#and none of it exists physically anywhere

[underwhelmingalchemist]

It's always "how's the writing going" and never "how's the extensive world and lore building that you've been mentally workshopping since 2014 going? The extensive world and lore building that you've been mentally workshopping since 2014 seems fun"

[smilepilled]

"editblr doesnt have any poc issues stfu" Yes it fucking does. you guys constantly make characters who are whitewashed the center of your themes, or otherwise YOU waterwash characters with dark skin tones. you speak over editors of colour with such a casual, uncaring frequency that it has become The Norm in your heads.

also, that's not the only issue. you guys are way too fucking comfortable being heinous people — you would rather spend hours pedantically discussing the morals behind using labels, one's consumption of dark media or even worse, the way people describe their experiences than listen to any of the REAL issues at hand. issues involving people struggling to have peace, wellbeing/health, or the basic survival — you are selfish for this, and your pleasant or cutesy aesthetics do not save you from this; no matter who you are or have been.

somehow, that's not even the end of it, which is ridiculous — too many of you are comfortable with the idea of shunning, harrassing and suicide baiting people for the most pesky, stupid things. people saying slurs that they can reclaim (in THIS context; using slurs as insults is not reclaiming them) is not gonna lay you sick in bed. someone liking the same character as you should not be a justification for you to mistreat, harrass and tell people to kill/harm themselves. that's nasty, immature, and it deserves to be called out accordingly. NEVER will it be alright to do these things, even when you think its for a good cause, because people that are "prohlematic" to you lot are often just different in a way you disapprove of (and even then, youre doing something heinous, stooping at a real bad person's level)

additionally, i dont care if you as a person of colour dont agree with this (thats your own internalized racism/colorism to undo with yourself) — so many people like yourself have been saying that the shit going on around here makes them uncomfortable, hurt, and ultimately makes them unsafe. do not fucking derail this post to say that i cannot say this due to being white, because people i love and care about are affected by this, and i shouldnt expect them to say things about their own pain. none of us should.

i'm dead serious. too many of you are quiet and comfortable being shit people, especially when it comes to "proving" your own morals. people that are anywhere near you FEAR disagreeing publicly because you people are so insufferable it bleeds into their mental health & even PHYSICAL wellbeings. you guys need to be humbled ASAP, because the high like + follower counts are throwing you into power trips that dont really exist outside of this platform— you need to grow up, or people around you will outgrow you and leave you behind.

i am not the first to say this, and i will not be the last. if you see somehing, say something. stop defending your friends because they're popular and you want graphics— call them out on their behavior. PREFERRABLY, DO IT PRIVATELY, AND DON'T DRAG PEOPLE INTO IT. thanks.

[borntocreatee]

THE "VOID STATE"

What is the Void State?

The void state, aka pure consciousness or the "I am" state, is simply you being your true, original self: pure consciousness, nothing more. It’s not a magical place. It’s your natural state, your home, where you always return because it’s what you are.

You are pure consciousness, an energy experiencing the universe. Right now, you’re in a physical body with a name, experiencing senses like touch, smell, sight, taste, and hearing. But in the void state, none of that exists. There’s no body, no mind, no thoughts, emotions, beliefs, traumas, or labels. It’s just you: pure consciousness, existing. You’re simply you in your natural state.

This isn’t strange or special. When you’re not playing the role of a human, you’re just consciousness. There’s nothing more “you” than this state.

The void state or pure consciousness is NOT:

• SATS

• Falling asleep

• Meditating

• Floating in nothingness

• Having a sleeping body and an awake mind

• Being in theta, beta, or gamma states

• Deep relaxation

• A manifestation method

• A transition from conscious to subconscious mind

• The center of your mind

All of the above are completely incorrect. The void state is simply BEING consciousness. You’re not floating, you’re not in a place, you’re not asleep, you’re not meditating, you’re not in nothingness—you’re just consciousness.

What is the void for? What are the benefits?

• You fully connect with who you’ve always been.

• Absolute peace.

• You can manifest anything instantly.

Examples of things you can manifest:

• Eliminate depression, anxiety, or any mental disorder.

• Change your past.

• Change your appearance.

• Alter your genetics.

• Manifest waking up in this state every night.

• Manifest your future.

• Shift instantly to another reality.

• Have lucid dreams.

• A magical notebook where everything you write comes true.

• A magic word for manifesting or shifting.

As you can see, these are things you might never have imagined you could manifest. And as mentioned, anything you manifest in this state happens instantly. When you return to 3D awareness, you’ll see it. If it didn’t manifest, you weren’t in the void. You can’t fail in this state—your beliefs or assumptions don’t matter. If you truly entered this state, what you manifested is guaranteed to happen.

Why is manifestation instant in this state?

Because in this state, there’s no separation between you and what you desire. There’s no body, no mind, no time, no beliefs, no expectations, no limitations, no blocks, no resistance. It’s just you: pure consciousness, being.

In everyday reality, when we manifest, we do so from the mind, from an identity that believes it “needs something” or that “it will be reflected soon.” This creates separation: you here, your desire there. That distance creates the “process” or “waiting time” because you see it as something to achieve, something separate from you.

But in the void, there’s no distance. There’s no doubting mind, no beliefs, no resistance, no mental filters—nothing interferes. It’s just consciousness. The moment you decide, affirm, or desire something, it becomes part of you. You don’t attract it or wait for it—you ARE it. And by being it, it manifests. What you say and what you are become one.

Main characteristics of this state:

• No sight, hearing, smell, touch, or taste.

• No labels, nothing has form or definition.

• No traumas.

• No time—no past, present, or future.

• No body.

• No emotions.

• Only peace, calm, and neutrality—not because you feel “good” or “happy,” but because you simply ARE, and nothing is missing.

Is it dangerous?

No.

What does pure consciousness look like?

It doesn’t “look” like anything. You have no eyes, you’re not anywhere, there’s nothing to see—you’re just consciousness. This scares some people. But if you want, you can visualize landscapes or galaxies.

How do I know if I’ve reached it?

You’ll know the moment you enter because you’ll have none of your five senses and feel absolute peace. Don’t worry about not noticing—it’s unmistakable.

How do I manifest in this state?

You can manifest by affirming, visualizing, deciding, thinking, or simply desiring something. For example, to change your eye color, you could say: “My eyes are green.” And that’s it.

So, how do you “enter” in this state?

You don’t “enter” it because you’re already there. You simply stop paying attention to everything else: the world, your body, your worries. It’s like watching TV and lowering the volume to hear silence. The silence was always there—you just had to turn down the noise.

How do I put this into practice?

Focus on being aware that you exist, without adding anything to it. Do this in a way that works for you.

Think about how you learn or enjoy daily activities. Are you a visual, auditory, writing, or tactile learner? What resonates with you? What works?

• Visual: Did you learn best with mind maps, diagrams, or imagining lessons as stories?

Methods: Visualization, imagination, creating scenarios.

• Auditory: Did you learn by listening to explanations, recording lectures, debating, or memorizing out loud?

Methods: Subliminals, affirmations, affirmation tapes, inner dialogue.

• Writing: Did you benefit from detailed notes, summaries, or lists to organize your studies?

Methods: Scripting, journaling.

• Physical: Did you focus better by highlighting books, using flashcards, or moving while studying?

Methods: Meditations, tapping.

There’s no “right” way, and you can use more than one.

My favorite method: The Law of Assumption

It’s not a method per se, but it’s essential and won’t fail you.

What is the Law of Assumption?

Whatever you assume to be true or false is reflected in your reality.

How to assume?

You can assume by visualizing, imagining, deciding, thinking, acknowledging, saying, accepting, or affirming that something is true or that you already have it.

How to manifest?

• Choose your desire.

• Assume it’s already yours.

• Done—it’s yours.

To apply it to the void state, simply assume you’ve already entered, that you enter every night, that saying a phrase gets you there, or that affirming once is enough—whatever you want.

After assuming, stay firm in it. Keep choosing thoughts aligned with your assumption and don’t contradict it. You’ve already succeeded—don’t betray yourself by thinking otherwise.

Inducing this state is easy. It’s as natural as sleeping, breathing, or your heartbeat. One reason people don’t achieve it is because they overthink it.

When you understand that pure consciousness is literally just being conscious, you’ll see that complicating it is pointless.

What if I don’t succeed?

Don’t overcomplicate it. People don’t “enter” because they think it’s super complex, like learning to fly. But it’s as natural as sleeping or breathing.

Overthinking creates resistance. Think of it like floating in a pool: relax, and you float; tense up, and you sink.

You don’t have to follow anyone else’s steps or fit into a method. They’re just ideas to find what you enjoy.

If you prefer sitting with your eyes open and listening to music, do it. If you like imagining while listening to rain, great. The key is to stop looking outside and focus inward on what works for you.

It’s your home. You don’t have to “go” there because you never left.

So, relax and try it your way. It’s like being a kid and playing without rules.

The next time you hear “void state” or “pure consciousness,” remember it’s not a place, a ritual, or a method. It’s your natural state, before any thought or identity. Just consciousness. Just you.

And when you recognize yourself as that consciousness, there’s nothing you can’t be, have, or experience. Not because you found a cosmic “trick” or universal secret, but because you’ve always created your life. Now you know it.

There’s no right or wrong way—only what feels natural to you.

It’s not about doing it "correctly"; it’s about being.

You are consciousness. You already know how to return to yourself. Trust that.

The most important thing is to do what truly feels good to you, not just copy what others do.

[lieslab]

I wanna cry and I wanna love, but all my tears have been used up

꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎ ꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎

Pairing: Hyunjin X gn reader

Summary: After pushing away the only person you love, your therapist reminds you that a bright future still exists.

Genre: Angst with a happy ending

Word Count: 3.5K

Domestic abuse and anxiety resources

Trigger warning: Child abuse and neglect, post-traumatic-stress-disorder, trauma from verbal and physical abuse, and anxiety.

A/N: You could go to therapy, or you could just write fanfic about your bias. Guess which one I did 🥲 Anyway, let this remind you that one day we will overcome scary things and it might not happen right away, growth is not linear, but it's better when we're open with the people we love <3

_ _ _

“When are you going to stop pushing me away and let me properly love you?” 

Hyunjin’s words dropped like a nuclear bomb. Your brain exploded and you were blinded by the harsh reality of what you’d always carried around. The past shackled you and you’d known it for a long time. You outran it like a criminal running from the law. 

You couldn’t respond to his words, not right away. Instead, you kept your eyes on the bedroom window. Raindrops hit and glided down like the tears you couldn’t produce. The steady drizzle of rain hit the tin roof with soft plinks. Behind you, Hyunjin’s eyes narrowed at your back. He waited for a response, but you didn’t know what to say. 

How do you make someone understand something when they’ve never lived through it? How do you tell someone all the tender touches from your parents turned violent? You were carved from violence and neglect. The smooth edges of your heart turned jagged and bloody. You destroyed those who got too close. 

When you agreed to go out with Hyunjin, you thought you could conquer your past. For once, you thought you’d have the relationship you dreamed about, the fairytale with a happy ending. You found yourself trapped in a nightmare. 

None of it was Hyunjin’s fault, it was your own. Your own brain sent off screeching alarms. Every time he touched you, you tensed up. Your breath caught in your throat and you waited for the impact. The verbal abuse that’d take you right back to childhood; degradation and damnation, but it never came. 

He knew something was wrong, you’d hinted at things being off. He sensed it in your touch. Every time his hand curled within yours, you stiffened. The only time he reached up to brush an eyelash from beneath your eye, you flinched and smacked his hand away. 

He jerked back in shock. His wide eyes met your own. As you stared at him with a gaze of terror, your throat tightened. You looked away, murmuring a faint apology. You finally let him brush the eyelash away, but something built between the two of you. Your walls heightened. You slathered more mortar on the bricks and let it stack up. 

Hyunjin tried to get through to you. He kept his voice soft and sweet, reminding you that he wasn’t like whoever hurt you. When you went out, he stretched his hand out to you and waited for you to take it. When you sat together, he kept a few inches of space between your bodies. He let you be the one to initiate the contact. 

You struggled with it. How do you put your trust in someone when your trust has been broken since birth? How do you hand someone the broken shards of your heart? Every time he stretched his hand out, you stared at it longingly.

Love turned into a loaded gun. You loved Hyunjin, you swore you did, but when it came to physical touch, you couldn’t. Your kisses were cold. When your lips connected, you longed to be anywhere else. So unnatural, you couldn’t get your body to move properly. Your hands curled up into fists, or you dug them into the fabric of your clothes. 

He wasn’t hurting you, but your brain hurt. You should have been focused on him. The softness of his lips, the scent of sandalwood and sage, the warmth he provided. He wanted to be your safe haven, but in your head, he created a prison. You grew terrified and paralyzed, afraid to fuck it up, afraid to do it all wrong.

You wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his fault you were shackled by the past, but your terror grew. You picked up on the signs of his frustration. The way he looked away after he kissed you, the brief narrowed eyes, and inhale through his nose. Flared nostrils and the cold shoulder he gave you when he walked away. 

Why couldn’t he be enough? What was he doing wrong? He sat with the unanswered questions late at night. In the bed, you rolled over as far away from him as possible. He thought asking you to move in was for the best. He thought it’d help you open up, but you were so stubborn. You kept your demons housed in the depth of your soul. 

He sat, he waited, and he hoped. He silently prayed that something would happen between the two of you. Maybe your walls would crumble and you’d finally let him in. He really did love you. He liked the way you looked when your face fitted with a smile. 

Your laughter bubbled his heart and he found himself smiling every time it happened. Just when he thought he was getting through to you, you shut down again. That brought you to tonight. Everything built up and he was tired. 

Four months, sixteen weeks, and you still kept your heart guarded. He dreamed about love all the time. He knew the way it was supposed to make him feel, but it wasn’t like this. He shouldn’t have to feel like he was voicing his thoughts and opinions to the wall. You were timid and cold. When he spoke about certain things, you shut down. 

Like right now, he voiced his question and you didn’t respond. You watched the rain soak the outdoor streets of Seoul without a response. Your arms tucked around you and a blanket wrapped around your body. He spent all evening trying to figure out how to bring it up gently, but he couldn’t, so he blurted it out. 

Cars roared outside. Living downtown usually brought him joy. The sound of cars, the honking horns, and whirling engines. Right now, growing puddles splashed sidewalks. Most people were indoors, besides the night crowds. They filtered into bars and enjoyed the highlights of Seoul’s nights. 

Neon glows, the flowing alcohol, and the steady streams of cigarette smoke. Bass-thumping music, drunken laughter, and regrets that’d be blurry in the morning. Bartenders mixed drinks, friends celebrated milestones, and Seoul buzzed with the thrum of quickened heartbeats. 

You closed yourself off. On the bed, you remained silent. He couldn’t tell what you were thinking. Maybe you wished you could wash down the sidewalk drains like the rain. Maybe you weren’t listening at all. Whatever it was, it hurt his heart. Why wouldn’t you speak up? 

When your fear appeared, it swaddled you. Your vocal chords numbed and you crumbled. Paralyzed by fear, you couldn’t get out the words you wanted to say. You didn’t know how to string them together and push them out in a way he’d understand. You knew you were hurting him, but you didn’t know how to stop it. 

A silent hand squeezed his heart. He nodded and spun around, trying not to let your resistance bother him. “When you figure it out and you want to talk, let me know. I’m going to go stay with Changbin for a while. If you want to talk to me, you have my number.” 

You listened as his voice trailed off and his steps faded. Your head hung in defeat and you became one with the downpouring rain. As much as you wanted to cry, you couldn’t. You’d cried so much in the past, you weren’t sure you could cry. People say it’s healthy, but it stopped working for you a long time ago. 

You couldn’t pull yourself out of your rut. You didn’t know how to separate yourself from the past. You knew you weren’t in danger, but your nervous system had been shot for years. It misfired, the brain sent the wrong signals, and you fucked it up. 

You loved Hyunjin, you swore you did, but at the same time, you didn’t know how to convey your love. It never came out properly. Being in love felt like being stalked by a wolf and you were the lamb. 

All you could do was play innocent and wait for the bite. 

~ ~ ~ 

“What would your life look like if you didn’t harbor that fear within you?” 

“I…” You trailed off, trying to find the words to respond to your therapist. “I don’t know.” 

You waited for her guidance, but she didn’t give it to you. She stared down at you with a clipboard and a pen. Time marched on again. Curled up on a suede chair, you felt like a ten year old child, waiting to be instructed on what to do. 

Your fingers shifted together and you pulled your gaze to the floor. Beneath her gaze, your body burned from her intense green eyes. She watched you squirm in silence and slowly sat back. 

“I think you know what you want deep down. You love Hyunjin, but you’re afraid of it all going wrong. The wall is easier. Keeping your distance is easier because you’re always afraid it’ll end catastrophically.” 

You took in her words and nodded. “I don’t mean to treat him like he doesn’t matter, but I don’t know how to escape the past. He deserves someone better than me.” 

“But he loves you.” 

“What’s there to love?” You scoffed, shaking your head. “I can’t tell him I love him properly. I’m too afraid to speak up. He just left me the other night and he hates me. I’m not good enough for him.” 

She pulled her papers from her clipboard and started to flip through them again. You raised an eyebrow, but she didn’t respond. Long nails flickered through more and more papers, until she finally stopped. 

“You started to date Hyunjin four months ago.” 

“And your point?” 

“Sweetheart, if Hyunjin hated you, he wouldn’t have stuck around this long. Four months is an awfully long time to stick with someone you hate. Has he made you do anything that makes you think he hates you?” 

The tears came on so quickly, you weren’t expecting them. Hot and fast, they pricked and rapidly slipped down your cheeks. Her lips quipped up in a half smile because she knew you knew. You sniffled and quickly wiped them away, but they wouldn’t stop. 

She leaned over, picking up a box of tissues, and handed them in your direction. “Loving someone is a big thing when you haven’t had that before. You’re allowed to feel scared, sweetheart. It’s new and it’s terrifying.” 

You took a few and wiped at your teary eyes. “I-I just-” Your bottom lip quivered. You bit down on your lip and looked away, trying to find the right words. “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel utterly broken and he’s Hyunjin.” 

“He’s so talented and smart. Charming, authentic, and the list goes on and on. Who am I? I don’t bring anything to a relationship. I’m a ticking time bomb.” 

“When you’re in a romantic relationship, it’s not about who’s better. It’s a partnership, you’re both equal here.” 

“I feel like a kid!” You blurted out. “I-I don’t know how to explain it other than that. I freeze up and I freak out. There’s fight and flight. I freeze. I fawn. I feel stuck in a bubble and I can’t do anything. I’m an adult and yet, I can’t shake that helpless feeling.” 

“I’m not around that life anymore. Hyunjin doesn’t hurt me. Actually, I’d go as far to say I feel safe around him, but there’s something within me that’s shattered. I’m terrified.” 

Golden hoop earrings caught a glimpse of sunlight through the window. Your therapist reached forward for your hands. You hesitated, but leaned out and took them. 

“How does this feel?” 

“It’s weird and oddly comforting.” 

“Would I ever hurt you?” 

Your head shook rapidly. 

“Why?”

“Because I trust you. I’ve been coming here for a while now and you’ve never hurt me. You offer me advice and support.” 

“Now when it comes to Hyunjin?” 

Your face softened as you kept hold of her hands. “Oh…” 

“What is he like?” 

“Supportive and sweet.” 

She nodded, reassuring you to go on. 

“He’s kind and he makes me laugh.” You sniffled and continued. “He knows I’m not fully comfortable with physical touch, so he waits for me to initiate contact.” 

“Uh-huh, keep going.” 

“And I think I really, really like him.” 

She beamed and lightly tightened her grip on your hands. “This is what I want to hear! You’re going to do scary things in life, but you’ve known Hyunjin for four months and-” 

“Six,” you corrected her. “I’ve known him for six, but we started dating four months ago.” 

“Six months is half a year. That’s an awfully long time to get to know a person. See? You know how you feel deep down. I bet you’ve been holding all this back and never talking to me about it in our sessions, but this is the stuff I’m here for.” 

You nodded, taking in her words. “I always want to see you win. That’s what I’m here for. I’m here to celebrate your wins with you. We can work through your past. We can focus on building a future.” 

She gave your hands a final squeeze and leaned back in her seat. She grabbed her clipboard, rearranged her golden bangles, and shifted in her chair. “So how do you feel now?” 

“I think I need to go home and talk to my boyfriend.” 

~ ~ ~ 

Back home, Hyunjin stared longingly at your shared bed. He came back here after work, hoping the two of you could work something out, but you weren’t home. You made the bed this morning, but you abandoned the apartment. He forced himself back to the task of folding up clothes from the closet. 

He didn’t want to fight with you and he didn’t want to cause problems. He didn’t want to take a break in your relationship, but he was starting to think the two of you needed one. Along the way, he’d be able to decide if he wanted to stick around, or not. 

He folded a t-shirt in half and flipped the bottom half up, neatly folding it into a square. He grabbed a pair of jeans to fold, but he stopped at the sound of a knock behind him. He whirled around to find you leaning against the bedroom door. 

“Hi,” you said. 

“Hey…” He shifted his gaze away from you, trying not to let you see his puffy eyes. The previous night, he fell apart on Changbin’s couch. Devastated and with a broken heart, he cried himself to sleep. “I didn’t know where you went. I won’t be here long.” 

“Hyunjin?” 

“Hm?” 

“Can we um…” You forced yourself to take a deep breath. You were safe here. Hyunjin wouldn’t hurt you, he was Hyunjin. “Can we talk for a few minutes?” 

He paused and slowly looked up at you. “Talk?” 

You nodded. 

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” He spun around, shoving his folded shirt and jeans to the side. “We can talk about whatever you want.” A creak came from the old bed frame. You needed a new one, but neither of you placed it on a top priority list. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Huh?” 

“I push you away a lot and it’s not fair.” Your hands curled together. Instead of looking directly at him, you looked above his head. “You’ve been a wonderful boyfriend and how I treat you, it’s not right.” 

“I-I’ve just-” You reached up, letting your fingers wrap around the back of your neck. You felt yourself panicking again, but you forced yourself to fight it. Hearing your voice this much felt strange, but you kept going.

“I’ve been through a lot of stuff in my life. I wasn’t treated great by my family. This romantic relationship thing is still pretty new to me. I’m trying to figure it out, but I’m scared and I’m not very good at communicating.” 

“You never said it out loud, but yeah, I kind of figured it was something. That’s okay. We all have our silent battles that we internally fight. Thank you for telling me about it.” 

“Why do you stick around?” 

His eyes widened slightly, but you couldn’t stop yourself. “I mean, really, I-I’m not that great of a person and yet, you’re still here. You hang around and you try to be understanding. You’ve given me the leniency that I don’t think I deserve. Why do you stay?” 

“Why do I stay?” He echoed softly. His eyes searched the room and his shoulders relaxed. “Because I love you. I think some people need time to sort things out internally. I stay because I want to. I have faith that no matter what you’re dealing with, I can help you figure it out.” 

“The heart is a wild and vulnerable thing. To be loved is to be known and I don’t think I want to be known by anyone more than I want to be known by you.” 

“But why?” 

His nose scrunched and he tipped his head. A distant memory unraveled in the back of his head. “I think the first time I realized it, we were strolling down the path by the Han River. The sun hit you just right and you were the most breathtaking thing.” 

“The Han River is such a beautiful thing. There’s nature and people everywhere, but I couldn’t stop staring at you. You draw my soul to yours like a magnet. The sun hit your eyes in such a way, I think about it all the time. We had our first kiss right there.” 

“And during that kiss, you kissed me back. Perhaps, I was mistaken, but I think you were in love with me as much as I was in love with you right there.” He reached up, letting his fingers run along his bottom lip, as he experienced the moment again. 

“My soul ignited and I felt alive. My heart burst into a swarm of butterflies. You kissed me back and I don’t know if you remember, but you grabbed my t-shirt and tugged me closer. I realized you liked me as much as I liked you. We became a single entity and the rest of the world went silent.” 

You knew exactly what he was talking about. The chattering voices and honking geese halted. You walked over and sat beside him, letting your thigh touch his. The water stilled and your fear dissolved. You were swallowed by passion and you never wanted it to stop. 

“I think it was then, I realized you loved me, but you needed time. I wasn’t going to force you into something you didn’t want to do. How could I do that to someone I love?” 

He looked over, letting your eyes meet. Your heart skipped a beat and your eyes found his lips. Nothing else mattered for a moment. You shed the fear and your wings sprouted. You were doing it. Your hand slowly reached out and cupped his cheek. “Hyunjin?” You whispered. 

“Yes, darling?” 

“Can I kiss you?” 

“Always.” 

You reached up with a cautious hand. Your eyes caught his, your hand cupped the warmth of his cheek, and then you melted. Honey-sweetened lips met yours. Your eyes fluttered shut and you couldn’t breathe. His chapstick sank into your lips. You didn’t hesitate this time, you picked love over fear. 

Worries melted away and his hands cupped your hips. Your breath hitched, but you didn’t pull away. Shared air funneled between you and you moved closer. He leaned back and slowly tugged you with him. Pinned to the bed, he never once stopped you. 

Beneath you, his heart fluttered. Thumbs moved against the warmth of your hips, but he let you take the lead. Whether you wanted to pull away, or do this forever, he didn’t care. 

Picking love over fear, it was the most exhilarating thing. How courageous it is to stop surviving and start living. Your lips moved in sync and you didn’t want to stop. Outside, the city of Seoul kept on with its dwindling evening, but in your bedroom, something new appeared. 

Hope blossomed and you unveiled yourself into someone stronger. Bird wings are hollow, but they still take birds high into bright blue skies. You floated among cotton-candy clouds and drifted back down. When you placed a few inches between you and Hyunjin, you sucked in a deep breath. 

“That was-” 

“Beautiful?” He finished for you. A blush filled in the tops of your cheeks. He chuckled and his own smile grew. “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced in my entire life.” 

“Should we do it again?” 

“As long as you want to.” 

You moved closer, but stopped when he reached up to your face. Slowly, he reached toward your eye. You didn’t move, allowing him to carefully pluck the dark eyelash from beneath your eye. “Sorry, I didn’t want you to get poked.” He maneuvered his hand, showing you the eyelash. 

You glanced down without a word. When you didn’t speak, he looked back at you. “I’ve heard if you wish upon an eyelash, whatever your wish for will come true.” 

“I don’t need to wish upon an eyelash, Hyunjin, I already have you.” 

Before he could respond, your lips met his again and, for the first time in a long time, everything felt somewhat right in the world. 

| ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ | ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ | ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ |

Taglist: @lia-linny @seungnishi @stellasays45 @emilyywhyy @rockstarkkami @flightlessackerman @inlovewithstraykids @velvetmoonlght @chrizrizz @ari-hwanggg @m-325 @justcallmewhatyoulike @bokkiesluv

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metanoia

synopsis: a love story that blossoms over two students’ shared love of drinking green tea and talking about the stars. w.c: 17k.

pairing: college!toji fushiguro x f!reader

warnings: mostly fluff with angst at the end! NSFW so MDNI!

a/n: this fic is my darling baby that has been re-released (in case anybody was thinking it looks familiar)! there are no major changes from the original fic! to both new and old readers, i hope you enjoy <3

art / divider / playlist / ao3

there was nothing else to do or say about fate, other than it was fixed.

no matter how hard you might try to change it, she never believed it could be. life was a series of scrawling numbers and greek letters, written by the hands of angels and god.

life was never going to be a straight line. rather, it was a scattered mess of ever-changing parabolas, dipping and rising above the axis like surfers on the waves of the sea.

but sometimes, just sometimes, you can hear what has been written about you.

if she tuned into things really hard, and listened beyond the banal noises that came with the plane of existence all humans exist in, she could hear it.

the scratching of a pen on paper, or perhaps a feather quill on a scroll?

yes, that sounded more like it.

she could hear the angels solving the puzzle they had been given – to balance the equation of her life. things had to be solved in a certain series of formulas to become a proven, tangible equation. the angels were still trying to prove her life, it seemed, and it was quite simply astounding that they were working so hard to try and solve it for her.

but the irrational part of her couldn’t help but think the worst.

what if they were bored?

she could certainly understand; there were many times when she’d been made to solve trivial questions, like calculating the speed of an aircraft, and she’d wished she could be anywhere but there in that moment. did the angels think that about her equation? would they ever get bored and just give up on her?

with that, the cold, beautiful reality that is life becomes apparent.

none of it was really personal to them, but she had a duty to live it right up until the equation was balanced and the last drop of ink ran dry.

but for now, it was golden hour.

that time of the day when the sun’s light softened, casting long shadows of buildings and trees across the pavement. honeyed rays of light filtered in through the window, refracting through the clear plastic display that showcased the sweet traybakes of the day. the cafe was quiet now, just after the hustle and bustle of regular work hours. most of the patrons were university students, drawn to the cafe for its convenient location near the main campus, where they downed their coffees like it was a drug to be taken multiple times a day.

she couldn’t judge them.

after all, she was included in that typical student caliber too. but instead of drinking her weight in murky brown caffeine, she preferred it to be of the green kind. more specifically, a cup of green tea took her brainpower much farther and higher than its more popular, teeth-staining counterpart.

and the perks of working for the very same cafe?

every cup of it was free and unlimited use for her – something she took advantage of every single shift.

the job couldn’t be more perfect for her.

although her shifts were daily, they were always scheduled during these quiet golden hours that extended into the stretch of moonlight, accommodating her university hours.

because choosing to study a degree in physics was certainly no joke, and she was grateful for any spare moment of peace to work on her assignments and reports. her manager never minded, leaving her to riddle away at her numbers, which went straight over their head, trusting her to still serve any customers coming in and close up the shop.

it was absolutely fine.

a simple, predictable routine – an equation she was perfectly happy to solve every single day.

until it wasn’t so easy.

| Φ |

some time later that night, the delicate bell above the doorway tinkled merrily.

it was well after the sun had dipped below the horizon and the moon had finally peeked out from behind dusty clouds, and so it had snapped her straight out of her trance. she had been listening to the music of mathematical constants singing to her of defined, set values from the sheet of paper placed against the wooden clipboard of ‘speciality beverages’.

it was him.

toji fushiguro.

the dark haired boy she had seen around campus, although he probably hadn’t noticed her flitting about between lectures.

he was unusually quiet and unfairly attractive. the boy who obviously frequented the gym close by, and came here to her little cafe afterwards. that much was obvious from the way the wet strands of hair stuck to his forehead, the spicy smell of whatever body wash he used, and the all black attire he always wore.

the very same same boy who she’d curiously asked about, only to be told that he kept to himself and didn’t really speak to anybody.

and she believed it.

she had never seen him walking with anybody else, or even bringing anyone along to his daily study sessions at the cafe. the way he grimaced at loud, boisterous students, typical of their age group, told her enough. that toji fushiguro didn’t seem to like people very much, and was perfectly happy with not being liked in return.

“hello,” she meekly piped out, her voice barely above a squeak. “what would you like?”

it was a silly question, she knew he would order his usual.

green tea.

just like her.

but it was a question she asked regardless, just in case his routine equation had somehow changed. you never know, perhaps the angels had miscalculated or wrote down a wrong number – it happens to everyone.

“green tea, please,” he grunted, not quite meeting her eyes.

he then sauntered off to his usual table by the window, and began pulling out his study material from his canvas bag.

she was grateful for the simplicity of their routine. there was nothing worse than preparing an elaborate order in the quiet of the night and disturbing the peace. brewing green tea was something she knew like the back of her hand, easy and peaceful like breathing. she strained the herbs as she poured it into a delicate ceramic cup, which the cafe insisted on serving it in, and brought it over to him.

toji muttered a small thank you, and she politely smiled, even though he never once looked at her. she walked back to her spot behind the counter, and placed the clipboard on her crossed legs, and resumed her musings.

such was their routine.

the both of them in their respective worlds within the same plane that was the cafe, sipping their green tea and whittling away at their education.

strangely, she almost felt honored that of all the cafes open late into the night, this was the one he picked to come to. even if the bitter, realistic part of her insisted that it was only because it was conveniently close to the gym. still, their equations followed the exact same sequence of numbers at that time every day, and she found that positively wonderful.

it was nearing 10:30p.m when she finally finished solving her report, and she looked up to see toji was completely engrossed in whatever he was working on.

he should have noticed the time by now.

he would have normally packed up his things at this point, but not before ordering one last cup of tea before heading off wherever it was he went to in the dead of night. probably back to his accommodation, she assumed, because he just didn’t seem like the type to show up to late-night parties full of booze and sweat.

she didn’t know what to say, or even how to say it.

the logical part of her brain was overthinking everything.

this just wasn’t the norm for them.

toji was supposed to have tidied up after himself, leave just the exact amount of money on the counter, and walk out the door without another word. she almost considered not even saying anything at all, biding her time until he simply realized himself and walked out.

until her legs moved of their, seemingly of their own accord, straight towards him.

perhaps it was all a result of the numbers being messily rubbed away and rewritten. he never even heard her; his black wired earbuds were firmly in his ears, and she wondered what sort of music it was that toji fushiguro listened to. she quickly tapped his shoulder, withdrawing her hand back to her side as quickly as she could.

toji practically jumped out of his skin as he turned to acknowledge her.

“sorry,” she apologized, looking pointedly over at the clock on the wall above him. “but we’re closing soon.”

toji frowned, like he didn’t really believe her, until he glanced at the digital clock on his laptop and jumped into action. “sorry,” he said rather awkwardly, hurriedly packing up his things as she stood at a respectful distance away.

“it’s no problem at all. please, take your time,” she replied as politely and delicately as she possibly could, looking away as he messily scraped his papers and notebooks into his bag.

his chair scraped uncomfortably across the floor, and he heaved his bag over his shoulder as he shoved a hand into his pocket, fishing for the exact change he needed. for a second, she thought, hoped, that he would hand it to her. but no, he almost jogged over to the counter and placed it right next to the black mug of green tea beside her clipboard.

toji paused, momentarily staring at her mug. she felt a flush of embarrassment, as if even he knew she wasn’t supposed to be drinking it out of a large mug. but he said nothing and rushed outside.

everything fell back into place according to the laws of the world, and seemed to right again.

| Φ |

there was something inherently uncomfortable about contemplating the future.

as summer rapidly approached, with only about four months left of the semester, she found herself forced to confront equations she didn’t want to solve. it was always during the night, when she should have been fast asleep, that she really tried to listen in on the angels scribbling away at her numbers. it was cheating really, an easy way out to hear the answers of what she was supposed to do.

perhaps if the end of her final year wasn’t so dreadfully final, then it would have been easier to formulate her own answers.

well, they weren’t really her own, but anyway.

she was in her own little bubble tonight, absentmindedly sipping her tea and tapping her pen against the clipboard. she knew the answer to the problem at hand, some menial question about what angle a beam of light would reflect at, and so she could afford to daydream and listen to the music of the numbers singing in her head.

it was quite easy to imagine a picture being painted from the numbers. why bother calculating the angle when you could visualize the light bending instead?

that was what mattered in the end, not just the face value of the number itself, but the tangible reality they represented.

there was no point in scribbling away at the numbers if you couldn’t paint a picture in your mind of the light itself or feel the thumping of sound waves reverberating through the surrounding medium.

there was only her and toji in the cafe now. he’d breezed past her earlier on the way in straight to his seat, dumping his bag on the table with the air of a student who was beyond fed up with their lot. she knew what it looked like; she’d seen it too many times throughout the years and had been through that position herself.

she tried not to make it obvious she was looking at him, or admiring the way his arms moved in the tight compression shirt he wore.

or the way his wet hair was slightly slicked back today.

and the way his annoyance sparked a beautiful flame of green in his eyes.

he looked over at her.

dammit.

she heard his footsteps approaching her, but her embarrassment forced her not to even look at him. instead, she focused heavily on pretending to be stuck on the paper in front of her.

“hey, uh, can i get a green tea?” he asked, his voice deep and undeniably addictive. “please?”

“oh yes, of course!” she replied swiftly, putting on her best customer service voice to shield her embarrassment as best as she possibly could.

toji shifted his feet from side to side, his hands in his pockets, and mumbled, “could i possibly have it in a mug, or something? it’s just… the teacups are really small.”

a deviation in the curve, an unexpected variable.

she answered anyway, perhaps a little unsurely, “oh, sure, yeah. no problem at all. is this one fine?” she lifted her mug awkwardly off the table, and toji looked at it and nodded.

“yeah, that would be great. is it, uh, more expensive?”

the way he asked it made her heart ache, as if he was ashamed of having to in the first place.

oh.

i’m so sorry.

she waved her hand at him, playing it off like a silly unnecessary question. “oh no, not at all. don’t worry about it.”

toji seemed visibly gladdened at this, the tension in his face releasing as his eyes brightened. he stood there, swinging on the balls of his feet, and she was quite surprised he was waiting for her to finish brewing the tea instead of bringing it over to him. she had to steady the slight tremor in her hand as he watched her brew the tea with practiced precision. after what seemed like an eternity, she placed the mug on a small plate and carefully handed it to him.

“thanks,” he said quietly, his eyes fixated on the mug and the thin wisps of steam wafting from it. then, like an afterthought that was actually painfully thought out, he added, “appreciate it.”

she could have sworn the corner of his lip lifted, and she almost lost her footing as she sat back down on her stool. though she knew it was impossible, it seemed as if time had been stuck in that moment, the laws of physics crying out for some sense of normalcy to resume.

and so she cleared her throat, pulling free time from where its coat was stuck on the doorknob. “no worries. let me know if you need anything else.”

but he was already walking back to his seat.

firmly slotting back the numbers and variables into the places they were supposed to be.

newton’s first law of motion states that an object at rest or uniform motion will continue to stay that way unless acted upon by a net external force.

or the law of inertia, as it was also called, and she much preferred that instead. it was what she thought of every time she saw toji making his way to the door of the cafe from the window, taking large, purposeful strides like he knew where he always wanted to go at all times. he was that object in uniform motion, his life seemingly constant without any real deviations. she thought of it every time he walked out of the door too, and wondered if there would ever be anything significant enough to achieve a large enough force to change his trajectory.

so what large enough force had been applied to make him finally ask for a change to how he drank his tea?

maybe he had never considered it before, never realized there was any other option other than the abysmally tiny teacup he had used before. perhaps the fact that he had stopped and seen her mug the night before had opened up new possibilities for him.

whatever it was, it didn’t really matter, because he looked so much more at ease now that he wasn’t hanging on for dear life to a teacup too small for those hands of his.

those big, attractive hands, with good, strong veins running through them.

toji looked up at her from behind his laptop.

the tip-taps of her pen became just a notch louder, and she bit her lip, almost crossing her eyes as she focused a little too hard into the hole of the letter ‘a’ in the word ‘angle’.

dammit.

| Φ |

it was march, and the cherry blossoms that grew around campus were now blossoming in full swing.

what little free time she had between university work, endless laboratory reports, and working at the cafe, was spent walking around the town and parks. while hearing the songs of physics and numbers was her way of life, sometimes it was nice to wind down and appreciate the beauty of biology and chemistry.

to see how the rain that fell from the skies was soaked up by the weed flowers thriving in the cracks of the pavement. they were tiny little warriors, persevering in the face of the hundreds of people who surely walked this path, avoiding death by being crushed.

the air was cool, and it was late enough in the day to make it feel much cooler than it should have been. she rubbed her arms through her jacket and picked up the pace. it was a week break in the semester, and it was much busier than it should have been for that time of the day. her manager had offered her more hours to work during the break, and she had mistakenly accepted the offer instead of taking some time for herself to do what she liked.

she entered the cafe, the little bell chiming, and smiled at her colleague, who seemed rather grateful that they weren’t alone to deal with the swarm of students enjoying a relaxing coffee. it was rather different from the anxious energy that usually accompanied students in here, but it was a welcome change to see unburdened smiles before the exam season hit them all in full merciless force.

together, they took on the onslaught of orders from all the customers walking into their quaint little cafe in the middle of campus. she couldn’t remember the last time she’d made such complex teas, brewing flavor combinations she couldn’t even concoct in her wildest dreams.

by the end of the rush, with her colleague having finished their shift, she was left in a frazzled state of tea stains and sticky sugary syrup.

and that is precisely when toji fushiguro decided to walk through the door.

she almost froze, a mixture of shock and embarrassment washing over like a bucket of ice-cold water. why, she’d never seen him in the cafe while the sun was still in the sky, and he wasn’t even dressed in his usual fitness attire either. instead, it was a black jumper and jeans. this was most certainly not part of the equation at all; she had never even considered to calculate the probability of such an event occurring.

“hey,” he greeted, as casual as the jeans he was wearing, while fidgeting with the hem of his jumper.

“hi,” she answered, dusting off some imaginary dust from her apron because she didn’t know what else to do with her hands. “the usual?”

toji seemed somewhat surprised at this. “yeah, please.”

she couldn’t lie; it was such a welcome relief to make something so simple amidst the chaos that was the ever-changing trends of beverages. had the universe written an additional formula just to provide her with just a moment’s respite?

or was it the law of attraction being employed?

no, that was surely wishful thinking.

there was no way that toji fushiguro had anything in common with her.

“are you sitting in or taking away?” she prompted, the extra words slipping through her lips.

he thought about it for a second before nodding his head, “uh, yeah, takeaway please.”

“no problem,” she replied smoothly, amazed at how well she was deviating from their usual interactions, and poured the tea into a disposable cup. “there you go.”

toji mumbled a ‘thank you’ as he carefully placed the coins on the counter, his hands completely enveloping what she would have once considered a large cup.

what compelled her to say the following words, she didn’t really know, but she called out in a hopefully not-so-loud voice as he turned to leave, “enjoy the blossoms!”

just why?

why would you say that?

she was even more mortified when toji simply walked out the door without sparing her a second glance. the universe was cruel for adding that into the equation, and she could have sworn, to add further insult to injury, that two girls had watched their exchange and were snickering.

enjoy the blossoms?

stupid, stupid, stupid!

| Φ |

for the rest of the day, she felt as if the second law of thermodynamics very much applied to her.

as she recounted her absolutely horrific exchange with toji, she felt the heat of the universe pressing down on her isolated being, causing her atoms inside of her to bounce of the walls that was her skin, sending her into a more and more disorganized chaotic state of existence. she actually hoped for once that the deviance of the otherwise constant line would continue to do so, and that toji wouldn’t come to the cafe later on that night.

then she could resume solving the equation as it was meant to be solved for the next night, and she could continue on as if nothing ever happened in the first place.

so when their routine did end up resuming its normalcy, and toji walked into the cafe with his dark wet hair and canvas bag, she was too mortified to even speak to him, despite him being the only customer in the shop. she got straight to work brewing him his tea, avoiding even looking anywhere near him as he set his things down at the table.

her lack of attention, for once, almost caused a head-on collision.

“hey, oh shit! sorry,” toji cussed, even though it was completely her fault, as he stopped whatever momentum he had in his body from crashing into her.

she hissed as the scalding tea splashed onto her fingers. “oh, no, i’m sorry! are you alright?”

“yeah, don’t worry about it.”

with a wobbly, quivering lip, she went around him and placed his mug on the table, being careful to avoid placing the wet bottom anywhere near his papers. it was there she caught a glimpse of some messily scrawled-out calculations on a piece of scratch paper, and her brain immediately started to sing.

no, don’t stare. it’s rude.

“sorry again,” she whispered, looking straight at the ground and being careful to not step in his way again.

toji never even made a sound, and she didn’t dare to look up to see if he was looking at her. she ran her finger under some cold water before taking her usual seat at the counter, and picked up where she left off on summarizing her lectures. it was perfectly quiet now, save for the scratching of her pen on paper and toji typing away on his keyboard. this was peaceful, easy, and– hold on. why could she hear the sound of the music?

“hey, sorry to interrupt,” toji interjected, making her jump. “do you have any sandwiches or something left?”

“oh! no, i’m sorry, what’s on display is what’s left,” she answered shakily, putting her pen down on the counter. “i, um- the protein balls are pretty decent, if you like that sort of thing.”

“oh, sure. yeah,” he murmured, looking at the several flavors that were available. “I’ll take the, uh, peanut flavor. that any good?”

she smiled softly, despite the throbbing sensation in her finger. “yeah, it’s not bad. you want two?” he nodded, and she wrapped them both up in a paper bag as he procured out coins from his pocket.

toji dug around some more, patting down his pockets to make sure there was definitely nothing lingering in there, and his stomach audibly growled. the air became a touch too awkward, and she stared at the sad-looking change on the counter.

she slid the bag over to him with quiet understanding, and gave him the kindest smile she possibly could.

“hey, don’t worry about it. it’s on the house,” she encouraged. “sorry, i should have said that from the beginning.”

toji shook his head, running a hand through his hair. “oh no, i couldn’t do that. sorry, i’ll just leave it. i thought i had enough change.”

she pushed the bag further towards him. “it’s fine, i insist. please.”

he slowly took the bag, as if he wasn’t sure that it was real, or that it was maybe going to bite him. “thanks,” he said quietly, and retreated back to his seat, packing up his things, while she sat there trying to will her atoms back into their rightful place.

“thanks again,” toji rumbled softly as he held the door halfway open. “i’ll see you tomorrow?”

“o-oh yeah! yeah, see you tomorrow,” she stuttered back.

with that, he closed the door behind him, the bell tingling a beautiful farewell for him, and she was left with the atoms of her thumping heart completely dispersing into the atmosphere as she frantically tried to claw them back down.

| Φ |

tomorrow came and went, and they had settled into a slightly different flow of their routine.

instead of waiting for her to bring over his tea, toji now waited at the counter for her to hand him a large, steaming mug of his fix. they never spoke anymore than what they did before, but there was something that had changed between them. something so subtle that it couldn’t be defined properly, but she knew it was there, and she hoped toji knew it too.

it was april now, and the flurry of students cramming for their exams in may were in full swing. when she wasn’t at the cafe, she was holed up in her shared accommodation, buried underneath a blanket that may as well have been a black hole swallowing her whole. there, she studied for the last set of exams she would ever have to sit at university, but she tried not to dwell on that fact.

not that she didn’t study at the cafe, but toji’s presence added an extra dynamic that made it difficult to focus as well as when she was alone.

despite her best efforts, she couldn’t help but constantly glance at him when she was confident he wasn’t looking. right now, she could tell he was silently stressing over his exams too. spending so long in silence with another person meant she could tell the slight quirks in his face that signalled a changed in trajectory of emotion.

currently, the deep frown lines etched in his forehead meant that he was monumentally stuck on something. he’d been like that ever since he powered up his laptop and stared at the screen, the dim light casting an artificial, cold glow on his face.

once again, she didn’t know what compelled her to do what she did next.

maybe it was the fact she knew he had barely touched his tea, and it was surely cold by now. or maybe it was the desire to momentarily distract him from his frustration by bringing him a warm, fresh brew. whatever it was, her body was moving according some new formula the angels had applied, and she found herself simply walking over without saying anything and placing a piping hot mug next to his laptop.

“huh? oh, thanks,” toji said slowly, daze-like, as if he wasn’t sure she was real and doing this.

she smiled softly, quickly glancing at the scratch paper in front of him, and oh no – he wasn’t composing the music correctly at all.

“that isn’t the answer,” she stated simply, looking back up at him. he frowned again, momentarily confused, until she pointed at his paper and said, “you’ve calculated this wrong. that isn’t the right equation to use.”

toji looked back down at his paper, sighing softly, and rubbed his face as he seemed to sink deeper and deeper into his chair. she couldn’t understand it; there was absolutely nothing to be ashamed of in getting a question wrong. she’d done it before herself many times, and more than likely would continue to do so.

“sorry, i-uh, i’m not very good at mathematics,” he mumbled shyly, and her heart started to crumble like a biscuit.

she pulled her pen out of her pocket and clicked it once. “no need to be sorry. do you want me to show you how to do it?”

toji nodded wordlessly, and slid the paper over to her, angling the laptop so she could see the question displayed. it was about calculating the speed of an athlete's arm as they threw a ball through the air, but he hadn’t used the correct equation, nor the correct standard units. she quickly wrote out every step of how to solve it, did a final check that her mental calculations were correct against his gray calculator, and slid the paper back to him.

“there, be careful with your units and don’t forget to include them. most of my professors have strict marking against not writing the proper ones, i don’t know about yours, but it might be better to be safe than sorry,” she explained, her throat tightening as he intently looked at her working out.

it felt personal on another sort of level, and strangely intimate.

he seemed to be taking his time studying it, with a slightly blank look, as if what she had done was still going well over his head. “yeah, good point. thank you,” was all he mustered, and he tilted his head at the scratch paper.

“do you want me to explain anything?” she prompted, half expecting him to pretend that he understood everything. that would have been typical of a student at university - faking it until they somehow made it.

so she was pleasantly surprised, but not at all unwilling to explain it when toji nodded again, a light dusting of pink on his cheeks. she tried to recall how her teachers in high school had taught her these concepts, trying to adapt their tone of voice: patient and understanding. she leaned over to be more at eye level at him, trying to seem less intimidating, and their close proximity was sending her brain into overdrive.

“i hope this makes more sense now,” she said as she wrapped up the explanation.

toji’s lips formed a small ‘o’ shape, and the scar gracing them resembled the greek letter phi, but with the line running over to the right side instead of the middle. if she didn’t need anymore proof that the boy sitting in front of her was perfect, then the angels had just thrown in the winning factor.

phi, the perfect golden constant, now belonged in her mind only to toji fushiguro.

“uh, yeah actually,” he hummed, seemingly appreciative, his eyes sparkling against the dim lighting of the cafe. “thanks so much.”

she couldn’t help it, but she grinned widely. “no problem at all.”

she started to walk away, biting her lip when she turned her back to him, already feeling the bitter sting of disappointment that things would probably be back to normal after yet another deviation. until toji called out, “you’re really good at this. what do you study?”

“physics,” she replied, hoping the shock wasn’t too evident in her voice. “what about you?”

“P.E.,” he answered, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. she had to try very hard not to stare at how nice his biceps looked. “i stupidly decided to add a sports biomechanics module as my optional one. kinda regretting it now.”

toji chuckled halfheartedly, and she almost swooned, but opted to tilt her head to the side and say, “oh, but don’t you find it fascinating? it’s the numbers behind the real output of an athlete.”

“oh, well i never really thought about it that way.” he seemed to be genuinely pondering her outlook on the matter, staring hard at the numbers before him, and she felt the blood rising to her cheeks. toji looked back up at her and smiled a devastatingly handsome smile. “i suppose it makes sense for you to think like that.”

she didn’t really know how to reply to that except an, “i guess so,” and then added a polite follow-up of, “what sort of sport do you, then?”

“judo and jujutsu,” toji replied smoothly and completely casually. “i train at the gym before i come here.”

“oh yeah? that’s quite intense.”

“not so much if you enjoy it, really.”

“easy for you to say. you’re obviously in much better shape than the rest of us.”

she almost cringed externally at that.

obviously much better shape? why on earth would you say obviously, stupid?

but toji only chuckled, scratching the back of his neck. “hard work, i guess.” he mumbled, staring back at his paper.

she glanced up at the time, noting that it was almost time to close. “well, i’m sorry, but you might have to practice it yourself at home.”

he looked panicked for a second, his eyes darting over to the clock. “oh, yeah. probably.” and started to slowly pack up his things.

she didn’t want to observe him anymore than she already had, so she busied herself by washing their mugs and quickly wiping down the counter for the morning shift, while toji was taking his time neatly packing away his things. was it wishful thinking that perhaps he was stalling. whether it was or wasn’t, she left him to it, switching off the lights everywhere except at the entrance. she swept her eyes over the cafe to make sure she hadn’t missed anything before heading out.

toji stood beside the door, his eyes flitting about anywhere but her, obviously waiting for her to finish locking up. she tried to ignore the fluttering in her chest and smiled awkwardly at him as he finally met her gaze. he shuffled outside before she did, hands in his pockets as he looked up at the nights sky, the silver moon shining between stringy wisps of clouds.

he looked like a scene straight from a movie – a movie where a beautiful boy was up against the weight of the world.

she could see it all clearly now: his scuffed up trainers, canvas bag with dirt stains scraping the bottom of it, the hole in his shirt near the hem. and yet, she knew he had real strength, the quiet sort of kind, that would completely surprise anybody that decided to come at him.

she locked the door behind her, the keys jangling, disturbing the relative quiet of the street. the distant whooping of boisterous students, no doubt drinking and partying away their stress, could be heard a little ways off into the distance. the bright light of the 7-11 across the streets flickered, and she briefly considered buying some cheap dinner before heading home.

she cleared her throat and gave him a small smile. “well, good luck studying.”

toji breathed out a half-hearted laugh. “thanks, i’ll need it.”

“if you’re still having trouble with your calculations, you can always ask me tomorrow,” she reassured, feeling bold enough to assume that his equation would continue to equate to hers.

he seemed to hesitate, as if debating something within his head, and replied, “yeah, sure.” but his tone left much to be desired, and she was already kicking herself for being so direct. “sounds good.”

she bit her lip and mumbled a weak ‘goodnight’ before walking straight into the 7-11 to escape.

| Φ |

the next night in the cafe, after quite a long day of punching numbers into her calculator and her eyes swimming with all sorts of symbols, she was contemplating the sheer power of a supernova explosion.

it was golden hour, and toji had arrived much earlier to study. his deviations from the norm weren't so jarring anymore, and she’d almost come to sort of expect them at this point. he’d actually met her eyes as she prepared his tea, and even offered her a smile and a ‘thank you’.

the time passed on quickly, and soon enough, it was just her, toji, and two other customers – fellow students – inhabiting the same area. it was around 9:17p.m., the usual time for it to be a sacred silence. so when four boys staggered through the door, the bell cried out aggressively from the force of them nearly ripping open the door, completely tearing her from whatever daydreams she had been lost in.

they were cruel, uncaring about her or the other patrons they were disturbing with their raised voices and boisterous behavior. she kept her cool, not letting their jeers and sly comments get to her as she prepared their orders, wanting to get them out of the cafe as soon as she possibly could. one of them was particular unnerving, staring at her more than the others did, a creepy smirk on his lips and dangerous glint in his eyes.

he was like a black hole, and she felt as if she was about to be swallowed alive.

she felt like she couldn’t breath.

as if her body didn’t remember the biomechanical process to allow her to expand her lungs and fill them with sweet air.

were the angels in serious danger of their calculations becoming completely wrong? was her equation to become something twisted and tragic by the end of the night?

when the group left, the evil boy had glanced over his shoulder to give her one last indecipherable look before he took off at a run after his friends. she exhaled shakily, willing her body to remember how to breath, and decided to distract herself by cleaning any and all random nooks and crannies she could find in an effort to distract herself.

oh how she hated them those stupid, idiotic boys – and that their words and manners had such an impact on her.

she’d worked herself into such a state that she hadn’t even noticed toji standing awkwardly at the counter until she turned to sip at her ice-cold tea, and almost yelped in surprise.

“hey,” toji greeted gently, delicate raindrops against a pane of glass. “it’s eleven.”

and so it was as she noted the time on the clock. she wiped her brow and discarded the now completely blackened cleaning cloth into the rubbish. “sorry, i’ll just get the keys now. you head on.”

“no, it’s okay,” he hummed. “take your time. i’ll be outside.”

when she finally finished the usual locking-up routine, toji had resumed that vision of perfection from the previous night, and it was almost impossible to even consider, but he was even more dreamy than before. toji had to have been carved by michealangelo; born of marble and beauty, and forced to to live in this plane of existence. in some rural countryside of japan, at a public university campus, surrounded by bog-standard students trying to scrape through life.

she felt he didn’t really belong here, as if he was already slipping through her fingers, even though he never really was between them to begin with.

“see you tomorrow,” she said in farewell, giving him a small wave and already walking away.

the loud thuds against the pavement reverberated the immediate vicinity, and toji huffed as he caught up to her, “hey, uh, whereabouts do you live?”

“not too far, about a ten-minute walk away,” she replied, almost floored at the fact that he had just run after her. “why?”

“just… you ok if i tag along? i could use the company.”

“…sure?”

they walked side by side in silence, and her mind was going into complete overdrive. she was trying so hard not to be completely floored that somehow, on a random April night, toji fushiguro was walking her home. it was obvious that he was lying about company – perhaps not an outright lie, but it definitely wasn’t the whole truth. time seemed to have passed quicker than it should have, and before she knew it, they had arrived at her accommodation. toji seemed to hover, looking over his shoulder, his body seemingly tense.

“well, this is me,” she announced, jingling her keys for good measure. “huh, are you okay?”

toji was glaring into the darkness, into the twisted labyrinth of twists and turns in between buildings, only really half-listening. “yeah,” he replied tersely, his fists clenching. “you’re staying at home tonight, right?”

she nodded nervously, suddenly hyperaware of the deep, foreboding inkiness of the night. “mhm.”

he turned to her, verdant eyes simmering with something nearly as dark as the sky. “good, i’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“bye, toji.”

but he was already striding off into the labyrinth, off to face the dirt and coal thrown at him, when he himself was made of marble and gold.

| Φ |

a week after toji had walked her home, she had her first final exam, during which the whole time her thoughts were consumed by him.

of toji fushiguro.

toji and his eyes of forests and jade. of his sculpted body, and all the angles and lines that made up his face. his scar that made him golden and perfect, her phi. of how she had seen him on campus the next morning after he walked her home, wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, split knuckles raw and red against the marble of his skin. how he’d finally noticed her outside the cafe for the first time and actually smiled at her.

her friends – more so acquaintances who had happened to become close simply because they were on the same course –had noticed the exchange. when toji had walked well out of earshot, they had bombarded her with hushed whisper-yells of excited “oh my god!" and "how did you even get him to smile? i’ve never even heard him speak.”

and she’d shrugged them off, fending off their curiosity with, “oh, he comes to the cafe all the time, that’s all.”

she didn’t want to get into all the details of toji and her. well, just toji really – there was no 'and her'. their time together was a coveted treasure, and she was strangely possessive over it.

that night, as she handed toji his tea, she plucked up the courage to ask, “what happened to your hands?”

toji automatically looked down at them, flexing them as if even mentioning them made them burn with pain. “oh, nothing, just went a bit too hard at training.”

it didn’t occur to her not to believe him until she was staring blankly at the last question of her exam.

she thought of the evil boy in the cafe, of toji staring down into the darkness and looking over his shoulder as if demons were just behind them, and he was the only thing keeping them at bay. maybe he really was doing just that. maybe that’s why he had continued to walk her home every night, as their graphs continued to overlap even more closely together.

she came out of that exam feeling as if some sort of hidden revelation was waiting to be discovered, and by god, how much she loved to solve for a new equation.

toji was already waiting for her at the cafe when she arrived for her shift, an occurrence steadily getting earlier. he immediately took note of her coming in, and his eyes lit up. she smiled brightly at him, offering him two thumbs up, to which he grinned and pushed away his laptop before approached her.

“so, it went well then?” he prompted, the ghost of a smile still playing on his lips.

she poured them both two mugs of tea, and held hers out towards him. “yeah, it wasn’t too bad actually. cheers to that!”

toji chuckled and clinked his mug with hers, the both of them blowing on the tea before sipping it tentatively. he went back to his table, resuming whatever he had been doing, and leaving her to serve the customers. that was perhaps the only drawback of toji arriving earlier - that their time spent together was interrupted. but it also served as a tantalizing countdown to when it was just the two of them.

obviously, their dynamic had shifted dramatically in the past week, and they’d settled into an easy-flowing sequence – something that felt as if phi would be, so perfectly balanced and positively golden. toji seemed to want to unveil the mystery of his equation to her, but bit by bit, which she didn’t mind at all. she loved slowing figuring out the scale of his axes, plotting all his points together, and finally drawing the curve that connected them all.

toji fushiguro could only be described as steady, a mountain that would never bend or break, his roots so profoundly deep that she had to really dig to see them.

he loved his body, but not in a superficial way, but more that it was something he was in control of and could continually improve. she discovered that he drank green tea not just because it was healthy, but because it was cheap. how most of his gym wear had varying sizes of holes, and he carried around a tiny sewing kit in his bag at all times because he sometimes only noticed one when he was out and about.

most importantly, today he had divulged what he wanted for his future.

“i want to get out of this hellhole as soon as i can,” toji had sighed exaggeratedly, stretching his neck backwards. whenever the last customer had left the cafe, he’d drag a chair over to the edge of the counter. not so directly in front of it that he was blocking any customers, but just enough so that they were sitting across from each other.

she rolled her eyes playfully at him, nibbling at the cap of her pen. “oh, how original. you and every other student in this university.”

“well yeah, obviously, but not as much as me,” he retorted.

“what make you so different, then?”

“i’ve always wanted to leave, even before i got here. i want to to go and live in tokyo.”

“tokyo, huh? and what do you wanna do there?”

“well, eventually i want to open my own dojo and teach jujitsu, but i’d probably have to start out as an instructor.”

“oh wow, you’ve got a solid sort of plan. have you always wanted to do that?”

“yeah, i really hate it here.”

and he’d gone quiet, but she didn’t press him. instead, she focused on her textbook because there were still exams to be studied for, and waited for toji to come back to her. where he went in those moments, she didn’t know. there was something lurking in the shadow of the mountain, and he still seemed to be fighting against it even now.

she knew he’d come back to her when he’d lean in closer, cheek against his palm, and try to make sense of whatever diagrams appeared on the pages she was reading.

“that looks cool,” toji murmured, pointing at whatever had piqued his interest. “what is it?”

and she discovered, not that it was a real shock, that toji was so very curious. he wanted to know things, he liked to know how things worked, and he was really clever. she would explain as best as she could, and toji would follow along diligently, nodding his head every so often and asking the occasional question. many people probably underestimated just how smart he really was, but she never did.

“this is a diagram that sort of shows what einstein’s theory of general relativity is all about.”

“ah right, it’s pretty famous then isn’t it? cuz it’s einstein's.”

“haha, i suppose so, yeah.”

“what’s it about?”

she bit her lip and tilted her head, placing her finger as a makeshift bookmark and closed the book between her fingers. “it’s about… how really big objects like planets and stars cause gravity by bending space-time.”

“bending space-time is gravity?”

“it’s because the bigger object has caused smaller ones to be pulled closer to it, if that makes sense.”

toji nodded slowly and laughed. “it’s a bit over my head. how you perfectly understand it is beyond me though.”

“i wouldn’t say perfectly,” she replied bashfully. “but i think it’s a beautiful theory.”

“you think every theory is beautiful.”

“haha! no, well yes, but that’s besides the point!”

“well, what is the point?”

“that something has had such a profound impact, because it’s so big and larger than life that it’s impacting all the other small things around it and pulling them in closer to it.”

toji smiled, the kind of smile he had when he was more vulnerable and soft, when his barriers were down and forgotten about. the way he looked at her made her body jolt with thousands of little lightning bolts.

“yeah,” he mused thoughtfully. “yeah, that is kinda beautiful.”

| Φ |

five days.

that’s how long it had been since she’d seen toji, and she missed him more than she cared to admit, even to herself.

it wasn’t ideal, right smack in the middle of the exam season, to be so distracted by a boy, but toji fushiguro wasn’t just any boy. he was the boy who she spent every day with, and the past two weeks had been a rosy dream as they talked more and more. it was now the middle of may, and she was almost done with sitting all of her exams. she should have been thinking of her future, about a solid career plan, and where she wanted to live.

but no, all she could think of was the laws of physics and toji fushiguro, and counting down the days until she could see him again.

he was currently out on a placement excursion, teaching ten-year-old kids during their regular sports curriculum. it was almost comical, and she couldn’t help but smile to herself whenever she thought of toji surrounded by a bunch of wide-eyed children. he’d already been groaning about it before he left, about this and that, and how much he didn’t like silly kids and their silly faces.

“what are you smiling about?” one of her friends whispered suspiciously, leaning in closer to her so as not to disturb anybody else in the library.

she shook her head, and told a little lie, “oh, just about how close we are to finishing uni. it’s sort of unbelievable.”

her friend raised a brow, clearly not believing her. “sure, and it doesn’t have anything to do with fushiguro?”

“ugh, why do you keep bringing him up all the time? i told you there’s nothing going on there.”

“i’ll believe that when i stop seeing you smiling like an idiot in love. now, c’mon and focus on this.”

love?

no, no. it wasn’t love.

not quite yet, at least, but she knew it was getting there.

she felt a slight tremor in her chest, traveling all the way to the tips of her fingers and then the ends of her toes like an electric current across a wire. it was unfathomably scary to admit it, but it was nothing but the truth.

she was falling for toji fushiguro.

she ducked her head down, her pencil scratching against her notepad as she attempted yet another sample question, endeavouring to distract herself from all thoughts of him for the rest of the study session. as soon as she had to leave for the cafe, she practically shoved her things into her bag and almost ran towards it. toji should be back today, with it being friday and the school week coming to an end.

when she got there, her manager was behind the counter in the midst of serving a customer, and the cafe was reasonably busy. the overwhelming aroma of coffee wafted through her nose, warm and inviting, and familiar. she wondered if toji thought of her whenever he smelt coffee.

she certainly hoped that he did.

“great you’re here,” her manager beamed, handing her an apron to tie around her waist. “i was wondering if you would like to take some time off whenever you finish your exams? my nephew is coming to visit, and i’d like to put him to work instead of him lazing about all day.”

she was immediately hit with a sheer sense of panic. if she didn’t work, then how else was she supposed to see toji? it was so utterly embarrassing and pathetic, that she was so enamored with this boy that she was willing to work just to see him. but then she thought about what would happen after graduation, and how they realistically would not be seeing each other – perhaps ever again.

“sure, that’s alright with me,” is what she finally said after a moment's hesitation, but her manager obviously picked up on her hesitant tone.

“never have i ever seen a student who didn’t want time off work,” they chuckled, hand on their hip. “this has got to do with that dark haired boy, doesn’t it?”

heat creeped up into her cheeks, and she busied herself with pouring a cup of coffee for a customer, as her manager gazed at her in bemusement. “no,” she squeaked out.

“oh to be young again,” they said in a sing-song voice. “don’t worry about not working though, i’m sure that boy would follow you anywhere you go. i’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

she didn’t quite know how to respond to that.

when the moon had risen high into the sky and the shop was empty, she waited and waited for toji. he was late, and he should have been there by now. or maybe he wouldn’t come? she thought it might have been quite bold to assume he would have tonight. he was probably tired from a whole week of teaching, and maybe he had decided to just go home and rest. she couldn’t blame him for that.

but that didn’t stop the soul-crushing disappointment from tearing her in two.

the sky must have felt her distress, because soon enough the pitter-patter of rain falling against the roof ensued. maybe metaphysical pain was real, and maybe she would spend her whole life trying to prove her theory. what a tragic future, she thought, and sniffled as she locked the door behind her.

and then she turned around, and toji was standing there, his chest heaving.

for a moment, they just faced each other. he was all wet, black hoodie all soggy and weighed down, sticking to him like a second skin. his green eyes were alight, looking at her with a mixture of nerves and something else she couldn’t place. toji exhaled shakily, his lashes fluttering as he blinked fast.

“sorry,” he mumbled. “i tried to get here sooner, but there was an accident and my train was delayed.”

her heart melted; she felt as if she was one with the rain puddles in the dips of the pavement, one with the water pooling beneath toji’s feat. could it be love already? maybe her loved ones, wiser and older than her would have said it was, but she felt too young to know it.

and yet, here was a boy standing in front of her, who had run through the rain and labyrinth of buildings to get here.

“oh, toji,” she gushed, instinctively opening up her umbrella and shielding him from the torrent of the sky. “you’ll get sick.”

she didn’t realize just how close they were together, trapped underneath the tiny space, until toji was staring down at her. a water droplet dropped from his hair, over the ridge of his nose, caressing over his cupids bow and parted lips, all the way down to his chin and onto her lip.

she shivered, feeling as if their lips may as well have touched.

“it doesn’t matter,” toji whispered, in that deep, almost sad tone that belonged only to him, and she finally admitted internally just how much she missed his voice. “it’s only water.”

they stood there staring at each other for a heartbeat too long, until she broke the silence with, “let’s get out of here.”

and then they set off at a slow, shuffling pace, the backs of their hands and shoulders brushing against each other, and she thought a live spark might just ignite off her skin. the rain sounded like little stones tumbling off the top of the umbrella, and the smell of the wet pavement served as little momentary distractions against the all-consuming feeling of toji beside her.

she didn’t want it to end, and so when they reached the entrance to her accommodation, and turned to face him. “you can’t go home like this. do you want to come inside and dry off?”

toji’s eyebrows shot up, and he almost looked like a deer in the headlights. he was fighting within himself; she could see it in the way his hand flexed, his knuckle touching hers. “i’ll just make your floor wet though,” he muttered, looking down at the ground.

“it doesn’t matter,” she urged, and added a desperate. “please.”

that seemed to snap him out of whatever internal deliberation he was having, and toji nodded. “okay then.”

she couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face, almost immediately turning towards the door to hide most of it from him, taking out the keys from her pocket and fumbled with one hand to grab the correct one for her door. his proximity behind her was beyond distracting, her back felt like the south side of a magnet, and toji was her north. it would be too easy to fall back into him, and so she endeavored to root her feet into the ground and resist the urge.

she finally opened it and they passed through the unwelcoming vibes of the main lobby, toji’s shoes squelching loudly with every step he took. the student behind the desk glancing uninterestedly up at them, and then sharply looked back up, staring with saucer eyes at toji in tow behind her.

she once again fought with her keys, the sound echoing throughout the empty corridor, and pushed open the door to her shared dorm. it was compact but efficient for two people to live comfortably together. her flatmate was curled up on the sofa with her boyfriend, shui, in the main living area, only lit up by whatever was on the tv.

“roomie!” her roommate called out, oblivious to toji’s presence. “how was studying today?”

“yeah, great,” she answered, glancing back at toji awkwardly standing by the door. “you?”

“all goo- oh! oh. hello there!” her roommate finally registered toji’s presence as the door clicked shut behind him, immediately jumping out of shiu’s arms, who also looked back over his shoulder in intrigue.

“hey,” toji mumbled, a puddle of water now collecting over the white tiles.

shiu waved his hand at toji, who flicked his chin upwards in acknowledgment. she immediately turned to her roommate, “hey, you think you have something from shui’s he could borrow?”

her roommate sprung into action, scrambling off the sofa. “yeah, yeah! sorry! i’ll be right back.”

toji remained where he was, stationary as a rock, his emerald orbs flicking every which way. she wondered what he was thinking, but she was too consumed by the monumental event that he was really standing there in her living room to dwell on it.

her roommate burst out of her room, smiling brightly as she handled a bundle of clothes to toji. “there you go! the bathroom’s just to the left there.”

he strode straight to the bathroom, his eyes meeting hers just before he closed the door.

“girl,” her roommate excitedly whispered, vigorously grabbing her forearms. “what the- what is going on? i didn’t know you and fushiguro were together.”

“we’re not together,” she rebuked, biting her lip. “we’re just… friends.”

her roommate scoffed, nearly bouncing up and down in glee. “shiu, you know this is the first time she’d brought a boy home.”

shiu hummed quietly, an unlit cigarette dangling between his lips. “that’s great, babe.”

her roommate scoffed, rolling her eyes at him, and her grip tightened just a fraction. “is he spending the night? oh my god, you both should stay and watch a movie with us.”

“oh, i don’t think he’ll stay…”

“girl, just go and get changed into something else, and i’ll talk to him when he comes out. you know people can’t say no to me.”

before she knew it, she was being pushed into her room, and the door was slammed behind her. she breathed out shakily, sliding against her wardrobe with her head in her hands. her heart was racing, and fuck fuck fuck, what the hell was she thinking bringing toji here?

she heard the bathroom door open, and the quiet baritone of toji’s voice mingled with her roommate's bubbly one. the words ‘pizza’ and ‘movie’ were mentioned, and she rushed to shimmy off her clothes and into her slightly better-looking loungewear, checking her hair was presentable enough. when she quietly opened her door, toji had his back towards her, wearing a black t-shirt that was a size too small and grey joggers that hugged his thick thighs.

he turned to face her, and the tense look on his face relaxed. her roommate piped up from the sofa, “hey! i was just saying that toji should stay and watch a movie with us while his clothes dry.”

she bit the inside of her cheek, and softly said to him, “you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

toji looked between her and her roommate, before replying with a low, “i’ll stay.”

her roommate clapped her hands together. “great! i’ll order the pizza.”

she walked over to the adjacent sofa to shiu, and hesitantly sat down on one edge of the sofa. toji followed and lowered himself onto the other empty side, leaving a space of everything and nothing between them. soon enough, her roommate returned and plonked herself right in between shiu’s spread legs, shuffling through the channels until she settled on a movie. the pizza arrived some time into the movie, and the four of them helped themselves. she couldn’t help but steal glances at toji, his face illuminated by the tv's glow as he brought a cheesy slice of pizza to his mouth, his expression blank and unreadable.

whatever way the angels must be solving her cosmic equation, they were obviously applying toji’s formula. their numbers were intertwining, creating a new constant, and she wondered what sort of symbol would represent the two of them.

toji met her gaze, and the corner of his lip curled upward.

after the movie had ended, her roommate had ushered a bemused shiu into her room and wiggled her fingers in an excited goodbye. “shh,” she’d giggled, while shiu rolled his eyes at her, tugging on the sleeve of her pyjama top. “don’t make too much noise, you two.”

and with that, she shut the door, leaving them alone.

together.

in her living room, on the same sofa.

“do you, uh, want to watch something else?” she murmured, her legs folded beneath her.

toji breathed out a quiet laugh. “please. i’m sorry, but that movie was actually so bad.”

she nearly snorted, clapping her hand over her mouth in an effort to contain her giggle. “yeah, it was pretty shit.”

the clock above the tv read 1:42 a.m., and she wondered if toji was tired. she assumed he would be after waking up so early to teach a bunch of energetic children. “you want some tea? i was just going to make some,” she asked, her ankles cracking as she rose from the sofa.

toji slapped his thighs, and steadily got up as well. “sure, but i should really get going soon. i don’t want to overstay my welcome.”

“spend the night,” she blurted out before she could stop herself. “none of us would mind, i promise.”

she then stupidly, pathetically even, held out her pinky towards him. toji frowned, clearly confused. “what are you doing?”

“a pinky promise.”

“oh right, yeah.”

he curled his pinky around hers, and a tiny electric shock sparked between them. she hissed and drew her hand back, but their eyes met, and they both erupted into a fit of hushed giggles, which only served to make them laugh harder.

“okay, you stick something on tv and i’ll make the tea,” she grinned, her bare feet softly padding on the floor as she went over to the kitchen.

as the kettle boiled, she watched toji flicking aimlessly through the channels, his face contorting when he came across something he didn’t like. he settled back onto the sofa, legs spread out as he reclined, mop of thick hair resting against the armrest. the shock of having him her in her home had faded now, and it felt almost natural for them to be around each other in this way. she brought over his mug filled with green tea, and he looked up at her gratefully as he took it from her. she sat down on the other sofa, stretching her legs out. toji’s eyes were slightly red, and he was yawning great big yawns, with the mug delicately balanced on his chest and one arm behind his head. the tv was on a low volume, and she wanted to pause time, even just for a while.

“hey, just lemme know when you wanna sleep. you can sleep in my room,” she murmured, hands grasping both sides of her mug, feet rubbing against each other.

toji looked over at her, a scowl playing on his features. “and where are you going to sleep, the sofa?”

“well, yeah.”

“no.”

“but you’re the guest!”

“shut up, no.”

“bu-”

“no.”

she huffed playfully, throwing a hand up in surrender, to which toji smirked at. they sat in comfortable silence, watching some silly competition show play on. despite the tea, she could feel herself becoming sleepier by the minute. she looked over at toji, who seemed perfectly content to lie there and watch the contestants make complete fools of themselves.

“bet that guy’s gonna fall off,” he mumbled, his arms folded over his chest. she only hummed in response, her cheek squished against a pillow, and toji grunted, “you the sleepy one now?”

she laughed, which interrupted her yawn. “maybe.”

“go to sleep then. don’t stay up for me.”

oh, how much he didn’t know about how long she would stay up for him, and how long she would really wait. but she couldn’t say anything except, “you sure?”

“yeah, yeah, i’m cool here.”

“hold on, lemme get you a blanket and pillow before i go.”

she returned promptly with them, kneeling down to place them on the floor beside him. when she looked up, she didn’t realize just how close his face was to hers. toji’s eyes flicked down to her lips, then back up to her eyes.

she gulped.

“good night,” he whispered.

“night,” was all she could muster before overcoming the magnetism between them and walking away.

| Φ |

the final stretch.

a flurry of pens on paper, pounding hearts, a tripwire of nerves, and then…

“time’s up! everyone please put down your pens. the exam is officially concluded.”

she leaned back in her seat, a sheer sense of awe crawling over her. this was it, she was done. her last university exam, all of it was finally over after three long years. her fellow students were of similar sentiment, with wide, nervous smiles, as if they all couldn’t really believe this was happening, as the smacks of numerous pats on the back reverberated through the hall.

the sun was shining on her face as she exited the exam hall, warm and inviting, promising that the hope for the future wasn’t unfounded. they were all high on life, with the thought that the world was their oyster, and they would all be lucky enough to find their own pearls.

“oh my god,” her friend groaned exaggeratedly, hands on her knees as if she’d just run a marathon. “it’s over.”

"yeah, it is," she hummed in agreement, basking in the sheer awe of the moment.

her friend barked out a laugh and clasped her hands together. “right then, i’m going to get ready for the party tonight. you are coming, right?”

“yeah of course,” she confirmed, shocking even herself that she would be going out. “we can only celebrate this once.”

her friend squealed, pulling her into a big hug before breaking away and trotting off. “bring fushiguro! maybe you both can get drunk and finally kiss,” she called out over her shoulder.

a few students looked over at her, and the embarrassment was almost crushing. she’d come to understand now that everyone on campus knew who toji fushiguro was. he was renowned for his adonis figure, the kind of handsome that only existed in fiction, and the fact he most certainly wasn’t associated with any girls or went to any parties.

until perhaps now, of course.

later that night at the cafe, as she fidgeted at her spot behind the counter, she plucked up the courage to ask toji, “so, you can totally say no if you don’t want to come, but there’s a party that’s happening in my building to celebrate the end of exams.”

toji looked up from reading her quantum mechanics textbook she had brought and grunted, “a party, huh. you going?”

“yeah, i’ll be heading over after closing up,” she replied, a bit deflated that he hadn’t seemed to notice she had dressed up quite a bit from her usual attire.

he hummed, nodded, and went back to reading. “i’ll see how i feel.”

that was no definitive reply, and she picked apart his usual baritone and analyzed in her mind as she went through a back-and-forth internal debate, trying to deduce some sort of meaning from it. she’d arrived to the party about an hour ago, and she was still thinking about it as she sipped away at some fruit-flavored punch that was far too delicious and dangerous for someone who didn't really drink. her lips were already numb, and the creeping giddiness was making her feel the joyousness of all that life is and would be.

her course mates had their arms around her shoulders, all of them loudly singing, more slurring really, in a circle to whatever song was thumping through the speakers. a part of her wanted to loose herself in the silliness of it all; it gave her courage and made her seem capable of things she would never have even dreamed of sober.

“oh my- don’t look, but fushiguro is actually here,” her friend slurred through her ear, nearly shouting and sending a ringing noise piercing through her eardrum.

she turned around, and sure enough, there was toji fushiguro pushing his way through the throng of students dancing in the cramped apartment they had decided to congregate in. his green eyes met hers, and relief ran over his features. it was cheesy, as well as completely impossible, but time seemed stretch and distort, slowing to a crawl the closer he got to her. her friend released her from the circle, giving her a calculated shove and sending her stumbling over her own feet.

straight into toji’s waiting arms.

“oh, fuck,” he shouted as he caught her, holding her forearms in a firm grip. “you okay?”

she stared up at him, the alcohol running through her blood making her lips spread into a big, dopey smile, and giggled, “yeah, you’re here.”

she could have sworn the tips of his ears turned pink, but the flashing, multicoloured lights made it too hard to make it out properly. it took her far too long to realize that toji still hadn’t let go of her arms, even as her punch had spilled on them both, and as even more people stared and bumped into them.

“you want a drink?” she shouted, standing up on her tiptoes to reach his ear.

toji grimaced. “no thanks, i don’t drink.”

“oh yeah, you’re a proper athlete and all,” she hiccuped, her body flushing with heat and the sound of the music.

he only laughed at that, his emerald eyes twinkling with possibilities.

| Φ |

“be careful,” toji hissed as he quickly moved to steady her as she tripped over the doorway into her dorm. “jesus, you’re a mess.”

“i-hiccup! no, no i’m a ss-shtar,” she wallowed, chuckling madly at her own antics. “ssstar! star.”

“yes, yes, a star, definitely,” toji mumbled, closing the door behind them, and maneuvering her securely along with him.

“hehe, am i youuuur star, toji?” she giggled, her legs giving out from underneath her, suddenly turning into jelly.

he snorted, using her strength to lift her off the floor and into his arms. “yes, you are. now c’mon, let’s get you to bed.”

her head rolled against his chest, her head swimming in a pool of red stars and blue moons, all of them circulating around a green sun. “go onnn, you have to say i’m yo-hiccup-ur star!”

“you’re my star. now c’mon, get into bed.”

as soon as he laid her underneath her duvet, her head started to pound and swirl the moment she closed her eyes. her stomach lurched like she was actually free-falling, and she groaned loudly. toji kneeled down in front of her, his face oh so very close to hers.

“what’s wrong? you wanna get sick?” he asked, forest eyes deep and ethereal as they took in her probably smeared makeup.

“i close my eyes and it feels bad,” she mumbled, feeling childish as her silliness became too much for even her not-so-sober state to listen to.

toji settled into a more comfortable sitting position, and she could feel his breath caressing her face. “tell me about something then, don’t think about it.”

“like-hiccup what?”

“anything. talk to me about stars, or whatever.”

“stars, really? okay… did you know, that there’s -hic- all different colors?”

“no, i didn’t actually. why’s there so many?”

“cuz they’re all different temperatures, that’s why.”

“that’s really cool. tell me about all the colors.”

“ohh, well there’s blue stars, those're the hottest one. and then there’s…”

| Φ |

she woke up to a throbbing headache and a burning stomach.

her eyes ached as light filtered through the opaque grey curtains of the window, and the white wall beside her bed was the first thing she saw when she finally peeked her eyes open. it was dreadfully plain and uninteresting, but rolling over to the other side to avoid it was another sort of unnecessarily difficult task.

she almost threw up when she saw toji lying there on the floor.

“toji?” she whispered urgently. “toji?! are you awake?”

he grunted in annoyance and rolled over to face her, his midnight hair all messy on a pillow he had procured from who knows where, although there was no blanket to be seen. the scarred side of his lip twitching as he flitted somewhere in between the realm of dreams and sleep.

oh how her heart was absolutely swooning at the sight.

she smiled to herself, quietly watching him sleep and quickly forgetting about how ill she felt, because none of that mattered. only that she could hear the scratching of quills, ruffling feathers, and the soft music playing, telling her that this was it.

she was in love with toji fushiguro.

there was no other way around it.

no more denying it to herself or anyone else – she loved him.

the boy who slept on a rock-hard floor beside her all night, listening to her drunk and probably terrible explanations about stars and who knows what else.

green orbs peeked out from hooded lids, and toji mumbled, “what’re you lookin at?”

she bit her lip, trying to contain her giddiness at her own sudden revelation, and reached over to poke his hand. “you. why didn’t you sleep on the sofa?”

toji's eyes fully opened, and he grabbed her finger and tugged gently. “cause, what if you needed to get sick and tripped in the dark? you might be a star, but you don’t actually shine, you know?”

“hah, you’re hilarious,” she retorted, letting him waggle her finger with his hand. “what else did i say, then?”

“that i’m the nicest person on earth for staying with you, and that i deserve free green tea from now on.”

“chancer, i definitely didn’t.”

“but how do you know you definitely didn’t?”

a loud knock at her door jolted them both out of their banter, and her roommate belted from the other side, “oi, lovebirds! we’re all going to get breakfast, want to come with?”

she looked expectantly at toji, who shrugged and mouthed ‘sure’, and answered back, “yeah, be out in a sec!”

“lovebirds, huh?” toji mumbled, as he intertwined their fingers, the corner of his lip curling upwards.

oh, angels in heaven above…

“shut up.”

| Φ |

the month of june was of blue skies and scorching pavements.

of far too many melted vanilla and matcha ice-creams dripping onto their clothes. of heat mirages and the cool, sweet relief of air-conditioned cafes and shopping malls. of lying on dried-out, yellowed grass at night, their sweaty hands firmly holding each other, while looking up at the midnight sky and divulging all their deepest secrets.

it was when she learned how toji got the scar on his lip.

he was twiddling with the hem of her baby pink t-shirt, not quite looking at her. “my cousins used to bully me when i was a kid,” he admitted quietly.

her gaze snapped over to him, soul aching for him. “toji, that’s awful.”

birds twittered loudly in a nearby tree.

then, it was quiet for a while.

she didn’t know what to say really, except, “did you tell anyone?”

toji shook his head, trailing a finger up and down her bare arm. “my parents kinda dismissed it like it wasn’t happening. i think they didn’t want to stir things within the family, even when the fuckers took it too far one day and caused this."

he paused, took a shaky breath, and with a voice tinged with bitterness he continued, “they held me down and threatened me with razor blades, and one of 'em accidentally slipped.”

“i’m so sorry,” she whispered, not knowing quite else to say, and rolled over onto her side to face him.

“it’s alright, i’m over it,” toji mumbled, returning to lying on his back, his arm behind his head. “but it’s why i've been studying so hard, so i can get the hell out of here. my family lives quite close by, you see.”

“right, and tokyo is about as far away as you can get.”

“yeah, pretty much.”

“and that’s why you didn’t speak to anyone at uni. you knew you'd just be moving on anyways, so there was no point making friends."

“mhm.”

she chewed the inside of her cheek. “so, what made me different?”

toji turned his head to face her, his gaze holding a gentleness she'd never seen before, “because… you’re you,” he said, as if that alone would explain everything.

she looked away, staring up at the sky again. it was silent for some time before she finally asked, “have i ever explained what quantum entanglement is to you before?”

“don’t think so, but go on.”

“it’s when two particles are so deeply connected, that it doesn’t matter even if they’re separated. the connection will always be there, and they’ll always affect each other. the distance between them doesn't matter either, because they still belong to each other.”

toji was quiet for a long time.

she wondered if he understood the deeper meaning behind what she was actually trying to say. she had never explicitly said to him that she loved him, and perhaps this was the only way she could say it - in the only way she knew how to. it was too late to turn back now anyway.

suddenly, toji pushed his upper body off the ground and sat upwards, his back turned to her.

he was breathing fast, too fast, and her heart started to beat frantically.

“toji?” she called out, fear lacing her words, her heart breaking in two at the mere thought of him rejecting all of this this – rejecting her.

toji turned to her, and whispered with glossy eyes, his words almost barely audible, “it’s you. it’s you. it’s you, and i love you.”

with that, he practically fell on top of her, their lips finally meeting in what seemed like an inevitable occurrence. like an eclipse or the death of a star, but none of that mattered. because here she was, with toji fushiguro.

and he loved her.

he loved her, as her lips parted for him and their tongues swirled together, and she thought he tasted of vanilla.

she loved him, as he tenderly held the back of her head, and she melted into him like the ice creams they savoured every day.

they loved each other, as their hands dipped underneath their shirts, exploring the dips and valleys of each other's bodies.

the universe was never more perfect than in that very moment.

| Φ |

the very next week, they went on their first official date.

“i’ll swing by your place at eight o’clock, is that okay?” toji asked her over the phone, as she lazed about in her bed in a dream-like, rosy trance.

she hummed, rolling onto her back and kicking her legs in the air. “sure. what are we doing?”

“never you mind your brilliant little head about it. just be ready, okay?”

“hehe, okay.”

“okay, i’ll see you later… i love you.”

“i love you too.”

with that, he ended the call, and she was left counting down the hours until she would see him. she got ready in good time, being careful to shave every bit of hair on her body, being meticulous as she plucked her brows perfectly. she hadn’t thought of sex since her subpar experience with it during her first year, and had since locked it out of her mind. not that she even thought they would be doing something like that.

at least, not until she had spied a box of condoms under the bathroom sink cabinet.

and now, it was all she could think about.

just after eight p.m., there was a prompt knock on the door, and she breathed out shakily before opening it. and there was her boy, her toji, holding a bouquet of half a dozen red roses, with a blush gracing his cheeks nearly as colorful as the blooms in his hands.

“hey,” he greeted with a handsome, crooked smile, his eyes sweeping up and down her figure. “you look beautiful. i hope you like italian food.”

and all her bundle of nerves dissipated. “yeah,” she replied breathlessly. “i do.”

toji took her to a small restaurant not too far from her dorm, roughly a fifteen-minute walk away. it was quirky, with cobblestone walls and a warm ambience, designed really for students with not much money in their pockets.

but it was just perfect.

it was natural, the way it was always meant to be. with her sitting there in a dainty summer dress, and toji in his usual black t-shirt and jeans, who was looking at her like she was his whole universe.

after they were done with their meal, he’d shooed her away from even trying to pay for the bill, which he took care of in battered notes and loose change. then, they walked hand in hand in the warm summer breeze back to her dorm. she prattled on excitedly about how she was looking for internships at various firms in tokyo, and toji was smiling as he listened to her finally start to figure out the answers to her future equation.

though, maybe not just her future.

they finally entered the safe space of her dorm, her roommates absence filling it with a sad eeriness. she looked at him shyly, fiddling with her fingers behind her back, and asked, “you want some tea?”

toji hummed, taking his shoes off at the door. “sure, thanks.”

she was grateful he said yes, it gave her something to do with her shaky hands. she reached upwards to the cabinet to grab their mugs. the two twin beige, somewhat grey, mugs that always sat beside each other. they clinked loudly against the counter, and she flicked the kettle switch on.

and then, toji’s warm hands were on her hips, and her mind went blank.

“i love you,” he mumbled, his lips soft and wet as they trailed against the curve of her neck. “you’re my star, and i love you.”

he was repeating ‘i love you’ like a mantra he couldn’t quite believe was true, and even a part of her was still amazed that it actually was. she turned to face him, tea well and truly forgotten about, and wrapped her arms around his neck to place her lips between his. toji hummed gently into her mouth, his hands sliding down to grip her behind, pulling her closer into him.

it was a nebula explosion after that.

a stumbling mess of them making their way to her bedroom with their lips interlocked, bodies pressed close together as they ripped their clothes off each other. giggling like naughty children when she struggled to tug her dress off.

“you’re hopeless,” toji groaned playfully, tapping her nose with his finger, before smoothly sliding her dress from her body.

she pouted, crossing her arms over her bare chest. “am not.”

he shushed her softly, pulling her into him once more in a fiery kiss, and they fell gently onto the bed. toji kneaded her breasts, eliciting a moan from her as his mouth traveled slowly from her lips, down to her neck and caressing her collarbone, flicking her hard nipple with his tongue.

“hmm, you feelin good, baby?” toji murmured, looking up at her with hooded lids, forest eyes blazing with desire reserved just for her. “not too much?”

"n-no," she stuttered, fisting his black locks between her fingers, scratching the back of his scalp and making him groan.

toji parted his lips, his breath blowing softly and tickling her nipple, and she shivered and slightly arched her back in anticipation. he teased her with his tongue, licking her hard bud with a featherlight touch, and she gasped, “toji, please.”

with that, he took her nipple in his mouth, steaming hot and so wet as his tongue swirled around it. she moaned loudly, arching herself into his body, and he placed a strong hand on the small of her back to pull her in.

she thought that if toji pulled her in any closer, they would surely melt into each other and become one.

her legs parted of their own accord, and her hips were pure instinct as she ground her slick pussy on his thigh, the ridges of the powerful muscle stimulating her perfectly and sending jolts of pleasure through her core. toji smiled against her nipple, giving it one last suck, letting it go with a dirty pop! and traveled back up to her face, his lips brushing hers.

“who knew,” he whispered, pressing soft kisses along the bridge of her nose. “that all this would happen from drinking green tea.”

she giggled, and held his face in her hands, bringing his lips back home to hers. “i need you, toji,” she breathed out, breaking their kiss. “can i have you?”

toji smiled, touched his forehead to hers and murmured, “you can always have me, sweetheart. tell me what you want.”

“i want you,” she begged, her arousal making her more mindlessly desperate by the second. “i’m yours, toji. make me yours.”

he snapped.

his lips captured hers once more in a searing kiss so molten hot, she was sure she would burn and be consumed by his fire. toji’s hands moved down to himself, freeing his hard cock from his boxers with a little slap noise as it hit against her lower stomach. he pressed his hips into her and settled in between her legs, his hard and flushed dick feeling a thousand times hotter against her skin than his lips did.

toji moved his hips, his cock wetting against her folds, the slick sounds lewd and utterly intoxicating, as he pushed further into her with every back and forth motion.

further.

and further.

she moaned loudly as he finally sunk deep into her wet walls, painfully slow and deliciously agonising.

“oh, fuck baby,” toji groaned, his face in her neck, as he buried himself to the hilt. “you’re -ah!- so fuckin beautiful. my beautiful girl.”

her nails dug into his shoulder, and toji bent her legs to fold them, rutting further into her. she whined at the deeper connection, feeling his cock flex inside her. he stilled with their chests pressed tightly together, and she could feel his heart pumping hard.

“t-toji,” she gasped, throwing her head back as she felt his balls against the curve of her ass.

the tip of his dick rubbing against that spongy spot that made her see stars behind her eyelids. he started shallowly thrusting, deliberately slow, holding her head so lovingly she felt she was going to burst.

this was heaven, she thought.

toji was heaven – her phi.

the golden ratio, found in all remarkable and beautiful things on the planet.

all her life, all the combinations of numbers, formulas, and sequences had to have been carefully calculated to lead up to him, to this moment.

toji sucked and kissed just below her ear, his muscled thighs flexing as he increased the pace just a fraction, and she clenched around him, feeling the veins of his cock rubbing exquisitely inside her. she tightly squeezed his bicep as the sounds of her squelching pussy and slapping of their bodies going plap! plap! plap! filled the room, and the smell of sex and toji wafted through her nose.

“look at us,” he cooed, stroking her cheek. “makin such a mess on your bed.”

she looked down to where their bodies met, and sure enough, there was a ring of white cream at the base of toji’s cock pumping in and out of her, dripping messily down onto a damp spot on the bedsheets beneath them. his toned abs had a thin sheen of sweat, and they flexed and rippled as he really started to pound into her.

her pussy clenched around him again at the thought of him chasing his pleasure high from her body, and she kissed him fervently. toji moaned into her mouth, his balls tightening more and more. her orgasm was exponentially building, like the pressure of boiling water molecules hitting against the walls of a sealed container.

“let go, baby” toji murmured huskily, his hips snapping at an even faster pace. “let go.”

and she did, throwing her head back and almost screaming, her legs shaking violently.

a supernova imploded somewhere at the other end of a distant universe. stars flew across the blackness behind her squeezed-shut eyelids, leaving behind a glittering trail of stardust. toji groaned into her neck, and she felt hot ropes of his cum spurt against her walls, his legs the only thing powering his body through his high.

she wrapped her arms around his neck as he stilled, half-hard cock still plugged inside her. they were huffing and panting into each other, their shared sweat making them stick to each other.

“i love you,” toji whispered, full of reverence, full of life.

she kissed him softly, rubbing their noses together. “i love you too.”

| Φ |

it was early july now; their exam results had been released, and graduations were finally right around the corner.

“you should go toji!” she exclaimed, cupping her mug of lukewarm tea with both hands, watching him intently from her spot on the sofa as he did some stretches. “you’ve worked so hard for this.”

he grunted, but from effort or annoyance, she couldn’t tell. “i can’t be bothered, seriously, and i’m not interested in standing on a stage and be the only person without parents cheering them on.”

she didn’t press it further after that.

instead, she cast one last longing look at his muscles rippling as he stretched, and resumed perusing through internship advertisements on her laptop.

they had settled into an oddly domestic routine for the past few weeks. she would work in the cafe during the day, while toji trained ever harder at the gym. he would swing by and pick her up as she finished her shift in the early hours of the afternoon, and they would cook dinner and hang around the dorm. the weather was getting far too hot for leisurely walks during the day, and so they had mostly passed the time by making love and talking about everything and anything at all.

toji kissed the top of her head, squatting behind her, quite clearly finished with his stretches as his eyes skimmed over the tab open on her laptop. “still nothin, baby?”

she sighed, rubbing his hand that was gently massaging her shoulders. “no.”

“you’ll find something, don’t worry. it’ll happen. let’s just focus on celebrating your graduation next week.”

her graduation.

she still couldn’t believe it.

next week, she would be graduating, and the week after that, saying goodbye to her accommodation – her home – for the last three years of her life. saying farewell to her manager and the little cafe that had been so good to her, and not just because it had brought her and toji together. the stress was mounting to find something, anything, in tokyo, because she refused to even entertain the idea of going backwards and returning home.

and because she absolutely could not bear to be so far away from toji either.

the thought alone was soul-crushing.

she heard the shower faucet running in the bathroom, and a wave of loneliness hit her. why exactly, she wasn’t sure, but she chased after toji into the bathroom.

he stared as she burst in, a thick brow raised in startled confusion, as soap suds trickled down his face and back. “what? you find somethin?”

clothes be damned, she stepped into the shower and kissed him with all the energy and emotion she could muster. toji was taken aback for a second, hesitatingly circling his arms around her, and then melting into her.

it was then that she decided.

she would rather her body combust, and all her atoms disperse into the atmosphere before even trying to live without toji fushiguro.

| Φ |

it was the night before her graduation, and she was a nervous wreck.

“oh, toji,” she gushed, dipping the razor she was holding into a bowl of soapy water and giving it a little shake. “i hate getting up in front of people. i might just not go. it doesn’t really matter anyway, does it?”

toji hummed, brows furrowed at her, but remained unable to respond unless he wanted to get soap in his mouth. she flicked away the excess water from the razor and carefully shaved underneath toji’s chin. he’d really let his stubble grow out, and since he was adamant about attending her graduation, it meant that the scruff would just have to go.

“nugh- y’re goin,” toji mumbled through pursed lips. “y’re too shmart t'not go.”

“and you’re too smart to have missed yours, but here we are,” she retorted, her tongue poking out from the side of her lip in concentration. “now stop talking, or you’ll get cut.”

toji grumbled and huffed from his nose, sending a soap sud flying onto her bare arm, and he snorted in amusement. she was sat on top of the kitchen counter next to the sink, with toji standing in between her legs, his hands kneading her plush thighs every so often. she was deep in thought, the only sound the gentle scratching of the blade, and started going through a mental checklist of everything she needed to prepare for tomorrow morning.

her light green kimono for the ceremony was already laid out on her roommate's old bed, zori shoes and tabi socks neatly placed beside it, but her hair pins and accessories still needed to be picked out. oh no, she hadn’t even decided on a-

“ow, fuck!”

she snapped out of her thoughts as toji hissed in pain, ruby-red pearls of blood already blooming from his lip.

oh no…

please god, no...

she’d cut his scar, reopening the top layer of delicate flesh.

��toji! fuck, i’m sorry,” she panicked, as he pulled away from her in a flash, his fingers pressing down on his lip. “i’m sorry, i didn’t mean to!

she slid off the counter, immediately trying to go over and help him, but toji practically growled, “don’t fucking touch me.”

her body froze, a cold shock of dread spreading from her head straight down to her stomach where it pooled uncomfortably. “toji?” she called out, her heart cracking and lip quivering. “it’s me. it’s only me.”

she’d never seen him like this before, backed up against the wall like an injured animal, his green eyes widened, breathing quickened, and nostrils flared, as if he was about to lash out at anything and everything. he held her worried gaze, but there was nothing except a cold emptiness behind him.

there was no trace of the boy she knew and loved.

“oh, toji. please,” she begged, fat droplets of tears running down the apples of her cheeks. "let me help you."

toji madly scrambled away, grabbing his shoes, and was out the door as if he’d never been there to begin with.

| Φ |

toji never came home that night.

she’d fallen asleep on the sofa, after calling him numerous times with no answer, waiting for him to walk back through the door until she couldn’t possibly keep her eyes open any longer. when she woke up groggily, her eyes still heavy from sleep and crying, she went about the arduous task of getting herself ready for graduation.

she hoped, no, prayed to the angels solving her equation to apply some sort of magic formula that would bring toji back to her. she had to believe he would show up to the ceremony; he just had to show. she didn’t even want to think about trying to calculate for the probability of him not showing up.

but the day went by in a hazy, slow blur of camera flashes, ostentatious flower bouquets, and toothy grins of parents and graduates. she played the part perfectly, a walking empty shell of a human, hugging and smiling with her loved ones. when her name was called to receive her diploma, nothing else mattered except trying to catch a glimpse of toji’s face in the audience.

but she couldn’t see him.

a foolish part of her hoped that he was standing right at the back of the auditorium, wearing that soft smile she loved so much whenever he looked at her.

that’s all it was though – foolish.

eventually, she returned back to her dorm in a numb daze, blinking slowly as her eyes swept over her soon-to-be-old home.

there was no trace of toji.

not his black sliders by the door.

not his toothbrush in the holder in the bathroom.

not his canvas bag or dirty gym clothes in the washing basket.

nothing at all.

she collapsed to the floor in a heap, her hands shakily procuring her phone from her clutch purse, and dialled toji’s number.

beep. beep. beep.

“sorry, but the number you have called does not exist. ple-”

she snapped her phone shut, and hoped that her angels could hear the gut-wrenching scream that clawed its way out of her throat and reverberated around the empty walls of the dorm.

| Φ |

the first law of thermodynamics states that energy can never be created or destroyed, only changing from one form to another.

that was all she think of as she curled into a fetal position on the cold, hard tiles of the apartment, teeth chattering as she repeated the law over and over again. the very marrow of her bones felt frozen solid, her fingernails harshly kissing crescent moons into her palm so hard that was she sure she must have bled by now.

but she didn’t care.

her heart was tearing itself apart, a war of raw muscle and heartstrings against the merciless, cruel force of love clashing inside of her chest.

her energy, what was it?

was it love?

for the numbers and greek letters she puzzled over for hours on end, contemplating all of the universe's workings and mysteries. or was it for toji fushiguro? for the dark-haired boy who had taught to her love something else other than her calculations and green tea. to love life and all the little joys that came along with it, and that she was worth infinitely more than what she thought of herself.

if her energy was love, then what would it change into?

hate, rage?

both?

maybe the angels could mercifully apply the catastrophic formula of death, and prove her life's equation to be null and false. her body would dissolve back into dust and atoms that would find their way back to toji, hovering tantalisingly closely to him, but never to touch him again. would his body know hers, even if he could never hope to see her? would he sense her and smile, as he remembered the quiet, young love they once shared?

she liked to imagine that he would smile.

her teeth clattered loudly, and her arms disappeared into the sleeves of her kimono.

how strange, the music is louder than its ever been.

scratching of quills.

a splash of ink and a teardrop.

and the scroll was flipped over to a blank side.

| Φ |

©storiesoflilies 2024, all rights reserved. please do not plagiarize, translate, or repost any of my work on other sites! i only post on ao3 and tumblr.

[kiyo-cant-write]

Sebek and Silver with a strong s/o ✧･ﾟ

Summary: These headcanons are for Silver and Sebek Zigvolt with a physically strong s/o who is able to lift them into the air and carry them around in their arms.

TW/CW: None

Notes: established relationship, they/them pronouns for reader, gender neutral reader, the reader is assumed to be smaller than Silver/Sebek

.

.

.

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:

Silver

Silver was floored initially.

How is his s/o SO STRONG?

He has been training since childhood and they just... lift him.

Silver is confused about how someone smaller can do such a thing.

He is also amazed, however, and... Ultimately, he likes it.

It eases his worries that his lover can find him and carry him to wherever he needs to be if he passes out against his will.

At first, he found it a bit emasculating but he's over that now.

The reason he is over it is that Lilia pointed out his own height.

Silver ended up apologizing for dishonoring his father.

Silver's s/o got to hear about this the day after.

Silver asks his s/o if they would consider training with him.

If they accept, they get to see a new side to Silver.

They also unlock a new era of their relationship called "Lilia is my father-in-law AND my teacher woohoo!"

Silver opened his eyes to see the world moving by him much more quickly than anticipated. Hadn't he been in the courtyard? Why was he looking up at the sky? Why were the clouds moving so fast? It was a bit jarring if the light-haired boy was being honest about it.

"Wh...?"

"Oh! Good! You're awake!" [Name]'s voice could be heard from...

...Above him?

He looked down and sure enough, there was his lovely partner. They were holding him bridal style as they walked (at a fairly good pace). Where were they headed? Was he awake right now? He felt sluggish.

"[Name]...?" it left Silver's lips slowly, "Wh... What are you doing?"

"Taking you to class, silly!" [Name] told him, laughing softly.

"Oh..."

[Name] was headed toward his next class. Silver wasn't sure what his next class was but he was probably late for it. Sebek would not like that.

Father may or may not care but Sebek would never let him hear the end of it. He might even insist on Silver being punished for dishonoring their master. Silver wanted to sigh at just the thought of it.

"Thank you..." Silver told them, face dusted with a soft pink, "Uhm. This is helpful... If not a tad, er, embarrassing..."

They giggled at his wording.

"I don't mind helping you out, Sil," they told him, "And, is it? I think you're cute like this."

They were being a bit too honest for Silver to handle, his face turned a bit redder at the comment. People didn't often carry him. It wasn't something that should happen to guards for Prince Malleus, his master. And it had been years since his father last carried him anywhere. He was no longer a child.

And... being called cute was different when it came from [Name] and not his father or Prince Malleus (when he was younger).

"I, ah... Thank you."

Those were the words Silver settled on as they headed to his class together.

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:

Sebek Zigvolt

Sebek is startled and a bit offended the first time it happens.

His s/o, his TINY LOVER, lifts HIM into the air.

He screams and gets detention from Professor Trein.

The second, third, and fourth times it happens are no better.

Each time, he yells in startlement and thinks there is danger afoot.

The only reason s/o doesn't get clocked is because they are s/o.

WHAT IF HE HURT THEM?? NEVER!

By the sixth or seventh time, he starts to get used to it.

Sebek starts to expect his s/o to pick him up if he makes a fuss.

Sometimes, he will make a fuss so they showcase their strength, the pride he feels for their existence outweighing the show of weakness in front of others.

In the end, he's fine with it, but he still shouts in a typical Sebek fashion that he wishes to be put down.

His s/o understands that he doesn't mean it and sometimes makes a mad dash across campus with Sebek in their arms.

Lilia is the one who asks if you want to train with them sometime.

Sebek is gleaming with pride at the fact that his s/o was acknowledged by his teacher, THE Lilia Vanrouge.

Sebek was yelling down at his partner as they carried him across the courtyard of Night Raven College. Despite this, [Name] did not stop running. In fact, they did not seem to mind one bit. It was quite fitting for someone who had chosen Sebek as their lover.

"PUT ME DOWN, [NAME]! I WILL BE LATE FOR MALLEUS-SAMA'S APPOINTMENT!" Sebek called to them, not caring that his volume was attracting attention from other students.

"You'll be fine, I can get you there!" [Name] told him, switching directions to head toward the Mirror Chamber, "You'll be there early!"

As they turned, Sebek did not even pause his yelling as his body flew around like a tower in the washing machine before settling back in the strange upright position his lover was carrying him in.

"WE HAD BETTER NOT BE LATE! WE CANNOT DISHONOR MALLEUS-SAMA!" Sebek continued.

[Name] just laughed at his statements as they headed toward his destination. It was kind of fun to be transportation for Sebek, the looks it earned from peers and upperclassmen alike was hilarious.

As long as they didn't crash into anyone, it should be fine!

"ONWARD, [NAME]!"

"I thought you didn't like this, Sebek?" they teased.

"I DO NOT! I SIMPLY WISH TO GET TO MALLEUS-SAMA."

"Sure, sure."

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:

Thank you for reading! Likes and reblogs are appreciated! Do NOT repost my writing/headcanons as your own >:c Check the top of my blog for the inbox status and read the rules before requesting. This is not a twst-only blog! ^^

[samkerrworshipper]

replaced

sam kerr x sister!reader

um i wrote a fic? sorry for the chelsea fans but i simply couldnt make this solely chelsea. glad that i could please the SK fans tho yall are patient and queens! hope you all enjoy and lmk what else you might want to see in the future 👀 love you all!

warnings: none? that i’m aware of !

There was something completely all-consuming about the thought of a tiny alien growing inside of a body. It made you uncomfortable, thinking about a tiny human with a deformed body and underdeveloped everything just existing inside of a person. To put it lightly, it freaked you out. It was possibly the best birth control for a 16-year-old seeing firsthand what it looked like when a baby kicked or hearing the sounds of first-trimester morning sickness. You’d made it very clear to your sister that yes, whilst you were willing to babysit once the deformed fetus entered the world and was slightly less deformed, you would take some responsibilities. You wanted nothing to do with it until it made its grand entrance into the world. 

That didn’t change the fact that yours, your sister’s, and your sister’s fiancé’s lives had very quickly come to revolve solely around your future niece or nephew in a very short amount of time. Normally, it wouldn’t bother you in the slightest. If anything, you were usually doing anything and everything to get Sam and Kristie to leave you alone, but there was something different about their attention completely revolving around the life that the two of them were building together. 

It hadn’t mattered truly when they’d missed your parent-teacher interviews for an anatomy scan or missed your first training with the senior Chelsea team because Kristie had woken up with such bad morning sickness that she hadn’t been able to leave the bathroom for hours, or when you’d had to walk 3 miles from school to the training grounds because your sister had been up so late trying to make Kristie comfortable enough to sleep that she’d completely forgotten that she was supposed to pick you up early on a Thursday so you didn’t miss training. 

None of it mattered individually, but altogether, it made a difference. 

It had been a big decision moving halfway across the world to live with your sister at 15. You were a good football player, you weren’t anywhere near the prodigy of your sister, but if you wanted to make strides in your career, it was the best decision to move to London to play in the academy. It didn’t make the decision any easier; you were moving in with your sister that you’d essentially not known for most of your childhood. Too wrapped up in her own career in other countries to spend any time with you. Yet the moment it had even been an option, she was ecstatic at the idea of you joining her in London, taking you under her wing, and truly welcoming you into the tight-knit family that Kristie and her had built in London. 

It was good, it was so good. You had made advancements in your football that you didn’t think were possible; school was good, and for once in your life, you felt like you were actually in a place where you were fully understood and at peace. 

It had been perfect, until Sam had torn her ACL a couple of months into your stay, and then things had gone downhill. It wasn’t anything you couldn’t deal with; in terms of the footballing aspect of your life, it was definitely tough. You didn’t have your training buddy or your person to help you settle into the club that still kind of terrified you. On the flip side, you got to spend a whole lot more one-on-one time with your sister, and her girlfriend was there to cater to all of your football needs. After the initial impacts of her surgery, life had mostly gone back to normal; sure, your sister wasn’t there physically on the pitch with you, but she was there to support you in every other way. 

Then, the idea of a baby had been mentioned. 

It wasn’t alarm bells from the beginning. At first, it had mostly seemed like an idea for the future, not near future. Of course, they wanted to start a family, and of course, you wanted that for them. It just hadn’t been made clear to you that it was a plan for the present. Until you’d been sitting on the couch on a movie night, and a gift bag had been thrust into your hands. The both of them had the goofiest smiles on their faces that you’d known that something had been up. You just hadn’t expected a positive pregnancy test to be the source of the excitement. 

Initially, not much had changed. The pregnancy was so early on that the biggest worry was an early miscarriage and making sure that the three of you didn’t let the information slip too early. 

It had been completely fine. Life had kept on moving, until the symptoms had started. 

First, it was a bit of exhaustion, then some vomiting, headaches, nausea, more vomiting, migraines, insomnia, every possible pregnancy symptom you could think of. Kristie was afflicted by every possible pregnancy symptom. 

You felt bad. Here, two of your favourite people were trying to start a family, and it was starting off as hell. 

Then the feelings of sympathy had very quickly turned into resentment and then into isolation. 

You resented the fact that you didn’t feel at home anymore. There was nothing homey about the situation you were living in. You felt like in a number of fleeting weeks you had gone from feeling on top of the world to feeling like you no longer belonged in the life that you’d so recently settled into. 

It was a rough realisation to come to that you were no longer wanted, that you were being replaced. 

It was a slow process, but it was easy to figure out when you were and weren’t wanted, and in the picture-perfect future life of your sister and her fiancé, it was clear that you weren’t. 

You were 17, you were on the cusp of being an adult, you just hadn’t expected to be thrust into your independent adulthood so early on. A shiny new baby was going to replace you, and once that happened you were going to be even more unwanted than you already felt before it was introduced to the world. 

Whilst you knew that your mood was being affected by the neglect you were suffering, it was all too easy to blame it on the exams you were going through for your last year of school, or the slight injury setbacks that were keeping you from your first minutes for the blues, or the fact that you were a teenager with fluctuating moods. You didn’t expect your slightly off interactions or slightly less happy demeanor to be a warning sign for anybody, specifically the people closest to you. Your performance on the training pitch had been as good as usual, you’d been saying all the right things, acting in all the right ways even though you actively felt like a stranger in the apartment and life you’d once felt like was home. 

You’d managed to allude to all of the people closest to you, it just hadn’t occurred to you that people on the outside would notice your slightly off behaviour. 

Lucy was one person at the club who was newer than you, even though you didn’t necessarily fit in with all the older girls due to the age disparity it was common knowledge that you were an extension of your sister, people who were friends with Sam were friends of yours. It was a little bit embarrassing that in hindsight most of the people were only friends with you as a result of your last name but it was easier to just accept it. 

Lucy was one person that wasn’t particularly close with your sister, on no means were they enemies, they just didn’t hang out with the same people. If Sam and her didn’t interact on the regular then neither did you, that was just how it worked. 

It’s why you’d been a little bit surprised when she’d asked you to be her spotting partner in the gym. A few sets in, though, it had become abundantly clear that Lucy had ulterior motives. 

“So what does a kid like you do nowadays to have a little bit of fun, uh?”

You weren’t sure if spotting for Lucy was much help at all. There was absolutely zero possibility that if she failed, you were going to be able to lift the weight that she was pressing. The ease with which she did it all was shocking and enough of a focus for you. 

“Play soccer for one of the best teams in England.”

Lucy laughs, even though all you’re doing is being honest. Between school, football, and trying to live up to the expectations of your sister, you don’t have time for ‘fun’.

“It must be hard, having so much pressure on you, so young?”

You shake your head. You don’t think of it that way. Pressure is privilege. That’s what your mom had taught you, and then your brother, and now your sister. Pressure is what had made you good enough to be where you were. 

“It’s more pressure trying to decide what to have for breakfast in the morning than coming here every day.”

Lucy finishes her set and sits up, looking at you in a way that makes you feel like you have to ask. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Her tongue pushes against the inside of her cheek, and you get the feeling that you’re going to be told something you don’t want to hear. 

“You’ve been acting differently lately, spacey, less present. I’m just wondering if there is any particular reason.”

You focus on switching the weights from Lucy’s bar to yours and lying down on the bench she’d previously occupied. 

“I don’t know what would give you that impression.”

You focus on your set, and Lucy uses it as an excuse to stare at you in the exact same way she had been all morning. 

“You look like a kicked puppy all the time. You’re less happy, less comfortable. You look like you’re on edge all the time.”

It’s a list of traits that probably suit you. You’ll admit that you’ve been less than enthusiastic in recent times, but you hadn't thought it had been extremely noticeable. Sam hadn’t noticed, not that she noticed much about you anymore. 

“Didn’t realise you were so focused on the team protege, Bronzey.”

Like Sam, you were a pro in humorous deflection, yet when you spoke it came off with an unfamiliar edge that made you uncomfortable. 

“I’m worried about one of my teammates and friends because they’re exhibiting behaviours that are unfamiliar for them and no one else seems to be noticing.”

You finish your set and focus on drinking from your water bottle and not making too much eye contact with Lucy. 

“Lot of big words coming from you, Luce.”

Lucy’s determination doesn’t fade. She looks at you the same way. 

“So it’s not football. I’m going to make an educated guess that it’s not school. You’re going to be an aunt and you’ve got a good family situation. What is it?”

You must flinch, even if you don’t feel it. You must because Lucy’s eyes light up. 

“So it’s Kerr household issues then?”

You focus on finishing your set again. You focus on the feeling of your arms pushing and relaxing, the feeling of all your muscles stretching and slackening. 

“You know you can talk to me about it. I might not have the best advice, but I won’t judge you or go and tell your sister about it or anything.”

You finish the set, and all that’s on your mind is that you have one more to go. One more and you can remove yourself from whatever this awkward conversation is and go and hide in some other corner like normal. 

“I don’t know what makes you think it’s any of your business.”

You’re three reps in, nowhere near failure, yet on the next one, Lucy takes over and pulls the bar up and onto the rack. 

Before you can have a go at her, she sits down next to you on the bench, and for whatever reason, puts an arm around your shoulder. It makes you incredibly uncomfortable, and you flinch away almost immediately, but Lucy doesn’t shy away. 

“Look, whether it’s from a teammate to another teammate, or a friend to a friend, or whatever you feel most comfortable calling it. You don’t seem like you’re doing okay. If I can tell, it’s not going to be long before other people figure it out. I don’t really know you properly, but you seem like a good kid. You also don’t seem like the kind of person who likes to be vulnerable in front of people you don’t trust. If you don’t let go of whatever has clearly been bothering you, then that’s probably the inevitable if you don’t talk to somebody about it or get it off your chest. That person by no means has to be me or anyone else here. Just think about it, okay? You’re not alone. I can’t imagine how hard it would be playing here and everyone constantly making you feel like you were in your sister’s shadow. You aren’t just your sister, though. People around here like you beyond that, and they’re here to support you beyond that. You aren’t your last name.”

You’d be a liar if you said that Lucy’s words didn’t hit you a little bit, but you didn’t let her see that. You shook her arm off you and rolled your eyes. 

“You have no fucking clue what it’s like to be me. Don’t try and make it out like you understand.”

Before she could say anything else that remotely played on your heartstrings, you walked away, dragging your drink bottle and gear off to the other side of the gym and settling into whatever exercises for your ankle strength. 

You didn’t like to admit it, but what Lucy said to you resonated with you for the rest of the day. It had you in your head, thinking about it over and over again. You were second-guessing everything, and it translated out onto the pitch. In training, you were sloppy, to the point of nearly injuring yourself due to a lack of awareness. If you were trying to prove that you were over your setbacks, then it was a clear testament to the opposite. You were evidently a shit show. It was what was expected of you. You were a teenager. You were expected to crash out, to not be able to live up to the constant expectations of being a professional every day. You were falling into the one stereotype that you spent every minute of every day trying to claw away from. Already consumed by the reality of your stupifying family situation and adding on self-doubt about your every action was a whole new mind game that you’d never truly experienced. 

There was one part about what Lucy had said that had stuck with you the most. If you didn’t get it off your chest soon, it was inevitable that you were going to let it slip in far worse ways, and that was a slippery slope you had no intention of going down. 

It wasn’t surprising that your sister wasn’t there to pick you up after training had finished. There was a slew of excuses that trumped you. You were used to being forgotten. As the reality of new life being brought into the Kerr household became more real, it only felt like you were fading further. 

You didn’t want to go home, not to a place where you actively felt like an impostor. You didn’t have many people to lean on, though. As much as Lucy tried to make it out like you were an individual person at Chelsea, you weren’t. You were Sam Kerr’s younger sister, the baby of the family, the nepotism sister, riding on your sister’s success and reaping whatever benefits came from it. You were a complete result of your sister, stuck in a never-ending cycle of following her footsteps. 

In Australia, you’d had individuality, your parents’ sole focus. Your football wasn’t as good, but you hadn’t questioned your existence or how you fitted into spaces. Yet in England, or with your sister, you had to second-guess everything, were forced to feel like you didn’t belong anywhere. 

You didn’t want to go home. 

There weren’t a lot of people in London you could call. A couple of months ago, Kristie was your go-to person for when your sister was tied up with her stuff, but with the baby on the way, Kristie’s sole focus had been shifted. You didn’t matter in comparison. Sam’s friends were like family, but they weren’t your family; they were people that had to like you because you lived with Sam and were with her all the time. You hadn’t made many friends at Chelsea; it didn’t seem important in retrospect. It left you with a handful of people. You could always call your mum or someone else in the family, but it seemed pointless in that there would be no outcome. So you called the only person that was really left. 

It had been a long shot; St Albans wasn’t exactly in close proximity to Cobham, but you felt like you were at a crossroads. 

You’d had to wait outside in the cold for a while, but it wasn’t awfully long until Caitlin pulled up in front of the training grounds. Before you could second-guess your decision-making, you got into her car, buckling your seatbelt before looking at her. 

“Just drive, I’ll exp   n later.”

Caitlin got the message and pulled her car into drive before heading back onto the highway. 

“Where we going? Yours? Mine? An airport?”

It was hard not to laugh at the predicament. 

“Just yours.”

The rest of the car ride was silent; it was good, it was hard for you to slot every feeling into place, but it was good to think about it all. You felt like a whirlwind of feelings, a big spiral of never-ending emotions that were completely nonsensical. 

By the time you get to Caitlin’s house, not much was making any more sense, but you felt less panicked. You walked from the car into her house in the same silence that had stretched between the two of you the whole car trip. In through the front door, into the kitchen, and sat down at the island when Caitlin pointed at one of the seats. You felt like you were cemented to the seat, all of the weight of the day, or really the last few weeks, was weighing you down like there were rocks stuffed in your pockets. You felt heavy, filled with all of the uncertainties. 

Caitlin pushed a glass of water towards you, and you took it gratefully. 

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

You’d been around Caitlin practically since birth. As a kid growing up, you hadn’t wanted to be around your sister; it had always been her best friend that had lit up your face. She was your sister’s best friend, but in every way, she was a sister to you; you’d spent every moment of your childhood following the two around and every waking moment with them when they were around. 

“I can’t just spend an afternoon with my favourite auntie?”

Caitlin rolled her eyes, reaching over the table to ruffle your hair. 

“Of course, you can, dickhead, but that doesn’t mean that you are. Something’s up, and if you called me, then that means you want to talk about it because it has something to do with Sam.”

Were you really that easy to read? First, Lucy, and now Caitlin. You were beginning to doubt your abilities to keep all of your cards to your chest. 

“That’s some creepy shit; you should become some mindreader.”

Caitlin rolled her eyes at you. 

“Tell me about it; I can’t do anything in this house without her sniffing it out.”

You turned your head to see Katie standing in the doorway of the kitchen, smiling at you, but mostly at Caitlin. 

“Ya didn’t tell me mini kerr was coming over.”

You tried to stop the way your face flinched at the sound of your last name. You didn’t know why in recent times it had begun to bother you so much. It was just so synonymous with your sister. Every time you heard it or saw it on your jersey, it was a clear sign of the one thing you were becoming most afraid of. You weren’t living up to it or living the life of it. 

“Just wanted to spend some time with my favourite derby losers.”

Katie’s reaction is visceral. Her face moves into something of pure disgust. 

“That kind of slander is just not acceptable in this house. You want to embrace your Chel-shit culture? Keep it away from our house. We’re going to have to sage the bad vibes away now. Do a full cleanse.”

At a point in your life, you’d never felt less Chelsea than you did right now. The thought of the club put you on the brink of dissociation. 

“Katie, can you please go get some pasta? We’re all out, and I’m making bolognese for dinner.”

It was a cue. You were sure of it because as soon as the words left Caitlin’s mouth, Katie was nodding dutifully and off and out of sight. 

“Are you going to tell me what’s up or keep dodging around it?”

With your lip between your teeth and so much uncertainty, you nodded. There wasn’t much point in keeping it all in when you’d come here with the inadvertent intention to offload some of it. 

“Sam doesn’t want anything to do with me. When I got here, it was hard. We made it work, and she tried to make me fit in with her life as it was, but it never quite felt right. But with the baby now, there’s no pretending. I’m not a part of her life, and she doesn’t want to pretend that I am anymore. And I’m sick of waiting in the background, hoping she’ll get her shit together and remember that I’m part of her life. She doesn’t care about me, and I can’t handle it anymore.”

Caitlin’s expressions are schooled. They are most of the time, but she doesn’t give anything at all away. 

“Your sister loves you a lot. I’m not invalidating what you’re feeling. I am sure that you’re right. She loves you though. Before you came here, all she ever talked about was wanting to spend more time with you, going back to see you, Facetiming you.”

You shake your head. You didn’t come here to be told that you’re loved. You came here to feel a little bit less chained down. 

“No, she doesn’t, or she doesn’t show it remotely. She doesn’t pick me up from school. She forgets me or stopped caring because she’s busy looking after Kristie or busy being worried about the baby, stressing about the baby. It’s all they talk about. It’s all they care about. It’s the shiny new toy, and I’m the old one at the back of the wardrobe that’s all broken and disgusting. I’m the last option. I’m the last option at Chelsea, the last option at home, the last option for everybody, and I can’t physically handle it. I’m done constantly being left on the fucking sidelines of life whilst everybody else plays.”

Caitlin nods. She listens. It’s what you need. You just need to feel listened to. 

“Your sister should be focusing more on you. She doesn’t realise that you didn’t move for independence like she did. When we moved for football for the first time, it was because we finally wanted independence. We wanted freedom. We wanted to feel like adults. You want to feel supported, want to feel like you’re a part of a family. You’re feeling that whilst your sister is simultaneously beginning to start her own family, and that’s scary. I would be scared by that if I were you. You’re seeing the cementation of new roots, and in your eyes, you don’t fit into the foundation that they’re building. There’s one thing that hasn’t changed about your sister since we were 18, and that is the fact that she’s a little bit unobservant. She doesn’t do small feelings. She does the big ones. She doesn’t understand the anxieties that you’re experiencing because she doesn’t experience them. Also, whether you want to admit it or not, I think you might be a little bit jealous of this baby. You didn’t get to spend your childhood with your sister. That was stripped from you when she moved away. This baby gets all the attention and all the love and doesn’t get left behind, and that’s tough.”

You are a little dumbstruck for words. It’s been hard to pinpoint all of your feelings, and yet Caitlin has just laid them all out in front of you.

“I’m not jealous of the fetus.”

Caitlin snorts, a proper snort that has you in fits of giggles. 

“Not even a little bit?” 

You shake your head defiantly. It’s easier to deny than admit it. 

“Because think about it. This time you’re like the older sister. That kid won’t want to be spending time with Kristie and Sam. It’ll be fawning over you from day one. Babies take a village. I know you feel on the outs right now, but when that baby comes, it’ll change.”

It’s easy to say that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but in your opinion, there really isn’t. You can’t see any future where you feel any less of a misfit. 

“It’s not just Sam though. It’s everywhere. I don’t have friends, not at Chelsea. I’m my sister’s shadow, I always have been, but since the move, it’s been worse. I can’t make friends at school. I’m there purely to go to class, and I miss half of them anyways. Everyone at Chelsea sees me as my sister. I’m just an extension of her. Everything I do that is any good is because of her. Nobody can see past it.”

Caitlin didn’t have a quick answer for you. Your eyes burned with angry, hot tears. They were yet to spill, but they were on the brink, and it was impossible to ignore. 

“I can’t get away from my sister’s shadow, and it would be fine if I felt like I was a byproduct of her, if she spent every waking moment helping me be that way. But she hasn’t. It’s all been me. It’s been my hard work, my own push. Sure, she’s helped me into environments that have made me better, but it’s been my hard work. She hasn’t done shit, and yet all anybody says is that I’m good because of her, that I’m just a result of my sister’s influence. I’ll always be a shadow of her to everyone, even her.”

It’s a cathartic feeling. The tears slip down your face. You push and scratch at your cheeks, trying to remove the evidence, but it’s obvious. It’s ugly. It’s everything that’s been building. 

Caitlin doesn’t say anything. She just walks around the counter and gives you a big hug. 

“You are a lot more than your sister, and if people don’t recognise that, then you should be getting away from that, taking a break. You deserve to feel like your own person because you are.”

You don’t have anything left to say. You’ve laid it all out, and it feels good, but there isn’t any change. Venting is good, but when you’re going to go back to it all, it doesn’t truly matter. You’re stuck in the prison of your life, and there is no escaping. 

“I’m sure you’re exhausted. How about you go and take a nap before dinner? Refresh and let your mind rest, and we can regroup, okay? I promise you we can find a solution to some of this.”

You nod; you are feeling tired. It’s been hard to sleep at the apartment with Kristie constantly getting up during the night to hurl her guts. 

Caitlin’s guest room is warm, it’s nice, it’s virtually the same as your room at home, and yet it feels so much more welcoming. It doesn’t take you long to drift off. 

When you wake up, it’s very clear that quite a few hours have passed. Not only is it completely black, but the sleep in your eyes and fogginess in your head is enough of an indicator that what was going to be a quick nap had turned into something a lot longer. The edges of your vision are hazy and blurred as you blink your way back into consciousness. You don’t want to get up, not at all. It would be so much easier to just stay where you are, forever. Just stay lying in bed and warm and cozy, comfortable. You didn’t get to where you were today, though, by allowing yourself to be comfortable. 

So begrudgingly, you pulled yourself out of the bed, still dressed head to toe in a Chelsea tracksuit and hoodie. It really did feel illegal amongst all of the Arsenal memorabilia in every corner, and on every wall of the house, it only made you feel like more of a dichotomy. 

Your stomach began to rumble as you walked down the stairs to the kitchen. You were sure that you must have missed dinner but hoped that maybe something had been left aside to tide you over. 

You could hear murmurs coming from the kitchen, and in your state of half-awakeness, you’d put it down as being Caitlin and Katie. 

You were off guard, and that’s why you’d been more shocked than you thought possible when you walked into the kitchen and your sister was seated in the exact same place you’d been sat a couple of hours ago. Immediately, both Caitlin and your sister’s eyes were on you, them both seeming just as surprised as you. 

You were ready to bolt, but Caitlin’s voice stopped you.

“Your sister came to talk to you. She was worried when you weren’t home tonight for dinner.”

You roll your eyes, if you’d moved out a month ago Sam wouldn’t have noticed. 

“We haven’t had dinner together in months, don’t lie to my face. You called her, you fucking called her, I trsuted you with something and you called her.”

Sam looked like she was going to butt in but Caitlin stopped her. 

“Okay, yes I called her. Because I was worried but also mad and I wanted to fix that. I’m going to leave you two to sort this out.”

Caitlin started to walk towards you and out of the kitchen, you couldn’t help but clutch for her hand as she walked away. 

“It’s going to be fine. Trust me and listen to what she says and tell her how you feel. She came here to fix things, or start to fix things.”

Caitlin closes the kitchen door leaving just you and your sister alone with each other. 

“Just because we don’t have dinner together doesn’t mean I don’t notice when you’re done. Mum would kill me if I wasn’t keeping an eye on you and let her baby sneak out.”

It was the connotation of it all, Sam didn’t care, she was doing all of this for your mum. 

“I’m so sorry mum decided to burden you with my presence.”

Your sister exhales, like she’s trying to keep control, because she feels she has to. 

“That’s not what I meant. You matter just as much to me as you do to mum.”

Rich. Really rich coming from her. 

“Oh yeah, so that’s why mum calls me everyday to ask me about my day and how I’m doing and you just exist beside me. When was the last time you talked to me about anything besides football or the baby or Kristie? When was the last time you did anything with me that wasn’t related to football. When was the last time you asked me anything about my life or even acted like you cared?”

Sam exhales again, and breathes in like she’s trying to suck in every bit of oxygen in the room. 

“It’s not like that.”

You didn’t want to be angry about all of this, sad, disheartened, depressed. You could deal with that, but anger was so much harder. 

“Oh tell me how it is then. I know you didn’t ask to be looking after your teenage sister fulltime but you could at least pretend like my presence isn’t a complete burden to you. I fucking idolised you my whole childhood, when we had dress up days at school I would always dress up as you. I’ve always wanted to be you, and I was fine with everybody putting me into the box of Sam Kerr’s sister, I didn’t care, if anything it was the best feeling in the world. I didn’t care about being your shadow when you were my favourite person. But now that I’m here you’ve wrecked it all. You don’t have to tell me that I don’t fit into your picture perfect life, I’m well aware. I just didn’t expect you to treat me like fucking shit. I’m sick of it, I want to go home, I’d rather jeopardise my football career by going back then deal with anymore of this.”

Sam looks like she’s about to start crying and it feels good, you want her to feel what you are feeling, you want her to feel an inch of what you’ve been feeling for the past months. 

“You aren’t a burden to me. Not at all.”

You scoff, you aren’t a burden but she just opts to forget your existence, makes a lot of sense. 

“Okay so am I a ghost then? Do I have the ability to turn invisible and nobody has told me about it because you sure fucking act like I’m not here 95% of the time.”

Your sister stands up and starts to walk towards you and you immediately move. You don’t want touch or hugs or whatever she’s going to offer. 

“I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel that way. I’m really sorry.”

You really don’t know what to say to that. It’s a step forward but it doesn’t do anything, saying sorry is good and well but it doesn’t change an action. 

“I thought you came here for independence. God mum made it out like you were going to blow perth up if she didn’t get you out soon enough. I’ve wanted to be close to you since you were born, you were the light in all of our lives. Then you were here and I underestimated what it was going to be like but it was awesome and just having you in the house made it all so much better. Kristie and I had always wanted kids but having you around just made it seem like it would be the right fit, you have made our lives so much better. So, we started the process and it was all I could think about. I was your age when mum had you, I got to see you take your first steps and grow your first tooth and I thought it would be good for you to have the same experience. I just didn’t get how much time it would take up and how consumed with it I would get. You don’t deserve to feel this way, you don’t deserve to not feel cared for. I love you more than anybody else, I would put down anything for you, without a question. I haven’t made it seem that way recently but it’s true. You’re my priority, you always have been and you always will be. I don’t want you to go back home, having you here has been the best thing that has ever happened. I don’t know how i;m going to fix this but I’m going to. I’ll maker the changes, I’ll talk to Kristie, I’ll spend more time with you like I did before.”

So many feelings, so little words. 

“You don’t get me. I don’t want you to give up time, Kristie is the love of your life, this baby is going to be your kid. Your kid, not your sister, your kid. I don’t want you to detest me because I take away moments from your life.”

Sam shakes her head. 

“You are just as big a part of my life as anything else is. You fit into it all, if I haven’t amde you feel that way that is completely my fault.”

It’s nice to hear her say that, it’s nice to feel accepted even if it’s just for a second. 

“It’s not just that. I am literally your shadow. I don’t have any friends at Chelsea, everyone thinks I’m good because of you. Kerr is plastered everywhere and I’m just synonymous with all of your achievements. I don’t get to be me, the only difference is the different first name letter on our jerseys. I’m a good football player, because of me, not because of you. I’m sick of everyone telling me that I have a good right foot because my sister is Sam Kerr, or that I must have gotten my good defending skills from practicing with you. Everything has to be because of you, and I can’t handle it. I don’t have any friends that aren’t yours, my life is a by product of yours and I’m done with it being that way.”

This time when Sam takes a step towards you, you don’t immediately step away. Her presence doesn’t bother you, it’s the look on her face. 

“Okay, we can fix that. You want to quit? Move clubs? Go on Loan? I can talk to everyone at the club and make changes. Wew can change jerseys, you can have your first name and not last name. You should spend some extra time with the younger girls, stop feeling restricted by what I do and don’t do and just live your life. I’ll tell everuone how much of a fuckup I am and how you are skilled because of you. Whatever you want, I am here to support it. I haven’t done that enough recently and it needs to change, I want to make you my complete priority. No more forgetting you because I’m being selfish and only thinking about myself. My asshat behaviour ends now, I promise. What do you want, I will try my hardest to help you get it. I can call our agent right now and you can be playing in a different country.”

You shake your head, a small smile working it’s way to the corners of your mouth at your sisters franticness. 

“I don’t know, I have no fucking clue what I want. I just want you to know, I want help, I want to not feel like shit everyday just because of who I am.”

Sam nods, and reaches out for you. The hug is easy, it’s cathartic, you feel so much pressure releasing from your body as her arms tighten around you. 

“Okay, I can do that. We can do that. You and me yeah, you and me against the world.”

It’s not even close to fixed, your life hasn’t changed. But the overall weight, the soul crushing pressure of it all fades. You don’t trust, you don’t trust her to make changes. She hasn’t earnt that trust but you hope, you fucking hope that maybe something is going to happen. 

[meowse]

dragon age thoughts because i’m losing my mind. i need to know if i’m delusional about this because there’s a certain thing that FEELS like a retcon but i’m starting to wonder if i’ve misread the series entirely.

VEILGUARD ENDING spoilers under the cut, please don’t look if you haven’t finished the game.

Does the veil staying intact (forever onward apparently) being treated as a good thing feel like a retcon to anyone else?

Solas made it very clear in the previous game that the ones who suffered most from the Veil going up are not just the elves, but the spirits. They’re essentially trapped in the Fade and they don’t understand why, and the desire to exist in the physical world is what often transforms them into demons. It’s a huge part of the overarching plot in this series, and each game has humanized (for lack of a better term) spirits more and more, characterizing them more and more like actual people. We have it with Justice in Awakening, then Anders/Justice, then Cole’s human manifestation, and now Spite/Lucanis living in harmony.

Prior to release, I had thought we were moving in the direction of Rook having to be convinced Solas was right about the Veil needing to come down, but that they’d be the one to find another solution. When we found out about what Solas and Mythal did to the titans and a solution to help them was immediately suggested by the team, I thought that would be the direction we went. Ultimately leading to the end of the blights AND the veil. But it never went anywhere.

At the end of the day, the story really is just about everyone… moving on and keeping things the way they are even though the way things are freaking sucks? Sure, absolutely none of the things that suck about Thedas get covered in this game, but I did not think this was what these games were about, it just feels like the retcon of a huge, huge plot arc. Did I just misunderstand it? Am I losing my mind here?

[ultfreakme]

I can't believe I'm saying this. It burns me to say this. But holy fuck the people were right Sakura is annoying. It takes very little to convince me to like a female character and far too much to make me get anywhere near dislike. I don't think I've ever.....actively hated a female character. Ever. I've watched a lot of shonen anime and often, the female characters are not treated well but I've never once looked at a character and gone "you're hopeless". (I watched Fairy Tail for a solid 3 years and read the manga, and all my faves were the girls).

Every one of them had something.

I thought I'd walk away from Naruto liking Sakura and seeing her potential but she just. Sucks. This is not the first time I've engaged with a story with badly written female characters. I used to watch Supernatural and Teen Wolf for god's sake.

Usually, sexist writing leads to underdeveloped female characters for whom obvious plots go unaddressed. This frustration and general lack of involvement in plot + audience misogyny often leads to female characters being hated. But personally, none of these have ever made me hate them because when writers write them, regardless of future exploration, they are written to be likeable.

They don't WANT you to hate the character, so they are given base-level compelling motives and personality traits, shallow as they may be.

Sakura through and through is written like we're supposed to hate her. Naruto as a show is so focused on empathy. Talk No Jutsu might be boring and often misses the point, but it exists to emphasize Naruto's ability to reach out. The show's all about friendship, camaraderie, and loyalty to one another. Sakura is none of those things.

I truly began hating her when Five Kage Summit happened because of two things:

Her confession to Naruto

The way she talks about her feelings towards Sasuke

In both these cases, she seems to think she has both of them all figured out and centers herself, start to finish. She makes that fake confession to Naruto because she took Sai's word for why Naruto was doing it. Shizune said Naruto was doing it for Sasuke and not because of her, Sai doesn't KNOW any of them on a deeper level, and Naruto's her teammate who she's known for a while.

Yet she went with "oh he's just doing it for me". And okay fine I can sorta forgive it. But the confession itself was so shallow. She sounded like she was trying to be sincere but all she could talk about was how Naruto was a hero worthy of acknowledgement now that he had proven himself through achieving an impossible feat. She's confirming all of Naruto's worst fears and the source of his anger while thinking she understands him. She was spinning her actual thoughts regarding him into a love confession- and her actual thoughts are she thought he was a fool who knew nothing but is cool now because he's gained status.

Then with Sasuke, she gets a whole episode dedicated to thinking about him as she chased him down. I thought we might finally know why she was so dedicated to him.

The answer, in canon, as Sakura herself says is because she thought he was hot and cool. When she looked past it, all she saw was "darkness" that disgusted her. She thinks Naruto is trying to beat the darkness out of him. The only thing she sees in Sasuke is his physical appearance, which she likes, and this nebulous "darkness" which does not even want to try to understand.

She doesn't remember his kindness, his smile, his empathy, his willingness to put his life on the line for those he treasures. None of it, even though she was there to witness most of this.

She so hilariously and embarrassingly misunderstands both of her teammates who she apparently cherishes with such blind confidence it's hilarious. She's WRITTEN, INTENTIONALLY, to be shallow as fuck and uncaring for either of her teammates true feelings. She makes an assumption and runs with it, with zero urges to examine it.

She doesn't ask about Itachi when Naruto said the name in front of her during the bridge scene, she's not curious about him, she never initiates in trying to discern the situation. The person she evolves into in the future is also disgusting to me. Like she's such a nothing-burger of a character who exists to highlight Naruto & Sasuke's bond by showing how distant she is to either of them.

And this is not because of combat strength. Sasuke has openly expressed his dislike towards her because she has no spine. She says she'll kill whoever as a 12 year old on Sasuke's request. And she's exactly the fucking same when she hits 16. He hates liars and people with no conviction. Sasuke values strength but he also values integrity, intellect and tenacity. Karin is objectively far weaker than Sakura and he respects her. Same for Cat Baa-Chan and a lot of other characters. It genuinely doesn't take much to gain, at the very least, Sasuke's fundamental respect. Just believe in something and don't fucking breach his boundaries.

Sakura is so dismissive of his trauma and is wet noodle of a person with no ideology or goal beyond him, of fucking course he's annoyed by her.

idk her character is so fucking annoying after a point

[brucewaynehater101]

Space Emperor Tim decides to take a break from Earth. He fills out the paperwork that he developed as Robin for official on break status. He fills out the paperwork for vacation from WE. He finishes his active cases and very valiantly restrains himself from taking up new ones. His version of vacation reading is a file cabinet of cold cases so he puts those together for his personal entertainment for his vacation. He sublets his civilian apartment. He makes rigged bets with Jason, Dick, and Stephanie to get them to watch over his part of Gotham while he's gone.

Then he, Kon, Cassie, and Bart jump in the spaceship and head for the empire. They have new costumes to show off and laugh at one another about. They are going to decompress and Cassie will be searching the empire for a therapist for each of them. While she understands Tim's reluctance, Gothamite, she would like the team birb to at least get some healthier coping mechanisms figured out. She would honestly like all of them to have some better coping mechanisms.

The thing is though that Tim never actually, verbally told anyone he was going anywhere, much less leaving earth. The only one who did actively let anyone on earth know was Cassie, she told her mom and she let Greta, Anita, and Cissie know. All four have been promised souvenirs. Mrs. Sandsmark let Diana know that Cassie would be on vacation and unavailable for hero things for a bit. Kon is distant from the Kents, if they even know he exists given Clark's hot and cold attitude towards him, but to be polite Kon left a letter for Ma and Pa that he was going on vacation with his team. Bart's guardian situation is also very up in the air so he didn't bother to tell anyone. All the Bats are in the dark. Only Young Justice even knows that Bart has a spaceship. And turns out that Tim is the only one who uses his official on a break paperwork. And Bruce never read any of his (very edited) reports from his time with Young Justice.

The first clue that the Bats get that Tim isn't actually there in Gotham is from a reporter who asks Brucie how Tim is doing on his vacation?

Meanwhile Tim and his life partners are touring the empire and they've added another planet. And there's an imperial design contest for the best palace for the empire because the empire is hoping that if their baby has his own home here in the empire instead of living out of his ship or using the residences of their former leaders, he might stay for longer periods of time or be there physically more often. Tim is trying to discourage the palace thing as a waste of resources and get people to design gardens instead. Bart may or may not be conspiring with scientists to create a Death Star without the planet destroying capabilities as his own entry to the imperial palace contest. Kon is making sure Tim doesn't notice Bart's plans by dragging Tim through markets and looking for the best examples of ugly-cute baby emperor and consorts merchandise. So far the winner is a set of dishes and each piece has what is presumably their very stylized faces on them. Cassie is taking her turn of being the imperial bodyguard and making sure none of their fans get too overzealous. She is absolutely getting the dishes for the people back home.

Fuck. I love this so much.

Also, referring to YJ as Tim's life partners??? Yes. Absolutely. Idc if people ship them or just see them as a queerplatonic poly relationship. They are for sure life partners. That's the most adequate description for the four of them. Even if some of them choose to date some of the others, if they all date each other, or none date each other, they have a very special bond. No matter the distance or time apart, they are life partners. Gods, I'm vibing with that description so much.

Anyways, Tim being the only one to fill out his vacation/time off paperwork makes so much sense. I also hc that half of the reason he "hides" so much is just that he forgets he has to inform people of shit. He's so used to not telling people what's going on with him that he legitimately gets surprised when they get mad or worried at him because of it. He also goes out of his way to keep tabs on his loved ones and doesn't quite understand why he would need to inform them since they don't need to tell him about their plans. For this hc, I think that YJ had some bumps with this tendency of Tim until they worked out that they just need to ask him. They have a gc where they will ask Tim questions to keep everyone up to date.

Also, hell yeah to the merch and plates ideas. I wonder how YJ is going to explain where they got plates of the core four's faces (since some folks, perhaps Dick, will ask where to get more).

If Tim did request for gardens, I'd love to see what different ones look like. Since they are alien planets, they probably have different ecological systems. They would also have separate ideas on what's considered "beautiful" or worth keeping in a garden-like exhibit.

Thank you for also going in-depth on Kon, Bart, and Cassie's backgrounds. It was cool seeing how they communicated with their respective social groups

[lemotmo]

I love winning.

Q. It's damage control. Nothing more. They're attractive men who they know people will find physically appealing. They're being sent out to hype up the show, alleviate the anger of Bobby being killed off and show the audience that they're platonic partners on a silly firefighter show. These interviews will include the two of them telling everyone that they're not the onscreen ship the audience will be seeing and they will be telling people it will be okay to move onto and love the BuckTommy relationship the show is clearly building towards. Ryan/Eddie will literally be giving his blessing for people to enjoy it. Thatbwill lead into the Oliver and Lou press tour. I'm stunned none of you seem to be able to recognize what's happening here.

A. I was absolutely going to ignore this insane level of denial, but you keep sending it so I'm going to address it. The PR tactic you seem to think you're explaining here doesn't exist. This is not how PR works. There is no network publicist, PR department, or executive anywhere in existence who would try to sell a different onscreen pairing this way. Because it's insanely ridiculous and laughably ineffective. You don't trot out two actors with insane natural chemistry to do interviews like Buzzfeed thirst tweets that will undoubtedly put that chemistry on maximum display only to then have those same actors say 'but we're not the pairing you're going to get. Nope, you're getting the opposite of this. Enjoy!'. That's simply not how any of this works. And I know at least some part of you knows that. Stop it. You don't purposely choose to showcase the chemistry of one ship only to turn around and say yeah this isn't the ship you're getting. You're getting the birthmark guy(rip my poor Oliver he's going to have to explain to millions of new people that it's just a birthmark) with a person he can't stand to be in the same room with unless someone has yelled action. A person he has such non-existent chemistry with, and such obvious dislike towards that we can't even let them do promo together. Aren't you excited?!

That's not a thing that exists on any level in the world of PR. You don't highlight the gold standard and then tell your audience they're getting the gangue (look it up) version instead. Most of the cast will be doing end of season interviews. We already found out that Oliver and Aisha did a SiriusXM interview of some kind as well yesterday. But the stuff they're sending Oliver and Ryan to do is markedly different in tone to anything else they have ever done before. That's the point and that's intentional. The Spill the Tea segment for Entertainment Tonight is specifically designed for duos, yes many are platonic pairings, but many are not. And since the segment won't air until after the finale, when the audience will have discovered that Bobby is alive, Angela and Peter would have made the most sense to get that particular interview. We didn't need to know about its existence prior to the finale. They could have filmed it and none of us needed to be the wiser until it aired. But ABC specifically wanted Oliver and Ryan for it. And they specifically wanted the audience to be aware it was happening. There's a reason for that. But the Buzzfeed interview is a major deal. I cannot stress that enough. It's insane that Oliver Stark and Ryan Guzman are getting a Buzzfeed interview. Not only are they getting it, they're getting the thirst tweets interview. They're going to be reading thirst tweets about Buck and Eddie out loud to one another. That is ABC fully embracing the shipping of the two characters. That is the opposite of what a network would want to do if the goal was to ultimately put those characters with other people. Buzzfeed used the Buddie hashtag to promote the interview. It's about Buddie. They didn't say Ryliver. They said Buddie. Oliver and Ryan have always been so careful about how they engage with Buddie fandom content specifically to avoid the baiting accusations, and they were correct to do that, but ABC has told them to embrace it. ABC has taken the training wheels off and are going to let their chemistry do its natural thing. You don't do that if the end goal is not to put the two characters together. At minimum the season is ending with a really significant Buddie hint. That is the only explanation for a thirst tweet interview. It would be asinine to do it under any other circumstances. I'm sorry you let Lou and a person who named themselves after cheese trick you into believing something else was going on here, but it's not. The level of Buddie exposure ABC is doing is a game changer and it's happening for a reason.

Thank you Nonny! Much appreciated!!!

Yeah, this ask was just insane. Why on Earth would two actors who play a heavily shipped pairing on a TV-show do promos for another less popular ship????

Wouldn't they just have the actors of the less popular ship do promo to expose them to the public? Make sure that people understand where this is going????

What kind of mind gymnastics do you have to do to reach a conclusion like this? I don't understand this.

Anyway...

Buddie is happening. Deal with it. 🤷‍♀️🤗

IMPORTANT! Please don't repost this ask and/or a link that leads straight to my Tumblr account on Twitter or any other social media. Thank you!

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Remember, no hate in comments, reblogs or inboxes. Let's keep it civil and respectful. Thank you.

If you are interested in more of Ali’s posts, you can find all of her posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.

[noodle-is-unstable]

JJK Characters and their Readers Vibes

Ft ~ Satoru Gojo, Suguru Geto, Kento Nanami, Toji Fushiguro, Ryoumen Sukuna, Choso, Takuma Ino, Shiu Kong, Uraume, Yuki Tsukumo, Shoko Ieiri, Mahito

Synopsis ~ Just the personalities/how I envision the reader for each character

Content Warning ~ None? Idk

Original Ask

Gojo ~

Needs a soft love. Reader is someone that reassures him CONSTANTLY that they still love him and don't find him annoying. He needs someone that will match his gooey and over the top love style. Someone, soft, patient, and just as obsessed with him as he is to them. Unmatched Co-dependency and go everywhere together. If they aren't breathing the same air they're too far away

Geto ~

He needs a challenge. Reader will push back and put up a bit of a fight, especially when he's being hard headed. He loves with his whole heart and excepts the same. Some bullying vibes on both ends but it's more loving teasing. It isn't necessary to always be doing the same thing but there's normally some for of physical contact. Grabbing his shirt, his feet under your legs, fingers just barely touching, just some form of connection

Nanami ~

He wants someone level headed but goofy. Reader is the only person that keeps a smile on his face and makes him laugh. Reader become his world, his star, what his day revolves around and they feel the same. He wants someone he can peacefully co-exist with. Talking, touching, and being around each other 24/7 isn't needed, it's enough to just be in the same area.

Toji ~

He needs someone so insane, he's the normal one. Not judging him for his line of work because Reader does the same thing. If he's hard headed they're a brick wall. Reader looks at him like he's the only person in the world though. He never has to get jealous because they only have eyes for him. He is the light of their life, but Toji feels the same. Secretly co-dependent. Will never actually say it but if either gets up to go somewhere the other silently gets up to follow. The only time either leaves the house alone is for work and even then they work together a lot

Sukuna ~

Badass. His world revolves around strength and only the strong are worthy, Reader is strong. Reader has no fear and told him to fuck off the first time they met. He tried to kill the reader but just couldn't? Has been obsessed with them ever sense. They are warm, soft and kind until something happens and it's like a switch flicks and they are just as crazy as Sukuna. Also completely unbothered by his cannibalism or murdering. Has no desire to "fix him" will just match his freak. They spend most of the day apart but the second they're together again they are trying to fuse together with how close they are

Choso ~

He needs someone patient and kind. He's new to the world and needs someone that can slowly explain thing or answer his questions as he learns. Reader never so much as raises their voice even if they are pissed at Choso. Soft, loving and delicate. Reader treats him like a wet cat and will handle him with care, in return he gives unconditional love. They would live in each others skin if possible and are always going everything together. Complete package deal

Ino ~

Best friends turned lovers vibes. Reader and Ino may have been friends since childhood or just met a week ago but it's like they've known each other forever. Sarcasm and bullying are their love language while also constantly being obsessed with each other. Completely just two best 'bro' friends with benefits and love. They don't need to be together all the time but they just like it. They're each others safe space and peace and would rather game together than be anywhere else

Shiu ~

He likes them crazy. He didn't think he did until he met Reader though. The way Reader is completely and unapologetically themselves, even if they are insane, melts his heart and hardens his cock. Reader has no filter, if they think it, they say it and he likes the fact he doesn't have to play games with them. He also likes that Reader is his scary dog privilege. He can sleep soundly knowing the world would burn down and world war 3 would start before he was ever hurt. Emotionally or physically. They aren't in touching distance at all times but he knows Reader always has his location, or some form of eyes on him

Uraume ~

They need someone that will gently pull them out of their comfort zone. They need someone that understands they aren't the most expressive person and won't take offense to it. Slight sun and moon opposite vibes. If Uraume won't talk, reader will talk for them. Reader is absolutely a "They said no pickles" kind of person for Uraume. Reader likes to push Uraume but not in a way to make them uncomfortable. Uraume acts like they don't need or want affection but Reader knows better and will always pull Uraume onto their lap or hold their hand.

Yuki ~

Likes a bit of a challenge. Someone that will sass her and won't let her get away with everything. Reader takes charge in the streets but Yuki is in charge in the sheets. Reader will actively be arguing with Yuki with their head in her lap as she plays with your hair. Adventurous and up for anything they are chasing sunsets together and jumping into the ocean with their clothes on. They don't need each other but they want each other. They enjoy being close but can also spend weeks apart

Shoko ~

Reader is Gojo coded. Loud, excitable, bubbly ball of energy. Reader is probably best friends with Gojo actually. Reader and Shoko balance each other out. Shoko is more level headed, calm and it takes a lot to get a reaction. Reader is childish, excitable and gives big reactions to everything. She likes the excitement and unpredictability reader brings while she brings reader back down to earth and keeps them grounded. Reader will always want to be touching and holding Shoko, she's indifferent to it but enjoys their time together

Mahito ~

He is a little menace and needs someone that will keep him in line and put him in his place. He's low-key scared of reader but he likes the fear. Reader comes off as standoffish but is just very cool and level headed. Reader gives Mahito a soft, patient, gentle love but comes off very monotone and indifferent. Reader is very calculated and enjoys the chaos Mahito brings to everything. Mahito will do anything for Reader. ANYTHING. Mahito would live in Readers skin if he could without killing them. Reader isn't vocal about it but cares very deeply for him and is working on changing the world for him. Also enjoys the fact he acts like their shadow and follows them around

[noparadiseinthis]

English is not my first language. Bear with me, Grammarly helps, but it doesn't work miracles

Series: Come away, O human child! Part 2:

She dreamed of paradise

Spencer Reid/fem!Reader

Read part 1 here.

Warnings: explicit domestic violence and abusive relationships. Descriptions of physical violence. Reader is married and has a child.

Summary: Spencer sees a mark on you. He decides that if no one is going to do anything about it, then he will. If only he can convince you to accept help.

Steve was strangely calm on the way home. He had asked the sheriff for permission to take you and Willy away during his lunch break with the excuse that he was worried about the disappearance of women that had been happening in town, just like an ideal husband, but you knew the real reason, he wanted to keep an eye on you.

"Well?" he asked, taking his eyes off the road for a second to look at you.

You knew it was best to let him speak first, so you waited for Steve to start, no matter how tense you were.

"The FBI guy, what did he want?"

"Nothing much, he was just playing with Will, he knew magic tricks."

You didn't mention the terror you felt when you saw that your son wasn't by your side, he could never relate to that, he could never understand the deep emptiness that existed inside you when Will wasn't around. He was all the light you needed.

"And you let some stranger talk to our son? I can't leave you two alone anyway."

Sometimes you didn't quite understand Steve's intentions, even though you knew there was a reason behind everything.

"He's FBI, isn't he?"

It was a risky move, rebutting what he was saying. Luckily for you, it seemed to be a good day, because he did nothing but raise an eyebrow and snort.

"I don't want you two anywhere near that guy."

You just nodded, distracted as you wondered what was so special about Dr. Reid that Steve reacted like that, your curiosity piqued. Was he trying to push you away from one more person before any bonding had even begun? Surely he couldn't have been afraid that you would turn him in since you had already understood a long time ago that no one would help you or even give you a second glance. If I could go back in time, I would have run as soon as Steve showed interest in joining the police. A bunch of conniving vibrators, they were.

"We'll never see him again," you reassured him.

"Well," your husband muttered, "you know why I do it. I have to protect my family."

With a silly, fake smile on your face, you agreed as you stroked his arm, looking through the rearview mirror at Will sleeping in the back seat. You could do this for another 13 years, right? Just hang in there.

•••

Spencer gathered his things from the table, putting them in his bag as he prepared to go to the hotel, hoping to get a good night's sleep and work with more focus and renewed vigor the next day. He spent the rest of the day reliving his interaction with you down to the smallest detail, remembering and recalling her tone of voice, her posture, and her submission when her husband appeared. If was right, his name was Steve.

The policeman in question left the police station for an hour and returned soon after, casting long glances at Spencer, none like yours, who followed him to his hotel room, until he laid his head on the pillow and far beyond that, invading his dreams.

•••

5 days in the same city was a lot on the Spencer scale. Enough to make the UNSUB profile, but not enough to capture him. He lived in the shadows, preying on the most vulnerable people in that small, broken society that was your little town: the women. More specifically, the housewives. Spencer spent these days wondering if you had any job.

"What the hell?" He heard Morgan's voice exclaim with surprise, raising her head to look at the source. That's when spotted William, wandering around outside the glass-walled room they were in. The boy walked between the tables as if he belonged there, but stood out from his surroundings. "Who is he?"

"Cop Steve's son." Spencer murmured, attracting the attention of his colleagues.

"Do you know him? How?" JJ asked.

Spencer shrugged. "Kids like magic. He came here a few days ago, must have run away from his mom again. I thought Morgan had seen him before."

"Well, I didn't see. There's something strange about that boy's father-" Turning away as he spoke, Derek was interrupted by the sound of the door opening and a child's voice shouting happily.

"Dr. Reid!"

As if it were second nature, Spencer rose from his seat to kneel in front of the child and greeted him back with a smile.

"Hey, Willy," he held up his open palm, which made the boy laugh and high-fived him, "What are you doing here, kid?"

"Mom came to bring Dad's lunch again, but I wanted to see you."

Spencer sighed with an understanding smile, looking around at his classmates who stared rather shocked at their very natural interaction.

"And does your mom know you're with me?"

The look he shifted to the floor said everything the doctor needed to know.

"You can't just disappear, young man. Do you know where she is?"

Will nodded. "In the big room with Daddy."

Spencer looked at Hotch, who understood immediately and sighed tiredly before nodding and nodding towards the door, permitting him to leave.

"Let's find her then, shall we?"

William walked out hand in hand with the man, leaving Spencer shocked that a policeman's son was so ill-educated, regardless of his age. Children could be sociable. They should be. That didn't exclude all the evil that lurked outside the house - or inside - the boy seemed the pure image of naivety. Worrying. He couldn't tell you why he cared so much.

"So, Willy, why did you split up with Mom? You heard what she said, she gets worried when you disappear like that."

"Because they were starting over."

"Starting what?" Reid asked, frowning and looking down to see the child's face, who didn't answer. "Starting what, William?" he asked again.

•••

"How did you manage to lose sight of him? For God's sake, this is a police station!" Steve exclaimed furiously, although he growled quietly. He didn't believe in announcing his problems to the world.

"I let go of his hand for a second and he disappeared!" You retorted, your eyes watering as you thought about what he could have gotten himself into this time. "It's not my fault," you continued, hugging your body as if trying to convince yourself.

Your husband snorted, scorn appearing on his face as he approached, and suddenly any courage you had was thrown out of the window. You looked around, at the walls that gave you so little privacy. We're in public, you thought, like a mantra. He didn't do anything in public. He didn't do anything in public. He grabbed your arm. Moreover, his nails dug in, forcing and tearing at your skin as his instinct acted and tried to pull your arm back, but he held back. As he always did. Apart from the pain, all you could think about was what a bad idea it was to wear short sleeves that day.

"What good are you anyway, if you can't even look after my son properly?"

Your eyes were injected with rage and you swallowed, watching the face of the man you once thought would make you the happiest woman in the world. The man who promised you the world while hugging you in a college dormitory bathroom and holding a pregnancy test with a small smile on his face. Eyes crinkled with joy as he stroked your still flat belly and whispered such sweet things. A time when you thought you could face anything as long as you had him by your side. You no longer saw any of that in the man in front of you. He ripped any last shred of hope from your cold, dead hands and then made you dig your own emotional grave, as deep as his nails could go into your skin. You barely felt the pain anymore. You didn't even feel anything, until you heard the familiar voice of the light of your life, pulling you out of that dark pit as it always did.

Quickly, Steve retracted his arm, taking a deep breath and swallowing as he turned to where he had heard his son's voice, his nostrils flaring as he saw who was with him.

•••

Spencer never got a verbal answer to his question from William, but he didn't need one. The scene in front of him said it all, and from the way the boy squeezed his hand tighter, he could tell that Will knew there was something wrong between his parents. Fortunately, the boy was too short to have the same field of vision as Reid. Luckily, he hadn't seen the terrified look on his mother's face, let alone his father's aggressive grip.

Will shouting "Mommy" and letting go of your hand to run to you provided him with a new horizon. It brought back memories. That of trying to be a mediator within a broken family, even in childhood.

•••

Steve never spent much time around William anyway, so when he left quickly, you didn't mind, you were relieved. Noticing that Dr. Reid wasn't going to move away, you sighed, hiding the nail mark against your own body as you watched him enter the room you were in.

"Hey, honey, want to play a little?" you asked, taking your cell phone out of your pocket and handing it to your son, who quickly agreed and went to the corner of the 'big room', as he called it, oblivious to the rest of the world.

"I never knew your name."

You snorted, wondering how that was the first thing he chose to say, but in the end, he did say your name.

"You don't have to hide it, I've already seen it." Spencer continued, making sure to speak quietly so that the child wouldn't hear them and to keep the anger out of his voice.

You swallowed, wondering what you had done to deserve two humiliations in a row on the same day, trying to force yourself to remain calm and expressionless, assessing how much of a risk the mysterious doctor could be to you or your child.

"I'm sorry about William again today, it'll never happen again."

Spencer couldn't stop himself from analyzing you, and what he saw brought him the most mixed emotions. You were profiling him too. You are a profiler for survival, someone who needs to know how to act in every situation so as not to get hurt. It made your head spin, your throat dry and your hands twitch. "It's called empathy. Use it to be a better person," Derek once told him.

"You know this is a crime; I can arrest him right now if you want; this room has cameras, and you're... you're hurt."

To his surprise, you laughed in his face. A bitter laugh. The kind he wished you'd never hear again.

"Are you an idiot, Dr. Reid?" you asked, without any humor. "Is that how you sleep best at night? Look around you, see where we are. In a police station full of men. Do you think you're the first to see something like that in me?"

Suddenly, it was as if a dam broke and you felt the uncontrollable urge to channel all your anger at Dr. Spencer Reid, pointing at the wound on his arm, the little blood already dried. This made the agent sigh. He had never really been able to understand how someone could hurt a person they had sworn to love so deeply.

"Well, the FBI wasn't here before."

You just sighed, pressing your lips together to stop a torrent of tears. He would never know that fear like you did. Even if Steve was still arrested, what would you do next? How would you be able to raise your son in a place like this, where your husband was the model citizen of the city and you were the bitch who put him in prison?

"You just don't understand. Please go away, Dr. Reid."

Go away, and don't you dare even try to give me false hope because I killed them all for my own good a long time ago, you thought.

Spencer couldn't accept that it would end like this. There had to be something, there had to be a way. Not for the first time in his life, he thought that people should come with a manual. It was time to do your job, even if you felt terrible about using your weakness against yourself.

"And is it worth it? Raising a child in such an environment?"

"I've managed to keep Will away for five years. So as long as he's safe, yes, it's worth it," you replied, your back to him.

Spencer sighed, squeezing his thigh as he cursed himself for influencing you like that. All for the greater good.

"Except that he already knows. Kids are a lot more observant than people think."

You turned like lightning.

"What are you talking about?"

You couldn't. You couldn't lose the only certainty you had in life. That Will was your sea of positivity, away from everything that was really going on at home, growing up happily, without any resentment. You swore that when he was born. It was the only promise it would kill you to break.

Spencer hated being the cause of the look of terror on his face this time, but like all the other times in his life when it was necessary, he took courage and started telling.

Taglist (if you want in or out, just let me know):

@yokaimoon @fanfic-viewer

A/n: I was wonderfully surprised by how well received the first part was. I hope you enjoy the second as much. Thank you for your support

[goodqueenaly]

Hello! What do you think Ned would do if Jon came out with the Targaryen look? Will he just pretend it's Ashara's (even if she doesn't have the silver hair) since the Daynes have a Valyrian look?

I think the answer would depend to some extent on how much of the typically Targaryen/Valyrian look Jon inherited. It’s not unknown, after all, for children of Targaryens, even those Targaryens with typically Valyrian features, to inherit only some of those features, or none at all. Compare, for example, Rhaenyra’s “Velaryon” sons, who despite their mother’s silver-gold hair and purple eyes (and the similar features of their ostensible father, Laenor) had brown hair and eyes, presumably inherited from their (almost certainly) biological father; or Princess Rhaenys, the daughter of Prince Aemon, who had her father’s lilac eyes but the typical black hair of her Baratheon maternal ancestors; or Aegor Rivers, who similarly followed his Targaryen father only in eye color, while inheriting his Bracken mother’s dark hair. So in a scenario where Jon had, say, only Rhaegar’s purple eyes, or only the aquiline nose or other stereotypically “aristocratic” features which occasionally mark Valyrian descendants, it’s possible that no onlookers would have really noticed any similarities between Jon and his unspoken Targaryen forebears. Purple eyes, especially depending on their shade, might be read as either gray or black, especially (for the latter) if Jon had the typically brown hair of the Starks; indeed, we need only to look to Jon Connington for an example, albeit in the reverse, of someone desperate enough to see a familial resemblance in a purported son to ignore the chromatic distinction between the son’s eyes and his ostensible father’s. Likewise, any Targaryen-style facial features might simply have been taken as evidence that Jon had inherited the typical long Stark face, augmented by whatever aristocratic ancestry his seemingly unknown mother may have had.

However, Jon having the full panoply of Targaryen physical traits might have been more difficult to disguise or treat as a dynastically unremarkable inheritance of Lord Eddard. To be sure, it is remotely possible that onlookers might have still assumed that Ashara could have been Jon’s mother, given that Daynes sometimes have what I might call pseudo-Valyrian features and that Westerosi familial physical features can sometimes skip generations (see, for example, Valarr Targaryen, whose streak of silver-gold in his brown hair seems to have come from his Targaryen paternal grandfather and antecedents, rather than his Martell-looking father, Prince Baelor). That of course would have been quite a tenuous assumption - to conclude that the dark-haired Ashara would have had a silver-haired child with the dark-haired Ned, simply because some Daynes have such hair - and that’s without questioning whether Ned would have wanted to encourage speculation on Ashara’s connection to Jon, where he clearly did not IOTL. I suppose it’s remotely possible someone might have guessed that Jon’s mother was, I don’t know, a random sex worker from Lys (or anywhere else in Essos where Valyrian features still exist in the general populace), but I think it would have been even more unlikely for onlookers to automatically conclude that Jon’s mother was a random Lysene sex worker that Ned simply happened to meet in Westeros, and have a relationship with, during Robert’s Rebellion.

Ultimately, I think in any scenario for baby Jon, Ned would only have had two real options: raise Jon himself, or have Howland raise Jon. Ned’s obvious devotion to Lyanna, and the unspoken promise he had given his sister, may mean that Ned was always going to bring up Jon as his own son, in his own castle (where, of course, Ned could maintain the highest level of personal control over access to, and consequently speculation on, Jon himself). In that case, if Jon had resembled his biological father Rhaegar in looks, Ned may simply have relied on the prevalent social courtesy among Westerosi aristocrats not to pry into the origins of a man’s bastard child or children. If Ned simply asserted forcefully that Jon was his extramarital son, and gave no further information or allowed further musing on the subject, perhaps he would have trusted that most onlookers would have simply taken him at his word, no matter what Jon actually looked like.

Alternately, given the extreme secrecy Ned maintained about Jon’s origins, and the very small group of people who knew the truth about those origins, only Howland, the sole other survivor of the fight at the tower of joy (and the person, outside of the Starks, who may have been personally personally closest to Lyanna), might have been trusted to take on the responsibility of raising Jon without revealing the bombshell of his parentage. In that case, if Jon had already displayed the Targaryen physical features of his biological father, perhaps Ned would have appreciated the isolation of Greywater Watch as a means of hiding Jon from the wider Westerosi world. In the Neck, having little contact with other northerners (much less the rest of Westeros), with no ravens or maester to transmit news, a Valyrian-looking supposed bastard of Ned Stark (or, indeed, supposed bastard of Howland Reed, or the child of virtually anyone else) may have gone more or less unnoticed. (No one, incidentally, better bring the “Jyana Reed is actually Ashara Dayne” nonsense into my house or I’m blocking you.)

Ultimately, I think Ned clearly had an easier time IOTL of raising Jon as (ostensibly) his bastard son because Jon shared those Stark features with Ned (and, of course, Lyanna). No one looking at Jon or hearing about him needed to wonder whether Ned had actually fathered Jon himself, since it so obviously appeared that Jon took after his “father” in looks. By choosing to have Jon look like a Stark, and not a Targaryen, the author shrouded Jon’s biological origins in mystery while also providing one in-universe reason (among others) as to why no one would actually assume Jon was the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna (not to mention, of course, the narrative and thematic impact of that choice on Jon and other characters).

[blazehedgehog]

am i the only one getting tired of Nintendo trying to make every game they make now into botw? Like, for what purpose does Mario kart really need to be open world? I get that for a long running series, you eventually need to do something to warrant a sequel, but is this really it? It’s a racing game. I just don't get it. Especially since it looks pretty empty from what we've seen anyway.

Well, to answer this we really need to break down why people care about open world games at all.

It's easy to forget now because companies like Rockstar and Bethesda have spent the better part of the last 15 years walking things back, but the original reason people loved open world games was a sense of freedom. The ability to go anywhere and do things your way.

My favorite example is Grand Theft Auto 3. An early mission in that game tells you to kill a low-level mobster that operates a strip club in Liberty City. How you do that doesn't matter; the game only checks to see if he's dead. So the game drops you and him into the open world and lets you figure out the rest. You could run him over, snipe him from a distance, maybe it starts a car chase and you race deeper into the city before catching up and finishing the job. But it's up to you and the world exists to facilitate multiple outcomes.

None of this is possible in Grand Theft Auto 5. GTA5 is to married to its cinematic presentation. A similar mission in GTA5 would see you forced to drive Michael's car to the strip club, watch a big-budget celebrity-acted cutscene, get locked inside of the strip club for a tightly-scripted shootout where you can only use Michael's guns, and if there was a car chase, it would only happen after another cutscene showed the target getting into his car, after which you'd have to drive Michael's car to chase him down. The target will always drive the same route to the same destination. At no point are you ever allowed to deviate from the script or else you will fail the mission.

Open world games used to be about letting you do things your way and the simulation surprising you with an unexpected systemic outcome. A game where you are expected to improvise when plans go south.

And this is what manifested so strongly in Breath of the Wild. A lot of Zelda games railroaded you into a specific order of dungeons, a specific progression of puzzle solving, a very gated and guided experience masquerading as a big open world. And instead, Breath of the Wild replaced all of that with a bunch of interconnected systems like physics, gravity, material simulation. Fire spreads and burns. Metal conducts electricity. Wind provides lift. Water can be frozen. Objects can be pushed, pulled, dropped, rolled, and stacked. They have weight and mass which can be imparted on other objects in the same world.

And once you understand these fundamental rules of this reality, you are free to go anywhere and accomplish any goal in whatever way you can manage to make it work. Not only are these brand new concepts for a Zelda game, they are a breath of fresh air after each new Elder Scrolls and Fallout game seems to shave off more and more complexity and lean further towards becoming another cinematic action game.

And this filters down into Mario pretty easily. I've said it before and people have rebuked me, but Super Mario 64 is kind of an open world game and it isn't too dissimilar to Grand Theft Auto. There are structural and content differences to be sure, but at the end of the day you are being turned loose in a non-linear world and can finish any mission in any order by whatever means necessary.

This was something slowly lost to the Mario franchise over time. Starting as early as Super Mario Sunshine, you are locked down and only able to get shines in specific ways and in a specific order. By Super Mario Galaxy, the open world itself is gone, simplified back down to linear levels. And by Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World, we're just fully back to classic, traditional Mario level structure, going from left to right.

Odyssey doesn't just go back to the Super Mario 64 structure, it improves on it. Collectibles are everywhere, awarded for the simple act of finding something interesting. An odd bump in the dirt? There's a collectible in there. A strange crack in the wall? There's a collectible in there. What's at the top of this tower? Probably a collectible. Again: go anywhere, do anything, and be rewarded for exploring and playing in this space naturally.

Which brings us back to Mario Kart.

Originally, I was kind of bored by open world racing games. Thinking of them in terms of a GTA, the open world map of a Forza Horizon or Burnout Paradise doesn't feel very "alive." A lot of buildings feel same-y. And racing games are about learning tracks and mastering turns.

But the thing is, that last bit does actually happen in open world racing games. By driving around the world you're learning the layout of all the streets. It's a form of long, long term prep. And I'll admit, over a long period of time, I've grown to love the open worlds of Forza Horizon and Burnout Paradise. They aren't fun in a traditional racing sense, but it's still fun to just drive around, you know? In Burnout especially. Sometimes I boot that game up not to do anything specific, but just because I want to drive around.

If the base act of just driving around in Mario Kart World is fun, then the game itself will be fun. You are basically being presented with a Mario Kart track that never ends.

And for what it's worth, we still don't know anything about the open world itself. We know about what's on the roads, sure, but we don't know anything about what's off-road. There's gotta be a reason to go out there, and they haven't talked about any of it. It's all been focused on racing. There could be collectibles out there, NPCs out there, new challenges, secrets to explore, all kinds of stuff. And they just haven't talked about it yet.

We'll know more on April 17th.

[serpentface]

How densely packed are the larger Wardin cities? Is there any notion of urban planning?

In general, there's a solid notion of urban planning in each city, but most of the major coastal cities have experienced tremendous growth of an urban commoner class in the past 200 years that has outstripped ability to adapt. These are pretty crowded places by and large and pack a lot of people into relatively small areas.

The best and worst simultaneously is Godsmouth. It actually has the most coordinated urban planning from the ground up, but the layout of the city makes Accommodation to growth very difficult. It's the only major city whose core area (which historically was The City Itself) is entirely walled, with its unwalled outskirts having grown rapidly to accommodate.

It also exhibits the polar opposite class-space stratification of most of the other cities. Wardi nobility has historically been defined upon landowning (in most cases physically occupying the land they own in defensible architecture), and as such most nobles live in the agricultural areas fringing the cities rather than in the core. Godsmouth follows the opposite pattern and is the hub for the recent (within the past two centuries) 'new money' nobility class (developed out of mercantile wealth rather than historical landowning). The architecture of the city itself is very distinctly stratified by class, with living within the innermost of two walls being a privilege reserved for the upper classes (as well as being where most major temples and governmental offices are housed). The outer walled area predominantly holds a sort of ambiguous 'middle class' (considered commoners but occupying positions of moderate material wealth) as well as most urban services/guilds, which is itself a fairly new feature and not something that has become fully stabilized within this society.

The urban poor have largely spilled out into newer developments surrounding the outer walls (built up from pre-existing farming towns/villages) that are now an extension of the city proper. These are very crowded, with the expansion of this population cutting into much of the arable land that provides for the city. This growth began as just 'squatters' building homes where they could, but has been taken over and managed by provincial officials that have directed this expansion into fairly coherent neighborhoods built into the infrastructure.

The urban takeover of significant swaths of farmland is a major concern. Godsmouth is increasingly reliant on imports of grain rather than its immediate farmlands to provide for its population (the province itself also has none of its own tributaries to supply grain locally). This has worked for most of its contemporary history (being THE center for sea trade in the region and receiving tremendous volumes of grain) but makes this place very, very vulnerable to famines.

The use of mass-housing is most prominent here, with most new constructions of homes being in the form of (small) 'apartment' buildings (usually with each being 2-3 stories and containing anywhere between 2-10 living areas). These apartments occur both in the first inner ring and the outer sprawl, though tend to be smaller and nicer on the inner side. These are usually built side by side with tiny alleys in between, and tend to be the dirtiest areas (waste is often dumped out alley windows, where built-in grooves at least Eventually wash it into sewers).

Godsmouth Does have some pretty damn good infrastructure. Imperial Bur left it with some very solid water/sewage systems, which has been expanded and further improved upon in the centuries since. It gets a bad rep in other parts as being claustrophobic, smelly, and dirty, (noted for having incense burnt 24/7 in its apartment neighborhoods, with the resulting effect being the aroma of human body smell and shit mixed with sweet musk and rosemary) but the infrastructure and planning that is keeping it from being Much Worse is underappreciated. It's also noted positively for its relative lack of street dogs (which is a mixed bag, as these animals Do help clean refuse) and the unique feature of urban hyenas living permanently and (mostly) peacefully in its unwalled sprawl.

Among the other provincial capitals, urban population levels from highest to lowest are Wardin > Ephennos > Erubinnos > Jaitse > Lobera > Erub.

All of these cities are spread over larger areas of land (having been built up around naturally defensible geography with small central fortress areas) and are a lot less tightly packed. All of them have developed water systems, but many of these cities' water infrastructure was built (or at least broadened) much more recently and varies in quality. Out of these cities, only the first three make large scale use of tightly packed apartment complexes for the urban poor. None of these have had the same issues with development severely encroaching on neighboring farmland. Most have intentionally followed strategies of building up nearby towns + expanding farm development to previously uncultivated land + intensifying/expanding livestock production on unarable grassland/scrub to accommodate population growth (severely restricting the growth of an urban commoner class by strongly maintaining and attempting to acquire land for its landed nobility + agricultural peasantry systems).