#also some unrequited cherry/adam

[annaofaza]

For the askbox game:

“You’ve always taken me for granted” or “I don’t want to love you anymore” for matchablossom please🥺

In retrospect, downing that much soju was not the best decision.

As much as Kojiro enjoyed group hangouts, he couldn't deny his heart beat a little faster when Kaoru knocked on the window, waving a bottle in one hand. Kojiro shut his laptop—plane tickets weren't getting any cheaper the more he kept searching—and waved him through.

With a few snacks from the lobby's vending machine and a pile of dubiously washed shot glasses, they had themselves a little party. Kaoru had the first shot, idly asking Kojiro about what he was doing, distantly nodding as Kojiro shared his summer plan to go to Italy to apprentice under a friend of his mom's. She wasn't terribly happy that he was missing out on university, but this was his dream, and he figured experience was better than some fancy piece of paper—

Kojiro paused for breath, realizing his friend wasn't listening. He had his eyes on the window, fingers playing with the ring in his ear, mind miles away. Sighing, Kojiro turned on some music and leaned back, relishing the peach on his tongue. "Where's you get this, anyway?"

"Adam's house."

His heart jolted. "What?"

"Adam," Kaoru repeated, and with that, Kojiro knew he was well and properly sloshed. They hadn't agreed on it, exactly, but after Adam left, they didn't talk about him, his last harsh words—or at least while sober. "His fucking flight flew out tonight. "Not even a text."

"So, what, you broke into his house? How did you even—"

"I followed him and his bodyguard that night. He has this big ass fancy mansion. I mean, we guessed he was well off, but this. Fucking hell."

"I'm sorry," Kojiro repeated, "but you actually broke into his house?"

"We've broken into our fair share of buildings."

"Mostly abandoned! You know that's not the same! I bet they had cameras!"

Kaoru rolled his eyes. "Relax. I didn't actually go in. But this bottle was peeking out from a rose bush—fucking rose bushes!—and so..." He waved his glass in the air.

Kojiro sighed. "And you've been hoarding this for a special occasion?" He poured another shot, downing it in one quick motion. Figured the only alone time they've had since... forever involved Adam. He'd seen Kaoru texting Adam angry paragraphs and roaming around where S used to be, but didn't know Kaoru had gone so far as to break the unofficial skater code and stalk him.

"In a way," Kaoru said icily, cheeks flushed. "And I just want to..."

He was close now, Kojiro realized. Too close. He could smell the peach on his breath, feel the strands tickling his nose, see the piercing glittering on his tongue. And contrary to popular opinion, he wasn't oblivious: he knew Kaoru liked him—but not enough to come forward, he guessed, and frankly, anyone dimmed in the presence of Adam.

Not like this, he thought, as Kaoru drew forward. Damn, I fucking wish I didn't... the only reason why he's doing this is because he wants to forget Adam.

I'm so fucking sick of Adam.

Kaoru now paused, lips lingering over his. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

Fuck, he'd said it out loud. "Just forget it."

"No, tell me. You said it; repeat it."

"Fine. I'm sick of talking about Adam! He's gone, it's over, I know he was your first... whatever, but you can't keep doing this shit!"

"What are you even talking about??"

"You’ve always taken me for granted!" Kojiro found himself shouting. "I've been telling you about my apprenticeship all evening and you never heard a word! All you want to do is talk about Adam and how fucked he is and I know he's your real crush or whatever, but I can't—"

Kaoru jumped to his feet, swaying, then threw out his arm for balance. "You really don't know anything, you gorilla. And if I'm such a fucking burden, then I better leave."

Kojiro's anger dissipated at the tears in Kaoru's eyes. Fuck, he's always been weak. "No!" He grabbed Kaoru's hand. "Not while you're like this. Sleep it off here. I'm sorry, okay; I didn't mean it. Really." His own hands trembled. "Please."

Kaoru gave an angry hiss, but threw himself towards Kojiro's bedroom, slamming the door behind him; Kojiro could hear the dead-weight body smack on the futon from here, and he groaned, holding his head and heading for the sink.

---

They didn't say a word about it in the morning, and as Kaoru poured himself another cup of coffee, Kojiro booked his flight.

Prompt me an angsty line + fandom/ship!

[specterthief]

for the meme, joe and cherry's dynamic in general >:3c

reverse unpopular opinions

I ACTUALLY REALLY ENJOY SO MUCH ABOUT IT IS THE THING, i think their antics are really funny and they serve a perfect purpose as foils to the younger characters (and having characters who are largely static to balance out the very tumultuous drama that reki/langa/adam/tadashi have going on was a really good choice and roles that they serve really well.) i love the contrast between their apparent life-long constant bickering rivalry and the fact that that still means they've been friends for 20 uninterrupted years. i love the difference in their outlooks on that relationship and what that says about their respective emotional maturity, with joe being very conscientious about how important that friendship has always been (and how adam is hurting for not having someone in his life like that) compared to how cherry seems to take joe's constant accommodation for granted. i think the fact that the series makes a point of how important platonic connections are while actively acknowledging (and not condemning) m/m romantic attraction as an option (unlike a lot of sports anime about Really Intense Friendship) adds a really interesting vector to how their relationship fits into the narrative. in particular i think the fact that for joe, a character who's openly very poly and loves flirting and dating and hooking up with girls, that his longest lasting and most emotionally significant relationship is a friendship is an interesting characterization beat itself, especially in a series where he's surrounded by messy unrequited love that Does Not Fix Anyone who doesn't also have strong friends and community to lean on. joe being very open and confident and having blurry boundaries between S and his day to day life compared to cherry's strictly locked down divide between his work and his true self is also SO GOOD for The Allegories, and the fact that this is the one place where joe doesn't really get it is an underrated point of tension that i really want to write something digging into sometime.

i'm really curious to learn more about their youth in the OVA and i'm ESPECIALLY curious if their popularity in s1 is going to lead to them getting more devoted character arcs in s2, since i think there's a lot that could be done with them if they actually get a chance to grow and be challenged by a narrative they're more central active players in. i think cherry in particular could really go some tasty places as a character from being put in a situation where joe as a constant stable presence is actually tested and cherry has to be the one to Be There and work for their friendship. put them in the plinko i would love to see it

also because i can't talk about their dynamic without talking about the shadow of adam looming over them: the contrast between the way they both relate to him (cherry being far more forgiving but not understanding adam at all, joe understanding adam better than almost anyone else but not personally forgiving him, the whole way that forgiveness is decoupled from sympathy, aaaaaa) is delicious, i am so excited to see how things shift between the three of them after the finale and how joe and cherry's own relationship might change now that their relationship as a trio seemingly will.

unironically one of my favorite dynamics in the series, i just don't talk about it very much because i have been a victim of the wizard's curse (really really specifically into it platonically or exclusively one-sidedly in the past) so i appreciate the chance to go off about all the stuff about it i do love about it, thank you lmao

and tbh maybe s2 will shake up their dynamic in the right way to get me into the ship, utsumi and okouchi are unhinged so i'm not ruling anything out

[cherryblossomsandhydrangeas]

Sk8 Rewatch Ep8

No, Adam, there is no one is the world who was created just for you. You’re looking for a doll/plaything, not a human being.

See, now that? That’s a moon. I don’t know what the hell that was from Ep6.

Wow, there are a lot of fruits at S.

Shadow: He’s [Reki] scared to race against Adam. *Laughs* Shadow, you’re the one who took him to the hospital and visibly sighed in the relief that he was okay.

Love how the people on the left are standing as far away from Adam as possible. Notice, how the people on Miya’s side are a bit closer as well since they’re not within Adam’s reach.

You know I think I’d be able to feel a bit more sympathy for Adam if his aunts version of love was the only one he knew. But that’s not what happened. He was loved by Tadashi, Kaoru, and Kojiro all normally, so it’s not like he doesn’t know other forms of love, this is all very much a choice.

Another reason I can’t feel sympathy is his pedophilia. Like, Adam believes that Langa is his Eve, right? Which means they’ll soon go to The Zone/Eden/The World Only For The Two Of Us. So, why is he excited for Miya to “bloom” so he can fall in love with him. Any sympathy you could have possibly gotten from me was destroyed with that comment.

Another post I’m gonna make is Cherry’s relationship with Carla and how fandom mischaracterizes it a bit.

I’m most definitely making a post on how Cherry couldn’t beat Adam, but he was able to match him. Like, I think it will be my life’s work for this blog. (other than the fanfics I’m planning)

Ah, Tadashi, this was you at your best. I’m so sorry about the ending you got.

Aww, my poor boys.

As a person who is also a little sister, I understand Koyomi on a fundamental level.

One thing I don’t like is how the show tries to present Ainosuke’s aunts as a consequence. Like, it’s formula is: Adam hurts someone or harasses a child, but he still has to go home to his aunts! Ainosuke’s aunts are not a consequence, they are his backstory. They don’t abuse him because of his actions, they are the cause of his mentality. The only consequence he might have gotten was jail for perjury and other illegal acts, but that was shoehorned away. Some of this can be explained by Sk8 being 12 eps long, thus not given enough time to add more fundamental scenes, but god, I would have loved at least one scene where Ainosuke does anything antagonistic, faces a consequence, and it isn’t brushed off by him or thrown away by the narrative, thus staying with him for the rest of the story.

I know Tadashi probably has/had romantic feelings for Ainosuke, but honestly I can’t see them as having anything other than a platonic or familial bond, or, at the very least an unrequited one where one has romantic feelings and the other has familial/platonic.

One day I am going to make a post about how Tadashi was abused by the Shindos (including Ainosuke) just as much as Ainosuke himself was.

Shout out to Joe for doing the work Reki’s father cannot since he has to work away from home all the time!

Mom of the year! Hasegawa Nanako!

Ngl, I want Harry’s backstory. My man’s made it to the tournament no problem. Note: he had to have been the second person from Cherry’s bracket to win since we never saw anybody else cross during that run.

Sometimes I feel like Adam dislikes Joe. Like he goes “...Joe” because he’s Langa’s opponent instead of him, but I wonder if that bled over into their adolescence. Like, he wrote Joe’s name on the 3 of diamonds. I can’t help but wonder if he was also subtly calling him a third wheel like he does Reki later.

Shout out to Joe for doing the work Langa’s father cannot since he’s in a coffin six feet under in Canada!

I actually like how Joe still has a sliver of hope left for Adam, even though he probably wants to punch him more for Cherry’s sake than his own, he still cares for his old friend a tiny bit.

[ao3feed-matchablossom]

(i found you) under an april sky

by GallifreyanFairytale

At first, he’s worried it’s some piece of an organ that somehow came detached. But that worry is squashed almost immediately because surely nothing inside of him is such a stunning pastel pink - like the color of Kaoru’s hair in the sunlight, and the color of—

A rush of cold sweeps through Kojiro, settling in the pit of his stomach.

With a shaky hand, he pokes at the pink thing that came out of his body. He pinches it between his thumb and forefinger, bringing it close enough to examine, close enough to confirm his budding fear.

It’s half of a cherry blossom, slick with saliva. A physical manifestation of the love he now knows is unrequited.

5 springs during which kojiro is certain his feelings are unrequited + 1 when he learns they're not

Words: 8045, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: SK8 the Infinity (Anime)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Nanjo Kojiro | Joe, Sakurayashiki Kaoru | Cherry Blossom

Relationships: Nanjo Kojiro | Joe/Sakurayashiki Kaoru | Cherry Blossom

Additional Tags: Hanahaki Disease, 5+1 Things, Sakura (Cherry Blossoms), Flowers, Blood, Vomiting, Spring, Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending, mentions of cherry/adam; joe/oc; and cherry/oc, POV Nanjo Kojiro | Joe, Nanjo Kojiro | Joe-centric, also oka gets a moment to shine because he deserves it

source https://archiveofourown.org/works/46130899

[imagine-lcorp]

Between Two Lungs (One Shot)

A/N: Hello dears, so here it is the infamous fic I’ve been writing. I really hope this fullfils my dream of crushing your hearts once again and that you have a fun time agonizing over this final choice. Because yes, I’ve made this a multiending fic...As always, remember to tell me what you think, is it something you want me to keep doing for other fics? Also, how did you feel after this? pls let me know. Also i made this PLAYLIST if you want to add some feeling to this while reading... Enjoy! 

Lena Luthor x R/Hanahaki AU//Word Count: 3,464

-------------------------------------------------

It is possible to die of a broken heart.

You look it up somewhere in the internet. It's similar to a heart attack, caused by a very strong and emotionally stressful event. The death of a loved one, a breakup, a betrayal. It's treatable and rarely fatal. Following the recommendations of your doctor, you can make a full recovery within weeks. Still, it is possible to die of it.

You don't have a broken heart. You wish you had one. Because love, the one only you feel, is growing inside of you and it is much worse than that.

Thankfully, compared to others your condition it's not as painful as it could be.

You have heard about people with roses inside them, how their thorns puncture their pharynges with every breath they take. Others don't get flowers. They get apple or cherry trees with their fruits pouring juice inside their lungs and out of their mouths. Some others have pines and spruces, with cones constricting their organs and rib-cages until they bones break.

So you look at the small white petal that lays in your hand and think that, in your case, it is something almost magnanimous.

Plumerias have no thorns and, even though some can be a bit thick, their branches are soft enough to bend around your heart and lungs without much trouble. Their petals, small and delicate, rise easily up your throat without lacerating it in a coughing fit.

Maybe, you want to think in a very optimist way, if you can keep that love from growing further, you won't have to suffer through it.

Maybe.

So you prescribe for your own heart solitude and abstinence.

The first one is the easiest.

You tell your friends you are sick and need some time to recover. Most of them get worried as they don't know yet what illness has fallen upon you in these troublesome times.

"You know, If you wanted, I could get you a full medical examination." Alex offers with a raised eyebrow, giving you the look of the always concerned big sister.

"Thanks, but it's alright." You assure them with a smile. "I was thinking about spending some time at home anyway."

After a lot of questions you manage to dodge in the end, they decide there's no reason to doubt your intentions. So they leave you to your own devices.

Homemade remedies, or herbicides depending on who you ask, seem to help as you spend your days at home. Drinking some salt water with lemon in the morning, or a couple of vinegar tablespoons in a cup of tea before going to bed. They don't taste that bad once you get used to the flavor and these help you ease the new bitterness that you taste in the back of your throat.

The second is a bit harder.

You have to stop yourself from dreaming her, thinking her, missing her.

She has texted you a few times already, wanting to know how you're doing and offering her help if you don't feel like you're doing okay on your own. You handle it as best as you can. You text back, consistently enough and with measured time and words, so you don't raise any red flags. When you don't seem to answer she calls, but just thinking about hearing her voice makes your chest hurt a little.

You never answer. She doesn't try to call again. You spit your first handful of flowers after that.

It's all fine, you lie to yourself, at least until the pain reaches your insides and white petals come out of you mouth dappled in red.

"You need to tell her." Kara says softly as she pats your back after another coughing fit.

You cover your mouth with your hand, making sure there are no signs of blood or petals as you tight it into a fist. "Tell who what?"

"Tell Lena about the flowers." She sighs when she fells you freeze under her touch. "Sorry. Alex told me if I could get a clear shot at your lungs maybe we could figure out how to help. I didn't expect it to be... well, flowers."

It shouldn't come as a surprise to you but you are still amazed at how easy it is to forget Kara has x-ray vision when she's not wearing her suit. With or without it, she's still the same caring and protective person you have always known. It also explains why she has been so adamant about having lunch together, at least once a week, after your failed attempt at convincing her you were doing well after a month alone. You couldn't expect less from your best friend, you remind yourself as you catch your breath.

"How do you know it's her?" The taste is bitter as you swallow the rest of blood and petals in your mouth.

"It's plumerias, isn't it?" She rubs your back again as you regain you posture. "They are her favorites."

There are a couple of red tainted petals in your palm when you open your hand. "Yeah, they are."  

Kara looks at you and you see something in her you don't think you have ever seen before in the Girl of Steel. But you recognize it, because you feel the same way. Hopeless. Helpless. Powerless.

"(Y/N)." She says like she's already grieving. "It's spreading fast."

The easiest way to get ride of the disease is by removing its seed from your heart, the doctor says. No more than an hour in the operating room and your respiratory system would be as good as new. Common symptoms after the surgery can include aches between your shoulder blades, ribs, back of the neck or chest, weakness and hoarseness in your voice, and, in general, some memory loss and the inability to experiment intense or deep affection towards another person. Most of these stop shortly after you recover, except for the last one.

More experimental methods have been developed with the help of biotherapy. Experts in Japan are said to have reduced the spread of the flowers with other plants like kudzu or barberry, while someone in Europe has been using thrips to eat the plant and control its growth. It's like using maggots to eat your wounds, the doctor explains more enthusiastic than you feel.

You could, of course, try the simplest of things and confess your love.

It only takes to be loved in return for you to heal before any permanent damage is done. The seed that grows in your heart will almost instantly wither, the cough will purge the last of the flowers out of your lungs, and your recovery will last only a couple of weeks. You will breathe again.

But, if your love goes unrequited, you'll reach your fatal end in a matter of days. Doctors will give you a double dose of morphine or induce a coma trying to ease your pain. Flowers, fruits and cones bloom, branches and thorns grow. You convulse and gasp until your last breath when the biggest flowers come out of your mouth. All until your thorax is transformed, beautifully and violently, into a garden of flesh and blood.

Anyone who has seen it happen will tell you, how shocking it is to witness such a thing.

Whatever the case, this only serves to confirm what you already know. You can't be optimistic anymore.

You're dying and you will die, soon with flowers in your lungs or after many years with a loveless heart. Because this life and death of yours, you think, cannot be, shall not be, decided by a coin in the air.

And yet.

"It's flowers...in my lungs." You can almost tell which direction the flower stalks take inside your chest as the words form in your mouth.

"Oh." Lena says as she starts to fidget with her hands.

The anger, that had been growing inside her after weeks of vague replies and evasions, vanishes in her eyes the moment she understands what you're going through.

"Have you...talked to the other person?"

"No, not really. Not yet." You try not to lose your composure as you feel the flowers threatening to rise up your throat.  

"Will you?" She asks.

You take a deep breath, feeling the gravity pull your already heavy heart down. "It's plumerias."

"Plumerias?" You can see the moment it dawns on Lena, and the look she gives you makes you wish again you could die of a broken heart instead.

"Miss Luthor, I'm sorry but the board meeting will start shortly."    

Jess opens the door a second later and it gives you time to look at the other side and place your hand in your chest. As if that could possibly stop your heart and lungs from collapsing.

"Thank you, Jess. I'll be there." Lena dismisses her with a nod and looks again at you.

She doesn't say anything else and you feel a coughing fit building in your lungs. Stronger than you have ever felt it.

"(Y/N)!" She leaves her chair, running towards you.

You cover your mouth as your chest feels like a boxer is using it as a punching bag. I doesn't feel like it will end quick and when it finally does the only thing that remains is pain.

You thank the chair that holds you in place as you catch your breath.  

"I'm fine. It's fine." You don't want her to see it, but she manages to catch a glimpse of the bloody petals that cover your palm once you recover.

"No, it's not, (Y/N). You're dying and I-"

"It's not your fault." You cut her off, shaking your head and taking a little napkin from you pocket to clean yourself as best as you can.

The death, the break, the betrayal. You feel it all as worry and pity finally merge in her eyes. There's also guilt when she looks at you. It is there along with everything else she doesn't feel for you. So you don't want an apology, especially not from her, especially not like this.  

"You're my friend and I just- I wanted you to know. I got my surgery already programmed."

"Surgery?" You watch her draw back a bit in surprise.

"I'll be fine." You lie again.

"(Y/N), I-"                            

"Miss Luthor, the board-"

"I know!" Lena snaps and, when she realizes the magnitude of her reaction, she retracts, taking a deep breath for herself before answering. "Sorry, yes. Do you think you could hold it for a minute?"

"You should go." You say with a small voice before any of them can say more. "The meeting, sounds important."

"(Y/N)..." The way she pronounces your name makes you want to be over with this already. You just can't stand it anymore.

"We'll talk later." You say. "We got time."

She wants to argue, you know, but you won't, can't, do it. Still, you pull a little smile for her.

"We'll talk later." She replies with a nod.

There will be time for another conversation. There will be time. There will be time. There will be time. You repeat it like a mantra to help you carry yourself out of her office.

Everything else after that passes like a blur.

You know you reach the front door of the building, with the voice of the receptionist behind your back offering to call for help. You stumble on the sidewalk trying to hold onto light poles and signposts to keep yourself from falling. You clutch your hand in your chest as the pain reaches its peak. Flowers come pouring out of your mouth and you gasp for air as you finally fall.

You're delirious by the time you land on the hospital bed.

Many faces come and go then, doctors, nurses, friends, ghosts, both the living and the death. The only constants are your dying gasps and the painful beating of your heart until the morphine does its work. It helps you see, with certain clarity the only face that can make a difference.

"You listen to me, alright? I'm sorry I didn't say anything earlier." You open your heavy lids at the sound of her voice, and you see those emerald eyes for what could be the last time. "I love you, (Y/N), please, I love you."

You hear her words, or you don't, or it is simply to late to care anymore. The coin is in the air and there's no more time.

***

☞ You let yourself drift into darkness as the plumerias are pulled to a better light. The garden is gone and what is left behind is only an empty carcass. You cannot stand the emptiness and your heart does what it should have done from the beginning. It breaks and breaks and breaks...

***

☞ Your mind tries to grasp her words but you find your heart too weak to keep a hold of them. So you let them pass through like a shadow. No need for them anymore as the anesthesia and the scalpel give you a break from all this suffering. There will be no flowers and it is, truly, not as bad as it could be...

***

☞ Her words suddenly hit you in their full meaning and your mind does its best to keep and save them into your heart. Even through branches and petals, it has the effect of an echo chamber, repeating those words like a healing prayer. I love you. I love you. I love you...

[fantastic-rambles]

This whole ask is gonna be RLY random but i wanna let this out lol

Holy FUCK i would literally sell my soul for an Adam-centric movie. I heard someone say in a vid that they might as well have made the whole anime about him and it wouldve been just as(if not even more) entertaining, and bro SAME. And frankly the younger characters aren't remotely as fun to watch as the adults.

Also the young!🌹🌸 ship has so much angst potential, it's probably my fav Adam ship(im regularly entertaining the thought of adult!🌹🌸 being together in an alternate universe lol). Also a concept:🌹 going to 🍵s restaurant to drink wine with the bois and complain about his work and bitchy aunts(do u see how desperate i am for them to fix their relationship even tho it's pretty much impossible after all that's happened OTL)

One thing that sends me is how japanese fans(and the va's themselves) are so understanding of Adam's character and are able to fully enjoy the story. There's so much Adam content coming from them compared to the western fandom(which is understandable tho, considering how it's overflowed with whiny fancops).

And the last thing. I don't think ppl that think Tadashi has done nothing wrong truly understand how much he fucked up when they were young. Tadashi was literally the one and only person Adam was sure he could rely on and thought was never gonna betray him(im sure Adam loved 🌸🍵 but there was no transparency in their relationship compared to what he had w/ Tadashi). Tadashi not backing him up in that one moment is something far worse than Adam's dad burning his skateboard. He was literally the only person that truly knew Adam, and losing him left him completely alone, which what i believe actually triggered him into becoming desperate about finding his Eve(thus finding an equal AND someone who could potentially support him). Ofc that doesn't mean that the way he now treats Tadashi is ok.

Ok I'm done sry (￣▽￣)

No apologies! Always happy to find more non-Adam-haters!

100% agree. I would love more Adam content. Especially young Adam-Cherry-Joe. I would miss the Langa, but I wouldn’t mind not having everyone else. xD

My headcanons for them are different though. Although Loveblossom is my favorite Adam ship, I think that it’s an unrequited love from Cherry to Adam, because even when they were younger, Adam is too fucked up to have an actual relationship/understand love, and he wouldn’t consider it because his family wouldn’t approve of it. I also think that Cherry and Joe only ever saw Adam, but never Ainosuke: yes, he lets them see his face, but I don’t think he let them into that side of his life. And Ainosuke keeps everything he feels close to his chest to keep up his perfect image, so he wouldn’t vent it, even privately (other than maybe to Tadashi). But I also think he doesn’t mind his work and while he may not like his aunts, he does appreciate them, since they’ve warped his thinking. (I do want them to fix their relationship too, though. And Adam just showing up at Joe’s restaurant one day would be hilarious.)

Yeah. I wish I knew Japanese. DD:

And Tadashi definitely played a huge role in screwing up Adam. Yeah, it’s not entirely his fault/he also has some clear problems that contributed to it like his inferiority complex, but he really fucked things up. Absolutely agree with everything you said. I think that something happened when Adam was in America that caused him to start desperately looking for Eve, but Tadashi not standing up for him in the one moment that it mattered the most was probably the most painful/significant moment in Adam’s life and strongly shaped his character. Though it is possible that that moment was the trigger for his search for Eve, if it happened immediately prior to Adam going to America (which isn’t unlikely); I’m not sure exactly where it falls in the timeline.

Rather than the snake, I feel like Tadashi is more of a God (though he would never claim that title for himself, or even believe it): he brought Adam into the world of skating (the Garden of Eden) and is now trying to cast him out of it. And that hurts Adam so much, to be betrayed (repeatedly) by his best friend and teacher, someone he once respected. To have God turn his face from him and try to take away Paradise. >~~~<

So yeah, Tadashi is really multi-faceted and intriguing to me, since I think he was something like an Eve, but also a God, and now a Snake (though again, I think “God” is more appropriate than “Snake,” at least with what we’ve seen so far).

Something I’ve mentioned in other posts is that I believe Adam is still in a “state of innocence” and basically still a child inside due to all the abuse he suffered from his family stunting his emotional/mental growth. As Ainosuke, he doesn’t seem to have any personal initiative: he just obediently obeys his aunts and tries to please them by meeting their expectations. As Adam, he’s a lonely child who just wants to have fun doing what he loves and is trying to find a friend who shares his passion for skating. I believe that he has not yet developed a sense of morality, so he doesn’t realize that what he’s doing in both areas is wrong: he’s like a kid stomping on a line of ants. It’s wrong/harmful/spiteful, but he just doesn’t know any better.

[dweetwise]

day 21: i don’t feel so well

prompt from: whumptober pairing: felix x ace notes: the hanahaki au nobody asked for. i’m still a little confused about the trope but i tried <3 warnings: descriptions of illness, injury and blood, temporary character death word count: 3130

“That was awesome! She didn't stand a chance!” Steve cheers.

“That's what she gets for camping. What a bitch!” Nea laughs

Ace grins despite the pain, steadying himself against Jeff's sturdy form while the four of them are making their way back to the campfire after a successful trial.

His head is swimming and there's blood staining his teeth, his back stinging from numerous bloody gashes from the killer's katana. But he's alive, even if he had to crawl out through the exit, his teammates not letting the Spirit secure the kill on him.

When they get back to camp, Steve and Nea are off to spin the tale of their rescue to the others, and Ace can't help but smile when they generously color the experience; just like he would.

Jeff supports him to sit down against one of the logs, offering a somewhat awkward "There you go, buddy" in encouragement.

Ace sees Quentin hand Claudette one of his med-kits and then the group's resident healer approaches him with determined steps.

“Hey, sweetheart—” Ace starts with a grin.

“Stalling isn't going to work,” Claudette shoots him down quickly, seeing right through his act. So Ace sighs dramatically and shrugs off his jacket, and the girl immediately hikes up his shirt to start cleaning the wounds on his back.

Ace hisses from the sting of some kind of alcohol, turning his attention back to the others to try to distract himself from the pain.

Most of the others are listening to to Steve's and Nea's story while the rest are scattered around camp, doing their own things. Kate is tuning her guitar, Jake is stocking one of his toolboxes, and Cheryl seems to be practicing the card trick Ace taught her a couple of days ago.

And then there's Felix.

Finally giving himself permission to look at the handsome German, Ace's heart immediately starts beating faster. He's not even doing anything, just sitting by the fire engrossed in a conversation with Zarina, but Ace is so infatuated even just Felix breathing is almost enough to make him blush.

He thought he was too old for schoolboy crushes like these, but then again how could he not fancy Felix? The guy has some absolutely god-tier genes, a chiseled face and ice blue eyes and a body to die for. He’s also smart, and sophisticated, and filthy rich.

And god knows none of those qualities had ever been Ace's strong suit.

At first Ace had thought his hyperfixation on the man was jealousy, but then his body showed him that was definitely not the case; he didn't want to be Felix, he wanted to be in Felix. The realization didn't phase him as much as it maybe should have, because even the straight-as-a-board Ash had commented on Felix's good looks. And Ace sure as hell wasn't even straight to begin with.

No, his panic had come from when he'd caught himself looking at couples like Jeff and Adam being mushy together and imagined himself and Felix in their place.

Ace had a healthy amount of confidence, though the others might not describe it that kindly, but he wasn't blind. Felix was younger than him, maybe not by an impossible amount but still enough to be noticeable. He was also model-tier gorgeous with a body to match, and while Ace wasn't bad-looking he also had a crooked nose and a build solely used for drinking and gambling.

All in all, he recognized when someone was out of his league, and even though he couldn't resist a cheeky flirt ever now and then, he knew his feelings would never be returned.

But he still allowed himself to look; sue him.

He's in the middle of an indulgent daydream about laying his head on Felix's lap like Kate is doing to Yui on the other side of camp, all the while effortlessly keeping up small talk with Claudette tending to his wounds.

And then he starts coughing.

It's not a normal dry cough, it wracks his entire body and keeps going, and he curls in on himself because damn it’s making his throat hurts and his lungs ache something fierce.

“Ace, what's wrong?” Claudette's worried voice cuts through the attack. He tries to reply but it just makes him cough more, and it's not stopping—

Something slimy lands in the palm he's using to cover his mouth and then he can breathe again, taking sharp gasps of air while his throat tingles from the abuse.

He looks at whatever piece of his organs he managed to cough up, the Spirit's blade probably having rearranged some of his guts. He opens his hand and sees—

A flower?

It's absolute covered in blood, but there's no mistaking it, a single flower sitting in the palm of his hand with some loose petals surrounding it.

Why did he cough up a flower? Where did he even get it? It looks like some sort of cherry blossom, a far cry from the Entity's pustulas or the forest bouquets they pick and use for offerings.

“Are you okay?" Claudette asks, moving to kneel beside him in worry. When she sees the flower, she gasps in surprise.

“What happened?” Meg is quick to join her friend, coming up behind Ace to peer over his shoulder. “Uh… did that flower come out of you?”

“I… guess so?” Ace says, his voice raspy and throat protesting being used.

“So you just, like… ate it? Before?” Steve cocks his head in confusion.

“Come on now, I'm not that stupid,” Ace snorts, some of his worry giving way to amusement over the incredulous situation.

“Then what the hell was that?” Meg asks, scrunching her face up in thought while poking at the gross flower.

“I’m pretty sure I know what’s wrong,” Adam raises his voice from across camp, straightening his back when all eyes turn to him. “It’s an illness, I recognize the symptoms."

“Can't say I've ever heard of a disease that makes you barf petals,” Ash offers, clearly skeptical, and Ace shares the sentiment.

“Shh, hear him out!” Laurie scolds.

"It's a Japanese folk story,” Adam explains. “Flowers start growing in a person's lungs, causing coughing and bleeding and..." he hesitates.

“Well?” Meg demands.

"And ultimately resulting in death, unless the condition is cured," Adam says grimly.

“Are you talking about hanahaki?” Yui pipes up before anyone can question the weird statement. “You know that's just a shojo manga trope, right?”

“It's also mentioned in historical literature,” Adam argues, though from the way he refuses to meet Yui's gaze, he seems to be embarrassed over the subject.

“Dude, nobody cares if you read girl comics, just tell us what the cure is,” Feng snorts, and that's probably the most concern Ace has ever seen her display over his well-being.

“It's—” Adam starts, before faltering, awkwardly scratching at his neck while looking at the ground. “Supposedly caused by unrequited love.”

There's dead silence in the camp.

And then Nea bursts out laughing.

“Jesus, what a story!” the tagger snickers. “Can you imagine Ace as a fairytale princess?”

“Honey, I think you might have gotten some myths mixed up,” Jeff says diplomatically, patting Adam's knee affectionately.

“Yeah, you probably just inhaled a flower in your sleep or something,” Steve encourages Ace.

“I'm pretty sure this is just a practical joke from our dear spidery overlord,” Ace chuckles and pointedly doesn't look Felix's way. Come next trial, his injuries will have healed anyway, including the weird burn in his lungs.

But they don’t.

Trial after trial, the Entity resurrects him and heals all of his wounds but the coughing persists, more and more flowers following.

Even the others are getting worried.

“That's it, bud,” Ash offers, patting his back while Ace is wheezing for breath after coughing up some more petals. “It's just a weird flu, you'll be good as new soon.”

“At least the flowers go with my shirt,” Ace jokes, voice reduced to a rasp, clearing his throat. “Pink was always my color.”

He's trying to keep his and the others' spirits high, since there doesn't seem to be anything they can do to fix the situation.

“We need to do something,” Ace hears Laurie hiss to Dwight, apparently disagreeing with his sentiment.

“B-but how can we even help him?” their leader, bless his heart, looks genuinely upset over Ace's condition.

“Maybe we should try Adam's suggestion," Laurie says.

“Yeah, except you know he wouldn’t tell us even if he did like someone,” Yui huffs from beside them. “Good luck getting an answer out of a compulsive liar.”

Ouch, but also fair. Ace sure as hell isn't going to reveal his dumb little crush, especially since Felix has avoided him since this entire goddamn flower thing started. He knows there's only a slim chance that Felix realizes what's really going on, but it still feels like rejection nonetheless.

He can deal with this. Even if it kills him, the Entity will just bring him back anyway. It's not even that bad.

But then it gets so much worse.

After a week, Ace is laying on his side while black spots dance around in his vision and he struggles to draw enough wheezy breaths into his lungs. His chest hurts, and his throat is so sore even just the air passing through burns like fire. He hasn't been able to speak in days, and that's almost worse than the pain, not being able to use his only coping mechanism of running his mouth until something sticks to lighten the mood.

His head is cushioned on Kate's thigh and he gets a tiny bit of satisfaction from the knowledge that at least he managed to lay in one pretty blonde's lap before dying, even if it’s the wrong one. The touch is comforting nonetheless, though the fact that it’s accompanied by Kate's girlfriend practically screaming in his ear kind of puts a damper on the whole thing.

“I swear to god, I will make every single person in this camp kiss you, do not test me,” Yui threatens, one of the few who haven't given up on curing him. “Is it Jane? Bill?”

If Ace had the energy, he'd probably laugh about her choices, curious as to why those two were the ones she picked. As it stands, he merely stares at her, wondering if his eyes look as dull and lifeless as he feels.

“He's going to die,” Jake says from somewhere to his side, but Ace doesn't even bother turning his head or denying the statement. Hurried voices shush the saboteur while Kate starts humming a melody to distract him, Yui glaring absolute daggers in Jake’s general direction.

His next trial, Jake's prediction comes true.

Ace collapses to the ground in the midst of a coughing fit. The flowers are growing even bigger now, he can feel them tearing at his throat and vocal cords, retching when they trigger his gag reflex on their way out. His vision blurs and then goes black, body finally giving up as the illness consumes him.

He's not even injured from the killer, but the pool of blood he falls into is big enough to cover the entire side of his face. He lays there, not sure if he's even breathing, just thankful that the awful coughing has stopped for at least a moment.

When he comes to, he expects the small comfort of the campfire before he has to go through the same thing again. Instead, he doesn't have enough energy to even open his eyes, slowly realizing he's still in the trial.

It takes him even longer to realize he's being held partly off of the ground, his body hanging limply in someone’s grasp. He idly wonders if a killer is going to mercy hook him, but then he hears something.

Crying.

Focusing on the sound, Ace realizes he's not just being lifted, he's being held in someone's arms. Someone is holding his near-dead body and crying.

With both his mind and body broken from suffering for so long, he allows himself to imagine it's Felix, even though he knows it's not true. Felix has shown he doesn't care, not talking to him and being so grossed out by his symptoms he’s barely even looked at him—

“Das tut mir leid,” is whispered against his hair, and Ace wonders if he's hallucinating or if his brain has given up on speech comprehension, because that sounded an awful lot like German.

Suddenly, he gains some of his strength back, his chest not feeling nearly as tight as it has for the past few days.

“Felix?” Ace asks, and even though it comes out as a raspy whisper, it's impossible to miss in the stillness of the quiet moment. The surprised hitch of breath he gets in response sounds impossibly loud, and he manages to blink awake just enough to see the tear-streaked, wide-eyed face of the person he never thought he could have.

And that's when the Entity decides he's bled on the ground long enough and he blacks out from blood loss.

When Ace comes to, he's no longer in pain. He can breathe. And he wants nothing more than to get back to camp and be reassured that he wasn't imagining Felix being there for him in his final moments.

He runs to the campfire, panting from exertion once he's illuminated by the familiar glow and shocked faces turn to look at him.

“What the—did you run here!?” Meg exclaims incredulously.

“Yeah,” Ace says, eyes scanning the small crowd of familiar faces, so focused on finding a particular one he doesn't even realize the implications of managing to speak without issue.

“Your voice!” Kate exclaims happily, and Ace pauses to collect some of his thoughts.

“Shit, you're right,” he says, a smile tugging on his lips for the first time in what feels like weeks.

“Welcome back, you bastard!” Nea cheers and flings herself at him in a sideways hug, and Ace stumbles to catch himself from falling, chuckling at her antics.

Claudette is sobbing, looking impossibly relieved, and the others are cheering among themselves, though Ace can't make out the contents because he sees a familiar figure making its way to camp and his entire world zones in on that person.

Felix looks up at the sound of the commotion, and Ace's heart breaks a little over how puffy his eyes still look, but then their eyes meet and Felix looks so hopeful—

“Hey,” Ace says, and it probably gets drowned out by the others, but Felix's eyes widen in recognition and he starts walking faster.

“Are you…?” Felix asks, close enough for Ace to hear him over the others shouting.

“He's fixed!” Nea answers for him, finally letting go of the almost painful hug in favor of smacking Ace on the back encouragingly.

Felix glances at Nea but quickly looks back at Ace, waiting for confirmation.

“Yeah, I… guess I'm cured,” Ace says, and it almost feels weird to hear his own voice again. “Or... You know, I hope so.”

Because he's still not sure about Felix's feelings, and he has no idea where they're going to go from here.

But he doesn't need to worry, because Felix's face lights up in a way he's never seen before, letting out a disbelieving, genuine laugh. And then he's stepping forward and cupping his cheek and Ace only has time to blink in confusion before his head is tilted up into a kiss.

“Woah,” Ace hears Nea exclaim, her hand leaving his back like burned. “This, uh… this is new.”

Ace smiles into the kiss and tunes out the rest of her and the others’ surprised babbling, grabbing Felix by the collar of his dress shirt and pulling him deeper into the kiss.

When neither of them are making a move to pull away, their friends seem to be getting fidgety from the show.

“Why don’t we go for a stroll in the woods?” Kate suggests, and the chorus of “Sure!” “Great idea!” and “Oh fuck yes get me out of here” that follow are enough for a laugh to bubble up in Ace’s throat and get swallowed by Felix’s mouth.

When the last pair of footsteps have hurried away, Felix deems it appropriate to finally break away from the kiss. Though he doesn’t go far, burying his head into the crook of Ace’s neck and shoulder and wrapping his arms around him in a tight hug.

“Welcome back,” Felix murmurs against his skin, and the warm affection spreading through Ace’s chest is a welcome change from the constant pain he’s been in for way too long.

“Didn’t expect such a thorough welcome,” Ace can’t resist flirting, hands sneaking up to rest on Felix’s incredibly firm back. The chuckle he gets in return reverberates through both of their bodies due to how close they are, and Ace wonders if Felix can hear his heart frantically beating in excitement.

“I’m… shit,” Felix eventually sighs, lifting his head to meet Ace’s eyes. “I don’t know how to make up for being an idiot. I just watched you suffer and didn’t know what to do.”

“It’s okay,” Ace says, but now he’s curious. “Why did you avoid me?”

“Because I was afraid that I'd get the illness too,” Felix says, looking at the ground in shame. “I thought any one of us could get it, and because of how I feel about you… I was scared I was next.”

The confirmation that Felix had feelings for him even before this whole clusterfuck started is enough to make more butterflies dance in Ace’s gut, a flush creeping up his neck over how the other is openly spilling his heart.

“If I’d have known I was the one causing it, I would have done something sooner. I’m so sorry," Felix murmurs, looking at him with sad puppy eyes.

“Hey, it's not like I was being very cooperative,” Ace points out, giving his most encouraging smile. “It's not your fault, it's the dumb flower sickness.”

“I'm sorry you had to go through that, regardless,” Felix frowns. “But… I'm glad it lead us here,” he adds with a bashful smile that makes Ace’s heart do a couple leaps.

“Figures the best and worst things of my life would happen simultaneously,” Ace flirts, and apparently Felix enjoys being called the best thing in his life, because his sappy smile widens even further.

Ace can’t resist diving in for another taste, capturing smiling lips in a kiss that lasts even longer than the first one and makes their friends groan and complain about “Geez, you’re still going?” when they rejoin them at the campfire.

[shadowtongued]

long headcanon about the duality of love and the mahjarrat condition pertaining to it from his point of view. if you read all this babble i swear to god, i love you, i hope you have a good day. cw: sex addiction, child neglect, unhealthy coping, unrequited pains. reason for writing: hi i want to die bc of angst.

i think we all know even without playing medieval xp grind lore game, runescape, that sliske is old. very old. he tells us in endgame there's not much he hasn’t done with his life over thousands of years, even traveling to other planets and realms to just see what was out there and how far he could get. i’ve always projected his age as somewhere between more than 8,000 or even more than 10,000. we’re never given a timeline to how long the children of mah have lived. sliske has done a lot with his time; he’s killed a god, had quite a few elder relics in his grasp, SPOKEN to a elder god and managed not to die, mastered shadow magicks, has an excellent grasp on the shadow realm. he’s good with biology, chemistry, has a fair understanding of soul magic which is kind of a rare brand of knowledge, he’s tricked probably thousands into bad contracts to become wights in his army, understands the psychology and bad morals of people. he was a playwright, a high ranking officer, a spymaster. dude is just a determined polymath. you know what he hasn’t done? love. he’s never got to play with love.

mahjarrat are explained as having emotions, but dulled ones. they feel rage and pride apparently better than others. kharshai said after years of really believing he was a human, that when he came back to his true form he states “i  feel raw power coursing through my veins. i don't feel pain like i used to, and i'm sure my intellect has increased. but somehow there is something missing. a capacity for emotion that i can't quite put my finger on.” they aren’t equipped for the same range of positive emotions as others are. they feel it, but they don’t understand it fully, it has been said by developers. this whole bit is sadly funny considering in canon, sliske catches feelings. he doesn’t realize he’s attracted to the player character. it’s stated many times, in his journals, in dialogue, etc. he believes their fates are tangled no matter what. and the saddest bit is he probably doesn’t understand these feelings and it confuses him to the point of anger.  “ love! a mahjarrat in love? ... i almost wish that were true. it would certainly make the universe a more interesting place. ” “ so perhaps i have loved you. but that doesn’t mean i have to like you.”  sliske’s main goal started off as to take the players immortal, unable to be crushed by the divine, soul and give it to himself so he could live forever, as mahjarrats do not have afterlives, once they die they are done, evaporated into energy. but in endgame we learn something from him hidden in masks that refutes that;

“I love you for more than your soul.”

you STUPID fucker, you’re in love.

the remainder of this is a lot of NON-CANON, personal headcanon interpretation that pretty much only works on this blog. as a rough summary: sliske’s ol’ mum was not fond of her kids, half-brother wahisietel or sliske since she did not see them as powerful as herself and was disappointed that's what her legacy came out to. a short, beefy, average at magic son, she had another go and was still disappointed with this spidery, scrawny, gifted but absolutely annoying stick underweight child. his father, saw him once or twice in his life and that was it. dyeosuthua wanted nothing more than to make them disappear and try again until she got offspring she didn’t want to throw into a lava pit in secrecy, infanticide was against tribal law due to population issues. sliske’s mother’s neglect was so severe, ( by the absolute boundless joys of rp development and mutual heacanons ♥ ) that wahi and nabor had an attempt at raising him and keeping him from freezing to death. why is all this jargon important? because while all mahjarrats are raised by tough love, sliske’s attention deprivation from his mother was so severe, he grew up and still has a slew of reactive attachment, psychological, and social issues he still carries as an adult. several times she threatened to kill him and almost made good on it more than twice. when wahisietel had proven he was a survivor of the first ritual of rejuvenation, sliske became dyeosuthua’s  main target for abuse despite his gift for magic at a young age. nothing he did could impress her enough. and it left him constantly seeking approval and validation to an insecure mind.

the more he grew, the more confident he became mainly out of spite and to get attention. he’s loud, charming, makes you the only person in the room when he talks to you. he has an innate silver-tongued ability that persuades people to do just about anything. it was a front for his insecurities that he kept very very closed up. in the second age/senntisten capital, sliske had a pretty severe sex addiction as it was one of the few ways he felt validated and was able to get affection in a way he could digest. people with reactive attachment disorders often have sex addictions to fill the space of acceptance without having to commit.. easy, feel good intimacy without having to open up and let someone learn about your vulnerabilities and commit. it was pretty severe, considering mahjarrats find any kind of breeding or intimacies outside their ‘superior species’ as downright foul. sliske had always been the black sheep of the tribe and with his status as praefectus praetorio; head of secret police, really nothing put a damper on him trying to fill the void for affection he had. there wasn’t a species or individual he wouldn’t bed. he would easily take up propositions even for people who just wanted to fuck a mahjarrat because it was ‘exotic’ or because of his status as an officer, he now looks back on this and it bruises his insecurities even more that he allowed himself to do that. not out of pride for his species. but himself, being just a thing to be had because of rarity. azzanadra and his brother, wahisietel found out about it and while disgusted, partially understood what he was doing to negatively self soothe. at one point sliske and azzanadra, the champion of their god and head of the church, as well of one of the strongest living of their kin, had a lasting tryst for a few years and for awhile it made sliske feel very much self important in a way and alleviated his need to be needed so badly, this did not end well when sliske grew tired of their empire and wanted freedom. once childhood best friends and lovers had become absolute enemies once sliske became too unstable and azzanadra became too zealous. 

sliske gave up his sexcapades for a long time, thousands of years, his libido dropped when he became interested in other projects and self healing when he was hit with the idea that he hasd essentially allowed himself to be an exotic fling and still burned over becoming his god, zaros, scapegoat after all he had done for him. love was a weird concept to him and still is. despite being adamant love doesn’t exist for his kind, and his belief that he is flawed, unstable, and embraced the idea of ‘you want a monster? fine! i’ll be the monster!’. he expects no pity, not be forgiven to things he has done and even in game when you sycophantically try to cozy to him, he straight up calls out your text choice was awful considering some of the shitty things he might have done to you. to sliske, all attention to him is attention, whether you’re praising or insulting him. he’s on your mind, he exists, that’s all he wants.

backstory aside the real part of this headcanon is that sliske actually wants love. it’s the only thing aside from an immortal soul he hasn’t had. sliske actually has an attraction to humans because they are empathetic, curious, passionate, and determined. he has an easier time assimilating and being around them since he has ALWAYS had a better sense of humor, socializing, and happiness than his kin. he feels emotions a lot stronger than his fellow mahjarrats. it allows him to talk to and connect to humans and humanlike species better. others of his kind have told him there’s “something wrong” with him for that. he’s actually a romantic, even if he’s just mimicking romance stories, movies, and actions from others. he thinks the idea of settling with one person and loving them is both mortifying and interesting. opening yourself up to someone and giving them the hammer to smash your cherry-red painted porcelain heart and seeing if they do, to him might be the ultimate form of trust and biggest gamble of russian roulette. the stakes are so heavy he’s high on the idea. but it’s also horrifying. mahjarrat are prolific for not opening up, not allowing others in, vulnerability out in the open is a death sentence. they live in a kratocracy/meritocracy where they kill off the weakest link. it’s not pretty. being soft is a useless, unnecessary, weak gene to them. it dampers survival. 

but yet sliske keeps reading romance novels, writing his own confused poetry, and getting into unrequited one sided loves but practicing a backstabbing betrayal when one gets too close. i have to hurt them before they hurt me, betray and cut them down before they can do it to me. i think he wants to be loved. i think he kinda wants to be taught to love, for the emotions and the sake of knowledge. ( brb james newton howard’s ‘true love’s kiss’ from maleficent just came on spotify and i think i’m going to die bc i did not ask for background music thanks!!! ) he wouldn’t be the best at it, maybe a little too possessive with you, codependent, but very nurturing and fun loving. will sepnd a whole week spooning you.. people who hurt you past, present, and future may end up dead in mysterious ways or turned into a wight for you to beat the shit out of. but he’d try. he’s still got a broken child sitting behind his third rib. i think he would snarl the first few times someone genuinely got close to him, it would terrify him, being known on such a skinned, raw level. having gentle touches that are real and not a come hither to the bedroom. being known for something other than the confident, ego he has is death. he could be taught to be gentle for a crumb of consistent attention. might even cut down the murders and god killing down by 15%. love is not going to fix him, it’s not going to forgive the actual shitty things he’s done. it should never do that. but it will turn the lights on in a dark house.

love could really break him. i think so. i’d type more but this has gone on too long and i feel sad-happies. 

[theouterdark]

Tag: Novel Prep Game

This one is hefty, @zmlorenz, thanks for the tag. I’m going to answer a few questions about The Devil from the Outer Dark.  Even though it was an age-and-a-half ago.

Rules: Answer the questions and then tag as many writers as there are questions answered (or as many as you can) to spread the positivity! Even if these questions are not explicitly brought up in the novel, they are still good to keep in mind when writing.

First Look

1. Describe your novel in 1-2 sentences (elevator pitch)

In the summer of 1928, Blake Livingston travels to Céret to recuperate in the arms of family, but life in southern France is not as tranquil as she expects. Soon after her arrival, Blake is thrust into a mystery involving an apparent suicide, a stolen painting, an enigmatic artist, a gang of communist agitators, a pair of missing shoes, and a watcher in the dark.

2. How long do you plan for your novel to be? (Is it a novella, single book, book series, etc.)

This is a sequel to Coldwater Sound, and the second book in a planned series of cosmic horror/mystery novels involving Blake Livingston. Currently it sits somewhere around 70k words. It probably won’t get much more bloated than that.

3. What is your novel’s aesthetic?

Cottagecore horror? Maybe liminal space/entropy/madness + mist and mild diesel-punk/weird science. Is that an aesthetic? Evil/Darkness in plain sight? There’s a lot going on here. You know what—it’s its own aesthetic. Read it and tell me otherwise. I hate this question.

4. What other stories inspire your novel?

The works I thought about while outlining and writing:

Pickman’s Model by HP Lovecraft

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Glamour in Glass by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Shining by Stephen King

5. Share 3+ images that give a feel for your novel

Main Character

6. Who is your protagonist?

Blake Livingston, arguably Adam Brand.

7. Who is their closest ally?

Blake: This is harder to answer. Either Major Devereux or Marco Denicourt. Both, in certain instances. Her sister-in-law, Sabine, could be considered that too, albeit a little later in the story.

Adam: Bertrand Faure is probably the only one. His life is complicated.

8. Who is their enemy?

Blake: Time. The other answers are spoilers.

Adam: Himself. Other answers, again, enter spoiler territory.

9. What do they want more than anything?

Blake: Stability, primarily. Belonging and love, definitely.

Adam: Expression, freedom, and recognition. Also, more paint.

10. Why can’t they have it?

Blake: She thinks she can’t be complete without some of these things, and is unfortunately in the wrong.

Adam: His pride gets in the way, among other things. Also money. He’d probably have more paint and food if he had more money.

11. What do they wrongly believe about themselves?

Blake: That she’s incapable of being useful, being loved, and that she’s crazy.

Adam: That his worth is calculated only by that which he creates.

12. Draw your protagonist! (Or share a description)

Don’t need to! @radley-writes drew her recently. (Thank you again!)

Plot Points

13. What is the internal conflict?

Fighting for a sense of belonging or purpose.

14. What is the external conflict?

A string of seemingly-unrelated crimes sows chaos around Céret. There are external sources of conflict for every character. Whether they be shady individuals, pressure from family, or high expectations placed on the main characters.

15. What is the worst thing that could happen to your protagonist?

Blake: Being mistrusted by family, or publicly discredited. Getting sectioned.

Adam: Being ignored in life and forgotten in death.

16. What secret will be revealed that changes the course of the story?

I kinda want y’all to find out by reading it.

17. Do you know how it ends?

I do. I wrote the ending already. Wrote the whole thing mostly linearly. Got to about the 40% mark and skipped to the end, pounded it out. I don’t think it will change much in the next draft.

Bits and Bobs

18. What is the theme?

There are several. I’ll pick the three most important ones.

Emptiness of attaining false dreams

Loneliness as destructive force

Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice

19. What is a reoccurring symbol?

I’ll name a few.

Black cats

Dames blanches

Pont du Diable (bridges in general)

Cherries (blossoms, fruit, rot, life)/Life Cycles

20. Where is the story set? (Share a description!)

The Devil from the Outer Dark takes place primarily in and around the city of  Céret, France, among the foothills of the Pyrenees. It’s the summer of 1928, and everyone is upset about the new format for the Tour de France. Artists find inspiration in the hills. Love is in the air. Danger lurks in the nooks and crannies of the city narrows.

21. Do you have any images or scenes in your mind already?

Oh 100%. I’m a very visually-oriented. Most of this story came about from a series of images/scenes in my mind. I jotted down little ideas here and there for about a year before I wrote a single line. That actually seemed to help in the drafting process.

22. What excited you about this story?

There’s an edge to it, and a lot of elements I don’t normally work with. Romance is one of them. Particularly unrequited love and longing, lost love, and the pain love’s absence. I also adore the characters more than any other casts I’ve written.

I also love it because it frightens me. And that’s not something that happens often with my own work.

23. Tell us about your usual writing method!

I do the chicken peck for like thirty minutes to an hour before I break through the barrier and my fingers fly across the keys. Usually while in bed, listening to music. And once I start, I can’t stop. My momentum deadens if I so much as get up to get a glass of water.

Tag List: @writingmyassoff, @erinisawriter, @midnightstreetwanderings, @bethwrotethis, @doux-ciel, @hilunawrites, @ghost-possum, @zmlorenz, @doubleviewfinder, @veronicadent, @els-writes, @dantedevereaux, @tlbodine, @hypotheticalwriterquestions, @hazeywrites, @reeseweston, @withered-rose-unbreakable-lotus, @katabasiss, @dotr-rose-love, and @byjillianmaria. (Let me know if you’d like to be added or removed from tags future tags).

If any of you haven’t done this, and would like to, go for it, but I’m not going to subject anyone to it, I think. This one has been in my drafts for like four months.

D

[fineillsignup]

LOVE STINKS (KakaSaku, rated T)

For @natanije​ and KakaSaku Month prompt “Healing”

LOVE STINKS (on AO3)

Sakura stabbed at the crumbled daisy petal with a chakra scalpel in utter frustration. It was counterproductive, she knew that, since the diminishing supply of months-old flower petals was now all she could have for the indefinite future, but it was just so aggravating. An absolutely textbook case of the rare Hanahaki Disease just had to develop while she was out of the village on a mission. Not that anyone should have been surprised that the newly twenty-year-old Hinata developed a terrible case of flowers in her lungs on the very day of her Coming of Age Ceremony. Even Sakura had thought it would probably happen, but she’d thought it would keep until she got back from the emergency mission.

Instead, that stupid mutt Kiba just had to confess to Hinata that he was in love with his teammate, and then Naruto had awkwardly admitted that he and Gaara were currently dating (“although I’m really flattered Hinata -ttebayo!”), and by the time Sakura made it back to the village, Hinata’s lungs were botany-free, although the sweet girl had been kind and forward-thinking enough to collect all the coughed-out detritus for Sakura to examine.

It’s not that Sakura really wanted Hinata to be literally dying of her unrequited feelings, but understanding the mysterious Hanahaki Disease had been a goal of hers since she first read about the disease at age fourteen. She knew, without doubt, that if Sasuke-kun didn’t return her love by the time she was twenty, she would certainly develop the disease, leaving the morbid choice: die of her feelings, choked poetically to death on Sasuke-kun’s favourite flower; or choose to have the infection scraped out, a treatment which, the literature somberly warned, left the patient unable to love at all?

The idea of being found dead of love, surrounded in a sea of bloody petals—doubtless something very elegant like peony or fire lily… at fourteen, it had seemed like a glamourous fate. By twenty, however, quite a lot had happened. Sasuke had come back, fought with them, knocked out a goddess with them, then knocked Sakura out, lost to Naruto, and left again after a rather unsatisfactory poke to her broad forehead. In the four years since then, they had seen each other only briefly.

Sakura and Hinata had turned twenty the same year, and Sakura hadn’t thought Hinata’s possible infection would be a problem, because Sakura would surely also develop the disease, solve it with her medical genius, and return in plenty of time to cure Hinata as well.

But her Coming of Age Ceremony came and went without even a tickle in her throat.

How could she cure Hanahaki Disease without a patient to study?

She pulled off her lab coat in a huff and stormed over to T&I to drag Ino out for tea and dango.

“Am I a terrible woman?” she demanded as the waitress went away with their orders.

“Yes, that’s why we’re friends,” Ino replied, her bang swaying as she tilted her head.

“Be serious, Pig!”

“Well, I’m more serious than not,” Ino said, frowning. “You’re a goddamn force of nature, Forehead. You can level a battlefield, scoop up the wretched pieces left behind and put them back together more often than not. That’s terrible. And awesome. You’re the kunoichi I strive to be better than.”

“I mean about Sasuke-kun… if after all this time, I’ve given up on him… doesn’t that make me terrible? You know… fickle, and so on?”

“Is this about you not getting Hanahaki?”

“Yeah.”

Ino drummed her fingers on her arm. “Look. I wanted Sasuke-kun back then too, and I’m not coughing up camellias or whatever.”

“But you’re dating Kankurou.”

“Yeah, exactly. I moved on. Does that make me terrible? I used to want Sasuke, now I’m with Kankurou. Naruto used to want you, he’s happy now with Gaara. Maybe you should cut out Shikamaru and make a play for Temari, come to think of it.”

Sakura giggled. “You’ll sabotage your own teammate?”

“Sure, make his lazy ass work for it,” Ino winked. “Hey. I know that wanting Sasuke-kun was, like, a huge part of your identity for a while, but maybe there’s a reason why Hanahaki Disease only strikes starting after the Coming of Age Ceremony. You have to be an adult for feelings to be that serious. That’s why we don’t let twelve year olds vote or drink or get married.”

“We did let them go to war though.”

“Well, the minimum age for genin is sixteen now,” Ino said. “Maybe you should ask Kakashi-sama to raise it to twenty?”

Sakura hums. “Maybe I should bring it up to him. It’s not a bad point. I haven’t seen him for a while.”

“Come to think of it, I haven’t either,” Ino said. “Weird. Usually he’s in the flower shop at the very least weekly.”

Sakura scowled. “It had better not be that there’s a new issue of the Icha Icha fanzine again. I’ll definitely go and sort him out!”

———

Getting a meeting with the leader of the most powerful hidden village was very difficult. Even the daimyo had to wait nowadays.

Sakura was not the daimyo, and she waited for no one.

Genma and Raidou didn’t even bother to try to stop her as she thrust open the Hokage office door. “Kaka—whoa!”

The room absolutely reeked. There must have been some kind of odour-blocking seal to keep the stench from drifting into the corridor. And the odor was unmistakably emanating from the Hokage… or rather, the back of him, hunched over a basin and apparently puking into it.

“Kaka-sensei!” Sakura stifled her disgust with medical efficiency, hurriedly sealing her olfactory senses as she rushed over to give aid. “What’s happening? Why didn’t you summon help? Are you sick? Were you attacked? Were you poisoned?”

He weakly made a gesture for writing with a brush as she reached to chakra scan his system. She ignored him, biting her lip as she examined first his stomach and then—

“Your lungs!” she gasped. “This is an emergency! Kakashi-sensei, you have Hanahaki Disease and it’s really advanced!” Using her precise chakra control, she internally sliced the blockages into tiny pieces, enabling him to actually productively clear his lungs. Soon the basin was full of little pieces of spongy red-orange petal.

Although he was now breathing noticeably easier, she got him a scroll and brush anyway, since his throat was no doubt sore from the effort of getting rid of the flower. As she did so, she laughingly said, “You know, sensei, whoever you’re in love with has good taste. That looks a lot like a rafflesia, which is my favourite flower. They’re just… so weird and...”

Kakashi just looked at her with his sad, droopy eyes, sunken with exhaustion. Immediately, Sakura felt a horrible stab of guilt. How could she laugh when Kakashi was dying ?

“I’m sorry!” she said, “I don’t know what I was thinking. Don’t worry, sensei! I know I can cure you—”

She stopped because he was writing savagely onto the scroll.

I don’t want to lose the ability to love. I’ve lost so much—not that.

“No, of course not!” She bit her lip. “I mean… I really want to try to figure out a third way other than loss of ability to love and death . Are you sure you can’t be loved by this person in return?”

Kakashi shook his head miserably.

“Have you confessed?”

Kakashi looked away.

“Oh, come on now. You’re Hatake Kakashi, the hero, the Sixth Hokage? And you’re so in love that you’ve got physical proof of it! Who wouldn’t fall for that?”

He didn’t react for a moment, then he wrote on the scroll again.

Many people. What if it were you, for instance?

Sakura laughed. “Well, it’s not like you could possibly love me like that.”

Again, he looked away. The bottom dropped out of Sakura’s stomach and her heart leapt up into her throat. The last time she saw him was just before she left on her mission. It couldn’t be…

“Kakashi…?” she said, actually dropping the honourifics for the first time. He still didn’t look at her. “May I… examine your throat?”

He looked up slowly and peeled down his mask. It was the first time she’d ever seen his full face, yet she couldn’t take her eyes away from his sad, droopy eyes.

And the love in them.

A thousand memories flashed through her mind. She had never before consciously considered him in such a way, but now that she was, it seemed ludicrous that she had never realized it before. He was selfless, funny, loyal, willing to change himself, diligent… and, as she actually let herself take in his whole face, hot as fuck.

Could she… actually like Kakashi back?

Well… she was certainly willing to try.

“My treatment plan,” she said, in her best doctor voice, “is three kisses by mouth, as needed. And weekly dates—with no skipping out on your part of the bill. I’m not saying the man has to pay for me, but sticking me with the tab is just a little unromantic.”

The sad droopy eyes widened.

“Shall I start the first part of the treatment now?”

His adam’s apple bobbed as he nodded.

Sakura leaned forward and pressed a cute peck to his lips. “One—” Another cute peck. “Two—”

He suddenly grabbed her and laid a passionate kiss to her mouth, running his hands through her cherry-blossom locks fervently.

When they finally broke apart, he cleared his throat, thumped his chest a little, and said, with a hint of smugness, “Three.”

an example of the stinky flower that Sakura likes in this story

[yadaily]

Hi everyone! We’re glad to be back and, since it’s pride month, have compiled a list of 100 LGBTQ+ novels! This is certainly not comprehensive; we’ve listed here some of our favorites, the most popular, and others we’ve fallen in love with along the way. However, we haven’t read all of these books and cannot speak authoritatively on the content in every single one. We’ve also decided to include some adult novels we feel are popular and represented in the YA community. As always, feel free to tell us your own suggestions. Don’t forget to follow us on Wordpress, and enjoy!

A-F:

The Abyss Surrounds Us by Emily Skrutskie

Adaptation by Malinda Lo

Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld 

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz 

The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson 

As I Descended by Robin Talley

Ash by Malinda Lo

Ask the Passengers by A.S. King

Beast by Brie Spangler

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kirstin Cronn-Mills

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

Been Here All Along by Sandy Hall

The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan

Boyfriends with Girlfriends by Alex Sanchez

Carol (The Price of Salt) by Patricia Highsmith 

Cherry by Lindsey Rosin

Coda by Emma Trevayne

Cut Both Ways by Carrie Mesrobian

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

The Difference Between You and Me by Madeleine George

Dreadnought by April Daniels

Dress Codes for Small Towns by Courtney C. Stevens

Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour

Fan Art by Sarah Tregay

Fans of the Impossible Life by Kate Scelsa

Far From You by Tess Sharpe

The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley by Shaun David Hutchinson 

G-L:

The Gallery of Unfinished Girls by Lauren Karcz 

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit by Jaye Robin Brown

Girl Mans Up by M-E Girard

Girlhood by Cat Clarke

Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

Her Name in the Sky by Kelly Quindlen 

Hero by Perry Moore

History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera

The History of Us by Nyrae Dawn

How to Make a Wish by Ashley Herring Blake

Huntress by Malinda Lo

I Am J by Cris Beam

If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo

If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan

I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

The Inexplicable Logic of My Life by Benjamin Alire Saenz 

It Looks Like This by Rafi Mittlefehldt

It’s Not Like It’s a Secret by Misa Sugiura 

Jerkbait by Mia Siegert 

Jess, Chunk, and the Road Trip to Infinity by Kristin Elizabeth Clark

Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera

Keeping You a Secret by Julie Anne Peters

Lies My Girlfriend Told Me by Julie Anne Peters

Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert

Lizard Radio by Pat Schmatz

The Love Interest by Cale Dietrich 

Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block

Luna by Julie Anne Peters

M-R:

Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller

Meg & Linus by Hanna Nowinski 

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth 

More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

More Than This by Patrick Ness

None of the Above by I.W. Gregorio

Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz

Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee

Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst 

One Man Guy by Michael Barakiva

Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg 

Our Own Private Universe by Robin Talley

Pantomime by Laura Lam

Parrotfish by Ellen Wittlinger

Pink by Lili Wilkinson

Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman

Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy 

S-#:

Shine by Lauren Myracle 

Silhouette of a Sparrow by Molly Beth Griffin

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli 

The Space Between by Michelle L. Teichman 

Starting From Here by Lisa Jenn Bigelow

The Summer I Wasn’t Me by Jessica Verdi

Symptoms of Being Human by Jeff Garvin

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Tash Hearts Tolstoy by Kathryn Ormsbee

Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan

This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp 

Timekeeper by Tara Sim

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan 

Under the Lights by Dahlia Adler

The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli

The Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd

We Are Okay by Nina LaCour

We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson 

What We Left Behind by Robin Talley

When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore

Wonders of the Invisible World by Christopher Barzak

You Know Me Well by Nina LaCour and David Levithan 

10 Things I Can See From Here by Carrie Mac

27 Hours by Tristina Wright