#i just see it as angel and spike being morons and not realizing that it's CLEARLY not buffy (and. i mean. it's not. s8 made that canon) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ashintheairlikesnow · 3 years

Note

Vampire Chris and jake get stranded in the middle of nowhere one night. Maybe a car crash or something. As they walk back the sun starts to rise.

CW: Car crash, bruising, seatbelt burn, vampire whumpee, caretaker turned whumpee

The moment of the crash is gone.

He opens his eyes to the aftermath.

Jake blinks, the world spinning, and his head drops back against the headrest of the driver's seat. The world is still lurching, sickeningly, in circles around him. Something is ticking, the engine maybe, slowly cooling down and shit, at least it's not on fire.

The air bag has a smear of terrible vibrant red against its pillowy white as it slowly deflates, and all he can do is stare at it until he realizes the blood must be his own.

One hand comes up to touch at his forehead, and his fingers come away wet and red, too. What he'd thought was sweat is a head wound, bleeding down one side, tickling his cheekbone and jaw. It stings, a little.

The pain seems distant, somehow, like it's being held at arm's length. As if he's looking at his pain from a distance further than he can close.

"Ch-... Chris, you okay, buddy?" He turns, and the passenger seat is empty. The air bag deployed on that side, but there's no blood.

The door is standing open, dome light still on. It takes a long few moments of staring before he can understand that the door is open because Chris forced it open, closed his hands on the metal and squeezed until it bent beneath his strength and let him out.

Jake's body aches as he shifts forwards, fumbling to unbuckle his seatbelt. All the pain is filtering into his senses, piece by piece as if he can only understand a wound once he sees it.

He can't remember the crash.

They were at a four-way stop, listening to some of the terrible pop music Chris loves about the modern world, and Jake had pulled through. They were laughing at some lyric that Jake had had to explain, that had made the little vampire boy flush a little at the definition.

Then there were headlights blinding him, overtaking everything. Chris had yelled something and Jake had yelled something and then-

The moment is gone.

So is the entire back half of his car.

He turns around with a hiss to stare right out a giant gaping hole where his backseat should be into the cool, clear night.

Parts of his car are strewn haphazardly across the road and the grassy ditch he's come to a stop in. As he looks, he can see the frame of a door, crumbled metal that must be his trunk, a tire. Another tire. The bumper on the ground. Glass and metal everywhere.

The stop signs at the fourway are all standing totally untouched, except for one bent at a hard angle, leaning like a man fighting a strong wind.

The sweater he'd been wearing when he got in the car - removed and tossed carelessly in the backseat to pick up later - is hanging off the bent stop sign.

It's fucking spotlessly clean still.

He blinks.

Blinks some more.

What the fuck?

He'd driven Chris up into the hills to go star-gazing, making the most of Chris's bubbly energy that only comes out at night and his classes being canceled tomorrow because of some issue with the campus water supply. This is countryside up here, with houses miles and miles apart. Remnants of old orchards and homesteads, still kept by the descendants of the men and women who traveled out here. Nobody drives out this way this late. It could be morning before someone finds him.

His phone. He can call for help.

Jake looks around, but his phone is nowhere to be seen. He digs around the footwell, what he can touch of it, and there's nothing. Nothing nothing nothing.

His windshield is shattered, open to the outside, and he wonders if his phone flew out of it. It was on the dash, wasn't it? On Chris's side...

Shit.

It could be anywhere in the grass, and he's a fucking moron who keeps his phone on silent or vibrate 24 hours a day. He'll never hear it out here.

First things first, then.

He settles for trying to open his door.

It's been crunched, just a little. Enough that it won't swing out, and he has to throw his shoulder against it, grunting in pain, again and again until finally it nudges just enough for him to fall onto shattered tiny squares of safety glass on the ground. A water bottle is lying there. It's Dasani.

He hates Dasani water, but it'd been free at the gas station they'd stopped at if he bought a bag of chips, so...

Oh, right. His car is full of fucking gasoline.

He groans, scrambling away from the vehicle, trying to remember what a safe distance will be if his car catches on fire or fucking explodes in the middle of the night. At least if it explodes it'll get someone's attention, right?

Shit, he's going to throw up.

Jake lays there, waiting for his stomach to settle, and then crawls again. He makes it up to the road, to the rough asphalt and the gravel that lines the side. The little pebbles sting his palms, rub dirt and dust into the cuts, but he ignores it.

He makes it to the road, twenty feet or so from his car, and then... then he just lays down.

"Chris..." He can barely think. Where has the little vampire gone? Why isn't he here, creeping out of the treeline to ask if Jake's all right? Did he run? Maybe he has Jake's phone. Maybe there was no signal and he's gone to try and find some, to make a call.

Maybe...

Fuck, it hurts to think.

Even just taking a deep breath hurts - something's wrong with his ribs. Bruised or broken. When he pulls his shirt up, he can see the seatbelt burn starting to deepen in color, a diagonal stripe from shoulder to hip written in bright red darkening to burgundy bruising, soon to turn purple and black. If he hadn't been wearing a heavy shirt it'd have torn his skin open. One side of his neck is rubbed raw, he can tell when he touches it and has to pull his fingers away at the spike of pain.

There are spots of dark on his pale shirt, blood seeping through or dripping from his forehead.

But, shit. It could be worse. Looking at the back half of his car, it seems like a goddamn miracle that it isn't.

Jake pulls his legs under him and tries to stand up.

His right leg just won't fucking do it.

Rather than take his weight, it buckles with a spike of pain so bad Jake cries out and collapses back onto the road.

As if it were a dam breaking, all the adrenaline holding off the worst of the pain seems to wear away at once.

Everything hurts, suddenly, a sickening wash of pain breaking against him like he's nothing but a shell to be worn to sand. He aches when he breathes, when he doesn't. A cough makes him whimper as his ribs creak and crack. His head throbs, his hands sting, his leg is swelling even as he looks at it, a broken bone. Definitely a broken bone.

"Jesus Christ," He groans, rolling onto his side, his face pressing into gravel and safety glass.

Nat won't notice they're not home until morning.

No one's going to know he's out here until after sunrise, until he's not up to get ready for class and Chris isn't curled up in the closet to sleep in his nest of blankets and pillows. No one's going to know what happened, and where the everloving fuck did his phone go?

Time passes. He doesn't know how much.

Maybe Chris figured they can't protect him and took the fuck off. Maybe he's going to find somewhere new to crash, some new people to care for him. Maybe he's hunting.

Who the fuck knows?

He comes and goes, in and out of consciousness.

He can't stand, and sort of scooting and crawling around does nothing to help him figure out where his cell phone has gone. No one else drives by on this mostly-abandoned country road, and it was a stroke of seriously bad luck the asshole who hit them and ran was there at all.

Asshole was probably drunk, driving back from the bar, trying to use the backroads to avoid the goddamn cops.

Bad. Fucking. Luck.

Jake wonders if the asshole will even remember hitting his car in the morning, or if he'll wake up and discover the front of his vehicle all fucked up and have no idea how it happened.

He thinks he might pass clean out for a while.

That can't be good.

His head hurts worse when he wakes up.

He raises his head slowly at the sound of a distant rumble, an ancient truck engine coming closer. It takes more effort than he ever imagined just to get himself up to sitting, ready to wave down whoever it is - whatever fucking angel is on this road at what has to be 3 or 4 in the morning by now.

"Please," He whispers, dry lips scraping against each other. "Please, please don't run m'over... please..."

Headlights wash over the scene of the crash, fading everything to nearly black-and-white. Jake raises a hand to shield his eyes, blinking rapidly, as the blue-and-white Ford comes to an idling stop.

A door swings open with a creak and then slams shut again, boots crunching on the glass and debris on the road. Jake raises his eyes to see an old man in worn jeans and a grayish t-shirt staring down at him. "Well, I'll be damned," The man says, his voice low, a little rough around the edges. His hair's dark, but speckled with silver that's visible even in the night air. "You all right, son?"

Jake slowly looks back at his wrecked, ruined car, then back up at the man. "I'm pretty clearly not," He answers, then winces at his rudeness. "Sorry. I mean... no."

"That's all right. We all of us get a little more honest when we're bleeding from the skull. I'm gonna bet you aren't a natural brunette and I'm looking at a big old ton of blood there. What happened?"

"Guy ran the stop sign, hit me... drove off."

"Well, damn. What're you doin' up this way this late at night?"

"Would you... y'believe me if I said... star-gazin'?"

The man chuckles, but it's a low sound, and he moves closer. He pulls a heavy old cell phone out of his pocket - one of those goddamn flip phones that never dies or gets destroyed. It's like Captain Fucking America. Jake has to hold back a half-hysterical laugh.

"Hm, I might. It happens from time to time. Y'didn't come with a young lady, did you?" The man looks over the scene of the crash, searching for more people.

"No, no... just... jus'... I'm just here." He thinks of Chris, the open passenger door, the total lack of a vampire nearby. Is he hiding in the woods? If he's seen, or found out, he'll be hauled back off to be locked up somewhere, milked for venom for pharmaceutical drugs, treated like an animal. They can't admit he was here, he can't be seen. He must be hiding.

That's it.

Chris must just be hiding...

"Please, man, I-I can't find my phone to call for help-"

"I got you, son. I'll make the call. Likely your phone's just buried in the grass somewhere, we'll figure it out. You stay put right where you are, you don't want to move around and make any of it worse."

"Yes, sir." Jake stays where he is while the old man makes the call to 911, feeding him details when he asks, staring off into space when he doesn't.

They can pick Chris up when he and Nat come to get his stuff from the wreck tomorrow. They'll get him then. It'll be fine.

It'll be fine.

The old man hangs up and heads back to his truck, pulling out a battered old first aid kit. "You're lucky I believe in ghosts, you know."

"What? Why? Am I dead?" Jake looks down at his hands. They're scratched and bleeding, and he's pretty sure dead people don't bleed like that.

"No, son, no. But I wouldn't be out here if I didn't."

Jake blinks. "I... I don't follow."

"Well, had a little ghost show up at my bedroom window and refuse to shut up until I drove out here. Redheaded boy. Kept calling for a medic. Felt like I was back in the war for a minute before I realized it was him."

"Which... which war?"

The man fixes him with a stare as he crouches, old knees cracking as he does, in front of Jake. He opens the box and takes out some gauze and adhesive, antibiotic cream, something else Jake doesn't recognize. "You need medics in every kind of war there is, son. It doesn't matter which one. I've fought in two. But this boy called for a medic like he's seen the need for 'em before and didn't have time to save someone. Some kind of old ghost walkin' these roads saw you and made sure I knew."

Jake exhales, almost a laugh, and feels tears burn hot in his eyes. He realizes he's going to cry from sheer relief and exhaustion and pain, and he's not sure he can stop.

A ghost in the window means...

Chris left and ran for help.

"Thank you," he whispers, and he's not really talking to the old man at all.

@mylifeisonthebookshelf @insaneinthepaingame @keeper-of-all-the-random-things @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @astrobly @newandfiguringitout @pretty-face-breaker @endless-whump @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @doveotions @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @downriver914 @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @nonsensical-whump @outofangband @what-a-whump

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kagehinataboke · 5 years

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Im so fucking guilty of staying up late just to binge on your works because your writing is so great ! I just cant help but need to request a tdbk college au where katsuki is a punk with a loud bike and Shouto is just this perfect good boy who got roped into bad boy Katsuki’s lifestyle, basically a good boy/bad boy dynamics, pretty please ?? 🥺🥺 (gonna use emojis to be more convincing)

awww omg thank you, you sweet angel ❤️😭 ily uwu

and yassss ✨❤️ here’s pre-med student Todoroki ft. bad boy Bakugou 👏🏻

accidentally made this super long ooops

***

Todoroki thought he knew what tired was, but his pre-med course has completely reinvented the word. Exhausted, debilitated, and lifeless are better words to describe the kind of fatigue he feels. It’s class to class to class, with endless homework in between. Sleep? It’s basically a foreign concept at this point.

Heck, Todoroki is barely awake now, which isn’t such a good thing when one is walking down the street alone at night. He keeps almost drifting into lamp posts and street signs. The last lecture was just so long…

“Fuck.”

For a second, Todoroki thinks the expletive is directed at him. Then he lifts his head. There’s a bloodied figure hunched over in the nearest alley, both hands pressed against a large wound in his lower abdomen. He’s swearing at the sky, which is probably the only place he can look without passing out. Todoroki, despite not being the one in peril, feels a jolt of adrenaline spike through him. He knows he shouldn’t be approaching someone who has what is clearly a stab wound, but his medical training is already kicking in.

“Move your hands.”

The stranger squints at him with crimson eyes. “…What? Who the fuck are—“

Todoroki forcibly pushes his arms back. “You’re pressing on the wrong spot. You’ll bleed out.” He puts his own hands on the wound, altering pressure until the blood stops gushing between his fingers. When he has a solid position, he meets the stranger’s gaze. “What’s your name?”

“Bakugou Katsuki…” He closes his eyes to take a shuddering breath. “Shit. Don’t call the fucking cops, okay?”

“Well, that leaves me with very limited options…” Todoroki struggles to think of an alternative. His apartment is close, but he can’t take his hands off the stab wound. “Bakugou, If I tell you where to hold your hands, can you keep even pressure while I carry you to my place?”

“I don’t have much choice, do I?” Bakugou weakly rolls his head to look at his stomach. “Just tell me what to do before I fucking bleed out.”

As much as Todoroki doesn’t want this obvious delinquent in his house, he can’t exactly let someone die in an alley, either. “Put your hands here. Yeah. Keep pressure. Good.” As soon as his hands are free, Todoroki moves to slip an arm around Bakugou’s shoulders. He flinches and delivers an intimidating glare, but Todoroki can’t be swayed when he’s in Doctor Mode. “Don’t move your hands.”

“Fine… Don’t fucking touch me anywhere weird, asshole.”

“That isn’t how you should be talking to someone who’s saving your life,” Todoroki mutters, pushing himself to a standing position. Bakugou isn’t as heavy as he expected. “Try not to pass out before we get there.”

“Fuck you.”

***

After Todoroki treats him and sends him on his way, he never expects to see Bakugou Katsuki again. Fate, however, has different expectations. While he’s walking home from his morning class, Todoroki hears the rev of a motorcycle through his headphones. When it stops suspiciously close by, he turns to find a familiar blond delinquent smirking at him.

“Bakugou?” Todoroki takes out one earbud. “What are you doing here?”

“I was in town when I spotted you walking.” Bakugou leans his arms on the motorcycle, grin widening. “Want a ride?”

“On that?” Todoroki raises an eyebrow at the rumbling Harley. “No thanks. You’re nine times more likely to become injured while riding a motorcycle than while driving a car, you know. It’s not safe.”

“Oh yeah?” Bakugou lifts his own brow in retaliation. “But it still looks fucking cool, at least.”

Todoroki sighs and starts walking again, but Bakugou doesn’t give up easily. He follows at a snail’s pace, calling out childishly every few steps. “C’mon, pretty boy, live a little!”

The phrase ‘live a little’ gets to him. As a med student, Todoroki feels like he definitely lives on the safer side. He lost many friends in high school because he was “too boring.” Hearing Bakugou say it presses on an old bruise. He shouldn’t get so worked up over it, but…

Even though he knows he’s being an idiot, Todoroki stalks over to Bakugou’s motorcycle and slides on. The seat is humming gently, and Bakugou’s back is warm. His smile is still, however, incredibly annoying. “That’s more like it.” He passes Todoroki a spare helmet. “Where to, angel?”

“Fourth and Main.” Todoroki pauses. “Don’t call me that.”

“Hey, I call it like I see it.” Bakugou flips down the visor on his helmet, revving the engine obnoxiously. “Hold on tight.”

They take off, and Todoroki quickly lurches forward to grab Bakugou’s waist. He’s never felt this kind of adrenaline before, not even in the alley when they first met. The wind whips against his face and tugs at his clothes, and the street whizzes by underneath his feet in a blur of gray asphalt. Todoroki doesn’t even realize they’re not heading in the right direction until they stop.

“This isn’t Fourth and Main.” Todoroki’s hands shift away as Bakugou puts the Harley in park. “Where are we?”

“Just gotta grab something real quick. Don’t look so scared.” Bakugou pulls off his helmet, his hair somehow pristine underneath. He brushes it out of his face before shooting Todoroki a grin. “Coming?”

He isn’t about to sit out here alone, so he nods hesitantly. “I guess.”

“You’ll have to let go of me, then.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.”

They dismount, Bakugou taking the lead. He uses a key to get into the decrepit brick building they’ve parked in front of—probably his apartment complex, if Todoroki were to wager a guess. It’s covered in graffiti outside, but the interior is normal enough. Todoroki trails Bakugou down the hall to a door on the far end, pausing while he fiddles with the lock. “This damn thing always jams. Fuck. There.”

Todoroki isn’t sure what he’s expecting, but it isn’t this. Bakugou’s apartment is flawless. In fact, it’s cleaner than Todoroki’s dorm. The floors are dark hardwood, the walls are painted a nice shade of orange, and in the windowsill, there’s a neat line of potted succulents. It looks more like a high-rise magazine ad than a lived-in space.

“Fuck, where did I put it?” Bakugou digs noisily through a stack of papers on the coffee table, disrupting the peace. He certainly contrasts sharply to his apartment with his spiked hair, scowl, and ear piercings. And his attitude, of course. “Ah, fuck. Here it is.” He pulls something out of the pile with finality, sliding dislodged papers under the table with his foot.

It’s a textbook. Todoroki recognizes it from a class his sister took. “Advanced Biochemistry? You take that course?”

“Don’t look so surprised, asshole.” Bakugou ushers him out the door, locking it behind them. “Just because I swear and look intimidating doesn’t mean I’m a fucking moron.”

“I never thought you were.” Todoroki waits to be passed a motorcycle helmet before saying anything else. “How’s your stomach doing?”

“Huh? It’s fine. I’ve been hurt way worse than this. More importantly…” Bakugou smirks in a worrying and heart-stopping way. “What time does your class get out? I’ll pick you up.”

Todoroki shouldn’t tell him. He’s been thinking he shouldn’t do a lot of things recently. Unfortunately, he never takes his own advice. “Ten thirty. Don’t be late.”

***

Seeing him becomes a habit. Every time Todoroki gets out of class, Bakugou is there, leaning against his motorcycle with a smirk and a wave. When exactly they started spending so much time together is a mystery, but Todoroki can no longer remember the time when he walked home alone. When he was alone, period.

He asks Bakugou about it while he’s sitting on his spotless white sofa, eating take-out soba. “When did we become friends?”

“Huh?” Bakugou looks up from his chemistry textbook with a scoff. “Why the fuck are you asking that? I dunno.”

“Well, it was after you started harassing me all the time,” Todoroki continues with a frown. “Following me around on your motorcycle, calling me to patch you up after a fight—”

“That was one fucking time!” Bakugou interrupts, throwing a packet of soy sauce at Todoroki’s head. “Are you trying to piss me off, bastard? I swear I’ll make you walk home.”

“I’m only kidding. I like being friends with you.” Todoroki finishes his noodles and smacks the back of Bakugou’s head on his way to the kitchen. “I’d patch you up again if you asked me. It’s good practice for med school.”

“Asshole.” Bakugou rubs his head irritably. “Fuck, did you know that you give off mixed signals? God damn.”

Todoroki doesn’t answer. ‘Mixed signals’? Ha. If anything, Bakugou is the one who gives them off. He follows Todoroki everywhere, and he’s constantly flirting with him, but that’s as far as it goes. He still swears an ungodly amount, is the exact opposite of considerate, and has the crudest sense of humor in the world. It’s impossible to believe that he fell in love with a person like that.

Yes, unfortunately: he did fall in love. With Bakugou Katsuki, of all people. It’s a rather unfortunate turn of events, mainly because Todoroki finds himself worrying about Bakugou more than he worries about himself. He’s more conscious of him, too: he can’t help it. Even now, he’s studying the blond out of the corner of his eye. He’s been holding his arm awkwardly all day.

“Did you get in another fight?” Todoroki finishes washing his noodle bowl and turns a scrutinizing gaze on Bakugou, who flinches.

“…What gives you that idea?”

“You just confirmed it.” Todoroki narrows his eyes, and Bakugou’s widen. He leaps to his feet like a startled cat, putting the couch between them as a protective barrier.

“You stay the fuck away from—“ Todoroki jumps at him before he can finish the sentence, vaulting the couch in a single movement. Bakugou screeches and barely dodges him, sprinting around the coffee table. “You fucking psycho! Don’t do this again!”

“Let me see your arm, then!” Todoroki picks up a magazine and nails him in the back with it. Bakugou stumbles, his socked feet slipping on the hardwood floor. Todoroki takes the opportunity to grab his shirt collar, yanking him onto the couch in a headlock. He pulls up Bakugou’s left sleeve, revealing a long bloodied bandage covering his arm. “I knew it… When did you get this?”

Bakugou, sulking over the lost struggle, lets out a heavy breath. “Last night, after I dropped you off.” He glares out the window. “There was a guy outside. He said some shit, and we got into it. I’m fine.”

“Let me see it.” Todoroki relaxes his grip and Bakugou slides onto the floor, but he doesn’t run away. He surrenders his arm to Todoroki, grumbling irritably the whole time he unwraps it. It’s bad, to say the least, but at least it doesn’t look infected. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

Todoroki already knows the answer: Bakugou thinks they belong to different worlds. He keeps Todoroki out of trouble, even if it means being a reckless idiot. It makes him so angry that he wants to scream. But he settles on leaving, instead. He lets Bakugou go and grabs his bag. “I have to go.”

“Wait. It’s late. I’ll drive you—“

Todoroki slams the door, cutting him off. So what if it’s late? He’d rather walk alone in the pitch black than risk saying things he’ll regret later.

He really needs to get a handle on these feelings, before they get out of hand.

***

He really should’ve let Bakugou drive him home. If he had, the idiot would’ve stayed out of trouble. When Todoroki gets a text with three words and a location ping before dawn, he already knows it’s bad news.

from: blond moron at 4:32 AM.

>> i need you

>> blond moron sent his location

Todoroki stumbles around pulling on clothes in the dark. His heart is hammering so loudly in his ears that he can’t even hear himself breathing. The location is an alleyway a few blocks away. That can’t be good. What the hell has Bakugou gotten himself into this time?

By the time he arrives, Todoroki has been through every worst-case scenario. But nothing could have prepared him for this. Bakugou, unconscious in a pool of blood. Three guys surrounding him, one of them with Bakugou’s cellphone in his hand. They’re gang members: he recognizes them from around town. Oh god. And as if things couldn’t get any worse, Todoroki was in such a hurry that he didn’t bring his phone or a weapon. Basically, he’s screwed.

“What’s going on here?” At least he can keep the tremor out of his voice.

One of the gang members scoffs. “Fuck. This is who this asshole saved as ‘angel’? I thought it’d be a chick.”

Todoroki shifts nervously, realizing what their intentions must be. Panic rises in his chest, but he shoves it down. Fight or flight is a natural response. He can ignore it if he tries. “You… You should get out of here before I call the police.” Hopefully, the bluff is believable.

The group of guys ignores him. “Even if he’s not a girl, he’s got a pretty face,” one says, giving Todoroki a creepy once-over. “Shame about that scar, but the rest of him could get me off.”

Todoroki is so offended that he almost scoffs. Why the hell didn’t he bring his phone? God, he’ll never yell at Bakugou for calling him stupid ever again… But what’s important right now is getting them both safely out of this situation. There won’t be people out on the street so late at night, so helpful bystander intervention is out. Todoroki is all alone on this one.

The gang members seem to have reached a consensus. They drop Bakugou’s phone and circle him, smirking and heckling. He figures he’s got two options: run or beat them up. Maybe fight or flight isn’t easy to ignore, after all.

“If you don’t put up a fight, this’ll all be much easier,” one of the men says, slowly inching closer, like a lion circling its prey.

Todoroki takes a page from Bakugou’s book. “Fuck you.”

Making them angry will make them clumsy.

Probably.

***

“Do you want to explain to me how you got these injuries?”

Todoroki shifts in his hospital bed, avoiding the officer’s gaze. “Not really?”

“What about the gentleman you came in with?” A pencil taps impatiently against a pad of paper. “Did you two get into some type of altercation?”

“No. I told you, he’s my friend.” Todoroki scratches the bandage on his head nervously. “The two of us were mugged by those three men. Unprovoked.”

“Uh-huh.” The pencil stops tapping, and the officer sighs. “Alright, then. I’ll go talk to those three and see what information I can get. If you’d like to change your statement at any time, I’ll be here.”

As soon as he’s gone, Todoroki sags against his pillows. He still can’t believe they actually escaped. He got lucky, that’s for sure. That wrench he found probably saved both of their lives. His, most definitely, even if it didn’t save all of him. He’s got a nasty gash on his head, dark bruises around his neck, and scratch-marks all over his chest and back.

Bakugou is pretty banged up, too, but not as badly. He’s only got a minor concussion and a nasty cut on his torso. Just when that stab wound was starting to scar over, too.

“Todoroki-san?” A nurse knocks and sticks her head in through the open door. “Are you up for a visitor?”

“A visitor?” Todoroki’s heart leaps. It must be him. “Sure.”

Bakugou appears in the gap the nurse vacates, holding onto an IV pole with one hand. He’s ditched his hospital gown for a loose cotton shirt and jeans, most definitely against medical orders. “…Hey.”

“Hey.” Todoroki waits for him to sit down before sitting up. “Are you allowed to be walking around?”

“Not really.” Bakugou looks at him, and Todoroki is shocked to see tears slip down his face. He’s never seen him cry. Never. “You’re a fucking idiot.” The swearing isn’t new, though.

“I know. I’m sorry.” Todoroki presses his fingertips together, then relaxes them again. “It’s not like the situation was avoidable,” he murmurs eventually. “They texted me pretending to be you. I couldn’t just ignore it. And if I hadn’t come—”

Bakugou slams a fist into the wall, startling Todoroki into silence. “If you hadn’t come, those motherfuckers wouldn’t have—” He takes a measured breath before continuing. “They told me what those bastards tried to do. I was so pissed, I wanted to punch myself. If I wasn’t an idiot who got into fights in the first place, you wouldn’t have had to go through that shit. It’s my fault.”

“I’m fine,” Todoroki tells him quietly. “They barely touched—” He trails off when Bakugou’s fingertips brush against the bruises at his throat. He expects to feel a jolt of suppressed trauma, but there’s nothing more than a lump building in his throat. “Bakugou, I’m really…”

“You’re not fine.” He runs a hand through his hair without meeting Todoroki’s eyes. “Fuck. I can’t…” He flinches when Todoroki takes his hand.

“I know you think I can’t handle myself. And don’t try to argue: I know it’s true, too. But I can. I took care of us both this time.” He squeezes Bakugou’s hand. “I’m strong, too. Even if I don’t look as intimidating as you do.” He tries to smile. “This didn’t scare me. Not in the least.”

For a while, they linger in silence. Then Bakugou sighs, pressing their joined hands to his forehead. “Yeah,” he relents, “I know you’re strong. It’s part of the reason I like you so damn much.”

If he didn’t know any better, Todoroki would think he‘s dreaming. But his head throbs too much for him to be asleep. “What did you say?”

“I like you.” Bakugou doesn’t let go of his hand. “But you knew that, right? I didn’t mean to take so long to tell you. I guess I didn’t want to make myself seem less cool in your eyes? Don’t laugh. I know it sounds fucking stupid now.”

“This is kind of… the worst timing for a confession,” Todoroki mutters, but he can feel himself smiling. “I have a concussion.”

“What? Why does that matter?”

“I just really don’t want to forget this.”

“Really?” Bakugou snorts. “Idiot… Don’t worry. I won’t let you forget it.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?” Todoroki raises an eyebrow, and Bakugou’s smile stretches against his fingers.

“Definitely a promise.”

#wow this was actually so much fun #ugh #y'all gettin' me with these good prompts #wth #calla.txt #answered asks #todobaku

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hazelandglasz · 4 years

Text

The Badger and The Snake On Their Own Team

A Good Omens Holiday Swap dedicated to @kaiisen, I hope you enjoy it!!

Where Prefect Aziraphale has a lot on his hands with one particularly rowdy Hufflepuff, while Head Boy Gabriel and Head Person Belzeebub take bets.

Available on AO3

Aziraphale doesn’t often use the infirmary, but he can feel a headache building up.

“Would you care to explain how exactly did you manage to do … that?”

Crowley stands where he is, arms crossed behind his back and still managing to look like he’s posing for “Witches Weekly”.

“I didn’t do a single thing, Prefect,” Crowley replies, pushing back his glasses on top of his nose.

“No, no, of course not,” Aziraphale says, standing in a huff and walking around the other student. “No, what was I thinking? Of course, you are not responsible for all the plants in the greenhouse suddenly refusing to be cut for potions!”

A small smile appears on Crowley’s face. “So that’s the whole hubbub.”

Aziraphale stops to glare at him. Were it anybody else, Crowley would probably crumble under the weight of that look. As it is, he merely raises an eyebrow at Aziraphale.

“Yes, dear, that’s the whole hubbub, as you put it.”

“And tell me,” Crowley says, lowering his voice, “oh great Slytherin prefect, who made it so I could enter the greenhouse and convince the plants to indulge in some rebellion, hm?”

Aziraphale straightens up, arranging his tie. “I don’t have the slightest idea.”

“Thought so.”

“I suppose I don’t have any proof that you did anything wrong.”

“My hands are clean, honest!”

“Don’t push it.”

“No, Sir, Aziraphale, Sir.”

“Get out of here.”

“Astronomy tower, after dinner.”

Aziraphale allows himself a smile. “Where else would I be?”

Crowley beams at him before running out of the Prefect room, yellow and black robes flying in the wind.

Aziraphale shakes his head. Whatever is he going to do with the impossible boy?

“How did it go?”

“Ah!”

Aziraphale nearly falls off his chair in his shock at hearing the Head boy’s voice coming through their joined door.

“Did I scare you?” Gabriel says with a smirk, entering the room. “Were you doing something against the rules?”

“Me? No, no, you know me, Gabriel,” Aziraphale replies, composing himself. “Never a toe over the line, all rules and no foolery, that’s me.”

“Right.”

“Did you, um,” Aziraphale offers Gabriel his most angelic face, “did you want something?”

“Just to see how your side of the investigation on the greenhouse was going,” Gabriel says, looking at his cuticles. “We wouldn’t want the teachers to get involved, would we?”

“Oh, um. No. Certainly not. That would be disastrous indeed.”

“Apocalyptic, even,” the Head Person’s drawl resonates from their office behind Gabriel.

“Ah, Beelzebub, hi. Quite, yes.”

“The other prefects are scouring the school, trying to figure out who enchanted the plants. We hope you do your part, too, Aziraphale.”

“You can count on me. I’m on it. Absolutely tickety boo.”

Gabriel rolls his eyes before returning to his shared Head office.

Aziraphale lets himself drop in his chair with a sigh. So. Much. Pressure.

“Newie?”

A house-elf appears in front of him. “Master Aziraphale, what can Newie do for you today?”

“If it’s not too much to ask so close to dinner,” Aziraphale asks with a smile, “could you bring me a little brioche to nibble on?”

“With a cup of cocoa, Sir?”

“That would be lovely, thank you.”

“How many times does Newie need to tell you not to thank Newie? It’s insulting.”

“Sorry, sorry. Hard habit to break.”

The elf shakes his head, snapping his fingers. He disappears and then reappears, carrying a golden brioche and a large mug of cocoa.

“Th--That will be all, Newie. See you later.”

“Yes, Master Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale checks the doors for no more intrusion before settling in his chair, his copy of the “Guide to Advanced Transfiguration” opened on his lap.

Now this is how he was supposed to spend his Saturday afternoon.

~~~~

Crowley doesn’t immediately return to the Hufflepuff common room.

He should, he knows, but he wants to pay someone a little visit first.

“Oh, Hastur,” he singsongs as he enters the Ravenclaw common room.

“Crowley,” the younger boy sneers. “How did you get in here?”

“That riddle was ridiculously easy to solve,” Crowley replies, sprawling himself over an armchair. “You should tell your door to make it a real challenge.”

“In case you forgot, first years need to be able to open it.”

“Like you care about the munchkins.”

“You’re right, I don’t. But the principle stands.”

“Riight. ‘Cause you’re so big on principles.”

“I am. Now, can you tell me why you’re here?”

“To get the fruits of our bet.”

Hastur straightens up, putting his quill aside. “Our--our bet?”

“Yep.”

“You did it?”

“Yep.”

“You found a way to stop the Potion class without touching the cauldrons?”

Crowley takes Hastur’s quill and transfigures it into a lollipop. “Yep.”

“How? Did you,” Hastur leans forward, looking far too excited for what comes out of his mouth next, “did you curse the Potion Master?”

“What? No! I convinced the plants to fight against being cut. No plants, no potion ingredients, no potions.”

“That’s not really dark magic.”

“That wasn’t in the bet.”

Hastur groans before sighing. “Fine, fine, you won. Here you go.” Hastur takes his parchment and snaps his fingers. His homework turns into an order form he immediately fills in. “A year subscription for chocolate frogs?”

Crowley stands, hands in his pockets immediately as he saunters out of the room. “Yep.”

~~~

Dinner is far too slow for Aziraphale’s taste, and that is saying something, since it’s one of his favorite moments in the castle.

But still, slow. Too slow for his taste. Aziraphale has half a mind to use his Time-Turner forward.

“Now that we all enjoyed this feast, an announcement,” the Headmaster says. “Until a different announcement, the greenhouse is absolutely forbidden to all students. Your Herbology teacher is in the midst of negotiating an agreement with the plants to get the proper ingredients needed for the potions classes. Until then, well, Potion and Herbology will be replaced by study hours in each common room. We trust the prefects and older students to help the younger ones.”

Aziraphale groans, because he has no intention of staying in the common room with a bunch of noisy first years, but everybody will expect him to do so because he has the badge on his chest.

But one glance across the table is enough for him to drop his head to his chest: Gabriel’s meaningful glare leaves no room for loopholes and arrangements.

A small note slithers up to him.

“Don’t worry, angel, you can hang out with me for those periods. A.C.”

Aziraphale folds the note in his hand and looks across the table to the Hufflepuff one, where Crowley doesn’t look in his direction. Still, Aziraphale knows that Crowley knows, because he tilts his glass in the Slytherin table’s direction as if toasting something.

The time they will get to hang out, experience on spells and take advantage of the kitchen proximity, for starters.

Aziraphale smiles to himself, lifting his own glass.

He can’t be sure, of course, given the sunglasses on Crowley’s nose and the distance, but he’s certain that Crowley smiles back.

~~~

The Astronomy Tower is many things: ancient, perfectly organized for observing the night skies, high (oh so high) but most nights, it’s not a place of learning; it’s Hogwarts Smooch Spot central.

Which is absolutely not why Crowley and Aziraphale meet there every other night.

Absolutely not.

(Too cold for either of them to stand sitting on the stony ground. Nope. They like their comfort, thank you very much.)

No, they choose to meet at the top of the tower because of the one subject they both love above all else.

Astronomy.

Crowley likes to watch the moves of stars, bringing in Muggle observations of Space to get one more dimension of studies.

Aziraphale likes to look at their patterns, not really caring about the scientific sides of it but loving to bring Mythology and Magic History into it, because astronomy does spell the past from which astrology extracts the future.

So they spend far too long in a corner of the Tower--the one most exposed to the Scottish winds, because of its relative state of abandon--, looking at the stars and drawing their own conclusion.

At first, they would bring thermos of hot cocoa or tea, but ever since the end of their sixth year, the two boys may have decided to spike their drinks.

For example, tonight, Aziraphale brought a blend of chamomille tea and firewhisky.

What can he say, he likes to experiment.

When Crowley successfully registered as an animagus, they celebrated with a bottle of wine.

Long story short, not much observation was done that particular night, though Aziraphale is sure that they discovered a new constellation.

It may have been shaped like Crowley’s animagus form, but hasn’t everyone heard of a snake-shaped constellation?

Unbeknownst to them, their astronomy nights have attracted some people’s attention.

Namely, the two head students.

See, Gabriel and Beelzebub started coming to the Astronomy tower long before they were nominated Head Boy and Head Person.

And not to look at the stars.

But ever since Aziraphale and Crowley have started coming up on the Tower after dinner, the two older students find themselves very interested in observing them.

Just as Aziraphale and Crowley always bring drinks with them to keep warm during their observations, Gabriel and Beelzebub always bring snacks to munch on while studying them.

It’s not just innocent observation really. Ever since they started their little spying, Gabriel and Beelzebub have taken a bet.

How long will it take either of these morons to realize that the bond between them goes far beyond friendship and act upon that realization.

Which one will have the first epiphany about their own feelings.

Or about the way the other feels.

(Of course, their bet is rigged from the start and they don’t even know it; both Crowley and Aziraphale already know how they feel.

They’re, however, fairly oblivious to the way the other feels; that much is worthy of a bet for certain.)

“They’re drunk,” Beelzebub chuckles, their mouth full of pumpkin pasties.

“Are you drunk?”

“Maybe.” Beelzebub shrugs. “It’s cold, and the alcohol keeps me warm.”

“I could keep you warm.”

“You could, and yet you don’t. What are you thinking, Gabe?”

Gabriel sighs, taking his scarf off and wrapping it around Beelzebub. Their size difference makes the scarf really big on the Gryffindor, but Gabriel thinks they look adorable in green and silver.

He says so, and earns himself a mighty punch to the arm.

“Ouch.”

“I am not adorable,” Beelzebub hisses.

“No, of course not, sorry.” Gabriel pulls them against him. “You’re my enemy,” he says, pressing a kiss to their lips, “and I hate you.”

“Better,” Beelzebub mutters before wrapping their arms around his neck to pull him into a deeper kiss.

On the other side of the Tower, Aziraphale and Crowley share a look of awkward disgust at seeing the older students in such an embrace.

“Eugh.”

“You owe me fifteen sickles.”

“And you owe me my sanity back.”

“Call it even?”

“Deal.”

~~~

After two weeks, the plants do agree to let the Herbology teacher and few, selected students to cut what is needed for the potion classes, in exchange of a stroll in the natural sunlight every other day and a nourishment of Bordeaux and cognac.

Who knew magical plants had an alcoholic tendency?

“Crowley, not now.”

Crowley snaps his mouth shut, privately gloating about the fact the he knew that the plants in the greenhouse wanted to be fed something else than rainwater, that it was his whole theory since Third year--well, his conclusion after talking with them rather than a theory, but it’s not like he’s going to divulge this particular ability to anyone, is he now.

“Apocalypse averted, then,” Aziraphale tells him during one of their strolls around the lake, one of the plants happily sitting in a wheelbarrow they are moving forward with their wands.

“For now,” Crowley replies with a smile. “Until the next one.”

“Please, dear boy, don’t be the reason for that next one.”

“Me? I would never, angel.”

Aziraphale rolls his eyes at the nickname, his free hand reaching up to pet his nearly white curls.

The very reason for that nickname, back when they met at King’s Cross.

~~Seven years ago~~

“I hope I did the right thing,” Aziraphale mutters to himself after managing to turn a piece of paper into an apple for the starving girl at the station.

“Where is your train ticket?”

A soft voice pulls him from his thoughts. The boy must have his age, dressed in unmarked robes. His eyes are a remarkable amber shade, close to gold.

“Uh?”

“Your train ticket,” he repeats, lifting up his own ticket.

Aziraphale goes to take it from his pocket and that’s when he realizes that the piece of paper he used was, in fact, his train ticket.

“I gave it away.”

“You whaaat?”

“I gave it away!” he cries out. “I didn’t mean to but she needed it and--oh dear Merlin, what am I going to do?”

The boy looks at him with a small smile before tapping his own ticket with his wand. The ticket splits into two tickets, one of which he holds up for Aziraphale.

“I’m Crowley.”

“Oh. Um. Thank you. I’m Aziraphale.”

“Are you an angel?”

“Sorry, what?”

Crowley points at his hair. With the light coming down from the enchanted ceiling, Aziraphale golden curls do look whiter than usual.

“Oh. No. No, I’m not a, an angel. Just … me.”

Crowley’s smile widens. “You still look like an angel to me.”

~~Back to the present~~

“You’re never going to let that nickname die, are you?”

“Why would I?” Crowley says, bumping into Aziraphale. “You still look like an angel to me.”

“Even though I’m a Slytherin?”

Crowley snorts. “You try to act like you’re holier than thou, but the Magic Hat saw though that, Angel. You’re just enough of an ambitious bastard to belong in that house.”

“And what does that say about you, uh? Trying to act all blasé and edgy, but you are a Hufflepuff. Deep down, that means that you’re n--”

“Don’t use that four letter word, please.”

“Okay.” Aziraphale holds his hands up in surrender. “But still. At heart, you are just a little bit of a good person.”

Crowley opens his mouth and shuts it. “I suppose.”

“I wouldn’t have you be any other way, you know?”

Crowley glances at Aziraphale. There is a faint blush covering his cheeks, and his smile is … shy? Could it be?

“No?” he teases, trying to cover the way his heart is accelerating in his chest. “You wouldn’t want me to be, I dunno, stronger? A Slytherin? Less of a troublemaker, perhaps?”

Aziraphale laughs at that. “Now, that would be a great relief, yes,” he replies. “But I think that would be too much to ask.”

“You’re probably right.”

“Besides, it’s not exactly troublemaking,” Aziraphale continues. “You’re simply … questioning the way things have been done for centuries, and it all snowballs from there.”

“Exactly. What is wrong with a few questions?”

“A few? Nothing. Everything? Can be a problem.”

Crowley laughs. “Can be fun though.”

“A lot of fun.”

They pause and look at each other.

And burst out laughing, pausing the wheelbarrow to gather their breaths.

(The plant doesn’t mind. They’re by the lake, the Sun is shining, birds are singing in the branches, the Giant Squid is playing with the students brave enough to try and swim.

All is good on the Hogwarts grounds, for now, and the Plant is determined to take advantage of it.)

They stop laughing, breathless and rosy-cheeked.

“Aziraphale?”

“Yes, ha--yes, my dear?”

“I wouldn’t have you any other way either.”

Crowley’s voice is soft when he says those words, and that’s enough for Aziraphale to stop laughing and consider him.

“You--you wouldn’t?”

“No. To me, you’re--,” Crowley gulps and seems to strengthen himself. “You’re perfect, just the way you are.”

“Not--not stronger, or slimmer, or--”

“No! Don’t ever dare to change, Aziraphale.” Crowley takes the step separating them. “Everything about you, from your cunning to your sense of style to your taste for sweets, everything is just … perfect.”

Aziraphale is at loss for words, and his heart is obviously trying to escape to dive into the lake.

“Angel?”

“Crow-Crowley, I--that is to say, I--”

“Yes?”

“Ditto.”

“Ditto?”

Aziraphale rolls his eyes and pulls Crowley in for a deep, rough kiss. “Don’t make big declarations and then expect me to manage words, okay?”

Crowley is quiet, dizzy from the kiss.

All he can do is pull Aziraphale back in.

(The plant really doesn’t mind being forgotten. It has kind of voyeuristic tendencies, to the inconvenience of its brethren in the greenhouse. Humans are so much more interesting.)

#good omens holidays swap #sometimes i write #good omens au #hogwarts au #ineffable husbands #ineffable bureaucracy #hufflepuff!crowley #slytherin!aziraphale #slytherin!gabriel #gryffindor!beelzebub #fluff

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tooruthegreat · 5 years

Text

— OO1.

@hajimethewild

the chirps of the birds and hassle of the leaves against the wind were his most constant companionship as he kept long legs going forward. where forward was precisely, though, tooru didn’t know anymore. still, he had silver and gold coins on his pockets to keep him fed and somedays warm beds at night to be safe, a bow at his back that he knew fairly well how to use and freedom. he had decided, you see, to leave all the expectations and a new war behind. he could live his life, not worry, go around the lot of middle earth and just be... or so he was trying to convince himself.

the shire. right, that’s where he was going. he had always wanted to go there, to see actual hobbits, to know more about the stories going around the land and maybe settle with the people that lived there, because really, they had pretty comfortable, unbothered lives so what did he have to lose? the problem was, now he wasn’t that much alone anymore. he noticed too late, despite having sharper senses than a normal human being, that there were too many and too little sounds around him at the same time.

the glade he had chosen to rest for a moment and eat was suddenly still, devoided of life for the presence coming from behind his surroundings didn’t intend any good. he pretended not to care or notice, however, and kept on collecting his things, putting out the fire, collecting his utensils as his slightly pointy ears captured all they could. a faint crack of a foot stepping over a little twig, the clatter of metal slowly sliding over leather as a sword was being taken off a holster probably, sharp inhales of three different man coming from three different directions. he grabbed his bow without much of a thought, motions elegant and swift as a grin settled upon his lips and he thought that yes, he could handle this fine enough.

the first arrow cut through the wind as he hit the first target, a short scream travelling with the air and making birds fly away as the brunette quickly slid with his knees against the grass, not giving space or time for the angry looking strong man that was now on his foot behind the bush to react as he shot him across his left shoulder and watched him get to his kness in pain. his heart was a drum against his ribcages, blood pumping strongly at his veins, certainty and instinct made him dodge a knife being thrown at his direction from his back. and even though he was capable to shoot once more and get the man that was already running with another knife coming for him, even though the bastard was soon squirming at the floor with an arrow piercing his ear, tooru missed someone and now he had a knife at his throat.

it was the first man he shot, he was sure of it because of the smell of blood that clang to the hand brushing at the nape of his neck and because there was an arrow at his right shoulder, but he was built more strongly than the others. soon tooru realized that the guy probably aways smelled like that, wounded or not. he just smelled like death. “ — you filthy half-blood, you are gonna pay for this!” he growled at his ear, breathe smelling like something putrid and honestly, tooru didn’t doubt he would try to make him pay. the second guy was dead, and it was with a hurtful yelp that the third freed himself after pushing the arrow away of his ear, loosing a chunk of it, a mean, round face all shades of angry as he held his fat hand agains the bleeding. “ — you fucked my ear!” he whined, and tooru grimaced at this, seeming to consider the accusation for a second.

“ — well, you were trying to steal from me, so only fair.” he said, feeling the knife against his neck press more veemently at the soft and thin skin of his neck, enough for a fine line of blood to come down the pale skin as the man behind him yanked at his hair and tooru held his hands out, bow falling to the ground as he tried to analyse the situation. “ — ouch, careful there! it’s not like he was less ugly with an entire ear, both of you are fairly horrible regardless and i hear women find scars attractive. maybe you can get a bunch of them and make up for your bad features.”

it was moronic, he knew that very well, but there was a knife at his ankle and he was so close to be able to grab it. he just needed to distract them enough to have a chance and it would all be fine. obviously easier said than done, due a new and violent yank of his hair that made a sharp characteristical pain travel his body as his scalp burnt and tooru groaned — so maybe he was a bit more fucked than he would like this time. “ — let’s see if you’ll talk that much when you are dead!”

tooru’s blood went cold. he didn’t really think he was gonna die, but even though he pushed his body with some force to the side to get free of the hold the other had on him he knew he wouldn’t come out of this without a scratch. but something weird happened, because the man holding him was soon on his knees and there was someone else at his back now, pushing a sword coloured with blood from the insides of the other guy’s belly, blood dripping to the grass as he waved it to the side and looked above his shoulder — if the guy with a missing piece of his ear was coming for them before, now he was running away infuriated and well, he couldn’t quite blame him.

hajime’s face was looking uglier than ever scrunched up and mad like that, a wave of annoyance hitting tooru like a brick. “ — are you following me? i know my face is so pleasant and angelic bards could create odes to it, but you said yourself that this — ” he gestured with his finger between them, posture relaxing for this was the second time he was seeing the knight and the second time the spike-haired man was mendling (no, not saving, tooru could have handled it, okay?) on his business. “ — wouldn’t work out. do i make your blood run faster, hajime? is this why you can’t leave me be?”

the grin over the half-elf’s brims was nothing but presumptious and sly and someone would probably cut off his tongue one day, but he was certain it wouldn’t be the knight. he just couldn’t help himself around him, wanting to rile him up every time their eyes met.

#thread — OO1.

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headlineawards · 6 years

Text

2018 Headline Winners [Fic Awards, Giles]

Giles Fiction Awards

The Watcher Watch Award [Best gen., Giles]

Winner - Second Sight by Il_mio_capitano “A wonderful story that grips you right from the start and doesn't let you go until you've read it all. Delightfully sarcastic humour paired with an original and suspenseful plot, what's not to like? But even more praiseworthy are the outstandingly three-dimensional characters. There's Randall - hilarious, irresponsible, infuriating, inventive, a loyal friend and an absolute moron, he practically jumps out of the page straight away. There's Giles' dad, not simply grumpy but with so many nuances and unobtrusively scattered background information, he too feels like a complete and real person. His obsession with the exact time sort of bookends the story instead of just being a random meaningless quirk. And, of course, Giles' glorious grandmother, obviously the source of the family sarcasm and such a force of nature despite her blindness - which is in itself another example of the endless richness of details in this exceptional work. Amazing.”

Runner-up - The Uxbridge English Dictionary by DHW “The Uxbridge English Dictionary affectionately captures the Season 3 Giles/Wesley rivalry in all of its obnoxious glory. Wesley’s pompous interior monologue is perfectly rendered in his battle of wits with Giles. It’s a delight to see Giles’ playful side come out in the course of the game, only to be met with unexpected comeuppance.”

The Twosome of Cuteness Award [Best romance, Giles]

Winner - Believe it Or Not (The Courtship of Rupert Giles Remix) by Thecarlysutra “What made Rupert different than Wesley? We know Rupert left home and took up with a bad crowd, but what was the impetus? Thecarlysutra's ‘Believe It or Not (The Courtship of Rupert Giles remix)’ gives us a convincing answer. We're impressed by the slow transformation of Rupert's character, from a boy excited to study the Slayer close up who, as Veronique notes is “not to me like the type that gets in trouble” to a kid who's willing to take actions that might get him into trouble with his father, and finally ending up as a young man who punches the Council leader before walking out the door. Veronique turned him into a man; the Council, by killing their Slayer, made him into Ripper. That's really well done and we can see it happening that way. The characterizations are excellent. The Council ignore Veronique but she's obviously thinking for herself right from the start. Her first words dress down the head of the Council for calling her Veronica rather than Veronique. What we found most impressive were the differing worldviews. The Council sees Slayers as temporary, like milk or fruit. Veronique describes herself as something that might not last long but improves with age, as cheese and wine. Rupert fears her impermanence and denies it. When his father confronts him, saying he'll be a widower before twenty, we see the first hints of Ripper's rage: “Rupert could feel the rage pumping through his veins, spreading through his body like disease. His hands shook.” Rupert, changing, is caught halfway between her viewpoint and the Council's but, lacking her fear of loss, is caught up in rage. Wow! We also adore the descriptions, particularly of the first sword fight between Rupert and Veronique. How his style, more like logic than fighting, is no match for Veronique who “began like a flamenco dancer, her body curving, drawing into the air, spinning away. Her bare feet were soundless on the teak floors, and the gauzy material of her dress blurred the silhouette of her body; it was like fighting a ghost.” That's an amazing description and we can see where Ripper got his fighting skills from. Veronique's time may have been short but she changed Rupert, as a fighter, as a lover, as a human.”

Runner-up - Kids Today by Quaggy “We adore how the feelings that Buffy and Giles share for each other are revealed slowly but lead inevitably to the ending. At the start, we learn that Buffy had been made younger, taken back to a pre-Slayer age, in the middle of a battle. Giles, thinking she was dying, had been first to her side and she'd calmed when she saw him before passing out. Giles had been so devastated by the thought that he'd seen her third and final death that he'd killed everyone who'd had a part in it, but Buffy hadn't died. Giles cares so much that he leaves the details of giving Buffy a new identity to the rest of the Scoobies so that he can remain at Buffy's side while she's in the hospital. He brings her daisies and reads from her favorite books. Buffy's comment that Anne wouldn't have thought Cordelia was such a romantic name if she'd met their Cordy is a lovely detail as is the idea that the Scythe reinstates Buffy's Slayer powers, allowing her to heal from a death wound. The Scoobies are surprised when Buffy asserts herself, saying that Giles has to be at high-school with her – for training purposes of course – but Giles thinks he's put himself at a disadvantage by showing Buffy that he's her most loyal ally. In fact, he's shown her that he cares and to be by Buffy's side is not a disadvantage at all. He's thrilled that she wants him there. What a sweet story.”

The Good Squirm Award [Best smut, Giles]

Winner - Crossing Lines by Littleotter73 “Buffy and Giles are both perfectly characterized in ‘Crossing Lines’. It is extremely well written from beginning to end, starting off with a power struggle between the two of them as partners in the office. It isn't long before a bold move by Buffy leads to a discovery of their mutual desires to be partners outside of the office as well, leading to a steamy office hook up. At the conclusion they find a resolution both personally and professionally, solidifying their relationship.”

Runner-up - Confluence by DHW “There's a lot going on in this part of the "Sanctuary" series! We get of course a sizzling D/s scene, in which Giles proves once more that he's the world's classiest Dom. But we also see a very different kind of sex - without rules and without hiding behind their made-up names it's new and strange for both Buffy and Giles, but no less enjoyable for the reader. The characters' voices are especially well written. Their banter is delightful and feels just really "them". Conflict sneaks in when Giles, typically, resolves that Buffy would be much better off without him, but she's having none of it. The dispute culminates in a powerful scene in which Giles literally strips (and metaphorically too), displaying a heartbreaking mix of vulnerability and defiance. So good!! We can't wait until the last part of this captivating series is out.”

The Dark Age Award [Best dark, Giles]

Winner - All Set Down by Destoto-hia873 “We are thrilled to give the award to Destoto-hia873 for ‘All Set Down’. This story is amazing. First, the mislead works incredibly well. You think you're reading about things you already know, just embellished with more details and more insight than the series offered, and that would have been a great fic in itself, but then the subtle hints that something's different, something gone even more wrong than in canon can no longer be ignored and suddenly this is no longer simply sad but alarming. Second, the build-up of suspense works well. Alternating the scenes between past and present is a brilliant move. It allows the story to drop small clues, Giles' actions after the event, and keep the reveal of what went before until the next to last scene. For example, Giles is covered in her blood, which isn't canon. Washing his “reddened hands” can't help but bring up shades of Lady Macbeth suggesting guilt. Giles hanging crucifixes and performing the uninvite spell is a fascinating clue. Obviously, he's keeping out both Angel and Spike, but we know that Spike's very protective of Dawn. The pair of caskets might be the most exceptional of the clues. We know someone has died and the clues are there, but we don't want to accept that it's Dawn. Wow! Third, the characterizations are spot on. This is exactly what Giles would have done in this situation. Every thought, every word, every movement, every action, it's all perfectly him. Watching Dawn's growing realization, that Buffy's death has not closed the portal and what must happen next, is heart-wrenching. It's devastating to see her come to the conclusion Giles has already arrived at, especially seeing her bravery and watching Giles be undone by her trust. I cried then.”

Runner-up - Epilogues by DHW “’Epilogues’ is a well-crafted story with a bittersweet heart. The writing style offers a rich background of sounds and smells and descriptions, but in a very natural way that never distracts or stops the flow. We adore how the first and final scenes bookend the story, how the similarity of structure in the language of the two scenes frame the story and highlight the change that has taken place in Giles' life. We love how the facts are uncovered bit by bit by bit, never revealing too much, but never drawing it out for too long either. For example, when we first meet Mr. Edmund Fairweather, there is nothing to tie him to Giles other than the fact that Buffy is happy to see him. In the next scene, the description reminds us of Giles and we're told that the three translators working there, although the same age, are “former students of one era or another” and that Fairweather “has the air of an ever so slightly unkempt Professor, though much too young”. However, it's not until he recognizes Buffy, until he slams his hand on the desk when she starts to say his name, that we're sure he's Giles. It's tough to see Giles depressed and downright suicidal. The night Faith was killed - a truly traumatic experience - appears to be the origin of his mental state, all the clues seem to point towards it, the nightmares, the guilt... So, the shocking reveal that it's actually the other way round, that he felt this way all along and his attempt to end his life was what caused Faith to die in the first place, feels like a kick to the gut. The hints of Giles' attraction to Buffy are fantastic. A fave is when she first comes to his office. He doesn't see anything but her. He misses the tome she's holding until she hands it over. We like how the story plays with the idea of fate. At the start, a quote from Aristotle sums up the author's point: Choice, not chance, determines your destiny. But throughout the story both Giles and Buffy think of their choices as fate. For example, Buffy, thinking of the passage that led her to Giles, assumes it can have only one meaning, that “Giles is to come home, and she is to guide him.” However, her very next thought comes up with another option: “Or, should she fail, he will sink into his new life and forget there ever was a man named Rupert, or a girl named Buffy.” Giles comes up with a third meaning: fate is calling him to his death. Both Buffy and Giles feel as if they're being pulled by fate until after he's suicided, until after she knows what he's been fleeing all those years. And then she makes a new choice, to let him die, at least on paper, so he can finally be free of the Council. But at the end, the prophecy has been fulfilled: Hysminai, the Slayer, guides. Peace follows.”

The Rather British Award [Best characterization, Giles]

Winner - The Need to Believe by Anyjay “Very well written. The author does a fantastic job of portraying Giles's sadness and remorse for not only what was done to Buffy, but for what had happened in the past. Leading to a very touching moment between Giles and Buffy in which they reconcile after the cruciamentum.”

Runner-up - Believe it Or Not (The Courtship of Rupert Giles Remix) by Thecarlysutra “This story is full of love and heartbreak. The author does a fantastic job of getting inside Giles's head as a youth when he meets his father's slayer. It also helps to fill in the gaps as to why Giles chose to disobey the council and interfere with Buffy's cruciamentum.”

The You Were the One I Loved Award [Fan favorite, Giles]

Winner - Second Sight by Il_mio_capitano

Runner-up - Dénouement by Quaggy

#headline awards #Headline winners #Headline winners 2018 #anthony head

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acabloe · 6 years

Text

Soon Goodbye, Now Love: Chapter Two (reposted with important corrections)

chapter one

important A/N: right so I’m reposting this chapter because I apparently don’t proofread enough and I left out like three really pertinent paragraphs so I thought it would be more beneficial if I just reposted the whole thing instead of editing it. You don’t have to re-read it but it might help you understand to the story better. I feel really really bad and guilty about this so I’m working really hard on chapter three! I should have it posted by the end of next week. Sorry again friends:,,,,,>

tw’s: abuse, swearing, depression, mentions of death, anxiety, trauma (motor accident, near death)

still based on this song

Chapter Two: Soon A Painting

Very slowly Beca began to gain more and more consciousness, beginning with a sharp tingling in her feet, fingers, and face. She became aware of the thick and muddy grass beneath her stomach that poked skin uncomfortably and dampened her clothes. Her ribs ached from where she guessed she'd fallen on them. She took a breath in and coughed as she accidentally inhaled dirt.

Attempting to push herself onto her knees, she brought her palms to her side and pressed upwards firmly, elbows and wrists smarting under her weight. Her head throbbed as she parted her eyelids but she forced herself to leave them open to adjust to the light and observe her surroundings. As she scanned the empty field, she struggled to remember how she gotten there. Unsure of how much time had passed while she had been unconscious, she reached into her pocket for her phone. When it wasn't there her movements became more frantic, running her palms over the wet terf and blinking rapidly to attempt to clear her fuzzed vision in the dark. Then suddenly she realized that she didn't even own a phone, and memories flooded her brain like rain after weeks of humid days and packed overcast skies.

Beca and Chloe's relationship had been the at the forefront of both of their existences ever since they first met. They had often teased that Beca's sophomore (Chloe's senior) year of high school was the year they both properly became people. That statement was, for a plethora of reasons, relatively metaphorically true; It was the year when Beca's mother passed away, and her father had left her because the grief had been to much to handle. Her mental health had spiraled, and she became closed off and for the most part unresponsive. Chloe had relocated all the way across the country from her home in Seattle, and had never really shared solid friendship with anyone. She also suffered abuse from her parents for being openly bisexual. As Beca and Chloe grew closer, their relationship became the most fundamental part of their lives. They became so intertwined that absence of the other became like a vitamin deficiency, or a sinkhole in a busy road in need of immediate filling. Least to say they were agreeably the oddest and closest couple of friends to anyone who met them.

Chloe's accident was around a year and a half after the two of them had graduated. She was found eight miles from their home, unconscious on an embankment by the highway after her car had been hit by a drunk driver. Chloe was rushed to the hospital, but by the time they had arrived at the ER, it was too late. She had been hanging on by an already worn thread. Beca went into extreme shock. She spent the most terrifying four hours of her life praying to every higher power she had never thought to believe in until that moment, pleading that somehow she could take Chloe's place and that they could take her instead.

Curiously enough, her requests were immediately taken into effect. Apparently, Beca Mitchel was an exception to the laws of prayer in most religions.

Beca's memory after her prayers were different, just as clear as her memories beforehand but oddly as if what she experienced after that moment lasted several years longer than it should have. She remembered stepping outside the hospital, and then the sudden gap of black. She woke in front of a giant grey building and after ascending the huge marble steps, she'd walked down the alpine-ceilinged hall lined with black and white tiled flooring and rows of flanking dark wooden desks.

She remembered chuckling softly to herself upon thinking of how it had looked like the magical bank from Harry Potter, only without the goblins or flying papers. Sat at the tallest desk at the end of the hall she'd assumed was the head guardian angel. He explained everything about her trade for Chloe's life and about the payment for her actions by becoming a guardian angel for an infinitude in the Higher City, the city's given name. It was not in heaven exactly, but certainly above earth. He told her that mention of any higher power was forbidden and punishable by a very long time in confinement and that no angel below his station knew, or would know of who or what governed life itself.

He had also broken to her the necessity for the erasure of Chloe's memories of their friendship and lives together. Every memory after that moment was recalled to be more like a hell than a heaven.

Immediately after her introduction to the fact of her new eternity as a magical being she had previously assumed to be fictitious came months and months of guardian training and the pining and the anguish for endless, horrible nights on end. Oh, those nights, when she had been unable to sleep, distracting herself from the grief by plotting any conceivable way she could see Chloe for one last time. Whoever had agreed to let her trade places clearly hadn't anticipated Beca's determination to reunite herself with her best friend by any means considerably possible. Trust and friendship among the other angels she came in contact with was extremely rare, frankly nonexistent. She relied on no one but herself to pull through day after day of impossible exercises and painfully lengthy lessons.

When came the end of training and everyone's human assignment, she had been appointed to station herself in Siberia to guard a local scientologist. Beca's nights of mostly fruitless planning finally came to fruition as she obdurately broke into the human-assignment database (with ease; the process had oddly reminded her of using Garage Band, only with thin hovering bronze bars and colored beads instead of on-screen controls. There had still been sound waves though) and changed, by hand, her human assignment to guard Chloe. While everyone had been in place to be dropped to earth, she had escaped unseen to the edge of the city to the closest region she could find in Chloe's vicinity. And now she was here. In this field. This freezing, wet, scary-ass field.

Beca wasn't even sure if she was in the right state. She didn't recognize anything about her location or surroundings and her plans had only come this far. She had simply assumed that somehow Chloe would find her shortly after her fall to earth, to welcome her into her home to nurture her back to health, and everything would return to the state it had been before all of this mess. Cursing herself for not planning ahead more, her anxiety began to spike and she forced herself to count as she breathed. Why had she thought that simply jumping out of heaven would be the best idea? She had no belongings, no clothes, nowhere to sleep, and worst of all,

no money.

She shakily stood and decided that the best thing to do right now would be to walk off the pins and needles in her legs and to scout out the area. She had also read somewhere that exercise stimulated the brain. Small steps Beca, small steps, She chanted to herself while she stretched her fingers and cracked her neck and back. As she checked her body for more serious injuries or broken bones, she realized that the clothes she was wearing were her own from the night she died (Left earth? How would someone describe this situation?) and she groaned in annoyance at her past-self. Why didn't you at least go out with style, moron? You planned your retirement to the most ridiculous detail but you couldn't even die in a flow-y white dress or something? She was still damp from the grass and she was only wearing socks, no shoes. Her outfit from training had been simple white overalls and a grey, soft knit sort-of sweater. Everyone wore a variation of the same outfit, plus one pair of shoes of their choice (Beca had picked red sweade pumas because she had seen Blake Lively wearing a pair once.) Now she was beginning to miss those shoes. The only reason, she thought, that would have made simply following the rules a better choice of actions.

As she trudged her way around the perimeter of the field, she searched for signs of life. She heard far-off cars and airplanes overhead and the path she had been walking was well-trodden and relatively flat. She spotted the glimmer of some distant lights, and decided that once she had relaxed her muscles and figured out some mode of transportation to get there, she would make her way in that direction. And then she thought better of it and realized that sleeping in one of the bushes would probably be safest. And easiest. With the least walking. And effort.

Wherever Chloe had gone, Beca followed. After a lot of convincing on Chloe's part, together they joined an all girls a capella group at their university, where they became properly close with other people for the first time in their lives besides each other. Chloe had stayed two extra years in college, telling everyone the reason was that she could not bare to leave the group, but really the majority of her motivation came from the wish to see Beca through her junior and senior year, and then graduate with her. Beca had often come to family gatherings and holidays with Chloe, and vice versa with to visit Beca's removed family, often in other parts of the world. Chloe often put on a show of flirting with Beca for laughs and it was a running joke to make euphemisms of any slip of the tongue that could possibly be taken out of context. Friends joked that they were so close anyone would guess they were married, and they would laugh it off or play along, jesting to boast engagement rings, or play fake surprise proposals.

But the matter of it was that Beca secretly abhorred these fake shows of tease, romance and marriage. Because ever since her first year of college, she'd had much deeper respect and care for Chloe. There was no need for her to ask or talk about the subject. Beca had known since the beginning of her feelings for her that Chloe would never feel the same way, and so she had absolved to ride it out until she simply did not feel anything other than close platonic intimacy for her. In spite of all her efforts, seven years later she felt exactly the same, if not stronger than before, and it was miserable.

Eventually Beca neared the halfway mark of her third lap. Her anxiety had dwindled little, though her legs were mostly returned to a more natural and pin-free state. She was still shivering from the cold, rubbing her arms and occasionally stamping her feet but achieving very little warmth from any of it. She had given up on her socks halfway through the first lap. I can't believe I went through years of stupid training and they didn't even teach us how to fly! Isn't that the whole point of angels? That they have wings?! She knew the answer to her own question but still resented it. It was true, only higher level angels like the guardian trainers and the traditional angels spoke of in Texts and human accounts had wings. You have to have gone through several experiences so great that those above everything granted you the power of flight and wisdom like that of Gabriel.

The deep and rather eerie quiet of the place was what she'd been strongly accustomed to since she'd woken up, so when someone behind her shouted loudly in her direction, she nearly sprinted into the bushes to her right. But she glanced behind her and saw the form of a woman waving and walking idly, and she was set at a tiny bit more ease and waved back apprehensively. Shit, Becs what're you gonna do now, you look like a maniac. Dude, you're not even wearing shoes. Just play it cool, act hostile and moody, the regular. It's probably too dark to even see my clothes anyway, right? She made a brief attempt to brush off some of the dirt and grass still on her clothes and ran her fingers through her hair a few times.

Rapid footsteps approached from behind her and suddenly the girl had caught up to walk alongside her. Beca sighed quietly in annoyance and scanned her mind for an explanation as to why she was out this late and wearing the bare minimum and no shoes in a 30°(F) field.

She turned to look at the girls face and had to promptly hold herself back from shouting or even remotely outwardly responding to what she saw. Even in the gloomy darkness, the shiny doe-eyed look of the girl next to her was painfully unmistakable. Beca had not planned or expected herself to react so violently as she did when she saw this face again.

"Hi." She controlled her voice to the best of her ability, but the lack of recognition in the girl's next statements and the sudden realization of her stupidity in mistakenly romanticizing and simplifying the entire situation around only her own desires was so painful that Beca doubted she could hold back tears. The sight of Chloe Beale after months, years, of grieving was just too much. She did try, but they simply came, silently streaming down her cheeks, one after the other.

"It's so chilly for this time of year, I don't usually even come here while on walks. The mist is so spooky!"

Beca realized it was her turn to speak. She saw Chloe turn to look at her from her peripheral view and realized it was to late to do anything about her tears so she struggled to keep her voice even as she replied.

"yeah. Super spooky."

#bechloe #beca mitchell #chloe beale #beca x chloe #bechloe fanfic #bechloe fanfiction #bechloe fic #bechloe ship #Chloe x beca #Anna kendrick #Brittany snow #gay lol #soon goodbye now love #fics #pitch perfect #pitch perfect 3 #pitch perfect 2 #bechloe au

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bentenharuki · 6 years

Video

vimeo

Haikyuu Chapter 291, or How Furudate Is So Damn Predictable It Hurts...

As expected, this chapter is full of the usual thing you expect from a mangaka bound to please an army of brainless kids who like an inane “protagonist”.

As I predicted correctly (not difficult... Furudate does the things a 5 years old with TERRIBLE taste expects, so even a barely 20 years old like me feels like Einstein trying to guess his moves ya know...) we get bombed with the intuition of “bond comparisons” between the Twins and the Midget with my poor poor Lord.

Furudate then licks even more the butts by putting Atsumu’s acknowledgement of Boku No Hero Karasuno in a form the simpletons who like The Orange Curse will think it means who knows what, while it does just mean he doesn’t consider him anymore a scrub (cit. Chapter 219, where he tells The Lord how he won’t let scrubs hit his tosses).

Furudate does even better, trying to please the simpletons, drawing The Lord with a face THEY will interpret like my Precious One is being fazed by the proposal of Atsumu, while, giving his complete lack of further actions after it, it probably just means Kageyama thinks Atsumu has HORRIBLE taste in deciding who he would try to toss to ;).

But let’s go in line.

I liked this chapter for the comedy provided by the twins (how I will miss them!) and for beautiful Kita AND for the last page where Tsukki ONCE AGAIN takes my personal brain prize for telling it CLEARLY how the midget hasn’t really done much this game, being him just the one “witnessing the momentum OF OTHERS” and expecting for his (his “momentum”is what the whole game with Nekoma will portray, so I am expecting not much in term of satisfaction in it personally.)

We start with this, call it an introduction to doom? ;)

And we have to stand the “cheering and screaming” where Tsukki is a doll and my poor Lord gets harassed by Sugawara, who is not really dignified to touch that way The Lord, but my poor baby is way too tired to react (look at his face in the low cut... Kageyama is DESTROYED, he can’t even stand up or shrug anyone off...poor my baby who gave his 300% and shone so bright!):

The comedy (?) of Furudate starts pretty soon.

As I said Kageyama is dead but of course the midget has to break his balls no matter what.

Gosh, if I were The Lord I would terminate his life.

Why, WHY, WHYYYYYYYY he has to stand somebody so annoying and clueless?????

Lord Kageyama, next time kick over his ugly face better. He’s so FUGLY you could even help him in readjusting his mug.

Hinata REALLY makes me sick with his every fiber. I despise him 200%.

Anyway... Next, Furudate HAS to start to give Boku No Hero Karasuno his cookies. And what better way that destroying all decency and make Atsumu word his praise (?) in a way the simpletons will easily mistake?

I may recall to the brainless fans of The Orange Curse that what Atsumu says means SIMPLY he doesn’t consider that short one a scrub anymore (like he did at the start of the game). His way (as shown in chapter 219) to show Boku No Hero Karasuno consideration is simply telling him how he would set for him one day.

It means IN GENERAL. It doesn’t mean at all he thinks Hinata will go who knows where, also because Atsumu himself after this debacle can’t guarantee for his own position in the top tier of National High School Volley anymore.

I know to try to put sense in the fans of the midget is a lost cause because they are not very... how to say? “ready”? But this is. Atsumu just says this way to Hinata he considers him good enough to try to spike his tosses which he wouldn’t allow scrubs to get.

Simply that.

Atsumu has clearly BAD taste, but you gotta understand the boy.

He got BURNED and SHOWED OFF by his kouhai he called “Goody Two Shoes” and sent home abruptly by him. OOOOPPPPSSS that had to hurt...

He can’t break in front of his competitor (especially being a prideful individual) even though he knows he’s no longer best young setter anymore. By losing the game, he has lost ALSO in the setter showdown.

But Ehy, Atsumu... you still a wonderful player!!!

Don’t be sad, you are a champion for sure :)

What Lord Kags wears as ???? face at Miya’s “invitation” to the midget ISN’T anything like territorial pissing or the likes...

I think the Lord is just thinking that Atsumu simply has no idea how painful to be with Hinata is. He’s looking at him like “Really Miya san? Do You want to set for him? Good luck... gimme your brother in exchange and have fun?”

Talking about Osamu...

In the next panel Osamu is MAGNIFICENT.

His words to Atsumu’s baseless and useless “declaration” is AWESOME.

I will miss so much the twins... these panels with them are fantastic, they REALLY are amazingly believable characters.

ps: Atsumu... as former best setter, take freely Boku No Hero Karasuno.

Kags will be happy to look forward playing with his REAL peers he has already met a the Camp.

You know... the best setter has to play with the BEST SPIKER and THE BEST Libero sometime soon. And since THE Best blocker (beside Kags himself) also stays in Karasuno, has blonde hair and has JUST to finally fully blossom, you can take Hinata. He DOESN’T BELONG to what the Lord deserves anyway ;)

Enjoy the annoyance, if it pleases you and be ASSURED the Lord won’t ever regret losing him, neither would any of the people reading Haikyuu for the actual PLEASURE of volleyball, which Hinata is completely foreign about.

What was very cute beside some more comedy courtesy of Jester Atsumu (he is SO childlike and cute... really I will miss him painfully... he is so extra you can’t dislike him... he acts in everything as a teenager, and he makes me laugh a lot...), and his twin calling him MORON which once more takes the cake (OSAMU!!!! YOU are adorable too!!!) and which you can see here:

What was cute... is the way Kita demonstrates once more he was a real good captain.

I like the fact his convictions weren’t broken by a single game. I like how his vision about what volley is (even if I don’t fully agree with them) STAYS the same no matter the defeat.

Kita is another great character whom I will dearly miss.

I just find bad how Furudate HAS to put in Kita’s mouth what I was SURE would have come, namely the “comparison” between the twins and the Karasuno’s pair.

I knew predictably Furudate would have done this, I just hoped he would have gotten the decency of not using beautiful baby Kita for it.

But it’s Furudate we’re talking about.

Of course he would do the worst, when willing to glorify the senseless protagonist he has chosen to have:

Still, to have the twins doing those guilty faces and wondering at the same time what “in the zone” means, is so funny I got to include it all in the roll, no matter if it irks me to read about a comparison WHICH DOESN’T EXIST.

The twins have a TWIN BOND.

Unbreakable, genetical, deep, beyond borders.

My poor Unfortunate Lord has to carry the burden of having to cooperate with a midget who doesn’t deserve ANYTHING he does, did or will do with him, and he has to stand this pain ONLY for the sake of the team.

There is NO bond, no bond at all between Lord Kags and the Orange Scrub.

They cordially HATE each other and I really hope sometime in the next game Hinata will realize he will be better off with people different than the Lord.

Kenma... whoever... TAKE HINATA AND FREE MY LORD.

Okay... to gain back my good mood, have all this blessing image of sweet angel Kita looking like Lord Kags fair colored and smiling twin *.*

Awwwww he is SO cute, so loveable... So strong and strict, but also so sweet.

Aran’s reaction is ME looking at this panel *.*

And in front of this FINALLY even Atsumu says something worthy in this chapter, FINALLY, something we can ALL agree with and something which makes me hope also Osamu will try harder from now on on court and with volley, so he can match his brother targets (Osamu’s stats are actually BETTER than Atsumu’s ones - Furudate has decided it, look at them in the official site in japanese -, so he is meant to be the better player between the two ;)):

Inarizaki... you have been the best team I have seen in this manga.

If Itachiyama is supposed to be WAY better than even you... I can’t wait to see what Itachiyama is (I know that before it we will have Nekoma, where I only am interested in Lev as a surprise, and pretty surely Hoshiumi’s Kamomedai... but I long from now on ONLY to see Sakusa and Komori loom over my perfect Lord Kags).

Last stuffs... THESE:

As I wrote before, THANK YOU TSUKKI once again for pleasing me and my hate of the Orange Curse.

I LOVE how it is clear what you say means Hinata hasn’t truly done much this game (because he hasn’t: only the retarded fans of such a shame of a player can get all awwww about the fact he received TWICE in his volleyball career in this game, and attempted a final block - helped massively in making it successful by the Lord - you know...being a MIDDLE FRICKING BLOCKER!!!!) and this makes me happy.

Sadly the fact Furudate is the most predictable writer in the Universe when it comes to boku No hero Karasuno, this only means that the full of Nekoma game will be an ode to Hinata’s “moment” which will finally come, in time to let him face Hoshiumi in the following one.

Well, for me it will be easy...

The more the incoming chapters will see the absurdities about Hinata, the less I will care about Haikyuu, until Sakusa and Komori come to let my Lord Kags face his peers, finally.

See ya world... in a FROZEN MILAN, we are about to go out dancing tonight, so I queued this post which shall show off tomorrow morning at some time ;)

Happy weekend?

happy weekend ;)

#haikyuu!!#furudate haruichi #chapter 291 #the lord #kageyama tobio #miya atsumu #miya osamu #tsukishima kei #the annoying orange #hinata shouyou #kita shinsuke #ojiro aran #inarizaki #karasuno #mine

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buffster · 7 years

Text

The Initiative (BTVS 4.07)

This is part of my ongoing Buffyverse Project, where I write notes/meta for every episode in an attempt to better understand the characters and themes of the shows. You can find the BTVS list here and the ATS list here. Gifs are not mine.

The Initiative isn’t that interesting at first glance, but it sets up several different storylines: Buffy and Riley as a couple, Willow’s depression, Spike’s escape, and our first peek of the Initiative and how it operates.

Riley, Graham, and Forrest are sitting in the cafeteria discussing hot girls when Buffy walks in. I love getting to see Buffy from an outsider’s perspective. When we’re watching her slay it’s so easy to see her as this effortlessly cool person. But as she spills soda and breaks the yogurt machine we see she’s far from it to most of the world. It reminds us that she’s still an outsider and someone we can identify with. Forrest and Graham notice how hot she is but Riley think she’s peculiar (I wish this was their ship name).

Xander and Giles are spending a lot of time together as the two that feel lost now that Buffy’s moved on to college. When Buffy decides to take Willow to a party instead of patrolling they decide to go instead. Xander has several military weapons but is slowly forgetting the things he learned in Halloween. I’m glad–his plot-ready military knowledge was becoming tired.

We get our first glimpse of what happened to Spike. He’s in a white cell and when he touches the glass he gets shocked. Later a blood bag drops from the ceiling, which he eagerly reaches for, but a neighboring cell mate tells him it’s drugged and they’ll do experiments on him. It’s Tom, the vampire they got in The Freshman. Since all he remembers is facing the slayer, both decide she must be behind this. Spike is enraged.

Spike: I always wondered what would happen when that bitch got some funding.

I am always here for Buffy sass. This episode it’s directed at Maggie Walsh, which is even better since she seems to intimidate everyone. Willow tells Maggie that Oz will be back after they leave him out of roll call, but Maggie says she has to think of the whole class and it would be best if he not come back. Willow walks away devastated.

Buffy: You know, for someone who teaches human behavior? You might try showing some.

Professor Walsh: It’s not my job to coddle my students.

Buffy: That’s right. A human being in pain has nothing to do with your job.

Professor Walsh: I like her.

Riley: Really? You don’t think she’s a little peculiar?

I loved this moment as well because we saw Buffy cower before a professor in the start of the season despite his cruelty. But Buffy is always strongest when defending others.

Just when I thought (hoped) we’d seen the last of Parker Abrams, he walks up to tell Forrest, Graham, and Riley about his experience with Buffy. He says it was great (she has stamina) but she was too clingy. When he makes a crude joke comparing her to a toilet seat Riley punches him. Which…finally!

Riley: I just didn’t like hearing him talk that way about Buffy. I think I … well I guess I like her.

Forrest: You’re kind of like a moron.

Riley: So you knew that I had feelings for her.

Graham: Everybody knows, man…

Forrest: 'Oh, she’s peculiar…’ Dead giveaway, Buddy! –She’s strange, she bothers me…’

Look, I get that Riley’s story isn’t exactly revolutionary. He’s a guy that always applies himself and “gets it done” but he’s suddenly thrown by a girl. He’s a soldier. He’s about as Joe Regular as we’re going to get in the Buffyverse. But I just kind of enjoyed him. He was a breath of fresh air, you know? I needed the break that was Riley between the Angel and Spike drama.

Riley goes to see Willow but quickly realizes she’s going through something. She asks if he’s planning to fall in love and get his heart broken. It’s a dramatic moment that’s immediately broken by Riley quipping, “Yep. That’s the plan.” and Willow calmly responding, “I figured it was.” Buffy almost always levies the heavy with the light, which is what works so well about it.

One of my favorite things about season four is the Buffy/Willow friendship. Willow analyzes Buffy’s attire and declares to Riley that she’ll mostly be dancing and heavy conversation is out of the question. Trouble is, Riley can’t dance.

Willow: If you hurt her I’ll beat you to death with a shovel.

Riley: *stares*

Willow: A vague disclaimer is nobody’s friend.

Spike manages to escape the compound after throwing Tom into a group of guards. The writers really dropped the ball in his relationship with Harmony. Buffy is a show centered around supernatural metaphors, and yet they completely missed the domestic/emotional abuse metaphor in Spike/Harmony and played it for laughs. She tries to be tough with him when he returns, but when he says he missed her she immediately melts. He makes a few promises but soon leads right into his obsession with Buffy again. Harmony takes some of his things to burn in frustration, which is when she meets Xander and they have their slap fight/hair pulling contest. Doesn’t she have super strength? I mean, don’t get me wrong, the fight was funny. But I’m not sure it logistically makes sense that she couldn’t overpower him. Maybe she just wasn’t really in the mood.

Riley, Graham, and Forrest enter a secret elevator and go down to the Initiative. Maggie informs them of Hostile Seventeen’s escape and Riley is put in charge. When they spot Buffy, Forrest suggests using her as bait. Riley denies him and pulls rank, which throws Forrest in such a way we know he hasn’t done that before. Buffy is shaking up more than just Riley’s world.

I loved the scene where Buffy and Riley are each trying to make the other go away so they can find Hostile Seventeen/Spike. Both are acting insanely weird but the other is so focused on their mission they don’t notice. Riley agrees with Buffy’s comment that boys can take care of themselves and girls need help, which is our first glimpse of some potential issues down the road. Riley has been raised with certain gender ideas that Buffy has come to smash to pieces (in fairness to Riley, Buffy doesn’t exactly appear to be packing the muscle to defeat a vampire).

Spike arrives in Buffy’s dorm to find Willow. He attempts to bite her but his head explodes in pain. Buffy would have been disgusted at the pathetic creature Spike is, but of course Willow takes it personally and as a sex metaphor.

Willow: You came looking for Buffy, then settled. You didn’t want to bite me, I just happened to be around.

Spike: Don’t be ridiculous. Why, I’d bite you in a heartbeat.

Willow: Really?

Spike: Thought about it.

Willow: When?

Spike: Remember last year? You had on that fuzzy pink number with the lilac underneath…

I wonder why we didn’t get more of Spike and Willow. This is the second such conversation where they sort of understand each other. Riley, Forrest, and Graham come into the building and lock it down. Buffy arrives just in time and they all fight without seeing who the other is. Spike escapes and Riley aborts the mission. In his report Riley concludes Hostile Seventeen has an accomplice–someone or something big.

Riley has the courage to talk to Buffy again, and this time she calls him peculiar, which he takes as a good sign.

Character Notes:

Rupert Giles: Like Cordelia, Giles can draw. This is all a little too convenient.

Spike: There’s another subtle hint to Spike’s growing feelings for Buffy–after declaring his feelings for her, Riley says he’s “going to see a girl”. We then cut to Spike, who says the same thing. He likes the Sex Pistols. He’s known as Hostile Seventeen. He says he is one hundred and twenty six years old.

Riley Finn: Did we really need to throw Riley’s characterization over the top by having him use the term “court” when talking about Buffy? Jeesh. His number is 75329.

Willow Rosenberg: A Dingoes Ate My Baby song plays at the party and throws her. Riley gets it turned off.

Xander Harris: Xander calls Riley a teutonic boy toy. He still seems slightly upset at the idea of Buffy being with a boy.

#theinitiative #Douglas Petrie #spike #Riley finn #Buffy summers #willow rosenberg #forrest gates #rupert giles #xander harris #graham miller #maggie walsh #willow/oz #Buffy/Riley

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buffster · 7 years

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Becoming Part 1 (BTVS 2.21)

This is part of my ongoing Buffy Project, where I write notes/meta for every episode in an attempt to better understand the characters and themes of the show. You can find the full list here. Gifs are not mine.

Whistler: Here’s the thing. There’s moments in your life that make you. That set the course of who you’re gonna be. Sometimes they’re little, subtle moments. Sometimes they’re not. I’ll show you what I mean.

There’s a lot of time spend on Angel’s backstory in this episode, which I love. It was about time. It begins in Galway, 1753, with a young Liam drunkenly exiting a bar. He tells his friend they’re going to come back with some of his father’s silver. Then he spies Darla.

Liam: My lady, you will find that, with the exception of an honest day’s work, there is no challenge I am not prepared to face.

He is excited by her proposal to see the world and she turns him. We return to present day where Buffy has decided she is taking the fight to Angel. Apparently she was hoping he’d attack and force her into what she has to do, but she’s tired of waiting it out. She assures her friends she is ready.

After a vision from Drusilla, Angelus decides to steal a relic from the local museum. It is Acathla, a demon who came forth to swallow the world. It was killed by a knight and turned to stone, as demons sometimes do (well, ok?). It was buried where no demon would look until some people decided to build on it. Angelus wants to be the worthy one to pull out the sword and send the whole world into hell. Giles says that only non-demon life will suffer there, but when Angel is sent there he suffers. This might be explained later but I don’t remember it.

The next flashback is London, 1860. Drusilla is praying and goes to confess. Unbeknownst to her Angelus is in the other side drinking the priest’s blood. She confesses to him that she is having visions and her mother says she is cursed. This is when she drew Angelus in: she wanted to do good and not give in to the devil. He can’t resist turning light into darkness.

Drusilla: No...I want to be good...I want to be pure.

Angelus: We all do, at first. The world doesn’t work that way.

Willow is tutoring Buffy for finals. She has no patience for Buffy calling herself a moron and tells her not to waste her time if she’s not going to try. Buffy says she really is a good teacher (kind of surprised Willow didn’t end up in this profession?). Buffy’s prophetic abilities are used again when she is able to locate Ms. Calendar’s missing disc after experiencing deja vu.

The next flashback is in Rumanian Woods, 1898. There’s a glimpse of the body of the gypsy girl being grieved over and the old woman saying the spell to restore Angel’s soul. It’s returned to him and he begins to feel what he’s done. Just like with Spike in season seven, it overwhelms him.

Back at the school Buffy and Willow are telling Cordelia, Xander, and Giles about their findings. Giles doesn’t think he can perform the ritual because he doesn’t have the required knowledge of the black arts, but Willow nervously admits she has been studying enough that she thinks she does.

Giles: Willow, performing this kind of ritual--channeling such potent magicks through yourself--it will open a door you may not be able to close.

They are continuing to argue (with Willow being the most passionately pro-ritual) when Xander jumps in with one of his worst moments of the series. He’s got Issue Face (as in, I’ve got personal issues here that are making me Non-Objective guy). Sorry, but I’m going to note the entire conversation for my future reference:

Xander: This spell might restore Angel’s humanity? Well, here’s an interesting angle: who cares?

Buffy: I care.

Xander: Is that right?

Giles: Xander, let’s not lose perspective here--

Xander: I’m perspective guy. Angel is a killer.

Willow: Xander--

Buffy: It’s not that simple.

Xander: What, come back home, all is forgiven? I can’t believe you people.

Cordelia: Xander has a point--

Xander: You know, just once I wish you would support me and I realize now that you were and I’m embarrassed so I’m gonna get back to the point which is that Angel needs to die.

Giles: Curing Angel was apparently Jenny’s last wish...

Xander: Yeah, well, Jenny’s dead.

Giles: Don’t you speak of her in that insolent--

Xander: Can’t you see what I’m saying--

Buffy: Alright, stop it!

Willow: (to Buffy) What do you want to do?

Buffy: I don’t know...what happened to Angel wasn’t his fault...

Xander: What happened to Ms. Calendar is. You can paint this however you want. Way I see it you want to forget all about Ms. Calendar’s murder so you can get your boyfriend back.

Cordelia: Wow. Even I know that was insensitive.

Xander: Am I wrong?

I think his issue here is multi-faceted. One is that he doesn’t see any distinction between Angel and Angelus. It’s almost as if he views Angel as a muzzled dog that’s too dangerous to let live. Which, to be honest, is a fair point. Angelus will always be a possibility that’s pretty dangerous for the world. I also don’t think some critics are wrong that there’s a part of this that’s about jealousy over Buffy. My third view is that he has seen Angel as That Guy from the beginning--the guy that’s a total jerk but the pretty girl and everyone else can’t see it. The kind of guy that probably bullied Xander a lot. I think he’s been looking forward to Angel’s death for awhile now and he doesn’t want to let that go. My least favorite part of this scene is that he accuses Buffy of not caring about what Angelus did to Ms. Calendar. We know that’s not true and how much the guilt weighs on her. Xander’s character is a bit uncompromising and very black and white.

Buffy and Willow later talk on the phone, where Willow condemns Xander with some strong language. Buffy isn’t sure what she wants but then finds her Claddagh ring at the bottom of her drawer.

Kendra returns to help them fight. She brings a sword blessed by the knight who first slew the demon. There’s another crazy moment where a vampire bursts into flames in the middle of a classroom delivering a message to Buffy. These kinds of events lead to all the students helping in Graduation. Buffy decides to meet Angel while Kendra guards everyone else.

We go to Manhattan, 1996. Whistler approaches Angel (sent by the Powers that Be?), who looks horrible and is feeding on rats. He tells him to stop feeling sorry for himself and shows him Buffy, who has just become the slayer. I love flashback Buffy even more than flashback Angel. She is very much season one Cordelia, sucking on a lollipop and talking about boys with her friends (she’s clearly the ringleader). Her clothes are very different; she’s dressed in bright neon colors. Her first Watcher, Merrick, approaches her. Buffy barely manages to kill her first vampire as Angel watches.

Back in present day Buffy goes to fight Angelus. While she’s there the Scoobies are attacked. Willow is knocked down by a shelf, Xander is injured fighting, Giles is taken, Cordelia flees, and Kendra is killed by Drusilla. I’ve read before that her obedient nature is what made her susceptible to Dru’s hypnosis, which I think is pretty interesting. Buffy returns to find chaos and Kendra’s dead body. She is approached by a policewoman.

Whistler: Bottom line is even if you see em coming, you’re not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really, but it does. So, what, are we helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come, can’t help that. It’s what you do afterwards that counts. That’s when you find out who you are.

As Angel performs the ritual to bring forth Acathla, he says, “As I ascend, as I become”. He also says he wants to become someone to Whistler (there’s our title).

Character Notes:

Cordelia Chase: Cordelia actually compliments Willow and her dedication to teaching and tutoring.

Principal Snyder: He is upset about Cordelia and Xander and Willow and Oz’s PDA. He also tells Buffy she should just give him a reason to kick her out.

Rupert Giles: Giles is the best authority on obscure relics in Sunnydale and a professor refers him to the museum curator.

Hank and Joyce Summers: The original script had a scene where Joyce tells Buffy that her and Hank are agnostic. In the actual show there is a flashback where they argue because Hank wants to be tougher on Buffy.

Whistler: Whistler is the one who gives Angel the information to find blood at the butcher’s. He says his real name is hard to pronounce unless you’re a dolphin.

Buffy Summers: She mentions she has stolen lipstick when Merrick approaches her. Possibly something she did for her parent’s attention like Dawn in later seasons?

Kendra Young: She gives Buffy her lucky stake, Mr. Pointy.

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buffster · 7 years

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What’s My Line Part 2 (BTVS 2.10)

Buffy: I’m the damn Slayer!

What’s My Line (Part 2) begins right where What’s My Line (Part 1) left off. Buffy and Kendra are facing off until Kendra announces she is the vampire Slayer. Their fight was cool, but let’s be honest–it paled in comparison to Buffy vs. Faith in season three. Almost immediately we learn that Kendra is a very different kind of Slayer. She is all rules and rigidness and is flummoxed by Buffy’s methods (not consulting her Watcher over everything, refusing to obey him without question, having civilians in on the secret). There’s a whole world of traditional slaying we didn’t know about because Giles decided when he met Buffy that “some flexibility was required” (there’s a Slayer Handbook!). Buffy is jealous over the instant bond between Kendra and Giles, who have both studied the same things. But when Willow reassures her she won’t be replaced Buffy says maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

Kendra is amazed by Buffy’s love of Angel, especially considering all she knows about him she’s read in books about Angelus. But she takes Buffy to save him even though it’s too late–Willie has already given Angel to Spike.

Drusilla asks to play with Angel and begins by saying he’s been a bad daddy. Interestingly, she tortures him while talking about everyone she loved that he murdered. She never mentions this when he is Angelus. Does she grieve her family but knows talking to Angelus about it would be pointless? Or does she only talk about it because she knows the guilt tortures Angel? Angel doesn’t want to restore Dru to health (her sire is needed for the ritual) because of the danger it would pose to Buffy, so he attempts to get himself staked by provoking Spike. He says Spike isn’t sexually satisfying Drusilla and that the two lack the fire she had with Angel. It very nearly works. Drusilla smirks and doesn’t contradict him, saying only, “Shh. Bad dog.” Spike says he’s never been one for the pre show, which is taken as an innuendo but is true in his fighting style as well. Each time he’s tried to simply take Buffy out. He doesn’t play games.

While looking for Buffy, Cordelia and Xander become trapped in her house by an assassin from the Order of Taraka. Cordelia obliviously lets him in because he’s offering free makeup samples and then goes on about being both a winter and a summer (of course Cordelia would be more than one). Xander and Cordelia argue endlessly while trapped in the basement.

Cordelia: You think we should just wait until someone decides to be a hero?

Cordelia: Coward.

Xander: Moron!

Cordelia: I hate you!

Xander: I hate you!

Cordelia believes in saving herself while Xander is happy to wait for Buffy. But after a passionate kiss they both agree they need to get out of there and run screaming from the house. Their sexual tension is something you don’t notice until you do and then you realize it’s been there awhile.

Willow and Oz have their first interactions. After Oz admits he’s not a work of any kind person Willow says, “Don’t you have some ambition?” They end up having trouble over the werewolf deal, but supernatural issues aside I think power-hungry Willow and laid-back Oz would have eventually butted heads. When Oz is grazed by a bullet from another Order of Taraka assassin he seems thrilled, rather than frightened, by the experience. He later tells Willow she has the sweetest smile he has ever seen.

Xander Harris gets a lot of hate in the fandom, but I have to say early season two Xander is some of my favorite Xander. He is endlessly funny and charming. He’s also so welcoming to Kendra, and as an introverted person I would so appreciate his easy ability to reach out and make conversation. Also I would like to offer this:

Xander: Angel’s our friend! Except I don’t like him.

He comes to Angel’s defense against Kendra. I believe that’s further evidence that what he does in Becoming is more than simple jealously over Buffy’s boyfriend. His hatred of vampires and lack of faith that Angel could or should be saved (with the danger he will always pose) had to play a part.

Buffy: Nobody messes with my boyfriend.

Kendra agrees to help Buffy save Angel. She’s grateful for the help, but as they’re getting things ready they discuss their differences. Kendra was sent to her Watcher at a young age to prepare her to be Slayer (even though she might never have been called!). Kendra says she doesn’t feel sorry for herself and that Buffy shouldn’t entertain emotions. But Buffy says her emotions give her power and they’re “total assets”, insisting that she would have beaten Kendra in the end because she can improvise and go with the flow.

Buffy: Anger gives you fire. A Slayer needs that.

I love that they briefly explored Kendra, all rules and no emotion, and then went on to show us how going too far in the other direction is detrimental as well (with Faith). Kendra hesitates to rush off and save Angel because deep down she believes he should die. But she eventually comes to Buffy’s rescue and we get a really cool fight scene where everyone is pitching in. I liked the part where Buffy says, “switch” and Kendra rolls over her. Kendra’s rigid style was more fitted to the assassin while Buffy’s free styling is more fitted to Spike. As Buffy told her, when the assassin rips Kendra’s shirt and makes her mad she is able to win. But Kendra also gets her teaching moment and tells Buffy that slaying isn’t a job–it’s who she is. Buffy knocks Spike and Dru to the ground and rubble piles on them, but at the end of the episode we see Drusilla has risen and is carrying Spike. The roles are reversed.

Character Notes:

Buffy Summers: Buffy mentions wanting pineapple pizza after all this.

Oz Osbourne: Oz talks endlessly about animal crackers and whether the other animals are jealous that only the monkey gets pants. It reminded me of Xander saying Willow has “too many thoughts”. Oz gets that.

#whatsmyline2 #btvss2 #Daniel Osbourne #willow rosenberg #Xander Harris #buffy summers #rupert giles #spike #drusilla #cordelia chase #cordelia/xander #willow/oz #spike/drusilla #angel/drusilla #kendra young #marti noxon

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