#i remember watching all my friends get tokens of love from the people they were dating at the time and I remember just being there like 🧍‍♂

[pretentiouswreckingball]

……sometimes I do resent the fact that i never got the chance to have a teenage romance :/

[mononijikayu]

from the start — fushiguro megumi.

“You’re now my friend, Fushiguro–kun!” You smile at him, turning to your snack pile and handing him one. It was a panda bread, one of those he sees at the convenience stores. “Here, as a token of our friendship!” He blinked. “...It’s okay. You can keep it. I’m not hungry—” You pouted, pushing it toward his arm. “But Fushiguro-kun, these are good! If you take them, you end up making a wish that our friendship is sweet too!” “Huh? There’s no such thing as that.”

Genre: Alternate Universe — Canon Convergence;

Warning/s: Alternate Universe, Romance, Fluff, Comfort/No Hurt, Strangers to Friends, Friends to Lovers, Sorcerer! Reader, Mild-Tsundere! Megumi, Feelings, Romantic Confession, Getting Together, First Kiss, Making Out, Light-Hearted, Humor, Protectiveness, Happy Ending;

Words: 5k words.

masterlist

kayu's playlist - side 800;

note: i rewrote this multiple times because i wasn't satisfied. i was going to upload this hours ago, but i ended up reading it and i was like 'shit this doesn't look as good as i would have liked' and now i finished it and i love it now. i hope you love it too!!! i love you all <3

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MEGUMI REMEMBERS THE DAY HE MET YOU. The sun was shining brightly that day. He could remember how the golden rays cast a warm, inviting glow over the middle school courtyard. Students milled about, enjoying their lunch break under the clear, blue sky. The air was filled with the sounds of laughter and chatter, a vibrant tapestry of youthful exuberance. 

Fushiguro Megumi doesn’t really remember when he ever partook in anything that big. Even in kindergarten, he really didn’t find himself in a big group of people, messing about. It’s something that Gojo Satoru had consistently teased him about for years. It’s not that he didn’t want to. He just didn’t know how. And if anything, it frustrates him. Because he does want to. He wants to reach out to someone and talk to them. Even just one. But he knows his reputation wouldn’t make it easy. 

He was known in school to be someone who got into trouble. And it makes it even more hard, knowing that Gojo manages to make every bit of trouble and complaint go away. a flick of a finger. Even back then, whatever the trouble — Gojo Satoru would insist.

Of course, he lectures him here and there, as any pseudo–parent would. Yet he still saves him, no matter the trouble. But it’s not like Megumi wanted trouble. Somehow, it always just finds him. Because if he was being truly honest with himself, Fushiguro Megumi doesn’t like injustice. And he hates it even more when it’s done to people minding their own business.

That’s how Megumi met you. On the third day of the school year, it was a chilly afternoon. You sat on a bench, unbothered, watching the chaos unfold with a peaceful expression as you prepared to eat lunch. The sound of laughter and chatter filled the air, people making friends and people talking about in their freetime. 

He saw you from one of the windows by the second floor. He already ate his lunch with his sister a while ago, but he wasn’t particularly hungry and her friends had come over to their spot. So, he just left to go look at the school through a window and enjoy the weather.

And then he stops at you. You were so quiet, but he could feel it. How your energy just bursts from within you. You smiled happily as your focus was fully on the carefully packed lunch box resting on your lap, filled with your favorite snacks. You seemed content with some silence, it didn’t bother you. You were just excited to eat well.

The serenity was abruptly interrupted when a sleazy boy, with a smirk that revealed a missing tooth, snatched the lunch box from your hands. Megumi always hated the kid the moment he met him too. He was a senior, but he acted like he owned the place. You would think that he would learn his lesson being knocked out by him. But he didn’t. And that annoys Megumi. Because he could continue to do horrible things. Like now. That sleazy boy’s eyes gleamed mischievously as he darted away, leaving you momentarily stunned. 

You quickly stood up and shouted, your voice slightly trembling, "Hey! Give that back!"

Megumi didn’t know how fast reacted. Jumping from out the window and into the scene, it would have taken someone much longer. But he took no time at all. That sleazy boy can feel it. Fushiguro Megumi, famed for his deeply sharp gaze. He approached the boy with the stolen lunch box and effortlessly blocked his path. 

"Hand it over, scum." he said, his voice calm but commanding, leaving no room for negotiation. “Or do you want a repeat of what happened last time, huh?”

The elder boy hesitated, caught off guard by the sudden confrontation, and glanced between him and you before reluctantly dropping the lunch box at his feet and muttering under his breath as he slinked away. 

He picked up the lunch box and walked over to you, offering it back to you. “Here you go. It didn’t drop, you know….the food.”

You took the lunch box, feeling a warmth spread across your cheeks. “Thank you. I didn’t really know what to do.”

He shrugged, his expression easy and relaxed. “No problem. I’m glad I could help.” 

You nodded, a small smile forming on your lips as you introduced yourself. “I really wasn’t expecting that. Thanks for the save. Hey, hey! What’s your name?”

“I’m Fushiguro. Fushiguro Megumi.” he replied back. “I’m from Class 1–A.”

“Ehhhh, I didn’t see you in class!” You gasped. “We’re classmates!”

Megumi thinks he would have noticed if you were his classmate. But then again, he did get bored and slacked about the other day. It’s quite possible that he didn’t just notice you. He shrugged and nodded at you. 

“I guess we are.”

“You’re now my friend, Fushiguro–kun!” You smile at him, turning to your snack pile and handing him one. It was a panda bread, one of those he sees at the convenience stores. “Here, as a token of our friendship!”

He blinked. “...It’s okay. You can keep it. I’m not hungry—”

You pouted, pushing it toward his arm. “But Fushiguro-kun, these are good! If you take them, you end up making a wish that our friendship is sweet too!”

“Huh? There’s no such thing as that.”

“But that’s my wish.” He doesn’t know how your pout got deeper. But it suited you. “Please, just take it.”

He really doesn’t know what to say. He could feel his palm embalmed with sweat. If he doesn’t take it, you might pester him even more.  And if that happens, he wouldn’t be able to leave because you’ll continue to ask him to take the panda bread. He could feel heat rising in him. He could feel it even in his ears.

“Alright, fine. Megumi relented, taking the panda bread from your hand. The soft packaging crinkled as he reluctantly accepted the snack, feeling the eyes of several classmates on him. It was strange, this sudden attention, but there was something about your insistence that he couldn’t quite ignore.

You beamed, satisfaction lighting up your face as if you’d achieved a small victory. “Yay! Now we’re officially friends!” 

Megumi glanced at the panda bread, his expression softening despite himself. He supposed it wouldn’t hurt to indulge you just this once. It’s not like its going to be something that happens on a daily basis. Anything to get you off his back.

“Thanks….I guess.” he mumbled, unwrapping the bread and taking a small bite. The sweetness of the filling surprised him. It’s good, not too sweet. He thinks it's great and he finds himself nodding in approval. 

“See?” you said, watching him intently. “Isn’t it good?”

“It’s... not bad.” Megumi admitted, trying to maintain a semblance of nonchalance. But he could feel the corners of his mouth twitching upward, a sign that perhaps your enthusiasm was contagious.

“Let’s make a deal then, Fushiguro–kun!” you proposed, eyes sparkling with mischief. “Every time we hang out, I’ll bring you a new snack to try, and you can tell me if it’s good or not. Deal?”

Megumi considered your offer, weighing the potential for more unsolicited treats against the undeniable warmth in your smile. It was hard to say no to that sort of smile. It reminds him of Tsumiki somehow. It’s….it’s pure.

“....Fine.”  he agreed finally, unable to resist the sense of camaraderie forming between you.

And just like that, Fushiguro Megumi found himself drawn into your world, a place where small gestures held deeper meanings, and new friendships could be sealed with a simple piece of panda bread. And somehow, when he walked away from you as you waved him away, he was afraid to admit it then. But, he wanted more. 

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IN A BLINK OF AN EYE, YOU WERE IN MEGUMI’S LIFE COMPLETELY. He really didn’t expect that to be the cas. But all these lunch hours turned into days together in the classroom and  turned into weeks in the abandoned classroom, and as always, your new tradition took root. It was now his normal. You were now his normal. And he couldn’t say it was a bad thing.

Every day, without fail, you would meet up. It didn’t have to be at lunchtime anymore. For a while, he didn’t know why he’d make time, but his body had gotten so used to needing to find you, to meet up. He thought you’d bother him again, and you were good at finding him.

When you did, you’d present Megumi with a new snack, each more interesting than the last. Sometimes it was a sweet treat, sometimes savory, but always chosen with care and a mischievous glint in your eye as you awaited his reaction. 

As time went on the awkwardness slowly dwindled. He felt like he was finally starting to get used to your presence in his life. You are his constant now, his routine, his day to day. Slowly but little,  Megumi found himself looking forward to these small exchanges.

At first, he couldn’t understand why. It was just a simple gesture, after all. But there was something about the way you offered him each snack, the way your eyes lit up with anticipation, that made him feel...special. It was as if you saw something in him worth noticing, something he hadn’t seen in himself.

One afternoon, as the two of you sat under a large cherry blossom tree in the school courtyard, you handed him a small box wrapped in a colorful cloth. “Today’s snack is special, Megu–chan!” you said, your voice full of excitement. “I made it myself!”

He raised an eyebrow, intrigued. He doesn’t mind you calling him that. “Really? You cooked this?”

You nodded, a hint of nervousness creeping into your smile. “I hope you like it.”

Megumi carefully unwrapped the cloth, revealing a neatly packed bento box filled with an assortment of foods. It was….it was cute. It was a dog chara–bento.His shikigami dogs. You saw his shikigami before. Very well, and he could only surmise that you were just like him. But he hadn’t asked. And he wasn’t going to do that now. 

His eyes widened in surprise. “You made all of this?”

“Yep! Go on, try it, Megu–chan!” you urged, watching him intently. “I made it all for you.”

He picked up a piece of tamagoyaki with his chopsticks, examining it before taking a bite. The sweet, fluffy texture melted in his mouth, and he couldn’t help but let out a small, appreciative hum. “This is really good, you know?” he admitted, looking at you with genuine admiration.

Your face lit up with a radiant smile. “I’m glad! I was a bit worried it wouldn’t turn out well. I really…I really tried to do well. I didn’t know your taste in bento that well yet, so I was nervous!”

Megumi shook his head, taking another bite. “You’re talented. This is better than most of the things I’ve tried from the other places. Don’t worry. You…you did great.”

The compliment seemed to fluster you, and you ducked your head, a faint blush coloring your cheeks. “Thanks, Megumi–chan! It means a lot coming from you.”

At that moment, Fushiguro Megumi thinks he felt a strange warmth spread through his chest. It was an unfamiliar sensation, one that left him slightly off-balance but not unpleasantly so. He realized he was beginning to look forward to these moments not just because of the snacks, but because of you. The easy way you talked, the kindness in your eyes, and the genuine interest you showed in him—it all made him feel like he was part of something special.

He thinks nothing of it.

He really thinks it's nothing.

He could feel his heart thump.

“Shit.” He whispers as he went home that day. “Is this….Is this something?”

He couldn’t sleep much that night, and laid in bed, thinking about you. As the days went by, Megumi found himself seeking out your company even outside of your snack-sharing ritual. You’d come over to his house now to study together, share stories about your day, and laugh over silly jokes that only the two of you found funny. 

Gojo was good at teasing him about it, Tsumiki too but she gave you space. Still….he’d endure the teasing. He liked you—well, he liked having you around. He liked how comfortable he was with you. Even if he doesn’t speak most of the time. You were fine with that. Megumi thinks he was lucky. It was easy, being with you, and he couldn’t remember the last time he felt so at ease around someone.

But with that ease came something else, something deeper and more complex that Megumi wasn’t sure he knew how to handle. He caught himself thinking about you at odd times—during class, while training. Gojo had managed to corner him in training badly and had to ask him if he was okay.

Megumi thought he was being subtle but even when he was supposed to be focused on other things. He wondered if you thought about him, too, if you felt that same inexplicable pull he did. He wished you did. He wished that you thought about him as much as he did with you. Maybe then…maybe, he’d be able to sleep at night. And dream of you.

It was during one of your afternoons together after club activities. The birds were singing, the air was clear, the sky was as blue as it could be. You hummed a song as you ran your fingers through his hair. He was reading the book aloud. You said you liked his voice and….no was hard to say. To you, especially. So, he just did as you asked. 

But now he was tired and he thought that laying on the grass was comfortable. But you furrowed your brows like you always do, so cutely —and pulled his head on your lap and pouted. You said you make comfort more than the grass did.

Megumi was lucky that his face wasn’t facing you. You would have noticed it. How red his face is. But you were too focused on the clouds. So, that he was glad about.  As you both lay on the grass watching the clouds drift by, Fushiguro Megumi found himself on the verge of admitting something he wasn’t quite ready to face.

“Hey, Megumi?” you said suddenly, breaking the comfortable silence. “You hear me? Are you awake?”

“Yeah? Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I’m really glad we became friends, you know?” you confessed, turning your head to look at him. “You make school a lot more fun. Actually….You make everything fun. You’re my bestest friend. And you just….I’m so lucky to be with you.”

He met your gaze with his blue–green gaze, feeling a rush of warmth at your words. “I��m glad too….” he replied, his voice quieter than usual. “You’re...important to me.”

The sincerity in his voice seemed to surprise you, and for a moment, neither of you spoke. Megumi was often blunt with his words. And at times, it's hard for people to understand him. But there were times he preferred to keep things to himself.

He couldn’t vocalize it well yet. But at this moment, you think you were waiting for it for a while. And you finally have it. The world around you faded into the background, leaving just the two of you in this garden of eden. 

As you smiled at him, Fushiguro Megumi felt a strange flutter in his chest, a sensation that was both exhilarating and terrifying. His chest was throbbing, over and over. He pursed his lips into a tight line, looking at you as you stared into the sky again.

He realized then that he didn’t just want to be your friend. Not anymore. He didn’t want that name anymore. He wanted to be something more, something….something beyond that. He wanted to say it, to make it real to you. To him. But nothing came out.

‘Not yet, Megumi.’ He thinks to himself. ‘Not the time.’

This was enough. For now, this is what he has. Friends. That’s better than nothing. He’d have to hear you talk about some other guy for now. He’d have to deal with your tears when this guy hurts you. He’d have to deal with being just your friend.

Your best friend. He can do it. He’s content. He can wait. This was more than he’d been able to ask for. He was content to be by your side, to bask in the warmth of your presence and enjoy the sweet moments you shared. 

Because even if he couldn’t quite find the words to express how he felt, he knew that with you, he’d found something truly special. And that was enough. At least, for now. But one day. He knew that one day he’ll find his voice. His words will make their way to you. They will. Because he….he loved you. And love? It should always make way. It will always know how to lead him there to you.

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HE NEVER THOUGHT THAT YOU WOULD JOIN HIM HERE IN TOKYO. But you were a sorcerer and you were needing training too — so you joined him. He knew from the beginning that you might be recruited by some of the other sister schools.

You after all had potential and the other sister schools would love that in their ranks. In fact, he found out later that your parents were Fukuoka alumni. They were retired sorcerers, who retired for wanting to enjoy watching you grow up. They wanted for you to attend their sorcerer school too.

But you thought it would be better for you to join him in Tokyo. You knew that being together would make it easier. You were friends, meaning you  wouldn’t have a harder situation. You’d have Megumi, as you always had.

And Gojo-sensei, as Megumi calls him now, was good at charming your parents. That had been a surprise to you, but it seems the Gojo charm was something that could not be stopped. And that settled everything. You were going to go to Tokyo with him.

Though, he couldn’t help it but  he worries about you. He knew you were perfectly capable of taking good care of yourself. He’d seen you stand your ground against Maki-senpai. But being a Jujutsu Sorcerer, there was no guarantee that you’d live another day against curses.

It terrified him to think that he would lose you, that he’d end up without you at all. He…he was close to losing Tsumiki already. And it pained him to think he would be unable to protect you. To think that you wouldn't come home after a mission.

Like always, Megumi didn’t think he’d be able to voice it out loud. He was scared of what you would think. What if you got angry at him for thinking you weren't enough? What if you thought he was belittling you?

He didn’t want it to come across badly. And he was already bad at explaining things. He sighed as his thoughts became heavy. It must have been the exhaustion from training. Yeah, he was overthinking it all. He could tell you well. You’d understand what he was saying.

Still, the nagging worry persisted, and he realized he couldn’t keep these feelings bottled up forever. Every day he spent with you, Fushiguro Megumi felt his heart swell with emotions he couldn’t quite articulate.

It was becoming harder to ignore the way his thoughts wandered to you during missions, how his heart skipped a beat when you smiled at him, and how the mere thought of losing you was unbearable. If he didn’t say something soon, he might explode, and that would be both messy and embarrassing. 

So, he decided that today was the day he would finally confess. He had to. There was no going back on this. He was in love with you from the start. He knew that. Backing out now….he’d just suffer. And so his free day was spent thinking about you and lamenting about you.

He spent the morning overthinking every possible outcome, mentally rehearsing what he would say. He had even considered writing down his feelings, but each attempt ended up crumpled in the wastebasket. He was at one point close to breaking his mirror. But he realized that would make him worry more because of bad luck. So he stopped. 

The entire day had passed, and Megumi still hadn’t managed to confess his feelings. He’d woken up with every intention of telling you how he felt, but each opportunity slipped through his fingers like sand.

In the cafeteria during breakfast, he’d seen you sitting at your usual spot, animatedly discussing the latest manga you were reading. Megumi had slid into the seat across from you, silently willing himself to say something—anything. Instead, he sat there, listening to you talk about what you were excited about today, nodding along as you spoke.

“...and then I found out there’s going to be a new chapter released next week!” you said, your eyes bright with enthusiasm. “Can you believe it, Megumi? I’ve been waiting for this arc for months!”

Megumi forced a smile, trying to focus on your words instead of the nervous energy buzzing inside him. “That’s great.” he replied, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’m glad you’re excited.”

You raised an eyebrow, sensing something was off. “You okay? You seem a little...distracted.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he lied, avoiding your gaze. “Just thinking......about some stuff.”

You accepted his answer, but he could tell you weren’t entirely convinced. You always knew what he looked like when he’s lying. But you let him do it. You don’t think that you should pry. He will open up eventually. He will tell you what’s wrong when he's ready. He always has.

Later, as the two of you went for a walk around the school grounds, Megumi tried to muster up the courage to finally speak his mind. The sun was high in the sky, casting dappled shadows through the trees as you strolled along the path. You walked close enough that your shoulders occasionally brushed, sending a thrill through Megumi each time.

“This weather is perfect these days, you know!” you remarked, tilting your head back to gaze at the sky. The sun was shining brightly, casting a warm glow over everything it touched. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves, filling the air with the fresh scent of summer. “It’s days like this that make everything feel...right, you know?”

Megumi nodded, silently agreeing as he walked beside you. He couldn’t help but notice how the sunlight highlighted the contours of your face, making you look almost ethereal. Your hair fluttered slightly in the breeze, and he found himself mesmerized by the simple beauty of the moment.

The two of you had fallen into a comfortable rhythm, your footsteps in sync as you meandered through the school grounds. The path was lined with vibrant flowers, their petals swaying gently in the breeze, adding a splash of color to the serene scene. It was a perfect setting, and Megumi knew it was the right time to speak his heart.

He could feel the words forming in his throat, the weight of them pressing against his chest. Every time he opened his mouth to speak, doubt crept in and silenced him. What if he messed up? What if he said the wrong thing and ruined everything?

He glanced at you, searching for a sign, anything that might give him the courage to speak. Your expression was peaceful, content, as you took in the beauty around you. It was moments like these that reminded him of why he’d fallen for you in the first place.

He took a deep breath, feeling the cool air fill his lungs. His heart was pounding, a relentless drumbeat that seemed to echo in his ears. Megumi knew he couldn’t let this chance slip away, not again.

“You know….” he began hesitantly, trying to sound casual despite the nerves bubbling inside him, “I’ve been thinking a lot lately.”

You turned your gaze to him, curiosity sparkling in your eyes. “Oh? About what?”

Megumi hesitated, momentarily losing his nerve. His mind raced through all the possible ways to say what he needed to. Finally, he forced himself to speak, his voice quiet but determined. He looked at you. Your eyes were the clearest he had ever seen. It took his breath away for a moment. You pat him. He forgot how to breathe.

As you walked side by side, Megumi found himself growing increasingly tense, his nerves threatening to overwhelm him. He had been working up the courage to tell you how he felt, but now that the moment was here, his heart was racing so fast that he almost forgot to breathe.

“Are you okay?” you asked suddenly, glancing at him with concern. “You haven’t breathed in a while!”

“It’s... alright. I just forgot,” he replied, trying to sound more relaxed than he felt.

You snickered, giving him a playful nudge. “What do you mean you forgot how to breathe?”

He laughed awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck. “I guess I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

You tilted your head, curiosity piqued. “Like what?”

Megumi took a deep breath, feeling the cool air steady his racing thoughts. This was it—the moment he’d been waiting for all day. He couldn’t let his nerves get the best of him now.

“About us. About how much I enjoy being around you,” he said, his words tumbling out more awkwardly than he’d hoped. “I mean, we’ve been through a lot together, and...well, I really like having you in my life.”

Your expression softened, and Megumi could see the understanding in your eyes as he continued to speak. His heart was pounding, but with every word, he felt a sense of relief, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

You paused, processing his words, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made a mistake. But then you smiled, a soft, genuine smile that eased his fears. His ears were red. He seemed embarrassed. And nervous. He looked so cute. 

“I like being around you too, Megumi.” you replied warmly, your eyes shining with sincerity. “You’re one of my closest friends. You know that. You’re my best friend.”

Megumi’s heart sank slightly at the mention of friendship, like a souffle collapsing in the oven. He could almost hear the sad trombone playing in the background. This was his one shot to get this right, and he knew he had to be clear.

“Yeah, but I mean...I like you as more than just a friend.” he blurted out, his words coming out in a rush like a nervous racehorse out of the gate. He blinks. Oh. He just said it out loud. 

You blinked, surprise flickering across your features. “Huh?”

“I...I like you,” Megumi repeated, his voice cracking slightly, sounding like he was a teenager going through puberty all over again.

“You do?” you asked, your eyes widening in disbelief, as if he’d just revealed he was secretly a wizard from another dimension. “Wait, what?!”

He nodded, feeling the weight of his confession lift from his shoulders, though it left behind a trail of awkwardness. He rubbed the back of his neck, struggling to find the right words. “Yeah... I’ve liked you for a while now, but I didn’t know how to tell you. I was afraid I’d mess things up between us. Because we’re friends, and I didn’t want to—”

Before he could finish his rambling explanation, you leaned in and planted a quick, unexpected kiss on his lips. The suddenness of it left him momentarily speechless, his blue–green eyes wide and blinking rapidly, like a startled owl. You turned, hiding your face in your hands. It was too red all over for you to even reveal. Megumi didn’t know what happened. You….you kissed him? You did it first? What happened?

“Nghh—” Megumi exclaimed, his brain short-circuiting for a moment. “That was... I mean, not that I didn’t want that, but... uh, wow.”

Finally recovered — you looked at him and still clearly amused by his flustered reaction. “I figured…… I’d shut you up before you started overthinking everything. You know, like you always do.”

He huffed, trying to regain his composure. “I don’t overthink that much.”

“Uh-huh, sure,” you teased, giving him a playful nudge. “So, does this mean we’re a thing now? Do I get to call you my boyfriend?”

Megumi hesitated, his usual stoic demeanor struggling to catch up with the situation. “I guess so. If you want to. But only if I can call you my partner.”

“Deal!” you replied with a cheeky grin. “Though I have to say, you’re not as smooth as I imagined.”

He sighed, pretending to be exasperated. “Well, sorry I’m not a charming prince. But at least I’m honest.”

“True, and that’s why I like you.” you said, leaning in to kiss him again, this time slower, savoring the moment. “From the start, you know?”

Megumi’s heart did a little flip as your lips met his, a sudden rush of warmth spreading through his chest. It was as if a dam had broken, releasing a flood of emotions he hadn’t realized he’d been holding back. He couldn’t help but smile against your lips, feeling a mixture of relief and happiness.

For a moment, the world around him faded away, leaving only the two of you in your own little bubble. The tension that had been building inside him all day melted away like snow under the sun, replaced by a sense of lightness and joy he hadn’t known he needed.

His mind, usually a constant whirl of thoughts and calculations, was blissfully quiet, focused entirely on the simple yet profound sensation of your closeness. He could feel the gentle pressure of your hand on his shoulder, grounding him in the moment.

As the kiss lingered, he became acutely aware of the details—the softness of your lips, the way you seemed to smile against him, the faint scent of your shampoo carried on the breeze. It was an odd mixture of overwhelming and comforting, as if the universe had aligned just for this perfect moment.

When you finally pulled back, he found himself at a loss for words, his usual stoic demeanor nowhere to be found. Instead, he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, his eyes searching yours for reassurance.

The look on your face—affectionate and a little amused—told him everything he needed to know. Any lingering doubts he had vanished, replaced by a newfound confidence in the bond you shared.

As the two of you broke apart, you chuckled, “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Easier than fighting a cursed spirit,” Megumi admitted, his voice tinged with relief as the corners of his mouth twitched upwards in a rare, genuine smile. The normally stoic expression he wore was softened by a warmth he could no longer hide.

He hesitated for a moment, his eyes flickering between yours with a mix of shyness and longing. “Can I…,” he began, but the rest of his sentence faltered as if the very thought of what he wanted was almost too overwhelming to put into words.

Before he could finish, you took the initiative, a playful sparkle in your eyes. You stepped closer, closing the small gap between you with a confident, yet tender, movement. Your hands found their way to his shoulders, gently guiding him as you leaned in.

Your lips brushed against his in a kiss that was both reassuring and electrifying. It was a kiss that seemed to capture all the unspoken emotions and the depth of what you both felt. The sensation was soft yet intense, a slow dance of warmth and intimacy that seemed to make time stand still.

As you deepened the kiss, Megumi’s initial nervousness melted away completely. His hands instinctively cupped your face, his fingers feeling the gentle curve of your jaw, as if he was afraid to let go and have this perfect moment slip away. The kiss was tender and full of the promise of something more, a shared connection that felt as solid as it was fleeting.

When you finally pulled back, your lips lingered just a breath away from his, the faintest smile playing on your face. Megumi’s eyes fluttered open, meeting yours with a look of awe and contentment. His cheeks were flushed, and there was an unmistakable softness in his gaze.

“You were saying?” you teased gently, your voice a soothing murmur.

Megumi smiled, still feeling the echoes of the kiss on his lips. “I was saying,” he replied, his tone now brimming with a newfound confidence, “that I definitely want more of this.”

You laughed softly, leaning in to give him another quick, light kiss before resting your forehead against his. “So do I.” you whispered, the warmth of your breath mingling with his.

With that, you both pulled back slightly, but your hands remained entwined. The world around you felt like it had shifted into a perfect harmony, where every little detail seemed to fall into place. You finally felt like you finally belonged where you are, in his arms, from the start.

┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓

epilogue

The late afternoon sun cast a golden hue over the campus as you and Megumi continued your walk, your hands linked together in a comfortable, affectionate hold. You were enjoying the tranquility of the moment, the weight of the day’s earlier tensions now replaced with a sense of ease.

As you reached a secluded spot near the edge of the campus, the world seemed to narrow to just the two of you. Megumi leaned in, his gaze soft as he captured your lips in another gentle kiss, savoring the newfound closeness you both had discovered. The kiss was tender and unhurried, a shared promise of more to come, until—

“Hey, lovebirds! Time’s up!”

The sudden intrusion of Gojo Satoru’s voice startled both of you. You pulled away, cheeks flushed, to see Gojo Satoru standing a few paces away with his trademark blindfold, that ridiculously dashing wide grin and a mockingly exaggerated pout.

“Having a moment?" With that, Gojo turned on his heel, his laughter echoing as he walked away, leaving you and Megumi standing there with a mix of relief and lingering embarrassment. Megumi lowered his head, muttering. You think he’s about to conduct a curse against Gojo Satoru.

Megumi’s eyes widened in surprise, and he quickly stepped back, trying to regain his composure. His face was a deep shade of red, and he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, clearly caught off guard.

“Gojo-sensei, what—” he mumbled, clearly flustered. “We were just—”

You turned to Megumi, who was still trying to compose himself, and said with a smirk, “Well, I guess our moment’s been officially interrupted.”

Megumi sighed, shaking his head with a faint smile. “Yeah, thanks to Gojo-sensei. But... I guess it’s kind of funny.”

You nodded, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze. “It is. And at least we know we have his approval.”

“We don’t need it.”

“He’s….he’s your dad, isn’t he?”

“Hgh— no he’s not!”

“But—”

“No, he’s not!”

“Ah, they’re arguing. Their first couple argument!” Gojo Satoru says, still laughing. “True love!”

“Shut up, Gojo–sensei!”

[rowenablade]

Okay. I’m going to wait to do a second watch before I articulate most of my other feelings here, but I want to address one thing.

I’m seeing a lot of posts like, “I related to Izzy because I am also queer and older/disabled/depressed. By killing him off, the writers are saying that I deserve to die.”

Guys.

I’m not saying your feelings aren’t valid. I totally understand grieving a character that you relate to. But speaking as a writer, I just want to point out that trying to write with the shadow of “what is the absolute worst and most harmful way a reader can interpret this” will smother your ability to create. Twisting yourself in knots, trying to think up the worst-faith takes possible and scotch-guarding all your writing decisions against them is exhausting to the point of making you just not want to write anymore.

And we’ve seen the writers deliberately choose not to do this in Season 1. Remember all those terrible “Izzy is racist” takes that the writers and cast seemed completely blindsided by? That happened because the writers and directors and actors weren’t going over every scene with a fine tooth comb, ferreting out every shot or line of dialogue or micro expression that could possibly be interpreted as racist, and scrubbing it off. Because there comes a point where your story is what it needs to be, and you have to accept that some people will interpret it in ways you didn’t intend them to. And if you can’t accept that, you’ll never find the courage to put your work out there.

The point of diverse casts and writing teams isn’t to achieve a state of, “Nothing bad ever happens to a character from a marginalized demographic ever again.” It’s to achieve a status quo of these types of characters just being people in the world of the story. Not symbols, not representation boxes to tick, not tokens that you can point to so that you can say, “Here, we acknowledged this type of person exists, now where’s our woke points?”

OFMD is full of characters of color, queer characters, older characters, characters of differing body types. And in stories, things happen to characters. Some fall in love. Some make the same mistakes over and over. Some turn into birds. Some die.

Izzy’s character represents a lot of things, but he does not represent every older, disabled fan or fan who has struggled with suicide, any more than Jim represents all genderqueer fans, or Olu represents all black fans. That’s not how the writers were handling him. They were handling him like a character, because that’s what you have to do.

Again, I understand being sad. I am so, so fucking sad. But this idea of, “Any time something bad happens to a character I relate to means that the writer thinks I deserve these bad things to happen to me,” will poison everything you engage with eventually. Because stories are full of things happening to characters, and they won’t all be good things. And the more representation we get, the more often bad things will happen to characters we relate to.

But good things will happen too.

Queer couples get married. Disabled women run off with their favorite husbands. Middle-aged characters change careers. A multiracial polycule finds a home at sea. A fat man covered in tattoos stars in a drag show and all his friends cheer. All these things happened in the same show as Izzy’s death. This is what this world is.

Anyway. I know emotions are running high and I’ll probably get blocked or unfollowed by a few people for this. But I’m just trying to find my peace where I can, and if anyone else finds this useful, cheers.

[water-to-drink]

Request: Yandere Clorinde x Reader (This is my first request here, so sorry if I broke any rules)

Hunter and Prey

(Pairing): Yan!Clorinde x gn!reader

(Synopsis): After an unlikely friendship blossomed it soon became a twisted obsession from the Champion Duelist

(Tags/Warnings): Yandere behavior, violence & death (not towards reader), written from Clorinde’s pov, (if I missed anything lmk)

(Word Count): 800

I DO NOT CONDONE YANDERE BEHAVIOR IN REAL LIFE

It started out simple, a regular duel between Clorinde and you, for the matter that it came about she doesn’t remember only that it was over something trivial. As expected she came out victorious, what she didn’t expect was for you to come back and gift her a basket filled with treats

“So it is true, the mentions on how strong you are. I guess that’s on me for underestimating the Champion Duelist.” You smiled at her. “Please accept this as an apology and as a token of my respect.”

That was the start of an unlikely friendship and eventually a twisted obsession

Occasionally you would drop by just to talk with her, at first she thought that you were odd wanting to talk to her. Most people even steer clear from her after a duel, but you actively seek her out to talk and eventually befriended. Just remembering about it makes her heart beat faster

Her devotion to you started when you and her were together and you saw someone, she doesn’t remember who, avoid her by crossing the street

“It must be sad, having people treat you that way.” You said

“I am an instrument of Fontaine’s law, whether it having an impact on me, does not matter.” Clorinde replied

“That can’t be all to you! You know you’re more than the Champion Duelist. At least to me.”

Sure she was told that many times, but it felt so different coming from you. It felt like it was coming from a place of genuine concern for her. Your concern for a friend was the start of the twisted love that would begin to form in Clorinde’s heart

It was almost like a switch flipped inside her. Now her eyes instantly turn its gaze towards you, intensely studying your every move like a hunter watching its prey

She even uses her hunting skills to watch you in the dead of night, to ensure your safety she tells herself

Most nights it’s just her following you home and watching you when you’re in the supposed privacy of your home. She would watch you with a pair of binoculars from the rooftop of a nearby building, during these moments it almost felt like she was with you. Only fueling her obsession even further

However one night wasn’t like the others. There you are, walking back to your apartment after a long shift and unbeknownst to you a shady figure follows you. The figure stalks you until pulling out a knife and almost bringing the blade down on you, but Clorinde is quicker than a mere ruffian prowling the streets of Fontaine

Silently she sneaks up on the thug and points her pistol against the neck of the man, he stopped dead in his tracks and oh so sweet you, remained unaware of the harm that was about to befall you

Clorinde dragged the scum calling itself a man into an alley and shot the thug in the leg, making sure to not hit the major artery. The bang most likely alerted you and made you run back to the safety of your home

She turned her attention towards the man who now is on the floor and clutching his leg. Getting a clear view of her face and realizing who she was the bastard pleads for mercy

Mercy, the same way you would have plead for him to spare you, but knowing ruffians like him he wouldn’t give you any. And that’s why she must show him the same treatment he would’ve given her sweet angel, summoning her sword she raised it above her head and thrusted it into his chest

Flawlessly ending the thug’s life

Over the course of the next few days you carried on with your life yet that night still plagued Clorinde’s mind, that night of was harsh reminder of the dangers that lurks every corner. This world is full of evil, she sees it firsthand every day

So over the course of a few weeks to a month she prepared a room for you in her massive home. She tailored the room to your taste and needs, from the color of the wallpaper to the material of the sheets on the bed. It looked like a normal room with the exception of locks preventing anyone getting in or out without a key. The final step was taking some of Sigewinne’s sedatives, and in the dead of night she snuck into your apartment.

She watched you sleep for what seemed like an eternity for an ordinary person but to Clorinde it couldn’t have lasted longer. You looked so peaceful in this state. She almost feels guilty for doing this to you, but it’s for your safety. She told herself as she injected the sedatives into your sleeping form

[fizzyxcustard]

Why Did I Trust You?

Masterlist of fan fiction

Fandom: Robin Hood

Pairings: Guy of Gisborne x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Sadness, angst, betrayal (sort of!), depression mention, fluff

Comments/Notes: Requested by @puggledy-huggledy-is-not-a-pig who is the biggest Guy fan that I know. From the prompt "They told me not to trust you but I didn't listen."

I hope you like the fic. As always, like, reblog and comment if you enjoy. If you wish to be added to any of my tag lists, let me know.

Everyone kept telling you how Guy had always been taken with Marian, and that his heart still belonged to her. No one could get over lost love that easy. She had disappeared into Sherwood Forest with her lover, Robin Hood. Leaving Guy to pick up the pieces of a shattered heart. You had never met this Marian woman, but had heard plenty about her from the locals. 

You had travelled to Nottingham in high hopes of better income, and thankfully, you had been given a roof over your head, alongside the work, for all for your trouble. Guy had sorted that out for you. After all, he knew your father, who worked as a fellow tax collector in the next town over and often visited Nottingham to report to the Sheriff. 

Being a newcomer also meant that everyone was suspicious of you. And you had become aware of the rumours that people were spinning behind your back, despite being polite to your face. Snakes, all of them. Most days when you walked through the courtyard of the castle, heading in for your day of work, you’d see people gently shoulder each other. You’d see this action out of the corner of your eye, but as soon as they saw you’d noticed them, they would smile. Vipers! 

By the time you had been there six months, you knew it was time to move on. Nottingham was not quite the charming place that you had been told by your old townsfolk. Maybe the stories had been spun from those assuming that due to Nottingham being a central stronghold for finances, that the streets were paved with gold. That couldn’t have been any further from the truth. Only the Sheriff’s personal chambers were lined with gold; everywhere else was run down and full of squalor.

The last arrangements were in place, and the following day, you were ready to return home. It would take you about a day to walk to your meeting point with your father, who was coming by horse and cart to collect you. Messenger pigeons had been flying between you and your father for the last month, as your depression had gotten deeper and beckoned you home. 

The only good thing about the place was Guy. In fact, he was the only friend you had in this horrible place. The thought of leaving him was hitting you hard, and as you cleaned the larger chambers of the castle, you kept Guy’s until last. 

Upon stepping inside the room, you saw the seat that you sat in most evenings, where you would share dinner with him. You would watch the candlelight dance across his pointed features, highlighting the sadness in his ice blue eyes. Was the sadness remnants of an unrequited love? 

Tears kept threatening to fall down your cheeks as you cleaned the surfaces with a rag. At his bedside table, you moved the vase of flowers you had placed there three days ago, sweeping the dust beneath it. All you could feel was the painful, burning sensation of something lodged in your throat. 

Don’t you cry. Don’t you dare cry! 

As you made the bed and took one last sniff of his pillow, you realised that you had nothing of his. And you couldn’t leave Nottingham without at least one token from him, even if he had not given it you freely. 

There was a jewellery box which you knew Guy kept in his wardrobe, just behind his boots, on the floor. You could remember him telling you about it, where he explained that no one else knew of its existence, but you. 

Your hands were shaking as you approached the wardrobe, and slowly you opened the door, listening to it creak. The box was simple, with no inscription at all. It didn’t matter what it was that you took, as long as it was Guy’s; something to remember him by. Not that you could ever forget him in a hurry. 

Blood was thumping in your ears as you opened the box and looked upon two gold rings inside. That was all the box held, these two gold rings. The first one was a simple band, with no jewels or inscriptions. The other was gold, but had a simple green stone upon broad shoulders. You snatched the ring with the green stone and slipped it into your apron pocket. 

“What are you doing?” a deep voice came. 

You gasped, stepping back at the sight of Guy. When had he come into the room? “P…please, it’s not what it looks like.” 

“Oh, I know it was exactly what it looked like. You stealing one of my grandmother’s rings.” His eyes were so wide now, and you couldn’t help but swallow hard, feeling a rod of ice shoot down your spine. Guy was terrifying when angry, a trait that many a person had seen who lived in Nottingham. This was your first time of seeing his anger directed at you. 

“I’m sorry,” you whimpered. You pulled the ring back out of your pocket and placed it down on the table next to you. “It really is not what it looks like.” 

Guy turned on his heel. “They told me not to trust you, but I didn’t listen.”

“Guy, please,” you pleaded, touching his shoulder. 

“Don’t touch me!” he growled. “I let you in. I offer my vulnerability to you, and I offer you so much, and this is how you value our relationship? By stealing from me?” 

Tears fell down your cheeks. Your heart thundered, shattering even more with each beat. “I wanted something of yours, to remember you by.” 

“Remember me by? What do you mean?” Guy asked, his voice less hostile now. Slowly, he turned back to face you. 

Tears had begun to form in his eyes. His gaze was intense, and locked on you. 

“I would never have betrayed your trust, Guy. Believe me. I value you more than you realise.” 

“Yet you still plan to leave?” 

Of course he knew what you had meant. “You have no idea how it’s pained me to complete my duties today, knowing it will be the last time we stand face to face.” 

“Am I not enough to stay for?” The words only just came out of his mouth, broken by the breath that was struggling to get out. “I’m never enough.” Those words were despaired whisper. 

“Guy, no!” you exclaimed. “Never think that.” 

“But you’re leaving!” His voice had re-gained its power, and he stared at you. “I’ve been beside you in everything since you came here. Why am I not enough?” 

You reached out and took Guy’s leather-clad hand. “You are enough. Why don’t you think you are? Is it because of Marian?”

Guy closed his eyes for a second and sighed. Then he focused his gaze back on you. “I see the townsfolk enjoy talking about me.” 

“Don’t blame them. You’ve mentioned her before, and I guessed she’s the woman you love.” 

“She isn’t. Not anymore. I did love her once and she left. Every woman I grow to love leaves me.” 

Did that mean…? Breath caught in your throat, but you tried not to get above yourself in your want of him. “So other women before her have left?” 

Guy smirked. “Don’t deny what’s right in front of you.” He whispered your name and came closer, his body so close to yours. He looked down from his taller height.

You placed both of your hands on his chest, wanting so much to feel his bare skin beneath the leather. Your gaze met his and you leaned up, placing a gentle kiss against his lips. 

Guy opened his eyes, seeing uncertainty in your face. And gathering his confidence and love, he wound his arms around your waist and kissed you. 

The kiss was full of love, passion and desperation. Your tongues met, and within a few more seconds, Guy’s lips were on your neck. He was panting, and you whimpering.

As you both slowed down, your breaths harsh, you embraced Guy. 

“Is this now enough to make you stay?” he asked. 

You looked up from his chest, and smiled. “What do you think?” 

“And maybe I have more reason.” Guy reached across to the ring you had placed on his table and held it to you. “I want you to have this…and be my wife.” 

***

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[autisticempathydaemon]

[A4A] Your Mafia Boss [More Than a Friend] Makes You Lunch

Tags: [Dating] [Getting to Know Each Other] [Librarian Listener] [Part Three]

Type: SFW

Tagline: Any leftovers I take home will go straight to Giacomo, and he’s still in the dog house until you say so. This is all for you, doll.

Tone: familiar, relaxed, occasionally soft and vulnerable

Setting; SFX: outside courtyard; slight wind and possible birdsong

WC: 1178, ~11 - 12 minutes

Author's Notes: This is the third of a series; please refer to its predecessor for the full context and story!

[Laugh] (Mid-sentence) -and obviously, ten year olds don’t understand the technicalities of counterfeiting and crime. We just knew “hey, this is money, we have a lot of it, so no one will care if we take some to the arcade.” (Aside) I was a DDR kid. I loved the game, but she, that cruel mistress, did not love me. I needed practice. (On topic) So, G and I, we see a stack of fresh, crisp fives, and we just grab a few off the top not knowing those were the rejects from the printer.

[Laugh] Misprints. It looked like someone’s punk fanart of Abraham Lincoln, like someone gave him neck tattoos and blue hair except if an artist actually did that, it would have been still more believable than the money we tried to put in the token machine.

Oh, god, wouldn’t have that been amazing? No, they didn’t work, and they were so obviously fakes, they really considered calling the police on a couple of preteens if not for the fact I called our moms who convinced the owners we were the victims here- something about us selling our skateboards to a conman and not knowing any better.

You bet they bought it; my ma’s a great liar. It doesn’t hurt that G and I have known how to cry on cue since we could practically walk.

[Snap] In a heartbeat, especially when I have a whole summer of punishment memories to draw on. Because we took money without asking and almost blew the whole operation- (Aside) which, I have to be real with you, was the main reason we were in trouble- (On point), we had to spend the rest of the summer working in my uncle’s restaurant “learning to appreciate the value of money”.

[Laugh] Which is particularly ironic when any of us remember the restaurant was initially a laundering front. The only reason there’s real cooks and work to be done in the back of the house is because Ma doesn’t let things go half-assed. That place became the talk of the town one month under her thumb, and that’s where we spent hot weeks peeling lemons, chopping onions, kneading pasta, the like. That’s where I learned how to cook.

[Laugh] I’m glad you think my food’s good enough to go pro. That’s sweet, but that was never in the cards for me. Ma wanted to retire, and this is the sort of business you like to keep in the family. Besides, cooking becomes so much less exciting when you have to do it for money. (Playfully haunted) I still refuse to make tortellini after that summer.

No, no, this is tortlloni- much bigger, much less fussy, much more satisfying to eat. Tortellini is not so much a food as an exercise in torture.

(Flirtatious) If you’d like to try it, I’m sure I could be tempted or persuaded- bribed, perhaps.

(Drawn-out) Hmmm, what do I want?

[Pause] (Loaded, sotto voce) I’ll have to consider that. I’m sure I could figure something out.

[Pause, phone alarm, laugh] (Light) Well, I certainly don’t want you to be late, that’s for sure. I will not be responsible for you going missing yet again.

[Rustling] May I help you up?

[Footsteps] I can see why you like your job so much. This courtyard is a lovely place to eat and read and people watch. You know, I watched a little kid take their first steps the other day.

[Laugh] I work! I have my laptop. I leave after we have lunch. I work nights; I do more than cook and look at your pretty self.

I think about your aforementioned pretty self, of course… and educate myself on the finer points of art forgery, which is a new market I’m thinking of getting into- very interesting, lots of potential for international operations, networking, the like. I keep busy, believe me.

For you, doll? Never; I could make time in any and all of my nights for you.

(Surprised, pleased) Especially tonight, if you want.

Consider yourself penciled in the calendar for a date. Did you have anything planned in particular, or shall I pick? There’s a place or two I’ve been dying to take you, places that make food I’m not as good at.

Of course. I’ve been wanting to take you out for a proper date night since, well, since I laid my eyes on you if I’m being honest.

[Beat] (Caught, thoughtful) Because… I kidnapped you- on accident and by proxy but still- found you at the place you work, and implied I’d like you to not talk to the police while also flirting with you and bringing you lunch pretty much everyday for the past three weeks. If we were to take that next step, if I were to pursue you more seriously than I already was, I’d want it to be because you felt comfortable and safe enough to initiate more.

[Beat] (Abashed) And, while I’m being honest, I want to be sure you’re not afraid of me… that you like me.

[Pause, laugh] Oh god, do I really?

(Muffled as if covering face) How could you not tell me I’ve had frosting on my face this whole time?

(Mumbling) “Silly” they call me. A legion of hardened criminals at my beck and call, and they call me silly.

(Unmuffled, normal volume) Did I get it?

[Rustling] What about now?

Here?

(Tender, soft) Sure, please.

[Pause, maybe a hitched breath to imply the kissable tension] (Soft) Thank you.

[Phone ringing, laugh] (Whispered) Sorry.

[Pause, maybe humming to denote waiting for Doll to finish their call] (Abashed) I’ve made you late… again. The next time I make lunch, I’ll have to include something extra for your coworkers- cookies or something.

Correction- I don’t have to, but I’d like to. I should. The last thing I want now that I’ve finally got you to go out with me is to make your friends think badly of me. (Teasing) That is, if I can trust you to hoard the cookies to yourself.

[Laugh] I’ll see you tonight?

(Pleased) Good. I’ll come by and pick you up. Do you want to plan the night, or should I?

Hmm… do you like surprises?

Duly noted. Then, I was thinking something classic and traditional to offset our… I’d say untraditional meeting- dinner and a movie?

Good. I’ll send along the menu of a place I have in mind; let me know if it sounds good so I can call and make a reservation or pick another. We’ll pick the movie after?

I’ll be counting the minutes… and working! I’m going to hustle along that forger I was telling you about and get that meeting done; I’m not letting you call me a slacker again.

Oh, it’s no trouble, believe me, doll. I’m the boss, so if you say we’re going on a date tonight, I am going to make that happen and make it good.

[Pause, cheek kiss] (Sweet) Look forward to it; I know I am.

[rappaccini]

.......... kingdom of the planet of the apes thoughts

noa

great new protagonist. excited to see how he evolves as a character. he's definitely The New Caesar, but his gentler personality is a welcome change.

damn somebody else CAN actually hit the andy serkis notes for playing an ape. props to this actor.

glad he isn't caesar's descendant and that his clan's totally apart from caesar's tribe. thank you for expanding the world instead of star warsing it. -- and for calling out the obsession with nostalgia via proximus.

his arc was great. questioning the state of things and wanting something better should hopefully spell good things for the development of the ape society in the reboots. more on that in a sec.

that or he's about to have one hell of a disillusionment arc.

these movies keep coming up with clever ways to distinguish their ape characters. the bald spot, green eyes and armband being his thing are his.

his tribe and their eagle culture is fascinating. the concept of apes using abandoned skyscrapers as towers for bird husbandry comes from a history channel documentary i remember watching as a kid and i love seeing it pop up here.

even the eagle song, which could've been so cheesy, works in context.

even his name is so well thought-out. noa as in noah, who guides people through a flood; which noa does at the climax. and noa as in 'no', the first word an ape spoke out loud in the first trilogy, which is paralleled when mae shouts his name- the first word a human speaks in the second trilogy.

.... anaya and soona were certainly there.

the soona romance felt out of nowhere. like oh ok so the one girl in the friend group is the future gf. we're doing that. fine.

and all that just so her designated bf can emotionally cheat on her with a human for two more movies. girl. get out of there now.

yes i think noa and mae had chemistry. pota is a franchise that simply does interspecies romance. a lot. you just have to roll with it if you're gonna be here.

i was wondering when that would make it to the movies again, and it seems like they're trying to see how much they can get away with.

like it's 100% intentional that they have young adults who aren't married and have no kids as the pro and deuteragonist in this trilogy. they know about the chemistry. they animated him checking her out like that on purpose. they made them co-leads for a reason. they did a parallel to the "NO" scene in rise with mae calling noa's name. they gave mae a beat of jealousy when she learned about him and soona. he's catching her on horseback and giving her a token of clothing from his clan. he's unable to choose between his childhood sweetheart and the girl he's been traveling with for weeks. there's a layer of innuendo in the climb to access the military silo that had me cackling.

they know what they're doing.

it's probably not gonna be a literal ship, more like a symbolic one. i don't want them to kiss or fuck or say i love you i want them to stare at each other, obsess over each other, debate the nature of humanity and sentience, touch foreheads, save each other, try to kill each other and die in each other's arms. they're gonna make their symbolic breakup everybody's problem.

general worldbuilding thoughts

maybe it's just that i've been getting back into fantasy but there's a very... familiar vibe to the rhythms of the story. a noble prince, a fat goofy monk and a belle dam sans merci setting off to fight an evil king. but it's apes!

damn we're really so desperate for gay rep that we're taking raka saying "he was my village" about a guy he was close to and running with it huh

(👀 at noa and mae encountering another unconventional couple. it just keeps stacking up.)

okay. then we have to talk about how the only possibly queer character is the guy who can't even admit that he's gay even though none of the characters should have a problem with it, who drowns halfway through the movie. and is played by the only person of color in the main cast. oh so i guess these apes aren't that different huh.

no this is such a gripe i have with pota reboot worldbuilding. the apes are starting a new civilization... and building it like humans. everyone's straight, even though bonobos are famously up for anything and even chimps, orangutans and gorillas have been known to get gay. apparently monogomous mates are a thing even though apes don't do that. all power is held by male characters, even though bonobos are matriarchal, orangutans wouldn't give a shit either way and female chimps may not lead their troops but they sure as shit don't hide at home with the babies. yeah okay ~they don't have to behave like their species~ but... isn't that a missed opportunity? if you're going to build a new society based on a species of animal, wouldn't it be more interesting to build it around how those animals behave? or at least do something different than the same system we have?

at least this reboot doesn't fridge any of the female characters. was sure noa's mom and soona were toast. still think they won't make it to the end of this trilogy but they got through part 1.

.... so are gibbons evolved too. i think raka mentioned gibbons. wtf would that be like. skinny little dudes with big voices. can we meet some.

mae

a great deuteragonist. another gripe i had about the caesar trilogy was how male-centric it was. no seriously i was sitting in the theater ten years ago watching dawn, thinking, those humans could've sent a team of women up to restart the dam and this whole mess could've been different because koba's specifically triggered by the presence of men. because men were the people abusing him. (and because bonobos follow the females in the group)

not a coincidence that when the apes adopt a human into their tribe, it's a little girl.

so kotpota having a female deuteragonist was very needed and even something as small as noa's mom being a leader figure was too. the bar's in hell. don't love soona being The Designated Girlfriend, and mae only interacting with guys though. please let her interact with women.

seeing kingdom actually use that angle, of apes being calmer and more accepting of women than men, and having mae exploit that with those puppy eyes? oh that was smart. even if they didn't realize they were writing it that way i'll take it.

another smart detail: the bunker being in the plains. humans were grassland apes. makes sense that would be where they'd continue to exist, and where the other species would avoid.

adding onto that: humans are good swimmers compared to other primates. wish more was done with that given how much of the story revolves around being near water. i'm just saying i wish we got a scene where mae casually swims across the river while raka and noa are like. trying to inch their way over a fallen tree or something. different apes are good at different things. let's see more of that.

anyway love the mae twist. love that she isn't an astronaut-- but is setting in motion events that will lead to their return. and that there are pockets of intelligent humans out there.

extremely funny that she keeps accumulating dirt and has the rattiest side braid. this girl simply does not bathe.

i am staring hard at the implications behind mae always wearing eagle clan blue after she accepts noa's mom's blanket. it's the blanket, then the shirt, then the poncho. hm.

i'm wondering if there are in fact cultures where humans and apes are living together peacefully. or if this is the story of how one is created.

regardless it looks like the conflict's going to shape up to be humans trying to reclaim earth and apes fighting to maintain their new lead. cool.

still annoying that even in the apocalypse women have tweezed eyebrows and hairless armpits. okay.

i'm so curious about mae. how much of her backstory was true and how much was a lie. her group being massacred was clearly true, but her mother being dead may not be. she's clearly isolated from the bunker civilization given that she isn't allowed inside, so is she just... alone. unable to go home again. do they think she's contaminated. is she going to be stuck outside alone in a hostile world for years until the next movie comes out. what's going on there.

anyway the foiling of her and noa is great. smart but naive rule-following son of the chief who's never had a hard day in his life, vs bitter manipulative grimy girl who grew up in constant fear. that's juicy. he can fix her! she can make him worse!

she's clearly not evil. she's just been through some shit. you can see the wheels turning in her head as she realizes raka and noa are genuinely kind, and where her fears about apes are coming from when she literally watches them hunt other humans for sport, had her group murdered by them last week and just narrowly escaped being killed by them. her paranoia and bitterness is actually justified. when she lies to noa, it's because she has good reason to fear him and her distrust of him is well-founded. when she blows up the dam to destroy the weapons inside the vault, it was the right move because proximus absolutely would have used them to enslave more apes. and when she conceals that she has the gun, i don't blame her. (also worth noting that she takes the smallest one in the locker and leaves the rest)

... love that she's the one who made the choice for noa about ~which girl will you choose to kill~. nah bitch. she's choosing YOU.

and she WAS honest to noa about what she wanted from the bunker. dude's not gonna get what a hard drive is, so "book that lets us speak" WAS accurate.

(... very clever of the movie to have noa and co pick up a book of abcs, aka, a book that teaches you how to translate letters into sounds, and see images of apes in cages. the misunderstanding makes sense: he thinks she was here for that. and symbolically, she kind of is.)

the mission she's on IS that serious. fuck yeah getting the satellites working so we can speak to other survivors is worth taking all those risks.

.... and fuck yeah it's gonna lead to some conflict. gonna be interesting to see what mae does when that breaks out.

if she's getting a redemption arc, i love it. if she's about to turn into a tragic villain, i love it.

she's the koba of this trilogy.

(... and since koba was gay as hell for caesar. you know that that means.)

proximus

great villain. great personality. great example of the apes getting in on serfdom and organized religion. he's got an immortan joe flavoring that's exciting.

i know i'm the only person who gives a shit about this but noa should absolutely have been a bonobo and proximus should've been a chimp. putting aside that we're really doing that Good Chimp Evil Bonobo shit again... the softboy from a pacifistic clan being a bonobo just makes more sense because bonobos are the peaceful apes. like yeah ~they don't have to be exactly like the species they're based on~ but when are we gonna get a good bonobo depiction. why is every bonobo an evil wannabe dictator.

and the violent caesar wannabe being a literal chimp and using that heritage to try to claim an inherent connection to the ape messiah feels like a missed opportunity.

especially when you consider that the bronze age apes are already starting to take after humans in their social structure: the apes, all on their own, just invented organized religion, monks, animal husbandry, kingdoms, patriarchy and raiding parties that capture and forcibly convert other tribes to make them into slave labor.

... odds are speciesism is next. it's already there with the humans. how long's it gonna take before they start insisting that certain apes can only serve certain roles in society. we already have it as a given that the chimp Must Be The Protagonist and the bonobo Must Be The Antagonist, that the always-male gorilla's the enforcer, and that the orangutan's always a chill smart guy. what happens if someone doesn't fit that caste system, or if the system fragments into tribes that don't mix species. probably not anything good.

... at what point are we gonna talk about how humans are apes too. it's not the 60s anymore, let's go into that.

or how we really needed to expand the 'proximus wants to be like humans and that's why he's bad' theme to 'any ape that becomes as evolved socially as humans will end up emulating human civilization in all its best and worst ways because humanity isn't the problem, power is'

i hope we still get there. the reboot spent an entire trilogy building up how human apes are and how apelike humans are; let's see the lines start to blur.

anyway frank gallagher being his human advisor was fun. proximus has a real king louie vibe that's funny and eerie.

did proximus and frank gallagher explore each others bodies

of course this fucker's obsessed with the roman empire.

.... still think there's a missed opportunity. like. think about it: proximus wants to be human and is obsessed with evolution and speeding ahead through it by any means necessary. and with bringing an intelligent female human to his court alive and mostly unharmed, and keeping her in a gilded cage. and his manservant's warning said human female captive that whatever the fuck proximus wants with her, it might be worse than death.

all i'm saying is, when proximus literally pulled a 'bathe her and bring her to me' and had her eating at his table as he was breathing down her neck right in front of the guy who has a crush on her who he's trying to break the spirit of, talking about speedrunning evolution and how superior he thinks humans are, preening about how he's made himself a kingdom, sneering about how interesting it is when humans and apes pair up, and. uh. the innuendo in him saying he wants to speed up evolution by forcing his way into an enclosed chamber that's important to mae that she desperately wants to keep him away from that she insists is only for humans (... which she will let a different ape into anyway later that night by clinging to noa as he... you know. gets her there. as they're soaking wet.)

look i was waiting for him to drop the bombshell that he's looking for a human queen and has decided that he wants mae.

you know what that implies.

i wish they'd gone there. it's not even new territory for this franchise!

it would've given mae a visceral reason to snap necks and blow shit up that the audience would understand a lot easier than amorphous ~mistrust of the apes~ -- you really needed a concrete example of what mae personally is afraid of, and this was the best opportunity to give her that while disrupting as little of the story as possible. it would've taken one line of dialogue and maybe one gesture from him to pull that off.

it hammers in that proximus really does want to repeat the worst aspects of human civilization. which contrasts him to noa, a chance to do things differently. the law is wrong, and whatnot. what's the point of starting over if you're going to do it all the same.

it gives proximus another level of menace. fast way to switch the audience's perception from 'he's a dick but he's fun to watch' to 'oh yeah this guy needs to die.'

and since you're clearly playing with interspecies relationships, you gotta establish that they're going to start happening. this would've been a good opportunity to say "yes, we're going there" and show the audience what a bad one would look like, so they can recognize that the good one is different.

predictions.

... ok so beneath the planet of the apes is next, right? and then conquest to close out the middle chapter trilogy?

my wild guess is they'll focus on mae and her bunker people to contrast noa and his clan, and they'll have a female human antagonist to balance out the male bonobo. possibly dichen lachman's character.

maybe they'll drop a male human love interest in for mae to balance things out. another layer of plausible deniability. also it would be extremely funny if he and soona met and were like 'wait a damn minute'

… if they’re really doing a beauty and the beast, what if he’s the gaston figure

and to really drive the foils home, this time noa's gonna have trust issues and instigate the shady fuckup that results in the climax.

and then in the third, there'll be another war that the apes, in some form, will win. and noa and mae will either be trying to prevent it or leading their factions into a death spiral. fun either way.

they won't ever Go There with them being a couple. like no way would they have the balls to do it, and soona being the out-of-nowhere gf for noa pretty much confirms it. unless she's fridged. (man i hope she dumps him)

but their dynamic's got that vibe for a reason. i wouldn't be shocked if they ride that ambiguity through the trilogy and then have their historical interpretations in poto 7-9 be assumed to have been a couple, the same way caesar's been reinterpreted-- either the story of a human-ape relationship that made it possible for their species to live together, or a cautionary tale about Why We Do Not Mix. or springing some indication that the first human-ape hybrid came from them after the credits roll on the third movie, assuming they survive it. which i doubt.

part of me really fucking wonders if the twist for this reboot's going to be that apes and humans DO find a way to live together and noa and mae do succeed at getting their respective factions to live together. maybe it will be some romeo and juliet/uniting the tribes through symbolic marriage shit. feels like the fullest encapsulation of the do-things-differently theme they're playing with in kotpota.

or maybe they'll kill each other. which would also be fun but in a tragedy rubberneck way.

either way i'm excited. i missed these movies!

[concordewillfly]

have u watched/listened to the craig reynolds & connie sgarbossa podcast? shes suuuuch delight man i could listen to her talk forever !!!! im so happy u liked my recs i could explode 🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻 meant to ask u this but i always forgot whats ur opinion on the nu metal revival? stuff like speed, alpha wolf, dealer, drain, certain sleep token songs/fragments of songs. bc it fills me w joy n it makes me wanna bust a mf move… love dancing around in my room to pretty boy by alpha wolf 🕺🏻

todays recs are thou, blackwater holylight, faetooth, outta pocket, home is where, sorority noise 👍🏻 outta pocket are sooo good I NEED MORE WOMEN IN THE HARDCORE SCENE I NEED THE HARDCORE SCENE TO BE WOMEN ONLY 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

i have been on a bit of a dsbm kick this past week WHICH got me thinking that you might like erotik by lifelover?? i think itd be a good entry level album for someone who isnt familiar w bm. idk maybe consider it but dont make it a priority

much love to u forever, i love spitting absolute nerd shit in ur inbox. u match my freak in ways the human mind cant comprehend 🩷

- 💿

ive been meaning to watch it so im doing it now and omg she is soooo. she has a tiny dog :^) oh and it made me remember that she played in milan and i couldnt goooo what a bummer i would love to see them live... + i gotta say im a little on the fence about the nu metal revival because i do like nu metal and i looove that people are bringing it back now but im indifferent to a lot of revival bands :( i do looove drain though, i found them through kat moss from scowl because theyre friends and they played a tour together i think and their gigs look fucking gnarly i would love/be terrified to be in that pit... also love speed!! i found them through anti matter (zine on substack by norman brannon of thursday/texas is the reason <3) and ive been listening to them a lot!! + thou, featooth, outta pocket i looove + WOMEN IN HARDCORE FOREVERRRRR it means the world to me when i see a woman in a heavy band fr (also u probably know them but as far as women in the hardcore scene go i love buggin, jivebomb, spaced, anklebiter + ofc scowl and gel) + sorority noise were one of my fav bands when i was a teenager :^) + ooooh u havent been around long since u missed my huuuuge home is where insanity where i was trying to push all my friends on here to listen to them (my substack is named after one of their lyrics <3) truly influential to me and again women in the scene hellooooo <333 + ive started getting into lifelover recently since ive been told its a godo starting point and i really like that album!!!!! will dig deeper for sure

[sofyachy]

Watching the end of Good Omens Season 2 felt like watching the moon landing, and I think I've finally figured out why. It's not the first time there have been outed queer characters on TV shows. It's not the first time there's been a queer love scene / kiss on TV. That alone isn't ground-breaking.

But for my entire life, I've consumed media that put the hetero couple into the main spotlight with token queer background characters, a lot of them killed off in a "bury your gays" trope. Or I've watched an ongoing series and developed queer ships that always left me a little disappointed when the romantic tension I perceived on screen was quashed with the introduction of a chemistry-lacking hetero love interest, or even simply brushing off the characters as "they're just good friends, because No Homo."

I've gotten used to this. I've come to expect it -- to always look deeply into the subtext, analyzing what's going on underneath the dialog and actions. Are these characters gay? Here is my 20-page literary analysis paper in which I go over every line, every detail, to argue that there's justifiable reason to believe something there that's not blatantly spelled out in words. (I literally did this with Hotspur in my graduate-level Shakespeare class because I absolutely needed someone to agree with me that this married character was so very, very gay, despite a surface-level "no homo" reading.) And it's still never "proof" -- just my opinion, which I can shout into the void until I'm hoarse.

And isn't that just what we do in slash fandom? We write our own endings. We refashion the stories we love to override that little disappointment that the original work gives us, as much as we still love it.

With Good Omens, there was already a strong fandom pairing Aziraphale and Crowley. I read the book after watching both seasons, so I can't say how strong that fandom was before those came out. But one of the things that struck me about the book was that there wasn't nearly the same vibe between the characters as there was in the first season. Hell, they weren't even the central characters of the book. And while the book says that people assume Aziraphale is gay, it's quick to say "but he's not; angels aren't sexual." No homo.

He and Crowley are...maybe friends? Associates? But there's certainly no scene with Crowley crying into a bottle of whiskey after Aziraphale disappears in the way he does in S1. It's like Book Crowley isn't allowed to have queer feelings because No Homo, especially not when he's maybe-friends with a maybe-homo. And it's not really surprising, considering the book was written in the '80s -- when gay rights was pushed back 20 years due to the AIDS epidemic.

And even with S1, it wasn't blatantly spelled out that either of them were queer. The aforementioned line about a gay Aziraphale didn't make it into the script (though he does refer to himself as "the Southern pansy"). We got some excellent scenes to rile up the fandom with somewhat-romantic dialog and actions. Still, on the surface, the reaction could still easily be "Hey, that looks maybe-possibly kind of gay? If you look at it just right. Here's my 20-page essay explaining why they're gay." And at the end of the season, Aziraphale and Crowley simply dine at the Ritz. Nothing explicitly gay there, unless you dig for it.

And then Season 2 said, "Hold my beer." And we got a full season of slow-burn romance at the forefront. The business with Gabriel was a ruse; the whole thing was about Aziracrow and their relationship from start to finish. We started out with the expected subtext, suggestive dialog, surreptitious glances. I remember thinking, "this is nice; I'm glad we're getting more time to just enjoy these two on the screen together." And then it kept building, and building, and building.

And finally, Episode 6 gave us "YES, HOMO." And after a lifetime of never seeing one of my ships amount to anything on screen, there it was, in all its devastating glory. They went there. That's what felt like the moon landing to me. It's something that seemed so far off to be impossible until it wasn't.

[kaigarax]

When You Are With Me

Deidara x Reader

Quote: “Fall in love with someone’s honest ethos.”

Deidara watched as you carefully carved a cross out of wood. It was a sentimental thing but Deidara thought it suited you. You were quite the sentimental person.

Little things always seemed to get you.

A small wooden box hidden in the corner of your room was filled with little tokens and trinkets you had acquired from all the special people in your life. Deidara remembered stumbling across it one day. He remembered the urgency in your face when you thought he had done something about it. He remembered the utter relief you expressed and the soft look that filled your eyes when you realised that nothing had happened to it. Most of all, Deidara remembered the tears you secretly tried to wipe away as you explained each and every story to Deidara.

He, who was now buried beneath the ground, had taught you how to carve things out of wood. It seemed almost fitting that you would be the last one to ever carve him something.

“(Y/n).” said Deidara.

You gave a “hm?” in response.

You didn’t bother looking up at Deidara, instead slowly leaning towards him to signal that you were listening. For a moment Deidara wasn’t all too sure if he really wanted to say what he was going to say. It wasn’t something normal people said to each other.

Uncertain if he should speak his mind or not Deidara instead begins with, “you know that shinobi should always try their best to cut themselves off from their emotions.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“You suppose?”

“I’ve always considered myself a human before a shinobi. Truthfully, I’ve never really cut throat enough for the life of a shinobi.”

“Then why would you choose this life?”

“Because I owe it to everyone that couldn’t do it themselves.”

Deidara feels a strange pang in his chest as he watches you. It’s not exactly pity but sympathy is much too intimate. Deidara can really only describe it as something melancholic and foregin. Distant and unknown.

Deidara raised a brow, “everyone? Well, aren't you self important.”

“I suppose it seems that way.” you paused your carving, “but that’s not what I meant. I owe it to everyone that has died for me. To all my friends who should have been shinobi.”

There’s such a sad and earnest look in your eyes. Deidara has to think long and hard if he has ever seen such an expression before. In this life that he has chosen to live he can see that the people are harsh and unforgiving. That they are cold and calculative. That their true feelings are masked by what others believe they should be.

You, on the other hand, had always been so expressive. You weren’t temperamental, and hotheaded. You didn’t jump into things and act on your emotions, but you were always honest about how you felt. You unapologetically loved, hated and lived. It was refreshing to Deidara and alluring, in a strange way.

It was definitely abnormal but Deidara had never really been normal in the first place.

And you had never been all that normal either.

After a brief moment of internal debate, Deidara finally said, “don’t be sad when I die.”

You finally looked away from your uncompleted makeshift cross, “why not?”

Deidara leaned down towards you, a rare frown evident across his soft features and his blue eyes lost into the distance.

---

If you close your eyes long enough your mind will take you into another world.

Deidara, ever since he was small, had always wanted to slip away from his reality, if just for a moment, and into a world of his own creation. In this world, Deidara could create anything his heart desired - yet it was not one of his own creations. There were many others in this world with their own abilities and their own skills that overshadowed Deidara’s own.

In a world of your own creation, you could be anything you wanted to be. Be anyone you wanted to be. Here, you were what everyone else expected you to be.

Deidara had been leaning back in a chair, bored, as he waited for you to finally enter the room. He had been told that he would be running a mission alongside you while Sasori took time to heal.

You were always fun enough to hang around.

Maybe you were a little boring sometimes but that didn’t mean you weren’t fun to mess with. There was always a strange air around you. Deidara wasn’t quite sure if he would be able to place it but the other members of the Akatsuki had agreed with him.

You were weird.

Maybe even weirder than the rest of them combined.

Which was a little ironic considering you were probably the most normal looking of them all. You didn’t have any strange eyes or significant looking features. You didn’t have bright hair or weird coloured skin. You were plain and almost unmemorable. Pain and said something along the lines of how someone like you blended into crowds better and was harder to be caught.

Deidara thought you were boring.

Nothing was wrong with being boring. It was just… well as the word said.

When you entered the hall you looked like a mess. You had a cowlick, sticking your hair up in a strange place and you were rubbing your eyes as if trying to adjust to the light.

“Well good morning sleeping beauty~” Teased Deidara.

You only nodded in response.

“So do you know what the mission is or-”

“We’re waiting for Kohan-san.” you said, “she should be here in about an hour or so. She was supposed to be here earlier but she got delayed with something.”

“Great.”

You nodded, taking a seat at the table and putting your head down.

Deidara watched you for a while from where he sat. Unlike you, Deidara never seemed to be able to sit still. If he wasn’t making something out of clay he was shaking his leg or playing with his hair.

Sasori usually scolded him but Deidara didn’t care all too much about what his partner thought.

Sitting still just felt utterly uncomfortable.

“So… Do you just plan on sleeping until Kohan gets here?” Asked Deidara.

“I had planned on sleeping, but I don’t think I’m going to get much sleep if you keep talking to me.”

“Well you could just ignore me.”

Deidara had expected you to snap. He had expected you to roll your eyes before proceeding to ignore him. He had expected you to leave the room and return later. He had been expecting almost everything else except for what you did.

Your head perked up from the table, your eyes suddenly brimming with curiosity as you asked, “why would I ignore you when you’re trying to make conversation?”

“Because you find me annoying?”

“Even then, I still wouldn’t ignore you.” you sat upright, “actively ignoring someone is something I absolutely hate. So why would I intentionally ignore you?”

In all his years of knowing you, which admittedly wasn’t much, Deidara hadn’t expected you to be such an earnest person.

While there was always the option that you could be lying, Deidara had concluded you hadn’t been lying from the look you got in your eyes.

Your eyes were bright and eager. So much honesty. More than Deidara had ever seen from any other shinobi.

---

‘Because I hate it when you’re sad.’ are the words that do not leave Deidara’s mouth.

Instead, the blonde shinobi stares at you for a while. Taking in the earnesty and concern in your eyes instead. You seem to find his words suddenly so much more captivating than your current task and Deidara isn’t sure if he should feel accomplished or horrible.

Your attention is something to be coveted. It is a precious commodity that is rarely bestowed upon those like him. You are delicate and fragile yet contradictorily strong. So much stronger than Deidara could ever be when it came to facing his own fears. When it came to facing his own emotions.

He fears the words that are about to leave his lips because he knows that those words will reveal him to be a person that you might not like. A person that you might not want him to be and that scares him. It scares him because it would make him a person that he does not want to be.

---

“What’s your most vivid memory?” you asked, leaning in towards him curiously.

Deidara smirked, feeling a sense of satisfaction from your attention, “well, there was a pretty girl like you in it.”

“And what were the two of you doing?”

Deidara had intended a dirty joke of some sort. Most of the Akatsuki members were older than Deidara or just much more stern. You, despite being around his age, seemed so much younger than him. You were so naive and innocent. Speaking to you was almost refreshing for Deidara. Especially in this strange new world.

Eventually he answered, “laughing.” He didn’t answer that way because he thought it would make you happy or further capture your interest. He said that simply because it was the truth; and someone like you deserves nothing less than the truth.

“That sounds really pleasant.”

“What about you?” He asked.

You pause for a moment. You open your mouth to speak before pausing for another long moment. It is almost as if you have lost all sense of time as you seemingly stare at the wall. Eventually you begin with saying, “all emotions fade away eveutnally, but did you know that sad memories can evoke the same amount of sadness from you as what you felt in the moment. But happy memories can only ever give you a fraction of the same amount of happiness?”

“Come again?”

“I mean, bad memories stick with you. Good memories tend to fade away.” you smile sadly and Deidara feels a strange feeling well up in his chest, “I suppose it's just my way of explaining my strange answer before I give it to you.”

Deidara is hesitant but still proceeds to ask, “and what is your answer?”

“Crying.” you say, “my most vivid memory is of me crying.”

And suddenly Deidara feels horrible. He has never really considered himself a nice person, but he isn’t a horrible person either. Sure, he kills people in the name of his art but there are definitely worse people out there. There are definitely people out there who could do much worse things so why did he feel so bad.

This is just annoying.

You lean in to brush his hair back but Deidara is quick to grab your hand. Your expression is apologetic but your voice is calm as when you say, “don’t feel bad.”

“I’m not.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes I’m sure!”

“Well then, if you say you’re sure then you must be sure. After All, who knows our own feelings better than ourselves, huh?”

Deidara feels as though you’re teasing him but he can’t figure out why. Usually when people tease one another there’s a subtle amusement in their expressions. You seem to wholy and earnestly believe in what you are saying. Almost so much that Deidara feels as though he’s going to go crazy.

You smile, “I was going to say that if you felt bad you shouldn’t.”

“And why shouldn’t I?”

“Because you’re still so young. Being young gives one the excuse to behave rashly and without concern of how others feel. Being young is an excuse to be selfish and carefree. Though I would caution you to be careful because while being young is an excuse to break hearts it does not exempt you from the consequences.” you explain.

“Aren’t you younger than me?”

“Huh.” you looked almost puzzled at the question, “I’m not sure how old I am.”

And what can Deidara do but believe you?

You speak as if you are wise beyond your years before making a remake similar to that of a young child.

While annoying, Deidara has to admit that he finds it rather… enduring.

Something uniquely you.

---

“Because being sad sucks.” is what Deidara finally says after the long period of silence between the two of you. “And besides, as shinobi, we shouldn’t be having those emotions in the first place. We’re meant to be cold killers. Assassins.”

You frown deeply, “would you be sad if I died?”

‘Yes.’ is what first pops into Deidara’s head. It’s followed by a cold and empty feeling in his chest. The feeling is so baren that Deidara momentarily wonders if his heart is still beating in the first place. If it has been stolen out of his chest and replaced with cold, dead clay.

The flush in his cheeks is enough to call him back to reality.

He is alive and he is here.

“No.” Deidara respondes, “it would be unfortunate for the group. Especially with your skill set, but I don’t think I would be all too sad.”

You leave the wooden cross that you have finally finished. You have nudged it between two rocks before making your way over to Deidara. You look at him with such an honest and earnest smile that Deidara wonders if he has wandered into a dream land of some sort.

You smile sadly when you say, “I would be sad if you died. Death is always sad.”

And that was when Deidara knew for certain.

Fall in love with someone’s honest ethos.

[yarns-and-d20s]

Just finished watching a YouTube video about JKR and her whole "I'm never going to forgive those young people who disagree with me!" nonsense. The YouTuber made a bit of a throwaway comment about the adults who can't let go of HP because of what it meant to them in their youth, and I had too many thoughts for a YouTube comment, so, here I am.

My HP credentials: the first book came out when I was 15. I borrowed it from a younger person in my life, and ended up DNF'ing at the time because those opening chapters were so brutally mean-spirited and bleak I couldn't handle it. What can I say, I was a pretty fragile little thing. I ended up going back to the franchise in 2001 when my best friend wanted me to see the first movie with her. She'd already seen it, and just desperately wanted to share it with me, but would say no more. She bought my ticket and my popcorn, and, well, I ended up spending several years in the HP fandom, and was with it all through the release of the final film, and then slowly, it just sort of dwindled in my interest, though I did re-listen to the Fry-narrated audiobooks or watch the movies again from time to time, and had my various bits of merch hanging around my room.

But I gotta admit, I feel the same way that YouTuber does about the HP adults. The ones who won't let it go despite JKR, rather than, y'know, holding on because of her. The ones who wail, "But you don't understand what Harry Potter meant to me!"

Because the thing of it is: I do. My Harry Potter was David & Leigh Eddings' Belgariad and Mallorean, which was 10 entire books, that grew up alongside its main character, a very special orphan chosen one boy with magic powers and even a special mark on his body (Garion's was on his hand). Hell, he was also raised by his aunt, though I think Aunt Pol would kick Aunt Petunia's ass, and ends up marrying a redhead.

I started reading Pawn of Prophecy when I was 10 (I was a very precocious reader!). I re-read both series a lot up until 2010; I re-read them so much that all 10 books needed to be replaced because they were falling apart. Yeah, they got bought twice in my house. My best friend--the same one who took me to see Philosopher's Stone--also loved the Belgariad & Mallorean and we bonded over those books, talked about them constantly, the whole nine yards. Not only that, but my only other friend in the entire world as a teen also loved those books. They meant the world to me.

But as I progressed through my 20s, I started noticing the bioessentialism and the thing where people from the north and west were good but the people from the south and east were scary and evil or just plain old strange. The fact that very nearly all the female characters could be described as "beautiful and sassy" and were rewarded with marriage and babies if they were good women but if they were bad women who were too masculine in their appetites or behaviours, they got punished for it. On top of all that, news resurfaced several years ago about how the Eddings had been tried and found guilty of abusing their adopted children. They never adopted again after they served out their punishments, and the Belgariad was envisioned by the couple as, like, a love letter/apology letter to children or something like that.

So, yeah, I actually get it. A lot. And the Eddings are dead now, and can't hurt anybody, but I haven't touched those books in 14 years. They were so important to me, and I can still "hear" the influence of the Eddings' style in my own fiction writing. They'll always be special to me, but, you know, there's... there's other books.

I spent years rolling my eyes at people who would pull the "read other books" line. It was kind of ridiculous; I never knew anybody who was into HP and never read anything else. It was just that HP always inspired a particular fandom and devotion because so many people had it in common. I understand how important the community itself was; remember, I was in it.

But by the same token, because nuance is a thing, I don't fully understand not being able to let it go. Yes, I'm sure it was easier for me to let go of because I was an adult (19, closer to 20 than to 18) when I actually got into the franchise. And there was never really a huge, thriving Belgariad/Mallorean fandom. But if your HP fandom friends are only your friends because of HP, then... they're not really your friends, are they?

The Eddings are dead. They can't use their money to hurt anybody. There are living authors right now who are not raging sacks of shit who are struggling to put food on their plates. There are also lots of shows and games that you can love, and maybe there's a movie occasionally, sometimes (note to self: edit and post mini-essay about how the advent of the DVD was a huge stepping stone that led us to the current state of cinema).

I both do and don't know how hard it is to let go of something that meant so much to you as a kid. I know in so much as I've done it; but my autistic brain is struggling to not understand why if I can do it, other people can't. If it's about friends--guys, gals, non-binary pals, they ain't your friends if they don't want anything to do with you if you can't talk about Harry goddamn Potter. If they will talk to you without it, find that thing to talk about.

I know it'll hurt. I still ache sometimes to go back to [insert setting of Belgariad/Mallorean here], and see all my book friends, but, hey, I've sure read a lot of books since I stopped re-reading the same 10 books every 12-18 months for 13 years.

Sometimes, we outgrow things. That's okay. It's allowed. I gave myself permission to make 2010 the last time I read those 10 books. I give myself permission to miss them. I give myself permission to think fondly of what they meant to me. But it became time to move on, because my soul is bigger than racism, sexism, and two people who beat their children, and needed to be fed with new things.

[raayllum]

Rayllum-y lyrics from Midnights:

And I wake with your memory over me / That's a real fucking legacy, legacy (it was maroon)

I would've stayed on my knees / And I damn sure never would've danced with the devil / At nineteen / And the God's honest truth is that the pain was heaven / And now that I'm grown, I'm scared of ghosts / Memories feel like weapons

When my depression works the graveyard shift / All of the people I've ghosted stand there in the room

All the love we unravel / And the life I gave away / 'Cause he was sunshine / I was midnight rain / He wanted it comfortable / I wanted that pain

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye / You were bigger than the whole sky / You were more than just a short time / And I've got a lot to pine about / I've got a lot to live without

Summer went away, still, the yearning stays

One night, a few moons ago / I saw flecks of what could've been lights / But it might just have been you / Passing by unbeknownst to me

I didn't choose this town, I dream of getting out / There's just one who could make me stay / All my days

Can I ask you a question? / Did you ever have someone kiss you in a crowded room / And every single one of your friends was makin' fun of you / But fifteen seconds later, thеy were clappin' too? / Then what did you do? / Did you lеave her house in the middle of the night? Oh / Did you wish you'd put up more of a fight, oh / When she said it was too much? / Do you wish you could still touch her? / It's just a question

Lock broken, slur spoken / Wound open, game token

My knuckles were bruised like violets / Sucker punching walls, cursed you as I sleep-talked / Spineless in my tomb of silence / Tore your banners down, took the battle underground

I can't let this go / I fight with you in my sleep / The wound won't close / I keep on waiting for a sign

When the silence came, we were shaking blind and hazy / How the hell did we lose sight of us again? / Sobbin' with your head in your hands / Ain't that the way shit always ends?

They said the end is comin' / Everyone's up to somethin' / I find myself runnin' home to your sweet nothings

My friends from home don't know what to say / I looked around in a blood-soaked gown / And I saw something they can't take away / 'Cause there were pages turned with the bridges burned / Everything you lose is a step you take

Tale as old as time / I wake up screaming from dreaming / One day I'll watch as you're leaving / And life will lose all its meaning / For the last time

If clarity's in death, then why won't this die? / Years of tearing down our banners, you and I / Living for the thrill of hitting you where it hurts

Good girl, sad boy / Big city, wrong choices / We had one thing goin' on / I swear that it was somethin' / 'Cause I don't remember who I was / Before you painted all my nights / A colour I've searched for since

You’re on your own kid, you always have been

"It only hurts this much right now" / Was what I was thinkin' the whole time / Breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out / I'll be gettin' over you my whole life

All you ever wanted from me was sweet nothing

Once upon a time, the planets and the fates / And all the stars aligned / You and I ended up in the same room / At the same time

My hand was the one you reached for / All throughout the Great War / Always remember / Uh-huh, tears on the lеtter / I vowed not to cry anymore

You know there's many different ways that you can kill the one you love / The slowest way is never loving them enough

If you never touched me, I would've / Gone along with the righteous / If I never blushed, then they could've / Never whispered about this / And if you never saved me from boredom / I could've gone on as I was / But, Lord, you made me feel important / And then you tried to erase us / Oh, oh / You're a crisis of my faith / Would've, could've, should've / If I'd only played it safe

And the touch of a hand lit the fuse / Of a chain reaction of countermoves / To assess the equation of you / Checkmate, I couldn't lose

[aquareegia]

Here are some numbers for you 😚 20/ 28/ 40/ 48

20: What is your favourite song at the moment?

It keeps changing every day but it's always something from Sleep Token. 😂 Right now I'd say it's High Water:

Really gets you in the mood to cry everything out. 😅

28: I'll love you if...

You're nice to me and accept me for what I am, with all my flaws and ugliness. If you're honest to me, even if it hurts to hear and if you make me laugh like a maniac until my tummy hurts.

40: Favourite memory?

I must've been around 15 I think. My best friend (who I unfortunately lost contact with over the years now) and I went to the town fair together. It was on the last day and her grandma brought us there so we could stay later because we wanted to watch the annual fireworks. We laughed a lot. I still remember the colourful lights everywhere. I can still hear the voices around us and the loud music blasting everywhere. I can still smell the scent of popcorn and cotton candy. We forgot the time so we were surprised when our ride stopped and left us just dangling there until we saw the fireworks going off. It was a special moment we got to share together and it was what made me really love fireworks. When I see them I always think back to this time and remember my beautiful friend, which I was fortunate enough to have known in my life. Even if we lost contact, she was the only real friend I had and she will always have a place in my heart along with this memory. (Not me tearing up here. 😅)

48: Turn offs.

If someone is rude and mean for no reason. Also people who look down on others and discriminate against others for dumb reasons. To make it short, asshole behaviour. 😂

Thank you for the ask! 🥹🩷

[saltbutter]

julie

Julie and Julia was playing on the main floor of Highland Theater, and I saw it with my best friend Emma when we were both 15. There was nothing more interesting to me than food, particularly the making of it, but I was still relegated to finding catharsis in the way my mother prepared meatloaf with steely and yet relaxed intent, how my dad exactingly and perfectly crafted his chili. I was still a few years out from discovering Anthony Bourdain, I had never eaten seafood outside the briny bites I spat out upon introduction, and I had never heard of Julia Child before. It was a night that changed things for me, that one night with Emma in a theater I had sat in hundreds of times before, watching gorgeosity parade over the screen: sole meunière, chocolate cream, poached eggs, hollandaise, boeuf bourguignon, brie, ducks, gimlets, and butter, butter, butter ("it almost stops your heart just to look at it!").

Walking away from the film it was so easy - so deliciously easy - to fall in love with Julia Child. She gets to savor the tenderest portions, be it the love she shared with her husband Paul, their combined struggles, the slow gathering of a perfect storm that would become a book that changed the way people cooked and even saw their own food. They are the superior portions of the film, the performance of Meryl Streep as Julia Child is the better performance, and over the years I often agreed that Ephron could have made a better film had it just been all about Julia and Paul and the creation of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

If Julia was fillet mignon, then Julie was gristle.

In truth, it took me a long time to grasp the fact that Julie Powell was a human being who walked among us and not a character invented to be so annoying, so needy, so ungrateful that it would make Streep seem like the Blue Fairy in comparison.

But Julie Powell was real, and her book waited for me in a Free Little Library outside of a house in my neighborhood just a few years later when I was 17. Clearly the occupants of the house had not been impressed with Powell's work, and they were far from the last to share that sentiment, as the book was in pristine condition by the time it found its way to my hands. Early on I could see why perhaps the book had been abandoned, as it really wasn't like Ephron's film at all; where the film was warm, buttery, like a fluff of meringue over a charming confection, the book was pure salt, acid, blood on a cutting board. And Powell was both exactly as I remembered her and somehow different, with her foibles and her complaints just as petty as they were in the film, and yet her wit chomped through the pages, her humor invisible as a pair of hands hard at work, her self-reflection spicy and spare. I adored the book right away, obsessed with the way it not only venerated that cooking was hard work but that food was something worth working for, worth laboring over, worth sharing with the ones you love. It was the reason I made one of my first Grown-Up crushes a spiced almond cake as a token of my affection, as Powell had written of doing the same thing herself, and the thought of seduction and hunger at once appeared to be everything I could want as a person with more experience in one than another.

The book attached to me, and I traveled with it often. It was easy to slip into Powell's stream of consciousness, her offhand stories of hyperfixating on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, her miniature fights with her husband, the bizarre account of a friend conducting an affair with a wealthy man who owned a private jet. One of the warmest, most content moments of my life was in a hot bath in Paris, age 19, with a plastic cup of red wine and Julie and Julia in hand. It had been the cruelest trip of my life thus far: surrounded by food, too poor to really enjoy any of it. The book was a comfort to me in that sense, talking me through the food even if I knew I couldn't have it.

When I learned that she had written another book it seemed obvious to me that I would read it, but I stopped myself (the way I always do) by reading reviews. Reviews are not the ultimate consensus on any property, which I know now, but at the time reading the less than glowing reviews gave me pause, made me consider why I felt such a warmth towards Powell in the first place. Cleaving told the story of Powell's apprenticeship in butchery as well as the effects of affairs on both sides of her marriage, and by all accounts it was a bloody, uncomfortable slog for all involved. I never read it, so shaken was I at the idea that Powell could be given what was effectively the fulfillment of a dream (publishing a book, having that book become a movie, having them both make you what was surely very good money) and still be just as messy as she had been in that tiny, fucked up apartment kitchen. It felt like the betrayal of a mathematical formula: 1 + 1 = 2, and writer + success = happiness. Writers deserve that. I had thought Julie Powell deserved it.

In our cultural memory we've remembered the story of the terrible Julie and the wonderful Julia, the nagging shrew and the devoted if unconventional maven. Powell knew this herself, admittedly forming a parasocial relationship to Child that was not warmly reciprocated at the time of the initial interest in the Julie/Julia Project story, and she seemed to make peace with it in some way. It's ironic that one of the real morals of the story in the book and the film is that the versions of people we create in our heads are never going to be as better or worse as they really are as human beings. The Julia Child that Julie Powell imagined as she cooked her way through her masterpiece was not Julia Child, who was indeed a loving, humorous person, but was also shrewd, tough as nails, and did not suffer fools. And yet there's a version of Julie Powell that lived alongside the real one, much the same way as Julia Child's did. I created - maybe many of us did - a version of Julie Powell that honored only the portions of her we were allowed to see: her vinegary self-deprecation, her bitter disappointments, her fast popping humor, her hot, sweet relishing of success and love and food before the inevitable crash of reality.

That's the way life is. The sweet, and then the bitter. Julie knew that as well as anybody else did, and better because she knew how to cook and to write. These are two precise skills, with the potential to be very, very dangerous.

Julie Powell's death was announced today. She was only 49 years old. She died of a heart attack, most reports are saying, and even that fact has a sick humorous aftertaste. To borrow a term of endearment oft utilized in her work: that bitch probably loved butter. So do I.

On my way home I listened to a podcast where two women discussed the film, and like never before I found myself bristling on behalf of Julie Powell. So what if Julia Child tested those recipes for years to make sure any person of any skill level could make them? Sometimes I can barely follow the instructions on a cup of instant noodles, let alone attempt to make an aspic. So what if Julie was crass, or crude, or only talked about how hard it was to cook? Crass, crude people cook, and sometimes they're great at it and sometimes not, but she didn't give up.

And most importantly: Julie's story did have meaning. The project mattered because it helped her to see that her life had meaning, that she could discover herself through something as complex as cooking and something as simple as blogging. It's hard to believe now, but when she began it wasn't really anyone's first impulse to blog, or post, or tweet about their own hardships, or the things that they were passionate about, or even just the tiny funny stories of life. Julie was one of the people who changed that.

And she took a beating for it. Because the Julie that we got was not the Julie we thought she was. She was funny, imperfect, ambitious, needy, and a great writer.

I thought of her often, even before today. I probably always will.

Thank you, Julie.

[what-if-nct]

i’m probably going to get so much hate for saying this but, i don’t think changing ariel to be black was necessary tbh-

i wish they kept ariel white and then introduced a black character as a friend or something — but not like the token black friend like how shows like the proud family (for example) did to dijonay but a character that has a personality and an engaging backstory.

i would imagine a black girl with gradient pink hair with natural big curls that would go up to about her shoulders, wears purple bra and fins and would love to sing since her family were a tree of talents with her little brother being a math genius, her big sister being a great cook, her mother being a great dancer and her father being an awesome actor. they’re like one of the most famous families under the sea making them the same level as ariel since she’s also quite well known in the sea universe.

and then ariel- idk- gets tired of people seeing her as a celebrity and wants to be seen as a normal fish until she meets the black girl, that we’re going to call sasha, and they could relate to each other to what they had went through.

yeah i can sense the black twitter from here but before people say anything, i am actually black myself so i’m saying what i think should happen since it was supposed to “retell” the story of a princess in life action

(lol i’m scared)

I understand where you're coming from and actually the Little Mermaid cartoon series had a black mermaid who was deaf. Also I'd say Dijonay was less a token black character cause it is a mainly black cast she is more so like the personification of every black stereotype in one, plus the colorism in the proud family but we're not going to get into that. I'd say Andre from victorious was a token black character.

I personally feel it doesn't matter either way, like if they made Ariel White, Black, Latina, Asian, Polynesian it's really not a big deal and doesn't matter either way. Any choice is a good choice and I think Halle was chosen for her talent and also she has a very ethereal Disney princess face, But I remember watching Brandy's Cinderella, I had the vhs and me and my sister would always watch it in our playroom. And I think it is just nice to see classic Disney princesses in different ethnicities.

And the interesting thing is in the Brandy version, Cinderella was black, The prince was Filipino, and his parents were black and white and the stepmother was white but had one black daughter and one white daughter and as a kid I never even questioned it at all, it didn't matter, and I think getting to that place of anyone can be anyone and race not even be included in the deciding factor is a great place to be.

Disney even did this with the descendants, they decided to make Cruella black and her son Carlos was mixed. , and Ursla's daughter Uma was black, they didn't need to but it was just a nice choice. But with all of the white princesses except for Merida they're not attached to a specific culture, there stories are very adaptable to anyone. But with Pocahontas, Jasmine, Mulan, Tiana, and Moana their stories are tied to their culture, even Merida, her story is very tied to her culture as well. So obviously they shouldn't change in the live action version.

Also Toni Braxton played Belle in the beauty in the beast on broadway and Keke Palmer played Cinderella on broadway because they were just the best women for the part and I think that's all that should matter. Like when people were upset that Zendeya was MJ in spiderman when I can tell you she was simply the best woman for the part, Zendaya is such a great actress, I think it's just something that really doesn't matter and is just a nice choice.

But I do agree that there should just be more well rounded black characters and even more princesses of color I know disney releases a new disney princess every five or six years but give us more princesses of color, a princess from Brazil, from India, and more asian, Black, native and middle eastern princesses who don't have to fight or spend most of the movie as a damn frog, let them just , be pretty and sing to animals too. I'd also love that.

[ladyartemesia]

TEASER: Kim Seokjin and the Mean Omega

Pairing: Nerd Alpha Kim Seokjin x Popular Omega Reader

Genre: A/B/O • Enemies to Lovers • (Sorta) College AU • Best Friend's Brother AU (Who is surprised? No one?)

Teaser Word Count: 3.6K

Teaser Warnings: A/B/O sexual dynamics • suggestive content

Rating: Explicit (18+) (Teaser is PG-13)

Summary: In the modern world, alphas are almost unheard of so why even bother learning about them? After all, as a spoiled (but reasonably kind-hearted) omega who is used to getting whatever she wants, you have better things to do. However, when unexpected circumstances throw you in the path of (extremely) nerdy and (probably?) shy Kim Seokjin, you're shocked to discover that he won't be wrapped around your little finger as easily as all the rest. Bringing that infuriating geek to his knees quickly becomes your personal mission in life... But it turns out that Kim Seokjin is not what he appears to be and the mean omega who eats beta boys for breakfast is about to get way more than she bargained for...

Author’s Note: This story would not be here without the love, support and friendship of my incredible support system. You talk with me, you laugh with me, you listen when I’m crying, and you read my chaotic drafts when I am ready to pull my hair out of my head in frustration. I love you all. @ppersonna @xjoonchildx @untaemedqueen @lemonjoonah. ALSO thank you to each and every one of you who encouraged me to post this story. This fic is dedicated to all of you as a token of my love and appreciation. Your support keeps me writing. Never doubt that for a second.

“...due to discriminatory anti-alpha policies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, alphas were nearly eliminated from the general population…”

You heaved a weary sigh and rolled your shoulders—stretching the buttons of your high-end Oxford shirt to their limit. The beta sophomore to your right whined audibly and you smirked.

“...despite efforts to restore the genetic balance of designations, alphas currently comprise less than one percent of the population…”

Your back arched slightly as you crossed your legs, letting the absurdly short hem of your skirt ride up even higher. The poor boy you were tormenting shifted miserably in his seat.

How was he supposed to focus on a Human Biology and Designation Studies lecture when the living breathing embodiment of every sweaty undergrad’s fantasies was twisting her fingers in her hair and wrapping her pretty pink tongue around a strawberry lollipop right there in the middle of class?

“...unlike betas and omegas, alphas possess enhanced strength and the ability to compel other designations with their voice. Unmated alphas especially were often baselessly feared and distrusted...”

You knew exactly how you affected boys like him. You were a shameless tease who relished their attention and the power it brought you. Who needed drugs when driving a man mad with desire was a rush more potent than any high?

“...and that’s all for today so please read pages 450-466 in the text over break and remember to turn in your essay on scent and consent in intimacy—”

That poor sophomore looked like he had finally worked up the courage to speak to you, but you were already out the door and tearing down the hall toward your beautiful (and entirely platonic) counterpart, Kim Taehyung.

“Do you think Professor Moore is unaware that class is over at 3:25 or is he just torturing us for science?”

Taehyung shrugged, falling into step beside you with practiced ease.

“I mean I would torture you for free so it’s hard to say.”

The corner of your mouth quirked up at his characteristic dry humor, but the irritation at being held in that sweltering lecture hall for an extra ten minutes had frayed your temper.

“It’s the last class before spring break, I’m sure he was on some sort of twisted power trip.” You dug around in your purse for some chapstick, ignoring Tae’s amused snorting, “Alphas barely exist anymore and none of us are likely to meet one. Why bother learning what they can do?”

Taehyung tilted his head in amusement.

“You might be surprised.”

The final party before the beginning of spring break was always a laid back affair.

Many people had already caught planes to their various destinations, but your flight was scheduled for early tomorrow morning—leaving you with some time to kill.

Taehyung pressed his newest experimental concoction into your hand within minutes of entering the house (a surprisingly neat bachelor pad owned by two seniors, Jung Hoseok and Min Yoongi) and then darted back to the kitchen to craft more questionable alcohol potions like a deranged party warlock.

You had just found a comfortable place on the couch and were contemplating whether sampling your best friend’s mad scientist elixir would be worth the probable damage to your body when—

“H-Hello...”

It was that sophomore from your Designations Studies class. What was his name again? Jungwoo? Jinwook?

“Jungkook,” you smiled, delighted to have remembered before it became awkward. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

You motioned to the empty cushion next to you and the man in question scrambled over like he’d won the lottery.

“I—I know we don’t know each other well, but I noticed you were absent during Professor Moore’s lecture on intimacy and scent consent so I—” he blushed deeply, “I wrote the essay for you—and I brought a copy on my flash drive if-if you want it.”

Your heart melted immediately.

“Oh my gosh Jungkook, that is so sweet of you!”

Your gaze darted over his muscular form and thick brown curls.

Sweet indeed.

“I don’t want to miss out on the learning though,” you pouted, placing a hand on his tattooed bicep. “Can you explain it to me?”

Jungkook nodded vigorously even as his wide eyes fell to where your fingers were sliding slowly over his chest.

Scent consent was a pretty basic and universally known concept, but you really were touched by the handsome sophomore's consideration.

Why not give him (and yourself) a little reward?

“Um so basically if two people are involved in...intimate activities—”

You leaned forward to nip his ear lightly and he whimpered.

“Like this?” you asked innocently.

“Y-Yes. Like that.” He gulped. “In an intimate situation consent or refusal can be smelled. The scent of refusal or reluctance in intimacy is strong, unmistakable, and has a high chemical potency.”

“Is that so?” you drawled, sliding over onto his lap. Jungkook’s eyes rolled back into his head and you bit back a grin.

He was adorable.

“Uh-huh—it—oh my gawd,” (you were nibbling on his ear again) “it can immediately block sexual arousal and performance in the other partner. Meaning, if consent is not present, then it becomes difficult or—ahh” (his voice began to waver under your continued attention) “—or even impossible to continue with intimate acts.”

Your hand slid up to his cheek, bringing him closer till your lips were almost touching.

“Then what does it mean if I’m still so turned on right now?”

“It means,” Jungkook shuddered—nearly delirious with your scent, “that I really really want you.”

Across the room, Park Jimin chuckled as he watched you seduce his enthusiastic friend.

Jeon Jungkook was such a sweet kid.

Hopefully he wouldn’t get too attached.

“Wow... Some people are genuinely born blessed I suppose.”

Jimin turned to see Jung Hoseok eyeing the dimly lit corner where you and the eager young sophomore were exploring each other.

It was a rather...provocative spectacle. Not quite raunchy (you weren’t truly an exhibitionist)—just insanely sexy.

Jimin’s gaze lingered on the smooth curve of your thigh where Jeon Jungkook was currently holding on for dear life.

Lucky bastard.

“Ah you know how she is,” he sighed. “That boy isn’t going to get any farther than anyone else.”

It was relatively common knowledge that you liked to mess around but rarely—if ever— fully hooked up with anyone.

Jimin asked you about it once during a drunken game of truth or dare and you had just shrugged, mumbling something along the lines of avoiding STDs (which—to be fair—was at least part of your motivation), but the truth was a little more complicated than that.

In terms of experience, you weren’t a virgin, but... you hadn’t actually had sex in years.

You loved the chase, the foreplay, the build-up—the game of cat-and-mouse between two people who were attracted to one another.

But the final consummation was always so…

Wildly unfulfilling.

Every encounter left you frustrated. Empty.

Grumpy—even.

So you stopped bothering with it all together. (That was what sex toys were for after all.)

At the end of the day you were perfectly content being labeled a tease—it meant that people tended to know what they were (or rather weren’t) getting into when they rolled the dice with you.

Besides…it hadn’t even put a dent in your throng of admirers.

You were sunny, spoiled, indulgent, almost universally adored—

And you loved every minute of it.

“You know…” Hoseok took a long sip of his drink. “I always thought she would end up with Taehyung, but it’s been three years.”

Like you, Kim Taehyung was a trust fund brat and it was only natural that two beautiful and absurdly privileged people would gravitate to one another. You met at a freshman pledge party and had been an inseparable (and formidable) dynamic duo ever since.

The undisputed king and queen of campus.

Yes—maybe the two of you were a little self-absorbed at times, but it was hardly your fault that people tended to instinctively cater to the force of your combined looks, wealth, and charisma.

And it didn’t hurt that neither of you were ever intentionally cruel or unkind.

Just... habitually thoughtless.

(Though not when it came to each other. If anything your friendship was one area where you were both a little more human.)

Jimin shook his head.

“Nah that’s never gonna happen.” He tapped his nose. “They’re scent-crossed.”

Hoseok’s eyes widened.

“Really?”

Scent-crossed pairs didn’t smell sexually attractive to each other.

Like. At all.

No matter how physically or visually appealing an individual might be, it would be near impossible to form a sexual or romantic attachment to them if you were scent-crossed. Alphas, betas, and omegas were all subject to their noses first and foremost in the realm of attraction.

You and Taehyung smelled like comfort and home to one another...

But you were more turned on by a crisp cup of apple juice than you were his scent and the feeling was quite mutual.

He might as well have been your actual brother.

“That explains so much.” Hoseok snorted as he watched a drunken Taehyung do a flying leap on top of both you and Jungkook.

“Why is sunlight so offensive?” you croaked, dragging yourself and your luggage toward the boarding ramp next to an equally miserable Taehyung.

“The next time I book a flight before 9 AM, please shoot me,” he grunted.

Your parents were celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary with a month-long European cruise so your best friend had graciously invited you to spend two glorious weeks of spring vacation at his family estate.

The invitation had actually come as somewhat of a surprise because—for all your closeness—Taehyung was uncharacteristically tight-lipped about his family.

Not that he was deliberately withholding information per se… It was just that he never really brought them up beyond an occasional passing comment.

The one time you did ask him about them directly he sighed and said—

“We’re very close, but… I suppose we’ve just gotten used to being very private.”

There was clearly more to the story, but you were confident that Tae would share it if and when he was ready.

“My parents are in Seoul opening a new branch of the company. They took my little sister with them and my older brother has his own house so it will be just us.” He snuggled deeper into the first class seat directly next to yours. “We’ll hang out by the pool and chill during the day, then hit up some of the new clubs or whatever at night.”

“So… No one from your family will be there?”

Perhaps the invitation was not so surprising after all.

“Nope. Just you and me and thirty acres of ocean front property.”

You grinned.

“Perfect.”

“Whose room is that?”

The two of you were lugging your bags down the main hall of Taehyung’s expansive mansion when a strange hint of...something caught you right by the nose.

Your friend turned to find you frozen and staring curiously at a familiar door near the balcony.

His eyes widened, but you were too preoccupied to notice his momentary concern.

“That’s just Jin’s room.”

A firm hand wrapped around your wrist and dragged you away, but your eyes stayed glued to the source of the mysterious scent until you were around the corner and out of sight.

Your suite for the next two weeks was right across the hall from Taehyung’s. There was a whirlpool, a full bath, a balcony, and an ocean view that would rival the cover spread of any travel magazine.

Tae headed for the shower (to ‘wash the airplane off’) immediately after showing you the room and you were thinking of doing the same except…

Your mind kept going back to that door and the hint of scent you detected.

There was something… different about it.

It was faint—and far from fresh (which made sense considering that one of the few things you did know about Kim Seokjin was that he hadn’t lived in this house for years).

But still…

The need to smell it again pressed insistently at the back of your mind.

Suddenly the sound of Taehyung singing raunchy lyrics in the shower carried over through the walls and you found your feet moving almost of their own accord.

What Tae doesn’t know won’t hurt him, you rationalized, making your way down the hall toward Jin’s door. Besides—it’s not as if I’m going to steal anything…

You just needed to find that scent again.

By the time your fingers closed over the knob every one of your nerves was strangely—acutely—alert but nothing could have prepared you for what was waiting behind the door.

Oh. My. Gosh.

“What a colossal nerd.”

The room was covered floor to ceiling in Nintendo memorabilia.

Bright primary colors assaulted your eyes from all directions in the form of action figures, posters, pillows, and every other conceivable merch variety known to man.

In the center of the suite stood a large king-sized bed covered in a custom black couture toile-style Mario-verse bed set (that looked every bit as expensive as it was geeky) and a mountain of high quality Nintendo character plush toys.

Everything was simultaneously luxe and nostalgic—a rare combination of sophisticated aesthetic balance and childlike indulgence.

And the scent was there.

It was faint and covered under layers of cleaner and air fresheners, but still lingering just below the surface—too weak for you to get a really good whiff, yet potent enough to torment you.

You moved forward unconsciously toward the strongest source of the hypnotic smell—the strangely inviting expanse of Kim Seokjin’s mattress.

Suddenly the urge to climb—no crawl—across the bed itself and roll around in it like a kitten in catnip gripped you out of nowhere.

“What the hell?” you muttered, rubbing absently over the mating gland at the base of your neck.

Something very odd was going on with your body.

Your restless gaze zeroed in on one of the stuffed toys piled atop his pillows. It was a cute little mushroom man your brain recognized as a Mario character named ‘Toad’.

Take it.

Your mouth dropped open in shock.

You need it.

“Am I going insane?” you wondered aloud.

You have to take it.

Muscles in your hand began to twitch involuntarily. You bit your lip.

Bring it back with you.

Several minutes later a freshly washed Taehyung wandered over to your room and found you sitting perfectly still on your bed while staring off into space.

His head tilted in curious concern.

“Everything ok?”

You started a bit at the sound of his voice, but recovered quickly.

“Never better!” you chirped—almost too brightly. “Let’s go get some dinner, I’m starving.”

Then you grabbed his hand and pulled him down the hall toward the kitchen—shutting the door before he could catch a glimpse of his brother’s stuffed Toad doll stashed underneath your pillow

“...a critical water main rupture in the city’s New Market district early this morning has forced several residents out of their homes as flood water swelled up to nearly two feet. The governor declared a state of emergency and ordered hotels around the city to accommodate the displaced citizens. Crews are still clearing the water and assessing damages. We expect—

“Hey!” you shouted through a mouthful of cereal, after Your best friend switched off the television, “I was watching that!”

“And what you should be doing is getting ready for the pool.” Tae snatched your cereal bowl and dragged you by your shirt collar toward the stairs. “It is the first morning of our vacation. I’m not trying to waste any time. Now go.” He shoved you forward, smacking your ass for good measure.

You swatted back at him half-heartedly as jogged back up to the room where you enjoyed a surprisingly restful sleep last night.

Kim Seokjin’s door glared at you accusingly as you shuffled past—unable to let you forget that you had kidnapped it’s little mushroom man in an unexplained fit of kleptomania, but that was a problem for your future self.

The you of right now was going to zen out in the Kim family's premium glass-enclosed indoor pool (it was still a little chilly for the outdoor pool) with her best friend and bask in the simple joys of good company and no responsibility.

...Or not.

A few minutes later you bounced into the living room wearing a simple black tankini with a cute floral cover only to find Taehyung on the phone with his head in his hands.

“Yes, sir. I understand… I...I know this is my responsibility...”

That didn’t sound good.

After a few more tense moments, Tae hung up and collapsed backward into the couch with a heavy sigh.

“That water main break you heard about on TV this morning was the last straw between the province and its current contractor. They called an emergency meeting for new bids.”

Your heart dropped as you sank down beside him.

“Your dad wants you to go...doesn’t he.”

Taehyung nodded miserably.

“He can’t leave the Seoul opening on such short notice and managing government construction contracts is part of what I’ve been training for. This could be huge for our company.”

“Well...why doesn’t your brother go?”

“Jin is the brains behind most of our patented gaming and tech innovations. He wouldn’t even know where to begin with this sort of thing. Besides,” his lips quirked up in a rueful grin, “my brother doesn’t have the patience to stroke entitled geriatric egos for hours on end—which is likely what I’m going to have to do.”

The two of you headed back to Taehyung’s room where you helped him pack some suits and toiletries for his trip.

Naturally you were disappointed but...this was a great opportunity for your best friend to prove himself in his chosen field and you both knew it. In fact, he was already starting to brighten a bit.

“The meeting is about a hundred miles north of here. My dad’s secretary already handled the flight and hotel room.” His eyes darted around the suite to see if he was forgetting anything.

It was clear he was nervous, though you were sure he didn’t need to be. Kim Taehyung was a trust fund brat, but he was also talented and deeply passionate about his family’s company.

Someday this would be the norm. The two of you were stealing time in college, determined to live a little before the expectations of your powerful families transferred fully onto your shoulders.

It was becoming more and more clear, however, that your carefree time was slowly running out.

Mother had already spoken to you about potential marriage alliances and your father expected you to intern with his Vice President this summer just as your elder sister had...

Taehyung’s voice suddenly interrupted your bittersweet introspection and you couldn’t help but smile at how grown-up he looked in his suit and briefcase ensemble.

Everything was going to change, but not quite yet.

“They estimate negotiations should take around a week or so…” He walked over and pulled you into a tight hug. “There should still be some vacation left for us when I get back.”

“Hurry back then,” you mumbled grumpily into his chest and he chuckled.

“I will.”

Taehyung had been gone for less than twenty minutes when you decided that the best use of your time would be to eat more snacks.

The last thing you expected when you skipped merrily into the kitchen was to find it occupied by a shaggy-haired homeless man in glasses.

Your first instinct was to scream which caused the homeless man to drop the apple he was biting right onto the floor where it rolled around for a small eternity before coming to rest at his ankles.

Your second instinct was to grab a butcher’s cleaver from the nearby knife block and wave it chaotically at the intruder while shouting something along the lines of—

“You’ve made a huge mistake! My boyfriend is the biggest, meanest mafia boss in Seoul! Leave now and he might let you live!”

The homeless man continued to stare at you with a mixture of confusion and shock, but made no move to run away in terror like you were hoping.

So you tried again.

“Didn’t you hear what I said?! The last man who touched me drinks his steak through a straw now! Do the smart thing and leave before my boyfriend comes down those stairs and it’s too late!”

Infuriatingly, the homeless man was still not fleeing for his life and frankly you were starting to get frustrated. You drew in a deep cleansing breath and were prepared to issue another grandiose threat when he finally spoke.

“I’m sorry, miss. I... think there’s been some sort of mistake. Who is your boyfriend?”

There was no rational explanation for what came out of your mouth next, but it rolled off your tongue so smoothly and you didn’t even flinch.

“Kim Seokjin.”

For the first time in your entire exchange, the intruder looked truly alarmed.

Now that’s more like it.

“You’ve heard of him I see. He’s a dangerous man and my body belongs to him.” You slammed the cleaver down onto the countertop with a (hopefully) menacing slash. “Kim Seokjin doesn’t like when other men put their hands on what belongs to him.”

There was a long, unpardonably tense moment of silence…Then the stranger slowly reached forward and picked up a mobile phone from the table in front of him.

His eyes remained locked with yours as he pressed a quick series of buttons, brought the phone to his ear, waited a few seconds and said—

“Taehyung… Would you mind telling me why there is a half-naked, knife-wielding omega in our kitchen claiming to be my girlfriend?”

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