#having vague characters allows people to project onto them

[1864reruns]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤgratefulness (i'm sorry, can this be over now?)ㅤ౨ৎㅤ12.9k

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ2024 ©1864RERUNS

oneㅤ/ㅤtwo synopsis. luffy loves you— you know this with how abundantly clear love is in every ministration of his outstretched hand and a grin— yet your traitorous heart demands more, even though you're in no place to give him your loyalty. you know this so you do not demand his love nor to be saved, even when met with a relentlessly stretched hand.

warning(s). gn! reader, hanahaki disease, but some creatively liberated variation of it, angst, hurt/some comfort, slow burn, but does it really count if nothing happens?, unrequited love, pining and the works, background character death, blood, violent imagery, vague allusion to an unspecified mental disorder that involves eating habits (pls be careful!!!), luffy tries his best to be kind but it's cruel, reader spirals 🙏; minimal editing and proofreading (these are basically my thoughts raw and unadulterated)

from vyon. the card game they play is a vietnamese one also known as smth like thirteen in english and has too many rules to explain but it doesn't really matter :3 i was a beast at that game though i fear; this fanfic has been in my drafts for so long, it also grew into too big of a project than it was meant to be. i also had to split this up into two parts, it was getting too long, i'm sorry ＞︿＜

do not repost / copy / translate.

Once you know Monkey D. Luffy, you'll know his heart not a few minutes after. He's welded the unmoving, burning ingot to his bicep, always on display due to his amassing collection of armless vests; rubber skin melted around the golden gem, oozing past the lines of his beating heart to staple it there, an anomaly on the expanse of skin not otherwise susceptible to bullets or cannons. Your captain is a man that lives with his heart on his tongue, always ready to dictate the lay of your next move with an irregular beat that drums against the skinned men of war and an impulsivity that makes his crew scramble after him exasperatedly; oxygen taken from his cerebral arteries to his brain are stained in the grease and oil that stick to the meat he handles so carelessly. In the same endearing way, he's careless with his heart, allows for the small stuff to momentarily prick his heart, for judgement to cloud into anger before it picks up on the bitter taste of agony.

It's always easy to get a frown onto Luffy's face. Feign disinterest in his stories; make yourself too busy to help him look for strange insects; force him to shower, scold him after he does something he wasn't meant to; keep him away from something he seems interested in; starve him for more than five minutes— he makes it all exceptionally too easy. You're not audacious enough to claim to know Luffy any more than the Strawhats, especially not those that he had met in East Blue; you try not to let it bother you that they managed to meet a younger Luffy who had so many holes in his defence, whose smile threatened through skin more, who had yet to find scars in his palm from how hard he had to clench his fists.

To you, it seems unfair that Luffy had managed to uncover so many of your firsts. His unwavering presence by your side as you learnt how hard it was to live on sea, the intonations of your screaming when a marine canon was pointed at you, to live so freely away from the confines of restrictive justice, how it felt to have a hand in yours to promise forever and then some. Luffy has no preferential treatment when it comes to people he loves; he treats them all the same, no hierarchy could dream to disrupt that.

With the same sandals he uses to stomp on the faces of Marine's, he could demand food from Sanji, money from Nami, Zoro to play with him— instead, you watch him whine Sanji, food and dissolve into a puddle when his cook orders him to wait, he allows Nami's fists to fall onto his head when he makes any financially impulsive decision (or even thinks them), and he idles himself with drawing on Zoro's face with Usopp and Chopper, with the previous two of them taking the psychical brunt of their consequences. (Chopper is let off with a mere promise that he won't join in with their shenanigans again when it involves making Zoro into a fool and a growing bump underneath his hat.)

Luffy, from second to fourth gear, is tender aggression when it is love.

His form is bizarrely respectful when the door opens and light dawns upon your face; you see him through the gaps of Nami and Sanji's legs and towering forms over him, his hands on his thighs and feet tucked underneath his bottom. He slurs out an I'm sorry that lets you know that his face is definitely messed up and then follows up with an I was hungry though!

Then Nami messes him up some more for his shitty justification.

She leaves him— some caricature of her anger— on the floor with her hands on her hips and Sanji trailing after her with hearts in his eyes at her dominant display of power. As she passes Brook, he asks for the colour of her underwear and earns himself the same treatment. It's then that you laugh. Luffy snapped his head up, following after the trembling air of your laughter and then calls out your name, the syllables are all messy around his swollen cheeks and a missing tooth that will come back after a few minutes but you cannot rid yourself of the thought that it's sticky with love that you only remember hearing when you were just a babe, screaming and crying in the arms of a tired and ill mother in a hospital. You were introduced to a group of midwives with same love you hear now, their idle finger catching into both your small hands; Luffy's hand dances across the air, breaking apart your laugh with urgency and catching onto your wrist.

You're not sure if it's you who had been pulled to him or if he'd managed to catapult himself into you but you both end up a mess on the floor regardless. Limbs tangled around each other in a wave as you both fall to the deck, Luffy does not correct the length of his arm and takes to wrapping the limb around you like a vine snaked around the trunk of a tree. You don't know a start nor an end as Luffy nuzzles his beat–up face on your shoulder. "Hey captain," you raise your head to look down on him, trying to wrench a hand through the tight spirals he's coiled around you.

"I'm hungry," he whines in lieu of a response, "and I'm bored, Usopp kicked me out after I ate one of his ketchup stars." He doesn't relent with his hold on you, simply loosening the coil that you're trying to work your hand through before tightening again once your arm makes it past to trap it against your side. You don't question the fact that Usopp's ketchup stars may be laced with gunpowder or what the small dose of gunpowder may have done to Luffy's internal organs.

You guess even Usopp has his limits when it comes to his childish captain. "I can't do a lot about either of those things if you're keeping me hostage here." He looks up at you, his exaggeratedly large lips in a pout that matches the swelling of his cheeks and then says your name again, like you’ve done him wrong. It's a disordered collection of the letters again but you find you can't really do anything to fight against it. Instead, green tendrils sprout from your trapped arm, each vine wrapped in a light of leaves and strain against his extended limb before he gives in and, instead, laughs as he wraps his rubber arm around the spindly, twisted branches splitting open layers of skin on your bicep. His skin coloured against the green runner keeps the bine from wilting down to meet gravity.

You let Luffy do whatever he wants, with an expression that you're not sure you're too familiar with etched out on the lines of your face. Thinking back on it, you could've simply done as Nami had or Usopp, ignore or scold him enough into submission but his fingers catch one of the fronds and it curls between the meat of his fingertips, reaching out to tickle his palm and something soft blooms inside you. You know it must be you, not the work of your devil fruit, because as much as you've tried in your lacklustre pursuit of beauty, you've never been able to sprout any kind of flowers.

When Luffy finally lets you go, you find your way into the kitchen and give Sanji a smile. You apologise for interrupting him and tell him that you know that lunch had been served only an hour ago but, if he wasn't too busy, you were still a little peckish. Sanji shoots up immediately and asks you what you've got a taste for— you assure him any leftovers from lunch will do and he tells you, though this doesn't come as any surprise, that Luffy had worked his way through any grain of leftovers with a laugh. You laugh along with him and well, you seemed to be craving meat right now.

The plate he prepares seem to be more about quality rather than quantity, with sauce underneath the red meat drizzled across the white ceramic, a slab of meat already cut into bite sized pieces for you and a decorative herb stuck between the fatty slices but when the light oozes down into the stretch of meat, you don't think Luffy will complain too much.

You, of course, were right about that.

The shattering grin he greets you (the plate of meat, however small it seemed) with gives you the faint smell of sticky rain drenched in the light of the sun, and you almost give him your hand when he reaches out for the plate. Brook's guitar strums in the background and your heart shakes in time with his strings and Luffy's incessant chewing.

You've really no problems with Usopp asking you to help him with target practice, it's fairly common for you to help the crew with their unique fighting style— save Nami and Franky for fear of losing your life with their less than particular aimed area of damage— it's easy enough really. You don't even have to be mentally present for it; shaking through layers of flesh, vines grow across the deck of the Sunny and rise up straight to tower over Usopp as he fixes his goggles over his eyes. You keep a quarter of your mind instilled in every chloroplast that shivers across the skies so you can keep them moving but the other three quarters are focused on the card game you play with Robin, Chopper, and Franky.

You hear the snapping of elastic and your finger twitches against the back of playing cards as the particular vine shot to the left, glancing curiously at Chopper's hand across from you when he turned to Franky and accuses him of looking at his cards.

"It's not my fault!" Franky frowned, fixing his comedically small glasses to perch on his metal nose. "Your cards just happen to be in my view when I'm looking at the pile 'cause you're tiny!"

Chopper takes to this horribly (you reshape a vine that has fallen to one of Usopp's stones and keep it relentless across the wave of air) and he grows into the much less cute and broader, more human version of himself to hold his hand out of Franky's view. (Two vines snap together and they take the path to slice through air to where Usopp stands, you hear the cracking of wood as Usopp shouts at you, saying he only wanted to focus on offence. An apology is drawn out with the green arm in the air.)

"Ivy," your eyes flicker to Robin and she gestures to the pile of discarded where the two of spades had been placed on top. "It's your turn." You glance down at your hand, eyes flickering over the collection of 7's in your hand. 

"Bomb." (You feel a vine break apart into pieces, think about the fact that it's lucky you've no nerves attached to the tendrils, and keep the one down to give Usopp a little win.) Franky curses your name as Robin chuckles.

Chopper glances at the four 7's with a sense of wonderment that you're sure is too dramatic for the moment. "No wonder I had no sevens!" You give him a sly grin and watch Robin pass her turn, ignoring Franky's levelled glare behind his glasses.

In the end, Robin wins anyways, ridding herself of her hand with her final card being the two of hearts. The loss is taken bitterly by both you and Franky though you think Franky definitely takes it worse than you do as when he stands to sulk away, cards fall out of his speedos, and they leave a trail after him. Robin, in all her morbidity, laughs behind a hand as you and Chopper drop your jaws in disgust.

Chopper collects the cards, hesitating with the ones that had been on Franky until Robin points out that you've all played many rounds and there's a chance that all of them had shared the same fate. (Another vine shutters down to the floor, broken apart and particles flown across the deck.) The cards slowly fall to the floor as Chopper cries out in disgust. Shaking your head with some colourful amusement, you use the two vines fallen to pick up the cards and start shuffling them.

Responding to Chopper's call, Luffy shoots his way from Sunny's figurehead. "What're you guys doin'?" He falls graciously to where Franky had previously been sitting; his eyes are ever so impatient to glance over the cards being shuffled. "Oh," he says with great interest, "are you guys playing 'go fish'?" He leaned towards you— the cards in your possession, actually— and blinks at the shuffling. "Lemme in!"

"We weren't playing 'go fish', Luffy." The little doctor has since calmed down, taking a seat between Luffy and Robin and shaking his head. "We were playing—" he turns his head up to Robin, to which she supplies 'bài tiến lên' with the intricate accents and all, "that!"

A flash of thinking places itself on Luffy's face, crossing his arm and tapping the side of his sandals on the deck, then it's gone. "Let's just play 'go fish' then."

Chopper whines, saying that 'go fish' is boring and that Luffy always snatches more than one card from other people's hands, which is cheating, and that he doesn't want to play.

Luffy turns to you with a pout, eyebrows furrowed at the dip where his nose bridge starts and then straightened out towards the end. The two vines that had been expertly dodging all of Usopp's shots and taunting him by doing silly dances and twisting into words in the air both crumple down to the floor at the same time, they follow the curve of your spine as you double over, a breath stuttering in your throat. You hear Usopp call your name and the deck of cards slip out from the vines that had been shuffling this entire time, your hand wraps around your throat and you hack out a cough you've managed to choke on.

"Are you dying?" Chopper shoots up, frantic as you keep coughing and choking— both violent in temperament, and scampers around, shouting for a doctor.

Footsteps tap closer as a shadow forms over you, Usopp's hand patting your back ferociously comes after the sound of shoes stop.

The blur that came with tears invading your eyes gives you the confidence to look at Luffy again before you're calling Chopper to a stop. "I'm fine, just choked on air."

You don't mention how it felt like you were breathing through a cheesecloth, how your lungs feel so restricted with every inhale as you all compromise on 'chase the ace' and how easier it feels when Usopp pushes his way between you and Luffy, too intimidated to pick from Robin's hand; when you all finish up for dinner, Robin is looking at you in a way that makes you think she's caught onto how you've been struggling.

Dinner is a strange ordeal. It's characterised with its usual events: Luffy sneaking his hands into people's plates though his stands full, Usopp trying to hold his plate out of his way, Zoro tending to his glass bottle of beer, Sanji making some quip about Zoro's show of alcoholism, Nami getting increasingly annoyed by the noise around her, Brook's laughter, Zoro escalating the situation with Sanji, Chopper screaming when Luffy clears Usopp's plate and then goes for the doctor's, Robin watching the scene with the patience of a saint, Franky pretending he was better than the rest, Usopp exacting revenge on Luffy by swapping their plates. It all ends with Nami telling them all to shut up and Luffy taking one final chicken leg from Zoro's plate. You stare down at your plate and count the missing bits, Luffy hasn't really touched any of the potatoes or asparagus, so you finish them up.

Two chicken thighs sit in stark contrast to the plate, thinking about having them anywhere near your mouth makes you a little sick for some reason, the weight of them in your stomach, the taste of caramelised skins, crisped with wells of juice sat next to a tinge of burnt flesh; you push the plate over to Luffy and detest the way he can take the colour of well–done oranges between his teeth and not care about the juice dribbling down his chin.

Luffy says thanks with his mouth full of chicken; Nami glares at him and turns a more concerned face to you (that also makes you sick) and inquires about you not eating. You mumble out some excuse about not being hungry, not feeling well, having a little bit of a headache, feeling tired— something along those faux lines, you don't remember but you remember that you don't tell them the truth exactly. "Sorry Sanji," you fix into your shitty excuse after, running a hand through your hair, to make yourself feel better about the entire ordeal.

He offers to make you a more palatable porridge or soup instead.

You take a cigarette and a red apple, going to bed hungry and angry at some unknown thing that brews on the tip of your tongue.

The next island is of great interest to Luffy.

The entire crew knows that its history nor culture was not either reason behind his excitement, only the mere prospect of digging his sandals into new, uncharted land is why he's running around the deck, filling up the empty spaces with bubbling laughter. Sanji finishes up bentos for those that are leaving, taking unnecessary extra care with Nami’s, and wishing he had it in him to starve Zoro whilst Nami is giving everyone an allowance. You take two bentos, yours and Chopper's, and head out onto the deck. Luffy only seemed momentarily sad that you were going with the doctor but bounced back immediately after when the trees come closer enough to intimidate so you push down the offer to join him instead. Franky joins up with Usopp, Luffy'll run off alone regardless of who he ends up going with, Nami ends up going with Zoro (to Sanji's displeasure), and you and Chopper make plans to find a pharmacy and a library for Robin.

Being around Chopper is easy enough with this unsettling prick of poison that's forced minimal responses, curt words, a flurry of tiredness, a sickening chill through your days recently. The little doctor is a lot more mindful of changes in mood, it's not any imminent injury either so he doesn't press to know why. Out of guilt (for being a brooding asshole lately), you ask him about his rumble balls and all his different forms. He answers cheerily and you can only pick out every other word with a persistent headache as the smell in the air changes from salty skies and bloody fish to sweetened foods and something unfamiliarly clean.

It's a bright island. You hear a faint bell in the distance that is traced over with the sound of children and stall owners; Chopper's hooves rhythmically sound beside you on the pavement and you find yourself counting them in groups of four. "Ah, there." You pick up your head and turn to follow the direction of Chopper's eyes. A sign is hung on the side of the building, the library. "Robin wanted a book of North Blue diseases for some reason," Chopper mumbles to himself as you two push open the door.

It's a small bookstore, walls lined with books and the paths carved with more standalone bookcases. "North Blue diseases?" You repeat, confused, "do they have North Blue exclusive illnesses?"

Your question goes unanswered, though it looks like it opens a vault of new questions for Chopper. Books aren't of great interests to you, so you follow behind Chopper as he walks through each section and grab whichever book he tells you to bring down for him. On the way back, you tell Chopper to keep going and change your course in search of something you're not too sure of.

You stray away from the town centre and head deeper through the small alleys of the town, there's no destination in mind; without the urgency of a fights and with the domesticity of a small knit community, you wander adrift. There's a dampness in the air to the walk around a shadowed hide of the place that loosens up the tension below your ribs, many different eyes follow after your form as the heel of your shoes click against a null path; shadows ooze around the soles of your shoe and lacquer up between the carved maze of black rubber of your soles until you find your way into a dead end.

It's a little bit of a cliché to be met with a ragtag group of delinquents when you turn to go back. Your eyes trace over them. In the hand of the one closest to you sits your wanted poster.

Something blooms inside you again— it's a much more pleasant feeling than the unmoving sap of ire that's been invading lately. Each man before you is physically bigger, towering over you ominously and shadows eating you but they all have swords and guns in their hands and that's why they lose. You, to the detriment of all life around you, are a weapon in and of itself; you choke out the vitality from others and steal their nutrients. They strained against their confines as their skin blossoms through shades of blooms, you are not the merciful rubber of a human, so your constraints don't relent, they squeeze and squeeze until the bark splits apart, until blood is cut off at the source, until they wither, until you are full.

On the way back, you buy a gift for everyone with the money you hadn't used and when they take to it, all in their varying degrees of joy, you feel less bad about the dead end alley full of brothers and sons. You tell yourself, handing Zoro a gift of alcohol, if not them, then it'd have been you.

You end up staying anchored to the island for a week to your displeasure. The longer you're stuck there, the closer you are to exploding; you always keep an eye out on the log pose strapped to Nami's wrist like you could quicken the process if you stare enough. Usopp starts avoiding you out of fear you'll blow like a poorly constructed cannon, Zoro makes you train with him to see if it'll help blow off some steam, Sanji brings you iced drinks at a rate that keeps you dizzy but you always feed it to Luffy or redirect it to Chopper's or Usopp's office with a little note.

On the third day, you follow in Zoro's example and sprawl out on the deck to rest your tireless mind. You've always wondered how sleep was ever a possible option for him when the feet thundering across the deck came with obstructive vibrations, no doubt slapping any chance of sleep away from his mind, but you find that it's almost pleasant. Beats all from familiar loves translates through the groves of wooden planks and etch through the back of your spine, you feel a bone fall back into place after Nami's heels against the floor and the thunderous kick that lands where Zoro was standing manages to work its way up your head to ease a headache.

The sun burns cries into your eyes and the skies move fluidly, they don't ripple as clouds shrivel against a light blue you're unfamiliar with; even as you close your eyes, you continue to feel the burn of the sun. The slapping of weaved straw against a sticky, sweaty sole then the deck comes as you slip into sleep.

Dreams have never been so amicable enough to become a recurrent in your life; more often than not, you're shown memories all blended together into a mess that leaves you sick, the abhorrent now and the nostalgic then bleeding past their confines until you see your mother stood next to that deceitful Marine admiral, both with that same look in their face. You wake up with a start when a loud bang scours its way through a flurry images you're unfamiliar with and then your body escapes you. Your head weighs with the heaviness of the bodies dropped to the floor, arms cold as if dipped into the river Styx, bones locked in place with a restrictive pain, muscles burning, aware of every breath that shivers through your suddenly odd body.

"Owww," three Luffys blur around each other as you pushed a hand to the floor to straighten up, you try blinking away the other two, but they're glued to the captain reflecting in your eyes; he looks down at what he's tripped on and follows it back to you. Your hand is met with something curved in shape when you go to push yourself up and when you look down, you see vines underneath you. You realise then that a burst of them had grown beneath you, splitting through the lawn deck and uplifting some of the planks underneath the greenery and inching upwards towards the guard rails of the ship. They take the form of something you think you met in your most recent sleep.

Luffy has managed to crawl his way towards you in the time you spend wondering why your devil fruit had been acting up— in your sleep no less and he wraps a hand around your ankle to get your attention. "Hey, you're really cold." He pointed out, eyes flickering down to the flesh between his fingers and then trailing his fingers up your thigh as he shifts closer to you on his knees.

The touch makes you violent and tender. "Really?" You managed to puff out, giving too much air back to the world with how much you're panting, "I feel a little warm though."

Luffy hums, clapping his hand over your cheeks with gentleness he only shows to those he loves, and it feels wrong. You get an itch underneath your skin that urges you to move, move, move but you can only push Luffy away with a ferocity he'd never shown you as you tremble under the bursting of violent air hacking up your throat, your shoulders strain as you wrapped your arms around your stomach, trying to heave out something that wasn't there.

Luffy scrambles back immediately, not caring for you shoving him away, and soothes away the rattling of your core with his clammy hands on your arm. "Are you sick?"

No, you think as a retch comes up your mouth; maybe, you correct as the path is marked by drool slipping down your chin and tears streaking across your cheeks. You shake away Luffy again. He's less submissive this time, his legs open over yours to plant his knees by your thighs. You hear him call for Chopper and it's obvious he has something of a frown marked on his face; you keep burning beneath your skin, but Luffy keeps rubbing his palms over your arms like you're cold.

You realise what your vines had drawn underneath you when Chopper comes out, fretting over you as he takes Luffy's place close to you. A grave. The image makes you laugh as the reindeer instructs his captain to haul you up after you'd ignored his inquires on if you could walk; your arm bends around the shape of Luffy's shoulder and your laughter erratically convulses into a collection of coughs from the skin on skin high.

You forced into bed rest after Chopper does a preliminary round of tests on you and declares you've simply gone down with a cold. You take to the diagnosis apprehensively, though in Chopper's defence, how was he meant to accurately diagnose you if you don't tell him all your symptoms? Instead, you sit in his office and spend the minutes, all alone, trying to retch out the feeling of having a piece of hair down your throat; you claw at the blanket and keep hacking until you've got a blanket full of tears and spit. The feeling does not pass.

At lunch, you get a visit from Franky who comes by to complain that you've made unnecessary work for him. "—seriously, how did you manage that in your sleep? Were you having a nightmare?" He ranted, legs crossed and leaned back in the visitor chair in a way that pushes his skinny, hairy legs close to your face.

Scrunching up your face, you sit up. "It was the future." You rebut, in between all his fantastical stories of his nightmares and talking about how he'd never attack Sunny even if Chopper grew a mechanical, giant arm and overthrew Luffy to become their captain. "A future," you correct yourself before turning to Franky with eyes judgemental, "are you scared of Chopper?"

"You weren't there at Enies Lobby," he tells you, which serves as a cruel reminder of sorts. You think about all the scars you've seen littered on the crew's skin and wonder which ones they've collected while they were with Luffy and who knows of which. The faint, protruding marks underneath Nami's tattoo, the stitches around Zoro's ankles, the ones pulled across his chest; you wonder if Sanji's got one hidden underneath his bangs. "The future?" Franky repeats after a moment, "are you a prophet?"

"It's a working theory," you brush off instead. "Though I can see in my mind's eye that Luffy is currently eating all the food and you’ll be left to starve if you don't go back."

Franky scrambled up from the seat not a second after your words.

With him gone, you settle back onto the bed and wonder about too many things to recall.

Between the hours after lunch and before dinner, Luffy comes by. He settles himself on the bed and forces you up as well, the shifting causes another cough to burgeon in your throat and you turn your head the other way to spit it out in an uncontrolled group of four. "You're not feeling better?" He frowns.

You see now that he's holding two pieces of barbequed meat in his hand, he's got the bone in his palm as he holds it upright like a sword, juices from the flesh dripping down to his hand and the smell gives you a headache. "Do you want this?" You move your eyes to Luffy, he's got his eyebrows furrowed together and his lips straightened out in a line when you don't answer. "Both?" He looks over at you, then the meat, and then you. "You," he swallows, "you can have them," his knuckles turn red around the bone, "since you need energy and you're sick." You think he's trying to convince himself to give them up.

You reached out and watch Luffy's face turn sour as his expression squeezes altogether around a midpoint trapped in his nose; you retract your hand and watch his face relax and his body unwind, you think he's moved his hand back a little. You repeat it again a few more times until laughter comes up and dislodges the uncomfortable feel of hair set deep in your throat. "It's fine, Luffy, you can have 'em."

"Really?"

"Mhm, go for it."

He moans around a bite of meat, crying your name as he chews and says thank you. The feeling is back as soon as it left.

No one comes to visit after that. Chopper comes by before he heads off to bed to make sure you're all set for the night and tells you that he expects to be woken up if you feel any symptoms get worse. You agree to his conditions, though can barely make yourself seem like you were taking him seriously with his cute face scolding you, but it seemed to work well enough as he's gone after he leaves a cup of water by your side. Sleep lingers around the corner, shirking away from your twitching fingertips and restless eyes; you give up after a few minutes, thinking about Robin who'd been thrown on watch tonight.

After going back and forth on the details, you bundle up yourself in the blanket (not wanting to have to mimic any semblance of serious guilt to get through Chopper's less than intimidating scolding if you get any sicker in the morning) and wander to the deck. The darkness of the sea would be safe for you, twisting around every limb extended to grope your way through your chosen path and oozing out from strands of hair to empty at your feet if not for the lamp of the moon ahead of you. Its light a forecast of tragedy, reflecting off a blade that would drive through the blood of a man who faced an unlikely love with only disgust and betrayal. "Robin?" The light hangs onto your word with a vehemence to uncover your unjustifiable deeds.

"Ivy," a shudder of surprise rattles your head to duck to your shoulders as you turn around. "Sorry, did I scare you?"

You give Robin a frown, tugging your lips down. "Yeah, my weakened bones nearly fell to the floor." She huffs a laugh. "Please announce yourself before you appear." Robin traces over your palish face and your features soften into a smile when your eyes meet.

"Can't sleep?" She asks once you two settle at the side of the Sunny where you'd napped earlier today, some of your vines still wedged between planks and parts of the floor haphazardly missing. You lean your back against the side of the ship and lower your eyes to the floor.

It's a total void, welcoming you back home. "No," you answer, a little breathless. The moon doesn't shuttle into the hole of the deck and something reaches a hand out for you between the atoms of a black hole. Roots twist out, easing close to your feet and sinking beneath the soles of your shoes. "I napped a little earlier." It's safe.

Robin hummed— I know rattles through her hum— and her elbow falls onto the guard rail of the ship. For the next few moments, you regret coming out. Robin's always been more receptive to the details and fine lines; it's not surprising that she can nitpick through a flurry of fronts and covers to the feelings you want to hide. They beckon out to her, wanting to fill that hole that's grown smaller with every day she wakes up to the open seas and the lively sound of her crew. "Chopper said you were sick?"

"A cold," you sniffle, bringing the blanket closer to you. Finding some semblance of confidence inside you, your eyes flicker over to Robin but she isn't looking at you— only turns when she feels your gaze levelled on her. You hesitate, searching for something to say and land on extending an arm and opening the blanket to invite her into your bundle. "You cold?"

She laughs, "it's fine, you should go back in if you've got a cold though." Her head tilted with a smile, "it'll be bad if the night air makes you worse."

Not wanting to find yourself softened in moonlight nor her eyes, you nod and bid her a goodnight before shivering your way back into your room. The door opens and light from Sunny's hallway is swallowed into the darkness of your room before it's banished out with the slam of your door, you shuffle around odd things thrown on the floor and slip into bed.

Your sleep is broken through with intervals with coughing, curling into yourself, shivering still though you burn in the night like a sibling of a star. When you wake up, sometime in the afternoon, you're heaving and reaching out your arms all around your duvet to haul together the skin that feels like it's melted down. Your palms prick against the leaves of vines that have overtaken your room, they fluoresce around your body and branch outwards to all corners of your room. The mess all blur together as your brain thrashes in your head with every splutter, you shake and twitch, trying to make sense of anything. Skin burned raw as you attempt to kick away the shrubbery that's keeping the blanket contorted around your body.

Your throat skinned and crude with its imminent thoughts of water.

A hand reached back blindly to grope at your bedside table for the cup that Chopper left for you last night. What you find instead is the burning touch of the sun, it seeps through the micro wounds stabbed through lines of your fortune and inflames every nerve straight to your heart. Your hand snaps back towards your body, the bones shivering from the imminent heat. Your entire body twitches at different paces, an invasive and hungry need drowns your senses. You need water, you need not for this to happen, water, you need for your sleep to be calm, you need to stop burning, you want to stop losing control, water first. You want water. Water— you turn your head to find the water, you need— Luffy?

Luffy is sat on a chair that you don't remember being there and when you look a little closer, you see that your vines had granted him a throne to comfortably lay on, other than that, they avoid him like the near plague. His body is leaned forward, his chest laid against the side of your mattress and arms crossed on your bed to sleep on like a pillow. You retch up some acid and, like the bowed head of a priest, a gentle petal disrupts the stream, flowing against the tide. It's a beautiful purple colour that's light against the transition to white towards the middle and an eye-catching yellow streaking against the white; lines of a deeper hue stretch through the petal and it's oddly reminiscent of veins.

The petal sits on the puddle of stomach acid that warms your thighs, your head bowed down to stare at it; you feel your soul unfurl at the sight of it, branches stretched outwards over a riverside, the heavy head of buds pulling weighted branches down to drink from the stream. Everything else blurs with a ripple, the petal is withstanding no matter no much you try blinking away an oncoming headache. The river near dries up in your attempt to wash down this unnerving disgust; you hunger for more.

Little changes when you find out what this 'cold' truly was. The lighting in Sunny's library is several shades warmer than the light of the sun, it draws upon the hunched shoulders down to your back as you tilt your head to hear the bones crack under your ear. Four syllables, that's all your death is. A lot of words are four syllables. Anonymous; unfortunate; hilarious; adventurous; hanahaki. It doesn't mean a lot by itself, so you try giving it some context. You pretend to tell Chopper that you're dying, you have hanahaki and that it's something he can't cure in a way you'll accept and you still feel nothing. You think about Chopper's face. He adamantly tells you that he'll cure you, he'll do it. The you in your imagination tells him no. Faced with your refusal, Chopper cannot do anything. In the end, it is a grave that cures you.

Death, as it stands, was something you had accepted when you stepped onto a pirate ship. Even someone with as stubborn a character as Zoro could be welcomed in by death, even Luffy. For a while, you wonder about death. The air in the room pauses as if to grace you with the silence to ponder on it, all you hear is the sound of your own breathing.

The closest thing to death comes searching for you a few minutes later.

You've always been interested in Brook. A skeleton with nothing but a sword; he has no lungs yet still sings, no heart and still smiles, dead but human in all his actions and behaviours. "There you are." He sneaks up behind you, bones falling onto your shoulder as you think, he smiles down at you. "Luffy asked if I’d seen you earlier.” He looms over you for a moment before he's straightening back up and calling out loudly, "but I'm a skeleton so it's not like I have eyes to see anyone anyways!"

It's the two syllables 'Lu–ffy' that shakes you the most. You stifle a cough in your chest and feel it tear through your ribs instead, searching for a path out. "For what?" The breaths rattle in your chest and shudder through your words.

"He wanted to show you a beetle." He takes the seat next to you, peering down at the picture book that you have open. You wait for him to make a comment about seeing what you were reading before disregarding it all with a lack of eyeballs so he wasn't seeing it really but he doesn't say anything, so you're forced to talk instead.

"Brook."

"Yes?"

It takes a single breath to prepare you to say this, it's warm and evident that you've not yet truly succumbed to your illness. "Do you see yourself as dead?"

Death is the art of those who do not live. It's something that keeps people tethered to the moment; it's the one thing that keeps humans humane. It's evidence you've lived, no matter how full nor how long. She's beautiful in her own right.

"I cannot see myself as anything because I am a skeleton with no eyes!"

Brook does not get to elaborate because Luffy shuttles in moments later, whispering loudly. (He'd learned somewhere that you're meant to be quiet in a library when he was younger but his whispers still manage to shake the room somehow.) "You're here! I found a beetle to show you!" He tip–toes to your side, "what're you reading— oh, hi Brook! The flowers here are pretty!" He points a finger down to a sunflower; his index covers an entire petal and he strokes it upwards to the middle. "Do you think they're edible?"

He turns to you with a smile.

You meet him with the same, "their seeds are." He gasps and picks up the book to scour through the letters in search of a name of these seeds. You take in a shuddering breath and when you feel another urge to cough, you cannot stop it.

When vines splatter around the room, they uproot the place; they've always been disruptive in this way. A wave of them washes various bouts of furniture to the floor, through the pounding of your ears, you hear the sound of books thudding as green appendages snake through bookcases and rattle them at the base; Brook's chair collapses as a vine chokes out one of its legs into splinters, the world blurs into a hue of greens and purples. A hand reaches from down in your throat, you heave around gaps of allowance for air and gag, cough, retch up more acid and some tea that Sanji brewed earlier this morning in lieu of breakfast. It's unpleasant. It's ugly in a way death should not be, though you guess the dead don't get to choose how to live in the same way the living cannot choose their death.

You're hauled off to Chopper again.

Chopper's voice comes as the hollow sounds of keys on an old piano. He does another round of tests on you— this set lasts a little longer than the previous and he takes extra caution with some. He finds that your heart is a little faster than it should be, he nitpicks at the bluish tint around your fingers and notes the concerning amount of weight you've lost in the past few weeks. When he asks you, what's wrong, you tell him that that's what he should be telling you.

Hypoxia; another four syllables for your cause of death. "Some of the symptoms are there," Chopper frowns, mumbling to himself. "It's when your tissues aren't getting enough oxygen, do you have difficulty breathing?"

You placed your cheek into your palm, elbow on Chopper's desk. "You're a pretty good doctor, Chopper."

The effect is immediate, he starts blushing and kicking his legs in his seat, a hoof goes to rub at the back of his head and nervous laughter comes from him. "That isn't distracting me at all, you bastard." You smiled and watched the compliment break any semblance of professionalism in him.

He gets back on track a little while later, placing a stethoscope on your chest and asking you to cough. You're not sure exactly what he's looking for but you give a soft cough into your elbow and you can say for certain— just based off the way he jumps back and looks at you a little quietly for a second, it's nothing good. Chopper spends a few minutes looking at your fingertips, then your lips, then some other parts of skin already exposed and humming to himself, troubled.

For now, he says, he wants you to try not to exert yourself— maybe leave fighting to everyone else and focus on resting until he can figure out a better way to confidently diagnose you. His lips are pulled into a frown, hands in his lap and trying his best to be professional and keep his emotions at bay. Before you know it, your hand is on top of his pink hat and fondly rubbing over the material softly. "Thanks Chopper, I'll keep that in mind."

He nods. You hesitate for a second before you're getting up to leave so that everyone else can see that you're not dying— or maybe you should tell them you are, you're not sure you could take another session of Franky accusing you of destroying the Sunny to create more work for him.

Your hand wraps around the doorknob and twists, stopping when Chopper speaks again. "You're not hiding something from me," he accuses gently, "are you?"

Your hand tightens around the doorknob. A flash of that imaginary Chopper comes back to you— heartbroken and confused at your refusal to be cured— you steal an unnecessarily large breath from the world. "I get sudden cravings for sweet things if that means anything."

Chopper, unbeknownst to you, takes those words and carves them true and raw into himself. His eyes are unwilling to leave you for more than necessary during the times you eat together, he watches you push aside the food on your plate, tearing small bits of meat off the bone to chew on it for a couple minutes too long before swallowing. He makes note of the way you have no problems finishing up everything but any sort of meat, sliding them over to Luffy, or one of his victims.

You're met with another blossom soon after lunch. You've made a bad habit of leaving the table early to escape the smell and resign yourself to the open deck, sprawling out on the grass like Zoro usually does. You're certain you're about to fall asleep shivering but the slap, slap, slapping of your captain's sandals are nearing closer so your brain kicks awake with a start; your eyes twitch, eyelashes shuddering in the wind. The darkness over your eyes morphs into a shadow of Luffy hovering over you, head tilting with a hand on his hat— your mind supplies you with the frown— and then you hear him taking a step back and sitting down next to you.

A troubled melody hums through his lips and when you open an eye to peek at him, you see his hands wrapped around his ankles, legs loosely crossed; he turned back to you and you quickly close your eyes. Here is where you finally learn that when Luffy touches, he's never placated with a simple tap, a light knocking between skin— no, he must stroke, he drags his fingers up the side of your thigh, he shivers from the coldness of your flesh and, even then, crawls closer. Then he's silent for a worrying amount of time and for a moment, curiosity takes you over. You find yourself wanting to draw light upon the disgusted features when he's met with someone he thinks close to him is growing closer and closer to a grave amongst the roots.

He leans his forehead against yours whilst you shuffle through the despicable crawl of your heart through your bones, something shifts in you and when you reach to itch at your side, it dislodges. It takes no more than a simple flip for your entire world to shift; you think you saw Luffy hovering over you momentarily before you had snapped to the side.

A fragment of the world greets its end.

Something strangles you, a hand of a giant pressing two fingers against the sides of your neck until everything in you bursts and splatters against parts that have gone unknown until now. There's nothing new to the tremor of vine that erupts through your skin, bubbling through the surface of flesh like a geyser; the tentacles claw their way your throat until you're choking around them, searching for an allowance for air. Your knees shuffle up to find some balance, head ducked to meet the lawn across the deck and elbows digging deep into the dirt. Your spluttering comes in time with the sound of Luffy calling your name, shouting for Chopper; there's a knot tied inside your mouth, you shake away tremors and tears all the same. You erupt yet there's nothing to be burnt, it's only ash that leaves your mouth— only the colourful petals of the wisteria plant that wash over the green of the open deck, burnt in hues with blood.

The next island is a spring island, known for their sweet peaches and sweeter music.

You watched Luffy devour two peaches in his hands, the ripe skin melting underneath his teeth— pale with a dusted blush until it snapped into a bloody red, melted at the pit. Then he's gone with a rustle of mikan trees as you held out a basket for Nami to delicately place her mikans in; apparently, she'd managed to catch the attention of some peach vendor with her sweet tangerines and swindled the poor man out of his money for a basket.

The streets are lined with lively hums and a strumming of odd instruments, music escapes through every crevice of a worn-down building as Luffy jumps from stall to stall, drooling over the goods before you're beckoning him back with his lunchbox and a promise of meat after you finish this errand for Nami. On your way to the stall, you hear faint chattering that doesn't interest you but Luffy straightened up beside you and turns to stare at the people as they argue on who had managed to grow the biggest peach this year.

You sigh, grabbing hold of Luffy's collar when he stops to stare at them and drag him off to the stall vendor who had fallen victim to Nami's schemes. The exchange is easy enough— give him the basket (ignore the fact that Nami had managed to make it look like it was overflowing by artfully bunching up a cloth on the bottom and filled gaps between the fruits with flowers) and make sure you've got the correct amount of money. It's when Luffy asks the stall vendor who has the biggest peach this year that things begin to go downhill.

Rather than answering Luffy's question, the man goes on a tangent about some kind of festival for a God and how the biggest peach will be the offering to said God this year— apparently, Shumi (the woman who owns the fabrics shops) had managed to get her hands on this, that, or the other to help her husband grow a peach large enough to bring doubt to the fact that Gyupuri had managed to grow the largest peach (again) this year.

Luffy insists on tracking them both down to help the people come to a decision as he wiped away the drool on his chin. Resigned, you managed to find Shumi first with her shop being the only one in town that sold fabrics and she denies you both permission to see the peach; Gyupuri, on the other hand, is more than happy to show you to the peach he grows. He takes you straight out of town, into the forest, and then up the mountain to where there's a clearing full of nothing but flesh coloured peaches.

As you listen to Gyupuri's story on how he was merely taking after his father to grow these strangely sized peaches, you have to keep Luffy in your hold so he doesn't go running to the giant peach and take a bite out of what could be for a God. Somehow though, he manages to get a handful of flat peaches when you weren't looking and when you attempt to apologise to Gyupuri, he doesn't seem to be fazed, shoving a few more peaches into your hand and telling you it's fine.

"So, who is this God anyway?" Luffy asks, his legs wrapped around your waist and chin hooked on your shoulder as he leaned back, satisfied with cheeks full of the peach you were holding in your hand. You turn to give him a look, but he merely stares at you back.

The people here must have made a unanimous decision to answer questions from the left side of the field because Gyupuri only tells you the name of this God when he drags you and Luffy up a hill to stare at a statue of this God carved out of generic stone.

To be polite, you call the statue pretty; Luffy feels no need to be polite, so he says it's not really. When you look at him to furrow your eyebrows at him, he's already looking at you.

When you're back on the ship, money handed to Nami, you think about that moment so much that it grows moss in your mind and vines burst through the crevices of the worn–down artifact you've made out his gaze to be. You throw up everything you manage to eat and feel hollow and worthy when you meet Luffy's eyes in Chopper's office again.

There's a chill that follows your days after that.

It's persistent and stubborn in a way that cruelly reminds you of Luffy. On a brighter side, you've got an excuse to be lazy in bed though it irks your bones not to have the weight of you walking thrumming up your body. You get visits from the Strawhats, get your food delivered to you, some of the crew shuffling into your room to keep you entertained with some card games and the likes— you get Luffy consistently making his way into your room and treating it as any other room on his Sunny. He comes in, always makes himself home on the bed, and talks about what he did today. At some point, it becomes less endearing and more annoying to be treated as though you were actually dying. (You hadn't told them for a reason.)

Four days after Chopper had resolutely punished you with bed rest, Luffy decides that he was going to start sleeping in your room. Apparently, your face had translated over what your head was thinking too quickly because he starts whining, saying that he wouldn't get to see you enough if he doesn't do this and, well, since you've always had a tender, raw, skinned soft spot for the boy, you end up saying yes.

He spends his first night telling you what he was going to spend tomorrow doing and you come to the realisation that every other sentence contains you. (Going to find more beetles to show you... Chopper told Sanji it'd be good to get more meat into your diet... Zoro accidentally cut snakes and ladders in half so Nami is giving me money to see if we can find one for you so we can play... Robin said there's a really pretty flower on this next island… For you… For you...) It’s all there laid bare and you cannot face it. You hide your face into the crook of your elbow and wretch out a cough. Luffy frowns but doesn't mention it. He talks himself into sleep and you lay awake to him, trying to keep yourself from blooming throughout the night so he doesn't wake up, cold and still.

When you're startled awake with misty embrace in a dream, you see that Luffy has gone.

What he has left is his straw hat and a mouthpiece of his greatness. The straw is rough against your fingers, resembling the thorns that grows along roses and you stare at it in your lap until you can feel the roughness in your throat— just when you think you need to get water, Sanji shows up with breakfast. You eye the cigarette in his lips and ignore the settling of the tray on your bedside table, watch the smoke fight the smell of scrambled eggs and bits of bacon to take over your room.

"We're at an island?"

Sanji walks around your bed, finding himself comfortable on the couch across the foot of your bed. "We docked early this morning," you watched his smoke rise, ash falling to the wooden floor of your room, waving and grasping hands up to God. Sanji keeps himself entertained by looking around your room, his foot pushing around odd leaves and petals on the floor before he nods over to the plate. "Eat." Then he's gone.

You stare at the tray, settling Luffy's straw hat aside, you shuffle to the end of your bed and take the fork in your hands— you look at the plate until you swear you can taste the eggs in your mouth and the slight bursts of saltiness that'll come from the bacon and you have to wash it down with the glass of water he's given you. You push it aside and opt to go back to sleep.

You dream of a still life on top of a hill, overlooking a dock as the Sunny pulls back out into the sea; you thrash but find every part of you rooted down to one spot, the wind picks up and you feel tangles of what could be hair or leaves hitting against a part of your body. You're still rooted despairingly in a garden of silks and duvets when you wake, Luffy had found himself unable to keep away from your breakfast but when you sit up and look a little closer, you see a pile of the diced bacon bits shoved off to the side as he shovelled eggs into his mouth.

Shattering free from the earth with a faltering cough broken into four, you shuffled yourself up and spit out a cluster of wisteria. At this point, you do not need to look at Luffy to know what his face looks like; he turned to face you, cheeks full and quickly finishing the eggs to shuffle closer to you on the bed with a book in his hands. "You left your book under the plate."

It's a hardback children's book, pulled out of Sunny's library and coloured a light blue that resembled the sky and broken apart by a sunflower in the middle and petals around it, the title curled around the sunflower. You know that the book was left in the library when you were having your episode. The cover is smooth to the touch as Luffy gives it to you and ends up knocking his shoulders against yours in his attempt to get closer; your eyes moved over to the tray of food and you think of Sanji, who'd grown up in the North Blue where this children's story was more popular amongst the romantic commonwealth. 

He knows, you think, and it fills you with a dread that the wisteria blossoms feast upon delightfully; he knows, and he could tell everyone, the vines throb over your heart as Luffy opens the book over your lap and looks up, expectantly at you.

Myrsa was a pretty girl, enough so that praises sang for her ended up calling upon the scorn of love's Goddess. The depiction of her getting cursed is almost comical, stricken by lightning as she returns from a forest with a basket full of flowers and mushrooms. "What happens next? What happens next?" Luffy pushes his face closer to the book, tangling a rubbery leg with yours as he moves impossibly closer. "How does Myrsa beat up the God?"

It's the certainty he holds that Myrsa will beat up God that makes you laugh, it's the fact that she does not beat anything that makes you tremble, shaking coughs and petals out your throat. Luffy seems to think that the book is too excitable, trying to pry it away from you and saying that he can ask Robin to read it to him later so you should just rest. "Don't you want to know if Myrsa will beat up the God now?" You ask instead, knowing the answer will be yes.

Perhaps they were the wrong words to convince Luffy because when you're on the last page, Myrsa buried in a forgotten land and her love used as fertiliser for a field of sunflowers, he's threatening to beat up a God made up to exact revenge for Myrsa. It's a lot more cheerful than you had expected— all the characters drawn with round faces, small bodies, and black dots as eyes. It makes death seem redeemable. 

After Luffy hauls himself out of your room, in search of the God had turned Myrsa into sunflowers, you force the bacon down your mouth and bring the tray out to Sanji. You linger in the kitchen, eyes watching him as he scrubbed the dishes and danced around the kitchen, no doubt knowing why you were there. He doesn't seem to want to be the one to approach the topic just based on the way he refused to stop even for a moment for the past fifteen minutes you've been there.

You know nothing about Sanji past the fact that he's blond, he's a cook, and he used to be a prince from North Blue's Germa Kingdom.

"You know Myrsa didn't die because she had hanahaki." Your hip meets the edge of an island, arms crossed over your chest as you watched Sanji finally slow to a halt, throwing a glance over at you. He takes his cigarette between two fingers, breathing in for a moment and then takes it out, holding it out to you. "What she was cursed with, wasn't ever meant to be able to kill her."

"I know."

Sanji takes the cigarette back after you shake your head, shrugging a little as he continued. "Myrsa died."

You laugh a little, "I read the book."

There's a point he's trying to make that's as foreign to you as the notion of a love that doesn't hurt but he turns a glance to you that almost reads like he's disappointed in you and it settles nicely against the vines choking you through. You straighten up, uncrossing your arms and his visible eye wanders back over the pots he has boiling on the stove. "You liked the ending?" The ending of the North Blue story was a two–page spread of a sunflower field, a planet of bright yellows and a dull light blue, clouds breaking apart overwhelming tones of sunny golds and drowning diamonds.

A tree split awkwardly in half due to the spine of the book, curved in shape and pinched in the middle until you held the pages at the edges and pulled to straighten in down. "It was pretty," a gentle breeze running through the leaves shedding from the tree, a shiver to the wooden flesh that split apart if looked at the right way by the right man. Myrsa was beautiful, even in a death she didn't pick treated her well.

How could you hope to live when she did not?

You find a lot of things pretty now; you wonder if that's the dead crawling in you that is beginning to appreciate the life around. Robin sat on the deck with a cup of cooling coffee on a table in front of her and a book in her hand, Nami stood between her rows of mikan trees, Zoro straining under the weights of his responsibilities, Brook with a violin to his shoulder. The sky drowned over the ocean as Luffy leaned his head against you on Sunny's figurehead, his voice a soft beat over the water rushing against the hull of the ship. He's talking about Shanks and his dream and your heart aches selfishly; his skin gulps down the orange light of the dawning sun and you resigned yourself to a death loving him.

You wonder if Luffy still thinks of his dead brother, your tongue slips against the bark of your gums, and you open your mouth without thinking. "Luffy," you hear spoken into the wind, "will you tell me about your brother?"

"Sabo?" He's clapping his feet together excitedly, turning from the sky to you with a large grin on his face, "he's a part of the Revelation Army— no, wait revocation? Revenge Army? Renovation Army! Wait— that's not right."

"No, the other one." A whisper haunts the wind, 'the dead one' written in its movement.

There's a certain hesitation to his words that brings you to the realisation that being loved by Luffy is a wonderful thing. He's never been one to be articulate with words, picking the simple ones that come to mind first without a moment's hesitation but strangely the simple–minded way served him well when it came to love. Love is not articulate either— it's one of the simplest things in the world— so when it's met with someone like Luffy, it blossoms into an art form of all things beautiful.

You regret have not meeting Luffy when Ace was around. Dancing around his features is a tender skip of tightness; his shoulders pulled up to his ears, head ducked down, lips awkward and tongue thick as he told you the story of being accepted to be Ace's brother. Hues of embers fluoresce, dripping down on Sunny's figurehead as you reached an arm around him; his words are stained in blood and adoration, strained and slow but Luffy persists, his love persists.

"You should've met him!" He finishes, turning to you with a light chuckle. "You would've loved him."

Your hand falls onto his shoulder, pulling him closer despite the crawl of vomit up your throat and you leaned your head against his straw hat. "Maybe I will."

Death is another thing you think is simple. It's as easy as slipping into Chopper's office to find him hunched over his desk, his hooves holding onto a pestle as he circled the butt around in a mortar. "Ah, you're here?" He glanced over his shoulder as you walked around him and settled onto one of the beds he has in his room. "Give me a second! I nearly have your medicine ready."

"Chopper," you think you've played this out in your head before, "I have hanahaki."

His arms slow down to a halt, his face dropping by several degrees; the previous petals that made up his hopeful and cheerful expression flutter to the floor, guided by the winds you'd altered with those four words.

"Hanahaki?" Chopper's words are slow as he settled the pestle down, "I thought— but it doesn't exist?"

"Funnily enough, it died off." You tell him with a little laugh. "As more people took to the seas and chased after the one piece, less people fell victim to hanahaki." The Chopper you've told this to before in your mind was definitely less devastated and surprised to be greeted by the fact that you have hanahaki.

He's stumbling over his words, trying to pick something to focus on first as his face was scrunched up, eyebrows furrowed, and lips open into disbelief. "How long have you known? Why didn't you tell me? You'll have the surgery, right? You can trust me; I'll definitely save you. When did it first start?" Your head is pounding with the incessant questions he spits at you, unable to answer any of them as any allowance for a response was filled in by another inquiry. Suddenly, he's pulling his mind to a stop as he turned back to you, solemn and sad and asks, "who is it?" 

It's easy to tell how Luffy has touched people, Chopper makes note of the way your head tilts and you smile and it's obvious that there was no one else capable of calling upon your love.

"And the surgery?"

The look on your face, although foreign to you, tells him all he needs to know.

That doesn't stop him though, he keeps himself by your side and urges (pleads) you to have the surgery; his constant presence becomes a problem when he makes a point of forcing Luffy away from you. It's small at first, trying to distract Luffy with other things, claiming to want to be the one to watch over Luffy when you all dock so you're not given the chance, clinging onto your arms and demanding your attention when Luffy threatens to take it away from him. Then, when Luffy notices that he's been holding onto this flower for hours, fingers pinched around a sunflower stem to ask you how you get seeds from the flower to eat, and every time he's seen a speck of your colour from corners, Chopper shows up to drag you away or points a finger somewhere to shout about a meat mountain, he has a problem.

You notice it's about the meat mountain at first though.

He's slamming the door to Chopper's office after the fourth time, shouting, "Chopper! Where's the meat mountain you keep talking about?" He doesn't seem to care about the fact that Chopper is checking up on you as he stomps into the room, plopping himself down right next to you. Chopper pushes him away when your shoulders brush against each other and you're coughing out bloodied petals. His attention diverts when he hears the shaking of your cough, how you knock into him uncontrollably as your torso leans to meet your thighs, hands deep into the foam edge of the mattress. Petals splatter onto your shoes, clinging to the leather with saliva and re–painting the laces in a sickly red. Luffy’s touch is intrusive, a hand tightened on your thigh that burns your skin to ash and forces vines to splutter out your skin. They attack him, you reel yourself away from Luffy in hopes that they don’t reach him but in some disgusting way, they force themselves to new lengths to coil around his limbs. Spindling up and up and up and you can’t see his face anymore as a thick rope of vines in the shape of his hand reaches out for you, they keep moving up until you only see his hat— your back knocks against the wall. You sternly tell yourself this death is acceptable; the vines grow limp.

When you’ve calmed down enough, the first thing Luffy asks you is, “why aren’t you better yet?” And you feel as though you’re being scolded for some reason; your eyes flicker over to Chopper, fingers tangled together in front of your thighs from the corner of the room you’ve forced yourself into. When Luffy catches the wandering glances— as if you’re trying to keep him out of something— he treats you exactly how you’re acting. Like a criminal.

“Chopper?” It’s unnerving how his eyes are still on you, no trace of expression on his face, “out.”

“But—”

“Out.” Chopper throws you an unhelpful glance as he passes you to get to the door.

You’ve always had the wrong impression of Luffy— everyone that doesn’t know him has the same image; he’s a pirate that has taken down warlord after warlord, who has brought horrifying change and shifts the balance of authority wherever his feet take him. Hearing hushed whispers of him and his close affiliates in the lightened haze of booze, to distract from a tooth getting knocked out of place never does much for his image either. Though it wouldn’t be right to say that Luffy is wholly good either— he’s selfish. Selfish and impossibly kind and downright disgusting with the handling of his own needs; the sound of your name fizzing between his teeth has you startled, nodding your head back to him on the bed you’d left him at.

“You’re hiding something.” It’s not a question nor is it an accusation of any kind. It’s an observation. Luffy slides himself off the bed, his sandals comically slap against the floor of Chopper’s office, “tell me.” His hands fall onto your shoulders, one stays there and the other slides down. He treats your skin like an amusement park for his pleasure; his nails drag across the goosebumps of your bicep, pressing down on raised scars and then splashes into the palm of your hand, dragging ripples in the centre.

You hesitate, twisting your fingers together and pulling as if to attempt to dislodge the odd feeling that follows his fingertips. “Are you asking as a captain?” Despite how general expectations of Luffy remain pretty low to those who do know him, it’s also known that Luffy has a nerve in him that’s impossibly receptive to hurt. There’s a certain way to activate it and when it’s on, it doesn't quieten down until its idiot owner is pleased. Luffy scrunches his face up in an odd way, displeasured at your question as if he couldn’t believe you’d ask him something that hurtful, and his head tilts.

“Tell me.” You’re met with an unwavering stare, the hand on your shoulder tightens and there’s a hardness to it that you’ve never associated with your rubber captain— you can feel the bone in his fingers, stern and undeniable. Your eyes trace over the exposed, tanned skin of his bicep and you wish that you could force your vines through his skin to crawl into his chest and listen to the tremors that’ll run up your devil fruit from his beating heart for some kind of answer. There’s a sudden breath that’s available to you that isn’t tainted and clogged, trapped before it even meets your lungs, but it burns in a new way as you stare at Luffy, scared and terrified of a new life that’ll be forced upon you if you tell him what’s wrong with you.

You open your mouth with an excuse, but Luffy huffs and the words shrivel in your mouth, collapsing to a grain on your tongue and when you close your mouth, you taste dirt. “Luffy,” you beg, “I can’t— just, I’ll be fine.”

There’s a hint of some anger in his gaze before it turns into a haunting realisation, “Chopper knows, doesn’t he?” He pushes you aside, “I’ll just ask Chopper.”

There’s a ringing distant in your ears that chimes like the bell of the church from that place two islands ago, maybe three— you haven’t been too good with time recently. Sunny shakes like the earth as a body hits the pavement, you feel disgusting and heavy and an itch claws through your palms where Luffy’s hand has just been. You’re sure it’s Chopper he’s shaking an answer from but you hear Robin’s voice, calling for him to calm down and when that doesn’t work, Sanji cuts in. It all gets further and further away, you think about the planks of Sunny opening to welcome you back into that darkness from nights ago, you think about being choked by one of your vines, you think about the wisteria blooming whole in your lungs— you think and you think and think and suddenly, it’s all nothing. You’re dying, you think, that’s a fact, what else? Luffy is the reason. Or maybe you’re the reason.

“Luffy,” were you the one talking? “Luffy.” The voice comes again, stern and your eyebrows furrow with the same tension that the voice is carrying. “Thank you for being my captain.”

Not that it surprises you, Luffy punches you.

#౨ৎ luffy single! #౨ৎ op single! #one piece #monkey d. luffy #one piece angst #one piece x you #one piece x reader #luffy oneshot #luffy angst #luffy x reader #luffy x y/n #luffy x you #op luffy #monkey d. luffy x reader #monkey d. luffy x you #op x reader #op angst

[trans-zhongli]

i think ppl forget that the story in WoW from a new player's POV is probably just fine. like, it tells a cohesive story and makes sense with the current way the characters are written. you are of course allowed to criticize and dislike the direction they have taken the characters as you knew them, but you should also take a sec to examine it As It Stands, not as it was. they retcon stuff sometimes for a reason, to make it a better story today, at least how they want to tell it. i think that jaina's story in BFA was really good. i think that sylvanas' arc was pretty terrible, but makes sense when you look at it in context of how the game tells it today.

totally reasonable to dislike what they've changed and dislike the direction they are taking the characters. but i also think that, when you are working with over 20 years of lore, retcons are GOING to happen, because maybe you realize you want to take the character in a different direction, maybe a new writer has a diff perspective on the character, maybe you just need to tell a certain narrative. there are a lot of storylines that people dislike because they remember it being different, but actually stand well on their own. the story has changed, it's fine, just read it again

#yeah i do actually enjoy a lot of aspects of WoW's current story even if it's not super good overall #i think that the more in-depth they take a character the less people they can make happy #because solidifying and examining a character is going to challenge fanon perceptions #having vague characters allows people to project onto them #also i think the 'they make every woman crazy evil' is like kind of opposite like... whenever blizzard gives female characters any depth #let's them deal with trauma or be angry or evil #that female character is deemed evil and crazy BY THE COMMUNITY #i don't think that sylvanas or jaina or tyrande were treated like crazy evil bitches...... i think that the exploration of their trauma- #-made people see them that way. people don't want to see the female characters get mad or have a villain/redemption arc #because if they aren't kind and good then they have been 'turned crazy' #i think that tyrande and jaina had really really good arcs and weren't treated by the narrative as crazy or evil at ALL #people projected that onto them!! they say Woman Mad and then got mad that Woman Hysterical!! you read into that!! #tyrande was right and she should say it! jaina dealt with her trauma BADLY and that is INTERESTING AND ADDS DEPTH #if illidan was female people would say he was turned into a feast bitch by bliss

[vasito-de-leche]

;R1999 - Self-Aware AU

Headcanons about an Alternate Universe in which everyone knows they're living inside a videogame. However, Vertin is the only one aware of the entity inhabiting her own mind, the real conductor - the "Player".

this is one of my favorite AUs to slap on whatever media I'm into so here we are <3 not sure if anyone's done this already, but PLEASE PLEASE PRETTY PLEASE link me if you've seen any other ppl write for this AU! this one and any actor AUs are my absolute fave

this is just a word vomit introduction for fun, to get the basic ideas out of my head, so I can start writing for characters individually!

Okay, okay! First of all, some context for the AU before I go deranged overexplaining my HCs!

Aside from the "Storm", there is something else that haunts the people of this world: the fact that their lives are nothing but a simulacrum, part of a game.

The requirements to obtain this "self-awareness" is unknown. Those within the Foundation believe it's related to their respective "roles", that only the main and relevant characters are given the chance to fully open their eyes to the truth. Those within Manus Vindictae claim that one must be strong enough to break through the fog of complacency and their assigned scripts, to have their full potential unleashed and obtain true liberation. Either way, similar to the "Storm", this is a well-kept secret for a very good reason - everyone wants to have the upperhand.

There is one outlier to this whole system. Vertin is not only aware of the truth of this world, but also of her duty as the eyes and hands of the "Player". She must experience it all for their sake. Or rather, whatever she experiences will be the story that the Player will see.

This applies to her suitcase, the place where the Player's influence increases tenfold, bending everything and everyone to their will through her own body and voice. The longer one stays within her suitcase - or within her general vicinity - the easier it is for them to become self-aware.

How does one become "self-aware" and what does it entail?

The requirements and the catalyst for a character to become self-aware are still a mystery. But that's mostly because I specifically wanted to keep them as vague as possible, to allow some flexibility for NPCs and other characters outside of Vertin's suitcase.

The whole process of gaining sentience or self-awareness is mostly described as waking up from a nightmare, or a very, very realistic dream. It's like a switch, something that happens in a second without any warnings whatsoever.

I like to think that most of the people who wake up are easy to spot, because it's a jarring experience and panicking is the most normal reaction - but that they're often taken care of by the Foundation or recruited by Manus Vindictae.

The levels of awareness also depend heavily on each individual - some only know that nothing is truly real, that everything they've done up until that point was just a carefully scripted lie, the most basic realization. Others can understand the rules that govern this game and use them to their advantage, either through observation and study or just inherently.

Overall, the experience of being sentient varies as well, with some describing a disconnect from their body, while others feel exactly the opposite. Again, keeping it pretty vague so that people can fill in with their own ideas!

I'll talk about Vertin's case in detail when we get to her specific bullet point, but the same way the Player is able to experience the "story" through her eyes, she's able to see the same things they do - this includes the UI, the menus and everything you can interact with in-game.

Vertin as a character and a vessel for the Player.

The most common thing I've seen in self-aware AUs in my years of fandom is to turn the player stand-in (the main character that serves for the player to experience the story through and/or project onto, depending on the genre of the game) into an obstacle, one that keeps the characters from truly interacting with the Player, capital P.

The second most common thing I've seen is to simply ignore the existence of this player stand-in and replace it with the Player themself, either through isekai methods or thanks to the customization the game allows, etc etc.

When it comes to Vertin in this AU, I know I want her to retain her role as the center of everything, instead of being sidelined by the Player. She's THE Timekeeper, after all.

There's still some details I'm trying to iron out, like whether she's always been self-aware or if she became self-aware at some point during her childhood at the St. Pavlov Foundation. But I like to think that her relationship to the Player is a parallel to her immunity to the "Storm" - neither of these two things are inherently good nor bad. Surviving the "Storm" is helpful, sure, but it's painful for her. Having an entity like the "Player" haunting her is scary, sure, but it can be an advantage. It's a matter of how she utilizes the assets she was given, since her adaptability and determination are big aspects of her character. Vertin makes up for her mediocre arcane skills with unconventional plans and strategies.

But this isn't to say that Vertin isn't affected by the presence of the Player. Ironically, she's the one person whose freedom is limited. During battles, her skills and Tuning are available to you, they can also prove to be vital to win a fight, but in the end you're still the one calling the shots and choosing when her friends get to attack. You're the one choosing the layout of the Wilderness. You're the one picking which one of her friends deserves to become stronger.

In the last bullet point I mentioned that some characters can understand the rules of the game - Vertin is the most extreme case, as she can see the same UI as you do. She learns the way you like to fight your battles, your own strategies, she can see this and more.

Overall it's a very complex dynamic. It's not as easy as saying that she likes or dislikes you, that she considers you a friend or foe. You're part of her, you influence each other in many aspects and are stuck together for reasons she can't even fathom. While you may be able to read her thoughts most of the time, she becomes invisible once you enter the suitcase - the main menu of the game. Sure, the character you selected to greet you every day is actually talking to her, not you, but she's out of your view and therefore, out of our range. That's when Vertin wonders the sort of person that you are, if you care about her friends as much as she does. Are you playing just to be entertained? Are you invested in these events? Will you be there for her until the end of her story?

Another detail I like to think about is that Vertin is the only one who knows your name. Because at the very beginning, you were asked to input a name and she was there.

[screenshot was taken from this video, since it's the first one I could find that showed this specific part of the game lol]

Well, "your name" not quite right - she knows that whatever you wrote there is the name linked to your account, at least. And that's the name she knows you as.

Those who take residence in Vertin's suitcase or spend prolonged amounts of time with her, growing closer to her and all, end up becoming self-aware. This is a direct side-effect of your presence.

I like to think that characters who reach the 100% Bond can begin to sense the Player, to see the world in a similar way as Vertin does. Maybe even feel their presence EXACTLY like Vertin does whenever there's a battle. There is someone else on the other side of this screen, the fourth wall, who watches over them.

To some, it's hard to differentiate Vertin from the Player, as they just go hand in hand - but Sonetto, for example, has the easiest time telling the two apart.

On the subject of freedom and acting out of script.

The Foundation, Manus Vindictae, Laplace... It doesn't matter if they're self-aware and acting outside of what their script dictates, because they're missing one key ingredient: you. No one else but Vertin and her group knows about your existence, after all.

They don't know that the only story that matters is the one that Vertin is part of. The one that the Player gets to see and read and experience. And because the game gives you a very limited view into the lives of these characters, you don't know what neither Arcana nor Constantine do behind the scenes. You and Vertin don't see that, therefore, it never truly mattered.

Those most likely to start "acting out" are the troublemakers within Vertin's suitcase. Characters who are too curious for their own good, who are more susceptible to supernatural entities, who are just too impulsive - they would start to test the limits and see how far they can go, how much they can interact with the Player. Can the game be broken should they end up shattering the fourth wall? Is there a way for the Player to communicate with them? What will happen to Vertin?

I like to think that Vertin probably supports this, as she's rather curious herself, prone to questioning everything. She would also like to learn more about the Player, to truly tear into the game and see the full extent of your influence and her freedom.

Sometimes, Regulus and X will change their usual voicelines, just enough to be noticeable if one pays enough attention. Characters like Sotheby or Leilani might slip up and address the Player, rather than Vertin. Lilya, Pavia, Bkornblume have new animations and different expressions, ones you've never seen before - they stare ahead, as if searching for something, and then smirk or hum to themselves, deep in thought, like they realized something you're not privy of.

Sometimes, if you leave them as your selected assistant on the main menu, you can catch them muttering to themselves - idle quotes you never heard enough, about the outside world. Diggers does this the most, it's almost embarassing how easy it is to catch him talking nonsense, followed by Sonetto. If you leave Medicine Pocket alone for too long, you might come back to a screen covered in weird scratch marks.

On the subject of these characters being curious about the outside world and all, I think that a good chunk of them are generally content with the way things are?

We have to remember that in-universe, they're arcanists displaced from their respective eras. Their best chance at surviving is siding with Vertin, and if Vertin is content with the way things are, then there's no point in trying to disrupt what they have right now. They're curious enough to prod, but only as far as Vertin allows it.

And I think that's it for the word vomit!

There are some details I didn't know where to fit in, like the possibility of the fourth wall slowly dissipating the more time the Player invests in the game, leading to some characters being able to directly hear you if you talk while playing and whatnot. Or what would happen should someone outside of Vertin's suitcase figure out the existence of the Player, let alone interact with you in some way.

Or the concept of death being meaningless, unless it was pre-established by the game itself.

In Borderlands, there's this game mechanic where you can just be revived over and over and pay a percentage of your money as a fee, even though the canon that's established is that you play through the whole story without dying a SINGLE time - because the revival mechanics aren't canon. There's the divide between story and gameplay. That's pretty much the standard. But what about the deaths in battles in R1999? The amount of times I died to 1.3's UTTU's Flash Gathering is insane. How do self-aware characters feel about this, now that they know that they're bound to die over and over and be brought back because you have to do your Pneuma Analysis or reach the final stage of Limbo?

But that's pretty much it for now, I think I got most thoughts out of my system! Thank you for reading!

#reverse 1999 #reverse: 1999 #reverse 1999 x reader #self aware au #'mod six what are you going to do with this AU?' #probably write more reader inserts for FMN and pavia lmfao #i just wanted it out of my brain and onto a post #i like to think about things in-depth but thats it #and just like the hanahaki nsr au. feel free to fuck around with this concept! discuss it or make up your own HCs! #tag me if you wanna bc i love to read. but no need to credit me

[adhdnojutsu]

"Stop making them gay"

The main reason a lot of male characters in Naruto didn't have a chance with each other despite being written like lovebirds, is because Shonen doesn't do "gay". Itachi was canonically more attached to Shisui than to Izumi and Naruto more to Sasuke than to Hinata, but Shonen insists to be traditionally masculine, and traditional masculinity rejects what it assumes of homosexuality minus its allowance for "manly tears" or flamboyant outfits. Instead, it exaggerates male friendships/brotherhood to a point that is far from credible and has to screech "no homo" as a constant disclaimer. The Naruto franchise may have started "low key shipping" SNS as a joke, but it's not a baseless one at all.

ShiIta are so similar to Romeo & Juliet, it's ridiculous. While they weren't from warring clans, they were loyal to warring entities and bound to be pitted against each other in the coup if it had gone down and Shisui been alive. The conflict between the Uchiha clan and Konoha was in the way of them being as close as they wanted to be, with Shisui being tasked to spy on Itachi and Itachi tasked to spy on the clan Shisui was loyal to, so they had to meet secretly. Ultimately, they were both sacrificed for peace and for what was left of their respective allegiances (Sasuke and Konoha).

Naruto stepped in repeatedly when Itachi was beating up Sasuke, but kept pushing Hinata to fight Neji against whom she clearly stood no chance and who was intending to kill her, because he is pathologically ready to disrespect Sasuke's wishes to save him, but projected his own, naive ideals onto Hinata with no regard for her life, just because it made HIM mad to watch. I mean, he was visibly shocked when Hinata confessed to him 16 years into their lives... She was never a priority in his life before The Last, and he probably would have equally lost it if Pain had beaten up Moegi that way, because he was already livid over Jiraiya, Kakashi, the village etc. and wasn't about to stand for one more friend getting killed by this terrorist. Hinata, at that time, meant little more to him than his other classmates, Sasuke did and always has. He literally asked her why she'd risk her life for him because he did not see or feel anything that would make that question redundant. Izumi wasn't mentioned once post-mortem except vaguely, by Obito, while Shisui's influence on Itachi, both ideological and emotional, is canon gospel. It's so great that I can't help but wonder if he used Kotoamatsukami on Itachi before giving him his remaining eye. "Friendship" and "brotherhood" are NOT "emotional co-dependency and self-destructive emulation". Neither is a healthy romantic relationship, but people in fiction more typically go insane over or sacrifice their authentic self for, (lost) romance than (lost) friendship or siblings.

There's also nothing platonic about stalking your "friend" to a point where he feels compelled to kill you while you're screaming that you're gonna break all of his bones if that's what it takes to keep him by your side. Nothing cute or sane either, mind you. Sasuke and Naruto are a lot like Sarah and Setsuna of Angel Sanctuary. Sure, they're meant to be siblings or sibling-like, but DAMN that's not a sibling-appropriate degree of obsession.

Shonen has a tendency to exaggerate the importance of bonds and convictions, but Kishimoto took it to a level that has licensing companies make jokes in the form of couple-coded merch or fan service scenes. Even if he didn't do it on purpose, he clearly did it on such a blatantly obvious level that you get shit like this:

#Naruto shipping #pro shipping #sasunaru #narusasu #sns #itaizu #itachi x izumi #shiita #shisui x itachi #shisuita #itashi #naruhina

[neonscandal]

something I wanted to understand, the author said that satoru was quite a womanizer, but then he said that geto was much more popular among women than satoru I didn't understand

Technically, the author said that they didn't see Gojo being faithful to one or a certain woman not that he was a womanizer.

With what we know about Gojo (and Gege Akutami's trolling ways, for that matter), I think that's up for interpretation.

FAN INTERPRETATION

Fans really took that sentiment and kind of ran with it because, to us, Gojo is high spec in every way. Canonically good looking, tall, competent at like.. everything according to Akutami, strong and presumably loaded. Of course someone like that would be a womanizer, right?

Except Gojo is an oversized child who still kinda refers to Digimon in conversation and primarily hangs out with 16 year olds. People project a lot of their BS onto him because they can't imagine ticking all those boxes and not being an asshole. But he’s a corny dork who is seemingly impervious to the outright disdain of most of the people around him. IT’S COMICAL. Personally, I think this interpretation is incorrect, demonstrably.

The other side of the fandom is naturally like... well of course he couldn't stay faithful to one woman. He's been faithful to Geto for ten years! I think we know what camp I've pitched my tent in *gestures vaguely to the rest of my blog* Especially when you bear in mind that Gege Akutami specifically designed Gojo and Geto to be intrinsic complements of one another.

CANON

I'm not so SatoSugu addled (once the brain rot sets in, it's terminal) that I am unable to disclose the secret third way we can interpret this. Canonically, when we look at Gojo as a character... it almost makes sense to assume he's simply not interested in dating at all.

Empirically finds it hard to relate to others

Even when he does care for others, he's still emotionally shallow and aware of it

Gojo clan leader with all associated unpleasantries and responsibilities from a young age

Single benefactor to two children; assumes direct responsibility over two more by staving off their execution

First line of defense for all of jujutsu society

Has a grand design of toppling said jujutsu society

Has experienced devastating loss which informs the grand design of his life's mission and he's always plotting, even when it comes to the seemingly altruistic act of "adopting" the Fushiguro kids or pressing Yuta and Yuji to learn under his care. When you consider that context, it furthers the idea that he's pretty divorced from emotion. Like, he wants them to have a childhood but its still at the pleasure of his convenience and ultimate purpose.

LOOK at this gorgeous, gorgeous boy from pop layer art because I need it and, when I covet, you must also covet. Edit: I'd accidently copied the wrong link there! It's been fixed 💙

In universe, we've seen maybe two canonical couples: Yuta & Rika and Hakari & Kirara (to be animated). This supports the fact that Gege's not really concerned with injecting "romance" into the plot unnecessarily. Undeniably and supporting the SatoSugu agenda, however, is the fact that JJK 0 very much aligned Gojo & Geto with Yuta & Rika with the theme coming to a head in season 2 with Gojo's sealment. For clarity, I mean how love ultimately cursed Rika and Geto after death by Yuta's begging her not to leave and Gojo not properly disposing of Geto's body. Love turned Rika into a curse and allowed Kenjaku to swoop in on Geto.

GETO'S POPULARITY

Geto is, quite literally, popular with everyone in universe and that was before he became a cult leader... which also indicates a predilection for popularity, I guess? As a character, he is principled, thoughtful, gentle and strong. I think, collectively, we tend to toil over the fact that Gojo spent more time missing Geto than he actually knew him. But... that's the same for Shoko and Nanami. After Geto's defection, Nanami couldn't forsake him even if he morally couldn't approve of his actions. Over ten years later as the night parade of a hundred demons is set to take place, Yaga starts saying something along the lines of finally getting rid of the scourge that is Suguru Geto and Shoko makes it a point to leave. I think it's because, after everything, she still holds affection and pity for Geto and would rather not hear him being bad-mouthed for breaking under the pressure of things.

He was the best of them, after all.

#neon asks #anon asks #we are the strongest #stsg #satosugu #gojo #gojo satoru #satoru gojo #anime #manga #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk meta #jjk character analysis #head canon #character analysis #anime analysis #gojo analysis #geto suguru #suguru geto #satosugu brainrot #jjk brainrot #jjk headcanons

[blackkatmagic]

Just gotta tell you that it is breaking my heart to know that A'Sharad has been a captive for who knows how long, with his captors choosing a name that will hurt him (did they do it on purpose? Choose a name that will not only inspire fear but also hurt their captive, when they already have so much leverage to hurt him. When they further trampe the name of the Tuskens, when A'Sharad has never been anything but a Tusken).

There are very few characters I project more soft than hurtful headcanons on. A'Sharad is one of them. Him having to fight for his life against Anakin, the way the handled the bigotry that's been thrown at him all his life, how he still chose to believe in the good of Anakin (believing he would feel guilty and tell the truth to the council) even after Anakin gloated to him about murdering babies. How after all that he came to the conclusion that it was him that needed to change, that he had to take off his mask (his face for the world really) to be treated humanly. It just broke something in me.

And now he is there, chained up like an animal in a cellar that he couldn't escape even if he had the opportunity (because how when the real shackles are the two small children, when he has no healthy legs to carry them out with him), starved and bruised and finally feeling hope again. Allowing himself to grasp onto it, because now it is real, because Agen is there.

Agen who is unfaltering and steady and loyal. Who has found him in this unlikely place. Who has promised to save them. Who will not do the practical thing and leave A'Sharad behind. Even if A'Sharad is so thin that he can see the bones in his arms, even if A'Sharad has no idea if his legs will carry him at all. Even if Mandalorians are coming.

Because for all that they both despised the saying, there was a reason that Agen was viewed as the councils attack dog. Because once Agen had set his mind to something, he was like a dog with a bone. Who followed the orders he was given without ever faltering, without ever needing an explanation (in front of others) for what he was to do. Who was sensitive to the slightest changes around him, even if he couldn't always discern why there was change. Who tried his best to help in any way he could, no matter who needed it. Who was protective of anyone under his responsibility. Who was a council member, acutely aware of his responsibility. To the world around them and to the order.

There is a Jedi on Taris.

And he has come to save A'Shard.

...can you tell that I love both Agen and A'Sharad so so much? Eastward is breaking my heart and I love it. I am so emotionally invested in this fic. And the thought that another Jedi inspired the hope in A'Sharad that used to bloom everywhere in the galaxy when the order was still open and thriving.

A'Sharad is one of the characters who gives me the most emotions, even with all of the many characters in SW who deserved better. I think it's especially jarring because canon never acknowledges that he deserves better, in a way that's deeply depressing. And he's always paid back for his faith in the very worst ways, from Ki-Adi-Mundi to Dark Woman to Anakin to even XoXaan when he meets her. And the fact that he falls to the Dark Side over guilt from what Anakin did, when Anakin turned around and vaguely sort of said sorry and became a peaceful Force ghost....idk man. It just hurts.

That said! I was very much going for that exact vibe with Agen and A'Sharad's meeting - Agen's been struggling, but A'Sharad has quite literally lost all hope because of what happened to put him in that cell. All he has left are the two kids who make it impossible to escape, and then Agen appears, exactly like a Jedi would in a story kids on Tatooine would tell.

Agen and A'Sharad here are both people who've struggled with their own identities and their places as Jedi, but Agen is just...generally steadier and less. Hm. Cerebral? I think that's the word. He trusts the Force and his place in it more easily than A'Sharad, at least partially because he had T'ra as a master instead of the world's worst tag-team by Ki-Adi-Mundi and Dark Woman. So there's backstory between the two of them, and lots of feelings about Being Jedi, and Agen is probably the absolute best possible person to rescue A'Sharad.

(I will say that A'Sharad has not been there for as long as you may think, at least. It's still bad, but not quite as bad as it could be.)

#kat answers

[alpaca-clouds]

I am so annoyed with atheists by now

I really am so annoyed with atheists right now. I do still have atheist friends. Like, not the "vaguely agnostic, but does not believe in the ONE GOD" kind of atheist. But the "starts screaming as soon as someone mentions religion". And... I just find it so childish?

I was so big into the entire new atheism thing between about 2010 and 2016. And even after that I got into arguments with religious people pretty regularly. Heck, I would even say I stand with some of the stuff I said back then. If you back the Catholic church that is an organisation that not only tries to keep their own child molestors from justice, but also do internationally so much harm to queer people and other minorities (like some disabled people). But... The problem in there is the organisation, not the believe. So, you know, these days I would kindly ask people to consider their membership in the church, not their believe. Especially in countries like Germany, where members of churches will help to finance the institution by the simple fact of being part of the church. (Churches in Germany are allowed to collect taxes.)

I personally was so angry about religion, because I had so much religious trauma. Because my very, very Catholic mother abused me in the name of her religion. And so many people in the church knew. And they just looked on. So I was angry. I was really angry about it. But nowadays I realize that just projecting that anger and hurt onto other religious people, that had nothing to do with it.

The thing with those atheist friends I have is, though, that they do not have religious trauma. In fact two of them were not even baptized or forced into a religion. They never had a religion. But still, they are so angry about it. And I... don't get it.

I mostly really got to be alright about religion because of Castlevania. That sounds funny, right? But really, empathizing with Isaac and his character arc helped me to... actually understand, why religion is important to so many people. From that I went into looking into how religion and race intersect. And from there more into the science of religion. I made religious friends, admittedly, yes, mostly Muslims.

My own religious believes by now are more going into the direction of spiritualism. But I do not really believe in the Abrahamitic "ONE GOD". Still, I have by now befriended an Imam. And I honestly have great philosophical conversations with him.

Still, the aforementioned atheistic friends... They have by now accused me several times of having converted to Islam because of it. Because they can just not fathom that I just talk to religious people about religion.

And they will just not... talk with religious people. Because religious people, according to them, are basically evil. And when I tell them, that with that they are about as prejudiced as they accuse religious people of being, they will just get angrier.

I will be frank... It is just exhausting.

Like, just let religious people, who do not use their religion as an excuse to be hateful towards minorities, do their stuff. They do not harm you. And you are not "more intelligent" and "more enlightened" than religious people, because you do not believe in any god.

Especially as a lot of atheists still believe in all kinds of unscientific shit.

Just chill, folks. Just chill.

#atheism #atheists #religion #christianity #islam #spiritualism #spirituality #rant

[donutdrawsthings]

As someone who likes to focus on character design in my art and frequents a lot of character creation spaces because of it, I feel I can say with confidence (Most of) the characters in The Amazing Digital Circus have commonly-used-online design traits and sources of inspiration, which make their designs feel not too exciting and maybe a bit uninspired.

HOWEVER, What makes these guys more unique lays in their personality, voice acting and animation, which perfectly fits the narrative of the story (imagine being stuck in VRchat). And It's literally perfectly fine to like the designs as they are. Their character designs have good colour contrasts which balance nicely over the design, a good weight distribution, strong shape language AND have an overarching style that ties them all together while also distinctly being based on different things and looking like they all come from a different genre of entertainment. For what these characters are, they are DESIGNED REALLY WELL.

I feel the character with the most unique and self-contained (for lack of a better word for "visually not directly inspired by something") design by far is Pomni. Literally chef's kiss. I love her expressions, love her strong colour scheme and I love how her jester's hat is stylised to be sometimes almost completely straight at the top. Her flat hat together mixed with the straight-cut strands of hair peeking out from under it are such a good and subtle contrast to her other round features that I'd dare to say they reflect her seriousness through the forced silly get-up put onto her by this digital prison. And her whole clown outfit is a really good contrast to the genuine dread and existential horror she's feeling in general. I can't get enough of it. Her design is perfect for her role in the story and also as introduction to the world we as the audience are new to.

That's why I'm honestly absolutely appalled by the amount of bad faith and horrible posts I've seen towards this project as a whole. It's one thing to not like it, but a totally whole other thing to actively make it (and the fans) out to be the worst most offensive creation to have ever touched the eyes of mortal men. It's not. And remember, people can be trolls to make a fandom look worse.

Online we have a fondness for kidcore and weirdcore aesthetics based on vague familiarity and nostalgia. It's OKAY to like a story/characters INSPIRED by these things. You are allowed to indulge on your own interests. Don't take these mean spirited posts to heart. If they don't respect your positive opinions of the show, you don't have to respect their negative opinions of it either.

#honestly the lot of these people sound like my parents telling me how bad everything I liked as a kid is bc they had it better #and ykw maybe they did. but I like the things I like anyways and I'll always hold a fondness for it because it was MY youth #I refuse to be that person for the generations after mine. #and honestly lately i've just seen a trend of mean posts scaring away interest from a topic in general... which is so sad :o( #don't let these posts scare you into disliking something you enjoy #long post #talkies #the amazing digital circus #tadc #tadc pomni #tadc jax #gooseworx #digital circus #character design #ramble #character design analysis #because i'm a nerd for character design #sorry but i had to talk about it since i'm seeing people say the designs are bad. which they aren't. #so I thought with my knowledge on character design i'd give my insight #design

[loosesodamarble]

Hello soda, I love your blog. I'm a huge Nacht fan and I want to write a Nacht x reader/oc (haven't decided) fanfic . I'm too shy to post it but I want to write it for myself. Can you give me tips to write fanfic especially about Nacht.

🖤 Anon! The answers you seek are finally here!

It's very exciting that you're writing some self-indulgence! It's one thing to make requests for what you want to see but taking the writing into your own hands is something else entirely! Make the most of it!

(This post ended up being longer than expected so pardon for the rest of it being under a cut.)

First off, reader insert or oc, or heck you could even do a full self insert. Any way you go about it, do what gives you the most fulfillment! You said that you aren't gonna post it but even if you did, your first and most important audience is yourself, so cater to what you want.

Second, when it generally comes to writing fanfic, play to your preferences. Do you enjoy banter or heartfelt dialogue? Then you can easily write scenes that focus more on characters speaking with little sprinkles of scenery and action written in. Or if you prefer prose and detailing the finer details of a moment, feel free to write a fic where you go five paragraphs without character speaking.

(For me, I like fic that's a little introspective. Where prose isn't just about the characters' actions or surroundings but also acts as their inner monologue. And thus, I tend to write fic that's a lot of "their feelings swirled inside of them like a storm" stuff.)

And don't worry about skipping over stuff that you don't feel confident or interested in writing. For me, I can manage a bit of fight scene choreography but it's not my strong suit so I don't write fights often and I usually keep it vague and short. The less interest you have for writing a certain thing, the less you end up writing. (That's not the whole picture since burnout/writer's block can leave you wanting to write but not having the energy or mind to do it.)

Something that I try to keep in mind when writing is the question of "what is the ultimate point of the piece?" It can be anything from a simple "I want these characters to talk/fight/kiss" to a complex "I want to show how a single event is actually a chain reaction of smaller happenings and how they can have massively different effects on people's lives and personalities." For me, the answer should be less a plot summary of the piece you're writing and more your motivation for writing it.

TL;DR for those previous points: write what you like, don't write what you don't like, and know why you're writing (since that can help you stay motivated).

Now when it comes to writing Nacht specifically, I keep these character details in mind:

Nacht has self-loathing issues, making it hard for him to believe he is good.

That self-loathing is projected onto others, mostly Yami.

While he does care for others, Nacht is afraid of loving and being loved. He fears hurting those he loves (see Morgen's death).

Those are probably the most important traits of Nacht's to keep in mind when writing him, pre or post Morgen's death. Although the projection aspect of his personality more shows up afterwards.

I also tend to write Nacht repeating the same mini arc. -He looks down on himself -He resists happiness when he has a chance for it -Someone talks some sense into him -Nacht lets himself be happy

Yes, it's keeping his character kinda in the same arc over and over. But to me, Nacht is a character that I see struggling to accept that he's allowed to be happy despite his dark past. He lets himself be happy but he doesn't want to risk too much good fortune in case it blows up in his face, if you know what I mean.

I think that writing Nacht is about finding the balance between suffering and salvation. He hated and punished himself for the longest time until he finally learned to let go of his guilt. Although I personally like to keep Nacht from fully letting go of the guilt and grief. Because squeezing out angst from Nacht's character is fun. Giving Nacht love and letting him be happy is ultimately more fulfilling though.

Really, like for any character, you have to write what you want for Nacht. And for me it's that ever present sorrow in his life. For you, it could be something else entirely.

You gotta write for you, 🖤 Anon. But hopefully my advice gives you something to work with. Good luck with the Nacht fic and I hope you enjoy what you come up with~!

#questions from the ask box #soda asides #🖤 anon #initially i was going to start the post with a joke of like #i dont write i just black out and a few days later i wake up to a fully written fic #but eh seemed inappropriate #so you get the watered down version of the joke here in the tags #i really hope that what i wrote actually makes sense and helps #there's no real concrete writing advice #like when it comes to grammar or story structure #but that's not what was being asked for anyway

[paperstorm]

I'm the "we all agree it was lying right" anon. I just watched some scenes from 2x04 (the one where Carlos introduces TK as a friend). The theme of that episode - people feeling safe in their relationships - made me think about 4x01. Since it aired, I've sympathized with both TK and Carlos. Carlos because of how he felt when he was younger and having to deal with it all alone, and TK, because he'd been lied to for so long and didn't get a chance to express any frustration about it. I kept thinking, "Ah TK's grown so much coz he didn't run away, he was patient, named and analysed his emotions, and showed his usual concern for others' wellbeing."

But after the 2x04 rewatch, I'm thinking about what that internal emotional analysis must have been for TK - "okay so Carlos hid this important thing from me, he lied to me for so long, what do I think or feel about it?" And his mind must have immediately gone to "his lies were about him, his past, his fears and insecurities and not really about me or us" because TK was THAT secure about their relationship. TK's growth must have helped, but surely a lot of that credit for TK feeling that level of security goes to Carlos. Carlos has been able to convince TK about his love for him completely, that maybe the lie registers as a lie, but not at all as an indictment of their relationship.

Since 4x01 aired, the fact that it was a long-term lie keeps nagging at me so much. The lie itself and the duration bothers me but maybe it's because I've never experienced any relationship where I feel THAT safe. It seems so unbelievable to me, almost like it's an idealized instance which could never actually happen between two real people. What do you think? Can people feel so secure that a long-standing lie wouldn't bother them very much?

Yes I think people absolutely can feel so secure that something like this wouldn't bother them very much. I don't think it would be the most common reaction to it, but it's certainly not impossible. I also hope that they do give TK a bit more space to express the fact that this was upsetting and destabilizing even if he understands Carlos's reasons, I think that would be a really healthy thing for him to be allowed to show, that kind of like "I'm upset and I wish you hadn't done this but I still love you" sort of thing that happens all the time in stable, healthy relationships (romantic as well as platonic and familial.)

I also think there's a tendency (and do I do this too? Absolutely) to sort of project your own emotions onto a character. So "I wouldn't forgive Carlos so easily if I was the one engaged to him" easily becomes "if TK reacts differently than I would, it's unrealistic." It's sort of the same mindset that leads to people saying they wanted TK to have to *earn* his forgiveness after the break up (although its rare anyone ever lays out exactly what that means or what it would look like). There's a bit of "I wouldn't have forgiven him immediately, so Carlos shouldn't either" in that, and from my view, TK doesn't have to earn anything. He deserves forgiveness because Carlos forgives him and that's that.

So I hope they show TK having a few more emotions about this, and I hope they show Carlos explaining why he kept the secret and apologizing, because that's how I would want that to play out if I were the one writing it. But if TK doesn't have those feelings, I mean sure ,maybe it's a bit of a cop-out on the writers' part. There's that. But maybe it's also okay for someone to just forgive someone else, without all this highly Christian and American notions of earning it and the concept of 'accountability' that is always purposely vague and has been thrown around so much it's become meaningless. Not telling anyone else what to do but it's been good for me, having been raised in a culturally Christian and Western society, to question why we're so married to the language of penance and repaying debts and earning forgiveness, and why we think those things are so universally irremovable from the concept of justice.

#911ls asks

[autumnwoodsdreamer]

Write a Different Chapter for Us

Chapter Two: Coming Morning Light

Summary: In the quiet of early morning, Natasha shares her secret with Tony

Words: 2479

Rating: Teen

Characters: Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov

Relationships: Tony Stark/Natasha Romanov

Tags: established relationship, family, pregnancy, conversations

Just a heads up: there is allusion to previous miscarriages. Nothing graphic but I’d rather be safe and warn.

. . . . .

The vague, uncomfortable notion of something amiss awoke Natasha in the pale beginnings of the next morning.

Propping herself up on her elbow, she cast her gaze over the right side of the bed only to find it empty; a quick touch of the cold, crumpled pillow told her Tony had abandoned sleep hours ago.

It didn’t worry her: he rarely ever stayed in bed the whole night through. It was just strange that she’d slept deep enough not to notice him sneaking out.

She settled back down, bundling herself up in the soft covers and staring up at the thin light streaming in and painting the ceiling. She told herself she’d get up in a minute and go find him. Maybe two minutes...

If they were home, in Malibu or Manhattan, she knew she would find him in the workshop or in the lab, tinkering mindlessly on old projects with rock music blaring in the background. But there was nowhere for him to escape to like that out here—not unless he was desperate, in which case the Bartons’ tractor would receive yet another unnecessary upgrade.

In lieu of mentally stimulating and distracting work, Tony would have sought out a quiet and relatively secluded spot to think. Not the kitchen, not the living room; he would want to take advantage of the fresh air and wide open spaces to clear his cluttered mind.

The front porch, she concluded.

Now would be a good time to tell him, she also concluded.

With a childishly reluctant groan, she rolled back onto her side, pulled the covers up over her head and curled up tightly as if she intended to return to blissful sleep and let the chance to speak pass her by. She could afford it; they had a whole two weeks stretching lazily ahead of them—plenty of appropriate opportunities would present themselves.

But she had already allowed an entire week to lapse without breathing a word of it. Forgivable, only for the fact he spent most of it drugged up and borderline comatose, connected to copious amounts of monitors and machines, barely managing to squeeze her hand and offer a false smile of reassurance.

It wasn’t her secret to keep, she reminded herself with a sigh of defeat.

The decision finally solidified, she threw off the covers and got out of bed. On her way to the hall, she slipped on her robe and retrieved the proof buried deep in her rucksack. She put it in her pocket and crept swiftly and silently down the stairs.

Outside, in the soft air, Natasha found her husband, sitting still and slightly hunched on the far end of the porch swing, his drowsy gaze lingering over the yard, dimly lit by the far away sun.

Bare feet facilitating quiet steps, she crept onto the decking and stopped, hesitant to interrupt the spell hanging over him.

. . . . .

In life, it seemed people either existed in a conscious or unconscious state; everyone (with nearly no exception) experiencing both in the span of one day. Tony Stark, however, dwelled in neither; or, rather, he dwelled absolutely in neither.

His constant state of thinking perpetuated an inability to sleep as well as an inability to devote himself to routine life, leaving him trapped in a strange state of hyper-awareness and oblivion.

Most people had a “train of thought”; he had cross-continental lines, multiple stations, car yards and innumerable wrecks scattered about. Thoughts, ideas and musings raced at all speeds on complexly interwoven tracks—new ones created constantly, old ones never put out of service.

Lately, there were more trains than his mind could manage...

So before any trace of sunlight breached the horizon, he abandoned his futile attempts at rest and left the bed, doing so with care not to disturb his peacefully sleeping wife.

Barefooted, he made his way through the house in relative silence, aided by the convenient bluish light from the arc reactor.

Outside, in the soft air, he took up residence on the front porch swing and whole hours slipped by unnoticed.

Clean, chilled air blew through, rustling the tops of trees and sending water-like ripples through the sea of dew-soaked grass covering the surrounding fields. Birds awoke and sang morning songs to one another, crickets continuously carrying the bass notes. The sky blushed with the first hints of colour and stars faded away. No cars, jackhammers or sirens dared interrupt the tranquility blanketing this little corner of a world all too often shrouded in danger.

Lost to his thoughts, Tony let his gaze absently and unseeingly linger over the yard bathed in a transient, pale mix of moonlight and early dawn. Here, sitting alone and still, he worked on a new design for a water purification system while rehearsing a speech for a Board of Directors meeting scheduled three weeks away while replaying the memory of Barton’s kid spitting up on him hours earlier while wondering what could possibly be worrying Natasha; everything demanded his attention and everything held his attention.

The proverbial trains stalled at the creak of the screen door opening. Bare feet stepped onto the hollow wooden decking but didn’t approach.

“Trouble sleeping, darling?” his wife ventured, striving to call him to the moment without startling him.

He turned towards her, blinking rapidly as a few trains ran faster despite his orders to halt all lines. “Couldn’t get comfortable,” he answered when her words finally computed. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

She shrugged and drew her gown closed, tucking her arms into each other and hugging herself tighter. “Bed gets cold without you,” she remarked, her tone conversational.

“Sorry. I can come back...”

“It’s fine. It’s pretty much morning now, anyway.”

He nodded and idly returned his gaze to the yard. Vaguely realizing he had been rigidly hunched over for quite a while, he moved to straighten up. Stiff muscles protested and pain split through his side. He barely managed to stifle a grunt as he moved imperceptibly to massage the sluggishly healing injuries.

“Why aren’t you wearing the brace?” Natasha asked, her voice as gentle and soft as the light of the new dawn.

He winced; he knew she wouldn’t fail to notice. “I... forgot.”

“The doctor said you need to wear it.”

“I couldn’t find it.”

“Tony...”

He rolled his eyes. “I can’t breathe with that thing on, Tasha,” he grumbled.

“Yes, you can.”

“No, I can’t.”

“You’re being childish.”

“No, you are.”

She shook her head but he caught her fond smile of disapproval and counted the victory. “Then let me help you with some bandages. You have to let those ribs heal.”

“I know, I know,” he said in a sigh, not actually annoyed by her gentle concern. He looked up at her with brighter eyes and a small, lopsided smile; the fog of deep thought had lifted and no trains had crashed. “Are you gonna stand there and nag or come sit and watch the sunrise with me?”

She joined him, accepting the invitation without a glimmer of hesitation. In a very cat-like manner, she curled up beside him, tucking her legs under her and resting against him carefully. As the seat rocked backwards, he anchored his feet to steady them while shifting to accomodate her. The lightest touch ignited hot stings of pain, but he didn’t mention so as he wound an arm around her shoulders.

They stayed like that for a while, at peace in their environment and content in each other’s quiet company. A better cure for anxiety and pain did not exist.

But something unsettling still tainted the calm. Tony had sensed it on the plane, in the car, even at dinner: a looming, intangible presence breathing down his neck but never there when he turned around. He couldn’t bear to have it—whatever “it” was—continue cluttering the air.

He took a slow, deliberate breath, letting his chest expand and his shoulders roll back. “You want to talk about it?” he finally asked.

Tilting her head, she looked up at him, brow furrowed in quizzical suspicion.

He gave a small chuckle. “What? You think I don’t notice when something’s bothering you? You haven’t been yourself all week.”

She nestled her head back down against his shoulder. “I’ve been sitting at my borderline comatose husband’s bedside all week; of course I’m not myself.”

“My near-death experiences don’t usually leave you this... somber,” he pointed out, carefully, vividly recalling a blurry glimpse of her distressed expresssion as doctors and nurses pried crumpled, bloodied plates of armour off him, seconds before he blacked out. “Come on,” he prompted, lowering his voice, “what’s the matter with you, Tasha? Something I said? Something I did? I have a sieve for a memory; you have to help me out here. Something someone else did? You didn’t eat much dinner: are you feeling okay?”

She remained stiff and silent as he quietly rambled on, leaving him to ponder the magnitude of whatever be the secret she kept. Before he could imagine anything too horrible, a deflated sigh slipped from her lips and she drew away from the comfortable embrace, halting his lighthearted but aimless utterings. She slid her hand into the pocket of her gown, pulled out an unassuming stick of plastic and, in one quick, unceremonious motion, passed it to him.

He accepted it and held it gingerly. Leaning forward, elbows on knees, he curled his bandaged hand around his chin and mouth as he examined the slim stick.

By the pale light of the arc reactor, he saw two pink lines framed in a little window.

A minute ticked past and he realized he needed to verbalize some form of acknowledgement.

“Is this yours?” he asked, dumbly.

“Ours, technically,” she replied, gaze drifting to her hands as she clasped them tightly together in her lap, her knuckles turning white.

“And this is... it’s positive?”

Regardless of the redundancy of the question, his wife nodded.

Warmth and sensation drained from his hands and feet, leaving his extremities cold and numb while a sharp heat spread from his tightening, churning stomach.

He scraped a hand down his face to keep his expression under control—he didn’t know what was appropriate to display and he understood even less what he presently felt. For a long, uncomfortable moment, he kept his hand firmly clamped over his mouth, aware throwing up would never be considered an appropriate reaction to anything.

“How long have you known?” he asked when he felt he could.

“I found out on Sunday.”

“Sunday? When I was...?”

“Borderline comatose, yes. You can see why it didn’t seem appropriate to bring it up.”

“So you’ve been dealing with this all week by yourself?” His heart felt cold and heavy with shame as if he had knowingly neglected his duty to her.

Her lips pressed tighter together and he knew she was biting down hard on the insides of her cheeks to keep herself from tearing up—it wasn’t something he saw often but he couldn’t mistake it.

He closed his eyes, filled his sore lungs, and exhaled a long, controlled breath as the impulse to shut it all out, to flee, to retreat, to curl up somewhere not here surfaced. For her sake, he had to keep himself right there.

“Tasha?” He spoke with glue in his throat. “Nothing’s happened yet, has it?”

Her reply was a hardly reassuring, barely audible: “No.”

“So, you’re still...?”

“I think so.”

“Do you know how far along you are?”

“Not exactly, but it can’t be too far yet. Further than I’ve gotten before.”

“You haven’t been to a doctor? Or SHIELD medical? Or... something?”

She shook her head. “There’s no point; you know what they’d say, anyway. That they can’t do anything; that it’s not... viable; that it’s only a matter of time before... you know...”

“You don’t have to say it,” he assured, softly. Gingerly, he reached over to wipe her quiet tears away with the pad of his thumb, her cheek ice cold against his palm. “And you don’t have to worry. We’ll figure this out; we always do.”

For a moment, she leaned in to the hand cupping her face and gave in to the comfort, but he knew the reflexive reassurance wasn’t enough.

With a deflating sigh, she pulled away, taking his hand and holding it in hers. “It’s not that simple,” she said, her expression clearer but her tone still trembling. “This isn’t a mad dictator from another planet, or an army of rogue robots trying to destroy humanity; this is... this is my messed up body and all that stuff they did to it—the stuff I let them do—coming back to haunt me. I can’t fix it; you can’t fix it. There’s just nothing we can do about it. I’m sorry.” She shut her eyes and a stream of tears trickled down each cheek. “I shouldn’t have told you.”

“You wanted to spare me?” He didn’t want to sound hurt but he was and it shone through and he didn’t really try to hide it. Thankfully, he possessed enough self-control not to let the “How could you?” slip off his tongue.

“You’ve been through enough.”

“So have you. The point is: we go through things together now.”

“Please don’t get your hopes up. I only told you because you have a right to know, not because I thought there’d be a happy ending this time.”

“Don’t talk like that. It... might be different this time. If nothing’s happened yet, we’re not fools to hope. We are never fools to hope. Natasha, you and I fight everyday for people who can’t save themselves.” He squeezed her hand and waited until she conceded and returned her gaze to him before he earnestly concluded: “Someone needs us to fight for them now, so that’s what we’re gonna do: fight.”

She tugged her sleeve over her hand and roughly wiped her now red eyes. “And how are we supposed to do that?”

He looked back at the deceptively simple stick of plastic in his other hand; none of this seemed real. “I don’t know,” he confessed, truthfully. “But we’ll figure something out, I promise.” He attempted a smile that held its shape for the most part. “You know I won’t sleep until I do.”

Her lips quirked at the final assurance and she nodded. None of the fear faded but she couldn’t find it in herself to argue with him anymore—certainly not when hope burned in his eyes like a fire in winter.

He drew her to his side, pressed a kiss to her forehead and held her close.

They stayed like that for a long while, just holding one another safely, keeping the air free of superfluous words and hollow sentiments as they let the reality and uncertainty crash over them...

. . . . .

<<< Previous Chapter

Next Chapter >>>

#tony stark #iron man #natasha romanov #black widow #ironwidow #tonynat #avengers #my writing #write a different chapter for us #ironwidow fanfiction #avengers fanfiction

[motheatenscarf]

So much is happening so fast in Endwalker and I want to keep playing, but I also want to catch up and post some thoughts about it, but also like.

God, there's 80 things to unpack for every 5 quests I do. Just.

The existential horror of the ancient moon ghosts.

Zenos' weird "No, I don't want to fight you if you're not gonna pay 100% attention to our rivalry :<" pouting.

The fact that there's a colony of moon rabbits that turned the moon into a spaceship to ferry the people of the world to a new home once the Final Days returned.

The slow ticking of the doomsday clock.

The fact that Thancred casually said "Hey, bright side; same hat! :D" about getting one's body stolen and puppeted by someone else, but STILL hasn't talked about getting possessed by Lahabrea

The suicide of the 1st Legion Legatus whose name I forget, the BLEAK but believable way of Garlemald being broken under its own martial weight being manipulated against it and the people's reactions to that.

And how my poor poor WoL is psychologically reacting to ALL OF THIS happening over the course of LESS THAN A WEEK.

And I'm also realizing that like, my character is from Garlemald, she left under bad circumstances and only her mom was still left alive. And uh. She never like, checked back in, to see if her mom got in trouble for the crimes Talia committed against the state, or if when word got back that she was this Eikon slayer, the blame landed on her mother.

Was she sent to a gulag? Was she just executed? Was she incorporated into someone's power structure as a researcher? Did she help create any of the myriad horrors Talia has fought? Did she just flee and go into hiding,? Did she leave the country? Was she still there when the tempering happened? Did she find a radio and is waiting somewhere, half-frozen to death and starving in a bunker? Was she already killed in the civil war?

Like at least half the country's population is probably toast, and that's being optimistic. The ones who didn't die in the war and weren't tempered have been running low on heat and supplies for months, and how many more will kill themselves rather than accept Eorzean aid? And how many of the ones who survived the devastation but did get tempered can even be saved? How many are too far gone physically to be recovered? How many will even allow themselves to be captured with nonlethal force? I think it's not unreasonable to estimate that like, probably a good 3/4 of the people who lived in Garlemald are just... gone.

And how far, FAR too many of those survivors will never get closure on what happened to most of their loved ones.

So I've been wracking my brain to come up with what the most interesting answer would be for what happened to Echidna, Talia's mom, and I think the most interesting conclusion is a lack of closure.

She'll never know. She'll never get to reconcile or officially burn the bridge or get any kind of closure or explanation from her.

Because there are SO MANY people who are going through exactly what she's going through right now in Garlemald. If the narrative killed Haurchefant to teach the WoL a lesson about loss and selfless, reckless love in the face of war, giving them a personal investment to end the Dragonsong war, I think I can give Talia a dead mom to teach her a lesson about

a.) DIRECTLY relating to what the survivors of the initial Final Days went through, with that "tragedy but no catharsis; truth but no meaning," to the kind of devastation which befell her home.

and b.) give her some mommy issues to maybe project onto whatever the fuck is going on with Hydalen, since like her mother, she is also distant and obfuscating and speaks in riddles and half-truths while insisting it's for her own good.

And it probably is! I'm really enjoying that the narrative is a lot more vague about if Hydalen is uh, entirely "good" or not, it's left far more up to interpretation and it lets the player express doubt and resentment toward her. Which is good, because I think it's definitely a complicated situation which she did her best to resolve, given how the deck was stacked against her, but like all mothers doing their honest to god best, she still made some mistakes and did some damage.

Which, again, I LIKE! Let her be complicated, her adversaries certainly are, and I love stories where there's no real "bad" or "good" guys, there's just people doing their best to do what they think is right. People disagreeing is far more interesting than the boring diametrically opposed essentialism of light vs. dark this game started out with between Hydalen and the Ascians. I think if the Ascians got the Shadowbringers treatment of pulling the curtain back and humanizing them, Hydalen needs the same. And spoiler alert, humans are flawed. I'm glad it isn't framing her anymore as some bottomless font of moral purity and goodness no matter what mistakes she makes, that's the shit I HATED about Minfilia pre-Shadowbringers.

Anyway, that was a tangent, and you see how long it is? You see how I'm incapable of brevity?

YEAH, I have like 20 more posts of this length I can write about like, everything that just happened between starting Garlemald and meeting the Noah's Ark NASA Moon Bunnies

#Caitlin Plays FF14 #FF14 spoilers #Eschatalia Solanum

[hyenahunt]

Saga: Rivals - 24

Writer: Akira

Season: Winter

Characters: Hokuto

Proofreading: moricchiichan (JP) & Peace (ENG)

Translation: kotofucius

Hokuto: We’ve crossed over a mountain of corpses, walking ahead of them. When it comes to DreamFest, we're more experienced.

[Read on my blog for the best viewing experience with Oi~ssu ♪]

Location: Reverse Live Stage

Time: A few hours later

Hokuto: (Alright, so far so good.)

(And this isn’t a surprise. It's just as I expected — besides Rain-bows and Ba-barrier…)

(And Yumenosaki Academy’s units in general, the other competitors aren’t catching up well with the DreamFest system.)

(That’s natural. This is a strange system, applying a system designed for competitive sports to idol activities.)

(It doesn’t matter that it was explained to them beforehand. It takes time to understand… to get a feel for it.)

(I was confused too last year, at the start.)

(It was completely different from the normal idol work I’d learned from watching my father. It’s incredibly simplified, easy to understand, and yet at the same time, punishing.)

(Normally, idol work is something you take more slowly, at your own pace.)

(A huge mistake doesn’t mean a huge blow to your career… Because your friends and fans would be there to encourage and support you.)

(The profit and loss you caused would be recorded, of course; but the success or failure of each stage, whether you won or lost against your costar, would typically be more vague.)

(Even if the results were terrible, you’d still have dreams and hopes to hold onto.)

Hokuto: (But DreamFest is a competition for votes. The fans vote for us idols and decide our worth in comparison to one another, recorded as hard numbers.)

(Just by seeing and comparing these numbers, even without watching the concert…)

(You’d start feeling like you know which was the better idol.)

(When this becomes the norm, you’ll end up with a situation like Yumenosaki back in the spring.)

(The difference in levels become recognized, solidified, and eventually irreversible. No… People lose hope for any chance of turning the tables.)

(In Yumenosaki, watching and judging concerts affects our grades, so everyone eventually votes only for the undefeated without thinking.)

(Because it was the most efficient and easy thing to do.)

(At first, the system was probably imposed to increase the idols’ motivation, by contesting them against each other. At least, as far as the official stance went.)

(Of course, it must’ve also been part of the Student President’s plan in leading the revolution last year to success.)

(They created an evaluation method that was originally blurry, establishing rules that worked to their advantage.)

(Gambling is done so the bookmaker can make a killing. That’s what they were doing.)

(That system is still being utilized now, even while going through several small adjustments such as the addition of a new level, S3.)

(But are things really fine as they are right now?)

(According to my father, CosPro’s Special Student system gradually gathered opposition and gave birth to people who bore hatred towards idols.)

(I think their system was at first designed to select potential super idols and raise them dearly.)

(It’s a replica of what the idol industry has done all this time. Only a select few can achieve glory… and the rest become slaves that serve them.)

(Even so, it must’ve worked long ago. Both my father and Sagami-sensei managed to rule over the entire industry, like kings that reaped tax and governed their people.)

Hokuto: (But that era is over now.)

(Historically, nobody has ever invented an ideal system that lasts forever.)

(We must never accept things as they are, always allow room for skepticism, and start a revolution if necessary… But as long as a system is viable, we'll still use it to our advantage.)

(DreamFest is war. For better or worse, we’ve gotten used to it.)

(But other Mentor-Disciple units who joined Project-Saga halfway haven't; this isn’t what normal idol activities are like.)

(They live in a world without war. And I do find that enviable. The idol I first admired…)

(My father lived in a peaceful paradise where he loved and was loved.)

(That’s how a normal idol should be. But in Yumenosaki Academy, it’s different.)

(Our determination and experiences are different. We’ve just made a preemptive attack on our defenseless, unarmed opponents.)

(I hope you guys won’t think we're being unfair. This is what’s normal to us.)

(Not having the slightest clue that they’d face an attack, they became overwhelmed by the breach we made. Now they shirk and run away, unable to release their full potential.)

(They panicked, thinking, What? This isn’t how it’s supposed to go!)

(Of course, those with quick wits grasped the situation at once, making a late comeback.)

(But they won’t make it in time. We’ve crossed over a mountain of corpses, walking ahead of them. When it comes to DreamFest, we're more experienced.)

(Reverse Live has a simple rule.)

(As if to conclude Project Saga’s long journey, nearly all the concerned units are participating to compete to be the best.)

(At its core, I think it’s close to the preliminary battles of Starfes back then. We choose our own opponent, and fight a one-on-one battle onstage.)

(The result of our performance battle is decided by the votes of our audiences.)

(The votes we gained become ours when we win, but will be subtracted from the score we’ve accumulated when we lose.)

(That’s what’s unique about it. Good if we can win, but the risk we must shoulder when we lose is pretty huge.)

(Especially if we had a close battle with a worthy opponent — )

(Since our score is deducted from the votes the audiences gave us, that means…)

(The better performance we give, the more cost we must pay when we lose.)

(This is just like a gamble.)

(If you keep gambling, thinking you have it all under control, you’re eventually going to shoot yourself in the foot. You need to make bets only when victory is sure… and stop at the right time.)

(Doing a close battle with an opponent you don’t know you can win against will bankrupt you when you lose.)

(The important thing is to keep a calm mind and win the battles we can win for sure.)

(An overwhelming victory means we can obtain a large number of votes, too.)

Hokuto: (So the weak are targeted like easy marks until their scores hit zero, forcing them off of the stage — )

(They’ll lose their participation right in due course. The way things are, the weak will be weeded out.)

(We Rain-bows are a step ahead of the rest thanks to having been active longer.)

(But normally, anyone would be too scared to do a match.)

(Yet, because the rule dictates that you can’t reject a challenge, the concert never comes to a standstill.)

(It’s a detestable design beneficial only to the strong, squeezing those unused to DreamFests dry.)

(I’m not going to protest, as this setup gives us an advantage, but…)

(It’s strange how losing with a huge gap would damage us less.)

(Why make that kind of rule…? Who decided the contents of Reverse Live?)

(Father spoke like it wasn’t his business, but it felt like an act. I think it’s his doing…)

Hokuto: (Father is a terrible actor when compared to Mother. I should be able to see through his lies if I actually scrutinize his words.)

(I’ve seen and gone through enough to be capable of that much… Father.)

[ ☆ ]

✦✦✦✦✦

← prev ✦ all ✦ next →

#ensemble stars #enstars #enstars translation #hyenahunttl #s: saga #hokuto hidaka

[ac-liveblogs]

Alhaitham Quest, ch1

This is a quest where 3/4 of it is irredeemably boring and the last 10 minutes are fantastic. Mysteriously, it’s for the same reason that something similar happened in the Sumeru Archon quest.

Hmm, I wonder what it could be-

I’ll get back to that.

The main thrust of Alhaitham’s quest is this; the Akademiya is stagnating due to the loss of the Sages and the Akasha Terminals, Alhaitham doesn’t want to be Grand Sage anymore, and an old classmate of his wants revenge on him because Alhaitham shut down his project (creating a collective human consciousness) years ago.

Shenanigans ensue.

I don’t think this quest had anything particularly interesting to say about ‘collective consciousness’ or ‘hiveminds’. I have a few trains of thought about what happens in this quest and I apologise in advance for the second one.

1) Wow, Sumeru must really suck

This is like, the second quest where people try to escape the horrors of reality in some esoteric vaguely psychologically horrifying way. Can Nahida maybe work on that?

2) Alhaitham's ‘conflict’ with the Matra (everybody hates(?) Haitham)

There is a minor plot point at the start of Alhaitham’s quest about a minor power struggle he is having with the Matra - Aarav, the main Matra in this quest, is allegedly concerned that Alhaitham might be trying to exert more control over the Matra than his station allows.

We know this because Alhaitham tells us. We skip both the scene where Alhaitham decides to brute force his way onto an investigation he doesn’t have the authority to join, and the actual Matra-side of the investigation because Alhaitham has us hang back while Aarav does the dirty work and explains why we’re not allowed to join him (because he doesn’t want the Matra to think he’s stepping on their toes. Which he is.)

We don’t actually get Alhaitham interacting with Aarav in any meaningful way about this. We barely see any tension or fallout from the Matra’s dislike of the guy.

This entire plot point is immediately dropped once we split up with Aarav - we meet up with the Matra, Cyno in tow, again at the end of the quest when they do some arrests, but the plot point about Alhaitham taking over and resolving an investigation he wasn’t meant to be on is never brought up - not even when, after Alhaitham points out the Matra aren’t under his control, but he gives Cyno orders anyway, and Cyno follows them. And doesn’t even mention Alhaitham stepping into his jurisdiction when he’s not supposed to.

Like, what’s the point of this? Obviously, Alhaitham’s issues with the Matra don’t matter. The fact that he took over their case doesn’t matter. His relationship with Cyno, tragically, doesn’t matter - if any of this did, I’d imagine it would just be easier to have Cyno be there from the start and have him accompany Alhaitham on the case, and the two could bicker about methods or responsibility the whole time. So...

We get to see that Alhaitham is Very Smart for navigating this minor power struggle - by having him explain it to us, not by seeing it ourselves, but we get to know he’s smart for figuring out how to navigate it.

And this is the big one - we get to know that Alhaitham isn’t liked or trusted by the Matra, but we’re shown this information in a way that doesn’t matter. This minor dispute doesn’t affect the plot at all! We just get to know that some guy in the Matra - not even the important guy in the Matra - thinks Alhaitham is shifty.

See, Alhaitham is an intentionally obnoxious character with a terrible personality. We know this, because we have spoken to him and he has waxed pretentious poetic about ~objectivity~ at us, and oh boy do his interactions with Kaveh let us know it.

The main villain of this quest is someone that hates Alhaitham, and has convinced (long story short) a whole lot of other people to hate Alhaitham too. So like, naturally, you’d think - oh, it’s Alhaitham’s awful personality and arrogance that made people dislike him, right? That’s coming to bite him in the ass and he might have to reflect on that?

Lmao

Nope!

Amazingly, he doesn’t get punched in the face for that.

The villain hates Alhaitham for rejecting his research paper, and being Arrogant and Looking Down on Him - really fixating on Alhaitham’s arrogance in doing so. Except Alhaitham monologues about how actually, Alhaitham isn’t arrogant, the villain is just projecting on him, he was actually very objective! It was the villain’s own insecurities that led him to hating Alhaitham, really.

He is apparently correct.

The mob that hates Alhaitham was also wrong to do so, because one member learnt “oh you’re not that bad actually” and spread that with everyone else, who later lament that they didn’t actually know Alhaitham that well and just blindly hated him because they were essentially told to do so.

Instead of it being Alhaitham’s shit personality that burnt him, it was a villain that was projecting his insecurities, and a bunch of people that just didn’t know him that well that were willing to believe he sucked.

TL;DR Alhaitham is a horrible person who is a jerk to others. But not in a way that matters or has consequences despite this being a chapter about people that hate him.*

Cool.

Presumably that’s because uhhh writing that kind of introspection or character growth would be hard. I guess. This is a baffling choice to me. I guess it’s more of the Sumeru-brand of “wake up, Sheeple!” we’ve gotten accustomed to but man is it bizarre to see it like this.

also what happened to him being a “lunatic”. that’s pretty absent in this chapter. he’s actually presented as extremely pragmatic.

*i will get to kaveh later

3) Alhaitham solves a mystery (and it’s very boring)

There is a mystery in this quest, and Alhaitham solved it about 10 seconds after he realised it existed. That is not remotely an exaggeration. He then spends the rest of the quest refusing to explain the mystery and setting up the villain to take a fall later.

Despite the fact that Genshin’s investigation scenes are hilariously bad on the rare occasions they exist (I loved walking about 20 meters with Yelan the expert tracker to find a criminal in today’s Lantern Rite Quest), I think given Alhaitham’s character, that setup is fine on it’s face. It just gets boring when that’s all that’s happening. If you aren’t going to do a real investigation, you would theoretically fill that space up with character interactions where you learn more about Alhaitham or his relationships with others; in typical Genshin fashion, that time is once again about the NPC instead of the player character.

You know what I had a lot of fun doing? Watching Alhaitham and Kaveh bitch at each other in their own home. It was really good writing. IMO those two have an established pattern of the best interpersonal writing Genshin has. And you know what I thought afterwards?

“Wow, wouldn’t that have been so much fun during the actual investigation phase?”

Alhaitham is a boring, obnoxious character when he’s not with Kaveh. That is because Kaveh is the only character the writers are willing to write him having an actual dynamic with, and it has NOT escaped my notice that all of their conversations take place in casual settings where they can easily get into rambling arguments and not, like, anything serious.

Given the nature of their relationship, that’s fine, but given Alhaitham barely had meaningful interactions with any of the rest of the cast in the Archon Quest and Cyno was snubbed in this one... you REALLY start to notice that Alhaitham can be a super fun character, but HYV just isn’t able or willing to write him as one when they also have to balance a plot...! So when shit needs to happen, he’s just a jackass, and no one picks a fight about it, until shit doesn’t need to happen and then Kaveh can get up in his face about it...!

It does read as very amateur, yeah.

4) Kaveh and Alhaitham need to fuck, right. The UST is palpable. Cut that shit with a knife. They’re “secretly”dating except all of Sumeru knows, except they’re not actually dating at all, everyone just assumes they got married YEARS ago but they didn’t. They haven’t. One day. But not yet. I want this sitcom. I need it in my life.

god neither of them have the emotional intelligence for this but I'm pretty sure. Alhaitham knows how he feels.

Kaveh does not.

5) Hey, wouldn’t this have been more fun/interesting if we were using Dottore and his segments to-  

#ac plays genshin impact #genshin spoilers

[epickiya722]

One of the things that really makes me recognize someone as an anti: refering to Horikoshi as "the author" and being vague about his existence.

Idk It always creeps me the fuck out. It's like they want him to be some generic, invisible shonen creator so people can project stuff onto him and just not his own person with thoughts and feelings... Like, am i the only one?

Or it could be that they don't know who the actual author is????

(Anon, I was not ignoring this! I actually had this saved in my drafts and almost forgot about it! I'm so sorry this didn't come sooner!)

I hope it's just them not knowing who the actual author is and not wanting to project onto him.

I feel the same, Anon.

Sometimes it's like people tend to forget mangakas and others who do creative works are still people; they're still human, too.

When Horikoshi and his team go on break, people should not be in their feelings about it. What, they can't take the time out for families or holidays? They can't rest their bodies? They can't get sick or hurt?

Seriously, it's like nowadays, mangakas and others within that same creative area, are only seen as tools to provide entertainment. They're not allowed to be human.

Which, as someone who writes and sometimes makes icons, sickens me.

Whenever there's a break, I'm actually glad for it. All I can think is "thank gosh, please just rest".

It's tiring to produce art and stories back to back to back.

While BNHA is on break, I can always entertain myself with other media or hobbies I have. I don't sit there with a pout on my face like "hurry up and continue the story"! That's just entitlement right there.

Oh, and how people act as if the story has to be perfect.

They act as if some tropes or gags we see in BNHA is something new or the worst thing in the world, damn how it's written.

BNHA isn't going to be a flawless story because Horikoshi isn't a flawless man. He isn't a god. Just like the rest of us, he isn't some immortal being. He breathes air, eats food, gets sick, makes mistakes, feels things. He's not the best person in the world, but he ain't the worst.

Not everything that works for him and his team works for others and vice versa.

But people need to reminded this is his story. He forged in his mind and got to work to put it out there in the world.

If right now he decided he wanted Midoriya to have 20 damn quirks, he can. Midoriya is his character, not anyone else's.

The fact that people act like this man actually owns them anything boggles my mind. All he is doing is giving us a story to entertain us. That's it. That is nothing new, it's been done before. If you don't like the tropes, okay. If you do, okay. If you don't like how something is written, that's fine. If you do, that's fine, too. Don't like this character? That's you, it's how you feel. You like this character? What's the problem? There isn't.

But when it comes to Horikoshi and other mangakas, people need to take a step back and see they are still human.

BNHA, JJK, Sailor Moon, Demon Slayer, Spy x Family, and every other anime and manga out there are just entertainment given to us. Their creators are the people who were nice enough to give us a piece of who they are. They're human, too.

They're existing just like the rest of us.

#kiya answers #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #horikoshi kohei #kohei horikoshi #anime #manga

[tvrningout-a]

I GREW UP ON DISNEY | plots & connections for your convenience ♡

featuring: spiderverse muses

these are just some ideas ( some vague, some more specific ) that i'd like to write and that hopefully catch your interest! feel free to like this post if there's a plot/dynamic you'd like to write, and i'll message you about it! ♡(>ᴗ•)

chiyoko hisakawa aka jorogumo of earth 7878a

this scenario! bc oooh conflict &lt;3

in general, be it with canon characters or oc's, i'd really love someone to get chiyo to talk about shiori. she meant a lot to her -- chiyo doesn't casually date, nor does she date anyone that she didn't first befriend over a long period of time. and the thing is!! chiyo never actually got to admit her feelings to shiori. so there's a lot of unresolved feelings concerning her, and i just want someone to get chiyo to talk about it.

shiori was her universe's gwen, so i do think it'd be interesting to see chiyo interact with any version of her. they're different people, but i think chiyo would be wary bc gwen dies in certain universes and!! she's not in a position to handle that emotionally rn

gimme all the mentorships pls and thanks <3 the more i write her in this universe, i do think she'd get along with just about anyone tbh -- she just might disagree with them on occasion, but that's normal and healthy and makes for some fun threads!

big bonus points if her mentor is friends with her mom, yuzusa! i want someone to help her with that awkward situation pls :' )

i love multiverse shenanigans, but i also love the idea of chiyo having regular friends/mentors/etc. who discover she's jorogumo! so gimme that too u3u

ALSO give me her universe's harry!! bc they're supposed to be great friends, but things are weird and strained after the whole green goblin thing!! that wasn't her harry, but chiyo knows it could be one day, and i so badly want to write how that friendship is affected by that knowledge. do they manage to break canon? do they not?? let's find out!!

yuzusa hisakawa aka jorogumo of earth 7878b

i am once again asking for mentorships, but let yuzu be your muse's teacher who very much acts like a momma bear yet roasts them ruthlessly &lt;3

talk to yuzu about chiyo!! the one she lost and the one in front of her!! tell her that's rough buddy but you'll be there for her while she tries to build a relationship with her daughter ;;v;;

i say that like it's going to be all hurt/comfort, and some of it will be, but it's also going to be yuzu snapping and getting angry, telling you to mind your own business. pain isn't always pretty, and yuzu is the prime example of that.

that being said!! gimme the friend that was there through it all -- being bitten, becoming spider-woman, losing her family, becoming jorogumo. gimme the history that allows someone to see how she's changed and pull her back in when she's growing too far away, when she's losing herself. i want it uvu

but obviously i also wanna write people discovering yuzu is jorogumo and going " oh that actually makes a lot of sense " asdfg

what iiiiif your muse catches yuzu visiting a universe where her husband and chiyo are alive, and she's only watching over them!! just making sure they're okay!! but yeah this needs to be addressed and unpacked

miguel o'hara

talk to him about how much they don't really know about anomalies and canon events; talk to him about how maybe he's wrong about miles; challenge him <3

and in challenging him maybe we can get into how he's projecting his guilt onto a kid and is just!! scared!! of failing!! of losing people!! pls oh my gosh

can we pls see miguel as a mentor to somebody? can we pls??

more to be added!

pavitr prabhakar

not to burst pav's bubble, but can we talk about how hard being spider-man is eventually going to get?? can someone warn him??

i do wanna write some pre-atsv stuff with him! like how he must've reacted to there being a multiverse, who he might've met first, etc. i like that stuff when we already know where we're going!

while very likeable, typically any iteration of peter parker is bullied to some extent, and since i'm gonna borrow from pav's comics, i'm gonna say the same goes for him. in the comics, his family isn't super wealthy, and he manages to get into a nice school through a scholarship; between the differing tax brackets and pav's natural talent for things, i'm gonna say the other kids probably alienate him a little more than he lets on. maybe we can explore that? the expectation that pav must be popular and have it easy vs. the reality that he's just like miles and a young peter -- another teen who's still finding his place and figuring everything out.

more to be added!

#miguel and pav's categories are sparse bc my sister's waiting on me ahhh #i'll brainstorm more for them later but if you have your own idea you're free to still like this and toss it at me!! #i just figured i'd type one of these up bc my muse has been so frikkin high for spiderverse stuff :' ) #and honestly you don't /have/ to know much about the movies to interact unless you wanna deal with the multiverse shenanigans #but lemme not ramble in the tags asdfg #i gotta go! #i grew up on disney | wishlist