#also if you were tagged you don't have to do this game if you don't wish to!

[celestie0]

gojo satoru x reader | college au [18+]

kickoff ch.12 how you get the girl

ᰔ pairing. college au - soccer player! gojo x film major! reader

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is the most popular guy on your college campus. he's tall, funny, hot, not to mention he's the most talented soccer forward the school has seen in years. but he's also a frat dude, which puts him in a world very different from your own, as he spends most of his nights partying while you spend most of yours working on your annoying film major assignments. but when he reaches out to you for a favor, you realize that helping him out might have something in it for you too.

ᰔ warnings/tags. 18+, fem reader, fluff, angst, smut, college au, fraternities, sororities, partying, drinking/alcohol, romance, jealousy, pining, slow burn, opposites to lovers, friends to lovers, she falls first he falls harder, gojo being an idiot, marijuana use, sexism, sexual harassment (verbal only)

ᰔ chapter. 12/x (probably 18)

ᰔ words. 11.3k

a/n. man the color scheme for this chapter is kinda giving BRAT lolol...i mean gojo IS brat. anywho, i don't have much to say at the beginning of this chapter but i do have a LOT to say at the end of it sooo see y'all at the bottom!! hope u enjoy. also BIG THANK YOU to @whereflowerswenttodie who beta read parts of this chapter for me n convinced me not to scrap it lol

nav. masterlist

☾·̩͙꙳ moodboard no.1 :: ♬.*ﾟplaylist

11:03am you: hi! 11:03am you: good luck today 11:03am you: incase i don’t see you

11:05am Gojo Satoru: Why wouldn’t you? Aren’t you gonna be on the field for your newsletter shots?

11:07am you: i mean yes but idk where i’m gonna be stationed so 11:07am you: it might not be on UTokyo’s side of the field

11:08am Gojo Satoru: Okay then I’ll look for you before the game starts

11:10am you: no pls don’t. coach yaga thinks i distract you. i don’t want to get yelled at again. he scares me :(

11:12am Gojo Satoru: Haha you’re silly 11:13am Gojo Satoru: East side entrance at 2 11:13am Gojo Satoru: Be there

11:14am you: or be square?

11:15am Gojo Satoru: Yea whatever shape you wanna be in is fine cutie

It’s a bright sunny day outside, perfectly blue sky with a scattering of fluffy clouds seen outside the window of your shared room in your apartment, and you realize spring is fully here from the way birds chirp past the glass. You’re stuffing your camera case full of chilled Kodak film rolls, your last stash left, and it’s the last piece of equipment you pack before slinging the strap over your shoulder and heading out the door.

Mina had offered to give you a ride to the stadium since your car’s still at the shop, but you’re happy you opted for the bumpy bus ride and although you come close to low-grade concussions from the bang of your head to the window at every other speed bump, the music in your ears while someone else is operating a public transport vehicle helps you think creatively before shooting shots.

It was surprise enough that Mina of all people was going to this game, and when you questioned her about it in the morning, she looked at you like you were absurd to assume anyone from UTokyo wouldn’t be at this game, and sure enough, it’s all anyone on Instagram has been repping on their stories or talking about in the bustling minutes before lectures. Even Utahime was going to this game, and she hates all intercollegiate sports. You knew the game was a big deal, given the way Coach Yaga was yelled at via email by the Dean of UTokyo to make sure the team wins today because a multimillion dollar Nike sponsorship would be greenlit by the prospect (for some reason you were cc’d in an email chain among divisional higher-ups, but you weren’t opposed to snooping in on conversations that were entirely outside of your tax bracket).

It’s because it’s the second to last home game before the season ends, and apparently this has been statistically the best season the UTokyo D1 Men’s Soccer team has played since the new millenia. No pressure to the players on that fact, but failure wasn’t much of an option for them anymore. 

And you can feel the stakes the second you step inside the stadium. Packed would be an understatement, there were people flooding the aisles, overbooked for the sake of the university pocketing an extra buck no doubt, but spectators could care less since they were able to at least get in on the basis of that irresponsibility in the first place, despite the stadium’s capacity having long been reached before the pregame festivities even start. Banners and signs drape over railings with the school’s striking blue and golden colors, every single replay screen is lit up and brightly pixelated at every north, south, east, and west entrance for inclusive viewing. As you pass VIP security and make it into the lower field-level entry, the scattered chants from the crowd amplify in volume and you almost wince a little to yourself from the noise. The stadium felt like a living, breathing entity, pulsing with the collective heartbeat of everyone inside. 

You’ve never been more overstimulated in your life, except instead of finding it frightening, it was electrifying. And for once, you think you can understand what an athlete must feel when playing on their own home turf surrounded by those that are wholeheartedly rooting for them.

Hana is quick to spot you, panic clear across her face as she regards you with a couple pages with your assigned vantage points, a rushed briefing session, and then she’s darting down the sidelines to make sure equipment is set up appropriately where needed. She’s understaffed, given you told Utahime about Kai’s little intervention last week and she made a nasty point to the university (and possibly a handful of legal threats) and they relented in firing him. So now the three of you were down a photographer, and the extra work shows in the instructions she gave you as you skim the sheets. 

A glance at your phone tells you it’s close to 2pm, and your eyes take in the expanse of green on the field. UTokyo’s players practice kicking shots off to the right goal post, while YCU’s players practice shots off to the left. You can’t spot where Gojo is, but you faithfully head down to the East Side entrance like he asked you to. 

When you round the corner, you almost crash right into an Ichiko mascot, but swiftly dodge, and then you stop in your tracks when you see Gojo standing right at the concrete entrance. He’s leaning back against the adjacent wall, arms crossed at his chest, and he’s stretching his neck side to side with a creased brow, an intense look in his eyes, lost in serious thought, scanning the wall across from him like he’s mapping out plays in his head. 

When you approach him and catch the corner of his eyesight, he leans off the wall and flashes you one of his so extremely charmed to see you grins on reflex, and suddenly there’s nothing your senses seem to pick up on except him. Like everything else around you just disappears.

“Hey, you,” he says when he comes up to you, and you walk him like a dog back to a corner that’s tucked further away from noises and sights. You lean your back against the wall now, the coolness of concrete seeping through the fabric of your shirt, and he stands a step in front of you. Your hands toy with the strap of your camera.

“Are you ready to win today?” you ask him, and look off to the right into the flourishing seats that are still being filled to the brim, “clearly there’s no pressure.”

He breathes in deep, and releases it slowly, like there really was tension to relieve. “We’ve got no choice but to win.”

“Is that something Coach Yaga says to you guys often?” you ask him, because the man recited the same thing about five times in that email chain. “Also, apparently you take years off of his life.” Another thing he recited about five times in that email chain.

Gojo only addresses what he wants to address, as per usual. “Yeah, it’s something he says to us often.” 

“So,” you say, “what did you want to talk about?”

He looks at you puzzled, tilting his head to the side. “Nothing. I just wanted to see you.”

It’s hard to assume that he didn’t have something to talk about with the intention of telling you to meet him here, because this is the same place you confessed to him a few weeks ago, and so is also the place he so painfully rejected you. But maybe he doesn’t think about these kinds of things as much as you do. “I see.”

His tongue pokes to his cheek as he studies your anticipating expression, and then he sighs, his shoulders slumping slightly. “What are we doing? I mean, I like you, and you like me too, at least I hope you still do. Why don’t we—…why don’t we just give it a go already? I don’t see how we can move forward if you won’t at least let me take you out on a date.”

Your hands stop fidgeting with your camera strap from his words, and you lick your lips, suddenly unable to keep eye contact with him so your gaze drifts down to his chest in front of you. His uniform is clean, no smudges of dirt or grass, just pure white fabric underneath heat-pressed blue and golden accents, and of course, that signature number 10. You’re sure he’s all you’ll ever think of when you see that number now for the rest of your life. 

You know when you want something so bad you don’t know what to do once you have it? Because it almost seems too good to be true? 

“I just wanted to let stuff between us breathe for a little bit,” you confess, “it’s just, it was a lot to deal with. Being around you when I thought you didn’t want me the way I wanted you. I don’t know if this is odd to say, and maybe I’m overthinking it, but I just feel like somewhere along the way, I kind of…forgot who you were for a little bit.” This kind of vulnerability would have you running away with your tail between your legs with anyone else, but not with him. Not after everything. 

His expression softens, melting away that confrontational energy he had earlier, and he nods slowly. He opens his mouth to speak, but he can’t seem to find words. The presence of them is there, though, you can feel them. But what good are his thoughts if not voiced? 

“I just wanted to spend a little bit of time getting to know you again, I guess.” You squeeze your arm in reassurance of yourself because he wasn’t giving it to you. You let out an awkward laugh. “I don’t really know what I’m saying right now, to be honest.”

You can tell he’s at a crossroads, and you think back to this week and his efforts to get you to open up to him again. You know how he feels right now, because it’s exactly how you felt when he rejected you. Like when someone is so close, yet so far, you can feel that they’re within arms reach but never truly. And they’re slipping away for some reason that you may never know, but all you can do is assume that it’s a fault of your own. You’re not really sure what he can do to make you feel secure about this whole thing anymore, and you can see the slight panic in his eyes when he realizes that too.

“I don’t mind waiting,” he tells you, rushed with a desperation entirely contrary to his words, “what’s a week or two when I want to spend a lot more of those with you anyways.” But he takes a deep breath, like he’s already mentally preparing himself for an agonizing wait in his head.

There’s a sound over the stadium speakers, something technical and sporty and goes entirely over your head in dismissal, but to Gojo it seems to have a different effect, as he’s suddenly attentive and stands up straighter, that focused expression on his face from earlier resurfacing. You realize he needs to get back to the field. 

“Can we continue this conversation after the game?” he asks you hastily, already turning towards the center of the stadium. And he adds an obligatory, “sorry.”

“Yeah, sure,” you quickly agree, suddenly feeling like you’re taking up his time. 

He gives you a small smile, unsure in its presentation but pure in its intention. But he can only take one step towards the field before you reach out and pinch the fabric of his jersey to keep him still. He feels the tug of it and fully faces you once again. 

“Um. Just a sec,” you say, “I have something to give you before your game.”

“Oh?” he looks at you with interest, “I fucking love things.” 

“You have to close your eyes though.”

“…what is the thing…” He squints at you with a what are you up to expression.

“Just close your eyes!” you snap at him.

“Okay, okay, jeez,” he holds his hands up in front of him in surrender, shaking his head to get his hair out of his face and then he closes his eyes. “You’re scary as hell sometimes. Excuse me for being cautious.”

You roll your eyes, useless because he doesn’t see it, and then take a step towards him. You cup his jaw with the palm of your hand, his cheek twitching slightly from the unexpected contact, and then you raise on your tiptoes to press your lips to his cheek. It’s short and sweet with the sound of a peck.

“For good luck,” you whisper, then you quickly lower yourself back onto your heels, take a step back and tuck some strands of hair behind your ear. The ground suddenly interests you.

He opens his eyes, blinking a few times with shock and his hand comes up to brush the tips of his fingers against the spot you kissed him, and then his gaze goes comically dazed when he reaches out to hold you. “Alright, c’mere you,” he says, closing his eyes and puckering his lips as he leans down to kiss you but you laugh and push his face away.

“No no no, only on the cheek for now,” you say with a small laugh.

He does nothing to restrain his frustrated groan. “You can’t do something that cute and then expect me to be chill about it.”

“If you win, then, maybe I’ll let you kiss me for real.”

“Maybe?”

“Yes. Maybe.”

He’s close, towering over you near this bustling east side entrance that he seems to like so much, and his eyes drop to your lips. “Alright. I like those odds.” 

You give him a smile and slip away from him to get back towards the field, and you feel his eyes on you as you walk away.

The pregame events are a blur, with blaring music accompanied by the sounds of the sports announcers clipping across the speakers, finally quieted down in time for the players to line up on the field for the national anthem which was then followed by UTokyo’s alma mater. 

You’re stationed on the same side of the field as Minato, UTokyo’s side, while Hana is covering the sidelines of the opposite end with the opponents goal post. Minato’s filling up a cup of Gatorade for himself at the athlete’s station and then he comes back around to find you.

“Are you ready to take your shots? I see Hana wanted you to shoot on film today,” he says to you as he sloshes around Glacier Freeze in a flimsy plastic cup.

You twist your aperture dial with your thumb. “Yesss, all set. I’ll try to keep up.” 

He nods at you in approval.

The atmosphere feels nerve wracking. Something felt different about this game, the stakes feeling high. Well, of course they’re high, because if they lose today then they’re out of the tournament. But the stakes feel high for other reasons too, an energy you can pick up on but can’t quite discern. 

Your eyes drift across the field where you can see a referee placing a ball at the center of the field. Off to the right, you can see Gojo standing with a few of his other teammates, including Geto, Nanami, and Choso, and they’re all gesticulating to various corners of the field as they discuss what you can only imagine have to do with their plays for today. And you realize— it’s their last college soccer season. Their second-to-last official home match before the championship, and for those of them that haven’t qualified for the national league, it may be their second-to-last match of this caliber for the rest of their lives. One of the final chances that they have to prove something of themselves. The determination was palpable. 

The chief referee’s whistle cuts through the air with three short chirps, and that gathers the attention of all the players on the field. UTokyo wins the coin toss, choosing to kickoff, and YCU’s players choose to attack the left side goal.

Your stomach churns with anticipation, the crowd hushing too as all the players take their places on the field. If you feel nervous, you can only imagine how the athletes feel. There’s a rhythm that you’ve learned over the past couple of months getting to know the sport, where players stretch out their necks and kick out their feet and take subtle deep breaths as they survey the stands. Idle moments before the start of the match where they have no choice but to look forward and only forward, so they take a moment to stay in the present for as long as they can gather. You’ve never been much of a sports spectator, and perhaps you’ve only recently had some personal interest in the team, but you realize you feel pride in your school as you stand behind chalk sideline and see UTokyo’s colors scattered across the field in uniform. And fuck, you wanted them to win. You wanted them to win with fierceness and wrath, and it’s a desire you share with the crowd. 

Gojo spends a minute talking to the referee before the black and white striped man pats him high on the back in the good sport and urges him towards the center of the field. He lifts his foot up onto the ball, rolling it back and forth underneath the spikes of his cleat, and you can see it in his eyes, even from all the way over here, that he seems to have different ideas in mind for this game too. High stakes. Pre-determined, set with will, evident in the clench of his jaw and the concentrated furrow of his brow as he surveys the field with his eyes, and you’re lost in the sight for what feels like forever because you can hardly register the chirp of the ref’s whistle. 

And then the kickoff starts. 

The ball is tapped to Geto to start the play, and the first few minutes were intense as the ball was passed back and forth between UTokyo’s players, placing pressure on YCU’s defense as they inched closer and closer towards the goal. A pass between UTokyo’s #4 was intercepted by YCU and the ball was rushed down towards the left side, the crowd’s horror evident in the uproar as they raise to their feet in fearful anticipation, and with ruthless offense, YCU’s forward takes a clear sink shot towards the goal, and the crowd holds their breath before they watch Choso lunge for it in air, gloved hands firmly grabbing the ball and then pulling it to his chest with a possessiveness you can only expect to see from a skilled goalie, before he crashes down into the ground and the crowd releases relief in the form of rowdy roars.

Ten minutes in, with everyone on their toes, each team tested each other’s defenses. UTokyo were known for stellar offense, especially within the past few years with players like Gojo Satoru and Takuma Ino joining the league as powerful forwards, but UTokyo’s overall offense was still statistically second to none other than YCU. And the pressure YCU was putting on UTokyo’s defense was wearisome to say the least. You glance to see Nanami, who is UTokyo’s best defensive player, huffing and puffing as he stands between two light-footed YCU players in an attempt to guard, and fails an attempt to steal the ball before it gets to the feet of YCU’s striker #6, passed in a split second off to his teammate, with a fake so seamless that it has Choso just a couple inches away from touching the ball before it’s sent flying into the net. 

The noises from the crowd are still loud, but dampened in spirit. 

With the referees hand signal up in the air, the current score is confirmed. 0-1, YCU. 

Coach Yaga calls for a sub, in which he switches Nanami out for who you believe is a 2nd-year defensive player name Yuta you’ve seen around practice with a promising statistical record for interceptions, and you watch as Nanami takes the bench before he swipes the sweat off his face in exhaustion. God. Just fifteen minutes into the match, and YCU already has UTokyo’s defense winded from play. 

You bring your camera up to your face, forgetting for a moment that there was still a job to do here, and you position the direction of the lens towards the center of the field, where Gojo takes his place at the ball once more. Yuta briefly passes by him, signaling some play to him by holding up a number three, likely something Coach Yaga asked him to pass on to Gojo, and you see him briefly nod, his mouth slightly agape as he breathes slowly and pulls his jersey up to wipe at the sweat at his forehead. 

The referee chirps the whistle, Gojo taps the ball to Yuta, and the play starts. 

YCU immediately puts pressure on UTokyo’s offensive play once more, with eager movements to steal the ball, but it’s passed between UTokyo’s players with ease, more practiced and more sure. The kind of play that you and the rest of the school was used to seeing from them. However, Geto loses the ball on a left-back pass, but right when YCU makes attempts to cover field in a long-shot kick towards the left, Yuta intercepts the ball and swiftly passes it to Gojo.

The crowd immediately rises to their feet in anticipation, watching as Gojo shuffles the ball down the field, dangerously close to off-field boundaries, a signature tactic he uses because he knows there’s not a single player in the league that can match him in precision and control to keep the ball in-field on a steal, and he swiftly passes it towards Geto with a side-swept kick, beelining down towards the goal post, in perfect time for Geto pass-back to meet his feet and when Gojo was this close to a net, there was no stopping him. 

He draws his right foot back, and explosively kicks the ball forward, chipping the grass under it in the motion, and it’s sent flying towards the goal, and then threaded past the goalie right to the back of the net. The cheers that erupt across the stadium rumble the ground beneath you. 

1-1, even match.

UTokyo spends no time celebrating, other than a few pats to Gojo’s back as he nods in acknowledgement, no emotion on his face other than pure concentration and greed. The greed to win, like a righteous sin. He stretches his neck out, panting slightly as he takes his place towards the right side of the field and the referee chirps his whistle to signal YCU to start the kickoff.

They quickly make attempts in moving the ball towards their scoring-end of the field, but face push-back from UTokyo’s defense, unable to make it much further past the midfield line, and you bring your camera up to take a snap of Gojo, who you see is still standing off to the right side of the field. But when you position it and peer through the viewfinder, that space he once stood at was empty. You pull your camera down, and blink at the sight, and then the crowd is picking up in volume once more.

Gojo sprints down the flank, cutting past every defender, and moves towards YCU’s attacking goal, which was a shocking place to be for a center forward, but you could feel his desire and determination to steal this back-and-forth ball, and succeeds when YCU makes an open pass, thinking they were in the clear, only to have Gojo sneak in at the last moment and get the ball at his feet. 

The play moves by in a flash, a blur that you or anyone else in the stadium could hardly keep up with it, movements so fast you were shocked a human being was capable of even running that far in such a short amount of time, and in an almost embarrassingly easy play, Gojo makes a fool out of YCU’s defenders as he slips the ball through the legs of his last obstacle before he struck it with sharp precision, sending it soaring to the corner of the goal, past the outstretched arms of the goalie, and into the net. 

2-1, UTokyo.

It was electrifying, the feeling that strikes through the stadium, one that reaches you in your own blood. You’re shocked, standing here, after witnessing Gojo score two goals within the matter of minutes, against one of the top three teams in the league. It’s a shock that reaches everyone, including Coach Yaga who’s standing about ten feet down the line from you, his arms crossed, and you see his eyes for the first time as he takes his sunglasses off to get a better look at what he’s seeing.

You trail his sight, dragging your gaze across the field until it lands at Gojo, who is barely acknowledging the encouraging pats and shakes and goodhearted shoves that his teammates were giving him, because he was focused. It might sound crazy to say, but you swear his eyes looked like a fiercer shade of blue, like they were lit up, and you’re insanely glad you’re not one of YCU’s defensive players at the moment because you feel fearful of him even just standing on the sidelines. 

Your gaze trails back to Coach Yaga, who slowly puts his sunglasses back on but his brows are narrowed tightly as he crosses his arms over his chest tightly.

The “athletic zone”... You’ve heard of it before. A state of pure focus, of peak performance, where an athlete experiences optimal concentration and a sense of effortless control over their actions. In which they perform at their highest level, where time slows down, any and all distractions fade away, and they’re completely immersed in their sport at hand. At the task at hand.

Coach Yaga seems to pick up on the fact that Gojo was on the edge of tapping into that state. 

YCU makes a substitution, and you watch in anticipation as they begin the kickoff. 

There’s fire in their veins with desperation to even out the score once more, rushing the ball down the off-field line, one of their center forwards mimicking Gojo’s signature attack pattern, and Yuta struggles to keep up with the expert dribbling of a fourth-year player with more experience on him, so much so to where he completely leaves the ball unguarded and there’s an open shot, but Geto places pressure at the last moment, in a fierce battle for the ball, before YCU’s center forward loses the ball over the goal line. 

Choso picks the ball up, tapping on it harshly a few times as he surveys his eyes down the field, and all offensive players begin to shuffle towards their attacking goal in anticipation for the goal kick. He signals his hand down and then holds up two fingers in the air before placing the ball down on the six-yard box. He tightens the strap of one of his gloves, eyes squinting, and you follow his gaze down to a part of the field where you note UTokyo’s best aerial players are located and being guarded by YCU’s defense. And with complete trust in his team, that’s exactly where he kicks the ball. 

Geto makes first contact with the ball, his chest colliding with two other YCU players as his head comes out on top and he headbutts the ball closer towards the inner field, and Gojo immediately gains access to it with a bounce of his knee. The crowd holds their breath, fear that they’ll lose the ball to a steal in the split second it spends floating in the air, but Gojo urges it forward with a bounce off of his chest and then rushes it straight down towards the goal post. 

You wonder what sight he sees right now. Where you’re dead center, at no angle, lunging towards the sight of an open goal with a sole goalie standing in the center, anticipating to block your shot, and three defenders on your tail. There’s no room for error, no time to think, only instincts that you cultivate in the last leading milliseconds. They say that, in sports, athletes channel one hundred hours of practice in just a brief second on the field. A split second success that was years in the making. You can’t even imagine possessing that level of perfection in your body, or possessing that level of confidence that you can follow through with it in a moment as dire as this.

It was unreal, the way Gojo fades away from all the defenders, and faces no fear when confronted with the sight of the goalie in front of him while drawing his foot back to kick the ball. You lift your camera up at the last second, no time to think about aperture or ISO, just like he had no time to second-doubt a single twitch in his muscles, and his foot makes contact with the ball so harshly that you can hear the explosive sound even among the delirious cheers from the crowd, before he hook, line, and sinks it straight past the goalie’s head, rushing by like a scarcely deflected bullet, and into the net behind him. 

3-1, UTokyo.

The whole stadium is momentarily speechless, all players and referees and recruiters and reporters and coaches and employees alike, before the most deafening cheers you’ve ever heard in your life scatter across the stands.

There’s a moment of brief reprieve, where the players can catch their breath while YCU makes yet another substitution, as if they’re just trial-and-erroring it at this point, and the cheers in the stadiums remain idle as you can’t tear your gaze away from Gojo.

It’s one of those moments where you realize that someone who you thought was so familiar to you was actually someone you hardly knew at all. You knew he was a talented soccer player, everyone on campus knows it, potentially one of the best to ever grace the league, and the amount of times you passively watched his plays on a lecture hall projector screen as your professor enthusiastically broke them down during class, even before you met him, was good enough for you to realize that he was insane, a one-in-a-million, a talent you cannot replicate, one you have by divinity. One you were born with. 

And yet, somehow, getting to know him these past couple of months, he just felt so human. For someone so seemingly beyond you, he felt so…close? In those moments where it was just the two of you, it was hard to imagine that he was capable of such greatness, and that so many people were rooting for him with wholehearted tears in their eyes and cheers from their hearts, because most of the time, when he was with you, he was just a dorky idiot. You find that your heart is beating fast in your chest, that feeling of being unsure of what to do with what you’ve been wanting resurfacing powerfully. 

“This is insane,” you hear Minato say from beside you and you jump a little from your thoughts being interrupted.

You twiddle with your camera straps. “I know…almost done with the first half and we’re up 3-1…I thought YCU are number one in offense for the league?”

“Oh, yeah, I mean, yes, that is insane too. But what’s even more insane is that three of the goals so far have been scored by one player.” He tips his chin towards the right sight of the field and you trail his line of sight. “By Gojo Satoru.”

Your brow furrows as you watch Gojo, his hands on his hips and his mouth slightly open as he indulges in a few shallow breaths to gain energy while YCU prepares for kickoff. Three goals, by just one player. Your eyes widen when you realize that is insane, especially for a D1 semi-final qualifying match.

“You know what the divisional record is for most goals scored by a single player during a championship match, y/n?” Minato asks you as he lifts his camera up to take a picture of the area Gojo was standing in. 

You shake your head and wait for his response.

He drops his camera down and glances at the photo on his screen. “Four. During Keio Uni vs. Osaka Uni, near the beginning of the tournament back in 1997 by Osaka’s center forward number 24, Yuji Nakazawa. Meaning no one’s managed to beat that record since the new millenia, for a couple decades. Although a few players came close.”

You blink at him, and Minato is jerking his chin over in the direction of Gojo again.

“I think he’s trying to beat the record.”

You can only widen your eyes at Minato in realization, and then the chirp of the referee’s whistle draws everyone’s attention back to the field. 

The sports announcers go wild on the speakers, the crowd raving all the same, standing to their feet like the team just won the championship match.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!! We are watching HISTORY in the making!! Gojo Satoru, UTokyo’s very own 3-year consecutive MVP, has scored his 34th goal of the season, highest of any player in this year’s season so far, and is now on the road to beat the league’s long-standing record for most goals scored by a single player in a championship match since 1997!!” And the crowd roars even louder as you stare out at the field in awe.

YCU starts the kickoff following the prompt short chirp of the referee’s whistle, and with two minutes remaining on the clock for the first half, make desperate attempts to book it down the field towards their attacking goal, one of their midfielders making a clumsy attempt to strike the ball to the net in the final minutes of the half, and Choso easily catches it in his arms, right before the buzzer of the timer sounds, and the match moves into halftime. 

All of UTokyo’s players immediately flock towards Gojo in sportful glee, finally having a chance to surround him and harass him with harsh pats on his back and ruffles of his hair for his play in the first half. Choso even puts him in a headlock because they all don’t know what else to do with their excitement and adrenaline rushing through their bodies. Their win for today was basically confirmed with the way he was playing. 

You catch a glimpse of him through the crowd of people, and he has a boyish grin on his face, reveling in the embarrassing amount of attention from his teammates, that focused look from before dissolving into his normal self again. But you can see through him, as well enough as you’ve learned to at least, and you can tell he’s not satisfied. He’s thinking it’s not enough. There’s still more to be done, and it’s not time to celebrate yet. 

His eyes scan down the sideline until they find you. 

Your heart jumps a second in your chest. He stands up straighter, despite his teammates still clinging to him, and there’s a twinkle in his eyes when your eyes meet. 

Cheerleaders take their place out onto the field, performing their numbers with loud music blaring, and the recruiters seated at their white tables get up to roam across the sidelines in discussion with referees and with Coach Yaga and with whatever players they can sink their greedy teeth into, as well as sneak at refreshments while they’re at it. You can see off to the right that Hana has reunited with Minato and she’s showing him some of the shots she took over at the opponent's side. 

UTokyo’s players start to make their way to the benches to grab for towels and drinks of water and to sprawl across in rest, and you hear loud familiar laughter approaching as you watch the players sprawl across the benches, so you avert your eyes towards the source of the sound. 

You see Gojo approaching the benches, two of his teammates slung with their arms around him in some type of adrenaline-drunken glee as they talk dramatically and theatrically which Gojo entertains with his own drunk-off-of-adrenaline glee. And you raise an eyebrow at his demeanor when he makes eye contact with you.

“There’s my freaky little photographer,” he says, and he’s standing up straight and—wait, is he puffing his chest out as he makes his way towards you? Oh for fucks sake.

Gojo has always been confident around you, for as long as you can remember, but in the fair few moments he’s been cocky, he’s been a menace. And you can only assume the testosterone-induced high of being on the verge of breaking a league record in front of the entire school then subsequently getting homiesexually praised by his teammates for the better part of the past five minutes, not to mention with the crowd and the reporters feeding his ego with a spoon across the speakers, he’s been transformed into the final boss of cocky.

His teammates surround you too, their hands on their hips as they assess you and Gojo when he meanders right up to you, arms held out to hug you, a sleazy sight you’ve seen probably six times this week, and you feel a rush of warmth in your cheeks as you place a hand on his chest to keep him away.

“You’re sweaty and gross, please stay away from me,” you reprimand him, “this is an expensive lens that is not humidity-proof.” 

“Hey, you’re the girl that Kentaro socked in the face with a ball the other day at practice, right?” one of his teammates asks, leaning in towards you to take a closer look at your face.

“Oh yeahhh, ‘cause Satoru wasn’t paying attention,” another one of his teammates chimes in teasingly, hardly heard over the loud remix playing in the background as the cheerleaders continue to perform on the field. 

You shrink a little from where you stand. Gojo’s got an irritated look on his face and he’s shrugging his teammate’s elbow off of his shoulder.

“I really hope you’re getting my good angles,” his teammate to the left comments before winking at you, and you purse your lips together. 

The one on the right leans in too, looking at your cheek with an assessing look in his eye. “At least it didn’t leave a scar on your cute face—”

Gojo shoves the both of them back and away from you by elbowing them in the chest, and they make deep eugh noises before stepping away and rubbing at their sternums with pouts on their faces.

“Get the fuck away from her,” he grumbles, “she’s mine.”

Your cheeks flush slightly with warmth at the attention, and you watch as his teammates scurry away to adhere to some social hierarchy Gojo seems to possess over them.

You raise an eyebrow at him. “Yours?”

“Yes. Eventually. Whatever, did you see me out there?” he turns his torso towards the field and points behind himself with his thumb, “when I—”

“Oh god, you know what’s soooooooooo super sexy to me?” you interrupt him. “When guys are humble.”

“Oh c’monnn,” he curls his arm around your waist and pulls you to him, to where you stumble a little on grass and he holds you when you fall into him with more clumsiness than grace. “Tell me you aren’t at least impressed by me.”

You pout, because you are, and you’d really like to give him some reassurance and validation, but for some reason his cocky attitude is setting you off. “Satoru,” you sigh, wiggling a little in his hug, but he holds you tighter, “I’m working right now. Cut it out.”

He lets go of you at that, sober enough from the adrenaline to realize you’re being serious, but he steps into your space so only you can hear him. “What? Are you embarrassed?”

“Of what?” Your face twists with confusion.

“Of me. Are you embarrassed of me?” he asks.

“No. Why would I be embarrassed of you?” you ask with sharpness.

“I don’t know, just, sometimes I feel like you’re always annoyed by me,” he says with a sigh. “It’s like, you’re really sweet sometimes, and then kinda rude out of nowhere, and it’s sort of messing with my head.”

You pout. “You were messing with my head for weeks.”

“And I’m sorry about that,” he quickly interjects, like he already knew you were brewing up that counterargument, “but you don’t have to act like you’re all disinterested and indifferent just to get back at me for it.” He places his hands on his hips and wipes his temple on the round part of his shoulder when he feels a drop of sweat trickle down from his hairline. “You don’t have to act embarrassed around me either.”

“I’m not embarrassed,” you deny, and your cheeks feel hot, and for some reason you feel angry. “In fact, I’m the one that should be asking you that question. Because I still very clearly remember that time you said I was just someone you know in front of your friends.”

He groans and tilts his head back with frustration. “Can you just let that go? Things have changed between us since then. Move on.” 

“You kissed me and then pretended I was just a stranger to you in front of your friends,” you grit as you cross your arms. “That’s the level of sincerity that I know from you, Satoru.”

“Oh, okay, so there’s nothing else I’ve done that shows you that I’m serious about you?” he asks rhetorically with incredulity, throwing his hands up in the air in disbelief.

No. That’s not true, not true at all. But he’s pissed you off now and so all logic was to the wind. “Doesn’t matter. If you’re not embarassed of me, and if you’re really serious about me this time, then fucking prove it.” You’re speaking out of spite, and you fear you’ve just set him off too.

“Fine,” he says, and he grabs the microphone straight out from a passing reporter’s hand, replacing it with a gatorade bottle. The reporter stares at the bottle he’s now holding with confusion. “I will.”

“W-Wait—” you squeak out, feeling the hair at the back of your neck bristle in anticipation and a shiver gets sent down your spine. The cheerleaders are making their way off the field at the end of their routine, and you can hear the thumps across the loud boisterous speakers when Gojo whacks his palm to the microphone to make sure the thing was on before he jogs to the center of the field.

The crowd is already cheering, ecstatic to see the afternoon's star player and pride & joy of their school, and Gojo takes a moment to soak in all the glory in comical appreciation with bowing towards all 360 degree angles of the stadium.

“Uhhh,” you hear Choso from beside you, who’s strapping his thick goalie gloves tightly to his wrists, “Why the fuck does Satoru have a microphone while standing in the middle of the field.”

“It can’t be for any publicly decent reason,” Geto muses.

All you can do is watch.

“Hi, uh,” Gojo starts, static blaring slightly across the speakers and the crowd winces with him, “sorry. I’m Satoru, Gojo Satoru, you might know me from—uh, the game you’ve been watching?”

Cheers all around, because as if a single person wouldn’t know who he is. The stands were rowdy and most definitely drunk off of sidestep beers the stadium has been serving all afternoon long. 

Gojo is about to continue speaking, when he catches sight of the table of recruiters in the corner of his eye and he turns to face them out of respect. “Oh, yeah, uh, number 10,” he tugs his jersey up at the shoulder to stretch out the fabric, the 1 and the 0 flattened in view, “division player ID 233-997. Coach Yaga keeps my business cards in his purse if you want one.”

“SAAAAATTOOORRUUUU!!!!!” you hear Coach Yaga yell from somewhere in the distance.

“Anywho,” Gojo continues, and the music dims slightly, so he glances at the stop clock on the screen, which shows him he’s got roughly five minutes left to pull off whatever idiocracy he had in mind before the second half of the game starts. “Just here to say that there’s this girl I really like.”

The crowd gets louder, almost deafening, and sonically mostly feminine in (delusional) hope he’s gonna name call one of them.

Gojo’s voice is crisp and clear through the speakers as he clarifies. “She’s standing over there,” he says as he nonchalantly points to your exact latitude and longitudinal direction, “with the big camera slung around her neck that looks like it could pull her down to the center of the earth. Yeah. She’s super cute and I really like talking to her.”

“Uh-oh,” Geto murmurs from beside you, and you glance at him to try to get a read on the situation but you can’t.

Gojo starts to pace across the center of the field now, like he’s working the crowd. “But get this—she thinks I’m not fuckin’ serious about her!!!”

The crowd groans with him in unison. Yep, most certainly drunk. Or high off of glee. Either way, he’s playing them like a violin.

“Huh?” Gojo’s voice sounds distant now, away from the mic, and you can see on the large pixelated screen that he’s being interrupted by someone that looks like one of the videographers, “oh, what’s that? This is being broadcasted? Uh-huh. Oh. I’m not allowed to cuss? Oh fuck, okay. Er— shit, okay. Wait—shoot, okay.”

Choso’s smirk is heard from beside you, and you catch Geto and Nanami shaking their heads in your periphery.

“LIKE I SAID,” Gojo continues into the mic, “the girl I like thinks I’m just messing around, so. Uh. To show her that I’m serious about her, I’m gonna…” He looks up at the sky to ponder, and you can hear people shouting all sorts of suggestions of nonsense from the crowd. And instead of saying proclaim my undying affection for her through a romantic soliloquy straight from my heart in the presence of the entire school, he says—“I’m gonna strip. Yes. Down to my tighty whities, Imma strip.”

H–

Huh?!?!?

You don’t even have time to be horrified or scared, you’re just bewildered beyond belief that that’s what he came up with.

What the fuck kind of reassurance did you ask for. And what the fuck kind of reassurance were you about to get?

The crowd goes wild, it’s no surprise to say everyone and their mothers wants to see him naked, even the straight dudes would dig it for the gym inspo. And he points straight to you, sleazy look on his face and you’re going to ignore the fact that he just winked at you too as he crosses his arms to hold the hem of his jersey and pulls it up over his head in the most raunchy and slutty way a man can take his shirt off.

The music manager is quick with the bit, and is most definitely a fellow Gen Z college student, because Justin Timberlake’s SexyBack (ft. Timbaland) starts playing across the speakers and the crowd goes ballistic.

“Ayo why’s Satoru Magic Mike’ing the field right now?” one of his other teammates calls out through a mouthful of protein bar, “What the fuck did I miss?”

The cameraman does God’s work in a hella zoom-in of Gojo’s sweat glistened abs, then pans up the naked expanse of the perfect taut skin across his chest, and you can’t help but stare even among all your horror. It’s like when a male bird embarrasses the fuck outta himself to attract a female bird sitting on a perch, except instead of within the context of a NatGeo documentary, this was your real life. Everyone wants him, but he’s making a fool out of himself for you. 

He pretends to stretch his arms up into the air, a cover-up to flex his biceps, and then he kicks his cleats off, and the socks come off too. Entirely unnecessary, as showing one's ankles is simply too slutty, but alas he’s a whore. And when his thumbs dip into the waistband of his shorts, and there’s anticipating screeching from the crowd, he finally gets chased by security. 

Except he’s an intercollegiate D1 athlete, why the fuck wouldn’t he be able to outrun a bunch of dudes in black?

The camerawork on him is phenomenal as he runs across the sidelines of the field, eliciting a wave down the bleachers. So good in fact that you’re pretty sure the camera man could shoot for the Olympic track and field, with the way the stadium’s got a clear sight of Gojo mouthing the lyrics Them other fuckers don’t know how to act from the song still blaring with satirical rage on his face as he makes a fool of the men chasing him around the perimeter of the field.

And then he does it, drops his shorts, discards them with a kick, and he’s down to his tighty whities as promised. Cameraman has got to be displaying some previously undiscovered level of talent as he zeroes in on a shot of said tighty whities, with Gojo’s—forgive me, I need to be crass—huge bulge prominent in Big Dick Energy fashion except his tighty whities have little red hearts in rows across the fabric so do with that duality what you will.

He’s outrun security with a steady grin on his face as he eats up the drunken crowd’s cheers and riots and roars and you feel like you’re the only sane person in this stadium, or maybe you’re just not used to the fanatics of a college sports crowd. You peep the men in black trailed all the way on the left side of the field where they abandoned their pursuit of Gojo.

He taps imaginary pockets at his thighs, very muscular thighs you take indulgence in noticing, as if he expected to find something there, and he looks around when he doesn’t. He shrugs and grabs the microphone of the next passing sports commentator he spots, and then he makes his way back to you.

His breathing is a little shallow, and he inhales deep to catch his breath. “Baby.” The crowd SCREAMS at the way he purrs the word into the mic. “Will you do me the honor,” he’s huffing and puffing, heard across blaring speakers, “of being my lawfully wedded girlfriend?” And then he holds the mic to your lips.

“W-Wha—” you stutter, and there’s chanting across the crowd with words that barely make sense until you finally realize they’ve started to yell say yes! say yes! say yes! “Oh my gosh, okay, yes, fine, now please, for the love of god, put some freaking clothes on!”

The crowd goes wild with cheerful glees, and Gojo shoots fists up in the air in celebration as he runs all the way towards the center of the field with high knees, and you’re gawking at the sight, before he falls backward onto the grass and makes delirious snow angels on the ground. You see Coach Yaga’s vein popping in his neck from pure agitation as he storms off towards the center of the field to knock some sense into Gojo, but you know that Coach Yaga can’t kick him out, because they still have a game to win. The perks of being the most valued player in the league is getting to act like an absolutely insane idiot because you know they still need you in the end to bring it home.

You glance to the right, seeing his teammates nodding slowly then getting back to wrapping athletic tape around ankles and stretching out shoulders, with immediate acceptance of his actions like it wasn’t even out of character for him to do. And you realize again that you don’t know Gojo as well as you think you do.

And then the halftime timer is up.

You see Gojo approach the benches in a quick jog, squeezing some water into his mouth with his green gatorade squirt bottle, and when your eyes flit up to the screens on all four entrances, you see that the cameramen are still all focused on him accompanied by the continued buzz of conversation among the crowd following his public spectacle. But he seems to already be past any semblance of embarrassment as he takes the attention with ease, before he glances up to make eye contact with you and then lightly jogs right up to you.

“Did that prove to you that I’m not embarrassed of you?” he asks you, cocking a brow with a smug look on his face as he gets all up in your personal space. 

“I don’t know, but I’m certainly thoroughly and expeditiously embarrassed of you now,” you say, cheeks feeling flush when he leans forward so he can make eye contact with you at eye level. “I’ll have to move to a different country.”

His grin is relaxed. “Yeah well you asked for it.”

“Maybe. But I underestimated what a lunatic you are.”

“You’re my girlfriend now, you’ve gotta get used to it.”

Your heart skips a beat in your chest. “Satoru–”

“Tomorrow,” he cuts you off, “Hinode pier. I’ll pick you up at six. It’s a date, so wear something cute. And preferably easy to take off.” And then he’s attentive to the chirp of the referee’s whistle in the air before jogging backwards towards the feel and eventually turns on his heel towards the field while you’re left with warm cheeks and a heart that felt like it was moving at a mile a minute.

The timer for the second half refreshes on the screen while you loosely hold your camera in your shaking hands. It occurs to you that you haven’t taken a single photo of him before the start of the kickoff, and so you bring the piece of consolidated metal up to your eyes, peering through the viewfinder and focusing it on the center of the field. And there he was. Your muse.

Gojo lets out a breath, which you can see even from here that it’s shaky and staggered with resistance, and he lifts his jersey up to swipe at the sweat trickling down his face as he eyes the ball underneath YCU’s player’s foot just prior to the start of the second half. There it was—that look again of pure focus. 

3-1, forty-five minutes on the clock. And the referee chirps the whistle to start the second half.

It’s immediately evident that YCU has returned to the field following halftime with renewed energy, pressing high down the flank relentlessly past UTokyo’s defense, so fast it was hard for anybody to even keep a steady eye on the ball with the fluidity of their passes. The persistence pays off in the fake double-pass that slips past Geto’s feet, a moment of hesitation in the broken flow of UTokyo’s defense, and one of YCU’s strikers has the perfect line of shot towards the goal before digging his foot under the ball and sending it flying towards the corner of the goal post, scoring themselves a goal within just the first five minutes of play.

3-2.

The pressure mounts at the next kickoff, and with about seven minutes of solid play, with back-and-forth passes, multiple attempts at both goal posts to no avail on either side, it was clear that exhaustion was bustling in the veins of all the players.

One of YCU’s offensive players seems to capitalize on this, jumping on a defensive lapse of a pass Nanami attempted to make towards Yuta, and the ball is swiftly stolen then raced back towards the goal post. Choso prepared himself at the line, light on his feet paired with a solid stance, but in a millisecond of a moment, YCU’s offense unexpectedly passes the ball to a player racing up the midfield, and the player chips the ball neatly into the exposed corner of the goal despite Choso’s attempt to lunge for it in mid air.

Equalized, 3-3 game, momentary shock across the players’ faces, and the crowd bustles with something that sounds less like glee and more life fear. YCU was prepared to live up to and hold onto their title as the league’s number one offense, and as Minato explained to you during your time working in this job, an offensive team isn’t good at scoring goals, but rather exceptional at breaking down the other team’s defense.

Your eyes zero in on Geto, who stands in the center of the field for kickoff, and he’s huffing and puffing. He's the lead of defense for the team, and you can only imagine the level of pressure he feels right now. He glances around to his players, over to Nanami who seemed to share the same level of exhaustion, and then he glances towards Gojo who stood in front of him off to the right. Except you notice that Gojo looks relaxed, albeit still exhausted, but there’s a composed expression on his face even in the moment of heightened stakes. With locked eyes, Geto nods at Gojo and raises two fingers up into the air to signal a play, of which Gojo seems to respond to by closing more distance between him and the goal post prior to the kickoff, positioning himself almost directly in front of it, to which YCU’s defense immediately begin to guard him in a tight radius. 

The kickoff begins, with Geto making a few passbacks with Nanami as they close distance towards the field before passing it off to UTokyo’s string of offense and then receding back to their defending goal. UTokyo continues to close distance, raising stakes for YCU as their defense begins to falter under pressure, and the ball gets passed to Gojo, who only keeps it in possession for less than three seconds before he passes it back to Yuuji, a risky decision to make in the second half of a semifinal match, but the first-year swiftly unleashes a powerful shot that rockets past YCU’s goalkeeper, up towards the corner, except–

It bounces off the metal of the goal post, shot off with projectile speed back towards the center of the field, but with razor-sharp reflexes, Gojo headbutts the ball in air, twists his torso and strikes the ball with his foot past a dumbfounded goalie who can’t even move an inch to guard the ball that he already knew was going to sink right into the goal, and that’s exactly what it does. 

The stadium erupts with the momentum.

4-3, UTokyo. 

It was a sweet moment, one you manage to capture on camera of Gojo running up to Yuuji and ruffling his hair in reassurance, despite the missed goal. Your heart feels warm in your chest, feeling your own sense of melancholy that this was one of the last times they’ll ever get to play together on a team. 

Your eyes widen when you glance at the scoreboard, realizing that he’s tied. Gojo is tied for the most goals scored during a championship match. There were less than three minutes left on the clock. UTokyo either preserves their lead, or they risk moving into overtime, which, judging by the exhaustion on the UTokyo players’ faces in the wake of YCU’s relentless offense this entire game, moving into overtime would be a hefty, hefty risk. 

YCU’s center forward takes his place in the center of the field, fire evident in his eyes as he glances across the field. YCU are light on their feet, channeling everything in their bodies into these last moments of the game as they prepare to start the kickoff. You glance across UTokyo’s players, and although they look spent, there was a resolute look to all of them. It wasn’t the time to give up or feel at ease even near the end of this grueling battle. Now was the time to play. 

The referee chirped his whistle, and the kickoff began.

YCU immediately presses hard, as all their other plays have been all game, in their desperation to score. You can already see UTokyo’s midfielders move sluggishly in comparison to YCU’s offense, a drag to their feet as YCU pushes past the first layer of defense towards their attacking goal. Geto takes an aggressive approach, making moves to steal the ball while Nanami and Yuta guarded both flanks, and there was a relentless pass-off happening that ate up more than a minute of the remaining time.

Nanami succeeds in stealing the ball, but immediately loses it under his feet by a YCU midfielder, who makes a broad pass down the sidelines to YCU’s star forward who then powerfully kicks the ball towards the unguarded area of their goal, a dangerous shot that was clear towards the crossbar and Choso makes a leap for it, high into the air, his glove brushing against the ball, the entire crowd holding their breath in anticipation–

And the ball lands in the net. 

4-4, tied game. With one minute and seventeen seconds left on the clock. 

There was no time wasted in getting back to center field. No time spent dwelling in the horrific roars of the crowd as they watch with anxiety and fear. No time spent to process or consider or signal any plays. Not even a single second used to catch breath. When there is this much at stake, an athlete thrives on momentum. 

To your surprise, Gojo isn’t the one that takes place at the center of the field to start the kickoff. Yuta stands there instead, and you notice his eyes are erratic as he surveys all corners of the field. 

The referee chirps his whistle. 

Yuta immediately passes it off to the side to UTokyo’s midfielder, who curls it towards their attacking goal with a swift pass to Ino, who closes distance towards the goal, but one of YCU’s defender slips in, undoing any progress they had made in their offense by stealing the ball and sending it back towards mid-field. Forty-three seconds. The crowd’s roars heightened as YCU continued to push forward, thirty yards now from scoring, and UTokyo’s defense was desperate to stop them but their momentum was cracking in the wake of their exhaustion. 

It was a moment you don’t think you could ever fully or truly recall, one that you wish you had focused all your energy and attention to so that you could commit it to memory for the rest of your life. The image of Gojo pushing all the way to ten yards before their defending goal, a place where no center forward should really be at in a game like this, but it was exactly what their defense needed. It was exactly what the team needed. It was exactly what the school needed. For the ball to be in his possession.

With twenty-two seconds left on the clock, he steals the ball from right under YCU’s offensive feet, and then charges towards the opposite side of the field. The crowd rises to their feet, thunderous roaring that overtook any and all senses, as Gojo weaves through forwards, center forwards, midfielders, and defenders, covering the entire span of the field in lightning time. Fifty yards, forty yards, thirty yards, twenty hards, ten yards–

In a moment you couldn’t believe, he digs his foot underneath the ball, and sends it flying out towards the goal. There was not even a margin of an inch in which it slipped past the goalie’s hands, past his head, and swiftly flew right into the net.

With three-two-one seconds, the match was over. 

5-4, UTokyo’s win.

The final whistle blew, and for a moment, there was silence. As if the world paused to catch its breath. Then, all at once, the crowd erupted with glee that shook the entire stadium at its core. Flags waving, scarves held high, toasts of beer held up to the sky, it was deafening, and it almost makes you want to cry. Thousands of voices shouting in unison, celebrating the hard-fought victory of their school’s team. A type of pride that was fostered, and well-deserved, and long-lived.

You quickly glance towards the field again, and see Gojo standing right at the same spot where he had kicked the last and final goal, staring towards the net. You can’t see the expression on his face, but it surprises you how still he is. Like a statue, staring at the goal with the ball tucked into its corner. The very epitome of what it means to succeed in this sport was right in front of him, and it seemed like he wanted to soak the visual in for as long as he could.

His trance is abruptly interrupted when his teammates swarm in, rushing over like a wave of pure adrenaline. They slap him on the back, ruffle his hair, shout his name, the sounds of gleeful disbelief mixed with exhausted sighs of relief swarming into the air. And Gojo finally melts away from the tension of the match and into the celebration as he weakly returns the embraces of his teammates while he catches his breath. 

“IT’S OFFICIAL!! IT’S OFFICIAL!! UTOKYO’S VERY OWN GOJO SATORU HAS OBLITERATED OSAKA UNIVERSITY’S RECORD FOR MOST GOALS SCORED BY A SINGLE PLAYER IN A CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH!!” 

The speakers are blaring the voices of the sports announcers, along with ambient music to match the intensity of the match that everyone had just witnessed. 

You should probably be doing your job. You know, take a picture of the huddle of players on the field as they bask in the glory of a close victory, but instead your feet start moving on their own. Like a magnet drawn to him, you make your way towards Gojo, only a slight hesitation in your step as you stop about ten feet away, suddenly unsure. But when he makes eye contact with you, all that fear melts away.

He hastily pats the backs of some of his teammates, acknowledging their praise at the center of the huddle before tightly squeezing past them to make his way over to you. Your heart is beating fast in your chest, feeling an almost overwhelming sense of pride in your school’s team, but more importantly, in him. What was the acceptable thing to do? Run to him, into his arms, and hug him while he twirls you around? Tackle him to the grassy ground? Kiss him like your life depended on it? You have no clue what the acceptable or sane or normal thing to do is. But he’s made his decision for you when he walks right up to you, his hands holding your waist as he pulls you towards him. He smells earthy, of grass and salt and sweat and of all the hard work he poured into today, the wear and tear of the game evident in the wear and tear of his jersey. He only manages to huff out an exhale at the sight of you, like some relief washing over him just by looking into your eyes. Forget the fact that the crowd was all watching and that all of the screens you could see past his head were focused on the two of you, because all you could hear or see or think was him.

“I believe you owe me a kiss,” he says, huffing as he catches his breath but that doesn’t stop the smile that makes its way onto his face.

You nod your head, giving him your own version of a sweet smile as your arms slide up past his shoulders, crossing behind his neck, and he leans down to kiss you.

You hear a swell from the crowd, some teasing comments off in the distance from some of his teammates, you’re pretty sure you hear Coach Yaga yelling at him to get back to the benches, but it all melts away with the feeling of him smiling against your lips as he kisses you at the center of this stadium.

It was a moment so pure, so sweet, so picture perfect, and for once, you’re not the one behind the camera taking the photo. You’re the one that’s in it.

.

.

.

.

.

[end of kickoff ch12]

a/n. aaa thanks a lot for reading!! pls the fucking public stripping scene was so stupid i apologize on behalf of kickoff gojo for his behavior 😂😂 i’ll put him in his cage dw this chapter had some of what i consider to be the most challenging aspects of writing for me (internal conflict, grand public gesture, sports jargon) and so writing it felt like an uphill battle the ENTIRE time i wrote it and edited it. i considered scrapping it sooo many times cuz i just wasn't happy w it...but whatever i can't expect to be 100% happy w every chapter i put out there haha. i think kickoff has become a lil sacred for me since i've been working on it for a while now but likeee...sometimes u just gotta say fuck it we ball (tbh kickoff gojo probably says that to himself before a match) anywho, i am veryy thoroughly excited for what i've got planned for the chapters to follow, especially moving into the last angsty arc before the end of the series!! so i look forward to picking up momentum w this series again :0 honestly chapters 10 through 12 were the most difficult things i've written so far for a lot of reasons, but i have a feeling things will go more smoothly for me creatively going forward since what i've got planned falls well within my writing comfort range oh also there seems to be a little confusion about the number of chapters left, as i know i had originally said 12, but i anticipate that there will be about 18 chapters of kickoff total!! so still around six chapters left before the end :)) much lovee thanks for reading!!

OH WAIT ONE LAST NOTE I'M SORRY i didn’t really have a way of organically incorporating this into the story n i’m not sure if i’ll get a chance to in the upcoming chapters, so i just wanted to share this part of ch7 (gojo’s pov chapter) that is relevant to this chapter:

During the thrilling semifinal match between Keio Uni, Gojo’s father’s team, and Yokohama Uni during the end of his senior year, spectators witnessed a game that most college soccer enthusiasts would deem was a once-in-a-lifetime watch. Both teams engaged in relentless offense, and Gojo’s father was on his way to shatter the record of the most goals scored in a single championship match within the history of the league, but when he received a call from his wife during a timeout with the most life-altering news he could have ever heard, he abandoned everything on the field that day to go home and be with her. Grainy footage from the televised broadcast still exists online today—the moment he sprinted across the field, confused players glancing in his direction, amidst the uproar of the crowd. She called to let him know she was pregnant. 

the record that gojo broke in this chapter is the same record that his father almost broke before he got the call that he was going to be a dad :0 

➸ you're all caught up!

additional notes. please do not pressure me for updates or ask when i will next update (read rules); taglist is currently closed (consider subscribing to the story on my ao3 for email updates if you'd like! :0)

taglist:

@megumisdivinedogs @witchbybirth @avatarl0v3r @mwtsxri @asherheed

@wynney @delulux3 @higurumapet @zombriesworld @xenop0p

@phoenix-eclipses @who-can-touch-my-boob @mo0nforme @reagan707 @lost-resonance

@foulprincesscycle @luniunia @alekssashka7 @beabadobeee @thexmistress

@tsukikourito @pickuptruck01 @gabriiiiiiii @4y3sh4 @tiredflame132

@cliosunshine @btszn @izayas-rings @semra4 @ethereally-lyann

@drthymby @bbyxxm @fvsm4x @sadmonke @zoinks1010

@joemama-2 @horisdope @banenemilk @nanasukii28 @spindyl

@ri-sa20 @thexmistress @mwtsxri @ritsatoru @sashisuslover

@chwesuh-imnida @megumisthirdog @imjustaweirdnerd @angelicscribe

[taglist is closed]

[caramelkoo]

honeysuckle

boyfriend!jungkook, established relationship, smut

summary : according to your boyfriend, a little competition won't hurt anyone especially when the game is his favorite. Making you feel good.

warnings : mature, strong language, heavy on the smut, a little fluff thrown in there, fingering, pussy slapping, he asks for consent, they're freaky, dick piercing, ass slapping, hickeys, sex in a jacuzzi, reverse cowgirl, riding, jungkook wants oc so bad, dirty talk, he calls oc sweetheart, unprotected sex. if i missed something, do let me know.

a/n : hi my loves, here’s your promised smutty treat. tbvh that picture has not left my mind ever since i saw it lmao. I love you guys so so much. You're so loved and cherished. Please don't read this in front of your parents. also @rpwprpwprpwprw was the sweetest to ask for a tag <33 xoxo

"Oh yeah baby, just like that"

"You fuck me so good"

'Take my cock like a good slut you are"

Any other day, you're all about sex positivity and letting your body get what it wants but today of all days, your neighbors want to ruin the peace that you so desperately craved.

Your boyfriend, Jungkook had left early for a business meeting promising you to come back as soon as he gets done with it. As much as you missed him, you had felt the need to have some time for yourself. You thrive on being Jungkook's girlfriend, it's all butterfly in the stomach, princess treatment kind of love but you can't lie about wishing for some alone time just for yourself. Finally, you were getting it. You had it all planned bit by bit.

Step 1 : take an everything shower

Step 2 : cook something delicious for yourself while wave to earth plays in the background

Step 3 : read a romantasy novel you've been anticipating for a long time.

Step 4 : if sleepy, sleep. If not, take out your pink best friend from the bedside drawer and seek your pleasure listening to Jungkook's voice recording you had him record the other day. It always works.

Step 3 and you're already at the verge of giving up. It appears the people next door didn't exactly like your plan and they wanted to make you realize how lonely you are. Screaming at your face, "Haha guess who's not getting a dick". God forbid if a girl wants to have quite and peaceful night while romanticizing the shit out of it.

You slam the book on the bed and sigh. For a second you consider calling Jungkook but stop when you realize that you'll only be hindering his work. What are you even going to tell him? that you can't read because your neighbors have been fucking each other for hours now? No, that's just stupid.

Taking off your reading glasses you make your way to the kitchen. If you can't get sleep tonight, you might as well give them a tough fight. When and if they decide to let their horny asses take a break and decide to doze off, they'd catch on to the fact that there's someone next door whose mama didn't raise a quitter. Immature? you don't think so.

Once the woman's voice on the speaker alerts you that your phone has been connected, you start off with your favorite go to song when you need to cry your eyes out. "Fuck to an emotional song now" you think.

Coming in terms with the fact that you might have to pull an all nighter, you begin making coffee. The word itself brings a smile on your face. Coffee, which got you through your med school. Coffee, which got you Jungkook.

If you really think about it, hadn't you mustered up the courage to go on a solo date that day and have a coffee all by yourself you wouldn't have crossed your paths with him. It's funny actually because how many couples do actually last this long after meeting at a random coffee shop?

After dating douchebags for almost three years you had taken a break from dating all together. It was high time you focused on yourself. Honestly, it's not like they were the only one who was messed up in your previous relationships. You had some parts you had to heal as well and the moment you caught up on that, you went on a journey. Journey to self love, journey to find yourself and a journey which will leave you not perfect but healed.

As for the dimwits you dated in the past, sometimes it was "why do you always have to be like this? how much more space do you need?" or, "What do you mean you don't want to have sex right now? C'mon don't be a spoilsport".

Spoilsport, your ass.

Standing up on your tippy toes, your hands reach out for the coffee container but before you could even settle your foot down on the floor, two arms circle around your waist making you gasp in utter shock.

The need to defend yourself takes so strongly over you that you don't even turn around in order to check the person before your elbow connects with their nose.

When you finally do, you can't stop the scream from leaving your mouth. Your face all red and your eyes as big as saucers.

You panic, "JUNGKOOK?"

When you see blood oozing out of his left nostril after he lifts his face, you mentally curse your sister for forcing you to take self defense classes.

"What's with the song, sweetheart?"

"I told you you were gonna be my death someday but who knew it was gonna be tonight"

After cleaning up his nose and giving him a cup of coffee, you both were now sitting on the couch. You had turned off the music, though. God knew it was not making the situation any better.

You take a sip before speaking, "Oh, don't be dramatic. Who comes home like this and at this hour?"

"My flight was late, sweetheart. I wanted to get to you much sooner but destiny had plans--" he gets cut off as his eyebrows crease in wonder.

"What was that?"

"The neighbors. They have been going at it for hours now" you shake your head in disbelief.

"For hours? That's some stamina I must say" he breaks out in a fit of laughter as you place your cup on the table in front of you.

Turning towards him you ask, "You find this funny? I haven't been able to sleep because of them"

Your voice comes out a bit whiny and you wonder if you're acting a bit childish.

"Oh, sweetheart. How about this, I take a quick shower and we cuddle to sleep" a mixture of warmth and concern crossing his face.

Your smile is wide when you say, "I'd love that"

Jungkook finishes his coffee and pecks your lips as he saunters towards the bathroom. However, when he turns back and says the most unforeseen thing, your silly mind doesn't even think twice.

"Actually, _____. Why don't you join me?"

Bubbles form inside the jacuzzi as smoke fills your surroundings. The smell of warm water hits your nose making it feel tingly. Your stomach is doing summersaults as your boyfriend lets you down inside the water, heart skipping a beat.

Only when Jungkook lets himself sit on the other side of the tub, you can finally take a deep breath. His eyes never leaving yours. When you're with him, there's nothing you care about. Not your horny neighbors, not the world, nothing. It's just him and his presence that lights you up. A smile that could rival the sun.

Him.

Your fingers play with the water as you try to make a conversation. This moment right here, is peak level of intimacy for you. You're both naked, exposed and vulnerable yet you've never felt safer. Not to mention how you feel like a high school girl trying to talk to his crush.

When you were young, the bathroom was the only place you could run and cry in and no one judged you. The four walled room provided more comfort than people in your life. It holds memories but when you moved in with your boyfriend, you left those at your old house. To rot, because what else?

With him, every corner, every space in your house feels pure and blissful. It’s filled with laughter, moans and him.

Jungkook's legs are lightly brushing yours every now and then, the movement sending shivers down your spine. What's happening to you?

"So, how was the business trip?"

"On a scale of one to ten, how funny is it that you wanna talk about business while looking like that and all I wanna do is fuck that sweet mouth of yours because of how much I missed it?"

You shudder, the effect he has on you is beyond belief and now with the expression crossing his face, pure lust and longing, it's as though somebody has set your whole body on fire. A mix of hot and cold feeling running through your veins.

"Jungkook"

"Come here"

"Wh-"

He cuts you off, "Come here, sweetheart. Come to me before I lose my ever loving mind'

You don't have an option other than to scoot your way towards him. He positions your body between his legs, his taut and muscular chest touching your wet back.

Wetness pools between your legs as his hardness presses at your lower hip just above your ass. Your pussy throbs with need and you stop yourself from reaching down to relieve that tension.

His fingers ever so lightly graze over your arm, frequently making drawings on it.

"How long did you say they were going at it?"

You look at him, "About three hours. Why?"

He's up to something. You can feel it in your bones.

"Do you think they're still gonna be able to fuck each other after hearing your screams through the wall, sweetheart?"

Fuck. The idea of making them listen to you while your boyfriend fucks you into oblivion doesn't sound so bad. You missed him, you missed being in his arms and you missed him being inside you as well. So, where's the harm in that?

"You wanna give them a show? Let them know how well your man fucks you?"

The moan that leaves her as she lets her head fall back heavy on his chest tells him everything her words can't.

"Jungkook, please. It's been so long" she cries out.

She stirs making herself more comfortable but that just makes him hiss through his teeth as her ass grazes his cock, the metal on the tip leaving a cool sensation. He's not gonna give in easily though. He will make her earn that release.

His hands cup her tits, fully covering them and they fit so perfectly in his hands. Heavy, full, perfect. As if they're made just for him to suck, him to cup, him to cum on, him to leave purple love bites on.

"I know, sweetheart. Do you wanna know what I kept thinking about while I was away?" his voice trails off, "I kept thinking about how bad I wanna fuck your throat"

The sound that leaves her is filled with need.

"Jungkook, baby please."

He trails his hands down her chest and stomach before it reaches her pussy. Just around her clit. His finger are soft and light, not putting pressure when all she wants is for him to give her the release she so badly craves.

Jungkook's cock is already leaking with precum and his balls ache. He missed his girl so fucking much, so much that he lost count of how many times he had fucked his hand while thinking of her while he was away. When his colleagues saw his flushed face, he had no other option than to blame it on the cold weather.

His finger slide down and back up her slit, making her visibly shiver.

Shit. He's not gonna last long if she keeps making those noises.

"How many finger do you want, _____?" he asks as repeats the same motion.

His mouth comes on her in a searing kiss, it's possessive, passionate, burning and everything nasty. He's straight up claiming her mouth as her tongue tangles with his own.

Pulling back he waits for her response, "Two. Please"

Following her command, his two fingers slide inside her. He tightens the hold on her stomach to have her stay in place when she bucks her hips forward.

She screams.

"That's my girl"

He slides his finger out before sinking it deep inside her cunt again. Crooking them in such a way that he hits her g-spot. Desperate moans fill the room mixing with the steam coming out of the hot water. Her hands ghost over his, fastening his pace.

"You want it faster, sweetheart?"

"Yes, much faster. I wanna cum so bad"

Happy to give her what she wants, he begins rubbing at her clit while his other fingers work their way in and out her wet cunt.

"Oh my fucking god"

"That's right. Get what you want. Such a good girl for me"

He's an animal at this point as he tries to mark her his more than she already is. Jungkook has always been open about sex with his girlfriend, his needs, his wants, his desires and she'd done the same. You compliment each other perfectly. It's easier that way, not leaving any room for doubts.

She like dirty talk, he gives it to her.

When her hips lift forward matching his thrusts, he smirks. Biting her slender neck as she chases her orgasm.

"Aghh"

It finally happens, her hands grasp his even more tightly, other hand gripping the edge of the jacuzzi as she lets out a scream. Her breath fastens as sweat beads her forehead, Jungkook never stopping with his praises.

When she settles back down between his legs, he takes his finger out and sucks them clean. Brown eyes never leaving hers.

"Do you think they heard us, sweetheart?"

Her laughter brings smile to his face, "You're crazy"

"And you're mine" He pecks her cheek, letting his lips linger there for a bit. Basking in the feeling of her love's skin against his lips.

At the beginning of your relationship when you were just getting comfortable with intimacy, jungkook loved kissing her cheek. It was his way of showing her that she's adored by him. Then he realised that quite frankly, it's her. He likes kissing so much because it's her that he's kissing.

He holds her for a while before speaking up, "You wanna help me with a problem?"

He doesn't need to tell her twice but soon as her next words leave her mouth, he takes a double take.

"Sit on the edge and I'll suck you off" he hears her say as she kneels before him.

"Later" he grabs her by her shoulders as he positions her back between his legs. This time facing him.

Her legs wrap around his waist and his thick cock presses against her navel. He knows how badly she wanted to take him into her mouth and he could have let her do that only if he was strong enough to resist himself from sinking deep inside her.

"Now, I wanna fuck you. Raw and nice just like my girlfriend deserves" his voice comes out breathy.

"I love you"

"Me too, sweetheart. More than you know" he assures.

Knowing he can't take it anymore, he lifts her up and sits her body down on his cock. Slowly by slowly as she moans her way through it. ____'s head falls into the crook of his neck and his grip tightens on the curve of her waist. The ampallang piercing multiplies the pleasure tenfold as you both roll your eyes at the back of your head.

Jungkook got madly drunk the other day and came back with a dick piercing which resulted in her getting mad at him and him fucking her to show how good it gets with it.

Having said that, he presses a searing kiss on her lips and his breath knocks out of his chest in the process. It's almost like he's dreaming. The feel of her body on him, his cock deep inside ____, her arms caging him. It all feels surreal. At this point, the neighbors are long forgotten. It's you and him now.

He takes one of her sensitive buds in his mouth, flicking it with his tongue. Moving it in circular motions.

The next few seconds involve him spanking her ass as if he wants to leave marks, him guiding her up and down his cock as she bounces and giving her frequent kisses. Wet slapping noises fill the entire room as his balls ache with need.

"So good, baby. You feel so fucking good. Wrapped around me like this while I fuck you good, huh?" he slaps her pussy lightly.

Thrust Thrust Thrust

As she falls back again into his arms, crying loudly with utter pleasure, he tightens his hold on her body. Hugging her close as both of your heartbeats sync together.

"Thank you for letting me love you, sweetheart. Thank you for coming into my boring ass life and filling it with laughter. Fuck"

Your sweaty and now tired bodies are wrapped around each other as you both revel in the warmth of intimacy.

He lets out a grown followed by her whine and before he can say anything, you’re both cumming together, sighing and kissing as you come down your high.

A chaste kiss is pressed on her forehead, "So perfect, my girl"

"That was…" you bite your lip.

"Amazing, I know" he says as he mindlessly plays with her black locks.

his hands rub her back. "Sweetheart, I want one more from you"

"One more?"

"Yeah, this time I wanna see your beautiful back. Will you do it for me?"

He tries to ask her as gently as possible. Pride filling his chest when he sees her nod.

Guiding her up with the support of her knees he sits her down on his lap, his balls brushing against her clit as he sinks back inside her. A man can only take so much before he snaps. This was the moment for him. His girl's back glistens in the most beautiful way ever. Sweat droplets mixed with water dripping down her spine that he can’t help but kiss.

"Fuck baby, you look like a goddess right now." he halts,

"So warm"

Trailing his hands up the back of her neck he threads his fingers through her hair, gripping it lightly but also putting enough pressure just so she can feel a sweet pain.

His heart skips another beat when she starts moving forward and then backwards, teasing him. Her movements are painfully slow. He wants to ask ____ to move faster but at the same time, he also wants to make this special for her.

So, he waits and watches her back arch as he feels like the luckiest man in the world.

"Jungkook" she moans his name, holding on to his thigh as he pounds into her from the back. It’s even deeper now, his cock hitting places he’d never hit before. Jungkook mentally thanks himself for trying out this new position because he’d just about take any chance to feel more connected to ____.

Just when his stomach contracts and hardens, he asks, "____ I’m gonna need you to spread those ass wider. I’m very close"

When she hums in response he gently pushes her upper body so that it’s flat on his legs, immediately letting him see more of ____'s ass. Her asshole clearly visible to him. It’s such a vulnerable position that you’re both in. Her more than him.

He has to ask her, "Sweetheart, if you don’t feel comfortable we can always stop, alright? You just have to ask"

Her whiney voice reaches his ears, "I’m okay, baby. Just- Just fuck me"

So, he does. His hips thrust forward as he fucks her mercilessly, letting her have the pleasure. She moans, he moans, she cries out, he groans. It’s unbelievably perfect. His hands roam over her smooth back, her ass and even down to her pussy. Both bodies working in a graceful sync.

Suddenly, it’s like the earth comes to a stop. His hands grip his hair while the other one grips hers. His stomach hardens, balls tightening and the moment _____ clenches around his cock, he cums inside of her. Filling her up with hot, white liquid. She follows him soon enough.

"I fucking love this body of yours"

She straightens up and lets her wet body fall heavy on his chest seeking warmth and his arms around her. He’s more than happy to do so. His muscular arms bring her closer to his chest as he relaxes.

Before the next words leave his mouth, he has to make sure ____ is sound asleep.

"I can’t wait to ask you to marry me, sweetheart. I can’t wait to see you in that white dress walking towards me like the angel you are"

He hopes she says yes, he hopes the ring brings the biggest smile on her face.

He hopes.

[malichev]

I've come to the conclusion that with Twitter being banned in Brazil, certain communities have become more comfortable with "attacking" CCs for everything now. Literally, I have a lot of friends in other communities, and they've been complaining a lot about waves of idiotic attacks, and for silly topics like voting for prizes or the recent meeting on Twitchcoon. Literally, Roier went to Twitchcoon, met fans, and some were promoting Enigma do Medo, the Cellbit´s game that should be released soon (high stakes for next month) and Roier saw it and HE commented on it jokingly: How much are they paying you for the promotion? Normal thing, nothing problematic, and people who claim to be fans of Roier started attacking the people who are promoting Enigma do Medo at the event saying that they are forcing Roier to interact, that they only like him because of the cubito couple (the server doesn't even exist anymore), etc. Guys? Wake up, Cellbit and Roier are friends, Roier received game updates before the public, etc., he is one of the people most anxious for this release. And another point, stop saying that fans of the duo only see them as a couple, you are being sick now. Just because Roier talked about a game project by one of his friends, they are being seen as a couple? Bunch of weirdos. The worst thing is that normally you expect fans of the ship to do these weird things, but the ones talking this nonsense are people who say they are just Roier´s fans. The Guapoduo community is quite healthy compared to these crazy people. I'll say it once: Don't like a CC? Ok, but stop trying to dictate the friendships of your favorites streamers. Roier and Cellbit are friends who support each other, if Roier wants to talk about Enigma do Medo, talk about Cellbit, he will because they are friends. You don't know the streamers and you have no right to give your opinion on their personal lives.

If you do this then you are parasocial.

I am sad and outraged because I am also part of the Roier community and it is shameful to see so much toxicity. The worst thing is that they do this a lot with Cellbit, but the truth is that maybe if there were other CCs, which these weirdos also like, because there must be more than one besides Roier, they wouldn't complain.

So, the lesson for us Tumblr people is this: you don't have to like all the Ccs, but be careful not to cross the line and turn into these parasocial lunatics.

*And I'll go through all the TAGs related to the topic.

[stormz369]

☕💖 Can I Get Your Number? ☕💖 Ch 3

Jason Todd x Chubby! Reader (fem)

written with a female reader in mind, first person pov, no use of Y/N, fluffy, mild angst, will probably get NSFW later, let me know if there's anything else I should tag this with!

warnings: reader character dealing with anxiety from previous chapter (non-descriptive),hinted at trauma from fatphobia, hints of Jason's self esteem and body image issues, otherwise it's fluff central

word count: 2.2k (oops? 😅)

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

Ding!

I looked over at my phone, briefly considering not picking it up. When I got through my front door I had ripped my jeans off, suddenly hating everything touching me. I showered, scrubbing the night off until my skin was raw and tingling, and now I was curled up on my bed sheets, having a good cry. I didn't really want to talk to anyone right now…

Ding! Ding! … Ding!

God, whoever it was was insistent though … I sighed softly and picked it up, checking the messages:

Jason: Good morning! I am so sorry for the sudden disappearance - my phone broke on my way to visit my brother!  3:15am Jason: Just got back into town, so I've finally got the sim card in an old one for now. 3:17am Jason: I feel bad, I owe you a week of good mornings! 😭 3:17am Jason: And sorry for spamming you - I just didn't want you to think the worst for a second longer than necessary… 3:18am

I stared at the screen for a long while. Jason was back … just like Red Hood said. Huh… 

Me: Don't worry about it, shit happens! 3:40am Jason: … What are you still doing up?  3:41am

I briefly considered telling him everything. Maybe it would feel good to tell someone … or maybe it would feel even worse. We didn't really know each other yet, who knew how he would react? Nausea gripped my stomach and I shook my head, taking a few deep breaths before replying.

Me: Just got home is all. Picked up a late shift tonight. 3:50am Jason: That's a hell of a late shift, that must have sucked! 3:52am Me: … Yeah, honestly it wasn't great… 😔 3:53am Jason: What are you doing tomorrow? 3:54am Me: Nothing in particular, y? 3:56am Jason: That settles it then! No more excuses, come hell or high water I will see you tomorrow! 3:56am

I stared at the screen, not sure how to feel about that idea. I did want to see him again, but I also really just wanted to sleep for 48 hours straight…

Jason: Seriously, name a time and place. We'll do anything you want! 😁 3:59am Me: You don't have to do that, Jason - you just got back! Don't you need to work? 4:00am Jason: Nope! We came back a day early, so I am all yours! 4:02am Me: … All mine, huh? 😏 4:05am Jason: 100%! Anything you want, name it! 4:06am Me: … Gotham City Mall, meet in front of the bookstore at … say 4? 4:08am Jason: Perfect, see you in 12 hours! Good night 4:08am Me: Good night Jason 4:09am

I was exhausted, but couldn't seem to sleep. I was still coming down from the anxiety and adrenaline from being attacked, and now I was also nervous and tentatively excited about seeing Jason. This was the step that usually proved someone was playing games with me. I sighed softly, sliding a hand down my soft tummy. I didn't mind the way I was shaped, but other people sure had a way of making it seem like the end of the world… I silently begged the universe; let this one be good. No more games, let it be real this time…

When I finally did sleep, my dreams were filled with red. Blood all over the pavement, staining everything. Red chrome staring me down as I cried. Large hands, so gentle against my cheeks, pulling me against a warm, broad chest…

I woke with a start and peered over at my discarded clothes in a heap from the night before. Red Hood's flannel peaked out from under my ruined pants, taunting me; I was about to go on a date and I was dreaming about another man? A man I was surely never going to see again no less? That's real healthy, well done Brain.

I stepped over the clothes on the floor, not wanting to deal with the mess left over from last night, and selected a cute but comfortable outfit. I ate a quick breakfast, spent longer than I'd care to admit on my hair and makeup, and headed downstairs to catch the bus to the mall.

My anxiety grew as I approached the front doors. It’s a trick, it must be a trick. The cold air conditioning hit me in the face, a welcome respite from the summer heat, and I made my way toward the bookstore. He's a hottie, and really sweet. Or at least knows how to play sweet. He's definitely not actually interested. I could see the sign for the bookstore on the other side of the mall. And he's a Wayne too! What could a Wayne want with me?? … Oh god, I threatened them, didn't I? I told the little one I'd stab them if they came back to the table. Why did I say that???

I blinked a bit, pausing. That was him, leaned against the wall right next to the bookstore. He had actually shown up. I watched him scroll on his phone for a minute before looking up and scanning the crowd. When his eyes landed on me I continued walking toward him. He pocketed his phone, kicked off the wall, and walked over to meet me, a little grin lighting up his face.

“You're actually here…” the words left my mouth before I could reconsider, my disbelief apparent in my tone. Jason looked a bit confused at that, awkwardly rubbing the back of his head.

“Well, yeah? … You said 4, right?”

“Sorry! Yes, I said 4. I just … I honestly wasn't sure this was … real…”

“Why wouldn't it be real?”

I blushed a bit, clearing my throat slightly; “n- never mind! Sorry, I had a weird week; my brain hasn't fully caught up.”

He nodded a little, smiling gently. “Well, I hope it's getting better at least.”

I nodded. “Yeah, it is. Thanks. … So, what should we do?”

“Like I said last night; anything you want.”

“Well, … we're right here, do you want to start at the bookstore?”

He nodded and fell into step beside me, smiling gently. I could feel his eyes on me as I walked into the store, browsing the aisles. It was odd how comfortable this was; he was a good half foot taller than me, and at least 200 pounds of pure muscle. If his arms and cheek were any gauge he was absolutely covered in old scars, and he had a bandage on one forearm so whatever gave him the scars probably wasn't confined to the past.

I should be terrified - everything about my upbringing told me this was a dangerous situation to be in. But when I saw the look in his eyes, like I was the most interesting thing in the world, all of my self-defense training fell out of my head. The voices urging me to get to safety quieted, all my instincts stilled, and there was peace. His eyes were so beautiful… 

“... Is there something on my face?” He blushed a bit, chuckling awkwardly.

I blinked, looking away. “Sorry! I wasn't staring, I just …”

“... Did you want to ask about this?” he pointed to the scar on his cheek.

“Huh? No! I have a policy of not asking people about stuff like that; you'll tell me or not on your own time. No, I just … I like your eyes is all …’’ I blushed brightly, staring at but not reading the back cover of a book.

“... My eyes?” I nodded, still pretending to read the back cover. “... You're really not going to ask about my scars?”

“Unless you want to talk about them, it's not any of my business.”

“... You're a very unusual girl.”

“Because I'm not going to pry about something you may or may not want to talk about, particularly on a first date?”

“Well, they're usually the first thing anyone wants to talk to me about. If they don't avoid me in the first place…”

I frowned a bit at that. If we met under any other circumstances, I would have taken one look at him and ducked my head to avoid an interaction. “... People suck…”

“It's not their fault; I'm intimidating…” I cautiously looked over at him. He was also staring at a book cover, a pensive little frown on his face.

“... I don't think you're intimidating.”

His eyes darted over and back to the book, and the corner of his mouth curled up ever so slightly. “... Thanks.”

I nodded, setting the book down. “.... So …”

“So? …”

“... Play a game?”

He chuckled, looking over at me. “A game?”

I nodded. “You tell me some of your favorite things in books, I'll tell you some of mine. We separate, select a few of our favorites that the other might like, and reconvene.”

“Alright. Is there a way to win this game?”

“Well I assume we'll each pick at least one book the other hasn't read, so we'll get to make each other read at least one of our favorites. That sounds like a win to me.”

He chuckled. “Alright. Meet back up at those comfy chairs in the back?”

I nodded, telling him some of my favorite tropes, genres, and settings. He did the same, and we darted in opposite directions. He beat me back there, but I eventually approached with a small stack, falling into the seat next to him.

He gestured toward my books; “ladies first.”

I tucked my feet under me, passing him each book in turn and making a case for it. He took each one, read the back cover, and listened intently. He had read one of them, and I figured he'd pick one of the others, if that, but he insisted he was going to get them all. When it was his turn, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, but Pride and Prejudice wasn't the first thing that came to mind. 

“I've seen a few movie adaptations, but I haven't gotten around to reading it.” I smiled softly, taking the book. It was a beautiful blue cover with swirling calligraphy font in gold.

“An unparalleled tragedy - I insist this is the one you're taking home!” I giggled at his determined tone and nodded.

“Yes, sir!” I made a little mock salute, trying not to smirk at the sudden wave of pink overtaking his face. “... Well, what else do you have for me?”

He cleared his throat awkwardly, looking at the books in his hands. “Ah, um …”

One by one he passed me, Hamlet, the Three Musketeers, a book of Greek myths, and … a trashy romance?

“... Not gonna lie, this is an unexpected choice.” I read the back. It looked like your typical bodice ripper.

He chuckled, blushing a bit. “Look, it was the only book I had access to one day and I was losing my mind with boredom. But if you give it a chance, it's actually really well written, and the love interest isn't one of those creepy possessive guys the genre is known for, so …”

I nodded, taking a picture of the book covers. “I will give it a chance then!”

“... Why are you taking a picture of them?”

“... To get later? I'll start with this one, since you were so determined that I read it.” I held up Pride and Prejudice. Jason gathered up the others, putting them on his stack, then gently took Pride and Prejudice from me as well.

“Or I could just get them for you.” 

“What? Jason, no. I mean, that’s really sweet of you, but that's way too much!” Between the books he'd picked out for me and the ones I'd selected for him, he was holding at least $200 in his hands. And he'd picked the pretty hardcovers too! 

He shook his head. “I've had to cancel on you at least 5 times, and then I disappeared with no warning. You have been incredibly patient and understanding, and I will make today worth it.”

I blushed brightly, a bit surprised. “Jason, … you're worth waiting for. I enjoy talking to you, you don't have to spend money on me for today to be worth my time.”

He looked away uncomfortably, bright red, holding the stack of books to his chest. “... I … I like talking to you too … just let me do this, yeah? Call it a first date splurge.”

“... Alright, if you're sure. But I don't want you making a habit of this.”

He nodded, smiling softly. “Don't worry; I know you're a strong, independent woman.”

I nodded once, chuckling. “Damn right.”

Jason grinned, god he had an infectious grin, and led me to stand in line together. He held the stack of books in one hand, and we chatted a bit more while we waited for our turn. I was looking at a selection of little plushies in the impulse items when I felt something brush ever so slightly against my finger. I looked down; his trembling hand was next to mine, his pinky slightly extended toward me. I chuckled softly, extending mine toward him, and gently linked our fingers together. He stiffened ever so slightly before relaxing into it, gently squeezing back.

Divider by @saradika (and my thanks for making them free to use!)

Taglist (let me know in the comments if you want to be added or dropped!)

@jawdropforkpop @krys0210 @snowy-violet @superthoughts @wordsfromshona

[pookietsunoda]

Saw this post abt Alonso getting accidentally electrocuted and thinking he was 14 (as well as this tag on a reblog)

what if... the whole grid accidentally got struck by some deus ex machina non fatal zap that gave them temporary amnesia and they all became convinced they were 14 for a day? Here is what I think would happen:

First off, they're all so hyped about being F1 drivers and get excited about the dumbest shit (phone games, wheel guns, tire blankets)

Max and Charles fight each other over the Inchident

George is starstruck by the fact that Alex is an F1 racer (bc Alex was his karting hero growing up) but Alex didn't become friends with George until he was 15, so he has no idea who George is, which is Humiliating to fragile teenage George.

Half of them can't speak English fluently yet. Only the younger ones (Oscar, Franco, etc) know that google translate exists and they help massively in the linguistic problems.

Unclear whether or not Pierre and Esteban are besties or enemies, or both. They are one of those things, and they're insane about it because they're teenagers. Lance and Esteban are probably like Normal friends though.

Lewis is like "where tf is Nico" and finds adult Nico. Lewis is super pumped to hear that they both made it to F1, were teammates and won WDCs, Lewis is an F1 GOAT, and that Nico married his childhood crush. (Their life trajectories literally sound like what a kid imagines their future to be like.) And Nico is like "hey we actually had a falling out" and Lewis is like "that's crazy man, how would we stop being friends? You want some frosties?"

Immediate Spanish speaker clique between Fernando, Carlos, Checo, and Franco. They are shook that THE Fernando Alonso wants to be besties with them (especially Carlos since Fernando is his hero).

KMag and Hulk are probably friends since this is pre Suck My Balls and they're friends now so, their energies align I guess.

Being 14 year olds who find out they're rich and famous, they all want to escape into the real world and take joyrides in the expensive cars they own/ drink alcohol/ see strippers/ buy crazy stuff and their team staff is like OH NO WE CAN'T LET THEM ESCAPE (Thus ensues comedy gold of the team staff chasing kids who have the bodies of professional athletes around the track and trying to contain them)

If in Singapore, Yuki and Zhou manage to escape because they are 2 East Asians wearing designer and F1 merch and they blend in with the fans. (As a disguise, they swap team shirts and put on surgical masks and people are like "Is that Zhou Guanyu?" "Nah why would Zhou be wearing a Yuki shirt?") Word gets out in the drivers whatsapp that they escaped and they immediately get bombarded with requests for what to buy for the rest of the paddock. They cannot rly understand each other but Zhou can get around Sgp pretty easily bc a lot of people there speak Mandarin. He has to stop Yuki from breaking at least five Singaporean laws. They stuff themselves at hawker stands and have a great field trip but then get recognized and have to make an emergency getaway on a stolen electric scooter. They do get Lewis his Frosties.

Lewis doesn't know he's a vegan and almost ruins his reputation by being spotted by paparazzi eating Frosties with non vegan milk. Also gives himself a nasty stomachache.

Despite being told not to tell other people about the mass amnesia, Max and Lance both call their dads. Lawrence is like "My poor son! I will get the experts to look into this right away!" Jos is like "idc if you don't remember how to drive the car, you're gonna do it or I'll disown you." Daniel and Lando grab the phone and tell Jos he's a meanie and also was a shit F1 driver, then hang up.

George finds chewing gum at the bottom of someone's bag and starts spiraling, convinced that the Singaporean police are going to arrest and execute them all for possessing illegal items.

Lord of the Flies scenario where George and Oscar are trying to organize everyone to make sure they don't accidentally hurt themselves, whereas Lando, Fernando, KMag, Daniel, and a few others are just trying to have a good time and cause chaos. Bottas and Alex and a third group are just like quietly messing around in the back.

They come to a truce in order to organize a GPDA strike because they have been banned from leaving the track until they regain their memories. They barricade themselves in someone's garage and have a sleepover on the floor with lots of candy and games. Lewis finds a guitar and plays Wonderwall.

They wake up the next day extremely confused (but remembering everything) and race as normal LOL

[witchofsparkles]

Vampire Ghost and hunter Soap fic I wrote a while ago. I'm posting the full fic down below, it's also on AO3. You can check the tags first on AO3 if you like.

Soap aimed his crossbow for the deer bowed its head. It was oblivious to the human and the bow in his hand, didn't realize the fate that was on the way to claim its reward.

Every living thing was a fuel to the another. The energy never disappears but it changes. The deer's life was going to be the human's. There was a circle to complete. The circle of life.

But when Soap released the trigger and waited for the deer to shake with the arrow's force, it went into something taller and slender. Something more human. Soap watched the deer to run away into the depths of the forest and slowly walked to the prey. It was a human. At least his body was, Soap couldn't see the face of him because of the skull mask covering most of it. He squated next to him to check his pulse. Yes, Soap was a hunter and a killer if it came to it, but he wasn't out to kill innocent people. If he didn't see it necessary to his survival, every breath was God's to take.

Soap reached for the man's neck, to see if he is alive and thought he faced the death itself. The man reacted with the speed of light and Soap found his neck between the man's hand. The pulse he wanted to feel was the man's, not his own.

"Hey, calm down. It was an accident, are you okay?" Soap eyed the arrow's entry point and saw it was just under his shoulder. It shouldn't be life threatening. The man was still breathing harshly like a caged animal, so Soap put his hands on the man's. He hoped to calm him down, but the hand squeezed his neck more. "You're going to kill me." Soap managed to whisper through his clenched jaw but he started to see the stars. "I can't breath."

That brought the man's senses back and he relaxed his hand around Soap. Then leaned back to the tree behind him, kept watching Soap who was struggling to breath between coughing fits. "I was going after the deer. What were you doing there?"

Soap stared at the injured man and waited for an answer that seemed like would never come. But he spoke, with a powerless but deep voice. It was almost like he was using his all strength for a couple words. Soap didn't know who was in a worse condition: Soap who just got choked or the man who got shot with an arrow. "Going after the deer."

Soap sat down with a grunt, face to face with the man. After a careful and long watch, Soap pointed to the arrow on the man's shoulder. "Do you want me to take it out?"

The man didn't answer.

"You were going after the deer too? I don't see any weapon. You would catch it with what? Hopes and dreams?" That granted Soap a stare. He could imagine the man was raising an eyebrow. But he didn't answer, again.

"Do you have anyone at home that can cook and nurse?" The man's eyes met with Soap's and they stayed like that under the setting sun for some time. Soap couldn't see the man's eyes, they were in the shadow under the skull mask but he could see his mouth which had scars around. Soap found it sad, for some reason. It looked like the man never smiled in his life. That made him come to a decision and Soap raised to his feet. Then under the masked man's questioning eyes, he extended his hand. "Come. Let's get that wound cleaned up."

The man followed him after a brief moment, Soap guessed he was weighing his choices and walked especially slower. But when he heard the silent footsteps, Soap picked the conversation from where he left. "So. What's your name?" That stretched the silence, rather than putting a stop to it. Soap turned his head back to see the man. "I'm Soap. It's John, actually but people call me Soap. I'm taking Tarzan home, I think I deserve a name."

The man was holding the arrow stable with his hand while following Soap down the hill and he didn't raise his eyes when answering. "Ghost." Soap nodded to himself as if it was the most satisfying name he heard and Ghost frowned behing him. If he knew why Ghost was given that name, he wouldn't be looking so carefree.

They came to Soap's house, which was more like a hut than a house. There were only two rooms inside and they were small. Soap's head was just under the door but Ghost had to bend slightly to protect his head. Soap left Ghost in the room with a couch, a small table and two chairs. On his right were two kitchen cabinets with a sink and a stove. Enough things for a man who lives alone, Ghost thought. When Soap returned to the room with gauzes and medicines, Ghost went to the couch without giving Soap time to say anything. If he wanted to get the arrow out, who was he to stop him? But Ghost didn't know how to explain that he stopped bleeding long ago and the only thing preventing the wound from closing was the arrowhead still buried into his flesh.

And yet, Soap didn't face any opposition when he held the shirt to cut it away. The white shirt was wet with blood and Soap expected to see an injury under it, but the under the dried blood was just an arrow. Soap grabbed the arrow with his right hand and put his left on Ghost's chest to stabilize himself. The injury that stopped bleeding was in the vicinity of things he could maybe explain to himself, but not feeling any heartbeat under his palm was not. While pulling the arrow out with force, Soap did everything he could to not start shaking like leaf under Ghost's gaze and the heart that wasn't beating. And the worst, he invited him in.

Soap looked at the arrow in his hand. Ghost didn't make any sound when Soap was forcing the arrow out. His hand was aching from gripping it too tight but Ghost didn't make any sound.

Why would he, if he wasn't a human?

Soap took a deep breath. He needed to calm down. If Ghost wanted to kill him, he wouldn't be alive now. And there they were, Soap's knee on the couch between Ghost's thighs and his hand on his chest. He didn't look like he was going for Soap's head.

"Okay. The arrow is out and apparently you don't need gauzes, " Soap said nervously. His eyes were still on the hole, which supposed to stay open for at least a week. The flesh was already mending. Ghost's lips curled with a cold smile. "What?"

Soap took himself back quickly, almost stepping on his own foot. His heart was beating like caged bird in his chest. "You don't have a heart." Ghost's smile stayed but Soap knew it didn't reach his eyes. It didn't even reach his lips. It was only there for a show. "Ouch. I just told you my name."

Soap waved his hand after he huffed a short, unamused laugh. "It wasn't metaphorical. Your heart literally don't beat. Who the fuck are you?"

Ghost wasn't sitting anymore, he got to his feet and closed the gap between them. Soap hated how he had to lift his head a little to see Ghost's eyes and how it made him feel like a prey. He remembered three hours ago, how he thought this man was lying there like one. "I'm a demon you welcomed in." Soap's mind haywired and he actually laughed. It came from inside, from his belly and his whole body shook with the force of it. He noticed this whole thing was a sick joke but he was standing face to face with a probably immortal or already dead creature -given the fact that he had no beating heart. He had his own doubts of the origin of him, but to hell with it. He just pulled an arrow out of a myth, he had his reasons to lose it a little.

"Oh please. Who are you? Dracula? Go sit down when I'm prepping the meal. Even the demons get hungry."

Soap turned his back to Ghost and went to the kitchen, as if his heart was not about to leave his ribcage. He wasn't aware what he was saying until after he already said it and only thing he was sure about was that Ghost could most likely rip his head of when he was reaching for the pan. And yes, the demons would get hungry but what did they eat?

Ghost watched Soap from the couch he was sitting. He had a thoughtful look on his face. Was he really so fearless or so stupid? Soap didn't know what he was, he only got the vague idea of him being not human and said fuck it. Why was he treating Ghost like a human? Like someone who deserves any kindness of heart? He didn't have a heart.

Ghost didn't need kindness. He didn't need to rest. He didn't need his wounds to be cleaned. He didn't need to eat. Not normal, human meals, at least.

He needed to feed like every living creature. With or without a heart. But he only needed the souls. The flesh wasn't on the menu.

"What do you want to eat? I couldn't hunt, thanks to someone, so I don't have any meat." Ghost didn't look away from Soap's back and Soap shuddered under the realization of being watched. He had to ask what Ghost was eating. He had to know.

"Nothing. I don't eat. I... devour." Soap's hand froze on the ladle and he had to stop himself from reaching to the knife. He turned to face Ghost, who was still sitting where he left him. There wasn't any emotion on his mouth, the only part on his face that Soap could see. "Devour what? The souls of the innocent?" Soap's voice was mixed with mock but one could feel the tension behind it. Ghost sent him a little smirk as a prize of getting it right. "Enemies and the animals first. But if I have to, innocents are okay too."

"You're just pulling my leg now." Soap made a sound that indicates he didn't buy it. But the longer he looked at Ghost's unwavering eyes, the more he lost his confidence. "You're telling the truth. What the fuck?"

Ghost shrugged, and crossed his arms on his chest. "So. What's for the dinner?"

After an uncomfortable dinner which Ghost just watched while Soap was drinking a tasteless soup, he left Ghost in the room and went to bed to the next room. The idea of locking the door crossed his mind but he didn't. If Ghost wanted to take his soul away, a wooden door with a key on it wouldn't stop him. So he just left the door unlocked but closed, then went to bed. He thought he wouldn't be able to sleep with the fact that a soul sucker vampire was in the next room, but he drifted the moment his head touched the pillow. He dreamed of ghosts and souls.

The days turned into weeks like this. Soap didn't ask for Ghost to leave. It was out of fear at first but then he just liked to have a company. He didn't take his mask of, he didn't eat and sometimes he left for a couple of hours but he was always back before the night. Soap even found himself forgetting that Ghost wasn't a human. He was just there with his sometimes inappropriate jokes and sometimes silence. But these last days, he was mostly on the silent side and it made Soap feel... worried.

"Ghost, you good?" Ghost was on the couch, just lying there and dangling his feet from the armrest. He didn't voice an answer but nodded. Soap pressed the matter, cause Ghost's skin was looking paler than normal. "You look sick." Soap waited. Ghost would talk when he wanted to, not when he have to. While waiting to be taken into consideration of answering, Soap had a disturbing idea. "When was the last time you ate something?"

Ghost finally looked at Soap. He looked into his eyes. Soap bit his lip. "Was it before we met? Were you going for the deer because of it?" Ghost sighed. "Yes, Johnny."

Soap didnt dwell on the nickname. Not yet. "But you left almost everyday. You didn't find any animal?" Soap followed Ghost's stare and looked out the window. It was snowing. "I don't go for every animal. The sick ones are already dead, the healthy ones are gone."

"How big should it be?" Soap asked with urgency. If Ghost was half sick as his face, Soap was scared that he was gonna die in two days. Ghost didn't make a sound and for a second, Soap thought he just withered away in front of his eyes. The thought of Ghost dying made his breath caught in his throat. "Is a chicken okay? I don't know, a sheep?"

Ghost turned his head to the side and stared at Soap. He looked so helpless and panicked. Ghost smiled to him. It was a genuine one, and Ghost knew Soap noticed that too. He knew it from how Soap's posture changed. How he tensed first, then relaxed. How his shoulders sagged with relief for a moment. "Whatever you can find. A soul is a soul."

It did matter. Yes, a soul was a soul but the smarter the creature was the more fullfilling it would be. A cat's soul would do it for him, for two days. Maybe. A crow? About a week. That's why, the other ones were always hunting humans. They were the epitomes of wit. The emperors of the food chain. But he didn't have the luxury of a choice. He was already hungry and weak when he met Soap. After that, with every passing day with no soul, he got weaker. The weaker he became, the lesser he could go out to hunt. And because the village was small and they didn't know him, he couldn't go to the other houses to see if they have any animal. The last time he left the house, he had to sit under a tree not too far from home so he could go back. At first, staying with the human was a wise choice for him. If he couldn't hunt, he could always take Soap's soul. After some time, he couldn't bring himself to even think about it. The image of Soap between his arms, his soul leaving his body to feed Ghost, his blue eyes closing forever to keep Ghost's eyes open.

It sounded so sick and so wrong.

He found himself at the bring of death, so he could keep Soap alive.

When Soap came back, his hands were empty and there was a shocked look on his face. Ghost knew something was wrong. He sat up quickly and saw the stars for a moment. Soap was still standing in front of the door that closed after him. "They... They're all dead. Everyone. All of them." Ghost frowned. He took Soap's hand without thinking about it and got his attention. "What's happening? Tell me. Slowly." Soap nodded and dropped himself next to Ghost on the couch. There was a distant look in his eyes. "I- The village was too quiet. I followed the road down, I walked till the woods. Every door was closed. There was no one outside. Even the kids. Kids are always outside. I knocked on the doors, no answer. Then I saw blood on the path. Just droplets. Followed it through, it was going inside a house. The door wasn't locked so I went inside." Soap stopped talking and pressed into his eyes with his palms like he wanted to erase the scenes from his brain. Ghost put his hand on Soap's back and slowly circled. He hoped to bring some peace. "All dead. Went from door to door. All dead. Kids, animals, even the bugs. All dead. I found blood on only few of the bodies. The rest was... just sleeping. They didn't look dead. They looked like sleeping."

Ghost's body froze. He could feel Soap's skin under his palm and the heat radiating from it, but rest of his body was frozen. "Like sleeping. Are you sure?" Oblivious to Ghost's state of mind, Soap nodded. He was looking at his own hands. "Yes. No injury. They were all clean except the ones with blood. I think they tried to fight against whatever it was."

Ghost didn't talk for a long time and Soap's mind was occupied with the images of his friends bodies. Then he snapped his head to look at Ghost. Ghost was lost in thoughts but Soap figured it out. He figured it out long ago, deep down he got what was happening but only now he could voice it. "Ghost. Is it only you? The vampire?" Ghost nodded slowly and the nightmare turned into reality. Soap clenched his fists to slow his breath down. So he wouldn't start shouting. "How many? Ghost. How many? Did I do this to them? Did they follow you? Or were they looking for you? Are you a part of a pack? Did you do this?" Soap's voice raised through the talking and he was yelling at the end. He didn't realize he was standing in front of Ghost till he looked down and saw Ghost's head hanging low.

"I left them a long time ago. They turned me into this monster, and feed me the souls. The humans. It was mandatory for them, to feed on humans. They always went after the smartest ones, in wit and in emotion. After they made me eat the soul of a child, I left. And I brought the bastards with me. Their souls. It's a funny thing, how we think when the heart stops the soul leaves. It's normally like that.Any human would lose their souls when their heart stopped. But with us, it's different. Our hearts stopped long ago, but we still live. It's like we tricked God into thinking we're still alive, even after hundreds of years. Or we're all so wicked that even God doesn't want to claim our souls. When I ate the other ones' I tasted rotten blood. It was the most disgusting thing I've ever eaten. But when I was feeding on them, I also fed on the souls they took. I tasted fear, sadness, happiness, hope, love... I tasted it all. Then I tasted my own mother. My brother and his finance, my nephew. These bastards put their hands on my family."

Soap couldn't move. Couldn't breath. He felt the tears stinging his eyes. He let them fall, and stream down his face.

"Among them, I found who did it. And I sliced him. Carved him with a knife. You see, Johnny, I was a soldier before. They turned me because I was too good. The perfect soldier. But I would die one day. So they turned me into this beast. I know how to torture and how to make people scream with pain. But he was already dead and I already took his soul. So I carved a message on his body." Ghost took a knife out of his pocket and showed to Soap. "This is the only thing that was left from my old life. I want to end the new one with it too. Unless someone from them or God himself doesn't want to get my soul, I will keep walking this earth till the apocalypse come and take us all. Or maybe, one day, I will be strong enough to do it myself."

Soap was still looking down at Ghost. Ghost, who was sitting like a stone while telling Soap his life. The horrors he experienced. He squatted down. It was like the first day they met. Soap wrapped his arms around Ghost's body and pulled him close, his head was just under Soap's chin. Ghost trembled and took a deep breath, like the weight on his shoulders lifted with the touch of Soap. He leaned to Soap's chest without realizing and the hard edges of the mask sinked into Soap's flesh.

Soap didn't move, but Ghost knew it hurt. He took the mask out, then hugged Soap back with force. Like he was trying to run away from the world into the Soap's chest. Like he was trying to get into it, to nest in his ribcage and become the neighbour to his heart. Soap stroked his back, and let him pour it all out. If he wanted to stay, he was going to let him stay. Let it be in his house, or in his heart. Both were his home.

Ghost took himself back from the Soap's hug and for a moment, he didn't lift his head. It was an integral part of Ghost, Soap couldn't possibly imagine how hard it was to take it off in front of someone else. "I put this mask on after they force me to take that child's soul. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. I was an entity with a damned soul and no heart. I was a ghost." Ghost looked up at Soap and it made Soap's heart jump. Soap saw his brown, more like auburn hair with blond strands here and there. And saw his brown eyes, which turned into pot of honey under the sun. His mouth was always on display, with scars around it that made him look like a mistreated porcelain doll. But the cheekbones were new. The cut starting from under his eye and ending right before where the mask sits was new. The freckles across his face were brilliant, like God took a look at it and decided it would be a nice location for another desert. For Soap to get lost and see a mirage under his eyes.

Soap took Ghost's hands into his and didn't look away from his eyes. Then kissed the corner of his lips. Lifted corners with a smile was the prize. Ghost held his face with both hands, then put his thumbs under Soap's eyes. He drank from the oceans, that clenched his thirst. Then he went for his lips, and not like a shy thank you. Ghost devoured Soap's lips. The human Ghost thought that he would eat his soul away was taking his' through the lips. And Ghost was giving it away willingly.

The moment ended with a bang on the door and they froze on the spot. Ghost went for his mask again, and Soap ran to the kitchen to get a knife. "Simon... I know you're here, dear." Ghost's hand stopped at midair with the mask. After hearing the name, he lowered his hand and dropped the mask. Soap wasn't listening the man shouting outside the door. His eyes were on Ghost. And when Ghost handed Soap the knife he was carrying with him, he snapped. "What are you thinking?"

Ghost didn't speak. But his eyes and face did. "Absolutely not. You're not fed. You're weak. And you give the knife to me? No." Ghost put the knife in Soap's palm and made him clench his fist, then put his hand on top of it. "I've been alive for 200 years, Johnny. And you're the best thing ever happened to me." Soap shook his head furiously. "No. Ghost -Simon. No. I won't allow it. Stay. We can figure it out."

Ghost listened the sounds. There were at least three of them. In his best, Ghost would take them down at the same time. But now, he was weaker than a kid and he knew they came after him, not Johnny. He wasn't going to put his life in danger. Ghost leaned in for another kiss before getting up to his feet. A kiss of goodbye. Soap wanted to tear down the walls with his fingers.

Ghost left like a summer breeze in the middle of the barren winter.

Soap's grip around the knife tightened to the degree that the handle left prints in his palm. He got up and went to the door. He wasn't going to let them get Ghost alone. Even as a mere human, he knew he could do something. He was a hunter, he could do some damage. When he grabbed the knob with determination, the door opened wide with a bang. A man with a red hair with blood on his face was standing in front of him with psychopatic smile. "Hi, Johnny. Let's take a walk."

Soap used the knife Ghost gave him on the red haired man. He stabbed his arm but it didn't make him leave Soap. Instead, he bent Soap's arm to his back and took him out of the house. Soap didn't realize how far they come till they stopped and only then he noticed the speed they had. The man almost flied him to the woods with his speed. When they stopped, Soap took a look at their surroundings and his eyes stopped at Ghost. He was bleeding from his arms and his face, Soap saw a hole on his chest which made his heart stop. Ghost's wounds would close by itself normally, but his body was too hungry to do so. He was going to die soon. "Ghost..."

Ghost's unseeing eyes focused on Soap and his eyes widen with fear. He struggled under the grip of the other man. "Soap! No! Why did you take him? This is between us!" Ghost's cries didn't reach to the red haired man. He just laughed. "All these fightings made me hungry. I bought a snack on my way back." The man turned his look from Soap to Ghost, then his smile turned into something more wicked. "Oh. I almost forgot. You didnt eat for so long, right? I will leave this for you. I know you don't like it, but a cut on the body will do the job. It did before."

He touched Soap's cheek and made a little cut with his fingernail, just enough to draw blood. "Soap, did you know he hates to take human soul? But the beast does like it. Blood is the link between the body and the soul. If you bring it out, we always want to taste it. Some of us want it more than the others. Especially if you're too hungry. Too weak. If you're at the door of the underworld, the beast will do anything to keep its soul inside the body. To keep it from dying."

Soap locked his eyes with Ghost, and saw the color leaving his face. He was living up to his name now, his face was as white as a ghost. Soap could see him struggling, trying to lock his jaw, close his mouth, dig his toes into the dirt to keep him from moving. But Soap also could see the beast was winning. Ghost was too helpless, he didn't have enough strength to hold himself back. The man standing at Ghost's side let him go.

Soap closed his eyes. He didn't mind dying. He didn't mind it because he knew his soul was going to live in Ghost. He was going to let Soap in, like Soap did with Ghost weeks ago. Soap was okay with it.

He embraced death with open arms.

But it didn't come. He felt the grip on his coat loosen and he planted on the ground face first. He tasted dirt in his mouth but his soul was where it should be. He stayed on his knees and hands first, then looked around. The man with the red hair was on the ground and his eyes were looking at the trees above, empty. He was dead. Rather, his soul was sucked out of him. Soap searched for Ghost and found him on the other side, the man who was holding Ghost was now between Ghost's arms, his limbs stopping moving by the time goes.

When Ghost finished his job, he tossed the body to the side like a trash. He left the mask home, so Soap saw his face as a whole. He looked phenomenal with the dried blood on his cheek and the franzy look on his eyes. But he felt scared too. This was the beast. The monster. Even though Ghost could take his last breath away from his lungs, Soap still reached a hand to him when Ghost got closer. "Simon..."

Ghost squatted and took Soap's hand, then lifted it to his face and pressed his cheek on it. Then kissed his palm. "Yes, Johnny. I'm here."

Soap let Ghost wrap him into a hug. They stayed like that for a moment, till the tension of fear leave both of their bodies. Soap nudged his head into Ghost's neck and spoke in a muffled voice. "Simon, is it over?" Ghost nodded over him. "It is. We can go home now."

Soap grabbed Ghost's shirt and held him down with himself. "Everybody is dead. There's no home." Ghost kissed the top of Soap's head. "Wherever you are, there is my home. We can leave, if you want. To somewhere better."

Soap chuckled under him. "To somewhere with unlimited access to little innocent animals."

"That too, yeah." Ghost parted away and saw Soap still holding the knife he gave, grabbing it to death. Ghost unclenched his fist, then took the knife away. It made a deep cut on Soap's hand, the blade was dripping blood. Ghost wrapped the wound with a piece of the red hair man's cloth, then clened the knife on his shirt. Soap shook his head when Ghost wanted to give the knife back. "No. It's yours. And no one's dying. So you can take it."

Ghost refused, and put the knife back on Soap's good hand. "My life is always in your hands. You can kill my kind with a stab to the heart. I never had the courage, never bring myself to try. But if one day-" Soap stopped Ghost from talking with a kiss. He kissed Ghost like this was a war and Soap was determined to win. Ghost breathed into Soap's mouth and Soap tasted Ghost's soul. He tasted love and murder. Both had traces of blood.

"If you ever, ever, talk about dying again. I will kill you. Just a warning." Ghost laughed and bit Soap's lower lip. "Mhm. I'm warned."

Five hundred years later, a man with a wide hat stepped next to a disturbed tomb. He had a shovel in his hand, and the grave was getting swept by men and women with shovels and all kinds of tools. "Price!" The man turned to the sound of his name. "Gaz. What's it?" Gaz pointed to a grave that was six foot away. "Take a look at this."

They were called to a graveyard because a sick bastard was burying his victims' bodies with the already dead people. Price greeted the people working on the other graves on his way and went to the one Gaz pointed. "Would you look at that?"

Price lowered himself and tried to take everything in. There was two bodies in the space of one, so he thought it was the psycho's doing but when he gave his attention he realized it wasn't the case.

What was left from them were only the skeleton but a trained eye could see it. One of the bodies was almost in a manner of hugging the other. The hugged one had nothing and probably died of natural causes because Price couldn't see any trauma on the bones. He was probably too old, if you take the sternum's width. But the other, the one that looked like it was hugging, had a knife between his ribs, stuck there till eternity.

Price took his eyes from the grave and plunged the shovel into the ground, taking a load of it and filling the grave. "Let them rest, son."

[queerdiazs]

tease tidbit tuesday 🫧

hi friends, i'm procrastinating doing my fema courses in favor of watching season 4 <3 have a lil bit of eddie vs the hoa

It’s just—Buck is big and it kind of drives Eddie a little crazy.  Like? God, okay. He’s a little stupid over it. You’ll have to forgive him.  He is so big, right, larger than Eddie and Eddie isn’t a small guy. He’s filled out since finishing his probationary year, settling in his career and getting comfortable in the life he chose for himself and Chris. He’s more functional muscle than big gains; his stomach’s soft, protected by a sweet layer of fat, but his core’s solid and his arms are twice the size they used to be when he was twenty-seven.  See? He isn’t small.  But, like, Buck’s just bigger, wider and broader and thicker, and there’s something so delicious about having somebody that large at his mercy, at his every beck and call. Buck has this quality about him, no matter his size, like he’s always ready to drop to his knees and let himself be taken care of, and it has Eddie’s head buzzing in a way that most definitely isn’t from the beer. 

tagged by @wikiangela, @jeeyuns, @devirnis, @disasterbuckdiaz, and @daffi-990 <3

tagging @spagheddiediaz, @puppyboybuckley, @evanbegins, @honestlydarkprincess, @exhuastedpigeon, @thewolvesof1998, @theotherbuckley, and @monsterrae1 if any of you wanna share!

[crossbackpoke-check]

Why I Am Not Coming In To Work Today [abridged], Jess Zimmerman

part one | part two

[dixidin]

Considering that we're gonna be entering Natlan in the next nation of genshin. I have a few words I wanna say on it.

On one hand, I'm so happy we're finally gonna see Capitano and learn about all the new lore, ect!

But on the other hand, I'm really nervous on what hoyoverse is going to be doing with the people in the nation considering the treatment with Sumeru and the fact that Natlan is inspired off of West African cultures and Latin America.

But considering the character designs of Vannessa and Iansan, I have some(what) faith in hoyo (fingers crossed!)

[front-facing-pokemon]

[thedrotter]

I have a gift for y'all today !!! 😊 Ever wanted to find a line in Re:Kinder in a single place for the sake of reference?? How about multiple chunks of lines. how about all the little variations that arise in the text with it's many endings, item descriptions, text that comes from interacting with the enviroment, and character info from the menu without having to boot up the game and go through it at long minutes!!???

well i sure did😊 Since I do a lot of fanart and think up my own silly theories and thoughts that need me to reference the game lines a lot, i have made a transcript for it for convenience's sake. A weirdly thorough transcript handwritten and proofread by me including all character lines available in-game. And I'm sharing it with you all today for anyone that wants it !!! :3 To use as a reference for creative fanworks or a quick search for a line in-game, whatever you wish to use it for!!

It uses the english translation of the game by vgperson. So naturally all credit for the game lines available in here is to her and Parun who made the game.

I did my best to organize it in a way easy to digest. Do note that I'm still human, and there's still the chance for mistake in it no matter how much I've proofread it, since I'm not even an english native speaker ^^. But I hope it serves you well nonetheless if you wish to use it.

That's my gift for today!!! Not the usual art, but still a project I'm proud of. Enjoy!!! 😊

[brynn-lear]

I never got too deep into enstars but there are days where I miss Mama 😔

[icewindandboringhorror]

Apparently I can meet my goal of roughly 400,000 words in 6 months if I just somehow write at least 2,200 words a day ghbjh... Almost 2,500 today... huzzah...

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

A big thanks to @witchybitchybisexual who tagged me in this amazing 30-questions Golden Girls-themed game; I had a *great* time answering these! I look forward to reading everyone's answers (including yours, @witchybitchybisexual!).

I'm hiding all questions after #1 under a cut, because this got long haha!

1. How did you find out about the show?

Via another show I love -- Good Omens! Or, actually, via the amazing book that inspired it. One of the main characters, the demon Crowley, is a big fan of The Golden Girls; there's a great scene in which the forces of hell hijack one of Rose's monologues to send him a message while he's watching the show! I was in need of something new to watch at the time, and I figured if Crowley liked it so much, it was at least worth checking out. :)

2. One storyline you’d eliminate?

Hmm... probably Miles' witness protection program storyline? I don't mind it that much (it gave us some fun jokes and some memorable scenes!), but I feel like that was a turning point in Miles' character, and I just don't like the person he became after that turning point.

There was no question 3 here, so I made up my own! Hope that's not an issue :)

3. Best guest star/character?

Lynnie Greene takes the cake as the best guest star, for sure. I adore her and she played a phenomenal young!Dorothy. The second place goes to Dick Van Dyke, just because I love him in general!

As for the best guest character, I think the honour goes to Angela, Sophia's sister! She's absolutely hilarious and her comedic chemistry with Sophia is stellar. I also have to mention John Neretti from S6E23 What A Difference A Date Makes for being the best man in the series imho.

4. Character you most relate to?

Dorothy! My personality nowadays is a bit of a mix between Dorothy and Rose, I feel, but the Dorothy side is prevalent (and it was even more prevalent a few years back). I love reading and literature (and I enjoy learning about history, although I don't have her passion for it); I share her love for teaching (although I'm not a teacher); I was a great student in school, but not a popular kid at all; I'm level-headed and responsible, but I can be impulsive under the right circumstances; I'm very protective of the people I love; I'm Italian and was brought up a Catholic; I'm often the tallest girl in the room (I'm just a bit shorter than Bea Arthur was!) and I'm not attractive (not that Dorothy isn't -- but she is perceived as unattractive in the show), so I also understand her self-esteem issues fairly well.

I'm not as quick-witted as she is, unfortunately, and nowadays my outlook on life is more positive and easy-going than hers, but she's still the one I relate to the most.

5. Favourite character?

Blanche, although the other Girls are very, very close. I adore them all and I especially love to see them interact, but if I have to pick one, then it's Blanche. She's the one who surprised me the most! At the start of the show I kind of wrote her off as 'the man-crazy one', and that's as far removed from me as possible, so I didn't really focus much on her at the beginning. Then came S1E4 The Transplant, and then came her family issues, and then came all her memories of George, and before I knew it I was head-over-heels in love with her. Rue was masterful in how subtly she played her; she showed Blanche's depth as a character little by little, letting the audience peek behind the mask only for moments at a time, so when I realized I hadn't given her the attention she deserved, I was already in too deep.

6. Favourite story of a cast member?

Oh, so many good ones to choose from! The first one that comes to mind is Bea's anecdote about the time she was Tallulah Bankhead's understudy. The awe with which she describes her coming down the stairs is palpable -- but I mostly admire how she took Bankhead's mean comment and turned it into motivation. And Bea did get her 'coming down the stairs to thunderous applause' moment (more than once!), so her vow came true!

A fun one that involves all four main actresses is this blooper related to Blanche's Christmas gift to the girls, the 'The Men Of Blanche's Boudoir' calendar. Watching all of them lose their marbles over this prank is priceless -- it always puts a big smile on my face!

(Is this what you meant by this question? I wasn't sure!)

7. Which was the episode that got you hooked?

The pilot, lmao. It might be a cheesy answer, but it's true! I was immediately hooked from S1E1 scene one. Dorothy's incredible entrance got me.

8. You could wear one girl’s wardrobe for the rest of your life, who would you pick?

It's a toss-up between Blanche's and Dorothy's.

9. How many kids do you think they all actually had?

... this ask made me realize there are doubts about this, lmao. I've never done the math! Had to go check on wikipedia 😂

As far as I can tell, it's fairly set in stone that Rose had five children, of which we meet two (Kirsten, with two different faces 😂, and Brigit, who I assume is her youngest one).

It also seems reasonably certain that Dorothy had two kids -- Kate and Michael. I will say I've always thought Kate was much younger than she should have been in her appearances on the show, considering Dorothy was pregnant with her when she married, but maybe she just looked much younger than she actually was, I don't know.

Blanche is more complicated. We see both of her daughters, Janet and Rebecca, and in S3E3 Bringing Up Baby she mentions three sons, Matthew (also known as 'Skippy'), Doug, and Biff. In that same episode, though, she also says she's had four kids! I get where the disconnect comes from, haha. To be precise, her quote is:

"I have had four kids, I have never had a Mercedes."

This is just off the top of my head, but I wonder if she means 'I have had' in the sense of 'I have given birth to' here? This would imply one of her children is actually adopted (which is very interesting to think about!!). Since she directly mentions her three sons after this quote, I suppose our suspects are Janet and Becky. I'll have to give this some more thought, though -- for now my answer is that Blanche has five kids, and that 'four' is a continuity error on the writers' part.

10. Do you think the actresses would’ve gotten along with their characters if they met in real life? Why/Why not?

Interesting question! I think so, yes.

Dorothy and Bea seem fairly similar already -- as far as I know Bea was a big sweetheart, a private, gentle person, and Dorothy's a big sweetheart too. Plus I feel like Dorothy would have been respectful of Bea's introverted nature, and Bea would have been understanding and accepting of Dorothy's personal history (not to mention, she wouldn't have mocked her for not dating/for her appearance).

In all the interviews I've seen, Estelle seems very respectful and very fond of old people in general -- I think she'd find Sophia a riot! I seem to remember a clip in which she actually says she likes Sophia, so I feel pretty secure in stating they'd get along.

There's this famous quote by Rue in which she essentially says that she's similar to Blanche in everything but the fact that she's not from Atlanta 😂 so I feel justified in assuming they would have had fun with each other! Rue's stated that she felt an immediate connection to Blanche as a character, and that playing Blanche helped her gain more self-esteem and confidence, so I think meeting her in person would have had a similar effect! And Rue (being a very open, honest, compassionate person) might have helped Blanche drop her mask a little bit.

The only one I have an inkling of doubt about is Betty -- mostly because she'd run circles around Rose! But ultimately I think any 'mocking' would be gentle and affectionate, much like the Girls' jokes in the show. I think they would have liked each other -- and they could have bonded on their common love for animals alone!

11. What are your other comfort shows?

Apart from the aforementioned Good Omens, I'm also very fond of Only Murders In The Building, a really fun show about solving murders and found family that I wholeheartedly recommend. Derry Girls is another recent favourite. Oh, if you like cartoons too, I recommend Steven Universe, Hilda, and Avatar: The Last Airbender.

12. Headcanons? (Feel free to list as many as you’d like)

Oh, my god. I have so many and I'm for sure going to forget some. Let's see...

I've already said some time ago that in my mind Dorothy drives stick shift. Reasoning for this is that Italians (including yours truly, haha!) drive stick shift, and she's of Italian descent, so... she knows how to drive an automatic car, she just learned how to drive on a stick shift one (and in the streets of Brooklyn, no less!). Still on Dorothy: I think she has a very neat handwriting (she feels like the type of person who consciously decided to improve her handwriting at some point in her life), but she's prone to leaving ink stains on the page (and on her hands!!), especially when she's writing in a hurry.

Rose is really strong! Physically strong, I mean. I know she was a housewife for most of her life, but she was a farm girl first! Farming takes a lot of physical resilience, and that's the kind of strength that stays with you, I think. She's the one who lifts up the furniture when they clean (S2E12 The Sisters), and I don't think they'd let her do that if she couldn't handle it. Plus, remember that time she broke a whole ceramic cup with one bare hand (in S7E19 A Midwinter Night's Dream)? Yeah. I also subscribe to some mutuals' hc that she's autistic (although they'll be able to comment on it much better than I can, if they want to!).

Regarding Blanche, I really enjoy @\eeblouissant's hc that she has a permanent tan! She's from the South, she's lived near the coast for ages, *and* she's expressed an appreciation for sunbathing in the show, so it makes perfect sense to me. Also: she's a cover hog! In the show Rose is the one who admits to stealing the covers (in S2E5 Isn't It Romantic?, iirc), but I like to think Blanche is the worst offender. It's a good way to complete the Girls' trifecta of sleeping annoyances (Dorothy snores, Rose sleeptalks, Blanche steals the covers!), and I think it's thematically appropriate for her -- considering her Southern origin, I think she's more sensitive to the cold than Dorothy and Rose are, and she's always looking for affection, so...

Oh, regarding their sexuality: I don't have a marked preference for any of them, but I tend to think of Blanche as a bisexual with a lot of internalized homophobia. Rose is also bi, and somewhere on the asexual spectrum (and I have textual evidence for this!). @\hecatesbroom has completely convinced me to read Dorothy as a repressed lesbian, but I'm fine with people considering her bisexual too. I prefer queer interpretations of all of them, but I'm honestly fine with any take, as long as the strong (platonic or romantic) bond between them is preserved.

Most of my headcanons on Sophia are just traits borrowed from my grandmothers -- for example, I like to think that she started getting into gardening once she moved in with the Girls, and she's really gifted at it (like my grandma!).

13. What would you change (if anything) about the show/ characters if it was set in the modern day?

This is a really hard question to answer properly, because while the show is still very relevant to the present day, some aspects are so grounded in their time that a lot of things don't make as much sense when transposed into the future. For example -- would Dorothy end up marrying Stanley and staying married to him for 38 years if he'd gotten her pregnant in the 90s? Single mothers weren't exactly celebrated back then either (Madonna's Papa Don't Preach is from 1986), but they still had it much better than they did back in the 40s-50s -- and divorce has become much more accessible (and socially acceptable) in the past few decades. Would she have left him earlier? Would she have married him at all?

And what about Sophia? Being an Italian immigrant in the 50s seems different from being an Italian immigrant in the 20s -- there was a whole World War between the two, for starters. Would she still emigrate to the US? Would she even emigrate at all? How would she have survived the fascist regime in Italy?

Blanche and Rose are perhaps less grounded in their time. St Olaf is so absurd it might as well be the exact same in the present day (and dying in childbirth is unfortunately still too common, so it's not strange to think that Rose would be an orphan in any case), and considering how some people still think and behave nowadays, Blanche's biography and opinions seem plausible even when transposed 30-40 years into the future (at least to me). But still -- many of the issues they deal with were grounded in their time. Take Rose's AIDS scare: would she react in the same way in the present day, knowing that care for HIV patients has progressed so much?

To be fair, apart from all these questions, all of the Girls are still plausible (and relatable) characters from a modern POV; but society has changed a lot in the past 30-40 years, and I think a groundbreaking, socially advanced show like Golden Girls would necessarily have to change as a consequence. It's just in the spirit of the show! The core idea of four women sharing a life is still a perfect premise, but the problems the Girls face, their careers, their economic stability, their ideas on love and relationships -- there's a lot that could be different when transposed to the present day! I feel like this question requires much more space, time, and analysis to be answered properly.

One thing I like to think is that at least some of the Girls might have been explicitly queer if the show was set in the present day! Which opens up a lot of avenues for plot-lines and relationships :)

14. Which other Fictional Characters would you like each one of the golden girls to meet?

I have a storyboard in my notes for a little comic in which the Girls travel to England and meet Aziraphale and Crowley from Good Omens, so them, definitely 😂

Also, the Derry Girls! Check out this great crossover fic on Ao3 -- the chaotic energy is just off the charts, I love it.

15. Who were your favourite duo?

Oh, I can't choose. Any duo within the Girls. Their 1:1 interactions are all amazing, there's no way I can pick just one. I love the bond between Dorothy and Sophia, I love Dorothy and Blanche's chemistry, I love how fun and silly Blanche and Rose get to be together, I love the ironclad trust between Dorothy and Rose, I love Blanche and Sophia's love-(fake) hate friendship, I love the way Sophia hides her immense affection for Rose under a veil of humour and the way Rose sees right through it. I could write an essay on each pair of them.

15. Who should’ve got more 1:1 screen time with each other?

I'm pretty happy with the amount of 1:1 time each pair of Girls got with each other, actually! One of the strengths of the show imho is how well-balanced the interactions between the main cast are. If I really have to nitpick, I think I might have liked a couple of episodes specifically on Dorothy and Rose in the last couple of seasons; it feels like they interacted 1:1 less after S5, but that might just be me.

I also think the Girls' interactions with secondary characters and guests were well-balanced, in general; I can't think of any specific example where I wished for one of the Girls to have more interactions with a certain character.

... okay, there is one instance, but it's not really a matter of screen time, more of what happened during said screen time. I really, really wanted to see Blanche (with Rose as support) tear into Stan. I think we deserved a scene where she tells him off for the way he treats Dorothy -- she's already pretty caustic in the show when it comes to him (except in S6, for some reason...), and a proper confrontation would have been glorious.

16. Calmest season?

Is there one? 😂 the first season, I guess? It feels a bit more 'domestic' and contained in scope, likely because it was the first -- but it's still a wild ride!!

17. Most chaotic season?

Season 3, for sure. It's a bit all over the place, and it contains some of the wildest premises in the whole series -- I mean, Bringing Up Baby? Letter to Gorbachev? Mister Terrific? I could go on -- there's lots of chaotic episodes in there! (Just to be clear: I love the chaos! S3 is not my favourite season, but it's still great -- and it's got some amazing episodes!)

18. Favorite Season?

I think the honour goes to season 5! It would probably be S6, if not for the whole 'Dorothy falls back in love with Stan' plot line. S7 is the one that contains the highest count of favourite episodes for me, but I think S5 is stronger as a whole, and it's got some true gems.

19. If the girls hadn’t had their established careers, what other ones could you picture them doing?

Oh, let's see! Stan mentions Dorothy always wanted to open an antique shop back in S1E11 The Return of Dorothy's Ex, and I think that really fits her. I can also see her as a (very passionate) librarian! And, of course, she'd be great as a college professor / history researcher.

Despite the Girls' lack of confidence in her ability to keep things alive, I think with proper training Rose would work well as a nurse. She already volunteers for the hospital, she can be competent when given the chance, she's a giving person, and she loves taking care of people, so I think she at least has the right attitude for it -- although I'd never place her in a stressful unit, especially at the start of the show! Apart from this, anything to do with animals, of course -- a zoo, a farm, a pet shop, she'd excel in all of them!

I can see Blanche thriving as a trophy wife, haha 😂 but that's not properly a career, so it's not a valid answer. Taking her keen artistic eye into account, I think she'd be great as a designer -- either a fashion designer, or an interior decorator. She also showed some talent and interest in psychology during the series, although I'm not sure she'd manage to remain completely professional as a psychologist. 😅

As for Sophia, I think she'd do well in any position that allows her to be a motivator! She's great at encouraging people through a bit of tough love, and she's a very driven person herself -- so I think she'd do well as a manager of sorts, although the kind of manager that still works hands-on too. I believe she'd manage to hold her own in more or less any field; she's very adaptable! I do think she's at her best in a kitchen, though.

20. Best aspects of the show in your opinion?

There's a lot! The writing, the performances, the costume department, it was all exceptional. I think the best aspect to me is the premise, and how seriously they took it! The idea of a show centered on four older women living together is groundbreaking, especially since it didn't make a mockery of them -- the Girls are serious, well-rounded characters, with full lives, written with lots of love and respect. I think this show really convinced me that life isn't over once you hit 30, and that there's plenty to look forward to as you age! A lot of people my age are terrified of growing older, and here I am, eager to see what's coming next -- and I owe at least some of this attitude to this show. I'm really grateful!

21. (This question is for my fellow cheesecake lovers) favourite cheesecake flavour?

:) Great question! I love cheesecakes in general, but I'm especially partial to raspberry cheesecakes.

22. Storyline you wished they had expanded upon?

The show has an unfortunate tendency to introduce characters and then forget about them, which allowed for more variety in the stories they chose to tell, but I would have liked to see some of the Girls' relatives and friends return! Like, I don't know -- Jean, for example, or Blanche's nephew from back in S1. Some of the guests' arcs are complete within their episode (as happens eg for Lily, Rose's sister), but others remained a bit 'in the air', and I think it would have been nice to see them again.

Oh, and also -- I would have liked some little references to the Girls' issues and problems outside of the episodes they're tackled in! References to Blanche's pacemaker, for example, or to Rose's addiction, or to Dorothy's CFS (or her hearing aid!!). I understand that the time was limited, but even a small callback or two would have been nice!

23. Questions you’d ask the actresses?

Does 'will you marry me' count? 😭

I'm not sure -- knowing me, I'd probably be unable to utter a word in their presence! Rather than ask questions, I think I'd just thank them for bringing such an incredible, wonderful show to life. It wouldn't have been the same without them.

24. Episode that brings you the most comfort?

Most of them, really. Even the sad ones; I hear the first few notes of the opening theme and my spirits are already lifted. I can pick one per season, if that's alright:

S1E25 The Way We Met

S2E17 Bedtime Story

S3E3 Bringing Up Baby

S4E4 Yokel Hero

S5E23 The Mangiacavallo Curse Makes a Lousy Wedding Present

S6E26 Henny Penny -- Straight, No Chaser

S7E23/24 Home Again, Rose

But honestly there's so many more I could mention! I just love these ladies so much and I love to watch them in situations, haha.

25. Episode that made you laugh the hardest?

This is a cruel choice! Golden Girls is infamous in my house as 'the show that makes the-eclectic-wonderer howl with laughter', and I think that speaks for itself 😂

Let me pick at least three: S2E4 It's a Miserable Life, S7E2 The Case of the Libertine Belle, and S7E4 That's For Me To Know.

26. Which other work that the actresses did you enjoy the most?

I believe most of Estelle's career prior to The Golden Girls was in the theater, so I'm not sure it's even possible to watch her other works, unfortunately.

Show me Bea Arthur singing literally anything and I will be on my knees in seconds. Her musical performances are peak. Also -- I still haven't watched Maude, but I already know I'll love it.

Maude includes Rue as well -- I cannot wait to fall in love with her as Vivian too! And I have one of her early movies in my watch list, although I'm waiting for the right moment to watch it (homegirl plays a stripper and I'm not sure I can handle it in company without making a fool of myself, considering my big gay crush on her).

As for Betty -- Life With Elizabeth, absolutely. She's so funny and so beautiful and so captivating in it! She's simply charming, I love her to bits.

27. Best St Olaf Story?

The Great Herring War from S1E25 The Way We Met, no question. It's not necessarily the strongest from a comedy point of view (although it's certainly up there -- it's hilarious!), but the context and the way Dorothy and Blanche contribute to it make it the most memorable one, imho. It's my favourite, for sure.

(The story of Gunilla Bjorndunker, St Olaf's tallest woman, as told in S6E3 If At Last You Do Succeed is in second place).

28. Best slut story?

It changes every time I hear one, lmao! I love all of Blanche's stories!

If I must pick one -- I really enjoy Blanche's retelling of that time she realized she was even more devastating by moonlight in S1E25 The Way We Met, if only for that incredible final line ("It was at that moment I realized my bosoms had the power to make music!"). I'm not sure if it counts, because it's so brief, but her involuntary remembrance of that time she had to call a cab to get home because the sailor she hooked up with wouldn't wake up (S2E17 Bedtime Story) always has me in stitches -- I love how unexpected and effective it is!

Oh, and I'm really fond of the one she tells her mama in S3E25 Mother's Day. I'm very sensitive to the theme of loved ones getting older and having trouble remembering stuff, so that whole flashback hits close to home for me, and I love how Blanche's story helps her and her mama connect over shared memories. It's really touching (and Rue's acting is spectacular).

29. Best Sicily story?

Sophia's alleged encounter with Pablo Picasso, as narrated in S6E24 Never Yell Fire In A Crowded Retirement Home: Part 1. I somehow didn't anticipate the punchline, and I lost my shit when Sophia name-dropped Picasso. I still lose my shit every time I listen to it. It's a classic.

30. Which girl would you be most interested in seeing a prequel of? And at which point in their life?

I would pay dearly for a young!Dorothy show. It might be depressing (because her life with Stan was... well... yikes) but also imagine -- Dorothy learning how to be a mom, her life at college, building herself a life... so many possibilities!!! And it would be even better if it featured some flashbacks to Sophia's life in Sicily!

I would enjoy a show about teenage Blanche's adventures, too, but a part of me thinks those stories are at their best when retold by Blanche herself (ie when there's a good amount of doubt as to their veracity, lmao).

[martilyongabo]

EO3 (partial) lineup - November-December 2022

Peak MAbo is collaborating with your best friend for a(n admittedly unfair) final project (for web development!!!! an elective!!!), saying you would post it, forgetting about it for a year, posting it on Artstation and forgetting about it again.

As always, AC drew the lineart, and I colored. Designs were more of a collaborative effort between the two of us!

Probably should have shared this when the HD collection came out... anyway it's here now!

Some design ramblings under the cut :0! There's a lot i wanna share especially given that we recently did a soft rewrite that departed from the guild system entirely ^^" and EO3's cast was actually one of the first that we had, surprisingly!

Micah is quite clearly alt gladiator 3, but in an entirely different profession. instead of going into the labyrinth, he works in what i imagine would be an analogue to the forge in Tharsis (aka helping people make things busted af). It probably works best for his character, since he was always a gizmo freak even in his first iteration! geomagnetic (or submagnetic, ugh) gizmo is AC's idea!

Micah's brother, Eva, is a very loose spin on zodiac 3, but with a wayyyy lighter colour palette. Admittedly, i did steal a little bit of the spiritmaster's coat from bravely default, but AC managed to spin it back to resembling the original coat that the class had. Eva works as an astronomer, hence the little telescope he always has on him.

Next up we have Eva's protégé, Miri (who was imported from AC's stories)! Theoretically, Miri would be a second zodiac, and, after watching some EO3 speedruns, would probably be really strong in the earlygame when working with Eva in an actual playthrough. AC's design heavily borrows from Patho II's Grace, hence the coat + dress combo.

Following Miri in this lineup would be Noa, her admittedly very lazy but clingy sibling. I think it's apparently here that we didn't have much time to filter what a believable design would be in an EO setting, given that Noa's clothes were translated directly from our designs of them in school attire. It's actually funny how for we diverged from their original portrait (buccaneer 3) to the point that she is literally unrecognizable. Truly a pipeline from good sea boy to j-horror twist character.

Last in the OC section would be Masaru, who recently found work for the Senatus. Admittedly he does have another example of "incongruent time period" clothing (the jacket), though it's a lot more reworkable than Noa. We also made his design a lot less poofy and rugged compared to the original, and I mixed the base and alt color palettes as well to make him less, well, glaringly red. Probably one of the funnier things is that his clothing palette made him blend in more with the likes of Kujura, but given that they work for the same place, it'll probably work out fine.

Now we go onto NPCs, and who better to start than with Flowdia! Admittedly, her art was one of the last ones that we did, hence why her design looks relatively plain (sorry lola). Probably one of the things I would like to add would be more ornate patterns, perhaps of butterflies to tie her closer to Gutrune!

Before we get to the Princess, we gotta get through her bodyguard first! >:0 I honestly don't like Kujura because I answered honestly in his first question, and he said that I was prideful, but AC likes him so he looks really good here. He isn't as rendered here as he is in his portrait, since he was also one of the last characters we made, and I didn't really get to notice that he doesn't have as much value contrast in his clothing as Masaru does. Probably something to think about next time I color him >:0

Next up we have Gutrune!! We decided to make her look more jellyfish-like, while still keeping it a bit uncanny and unsettling. We tried to give her a more traditionally Filipiniana look (mostly on the Maria Clara gown), but we haven't yet made a poncho design that mixes well with butterfly sleeves without looking cluttered. As such, she has a more nightdress-y look here. AC drew in a few tentacles, and I couldn't help but make them look squishy.

Last but not least is Olympia! We wanted to align her appearance more with her background, hence her altered design :0 Having rips of the artbook easily accesible online also helped us flesh out her hair in particular, since we didn't want to just transplant Gutrune's hairstyle onto her.

And that's all of them!!! I'm honestly hoping to draw more EO characters, though Seyfried's design scares me (honestly the reason why I couldn't make a Reversed Emperor comic).

Currently, I've made a lot of progress on the EO4 game, and I'm excited to draw up the three N-turned-PCs + Xiuan >:'0!!! I don't think I can ever get as cool as Morika tho. If you've come this far and aren't into EO, please check out their blog!! Their art is stunning and has come a really long way :")

[binah-beloved]

Not binah its limbus: if you haven't seen the canto 6 trailer dropped and in terms of new id/ego for your 4 favs, Don got a new ego, gregor got 1 new ego and outis got a new id and ego (ishmael gets nothing for now)

Butler Outis.