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crazysnor1ax · 1 year

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Ong Snorlax ACTUALLY making a proper post for their agents??? Unreal

Meet the chirren!! Infodumps about them under cut (there is A LOT):

Azure (Captain 3)

She/they

Main: Inkbrush

Before becoming Agent 3 and eventually the leader of the NSS she lived in a rural suburb on the outskirts of Inkopolis with her parents and two older brothers. Upon deciding to move to the city to pursue her interests in an education and ink battles, she was not ready for city life at all. It took her a good while to adjust, with the Squid Sisters helping her do so after they met. Though she still has school and work outside of the NSS she's extremely committed to the group; despite this she was still hesitant to be leader when Cuttlefish offered, insisting she wasn't a good leader (and she still isn't). However, her determination to do well for the group has worked out for both her and everyone else.

Azure's personality is best described as wild, yet very relaxed. She gets excited easily but is very go-with-the-flow most of the time. Despite this she's reclusive, and isn't comfortable talking with new people; though she's very talkative with her close friends and family. Besides the Squid Sisters (who are basically her older sisters) she's closest with Mist, having been dating for roughly 5 years now.

Random facts:

She's an artist/illustrator

She let Mist move in with her after the events of Octo Expansion, and now they're inseparable (oh my god they were roommates)

Her tentacles are dyed! that's why they're Like That

Her right eye sometimes changes colors to how it looked while she was "hijacked" by Tartar. It's uncontrollable, and is tied to Azure's hormone levels; meaning, it usually happens when she experiences some strong emotions or is exercising.

Certified epic gamer (loves Pokemon)

[Fun fact, Azure used to be my sona and is one of my oldest ocs! She used to share my name before I eventually decided to make her her own character.]

Koa (Agent 4)

He/Him

Cishet (in a good way tho i prommy)

Main: Dapple dualies

Koa's a bit of a wild case. His family moved to Inkopolis from another country just before he was born, but he still shares the accents they all have. Being raised alongside 4 rowdy boys and an equally rowdy single dad (who's another oc I have), he's VERY loud and very, very energetic. he gets wound up very easily and will start yelling over the smallest things. Prior to meeting the NSS he didn't smile a lot and would actively try not to due to the environment he was raised in; as a kid he'd get teased by his brothers and dad if he got overly excited about things. Though they were only playing with him he didn't take it that way when he was young, and it stayed with him. No need to fear!-The NSS has helped him open up immensely.

Random facts:

Doesn't do much outside of the NSS besides go to school, but he does have several hobbies.

Plays the drums. Mist's little sister plays the guitar, and they hang out frequently and jam together.

Does gymnastics

Will not wear a shirt ever, he will fight you over it

Speaking of fighting, he wrestled with his brothers growing up and it's now something he likes to do for fun.

He doesn't play video games much but does enjoy a good fighting game.

Loves rock music

Didn't know who the Squid Sisters were prior to the NSS since his screentime had been limited heavily growing up. He also just doesn't like to watch TV or use social media much.

Now, however, he's "secretly" the biggest SS fan out of anyone in the group.

Mist (Agent 8)

She/her

Lesbian

Main: Undercover Brella

[I'm still working on revising Mist's lore, so take her backstory with a grain of salt.]

Ah, yes, the tragic backstory character. Mist and her little sister, Jett, lived a rather okay life as Octarians-well, as good as it gets being underground, anyway. Mist was raised to be an engineer and Jett a construction worker for stages and weapons. Around the events of Splatoon 1 Mist's mother contracted a disease and wasn't able to survive it. Making matters worse was the death of her father a few months later, from broken heart syndrome. Mist was left to raise her sister as well as deal with the very obvious emotional trauma the deaths left on both her and Jett. Not long after that was Mist affected by the Calamari Inkantation, leaving her to question Octarian society and how it ran. Eventually she left for Inkopolis, seeking a better life; thus, Octo Expansion occurs. However, the memories of her parent's passing and leaving her sister wouldn't resurface until much, much later.

Mist learned Inkling shockingly quick and is now fully fluent, aside from the occasional grammar error. As mentioned earlier, she lived with Azure after Octo Expansion and fell in love, and now the two hate to be apart during the events of Splatoon 3.

She’s easily the kindest out of the entire group and a strong optimist, sometimes to the point where it’s annoying. Mist believes everyone deserves kindness and she loves to help others in any way she can. Despite this, when people push her boundaries she’ll fight back in the most reserved, collective way possible. She doesn’t give bullshit and she won’t take any, either.

Random facts:

Violinist

She doesn't like working with machinery anymore, but she works for Sheldon repairing weapons to help pay rent and groceries. it's helping her cope, fortunately!

Mist speaks exclusively in positive connotation-meaning that rather than saying something like "This is bad," she would say "This is not good." She always uses positive words, not negative ones.

Surprisingly spiritual. Really interested in a variety of religions and learning about them

Meditates a lot! Her and Azure's apartment almost always smells like incense

Undeniably the most skilled agent when it comes to combat.

Sting (New Agent 3)

They/xey/drip/drips

Demisexual, Genderqueer

(subject to change) Main: Krak-On Roller

Drip was raised by salmonids after a mix-up between the Octarians and Salmonids occured and an infant octoling ended up with them. Fortunately, salmonids are very intelligent (much to the disbelief of many), and raised drip close to inkling society so drip could get a taste of where drip’s supposed to live. After growing up and deciding to live in Splatsvill, drip took on the profession of a graffiti artist to help make the city look more vibrant, sometimes illegally (but that's part of the fun for drip).

Xey're feral. Quite literally. Being raised by violence-loving salmonids will do that to you. Xey're far from uncivilized, though , so xey're feral in the classiest way possible. It's not uncommon to see xem doing something "weird" in the most calm and collected manner possible (like eating Alterna snow, eating grass, casually carrying things in xeir mouth). Xey’re also a fashionista and cares a lot about staying fresh and on top of things, but enjoys having fun when the time calls for it. Xey’re more serious than the other agents, but xey're learning to take it slow, thanks to them.

They have an unnatural love for ink battles compared to the other agents as well. They can get insanely heated during battles and they care a lot about their rank. They won't admit it, but it's because they were taught to love battle, being essentially a kid to salmonids.

Random facts:

Because salmonids honor dying, they love getting splatted in ink battles. It's a rush for them.

Visits their salmonid guardians frequently! They had a shack above water where they raised them. They haven't died in battle yet and Sting teases them about it

Sting's full name is The Stinging Rain Shower Born in Octopia.

Banned from Grizzco. Drip tried to steal power eggs and golden eggs from the place and was very, very quickly banned. Drip would boycott it even if drip wasn't, though.

Sees Lil' buddy as xeir sibling, and secretly hopes xey won't have to say goodbye someday when xey find its home.

Made a small, functional gas mask for Lil' Buddy while they graffiti!

Saving up money to get a prosthetic arm, but Sheldon is also researching and working to make one for drip.

LOVES grunge and whatever genre salmonid music is

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gaypleasantview · 1 year

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dirk (and dustin if u want) for the ask meme? :3

hell yeah!!

Dirk:

Sexuality Headcanon: gay, i enjoy other headcanons for him too but the version of Dirk that lives in my head is definitely homosexual/homoromantic, just feels so right to me. im thinking of putting him on the asexual spectrum somewhere (where is my drink) probably demisexual. his type is probably straight up someone like Dustin if we're being honest here

Gender Headcanon: trans guy! came out as a kid long before Darleen passed away and got lots of support from his parents about both his sexuality and gender <3 i don't know if he realized both around the same time but he knew himself pretty well pretty early on, good for him

A ship I have with said character: ever since i realized the possibility of Dustin/Dirk it has changed my life lol. like it was really always there and it's such an obvious set up but it went completely over my head like it did for most of us i guess, the way maxis seemingly intended is good too because Lilith/Dirk feels like a very exciting couple to play with if you see Dirk being attracted to girls/whatever gender you hc Lilith as. D&D live in my mind rent free tho. it's an easy enemies to lovers for me and some would argue that trope is overdone but there is not nearly enough content about these two that fit the trope perfectly sooo i wanna make that content. speaking of Dirk in this relationship, at first he admits Dustin is cute but hates the dude's attitude so he's gonna be in denial about his Dustin situation for the longest time. he's probably gonna be the one to make this actual relationship happen even though he's gonna be scared. but when Dustin opens up Dirk starts feeling really comfortable with him and falls in love deeply

A BROTP I have with said character: easily him and Lilith, in my hc she's a lesbian and they are fake dating while actually being besties so they don't even have to pretend much. these two are an opposites attract situation too but their energies match so well?? i should probably make them other friends though because no one has more than 2 friends in my stories 😭 i mean Dirk's also good friends with his dad but. yeah

A NOTP I have with said character: this must be about romance but i don't have much to say so i'll talk about enemies instead in this question. well i dont believe he has enemies aside from Dustin and that one's not exactly fitting for this question as we already know so probably no one lol. Dirk doesn't like Angela too and i never realized until just now btw that his relationship with her after he gets with Dustin is gonna be REALLY AWKWARD

A random headcanon: he's a giant bookworm, tries to be the best at everything and is quite grumpy, i feel like he would be very successful in college because he's just a shining star however you look at him. absolute delight (but can be a bitch). he loves cats and the color purple (i actually thought of making it his signature color but he's already assigned blue by maxis so im confused). also a big taylor swift fan

General Opinion over said character: gives off rainy vibes but is actually such a sunshine. i love him so much and im so glad i discovered how great of a character he is a few years ago, he's a certified son of mine (it's actually crazy to think that if he's a teen he's younger than me... like that is a noticeable age gap. huh)

Dustin:

Sexuality Headcanon: i would say the definition that feels right to me is homosexual/biromantic, sometimes i think it could be one or the other but i always remember that it doesn't have to because sexuality is a wide spectrum and im very happy to represent someone who has different romantic and sexual attraction! his gayness is powerful and i also cherish the girl-liking side of him and i think it's beautiful. i don't know if he's allosexual yet but i feel like he's probably demiromantic i hadn't even realized that until just now! im excited

Gender Headcanon: im still wondering about this, i see him as a guy and currently as cis, i really like the idea of him being trans but given how i hc him and his family i feel like by the age of 16 he would be unlikely to freely express himself or maybe even discover himself at all? he's quite emotionally repressed and doesn't give himself time to process his feelings so he probably wouldn't even know what the feeling means if he had it. hmmm

A ship I have with said character: Dirk ofc. Dustin didn't know he was gay and likely had inner homophobia but after meeting Dirk he knew what was up and he embraced it (after they stopped hating each other first heh). he had a pretty wonderful relationship with Angela so i like these two a lot together but with Dirk it's just a whole another story. Angela is like a comfort place and with Dirk it's like a rollercoaster and Dustin is just addicted to the feeling. he will be the first one to make a move but it's gonna be in a bit of a stupid way of course because he's secretly really awkward so it'll take time for them to actually see what's up

A BROTP I have with said character: Angela. she helps him with the kids and just generally spends so much time with him and they genuinely love each other so much as bf and gf but then as friends too, the breakup is hard for Angela but after some time it definitely gets better and they are just a great couple of peeps who care for each other :) i would say i need to get Dusty other friends too but i'll be honest with you i don't even think he has any. poor boy i gave him like 2 or 3 nice points

A NOTP I have with said character: Lilith hates Dustin and wouldn't engage 😭 she learns to tolerate him but imagine these two put in a room they would fight to death

A random headcanon: Dustin is a huge family boy and the only times he is genuinely expressing his feelings is when he is with his little siblings. Brandi and him have a weird relationship that is full of fights but in its core their relationship is not the worst, she's a loving mom just not very good at it. he probably has some obscure hobbies but i don't remember which rn. he likes sports (sadly). he's a very angsty teen and 100% listens to angsty teenage music in his room. he's gonna be such a great man in college when he matures and starts being honest with himself about things and this is the best glow up ever

General Opinion over said character: i love Dustin. i am so proud of his growth and bravery <3 he is kind of a menace in the beginning of my story, super mean but i don't want to throw him under the bus because his soul is so beautiful. wait is that bus thing even a saying or did i make that up. anyways boy needs therapy and hugs

thank you so much for the ask!!! this is really long but i love talking about them <3

#dirk dreamer #dustin broke #project: cr #sim ask things #socialbunny

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sepiasnail · 8 months

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In other news that is not dnd related

I shaved my head

Got it dyed by a friend who is now a certified cosmologist!!! (I’m so proud of them!!!!!) (They did such a good job!! I have bats on my head now!!!)

Have NOT packed whatsoever for returning to college, I leave the 26th

And that is it

I’m kinda boring ngl

In news that is dnd related

Finished a campaign, I will eventually post art of Mold. They r so silly goofy and like to make giant bugs. They r a menace to everyone, even more so post-campaign. They became a farmer and got a lil buff, no more twig twink Mold. They resurrected (actually they really just grew) their best friend (that is a mushroom lady), and now they have their farm together and r best friends again (mold is aro-ace and I absolutely love that for them). They did not get to kill their dad 😔😔😔 but instead kicked his dead corpse and stabbed a dagger through it. It was therapeutic for them. I could talk about Mold for way too long,,,

Started a new campaign, it is a western cyperpunk sorta thing. I love my character for it, her name is Lottie and she is a raging lesbian and also trans

Finished notes for the first COS campaign >:)) i cannot wait to traumatize everyone’s characters, i have angst planned for all of them already

I also have finished 3 out of the 4 pieces i need done for this first session of curse of strahd, sorry Ismark u have yet to be shaded (best for last???? Not really my bad shawty)

The dnd brainrot is back i apologize in advance

#dnd brainrot

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svmbucky · 3 years

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half the delight of 40s stevebucky as a ship is that it allows queer people to live out the fantasy of being gay and in love with your best friend and having that love actually be REQUITED

#deer.txt #stevebucky #stucky #40s stucky #as a certified Lesbian In Love With His Best Friend......... good for them. good for them.#my gayness actually being accepted and ending up with someone i had a crush on?? phew. does things to me #me living vicariously through all the fics where bucky is like 'oh steve will never feel the same way' or vice versa and then he DOES!!!

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incorrectsmashbrosquotes · 2 years

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Have you watched encanto? If so, who in the smash mansion do you think would fir the characters (or ganons fam would fit since he has 50 kids)

Abuela: Galeem (obsessed with perfection, kinda a control freak, learns to be looser by letting their heart open up)

Mirabel: Daisy (the overlooked one with a spunky attitude and deep seated family issues that tries too hard)

Bruno: Link (socially awkward rat-man who's best friends are imaginary and loves people too much)

Luisa: fem!Byleth (stronk girl who allows their gift to dominate their identity and shoulder everyone's burdens while secretly cracking under the pressure)

Isabela: Peach (the "perfect" one who has always allowed others to decide what they are and is probably a lesbian)

Dolores: Zelda (often overshadowed but secretly the most fabulous of them all)

Antonio: Young Link (precious boi, too good for this world, too pure. best friends are animals)

Camilo: Roy (socially adaptive with a vast well of untapped potential. Oftern overlooked for his more "useful" compatriots)

Pepa: Rosalina (insanely powerful neurotic who is only held in place by loving family and innate desire to do good)

Julieta: fem!Robin (underappreciated yet one of the most loving characters there are. Very tired. Deserves a vacation)

Augustin: Chrom (Designated family himbo who is filled with love and no brain)

Felix: Little Mac (certified House Husband who tries his best and has broad shoulders for huggin')

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jadedxrealityw · 3 years

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-Rivals- Hermione Granger x Female Reader

☼-☪-☼

Kody: I’m using the owls grading system for the story so if that’s not right, sue me i guess idk.

Movie/Show: Harry Potter, ignoring the storyline

House/Year: Ravenclaw / 7th year

Request: Can I request a bold ravenclaw reader (her attitude almost could pass as a slytherin ngl) she's been Hermione's rival when it comes to grades and they DON'T get along very well. Reader is the opposite of mione's reserved personality. But rivals don't kiss and make out with each other secretly in the lavatory 😭 pls enemies to lovers (with some tension;) ykyk and then one day, they walk the great hall hand in hand and everyone is like don't they find each other insufferable?

Possible Triggers/Warnings: if you don’t like lesbians get the hell off my page, sexual tension, enemies to lovers trope, cursing

☼-☪-☼

love came unexpectedly at times, you learned that at young age from fairy tales and such. Well all kids did, but kids eventually grew up and came to the realization that fairy tales were exactly what they were, fairy tales. Fiction. Not real.

people could call you cold hearted or rude, but you would describe yourself as blunt or brutally honest. Never afraid to speak your mind or point out injustice when you saw fit. To put it simpler terms, professors at Hogwarts preferred you didn’t speak at times.

“Your too outspoken Ms. L/n”

“Stick to your academics Ms. L/n”

“You wouldn’t be in detention so much so if kept your mouth shut Ms. L/n”

merlin, you were exhausted of hearing your own last name. You guessed the only reason you weren’t reprimanded as worse as the Weasley Twins was because you were one of Hogwarts brightest witches, always excelled in academics, in every subject.

you couldn’t explain it to others even if you tried other then it just came naturally. Your parents, when they were attended Hogwarts were both just as naturally skilled in there studies as you were. So you must have inherited there ‘big brain’ as your mother said many times before.

you were never one to gloat though, it was never your style. You were more humble about what you could accomplish. That was until she got involved. That egoistical, hypocritical, Gryffindor girl. Hermione Granger became the bane of your existence early into your fifth year.

until then Ms. Granger had been the top of all her classes, no one even came close to her intelligence, naming her ‘The Brightest Witch At Hogwarts’ and Hermione wore that title with pride. Being a Muggle born put a target on her head as well as stereotypes.

most students and some staff almost immediately came to the conclusion she wasn’t capable of achieving goals that regular half or pure bloods could. It was a terrible way to think, but it was unfortunately the reality of being involved with the wizarding world.

Hermione was lucky to have friends like she did that cared about her no matter who she was or what she became, but it didn’t stop her need to feel validated in her academics. It was the one thing no one could giver her shit for, because she was the best at it and no one else was.

until that fateful fifth year that was mentioned earlier. It was the time when you finally got your mind and heart into your studie. You blew past most of the student body rather quickly, earning the title of the fastest turn around at Hogwarts.

it was nice

then it wasn’t, for Hermione of course

☼-☪-☼

fifth year / past

“It seems we have two students with an Outstanding this time around” Professor Flitwick spoke as the exams from the previous week had landed neatly onto the wooden desk in front of you. “congratulations Ms. Granger and Ms. L/n”

Hermione’s head perked up like a cat who had heard a bag of hard food shake from the nest room over, eager. She had never heard that name before, it didn’t come as much as an surprise though considering how big Hogwarts was. She leant to the left where Harry Potter sat.

“Who’s L/n? Do you know her?” she asked, casually though Harry knew her better then most. He gave her a half hearted shrug “No clue, try Ron” he suggests. Hermione nods once before leaning over to the right, where the Weasley sat, scowling at his exam.

“Mum’s going to kill me” he muttered, bringing no reaction to Granger’s face. He never studied. “Ron, do you know who this L/n is?” she repeated the question she gave to Harry. Ron turns his head away from the parchment and to Hermione.

his brows furrowed as he searches the corners of his mind for where he had heard the name from, until the visible light bulb popped over his head- well not so visible actually. “Oh um- Y/n L/n. she’s a Ravenclaw, her parents are certified geniuses. They work at the ministry. Department of magical education”

his words did not soothe the wracking thought in the young Granger’s mind. “Certified geniuses?” Hermione echos. “If that’s so how come she’s only getting Outstandings now? she must have cheated somehow” she thought aloud.

“I surely didn’t cheat”

like an owl Hermione’s head turned over her shoulder, her two Gryffindor pals doing the same. In her sight was a girl, her age, in a Ravenclaw robe. She had S/C skin with H/L H/C hair and E/C eyes that were staring back at her. Hermione was almost stunned into silence- keyword being almost.

“the explain the good grade all of the sudden, L/n?”

you looked rather confused. You had never met the girl and she was accusing you of cheating because you had never gotten an Outstanding before? Was this a prank of some sort or fever dream? “I studied for once. You have no right accusing me, i don’t even know you that well”

Harry placed a hand upon Hermione’s shoulder, signaling for her to stop before she caused a scene. Looking back, she should have listened “No right? I have a right to point out people who are just trying to cheat their way through school while people like us actually care about our grades”

what the Gryffindor girl wasn’t expecting was for you to start laughing. Her friend, Cho Chang joining in, finding it just as equally hilarious. Hermione’s face turned just as bright as Ron’s hair. “What is so funny?” you and Cho slowly come to a stop, breathing in and out.

“what’s funny is that your ego is so incredibly large, so much so that it can’t comprehend that someone, not a Gryffindor either was able to match your intelligence. Now shove off ” you said it all with a grin on your face, because you certainly knew you were right.

and from that day, you both despised each other

☼-☪-☼

seventh year / present

and with every exam, every questioned called on by a teacher, you fastly became Hermione’s rival. It was a term Cho used, but you didn’t really see it that way since you weren’t competing with her. You never studied harder to make sure you got the same grade, never tried to sabotage her in any way.

you didn’t care much about it actually

but you did quite enjoy her face, the way her nostrils flared up an her cheeks turned a bright red in anger. It was cute seeing her so mad. Sending er a wink or sly grin when she glared at you became a daily routine as well. When at first you ignored her you now loved annoying her.

never having to say a word was probably your favorite part.

that’s probably when feelings began to mix into it, but you either didn’t notice or refuse to acknowledge them at all. You genuinely thought you hated this girl, so why in the world would you ever think you liked her? Makes sense, right? Were not even going to mention the questioning your sexuality.

“Sit still while i pass out your exams from yesterday. Once you recieve your paper you may get up and leave”

“You think if Snape got laid he wouldn’t be such a prick?” the Slytherin boy spoke, leaning towards you. turning your head ever so slightly, you lock eyes with Draco “Why are you even sitting here?” you whisper back, giving him a mock astonished look.

he rolls his grey eyes, shrugging his shoulders “You never talk to me outside of class anymore” he grumbles. Is he- Is this- What is happening? “That’s because your a little shit and pushed Neville in the hallway yesterday” yeh, you caught his dumbass.

Draco’s eyes widen a bit, not knowing you had been in the hallway during the crime. “You saw that?- what are you his protector?” he says, clearly as an insult, but oh little did he know that you were indeed exactly what he just said and would say it with pride.

“Yes-”

“Ms. L/n, Outstanding as usual as well Mr. Malfoy. Good work, the both of you” Snape places the exams in front of each of you, but you were both to busy staring in shock. This bitter, old, mean, crude man just compliment you. Merlin, you had finally gotten fathers approval

(what in the fuck am i writing)

“Is this heaven?” Draco questioned, staring bug eyed forward.

“No”

“How do you know?”

“Cormac is here”

“Yeah your right, feelings over” both you and Draco sighed, turning to look at each other before laughing quietly. He was a pretty chill dude sometimes. “What!?” the loud screech filled your ears. All heads turned behind you, so you followed that and saw the one and only Hermione Granger.

she was huffing and puffing. You feared for the stick and straw houses in the world for a moment. Harry quickly stood up and pushed her shoulders down, forcing her back into her seat “I've never gotten an Exceeds Expectations before” Hermione sputters out.

she

got

what

now?

oh this was rich, absolutely hilarious, so much so that Draco had already began to laugh. “Poor Granger, guess you really aren’t the brightest witch” he taunted. Hermione looked up, glaring daggers at the Slytherin. Merlin, he had such a big mouth.

then her brown eyes strayed to you, but you only pursed your lips together, providing her no emotion to work off of. In a haste, she collected her things, leaving the cursed exam on the table nd rushing out the door, both Ron and Harry calling out for her.

fuck

standing up, you grab your bag and look down at Draco. His laughter comes to an end and he looks up at you “What?” he asked. You copied his dementor singers from third year, making him look at your hands. You took that time to reach down and flick his forehead.

he pulls away, his palm rubbing his head in circles “Bloody hell, what was that for?!” he exclaimed. What an idiot. “This is why we don’t hang out” you deadpan before finally going to exit the classroom, leaving a grumbling, mumbling Draco. Something about you being ‘mean friend’

☼-☪-☼

only having ten minutes until Charms class you began to search the halls. Merlin where had she run off too? The school wasn’t THAT big- okay maybe it was. You had almost called quits, making a mental note to check up on her during lunch when you passed the restroom.

sniffling and crys were heard. You’ll admit, it kind off hurt to hear. Taking a few steps backwards, you use the palm off your hand to slowly push the door open so it wouldn’t creak like the old shit it was. When it was open just enough for you to fit through, you slip in.

gazing around, you see Hermione bent over the sink, sobbing. You could hear her voice becoming rougher by the second as she destroyed her vocal cords. “Granger?” you say, staying a few feet behind her. Hermione looks up in the mirror, spotting you behind her.

her distraught expression quickly shifted to anger “You” she seethed. Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion “Me?” you say back, crossing your arms. “Leave me the hell alone L/n!” she shouts, angry tears flooding down her cheeks. Raising your hands, you offer your surrender.

“Shit, sorry. I was just trying to see if you were okay” you admit. Hermione turns on her heels, facing you directly this time before speaking “Oh so now your my friend, your a bully! All you do is step on my toes and try to make me look like a fool!”

“Are you on fucking drugs Granger? Not once have i ever gone out my way to harm you of any sort. Your the one who is obsessed with trying to be better then me and i never gave a shit. I never wanted to be your rival for three years and i certainly never bullied you!”

the words you spoke went out one of Hermione’s ears and out the other. For someone as smart as her, she could be quite dense when angry “You don’t get to play the saint, L/n! I have spent those three years studying as hard as i can and you don’t even have to try!”

throwing your hands up in the air a crazy person because she was honestly starting to make your brain hurt quite a bit, you laugh loudly “Oh my- no one asked you too! What is so wrong with us being the same?! ” you shouted, finally raising your voice as much as she had.

“Because your not a Muggle! You don’t know what it’s like to have everyone you meet already assume your not worth their time just because your parents aren’t witches or wizards!” she crept towards you and which each step she took you took a step right the fuck back.

this chick wasn’t going to hit you, right?

“I have never judged you for your blood status Granger, i frankly could care less. What i do judge you for is you know, the giant ego thing” you spat back only causing her to gasp in offense “I do not have an ego!” she yells, stepping into your boundaries basically.

you had tried to back up like before, but you were pressed up against a wall at this point. “Yes you do and it’s as big as Hagrid!” you reply. Hermione grabs the collar of your white uniform shirt, pulling you down a bit so her face was inches from yours, trying to intimidate you.

“Take it back!” she threatens. In that moment your eyes scanned her face, noting her almost perfect skin, her brown eyes that looked more hazel up close then far away, and her lips. They looked so soft and inviting. You couldn’t quite understand why you were thinking like this all of the sudden.

but it felt right, so right

in a swift motion you place your lips on Hermione’s. You had thought she’d pull away, but only half a second later her arms were wrapped around your neck, pulling you as close as possible to her. You tangled one of your hands into her light brown wavy mess and the other pushed on the small of her back.

the kiss was messy and sloppy, not amount of anything really could make it appropriate. How did you two go from fighting to almost ripping each others uniforms off? A question no one could really answer but yourself as well Hermione.

it was over as soon as it began with Hermione pulling away, leaning her forehead against yours. You could make out the small smile on her face, it made you smile as well. “That was-” she started to speak, but was stopped by her own laughter.

“Yeah” you breathed out. What had just happened?

☼-☪-☼

four months later

ever since that day you and Hermione would casually meet up in the lavatory to kiss and feel up on each other after, btween, during classes. Anything really. You both had also not interacted at all outside of these visits. Just stayed away from each other as much as possible.

most people thought you two had either made up after three years of rivalry or had decided to no longer interact with each other at all. Little did they know right? Speaking of that, you pull away from Hermione, panting for air “We have divination in three minutes” you spoke.

her face turned to worry instantly making you grin to yourself “Godric, i have to get out of here. Wait a couple minutes” she gathered her belongings and rushed out the restroom not even leaving you with an goodbye kiss. How rude. After about five minutes or so you leave as well

once you get to class you look around the room and spot Hermione already sat with Harry and Ron on one side of the arch like sitting area for the students. “Y/n!” oh not again. Turning your head to the right, you spt the Slytherin boy with his mates.

this guy just doesn’t quit. You plop yourself next to Draco Malfoy “I thought you were going to ignore me again” he admits. Ignoring his statement, you gaze around the people at your table “Where’s Parkinson? If i’m going to be stuck with you gits and Theo i rather it be with her”

Theo cracks a smile while Draco rolls his eyes “She’s sick, stuck in her dorms” he explains. You nod mindlessly and look over at Hermione. She was brushing through her hair with her fingers, trying to make it look like you weren’t tugging on it just minutes ago.

“What’s that on your neck?” Harry asks, moving the top part of Hermione’s robe with his finger, causing her to swat his hand away “It’s just a bug bite” she says with haste. quick thinking, that’s kinda cute. For some odd reason you liked seeing her explain her way out of a hickey that you gave her.

class soon started, but you kept your inventive gaze on her. It was adorable how she would catch you staring and turn a nice shade of red. It brought a smug smile to your face each time. Professor Trelawney had called upon Hermione to ask a question, but she seemed to be too busy avoiding your gaze.

“My dear, Ms. Granger” Trelawney said for maybe the third time until Hermione finally fell back down to reality. She looked at the Professor who gave her a kind smile “Oh um-” the Gryffindor put on a nervous smile, her eyes looking to you. You sent her a wink.

merlin you were such an asshole

Hermione looked at her lap, trying to muster up the words, any words actually. Her savior wore glasses “Hermione isn’t feeling to well. Can Ron and i take her to the hospital wing?” Harry asked. What a buzzkill. Trelawney nods, waving her hand to the direction of the door.

Harry tapped Hermione’s shoulder while Ron grabbed her things and off they went.

☼-☪-☼

a week later

“I have to head to dinner, you should too. I saw that you didn’t eat during lunch” Hermione spoke, buttoning her uniform shirt. You smile, looking into the mirror so you could fix your hair “Watching me Granger?” you ask, turning away from your reflection.

“You know i worry about your health” she said, which only made your smile wider “What is that stupid smile for?’ Hermione questions, an amused laugh in her tone. Shrugging, you lean against the sink counter “Stupid? I thought you liked my quote on quote ‘Goofy smile’”

Hermione shakes her head, grabbing her bag from the floor “I better see you at dinner or i’ll drag you there myself” she said playfully. An idea popped into your mind. “Then drag me” you smirk, tilting your head to the left. Hermione looks at you, shaking her head again. “You know i can’t”

“Why not? It’s been four months. I would like to be your-” you stopped mid sentence. You both had never really gave each other labels before. It was always just the casual make out and flirting, but now you were much more. Fuck it “I would like to be your girlfriend in public”

Hermione’s brow eyes went wide as she heard those words. It becoming a little too real. You saw her conflicted face and immediately felt some sort of shame. Averting your gaze to the ground, you take a deep breath. “Forget i said anything”

“No!- i mean. I’m ready. Plus i’m tired of being distracted by you during class” Hermione lightened the mood just a tad. You look back up at her, cracking a half smile “I’m most likely still going to distract you” you point out, making her chuckle. Cute.

she inhales sharply “Let’s do this” she states confidently, letting out the breath. She reached out, opening her hand for you to grab. In that small gesture, you knew you would be with this woman for as long as you lived. Grabbing her hand, you intertwined your fingers with hers.

☼-☪-☼

hand in hand, you walk into the great hall. Heads turned and pupils dialated at the sight of you and Hermione walking in together. You honestly felt a little self conscious until you saw the bright smile of Cho and Luna as well as Draco who gave you a hidden thumbs up.

both you and Hermione took seat at the Gryffindor table. “So Hermione, how long as this been going on?” Harry asked. Hermione glances at you before her best friend “Four months, one week.” she said, gleaming with pride at her memory.

Harry looked taken aback at the time, but gave you both a smile “Well at least you both are getting along finally” he says, Ron nodding beside “Yeah- getting along” the Weasley jokes. You laugh a bit before leaning over to kiss the temple of Hermione's head.

rivals am i right?

☼-☪-☼

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@the--queen-of-hell @sonbelleame @dracosathenaeum @queeriacs @marrymetheonott

☼-☪-☼

Kody- Aye look its 10 am and i haven’t slept. Good night, my requests are open blah blah. Anyways, peace.

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hadtochangemyurlquick · 3 years

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here’s 7.1k of Toni pining and Shelby and Toni being childhood friends and also far more character analysis of Rachel than I was expecting? also Marcus is real and I made him a gorgeous himbo. it’s based off that poem by @theycallmedizzy and you can find it here. lmk if you want a second chapter from shelby’s perspective, tho i literally just finished this one. like literally ten minute ago.

Mr. Williams finishes reading the poem and looks over his spectacles at the class. Yes, they’re spectacles, those kind of tiny thick ones that make his eyes too big because he’s much too old to be teaching.

It’s eight am on a Tuesday, Toni walked the three miles to school because she missed the bus only to walk into her shitty honors English class and hear the teacher reading a poem aloud to the class. Her poem. She’d sat down after a momentary pause and listened to him read the final damning stanza.

And then he looks at Toni.

He reads her essays right? What if he recognizes her writing voice? Is that a thing? Or maybe her handwriting or—

“Toni, I was just explaining to the class that whoever wrote this should submit it to the state literature festival,” Mr. Williams says, Toni almost sags against her chair. “I was hoping someone would come forward,” He turns back to the class, eyes hovering over Quinn and Monty, two of the more sensitive guys who sit in the back and ruin the curve for everyone. “But I’ll leave it on the board here,” he clacks it on with a magnet and Toni flinches, “and hopefully someone will come forward. Now onto today’s lesson.”

After class Martha goes up to the board and takes a picture of it, her eyes a little starry at the words and Toni grits her teeth.

“You have to admit it’s pretty,” Martha says. “Even you can’t deny that.”

“It’s dumb,” Toni says flatly, crossing her arms.

“Well I’m keeping it anyway, maybe someday someone will write a poem about me,” Martha says.

“How do you know it’s not about you?” Shelby asks coming out of nowhere and uninvited too. Toni glares at her, letting her open disdain shine through like sunshine through clouds after a gully washer.

“No guys notice me,” Martha informs Shelby sadly. “I bet Andrew wrote it for you.”

Shelby purses her lips and looks over the poem, “I doubt it. He’s more of a doer, I think. Besides, I’m sure that guys notice you, you went on a date with that boy Sam last month.”

Martha sighs and before she can launch into what a disaster that date was, Toni tightens her hands around her backpack.

“I’ll see you in science,” She tells Martha and manages to escape Shelby’s eyes burning at the back of her neck.

———

reasons not to kiss her

1.) this sort of love is not allowed. you are both too soft, and the world around you is all knives and chipped teeth

Toni had played about every sport she was allowed to growing up. Basketball was her favorite, but she loved beat it ball, the game she made up with the other kids in the neighborhood. It was basketball but without rules, devolving into fist fights within the first half. Nothing tasted better than her own bloody lip on a hot summer day. Not even the cool glass of lemonade Mrs. Blackburn always had ready when she ran all skinned knees to Martha’s telling her about how she beat guys two years older than her.

She got angry when she had to stop playing, moving to a different neighborhood. Apparently, Mrs. Blackburn had figured out that she wasn’t only getting her split lip from the older kids in the neighborhood.

The new foster parents were a little stricter, a little richer, and signed her up for youth soccer when she complained about how there was nothing to do without beat it ball.

Martha Blackburn would always be her person, but Toni didn’t expect to find her people so young. Dottie killed as goalie, and Becca’s sweetness made her defense all the better. But it was Shelby and Toni who were the dynamic duo. Toni had a never ending amount of energy as a midfielder and Shelby’s precision made her the perfect striker. It worked the same way every game, Becca would kick it to Toni, who got it to Shelby, who scored a goal. It got to the point that Becca didn’t even need to do much and the coach had to pull Toni aside to tell her to pass to the other girls too.

At the end of the season they sat together at the team party, wearing orange slice smiles. With sticky fingers they held hands and Toni kinda wondered how someone’s eyes could be so green.

Toni doesn’t remember why Shelby’s parents were so angry about them holding hands, but she knows Mr. Goodkind talked to her foster parents and Toni was off to a different home, in a different district, and she lost even Martha for a few months.

———

At lunch everyone’s talking about that fucking poem. Martha sent it around to the whole school and Leah is discussing its merits with Rachel and Nora. Even they don’t seem bored with the topic, though Nora is sure Quinn didn’t write it.

“It could be Monty,” Leah says. “I wouldn’t have thought he had an eye for this stuff.”

“I don’t think it’s Monty,” Rachel says. She looks at Nora, “C’mon, you know what I’m talking about, right?”

“What?” Nora asks.

“I mean it smells like Anna Akhmatova had a baby with Adrienne Rich,” Rachel says.

“Who had a baby with who?” Martha asks.

“Please,” Fatin says. “You’re not exactly the world’s leading expert on free form poetry.”

“Uh, I know when something’s written by a girl,” Rachel says. “I bet you fifty bucks some closet case wrote this.”

Everyone looks at Toni. “You caught me,” Toni deadpans.

“Rachel’s right,” Nora says. “A girl definitely wrote this. Toni, do you know anyone?”

Toni glares at her. “I’ll shake the lesbian phone tree and see what comes out.”

“Well, could it be Regan?” Martha asks. “Maybe she wants to—”

“It’s not fucking Regan,” Toni grabs her books and stalks out, kicking a chair randomly strewn around away as she did.

She hears Shelby sit down just as she leaves, “What’s got her madder than a baptized cat?” Shelby asks and Toni rolls her eyes.

———

2.) no one ever taught you how to love. your war paint and scarred hands could never hold her like she deserves

The worst of it was that Shelby was gentle. Her hands were warm and soft around Toni’s callouses, and there was a crinkle between her eyebrows as she focused on Toni’s hands. No, the worst of it was that Shelby didn’t let go of Toni’s hands when she finished, kept holding onto them as she met Toni’s eyes.

“Well?”

Toni swallowed hard, “I’m not gonna apologize.”

Shelby sighed, her thumb traced little circles around Toni’s hands. “I know today ain’t easy for you.” Toni scoffed and looked away. “But you know you were pickin' a fight. Andrew promised to leave you alone.”

Toni ripped her hands away and jumped from the bench of the locker room. “What the fuck do you know? You weren’t fucking there.”

Shelby’s calm only made Toni’s anger redder, “You ain’t denying it.”

“Why the fuck are you dating him? He’s a self-satisfied little asshole who just wants a little trophy girlfriend to—”

“Toni,” Shelby cut her off sharply and got to her feet, meeting Toni’s eyes.

“You’re not denying that either,” Toni spat.

She could’ve screamed at the hypocrisy. She wanted to scream. She wanted to pound her fists against the walls and bleed all over the bandages Shelby wrapped around her knuckles. She wanted to hurt, to make Shelby hurt. She wanted everyone to see and feel how hurt she was, and hurt them with that hurt. Finally level the playing field.

“Andrew is my business,” Shelby said. “Not yours.”

“He becomes my business when you—”

“When I what?” Shelby asked.

Toni looked at her hands, “Never mind.”

Shelby sighed, “Martha’s helping you move in today, right? Shel’ll be there the whole time?”

“Don’t pretend you give a shit.”

“Of course I care. The last time you lived with your mom you didn’t eat for a week.”

“I was five, not fifteen,” Toni said. “And seriously, stop pretending you give a shit.”

She shoulder checked Shelby as she walked out and winced at the sound of Shelby hitting the gym lockers. Her hands still sting where Andrew’s teeth had scrapped them.

———

Regan approaches Toni during science, her eyes serious. Martha straightens, and Toni does her best not to make eye contact.

“It’s not mine,” Regan says.

“Yeah duh,” Toni mutters.

Regan frowns, “I just—I didn’t want you to—”

“You made it perfectly clear what you want,” Toni says.

Regan sighs and leaves and Toni regrets it.

“Shelby thinks it’s Marcus,” Martha tells her. Toni blinks up at her and Martha nods. “She thinks he wrote it for me.”

“Martha, that kid is dumber than a box of rocks,” Toni says.

Martha furrows her brow, “Maybe he has hidden depths.”

“If you think it’s him ask him out,” Toni says.

“Shelby thinks it’s him,” Martha is quick to correct. “But he doesn’t even know who I am.”

Toni rolls her eyes. Marcus had been in love with Martha since the ninth grade. They had gotten placed as lab partners and he literally didn’t take his eyes off her the entire time. Every time there was a dance he would always look like he was about to say something, shoot his shot, when Martha would loudly proclaim she couldn’t wait to go with her friends.

Toni would’ve pulled the guy aside and told him to grow a pair, but a guy who’s not brave enough to go after what he wants wasn’t good enough for her Marty, not by a long shot.

“Rachel still thinks a girl wrote it,” Martha says.

“Maybe Rachel wrote it,” Toni mutters.

Martha’s eyes light up.

———

3.) no one has ever loved you this full surely you would drown in it all

Being a lifeguard was the worst. It was super boring, the pay was shit, and also Toni would probably get someone killed. Like, they pretended she was CPR certified but she absolutely had no idea how to do it. She went to some hour long course, slept through it, took a test that was just: should you kill people? And then they wrote some bullshit on some papers about a three week long set of classes.

But Shelby was tanned and golden looking and on their shifts they’d text back and forth about which kids they were betting on to win sharks and minnows. Tweenage boys in all their adolescent infancy would gaze open mouthed at Shelby and Toni alike but Shelby was the only one who let them down gently. Toni would ruin them for girls forever with something enough to cut through even the thickest skin.

On the fourth of July the pool paid for fireworks and Toni found a blanket and Shelby found her and they sat watching the reflections of the lights together. Shelby rested her head on Toni’s shoulder, all gentle, like she was afraid Toni would spook.

“I know this ain’t much of a holiday for you,” Shelby said. “But thank you for spending it with me.”

She had her hand on the blanket, splayed out like she was waiting for Toni to take it, there in front of everyone. Toni imagined a world in which she did.

———

“Yeah it’s not me,” Rachel says. “I wish I could write that good.”

Which is such bullshit because Toni knows Rachel could say well if she wanted to. Rachel’s weird inferiority complex about Nora pisses off Toni to no end. Nora’s the smart one, Rachel will be the first to say, and Rachel’s the athletic one. But Nora has a six minute mile and Rachel has perfect pitch so Toni hates them both.

“Maybe it’s Dot,” Toni suggests and Rachel, Nora, and Martha snicker.

Out of all of them, Martha’s the best driver, but they always end up in Rachel’s car after school anyway.

“Most of the school seems to think it’s by Andrew,” Nora says. Toni’s fists clench.

“Yeah,” Rachel rolls her eyes, “I’m sure he would love to take the credit. C’mon Toni, you don’t know any lesbians who could’ve written this?”

“You’re a lesbian too,” Toni says. “You don’t know any?”

“I don’t have a life outside of the pool,” Rachel says, “and none of them have picked up a book since Hop on Pop.”

“Regan says it wasn’t her,” Martha cuts in helpfully. “But maybe it’s another kid in theatre. Shelby says—”

“Oh my god,” Toni grits out. “What is everyone’s deal with her anyway? Why is everyone still obsessed with her? She’s just another basic Jesus bitch.”

The car goes quiet and Toni wishes she could melt into her seat cushion.

“I didn’t mean that,” Toni says.

“Except you did,” Martha snaps.

Toni winces.

“What’s your deal with her?” Rachel asks. “You guys were fine last year.”

“Quinn says there’s a poetry club,” Nora says. “Maybe it’s someone there?”

No one takes the bait and they don’t talk the rest of the way.

———

4.) she belongs in a museum, and you are merely here to gaze. look around you, all the signs scream ‘do not touch’

“Shelby?”

Toni grabbed the shoulder of the girl and pulled her away from Marcus. Shelby was bruised lips and ruined make up and Toni took her by the hand. Thank god Martha wasn’t here, thank god Andrew wasn’t here, thank god Marcus looked just as trashed.

“Toni?” Shelby sorta stumbled, her ankle twisting painfully on her heel and Toni steadied her.

Shelby could do a cartwheel in six inch heels.

“I’m gonna get you home, okay?” Toni called over the music.

Shelby didn’t really respond, just leant into Toni as she led her away and outside. The party had spilled into the backyard and front yard some, the cops probably already on their way, but everyone was too fucking hammered to notice them making their way out.

Shelby’s house was only about a twenty minute walk but it was cold and Toni was only wearing her basketball shorts and her mom’s jacket that she promptly put over Shelby’s shoulders.

“Are you still—” Shelby swallowed hard, “You’re still living with your mom?”

“Mostly with Martha,” Toni said.

“Martha’s great,” Shelby said. “She’s so pretty it makes my eyes hurt.”

“One of our finest,” Toni grunted as Shelby nearly fell on her heels again.

“She could be a model,” Shelby told her. “We should get waffle house.”

“Shelbs, we’re nowhere near a waffle house.”

“What was Becca’s order? At waffle house?”

Toni sighed, looping an arm around her. “I dunno.”

“Neither do I,” Shelby said.

“I’m sorry, Shelby,” Toni said.

Shelby shook her head and stopped right there, circling her arms around Toni and pressing her into a hug. Toni closed her eyes, holding her back as tightly as she dared.

“Oh, Shelby, I’m so fucking sorry.”

———

“Day two!” Mr. Williams calls. He taps the poem again, “I will investigate the handwriting if the poet doesn’t come forward by Friday. I know it’s someone in one of my classes.”

His eyes narrow as he takes them all in and his eyes don’t linger on Toni. Not even for a moment.

There’s a part of her that wants to march up to the front of the room and write her name down, make eye contact with everyone who never even considered her before. But no one expects shit from her, and even if he does go over the handwriting he won’t really be able to pin it on her. He might not even bother checking to see if it matches.

Toni tries not to jump when Marcus takes the seat in front of her during quant lit. It’s not like they have assigned seating but everyone sticks to the same seats anyway. Marcus won’t get shit for it though, perks of being the quarterback.

“So, listen,” he scratches the back of his head and Toni rolls her eyes at him. “I know we aren’t really friends but I—um.”

“Marcus,” Toni says.

“I wanna ask Martha out,” Marcus rushes out. “She’s like the nicest, smartest, coolest girl in the school and like her eyes are out of this world radical.” Radical? “And I would take her somewhere nice like Olive Garden. Or Cheesecake Factory? And pay for it, and open all the doors for her, and I’d carry her books to class—”

“On your date? This is happening during school?” Toni asks.

His eyebrows furrow as he tries to connect the dots. Football players.

“Oh no! I meant like, after, if she wants me to,” He says. “Can I?”

“Can you what?”

“Can I ask her out?”

Toni blinks at him. “What?”

“My buddy said if you want to get with a girl you get close to the best friend first, and I figured I’d ask you for your blessing because that’s what they do in old fashioned stuff right?” He bounces up in down in his seat. “Can I? Or like, do you wanna give me your blessing?”

She feels like she’s having an aneurysm.

Listen, Marcus having feelings for Martha is one thing. Everyone on the planet who’s ever met Martha falls a little in love with her. That’s kinda just how she operates. Toni narrowly avoided that pitfall by being lucky enough to know her since she was five, but it was a tough time. But Marcus was never gonna act on it. Marcus can’t—he’s the quarterback.

It’s basic math, Marcus is a six foot five football player with shoulders wide enough to bench press the Subaru Forrester Toni’s legally required to buy when she turns thirty-two. He’s got that all American boy smile that shows of perfectly white teeth, and dark hair that sweeps in front of his eyes. His face looks like it was sculpted out of marble, like literally he looks like some sort of roman god, except if that roman god volunteered at the humane society on the weekends and called his mom Mami.

Martha is a res girl who’s best friend is the dyke with anger issues. And like yeah, she’s stupid pretty, but Marcus has exclusively dated varsity cheerleaders since the seventh grade.

So yeah, even if Marcus may have feelings for Marty, everyone fucking does, and there’s a host of reasons why she doesn’t have a date to every dance and a new guy every week. And most of them are the cliche high school movie hierarchy sort.

“It’s really none of my business, man,” she says.

“Dude, it’s totally your business,” Marcus says. He leans closer, “you two are like sisters right? What do I gotta do to prove I’m not gonna hurt her? I’ll do your math homework for a month, no two months.”

A thought occurs to Toni and it’s a terrible one. But when has that ever stopped her?

“You’re in my honors English class right?”

Marcus’s face screws in, “Uh, yeah. But I don’t think you want me doing your homework in there, I’m like totally failing.”

“I have a better idea.”

———

5.) she touches you like youre fragile, and if you break you wont be able put yourself together again

Dot was asleep which was Toni’s first indication that something was deeply wrong. The second was that Shelby wasn’t. She was definitely trying her darnedest, but Toni could tell she was awake. Awake in her arms.

Toni shifted, just enough to let Shelby know she was awake too. The movie was some horror flick, something dumb and flashy and almost muted it was so quiet. It was the only thing rated R that they could all agree on. Dot’s house was the only place they were allowed to watch anything rated R when they were still thirteen, so it was all they watched there.

She felt Shelby shift up, so her head rested on Toni’s chest, shifted until her lips met Toni’s clavicle.

Toni wondered if she’d die.

Shelby went up instead of down, pressing kisses up the length of Toni’s neck, soft barely there things that made Toni’s breath catch as she watched Dot snore on the couch next to them.

Toni’s hands moved to the inside of Shelby’s thighs and they stared there, tracing delicate patterns that only made Shelby curl closer.

“I think you’re probably the most beautiful girl I ever saw,” Shelby whispered.

“I—”

“I’m not done.”

Toni’s mouth clamped shut.

“I think about you all the time,” Shelby whispered. “Even when I—”

“Shelby,” Toni warned. Shelby pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth.

“You’re right,” Shelby said.

Neither of them slept that night.

———

Toni walks into class three minutes late with Mr. Williams, and takes her seat with a sulk.

“He still won’t let me redo that paper,” Toni mutters to Martha who’s eyes are wide.

“Toni, Marcus just—” She nods her head at the poem where Mr. Williams is studying it too.

“Marcus Gonzales?” Mr. Williams asks.

Marcus gets to his feet.

“You wrote this?”

“Yessir.”

“This poem right here?”

“Yessir.”

Mr. Williams blinks and takes off his spectacles, setting them down on the desk. “We’ll talk after class. I should hope everyone has a copy of��”

“I wrote it for Martha,” Marcus doesn’t sit down and the entire class stares at him.

“—Franny and Zooey and I would like you all to turn to page 52. Begin by annotating—”

“Martha, can I take you out on a date?” Marcus asks.

“—this first section, and on to page 64. Remember what Seymour serves as in—”

Martha blushes hard and glances at Toni who smiles before she looks back at Marcus in all his golden boy 6’5” glory.

“Um, okay,” she mutters out and he grins.

“Cool.” Marcus finally sits and gives Toni a thumbs up. She rolls her eyes.

“—this story and compare that to his roles in the other parts of the work we’ve read.”

“I told you it was for you, girl,” Shelby says on Martha’s other side. “People always have a way of surprising you.”

———

6.) she is all bubblegum skies and chapped stick kisses, and you cannot watch the love run out of another persons eyes

They were all a little bit slap happy by the end of the night. A little bit drunk, a little bit high, and laughing far too hard at one another.

“I’m scared,” Shelby told them, still grinning wider than any pageant smile.

“Girl, you picked dare,” Fatin said.

“I did,” Shelby bit her lip. “But all y’all dared Leah to do was finish the vodka.”

“That was—that was bad vodka,” Leah slurred from her position on Dot’s lap.

“But now we’re out of vodka,” Martha sang. “You picked dare.”

“I’ll go with you,” Toni got to her feet, surprised when they were more steady than she assumed they’d be. “Two chairs right?”

“Alright,” Shelby said. “And you’ll hold my hand?”

“Sure princess,” Toni rolled her eyes.

It was an office supply place, probably. The parking lot had this killer decline, and it was one of those spring nights where nothing could really ruin anything. Not forever.

The rolling chairs were kinda gross, left there but not yet picked up by the garbage men. They had to do a special pickup for that, which costed extra. No one in the office had done it for the weeks the girls had been going there after parties.

“Be careful,” Nora urged.

“Don’t fall,” Rachel suggested.

“Hold on, I’m not recording yet,” Fatin said. “Okay now go.”

They pushed off in their rolling chairs, holding hands, and sped down the decline laughing as they barely managed to hold on and steer at the same time.

Toni went flying as she bumped into a patch of grass and for some reason, Shelby went flying with her, landing on top. Toni grunted, but she wasn’t in pain, not really.

They met eyes.

“Sorry,” Shelby said. She didn’t sound sorry.

“You okay?” Toni asked.

Shelby smiled, this real soft thing, Toni wondered what it’d taste like.

“Fuck yeah bitches! I’m so putting that on snapchat!” Fatin screamed and Shelby pulled away, turning white.

“God if this is you in in freshman year, I’m terrified of you as a senior,” Toni called back.

Shelby’s hand slipped out of her’s and Toni tried very very hard not to overthink it.

———

“So I’ve been thinking,” Leah said. Toni took her gym bag out of her locker, pretty much the only thing she kept in there.

“Oh no.”

“Rachel was right about that poem being written by a girl,” Leah continued. “Which meant Marcus lied. And Marcus would never do that unless someone gave him permission to take credit. And since Marcus lied so he could ask Martha out that means the person who wrote the poem wanted Martha to be happy.”

Toni swallowed hard and tried not to fumble with the lock, stumbling with it.

“Toni,” Leah walked over to her. “You need to face the facts: Shelby’s into you.”

Toni blinked, “What?”

“She wrote that whole poem for you, don’t tell me you don’t see it. It’s about you!”

“She—” Toni stopped and furrowed her brow, finally making eye contact with Leah, “You think she wrote that poem for me?”

Leah nodded, “And she let Marcus take the credit. Listen, I know I’m right. I’ve been thinking about it for ages. Whatever fight the two of you had—you need to get over it. She’s into you, Toni. She’s been into you.”

“You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about,” Toni told her. “Seriously, fuck you Leah and fuck off. This is none of your fucking business.”

“You aren’t denying it,” Leah crowed. “Shelby likes you.”

“No she fucking doesn’t!” Toni spat at her. “She fucking hates me! She didn’t write that poem Marcus did! For Martha!”

Leah’s brow furrowed, “But… but you wanted her to. Didn’t you?”

Toni looked away.

“Shelby’s actually straight, isn’t she?” Leah asked. “Fuck Toni.”

“I’m happy for Martha,” Toni said, and marched away.

———

7.) if you jump, she might catch you, and then youd have to watch as she tumbled through the dark

“What if we ran away?” Shelby asked, which was Toni’s third indication that the punch was spiked.

The first two were her arms wrapped around Toni’s waist, swaying in the soft breeze to the distant music of Junior prom.

“Oh yeah?” Toni asked. “Where’d we go?”

“Peru,” Shelby said. “Or LA, or New York or—” Shelby sort of trailed off, losing her thought halfway through it.

“Our parents,” Toni pointed out. She’d moved in with Martha a few months ago but her mom had taken it as a wakeup call, promising to get her shit back together as soon as she could. Toni couldn’t help but believe her, even if it put her in stasis.

“Right,” Shelby sounded cold, “Our parents.”

“Are things worse with them?” Toni asked.

“No,” Shelby said. “The same, really. They’ve lightened up since—since Becca. Have you heard from your mom?”

“Every week or so,” Toni said. “And if you ever need a break you know—“

“Martha is happy to have me,” Shelby finished.

Toni smiled and pulled away enough to meet Shelby’s eyes, her hands slid from behind Shelby’s neck to either side.

“Did I tell you you look beautiful tonight?” Toni asked.

“You did,” Shelby said.

“Can I say it again?”

“You can.”

“You look beautiful tonight.” Shelby closed her eyes and Toni tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “You’re gonna get out, you know that right?”

Shelby nodded, leaning into Toni’s hand.

Later, Toni will learn that was one of two lies Shelby told that night.

———

Martha gets home at 11:30, exactly when Marcus promised, and Toni smiles as her sister collapses backwards into her bed.

“Toni,” she actually giggles, giggles like a little school girl. “It was amazing.”

“Where’d you go?” Toni asks.

“Olive Garden, I think he was trying to win points with you,” Martha says.

“As he should,” Toni nods.

“He was the perfect gentleman,” Martha swoons. She rolls onto her stomach and looks at Toni and oh god, Toni knows that look. “He did tell me something about you, though.”

“Oh yeah? How I’m better in quant lit than him?” Toni asks.

“He told me you wrote the poem,” she says.

Toni looks away, “Okay, and?”

“You told me you were over Regan,” Martha says.

“It’s complicated,” Toni decides. “And whatever. I wrote it awhile ago anyway.”

“Have you thought about submitting it to that contest Mr. Williams was talking about?” Martha asks.

“Can we go back to talking about your date with Prince Charming?” Toni says. Martha acquiesces, she’s too damn giddy to do anything else.

———

8.) her gaze is too gentle. you will not be the one to tell her that not everything can be fixed with a smile

“Toni,” Dot began, and Toni could tell she was looking at her. “Toni, is Shelby—is she gay?”

Toni snickered, “Dot, Shelby is possibly the biggest straight girl in our school. Maybe our state. She’d sooner give herself a buzzcut than she would ever even kiss a girl."

“Andrew said Shelby got a job as a counselor at this church camp—Guiding Light—in Plano,” Dot said. “I wanted to find the address so I could write to her and it’s a conversion camp.”

The breath left Toni’s body.

“What?”

“And I got to thinking,” Dot said. “About what a mess she was after Becca died this year. Ignoring us, going to all those parties, signing up for a crazy number of pageants. Hell, it was only once you two started talking that she talked to us again.”

“Stop it, Dot.”

“Toni is Shelby gay?”

“Dot,” Toni said.

“Because if she’s gay, if she’s not there as a camp counselor—Toni, did you know about this?”

“Of course not! Jesus!” Toni said. She jumped to her feet and started to pace, “Jesus Christ. Oh my god.”

“Toni is Shelby gay?”

Toni looked at Dot and Dot sighed, her entire body sagging.

“What do we do?” Toni asked.

Dot, her solid, steady, friend since fucking youth soccer was silent.

“Dot, what do we do?”

“Dot, what the fuck do we do?”

———

Shelby finds her before school, Toni smoking like she hasn’t since ninth grade when Bernice gave her a stern lecture about lung cancer. It made Toni cry, actually. Not because it was so stern but because Martha and Toni had been separated for three years and Bernice still cared enough to get angry with her. She promised then and there to stop, and each drag she took now makes her feel like she’s committing treason.

“Smokin’ kills,” Shelby tells her, like they didn’t all go to Dot’s dad’s funeral last year.

Toni takes another drag, just to watch Shelby roll her eyes.

“How’d Martha’s date go last night?” Shelby asks.

Toni glares, “Seriously? You avoid me all year and now you’re asking about Martha’s date?” Shelby looks away. “It went fine. Whatever.”

“I just—I was surprised Marcus wrote that poem is all.”

“You literally said multiple times you thought it was him,” Toni says.

“I know, I know but—”

“Still holding out hope for Andrew?” Toni sneers. “Marcus may not be the sharpest tool in the shed but he cares about Martha. Even a fucking idiot could write a half decent poem if they had someone worth writing about.”

Shelby meets her eyes and Toni’s breath catches.

“Know a lot about poetry, Toni?”

Fuck fuck fuck.

Toni flicks the only half used cigarette away. “I have to go to class,” She says, aware it’s just about the worst thing she can do.

Shelby doesn’t even need the last word, she’s aware she’s already won.

———

9.) she is so good. she is so good, and you cannot ruin one more good thing

It hadn’t been the first time Toni found her mom overdosed on the couch, but it’d been the most terrifying. Toni had waited in the school parking lot for a pick up for twenty minutes before Shelby had offered her a ride.

When they trooped inside, after having to use the key Tamera kept tucked away in a loose brick, her mom had been passed out on the couch. And the stupid thing had been that Toni had known her mom hadn’t been doing great. Like she’d known Tamera had lost her job, and was close to losing the car, that the pain in her back had been getting worse again from stress. Toni had known that.

But for some stupid, naive reason, Toni had never thought she’d pull this, go back to who she was.

Her tolerance was low, the doctors had told her, because she’d been clean for so long. She hadn’t realized it and had taken more than she could handle.

Shelby had taken the three of them to the hospital, helped carry Toni’s drooling mother into the ER, and held Toni’s hand until the other girls showed up, who she texted to come.

Shelby had been there when the police and social services came to talk to her about going back into foster care. Shelby had never left her side.

Toni couldn’t help but contrast that to the Shelby she saw now. The Shelby who showed up for senior year was barely christian, barely anything, just sort of blank and empty and waiting to grow up so she could have daughters that'd also wait to grow up so that they could have daughters that’d also wait to grow up so that they could have daughters that’d also

Shelby didn’t even look at her, for the first week of senior year she didn’t even look at Toni. She talked with Martha in that faux friendly way, she passed off on lunch invitations to do school work and Toni felt like she was going insane.

Sometimes she would just stare at the back of Shelby’s head in English class, writing whatever gibberish came to mind, and not listening to Mr. Williams at all. Just stare, for forty-five minutes, at a girl who wouldn’t even make eye contact, Toni’s pencil moving rapidly as she barely even glanced at the words her hands produced.

On the last day of the semester Toni finally looked away and came to two realizations:

a. Her mother was never getting better. Not really. b. Toni had written P E R U over forty times in her notebook.

As quietly as she could she tore the page out, and maybe about fifteen pages behind it, filled with similar drivel and recycled them at the end of class.

When the next semester started the seats were changed and something she’d written that she barely remembered was on the board.

Her mother was still in rehab.

———

Toni watches Marcus carry Martha’s backpack to class and watches as Martha giggles at him, argues with him. She is literally so happy it makes Toni’s heart burst.

“Shelby’s quite the matchmaker, huh?” Fatin asks.

Toni looks at her.

“Leah told me,” Fatin explains.

Toni rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, that’s what I said too,” Fatin says. “Leah’s good at noticing things but putting the pieces together is not her strong suit. So I called Dorothy.”

This makes Toni’s shoulders tense and Fatin wraps an arm around them.

“Dorothy didn’t want to talk but what she didn’t say was enough.” Fatin sighs, “I’m all for a little drama but this is cutting into my me time.”

“What going from twenty-four hours a day to twenty-three and a half?” Toni asks.

“God forbid,” Fatin nods sagely. “I didn’t know you could write.”

“I can’t.”

“Clearly not.”

Toni slips out from under her arm, and follows Martha into class. Mr. Williams glares as she comes in and Toni realizes if Marcus came clean to Martha he definitely came clean to Mr. Williams. At least the poem is off the board.

When he passes out papers from a recent essay her’s has a “see me after class” sticker that makes Toni slide down in her seat. Martha doesn’t even notice enough to give her an odd look because she and Shelby are yukking it up about the quarterback.

When everyone files out she hangs back and he looks at her, over his spectacles.

“I’m disappointed,” he says at last.

Toni scoffs.

“You write essays based off spark notes, you never participate, and half the time you don’t even do the homework. But you write this.” He slides the crumpled paper over his desk, her poem shining back at her. “So all I can conclude is that you’re lazy.”

Yeah, obviously.

“Why did you have Marcus tell everyone he wrote it?” Mr. Williams asks.

“So he could ask out Martha.”

“He didn’t need to have written the poem to do that,” Mr. Williams says.

“Can I go?” Toni asks.

“I want to submit this poem to a contest, I want you to start trying in this class, and this,” he hands her a slip of paper with about twenty sets of numbers on it, “is a list of Dickinson poems I want you to read by next week. Pick at least three to write me at least a page about. Single spaced.”

“What?” Toni asks, “You can’t make me do that.”

“I know half the kids in this class write off spark notes, I can easily have them all—including you—fail. So yes, yes I can actually.” He takes off his spectacles and Toni glares at him. “You’re a smart kid, Toni. You’ve got a talent for this.”

Toni shakes her head, “I’m a one hit wonder.”

“You know Britney Spears said the same thing after Baby One More Time.”

“That’s not true,” Toni says.

“Yeah,” Mr. Williams says. “Because she kept working at it.”

And Toni takes the slip of paper with the numbers on it, and marches to her next class and he watches her the whole way, not bothering to put on his stupid spectacles.

———

10.) you will not watch her crumble under the weight of your sins. she is too light, too breathless to be caught up in the dizziness of your heart

Dot didn’t invite them all to the funeral but they came anyway, even Shelby who Toni knew had been waffling back and forth.

Some of his army friends showed up, a doctor or two, and Mateo—the hot nurse Dot steadily ignored. It was a small and quiet service, and the seven of them sat towards the back, holding steady for her.

There was too much on Dot’s shoulders, there always had been, but she didn’t look any freer now that the burden was lifted. She just looked scared, small, and sad.

Toni couldn’t help but wonder if that was what she’d look like, if she got the call about her mom. It was a terribly selfish thought but who could blame her?

Shelby’s hands interlocked with hers, in broad daylight, and stayed there for the entire day. When Toni met her eyes she saw pure terror reflected back at her.

God, were they really only seventeen?

———

Rachel is complaining at lunch about owing Nora five bucks, how she was so sure some closet case wrote the poem but it’s no surprise Nora got it right.

Fatin and Leah don’t contribute and Martha probably wouldn’t have either except she was eating lunch with Marcus, they had found their own little table and were smiling at one another.

“They’re certainly cute together,” Shelby says, glancing back at Martha and Marcus.

“I say it’s weird they have the same name,” Rachel says.

“Says the girl who dated a guy named Raymond,” Nora says.

Rachel throws a straw wrapper at him, “That was a phase and you know it.”

“Marcus is sweet,” Shelby says. “If anyone deserves someone sweet it’s Martha.”

“Don’t you think he’s a little,” Leah trailed off and they all looked at her. “You know a little…”

“Spit it out, Leah,” Rachel says.

“Like the porch lights on but no one’s home?” Leah says.

“Martha is smart enough for the both of them,” Toni says. “And thank god because I was sick of doing his homework in quant lit.”

“That’s literally the easiest math class there is,” Fatin says and Toni shrugs.

“What’s that?” Shelby asks, pointing at the yellow slip sticking out of Toni’s binder.

“Some extra credit stuff, from Williams. Apparently I’m not doing so hot in that class,” Toni says.

Rachel leans way over from the other end of the table. “What is that, Dickinson?”

“It’s a list of numbers,” Shelby says. “Why would it be Dickinson?”

“All of Dickinson’s poems were numbered. It was only after she died that other people named them,” Nora says.

“And Nora said it so you know it’s true,” Rachel smirks.

“Join the fucking club,” Dot says to Toni. “I don’t know why y’all didn’t take non-honors English twelve with me. We just sit around and talk about whatever football game was on the most recently.”

“Well I’ve never liked football so.” Toni gets up, “I’ve gotta talk to my science teacher. I’ll see you guys after school.”

“I’ll go with you,” Shelby smiles and Toni clenches her jaw. “Ms. Roberts said I needed to rework my psych paper.”

“See you guys,” Rachel says and as they leave she’s arguing with Dot about why football is stupid and Toni can feel Fatin’s eyes on her all the way out.

———

reasons to kiss her

1.) she loves you, and her eyes are closed, and didnt your mother ever tell you not to leave a good thing waiting

Toni hated the magnet program kids at her middle school. Like everyone not in their cluster she found them annoying, rich, and privileged as fuck. They only hung out with each other and it was clear they’d never give—

———

“Toni?”

The stair well is empty, it’s the short cut through the language hallway and no one goes there during lunch.

Toni is working hard on ignoring Shelby but is forced to turn around when Shelby stops halfway up.

“Ms. Roberts doesn’t need me to rework my psych paper.”

Toni stares at her.

Shelby takes a step up, one step closer to Toni.

“I had hoped maybe you wrote it for Regan,” Shelby says.

“No such luck,” Toni croaks out.

“That’s a lot of reasons not to kiss someone,” Shelby says. “You’d think if you really shouldn’t kiss someone you’d only need the one.” She takes another step up, until they’re only separated by a few inches.

“I guess,” Toni says.

“Are you really gonna keep me waiting?” Shelby says.

Toni blinks, “You mean you still—”

“I have to do everything myself,” Shelby says.

She kisses her.

#did something different with time than i usually do #and with structure #lmk what you think #shoni #the wilds fanfic #the wilds #goodfoe fanfic #goodfoe #shelby goodkind #toni shalifoe #gus writes #ren don’t

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the-queer-fox · 3 years

Note

Mutuals as the mighty nein....?

OKAY SO:

Fjord - @just-another-thespian What a lad. He's just trying to live his life and has to put up with all our bullshit (affectionate). He's probably the most responsible person here, but suffers from Zero Impulse Control, and I also vote him the Most Likely To Unintentionally Make A Pact With A Giant Eldritch Abomination. Plus, he's British so they're basically the same person- (For legal reasons, this is a joke... mostly)

Jester - @one-time-i-jumped-off-a-cliff What a sweetheart. I love them so much. Chaotic as shit. Like, literally the most chaotic person I know. I fucking love them. Would draw dicks in library books. Gives good hugs. Is lowkey Strong. As. Fuck. Just the most lively and fun person I know. Would absolutely buy a weasel and a dog without hesitation if given the option because Zero Impulse Control. In love with her best friend-

Beau - @i-want-anne-hathaway You have a brain cell and still give off dumbass energy. It's called being Talented <3. Also, you deserve to punch shit. Let Bree Punch A Demon 2021. This association will undoubtedly make me begin to hc Beau as being a Swiftie and I hate it already!

Yasha - @musical-stan-first-human-later Emo on the outside, soft flower lesbian on the inside. I rest my case. Also! You can finally live out your fantasy of being tall. You're welcome :)

Mollymauk - @seaurchns Colorful circus man. What a beautiful circus freak you would be. Also, look up Molly's coat! You'd wear it. You give basically no shits and are just here to vibe, good for you. You deserve to have an douchey villainous counterpart. As a treat. Just a sarcastic and fabulous bastard. We stan <3

Veth - @billiam-i-am You are not technically my mutual. Fitting. Just an absolute bastard. A gremlin. Your job is to be a pain in our collective ass. Unlike Veth, I am not sure you have a heart, my most gracious enemy.

Caduceus - Shamelessly casting myself as my boy. I'm pretty chill... I hope. Unironically said 'This is nice' and 'This is great' so many fucking times and now I can't stop thinking about it. I just want to be a tall hippie cow man with pink hair, is that too much to ask? A combination of making every conversation a philosophical discussion and also forgetting what I'm supposed to be doing.

Caleb - @sapphic-theatre-fan You're officially the Smart One. Congrats. Caleb is a Certified Pretty Boy and so are you! Your personality traits include: being the common sense of the group, judging us, and also Social Anxiety Babey B) (also, he's a cat person but that's eh). You didn't get the chance to grow up like the people around you but you still have time to make the world a better place.

(Not technically part of the main cast but I have more thoughts I've thunk)

Reani - @thebeautifulmushroom An angel. A literal Disney princess. Tell me you would not want to be able to talk to animals, and also become an animal, and also, she's just the cutest. She makes cookies and tea and I can't help but think you would totally do that. You would also be a superhero too. It's called having Range <3. Also, if one of us were to have a strict moral code, it'd definitely be you-

Keg - @lesducks Unwarranted confidence meets being a Coward and the result is You (affectionate). I'm kidding! Mostly! You have made mistakes and spent years around people who led you to your darkest days but you also realized that finding good friends can make up for those days and make you better <3. Your character arc ends with kissing the other sarcastic mean girl in the group.

#anon #thanks kate <3

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she-who-fights-and-writes · 4 years

Text

She-who-fights-and-writes Coronacation Book Rec List

I know that a lot of people are stuck at home right now in dire need of entertainment, so I decided I’d put out a book recommendations list of all the books I’m currently reading and all of my must-reads!

(Just a note that a lot of these are Fantasy because I’m a fantasy nerd haha)

Books/Series I am currently reading

1. The Folk of the Air Trilogy by Holly Black (Currently on #2, The Wicked King)

Genre: High Fantasy

Setting: The land of Faerie which is kind of historical, but in the human world it is modern day

Main cast :

Jude Duarte (white, human, cutthroat, if I saw her in a Denny’s Parking Lot at 3am I would RUN)

Cardan Greenbriar (white, faerie, the true embodiment of Bastard)

Vivienne (Jude’s half-sister, lesbian with canon gf, half-human half-faerie, I would totally try to be her friend)

Taryn Duarte (Jude’s twin sister, queen doormat, still, I would take a bullet for her she’s jUST TRYING TO FIT IN)

Rating: 5/5 Stars

These books have been on my “To Read” list for so long now and for some reason I just never got around to reading them! Hands-down, these are some of the best high fantasy books that I’ve read in a long, long while.

I finished the first book, The Cruel Prince, in just two days and rated it 5/5 stars! Even though these books are high fantasy and focus on the traditions and ways of life of faeries, somehow all of the characters seem like I could meet them in real life!

The main character actually has genuine flaws and not just “””“flaws”””” and is a Bad Bitch down with murder, and the plot had me on the edge of my seat from page one!

The summary makes it sound like it’s going to be about their romance, but it’s really mostly about a power struggle and Jude being a badass.

Goodreads summary for The Cruel Prince:

Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences. As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

2. The Raven Cycle Series by Maggie Stiefvater (Currently on #1, The Raven Boys)

Genre: Present-Day/Realistic Fantasy (?)

Setting: The fictional town of Henrietta, Virginia

I haven’t gotten around to much of the book, so there’s not much I can tell you about the characters and I can’t properly give it a rating yet.

These books were also on my “To Read” list for a while; I was a huge fan of her book The Scorpio Races and have also been looking for something to quench my thirst for “private school/ghosts/magic” that I’ve been dealing with ever since I read The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo.

I’ve only JUST started The Raven Cycle yesterday, but so far I am hooked! I’m super worried because I’m TERRIBLE at juggling two series at a time but both of these are just so interesting!

Goodreads Summary for The Raven Boys:

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.” It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive. Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her. His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble. But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little. For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

MY MUST-READ BOOK LIST

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

Genre: Historical Fiction

Setting: 1700s Europe (England, Paris, Barcelona, Marseilles, Venice)

Main cast (I’ll try my best not to spoil anything because you find out a LOT of different stuff about these characters throughout the book):

Henry “Monty” Montague (white, bi/pansexual, attitude problem)

Percy Newton (mixed race, gay, very sweet boy, definitely got “most likely to bring home to mom” in the yearbook)

Felicity Montague (white, Monty’s little sister, headcanoned as asexual, I love her to death)

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Daring adventure, gay representation, historical setting, hilarious characters!

This book literally has it all! I would consider it one of my favorite books of all time, yet for some reason I’ve never gotten around to reading any of the sequel books! The ending is very satisfying and ties everything together, which I feel is part of the reason why I haven’t gotten around to them yet.

Therefore, it can serve as a one-shot read or a full series if you want to dive into something good!

The humor made me laugh out loud at points and all of the characters are very real and very, very relatable, not to mention the vivid settings of 1700s Europe!

Goodreads summary:

Henry “Monty” Montague was born and bred to be a gentleman, but he was never one to be tamed. The finest boarding schools in England and the constant disapproval of his father haven’t been able to curb any of his roguish passions—not for gambling halls, late nights spent with a bottle of spirits, or waking up in the arms of women or men. But as Monty embarks on his Grand Tour of Europe, his quest for a life filled with pleasure and vice is in danger of coming to an end. Not only does his father expect him to take over the family’s estate upon his return, but Monty is also nursing an impossible crush on his best friend and traveling companion, Percy. Still it isn’t in Monty’s nature to give up. Even with his younger sister, Felicity, in tow, he vows to make this yearlong escapade one last hedonistic hurrah and flirt with Percy from Paris to Rome. But when one of Monty’s reckless decisions turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt that spans across Europe, it calls into question everything he knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores.

2. The Ninth House By Leigh Bardugo

Genre: Horror, Fantasy

Setting: Yale University and the town of New Haven, Present Day

Main cast:

Galaxy “Alex” Stern (Hispanic, sees dead people, very scary)

Daniel Arlington “Darlington” (white, rich, an angel who can sometimes be a dick)

Pamela Dawes (tbh I honestly don’t remember what she looks like, only that she’s a tired grad student with big nerd energy)

Detective Alan Turner (Black, takes shit from nobody, husband material)

Rating: 4/5 Stars

(NOTE: THIS IS VERY DARK ADULT FICTION AND CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT MAY BE TRIGGERING FOR SOME PEOPLE, WOULD NOT RECOMMEND FOR PEOPLE UNDER 16)

This book is a great read for someone who’s looking for a disturbing, gritty book with layers upon layers of secrets that you have to peel away as the mystery unfolds. I love the secret societies and the intricate magic systems that the book introduces, and it actually made me hungry for more books like it!

Alex is a three-dimensional, very real character who also serves as an unreliable narrator who witholds or warps the information that she’s telling you, making the narrative all the more riveting.

The only issues that I have with it are the fact that Leigh Bardugo kind of just dumps you in the middle of it without explaining stuff first, to the point where it kind of feels like you’re reading the second installment of a series rather than the first one, so things can get a bit confusing at first.

The book also can drag and draw things out for a bit too long, but once the plot fully kicks into gear, you will not be able to put it down!

Goodreads summary:

Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her? Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.

3. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Setting: Earth, Space, The Moon

Main cast :

Linh Cinder (Chinese, based on Cinderella, cyborg, certified badass)

Scarlet Benoit (French, based on Little Red Riding Hood, farmer who is not afraid to shoot you)

Cress Darnel (White, based on Rapunzel, nerd, I will protect her with my life if I have to)

Kaito “Kai” (Chinese, based on Prince Charming, kind of has to run a whole country, a very kind soul, deserves a nap)

Carswell Thorne (White, based off of Rapunzel’s Prince, bastard)

Winter Hayle (Black, based off of Snow White, royalty, has super special powers)

Wolf (Race unspecified, based off of the Big Bad Wolf, charming killing machine, furry????)

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Do you like fairy tales?

Have you ever wanted to know what fairy tales would be like if they took place in the FUTURE instead of the PAST?

Do you like an amazing, hilarious cast paired with a super interesting plot?

These are the books for you!

I haven’t read them in so long, but I remember how much joy I felt while devouring these pages. Definitely something you will not able to put down!

Goodreads Summary for Book #1: Cinder:

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth's fate hinges on one girl. . . . Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She's a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world's future.

4. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Genre: Fantasy

Setting: Ancient Greece

Main cast:

Patroclus (Greek, Gay, quiet pining)

Achilles (Greek, gay, very strong, student athlete energy)

Brisies (Anatolian, clever, literally the only one in this story who has a brain cell)

Rating: 100000/5 stars

This is basically the Iliad but if historians hadn’t completely erased Patroclus and Achilles’ relationship. “Haha yeah these guys were totally bros” they say, even though I have read the Iliad and their relationship isn’t even subtle.

This book made me cry at least ten times. It’s just so beautifully written and has such a distinct vibe to it that whenever I crack it open for another time, it takes me straight back to the vacation that I read it on. (Needless to say, sobbing your eyes out can be less than helpful when you’re on the beach)

If you can only read one book on this list, it should be this one. I could talk all day about it and write novels on just how much of an incredible writer Madeline Miller is, but I feel like you’d get my drift a bit better if you actually read the book.

Goodreads Summary:

Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. By all rights their paths should never cross, but Achilles takes the shamed prince as his friend, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine their bond blossoms into something deeper - despite the displeasure of Achilles' mother Thetis, a cruel sea goddess. But then word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus journeys with Achilles to Troy, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear. Profoundly moving and breathtakingly original, this rendering of the epic Trojan War is a dazzling feat of the imagination, a devastating love story, and an almighty battle between gods and kings, peace and glory, immortal fame and the human heart.

Hope this list helps you through your coronacation, and please don’t be afraid to reblog or message me to tell me if you’ve read/will read any of these!

#books #book recs #book rec #book reccomendation #book reccomendations #coronacation #corona #coronavirus #covid-19 #book rec list

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beware-of-you-98 · 3 years

Note

Hello yes u are an amazing human being and I just read your angsty Em hcs and they made me feel pain and I would like to feel more pain so... I’ve come to request Emily childhood angst hcs? Your headcanons are adorable and also your Jemily at the cat cafe was adorable :)

I’m about to create an environment so angsty (also i decided to focus on her coming out/coming to terms with being gay rather than focus on her childhood in general since i already had some hcs about it!! n this is au as hell bc i don’t care about canon x)

note: whoops this got long and angsty and way past emily’s childhood oops

tw: drug use, homophobia, abortion mention, drinking, smoking (ye i still don’t know if i should put a tw for that but i do anyway 🤷‍♀️)... yeah the first half of this isn’t happy at all

emily knows from a really young age she’s different

since she’s homeschooled up until she’s 12, her only other interaction with people is with nannies and the teachers the ambassador hires

but her only other interaction to the outside world is through story books

all the princesses in her story books want to be rescued by handsome knights or princes

emily always wants to be the one to rescue the pretty princesses

her nannies buy her disney princess merch and disney movies

emily’s favorite princess is belle or jasmine bc they’re so pretty 🥺

she doesn’t think anything is wrong with it until she’s talking with her nanny about how pretty jasmine is and her nanny’s only response is a short “oh”

emily doesn’t know why, but the way she says it makes her feel guilty and so she stops talking about jasmine

and when the nanny starts to talk about aladin, she barely pays attention

(she thinks jasmine deserves better than him anyway— aladin lies to her right away and how is that supposed to be true love?)

emily keeps her thoughts about girls to herself after that day

and compartmentalizes those feelings because she hates the guilt associated with them

it’s not until she’s enrolled in the all girl’s boarding school that the feelings come back and it’s almost too hard to ignore

every other girl talks about their boyfriend or guys

emily never feels the need to talk about guys; they hold no appeal to her

(she talks about guys once or twice to try and fit in, but her stomach always flips in unpleasant ways and she always feels bad because she knows she’s lying to the other girls and herself)

her heart doesn’t flutter around boys and they don’t make her feel anything

audrey from her chemistry class makes her heart skip a beat and butterflies to erupt in her stomach

her hair is soft, her laugh is so cute and everytime she gives emily a hug, she can’t help but melt in her arms

when she kisses emily in the woods behind the school, lips tasting of strawberry chapstick, it’s as if things suddenly make sense

kissing audrey makes emily feel like she’s finally found a part of herself she didn’t even know was there and it’s glorious

when the ambassador drags her off to rome, emily snaps

she goes off the deep end because, after all the years she’s been crying for her mother’s attention, it’s kissing audrey that makes her finally pay emily any attention?????

the school emily’s enrolled in is co-ed and she immediately clings to the first group to pay her any attention

she becomes a hardcore partier

she skips class

she smokes

does drugs (weed and on the occasion, ecstasy, but once her friends convince her to do a line of coke)

(she hates the way it makes her nose run so she doesn’t do it again)

drinks and gets blackout drunk every single chance she gets

the ambassador is a lot more present at this point in her life and emily starts fights with her every night

she doesn’t even know what she’s doing anymore

her life is spiraling and she feels hopeless

and when anyone, anyone, shows her any attention, she throws herself at them

she sleeps with one of her male friends once and ends up pregnant and suddenly her life comes to a screeching halt

she’s terrified and keeps it hidden from her mother

matthew is her saving grace and never judges her once

he even holds her hand when she gets the abortion

afterwards, it’s just the two of them

matthew has to sneak out to see her because his parents loathe emily, but he manages to do it

they always go to the local park and split a joint, a cigarette or a bottle of booze between the two of them and sit in silence

emily breaks down to him one night and tells him she doesn’t know what’s wrong with her

she feels so lost and doesn’t even recognize herself anymore

matthew holds her as she cries, silently comforting her

and when she asks him what she should do, he just simply suggests that she live her life for herself and stop trying to please everyone around her

“if you’re not happy living a life trying to please other people, try living for yourself”

while the advice might be cliché, emily swears its the best she’s ever got

she works her ass off the rest of her he years (i forgot what it’s called over seas oops) not bc the ambassador wants her to, but bc emily wants to do better for herself

when the ambassador moves her back over seas, she get accepted into yale

she doesn’t label herself in college and she’s comfortable with that

she only has like one boyfriend at the start of her freshman year

but she wasn’t feeling it, so she breaks up with him and starts to date her roommate

n then she goes steady with fiona duncan for the remainder of the time she’s in college

she immediately enrolls in the fbi academy when she graduates bc she doesn’t want to do politics

as soon as she’s certified, she’s assigned the undercover position as lauren reynolds

she doesn’t like to think about those years bc they’re just as confusing as her teenage years

she likes to separate herself from lauren as much as possible bc she feels as if lauren is the embodiment of the past she wants so desperately to leave behind

she barely looks back once she’s done with the undercover mission

she spends a few years finding jobs to keep herself busy

then she joins the bau

its the first time in a while she’s around people she genuinely enjoys spending time with

she’s comfortable with the team within a few months of joining

it’s here when she officially starts to label herself as a lesbian!!

(it feels so right to say she’s a lesbian— it sounds great coming from her mouth and it makes her feel warm and whole)

she kinda keeps it hidden at first but also kinda doesn’t

no one really asks until they’re all hanging out at te bar and penelope points to a group of guys and asks her which one she thinks is cuter

emily just shrugs and gestures to the female bartender

penelope and derek take her to gay bars a lot!!

and after some persuasion, jj and reid tag along

emily notices how jj kinda stays behind at their table instead of interacting with people and is like ???

but then she notices the longing gaze and the same sad expression on the blonde’s face as she watches everyone confidently mingling around and just... knows

when she drives jj back to her apartment later that night (they carpooled), emily finally asks jj what’s wrong

and jj just goes “do you ever feel like there’s a part of you that’s been hidden so long and all you want to do is just... let it out? but you’re too scared of what others might think and that you’ll lose so many people because they can’t accept who you are? but you don’t want to live that life anymore because you’re not happy and you just... don’t know what to do?”

it sounds like rambling

but emily’s heart goes out to jj because she knows exactly how that feels

emily tells jj the same thing matthew told her all those years ago— “if you’re not happy living the life others want you to, why don’t you start living for yourself”

jj just whispers “is that what you did? wasn’t it scary?”

emily tells her of course it was!! but she had a really good friend by her side to help make it less scary and that she’ll 100% be that person for jj if she wants her to

jj comes up to her a few weeks later in private and comes out as bisexual

she’s trembling and she’s nervous but emily just beams and tells her how proud she is of her

a few years later, they’re gfs bc i said so

n emily’s finally happy!!

she has people aroun her that finally love and accept her for being herself

and that’s all she ever wanted

#criminal minds #emily prentiss #emily prentiss hcs #long post #tw for a bunch of things #tw for drug use #tw for drinking #tw for abortion mention #tw for homophobia #tw for internalized homophobia prolly #oof #eventual jemily tho!!#the bau team #i’m too lazy to tag more #OOF #angst

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luminescentauthor · 4 years

Text

Sora/Tobi Getting Together and Relationship Headcanons

THEY’RE HEEEEEERREEEE! Maybe Tobi will finally leave me alone now and stop taking up my whole brain.

Please read this post or this won’t make sense, it’s HCs about their third year. There’s also a part two that you don’t need to read, since everything you need is in part one. (U can if u want to tho.)

(If you don’t want to, basically all you need to know is: Nao, Sora, Tobi, and Mokichi are on first-name basis since the end of second year; Sora and Tobi have had a running prank war since the end of their first year and everyone on the team hates them because of it; Sora is captain, Mokichi is vice. Oh also Tobi’s aunt is awesome and she stormed into his parents’ house in Hiroshima to yell at them for being terrible parents. Tobi didn’t find out for the longest time.)

This is some 10-ass pages so headcanons below the cut!

This. Is. So much more chaotic than my Sora/Nao HCs. Prepare for disaster gays, very tired and very exasperated queer parent friend Momoharu, very very tired Mokichi, "usually a functional bi but the second you involve emotions he becomes a grade-a disaster bisexual" Tobi, Sora struggling to deal with "OH shit I'm gay," and "bows to absolutely no one and done with everyone and everything 24/7" Nanao Nao. This version of Nao is so much more of a tired badass than Sora/Nao's Nao, who stays more true to her canon self.

It's also twice as long. Yeet.

Tobi and Sora have had growing feelings since their first year and Mokichi and Nao are fucking suffering with these stupid gays.

They were friends at first, and it really was just pure platonic feelings. It started to turn into something more a little after the first Taiei game, but Sora is shy and a certified disaster and Tobi is way too emotionally constipated for either of them to do anything about it.

Tobi I love you but you're a fucking mess.

Tobi actually got kicked out by his "father" in large part for being bisexual, and therefore wants absolutely nothing to do with growing feelings for tiny cute short teammate, nope nope no thank you-

But basically, Tobi has known he's bi for a while now, and while he's having some acceptance problems, he's not having the "OH GOD I'M GAY" panic

Sora has not known, and he's having a panic in the background because "I'm attracted to guys?!"

Sora starts realizing what's going on some time in second year, and Momoharu takes one look at the panicking Sora and goes "aight the fuck happened to you?"

You will have to pry their friendship from my cold dead hands and I'm not sorry. I love Momoharu and Sora's dynamic.

Sora eventually confesses to Momoharu (after a lot of prodding) that he thinks he's turning gay, and Momoharu immediately starts laughing. Sora, hurt and feeling very stupid, goes to run, but Momoharu tugs him back down to sit and tells him, "Jesus, Sora, you don't turn gay. You either identify as gay or you don't. Sorry for scaring you, the concept of turning gay is just... oddly funny. Don't worry about it dude, I'm pansexual."

"...Pansexual?" Sora asks nervously.

"Yup, I'm attracted to all people regardless of gender. Men, women, people who don't fit either -- I don't much care. Gender doesn't really factor into whether or not I'm attracted to people."

"You can be attracted to multiple genders?" Sora asks, eyes wide.

Oh boy, Momoharu thinks. Poor kid. "Yeah, folks who are attracted to just men and women are called bisexual. Homosexual is the official word for those who are only attracted to their own gender, but gay or lesbian is usually used. Heterosexual is for those only attracted to the opposite gender. Of course, the lines aren't as clear set as those labels suggest they are. Sexuality is fucky, dude. Don't worry about not having it figured out. I only decided on a label a few months back, myself. Some people just choose not to label it at all."

That makes Sora feel better, and he takes to talking to Momoharu about it quite a bit.

At one point, Sora brings up how the team would react, especially since they share a locker room. Momoharu just gives him a deadpan look and then says in the flattest voice ever, "Wow, imagine being so insecure in your masculinity that you can't share a changing room with a gay man." That gets a laugh out of Sora and makes him feel a lot better.

As it turns out, this was word for word Chiaki's reaction to Momoharu being nervous about coming out to the team back in their first year.

It is also, word for word, Chiaki's response to Sora coming out to him going "I'm sorry I hope this doesn't make things awkward-"

Momoharu laughs hysterically when Chiaki pulls the exact same face he did and says in the exact same deadpan tone, "Wow, imagine being so insecure in your masculinity that you can't share a changing room with a gay man." Sora also stares at Chiaki for about ten seconds in silence, then doubles over laughing. Chiaki is so confused until Momoharu explains.

However, this does mean that Momoharu has to deal with the brunt of Sora's "TOBI DID A THING HOLY SHIT" rants for the rest of the year, even though he denies that Tobi is the one he was attracted to if ever asked.

Momoharu, rubbing his forehead: Chiaki the baby gays are being stupid what do I do

Chiaki: I'm a straight so unfortunately I don't think I can help here?

Momoharu: Ugggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Tobi is freaking out in the background because "oh no gay feelins oh no soft feelins fuck what do I do????"

His aunt: Kid, please calm down, you'll be fine.

Tobi, putting a groove in the floor with his pacing: NO I WON'T WHA' IF 'E FINDS OUT WHAT IF THIS RUINS THA TEAM DYNAMIC WHAT IF 'E 'ATES ME-

Accent go yeet when upset!

She holds him while he panics and lets him curl into her, and then makes his favorite foods and puts on a movie and cuddles with him, and once he's asleep, she calls her brother-in-law with every intent of murder because how dare you make this child feel so unloved?

Anyway, Tobi eventually comes to accept himself and his sexuality in full thanks to her, the team, and Juri. It's primarily just a thing of time and needing to have more conversations where he's open about it and accepted by people he cares about.

Poor Sora still isn't totally comfortable with being gay? And a month or so into his third year, he comes out to Nao and later Mokichi. They make him feel much better, but the final piece is actually Tobi himself. Tobi finds Sora having a breakdown in the locker rooms and holds him to help him calm down and pushes him to talk about it, and Sora finally tells Tobi he's queer.

And Tobi, having been through this struggle before, just kind of pulls him into a hug and says, "Well, tha' makes two o' us" and Sora goes "wHAT" and Tobi tells him he's bisexual. Tobi does not pry about who made Sora realize he's queer, because it's personal and touchy, and he respects that.

That does, however, extend the mutual bullshit period.

But also:

Sora: oH MY GOD HE'S GAY HE'S GAY HE'S GAY I'M-

Tobi: 'E's. 'E's Bi. Deep breaths deep breaths deep breaths just don' panic and ask 'im out that's a bad plan-

Tobi that's actually how you deal with romantic feelings like a functional human being but sure, go off.

Tobi comes out to Nao and Mokichi with Sora's support shortly after that, and their reactions are, respectively: "NICE!" "Cool." and then Nao tackles Tobi in a hug that is the start of a big grouphug.

There's lots of hugging and crying (the latter is Nao and Sora and a little bit of Mokichi), and Tobi will vehemently deny that he cried at all, but a few tears got out.

(Lbr Tobi's gay pining for Sora was Not Subtle, so they already knew, but they don't tell him that for a while. When they do tell him, he's gotten to the point where he just stares at them blankly for a moment and then groans rather than flipping out. Mokichi chuckles quietly and Nao just outright laughs at him.)

But anyway, both of these Absolute Idiots are still crushing on each other, and everyone is suffering.

Actually, scratch "crushing,” it's moved into full-blown pining now.

Sora eventually also accepts that, alright, he has a big crush on Tobi. Tobi, their ace. Tobi, one of his best friends. Tobi, one of the best wings in all of Japan. Tobi, who is ridiculously attractive. Tobi, who looks like an actual bush when he doesn't tie his hair back somehow, because his hair is insanely (and adorably) frizzy and voluminous. Tobi, who will whoop at the top of his lungs and grin like a maniac because he just pulled off a fantastic drive and double-clutch, even though he's exhausted and soaked in sweat and they're four minutes into overtime. Tobi, who makes the cutest face with the sweetest smile Sora has ever seen when he talks to his sister. (Tobi, who is a boy, and Sora has stopped caring.)

Sora even stops denying that he likes Tobi after a little bit, and Momoharu is just in the background going, "good job, it only took you two entire years to figure that out."

Sora: LEAVE. ME. ALONE.

Momoharu: Okay but have you considered: No. Absolutely not.

Anyway Tobi mostly complains/gay rants to Nao and sometimes Mokichi, and at this point, even Juri is slightly sick of her brother talking about "our amazin' point guard." Yer not subtle, Anchan????

Except it eventually moves from "wow he's amazin' but NO I do not 'ave a crush on 'im" to "oh my God I am SO gay," and then later it moves to a more resigned gay panic. ("Nnnnnnghhhhh I nearly fuckin' kissed 'im after practice today what do I do-")

Nao is trying to bully both of them into confessing, but neither will take the first step, not because of pride, but because they're scared. (Nao is. So. Done. Even if she sympathizes, it has been two years of this bullcrap please-)

Tobi, especially, is afraid of losing everything again after his nasty stepdad booted him out.

Sora is like "that is one of my closest friends, and given this team's stability record I am Not Poking That Mess With A Long Stick."

Momoharu, who is the one he says this to, is just kinda like, "Yeah I can't really argue with that, as much I want you to confess."

Nao, later, having been subjected to a similar rant, after he said "closest friend" instead of "a dude": HE'S GROWING UP KANAME-KUN I'M TEARING UP-

Mokichi is far too tired of everything to interfere, which is fair.

Juri badgers Tobi for a solid four weeks before he admits what's really going on, and then it kind of all comes spilling out, and she encourages him to confess to Sora, but he's still reluctant.

Nao also bluntly says, "Kenji-kun's family abandoned him, Sora-kun, and it may be because he's the words ‘problem child' given physical form, but it may be because he's queer. If you want to work this out, I think you'll need to take the first step."

(Tobi told the team about his past late first year/early second year. Crying happened and everyone basically group-tackle-hugged Tobi, and he finally got the hugs he very much needed and definitely deserved.)

And Sora angsts over that for a while until Chiaki very simply says, "Do you want things between the two of you to change?" And Sora realizes that yes, he does, he doesn't want things to stay the same, he wants to hold Tobi's hand and go on dates and call each other at weird hours for the sake of it and hold each other until they fall asleep and kiss him and -- well, you get the idea.

So he works up the courage, and it's one night some months before the national tournament when Sora asks Tobi to stay behind with him for extra practice. Sora is really nervous, and Tobi is like "??? Sure? Are ya okay?"

Sora, voice cracking: yEaH I'M FINE

Anyway, Sora misses like a solid sixty percent of his shots that practice and Tobi is. So confused.

Tobi to Mokichi: Did. Did somethin' happen.

Mokichi just shrugs, which does not make Tobi feel better.

So Tobi stays behind all the others to talk with Sora, and they're both really nervous. Obviously, Sora is about to confess, and Tobi is just so confused, and also some small part of him is going, "oh God did he figure out I like 'im????"

Nao and Mokichi kicked all the first and second years out after just an hour of individual practice, and Sora is grateful but also, "guys please don't make me confront my problems."

Nao: "Sora-kun if we waited for you to deal with this we'd be here 'till sunrise."

Mokichi, tiredly: "No, we'd be here until we turned old and gray."

Sora asks Tobi to sit with him while blushing, and Tobi complies, still very puzzled.

They make small talk for a minute, and then Sora abruptly says, "Kenji-kun... I... I think I have a crush on you".

Tobi gapes at him like a fish, opening and closing his mouth for a solid minute, and eventually, Sora.exe unfreezes and goes, "Sorry, I-" and Tobi just goes, "Fer real? Ya aren't prankin' me again?" in a surprisingly quiet voice.

And Sora is mildly offended but knows that's a fair assumption given their track record of prank wars, and he also almost wants to use the excuse Tobi has handily provided, but he just stands and goes "I'm sorry, I should leave-"

And Tobi leaps to his feet, grabs his hand, and says flat out, "Sora, I've 'ad a crush on ya since first year."

And Sora just kinda… short circuits. "Wait, really?"

Tobi just kinda rubs the back of his neck (shyly? Tobi gets shy?) and goes, "Yeah, I... I kinda only admitted it in tha middle a' second year, though."

And Sora says slowly, "You... you like me. You like me!" He laughs, relieved. "Holy shit, I was so scared you were going to reject me and it was going to ruin everything--"

And Tobi is just going oh my God, he's adorable, I can't deal with him, and takes Sora's chin in one hand and asks quietly, "Sora, can I kiss ya?" Sora's eyes, predictably, go wide, and he nods. (And please take a moment to recall and appreciate the fact that Tobi is canonically an entire foot taller than Sora. Sora is 149 cm (4'10.7) and Tobi is 178 (5'10.1). This is fantastic because I will bet actual money that this height difference has not shrunk; if anything, it has grown.)

They kiss just as the entire team bursts into the gym. Turns out, they were watching the whole thing, and honestly, none of them look that ashamed; they put up with the pair's bullshit for this long, they're invested now, and they deserved to know what happened.

"ALRIGHT MOTHERFUCKERS, THIS IS REVENGE FOR TWO AND A HALF YEARS OF USELESS GAY PINING," Nao yells. "KANAME-KUN, EVERYONE -- GRAB THEM!"

And the team lifts the yelling and protesting couple above their heads as Sora loudly objects and Tobi swears at them. The first years learn some creative new insults. The second and third years, on the other hand, are very accustomed to Tobi by this point, and aren't remotely surprised, but -- oh, haven't heard that one before, actually, says a second year. The others mutter assent.

We have, Mokichi grouches. We third years have heard them all.

Sora is small and easily hauled around, and Tobi is also pretty helpless when being held up above the heads of Mokichi and their first-year center. So they can’t really like... do anything about being dragged around.

Nao leads the team forward like an army, and they march to the pool to drop the two of them in, and when they resurface, fully clothed and soaked to the bone, Sora is laughing hysterically. (Assume Sora learned to swim at some point.)

Tobi is groaning, but he's grinning, and he swims over to the side of the pool -- and grabs Nao and Mokichi's ankles and drags them in, both of them yelling.

And Sora thinks, with Nao yelling in irritation but a sparkle in her eyes and a grin she's failing to fight off, with Mokichi laughing quietly as he flings his wet bangs out of his eyes, with Tobi laughing hysterically, his hair slicked back by water, with the four of them wearing all of their clothes and soaked to the bone, their entire team yanking off their shirts to jump into the pool with them and the moon and stars shining overhead, that he's never been happier.

And Tobi turns to him and grins, and Sora can't keep himself from jumping at Tobi -- who catches him, startled -- and kissing him again.

And, like, hey, Tobi isn't about to complain.

They take about two months to settle into things, and then it's just like... I'm sorry, who thought letting Kurumatani "Embodiment of Chaos" and Natsume "Biggest Problem Child Ever" Kenji date was a good idea?????

It's a bit awkward for a while because they're still feeling things out and figuring out what they're both comfortable with, but then they finally click, and it's... pure fucking chaos.

Sora will not stop stealing Tobi's clothes and Tobi is not happy about it, mostly because -- Sora, if ya keep stealin' my clothes while I am in the changin' room, then I do not 'ave clothes to wear ya stupid chibi--

Tobi has stormed into the gym shirtless at least twice yelling, "SORA! GIVE BACK MY FUCKIN' SHIRT!"

Listen. Listen we have a total of three scenes of Tobi being shirtless, and two of them were in front of plenty of people. Tobi is many things, but body shy is not one of them. He wouldn't care.

(Post-Kitasumi loss, post-Shinjo loss, and that one scene of him dribbling in a park or something at night with an audience. The night before they played Taiei.)

Tobi: Are ya ever jus' tryin' to figure out where all yer clothes have gotten ta and then ya turn ‘round and see 'em all on yer dumbass tiny boyfriend?

Sora, clearly utterly unapologetic, wearing Tobi's sweatshirt: Oops.

Chiaki, probably: SOME OF US ARE SINGLE STOP RUBBING IT IN.

As mentioned before, Sora is canonically 149 cm (~4'10.7), and Tobi is 178 cm (~5'10.1). There's a 29-centimeter difference, almost an entire foot, and frankly, that difference has grown a few centimeters, and you bet Tobi is going to abuse the shit out of this.

He literally holds things Sora wants over Sora's head all the time and Sora hates it. Like yes, Tobi did this before they dated too, but now Tobi is doing it more just to be annoying. It's also the only way Tobi can keep his clothes out of Sora's hands whenever they aren't on Tobi's person. (It's kind of hard to steal a shirt when someone is wearing it.)

"THIS IS ABUSE!"

"Me holdin' m' own jacket above m' head so that ya can't steal it from me isn't abuse, it’s self-preservation! It’s like -20 degrees out there, Sora, use yer own jacket!"

I personally headcanon Tobi shooting up like a weed, but whether he did or not, he's probably between 180 and 190 now (5'11 and 6'3). Meanwhile, Sora is like maybe 155-60. It is possible that Sora also shoots up, but I feel like he would hit 165 at most. That would have him growing 16 cm, which is 8 inches, so. That's a lot of inches to grow in two and a half years.

The things Tobi holds above his head are mostly his own clothes and also food items, plus the occasional basketball.

He also sometimes will nab Sora's clothes and hold them up in the air just to get back at him. Sora will be leaping up in the air, trying to reach his clothes, while Tobi stands there with a shit-eating grin holding Sora's shirt over his head. It looks so stupid. Nao and Mokichi both have multiple videos of it. (Nao has like five.) (What? She suffered, alright? Let her have this blackmail, at least.)

Sora: :( My boyfriend is too tall for me to kiss him on the lips, what should I do?

Momoharu: Punch him in the stomach. Then, when he doubles over in pain, kiss him.

Nao: Tackle him.

Chiaki: Dump him.

Mokichi: Kick him in the shin.

Tobi: NO TO ALL A' THOSE, JUST ASK ME TA LEAN DOWN!

Nao and Mokichi and Momoharu and Chiaki and Madoka and literally all of their friends are still giving them a hard time for being useless gays and taking two and half years to deal with their feelings even five years later. They're never going to live it down.

As adults, juggling careers and their growing relationship is hard.

They both go to universities in Tokyo, thankfully, and don't have to do long distance, and get an apartment together in their third year.

Tobi probably joins the B.League, and maybe Sora does too. (I dunno, I'm not committing to anything with career HCs.)

If they do, they have to keep their relationship secret; it would be a huge deal to be gay athletes in Japan (or... anywhere.) Most of their teammates know, though. Like... Sora regularly shows up to practice in Tobi's sweatshirts.

The sexual tension whenever they play each other is intense, though.

(My pet headcanon for Tobi is actually him going to university in America and joining the NBA. While I want to do that with Sora too, the mangaka apparently turned down two anime deals because they ended with Sora in the NBA. I haven't fact-checked that, though.)

They're around 25 when the world as a whole finds out. It either comes out because one of them is like, "hey babe do ya wanna just come out? We have enough money to retire if this goes south," "Oh sure," or because they mess up so drastically that people figure it out. After all, it would take a lot to break past the "they're such good friends!" mentality of sports reporters. Like seriously. These two are not subtle. They can let heteronormativity do most of the work for them, in all honesty.

Anyway, it comes out, and the media goes into an uproar, and they retreat to visit Sora's dad in Nagano without telling anyone except their coaches and closest friends where they've holed up and just let the world burn while they enjoy tea and the view of the mountains and avoid social media like the plague.

Assuming it was planned:

Tobi, the day before coming out, on his official twitter: I'll be doing a no-electronics retreat with my partner for two weeks, so I won't be on social media. Enjoy your week!

Or possibly the way he came out, besides their official announcement on Sora's account, was just "I'll be doing a no-electronics retreat with my boyfriend, @KurumataniOfficial, for the next two weeks. Bye y'all, have a good two weeks! :)" because that has Tobi's chaotic energy.

Edit: Actually? I take that back. SORA would do that. That has SORA'S chaotic energy.

When people get homophobic, all of their friends -- high school, college, adult life -- are immediately down to throw hands.

The Japanese highschool circle of people who went professional is small and pretty close-knit, and the NBA and B.League sides are quite close to each other as well. Shiraishi and Fuwa, who are both in the NBA, both riot when people attack their old acquaintances from high school. I personally headcanon Fuwa as a raging chaotic bi, because -- hair. Yozan, for that matter, is also pretty pissed off.

Fuwa probably gets on twitter and goes, "What's this bullshit about them being gay???? Of course they're gay. Have you ever seen them interact for more than two seconds??? Are you blind??? Wait, nope. Sorry. Don't want to insult blind people. ARE YOU ACTUALLY THAT DUMB????"

Momoharu tweets," 'Wow, imagine being so insecure in your masculinity that you can't share a changing room with a gay man' --My twin Chiaki, and Sora and Tobi's HS teammate, upon them coming out in HS" and first Sora's teammates start retweeting it and then Tobi's and then every single one of both their teams’ members retweets it. It's fantastic.

Then Shiraishi (who, again, is in the NBA) retweets it, and it goes completely viral. Chiaki is so happy but also really pissed that it's Momoharu's account.

Momoharu ribs him about it for a solid three weeks just to be obnoxious.

There's actually no one on either of their teams that didn't already know about the relationship. Again, they're not subtle together. If there was any drama, it was presumably resolved by getting rid of the homophobe.

Anyway, so while shit hits the fan, Sora and Tobi just shelter in place and their friends all react by going to war, which both of them are a bit taken aback by, but like, they aren't complaining about it. They're both touched actually.

For marriage, honestly, neither one of them proposes in any fancy manner; they probably decided to get married because the topic comes up due to taxes. Sora goes, "Hey, do you think we should get married? The taxes would be cheaper," without really thinking about it, and Tobi goes, "Honestly, if it means everyone will stop badgerin' us about 'tyin' the knot' or whatever, I vote we elope," and that's that. Some two hours later while making dinner, Sora goes, "HOLY SHIT WAIT ARE WE ENGAGED?" and Tobi, who was reading, stares at him for three seconds, processes that, and slowly goes, "...I guess? Yeah, I guess we are. Wow. We did that."

Sora slams his head on the table and Tobi just very tiredly says, "babe, no, ya need those brain cells."

Assume gay marriage is by this point legal and accepted.

When asked how they got engaged, everyone is just like, "THAT'S SO ANTICLIMACTIC?????" This is also the media's reaction.

Interviewer: Why did you and Natsume-san decide to get married?

Sora, shrugging: Taxes are easier with your partner when you're married.

But they went to get rings together on their tenth anniversary shortly after deciding to get married, and if that isn't sappy as hell, I don't know what is.

They probably don't wait long for the wedding and don't bother making it a huge thing; they invite all their friends, hire some folks to keep the media out no matter what, and hire a few people to film it and figure they can share that footage later. ("I am not havin' the media at my weddin' that is a private event for friends and family -" "Love, I am not arguing with you, I don't want them there either???")

Nao will be best woman for one of them at the wedding, and you bet she will give them so much shit for being disasters back in high school in her speech.

Juri, who by that point is like 20 something, because the disaster gays don't get married till they're at least 28 to 30, is either Tobi's best woman or playing some significant role in the wedding. She also roasts her brother and brother-in-law.

Tobi and Juri are definitely half-siblings, just in terms of time. He looked five or six when his biodad died, and she seems about the same age, meaning there's a ten-year gap.

Also, it's implied in the manga, so.

The newly-weds are just sitting there groaning as their friends/family members roast them, but they're both grinning.

The vows are probably really, really sappy, and Tobi can claim it's Sora's fault as much as he wants, but he's honestly also kind of a sap too and all his friends know it.

Tobi's stepdad is not invited. In fact, Tobi goes out of his way to send an edited version of the invitation to him that basically says, "Wedding! You're not invited!" while Sora and Juri die of laughter in the background. His mother does come, though -- she eventually moved out following the "her younger sister stormed in boiling with righteous fury on behalf of her son" incident. While the couple never got a divorce, they haven't spoken in years.

The invitees are actually mostly friends, not family. While Sora's dad, grandma, and extended family come, Tobi's only present family are his sister, his aunt, his mother, and his biodad's brother (and the brother's wife and kids.) But they have hundreds of friends there; Nao, Mokichi, Momoharu, Chiaki, Madoka, Yasu, Chukie, Nabe, their kouhai from their second and third years, Satsuki with his wife and two kids, Shiraishi, Fuwa, Yozan, Mineta, Yakku, Nino, Tarou, both of their professional teams and all the team staff, the national team that they played with, Sakamaki, Yuka and Tomohisa’s friends, Madoka's older sister, their college teammates and classmates -- the list literally just doesn't stop. For like. Days. That guest list was the hardest part of the wedding, actually.

The symbol they use on the invitations is a dragon. Momoharu and Nao both cry when they see the nod to the Kuzuryu team. (Chiaki does not cry, he claims. Momoharu calls bullshit, and Momoharu is, for once, completely right.)

The cake has wing patterns curving up the sides; one kite wing with a healed injury, and a duck wing in front of the silhouette of an eagle wing. ("I'm sappy, Ken, sue me." "Actually, I think that's adorable, so go ahead.")

The healed injury was Tobi's idea, though. Sora was confused, but Tobi explained that Sora and Kuzuryu brought him back to basketball as a team sport, and healed him from the pain of being pushed away from his family. Sora cries.

The shadow of the eagle wing was also Tobi's idea. He says "I agree that yer a duck because I love ya to pieces but yer still short as shit-" "Oi." "-but I also think ya learned how to fly in yer own right. Swimmin' and duckin' be damned. Ya fly on the court, Sora."

Sora does not cry again. He does not. ("Sure ya didn't." "SHUT UP KEN-") (He definitely teared up a little, because Tobi is looking at him with a soft smile and the most affectionate look in his eyes, and holy shit, I love him, and I'm going to marry him????

They go to Nagano and Hiroshima to visit their parents' graves after the wedding. Both of them are sappy about it. "I wish you could have met him" speeches, basically, while the other stands out of earshot.

They then proceed to screw off to Hawaii on a honeymoon for two weeks, since it's the offseason.

Either they combine their names, or Tobi takes Sora's last name.

I feel like Tobi would, just to spite his stepdad. I'm pretty sure Natsume is his stepdad's last name, since Tobi is seen wearing a helmet that is probably his dad's in a flashback, and it has a different name on it. Might've been a company name, though. Idk.

Sora is maybe crying when they change the nameplate on their Tokyo apartment to read "Kurumatani-Natsume Sora and Kurumatani-Natsume Kenji" because "holy shit that's my fucking husband!!!!!"

And Tobi just laughs and wraps his arms around him and drags him down onto the couch to hold him, and Sora thinks that life is good. Very good.

And if Nao and Mokichi and Momoharu and Chiaki and Madoka and Juri and crew all crash their place five seconds later, well, Sora thinks, that just makes it better.

wow! if you made it through this entire thing i am grateful to you for reading! and lowkey impressed because this is almost 5000 words. see my Ahiru No Sora Headcanons tag for more! there is also a Sora/Nao relationship headcanons post.

#ahiru no sora #ahiru no sora headcanons #headcanons #kurumatani sora #natsume kenji #kurumatani sora x natsume kenji #tobisora #maybe these two nerds will finally LET ME REST IN P E A C E #go AWAY tobi jesus

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