#else. but anyway this is just something I've kind of adopted and most people who have been with me for a while

[spoopdeedoop]

hi i have some disorganized thoughts/hcs abt the found family human doctor au

(one of the thoughts being i should really give it a better name. another being YES this is only the nuwho doctors atm bc that's the only series i've watched so far apologies. if i ever get around to watching classic who i will add them trust)

BEHOLD my random, not at all in-depth headcanons

nine is the only one with a car out of all of them. they all keep bugging him to drive/pick them up from places -- he has mixed feelings about being the assigned taxi driver

both twelve and eleven are teachers -- college professor and preschool teacher respectively. twelve's students love them because he will say the most stupid, hilarious shit with a straight face without even knowing and eleven's students love him because he is the only teacher at the school that will dance with them during musical chairs (he doesn't even play the game. he just dances)

i want to make one of them an actual doctor but i don't think any of them could handle it unfortunately

they all share an an apartment flat on the same level -- nine, twelve and fifteen live in one room, ten, eleven and thirteen live in the one across from them. of course there are other people in the building too but they're all used to the strange loud hyperactivity of that particular flat. i think i'm using the right terminology here. yall know what im talking about

(i'm so tempted to make some companions be their neighbors)

nine and ten are the most insomniac of all of them, so they're used to bumping each other in the dead of night on their way to raid each other's respective fridges or something. very rarely thirteen will join them and they're like "WELL FANCY SEEING YOU HERE"

twelve does sleep, but like. he's nocturnal

eleven and ten hate each other in a sibling kind of way (see: day of the doctor). they are constantly sending each other death threats or tripping each other over. everyone is sick of it

sometimes when they're out shopping you'll hear ten yell "GET OUT OF THE FROZEN FOOD YOU NUMPTY WE ARE NOT BUYING FISH FINGERS" over the aisles and you'll hear eleven whine "WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH" back

(if you're lucky you'll be able to catch fifteen mumble "why did we put them in the same apartment. are we asking for an eviction notice")

eventually eleven will pick a random stray cat off the side of the road, take her home, and name her bowtie, which is a stupid name, so everyone just defaults to calling her kitty

kitty's favourite person is twelve, to eleven's absolute despair

(my original idea for this was to initially have ten hate the idea of living with a cat, since he's stated full on in the show that he doesn't like cats, but apparently there is some very obscure doctor who comic run in which he falls into a depressive spiral and adopts a cat whom he names rose-the-cat, so he might actually like cats idk?)

anyway ten hates her until he doesn't lmao. he vents to her when there's no one else home and she will Stare at him back and it is a very nice friendship

kitty and nine watch shitty romcom together

they have a joint groupchat together -- half of it is just thirteen and fifteen assigning everyone outfits they find on pinterest and the other half is eleven asking where everyone went (he keeps getting lost when they go out)

nine doesn't know how to download pictures off the internet and so resorts to manually editing memes together to send to the groupchat and everyone's like "girl that's so much more effort........."

(yes he doesn't know how to press save image to camera roll but he knows how to use a photo editor flawlessly. such is the logic of the idiocy of the doctors)

eleven and thirteen get along very well i think. they're the only two of the group to play video games and so they bond over that. they also have ridiculously similar clothing taste

sometimes they'll succeed in getting fifteen to play pokemon with them and then they'll proceed to not see him until the next day when he comes out of his room and goes "you didn't tell me plusle couldn't evolve i've been levelling it up all fucking night"

friday is assigned movie night (it's always big hero 6)

eleven is the only one to actively seek out physical affection, usually really abruptly like clinging to thirteen's back as she passes him in the hall or bapping ten with the palm of his hand until he sighs and gives him a hug. he does expect a platonic kiss on the forehead from anyone before he goes to bed and will complain if he doesn't get one

anyway thats it i'm sick in the head and really sad. if this keeps up i may be forced to actually write a fic

#doctor who #spoop speaks #if anyone has a name for this au i'm OPEN TO SUGGESTIONS #if anyone wants to write fic/draw art for this au YOU DONT EVEN HAVE TO ASK. IM ACTIVELY BEGGING. PLEASE #might delete this post if i get too self conscious it is. just. words. ew

[feluka]

Your cats are both very very cute. I volunteered at shelters so I know how hard it is for sick and/or disabled cats to find a forever home, bc of cost, 'looks' or even just the amount of work you have to put in. Even though most of the time, those are the cats that are the most rewarding and loving. Your cats are very lucky to have such a kind owner

Thank you for your kind words and for volunteering at shelters. I'm forever grateful to their rescuer for everything she did. She had a difficult time finding them a home because nobody was interested and yet she never gave up on them or surrendered them to a shelter. She also made sure that they are adopted together despite that making it even more difficult to find them a home. I'm grateful beyond words for everything that made it possible for me to find them at the time I found them. I truly believe they saved me more than I saved them. They're so special - and I know all cat owners see their cats in this light and I love all other cats I've ever taken care of, even the rowdy and "difficult" ones, but there's something about the way Shams and Noor never ever tire of love that is so special to me. I'm used to keeping myself in check around cats because they very easily get overstimulated and need some distance or to be left unbothered after some point, and I always want to respect that, but with Shams and Noor it seems that I can hold them all day long and they're still disappointed when I let go and they ask for more. Which is perfectly fine by me because I'll never have my fill of loving them. They're so sweet and gentle beyond compare and thinking about how nobody wanted them brings me to tears every time. Who can turn down such treasures and how many treasures like them are still waiting for a home?

I try be less cynical and not assume that people turn down blind cats because of "looks" and instead I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are concerned that they can't provide full-time care for them and so hesitate to adopt them - which is understandable, if you think you're not 100% up to supporting an animal's needs then it's best to leave them for someone else's care, but the thing is, blind cats don't require the amount of extra care that people assume they do! They're able to find their food and water and litterbox all on their own, and memorize your house and have zero problem navigating it. You just need to take a few precautions like making sure any openings with a considerable vertical drop (like windows) are covered so that they don't fall - and honestly? You should already do that anyway if you have any pets. Another thing is that you shouldn't move your furniture around too often unless you really have to, it really disorients them. Shams and Noor needed more care than usual when they were kittens because they had a few other health issues other than blindness, but once those cleared up, they were good to go and prance around as happily as any cat. Remember that cats that are born blind don't know that they're blind. There's nothing "unusual" to them about themselves! Don't let feeling sorry for them all the time get in the way of loving them and spoiling them to the fullest. ❤

#asks #sunlight #cats

[copperbadge]

Hi Sam, how did you come to the conclusion you should be tested for neurodivergence? I've been reading a lot of Temple Grandin (Visual Thinking is fantastic) and see so much of myself in her books. But, I, too, am, let's just say well into adulthood, and I don't know if my life would change that much with a diagnosis. The only thing I can think of doing with a diagnosis is telling my siblings and childhood bullies that they picked on someone who had a reason for being "weird." But it doesn't change anything. Beyond the medication, did you find any solace? Thank you for sharing your journey.

I was just thinking I should do a post about this....

I don't recall the specifics and have never been able to find the post again, but sometime prior to 2019 I made a joke about having a short attention span, and someone said something like "Oh, did you finally get a diagnosis?" and I said haha no, I don't have ADHD, and a bunch of readers went, "Uh, you very clearly do." Some of them added that they thought I knew and was just being discreet about it. (As if I have ever been discreet about anything in my life.)

So I figured, okay, probably there's some level of neurodivergence there, given that my mother and siblings all have various diagnoses, and my father was clearly autistic. (Knowing what we know now about how ADHD can mask as other mental illnesses, there's a strong chance this comes from my maternal grandmother, who was the person in the family I was most like when she was alive.) I tried a couple of times to get evaluated and always had either slow or nonexistent responses from the clinics I reached out to, so I stopped trying. I had a ton of coping mechanisms in place and was in a good spot in my life, so I thought honestly, what would it change?

But by the end of 2021, while I was still in a pretty good financial place, and my career was doing well, I could tell that if things kept up as they were I was going to tank my job purely through being unable to get through a day doing productive work the way I used to.

I thought, well, if this is ADHD and it's getting worse because the whole fucking world is on fire, I have two options: I can assume I have it and just do the reading and figure shit out on my own, or I can get evaluated, get professional advice, and possibly get medicated. That seemed like the best return on investment, so that's what I worked on. My goal was primarily medication, because I didn't see myself being able to change much else about my situation on my own. And, truthfully, medication has been the biggest change -- I actually have an essay about that queued for the anniversary of my starting Adderall. But while it hasn't been a massive life-altering world-shattering change, all of this was worth it purely for the medication.

Uh, momentary sidebar in my memoir: there are downsides to having a diagnosed disability -- discrimination, legal barriers to certain things like holding government jobs or adopting, etc. Those have to be weighed when you're considering evaluation. If you think you may have autism, there's not necessarily an advantage to having a formal diagnosis unless you need accommodations; if you think you may have ADHD, the huge advantage is access to medication, which doesn't exist for autism as far as I'm aware. So your particular flavor of neurodivergence might dictate whether you get a diagnosis, or whether you just start operating on the assumption you have it. Both are valid, I think, it really depends on what's going on in your life and what you want to change.

Anyway, I have been doing other research, reading journal articles and pop psychology and talking to people, and that's been good, but even if I had none of that, the medication has been so helpful in getting me back on an even keel and then making life even better.

This sounds kind of weird to say but I'm not generally someone who needs a lot of solace. There is some relief in knowing that at least some of my fuckups in life weren't something I could have prevented by simply having more strength of character or working harder, and that's nice, but it's something I could have had without a formal diagnosis -- just like you could simply tell your siblings and bullies you have a diagnosis. (Being real, I doubt they'd care; bullies gonna bully whether you had a reason to be weird or not, and none of that would have been your fault regardless of your neurology. But it's all very situational, as I'm sure you know.) I wasn't badly bullied as a kid and there's nobody really to...tell, in the sense you're thinking of. But I didn't get into it for emotional solace; I got into it to fix a life that was, albeit extremely slowly, starting to fall apart. So if you're someone, as most people are, who derives emotional satisfaction or catharsis from having the diagnosis, I think it probably would be pretty helpful. But even if you aren't, like me, if you can get medication or accomodations, I think it's worth it.

#sam has adhd

[sydmarch]

there's this attitude on here i'm so fucking sick of where people who consider themselves progressives will be like "oh yeah of course it's fine if you don't want to have kids. but everyone has to LIKE kids anyone who doesn't think babies are cute or feel some nurturing instinct over them is some inherently evil emotionless freak who's just waiting to abuse children" like shut the FUCK upppppp no one has to like kids no one HAS to like anything. i've never in my life seen a baby that i thought was cute & the only emotion they elicit is "oh those thangs are dirty & loud so i'll be leaving now". the way people equate people who just genuinely dislike kids with child abusers is so FUCKING stupid

i mean like someone who doesn't like dogs, thinks they're loud & gross or whatever, they might get people being like "whaaaat but they're so cute wym you don't like them??" but i never see anyone assume the dog hater is just inherently an animal abuser who is a danger to all dogs by nature of their dislike of them. someone who hates dogs is in all likelihood just never going to have one, stop coming around your place after you adopt one, & not work as something like a walker or groomer. same thing applies for the vast majority of people who don't like kids! the most i ever "interact" with one is when someone brings one on the train near me & i get up and go somewhere else if they're being annoying lmao. the absolute reach of it all. if you really think the reason people abuse (kids, animals, women, etc) is simply because they don't like (kids, animals, women, etc) you are so fucking stupid and you have rocks for brains. you don't know ANYTHING about abuse.

all these people on tumblr who act like this is a place where you go to get away from overbearing societal norms or whatever & then come on here & just water down "everyone should have/wants to have kids really" to "ok not everyone wants kids, but everyone wants to at least be the Cool Uncle to their friends kids" or whatever the fuck. the idea of everyone wanting kids has indoctrinated you so thoroughly that you don't even realize it. plus "some bloggers who don't think kids are cute" is SO LAUGHABLY far down the list of things that are actually a real threat to children it's beyond stupid that this is something i consistently see people bringing up. reeks of the same type of bullshit attitude of like "oh you're low empathy? you must be a psychopath who wants to hurt people & you're just a threat waiting to happen". everyone loves to have a target who they deem as 'acceptable' ig, even 'be gay do crimes' 'fuck gender norms' ass bloggers.

anyway if you read all this & disagree w me strongly enough that you still think its cool to reblog shit like "if you don't like babies you should kill yourself" fuck off forever and block me right now i'm so serious. don't come in my replies or askbox to debate me on this shit i'm not trying to start a discussion or whatever i'm just annoyed that i keep seeing this kind of garbage on my dash. if you argue with me i'm not engaging, i'm blocking you thanks.

#texticles

[dragoneyes618]

Do you have any headcanons regarding Luisa and Enrique? Miguel's parents seem really interesting, it's too bad that we don't see much of them in the movie.

Thank you for this! ;) I also like thinking about interesting characters who weren't given much screen time!

Fair warning, though: I've spent a lot of time inundating my brain with Coco posts upon Coco posts upon Coco posts. So I can't always be sure of what headcanons I made up myself and what headcanons I've subconsciously taken from other people's headcanons.

Also, just because these are my headcanons does not necessarily mean that I will stay faithful to them in the fanfictions I write. I'll have different backstories and headcanons and so on depending on the fic. You know how it is. ;)

Anyway!

At this point, I think I've adopted the headcanon from The Gravedigger's Daughter by Fernwithy that there's a significant age gap between Luisa and Enrique, like over 10 years. So when they first met, Enrique was like, "I mean, I like her and everything, but she's kind of young for me, so maybe I should find someone else?" except that up until that point there hadn't been anyone else, so the rest of the family was like "Obviously she likes you! Go for it!"

Meanwhile Luisa kept finding excuses to go to the Rivera zapateria. Her shoe broke, her other shoe broke, she wanted to buy a pair of shoes as a gift for her mother, and so on. Finally Coco (who was in her late eighties at this point, her mind still well and only needed a cane, not yet a wheelchair) took her aside and said "Look, you can't possibly have needed your shoes to be fixed five times in two months. We all know why you're here."

And then they got married and then they had Miguel.

To add some angst, because where would any headcanons be without angst, they wanted to have more children than just Miguel and later Socorro. But Luisa kept miscarrying.

This is why Luisa is shown looking after her twin nephews in the movie, instead of one of their parents being the ones to direct them about the petals. Luisa, after wanting another child for so long, was happy to help her brother- and sister-in-law with their children, and what with dealing with twin toddlers, they welcomed the help.

It got to the point where when Luisa was pregnant with Socorro, she and Enrique didn't tell Miguel until, like, her sixth month. Just in case it ended like all the other ones had.

(Miguel is a twelve-year-old boy with barely any experience of pregnant woman. The only woman he knows well, who he had cause to spend time with when she was pregnant, before his mother that is, is his aunt. Sure, eventually he definitely would have noticed something, but I can see him going "Nah, Tía's stomach was way bigger than that, Mamá's not having a baby," not taking into account that his aunt had been pregnant with twins.)

Luisa and Enrique think Miguel doesn't know about the miscarriages. He's never going to tell them he does.

This is why there's such a big gap between Miguel and Socorro. Everybody was thrilled when Socorro was finally born.

Back to Enrique.

Out of all of his family, Enrique is the one who looks like Héctor the most. Imagine Enrique without his mustache, or Héctor with one and without his goatee. They'd resemble each other quite a bit, wouldn't they?

Of course, since no one actually knew what Héctor had looked like, Enrique had no idea of his resemblance to his infamous family-abandoning walkaway musician great-grandfather.

No one, that is, except one.

As Coco began to lose her memory, she would confuse Enrique with her father. The sight of him would upset her; she would start crying, or ask when he was coming home, why he had gone away, why he had never returned. (Inspired by this comic by @atarahderek)

This unsettled Enrique. How could his grandmother mistake him for her father? Did he really look like him so much? He was never going to be anything like him if he could help it.

And this is why he supported the music ban. His great-grandfather left the family for music. Enrique wasn't like his great-grandfather. Enrique was going to shun music and put his family above all else, just the opposite of what his great-grandfather had done. He knew that family was more important than anything, and he was going to live that to the utmost.

And that is why he tried to stop his mother from breaking Miguel's guitar, and why he actually succeeded in the end. He saw how important this was to his son, and his son was more important than music, ban or no ban.

(I feel like I could have explained this better. Feel free to comment/ask if you want me to elaborate.)

Luisa and her sister-in-law - and Franco, for that matter - all gave up music when they married into the family. Unlike the other Riveras, who never knew music to miss it, except for Miguel, they knew very well what they were missing. They didn't mind much, usually.

But sometimes, if Luisa and her sister-in-law happened to be alone in the workshop, and one of them would put on the radio to listen to the news, neither of them were going to say anything.

And if one of them happened to surreptitiously change the channel to something else, quickly turning it off as soon as one of their children or husbands or in-laws walked in, neither of them were going to say anything.

And if Coco happened to be sitting in the back of the workshop, she wasn't going to be saying anything either.

#coco #pixar coco #coco pixar #luisa rivera #enrique rivera #coco the movie #coco headcanons #miguel rivera #rivera family #hector rivera #coco rivera #answered ask #desbeauxjardins

[darby-draws]

1 and 12 for Quinn, 18 for Andre ?

Thanks for asking! [questions]

Read More for big long post! <3

1 What was the first element of your OC that you remember considering (name, appearance, backstory, etc.)?

It was right after Art Fight and I desperately wanted a Queer Horror OC before Halloween season. There was a lot of talk about what kind of horror we wanted to go towards. (which maybe still is not quite settled as there are multiple "Horror Movie Plots" in our Whorror Movie story.) But we settled on demon possessed with some religious trauma and a bit of delicious revenge, and Darla and I both worked on designing our own guys separately and see how they would fit together. I sketched these:

I thought the demon might be similar to an AU demon we have, Goopy, who possesses Lucky and Nate in a story, so that's why I have the drippy drawing in the corner and the inspo for the top surgery tattoos. That's how Goopy was! But Quinn's Demon is a bit different now! Black hair with horns was a must but it mostly became spiky hair with the Vibe of horns. (… unless! rule of cool: draw them as horns anyway its badass!!)

In an early iteration of the story Quinn and Parker were going to find a baby possessed by a demon, from an Evil Cult Town. Quinn's demon and Parker's strength (and bloodthirst) destroyed their Big Bad leader who was doing the baby/demon sacrifices, and the baby was abandoned, maybe thought to be dead? They were like sure… We'll see what we can do with this little thang. They named it Blair Belladonna. They knew of an older witchy/demon knowledgeable grandma figure (literally Domino's Grandma before Domino was a character) who could help them learn about this baby's demon and how to raise a little demonling. BUT That never settled into canon, there is no baby Blair. (However! Much of the baby demon possessing cult thing turned into Domino's backstory. 👀)

12 What have you found to be most difficult about creating art for your OC?

Remembering the dripping perma crying eyeliner down his cheeks. Yes it's supposed to be a permanent feature. 😔 Also figuring out how to draw the hair in between the "horns", how to make it spiky but not distract from The Big Spikes, which direction its going off in, etc. Otherwise I think Quinns pretty easy to grasp for me! 🤔 I love when I get to use flat black for hair and clothes when I'm just doodling so thats always a relief.

18 What is the most recent thing you’ve discovered about your OC?

This was trickyyy ahh Andre's such an old character that hasn't been the main focus lately, so a lot of thinking of him recently has been like. Reminiscing on old facts and not necessarily bringing in anything new. If theres something I've recently discovered of him, I can't think of it!

One thing I've recently decided after some consideration is that I'm going to fuse the Original Andre story where he adopts Delilah the robot and the AU where Andre has an Actual Human Baby instead of the robot together. So now, Delilah and baby Leia exist at the same time! Yay, two of them!!! It's gonna have to make me rethink and plan out his timeline a bit differently and see how he reacts to things now. I just haven't actually set out the time to plan the combined story yet. I feel like I softened up Andre's story a bit in the baby AU, (less drug use, less bad relationships with sketchy people, etc) so I'll have to see if I end up keeping it slightly more balanced or if it'll stay more true to the Actual Canon events, maybe just pushed around the timeline a bit.

Something else that feels new from semi recent times: I thought of an AU where all three of his parents actually like. Get together/stay together polycule it up and raise Andre together rather than the usual backstory of:

two good friends in college befriend and get a crush on the same woman

the guys start a business together

one of them marries the woman and they have a kid together but he gets way too into his work and neglects his wife, oops :(

she then goes to their friend for comfort, which leads to cheating, which leads to she GETS PrEGNANT (WITH ANDRE!) (NOT her Husband's child!) oops :(

she tells her husband the truth and they talk about separating

The Friend leaves The Business and is told to basically never speak to them again

Husband decides will simply raise this child as his own and works on bettering himself and the marriage (if only for appearances and/or for their older daughters sake) and he will simply Not resent the New Child for any reason, it's That Easy! (he said, you know, like a liar.)

Andre finds this out (Accidentally! From his SISTER) as a full grown ass adult and it fucks him up for a bit. oops :(

⬆ this is a lot to Get Into. And also it's Not the new stuff, although I probably haven't actually delved into it before…!

But basically, all this to say, this New 3 Parent AU leads to Andre being much more well adjusted, because so much of his… THing in his life (in canon timeline) has juust been. family treating him unfairly for something he had no part in and resenting/reacting to that. 🥴 And his two dads are such opposite strict/lenient personalities that they'd balance each other like, reallly wellll if they had that opportunity to both raise him from the start, and Andre would have someone in his corner when he's Going Through rough times in life. AUgh. If only… (Also his bio dad is … probably autistic like him so I think someone would like, UNDERSTAND him and the way he does things while growing up which is like, wow groundbreaking.)

#marscats37 #asks #ask game #quinn #whorror movie #andre #android story #original characters #oc talk

[nickfoo]

O fellow fire tank enthusiast, I have an extremely unique question for you that’s kinda important to me 😅

How do you think Bege would think of Sugar , from Dressrosa? 

I’ve got this whole series of events that live in my head rent free where Sugar used her powers to evade capture by the marines (after the whole fiasco with the straw hats) and she ends up meeting Bege when the Fire tanks go to Dressrosa. They kinda know who each other are and have a small temporary alliance to get rid of the kissy-germ people and get away from the marines, and she just ends up leaving with them because she doesn’t have anywhere else to go

What if the Doflamingo family never felt like a real family to her, and on top of that she recently learned that her actual sister (Monet) got killed?? Bege’s papa gut kicks in and he treats her like his own?🥺

Aand she joins the family ?? maybe?? Bege and Sugar are like my top fave one piece characters and this whole mess started from the most random oprp convo on Twitter.. A Bege acc said something about hating absent fathers and a Sugar acc asked, “I don’t have a dad, will you be mine,” and he says YES. It’s so ridiculous but it just stuck in my head and it’s forever canon for me now because they’re my blorbos 

IM SORRYY I kinda rambled a bunch but I’ve not really told anyone about this and I just wanna know what you think about it bcuz you’re like the coolest guy ever to me with all the fire tank stuff you do 🥺🥺

Hey there! This is a long reply from me, so its all under the read more.

I can’t speak for what another person rping as a character would do, as my take on the character might be different than theirs. But I can give you what I’d think the character would do! I've always felt that Sugar seemed quite happy with her life in the Donquixote family. She was doted upon by Doflamingo, not only as a member of his 'family', but with her power, she was a vital to him as a piece in his hold on Dressrosa. Despite its dysfunctions, the Donquixote family is a tight knit group - even if one of the only things holding them together in unison was their mutual devotion to their captain. A form of comradery was definitely there. They were a group of misfits who had found something to be united and accepted in. But now, I'll give my opinion on how I’d think Bege would go with your scenario of if Sugar evaded military capture in Dressrosa and was present when the Fire Tank Pirates were around looking for Lola. I actually think Bege would be wary of Sugar. She was a member of the Donquixote pirates - a ruthless group. And she was also hugely responsible for the subjugation of Dressrosa. Her devil fruit is very dangerous. Due to her fruit power, she looks like a 10 yr old child, but she's actually 22. It's a deceptive appearance that could be used ( and which she has used ) quite maliciously, and I think Bege would pick it up as such. ( and respect that lol. ) As for adopting her, I'm...again not sure. Bege's not like Doflamingo, who had a knack for finding abandoned kids with nowhere to go and taking them into his crew. I think not only do those kids remind Doflamingo of himself as a child, but kids have a sort of pure, honest admiration that he craves and that kind of unfiltered affection can't be found anywhere else. Its also very easy to win that admiration over to devotion. Doflamingo adopted both Sugar and Monet into his family when they were very young. Sugar was 9 and Monet was 17. They are both surely devoted to him. Anyway, I think Bege has instinctive dad tendencies to look out for the kids and young adults who he's allied with (now that he's a father and he’s learned some basic human empathy ), but I'm not sure he'd be adopting kids into his crew/mafia family out of the blue. He's not very into doing good deeds without it having any benefit for him. (Unless Chiffon helps him change his mind.) Also to keep in mind that Sugar is mentally a young adult. He wouldn't talk to her like a little kid. He might slip up now and then, but quickly remind himself she’s a full fledged dangerous pirate with a history. Bege’s a very practical thinker. I think he'd be more interested in her skills and power. But I think he'd not be so sure he could trust her. That power of hers is pretty scary, after all.

#ask foo #anon #one piece #Capone bege #donquixote doflamingo #sugar

[t4tmoreid]

gimme your favorite cm headcanons

i will celebrate you posting again like a kpop comeback

omg hiiii hehe ok honestly it's been a hot minute since i've thought about cm hcs but:

spencer is a cat dad to the most evil little asshole in the world <3 he's got this white and orange cat that he adopted when he was working on his first PhD cause he thought the company would be nice, and he named it something that's frankly stupid and annoying like Proton or Sagan or something, and this cat is like, objectively a little shit. like, he claws up the furniture, hides under the sofa to swat at spencer's feet when he walks by, pushes his glasses of the counter, eats pages out of any books spencer leaves around, etc etc. and spencer loves him dearly but he is just beefing with this little cat CONSTANTLY. like he's always showing up to work with scratches on his hands and arms, dramatically monologuing and whining about how this little shit has it out for him specifically and how he's quite literally the devil himself in cat form. but then the second someone else chimes in and is like "yeah your cat is kind of an asshole man" spencer's just like i'm sorry what did you say to me. watch your mouth dude that's my fucking cat and i love him more than anything. fuck you.

speaking of cats, hotch is like, a cat magnet for a reason none of them can quite grasp. like he's really more of a dog person, never been that much of a cat lover if he's being honest, but any time he's over at spencer's or emily's their cats just will not leave him alone. and because the universe has a sense of humour, hotch is pretty much the only person who spencer's cat will cuddle with. like the first time spencer has the team over to his place, he's barely gotten the words out to warn them to be careful around his little demon spawn before he turns around to see his cat up in hotch's lap, purring obnoxiously looking for pets. traitor.

derek teases spencer mercilessly for his nerdy glasses, but he literally has reading glasses himself, he's just so far into it at this point that he'd rather die than admit it. he gives himself headaches constantly because he refuses to wear them and give spencer the satisfaction.

emily and derek get like, really extremely competitive over video games. you'd think it would be penny cause she's really the gamer among them, but when mario kart or just dance comes out derek and emily become people that they're honestly not proud of. and like the trash talk that comes out is quite frankly bizarre, so penelope prefers to just sit back with her wine and watch them bicker and sabotage one another like bratty siblings.

derek is always making mixtapes for spencer <3 i know i have a post about this somewhere, but like at least once a week derek is carefully curating a new collection of songs to burn onto a cd that he says spencer just has to listen to - because you're so uncultured about music it's honestly unacceptable spence - it's not at all because he has a stupid little crush that he can't quite seem to kick and he has no idea how the hell he's supposed to approach that when it's his stupid, awkward, gangly, endlessly endearing close friend doctor reid, and music is like the one thing he can fall back on as a way to get his feelings out so he doesn't, like, explode.

can i say homophobic jj. LOL like will people get mad at me if i say that. anyway jj is the girl who brags about having gay friends and tags along to the gay bar with penny emily spencer and derek cause she doesn't want to be left out and then gets grossed out when a woman tries to flirt with her SORRY ok i'm sorry. god.

whenever things are especially busy at the unit (or worse than usual at home) hotch tends to stays really late. penelope knows this, and she also knows that when hotch holes away in his office pouring over paperwork for hours and hours after everyone else has long since gone home, he very rarely takes the time to remember to get something to eat. so penelope has taken to bringing in an extra serving of whatever she takes for lunch, whether it's an extra sandwich or a second tupperware container of leftover pasta, and before she heads home she always comes up with some excuse to give it to hotch. she tells him she went out to lunch with derek so she didn't end up needing it, or she was half asleep this morning when she'd packed it and she'd made a second sandwich without thinking, and honestly hotch you might as well take it cause if you don't it's just gonna go in the garbage anyway and it's not good to waste food, hotch, there are people who are starving. and he always concedes, eventually, and accepts her food. she always looks so pleased with herself, like she's pulled the wool over his eyes, and hotch's throat kinda feels tight with the knowledge that someone cares enough to make sure he eats when he stays late, and also penelope is like a really good cook, so there's that, too.

when spencer has his hair grown out longer he lets penelope use him as a model to teach derek how to braid. derek has tried to braid penelope's hair before, with little success, and it's so much easier to show him on somebody else, but no matter how much she'd begged emily had refused to give in, so spencer it was. and honestly spencer thinks it's kinda nice, the feeling of somebody's fingers playing with his hair. especially when they're penelopes fingers, which move gently and lightly and don't pull too hard, and he comes out of it with a pretty french braid that has pieces falling out in the front because if they're being totally honestly his hair isn't quite long enough for this yet. derek is sort of less gentle when it's his turn to try, more prone to accidentally pulling so hard it makes spencer's whole fucking scalp tingle, but it's still nice to be sitting cross legged on the floor between derek's knees with derek's hands in his hair, so spencer only complains a little bit.

penelope keeps one of those "word of the day" tearaway calendars on her desk, and every so often she throws some word like "mellifluous" into conversation out of nowhere and everybody is just like 😐

#criminal minds is a show about copaganda and serial killers and murder and i'm like tee hee what if they braided each others hair like #little kids at a slumber party <3 #i tried to think of something for rossi but honestly i don't care enough about him to headcanon anything LOL #but thank you for asking this i loveeeee talking about this stuff <33 #ask #weird-hoodie-kid #anti jj #<- just in case LMAO sorry #hcs #ap

[zeroducks-2]

To give a serious response to your last reblog, I think most people (maybe not the VOCAL majority) like to exclude tags they don't want to see, and then if something is tagged incorrectly you do just scroll past or stop reading the fic when something comes up. I know there are people who complain about it like it's the end of the world but yeah it is a common thing among most of my internet people to be like "aw man I didn't know [thing] was gonna be in this fic, I guess I'm gonna go read something else now" and I don't really see any problem with that. (As long as they aren't like harassing the author about it or anything obviously, which again I'm sure some people do and that's not cool)

Fair warning, this was supposed to be a quick response and it turned into a long ass ramble about purity culture and anti behavior, sorry about that. It is a long post so feel free to just skip to the TL:DR.

I agree with you, and as I mentioned I really really like the tagging system and the culture of putting content warnings and trigger warnings over content to help people avoid what they dislike and/or actively harms them. I like it in general, not just on AO3.

For what concerns AO3 I know that most people don't cause any kind of issue about it. I too had a situation where an anonymous guest commented to ask me to tag something in my fic. I hadn't thought about it because it was kind of just a vague mention but to them it seemed to be a big deal, so I apologized and added the tag (and they were really nice and polite about it anyway) and that was it. I don't mind people asking me to tag stuff. As an author I'm not omniscient and I don't have a team or even just an advisor to give a second opinion on my stuff, and tell me what I might have missed in the tags. So by all means do say it if you prefer this or that tag being added to my stories. I might have come off as someone who has issues with the tagging system and the culture around it, and I understand that it might be the case since my reblog was worded a bit harshly. I am sorry about that.

What I really was complaining about is people adopting anti or anti-ish behavior around fanfictions and fanfiction writers, acting like the fact that they come across content they dislike is the poster's fault when they're unable to curate their own online experience, and/or take responsibility as grown adults over the possibility of coming across something they dislike. At the same time holding fanfiction writers to absurd standards when it comes to laying out what their fics contain before someone engages with it, while it would be considered absurd to demand something like this from a novel, a movie, a videogame or anything non-transformative really. And not only there's the exclusion system on AO3 that helps people filter content they don't like, but also I want to highlight the fact that someone who is writing a fanfiction does not owe anyone anything in terms of tagging their stories. Tagging by itself is a form of courtesy that is not mandatory for most kind of content except the so called Archive Warnings, and even then you can avoid tagging anything by simply using "Creator chose not to use warnings" - which I'm sure you know means "this story contains potentially upsetting themes, proceed at your own risk". Most people will just politely ask to add tags, and most people will just tag their stories anyway. I very rarely ever came across a fic which was severely untagged to the point of making me wonder if the OP actually knew tags existed, and how they worked in the first place. I think it happened maybe twice and I've been reading fanfictions since AO3 didn't even exist. But there also are people who will harass the author if they didn't tag their fic "properly", and by properly it often times means that a character mentioned something the reader dislikes, or maybe a character they hate makes a very brief appearance, or there is a random OC created for a specific situation. Or anything that doesn't suit their tastes really, and that they demanded was laid out in front of them so they could avoid the gigantic effort of clicking on a story, read the first chapter and deciding by themselves if they liked it or not. These people are the ones who act like fanfiction writers and content in general should cater explicitly to them. Just check the comments of that post, you'll see an array of folks complaining that "authors do this on purpose!" and that who doesn't tag their fic properly is a terrible person.

There's this one saying that it's "so frustrating" and "really inconsiderate" on the author's part, referring to a fanfiction which has one of the characters genderswapped. Now I really, really dislike genderswap (nothing against it or against who likes it, but it really is not my cup of tea both in fics and in fanarts) and I generally stay away from it. But realistically, how long is it going to take me to realize that a fic has been written with one or more genderswapped characters? A couple of sentences? Maybe an entire paragraph? How "frustrating" is it gonna be to spend something like 3 minutes figuring that this story is not for me, and move on with my life?

It's not frustrating, and it's not inconsiderate on anyone's part. Sure I too would prefer it to be tagged, but it's a Me problem if I can't accept that I might end up seeing something I dislike on the internet, and it's not not a random fanfic author's responsibility to make sure I don't encounter something that makes me turn up my nose.

There is in general a lot of pressure on fanfic authors, in some fandoms more than others, and the whole "you have to absolutely nail the tags" conversation is another layer of said pressure. I know people that won't post longfics because they're unsure about the tags, especially of the fact that tags might change over time, and end up not posting at all. People deleting their entire fics over these kinds of demands because they can't meet them, because they don't know how their fic is going to change from here to the 15th chapter. People having to disable or moderate comments, take hiatuses, abandon fics - sure maybe the comment insinuating they were a bad person for not tagging "there's a random policeman OC in your detective AU" is not the main reason why they abandoned the fic, but it surely did not help.

This also leads to another phenomenon, which is that of over-tagging. Of people tagging rape/noncon "just to be safe", or tagging underage because "this character is 18 but there still is a big age gap", and the likes. That's not how tags work, that's actually how the tagging system gets bloated and becomes useless, because after the 4th fic which is tagged Rape and the rape doesn't happen, what often occurs is that the reader finds another fic tagged Rape and doesn't take it seriously. But in that one case the rape does happen and they get triggered, and it's an awful experience both for the reader and for the writer in case they get harassed over it (and this specific instance happened to me personally, because apparently the Rape warning on my story wasn't enough since the rape actually happened).

It's part of the reason why the Dead Dove: Do Not Eat tag exists and got so popular. If your story has some background/minor/past/mentioned/implied/referenced Thing happening, and you tag it as a Major Thing that happens, people who write stories which actually have Thing as a major topic don't know what to do, and end up using the Dead Dove tag which per se doesn't mean anything, it's just a way to say "MIND THE DAMN TAGS AND DON'T COME AT ME!". No one should feel forced to use the Dead Dove tag by the way. The Archive Warnings and the tagging system in general exist for a reason. If you're reading this and you've been harassed, just block the fuckers and ignore them.

So anyway, while I tend to be really irked by over-taggers especially when I'm looking for a specific kink, I don't really blame them. Purity culture kills artistic expression by making artists afraid of harassment if they post their work, among other things. I prefer an over-tagged fanfiction (or an under-tagged one) over no fanfiction at all.

TL;DR - I agree with you anon, I'm just mad at people who harass authors over tags. I don't think there's anything wrong with politely asking someone to tag their fanfiction, and if they repeatedly don't do it over major stuff that needs to be tagged, just block them and/or report them to the AO3 TOS.

#this is all purity culture's fault btw #tags have always been a courtesy and are not by any means mandatory (except Archive Warnings but even then there's the orange one) #people who cannot handle this are not able to handle fanfictions in general #I'm sorry but if you feel so upset if you find a tiny thing that you don't like in a fanfiction that is YOUR problem not the author's #you're free and capable of clicking away from that fanfiction no one is stopping you #and if you end up harassing the author instead of clicking away or politely ask to add a tag you're a fucking asshole #ramblings #my asks #fandom things #long post

[afflatusmiqo]

hgggh

I finished Assassin's Fate last night and I really wish I had someone to talk it over with.

I wish I could remember everything from the last 15 books that might be relevant for interpreting everything.

The circumstances were really horrific. I wonder if the author had to put the Traitor's Death in there just so we would know that it was really, truly, actually the end this time. (At least, the end for Fitz as we knew him.) When the Fool said his death would not be fast, I had a glimmer of hope that he would have more years with Bee.

tbh it was as happy an ending as I could have expected -- everyone who loved Fitz coming to be with him; he and Nighteyes and the Fool becoming complete. (I just wish it could have happened later!)

Like many people, I've been trying to figure out what Bee's last lie was that so impressed the Wolf (who I'm assuming is mostly Nighteyes, but idk there), and which father he is comparing her to.

If the father that the Wolf refers to is Fitz: well, Fitz is best at lying to himself, particularly about whether people really love him. So perhaps she was lying about not wanting the Fool to stay with her as a father figure, or about not wanting Nettle and Riddle to adopt her. Neither of these seem very consistent to me.

(I don't think she's telling the truth when she says that she's fine on her own, though.)

I see several people online saying that they think the lie was that Fitz loved Beloved over everyone else, implying that Beloved needed to be loved "the most" to give himself up for Fitz. I don't think that's something the Wolf would find amusing anyway - it's not a very clever lie.

Yes, I do think Fitz wants the Fool to be with him and Nighteyes forever in the Stone Wolf and the Skill Stream, as one being, which is, a pretty enormous kind of love. I do think he truly wants to be with Bee, too, but he definitely does not want Bee to lose her mortal life or to stop being her own person. As a reader, I think it's a bit mean for that to be a "true" ordering over people Fitz loved, although I totally understand why Bee (and Nettle) would feel that way especially at the time.

(OTOH, there really is no one else Fitz thinks about the way he thinks about the Fool.. honestly, it's just too sad for me to think about Fitz having truly failed Bee.)

Perhaps the lie is that she ever *did* lie about one of the things she said to hurt Beloved. I think she may have lied that she *didn't* have a dream about the black and white rat leaping away from the "thing that used to be a man." The details seem too accurate for her to not have dreamed them. Perhaps she did write down a true dream in the first place, but realized that she could avert that outcome by lying that she dreamed it. Or, maybe the rat didn't jump away, and that's the part she lied about.

Earlier in the book, just before she tells Beloved about her father's letter excoriating him, the narration says "An omission is as good as a lie". I'm not sure if the omission is hers (something about the letter) or Beloved's. As in: if he won't reveal anything to her about himself, she'll give him a lie in exchange, because she's a very hurt child. I do think it's entirely possible that Fitz wrote a letter somewhat like the one she describes. We saw a few examples of heartbroken love letters from Fitz to Fool back in Fool's Assassin. In particular, I'm remembering one where he says he's not going to give up on his daughter to go off on a wild goose chase for the Fool's son (oops). Bee's lie may have been (1) to omit all of the *other* letters he wrote (his love letters), (2) that he didn't burn it (there's a chapter intro near the end of AF referring to a burned letter), (3) something else in the letter.

Tangentially, I've also been wondering about how related the White Prophets are to dragons. When trying to explain to Bee how he could be her father, Beloved drew an analogy with Heeby and Rapskal. Beloved's haughtiness really does resemble the dragons that we've met in some ways, but his love is more like a human love, I think. (iirc he was the one who said that the Liveships would be a new kind of dragon because they also had the memories of humans)

#rote spoilers #assassin's fate

[sybilius]

If you are not up to some weird ask/existential nonsense please feel free to ignore or delete this. I am just in a nosey mood, sorry! But, the question: Do you find the idea of afterlife comforting?

I did, once. I used to say when I became an atheist, that that was the only really tough thing for me. Even as a child, being raised a kind of ambient Christian protestant, I found the idea of god(s) easy enough to let go of -- the world didn't seem to me to need that kind of Authority, so to speak. But the afterlife was harder, right. It's a tough thing to fold into your worldview the idea that This Is It and Someday You Will Be Gone.

I'd often envision tons of different forms of afterlife when I was a kid -- reincarnation in many forms, I liked the idea of pseudo-continuity of past lives most of all. I think I had it in my head that the idea of heaven being eternal seemed to me to be catastrophically boring, but the idea of a heaven you check in / check out of and get started on some other, completely different story and life -- that appealed to me. Sort of in a "maybe in the brightest world, we do get to experience everything" kind of thing. You rest in not-exactly-heaven for as long as you feel like, and then you go off with the same soul to go live an entirely different life.

Pullman did write me in to a comfort with the material atheist death (ie. the idea that your atoms returning to the earth; maybe without you, can be something beautiful, and that the stories you made while being alive are the real thing to be cherished). Nothing I've come across since has resonated with me the same way about any form of afterlife, so I've stuck with it. But I don't get a lot of opportunities for new spiritual worldviews to find their way on to my desk, so who knows if I'll adopt a different one someday. I tend to stake my feelings about those big spiritual questions not on capital T truth, but rather on what helps me feel comfortable with the realities of living in this world, and what helps me love humanity as a whole and the people close to me.

I've written a few treatises on death in the form of fanfiction, I suppose my unfinished fixation on the webcomic Helvetica says a lot about my thoughts in that direction. That comic has the premise of "you wake up a skeleton -- you know you've died, but you remember nothing about your life. Everyone else is in the same boat, and they try to live their life, get a job, pay rent and taxes as normal". Sounds vaguely horrifying in a twee sort of way, right? Anyways, here's the comic and here's the unfinished epic I was writing for that story.

#chatter #sophia #spirituality #afterlife #atheism

[mercury-lurks]

Elijah's Conversation

Elijah cradled the walkie-talkie in his hands, fiddling with the antenna. His heart pounded in his chest as his finger grazed the talk button.

He needed to make a call. He'd been needing to all day, but could never find time away from people. Being the new guy really sucked, especially when surrounded by terrorists and murderers. Elijah was sure everyone knew something was up with him, but since nobody had brought it up he was probably in the clear.

However, he'd found solace in a small bathroom in a far hall of Fort Stevenson. Since it was a bathroom, Elijah had hoped there were no cameras or microphones to record anything, but with lunatics like these he wasn't sure.

He knew as soon as he hit that talk button, someone would die. As soon as the information he'd gathered was in Quine's mind, nothing would stop them from killing someone. The thought made him a little giddy. They deserved their revenge.

Checking once again to make sure he was well and truly alone, he pressed the button.

"Hey, this is Elijah, checking in. Anyone there?" He released the button and waited with baited breath, pacing around the stall.

"Eli," Finnegan said, "How are you, dude?"

He let out a shaky breath and spoke again. "As good as I can be here. I've got some information I'd like to tell."

"Already?" Elijah could feel the skepticism from the other end of the walkie-talkie.

"Already." He confirmed. "And I also already have some words for you when I get back."

Finn cackled into the microphone. "Oh yeah pretty boy? What kinda words?"

"Doesn't matter right now, I don't have that much time. I don't know when somebody might walk in." Elijah eyed the door once more, swallowing his nerves.

"Alright. What's-"

"Elijah! My favorite brother, please tell me what's going on." Quine joined the conversation, interrupting Finn.

Elijah paused, gathering his thoughts. "Well, for starters, Mercury is here, alive, and seems to be happy."

Quine breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh thank the Stars.."

"She seems to have Stockholm Syndrome."

"WHAT!?" They screamed, getting closer to the microphone. "W-what do you mean Stockholm Syndrome?"

He bit his lip, eyes darting towards the door again. "He.. seems to think of the Freelancers as family.."

Elijah heard an audible growl from Quine, one that made the hair on his arms stand up. "Those bastards.."

"But!" He was quick to interject. "The Freelancers don't seem to know about the genocide! I'm assuming this batch wasn't part of it, or that it was a higher up thing. Maybe they weren't even employed?"

"Doesn't fucking matter. I want them all dead."

He knew there was no arguing with them. Not like he wanted to, of course. "Anyway, there's.. there's another Grea'esi here. Her name is Glitter."

Quine slammed their hand on something. "Of course they fucking stole some of us for their sick experiments."

"She seems to like it here. She's been adopted by a soldier named Fox. They don't seem to be aware of what happened at all, I feel kind of bad for them."

"What else? What's been going on?" Auburn piped up.

"Most of the people here are dead. Or.. well, undead. It's kind of worrying. I'm pretty sure there's been human experimentation here. And everyone seems to think it's normal."

Auburn sighed over the mic. "If they weren't part of a terrorist organization I would love to help them.. but unfortunately they're too far gone."

"They've hired a cannibal zombie as one of their commanders. Who does that?!" When nobody responded, Elijah continued. "Everything here is so messed up. I hate it here. God, I just wanna go home." He took a deep breath. "It's fine, I can do this. I'm already this far in, and I think I'm starting to gain their trust, at least a little bit."

"It's alright, hijo," Auburn said. "When you get back we'll take a break from jobs. Just the seven of us hanging out, getting Mercury used to everything."

Elijah nodded, sighing. "Yeah. That sounds great, mamá. I should- I should get going-"

"Elijah." Quine interrupted. "That soldier you mentioned earlier. Fox. Tell me more about them."

He didn't hesitate to keep talking. "Apparently they were part of some program that turned them into a super-soldier if sorts. They and one of their girlfriends, Isla, were the only two to survive it. If we're going to kill the Freelancers, it would be wise to start with them."

Quine hummed. "I see. Then I suppose I'll come down and kill them myself. If they're a super-soldier, they must have been involved with Arieala's destruction. This just got personal."

"A-are you sure? Right now? That might cast suspicion onto me, it's best if we wait-"

They slammed their hands on something again, growling. "I don't fucking care! I want every single one of those filthy dogs put down, and I'm tired of waiting!"

After a brief moment, Elijah nodded. "I understand. Just.. be careful, hermosa. There's a lot of people here."

"I'll meet up with you tonight. You know where to find me."

"I do. See you later, Q."

The walkie-talkie went dead, and so Elijah turned it off. He checked to see if he was still alone, and was satisfied when he saw he was. "Can't believe I just got away with that."

The walkie-talkie sat heavy in his hands. He looked at it almost regretfully. "..don't know if I'll get away with this.."

He shook his head and stood up, pocketing the walkie-talkie. Elijah opened the bathroom door and walked out.

Tonight, then.

#elijah kinsley #auburn cabrera #quine histledon #finnegan socks #oc lore #mercury lurks

[crazycrackersworld]

Alone...

I know it well. It has been how I have spent most of my life. For good or bad, it's just the truth. Often times even when with family, friends, and even with romantic partners, I have often felt alone. I am fairly certain I will be alone when I come to the end of my time on this earth, and I have stopped feeling bad or sorry about that.

I've gotten so used to being alone, I'm pretty sure the idea of being not alone kind of terrifies me. Mostly because, well I figure eventually I'll be alone again. Maybe that didn't sound right or make any sense, it made sense in my mind.....but that doesn't say much I guess.

I used to wonder why I have seemingly been doomed to be alone. When other people were starting to date and be in relationships I wondered why it didn't happen for me. Once I did start having romantic relationships, I would wonder why they left or why it didn't work, and why was I usually so easily replaced by someone else. I don't think any girl/woman I have been in a relationship with has gone more than maybe a month after the end before being with someone else. Fuck.......it has hurt everytime.

4 9f 5 of my own children have no problem living their lives without me in them. My own children.....if that doesn't prove that I am simply a shitty person not worth other's time then I don't know what it does say.

I walked away from the man that adopted me, and I still believe it was the right choice, at the time at least, but he never tried to fix that either. Another person who had no problem letting me out of their life.

Over the years I have, I have truly wondered why.....but recently I have stopped wondering because I think I finally figured out the answer, and it goes all the way back to the beginning. I am, in fact...a bastard, like the actual definition of the word. The male responsible for me coming into existence........has never been in my life. He walked away before I was even born, just walked away, and never bothered to come back.

So.......if my own biological......father I guess, never wanted anything to do with me, why in the fuck would anyone else? So, coming to the realization that from my very birth, I just haven't been worth many people's time has made alone.....just easier to understand.

I have tried, I really have, tried to love, tried to trust, tried to share myself with others, but like the song says..."In the End it didn't even Matter".

Now, I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me, because I am not feeling sorry for myself, not at all. I am simply just accepting the reality and truth of my life, plain and simple. They say if you do not learn from history that you are doomed to repeat it. Well the history of my life clearly shows that there is always someone better than me, always.

Anyways, all these things have been going through my mind as of late, and I just had to download it in hopes that something else can start to occupy that space in my brain.

#alone #so alone #always alone

[pan-fangirl-345]

Promise Me You Won't Fall In Love

Summary: You and Tsukishima have been friends since you were kids, and you made a promise not to fall in love with each other. But of course, everything's fine and great until someone (both of you) fucked up and caught feelings.

TW: swearing, mutual pining, unrequited love (it is requited later), minor harassment (not a lot), and there is some derogatory talk from an extra that doesn't even have a name (Kei puts him in his place, I promise).

A/N: So this wasn't requested, but I've been thinking about this one a lot recently and I wanted to do something with it, hence this.

Note: Anything in italics is a memory! Well, not all of it, but the longer sections. Most of the time the one or two word-er things are simply emphasized, that kind of thing.

"Tsukishima, your girlfriend's here to see you!" Sugawara told the middle blocker, and he turned to see you leaning against the wall near Yachi and Kiyoko, laughing at something they were saying to you.

"She's not my girlfriend," Kei muttered, walking over.

"Kei! I knew you'd be here," you said, digging through your bag. "One of the girls in my class wanted me to give this to you."

You handed him a bright pink envelope with black sparkly writing on the front, his name scrawled in almost perfect handwriting.

"Another love letter?" he asked, taking it.

"Probably, I've stopped asking. It makes them think that we're together," you told him, crossing your arms.

Kei sighed, opening the letter with little fanfare.

He scanned through it quickly, rolling his eyes.

One thing he had noticed was that the letters he had been getting were really sucky poetry and fancy words. They knew nothing about him worthwhile and he was pretty sure they just wanted to check off the 'I have a boyfriend' box on their high school checklists.

Kei made a noise of disgust and walked over to the nearest trash can, dumping the letter in.

"I'm assuming that's another no?" you asked, smirking at him, already knowing the answer.

He nodded, ignoring the smirk on your face.

You, Tadashi, and Kei had all been friends since middle school. Kei had known you longer, since you lived in the same neighborhood, but you had kind of adopted Tadashi when you had heard about him being bullied, hence why Kei and you were actual friends now. Tadashi was the link between the two of you that had stuck. Being forced to make conversation as some of the only kids in the neighborhood had simply made you acquaintances.

"If you knew I was going to say no then why would you give me the letter?" Kei asked.

"Because I'm hoping you'll broaden your horizons," you offered, waving your hand dismissively. "Besides, it sends the wrong message if I just throw them away without giving them to you. Not to mention, a lot of the girls don't like me to begin with because I'm one of the few people you can tolerate for more than a few minutes at the time. You've never had a girlfriend, Kei, even if they aren't girlfriend material, couldn't you at least make a few more friends?"

"I can barely deal with you and Tadashi, I don't need anymore friends," Kei told you, and you laughed.

"Keep telling yourself that Kei. I'll see you guys later, alright?"

Tadashi and Kei nodded, watching you leave before they rejoined practice.

"Are you sure she isn't your girlfriend, Tsukishima?" Sugawara asked, watching the blocker with mild interest.

Despite being second years now, their former upperclassmen were showing up more as tournament season drew closer. Though Kei also suspected that they were being nostalgic and that they missed their underclassmen's chaos.

"I'm sure," he assured the former setter. "Why?"

"Nothing, just a hunch," he murmured.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Guys, do you ever wonder how many people see you on the side of the street and think, 'Wow, they are the most beautiful person I have ever seen'?" you asked, as you hung upside down on the monkey bars.

"I think the blood is going to your head, (Y/F/N)," Tadashi teased.

"No, I'm serious," you said, turning to look at him. "I was thinking, earlier, about how Kei keeps getting all these love letters, and it made me wonder how many people see me as attractive, but never say anything. I don't think it's very many," you admitted, "but I wonder if they are out there."

Tadashi sighed, putting his hands on his forehead in an exasperated manner.

"(Y/F/N)," he said, sounding almost breathless, "just because Kei is getting letters doesn't mean that people don't find you attractive."

"I'm not saying people don't find me attractive," you said, swinging yourself up onto the bars again. "I know someone in the world must have standards that low, but just because they find me attractive doesn't mean they would date me."

"Why are we talking about this?" Kei asked, annoyance riddling his tone.

"Technically Tadashi and I were talking about it," you told him. "You were simply listening to the conversation."

"That doesn't tell me why this is the topic of conversation," he countered.

"I'm just saying! Kei keeps getting all these letters, and it makes me wonder if these girls actually think that they're in love with him. Attraction is really just a release of chemicals in the brain from when we were simply a species trying to survive. But that's not love," you said.

"So what's love to you?" Tadashi asked, curious.

"I think real, true love is when you see something that reminds you of them and you smile, even without realizing it. I think it's when it hurts to see them hurt, but you stay by them instead of seeking revenge, knowing they need you in the moment. I think it's the little inside jokes that mean nothing to people around you, but it's everything to you. I think it's knowing that there are plenty of people that are better than you out there, but wanting to stick around to be better for that person, to prove that you're worth it.

"I think it's seeing all the broken pieces, and loving them all anyway. It's remembering the little things. It's being able to sit in complete silence and know what the other is saying just because of the way their eyes crinkle. It's knowing that they have the power to break off new pieces, and trusting that they won't. It's when . . . instead of breaking pieces of yourself so that they can handle you, you stay whole. If they choke, you know it's not love, not really.

"It's knowing that you can stand on your own two feet, but leaning on them anyway. It's knowing that you are your own person, but wanting to share it with someone anyway. It's feeling free and wild, but content to stay still, because you trust them. For me, I feel like love is knowing that someone would read with me on a window seat, watching it rain, but they would also drive just a little too fast down older roads with the windows down so we can pretend, just for a moment, that we're in a shitty music video."

You smiled as you turned yourself upside down on the monkey bars again.

"I think it's kind of like what we have, but more romantic."

"You've been reading too much fanfiction," Kei muttered.

"Maybe," you admitted. "But maybe that's because I want to be able to spew romantic bullshit like that when I finally find a guy that likes me for me. I realize that, realistically, I'll probably never feel like that. Or at least, I won't feel it enough to put it into words like that. Fantasy never lives up to reality after all. But it's a nice thought."

"So, you don't think you'll ever find something like that?" Tadashi asked.

"I think that I'll either end up married to a man that was good enough, or on my own with no social life except you and Kei. I'll rely on work to keep me entertained."

Kei snorted.

"What's so funny you overly salted French fry?" you asked, raising an eyebrow.

"If I ever think you're marrying a man that's just 'good enough', I'll say 'I object!' at the wedding," he told you.

"Oh yeah?" you asked, smiling. "And why's that?"

"Because you deserve more than that," he said, looking you in the eye. "(Y/F/N), you are not the kind of girl that should end up with 'good enough'. You're too . . . free for that. Although, maybe independent is a better word. You would wither with just 'good enough', and that's not something I'm willing to let happen."

"Aw, so you do care about me," you cooed, swinging yourself upright onto the bars. "And don't worry Kei, we both know that Tadashi and I will never let you settle with 'good enough' either."

"What about me?" Tadashi squawked, and you laughed.

"Come 'Dashi," you chided, "we all know that you won't end up with 'good enough' even if you try."

His cheeks went pink and you laughed again.

Kei, as much as he pretended otherwise, really loved seeing you and Tadashi laugh like this. It reminded him that there were people who didn't see just the bastard act that he threw up to protect himself.

He loved the way your dimple appeared when you gave Tadashi that real smile, not the smirk or the grin you gave people. He loved seeing Tadashi carefree and not hiding behind his hand when he laughed or smiled.

He loved being able to sit and watch the two of you interact, but know that he could pop into the conversation whenever.

"Kei, that look on your face is kind of creepy," you teased, sliding to the ground to ruffle his hair, a small way of telling him you didn't mean it. "What's it for?"

"Nothing," he muttered, hoping to the heavens that his ears weren't turning pink, though they probably were.

"Come on Tsukki," Tadashi said, giving him a look, "we've all been friends for years. We know you better than that."

"I'm just glad is all," he murmured.

"Glad for what?" you asked, wrapping your arms around his shoulders, leaning over them to look at his face.

"You. Tadashi. You know, my friends," he confessed.

Damn it! His ears were definitely pink.

But he didn't shove you off.

Most people assumed that Kei was a jerk all the time, and while that might have been true for anyone else, you and Tadashi were the exceptions to his rule.

You and Tadashi had been friends with him for almost your whole lives, and both of you had been there during the brother debacle.

You and Kei had lived in the same neighborhood for years, and had been a part of more than a few conversations that had been forced by social convention, and your mother had been good friends with his in high school, though they had lost touch after that.

You had noticed Tadashi being bullied in class and had stepped in, defending him and deciding that he was more worth your time than the other kids.

Which led you to Kei, when you found out that he had helped Tadashi on the playground, even if that had never been his original intention.

The three of you had become a trio of sorts in your later years, though your reputations weren't the most . . . innocent.

Kei had always had a sharp tongue and a quicker wit, and his irritation seemed to have no limits.

You were on level with him, though you were much harder to set off than he was.

Tadashi never really provoked, but he watched as the two of you eviscerated anyone that insulted him.

Kei was ruthless with people who made comments on you and/or Tadashi, never giving them a chance to get another word in, though they had often tried, simply making themselves seem more like idiots.

On the other hand, you tended to let people hang themselves with their own tongues, before using that quick wit and sharp tongue to gut them like the pigs that they were.

Tadashi had little confidence on his own, and he tended to be more affected by words than you or Kei, so most of the time he let you and Kei handle people, but every once in a while, he would be set off.

Nothing was scarier than Tadashi getting pissed. He was rarely ever confrontational, but when something set him off, it was terrifying. He got really quiet, and he never raised his voice. There was a quiet kind of fury that radiated from him when he got like that, and if you and Kei used your words to eviscerate, Tadashi used his to give someone hypothermia. He would make them get colder and colder before their brains tricked them into thinking they were too hot, and then ended them.

All three of you were terrifying in your own ways, but that didn't mean you were like that all the time.

Kei wasn't an asshole all the time, and he enjoyed receiving hugs and other types of physical affection, he was just shit at reciprocating it and letting others see that more 'vulnerable side of him', as he put it. He was better at fixing problems logically. He helped you and Tadashi study, or sometimes bought gifts to make you both feel better, little things that still made your days.

Tadashi was someone who might not be confrontational, but he was very good about getting you and Kei out of your heads when something did hit a chink in your respective armors. He knew that both you and Kei were more affected by what people said than most people were led to believe. He was also a very good listener.

You were the giver of physical affection when the boys needed it. Kei tended to need it more than Tadashi, since Tadashi had his moms who were more than willing to give hugs. Kei didn't like his mother thinking anything was wrong, and he didn't completely trust his brother anymore, so physical contact was kept to a minimum.

Tadashi was okay with giving Kei affection, but most of the time, when it came to Kei, you were the one he went to.

You had asked him once, why he always came to you.

"I sometimes think Tadashi puts me up on a pedestal," he had admitted. "He knows me, and he's my friend, but sometimes it feels like I can't disappoint him. I don't feel that way with you. Besides, your short enough that hugging you feels better. Plus, Tadashi is all bones."

"We're glad for you too Kei," you told him, leaning your chin on his shoulder.

Tadashi nodded, taking a seat beside Kei.

Kei's heart clenched, like it often did when he was reminded that he really did have great friends, and his ears got hotter.

"Alright, enough of the mushy stuff," he muttered, trying to wave you and Tadashi away.

"Come on Kei," you whined softly, gently bumping your head with his, "we all know that you have a heart! Don't be that way, it's just us."

Kei made a small noise, and you laughed, releasing him so that you could sit on his other side, peering up into his face with your adorable fucking doe eyes.

"You know you don't have to pretend with us," you murmured, leaning on his shoulder, taking his hand.

"Yeah, we've all been friends for long enough Tsukki," Tadashi agreed, leaning his head on Kei's other shoulder.

"I hate you both," he muttered, trying to hide his face in his hands.

"Nuh uh," you said, pulling away to pull his hands from his face, sounding like a child. "No hiding from us."

You took his hand again, and for a while, all three of you just sat there, enjoying each other's company.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Tsukishima! You're girlfriend is here again," Suga said, gesturing to where you were walking through the doors of the gym, laughing with Yachi.

"Again, she's not my girlfriend," Kei muttered.

He remembered, suddenly, about the promise you had both made when you were middle school and boys were starting to notice girls and vice versa.

"Kei and (Y/F/N) would make such a cute couple when they're older," your mother had told his, smiling as you both chatted at a neighborhood barbeque, being two of the only children there that could hold an intelligent conversation.

At that point, you and Kei were more than acquaintances, but you weren't exactly friends yet either.

Neither mother had realized that you and Kei had overheard, and when Kei had glanced at you, your nose was wrinkled like it did when you were grossed out by something, your expression mirroring his.

"Promise me something Kei," you had said, turning your attention back to him. "Promise me that you won't ever fall in love with me."

"Why not? I mean, I won't, but I want a reason," he had said, arms crossed as he looked at you.

"Because we're friends," you had said, like it had been the simplest thing in the world. "And because if we ended up falling in love and dating that means Tadashi would feel left out all the time and I won't let that happen. So promise me."

"I promise not to fall in love with you if you promise not to fall in love with me," he had offered.

"Deal," you had told him, offering him your hand to shake on it.

"Ah, Kei, there you are!" you said, smiling at him. "There's another letter. Based on the amount of hearts on it, another confession."

"Keep it," he muttered, pushing your hand away when you went to hand him the letter.

"Kei, I don't want to carry around another one of your love letters," you said, wrinkling your nose. "These aren't for me, and they make me sick, so please, for the sake of our friendship, take the damn thing off my hands so I can wash them."

He sighed, a pained sound that had you laughing, and took the letter, slipping it into his bag, wondering if the girls at school would ever take a hint that he wasn't interested.

"Why is Tsukishima so popular with the girls?" Hinata wondered out loud. "His personality is so crappy."

"And I don't think I've ever heard him say a nice thing to anyone," Kageyama added.

"That's because you guys are irritating to Kei," you interrupted, turning to them, arms crossed and hip cocked out to the side. "Most of the time, he's helpful and respectful. You two just aren't the kind of people he would voluntarily hang out with."

"Rude," Hinata cried, then pouted, "but true."

"The only people Kei really rips into are people he doesn't like, doesn't respect, people who disrespect Tadashi or me, or people who betray his trust. You two are options one and two."

"He just seems like an unfeeling asshole, even after three years of knowing him."

"I think it's the opposite actually," you told them.

Kei could feel your eyes on the back of his head, either unaware that he could hear you or uncaring that he was listening.

"I think he feels all of it, at one hundred and twenty percent. He just acts like that to avoid getting hurt in most cases. In your case though, he really does just not like you. Or, more accurately, he doesn't like that you two are so clearly passionate about something when he gets scared of something hurting him if he cares too much. Like Tadashi told you once, Hinata, if Kei didn't at least like volleyball, he wouldn't be here. Just think about it," you told them.

"(Y/F/N)!" Tadashi called. "We're still studying at your place right?"

"Yeah, just like always," you assured him. "Kei, you still have the spare key, just let yourselves in."

He nodded, spinning the ball in his hands as he watched you walk away.

"Tsukishima, are you one hundred percent sure that she isn't your girlfriend?" Suga asked, eyebrows raised at him.

"Three hundred percent sure," Tsukishima grunted as he served the ball.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Why do you never accept any of the confessions, Kei?" you asked, looking at him from over the top of your textbook.

Your head was hanging off the side of your bed and your socked feet were crossed at the ankles, resting on your wall.

Kei's neck hurt just looking at you, but he didn't say anything to you about moving.

"Because they aren't my type," Kei muttered, checking his notes before writing down an answer on his paper.

"What is your type?" you inquired, rolling onto your stomach, setting you book to the side. "Because I don't think I've ever seen you take an interest in a girl." You frowned, then added, "Romantic interest I mean."

Kei wondered what other interest you had thought he might get out of that, but he decided not to question it. Despite knowing you for years, and being as close to you as he was, you still managed to be somewhat of a mystery to him.

"Does it matter?" he asked.

"Yes, because I want to be able to set you up when you decide you're ready for a relationship!" you said. "Tadashi and I would make great wingmen. Well, wingman and wingwoman, but you know what I mean."

Kei actually turned to look at you at that one.

"You're serious," he muttered, noting the look on your face.

"Yes! Unless you don't think you're going to want a romantic relationship, which is completely okay too. I just want you to be happy is all."

"You know what makes me happy?" Kei asked, pausing to let you answer, but instead you stayed quiet, watching him with those damn doe eyes. "Getting my homework done and not having to deal with confessions from girls that don't know the first thing about me."

Kei heard your small chuckle, and as he went back to his homework, he found himself smiling.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kei had always known that, objectively, you were very pretty (he had heard enough from his classmates over the years to have it verified), but sometimes you did something, and he would realize all over again.

Today you had laughed a little harder as he ripped into someone, and you had given him one of those dimpled smiles that he adored so much, and he had stood there blinking for a moment before he cooled his expression again.

Kei didn't really understand why he got so mad when someone flirted with you in the hallways, or when you came to cheer the team on during games.

He had always assumed that it was merely because you were such good friends, but then he had realized that no one else got that mad, they didn't feel the same painful burning in the pit of their stomachs at seeing you with another guy.

Asking Suga had done absolutely nothing, the setter had merely suggested that Kei was jealous, which was absolute bullshit, and he wasn't desperate enough to contact Bokuto or Kuroo yet, though he might be at the point of asking Akaashi.

He would know if he liked you the way that the older setter was implying. He would know if he was in love with you.

Right?

Kei could worry about that later, right now he was more interested in getting that guy's hand off your shoulder and away from your neck.

"(Y/F/N)," Kei called, striding over, back straight. "The game's about to start, we've got to go."

"Kei!" you chirped, smiling at him, moving to his side immediately, giving the guy that had been bugging you a sugar sweet (and utterly fake) smile over your shoulder. "See you around never, hopefully!"

Kei pressed his lips together to hide his smile, letting you wrap your hand around his.

"Was that guy bothering you?"

"A little, but you got there just in time," you told him, your hand tightening it's grip for a moment before you let him go. "Thanks for always having the most amazing timing Kei!"

"Yeah, whatever," he told you, bumping your shoulder with his.

"Seriously, what is it with the girls that hang around with us and wandering off?" Daichi asked when you walked into the gym with Kei.

"Sorry guys! I just wanted to buy a key chain," you said, holding it up, grinning. "It's not my fault that athletes can't take no for an answer! Sometimes I think your on-court determination bleeds over into everyday life."

There were some nods, and Kei watched as the guy that had been bothering you stepped onto the other side of the court.

He followed the guy's eyes to you, where you were laughing at something Kageyama said.

Did- Did that moron just lick his lips at you?

Kei felt that burning sensation in his stomach again.

Kei didn't realize that he had been glaring until he heard your voice right next to him.

"Anyway, good luck guys!" you told them, affectionately ruffling Tadashi's hair, hip-checking Kei on your way into the stands, flashing him that damned dimpled grin over your shoulder.

"Hey, Blondie!" the guy called. "You, Glasses! I'm talkin' to you!"

Kei turned to see the guy from earlier smirking at him.

"Dude, your girl is so hot!" he said.

Kei felt the entirety of Karasuno tense behind him as they realized what was going on.

"Yeah, she is," Kei agreed.

"Think you'd be willin' to share her with me? I promise I'd take good care of her."

"Oh shit," someone muttered, and Kei saw red for a moment before he got himself under control.

"Is your ass jealous about the amount of shit that just came out of your mouth?" Kei asked, putting his hand on his hip.

Using insults like that was never really his thing, but he was really pissed right now.

"Hey, Tsukki," Tadashi said quietly, "you might not want to-"

"What did you just say to me?" the guy asked.

"Hey, Kei!" you called from the stands, waving at him to catch his attention. "Leave the smack talk for when you actually win! Block his spike down his throat for me, alright?"

He nodded, giving you a grin that had you giving him one right back.

"God forbid if she was a guy and they were on the same team," Suga muttered, and the others nodded.

"Alright, time for the game to start," Daichi said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kei did as you asked: he blocked every single spike that the guy tried to send over the net, and Kei could already tell that the guy was pissed at the end of the first set.

He was spiking more and more aggressively, which was screwing up aim to the point where Kei didn't even really need to block.

"Go Karasuno!" you cheered, smiling at the team from the stands.

Kei, every time he felt his anger getting out of control, looked to you in the stands to calm down.

Finally, the scumbag was so out of control that he was switched out with another wing spiker.

From there, the game was easy.

By the end of it, Kei hadn't even needed to look for you in the stands. Not only had he memorized where you were, but no one else on that team pissed him off as much as that scumbag did.

As soon as the ball landed on the other side of the court, and it was called, you were running down from the stands, running for him.

"Kei! You were so great!" you cheered, wrapping your arms around his neck, jumping at him.

He wrapped his arms around your waist to keep the both of you from falling over, and he buried his face in your neck as he set you down.

"Oh my gosh, Kei that was so amazing! I think that's the best you've played all season! Seriously! Some of those blocked looked like they would've ripped my arms off, that was so cool!" you gushed, holding onto his forearms.

Kei nodded, giving Tadashi a look over your shoulder for a moment, letting him know that it was okay for him to go on ahead.

"Thanks for blocking the slime ball for me Kei!" you said, smiling up at him. "And what did he say to you that got you so pissed off? I haven't seen you that mad in forever!"

"It was nothing," he told you, "it was stupid."

"Are you sure?" you inquired, looking up at him.

"Yeah, I'm sure the team will tell you about it later."

"Alright, I just wanted to make sure that you were okay," you told him, "'cause you looked really pissed. I haven't seen you that pissed off since that one guy tried to make Tadashi cry."

"I don't like it when people make you uncomfortable like that," Kei said. "It really pisses me off."

"Is that why you kept looking at me during the game?" you asked, and Kei wondered if any other girl would've been so honest with him about something like this, or if it as just the fact that you had both spent so much time together growing up. "I noticed that you always looked at me whenever you had the chance."

Kei nodded, gesturing with his head towards the doors, so that he could catch up with the team and talk with you at the same time.

"Yeah, that was one of the reasons. It kept me focused on the scumbag's spikes, and it calmed me down enough so that I didn't punch him whenever we were across the net from each other."

"I kinda wish that you had, but I also know that it would've gotten you ejected from the game, which is not something I want to happen. Anyway, thanks Kei," you told him, smiling up at him.

"Yeah, always," he said, putting his hand on your head.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was when you were over at his house Sunday morning when he realized that he might need to call Kuroo and Bokuto.

You, Kei, and Tadashi had had a sleepover, but Tadashi had left early to spend some time with his moms, so Kei had woken up to you with a hand on his chest and his arm numb from where it was pillowing your head.

The three of you had been sitting on Kei's bed watching a movie, but Tadashi had tipped over sometime near the halfway marker, and Kei had fallen asleep not long after that, so he could only assume that you had fallen asleep sometime after Tadashi had left this morning.

Kei turned on his side slowly, not wanting to wake you up, wrapping an arm around your waist softly.

He toyed with your hair, twisting it in his fingers gently, brushing it behind your ear, threading his fingers through it.

He wasn't ready to get up for the day yet, so he laid there with you, wondering how it would be ten years in the future.

Would your hair be longer? Would you cut it shorter? Would you dye it? Would you have kids by then?

That last one had made him pause.

He had always known that short of you dying or some huge falling out, Kei was in no way going to be able to get rid of you or Tadashi, but he had never even considered dating you, let alone anything beyond that.

So why was he wondering what your kids would look like? Why was he wondering how many you would want, if any? Why was he questioning how many stray animals you might bring home after work?

He sounded like every lovesick fool that got his heart broken in those weird movies that Tadashi liked to watch.

Kei glanced down at your face, and he suddenly found himself unable to think of a reality where he didn't wake up like this for the rest of his life.

When had he stopped seeing you as his little sister, or the annoying female friend that all of his classmates admired? When had he started seeing you as someone he could fall in love with, if he hadn't already?

But even with this new revelation, he couldn't bring himself to pull away from you.

Kei loved it when you both bickered like you hated each other, and he loved when you were able to throw back any insulting thing he said to you. He loved being able to have real conversations with you, but he also liked just sitting quietly with you.

This though, this was by far his favorite thing, seeing all the stress gone from your body, seeing your face without any kind of mask on, he adore seeing the calm serenity that came with sleep.

"Mm, Kei?" you asked sleepily, glancing at him. "What time is it?"

"Still early," he murmured, tucking you into his chest again. "Go back to sleep."

"M'kay," you said, nuzzling in close.

Kei waited for a minute before he grabbed his phone and his glasses from the side table, texting Kuroo.

Normally, he would've talked to Tadashi, but Kei didn't want to drag him into anything until he knew for sure, just in case he was wrong.

Kei: I have a question for you

Kuroo: What's up Tsukki-poo?

Kei: First, don't call me that

Kei: Secondly, and this is completely hypothetical, but how do you know when you love someone?

Kuroo: Aww, is my little kouhai in love with someone? How cute!

Kei made a face, taking a deep breath and glancing at you quickly before he turned his attention back to his phone.

Kei: Just answer the question

Kuroo: We're talking hypothetically?

Kei: Yeah

Kuroo: Can't you use the internet for this stuff? Why ask me? Why not ask Freckles? Or the pretty setter on your team?

Kei: The internet would tell me I have cancer, not that I might be in love with someone

Kei: Secondly, as for the setter comment, I'm assuming you mean Suga

Kei: Thirdly, he would go tell Tadashi, and then the possible love interest, and I don't want to deal with any of those things

Kei: So, please, for the sake of my sanity, just answer the question

Kuroo: Alright, alright. Jeesh. Hypothetically, if you were in love with someone you might start noticing their presence more

Kuroo: It would feel almost like you have a compass where the needle points to them, and you can't turn it off. You notice the little things more than normal, and you know them. I mean, really know them. They feel almost like a part of you

Kuroo: Seeing them hurt hurts you. You constantly feel the need to make sure that they're okay. Even the little things that kind of annoy you are a huge part of what you love about them

Kuroo: You find yourself smiling at them, even when they're doing something completely mundane, and you could recognize their voice in a crowd. Suddenly, they went from just another person, to someone that you could find in a crowd, even if they blend in enough that they normally fade into the background

Kuroo: Hypothetically speaking, of course

Kei was surprised by how much his mentor was able to type out in such a short amount of time, but in the end, he was most surprised by how much it lined up with what you had told him earlier. The basics were the same, and Kei sighed, realizing what this meant for him.

Kei: How to I make it stop?

Kei: Hypothetically

Kuroo: When I figure that out, I'll let you know

Kei blinked at that, then sighed again.

Kei: Thanks, Kuroo-san.

Kuroo: Sure thing Skinny, let me know how it goes

Kuroo: Hypothetically, of course

Kei couldn't help but chuckle softly, and he set his phone aside, wondering whether this was going to change anything, and how long he had been in love with you.

He had always noticed the little things about you, it was just a part of him being perceptive, and he had grown up with you, so he automatically knew you better than 80 percent of the people you went to school with.

But he was more in tune with your presence than even Tadashi was. And he had always managed to pick your voice out in a crowd.

He glanced down at you, and suddenly, instead of being worried about if he was in love you, he was more worried about whether you loved him back or not.

Kei debated texting Tadashi, but he decided that it could wait, and he wanted to enjoy this time with you unhindered.

Kei knew that he was never going to say anything unless he was sure you felt the same way about him.

For one thing, you were nice enough that it was entirely possible that you would date him just because you were too nice to say no. For another thing, he wasn't the kind of guy to make a move if he thought it wouldn't lead to a win. Not to mention, that if you he did ask you out and you said no, that might make things awkward in the friend group, and Kei didn't want that to happen.

He had gone this long, right? What was a few more weeks?

But, of course, things didn't go the way that Kei wanted them to.

As the end of a semester approached, as well as the end of the year, projects piled on, as did speeches and tests.

Kei had always done well academically, and he wasn't as stressed as some of the other people he knew, like Hinata and Kageyama.

You seemed to be feeling the pressure too, even though Kei knew that you were going to be getting some of the higher grades in class, just like always.

You were freaking out more than usual, and Kei realized that he needed to do something if he didn't want you to overwork yourself.

He found you on the swings at the park by your house.

He had gone over to make sure that you had eaten something, but your mother had told him that you had gone out earlier, and that she didn't know where you were.

"Hey," he said, announcing his presence as he settled beside you.

"Hey Kei," you replied, staring at the ground in front of you like it held the key to the universe.

"Are you okay?"

"No," you admitted. "I'm so nervous and freaked out that I can't eat anything. I have that weird mineral deficiency so drinking water just makes me really dizzy and I almost passed out when I stood up at the end of the day and there's nothing I can do about it! Not to mention that, once again, I got stuck with the morons that aren't going to do anything to help me with the project so I'm stuck doing everything by myself. For some of my classes, that's okay, I can just tell the teacher that they didn't help, but for some of them they're going to give me that bullshit lecture about working together. I have no idea what to do my speech about for that one class, and I have so many back to back tests that I think I might forget everything!"

Kei let you ramble, watching the way your hands moved around, trying to communicate the stress and anger and nerves that you were experiencing all at once.

He watched the way yours eyes widened and squeezed shut to add extra emphasis. He watched the way you glanced over at him to make sure that he was still paying attention, to make sure that you weren't annoying him, the way you smiled a little bit whenever you noticed that he was watching you and that you weren't annoying him by talking.

Somehow, you started talking about the constant love letters that he was getting.

"I mean, I get that some girls feel the need to have a boyfriend," you said, rolling your eyes, "but I have bigger things to worry about than their attraction to you, you know? One girl gave me a letter the other day, and I was so tired that I didn't realize what it was, and I started to read it and I was caught between wanting to laugh, cry, and hurl all at the same time."

Kei perked up at that.

"It made me kinda sad too," you admitted, your voice quieting. "I mean, it must really suck for you, getting all these letters claiming that they love you when they don't even know that first thing about who you are. I mean, it was hilarious that she even thought that you were interested in getting a girlfriend, and it was sickening how many times she used the words 'hot', 'sexy', and 'unadulteratedly handsome' to describe you."

Kei knew he made a face at that, with the way you laughed, before you continued, your voice even quieter than it had been, "But it made me sad to think that you keep having to read these things. They claim that they love you, that they want to be with you, and they don't even know who you are. Not in a way that matters at least. I don't know, it was just kind of depressing I guess."

You glanced at him, turning to face him.

"I hope you don't mind, but I started throwing them away. I'm getting sick and tired of being their carrier pigeon, and I really hate thinking about you having to deal with them all the time. If they want to confess they can find another way to do it."

"I don't mind, at all," he assured you, and you smiled at him.

But then your smiled faded into something similar to a frown.

"Hey, Kei?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you remember that promise we made when we were kids?"

"How could I forget? You never shut up about it during middle school," he teased.

"I broke that promise," you whispered. "That was one of the reasons that those letters made me so upset. As someone who has loved you, really loved you, for longer than they've known about you, it made me sick to read some of the things they said. I know that that makes me sound like some kind of possessive bitch, but it's true."

Kei stared at you, wondering if he had just heard that right.

You were in love with him? And had been for more than three years?

Kei felt like the breath had been knocked out of him.

"What's with the face Kei?" you asked. "I thought you knew already."

Kei didn't think that his eyes could get any wider than they were at that moment.

"Y-You . . . I-I what?"

"Come on Kei, you had to have noticed by now," you said, looking more concerned by the second. "I mean, it's not like I act the same way around everyone else that I do around you."

Kei let his brain process the things that you were telling him before he managed to squeak out, "You mean, like a friend thing right?"

You bit your lip, checking his face for something, fiddling with your fingers in your lap.

"No, Kei," you said finally. "I mean like, I want to be your girlfriend kind of love."

You weren't looking at him now, and he was worried you were taking this the wrong way. He didn't want this to end in a misunderstanding so he sighed dramatically.

"So, you're telling me that I could have confessed months ago and avoided the entire overthinking part of my recent internal panic?" he asked, watching the way your brows furrowed with confusion, the way your head whipped up when you finally realized what he was saying to you.

"A-Are you saying that the feeling is mutual?" you asked, eyes wide as you both looked at each other.

"Yes, you dumbass," he teased, smiling softly at you. "I broke that promise too, so it's okay, since we both broke it."

Now you were the one staring at him in disbelief.

Then you were off your swing and pacing in front of them, waving your hands around like a madwoman.

"Holy shit, you love me back," you muttered, glancing at him out of the corner of your eye every few seconds, like you were worried he would disappear. "I-I don't know what to do from here. I never thought that I would get this far. Is . . . is this where we talk about whether we want this to be a serious thing?" you asked. "Is this where we agree that we love each other but we pretend like nothing's changed? What am I supposed to do in this situation?"

"For one thing," Kei said, standing so that he could wrap his hands around your wrists, gently making you look at him. "You could calm down and let me get a word or two in before you make yourself black out."

You nodded, taking a deep breath.

"For another," he continued, "you and I should go back to your house. Your mom is worried sick about you, and you need to eat something before you pass out. We can have a serious talk about what this means once you aren't in danger of passing out from exhaustion or malnutrition."

"Okay, but only because I know that you're going to make me do it anyway," you told him, making him laugh.

You both walked in silence for a while before you asked, "When did you realize?"

"A few months ago," he admitted. "I think I've always known, but that guy- the slimeball that I blocked- got on my nerves enough that I knew it wasn't some platonic 'protect a friend' thing. I started seeing it more and more after that. I talked to Kuroo-san about it when I was nearly 100 percent sure, and that solidified it for me I guess, that night you and Tadashi stayed over and we watched that horrid slasher film. I woke up and you were right there by my side, and suddenly I couldn't imagine waking up any other way."

"That really was a horrible movie," you muttered. "I didn't think you were going to be the cheesy one today, but then again, you are always surprising me. And you didn't think to tell me?"

"I was worried it would make things awkward, and I didn't want to say something and be wrong, you know? Besides, you can't say anything. How long have you known?"

"Do you remember the summer before our third year in middle school and we all stayed at my grandparents' camp for three weeks?"

"That long? We were- what?- twelve?"

"Yeah. I remember that there was a thunderstorm the first night we were there, and I got up in the middle of the night because I couldn't sleep, so I stood on the deck, in a tank top and shorts because I wanted to. I don't even remember how long I had been out there when you wandered out. I remember calling you a dumbass because 'What if I was a murderer?' and you just called me short.

"We both stood there for a few minutes, and when I shivered, you wrapped your arms around my waist from behind me, pressing your chest to my back and calling me an idiot for wearing something so light in the middle of a thunderstorm. Instead of doing the sensible thing and getting a blanket or a jacket, you just hugged me and stood there with me until I couldn't stand it and we went inside."

Kei remembered that. He had seen you standing out on the deck when the lightning had flashed, and he had been worried when you weren't in your room, so he had gone out to check on you.

You had looked so happy, standing there in the rain, listening to the thunder crash in the distance.

He had wanted to stay with you, so he had.

It was one of the first times he had decided that he didn't care what it looked like, he cared for you, and he was going to show it somehow.

Kei slipped his hand into yours, interlacing your fingers together.

You glanced at him, but you didn't say anything, just squeezed his hand and walked with him.

When you both got back to your house, you grabbed a plate of food and plopped down at your desk in your room.

Kei lounged on your bed while you ate, watching you flip through a textbook and scribble notes in between bites of food.

When you pushed the plate to the side, your turned to face him.

"So."

"So."

You both locked eyes and chuckled.

"I already told you what I wanted out of this," you told him, shrugging. "I'm fine with whatever we decide, but that's my best case scenario ending for this."

"You make this sound like a business meeting," he teased, watching you stand up to move next to him on your bed.

"What do you want from this, Kei?" you asked, glancing down at your lap.

"I want you to be my girlfriend," he admitted. "I want to glare at guys that think they even have a chance with you. I want to kiss you for good luck before a game, all that sappy shit that everyone says that I wouldn't be into."

You smiled, laughing a little breathlessly for a moment before you comprehended everything he said.

"All of it?" you asked, turning those damned doe eyes on him again.

"All of it," he confirmed.

You chuckled softly, taking his hand again.

"Good. Me too."

"Good," he replied, pressing a quick kiss to your temple.

You giggled, something that made Kei stop for a moment, because you weren't the type of girl to giggle, at anything.

He smiled softly at you, and he wondered how much shit he was going to get from his team with you around, but he realized that it wasn't anything he needed to worry about yet.

Then he remembered something else.

"Hey, do you want to cause a little chaos?" Kei asked you.

"How so?"

"Remember how I said I talked to Kuroo-san?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, he wanted me to let him know how it went," Kei admitted. "I have him, Bokuto, Akaashi, Lev, and Hinata in a discord group chat. I want to try something, if you're okay with it."

"What do you have in mind?" you asked, arching an eyebrow, a smirk on your lips that said you were up for almost anything.

Skinny: img.jpg

Skinny: Thanks Kuroo-san

five people are typing...

Kei laughed, leaning over to show you the chaos that had ensued when he had sent the group chat the photo of you kissing his cheek.

You giggled at the many exclamation points and question marks, snickering at Kuroo's reply.

"I love you," you told him, kissing his cheek again.

"I love you too," he said, ignoring the calls that were coming through on his phone as he leaned over to cup your face in his hands.

#kei x reader #tsukishima x reader #kei tsukishima x reader #tsukishima kei x reader #haikyuu x reader #love #requited love #unrequited love #mutual pining #friends to lovers #this wasn't supposed to be this long #holy fuck #i'm actually really proud of this? #tsukishima #kei #tsukishima kei #kei tsukishima #kuroo tetsuro #tadashi yamaguchi #haikyuu!! #hq #hq fluff #hq x reader #haikyuu!! x reader

[pub-lius]

Which actor from any media you’ve seen potrays the most accurate depiction of Hamilton in your opinion

Aw man don't make me choose 😭

It's actually kind of hard to say, bc I've yet to see an accurate depiction from anyone else besides Ian Rose, and his portrayal isn't completely accurate, but its pretty good. So I'll just rank them in order from worst to best.

1. Hal Bidlack. Sorry, guy, I hated your performance. Hamilton was a very enthusiastic and emotional guy, and while Bidlack has the humor to portray his sassiness, I didn't feel there was much more personality to the character. Besides, Hamilton would never say a lot of the things he says.

2. Lin-Manuel Miranda. And no one's shocked. While he has the enthusiasm, Hamilton was much more of a calculates, manipulative politician than the musical portrays. He had many ways of getting what he wanted, and he used people to do that. On top of that, HE WASN'T IN LOVE WITH HIS SISTER most likely. See, Ron Chernow? I can admit i could be wrong.

3. Rufus Sewell. I'm sorry, but not as much effort was put in Hamilton as in Jefferson during the John Adams series. With Jefferson, they had a spot on portrayal. And i guess they had to budget cut out everything about Hamilton. And as much as I love the clothes in this show, I hated his costume more than Bidlack's baggy breeches. Hamilton was a capitalist who wouldn't have adopted republican fashions (such as short hair) until much later in his life. Seriously much later, like if he got a haircut the day before the duel.

4. Steven McCarthy. The Crossing isn't a perfect film, but I've seen worse, and shy, awkward, soft boy Hamilton isn't the worst. Idk why he's doing Washington's hair in 1776 when he has his own artillery company to worry about, but maybe they're just having bro time... before they formally met. But anyway, Hamilton is way too obsessed with himself and battle that he would ever act so skittish, but that's probably a director's thing. He is a bit of a badass in this movie tho so, not bad.

5. Richard Bekins. There's not much the George Washington mini series gets wrong that stands out, and this also applies to Hamilton. I do think they portray him as a bit more innocent than what is morally correct, but at least its not Miranda. I like how they do go in depth on the affair, but I don't like how, once again, "Hamilton is the victim." I do, however, like mostly everything about this portrayal personality wise. Good job, Bekins.

6. Derryl Yeager. Listen, A More Perfect Union is my comfort movie, i don't care if the casting is shit. But i quite like this portrayal of Hamilton, not to mention the inclusion of the Gouverneur Morris Bet of 1787. Whenever I see him come on screen i do a little happy dance. He could have more screentime imo, especially with the whole "monarch" scandal at the convention, but live laugh love, at least he's there.

7. Sean Haggerty. Turn and I have a love-hate relationship, but at least they didn't give Hamilton a psychotic breakdown that never would have happened this time. I'm very glad Hamilton even shows up as an aide de camp, and his involvement in the Benedict Arnold scandal is shown. I also really want to know where they got an actor who looks THAT MUCH like Hamilton. I was stunned. And, on top of that, he acts very similarly to Hamilton, except for the one part where he tells Anna, i think, something along the lines of "if the mob is going to come, let them come!" Dude, bro, Hamilton was KNOWN for trying to stop mobs singlehandedly. He's not very fond of them.

8. Robert Schenkkan. George Washington mini series again, but can you blame me this time??? IT EVEN HAS LAURENS AND TILGHMAN. Aside from the weird timeline where Hamilton joins the staff after Laurens, Schnekkan does a great job of portraying fiesty baby Hamilton, blood lust and everything. I honestly can't think of anything else this actor could have done more.

9. Now there are more people who have appeared on tv as Alexander Hamilton, but these are just the ones I've seen so far. And that leaves us with Ian Rose. He's spot on personality wise. He's got the sass, the humor, the loud, obnoxiousness, even the hand gestures. I don't think I've heard him say anything shockingly inaccurate, and he thoroughly understands how Hamilton argued. I respect the hustle my guy.

10. ...me 😁 just kidding... unless 👀 you should read my fanfic to see if I'm lying 😜 But I wanted to include some writings as honorable mentions, since I interpreted this as mostly about actors/reenactors. My holy trinity is without a doubt Duty and Inclination, Song of Alexander, and Merited Partiality. My Dear Hamilton isn't bad either, ig. I'd also recommend Religious Duty, The Stars Fight Against Us, And still I am grateful, and several others that I must have forgotten to bookmark. But they're all wonderful and amazing and make me CRY AND SOB AND VOMIT EVERYWHERE but anyway

I hope this helps, and thanks for the ask!!!

#alexander hamilton #so many hamiltons #who let him multiply??? #anyway im cramping like a motherfucker so goodbye <3 #beware thy ginger

[lesbianrobin]

Helloooooo, i just finished the witcher and i know you watched and want to ask you: what are you favorite characters and dynamics and what do you want from the next season???

hiiiiii so i will admit i havent actually. watched s2 yet. i'm waiting until i go back to school bc i watched s1 while studying (i would do some work and then reward myself with an episode kdcjdjd) and i enjoyed doing that so. that is why i am waiting. but i have seen a lot of gifs from s2 and been spoiled on a lot of stuff, so i'm REALLY excited to see the relationship between yennefer and jaskier develop!! i'm also really into geralt and ciri's relationship, it seems really sweet from what i've seen so far and i'm always such a sucker for adoptive parent/child relationships in media.

my favorite character in s1 was jaskier because i'm gay and predictable and after him was yennefer but like. i had Such a love/hate relationship with her dkcjdjcj which is partially just because she's a complex character yknow? she isn't always likable even if she is sympathetic but i think my initial difficulty with her also had to do with the way the show structured s1. whenever there are multiple storylines going on and the show cuts away from something interesting to go to something else, i tend to get kind of annoyed with the new thing if i don't find it as interesting, and i was usually more invested in ciri/geralt than i was yennefer's backstory. after i watched the full season and some time passed i appreciated her a lot more and now she's one of my favorites.

of course i love geralt and ciri as well, don't get me wrong. i care about them both deeply. i just kinda connect more with the sorta... nontraditional heroes?? geralt and ciri are complex and interesting and lovable, but i feel like i can point to a lot of other characters in various shows/movies/books/etc who are rather similar to the both of them. there's a lot of "gruff action man adopting powerful/traumatized/important young girl" content out there. and it slaps every time! but it's pretty familiar by this point. yennefer's journey is honestly unlike any other protagonist's that i can think of off the top of my head, and her capacity for extreme changes in personality and circumstance while remaining recognizable is really cool. she's a fun character And she makes me think a lot about the nature of power which is awesome.

idk how to really articulate just how special i think the character of jaskier is like i know he's primarily just comic relief within the show but he's just like. so refreshing. like it's So nice that within this narrative full of people with unimaginable power and grand destinies there's just this fruity buff guy who wants to sing and make his mark on the world who voluntarily chooses to get involved because he saw a scary hot dude in a bar once and decided they would be ride or die for each other regardless of what the scary hot dude wanted. AND he's a dramatic little bitch who rubs chamomile on his bestie's ass. i love him So much. what i want most from season 3 is for him to wear the gay little jackets with the puffed sleeves again because from what i've seen in s2 he kinda butched it up which. yes he looks hot and i love that for him and personally i like his hair way more now than in s1 and i like that the new look makes it harder for fandom weirdos to twinkify him. BUT i still miss the puffed sleeves.

anyway sorry if this isn't what u were expecting dkcjdjf thank u for asking!!!

#asks #the witcher