#-sake of grades so i hated it at that time. there were lots of other subjects that was more 'important' so it felt even more meaningless-

[zhongrin]

yk, while chinese is a nightmare to learn (for me at least) they're also such an interesting language... "来, 小姐!" hits a lot different than "miss, your order's ready!" but i can't really explain why hahahah

[lil13]

Pov: Enemies to lovers. Specifically, Ethan is your academic rival and you absolutely hate him. Or so you think.

•

You walked through the door of Sam, Tara, and Quinn’s New York apartment with Mindy and Anika in tow. Mindy was your roommate, someone you’ve known since preschool, so it wasn’t a question that the two of you would be roommates.

“T, please tell me this is going to be a girl’s night.” You asked, falling down on the couch you had taken 1 too many naps on over the past few months you all lived in the city.

After the most recent stabbings, you all managed to get into a summer program at Blackmore. The excuse was that you wanted to get ahead in college, but the real reason was you all couldn’t stand to be in Woodsboro any longer.

A blush rose on Tara’s cheeks and you knew that your girl’s night was in jeopardy. “Chad… might be coming.”

“If he brings his fucking, smart ass roommate i’m leaving.”

Mindy scoffed, sitting down on the couch with you. “Relax, Y/n, if he brings him, just ignore him. I don’t understand the beef between you two… I know why I don’t like him.”

The girl Meeks-Martin twin claimed that Ethan Landry — Chad’s roommate and your self-proclaimed mortal enemy — was not to be trusted. Ever since Amber and Richie, Mindy rarely trusted another person.

“There are a lot of reasons as to why I hate him, but one of them has to do with our Econ class.”

Sam handed you a beer, knowing you needed to be somewhat buzzed if the curly-headed boy was coming over. “Econ?”

“Yes, Econ, he’s… too good at it.” You scoffed, “He consistently has the highest average in the class and—”

“You’re not used to being second to anyone.” Tara connected the dots, clinking her beer bottle with yours.

You had been the Valedictorian in high school, #1 overall. So, coming to Blackmore and having this curly-headed boy so easily beat you out aggravated you. Since you realized he was your academic rival, you began finding more and more about him that bothered you. That way you’d hate him instead of only being jealous of him.

Jealousy bothered you.

On a list of things about the boy that bothered you:

His hair was too curly.

He was too nice.

He remembered details about everyone, down to their favorite m&m color.

He was a virgin.

He was insanely attractive, yet still single.

His study habits didn’t make sense, he got perfect grades and she had yet to actually see him study (but then again you didn’t try to see him at all).

You could go on and on.

“Knock, knock.” Chad’s voice rang through the apartment.

Two sets of footsteps could be heard and you groaned, Ethan had in fact tagged along. You chugged the rest of your beer, letting the alcohol course through your veins. Sam obviously saw this and brought you another, having it already opened for you.

“If I was into girls, Sam.” he winked at her and she laughed.

Chad and Ethan both sat on the couch and Quinn made you sit up to make room for the rest. Unfortunately for you, when you sat up, Ethan was directly next to you.

“For fucks sake.” you muttered, sinking back into the couch.

Tara and Mindy fought over the movie you all were to watch and you somehow landed on a scary movie you hadn’t heard of, but it was a group thing — you only watched scary movies.

Mindy and Anika were cuddled up and so were Tara and Chad. Quinn and Sam flanked the rest of the group. You and Ethan? You were dreading being in the same room as each other.

Time went and the week’s events and your now 3 beers had caught up with you, you were exhausted and somewhat drunk. Everyone was asleep and you couldn’t help but think how good of an idea it was.

You’d had a busy week, midterms had kicked your ass. You might’ve only slept an average of 3 hours each night. So, sitting still for an extended period of time made sleep want to come quicker. You gave in and let your head fall to the side, not even caring that it landed on Ethan’s shoulder.

“Y/N.” Ethan muttered, trying to make sure you were aware that you had your head on his shoulder — knowing of your hatred toward him.

Unbeknownst to you, the hatred was very much one sided. Ethan had the biggest crush on you. It was almost embarrassing, truly he wondered how you hadn’t noticed yet.

You were one of the main reasons as to why he was still single.

“Shut the fuck up, E.” you waved him off, “I’m aware you’re who i’m laying on, but everyone else is too far away.”

The movie continued to play and you got yourself comfortable, more of your body now lay on Ethan’s. You tried to ignore the feeling that surged through your body at the contact between your bodies. Your bodies were so close that Ethan’s hand almost had to rest on your thigh, you gave him no space to put it anywhere else.

Your eyes were pulled away from the screen when you felt movement on your thigh. Ethan was absentmindedly tapping on your leg and for some reason it was driving you crazy. Each tap from a finger sending electricity through your leg.

It was too much.

So, you jumped up from your spot, successfully making Ethan jump. “Y/N, what the hell?”

You shook your head and stumbled to the kitchen. Time for another beer.

You were quick to open another, number 4.


Before you were joined in the kitchen, by none other than Ethan, you’d downed half of it. His eyes were wide as he reached over to slip it out of your hands. “That’s enough, Y/N.” A laugh fell from his lips.

You pouted, reaching for the bottle, but the boy held it out of reach. “E.” you whined.

The boy faltered, his hand dropping just enough for you to snatch the beer back. Another sip.

“Y/N.” he reached for the beer again.

Unbeknownst to the two of you, some of the beer had spilled. Enough to make Ethan slip when he lunged forward, making him fall, taking you down with him.

Luckily, the fall didn’t hurt you too much, but now you were pinned underneath the boy.

“Ethan, you’re on top of me.” you whined again.

You could feel his heart beating against your chest. Was he nervous?

“Y/N, why do you hate me?” His voice sounded soft, almost as if he were hurt by your hatred.

He looked like a sad puppy and it made your heart hurt.

A sigh fell from your lips, “In all honesty, the only valid reason was that you’re better than me and Econ. My… my academics are all that I have, E. It’s all my parents cared about… you wouldn’t understand.”

Ethan let out a shaky breath, one of his hands came up to your face, his thumb running over your cheek. “I understand more than you know.” Your breath hitched at the skin-to-skin contact.

He must’ve noticed, because his eyes shot back to yours.

“I don’t actually hate you.” you whispered, his brown eyes were captivating.

The curly-headed boy stared at you breathlessly, his eyes now were flickering from yours to your lips. You paused for a second, thinking about what to do next. Should you kiss him, try to escape, or wait for him to grow a pair and kiss you?


All seemed like good options?

However, if you and Ethan did kiss — laying on the kitchen floor covered in beer — you’d have to admit to the others that you didn’t actually hate the boy. In reality, your hatred had just stemmed from an insecurity.

So, you did it. You took the risk and lifted your head off of the ground, closing the small gap between you and Ethan. Your lips connected and it was like the final missing puzzle piece had been found. His lips fit perfectly with yours, no matter how cliche it sounded.

The hand he’d had on your cheek now held the back of your neck, holding your face to his. His heartbeat also hadn’t slowed, if anything, it got faster.

After a few seconds, Ethan pulled away. His cheeks had deeply reddened and both of you were out of breath. For someone who didn’t have experience in the dating department, Ethan kissed scarily well.

“Holy shit, are you guys okay? Your fall woke me up, but I kind of had to figure out where I was first before I came to check.” Anika’s sweet voice caught your attention.

Ethan rolled off of you, both of you startled by the sudden presence of another, his rather large body slamming into the cabinetry. It sounded and looked like it hurt, you’d make sure to check on him later.

“Oh.” She had a devious smirk on her lips, “Did I walk in on something? Y/N did you finally give up on your ‘I hate his guts’ bit? The tension between you to is so-”

You waved your hands to stop her, “Ani! Stop, please.”

She giggled, “And now i’ve got my answer.” Anika playfully waved, skipping back out of the room.

You covered your face with your hands out of embarrassment, trying to ignore the events that had happened. Ethan falling on you, being covered in beer, kissing Ethan, and Anika walking in on the two of you in a rather compromising position.

“Y/N.” Ethan tugged at your wrists, attempting to uncover your face. “I understand if that was a heat of the moment thing, it doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to.”

His voice sounded small, like earlier.

Your eyes went wide and you dropped your hands, rolling over to your side to face the boy. “No, no, no.” This time it was you who ran a thumb over Ethan’s cheek. “I was stupid to hate you, E! Please don’t think I didn’t want to kiss you, I don’t kiss someone if I don’t want to.”

“But all those guys at the parties-”

“I wanted to.” You laughed at his question, “But you’re different. You’re special, Ethan Landry, and I was too consumed by my own academic agenda to notice.”

He was quiet, but not in a sad way. The boy looked at you with more adoration in his eyes as you’d ever seen someone look at another with.

Then his lips found yours again.

[gojos-thot-patrol]

Now Presenting...

Starring Frat Boy!Sukuna and Virgin!Reader

A modern day college AU in which the reader is a young adult just now starting to shrug off their sheltered youth. And Sukuna is more than excited and willing to help lift that burden off your shoulders. Warning: this fic contains smut, loss of virginity, drinking, enemies to lovers, fingering, cunnilingus, semi-public sex, use of pet names and unprotected sex. Reader discretion is Advised ;p

Honestly, you really could not believe you dated this dunce. You remembered the break up like a trauma. Staring at his popcorn ceiling as he told you he simply couldn’t get past the fact you didn't want to sleep with him. He didn’t want to be with a prude. At the time, it crushed you. But now, as you sat at your desk, pouring red ink over every love letter he ever sent you, you couldn’t help but feel thankful you didn’t lose your virginity to him.

“What are you doing?” Your roommate asked as she walked into your shared dorm.

“Grading my ex’s love letters.” You said without looking away from your task. The awkward beat of silence that followed proved that she was not expecting that answer.

“Why?” She asked. You simply shrugged. To grieve, you guessed? 

“I felt the overwhelming need to correct his grammar.” You could hear her ask why again before she asked it. “I plan on sending them back.”

“You really need to get laid.” Your roommate laughed.

“He hasn’t gotten higher than a d on any of these.” You muttered, “A d Mei.”

“You need some D” Mei chuckled, going and sitting on her bed. “I could get you laid ya know.”

“I don't want to get laid.” You reminded her. That wasn’t quite true. You did want to get laid, you just wanted to do it on your own terms and you didn’t think that was a lot to ask for!

“Well do you wanna come to a party with me tonight?” Mei asked with a smug smirk. “Alpha Beta Omega house is hosting a party tonight, you should come! ABO has all the hottest guys ya know.” You did know, and while the thought was rather enticing, you were never really big on partying. You came to college to get your degree for fucks sake!

“I don’t know Mei,” you sighed, “I hate parties…”

“Oh come on, it’ll be fun!” Mei tried to sell it. “Please! Don’t let me go alone, that would be a dick move, ya know?” She pouted, giving you the puppy dog eyes that roped you into every party you had been to since starting school. You sighed in irritation, knowing it was useless to keep fighting.

“I’ll think about it, okay?”

♥️♥️♥️

Ryomen had no fucking idea what he was thinking when he signed up for an 8 am class, but if he could kick his past self’s ass, he would. He didn’t think he had been on time for this class even once. He tried everything to wake himself up. Putting his phone on the other side of the room, sleeping with the curtains open, drinking vodka instead of whiskey, all of it was about as effective as putting dry socks on a drowning man. 

He walked into class already twenty minutes late. He felt all eyes fall on him, which was fair considering he had interrupted the lecture. He ignored it though, confidently and nonchalantly walking to the nearest empty chair. A chair that just so happened to be next to you. 

You felt your heart do level 11 gymnastics in your chest as the Ryomen Sukuna sat next to you. You hated how attracted you were to him. He was everything your parents had ever forbid you from going near. 6 '4 and nothing but a wall of muscle, you couldn’t help but feel like his face full of sharp tattoos just emphasized how soft his puppy-dog-eyes were. It made you want to run your fingers through his soft pink hair. 

Suddenly, your keyboard had become the most interesting thing in the world. Your eyes burned holes into your computer as you prayed that Ryomen wouldn’t look at you, or worse talk to you. You found him attractive, yea, but you also knew he was bad news. He was a member of the ABO fraternity and was known for being a womanizing piece of shit who often defaulted to calling you “woman” when he forgot your name. The man was a walking talking red flag factory and to desire him was to desire madness and hurt. You should want nothing to do with him.

And yet.

“Hey, do you have the notes?” Ryomen asked, looking at you from the corners of his eyes and ho-ly shit. Fuck whatever the fuck the professor was going on about, you now had his full attention. He fully turned to you, taking you all in. If Ryomen had to describe his dream woman, he would simply pull up a picture of you. A reluctant innocence clung to you, begging him to find the delinquent underneath it all. He didn’t know what he was thinking, signing up for an 8 am class, but he would kiss his past self if he could.

“Yea, for sure.” You muttered, biting your lip as you pulled up your email. He showed you his laptop so you could get his email straight from the source, and thanks to technology, he had the notes in seconds.

“Thanks, you’re a lifesaver.” He smiled, showing his unusually sharp canines. You thought that you were done with this interaction, thankfully, but then he kept going. “So, are you going to the ABO party tonight?”  He asked. 

“I don’t know,” You shrugged, “Parties aren’t really my thing.” Of course, you probably spent most of your life sheltered, too scared to disappoint your parents to ever rebel. Ryomen wanted your rebellion more than he wanted to pass his finals. 

“You should go,” Ryomen whispered, “I bet you’d be really popular.”

“Yea, and by that you mean men would be drooling over how bad they want to fuck me, right?” You scoffed, forgetting yourself. He did in fact mean that by the way, but this response from you is not what he expected. You kept him on his toes. You intrigued him. “Now, just why do you think I’d want that?” You asked.

“So you’re worried about creepy dudes?” Ryomen asked, raising an eyebrow. “Alright then, Come with me then. Be my date.” He smiled that fang filled smile that was quickly burning its way into your heart.

“No.” You said plainly.

“Oh come on,” he damn near begged, “You get to go and have fun without the fear of creeps, because I’ll be protecting you, and I get to show up with a beautiful woman on my arm, it’s a win-win!” You weren’t sure when it happened, but class had ended and others were leaving.

“And just how do you plan to protect me from creepy guys when you are the creepy guy?” You challenged.

“By out creeping them.” Okay, even you had to admit that was funny. Ryomens smile widened as he realized he had gotten you to laugh. He won. 

“Ryomen, let’s go!” Someone called for him. Ryomen looked to the door and found his friends standing there waiting for him, Geto looking particularly annoyed. “We’re going to be late for class.” Geto said, annoyance dripping from him. 

He quickly scribbled down his number into his notebook, ripping the page and putting it on your computer. “Just think about it and call me, yea? I’m excited to take you.” He winked as he rushed to join his friends. 

You stared at the number for a few seconds after he left. You felt like the number was taunting you, yes, but also enticing you. It showed you a night of fun, excited passion that you had never experienced before but so desperately missed. It showed you a taste of freedom and rebellion. Doing something bad, knowing it was bad, and doing it anyway because it was so intoxicating. It showed you everything you wanted and more. 

You threw it in the trash on your way out the door.

♥️♥️♥️

You sighed as you stared at yourself in the mirror. The white tennis skirt Mei Mei had picked out was far shorter than you wanted, and the pink sweater was far tighter. You tried to put on a pair of stockings to compensate for the shortness of the skirt, but, all they did was accentuate your legs. You couldn’t believe Mei had convinced you to go to this stupid party. 

I mean, you could. It wasn’t hard, she offered to do your calculus homework for a week, you would have killed your mother to get out of having to do calculus for a week. But when you agreed to let her pick out the outfit, you had never expected—or prepared—to wear something so….

Sexy. That's the word you had been looking for, you looked sexy. You had never really dressed up before, sweatpants and t-shirts were typically your uniform. You were surprised at the way your body worked for you when you let it.

“Are you ready yet?!” Mei asked 

“Yea, I’m coming.” You said, finally pulling yourself away from the mirror and joining Mei by the door. She gave you another once over, smiling in satisfaction as she did. The outfit she’d picked out had really come together. 

“You look good,” She nodded. 

“Thanks,” You shrugged, trying to hide your slight embarrassment. You weren’t used to compliments. Mei nodded one last time before ushering you out the door. 

“Hey, Mei?” You asked as the two of you started the walk to the ABO Frat house. 

“What’s up Y/n?” She asked.

“You’re not going to leave me alone, right? Like, we’re actually gonna hang out and protect each other tonight?” Mei gave you the warmest, most reassuring smile you had ever seen.

“Of course Y/n. I won’t leave your side for even a second.”

♥️♥️♥️

You regretted every decision you had ever made in your life that led to you coming to this party. The music was way too loud, the drinks were way too strong (thanks Nanami), and the people were way too obnoxious. Mei had abandoned you almost the moment the two of you had walked in the door, making you realize you really needed to get better friends. It wouldn’t have been that bad, except some asshole that smelled like corpse had decided, against your will, he was taking you home tonight.

He wouldn’t leave you alone. You’d tried everything, complete disinterest, telling him you had a boyfriend, hell even telling him you were gay! Nothing would deter him. You even tried to go to the bathroom to try and lose him and he just fucking waited for you outside the bathroom door. This Mahito motherfucker was really starting to freak you out.

“You’re really pretty, you know that?” The ragdoll yelled in your ear, sending a fog of rotten breath over your face. You didn’t hide the disgust you felt as you looked for an out— any—to get out of this situation. 

“What do you say you and I get outta here?” He asked. As he did, he put a singular hand on your waist. The moment he did, your head filled with sirens and screaming, every true crime podcast you had ever heard, willingly or not, replayed through your head and you were never more sure that this man had women tied up in his basement. Your adrenaline spiked as you looked for any way to get him to properly fuck off.

Ah-ha!

“Babe!” You yelled, all smiles and cheer as you ripped yourself away from Mahito and ran to Ryomen. Mahito followed, like the idiot he was, but this time you somehow knew you’d be fine. Ryomen looked confused at first, then noticed the corpse walking with you and it all clicked. He smiled back at you, more warmly than you ever expected, 

“Hey! Babygirl!” He called out, holding out his arm so you could bury yourself into his side. The girl he was talking to was very very confused, but decided to remove herself from the situation before she got caught up in any drama. Shout out to her.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you, where’ve you been?” He asked, leaning down and kissing your forehead to really sell it. You considered slapping him, but, figured that would break the illusion, so you settled for giggling instead. 

“I’ve been trying to get rid of this creep.” You said, your eyes darting from Mahito to Ryomen in a very Help Me way. Ryomen looked at Mahito and all of the warmth instantly left him. It sent chills up your spine to watch him go from joking smiles to cold stares. The light left his eyes as they narrowed and you were sure his features somehow got sharper. Or maybe that was the tattoos.

“Have you been fucking with my girl?” he asked. The emphasis he put on “mine” sent chills of a different kind through you. Oh, you liked that. You really liked that. You pressed your thighs together to try and take your mind off the feelings between them, and took a drink of your vodka redbull to try and cool down. It didn’t work. 

“Well, I- I mean, I-” 

“I-I-I.” Sukuna mocked, “You didn’t have any trouble talking to my girlfriend all night, why’re you having trouble now?” Danger radiated off of Sukuna like a match in a room full of methane, waiting to be lit. It was the kind of danger that drew you in, no matter how much you resisted. It felt inevitable. “Come on man, if you’re going to be a fucking creep you might as well say it with your chest.”

“I’m not a creep!” Mahito tried to argue.

“That's not what she said,” Ryomen said, holding you just a little bit tighter, sending sparks throughout your body again. “So what, you’re calling her a liar?”

“Well, no, I-”

“You say I alot.” Sukuna said, taking a sip of his drink to really show off his disinterest. “You know what I think?” He asked. “I think that you should get the fuck out and go the fuck home before I rip your larynx out of you via your asshole.” He threatened. It was such a ridiculous tough guy line that normally you would have laughed, but, somehow he sold it hook, line, and sinker. You could see that fact alone in the now bleached white face of Mahito. 

Sukuna looked into his cup, determining he was going to need a refill. “You have exactly 45 seconds to leave before I turn you into pie filling.” He said without looking at the smaller man. He finished his drink and looked back at him. “45, 44, 39-”

The count down did its job wonderfully. Mahitos ass was kicked into high gear. You could see in his eyes he was hearing the same sirens you were earlier as he ran to find the front door, desperate to get as far away from the monster that was holding you as soon as possible. You, on the other hand, were feeling the exact opposite effect. You wanted to be even closer to him than ever.

“So, why didn’t you call me?” Ryomen asked, looking down at you. Somehow, all the ice in his eyes had defrosted, leaving him with his warm puppy dog ones. You realized that you were in danger rather quickly and detangled yourself from his arm. 

“Oh, because I threw it away.” You smiled. The liquor you had been drinking was officially flowing through your veins, and quite frankly, you didn’t really care about decorum. Ryomen blinked at you, fully processing what you said.

“Why?” He asked. 

“Because, while you may not be a creep, Ryomen, you’re still a womanizing fuck boy that never had any real intention of starting a relationship with me. Am I right?” You asked, batting your pretty eyelashes at him. Ryomen couldn’t help but smirk. Damn, you really had him pegged, didn’t you? He was growing fonder and fonder of you by the minute. 

“You’re right.” He admitted, taking a step closer to you, “But, I gotta say, I respect you having the balls to say it to my face. Makes me think you might actually be worth getting to know.” Which was the closest Ryomen could ever get to saying ‘I find you at least intriguing and would actually be interested in a relationship.’ You just smirked at him and hummed. 

“But are you worth getting to know?” You asked. Before he could answer, Mei had suddenly returned from the astral plane, you fucking guessed. Of course she would be nowhere to be found when you needed her, but show up to ruin things right as they get interesting. 

“Y/n!” She laughed as she came downstairs, “We’re playing seven minutes in heaven upstairs, you gotta come play!” She said, giggling as she grabbed your arm.

“I can think of nothing more opposed to my soul.” You said plainly, taking your arm back. “Getting sweaty in a dark closet with a stranger? Sounds like hell.”

“Sounds pretty fun to me.” Ryomen said. It was a dangerous gamble, but if the cards were on his side he could just end up being the stranger getting sweaty with you in a dark closet. 

“You would, mega creep.” You scoffed, semi-jokingly.

“Come on Y/n, what's the worst that happens? You end up making awkward chit chat for seven minutes in a closet? Come on!” Mei groaned.

“If they make you uncomfortable, yell herpes and I’ll come kill them for you.” Sukuna offered. “Your safe word is herpes?” You questioned. 

“Can you think of anything that kills the mood faster than the thought of herpes?” Ryomen asked. Alright, fair enough Ryomen. 

“Come on Y/n, please come play? It’ll be fun!” Mei begged. You sighed, wondering when you planned to stop making bad decisions tonight.

“Okay, fine. I’ll play.” You groaned while both of your companions cheered. In a flurry, you were being whisked away up the stairs, both of them trying to get you in the game before you had a chance to back out. You were reminded once again that you hated college parties, walking into a smoke filled dorm room lit by led lights and adorned with a weed pride flag. 

“Love that you can tell what part of this room was decorated by Gojo and what was decorated by Geto.” Mei laughed as she led you to a group of young adults sitting in a circle. 

“Overhead lights are the devil!” Gojo yelled, throwing a chip into his mouth. A not at all shocking amount of people in the group of (Probably neurodiverse) stoners agreed with him in hums and cheers. You sat down next to him, Mei sitting on the other side of you and Ryomen  taking a free spot in the circle somewhere across from you. 

“Who’s in the closet now?” Sukuna asked. As if summoned by his question, Nanami and Shoko walked out of the closet, both of them on their phones. 

“Geto’s turn.” Shoko said. Mei scoffed at them both.

“Weren't you making drinks, Nanami?” Mei asked as Geto spun the bottle.

“I was..” Nanami assured her, “I got bored.” The bottle landed on Gojo, and everyone let out childish woos and whistles. Geto and Gojo both grinned like fools as they rushed to the closet, the two of them always excited to feel each other up. Honestly their participation in this game took you a bit by surprise. What if one member of the couple didn’t get the other?

“God they need to just get together already.” Ryomen muttered, rolling his eyes. What?! They weren't together?! Before you could express your shock, a very loud, very breathy moan left the closet door, filling you with second hand embarrassment for the two. The rest of the crowd ate that shit up though, shouting encouragement and wolf whistling. Even Ryomen was laughing with the crowd when he caught your eyes.

He raised an eyebrow at you. “What? Voyeurism not your thing?”

You looked at him in annoyance. “Why would it be anyone's thing?”

He shrugged in response. “Performance is performance. People will do anything for attention.”

You raised an eyebrow at him now. “Would you do anything for attention?”

He smirked at you. “I’d do anything for your attention.”

Your silent conversation was interrupted by another loud moan, this time courtesy of Geto, and the crowd went wild again, shouting vulgarities at them. You began to wonder if this was typical of them, or if they were— as Ryomen suggested— putting on a performance. You got your answer as the timer rang, marking their seven minutes as up. They exited the closet with a flourish, bowing for the crowd and showing off their messed up clothes and hair. Was this the appeal of seven minutes in heaven? You didn’t understand party games.

“Alright Ryo, your go.” Geto laughed, giving fistbumps and highfives while he sat down. Ryomen rolled his eyes. “Don’t call me that, Gene Simmons” He growled at him, before giving you one last look and spinning the bottle. You were mildly curious to see where the bottle would land, already feeling bad for whatever poor schmuck that got locked in a closet with him. 

And then the bottle landed on you. Cheers and hollars surrounded and pounded in your ears. Your body was in super-hyper-defense mode which…was really just an oncoming panic attack. Of all the people you imagined being shoved in a closet with, Ryomen Sukuna had never crossed your mind. You were going to be in a small, confined space with him, all alone, where you’re literally expected to at least make out. You were electrified back to life as a hand fell in front of your face.

You looked up and saw the hand was attached to the grinning face of Ryomen, fireworks exploding behind his eyes. “You coming baby girl?” He asked with a wink. You didn’t have to. You could have turned tail and run away, out of the party and back to your dorm. That was actually what you probably should do, it was the safe option! The one that would make your mother proud. 

You took his hand, sending the crowd into yet another tizzy. But this time, you heard none of it, your mind focused entirely on Ryomen. He squeezed your hand reassuringly as he led you to the closet and smiled almost comfortingly. You didn’t know his smile could be comforting, thanks to the fangs, but it was. All of it felt very…off, coming from Ryomen, probably the least comforting person at your school.

He pulled you into the closet, pulling you close to his chest as he pulled the door closed. A lot of pulling was going on. You braced yourself for war, for him to kiss you. You closed your eyes tight, feeling your entire body tense but…nothing came. He didn’t kiss you. In fact, he let go of you. You opened your eyes just to see him leaning against the wall of the closet, staring at you with his hands in his pockets.

“You…didn’t kiss me?” You questioned, just for him to raise an eyebrow in confusion.

“No? You didn’t want me to.” You weren’t sure why, but that assertion upset you. How dare he claim to know what you wanted?! You didn’t even know what you wanted!

“You don’t know that.” you scoffed, causing him to laugh.

“Oh please,” He shriveled into what (You hoped) as an overly dramatized rendition of your body language from seconds before, “Doesn’t necessarily scream ‘Kiss Me’.” He chuckled to himself, shaking his head. You crossed your arms, but, you knew he was right.

“It’s just…I’ve never done this before.” You tried to explain. 

“You’ve never been kissed?” He seemed genuinely shocked.

“No, dipshit, I’ve kissed people before! I’ve just never played seven minutes in heaven.”

“Oh, yea I could kinda tell,” He admitted with a shrug, “You scream sheltered kid. I bet even now, as a grown ass adult you’re still too scared to rebel against mommy.” The way he said “mommy” struck you. It was soaked in condescension and mockery. You hated that he was right. You hated that despite the fact you were fully grown getting a college degree, you still heard your mothers voice in the back of your head every time you wanted to do something even a little bit rebellious. You were willing to bet no one else had that! You bet Ryomen didn’t have that.

“I am not!” you lied to him.

“Oh yea?” He challenged.

“Yea!” You asserted.

“Then prove it. Kiss me.” he said. Ryomens eyes burned into yours as he stepped forward, slowly closing the already small gap between you. His presence was intense and all consuming and hot. You could feel him burning you away from the inside out, as if he was a raging inferno and you were just a piece of tissue paper caught in his wake. He had a smirk that just screamed I know I just won and it drove you crazy because he was right! He was either right or he got the kiss you knew he’d been chasing all night. Well fuck it. There was only one way for you to win here too.

You wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him into a kiss. Ryomen didn’t skip a beat, pulling you even closer to him and pushing you against the wall, the soft thud sending the drunken crowd outside the door into hysterics. Your fingers tangled in his hair and his hands slid up your shirt to grab your bare skin. He bit your lip, making you gasp and giving him room to deepen the kiss.

Your head was spinning with excitement and panic, your breathing becoming harsher by the minute as he moved to kiss your neck. Your ex had never kissed you like this before. So desperate to have you, as if you were the most desirable being on the planet. It excited you, electrocuting your nervous system with every touch, pull, or bite. Despite your better judgment, a moan escaped you, sending the drunken crowd outside the closet into another bout of hysterics.

Your body reacted to him in ways that it had reacted to nobody else before, you needed him. He grabbed one of your thighs and rested it on his hip, his hand sliding under the hem of your skirt.

“Ryomen..” You moaned out, soft enough not to feed the masses.

“Say it again.” He purred.

“Ryomen.”

“That's seven!” Gojo called, pounding on the closet door, startling both you and Ryomen. He pulled away just in time for Gojo to pull the door open, a smug smirk plastered on his face. “You two love birds have fun?” He teased. Sukuna rolled his eyes, his annoyance with being interrupted evident.

“Not as much fun as you and your boy toy.” He scoffed, grabbing your hand and pulling you from the closet. The crowd of drunken young adults had grown, meaning the crowd of people wolf whistling and cheering (jeering?) had grown. Embarrassment exploded from your chest. What the hell were you thinking?! Kissing Ryomen?! You silently scolded yourself.

You didn’t even fully process that he had dragged you from the dormroom until you were in a new one, this one seemingly vacuumed sealed away from the party. The art on the wall queued you into the fact that this was probably the room Ryomen and Nanami shared. 

“Ryo?” You asked as he pulled you into the room and locked the door behind him.

“Nicknames now huh?” He chuckled, “That's cute.”

He locked the door. He locked the door. You may have been a sheltered kid, but you weren’t dumb. You knew what a locked door met at a frat party. The realization sparked your nervous system into high gear and you felt the need to press your thighs together again.

“I’ve never done this before.” You told him quickly.

“What, sex on a first date?” He asked, wrapping his arms around your waist again. You’d…hardly call this a fucking date, but that was an issue for later.

“No, sex.” You told him. He actually backed away.

“Really?” He asked, more shocked than you would have liked. “Hey, look we don’t have to-”

“I know we don’t.” You cut him off. “I want to.” He smirked almost proudly as he closed the gap between the two of you once again.

“I knew I liked you.” He purred. Before you had a chance to ask what that meant, his lips had crashed into yours, pulling you into another heated kiss. It was like the two of you physically couldn't get enough of each other, like you’d simply stop breathing if you weren’t kissing. It sent your head into a heated flurry, making you feel light. He pressed you into the bed, wrapping one of your legs around his hips as his hand slipped underneath your skirt, his fingers tracing the now translucent spot in your underwear. 

Another moan escaped you, sounding far more desperate than you would have liked. “Needy, are we?” Ryomen chuckled, pushing your panties to the side and running two fingers up and down your slit, collecting the sticky lube. You wanted him so bad it hurt. Your body felt flushed with hellfire and you couldn't help but wonder if he was this cocky with every girl he brought to his bed.

“Yea,” You moaned through a heavy breath, “You gonna take care of it, or whaa-” Your quip died in your throat as he buried two fingers into your weeping pussy, up to the knuckle without even a warning.

“What was that doll?” He teased, curling his fingers up to perfectly hit your g-spot and send you astral projecting into the ninth dimension. Was this what you were missing out on? Your hands fell to his shoulders, clinging to him for dear life as he curled his fingers again. This was a completely new type of pleasure for you, one you couldn’t get from your own fingers or a toy. You were hooked on it, you needed more of it. You started grinding down on his hand, chasing the high he was more than obliged to give you. 

“Feel good?” He purred. You nodded helplessly, your brain too mushy to make words. “Want to feel even better?” His smirk was wicked. You didn’t have time to process it though, or even answer the question before he removed your panties and ducked his head under your skirt, his lips quickly finding your clit. The new sensation was your tipping point. The fire in your veins overtook you, your head felt like it was made of cotton, and the tension that had been growing in you was reaching a breaking point.

“R-ryo,” You panted desperately, “I-its too much, I-” Your pleas for mercy are cut off as he slips another finger into you, shooting sharp tendrils of pleasure throughout your body, finding every last inch of you. Your brain was mush and your nerves on high alert, feeling every single one of the pink haired man's movements.

Your entire body felt tense as heat continued to pool in hot waves in your stomach, every curl of his fingers, every swipe of his tongue bringing you one step closer to the brink. You had never wanted anything so bad in your life. Your hands tangled in his hair, subconsciously pulling him closer to your needy cunt. Ryomen very much obliged, giving you everything you wanted and more.

“I-I, ah-!” all of the intense feelings were building into a crescendo inside of you, your small boat in the ocean of oxytocin and euphoria was capsizing. All at once your body seized, you thought you whined out his name but you weren’t sure. Pleasure came rolling over your entire body in seething waves, filling all of your senses and leaving you shaking like a chihuahua. 

“You're beautiful when you cum.” Had to be one of the weirdest compliments you had ever received. You lifted your head off the bed to see Ryomen wiping his mouth off. He stood up, taking off his shirt, and holy shit. You don’t know why the thought never occurred to you that the tattoos would be on his chest too. They covered his face, they were on his arms and wrists, why wouldn’t they be on his chest? It made you wonder where else they were.

“Enjoying the view?” He asked, knowing full and well you were. You looked away in embarrassment, just to feel him grab the hem of your sweater. “I showed you mine, let me see yours” He teased, pulling the pink top off of you. His reaction gave you your confidence back plus some. You felt emboldened by the way he beheld you, like you were Venus herself. You smirked as you took off your bra, exposing your chest to him.  

“Enjoying the view?” You asked. 

“Very much so.” he said in a rush before his eager, hot mouth wrapped around your right nipple, his hand coming up to play with the left. You had never imagined having your tits played with would feel so good. Maybe it was just the effect Ryomen had on you. But his actions left you whimpering softly under him, unconsciously bucking your hips to make some friction. He noticed the command he had over your body, the way you melted into him. He knew you were his, he just had to seal the deal. 

He pulled away, undoing his belt and jean buttons to free his cock. You bucked your hips at the view again, feeling your cunt clench around nothing. He was bigger than you expected, thick and long. You’d probably have been a little bit intimidated if you weren’t so desperate to feel that high again. He fisted himself with one hand and clumsily rubbed your sensitive nub with the other. But it wasn’t enough anymore, you needed him. 

“Ryo, please..”

“Please what Y/n?” He smirked. He knew exactly what you wanted. But, he wasn’t going to give it to you that easily.

“Ryomen, please, I need you.” You whined, not wanting to say it outloud.

“I’m right here baby girl, what do you need?” His grin was wicked and still full of mirth. You were starting to hate him again.

“Ryomen please, I need your cock, I need you, I need you to fuck me.” You blurted out all at once, your mouth moving faster than your mind did. His grin turned into a full on smile.

“Well, then why didn’t you just say that?” He laughed as he lined himself up with your soaking cunt.

“I di-AHH!” You screamed as he pushed his fat cock into you, the collision with your cervix jolting you into a state of hypersensitivity. You clung onto him desperately, your cunt clamping down around him, trying to push him out and pull him deeper all at the same time. You felt helplessly stretched out underneath him, your mind trying to find your body.

“Relax for me baby,” Ryomen moaned into your neck, kissing it softly. Easy for him to say! He wasn’t just impaled! You took deep, jagged breaths, to try and reregulate your fried nervous system. You took in the smell of pine and cigarettes, the almost comforting feeling of his body flush with yours, and the near tenderness of the kisses he was trailing along your neck. It was a beautiful caricature of intimacy, really.

Finally, you had relaxed enough around him for him to move. And move he did. To his credit, he tried to take it slow. He tried to be considerate of your virgin status (well…former virgin status) and not hurt you. But, Ryomen was not the slow gentle, “making love” type and before he knew it, he was chasing his high with a ferocity that left you weak under him. 

You weren’t complaining though. His thrusts were intoxicating, the curve of his dick hitting your g-spot with every thrust of his hips. He was stretching you to the point of delirium, feeling a rush of ecstasy every time he moved inside of your velvety walls. Your head was in heaven and your soul was in hell. Everything was all at once too hot and too cold, overwhelming. The waves of euphoria were building up inside of you again, a string tangling over itself again and again until it was taunt. 

One of his hands moved to massage at your clit again, coaxing your climax out of you with every stroke. You were speeding at 160 miles per hour off of a cliff and there was nothing you could do to stop it. Your mind was filled with nothing but Ryomen Ryomen Ryomen as electricity and pleasure coarse through your body. It felt like you were an electrical fire underneath him, no longer just tissue paper but an inferno in your own right.

“Ryomen, I’m-!”

“I know.” He said as he continued to chase both of your highs. The way your cunt clenched around him, pulling him back in with every thrust told him everything he needed to know. “Cum for me.”

Your body was under his command whether you liked it or not. You came undone around his cock, the string finally snapping as you drove off the cliff with no hesitation, and into your grave and erotic bliss, pleasure overtaking your body in waves. Your entire body shook under him as the intensity of your climax overcame you. He wasn’t far behind with the way your velvety walls were clenching around him, pulling his own orgasm from him. He came deep into your cervix, overflowing you and making you pray you wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences later.

You both stilled for a moment in the afterglow. As he pulled out and managed to collapse next to you, not on top of you. What did you do now? You could still hear the party raging outside of the door, but the last thing you wanted to do was rejoin it. You looked over at Ryomen, still trying to regulate his breath next to you.

You moved yourself to rest your head on his chest, figuring that was what couples do in movies after sex, right? For a second, you thought he was going to push you off. But, he didn’t. Quite the opposite really, he wrapped his arm around you, pulling you closer. 

“Sooo,” He said, finally breaking the silence, “Do you want my number again?”

・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・Part 2 Out Now! ・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・

[gyusrose]

➵ smarty -> c.s

⚠︎ fluff ? angst? little bit of both

✎ high-school au! academic rivals to lovers

summary: Soobin and you have been at each other’s throats since forever. being the two most smart students in the school brings out the competitive side within the two of you and maybe… hidden feelings?

soobin x fem. reader

wc: 3.9k

you bounced your leg nervously as the teacher passed out the exam you took last week. you’ve studied your ass off for it, so if you get anything less than an A, you’ll be fuming.

your heart started beating rapidly as she got closer to your seat.

“good job Soobin, the highest score in the class.” she said handing it to him.

the highest score?

that means…

“so close _______, almost a perfect score.” she said handing you the mediocre paper.

97%

you peaked to see Soobin’s score, reading 100%

“how’s that possible? that’s not how the grading scale goes.” you asked evidently confused.

“you forgot the date sweetheart.” she softly said, making you almost burst right on the spot.

you’ve missed the fucking date?

you wanted to slap her after she said those words.

‘can’t she just check the fucking calendar for fucks sake?’ you whispered silently to yourself.

you the heard a chuckle from in front of you.

the ‘Mr. perfect score’ turned to look at you teasingly.

“must suck _______, it’s always something isn’t it?”

“oh shut up, you’re not smarter since i didn’t get a question wrong so lower your damn ego.”

“sureeee…don’t be surprised when i’m the one that gets into Yale and not you.” he said before turning back into his seat.

that fucking asshole. it’s not fair, he probably doesn’t even work as hard as you, pulling all nighters before an exam, wether it’s worth 5% or 50%.

the bell finally rang and you were the first one up your seat on your way to lunch.

sitting down in the patio of the school under a tree, you took out your notebook and laptop.

every spare time was an academic advantage for you, you didn’t waste in friends, too focused on your grades , you never bothered making them, even less on a boyfriend.

you could care less what people thought of you, a bitch, stuck-up, a know-it-all, whatever.

you simply care about your future.

and no, you weren’t forced by your parents or anything, since you only had your mom ( since your dad was unknown to you) she never forced you into being a ‘star student’ she was pretty chilled back and was pleased as long as you weren’t failing.

you were just immensely smart, and competing with Soobin drew you in even more.

talking about Soobin…

a soccer ball threw down your hydro flask making you snap your head up, knowing exactly who it was.

“ayo, pass the ball!” Soobin said smirking.

to make it even worse, Soobin was the soccer team’s captain, of fucking course.

you ignored him and went back to your laptop, putting your headphones back on.

you could feel him coming your way. he tapped your head for which you annoyingly looked up at him.

“the ball.”

“get it yourself, you threw it.”

“still annoyed at that 97% ?” he chuckled.

you didn’t respond making Soobin unknowingly angry. the one thing he hated the most was being ignored, specially by you.

“you know , you should join a sport, universities like that.” he said knowing this would grab your attention.

“ew no, sports are gross so i don’t do them. i prefer killing myself doing every academically possible than that.”

Soobin chuckled in disbelief. god you’re impossible.

unlike you, Soobin was an extrovert to the maximum. he was extremely popular, threw parties all the time and had fun, yet he was somehow just as smart as you were.

he didn’t seem to put too much work into studying either, he just had a picturesque memory.

“do you realize that schools want a personality? you getting perfect grades in classes isn’t enough.”

“i do a hell of a lot of volunteering and got a internship these past two summers.”

“you know what’s cooler though? being captain of the soccer team.” he threw a laugh but you remained expressionless.

he loved to annoy you, he loved the fact that you wouldn’t pay attention to anyone else but him.

truth be told, he had the fattest crush on you. ever since freshman year when this whole competition started. you were easily the prettiest girl on campus. the only way to get your attention was to challenge you and drive you insane he guessed.

sure you knew you were pretty since you get asked out by multiple guys every year, by that didn’t get to you. who cares if you’re pretty if you fail your finals? (gilmore girls who?)

this may sound cheesy but there was truly no girl like you. you were independent and committed, and that was hard to find.

thankfully he left grabbing the ball and kicking it to his friends who were waiting for it.

you rolled your eyes going back to what you were doing.

meanwhile as Soobin went back to his friends..

“bro when are you going to finally tell her?” Taehyun asked the taller boy.

“never, she’ll never know.”

“but what if she also likes you back and you’re just overthinking it? you’re gonna let that opportunity go to waste?” another one of his friend, Yeonjun said.

“will you guys stop? i’m not going to embarrass myself like that.”

>>

“yes mom, i’ll be back by 5.” you said before heading outside to your car.

you just found this volunteering opportunity nearby, at a church. pretty much just helping around which is great for you because this will only add to the great amount of volunteer hours you already had.

you obviously didn’t only do it for the hours, you liked helping around, you’ve been at hospitals, food banks etc.

as you got there you introduced yourself to the employees and they gave you something to do immediately.

as you were helping picking the trash from outside, you heard that annoying deep voice that could only belong to one person and one person only.

“thank you, i’ll start right now” Soobin said grabbing one of the trash bags and heading outside.

he saw another figure which was already looking at his direction.

isn’t this fun?

Soobin didn’t mind it, at all. but he could tell you did.

“you’ve got to be fucking kidding me, you?” she said in between her gritted teeth.

“aw c’mon it’s not that bad! i know you secretly enjoy.” he does, that’s for sure.

“you wish, i’d rather be alone.”

“let’s try to get along, for once?”

“or….you know what? you could just not talk to me. problem solved!” she said smiling at her own response.

“nah that’d be too boring, you’re fun to annoy.”

“just pick the damn trash up.”

Soobin, not wanting to start you up, for once obeyed and started picking up alongside of you.

suddenly a young woman came up to the both of you, asking you if you’re willing to look over the little kids in the daycare served inside the church for a couple of minutes.

“the two of us?” Soobin asked.

the lady nodded in desperation.

both Soobin and yourself looked at each other thinking if you’re going to be able to handle each other’s presence.

“sure we’ll do it.” you said without having confirmation from Soobin.

it’s only a couple of minutes right? besides it seems like an easy job.

oh how wrong you were…

when you thought kids, you didn’t think they would be acting like literal toddlers. they looked old enough to know what they’re doing, so why are they acting like two-year-olds?

they were running, screaming, fighting, throwing stuff. whoever does this job regularly doesn’t get paid enough.

Soobin and you were trying all you can to ‘calm them down’ as much as possible.

“Soobin they’re crying.”

“_______ they’re fighting.”

“Soobin they’re running.”

“_______ they’re hungry.”

the both of you almost forgot about the fact that y’all were at each other’s throats in the beginning.

the lady that initially told us it was only going to be a ‘couple of minutes’ has already been gone for half an hour.

“_______! i found the solution to this.” Soobin

you snapped your head at his direction, desperate to find one .

“Look.” he pointed at the small group of toddlers sitting in front of him while he held a book reading it. they seemed the calmest one could get.

how on earth did Choi Soobin find a solution faster than you?

you mama he to gather the rest of the kids towards the small group turning it into a whole group reading .

you started in awe, as Soobin softly read the book. his voice, was….calming? you never noticed til’ now.

for once you were admiring him.

“_______, you wanna read now?”

you thoughts snapped out of you and grabbed the book and read a few pages as well.

Soobin would never say this out loud but god how smitten you had him. he kept thinking about his friend’s remarks .

should he confess to you?

i mean y’all were seniors already, technically the last chance to do it.

but the thought of rejection blew it. he knew you were aggressively and bluntly honest, it scared him thinking about what your response could be.

“i’m back! sorry for the long wait, you guys can go now.” the lady that left you here with the mini monsters came back making you sigh in relief.

you didn’t even respond and headed out. although you initially wanted to stay the whole day, the kids sucked the energy out of you, now all you wanted to do was to go home.

“_______!” lord.

“why are you going in such a hurry, i’d thought you’d want to stay longer and help?” Soobin said catching up to you.

“well i’m not, i just want to go home, that’s it.”

before you could go he spoke once again.

“you want to catch some lunch? my treat.”

“please Soobin, just let me go home, my bed is waiting.”

Soobin watched as you walked away from him. sometimes it occurred to him that you were just cold-blooded or something.

>>

“HA! look at my perfect 100% compared to your lame 95%” you said almost shoving your paper down Soobin’s face.

he rolled you eyes at your words. “you just got lucky, i don’t care.”

he did.

this was very much intentional. he purposefully got a question wrong, hoping the fact that you got a higher grade than him would lighten your mood and drag you out of your sulkiness.

“aw, don’t get a grumpy Binnie, you’ll get there.” you said getting dangerously close to his face making Soobin panic.

you had no idea of your impact as you happily grabbed your backpack and exit the classroom.

Soobin let out the breath he’s been holding in as you walked out.

his heart rate was going crazy.

once he calmed down, he got up from his seat but was soon stopped by his teacher.

“Soobin’ may i have a word with you?”

shit. what did he do?

Soobin stood in front of him as he grabbed the test from his hands, showing him the problem he got ‘wrong’.

“you know i’m curious, how come you got this problem wrong when we learned it in the first unit and is by far the easiest one here? what’s weirder is that all your work is right and only the answer is wrong..”

caught. what does he respond to that?

“erm… i just forgot to find the final answer and guessed..”

“really? you’ve always aced this class, it surprised me, is it something to do with ________?”

HOW DID HE GET TO THAT CONCLUSION SO FAST? WAS HE THAT OBVIOUS?

“NO! i mean, no why would you think that?” he tried his best to deny it, although we all know..

“you’re always making her be second best in class and suddenly you get a question ‘wrong’ which you could do with you eyes closed and now she’s first.”

he should’ve just left the question blank.

“professor trust me, she’s the last reason regarding my performance.”

>>

meanwhile, you were in your monthly meeting with your college counselor.

you’ve already done your whole application for Yale done, you just had to check in to get your counselor’s blessing to send it.

“very very well _______, you took my corrections and applied them flawlessly, i truly believe you have a really big shot at this.” she told you making you squeal in excitement.

since you’re going for early decision, it urged you to send it right away.

“thank you so much! i spent most of my nights trying to perfect it, oh and by the way, do you know if Choi Soobin has already submitted his application?” you knew it was some sort of invasion of privacy but you were curious.

“i don’t believe so, many student do regular decision so you’re one of the first.”

“guess who just sent their application to Yale?” you said as you approached Soobin.

you would most definitely never do this but the anticipation to make him feel less than drew you in.

“you did?! someone’s eager i see.”

“when are you doing it?”

“my appointment with my counselor is tomorrow, so i guess that’s when.”

Soobin loved seeing you so ‘uplifted’ he tried as hard as he could to not stare at your stunning eyes, he could tell how much this meant to you.

“i might go to your room at night and delete your whole essay so you can’t apply haha.” she said before walking away.

‘shit’ he thought to himself, he shouldn’t feel this much affection towards you, knowing you probably don’t like him back, he’s trying to let his little crush go, but how can he when you’re everywhere, impossible to not think about.

>>

december came in a blink, and the early decisions are coming out tomorrow , although you were confident in yourself, a part of you was still in doubt. with Soobin applying as well, he could easily take your spot knowing how selective the university was.

you were walking to a meeting you had with a teacher while Soobin was preparing for the last game of the season.

running onto the field while the rest of the team trailed behind him. the audience was packed as usual. he looked around seeing if you were around.

and as always, no sight of you. he’s not surprised but he did want at least for you to come at the last game , but knowing you that’s asking for snow in a desert.

gosh why was he even worrying about it? you guys are barely even considering ‘friends’ why would you be here. he was thinking so much about it that he didn’t even notice the game starting as he saw the ball pass right through him, earning a scream from his coach.

Soobin was clearly bothered. he was playing differently than how he usually does and everyone on the field noticed it. he was aggressive for the first time in his life, shoving pushing and doing intentional fouls.

it went down when an opposing player took it very personal. Soobin caused him to trip and fall to his face, making the other player mad as hell and shoved him harshly earning a harder shove from Soobin, soon a big fight started on the field causing both Soobin and the other player get a red card.

Soobin was livid. as soon as he left the field he looking for the player and started throwing punches.

it wasn’t until the coaches came over and separated the two.

“SOOBIN ARE YOU INSANE WHATS WRONG WITH YOU?!”

Soobin didn’t respond, he just shook the coach’s hands off him and walked away from the scene.

he wasn’t looking at where he was going, all he wanted was to get away from everyone .

that was until…

“the hell is- SOOBIN?” of course it’s you.

Soobin tried to hide his bloody nose but failed miserably as you already saw it all.

“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK WHO DID THAT TO YOU?” you couldn’t believe it, Soobin? in a fight? he was a lot of things but violent wasn’t one of them.

“just leave me alone.”

“no! come one let me clean you up, those cuts could get infected!”

you grabbed his hand and led him to the nurse’s office, since it was after school, no one was there.

you quickly found a first aid kit as Soobin sat down with his head down, not wanting to look at you in the eyes.

“don’t put your head down, that’ll make more blood come out.” you said grabbing his chin, lifting his head up.

even in the state he was in right now, he still felt his heart almost explode at your touch.

“now can you tell me what happened ?”

“i guess i was just very overwhelmed and started to play dirty and got what i deserved.”

you frowned, wasn’t this his last game? how could he throw it away like that?

“what was making you act like that?”

Soobin hesitated, he couldn’t just say ‘you’ even though that was the clear answer.

“just school and college decisions i guess” you frowned once again, Soobin never was the one to ‘stress’ about school like that, he was smart, specially to the point where it affects his performance on the field.

he could feel you don’t believe him, but what else can he say?

you kept cleaning up his wounds and put a cute little bandaid over them.

“there, we’re done.”

you said putting away the first aid kit.

“thank you _______, i really appreciate it.” he said grabbing your wrists and turning you to him.

you two were now dangerously close.

and for the first time, you couldn’t speak. like words were caught in your throat at the closeness of his face.

you both stared at each other with out anyone saying a word. Soobin leaned closer and closer, to the point where you could feel his breath.

just as you were about to kiss, you snapped out of it. moving away completely.

“erm..i uh have to leave.” you quickly said before grabbing your bag and leaving.

Soobin sat there, frozen. what did he just do?

he fucked up.

>>

you laid in you bed, the scene replaying in your head. why did you actually want the kiss him? why did you secretly hope that he would’ve just smothered you into a kiss?

urghh, you were conflicted. you’ve never felt like this, literally.

no guy has made you speechless like he did. and you hated it, how could you fall for him?

no you didn’t, you’re not falling for him. it was just in the moment, yeah that’s it.

you knew it wasn’t. completely forgetting how your future’s revealed tomorrow.

>>

shitshitshitshit

one click and you’ll know. your heart is almost beating out of your chest. your confidence nowhere to be found.

‘relax, if i don’t get in, there’s still other options.’

you swallowed your breath and hit refresh.

you slowly opened your eyes and read the first sentence.

Dear ______,

Welcome to Yale University…

YOU GOT IN!!!!

“I GOT IN” you screamed in enthusiasm making the whole cafeteria look at you in confusion.

you ran out of there and into your counselors office.

“I GOT IN I GOT IN I GOT IN!!!!”

“congratulations sweetheart i knew you could do it!” she said engulfing you into a hug.

trying to catch your breath for a couple of minutes you sat in her office talking about it. you texted your mom earning another congratulations from her as well.

there was another person you wanted to tell, but you didn’t have the balls to.

wait? he didn’t get in or did he? they would accept the both of us, specially in early decision. but how? he’s literally the ‘it’ student.

“do you um.. know if Soobin got in by any chance? we’re the only two applying early…”

the counselor looked at you in confusion.

“i’m sorry, but i can’t display that type of information since it’s personal.”

shit now you have to ask him yourself.

you looked for hi everywhere, until finally founding him in a bench near the tree he once threw a ball at you.

you took a deep sigh and tapped his shoulders.

he looked up and widened his eyes.

he wasn’t expecting you to come up to him, not at all.

“hey um, have you checked the ivy decisions? how did it go?” this was the nicest you’ve ever been to him, stunning the both of you.

“well…i’m actually..i got a scholarship..to Princeton.” he calmly said making you eyes widened.

of course he did, if anyone did it would be him.

“holy shit that amazing! i got into Yale as well, so good for the both of us!” you couldn’t believe you’ve beat him.

in reality Soobin didn’t even apply to Yale, he knew how much of dream it was to go there and he realized that he was going to apply, your chances would’ve slimmed so he didn’t. it wasn’t like it was his dream school anyway, he only said it to have something to talk to you about, something in common.

“still beat you though.” you teased trying to forget whatever happened yesterday .

“i actually didn’t even apply to be honest.” your looked at him flabbergasted. he didn’t? isn’t that what we’ve been fighting for years?

“wait what ?why?”

“you dreamed of going to Yale and me applying would just add more competition, so i didn’t and now you’re going.”

you couldn’t believe it. he did that for you?

“thank you Soobin, for not taking my place.” you softly laughed as well as he.

you don’t know what came over you, but your emotions were all over the place and this just did enough of it.

you kissed him. yes, you kissed Soobin.

you grabbed his face connecting both of your lips.

Soobin was confused, very shocked, but easily gave in.

he’s been dreaming of this for years, it’s finally coming true. his whole mood changed in a split second.

soon you hands were now on his neck while his at you waist. forgetting the fact that y’all were in public, it kept going as he depend the kiss driving you harder.

soon to the cause of oxygen, you pulled away.

you looked at each other in pure bliss. you saw different now, before he was an annoying prick, menace to society and now he was a gorgeous man that made your legs weak.

“______, i know this could be too soon but fuck it, it’s my last chance, would you maybe want to be mine? like my girlfriend?” he nervously said, even though y’all just had a full make out session, he wanted to make sure you felt what he did too.

“are you kidding? of course Soobin, i’d love to be yours.” you said giving him a peck, showing his bunny smile making you melt.

“i see i’m going to be making many trips to Connecticut and you to New Jersey now.”

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Junior Year Ep 16

Kipperlilly Copperkettle and the World's Smallest Violin

Welcome back to Fantasy High where everyone’s graduating with A pluses and we’re *finally* figuring out what the hell Kipperlilly’s deal is! 

But, before we get to that, we have some loose ends to tie up. You’ll remember that the Bad Kids just demolished the Last Stand Exam and dropped Gavin Pundle off at the Council of Chosen office in Bastion City. It’s the day before Spring Break so hypothetically they should be relaxing–they don’t have a Spring Break project like everyone else because of the Last Stand–but these are the Bad Kids. They don’t get breaks. 

First order of business when they get back to Elmville is to check the crystal they left recording at the crime scene. They see a massive figure--14 to 15 feet--wearing a hood approaching Buddy with their back to the camera. The stones behind Buddy glow with Ankarna-style light so they check to see if Bakur is escaping the gem he’s trapped in. He isn't but Riz using his spy tie can tell it's def something Ankarna related based on the magical mDNA he's clocking. Based on the footfalls, it seems like something big and humanoid (though not like a tabaxi or dragonborn with their digitigrade feet. Giant is def on the table though).

The figure moves closer to Buddy and Kristen thinks they’re about to slap the symbol on Buddy’s chest but Buddy’s body spasms and blood spatters as his organs seem to crush. He jolts awake with a pained roar and then says in his southern drawl, "Dang, y'all. I worship a nameless god of rage." The figure kneels over Buddy and they both vanish. 

So, yeah. Good call setting up some CCTV. 

Fig right away speculates that maybe all the Rat Grinders died and were brought back to life in that way. Maybe in the Mountains of Chaos, Fabian adds. Kristen points out that KP has been angry since Freshman Year and they all finally get around to digging into the file that Riz stole. Has she always been a follower of Ankarna or was she scouted at some point because of how insanely aggro she is?

Everyone piles on buffs to Riz’s already stupid Investigation score so he gets a 32. I’m going to bullets to organize all of this info:

Her Freshman and Sophomore Year accomplishments are pretty meh. She was doing quests but pretty low level, easy ones

We find out the reason KP hates Riz so much and it’s his tragic backstory. In a meeting at the top of Sophomore Year, they see KP complaining that it’s so unfair that Kalvaxus killed Riz’s dad. She’s too suburban and normal and she hasn’t been able to find any sordid secrets in her lineage that would make for good plot hooks essentially. Her parents went to *Mumple* for Cassandra’s sake! Over the course of Sophomore year she started having rage outbursts. and saying that kids with tragic backstories had an unfair advantage in adventuring and their grades should reflect that. 

She talks about how much she loves her party. The way she speaks, she's def the leader (which we kinda already assumed from the vibes). She seems especially fond of Lucy and says that she's the only one who sort of "gets it". Apparently, KP came up with the name "High 5 Heroes" and Lucy was supportive of that because it meant a lot to KP. Rat Grinders was a name that Ivy and Oisin came up with (they're the other pair of besties in the group which checks out because they were the ones hanging out and playing beer pong together). Ruben voted for the change to piss off KP and Mary Ann voted for it as well and refused to elaborate (on brand). 

In her Junior Year she gets even more unhinged. She talks about wanting to straight up murder Kristen. She thinks Kristen is going for President as a joke and won't even do the job when she's elected. And she he hates Fig for boxing her out from confronting Kristen.   

There's a note that, for Spring Break, they're going to the Mountains of Chaos for the second time. The last time they went was a week or two after Spring Break last year, right before Lucy died. They had a school chaperone because it was too high an adventure for their abilities in the school’s view and no prizes for guessing who that was: Jace Stardiamond. 

As we kind of already know, KP has been gathering Bad Kid info via Jawbone--specifically, stuff about the Prompocalypse/Kalvaxus fight and the Yes! Stuff. These questions are coming Sophomore Year, post the first Mountains of Chaos trip. 

With a dirty 20 Insight, Fig sees that, starting at the end of Soph Year, there's a change in KP's language where it goes from, "I don't think X is fair"/"I think they get special treatment" to just straight up, "I hate them."

The group wonders if Jace is the mastermind here and scoped out which of the students were susceptible to rage poisoning or if maybe he died during that mountain trip and got taken over just as much as everyone else. As far as they know, he was super chill prior to this. 

They take a brief detour to razz Fabian about The Incident in his dance class with some excellent puns and then another brief detour to IRL razz Murph because he makes the grave mistake of saying the phrase, “honor the cock.” And then, Kristen has a brain blast. She wonders if maybe the difference between someone who gets a crystal put in them and comes back as a rage person (eg: Buddy) vs someone who is left in limbo like Yolanda and Lucy is that you get a choice and you can either come back full of rage or refuse and stay dead with the mark on your chest. Brennan doesn't even make Ally roll for it, Kristen just gets it in one. And everyone realizes it makes sense. Yolanda was super principled and Lucy always stuck to her guns according to Ruben. [Note: This also offers a potential reason that Ivy wasn't shocked to see Lucky at the party–maybe she thought she finally took Ankarna’s deal.]

Another list of info just to keep things neat:

They check the tape from the Coliseum and see that there's a ten minute gap between the Bad Kids leaving and the figure coming to rez Buddy so that’s a bit of a timeline established (assuming no chronomancy BS I suppose). 

They also get the thing about digitigrade feet I mentioned earlier at this point but I just thought it fit better with the other tape stuff above. 

Ruben has deleted most of his social media presence from a little bit before last year but they can see from photos where he's tagged with his friends that the emo thing started after spring break of Sophomore Year, confirming what we assumed from his old Yearbook photo. Before that his vibe was more soft rock/folk pop (based on the musician they reffed who I've never heard of but just Googled--Jack Johnson). 

The Bad Kids think they might have to waste yet another Spring Break, this time chasing the Rat Grinders into the Mountains of Chaos, but before that, they have in-town business and downtime to attend to. 

Everyone's parents and guardians are so happy and proud of them for their Last Stand victory. 

Sklonda asks Riz if there's anything she can help with and he asks if she can look into Bobby Dawn. She says  Bobby used to go to Aguefort (info that has come up before according to Brennan though I don't remember it) and asks if Fig knows he's teaching there. It seems like a non sequitur until she reveals (via Emily figuring it out at the table with very impressive swiftness) that Bobby Dawn was at the center of Sandra Lynn's sordid past! For those of y’all who don’t remember, we learned in Sophomore Year that Sandra Lynn joined a party when she was young as a replacement member. There was a married couple in the group who were older and more powerful than her. She fell in love with one of them and when it all came out, she was kicked out and slandered (even though it takes two minimum to tango, as we all know). She was basically blacklisted from adventuring after that which is why she joined the rangers. Well, now we know who that couple was: Bobby and Pamela Dawn! 

Which, ugh what an upgrade Jawbone and honestly even Gilear are from Bobby Dawn.

(Also, as an aside, we learn Pamela is the chief paladin of the church of Sol which, como se dice, yikes. That whole pantheon needs better reps. Tracker is doing all the heavy lifting herself.)

Gavin checks in to say that the Council of Chosen is looking into things but the body is missing. The Bad Kids, who already knew this, share their footage because they have to do EVERYTHING around here. Gavin also lets them know that they’re completely free from academic requirements other than filling out a teacher eval and attending graduation (which is odd considering they aren’t graduating but Aguefort is a weird school and Brennan never went to trad high school so shrug–we’ll see if that’s just a weird Aguefort thing or a something suspicious).

Back to Riz and Sklonda, he asks his mom if she's ever heard of Eugenia Shadow and she tells him that she's a granddaughter of one of the founders of the Society of Shadows (which was named after their last name--it's literal AND a metaphor. She offers to drive him to the cemetery in Ashgrove which is about 90 minutes away. 

Wilma and Digby are exuberant as always about Gorgug's success. They’ve finally fixed up the Hangvan for him and give him the keys. He thanks them and then asks about why Frosty Fair picked their tree as the new event site. They think it's just because they're heavily in the Frosty Fair circuit and also someone (who we know is Ruben) vouched for them. But they mention that the FF reps had a lot of questions about their tree including whether the tree was a Root Warden. They don't have a Druid or Ranger who would know but Kristen gets a Nat 20 (and Cass is a sylvan goddess so it checks out that she would know some stuff about trees). 

A Root Warden is a tree that is so magical that it's a little more alive  than a normal tree (without fully being a treant) and has an Int of like 1 or 2 instead of zero. So it's basically the big, old tree that guards the other trees in the area and tells them when to have their guards up and protects them from general bad mojo. Brennan calls it a sentinel. The Thistlespring tree is the Root Warden for the trees in all of Elmville county.  Gorgug rolls too low to tell if the tree is corrupted but his parents do tell them that the people who came by to check on the tree dropped something into the roots with eye droppers that was absorbed. Everyone is worried about rage pollen, especially since it’s the middle of spring. And once he’s looped in, Riz can see on a map that Loam Farm is significantly outside the tree network that Thislespring tree is a part of. It seems clear that they were trying to make sure they were not only operating within the network but poisoning its very heart. 

Fabian gets a proud message from his dad now that they’re synced up with infernal/material plane communication. Gilear asks Fabian about baby clothes so, naturally, he burns them all. He also gets another 20k gold allowance because his life is full of intense highs and lows and that’s about it. 

Kristen’s parents text her to ask her to make sure Bucky is going to his classes. Suspicious! She agrees to check up on him. 

Aelwyn has accepted the job at Leviathan so she starts coming by the mansion again since there's a door/portal to the library which saves her the spell slot. Adaine tells her she can just come back home if she wants and Sandra Lynn agrees. Aelwyn asks if all her cats can come and everyone says yes, even if it means kicking out Kristen (which is a joke…mostly lol). So yay, Aelwyn is back in the bunk beds baybee! And during the month of my birth irl and in canon. Ty Brennan. Kristen tries to verbally spar with her because she knows Aelwyn is uncomfortable with people being too openly nice to her but Aelwyn accidentally claps back too hard and sends Kristen running back to her room near tears. Sorry, K! She’s working on her people skills! Fig of course has her President’s back and gives Aelwyn a wet willy which majorly grosses her out but she doesn’t sling any retaliatory spells. Progress! 

Gorthalax makes sure that Fig knows he’s always a resource for any help with anything infernal. Meanwhile, Adaine has a couple of spells she wants to cast. She makes a Simulacrum of Kristen, to make it confusing for anyone who wants to go after Kristen. It’s a clone of her with half her HP which is slightly British and slightly straight. She casts Legend Lore on Kipperlilly and gets no info which means she’s a basic ass bitch. (Riz, in comparison, does get a ping but it’s for being the 5th person to summon the Night Yorb so he is keen to do better than that). Finally, she casts Scry on Kipperlilly and doesn't get anything because she has Nondetection casted on her. She realizes that all of the Rat Grinders do at all times which is 18 third level spells a day which is crazy. Clearly, they’re scared. 

Graveyard time! On Saturday, they head to Ashgrove and find the grave of Eugenia Shadow who died at the age of 111. Adaine swaps to Ethereal Vision to try and find her but Riz (with his Blindsense) is the one who finds her (she’s carefully ducking behind Adaine to dodge her line of sight). Eugenia is annoyed to have two students find her in one year but very happy to drink, smoke, and do drugs with the Bad Kids(just go with it). 

Despite being dead, Eugenia knows a lot about stuff that's going on and congratulates them on passing their Last Stand. Riz asks her about what "the Rogue teacher found her" re: Kipperlilly means and Eugenia says that KP somehow found out that she was dead (despite the fact that as far as Shadow knows, the only records of her death exists in Aguefort’s office) and showed up at the grave with a rented backhoe, threatening to dig her up unless she showed basically. Which, yes, is grave desecration and messed up but is it any more messed up than the concept of a rogue in general? Like, I hate KP as much as the next person but this feels like normal rogue behavior. As Eugenia says in this very scene, rogues do crimes! Anyway, Eugenia reiterates something we already knew about Kipperlilly:  that she's obsessed with technicalities and loopholes. We learn for a fact that she's a Mastermind Rogue and Eugenia says that she's a lot like Riz but walking a darker path. 

As they're speculating how KP could have gotten into Aguefort's office (via Jace maybe?) Mazey comes up since she's acting principal and Eugenia reminds them that Aguefort is not a normal school with normal positions. Things are set up so that whoever is VP has to follow whatever the Principal says no matter what since Kalvaxus is supposed to be in that position as a prisoner. Equally importantly, Aguefort is more than a school. It's a hotbed of very important magical threads that Aguefort had going and they'll unravel without someone at the helm. That fact and the fact that killing her would mean chaos and not a simple transfer of power to another party is probably the only reason no one has tried to assassinate her yet. At his friends’ urging, Fabian texts Mazey to hang out, to help keep an eye on her. 

Eugenia tells them to keep their guards up and that she expects to see all of them in Rogue classes next year. She gives Riz an eval form and Fig asks about a Landscaping Company that KP contacted (which I think must be in cut footage because this is the first time it comes up in the ep. Eugenia says that the name of the company is Loam Landscaping which gives everyone pause for obvious reasons. 

Speaking of the Loams, they're on the same death clock as Lucy since it's been a while since they died and Adaine wonders if they can Plane Shift to where they are if they can figure out where that is. Brennan says that the vibe is that Yolanda and Lucy are probably with Cassandra, wherever Cass is. 

Downtime before Spring Break!

Fabian is up first. 

He rolls a 27 for Popularity. People are hoping he's gonna keep up lofi study nights over the summer and they're so psyched that his birthday is the same day as the election (the 31st). Adaine realizes that THIS must be the bday party/election victory she keeps having visions about and tells him he has to do it. For his second track, he asks Mazey out on an official date to Krom's Diner. She says yes and, on a 20, we get a very sweet scene where Fabian has a nice normal date with a genuinely nice, down to earth person.

Even though she's not supposed to play favorites, she tells him that Kristen's basically demolishing Kipperlilly in the election so far (which she is impressed by because she didn't think Kristen was going to take it seriously). She also lets them know that technically any place (including a big house party perhaps) can be a polling place as long as someone from the school admin is present (which could potentially be Mazey or Riz). 

Mazey gives him a goodnight kiss (getting his kisses in!) and we move on to his third roll which he uses to try and mend fences with Kristen for Gertie’s sake. He offers her any satisfaction she wants from an apology to combat and she chooses combat. With a 30 to her 16, he handily defeats her and she considers her honor satisfied. They'll chill now. And he even gives her some tips on flirting with Kristen. Trying to make sure his girl gets her kisses in too I see. 

Corsica and Terpsicore find him to give him eval forms. (Also, on a Nat 20, Fig steals RIz's eval and changes his one negative comment about her doing drugs with her students into a positive one because of course Fig loves her).  He just barely gets his Owlbears roll with a bardic and that's his last roll. 

Adaine is up next. She uses a portent to get a 29 on mystery to learn about the Astral Plane and figures out that when a god is dead in the Astral Plane there's still some level of intelligence, like how a mortal can die but then have Speak With Dead cast on them and answer questions. She also finds some weird linguistic trickery in a passage about how where gods die, where they go, and where they're borne--not born, borne as in carried. Imagine the laws of the universe hinging on a pun. Wild. They wonder if that's what Bakur was trying to do/if the proper location would have been the Mountains of Chaos.

Brennan also says she gets some interesting stuff about the Mountains of Chaos and its history and is left with the question of, "When Ankarna was said to have 'died' in the Red Waste, what does that mean?" Adaine decides to roll to learn some spells to help her party survive in the Astral Plane if they need to go and on a 29 spell she learns one new spell of each level. She also talks to her teacher (Tiberia Runsetaff) who, in addition to giving her an eval to do, says she's been talking to Aguefort (Chronomancy) and when she mentioned that she was having problem getting supplies for wizarding, Ayda left her a geocache. Runestaff gives Adaine the coordinates and she texts Fig so they can go together because she assumes Ayda left stuff for both of them.

Next, she wants to roll Relationships and throws an ice cream party for the whole manor which everyone really enjoys. She chats with Sandra Lynn who tells her that the Mountains of Chaos have been nuts lately and social animals like wolves have been killing members of their own packs as of the last few weeks. That sounds very rage-y to Adaine so she tells Sandra Lynn everything they know (except for the Bobby Dawn stuff so Fig can be the one to break the news). 

Adaine asks if Sandra Lynn will take them to the mountains since she knows the area so well from work and Sandra Lynn says they might have to sign some liability waivers but she's down as long as her bosses are down. They also have a very sweet conversation where Adaine says she’s very grateful to them for taking her in and she admits that she's not very good at being a kid. Sandra Lynn says that she's always available for any conversations that Adaine wanted to have with a mom and couldn't (on account of her mom being a raging bitch and also being chased by the Vands of course). Adaine thinks she's about to give her a talk on periods and dashes away, much to Sandra Lynn's bafflement. 

Fig does her evals for her teachers including Lucilla who is weeping over her not remembering her name and just calling her "Attractive bard teacher", Porter who is irked to be sharing a sheet with Zara, and Zara who wants to see Fig because she send her a flap of flayed skin with writing on it (the contract from Bill). Valid concern. 

Adaine wraps up her downtime by rolling to Scry on Jace and gives him a 1 to make sure he fails. She sees him sitting quietly working in his office where he's Fantasy Googling the Complicated Women podcast. Adaine doesn't see what else he's working on with a low Luck roll but on a 17 Perception, she sees that he's starting to sweat in his toasty office. He takes off his scarf and, as he does, she catches a glimpse of him in the mirror, revealing a deep ragged scar in his chest. He looks at the scar and, for a moment, his eyes flash red. 

Detention

Kipperlilly for All Of That

Girl are you KIDDING ME?

“Oh boo hoo. Riz is so lucky. School is so easy for him because he has a dead dad to avenge. Some people have all the luck.”

Man, kick rocks. And she was like that *before* she got involved with Ankarna. 

Also, sidenote, it’s not even like Riz ended up killing Kalvaxus because of his tragic backstory. He didn’t even know there was a connection going in. He just wanted to find his missing babysitter and the other missing girls! You’re a Mastermind Rogue. You want a plot hook? Nancy Drew it up, bitch!   

You want Kristen dead? You want her DEAD? You’re jealous of Riz who lives in a household where sometimes you have to eat your cereal with water because there’s not enough milk to go around? Truly, get a grip.

Honor Roll

Kristen for Making a Clutch Connection

This should really go to Ally but yeah. What a great leap figuring out that staying dead is an option and that’s most likely what happened to Yolanda and Lucy. 

This very likely explains a longstanding loose end from much earlier in the season. Ivy didn’t look shocked to see “Lucy” (Fig in disguise) at the party even though we know she was dead. With this new info, it seems likely that Ivy assumed that Lucy had finally given in and come back as a rage acolyte. 

Anyway, baller connection and she got there before I did. I love it when Brennan is so impressed he doesn't even ask for an Insight roll. 

Random Thoughts

Here is a super useful timeline of events Re: the Ratgrinders by @ratgrinders. 

I’ve seen a lot of people assume that the RG’s died in the Mountains of Chaos but I’m not convinced that happened. Because that was way before Lucy died and we know that once she died, she refused to come back as a rage person. And we know you can take a rage crystal without having to die first. That happened in the mall fight with the wizards. If they TPK’d there and Ankara offered to bring them back, then they would have come back without Lucy because she would have said no.

Here’s my current theory: They went to the mountains with Jace. They either stumbled into information about Ankarna or were led there by Jace if he’s proper evil and not just taken over. They were offered a deal and everyone went for it but Lucy. KP really wanted Lucy to join them–esp cause she considered Lucy her best friend. She tried to strong arm her into it (maybe even forging her god change form) and, when she stuck to her guns, she organized everyone to kill Lucy, forcing her into a position where she’d have to say yes to Ankarna in order to stay alive. In KP’s head, Lucy would do this and maybe be annoyed for a bit but in the end see it was for the best and forgive her–maybe even thank her. But she miscalculated the strength of Lucy’s conviction and voila. Dead Lucy. 

Edit: Wanted to come back and edit to note that it is of course possible that in the mountains everyone died except for Lucy and that's when they took the Ankarna deal, but even if that's the case, the rest of the theory would proceed as written. I was mainly thinking that while what we saw with Buddy is a strong possibility it's not the only possibility. If they died then they're a bit more sympathetic because self preservation is an understandable motivator and taking the deal doesn't make them craven--it just makes Lucy and Yolanda extremely principled. However if they just took the deal because it was offered to them then that's more eyebrow raising. Even though I'm skeptical, I'm kinda hoping their hands were forced because I think that's more interesting and we've had straight up petty power grabbing already from Penelope. But anyway, just being thorough.

"Flash of Stupidity” is so funny. 

It's not surprising that Ivy and Oisin are one of the pairs of besties in the RG's--they were introduced playing beer pong together--but I'm super curious about what their dynamic is. And ditto for Lucy and KP. Was it like a high strung one/chilled out one kind of thing? I really wish the Bad Kids had been a bit nosier about their whole deal.

Do we think KP maybe wanted to make sure the BK's died in the last stand alongside Buddy and Pundle so they'd all come back as rage people? Maybe that crossbow bolt was laced with some rage mojo?

KP being mad at Riz for trying to pickpocket Jawbone of her file when (1) she’s literally a rogue as well and (2) she pickpocketed Kristen and Buddy of their revivify diamonds is insane. 

I love Lou committing to the bit of being appalled at the thought of half-siblings via Gilear because I know he knows that every time he explodes it becomes even funnier which means it’s more likely to happen but he can’t stop because he’s Committed To The Bit. Classic Lou. 

Wizards casting Legend Lore on themselves as the in-universe equivalent of Googling yourself. 

I love the detail that Mazey’s family lives in a Labyrinth in the Red Wastes. 

Kinda bummed we didn’t get to do more with the Relationship track so the special ability never came up and Brennan had to just reveal it (it can reduce stress but also increase it). 

I am so stressed about the bylaws and also Bucky. They keep coming up and then falling off of everyones’ plates and we’re running out of runway here. 

Adaine really said, “You didn’t just kill your parents? Skill issue.” She really is Aelwyn’s sister. 

The VP has to do anything the Principal says, right? And Mazey is the Principal, right? There’s gotta be a way to exploit that, especially now that Fabian is in her good graces.

When did Aelwyn get FIVE MORE CATS?

Answered and Partially Answered Questions

Last week I made as thorough a list as I could about what info we were missing and I wanted to note the answers we got this week. 

1) Why the move to Loam Farm for Frosty Faire? (The Thistlespring tree is a Rootwarden) 

2) How is Jace involved? Why is he manipulating Ruben? (We know Jace went w/ them on the trip but that's not a full answer) 

3) What were the exact circumstances behind Lucy’s death? Who was able to put the rune on both of their bodies and what exactly was the goal there? (We know the mark is from getting a rage crystal but rejecting it but we don't officially know who did it or what the goal was though you know my guess.) 

4) How did KP find the rogue teacher? (Threatened to dig up her grave. Info that she was dead was only in Aguefort's office so maybe got that from Jace?) 

5) Also what’s her damage? Why is she obsessed with Riz? What are her anger issues about? (She's a petty basic bitch) 

6) Why wasn’t Ivy surprised to see Fig in disguise as Lucy who was at the time fully dead? (Most likely because she thought she finally chose rage zombie resurrection) 

7) What’s up with the party vision that Adaine has now had at least twice? (We know this is election night and Fabian's bday now) 

8) What made the Rat Grinders become the Rat Grinders when they started as the High Five Heroes? (We know it was a vote led by Ivy and Oisin and joined by Ruben and Mary Ann but not the why behind it) 

9) Where exactly is Cass right now? (We still don't know for sure but it seemed like a realm within Ankarna’s dead body which is prob in the Astral Plane. We do know Lucy and Yolanda are prob with her as of this ep.)

As an aside, we still don’t know how Oblivati Mori was broken to write Ankarna’s name before the Bad Kids found it but is it possible that the person who wrote it was Ankarna herself? Because Ankarna is still “dead” right now, right? Because she’s been active all the same. Oblivati Mori disallows others from speaking your name but does it disallow the god themselves from speaking or writing their name if mortals find them somehow? Kind of a stretch but I’m wondering if there’s enough wiggle room there to make something happen, especially since this episode Brennan said that gods retain some intelligence even when they’re dead on Adaine’s high roll. I dunno, just spitballing. 

(Also, I don’t remember where I saw this but remember how Aelwyn said KP is randomly loaded? The previous best guess on that was money from Oisin–the boy who was just gonna give Adaine diamonds–but is it possible that she’s spending the embezzled Frosty Fair money? We don’t know much much it was so hard to say if it was enough to be funding whatever this is. But wanted to throw that out there since we’re tying loose ends as much as we can.)

Anyway, can’t wait for next episode which I’ve been told will be more than THREE HOURS LONG and Brennan said in the AP that it’s gonna be a doozy. Excited, trepid, and preemptively bracing for another long haul review. See you then!

[miltonbarbie]

South park headcanons with naturally talented Y/n ! (Kyle x F!reader)

Going going down to south park, was probably the best idea you've ever made, and the most life-changing idea you've ever made.

Your parents were moving to south park so your dad could work for his new job. You just finished unpacking and you knew that you were starting south park elementary by tomorrow. You looked around your room feeling proud of yourself. You decorated it really nicely and had all your video games and instruments laid on the shelves and floors. You were known as the person who's good at everything. You've always gotten good grades, your super athletic, you play more than 5 instruments and your parents are always bragging about you.

But all you wanted was they're approval, that's why you started this whole "good at everything" phase in the first place. You went downstairs and put on your boots.

♡

"Momm! I'm going outside for a few hours so I can see what it's like okay? I'll be back before dinner!!"

After you heard your mom's approval for going outside, you opened the door and felt the cold breeze on your face. This was your new home.

You decided to go see your neighbours house, you wanted to get familiar with the people you would be going to school with to avoid any awkwardness. You knocked on the door, and a boy who was the same age as you opened it. He wore a green babushka(?) hat and it seemed like he had red curly hair underneath, judging by the strands poking out of his hat. You smiled and waved at him, he turned his head sideways and called out to his mom.

“MOMMM! We have a VISITOR!”

You were invited into the house by the boy’s mom, and you two sat down on the couch while Mrs. Broflovski went to get snacks for the two of you. You awkwardly made eye contact with the kid beside you until you decided to speak up.

[ “So uh, it seems like we’ll have to introduce ourselves. I’m Y/n, and I moved in next door. I’m yo ur new neighbour!” ] [ Oh, well. Welcome to South Park Y/n. My name’s Kyle. ]

You two talked to each other for some time while eating the snacks Kyle’s mom got for you two. And he offered to bring you upstairs to play video games together. Of course, you accepted. Why wouldn’t you want to play games with your new friend? Kyle DID have to warn you about South Park elementary though. And him hating Eric’s guts, he sternly told you to stay away from him, because he’s: “A fatass that’s always getting on everyone’s nerves”. You decided to take his advice whether he was being serious or not. He really seemed to hate this guy, a lot.

You two chatted and laughed together while discussing what you've experienced so far at south park. Kyle also offered to help you with assignments for school if you needed any help. You shrugged and said that you didnt need any help with your work ..

But you could help with HIS ?!

Oh no no no!

Kyle laughed a bit and brushed off what you said, he explained that he already got straight A's and asked you for your grades. You pulled up a crumbled up (graded) assignment from your jacket pocket and showed it to him.

"Ahaha! I dont need any help with my grades, but thanks anyway. You must be pretty good at homework if you- WHAT THE FUCK."

Y-you- got- better- grades- than- him-

[ "HOLY SHIT HOW MUCH DO YOU STUDY?!" ] [ "Uhh.. I dont ? ]

Kyle's self esteem was pretty much ruined because of you, and on top of that, you don't even study. How could you y/n?! You could pretty much see some tears forming in his eyes because he cared about his grades so much just to see that his hard work didn't matter as long as he saw how well you did. You quickly took action and uh.

You uh.

You kinda uhm. Hugged him.

WHAT WERE YOU SUPPOSED TO DO?! Poor boy was about to cry, and you didn't want him to feel bad. You reassured him that you just had good memory and that you weren't ever as smart as him. You actually are but just for Kyle's sake just lie about it okay?

All that talk about how smart he was and how well he was doing in school and shii really payed off. Because not only does he really like you as friend, and developed some small mixed feelings 4u: He stayed really cocky and might stay like that for the whole week.

You two stayed up for past your dinnertime, when you checked your phone. Your eyes widened as you frantically got your things and texted your mom. She said she knew where you were already since Kyle's mom already messaged her about it.

You sighed in relief after your mom said you could stay there. And you happily continued talking to Kyle. He pays attention to every little detail you say and he loves looking into your eyes during a conversation because he thinks your just so damn pretty.

UH SO YEAH UHM I RAN OUT OF IDEAS FOR THIS ONE BUT I STILL THINK ITS PRETTY GOOD TYTYTYTYTYSMSMSMSMSMSMILYSYSYSYSYSILYMSMSMSMSM </33333333

[attonposting]

Presenting: A Mostly Complete Breakdown of the KotOR II Crew's Relationships With Each Other

(Assuming a LS Exile, a dollop of headcanon, and a lot of reading time)

Kreia

Kreia and Atton: Of all the crewmate dynamics in the game, this one's the most well-explored, with a particularly glorious smattering of high-grade explosives. What's maybe less apparent is why they hate each other. Atton's part is straightforward; his demeanor towards Kreia starts out the same abrasive, pseudo-hostile that's his default. It sours further when she talks down to him and acts like a holier-than-thou Jedi, but he'll still interact with her willingly. And it bottoms out into murderous, trapped loathing at the Telos academy, where Kreia becomes his slavemistress and he avoids her whenever possible, desperately hungry to lash out but terrified of her retribution.

Why does Kreia hate Atton so much, though? It starts out because he's an irreverent bastard, but I think it comes down to two main reasons. Number one is that he reminds her of Sion, her worst student. They're a pair of stubborn, sadistic, infatuated blockheads who took all the wrong lessons from Malachor and run about with their oversimplified conclusions causing destruction for no purpose but its own sake. Most importantly, what Atton shirks and what Kreia embraces is accountability. Kreia believes in ownership of one's choices to the point that she can't accept redemption – wanting to change, admitting you were wrong - as an honest decision. Atton? Atton doesn't believe in redemption either, but that's because he fuckin' bails rather than own up to anything. And when Kreia uncovers that, how he cowers from his own nature, her scorn is boundless.

Reason two is that Kreia would have rather traveled with the Exile alone, shaping them in isolation of other influences. Atton is the first spanner in this plan. Later on it becomes clear that the Force has designs for the Exile, and that their entourage is simply something she must contend with, but Atton still gets the short end of the stick here because he's one of the companions who wants to get close to the Exile, especially if they're a lady. And the possibility of Atton, who is a lesson in doing everything wrong, influencing the Exile? Not on her watch.

Kreia and Bao-Dur: Bao-Dur is one of the crewmates Kreia hates most, though not through any fault of his own. He defies her probing (she really doesn't like it if she learns he actually can be read, just not by her), and she also dislikes the old and powerful connection he has with the Exile, because anyone who can mold the Exile, or who they'll turn to for support, fundamentally undermines her mentorship. Bao-Dur is neutral to Kreia at first but comes to distrust her the more he overhears. Her guidance to the Exile sets off a lot of red flags, but he doesn't really feel prompted to act on it unless the Exile starts listening to her – whereupon he'll incorrectly blame his General's fall on Kreia and attempt to act in their protection.

Kreia and Mira: Kreia doesn't particularly see Mira as a threat compared to many of the others. A foolish little girl clinging to a code that will get her killed, yes. But she's not an obstacle to her plans for the Exile, being as standoffish as she is, and so Kreia leaves her to her own devices, biding her time for the day she'll be tested. Mira is very wary of Kreia without fully understanding why – looks harmless, but Mira's good at feeling people and Kreia gives her all kinds of bad vibes – so she keeps a wide berth. Any conversations they've had have been very short and very acerbic on both sides.

Kreia and Brianna: This gets really complicated if you ascribe to the 'Kreia is Arren Kae' theory, which I do. It would certainly explain why Kreia's hackles go up when Brianna joins the crew, when the connection to Atris and later her antipathy for Visas is something she makes liberal use of, and also why she's so disapproving of training Brianna to be a Jedi when she expresses very little opinion on the subject for anyone else. There might be a smidgen of an old desire to keep her out of harm's way (and even moreso, to remain free of the Force and its machinations), but Kreia refuses to allow whatever feelings remain influence her decisions – and she throws Brianna right into harm's way when she uses her at the rebuilt Enclave and drops her off at a freshly-unhinged Atris's feet. That right there kills any nascent thoughts I might have had of Kreia approaching Brianna for any constructive reason during their earlier travels. Before everything goes down, I don't see them crossing paths much – Kreia has an especial desire to keep her distance and Brianna is not one to socialize.

Kreia and Mical: There is not a lot of interaction that can happen when you've been mindwhammied into forgetting the other person exists. I don't think Mical knew Kreia was on the ship at all until the game's climax, even when he was looking right at her. Kreia has an interesting opinion on Mical, though. She definitely disdains his idealism and softheartedness, but I think she does respect him in a backhanded way – he's the only one who managed to figure out what was happening, and actually forced her hand in order to keep the game afoot. I certainly read a sort of admiration in “you were a wasted pawn of the Republic,” and that's more than anyone else on the crew gets out of Kreia.

Kreia and Visas: So Kreia resents Visas, a lot. She did not want the Exile to have to face Nihilus, and Visas's arrival locked that very dangerous confrontation in stone. She adapts her plans quite successfully, because she's nothing if not resourceful, but Kreia's attempts to prey on Brianna's distrust and inflame her jealousy have nothing to do with any threat Visas presents. I think it also comes back to her scorn for both weakness and redemption; if Visas was weak enough to have her will crushed, she doesn't deserve to be lifted up, and the Exile only wastes their limited energy on a pity project. On her end, Visas is a remarkably mellow individual, but Kreia is the one person on the ship she does not trust. The others are clear presences through the Force, even drawn towards the Exile's alignment as they are. When she looks at Kreia, her sight is... blurred. Difficult to see. And her Master had spoken of his own Master, a Darth Traya...

Kreia and Canderous: I doubt Kreia sees Canderous as anything more than one of Revan's creatures, broken upon their charisma and following their orders in vain. She's generally pretty uninterested in any of the crewmates beyond their potential uses, but her treatment of Canderous is especially dismissive in that she doesn't even care if he sees her for what she is. I find her general scorn of the Mandalorians interesting, given that they do espouse a lot of the philosophy she shares in-game – they have a sink-or-swim ideology that eschews aid and forces each member to survive on their own merits, always seeking adversity to become strong lest they dull their edge, without falling into the Sith trap of self-destruction through infighting. I guess they're not subtle enough for her tastes. Canderous hates her for the same reason Atton does – she didn't even try to hide the fact that she was manipulating him, just nailed him to the wall on day one. Even if she hadn't been so blatant, I doubt Canderous has much trust for Jedi-types lying around after the plot twist of the first game. Revanchists, he's totally game to hang out and swap war stories, but Kreia's more of the 'preachy old crone in robes' breed of Jedi and he remembers what happened the last time he trusted those.

Kreia and T3-M4: Oh boy, but Kreia does not like the metal cinnamon roll. She's got issues with her students having attachments to people that aren't her, and she already dislikes droids for their immunity to mental alteration and probing. Which is actually intensely hypocritical of her, since she otherwise praises things that are dead to the Force and can defy its will – but I suppose it's less laudable when the Force in question is her own. Same as how Kreia praises focusing on practical skills rather than the Force, yet apart from her persuasion has few of her own, which is why these droids can defy her so. Add in that it's T3's navicomputer lock that's preventing Kreia from discovering where Revan has gone, and it's no surprise she blasts him in the cut content. For T3's part, he's never liked the old woman – she's very rude, yes, but more important is the question of how exactly Kreia got on the ship in the first place. How and when, I don't know, but she definitely hijacked T3's ship at some point and interrupted his Very Important Mission. Even if their goals ended up being aligned, T3 has issues with people who think they don't have to ask for his permission.

Kreia and HK-47: For this one, we're back to Kreia's refusal to view droids as people. In her eyes, HK-47 is yet another one of the tools Revan lavished their time on in a meaningless sidetrack from their true potential. Unlike T3, though, HK doesn't present an ongoing obstacle, just a blunt instrument and an irritating reminder of her former student's proclivities. HK, for his part, frequently occupies his processors with potential scenarios where he could terminate the old-model meatbag without compromising his Master's integrity. The unusually strong Force bond presents an altogether new challenge for his assassination protocols and he's eager to overcome fresh obstacles – for purely hypothetical purposes, of course.

Atton

Atton and Bao-Dur: They tolerate each other, which is as good as things get with Atton. It's a sort of wary, untapped understanding that they've both done some shit and don't want to talk about it, and they've kind of got a personal issue with the other's war crimes (and that sure is a KotOR II sentence) but don't think it's worth it to drag it out. It could warm up into something friendlier if they ever hashed out an understanding – they have some crucial things in common and could really get each other in a way most of the crew couldn't – but it would take something big to get that talk to happen. Apart from the history, Bao-Dur thinks Atton is ridiculous and Atton thinks Bao-Dur is a stick in the mud and a gearhead, but they do trust each other to have the General's back. And that's the most important thing to both of them, so they get along all right.

Atton and Mira: They snipe at each other constantly, and get into more verbal brawls than anyone else, since they're both pretty chatty and not afraid to insert themselves into other people's business. But their relationship isn't as hostile as it looks from the outside, even if it has involved stolen equipment and at least one minor sonic charge being planted on the pilot's seat. They annoy the hell out of each other, but Atton is about as fond of Mira as he is of anyone who isn't the Exile. She's relatable without the traits that make him despise himself, and when they're on the job, the two of them often end up backing the same strategy, or spouting very unintentionally synchronized “oh, kriff no”s to someone else's, despite having no actual desire to agree with each other.* And Mira thinks Atton's an idiot, but he's a familiar kind of idiot, and he's good for a laugh (read: easy to wind up and create some on-demand performance art.)

(*For posterity's sake, group strategizing usually slices out like this: Atton, Mira, and Visas on Team Sneaky Fuckers; Brianna, Canderous, and HK-47 on Team Why Don't We Just Light The Place Up; and Mical and very occasionally Bao-Dur on Team I Am Very Concerned You Would Suggest That. Kreia would be a Sneaky Fucker but refuses to provide positive reinforcement to any of these cretins. Poor T3's contributions go nearly unnoticed due to half the crew not understanding Binary. G0-T0 vacillates between Sneaky Fuckery and systemic elimination of all obstacles depending on the situation, and for Hanharr, do you even have to ask?)

Atton and Brianna: They openly hate each other. Brianna thinks Atton is undisciplined and uncouth, Atton thinks the Handmaiden's a self-righteous bitch. The reason they really loathe each other instead of the usual 'just thinks that person is really annoying' is because they don't trust each other to have the Exile's best interests at heart – Atton thinks she's a spy and Brianna thinks he's a slimy, lying opportunist, and if she learns who he really is, that's going to get five times worse. Both of them have fantasized about kicking the other's ass at length, but Brianna has too much discipline to start a fight and Atton's worried that he might not come out on top. Killing her would be easy, but an honorable duel with a crazy Echani ice queen who spends every waking hour boxing air in her skivvies? No thanks.

Atton and Mical: Atton despises Mical on principle. Everything Mical does infuriates him, no matter how innocuous. Mical needs help in a firefight? Useless fop, don't know why we let him tag along. Mical heals Atton afterwards? Pushy asshole thinks he's better than me. Mical asks Atton to pass him the salt at breakfast? Get it yourself, you needy bastard. Mical looks in the Exile's direction? Die in a fire, Blondie. He drags him endlessly, coming up with a stream of excuses to hate him when the reality of it is that Atton's pissed that Mical is a better person than him in every single way, and has decided to react to that by resenting his existence rather than, y'know, trying to improve himself at all.

On the other side, Mical dislikes Atton - it would be very strange if he didn't - but he's patient and diplomatic, rarely rising to the bait and occasionally extending olive branches (which only serve to make Atton angrier and more unreasonable.) He wants Atton to work out his issues, because that in turn would be best for the Exile who cares for all of them, and also because he hopes that it might get him to improve his behavior. Of course, it'd be much simpler to drop Atton off on the next planet, but unfortunately he's already ruled out the possibility.

Atton and Visas: They don't interact much. Visas doesn't have any particular feelings about Atton; she trusts him because his feelings towards the Exile are clear and that's the only metric that matters to her. Atton doesn't care that she was Sith, it becomes obvious by like three days in that she's not a threat and the Handmaiden's full of it – it's her servility that creeps him out. It's that Jedi tendency to act like drones instead of people. He doesn't know what to do with that (he does, knows a lot about how to crack open their shells, but not in any way he wants to remember), so he keeps his distance. The sad thing about this is that they do have some big things in common; they're ex-Sith who lost all hope in the galaxy only to have it restored by the Exile, who they'd gladly die for because they don't value their own lives and because the Exile is so much greater than they could ever be. But I can't realistically see Atton taking his walls down for that conversation to happen. Visas can talk about her feelings but keeps to herself; Atton reacts to emotional honesty like a wet cat.

Atton and Canderous: Pretty hostile. Atton's not as overt about it as Bao-Dur (since his hate congealed in a different direction), but he has any veteran's grudge against the Mandalorians and doesn't love the idea of them reorganizing. Canderous has a thick hide when it comes to trading jabs, but he's less tolerant of anyone shit-talking his people and their honor, and you can bet Atton has made plenty of snipes from the relative safety of the Exile's favor. Atton eventually ends up crawling to the Exile to bail him out after Canderous calls him out on his bullshit and challenges him to throw hands, because he could kick Atton's ass in a brawl and Atton fully knows this but will not admit it.

Atton and T3-M4: T3-M4 has done nothing wrong in his life, ever, and Atton is proof that there is no fairness in the galaxy. T3 retaliates by inconveniencing Atton in endlessly small ways – colliding with him while he's carrying food, tweaking his laundry cycle to singe his clothes, constantly changing the astrogation system's access codes. And, of course, baiting him into pazaak only to crush him with his superior logic matrices. Atton brought all of this on himself and T3 would strongly consider stopping if Atton would only apologize and admit he has been very rude and mean. He doesn't.

Atton and HK-47: A flaming mess. Atton distrusts T3-M4, who is a cinnamon roll with a shock arm; now take his irrational hatred of droids, add in psychotic programming and an expressed desire to murder everyone on board, and you can be sure he's sleeping with his door locked. This is made worse because while HK-47 also hates Atton, he's very interested in his past as a fellow assassin and Jedi-hunter – irritated that Atton seems to have fallen prey to that insidious meatbag disease known as 'regret', but he has no desire to respect those boundaries and is highly curious about comparing their tactics and K-D ratios. Mostly because HK wants to express his clear superiority over his meatbag imitators, but also because there may be an opportunity to refine his craft. (If we're dealing with a DS Atton, they still hate each other, but it's because Atton is as disgusted by the idea of a droid doing his job as HK is of him. But you can expect a lot more open debate of torture tactics at the breakfast table.)

Bao-Dur

Bao-Dur and Mira: They don't have an awful lot in common, but they interact well enough. It's part because Bao-Dur is the king of the garage and Mira spends plenty of time in there, and part because Mira likes to poke people to see how they'll react (and at first, she really wants to know if the beefcake Zabrak does talk or if he just tinkers in the droid bay all day looking like a snack.) Bao-Dur's a wallflower but he can sass back with the best of them when prodded, and he's gotten involved with Mira's maintenance more than once - enough for Mira to grudgingly respect that damn, she runs a tight ship with her equipment but this guy knows what he's talking about.

Bao-Dur and Brianna: Unfortunately I can't really see these two coming together outside the field. They both keep to themselves in their spare time, and neither of them are the type to initiate conversations, so most of their talks have purely been strategy or reacting to situations as they happen. They're both pretty practical and goal-oriented people, so they don't clash. The one place these two intersect is Telos – Brianna is actually very impressed with Bao-Dur's work and considers him singularly skilled. If she expressed that, things might warm up a bit, though Bao-Dur definitely has some not-so-charitable thoughts about why a Jedi Master was sitting around stealing power from Telos's already strained grid instead of helping with the restoration efforts in any way.

Bao-Dur and Mical: They get on quite well. Bao-Dur's more of an introvert while Mical likes to strike up conversations, but they're the two most Republic-positive people on the Hawk and they're both appreciative of the other's work, which is a good foundation. Mical definitely has questions about Bao-Dur's extensive experience with Telos on his studies of worlds sickened by the Wars, which is a topic Bao-Dur has a direct interest in – he'd hoped to branch out before the Telos Project started going sour. They've had plenty of problem-solving brainstorming sessions, even if their musings in their respective fields tend to go way over the other's head. I was also gonna bring up that they both think the world of the Exile and find endless inspiration in their actions, but that's kind of true for everyone in KotOR II: The Simp Lords. Still, it's those two and Visas who are the least afraid about expressing it.

Bao-Dur and Visas: They go for a long time without crossing paths, but they've got plenty in common – they're fundamentally gentle people who struggle with feelings of despair and anger borne of PTSD, and they both appreciate solitude to center themselves without actually having a real desire to self-isolate. I could see them taking up a companionable silence one day on the Hawk while the others are off adventuring, and in time coming to meditate or simply exist together. They've both got a planet's worth of trauma on their shoulders and they could forge a strong connection if one of them ever reached out.

Bao-Dur and Canderous: Bad, bad, bad. Bao-Dur's deal is self-explanatory – he hates the Mandalorians with an all-consuming fervor, to the point where he's uncomfortable with himself, and Mandalore's presence on the ship just drags it all out into the open. And Canderous doesn't understand this, or the depths of Bao-Dur's PTSD; he sees a skilled warrior who was instrumental in his people's defeat, which he's been taught not to personally resent. So, y'know, there's nothing stopping him from dropping by and striking up a chat between two old warriors. And he figures out real quick that Bao-Dur's the type that holds a grudge, but I don't think he can really grasp just how deep it goes. In Canderous's world, if you've got a problem, you brawl it out. Bao-Dur could only begin to find common ground with a Mandalorian if he was shown some remorse, which just isn't going to happen. Now make it not just any Mandalorian but their leader, this symbol for everything he despises, who loudly intends to reunite his scattered thugs and murderers for the next great war? Yeah. It's bad.

Bao-Dur and T3-M4: They have a rocky start, since T3 really doesn't like that suggestion of a memory wipe. But Bao-Dur's not going to press if this mouthy Astromech is that opposed to it, and if I had to peg one guy on the KotOR II Hawk who sees droids as fully-fledged people, it's gonna be him every time. The Remote talks up Bao-Dur enough for T3 to trust him with some maintenance, and it leads to a gorgeous heat sink on his processors and the smoothest treads of his life. It doesn't take long for Bao-Dur to become T3's favorite, second to the Exile. T3 repeatedly rants to Bao-Dur about all the incredibly annoying and illogical things the organics on this ship get up to. Bao-Dur chuckles, agrees with everything, and never breathes a word of it to anyone else.

Bao-Dur and HK-47: HK-47 is a one-of-a-kind piece of machinery, but Bao-Dur could really do without the cutting remarks. If he has to hear 'Insincere Placation' one more time, he's kicking him out of the garage. And if it's not the disparaging comments about his skills as a mechanic, it's the frankly disturbing homicidal musings. Bao-Dur wonders if programming a droid to be this single-mindedly murderous constitutes abuse. HK, for his part, does come to respect Bao-Dur's skills, and has very good reason to fear self-proclaimed mechanics after a low-repair amnesiac Revan did unspeakable things with a hydrospanner. But his friendly musings about the laudable efficiency of the slaughter at Malachor V and the truly impressive galactic implications of all that death did not produce the enlightening discussion he'd hoped for.

Mira

Mira and Brianna: Mira first saw the Handmaiden from afar when she was stalking the Exile on Nar Shaddaa. They meet properly when Mira's poking around the ship, and okay, yeah, Mira sees why this girl fought like a dancer with that electrostaff – she spends all her time training. Like, does she even know what fun is? An intervention is necessary. In her efforts to get the Handmaiden out of her shell, Mira drags her out of the cargo hold for anything she can think of – the latest gossip on the Ebon Hawk, girl talk, drinks, blaster practice, an improvised dartboard with a picture of Kreia taped over it. Brianna really doesn't know what to do with this attention at first, and she's very put off. But Mira refuses to let her be awkward, and... even if all these customs are foreign to her, she finds she does enjoy being sought out? By the end of the game, those two are tight-knit. Mira's eventually the one who teaches Brianna how sarcasm works, something which Brianna wields with terrifying precision.

Mira and Mical: Mira's decent enough to the guy, but with a distinctly condescending flair. The Disciple is like a pet, maybe – cute, harmless, and doesn't do anything useful as far as she can tell. Well, that's not strictly true, because he's good for getting Atton to act like a ronto in heat, but she doubts the Exile keeps him on for that. They've squabbled before on missions when Mical had an issue with laying out a minefield on civilian turf (they were just flashbangs and stunners, dammit, what does he take her for?) or thought talking to a bunch of crime kingpins would work. Still, he's nice to look at if you can tune him out.

Mira and Visas: Mira tries to draw this one out of her shell, too, but with much less success. It's part because Brianna really hates Visas and Mira doesn't get their Jedi crap enough to work out whatever this spat is, so Girls' Night dies before it ever has a chance to become tradition. The other half is because Visas barely reacts to anything Mira does – she'll never refuse her company, but she seems indifferent to everything Mira tries to engage her with. It makes Mira sad, and also really uncomfortable, and she eventually gives up for fear that she's just dragging around someone who doesn't know how to say no to her. (This wasn't strictly the case. Visas is terrible at enforcing boundaries, but she generally didn't mind – just didn't really understand what was expected of her. Aimless chatter is a luxury she had to relearn. On the whole, just being on this ship that teemed with life and determination instead of draining them was often enough for her, and she spent many hours feeling and observing the others from afar.) But Mira doesn't stop watching Visas, and she's relieved when other members of the crew, and of course their fearless leader, connect with her in their own ways.

Mira and Canderous: Man, this one gets complex. Mira loves to pretend that she's over her past, and she's super not. The Mandalorians are the only family she remembered. It was screwed up on a lot of levels and she understands that better now than she did then, but... she knew who she was when she was one of them. Dreamed of being one for real someday, before Malachor ended everything. So finding the hidden enclave on Dxun stirred up a lot of mixed feelings. She keeps her distance from Canderous, but she's drawn to him anyway. It's Mandalore, a legend brought to life, of course she's curious – that's normal, right? And maybe one day he offhandedly comments that she handled something like a Mandalorian, and it means the world to her and she's not prepared for it, at all, and she tries to play it cool but ends up spilling that she halfway was one. And they swap stories for a long time after that. She doesn't take him up on his offer of returning to Dxun with him, but she feels a sense of completion, maybe closure, that it was made. Canderous obfuscates it, because no one will accuse him of going soft, but he's fond of that girl. She's got real fight in her.

Mira and T3-M4: For a while, they don't really interact, but Mira's eagle eye eventually catches that many of the inconvenient accidents on board the Hawk coincide with a little Astromech whirring by moments before disaster. Which is concerning, but also really funny, given that the usual butt of the joke is either Atton or HK-47. So she does what she does best and gets involved – either she gets a piece of the action or she's busting his operation. T3 promptly pops out eight pieces of weaponry she didn't realize a utility droid could have mounts for, wheels her over to a holoscreen, leverages her right back with the secret stash she keeps under the docking ramp panel, and recruits her wholesale. Everyone those two dislike proceeds to have a very frustrating week. She doesn't understand Binary, so they can only ever talk when T3 plugs himself in and types, but damn, Mira thought she had a mouth but that droid is sassy. Scrappy little fucker runs the ship from the shadows - she's staying on his good side.

Mira and HK-47: Mira tries very hard to pretend that HK doesn't unnerve the hell out of her. She's seen those things in action and she's not entirely convinced this one isn't a plant that's going to drill them in the back once some unknown trigger is tripped. HK-47 is deeply offended by the accusation – less that he would murder them all if he could, and more that Mira can't recognize how his abundance of personality and far more intimidating looks set him apart from his mass-produced copycats.

Brianna

Brianna and Mical: In-game, they can't ever interact, but I like to imagine that all six of the Lost Jedi come along with the Exile. These two have an awkward start – she's a soldier trained not to question while he's a historian who does nothing but. Mical has some questions about Atris that'll get Brianna's hackles up, and she'll want nothing to do with him for a while after that. But as she travels with the Exile, she'll come to realize that he's right; Atris's actions run counter to her spoken principles, and the Exile is a truer expression of the Jedi teachings despite having been cast from the Order. They'll coalesce most post-game, when Brianna sets aside her single-minded dedication to combat to become an archivist. Mical has plenty of interest in helping her with Atris's salvaged collection and disseminating the information within.

Brianna and Visas: Visas is demure and respectful – Brianna bites her head off every time she speaks up. It's a mess. Brianna's been raised with an incredibly black-and-white, fear-based set of views on the Jedi. There's no redemption for Sith in Atris's academy, only punishment and execution. The Exile skated by Atris's conditioning with their Force magnetism, and to a lesser extent, their similarities to Yusanis – Visas is not so lucky. Brianna's jealousy isn't strictly romantic in nature, though. The way I see it, it has more to do with her deep-seated feelings of abandonment and never being good enough no matter how hard she works. She thought she and the Exile were forging something special, that the Exile saw something in her that no one else had (and maybe that was even true, maybe she does have potential), and then they went off to gallivant with a Sith. She feels cheapened, replaced – maybe even scorned, if the Exile sees her the same way, as something broken and wrong to be fixed. And she can justify it to herself with what Atris taught her instead of actually confronting her own feelings. So it becomes a mantra: Visas is a Sith, she cannot be trusted, and all the time the Exile spends with her is time for her to sink her hooks into their mind.

I would like to think, on a LS run (as a mirror to what happens on a DS one), when Kreia tricks Brianna into despair and she subsequently discovers Atris's corruption, that Brianna has an epiphany – that she was watching for enemies in the wrong places, and that Atris's teachings had blinded her to what was evident in Visas's stance, if only she'd been able to accept what she saw. And by the time they band together on Malachor, they've buried the hatchet. Visas accepts this heartfelt apology readily – she never held a grudge even when Brianna was snarling at her daily. Post-game they become quite close. They understand plenty about what it means to dedicate yourself to someone out of desperation and out of inspiration, and they more than anyone else on the crew share the Exile lifting them up and setting them free. And they share their strengths – Brianna passes on her knowledge of combat now that she's ready to set it aside, and at her behest, Visas spends the time to teach her to see through the Force so that she'll never be blinded to others' hearts again.

Brianna and Canderous: Brianna's wary of Mandalore and disagrees stridently with him on philosophy – they agree on fealty and discipline, but discussing the purpose of combat has led to some raised voices and a few worried (or popcorn-crunching) eavesdroppers. But they do respect each other as fellow warriors. They've sparred a few times, even if Canderous refused to remove his raiment in a minor bit of tradition-crossroads. Canderous even lost a round or two, which he is damn impressed by but privately worries about for weeks later. He's getting old.

Brianna and T3-M4: Brianna largely ignores T3-M4. This is probably a good thing, since T3 holds a grudge from when she stole the Ebon Hawk and delivered him to Atris, where he had a very unpleasant time of things. He was not happy to see her board the ship yet again, and kept a close optic on her for a while. Eventually he decided she was unlikely to repeat offend, and she at least doesn't make a mess of the ship like some organics, but the beeps and boops he uses to address her are not especially polite ones.

Brianna and HK-47: Brianna cannot fathom why the Exile reactivated the assassin droid, and once it starts talking, she really doesn't understand why they keep it around. This is mostly because it's clearly a psychotic tool of war, the kind of single-mindedly bloodthirsty creation Atris always accused the Exile of being, and its company is... unbefitting for the hero she's come to know. But also, and she stubbornly refuses to admit this to herself, she's frustrated that the Exile thinks they need more firepower on the battlefield. Isn't she good enough for them?

Mical

Mical and Visas: They get along very well. They start interacting early on, when Visas first joins the crew and has all kinds of old untreated injuries that need tending. After the medbay visits taper off, the meditation visits start. Mical's curious about Sith philosophy and techniques and Visas is pretty much the most tailor-fitted discussion partner the galaxy could have possibly given him on those topics. Visas is dubious of Mical's own views, particularly that he clings to them when he's seen so many things that undermine them and readily admits this, but over her travels with the Exile comes to appreciate his steadfast optimism more. They're both very gentle people and Mical could do wonders in shoring up Visas's lost faith – a favor Visas pays back in full when Kreia betrays the team and leaves Mical to the horrifying realization that the Force is decaying around the Exile. She feels his distress and seeks him out, invites him to meditate together as he so often approached her, and repeats the words he always insisted upon – no matter how fraught it seems, there is always hope.

Mical and Canderous: When Mandalore joins the team, Mical's immediate concern is the Exile's mental health. Bao-Dur has clearly been doing poorly since Dxun and it's hardly a secret the Exile shares much of the same trauma. He keeps to the background and watches carefully, his own few interactions with the man being brusque and dismissive. Carth is... concerned, to say the least, when Mical reports of a new Mandalore; it gets interesting when Mical's next transmission contains some footage. Much like the player, it doesn't take Carth long to pick up on the fact that Mandalore's voice is just Canderous's through some filters. This is how poor Mical ends up as the go-between between two old frenemies, passing notes back and forth like he's stuck at the middle desk. That said, he's greatly relieved that their Mandalorian contact is on the up and up; he would not question the Exile's decisions, but did worry about what might come of them until it became clear this was all the work of the Force.

Mical and T3-M4: They first met when Mical requested to see the records of the Exile's trial. T3-M4 was wary of the request, but organics who are actually courteous to utility droids are a rarity, and Mical eventually won him over without having to fetch the Exile for proof. Once T3 finds out that Mical has connections with Carth Onasi, they're fast friends and occasional coworkers, though there's a bit of friction involved because you know Carth would have told him to fish for any information on Revan's whereabouts, and T3 can't talk, as much as he'd like to reunite his old (and new!) friends.

Mical and HK-47: Of all the unfortunate meatbags HK-47 must share the ship with, it is the Republic one who clearly has the least merit. He has tried to convince his Master why a bit of target practice is necessary to keep his assassination protocols from degrading in the monotony of hyperspace travel, but for some reason truly unparseable to his processors, he has repeatedly been denied on this front. On Mical's part, HK-47 is a firm reminder of Darth Revan's character whenever his musings about their war strategy start becoming too favorable.

Visas

Visas and Canderous: It's so wild to me that I would have never known anything was here at all, if those legends over at TSLRCM hadn't brought back all of those Visas-Canderous interactions on the Ravager. Like, Visas forcing him to keep on fighting after a gravely wounded Canderous tells them to leave him behind, that he's not useful anymore... Hello?? My girl came full circle???

I don't know how much these two coincided before the end of the game, because they are exceptionally different people. Visas tends to hang in the background, and I doubt Canderous spared the Miraluka in the aft dorm that much thought beyond “damn, they make Sith different than they used to.” But there are no words to express how Visas felt when destiny called them back to Telos and not a single one of the crew balked in the face of her Master – and nowhere did that sentiment land harder than Canderous, who mustered an army to stop a second Katarr and walked with her to face her nightmare in person. (It wasn't for a lack of will on the others' part, and I suspect many of them were strident about wanting to join. In a lot of cases, the two-party restriction comes down to game mechanics; here, it's that Nihilus would have straight-up eaten anyone else. Visas was the only Force-Sensitive he wouldn't, the Exile was the only one he couldn't.) She's well aware it wasn't a personal favor, but the reasons pale in the reality of it; she had believed nothing could stand before her Master, and together, Canderous and the Exile proved her wrong. And Canderous is forced to reassess Visas afterwards, once he's done licking his wounds and kicking himself for a lapse in resolve so bad a Sith had to haul him up and tell him to get moving. Which is where he got it wrong; a Sith she is not, but that girl's got beskar in her, especially if she survived that long as that thing's apprentice.

Visas and T3-M4: At first, T3-M4 is quite cross about being overloaded via the Force and the attempt on his new Master's life. But the immediate request of termination is... concerning, and observing the following chain of events leads T3 to suspect that she'd been given orders that went against her core motivators, something T3 is distressingly familiar with. He observes Visas for a bit longer – he developed a number of protocols regarding Sith in his formative months - but soon deems them irrelevant once he's mapped her behavioral patterns and found them quite agreeable, if perhaps more cloistered than strictly recommended.

His initial diagnostic of conflicting orders seems correct, and T3 enacts a policy of friendliness in simpatico. Whenever ship maintenance takes him towards the aft dormitory, he brings her little things like Atton's share of dessert or interesting lightsaber parts from Bao-Dur's workshop. Visas is at first convinced that the Exile has simply programmed the droid to attend to her in their doomed quest to save her, but at some point she comments on it and discovers they genuinely have no idea what she's talking about. She does not know what to do with this information, but is immensely moved by the little droid. As a being without presence in the Force, Visas sometimes has difficulty perceiving his movements; when she admitted this, T3 developed a policy of emitting a low-volume sound pattern in her presence.

Visas and HK-47: HK was very excited when a Sith joined the crew - still irritated that his Master didn't simply dispatch the assassin like any being in possession of functioning logic circuits, but hoping that perhaps this was his chance to witness and partake in some real carnage. He ends up despairing when Visas ends up just as soft as the rest of them. She even eventually retracts her statement that all life exists for the purpose of being systemically extinguished! The Exile is a truly distressing influence.

Canderous

Canderous and T3-M4: Canderous affectionately calls T3-M4 a hunk of junk. T3-M4 affectionately calls him an obsolete model propped up with bulky life support mods. The little trash can's grown a spine since he last saw him – that, and Revan clearly taught him some creative curses while they were out on the edge of space. Canderous will never admit this and will lie through his teeth if accused, but he misses the old crew dearly – now more than ever that he's back on the Ebon Hawk. Having the droids around is an old, comfortable bit of nostalgia.

Canderous and HK-47: Canderous might be the only non-Revan meatbag HK-47 actually likes. It's mutual – HK's a fine soldier and an unreal shot with a scoped rifle, even if he's looking a little worse for wear these days. HK frequently seeks out Canderous to complain about the inconsistent and highly inefficient moral codes so many of these meatbags seem to possess. “Jedi,” Canderous agrees. He'd think a bunch of war veterans, particularly the type with a history of blowing up planets, would spend a little less time plucking loth cats out of trees and take a little more initiative with the armies of people trying to kill them, but he figures you can't take the Jedi out of the Revanchist. At least they're not boring.

T3-M4

T3-M4 and HK-47: Revan's two old droids are not friends. It's like a cat and a dog (or maybe a kitten and a grizzled bobcat) fighting over their Master's affection, except their Master left for milk a while ago and the only thing left to squabble about is who was more useful. Mutual accusations of obsoletion abound. T3 is very smug that HK spent a chunk of Revan's travels deactivated while he was present all along; HK, who is incredibly pissy that he was not involved in the grand plan and the game of cover-your-tracks that followed, never fails to point out that somehow, T3 failed so immensely that Revan saw fit to dismiss them both and carry on without backup, and that he at least does not have such a blatant error in judgment on his record. Add in that T3's tenure of the ship has involved hijackings and total crew pacification by a Sith warship, an Echani saboteur, and a band of slavers, and it's wholly understandable that this new Master decided they needed a more reliable droid.

It frequently comes down to HK-47 threatening the jumped-up Astromech with termination while T3-M4 smugly dangles the metaphorical car keys in his face.

G0-T0

I'm putting the crimeball in his own category because G0-T0 has remarkably one-note relationships with everyone and there isn't enough to say. It's really simple; they don't want him around and he doesn't want to deal with them. The only one worth any note is Mira, who he has identified as a reliable agent and a potential asset when it comes to delegating side jobs. She's proven capable of bringing in targets alive, which is a directive he's had some trouble with in the past. Mira's wary of having a major Exchange boss a few doors down from where she lays her head, but less on principle and more that she'll get caught in some conflicting-employers spat. And she wouldn't say no to some credits as long as the job didn't go against her sensibilities.

There's another exception with HK-47, because some of the restored content implies he and G0-T0 had a history – but personally I do not know what to make of this, because their timelines do not line up and it doesn't come up later, leaving me to think it was a dropped plotline like Kreia zapping T3 or Kaevee and the holocrons. I'd like to do something with this, but there isn't enough for me to go on. About as much as I can say is that HK-47 is quite cross at this comically rotund intruder for bobbing onto his base of operations and attempting to dictate orders when any being in possession of optics can tell his Master is clearly the one in charge, and for not having the decency to invade his ship without a fail-deadly detonator baked into his circuitry. But really, anyone who had employed so many of his sub-standard clones and established the galactic reputation of HK units as bounty hunters was going to fall pretty hard on HK-47's shitlist.

Bao-Dur has strongly considered 'accidentally' damaging some vital components when G0-T0 seeks him out for maintenance. The Remote is a very enthusiastic ball-shaped devil on his shoulder.

Unfortunately, I can't comment on Hanharr since I've never played with him, even on the one time I forced myself into a Dark Side run. But the vibe I get is pretty similar to the above; nearly all of the crew would stay well away, with HK being the only one actually enthused at the prospect of having him around. But I don't know Hanharr well enough to tell if that could even be mutual or if he's just furious with everything.

[tmntxthings]

So I may be having some trouble at school and I was wondering if Gn! Reader could try and get some help in math from Donnie? (Or all if this is a HC situation.)

either way, just reader begging Dee or the others for some help and being super duper grateful when their grade goes up?

Mathematically Inclined

author’s note: I personally hate math, I’m an English major, I went as far away from math as possible, would’ve been nice to have Donnie help me out in statistics last semester T-T

warnings: cursing, fluff :D

—————————————————————————

It was the end of the world. You had t-minus two days until your big exam. And it was comprehensive of every single chapter you had to learn that semester. And you had went through a lot of chapters, twelve, but who’s counting right?

You had your notes and you had previous chapter exams and even homework to go over. But it wasn’t clicking, and you were starting to feel DOOMED. Holding back a dramatic sob and thinking of how tragic your transcript would look with a big fat ‘F’ for college algebra. You decided you needed help. Normally, you’d just suffer in silence, you weren’t the type to rely on others. In fact, you were very proud to have gotten this far on your own. If this had been any other subject you’d have it in the bag. But it was math.

“Donnie please I need your help,” you said into your phone. “With what exactly?” Donnie asked, currently he was working on multiple things. He hadn’t left his lab in days, he hadn’t even answered your first call! “I’ve got this really big test and it’s make or break time. If I fail this I’m getting an F.” If Donnie couldn’t teach you then you just didn’t know what else to do. Studying on your own wasn’t going well. It was too late to schedule for tutoring. You waited with bated breath for Donnie’s answer, “when’s the exam?” it wasn’t an answer but at least it wasn’t a straight up rejection!

“Two days!” You whimpered, “please Dee, please please please help me!” You were resorting to begging for pete’s sake! You heard a long sigh, “alright but you have to come here, bring some energy drinks.” And the nerd hung up in your face.

You couldn’t believe it. He said yes?! You were scrambling to get all of your things in your backpack. Thankfully you had the drinks already in your fridge, your roommate liked to stay up late gaming when they didn’t have school work to do. “Borrowing a couple of these I’ll get you more!” You called over your shoulder as you raced out of the door. Heading for the lair but specifically to Donnie.

You had an energy drink in your hand, giving it to Donnie as soon as you passed through the lab doors. And boy did he need it! His eyes looked so strained like he hadn’t slept for days! “Dee what’s up?” You asked, concerned for your friends health. “Just been busy, can’t afford to sleep right now, I’m so close to finishing its maddening.” The purple turtle sighed as he looked over your notes.

“What seems to be your issue? I mean everything you have written down is correct,” it was your turn to sigh. “Yeah well that’s just it, I’m never the one doing the problems I’ve been using the internet for homework…” you grumbled, more than embarrassed to admit your faults. “So, you’ve been cheating?” Donnie raised an eyebrow. “I mean is it really?! Everything so far has been online, I’m just using the resources I have available. And now the last test is in person?! It seriously blows!!” You huffed at the end of your rant, only to see that Donnie was smirking.

“So you don’t know how to do any of this yourself and you want me to teach you a semesters worth of work in less than two days?” The way he put it, it sounded impossible! You slouched over, elbows on your knees, hands to your face. “So it’s hopeless?” You mumbled. The last bit of hope you had finally draining. “I didn’t say that, just wanted to clarify,” you peeked out of your hands to see Donnie had a small smile on his face. You wondered if he thought this was funny. You swallowed your irritation, latching onto the last spark of hope.

“Alright let’s do this.” You said, determination written on your face. You cracked open your own drink and took a long swig then with a pencil in hand you waited for instructions. “Start with this, x raised to the 5th…”

The whole first day was pretty rough. It was nonstop problems. Going from the basics of chapter one and building your way back up. By the end of the day you had a solid piece of foundation and at least knew how to start tackling the problems from chapter one to five. “How about a break, we could both use a nap, we’ll pick up where we left off,” Donnie was yawning and he stood stretching out his legs and arms. You leaned back in your swivel chair, “sounds good to me,” you said tiredly as your eyes instantly closed. You’d fall asleep right there in one of his lab chairs.

“C’mon you goof, you’ll hurt yourself sleeping there.” You blinked drowsily, not wanting to move but forcing yourself to get up, following his lead as he led you to a couch in the back of his lab. “Wake me up in an hour,” you mumbled sleepily as you curled up on one end of the couch. Donnie shook his head, throwing a purple blanket over you and going to the other end. He scrolled through his phone for about five minutes before setting a timer and falling asleep too.

The snooze button was hit a couple of times as the both of you grumbled at the rude awakening an hour later. “5 more minutes!” You pleaded and Donnie who was more tired than you readily agreed. 15 minutes later your eyes were widening as you sat up from your spot on the couch. “Shit shit shit! Donnie we gotta go back to studying!” You said and he was jumping up from his position, “mhm yeah I’m awake!” he yawned as he grabbed the blanket and wrapped it around himself, walking back over to where your notes were on his table.

“Alright… where were we.. oh yeah!~” Genius Donnie was back into the swing of things before you were fully seated. The rest of the studying became a blur. Truly you didn’t even know if you would be able to remember it all but you got through all the material with Donnie’s help, all 12 fucking chapters. “Anddd that’s about it!” Donnie said tapping the white board he had brought over to write the equations out with you. He had learned quickly you were a visual learner. “With four hours to spare,” you practically weeped as you looked down at your phone. “3 hour nap and then I’ll head there,” your words were slurred from sleep deprivation. Honestly you didn’t know how Donnie could function without sleeping for days on end.

“Back to the couch!” He said half dragging you there as your feet stumbled multiple times. Both of you collapsed onto the couch. “Thanks Donnie, really I appreciate it,” you murmured, snuggling into his side and falling asleep faster than he could reply. If he wasn’t so tired himself he’d be pushing you away, he couldn’t even find himself to be embarrassed, “geez,” was all he could say, closing his eyes as he felt his cheeks rise in heat. Thank god you were already passed out, he didn’t know what he would do if you had seen him blushing! He tried to ignore the feeling of your cheek pressed against his plastron, or how your hair was so soft. He was speaking a mantra in his head just wishing to fall asleep along with you, it took a couple of minutes but he finally did.

You woke up with a start. Something felt wrong and you gasped, waking up Donnie who had his head resting on top of yours. “Wha- what’s wrong?!” He said rubbing his eyes to clear the blurriness. “What time is it?!” You said scrambling for your phone but it wasn’t on the couch. Donnie raised his wrist tech, “you’ve got 30 minutes,” he breathed out and you were running to your things. “Oh my god, I’ve gotta go, thanks again Donnie, see ya later, wish me luck!” And you were out of his lab door, like a whirlwind. “Good luck,” he said even though you were already gone, and he smiled, hoping you’d get a decent grade so you could be happy and get some sleep.

Three hours later you burst into the lab, “HEY-“ Donnie had started to yell thinking it was one of his dumb dumb brothers but stopped once he saw it was you. “Oh Y/n? How’d it go?” He placed down the tech parts he was working on. Removing his gloves and wiping his brow, turning to face you. You had tears in your eyes! “Y/n?” He said softly, and you ran forward lunging for him. “Oomph-“ he was more than surprised thinking you’d be mad if you were crying but he felt you squeeze his torso. “I knew what I was doing!! I’m pretty certain I made a bangin’ grade! Definitely a C+ if not a B!!” You squealed happily as he felt the happy tears pour down your face.

He sighed with relief, thankful that was the reason for the tears. “That’s great to hear Y/n,” he was happy for you. “Thank you so much Donnie, you’re the best!! You’re my hero!” You said your face tilting upwards to look at him with shiny eyes. He gulped, not knowing what to say and feeling overwhelmed and more than a little sheepish at the compliments. “Ah- well- you’re welcome,” he managed to get out. “Do you wanna celebrate with me?? I’ll get anything! Your favorites!” You beamed up at him, still holding him tightly. He couldn’t stop himself, he couldn’t hold it back any longer. His face flushed a dark green and he nodded. More than happy to get his favorite pizza to celebrate your success. “Yeah sure,” he said trying to seem unfazed even though his face felt hot.

You giggled, a slight blush coloring the top of your ears. “I’m on it then!” Your hands slowly letting him go as you turned your back to order the pizza. Donatello’s hands hadn’t moved from his sides but he was clenching them into fists now, resisting the urge to pull you back to him. Oh Galileo was he screwed! He blew out a breath, doing it anyway, pulling your back to meet his plastron as he rested his chin on your head. Trying to act like this was totally normal, he hummed looking down at where you were at with the online order. “Get some cheese sticks too,” he mumbled and you were turning red as you relaxed into his hold, “s-sure!”

Maybe math wasn’t so bad after all… you thought to yourself, especially if you got to study with such a cute genius! You clicked order and closed your phone, moving your head to look upwards as he lifted his chin off of your head to be able to peer down at you. “I think I like math now..” you said a little dumbfounded. Donnie couldn’t help it, he burst into laughter, holding you tightly to him, you were just too cute. “I don’t know, I think I like something else,” Donnie smirked after his laughing subsided, he noticed your burning ears and bit down on his lower lip, thinking you were absolutely adorable.

[sluttyhollow]

I don’t write for UA students but Bakugo and me are the same person and we’d be best friends if I was at UA 😂. I was listening to Bakugo by KVMIL and it just had me thinking about Bakugo x black american bestfriend reader (this has been sitting in my drafts forever lol might as well let it go)

No warnings, just two foreign besties with bad attitudes and terrible language (purely platonic)

Katsuki definitely speaks English, he’s a rich kid, and his parents traveled to the states a lot for work and they used to takes him in the summer. He just refuses to speak English because he thinks it sounds stupid.

The back and forth trips are how he ended up meeting you in the first place the summer between first and second grade. Your parents were working on a collaborative design line focusing on mixing Japanese and African American street fashion styles

Neither of you liked each other. He was loud and you thought his red eyes were creepy. He thought you were a loser and hated the noise your hair made when you walked (it was the beads, he thinks they look “cool or whatever” now though) you guys actually ended up fighting, Mitsuki thought it was funny because Katsuki lost (he started it) she bought you ice cream for winning.

After that day you guys came to an agreement to not speak to each other but by day 3 of vacation you were sharing games and sending each other colored screens on your DSIs. You guys did argue everyday of that summer though, and every day of every summer you spent together until middle school when he started staying in Japan to train.

Fast forward to high school and you still text each other. He’s at UA and you’re at a well known hero school in the states. Both of you are loud mouths with quirks worthy of helping saving lives (yours a quirk reversal/theft quirk that allowed you to reverse a persons quirk or utilize their abilities for a certain amount of time, like toga and all for one mixed).

Let’s just say your school has a sports festival similar to UAs that’s also televised and streamed nationally and internationally which prompts Miruko to want you intern abroad with her. Of course you accept and your school works with UA to get you into a transfer program thus starting your 1 year stent at UA. Now for fun’s sake you didn’t tell Katsuki you were coming to UA so imagine his surprise when all the rest of 1A is talking about some American transfer student and he walks into the common room and sees you sitting there.

“What. What the fuck are you doing here you fucking loser” the rest of 1A is shook, they know he’s an ass but they didn’t think he’d just be mean to new student. Just when they get ready to intervene you respond to him with a “you know you’re happy to see me fucker it’s been like 3 years” and the rest of the class is just like wtf is going on here. Y’all of course explain that you knew each other and that you’re besties. Deku being the only one not surprised considering you’d met him once before.

From then on you too go back into your old ways from childhood but with added addition of training. When you’re not busy with Miruko and him with Jeanist y’all go back to the Bakugo house and eat dinner with Mitsuki and Masaru.

You make him apologize to deku (long before canon) when he tells you what happened during middle school and how the first half of the semester had been. You beat his ass and told him to get over himself (he knew you were right).

You and Deku going feral when he gets hurt, LOV attacks and the three of you have to be put on house arrest by Iida cause y’all get too emotional over one another

Forcing him to class 1A gatherings. Neither of you wanna go but Mina saw you two getting ready to disappear after dinner and dragged y’all to movie night

Katsuki likes American food. Spice levels are just a little higher, flavors are a little more intense than typical Japanese food. You can cook a little bit and help him make American style dinners for everybody sometimes

People think you guys are partners cause of how relaxed you two are around each other but he’s like your brother and you would kiss m*neta before Katsuki

Yeah just two foreign besties (your American friends thought you were lying about your best friend living in Japan all through middle school, they didn’t realize you were serious until you moved and FaceTimed them with Katsuki in the camera)

[mdhwrites]

How would you envision Sasha and Marcy parents without outright making them abusive parents

So I've actually gone at length about Sasha's parents already while defending the concept that trying to blame Sasha's parents for her baggage is actually a really bad point of view that goes against the core messages of the show. To reiterate though: I think Sasha's parents likely were very soft with her. When assholes complain about parents coddling their kids, they're thinking of the Waybrights. They called her special, their princess and such a brave girl. They tried their best to make her feel like everything was fine, even though they hated each other.

This made when they got a divorce all the more surprising to Sasha than it already could have been because from her point of view, she was already living in a fantasy. Worse yet is that suddenly all of the nice words had a strange taste to them. She wasn't their little darling, it was now Daddy's darling. Mommy's little girl. They were still sweet and cared about her but that care very well could have been twisted by the hate they had for each other. They wanted Sasha to make sure that she picked one of them specifically. That she had a favorite.

This isn't good, I've never tried to claim Sasha's parents were paragons, simply that they were only flawed. In this interpretation, we do see where Sasha got examples for how her behavior would be. Manipulation and a fragility of connection. That she would do anything to keep those close to her, those she loved, even platonically, right there so this never happened to her again. She saw the follies of her parents and walked right along their path due to the fear she herself had because of it. Mixed with her narcissistic behavior and it's a dangerous combination.

But as always: It was still her choice to walk down that path. These are not parents who told her that the only sort of friendship you could have was a controlling, manipulative one. They told her she could be anything she wanted and she chose to be a queen so that the only real emotional harm she'd ever known would never happen again.

Okay, now for Marcy's which... Unfortunately are much, MUCH harder to crack. All we know is that they were willing to uproot for the sake of the future of the family and Marcy but Marcy is the most underdeveloped of the trio. We don't really get a lot of depth out of her. We know she's got kind enough parents that despite her likely having broken three Switches in as many of years, she still keeps getting new ones, same goes for anything else's she broken due to being clumsy, and that they are a bit distant since her connection with her friends are better than her connection to her parents, hence why she chooses them over her family.

Now a quick wrench in all of this: This was their last year of middle school. The trio were all about to have to face High School and so the move wouldn't have been severe as it was any other year minus when leaving Elementary school. I would like to say that Marcy's parents are caring enough to have taken that into account. Yes they were uprooting Marcy but Marcy didn't have a lot to lose and would have had to deal with a new environment regardless.

SO my pitch is that they're old fashioned but with kind hearts. They don't get their daughter and they sometimes push Marcy to join clubs or the like but they don't force anything on her. We don't actually even know if they were strict about grades due to Marcy's natural exceptionalism but it also doesn't matter. Just the fact that they couldn't properly engage with, and probably didn't much about, Marcy's interests made a rift between them. Money tried to fill it as they made sure she had her games but her father is working most of the time and honestly, modern America says that both of her parents may have been working. It made for a lonely environment where a lot of their time spent with Marcy was trying to make sure they raised their daughter to be capable and kind.

And that is what we get when we meet Marcy in Amphibia. When she had to step up, she was ready for it. They may not have been able to provide for her emotionally but they made sure that she helped as much as she humanly could, made sure that she could take care of herself in a new environment and also instilled morals in her that made her mistake, her choice made out of sheer terror, devour her from the inside out.

Neither set of parents are perfect but neither are the Boonchuys... Or the Plantars... Or Anne. NO ONE is perfect in Amphibia but none of them deserve to be condemned either because they all genuinely care. By Amphibia's books, so long as you care about others, you are deserving of a chance yourself. Even Andrias deserves a chance at a quiet life when for recognizing that other people mattered, the thing The Core stood against most of all.

And that's why I give Marcy and Sasha's parents the same chance every other character in Amphibia gets.

Minus Chuck because he grows tulips and is perfect for it.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[harlstiel]

***There will be spoilers for the Teen Wolf Movie below. Because I, like an idiot, actually watched the damn thing.***

Everything wrong with Teen Wolf: The Movie

• Eli's Mother plothole. Who is she? Idfk. Personally, I want it to be Braeden. He was born somewhere around the s3b/s4 mark as the movie is 13 years after s6.

• I'm not a Sterek person. I was actually extremely (still kinda am) against Sterek for a very long time. But this movie? I'm questioning a lot of things. What are the complicated feelings, Derek? Hmm? Oh wait, that's right. He can't answer me because he's fucking dead.

• While we're on the topic. Why, Jeff? Why. Not only did he die of fire (like the rest of his fucking family), but he died in front of his son. Derek Hale allowed his son to watch him die. I'm not saying Derek wouldn't die for Eli (because he absolutely would), but to traumatize him like that? No. The man who was kidnapped, tortured, groomed, sexually assaulted at 15, forced to kill the girl he loved, whose family was burned inside their own home by the woman who molested him... was killed off by burning him with hellfire.

• NOBODY making a move to stop Derek from sacrificing himself in the first place? Scott just stared. Stood there. Did nothing. Wtf? Even though Jordan could've just held Void himself, like, dude. You're a Hellhound. He's a werewolf/demon thing. You were destined to kill bigger.

• Derek allowed Scott to take in Eli? Excuse? The man who hates being a werewolf and his 17(?) year old 10th grade girlfriend who died before Eli was born, and who just so happens to be related to the woman who molested him and murdered his family? Yeah, no. Why not his perfectly capable(sorta) and healthy(physically, not mentally) uncle, cousin and sister. Or at least his Grandpa Noah, Grandma Melissa or Uncle Chris. (I'm a Peter/Chris person. Sue me.). These people have been in Beacon Hills and has known him his entire life. Scott met him once when he was three.

• What happened to Stydia? Like, you can't tell me Stiles just allowed her to walk out that door without talking in some way? He loved her for fucks sake.

• Jordan and Malia? I'm not saying it's bad. It's not, I actually kinda like it. But where did it come from? No buildup whatsoever. Just BOOM sex scene.

• Liam gets like, 5 mins screen time. Despite preparing to take on the role of Alpha in s6, he's like a side character put there just to be there. He slayed those 5 minutes tho holy shit.

• Liam doesn't say a single word to Mason. Mason doesn't say a single word to Liam. Why? They were best friends and had this seemingly unbreakable bond in the show but now it's like mom and dad are fighting and don't acknowledge each others existence.

• Speaking of Mason, why is he (a gay black man) a cop? This could've been interpreted as either good or bad depending on how you personally want to take it, but during the time this movie was in production, the BLM movement was still pretty big.

• It's an entire game of 'Where's Waldo' but instead of Waldo actually being there, Waldo is both a giant motherfucking plothole and multiple people. Where is Corey? Where is Theo? Where is Cora? Where is Braeden? Where is Kira? Where is Isaac? WHERE. IS. STILES?

• On the Isaac and Stiles Topic, they're the two that should've been there. Isaac had the Nogitsune at the end of season 3, and took it with him to France. Why do Hikari and Liam have it in FUCKING JAPAN? How'd it get there? Why do they have it? What happened to Isaac?

• Stiles. Where is he. You're telling me that the one person who probably knew the Nogitsune more than it knew itself, wasn't at the battle. You're telling me that Stiles, the one person able to out-fox a fucking fox on multiple occasions when he was FUCKING 17 wasn't there? In all his F.B.I. glory? Because ehe could've had Cora, Braeden, Isaac and Kira in tow, and showed up in the final battle guns blazing, killing the Nogitsune, and saving his pack in his tactical F.B.I vest fresh off a secret important case like sorry I'm late, had shit to do? Then Eli could've met his father's beta, his (possible, cause I love Derek and Braeden) mother, AND the badass F.B.I. guy whose jeep he steals 24/7 and had saved his father on multiple occasions? (Bcus it's confirmed Derek talks about Stiles to Eli) And a cutesy pack scene to finish it off? (With maybe some Stira, Stisaac and/or Stora cause he showed up with them and could be dating one (or all) of them)

• Each antagonist of the movie has (or at least a reason to have) a vendetta against Stiles. We know all about the Nogitsune. Harris hated Stiles' guts, albeit for no particular reason. Even Allison could've blamed Stiles for her death in some way (not that she would, of course.) It reads as though it was written for DOB but when he didn't want to do it, they decided not to rewrite it as such.

• Why Mr. Harris in the first place-? Like, he was one of the sacrifices in S3A, so surely the NEMETON would've known he didn't actually die. And the fact that he still has beef with them just blows my mind :/

《I'll add more as I think of them》

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

unbelievable.. Theft and stealimg quastions.. Also umm 1, 12 and/or 20 for fabbylaris please and thank you :3 whichever question you wanna answer

1) who fell first, and who fell harder?

fabby for both. i know this to be true. honestly, if it wasn't for fabby falling for her to begin with- and making an effort to get closer to her than coworkers probably had ought to be- i don't know if solaris ever would have fallen back. it takes until fabby enters the picture for solaris to actually learn that romance is something that she would be willing to work for and care about.

this isn't to say that solaris didn't fall painfully hard. honestly, the only reason fabby fell harder is because of her deep and horribly repressed yearning that threatened to explode out of her chest every time she was in the privacy of her own home. but- as someone who headcanons solaris as a demiromantic who... doesn't really have friends- the lane change from platonic to romantic attraction hit her like a freight train.

imagine some late-thirties-early-forties 6'2 horrifyingly scarred woman experiencing the equivalent of a grade school crush for the first time. if it didn't feel so good it would be fucked up. you mean to tell her this happens to 'regular' people all the time?? what's wrong with them???

20) their absolute favorite thing about each other in the whole wide world.

if they both have to pick just one?? i honestly think they'd have the same answer, funnily enough. that the other cared enough about them to give them a chance...

in any universe in which fabbylaris is possible, i would imagine zor is out of the picture- either permanently, or that they're just not living under their all-seeing eye anymore. i think that one of fabby's biggest concerns about their relationship (whether she's consciously aware of it or not) is how zor molded her into exactly what they wanted her to be.

fabby well and truly thought she was trapped under zor's thumb forever. she didn't have a choice. her every decision and action and thought needed to revolve around them. her loyalty- first and foremost- was to them...

but solaris was always there for her. a hand on her shoulder. an advocate once she was too far gone to vouch for herself anymore. a breath of fresh air. a constant reminder that the way they were treating her wasn't right. wasn't normal. wasn't loving. she would fight against zor of all people, for... her sake? no one would have done that...

as for solaris? there's a reason why she doesn't have a lot of friends. she's very... leery of the way people perceive her. she's spent her entire life dealing with people who are either terrified of her, hate her on the basis of nothing, or undervalue her when she damn well knows her worth.

... and it wasn't that fabby wasn't like that in the beginning. the two of them couldn't have been any less alike. but fabby... changed. it took a lot of time, but she fought through her pride and grew to outwardly respect her and her work. and eventually, to love her. to teach her that there's such a thing as love worth clinging to...

she kind of resolved to the fact that no one who started with a bad impression of her on the basis of nothing would ever change... that there was no reason to try convincing them to change. but fabby broke her expectations in a way that kind of shattered her worldview at the time.

12) one to three songs that remind you of them.

okay i. i don't listen to a lot of music. i needed to scrape the most Normie songs off my spotify playlist because all i listen to is gamer music.... and unfortunately there's not a lot of gamer music. that's also yuri.

i've mentioned this before, but If I Didn't Have You from sympathy jones is like. the peak fabbylaris campy villain duet song. to ME. and i'm right.

i also kind of think Wherever We Are Now from. cassette beasts. is a pretty good pick. when it comes to their shared theme of abandoning pretty much everything they know to allow themselves the ability to be together. then it's sort of like... now what? crafting a new life for themselves but its oukay... because they have each other... aaugh

[coffee-counts-as-a-meal]

warning for tlou ep 4 spoilers (and TLOU Part 2) but:

not to be horribly meta on main but I'm mainly screaming over how this episode exemplified how well this story was adapted to a television format, ESPECIALLY regarding the themes that ND has repeatedly stated he wanted to explore in the TLOU Part 2 that maybe didn't quite land the way he meant them to

(Benioff and Weiss and their hatred for eighth grade book reports should be taking copious notes rn lol)

I remember when the second game came out and there was this big to-do about how the perspective towards "villains" had changed - not just in the fact that you spend half the game playing as Abby (Joel's killer), but that the developers had actually given names to all the NPCs that end up as cannon fodder for the player. The AI was supposed to be so advanced that for every enemy you killed as either Abby or Ellie, the NPC would beg for their life or curse you as you make the final blow or whatever, and then when their NPC friends found them you would hear their wailing and crying out for "Beck" or "Miranda" or whomever the fuck and the whole idea was that it was supposed to make you the player really think about the implications of taking a human life and the cycle of revenge yadda yadda yadda.

Which is a GREAT CONCEPT, but I just remember how...tedious it became, after a while. TLOU Part 2 got a lot of flak for a lot of reasons (some more valid than others imo) but I personally think its impossibly difficult to instill the lesson of "taking a life is something that carries real emotional weight" through the medium of a video game where you are mowing down LITERALLY HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE. That's just par for the course - you end up killing so many people that after a while their names mean nothing, BECAUSE THERE'S NO WAY TO CONTINUE THE GAME WITHOUT DOING SO. (I remember one reviewer talking about how fatigued they were with it - they didn't want to be killing all these people and stabbing dogs and they as a player were screaming through their fingers at the decisions Ellie was making to continue down this cycle of violence but there was no way to continue the game without going through it, even though the point had already been hammered home over and over again to the point where it was exhausting, we get it, killing should not be this easy but this is a video game for fuck's sake).

And maybe that was also the point was to make the player wonder how some characters (like Joel, maybe) eventually become so numb to the concept of taking life, but I just remember it being a point in Part 2 that ultimately just...kind of missed the mark.

And BOY OH BOY did the show hit it in this episode.

Literally, TLOU Part 2 wanted to make its point by naming hundreds upon hundreds of NPCs and TLOU Episode 4 managed to hit it with a single character named Bryan.

I think it also helps that when Joel is shooting back at the "hunters" (idk what they're calling them in the show canon but that's what they were at the game) we don't really see them die onscreen, so it makes Bryan's eventual demise even starker. But holy fuck hearing him plead with Ellie and Joel for his life hit so much harder than it ever did in the game. Hearing him try to bargain with a little girl, screaming for his mom only to go silent...I freaking love Joel and even then in that moment I felt that horror and slight...idek what to call it, not even disgust but just the moral grayness of it all made my stomach churn.

Ellie's tears felt so deserved in that moment. Even Joel's moment of hesitation (fuck you Pedro Pascal I hate how good you are at EVERYTHING) even as you know this must have been a thing he's done thousands of times before and even as necessary you might consider Bryan's death to be. Even as justified it may have been to kill an enemy in that moment, "It doesn't get any easier" is something that rings true. I believe it.

tldr; another banger episode from a team that knows what the fuck a theme is and how to tie that into your story with subtlety and nuance and FUCK EVERYONE AT NAUGHTY DOG AND HBO I CAN'T KEEP GETTING MY HEART BROKEN FOR ANOTHER MONTH AND A HALF

[kkangkkangie]

Professor Headcanons

Albus Dumbledore

he’s very accomplished in terms of wizarding academics, having won nearly every accolade there is. but—but, he’s also not averse in using like “muggle” techniques. the reason he even matched up against Voldemort is (cause I guarantee you) this person pulled out some muggle warfare tactic that caught him off-guard.

✨weaponized ignorance✨ (like seriously everyone knows he’s a genius, but like gets away with saying stuff like “nitwit” and “blubber”) he feels like a Luna kinnie at times

he switched out the smart three piece suit when (1) he no longer needed to impress Grindewald & (2) realized wizard robes were like blanket hoodies

“to be a wizen is a right, but to use magic is a privilege” 

Minerva McGonagall

this lady has the wizen equivalent of a physics PhD & she did it all with grace and sophistication. do not mess with her—there’s a reason she was chosen to wrangle a bunch of kids who think rules are like glowsticks (i.e. meant to be broken).

this is that one professor who grades your exams in one day & posts grades immediately. Alternatively, she somehow never misses a question. either she has the world’s greatest spell for grading or she’s just that good. 

she’s the de-facto leader of the faculty (other than Dumbledore, but even he defers to her at times) + the stern parent that makes sure that the emo child (snape) gets social interactions or botany hyperfixater (sprout) doesn’t create a breed of plants that eats the students, etc. 

“words are meaningless if there is no willpower driving it—conversely, one should not speak unless one wants to will something to reality”

Severus Snape

that asocial genius trope. he hated eating at the faculty table in front of students so he didn’t. until came Celaena and Harry Co., then for the sake of keeping his sanity intact, he did (he even does a little headcount of his students & panics if one of them is missing)

he wears the same robes for a reason. they keep him cool in the heat of summer & somehow provides insulation for the cold dungeon winters. it works. he wears.

he learned that simply not requiring textbooks in his class (or at least one pertaining to brewing) was better than losing his shit everytime he saw the terrible instructions. in his first few years of teaching, he set 4 textbooks on fire. 

“there is nothing worse than incompetency masquerading as confidence” 

Pomona Sprout

acts like she’s on five coffees a day even though she doesn’t drink any. this lady has the strength and energy of a whole farm—she could plant all day & be the happiest person on the planet. she’s the strongest faculty member (stronger than Hooch, which allows for some fun challenges when inebriated) 

she experiments a lot! like she has several notebooks dedicated to recording the minute changes in the properties of plants—with the aid of Snape’s potion skills. the two singlehandedly came up with a new set of ingredients for seasonal potions for the Hospital Wing.

loves to talk with students outside of classes (oftentimes, dragging them to the greenhouses) & it really didn’t matter what house you were in. most students found her the easiest to approach from all houses and years.

“plants are like miniature humans! but I do think they listen much better than you lot”

Aurora Sinistra

she’s that one teacher that’s super hard at the beginning, but as you get used to her teaching methods—best teacher ever. the reason that students in arithmancy usually get a minimum of an A? it’s her. she taught them well.

best tea brewer ever. periodt. Snape’s a close close second, but there’s something about the infusion of moonlight that makes hers legendary. the two often share recipes together—a habit from their years at Hogwarts (although, back then, it was mostly recipes for their friends b/c wow were they bad at taking care of themselves)

she tries to keep homework as small as possible b/c it’s not possible to wait until the stars are out to do them sometimes, but it means that classes are more often. she’s the first teacher to adjust the schedule based on the seasons—less classes, more hw in winter & vice versa in summer season)

“every myths and legends can be ascribed to the beauty of outer universe—we must not forget”

Filius Flitwick

just to start, big aristotle kinnie. he has the aristotelian physics PhD equivalent in the wizarding world (definite big brain). he’s the only other person who can really get technical with McGonagall—both of them are menaces at faculty gatherings.

he has the best manners—not just like table manners, but like how to engage in socialite behavior expertise in multiple customs. he’s practically eligible to be a proper diplomat, but he chose to teach charms because he practically becomes like a little child again, wide-eyed and excited.

he has a very structured manner of teaching b/c he realized how often he’d go on tangents. his older students have the privilege to listen to his rabbit holes before descending down into their own rabbit holes too. 

“brilliance is subjective! every idea is brilliant if you are so enamored by it”

Cuthbert Binns

ghosty man who continued to teach even after death. he became a true icon of living history cause not only did he teach Riddle, McGonagall, Moriarty, and even Harry Potter—he lived through them & he did it all half-asleep. respect.

has no respect for wizen legend and myths—he’s much more rather interested in wizen fact that align with Muggle mythology and legends. there’s an element that he is able to prove and extrapolate—it gets too much with wizen technicalities. 

this man has two office hours. you can either go ask for help and gain a whole lecture on your topic or you can join a group sleepfest. some students with insomnia noticed being able to sleep with his voice as white noise. truly a cure for them.

“we [historians] are not seers; wizen merely have an unfortunate habit of making mistakes and forgetting about them”

[sunstranded]

INTJ: Urges

I don't know if it's an introvert (in general) or introverted intuition dominant urge or something specific to INTJ but I've been having 2 urges: 1) create and perfect my own system; 2) deleting everything I've said or made that I no longer want to be associated with.

By system, if I were to specify or relate a real world thing to it, possibly something similar to Plato's or Nietzsche's work that doesn't end up in the self-help section of a bookstore.

There is this appeal to be so clear and concise in your manner of writing that kills philosophy for me (yes, I am that type of INTJ). It might be because I value interpretation, pluralism, and pragmatic effect of words more than being logically true. Stereotypically that's more INFJ but I don't have this inherent need to consider what the majority or what others value nor percision/accuracy of my meaning (which is very Fe-Ti). I want something useful but formless. I prefer it when philosophy was liberated and untamed. I did not enjoy analytical philosophy because of the desperate attempt to establish some correctness for the sake of clarity.

I don't like that. There's a beauty in miscommunication. There's something inherently poetic with the journey of understanding something your own way or understanding someone in their work amidst the fog of stylistic writing. There's something so timeless about it. Writing a string of words that is true no matter where, when, and what has this empowering and liberating feel to it.

That is where my love-hate relationship with philosophy teeters towards hating it. The enforced standard in thought. It kills it. That's when Plato said writing will be the end of philosophical discourse. I believe he is right. That is the curious case of the obvious. When things are taken at face value because they are so clear, philosophical discourse is left for the crazy and overthinking.

I understand the use of such a standard, which makes me hate it more. The purpose is to have a guide to tell you where you can improve. But the means of using metrics to gauge that is all the more annoying. I'd rather have someone grill my ideas in verbatim than a silent grade on a paper.

Moreover, I am glad that generative AI had caused people to distrust written work and require that verbatim interaction again. Granted, those can be draining but in a way it's exhilarating. It tells me in a sensory manner that makes sense to me that this is what I could work on, this is the part I could improve.

Anyway, that's enough catharsis and declaration of my qualms for one post. Moving on to the other urge: deleting everything that is now irrelevant.

I think it's of the INTJ-brand to seem so assured and certain that you're probably irrefutable or can no longer be convinced. I think we just come off as such because of our delivery, expression, and the obvious thoughtfulness in what we say. Despite that, there is still generous room to hear out others and understand better.

This is why I want to delete a lot of things I used to say but no longer agree with. It feels like clutter I don't need to see or remember. I've been told by several to keep it so I can remember where I am now and appreciate my growth. They're sometimes right but I find myself appreciating my present self by looking at my present or latest work.

Whenever I see some post I wrote just months ago I think I die a bit inside. It's not cringe, I'm too based for that. I think it's the blatant reminder that I could have done better at that time. I should have known better. It's the golden ticket for the Ni-Fi loop for me. I hate it.

also it was great advice to brain dump my ideas in several different media, it's a catharsis I never knew I'd need.

[datastate]

(sending this as an ask because it got WAYY too long to be a reply whoops) i really like your opinions on the routes!! especially on the ais waugh…. i am planning on playing kanna's routes whenever i eventually replay this summer + i am excited to see what they entail…. but yeah overall i really like your thoughts and man do i need to replay yttd T_T it has been so long. (+ this is where the reply turned into a small ramble about qtaro because the autism) plus your comment about how the main games have gone + the qtaro thing. sorry i am ill about him. glad to see someone who understands his intent there because although i am not active in fandom ANYMORE i used to see so many people absolutely hating him for that (<- like obviously not the best way of going about things but he had intentions. okay?) (also i would like to make the comment of although in 8th grade i had intense hyperfixation on alice, ever since my first playthrough in 6th grade (HOW HAS IT BEEN THAT LONG?!) qtaro has + always will be my favorite sorry society….). i still remember when 3-1b came out + so many people were like "oh maybe qtaro is not deplorable" meanwhile i was over here #1 qtaro fan sobbing. sorry this is so long

(in response to this ask! also, for my own sake, i've broken up replying this into little sections :] <3 but i don't mind at all!!!)

REPLAYING YTTD

oho...!! i do think even a general replay (without seeing other routes) is really worthwhile to get a better feel for the characters & see how you can recontextualize things they're doing/have said at the time... i love combing through to see what nao and kai were up to in particular just before the main games <3

while i do think there was more that nankidai could've stood to do to differentiate the two routes particularly to make kanna & shin's separate routes feel like an actual choice, i do think that what small things are changed are still worthwhile & cool to see! i hope you enjoy your replay!!! :D

Q-TARO

YEAH exactly... i'm really sad that it's taken until his literal death to truly appreciate him as a character when more morally ambiguous characters like... well. shin, keiji, and even kai (though i'd honestly argue that most people don't see kai for who he is, you know; rather they place emphasis on his attractive appearance...) -- what they've done & how they behave are excused because they're, frankly, thin enough to care abt.

i've gone on about this before, so i won't linger much more than i need to, but i find it so strange that most people don't seem to recognize that - if not in the moment, i can understand that everyone's emotions are in a swirl. even the player's, but in chapter two when he says he felt a connection w kai - q-taro is autistic. and this definitely makes how he approached things in the first main game all the more understandable, personally... being so blunt about it when he'd settled on it being the clear solution, he even outright says that he doesn't want to see any of them just resign themselves right away to being voted out! & then we learn in ch3 as well that he's also experienced suicidal ideation which just lends so much more value to what he says...!! he doesn't want anyone to die, but certainly not with the belief that it's the only option they had. he wants them to at least have the chance to fight, just in case. and he's willing to hold himself to the same standard!

of course, first impressions mean a lot, but i feel like people saw this and completely missed the entirety of chapter 2 where he quickly warms up to gin afterward & even apologizes to sara for all she's had to deal with, despite it not being his fault, and expressing that he wishes there was something he could do even irt miley... he cares so much abt the kids within the group, even if it takes a lot of courage to support strangers when he knows he has other kids waiting at home for him... he still tries his damnedest, you know? i feel like there's something about that you have to respect. even when he's attempting to leave, you visibly see how conflicted he is about it & it's why sara can pick up on it so early, because he doesn't want to do this, it just feels like the only option... which. well. there's something to say about how gin's the one who's freely handing out tokens and yet q-taro goes to someone like sara first. someone who's been steadily pushed into the figurehead of the group, who is clearly strategic... versus someone who resembles the people q-taro's trying to get back to. hmmm. i sure wonder what the implications are here. (& i have a post for you. that you might enjoy... i've been meaning to write it for a while but i forget. but the idea is there.)

but. yeah... they didn't give him much room to grow in their mind after this point, which is so disappointing & definitely created a very toxic space. beyond that, it played into general southern stereotypes of him being the only homophobic/transphobic one, which i honestly often find treatment of to be in poor taste (it can be used well in stories, but you shouldn't just. throw bigotry on characters simply because you hate them...) -- but also just. blatantly untrue?

even just. everything about his treatment of people in general being so understanding once you explain something to him, or his desire to be a good person worthy of looking up to (which is why it doubly wrecks him when he sees himself become disabled/suicidal in the hospital, because he's become such a rotten person and he feels it and it's a terrible, terrible cycle) for the orphanage kids & to prove something to the parents who abandoned him that he's still worthy of being loved too... he believes in equivalent exchange in social dynamics, only ever giving out what you can take, just... in what world would he be so insensitive?

and this isn't even bringing up the fact that he has slightly longer than shoulder-length hair + nonetheless treats kai/mishima with a lot of respect and care even with them both generally being considered (physically, as well as in their demeanor) strange. combined with the fact that he relates to kai on the basis of being "lonely" rather than "loved" for what's unchangeable about them... there's so much there to read into. not just with autism or ptsd, but. gestures. transgenderism, being mixed, so on. things that sara had people to help support her with prior to the death game, or that she lacked altogether (if she's fully japanese)

but i digress! i'm glad that ch3-1 skirted some hatred toward him, but i definitely agree -- he's such a well-rounded characters even prior to that & it deserved to be acknowledged...!!