#wrong. you did it wrong. they should not be able to separate the two - unless the point of your writing was to write a cool story | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

cheapshrimpysheep · 1 year ago

Note

hi, is it okay if I request a comfort(?) scenario/headcanons where Leona, vil and rook(separately) has a s/o who starts randomly wearing gloves and hiding their hands from them due to getting really bad contact dermatitis from their work and not really able to do anything about it work wise

COMMENTS: Coincidentally, I myself have problems with dermatitis on my hands. So, perhaps what I wrote comes a lot from my own experience. Especially the thing about using an ointment that worked once and for some reason no longer works. 😅 And having some trouble sleeping because of the itching.

I hope you and all enjoy it ❤️‍🩹

CHARACTERS: Leona Kingscholar / Vil Schoenheit / Rook Hunt

TAGS: Comfort; Fluff; GN Reader

WORD COUNT: An average of 610 words per character

Contact dermatitis is an itchy, inflamed rash that develops when your skin comes into contact with an irritant or allergen. There are two main types: Irritant contact dermatitis and Allergic contact dermatitis.

I decided to go with the first one since Irritant contact dermatitis is the most common type. It's caused by a substance that irritates the skin, such as soaps, detergents, solvents, or harsh chemicals.

CONTEXT: You got dermatitis after cleaning Ramshackle Dorm. It's not the first time, you already had it before, so you think you know how to treat it. Nobody needs to know. So you will take care of your hands at home and whenever you go out you will wear gloves to try to protect them. You'll be fine in no time... Right...?

Leona knew something was wrong the moment he saw you wearing gloves. Nobody starts wearing gloves out of nowhere just because. But he didn't need to ask anything because he saw you moving your hands as if those gloves were uncomfortable. And once or twice he saw you scratching your hands through your gloves and stopping immediately as if you had remembered that you shouldn't do it.

He wasn't going to get involved. At least not if it looked like you were getting better. But on the second day, you still itched. And on the third day, you had bigger dark circles than usual and the itching seemed the same or worse.

You had just returned to Ramshackle Dorm and the first thing you did was take off your gloves and run to the bathroom to treat your hands. Why didn't that get better? You were using the same ointment as last time.

“You should go to the infirmary.” Grim said “Hench-humans should take better care of themselves so they are always ready.” He teases you before showing actual concern. “You're not even sleeping well. I wake up to you scratching yourself every five minutes.”

You won't admit it, but he's right. You should go to the infirmary. Maybe tomorrow. That's what you're thinking when you hear someone knocking on the door. But you can't cover your hands now, the ointment is still working. So you open the door with one hand, using the door hide this one and place the other behind your back.

“Show me your hands.” Leona demands calmly. You look surprised and confused. “Show me your hands.” he reiterates, crossing his arms but still patient.

“Why?” you ask.

“Why are you hiding them?” he asks back. “If everything is normal, why don't you show me?” and smiles smugly.

I mean, he's right. Who opens the door with one hand behind their back. This is very suspicious. You hesitate, but end up stretching your arms in front of you to show your red hands and unhealthy skin.

But Leona isn’t surprised. He barely even reacts. As if you had just confirmed his suspicions. He takes off one of his own gloves and puts it in his pocket, holding one of your hands with his gloved hand while he runs the other carefully over your broken skin, to feel it. Does he know it's not contagious?

“The ointment isn't working, is it?” He sais. You had just put it in your hand, so he definitely felt the moist. He puts the glove back on. “Do you have your keys?”

You say they are on the entrance table.

“So grab them and let's go. Unless you want to be locked out of the dorm.”

“Let’s go where?”

“To the herbivores club party. To the infirmary. Where else? If you don't go there alone, someone has to take you. Don't tell me you forgot where it is?” he smiles smugly again. “And don't make me pick you up. You know I would.”

Vil saw your new gloves. Were you trying to change your style a little? No. That's not it. You were uncomfortable with those gloves. He knows about fashion, the same way he knows when a person is using a piece to hide some part of their body.

After classes you went back to Ramshackle Dorm, took off your gloves and applied the ointment. It had worked last time, but this time it didn't seem to be having any effect. You had just come out of the bathroom, with your hands smeared with pumice, when someone knocked on the door. Damn it.

You can't cover your hands now, so you open the door with one hand, using the door hide this one and place the other behind your back.

“Hello (Y/N)” Vil greets you. “I apologize for the sudden appearance, but can I come in to talk to you about something?”

You think for a second, you can keep hiding your hands behind your back, so you tell him he can come in. He enters and you close the door behind you, always hiding your hands.

“You've never used gloves before. It's not your style.” It didn't sound like he was criticizing you, like he tends to do with a lot of people. In fact, he sounded quite calm and neutral, almost understanding. “If there's one thing I know how to distinguish when someone starts using a new accessory, it's whether they're using it to try to improve their appearance or to hide themselves. And this second one tends to be a sensitive subject. That's why I thought it would be best to ask you in private. Did something happen to your hands? Are you injured?”

You tell him no, that you're not injured. Well, not exactly in that sense of the word at least. You end up telling him the truth about your skin and how it has reacted to cleansing products.

“Dermatitis? Let me see. I want to know how bad it is.” He now has that judgmental look on his eyes. Which makes you hesitate a little, but you are now also at the point of no return.

You take your hands from behind your back and show Vil your red hands and unhealthy skin, without being able to look him directly in the eyes.

“For the Great Seven! And you let your skin reach this point?” he scolds you. “When did this happen? Have you gone to the infirmary already?”

You say you went there the last time this happened and they gave you an ointment, which was what you were applying.

“And is it having any effect?” He asks. You say that, compared to last time, not really. “Then get ready to go to the infirmary.” He thinks for a second if you should protect your hands from the sun, which reminds him of the gloves he saw you wearing that day. “Let me see the gloves you were wearing.”

You go get the gloves and give them to him. He looks at you disapprovingly as soon as he picks them up.

“These cheap gloves? This material is horrendous! It's probably making your situation even worse.” He throws the gloves onto the entrance table. If there had been a rubbish bin there he would have thrown it in there. He takes off his own gloves and hands them to you. “Here, use mine. They are cotton inside.” You hesitate. His gloves? And they must be expensive. “You can keep them. I have many more like these.”

As you put on his gloves, he details his new plans with you.

“We will go to the infirmary and you will hear everything they told you to do and use. After that, we will review all your cleaning products and materials you use that come into contact with your hands and can create this reaction again. If we have to get rid of everything and buy new products we will do so.” You look at him and show your concern about the price of these possible new products. “If they are truly that expensive, I'll buy them for you. Your hands won't go back to this state on my watch. And then you come with me to Pomefiore to analyze your skin and find products to protect and care for your hands. Did you understood?”

Que Adorable! Rook thinks. Trickster really thought they could hide something from me? That really entertain him. Seeing you wearing gloves and trying to hide how uncomfortable you were wearing them and trying not to scratch your hands too much. You reminded him of an animal that tries to hide the fact that it is seriously injured.

Even though it was funny at first, he couldn't see you like this. He assumed what it was from the symptoms you show, but he didn't want to talk to you in front of others. After all, if you were trying to hide it, it's because he didn't want others to know.

He sneakily followed you to Ramshackle Dorm. You opened the door, letting Grim enter first to run to the kitchen for some snacks. You pass the door jamb and it's when you go to close the door that you hear

“Bonjour, Trickster!” Rook’s head pops from the side. He lets out a little muffled laugh at how startled you were. “I spotted yor new pair of glove on your hands. Are you perhaps trying a new look? Merveilleux! It's exciting to try out new accessories to express another side of ourselves, isn't it? However...” His friendly look now changes to that hunter look of his. And the smile of someone who cannot be deceived. “I don't believe that's the real motive you're wearing those gloves. Am I mistaken?”

You don't even know how to answer him. He already knows the truth and you know there's nothing you can do about it. His expression returns to normal, he now has that characteristic resting smile on his face.

“There's no need to be shy with me. I purposely came to talk to you here because I knew it wasn't something you wanted to discuss in public.” And now his smile has faded into that slightly more serious look that he only tends to have when something worries him a little, or when he feels that the situation is not so light. “I saw how you itched your hands, how uncomfortable you were with the gloves. It's a skin problem, isn't it? Maybe dermatitis?”

You don't say anything. It's not necessary. He knows the answer just by looking at you, your face, your posture. And your hands were starting to itch again.

“Please, you can take off your gloves. They are clearly only making your situation worse.” You hesitate. “It really hurts me to see you suffering like this. No matter how damaged your skin is, I know that your hands are as beautiful as the rest of you and that they just need treatment to become très belles again. And if you allow me to help with your recovery, I will do so with the greatest love and care.” He smiles charmingly at you, the type of smile that makes you feel safe.

You take off your gloves, showing him your red hands and unhealthy skin.

“Sacrebleu! What did this to your hands?”

You tell him it was your cleaning products and about the ointment you were using since the last time that happened to you. And, unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be having much effect this time.

“We must go to the infirmary if it's not working anymore.” He proclaims, embodying his dramatic self. “Ooh, your poor, beautiful hands, threatened by something that should assist you caring for your home and yourself. They must be replaced. I will happily help you with it and get you gloves that will protect you in the future. Fear not, my dear Trickster. Shall your hands be healthy once again.”

If you dropped in here out of the blue and want to read more from me, you can find it in my pinned post: INDEX

528 notes · View notes

thecorefrisk · 24 days ago

Text

Um, here’s my suggestion to the DP fans who want to only DP content… why not make your own tag??

I’ll probably sound passive aggressive when saying this but I understand. It’s super frustrating trying to find content for one fandom and then seeing completely different content.

Why not make a ‘dp only’ tag? That way anyone could find any sort of Danny Phantom only content without having to scroll through countless of other works to get to it.

I get it, it’s much more easy to put up a wall than build a bridge but creating an entirely new tag for yourselves can also be a rather constructive choice!

(My only question is… why is this an issue now rather than earlier? Is this something a lot of DP fans have been already thinking or it more so a recent thing??)

—

Edit: I posted something similar in the comments and I have a reblog up for anyone to see but I’ll say it here as well! This post was likely founded in my own hurt!! I personally think it felt entitled for me to say, someone else said it sounded condescending. Those two things don’t exactly contradict each other!!

(But the condescension part might’ve been just my lack of understanding of how my words come across to others due to the autism thing, but y’know, no excuse unless my entire family also happened to die before I wrote this. Which did NOT happen if you’re wondering, I’m just scared they will and that’s like, super different.)

I have had a history of being pushed out of things and spaces in which I should’ve been accepted into (ex: autism spaces, other fandoms, friendships). I was trying to ‘nice’ and also give my own opinion at the same time. (A skewed opinion.) I knew the whole discourse made me feel… bad but I didn’t know where it came from and I just posted this in an impulsive decision.

Not necessarily to go ‘ha! Losers!’ But to put up sort of shield to defend myself. So, I am sorry. For the condescension and for the passive aggressiveness. I already knew that was a problem in my speech but I didn’t realize it was THAT bad.

Uhh, let me review the things I did wrong. (I like lists.)

First off, I disregarded a group of people’s feelings for my own. Second, I decided to ‘bring up a solution’ that was more so a half assed compromise which was likely already someone else’s suggestion as well. Third, I also just so ‘happened to forget’ that the DP tag… WAS your tag. That you should be able to go through it without someone else shoving content from a different fandom in your face in all directions.

I mean, if I want my feelings to be heard, I should be hearing other people’s feelings too. It’s not fair for me to bring up my own opinions, expect them to be taken as seriously as anybody else’s, and then not give that treatment. And also I should probably learn impulse control?? I think I have a grip on it unless I feel hurt. Otherwise I’m fine.

It was probably, to me, that the post I first saw about it made it feel like people were going ‘…get out?’ (The post I saw was one asking for people to exclusively use the DP x DC tag for those kinds of posts. Which, in itself, is actually not a bad idea and would allow for further freedom as people are allowed to be separate but connected to the DP fandom and perhaps even the DC fandom.)

Basically, I was projecting my own past trauma onto this random person who just felt frustrated they had to scroll past what felt like a million posts just to get to the fandom they wanted to see. And the kind of posts they saw, might’ve not been the kind that they wanted to see at all which is even more frustrating. They likely wrote in a moment of frustration and it kind of came off as such in their writing. But that doesn’t mean that my reaction is their fault in the slightest.

It means I had a reaction to something I felt was hurtful. I’ve written this line before but when I sat down and actually thought about it all it felt all the truer. ‘They aren’t trying to give you a bad time, they are having one’. I made it about me— which was not cool of me.

So, again, I am sorry. I hope this comes across as me actually taking accountability for my actions and not another passive aggressive fat amount of text like I fear it will be.

Thank you, though! To the people who were so, so nice in the comments. You weren’t, like, mean to me about this even though I was sounding pretty bratty. Some were a little frustrated but it was in a way that I could understand and your hearts were all in the right place. Because even though this seems very small— a fandom having a space on Tumblr to be able to see their own content— it gives people a place where they can meet people who like the same things and even make friends out of it. And you also expressed your thoughts in a way that I could get! Which was super sweet, thank you so much. :>

Mwah, mwah, love you!! 🫶🏼

#danny phantom #dc x dp #dc crossover #dp #dpxdc #fandom discourse #I think??#I’m newer to all the fandoms listed so this is really just a suggestion

60 notes · View notes

banhchao · 7 months ago

Text

There’s something so dystopian about mainstream media and people from both political sides automatically conflating Luigi with the Claims Adjuster despite him still awaiting trial. So many people care only about his looks and want to immediately romanticize and slap a hot face onto such a heroic act to make him seem even “sexier” and now you see him in constant thirst traps and memes and they are even capitalizing off his good looks by selling t-shirts with his face on it with phrases that imply he committed the act (despite him clearly not being able to consent to this). People are prying into his personal life trying to find out who he dated, what kind of person he was romantically, who he would be attracted to (based on details his so-called friends are sharing to thousands of people on the internet) despite, again, him not being able to consent to this. He’s being made into the butt of jokes, his face is plastered on magazines with headlines like “MAKING OF A MURDERER”, documentaries are being whipped up to record the manhunt looking for HIM specifically, not the confirmed Claims Adjuster.

We are watching in real time as somebody who is currently INNOCENT (and I say this because this is how we are supposed to be viewing him as a part of due process… he pled not guilty then we must believe he’s not guilty unless he is proven otherwise) is being successfully scapegoated by the police and is being put in real fucking danger where he’s currently being charged with terrorism and as a federal offense (meaning qualifying for the death penalty should he be convicted). He’s being paraded around in perp walks and constant photoshoots, all to further reinforce this narrative of him as the Adjuster and for the public’s entertainment. The more we conflate the two, the more the police have successfully done their job in framing an innocent man for a high-profile assassination where he is being overcharged. Knowing how much the US protect their wealthy elite, they will do whatever they can to make an example out of him.

Yes, the act was selfless, heroic and morally in the right so regardless if he did commit the act or not, he did nothing wrong. Yes, on top of being smart and cute visually-wise, committing this act would make him a thousand times more sexier. There’s nothing more dreamier than someone who is an intellectual, good looking and was brave enough to take direct action against the system after all. But he said he didn’t so everyone needs to calm down, stop invading his privacy, stop trying to capitalize off his pain and believe him. The more we try to romanticize him as the Adjuster, the more it puts him in real danger. We should only be speaking of Luigi and the Claims Adjuster as two separate people and supporting them both as such as well.

#okay gonna shut up about Luigi now #i care too much about this Italian man smh…#it’s even worse when u consider he’s going thru this with a fucked up back… in constant pain while put on trial for the world to see #like we need give the poor guy some grace #If u do want to look into something about him his goodreads and Reddit posts show more of how he thinks ideologically #regardless if he did it he’s an interesting guy and it’s best if u learn about him straight from words from his mouth #luigi mangione

40 notes · View notes

ilikekidsshows · 8 months ago

Note

I just saw a video of children pshycologist where she said "a lot of parents nowadays only want their kids to be happy, and that's why a lot of kids nowadays has a lot of problem. because they never taught what necessary for them, such as disappointment, responsibility, accountability, how to regulate their emotion, emphaty-" and some more I don't remember, sorry. And Marinette's parents does reflect this IRL problem which should be a good thing because we have seen what kind of child Marinette is as a result of such parenting. but, instead of make this a moral lesson, the show just validated this kind of parenting and Marinette behavior as "good".

But also it's interesting how I never see the so claimed child pshycologist who said "sentimonster is good methapor for abuse" commenting about Marinette problematic behavior, or maybe because I'm no longer followed the blog, idk.

---

To discuss the connection between Marinette’s problematic behavior and how she’s been raised, people would need to accept her accountability for said behavior first. Instead the closest to accepting that Marinette did anything wrong I’ve seen from the stans is the take that “Gabriel manipulated her into it” because being manipulated would make Marinette a victim and therefore not culpable for her own actions in their eyes. To the average Marinette stan, “being asked nicely by the main villain” just about equates to “was forced to do it with a gun held to her head”.

Also, like, I really do think that the Miraculous fandom at large either considers Marinette’s parents as close to perfect as you can get or claims they're neglectful for not suing the school for suspending her. Because, as I said before, the idea of parents who never expect anything from you, always give you whatever you want and instantly do whatever it takes to keep you in a good mood sounds really good. We all talk about how having supportive parents is really important, so no one thinks it’s possible for parents to be too supportive. It sounds ridiculous, the idea that you can basically give your child too much love by wanting them to always be cheerful and never having to struggle with anything.

The reasons for this attitude make sense. The other extreme of completely unsupportive parents messes with a child’s psyche much more obviously than being overly permissive does. Unless you’re actively observing someone’s behavior and know what to look for, there’s not much difference between having a healthy sense of self and being self-obsessed. It’s good to take care of yourself and prioritize yourself, it keeps you safe and healthy. But it’s bad to mistreat others because you just couldn’t be bothered to be considerate. It’s one thing to set boundaries when you’re dealing with things yourself and don’t have enough strength to take care of someone else on top of that, and a completely another thing to ask others to always prioritize you to their own detriment because you can't deal with even the smallest problem alone.

Fortitude against anything needs to be built up, just having support doesn’t cut it. When it comes to strengthening your immune system, it's not enough to just take all your vitamins while staying indoors all day, you actually need to expose yourself to bacteria by going outside frequently. It’s the entire point of vaccines that you need small amounts of a bad thing to be able to counter large amounts of it. Children facing expectations, disappointments and stressors is the same thing. You’ll never be able to handle even the slightest amount of stress unless you get exposed to it in small amounts first.

Also, like, this isn’t new information about parenting. Granted, developmental psychology as a separate field of psychology is a pretty new field of science to begin with (less than two centuries old), but I remember, already in my childhood, there being a philosophical approach to parenting that said: “overprotective parents raise cowards”. This was based on the idea that children mimic their parents, so the things their parents overly protect them from start to register as “scary” things. These days we know child development also includes more subtle connections, and, indeed, several articles on overprotective parenting discuss children with overprotective parents as being overly anxious, being more dependent on others, being involved in bullying as either a victim or perpetrator (or even both) and tending to lie to get people to like them more, among other behaviors connected to different types of overprotective parenting. Sounds almost like a checklist for Marinette, huh?

I used to think Marinette was coddled all the way back during the original show. It was just so obvious to me, because that’s how I was parented and I had similar problems with emotions and I had to clean up my act as a teenager. But, I think the reason it’s never been a topic of discussion, is that it makes Marinette out to be flawed in a real, tangible way that she herself would need to fix. Even before the retool validated all the more annoying stans, we had to be very roundabout and hushhush about any flaws Marinette had, because the stans were using the boogeyman of “everyone on Reddit/Youtube calls her stalker and blahblahblah” to justify being annoying jerks to people trying to discuss Marinette’s character with anything that wasn’t pure praise.

The one thing to remember about the fabled fandom psychologist, whose posts I’ve also had blocked for years, is that they were a popular blog. I’ve never been that popular in the Miraculous fandom, some posts of mine were, and my most popular posts were the most milktoast, tongue-in-cheek posts that didn’t actually challenge the audience in any way, practically shitposting. The Miraculous fandom at large, the side of it that desperately clings to this show and its protagonist as flawless, have never wanted to be challenged. They don’t want to read anything too spicy, they want to read posts that validate the common consensus . And that’s why a popular Miraculous blog would never write an in-depth analysis of Marinette’s character flaws and what caused them, it just wouldn’t bring the numbers they’re used to. In fact, if a popular blog decided to say anything even vaguely critical-sounding, they’d be torn apart by the Marinette stan mob who are just “so sick of all the salt”.

I know these things because I lived that too. I used to dial back my opinions on this show so much, once it became clear that Marinette stans just don’t remember what happens in the show and go purely on vibes and will dogpile anyone who says the vibe isn’t canon. The thing I said that offended these stans so much? “Marinette has a huge support system.” This was “too much salt”. I was new to active blogging and didn’t know how to deal with that much negative attention, so I tried to remain mostly inoffensive the rest of my time in the fandom. Choosing to burn any bridges with a fandom that unquestionably supports this bad of a show was the best decision I ever made.

#ml fandom salt #ml critical #ml salt #dats chats

43 notes · View notes

just-jordie-things · 2 years ago

Text

[part three] trouble - takuma ino

word count: 7k warnings: swearing, canon typical violence mentioned, shibuya arc mentions summary: just when she thinks she's got her feelings all sorted out, the shibuya incident has to go and fuck it all up. contents: friends to lovers, gojo!reader, your favorite sappy scene where a finds b injured and loses their mind <3 we skimmed over key points in the arc bc i just couldn't do it folks

part three: "god, don't let me lose my mind" ___

As it turns out, the deeper something is buried the scarier it is when it comes back up, and it was a terrifying sight to have every hidden ounce of her affections thrown back at her face- or more accurately, shoved up her throat.

The Shibuya Incident changed everything.

She’d assumed she’d follow Nanami and his small team that consisted of a first year, Fushiguro Megumi, and then of course Ino. However, when she arrived on the scene, Ijichi had instructed that she was to find Zen’in Naobito and the students under his supervision, Kugisaki Nobara and Maki.

“I don’t understand,” She shook her head at the manager beckoned for him to show her the electronic paperwork with the order. “Nanami’s mentoring me for Grade One, why would I be sent away?”

Ijici anxiously glanced between her and the team of three who also seemed confused by the sudden change in development.

“I- I’m so sorry, Gojo-san,” He stammered. He never did like making people upset with the orders handed to him, most days he was merely a messenger, however when it came to the Gojos specifically, this was his worst nightmare. “Here, it’s all here, I- I don’t know why they’d separate you, perhaps more foot traffic? Uh, the station is quite overpopulated and there’s, um, only a few people scouting the perimeter”

As he holds out his device she swipes it up gingerly, eyes scanning through the order from the higher ups with great speed. Ijichi gulped down the lump in his throat, praying she wouldn’t break the phone with her iron group.

“It’s alright, (y/n),” Nanami came to the manager’s rescue. “We’ll be fine, the three of us. You should go with them”

She passed the phone back to Ijichi with a small nod of gratitude for his help, and he was quick to disappear, likely off to report back to Nitta.

“They’ve still got me,” Ino grinned from ear to ear, before throwing his arm up against Megumi’s shoulder. The boy gave him a bored look before shrugging him off.

(y/n) gives him a look that tells him her concern didn’t lie in their ability to handle the situation in the slightest. The greatest concern right now was that everyone’s cell phones were out of service due to the veil over the area, which effectively cut off all communication between the divided teams. The idea of splitting off from the two of them- and Megumi- unsettled her.

Since she’d arrived on the scene shortly after her brother, there had been a twist of unease in her gut. Like something was terribly wrong. Or something terrible was bound to happen.

“Unless you’re saying you can’t handle it!” Ino tries to lighten the tension currently laying itself on thick the longer she stands before them, waiting for something that wouldn’t come.

If Nanami told her to go with them, she would.

Ino steps forward as Nanami turns to go over their orders with Megumi again, giving his pupils some semblance of privacy in the hopes of convincing (y/n) to follow the order handed to her. If she went against what was asked of her, he wouldn’t be able to cover for her if any casualties- property damage or lives- occurred.

If either one of them asked her to stay with them, she would.

She doesn’t react to Ino’s statement, which sends up warning flags in his head, knowing that usually she’d quip back something snarky about how she could handle this entire assignment by herself and blindfolded.

“This isn’t normal,” She tells him quietly once he’s close enough and she thinks Megumi won’t be able to eavesdrop. She doesn’t want to alarm him, but this gut feeling of hers was starting to eat her up. “They’ve never split us like this before. Something isn’t right”

Ino believes her, already having his suspicions that something was off when he’d arrived with Nanami, but even if he didn’t trust her judgment, he could see the apprehension clearly in her eyes, and that was reason enough for him to understand.

“I know,” He agrees quietly, glancing over his shoulder quickly to make sure Megumi and Nanami were still occupied. “But it’ll be fine, right?” He tells her hopefully, but the expression on her face doesn’t budge. She stares at him expectantly, silently begging him to say what she needed him to in order for her to stay. “We can handle it. It’ll probably only be a few hours anyways” Instead, he continues to try and talk her down from her worried ledge, unknowingly only pushing her further onto it.

Her jaw clenches as she bites down on her own teeth in order to keep herself from blowing up and saying something reckless.

She lets out a sigh to calm herself down before speaking.

“A lot can happen in a few hours”

Her eyes shift between his in a rapid movement, trying to convey everything in silence that she couldn’t say out loud. She’s not sure if it works, but for a brief moment, a flash of disturbance flickers over Ino’s face, like maybe in that second he was able to understand what she wasn’t saying. Just as quickly as she’d caught it, it was disappearing, and he was smiling again.

“Like two Grade One promotions, yeah?” He asks, holding his hand out to her.

That cracks the smallest of smiles out of her, easing her nerves for just a minute as she realized tonight could be the last thing she needed before finally getting her promotion. So she takes his hand and shakes it roughly with her enthusiasm. Ino chuckles to himself, about to pull away with his parting words of wishing her luck, but her fingers tighten around the curve of his hand and she doesn’t let him part from her just yet.

He’s confused when she stares up at him with a grave realness in her eyes, mixing with some other emotion he’s not sure he’s ever seen in them before. His features soften with his surprise, but before he could ask her what’s keeping her, she’s whispering a threat under her breath.

“Don’t do anything stupid”

It’s cold and harsh, just like how she used to treat him before shared assignments. But Ino knows better now. He understands the look of pure fear in her eyes as she mutters out the words like poison. And despite the way she’s almost frowning at him, he smiles brightly as he squeezes her hand back with the same fervor.

“I know,” He says, almost cheekily. She wants to be annoyed. Maybe even shake him by the collar and tell him she’ll kill him if anything happens to him. But she can only stand and stare at him with a slight gape of her mouth. “I promised,” He shrugs one of his shoulders like his words alone were enough to shield him from harm. “Can’t go back on my word”

And then their grip on each other is loosening, before their hands fall away altogether, and (y/n) has to swallow the lump in her throat before addressing Nanami and Megumi.

“Report back when you can, okay?” She asks, her weapon of choice already materializing in her hand.

“We’ll see you soon,” Nanami nods his head in acknowledgement. “Don’t let that old man boss you around. You can run circles around him” He adds with a hint of a smile on his face.

She nods back at him, already starting to grin from the adrenaline of rushing off into an unknown battle. Her eyes catch Ino’s once more, and he throws up a peace sign with his fingers, tapping his forehead with them to give her half a salute.

“See you soon, partner” ___

The gut feeling had subsided while she worked side by side with Maki and Nobara, paying as little attention to the head of the Zen’in Clan as she could. For a little while, she almost considered taking a path of teaching as she aided the girls in their attacks, although they barely needed assistance, they were more than capable of defending themselves.

But it wasn’t long before they were split up, and (y/n) took the first opportunity she could to get back to her group. It was hard to tell how much time had passed, and she tried not to worry about it as she followed Nobara and Nitta to where they presumed Nanami was. Still, her heart was pounding against her ribcage with every step she took into the station.

It wasn’t professional of her, but when she found Nanami and Itadori Yuuji, her heart leapt to her throat and was speaking for her without hesitation.

“Where’s Ino?”

Itadori was excitedly asking his mentor if the woman standing before them now was his sensei’s sister, even going so far as to tug on the man’s sleeve and beg him to introduce him properly. On another day (y/n) might have been a little flattered, but right now she nearly tunes it out completely as she awaits Nanami’s answer.

“Ran into some curse users that came crawling out of the woodwork… listen, (y/n)-”

“Where is that?” She cuts him off before he could explain further, and it’s obvious the way her entire body tenses with her impatience.

Nanami frowns, not knowing how to approach the situation calmly, but there was no time to sit down and slowly walk her through it.

“Satoru has been sealed,”

She blinks, the words barely processing at all. Maybe because it wasn’t what she was expecting, or maybe because they didn’t make a lick of sense. Either way, she stands frozen and rigid before them all, not speaking a word.

“The patchwork curse is operating with something far worse that we weren’t expecting. They had access to the prison realm. Your brother is currently inside of it. We have reason to believe that Kenjaku is playing a role and-”

“It’s Suguru, isn’t it?”

His name burns in her throat as if it was cursed so heavily just speaking it sent a poison down through her bloodstream.

Nanami’s lack of an answer tells her more than she needs to know. The information tries to take over her mind, tries to nestle itself in as a proper distraction from what her next steps were going to be.

She casts it aside completely.

“My brother is stronger than the prison realm,”

Her voice is strong, and certain. Even with the small group looking at her apprehensively, (y/n’s) positive that there’s no prison on this earth stronger than Gojo Satoru. Her faith in him as a sorcerer, and as her brother, went unmatched. He would only be offended if she worried about him right now. Using Geto Suguru was a filthy trick, however, and he- his body- would have to be dealt with accordingly.

But right now, there was a more pressing stressor she needed answers for.

“Now tell me where Ino is” ___

When she arrived on the rooftop Nanami had directed her towards, her first thought was that she had the wrong one. Her chest is heaving by the time she’s bursting through the access door, the plank of wood nearly flying off it’s hinges from her force.

She hesitates for a moment, seeing there wasn’t a fight of any sorts taking place. Nanami had said there were two curse users, and at first survey, the roof is completely empty.

Save for the slumped over figure left crumpled on the ground, barely propping themselves up with one arm against a box vent. She almost doesn’t catch him there, her instinct telling her it couldn’t possibly have been Ino himself. No, it had to have been someone else-

But then her eyes catch the small but distinct shape of a black mask on the ground not far from him, and she’s darting forward with a screech of pure terror.

“Ino!?”

His name rips from her throat so harshly a neighboring crow squawks and flies away from the startling noise.

It doesn’t take many steps to bring her towards his beaten form, but she’s sprinting the short distance anyways, dropping to her knees without any grace, scraping them up on the concrete upon impact, but the sting goes unnoticed.

She’s panting harder, the wind getting knocked out of her a second time when she properly takes in his face. It’s so covered in blood she can’t even make out where it’s coming from. As her hands slide under his jaw to lift his head, praying to any deity that will listen that it isn’t his head that’s injured, she realizes then that her eyes are filling with tears and blurring her vision.

“I- Ino,” And her voice is strained too, coming out in a choked whimper, not nearly loud enough for him to hear her if he’s unconscious. “God, no no no- fuck- fuck!”

Her mumbles turn into shouts as she drops one hand from his face to pat against his chest. She doesn’t want to be rough with him, but if he doesn’t give her some sign of life soon she was going to smack the back of her hand against his face to spur something out of him.

If she lost him now, like this, then every curse and curse user in this damn city was going to pay the gruesome, ultimate price.

He stirs with the slightest of movements, a small groan coming from his chest which she feels against her hand more than she actually hears. A gasp of surprise comes out of her, before she’s pressing closer to him, her palm flat against his front, and her other hand secure in holding his head up towards her.

“You can hear me?” She mumbles with more hope than what feels right.

“Uh-huh”

It’s pitifully quiet, but it’s a distinct answer, and it evokes a sob out of her so emotionally relieving she drops her head, barely hitting his shoulder as tears of every stage of grief pour out of her. Fear. Relief. It all hits her at once.

Ino can barely register the fact that she’s sitting before him now, pressed as close as she could get with her sobs soaking into his shoulder. But he musters all the strength he can to assure her he was still alive.

“(y/n),” Another pained mutter has her lifting her head, roughly wiping at her face with the back of her hand before leaning in close to hear him. “The curse users- th-ey h-had-”

When he starts to cough up blood between his words, she hushes him, both hands gently held under his jaw again. He hisses slightly from the touch, but doesn’t pull away from it.

She’s mumbling something, but his head is pounding too hard to make out what, and his vision is too blurry to try and read her lips. With the smallest tip of his head, he’s leaning back into the box vent with a shaky exhale.

Even with his eyes closed, the faint blue glow penetrates his eyelids, and he’s trying to gather all the strength he can to lift his head and look at her again. Although he has a sneaking suspicion of what she’s doing.

The blue light brightens, and he can just barely hear her faint mumbling, whispers sounding suspiciously like begs and pleas, before something warm and solid touches his forehead.

It takes him a minute, but eventually, he’s able to crack one eye open just enough to see what’s happening.

Her hands, still held against his jaw with trembling fingers, are glowing with cursed energy. The warmth against his forehead was that of her own, pressed close and having her so much closer that the tip of her nose ghosts over his. Her eyes are squeezed shut tightly, but there’s simply too many tears to be held back, and they fall down her face in steady streams, slipping into the corners of her mouth as she continues to slur through mumbles.

“Just this once… work just this once… never ask for anything again… never need anything more… concentrate… concentrate….” Ino can just barely make out the nonsensical string of pleas tumbling out of her lips, but it’s more than he understood before. “...has to work… have to help him… think… think… relax…”

Hearing the pain in her voice makes something in his chest lurch more than when an overpowered foot nearly cracked open his ribcage just moments ago- or was it hours? He longed to bring her some semblance of comfort, but he was too tired to move his arms, and when he tried to say something, his throat was too dry to make any sound.

The most he’s capable of, is the slight tilt in his head, pressing the crown of his head back against hers with the smallest amount of force.

It does the trick, (y/n’s) mumbling halting with a quiet gasp, her eyes fluttering open and staring wide at him, tracking any miniscule movement of his features.

He’s struggling even to keep one eye cracked open, the bruising surrounding it stinging that much more just from opening it, but he wants so badly to give her some comfort of his well-being. Even if the next breath he takes is his last.

“Ino,” She whispers, her voice heavy with emotion. “You’re gonna be alright, I’m- I’m gonna-”

Before she can finish, there’s a short shift in his neck, barely shaking his head against hers. She swallows thickly, trying to keep down the lump in her throat.

“I am, I’m gonna make it better, I’m- I’m-”

“s’Okay,” He rasps out. “Go, (y/n)”

“No!” She’s louder than she means to be, and she apologizes by pushing a loose strand of his hair out of the sticky blood on his forehead, soothingly pushing her fingers through the length of his hair to keep it from irritating his face again. She repeats the motion a few more times anxiously, and her head begins to shake against his. “No- no. I’m not leaving, I’m not going anywhere”

He could almost laugh, recalling being in opposite positions almost a year ago. If he had the strength, he’d remind her that she’d begged the same thing of him once, ordering him to leave as if she had any sort of authority over him.

Now Ino feared she had too much authority. He couldn’t bear to have her here if the beat of his heart kept steadily declining.

A faint sound that almost resembled a chuckle is pushed past his lips in a short breath, warm and soft as the air hits her chin.

(y/n’s) brows furrow with her confusion as she continues to push her fingers through the length of his hair. From the top of his head to the ends at the nape of his neck, she repeats it over and over, almost obsessively. She distantly recalls Satoru doing the same for her when she was younger and would have panic attacks, and it was the first thing that would calm her down. Pathetically, she hopes it’s healing power also works for physical wounds.

“s’Okay, (y/n),” Ino repeats himself, his head suddenly feeling too heavy to hold up on his own. He barely feels his nose pressing against hers before a gentle pair of hands pull him forward, guiding him to lean against something solid, and soft. His eyes were shut again as he gave into the white hot pain from every second he tried to keep them open.

Her shoulder, she’s cradling his head against his shoulder, it registers in the back of his mind as he recognizes the scent of her perfume in the fabric he was laying against, and ruining with his blood.

“m’Sorry ‘bout breaking th’ promise” He slurs into the material.

“Don’t say that,” (y/n) scolds, but her voice is weak, and she sounds far more afraid than she does angry. “Please- please don’t say that,” She repeats in an even quieter, shakier voice.

With one hand against the nape of his neck, holding him solidly against her as his body hunches forward uncomfortably, her other hand begins to move in his hair again.

“We had a deal, didn’t we?” Her words were whispered in his ear, so she was certain he couldn’t miss a single thing. “We promised, didn’t we?” She asked again. “And I- I made good on my promise, didn’t I? Didn’t I do everything you asked?” Her tears are soaking into his hair now, but she doesn’t feel an ounce of shame as she begs him to find the strength to snap out of it and wake up properly. “I let- I let myself let you in, I really, really did,”

Her eyes fall shut in a pitiful attempt at willing her tears to stop. She doesn’t want to burden him with her fear of losing him, but the emotions crashing over her were too strong for her to take on alone. Unbeknownst to her, her hands were surrounded by her cursed energy again as they kept him close.

“And now- now you’re too close to me, Ino. And I can’t- I- I can’t-” She chokes on the words, burying her face into the crook of his neck, earning a small grunt of pained acknowledgement when her nose brushes a particularly nasty bruise. “I can’t lose you, you said I wouldn’t lose you”

The hand at his nape grabs the material of the back of his uniform, fisting it so tight her knuckles trembled and ached.

The relief suddenly washing over Ino’s body was so strong that all of his muscles were relaxing at once, and he felt boneless in her hold.

(y/n) was quick to snap her eyes open and pull herself away from him, shaky, fast hands racing to check his pulse as her worst nightmare played before her eyes.

But he wasn’t lifeless in her arms, and if anything, he was relaxed. His pulse was a steady beat against the pads of her fingers, and he even found enough strength to raise his hand to her cheek. She watched with wide, shocked eyes as he barely grazed his fingers across her jaw before he was passing out in her arms.

___

When he comes to, his eyes blink a few times to prepare himself for light, but to his surprise, he’s met with darkness. It still takes a few rough squeezes of his eyelids before Ino’s able to properly open his eyes all the way, and the darkness he was greeted with was properly laid before him as the night sky.

He was outside?

“What the-?” The mutter comes from under his breath, but before he could make sense of his surroundings, someone was scrambling to his side, his name falling from their recognizable, pretty voice like a mantra.

And (y/n’s) voice in that moment was heavenly to his ears. He wasn’t sure how long he was out, and his mind was foggy when he tried to recall when he’d seen her last, but he had a sinking feeling like it had been a long time, and all he knew now was that he felt pure relief when her face came into view beside him. Then shortly after, a small hand slipped into his own, squeezing firmly, but not too tight.

“(y/n),” His throat burns hot when he speaks, but he tries to ignore it as he gives her a weak smile. Everything aches, but he’d try his best to keep his pain hidden. “How long was I out?”

“About a day” She murmurs back, softer than he thinks he’s ever heard her speak. He thinks she’s hiding something, but he doesn’t press for it right away. He’d need to get his bearings first.

He tries to look around, hoping for something of significance to give him an idea of where he was, but all that surrounds them is a few plots of grass and some shoddy tents pitched up. There’s a fire burning a few feet behind where she kneels beside him, and his brows furrowed slightly. What the hell was going on?

“And where are we?”

Her free hand reaches for his face, and he holds his breath when the tips of her fingers gently push a piece of hair away from a line of stitches just above his previous scar. There’s a small frown on her face.

“Just outside Yamanashi,” She answers, then quickly adds, “At least I think. It’s hard to tell without a proper map”

Ino’s eyes widen so much they almost bulge out of his head, and (y/n’s) quick to react to his shock.

“Don’t freak out,” She murmurs, squeezing his hand gently as she leaned over closer to him. “You still need to rest, you have a lot of healing to-”

“(y/n),” He interrupts her, and surprisingly she lets him. She sits before him patiently waiting for the question she’d been dreading for an entire day. “What happened in Shibuya?”

She sits beside him for a long time as she explains the entire incident in grave detail. Not a single stone left unturned, Ino sits in silence for almost a full hour as she feeds it to him like it was her drafted report on the assignment.

She explains that after she fled Shibuya with his unconscious body, they quickly ran into Megumi Yuuji, and the new ally they’d made out of one of the Cursed Wombs’. Yuuji was quick to carry Ino on his back as they tried to cover as much ground as possible. With Shibuya becoming a modern-day wasteland, and Kenjaku’s next move unsure, their only goal was to move.

And that’s what brought them here, to the middle of nowhere where they could figure out what their next move was. With only a few survival supplies and limited rations of food and water, it hadn’t been an easy day and a half.

When she’s finished, she remains silent for as long as he needs. Processing it all- Nanami, Satoru, the first year Nobara, all of Shibuya- would surely take him some time. (y/n) gets up and pokes at the fire for a few minutes while Ino sits in shock as he repeats it all in his head. When she comes back over to him, he’s pushed himself to sit up on top of the nylon blanket against the grass.

“You should really lie down and-”

“I’m alright” He mumbles over her concern, and she simply sits beside him on the wrinkly plastic disguised as a blanket. She doesn’t push him about it again.

Not knowing what to say, she doesn’t say anything. Just sits beside him to keep him company while he processes it all. Truthfully, she’d had little time to really let it all settle in. With the running and worrying over the length of his unconscious state, there was little time left to think about the aftermath of the whole incident. She wondered how the others were taking it, if they’d stopped and let themselves think for longer than a minute. They’d all resigned to their makeshift tents for the night, and she didn’t have it in her to play caretaker and check on them at the moment. That was always the role Satoru took on. But tomorrow she’d sit down with them and check in.

“You found me,”

Ino speaks after a long silence, and (y/n) glances over at him for a brief moment, before returning to stare at the ground.

“After those curse users, after Toji,” He continues, piecing together the vague images in his memory to better understand what happened. “You found me after that”

He’s not asking, he’s talking through what he remembers, but (y/n) nods in confirmation.

“Nanami told me where you were,” She says softly. “I came as fast as I could, but… it wasn’t fast enough” The last part comes out under her breath, full of regret and guilt.

“Seems like you were just in time to me,” Ino says, turning to look at her. She refuses to meet his gaze, too ashamed by her delayed arrival. “For a minute there I didn’t think I’d see you again. Thought I was a goner. You’d be adding my name to the…” He trails off, not quite wanting to address the long list of lives lost in Shibuya.

And he notices she tenses up, one of her hands fisting a handful of grass, ripping a few strands straight from the dirt with her tight grip. Ino frowns, and shuffles over to sit closer to her. Until they’re nearly shoulder to shoulder. He groans as he pulls his legs up, resting his arms over his knees to get more comfortable. Everything feels stiff, but he tries to push past it.

“You figured out the Reverse Cursed Technique, hm?” He asks, trying to change the subject. He gives her a small smile at the accomplishment, but she’s still not looking at him. “That’s pretty huge. You’re surely a functioning Grade One sorcerer now”

That’s when she finally turns her head to meet his gaze, finding nothing but fondness in his eyes as he smiles at her. He’s proud of her, she realizes, and she can’t believe that now of all times he’s trying to comfort her. Takuma Ino was too good for this world. And he was certainly too good for her.

“I don’t care” She mumbles, shaking her head back and forth as her eyes flicker over the healing cuts and bruises on his face. The few stitches he needed looked a bit gnarly as they’d been done in a rush from shaky hands. A frown tugs on her lips the longer she takes in his injuries.

“You should,” He tells her. “You worked for a long time for it. And you’ve earned it,”

She’s quiet for a moment as she takes in the statement. The injuries she’d sustained had healed by now, but her chest still hurt somehow.

Slowly, more and more of his memory comes back to him. He can remember the way she’d sobbed, pained wails that came from so deep within her he could hear it now in his memory. They could’ve easily been mistaken as the screams of a woman tortured, the way she’d cried out his name. He thinks he can recall her crying the entire time she tended to him.

“I’m sorry I scared you” He tells her suddenly, and her eyes widen in the slightest at the apology.

“Scared me,” She repeats in a small mumble, lips barely moving. “That doesn’t even begin to explain what you put me through,”

He frowns with his guilt, and he wants to remind her that he’d told her to leave. Although if she had, he might not have woken up again.

“You…” She trails off as she thinks twice about what she’s going to say. “You have no idea what you put me through,” She admits in a smaller voice.

Her eyes flicker between his as she watches him process the confession, before she continues.

“I don’t know what I… I don’t know how I did it, honestly. I’m not sure I could do it again,” She explains. “I just remember feeling so… hurt doesn’t even begin to explain it. I was terrified, Ino. I thought you were…” She shakes her head, a lump forming in her throat at the mere suggestion of what could have happened to him. “I was so scared” She mumbles weakly, her brows drawing together.

Hesitantly, Ino lowered his hand until it rested over hers. She loosened her grip on the grass, relaxing just the slightest amount from his touch. Her heart was still racing as she recalled the way he’d barely been able to move, or how he’d tried to apologize for breaking his promise to her. It was like there was an invisible, but iron grip on her throat, squeezing all of the air out of her lungs as she looked at him now.

“You’re my hero now, you know,” He murmurs, tilting his head a bit as a tiny smile stretches over his lips. “You saved my life”

Her hand twitches under his, and it shakes as she releases the grass in order to turn it over, slotting her fingers between his. She squeezes, hard, making sure that he would be enough to anchor her to reality.

“You saved mine, too” She whispers back, the burn in her throat evident in the strain in her voice. Against her will, her eyes gloss over with tears.

He gives her a sad smile, and squeezes her hand back.

“Don’t cry,” He pleads quietly, his body angling towards her as he reaches his free hand out to her face, palm hovering just over her cheek as he wipes away her single tear with the rough pad of his thumb. “Please,” He added softly as her eyes bore into his like she was trying to penetrate his skull and read his thoughts. “Don’t think I can handle hearin’ you cry anymore” He admits.

(y/n) let’s out a watery and humorless little chuckle, another tear falling to her cheek that he’s just as quick to dry away. She leans into the hovering warmth of his hand, pressing her cheek against it with only the thought of being comforted by him on her mind. Ino’s quick to spread his fingers across her cheek and jaw, unconsciously pulling her closer as he did.

“You remember that?” She mumbles, and he nods back at her.

“Don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget it,” He tells her. “You scared me too, y’know”

Her brows furrow at him.

“I did?”

Ino nods.

“I didn’t like… being separated,” He admits slowly. “I know you were fine, hell, you were better off than I was, but… not knowing where you were or if you were safe was…” He clenches his draw, and (y/n) nods at him in understanding.

“I would’ve stayed,” She murmurs. “If you’d asked me to stay, I would’ve stayed”

Ino’s not sure if his heart was going to burst in his chest or sink to his gut. All he wants right now is to wrap her up in his arms as tight as he can and never let her out of his sight again.

“I know,” He whispers back, making her frown. “But I couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t have been right. Your team needed you,”

Another tear makes it’s way down her cheek, but it doesn’t get far before he’s brushing it away like the others.

“I didn’t want to do anything to stand in the way of your promotion,” He says, and she frowns back at him. “It wouldn’t have been fair-”

“That doesn’t matter to me, not right now- maybe not at all,” She cuts him off before he could explain himself, and he looks shocked. Rightfully so, since meeting her he’s known that becoming a Grade One was the only thing that mattered to her. His lips part and his brows furrow, but he doesn’t know what to say, so she explains herself first. “Ino, I really thought I was going to lose you,” She tells him with a tight squeeze of his hand. “That promotion has been the farthest thing from my mind. What would it have mattered?” She shakes her head as she watches him, sniffling just a little before speaking again. “It would have meant nothing, if you weren’t there with me, too,”

Ino softened then, his thumb stalling from it’s gentle tracing of her cheekbone as he took in the sincerity of her words.

A year ago, she might’ve told him to eat shit if he’d something of the same sort to her. Six months ago she would’ve laughed it off and deflected like it was some kind of joke. Right now, he thinks his heart was going to fall right out of his chest and into her awaiting hands.

(y/n) shuffles anxiously the longer he sits in silence.

“Ino, say something” She mumbles, hoping he wouldn’t make her beg for some sort of reaction.

He chuckles, his thumb moving over her cheekbone once, then twice, before giving into temptation and curling his fingers around the back of her neck to pull her in closer.

Her eyes are shut before his lips slot themselves over hers, but despite leaning into the kiss there’s a small squeak of surprise that dies in the back of her throat when their lips touch. She kisses him back with as much fervor as she can while still being mindful of his injuries. She only hopes that he can feel the outpour of emotions with every kiss, the soft sensation of each one leaving a tingle on her lips.

Her hands reach out to lay at the base of his neck, her touch nearly featherlight with how gentle she tries to treat him. Ino’s less careful, pulling her closer until she finally gives in to deepening their kiss, paying no mind to the dull ache in his jaw. It was easy to forget when her perfect soft lips fit against his like they were made to be kissed by him.

After pulling away for a breath of air, he places one more kiss on her lips, lingering for as long as he could before finally parting from her. It takes her a minute to open her eyes, still reeling from the sudden affection.

With her heart in the clouds and her mind in a lovesick haze, she was still lost in the heavy feelings that were the way she felt about him. Ino chuckles when his eyes open only to find her lost in a daze, sweetly cupping her face in both hands and keeping her as close to him as he could.

“Sorry,” He mumbles, lips ghosting over hers, sending a shiver down her spine. She finally looks up at him, catching her lip between her teeth to keep herself from grinning too hard. “I just wanted to do that for so long. Couldn’t wait anymore”

A breathless little laugh falls from her, her hands sliding around the nape of his neck so her fingers could mindlessly play with the soft locks of hair that fell there. Her cheeks were undeniably warm, and Ino could feel them when she pushed closer to brush her nose against his sweetly.

“Wanted you to do that, too” She murmurs back, and the smile Ino gives her is bittersweet.

He sighs softly as he pulls her in gently, just enough to rest his forehead against hers.

“I’m sorry,” He murmurs, the weight of the apology hanging thick in the air.

She doesn’t want to talk anymore about what’s happened, doesn’t really want to think about it either. Going through it had been rough enough already, processing it was going to be a bitch. She has to shut her eyes to hide the emotion, or at least, keep herself from crying again.

“I’m so sorry,” Ino repeats. “And I’m sorry I was out for so long”

“That’s nothing you should apologize over,” (y/n) chided through a breath. “I’m just relieved you’re alright, that’s all that matters to me right now, okay?”

He tilts his head away from hers, just enough to look back at her. He frowns when her eyes are squeezed shut, thumbing gently at the top of her cheekbones to pry her into looking at him again. It takes her a minute before opening teary eyes. Even with her packing up the last day and a half into a box and forcing it into the darkest corner of her mind, she couldn’t hide all of it from Ino. Not when he stared at her as if he could see straight through to the soul.

It’s a blurry memory, but he can vaguely recall the way she’d cried while holding him. Clearer than the image is the way her voice cracked and whined in his ear, I can’t lose you, you said I wouldn’t lose you. He’d held his promise this long, and Ino very much intends to stick to it.

He plants his lips at the crown of her head, and the comforting affection surprises her a bit, but she just as quickly falls into him. Her arms loop around his neck and her fingers dig into his shoulders, anchoring herself to him as if he alone would keep her in this moment, and away from that dark corner.

“Still,” He insists quietly. “I should’ve been there for you,”

(y/n’s) not sure she’s ever felt love swell in her chest the way she does now. It washes over her in a heavy wave, filling her with relief, and warmth, but most importantly hope. For the first time, she doesn’t fear it, or discard it as a pointless venture.

Things were different now, she decided, her eyes moving between his and the injuries still littered across his face. They would heal just fine, but they were still a gnarly sight to look at now. It made the warm relief in her chest begin to burn. So things were different now because they had to be. Things were different now because she had something she was going to fight for.

Love wasn’t pointless. Love was what was going to push her through whatever horror was next in line.

“Cause we’re partners” Ino finished, his brows twitching ever so slightly as he watched something unknown flash in her eyes. They light up for a moment, before she’s nodding back at him, staring at him with the utmost sincerity.

A small “yeah,” is whispered between shaky nods, and her grip on his shoulders tightens just enough for Ino to notice. His lips tilt upwards.

She’s still quiet when she speaks, but it’s not due to the lump in her throat. It’s from true, genuine love pouring out of her so openly that her voice is practically snatched from her. She squeezes his shoulders once more.

“Partners” ___

a/n: well that was my 23k word ino fic that i had to split up bc it was too damn big. laugh it up how in love with him after thirty seconds of screentime

#takuma ino #takuma ino x reader #takuma ino imagine #takuma ino fanfiction #ino x reader #ino imagine #jjk x reader #jjk imagine #jjk fanfiction #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen imagine #jujutsu kaisen fanfiction

227 notes · View notes

mari-lair · 1 year ago

Text

Oh ryuuxwq, I have many thoughts. So much so this feels like less of an analysis and more like me embodying this gif:

You have been warned, my thoughts will be below:

The theory Akane died and was rewinded back to life is one I really like, because Akane is the only character in the whole story that has two different bodies, which have been proven to be disconnected from each other (Being stabbed in his keeper form doesn't affect his human body, so it isn't a magical girl transformation. Is a brand new body)and he is arguably not alive in his clock keeper body, since he is not visible to people who aren't near death'

Which is weird, considering we never see these two seemingly disconnected bodies together, there is no "your human body falls asleep when you're in supernatural form" with Akane, no attempt to do the usual "your spirit and your body are different things" which most supernatural mangas do.

Even tbhk consider the soul and the body different things, otherwise Hanako wouldn't be able to possess Nene and 'borrow' her body.

So is not like Akane's soul is forcefully separated from his body when he transforms or that his watch literally gives him a brand new magical body. It's more like Akane time jumps forward to his own death whenever he uses his clock(?) or something equally as suspicious. Time nonsense is involved, that's for sure.

I have a theory that the clock keepers can mess with people's lifespan (said theory doesn't feel as wild as it used to now that we know they have enough power to recreate timelines, effectively changing MANY people's fate) considering Akane used to be a normal human who couldn't see supernaturals (so he wasn't near death) when the keepers were looking for recruits BUT the second Kako decided to form his contract Akane 'conveniently' started seeing them.

It's heavily implied the keepers stopped time when making a contract with Akane and being able to share their power with a human is a power in itself, so their habilities are far vast than the basic "mirai move time forwards and Kako moves it backyards." they are op as hell. Who knows if the flashback ending with Kako's clock means they went back to a time where Aoi was safe or if there is more being done here?

The thing that makes me the most confused is this:

Cause it raises the question "Can Kako rewind Akane's time now that he is an honorary keeper?" I was tempted to say "no, he can't mess with Akane's time" cause why would Mirai sacrifice herself to protect Akane if Kako could heal him as easily as a flick of his watch? I am aware Mirai loves Akane but that seems extreme of Mirai for a staged trial🤨

But if Kako can't mess with Akane's time it would means whatever they did to Akane messed with how he interacts with time itself. Do you know how insane that sounds, especially since his supernatural body grows with his human body (since his supernatural body isn't the body of a 12yo boy, like when he made his contract) everything would become 10 times more confusing if Kako couldn't alter Akane's time (plus, the idea he 'revived' Akane would become impossible)

So I went to the moment you mentioned, the one where Teru talked about Akane's lifespam being affected.

and Teru was wrong here. He had assumed Akane's human body would be badly affected by his wound, unaware both bodies are not connected.

However, both are under the assumption Kako can heal the stab wound.

Which have been proven correct (?) off pages since once the severance was over and Akane got to see the keepers again, he was healed.

He no longer has his stab wound caused by Aoi.

I now have the theory that Kako can rewind Akane's time but whenever he does it, it takes away some of his lifespan.

I think so for two main reasons, first it makes Mirai's sacrifice more serious and understandable.

I understand that Mirai loves Akane but unless there is a scene of Mirai feeling uneased by Akane's pierced and bloody stomach that we are missing, she should not save Akane? She is unbothered by dead or broken bodies, she know Kako for way longer than Akane and clearly love him lots but did not try to save Kako from his staged death, and she likes the idea of turning 'naughty kids' into sand (her rumors is about stealing people's time, and she literally lives with Kako, who can rewind time, so death isn't even relatively permanent to her)

She has always been like that, even Nene's dead didn't stick with her, she could be seen playing with Kako a few pages after the death reveal.

BUT it is important that she isn't as stupid as she acts, she understand the gravity of Nene's situation. She understands humans have lifespans and that even she can't overpower a death set by fate.

So her not wanting Tsukasa to pierce Akane's stomach, because she understands his lifespan would be reduced if Kako rewinded his time makes more sense to me: Even if the trial was a mockery, Akane's body isn't, his injury may be cured but he would have to deal with real consequences.

The second reason is because the theory that Kako's powers reduce people's lifespans would explain why Akane was able to see Kako when Kako needed him to form a contract, despite having enough lifespan to be oblivious to supernaturals before.

However, this paints Kako in a pretty dark light? It would recontextualize Kako's rewinding of the whole school and Akane's anger towards Kako during it all significantly.

It seems extreme??? Especially for keepers that went out of their way to rewind the timeline to save the students and the balance of the world? It also leave many questions about how much control Kako has over people's lifespans, or how much Akane, as a temporary clock keeper, is affected by it compared to other people?

So I'm still firmly putting this on 'cool theory to play with' territory instead of 'prediction' territory.

Regardless, it's clear the keepers are very powerful, especially Kako.

This just makes them pick Akane weirder right? They are powerhouses with the power of time and life on their hands, why pick someone as unremarkable as Akane?

I don't think is a 'you're the chosen one/your blood was in the prophecy' kind of thing. He is genuinely a normal kid of some random family. I don't think he secretly lied, cause Akane was oblivious about supernaturals before his contract and the manga never shows any signs the Aoi family is relevant in any way: No supernatural beauty, no connection to the Akane sacrifices, no suspicious wealth, or tragedy. Even Teru, who is our exposition guys have nothing to say about his family

I will admit that his past is vague enough that Aidairo could potentially reveal something 'special' about it, but I personally hope he remains a normal guy.

The "You're not special, you're replaceable" energy to his contract makes Akane's obedience to the keepers and his uncharacteristically pessimistic stance on the situation way more impactful than if it was a "YOU'RE A DESCENDENT OF THE KEEPERS OLD FAMILY ALL ALONG! THAT'S WHY YOU WERE PICKED!" situation, or something just as dramatic, and 'unique' so to speak.

I like to believe they picked Akane simply because he is a good pick. How do people always describe Akane? Responsible, dutiful, nice, wise, hard-working, stubborn. You need to have all these qualities to be trusted with a key that can change reality, someone too selfish, or too dumb, or too quick to give up regardless of their family name would be reckless with so much power.

Hell, most people would abuse the 15 minutes of stopping time that a keeper is given, but Akane always guards his power until the end of the day, and ONLY when no emergency happens did he use he pause Aoi's time to stare at her, something he always does without time being stoped anyways?? Something Aoi doesn't mind? Since she knows he is always keeping an eye on her??

So he basically wasted his 15 times cause he didn't know what else to do with it????? He really settled for 'i like watching Aoi, i'll increase a little the time i have to do this' ?? What a guy.

During his 3 years under a contract, Akane has never cheated on a test, tried to do anything he believes would make Aoi uncomfortable (like so much as poke her hand/hair/lips etc), or used to get revenge on teru. He was extremely responsible for the standard of a pre-teen who suddenly got powers (he was 12 when he first got the watch. he was a kid T-T)

He is a good babysitter to Mirai, no matter how much he feel some genuine resentment for what she did to him, he has a soft spot for kids and never want to hurt her. Just look at how gently he picks her up after he spend the whole chapter frustrated that she escaped. His hold was so loose and careful no wonder she easily escaped.

He has been working hard and doing more jobs than he should since he was a kid! AND HE DID THOSE JOBS WELL HE WAS DUTIFUL.

So he can work hard, he can do a ton of chores efficiently.

He must be one of the best interns the keepers ever got, cause they are way too happy to abuse their power and make Akane work like a dog.

So I genuinely think they picked Akane because his family name may be unremarkable as hell, but Akane as a person is perfect to have as a maid/babysitter/keeper-of-the-key-that-can-reset-timelines in the school.

#i am sorry if this make no sense i got ideas as i was writing and i have a cold :´)#tbhk #toilet bound hanako kun #the three clock keepers #clock keepers #mirai tbhk #kako tbhk #jshk #aoi akane #akane aoi

141 notes · View notes

fr0mthefires · 6 months ago

Text

haunted. - vampire!shigaraki x f!reader / part 3

In which you're down on your luck, taking the first job that will have you after being laid off from Endeavor Dynamics. There, you cross paths with a certain mysterious, red-eyed individual who seems to be harboring a secret, and (un)fortunately find yourself tangled in a web of obsession and danger you're not sure you can handle. Or stay away from.

cw: alcohol use, death, blood, gore, sexual content, mdni, not beta read

~7k words

part one part two

Three weeks.

It’s been three very long weeks of pretending, walking on eggshells, and avoiding. After Kai Chisaki almost made you the next name on his victims list, things have been… weird, to say the least. The group has more or less been avoiding you, besides Toga. If anything, she’s been more attached to you than she already was. The rest of them, though, seem to prefer pretending you don’t exist unless interaction is absolutely necessary.

You’d like to chalk it up to everyone being a little traumatized by what had almost happened to you on your first night on the job, but you know better. You haven’t outright confirmed it yet, but all the signs are there, and it’s not hard to guess they’ve all seen worse than a girl they hardly know almost getting kidnapped. More importantly, you know where their loyalties lie, and it sure as hell isn’t with you.

Their loyalties lie with the red-eyed asshole who’s apparently decided he hates your guts. He’s avoided you like the plague throughout all the shifts you’ve worked since, either staying holed up in that mysterious back room upstairs, lingering in the shadows where he knows you won’t be, or just straight up glowering at you on the rare occasions you do happen to cross paths.

You’re not sure what exactly you did to warrant such disdain besides being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe he thinks you’re more trouble than you’re worth, or maybe his little stunt in saving your life caused problems for him in the aftermath. That wouldn’t be surprising, considering what you’d seen on the news two days later.

“A prominent figure in Japan’s crime syndicate, Kai Chisaki, has been found deceased in Shinano River. While law enforcement has declined official comment to Juko News, we were able to discern from credible sources that his death was a homicide. His remains were spotted by a night fisherman around three in the morning on Saturday, October 17th. Investigators recovered his body and his arms, bafflingly separated from his torso, but have yet to find Chisaki’s hands. This gruesome act was likely carried out by a rival organization to the Yakuza, as the sheer brutality of the murder seems to indicate. Law enforcement encourages…”

You had stopped listening after that. The mental picture of the scene was more than enough.

So yeah, it’s not really a stretch to think he hates you because you’d been the catalyst for him fucking murdering and dismembering someone. You haven’t exactly confirmed that yet either, but you’d be the biggest idiot on the planet to not put two and two together on that one. Tomura is a killer. There’s blood on his hands, and for all you know, Chisaki wasn’t even his first. The brutality of how he’d done it makes you think he’s no stranger to violence.

Tomura is a killer, a killer who loathes you, and he makes it a point to let you know that in however many silent ways he can, considering he hasn’t actually spoken a word to you since he’d demanded you run upstairs to Toga that night. That fact should really concern you a lot more than it actually does. You should’ve packed up your shit and left the country the moment you’d heard that sleazy reporter say those words. But… he’d killed for you. He severed a man’s arms from his fucking torso just for choking you a little bit, and in your trauma-riddled brain, that surely means he’s not all bad.

And maybe you hate yourself for caring so much about what a murderer thinks of you. You had stupidly thought - well, you don’t know what you thought, exactly. Are you really so lonely, so starved of basic human decency that you think someone swooping in and saving your ass from being kidnapped and murdered means something? Apparently so. Anyone would have done that, wouldn’t they? But in a place like Nine Lives, you doubt it. Nobody else in the vicinity had been primed and ready to rescue you from those psychos. Nobody but him, and he was nowhere near you. That, at least, you’re certain of.

You could have sworn there was something, something in his eyes and on his face when he looked at you for the first time. Something a far cry from hatred. You had felt it too, after all. What exactly it is, you haven’t figured that out yet, but it was profound enough that you’re fucking dreaming about him now. Just barely there glimpses at first, so fleeting when you woke up you didn’t even realize what it was about. Now, however, you’ve dreamed of Tomura Shigaraki an irritating total of eleven times across the last three weeks, each more vivid than the last. At least they replace the usual nightmares you’re used to.

The most recent one from last night has stuck with you all day, even now as you stupidly get ready for another shift. It started with a pair of glowing red eyes peering at you from the darkness and nothing else. You remember clearly how quiet and empty it felt, like you were suspended in a void. Nothing but those eyes you know were his and the overwhelming silence. And then he got closer and closer, until he was right in front of you, staring into the deepest depths of your soul. He stared and stared, and there was the lightest of touches against your hand, so fleeting and hesitant. Then, he seemed to phase through you, into you.

Dream you became something else, then. Someone else. The inky black was slowly replaced by moonlight fading in, and all of a sudden you were on what you think was a rooftop. You were staring up at the stars, but it wasn’t you that was seeing them. You were seeing through someone else’s eyes, feeling emotions in a body that wasn’t yours, thinking things in a mind that wasn’t your own. It felt so cold, so empty and angry, so sad. A melancholy kind of longing that makes your own chest ache even now, fully conscious.

You were no longer just you, but both of you combined somehow. Your own thoughts and feelings were still there but dulled, eclipsed by his. The one time you tried to reach out throughout the dream, it felt like hitting a wall, and then you were thrown back into that void space. You felt a flicker of yearning before it was all over, those eyes gazing into you one more drawn out moment before he slowly retreated with one final graze against your hand.

It was so fucking bizarre, but it was so real it’s like you were actually experiencing it all in real life. You can still feel that emptiness and anger and yearning echoing in your chest, can still feel those cold, careful touches against your hand like it really happened. Maybe you really had finally lost your goddamn mind. You can’t entirely rule out that possibility at this point, especially when you’re once again walking through the doors of Nine Lives when you know in your bones you should never come back here again.

***

“Are you excited? I know I am! And you look incredible!”

You wince, Toga’s eager voice so loud in your ear even over the music blaring through the speakers. Somehow, you’d survived to Halloween, and even more surprising than that, you’d willingly agreed to work the event they were putting on for the holiday tonight. It’s abundantly clear this is one of the busiest nights of the year, the space more packed than you’ve seen it yet. Who knew criminals cared so much about Halloween?

Someone - likely Toga - has decorated the space aptly, fake spider webs strung up in the corners, black and orange drapes hanging from the rafters, bats and skeletons dangling from banisters, everything you’d expect from Halloween. The usual strobe lights have been replaced by purple, red, and white lasers waving fluidly in time with the music, the way they pass through the thick fog rolling through the space making everything appear in slow motion.

There's a surprising number of people in the crowd dressed in costumes, most of them scandalous enough that even you almost clutch your pearls.

You’d gone simple. And by simple, you’d gone with the best of what was left of the meager selection when you’d panic-bought your costume two days ago. You’d done your makeup a little more dramatically, a sultry smokey eye and winged liner that left a heap of smudged cotton swabs on your bathroom counter. Pair that with a red corset, a black leather miniskirt, and some little red horns on your head, and you’ve got the best last minute devil costume this place has ever seen. It was either this or the cowgirl, and you’d rather die than be caught in cow print assless chaps.

Toga has opted for what you think is a hero costume of sorts - a black full-body suit with pale pink accents, boots and a headpiece to match. The others, of course, are nowhere to be seen, likely hiding upstairs with your number one fan.

She seems to take your silence as enthusiasm, her own excitement growing as she continues. “It’s gonna be suuuper busy for the next few hours, but once it starts to level out some, we can join in the fun!” For once in the last few years, you’re not entirely opposed to the prospect of letting loose a little.

The past few weeks have weighed on you significantly more than they should - almost getting assaulted and murdered, a man's blood on your hands, another man who looked at you like you'd created the world in six days that now seems to despise your existence, still feeling drawn to him despite that - and the idea of letting all that go even for just an hour has some of Toga’s optimism rubbing off on you. You decide right then your mission for the night is to forget all about Tomura Shigaraki as easily as he seems to have forgotten you, even if you have to pretend.

***

A few hours ends up feeling like a few fucking years with how non-stop it’s been the whole night, and it’s not until almost 1am that it starts to mellow out enough for you to finally take a step back and bask in some of the fun you were promised. At least you’ve made more than a decent amount of money in tips. That alone makes the ache in your feet worth it.

You let Toga know you’re heading out into the crowd, but she doesn’t let you leave until you down enough tequila shots with her to leave you sufficiently warm and more than a little buzzed. She kisses you on the cheek as you’re sputtering for breath after the last one then disappears into the fray herself, and you’re on your own. You laugh to yourself after you recover, feeling light as air for the first time in years. You’d forgotten how nice it feels to be drunk.

You stagger unsteadily into the sea of bodies, giggling as you try to find your footing. The song playing is one you've heard a lot over the last few weeks, a dark, haunting beat that seduces you into moving with the people surrounding you. Your eyes slip closed, your hips start to sway, and your thoughts of a certain someone drift away with the rest of you.

You’re not sure how long you stay like that, hypnotized by the atmosphere and the alcohol, but when you open your eyes again the crowd has thinned a little bit. There’s hands on your hips that weren’t there before, a chest behind you pressed against your back, a man swaying in time with each of your movements.

He’s breathing against your neck, whispering something about how sexy you are and how he couldn’t resist approaching you. You’re too far gone to care about the fact you really shouldn’t let any man that frequents this place touch you, let alone like this, and the contact feels nice.

So you let him stay, let him keep his hands on you and his body pressed against yours, and you move.

***

Three weeks.

It’s been three very long weeks of pretending, avoiding, and coveting.

So, so much coveting.

Tomura doesn’t know what to do with a feeling like that. He doesn’t know how to process anything that’s not black and white, cut and dry, familiar territory. It’s been decades since he’s wanted anything other than blood and violence, and it’s been even longer since anger wasn’t the front-running emotion in his still heart.

But you, you’ve crash landed into his life, and now all he does anymore is want. Wants so many things he can’t even begin to understand. He’s fairly certain he hasn’t truly allowed himself to want anything since childhood, back when Father had broken his arm because he’d said he wanted to be in the military like grandma. He was only five years old.

You should be no exception to the No Wanting Things rule, but you haven’t given him a goddamn choice.

~~~

“What?”

“He said she’s-”

“Shut up, Jin.”

Perhaps the only time Dabi had been helpful throughout the entire time Tomura’s known him.

Tomura had stared blankly at Kurogiri then, his already deathly white complexion paling further. He’d heard what Kurogiri had said, but he couldn’t process it. How the fuck could he, when that disaster of a sentence had been dropped on him like an anatomical bomb?

“It is true, Tomura. The girl is tied to you, and you to her, though not completely. Not yet.”

Kurogiri had kept talking, as if Tomura wasn’t one more syllable away from hurling himself off the Harukas Observatory.

“I do not fully understand it myself, but you are connected to her beyond mere emotion. She can see as you see, feel as you feel, and you through her, if you should will it. It is incredibly rare for our kind. Our Master had one, long ago. I have yet to see it myself throughout my decades, until now. Other species like ours refer to such partners as mates. Whatever term you choose to use, with what you have described, she is yours, linked by your very souls.”

Tomura had slid down to the floor at that point. Or had he already been there? He can’t remember.

“It is not fully solidified yet, not until you drink from her, and only if she willingly offers her blood to you. Only then will the bond be completed. But even now, the connection is there, brought to life when she met your eyes and saw you as you truly are without judgement or fear. It was made stronger when you halted Kai Chisaki’s attempt to harm her, protecting her life with your own.”

He had stopped listening after that, the ringing in his ears making it too hard to distinguish anything else, anyway.

~~~

That was three weeks ago, right after he’d slammed the door in your face. He’d hate you for it if he wasn’t so consumed by pressing need every time you’re within fifty fucking feet of him.

He did his best to pretend you didn’t exist after that talk with Kurogiri. In his mind, if he avoided you, it’d go away on its own. He’d done good for the first week; glaring at you the one time you tried to approach him, holing up in his room on the nights you worked, shutting down Toga anytime she was about to bring you up. But then that second week started, and he’d felt you for the first time.

He remembers it being around one in the morning, in the middle of destroying the enemy’s Nexus on League, when he’d been temporarily blinded. He initially thought it was a new symptom of not feeding for so long and had stood from his gaming chair so fast it crashed into the wall behind him, frantically feeling his way around his room to go feed on the first living being he came across.

He didn’t have a chance to make it to the door before he started to make out shapes through the darkness. He could tell right away none of it was real, and then began to assume he was hallucinating instead of going blind. His hand was on the doorknob, his focus redirected to finding Kurogiri, but as soon as he made it into the hallway, the shapes finally took form.

He knew it was you, even appearing to him as a child. It’d be hard to mistake those sad eyes. You looked to be around six or seven, and you were staring into a mirror while crying. There were bruises on your face and arms, a bit of dried blood on your bottom lip. He’d frozen in the middle of the hallway, his body as still as a statue as he slowly began to realize what was happening.

You cried and cried while you wiped the blood and tears away with a dirty towel, and then you screamed so loud his hands flew up to his ears on instinct even though this was all happening in his head. Someone was beating on the door, and he couldn’t see you anymore because you’d presumably turned to look that way. Cracks started to form in the dry rotted wood until it broke down completely, and then you’d ran to hide in the closet.

He could hear you shaking and sniffling, and he could hear whoever was coming for you walking across the floor. It was deadly quiet for a moment, and then the door was ripped open, and you screamed again, louder than the last. He thinks he may have yelled then, too; for you, to you. The person wasn’t distinguishable, just a black shadow with a wide, grotesque mouth, grinning down at you. And then they yanked you out of the closet, and you were gone.

He came back to reality by Shuichi shaking him violently by the shoulders, Kurogiri standing behind him, looking at Tomura like he already knew what had happened. It was the connection Kurogiri had told him about, how he could see through your eyes and feel as you feel, presented to him in a dream you were having. Kurogiri had figured your mental walls had come down in your sleep, and Tomura’s had been down because he’d been playing fucking League of Legends and didn’t realize he had any to keep up in the first place.

So, yeah, he couldn’t ignore you anymore after that. It felt wrong to, knowing what he knows now. It wasn’t hard to piece together you’d been abused as a child, something he can relate to more than most. He knows it’s not his fault he saw what he did, just as much as it’s not your fault for barging into his mind in the first place, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little grateful for a small piece of insight into who you are even if it feels dirty to know something so vulnerable about you without your consent.

Kurogiri had given him all the knowledge he had about how Tomura could keep that from happening again if he didn’t want it to. It was on Tomura’s own time that he slowly figured out how he could visit you. He wasn’t good at it at first; only able to linger in your unconscious mind for a few moments at a time, and unable to really manifest anything other than one part of himself at a time. But the more he practiced, the better he got, and by the time he tried again last night, he was able to fully show you what he wanted you to see.

He’d been up on the roof of Nine Lives, a rare night where it was relatively peaceful and quiet, no police sirens or screaming arguments from the street below. He thinks that may have made it easier since he could fully focus on you, his hearing not picking up any overly distracting sounds. He doesn’t know if you meant to - likely not - but he could make you out this time, too, waiting for him in the darkness.

He took his time, allowed himself the opportunity to just look at you, appreciate you. Even in a suspended space, you were beautiful, staring at him like you were waiting for what came next. He liked that idea, you waiting for him. Liked that you saw him. He approached you through the darkness and dared to brush his fingers over your hand one time. He had to feel your skin at least once, even if it wasn’t necessarily real, but fuck, did it feel real.

And then he’d pulled you into his mind, into his consciousness, and looked up at the stars so you could see how peaceful it was. So he could see how it’d feel to have you with him on a night like that. He couldn’t stop the overwhelming desire then to have you fully next to him in person, feel your warmth against his side as you watched the sky change with him. Then came the sadness, knowing he could never have that. He could never really have you, not with what he is, who he is. You deserved more than what he could offer you.

He’d felt a flicker of something warm, like you were trying to reach out to him, reassure him maybe, he wasn’t sure. It had startled him so much that you even tried, that you’d wanted to and that you’d figured out how to, that he’d pushed you back into your own mind on impulse. He wasn’t ready, but he knew his time was up, so he’d selfishly touched your hand one last time and then he’d left you.

It’s not something he can do every night. Some nights he’s busy, or some nights your mind is completely closed off to him somehow, but he does it every chance he gets. Anything he can do for you indirectly to relieve your suffering, even if it’s just keeping a handful of your nightmares away. Anything he can do to have even the smallest part of you in his life, even if it’s just in your dreams.

***

“Tomura, I wouldn’t-”

“I don’t care if she’s still here.”

“No, that’s not-”

He turns to glare at Jin, who mercifully stops talking, despite the anxious look on his face. They all of course know about you and what you are to him, the goddamn gossips, and they definitely all know how he can get when he obsesses over something. He can’t tolerate your name coming out of another man’s mouth, even the ones he’s known for decades, and he definitely can’t stand the thought of any of them talking about you or to you when he can’t even do that himself.

The one time he'd seen Dabi talking to you on your first shift after that night, it took Jin, Atsuhiro, and Shuichi to hold him back. He’s not sure what he would have done if they didn’t. Toga is the one exception in talking to you, and even she pushes it sometimes.

He feels a little guilty about that, mostly because it’s not hard to tell that it upsets you when everyone ignores you. He wishes he could tell you it’s not personal, that they’re only doing it to save themselves from being torn apart and set on fire. It’s hard enough to restrain himself from ripping apart every man down there that dares to look in your direction every fucking night you show up to work looking too alluring for your own good.

He starts down the stairs under the guise of finding Toga, to tell her that Atsuhiro is looking for her, but he’s pretty sure everyone knows he just wants to see you from a distance, make sure you’re okay, that you’re still just as perfect as you were when you came in. Watching over you from the shadows has been his favorite pastime as of late.

It’s busier than even he’s ever seen it, his lip curling up in disgust from the sight of just how large the crowd is. He’s always hated Halloween, and the fact that it’s going to be that much harder to catch a glimpse of you makes him hate it even more. He has half a mind to barge into your consciousness and see where the fuck you’re at that way, but it’d be too risky. He can’t chance it when you’re fully aware.

It doesn’t take long to determine that Toga has abandoned post for the night, if the current free-for-all at the bar is anything to go by. Likely off gorging on the blood of whatever sorry assholes she thinks are cute and entertaining enough to toy around with. He scowls, assuming that means she’s told you to leave for the night, too. He’s missed his chance, then. He’ll have to wait until later, after you’ve fallen asleep, but the dejection bubbling up inside him tells him it’s not the same.

He’s just about to turn around and stalk back to his room, fuck around on Valorant for awhile to take out his frustrations, when he feels it. You can’t be doing it consciously, seeing as you don’t have the slightest clue about any of this shit, but he can feel a euphoria that he knows doesn’t belong to him. Like you’re on cloud fucking nine, wherever you are. It’s strong, stronger than any emotion he’s felt from you yet.

Kurogiri had said it’s heightened the closer you are, so maybe…

He gets deja vu when he scans the horde much like he did that night three weeks ago. It’s a lot easier to find you this time than he expected, maybe because he’s more in tune to you, or maybe because he can feel you mentally. You’re facing towards him from where you are below, not far from the bottom of the stairs on the outside of the crowd. He almost laughs when he sees the devil horns on your head, but it dies in his throat when he sees the rest of you.

The top you’re wearing lifts your chest in a way that has his gaze stuck there for longer than he cares to admit, the shape of it highlighting your curves. The scrap of fabric clinging to your thighs is so short he could see everything if you bent over, a fact that both enrages and arouses him. He’d do just about anything right now to see you bent over in that, just for him. Your eyes are closed, your hands are sliding up your body, and your hips are moving so hypnotically in time with the music he thinks he’s gone into a fucking trance.

He already knew your body was perfect, but seeing you like this, you’re a fucking divine gift from the gods themselves, one he wants to unwrap slowly, piece by piece, until you’re bare before him. He can’t tear his gaze away, can’t stop watching you move, his eyes following the path your hands are taking down, down, down…

And then they grab another pair of hands, hands that have settled on your hips.

He should just leave, go upstairs and pretend he never saw this. He should let you do whatever you want, with whatever trash you choose. He should -

He’s down the stairs and through the crowd in three seconds flat.

***

“Man, what the f-”

You’re so lost in your own little world that it takes a few seconds to register that something is happening. Your eyes blink open slowly, the world spinning for a moment before it rights itself. The hands you’d been holding are no longer there, your fingers grasping nothing but empty air above your hips, and the warmth that had been pressed against your back is gone. There’s a few heads turned your way, but they’re not looking at you, they’re looking at whatever’s happening behind you.

“What the fuck is your problem?”

Huh. That sounds like the voice that’d been murmuring nonsense into your ear for the last - well, however long it’s been.

“Don’t fucking touch her. Don’t even look at her.”

And that sounds like the voice that’s been the star of most of your thoughts lately.

You sober up impossibly fast, whirling around to confirm your ears haven’t failed you. The scene you’re met with reminds you too much of that night, except you hadn’t been in danger this time. Had you? Maybe you had been and hadn’t noticed, because why else would he look like he’s about to rip this guy to shreds right here in this sea of witnesses?

Any lingering confusion is replaced by fear. Not of him, no, but fear for the guy that’s still standing there, stubbornly holding his ground.

“Last I checked, she was enjoying herself. Ain’t that right, sugar?”

You remain silent, your gaze shifting between him and Tomura, who hasn’t looked at you yet. You stare at his side profile, silently begging him to stop and look at you. His jaw is clenched so tight you can see the muscle tick, his eyes narrowed and gleaming with murder, his body so rigid you wonder how it’s possible to remain that still.

“Tomura,” you breathe, so quiet you don’t know how he hears it, but he does. His posture relaxes so minutely you would’ve missed it if you weren’t already staring at him, his body shifting slightly towards you, his gaze sliding to you out of the corner of his eye. His jaw unclenches when he turns to look at you fully, the intent to kill in his eyes simmering down to something a lot less concerning.

And then you’re stuck again, that feeling resurfacing, trapped under the full weight of his gaze, his pupils dilating and eclipsing the crimson of his irises the longer he stares at you. His eyes travel across your face, scrutinizing every feature, and you do the same, taking in every detail of him you didn’t get the chance to last time. You’re once again struck by how attractive he is; even the scars only seem to accentuate his features.

He’s dressed in all black; jeans and combat boots, a compression shirt and a long, stitched jacket with gray details to match. You get the impression he’s not one to try or care about his appearance, but even with no effort, he looks fucking incredible.

You’re vaguely aware of the guy yelling, some inarticulate string of words thrown either at you or Tomura, you aren’t sure. You don’t care.

“Get the fuck out.”

Tomura says it without taking his eyes off you, his voice low and dangerous. It sends a shiver down your spine, and not one of fear. Something else that you don’t want to put a label on.

The idiot sputters, goes to say something else, and Tomura tears his gaze from yours to look at him before he gets the chance to.

“Do you want to find out what happened to the last one that put his hands on her? I’d love to show you.”

He grins, wide and wild, and your heart skips a beat. The guy finally takes the hint, maybe even looks a little scared, before he spits a nice little “fuck you” at the both of you and turns tail into the crowd.

Then it’s just the two of you, and the rest of it fades to background noise.

***

He can’t help himself. Not when you’re right there, just two steps away.

He knows he should leave now. He’s made enough of a scene, crossed the one boundary he’d set for himself, and now he should leave before the line is gone entirely.

But he’s always been a little selfish, and you’re staring at him like he put the fucking moon in the sky. The stars in your eyes outshine the ones he’d shown you last night tenfold.

***

“Come here.”

It’s a command, one you don’t hesitate to follow.

You take one step, then two, and then you’re right in front of him.

“Turn around.”

You do. And then you wait, your body trembling with anticipation.

He’s careful at first. Hesitant, almost. Two of his fingers brush over the back of your hand, and you’re transported back to your dream from last night when he’d done exactly the same thing. That had felt so real, but you know now it pales to reality. They trail up your arm so slowly, over your shoulder and then your neck to brush your hair out of the way. His other hand comes to settle on your hip, his thumb caressing the sliver of exposed skin there.

Hadn’t he hated you? Hadn’t you hated him just a few minutes ago? Your mind spins, the whiplash of the whole thing making you dizzy. He killed a man for you, then avoided and ignored you for weeks, and now he’s touching you so carefully it’s like he thinks you’ll break. And you’re letting him. You need to push him away, stop playing whatever game this is, get answers to -

“So soft,” he whispers in your ear, his voice husky. He tugs you backwards in one fluid motion, so fast it momentarily startles you, until your back is pressed fully to his front. “So delicate.”

Maybe answers can wait. Maybe you can let yourself enjoy whatever this is for now and yell at him later. You owed that to yourself, right?

Your heart is in your throat, your lashes fluttering with each whisper of breath against your ear. He leans down, his nose trailing along the expanse of your throat, strands of his hair tickling your neck.

“You smell so fucking good. So sweet.”

Had you put perfume on this morning? You can’t remember. Can’t process anything other than his voice and his touch.

His fingers trail down, back over your shoulder and down your side until they curl around your other hip.

“Little devil, hm?” he murmurs, his lips brushing against your pulse point with each syllable. He inhales an unsteady breath, long and deep. “How fitting, for what you’ve done to me.”

You shudder, unable to fully comprehend what he means but liking the sound of it regardless.

“Now move.”

You hesitate, unsure of what he’s asking for. He growls in your ear, a deep rumbling in his chest vibrating against your back, and his hands squeeze your hips once, right on the edge of painful. You like that much more than you should.

“What, you can do it for him, but not for me?”

He sounds angry, jealous. It dawns on you what he means.

You don’t make the mistake of hesitating further. You’re a little off-kilter at first, a little off-beat, too overwhelmed by what’s unfolding that your movements are more jerky than they are fluid. It takes a second to find a rhythm, but when you focus on how good his hands feel on you, how good the weight of him pressed against you feels, it’s as easy as breathing.

His grip tightens with each pass of your hips against him, his fingers digging into your skin, and you can feel a rumble of approval resonating in his chest. No man's touch has ever felt like this, so right, like everything's as it should be. His hands fit against your curves perfectly.

He doesn’t move with you, just lets you sway on him, breathes you in where his mouth is pressed against the juncture of your neck and shoulder. You can feel his teeth scrape against your skin, but he doesn’t bite down, and you’re taken aback by how badly you suddenly want him to do just that.

“Good girl,” he rasps, his voice so strained it almost makes you stop, but he pulls you back even tighter against him as if reading your thoughts, a silent way to tell you to keep going. And how could you not, when praise sounds so fucking good coming from him?

It only makes you more bold, only makes you want to please him more. One of your hands comes up to rest against his own on your hip, the other traveling up your body to reach behind you until it settles against the side of his neck. He freezes at the contact, his body going inhumanly still like you’ve stunned him. You go to pull away immediately, but his free hand flies up and presses your hand back down before it leaves his skin completely.

“Touch me. I want you to touch me.”

He sounds pained, like it’s hard for him to say those words, but it’s all the encouragement you need. He slowly lifts his hand, like he’s waiting on you to try to disobey, but once he’s sure you’re doing as he wants, it returns to its previous place on your hip, his fingers splaying wide. You tentatively caress the side of his neck, and he exhales a deep breath, his weight relaxing against your back.

You wonder how often he’s touched like this. It can’t be much, if he reacted like that. Then you realize how much you hate the thought of anyone else being with him like this and abandon the thought altogether.

You don’t know how long you stay like that, moving against him while he just breathes you in, and you don’t care. You’d stay like this forever if he’d let you. When you open your eyes again, his arms are constricted around your waist, and he’s glowering over your shoulder at someone you assume looked in your direction a little too long. It should probably concern you how possessive he is of you, but the way your body reacts to it tells you all you need to know.

You’re in deep shit.

***

Mine. Mine. Mine.

His throat is on fire, and his brain is fried, whatever primal fucking animal you bring out of him begging to just sink his teeth in, drag you away to his room and never let you out again, but he knows he has to do right by you, by whatever this is, even if it kills him in the process. You’re the one thing he can’t just take simply because he wants to. He shouldn’t even be taking you at all.

But he’d already crossed the line. Dumped gasoline on it, tossed the match, and let it burn to ashes, and now it’s too late. He has you in his arms, has your scent burned into his nose, the imprint of your body against his, and now he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to ever let you go after this. He’d fucked up, monumentally. No, he’d been fucked as soon as you breathed his name like that to keep him from killing that worthless idiot.

He can waste his time on the should haves and could haves all he wants later, but having your ass swaying against his dick for the last half hour makes it pretty difficult to have regrets right now. He wonders if you can feel how hard he is for you, if you know what you do to him, the effect you have on him, but he’s pretty sure you don’t know the goddamn half of it.

You get to be blissfully unaware, meanwhile he wants to scream from the fact you’re tied to him in ways he still doesn’t fully understand, and he can’t even tell you. Not if he doesn’t want to scare you away. It’s too much too soon, and despite how content you seem to be right now, he can’t trust that you won’t run for the hills as soon as he clues you in to just how deep all this really goes. And he can’t have that. Not now, not ever.

So he just takes what he can get, for now. Inhales deep breaths of you even though his throat burns more and more each time, his body singing with the desire to taste how sweet he knows you’ll be. Grazes his teeth over the fragile skin of your neck even though they ache so badly to just break through, mark you so everyone knows you’re his, take your blood so you’ll be tied to him forever. Stands there while you grind against him even though his cock is already so painfully hard it’s truly a miracle he hasn’t busted in his jeans yet.

You’ve awakened so many desires in him in such a short period of time that it’s hard to keep up with them all, things he’s never cared about until now. Sure, he’s been horny before, but he’s never actually wanted a woman in his bed, at least not to this magnitude. He’s never wanted to sink more than his teeth into anyone, but fuck, he’d move heaven and earth to sink his cock into you, to feel you quivering around him and hear you moaning his name. He’d have to get himself off to that image later, at least for now until he can have the real thing.

Hadn’t Master said once that good things come to those who wait? Tomura had thought it was total bullshit at the time, just another one of Master’s nonsense philosophies, but now it’s starting to make sense. You’re the most good anyone like him could ever hope to get, so he’d wait. Bide his time, keep visiting you in your dreams to sway you even more, spend more time with you in reality after tonight, and then he’d reveal his hand, show you all the cards on the table when he’s sure you won’t run away from him.

He’s not sure he’d have it in himself to let you.

***

note: sorry this one took a little longer, hopefully it's worth the wait. there's a lot of POV switching in this part, but I wanted to give perspective on everything that's unfolding from both sides so things hopefully make a little more sense.

as always, thank you so much for reading and for being here. it means the world to me that even a few of you spend your time reading things that I write. <3

see you in part 4.

#shigaraki x reader #shigaraki x you #tomura x reader #tomura x you #shigaraki tomura #mha x you #mha x reader #mha fanfiction #bnha x reader #bnha x fem!reader #mha shigaraki #vampire au #hauntedfic

33 notes · View notes

howlsofbloodhounds · 1 year ago

Note

What do you think happened during/after the fight Delta had with his Gaster(in the Final Ep. 1). What are your headcanons for it?

Apologies for the delay in response, I needed to both gain energy/motivation to reply and also to go rewatch Ultra/Vitaltale to refresh my memories.

And also the way the videos were sorted on creator’s YT channel was confusing my brain for some reason, so I just scrolled through their entire channel in order to find every piece on the AUs & put it into separate chronological order in a playlist of my own. Then I tried to rewatch all of it.

Which was hard, because I kept getting distracted and my attention kept drifting away. I will probably try to rewatch again soon, when I am capable of actually retaining the information in my mind accurately.

(Random side note because the thought just occurred to me; I find it very interesting how both Doggo and Papyrus demonstrate bravery when facing up against the unknown threat in Vitaltale Episode 1.4.

Whereas Sans, who will eventually absorb the SOUL of Bravery to become the Delta we know, is all for evacuating. Love how this Sans is not naturally brave in the typical way, even should he eventually come around to gaining the bravery soul in Vitaltale as he did in Ultra.)

Anyway. On to the actual question. My mind is a little wonky today so if I get anything wrong or confused about the question feel free to correct me.

So it’s to my understanding that Echo (Ultratale’s Gaster) calls Sans/Delta to the Ruins for a “chat” after Delta’s fight with Cross. Echo has information for Delta—a way to “fix” their mistakes, but he will not tell Delta unless he fights for it.

Delta calls the information “old,” and says he’s going to beat Echo into the ground anyhow. Gives me the impression that he’s possibly more fixated on his current task—protecting AUs—then trying to go back and fix the past.

Because Ultratale was ultimately rebooted into Vitaltale we obviously don’t know for sure how this battle ends and likely never will, but I personally HC that it has multiple endings.

1. Delta loses, Echo doesn’t give him the information. The two go on their separate ways and live their own lives.

2. Delta wins. Echo attempts to tell the information, but Delta stops him. Says he doesn’t want to know and just wants to move on with life. That it’s what Papyrus, Frisk, and the others would want them to do.

3. Delta wins, Echo tells him the information of how to go back and fix it all. Delta refuses.

4. Delta wins, gets the information, and he accepts. Perhaps this information leads into the formation of a variant AU—a reboot, that creates Vitaltale. Chara doesn’t absorb Frisk’s soul and therefore can’t prevent them from Resetting.

(Side note: perhaps, for a character defining moment, in every ending where Delta refuses to hear or accept this information, Echo always furiously protests against this. Maybe Echo is the voice encouraging Delta to go back, to fix it all and “fight for us,” whereas Beta is the voice encouraging Delta to keep moving forward.

Echo cannot let go of the past because he was shattered and wasn’t ready to leave it, but he is was always aware.

Beta never got to truly live either because they were murdered and kept in a jar, but they were not as aware of the world outside the jar and thus is able to move on easier. Because Beta’s life was over before they truly got to live it, whereas Echo/Gaster’s was cut off at its peak.

Delta is in the middle of this. Experienced with life, but still young. His life is just starting—he’s halfway out of that cage—whereas Beta realizes they are free and is just trying to convince Delta to join them, and Echo..the cage is open, he can step out now.

But he spends his time trying to coax Delta and Beta back inside instead, and to help him bring everyone else back in the cage where it’s safe and familiar.)

Delta, now just Sans and perhaps without any memory of the events of Ultratale, manages to convince Frisk to Reset near the end of a Genocide route and be better. However, the Determined Omega!Chara must still Erase this world—the culmination ending exactly as Ultratale did.

Omega!Chara absorbs Frisk’s Soul, prevents them from Resetting and goes on a Genocide to Erase this world once and for all. Sans attempts to prevent it, even by giving characters such as Doggo hints and tips to help them in combat against the unknown threat.

None of it matters. Sans’ attempts do nothing, it ends in Genocide and Sans absorbs the Bravery soul—going on to protect the rest of the Multiverse.

He always fights Cross, he always fights Echo. He’s always given the choice—go back and try again and again, or accept what happened. Be brave, and move on. Do what Doggo and Papyrus did—brave in the face of impossible odds.

Anyway I guess my little HC is basically that Ultratale and Vitaltale are connected in-universe. Vitaltale is the story of how we got to Ultratale, and Delta must choose between the mortifying ordeal of the unknown and living with his mistakes & losses, or the comfort of a past that’ll end horribly in Ultratale; but at least he never lost anyone yet and no mistakes were ever made.

If he chooses to move on, he goes to the Omega Timeline where he meets Color, Epic, Core Frisk, Killer. Grows closer with Beta, Cross, XChara. Adopts a service/therapy dog he names Zorox (which is someone else’s HC, I don’t know if it’s okay or not with being tagged). Lives life, saving and protecting people.

Sans manages to escape the loop of Undertale only to find himself in another due to the rebooting nature of Ultra and Vitaltale. Only this time he has the ability to choose to escape it, he just has to be brave enough to attempt it—even though it seems impossible.

(Also how, despite the way his experiences could understandably lead him to Nihilism, helplessness and the belief that nothing he ever does or says will ever matter or change anything, he learns to be brave enough to keep trying anyway.)

Anyway. Sorry for the long rant that got horribly off topic at points. I had a lot more ideas about this by the time I was done than when I first read the question. Have Delta & Echo being silly and zesty respectively to make up for it:

56 notes · View notes

ghostofhyuck · 1 year ago

Text

𝗜('𝗹𝗹) 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂. ✧₊⁺

Alien! Park Jisung x Scientist! Reader

Summary: As you attempt to find another trace of life through ex.trl.0205 or Jisung, you become closer to it, eventually creating a bond between the two of you that your colleagues don’t understand.

Word count: 3.6k

TW: Contains violence, death, and arson. Read at your own risk.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Your steps created noise against the marble floor, echoing through the hollow hallway of the laboratory.

“Good morning Jeno,” you greeted your fellow researcher who only nodded. You noticed that he’s not smiling as usual.

“Is there something wrong?” you asked.

“It’s being stubborn as usual,” he explained, slacking his jaw in the process. “Almost threw a kick at me if I wasn’t able to avoid it.”

“Jisung did?” you asked.

He only laughs bitterly, “I still wonder why you call him that when he’s not even a human.”

“Why? It’s much better than his subject name, ex.trl.0205 is hard to pronounce,” you explained.

“Just say you’re attached to it,” Jeno comments.

You only laugh at his remark. You two separated ways as you made your way through your office. Today’s another day for your research. You placed down your bag and took a sip from your coffee tumbler. You deeply pondered about Jeno’s comment about Jisung earlier, you could only shake your head in disappointment as you grab your lab coat and exit your office.

“Good morning Jaemin,” you greeted another fellow researcher who lazily waved at you, eyeing the huge glass window in front of him.

“Is he okay? I heard he almost kicked Jeno earlier,” you asked.

“It’s okay, got scared with the injection,” Jaemin answered, emphasizing the “it” which you just ignored.

“Again?” you asked, forehead creasing.

“Hey, it’s not our fault we need its blood samples…if we can call the liquid fluids blood,” Jaemin shrugs.

You only stared at the glass window. On the other side sits Jisung who’s distracting himself with the rubic cubes Jaemin gave him. You watch as he curiously tries to complete a side but due to frustration, he destroys it with his bare hands. You heard Jaemin whistle at the sight. He leans on his chair, feet placed on top of the table.

“Do you really think we’ll succeed in this research?” he asked. “I mean, it’s been months and the progress isn’t moving.”

“We literally have an alien creature in front of us,” you pointed out. “Let’s just be happy about it, and we’re just getting started too.”

“Yeah right, and you’re attached to it already,” Jaemin teased.

You didn’t say a word. You watch as Jaemin stands up from his seat and taps your shoulder gently. “It’s all yours, I’m going out to have a nap.”

You only nod. As soon as you hear the door closed, you gaze at Jisung again. He couldn’t see who’s behind the glass window unless they approached him personally inside his room. You took a deep breath before approaching the door and slowly twisting the knob.

“Yn! You’re here!” Jisung shouted with glee as soon as he saw you. You haven’t even closed the door but Jisung’s already hovering over you. You still couldn’t believe that he’s a large creature.

“Jisung — I can’t breathe!” you shouted, trying to tap his back. For a second he lets go and his smile is still there.

“You’re here! I miss you! They were being mean to me again,” he complained, a pout forming on his lips which made you chuckle.

“Ji, I told you that you shouldn’t use violence on the other researchers,” you lectured but his pout only became bigger.

“He’s hurting me again,” Jisung said, pulling the sleeve of his shirt. You can see that there are a lot of patches around it. “He told me it’s just one time but he went for another and —-”

“There, there. It’s okay Jisung, I’ll talk to him later okay?” you said with a soft tone. Jisung only nods, slowly retrieving back his sleeve.

You gave him a smile before brushing his hair lightly, “should we go back to what you have learned?”

“Oh I made progress!” Jisung excitingly said. Pulling you towards the table area. You watch as he scrambles around the papers that’s scattered on the desk. His eyes squinting at which is which.

“Here! Here it is!” he said, giving you a crumpled paper. You glanced at it and tried to decipher his writings.

“Ji,” you only breathe. “This is progress! Great job!”

You pulled him for a hug, ignoring the way he wraps you around his arms and traps you there.

Jisung or ex.trl.0205 is a research of yours. It was a rare case for an alien to crash into the earth. On the same night where the meteor shower graced the Earth, so did Jisung who happened to have an accidental landing on a rice field in a small town.

You’re an astronomy scientist. It’s been a long dream of yours to discover what more the universe can offer aside from what has been discovered, and you got what you wanted when Jisung entered Earth. Now, all you have to do is to be patient with your research.

Jisung was inhuman. He was incredibly large, has sky blue eyes with a pupil that resembles a reptile. His hair is disheveled pitch black, and he doesn’t have any fingernails, his fingers are longer and pointed. His skin texture was a bit slimy but tolerable. If you took away all of these, he could pass as a human being. Aside from that, he’s twice stronger than a normal human being.

When you first meet him, you wonder if his fellows are out there somewhere, in an undiscovered planet probably. You wanted to know more about him and if there’s a liveable planet out there. So when you proposed your research to the laboratory research head, he gave you an immediate approval.

Having Jisung as a subject was hard. He was aggressive at first, you remember earning a bruise when he snatches your wrist, his fingers sinking into it. If it wasn’t for Jeno who immediately responded, you would’ve been injured.

But you were persistent. You wanted to get Jisung's trust in order for him to follow you. So you tried to approach him with care and like a mother. Your colleagues think that your method is absurd, thinking that you’ll be attached to him but you wanted to prove them wrong. You only see Jisung as nothing but a mere subject.

At first, Jisung couldn’t communicate properly. But with your patience, you tried your best to teach him your language. He becomes more calm whenever you visit him. You gave him a smile, even though he didn't respond. For months, you’re like a fool who keeps on talking to him even though you’re not sure if he understands you. So when he first started speaking, you were surprised by how deep his voice was, but what surprised him more was that the first word he spoke was your name.

It took you a few months to gain his trust. Jisung is naive, but like an animal, he can sense who has good intentions on him. That’s why he’s more aggressive to your fellow researchers who want nothing but research about him. But with you, your only intention was to know if there’s more of his being from afar. That’s why you couldn’t do any harm from him, only questions that you patiently wait for an answer.

Today, you made progress. Jisung wrote down formulas that may be a way for you to navigate his home. It was hard to decipher because of his handwriting but at least it’s progress. Your eyes scan at the scattered papers on his table, Jisung stood beside you, eyes locked on you who’s oblivious to it.

“You did great Jisung,” you complimented once again. “Thank you so much, this is great. I —”

“Yn, can you stay here for a while?” he asked with a soft tone. “It’s been so long since I saw you, and I miss you.”

You didn’t notice how your heart skipped a beat. You only gave him a smile as you pat his shoulders lightly.

“Okay, since there’s progress I can stay for a while, what do you want to do?” you asked.

“Help me with this?” he asked, showing you the destroyed rubik’s cube earlier.

You only laughed as you held the cube, “I’m sure this one’s destroyed, how about we just read a book?”

Jisung happily obliges with your request. He went to the stack of encyclopedias on the corner. There, he grabs the first volume. You sat on the floor as you waited for Jisung to sit beside you.

You watched as he scrolled through the book, opening a page that he seems to be familiar with.

“Alien,” he muttered. “That’s me right?”

You only nod, watching for his reaction. He seems to be confused with it.

“Well, if I was on your planet, I’m the alien,” you said with a joking tone.

“Oh, that makes sense,” Jisung said. He glances at the window, and the room falters into silence.

“Do you miss them Jisung?” you asked.

He then looks at you and smiles, showing off his sharp canines. “I do, but you’re here. That’s why I don’t feel lonely at all.”

You only smiled back, and then proceeded to continue reading the book. Minutes turned into hours, until you two slowly fell asleep beside each other.

“You should stop falling asleep inside its room,” Jeno lectured. He found you asleep once again in Jisung’s room and slowly woke you up without disturbing Jisung who’s hold on you was tight.

“And you should stop stabbing him aimlessly,” you lectured back. Entering the laboratory’s cafeteria, Jaemin waves at both of you who’s having his lunch.

“It’s not my fault it's moving a lot,” Jeno defended, sitting beside Jaemin. “It’s not like it gets hurt. That creature’s skin is thicker than us.”

“It’s being dramatic so that you can baby it yn,” Jaemin teased.

Your forehead creased, “stop that, and so what if Jisung’s skin is thick? He still gets hurt by it. Just be careful next time Jeno.”

You heard your research partner let out a sigh, “Fine fine, this is going to be the last too. No more samples from it.”

You only breathe, “thank you.”

“But yn, I hope this is also going to be the last time we caught you sleeping in its room,” Jeno added. “We still don’t know if it's dangerous or not.”

“Jisung’s not dangerous,” you defended.

“Of course it’s not dangerous when it comes to you, it likes you,” Jaemin pointed out. “But it’s still an alien, we never know what will happen if it snapped.”

“Then let’s just hope that it won’t,” you mumbled.

Weeks passed and with Jisung’s formula, you were able to construct an equation for how you can navigate his home planet. Every night, you would go to the laboratory, observe Jisung from outside and within his room. Every night, you also notice how he’s slowly becoming more humane than the first time you encountered him.

He becomes calm whenever Jeno and Jaemin visit his place, as long as you’re with them, Jisung doesn’t attack your research partners. They also learned to be more approachable to Jisung, but still, you observed that Jisung still has his walls high when it comes to them.

Slowly, your research is nearing its completion. All you need to do is to make an attempt to communicate with them. Jisung can be a main method in this part but you have to be confident in this part.

“Yn!” Jaemin shouted as he barged into your office.

“What? What’s wrong!?” you asked, he was catching his breath as he slowly approached you.

“They’re…they’re removing you from this research,” Jaemin broke out.

Your eyes went wide, “what!? Jaemin, what do you mean?”

“Jeno got a phone call from the head lab, they want you there, they think that it’s better for Jeno to lead the research —”

“Bullshit, don’t tell me Jeno agreed to this.”

“No! Of course he didn’t, he tried to justify that this is your research but Doctor Lee just thinks that…” Jaemin pursed his lips, looking away for a second before glancing at you with a worried expression. “You’re too attached to the subject.”

“That’s it!? That’s all?” you asked, appalled.

“They think that your affection may ruin the research, biased if you think about it,” Jaemin explained.

“I know that it was my method but if I start the research by being hostile against Jisung, we wouldn’t make progress,” you explained. “I know that I am attached to Jisung but it didn’t affect my work and research, tell that to them.”

“I am sorry yn,” was the only thing that Jaemin could say. “We tried really hard, but their decision is final”

The door of your office opened, revealing a disheveled Jeno who’s catching his breath. As he stood up, he made contact with Jaemin.

“I guess you told her,” he then lets out a sigh. “I’m sorry yn, I really tried to tell them that I cannot handle your research but they were persistent.”

You only fall into silence. Silently nodding because you know that it wasn’t their fault. Frustration heaps on you because this wasn’t supposed to happen. You’re one step closer to finishing your project and then the next thing you know, they’re pulling you out of it.

“Until when can I stay here?” I asked.

“Within this week,” Jeno answered.

Your forehead creased, “within this week!? Are they so eager to throw me out of my own research!?”

“I know but listen,” Jeno approaches you. “You can still try to find time to finish your research, okay? Don’t worry about us here, do your research on your own. Jaemin and I, we won’t be touching it.”

“What about Jisung?” you asked.

Jaemin only smiles, “We’ll take good care of Jisung, if that’s what you want.”

“Thank you,” you breathe. Grabbing both of them for a hug. The two only hugged you back, trying to comfort you as much as they could.

You spent the remaining days inside the lab improvising the formulas and equations. You also gave Jeno and Jaemin a brief summary about it even though you three agreed that it’s still your research.

On those remaining days, you could only visit Jisung from behind the glass window. You only observed him there, who’s busy entertaining himself. There were times where you watched him stare at the window, probably missing his family. You also noticed that he ripped off the “alien” page of the encyclopedia. It was there on the floor lying. You wonder what it meant for Jisung.

You know that Jisung won’t be able to take your departure easily, so do you. You admit that you did grow attached to Jisung but at the very least, you’ve grown only nothing but sympathy for the clueless creature who’s an alien in this world. You atleast, want to give him some companionship.

“Hey,” you were startled to see Jaemin beside you. He crosses his arms as he glances at Jisung. “It’s your last day. Are you not going to say goodbye to him?”

You only let out a sigh, “I don’t know what to say. Maybe I should just not say goodbye —”

“And leave him waiting for you? It’s better for him to have proper closure yn,” Jaemin explained. “Come on now, it can be just a short goodbye.”

Jaemin’s right. You almost spent a year with Jisung too. He’s attached to you too, it’s best for him to hear your goodbyes. That’s why you walked your way towards the door, slowly opening it.

“Yn! You’re here!” and just like the other visits you have with Jisung, he hovers you over with a hug.

“I miss you! I’ve been waiting for you!” he excitedly said. “I learned how to do the cube! Here let me show you!”

But instead of answering him, you grab his wrist, making him stop. Jisung’s smile disappeared when he saw that you’re frowning.

“Did something happen?” he asked.

“Jisung, listen, I —” you inhaled deeply. “I am leaving.”

“What!? What do you mean by leaving?” he asked, his tone dripping with confusion.

“The lab, they assigned me to another field,” you explained calmly. “But don’t worry, Jaemin and Jeno will take care of you —”

“No! You can’t leave me!” Jisung shouted, you were surprised with how his voice raised.

“Jisung, I have no choice, they —” you let out a scream when Jisung grabs your wrist, just like what he did when you first encountered him. You tried to tug it away but he didn’t even move a muscle. You glanced at him, his expression darkens as he stares at you.

“No! I won’t let you leave me!” he shouted.

“Jisung, let me go! Please you’re hurting me,” you plead, dropping on your knees as you try to remove his hands from your wrist.

“I won’t let them take you away from me!” Jisung shouted, his grip becoming tighter that you could only scream in pain.

The door swung open, revealing Jeno and Jaemin, and some guards of the laboratory.

“Hold it!” Jeno ordered. The guard immediately responded, hovering over Jisung who pushed them away with ease. He didn’t let go of you, dragging you on the floor as he attacked those who approached you.

But a guard was able to push Jisung to the ground, holding him firmly along with his colleagues. Jeno immediately approached Jisung who was struggling to get out of the hold. You watch as Jeno grabs a tranquilizer. He stabs it on Jisung’s neck who groans because of the pain.

Without any hesitation, Jaemin approaches you. You watch him pull out a scalper and stab it in Jisung’s wrist. The creature screams in pain, letting go of your hand.

You weren’t able to process everything. Jaemin drags you out of the room, leaving Jisung there to struggle to get out of the hold. You didn’t notice the way your tears flowed down from your eyes. Shock and adrenaline seeped through every veins of your body as you and Jaemin reached your office.

That was the last time you saw Jisung. Due to your injury, you were advised to take a month's rest first before going back to the main lab. You couldn’t do anything but sit and devour yourself in the silence of your apartment room. Everytime you look at your wrist, it reminds you of Jisung. How despite everything, he’s still a monstrous creature that’s dangerous.

All of those months of peace and affection crumbled down into minutes of nothing but pure horror and fear. You don’t know what to do. You were left agitated inside your apartment room. You wanted to know what happened to Jisung after that. You were scared of what's going to happen to him.

You tried to reach Jeno and Jaemin but you discovered that they were forbidden to give you updates about the research. You called bullshit, even dropping a phone call to Doctor Lee, your supervisor and the head of the main lab. You tried to convince him to return you to your research, but he has decided that your research will be in the better hands of your colleagues. You were frustrated, trying to pour your rage on finalizing your research but somehow, you couldn’t concentrate in your isolation.

Until a few days later, it was as if your wishes came true, a phone call from Jaemin disturbed your sleep. It was almost midnight, but it didn’t matter to you. All you needed was an update.

“Jaemin, what happened —”

“Yn, Jisung escaped!” Jaemin shouted. From the background, you can hear car screechings and the continuous blaring of horns and Jaemin cursing.

“What!? How!?” you asked.

“He went mad — fuck, get the fuck out of my way!” Jaemin shouted.

“Where are you Jaem!?”

“I need to go there, you should too! This is code red yn!”

The phone call ends, and you immediately jump out of your bed. You didn’t care if you’re wearing nothing but your sleepwear, you grabbed a dirty hoodie from your laundry basket and the keys of your car. Hurriedly, you drove your way to the laboratory.

As you find your way there, you couldn’t help but feel your heart beating faster. You noticed that there’s a bright light glowing on the laboratory. Your hold on the wheels became tighter as you pressed on the gas pedal harder. Scurrying yourself towards the laboratory.

Your eyes became wide the moment you parked the car. Hastily going out of the car but you were frozen to what you have witnessed.

The whole laboratory is drowning in flames. It was nothing but pure fire as it continued to burn. Your shaking hands found its way to your opened mouth. Letting out a disgruntled scream as you dropped on your knees.

It can’t be. You watched as your dreams crashed and burned into ashes as the fire stenched right through your nose. Its heat is becoming more intense as if it's not going to stop any minute.

You watched as from the fire, a figure slowly walked out of it. You knew from that silhouette who it was. But you couldn’t do anything but watch him approach you until he’s standing in front of you.

“You returned,” Jisung said, a smile forming on his lips.

“Jisung…what is this?” you asked, almost stumbling on your own words.

“They took you away from me,” he stated. “So I’m taking away everything from them.”

Your eyes went wide because of his answer. “No, no! Jisung! This is wrong, you shouldn’t —”

“I did this for you yn,” Jisung rebutted with a soft tone. He kneels in front of you. You saw nothing but a creature whose longing for you. His eyes stared at you, sending goosebumps through your spine. You watched as Jisung became more inhumane in your eyes.

His fingers trailed on your cheeks, making you flinch. As you look away, he grabs your chin, making you squirm in pain as his finger’s pointed ends pressed deeply on your cheeks.

“Nothing can separate us now,” Jisung declared. “We will be together, forever.”

#nct dream #nct imagines #nct dream fic #nct fic #nct x reader #nct #nct jisung fic #nct jisung #park jisung #park jisung fic

73 notes · View notes

okiedokiegoosey · 1 year ago

Text

theories w/ rocki bc @caterva told me to put it on the dash:

today's edition: cooper howard is not a naturally occurring ghoul.

i am pointedly putting this on lucy and not barb because we're going to talk about how it affects lucy and cooper's interactions. i may expand upon it on barb later. under the cut bc i am long winded and do not want to clog your dash with my cooper was an experiment theory.

disclaimer: these are my thoughts and opinions and that's it. they aren't law. do not have to apply to anyone. they're just here as thoughts and theories. that's it.

let's discuss how cooper howard is nothing like a naturally occurring ghoul in the fallout universe.

the first time we meet the ghoul, he's in the ground, and he's let up every year by dom pedro, but he's hooked to the same chem that's in the vials via iv. this directly goes against the general knowledge of natural ghouls being a. highly chem resistant and b. able to go on for at least a few decades without intervention for turning feral. it's important to note that todd howard himself said the show was canon, so that means game lore is in play here.

he called himself a bucket of drugs, which also, doesn't make sense to a naturally occurring ghoul or his personal character motives and development to that point. chem addiction itself is not uncommon in the fallout universe, but if we take his character as a whole. he takes it as it comes, he's a bucket of drugs. we see no indication in his supply that it's a chem addiction. hancock had a chem addiction that started his ghoulification. howard? yeah. no way.

and we have to consider how close he was to the memories of his past life after two hundred years and what he says about torture to lucy. he strung her up and lucy immediately dived into her own memories and personal mission to make him see reason. he immediately brings up studies, and if you look at his face, you can see a whole play of emotions before he said anything. that points in the direction of him having been where she was at some point. on the receiving end of what he perceived as torture.

so, let's say he was an experiment and not the product of continued radiation exposure. that also explains why his reaction was SO BIG to lucy smashing his supply. There is something inherently wrong with his regeneration and degeneration rates to need support beyond maybe radaway/radx on occasion to keep the radiation at a healthier rate? If the radiation were that bad, for him to need chem support so frequently, people would be dropping like flies due to the radiation. we don't see any evidence of that.

in theory, there's more than enough evidence to say he was tested on in a vault (hence why he knew at least janey made it in to one and not where she went after) and he likely wasn't the most willing to go in but did it for his daughter (dad of the century. take notes hank). If they'd separated them under the guise of protocol, he likely would've been more receptive to letting janey go before they went to night night sleep. it would also explain why he asks where the hell they are, because he knows for a fact at least janey is in a vault and likely trusts barb followed her own plan and went in one, too (more on that later. on barb). yes, he hated vault tec. that isn't up for debate. what is up for debate is how far he went to protect his daughter. his memory of where he knew she should be is too clear to indicate he was knocked out at any point. he knows they're in the vaults. that part he doesn't debate. he wouldn't know that unless he put janey in one himself. it would be more likely that he assumed at least she died.

now, what does this have to do with lucy? i'd be kinda hostile if i saw someone in a vault tec suit and i was their pet project, too. let's be clear about that. It's how he tells her he's her and to give it time is what I want to draw on first. we assume he means physically given the constant callback to her checking her radiation levels, but consider he meant mentally. that he too was a product of their design and look at how he turned out. he'd already called it quits with vault tec before the drop to think that kept him bitter. something in what we didn't see has his ire for them even higher.

plus, the name maclean would've triggered some memory. moldaver, too. we saw that. we know he's got a good grip on his mind (another reason the constant chem recall makes no sense in the grand scheme of things). i truly think his initial motive with lucy was to fuck with her because of her connection to vault tec. it was luck and chance she was useful to his personal mission, at least in the beginning.

let's put this naive (not dumb unless it's street smarts, in which she has no experience) girl in front of someone who has been through hell and back and still just wants to find her family. You see he's still capable of humanity (which goes against him being on the edge of turning feral too) because he does, in a way take responsibility for her, covers for her, and at least invites her along later.

nothing about this is to say the relationship can't turn romantic, okay? we aren't discussing that. if you want that for what you're writing, go for it. the room for interpretation is a beautiful thing, but at the very least, he cares enough about her to help her see her mission through to the end, too.

we aren't even going to mention the ghoul organs for sale which really wouldn't do anyone any good unless they're for science and research, which feeds back into the logic that someone is running experiments.

AGAIN ROCKI; TL;DR: all of this is to say that there are inconsistencies in the lore we know about ghouls and cooper howard to say he was a naturally occurring ghoul. his chem dependence leads to inaccuracies of his own cognitive function, and he was likely experimented on. it also explains why dom pedro kept him as he did in it's own way. his chem dependence also makes him unique in terms of a ghoul, and it's my theory that vault tec made him the way that he is.

#theories from rocki's brain to your dash.#again: these are just my theories and you don't have to accept them.#they're meant to start a conversation and all that.#these apply to no one but my peabrain.#i've been up most of the night thinking about this one and would love to discuss these things w/ you guys.#feel free to add things. ask questions. etc. i live for it.#→lucy isn't here right now; now forwarding to: satan herself.

15 notes · View notes

snowangeldotmp3 · 1 year ago

Text

mean girls (2024)

fine. FINE. it is time to discuss mean girls (2024) bc i can't stop thinking about it and i had a severe mean girls the musical phase in 2018 and 2020 two separate times. and also i took notes watching the movie last night. so now you are all subject to hearing them. spoilers, obvi. (under the cut, of course)

i think it should be noted here that i also have Thoughts and Feelings on the bway musical. so if anyone wants to know those... moving on.

it's a movie-musical adapted from the stage musical adapted from the 2004 movie adapted from a BOOK called Queen Bees and Wannabes released in 2002. now that that's out of the way:

the good:

the sets are so much fun in the movie. the musical is like. a few desks and tables and a bed that all move and then. screens. i missed real sets. so much

opening the musical with janis and damien recording the video in the garage and having their narration work like that worked sooooo well. and then of course ending in the garage was very fun.

speaking of janis and damien, these are my favorite versions of janis and damien. auli'i and jaquel KILL IT as janis and damien.

angourie's cady (acting-wise) is really good. really cute and naïve and it feels authentic as a transition from new kid cady to plastic cady.

i also don't mind the changes to apex predator. i think auli'i and jaquel killed it and i think it works! i like the choreo too where everyone is acting animalistic (re: this is Girl World in the og movie) except regina.

avantika and bebe wood are also really great as gretchen and karen. this might be my favorite version of karen. ily karen shetty.

LOVE this version of someone gets hurt. i love regina controlling the atmospehere around her and literally becoming the apex predator. the partygoers don't move unless she allows it, and even planning cady's reaction (which is. gayer than expected) is so good.

CONTROVERSIAL TAKE? i prefer the story behind the pyro-lez thing. i never liked the space dyke story in the musical and i thought it was weird (though i prefer them calling her a space dyke because it's supposed to be mean. ya know)

im saving this for this bullet point bc every other bullet point would've been about but i've been a fan of renee's regina for forever now, so being able to see it outside of broadway and outside of shaky bootlegs is a blessing.

after regina eats shit at the talent show, during the social media montage, you can briefly hear the intrumental version of world burn, and i think thats cool.

SOMEONE GETS HURT (REPRISE) you will always be famous. i am so sorry they didn't put you on the soundtrack

damien on the jazzy will forever be funny. it's better than the og movie. i will stand by this.

also the background/looming beat of world burn like a second after janis gets done singing + the looming threat of regina's revenge is very cool.

OH world burn is very awesome in this bc. duh. of course it is. but what really stands out to me is that it's like apex predator again where everyone is acting like animals and reginas above it all (bc she did this lmao). another thing is the transition between one of the high notes to regina fake crying in mr duvalls office. that was so slay.

the reginald joke is my fave in the whole musical and im so glad they kept it. it makes me giggle every time.

canon lesbian janis imi'ike i love you.

the bad:

i miss all of the songs. give me back It Roars, Where Do You Belong, the entirety of Meet the Plastics, the What's Wrong with Me reprise, FEARLESS! and Whose House is This, More is Better, and Do This Thing!! GIVE THEM BACK TO ME!!! PLEASE!!! OH my god and Stop. jaquel would've blown this out of the water i just know it.

i miss the jokes about mrs george and her boob job. that shit was hilarious.

i don't care for cady's pov in revenge party in this one. those who have seen it Know.

i also miss the "NO! THEY'RE BOTH IN THE COSTUME!" that shit killed me. absolutely hilarious.

the musical (bway edition) actually did cut some of the iconic scenes from the movie, but i think this movie would've benefitted from adding them back in. give me the "we should totally just stab caesar!" line.

i hate Rockin Around The Pole. so fucking much. i hate it in the broadway version and i hated it in this. i hate this song so fucking much.

chris briney. that's all. he's got about as much personality as a wet piece of paper. get a different aaron.

even the broadway musical is like, actually mean. it still pales in comparison to the og movie. this movie could have done a little more to stand out from the actual musical and the og movie. idk. it could've said something. but if you walked into this movie and expected it to say something then that's on you. sorry.

this isn't something that needs to be categorized but i miss cady's inner monologue. it's very obvious in the movie but she's even got these cute little asides in the musical that i WISH they would've kept. like: "it seems kinda bad to spy on someone, but they're the first friends i've got, and i don't want to have none." is so much fun and gives cady so much character and i love it so much. erika henningsen is my favorite variation of cady. she's believable as both nerdy cady and plastic cady. also she's so, so funny. (honestly i think they should've brought her back for cady's songs in this musical. sawry. i don't think they should've replaced angourie bc i really like her cady But.)

another cute and quirky thing that i like from the musical that isn't in the movie (because it would be really hard to pull off) is that mrs heron/mrs george/mrs norbury are all played by the same actress.

anyway that's all i have to say about mean girls (2024). in my (completely unprofessional) opinion, they should've literally just adapted the actual musical script if they wanted to make this so bad. or released a pro-shot with renee as regina and this cast or something. they should've gone all out campy musical with this one instead of trying to market it as a remake bc it's not Really a remake. like it Is but it's Not.

if u read this whole thing thank you. if you saw this post and went "jesus christ" im sorry. i wish i could stop thinking about it, too.

#mean girls #mean girls 2024 #mean girls 2024 spoilers #just my 2 cents.#i didn't include the touring production changes bc i did not like the touring production changes. they changed a part of It Roars #and Fearless and i did Not care for that shit at all #next week's category: beetlejuice the musical #just kidding #but yeah. there's my thoughts on that. sorry everyone.#for more thoughts on things you don't care about please feel free to follow my letterboxd <3

23 notes · View notes

xweetok-starmap · 4 months ago

Text

Well, my 1 week post-op & drain removal appointment today (and day in general) was a big rollercoaster of unexpectancies and date ranges being cut in half.

Traffic was really good in the HOV lane on the way over to the hospital, so I got to stop by a sweets store before my appointment. I made the note that due to how chipper and healthy I look & act generally — despite the surgery only 1 week ago — because my arm restraints were underneath my clothing, I look completely normal when inside of the store. Unless an onlooker paid a lot of attention there’d be no reason for them to think I have any sort of restrictions.

Then I got to the appointment, and it turned out that — 1 [the person who told me that there is a FULL FOOT OF DRAIN TUBE INSIDE OF YOUR CHEST was absolutely bonkers wrong (the tube inside of my chest was maybe two and a half inches long) and so there was NO WILD GROSS SNAKEY TERRIBLE PULLING OUT EXPERIENCE like I was expecting which was . . . great. Instead the tube removal was only moderately uncomfortable.] Also I thought the drains were going to come directly out of the main incisions, because that’s what the information pamphlet shows; but mine came out of entirely separate holes lower down. Huh. — 2 [My incisions actually aren’t vertical on the sides of my chest like I was given reason to believe during the conversation with my surgeon right after I received my IV. ((I remember how weird that conversation was ?? I replayed it like 4-5 times in my head trying to figure out “did he _actually_ say they the vertical lines he drew at the side were the incision marks . . . ? I _think_ so . . . ?” but Stars on the Water — everything within the first ~5 minutes of receiving the IV in the top of my hand was kind of a wild disoriented blur.)) The horizontal incisions ARE very high up though, they are more like in the “center” of my chest rather than at the “bottom” of my chest. This was on purpose, I really wanted to avoid them looking like pectoral shadow marks since my goal was NOT a masculinized chest. So I guess everything along the sides of my chest and by the underarms being what’s so wildly itchy is not because that’s where the incision is [[ETA actually the incision DOES reach all the way up to here, I just couldn’t lift my arms yet to see it]], but because . . . that’s where the lymph nodes are and where the edge of my compression vest (where there is a bunch of swelling) is.] — 3 [I believed that I was halfway through my arm restraint time — that I would need to “live like a T-Rex” for _2_ weeks. That’s what my surgeon said, what the assistant said, what all the paperwork said . . . but I was actually told that (based on how everything was looking) that I should deliberately expand my range of motion as much as possible now, making sure to do stretches as far as I can go every day, according to what is comfortable in a “listen to your body way”. So . . . I guess I can do my hair again now . . . (I thought I wouldn’t be able to take down the braids and clean my scalp for like . . . three weeks) . . . and given how much mobility I have that is comfortable, I ?? kind of expect I’ll probably have full mobility back comfortably by the beginning of next week?? I guess????] [Weight is also in the “do what feels safe” category; I was given 10 pounds as a safe “aim for less than this for now” range — and DEFINITELY things that are 10 pounds are currently “hm, actually, I don’t want to pick this up.” territory. But uh . . . well normally something that is 40 pounds feels like MAYBE 20 to me so . . . I have no idea how fast that’ll actually go anymore. Geez. At least I know physical labor like shoveling outside is still 6 weeks, that hasn’t changed.] —4 [My paperwork said that I’d need to wear the compression vest basically non-stop for a full month . . . but apparently it’s actually “you’ll want to wear it pretty regularly for 2 weeks, and after that point just wear it if you feel you need the compression, but also you’ll have to take breaks anyway to launder it”?] I also have to take off the vest twice a day in order to wash and re-dress the nipple grafts — basically I treat the grafts like how someone would treat a new tattoo (my plan is “wash and then spray them with Briotech, since Elayne Angel the piercing pioneer DELIGHTS in that stuff” and it can be used for tattoos, too) so I’ll be spending a lot of time taking it off. A lot more than I was expecting already.

so . . . between all of that I kind of feel like I am suddenly ?not acting at all like I just had surgery? it’s REALLY strange.

As far as how everything looks, well it’s still new so it looks pretty gnarly . . . lots of tape and glue over the incisions of course . . . I um; admittedly, I don’t like top surgery scars. I also tend to not like how nipple grafts look. So seeing everything looking Not So Great at the very first undressing — especially since the grafts are (necessarily due to the extra pressure on them) so PUSHED IN upon the first undressing — was . . . pretty hard on me. “I have definitely cried about it at least once in a public bathroom”.

Walking around with the drains removed; minimal gauze under the compression vest rather than a whole wrap layer; and a lack of arm restraints, felt 1 [really weird and like I was suddenly not acting like I ?just had surgery? like — I JUST!! was at the sweets store a few hours ago!!! thinking about how, “oh; when I visit friends this week I should actually be able to go downtown with them, I didn’t think I could! It’ll be alright aside from arm movements sometimes when I need help!” and suddenly I’m at my 2nd store of the day and that arm movement thing is ????not going to be a thing actually I can just use my arms???? AND probably go downtown like I didn’t think I could do? WHAT???] and 2 [really freeing] and 3 [REALLY REALLY ITCHY. oh my stars it is SOOOOO itchy. because suddenly things that weren’t moving for a full week are moving, especially the bits of the underarms that are swollen, just . . . aaaaaaAAAAAAAAA I was already the most itchy I have been so far last night and then I was the most itchy I’ve been so far AGAIN—]

Then when I got back to the place where I sleep, I got to take a shower for the first time since my surgery. Which, my skin really REALLY needed the moisture because of whatever weird wipes they had me use on it right before the surgery. Also my toes were sooo dry (yes my toes have ALSO!! been itchy this whole time!!) from the pre-surgery rollerblading blisters, but I hadn’t had the mobility to treat them properly . . .

It was like this at the appointment, too, but . . taking off the compression vest makes my chest feel REALLY tight. Like with the vest: the area around my underarms, clavicle, and the bottom of my ribs feel really tight. Without the vest, the actual flesh of my chest _itself_ is really tight. So taking off the vest (and everything else) in order to dry rub my skin with a rougher silk weave before my shower was . . . definitely an . . effort in mobility and discomfort and hyperstimulation all the time . . . my spouse called right before I showered, and I’m pretty sure that I sounded like I was going to cry the whole call?

The shower itself was a big effort in mobility, too . . . it was like . . . with all the hyperstimulation; and moving my arms being uncomfortable; and the sensations of the water at first, it was COMPLETELY miserable for the first couple of minutes. I was super shakey and NOT because I was cold. I’m sure I DID NOT LOOK HAPPY AT ALL. /shivers thinking about it/ But it was alright after just a little while . . . I have a lot of muscle memory for using my facial cleanser (I use a facial cleanser for my entire body because my skin is OBNOXIOUS and will ALWAYS WELT if I use soap on it — even the most BASIC OF BASIC SAFE SOAPS. it’s. dumb. my electrologist and I had to figure it out together, and she definitely had a laugh about how I’m one of the few people who ACTUALLY have sensitive skin and not of the marketing ploy kind, either. oh yeah she also has a dermatology degree. She HATES dermatologists. they scam people like crazy.) uh, I got off topic sorry. But it was fun. So I left it in. — I have a lot of muscle memory for using my cleanser so . . . it only took a couple of minutes using it, before I was able to move around to use it way more comfortably again. By the end of the shower, it was like a 180 where I was happy about how showers seemed really good for getting mobility moving. Then I sprayed briotech on everythingggg (because you can use briotech as a skin toner . . .and I was nooot going to use my rub-it-in-manually-with-your-hands toner at this point) and got help with my “goes everywhere on the skin” (except the chest, because it could dissolve the tape for my incisions) raspberry-emu skin oil since I don’t have THAT much mobility yet.

Another reason I was happier by the end of the shower is that my nipple grafts were a lot less sunken, than they were at the initial undressing appointment . . . they did the nipple thing! er, the areola thing! where the areola becomes more erect from the skin when stimulated (by the water and cold and everything) which was really nice to see. I felt like I could get a better impression of where the nipples were ?supposed to be? as well, when they ?presumably? pop up more, too, so . . . that’s good? I just/also really hope they lighten back up as they heal . . . I was very particular about wanting MY nipples/areola (not using “similarly coloured, but fake, areola”, or fake nipples, or a tattoo) because I really liked everything about them already . . . so watching them and what they do will probably be the most rollercoaster-y hopeful/devastating/relieved experience of this whole healing process . . . It wasn’t an option to put them back on without ANY change (notably: without making them much smaller), though. Because the nipple graft only has a few days to establish vein connections with the body before skin healing cuts that option off, it can’t be grafted on at the full size that it was previously — the body can’t build the vein network that that size of nipple would need, the nipple would simply die.

Then we needed to put bacitracin + gauze coverings on the grafts after my shower and everything is just. so sensitive (intermingled with random spots that feel totally asleep, too) . . . We used a basic paper tape in order to tape the gauze down. and ONE of thsoe paper tape rolls was TERRIBLE. It didn’t stick to my skin reliably and every single inconsistent touch of it on my skin with it peeling up, and then settling back down, was like the worst hyperstimulation of “my eyes are blurring out like I’m going to pass out; I don’t think I’m ACTUALLY going to pass out, but it feels like it anyyway, oh my Stars and Sardines” /shivers/ um . . . the second paper tape roll was fine though. Stuck a lot better and didn’t flutter around nearly as much.

Due to the lack of chest compression — which I didn’t have that for HOURS since we needed to throw the vest in the laundry and we thought it was air dry . . . — my chest was still really tight and stimulatey and itchy. The hyperstimulation goes down a lot with compression, since there is less ‘random movement’ directly on the chest itself from things like the brushing of silk shirts or air movement)

but, my spouse came to visit and that was really really nice. What I needed most was engagement and happiness in something so that I could be distracted from the physical stimulation and I definitely got that from him visiting. I hugged him and it was GREAT because I can get SO CLOSE with my chest flat like /extremely happy wiggle exhales/ I can be like RIGHT UNDER HIS CHIN like RIGHT THERE like PRACTICALLY OUR FACES RUNNING INTO EACH OTHER it’s SO GREAT (he’s not tall, I’m just short) and he mentioned, “oh, there is distinctly Less Of You, this is weird” like I’m just /grins grins/ notably actually so much smaller now — /does the “holding forefinger and thumb only a few centimeters away from each other” thing/ I’M LIKE THIS BIG /incoherent giggling/

then we watched Dragonball which was SO good that was EXACTLY the type of low engagement but very fun activity that I needed to distract from all the body sensations going on /thankful exhaleeeee/ Also he brought an Extremely Important Squeezable Smoochable Scootable Boy (the Nyahoja plushie that I bought him for his birthday and he has decided is his Son) and it’s really nice hugging a plushie against my chest now, too. It’s not like . . . _as_ different as hugging a person and being able to be sooo close /warm happy smiles/ but it’s definitely nice having no obstruction.

I went down and up stairs for the first time since my surgery (because laundry, which my spouse helped me with) . . . turns out going down stairs makes me very disoriented and lightheaded right now. At one point I was going to follow him down the stairs and my body just STOPPED like “Nope. No.” and I realized “oh okay, I’m not going down the stairs unless I absolutely have to” haha.

My range of motion by the end of the evening feels . . . kind of wild . . . like yes: a lot of things feel do itchy, or tight, or unfamiliar . . . but I’m very distinct about what feels like _PAIN_ and it’s really only that (or soreness) that I’m looking out for when it comes to limiting range of motion . . . as I said earlier, I basically expect a full range of motion return in my arms by the beginning of next week . . . but I’m still going to sleep in the arm restraints anyway. Otherwise, my elbows bend the wrong way when I’m using this sleeping wedge that I need to use right now (to prevent me from rolling first onto my side and then onto my stomach, where I almost always wake up). Waking up to elbows that were overextended all night feels Awful hahaha.

Oh yeah also I thought about Peachy!! and sending her a “here’s another perspective on how this stuff can happen” ask for one of her anons!!, but (probably??) because I was in the middle of trying not to cry at the time because Mastectomy Hyperstimulation Is Really Hard and Gnarly First Day Look Is Really Hard, I got too worried it could give someone a panic attack and didn’t, oops. Maybe tomorrow. But I think about folks!! really truly I do!! I was looking at that poem I want to post and some of the commentary I made at the time of it was really cute, so I’ll have to scrub that all up.

#2025 march #journal: surgery #journal: skincare (apparently)#xweetok-original

2 notes · View notes