#and you may ask 'why did you do that?'

[piratedllama-art]

Quarters only, please [x <- prints here]

(done in procreate)

[morganbritton132]

A paparazzi video goes up online from some Hollywood party. The video is taken from a distance but you can clearly make out Steve when he steps outside to sober up a bit in the cool air.

It’s very clear by the way that he’s moving that he’s a little drunk when he finds a bench to sit down. He takes his glasses off and rubs at his eyes.

Less than a minute later, Eddie wanders outside looking for his husband and finds him. You can see Eddie slide up close to Steve on the bench and put his arm around him.

The video is from too far away to hear what Eddie leans in close to say, but you can clearly see that Steve responds with “sorry, man, I’m married” by the way he gestures to his wedding ring when waving him off.

Eddie says something and Steve blinks at him. He looks surprised for a second and then starts laughing. Eddie laughs too and is still laughing when Steve pulls him in for a kiss.

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

Hello may 31th anon! Look at that, another year behind us and a new one to come. Have a nice day! ₍՞◌′ᵕ‵ू◌₎♡

[fox-guardian]

[ID: A digital drawing of Cecil and Carlos. Cecil is an older mid-sized white man with a graying lilac mullet and mustache, a lot of body hair, tan lines, long purple and teal painted nails, and purple eyeshadow. He is wearing a green cross wrap halter crop top, a teal miniskirt, a purple shoelace as a belt around his waist, furry rainbow legwarmers, and pink bunny slippers. He's holding a black cell phone with a pop socket with the Night Vale logo on it. Carlos is an older mid-sized Latino man with medium dark brown skin, black and gray curly hair with a matching beard, a lot of body hair, and a couple moles by his eye. He is wearing a white labcoat, dull red boxers, white crew socks and brown sandals, a small black stud earring, and large square glasses. The entire image has a magenta filter over it.

Cecil is sitting on a red cushioned stool with his legs crossed over each other and smiling down at his phone. Carlos is standing with one foot raised, hugging Cecil with one arm and holding his free hand over his shoulder with the other. They're both leaning into each other. Cecil says, "Carlos, look! I've been declared the "Ultimate Sexyman"!" And Carlos replies, kissing his cheek, "I could've told you that, my honey-voiced honey~" with "honey-voiced honey" italicized. end ID]

~~~~

good evening cecilsweep nation. i made a celebratory Them <3

[jamietwat]

Jamie would 100% make Roy a dating app profile sometime after the Keeley rejecting both of them thing to try to help him move on and meet people when clearly he’s refusing to get back out there organically and he’d think he’s being so helpful and generous and the best wingman ever. He’d handpick what he considers the sexiest pictures he can find and put a bunch of shit Roy would never say thinking he’s being accurate and helpful and not even taking the clear opportunity to make a joke account to embarrass him or anything when he easily could have just made fun of him and chosen the worst pictures possible instead

And then he would be SO offended when it doesn’t go well when Roy finds out about it and is not properly appreciative at all

Roy thinks it’s Jamie’s account when he starts showing Roy girls like what do you think of her and asking him way too many questions when Roy has no interest in participating and has no idea why the fuck Jamie seems incapable of swiping without trying to get Roy’s opinions first. Meanwhile, Roy’s giving one word answers at first and then increasingly trying to brush him off when he doesn’t stop and then he’s just flat out like “Choose your own dates and leave me the fuck out of it” and Jamie’s like “Nah, this is your account. You should have a say” and instead of being grateful and appreciative and thanking Jamie for being oh so generous with his time and energy, Roy just scowls at him and growls out “You did not make a fucking Tinder profile for me” and Jamie just smirks and decides now is not the right moment yet to mention that he actually made him accounts on like three different apps because he wasn’t sure which Roy would like best

Roy barks at him to delete it and Jamie’s all whiny like “Come on, I spent a lot of time on these and you haven’t even considered it. Plus, even if you’re not ready to date someone yet, you’d still be less miserable to be around if you at least found someone to shag in the meantime”

And Roy’s like “Delete it. I don’t want a fucking Tinder profile.” And Jamie looks at him confused for a moment and then seems to have an epiphany as he goes “Oh, do you want a Grindr one instead? Hold on a second” and he flips to a different app and Roy’s too busy being baffled by the fact that Grindr is already on Jamie’s phone and that he’s having to sign out of his own account to try to make one for Roy to even stop him before he’s already trying to sign up for a new account and Roy goes “That’s not what I meant. I don’t want any dating app”

And Jamie pauses his typing and turns and looks at him so skeptically and so judgily and suddenly somehow Roy is trying to fight for his life trying to defend why he’s not looking for some random stranger to date or fuck around with

[catlover4536]

Shh they are holding hands.

[arunneronthird]

so let me tell u a bit about jason todd, yall probably know this but let me tell the story anyway

as we all know, jason has black hair with a white stripe, or does he?

when he was created in the 80s, he was basically the perfect grayson replacement, good kid with a tragic past and a circus bg that wanted to do good and was sweet and had a beautiful relationship with batman and selina. he was also ginger

(these first images are from batman 1940)

in this timeline, jason died his hair black on his own to resemble robin

he was also the sweetest kid in existence btw

anyway someone decided that fuck that noise and remade jasons story entirely not soon after, this time hes a delinquent with good-for-nothing parents, with black hair and some interestingly violent tendencies

"jason todd was the sweet robin" my ass, anyway he became a gremlin of a robin who no one liked and then he died, v tragic (im only half joking, the writers despised him)

then he came back years later! yay! and when he came back, he looked like this

black hair, right? no white stripe yet, that one is harder to explain

so morrison, new batman writer, brings jason todd again as a ruthless antihero, and this jason is... ginger again? so basically even though he kept the delinquent jason story, he gave a wink to the first sweet boy jason

plus, this ginger jason has the white stripe! as explained here

basically, the explanation morrison gives is hes been dying his hair black all this time cause bruce needed him to look like grayson cause robin was a symbol, which honestly is kinda insane and i live for it

the problem comes further down the line, the timeline becomes a bit blurry cause flashpoint happened, n52 happened, we were all disappointed, let's move on

his next appearance is in red hood and the outlaws (i think, this timeline is insane) and he goes back to this

from this point on, i genuinely think the white hair stripe is a stylistic choice cause it makes an appearance whenever it pleases, he usually just has black hair like this

this is nightwing 2016, but it's also black in robin 2021 and robin war

he famously has the white stripe in the wayne family adventures (the canon status of that series being whatever you want it to be), it's also there in robins 2021 but uh, what was that, and gotham knights, seen here!

in conclusion: no one actually knows what color jason's hair actually is, my preferred idea is that he dyes it but does a terrible job, but honestly make canon whatever you want it to be, clearly the artists already do and i support them

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

hi it's your regularly scheduled 'nanowrimo is insane', screenshots from a post in the board response overview thread by user Elyndra (in case you're wondering, no, that's not me, I've just been watching the situation spinning out of control). disclaimer that I obviously don't know this personally and hence there may be incorrect details.

anyway. I wonder if we'll have nanowrimo, as it currently exists, next year?

[quicktimeeventfull]

i am not posting the whole thing bc it sounds absolutely ridiculous in aggregate but i DID locate this death note/hamlet au i wrote absolutely ages ago with the dialogue in elizabethan english so i am sharing the good part(tm) now. ft. light as hamlet and L as ophelia, who is now a paramour sent to the prince as a gift

L knelt in front of Light. For a moment Light thought he was about to bow, but he did not; instead he lifted Light’s hand and raised his knuckles to his lips. Gently, he kissed them. “If my liege can trust my vulgar tongue,” he said, “my duke wants your favour. I myself do not. I want your hand.” He kissed it again, then rose on his knees, leaning towards Light, the heat of him close. He smelled somehow of metal and earth. He must have been looking through the garden for evidence of Light’s father’s killer; Light had asked him not to — he was already certain of who that was — but that meant very little to L. He traced a finger down Light’s arm. Light shivered, and did not pull away. “And your arms.” He touched Light’s throat, which quivered. “And your throat. And the nape of your neck.” A touch. “And your foolish hair.” He brushed it away from Lights cheek. “And your lips, which are no more honest than mine own.” He ran the back of his finger along Light’s lips.

[seawing-vibes]

Hiii welcome to The Thing I’ve Been Working On For Far Too Long !!!! This is an edited map of my WoF Headworld!! This map fallows my personal lore / story for what happens post-books! There are far more ideas I have regarding new structures, how the land changes, etc. , but this was just generally for labeling major locations within each territory! My hope was to wrap this up before the Felid Guide drops so I can compare my map to the canon reveal of locations but I didn’t quite get there and there are still a lot of loose ends. Unfortunately I don’t have much time to work on this anymore and will probably chip away at it privately in pieces , but for now I wanted to share this bit publicly!

The info for the labels on the map are all written out below, but I have primarily complied information in a Google Doc for easier viewing and navigation!

Link to the Google Doc !

Under construction !! Im so sorry I’m stuck on mobile and Tumblrs post editor on mobile is actual shit. the formatting is terrible I’m going bonkers in here. Also it’s stuck sideways for some reason like girl pleaseee turn the other way!!! I will rb this again once I’m able to format it properly.

[heroesriseandfall]

For all Bruce’s flaws, in the comics it took him about 2 seconds to realize something was up with Tim’s parents. You could say this is part of Bruce’s parenting that is slightly better in canon than fanon, but it’s also maybe just because 13 year old Tim in comics didn’t have as much brain-to-mouth filter as fanon Tim seems to, so he told on his parents as soon as Bruce & Alfred asked about them. There is no dodging questions to keep his parents out of trouble, he just says concerning stuff and expects no one to do anything about it I guess.

[good-beanswrites]

I mentioned this in the AO3 comments, but:

What does Fuuta think about how Es treated Amane at the end of her interrogation? (Still not completely sure what happened)

And in trial 2, what does he think now that Kotoko has joined the ranks of "people who have been hit by Es" while he has not? (And Amane, if she didn't already count)

Yessss thank you :3 I always enjoy LCSyS questions (even if I take forever to reply to comments and things LMAO) Though, some details apply outside of the au too

Well. I don’t know if it really needs to be said for Fuuta, but yeah, he is pissed 😅 Even if she wasn’t directly hit, he would be just as riled up that she was treated so roughly. (Ah, I’m once again tempted to write up my mv machine post, but) basically I picture the machine itself locking the prisoner in place with sudden restraints. There were reactions of shock and fear, as if it were affecting them immediately,  and prisoners like Fuuta and Muu would definitely run from it if they could. So I believe that moment in Amane’s first interrogation is just Es standing over her and rubbing it in. There’s no direct harm, but the fact that they are so smug about her helplessness is just as psychologically painful. 

I don’t know if Amane would really go into detail about her interrogation (the others who were hit seem the type to come right out and say it), but she mentions it during the trial hiatus debriefing. Fuuta is furious: “why didn’t you say something sooner?? I would have kicked their ass right then and there!” His outburst is the very reason she doesn’t tell him that she was hit in T2. She knows he’ll get himself into more trouble, and she feels pressured to bear it on her own. She ends up pulling him aside and telling him during the second hiatus. He has to tone down his explosion a bit to focus on comforting her more than cursing Es. Though I don’t know exactly what will happen, the knowledge that she was hit drives him to stand by her side in T3 and defend her every chance he gets, affecting whatever changes we already are getting hints of.

He feels equally upset when Kotoko mentions getting hit, and Kotoko's nonchalance allows him to do a full rant. She doesn’t seem that phased, and admits it makes sense they would have an extreme reaction to her violence. She says that she deserved it, and Fuuta of all people stumbles over his words to tell her that she didn’t – violence does not deserve more violence. (He’s learning, folks!) In the privacy of his own thoughts, the poor guy is mortified. He would be grateful if he didn't keep comparing himself with the others who didn't get hit. “Do I look as fragile and girly as Yuno, Muu, and Mahiru?” “Do they not see me as a threat?” “Do they pity me or something?” He makes up his mind to be a big, manly threat in T3 and be taken seriously enough to get hit. (He can only learn so much at a time, folks.)

[i-tzi]

POKEDDEXY DAY 1: BUG TYPE (#988)

Another year, another Pokeddexy!! 🎉

I honestly don't know how much I'll be able to combine because objectively January is kind of a shitty month for me lol

But WHO CARES, enjoy my boys, see you again at the end of the challenge if I'm still alive lol o|-<

[bijoumikhawal]

a lot of the talk about Bushnell is reminding me of my "the "mentally ill" have their right to violence revoked" thing again

like. When you're deemed mentally ill, suddenly you must stress how you are more likely to be a victim of violence than a perpetrator to be deemed as human. Because any violence you commit, as a crazy person, is bad. It cannot carry rationale, because you are crazy. If I, as an autistic person, hit someone who was hurting me and got in legal trouble, I can be referred to as just "crazy" instead of as a victim responding to an aggressor. It's an underdiscussed area of dehumanization.

And that's before we talk about intersectionality, and before we talk about how this factors into the idea of ODD, and the "violent" responses patients have to doctors (including those who simply aren't white, and those forced on meds that hurt them, and those resisting sexual assault, and-).

But this is not just interpersonally political, it is political at scale. Black men were targeted by schizophrenia diagnoses during the Civil Rights era (and this is also around when schizophrenia became a "scary" illness). The crazy cannot have valid political criticisms, as a movement (remember that being "crazy" is a vector of oppression abd marginalization) or as individuals in other movements.

Ive seen both the sentiment of "oh Aaron is gonna be slandered as crazy" and exactly what the sentiment warns of- "we can't valorize suicide from the mentally ill". And the first isn't wrong, because society at large does view the "crazy" as lacking political agency, but it's lacking.

Bushnell had been trying very hard to get out of his military contract without being imprisoned at best, while witnessing genocide and knowing he was complicit. He may not have had clinical depression normally, but that would inspire a mental rational response of situational depression (and yes, mental health issues can be a rational response to horrible circumstances). Further, I know of instances of self immolation that WERE done by people who did have long standing mental health issues and were done to protest the treatment they'd experienced that caused them and that resulted from their existence. Mental illness and divergence from the norm is more complicated than just "these people are incapable of rationality, they are incapable of political thought, and they are incapable of agency".

[thebirdandhersong]

we are all trying to reach home and belonging because we were made for something beyond this earth but why does it feel like some people have more access to that feeling right now

[tachimichishrine]

Okay sooooo I’ve been reading your stuff for a couple of days now and IM OBSESSED I love the way you write tachi so if it’s okay, could I request an x reader where the reader is a weapon’s engineer? bonus points if she’s a chemical engineer by profession IF YOU WRITE THIS THANK YOU SO MUCHHHHH have a great day

<AKH TYSM??? giggling isn't a strong enough word i'm rolling on the floor blushing,,, sorry for the long build up and it had less tachi appearances than i intended agagagagagh I hope this is what you wanted, have a lovely day darling ♡>

"blown away"

⫭◦⨝◦⫬

tachihara michizou x fem! chem eng! reader

warnings: none :) just fluff n plot, slight cursing n intended lowercase

a searing sting, ringing in ears, ash fluttering all in the surroundings; the world has become a wasteland, and you were nestled warmly in the safety of a suit designed to handle the radiation from the outside. you watched the blocks of metal melt lopsidedly, a displeased tsk accompanying your scowl at the failure. they were not meant to come apart so easily.

"goddamn it!" you yanked the zipper that lined your chest, tearing it off until the oversized suit was open enough to slump off. with a fury that caused every man watching you to clear their throats, become incredibly interested in a speck on their shoes or take a step back out of fear, you pulled off the costume and threw it to the ground. you even spat on it, grumbling vexedly, "that should've worked."

the admiral looked at you with a raised brow, clearly not impressed by your childish reaction. you couldn't care less; this was your one chance of hitting it big. you were hired by the government to create a chemical similar to sleeping gas capable of only targeting the enemy, except they didn't quite want their enemies to take a nap. you had a logical solution, and worked on it with your team for months; today was the demonstration to show all the important men what their money had been funding.

yes, what you did was despicable. you created weapons of mass destruction, turned simple assortments of molecules and rearranged them in a way that could turn a solider inside-out. however, the scope was beyond you; you simply made the tools, and their use was not up to you. many of your colleagues knew about the kind of iron stomach needed to work in this field, and no one ever said a word. you had a cadaver which you mutilated during trials of reactions with the flesh, and not a single person looked each other in the eyes during the tests. yet you all knew that you were more powerful than those who wielded the codes, those who held the guns and those whose whispers into a phone could turn an entire city to rubble. all because you had the ability to create such horrifying devices.

this one had been working up until today's demonstration. it was a highly pressurized container that, when detonated, would slowly disperse in the air and corrode everything except the metal blocks you coated in the other substance that would negate its effects, cancel out the reaction and subsequently keep the bearers intact. however, something seemed to have happened and the bearers were very much not intact.

you were now stripped of the protective gear, walking in the toxic chemicals freely like it was a breath of fresh air. the colonels and officials gawked at you from behind their protective screen, to which you snapped out of your fury and chuckled, seeming almost embarrassed. you didn't know which ones were up to date on abilities, but you decided that it wasn't your job to explain to them that you have the gift of immunity to toxic substances. the suit was a decoration, more than anything, designed to be worn by the rest of your team who were sulking behind you at the disappointing results.

"[_____], knock it off," one of them placed a hand on your shoulder and tried to bring you back to reality. "we were monitoring the conditions, so we'll just have to take a look to see what caused the error."

you scowled, not wanting to admit that they were right. with a shrug to get rid of their hand, you excused yourself and walked over to the pressurized door that separated you from your clients. you threw it open, your clothes starting to fray at the exposure (quite slowly, given that your sweat was doing a pretty good job at protecting them from the chemicals), and stormed inside. the man who'd initially approached you for this job - a nameless colonel, a man whose face you could barely remember - was walking away, disappointed. you didn't like the feeling of failure, but this added insult to injury.

yet, you barely had a choice to follow him and explain that this was a one-off, that your process and methodology was sound and would be peer-reviewed if it wasn't highly politicized and you could publish your work. you left everyone behind as you walked the hallways of the facility to find him.

of course the place was a maze. every hallway looked identical, every door and every room the same and god forbid you put a map somewhere. soon enough, the layout had engulfed you whole and there was nothing you could do to stop it except continue walking and hope you would get out, never mind find the admiral.

you caught a glimpse of a strongly built man, tuffs of white sprouting out the back of his head and you called out to get his attention, given that the way he was walking made it appear that he knew where he was going. he turned around; it was a living legend.

a chance encounter led to you babbling like a fan girl about how incredible the fukuchi ochi was, and he seemed to be enjoying the praise because he walked you down to his office and offered you hard liquor at 2 in the afternoon. you told him that alcohol didn't affect you (your body treated it like a toxic substance and isolated it from your system), but he thought you were exaggerating and challenged you to a drink-off. your day was already ruined from what had just happened, and you figured that this kind of opportunity doesn't come around every day.

you told yourself that it didn't matter and pulled yourself a seat with a grin.

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turns out you were one lucky bastard.

even though you clearly beat him at his challenge, he seemed to take a liking to your spirit and heard you out when you explained your current situation. he must've made some calls or talked to some people, because your funding had not only not vanished the next day, but you were told it was tripling. you had a hard time convincing your coworkers that you didn't give the admiral one hell of a blowjob to make this happen.

you didn't dare venture through the facility and risk being locked out in an area where you didn't have clearance, so you just politely asked around for fukuchi's location in order to properly thank him.

it took a while, but you were told to head to some kind of training grounds at the back of the building. the place itself was mostly underground, given that most of the research happening was highly classified or highly controversial, so you were slightly surprised to find out people actually used the first floor. your clearance didn't let you get in, but you laundered around the door pretending to be on a phone call long enough for someone who did have clearance to open it and be careless enough to let you waltz in behind them.

once you reached what amounted to the backyard of the government facility, you saw fukuchi sitting down lazily, a hand waving around messily while he energetically said something at the two men who were doing alternating pull ups on a bar and a little girl who was doing one-handed push ups while smiling widely at him.

you stepped outside, a little uncertain of what you were intruding on given that it seemed like they were soldiers, but the entire group seemed to be painfully unorganized. despite this, you were set on thanking the old man for what he did, so you took another step.

a man was running towards you on the left, the sweat dripping down his arms and face signaling that he's been running for a long time, and you only heard his footsteps too late. he was zoned in and you were zoned out; your bodies collided and soon enough you were laying on the ground while he teetered on one foot and managed not to follow you downwards.

however, he looked pissed. "who the fuck are you?" he held his hand out, and a pistol levitated from who knows where to snap into his grasp, then pointed at your face.

an ability user. you put your hands up in a sign of innocence, reaching to your government id and pass to explain to him that you worked here and were just looking to talk to fukuchi in regards to your project. he didn't seem convinced.

"look," you sighed, slowly getting yourself up and dusting off the dirt from your clothes, "I didn't mean to run into you, so why don't you just let me walk on over there and talk to the guy?"

he glared at you as you did, and the other three soldiers (you presumed they were, even though you couldn't explain the little girl) noticed your presence and gave you about the same reaction as the redhead did. you regretted coming here, and told yourself that you would just thank fukuchi and get the hell out of here.

you waved at him cautiously, and began to thank him for getting you your funding.

he didn't know who the hell you were.

you knew he was drunk, but it was a logical assumption that he would at least remember your face vaguely, or would've made those calls while sober. apparently this wasn't logical, and right now you were ready to evaporate into the atmosphere and never return.

your brows were furrowed in confusion, and you stammered your way out while trying not to provoke the other people watching you. "I'm so sorry for disturbing you... ahem... hey, how's it going... I'm just gonna walk 'round ya ahah... uh... sorry..."

you ran out nervously before the redhead could point his gun at you again.

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"oh my god, it was awful," you blabbered to your colleagues, recounting the story in vivid detail while burying your face in your palms and bending your torso onto the table. you had a chalkboard up with your new data, and screens were displaying models and atomic structures, since you were three days after the disastrous demonstration and still couldn't figure out what went wrong. "he looked at me like he'd never seen me in his life."

"you sure you didn't just hallucinate the whole encounter?" someone snickered, and you threw your empty coffee cup at them.

"yeah, it happens to me all the time when I forget to sleep for a few days. trust me, it's a sign of greatness."

"oh, shut up," you chuckled, glad you were taking your mind off of things. you all collectively decided to pick up another project in the meantime to show that you were indeed real engineers and could actually do your jobs properly. it was some kind of rocket launching mechanism, and you couldn't do your part until the basic concepts were made so you were just lounging around with the rest of your team, making paper airplanes and throwing them around.

so, you were doing absolutely nothing when the same man from yesterday walked in through the door.

he was wearing a uniform, unlike previously when he was wearing some more breathable clothes for training. he wasn't sweaty and breathing heavily either; in fact, he seemed to clean up quite well. you barely registered his face last time given the circumstances, but it didn't take very long for your posture to fix up and for you to try and fluff your hair in a reflexive response to how nice he looked. the solider seemed to be evaluating the room, your coworkers and you, then cleared his throat.

"your id said you worked in the weapons manufacturing division," he stated as some kind of greeting. you shot looks to the people sitting next to you, who got the hint that this was the guy you were talking about from before. you smiled at him as to not seem like you were guilty of something.

"yeah, I'm [_____]," you restated, hesitating between getting up and offered him your hand or just staying where you were. the latter felt safer, and you just gave him a short introduction of your team and what you did. "once again, I didn't mean to barge in yesterday, it was a misunderstanding. sorry about that."

he shook his head, a little relieved once he confirmed that you weren't some kind of spy or something. you noticed that he was a little more mellowed out while in uniform, almost like he was just angry yesterday because of all the running he did. you stared a bit too long at his features and let him say something you barely registered, turning around to leave.

your body acted alone and you sprouted up to your feet to follow him. "wait, your clearance isn't going to work here, let me-"

the door unclicked on its own and he shot you a coy smirk before leaving.

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your leg bounced nervously as you sat down at an empty desk in an office that wasn't yours. weeks had passed, and the admiral was starting to value your team a bit more now that you had a few concept designs that proved valuable. for some reason, though, he called only you to come and meet him face to face.

that was nearly 30 minutes ago.

you didn't care much for punctuality, but people like him typically did so why on earth were you waiting so long? you couldn't leave, not when you had no idea what the meeting was about. so, you waited patiently and tried your very best not to explode out of your skin.

finally, a knock at the door that was ajar behind you. your head whipped around, and it wasn't the man you were expecting.

"commander fukuchi," you stated, shocked. "I thought my meeting was with..."

he laughed heartily as he took a seat, throwing himself onto the chair so vigorously you thought it would snap in half. "oh, don't mind him. I was told that since I left such a strong recommendation for you, I should hand-deliver this message."

you addressed the first part before the second. "you were told, sir? so you really don't recall us drinking together in your office?"

he laughed again, and you smelled the faint sweetness of alcohol on his tongue. figures. "another thing you shouldn't worry about, [_____]. I'm sure I meant what I said," he added with a nonchalant wave of his hand in the air.

trying not to let your 'don't meet your heroes' moment show too much, you mimicked his laugh and asked the second part of your question. "you mentioned hand-delivering a message?"

the message was actually an assignment: his military division called the hunting dogs were having trouble with their transportation pods. you thought this meant they had a car or something that was totaled, but no, it was an actual transportation pod. he led you out of the room to bring you up to some hangar where you saw the metal contraptions.

he did a really bad job at explaining how they worked, but the concept felt pretty self explanatory when you inspected it. fukuchi told you that some higher-ups are on his back to stop destroying these every mission, and he admitted with a chuckle and rub of the back of his neck that he and his subordinates don't take very well to having it malfunction.

you told him that you would take a look at it, and he burped as an affirmation and strolled out rather happy.

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the project lasted a few weeks.

it was a hinge and wiring problem, things anyone with half a brain could fix in less than a day, but something stupid happened on your first day walking into the hangar to take a look at it.

the man from before was there.

he didn't seem like he wanted to be here, but it was just him so you assumed he was here on some kind of assignment, just like you. you greeted him with the same smile at the previous time, and he didn't bother to return it. he explained that he was here to help you get this thing fixed.

"are you... an engineer?" you raised a brow, careful with your words given that you knew nothing about him except that he was part of the deadliest military division in the country.

his reaction was hard to decipher, a scoff accompanying it when he flicked his wrist upwards and the transportation pod floated up in the air. "no, that's why I'm here."

ferrokinesis. you'd be lying if you said the ease with which he controlled such a large mass wasn't impressive, but it wasn't your place to irritate him even more by talking. you nodded an apology then got back to assessing the device.

you asked him to flip it onto its side, and he did. after you asked, you paused, realizing you still didn't have a name to call him. tachihara, he told you. your lips curled up and you told him that it was nice to finally put a name to his face.

the next day, you tried to speak with him more as you took down measurements in order to create the model and reprint the defective parts. only, he didn't seem to want to talk to you about himself at all, and you hit a dead end.

you kept trying.

it was a mission within a mission, a side quest to this assignment if you will, but you were determined to get to know him. you considered every time you got him to mildly chuckle to be a huge victory, and every word he said was another point for you. you still spent every other day working with your team on the defective toxic gas device, but this project was hand-delivered to you by a man who didn't give you a deadline or a budget, so you considered it a freebie to do anything you want for as long as you wanted. you decided just to redesign the entre thing, and the bonus of spending time with tachihara made it even sweeter.

instead of flat out asking him on a date, you settled for hanging out in the huge hangar, just you and him for hours. he admitted once that it was a nice break from all the weirdos in the hunting dogs, and you just laughed and told him that you liked the little escape too. sometimes you got him to give you feedback about your designs since he would be using these pods, and other times you just tried to scooch your body as close as possible to him while he told you about his most interesting spy missions.

by the time you couldn't stretch out the project any further, you got him to bend the metal plaques into the final shapes you needed and decided that maybe you really should ask him out.

you didn't. you just dropped the final designs onto the desk of your boss and went home regretting your decision.

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you and your team finally got your device to work.

it was something about the concentration, about how you failed to account for the room pressure and how it would vary with the consumption of one substance into another, and you felt triumphant when, this time, you left your protective suit on and watched certain blocks of metal stay intact while others melted into nothingness. you walked over to the ones that were dissolving to run your fingers through it, what was once solid turning into butter as you raked your fingers through it. you gave your coworkers, who were watching from behind the screen this time, a thumbs up which they barely caught from the way they were jumping up and down and hugging each other from glee. the government officials seemed impressed, and it was hard not to burst from the feeling of pride at your success.

they greeted you once you traversed from one side to the other, telling you just how much this will serve the country and save millions. honestly, you knew that they couldn't care less about saving millions, and so did you; you were just happy your product worked.

you were even happier when you saw tachihara watching the entire thing from the corner, smirking at you with his arms crossed over his chest.

almost floating over to him, you asked him about a thousand questions about why he was here, how he knew that you'd be here, what he thought of the demonstration and if he'd want to go out on a date with you.

you had a whole lot of wins that day, but the one that had you smiling into your pillow that night was a three letter word.

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"sssh, shut up, we're gonna get caught!"

you giggled even as you sealed his mouth shut with the palm of your hand, bodies pressed up against each other as you hid inside a janitor's closet.

tachihara was showing you around the entire facility, since you kept asking him about how he had clearance to go anywhere and everywhere without needing a badge. the first date, you took him out, but ever since then he's been showing you spots around the facility that no one ever goes to, ranging from the inaccessible roof to a very sketchy basement spot in which he said privacy was needed before kissing you for hours on end.

this time, you were venturing around a spot where neither of you were allowed and you'd heard footsteps coming from around the corner. you pulled him with you into the closet and could barely contain all of your giggles. he whispered that you were doing this on purpose, and you just pressed a kiss to his forehead as a response.

"you know," you said softly while waiting for the footsteps to disappear, "I never asked how the pods went."

"oh, teruko and tecchou destroyed it anyways," he chuckled. "you were given an impossible task, we all knew it from the start."

"well, thanks for letting me know now," you giggled and your hands rested gently at his hips.

you never thought you'd fall in love for any of the heartless government pawns that worked in the building, but no one could build a weapon so powerful over your heart than him.