#but i'm too attached to this little guy not to analyze every little thing

[kyaruun]

okay butlers was all in all a really sweet and nice story about idols from different units working together but. as most kinosei izumi i've read,,, there's something with it

i can't judge the other characters because out of the cast in butlers i'm not that much a producer for anyone other than izumi and he reads weird. and i don't mean the translation, i mean his character. i think kinosei likes to remind the players izumi's perfectionism is some kind of "bad habit" he can't/doesn't want to control, but i feel like they're ignoring two key elements to izumi's character and development throughout the series. 1) izumi's perfectionism is aimed at himself before everyone else and 2) he would never speak bluntly to someone in a higher position than he is.

an important part of his character is the fact that he's been working in the industry for a really long time (see portrait) and the way to do stuff "the right way" as been slowly ingrained into his character. things like keeping a good relationship with coworkers and not bothering his superiors to make sure he gets called in again for future work. respecting work hierarchy. yes he is bossy, yes he is hard to please —but that's on his personal relationships. he knows how to separate his work persona from his personal life persona.

i'm not saying izumi is not perfectionist and doesn't require a certain level of perfection from the people around him, but he only does that with other idols around his same level. he will be annoying and bother knights to keep practising until he's satisfied with the outcome because he knows HE can do better ><

i feel like it all boils down to izumi's "i want to show the best side of myself (only)". he doesn't want people to see all the struggle behind the cameras and wants his fans to have the best time, at all costs. he thinks it isn't fair for them not to get a wonderful experience, so he is working himself to the bone for that.

i don't think putting izumi as someone who values himself before absolutely anything else and acts like a karen all the time is actually the take they wanted to make... maybe i'm just reading too much into his motifs (pls read butterfly) but deep down izumi doesn't want to get attached to people so they won't hurt him. but being unnecessarily mean to people in his work environment doesn't really help that out? i thought e! had already worked on that.

for me he feels like the annoying senior who keeps pushing everyone around him to do better because he knows they can do better, with a little extra help! because he gets stuck in similar situations and his own pride won't allow him to ask for help, he'd rather be the help other people need, even though they might not realize it.

so tldr: in my honest opinion, izumi is the kind of person that gets frustrated with himself when something doesn't come out the way he expected it to and actually blames himself for it, even if he won't say it out loud

[iloveyanderes]

Yandere hunting dogs analysis, I'm doin it. Doing it for my fellow hunting dogs lovers.

This will not include the captain and the fifth member because one there names are two hard and I hate the captain (don't tell teruko) also teruko will be platonic.

First analyzations:

Tecchou: he's a rather odd guy, very questionable food tastes, but he seems like a very kind and loyal dude, he also drinks respect woman juice, be like him. He has complete and utter respect for justice and those that show respect to others. He's good-natured to the bone and an absolute idiot, he seems attached to jouno in some way despite how jouno tells him he wishes he were dead like every other five minutes, in the manga he lost jouno for like 15 minutes and then threw away justice and beat up a 14 year old child. I think he was kinda having a panic attack. This actions prove that he would put his love ones above justice, his usual number one thing, we don't know much about his backstory so I can't analyze that too.

Jouno:I haven't seen his backstory in the manga so what I'm about to analyze might not be true so talk it with a grain of salt, I heard from third party information that he was originally a criminal who got reformed and joined the hunting dogs. He's also a sadist with exceptional senses other then his sight, because you know he's blind. Despite the fact that he's a sadist he loves saving people and in the end will put people over his own pleasures.

Teruko: personally I believe she is a lot older then she appears, she is a bit more sadistic then jouno but a lot better at hiding it, with her relationship with the commander if she truly loves an admires someone she just end up doing whatever they want, but I did see a theory that she's being brainwashed of some sort and I have to admit I believe it so that character point is debunked for me but I'll still use it because there's a probable chance the theory is not true, her most scary side is when she goes along with what others say with a smile, shown in the manga when she fights sigma, absolutely loves getting piggy back rides from litterly anyone, not to mention she cried when she finally got this one evil guy whose name I don't remember to confess. So very fun character.

Type of yandere:

Tecchou: harmless, protective, out of the three I'd probably want him as a yandere, he's so weird in general that you probably wouldn't even notice that he's a yandere at all, very protective, like I said earlier he's willing to put his loved ones above justice and your on the top, he doesn't care if the person that hurt you was a normal civilian or even a hero like him, he will make them pay. If you were a normal civilian he probably would be like that one guy you have complete trust in, visits your home and buys you a bunch of food, if you were a hunting dog he would be right next to you like glue, never leaving you alone, think tecchou and jouno but 3×, might take a lot of your missions to protect you so just bonk him on the head and he'll back down. If you were a villain it be a very very different story, a lot more rough but would definitely believe he could reform you.

Jouno:manipulative and sadistic, at first glance he'd look like he would be an easy yandere to escape because of his blindness but it's the complete opposite, his heightened senses and the fact he's in a worldwide military unit makes him a very hard yandere to escape, if you were a civilian he absolutely will kidnap you and keep you in some bunker, if you were apart of the hunting dogs he would volunteer to be your partner all the time and then nitpick you for every little mistake you make, his sadistic tendencies would go through the roof if you were a villain, physically torturing you simply because he can. Don't get him wrong, he genuinely cares for you but has a very hard time expressing it.

Teruko(platonic): clingy and sadistic, she is sometimes super nice and sometimes super mean, is not protective but would not hesitate to beat the shit out of someone and torture them for giving you the slightest of bad looks, regardless of what you are she will demand you carry her over her shoulders. if you were a civilian she's gonna be more of a stalker type of yandere, most of the time you don't even know she's in your house until you wake up at three a.m. to your tv going off and she's right next to you on your bed, smiling at you as if you'd invited her to have a sleepover at your house, if you were a hunting dog think how she is with the captain but a lot worse never leaving you alone kinda like tecchou but through physical contact, if your a villain I'd suggest pulling a Xie lian and staying in a coffin for a 100 years, because damn this girl is terrifying, the type to enjoy terrorizing the terrorists and she thinks of you as the toy she can never break, the longer you last through her torture the more she likes you, so I'd suggest dying quickly.

Bonus: tecchou and jouno: having tecchou and jouno as a yandere would be better then having them as separate yandere's, mainly because there too busy talking to each other to talk to you, bickering ×10 jouno can't be sadistic with you because tecchou will stab him in the butt and tecchou can't let you be free because jouno absolutely refuses to let you go. To be honest you might end up laughing a bunch of the time because of there bickering and it being ridiculous, though you do have to be nice to jouno or else he'll like tecchou feed you his weird food combinations, overall this wouldn't really be that bad of a duo.

Bonus bonus: same as before but add teruko to the mix, this is absolutely wild jouno and teruko's sadistic nature combining with each other and more of suegiku bickering= wildness, imagine just you and teruko sitting in the corner and suegiku argue about the move random things, teruko really likes to tease you and depending on your reactions it'll either turn sadistic or gentle.

I don't have ideas for individual but I do have one for the three of them together.

1. I've been trying to write this on Wattpad but I haven't gone far or posted it, imagine previously being really close friends with the hunting dogs, like they visit you every opportunity they get at this point in time their not yandere but then you get kidnapped by some random evil man and get experimented on until you become some half human half bird thing, were you can turn into a bird but you forget everything, then get rescued by the arm detective agency and then you begin to work for them. When they get framed by the decay of angels your to busy trying to get atsushis foot out of the ground and don't appear on tv, but later when your helping your groupies out you get ambushed by tecchou and jouno who recognize you immediately but you have no idea who they are, immediately they jump to the conclusion that the ada brainwashed you and that your doing this against you will and meanwhile your like "who tf are you!?" Escaping with the help of chuuya they go to tell teruko and she is super pissed. "Not only are these guys terrorists but they freaking brainwashed my bestie!" Is what she thinks, oh boy, angry teruko is terrifying. Eventually they end up kidnapping you and keep you restrained for "your own safety" not to mention you keep fighting back simply because you have no idea who these weird people are and your more focused on helping the people that helped you.

2.your someone who joined the military at 12 years old, your entire life was dedicated to it, everything you are is to serve in the military, so anyone can imagine your happiness when you were told by your Superior that you were getting promoted. Becoming an assistant for the hunting dogs, or at least you were happy about it until you learned this meant all paperwork and no saving citizens whatsoever, that was there job. Regardless of that you still went to the job openheartingly, the moment you step into the place your immediately bombarded by the sight of a little girl crying, giving the girl a piece of candy you had she immediately stops, smiling you ask what's wrong and her answer confuses you to the max, she whined about finally getting a confession from some evil dude, complaining about how she thought she could torture him forever and he'd never break but he did, 'wtf?' You had thought, your confusion was answered when two very different looking males came into the room, one having dark spiky hair and the other white. You soon find out that these are the people your working for, quickly getting to know them you discover each of there personalities, let's just say they have really really strong personalities, tecchou is a dumbass with a strong sense of justice, jouno is very sadistic but you can still talk to him, teruko... Well she follows you everywhere but is the most scary human being you've ever met. Doing paperwork is the most boring job you've ever had, as much as you hate to admit it but the front lines are where you thrive, your duty is to die on the battlefield not be holded up in this place. The hunting dogs fought more then actual hunting dogs, a lot more powerful then you'll ever be, you felt awe watching them but also fear, hearing teruko and jouno torture people in the middle of the night when your trying to get paperwork done is not helping, tecchou really isn't that much of a help either his weird food choices in the middle of the night may or may not have made you throw up in the middle of the night. Eventually it becomes too much and you hand in a resignation letter thinking you can just join another military in Canada or the u.s. when the hunting dogs were told of this they were not happy, it wasn't until you heard someone breaking and entering into your house that you realized how much they were attached to you.

This is all I've got for you guys, hope you enjoyed and please give me your ideas.

Have a good day.

[mostowa]

I don’t think Tim’s pain should be excused, however nobody seems to be acknowledging how DISRESPECTFUL Tim was toward Lucy in last episode … actually making not want them back together because he’s treating her like she meant nothing to him

Hey Anon!

I needed to take some time to answer your question for several reasons. One of them being that I didn't want it to be bundled (also in my head) with hateful comments about me being Tim defender. More importantly, I wanted to really think about what to say here. My answer is going to be one of tl;dr so here goes my general reflections about fandom, TV shows and life.

Firstly, someone said here very wisely at some point that it is great, how different we see scenes, dialogues and react to character building. I also think this is what makes things interesting as long as we keep our discussion civilized and open-minded.

Please, I don't want you, dear Anon, to find this lengthy answer as invalidating to your reflections. You have every right to this judgment, to your emotions and wanting to skip shipping Chenford.

You know, I rarely watch TV shows to judge or relive the drama. I am a sucker for TV shows that are well written (and I consider The Rookie one of these) is that they usually give me a lot of reflection on different characters and all kinds of life situation. I watch them mostly to analyze. And Chenford situation atm is nothing if not a deep pool to explore :D

The analysis is what I really feel like doing with Tim (and a lot of other plots in The Rookie). His perspective is a very distant to one that I follow in my life and that's what makes it interesting for me. He is a deeply bruised man in an obvious mental health crisis. And thus I am not feeling like judging his moves. I want to understand what he does and why he does that.

I've been in a mental health crisis myself. And boy, I was desperate. I was looking for any kind of reassurance I'm doing OK. I was left and judged by my friends. I felt so alone.

So, to add up all that. The way I see this situation is that it's not disrespectful for me, as I try to find different colors of Tim. It's a deeply wrong reaction, a scheme that he tries to fall into. The (once) safe common ground with Lucy: a work talk (that's the same he does in new sneak peek of 6x08). It's not an excuse, it's more of an explanation. I don't think it's good or right what he did, but I get why he did it and he is in an extremely flawed place.

Of course, if we are talking of disrespect and things happening in the relationship we need to consider both sides. So there goes Lucy side. As I see it, Lucy is, well, she is strong. To start. She also knows her boundaries so well. She sets them immediately with Tim. And I don't think also that she found his part disrespectful. I think she treated this a facade, maybe a BS also a little bit. I think she really hopes Tim will get his sh*t together (he needs to, let's be honest about that too). I'm happy she won't let that done at the expense of herself.

I don't think I see any of the disrespectful dynamic written in their relationship. But then again, I wouldn't have chosen to be with a partner like Tim, because I need a healthy attachment style and a good communication (which all I found in the beautiful mind of my husband). I think I've also always been rooting for guys like Tim has to find the good path. So, yeah.

Thanks to any of you that decided to stick to the end of this answer. I hope it makes any sense.

[yuseirra]

CRINGE MESSAGE COMING LOL. Seeing all the chapters of Oshi no Ko and the KamiAi makes me feel guilty now for being an Ai’s yume / waifuist lol. She's definitely his. Too bad for me ig, but I'm very happy maybe she really found someone who can love her as she is. Your comics are so good btw !

Don't worry about it, anon! And honestly I have no problems with someone feeling that way about Ai- why would you have to feel guilty? Just as much as I'm passionate about what her relationship could have been with another character, you liked her as a character and wanted to explore in that aspect! Even if she canonically has someone she loves in the story, she's a fun character to imagine and work with and she's really charming! But.. I'm really glad at the same time to hear you feel convinced about this ship too as someone who cares about it 🙏💖..your ask is so wholesome. I feel that's lovely of you to feel happy for her having found someone she can love. Ai would be happy to have a fan like you.

To add, I bet I'm WAY more cringe for having discussed about the ship and the characters in literal essays at this point..! I really appreciate your ask, it's happy(and relieving)to see there are people finding this ship the same way as you do. I really, really hope the manga will direct them in the way I anticipate too~~~~, because I can love them all I want if that's the case and it'd make a lot of sense, too! I can explain. I CAN-

Not that it matters a lot in terms of analyzing characters from a manga, but I STUDIED psychology, it IS a field of interest for me and I want to get things right on that aspect... the emotional areas of people. And from what I can infer, I think what these two characters had...could have actually been pretty good. Ai's reaction towards Hikaru and what's related to him aren't really what someone would have towards a bad partner, it's quite the opposite. Things all started to add up after having seen her say on him in the video. I'll discuss a little more about it below but before that:

Right?? What mattered the most for me the most is Ai's say about the guy and it turns out she REALLY loved him and SHE wanted to be together. I could tell from the entirety of the movie arc that Hikaru would have been very attached to her considering his life circumstances. She literally was only person he could really open up to and love, and Ai did so much for him although she later did give him the pain. I totally see how the lyrics for this show are all like "I can't live without you!" or "I'd give up my own life for yours!", it has to be this guy saying it because that's EXACTLY the way he'd feel about Ai. I started drawing a lot of him after 154 and Fatal because they acted as the major puzzle pieces for me to understand his character. You see how Akane wants to understand her role as Sayahime but has a hard time forming a concept due to the little info she has in the scripts early on in anime S2, right? I felt the same way about the guy. I think...I get like 70% of him now, but the other 30% I am yet aware of can completely turn the tables and my insights about him and that's what makes me so nervous. One thing's certain though, he severely loves Ai and every loving feeling he expresses about her are true. And if it is, then it's at an extent where he can literally sacrifice himself for her sake. Pretty intense, right? So about your ask, the part where you say Ai's found someone who really loves her is DEFINITELY true! I'm glad for her in that aspect(is he worthy enough, however?)

About the "worth" of his love, I've said earlier that Ai's say on this relationship's the important bit, didn't I? And it is, since she could be a victim of a terrible crime and if that's true, whatever feelings Hikaru would have about her wouldn't hold weight or meaning(at least for me). Who cares if a stalker claims they can risk their life for you? You'd just want them to stay firmly out of your life, it's imposing and unwanted and even quite selfish. However, Ai seems to have been pretty content, maybe even happy with him during the times they were together.

We don't really get to see a lot of their loving moments together since things keep happening making Hikaru's life plummet and become miserable and pretty reliant on Ai, but we see his happiest smiles in that brief moment they were together and Ai WAS smiling there, too. I believe that's not just a false vision of her Hikaru has formed in his head. She did actually accept, understand, and love him back. Well, how do we know that? Because the way she reacts to him/what's related to him are consistently loving and shows of concern.

-Ai adores their children and swoons about how cute they are, when they resemble him too a whole lot. It's a little similar to how she's commented how cute he is when they had dinner together(although Hikaru says those scenes are made-up, I feel they would hold some clues to how they actually were bc why would something entirely fake take up entire chapters). It's hard to love the kids of someone who's given you a hard time, but Ai shows no signs of such feelings. Rather, I think her feelings towards her boyfriend extended to their kids they had together and she was able to love them even more because they're the children of someone who she really cares about.

-She also comments(I say this a lot)that she wanted to be together forever with Hikaru. That's not something that'd come so easily from her mouth. She believed her own mother didn't want her. She was so wary, and hid her true self even towards her own kids and always smiled, leading even her own son to believe she never cries even until he's entered high school. She's afraid of forming relationships because she gets hurt. But Ai sincerely wanted to be with this guy. This says a lot because if he was bad to her, Ai would have recoiled and left. However, Ai was able to decide she wanted to settle with him and share a future together. That's what love is. She liked her times with him enough to wish for more of it.

-Ai actively tries to cover for him and shield him from the possible harms he may face: she never reveals who the father is, to the president in her firm, even in her videos to her OWN SON. I get the feeling that she is really protective of this guy. The reason she left him was because she was afraid of causing HIM more sufferings, not because of her being tired of him sticking to her etc. There's a cut where she imagines him raising their children together with a smile and she's also there right beside him forming a wide smile. That's what Ai wanted, and it's so far from what a messed-up relationship could be. Ai knows about Hikaru more than anyone else and she doesn't hold any negativity towards him, she's only worried about his sake. That convinced me, they could have really had this happen. He was good enough for her and she wanted him too as much as he did for her. I don't think she would have the wrong idea about who she chose to love, when her whole story revolves around her struggles on forming a genuine one.

How could this be, if he's someone capable of harming her? I say he actually ISN'T, and that could be backed up by how.. timid Hikaru used to be. This is the 30% I am unsure of, I am not sure how crazy he is or how insane he can get. What I can say is that his innate character isn't the type to actively try to harm someone just because he's hurt. He was hurt all the time, always, by others, and he was never able to really fight back and protect himself before he's met Ai who stood with him(and this explains why Ai is so keen about protecting him-she knows he gets very vulnerable and she's seen him suffer all his life. She never wanted to be the one to add to it. She WANTS to help and protect him so much.)

I can also say he has very low self-esteem and values himself way less compared to what he actually is. This attitude of his is there from the very first time he's introduced, he keeps blaming himself and says his life doesn't have so much value. It's a very weird attitude to have if he's in front of someone who he's murdered.... When he is asked to teach Ai for the first time, he says stuff like "Is it okay for someone like me to...?" When you're this degrading about yourself.. You come to sort of.. Accept every bad thing that's thrown at you. I think that's how his mental state is at this point because Ai died and he believes he's responsible for it. He hates himself and has no problem having to be "punished" for it. He describes himself as a crazy murderer but.. I am still not sure if that's really the case. Aqua blames himself a lot for things he never did, perhaps his dad is even more like him on that regard. I need more pieces of the puzzle, but he's... really interesting and painful to analyze because I can sense that he's really suffering. Does he deserve it?

If he's someone that's allowed a person like Ai to form such a strong, loving and protective feeling towards, I don't think he could be so bad in reality. The things he says and his actions don't line up so well. Good grief, the writer really makes me think SO much. Maybe they never put that much thought into it and thought it's understandable the way it is, but.. He's so different compared to how he used to be. There has to be a reason for a person to change their ways so drastically, and the only reason I can personally think of for this character to shift this much would be Ai's death. I don't think he'd have been so different before that happened, and if that's the case, he wouldn't have tried to hurt her because why do that to the only light of his life? Why do that after a whole 4 years after a breakup, not immediately when it happened? Why try to do it after having realized she's been raising your kids by herself and they're said to be growing up smart and healthy? Many questions arise, it doesn't add up for me. Hikaru SAYS he wanted to talk to Aqua. He did with Ruby, he states he HAS fatherly feelings and I sense no hostility in him when he approaches them, he acts pretty KIND to them. That's not so different from how Ai's pictured he'd be with their children, either. His behavior is mostly consistent except for that one thing he claims to have done(sending Ryosuke), and the death of Yura, but even that is ambiguous and we don't actually know what's happened.

I think he just tried to send a bouquet to her but was too sad to go meet her in person lol, that, or there was some outer force that convinced him it's what he should do? The black star, perhaps?

This became a real essay and I'm the embarrassing one here ;v; ahah but!! I do draw with passion! And with a lot of things in mind and I read stuff over a lot like you do anon! ♥ I really hope they turn out to be something I can fully respect and support bc, I want Ai's love to be reciprocated in the way it deserves. It'd be great if they deserve each other. They are the protagonists' parents too, after all! I feel they'd have a pretty good story. Thanks for reading my comic and for expressing your thoughts to me! I hope what you said and what I speculate about them are true!!😊💖💖

[vasito-de-leche]

;NSR MAYDAY - General Headcanons

Compilation of general headcanons and analysis about Mayday and other Mayday related things.

I just needed an excuse to fleshen out / analyze Mayday and any HCs I have for her bc I'm thinking soooo much about this game <3 there's also Zuke stuff in here because you can't talk abt one without the other lmfao

Aside from music, Mayday and Zuke share an interest for fixing, modding and tinkering with machines (any piece of tech discarded out in the streets).

Their approach to reverse engineering all the tech they get is different - Mayday focuses on recycling to build something entirely new and more powerful, while Zuke focuses on fixing and perfecting whatever it is that he's tinkering with, to make it more precise.

This is most notable with their respective instruments. Mayday's guitar is 100% built from scratch, spare parts and passion, it's also modded and tuned to her liking. This means that she's literally the ONLY person who can understand how it works, and why she couldn't replace her old guitar once it was destroyed at the end of the game. Meanwhile, Zuke opts for using NSR-brand drumsticks - the best of the best in the market - which he mods to work better with his way of playing.

The workshop in their base is attributed to Zuke because he's the one who cleared out the area to have all of their little projects located in an organized spot, since most of their living quarters were filled with unfinished projects, wrenches and bolts everywhere and so on. This is because Mayday has a very short attention span and gets attached easily, so she never has the time to finish anything nor the heart to discard her projects - especially when she keeps drawing faces onto everything.

A lot of their equipment was just made by Mayday herself, since she needed speakers strong enough to withstand the power of her guitar without getting fried after every performance. Many of their mutual friends see Zuke as the genius of the duo, but he insists that Mayday is the one doing most of the carry for B2J.

Both Mayday and Zuke got into music because of their loved ones.

It's canon that DK West is the reason Zuke got into music, and I like to think family was also one of the main reasons Mayday got into music, namely rock. One of her dialogues in-game mentions how her grandma used to listen and sing to the Goolings with her using an old radio, despite not knowing the lyrics nor understanding the music.

Whereas Zuke was influenced by his brother's rap career to give music a try, it was kind of the reverse for Mayday - rock music became a big interest for her from a young age, and her family supported her wholeheartedly. They would take her to concerts, buy merch for her whenever it was possible and basically hype her up. Her father can probably name every different phase and era in Mayday's childhood and teenage years based on the groups she was into at the time.

Judging from dialogue, I think it's implied that Mayday was born and raised in Vinyl City, and that she never really travelled outside. So it's not impossible for her family to attend her first concerts (in small, local venues as a teenager, before she and Zuke even met) and her proper debut in B2J. Her family is also the first ones to receive official B2J merch, shirts that she and Zuke designed and that look AWFUL but that they love all the same.

I think this family aspect also ties in nicely with the base game, specifically Yinu's fight since it's the first moment of tension for Mayday and Zuke in which they realize they might not be the good guys for hijacking concerts.

For Mayday, music is a lifestyle, not something to be forced onto people - she goes directly against NSR because of the EDM enforcement and the rock ban, after all. So it makes sense to me that she becomes a bit too engrossed in fighting Yinu's mother, someone who is directly puppeteering her own child and represents parents who live vicariously through their talented kids, to the point where she also forgets that Yinu is a child. A fact that she also initially brushes aside herself since Yinu is part of NSR.

I don't know, I just like when characters are flawed and multifaceted! Mayday and Zuke should be allowed to be hypocrites, as a treat.

Mayday taught herself how to play.

My personal agenda is to also hype up Mayday for being a music genius at 21, so yeah! I like to think she's 100% self-taught, which parallels Zuke's musical education rather nicely. They're both extremely good in their own unique ways.

She used to play by ear, trying to figure out how to play her favorite songs when she was younger, and later began to actually study music notation and so on.

When spontaneously coming up with new melodies and songs for B2J, she mostly uses her phone to record herself singing, as opposed to Zuke immediately needing to jot down everything.

It took awhile for Mayday to pick up and use Kul Fyra's guitar.

After the events of the game, Mayday ABSOLUTELY needed some time to properly process everything - her dialogue is all about realizing that she was in the wrong and reconsider the reason she picked up music in the first, wondering if she began to rebel against NSR because she couldn't cope with B2J and rock (two things very dear to her heart) being rejected, etc. So she wouldn't have had the heart to use her idol's guitar without coming to terms with a lot of things first.

My favorite headcanon to think about is that the cutscene at the very end, during Tatiana's speech, is of Mayday and Zuke performing after B2J's hiatus, after they both help each other mature and grow up a bit. And Mayday using Kul Fyra's guitar is symbolic of her renewed love in music and taking Tatiana's words to heart - "where I have failed, I want you to go beyond".

Mayday doesn't have any powers unique to herself.

I KNOW, I KNOW - it's kind of UNFAIR since EVERYONE has WORLD BENDING ABILITIES AND WHATEVER. Even Zuke is implied to have inherited DK West's shadow puppets and all, BUT consider THE FOLLOWING....THAT'S THE POINT.....

Every major character in NSR represents a type of musician or figure in the industry - and I'm not sure if it was meant to be read like this or not, but Zuke reads as that type of person who has really good connections with important figures, who had the chance to pursue higher education and afford expensive equipment, who is knowledgeable when it comes to the ins and outs of the industry BECAUSE he was there to see and experience it all firsthand (if we're taking into account the fact that DK West was implied to be a revolutionary activist related to NSR). He's even the one who is the most reluctant to go against NSR and gives them the benefit of the doubt, which can easily be attributed to him being the calm and collected, reasonable half of the duo but also because he personally knows EVE (and DK West if you count him as an important major figure). He's a huge fucking nerd with a degree and it makes sense that he's the one giving ALL the information about the music industry when interacting with all the objects around Vinyl City.

But May? Her dialogue is all about more common things, the way she talks about certain people shows that she knew them personally, that they were friends or acquaintances from all over town instead of the important figures Zuke speaks of. She complains a lot about the fact that from a surface level, NSR does look like a bunch of sellouts and really offers that underdog vibe in B2J. She has NO connections to ANY major character in NSR other than being a fan of Kul Fyra. We know virtually nothing about her backstory too.

So to me it makes sense that Mayday lacks any sort of unique and incredible ability, as she IS part of the little guys that B2J fight for. The underdogs that get brushed aside for whatever reason, because they're not relevant or seen as profitable and so on. She represents the artists who are naive, full of passion for their craft and determination to make their dreams work regardless of how cruel the industry might be.

My personal hot take is that instead of powers and some innate talent, Mayday offers something else: deep connections with people.

This example might not click with everyone since it's how I personally perceived the music and all and I actually know absolutely nothing about music other than It Sounds Good and It Makes Me Want To Dance, but yknow!

When listening to the B2J solos, there are times when Zuke's solo is very aggressive and almost takes over the entire song, which makes sense since it's a solo and they ARE trying to win over EDM. But Mayday's solos blend in so well with the base track of each boss fight, like she really is trying to match their vibe using her own genre rather than fight for the spotlight.

This is most noticeable in Eve's fight - both Zuke and Mayday's solos match Eve's base track perfectly. You can understand why Zuke would match her, since they know each other intimately and when you explore Dream Fever, he's the one giving ALL the in-depth explanations about Eve's vision when creating her sculptures and art. But Mayday would have no reason to match Eve at all, she doesn't understand any of her art let alone know her as a person. And still, the ONE thing Zuke tells Eve at the end of the fight is that if Eve came to know Mayday the way he does, she would like her as well. Zuke is happier being Mayday's friend and bandmate despite the fact that he's Mayday's antithesis, than being part of a big company and records label with his super hot girlfriend.

I like to think that Mayday's solos, the fact that she is Zuke's direct opposite in almost every way, that she's closely tied to the regular people and citizens of Vinyl City and that piece of dialogue from Zuke are a testament to Mayday's ability to really reach out to people through music. Not to say that her power is just friendship, but just the fact that she can adapt and come to understand anyone - as long as it's in a musical setting.

Personally I like it more when Mayday is just a regular girl without unique powers, but you could take these aspect of her and turn them into its own power!

[thevanillerose]

KITTY | CONNOR x READER | DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN

~ WRITING COMMISSIONS ~ ~ PATREON ~ ~ KO-FI ~

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not own anything except my own writing. All properties belong to their respective creators.

A/N: In which Connor becomes a catgirl.

“What's this, [Y/N]?”“It's a gift for you.”

“A gift?” Connor tilted his head cutely to the side. Every single mannerism of his was so endearing, and that hadn't changed since he had become a Deviant. If anything, these motions were enhanced, and they seemed so much more natural than they ever had before.

You sat down next to him on the lounge sofa, one which you had grown used to seeing him on ever since he moved in with you. Not as some housework android either, no...it was safe to say that those days were over for humanity. Androids would only work if they wanted to work, and that was basically the long and short of it. RA9 had changed things dramatically. For everyone...

For the better though, you felt. You liked Connor even more when he was like this. Granted, you had always liked him, right from the time you had first met at the police station. You were little more than a token office worker there, but seeing him on the daily had brought a smile to your face.

As it turned out, he had also noticed you too. Now here you were.

“Why have you given me a gift though?” he questioned before even lifting the lid off the box. You snuggled up a little closer to his side, not minding that he would never be quite as soft as a regular human man. “Because, I got curious about something, since you're a Deviant now and all. Go on, open it.”

Now he was truly wondering, and so after blinking a couple of times, he looked back down at his lap again and removed the lid.

Inside was a headband with two cat ears attached. It was neatly designed and as sleek as you might expect, more slick than fluffy, which you felt would go well with his whole aesthetic. Connor lifted the accessory out of the box, studying it with some understandable wonder.

“...What is this for?” he asked, though he didn't need to. He was already analyzing it. “Put it on! Trust me!” you were excited now, sitting more upright and beaming at him. Seeing you that way was pretty adorable, so of course he obliged. “...Wow...”

As soon as Connor donned the ears, they started to move and twitch. You hurriedly pulled the manual from your pocket and leafed through it until you reached the guide page which told you what every motion meant. Having cats in an apartment like this would be a bit of a nightmare, so it had been a long time since you had one.

Well...Connor made for a nice stand-in.

Given his nature now, the ears were picking up on emotional responses that could typically only be found in humans. They would move in accordance with how he was feeling. Right now, they were alert, mostly out of curiosity you figured.

His brown eyes glanced up towards his forehead even if he couldn't see the headband from there, and he reached up to touch the ears lightly with his hands. “What is the purpose of it?” “It responds to your mood. You're still not always the most expressive guy Connor, if I can be honest.” you smiled gently and chuckled a little, “Not that I can blame you for that, hehe...I just thought it might make it easier to read how you're feeling.”

Plus it looked cute. There was that too.

“...So you've turned me into a cat?” Connor asked, to which you stifled laughter and then suddenly stood up. Time for a test.

“...Actually Connor, I think it's all you're good for these days. You've been getting so boring recently...I was considering getting rid of you...” After pausing for a moment, you turned around to look at him. His face still didn't betray too much, but his ears were totally flat.

“Aww Connor I'm sorry!” You immediately rushed back over and got on the couch again, hugging him closely. The ears relaxed a bit, though he still looked at you with some worry. “It was just a joke, was it?”

“Of course it was!” you frowned, then kissed him on the cheek and embraced him tighter. “I would never get rid of you, ever. I love you.”

Finally, he smiled, and the ears he wore seemed to do the same. A plastic kiss met your cheek in return.

“I love you too.”

“...And you don't mind this? Being my kitty for a while?” you tapped the headband with your finger, and Connor simply shook his head.

“Not at all. I can be whatever you want me to be, [Y/N].”

Like my writing? I can write for you! Check out my WRITING COMMISSIONS!

[egg-emperor]

I love your blog and the way you analyze Eggman. and I wish you further success in finding people who will understand you BUT are there any reasons why you don't like Eggman?I mean, every character has their flaws, and Eggman is unfortunately no exception.

I'm really happy you like it and thank you so much, that's very sweet. I hope so too! I'm very appreciative of the nice little cozy corner we've been building here with my lovely followers/lurkers/and askers like you so far ^^

Talking about game Eggman specifically of course,

I can think down the very last detail and aspect of Eggman's character and actions and genuinely can't find a single thing I dislike and that's why I love him so much. I always specifically love all the things people dislike characters for when it comes to bad guys. Their nastiest evilest traits are always entertaining and enjoyable to me

The more fucked up and flawed a character is, the more I love them. I've never been into perfect flawless goodie two shoes characters hehe. The most offensive a character can be to me personally is annoying but Eggman has literally never been annoying to me even once. It's good guy hero type characters that I often find more obnoxious

He has his character flaws like egotism, greed, temper, being a manchild, his evilness and all it entails, the way he can get too confident and act too fast/make oversights (though he has improved and he does absolutely still know how to plan), and such but those aren't things that I dislike about him, in fact I specifically like all those things the most about him actually XD

All these things make him whole and give him so much character and I'm highly against erasing any from him. My blog is pretty much a place where I appreciate all things others dislike which is basically everything, I've known a bunch of fans that dislike how he's evil aka 99.9% of what he's doing the entire time he's on screen in the games lol

To me every single aspect of his appearance is perfect and handsome, every aspect of his character in personality, behavior, and mindset is fascinating to me, and every single action of his is exciting and entertaining. I love absolutely everything about both his villainous and humorous side. There's a reason he's my favorite character ever!

You say he's unfortunately no exception which is true but it's not unfortunate at all to me. XD I'd be curious to know what you consider his flaws because if it's any of the above, I appreciate them being parts of him because every character should have their flaws, and all of Eggman's fit very well, add a lot to him and the story, and fascinate me.

The only things I've ever disliked attached to Eggman/Robotnik's name are non game canon versions of the character because I don't like many versions outside of the games for various reasons from designs to personalities. But because I don't like those versions as a whole overall, it doesn't really matter to me and doesn't count :P

The way game canon Eggman is so horrible and flawed are things I adore so much about him so he could never make me hate him, though that also shows the power of my passion and devotion on my part hehe 💜

[melancholycatastrophe]

Jotting down some thoughts about Only Friends Episode 4:

spoilers, obviously

That first scene with Ray broke me, that feeling of worthlessness and how everyone must hate you hit a little too hard for me

I was right thinking that Ray is closer to Mew than the others (and maybe vice versa), possibly because Mew is his emergency contact and saved him when he was feeling suicidal; which reminds me of when Ray told Sand that it was his turn to save him after Sand took care of him while he was drunk

That one person's theory that Ray is using Sand as an emotional replacement for Mew, who he already holds on a pedestal and probably is attached to Mew more than he likes Mew, is probably true. Idk I'm not really analyzing but I genuinely feel that Ray uses people as an emotional crutch in order to get things from them that he never got from his own mom - love, compassion, someone to hold

Cheum is so me: "Ray, if I wasn't a lesbian I would love you"

Side note: I love scenes where all four of them are together and doing friend stuff even though they're all backstabbing each other (except Cheum, bless her)

The fact that Boston saw his two close friends kiss and recorded it, kept it for two years without saying anything is so???????? I want to crack open his head and figure out whats wrong with him

Ray saying Sand is not his type after he had his tongue down his throat not 30 minutes ago is??????????

Ray still being in love with Mew is so sad especially when Mew clearly only sees him as a friend (He's gotta be on the ace-aro spectrum is2g Mew is demisexual and probably aroflux or something along that line. Trust me, I'm also ace(-probably aro) and he's just like me)

Mew laying clear boundaries with others is hot. Actually, yes, kissing someone who is asleep without their consent is weird and you shouldn't do it, this isn't a kdrama Ray, you can't get away with it

I can't wait for Nick to rock Boston's shit I'll be honest, I really want him to try and blackmail Boston into a relationship, they can be red flag4red flag

Top really has the AUDACITY to call Mew his future boyfriend as if he didn't fuck Boston like he had something to prove just the other day, all men do is lie

That airplane with a B on it....the photobooth at the hotel.....Top I was really rooting for you but you're getting on my last nerve...

Ray is the kinda guy that doesn't know what the price of eggs are

"I do want money but friendship and love can't be bought" Sand I literally can't relate, would love someone to buy me things in exchange for my friendship

Raysand is so cute at the guitar shop I just know Ray is gonna leave Sand broken hearted, there's no way Sand is getting out of this unscathed

Ray is so lovely when he apologizes and looks up with those puppy dog eyes I would forgive him too, its okay Sand

Sand loves arctic monkeys and oasis 😭 move over Ray, I can treat him better

Every time Boston is in the same frame as Top, I let out the biggest sigh; I love Ton, I won't lie, but God I need him to leave topmew alone (on the other hand, I wanna see Mew rock both Top and Boston's shit)

I love that scene in the elevator when Top was reading Ton to filth but couldn't he had done it before he had sex with him???? Like Book, I too will bring up that car scene every single time

God I don't trust Top

Out of context BostonNick is really cute, I wanna see Neo and Mark together in another series where they get play boyfriends

also Nick relistens to that damn audio more times than I rewatch episode 12 of Mignon

Nick trying to blackmail Top instead of telling Mew is such a choice. "Can you stay away from Boston?" bruh he's trying to, Boston is the one that appears out of nowhere like that one mosquito

"Top stole my ex" OH MY GOD OHHHHH MY GOD I KNEW IT BUT IT STILL TOOK ME BY SURPRISE

Book is so fine, idk something about the glasses gets me in every scene he's in

unrequited love for your best friend is so rough, I feel for you Ray (but he has a point. Mew, do you really want Top as your boyfriend?)

"Who punched you? I want to give them a trophy?" You can suck his dick too, Ray, since it's Sand

For a second I forgot who Beam was 😭 I was so focused on Boston and Top that I forgot Top slept with the entire young adult male population of Thailand

"Beam is a drug dealer" hOW IS THAT ANY BETTER?????

"Are you okay with that?" WHY WOULD HE BE OKAY WITH HIS POTENTIAL BOYFRIEND DOING COCAINE?????

why do I have the oddest feeling that Mew has some kind of background with dealing with addicts cuz that "quit drugs" speech was a little too impassioned. like a previous family member or someone was an addict and now he no longer wants to take care of people who are addicts because of how emotionally exhausting it is. maybe this theory is coming out of my ass but it might explain why he keeps Ray strictly as a friend (since not only is he an alcohol addict he also does cocaine???? boy are you trying to kill yourself?) and he gets mad at top for also doing drugs

i thought mew would use sex as a way to prove that he and ray were strictly friends, not as a reward to get top to stop doing drugs. i'm so flabbergasted and also top is kinda weird for wanting sex as a reward for taking care of himself but whatever

now I'm distracted at the fact that Top brought a packet of cocaine with him to Mew's place like??? was he planning to sniff a line while Mew was sleeping or...?

Man I was wrong about that airplane....but my point still stands

out of context topmew is cute

ray just wants to feel important to someone but now that mew has top, he's gonna cling to sand....i'm sad i just want ray to love and be loved

sharing music is a love language

the next episode looks too happy, i dont trust it

[saraminia]

Dead dove, do not eat. Opinions™ ahead.

Apropos nothing, let's talk about The Wingman and why it all went to shit for me with that episode. I keep trying to analyze and understand why I just can't get on the threesome train with y'all (and Dan). I'm sorry, that sounds very bad lmao.

Anyway, I think one reason it bothers me so much, is that I don't think enough of their individual growth and growth as a couple, is shown to us, for such a decision to be justified. We have to fill in too many blanks ourselves. How did they really get from those little bursts of healthy jealousy to "let's go fuck your ex".

Moreover, why was this plotline necessary? It wasn't that funny. It didn't develop their relationship. Why was the communication outside Jake's door so bitchy. It sounded to me like they were not at all ready for what they had come there to do. They hadn't had the necessary conversations and they were not free of all uncertainty and jealousy. It was like "Oh, you wore that shirt. You never wore it for me" and "Oh, you wore leather scented moisturizer. You never wore it for me." That's what it sounded like to me.

Actually, maybe that's the problem. We were never shown them going through that much trouble to seduce or offer that extra to each other. In fact, when it comes to sex between them, we never got any hint of them ever having sex after their first night. There were very vague allusions to it in the form of a few sex jokes, but there was never any indication shown that they even had a sex life tbh. They always slept in their pyjamas, only a head touching a shoulder. There was no plot line, that would have involved them going to have or having had sex. In fact, only time there was any sex happening, it was between David and another guy, on his wedding day no less.

I might as well admit it right now, that that pisses me off, too, but I made my peace with it fast and just kept reminding myself that this is a comedy show, it's all for the laughs. But still, we sure as hell have never seed David roll his eyes in ecstacy over how good he's had it with Patrick.

That's one of the biggest things bothering me. Only time we see them explicitly going to have sex, is with Jake. If we had been made aware that they have a good and satisfying sex life just the two of them, maybe then I could have more easily accepted this choice to make them want to try a threesome. But as it is, it came totally out of nowhere. It now seems just like they're doing it 'cause they're unsatisfied with their sex life. And that bothers me. Maybe it shouldn't. Maybe I should be fine with them needing other people to satisfy themselves sexually. But I'm not.

Unfortunately I need sex to mean something in fiction. I need it to be an expression of the characters feelings for each other. I need it to be emotionally driven. Now there was this strange dichotomy between their obvious love and devotion for each other and sex. As if sex was something completely separate from love and affection. Every time we see David have sex, it's without emotional attachment; Stevie, Jake, Sebastien, the masseur. Sure, there is that one time with Patrick, but that's it. Then it's all love but no sex. Cause sex apparently is not important in a relationship. It's just something you do for fun with whomever. He even tries to push Patrick to do the same, to go out with Ken and try it out with another guy, but Patrick is not able to. Because he only wants David, because of his strong feelings for David. How did that guy, who wanted physical intimacy to be only theirs, turn into a "yes, let's fuck whomever" -guy. It makes no sense to me. It's ooc.

And this is not about being prude or not being sex positive. I very much am sex positive. God knows I am all for it. But I do not believe many relationships can survive a threesome, unless you are truly polyamorous and free of all (very natural!) feelings of jealousy. There will be so many complicated feelings involved, I don't understand how it could be worth it.

Also Jake is not that hot. It's so unrealistic that Patrick would be all flustered and dtf immediately after meeting him (ok they met once before, but he certainly wasn't into him then!).

Idk I'm just talking in circles. But I'm not really even trying to make any point here. I just felt like talking about this, since recently I've been reminded about this threesome thing again. I guess ultimately my question is: why? Why would they choose to do that? Why would they want to? I know it's just as easy to counter with: Why not? But I can think of a hell of a lot more reasons not to do it.

God I wish I could talk to Dan about this. To hear in his own words why he chose to do this. Was it all for the laughs or is it just that important to him to push this sex positive agenda. That sounded more negative than I meant it, but I don't know how else to say it. I get the feeling that this sharing of your sexuality freely and generously (with whomever, regardless of whether you're in a relationship with someone or not), is a very important theme for him. Maybe it's because he's gay and the whole history of queer people being told our sexuality is bad and wrong and sinful and all that crap. I'd just like Dan to explain his viewpoint to me. If only.

In any case, I like monogamy and like to think relationships and intimacy is something a little bit sacred at least. There should be that something that is only the two of yours. Something that is private and not shared with others. That it's something special. Something to cherish.

Tbqh the way David and Stevie's relationship is discussed in this fandom as being very emotionally intimate and them being soulmates and basically not functioning without each other and the way there's this unquestioned unyielding support for this threesome story line, I often feel like what about Patrick? Doesn't he deserve more? Doesn't he deserve to have something that is just theirs? What is his role in David's life? What is the need in David's life that he fulfills? What is the point of a marriage if you're so freely sharing yourself with other people, that there is nothing left that's just for your husband?

Okay, I've tired myself out now. I've got nothing more for now. Until next time! 😘

[0thsense]

11/5/2023

Back from glorious nippon. To be honest it was definitely a fun trip. It made me realize just how starved I've been of human interaction in general this past year. I have a whirlwind of thoughts I'd like to put down so lets get started.

I brought up IQ and online tests to Michael and Reggie, but more to Michael in particular. They both seemed to not have had much prior interest in them, which slightly surprised me from a basal part of my mind since I'm interested in them. But I know that I have way more interest than normal. Michael tried them and scored surprisingly high, getting 138 on one diagnostic. Since that is about what I get, and I previously thought I had higher IQ to be honest, it was a little surprising. It makes me think that what I previously thought were larger gaps between me and others might actually be much smaller. I'm also suspecting more and more that I'm not actually smarter than others to the extent that I think.

What is the difference then? Is it simply personal bias that I especially notice the times when I seem smarter> Or is it some sort of strangeness I have with a tendency to analyze everything? Hard to say I suppose. I was unable to tease anything out of Reggie about insecurities relating to intelligence and other things that I've long suspected he had. Even at the onsen we didn't really open up that much, despite my efforts.

My mood was definitely very good overall on the trip, and definitely a large part of that was being off my meds. I'm kind of torn on whether I should continue meds at this point. Maybe I just need to drink coffee every time I need to focus. That's probably what my parents did, given they drank 8 cups of coffee a day or something absurd like that. I'm definitely more fun and quirky when I'm not on them, and I'm even trying to stay off of them to see what happens for a bit now that I'm back.

Another thing I've looked a bit into recently is attachment styles. I think I maybe fearful avoidant, due to being scared of my parents when I was young. I think that's the one that's the worst. Another thing to blame on my parents kappa. I don't really know how to fix it other than just trying to force myself to trust others. It's really hard for me I've realized, and this is probably part of the reason why I've always thought about being so self sufficient.

I brought this up to the girl I went on a date with a week before the japan trip. this transition was awkward lol. That date kinda sucked, it was just really boring. Oh well I guess. I don't really have much thoughts on it even though in theory it's something exciting. I'll try to stay active on Hinge I guess for more excitement with some new pictures from Japan but I'm trying to not expect too much.

I was happy with how my fitness helped during the whole Japan trip. I think I had the most stamina and energy throughout the trip. Japanese girls are really cute ngl. I wish I was still at the age where it was more socially acceptable to just be into girls all the time. I hate that I grew up in church and had such warped ideas coming out of it.

I guess I should write some actual exposition about the trip. Reggie did say he started keeping a daily journal where he just writes what happened, and doesn't really go into further thought or detail like I try to do. I kind of assumed that other journalers would also follow my style but I guess I'm wrong? maybe? Reggie probably isn't an exception here. Am I weird for actually thinking about everything? Probably. But nobody would admit that they're a shallow thinker, it's one of the things where there's infinite ways to cope yourself into believing that you think about things just as much as the next guy.

I wonder if others also have thoughts relating kimonos to flowers blooming. I hope that doesn't come off as misogynistic. I wonder where I would be the misogyny scale. Of course I'd like to believe I'd be really low but who knows? I can't read other people's or my own mind on these things. When I got boba with Ned I accidentally gendered a nonspecified secretary as "she" and I think that bothered Ned even though I caught it and corrected myself. I feel like that's unfair of him. When someone talks about a secretary helping David Shaw out do people really not imagine a mental scene where the secretary has a gender? I guess I didn't possess the faculties and awareness to gender them only in my hypothetical mental scene and shake that off when back to talking about them in the realm of only the information actually presented. Maybe this is the non-misogyny skill I need to practice. It does make me feel a little mad though.

Oh yea I've been experimenting with trying to actually feel my emotions. I might have mentioned this in a past blog but I'm actually trying to feel the anger and sadness I've bubbled up for far too long. I think it's sort of working? In the sense that sometimes I do think I'm feeling angry or sad profoundly. I'm not sure if feeling them helps at all though. My mood right now is pretty good randomly. I sure hope it doesn't go back down to the dumps again.

The food and views in Japan were excellent. I don't really have much more to say about it.

I predict everything and the things that I remember are the things that deviate most from what I've predicted. Wow that sounds so edgy. Surely I remember things that were really good or really bad even if I predicted them. Like even if I predicted a view to be really good would I not be struck by how good it is? Or maybe that's the thing. It's impossible to truly predict nature's beauty without actually seeing it. That would be nice if that were true. Will I remember the views of Japan? Maybe if I convince myself they were special enough, which I think I partly have already. Same with the food.

[aegiandy]

Preview: Forgetting you (M)

𝗦𝗨𝗠𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗬. Keeping your no-strings attached relationship with one of the most well-knowned cassanova in your university a secret is already hard, but you know what's the hardest part? When things come to an end, forgetting Jung Jaehyun will be the most hardest part of your college life.

𝗣𝗔𝗜𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗦. frat boy!Jaehyun x archi student!reader

𝗚𝗘𝗡𝗥𝗘(𝘀) & 𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗣𝗘(𝘀). angst, crack, fluff, smut, fwb to strangers to lovers!au, frat!au, college!au

𝗪𝗔𝗥𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗦. Explicit language, explicit sexual content etc.

𝗧𝗬𝗣𝗘. Series.

a/n: side story of seol (oc in remember me) and jaehyun, will be published after finishing remember me.

“Turn your books to page 53. Read, analyze and reflect. Submit your papers to your class president and you can leave.” Your professor simply said before leaving the room once again, you just rolled your eyes and slumped down on your chair.

Your classmates groaned and whined once the teacher is out of the view, you raised your hand and the room fell silent once again.

“You can leave, just make sure to pass the papers to me right before the clock strikes six pm.” You said, your classmates cheered in enthusiasm before they all went out of the classroom. You just shook your head and continued on reading your book.

The whole room fell silent when the last student walked out of your room, once you heard the sound of the door closing you closed your book and rested your head on the table infronf of you, heaving out a deep sigh.

You've always liked to be left alone in this particular room, that's why every time your professor does what he just did before, you too always do what you just did a while ago.

Peace.

The silence was giving you the peace of mind you needed. You were so close to drifiting onto wonderland when you heard the opening of the door.

You lifted your head and squinted a little to see who entered the room. The first that caught your attention was the dimples that's been showing as he gave you a cute smile, you groaned.

“Why are you here, Jaehyun?” You asked, resting your head on the table as you stare outside the window, back turned towards the guy.

“I'm horny.” He said, you turned your head to glare at him, “We had sex right before this class.”

“Yeah, and?” He deadpanned, you just rolled your eyes at him before deciding to clean up your table. Placing all your stuff inside your bag hastily.

Now that Jaehyun is here, you can’t really have that peace of mind you need.

“Please, it’ll be quick. I tried to rub one out on the boys bathroom, but i can’t. I seriously need to be inside of you right now.” He pleaded, you ignored him, zipping your bag close. You stood up, about to walk past him when he held your arm in a tight grip.

“Jaehyu, i’m not in the mood.” You sighed, he just pulled you closer to him, sitting on the edge of the desk as he wrapped his arms around your waist.

“I can get you in the mood..” He whispered huskily on your ear before dropping small kisses to your earlobe, biting it before his kisses went from your ears down to your jaw and finally to your neck.

“No..” You tried to sound firm, but the words that came out from your mouth became soft and sounded almost like a whine.

You felt Jaehyun's smirk on your skin before his kisses on your neck became heated, nipping and sucking on it eventually.

Your hand finding its way on his broad shoulders as you hold onto it for support, angling your neck so Jaehyun could have a better access.

“I told you i can get you in the mood..” Jaehyun whispered cockily, and that is when you retrieved you back to reality, you opened your eyes and pushed him enough for him to stop what he was doing.

“And i told you many times already that your cockiness can kill the mood.” You replied, sarcasm dripping on your voice.

You heard Jaehyun's deep and manly laugh as you walked out of the room.

“I’ll see you later, baby!” Jaehyun said, you just shake your head.

“See you later baby my ass.”

𝗧𝗔𝗚𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗧. @yutashotaro @kpoph0e @calssunflower @notbeforelong @nominsgirl @punnshine

[itsdanii]

Rejecting you and regretting it

genre: angst to fluff

warnings: slight cursing, rude behavior (resolved), do message me if I forgot any.

ft. sakusa kiyoomi, tsukishima kei

Sakusa Kiyoomi

you're not oblivious to the fact that kiyoomi is a very conscious person

that's one of the things you loved about him

he was hygienic and he always made sure that his health was his utmost priority

but one downside is that kiyoomi had the tendency to push people away because of his straightforwardness

you were used to it and in fact, you were one of those people he tolerated

but everyone has their bad days

and unfortunately for you, today was kiyoomi's and since you were always attached to him by the hip, he unintentionally snapped at you

what's worse is that he snapped at you the moment you confessed to him

"Omi!" you shouted happily as you entered the gymnasium, giving Komori a small wave before making your way to where Kiyoomi was sitting.

He looked at you with a frown. He wasn't wearing a mask since they were training awhile ago and only took a quick break. "Y/n, what are you doing here?"

You sat beside him making Kiyoomi grimace and slightly move away. You frowned at him, completely displeased at the action. "I just wanted to give you a visit. Plus, I have something to tell you."

You started to fiddle with your fingers nervously. You practiced your confession several times already but doing it seemed harder than you thought.

"What is it? Talk, I'm not in the right mood to socialize right now."

Out of panic, you quickly blurted out a rather loud, "I like you!" You immediately covered your mouth with your hand and stared at him wide eyed.

The other players looked at you with sympathy, knowing what's about to happen. Out of all days, you really had to confess today, when Kiyoomi was in a pissy mood after several fangirls pushed themselves against him this morning, not minding his personal space.

Kiyoomi stared at you with a serious expression before standing up. "I don't like you. Leave."

"But Omi.."

"You're irritating and you always bother me when it is clear that I don't want your company." He turned around and left you on the bench, your head casted down in humiliation.

You whispered a small sorry before running out of the gym with tears falling from your eyes.

For the next few days, you did your very best to stay away from Kiyoomi. You changed your route to school knowing that your usual route meant that you have to pass by his house. Even if you got scolded several times for being late, you did not stop.

You sat near the door so you can easily exit the room after class. You even stopped eating with Komori and Kiyoomi during breaks and lunch. Even your usual routine of visiting the gym during practices was stopped.

At first, Kiyoomi didn't mind. He knew that you'd come back in a few days just like you always did. You like him after all, right?

But when a few days turned into weeks, He started getting bothered. Why weren't you pestering him like always? Why did you stop visiting him? You said you like him, right?

It was the second week that Kiyoomi took action. He woke up extra early to wait for you infront of your house, aiming to confront you about your behavior.

When you went out, your eyes widened slightly upon seeing Kiyoomi waiting for you outside. He was wearing his face mask while staring at you intently, letting you know that he purposely waited for you.

You looked down and was about to walk pass him when you felt him tugging on your wrist. Your gaze snapped to his hand, not believing that he was indeed touching your skin.

"Sakusa?"

His eye twitched at the weirdness of you not calling him like usual. Sighing, he stepped a little closer to you, hand still holding your wrist to ensure that you won't run away from him.

"You're ignoring me," he said while eyeing you. "Why?"

You took your hand from him and furrowed your brows. "I'm just doing you a favor. I don't want to be a bother anymore. Isn't this what you wanted?"

"I-"

"It's fine, Sakusa. You don't have to force yourself to apologize just because you feel bad or obliged to."

He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. "I'm not apologizing because I feel bad."

"Then what? You're apologizing just to make fun of me? I know I said I like you but that doesn't mean that you have the right to-"

"You don't get it!"

At this point, you were both raising your voices. Some passersby were looking at you two weirdly, some even running as to not get caught up in the fight.

"Get what, Sakusa? Why don't you tell me so I can understand?!"

"I like you!" Kiyoomi exclaimed. "I... Fuck. I like you, okay? I wasn't in the mood when you confessed and I rejected you without thinking. I messed up. The moment I saw you walk out, I knew I fucked up real bad and I-"

"Om-"

"And I thought that you'd come back the next day to bother me again like usual. I wanted to apologize but my pride-"

You sighed as he continued to ramble. With fast movements, you stood on your tiptoes and encircled your arms around his neck to pull him down to you, kissing him over his mask.

When you let go, Kiyoomi was silent. His eyes were wide and you thought that you went over board. Panic made its way to your face as you try to find the words to explain.

"Sorry, I didn't me-"

This time, he was the one to cut you off. Kiyoomi took off his mask and bent down to kiss you on your lips. One of his arms snaked around your waist to support you while the other settled on your nape, angling you to him.

"Be my s/o."

Tsukishima Kei

Everyone in Karasuno knew how much you like Tsukishima

In fact, you remind him everyday

You often give him fresh strawberries from the market and even bake him strawberry cake

Sometimes, you would put little sticky notes on his belongings and write some encouraging words like "you can do it", "I believe in you" or "take it easy!"

On his birthday, you even gave him a hoodie with a dino design (which he secretly loved)

There are times that you knew Tsukishima gets irritated when you visit and even snaps at you but you didn't mind. You liked him and a small snap will not discourage you

But what you didn't know was that it would only take one conversation to completely shatter your heart

"-And they're back," Sugawara said as he saw you enter the gym, a bubbly smile present on your face as usual.

"Kei!" You skipped your way towards Tsukishima and handed him his water bottle which you voluntarily refilled with hot water.

He only gave you a 'tsk' and took the water bottle. Adjusting his glasses, he stared at you from head to toe as if analyzing you, a small blush appearing on his cheeks.

"What are you looking at? Have you finally come to realize that you like me back?" you cheekily asked, poking his bicep.

"No. I was just wondering how someone could look so ugly."

Despite what he said, you forced yourself to giggle, covering your upset feeling with an eye roll. "Oh shut up, Kei. You don't have to hide it, you know? Don't worry, I'm not going to reject you."

You winked at him causing Tsukishima to blush even more.

The rest of the boys snickered and laughed at his reaction which made Tsukishima more embarrassed than he already is.

"Just confess to the girl already, Tsukishima. Can't you see she's trying hard to win you?" Daichi said with a small chuckle while patting Tsukishima's back.

Tsukishima just huffed and pushed his glasses up. "What's there to like? They're nothing but an eyesore anyway."

"What?" you asked in disbelief.

Having a playful banter with Tsukishima was normal in your routine but this was the first time he called you such an offensive term. Does he really think of you that way?

"Oh come on, stop acting dumb. I don't even get why there are guys running after you. I mean, there's really nothing much to look at, right?"

Everyone grew quiet at what he said, clearly not expecting Tsukishima to be at such level of rudeness.

You swallowed the lump forming in your throat as your insecurity skyrocketed. "I try hard every single day to look presentable to you. I-"

You paused for a moment to laugh pathetically at yourself. "I exert a lot of effort to make you notice me. I cook for you, I give you gifts. Heck, I even stay after class to help clean the gym so that the task would be easier for you and I'm not even asking for anything in return."

Tsukishima glared at you sharply that you immediately felt extremely smaller than him. "I never asked you to do those things for me."

"Can't you at least show me that you care?" You wiped your tears with the back of your hand. "Because I'm slowly getting tired of this push and pull game."

"Don't you get it? I don't like you. Why don't you stop pushing yourself to me and start getting a life, hm?"

"Tsukishima, that's enough!" you heard Daichi yell at him.

"Y/n?" Sugawara was immediately beside you, his hand rubbing circles on your back in attempt to calm you down.

"No-" You lifted your face up to meet Tsukishima's eyes. "I think he's right. I should stop being a nuisance and focus on myself."

"I'll leave you alone. I'm sorry," you said before giving Tsukishima a bow and leaving the gym with everyone's eyes following your figure until the door shut.

Everyone could only look at Tsukishima as he cursed under his breath.

"Shit."

The moment you left the gym, you headed straight to the comfort room to let your tears out. You stared at yourself on the mirror as tears cascaded down your cheeks.

"You're beautiful," you reassured yourself while pointing at your own reflection. "What he said doesn't make you any less. Know your worth."

You wiped your tears and splashed your face with cold water before getting out and heading to class without sparing Tsukishima any glance.

You ignored Tsukishima, stopped visiting the gym and focused on yourself. You even made made friends with some of your classmates that you didn't bother getting associated with last time because you were too focused on capturing the attention of Tsukishima.

Unbeknownst to you, a certain male was eyeing you as you interact with other people. He blamed himself for pushing you away. He didn't talk to you, thinking that you only wanted space for a couple days before bothering him again.

He knew that what he said was out of line and he regret everything he did. He even asked Yamaguchi and the rest of the team for advice but all of them responded with the same answer - apologize and tell you how he feels.

Tsukishima gripped the pen tightly as he watched you laughing at something your classmate said. The said classmate was too close to you and it was obvious that he was trying to flirt with you.

"Tsukki?" Yamaguchi called out. He followed Tsukishima's gaze and sighed. "Why don't you go and talk to them?"

"Tsk. Why would I do that? Can't you see they're enjoying his company?" Tsukishima bitterly said.

"You'll end up losing them if you don't do something about it now. Who knows, they might already be lo-" Yamaguchi stopped as Tsukishima instantly stood up and made his way to where you are.

Taking your wrist, he pulled you towards him, heading out of the classroom.

"Tsukishima, what the hell?!" You tried to resist but his grip on your wrist only tightened.

You gasped as he suddenly stopped, trapping you against a wall with his arms beside your head.

"I'm sorry." Tsukishima closed his eyes, balling his fist as he bowed his head. "I said hurtful words to you and no amount of apology will take those away but I want you to know that I regret every single one of it."

You bit your lower lip as you felt yourself tearing up once again. "Do you really think that I'm ugly? I was hurt, Kei. It's just.."

"I'm sorry." His hand made its way to your cheek, cupping your face while he wiped your tears with his thumb. "You're not ugly."

You shook your head and averted your gaze from him, a sob escaping your lips as you felt yourself falling for him deeper. "Don't. Just stop. I'll accept your apology but please just leave me be. I won't be able to stop my feelings for you if you keep leading me on."

"But I don't want you to stop."

"What?"

"I've fallen for you." He tipped your chin up with his hand making you look at him and you were surprised to see the vulnerability in his features. "Please look at me again, y/n. Keep loving me because I swear that I'll do things different this time. Give me a chance."

You can't help but encircle your arms around him, burrying your face on the side of his neck as you nodded repeatedly. "One chance, Kei."

Tsukishima hugged you tightly, lips pressing on the side of your head. "One chance." He leaned away from you and held your face with his hand, eyes boring to yours admiringly.

"You're beautiful."

Likes and reblogs are appreciated ❤️

[angeloroki]

something more — s. todoroki

you wanted to stop this relationship of friends with benefits, with shoto. before your feelings towards him destroyed you.

— character ; aged up!shoto todoroki x gn!reader

— request ; @tyunsworld angst college au where shoto and yn used to be friends with benefits but yn is trying to stol this fwb but shoto refuses (no smut pls just some indications)

— genre ; angst, au college

— warnings ; suggestive content, curses

— a/n ; i decided to change the ending a bit, i hope it's ok for you and that you like it anyway :)

you were sitting on your bed, in the room you shared with your roommate. she wasn't there, gone to her weekly dance class.

every thursday and tuesday, at 6pm until 8pm sharp. your friend was very punctual, and that suited you perfectly.

because usually, at that time, during those two short hours that you shoto would come and spend some time with you in that room.

it was never anything serious, just a good time that the two of you would give each other. kisses that were worthless, soft caresses yet devoid of feeling, sighs and i love you's that were deprived of love echoed and echoed between the walls of the university room.

it had started only 6 months ago, at a mutual friend's party. todoroki was the rich boy in business school. classy, elegant, handsome, and a smooth talker, he had absolutely every girl on campus at his feet.

so, you could say you were slightly surprised when you saw him accost you in the kitchen, where you were trying to relax a bit. you had hooked up, the discussion was not forced, one thing led to another - and especially under the effect of the euphoria felt at the very moment - you had ended up in bed together. you could remember that it was the best sex of your life. and yet you had had quite a few.

a bitter taste stuck in your mouth.

the day after that night, he had found your number and offered to continue. nothing serious of course, just something where you would both enjoy each other. no empty feelings. he had used a phrase,... friends with benefits, that's the term he had used.

stupidly, you didn't hesitate. because after all, you were young, and you needed to unwind with classes and all. and it's not like you could fall in love with a guy like that.

only you were so wrong.

you slowly came out of your thoughts to look at the time. 6:01 p.m. Your friend had gone out ten minutes ago, so Shoto should be back any minute.

a sigh escaped your lips at the scenario that was about to unfold.

and yet you were the only one to blame, or rather your stupid heart. or maybe your stupid ease of attachment to people who couldn't care less about you.

you lay down and stared at the ceiling.

you knew his weaknesses, what he liked to do on a sunday afternoon, the things that made him angry, just as you knew every inch of his body.

and how the fuck could you not fall in love with him?

a salty taste comes to your lips, tears. you bite your upper lip, silently. and yet you knew it wouldn't be mutual. and it never would be. because he was simply shoto todoroki.

« you spend a lot of time with that boy, what's his name again ? your roommate yells at you from the bathroom. is there something going on between you or something ? »

the heat came flooding in on your cheeks.

« no... no! it's just that we have mutual friends, that's all. »

« yeah sure ! but be careful though, he's known to break hearts this guy [..]. »

that talk you had three months ago echoed ironically in your head. breaking hearts. and yours, by the way.

you go over the plan in your head. before things get hot, you tell him. all at once, well almost all. you just tell him you want out of this relationship.

and so you say everything without pauses, at the risk of crying in front of him. the best thing is that you remain insensitive.

someone knocked on the door. 6:12 pm, he's here.

« y/n, it's me. » he said in his deep voice, which always made you shiver.

you got up and opened the door for him. a small smile lit up his usually stoic face. as you spent more time together, shoto had managed to get more and more comfortable with you, and that could only warm your heart.

« sorry for the delay, the traffic was heavy. »

he went to sit on your bed after taking off his shoes. a worried expression grew on his face when he saw that you said nothing.

« if you're tired, we can meet again next week. i know it's tiring with exams right now. » he said in a kind voice.

could he stop being an angel, just thirty seconds, you said to yourself silently. in just a few steps, you crossed the room and placed a long passionate kiss on his lips, and it was with great pleasure that you felt him respond with the same ardor. you had to feel it one more time before you put an end to this whole mess.

his lips tasted minty, and they were angelically sweet. addictive, that's what his kisses were like. you felt his tongue asking for permission to find yours. and for a few seconds, a feverish waltz settled between your two mouths.

you felt as if long hours had already passed. and you still wanted more to be added, or for time to stand still. but you wouldn't let him go.

and yet.

you shifted from him. he was a mess, his hair untidy from your hands that had to find a support, his face was a dark red.

a small laugh escaped his lips.

« what's this ? a goodbye kiss ? »

you looked away from him. and that's how he understood.

« what ? tell me something. »

« i want to stop this. I'm not interested in our evenings together anymore. »

you didn't need to see him to understand that he was sad now.

« did i do something wrong ? »

his hand came to yours, its warmth melting you.

« no, not at all. i just want to stop this. »

you knew him now, and you knew he'd try to figure out what the problem was. you just needed him to be angry with you, so your feelings for him, the first to be touched, could surely fade. at least you hoped so.

« it's gotten boring with you. you faced him, your gaze now cold. i've grown tired of you, so find someone else to satisfy you. »

his eyes reflected a melancholy that you had never seen in him before.

« y/n, i didn't stay 6 months with you just for sex... i like talking to you. »

your heart skipped a beat. of course, shoto, as a friend.

« that's not my case, todoroki. you were a good lay in bed, and you helped me forget the stress of college. but that's over now, get your shoes and get out. »

despite your command, he didn't make a move. his eyes analyzed you carefully, before his sigh echoed in the room.

« you found someone, didn't you ? you thought you could hear a little regret in his voice, but why ? sorry, i won't bother you anymore then. i'm happy for you. »

he got up and walked to the entrance, where his shoes were.

« i- no... »

how could he not see that you only had eyes for him ? that the other people who were just accosting you, were immediately raked ? a sincere anger went through your body now. you were angry at him now that he didn't notice your love for him.

« i love you. » you said in a quiet voice.

you saw him stop, his back was to you. fuck, that wasn't part of the plan.

« i don't want to see you anymore because i love you. because i know it will never be reciprocated. so please leave. »

he turned around just enough for you to meet his eyes, full of sorrow. a stranger might have thought it was you who had just broken his heart. or maybe you had really broken it ? you'll never know.

« no, y/n. i can try, we can try. it doesn't have to end like this. you're not like the others, i don't want to let you go. »

« i know you can't love me like i love you. don't make promises to me. »

« but i don't want to leave yo- »

the fact that he refused to leave you, to end the relationship, only gave you false hope.

« get the fuck out ! »

your sudden irritation startled him slightly. but he knew you were right.

« i-... i'm sorry y/n.- »

« stop apologizing, it's not your fault. »

« i wish it had ended differently. »

and silently he left your room, leaving you alone with your tears.

your old discussion with your roommate came back to you

« [...] he's known to break hearts this guy. but i have to admit that he's charming, anyway i care too much about my heart and my feelings to make love to him. » said your friend from the bathroom.

« i don't fall so easily, f/n. and stop it, you sound like my parents. you say laughing. »

i wish you would have told me i love you too, shoto todoroki.

[hanazou]

Hi! Could I ask for Dazai, Ranpo, Kunikida/Atsushi with an s/o who frequently picks their skin/scabs/scalp. My psychologist, mom, and I are pretty confident that I have ASD, and it's a relatively common stim. This can also happen with ADHD, OCD, and anxiety disorders -- I'm not sure if this suggestion is too centered around a reader’s identity! (Also, it's not intentional self-harm; it relieves stress and boredom, but just happens to cause damage :/ If you're uncomfortable, I understand) Thx! <3

dazai, ranpo, and atsushi and a lover who constantly picks skin/scalp/scab.

📜 Books : Dazai | Ranpo | Atsushi

📜 Word count : 2.3k

📜 Shelf : Paperback

📜 Category : Headcanons

📜 Genre : Fluff, with a tiny hint of angst with Dazai and Atsushi

📜 Caution : Vague mentions of disorders and insecurities

📜 Note : Don't worry, @my-introvert-hideout! I'm not uncomfortable nor is this too specific. In fact, I had so much fun writing this! I chose Atsushi (because I kin him I resonate with him better), I hope this does your suggestion justice. I apologize if any of these is inaccurate.

Enjoy your books! 💛

Dazai Osamu

He's an ex Port Mafia executive and currently employed as a detective. Never doubt that he'll catch on your habit the first time you display it around him. But only when things are official between you two will he take an action about it.

With his background and quick wits, Dazai knows a lot about the quirks people can have, where they came from, and why they do it. By judging from your expression and slights of movements, he knows that it's caused by your certain conditions and nothing like deliberately inflicting pain on yourself. After all, he's well accustomed to self harm itself too, and he doesn't see it in you, not that way.

Dazai's understanding on your habit will be more personal rather than analytical--because of his self destructive tendencies. He can relate to you in this aspect, but whether this is a bad or good news is completely up to your personal interpretation.

Only after things become official between you both that he steps his feet into ‘that’ zone, deciding now he has the right to interfere. He's the type of guy that perceives intervening with issues like this requires a special established relation with you beforehand, if not, who is he to say anything?

Dazai doesn't mind that you never took the initiative to tell him first, what matters that is he knows and he has for long. He'll take his chance of intervention when you start picking yourself again, but only when it's just the two of you around. If you're with the other ADA members or within a crowd, he'll just figure out something to distract you and do it subtly.

The private moment will come sooner than you think. With a swift move that escaped your eyes, he has taken your hand hostage. "Nuh-uh," He cooed. "You're prone to injure your pretty skin."

His direct words will push you off guard. You'll notice that he knows about your quirk, maybe get a little shy from not realizing that he knows if you're the shy type of person.

Dazai is a clingy guy and even more so as a boyfriend, your habit will only give him a legitimate reason to hold your hand wherever you two go. Your hands will sweat from constantly holding his. He will definitely use it as an advantage to tease you too.

"I have to go to the bathroom, can I trust your hand or do I have to keep holding it?"

You will literally throw his hand away. "What th—Go by yourself."

Dazai has loads of tricks up his sleeve, and combined with his knowledge, he knows more than one or two or three methods to help you. Whether they are effective or not depends entirely on you and your condition. Sometimes his tricks are so subtle that you didn't even realize until you think back about it.

Assuming you're thinking of seeking help from experts, Dazai will be totally with the idea. "I can feel your earnest effort for this, I'm glad for you."

He'll take you to your appointments and wait for you, and sometimes walk you back home, which is also another trick to ditch work and piss Kunikida off. Two birds with one stone, right? :)

Expect him to shower you with loving words after every session. Maybe it will even make you feel corny. But truth be told, he'll deeply ponder about your condition, you, and himself. He's well aware of his nihilism and ponders whether the words he said are genuine or just part of the new personality he adopted when he left Port Mafia that sometimes run on autopilot.

(aka he suspects he's not being totally earnest with his sweetness)

If it's the latter, the corny lovey dovey words will double as an effort to help you and himself. Don't blame Dazai too much, he has trouble differentiating between what’s good and bad (as what was said by my man Oda), but at least he's trying hard for your sake.

When you show some progress, he will be so expressive in praising you. His self doubt or whatever it is, that can wait. His darling comes first.

Dazai will give a hug or two and other romantic stuffs like that even if you're in public. He's a tease and you know you love it. If you especially get embarrassed about it, he'll try to fluster you even more. Is it to distract you or himself? Nobody knows.

Edogawa Ranpo

This Yokohama's best detective is well versed in a lot of things, psychological conditions included. If you have any condition at all, it doesn't take him long at all to understand it. Nothing escapes his pretty green eyes.

Ranpo's approach will be the opposite of Dazai. His will be more analytical rather than emotional or personal.

In the scenario where you don't feel too confident about your condition, you might be constantly worrying Ranpo will make a blunt comment about it. But trust me, you don't have to worry anything about it with this guy. He’s straightforward, but he’s not rude.

Even if Ranpo hasn't had any personal experiences of feeling/witnessing this sort of thing firsthand, you can count on him to be knowledgeable about it, although his words won't be exactly delicate. He knows that some people have problems if it's addressed boldly and he knows where the line for him lays.

Ranpo is the type of guy to think that if you never told him about it, then that's your decision and it's nothing to make a fuss about/make complaints for, but he's not going to pretend he doesn't notice. He doesn’t hold back his tongue.

He will treat this situation slightly akin to a case for him to solve. Why? Because first of all, he’s your boyfriend. Who else is better fitted to take care of you and analyze the root cause? Second, because of that personal attachment with you, he will feel the obligation to step in.

When nobody is in the agency office since they don't slack off like him, he'll stretch back against his chair, hands behind his back, and call out your name who stayed behind to assist and babysit him.

"Won't you hurt yourself if you keep doing that?" He asks, his sharp eyes closed. Blunt questions are his signature. You will instantly freeze, only realizing that you were going off with your habit.

You won't feel the need to explain it, because you know that he knows, and he knows that you know he knows (do I make sense? this sounds like that one Dazai and Fyodor meme)

"If you want, I know some ways to help and I'm acquainted with some experts." He says easily, stuffing his mouth with chips. After he swallows, only then his green eyes opens. "You're hurting yourself, you know that?"

I'm not going to sugar-coat his personality. If you want heartfelt, supportive, and warm words, talk to Kenji or Yosano because you won't hear it from Ranpo. But the brighter side is that Ranpo is a very good listener and offers practical suggestions that you know are fool-proof. With each word you vent to him, the more methods spring up in his head to help. Lucky of you to have him!

If you agree to seek professional help or his own, he's a different kind of romantic than Dazai who knows how to swoon you off your feet. Ranpo’s praise won’t be like Dazai’s (since receiving conventional praises is his thing), but he'll say something rather indirect like "Good for you. Nobody knows what's best for you other than yourself, not even me."

After your sessions are over for the day, Ranpo will gift you his favourite snacks. Chips, cookies, ice creams, jellies, sodas. Do you know how lucky you are if Ranpo gives you his favourite snacks? Mostly it's because he's not confident in sweet talks so he's hoping that you'll get the gist of what he's trying to do.

Heck, he'll even wait for you (partially because he doesn't know how to go home by himself, but that's not the point) quietly without whining that it's taking too long. To occupy himself, sometimes he'll bring some papers of the cases Fukuzawa gave him and solve interesting cases. But when you emerge from the door, everything is forgotten and his attention is fully back to you.

"Oh, you're finally finished!" He springs back up to his feet, arms expanded.

I encourage you to tell him about your sessions. He'll compliment you in his own ways believe me.

"My super deduction concludes that you did well." He says as you pop out the popsicle he gave, a cheeky grin on his face. Oh, you one lucky fella.

On the way back to the agency, presumably on a train, if you're getting better, Ranpo will definitely smile cheekily to himself, prideful of you and him.

"I'm always right, after all." He says. "What do you think, aren't I such a great boyfriend and detective? You're lucky to have this combination all for yourself!"

Damn right you are.

Nakajima Atsushi

This will be slightly lengthy.

In terms of discovering this quirk of yours, Atsushi's approach will be different than Dazai and Ranpo's. If anyone is insecure about this one aspect in your relationship, it will be Atsushi.

Let's be frank, Atsushi's abused background didn't let him know much about the world, disorders/special needs included. We're talking about the boy whose first idea of survival was to jump on strangers. He was thrown into the real world without any experience and minimum social skills, it's almost impossible he immediately clicks on the reason behind your habit.

Despite so, Atsushi will notice it, weretiger senses used or not. Growing up abused, he was forced to notice the microexpression changes on people’s face and their quirks/habits as a defense mechanism in case he earns someone's ire (remember about the infiltration mission with Akutagawa on Rats of the House of the Dead when he said he can hear when someone’s mind snaps). Even though he believes you will never pose a harm to him ever, he couldn't help but to overthink every single little thing you do. He just can’t help it.

Constantly picking your scalp/scab/skin makes him free fall to the assumption that you're anxious around him since he knows that people sometimes fidget when they feel unsafe. At first, he thought that you're nervous around him. Is it because he's a weretiger? Because you don't trust him? Because you think of him as a hindrance?

This sweet boy thinks a lot about you. You basically live in his head rent free, and ever since he noticed your habit, you will quickly climb up the ranks of things-Atsushi-overthinks.

He will address you about his insecure thoughts after they're brewed aka rotted his brain long enough

When you're picking your skin, Atsushi will call your name softly as he fidgets. "Are you, maybe, uncomfortable around me?"

The confusion you will feel. "What?"

The conversation will spin around how and why that thought even popped out, and because of mutual confusion, it will take a while until you're like "OH. That's why."

You will have to explain it but he's not that dense as to he'll keep asking "Huh?" As I mentioned, anxiety is his old friend. He understands very well the constant need of having to pick to ground yourself and alleviate the intruding thoughts.

He will apologise for assuming things himself, maybe overreact a little, blaming himself for thinking things are about him when it’s actually about you, and he will be very tender about it. After all that, he will do everything in his power to help with your condition.

Atsushi will keep your hands busy by holding it before you start picking yourself, gently, but firmly. He will use his heightened senses to pick on the signs before you pick your skin/scalp/scab and try to distract you by doing anything.

Remember that one scene of his entrance test where he panics, not knowing what to say to Tanizaki? yeah he will be like that.

"AAH! Look! A cat!"

Then Atsushi will get more creative. He will not hesitate to spend the money from his cute wallet to buy lotion/moisturiser for your skin that smells so good (thank you for your help to guide him pick it, Kyouka), hoping it will help you. Maybe he'll get you gloves to match his own (matching couple things are never outdated). You won't pick on your fingers that way.

If you ever want to talk about your condition, please, share it with him. I insist. He insists. It's a win-win solution for both of you. His faith that you truly treasure and believe in him will harden (helps with his self esteem), and you get to throw off the load burdening you down.

He also feels it's his responsibility, part of that is because of his Headmaster's words, but mostly because he treasures you that much. If he caught you picking again, he'll become super worried and so guilt ridden.

If you decide to seek professional help, he will be 100% supportive. I won't sugar-coat again—Atsushi will detect his disappointment at himself for not being enough to help you on his own, but at the same time he's also realistic. He knows that he doesn't have what it takes by himself.

His Headmaster's words will echo again, again, and again. "You failed to help your own lover? Have this orphanage taught you nothing—have I not taught you anything? Will you ever amount to any good?"

He will fight it back harder than usual because now, it's about you. He can't afford to fail you, especially you. If you do talk about your condition to him, it will calm him down by a lot.

In short, your condition impacts Atsushi more that you ever thought. Please support each other.

📜; like what you read? visit my bookshop!

[otp-holic]

The one place (where something happened) (A03)

“In your life there are a few places, or maybe only the one place, where something happened, and then there are all the other places.” Alice Munro. (or the one where they receive a letter from a familiar name and we go into 4Ks of fluff around a lost afternoon in France)

4K. Lamely explicit at one point. Fanfic + Pictures Inside. Trigger for FLUFF as the main plot. Part of the Never let us lose what we have gained series (AO3)

This was supposed to be a manip with 200 words of bantering and it's now 4Ks of fluff with a few pictures. I've decided to leave them inside the cut because I feel they work better with its context there. I'm sorry for the hassle, but I really hope you give this a chance... unless you have cavities, only like fics with amazing plots or are allergic to shameless fluff.

Please do not repost the pictures, I know this is futile, but… I try :)

DAGUERROTYPE, France 1944 Private Collection.

Steve is cooling down from his very early run, enjoying the feeling of the pink sunrise looming over the awakening Brooklyn streets as he walks the last couple of blocks on the way home, when his phone beeps.

“Check your actual mailbox, we dropped something for you there. I think you should appreciate us making it old-fashioned just for you, grandpas!”

Steve smiles at Sam’s text and as soon as he arrives at their building he snaps a picture of the very common and flat envelope with “Barnes&Rogers” scribbled on top of a Stark Logo, to send along his response.

“Nice try, but this is inaccurate. A letter would have never made its way to us without an address or stamp. We’ll send you a proper thank you card to show you how it’s done.”

He can’t help but chuckle at his own joke rereading the text while he opens the door, and when he looks up from his phone and into the kitchen, he is received by a sleepy Bucky looking at the coffee machine like he looks at Steve during their most soft and embarrassingly cheesy moments.

“You love that thing more than you love me, confess it.”

“In the mornings? Yes. I don’t even like you in the mornings most of the time,” he answers matter of factly. “Want some?”

Steve playfully wiggles an eyebrow.

“No way. Your sweaty self is tempting, but coffee smells better. I might join you in the shower later.” Bucky offers him one of the two cups he has poured and he notices the envelope Steve is holding. “What is that?”

“We’ve got mail!” He hands it to Bucky. “I have no idea what's on it, but Sam texted me to say they had something delivered to our mailbox and there it was. Open it.”

Bucky leaves the cup on the counter, face sparked with a curiosity that makes him look twenty-one (and Steve weak on the knees), and goes for it.

The content is a bit underwhelming at first glance: Another envelope, white, no Stark logo, but topped with a bright green post-it with a note on Pepper’s script.

“This got to me via PR. We analyzed it and checked with the source (no peeking, I swear) and it seems legit. With that return address, it’s likely to arouse your interest. Love, P.”

Bucky tears off the post-it and the letter is revealed to be addressed to Steve Rogers at the Stark Tower, but it is when they turn it around when everything goes still for a second.

The return address is some street in Marseille, but what has Steve’s mouth dry and Bucky’s hand trembling just a bit is the combination of the place and the name written on top: Emmanuelle Jaques Dernier.

“Boom?”, Bucky says, trying to cut through their heavy hearts and taking Steve’s hand. It’s a terrible terrible joke, but Dernier would have loved it and he grins.

“That’s a terrible terrible joke,” Steve verbalizes, “but I think at least we’ve reached the same conclusion.”

“Elementary, my dear Steve,” Bucky answers as he opens the second envelope, only to reveal a folded letter and yet another envelope. “It’s a fucking vault of paper!”

Steve takes the letter from him, unfolds it, and quickly scans it (normal office paper, printed, hand-signed) before he starts reading it out loud to Bucky’s undivided attention.

“Dear Mr. Rogers,

My name is Emmanuelle Dernier and I am the great-grandson of Jaques Dernier of the Howling Commandos.

First, let me tell you that we all in our family grew up with amazing stories and praise for you, Sergeant Barnes, and the rest of the team. I never got to meet my great-grandfather or any of them (you), but I’ve always felt like I did.

In fact, that’s the ultimate reason behind this letter: I ached to honor him and I’ve been putting in order all his remaining letters, pictures, and memories so they don’t get lost forever, and there are many things I’m discovering through this journey. So many pictures and tiny details… and amongst them, you and the rest of the Commandos appear at the most random and memorable moments. Nothing that’s going to make it into history books, more like the stories my grandpa used to share with us over and over again, those important tidbits that make him more human.

Anyway, I was going through the pictures he kept when I came across some war photos that didn’t seem to match the 40s timeframe. Typical daguerreotypes from the 20s in a very bad state, probably taken with a camera from the era in 1944 and developed on a later date by somebody who clearly didn’t master the technique.

They were in a very bad state and hidden inside an envelope that said “Terribly drunk soldiers in France making idiots of ourselves in unique and creative ways. Fun evening, horrible hangover. About 20 miles west of the Maginot Line. Autumn ‘44”. I’m attaching a photocopy of that, I hope you can understand my decision to keep the original.

After restoring the daguerreotypes with some experts, all I got were five very bad pictures with silhouettes of people apparently having fun…. but there was one that got a lot better in the cleaning process that feels important somehow. I’m sending the original, as well as the restored version I got.

I, of course, don’t have the whole context, but I hope it brings back a good memory. My great-grandpa might be in the picture, but I don’t think this one belongs to my family or to a museum.

Thank you for your service, I really hope this letter finds its way to you.

E.Dernier.”

“I can’t believe… Steve, most days I’m convinced that day and that place are a figment of my imagination,” Bucky smiles, remembering. “When I think of a moment of pure joy during the war, I think about that afternoon in France, and it always feels unreal. A bubble of air and laughter while we were so surrounded by death.”

Steve nods, reminiscing about that warm and humid September morning when they arrived at yet another abandoned and destroyed little village, this one about twenty miles west of the Maginot Line. They had orders to lie low and wait for twenty-four hours before they started the maneuver to wipe another Hydra base off the map, and that little town was perfect for that.

Among bomb debris and fallen walls, they found one small building miraculously standing next to the remains of the church, so they decided to set camp under a roof for a change since the weather was being a little flickery with the rain, and they had the rare luxury of time.

The inside of the tiny house was as unusual as the outside: nothing was destroyed beyond being dusty and worn by time, and everything they found (furniture, kitchenware, and even fabrics) belonged more to Steve and Bucky’s early childhoods than to 1944, a living museum frozen in time.

Only it was not a museum, but the parish house left untouched and non-raided: old-fashioned clothes, outdated church books, yellowing clergy collars, and, of course, the wine cellar. Oh, that wine cellar… the havoc it unleashed.

“I remember the absolute excitement when Falsworth found all those bottles of old unscathed mass wine from the parish,” Steve brings his memory to words, looking at Bucky, “I’m still a little convinced that we are going to hell for drinking them.”

“Not for that, probably, but it was a wonder nobody died on the spot of wine poisoning, it tasted like sweet vinegar, ugh.”

“But it did his part, right? Took our minds off things; got us drunk, bold and silly.” Steve answers.

“Apparently not all of us,” Bucky says very seriously, looking at Steve.

“Technicalities… I got drunk by proxy. Seeing you all so happy made me giddy and tipsy, too.”

“I came and went… I remember being a little surprised at the clarity of my thoughts at some moments there when some of the guys were basically drooling on the floor. Now I understand, of course.”

Steve squeezes his hand, not much to be said there.

They were already way too drunk by the early afternoon, drinking to the sound of a sudden rainstorm pouring outside. All of them scattered across the small dusty living room and its adjoining kitchen while they went through all the bottles of wine they had been able to find. Cheering for the foregone priest every time somebody raised a glass, and laughing as if there were no ruins or war on the other side; just silly men (boys, really) laughing their hearts out.

“Earth to Steve… I don’t know about you, but I’m dying to see what the hell that envelope is hiding. Especially now that we know about its time stamp.”

“I’m sorry, me too! Gabe drunkenly handling that old camera and those glass plaques the way he did? I’m honestly impressed that he was able to take any pictures at all,” he muses. “Shit, is it weird that I’m nervous?”

“I’m gonna save us the bantering because I’m nervous, too,” Bucky answers in all sincerity. “Truth is, Steve, I remember everything about that day.”

It’s a new admission, a newly opened door for them because for some reason, they have never talked about that peaceful surreal afternoon, and Steve nods in recognition as he silently goes for the envelope one-handed, not wanting to let go of Bucky’s hand because his surface is way cooler than his wrenching insides. Maybe the picture is an overexposed french wall but maybe…

The photo he extracts from the envelope is clearly the original and damaged one Emmanuelle specified in his letter. Anybody else looking at it would see nothing beyond Dernier’s blurry profile, but since Steve and Bucky were there when this was taken, they know exactly what moment Steve is holding in his hand.

“Buck,…” is all Steve can say, struck by the blurry keepsake.

Later in the afternoon when they had already consumed most of the wine and there was not a single coherent thought left in the room, one of the guys took the parish books and besottedly announced that there was a wedding set for today… thirty years ago. Alcohol fueled a goofy idea that escalated at the speed of light, with Morita saying they were going to a wedding because they deserved a celebration, Dernier confessing that he had once considered becoming a priest, and Dum-dum bringing out all the old fashioned clothes from the wardrobe and deciding they were getting nice and clean for the festivities.

“That’s clearly Dernier in the picture killing it in his priest role, right?” Bucky says, half smiling and interrupting Steve’s thoughts. “You know, I went all-in with that fake wedding party. I was laughing to tears when I saw you put on that ridiculously long and ill-fitting jacket from the 10s, feeling weightless and silly for the first time since sailing off, and God knows we all deserved that. And it was all safe and light-hearted until fucking Morita decided you had to be the groom, and...”

“Were you jealous because I won the dashing groom competition?”

Steve’s attempt at a joke is weak, but there’s truth behind it: Morita chose Steve as the groom (“Cap, you are the most dashing and the least drunk”) to a chorus of excited voices cheering for him. Somebody else, most likely Dum-Dum, chose the rest of the roles (Sarge, best man duty; Jones, camera; Morita, keep the wine flowing; the rest of you, misbehave!) and in the blink of an eye, they were all going outside laughing under a light rain, and about to celebrate Steve’s fictional wedding to nobody.

“How could I be jealous?” Bucky cuts in. “Do you remember all you said to me that afternoon? During World War II and in front of a battalion of men?”

“I was drunk.”

“Fuck you!” Bucky disentangles his hand from Steve’s to use both of them to hold Steve’s face and kiss him with violence. “Tell me. Do you remember what you said?”

As if he could ever forget. He can recall every step he took from the house to the makeshift wedding spot amidst the trees where his best man (looking dapper even in that ludicrous jacket) was laughing along Dernier. He can still smell the petrichor, can still sense the blush coloring his cheeks while hoping nobody noticed and can still hear the beating of his heart when Bucky handed him a battered umbrella (“You don’t deserve to get rained on your wedding day, punk”) and a fucking ring made out his shoelaces (“You’ll have to buy something a little more permanent.”). And then…

“Dernier started the ceremony and he wanted to know if I had somebody in mind and I said ‘of course’.” He replays, his voice barely a whisper. “I said I’d had my eyes on a brown-haired Brooklynite since before I could remember. I said that I was pretty sure those blue eyes were set on mine too and that hopefully those eyes would be set enough to want to marry me even if I had never dared to ask.”

He’s been holding Bucky’s gaze the whole time, and he’s far from over yet, but he needs to fucking breathe before he goes on. Neither of them has moved a muscle for the past minute.

“Then he asked me to repeat the wedding vows after him and…”

“And you said Buck, right?”, Bucky interrupts, voice winded. “You fucking whispered I take you, Buck, as my lawful wedded husband till the end of the line. I heard, Steve. Even if the rest of the world didn’t, I did. But you never said anything, so I always deemed it impossible, a product of the corniest nook of my mind trying to outweigh all those bad things, because not even you could be as bold, reckless, and mushy as to do that,…it’s my fucking fault, I should have known better!”

“Not completely reckless, pal. I was scared shitless as I said those words, but what else could I do? You were right by my side about to put a ring on my finger as my “best man”, everyone, including you, supposedly drunk past recollection, and everybody else too far away to hear my whispers. It was such an easy choice in the end because truth should always win over fear. And those vows were. The truth.”

“You have always been too honest for your own good, Rogers,” Bucky is breathless and exasperated and goes for his mouth again, bringing in all he (they) couldn’t in 1944. “You destroyed me, Steve. My knees were as weak as a teenager’s in front of his first crush. I wanted to kiss you so badly when I heard you say all that there in the open… and I couldn’t even acknowledge it.”

“I know. And for what it's worth, I really thought you didn’t remember.”

It is too much. Is it normal to feel this much? Steve would blame it on the serum enhancements, but he was already overwhelmed at 16, so that’s clearly not the answer.

He craves, no, he needs touching, grounding, closer. Bucky. There’s too much space between them even if they are back to kissing like they would have that day in 44, and at any other time if their own lives wouldn’t have stolen those moments from them.

“It happened.” Bucky whimpers, biting on Steve’s lip who abandons his own stool to straddle him, both of them gasping in sync at the feeling of their cocks, hard against each other’s through their soft pants.

Bucky soon ups the stakes by carding his metal hand through Steve’s hair pulling his head backwards to help himself into that spot on his neck.

“Same two moles as when you were tiny, as when we were at that war... Your cute vampire bite. Favorite spot.” He licks on them with the tip of his tongue. Steve growls on cue and Bucky giggles. “Favorite chain reaction.”

“Buck, you cheater, you know what that does to me!” Steve cries out followed by Bucky’s evil chuckle.”Bed, couch, countertop,…I don’t care, but naked. Now. Stained pants due to heavy petting are too much of a trip down memory lane for me. Let me keep a bit of my dignity.”

Steve stands up liberating Bucky from his grip but aching at the loss of contact.

They are naked and making out in the middle of the kitchen in no time; Bucky steadily pushing him against the refrigerator while fiercely grinding against his crotch.

“Hey, ‘teve,” Bucky pants. “The way this is going, it’s my dignity now that's at risk. I don’t think I can make it further than the floor before I come.”

Steve groans into his mouth just at the thought and they start sliding to the floor the best they can until he’s a human blanket moving over Bucky. With no lube at hand, and no time, that’s their best option.

They kiss and kiss and kiss, his hands not leaving Bucky’s sweaty hair. Bucky’s hands on his ass, forcing their groins closer with one while he (almost absently) plays around his hole with the other, driving Steve crazy in the process. Dicks left to do their own thing through pressure and friction. Everything is working. And fast.

“Oh, fuck!” Bucky exclaims “Can you promise me all this stuff with the letter was real and not a long-con plan to assure your fragile masculinity that I love you more than I love that espresso machine?”

That. That silly unfunny excuse of a joke that screams Bucky all over is what pushes Steve all the way over the edge. He fucking laughs as he comes making absolutely embarrassing sounds, pressing their foreheads and noses together until it hurts, and shaking from head to toe without stoping his pressure on the stupid and smug man under him. His lover. His partner. His unofficial husband. His best friend.

His Buck.

“There’s still too much blood in your brain if you can play that dirty,” Steve states, placing one hand between them grabbing Bucky’s hard cock. “Let’s see if I can do anything about it.”

“Your hand, usually so helpful, but I was already following you after that sound you make when you come and laugh at the same time, shit, it always goes straight to my dick, I’m,…” he keeps talking with difficulty between breaths and moans until he leaves his speech unfinished coming all over Steve’s fist.

They kiss on the lips breathing into each other before Steve rolls over. They are sticky and panting in silence, spread on their kitchen’s floor, Steve’s shoulders crushed between Bucky’s and the dishwasher. Domestic bliss at its most literal.

One lavish fuck and two showers later they reemerge into the kitchen in search of something to eat: Bucky is in charge of the food today, while Steve cleans the mess they left a couple of hours ago.

He’s decluttering the counter when their damaged picture laying there puts a smile on his face but also reminds him of the restored version presumably still waiting inside the disregarded letter, so he grabs the envelope to retrieve its contents: one photocopy (from Dernier’s original writing), and the promised photo.

And it is restored. Everything is clear where it was blurry before: Dernier (so deep into his priest impersonation that he’s not even looking at them), the trees, the battered umbrella, the ridiculous jackets… and them.

“You had the nerve to call me reckless and mushy, Buck?” Steve laughs as he stares at the picture where a very young Bucky is about to put a ring on his finger with the least subtle lovestruck expression he’s ever seen (“and it’s for you”, his brain proudly reminds him) “Wow, you might as well be kissing me there, anything would be more subtle than this!”

“Don’t shame me, you punk, especially not when you were the one responsible for breaking my brain back then!” Bucky answers coming from behind and stealing the picture from his hands to scrutinize it. Goofy grin and raging blush quickly taking over his face. “But you’re one to talk, Cap. You are gazing at that shoelace’s ring as if I were handing you a diamond tiara!”

Steve laughs softly at that and moves his right hand to his pocket, feeling the weight of the little compass he had retrieved earlier from one of his drawers. He used to carry it with him everywhere for comfort, but he has a better option now.

“Didn't you know that shoelaces are forever?” He asks, taking the compass out of his pocket and holding it in both hands as he opens it, nudging Bucky with his elbow to get his attention.

Bucky is confused for an instant while he looks at his young face staring at them from inside the little box. Of course he knew that (he made fun of Steve for days and days) but Steve detects the change in his expression when he notices the other thing.

“Wow, you gigantic sap,” Bucky says, taking the compass out of his hands to double-check he is seeing what he thinks he’s seeing. “You saved my shoelace.”

He had. While they were all celebrating his wedding under the rain dancing to no music, he quietly slipped the little string off his finger and tied it to the most secure place he had back then.

“It’s not a shoelace, you jerk, it’s a symbol. A declaration.” He laughs, stealing the compass back to safely pocket it again.

“You are delusional,” Bucky snorts, kissing the top of his head. But he’s widely smiling and lost in thought as he goes back to their sandwiches.

Steve stays on the spot enjoying the peace in their silent companionship, his focus on the latest news showing up on his phone, the text he’s writing to Sam and the comforting sounds of Bucky moving around the kitchen.

“You might have married me, but I never actually married you.” Bucky blurts out of the blue a bit later, sitting by his side as he hands him a plate with a sandwich and some grilled greens on it. “Do you want mayo with that?”

“Uh?” Steve forgets all about the news and the text and looks at Bucky in confusion.

“Mayo, do you want some?” Bucky repeats nonchalantly.

“No mayo, thank you; but I was actually more interested in the other part, you know, that thing about marriage?”

Bucky looks him in the eye: earnest, blushing and with the same look of smug adoration he had on the picture.

“Oh, that part.” He jokes. “You apparently married me in 1944, but I never married you back. And I would like to.”

“Marry me?” Steve asks and Bucky visibly nods.

“I’m sorry for throwing the idea at you like this, books tell me I'm supposed to have candles, music, and a ring, but you showed me that restored picture and I couldn't stop thinking about it, about proof,” Bucky speaks uncharacteristically slow and very softly, voice trembling here and there while he claps his hand with Steve’s finger by finger for reassurance and as a distraction. “A single photo had the power to transform a moment that existed just as a made-up happy place inside my mind into something tangible and real. Something that would be tangible and real for anybody getting a hold on it and looking at our stupid faces.”

“So stealthy,” Steve says, and they both laugh together.

“Proof, Steve. I was slicing tomatoes and thinking how there’s so much evidence, thousands of files! out there proving that all the stuff that fuels my nightmares were real, but nothing solid about this. Us.” Bucky stops for a moment collecting his thoughts, still smiling even with the heavy subject he just dropped into the mix. “Sorry, I believe I put more time into these sandwiches than into thinking this all the way through so I’m…”

“Take your time, we’ve gone from mayo to marriage to nightmares in five minutes so don’t worry, you have me hooked here.”

Steve makes Bucky laugh again as he intended, and he feels their calloused laced fingers immediately squeezing closer.

“It’s stupid because it doesn’t change anything for us but,.. I don’t fucking know, Steve, I think that picture has messed up with my mind! I instantly found comfort in the idea of people finding facts beyond the nightmares now or in the future. An easy to understand, universal and oversimplified proof of how much I loved you and how much I was loved in return.” Bucky takes a breath and stares at him sporting a million-watt smile. “Marrying you,… I would really love that. And for real this time.”

“Ok, Buck.” Steve instantly replies, eagerness winning over thoughtful and heartfelt declarations. He tightens the grip on their joined hands to drive them to his lips and seals the easiest answer he’s ever had to give.

And it's done!Sorry for the cavities, for going on with the fic when it should have ended and for ending it where it might have had to keep going. It was painful and fun. I'm free!

[hvilested]

Yes, you can cure Maladaptive Daydreaming

Two years ago when I joined this community, I think I was more dead than alive. I've been waging quite a brutal war with maladaptive dreaming and the array of issues that underlie it ever since then and I'm on my way out of this prison. I wanted to do something for you guys so here is a little essay with insights on MD and what you can do to understand better and finally tame this beast. Hopefully, someone will find it useful.

The split and the life between two worlds

Do you think the vague feeling of being split in two and existing between two worlds but belonging to none is exclusive to maladaptive daydreamers?

“If you try to have a conversation with me, I can’t bring myself to listen to you. I pretend to listen and you really think I do but my mind is somewhere else, thinking about it. Every time I try to stop doing it, I genuinely feel as if a part of me has been torn off and a deep sense of personal loss ensues. I feel as if I’m not here but I’m not there either and I can’t shake off this feeling of being split in two.”

This is what a recovering heroin addict once told me. Heroin addict. But it’s also what a regular maladaptive daydreamer could have told you, isn’t it?

Maladaptive daydreaming is, among other things, a typical psychological addiction. Most of the negative issues associated with maladaptive daydreaming come from the fact that it is an addictive coping mechanism and not some unique disorder with specific symptoms just recently discovered. You have heard million times that addictions are encoded in the primitive part of the brain associated with survival – which means that if you don’t get your fix right now, you feel more dead than alive and you need your drug of choice to bring you back to life. Your brain is sending a false message to you – it is issuing an urge that is blown out of proportion, compelling you to constantly indulge in daydreams and making you think that if you don’t, the world will end and you will lose a part of yourself. Drugs usually invade your sense of self – they fuse with it and by giving up the drug, you feel as though you are giving up a dear part of yourself.

Addiction is addiction but different types of drugs and addictive behaviors tell you different things about their users. So what does fantasy reveal about you? MD is like a guardian angel that tries to protect you too much and eventually causes more harm than good. But it’s still your guardian angel that tried lifting a burden off your brittle shoulders. It’s destructive in its own way but it was originally born to protect you from something. To realize and accept what you are trying to run away from is your first step towards recovery. Maybe it’s depression, maybe it’s low self-esteem and loneliness or it’s anxiety or PTSD.

Fall of the self

Maladaptive daydreaming isn’t the act of random mind-wandering – it’s a highly immersive mental activity, where all attention is gathered and directed towards happenings of the fantasy. This would be parallel to a so-called flow state, which is characterized by immersing intensely in an activity to the point of losing the sense of self. Which means, whatever happens in fantasy, happens, but not to you. It is a selfless experience, never integrated into what you call yourself, into sense of identity, into what makes you you. It exists as a detached, ecstatic, fleeting moment that slips through the fingers the moment you try to make sense out of it and process it as your own experience. You witness traces of happiness but the happiness is never yours.

Fantasy is an egoless state of mind where we are not ourselves. And by temporarily cutting ties from your own ego, the conscious identity, you’re also cutting ties from all insecurities you have ever had, from all the problems that are currently bothering you and this is why daydreams feel so damn good. Everything bad is just cut off from your perception. The part of your brain that defines your sense of self, along with all the negative things and mental illnesses attached to it, is turned off.

As you venture into this egoless place that is MD, you make up imaginary people you sometimes end up loving dearly or even fall in love with or you conjure imaginary places you’re desperately drawn to, and then suddenly – you wake up from your dream and you’re violently pulled back to reality and to being yourself. And this is where the problem arises: all those things you’ve done in your dreamworld and all those made up people you’ve come to love have nothing – absolutely nothing – to do with real YOU. They are not attached to your conscious sense of self. All those dreams and false memories you made – you made them in an egoless state of mind. And it’s this that makes you feel split. It’s not the fact that you’re physically apart from the content of your fantasies. It is the fact that your subconscious feelings, fantasies and desires do not connect to your sense of self. Even if everything you’ve been daydreaming about came true, you’d still feel like garbage, empty and miserable. If your imaginary friend came to life to make you less lonely, you’d still be lonely – because MD isn’t about made up friends or lovers or getting a new life. It’s about you not wanting to be you. Everything else is irrelevant.

In other words, you’re not addicted to your fictional characters or your imaginary love or to a fantasy about being a famous singer or writer. You’re addicted to not being you. You’re addicted to this erratic state of consciousness that is MD – regardless of its content – that provides a temporal relief.

I’m not saying that you don’t genuinely care about the content of your daydreams (quite the opposite, more on that soon) – what I am saying is that it’s not your love towards whatever is the content of your fantasies that creates this ugly feeling of being split between two worlds. One thing I can assure you (and this comes from my own experience) is that the moment you feel comfortable being you, those two worlds will reconcile, they will merge into one, and you’ll finally feel at peace with yourself.

Will a part of you be taken away as you give up your daydreams?

Maybe the saddest question I have ever asked myself was ‘how much of myself will I lose when I give up the only thing that makes me happy?’ Here’s a glimmer of hope: you’re not supposed to give them up. To give up the feelings you experience in your daydreams is self-mutilation. As strange or silly as they are, they still represent a censored part of your subconscious; maybe they are an epitome of your loneliness or your sadness. They are a testament to how hard you’re struggling and how hard you’re trying not to be dead – and to give this up is a crime towards yourself. Maladaptive Daydreaming isn’t just about wishful thinking and getting your wounds licked. It is that one place where your life flame stillburns while you may be dead in all other planes of existence. That’s enough to know that this MD thing isn’t all that entirely wrong. Maybe your real life is all emptiness and void but what you do in your daydreams – you do it with passion. And that’s enough to know that you are still capable of loving and caring about something just like other people. So passion exists and don’t you dare ever doubt that. It exists in a wrong place but it exists nonetheless. What you have to do is find a way to redirect those emotions from daydreams to reality and, as stated before, this causally happens once you’re finally you. All the positive emotions from your daydreams will flow back into you and you’ll feel as though these two worlds between which you have lived for so long have at last coalesced into one.

So what you want to do is focus on healing the self. It’s a tough one but there’s no quick fix here. Now comes the irony which you’ve been waiting for: in order to heal yourself, you need to let go of your daydreams. But didn’t I just say that you aren’t supposed to give them up, you ask? Don’t give up the passion, don’t give up the love you have for the content of your daydreaming, don’t give up the feelings – because they are all, real or not, a reminder that you’re alive. What you do have to give up is the false sense of comfort your daydreams give you. Try giving up all those countless hours you spend stuck in your own head pacing back and forth because you’d rather be there than here. Try giving up the temporal fix when you feel miserable. If someone angers you, don’t impulsively lock yourself in your room and act out a revenge in your head; go kick a sofa or something, lash out at something external.

You have to wean yourself off of this strange dissociative painkiller that’s fantasy, then let yourself feel all the pain with every ounce of your being, let all the negative emotions resurface, let them swallow you alive, don’t resist, don’t run away, accept them, let them ravage you, and somewhere along this process, a part of the you will be reborn. Something will awake. Not all of you, maybe just a small part but that’s enough to gather what’s left of your strength and continue the struggle. If you feel the urge to daydream, this is okay – as long as it doesn’t censor the pain which you shouldn’t run away from anymore, it’s fine to give in and indulge for a while if you feel like you have to. Don’t ignore temptations, this sparks the fire of addiction even more. It’s a well known pattern: if you fight the urge to engage in an addictive behavior, it makes it stronger. If you acknowledge it, analyze it, this is what breaks the cycle of addiction. In other words, the imperative is not to block the pain and negative feelings. If a sudden sense of self-disgust or low self-esteem suddenly hits you, welcome it. Welcome it, analyze it, let it consume you, and you will realize it is just a false message your brain is sending to you because that’s what brains of depressed people do, after all. The more you let yourself feel and process the negative feelings without censorship, the more will the urge to daydream weaken and the less you will run away.

Who are you really?

Depression usually enters people’s lives like a tempest – yesterday you were an optimistic person enjoying simple pleasures of life and today you feel like a suicidal or apathetic piece of shit, and this is how it is for most people. Depression that underlies MD, however, takes a different route. It enters your life stealthily, slowly, so slowly you don’t even notice it, then it gradually robs you of emotions, ambitions, memories, motivation, identity, empathy, and you end up thinking: “I don’t remember a time when I wasn’tmiserable,” or “these bad feelings must be a part of my personality, they have always been here“. Because of this, most of us fail to realize where depression (or anxiety or any other kind of chronic mental illness) ends and where we begin. So if this illness isn’t you, then who are you?

Let me make a digression here. MD is usually born when you can’t express yourself properly because you’re anxious, depressed or sometimes simply shy or lonely. Mental illnesses are like lenses which distort your perception. Everything you see appears more tragic, senseless or uglier than it really is. And your both eyes are infected with these lenses. But here your subconscious decides to play a trick on your mental illness and tells you: ‘well, if your both eyes are infected and make things appear worse than they really are, then why don’t you just close them?’ You do and this is the beginning of the addiction to fantasy. You stop paying attention to the outside world and you turn it inwards and use your mind’s eye to create things inside you: your daydreams. This mind’s eye, which is fantasy, cannot get infected with depression and this is why MD is a safe haven. Depression doesn’t reach there. What your subconscious forgets to tell you before it’s too late is that if you close those two eyes used for perceiving outer world, for things outside of yourself, you’ll be completely cut off from reality. But none of this is your fault – this is a war between mental illness, the attacker, and your subconscious, which is your protector, and you are their battlefield. You don’t have a single choice, they are the ones who decide – you only observe. So if you ever blamed yourself for being too weak to make a decision to cease this addiction, stop it. It’s wasn’t your fault.

Back to my question, who are you then?

The daydream version of you isn’t the true you but it’s not a fake one either. It’s a highly filtered product of your subconscious that tried to protect you. Then we have this other real-life you imbued with low self-esteem and negative thoughts that seem to go on a loop forever. Well, that’s certainly not your true self either. Heck, if it’s any comfort for you, the daydream you is far closer to the true you than this real-life depressed version of yourself will ever be.

Can you remember the time when you didn’t have MD? Can you remember your sense of identity when you were a child free of MD? Try conjuring up all those times when you knew how to live in the present. It doesn’t matter if you were 6 years old the last time you were here. Just try to pinpoint all those moments and try to remember the feeling of being in the now. Here’s one pretty handy trick you can use. I always joke that music is a drug that takes you on a trip down a memory lane. It’s like an emotional psychedelic. It transports you emotionally back in time, to another place, another reality, to wherever you wish. It helps people with Alzheimer’s remember who they are and regain a sense of identity for a short while. Maladaptive daydreamers often use music to help them imagine an alternate setting – but what if you used music to transport yourself to the past when you had neither depression nor anxiety or MD or whatever is bothering you? If you can remember a forgotten song which you used to listen as a child who at the time hadn’t had MD yet, listen to it again, try to remember who you were, and if the song is meaningful to you, the old you and your sense of self, which you used to have back then, will come back to you for those few minutes while the song plays. You’ll feel the warmth of finally being you. You won’t quite be in the present – you’ll be in the past, but it’s your real past, it’s your true self. Try to capture this feeling and then try to reenact it. It’ll strengthen your identity in the long run.

I’ll give another example on what set me free from my own MD for a short while. You all know what fight or flight mode is. What you also probably know is that most people with PTSD or chronic anxiety are stuck in a constant state of fight or flight. Spending too much time in this state eventually leads to a burnout and is a sure ticket to depression since you go from fight and flight into freeze mode where all your functions are off and you feel like an emotionless zombie. You don’t care, you don’t live, you don’t get angry or sad or happy, you only exist on autopilot. In order to feel normal and alive again, you usually need a fix so strong which will set your body back on fire. Someone or something has to attack you so fiercely in order for you to rethink your existence and regain your instincts and the will to fight back. This is what happened to me. When one of my daydreams violently crumbled some time ago, I got so ridiculously pissed off that for the first time after several years spent in freeze mode, I felt genuinely alive. I was me. The anger acted like a stimulant and the state lasted for 15 minutes until the anger wore off. But hell, during those 15 minutes, I was me. I was so mad but I was also indescribably happy. I could feel. I could let go. I was defeated but I also won. The thirst, the cravings, the split, this strange nostalgia for my daydreams all dissolved. But instead of just disappearing, every positive feeling that was limited to the daydream world only, such as sense of purpose, motivation and normal self-esteem, flew back into me. I didn’t lose a single part of me – quite the opposite – I regained back that detached part of my soul that existed only in daydreams. What took for me to awake was extreme anger, being defeated, my world crumbing to pieces. The moment I genuinely accepted that my dream world crushed, the moment I let go of all attachments holding me back for years, I was reborn. The anger, which is a natural stimulant, made something in me click. But note: this feeling of finally being alive and the desire to fight back woke up in me once my daydreams were in danger, not me. It’s because we’re so displaced, because fantasy is where we had hidden the core of our souls.

In the long run, you’re destroying neither the daydream you nor the positive feelings that come with it, you’re not giving anything up – you’re just transferring it to reality, to where it should be. But for this change to occur, before you can be reborn and whole again, you have to self-destruct, you have to let go.