#i just hope it’s less chaotic than the last time i went in. well.. not the last time but the time before that

[fingertipsmp3]

Why do I have a dentist appointment tomorrow man. Why is this something I have to do

[moonydustx]

Hi, I was wondering if you could do Zoro, Ace, Luffy, Law, Crocodile, King, and 2 Characters of your choice x Reader, where they and Reader are having a romantic moment and just when the moment is just right, something or someone interrupts the romantic scene?

ok, ok, I know, I'm really late with this one. But life is so chaotic that I won't even look for excuses hahah but I really liked your request. I think some came out a little less romantic? I don't know, I'll leave it for your evaluation. I hope you enjoy!

warnings were placed individually in each of the stories.

F!Reader x Zoro, Ace, Luffy, Law, Crocodile, King and Smoker (placed individually)

requests here | rules and guides | masterlist

Comments, reblogs and likes are greatly appreciated.

Zoro

warnings: mentions of previous fights/problems with an enemy pirate. Zoro is very direct with his feelings. Mentions of drinking (we have Zoro in this one, so it's kind of obligatory)

Another victory, another time to rest in some bar.

Taking the opportunity to explore the new island after solving yet another series of problems, you and your companions chose to stuff their faces - and especially Luffy and Chopper, fill their bellies with food - in a bar they found there.

However, something still stirred you. The encounter with an enemy pirate that afternoon and the way he had spoken to you still affected you. It still made you see your position on the team as shallow, expendable, unnecessary. It still made you want to isolate yourself.

"A dose for whatever's going on in your head." Zoro placed three small glasses in front of you and three in front of him when he sat down.

"What do you mean by that?" you turned to him, only then realizing that what was a full table before was now just the two of you.

"Everyone was leaving, some asking you to come along, but you seemed stuck in your own head." he explained and drank the first shot of drink. "Like I said, one glass, one thought."

"And what are you thinking?"

"That you stayed here because you didn't want to go with the wire eyebrow, of course." he pointed out, eliciting a light laugh from you. Little did Zoro know that, out of all the options you could have, Sanji wasn't exactly the one you were looking for. "Now it's your turn."

You downed the drink and felt the strong alcohol burn your throat, but the words didn't want to come out. It was too difficult to bring into the world an insecurity that, in your eyes, would be so dispensable in the vision of someone as strong as Zoro.

"Me again." he pointed out, seeing that you had remained quiet. As soon as he downed another shot, he started. "You let that shit that guy said get into your head, didn't you?"

"Can you tell me where he went wrong?" you asked and only saw Zoro laugh in disbelief. "I'm weak, I'm just a linguist, I can't fight, I don't have a devil fruit. What am I but dead weight?"

"Much more than you imagine." Zoro responded as if it were obvious.

"Much more? Only if it's much more of a burden, much more of a responsibility. I don't want to cause problems for anyone, I don't want to become a responsibility. If it weren't for you today…"

"If it weren't for me, you would still be alive and well, no one would let that idiot hurt you." Zoro seemed to be stressing about the subject and that became clearer when you saw him downing his last dose and the two of yours that were left and then remaining in a brief silence.

"I'm sorry Zoro, I didn't mean to…"

"You're important, okay? To Luffy, to the crew, to me." Seeing you look away from him, without much refinement or kindness, Zoro turned your face back to him, holding you by the chin. "I would face him a thousand times over if I had to."

"Zoro, what does that mean?"

You could feel the adrenaline rush through your body as well as waves of goosebumps going through you from the point Zoro touched you and before he finished the path to your lips, a loud noise on the table separated the two of you.

"It means I don't want you talking about yourself like that again, please." the ending came out more like a whisper than anything else. "And it also means that whenever you need me, I will protect you. It's not everyone's responsibility, you're right, but please let it be mine."

"Here you go!" Luffy sat between the two of you, practically half on top of each of your bodies. In front, a plate full of different types of sweets: chocolates, lollipops, cotton candy. Chopper was along, already stealing some pieces. "Today we know it was a difficult day for you and we know you like sweets, so this is a good thing to cheer you up. What do you think?"

"I think it's amazing!" You took a piece of chocolate, enjoying it as it melted in your mouth. "Thank you, you're amazing." despite leaving in a loud voice, your eyes went to Zoro, who just nodded and adjusted himself on the bar stool, pleased to see you happy again.

Ace

warnings: Ace and F!Reader have a casual, no-strings-attached affair.

The party and chaos accumulated on one side of the Moby Dick, it was a common image as there was no shortage - and often, barely needed - of reasons for the crew to get drunk and celebrate something. That didn't exempt you. With a good dose of beer in hand, you were sitting further back on the edge of the ship, just contemplating the mess a good few meters ahead, while the sea was choppy behind you, the cool breeze sending goosebumps against your skin.

"Hey, what's a pretty girl doing so isolated like that?" Ace leaned against the free space next to you.

"I just came to catch some wind, breathe a little." you explained, seeing him get even closer and stop almost glued to your side. "And you?"

"I just came to see a pretty girl." He placed his hand on your knee, caressing your skin, which was covered in goosebumps by the cool wind - and perhaps by his touch. "But seriously, is everything okay?"

"Of course, I really just came to enjoy the view for a bit." you explained, seeing him paying attention to every word. "I like to keep these happy moments in my memory, and besides, the night is beautiful."

"Yeah, I like it too." giving up the caress on your leg, he sat down next to you. "I like to think that one day it will be the two of us."

"What do you mean the two of us?"

"This celebration today. It's going to be about the two of us. About me putting you there in the middle, getting down on my knees and asking you to be mine and then, after a while, it's going to be the celebration about our marriage." he saw you laugh knowing he had surprised you with his brief proposal.

"And what else, fire fists?"

"The old man is going to celebrate our wedding, after all, he's the one who has to give the blessing. We're going to drink all night and then, after a while, maybe we'll be celebrating the arrival of our child, I don't know." he shrugged, chuckling at the very thought. "Maybe I went too far."

"For all of this, we need to stop being just hookups, don't you think?"

"You and I know that's not all we are." His tone of voice lowered, as if he was telling an intimate secret - which it wasn't - between you. "You know you mean so much more than just that to me."

"I know and I know you know it too." you turned around to try and steal a quick kiss from him, but were stopped by Ace placing his hat on you.

Gently, he hit the object on your head, removing your strands of hair that were a little messy and then, he helped the small hanging rope. His hand wandered from the object to your cheek, placing a quick caress.

"I love you, Ace." your voice came out as a brief whisper, a confession that was almost forbidden.

"I love you even more." he stole an almost chaste kiss from your lips, just to confirm the feeling.

"You should say that sober." you warned him and saw him walk away with a cynical laugh in him. Upon reaching the glass he had brought, Ace took another sip and offered it to you, who accepted. Water.

"I needed courage to come and talk to you about this today and I don't think drinking alcohol would help." he explained, placing quick kisses along your exposed skin. "So, no more hookups?"

"No more hookups." you confirmed, feeling his lips slide over your skin. "Keep doing that and I'm going to want you to get down on your knees and propose as soon as possible."

"For your information, I intend to kneel today." his kisses found the weak spot on your neck. "But you're the one who's going to be asking for something more."

"Stop that!" perhaps the distraction of his kisses prevented you from seeing Thatch and Marco approaching. "The two of them won't be isolated in this clump."

"Did he have the decency to ask you to be his girlfriend?" Marco asked you, who nodded, feeling his cheeks burn in shyness. "Finally!"

"Then there are no more excuses…" Thatch threw Ace over his shoulder and Marco did the same to you.

"Put me down." the fire fist asked, even if he wanted to, he would have let go of there.

"We need to celebrate. You finally got the courage." Marco pointed out while you didn't even make an effort to get off his shoulder.

It should have been a night for the two of you to celebrate the new agreement between you, but it was difficult to celebrate alone when everyone wanted to celebrate the fact that you were finally and officially together.

Luffy

warnings: Luffy is a cute fool, that's all. Ah, we have mentions of Luffy sinking into the water (poor dear and his inability to swim)

Damn, a thousand times damn. Why was it almost impossible to get Luffy to listen to anything other than his crazy ideas?

Most of the time it had ended well, but it didn't seem to be the same as today. Praying to any god that could help you at that moment, you threw yourself against the cold, turbulent water of the sea. Shaking your arms the way you thought swimming was, you began to dive awkwardly. A few feet below, you could see Luffy sinking.

With some difficulty, you reached him and despite being weak, he still remained conscious for enough seconds to see that it was you there. Sticking to his vest and using the very little you knew, you managed to pull him back to the Sunny and now the fight that was taking place throughout the ship was being contained mainly by Zoro and Sanji, leaving you not much to worry about other than revive Luffy.

Not finding many plausible solutions, you stuck your mouth to his and tried to pull out all the water he had swallowed. When you repeated the gesture for the third time, you saw him wake up spitting, while you were kneeling next to him, relief washing over you.

"Thank you for saving me." he began, knowing you would probably be furious. "And apparently you learned to swim."

"Desperate times call for desperate measures." you allowed yourself to relax for a brief moment. In the end, he was fine.

"The only problem is, I've always thought about doing it, but not right after I drowned." upon seeing the question mark that was practically drawn on your forehead, Luffy continued. "I always thought about kissing you. You're pretty, nice…"

"Have you always thought about kissing me?" You looked indignant, but quickly corrected yourself, letting the little secret you carried for so long slip out there. "I've always thought that too Luffy, I think I like you, more than just as friends."

"Can we repeat the kiss…" before he finished proposing, his calm tone was replaced by a loud grumble as soon as he was hit by Nami.

"You idiot! How can you let yourself fall into the sea when there was only one person who doesn't know how to swim to save you." she insisted, the angry tone clear in her voice.

Some of your coughs caught the attention of both of them, as well as that of the ship's doctor.

"You might have swallowed a lot of water too!" Chopper pointed out, stethoscope in hand. "I need to run some tests."

"Don't worry about it, Chopper." You tried to push him away, but soon you felt him cover you with a cloth.

"Listen to Chopper." Luffy asked this time, already recovered and almost dry, which was a mystery to you how he managed to do it. "Chopper, take care of her and as soon as everything is okay, call me, please."

Luffy had no social constraints that would prevent him from doing that in front of everyone, but something told him that it had to be special. Then he just placed a chaste kiss on your cheek and left. Now everyone seemed as lost as you had been the first time.

Law

warnings: sweet boyfriend Law. This has to be a warning because this man is amazing.

Before you even open your eyes, you can feel a pair of arms wrapping around you firmly, moist lips sliding along the contour of your neck. The warm quilting of the blanket against your skin also made you want to stay there even more. However, it had just been a break after lunch for the two of you to talk - and in fact, talk and without meaning to, or perhaps because of the way his fingers slid under the top of your head in a caress, you found yourself being dragged to the world of dreams.

"Looks like someone woke up from their nap." Law's huskier voice indicated that you weren't the only one to have closed your eyes that afternoon.

"Looks like I wasn't the only one who took a nap." you - even though you practically had to fight against his arms - turned around, just a few centimeters separating your face from his. "You look rested."

"And you look beautiful, even in your sleep." he stole a quick kiss from your lips. "Even snoring."

"Snoring?"

"Yes, the noise was certainly capable of driving away the sea kings that were circling around." he grunted when he felt the light, painless slap on his arm. "Okay, it was just a cute snore."

"A cute snore?" you pushed him in vain, feeling like you only gave him enough space to pull you onto his body. "Don't even think about it, Trafalgar, after that, you don't deserve it."

"Don't be so mean." his hands slid over your body in a gentle way, practically not malicious. "Don't I deserve anything?"

"Nothing." you leaned down, placing a kiss on his cheek.

"That kind of nothing seems interesting to me." he pointed to the other cheek. "Can I have a nothing here too?" As soon as your lips met his skin, the tattooed finger moved to another corner of his face. "And here, can I?"

"Since when did you become so sappy?" you continued following where he pointed, leaving soft trails of kisses against his skin. The last place he pointed was at his lips. "Do you think you haven't gotten enough kisses?"

"Not yet." He raised himself up on his elbows, just to reach your lips and take them for himself.

His hands soon tangled against your messy strands of hair, while almost slowly he allowed himself to explore every corner of the paradise that was hidden between your lips. There was no searching for contact, no mischievous squeezes or grumbling and moaning, just the two of you, tangled in a pile of sheets, exchanging kisses and caresses.

"Captain!" Bepo's voice reached the two of you before he had practically walked through the door. "I found you!"

"Would you mind knocking on the door before coming in!" Law's voice started low and ended almost furiously.

His hands, previously on your body, pulled the sheet to cover your body. Even though you were fully dressed and Bepo posed no threat, Law couldn't help the sense of protection that surrounded him when it came to you.

"What's up Bepo?" You said more sweetly, discreetly trying to get off your boyfriend.

"The captain is about an hour late for his task and Ikkaku has been looking for you for a while too." the bear explained. "And also, if we continue on the same route, we will come face to face with a giant sea king in a few minutes."

"And you just let me know now?" Law grunted, but the stress was short-lived when he heard your laugh, almost like an automatic tranquilizer for him. "I'll meet you in a minute."

Understanding the message, Bepo closed the door and left the room. Your boyfriend's face gave it all away: he wished he could stay there, but he couldn't. Duty called you both.

"I'm coming to sleep here with you today, what do you think?" you proposed and saw him stop fixing his shoes to look at you, a small smile lit against his lips.

"Please." He asked, making you nod. "Well, I warned you."

"What did you warn me?"

"Your snoring, now I have a king of the seas to take down." he laughed when he saw you mumble. The small pout on your lips was covered with a kiss from him. "I'll see you later love."

Crocodile

warnings: jealous crocodile, as always. Brief appearance of our favorite hawk eyes.

Some things started to make sense when you entered the large hall. As an assistant, you knew that part of the ball was just an excuse to attract some enemies while the other part was to find allies, investors or anyone who could make a relevant contribution to the Cross Guild.

Even though you knew all the planning for the party, you still didn't understand why a long, sparkling dark green dress appeared on your table a few days ago. When you saw one of the evening's hosts, you noticed that - perhaps coincidentally - the two of you's outfits matched.

Waving to some infamous pirates - with rewards that you lost count of digits - little by little you got closer to whoever had provided such an outfit for you.

"I see you liked my gift." Crocodile said as you stopped in front of him. Without hesitating, he took one of your hands and made you do a little turn. "It served as if it was made for you."

"I suspect it was actually made for me, am I right?" you accepted the champagne and with an almost malicious smile you took a brief sip. The two of you lived in a cat and mouse hunt between all the years you had been working together, your feelings for him were clear and at least on one day, you expected to be reciprocated.

"I couldn't afford to let the most beautiful lady of the night go unnoticed, or unaccompanied." He said and for a brief minute, you realized he still hadn't let go of your hand. The awareness of the act seemed to reach him too and in a subtle way, he let his hand fall to his side. "And after so long…"

"After Alabasta, after Impel Down, here we are." you concluded his idea, a sideways smile took over Crocodile. "Everyone begging to be at your feet again."

"I know I'm a little cold, I won't deny that fact, but…" he approached, letting the words come out gently and quietly, as if nothing mattered other than the two of you there. "I'm grateful that all these years you've been by my side."

"And I'm grateful that all these years you allowed me to stay. For taking me out of that miserable life." you just said, reaching out to grab another glass and handing it to him. "Here's to business."

"I'm hoping this is the last toast to business." He tapped the glass against yours, seeing your expression remain in doubt. "I hope our next toast like this, you won't be my assistant anymore. I mean, just my assistant."

"And what do you expect, Sir Crocodile?" you gave him space to approach, stopping just a few inches away.

"Instead of green, maybe you'll wear white. And we sure as hell won't have that bunch of stupid pirates." he pointed out, seeing you smile widely. He raised the cup towards you again. "So, here's to our last night of business?"

"Sorry to interrupt." Mihawk's voice reached you as did his brief touch on your waist.

"I hope it's something important." Crocodile's mild expression faded as he analyzed his business partner and wondered why he was touching you.

"I need your help, miss." he pointed out, turning to you. "An idiot who refuses to take his eyes off you coincidentally owes me a few things. Would you be willing to serve as a little bait?" The groan that came from Crocodile upon hearing Mihawk's proposal to you didn't go unnoticed. "It's just a talk with him."

"Alright, I can help you with that." you agreed, much to your partner's chagrin. You handed your cup to Crocodile and taking advantage of the fact that Mihawk practically covered you from the others' view, you gave Crocodile a quick peck. "Last night of business, okay?" the man just nodded and watched you leave with the other man.

"Mihawk?" he called, seeing Mihawk and you turn towards him. "Let him lay a finger on my girl and I'll have his head and yours on my desk."

King

warnings: cute, very cute. Kind of like OC King, but I can't help but write him being cute. Sorry.

Some companions respected him too much - you analyzed it as pure fear, but you preferred to keep the observation to yourself - however, King did not impose this "fear" on you, quite the opposite.

When you weren't carrying out any of the requested orders, you liked to take your time and observe him. How he seemed to have been sculpted by something that went beyond comparison, how he could be affable when no one was around - this Queen insisted amid acid comments that it was an affection directed only at you.

After a long battle and few scratches distributed throughout the crew, in a more private corner you can see him sitting, patching up a possible injury to his hand. Aside from the bandage and messy hair, he still looked the perfect vision.

"How can I help you?" the words spill out of you without giving you much time to think.

"Don't worry about that."

"That's kind of impossible." you moved even closer, assessing his hand. "It's a small cut, it should heal in a few days."

"It was a small oversight." He shrugged and smoothed the insistent strand of hair that fell into his face.

"Can I help you with this?" you asked and he just nodded, giving you space to work.

Agilely, your fingers reached the stubborn strand and began to adjust it back to where it belonged, that is, the braid that was almost part of it. As soon as you finished, you adjusted it so that it wouldn't fall into his face again.

What went unnoticed by you was how close the two of you were, about how when you looked down you could feel his eyes burning towards you, as they strayed from yours towards your lips.

"Thank you… I mean, how can I thank you for that?" his voice was no more than a brief whisper.

"It is not necessary…"

"I insist." he interrupted you, being graced with the smile he knew on your lips. What he wouldn’t give to let you know what that meant to him.

"A ride then." your answer sounded natural to him, as if the idea crossed your mind with a certain frequency. "I always wanted to see the world from above."

"A ride, sounds amazing to me."

"I knew." Queen's voice interrupted the two of you and you immediately moved away from his body. "I told you that this softie was only soft on you."

"Shut up." King simply said without even looking in the other's direction, his eyes following you to apologize and leave.

How did that idiot Queen feel free to interrupt - and even embarrass - someone so beautiful?

The sun was already setting when you finally finished your tasks for the day and out of everything you could have expected to find in front of you, on your bed, you didn't expect to find a small note.

This way, we cannot be interrupted. Neither on this note nor among the clouds.

I heard that especially tonight the moon and the view from above will be beautiful, not as beautiful as the girl reading this note. Would you like a ride?

Smoker

warnings: mentions of a previous incident, but we have no descriptions, just brief mention of it being traumatic. F!Reader is also in the Navy.

Even without opening your colleague's door, it was almost as if you could see smoke coming through the gaps. Smoker was stressed and that was nothing new, especially when one of his missions went wrong.

"Commander Smoker?" your knocking on the door didn't seem to have caught his attention that much, so you opened a small gap, seeing him typically sitting with two cigars in his hands. "I can enter?"

"Yes." he simply responded, watching you close the door behind you and cross the small space that separated you from his desk.

"Here are some reports from today's mission."

You placed them on the table and you could see him still sulking. You had been working together for too long to know that if possible, Smoker would always let his frustration take over the entire environment - and sometimes it wasn't even in the form of smoke.

"I heard that some stupid pirates gave you a hard time today." you pointed out and saw him just respond with a look, he really wasn't interested in conversation.

A small idea, more like a memory than an idea, crossed your mind and you decided to put it into practice.

"You seem tense." you stated and saw him sigh deeply as you left your gloves on the armchair in front of him.

Without even asking permission - if he didn't want to, you would have at least gotten closer to him, you let your hands slide lightly from his shoulders to the back of his head. It only took a few squeezes for you to start to see him relax. Massaging all over his shoulder and neck, Smoker slowly began to become something more malleable and accessible under your hands.

"Those idiots, if I catch those little shits." he grunted, turning his neck a little to give you more room to work. "And you still ask if I'm tense."

"Some things are impossible to go unnoticed." you let the laughter escape you, a comfort to Smoker's ears. "But you know, sometimes you need to take some time off and relax."

"You say it like you take a lot of time to relax." he turned around, seeing you stick your tongue out. "Some things are impossible to go unnoticed." he repeated to you. "How many nights did you sleep well after that incident?"

"Well, I guess…" you thought for a moment, now your hands were just resting on his shoulders. "To be honest? I think it was only that night that I slept there." you pointed to the armchair on the opposite side. "And of course, in the infirmary. Their medicine is good."

"Don't say things like that." he pointed out, little did you know but the idea of ​​that night still gave him chills.

Letting the affection he had for you guide him, Smoker brought his hand to yours on his shoulder and pulled it, so that your face was level with his.

"I believe we both need to relax." he pointed out, his breathing practically mixing with yours.

"Yeah, we both need it."

You could almost taste Smoker's lips when the door ahead abruptly opened, revealing a panting Tashigi in front of you.

"Commander Smoker!" she started and then stopped, analyzing the situation in front of her eyes. "Do I interrupt something?"

"Don't worry honey, I'm leaving." you pointed out and you could hear Smoker practically grunting in front of you.

"What's so important Tashigi." he didn't bother to let go of your hand, even with the girl's presence, even with your body already standing behind him.

"The pirates from the last mission, someone attacked their ship and they sank, so the team that stayed behind managed to bring them in." Smoker jumped to his feet immediately, picking up the reports you had left on the table.

"You can go, I'll be waiting here." you warned without even waiting for him to ask. As soon as the room was empty, you occupied your favorite armchair and, as you rarely did, you allowed yourself to relax with the aroma of Smoker that still remained in the room.

[skiddlecat]

you know what? fuck it. the dynamic between taco and microphone is really interesting and dumbing it down to "evil terrible abuser and poor innocent victim" flattens both of their characters simultaneously.

they both hurt Each Other in ways that can't be undone!!! mic did her fair share of Fucking It Up Big Time as well and i think the way their fallout went down is the best example of times mic could have been better. and before anyone says it NO i'm NOT saying she didn't have a right to back out when she did but what i AM saying is that i think the way she handled cutting taco off showcases one of her biggest character flaws EXCELLENTLY:

when she's hurt by someone, she will hurt them back twice as hard. cheesy makes an insensitive joke? she calls him a monster. taco relapses in her bad habits? she weaponizes her past friendship with pickle. i'm pretty confident in saying both of these responses are Pretty Damn Disproportionate. and i think that's really interesting!!! we should talk more about this!!!!!!!!!

taco did a lot of bad things in their friendship and should absolutely be held accountable for it, but i also think simply calling her a heartless abuser is horribly undermining her character. like, imagine with me, if you will:

(post-writing note. HOLY SHIT this was way longer than i thought it'd be. putting the rest of this post under the cut because the previous paragraphs are pretty much all my thoughts but i kind of go into a full taco character analysis below. if you want to see that then keep reading i suppose LMAOOO)

you once accidentally formed a friendship with someone based off of a lie. you exposed the lie, sabotaged that relationship, and cut him off. that was the last conversation you had. a good while later you realize that, oh no, you actually DID care about this person, and you miss him! but he's GONE and it's YOUR FAULT!!! so you write. you write, you write, you write, hoping to get a response, but you never do.

and then. and then you find someone else. someone who's loud, chaotic, cast out. she reminds you a little too much of the lie you built for yourself. and so, you help her. for your own selfish reasons, sure, but you attempt to reign her in. she doesn't trust you at first, you don't trust her either, and you are... less than kind to her. it's not pretty, but at this point it doesn't really matter to you, because right now she's just a means to an end. she doesn't mean anything to you.

but slowly, over time, things start changing. she starts seeing past the brick walls you built around yourself. starts trying to break them down, little by little. you avoid, you resist, you do everything you can to prevent her from getting through, because vulnerability is frankly disgusting, and you don't want to talk about your problems anyway! but, this doesn't last. you actually apologize to her, for being so closed off, because you should be doing better, and she seems to appreciate it.

someone brings up that old friend to her. you get MAD. it's like rubbing salt in the wound, reminding you of every reason you're not happy, every reason you've been scared of getting too close. he suggests that you will leave her the same way you left him.

and. surprisingly. your ally does not side with him. she tells him you're changing. you're changing. she looks at you and all of your disgusting flaws, and she sees someone not beyond redemption. and you think that maybe. maybe you can trust her. maybe you CAN let your walls down. maybe you won't screw it up this time. and, and...

one mistake.

a pretty big one, granted, but a mistake nonetheless. you relapse into some bad habits, because the situation you entered was not the one you planned for. and she's mad. so mad, in fact, that she takes your old friendship, something she knows is a touchy subject, that hurts every time it's brought up, and she weaponizes it. she looks at you as if you mean nothing to her, and then she leaves. she leaves before you even have a chance to respond.

one. mistake.

one mistake is all it took for her to grow sick of you, for her to agree with all of the terrible things people say about you. and what hurts the most is that you TRUSTED her. you thought you could be open with her, you thought she was DIFFERENT. but no, she's not different. she's just like everyone else. and maybe, if the one person who believed you could be better gives up on you... maybe they're all right about you.

the walls are back up. they're thicker, stronger, and as far as you're concerned... it will take FAR more convincing to let anyone get through ever again.

...and then mepad comes along and says he doesn't even believe you're a bad person in the FIRST place, which is. astounding and very hard to believe but he's seeing you at your absolute worst being needlessly cruel to everyone and is STILL saying this with complete confidence so, fuck, kind of hard to keep THAT up for very long. then ii16 happens and you know the drill SHE'S DOING BAD.

hoo boy this went on for a lot longer than it was supposed to. anyway all this to say i think we should talk more about how they both hurt each other rather than push the narrative that one of them was "the abuser" and the other was "the victim" because frankly that's not even how it works in real life. thank you for coming to my ted talk i've been sitting on this for weeks afraid that i'd be told to kill myself over anons 👍

[gyuriac]

PERDISTE !

content: What's done is done, and it needs to be left behind. So, after a gruesome breakup, why can't he get you off his mind? After many attempts to replace you, he's at a crossroads. He lost you, and that's got to hurt. cw: puke perchance? pairings: sae itoshi x gn!reader notes: my entry of the ORQUÍDEAS EVENT by @17020!! Thanks for letting me enter! (Been 4 months since i last wrote so apologies if it’s not that good)

“Are you not tired of yourself?”

Under the dim lights of his spacious apartment, SAE found himself loitering around the entrance of his abode. The silence was deafening, yet he didn't let it get to him. Why should he? He lived longer by himself than with you, he doesn’t need you.

He doesn’t need them he said but when a familiar ring tone blared from his phone, he darted across the room, hope bubbling in his chest.

Mayumi is calling…

When he read the Caller ID he clicked his tongue, letting it ring for a while before picking up.

“Sae! You picked up!” The way his name left her mouth left a bitter taste on his tongue—so disgustingly sweet, it sickens him.

Why is it her calling? Why can’t it be-

“Sae?”

She called for him once again and Sae was once reminded again that he was still in call

“What do you want?”

“Well,” she starts, shuffling could be heard from the other side of the phone. He figured she was doing something but honestly, he couldn’t care less.

“I was wondering if you can come to a party with me.” His eyebrows scrunched, clearly displeased by her offer. She knew that he was not one for parties, it was too chaotic for his liking.

“If it helps, Yukimiya will be there.” The red head raised his eyebrows in confusion, what does a lukewarm person have to do with him? Just as he was to dismiss the whole idea, she cuts him off.

“Rumors has it that they’ve been seen hanging out with him, but you didn’t hear it from me.” He pursed his lips.

“I’ll go.”

“Yay! I’ll send the deets to you right now!” Before he can take back his words, the line immediately went dead, leaving Sae alone with his thoughts.

In his anger, he slammed his phone on the table, his hand massaging his temples. Damn it! Just as he was about to convince himself he doesn’t need you or anyone in that matter, you come sneaking in once again. Damn it…

He hated parties. It’s too stuffy, doesn’t help when people get all over his face. Their stinky breath on full blast. Sae stared in disgust as someone puked meters away from him. He’s already regretting this already.

“You came!” A pair of arms suddenly wrapped around his neck, causing him to stagger. He grunted before he held onto her waist, supporting her weight.

The woman in his arms started to giggle and talk about her night. She was clearly under the influence of alcohol. Sae watched how she talked loudly, words not registering in his mind but the way she started to talk about something made him remember you. It fouled his whole mood.

She’s outgoing and loud. You’re quiet and down to earth.

She’s a completely different person yet all of her reminded him of you.

Your constant reassurance, your gentle touches, your love.

In the corner of his eyes, he swore he caught a glimpse of a person, one that he knew all too well. He breaks away from her arms, her complaints falling on deaf ears.

He runs through the crowd, desperate to see your loving gaze once again.

Just as he was about to call your name one last time, he withdrew.

Sae only watched as you threw yourself on someone, smiling brighter than when he was with you.

He wanted to laugh, scream even. How could he be so stupid? He pushed you away. He was the one who broke it off first.

Yes, he’s tired.

Tired of letting you get whisked away from him forever.

© gyuriac . i'm begging you to not put my works in any a.i thingy and please don't plagiarize. I don't own anything but my edits and writing.

[quitealotofsodapop]

Well, that saves them a trip to FFM, Uwkong is right there with them! Problem is getting him to actually go fight the Demon Bull King is a little trickier. Who gonna take care of MK while he's gone!? What if Wukong accidentally destroys Pigsy's Noodles or hurts them during his fight!? Wukong isn't exactly known for being able to take down enemies without casualties or property damage!

And that doesn't even get into the co plicatwd matter of that being Wukong's actualnolder brother out there and the amount of guild he had having been forced to seal him away the first time, much less being expected to do it a second.

MK also grabbed the staff again and refuses to let go.

prev.

Wukong is panicking hard, cus DBK's sealing was supposed to be his *last* big fight. He officially hung up his golden armour when MK came into his life.

Pigsy appreciates Wukong's cautiousness on the matter; especially the parts on who takes care of MK + what if the restaurant gets demolished in the fight? He honestly expected the Monkey King to be more reckless, but clearly he's matured since his Journey-ing days.

Tang is pouting that he won't see the Monkey King is his legendary glory, and this sparks off a bit of an argument between the adults and Mei (who believes that DBK needs to be taken down). Sandy is trying his best to mediate the situation when they all notice that *someone* is missing.

During their argument, MK decides to just Leave and hope for the best.

Due to the chaotic nature of MK grabbing the Staff and Mei grabbing him and speeding away on her bike before the Demon Bull family could see, DBK didn't actually get a good look at the Little Thieves before they escaped.

When DBK finally sees up close who he's beefing with he's... less than impressed.

DBK, disgusted: "Has Sun Wukong become so cowardly as to elect a mere calf to fight for him!? MK: "Hey! My baba isn't a coward!" >:( DBK, shocked: "Sun Wukong... is your father?" MK: "Yeah! He's the strongest baba ever!" Red Son, still in fight-mode: "I disagree!" MK, turns and starts swinging: "I disagree with your face!" Red Son, dodging: "That doesn't make any sense!" DBK: "ENOUGH!! I do not care who disagrees with whom! What I do care about is seeing my younger brother once more!" MK, remembering: "Oh yeah!! You and baba were brothers during the war! He told me all about you and Princess Iron Fan, and how you fell in love, and how you had Red Boy and-" (*continues rambling*) DBK & PIF: (*turn their attention to one another*) PIF: "He's certainly Wukong's child..." DBK: "Has my xiandi sent his child ahead to free me to make up for the mistakes of the past? Was my resurrection poorly timed?" PIF: "He literally fell onto our son as he managed to lift the Staff, I wouldn't be surprised if Wukong and his child have been waiting to greet us." DBK: "We must ask." DBK: (*turns back to MK, who's already gotten into another argument with Red Son and is biting him*) DBK: "Child, where is your father now?" MK, stops biting: "Umm... I left him at Pigsy's." DBK: "Left him!? You mean you went to confront me without his permission?" MK, sheepish: "He didn't want me to go in case I got hurt..." DBK & PIF: (*sharing another look*) "He's become afraid of me..." "Only afraid that you may wish his child harm." "That hurts more than any cudgel to my skull..." (*Pigsy's food truck finally appears*) Wukong, bursting out the side with his armour half-fastened: "TIME OUT!!! NOBODY MOVE! I did not give Xiaotian permission to fight! Now let's calm down and- nobody's fighting? What gives?" DBK: "I have no intentions to fight your child, xiandi." Wukong, sigh of relief: "Phew! That's one BIG worry dealt with! Now comes the matter of grounding my son till he's a hundred!" (*turns to MK*) "Young man, I TOLD you not to go running off with that Staff! It's a weapon, not a foam sword! Just wait until your aunts and uncles here about this!" MK: "Aww man!!" Tang & Mei, disappointed: "So we aren't going to see The Monkey King and DBK fight?" "Boo!"

Fortunately as it turns out, DBK is far more interested in learning how his little bro became a dad than actually fighting. Wukong and the rest of the adults decide to sit down for a long overdue talk while their kids get acquainted (i.e. MK and Mei both arguing with Red Son for being so rude and chasing them earlier).

PIgsy, Tang, and Sandy feel a little awkward being there, but clearly the Demon Bull Couple think they belong. Tang is especially delighted to be sitting and having tea (Sandy provided) with THE Monkey King and THE Demon Bull King and Iron Fan Princess!!

MK is forced to put the Staff away unless absolutely necessary, the monkey cub pouting all the while.

[sunnysidewrites]

Demon prince!Seungcheol

Inspired by this prompt: “I’m a demon, not a hot water bottle. Stop cuddling me.” “But you’re so warm.” “Like hell. Fire, brimstone, eternal burning.” It had absolutely no effect whatsoever, and the demon sighed, wrapping one arm around the other. This is my re-debut (although not sure if this counts as a re-debut or if it's just a one-time thing) after nearly a 6-year hiatus and needless to say I am extremely nervous and excited!!! (talking in idol terms luv that) I am hoping that also means my writing quality has matured as well (I think??? or not but guess we will find out)! This is for everyone who knew me back then and is still around to see this play out! sorry if it's not the best i am EXTREMELY rusty but hope you enjoy lovelies <3333

wow omg it’s great to dive into writing after so long im getting emotional

you know the drill folks let’s get to it!!

Humans and demons have lived in co-existence for centuries and it’s more or less a chaotic neutral environment given the unique circumstances of these 2 different… races?

It can be difficult to distinguish the demons with the humans since they try to blend in seamlessly for their own sense of peace and security

Despite a big chunk of demons integrating with humans, there are still parts around the world, albeit small, where they have their own territory to control

They usually operate in more traditional political systems, such as still maintaining kings and queens

Humans can live there as well, but it is predominantly demons who are seen as the norm and the former as commoners/lower class

You happen to be one of the lowly commoners who have been working as a maid in the castle since you were young

you and Seungcheol, the Crown Prince, were actually kinda close as kids!!

you could tell all he wanted to do was let loose and have fun but was forced to follow the rules and take everything seriously 24/7

even as a 5 y/o you could see how much he yearned to be a regular kid but duty calls :”((

there were many times you hung out together in secrecy since you as a lowly maid could not be caught DEAD associating yourself with someone of such a high status

and add being human on top of that!! <3

But Seungcheol didn’t care you were literally his first and only friend at the time

Any time a guard looked for him, he and you would duck somewhere to hide together, stifling your smol little giggles im dead

As he grew up and more burdens were placed on his shoulders, you could no longer keep the same innocent, playful friendship between the two of you

Your interactions with him went from running around in the garden to stealing quick looks at each other when you passed by him in the hallways

He went from a happy lil child to a very assertive, stoic man who always picked his kingdom over anything

Despite his new persona, he would occasionally still show you very rare displays of fondness??

You would sometimes randomly find gifts on your bed with a note and well it doesn’t take a genius to know who it’s from

“I swiped the last cookie for you before Penny stole it and I know you would become a demon yourself if someone took your sweets”

“I noticed your uniform was ragged and a little ripped so here’s a new set. be more careful or our next encounter won’t be as pleasant”

“Here’s an extra blanket loser don’t freeze to death on me”

Your heart feels warm knowing that he still shows you his softer side to you while he’s practically a statue to everyone else

Now you were both in your mid-twenties and he’s been busier than ever with political meetings and social gatherings

You were his main maid since out of all of the staff, you were the only one who could really put up with his absurd requests and got along with him in a manner no other maid could, even the older ladies

There were times he summoned you to his headquarters for the sole reason of wanting some company

He would bring up some dumb question and you would be like no offense but this is kinda useless

But little did you know he would do that intentionally to see you crack a little smile, maybe even a laugh in there since he’s been seeing you look more despondent lately

“Even though we can’t run around the palace like how we did as kids, I’m still here. I’m the same Seungcheol – well, actually not really but I still look out for your wellbeing”

“Thanks, not-the-same-Seungcheol”

It’s rumored that the Crown Prince is coming of age to take over the throne soon, but before doing so he needs to find a bride yes it’s one of those tropes ok deal with it

You’re cleaning the hallways one day with some other maids and you can’t help but overhear their gossip

“Did you hear Prince Seungcheol is now engaged??? I think it was just last week”

Your ears perk up and your scrubbing slows down slightly so you can focus on their conversation

“Yeah, I heard the woman is a princess from some neighboring kingdom… It’s really hitting soon that he’ll be the new king”

“I don’t know how long she is going to last… he’s so cold and doesn’t seem to care about anyone. but what can you expect from a demon?” 

They both giggle and move to another room to continue cleaning and you can’t help but feel fired up from the way they were talking about him as if they knew anything about him

Sure, he was not really the friendliest and was very brutally honest with his curt words but it didn’t make him a bad person

Your heart aches after hearing the news and you recall a past talk you had with Seungcheol when you were younger

“Do you believe in love?” you asked him, the both of you lying down on the grass while looking up at the vibrantly blue sky

“Pshh, not really. Father always said marriage is for the people, not for love”

“But shouldn’t you love someone in order to marry them? you will be spending the rest of your life with them”

“I don’t think that is what he wants from me. I would be letting him down”

“Is that what you really want, though? to be stuck with someone you have no feelings for?”

he sighs deeply and looks down. “Well, I guess not… I do care a lot for someone”

your heart dropped. guess he already has his eyes set on someone else. “o-oh, well that wouldn’t be fair to you or to them right?”

he shakes his head, quickly glancing at you before looking away. “but it wouldn’t work out anyway. I wouldn’t want to drag them into the mess of my world. I want them to be free of what I go through. I just hope they know I’ll always care for them from afar.”

You shake your head out of a daze, painfully reminded of how raw that moment still feels

I wonder if he still cares for that person he mentioned, you think to yourself as you continue scrubbing the tiles. But what does it matter now that his future is sealed with someone else?

Shortly after that day, it was formally announced to the kingdom that the Crown Prince and the soon-to-be Crown Princess will be holding a wedding ceremony in just a short few weeks

On the outside, you smile politely and clap your hands but it takes every fiber of your being to not want to fling the door to your cramped bedroom and collapse on your bed and spill the tears you were desperately attempting to hold in 

As you stared at him and his fiancee out the balcony waving to everyone, you swear you thought you saw him give you a forlorn look that lasted for a millisecond before he returned to his usual expressionless state

From that moment on, you barely saw Seungcheol at all

This man was constantly getting pulled in all different directions, especially with the royal wedding around the corner

The night before his big day, he summons you to his room again and your mind is buzzing with loads of thoughts of what he could possibly want to talk to you about

You cautiously enter and close the door slowly before turning back towards him

He looks more disheveled than usual, his hair tousled, his usual prince attire crinkled and slightly unbuttoned

“You look stressed, what's wrong??”

He closes his eyes and sighs for a moment before slowly opening them again and says while still not making eye contact with you, “I… I feel like I’ll have so many regrets once tomorrow comes”

You’re like why is that??

“Do you remember me mentioning I cared a lot about someone back then?”

Your heart drops to your stomach. “Yes… why?” thanks for the reminder

“I keep thinking about them… and all of these what-ifs. I know I can’t do anything about it, but–”

“Of course you can do something about it! I know you’re a stickler for the rules, but if the cost is your happiness, is it really well worth it?”

He shakes his head, looking even more troubled than before. “I can’t risk putting them in that position. Yet I… I want to,” he articulates slowly, as if it’s only dawning on him now that he’s finally learned what he truly feels

You feel as if the waves of heartache and anguish are drowning you but you try to be strong for him and present a smile if not for him, then for yourself

“I think you know what you need to do, Seungcheol”

And with those words, you quietly bow out and make your way to your room

The next morning, you wake up with puffy eyes from crying all night and begrudgingly get out of bed to get ready for the busy day ahead

After a hectic morning and afternoon, the ceremony finally begins

The moment we’re all waiting for is “Speak now or forever hold your peace”

And the most baffling thing happens because it’s not you who speaks up, not some secret lover, not some random citizen in the audience

but it’s Seungcheol himself

“Wait – I don’t think I can go through with this”

SCANDALOUSSSS

That’s right, he causes a whole uproar and everyone is like what tf is he talking about?!?!?

You are unfazed to a certain degree due to the conversation you had with him last night but you’re still confused on where this is going to go

Never in a million years would you have imagined for him to say his next words

“I’m in love with someone else: Y/N”

And all the maids around you gasp like WHAT. IS. HE. TALKING. ABOUT.

You aren’t sure whether to feel mortified or happy but whatever it is, all eyes are now on you

The current King is like MISTER?? WITH A H U M A N????

“I know it’s never been done before, having a demon and a human marry each other. but I’m tired of always having to do the right thing and for once, I want to do something that is right but for myself”

You’re looking at him in complete bewilderment and disbelief like you were talking about me this whole time??!!

“If we can prove that humans and demons can come together, it’ll be a huge stepping stone politically for everyone involved. I can’t change how I feel about her but I can change our worlds with her by my side”

He makes his way towards you and grabs your hand and this time he does not break eye contact even once

“I want to be with y/n, and no one else”

You’re melting like putty in his arms it’s honestly really sweet!!!

The King eventually caves in although he’s obviously not happy with all of their efforts wasted but he’s cool enough to welcome in this new change

Everyone’s reactions are pretty mixed understandably but they don’t seem like they hate it which is probably the best reaction you’re gonna get

“You’re not asking for my hand in marriage are you?? bc that’s a little too quick on a first date”

He shrugs and nonchalantly says, “Not until you’re ready” JESUSLFSJDS

The rest of the day is a whirlwind of crazy events that you get caught up in as the Crown Prince’s new lover now 

By the time it’s time for bed, he summons you for the last time as you being a maid and not as a Girlfriend

Well turns out he’s actually a big baby and the whole time he tried to conceal his feelings for you all he wanted was for you to be by his side pshh lame amiright

“You sure move fast with wanting me to be in your bed already and we haven’t even gone on an actual date yet”

“Shut up and just lay beside me”

After you turn off the lights and get under the covers, you can’t help but notice he’s extremely hot (literally and physically) and considering it’s 20 degrees you’re taking all of that warmth

Of course, Seungcheol tries to make it a big deal and get you off of him even tho he secretly enjoys it

“I’m a demon, not a hot water bottle. Stop cuddling me.”

“But you’re so warm.”

“Like hell. Fire, brimstone, eternal burning” 

Like that was gonna stop you who does he think he is for putting you through all of this and at the very least not giving you some cuddles???

He sighs and wraps one arm around the other after he notices your breathing slowing down

“I don’t have to care about you from afar anymore,” he murmurs, brushing your hair out of your face before also slowly losing consciousness

[car-sounds]

Attic Club "Sandwich" Meeting

Beelzebub x (GN)reader

912 words

Summary: Belphie helps Beel confess his feeling for Mc

“Barely, why?”

“Belphie, are you still awake?”

“Do you think you love them?”

“I was hanging out with MC today… We went out to eat and seeing their happy face when they tasted something they liked made me feel full in a way. Like I would want to give them my food, not in exchange to taste what they had or anything like that, but to make them happy… When I’m with them getting the most food leaves my mind and all that remains is wanting to see them smile”

“Maybe…”

“So am I going to have to force you into telling them how you feel or are you going to do it yourself?”

“Why not? I’m not one for meddling in others affairs but for you I’ll help set you up.” He chuckles while rolling over and pulling his blanket up “We can start a game plan in the morning, I’m not going to be able to stay awake for much longer. Good night.”

“Tell them? Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Thanks, Belphie. Good night.”

—

Breakfast is chaotic as usual, the human of last night's discussion is arguing with a few of the brothers about a recently released movie.

“Hey, MC…” 

Belphie woke up late as usual and started a conversation with you rather than listen to Lucifer's scolding.

“Do you wanna have an attic club meeting later tonight?”

“If Beels down than yeah”

Belphie glances at Beel flashing him a smirk as if it wasn’t obvious enough what his plan was going to be.

"Okay we can pick up snacks after RAD.'' Once Belphie had finally started on breakfast everyone else was already rushing out the door shouting behind them about they're not going to wait around for him.

Beel was the only one who waited around, reason being he wanted to continue last night's conversation.

“I know what you're up to, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“I thought you got over thinking that last night.”

He did remember agreeing but his worries are resurfacing all over again. “So, are we doing this or not?” “Well-” 

“Nevermind, I just decided it’s already set in stone.” Is all he said before walking away to not let Beel go back on his decision.

—

The time has come a couple hours after dinner, the three of you made your way to the attic with snacks in hand. Beel was obviously nervous, he hoped you wouldn't be able to notice but of course you knew him well enough to know this not how he normally acts.

“Beel, is everything alright? You’re looking a bit uncomfortable.” you asked

“Oh, yeah I’m fine. Don’t worry” trying his best to reassure you with his usual smile. 

“Well if you say so, anyways what snack did you too end up choosing.”

The conversation continued like regular. Beel started feeling less and less on edge as time passed. He still didn’t know what Belphie plan was going to be or when it was going to happen, for all he knows it could happen at any moment-

Belphie stood up “I’m going grab one of my pillows downstairs.” 

“I could grab it for you if you’re too tired.” Beel offered

“No. Why don’t you and MC just chat with each other for a little while”

Was that it? I guess it’s expected that his plan wouldn’t be too elaborate and this did end up getting you two alone and less likely to be interrupted by the rest of the brothers, the lighting was also dimmer and felt more romantic than in just MC’s room.

Even if it’s not the most extravagant plan, if it ends up working it ends up working. 

“Oh, I almost forgot Belphie told me you wanted to talk to me about something.” Well this makes things harder to go back on now. 

“Yeah…” He should have planned this part out better. Everything he thought he wanted to say in this moment is gone, all he needs to do is tell them his feelings and phrase it in a way that doesn’t make them uncomfortable. 

“Well? What is it?”

“You’re like a cheesesteak to me.” Panic, what sentence just came out of his mouth can that even qualify as a confession? You, for obvious reasons, look confused and all you can really ask is “What?” What was he supposed to say now? “I- uh…” 

The moment you both find out part of Belphie’s plan involves staying just outside the entry to the attic’s bedroom is when he decides to intervene. “Beel, I expected better from you. I really hope that wasn’t the planned out confession you decided on”

“Confession?” 

“See they didn’t even know that, that was supposed to be a confession” Belphie was exasperated at this point.

“Sorry, I had a few lines planned out for what I wanted to say but I just panicked a little at the moment. MC, what I meant to say was I have feelings for you and wanted to know if you felt the same way” Shock was still evident on your face, it takes you a moment for your brain to catch up with what was happening, but when it does and he sees your smile he starts feeling hopeful

“Aw, Beel! You’re like a cheesesteak to me too.” you run up to hug him. You’re all happy, Beel’s a little embarrassed, but even though it was a bit of a disaster it ended well.

Masterlist

[jahayla-parker]

Request: Hey so I was wonder if you could write a story with either kaz brekker × ADHD reader or freddy Carter × ADHD reader where the reader is struggling and ends up with haveing breakdown and is in tears with the fact that they can't stay focused and everything is slipping into a mess and they are struggling and they just comfort the reader. haven't been feeling very well lately and begin feeling overwhelmed and I love your work

Over It All : Kaz Brekker x Reader

@alex-kazbrekkersimp this is the last one I’ll be tagging you in unless you mention wanting to be added to one of (or multiple) my tag lists 💜 same note as on the last/Freddy one: Hi! So sorry for just getting to this! Ironically enough, I was experiencing this myself over the last few months. I hope you're feeling better! I did both characters/people, but I broke it up. In this one you'll find Kaz’s version.

Note: Thank you to @b3kk3r-by-br3kk3r for helping me edit this!

Description: 3.8k wc, reader struggles with her ADHD to the point of breaking into tears, prompting Kaz to find a way to come to her aid. Hurt-comfort, angst-fluff

Warnings: SOC content (and applicable warnings), ADHD symptoms and experiences discussed, mention of crying and sadness, negative thoughts of self, some angst but fluffy ending/comfort

Y/n hid behind the empty box of spirits that Kaz had imported for the Crow Club. The bottles had already been removed and stored in their appropriate places. However, it seemed someone forgot to dispose of the now-empty crate. Y/n was beyond grateful for that oversight at this moment. 

She’d been trying to hide from Kaz all evening. Normally she’d be able to be found in his office after dinner had been served. It had started as a means of bringing him food that she’d then have to all-but force him to eat; however, it soon turned into a nightly ritual in which the now-couple would either visit briefly or silently complete more work/hobbies.

Tonight was different. She didn’t want to go to his office. Y/n knew Kaz would be able to pick up on her negative energy. And for once, she didn’t want to talk about it. After all, she wasn’t sure how to explain herself to anyone. 

She knew she couldn’t go to her room. That would be the first place Kaz would likely check for her after noticing her absence. She could go somewhere outside of the Slat or Crow’s Club entirely, but she didn’t want Kaz to worry either. So instead Y/n chose to stay in the back part of the Crow Club, hidden behind the empty wooden crate. 

She wasn’t sure what her plan was, Y/n doubted she could outlast Kaz’s insomnia, but perhaps she could outlast his interest tonight. Maybe if she hid long enough, he’d grow tired of trying to find her (or wouldn’t risk the others being clued into the reason behind such behavior). At which point she could return to her room for some much needed sleep. 

Y/n felt guilty for hiding from him. He hadn’t been the one to do anything wrong in this instance. Instead, it was her that failed to accomplish the tasks he’d assigned her. She had never struggled this much to complete them before. 

However, given the chaotic dynamics of the club and increased heists lately, she’d been more stressed and less well-rested than normal. As such, her focus was waning. Well, waning would suggest she had at least some small amount of focus left. Which she didn’t. Lack of focus would be a better way to put it. She couldn’t focus if her life depended on it. In some way it did. 

It wasn’t that Kaz would kill her, or even really threaten her for not completing the tasks as he might the other crows, but that was not the relationship he had with Y/n; and she knew that. But, she knew he’d still be disappointed in her. 

Yet, that wasn’t even the biggest threat she faced when it came to having failed to do her job. Instead, Kaz was on a time crunch for moving forward with their next heist. If he went through with the heist despite Y/n not completing her assigned preparative tasks, someone could die. 

Y/n had given up already on getting her tasks done today. She tried countless times, in countless ways, at countless different locations. All without even a minute level of success. They weren’t difficult, but her mind still wouldn’t cooperate or focus. 

Hence why she resorted to isolating herself in the dingy back room of the club. It was almost poetic. This was the type of place she belonged after her shameful failures today. A place with cracked walls, dirt and soot, no lighting, cobwebs, and empty splintered boxes. 

Kaz clenched the top of his crow’s head cane tightly as he limped down the stairs. He had spent the last hour waiting for Y/n to join him in his office, yet he’d seen no sign of her this evening. In fact, Kaz hadn’t seen her since the early hours of the day. 

It wasn’t just that she wasn’t in his office tonight following the dinner Inej made the crows, it was that he couldn’t find her in her room either. Kaz even passed Inej in the hall and asked if she’d seen Y/n. He knew if Nina were nearby she’d be able to notice the way his heart rate increased dramatically upon Inej mentioning she hadn’t made it to dinner tonight. It was very unlike Y/n to not enjoy the company of the other crows. 

Kaz could understand if he’d somehow done something to make her mad. However, that wouldn’t explain why she hadn’t joined the other crows for dinner. He never joined the crows for dinner of his own volition; unless Y/n pleaded with him for days prior. So something must have happened to prevent her from joining them tonight. 

He wasn’t sure what was behind her absence, but he planned to get to the bottom of it. Kaz knew he couldn’t protect her from everything, especially in the barrel. Saints, he’d told her as much himself. Besides, he knew Y/n was more than capable of handling things herself. But, her absence tonight made his heart ache until he was practically speed-walking through his club. 

“Boss, come join us” Jesper called, waving Kaz over to where he was. Jesper was leaning against the bar counter, Wylan beside him shaking his head. 

“I’m clearly busy” Kaz retorted harshly, continuing his departure to the streets of the Barrel. 

“Is everything alright?” Wylan bravely asked as he pulled a drink away from Jesper. 

Kaz glanced sharply in his direction and shook his head, “I’m missing a crow”.

Wylan appeared to think for a moment, likely counting each crow and where/when he’d seen them last. “Who?” he pressed, unable to deduce who was missing. 

This infuriated Kaz. How could Wylan, or any of his crows, not notice Y/n’s absence? Nor see it as problematic or concerning? Kaz reluctantly pushed those irritations aside for the time. Yet, he made a mental note to return to the matter later. After he’d found y/n.

“Y/n” Kaz groaned, his gloved hand squeezing the top of his cane until he felt the metal edges grinding into his palm. 

“Really? I just saw-“ Wylan began, stopping when Jesper exaggeratedly shook his head and waved his hands around in the air. 

Kaz rose his right eyebrow at the couple and turned to face them. He made his way to them silently, his grip still tight on his cane. But his pace had slowed now that there seemed to be a piece of information he had been missing. 

“Where?” Kaz demanded firmly once he reached the counter. 

“Umm… maybe I was-“ Wylan mumbled, his eyes full of confusion as he looked between his drunken boyfriend and Kaz’s angry glare. 

Kaz smacked his cane against the hard floor, the sound reverberating throughout the club. Everything around them halted as all eyes shifted to watch Kaz tower menacingly over Jesper and Wylan. He turned enough to send the onlookers a warning glance. 

Once the rest of the room had resumed their previously abandoned activities, Kaz stared expectantly at Wylan. Jesper was clearly in no place to be of assistance, despite the fact that he clearly knew something. Wylan, on the other hand, appeared to know where Y/n was at, but not whatever detail had Jesper telling him not to disclose her location. 

“She…” Wylan trailed off, still uncertain whether to trust the hesitation of his boyfriend or comply with Kaz’s unspoken order. 

Jesper groaned, leaning his head on the sticky counter. “No one chooses to stay back there if they want to be found” he mumbled. 

Kaz furrowed his brows as he leaned closer to them. “If neither one of you tell me where she is within the next twenty seconds, I will-“ he began to threaten. 

Wylan cut him off before he could inform them of their potential consequence. “Are you planning on hurting her?” Wylan questioned. 

Kaz’s stare hardened despite the pain in his chest at the insinuation. He had never done anything to hurt Y/n. Saints, he threatened his crows, but would never truly act on it. Kaz knew his reputation was likely the reason Wylan was asking. Yet, Kaz hated that Wylan felt he had to ask if Kaz would hurt Y/n of all people. 

Wylan’s body language shifted as he picked up on Kaz’s reaction to his question. Nonetheless, Kaz needed to know where Y/n was. More specifically, he needed visual confirmation that she was safe. And ideally, learn why she was seemingly avoiding him. “No”.

“She’s in the back. Behind the old storage boxes for the bar” Wylan stated, tilting his head towards the door behind him. 

Kaz nodded once at Wylan, sent a stiff glance at Jesper, and moved past them. He couldn’t control the thoughts in his mind as he made his way back to the storage room. Why would she choose to be in the one truly unkempt place in the club? Why did she prefer to be there instead of in his office? 

As the door creaked open, he saw movement behind the row of shabby shelves. He stared intently in that direction, hoping for another glance. He could’ve sworn he’d seen her y/h/c during the initial flicker of movement. But he didn’t want to announce himself just yet if he was wrong. 

As he moved closer, he heard the sound of someone hitting the floor; he picked up his pace upon recognizing Y/n’s faint groan. It only took him a few seconds to reach the end of the aisle. When he did, he came upon the sight of her attempting to get off the ground. 

Kaz watched as her eyes flickered from the ground, to his cane, then back down. He sighed loudly. If it wasn’t before, it was now evident she was avoiding Kaz. But he still couldn’t figure out why. 

Y/n noticed Kaz extended his gloved hand down for her to use to stand. Y/n shook her head, pushing herself up. Once she was on her feet again, she brushed herself off. “Excuse me” she whispered, attempting to move around him. 

Kaz’s gloved hand stopped her from leaving, his leather covered fingers wrapping around her wrist. He silently tapped her inner wrist before tugging on her arm. “Look at me” he said. 

Y/n slowly spun around to face him but remained silent.  

“Why are you acting like this?” Kaz asked, furrowing his brows as he stared down at her. He slowly let go of her wrist and dropped his hand back down to his side. 

“Like what? I need to-“ she began, eyeing his gloves. 

“Continue avoiding me?” He pushed, giving her a knowing look. 

Kaz watched the way her eyes widened and lips parted. She clearly hadn’t expected him to call her out on her actions. Or perhaps she didn’t expect him to notice at all. Either way, it was clear he’d caught her off guard. 

“You didn’t think I’d notice?” Kaz questioned, his voice a bit sharper than he intended. 

Y/n glanced down at her dirty boots and sighed. “I hoped you wouldn’t. I hoped you would be focused on something other than my idiotic self” she admitted. 

“Excuse me?” Kaz spat, frowning until he felt a pain above his eye. 

“I am a failure, Kaz. That’s why I can’t look you in the eyes” y/n explained, shifting under his piercing stare. 

Kaz sighed in annoyance, “Y/n, you know I don’t tolerate lying”.

“I’m not lying” she whispered, her voice cracking. 

Kaz’s gaze softened as he saw a silent tear roll down her cheek. He shifted his jaw and took a deep breath. Kaz was about to ask Y/n what she was referring to when he heard her let out a quiet, shaking sob. 

Kaz abruptly snapped his body in the opposite direction. He ignored the pain in his knee as he quickly limped back to the door that lead to the main hall of the club. 

“Please don’t leave, I’ll stop crying” y/n whimpered, suddenly behind him. She grabbed his wrist with her hand, careful to only rest her skin again his jacket sleeve rather than his exposed skin. 

Kaz turned to her, moving his arm until her hand was in his gloved one. He gave her as tender of a nod as he could. His voice was still rough but quiet as he told her “I’m sending everyone home”.

Worried the club would lose money by closing early, she began to argue. “But it’s busy tonight. It’s important that we-“ 

“No,” Kaz cut her off, squeezing her hand, “you’re what’s important right now”.

Kaz watched as Y/n crawled onto his bed silently. She was now dressed in one of his shirts and a pair of her shorts. The open window of his room provided some relief from the stuffy warmth of the air this time of year. 

He wasn’t sure how to help her. To be fair, he wasn’t sure how to help anyone. Being vulnerable and emotionally supportive were not his strong suits.  

He couldn’t physically hold her as she expressed her feelings. He wasn’t great at showing or expressing his own feelings. He didn’t know how to begin the conversation without upsetting her. And he didn’t know how to verbally respond if she were to express the reason for her depressed state. 

He could be straight forward, he was good at that. But he didn’t feel that was enough. It was one thing to tell her she wasn’t a failure like she claimed, it was another to be able to elaborate on that and offer a compliment instead. And Kaz wasn’t good at the latter. 

“You’re okay” Kaz said in a weak attempt at comforting her. He sighed softly as she nodded doubtfully and stared at her lap. He wasn’t off to a good start. “Did you.. Want to talk?” Kaz asked hesitantly. While he wasn’t sure how well that talk would go, he could at least offer one. 

She glanced up at him briefly before her eyes quickly looked elsewhere, “No”. 

Kaz nodded and removed his hat and jacket. He watched her closely while he hung up his items, eyes scanning her face as she tried to regulate her emotions. Once his outer layers were hanging on the rack, he made his way to her. 

Sitting beside her, he still wasn’t sure what to do, but he would at least offer his presence. Kaz slowly extended his hand between them, palm up. 

Y/n looked down at his hand and flickered her eyes up to his face in search of confirmation. When she received an affirmative nod, she rested her hand in his gloved one. She nearly jumped when his fingers laced through hers, and he gave her hand a comforting squeeze. 

His actions eased some of her guilt, nerves, and shame. She now felt that perhaps she could tell him what was troubling her after all. Y/n knew he might not understand, but at least she could try and get it off her chest. 

She hesitantly whispered his name in the form of a question, “Kaz?”. The corners of her lips twitched upwards faintly when he squeezed her hand again and hummed quietly as a sign for her to continue. “Maybe I do want to talk…is that okay?” Y/n asked. 

Kaz nodded and gave her another small squeeze as he worked to calm the imaginary waters hitting his legs from the contact. 

“I am not getting any of it done” she confessed, staring at the wall across the room from them. 

“Any of what?” Kaz questioned, his eyes watching her body language intently. 

“My jobs, I’m falling behind, and….and…and…” Y/n rambled, her mind once again unable to focus. Even now, when it came to her own emotions, her brain just would not focus enough for her to form the right words. 

“And?” Kaz asked, his soft tone and careful attention saying more than his words ever could. 

Y/n snapped her eyes over to him, the tears in them making Kaz grind his teeth. “I’m failing you” she responded after a few seconds. 

“What?“ he questioned, letting out a breathy exhale. His tone this time was much harsher and more serious. Kaz hoped it displayed his offense over such a suggestion rather than coming across in a hurtful manner. 

“I’m failing you” Y/n repeated. She looked away from his tense eyes, sighing when she felt his hand slackening its grip on hers. As a result, she began to pull her hand from his in embarrassment. 

Kaz noticed the action and promptly readjusted his grip. He gave her a silent squeeze as he composed his thoughts. “What are you talking about?” Kaz finally asked, schooling his eyes to remain soft, despite his concern. 

“You asked me to review the maps of Chenvilun’s, but I can’t focus” y/n cried. “I tried, but every sound from downstairs distracted me” She elaborated. 

When Kaz nodded slowly, she continued, “So, I went to the University library. I thought it would be quiet”. Y/n sighed loudly, “But then the sound of pens from the studying students wouldn’t stop echoing in my head”. 

Y/N’s free hand dragged down her face, “It’s hard to explain. But… Then I headed back here, and I can’t stop thinking about other things”. She felt Kaz’s eyes on her as she attempted to explain herself. “I could focus on some of those for a little while, but those weren’t what you asked me to do” she stated, frustration evident in her voice. “I wasn't accomplishing or doing what I needed to be… Meaning I also fell behind on the other stuff” Y/n confessed with a sniffle. 

The confused look Kaz responded with prompted her to elaborate on that concern. “I didn't do my regular chores either; I didn’t help Nina with the dishes, or visit Rotty at the docks to see if there was anything to report to you” y/n pointed out, unconsciously tightening her grip on Kaz’s hand as her emotions took over, “and then I got so overwhelmed that it cycled and I-..I…I..-“

Kaz saw the signs of a panic attack beginning to take over; he knew the warning signs all too well. However, as he despised his own, he hated hers even more. At least with his, he was the one suffering. With hers, Y/n was the one in pain, and Kaz hated that. Especially since he couldn’t offer her much help whenever they’d hit. 

He quietly moved closer to her, hoping his proximity would help. Kaz felt her hand slip from his as she began to tug on her hair with both hands, breathing loudly. He moved his gloved hand towards her and placed it on her shoulder. 

“Y/n/n, your only task right now…” he stopped himself to reword his response. “The only thing I need, is for you to breathe” Kaz told her. 

“No, you-“ She argued breathily. 

Kaz firmly shook his head, “Your order is to breathe. That’s all.” He followed up his statement by intentionally breathing loudly. He maintained a steady pace in hopes she’d copy his breathing with her own. 

Once her breathing was starting to improve, she lowered her hand from her face. Y/n took a deep breath, making sure the intake matched Kaz’s. She risked looking up at him despite her embarrassment. “You’re not mad I failed you?” Y/n wondered. 

“You didn’t fail me” Kaz replied simply. When Y/n silently shook her head in disagreement, Kaz sighed. “Y/n, you did not fail me” he promised. Stepping outside his comfort zone, he tenderly added, “You could never fail me”. While he wasn’t sure about confessing such a vulnerable sentiment to her, when he saw the shimmer of joy in Y/n’s eyes, he knew it was worth it. 

“One thing at a time, and we do it together” Kaz stated upon sensing Y/n was still worried over not finishing her jobs.

She nodded her agreement and grabbed the papers she had set down beside her when they entered his room. 

“No. After you rest” Kaz corrected sternly. 

Despite his sternness, Y/n still resisted his attempt to get her to forget about her duties for the night. “But,-“ she began to protest. 

Kaz’s gloved hand shook slightly as he stroked Y/n's cheek, brushing a loose lock of hair from her face. “Not resting will make it worse,” He reminded her. Kaz cleared his throat, once again being more intentional with his words. “It will make you feel worse, and I won’t have that” Kaz explained. 

Y/n wiped her face and nodded, but she still gave him a sad look that told him she wasn’t entirely on board yet. “I can’t sleep if my mind is racing” she explained. She looked shamefully back down at her lap. Kaz had already done so much for her tonight, yet here she was, still complaining. 

Kaz silently racked his brain for a solution. Suddenly, it hit him as his eyes landed on the tiny bookshelf he’d installed specifically for Y/n’s collection. She had her own bookcase in her bedroom; however, Kaz often noticed she’d bring books to his room, trying to keep them neatly stacked and out of his way. Since then, hed had one of the dregs install the shelf.  

The bookshelf served as a reminder to him of all the many occasions in which he would find her hyper-focused on reading her latest book. He knew she wasn’t likely able to read to herself tonight given her inattentiveness, but he suspected the material from her books could still offer her a distraction from the self-deprecating thoughts racing through her mind. 

As such, Kaz unexpectedly offered to read aloud to her. It came as a surprise to both of them, as it was an unusual behavior and fairly intimate for the couple. But Kaz added it to his mental arsenal of solutions for whenever her focus failed her again. After all, it wasn’t long after he began reading to her that he found himself grinning like an idiot as she fell asleep in his bed with a small smile on her face.

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[strawberrycarat]

CCXP Mexico - Omelete Stage HOTD

So, I've seen a lot of people complaining about the Omelete stage yesterday... and I, honestly, as a Mexican, I agree. There was someone else saying some pro-things to it, and I do agree in some points, but I disagree in others.

First of all, you must know that yes, Mexicans are a more effusive public, so I was kind of surprised they all behave well (trust me, we can be more chaotic). I think the problem was the hosts and the event arrangements.

We're not as punctual as we should, in any event, honestly. Usually we know that if something is set to, I don't know, 10am, it usually starts 10:30 or something. So I wasn't surprised they started late. What did surprised me was the chaos during the interview (yes, it is a more informal stage, but that doesn't mean the host should be less professional - I didn't see the same problem in Brasil, for example, and it was a shock to see two of the hosts were the same that last year). Some of the questions, to my own personal taste, were meaningless (like the same boring questions the actors have already answer a lot - brasil CCXP included - like which team are you, etc.). Some questions were alright (like the one of the makeup/hair, etc.), but it did seem unconfortable for the actors in some points of the interview - like telling Ewan many girls would like him to stay in their houses - there was something similar in Brasil, but I think it was better managed. —Also, I felt like the girls-hosts were competing for attention? I don't know - the men seemed a bit ignored—...

Now, I do disagree in a point someone said before. It doesn't matter if we're in Mexico, there are host that can speak perfect English and that don't have the problem of the language barrier. I think they needed to choose better hosting and I don't know if it was a good choice to have so many hosts (4 was too much - I think 1 or 2 that knew how to handle the interview and the audience should've been a wise choice - specially since they were 4 cast members - and I think for the time they didn't gave the actors a lot of time - which is a shame since they travelled all the way here). One of the host asked the questions of the teams and after Tom, I saw Ewan taking his mic, but one of the hosts started to talk and she didn't let him finish).

I'm not surprised Ewan's ear-thing failed, but I think he did handled so well and he seemed so polite to the technician that went to change it in the middle of the interview.

Another thing that was con: it was on Sunday and the CCXP announced the actors one week before the event. Mexico is a huge country and to make that travel in such a short notice is hard to do (money, arrangements for an hotel, etc). And, even if there were a lot of people from other States going to the CCXP, they probably left for their homes on Sunday because Monday is a work-day. So I think that's why it was more empty than other days.

Oh, and the arrangements. I think they did have a better arrangement in Brasil. Here, the actors had to run from one stage to another (the omelet thing was at 5:15 and the other stage at 6:00 - and since the first one started super late...). I think it would've been better if they had the omelet stage before (or even on Saturday) to have all the fans concentrating in one of them and not choosing one.

Also, the thunder stage seemed more professional - there was one host who seemed to concentrate in more elaborate questions and the mariachi at the end - genius!

I really hope this doesn't discourage the actors from coming again. I think, since it was the first time with the CCXP it was meant to have many errors, but in general I think it was a good event. I just think they could've do better with the HOTD cast - it was a shame. The actors were sweethearts, though, and I am glad they liked Mexico - I can't wait to see all the other interviews they did !

Anyway, it was MY opinion, as a Mexican who wasn't able to go (again - time, money and work didn't allowed me), but who was refreshing all the time to see every detail of the event.

[deckofaces]

Choose: Love or Heartbreak

(A Secret Santa Snippet)

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Once again this year I chose to participate in Secret Santa snippet exchange! This year I coincidentally got my girlfriend @justalittletoocorrupted! I really hope you like it <333

Prompt: Villain x Hero (who is a sidekick to superhero!) and Superhero finds out Hero was dating Villain (or just fell in love with them) and kidnaps them to try and help them understand that's a bad thing and the Villain could save them!

(I ended up doing more villain x civilian (I checked if it would be okay))

Note! As we are really close I decided to use ocs, this is an au where Dystopia from Dystopian Reflections is a civilian, via the name Cain. Vortex/Blank-Slate is @justalittletoocorrupted’s oc and it uses it/its and he/him pronouns

Tw: kidnapping, arguing, mentions of violence, swearing

“Cain Harlow.”

Cain’s head was foggy. He blinked a couple times, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. He glanced down at his hands, silvery looking threads were slowly unwrapping from his wrists and making their way back to their creator. His eyes followed and they made their way back to a woman, a superhero more specifically. 

Looking around, the room almost appeared to be an interrogation room. He was not cuffed, but he sat in a closed room at a table across from the hero. 

Nothing was making sense, he last remembered being at the grocery store! He was just shopping! His boyfriend and him were going to have a nice dinner that night and he went to get a few things they would need.. he has no memory of leaving there and ending up with this superhero in front of him!

“…Who are you?”

“The media refers to me as the Porcelain Woman,” the superhero replied simply. 

That makes sense he supposed until suddenly the name clicked in his head and Cain realized exactly who she was. And the alias quickly seemed obvious too. Looking at her, she didn’t look like a normal person, well, because she wasn’t. Her body appeared very doll-like with long, curly black hair and perfect makeup. All exemplified by the apparent cracks across her face, just like what can happen to porcelain.

However, even though she looked like a doll, she wasn’t one. He’s heard his fair share of news stories criticizing her for being a hero. And that is the result of many considering her less than human. She is a powerful spirit inhabiting the life size doll. But the spirit, or a “Reflector,” is a reflection of a real life person, given their name. They are typically chaotic entities. …Not heroes. But he shouldn’t make assumptions about their character..

…But it explains how he got there. From what he’s heard, she has some form of mind control ability in the form of a literal puppet on strings. The doll shell she uses is apparently quite fitting. His face morphed into disgust at the thought of how he got there. 

Cain took a deep breath. “Why am I here?”

She stared at him for a few seconds before answering. Her fake, glassy, and yellow eyes were a bit unnerving. “You should know why you are here, do you not?”

Ah.

He could only be there for one reason, and if a superhero of all people is involved, he definitely knew. But he also wasn’t foolish enough to give himself away without her stating why he’s there first. “I’m afraid I do not understand why I am here. Considering I was taken out of a grocery store, pardon my confusion on the matter.”

The Porcelain Woman drummed her fingers on the table. “It was necessary at the time, it was for your safety,” she stated, brushing off his comment. “You’re here, Mr. Harlow, because of your boyfriend. Are you aware that your partner goes by the alias of Blank-Slate?”

There it is. 

“I do not see why that matters,” Cain answered, trying his hardest to keep his face schooled into a neutral expression.

She stared again, almost as if in surprise. “Your boyfriend has hurt and killed many people, have you no remorse for them, their families, or future victims? It is not a good thing for you to be dating it. Does it not hurt knowing its career and choices?” 

He let out a sigh. He knows what Vortex does is wrong, horrible even, but it has never made him feel unsafe.. rather it has made him feel so loved and cared for. Maybe it’s selfish that that is all he cared to think about in this situation but he didn’t care. And it likely makes him a horrible person too, but if it ever asked him to join it in what it does, he’s sure he’d say yes in a heartbeat..

“Blank-Slate treats me with much more love and care than anyone else ever has. What it does may not be considered right, but it has never subjected me to its lifestyle, rather it does its best to protect me from it,” Cain replied calmly, crossing his arms over his chest. 

The Porcelain Woman scoffed at his comment. “Do you really believe it loves you? It is a villain, Mr. Harlow, one that seeks to draw any sort of horrible reaction it can get out of someone. That means it will eventually revel in the heartbreak it will inevitably cause you.”

Cain shook his head. “You do not understand the nature of our relationship. You believe that to be true when in reality I am an exception to that idea.”

“No, you are failing to understand. I want to help you, this agency wants to help you. Being in that relationship is only going to bring you a lot of pain. We want to help you and stop that from happening. Loving Blank-Slate will hurt you. It is not someone you should love.” Her tone held a bit of concern, but for him it was difficult to distinguish if it was genuine or fake. 

Despite that, this situation was ridiculous, he wanted to go home! He spun a ring on his finger that Vortex gave him to try and calm himself and his anxieties. He hoped to get out of there soon, or maybe Vortex already realized he hadn't come home when he said he would…

Cain supposed he could understand some of her points, he knew it enjoys getting a reaction out of people, but that’s not how it is in regards to him. The amount of times it has seen him vulnerable and treated him with so much love and compassion and respect.. The amount of times he’s seen it so vulnerable.. if it wanted to hurt him, it would have done so many months ago. He’s never loved anyone quite like Vortex and this superhero will not sway him from that. 

“I get what you are trying to convey, but I do not want help from you or your agency. Rather, I wish you would have let me just go about my day,” he said more firmly. He was tired of being there now. He hasn’t been there very long, but being in that room quickly aggravated him. Everything just was wrong about this. 

“Mr. Harlow,” the superhero interjected, “your safety is at risk here! I am merely trying to offer you a way out of your situation but you are only showing me disrespect for my efforts!”

Cain gritted his teeth before raising his voice. Not only was this aggravating, but he was also talking to a wall. How lovely. “That is because you fail to show me respect! I do not want your efforts!! Let me spell it out, I. Do. Not. Want. Your. Help.” He sucked in a breath before trying to continue, his voice returning to a normal volume. “I’ll get ‘hurt’ in your words for all I damn care. It is not your responsibility to look after me.”

“I understand that it’s not my responsibility, but I don’t want you to be added to its list of victims! Blank-Slate-“

“Blank-Slate,” Cain snapped, “Is the love of my life whether you like it or not. Quite frankly, it has treated me far better than you have, and I have only known you for less than a day.”

“You don’t make it easy to get into contact with you,” The Porcelain Woman sneered. “Your career as a doctor makes you busy and most other times you are spotted with the villain. Bringing you here today in the way I had may have been unethical, but I had no choice. You were free and it was the only opportunity I had to get you here. If you would hear me out, you would understand it was for the better!”

“Oh so you and your band of heroes have been keeping tabs on me? You can’t, you know, send me an email or message that your heroes need to talk to me? You resorted to kidnapping me?” Cain threw his hands up in exasperation. “I’m going to repeat myself one more time, leave me alone. I am happy with my boyfriend. I do not care about your concerns about my supposed safety.”

“That was only a result of trying to keep tabs on Blank-Slate, which is actually incredibly difficult to do. We only very recently discovered you are its partner,” she retorted.

Cain has had enough of all of this. There seemed to be no convincing this woman that he feels safe and loved in his relationship. And really it should be none of her business at all! She’s entirely convinced that Vortex will just suddenly start hurting him one day just because it can. They’ve been dating for quite awhile and it hasn’t done so. 

And what’s more, he’s been able to see a side of Vortex that it doesn’t show anyone else. To others it very easily can seem cruel! But to him it has only ever been caring and affectionate and so so loving. But even when he has accidentally caught it doing its villain work, he can’t help but be a bit fascinated by it. And strangely enough, after seeing what it does and seeing it hasn’t done anything to him, it only has made him feel more safe and secure in their relationship.

Cain stood up from his chair. “I appreciate you trying to ‘warn me’ about my boyfriend, but I really do not need your assistance and I would like to get going home.” 

“Please sit, we are not done talking, Mr. Harlow. Going back to your boyfriend would be a bad idea,” the hero advised, her glassy eyes watching him stand.

“No, ma’am, I am heading home. Excuse me,” he said while trying to move past her to the door. 

“We aren’t done,” she stated, more harshly this time. Silvery threads shot from her hands towards his legs. He yelled a curse before quickly stumbling backwards, narrowly avoiding them. 

“Are you fucking delusional??” Cain cried out. “I acknowledge why you may be upset with my decision but that is unacceptable! For a hero especially! Contrary to what you think, my love for Blank-Slate will not lead to something completely horrific!”

“I’m not allowed to let you walk out so easily. I apologize that you don’t get it, but Blank-Slate is incredibly dangerous. I need you to stay awhile longer, I wasn’t even close to finishing on this matter.” 

Throughout this whole argument, the woman’s face has been just about completely neutral the entire time minus her tone, and it honestly was becoming infuriating. In the right state of mind he would realize that her being so doll-like didn’t allow for a great range of physical emotion, but in the moment it only ticked him off more. To him it only seemed like she concerned herself with breaking the two apart rather than how he felt. 

“No no! I’m done with this!” Cain argued, “You keep talking about me hearing you out but you have not been listening to me. You kidnapped me to talk to me, then you started preaching about how my boyfriend’s and I’s love is invalid, and then you refuse to let me leave!”

“Mr. Harlow—“

A knock sounded at the door. 

They both fell silent and turned to look at the sound. The Porcelain Woman answered the door, only to find another superhero he’s never seen before on the other side. 

“Mr. Harlow is needed by another hero for questioning, it is required that this continues later,” the stranger at the door said to the superhero.

“Fine, bring him back as soon as they are done.” She shot a glare over to Cain, but stepped out of the way to let him pass.

A wave of relief washed over him to finally get away from her as he stepped past her next to the stranger. He didn’t know where he was going but hopefully it would be better. If it entailed questioning, maybe not.. but here’s to hoping.

The two walked through the corridors of the unfamiliar agency. After a minute or two, the stranger spoke to him. And as soon as he did, it practically made him want to fall into its arms on the spot. 

Ensuring no one was around, the stranger shifted into a different person, returning to the form of his boyfriend. Telepathically it spoke gently to him, “Are you okay baby..? I’m going to get you out of here, just play along and act as if I’m one of the heroes.”

“I’m okay..” Cain mumbled, watching as Vortex shapeshifted back into the hero, “Thank you for finding me.”

It telepathically reassured him that it would always find him. It noticed that he never came home on time and wasn’t answering any of its messages alerting it that something was wrong.

Being fully disguised as a hero, Vortex escorted Cain safely out of the building without alarm. The pair headed home where they could have a relaxing evening like they originally had planned. 

[crescentbea02]

"Time cast a spell on you, but you won't forget me" pt. 2 (Timeskip! Oikawa x fem! reader)

Tropes: second chance romance, long distance, friends to lovers, right person wrong time, ex-relationship,

Summary: In which Oikawa Tooru finds himself forecefully reviving memories in a flight for Japan, in hopes to reecounter with the one person that has him on a chokehold even after six years apart.

Part 1: here

ハイキュー

“Tooru, is something going on?”

She knew him better than anyone. And she knew perfectly well that something was wrong with him.

“Y/N, I have to tell you something…”

As soon as Oikawa went down the stairs of the plane, he immediately smelled Tokyo. The smell of Japan. And he sighed with happiness, a happiness mixed with longing. Sometimes he liked being able to say that Japan didn't mean anything to him, that it had only stalled him on his true path, he liked the idea of ​​going to another country and finding his own home. And leave your old dysfunctional home behind to heal your wounds.

But as poetic as that sounded to him, he knew he was being unfair. Japan gave him what made him where he was now. It will only have been one obstacle to his happiness in the last year he lived there. Of course, Oikawa would never in his life choose to be in a place where he was tied. Even if it meant letting go of all of his people who made him what he was today.

At the Tokyo airport, he looked around and sighed.

Those stairs at that airport never gave him good memories. Despite being the mark of the beginning of his life. Maybe that's also why it never brought him good memories. Because it finally marked the farewell. Of his old self, of his old life.

Of the time that refused to pass. And of the time that was to come. Not just the warm smiles, and the smothered tears of seeing him go. Not just the long hugs and a few heartbreaking 'goodbyes'.

But also hers.

She, who from her greatest joy passed to her greatest sadness. She, who always looked at him with that love of hers. With that warmth of hers. She, who inside her chaotic interior, was her only certainty.

She looked at him with her y/e/c eyes, always so full of love. But now, when she saw him with a backpack on his back, they glistened with pain. He hoped it had been from pain, at the very least. Because he didn't know until today what she was feeling.

If she loved him so much that she wanted to give color to his dreams.

Or if she didn't love him enough, with the indifference of seeing him go.

“At last. I thought you weren't ever coming back” came a familiar voice from the gum and chocolate shops.

Oikawa looked ahead and smiled.

Memories of that airport were never happy, but they always had their less depressing moments in between.

Iwaizumi stared at him with that playful smile. He used to be more serious when they were younger. He didn't remember very well how he had met him. Just blurred images of bandaids, tricycles, skinned knees and a volleyball. Their mothers were friends despite being from such different social status, they both lived on the same street. Maybe it was because of that.

But these friendships for Oikawa were the best. The ones that didn't remind him of the first time he saw him.

Now Iwaizumi was more relaxed, he was in a better mood. He didn't know if it was because he stopped putting up with Oikawa every day all the time like he used to. Or it was because Oikawa wasn't as annoying as he used to be, despite being the complete opposite. Oikawa had never been so irritating.

“You know I never resist a good game” said Oikawa, immediately running into his arms, in a friendly hug full of longing and friendship.

Despite his hot temper and occasional arguments. What remained were the adventures they had, the obstacles they overcame and the laughs they shared.

Iwaizumi was his first best memory of everything he fought to have.

What would become of the two of them, without the two of them?

And Iwaizumi there took him to lunch in Tokyo. And they spent hours and hours talking about these same adventures.

“Man, good times…” Iwaizumi sighed after laughing so hard. That unique feeling of having to take a breath of fresh air with a huge stomach ache after laughing so hard. The trainer looked at his old friend with a smile on his face: "So tell, Shittykawa, I heard about your new girlfriend..."

Oikawa almost choked on his own drink.

He definitely didn't want to talk about his relationships with Iwaizumi. He was going to make him tell her about Y/N, he was going to ask him what was going on with the two of them, and he was possibly going to kill him if he found out he hadn't spoken to her in over four years. Iwaizumi has always been very protective of her, almost like a brother.

“Ah, did you hear about Emma? Well, then I guess we are not as private as we thought we were…” Oikawa gave him a nervous smile.

“Are you kidding? You, private with your girlfriends?” Iwaizumi crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow “You always enjoyed showing them off, you must really like Emma if you’re willing to keep things private”

Oikawa didn't like the direction this conversation was taking.

“Well, yeah but now I am more mature and a responsible adult” Oikawa lifted his head, never wanting so much that Iwaizumi started insulting him “I don’t feel the need to show off my volleyball trophees do I?”

“Yeah, you do…” Iwaizumi raised an eyebrow, as memories of Oikawa's constant instagram posts with his trophies. One of them was even in wallpaper on his phone.

“I’m not showing them off. I’m giving myself the spotlight I deserve after all those years of suffering” he smiled, looking down at his coffee.

“Right…” Iwaizumi rolled his eyes “Do you treat your girlfriend right at least?” He then gave him a playful smile.

Oikawa pressed his lips together. He didn't want to have to tell him any more about his love life. Or the subject of Y/N would come up for sure. It was always like that, Iwaizumi adored her even though he hated that they were together at first. In time, however, they appreciate the way they were so in love. And there he surrendered to their love.

“Why wouldn’t I? I’ve always treated my girlfriends right” he simply said, to his friend's surprise.

Iwaizumi found it strange. It seemed that Oikawa, who had always liked to brag about his girlfriends, who was always such a passionate person, didn't want to say too much about it. It was nothing like the twinkle in his eyes, the happy speech he used when talking about Y/N, for example.

“Is everything alright with you too, though?” he asked, always showing that he knew Oikawa as well as the back of his hand “You seem very… Not interested in talking about your girlfriend. I remember you couldn’t stop talking about Y/N whenever we met”

Oikawa gulped and lifted his head proudly, looking at Iwaizumi with a more serious expression.

“What are you even implying? That I am only dating my beautiful Emma because I could not forget Y/N?” Oikawa said, almost taking offence.

“I was implying anything. You, on the other hand…” Iwaizumi furrowed his brow, looking at him with that suspicious look he always got when Oikawa didn't tell him the whole truth.

“I'm glad to let you know, Iwa-chan, that I really like Emma” he decided to just say. He was trying to deceive Iwaizumi, he was trying to deceive himself “Y/N is a whole different situation…”

Iwaizumi sighed. It was enough to look into his eyes to realize that something was going on. He wasn't accusing him of lying, he wasn't even accusing him of possibly making up a whole story. But he knew his slyness, and he knew there was something more between those phrases.

“Does Y/N even know you’re in Japan?” Iwaizumi asked, trying to catch him in the trap.

Damn it, it had been hunted.

He had no more use for trying to trick Iwaizumi, much less lie. Oikawa then decided to do the same thing he knew how to do best. Pretend it meant nothing to him.

“Uh, you see…” began Oikawa, in a guilty tone, while scratching the back of his neck… “I really haven't talked toY/N lately…”

“What?” Iwaizumi asked, surprised, crossing his arms. “For how long? You guys are still friends, right?”

Oikawa opened his eyes wide in astonishment.

Y/N hadn't told him that he stopped talking to her...

The player took a deep breath... And decided to just stare at the ceiling of the cafe instead of facing Iwaizumi's possible anger that would come next.

“I haven’t talked to her in… Six years…”

Iwaizumi stayed in silence for a while. Which made Oikawa not know if it was safe to look at him.

“You… You are an absolute idiot!” he shouted, almost grabbing him by the collar of his sweater "Shittykawa, I'm going to murder you!!!"

“H-Hey, take it easy!! I have a good explanation, Iwa-chan, I promise!!”

Oikawa never really cared when his friend got mad at him. But it got uncomfortable when he was irritated with him with reason. And he knew that Iwaizumi had every reason in the world to call him those words. He should even call him worse.

“Now, everything makes sense…” Iwaizumi sighed, placing his hand on his forehead "Every time you asked me about her, every time I asked her if she was keeping in touch with you, she would just say ‘Oh, he’s fine, you know how he is’, and then changed the subject. It turns out she was lying to me…”

The volleyball player opened his mouth slightly. Y/N didn't tell Iwaizumi that he had stopped talking to her, and even lied by telling him that they were still in touch. Just to protect him. Even after everything he'd done to her, simply erasing her from his existence… she still wanted to protect him.

Maybe Oikawa really didn't deserve anyone.

“God damn it, Oikawa!” Iwaizumi slammed his fist on the table and, soon after, looked into his eyes with a certain sadness in his eyes… He really cared about Y/N like he was a sister “How could you do that to Y/N of all people…? Even after you broke up… She was always a friend to you. She could've easily hated you. But she still insisted, because she liked you too damn much and this is how you thank her!”

An icy chill hit his chest.

That was the sad reality he had spent so many years ignoring. And that, now, he had finally faced. He didn't understand why he chose to face her now, only now, after six years. Maybe he was more mature at twenty-five… Maybe he was less homesick, or his feelings had faded. Maybe it was the opposite, maybe he was more and more attached to his past, to her.

Oikawa looked down, biting his lip...

If there was one thing Oikawa knew better than doing his job, pissing people off and fooling Iwaizumi, it was screwing things up. He hated himself for it.

“Can you at least let me explain myself why I did what I did?” Oikawa asked, in a tone of anguish and regret. Which just made Iwaizumi roll his eyes.

“Suit yourself, it won’t do much to the situation, but at least I can hear your side”

“It’s because I couldn’t forget her!” Oikawa suddenly exclaimed, hugging himself. He hated feeling vulnerable like this, especially when it came to Y/N.

Iwaizumi furrowed his brows and glared at him, his gaze softening upon seeing the way Oikawa was getting. And he was silent, letting him speak.

“I… I know we promised we’d remain friends but…” Oikawa tried to speak, yet his voice seemed to break. “But how could I talk to her if everyday without her just made me love her more? I-I couldn’t be with anyone without thinking of her… And.. I thought… That if I cut things with her, it would give me strength to move on from her…”

Iwaizumi was looking at him with one of those usual looks that used to annoy him. That disappointed expression mixed with that of the worried best friend who had advised him so many times. This advice was of no use, since Oikawa never listened to him.

“And just how did that work out for you?”

Oikawa didn't dare look Iwaizumi in the eyes.

It's not that Iwaizumi wasn't right. He had reached that conclusion before he even realized it. If he ever regretted having made a choice, no matter how big it was, he had never regretted anything as much as that one. That choice that completely changed his life for the worse.

He did not need Iwaizumi to tell him what he already knew.

“That’s why I want to make things right” Oikawa looked into his eyes. He wasn't lying. Anyone who looked into those brown eyes of his knew he was being genuine, for once, as he had always been for Y/N. “I'm not even asking for her to like me again, or to get back together with her again I just…” he sighed at the roof, putting his hands in his hair. “I want her back in my life…”

Iwaizumi frowned, but slowly began to realize that maybe Oikawa was being genuine. After more than twenty years together, the athletic trainer already knew every side of him. And one of the few things he was genuine about was Y/N and the love he felt for her. Nor had he ever imagined Oikawa liking someone so much. Hell, he had never imagined anyone liking someone so much.

But he had fucked up. Because of his usual insecurities and cowardice. Now he had to make amends, he had to plant a new tree after cutting down the one he had planted when they were eighteen. And it was going to be difficult.

Iwaizumi knew Oikawa and his persistence in getting what he wanted, despite everything, and knew that he would do anything to have her in his life again.

As the now recently Argentinian player stared at his old friend's face with a guilty expression as he waited for him to at least say one word to him, Iwaizumi rolled his eyes. He took out a notebook from his black backpack and a pen he had in his pocket, which made Oikawa look at him curiously.

“Here’s her address. She’s living in Tokyo now” Iwaizumi gave him the paper “But if I were you I would give her a call first. Her number hasn’t changed. Just don’t show up there unannounced”

Oikawa looked at the paper and squeezed it gently. Just those numbers and letters already squeezed his chest with impatience to see her. He thought about how Y/N would react, how she would look now. If she was still beautiful, if her voice had changed, if she was still loved. But worse...

“Do you think she hates me?” Oikawa asked, still looking at the small paper.

Iwaizumi raised an eyebrow.

“She’s probably mad at you” replied simply, which made the player feel a stab in the chest “But I think Y/N could never truly hate you no matter how much she tried…”

ハイキュー

Sooo I may have calculated badly it will probably be four parts instead of three I hope you dont mind and I hope you enjoyed it <333

here are the tags <33

@milkteeboba

@writtenbynightlock

@adrii808

thank u for the lovely feedback and I really hoped you enjoyed it <33

[lady-phasma]

Auntie, I had some free time last night, and I’ve looked at virtually every pic and gif of that scene, and I can confidently say with about 98% accuracy that the woman who’s holding Aemond has dark hair. You can just make it out over his head/shoulder in the more HD gifs. So not Helaena or that other Valyrian-looking woman. It will probably just turn out to be a random brothel worker after all this speculation. 🤷‍♀️

But the speculation is the best part, anon! I love that you are in on it too! This and the one about Daemon are renewing our enthusiasm and that's exactly what should happen. Before I get into this I wanted to drop some links.

My reblog of a great theory. The chaotic and wonderful replies and reblogs on my original post. And the Daemon one as well.

Because I'm having a blast with this and because photo color manipulation is something I've done for work before I went ahead and made us some illustrations. For science.

This is probably the best quality we can get. I took the screenshot from the mp4 and enhanced it far more than I normally would for personal use. You are correct, it looks like brown hair in front of a neck and collarbone. I don't really want that to be the case for my headcanon, but the theory I reblogged and linked above could still work if this woman was wearing a wig and took it off.

I'm not going to rule out that it could be Alicent's hair because we can't really see if it's curly due to the lighting.

I went ahead and made this because sometimes desaturated images show us more detail:

I can't say for sure it the hair is wavy, curly, or straight. I do think it rules out Helaena and they have never given us the official ship. It's my favorite and my most delulu ship. It's not even a crackship for me.

I'm leaning toward someone in the brothel, which I hate no matter who, but will try to keep an open mind about it. I'm also holding out hope for Alicent comforting our man. I think this is less likely because of how he speaks about her in the trailer, but we can't know context or chronological order yet.

Thank you so much for the ask. I am really enjoying this craziness and unadulterated fun!

[mystories2012]

Darkness and then there is Stephan Leyhe

shining-glowstick here is the Fan fic you wished for :) I hope you like it.

This plays after the competition.

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

He stood there. Feeling empty. He didn’t even hear the hymn that was played for Ryoyo Kobayashi who just won his 3. Golden eagle. His head was empty. Everything felt heavy. After everything was done, he went on with the interviews. He listened to them. Praising him for how good he jumped, what a Tournee this was, and how frilling it had been to watch him. He smiled but it wasn’t really a happy one. When he had his last interview over, all Andi could think of was his bed, a pillow, and some time alone. His teammates waited at the hotel for him and congratulated him again. He thanked them. They knew. Nobody asked him if they wanted to celebrate the victory and he was thankful for that. So, he just walked past them and went to his and Stephan's room. Tired Andi throw himself on the bed. Not even the light he had put on. All he could do was turn onto his left side, facing the wall, and blankly stare at it. His head started spinning. Thoughts came up.

Why didn’t it work? He started so well. Why couldn’t he go until the end? Could it be, that he was too bad? What if everybody started to hate him? What if Stephan started to hate him too?

Stephan was his rock that one person, who he could rely on. What if he thought he was weak? Somebody that can't go through with things. A looser.

Of course, he was one. He lost the Four Hills tournament. He failed. Yes, he was a failure. Nothing more. A failure that is too stupid to win against another jumper.

Andis thoughts were going on and on and didn’t seem to stop. Or maybe he didn’t want them. Maybe he didn’t because they were true. He started to feel the tears streaming down his face. “Stop crying, you idiot”, his inner voice told him. “This is your own fault”. The next voice sounded like Stephans. His eyes got big. “What?”. How could his best friend say something like this? No wait, this was his head telling him this. Why couldn’t they shut up and leave him alone? Everything started to feel more and more chaotic. His head hurt and his eyes were burning.

Another sentence popped up:

How stupid was I to believe I could win?

“You are not stupid”. He jolted and his body spun around to see who just spoke. In the middle of the room stood nobody less than his roommate and best friend Stephan Leyhe. He looked tired and even had a few tears in his eyes. Why he couldn’t understand. Before he could say or do anything he turned around again and stared blankly at the wall in front of him. He heard somebody move closer. Andi could feel the tears that started to come again. He sniffled. “Andi I… Let me help you”. Andi didn’t turn around. “Please. It hurts me to see you like this”. Now he had him. Andi turned around and looked with glassy, red eyes at his friend. “Why do you care. Everybody hates me”. His voice was raspy. Stephan's eyes got big. Very big. “What are you talking about?”. “I lost Stephan. I couldn’t bring him home. My jumps were too bad. I had it right in my hand and I lost it. You must be all disappointed in me. I am a failure. Nothing else”. He turned back around and closed his eyes to concentrate on the pain inside his head. “Andi…”. Stephan didn’t know what to say. He never heard his best friend say something like that before. “You probably hate me too”. Andi's sentence broke his heart in two. Tears started to form and with a shaky voice he said: “Is that what you think of me? That I hate you because you didn’t win? You know I could never hate you. No matter what”. “Why can’t you hate me? I am a nobody”. “You are somebody. Why are you talking so low of yourself?”, Stephans voice was still shaking. “I am a failure. Everybody tells me how thankful they are, that I made it so adventurous and thrilling to watch but, in the end, I was a huge disappointment”. “Stop saying that you are a disappointment!”. Stephan's voice got louder. “Why don’t you hate me!?”. “BECAUSE I LOVE YOU, YOU IDIOT. I love you so much and it hurts me to see you like this. I hate hearing you saying all that. Because it is not true. You definitely aren't. We've known each other for 11 years now and I can confirm that you have the biggest heart of all. You are a good listener, you are always ready to do anything for someone, and you help without hesitation. You are super smart, never stop smiling, always brighten up the room, when you enter, you never lose your nerve, and above all, you never give up. And those are the best qualities you can have. As I said in the interview in Innsbruck: If someone can do this, it's you. Your time will come. I know it”. Andi turned when Stephan spoke again: “Nobody is perfect Andi. Not me, not you. If I know something for sure, it's that you are my world, and that will never change. You are the most important person in my life. I am sooo proud of you”. Andi stared at him and just now noticed Stephan's wet face. He cried. Andi didn’t want to see him cry. He reached out and cupped Stephan's face to dry it off. Stephan leaned into that and before Andi could really think anymore, he grabbed his best friend, over before he kissed him. Stephan eyes got big before he kissed back. He stopped when he felt tears rolling down his cheek. It wasn’t his. Andi had started crying. Stephan laid down next to him. He pulled him next to himself and started to make circles on his back. His best friend snuggled into him. After a while, he heard deep breaths that were Insync. Stephan sadly looked down at his friend, whose face was swollen from all the tears. “I love you so much”. With that sentence said, he slowly and carefully placed himself right before drifting off to a dreamless sleep.

[rwrbmovie]

RE: adapting the book

Quotes from interviews on #RWRBMovie about adapting the book

This post will be updated as content is released

Click here for the other roundups

Notice something missing? Here's my inbox

Last updated: August 9

From Glamour

Says Galitzine, “We were all aware that we wanted to make one a classic rom-com but with a sort of new spin. Matthew's a very sensitive, very feeling person, and we obviously wanted to inject our movie with that kind of emotionality. He had a great balance in being able to facilitate both lightness and emotion within his work.”

Fans of McQuiston's novel will be pleased to know that, with a few exceptions, the movie largely follows the book's enemies-to-friends-to-lovers tale. And the tone and spirit that made everyone fall in love with the book are certainly still there. “Casey has been an incredible source of support for me throughout the making of this film,” López says. “I respect them for being appropriately protecting of the novel and am grateful to them for also giving me space to tell my own version of their story. Obviously when translating a nearly 500-page book to the screen, there are things you have to lose and things you will need to change. It is an adaptation, not a recitation. I like to think that, as a fan of the novel, I was able to find the balance of serving Casey’s story while also serving the needs of the movie.”

For López, the most important element to maintain from the book was Alex and Henry’s individual personalities as well as their shared story together. “If there was one lesson I kept learning over and over while making this film it’s that if it’s not about Alex or Henry, it doesn’t belong in the film.”

While the movie is, as López describes, “an adaptation, not a recitation,” McQuiston was available to the actors. “I remember Casey coming in on a really fun day,” says Galitzine. “It was a scene where Taylor and I were bickering in that sort of Alex/Henry banter way that we do, and it gave us time to talk to Casey and understand the influences that went into the book. We obviously have a lot of fan service, and I hope they love my interpretation of Henry.”

From Entertainment Weekly

But the thing that weighed most on all of them was not royal protocol, chemistry, or even comedic timing. It was honoring McQuiston's novel, which hit the New York Times bestseller list and even earned a release in a special collector's edition last year. "[The biggest challenge was] quite simply how to delivery Casey's story in a way that honored the novel but that didn't result in a three-hour film," says Lopez. "There are a lot of wonderful scenes and characters in the book that didn't make it into the film because they didn't fit. I don't regret any of those decisions but, as a fan of the book, they weren't easy to make."

From Vanity Fair

López turned to romantic comedies of the past as inspiration: screwball affairs from the ’30s and ’40s like Bringing Up Baby and Sullivan’s Travels, as well as more recent hits like When Harry Met Sally or Moonstruck. All of those films revolve around “very smart, very clever people who often find themselves in over their heads, and the only way to really get themselves out of trouble is to talk their way out,” he explains.

From the outset, there were two scenes considered make-or-break. One was the wedding cake food fight, a chaotic sequence that, ironically enough, had to be carefully choreographed. Those three days of filming contained “the least bit of goofing off on set,” López explains. “We really had no room for error. And so we all really approached that with a sense of seriousness, which I hope does not in any way translate onscreen.” Then there was Alex and Henry’s romantic stroll through London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. “It’s sort of a dream come true—your own personal night at the museum,” he says of the late-night shoot. “So that was less daunting than an endurance test, but it was just such a magical night for us. And I hope that did translate onto screen.” Both of those moments live vibrantly in the minds of those who love Red, White & Royal Blue—an impassioned group of people bringing all of their enthusiasm to the movie version when it premieres August 11 on Prime Video. But the film’s director isn’t nervous about answering to an opinionated, online fan base. “It’s absolutely undeniable that the fans love the book for the same reasons that I do, so I think of myself as one of them,” says López, who himself was excitedly making plans to see Barbie with his husband at the start of our conversation. “You could argue that I’m such a rabid, passionate fan that I made the most expensive bit of fan fiction ever. I hope the fans take solace from the fact that one of them has made this movie.”

From Out Smart Magazine

“The most important thing to me is the end result. You’d have to be a moron to make this movie without certain themes in it. I would be justifiably run out of this business if I didn’t include certain things in this book,” López says with a laugh. “Any act of adaptation is almost exclusively an act of exclusion. In any adaptation, there’s going to be more left out than there is included, because that’s just the nature of the beast. My main goal for myself was to make sure audiences feel the same way at the end of the movie as they felt when they finished reading the book.”

When news broke earlier this year about the film receiving an R rating for “language, some sexual content, and partial nudity,” fans rejoiced. The director explains that giving the film’s sex scenes the royal treatment was an important factor for him. “One of the things in the novel that I knew needed to be in the film was the fundamental truth that these two people have really good sex with each other, they are very attracted to each other, and they find ways of expressing it physically. I inherently knew that there were a multitude of ways that we were going to express intimacy in this movie and that we were tracking the progression of their closeness. They sort of meet-cute and not only go from being enemies to lovers, but one of them is not fully aware of the extent to which he’s into guys before they meet. I thought a lot about the intimacy themes in the movie as a way of bringing them incrementally closer and closer together.

From What to Watch

"I knew that there were a lot of expectations of this adaptation, I knew that people really feel very personally about the book. I think there’s something really wonderful that happens, this transference when you fall in love with a book and it’s yours, ignoring the fact that billions of other people also feel the same way about it, so I knew that it would be a bad idea to screw it up! [laughs] That was always at the forefront of my mind. The thing that is also true is that I am one of those crazy obsessive fans over the book, and for me it was like, the ultimate in fanfiction that I got to make. But I recognise that I was very fortunate and lucky to be the person to make this movie, because I think there are a lot of people who are counting on me not to screw up — and I took that very seriously!"

From RadioTimes

"I think there are certain things in that book that, as the director of the movie, if I hadn't put it in the film I would never be allowed to direct a movie again," he revealed. "There was no chance that I was going to cut the cake scene out of the film," Lopez said, while also revealing an amusing behind-the-scenes detail about filming that moment. "The thing about the cake scene is that that shot of the cake landing in their faces is actually me and my production designer throwing cake in Taylor and Nick's faces," he laughed. "After about three weeks of filming [that] was a really great way for me to burn off some steam!" And that scene was just one of many that Lopez was excited to bring to the screen after first reading and falling in love with McQuiston's book in early 2020. "While I was preparing the film, I was really... I put a lot of thought and a lot of care into the V&A scene," he explained. "We got to film overnight at the V&A one evening and it was very magical. "And so, as a filmmaker looking at the book, there were just a lot of things that I was excited to film."

From Pink News

While fans will be thrilled to see that heady physical attraction between the two play. out, they appear less impressed about some character choices in the adaptation. June, Alex's sister, is a favourite among the fandom, while senator Rafael Luna is – spoiler alert – pivotal to how Alex and Henry come out to the world. López has cut June out completely, and merged the character with Alex's pal Nora (played by Love, Victor star Rachel Hilson). Rafel has been replaced with a new character. After it became clear that June wasn't going to be in the adaptation, the film's social media pages were targeted with a "justice for June" hashtag. Fans were upset, but the reasoning behind the decisions, López says, is simple. When you're writing a book, you can do whatever you want with the characters, you have no actors to talk to, you have no mouths to feed in certain ways," he explains. "When it came to the character of June and the character of Nora, I knew implicitly that if I had both of them in the movie, I would have two young women with half a meal. I decided to give a full meal to one young woman." As for the book's several subplots, López believes they would have been too "unwieldy" for a two-hour film, and he needed to focus on "bringing danger in a very streamlined way." Could he have opted to make a TV series, instead? In short, his answer is no. “For whatever sacrifices you have to make in adapting it for a feature film, an extended eight-episode thing would stretch it out too much,” he says. “You’d lose a lot of the magic.”

From OutSFL

Ellen is a staunch Democrat. As a Florida native, and considering what has occurred here during the reign of the current governor, was that in any way what appealed to you about directing and co-adapting the screenplay for “Red, White & Royal Blue”? ML: No, I loved the story, and I didn't give a shit what the governor of Florida thinks about it. I couldn't care less what that man thinks, only as it relates to the health of the union. I didn't have this story growing up. I didn't have access to characters such as these when I was younger. It took until I was in my 40s to read it, to get a novel that had a character like Alex. That I knew implicitly was really special. To me, it was really powerful to read a novel that had a queer, Latine, young man at the center who was a very positive characterization of a queer Latine man. Someone who was filled with hope and possibility. I wanted to bring that into the world. The politics in the novel and in the movie are a hopeful one. It's not something that is, I hope, too much of a fairy tale.

From The Fresno Bee

Why a movie and not a play? “You can’t beat the locations! Buckingham Palace, the Oval Office, the White House, and all those great locations,” said López. “It really, really wanted to be a movie. “And I really wanted to shoot in all of those beautiful locations.” López doesn’t see much difference between directing a play and a movie. “I got to take a lot of the things I learned as a playwright about storytelling and apply it to this movie,” he said. “There’s a lot of overlap between the two disciplines.”

From Windy City Times

Were there parts from the book that were difficult to cut out? ML: It was a very simple and straightforward thing for me. This is a movie about Alex and Henry. I had two hours to tell the tale. The mandate was it needed to help me understand Alex's journey with Henry for it to go in the movie. If it doesn't, then it comes out of the movie. We shot a lot of scenes that were in the book, but once in the editing room, I realized what we didn't need. I looked at it from the perspective that it was two characters on a journey in two hours. That made it clear what belongs in the movie and what doesn't.

From MetroSource

At the end of the day in a story like this, you need to care. Sometimes in order to make an audience care, you need to put your heroes in danger, but you also want the audience to fall in love. And there is nothing more deliriously fun than falling in love. Just as Alex and Henry fall in love with each other, the audience has to fall in love with them. And that is such a fun thing to be able to create. That’s a fun story to tell. I never thought that we were making something completely lightweight and disposable. I definitely didn’t want the movie to feel disposable. I didn’t want people to see it and then forget about it the next day, because the characters stayed with me after I read the book. I wanted the movie to feel exactly the same way the book felt. I wanted those characters to linger in the audience’s mind once the movie was over in the days, in the weeks after they’d seen the film. And that was the most important thing to me.

From Billboard

“Casey was never insistent that I make Casey’s Book: The Film,” Matthew Lopez, the film’s director and co-writer, tells Billboard. “Casey always wanted me to make Matthew’s movie and trusted that someone who loved the book was in charge of the film.”

[dawn-moths]

What if the league of villains meets a reader with a 3-legged cat named Sarafina that’s her emotional support pet. Like reader though she lost everything and then she meets the league and joins them, but little did they know they found out reader had a emotional support cat (reader tied to keep the kitty hidden but failed😅) and the league takes a liking to the 3-legged creature (especially Mr. Compress)

im so sorry this took me so long, but i certainly hope you enjoy what i came up with! and i also hope i was able to do sarafina justice in this lol

word count: 8,000+

tags: sfw! no warnings apply! 

***

When you first met them, you’d been less than five hours out from having lost everything. Your job, your last relationship, your home— all of it swept away in what was not one fell swoop but, given the proximity of the events, it certainly felt that way.

Because your job had laid you off, along with about forty percent of its entire employee populace, your now ex had decided that sending you a text saying “I just don’t think we want the same things anymore” was a sufficient way to end a nearly two year relationship, and, just as you’d dragged your feet down the seven blocks that lay between your prior place of employment and your one bedroom apartment, you’d watched as the entire building went up in flames, the unfortunate fallout from the most recent villain attack that had swept through your neighbourhood.

But the moment you saw that— saw the flames that climbed past your floor, reaching higher, charring the building’s exterior to a point you could only imagine left everything inside nothing but indistinguishable ash— you didn’t care about your job or your ex or any of the things you’d just lost inside your home.

All you cared about, as your chest began to tighten and tears began to well in your eyes, was your cat. Sarafina. Your beloved three-legged baby.

“Oh my god—” you choked out as you raised a hand to cover your mouth and muffle the first round of sobs that began to spill out, feeling your knees buckle and threaten to collapse under your weight, your legs suddenly going numb.

After that, no more coherent words would come. There was just the immense agony of fresh grief followed by the hollow expanse only acceptance of such a great loss could provide.

She’d been with you for six years. You’d raised her from four weeks old, rescued her as a stray in the alley beside your apartment where the mother had abandoned the kitten due to its disability and likely low survival rate. You’d hand fed her, spent countless sleepless nights ensuring she would have the best start to growing into the healthiest, happiest companion she could given that first month of starvation and struggle.

You’d saved her, and in return, over the years, she’d come to save you in so many unexpected ways. She was your furry little angel. Your Sarafina.

And now, just like all the other foundations of your life, she was gone.

“There you are!” you heard a familiar voice tremble from behind you. “I was so worried! Thank god you got out in time!”

It was your next door neighbour, a sweet, elderly woman who often invited you over for dinner or offered you her baked goods, since she knew you lived alone and far away from your family.

For a while, you could only look at her, everything else in your world seeming to blur at the corners, slowly closing in around you until you wouldn’t be able to make sense of anything. She continued to speak but your ears were ringing so badly you couldn’t quite hear what it was she was saying. You caught sight of something in her arms, a wriggling bundle clutched close to her chest, and when you realized what she was holding, the world around you quickly snapped back into focus, the nearby blare of approaching sirens slicing into the chaotic soundscape.

“—so worried, poor thing was practically wailing behind the door…” That’s when she exposed the creature in her grasp a little more to you, the cream-colored head of your beloved cat popping out from the baby blanket your neighbour had wrapped her in.

You didn’t even think. You just leapt into action, taking Sarafina from her arms so you could cradle her in yours, trying to believe that this was real and not just some elaborate hallucination your anguish had tried to shield you with. But as you nuzzled your nose into the top of her head, pressing kiss after immensely relieved kiss to the spot between her big, curious eyes, you felt how solid and warm, albeit shaking, she was in your arms.

She was real.

She was alive.

You hadn’t lost everything in the end after all.

As you looked over at your neighbour again with misty eyes, though this time for an entirely different reason, you breathed out a trembling, “Thank you…” You couldn’t even begin to comprehend what you would’ve done if you’d truly lost her.

“Of course, dear,” your neighbour said, placing a wrinkled hand on your arm and giving it a light squeeze in an attempt to comfort you. “It’s a good thing I still had that spare key you gave me. I was happy to help.”

After that, the surrounding crowd of familiar faces and strangers alike congregated closer for a short time while one of the heroes on duty delivered some information for those who’d been affected before dispersing and going on their ways to seek out additional help or services. Your neighbour had asked you if you had a place you could stay for the foreseeable future, at least until they relocated the residents until the needed repairs were finished, which would likely be months, if not longer.

“Luckily my grandson lives one prefecture over,” she explained, seeming a little burdened by making travel arrangements, if anything, more so than worried about the actual long term effects of what having her home and everything in it burn down actually meant. “I suppose I should give him a call, just in case he hasn’t seen the news…” She seemed to contemplate something for a moment, then looked at you and offered to see if he had enough room for you to tag along as well, but you were already denying her generosity before she’d even finished extending the invitation.

“I’ll figure something out…” you replied. “Thank you, though. And thank you for saving my cat.”

With that, your neighbour bid you good luck and farewell and you were left to fend for yourself.

In truth, you didn’t have anywhere to go. You thought about reaching out to your now ex-boyfriend but suddenly he wasn’t picking up your calls and his voicemail was full, though whether that was because he was still at work and on do not disturb or just blatantly ignoring you in fear of retaliation at his cowardly text message was unclear. So, with Sarafina still bundled in the blanket and held close to your chest, you set out in hopes of finding some means of a roof over your head until you could regroup.

The sun was beginning to set within the next few hours and you weren’t feeling very optimistic. You’d tried several short-term shelters but they were already full, others who were in the exact same boat as you already having claimed the empty beds. You were trying to search the internet to see if there were any nearby hostels that might be able to accommodate you, but none of them allowed pets. You didn’t have enough money for an Airbnb or hotel room. Your best friend was on vacation and not coming back for another week, not to mention she also lived in an apartment so there was nowhere for her to hide a spare key. Your phone was almost dead. Every manga cafe or konbini you tried to enter to see if anyone had a charger you could borrow began to usher you out the moment they caught sight of the animal you had in tow…

As you paced about the streets, utterly, hopelessly dejected and forlorn, the people traffic was finally beginning to thin. You were running out of viable options and time left before darkness fell over the city and you found yourself in potential danger. You grew anxious and frustrated, knowing you could only cover so much ground on two feet.

Though, perhaps it might be a little easier with three.

So, you decided to use the one and only advantage you had left in your current position. Your quirk— the ability to temporarily control and see through the eyes of certain animals, and, lucky for you, cats just happened to be your best match.

“Think you can help us out, Sarafina?” you murmured to your cat, who’d ceased her panicked quaking about an hour ago and returned to her usual calm disposition that you’d come to take comfort in. Slowly, you lowered her towards the street, carefully helping her untangle her folded limbs from the blanket.

For a cat with one less leg than most others of her kind, Sarafina got around exceptionally well. She had two front paws and one back one and, having been born into the world that way, her balance and reflexes seemed to work just fine. She was your little trooper, the most important hero you’d ever encountered in your own personal life, and as you activated your quirk, her world became yours.

It worked as a sort of double consciousness when you entered Sarafina’s mind, but it still required a high amount of concentration so for the meantime you veered off to the side of the street in order to avoid any accidental collisions with other passersby in your own body. From there, you were able to focus solely on the path you navigated through the crowds with your new feline view.

Bobbing and weaving through the sea of shoes— shiny black business loafers and multi-colored converse and everything in between— you quickly made your way towards the less favorable parts of town. The streets became more narrow, the veil of litter thicker along the curb, and after getting more than your fair share of sinister glances from the residents and clientele of the area you decided to turn down an empty stretch of alley to avoid getting cat-napped by any shady characters skulking around.

At least, you’d thought the alley had been empty. But, after a quick glance over your shoulder to make sure you weren’t being followed, the next time you looked forward, your green, glass-marble gaze landed on the silhouette of a girl.

You stopped short in Sarafina’s body, causing the cat to stagger and stumble slightly as it attempted to catch its footing. Then, as the figure turned to look your way, her amber eyes cutting through the dark, you felt every hair on your spine raise as your back curved into an anxious arch. Your lips pulled back into a teeth-baring hiss and, for a moment, you found you weren’t in complete control of this mission anymore.

“Oh!” As the girl’s chipper tone rang out against the cold concrete and brick as she scampered over to get a closer look at the strange little creature now in her presence, you could feel Sarafina’s will tugging against your own, fighting, thrashing, the closer the girl approached as if on instinct. You struggled to hold firm. Perhaps you should’ve trusted your cat’s animal instincts when it came to danger, but at the moment you were too focused on hoping that this girl could give you a lead.

She crouched down before the fearful, feisty little feline, hugging her knees against her chest as she beamed and hummed a lilting giggle through closed lips. She held out her hand, offering it up for the cat to sniff, and you urged Sarafina to give her a chance. Eventually, when you felt the body you were currently occupying begin to relax a little, you were able to lean forward and sniff the back of her hand. Then, very much against Sarafina’s own character, you nuzzled the cat’s head into the girl’s palm, peeking up at her to gauge her reaction, feeling hopeful when her pink cheeks blushed a slightly darker shade and her smile widened to show that she also had two pointed little fangs present among each row of her teeth.

You wondered if she also had a cat-related quirk, but that curiosity was swept away and replaced with panic when she slid her hands beneath your arms and hoisted you up to rest against her chest, continuing further down the alley. “Why don’t you come with me,” she suggested, “and we’ll find you something to eat?”

This would’ve been all good and fine, except for the fact that, with each step she took further away, the more you realized that you were about to reach the limit of your quirk’s capacity. Shared consciousness could only travel so far, and the fact that you’d been able to feel Sarafina’s will fighting against your own should’ve been your first clue, only you’d written it off as a strong enough fear that had just been peeking through.

As more dread filled your chest you tried (and failed) to wriggle free of the girl’s surprisingly strong hold. The last thing you were able to do before the thin line stretching between you and your cat was cut was let out a distressed yowl. Then you found yourself plunged back into your own brain, your own body, left leaning against the corner of a building by the curb and gulping down quick, shallow breaths.

You’d just lost everything.

You couldn’t lose Sarafina too.

So, not wasting a single moment, you took off running in the direction of the alley, trying every few steps to reach out into the vast dark and connect with Sarafina’s consciousness again.

It was much harder to move through thick crowds of people when you were the same size as half of them, forcing you to push and shove your way through those who stood in your way and earning you much gasping and grumbling and shouting from those you’d frightened or offended. Though the opinion of strangers hardly mattered to you right now. All you cared about was finding your beloved cat, and as you neared closer to the alley where you’d last seen her, once again casting your net and searching through the web of animals whose consciousness you could connect to— birds and squirrels and dogs that were currently out on their walks— you finally spotted the aura that unmistakably belonged to your cat.

You latched onto that little flicker of energy and a few seconds later found yourself once again being carried by the sharp-toothed girl.

But, unlike your last excursion using the body of your cat, you couldn’t afford to pull over and park your own body on the side of the curb. This time you had to keep running, to focus on what both your bodies were doing, though, as you used a majority of your mental energy to see through two different perspectives, you figured the best thing to do right now in order to assure that you caught up with the girl was to just let Sarafina’s body rest while yours booked it down the unfamiliar twists and turns of the sketchiest parts of the city.

“Hey!” you called out when you finally spotted the back of the girl’s blonde head, her two messy buns bobbing from further down the next street you turned down. “Stop! Wait!” But she was already turning the next corner, forcing you to sprint another block.

When you finally made it around the next turn, you half expected her to have disappeared, or at the very least be halfway down the next block, so when you nearly plowed straight into her, you were startled to say the least.

“You’re following me…” she stated, narrowing her eyes suspiciously as her cheshire’s grin only widened, those fangs of hers glinting in the last dying strokes of daylight.

All you could think to pant out in response to that was, “You have my cat.”

The girl scanned you up and down with a quick flick of her gaze, as if trying to size you up, then her sinister smile dropped and she gave a simple, “Oh.”

Sarafina squirmed in the teenager’s hold on her own accord until finally the girl let her go, your cat leaping from her grip and quickly scrambling to hide behind your feet, watching the stranger with wide, startled eyes but not seeming as hostile as before.

As you reached down to scoop Sarafina up, feeling her become calmer in your embrace, you figured that, even though you were out of breath and out of options, at least you had your cat back in your care.

“Seems like you came a long way…” the girl noted with subtle sarcasm. “How’d you find me?”

“It’s my quirk,” you admitted, seeing no harm in telling the truth. “It allows me to see through the eyes of animals…” You saw something in her amber gaze shift from distrust to intrigue. “Up to a certain range,” you added on afterward. “That’s why I had to run. If she got too far out of my range I might never have been able to find her again…”

“What did you say your name was again?” she asked, though you couldn’t tell if it was skepticism or curiosity that was woven into the inquiry.

You blinked at her. “I didn’t…”

“Well I’m Toga!” she introduced cheerily. 

“Ok…” you responded, suddenly feeling awkward and very much wanting to get back to your search for a place to sleep for the night. “Well I should probably get going… I still have a few shelters to check for any openings and—”

“You’re from that building that burned down earlier today,” Toga asked, the sight of that mischievous grin splitting across her face making you feel a little uneasy, “aren’t you?”

You told her that, yes, unfortunately you were from that building that burned down earlier today, and for the past several hours you’d been wandering around trying to find any place that could provide a roof over both your head and your cat’s for enough time for you to catch your bearings and secure a better plan.

“Well if it’s a roof you need,” she proposed, “then I might know a place…” Another flash of that ominous grin had you hesitant to trust her invitation, even if it was your only option. “Though, it might cost you…”

You tried to swallow down the fear. How could a teenage girl be this intimidating? But, then again, the further you aged from that demographic the more weary of them you became.

“I don’t have much money on me right now,” you explained, trying your best to keep your voice even. “But if I can get to an ATM tomorrow I might be able to—”

“Oh, I’m not talking about money,” Toga was quick to clarify. Then, even more bluntly, “I’m talking about your quirk.” You couldn’t quite place why, but that notion sent a wave of chills skittering up your spine. You’d heard all kinds of horror stories over the years about people being kidnapped or exploited for their quirks, just another reason why you tended to keep yours to yourself, but so long as you weren’t going to have to be involved in hurting anyone, you figured it might be a fair trade for a place to stay.

However, when you relayed this to Toga, the response she gave wasn’t entirely reassuring.

“Hmm… Well, since your quirk isn’t very strength related, I doubt he’d suggest you be involved in anything too…” But then her words trailed off. You were about to ask her who he was, and just where exactly, and with who, it was that she lived, but, having already decided that she was going to take you back and introduce you to whatever awaited you on the other side of this questionable decision, Toga quickly cut in with an almost apologetic, “Oh, but you might want to leave your cat somewhere a little less…”

You hugged Sarafina closer to your chest protectively. If this arrangement required you to be separated again then you weren’t interested. “Well, actually, I guess since it’s related to your quirk, it’s fine,” Toga shrugged. “It’s just— there’s a couple people who might not like cats very much and…” The girl ended up in a fit of rambling that you mostly tuned out, just focusing on trying to stay calm and pressing gentle kisses into the space between your cat’s eyes as she purred in your arms.

You were exhausted, both mentally and physically at this point, and you were starting to think you’d do just about anything for a place to lay down for a while.

“Anyway!” Toga beamed, back to being bubbly and blushing. “The place isn’t too far! So why don’t we get going before the real bad guys come out of hiding, hm?”

***

As much as you’d tried to brush off her earlier statement as a dark-humored joke, it turns out Toga hadn’t been kidding when she’d alluded to more nefarious villains crawling out from the dark corners of the downtown streets the thicker the night became.

And, in all honesty, you hadn’t even thought to consider the teenage girl possibly being one of them until you’d reached the building, shelter, hideout perhaps, that she claimed to reside within. But what were you to do, really? Say you’d changed your mind because the place didn’t match up to your standards? It was a little late for that now, and if she really was a villain, you didn’t think insulting her home was going to end very well for you.

“How many people live here?” you suddenly thought to ask. She said it depended on the time of day, which didn’t make you feel any better, but before you could press further she once again reminded you that you should probably find a place to stash the cat before you reluctantly followed her inside. You eyed Sarafina nervously before preparing to part ways, her big green eyes gazing up at you in a way that nearly broke your heart, once again anxious and confused.

“Don’t worry,” you told her, lowering her towards the pavement. “Just be good and wait for me somewhere safe. I’ll find you a way in once I check things out.” And, with that, your cat scampered off to hide in the shadows and await further instructions.

With the feeling of dread only weighing heavier inside you the further down the first hall that you trailed after Toga, once the door opened to reveal what looked like a small bar and a couple strangers seated inside, some of that fear was temporarily replaced with confusion.

“I’m back!” Toga announced, sounding as if her return was something to be celebrated, though the three figures currently in attendance barely even glanced her way.

That was, until they realized she’d brought company.

Then you found yourself under the strict scrutiny of various sets of eyes following a startled double take from almost all of them.

“The fuck?” one them— a patchwork-scarred man with piercing blue eyes and spiky black hair— drawled, the silver staples at one corner of his mouth tugging at his skin as he sneered, looking rather uncomfortable, but then again, you figured that was probably the least of his discomfort given literally everything else about him. “Toga, what did he say about bringing your friends back here? You tryna get us all arrested or some shit?”

Despite his harsh, and rather concerning words, the man’s tone came off as mostly tired and disinterested. But you could see it in his eyes, all that sapphire blazing with contempt. You really wish you could turn back, but now there were several people who would likely hunt you down if you tried to flee.

“Oh, she’s fine!” Toga said, brushing off her friend? Roommate? You had no idea what kind of situation would pair a teenage girl and a guy like that together, let alone leave them living under the same roof. “Besides, she has a pretty cool quirk! And she needs a place to stay—”

“Himiko Toga…” the figure behind the bar, who seemed more mist than man, began, setting down the glass he’d been in the middle of cleaning and slightly narrowing his glowing yellow gaze at her. His voice was even but firm as he said, “I believe it has been made very clear to everyone here that no guests are allowed until they are vetted through the proper channels…” He turned his otherworldly stare onto you and you reflexively took half a step back. Then he said, “Did Giran send you?”

Now, even more nervous and confused than before, you stuttered out an anxious, “Sorry— Look, I guess I made a mistake. I can go and just—”

“You’re not going anywhere, actually,” a rough, crackling voice rasped from the doorway behind you. You flinched and then turned, blood running cold as your eyes met silver and carmine.

“Uh… I’m— I—” you stammered, trying to still your trembling hands and smooth out your shaking voice. Then, seeming to finally reach your limit, your eyes filled with tears and you blurted out, “Look, my house burned down and I lost my job and I got broken up with all within the same day and I’m tired and hungry and I just need a place to stay for the night, ok?”

The pathetic whine that got tangled up at the end of your sentence didn’t seem to earn you any sympathy from anyone, not even the anthropomorphic lizard who’d remained mostly silent through all of this and simply observed with wide eyes as he darted his stare back and forth between you and the other men accompanying him at the bar counter.

The man in the doorway, who somehow looked like the most worn out one in the room, hesitated for but a moment before he quickly started towards you in an aggressive stride, one of his hands halfway lifted with intentions you could only assume were going to bare consequences to you, but Toga was standing between you two with her arms outstretched as if to deescalate the situation.

“Wait!” she shouted, causing the man, who, the more you looked at him, the more you started to think you’d seen him somewhere before, or at least seen those eyes, the image of them cutting through the silvery dark and trying to rise from the dead in the graveyard of some distant memory filled with tv static and chaos, to stop short, though his gaze remained trained intently on you. “There’s a good reason I brought her here! I swear!”

The man’s malicious stare narrowed as he studied you, not even bothering to look Toga’s way as he spoke to her. “Doesn’t matter,” he said, and you felt every muscle inside you recoil, begging you to at least try and make a run for it, though no matter which angle you looked at it, your odds of escape didn’t seem very good. “If she’s not from Giran then she could be a plant from the heroes. Or a spy…”

The more you looked at him, despite the adrenaline pumping and the cacophony of fear swelling within you to its ultimate crescendo, the more you became confident that you had, indeed, seen him somewhere before.

Just not his face.

When they’d broadcast the story about the aftermath of the breakin and attack at UA way back when, his features had been carefully concealed beneath a mask— a hand— but now that you were seeing it up close, those silvery waves and that spindly frame could only belong to the same person you’d seen in the grainy, blurred photographs depicting the suspect on the news.

You were standing in the middle of the League of Villains headquarters, a helpless little fly caught in the hungry spider’s web with no way out that didn’t end in you left in a pile of pitiful dust on the uneven hardwood floors.

“I’m not a spy—” you desperately cut in. Though, in hindsight, that’s exactly what a spy would say, wouldn’t they? “I’m not… I didn’t want to come here!”

Tomura Shigaraki then seemed to consider this whole predicament from a new angle, relaxing his stance just a hair as he pondered over the possibilities. He could just decay you and be done with this headache, or…

He could find a use for you.

“I’m assuming the only reason you were brought here—” Tomura eyed Toga in a way that was so sharp it could’ve cut had she been standing any closer to him before flicking all that visceral crimson back to you, “was because you have a quirk that could be useful for the party as a whole…” You tried not to raise a brow at the implication of being added to the so-called party against your will and exploited for your quirk, but couldn’t suppress the urge to swallow down the lump that had been forming in your throat. “So out with it then,” he demanded, taking a step closer to you and crossing his arms over his chest, Toga taking another step back as if still intending to defend you if he attempted to reach out again. “What’s your quirk?”

You had to go about this carefully. Say too much and you might become their prisoner, say too little and you might find yourself on the missing persons list.

So you gave the most basic explanation you could think of— the one you tended to rattle off whenever someone asked you by means of smalltalk— that you had the ability to see through the eyes of certain animals within a certain range.

Though, of course, you should’ve known better than to assume the leader of the League of Villains would just leave it at that.

Thus began the barrage of follow up questions. Which animals? It depends, though cats, dogs, and birds were what you’d had the most experience with thus far. Can you control them? Most of the time, yes, but it depends. How far is the range? It depends. What happens to your consciousness and body when you’re in their heads? It depends. Do you have any other answer to a question than ‘it depends’?

“Ok, look…” you began, slow and steady so as not to reignite the tension in the room, the way his eyes had narrowed in anger more and more with every answer you gave making you feel like a bomb was about to go off. “I’ve lost just about everything I have. So what, right? Why should you care? But can you least just give me a moment to think all this through—”

The scarred man huffed out a cruel breath of a laugh, clearly mocking you and once again reminding you that you would find no sympathy here.

Meanwhile, as if trying to rewrite his most recent plan to figure out how your quirk could fit into it, Tomura once again retreated to his inner pondering. Then he looked at you and stated with a threatening amount of finality, “Well, if you weren’t a spy before, then you can consider yourself one now.”

You felt sick. You felt like your vision was tunneling and soon the whole world would collapse around you where you stood.

“So, for now, you can stay, but—” You felt like every fear you’d ever had was reborn inside of you at once, an amalgamation of despair and horror and distress swirling in a catastrophic tornado. Tomura took another step closer to you, arresting every urge you had to turn and run with a single stare. “If I get any notion that you’ll betray us…” Every word that he said was a threat, tone laced with venom and vengeance. “I’ll kill you on the spot. Got it?”

You learned that, though you thought that you’d lost everything, there had still been one last thing left the universe could take from you.

Your freedom.

You tried to hold back the squeak that was rising up your throat, again swallowing over the lump that had formed there as you nodded your head in terrified understanding. And then, just as quickly as it had seeped into the room, that air of murderous tension seemed to dissipate, Tomura stepping back to retreat to wherever he’d come from among the second story of the building.

***

You’d been delegated as Toga’s responsibility, though the girl couldn’t have been more happy to have a new friend and, seeing the personal quarters of the place were running low, a new roommate as well. It was only after you’d used your quirk to merge with Sarafina that you were able to guide her up the several dumpsters, crates, and boxes to the thin ledge that ran along the side of the building that Toga’s room was on, pry open the dirty window, and allow your cat inside, trying to muffle your weeping sobs as you held her close and dampened her cream colored fur with your unending stream of tears.

Toga was nice enough to give you your privacy for an hour or two at least, returning once she’d pressed her ear to the door and felt relief that she couldn’t hear you crying anymore, bringing with her some water and snacks and a spare blanket as she reentered the room.

“It’s not much,” she said as she slid you a granola bar and a sandwich she’d swiped from one of the local konbinis. “But it’s better than nothing, right?” 

She offered you a softer smile, seemingly the only one who was sympathetic to your current situation, even though she’d been the one directly responsible for it. But you didn’t blame her. Perhaps because you knew, if you did, then you’d be all alone in your sorrow and suffering. She didn’t apologize and she didn’t tell you it would get better. She sat with you and tried to offer what small comforts she could— her favorite hard candies, her favorite plushie, the new album she’d been listening to recently that she really liked— and she’d just talked to you, rambling about anything she could think of until eventually you found yourself dozing off, your cat curled up by your feet.

You hoped that, when you woke up in the morning, all of this— this entire traumatic day— would be nothing but some horrible dream.

You were a lot of things.

Lucky wasn’t one of them right now.

***

As the next week passed in thick, tense silence, you and Sarafina grew restless. You kept going back and forth between slipping away in the night and finding a real place to stay until you regrouped and formed a stable plan— not that you thought one of them, now that you’d met all eight of the current members, wouldn’t track you down and either drag you back or just kill you— or staying and risking finding a place for yourself among them here.

You’d never wanted to be a hero and you definitely didn’t want to be a villain either, but you’d be lying if you said it didn’t feel at least a little temping at times. Because when you and Toga sat together in the room you now shared, Sarafina curled up on one of your laps (your cat had begun to take quite a liking to her, despite her initial fear of the fanged teen) as you chatted about what your lives were like before passing the threshold of the bar door that had inevitably sealed both your fates, you actually found yourself feeling content, dare you consider it actual relief or happiness.

Toga was the friend you always thought you’d have— chipper, lively, a little twisted but ultimately funny. But she had been through a lot. Much more than you probably would’ve been able to stomach, which also made her capable and cunning.

At least, with her, the torture of awaiting the role Tomura would force you to play in his upcoming schemes became a little less intense. She granted you a distraction, even if only a little, and she got along with your cat on top of it.

Toga and Sarafina became your only comforts in your small little world.

But, like most things in your life as of late, something was sure to swoop in and try to destroy it all.

***

You’d been approaching the end of your second week with the League when your secret got out to the rest of them.

Well, really, the secret got out to one of them— the man with the cold blue eyes who you now knew as Dabi— who then spread it to everyone else like a spark that ignites into a wildfire.

“Get rid of it,” was Tomura’s initial reaction when he’d first found out, everyone gathered around to witness the conflict with varying degrees of confusion, amusement, and worry as you stood in the middle of the bar clutching Sarafina close to your chest, ready to sacrifice yourself to shield her if those deadly hands of his made any sudden moves.

“Well if she goes, I go!” you protested.

As soon as the words left your mouth you felt your fear spike, a quiet gasp following your bold statement when you saw Tomura’s hands flex. You knew what those hands could do, the horrors they were capable of, so you figured you’d better make your case before the leader of the League of Villains turned both you and your cat to dust.

“Besides!” you argued, trying to shake the quiver in your voice and fight off the tears that threatened to well in your eyes. “She’s the animal most compatible with my quirk! It’s more effective the more the animal trusts me!” Which, in all honesty, was just a theory you had, though in this case you were more than willing to swear it as fact.

“Ok, fine…” Tomura huffed, shoving his hands into his hoodie pocket, which only made you slightly less nervous. “But if you don’t prove both yourself and the cat useful on the next mission…” He turned, as if to leave, but shot you a scathing glare over his shoulder which made your blood turn to ice. A crooked grin split across cracked lips as Tomura said, threatened, challenged, “I’ll make sure the two of you don’t have to worry about finding a new place to live.”

With that, he departed, causing you to quickly retreat back to Toga’s room to once again cry in private, keeping Sarafina in your arms as you repeatedly kissed the top of her head, murmuring words to her about how you’d never let anyone hurt her or keep the two of you apart.

When Toga came to check on you, she tried to offer consolation but you both knew there wasn’t much to be done. You couldn’t just leave. If that much hadn’t been blatantly clear to you at the start, every day spent here was only further reinforcement of that damning fact. But you couldn’t very well stay if the threat of Tomura Shigaraki decaying your cat remained hanging over your head.

Who you really hated at the moment, though, was Dabi. Even after Toga made him apologize (which was really nothing more than a disinterested, insincere drone of, “Sorry, I guess…”) you were still mad. The shadowy bartender, Kurogiri, seemed neutral on the whole cat debacle, so long as it didn’t hinder Tomura’s plans. The man with the lizard quirk, Spinner, seemed intent on staying out of it, though wished you luck on the upcoming task, the odd man with the duplication quirk called Twice (though after he’d introduced himself with that name he’d immediately backtracked and insisted you refer to him as Jin) would extend his sympathies only to retract them moments later (you were still trying to figure him out), and the initially intimidating woman known as Magne had actually come around to you more once she learned of Sarafina’s existence, for whatever reason.

Other than Tomura, no one seemed to have any strong objections to Sarafina’s presence, so long as the litter box was kept away from all of their rooms (which wasn’t easy in a place that had become this cramped with residents) and you cleaned up after her. Dabi avoided the cat, acted cold and disinterested, was probably more likely to torment her than anything else, though once you’d caught him holding out the back of his hand for her to sniff when he thought you weren’t looking. Toga stole cans of cat food whenever she could and once or twice even Jin let the creature nuzzle its face against his arm if he was sitting at the bar and she happened to hop up onto the counter. Spinner seemed wary of her but became slightly less nervous after Magne convinced him she was mostly harmless.

However, out of all of the misfits that comprised the League, it was the energetic and eccentric man known as Mr. Compress who enthusiastically offered up the fact that he was also a fellow cat-lover.

“She’s just a little sweetheart, isn’t she?” the usually masked man, currently devoid of his disguise, cooed as he came to sit beside you at the bar one evening, Sarafina resting nice and cozy in your lap. You smiled and gave your cat’s chin a little scratch. She tilted her head up to allow you more space as she began to purr, her squinting eyes glancing at Compress out of the corner of her vision.

“Yeah, she is,” you confirmed, your voice soft as you continued to dote on your cat. “She can be picky about who she shows that side of her personality to, though.”

Compress leaned in closer, moving slowly so as to not startle Sarafina. “What happened?” he asked, then further clarified with, “Her leg. Was it always missing, or…”

“Oh—” you perked up, Sarafina twitching a bit in response. “Yeah… She was born like that. At least, I think she was.” You went on to regale the story of how you’d found her, so tiny and abandoned, in the alley that ran alongside your apartment, and how you’d nursed her back to health and become her forever home along the way. 

“Ah…” he seemed to contemplate, like he understood. Then he said, resting his chin in his palm and gazing upon the three-legged cat dreamily, “You just couldn’t help but fall in love…”

You told him yes, you supposed you had, and then thought to yourself privately that you dreaded the inevitable day where she would be gone from your life. You’d be forced to move on without her, and even if you got another cat someday, it would never be the same.

“And what about you?” you asked, trying to pull yourself from those depressing thoughts. “Did you ever have cats, or…?”

Atsuhiro exhaled a reminiscent chuckle. “If you count feeding strays in my neighbourhood growing up,” he said, “then yes, I suppose I had quite a few.”

You listened as he recalled some of his favorite ones, the silly names his childhood self had given them, and found yourself thinking about how, perhaps in another life, one where none of these people had fallen into villainy for some reason or another, they’d all have lived lives not so dissimilar to one you’d had before the fire. You could easily see yourself getting along with Atsuhiro, along with Toga, of course, if you’d just happened to meet them in passing.

Maybe you would’ve been neighbours. Maybe you would’ve made sure to check in on each other’s pets when the other was away. It made you consider, perhaps for the first time, that maybe it wasn’t entirely the villain’s fault for becoming that way, that maybe it was society that had done them wrong in some way, set them on the wrong path, or maybe never given them the chance to get on the right one in the first place.

Because, hero or villain or just plain old civilian, everyone had hopes and dreams and things they’d once desired for their lives. Everyone had once just been a child, and some of those children had fed stray cats.

Now that didn’t sound like a very evil thing to do, did it?

***

The mission comes and goes and you prove yourself useful.

You’d been tasked with stalking a UA student throughout the week, charting his daily schedule, his usual habits and patterns. Something about insurance for a plan B if the initial kidnapping attempt went wrong.

When you reported back, you felt a pang of guilt surge within you. He was just a kid. A teenage boy. When you tried to press for more information the general consensus just seemed to be that they were trying to recruit him. That he’d been the winner of UA’s sports festival and might have what it takes to be a good addition to their group. Not quite knowing exactly what the League had in store for him made you feel awful. But maybe it was better that you didn’t know.

It gave you a false sense of hope in thinking you might be able to escape all of this and still view yourself as a good person in the end.

***

Another couple of weeks passed in the blink of an eye, but with Tomura’s stamp of approval that Sarafina could stay after your successful mission, so long as you kept her off the bar counters going forward, you felt you could relax a little bit.

Almost all of them, including Toga, prepared to head out to commence plan A. Tomura had initially ordered you to come along, use your quirk to help scout out the surrounding area, but due to the constant use of it during the week you’d spent following the highschooler around in the bodies of birds and squirrels almost around the clock, you’d fallen victim to the severe migraines that could occur due to an overuse of your quirk, the pain showing up with a delay, building, then gradually subsiding again, which could take a week or more to recover from if you really went overboard.

Or at least, that’s what you now had to convince everyone of anyway.

So he’d let you stay behind, albeit very begrudgingly, which had surprised you. Now, as they recounted the plan one last time and took a final stock of their supplies, Sarafina watched them from her perch on the arm of the couch, alert and curious. Atsuhiro came over and bid Sarafina, and yourself, a personal farewell, patting the cat’s head and saying something about the gesture being for good luck.

“Get some rest,” he reminded you. You nodded and promised him you would.

“Feel better!” Toga chirped as she departed, and you gave her a bittersweet wave goodbye.

One by one, you watched them leave until only you and Kurogiri were left.

You took a seat at the bar, slowly sipping at a glass of water as you held your head in your hand and kept your eyes closed and, against Tomura’s wishes, allowed Sarafina to leap onto the counter one last time. As night approached, you took your leave and retreated back up to Toga’s room.

Then you pried open the window and dropped down onto the dumpster below, wincing when you made noise, but urging Sarafina to jump, to trust that you would catch her.

And she was hesitant, if not outright refusing.

It was almost like she didn’t want to leave, so you had no choice but to activate your quirk and leap down into your own arms before heading as far from that part of town as you possibly could.

Your cat seemed content to make a home here. You just weren’t sure yet whether you really felt you belonged. Though, if your intuition was anything to go by, this probably wouldn’t be the last time you saw them.

It was only a matter of time until one of them dragged you back or left no witnesses. You just hoped it was Toga or Atsuhiro who came to reclaim you. 

Until then though, you and Sarafina had better find yourselves a place to stay.

***

(Thank you to @supernatural-hunter1 for your request and I hope you enjoyed! Also I know I left the ending so ambiguous but I couldn’t think of how to end it. Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful day and remember to do something kind for yourself. Byyyyye <3)

[twopoppies]

Hi Gina ! This is a weird question, maybe more of an opinion haha… but I know twitter has always had kinda of a bad reputation on here. People on here usually say twitter is a messy hell hole that they don’t want to get into and I totally get that. But I was just wondering if you knew why ? Like why is Twitter like that, but also why tumblr users always think twitter is so much worse while tumblr can also have some pretty crude and chaotic comments/takes.

I started on twitter and I’m a lot less on it now because it’s became a lot worse in the last months, but this idea of twitter has always been there. Like even I first joined, the idea that tumblr was the superior platform, that the real ones were only on there, the core of the fandom etc,

Well, I think everyone is going to have their own opinions—probably based on where they feel most comfortable. But, in a very general sense, I think the Tumblr fandom may tend to skew a little older, so perhaps it’s a tiny bit less volatile and blogs tended to stick around a long time (vs Twitter). But I think it has more to do with Tumblr being a platform that makes long discussion simpler, as well as being compatible with linking large quantities of information for backup of those discussions. So years ago Tumblr became a place with tons of masterposts and stored “proof”.

This idea of it being where “real fans” are probably just started during the pandemic because there was an enormous influx of new fans—most of whom went to twitter because it was a much more popular platform to use (especially among younger people). The bulk of these new fans were new Harry fans because of Watermelon Sugar/Fine Line and therefore were coming into the fandom without the benefit of having almost a decade of information. Their behavior ruffled a lot of feathers because it drastically changed the energy of the fandom as it had existed. That’s not always a bad thing, I think it was just a lot of what they were saying was not only factually incorrect (making statements about the meaning of things without any knowledge of the history behind it, claiming things to be “proof” when it had been debunked years earlier etc) but also seemed entirely unnecessary and confusing (ie: this whole idea of no-stunts larries and buzzing larries etc etc) and many of them behaved as though nothing that had happened before them was of any importance. When there was suddenly a huge exodus from Twitter to Tumblr it became worse because we were flooded with fans who seemed incapable of doing their own research and just bombarded our ask boxes with demands to clarify even the smallest things that had gained years prior. This also meant many things that were just accepted as fact because people had lived through the events in real time were being constantly questioned and ignored if the “proof” wasn’t considered sufficient.

Beyond that, yes, Tumblr definitely can be messy and people are sometimes nasty and send idiotic anonymous hate mail. However, it’s much easier here to block that stuff out and curate a space where you see what you want to see, than it is on Twitter. And, for the most part, people here don’t publicly talk in a nasty way about other people/people’s fics/people’s art etc. whereas that seems to be a common occurrence on Twitter.

The Tumblr fandom is far from perfect. As I said at the start, most people just have a preference and make a home where they feel comfortable.

This is just a very basic summary and I’m sure everyone who was here at the time would have additional/different things to add. But I hope it answers your questions.