#it’s so clearly a problem faced by people who don’t actually ship it

[padfootastic]

hey hey hey since we’re popping in just for hot takes, here’s another one:

platonic. prongsfoot. isn’t. a. thing.

how many fucking times does this have to be said.

should i start tagging every remus and sirius interaction as platonic wolfstar??? clog up the whole goddamned tag for u????

honestly what is so hard to understand that a ship name denotes…A FUCKING SHIP

and in case it bears repeating: a ship is inherently non-platonic thank u very much. a ‘platonic ship’ is…wait for it…a friendship. there u have it. shocker i know.

[bipanicoverthegravessiblings]

I’ve been following this blog ever since your first headcannons and I’m in love with your writing. I’ve been DYING for someone to request this but nobody has so I will! Could I request a Yandere Andrew with a willing fem reader? She’s just pretty chill and doesn’t mind Andrew’s possessive and yandere nature and is even willing to cut ties with people because she loves him and genuinely sees nothing wrong with it?

P.S I just love the Ashley and Gabriel ship! I think it’s adorable! I love Gabriel’s design and the pairing looks adorable together! I’m always looking on Tumblr multiple times a day to see if you’ve posted something new.

If you accept, please take your time and have fun! Thank you!

Anon- you are so sweet. Thanks dog <3

totallynotcryingtotallynotcrying—

Yandere!Andrew Graves x Willing Fem!Reader

You can’t remember the last time someone cared about you as much as Andrew did

Someone who would do the things he did just to protect you

Really you couldn’t be luckier

Most women would be terrified to see the dark silhouette of their partner standing outside their window late at night

Not you though, you know he was just making sure you were safe.

You waved to him once, and though it was difficult to see- he waved back

It was endearing how much Andrew cared about your safety

It was sweet how much he noticed about you

Small details that would go overlooked, like the shampoo you used- or the way you held yourself while conveying emotions. He noticed.

Andrew loved you. And you loved him.

“I’m just…worried.” Your friend’s voice felt like the vocal equivalent of chewing cardboard. If it wasn’t for the subject right now, you would’ve tuned her out ages ago. But this concerned you and your life, so you listened, “Like- he’s a stalker Y/N! Straight up stalker! What if he like- wears your skin like a jacket or something.”

“Hm.” You shrugged, “I’m sure he’d sew a lovely jacket then.” A small grin formed on the corners of your mouth as your friend gave an annoyed sigh.

“I’m being serious! He’s obsessed with you!”

“Boyfriends are supposed to be obsessed, aren’t they not?”

“No! Like weirdly obsessed!” You could hear the desperation in her voice, “Y/N, you don’t get it. I’ve been- I’ve been getting letters, voicemails, goddamn post it notes on my desk to stay away from you and they’re all from him. He broke into my house!”

Andrew….did all that?

“Oh my god…” you let out.

“Thank you!”

“Oh my god…he- really must not trust you then.”

“WHAT?!” You had to hold the phone away from your ear as your friend yelled into it.

You slowly brought it back to your ear, “Well- yeah? I mean- clearly he doesn’t trust you.”

“Clearly he’s insane!”

Alright- you had enough.

“Look,” you took a breath, trying to remain calm, “If you have a problem with my boyfriend- that’s fine. But I’m not going to sit here and listen to you insult him.”

“I’m not insulting him I’m—“

“Don’t call me again.” You said flatly, and not a second later hung up the phone.

You should feel awful. You should feel apologetic for what you said. You should consider your friend’s words..

But you didn’t.

It wasn’t like how they thought it was.

That friend, and any others who had something to say could fuck themselves over it

It was hard every time you had to do it

But Andrew- bless his soul- always comforted you

Hell, sometimes he even did it for you cause he knew how difficult they could be

He’s so sweet

Still would make them call, but you slowly blocked out the incessant sound of the phone’s ringing

When one of those conversations would bring you down, Andrew would be right there to lift your spirits

Andrew’s hands cupped your face, his thumbs trying to lift the corner of your mouth into a smile. The more he did it, the more it amused you- causing an actual smile to stay.

“There we go.” His head tilted a little as he gave you a small smile of his own, “Much better.”

“You’re a dork.” You buried your face into his chest, sighing happily as the familiar feeling of his hands stroking your hair.

“I’m your dork.” He hummed, “And I like your smile. So you better keep it, or I’ll carve it on to you.”

“Awwww, is that a promise?” You tilted your head up to look into his pale green eyes, your chin rested against his chest.

He nodded, “Mhm! Now C’mere.”

He leaned his head down, kissing you softly. You returned the kiss, reaching your arms up and wrapping them around his neck to hold him there. Not like he’d pull away, but as a measure for yourself more than anything.

For all the “warnings”

All the “concern” people gave your relationship with Andrew Graves

You didn’t care

You loved him

You loved his fucked up ways of affection

His twisted form of love

And he loved you back, tenfold

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 2

Propaganda Under Cut

Iris West

Treated terribly by fandom because of racism and misogyny

Iris is one of the oldest Flash characters (well, oldest by measure of the Silver Age Flash) and despite the show's problems she was adapted pretty well. Her being pushed aside 100% has to do with her being Black in the adaptation. The most popular ship on Ao3 for that show is her white husband x a white passing supervillain clearly intended to be read as actually white who has been in LITERALLY ~SIX EPISODES. He DIED IN 2016. THEY ARE STILL DOING THIS

Gets mom friended like you wouldn't BELIEVE. People hate her because she was childhood best friends with The Flash and has chemistry with him :( like it's her fault she's sweet and smart and not the male blue coded villain to the red hero. I am so tired

Stephanie Brown

Literally my best friend ever!!! Every time she shows up in a comic I point at her and smile!!! She’s the vigilante known as spoiler & batgirl & was a robin before getting fridged because of editorial mandate and misogyny she deserves so much better @_@. The m/m that some people hate her for is timkon; like they ARE very gay but people are genuinely insane about hating her instead of also realizing that she too is gay (insane amount of subtext w her bff cass). Basically she was Tim’s girlfriend for a long time on and off. People will literally call her abusive for no reason they’ll be like oh but she didn’t apologize for starting a gang war accidentally and faced no consequences for it :/ as if she wasn’t literally KILLED OFF BRUTALLY. And although hate is rarer for her nowadays from what I’ve seen she’s also a victim of Background Lesbian Syndrome. And also a victim of Woman Not Allowed To Have Ocmplex Feelings in the source material itself (tim is canonically bi now yay but like steph wasn’t allowed to have any complicated feelings at all at her on again off again ex breaking up with her for good???). Anyways she’s the light of my life.

she’s the light of my life my baby girl my everything. she canonically dated tim drake, but people love to ship tim with his male friend kon or his male brothers (🤢🤮) and so they constantly sideline her, making her the quirky wingwoman or sometimes even villainizing her by trying to claim she was abusive to tim. i don’t know why so many people hate her my girl will literally just be standing there and people will hate on her.

Stephanie was first introduced in the 1994 Robin series as a side love interest for Robin, but when she turned out to be really popular she became the main love interest. Because of this, she was fully fleshed out as a vigilante calling herself Spoiler to try and take down her villainous father, the Cluemaster. She later grew a lot closer to other cast members, such as Batgirl and Oracle, to get herself a firmly established place among the bats. Then, she dies in a gang war after taking up the Robin mantle. Eventually, in 2009, she was brought back from the dead and took on the Batgirl mantle. Her and Robin get back together sometime around ~2010 and they are solidly together until 2021. Then, Robin breaks up with her off panel for zero reason in canon, only to date some really boring guy named Bernard. By fanon, she's often demonized and turned into an abuser to make either this ship, or a lot of other mlm ships happen. Either that or things are mysteriously set in the time she's dead despite characters who were not yet introduced until she returned appearing. strange.

[doverstar]

Okay, two whole people asked me to share my thoughts on River Song as a character and my thoughts on Doctor/River after I wrote a whole Clara Oswald essay, and it took me 4 days to write that I ship River with the Doctor and I love her, but there are so many problems. The biggest is named Steven Moffat. And because you asked, I will tell you why, turn up your screen brightness here we go-

*huge inhale* In a nutshell, River Song is ridiculous. Stop wait let me explain- *hands you the nutshell and pats your hand* Shh. River Song as a character first appeared in Silence in the Library, right? We were with the Doctor’s tenth incarnation and Donna Noble, statistically the most popular era in the show’s long history. And this episode was Moffat’s fourth-ever story for the show. Blink and the The Doctor Dances two-parter were all so good. He was on a roll. River comes in and she’s so much fun. And she knows the Doctor. Already. And the crowd goes oooooh collectively. She knows him intimately, it seems. And he has no clue who she is, so oooh again, she’s from his future! It is heavily implied that they'll be married—it’s just the first place anyone’s brain goes.  And then she dies. And we loved her, end scene. Then Moffat took over the show and got the opportunity to explain himself, and he explained himself really poorly.

River went from being a very interesting flash-in-the-pan to being an overdecorated ideal. She is Moffat’s ideal woman. She’s crazy, she seems independent and powerful and unattainable, but she’s actually totally obsessed with the protagonist and consistently making innuendos at him. Her sun rises and sets on the Doctor. Why? Because that’s Moffat’s idea of an attractive woman. I kid you not. I think the problem with writing something that is pure self-indulgence is that you’re so excited about what you’re writing, you don’t stop and think, hey, is this working? You don’t measure the quality. You’re not thinking clearly, it’s just wish-fulfillment. River is everything Moffat thinks a woman should be. Mysterious, strong, insane, violent, but only because of the man she’s drooling over. Her whole story is an excuse to write a woman like the one I just described, because it’s hot to Moffat. (I know. Gross.) Here comes a Moffat rant. The man is insanely talented, and I am not silly enough to believe that all of his writing regarding women is fetish-fueled – I just don’t think that way typically when I’m watching something, but it’s really hard to miss with Moffat. Haven’t you noticed every one of his female characters is full of lust for the protagonist? That’s weird. It was weird when Amy kissed the Doctor against his will, engaged to Rory and not interested in “anything quite so permanent”. It was weird when Nanny Clara kissed him after having just met him, in the middle of a dangerous situation, and then not keeping her eyes front up the magic ladder. (It was weird that Oswin was dressed like that and lounging in all of those poses the first time we saw her, as a dead woman in a Dalek shell, go back and watch it. Laugh like I did. You’re [hallucinating that you’re] stranded on an alien planet in a ship that crashed—and that’s what you’re wearing to work? The last survivor?) It's weird that rando Tasha Lem divulges intense, universe-altering danger to the Doctor in a breathless voice with space wine as they creep closer together over a bed. Ew. What? Why is that even happening? And finally, it’s weird that a girl brought up to murder her parents’ much-older alien best friend, who she was brainwashed to believe is the universe’s biggest problem, should want to eat his face off. Especially when their timelines are out of order and she hasn’t gotten to know him for real at all yet.

Is the Doctor attractive? Yup. Was any of that necessary? Nope. Now we’ll transition for a bit into what I think is wrong with the ship, even though I do ship it. (More on the pros of it later.) The more we learned about her, the less River and the Doctor made sense. The only truly wonderful thing about their dynamic (my favorite part!) is that the Doctor and River act like they’re already married, even though they’re meeting out of order. They have that assurance in one another. They each know the other person will become someone they’re willing to marry someday—they each get a sneak peek of that future together. (River in Let’s Kill Hitler, the DoctorinSilence in the Library.) So when they do meet, even when she’s in Instant Kill Mode and he’s in You Scare Me mode, it’s with an expectation that, hold on, eventually I’m going to really really care about you. Everything they do with one another from that point forward is influenced by that expectation, which makes them comfortable around one another. So that’s sweet and I love it. The problem is—River isn’t the Doctor’s ideal woman. She might be Moffat’s, but on paper she should not work with the Doctor romantically. Moffat engineered this woman—who is supposed to eventually be the Doctor’s wife—to be violent, self-centered, insane, very sexual, and willing to shatter any laws of time (or morality) she sees fit. That’s the opposite of what the Doctor admires, chooses, and is attracted to from everything we’ve ever seen of him. (Does the Doctor like smart, capable women who are good in a crisis? Yes! Obviously! That’s not what I’m talking about.) But suddenly after meeting River, being told one day she’ll be his wife, (instead of organically learning why he would marry her and organically learning who she truly is and then growing to love her naturally), very quickly and without explanation he’s all “And unlike me, she really doesn’t mind shooting people. I shouldn’t like that, kinda do a bit!” What? Since when? Since Moffat. Because Moffat is behind the wheel and Moffat finds that hot. Sir, just because you told me to ship it doesn’t mean I’m convinced. Now, is it her fault that she’s a murder weapon? Is it River’s fault that she was brought up to believe it’s okay to choose violence, wear poison lipstick, and be the girlboss of murder? Absolutely not. Melody Pond was kidnapped, tortured, brainwashed, and used as a human/Time Lady weapon just because she was there. She had absolutely no choice in the matter. And when she did eventually, finally get to choose, she chose to rescue the Doctor and start over. She sacrificed every remaining regeneration she might have had to reverse her actions. That last part? That’s awesome. I love that. But that nice moment doesn't fix the rest. The story goes that River was stolen, raised to kill the Doctor, and then fell in love with him along the way—and the special sauce is, she’s meeting him out of order; every time she sees him he knows her less because she’s moving backward along his timeline. (Unnecessarily complicated, but very fun, Moffat! Can’t forget fun in Doctor Who.) The story goes, too, that the Doctor meets his wife from the future in the biggest universal Library one day, watches her die, and waits for her to appear again so he can start a love story he knows the ending to—and the special sauce is, he’s meeting her out of order; every time he sees her he’s getting to know her more and she knows him less, because she’s moving backward while he moves forward. That does make for an interesting love story. You’re excited to see it play out because you and the Doctor expect it to be a doozy based on River’s “not those times, don’t you dare, you watch us run” speech in Forest of the Dead. But the problem is, they were both told they’d marry one day and therefore they treat it as a foregone conclusion, so there’s no organic attempt at really, truly falling in love. They behave as though they didn’t fall anywhere, they were pushedinside and someone locked the door. (I just pictured Moffat outside with the key. “Now KISS!”)

The point is that nobody worked for this relationship. If you’re going to explain how they fell in love, because the audience already knows they apparently will, then actually show them falling in love! When did the Doctor decide he loved River? When he found out she was Amy’s literal daughter? When he found out she was a psychopath? Or did it all begin in the Library when she died for him, because he already knew that for some reason one day he would marry her, and it’s all just placebo from then on? Or did Ten just regenerate into the sort of man who inexplicably “love(s) a bad girl, me”, and really gets off on those moments when River threatens to shoot and kill other life forms? Yeah, that makes sense. When did River decide she loved the Doctor? When Kovarian told her he’s the scourge of universes? Or was it when River heard he's ultimately the reason she was kidnapped and made to be raised by the Silence and forced into a space suit as a child, because one day she has to rid the universe of this man? Oh! Maybe she fell in love with him when her literal parents went to primary school with her as peers and Amy told her about the Raggedy Doctor as little girls and Mels decided she’d marry him for some reason one day even though she was trained to kill him! (*big pause to catch my breath*) Do you see what I’m saying? We didn’t see it happen. We were told, not shown, that they were in love, or that they would be in love enough to marry one day, and then we watched it not actually happen. And so did the Doctor and River. They are both living in a constant state of resignation to their relationship. Moffat didn’t tell a love story, he told an epilogue, and neither of the lovers got to experience the beginning! For all the cutesy times they quipped “spoilers” at each other, they never once just let things take their course naturally. They lived in the spoilers. The spoilers are the only reason they’re together in the first place! 

And one more thing. A side thing. The Doctor did not want to marry River. That’s disappointing, isn’t it? The wedding was not a happy one. They did it because according to River, their history (their relationship’s “archeology”) differed - she’s either the woman who murders or marries the Doctor, and given those choices, the Doctor wanted to choose murderer instead of wife as River’s role because it was the only way to save reality, but she wouldn't listen to him until he called her wife. Their wedding, just like everything else about their romantic history, is something they’re forced into. It’s contrived. It’s confusing. It’s very difficult to believe in. Moffat gave us all the relational-dynamic payoff prematurely and never actually showed us the part where they fell in love.

That’s my problem(s) with their relationship. Now let me talk about (as requested) River as a character again and what I actually do find most interesting and endearing about her and about her relationship with the Doctor. Like I said, I actually do love her, I actually do ship it, and now I’m gonna vomit out why.

The most endearing thing about River to me is that she is insecure, and that humanizes the silly ideal. Now, in spinoff material River led a very long and varied life, and the Doctor was not the only man she was intimate with. But he’s the only one she loves. That love is what makes her so insecure. And it is love—after a while of repeatedly running into him after Lake Silencio, River is consistently choosing to put the Doctor and his needs before herself and her own. She always had it in her; she’s Amy and Rory’s daughter and the child of the Tardis, after all. But it’s the influence that the Doctor has on her that makes her go from psychopath to heroine. She genuinely believes he’s the best man ever, which is saying something when your father is Rory Williams.

And she, River, murdered him or tried to. She was stolen from his friends and made to attack him, made to put them in danger. She had to lie to him nearly every time they met, or at the very least withhold important information from him. Every time she met him, he trusted her less and less and less. 

And the Doctor is not perfect, but think about how River must see him. He must seem perfect, right? He’s so, so kind, he’s so, so good. He’s so brave. He’s so selfless. He’s so smart. He’s amazing, and he uses his time and his talents for other people, saving lives and helping out all across the stars. He even helped her. He even forgave her. That’s why she fell in love with him, not because he’s hot when he’s clever, not because she’s a psychopath and really, Madam Kovarian, who else was she going to fall in love with, what a basic mistake – NO. If you want to look at it from its most compelling angle, no matter how confusing it gets, how contrived, the most compelling angle is that River loves the Doctor because the Doctor forgave her. In spite of everything. And we see how she really thinks of him, how insecure she truly is, what she really thinks he must feel about her, in The Husbands of River Song. That episode is my favorite River episode.

She got to marry him, but it was under force. She got to be with him, but not forever. She got to help him, but not always. They kissed, but he treated it like it was the first time. He forgave her, but he had to bail them all out in the end, because when she tried she made a mess of it. “Trust you? Seriously?” “I don’t wanna marry you.” “You embarrass me.” “Why do you have to be this? Melody Pond—your daughter, I hope you’re both proud!” River is in love with him, but she genuinely does not think he is in love with her. On paper, it doesn’t seem like she’d be someone he chooses to love. Maybe someone he chooses to pity. Maybe someone he chooses to look after, because her parents are dead now and he loved them and he failed to save Melody the first time, guilty to the last. Whichever way she looks at it, he can’t possibly love her. Sure, he flirts with her, but he flirts with everyone. Yes, she’s smart, but he only takes the best. He’s surrounded by smart. She saved him and it was her honor, but she’s not the first to do that anyway. And like I said, neither of them got to see when the other person first started loving them, because it’s all back-to-front and they exist in a state of resignation. I can think of no better way to feel insecure about where you stand with the man you love than literally never ever knowing when it will begin.

But River’s cool. She’s brave and clever and she can do just about anything she wants with whoever she wants. She can live like the Doctor—adventures in time and space, and maybe sometimes he’ll run into her. In fact, she keeps calling on him when she needs help, and doesn’t he always come? Doesn’t that mean something? One day they’ll be married, just keep waiting, okay, now they are married, he’ll get used to it, he still flirts with her, stay cool, stay funny, stay smart, at least he’s still around, just keep waiting— And then after a while she stops waiting. She’s not like her mother. She gets on with life. The Husbands of River Song is genius because their timelines are synced perfectly, at last, for them to be at the peak of their affection for one another. River doesn’t know him, but not because he’s wearing a new face, because he’s actually really, really obvious about the fact that it’s him. He’s constantly trying to get her to see it without outright saying it, but she has this mental block that will not even consider that he’s there, especially the deeper they go into danger together. Why is that? Well, she says it. The enemy says she’s the perfect bait, refers to her as the woman who loves the Doctor, and what does River say? It's right here. And it’s made very clear by her actions throughout the episode before this speech that River really does believe it. Because he’s standing right behind her listening to all of that and she hasn’t seen that it’s him, because of course he’s not here. She suffers from the same mentality her sweet dad Rory did—that the person she loves will never love her the way she loves them. River doesn’t think she’s nothing, but she thinks she’s nothing to the Doctor.

I think it’s beautiful that she was wrong. I think the Doctor loves River, and I think it’s a very different love than what he had for Rose Tyler (or, now that I think of it, Sarah Jane). It’s still love, it’s just not the same. It’s nice that you can ship both, actually.

(If you ask me which I think is the better love story between the two ships, that’s a different essay for a different time, and one that I think will have people drop-kicking me throughout every facet of the internet. Right now we’re focusing on River and on her ship with the Doctor, which I do enjoy.) I may not think that it was brilliantly executed, but the fact remains that at some point, the Doctor did grow to love and care about River Song. And there’s one part of their wedding that I also liked a lot— When he marries her and her parents give consent, the Doctor’s first request of his wife is “help me”. That’s what wives do! That’s what husbands need from wives! That’s marriage. The sticking together no matter what, being the person you both turn to in life’s darkest moments. River understood that concept, because when Amy asks in The Angels Take Manhattan if allowing the Angel to touch her will send her to Rory, who has just died in front of them, the Doctor says he doesn’t know, and Amy asks “But it’s my best shot, yeah?” The Doctor shouts no, but River tells him to shut up. “Yes, yes, it is!” And she’s crying, but she’s smiling too. She knows what she would do if she were Amy. She knows why Amy is going to let the Angel touch her. Because that’s marriage. And that’s what she feels for the Doctor. I do ship it! I love the idea that love helped shape River instead of hate, contrary to Kovarian’s plans for Melody. I love the idea that the Doctor started out untrusting of River and in the end, trusted her implicitly. I love that he had her when he needed help. And let’s face it, they really are so much fun.

[anonymous-dentist]

Can you give me a recap. What's happening with Cellbit???

God what isn’t happening with Cellbit

Basically, here’s a list of what the Feds have done to him, and his current response:

15 years ago, the Federation kidnaps him after he sees something he shouldn’t have. It seems like he was being held for observation. He escaped, but I think he was caught again? Idk I don’t speak Portuguese

He got shipped SOMEHOW to the Hunger Games with no memories of his childhood with Bagi and his parents

Time passes. He’s put in prison because people were “afraid of [his] potential”, aka probably because he was entirely too chill with killing the shit out of people

Time passes again, he crashes onto the island, and Problems Start

My guy gets chainsaw tortured! Aka he gets chased down a hallway and murdered by a laughing Cucurucho and then revived and chased down a hallway and shown his corpse by a laughing Cucurucho. After an interrogation, he’s elevatored upstairs to… Richarlyson’s old bedroom area, which was basically the Feds saying “Hey we’ll do this to your son too lol”

Felps aka Cellbit’s best friend get kidnapped

Bobby dies and so does most of Roier’s soul

Because of that, Cellbit joins the Feds to investigate secretly and shit. He then gets kidnapped and he ends up losing like three days’ worth of memories

He tells people about the chainsaw torture and they laugh in his face and/or ignore him. For MONTHS

The Feds try and murder him during the elections, but that’s fine, he ends up murdering himself

The Feds trick him into giving up a HUGE amount of information in a secret office under his house (this is a surprise tool that will help us later)

They keep making him go on jobs for them, and he’s pretty sure that they’re the guys threatening to kill his son if he tells anybody about the missions (that was probably the Resistance tbh, but he doesn’t even know they exist)

ElQuackity happens. Just. Everything about him tbh, but especially him threatening both Richas and Roier to the point of Roier Cubito legit being afraid for the literal first time ever that Cellbit has known him

Then the eggs get kidnapped, and the Feds aren’t doing shit to help

Then Forever and Pac are drugged

Then Forever is sent on a suicide mission into the Nether

And then the eggs aren’t back

And then there’s a Federation prison on the server

And then the eggs aren’t back and neither is Forever

And now Roier is even more of a broken man than he already was because the Federation isn’t doing shit to help find the eggs

And then Cellbit finds out that he’s missing 12 or so years of his life because of the Federation. That he had a HOME, and then. He didn’t. Because of them.

Tbh I think that last bit was the real final straw, but then:

The Mini-Me event was because Cellbit got intel from a rebel worker (kinda) who promised Cellbit information in exchange for the “goods” at the presentation

Cellbit didn’t feel Anything even after he won the day by all means necessary after stealing the Mini-Mes

So he went home and had a nervous breakdown and now he’s killing workers because like. Okay.

So why is Cellbit killing all these workers? Well, he isn’t thinking super clearly now, but he’s basically trying to get his family off the island safely. That’s his priority. They can’t leave until the Feds are gone, so he’ll make the Feds gone.

He’s tired of the complacency everyone else is showing. After all the shit they’ve been put through on the island, why isn’t anybody actually fighting back? Don’t they want to leave?

So. Yeah! :D

[meraki-yao]

TN Candies Part 3

I was gonna make a collection like the last few times but thanks to his majesty Mister Tony Curran, I’m going slightly insane now, so this one is gonna be a little shorter (I’ll write another one during the weekend) but this one will be about M&G, so buckle up :D

Part 1/ Part 2

The usual disclaimers, if you know if jump directly to under the cut:

This post contains content regarding real-person shipping. If you’re uncomfortable with the subject, again, please don’t read under the post and leave

 I need to reiterate this in case my position in this gets misunderstood: My writing about “candies” isn’t because these are MY opinion or things *I* found or *I* believe in them being evidence. I am just a translator and messenger.

Chinese people have a very different understanding of platonic/romantic affection/relationships compared to the Western world, and they look at the candies with rose-tinted glass. Among the “candies” I’ve seen, most of them are a matter of interpretation: yes those are things couples will do, but it wouldn’t be weird if friends did it too. So they’re not that serious or up for further speculation. There is I think only one “candy” that I can’t quite say the same, which I will explain and elaborate on in this post. 

Please remember that the people who do this do it in good nature: If they’re just friends the fans won’t be upset or betrayed or anything, they just prefer to see them as romantic. They don’t mean any harm, and they don’t cause any harm because China is physically and digitally too far away for them to actually fuck shit up, and they understand the lines of parasocial relationships: those who met with Taylor during his China trip in December know to, and didn’t bring up this in front of him. They know where to draw the line, and whoever doesn’t and starts becoming a problem gets kicked out of the community. This is meant for fun.

Nick, Taylor, Tony and M&G, what the fuck is happening

1, "My Taylor"

The day(night) after the M&G teaser was dropped was the GQ Men of the Year event that both Taylor and Nick attended, but Nick left early. The funny thing is when asked to do a Taylor impression again, Nick said “My Taylor”. Now, clearly he means “My Taylor Impression” but that didn’t stop “My Taylor” from trending on Twitter. Active Weibo rwrb fan called 激情大肥鹅 (the username means… a thing that I will not translate, go use google translate😅) commented on the boys:

Translation:

“I can’t stop laughing I’m gonna die

Taylor: handsome  handsome  handsome

Nicholas: beautiful  giggles  shy  dropping his stuff on the ground”

2, The Crown

Mentioned this in my part 1 post in the Taylor’s China Trip section:

A fan asked Taylor to sign his and GQ magazine shoot, he first drew the moustache on Nick’s face, giggling “I’ll sign on Nick’s face”, signed his own signature, then just when he was about to give the magazine back he suddenly changed his mind and said “wait wait I wanna do something on my face”, and then drew a crown on his head while muttering “crown prince”.

So, to summarize the candies of this one fan interaction here: Historical George had such a moustache, Nick plays George, George is the King’s lover, Kings wear crown, and Taylor first drew a moustache on Nick and then a crown on himself.

… Go figure 😅

3, Alone

Currently, out of the 7 M&G posts on Nick’s Instagram, Taylor liked 3 of them: “The Son The Seducer” poster from 18 Jan, “Power breeds Power” poster from 16 Feb, and the red carpet post from last week. Note that in all three posts, we don’t see George with any of his lovers (sex partners? Idk the right word to use): the first poster is only George, the second poster is George with Mary looming over him, and the third is the cast.

4, Comments

Tony Curran (King James in M&G) commented flirty comments Nick’s GQ MOTY post and “The Son The Seducer” post. Now the weird thing with “The Son The Seducer” post is Taylor liked the post first, then Tony commented, and then A DAY AFTER HE LIKED IT Taylor went back to comment “Hell Yeah”! The likes one Taylor’s comment surpassed that of Tony’s comment (sorry sir😂)

5, Word Choice

(I really, really this one is a stretch but the Chinese fans like this one so I might as well translate) On M&G red carpet post, Taylor comments “Yeah Boy ”, and umm… the idea is he could have used “yeah baby” the same way he did during the RWRB UK VS US draw off, but he used “boy”, something not as on the nose as “baby” but more intimate/closer than something like “yeah man”

6, Twitter Likes

Whatever the fuck Tony’s doing today: Among Tony’s recent Twitter likes, there’s a couple of rwrb/firstprince posts, and a post of Taylor.

… yeah

(ok this is the tin hat part, so skip this bracket if you want to you have been warned: there’s this idea that if you’re in a relationship, your friends will cheer you on and tease you and like stuff about your relationship. It’s what my friend group does with the couple in our group, it’s also what happened to the cast of my rps ship JZ that I mentioned here: during the farewell concert to their show, the rest of the cast kept teasing JZ both in and out of character (JZ were okay with it, it’s all in good fun)…so… with that logic…yeah.)

Alright that’s it for this M&G special edition of candies!  I think I can get the next one done by Saturday, but definitely writing another one of these within the week (200 fucking screenshots…)

Tagging a couple of folks:

@lfg1986-2 @tal-vez-o-quizas @na-18dia @mylucayathoughts @androgynoustriumphclown @hopefulblizzardsublime @whattfisausername @leimons @ghostwithatophat @badhimboi88 @pippin-katz

If you're not on the list let me know if you want to tagged in the next one!

[mswyrr]

"ready or not" - grace/daniel ship meta

It's a delightful Horror/dark comedy film about how rich people suck. Scary but not too scary (I am a 'fraidy cat about Horror movies) and just a romp really. It's paced well and has a great Final Girl and I'd recommend it.

But now I want to talk about my ship lol

SPOILERS TO FOLLOW

Hm, so, are they "in love" exactly? No. There's chemistry and ultimately they appreciate each other (as the only two people in that house "who [have] a soul" - Daniel is able to recognize and appreciate that Grace has one because he's still got one too, albeit tattered and buried deep). But the more important thing, for me, is the structural shift between the two brothers and how that strongly implies things would have turned out happier if Grace had fallen in love with Daniel.

Namely, Alex has a heel turn arc and Daniel has a face turn arc. And, the one who face turns acts on the promises the one who heel turns broke.

The film is a wedding night gone wrong, specifically a new spouse who proves untrue. Grace says her problem was "in-laws," but it's actually Alex breaking the vows he just made to her that comes closest to killing her. The in-laws themselves are not the most efficient threat ever. They're pretty bumbling. Alex keeps Grace in the dark and Alex turns on her, that is what brings her close to death. As well as a funny political satire, it's a satire of the tensions marriage brings into a family, over who your new spouse will be loyal to - you above all others, as they've promised, or the family that raised them, even if it's shitty.

Grace marries one man who promises to be good to her, care for and love and protect her. To be her family, when she is a foster kid who has no family. And then Alex proves false and the other brother, the "weak" one, poisons his family and puts himself between her and a bullet.

Daniel does what Alex promised to do.

Now, he largely thought he was doing this for Alex (not realizing Alex would have a heel turn), so it's not primarily about Grace - HOWEVER, Daniel independently recognizes and values Grace as a person as well as doing it for Alex. Loving his little brother and trying to protect him is how Daniel kept his soul; he's that kind of person at heart. And the structure lends itself to asking how well he and Grace would get along in other circumstances. If this is how he is when they barely know each other, what would he be like if he was the one who'd met and fallen in love with her? Or what if he survived?

The writing includes other elements that strength this as well: they both recognize each other. Early on, Daniel keeps saying "You don't belong in this family - I mean that as a compliment" and saying she "has a soul" so she'll never fit in. And Grace recognizes his soul too. She keeps reaching out to him and believed Daniel would help her before he knew it himself. ("I knew you'd help me." / "I didn't.")

A YouTube review was like talking about how Grace doesn't survive by her own wits because she trusts Alex and he turns on her, it's only "good luck" that saves her. That she has “plot armor.” And I was like wuuut lol Good luck is part of it, but not beyond belief - and Grace does keep herself alive with her grit and wits and then she reaches out to someone and that person poisons his family and takes a bullet for her.

Another point is that, despite it clearly not being a love match, Daniel warned his wife, Charity, about the family cult before their marriage and let her decide whether she wanted to take the risk. Alex hid the information from Grace because "If I told you, you would've left."

That's the key choice where Alex doesn't put Grace first. He puts what he wants (to keep her with him) first. And that foreshadows him putting what his family wants first. Subconsciously, Alex was always ready to betray Grace if she pulled the wrong card. He betrayed her by not warning her.

I think the final thing that makes it work for me is that Daniel and Alex were both children the last time someone pulled the Hide and Seek card. As much as the movie tries to make us not feel bad about the kids today, they're not to blame for the shitty way they've been raised, and Alex and Daniel weren’t to blame for what happened 30 years ago.They were kids.

It's *this* time that they're both adults and making decisions as full moral agents. It's this time that they both find out who they really are. And the decision Daniel makes is to put a stop to all the ritual murder bullshit.

It's also about the heroine's victory. What does Grace *want* from the very beginning of the story? A permanent family, people who will stick by her and love her.

In the canon movie ending, Grace survives, but she's still a foster kid with no family. Though she's legally filthy rich now, it's not the same. She doesn't actually get what she told us she wanted from the beginning of the movie. In fact, she loses the one person she was certain would be family to her, along with the hope her in-laws would be there for her. So there's that sadness to it, which makes the ship meaningful on her side. In this terrible circumstance, she found someone who has a good heart too and would prove true.

The story both provides us with a lack (Grace, the heroine, not getting her heart's desire) and someone who the story shows us could be that for her. Someone who has a soul, despite everything, and wants to do the right thing, to protect and love.

There's a reason why there's timeloop stories where Grace keeps playing the game until she can have a "complete victory" by saving Daniel and winning the family she wanted as well as getting away with her life and the money. The heroine's victory in the film itself is compromised.

The reason why there's a lovely bunch of gems of fanfic about Grace and Daniel on Ao3 is that the story itself provides that bitterness to the sweetness of Grace's survival, that she's still so alone, and a strong foundation for ways they could have been happier or worked out if they'd fallen in love instead of Grace and Alex or if Daniel had survived.

[stargirlie25]

Yall

In the blinding sun off the turquoise water, his shadows were gone, his face stark and clear. More ... human than I had ever seen him.-Acowar

When Azriels shadows disappear, he looks most human. Which he is not and will never be. Also the sun is very clearly mentioned here.

“I don’t want a mate. I don’t want a male.” She wanted a human man.-Acofas

Could this be the reason Elain is drawn to Azriel? He is another version of her once love? It seems that Elain might be attracted to the illusion of Azriel. He looks most human when his shadows are gone and his shadows always vanish around Elain.

Now Elain is drawn to sunshine. the sun. Light. brightness.

The suite was filled with sunlight.

Every curtain shoved back as far as it could go, to let in as much sun as possible. As if any bit of darkness was abhorrent. As if to chase it away.And seated in a small chair before the sunniest of the windows, her back to us, was Elain.

We both took the invitation and left our sister in her sunlit room.

She had been always so full of light

“What can I get you, Elain?” Only with Elain did she use that voice. But Elain shook her head once more. “Sunshine.”

She set down the tray and wiped her flour-coated hands on the apron she wore over her dusty-pink gown. Even in the middle of winter, she was a bloom of color and sunshine

While Azriel....

Az said, his shadows lingering in the archway, as if fearful of the bright sunlight in the ring.

So if this is clear, Elain is sunshine,loves sunshine,resorts to sunshine,and symbolizes sunshine. Sunshine/light are a part of her true character.

Azriels shadows disappear around sunshine AND Elain.

See how both this characters together take away from each other?

Azriel shadows. Always would be his companions. Always disappear around Elain.

Elain always full of light. Finds darkness abhorrent. Night court black specifically sucking the light from her face.

They both compliment each other horribly. Taking away something important from each of them.

He still has not gotten over his feelings for Mor.

She still wears Graysen's engagement ring.

They are both a distraction or a runaway to their problems.

Azriel wants Elain because he thinks she should be his mate.

Elain's reason for not wanting Lucien is because he is her mate.

Azriel thinks Elain should be with him because he is the last brother and she is the last sister. As he said ''the third was given to another'' MEANING Elain could be anyone, any person but that would not matter because Azriels crack theory still stands. This also proves, that he has no real problems with Lucien. Its just the fact that the ''another'' is mated to the ''third'' sister.

His petty jealousy of Eluciens bond is because of his own problems he has been struggling with for centuries. He believes he will be happy like his brothers if he were to be with Elain. His problems led him to say bullshit about Lucien which is incredibly uncalled for. He would say it even if it were another male. There's no real reason for Azriel to not like Lucien.

By the way another thing debunking Azriels dumb crack theory is the fact that Rhysand,Cassian and himself are not actually brothers?

There best friends at most. This flumps the ''how could two sisters be given to my two brothers but the third was given to another!'' (This isn't the actual quote''

BECAUSE YALL ARE NOT BROTHERS. DIFFERENT BLOOD. DIFFERENT FRICKING EARS. DIFFERENT DAD. DIFFERENT MOMMA. PEOPLE LITERALLY SHIP HIM WITH RHYSANDS SISTER!!!

RHYSAND,CASSIAN AND AZRIEL COULD FUCK IF THEY WANTED TOO AND NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN?

Only the Archerons are sisters. Otherwise they all ended up with their people who match them.

[better-call-mau1]

Congratulations! You’re being smothered with a completely random headcanon about Mandalorian marriage customs rescued! Please do not resist.

The Rite of Riduurok Akaanir, aka “Lover’s Quarrel”

Alright…so I gotta be honest and say that even though I can’t remember how exactly this headcanon came to me, I’ve been carrying it around for years, ever since first watching Rebels and shipping Sabezra 😅 …and at this point, I feel like it’s burning a hole in my head, trying desperately to get out, so I’m gonna save myself the expense of reconstructive cranial surgery and just share it:

Mandalorians like to fight. Actually, they don’t just like to fight, “weapons are a part of [their] religion,” or at least their culture—and for many, their entire lives are built around that. In the case of the Children of the Watch, strict adherence to a No-Living-Being-Can-See-You-With-Your-Helmet-Off orthodoxy even gets in the way of basic interpersonal behavior, like eating a meal together. The implications of that are…interesting…and not in a “wow that’s cool!” way…more like a “kark, that’s depressing” way.

Basically, I started to wonder how the “BAM! BOOM! BAM! BOOM! BLOW STUFF UP AND KILL THOSE FORCE-WIELDING MANIACS!” portion of Mandalorian culture (so…most of it?) intersects with intrinsic parts of human…wait, nope, sorry Grogu sentient life—namely romantic intimacy. (Paz Vizsla has, presumably, not taken his helmet off in decades…and he has a son who’s probably 12ish years old, tops…so do you think he ever stares at his kid and tries parsing out his own features to get an idea of what his wife looks like?) It’s an extreme example from an extreme sect, but there’s application to Mandalorian society as a whole. Where does love fit into a worldview or galaxy-view, I guess where conflict is a core tenet? When do individuals stop existing as warriors and start existing as people? Do they ever?

Anyway, the point is that on its face, the cultural dogma doesn’t seem to leave much room for authentic social and romantic intimacy, especially the latter since, ya know, the beskar has to come off both literally and figuratively in order to procreate. It’s difficult for me to see how the necessity of physical and emotional vulnerability can coexist with the rest of Mando culture—so let’s just leave it at that.

But for a civilization to survive as long as Mandalore has without totally disintegrating, those intimate relationships have to exist, and there’s plain evidence that they do. For all their problems, the Wren family clearly loves each other, and we even get a glimpse of some soft Alrich/Ursa PDA in “Heroes of Mandalore.” Then there’s Bo-Katan, who still cares deeply for her sister despite…well…joining a terrorist faction to help overthrow her. That says something, right?

Wrapping my mind around how authentic love can exist in a fictional warrior society really got me thinking—so much so that I headcanoned a ritual (Riduurok Akaanir, “Lover’s Quarrel”) to help myself work it all out.

The general idea? On Mandalorian wedding nights, the bride and groom have a private duel. A duel to the death? Maybe if it’s an arranged marriage and one party really wants out and I’m gonna speculate that Bo-Katan widowed herself at least four times before running off to join Death Watch.

More commonly, though, it’s just a playful act to embody love transcending conflict. Alrich Wren, for example, isn’t a traditional warrior, but Ursa didn’t assert her superior combat prowess on their wedding night by firing a wrist rocket at his face something Bo-Katan probably did to a few of the short-lived husbands Satine picked out for her. (“Parry this, you kriffing casual.”) Instead, I’d like to think Alrich and Ursa went through the basic motions of a hand-to-hand duel, not necessarily to prove who’s the better warrior, but as an intimate prelude to the actual consummation of their marriage—almost like a mutually disarming dance. (Could it be light-heartedly competitive? Sure! As the first Mando to perform the Riduurok Akaanir with a Jedi, Sabine would go all-out to make sure she doesn’t lose to Ezra! 😆) When the dance-duel ends, they set aside their warrior identities to become something more: husband and wife. It’s like a way of saying, “As Mandalorians, what we do is fight, but we’re more than mere weapons. We fight so we can love. We wear armor to protect ourselves, our homes, and our families. It’s an important part of who we are, but we’re ultimately made of flesh and blood, not cold beskar.”

So that’s the point of Riduurok Akaanir, a term I came up with using this nifty English to Mando’a online translator (before I just called it “Wedding Night Fight” in my head). It’s not supposed to be a blanket explanation—but intimacy and vulnerability don’t have clear utility in a warrior culture, and this is my best attempt at bridging that perceived gap.

If you made it down this far without dozing off, enjoy this Sabezra incorrect quote! 😁

Fenn Rau: I trust that Sabine briefed you on Mandalorian wedding customs?

Ezra: Yep! I know exactly how not to get myself killed before officially becoming a married man.

Rau: The trick is not getting yourself killed *after* becoming a married man. Did she explain what happens on the wedding night?

Ezra: Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Rau:

Ezra:...yeahthatsnotreallysomethingIneedorwantSabinetoexplaintomeandKanankindofgavemethelowdownbackduringmyJeditrainingdayssoIthinkIknowwhattodobutthanksanyway.

Rau: Kanan taught you about the Mandalorian ‘lover’s quarrel,’ then? His instruction was even more thorough that I imagined. Or maybe he always knew you and Sabine would end up together.

Ezra: Sorry, did you say...?

Rau: The Rite of Riduurok Akaanir is usually non-fatal. Sabine seems to be genuinely fond of you, so I’m sure you’ll survive to see the sunrise.

Ezra:

Ezra:

Ezra: Oh kriff.

[pavo-ocxllus]

❝ ...𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐭. ❞

𝐢𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡… kenma, suna, daichi, and osamu accidentally propose to you, their lovely s/o, through an unlucky sequence of circumstances in public. 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠… kenma kozume x gn!reader, rintaro suna x gn!reader, daichi sawamura x gn!reader, osamu miya x gn!reader (and slight one-sided takinoue x gn!reader but shh) 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠… established relationship, fluff, timeskip characters are used ‘cause idk why would a high schooler or college student would do such a thing that requires a lot of commitment and maybe financial stability, 7.5k total words (words in their seperate sections in order of appearance; 1.3k, 2.8k, 1.9k and 1.5k) 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬… don’t actually propose in public unless you know your s/o is the type of person who’s ok with that, timeskip characters are used, cursing, probably one misused music reference bc i haven’t really played an instrument in a while, atsumu slander, accidental suna favoritism (i think i went too overboard on describing his hehe), daichi and osamu’s weren’t proofread ‘cause i’m tired. 𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐜𝐮𝐭… aesthetic is back! *confetti pops out* fun fact: osamu’s was inspired by a nostalgia induced mystreet trip lmao

𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐦𝐚 𝐤𝐨𝐳𝐮𝐦𝐞. ･ﾟ: *. — 孤爪研磨

KENMA tended to keep his personal life away from his audience and under wraps. 

privacy was always something the man appreciated (though it was often mercilessly ignored by his friends in high school kuroo, much to his dismay), and as much as his fans on the other side of the screen pleaded and begged for at least one vlog showcasing his lifestyle, kenma never indulged in their desires. 

however, through the small, miniscule crack of the sturdy, tough wall he built and maintained separating the two lives for as long as he began his career, you managed to seep through.

it was mostly through pure accident; you practically barged into his room to ask about what he wanted for dinner since you screaming at the top of your lungs clearly wasn’t enough to go past the wooden door for his office. 

in reality, kenma was trying desperately hard to ignore you. currently, it was quite early in his career and naturally, his mic and noise-canceling headphones were nowhere to be seen. with the recent, massive influx in viewers tuning in to his streams, he ordered some equipment so the quality of his videos would rise.

the problem? it was going to be a shipped a month from now.

your screeching being practically akin to one of a banshee’s, it just seemed more amplified to the poor headphone-wearing users; muffled and lagged, sure, but amplified. 

of course, this drew concern from the various people watching it all go down as kenma slumped into his chair in embarrassment. comments were flooding in the chat with various emojis and various different wordings of “what’s going on?” or  “what the hell?” were used, often with all caps. 

hearing a faint “oh my god kenma, how long does it take to decide on what you want for dinner when you literally eat the same flavor of ramen everyday-!!” pass through the door behind him in addition to your footsteps becoming increasingly louder like some kind of cursed crescendo, this changed the chat’s feelings to a more humorous tone, but in the streamers point of view, this situation appeared more scarier than any horror or thriller game he ever played so far.

when you finally kicked down unlocked the door, revealing yourself in all your glory to many of kenma’s fans, you were seething. okay, maybe the fans were just being dramatic, but at the very least, you were quite annoyed at what you assumed to be kenma’s indecisiveness on what to eat for dinner. 

and that was how his fans, well, now your fans too apparently, were introduced to you.

you were then turned into a familiar face in kenma’s streams, either just in the background either attending to household chores, participating in your hobbies, sitting there to munch on whatever weirdly obscure snack you got your hands on, or even playing alongside him. 

in spite of kenma’s initial reluctance, you appeared to be rather open to the idea of being in his streams. he really, really, really didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, yet seeing you with a warm smile on your face illuminated by the dancing lights of the monitor before you, sharing embarrassing anecdotes about his day to day life to his fans that he would’ve wanted to dig, crawl in, and die in a hole if he was actually paying attention, kenma started growing accustomed to slightly overlapping the circles of his life in front of his followers and away from them.

one particular night, he was live, as per usual, and you just so happened to be playing along with kenma. after a few minutes in, you came to the rather convenient revelation that it was your turn to do the laundry that day, and not wanting to wear the same crusty clothes that have been sitting in the laundry hamper for who knows how long, you rushed off, abandoning your controller.

as cat-like eyes gazing at your figure from the moment you stood up to the moment you left for the door, he quickly flipped out his phone, fingers tapping away seemingly at the speed of light. after he skimmed towards the contents, before picking up his controller again to continue the game.

“alright, five iridium bars and a prismatic shard... shouldn’t be too hard,” kenma muttered to himself as the chat’s messages started air out confusion. as he glanced over to the other screen displaying their words, he smiled and looked to the camera. “just tell y/n i’m grinding.”

kenma’s words did nothing to quell the growing confuddlement amongst the fans tuning in, especially some that just joined. what did y/n had to do with this?

“ken?” you called out from outside the room, sound eerily similar to when you first made your little “debut” back in his early streaming days.

“yeah?” he replied, eyes focused on the screen in front of him, though he was all ears nonetheless.

“...care to explain what... this... is??” before kenma could respond with a noise of puzzlement he tends to do when he needs emphasis or repetition of questions, his eyes widened to the likeness of saucers. 

velvet box in your hand with no washing machine or dryer whirling in the distance, you were greeted with nothing but unabashed shock. to a viewer who wasn’t blind watching the scene unfold, it was very clear what this meant.

“i- uh... um,” kenma tripped upon his words, coughing in an attempt to buy himself enough time to gather his words correctly. even after all this time, being a public figure and personality, his more shyer tendencies still shone through. it didn’t help that this (possibly) botched proposal was currently broadcasted by his camera for thousands, if not, tens of thousands currently watching and/or typing in the chat as we speak along the lines of “HOLY SHIT,” “ASDWQKJW,” some odd string of emojis, “he’s just grinding!”, or all at the same time. “i-it wasn’t supposed to go this way.”

despite his voice’s volume making the none-existent wind of the apartment plus noises from the forgotten game you two were playing in the background seem louder in comparison, it didn’t stop your questioning expression to slowly morph into a sly smirk.

“oh really?” you asked, grin morphing to the likeness of kuroo’s, causing kenma to subconciously cringe. “how’s it supposed to go, then?”

the reverse pudding-haired man sneaked a quick glance at his monitor, noticing a flood of even more comments coming in. if they were personified as a total, kenma would’ve imagined them to be an over enthusiastic sports fan spilling popcorn and soda everywhere while chanting wildly, except they were watching some proposal online, creepily enough.

kenma tended to keep his personal life under wraps, but with your presence on what he showed to essentially strangers, an event so intimate as this manage to barge through the cracks of the wall he upheld.

the moment was already ruined by the unintended crowd currently watching the both him and your every move, and that’s not even counting the amount of people that would watch this scene after the stream had ended.

there was no point in broadcasting this any further for the world to see, however, in a sudden burst of courage, kenma silently picked up his controller and started tapping away at the buttons and moving the mini-joystick. your somewhat pompous expression fell in favor of confusion on what your boyfriend was doing.

not too long after, your controller that was sitting on the table a few centimeters away from you vibrated. in curiosity, you picked it up, your eyes darting towards the screen in front of you.

the game had a prompt pop up on your side of the screen, giving it a quick skim before widening your eyes, despite you having the knowledge of what was going to happen a few minutes prior.

“kodzuken proposed! will you accept?”

𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐧𝐚. ･ﾟ: *. — 砂倫太郎

the stakes were high, and everybody in the audience was loudly proclaiming their excitement and for the current volleyball game, only being echoed through the spacious venue. the ejp raijin and msby black jackals were going head to head in one of the most widely anticipated matches of the season among fans and the players alike. 

the energy seemed unmatched than the middle blocker’s previous games, the bleachers above him seemed completely occupied by the boisterous cheers of fans, and he was even able to spot a handful of people cheering specifically for him. morale appeared high amongst him and his fellow teammates, but there was a sense of anxiety towards the outcome of the match.

in other words, the worst place for SUNA to propose, in his not-so humble opinion. 

he was never the kind of guy to show-off his relationship with you. although he was public with it, the two of you often spotted out and about in public and littered here and there inside both his and your social handles, many people outside family, friends, and co-workers didn’t know much of what happens behind closed doors.

besides, the last thing he would want is to humiliate himself in front of hundreds, if not, thousands of spectators’ eyes upon you guys if you reject his proposal—scratch that—the last thing suna would want to do is humiliate you in front of hundreds, if not, thousands of spectators’ eyes upon you guys if you reject his proposal.

suna was comfortable in the love the two of you shared between each other. he still gave you plenty of affection, sure, but he knew better to get jealous if someone was a little too touchy-feely for your liking or feel fall into a pit of despair if you were particularly busy when he was feeling a bit touch starved for a few days. it was the same for you—and the two of you would always make it up to one another.

however, the reassurance did nothing to quell the fear that was rather snug at the bottom of his stomach. engagement was something that required a lot of commitment—not that the two of you weren’t pretty committed to each other already. still, the thought of making you uncomfortable couldn’t help but cause fear in suna.

so, initially, he decided to postpone his proposal to a different date.

keyword: initially.

getting back to the current situation, he found himself standing at the end line of his team’s side of the court with the jackals mirroring on the other. exchanging the usual pleasantries of thanking their opponents for the game, bowing, then jogging away to commence warm-ups. 

well, not before you caught suna’s hazel-eyed attention.

look at you, with your oversized jersey (when suna pointed it out, you argued that it was necessary to “preserve the authenticity,” much to his amusement at your choice of vocabulary) clad in it’s beautiful, golden glory, a white number ‘9′ embroidered on the front, and a big, stupid grin that he was definitely going to make fun of later. though suna wasn’t the type to feel overwhelming pride and loyalty towards his team—to him it’s just kind of how sports work—but that couldn’t possibly prevent the sudden wave of dignity wash over him. 

you’ve always been his biggest fan, and this game was really just any other one, but just the sight of you alone as he subconsciously blurred out the other faces in the crowd brought him back when he was just a high school boy.

god, how he wanted to marry you so bad.

unfortunately, a certain man seemed to notice this.

“hey, suna-san!” 

well, not him.

one of his teammates, naming komori, called out, affectively breaking suna out of his trance. upon closer investigation on your face, you appeared to be sporting a smug grin spreading across your face. squinting his slender eyes in annoyance, suna turned on his heel towards his awaiting team, already stretching their hearts out as echoes of counting from one to ten faded into the endless chatter of the audience above.

pre-game rituals were done as per usual, and suna almost forgot that he felt someone’s eyes on him while he practically ogling at you a few minutes previously. before he knew it, he was already in the sidelines, awaiting for either the referee, coach, or manager to call him to the side so he could switch with komori once he rotates to the front row.

seeing the libero behind the sidelines a step away from outside the court and the referee beckoning him over, he quickly jogged towards komori and with a high-five and the approval of the official via a deafening whistle, suna was now in the front row, using his hands to block the guy in front of him so he could conceal the current server’s position. 

that said guy was none other than the atsumu miya himself.

with all his experience dealing with him in high school while they were on the same team—which was already an irritation to begin with—when they first played against each other, every single move he pulled varied from causing a slight vexation from the blocker or delivering a huge blow to his ego. from his serves to his setter dumps, ‘unpredictable’ was one of the best words to describe the bleached-blond after a prolonged time of not watching his antics.

however, after a few games against his fellow high school alumnus, suna grown accustomed to his tricks, both on and off the court. 

"who knew ya’d get y/n all the way here as yer personal cheerleader?” atsumu sighed somewhat blissfully, but with the way he said it, you could’ve guessed that he was either being sarcastic. envious, or perhaps even both. his eyes gravitated towards you, trying to locate you in the crowd. once he did, atsumu winked (much to your confusion), and he glanced back at suna, pointing to you for emphasis on his previous question.

“c’mon, it’s not that big of a deal.”

“it’s not that big of a deal,” the blond mocked rather quietly, out fear he could get a nasty look from the referee, his coach, or even worse, the club’s captain, meian. “yeah... right. do 'ya know how many people date their significant others ever since high school?”

“...a lot?” suna’s answer seemed more like a question, yet really he never felt so impatient for the referee to whistle for the rally to start—sure, he sometimes tended to slack off during volleyball games, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be stuck talking to atsumu. what’s taking them so long?

“WRONG,” he practically yelled, than covering his mouth at the sudden outburst before his eyes darted towards the referee right above them, his coach on the bench, and most importantly, meian to the side, before sighing in relief at the confirmation that no one had actually heard him. “it’s less than two percent.”

“what?” 

“i said-”

“-ever.”

the setter’s hand shot up to his chest in dramatic agony while the middle blocker simply rolled his eyes. 

“why is what’s going on in my love life so important to you, out of all people?” 

“don’t think i didn’t see ‘ya goin’ all goo-goo eyes at them! at this point, i wouldn’t be surprised if someone who didn’t even watch the game heard about it!”

suna’s face went blank at atsumu’s exclamation. “okay, and...?”

“do i have to spell everything out for ‘ya?” atsumu shook his head as if suna ‘just didn’t get it.’ “what ‘ya have is special! if i were ‘ya and had someone like y/n, i’d prob’ly already have two kids with them at this point!”

unfortunately, much to suna’s better judgement, he couldn’t help but agree with the man in front of him. he believed—no—he knew that what he had between you was special, that even after a few life times after his current one, he still couldn’t find someone that was able to give him the same butterflies just as it felt a few years prior. 

before he could further ponder on atsumu’s words, the referee finally blew their whistle, effectively starting the rally as the current server (who suna forgot his identity) delivered a loud ‘SMACK’ against the ball as it soared above the net, the players on the other side scrambling to get their positions as some stayed behind in order to get the ball up.

attempting to get comfortable as his role as one of the current blockers, his fox-like eyes immediately darted towards the jackals’ setter. who did he think was the most viable hitter against him and his fellow teammates beside him?

following the blond’s eyesight, suna sprinted to the location so he could block the spiker ahead of him, leaped, then stretched his arms upwards and across the net when he reached the height, and with the help of with the other man participating in the block, managed to prevent msby’s #4 from scoring on their side of the court. 

“STUFFED!!” the sportscaster announced over the intercom, a wave of cheer filling the arena.

passing the ball back and forth rather intensely continued for at least an hour and a half or so, to the point that it looked like as if all the players that were on or were playing on the court practically sweated a whole swimming pool. though suna doesn’t play an all-around rotation (courtesy of komori and the other starting blocker, washio), even he already felt the effects of fatigue take over his mind.

it was currently the third set: one more to go before the jackals win the whole game without any trouble—well, not really. the past two sets were annoyingly close, yet somehow the black and gold team managed to always gain those two points ahead from his team’s score. 

the other side was equally as tired as the raijin, maybe even more so attributable to their hitters (particularly a certain #21) flying all over the place like gigantic fruit flies. however, for some reason, that didn’t stop them for trying their goddamn hardest to get those last few points to win it all. it was painfully obvious to watch, especially since they were on the receiving end o it, but surely their exhaustion would soon keep up with their athletic abilities such as suna and his team?

before he knew it, the board displaying the current scores of the game were set, the red lights emitting from it felt as though it was mocking suna. 

23-24.

one more point until the match was over for the jackals and more than three for the raijin. the blocker mentally groaned at the sight, but if he could just stop whichever poor hitter was in front of him, it would give their team could turn the game around-

“yo,” atsumu greeted, smirk plastered on his face as he found him and suna right in front of one another yet again. 

“what is it this time, atsumu?” suna asked, though it came off more as a complaint than a question. surprisingly, the setter didn’t seem to take it as an offense.

“i say we propose a bet,” he responded, making suna’s face twist up out of cringe at the wordplay. 

sighing, knowing he probably wouldn’t shut up even during a rally, the blocker decided to humor him. “what?”

a brief silence broke out between the two men, after a few seconds of atsumu blinking his brown eyes repeatedly, he continued. “if we win, yer gonna have to propose to y/n-”

“no.”

“c’mon! you didn’t let me finish! anyways, if ‘ya win, yer gonna have to wallow in the fact that ‘ya lost the love of yer life ‘cause you chickened out into proposin’ to ‘em.”

it was basically a lose-lose situation, with the way atsumu was putting it. on one hand, suna would be forced to ‘pop the question’ at the least romantic place, and on the other, the circumstances that the setter suggested seemed favorable if you looked past the dramatics of it... suna wouldn’t have to do this in a rather public setting and actually be able to do it when the both of you were comfortable.

the familiar whistle cut in from atsumu’s little impatient “check-in,” and with a final, knowing gaze, he went to make use of his hands, holding them in a similar manner that suna did while looking back at his side of the court, where msby’s #12 was up to serve. 

it all went so fast—in one moment, he saw komori behind him bumping the ball up without much difficulty, and the next, he was falling from the air, where meian was before him, grin spread across his face out of overwhelming pride. as the two of them reached the ground, the crowd above them roared in joy, the blaring buzz of the scoreboard just barely peaking through, yet still more louder inside of the ejp raijin’s heads than countless of spectators ever will be.

exchanging the usual courtesies towards the jackals, listening to the coach’s advice and remarks about their game, and cooling down via stretching and some refreshing, ice-cold water, suna began to search for your presence; to no avail, you were nowhere to be seen amongst the bleachers. 

before suna had the chance to think of a rational explanation to reason with your disappearance, a voice presumably at the nearby announcers table just a few feet away got on the intercom.

“would suna rintaro please make your way down to the broadcasting table?”

it took a(n embarrassing) while for the blocker to register that the person on the mic was not one of the sportscasters but in fact, atsumu miya himself.

strolling his way towards the table, attempting to look casual as possible and conceal the fact that he scared shitless at whatever shenanigans atsumu was up to after what previously let down, suna approached the table only to be greeted by a microphone and a piece of paper shoved into him by a certain setter, some rather pissed commentators, and a very puzzled you, most of all. 

“rin... do you know what’s going on?” you asked, quirking your eyebrows while looking around yourself repeatedly like atsumu did, worried that you’d get in trouble since usually onlookers weren’t allowed down at the court itself. even though he assured you this was fine, you still couldn’t help but feel a bit concerned. 

suna’s breathing hitched for a second, making the microphone peak and attracting the attention of the people watching the game, the majority of which were still hanging around with the intention of meeting their favorite players or something along the lines of that, not whatever mess that could possibly happen any minute now.

ah, crossroads. something that the young man didn’t expect to happen in his life, especially regarding taking his romantic relationship to the next step. there were three possible outcomes to this: one is that he could completely ignore this, making this seem like some sort of cruel prank, two was to straight up say whatever was on the paper and propose to you, then you rejecting him creating unneeded humiliation for the both of you, and three was to the same thing as two, but have it result into the best possible scenario: you saying yes.

2/3 of those outcomes were pretty negative, meaning around a 67% chance that this go absolutely wrong. it didn’t help that suna couldn’t get a read on you at the moment, mainly since you had no idea what atsumu set you and him up to do.

aiming to stall some time for himself, he palmed the slip of paper just before it escaped from his chest, flipping it over only to find that in messily scribbled black ink a barely legible “marry me” was written on it.

deadpanning at the sight, suna was quick to crumble it up and toss it away from him (hopefully landing on atsumu), with hazel eyes staring into yours as the words that atsumu said earlier echoed in his mind. 

it was now or never.

“y/n...” he began, wincing at the fact that he heard his voice over the intercom after forgetting that he was broadcasting this. “i... well, someone recently told me that what we had between us was... special. that if they had someone like you, they’d probably already have two kids at that point.”

suna chuckled as recalled the words, taking a step forward towards you, his eyes glancing to the ground so he can make this proposing thing more easier on him. 

“...and i agree with them. y/n, you make me feel special every waking and sleeping minute i spend with you by my side, and i only hope that i do the same for you.”

you stood speechless, and since he really wanted to get it over with, he knelt down on one knee, taking one of your hands and encasing it with his, a soft smile gracing his features.

“marry me...?”

𝐝𝐚𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐢 𝐬𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐦𝐮𝐫𝐚. ･ﾟ: *. — 澤村大地

going out with some of his fellow high school alumni after a long day at work to down a nice, cold beer was something that DAICHI found himself not looking forward to quite recently. 

what wasn’t there to like? there was nothing more reassuring than the dim light illuminating the establishment above him and his friends laughing as they drank and ate their fill at their regular food booth. 

however, it wasn’t the drinking that the officer cherished the most; it was the relaxed atmosphere of the small bar. daichi’s friend’s from high school around him, the familiarity of it all that made him feel that this was something he had been doing all his life, and of course, you.

you tended to work later shifts than daichi, so you’d normally come join the group for their little impromptu ‘high school reunions’, as sugawara dubbed even though they do this practically every weekend. 

this time around though, your job required you to be kept around even more later than usual, to the point you weren’t even sure if you could make it to the ‘high school reunion’ at all.

and boy was daichi relieved that was the case.

“YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN DATING FOR HOW LONG??” suga’s voice boomed throughout the place. if it weren’t for the fact that this was a normal occurrence for the teacher when he a bit more than tipsy, the brunette would’ve more than just embarrassed. 

who was he kidding, daichi was flat-out humiliated.

“n-nine yea-”

“NINE YEARS??”

at this point, sugawara’s annoyingly loud voice when he was drunk attracted many stares from people that were either their co-workers, neighbors, fellow regulars, and friends, all blatantly invested at this man’s (that they knew practically forever) love life. 

“yes, suga—nine whole years, wow...” despite the massive blush daichi was currently sporting that definitely wasn’t caused by alcohol (as seen by his yet to be touched glass in front of him), the sarcasm in his voice didn’t fade as he half-heartedly did jazz-hands in mock amazement. 

even when his friend was drunk, the police officer didn’t understand why the length of his relationship with you was that surprising—the two of you started dating in your third year of high school, and with everything going on during his early twenties, him going off to the police academy and you going to college, it wasn’t exactly the best idea to get married when the both of you just fled the nest and were barely financially stable to boot. 

however, sugawara and the rest of the eavesdropping less-than-sober patrons didn’t seem to clock both of that. 

“nine whole years, hmm?” an older man inquired, a lazy arm was draped around daichi’s shoulder, shaking him around. with a breath that reeked of beer and a familiar, deep voice, it didn’t take his time in the police force to figure out the man that seemingly appeared out of nowhere was his old coach, ukai. 

he wasn’t sure if his senior’s forced intervention would be considered lucky or not; on one hand, it actually shut suga up from asking the same question for the fourth time, but on the other...

“you oughta propose soon, yeah?”

“aww, wittle sawamura-kun and wittle l/n-chan finawwy tyin’ da knot~” the guy sitting besides ukai, whom daichi recognized to be the owner of the electronics shop down the street, takinoue, slurred his words so much that it could bring the kids sugawara taught to shame. “ain’t dat cute... y’know, l/n’s quite da catch, yeah? if y’aww weren’t datin’ for so wong, i woulda snatched dem up for myself!” 

though daichi was mostly thinking about how ew, a man less than twice his age joking about dating his significant other, takinoue’s laugh bellowed as some others joined in to create a chorus of drunk guffaws, chortles, and other ridiculous synonyms of the word ‘laugh’ while also gaining even more people’s attention, much to the former’s absolute mortification.

“hey! we’re supposed to be helping daichi!” sugawara joined back the conversation, now looking rather irritated that these two old coots disturbed the flow of his incessantly repeated questions, he glanced back at his friend, his expression now completely serious.

daichi gulped. 

“now, continuing with what i was saying after i was so rudely interrupted, are you gonna pop the question?”

though what the grey-haired man was asking was actually ukai’s question, the previous rowdiness and high volume of the crowd was now quiet, to the point it could be seen as suspicious. the people packed into the tiny, little bar were like a ticking time bomb, except the fuse would be replaced by daichi’s words alone.

he couldn’t exactly lie and say he wasn’t planning on proposing to you, knowing the people around him and the nature of their small town, word would spread like wildfire. and if he did tell the truth, well, daichi couldn’t guarantee that the exact same thing wouldn’t happen. 

the officer knew that you were most likely weren’t just going to believe any town gossip on the street while running errands; that still didn’t change the fact that he didn’t appreciate the bar occupants encompassing him spreading the latest, juiciest information on his relationship status.

in other words, there was no getting around this. 

sighing, his chocolate brown eyes gazed upon his shoes, muttering in a voice that resembled more of a complaining grumble, “...yes.”

just like that, the bar erupted in cheer, causing daichi to instinctively covered his ears at the sound. he definitely wasn’t any doctor, but if this keeps up, he could guarantee that along with the head-splitting hangover many of the patrons are going to get the next day, their vocal chords would be fried to the point that they couldn’t even speak. to be honest, he was surprised that his co-workers didn’t already drive up to the place due to their sheer noise disturbing the rest of sleeping neighborhood.

“looks like we gotta get sawamura a ring, huh?” ukai exclaimed, tightening his grip around daichi’s neck and effectively (and unintentionally) putting him in a chokehold. 

“ugh- you do know you can get arrested for aggravated assault against a police officer?” he managed to cough out. he didn’t exactly like pulling out the empty detainment threat, but daichi didn’t want to end up actually taking his high school volleyball coach into custody, especially in his drunken stupor. “besides, there’s no need.”

with a flick of his wrist, his hands did a slight disappearing act inside his jacket’s pocket for a velvet box to materialize inside his very hand. another thing he also didn’t want to end up doing was making a bunch of intoxicated people waste their hard-earned cash to buy him a ring when he already possessed one.

much like sugawara’s elementary school class, the newly found audience that surrounded he and daichi’s table, they all collectively ‘ooh’ed and ‘ah’ed. ironic, really, since half of them were old enough to or did have a kid old enough in the grey-haired man’s class.

“ah, just like the daichi i remember!” suga animatedly laughed, adding to the current pain his friend was going through by slapping him on the back rather aggressively. “always prepared for everything!”

“yeah, i- ow-” he was cut off by a fierce blow to his back, causing him to shoot a glare at sugawara’s direction. “quit it!”

daichi’s hand bolted to suga’s arm, swatting it away as he stored the hand that held the box into his pocket once more.

“aww, you’re no fun...”

“dat won’t help!” takinoue interjected, much to the teacher’s vexation. “since we’ve got da wing... we gotta help ‘im!”

“y’know takinoue... that’s literally the smartest thing you said this whole night,” ukai bluntly stated, though his drinking buddy didn’t seem affected in the slightest by his off-handed remark.

“alright, then who’s with us?!” sugawara yelled to catch everyone’s attention (as if it wasn’t already directed at them).

once again, the place practically exploded in enthusiasm, alcoholic drinks spilling all over like makeshift fireworks (bless the poor owner’s heart).

“geez, i think i heard you guys a block away,” your sudden entrance caused many heads to jerk their heads so hard toward the source of your voice that you were honestly worried they got whiplash. eyes widening at the sudden attention you garnered and the quiet atmosphere that was definitely not there a few minutes earlier made you quirk an eyebrow in confusion. “did i miss something...?”

eyes (including yours, though mostly because everybody else’s was) moving towards daichi at once, and with a (not really) reassuring pat from sugawara.

reaching the limit of embarrassment (as if he hadn’t already) he could handle from his fellow customers, in a desperate attempt to escape the bar, he swiftly clasped his hand around yours, yanking you towards the direction where he was headed to lead you outside of the place, right outside the big window separated the cool, relaxed atmosphere of the establishment to the world outside filled with the orchestra of crickets at the distance and the humid, warm climate of a summer night of their hometown.

“someone’s in a hurry,” you joked at daichi’s actions, and instead of him flushing or wincing sheepishly, instead he let out a deep sigh scratching the back of his head.

“remind me to never walk into there ever again...” he complained, letting his neck arch forward and pinching the bridge of his nose after recalling everything that went down recently. 

“they’re not that bad.”

“then you haven’t seen anything yet.”

you laughed jovially, making daichi’s expression soften at the sound. you always seemed to relax him no matter what. 

however, it abruptly stopped the moment you spotted a sudden audience from the window from your peripheral vision, them staring at the two of you like owls. before you could even point at them and open your mouth to address the elephant in the room, the police officer cut you to the chase.

“you know how they are... if we go as much as the ends of the earth itself, they’d follow us just to see what we’re up to.”

“well, you’re right about that... but that wouldn’t be the case if something normal was going on...” you had an accusing tone laced in your voice, and daichi could’ve sworn that you put on some invisible detective hat on your head. “so... you’ve got anything to say?”

giving the crowd beside you two a side-long glance, his chocolates brown eyes slowly made their way towards yours, letting out a deep sigh. “guess like there’s no way around this...”

before you could react to display your perplexity, daichi coughed for a bit, signaling you to at least hear what he was about to say. 

“y/n... we’ve been together for nine years,” he slowly started. “throughout that time, we were both busier than ever... but despite that, we still stuck with each other, and... well...” 

daichi paused to laugh to himself mainly because he felt as though the mood was getting a little bit too tense and awkward than he originally perceived it to be. “i really, really am in love with you, and as cheesy as it sounds... i don’t think anything could top that.”

his knee finally made contact with the ground, he brought out the box from his pocket, presenting it to you.

“i can only ask... do you feel the same way?”

𝐨𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐮 𝐦𝐢𝐲𝐚. ･ﾟ: *. — 宮治

onigiri miya was livelier than ever, to say the least. 

the restaurant was practically packed to the point it might be nearing or already is as max capacity, and it didn’t help the fact that a famous setter was sitting in his quote-unquote “reserved” food booth, attracting the attention of many more customers than usual. 

the stress was basically written on both you, osamu, and staff member’s foreheads with black sharpie—and it was more than justified. the line spilled in from the door outside, after all. one false misstep could cause the dissatisfaction of potential patrons, meaning bad reviews, and that it could only go further downhill after that. 

regardless, this wasn’t the time to focus on the potential repercussions of what could happen if you messed up the tiniest details of an order; you really should be focusing on trying not to mess up so the the establishment won’t suffer said potential repercussions. 

you were the first employee that was put under osamu’s payroll when he first opened onigiri miya. you knew him and his twin brother quite before it opened, and when you went into university looking for a part-time job, you took a job under your boyfriend. to simultaneously support him while also getting some money as well. 

to see his restaurant being so successful was a truly wonderful sight to witness, especially since you there since the very beginning. even though your time to graduate university was nearing, you still planned to hold on to your job, maybe even get a posistion full-time.

for now, you’ve got to focus on trying to package the onigiri before sending it out to the customers outside of the kitchen. 

meanwhile, osamu was starting to feel quite annoyed conversing with said customers. 

“wait, aren’t you that setter on the national team??”

“ATSUMU MIYA?!”

“aren’t you supposed to have blond hair?”

“i’m pretty sure i’ve seen you on tv before...”

it was really nothing above a superficial level. really, he was used to it. they were twin brothers, after all. comparisons and mistakes were bound to happen.

however, that didn’t mean that there wasn’t a tick mark appearing on his forehead everytime this gets mentioned which tends to be rather well-hidden with the customer-friendly grin plastered on his face. 

as a patron finished their conversation with osamu, he made his way towards the kitchen behind the counter, away from any clients. then, he let out a heavy sigh, blowing on his cap2.

“long morning?” you jokingly asked, looking up from your work as your partner gives you a playful side-eye.

“don’t get me started,” he replied, osamu’s grey eyes staring down his apron as you laughed. 

“well then, keep your head up, miya osamu,” you practically commanded, forcefully grabbing his head and staring into his grey eyes as they reflected the top half of your face. “the rush is gonna be over before you know it! next thing you know, you’re gonna be complaining about the lack of business again like you usually do.”

the owner of the shop cracked a smile at your encouragement, sharing a small, quiet ‘moment’ before being interrupted by one of your co-workers. 

“miya-san? table seven needs a server.”

the man let out yet another heavy sigh. table seven was the booth that atsumu tended to frequent the most. as much as he loves his brother, under the his current workload, he was definitely not in the mood to whatever antics the setter was up to at the moment.

“y/n?” osamu immediately looked towards you, something you might as well be used to by the amount of times he relied on you to talk to his twin, whether it was to serve their little “messenger” when they weren’t on the best of terms or to deliver some sort of prank, the practice made you make their phones inferior in comparison. nevertheless, osamu was technically your boss after all, so who were you to disagree and say no?

(well, honestly, if you did say no, osamu was whipped enough to begrudgingly go and serve atsumu’s table anyways, but i digress.)

“...fine,” you answered, deeply sighing to mock your boyfriend (much to his dismay). your co-worker tossed you up a white paper bag packed to the brim with onigiri as caught it with your hands.

you walked away from the two to “enter” the restaurant. retying your apron around your waist with the paper bag still in hand, you did a short survey of the establishment. it didn’t really take very long; it wasn’t hard to trace the directions of numerous of people’s eyes to find atsumu. 

strolling towards him, the man’s brown eyes appeared to be glued to his phone below him, though he somehow noticed your shadow growing closer to his general area from the floor. 

“finally... what took 'ya so long?” atsumu grumbled, still scrolling through his device. “i swear i gotta do everythin’ ‘round here...”

your smile spread across your face for all the wrong reasons. if it wasn’t for the fact he was osamu’s brother, you would’ve bit back your less than tasteful insults. yet, before you could open your mouth, the setter cut you to the chase.

“thank me later, ‘kay? now, gimme the onigiri,” atsumu reached out his arm with lightning speed quickly snatched the bag with his meal while just as swiftly chucking at you with a small box just barely larger than some of the said onigiri he just robbed from you. 

of course, since you just stood there in pure shock for a good few seconds at the sheer audacity of him, you ended up playing a game of hacky sack by yourself with the box before finally palming it with both of your hands.

casting your gaze upon it, you noticed it had an oddly soft texture against your hands. it pretty clear that atsumu had absolutely no clue that you were there instead of who he thought was going to be waiting his food booth, but you couldn’t help but grew curious over the contents of the box.

taking a brief glimpse of his current position only to find he was chomping down on the still steaming hot onigiri, you decided that it couldn’t hurt to take a peek at what’s inside. perhaps it his weird idea of saying “thank you,” for whoever he believed was attending the table. 

squinting your eyes to get a better look, you cracked open the box as something shiny shone through. refusing to get affected by the seemingly blinding light, you further continued your investigation, and with the minimum required attention to detail, you were able to instantly deduce what was inside.

“um... atsumu? i’m flattered...?” you weren’t sure what was the correct nomenclature for such a bizarre scenario such as this one. “but you do know i’m dating your brother, right...?”

“huh? of course i know that-” atsumu halted in his tracks as he tore his eyes away from what he was previously doing, jaw dropping and mouth agape when his eyes finally registered that you were there. though previously aghast that you would accuse him of making a possibly life-changing romantic move on someone who was already taken, much so by osamu, his voice was quick to falter that he was the wrong person who gave you the box. “i- uh...”

“hey! sorry for botherin’ whatever ‘ya and ‘tsumu were doin’ but i need some...” osamu trailed off once he clocked what was going on. “...help.”

though the more customers more farther away from you three’s general area continued eating and chattering amongst themselves like usual, you guys seemed to create a scene, ending up being the cynosure of many of the patrons.

osamu liked to think that he was somewhat reasonable, at least more so than his brother, but though their differences can easily be found out, both with first expressions and getting to know them better, they were still rather similar to each other at the end of the day as a product of how they grew up. 

so, without thinking about the possible repercussions this could cause to his relationship, he grabbed the velvet box from atsumu’s hand, and started walking towards you.

“y/n... if i’m gonna be honest, yer one of the best things that ever happened to me in my life,” osamu smiled, the words falling out of his mouth naturally as he knelt down on one of his knees, his ‘onigiri miya’ cap casting a shadow over his eyes as he secretly hoped it masked the many emotions trying to process through his brain at the same time. 

the restaurant around the both of you fell suddenly deathly silent, the only sound other than the distant cars honking and driving past the place outside was a small gasp escaping from your mouth. 

“...an’ i wanna keep that in my life... forever,” osamu then presented the unboxed ring to you, his hat no longer concealing his silver eyes, which was now swimming with nothing but love and admiration.

“l/n y/n, may ‘ya do me the honor of bein’ my ‘forever’?”

𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬�� 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐝 <𝟑

[catindabag]

TBOSAS on Crack short take (28)

*The Capitol Zoo Fiasco* Read [this] & [this] first.

Reaper: *is extremely annoyed* Are we there yet?

Drunk!Sejanus: *starts singing* 🎶We’re going to zoo in our favorite rocket ship🎶

Drunk!Coryo: 🎶Zooming through the sky🎶

Drunk!Lysistrata: 🎶Little Einstein!🎶

Drunk!Festus: 🎶Climb aboard! Get ready to explore!🎶

Drunk!Coryo: 🎶There’s so much to find🎶

Lucy Gray: 🎶Little Einstein!🎶

Jessup: Lucy Gray, what are you doing?! You can’t just join them! They’re Capitol!

Lucy Gray: Oh, Jessup, don’t be shy now.

Reaper: Are we there yet?!

Drunk!Lysistrata: 🎶We’re going on a mission🎶

Drunk!Sejanus: 🎶Start the countdown🎶

Drunk!Festus: 🎶5, 4, 3, 2, 1-

Peacekeeper: *aggressively opens the door* Will you kids f*ckin’ shut up?!

Drunk!Coryo: Never! We haven’t sung the best part-

Peacekeeper: We’re already here! Everyone get out!

Drunk!Coryo: BOO. HOO. You can’t just order us around, officer. We have President Ravinstill on our side!

Drunk!Sejanus: Yeah! What my Snow Angel said!

Peacekeeper: THAT. IS. IT! You’re all going down the chute with the Tributes!

Drunk!Festus: Wait! I’m afraid of falling!😭

The Tributes: Well, sh*t!

Everyone: *slides down the chute*

Drunk!Coryo: My poor gorgeous back!

Marcus: Who kicked me?!😠🔪

Drunk!Sejanus: Someone get their thigh out of my face!

Treech: My beautiful thigh!

Drunk!Lysistrata: My elegant elbows!

Mizzen: Get your stupid hand off my face, Pablo!

Panlo: It’s Panlo!

Drunk!Festus: Someone’s kicking my head!

Teslee: Who is squeezing my foot?!

Reaper: Stop crushing my ribs, Dill!

Tanner: Stop touching my ass, Brandy!

Brandy: I swear that ain’t me!

Coral: Whoops! That was actually me. Sorry!

Jessup: Can you guys just get off already?! There’s a camera crew filming us right now!

Drunk!Coryo: Really?! Hi, Tigris! Hi, Grandma’am! I’m on TV!

Drunk!Sejanus: *follows Coryo* Hi, Ma! I’m alive and well!

Lucy Gray: Jessup, look at me! Is my hair alright? Do I look pretty for the cameras?

Jessup: I’m not qualified enough to make that judgment.

Coral: We all look like sh*t, 12.🙄

Drunk!Coryo: Nope. That’s false information. I always look fabulous~!💅

Drunk!Sejanus: Yup! Those lips are pretty as always, gorgeous!😘

Drunk!Coryo: Oh, thanks, love!

Drunk!Sejanus: No problem, Babe.

Mizzen: Go get a room or kiss already!

Drunk!Lysistrata: Kiss! Kiss! Kiss-

Lepidus: You kids are from The Academy, right?

Drunk!Lysistrata: *tries to cover her face from the camera* Who are you?! Why are you asking?! Are you here for my drugs- I mean, vitamins?!

Lepidus: What?! No! I’m-

Drunk!Festus: We ain’t telling you nothing! I ain’t no snitch nor criminal!

Lepidus: Calm down, kid. I’m Lepidus Malmsey.

Treech: Lepidus who?

Lepidus: A reporter for Capitol News!

Drunk!Coryo: Capitol News?! Are we in jail?

Drunk!Sejanus: Why are those people staring at us?

Drunk!Festus: Am I in trouble?

Drunk!Lysistrata: I never smuggled anything illegal, officer! I swear it on my father’s stethoscopes!

Lepidus: To be fair, you four are not even allowed to be here in the first place.

Drunk!Festus: That’s a lie! Felix Ravinstill never said we can’t!

Drunk!Coryo: So here we are.

Drunk!Lysistrata: Of course, all in the name of research!

Drunk!Festus: Yup! Good ol’ academic research for Dean Casca Highbottom!

Drunk!Sejanus: My good old friend, Marcus from District 2 even invited us here!

Lepidus: So Marcus invited you to fetch him and the other Tributes at the train station for research?

Drunk!Sejanus: That’s right!

Marcus: What?! Why would I- They’re clearly lying to you!

Drunk!Coryo: Nope. Our research is very important!😉

Marcus: They’re all delusional!

Drunk!Sejanus: Marcus, that’s so mean!🥺

Marcus: And they were drunk too!

Coral: Unfortunately, they still are.😒

Drunk!Festus: No, I’m not.

Lepidus: Seems like you are, kid. But Marcus-

Marcus: I swear I never met them in my entire life!

Lepidus: So why does the Plinth boy know your name?

Marcus: Who said I was Marcus?! I’m not Marcus!

Reaper: Whatever you say, Marcus.

Lucy Gray: Oh, don’t be too harsh on our Mentors! They even gave each one of us gift baskets and ham sandwiches!

Mizzen: The cookies were delicious too. 10 out of 10! I’m willing to eat again!

Brandy: Same.

Lepidus: That’s so thoughtful of them-

Peacekeeper: Oi! Oi! Show’s over! We were ordered to bring the four of them back to school.

Drunk!Coryo: No fair! We haven’t even greeted the crowd yet!

Drunk!lysistrata: Hello, kids!

Peacekeeper: Nope. Not today.

Drunk!Festus: But the crowd is waiting for Festus Creed!

Peacekeeper: *turns to his partner* Bring the handcuffs! They’re being ridiculous and rebellious!

Drunk!Festus: I can’t believe you just said that!

Drunk!Lysistrata: The audacity!

Peacekeeper: I’m an officer. Your argument is invalid.

Drunk!Sejanus: Are we still on TV?

Lepidus: Yeah. Unfortunately, the cameras are still rolling.

Drunk!Sejanus: I think I’m gonna be sick.

Drunk!Coryo: I think I’m gonna puke.

Drunk!Festus: Me too.

Drunk!Lysistrata: Does anybody have water?

Peacekeeper: What?! No! Not here! Not in front of Panem!

Lepidus: Think about your school’s reputation!

The Tributes: Oh, it’s happening!😱

Coral: Yup. It’s totally happening.

Jessup: Not in front of my stale bread!

Lucy Gray: Everybody, scatter!

*Meanwhile, at The Academy*

Felix: *sighs and turns off the TV* Well, I think we should just practice singing ✨Gem of Panem✨ before we meet our Tributes.

Iphigenia: Why? What’s the occasion?

Vipsania: Are we gonna attend another funeral?

Arachne: Maybe a wedding?

Felix: Nope. Not even close.

Apollo: So why do we have to sing-

Felix: Our reputation as esteemed Mentors is officially dead.

Androcles: Yup! Dead on arrival.

Pup: I don’t get it.

Felix: We literally saw it dying on live television just now.

Hilarius: So when’s the rehearsal?

Livia: Oh, shut up, Hilari.

[russilton]

Shoutout to you for the way you treat Alex and George’s relationship when you talk about George in context of gewis. So many people in cases like this with less popular ships turn vitriolic towards anyone who they think could pose a threat to their ship and just… don’t. Your approach of they’re besties your honor is great and sparks a ton of joy

Wow, thank you!

I have to say this message surprised me a bit because it’s something I’ve really had to work on, to the point I used to get some very angry anons about the way I generally ignored or forgot about Alex. Basically the opposite of this one hahaha! but I’ve also started to warm more to Alex this year than I did last year, though I still wouldn’t call myself a real fan, it’s nice when he does well.

I have… a complicated relationship with Alex as a driver and person. On one hand, he’s George’s best friend, I couldn’t change that even if I wanted to, and it’s a truly sibling like relationship I suspect George needed given how much older his actual siblings were. They support each other and that’s a thing they both need.

On the other, I’ve been watching since 2020, and Alex WAS a Red Bull driver, and he spent the entire first year of when I was watching the sport, getting into incidents with my favourite driver while being generally being very… accusatory. His role in RB during 2021 didn’t help either, and it just generally left me very mistrustful of the guy, probably unfairly, but with 20 drivers to focus on you don’t tend to get past first impressions unless you really stick about.

When he moved to Williams it was all under the fan fair of Horner crying that Toto didn’t approve of the move because he thought Alex was going to spy for them, and at the time it was hard not to sit there and go “well… are you?” Because post AD Redbull had more than proven they were willing to do anything to win, even if it was George’s influence that got Alex the Williams seat. It now truly delights me to see how that has in fact backfired on Christian as he lost a genuinely talented young driver to another team who will better respect his skill if he’s willing to be patient, though you won’t catch me calling for Alex to Merc…ever, or at least, any time soon.

I also struggled with the way he did talk about George a lot! It’s banter between brothers but it often felt like at the time the only way I saw Alex referring to their relationship was to poke or complain about George- especially showing off his body. Every single post George made showing even a little skin- the comments would be full of people waiting for Alex to show up and say something mean, and slowly the content from George dropped off, a coincidence probably given the ramp up with his duties at Merc, but it was hard not to link those things y’know, especially with my OWN, not Alex’s problem, views on body image.

So yeah, it was a tough grind, NONE of it helped by the prevalence of Galex as a popular ship and the tendency of popular ships to get very… expectant, of you to like them. I had the exact same issue with Sewis, though I will always adore Sebastian, because for a while it really did feel like it was being shoved in my face every which way and I couldn’t escape them, and no one enjoys having to wade through things they don’t like. Lots of posts with a general vibe of “what do you MEAN you like gewis when galex exists and clearly has more evidence” that just didn’t sit right for what I felt or what I was seeing. There was also the fic that will not be named that gave me a slightly… traumatic response to Galex and Sewis in relation to Gewis, and I all but stopped mentioning Alex at all if I could avoid it. Which as mentioned at the start… some anons sure took issue with!

I spose what changed my relationship with Alex was reframing his relationship to George (and by proxy redbull), when then things he started saying became less about George’s body and more about what a pain in the ass best friend he was. That’s a relationship I understand, the best friend who you love beyond all belief, would defend from wolves, would kill for, but if you had to date you’d kill each other in a couple days. A psuedo sibling bond I have with a lot of my own friends, people I would say I love you too knowing I have 0 intention on dating them.

Then it became easier to see all the ship stuff because I could go, cool I get it, but to me that’s his brother, that’s the guy who watches George pine and makes faux gagging noises, but would also go behind George’s back to tell Lewis how George felt if he thought it would make George happy. That’s the guy who George complains to when he’s struggling with balancing his feelings with his job as a teammate, and who hugs him when he’s feeling lost.

I have to credit Niamh for saying it one of her fics- but Alex is George’s Valtteri. The guy who has his back even when they’re fighting, and who’s bond goes a little deeper than skin, different to romance but no less strong.

So yeah, I will still always probably grit my teeth when it comes to getting galex shoved in my face, (no I haven’t forgotten synths poll, so many of you were v annoying to me ((this is a JOKE)), I’ve certainly started to completely detach that from Alex as a driver, and short of a nuclear melt down, I hope that relationship just slowly improves. Not that any of that matters to him of course. But this is the blog where I talk about myself.

Sorry for the ramble! That was useful to get off my chest I think hahah, cheers for the offload, now I can move on from it.

[compacflt]

wrt your answer regarding IceMav’s overall perception of women, and how they were both unfortunately, products of their times/military backgrounds: this is a question I asked myself all the time, while reading WWGATTAI — CAN they really only have a truly equal relationship with another man? Back in chapter 1, when Ice was so deep in denial about himself and his sexuality, that he wouldn’t know what (or who) he wanted, even if it rode up-to him on a freight train, and knocked him flat out on his ass, his idea of what he thinks makes sense for him is: a simple woman who won’t ask too many questions, who will wait up for him until his ship comes home, who will purse her lips when he tells her of the violence he’s witnessed but won’t pry, who will wash and dry his uniform for him and kiss him at the sound of Reveille in the morning. ‘Cause, in his own words: Complicated women lead to complicated problems, long arguments, late nights, philosophy discussions, plans for the future.

Now, maybe it’s telling, maybe it’s not, but the closest Ice gets to semi-serious relationship with a woman, is with a PhD candidate: who doesn’t seem to fit into his very-juvenile ideal of a ‘simple’ woman, and the person he ends up choosing over her is Mav: who is a man ofc, but at the same time, is ‘simple’ in the sense that he doesn’t ask too many (or any) questions, does wait up for Ice till his ship comes home (even if Ice doesn’t explicitly want him to), probably has little interest in late-night philosophy discussions, and absolutely-zero expectations for their future. This combined with the fact that Ice confides in Jake, telling him that Mav’s the only person he’s ever been in love with, made me wonder whether Mav’s ‘simplicity’ (LOL), was a part of the reason why Ice loved him, and whether there was a sliver of a chance that maybe, Ice did know himself just a little bit, back when he was in his mid-twenties? In Debriefing, Mav thinks to himself, that he’s slept with a lotta guys, and he’s slept with a lotta girls, and maybe, there was a 50-50 chance who he ended up with. But maybe, for Ice, it was always meant to be Mav—regardless of how many others he slept with. I mean, Mav’s clearly not washing and drying any uniforms for Ice, but he’s probably kissing him at the sound of Reveille in the morning?

lol i literally never thought of it like that but you’re so right!!! in my head it’s not exactly “ice is in love with maverick BECAUSE he doesn’t ask questions” it’s more like “maverick not asking questions ALLOWS ice to be in love with him.”

I really have spent an EXORBITANT amount of time thinking about possible moments in the story they could have talked about it—moments when they could’ve chosen not to “waste time,” depending on how you look at it, and I cannot see any foot in the door that isnt maverick literally dying & coming back from the dead. Like—the most likely moment would’ve been when they hugged each other ~halfway through debriefing when mavericks like ice always leaves—i think maverick (if he were feeling forgiving enough) could’ve whispered I love you, and it wouldn’t have gone TERRIBLY, but I literally cannot imagine ice’s response. “Ok.” Doesn’t know what to do with himself. “Uh. I, uh. Can’t, really, uh…” until mavericks like “don’t worry about it…” & who knows what happens after that.

I think the ONLY way i have come up with that actually works is—maverick nonchalantly asking anytime, “do you like me? Like, as a person. I know some people don’t like me. I don’t know. Am I a likable person? I know we’re stuck together but. Do you actually like me?” And ice going, “yeah, of course i like you! :) i didnt used to… u used to be a fuckin twerp… but…” blabbering on about how “You have no idea how respected you are… You walk into a room & everyone’s faces light up… ur so much FUN… ur the life of every party… it used to make me jealous but now it just makes me so proud to say yes i used to fly with maverick Mitchell, yes im friends with him, yes i know him… :)))” like, the truth! & then, kind of insecure, “i know some people don’t like ME…. too cold hearted etc… idk as my best friend how do you feel about ME…” & maverick goes “come on. You know how I feel about you.” and ice is like… “oh! you love me!” & “oh shit.” More complicated than that obviously but that’s literally the only way ive come up with (besides TGM doing the work for me and killing Maverick off so Ice realizes he can’t live without him) that doesn’t end with ice going “uh. uh. Well we can’t. I don’t know how to respond to that. Uh. We can’t be in a relationship because I’m not.” And maverick going “yes you are!” And ice saying “fuck you, navy first!” and leaving. (The possibility that would’ve happened if mav wanted to ask questions. my Ice has to figure it out for himself.)

idk if this is really answering ur ask. But—i love that reading wrt mavs “simplicity” and the quote from ch 1. i literally wasn’t thinking about it that way at all (like I wasn’t thinking period when i wrote it) but it makes me feel smarter than i am so thank you

[anti-katsuki-lounge]

Bakugou honestly makes it really hard to want to write fanfics for BNHA. I mean, if I’m writing fanfics for my favorite ships or just a selection of characters, that’s one thing. Just leave him out of the story altogether, easy peasy. But if I want to do a whole class experience, that’s where it is difficult. Because if I try to include him, my mind always gravitates to write him in how he is in canon.

And he is the living definition of antisocial.

The shopping trip, he called it lame. The dorm room competition, he went to bed, didn’t even join the rest of the boys downstairs when he was done packing. He only joined the swimming pool day because Kirishima, through great effort, coaxed him to joining. He didn’t lift a finger to help the local residents when they were assigned to the island in the second movie. Feel free to correct me, but I believe he avoided attending Iida’s birthday in one of the light novels. On numerous occasions we see him trying to get away or want nothing to do with being with the class in the FREAKIN Christmas episode.

Trying to write a scene to include Bakugou in is exhausting or annoying because I can only seen him saying something insulting or degrading about how the whole event happening is lame or a waste of time or along those lines, he gets in a fight with another character, or some form of confrontation to where the story has to stop to acknowledge he isn’t having a good time, and it’s jarring. I LITERALLY cannot see Bakugou enjoying people’s company.

Characters that you can label as introverts or asocial (and there is a DISTINCT difference between asocial and antisocial), such as Amajiki, Todoroki, Tokoyami or Shoji, I have an easier time placing them in mundane settings or doing something as simple as strolling through a park a sunny day, because we got to see their human side. Bakugou just screams and yells and hates people. He isn’t fun or a challenge to write, he’s a chore that I have to cater to.

So why did I write this? Because I’d like to hear your advice on how to approach this problem. I know if I try to incorporate Bakugou with how I feel the characters would actually act, I’ll get complaints from the stans saying they didn’t like their uwu boy was ganged up on or singled out or he was out of character. And if I remove him altogether, people will be bugging me asking what happened to him. I feel like it’s a lose lose situation.

Do you have suggestions?

So fun fact: the reason I took a hiatus from writing MHA Fanfiction for a bit was because I faced the same problem. I really didn’t like Katsuki and really didn’t want to write him. In some of my stories, Izuku doesn’t take Katsuki’s BS because of things in his life that don’t have him act like he does in canon. I have two fanfics with an immortal Izuku who can’t die (each time he does, he pops back to life) and that’s clearly going to affect how he sees someone who has such a disregard for life. Another fic has him becoming Iron Man, merging the two characters, so Izuku calls out Katsuki. Essentially, some stans got upset, including a 24 year old who decided to insult an at the time 16 year old. As my hatred for Katsuki grew, I started wondering how I even wanted to write him. I knew I didn’t wanna write anything that was torture porn like how other fanfics do but I also didn’t want to write him whatsoever. Even putting him in the background means I’d have to deal with him.

Eventually tho, I realized you can’t please everyone. I decided that I was going to expel Katsuki from U.A after people find out what he did and not bother with his character (except in fics where Katsuki’s behavior actually influences the plot). If people don’t like it, they can simply not read it. There’s no reason I should force myself to write him if he’s not going to be important to the story. Some people will say “well if you hate Katsuki then why don’t you write him interesting in your fic” and to that I say that I have far more interesting things to do than write Katsuki. I have characters that need to be explored, themes to be tackled, and a story to tell. Typically, Katsuki’s character does nothing for the stories I’m trying to tell except for serving as a hurdle for Izuku, so once Izuku jumps over said hurdle, his job is done and I remove him from the story. I don’t make too big of a deal about it, I simply expel him and leave his fate to the audience’s imagination.

Now if you don’t wanna expel him, you can honestly throw him in the background and focus on the other characters. Just have him ditch the scene while everyone else is having fun or whatever.

[burnwater13]

Boba Fett and Fennec Shand are standing in front of the main gate to Jabba's palace on Tatooine, facing the Hutt Twins (out of frame). Image from The Book of Boba Fett, Season 1, Episode 3, The Streets of Mos Espa. Calendar by DataWorks.

Upon reflection, Grogu realized that he knew very little about Boba Fett and Fennec Shand. He knew that Boba Fett was the Daimyo of Mos Espa, which essentially made him the ruler of Tatooine. He knew that the Daimyo had been a bounty hunter. He also knew that the Mandalorian armor he wore belonged to his father, Jango Fett. Grogu knew that Fennec was Boba Fett’s friend. That was it. Just that. 

Grogu understood people keeping their stories to themselves. He didn’t go blabbing his background to everyone he met. Sure, other people had blabbed. Obviously. That’s why so many bounty hunters had come after him over time. But he wasn’t the one telling people that he was really the answer to the problem of how do you clone a Jedi or a Sith for that matter. 

First, he didn’t even know if that was true. He could use the Force. That’s why he spent so much time studying at the Jedi Temple. He certainly wouldn’t have been there if he hadn’t had any ability to use, work with, manipulate the Force. He had no idea where he would have been, but Coruscant definitely wouldn’t have been it. Sure, he liked droids and mechs. More than most folks did when you got right down to it, so Coruscant would have been interesting to him, but he would not have been interesting to the Jedi or the Sith who inhabited that sort of planet. 

Second, he didn’t know what the criteria was that told people that they should go after him over any other person who could access the Force. For example, if Darth Vader was really Anakin Skywalker and Anakin was the ‘One’ according to Qui-Gon Jinn, which meant that he was the person who was going to bring balance to the Force, blah, blah, blah, why not use Anakin’s blood? Or Vader’s blood? Or why didn’t the Emperor, who was so clearly a Sith, use his own dang blood? Or if you couldn’t get their blood, for whatever good reason, what about the Night Sisters? Or the Inquisitors? 

Finally, why bother? He knew what ‘Moff Gideon’ had said to them on Mandalore. He was going to make a better version of himself, just with the Force. Yeah. Sure. Right. As if anything would make that guy ‘better’. 

And why trust that guy? Everything he said was a lie. He had once told them all that they couldn’t trust him. So, don’t trust him. That was usually the only honest thing a dishonest person said to you. It was worth believing. 

Somehow, Daimyo Fett and Fennec Shand had gotten drawn into the whole mess. Well, not that last part of the mess, but definitely the part where Moff Gideon kidnapped Grogu and he needed to be rescued. 

Grogu had expected that his dad, the Mandalorian, would be doing all the rescuing. But, to his pleasant surprise Fennec was right there, helping them to access the Moff’s ship and fighting side by side with Cara Dune and Bo-Katan to take it over. That had been pretty surprising, considering that she was supposed to be dead. 

That’s when he found out that Boba Fett had brought them all to the Moff’s ship in the Firespray, another surprising thing, since as far as Grogu knew, Boba Fett had also been listed as dead. Grogu had believed that until he actually met the Daimyo because people don’t routinely survive a sarlacc pit and more importantly, Boba Fett hadn’t retrieved him from Arvala-7. If any Mandalorian bounty hunter was going to do that, Grogu had always expected it to be Jango Fett’s son. 

Which brought him right back to that’s what he knew about Boba and Fennec. Not much. For example, how did Boba Fett get the Firespray back? Grogu didn’t know. How did Fennec survive Calican’s blaster fire? How did they meet? How did they end up living in the monastery built by the Monks of B-omarr? How did they meet the Mandalorian? 

Okay, he knew a little bit about that because he asked his dad to tell him the story when they were on their way from point A (Mos Espa) to point B (Mos Eisley), right after Grogu first met Ranky. But he didn’t know the rest of it. 

He supposed he could just ask one of them, but which one? If he asked his dad, Din Djarin would tell him that it was a case of following the  Mandalorian Creed and this or that was the Way.  Fennec would tell him something, but it likely to be short and to the point. ‘We owed him one.’ The Majordomo would tell him a story that started when Jabba the Hutt demanded that Han Solo pay his debts and ended with Grogu asking him the question. While he enjoyed that sort of story telling, he wasn’t sure either of them really had the time for it. 

He decided to ask the Daimyo. He found him at the outdoor rancor pen feeding the rancor something that looked like rotting meat. It also smelled like rotting meat. He hoped the answer was short because that smell was not a good one and he didn’t want to take a bath in case the stench permeated his coverall as they so often did. 

He asked his question.

The Daimyo thought for a moment and then laughed.

“I know you are likely hoping for a tale of honor and loyalty, but really, when I met your dad and retrieved my armor, there were no hard feelings. It’s just business. Bounty hunters do that sort of thing everyday.”

The Daimyo looked satisfied with the answer and out of no where, Grogu heard Fennec’s voice call out, “And if you believe that kid, I’ve got a slightly used clone I can give you.”

He didn’t know what she meant, but it was clear the Daimyo did. 

“What do you think Grogu? Should Fennec go for a ride on the rancor? Yes, I think that would be just right.”

Fennec was gone by then, of course. That was definitely her Way.

Boba Fett speaking to the Wookie, Krrsantan, while a Gamorrean removes the binders from Krrsantan. Image from The Book of Boba Fett, Season 1, Episode 3, The Streets of Mos Espa.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Oh god I just finished Book 2 and it was so bad… I went into this with an open mind just like I did with Book 1 and god did I hate this. Clem just annoyed the hell out of me for the entire book. I liked everyone BUT her, Ricca and Morro. And I don’t even hate Morro she just showed up randomly to say weird ominous shit and then went to do her walker autopsies. Idk… it just sucked so hard. I miss Amos.

I've reread it and I'm working on my review so I won't go into a whole spiel but yeah. I mean, I still think I like Book Two over Book One... until we get to chapter 7. It has the same problem as Book One where the ending is just bad.

Clementine still feels out of character when you compare her to game Clementine, but she's consistent with Book One Clementine. I get what her character's supposed to be and why she's going through these things, why she approaches things the way she does but it makes it hard to enjoy when you have context from the games. I've already seen Clementine grow up and face hardships in the apocalypse, and the games have the advantage of showing all that across four games whereas this series only gets three books, so we don't have time to waste, y'know?

But Morro was the biggest wasted opportunity, like... what a disappointment. When I read it the first time, I was giving my first reactions in chat with Pi and we were both like, "So it's gonna be revealed that Morro's actually doing science experiments on walkers, right?" but no.... she's literally just doing autopsies like c'mon, walker science experiments and abominations would've been amazing!

And Ricca... honestly, I like the idea of Ricca because let's be real, a lot of us wear glasses or contacts or have some sort of vision impairment, myself included, and a zombie apocalypse would suck! If my glasses broke and I had no means of getting a new pair and it's the zombie apocalypse, I'm dead. And Book One set up this interesting story where Ricca's brother was an abuser who purposely broke her glasses so that she had no choice but to rely on him, then when she finally found pair that worked, she left him. But now her eyesight is worsening, and that's scary, that's something I could sympathize with...... but it's almost treated like an inconvenience? Because her and Clementine's relationship is the emotional drama that takes stage and frankly, I don't like clemricca. Not just because it's not clouis. I went into it with an open mind wanting to ship it but... meh.

I don't like how Ricca's like, "I'll wait for you," and then later she gets butthurt because Clementine won't get on the same level as her fast enough. Clementine doesn't owe Ricca anything, y'know? But Ricca is like "I love you, and I know you love me too, but I need you to love me always, not start and stop. It's not fair, you want me to wait for the impossible!?" Stop trying to guilt her when she's clearly not ready for a relationship? I get the frustration but c'mon.

And then there's chapter 9 which... I'm honestly this close to losing my shit with people. I don't think I've ever been as disappointed or disgusted of the fandom than I have seeing people send threats to Tillie on her instagram over chapter 9. She posted about how Book Two released AND she gave birth to her son on Oct 4th, and you go to the comments and there are just people calling her a pedophile and writing threats-

On a post. From Tillie. About the birth of her son. What the hell is wrong with you???

And then there are people just straight up LYING about shit.

I read a comment on reddit where someone compared Clementine Book Two to 50 Shades of Grey because there's an explicit sex scene and uhm NO??? There's absolutely nothing explicit, Ricca is not like Christian Grey like?? What the fuck is wrong with you? It's like these people read the summaries on the wiki- WHICH BY THE WAY if any of you happen to see this screenshot circulating anywhere-

^this is not a real quote, this is obviously fake.

Please don't mindlessly believe people on the internet about shit, especially when they themselves haven't actually read it.

Anyway, it's like people read the wiki summaries and decided to spread false and exaggerated information about the comic because they want to paint it in the worst light possible to trick people and it's working and I'm so...UGH.

Sorry to nosedive into this but it pisses me off. There's a lot to discuss about chapter 9- shit, there's a lot of criticism to be had with Book Two, and I will go over everything in my review, but for right now I'll just say yep, Book Two isn't very good.

I miss Amos, too.