#some do manage to somewhat repair their broken bonds. some manage to make new ones within the group.

[greywoodrpg]

𝕖𝕣𝕚𝕤 𝕟𝕠𝕥𝕠𝕤

he inhabits a body that looks twenty-nine years old but is actually two hundred and fifty, is a fallen celestial and lives in white oaks as a mechanic. he looks an awful lot like christian yu.

“For the last time, I’m not wearing sunglasses to work because I’m high.” 

tw: murder, death, torture

Eris spent much of his time before being summoned growing. He was born to a celestial mother and infernal father, though his mother refused to raise him, instead giving him to his father to raise. His father raised him tough and cruel, and taught him how to fight for himself. Other demons never accepted him on account of his supposed ‘good half,’ and he usually solved his problems by beating the others until someone lost.

Eris was first summoned into his body by a trio of witches. The first thing he did upon being bound in his host was to kill the witches. There’d been a smudge in the lines of the chalk, and he’d consumed them on sight. He didn’t care to have his willpower bound. Unbeknownst to him, those witches had been part of a coven who swore revenge on him. He’d been somewhat naive in thinking that now that he was roaming the earth unbound, he was free. But with the coven dogging every move he made, he had little choice but to keep running. 

Eris spent a few years ahead of the witches. But then, they got smart, or just lucky, and caught up to him. They showed him that he had no idea how much pain a physical body could withstand. And after they exacted their revenge, they cursed him. He was encased in a stone, bound, unable to move, yet fully conscious of the weight of it crushing down on him. He stayed there for a hundred years until, by chance, a rockslide managed to free him. Exhausted and weak, but alive, Eris managed to slip his bonds. 

Eris spent the next near-century drifting from town to town. It was difficult for him to make any sort of relationship work, whether it was as a coworker, or a friend, or a neighbor, since he couldn’t trust anyone he saw not to do what those witches had done to him. Any amount of touch would send him back to that place, and he constantly had nightmares. With nothing to truly tie him into jobs or cities, he found himself moving whenever the loneliness became too much. And he worried that the coven would figure out that he was loose and come for him again.  But once he moved to Greywood, things changed. He found a job as a mechanic that didn’t ask too many questions about his past. Cars were either broken beyond repair or fixable, and it was simple enough to figure out which was which. He enjoyed this easy work. And work was made a lot better because of Roman. Roman had shown him the ropes when he’d been new enough not to know about anything. They went together to the bar after work. And, gradually, in spite of knowing better, Eris had come out of his shell and allowed himself to trust this one person. He’s starting to put down roots. And yet, he knows it’s only a matter of time before the coven discovers he’s missing and comes looking for him. 

"what power did he attain when settling in greywood?"

His gaze strikes madness into the minds of others. While Eris has a lot of eyes covering his true form, his human body only has the two. But when he’s feeling angry or upset or unsafe, his eyes will lose their color and glow white. This glow is bright enough to blind some. And in that brightness comes madness. The madness usually only lasts for an hour, which is more than enough time for him to get away. He wears glasses whenever he leaves his house so people don’t typically see his eyes. His glasses tend to disrupt the effects of his eyes. And it doesn’t affect other infernals. He typically uses his eyes only if he’s feeling cornered and as an absolute last result. 

penned by... einar

#town rp #mature rp #oc rp #supernatural rp #horror rp #small town rp #literate rp #para rp #mystery rp #infernal #taken #christian yu fc #death tw #murder tw #torture tw #celestial

[trustmanhattan]

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This first section also considers Superman’s relationship with his media consumers: from how we use him to form childhood bonds with one another, to how we respond to his continuing humanization. The first part of this work-an expansive psychological assessment-troubles such a presumption, though, by examining the complex mind that has accrued within decades of narrative, across media, and which must be carefully navigated in any exhaustive analysis. But, the Man of Steel is often generalized as infallible and, therefore, rather dull. Superman is the subject of this study not because he has become so popular, but because he has managed to stay that way at a particularly sharp inflection point in the history of human communications. Superman has maintained his presence in our media and discourses, across the decades, as consumer populations have continued to grow and our communications structures have commensurately evolved and expanded. He may be the most content-dense fiction ever created, but the innumerable opportunities consumers have had to get to know the character mean that he is also eminently familiar. Superman is a central point of consideration here simply because there is so much of him to consider. In its opening chapters, the text studies how we humanize a figure like Superman in our own perceptions, and how that treatment-along with his continuing narrative development-makes him a prime candidate for an experiment in complex, highly verisimilitudinous simulation. Strange Visitor: Subjectivity, Simulation, and the Future of the First Superhero begins to ask what our actual responsibilities will become when fictions can be rendered with volition. In our modern science fiction like Star Trek: The Next Generation and Westworld, we have already begun to imagine how we will come to treat our narrative inventions of tomorrow. Now, though, we verge on a technological future in which just such sympathies might become functionally useful. We are introduced to Superman, for instance, as a fiction, but circumstance often leads consumers to discursively treat that invented hero as a human subject. Yet, despite our modern sophistication, today’s consumers of narrative still often treat fictions as though they are real, thinking and feeling people. We recognize myths for what they indicate about the values and beliefs of the cultures who were the authors and audiences of those myths many of the earliest communicators of myth were telling stories about subjects they counted as people (somewhat) like themselves.

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[chisatowo]

Not to swing back to talking abt Artist again but I am thinking abt their post game shit again. Mainly them starting to actually gain a more solid sense of self, and them not knowing how to deal with how that effects their relationships. They've changed a lot during the killing game, hell they change a lot just within the first few weeks outside the killing game. And they become a lot more aware of how people view them, how they viewed them before, and how for a lot of the others those views haven't changed. They know that the others aren't trying to baby them, but they can tell clear as day that they are, especially when they compare it to how people interact with them when they don't know Izuru isn't the one fronting. And it doesn't help in the slightest that Artist is the only one here who isn't a war criminal, they can rly tell that almost everyone angel-fies them at least a little. And sometimes people will act so confused when they are in one of their shittier moods, and it's both frustrating and exhausting. They know that the others don't mean to sound like they think Artist can't be depressed, but it sure comes off that way sometimes, and they don't know how to get them to stop acting like they're a completely unrecognizable person while still acknowledging they have been effected heavily by all of this shit.

#rat rambles #dangan posting #talentswap au #wow I had more to say abt these thoughts than I thought I dis #but yeah the dr2 talentswap post game is a. complicated time to say the least. #as a group they are incredibly disfunctional and most of them just try to ignore it all and try to find some normalcy #but it doesnt work. they cant just sweep all of that under the rug. #some manage better than others. and certain relationships come out less damaged than others. #but some of those relationships are just damaged beond any level of reasonable repair. and for some thats hard to accept. #I wish I could say everyone eventually manages to fix these broken bonds and they all get to be one big happy found family but Id be lying. #some do manage to somewhat repair their broken bonds. some manage to make new ones within the group. #but some dont. and a lot of those old relationships dont get repaired. but that doesnt mean those people cant find happiness. #for some of them leaving the group was just the best option for them. and thats ok. #artist doesnt completely fall out with the others but things are rough for a while. #sorry if this is all kinda depressing dhdjfjf #ok Im done now

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

I'm sorry but I have two things I thought of and you absolutely do not need to do both I just- I had *thoughts*, and just wanted to say them, you can do one or the other even combine them if wanted but just do what ya want, don't even have to do this request

request is, kinda based off of the one post about Michael being a big brother to Circus baby AU idea and art you reblogged, anywho, do what ya want with this

How about a platonic thing where reader and Michael shared a house/reader was a friend of Mike's and was over a lot, and Michael and Reader ended up helping take care of Circus Baby, taking the murder out of her code, rebuilding and fixing her, and basically just Reader helping two siblings broken apart reunite with no murder having to occur,,

Or even Michael just having Circus baby at his house and reader took care of Molten freddy in theirs, maybe a reunion was scheduled and Baby and the animatronics in Molten end up having an apology session and just catch up for an hour or two, just a bonding type of thing between two humans and their robots

- Salt Anon

I can combine both! And yeah I really loved that AU.

No scooped Michael just him, reader, and two amalgamated robots (who get new bodies and somewhat feel like themselves again)

.......

“Wait, you found who??”

“Uh--”

“IS THAT THE BIRTHDAY BOY-Y-Y?!!!”

“Shhh, Freddy! Shut it.”

“Freddy? As in..Funtime Freddy? He’s with you?”

“Yeah, and also Foxy and Ballora.” You tried to explain the situation to Michael over the phone. “I guess they split from Baby and took all the wires. Then they found their way here a day or so ago. Looks like Freddy’s the one in control now. He even made his own mask, calling himself “Molten Freddy”.

You could hear him sigh into the receiver. “That’s odd. Do you know why they would do that? I thought their whole goal was to find me.”

“He says they got into an argument and they couldn’t cooperate with each other anymore. I guess they were sick of listening to Baby’s orders.”

“Huh, she didn’t tell me that..” He muttered, seemingly to himself.

“Wait, she’s with you?”

“Oh--yeah..she found her way to me. I managed to take off that claw of hers. She hasn’t tried to kill me yet, but she’s not talking to me much either..”

From the sadness lacing his tone, you knew that he wasn’t giving up on Baby, despite the multiple attempts on his life she and the others made. He was trying to do all he can to get her back. 

But obviously he couldn’t do it alone. He needed your help.

First, however, you had to get her and her bandmates to reconcile. Freddy seems to genuinely miss her a little, so you had an idea.

“How about I bring Freddy over in a little while? I can repair them better at your place and..maybe we can get them to make-up somehow.”

"As long as they don’t try to scoop me.” Michael sarcastically remarked.

“Not on my watch. I think they realized their mistake.”

“Alright. I’ll see you soon, [y/n].”

.........

With Molten Freddy huddled in the back of your pickup truck, getting him from your place to Michael’s was relatively easy. He whined about wanting you to carry him, but obviously that wasn’t gonna happen.

After parking near the open garage door, where your friend was fixing up Baby some more, you stepped out and flipped the tailgate down. 

Michael glanced over and was incredibly surprised at the amalgamation coiled up in the cargo bed. “You weren’t kidding..he really did put himself together.”

“Yeah-h-h.” The bear giggled, his jaw hanging loose for a moment before he snapped it back in place. “We’re sorry, Mikey, w-w-we didn’t know any better.”

“It’s..quite alright. Come on in here and I’ll look at you in a sec.”

With a grin, he tumbled out of your truck and slinked inside while you followed him, stopping in front of Baby. She looked like her previous self, except with scraps put together, giving her orange, silver, and black accents. She had roller skates instead of jester shoes and a tiara atop her head.

“Is this your new phase?” You lightly joked, to which she looked at you and shrugged.

Yeah, she definitely wasn’t in the mood to talk. She didn’t even look at Molten Freddy, and vice versa.

It was gonna be a long, long while before they reconcile. 

But until then you vowed to repair them so they felt a little bit more like their old selves.

.......

Several weeks of work had passed, and Molten Freddy and “Scrap Baby” received some major improvements.

For Freddy, you removed all of the unnecessary wires and shopped online for cheap animatronic casing. You found orange and white ones, along with some buttons already on the torso piece, deciding that’ll do. And you polished his mask and added some casing to it, too. His orange eyes were shined and you took out Foxy’s and Ballora’s AIs, uploading them to new bodies.

Foxy was installed in an electronic plushie of themselves that was once Elizabeth’s and Ballora was now a broken Minireena who hid inside Molten Freddy’s wires.

Although a bit disappointed that they didn’t get full-sized animatronic bodies, they became content. And Freddy was ecstatic to pick them up and hug them every chance he got.

Bonbon’s AI was intertwined with his code, so they were still able to talk to each other, which helped with the bear’s sanity.

Michael mostly worked on Baby’s makeover, fitting her with better casing and a circus-themed dress, frilly collar, and gloves. She was insistent on keeping the tiara and shoes so he left those alone. And he modified her code so that she no longer had the will to kill children, which was fairly difficult given how deeply ingrained that part of the programming was, but it worked.

You did the same with the other three, just in case they got any funny ideas. There were going to be no murderous robots on your watch, especially not around your friend who has had such bad luck around robots over the years.

After Freddy and Baby woke up and got used to their new bodies, they did start talking to each other again, apologizing for their petty fight. That took about an hour and involved lots of tears from Freddy--who admitted he lashed out mostly because he missed Bonbon.

While they made up soon, Baby had yet to apologize to Michael.

Foxy, Freddy, and Ballora already did, confirming they were just blindly following orders and didn’t realize they were hunting the wrong man.

Sadly, Baby’s hesitance was no surprise to you, though it still hurt Michael a lot. You understood that she simply needed time. After all she was still possessed by a scared child and didn’t think an apology would make up for all the awful things that happened.

Though one night, while you were in your workshop painting Ballora’s wooden skin and making her look like her original-self, you could hear Michael’s and Baby’s voices talking outside.

It was hard not to eavesdrop--as Ballora gently reminded you that was rude--but you could barely make out what they were saying. ‘At least they’re talking to each other at all-’

You froze for a moment, however, when you could’ve sworn you heard Michael..starting to cry?

“Oh..my sweet boy..” Ballora muttered sadly, her heart breaking at the sound of her son’s sobs. “I wonder what happened.”

“Imma...check on him. Don’t move.” Putting down your brush, you got up and wiped your hands off with a rag before exiting your workshop to see what was going on.

“Mike? Everything okay?” You stopped short when you arrived to the living room, seeing Michael hugging Baby and leaning his head on her shoulder.

“L-Liz.. it was never your fault. I should have been watching you. A-After we lost Evan, I promised to never leave you. I promised that nothing would hurt you and..I’m such a bad liar. A bad brother..” He sobbed.

Your heart broke, yet at the same time...you were relieved that he could finally bring his sister home and say what he’s wanted to say to her for so long.

Even if it wasn’t his fault that Baby took her away, the guilt stayed with him ever since--the fact he failed to watch her for a second. He’s talked about that with you on late-night calls quite often, blaming himself for everything.

Now that she was back with him, he could finally have closure.

Baby just stood there for a second, unmoving as she looked down at her crying older brother. Then her own arms moved to wrap around him, and to your astonishment her blue eyes flickered to green.

“You’re not a bad brother, Mikey. You found me..and you put me back together. I couldn’t be happier.”

His tearful eyes widened, and he looked up at her in shock. But he then smiled shakily and chuckled. “I-I’m glad you’re happy.”

You smiled at the exchange, eventually deciding to make yourself known by knocking on the doorframe. “We really put our own little family together, huh?”

Michael wiped his tears away as he saw you there, sighing. He and Baby broke the hug and stood up together. Around that same time, Freddy peeked out of the guest room, holding Foxy.

“We’re family?????”

“Yes, Freddy.” Baby uttered in a hushed whisper. “We are all a family now. A much better one, in fact.”

“I’m inclined to agree!!” Foxy boasted proudly, raising their plush arms.

You chuckled as you decided to bring the half-painted Ballora out from your workshop. Upon returning you saw Freddy, Foxy, and Baby surround Michael in a hug.

Exchanging a brief glance with Ballora, who nodded in approval, you headed over to join the group, happy that you were able to not only rescue them and make them feel whole again...

But also help Michael mend a broken bond.

#clanask #salt anon #fnaf x reader #five nights at freddy's x reader #fnaf sl #michael afton #molten freddy #scrap baby #fnaf au

[class1akids]

Idk if this is unpopular but I think quirk singularity is a dumb plot device. What is the need for it in the story?

I feel the opposite - I think Quirk Singularity is absolutely necessary at this point to make the OFA-AFO plot at least somewhat interesting. 

1. Let’s recap what is quirk singularity?

Quirk singularity means that (1) with each generation powers become more complex and stronger (2) this means quirk will be more difficult to control, since the human body doesn't evolve quickly enough to keep up (3)  there will come a point when Quirks will become too overpowered and complicated, and no one will be able to control them anymore.

Basically, quirk singularity puts a limit on the power a single person can hold and poses an interesting and complex ultimate threat at the level of society that relies on ever-increasing powers to solve its problems. How can you solve the problem with more power if more power is the problem itself?

2. How the limits quirk singularity presented manifest in the story and why they are important?

Powers having a drawback is essential for good the story-telling. There is nothing more boring than characters who are so powerful that they can always do whatever they want, there is no real danger, real stakes and at most they are inconvenienced from using their power. It’s difficult to put such characters in suspenseful or dramatic scenarios where the audience really feel that they may lose or fail.

So in the BNHA universe, generally, all people have a single quirk. All these quirks are limited in some way or have some built-in drawbacks:

- Top-level quirk with versatility, but still with soft upper limits (there is always a plus ultra at a price), the holder’s personality flaws lead to self-sabotage (e.g. Bakugou, Endeavor)

- Top level quirk with versatility and no hard upper limit, but the holder can’t fully wield it unless they overcome underlying trauma linked to the power itself (e.g. Todoroki)

- Top power-level quirk with a single ultimate weakness (Hawks, Tokoyami, Aizawa) or the use of which starts a cooldown period (Kaminari) or the power is limited for stockpile resource (Eri, Momo)

- Mid-level powers that can do one thing really well (Kirishima, Iida, Mina) or more support nature powers that are versatile but do not have a lot of raw output attached to fragile users (Froppy, Jirou)

- low-level powers.

But the Top Good (OFA) and Top Evil (AFO) are not limited to a single power - they can acquire multiple powers. 

AFO’s power limitation is how much quirks his body can absorb. As evidenced by the existence of the nomu - multiple powers usually come at the price of losing one’s humanity. But luckily for AFO, he has Evil Scientist as sidekick, who can find a way around this problem by evil sciencing (modifying a body to create hosts for AFOs upgrades).

OFA is a power that started out weak and has been built through generations through self-sacrifice to reach the point where it could compete with AFO, but not quite eliminate it (All Might era). 

Without quirk singularity, this battle of evil and good would continue forever without stakes until AFO and OFA-users are chucking planets at each other, but now OFA has reached it’s full potential and the tipping point where it cannot be transferred anymore, creating a now-or-never situation to defeat AFO. 

This puts the protagonist under some pressure and creates some stakes. If he can’t win, everyone is doomed. (Unfortunately we already know that Deku will not fail because it’s stated in Chapter 1, so it’s not exactly the biggest suspense, but better than nothing)

3. How could quirk singularity apply better to OFA ?

So we saw with AFO, how quirk singularity is a real barrier to his continuous power-ups. Failed nomu, the damage to Tomura’s body, the mental problems caused by the quirk upgrades are all interesting limits. 

In contrast, OFA’s limits I think were not very well handled. Especially, because of who Deku is as a protagonist. 

His goal is to become like All Might - the hero who was the ultimate Deus ex Machina of the universe, so powerful that he inadvertedly created a terrrible system reliant on that incredible power of a single person. Deku is trying to follow in his footsteps.  

So where lies Deku’s conflict or challenge or limitation?

He’s morally perfect - already surpassing All Might in character from the start (as evidenced by his positive influence on people All Might failed, including All Might himself). He has no conflict as regards his goal - he’s not a reluctant chosen one - his goal is aligned with the power and legacy he gets. His power is a stronger version of All Might’s. So logically, he should be able to do everything alone that All Might could. 

So the limit doesn’t lie in Deku’s character, nor in the goal, nor in the power. So where is it? 

Because of quirk singularity, OFA has become more difficult to handle than it was at All Might’s time, which in the beginning gives Deku all kinds of limitaitons and broken bones, that he could only solve by lowering his power-output. He had to nerf himself to be able to continue. 

This is a good limitation, but unfortunately the story didn’t deliver so far on the consequences. While in the Muscular fight Deku permanently damages his arms, this damage didn’t really hold him back so far in a credible way. He wins against Overhaul with the biggest plot-device ever (Eri-backpack), and he manages to smash ShigarAFO endlessly without much visible harm. 

Also, because of “plot”, OFA underwent an evolution where it opened up the actual quirks of the previous users to Deku. This was in my view a very bad development, that made Deku less interesting. Suddenly, he had all these extra powers for free (so far neither Black Whip, nor Float came with any drawback whatsoever) that means:

- he can do everything better than other characters, making their niche powers redundant and sucking the oxygen out of their arcs (how could a Sero, Froppy or Uraraka fight look cool now that Deku can do all that but better and on a grander scale)? He has the most power, the most speed, long range, short range, snare, flight - basically the best of everything.

- he has a convenient tool for everything that gets him out of every situation and makes it so that the consequences he suffered because of OFA-singularity to his body don’t apply anymore - he could use Black Whip as a brace and continue smashing with broken arms, and even when his body was broken, he could help Todoroki with his tongue (unlike before in the Forest, when Bakugou was kidnapped).

These upgrades don’t come from any personal development or growth, but all come from OFA’s evolution. Deku also doesn’t struggle much with the extra powers (masters Black Whip in a week and Float instantenously - with some pre-training). 

Plus, in the latest chapters his quirklessness has been retconned into making him the perfect vessel, pretty much abandoning the physical consequences as a limit to OFA singularity. Whatever damage his body sustains is always repairable or can be overcome with new gizmos or using the extra quirks. 

So did multi-quirk OFA ruin the OFA plot irrevocably?

I think it did a lot of damage to Deku as a character (no growth, no conflict, no clear story-reason why he should be his own hero relying on others rather than still wanting to be an upgraded All Might-god), and to the story overall, by trivializing and making useless other characters who we as audience were invested in. Seeing everyone becoming nothing but fodder sucks big time in my view. 

But I think there could still be interesting things be done with OFA due to quirk singularity. As we’ve seen with Shigaraki and the nomu - multiple quirks come with a price to be paid not only physically, but also mentally. 

So far Deku is not paying any price for it though. All the extra quirks have come without drawbacks. Danger Sense has the potential to start wearing Deku down mentally though - due to sensing the crisis situations but not being able to be everywhere at once and wearing himself out.

Another thing I’d like to see is the pain and self-sacrifice of all the previous users taking a toll, as well as finally having some of these randomly chosen people to be not perfect. I think having multiple personalities living in Deku’s head shouldn’t look like a peaceful royal tea party. 

All these users gave up a lot to get Deku here, so I feel like there should be some pressure on him from inside to get the job done or at least some disagreement about Deku’s plan to make nice with Tomura instead of eliminating AFO (remember, it’s the last chance!). So I think maybe whatever chat he had with 2nd and 3rd provided some conflict between the wills of the previous users, resulting in conflicting wishes for Deku. 

All these could lead towards a mental exhaustion or breakdown that could be an interesting moment for Deku as a protagonist and really give him the clarity that repeating history is useless, a solo saviour is not the right answer, but changing the system and empowering everyone else is. 

Since the power-scaling of OFA is already off the charts, I think it would be good to make it hurt more. It should  feel like a terrible mental and physical burden (something like Frodo with the One Ring) to mirror Tomura being suffocated by AFO, so when the two powers destroy each other (which I really hope is the endgame), it will feel cathartic - that giving up and destroying that great power liberates Deku and saves his life so he can continue as a great hero (but scaled back towards the other in-universe top powers) who kept his humanity and his chance of a normal life full of meaningful bonds. 

I’m also wondering how the story will close the society-level quirk singularity plot. One option is that all quirks are somehow tied to AFO (it being the original source) so AFO’s destruction leads to the elimination or gradual decline of all quirks - which would be cohrerent with Deku being the “greatest” - he would hold the peak power at peak quirk level. 

Or it may be left unresolved, leaving the door open for a sequel where the ultimate “evil” is quirk singularity doomsday itself. 

#bnha meta #bnha endgame speculation #ofa #midoirya izuku #quirk singularity #afo #ofa plot

[danurso]

I suppose Melting the Ice has to be with WK but Im interested in the story

@loganhunter2 you and elz asked for the same story, so just look here.

K, here we go.

Title: Melting the ice

Pairing: Jaune x Weiss (White Knight)

Status: abandoned.

Chapters wrote: 1

Total words so far: 5,700

Story:

This story is set still at the first year of beacon, weiss had just got through the reveal of Blake being a faunus and things were settling down for her, and during a early seturday she wakes up before than anyone and leaves to grab a coffee, in the middle of the way she meets jaune, she's ready to deny him as always but he just passes by her like he didn't even see her there, all that while carrying a somewhat troubled expression, she thinks about asking about it but considering it could probably lead to him flirting with her she decides against it...still, she can't shake the feeling that his expression is somewhat familiar to her.

After grabbing a warm cup of coffee to start her day and meeting up with her friends on the cantina, they start to ask where jaune is and team JNPR says he's probably training at the gym, and talk about how jaune has been off lately, while they talk about it weiss realizes that's been at least two weeks since he last flirted with her, and considering that he flirted with her at least twice a day that was weird, add the fact that he didn't looked great earlier and it was obvious that something was wrong.

Pyrrha said all of them tried to make jaune talk but he didn't said anything to them, and they had to make a plan to get him to open up, and this plan involved none other than the resident ice queen weiss schnee, the plan was simple, weiss would ask him out and then proceed to find out what's wrong with him, considering how much jaune likes her it would probably easy.

There was just one small thing they weren't considering, because it could never happen, right?

Weiss, after a long discussion and a lot of begging from her partner, accepted to help them. And so when jaune was leaving the gym, still with that same expression of earlier, weiss stopped him and asked him out, and it was then that the impossible happened.

"im sorry but i can't, i'm busy right now, maybe another day."

Jaune then walked away leaving a frozen weiss back along with six extremely shocked teenagers, and after the shock passed they moved on trying to think about a new plan, this time leaving weiss behind.

Weiss meanwhile thought about how it was possible that she of all peoples was rejected by jaune arc, it wasn't possible, she was shocked, confused and...just a tiny bit angry, and so she went after him to get an direct answer from him.

She followed him to the entrance of emerald forest, she had no idea why he was going there but still followed him, she looked around for a bit after losing sight of him but managed to find him after a few minutes, and when she pound him he was using one of the trees as punching bags, and kept punching it with bare hands until they started bleeding, he didn't even gave it time or focus for his aura to repair the injury...it was like he wanted to feel it hurt.

She had no idea for how long she watched him punching that tree, she only woke up from her traince when he cried in pain and kneeled on the ground holding his bleeding hand. Why was he doing that? She didn't knew, all she knew was that she had enough and intervened when she noticed that he was about to keep going.

Jaune was shocked when he saw weiss holding his fist back and stopping him from keep going, and before he could say anything she snapped at him, asking if he was crazy and what he was doing and to not dare to lie to her, because it was very obvious that he was not okay.

In other situations jaune would be overjoyed of seeing weiss concerned about him, but this time it had the exact opposite effect and they start to discuss about it.

A small piece of how it went.

"why would you care? you don't care for me remember!? i'm just an useless waste of space, have you forgotten already!?" he spat. 

The heiress gave an step back, startled by the sudden outburst, but soon she collected herself and narrowed her eyes. "i know i'm not the greatest person with you but even i can say that there's something wrong, so spill it out!" she hissed back. 

"WHY? WHAT DIFFERENCE WOULD THAT MAKE!?" he roared, his anger growing by the minute. 

"I DON'T KNOW BUT IF YOU TOLD ME I COULD TRY TO DO SOMETHING!" she yelled poking his chest with her index. 

"YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING, NOW LEAVE ME ALONE!" he turned his back to her. 

"NO WAY! NOT UNTIL I KNOW WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU!!" she pulled his shoulder and faced him. 

"IT DOESN'T CONCERNS YOU, YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT!" he roared again, this time his eyes started to get slightly wet. 

"HOW CAN YOU BE SO SURE ABOUT THAT!?" she roared again, the heat on her voice growing. 

"YOU JUST CAN'T!! WHY CAN'T YOU FIT THAT IN YOUR THICK HEAD!?" he roared back, an tearstreak rolling on his left cheek. 

"YES I AM THICK HEADED BUT YOU ARE EVEN MORE THICK HEADED IF YOU CAN'T SEE WHEN A FRIEND IS TRYING TO HELP!!" she shouted back at him. 

"SHUT UP!! WHY CAN'T YOU JUST ACCEPT THAT YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT!?" he roared, his voice starting to crack. 

"AND WHY I CAN'T!?" she spat back. 

"BECAUSE NO ONE CAN SAVE MY GRANDFATHER!!" 

Weiss' eyes widened and her rage vanished, she watched as he breathed raggedly, with more tears streaming down his cheeks. 

"no one can..." he kneeled on the ground defeated. "no one..." his voice broken as he let the pain and sadness overflow him.

After that jaune started to cry for a long time, and seeing him so broken like that made weiss heart sink on her chest, so even against her own reasoning she kneeled and pulled him into a hug. He hugged her back and cried for a long time.

Some time later, after he stopped crying, weiss started to bandage his hand while they both stood in silence, jaune started by apologizing for screaming at her even when she was just trying to help, she said she understand it and knows that despite being just as irritating as ruby, he wouldn't do that under normal conditions and asked what was wrong.

Jaune was hesitant at first but after she promised not to tell anyone he told her about how his grandfather was in the hospital and received the news that he has a rare and incurable disease on his heart, the doctors already tried everything but nothing works, he's now in coma and has only a month of life left, two at the very best.

Jaune told her how his dad was an asshole and his grandfather was the real father figure he had on his life, he was the first person to trust him and even gave his weapon to him, jaune loved him more than anyone else but now he was in a bed a few weeks away from death and jaune couldn't do a thing to help him.

Weiss was silent and just offered comfort to him.

This time jaune was the one who asked, he thought she hated him, why did she helped him?

Weiss answer was that she saw a familiar expression on his face and just now she realized what it was, that was the expression of someone losing what is most precious in their life, and weiss knew that expression all too well, since she herself had to stare at this expression every morning in the mirror when she was younger.

She was hesitant at first but jaune promised not to tell anyone, and so she told him of how her mother died of cancer when she was only nine, seeing jaune suffering brought a lot of memories back, good one and bad ones, the good memories of her mother cuddling on the bed with her and the bad memories of jacques not wanting to waste more money after a certain point saying her mother didn't had any solution.

After her mother died her life was hell, she had winter and klein to support her through her loss, but jaune was alone, she didn't told his friends anything about that problem and bottled everything for himself, and seeing him break after locking up did made her feel bad for him.

Weiss, without even noticing, started to cry at the dear memories of her mother and jaune confronted her just like she did for him, she wouldn't admit it but he hugging her did helped to ease the pain a bit.

After that they went back to beacon and found their friends who instantly noticed jaune's bandaged hand, weiss explained that it happened during their training, that the reason of jaune's bad mood was because of his disappointing sword skills and so she agreed to help him train a bit if he stopped moping around.

Their friends swallowed the lie and weiss told jaune to never tell anyone about what happened, if he did she would painfully murder him.

After that jaune would go and "train" with weiss for some time, but it was mostly so he could vent about his situation, with time weiss felt comfortable and started to talk about good memories she had of her mother, and so they bonded like that, with more intense feelings coming up later on.

That's pretty much all i had wrote and planned in general.

Planned scenes:

1- A scene where one where jaune's grandpa wakes up from his coma on his last few days and calls jaune, jaune talks about it with weiss about how he wants to go but is too much afraid to do so, and so she offers to go with him to see his grandfather.

Upon arriving they meet his family, his sisters and mother are very interested in the girl he brought along, the most interested is mia, the youngest of the bunch who was just seven years old, the girl who instantly called weiss an angel because of how pretty she was, and weiss could help but squeeze the adorableness out of the small girl.

2- the scene of the hospital where weiss meets jaune's grandpa who tells her to take care of him and that they already have his blessing, they both blush while jaune tries to deny it but the old man chuckles while ignoring the denials.

3- a scene where weiss is giving mia a piggyback ride and she tells her about how jaune looks happy when he's with weiss, she said her big brother would get sad all the time and he even tried to hide it from her but she knew he was sad, but when weiss is around she can see that he really is happy.

Weiss tries to say that she's just seeing things but mia says she's not, that jaune is like that because he loves her, weiss blushes and tells her that he doesn't. mia tells weiss about how jaune talked about her on the phone sometimes and how she really wanted a chance to prove how much he liked her, weiss is embarrassed and slightly guilt about that and mia says that it's because she also likes him, weiss tries to deny but it doesn't works and the girl just tells her she will keep a secret until weiss finay tell jaune that she likes him.

Fun facts: that's one of the very first stories i made for WK, it was probably the second or the third one. And the fact that weiss mother is dead on this story is because when i first wrote it we had no information about who weiss' mother was or if she was even alive.

#rwby #jaune arc #weiss schnee #jaune x weiss #weiss schnee x jaune arc #jaune arc x weiss schnee #rwby white knight #rwby whiteknight #whiteknight #white knight

[angsty-nerd]

On New Year's Eve, I marathon watched episodes 1-6...because it just felt like a good way to end 2019. I did the 2nd half of the season last night.

Yesterday morning I was listening to the current insane version of my Echo playlist on my way to work, and the song Wind & Anchor by the National Parks was playing and it got me thinking about Liz leaving, and how abruptly she changed (or was changed by Isobel's meddling).

Here's what we know from Canon. We have Liz and Max's prom night bonding that we see in 1x06. Two weeks before graduation, Liz tells Rosa, "Maybe I don't want to miss Max Evans". The afternoon of the night Rosa dies, Liz and Max have a semi-date, go out to the desert, drink beer, dance, almost kiss. Liz tells Max, "I don't want to be a leaver like my Mom." It's clearly important to her. Max offers to go with her on her road trip and she is shocked, but thrilled, at the suggestion. She doesn’t pull away. The idea of it doesn’t freak her out. If anything, she leans into the idea. Her body language portrays excitement. Her smile gets wider, she gets closer to him, and eventually just ends up in his arms by the end of the scene.

I tried to find a gif of this scene to emphasize my point, but alas, somehow there seems to be this one Echo scene that hasn’t been giffed! So you’re stuck with my crappy screen caps instead. And I couldn’t resist keeping the first and last one bigger because they’re such friggin gorgeous shots. New Mexico people.

After Rosa dies, Max says he wanted to tell Liz the truth, but when he went to do so, she was saying goodbye to her family and leaving. Isobel and Michael both confirm that he wanted to tell Liz the truth and they both knew it. Isobel and Michael decide that Max's feelings for Liz are too dangerous and Isobel gets inside Liz's head and "erases it" (per Michael) to make Liz forget how she feels about Max (implied by Isobel in 1x04). Michael tells Liz, "you didn't leave town of your own volition." Isobel still swears up and down that she can only influence people, that she can't make them do things they don't want to do, but that doesn't entirely jive with the whole she'll just forget how she feels about you statement.

I know I’ve read some fabulous meta over Isobel’s certainty in how her powers had successfully worked on Liz in the past and therefore why they would work again, and I don’t really want to reexplore this from Isobel’s perspective. I’ll just direct you to @latessitrice’s fabulous meta on it over here instead: https://latessitrice.tumblr.com/post/189111618847/mini-meta-this-time-focussing-on-isobel-sending

In classic angsty nerd fashion, I want to look back at the what ifs instead, because it’s those what ifs that haunt me as a fan of the show and as a person invested in this relationship.

Because it’s fairly clear that Liz’s perspective changed. And yes, most of that has to do with Rosa dying. But I think Isobel’s influence also played a huge factor. I think Isobel got into Liz’s head and erased her memory of her feelings for Max. And I do think she made her leave town, and I don’t think that Liz would have run the way she did without that influence. I DO think Liz would have still gone on her road trip. But I think that after her family being destroyed by Rosa’s death and the resulting racism, that made leaving extremely appealing. And then not having that desire for Max as a driving factor anymore, suddenly there felt like there was nothing worth staying for, and all the reasons to leave.

But, as a fan of the show, the what if that makes me the craziest, is of course being robbed of Liz’s reaction to being separated from Max. Without those feelings, she didn’t get to react, she couldn’t react. Whereas, we know, it devastated Max. We know he pined and suffered and fell into a state of extreme depression that pretty much lasted most of the decade, if his own words are accurate in describing how he felt with Liz gone. But with her feelings erased, Liz was like a blank slate until she finally came home.

I’ve always been somewhat fascinated by Liz’s reaction to seeing Max in the pilot, before the shooting. I’ve seen lots of fandom interpretations of her just being stunned at the sight of him. And I do think there’s some of that, but I think there’s something else going on too. Liz’s mind was likely still affected by Isobel’s influence. There had been nothing to shake her free of it with a decade away from Roswell and Max. Before she sees Max, she’s quickly established as a fighter, as someone with a sharp tongue who isn’t easily shaken. But then she sees Max, and she’s frozen. Shook. Stunned. Speechless.

I think that it’s her brain fighting Isobel’s influence.

She sees Max and she immediately starts to feel. But her brain has been told to forget those feelings. So as she flashes to memories of longing for Max in high school, at the same time as she’s processing those feelings, her brain is trying to shut them down, and thus, the internal struggle leaves her frozen and unable to fully react. And once she’s given an opportunity, what’s the first thing she does? She follows Isobel’s instructions. She leaves the checkpoint and continues on her way without even looking back. And by the time she’s talking to her father, she’s not even thinking about Max anymore. Just about ICE and the potential danger to her father.

Then, a few hours later, Max walks into the Crashdown to see her. And what happens again? The same thing. Frozen. Shook. Stunned. Speechless. At least at first. I love this gifset of that moment: https://goodvibesinroswell.tumblr.com/post/188098149117/good-vibes-of-the-day-max-liz-shook

But then, having that feeling and that internal struggle twice in one night allows her to fight the influence, and somehow she just feels enough to ask him to stay for that milkshake. Which in turn allows her to have a conversation.

Until of course, she gets shot. And Max heals her. And in healing the bullet in her chest, what if the healing also managed to repair whatever was broken in her brain from Isobel’s influence? Because from that point on, she doesn’t seem to have trouble interacting with Max. The next time she sees him she’s got a plan and a purpose and doesn’t struggle to stick to it.

And then once he comes clean to her...once they talk and she begins to understand how he feels about her, the feelings came back quickly. Which takes me back to being AAAANGSTY over the what ifs. Because without that influence, maybe she would have missed Max. Maybe she would have wanted to visit. Maybe just that one more thing would have made Roswell a little less awful to remember.

#rnm echo meta #rnm echo #max&liz #liz ortecho #my meta

[darthrena]

I Should Tell You

Part II:  I'd Die For One More Day

Part I here

He comes to her in dreams.

Solid beneath her touch. Breath warm against her skin.

She swallows his exhales and whispered declarations and takes him inside her.

"Are you here? Is this real?" she cries after pleasure crashes over her.

Exhilaration bleeds into fear into loneliness into pleasure all over again.

"As real as you need me to be."

o-o-o-o-o-o

50 days after Exolgor, Rey digs out the ancient moisture vaporators.

She finds them buried deep in the sand, corroded by the elements, damaged, some in pieces and others long scavenged for parts. The Force aids her, divulges their locations with the memory of moisture and wind, drags them through the earth and into the light.

The power which had flooded her on Exolgor, imbued with the voices and the wisdom of generations of Jedi, has left her.

It is only Rey that remains.

But that, at least, is nothing new.

There is little to make her smile these days, but it is with fierce satisfaction that she lines them in the courtyard, and buffs them into, if not pristineness, at least presentability. Readying them to this point was a task of two daycycles' hard effort, however the true testament of her hard scrabble skills is to follow.

"This isn't going to work, Rey."

The familiar, gruff tone is both a delight and an irritant. Glowing blue in the guise of a Jedi Master, Luke Skywalker hovers beside her, arms crossed and a look of obvious skepticism as he glances over her scavenging.

"It will." Rey rises to her feet slowly, stretching out kinks and wearied limbs, and pointedly not meeting the Jedi Master's gaze. It is easy to recall the frustrating grump from Ach-to, in moments such as this.

"Rey, the circuits are degraded beyond repair. Even a mechanic as skilled, and resourceful, as you won't be able to get these running. You'd be better off scrapping them for parts, and trading for newer units. Better yet," and now Luke's chiding tone softens somewhat, "go back to your friends. Make a life with the family you chose."

Ignoring Force Ghosts with unhelpful comments and unwanted suggestions, Rey grunts as she pulls open the side paneling of one unit to reveal the inner circuitry. The sight isn't pretty, but she is reluctant to give voice to any dismay before her almost-Master. Still, despite his apparent reservations, Rey remains optimistic. Luke's family had operated several vaporators suitable for moisture farmers. Rey's ambitions are more modest. Two to three working units would provide much needed water reserves and allow her to carve out a kitchen garden from the commercial hydroponics garden she found in the homestead.

After muttering, "Stubborn girl," Luke leaves her alone.

The rest of the day passes in industrious silence as Rey works on the vaporators into the evening.

"Whatcha doing?"

This time she greets the interruption with an upturned mouth. "What does it look like?"

Ben dangles his long legs over a crate of dated provisions, an amused air as he studies her efforts. This time, Ben wears sand colored robes tied with a brown belt, dark hair cropped slightly but for a narrow braid by his ear. They peak out slightly, round and adorably large. Pink colors cheeks as if the thought transferred to him. And maybe it did. If the garb does not warn her, Ben's face would--high cheekbones and pale, smooth, unblemished skin. No faint scar to bisect soft, warm, vulnerable eyes.

"Looks like your scavenging days aren't behind you."

And Rey is grinning now. Why is it only now that those years of hardship and anguish fill her with a fierce pride? She survived, not for any powerful bloodline or great purpose, but through her own determination to live. "Your Uncle was very unhelpful. It would have been nice to have some practical advice from someone who maintained them. But it was not to be."

"I'm afraid I won't be much better help." Ben hops down from the crate, or perhaps more accurately, floats into a standing position, and then materializes at her side to peer into the decrepit vaporator upon which she currently worked. "Is that the power cell?"

Rey glances to where he indicated, then nods. "Backup power cell. Runs primarily on solar energy."

"Well that's about all I know. Learned enough to build my saber, and what not to do from watching my Dad tinker with the Falcon."

Tatooine’s double suns threaten to bleed across the horizon, and take the needed daylight in their passing. Although Rey has already managed to salvage some workable solar panels and rig up the existing lighting grid, her power reserves remain conservative and she has taken to stopping work after the suns have set.

Letting her tools rest on their makeshift tool box, Rey studies her ghostly former nemesis and almost lover as she ponders the sum of her knowledge against the seemingly endless mysteries of the Force. “You look younger. Than I remember you. Or since the other times I’ve seen you.”

“Death becomes me, you mean.” The words come at a deadpan, barely a flicker to ruffle his normally intemperate expression. At last a smirk peaks out.

"No--" Rey aims a smack through a translucent arm that sends a wave of static up her wrist. "That's not funny." But soon she is laughing anyway. If a bit of tears glimmer upon her lashes, Ben is kind enough not to comment. "Can you change your form?"

He glances down over his own body, taking in the robes and the back of his hands. "I'm wearing my padawan robes. I must be a teenager." Incredibly his ears, visible with the shorter cut, flush a darker blue-purple.

Rey gives him a lingering once over, before drawling, "I like it. Very pure." As Ben's blush only intensifies, Rey chuckles and heads toward the 'fresher, Ben trailing her. Although knowing Ben would hear her anyway, while shucking clothes on the fresher floor, Rey calls over her shoulder, "Do you have any control over your appearance?"

"Uh-h, sort of."

At the odd tone, Rey glances up to see Ben pointedly averting his gaze. Reminded suddenly of her own flustered state after glimpsing Ben shirtless in the Force bond, Rey smiles fondly. In a low voice, she calls, "You can look, if you want."

Very slowly, as if afraid she would retract the offer, Ben turns to face her.

And the breath stutters in her chest.

Lust and longing, love and agony. They are written in the depths of soulful eyes and the taut planes of his face. For what could have been theirs. For what should have been theirs. He drinks her in like a man starved of love and denied his greatest desire. The intensity of his longing drives away any levity, and drags the clawed feet of desperation through her chest cavity. Wet trails tracking down her cheeks are reflected in the tears glimmering in Ben's eyes.

"Will I see you?" Later. In my dreams. The longing in her own voice is palpable.

"Yes," he promises with the resolution of his former persona. Then his voice breaks. "I'll try."

o-o-o-o-o-o

She is buffeted by waves.

That day, on Kef Bir, she had jumped into the tempest without hesitation. Kylo on her heels.

She, for whom the water trough in Niima Outpost had once been the most water she had ever seen.

Fear, and a fierce determination, had kept her moving, kept her fighting.

Something is out there. Beyond the waves. She follows it like a siren call, helpless to the instinct for survival.

This time it is not a watery graveyard that awaits her, nor a convergence of Darkness.

The waves part to a grassy plane with a red sun on the horizon. It is here she finds him. It is here he waits.

“Ben.”

A hand trembles as she presses it against the soft black shirt to feel the steady beat of his heart. In disbelief, a soft sound escapes her. “Is it really you?”

“It’s me. I’m here.” Ben speaks the same wonder, the same longing for touch and connection. “Rey,” he pleads, reaching forward to cradle her jaw in his large hands, the same which had gripped her with determination to transfer his lifeforce into her own.

“You’re not alone.” The familiar promise slips her lips earnestly before she brings them in wordless devotions.

Ben leans into her kiss eagerly, sliding his hands from her jaw to cup the back of head, carrying her forward.

The kiss on Exolgor had been sweet, but brief, joyous and awoken to shared passion. To remember those seconds of wholeness was to be reminded of the agony of separation which followed.

Rey pushes those thoughts aside and gives herself to the warm, smooth press of Ben's mouth, his hard, powerful body against her own. She opens to the tentative probe of his tongue, and chases his shy retreat with her own.

In the real world, beyond this reprieve of breathy sighs and intimate pleasures, Rey has never known a lover, and neither, she suspects, has Ben. Perhaps there, noses would have bumped in awkward kisses and fumbling touches would have them laughing as often as sighing.

Minds intertwined in this dreamscape, more so even than the connection of their Force bond, thought translates into feeling. Ben's love, Ben's longing echoes seamlessly with her desire for closeness and answering reassurance.

There is no pain when he enters her. Only ecstasy.

The teasing glimpses of skin and perfect harmony of their bodies in combat were a prelude to this rightness.

There is a wave that is Rey, building to a momentum both frightening and exhilarating, and the shoreline that is Ben, bringing her to greater heights and steadily drawing her in.

"Ben, please--". Don't leave me. Be with me.

The exhale in her ear, the sharp pistoning of Ben's solid thighs, the hot drip of tears upon her shoulder, and his voice breaking a rough command, "Let go, Rey," break and remake her. I'm here. You're not alone.

Be with me.

Be with me.

Be with me.

Passion bleeds into serenity, and Rey loses herself.

Rey is Ben, and Ben is Rey.

Have they always been one? Two broken shapes finding meaning in a whole, that nothing, not even death, could divide.

In this moment of grace, they are together.

Also posted on AO3

#my fic #tros #rise of skywaker spoilers #writing through my feelings #reylo #reylo fanfic #part 2

[phoenix-downer]

Charm

Sora can’t look Kairi in the eye as he hands her lucky charm over.

It’s broken. In pieces. He’s kind of broken and in pieces, too. That’s what Xehanort does to people. Tears them up and spits them out and throws the broken pieces down on the ground to stomp on them some more.

“I’m sorry,” he manages to say, but it’s not enough. It will never be enough. The charm is a sign of the promise he and Kairi made, and he broke it. He’s broken. Nightmares haunt him at night, flashbacks during the day. There’s no escape from what he’s done, from what he was forced to do.

She takes it from him, wordlessly. He ignores how soft and warm her hand feels in his. The soothing touch that spreads from her fingers up his arm. He doesn’t deserve to be soothed, he deserves to be punished and yelled at and scolded for letting this happen.

But Kairi says nothing. She is silent when before she had so much to say. He dares to glance at her face, just for a few seconds. Her eyes are sad as she looks at the broken charm, and his stomach drops and his heart breaks all over again.

He didn’t think there was anything left inside of him that could still break, but he was wrong.

Her fingers tighten around the ruined charm, her thumb brushing against the one piece that remains somewhat intact, the part of the shell with his face carefully drawn on it. The rest of the shells that she painstakingly wove together to keep him safe are in as pitiful a state as he is.

He feels like a failure. No, he is a failure. He couldn’t keep himself safe. He couldn’t keep her safe. He couldn’t even keep this charm intact, couldn’t return it to her whole, couldn’t return himself to her whole.

She had to rescue him. Had to put herself in danger to save his poisoned soul, his darkened heart. And what for? All she got back was a bunch of broken pieces, a shell of who he once was.

Her lower lip trembles and her eyes water. Yup, he’s officially hit rock bottom. He’s the scum of the earth. He wants to crawl back into the pit she drug him up out of, because that’s where he belongs. Not here by her side.

He turns away because he can’t bear to look at her anymore. Can’t take her disappointment and sorrow. Walks away and climbs into his rowboat and rows to the Main Island so she can’t see the tears in his eyes and the regret in his heart.

When sleep comes to him that night, he sees her face in his dreams. Hears her voice in his head as she calls out to him in the darkness.

He runs away. The darkness has no business being around the light. Xehanort’s gone but the darkness is still here inside him. His heart is dripping with it now. It seeps into everything he touches and poisons it, breaks the lucky charm into pieces over and over again till he wakes up covered in a cold sweat.

This is his life now. Regret and sorrow are his constant companions, his new best friends.

At least he’s not alone.

Something brings him back to the Play Island the next day. He doesn’t know what it is.

No, that’s a lie. He knows exactly what it is. He’s scared of seeing Kairi again, and yet he wants to. Wants to hear her berate him like he’s berated himself so many times already. He’d rather face her wrath than see her heartbreak.

Maybe, just maybe, she’ll finally snap. He’s been nothing but a disappointment, after all. Leaving her behind. Breaking his promises. Breaking her charm. Breaking her heart. He was too much of a coward yesterday to even face her. He owes it to her to do at least that today.

So he sits on the paopu tree and waits. Somehow he just knows she’ll come. He waits all day and it doesn’t even faze him, because this is the only thing that matters anymore.

The sun is getting low in the sky and the colors of the sunset are reflected on the water when she finally does. She doesn’t say a single thing, just sits on the paopu tree a safe distance from him. Good. He’s a dangerous guy to be around. She should keep her distance.

“Sora,” she begins, and he’s listening. He can’t bring himself to look at her yet, but he’s listening. “Why did you run from me?”

It’s a good question, and it deserves a good answer. But he has none. So he tells her the truth instead.

“I was afraid.”

“What were you afraid of?”

“Myself.”

She makes a humming noise, like she doesn’t buy it. “Were you afraid of yourself, or were you afraid of disappointing me?”

He considers this but says nothing. It’s all too complicated to put into words.

“Sora, when I saw the charm— yes, I was sad. Yes, I was disappointed. Maybe even a little bit heartbroken, if I’m being honest.”

She pauses, and he flinches, waiting for the rest, bracing himself for the worst.

“But I wasn’t disappointed with you. I was angry at Xehanort. I mean, he was the one who broke it, wasn’t he?”

She’s wrong about that, and that’s what makes it so much worse. But he has to set the record straight, even if it means she’ll never forgive him.

“No, it was me,” he says. “He made me break it, but it was me.”

“That’s what I thought.” Her voice is pained as she continues. “I was heartbroken that he hurt you like that, that he used me to hurt you. How could I not be, after everything we’ve been through?”

His heart pounds. He can’t believe his ears. She isn’t upset with him, she’s upset for him. What a difference that makes.

He steals a glance at her, and one hand is resting on her lap, the other on the paopu tree.

“You didn’t break your promise, Sora. You brought my charm back to me. Broken, yes, but broken things can be fixed. Broken things can be mended.”

“Can they though?” His eyes flicker up to hers, finally managing to meet her steady gaze.

“You tell me.” She scoots closer to him and reaches into her pocket. She finds his hand and places something in it. Something familiar, something that rests in his palm like it belongs there. Like it’s supposed to be there.

She removes her hand, and it’s her charm. It’s the broken pieces put back together and combined with several new ones. Lots of tiny stitches weave it all together to form one magnificent whole. The brokenness is still there, it isn’t gone, but she’s turned it into something new and intricate and beautiful.

“The coming battle is unlike anything we’ve faced so far,” she says. “This charm will make sure we won’t be separated again.”

The face piece stares up at him. Tells him that if it can be repaired, so can he. And not just repaired. Made stronger than ever before.

His fingers close over the charm. “Thank you, Kairi.” He could say a lot of other things, but he doesn’t need to. The charm is a symbol of his promise to her, and with her magic, nothing in all the worlds is strong enough to break that. Trying to put all that into words is unnecessary because she already knows.

He tucks the charm into his pocket, and it rests there like it never even left. He might still be broken, he might not be entirely whole, but he knows he’s ready to face whatever lies ahead now.

Because he’s not alone. He’s not completely broken. She’s by his side. She’s helping him put the pieces back together, and nothing will ever separate them again.

That’s what helps him move forward. That’s what drives him to the final battle. If anything is worth fighting for, it’s her.

And after it’s all over, when they’re back home and the worlds are safe, he hands the charm back to her. There’s no reason for them to be apart anymore. They weren’t separated then and they sure won’t be separated now.

“We’re back,” he says softly.

She smiles. “We’re home.”

“It’s over.”

“It is.”

He stares out at the sea and sighs. “Our journey’s over now, too. Yours, and mine.”

“Yes, but now we can start a new one.” She leans her head against his shoulder as they watch the sun rise over the water. “Together.”

He smiles at that because she’s right. The pieces are all lined up. They’ve put them back together into one beautiful whole.

They make a new promise after that. No, not a promise, an oath. They swear to always be together and seal their vow with a paopu fruit. And as they do, the charm that kept them going strong all this time rests between them, reminding them of the bond they share, of the promise they made.

It wouldn’t feel right to have things any other way.

This story is dedicated to @angel-with-a-pipette! Thank you for always leaving me such lovely feedback and for giving me the idea to have Soranort be the one to break the charm. The recap videos with Chirithy have hinted that someone is giving someone else a (new) charm in KH3, and while we don’t know for sure who it is yet, it would make sense for Kairi to be the one to give a new charm to Sora. I wondered why that was, and what made the most sense to me is if something happens to the original. And thus the idea for this story was born. 

Just a few quick notes. Sora’s quote at the end is from the Memorial Leaflet, and I based it off of goldpanner’s translation (with a few tweaks). Kairi’s quote about the charm is from the recap videos with Chirithy, and I also used goldpanner’s translation for that.

Screenshot is from the TGS extended trailer.

AO3 link here. FFN link pending. 

#kh3 spoilers #kh3 #kingdom hearts 3 #kingdom hearts 3 spoilers #sokai #kingdom hearts #sora #kairi #phoenix writes #phoenix downer #soranort #post soranort #recovery #healing

[dororoscutesmile]

Summer anime preliminary reviews

Short, sweet, and to the point. I watched the first episode every new series so that you (hopefully) don’t have to! I try to make my brief reviews as unbiased as possible. My top recommendations from a variety of genres first, then the rest under the readmore in the order I personally liked them. There are a LOT of good anime this season, and I definitely recommend more than the first five.

Kanata no astra

Sci-fi/action. In a future full of space travel, a group of high schoolers are suddenly and mysteriously transported over 5,000 light years away from their home planet; they now must survive and work together aboard an abandoned ship trying to get home. The first episode is long and cinematic, which suits it perfectly. This one seems to have everything; action, mystery, comedy, wonderful character dynamics, sad backstories -- and all done very well. It’s going to be one of the best of the season.

Araburu kisetsu no otome-domo yo

High school/drama/comedy. This one is all about sex -- but it’s not ecchi or fan servicey. Girls in a literature club who are ignorant about sex make it their goal to learn about it as they make their way toward adulthood. If you don’t mind high schoolers speaking frankly about sex and their desires for it, but NOT in a way that seems objectifying or unnecessarily “sexualizing,” then this is an engaging coming-of-age story. It’s certainly different, and I believe it handles the topic tactfully and realistically.

Machikado Mazoku

Comedy/magic. A high school girl wakes up from a dream that reveals she is a demon who must defeat a magical girl and restore her family’s honor. This one’s really funny! It’s a fun twist on the “magical girl” genre. The main character is ditzy in a cute way, and she and the aloof magical girl play off each other really well. I was expecting to be bored based on the synopsis, but I ended up liking this a lot. Whatever you think of the magical girl genre, this series looks great.

Toaru Kagaku no Accelerator

Supernatural/action. In a city full of espers, the previously strongest one is recovering in the hospital after being shot in the head and is now being hunted down by a group of thieves using a special weapon. The main character is the cool, aloof, angry type. Intelligent, cocky, overpowered, an appealing design, and a soft spot for a small child. This character, rather than the plot, is what really drives this anime, at least so far. If he’s your type of character, then this is your type of anime.

Given

Music/BL. A high schooler who has lost passion for his hobbies meets another boy with a guitar with broken strings. He repairs the strings, and the boy starts following him around asking him to teach him guitar. Not much really happens in the first episode, but there are hints of a romance between the boys, which is obviously expected from BL. The animation with the instruments is good, and the characters have potential. For fans of BL or even just the music genre, this one seems pretty solid.

Dr. Stone

Sci-fi/adventure. This takes place in a future where all humans have turned to stone. The protagonists are one that is plain but charming, and another who is an enjoyable smart-ass; together, they start trying to revive all the people who were turned to stone. The characters’ dynamic together isn’t particularly interesting, but each character is enjoyable in their own right. There’s science, primitive technology, and some mystery in this. It’s definitely worth a watch.

Okaa-san Online/Tsuujou Kougeki ga…

Fantasy/comedy. A strange government program sends a boy and his mother into an online game. Having a mother and son dynamic here along with their generational gap in video game knowledge certainly makes for an interesting premise. The mom has a great personality and is surprising in a number of ways, and you can expect family bonding in this as the son is reluctant to have any kind of adventure with his mother. It’s cute!

Bem

Supernatural/horror. Three good youkai fight against evil youkai, trying to save humans as well as become humans themselves. At the same time, there’s a female police officer who gets involved and is fighting against corruption in the city. Warning for some gore. The tone of this show is jazzy and gritty, taking place largely on dark city streets. The characters have yet to be fully fleshed out, but the gritty tone is unique this season.

UchiMusume/Uchi no musume/Uchi no ko...

Fantasy/found family. Also known as “If it’s for my daughter, I’d even defeat a demon lord.” A young man meets an orphaned demon girl and adopts her as his daughter. This is incredibly, incredibly sweet. The first episode is very good at setting up the father-daughter relationship and making you care a lot about the little girl. If you want a cute and pure found-family story, this is the one.

Nakanohito Genome

Gaming/comedy. A group of various gamers are suddenly placed in a real life game where they must play well enough to gather 100 million viewers during what turns out to be a livestream. Think “The Hunger Games” but with gamers. The characters are fun, and it’s an interesting premise worth giving a shot. Give it two episodes before making up your mind, I think.

Kochouki: Wakaki Nobunaga

Historical/action. Based on the real historical figure Oda Nobunaga, starting from his teens and up through adulthood as a warlord. This was surprisingly engaging. The characters and the history are both interesting, and it does a good job of humanizing the historical figures. If you like historical anime, this one’s for you.

Yami shibai - Japanese ghost stories

Technically a returning series, not a new one, but it’s more of an anthology kind of series that doesn’t require previous viewing. Very short episodes, and exactly what it says on the tin. The animation is suitably creepy, and it’s great for a little scare.

Arifureta shokugyou de sekai saikyou

Harem/fantasy. A high school class was transported to a fantasy world where all but the main character gained powerful magical powers, whereas the main character only got a single common skill, and he is ostracized for it. Betrayed and dropped into a dungeon alone, he must fight his way out with newfound powers. The protagonist is engaging, and the action is alright, but the first episode doesn’t reveal much about the plot honestly. It could be worth giving a shot.

Enen no shouboutai

Sci-fi/action. In a not-too-distant future, humans have begun to spontaneously combust. Some have gained the ability to do this at will and retain their human form. A young man who can light his feet on fire at will joins a special task force of, essentially, firefighters who deal with the deadly combustions. This one’s got mystery, an engaging and well-designed misunderstood protagonist, and great action sequences.

Isekai cheat magician

Fantasy/adventure. Two high schoolers are transported into a magical world much like in an RPG. They join an adventurer’s guild where they learn they have unbelievably strong magical powers. The first episode merely sets up the premise, but the main characters’ friendship dynamic is nice, and it has good potential for an “another world” genre show, especially if you tend to like overpowered protagonists.

Vinland Saga

Action/historical. A viking boy, based on a historical Icelandic explorer, hones his skills to avenge his father. Solid animation, high quality in most aspects honestly, but a very slow start to the story. The first three episodes were released all at once, and it seems like they might together be a sort of prologue to the real story. If you don’t mind a slower pace and you enjoy vikings and/or historical shows, this does have a solid plot and solid character building.

Katsute Kami Datta Kemono-tachi e

Action/fantasy. The premise of this is somewhat similar to Fairy Gone. One side of a civil war turned to using magic in order to create monstrous super soldiers. They start to develop symptoms that make them too dangerous, and now in a time of peace, one of them makes it his duty to hunt the rest. If you like the action genre, this seems pretty solid. The first episode was just a setup for the premise, but the main character is interesting, and the action scenes are pretty good.

Dumbbell nan kilo moteru

Girls lifting weights! There’s what some may call fatshaming in this right from the start, so if that puts you off, you may want to avoid. Very fanservice-y. But If you’re into the “muscle girl” look, this probably won’t scratch that itch. The female body types actually seem pretty average for anime (even the “chubby” girl) despite the heavy focus on strength training. The main character has a cute personality, and the show is fun with some actual strength training tips.

Cop Craft

Sci-fi/buddy cop. In a city near a rift between Earth and other worlds, a male human police officer and a female alien team up to fight crime. There’s not much to say about this one, it’s exactly what you’d expect from the buddy cop genre with aliens mixed in. It’s good for what it is, and the character dynamic of the two protagonists being opposites is good, so if you like the buddy cop genre, you’ll like this.

Maou-sama, retry!

Fantasy/adventure. A man is transported into a video game that he manages, a world in which is powerful due to his administrative controls over the game and is seen as a “Demon Lord.” He befriends and protects a young disabled girl who joins him on his journey, and their dynamic is interesting. This is a pretty generic anime, but if the “normal guy is transported into a fantasy world” trope appeals to you, you’ll like it.

Sounan desu ka

Adventure/comedy. After a plane crash, a group of high school girls must survive on an isolated island. There’s plenty of “fan service” (things like upskirt shots) which may make some uncomfortable. If that doesn’t put you off, this is otherwise a cute show with an interesting survival aspect to it, where you might actually learn real survival tips.

HenSuki/Kawaikereba hentai demo suki ni natte kuremasu ka

Harem/comedy/light ecchi. The genre alone should tell you nearly as much as you need to know if this one’s for you. A high school boy who wants a girlfriend finds a love letter left for him, along with a pair of panties. He then tries to figure out which of the girls in his life left the letter. There’s not too much to say about it. A cast of mildly perverted girls, and exactly everything else you’d expect.

Joshikousei no mudazukai

Comedy/high school. A group of girls with very different personalities try to navigate their new high school lives, with the main character being obsessed with finding a boyfriend despite being at an all girls school. This is silly and cute, very light in substance, but a nice break from more serious anime.

Tejina-senpai

Comedy/ecchi. A high school boy looking to join a club stumbles upon a girl practicing magic tricks in a “magic club”; however, she makes mistakes during every trick, and he has to help her out when her tricks don’t come out as planned. Keep in mind that this is in the ecchi genre and therefore aimed at tantalizing straight male viewers. If that’s your thing, you’ll find this to be a very cute and funny show.

Granbelm

Fantasy/action. This is a sort of magical girl mecha anime, from what I can tell. A high school girl is temporarily transported into an “illusionary” world full of magic where she learns she’s a descendent of a mage. There’s a heavy focus on both lore building and action scenes. If you wanna see magical girls fight in big mecha suits, this is the place to do it.

Hakata mentai Pirikarako-chan

Slice of life/comedy. Very short episodes about a little girl named Pirikarako. It seems to be mainly for children, having talking fruits in it and being animated in an overly cute style. It’s hard to explain, but it’s very silly and cute.

Re:Stage! Dream Days

Idol/slice of life. A middle school transfer student stumbles upon her school’s “lyrical club,” the members of which want to become idols, only the new girl turns out to have been an idol in the past. The girls are cute, and the singing/dancing parts are fun.

[clairen45]

Holding Out the Hand: what the “Hand Scenes“ in Star Wars tell us about relationships...

Be warned the title of this post was originally planned “The Hand Job” but I was a little worried people might have other expectations about the article. LOL. It is what it is, a brief comparing of three moments throughout the Star Wars saga when iconic couples or pairings get to hold each other’s hands in a “romantic” way. I am excluding moments prior when they would help each other out, for instance when Anakin helps Padme get out of the gondola on Naboo by holding her hand, because the emphasis is obviously not on bodily contact or physical interaction, and there is no romantic tension. On the contrary, each of these key scenes represents the moment when the characters have to start dealing with physical attraction and romantic longing. It is put out there and they have to deal with it and react to it. From then on, they cannot, as hard as they may, ignore the changes in the relationship. The fact that it always takes place in the second installment is also important. The first movie is supposed to build things up, and the third is the consequence of what happened after the hand holding moment. Finally, the way each scene is set (and that includes the setting, the dialogue, the costumes) potentially gives us clues about where the relationship may be going.

First stop: Attack of the Clones. Padme and Anakin are on Naboo, her home planet. He does not belong there, and it is the place where she will eventually be buried, a subtle way of saying that this relationship will be the death of her. He is there as her bodyguard, she resents that, but still, he is there to protect her, which puts her de facto in an inferior position. Right after the infamous and possibly worst line ever about sand, Anakin makes clear to Padme that he wants something more out their relationship. This is what I will call the “Vader Danger” moment. You can tell by looking at Padme how tense she is. She is looking away. She lets him touch her hands, then her bare back, but she does not move or say anything. Note that the scene does not start as a close-up but begins from a distance. The intimacy between the two is not natural. She acts a bit like a deer caught in headlights. Unable to process, she lets events unfold. Anakin will later talk about the “kiss she gave him”, but she actually did not give him a kiss. She let him kiss her, then stopped it, and regretted it. Her hands remain clasped the whole time, signifying her refusal to totally give in. She will not initiate more, he is always the one initiating physical contact and the clarifying of the relationship. He is pushy and she is evasive.

Even the god-awful dialogue says a lot about their relationship. Yes, you are coarse, rough, and pushy, Anakin, and yes, she is gentle, smooth and maybe too fragile for this relationship to function. He is sand, she is water. Sand cannot hold water. With her graceful, flimsy, gown that looks like petals, she is dressed the part of the fragile little flower.

I know some may argue that in the same episode she fights and behaves like a warrior. She is a powerful woman in her own right, and she is brave and intelligent. But, if anything, the way she is presented in this particular scene is as a dainty little flower, and NOT a warrior queen. This foretells a lot about what will come next. She will not be strong enough in this relationship. And I will hardly say that the way she recoils from him every time he tries to “seduce” her is a good sign. I think it is also the moment when there is a slight shifting in their relationship. She was up to that point, even when they meet the new queen on Naboo, the one making all the decisions and ordering him about. He starts becoming more assertive as he starts being more direct and open in his attraction to her.

Second stop: Empire Strikes Back. Han has been trying to get Leia admit her feelings for him since the beginning of the movie. So far, not so good. But at one point, he manages to literally corner her while she is busy working on repairs in the Millennium Falcon. He interrupts her while she is busy working on her own. She does not want to be bothered, she even pushes him back when he tries to help. The very much independent princess will have none of that. He is invading her space. She also refuses his sarcastic way of addressing her (Your Worship). She wants to be called Leia. She is represented very much as she truly is: a sensible, no nonsense, practical woman who can hold her own. Even in the way she is dressed: she may be donning white, not necessarily a good colour for DIY jobs, but it is still practical and comfortable. And the outfit was also designed as a camouflage for Hoth. So, she is wearing battle clothes of sorts. So, most definitely, working clothes for the princess.

In their dialogue, she insists on them being equals, since she refuses her title, and she wants to help with mechanical duties on the MF as much as anyone else involved at the moment (Han, Chewie, C3PO). She is no damsel in distress. When she hurts herself, her reflex is to take care of herself. And this is when, sensing an opportunity, he starts holding her hands and massaging them. Even the way he touches her is rather practical when you think of it. He grabs her hand without much ado, as if it were natural. This is no Vader Danger for her, but it gets her flustered. She is attracted to him, but embarrassed.The scene is shot very differently from the Padme/Anakin scene. There is more intimacy between them, they look at each other, she does not turn her head. They are not in the open but in a closed environment, his ship, his turf and workplace. They are brought together on his terms. Incidentally, this is also symptomatic of what will drive them apart. He will keep on flying and going on adventures, and she wants to keep on working.

The way he approaches her is also more direct than Anakin. No metaphor about sand and water. It is more like, “hey, you like me, I am a guy, you are a girl, we like each other, let’s make out”. Contrary to Padme who only reacts after the kiss, Leia, uncomfortable, argues right away and demands that he will “stop it”. Just like Anakin, he will not, and will initiate a kiss, but she has already somewhat voiced her approval by agreeing that she kind of liked him. There was verbal consent. But the fact that they keep on arguing and exchanging banter up to the moment of their kiss is also very symbolic of their dynamic, as well as the way their first kiss is eventually broken up by C3PO’s intrusion with a comment about work. Work, for these two, will always get in the way. It is a romantic relationship, but these two are practical people who put work and duty before anything else.

Final stop: The Last Jedi. This is very divergent from anything we have seen before. Of course, the first big variation is that so far the characters were antagonists, whereas in all previous relationships they started out on the same side and/or friends. There is normally no love lost between these two, and even if it should be obvious from TFA that Kylo has a crush on the scavenger girl, Rey has come a long way from wanting to kill the guy.

What brings the characters together is also outstanding. The second diversion is that they are not technically speaking physically together. They meet through a Force bond. They are not supposed to share the same space. As far as they are concerned, there is no space but their own. The previous sessions have established that they only see the other, as if he/she was magically transported into their surrounding. So, at the beginning of the scene, Kylo sees her in his private chambers and she sees him in the little hut where she lives during her stay in Ahch-To. Which means that, from the get go, this is officially the MOST intimate scene we have ever had so far, and the perfect compromise. Naboo was Padme’s world, the MF was Han’s world, here Kylo and Rey’s worlds literally combine. She did not ask him to be there, he did not want to be there, but here they are, not normally playing a part in each other’s life. He is not there to help her or protect her, and she is not doing anything. She is telling a story by the fire and he is listening. No metaphor and no work. And no name. She is not defining him and he is not defining her. For these two people that have been constantly alone their lifetime, they come to the magnitude of the realization that at this moment, when they are together, they are no longer “alone”. There is no demand. He says: “You are not alone”. She answers: “Neither are you”. They are stating this obvious : their strange relationship has intertwined their lives.They are there as perfect equals, both sitting, both seeing the other as he/she really is. He is not asking her anything, neither is she. These two people are not physically in the same space but are somehow represented as more intimate than any of the other two previous couples, thanks to extreme close ups, and the way they let themselves be totally overwhelmed by the moment. They are focused on each other in a way we have not seen before.

As for Rey’s costume, this is virtually her in her pyjamas. Even if she is wearing her Jedi trainee outfit, she is covering everything up under a blanket, as if she were tucked in in her bed. Actually, both their costumes become here inconsequential, since the extreme close ups prevent from paying attention to what they are wearing, unlike in previous scenes. Only the hands and faces matter, the way their hands touch and the way they react to each other.

And now for the huge big diversion: SHE initiates the touch. She is the one holding out her hand. But she does not touch him, she waits, she lets him ponder. And when he decides, he removes his glove, reaches back and meets her halfway. They do not impose the touch on each other. They communicate and agree non verbally. He does not push his way like Vader, nor does he argue his way into her affections like Han. They both respect each other’s space, before touching each other.

No kiss, though… Well, that is, if you discard the fact that like Romeo and Juliet, these two, like saints “have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch/ And palm to palm is holy palmer’s kiss”. This is indeed represented as a divine union, a spiritual experience, where they each have visions, and which deeply affects them. And note that this is not work that stops “the kiss”, but a spiritual father, a figure that is very much Godlike, amid the thunder and the storm. Which puts their relationship on a deep spiritual level, and not just an erotic one. Neither of them tries to stop the process, which means that it is stronger than them, that they cannot resist it. And it is strong enough that it brings him into her space, that she, technically, pulls him into her world, by the fire, that is to say to the light. He is not the one pulling her to his side. At the same time, it is also a place where neither belongs, and a place that is sacred to the Jedi, once again stressing the spiritual level of their interaction.

If we compare this last scene with the first two, we can see many big differences that could give us clues about where this is going for them.

They are equals: both Force sensitive, both portrayed merely as a soul and a face

They both want the same thing at the same moment

They do not necessarily need verbal communication

She initiates the first touch and he does not invade her space

Their relationship is as much physical as spiritual

They do not kiss

For people who used to declare Kylo abusive and the relationship toxic, I am going to state that, for the first hand scene, they went out of their way to show them in the most consensual romantic moment we have ever had in Star Wars love stories. It is very revealing that when their relationship was at its best in the throne room they indeed did not have any verbal communication. Talking is what got them into trouble. So verbal communication is what they need to work on. The good thing is they probably will have more Force sessions to figure that out. They are the first couple who has not kissed in the second installment. But kissing did not necessarily guarantee a happy ever after obviously. At the end of episode 2, Han and Leia got separated whereas Padme and Anakin got married. I will take it as a good sign they are separated. The better to try and be reunited. It is obviously through their spiritual connection that they are destined to be together, and if you take the hut scene as a rehearsal: she may probably be the one luring him through their desire to be together…

#reylo #reylo evidence #reylo fandom #reylo fam #reylo meta #star wars meta #kylo x rey #kylo rey #han leia #anidala #star wars parallels

[welovekpopscenarios]

Friction (Fallout!AU Woozi x Reader)

Admin: Mimi

With your rifle damaged, you had no other choice than head to the nearest city to get it repaired. You didn’t expect the person doing the job to be such an insufferable jerk, however. But things become interesting the more you get to know the man repairing your weapon. Fallout/Post-Nuclear War!AU.

Fandom: Seventeen

Genre: Fluff, Angst

Pairing: Woozi x Reader

Warnings: Language, mentions of violence, Woozi and Reader being assholes to each other

Word Count: 3955

A/N: Will I ever stop writing for Seventeen? No. Will I ever stop writing game au’s? Probably not. As I said in my Mingyu one, don’t get put off by this being a Fallout AU, it isn’t that central to the story, and I hope it’s still enjoyable for everyone to read, but just ask me if there’s anything you’re confused about, I’ll be happy to answer! I wanted to write for Woozi bc I absolutely adore him and why not write for your bias wrecker haw haw help. But yeah, this is a classic enemies to lovers trope bc I’m a sucker for that type of stuff. Also just picture Jihoon being like, a weapons mechanic or whatever and being sweaty and working hard and ugh stop it. I really hope you give it a chance and enjoy it! Happy reading, ily all!

 - PART 2 -

The heat of the sun bore down on your skin, sweat pooling into nearly every crevice of your body as the sun seared into the leather bonds and cotton long johns that sat on your frame as a pathetic excuse for armour, leaving you more than irritably sticky and exhausted. The gravel crunched beneath your boots as you made your way through the tore up streets, dodging stray pipes ready to slice your head off from their position in the walls and climbing over car wreckages whose engines have long been silenced over 200 years ago, eyes half-heartedly scanning the corners for raiders or thugs ready to point their pistols at you and steal the caps stashed at the bottom of your rucksack.

Not that you felt like you cared at the moment, to be quite honest. The blaring sun and the hours long walk, sneaking past enemies and taking out the ones who caught you have, to put it frankly, completely drained you faster than you drained all your water supplies in a single day. A raider could easily pop out from whatever hidey hole he’s dug himself, put a shiny one right between your half-closed eyes, and you’d thank him for putting you out of your misery. You were that tired.

And what made this hellish journey even worse was your destination – and your problem. Some time ago your favourite rifle took a tumble from your position on the broken, open second floor of a house you were staying in one night, and when you hopped down to retrieve it, you were heartbroken to find it smashed at the barrel, trigger bent sideways, and completely useless.

Normally you would just toss the weapon aside and grab the newest one you could find, making do, a common occurrence in the wasteland. But this rifle meant something to you, it was special. It was your first one, given to you by your father before he…well. It was important to you, and you needed it fixed. Unfortunately, you didn’t know how to repair the thing, and so that brought you to start your trek towards the last place you wanted to be.

Diamond fucking City. "The Great Green Jewel" of the Commonwealth.

Diamond City – while a hub of trade, services, security and life – was also home to complete nutters and crazies, and that wasn’t even counting the ones trying to kill you yet. Brawlers, thieves, con-artists, and now synths were apparently added to the mix, the city was a complete shitshow, to put it kindly, and to put the icing on the sweetroll, it was all controlled by a racist asshole who liked to keep his civilians as obedient as he thought he could. But, that being said, the city was the only successful one in the Commonwealth, booming with activity, and the only one you somewhat trusted closest to you.

And so you walked for days on end; starving, parched, and sick of it all. Your lips were cracked and drier than the trees standing in the countryside, feet more swollen than a Super mutants head, and limbs moving slower than a Brahmin cow. But still you walked. And by the grace of whatever sadistic deity left above, you reached the entrance of the city, the guards shifting in their positions and shooting you suspicious glares. The one directly outside the gates lifted his gun to you, standing straighter, prepared to shoot you down where you (barely) stood should you try anything. Not that you had the energy, even if you wanted to.

“Hold up,” he grunted, shoulders hunched into a defensive position while you wavered in place, swaying slightly side to side in order to keep yourself upright. “Who’re you and what’s your business here?”

You tried to reply, you really did, but all that came out was a lousy croak of your name, followed by a short coughing fit. “I’m here for weapon repairs,” you managed, breathing heavy, and so completely done with this conversation already. As if you were going to make the city any worse.

The guard shuffled, moving his balance foot to foot, as he mulled you over, eyeing you head to toe. A guard taking watch on the rafters whistled to grab his attention, the young mans’ eyes flitting upwards to him in surprise.

“Let em in, Kookie. They ain’t gonna cause any problem, and they’re just here for business. Just let em through,” he ordered, the toothpick in his mouth moving with each syllable that rolled off of his tongue, scratching at his back lazily as he leaned against the railings. The guard – Kookie – furrowed is brows in uncertainty, eyes flickering between your deadpan face and the other guard. He licked nervously at his lips, fingers fumbling around his rifle.

“But, Johnny, Mayor McDonough said-“

“McDonough said keep the bad ones out. And my excellent judge of character says they ain’t a bad one,” he drawled, fixing Kookie with a look that screamed ‘are you that dumb?’ “McDonough also don’t want anything stopping business in his city, especially a greenie guard. That’ll look very bad on you, kid.”

Kookie look like he wanted to say more, but what could he say? He was only new, and Johnny has been manning the entrance for years. He has to trust his superior. Nodding in satisfaction at Kookie’s compliance, he turned his gaze to you, flashing a smile enough to rival the Cheshire Cat’s you’ve seen in those books your father showed you when you were little. “I’ll open up the gate for you. Head on in, dollface. Welcome to Diamond City.”

You were too dead to make a comment on the nickname, instead throwing a lacklustre salute in Johnny’s direction and ignoring Kookie’s scowl as his eyes followed your form, heading deeper into most popular civilisation in the Commonwealth.

What struck you first was the lights, the entire city lit top to bottom in various types – open flame, bulbs, neon signs, even floodlights – the entire city illuminated and glowing, which only served to highlight the mass of citizens sprawled throughout the area. The noise levels were high, something you weren’t used to unless it was from the occasional scream of pain in the distance. The noise was filled with chatter, people actually having conversations, or promoting their trade from their stalls scattered throughout the centre, and music from the city’s radio station echoed throughout the space faintly, creating an almost happy atmosphere as you walked to the centre.

It was completely alien to you, to see this many people together and not have them try to shoot you, or watching them fight, or any other negative you could find in the book. It also made you do a double take on the city’s reputation. While you were cautious of the metropolis, a seed of mistrust planted firmly in the pit of your gut, you reasoned that the city wouldn’t have stood for as long as it did if it really was full of lunatics and thugs. Maybe this place wasn’t that bad.

Maybe.

When your jaded eyes landed on what looked to be a restaurant in the very centre, manned by one of those Protectron robots and wearing what looked to be an absurd chef’s hat placed neatly on his metallic head and stirring a large pot, you nearly wept with relief, dragging your heavy legs and plonking yourself on one of the stools, burying your head into your arms on the counter in front of you and heaving the longest sigh you think you’ve ever made in your existence.

"Nan-ni shimasho-ka?"

You slowly raise your head from its place in your arms, eyes searching around the area for the person who addressed you, only finding one guy sitting a seat away from yours, slurping on noodles contentedly.

"Nan-ni shimasho-ka?"

You faced forward, the lights on the Protectron gleaming as he spoke, the waves in his voice bouncing with an electronic twinge. You shot him a confused stare, but he was unperturbed as expected of a robot, continuously stirring his large pot of noodles automatically.

“What?” you asked, positively baffled. Were you too tired to understand basic speech now?

"Nan-ni shimasho-ka?"

You heard a chuckle resonate near you from the only other occupant at the noodle bar. He shot you a friendly grin when you turned your head, still chuckling in pity at your expression.

“Just say yes,” he told you ominously, and while you narrowed your eyes in distrust, you did as instructed.

“Ye-es,” you dragged out the word, confusion lacing your tone and a brow raised on your dirtied face. The robot’s metal claws picked up a bowl from the table, monotonously spooning noodles into the chipped ceramic dish and pushing it towards you when he was finished.

“That’s Takahashi, he cooks the noodles here,” the man explained, inclining his head to the robot who happily stirred his pot. “The noodles cost 20 caps, just put em in the box on the bar.”

Nodding in understanding, you took the sufficient caps from your bag, placing them in said box and promptly digging in, practically inhaling the food your stomach cried out for in the past few days, barely even feeling the burn on your tongue as you swallowed the savoury substance, eyes nearly falling shut in happiness.

“Thanksh man,” you mumbled around a mouthful, too impatient and hungry to stop eating and address the guy who helped you. He smiled slightly at you as you ate, spooning his own a lot more gracefully into his mouth.

“No problem, I was confused when I first got here too. I’m Scoups,” he introduced, hand reaching out to shake your own, his nearly encasing yours whole with how large it was. You returned the greeting once you swallowed. The red glow from the fairy lights strung around the tarp of the noodle bar cast shadows on his smiling face, a genuine smile, such a rare sight in the wasteland. “So, what brings you to Diamond City? Looking for a place to stay?”

You licked sauce off your lips, swirling your noodles absentmindedly in their bowl. You nodded, nails tapping against the table. Scoups bobbed his head in understanding, folding his thick arms on the countertop. “Do you know anyone who can repair weapons?” you asked, and Scoups grinned, mischief swirling in his dark orbs.

“Look around,” he laughed, a wave of his arm accentuating his words, your eyes roaming the space that was littered with all types of services – from mechanics, armourers, merchants, even a hairdresser. “The better question would be where can’t you get it repaired. Pick your poison. But if I were you, I’d go see Woozi. He’s the best in the City for a reason. I’ll take you to see him after you’ve finished eating. You look exhausted.”

You smiled at him in gratitude, one he returned amiably, and finished your meal, listening to him as he explained the layout and manners of the infamous Green Jewel that was Diamond City. A short while later with a belly blissfully stuffed and feeling rejuvenated, you followed Scoups as he led you to one of booths in the city, this one covered with various bits and pieces from weapons hung around the sides and a simple metal sign with ‘Woozi’s’ carved into it hanging high above. Scoups didn’t walk the full distance to the stall, only pointed out its location and mumbling a ‘good luck with him, you’ll need it’ and a ‘see you later’ before he was heading off in the direction of what looked to be a bar.

Edging closer to the stall, you could see the parts more clearly, the grey of the booth littered with scopes and barrels along the walls, some weapons sitting on display on random boxes for all to see, looking in better condition than any gun you’ve ever seen, even shiner than anything you’ve ever seen. Standing at the entrance, the stall was smaller than expected, only bearing the essentials and locks for protection. Sitting at a workbench was who you suspected to be the man himself, fiddling with a shotgun and a look of utmost concentration upon his face that could only ever be found on the most skilled marksmen.

Sweat lined his forehead, falling from his hairline and down his temple, and the occasional oil mark was splattered across his face, on his cheeks, chin, even the bridge of his nose. His teeth bit into the skin of his lower lip, the flesh red and plump from constant worry, and his eyebrows were furrowed almost angrily, as if frustrated with his work, twitching every so often in annoyance, nostrils flaring with every heavy breath that ached to leave his chest. He was definitely one of the better-looking men you’ve seen in the wasteland – a strange feeling in your chest spreading through your tired limbs the longer you stared at him. He had a strange allure, certainly, a man dedicated to his craft with an air of no nonsense about him that was a well needed trait for survival. And that tingly feeling in your stomach was certainly strange, perhaps even more alien to you than the city you stood in.

“You’re in my light.”

Huh?

“What?”

A sharp exhale left the lips you’ve been focusing on far too much to be normal just moments ago, his gloved hands placing the shotgun down carefully and shifting in his stool to face you, pulling the gloves off finger by finger as he stared at you with an expression that almost made you flush with embarrassment, as if you had just done the most stupid thing possible.

“I said,” he spoke deliberately slow, like one would when dealing with a child who didn’t understand what they’ve done was bad, and it had sparks of annoyance flashing through you. The nerve of this guy! “You’re in my light. Or are you deaf? Too many beatings to the head?”

You now understood why Scoups wished you luck when dealing with this guy. You needed it, because each passing second only made you want to punch this guy so hard he’ll be headed straight for New Vegas on the other side of the country.

“There’s light everywhere, jackass,” you retorted, glancing around and at the sky. It was still midday, still hot as hell, and just when you thought you were feeling better, you get sent to this jerk who’ll be responsible for fixing your rifle. If you’ll even let him, at this point. “Or are you that petty?”

Woozi looked untroubled by your comment, resting his left elbow on the table and leaning his weight on it, a smirk playing at the edges of his lips. A smirk you wanted to kick right off his pretty face.

“I need to be able to see what I’m doing. You don’t get to be the best in the city by doing a half-assed job,” he boasted, looking as smug as a raider who just found a huge box of caps on some poor helpless traveller he butchered.

“Then I suggest find a candle and some matches, day light doesn’t last forever,” you suggested cheekily, pleased with the scoff he gave and downturn of his lips. God, this was infuriating. You don’t know why you’re getting so worked up over this. “I need my rifle repaired,” you settled for getting straight to the point. The sooner you could get into a bed, the better.

“Well, no shit. It’s kinda what I do,” he sassed, his stupid perfect brow raised and dark eyes scanning your form, head to toe. You squirmed under his scrutiny, suddenly conscious of the dust caked on your face, the scars littering your body, the dirt hidden beneath your nails. It was foolish, really. Things like good looks and hygiene weren’t a priority anymore, but for some reason you felt like you should have at least scrubbed up a bit before coming to see this man.

Which was absolutely ridiculous. It’s not like you had to impress him.

Certainly not.

You barked out a sarcastic laugh in response, face dry and showing no semblance of humour whatsoever. “Funny, twerp,” his lip curled into a snarl at the insult, “I know that. I was told to come here because you were apparently good. Scoups sent me.”

“Scoups?” he questioned in faint surprise. He hummed, regarding you thoughtfully before eventually sighing in resignation. “Show me this rifle of yours, and I’ll see what can be done,” he sat up straighter, hands facing palm up and awaiting your prized possession. You reached into your rucksack for the rifle that lay sadly at the bottom, dragging it out carefully and placing it into his hands, watching as that concentrated expression from before returned to his face, looking much older than you expect it to be.

His slender fingers toyed with the weapon, running up and down the barrel, pushing the trigger around and giving it a shake, an awful rattling noise resounding from the simple action and simultaneously putting a grimace on both your face and Woozi’s. After another moment of inspection, he placed the rifle down on the table next to the shotgun and left his stool to rummage through crates of spare parts and tools, metal clanging bouncing against the walls of his booth.

“I’ve never seen a barrel that badly smashed before,” he observed, planting various tools onto the surface of the workbench, the table soon filling with wrenches and screwdrivers and pliers, more than you’ve ever seen in one spot before. Taking a seat once again at the table, he placed the shotgun to the side, focusing his attention on your rifle again as he brought it to eye level, a tut of frustration leaving his mouth. “I can fix the trigger no problem, but the barrel is another story. If I was you, kid, I’d just dump it and get a new-“

“No!” you blurted out, panic putting a fresh weight on your chest. You needed this to get fixed. Woozi stared at you in bewilderment, eyes wide in confusion and fingers stalling their movements. There was a beat of silence as you simply stared at each other; Woozi silent as he awaited and explanation, and you silent in shame, heat crawling up your neck. “Please,” you plead, voice near mute but heavy with desperation. “This gun means a lot to me, and I really need it fixed. I can’t do without it. Please.”

It must have been the waver in your voice, or perhaps the shake of your hands, or even the dulling of your eyes that had Woozi’s hardened stare softening until was just blank, returning his gaze to the weapon in question. His tongue poked at his cheek and you watched the action, a cold feeling freezing your body in place as you waited in horrible anticipation. He glanced at you out of the corner of his eyes, swiftly looking away when he met your saddened expression, a faint blush blossoming on his skin, and then he was rolling his eyes, huffing out a quick breath and turning his body around.

“It’s gonna take some time, and a lot of supplies,” he announced, his glare having lost the venomous edge it had and instead just a plain old bothered expression similar to an old man’s. “But, I might be able to get it fixed. No promises though,” he added quickly, but you were too elated to really care, body sagging in relief and a grin stretching ear to ear on your muddy visage.

“Thank you so much,” you beamed, that heavy weight lifting off your chest and your heart feeling brighter for what felt like the first time in months. The blush on his face grew darker as he saw you smile, his own smirk growing on his lips as he gave you a sly look.

“Gonna cost you a good amount of caps too so don’t look too happy, sugar,” he drawled, and your joy began to deflate slowly like air out of a tire. Right, the cost. Shit.

“What’s the damage?” you inquired, forehead creasing in worry as you thought of the little cache in your bag. Fuck, you didn’t need this to burn a hole in your savings, you still need to find a room to stay in and get food and drink. Woozi examined his tools and the rifle, mentally calculating the effort it would take to repair it.

“Giving the time and supplies I need, I’d say around…500-600 caps.”

“500 fucking caps?!” you shrieked. “I don’t even have half of that! And I still need to find somewhere to stay!” Fucking hell, you really couldn’t get a break, could you?

Woozi made a hissing noise that sounded like it was half in mock sympathy, shrugging his shoulders in a ‘what can you do about it?’ sort of motion. “Well, I guess you’re gonna have to find some work around the city then. Plenty that needs to be done, I’m sure. In the meantime, I’ll be slaving away over your precious rifle. But it’ll be done. I’m not a genius for nothing. So, will you have the money or does this conversation end here?”

Your fists clenched at your sides, once again supressing to urge to knock his teeth out of his skull, and clearly, he could tell, smirk growing and eyes narrowing in a challenge. “I’ll have the money. Just…please fix that rifle. I’ll pay you when you’re done.”

“Don’t worry, your rifle will get repaired. But I only accept half up front, and the rest when the jobs done,” he explained. Ah, just another bit of Deathclaw shit dropped on top of your day. This’ll leave you with a dent in your caps, hopefully you can find some work soon, or else you’ll be broke and living on the streets without any way to pay for the gun you’ve walked miles to sort.

“Fine,” you grumbled, hands hurriedly pulling the box out from the bottom and pouring them directly onto Woozi’s workbench, watching as some toppled off the edge and onto the floor of his workshop, loud clinks ringing in their wake. At least you still have that other little bag of caps hidden in your spare clothes. Woozi looked pissed at the mess you made, chest blowing up and deflating thickly as he tried to contain his anger. After all, he couldn’t really say much, you had given him the caps.

“There should be around 220 caps in that,” you announced, closing your bag and shifting it on your back. “I’ll have the rest when you’re done. Bye”

And then you were off, walking back into the throng of people of Diamond City, eyes open for any opportunity for work and shoulders slumped in misery. Woozi was baffled by you, to say the least. In all his time working in this God-forsaken shithole of a city, he’s never met anyone quite like you, quite so…like him. He’s met compliant, kind customers, and he’s met outright assholes who he almost refused to service if the pay wasn’t worth it, but you were different. He got a kick out of how much he pissed you off, how your lovely face would scrunch up in irritation, and tasted his own medicine when you threw it right back at him. Definitely more than meets the eye, with you. But as he stared at your rifle, thumbs rubbing against the dents and cracks, he figured that he’d be done with you soon once this was over and never have to see you again.

Oh, how wrong he was.

And oh, what an interesting week this will prove to be.

#mimi fics #kpop #kpop scenarios #Seventeen #seventeen scenarios #seventeen fics #seventeen angst #seventeen fluff #seventeen reactions #woozi #lee jihoon #woozi scenarios #jihoon scenarios #woozi angst #woozi fluff #s.coups #jeonghan #joshua #jun #hoshi #wonwoo #dk #mingyu #minghao #seungkwan #vernon #dino #the8 #seungcheol #soonyoung

[la-moonlight-lily]

May I? Chapter 2

Summary: She’d been waiting for the one that would make her feel this way. That tenacious, profound, lingering emotion that no words can encompass. And now that she had, it had to be the one person she could not let into her heart. ItaSaku Soulmate A/U (or is it?). Non-Mass.

Rating: T. Subject to change.

1. Misconceptions | 2. Contemplations | 3. Decisions | 4. Resolutions

I wanted to post this earlier but my (new, infuriatingly enough) laptop had to be fixed multiple times. I hope you like this one, and don’t forget to let me know what you think! :D

Itachi flopped back onto the bed and rubbed his hand over his face, barely stifling a frustrated groan. It was barely ten in the morning and it already felt like a pretty long day. It didn’t help that his cousin really had dragged him into the hospital almost two hours ago to get those check-ups Sakura had insisted on.

He tried so damn hard not to think about her.

It was so difficult when all it seemed like he could do is see her in anything he sees or hears every day. Whenever somebody brings up the hospital, she’d be the first image that pops into his mind. Whenever his mother said that Sasuke won’t join them for dinner because he’s training late, he’d see her in his mind’s eye, beating his brother and their blond teammate within an inch of their lives. Hell, whenever he saw Kakashi in passing or one of the Konoha 11 or even when he went to receive a mission, he’d always think of the little pink-haired apprentice of the Hokage that he just so desperately wanted to lay eyes on.

Itachi never expected to feel so strongly about anyone, especially Haruno Sakura. She was always around since his brother became a genin, with him on the training grounds, around their house whenever his brother or his mother invite Sasuke’s team for a meal, or even at that ramen stand Naruto always dragged them to.  But she was never important, never worthy of a second glance. She was just his little brother’s teammate who had pink hair and a possible infatuation with Sasuke, and Itachi has written her off as yet another overbearing female.

Until she decided to split the ground with her fist.

He didn’t know what made her seek out the Hokage, but she had and was apparently well on her way to be Tsunade’s almost-clone, with violent fists and an even more violent temper, if her scolding of the staff at the hospital and her teammates was anything to judge by. Itachi decided then that perhaps Haruno Sakura was more deserving of further contemplation that he first thought.

At first, he gave her an extra bit of attention because she intrigued him, because he wanted to see what she might be hiding behind her soft smiles and vibrant eyes. To see if she was really made out of something much stronger than her exterior made her out to be or if his initial judgement was correct and she would always just strive to catch up with everybody else around her.

She proved him wrong every time. He didn’t know when or how it happened, but Sakura was suddenly a lot more mature, he could see that from hearing her speak with his mother as the years went by, her interests and ambitions no longer being boys and pretty faces. She was also a lot more confident, he could see that in the way she commanded the hospital at her young age, and the way she commanded the room during official meetings, even if she spoke little, and the way she commanded even the Hokage, always regulating the ratio of drinking to paperwork. And she was hell of a lot stronger, obviously judging by the frequent earthquakes that seemed to transpire in Konoha, and the bruises on Sasuke’s face and body that she refused to heal whenever he annoyed her too much.

Itachi would take the chance to observe her if he ever came by her, curious to see how far she’d developed, if she would be able to meet the expectations he’d once again set for her. But then instead of just watching Sakura punch delinquents and crack grounds, he would often happen upon her comforting a young boy as she healed his broken arm, or making meals that Naruto could stock up on for the week so he wouldn’t run out of food and have to only run on ramen (no matter how much he wanted to), or laughing as she slowly sipped a drink at the bar with the girls, her laughter lighting up her whole face with fond exasperation. And Itachi found himself wanting… more?

He wanted to know more about her, what food she liked and what books she read and how she managed to look so radiant almost every time he saw her even though he knew she was exhausted because of her training and the missions and the hospital work. And he wanted to know what put that smile on her face, because he wanted to see more of it. No, he wanted to put it there.

The first time that thought crossed Itachi’s mind, he was surprised, and he was never easily so. It was stupid to feel attached to someone he barely knew; someone he’d never even talked to or acknowledged beyond the polite nods in passing when he had to. Itachi had always had such a tight leash on his emotions, and them starting to run wild and for someone so strange to him… It almost scared him. But he couldn’t stop seeking her out still, and made it a point to quietly observe her from a distance, even after she noticed him and he knew she was uncomfortable with his stares, Itachi still could not help himself. And then Sakura started reciprocating his… whatever it was, and Itachi was completely lost.

She’d suddenly become around him a lot more than he had planned, and she would smile at him softly and Itachi would feel a strange fluttering in his chest. Sometimes, those smiles would be comforting, as if she felt it whenever he needed consolation. Sometimes they would be teasing or even downright sultry and inciting. Slowly, gradually, the urge to look became the urge to touch, to kiss, to feel, to have more of her that was for him alone, like those smiles that he never saw her gift anybody else.

What Itachi had found strange before became somewhat clearer to him later. It was unnerving to feel so connected to her and develop those almost stalker-ish tendencies, but maybe, just maybe… Haruno Sakura could be his.

It made sense. His soulmate mark appeared a few months before Sasuke was born, so her age would fit. It wasn’t unheard of for soulmates to feel a connection prior to discovering their bond, so that should also explain their strange interactions. And the happiness that had defiantly filled his being when he considered that possibility was something Itachi was willing to take as further proof.

There would be obstacles of course. He was the Uchiha heir, and the clan would certainly need some coaxing (or threatening in some cases) until they accepted her as their next matriarch. The other clans could even protest because of the power the Uchiha clan would gain further from this match. Having such close ties to the Hokage would not sit easy with those who sought a higher status or just simply did not want the Uchiha to gain it. None of that mattered though. If she truly was his (and she was, he could somehow feel it), Itachi would not stop at anything to make her wholly his, and proceed to give her every part of himself in return, to trust her with all of him.

He knew she felt it too. It showed in her eyes, that silent acknowledgment that he recognised easily. And Itachi almost felt feverish in his excitement to hear those words etched on his lower back come out of her mouth, hear her whisper ‘stay with me Itachi’ as he held her and showered her beautiful face with kisses.

She was adorably flustered when she suddenly found him close to her as she and Sasuke were sparring one day. His shock when her first words to him were not what he had expected pinned him in place instead of letting him go after her as she almost ran away from him and Sasuke, his little brother watching them both with confused but calculating eyes. Itachi had hastily excused himself then and bolted towards the Uchiha training field, where he was found hours later by Shisui almost mutilating an old gingko tree.

“So she’s not…?” Shisui trailed off as they both sat down against tree, Itachi struggling to regain his breathing, and his composure.

He didn’t ask his cousin how he knew of his thoughts before. It didn’t matter after all.

“No,” Itachi whispered harshly, his breath still ragged, “she isn’t.”

They didn’t say anything further on the matter and Itachi reluctantly followed Shisui back to the compound to shower and dine with his family, before his cousin took him out again to the bar that night and they both proceeded to be thoroughly trashed.

It was a bit difficult for Itachi to keep his thoughts away from Sakura after, even after a whole month away from the village, and if he were to be honest with himself, he didn’t want to. They fell back into that strange routine of theirs as soon as he got back until Sasuke interfered and they got into that stupid fight more times than he could count and Shisui had to interfere before the two brother took their argument to the training grounds one time. Ever since, Sasuke would be constantly near the pink-haired woman and Shisui would stick to Itachi as much as he could to buffer any accidental interactions and jump in the middle of his two cousins should they decide to voice their disagreement again, making it almost impossible for Itachi and Sakura to even steal longer than a glimpse at each other.

Itachi groaned and slammed his head back against the pillow. It’s been almost a year now. Why he couldn’t move on, he just did not understand. It’s not like Sakura was encouraging him (unless you count the frowns on her face that he wanted to permanently erase), and not like anybody else wasn’t actively discouraging him either. Hell, even his relationship with his brother had become frosty over this madness. Maybe if he repaired his relationship with his brother, it would help? He and Sasuke had always been close, and if they got back to where they were before, it would make him feel better? Better enough to stop brooding at least and move on with his life, and maybe then she could move on with hers.

He was about to sigh again when someone knocked on his door.

“Itachi-chan?” his mother called from the other side of the shoji screen, “are you awake?”

“Yes, Kaa-san.”

“Come down for breakfast then! You left early so we had to eat without you, but I saved you your food.”

“Yes, Kaa-san,” he said again and sat up with a groan, untying and retying his hair before he followed his mother, who was already on her way to the kitchen.

He found her already heating up the rice and soup, some saury being freshly grilled, and Itachi sat down at the table when she batted away his hands after he tried to take over from her. It only took a few more minutes till his mother was laying the table and he began to eat.

Itachi must have been hungrier than he thought because he sat there for several minutes, quietly devouring his food and trying to not burn his tongue again on the hot soup, and looked up to see her staring intently at him with her chin resting in her palm. He raised an eyebrow and went back to his food when she didn’t comment right away. It didn’t take her long though.

“You’ve been sulking lately,” Mikoto observed quietly. Itachi only raised an eyebrow again and continued to eat.

“Is it Sakura-chan again?”

Itachi froze. His eyes snapped up to hers and they stared at each other for one long moment before Itachi smiled wearily.

“Am I that obvious?”

“Not at first,” Mikoto admitted. “But I still knew from the beginning.”

“Can’t keep anything from you, can I?” He said dryly and his mother laughed a little.

“I would’ve thought you learned not to try years ago, but you’re stubborn as always.”

She laughed again as her son grumbled under his breath, something that sounded like ‘no privacy in this house’ and turned serious again.

“So?” Mikoto tucked her hair behind her ear. “What’s the issue with the two of you?”

Itachi watched her for a moment. “Do you have to make me say it?”

“Well it’s not like I know everything!” his mother grumbled, “I have my theories, but you need to confirm them.”

“And they are?”

“Well…” She looked down at her hands. “At first I thought you’d found your mate and were stalling for time until you sorted everything out with the clan. But then you didn’t approach your father and I couldn’t see any obvious efforts with the council.”

“Maybe I’m just waiting for the right time?” He countered.

“That still can’t explain Sasuke’s hostile attitude. Or Shisui looking panicked almost every time you pass her in the village.”

Itachi remained silent and Mikoto sighed.

“She’s not your soulmate then, is she?”

“No.”

Her son looked as if he had tasted something rotten. But they needed to have this conversation.

“Then what’s the issue?”

“Kaa-san, I can’t- “

“What’s the issue, Itachi?” Mikoto’s tone was unyielding.

“I don’t know what the issue is.” He ran his hand over his face, the chopsticks lying forgotten on the table.

“I thought she was my soulmate too. I was almost sure she was, I don’t know how, but I just knew.” He sounded frustrated. “But she isn’t and it’s just… I’m just…”

“You’re just what?”

“Angry.” Itachi almost growled and Mikoto’s eyes softened.

“I shouldn’t be, I know that,” he said before she could say anything, “stray attractions are not uncommon, apparently, but it felt like so much more, and I’m just so angry… I’m angry that it happened, I’m angry that she’s not my soulmate and I’m so angry that no matter what I do, I just can’t stop!”

Itachi could see the hint of surprise in his mother’s eyes before she composed herself. He didn’t really care.

“You want her to be your soulmate,” Mikoto almost whispered.

“Is that so wrong?”

“I wish it wasn’t, Itachi-chan- “

“What’s wrong about it, then?!” His voice rose slightly and he clenched his hands and took a deep breath.

“What makes it so wrong?” he repeated, softer this time, “why should a tattoo dictate my actions? My life? I can’t pursue a woman that I want to so badly because of four words that no one’s even come close to saying in twenty-four years.”

“And what if you both become miserable?” Mikoto countered, “what if one of you or both of you meets their other half? What will you do then?”

“And what if we don’t? What if we decide that this is what we both want, instead of conforming to some meaningless words?”

His mother was shaking her head as he spoke.

“You’re talking this too far for someone who’s practically a stranger to you, Itachi,” Mikoto sighed. “You barely even know her.”

“Don’t you think I want to, Kaa-san?” Itachi ground out.

“Then talk to her,” Mikoto offered, “maybe when you do, you could both realise that this is no more than an infatuation. You could even become friends.”

‘If only I could’, Itachi mentally snorted. He couldn’t exactly tell his mother that her calm, composed older child could barely stop himself from telling Sakura he wanted to kiss her whenever he tried to address her. Shisui had laughed at him for ten whole minutes when Itachi shared that particular piece of information with his cousin once. Something that he deeply, deeply regretted.

His mother kept her dark eyes trained on him. He could see her trying to gauge his thoughts behind that carefully stoic expression.

“Someday, Itachi…” she trailed off slightly. Took a deep breath and got up to sit beside him. “Someday, you’ll find the one meant for you. And you’ll realise how happy she can make you, how she can understand even the subtlest of expressions on your face and comfort you with the smallest look or slightest touch- “

‘Isn’t that what I’m feeling right now?’ Itachi thought to himself.

“-and you’ll see how incomparable it is to anything you might be feeling right now,” Mikoto continued as if she could hear his inner thoughts.

“And whoever she is, you’ll accept her?” He found himself asking before he could stop himself. Might as well have that conversation to its fullest.

“Of course we will!” his mother insisted adamantly, “whoever is your match will be part of our family and that is that.”

“The elders will object if she doesn’t turn out to be an Uchiha- “

“And your father will scorch them alive before they can protest.” He gave her a small smile and let her kiss him on the forehead and she got up to wash the rest of the dishes from the family’s earlier meal.

“Finish your breakfast,” she demanded with a smile, “I want to wash those dishes too while I’m at it.”

Itachi silently complied, eating quickly before handing her the plates and putting on his sandals. He needed to blow off some steam.

The training grounds frequently used by Team 7 was unoccupied, leaving Itachi to mentally list the probable locations he needed to check while hunting down its members.

The Hokage office was empty, save for one comatose Hokage lying face down on her desk. Itachi closed the door quietly to avoid waking the older woman up and having to endure a brutal assault to his ears that early in the morning. The ramen bar that Naruto practically lived in was, very surprisingly, free from said blond individual. The Yamanaka flower shop was only just being opened by the Yamanaka girl, who told him she hadn’t seen any of the Team 7 members since they left the bar the night before, but maybe he should check the hospital (which he definitely was not. If only to not step foot in that place twice in one day).

He was passing by the onsen when a flash of orange caught his eye, and Itachi retreated a few steps to find the blond jinchuuriki heading inside. He followed him inside to find him sneaking with a towel over his shoulder, in the process of forming familiar hand seals (ones that Itachi desperately wished he hadn’t been so familiar with) and almost pounced on the younger man just in time to stop him from transforming into a naked female, probably scaring a number of employees inside in the process.

“What the hell?!” Naruto almost squealed and jumped out of his skin. Itachi had to suppress a smirk as he held the other man steady by the shoulders.

“What are you doing here?!” the blond shouted at Itachi, almost accusingly, who responded by raising an eyebrow.

“This is the entrance to the women’s side, you know,” Naruto continued, pointing out the sign on the shoji screen. Itachi only lifted his eyebrow higher.

“Err… Well…” Naruto laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his neck, trying to avoid the raven-haired man’s eyes. “I was on my way to the other bath, you know.”

“Of course you were, Naruto-kun,” Itachi responded in a cool tone.

“Well, what do you want then?” the blond tried to sound cold and angry, but only succeeded in appearing more flustered.

He had always been quite amusing. Itachi led him to the corner of the room.

“Have you seen Sasuke today?”

“Sasuke! Yes! Well he- oh…”

“He…?” Itachi prodded and Naruto shifted nervously from one foot to the other.

“He as in Sasuke…” Naruto trailed off again and Itachi almost sighed.

“Yes, Sasuke…?”

“Breakfast!”

“He already had breakfast, Naruto-kun.”

“Oh, he took Sakura-chan out for breakfas- eep!” The blond squealed again and Itachi had to stop himself from laughing.

“Any idea on when they would be done, then?” he asked instead.

“Oh I don’t know,” Naruto frowned in thought. “He said something about buying Hanabi a birthday gift and infuriating demanding women.”

Ah. Another time then.

“Thank you, Naruto-kun,” Itachi tilted his head slightly to the young man. “Do you know if he’s planning on meeting Hanabi later though?”

“No idea. Why?”

“I might let him know to let her know that you were trying to get into the women’s bath. I’m sure her older sister would be most amused at the situation- “

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“-no peeking, Naruto-kun,” Itachi finished with a smirk, transporting himself out of the establishment before the blond could make another comment.

He found himself back at the Uchiha compound, chasing after his cousin’s chakra signature until he found him escorting his fiancée out of her home. He picked up his pace until he reached the two of them.

“Itachi!” Reika, a distant cousin of theirs and Shisui’s intended, cried happily as he stood in front of them, “it’s good to see you! Do you want to get some dango with us- “

“Excuse us please, Reika,” Itachi interrupted her greeting and grabbed his cousin by the arm, transporting both of them to the Uchiha training grounds.

“What the hell Itachi!” Shisui sounded most affronted at being taken against his will, and away from Reika, whom Itachi knew Shisui hadn’t seen for almost a week while she was on a mission.

Itachi didn’t bother to respond, though. He only whirled around as soon as they steadied on the ground and proceeded to punch his cousin square in the face.

“I hate you.”

The words came out as a harsh pant as both men lay on the ground gasping for breath after a strenuous, surprise spar. Itachi had gone all out and Shisui was not one to be taken by surprise and be outmatched. He definitely gave his cousin a good beating, if his ragged breathing and vigorous coughs were anything to judge by.

“No you don’t,” Itachi managed to get out before another fit of coughs claimed him for the next half a minute.

“What the fuck was that about, you idiot?” Shisui kicked his cousin in the shin. Itachi kicked back.

“I needed a good spar. Sasuke had a prior engagement.”

“Oh so you two are all fine and dandy now?” Shisui turned his head to observe the younger man, who kept his eyes up on the sky, blood red slowly fading back to onyx black.

“Not yet,” Itachi admitted between pants. “But we’re going to be after that spar, as soon as I can get a hold of him.”

Shisui snorted. “Sure. Beat your brother up and he’ll go back to behold you like the sun shined out of your ass.”

“It’s always been a special bond.”

“One that you somehow believe extends to me now.” Shisui laughed and shook his head slightly, smoothing his hair back with both hands, before folding them under his head.

They lay in silence for a few minutes, their bodies cooling in the chilly spring breeze.

“So?” Shisui asked again, “what was that really about?”

Itachi did not respond right away, and his cousin almost gave up after a while and let the younger man ignore him, as he sometimes did.

“Have you ever felt anything for any woman other than Reika?”

Shisui groaned and slapped a hand over his face.

“Are we having this conversation again? Really?”

“It’s just a question,” Itachi murmured and his companion scowled.

“It’s not just a question, and you know it.” Shisui sighed and took a few moments to think.

“I could certainly appreciate other women, you know that,” he finally said, “and at certain points, I even thought that it was a shame one woman or another didn’t say the right words because she would’ve been perfect as my soulmate. But then, when I met Reika at that party it was just… different.”

“Different how?”

“Oh you have to be a pain, don’t you?” Shisui scowled, but continued anyway. “For starters, I’ve never been compelled to be with someone like I am with her. And she can understand me at a much deeper level than anyone else could.”

“Does she make you happy?” The question came out as quiet murmur, almost hesitant.

“Of course she does. I mean, we have our fights and disagreements, but there’s just that level of communication that gets us through them.”

“Does she know how to comfort you? Maybe even with a look that could calm you down after a bad day, or- “

“Yes, yes she does, and you’re going to stop being so weird and sappy, or Kami-sama help me, I will kick you in the balls!” Shisui closed his eyes and tried unsuccessfully to tune out his cousin’s quiet chuckles.

“Just what is wrong with you today Itachi?” He added as an afterthought.

“It’s always a pleasure to see you squirm, dear cousin.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m not sure Reika would appreciate that.” Itachi had to stifle an oomph as Shisui elbowed him hard in the ribs.

“On second thought,” he smirked, “I don’t think you’d appreciate it either. I don’t have enough curves.”

“One of these days, I’ll send you home in a body bag,” his cousin grumbled and sat up to lean against the tree standing tall behind them, “and if Auntie Mikoto asks, I’ll tell her you finally decided to rid the poor world of your wretched existence.”

“She’ll see right through you and gouge your own eyes out and Amaterasu you with them.”

“You’re all crazy…” Itachi ignored his best friend and smiled serenely at the clouds above him. No matter what his mother insisted, no matter what the words scripted on his skin said, he knew deep inside of him that Haruno Sakura was meant for him. That she would make him as happy as Reika made Shisui, and calm and comfort him as his mother did his father, and he would do the same and so much more for her.

Uchiha Itachi was going to damn well make that woman his. And if anyone disapproved… Well, no said they had to know.

#Naruto #ItaSaku #Uchiha Itachi #Haruno Sakura #fanfiction #fanfic #writings

[prince-of-night]

Alright more on the Subnautica au because I’m bored as shit and in an alpha kids mood.

So, basically the thing about Subnautica, if you don’t know it, is that it’s a sci-fi survival game where the corperations of the world has spread to the outer reaches of space. A 10,000 passanger colonizer shuttle (that the player character is on) that was set to make a loop around this one waterworld planet basically gets its engines blown out and crashes into said waterworld planet. Of the crash, there is only one survivor (player character), as the rest of the passengers onboard died from either the crash, the secondary engine explosion, the radiation, and predators. Later on, you learn that the ship you were on didn’t crash from engine failiure, but was instead shot down by an alien gun installed to keep the planet in quarentine, as the previous sentient, highly advanced alien species that inhabited the planet beforehand had genetically crafted a bacterium that had quickly grown out of hand and caused a mass extinction event before they could finalize a cure for it. Your job as a player character is to not only survive out at sea, crafting what you can from the various scraps you can collect from the wreakage, but to disable the weapon and travel deeper and deeper into the depths to find the cure for the plague that is slowly but surely killing almost all life on-planet, including you.

(Of course, this au modifies that a bit; fun though it is to stick Dirk alone in a waterworld with nobody but robots to keep him company, we already have that in-canon.)

Enter Dirk, brilliant mechanic and sibling of a famous movie star who was traveling to the far reaches of the galaxy to try to strike himself a living on his own, out of the shadow that his brother Dave Strider drew before his death. He has no idea what jobs he may find on the outskirts of the Alterra corperation, but he figures that there must be some new colonizers who require a mechanic with a quick mind and a sharp eye for survival who will take him under their wing, and it’s far, far from the crowds and the press back home, far enough from the people who only care about him for his brother can reach.

On board he meets Jake English, a cheerful adventurer from a long line of space voyagers who’s flying out on the last of his family money in hopes that he’ll finally find his place and his birthright amoung the stars and undiscovered floura of newly-charted planets. They run into each other, bond over bagels and arguments about the efficiency of robots in discovering new species, and even though Dirk hasn’t yet indulged in his morning(?) coffee, he can’t help but be hooked by Jake’s cheery, infectious attitude and surprisingly sharp wit, hidden cunningly under his gentleman persona. Eventually, some things lead to another, and Jake introduces Dirk to his ramshackle reasurch team, composed of Jane, one of the heirs to the main Alterra corperations, Roxy, proffesional hacker, scientist, and biologist, and a few other unimportant characters who will ultimatly die in the blast from the crash and the radiation poisoning. Dirk gets absorbed into the group via sheer nerd osmosis, and decides to go along with them to the planet they’re going to scope out, if only to stay with his new-found friends a little while longer.

Of course, such hopeful dreams were never meant to last. The Aurora pulls a slingshot manoeuvre around planet 4546B and gets promptly shut down by the gun. Dirk gets bundled into a life pod and shot off away from the crash before he can catch up with his friends to protect them, managing to land just outside the blast radius when the engines rupture and the resulting radioactive blast decimates any survivors left on-ship or in the lifepods around the ship.

The few days and weeks after that are spent in a haze of fighting for survival and spending all the energy he can spare frantically looking for survivors. There’s enough scrap metal scattered around for him to make entire ships; he repairs his lifepod, makes a new comminications messanger, and crafts a ramshackle submarine out of what he can while the radio spits static. There are some blips on the radar; survivors, people he doesn’t know calling weakly for help, but they are always dead or missing by the time he finds them, killed by the radiation, by poisoned food, by the leviathans that lurk the deeps. Each failed rescue feels like a failiure on his hands. To prevent himself from going crazy, he merges a copy of his conciousness with one of the higher pieces of tech on board. The resulting AI is a sarcastic asshole whose attempts at help are suspect at best. He quickly grows to regret merging a splinter of his conciousness with an almost all-powerful computer.

Eventually, though, one of the sweeping bots comes back with promising news; life readings from a nearby drifting island, life readings that are specifically humanoid in nature. Feverish with excitement and desperate hope, he logs the coordinates for the island into his Seamoth and sets out as fast as he could, and finds Jake huddling in the rotted-out ruins of an old explorer base, shell-shocked and broken from the terror of facing a real adventure in full, without friends or safety net to help him.

(‘Guess I found out where we lost Pa, his guide, and Uncle, all those years ago,’ he says later with a quavering laugh, shoulders trembling violently under the force of his fear. Dirk looks up from the dashboard of his submarine, concentration shot down by worry, and then reluctantly resumes as Jake weakly waves a hand at him and tells him in an unnaturally steady voice to keep watching the water, the Reapers lurk within these depths. 'They went out to explore a planet not from this one and went missing about a thirds of a way from their trip. None of their communications were saved, no trace of them, nothing for us to follow. Well, I sure as hell found them now. They were shot down, just the same as us, and they died down here, just as same as we will if we can’t get ourselves off this dastardly fucking island.’)

With the help from Jake, merging tech dug out of the old Harley base with what they’ve salvaged from the Aurora and the help of another human hand, they manage to update their communications relay into something far more efficient, and pick up on pinging from another lifeboat, cast adrift near the island where the quarintine gun is sheltered. Both head out, and are delighted to find Jane and Roxy, who are a little banged up but none the worse for wear, most likely due to Roxy’s biological know-how and the sheer fact that Jane is the only person left who can actually cook food like a proper human being, and thus serve meals that are at least somewhat above the bare nutritional value.

Frrom then on, the plot progresses closer to the original storyline of Subnautica, with some exceptions due to the additons of three other characters. I’m leaving it off here for now due to the fact that from here on out, the story only gets far longer, and because I do not wish to spoil the entirety of Subnautica for any of those who wish to play it.

Pairings included in this au would obviously be more lowkey due to the constant stress of survival, but Dirkjake would definatly happen somewhere along at least a platonic route, with perhaps it leaning more towards romantic near the end (when time is running out and there is a cure in sight, and Jake’s panic attacks grow less frequent) and Janeroxy would most likely grow closer together as a pair as they work together to survive the watery hell they’ve been presented with.

#homestuck #subnautica #homestuck au #dirkjake #janeroxy #dirk strider #jake english #jane crocker #roxy lalonde #alpha kids #sadstuck #text post #*bird noises*