”

You stood where you were and rubbed the sleep from your eyes. “Changkyun…”, you sighed.

“Yes?” He beamed up at you while setting the last fork down next to an empty plate.

“We have to talk.” You wore a blank expression and withheld any emotion you may be feeling.

“Oh? You aren’t still mad about yesterday, are you?” Changkyun’s heart began to race as he felt stress building in his head. He started to walk back towards the kitchen to tend to the food cooking on the stove as he continued. “I called the guy to come out before you woke up, so he should be here at some point in the afternoon. Plus, I’ve got a plan to completely make up for it by the end of-”

“Changkyun”, you interrupted, “we need to break up.”

He stopped where he was, back turned to you, and stood there while he processed what you had just said. “What?” His voice cracked and he slowly spun around to face you.

“I can’t do this anymore Changkyun.” You were being incredibly vague, so Changkyun was having a really hard time understanding.

“But… y/n it’s our anniversary… did I do something wrong?” He began to fidget, his fingers searching for anything to relieve the anxiety creeping into his chest.

“No… I-… yes. This just isn’t enough for me. I don’t know how to make this work and I shouldn’t have to. It just… should.” You threw your hands up and let them fall hard. You didn’t want to continue the conversation any longer.

“Y/n, whatever it is we can work on it and I can fix it. You just have to tell me-” Changkyun began to beg, he didn’t want it to end like this. Especially not today.

“It’s done, Changkyun. I’m done.” You turned to walk away and locked yourself in the bedroom. Changkyun wanted to fight so badly, but a bigger part of him felt defeated. He didn’t know what went wrong. You were both so happy. The fire alarm began to sound off.

Changkyun woke up in a sweat. He had been having the same nightmare for two weeks now, and was awakened each time by the alarm sounding off in his mind. The piercing shrill of it burned like a metaphor into his memory. It was dawn, so he decided to recollect himself with a shower and head downstairs to make himself a cup of coffee to get his day started. He bounced down to the bottom step to see his mother at the kitchen table having breakfast. He had come to live with her again after the breakup since Changkyun let y/n stay in their apartment. A choice he was scolded by his mother for, since in her opinion they decided to leave the relationship so they should be the one to actually leave and not Changkyun. Still, she welcomed him home with open arms and warm meals every night. She was happy to have him back.

“Good morning! How are you feeling today?” She also took the time to check up on his recovery. His mother knew how hard of a breakup this had been for Changkyun, and she wanted to make sure that he was taking the right steps to come out of it okay.

He walked over towards the coffee maker and prepared a brew for himself. “Had the nightmare again.”

His mother looked him up and down, his disheveled appearance causing her body language to slump too. “You take all the time you need to recover dear. I know how much they meant to you, and no amount of time taken to get past this makes you any less of what you are.”

“I know mom, thanks.” After the brew was finished Changkyun silently filled his cup and shuffled back upstairs to his room.

He had been doing nothing but lay in bed since being back with his mother the past week. The week before was filled with awkward co-habitation with you. Even now, though, all that filled his head was y/n. He couldn’t shake it, he didn’t know what to do. He had gone through all the emotional stages but was still a heavy mix of angry and hopeless. Though he felt he was lucky enough to still have his mother in his life, during Changkyun’s relationship he had lost ties with all his friends and most family members. He was completely alone in the world because of y/n since you wanted him all to yourself constantly. Any attention you were stripped of sent you into emotional turmoil. Changkyun knew he had to break out of the shell he had put himself into. He sat down at his computer and pulled up a local classified ad to make his first step: get a new job. There was no real use thinking about the past anymore and he knew he needed to move forward. It was worth it to distract himself, he thought.

He had finished applying for a grocery store and a pastry shop before seeing an offer that actually pulled his attention. He had never thought about working in a book store before, but he imagined it being peaceful and positive. That’s what you needed to recover with, right? So he filled in for the shop called Blue Moon Books, and anxiously awaited a possible phone call.

Two days later Changkyun’s mother visited him while he lay in his bed moping. It was morning and there had been no phone call from any job he applied for thus far, and he was trying his best to remain patient. The only problem was that he felt incredibly lonely, and sitting with his thoughts to himself wasn’t the best right now. He’d stare into the ceiling and think about those nights where he and y/n would sink into each other on the living room couch. You would fight with him over what to watch and tell him what he liked to watch was stupid, but Changkyun could only see the glow of the television illuminating the beautiful features of her face as she offered only an annoyed expression at him. Anything you wanted to make you happy, he would provide for you. “Honey, can I come in?” He heard a quiet rasping outside his door, his mother had come home from her late night shift.

“Sure thing, mom.” He sat up to make room for her on his bed as she took a seat next to him.

“I really want to talk to you about all of this that’s been going on with you lately. It’s been almost 3 weeks now, and I don’t want to press but I think it’d be good for you to talk about this. You’ve been kinda mopey lately and I thought we were making good progress. I don’t want you to get discouraged though, you can have set backs. I’m just… I’m just worried about you sweetie.” She fidgeted with her hands, nervous. Clearly she was uncomfortable pushing Changkyun when she wasn’t sure if he was ready yet.

Changkyun looked to his feet and stared silently into space for a while. He actually wasn’t sure if he was ready to face the reality - at least talking about it made what happened seem more real than it should anyway. His mother was right though, it was time to talk about it and there was no one better than her.

“I just… I don’t know where to start mom.” He couldn’t look at her or he knew he’d start crying. “I just don’t know what happened, ah.” His voice began to crack. “We got in a little fight about the AC unit, and I took care of everything but then this still happened.” He circled with his hands to make a visual representation of, ‘all this’, then let them fall as he felt completely defeated.

“Changkyun, if you can walk through what did happen that day with me, please. I want to understand just like you do.” She reached over and rubbed his back in a figure eight motion to try and get him to relax.

He let out a deep sigh and squeezed his temple between his fingers. His mother was all he had left in the world. She had let him live there again with her, so it seemed only fair to let her hear what her son had gone through. “I don’t know mom, it was mostly a lot of confusion. I came home that night from work and y/n hadn’t spoken to me all day. I didn’t bother them, felt they needed some space you know, and I was fine with that. The second I walked through the door though, they absolutely blew up on me. It was like a bomb went off. Screaming incoherent sentences, I just wanted them to calm down so I could fix whatever was wrong. They finally brought it down enough to tell me the air conditioner had been broken all day with them in the apartment basically melting, and they were upset that I hadn’t done anything about it.”

Changkyun’s mother nodded. “Did you know about it before coming home?”

“Well… no, but I just felt so bad for them and I understand why they were mad but….” Changkyun began to fidget with his hands then when his mother continued talking.

“You shouldn’t feel bad for them being a lazy piece of shit.”

“Mom!” He had never heard her curse before.

“I’m sorry hun, I just don’t think that was handled right at all. On their end, anyway.”

“Well, they broke up with me the next day anyway so it doesn’t matter anymore.” He felt himself growing distant when this discussion became uncomfortable. His mother was protective of him, and obviously held a grudge for y/n isolating her only son from everyone else in the world. Just then Changkyun’s phone began to ring, and to his joy interrupted their conversation. “Hello?”

“Hello! I’m calling for a… Changkyun?”

“Yes, speaking.”

“Hey! My name is Shownu, I’m calling from Blue Moon Books about your application? I’ve just finished reviewing it and was wondering when you might be available for an interview?”

Changkyun had to recover his heart from his stomach after hearing his quick speech. “Y-yes! When would be best for you? I’m free all this week actually.”

“Great! Come by the shop around 2pm today and we can get you all set up!”

“I’ll be there, thank you so much!” The call ended and Changkyun looked back to his mother who was giving him a confused expression.

“Mom, I have an interview with that book store I was telling you about.” He almost couldn’t believe the words that spilled from his mouth. It didn’t exactly seem like that big of a deal, but he was proud of himself for taking some first few steps at getting his life back up and going.

“That’s great! Well, go get washed up for it I won’t keep you!” His mother rushed out of the room, all smiles.

Main-street was busy and bustling. The smell of fresh bread hung in the air from the bakery Changkyun walked past, he was almost tempted to go in but he had his mind focused on meeting Shownu. It was a beautiful, bright day and he felt more confident than usual about his budding opportunity. Changkyun arrived at the shop twenty minutes before his interview since wanted to look around for a bit and see how he felt about the atmosphere of the store. He was able to walk there because it was only a few minutes away from his mother’s home settled on a calmer street section in the city, down further from the claustrophobic feeling the beginning of main street held. The building, marked with large blue lettering that of course read 'Blue Moon Books’, had single pane front windows with book displays and popular character models in an attempt to draw in curious eyes. As soon as he walked in the aroma of pressed espresso had washed over his senses. It was rather quiet in the store aside from the barista preparing coffee with quick hands. He was a tall, brilliantly tanned man with golden blonde hair pulled into a short pony tail. His gaze was fixated on his task and one could tell he held a certain passion for the job he performed. The store itself was impressively organized with volumes upon volumes of whatever genre one would be in the mood for. Mystery, drama, comedy, love, it was all here and categorized by the genre itself, then by the author. Two more men stood at the counter as Changkyun continued deeper into the store. One with a rounded face and eyes that held their own kind of smile, he looked genuine. He was speaking with a larger, broad shouldered man whom Changkyun assumed must be the manager, Shownu, that he spoke on the phone with. He carried himself high and looked to be giving direction. The first man looked to Changkyun and broke their conversation.

“Is there anything I can help you with sir?” He leaned on the counter, propped up by his elbows.

“Yes, actually. I’m here for an interview.” Changkyun straightened his back out and tried his best to look what he felt was professional.

As if it were rehearsed the man presumed to be Shownu stepped forward with a large smile. “That would be me! And you would be Changkyun? It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise, sir.” Changkyun felt incredibly at ease then, even though he was speaking with an employer. He felt good about this. Shownu stepped from behind the counter to extend his hand in greeting. Changkyun took this opportunity to look him over and was slightly amused by his visage. Shownu looked like someone that should be at the gym right now or at a fighting match proving his own strength. Instead, this hulking mass was managing a quiet book shop on main street. Nothing wrong with that, of course, Changkyun thought to himself. Rather amusing in the simplest means. It was humbling if nothing else.

“Let’s take a walk around while you tell me about yourself.” Shownu placed a gentle hand on Changkyun’s shoulder as the two of them began to walk the shop together.

“I’ve never seen a shop so spacious yet so filled before.” Changkyun marveled. He had hoped that didn’t come out as an attempt of flattery. Maybe he was nervous after all.

“Tell me, why do you want this job?” Shownu kept his eyes forward, listening intently.

Right to it, then. “Well, truthfully sir… I just got through a pretty rough breakup… and I’m looking for something not so stressful and where I can grow into myself again. Just… I guess something to focus on.” He had hoped it wasn’t painfully obvious that he had rehearsed that line over and over on his way to the shop that day. Even though he did hesitate a few times. Shownu was mostly quiet, they had stopped walking while Changkyun awaited a response.

“Well Changkyun, we are a small family here. I’ll be straight forward with you, I need an extra hand with the register and with organization. Business is really picking up and I need more people at the counter than just one person. I’ve been through the other interviews today and you’re the first that has been pretty laid back instead of attempting to flatter me with business speak and talking out their ass the whole time. Plus, if you’re going through a tough time who am I to turn down someone looking to bring purpose and structure back to their life?” He paused, cleared his throat, and extended his hand towards Changkyun. “If you can start tomorrow, the job is yours.”

“I’ll even start today if you need me to.”

Shownu chuckled at his response. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, kid. Just go rest up and be here tomorrow by 8am.”

“Absolutely! Thank you so much.” Changkyun, ecstatic, ran out the door to go prepare and tell his mother the good news. Main street had died down by this point, so he decided to burst into a full on sprint back up the walkway. He hadn’t felt this excited in weeks.

“I’m so happy for you!” His mother was almost squealing with her own excitement. “Oh, this is going to be so good for you, I know you’re going to love it. Read too while you’re there, okay? You used to love reading so much.” She cooed.

“I will, mom.”

The next morning, Changkyun tossed himself awake reacting to the loud screams of fire alarms, again. He lifted himself out of bed, covered in sweat, looking around for any sign of the blaze. Nothing. “Dammit.” He sighed to himself. He wasn’t sure how long the nightmares would last, but at least today they woke him in time to get ready for his first day at work. He showered then ran downstairs after getting dressed to find his mother standing near the dinner table. She had a cup of coffee for him and the biggest smile he’s ever seen her wear. He walked over and embraced her tight. She rubbed his back and said, “this is going to be good for you, like I said. A new fresh start. You’re such a strong person Changkyun, I know you’ll get where you need to be. And I’m always here for you. Remember this.”

He thanked her and headed out towards the shop. Walking in he saw the man at the counter from yesterday, greeting him with a warm smile.

“I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself since you ran out so fast yesterday. I’m Jooheon.” Jooheon held his hand out to formally greet Changkyun.

“Right, sorry about that. I’m Changkyun.” He returned the gesture. “It’s nice to meet you!”

Jooheon giggled. “You don’t have to be super formal here, we’re all like a family anyway. So, to kick things off let me run down what you’ll be doing.”

Jooheon walked Changkyun around the sales floor, front counter, then the back room telling him how to use the register and check inventory.

“Customers can order books through us too if we don’t have exactly what they’re looking for in stock.” Jooheon explained while showing him the public kiosk set up for people to use freely on the sales floor. “So”, Jooheon turned to face Changkyun, “since I’m finished with the basics why don’t you tell me a little about yourself? I can only eavesdrop so much, you know.”

Changkyun thought for a second before answering. “There’s not much to tell, truthfully.” He shrugged. “I’m just pretty much looking to find myself. Like, who I am and what I want essentially. I figured this would be something new and relaxing for me.”

“Bad breakup?” Jooheon interjected.

“W-what?” Changkyun felt embarrassed.

“Shownu mentioned it, but I won’t bring it up if it’s still sensitive. So don’t sweat over it.”

“Heh, I’m sure I’ll talk about it soon, it’s only just been about a month anyway – probably less. I’m trying not to keep track.” Changkyun rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, trying to show he was uncomfortable without really saying it.

“Relax, man. You’re going to like it here just fine.”

A man walked up to them as they stood at the counter talking. Jooheon greeted him first, likely demonstrating what was expected of Changkyun.

“What can we help you with?” Jooheon flashed that brilliant smile of his.

“Mmm, well…” The man was shorter than the both of them and looked rather timid while he gathered his thoughts. Though, Changkyun caught himself thinking only about how adorable he is. He had black strands of hair cascade down his forehead in protest against the gel that was supposed to hold it back and wore ripped jeans with a tight fitted t-shirt around his small body. “I was wondering if either of you had any good recommendations? I’m usually a pretty avid reader but I love seeing what other people pick up so I can try it too.”

Changkyun realized that Jooheon was staring at him, waiting for him to take this opportunity for himself. Surely for the job experience only.

“I… um… well…” The man stared intently at Changkyun, waiting for his answer. Changkyun released the air he held captive in his lungs as a deep sigh. “I actually haven’t been able to read much lately… and I just started here so I’m sorry that I can’t be of much help.”

The man began to quietly giggle. “I appreciate the honesty, darling.” He beamed up at Changkyun. “How about…” he pulled a pen and paper from his bag, “you get a recommendation from me, instead, and the next time I see you we can talk about it.” He smiled big as he handed over the paper, offered a quick wave, then turned and almost bounced his way out the door. Changkyun felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to find Jooheon very amused.

“You know you cant fall in love with every customer that comes in right? You might want to calm down a bit before someone thinks you were sitting in the sun too long. Your face is so red!” He teased and Changkyun hid his face behind his hand and with the other passed the paper to Jooheon.

“Do we have this in stock?”

Jooheon busted out laughing “I don’t know if we have a book titled 'Kihyun’ with a kissy face, or maybe that’s the author? Oh but see here… the other line, that must be the book title we can look up. Just another thing I can show you, come on.”

Another week had passed since Changkyun first started at Blue Moon Books. He and Jooheon were becoming close friends quickly and he had learned a lot from him about different novels that had become popular over the past couple of years. He felt he missed out on so much. Though the one book he was most invested in was the one recommended to him by the man he met his first day there. Changkyun had finished reading it and was waiting around to see him walk through the front door so they could talk about it, but each day came and went without seeing his face.

“He’ll come in eventually man, it’s only been a week anyway. That’s not the first time I’ve seen him come in.” Jooheon gave Changkyun a rough pat on the back “Besides, with the way you’re so worked up over it this is probably good for you anyway. Didn’t you just come out of a long term relationship?”

“Yeah…”, Changkyun sighed, “you’re right, and…. I don’t know I guess I’m just a little lonely is all. Three years is a long time with someone. Not to mention I haven’t even thought of the possibility of being with someone new? And he’s just so cute I….”

“How did that end anyway? If… you don’t mind me asking.” Jooheon was a bit uneasy asking this question. He knew it could be sensitive.

Changkyun gave in, though, and told him everything about y/n that had happened in those last two days they were together. “And I’m not sure if I have the right to be angry you know? A big part of me is, but I have no one to blame but myself anyway.”

Jooheon stood where he was and held his concerned expression for a while, thinking, before finally speaking. “Dude, you do realize this person was using you, right?”

“Huh? What are you talking about?” Changkyun certainly wasn’t expecting those words from him.

“You were in an emotionally manipulative relationship with them. They used you for everything. Tell me, didn’t you say when you first got here that you were trying to find yourself? Why do you that is, exactly?”

“I mean I…”, Changkyun hadn’t thought of the reason, honestly. He just knew he wasn’t himself. “I had to care for them you know? And… in doing that I kind of lost sight of who I was or what I wanted.” Yeah, that sounded about right. “That’s just natural though, I did what I needed to-”

“Changkyun, come on man. That’s not normal. Y/n is an adult, and they should be able to handle themselves and their own life. Listen, the cooling unit is a thing that happens, not someone asking you to take the responsibility for their every mishap or emotion for three whole years. That a lot of shit to carry on your shoulders.”

Changkyun was silent, unsure of what to say exactly. He was starting to think that maybe Jooheon was right, and that he did deserve better than what happened between them. But then he wondered how you un-do three years of all that combined.

Jooheon could tell he was troubled. “I didn’t mean to make you feel negatively at all, nothing you did was wrong and you didn’t deserve what happened. I hope you know that… I want you to know that. You’re a good person, Changkyun. Karma will do wonders, just watch.”

Changkyun offered a small smile. “Thank you Jooheon”

“Don’t sweat it, let’s get back to work and get our mind off this, yeah?”

Changkyun went about his day organizing shelves, doing inventory for a new books, and selling merchandise. They were getting close to locking the doors when one last customer ran up.

“I’ll be quick, I promise!” Jooheon let them inside and then ran over to Changkyun.

“Um, you’ll want to be ready at the counter for this.” He was smiling big… too big.

“What?”

“Just go!” Jooheon pushed him towards the register. Changkyun watched as the customer darted inbetween shelf after shelf, like they had been here a hundred times. They gently pulled each selection from their place, giving them a once over before finally picking two and walking briskly towards the counter where Jooheon and Changkyun stood waiting. Changkyun then recognized him as he approached. Kihyun.

“Oh! I’ve been waiting for you to come back around! I finished that book you recommended.”

“Oh, yeah?” A flash of red crept in his cheeks and he broke eye contact. “You know I realized how dumb I was for not even giving you my name before. I’m Kihyun.” He was half looking to the side, half looking at Changkyun’s chin. He wondered why Kihyun seemed embarrassed.

“Ah”, Changkyun rubbed the back of his neck nervously, “yeah, I saw on your note actually. I’m Changkyun.”

Kihyun slid the books he picked onto the counter and took a breath. “Um, would you like to hang out with me sometime? We can… talk about that book.” His face was even more red now, changing hue by the minute it seemed. Changkyun, frozen with the product scanner in his hand, was shocked at the sudden invitation. He felt Jooheon lightly pinch his arm in encouragement.

“Yeah, that sounds great actually. I know of this arcade in town we can go to, if you’d be interested in something like that?”

“Are you kidding?!” Kihyun seemed excited at the suggestion. “I love arcades! I didn’t even know there was one in town. Are you free tomorrow?�� He was practically bouncing on the soles of his feet awaiting Changkyun’s response.

“He is!” Jooheon answered for him, but Changkyun was confused. He wasn’t free tomorrow, he had to work.

“Great! We can meet up around noon then. How much do I owe you guys?” He stood waiting, wallet in hand, and the most lovely smile painted on his mouth.

Changkyun cleared his throat. He was trying so hard not to feel awkward, but he couldn’t help it. “It’s fifteen seventy-nine.”

Kihyun paid for his new books and handed Changkyun a slip of paper. “Feel free to text me whenever. See you tomorrow!”

The moment the door closed behind Kihyun, Jooheon turned to place his hands on Changkyun’s shoulders. “Dude, relax. You two are just hanging out, and I’m gonna cover your shift. Besides, you’ve been working every single day so you could use a good break."

"You’re right.” Changkyun exhaled. “Thanks, man.”

“Just because you think he’s cute doesn’t mean you have to add pressure to this, you know.” Jooheon walked to the backroom laughing before Changkyun, mouth agape, could protest.

That night back home, before going to bed Changkyun decided he would try and text Kihyun to start conversation and hopefully make himself feel less anxious about them hanging out tomorrow. He sat on the edge of his bed writing, deleting, and then rewriting text after text before finally gathering the courage to send him something. Just before hitting send Changkyun’s phone began to vibrate as it received a call. He hadn’t recognized the number at first, but after answering and hearing the voice on the other line his heart dropped into his gut.

“Changkyunniieee!” Y/n was basically purring his name on the other end.

He didn’t answer right away. “Did you miss me? Hmm? I-I miss-d you by like… just a lil bit ya know.” “Y/n are you drunk right now? What do you want.” His shock transgressed into a slow burning infuriation.

“I dunno I just wan-ne-ted to hear your voice, maybe? And no! Sill-by, I only drank a lil cup. I’m fiiinne. You’re acting like we barely know-”

“You told me to leave you alone, and I respected your wishes. So this is me, asking you to respect mine and return the favor.” Changkyun hung up and tried to recollect himself. Where in the hell did they get off thinking they could just call like that? He looked back down to his phone to see three new messages.

The first two: -UNKNOWN (11:28 PM): YOU THIBNK YOU CANA JUST HANG UP ON ME HWEN IM SPEAKING TO YOU?? FUCK YOU -UNKNOWN (11:34 PM): ok im sorry haha im jst kidding call me

“Ugh.” Changkyun was hoping this wouldn’t begin to be a thing, and would remain a one-time occurrence. Then he checked the third message: -KIHYUN (11:07 PM): Hey!~ I’m looking forward to our hang out tomorrow. Be ready to bring your competition on! >:D

That text alone removed the bitter feeling from his heart. He was moving on.

Changkyun arrived at the arcade far too early. It was just now eleven when they had agreed to meet around noon. Yet, here he was, eagerly waiting for Kihyun to show. Not too long after he had made it there, his phone began to ring. As he looked down to see the caller ID it lit up as the number y/n had called him from the previous night. Against his better judgement, he answered.

“Hello.”

“Oh! Changkyun! Thank god, listen… you’ve got to help me.” Y/n sounded panicked and was breathing heavy.

“With?” He couldn’t believe this.

“My boyfriend he uh… kicked me out. I have nowhere to go.” They seemed to be on the verge of tears, or at least that’s what the acting came off as.

“And how is that my problem.” He forced a stern tone in his voice, he wasn’t interested in helping them whatsoever.

“Well, that’s rude… but, we got into a fight and he told me to get out. Long story short. So I went out for a few drinks until he calmed down but when I came back the door was locked.”

“Wait, wait. Where were you staying?” The other end stayed silent. “Y/n!” He tried pushing.

“Uh-I… our apartment?”

“Are you serious right now? This is some major irony, isn’t it?” Changkyun was kicked from his own apartment from the person who decided to end their relationship, and now the same was happening to them. Jooheon was definitely right about karma, and it came bearing teeth.

“Changkyun you’re being really mean.” He could almost hear that stupid pout through the whining. “I need help and you’re just going to critici-”

“You’re damn right I’m going to criticize you. You think that you’d just call me up, so sure that I’m still wrapped around your fucking finger and that I’ll just drop everything that I’m doing just to coddle you. Well, you ensured that will never happen again, and I gotta say y/n… I thank you for it.”

“What are you even fucking talking about?”

“Ah, there’s the snake.” Changkyun looked up to see Kihyun waving and towards him. “I’ve got to go. Don’t call me again, and find someone else to leech off of. It sounds like your new toy isn’t so easily swayed anyway. Good luck.” He turned his phone off and shoved it inside of his pocket. Changkyun felt immensely proud of himself in this moment. He did something he never in a million year dreamed that he would, and he had never felt more free.

“What are you all smiley about, huh?” Kihyun pushed Changkyun’s arm in a playful manner.

“Just… I dropped something from my life and I feel a lot better. Let’s go inside?”

“Oh! Yes please!”

They stepped inside and Kihyun began to marvel at everything he saw. “Oh, my god! It’s video game heaven!”

“Well, that is kinda the point.” Changkyun teased.

“Tsk, I told you that I’ve never been here before. Let my inner child have a sugar rush, will you?” Kihyun giggled and picked out games for them to play together. Changkyun felt they were there for days with how much fun he was having. Kihyun demolished him at racing games, but Changkyun had the upper hand with shooters. He felt as if the world, including the past and future, melted away. It was only him and Kihyun genuinely enjoying each other and having fun. Nothing else mattered, and that’s when Changkyun thought to himself that nothing else would. “Kihyun?” His stomach knotted up into ways he didn’t think were possible.

“Yes?”

“Thank you for today.”

“Oh, you’re welcome! But… what do you mean, what for?” He was beaming from ear to hear. His smile lit up his whole face. Curious, but happy still.

“It’s just..” Changkyun stammered, “I don’t feel any pressure being around you. Like… I’m not walking on egg shells, you know? I just… thank you.” He was having a hard time maintaining eye contact. There was something he had to get off his chest.

For a moment Kihyun was confused, but slowly seemed to gather Changkyun’s meaning and let it go. “Like I said dear, you’re very welcome. I’m having a lot of fun too!” They stood in awkawrd silence for a short while before Kihyun pressed. “Shall we play more, or…?”

Changkyun exhaled hard, and took a step towards Kihyun. “Kihyun can I…” He couldn’t bring himself to look up, but he heard Kihyun grant him a small giggle.

“Why are you acting so silly?”

“Can I kiss you?” He felt like he had been punched in the gut, but for some reason it was more satisfying than painful.

“I…” Changkyun finally looked up to find Kihyun with a surprisingly relaxed expression, searching for something to say. As he gave a slow nod time stopped for Changkyun. He gently reached forward and cupped Kihyun’s cheek in his palm, then drew him close to kiss him deep. He felt Kihyun’s little fingers tighten around his biceps as if to brace himself, and his lips were outrageously soft. They tasted of strawberries and that was something Changkyun knew he would never forget. Kissing Kihyun felt just right, like they were designed for each other. Then, Kihyun pulled away.

“I just… I had to know.” Changkyun confessed. “I felt something and… I don’t know, kissing you sounded like a way to solidify that.” He nervously rubbed his arm, unsure of what Kihyun was feeling.

“Changkyun I…” He looked conflicted, like he held his own secret. The tiny child in him that was just running around the arcade, hiding.

“If… if this is to become something… more…” He was having a tough time searching for the words again it seemed. He had hoped that Kihyun knew he could trust him. He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Changkyun I wasn’t born… how you see me now. I need to know you’re comfortable with who I am. I was… born a female, not as me. Not as… Kihyun.”

Changkyun’s heart swelled. “You’re Kihyun to me. You are who you say you are, and to me? You are Kihyun, the boy I met a week ago that has made me develop the biggest, most horrendous crush on.”

Kihyun couldn’t help but laugh.

“And I’m scared as hell but… I want to know all of you. I mean you.”

Kihyun shoved himself into Changkyun’s embrace then.

“We’ll both grow into ourselves. You can learn to trust me, and I can do the same for you.” He lifted his chin up and placed small, wet kisses along Changkyun’s jaw line. Standing on the tips of his toes Kihyun whispered into Changkyun’s ear, “We learned how to save ourselves.”

#mxnetwork #mxwriters #changkinet #mxlyricalwritings #kwriterskollection #save myself #changki fluff #monsta x fluff

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arielahq-blog · 7 years

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hi cuties it’s me gabs !! && this is my sunshine, ariela. she’s like literally super fcking shy (ITS ANNOYING TBH but i love her anyway). her fc is the lovely perrie edwards. music is her life & she loves anything to do with art---hence the whole tattoo apprentice thing.

once u get to know her she opens up (especially w alcohol in her system HA) anyWAY, if she’s comfy around u then u two are just peachy and friends fo life.

under the cut are some shit bullet points loosely based around my bb.

i’ll have the final, solid intro completed v soon but this is what i got for now :)

as usual, heart this post if u wanna plot im open to anYTHING LIKE RLY GUYS PLS (im not begging) ANYWAY here it is.

tw: depression, anxiety, eating disorder

——— earlier, i could’ve sworn i saw {PERRIE EDWARDS } walking across the courtyard, but it’s just {ARIELA HUNTER}, who i heard is a {21} year old {JUNIOR} majoring in {GRAPHIC DESIGN} here at crawford university. she is apparently the {SOCIAL CHAIR} of {KAPPA SIGMA NU}. according to the rumours, people call her the {ALTRUIST} because she is supposedly very {SELFLESS}, but also very {INSECURE} but who knows if the stories are true. (gabs. 25. est. she/her)

ariela marie hunters was born on July 4th, 1995

she has a zodiac sign of: cancer.

born & raised in california---but wanted to go “away” to school, so she dorms at crawford

her dad is an wealthy plastic surgeon, and her mother is a “housewife”.

you would never know it but her family makes BANK $$$. ariela is so quiet and humble, unlike her older sister (tbd if i want to make this a connect so like lmk because these two are polar opposites)

ariela is super quiet oMG LIKE a little mouse. she loves her art and is super extremely passionate about music. aka--if she’s talking to you about music shE WONT SHUT UP LIKE YOULL NEED A MUZZLE.

she has been playing the guitar since the age of 12. loves everything about it.

also plays the piano; her parents are v supportive of her love of the arts.

dont let her quiet demeanor fool u, ariela loves rocking out with the best of them---often attending rock concerts on campus, as well as music festivals.

singing was a good outlet for her---but stagE FRIGHT LIKE TO THE MAX (she sings in the shower if she’s completely alone in the house)

when it comes to boys, ariela is like the definition of awkward. blushes way too often;; tongue tied? yes.

ariela isn’t very confident in herself. always compared herself to her older sister.

TW: eating disorder: generalized anxiety // ariela was so consumed with being ‘perfect’ like her sister, it sent her falling through a downward spiral. as one could conclude, ariela was hooked up with the best doctors Cali has to offer, but even with the programs ariela still struggles today. she is always worried that she’ll never be good enough--not even for herself.

her sister is going to UCLA for her Doctorate, and even though ariela’s parents support her with following her love for music--ariela still doesn’t feel like it’s as prestigious or as amazing as her sisters degree. putting herself down a ton.

ariela all in all loves being surrounded by others when it comes to music festivals---music really helped ariela out of her depression & eating disorder.

ariela has yet to relapse, but she struggles every day.

she has 0 tattoos, but is planning on getting one v soon

ariela has her nose pierced, and several ear piercings.

loves anything grungy/hippie in a way.

so all in all, ariela is v fragile but loveS HELPING OTHERS LIKE??? she just wants everyone to be happy bcos itll make her happy?? her heart is filled with joy, tbh, when she helps another in need.

so this is TRASH. but yeah, hopefully we can plot :)

#crawfordhq:intro #crawfordhqintro #ayeeee cuties #muse

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avecorviidae · 5 years

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Fic: Three - Epilogue

Fandom: Mob Psycho 100 Rating: G Relationship(s): Kageyama Shigeo & Reigen Arataka Word Count: 1901

Ao3 Link

After a certain point in one’s teaching career, graduation ceremonies are just plain boring.

Following the disaster that was Salt Mid’s brief flirtation with the 21st century last year, they’d stuck to a traditional ceremony, with speech after speech after speech, and absolutely no pop songs of any kind. Ever. Still, she usually drags Toyoda to the graduation every year, if only because she needs someone who it’s socially acceptable to fall asleep on during the principal’s speech. They both know the drill by now: sit towards the middle of the gymnasium, in the middle of a row, preferably behind some tall and/or chatty parents. Once they’re comfortably seated, they can safely zone out until the scripted speeches about success and school spirit and moving on to do great things have been run dry again, and wake up just in time to watch the graduating class receive their little diplomas. The real fun in this, of course, was the gossip. It’s not that Katsuko doesn’t like her students, or isn’t incredibly proud of them. It’s just that, as a teacher, becoming invested in the lives of teenagers is the only way to stay sane. “Did you have him last year?” Toyoda asks, as a lanky, awkward boy that Katsuko vaguely recognizes stumbles on stage to collect his diploma. She shakes her head. “No, I think he was in Amori’s class.” “Kid sniffs pens.” “What, like a drug thing?” “No, that would’ve made sense! Just, he sniffed them, Kano. Always. During lessons, while he was working, just always… sniffing.” “Weird.”

As sniffer boy is clapped off of the stage, he’s replaced by a petite girl that it takes Katsuko a moment to place, but when she does… “Hey, isn’t she the one who told everyone she dated a high schooler?” Toyoda squints at her. “Did she? I swear I saw her flirting with my first years.” They get so caught up in trying to piece together the tangled mess that is the middle school dating scene that Katsuko almost misses Shigeo’s name being called. The only thing that alerts her is the sole whoop! among the polite clapping that follows him on stage. As subtly as she can, Katsuko turns around in her chair. Sure enough, at the back of the gymnasium, Reigen is standing against a wall with the others who couldn’t get a seat, clapping and grinning with an enthusiasm that seems to be giving other parents secondhand embarrassment.

Shigeo has managed to grab his diploma and shake the hands of most all of the officials in the span of about three seconds, and Katsuko reminds herself to add a tally on the break room whiteboard to Satoh’s secret agent theory from a couple of years ago (“The quiet ones are always the shiftiest, Kano!”). Still, she manages to get a couple of claps in as he scurries off of the stage.

Toyoda always ditches as soon as the ceremony is over, which, frankly, Katsuko doesn’t understand. In her opinion, there’s little point in attending the ceremony itself if you’re not going to stick around for the classroom party afterwards. The only real draw is the promise of more gossip and convenience store cookies, but still. The desks in Sugita Ken’s classroom are pushed around haphazardly, and Katsuko works her way through the maze, past little cliques of students and chittering parents until she finally manages to reach the food table, and the long-awaited cookies. Objectively, it’s not a huge distance from the door to the food, but Katsuko has been cornered by a series of her former students and, of all people, the Kageyamas, so finally getting to the back of the room feels like an accomplishment. She’s surprised that the Kageyamas are sticking around, given that all four of them seem to be incredibly uncomfortable talking to people in general. Of course, the parents had had no trouble thanking her for all her work, gushing about their sons and such, but both of them are mingling with the overly-happy tone and strained smiles of adults who would rather like to be done being adults for the day. Ritsu is far less subtle about his discomfort, fidgeting and tugging on the collar of his dress shirt. Whenever he thinks nobody's looking, his nose scrunches up, glaring mercilessly at the nearest person or object. He seems to be sticking to his parents’ sides, unlike Shigeo, who she’s seen speaking to no less than four other students. All of them were in the telepathy/body improvement club, but still, she thinks it might be a new record. Compared to the rest of the boys in his year, mostly wearing baggy suits, scuffed shoes, and ties that hung down half to their knees, Shigeo is surprisingly sharply dressed. His black suit jacket actually seems, well, calling it tailored would be a stretch, but it actually fits. The matching pants have to have been hemmed, and the collar of his dress shirt is crisply ironed. The only thing that’s not new-looking is the tie, and by this point, the faded pink of the ratty thing is actually familiar. She loses sight of Shigeo when he disappears behind some of the girls’ soccer team trying to take a picture, so she scans the room for Reigen instead. It isn’t difficult.

He’s amassed a decent following in the corner of the room, and looks to be entirely in his element, leaning back casually against the wall and presumably telling stories that are accompanied by extravagant sweeping hand motions that usually make the group burst into obnoxious laughter. She’s seen him twiddle his purple bow tie no less than fifteen times since she arrived.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket.

FROM SATOH: im gonna be able to get over there in 5 mins, is reigen still there TO SATOH: Yep, but I don’t know for how much longer. Until Shigeo leaves, probably. FROM SATOH: listen. katsuko. this is the LAST NIGHT for us to get to the bottom of this TO SATOH: For YOU to get to the bottom of this, you mean? FROM SATOH: not important, listen, katsu, if u see him going to leave, u gotta stop him. talk to him abt idk old rocks or whatever your minor was until i get there TO SATOH: Anthropology, but you were close.

She’s so caught up in looking at her phone that she almost startles when she sees Shigeo in front of her. His telltale nerves are on full display, scuffing one shoe on the linoleum tiles, but he’s smiling softly up at her, and his hands are behind his back, clearly hiding something.

She smiles back at him. “Congratulations, Shigeo! I’m sure everyone’s very proud of you.”

Shigeo looks down at the floor as he mumbles, “Oh, um, thank you, Miss Kano.” She waits patiently as he stares at his feet, biting his lip as he gathers his words. “I wanted to, um, to thank you for… everything, and Shishou helped me a lot to pick it out and plant it, so, uh…” He holds something out from behind his back. “Please accept this from both of us!” As she gently takes the little pot from him, he explains, “It’s a sweet pea plant. Shishou says it means ‘goodbye,’ so… oh! Um, they can grow kind of big, so if you want to, you can plant it in the ground, or a bigger pot, and tie it onto something so that it can grow straight… ours is tied to a yardstick that Shishou found. Yours should flower soon.” The tiny green stalk is bending with the weight of the buds, already splitting down the sides to reveal streaks of white petals. It’s impossible to place the way she’s feeling, the thing in her chest that’s heavy and light all at once, and she thinks, a flower that means goodbye. All she can do is meet his eyes, and she her voice comes out sounding soft and awed when she says, “Thank you, Shigeo. Thank you, for everything.” Shigeo’s hug is too quick for her to reciprocate, just a quick squeeze before he’s stepped away, eyes towards the floor again. He perks up when he hears Reigen calling, “Oi, Mob!” from his corner of the room. Katsuko puts a hand on his shoulder as he moves to leave. “You’ll thank your shishou as well for me, won’t you? And I certainly hope this won’t be the last I see of you. After all, your brother is graduating next year, isn’t he?”

Shigeo nods, and he smiles up at her again, eyes bright. He actually waves a small goodbye as he walks over to Reigen, whose audience has since dispersed. Reigen bends down to say something to him, hand clasped on his shoulder. Satoh Miyu sidles up to her, quickly following her line of sight. “Oh, thank goodness, he’s still here.” She looks at Katsuko. “Katsu, you have a plant.” Katsuko adopts the dry deadpan that’s more or less necessary to be friends with Satoh. “Indeed I do. Shouldn’t you be supervising your own class party?” Satoh waves her off with a small scoff, but doesn’t actually answer the question. Katsuko sees Shigeo walking away from Reigen, and towards his parents and Ritsu, who are all idling near the door in the manner of people who are very ready to leave the party. Reigen, as well, seems to be gearing up to head off. Katsuko points in his direction. “Looks like your window of opportunity is closing to… what are you actually planning?” Satoh looks over at Reigen and hisses, “Shit.” Then, to Katsuko, “I’m going to solve the mystery once and for all, Katsu.” At Katsuko’s blank stare, she leans close and whispers conspiratorially, “The ‘relationship-to-student’ mystery.” Ah, right. She supposed it never had been filled in, had it? The students even updated their information at the beginning of every year, and while Reigen’s phone number had changed once, that little box had still been blank. She follows behind Satoh as she walks towards Reigen, but drifts away to find an inconspicuous eavesdropping spot. This should be interesting. Satoh, chatterbox that she is, makes easy smalltalk, the kind of oh, I’ve heard about you from Shigeo’s teachers, lovely to finally meet you, isn’t this whole ceremony simply lovely, so excited to see them all graduating, bland sort of talk that just disguises the real point of a conversation. Tone still innocuously sweet, Satoh finally asks, “So, I’m just dying to know. How do you know Shigeo?” Reigen’s answer is immediate. “He’s my kid.” The duh is unspoken, but Katsuko can hear it clear as day in his unimpressed tone, and she stifles a laugh. “If you’ll excuse me, Satoh-san, I’ve really gotta get going.” Reigen excuses himself politely and beelines for the exit while Satoh is still floundering a little at the response. He catches her eye as he’s crossing the room, and waves her a quick goodbye before disappearing through the door. Katsuko should probably head home herself, soon. It’s been a long night, and these things always tend to tire her out. Teachers aren’t known for their active party lives. First though, she needs to drop by her classroom and clear the textbooks off of the windowsill. Her little sweet pea flowers are going to need all of the sunlight they can get.

#/#//#///#////#/////#robin fic #mp100 fic #fic: three

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