#maybe like a good 3rd option | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jahayla-parker · 5 months

Note

FINNICKKKKK🥰

okay what about... r and fin both being victors from district 4 and sent into the quarter qwell? and r being really shy and quite and fin is super protective of her. maybe an established relationship?

The Timid Tribute : Finnick Odair x Reader

(Finnick Odair x Victor!Reader / Finnick Odair x Tribute!Reader / Finnick Odair x District4!Reader / Finnick Odair x Gf!Reader / Finnick Odair x fem!reader)

Descr: 6k wc, Finnick and his timid girlfriend find themselves in the arena for a second time thanks to the 75th Hunger Games being the 3rd Quarter Quell. Despite the odds and their allegiance to protect Katniss Everdeen, Finnick will do whatever it takes to protect y/n.

Warnings: Hunger Games type warnings, violence, trauma, blood and injuries, fighting, death(s) [not main characters], and related. Please let me know if I missed anything!

The News

“Honey?” Finnick frowned. He watched as y/n continued to sit in complete silence, just staring at the now-black screen. “Please talk to me,” he encouraged softly while he scooted closer to her on the couch. “Come on,” he pleaded as he cautiously pulled her to him, hoping to avoid startling her. Finnick knew they were both already drowning in emotions over having heard the announcement from the Capitol just moments ago. Yet, the anguish in his heart amplified when y/n’s timid eyes flickered over to him as she visibly tried to maintain her composure. The second he saw the wobbling of her bottom lip, Finnick nodded emphatically and rubbed her back. “I know, I know,” he cooed.

“Finn…,” y/n attempted, her voice cracking. She tried to swallow the tight lump in her throat. “F-F-Finn, I… can’t, I can’t,” she whimpered, still staring at the blank television screen despite the way Finnick had her head resting on his chest.

“You won’t, okay?” Finnick vowed, his heart beating rapidly. “Chances are, you won’t get reaped,” he argued. He wasn’t sure if that was necessary statistically true. But, it was what y/n needed to hear. And what Finnick needed to be true.

“Finnick,” y/n sighed, leaning back to look at her boyfriend’s face. “M-Mags can’t,” she pointed out as she shook her head. Mags was District 4’s oldest surviving victor and far too sweet for her own good. “Annie, she… still isn’t herself yet,” y/n added, explaining why the only other surviving female victor apart from herself was not a viable option to be reaped for the Quarter Quell.

“What are you saying?” Finnick croaked, his normally honey-coated voice coming out gruff from fear.

“Finn..,” y/n whined softly. She didn’t want to have to say it. Hell, she didn’t want to even think it. But, realistically, she couldn’t let Mags or Annie be reaped. While understandably none of them would want to return to the deadly arena they once won, y/n was the only one who stood a chance. As victors of their own games, none of them were supposed to have to fight in the Games ever again. But, unsurprisingly, Snow and the Capitol changed the rules. As terrifying as it was to think about having to endure that trauma all over again, y/n knew she couldn’t stand by if Annie or Mags had their names drawn for the reaping. It was between the three of them. And while she loved them both, y/n had no faith in either of their survivals should they be chosen.

“No,” Finnick stated firmly. He sharply angled his body towards y/n. He shook his head. “Y/n, you’re not-,” he begged.

“It’s not like I want to,” y/n whispered. She felt horrible about it herself. And even more so when it came to what she was asking Finnick to be okay with. She sniffled as her guilt over worsening his predicament brought tears cascading down her face.

Finnick sighed deeply. He reached over and gently pulled y/n back towards him. “It could be Shaynee,” he argued weekly. No one had heard from the last remaining female victor in nearly two years. No one in District Four really knew if she was even still alive. But, Finnick had to hold onto the small chance that it wouldn’t be the love of his life going into the Quarter Quell. He didn’t want Shaynee to have to either. But, he’d easily admit he preferred it to be her rather than y/n.

Y/n nodded wordlessly against Finnick’s chest. She opted to sit their in silence for a moment, just enjoying his presence. As the overwhelming worry she’d had since hearing the news continued to alarm inside her head, she gripped onto Finnick tightly. “I can’t lose you, Fin,” she cried.

Finnick closed his eyes and tucked y/n’s head under his chin. “You won’t, honey,” he whispered, “okay?” His calloused and sea salt-dried hands caressed her back. “You’re always going to have me, angel”.

Y/n failed to keep her composure. She clung onto Finnick’s shirt as she sobbed. Leaning back, she gazed up at him, giving him a knowing frown.

Finnick read y/n’s unspoken argument and took a deep breath. “There are two other male victors, we’ll both be fine”. He was done having this conversation, done with this being their reality. He was done with everything that wasn’t just holding her and savoring her presence. So that’s what he did. Finnick lifted y/n into his lap and hooked his legs and arms around her as he lightly swayed side to side.

Reaping Day

Y/n timidly gazed over at Finnick from the female victors’ side of the stage. She was struggling to keep her eyes clear after having heard Mags be reaped for this year’s Quarter Quell. She knew Finnick didn’t want her to volunteer to take anyone’s place. But, when saw his evident anguish over their beloved Mags having been chosen, there really wasn’t much thought that had to go into her next move. Mags had been like a mother to him over the years. Mags was one of the only other people Finnick let himself get close to. He couldn’t lose her, and if Mags went into the arena, she wouldn’t come out. Y/n on the other hand, might actually stand a chance. “I volunteer,” y/n’s voice creaked out.

Y/n had spoken the words Finnick feared so quietly that the person drawing the victors’ names barely even heard her. Yet, Finnick’s ears had long ago been trained to pick up on y/n’s timidly soft voice. And this time, her words felt devastatingly loud. Finnick fought to move closer to y/n in order to stop her, but the peacekeepers promptly held him back.

As Y/n stood at the front of the reaping stage, she kept her eyes faced out at the crowd. She couldn’t bear to see Finnick’s anger, sense of betrayal, fear, and pain. She also couldn’t stand to see Mags’s reaction to y/n offering to take her place. Nor could she handle seeing Annie’s -while understandable- tears of relief in having escaped being reaped a second time.

Yet, when Finnick’s name was called out as the male victor headed back into the arena, her head whipped back to face him. Her knees shook as she struggled to keep standing. Her eyes were wide and already drowning in tears. All of her breath left her lungs, making her choked sobs silent.

Finnick of course hadn’t ever wanted to go back into the arena again. But, hearing his name called today didn’t phase him the way he had expected. To be fair, he’d expected that hearing it would’ve meant he’d be leaving y/n’s side. That it would’ve meant leaving her to the riots taking place lately in District 4. That he’d be forced to leave her to fend for herself while he was gone fighting for the ability to be to return to her. Only now, in reality, hearing his name read aloud from the reaping podium meant he could go with y/n. It meant he’d be able to protect her and see to it that she remain unharmed during this year’s games, at least to the furthest extent possible. Nevertheless, his heart broke as he witnessed y/n’s despair over him having been chosen.

The Capitol

Finnick glared pointedly at the female tribute from District 2. He was beyond furious with the tributes, mostly the careers, looking at y/n like she was prey as she wandered around the training facility. He knew that she came across as an easy target. And while he never judged her timidity, he knew he needed to put an end to it. She had to show that she was capable of holding her own against the other tributes. Which she was. They just hadn’t seen that yet. While he was not planning on separating from her at any point in the arena, he needed to make them understand the consequences of trying to harm her should it happen against his wishes.

Finnick smiled proudly at y/n as she cluelessly sipped on the water bottle he’d given her. She just finished unknowingly showing off her skills to a room full of leering competitors. He knew she never felt confident in her abilities, so instructing her to show them off wouldn’t have worked well for the two of them. So, instead, he simply encouraged her to train and freshen up on skills she hadn’t had to use in awhile.

“You look hot,” Finnick grinned, his hands on y/n’s waist.

“Still?” Y/n questioned, trying to figure out why the water hadn’t cooled her face. “Oh,” she giggled, catching on to Finnick’s flirtatious meaning. She playfully hit his chest, smiling as he took hold of her hands and pulled her to his chest.

Finnick chuckled and pressed a light kiss to the top of y/n’s head. He knew he was being rather forward with such an act, but he didn’t care. They were both headed to their potential deaths and he was going to cherish any time he had left with her. Plus, he knew it would act as a warning to the others that his alliance was with y/n. And as such, he figured it would help protect her even further.

Finnick’s nostrils flared as he fought to keep his protectiveness in check. He was backstage with y/n as she nervously waited for her turn to do her interview with Caesar. He knew that several of the male victors-turned-tributes around them were ogling at the lack of coverage from the gown y/n’s stylist had dressed her in for the evening. Finnick could read the impure thoughts and temptations in their eyes way too easily; having recognized those looks far too well. He used his torso to shield as much of her exposed body as possible as he held her gaze.

“Hey, angel,” Finnick cooed, tenderly guiding y/n’s head back towards him instead of on the screen playing back his interview and the message he had intended for her. “Just breathe,” he guided as he watched her try to keep the tears in her eyes from falling. “You’ll get through this and then I’ll make sure our mentors have y/f/f ice-cream ready when we get back to the dorms, okay?” He smiled at the faint grin that formed on her lip. “I’ll be right here, pretend like you’re just talking to me if it helps you connect with Caesar and the audience more, yeah?”

The Games

Finnick had agreed to Heavensbee’s proposed plan to help Katniss the instant they’d offered to get y/n and himself out of there alive. That had been Finnick’s only mission since the moment she volunteered in place of Mags. Now, he finally had a realistic way to make that happen.

Yet, that didn’t stop Finnick from panicking when he saw how far away y/n was when they rose on their pedestals into the arena. He was just glad she had agreed to listen to his guidance to stay away from the cornucopia. He knew she’d be upset that he himself went into that certain bloodbath, but he needed to get their supplies and to inform Katniss of their alliance.

Y/n scanned the arena, hoping to get an idea of the landscape before total chaos erupted. She had located Finnick’s pedestal the moment her eyes adjusted to the fake sun glaring down at them. So, while waiting for the countdown to end, she let her eyes search for any other information that might come in handy later on in the games.

When the game commenced, y/n ran along the stone path to reach the meeting place she and Finnick had discussed. They’d established they would meet at whatever the tallest item was between wherever their two pedestals rose. As she skillfully ran along the wet stones, she glanced over to see much distance Finnick had made so she could adjust her speed accordingly. Only, she caught sight of him making his way to the cornucopia.

Y/n huffed loudly and cursed Finnick under her breath. While they technically hadn’t explicitly agreed that he wouldn’t do anything stupid, like heading for the cornucopia on his own, before meeting up with her, she was livid. She knew why he’d done it, wanting to get himself a trident, and surely (a) y/f/w for her. But he couldn’t be doing that alone!

Y/n whipped her head around to check her left and right for any threats as she skidded to a halt on the stone path. She took a mental measurement of the distance from her location to the cornucopia at the center of the tribute pedestals and sucked in a breath deep enough to hold her through until she crossed that distance. She promptly dove straight into the water. She felt the drastic temperature change the moment she was under the freezing water. But, thankfully her time in District 4 had accustomed her to such.

Y/n peeled her eyes open and frantically swam towards the cornucopia, her fear for Finnick’s wellbeing driving her already impressive speed. Her body relaxed ever so slightly when she saw the refracted image of him above her on the shore. He was safe and not noticeably harmed. As she reached the edge of the cornucopia, she cautiously scanned the surface before pulling herself ashore.

“Y/n?!” Finnick panicked as he protectively pulled y/n’s wet body to her feet and placed her behind him. He quickly cornered her in the back area of the dome at the center of the cornucopia. That way she was shielded from any potential impending harm. “What are you doing?!” He scolded quietly, his eyes searching her for any visible signs of injury. “You agreed to-,” he began to remind her, stopping as his head whipped forward upon hearing someone scream.

When there were two simultaneous splashes and the screaming stopped, y/n let out a sigh of relief. “I panicked,” she explained, gripping Finnick’s wrist. “I'm sorry...I shouldn't have done that, you can look after yourself...I shouldn't have...I'm sorry."

Finnick sighed, and sensing there was no immediate threat, he turned around to face y/n. “No, no,” he whispered guiltily, her sorrow over having come to his defense evident in her eyes and shaky apologies. “Shhh, it’s okay,” he cooed, turning his wrist in y/n’s hand so he could hold hers. “I was just worried about you, angel,” Finnick explained, “it’s okay. Just stay here.”

“I can help,” y/n whispered, squeezing Finnick’s hand.

Finnick smiled lovingly down at y/n. “I know, I know you can,” he nodded. “Right now though, I need you to help by staying put, I just need to find Katniss, and then we’re getting off of this death trap,” he proposed. He kissed her forehead and placed a y/f/w in her hand before he turned around and headed to the entrance of the dome.

“You’re the girl who volunteered for the old lady that was reaped,” Katniss observed. “Right?” She asked, squinting at y/n.

Y/n bit her lip shyly and nodded. Her eyes flickered from Katniss’s gaze to Finnick’s uncertainly. When he smiled and nodded at her reassuringly, she let out a relieved sigh.

“Katniss,” Katniss introduced, holding her hand out towards y/n in symbolic gesture. “That was really brave of you,” she commented kindly.

Y/n sucked her lips in as she glanced at her ally’s extended hand. After getting nonverbal approval from Finnick, she accepted the girl’s hand and shook it. She noticed the expectant but nevertheless considerate look on Katniss’s face. “Oh,” she whispered bashfully. “Y/n,” she answered, offering a shy smile.

Finnick had taken any measures possible to keep y/n in his sights at all times. When their group ventured through the foreign terrain, he’d established y/n’s place as being between Katniss and himself. He elected to remain at the back of the group to ensure he always had eyes on her. By having her stay behind Katniss, he felt reassured that she wouldn’t be risking walking into a trap. He knew the deal they’d made with Heavensbee. But, that didn’t mean he was going to let y/n be put in danger along the way.

Finnick’s measures hadn’t accounted for y/n offering herself up to find Johanna though. As such, he was taken by surprise when she proposed the idea to Katniss as their group made a game plan. He’d tried to shut the notion down immediately, but it seemed y/n was holding her ground.

“I can find her, Fin,” y/n promised. Her fingers timidly picked at her cuticles as she waited for his response.

“We really shouldn’t split up,” Finnick argued, making his way back to her from where he’d been at helping Peeta sit back up after preforming CPR on their ally.

“One of us has to watch them,” y/n reminded him, nodding towards Katniss as she protectively knelt beside Peeta. “But, we also need to find Johanna,” she defended. Johanna was in on the alliance and the sooner their group was together in the arena, the better. They would be less of a target and more of a threat as a unit. Not to mention, y/n wanted to help the girl as she had become friends with Johanna over the years after winning her games.

Finnick hated the idea of y/n parting from his side. Not because he feared she couldn’t defend herself. But because he wanted to be there should she need backup. And because he simply despised the notion of being away from her for any length of time. Yet, Finnick wouldn’t risk making her more timid. Y/n was right about them needing to split up. And she needed to believe in herself in order to handle this. Regardless of if she stayed with the latest victors or if she went to find Johanna.

Finnick scanned y/n’s body once more as he yet again checked to ensure she was fully prepared to venture out on her own. He ensured she had proper attire for any situation she may encounter, a full array of weapons on her, her shoes and hair tied tightly, etc. Only after he’d established an agreed-upon time for her to return, or at least for her to make an audible signal that she was fine if she couldn’t return yet, did he let her leave to find their friend.

Finnick groaned as he hobbled over to the sandy shore to rest his body. He knew his troubled mind wouldn’t be able to rest, not with y/n still not back yet. But his body desperately needed it after what he and the District 12 victors had endured from the poisonous fog and fighting off the monkey mutts.

As Finnick carelessly plopped himself onto the sand, he stared out at the waves. Despite the water being extremely choppy due to the wind, it was nothing in comparison to the turmoil inside of him. Hours had passed. It had been not only hours since the time y/n had parted from his side, but also several hours since the time she was to return or at least alert him to her safety. Yet, she’d not returned to him yet. He realized it might be in part of them having to leave their original location due to the poisonous fog. But, that didn’t explain why he hadn’t heard or seen anything that signaled she was trying to communicate with him.

Y/n walked blindly as Johanna guided her to the water. Her vision was completely obscured from the surge of blood that had poured down on them. The gamemakers had decided to trap them in a rainstorm of blood. Where they’d got the blood in the first place wasn’t even something y/n had the capacity to question. The simple fact that she was soaked in blood that had been pouring on them for an hour straight was torturous enough.

Finnick tossed aside the seafood he’d caught for himself and their District 12 allies when he caught sight of y/n. She was covered in some dark yet shimmering substance, her right hand clasped in Johanna’s as they waded into the water roughly a mile down the shore. Finnick dashed across the sand towards them. His pace tripled when he was close enough to realize the substance coating y/n was blood.

“Y/n? Y/n!” Finnick screamed. “Are you okay?! Where have you been?!” He questioned after she timidly whispered his name in a relieved tone as he neared them.

“Not now Finnick,” Johanna greeted, shaking her head warningly at him as she continued to guide y/n further into the water.

“I found Johanna,” y/n murmured shyly, coughing when the blood still dripping down her head entered her parted lips.

Finnick frowned and rushed into the water. “Hey, hey, hey,” he soothed, cupping y/n’s cheeks in his palms. He squinted worryingly when she flinched briefly at his touch, as if she didn’t know it was him. “Honey, tell me what happened,” he requested.

“Y/n got us out,” Johanna answered, squeezing y/n’s shoulder before heading towards the others. “But that’s when the rain started,” she explained, shaking her head in annoyance. She scooped up water and poured it over Wiress’s head. “We thought it was water… It turned out to be blood. Hot thick blood that was coming down”.

“It was choking us,” y/n spoke up, reaching out and feeling around until she was able to clutch onto Finnick’s forearms. “We were stumbling around…gagging on it…blind,” she whimpered.

Finnick heard Johanna continue to explain the events, but he’d heard what he needed to know already. He rubbed y/n’s cheek with his thumb, frowning sympathetically at the amount of blood that came off with his touch. “You’re safe now,” he promised. “Let’s get you cleaned up, love,” he offered, taking her hands in his.

“You’re okay, keep your eyes closed, honey,” Finnick instructed as he guided her to her knees in the water. He whispered various soothing sentiments as he tended to her, being sure to get all of the blood off of her. She didn’t need any lingering visual reminder of what she’d just gone through.

Finnick watched y/n’s chest closely as he tried to gauge her breathing. She was balled up between him and Johanna. Her head was resting on the edge of his shoulder as her hands were hooked around her knees. Finnick caught Johnna staring at him questioningly and he shook his head.

“Do you want me to make the others leave?” Finnick asked, worried by y/n’s shallow and quick breathing. “Or we could go for a walk, get some fresh air,” he offered. He figured Katniss trying to decipher Wiress’ rambling wasn’t helping y/n clear her mind.

Y/n shook her head. She could do this. She had to do this. She couldn’t fall apart now, they still had so long to go. She tried to take a deep breath, the intensity of its choppy sound making her panic worsen.

“Hey, just breathe,” Finnick guided, spinning around on the sand until he was seated in front of y/n. “Sugar, look at me, look at me,” he whispered, tilting her head up. When her eyes met his, he smiled supportively. “In and out, okay? Copy me”.

Y/n smiled tiredly as Finnick returned to her side. “Thank you,” she hummed shyly. She felt her already stabilizing heart rate relax further as his arms wrapped securely around her.

“I’m never letting you leave my side again,” Finnick vowed. “I was so worried,” he confessed as he rested his head on y/n’s.

Katniss had informed their group that the arena was set up like a clock, and they agreed to head to the Cornucopia to gather weapons, as well as to scan the area and verify her theory. The whole way there, Finnick was being overly protective of y/n. He knew she was already bouncing back from the blood rain, but still wished she could have more time to recover from the mental impacts of it before they had to head to such a risky location in the arena. As such, it wasn’t until Johanna had scanned the back of the cornucopia for threats that he let go of her hand so she could move freely.

Their group huddled over a diagram of the arena Peeta had drawn in the sand as they reviewed the different threats in each sector. Y/n felt eyes on her when Katniss asked if she’d seen anything during her time away from their group. She smiled faintly in appreciation to Johanna when she answered for y/n that all they’d seen was blood.

“It doesn't matter,” Peeta reassured y/n, sensing her remorse over not having known more information about the arena. “If we know which sector is active, we’ll be safe,” he concluded, standing up from his kneeling position in the sand.

“Yeah, relatively speaking,” Finnick remarked, unable to be as optimistic as Peeta given the hourly threats weren’t their only trouble.

Y/n’s eyes snapped away from Finnick at the sound of Wiress’ gasp. She pulled a knife out of her pocket and threw it at Gloss as he stood behind Wiress. She frowned as she noticed that despite her knife and Katniss’s arrow having struck Gloss flawlessly, the man had already taken Wiress’ life.

Finnick moved forward to keep y/n from running to Wiress as the woman collapsed to the ground.

Y/n tactically shoved Finnick aside, spinning to strike Cashmere with her newly obtained trident as the District 1 victor charged towards him. She knocked the tribute to the ground and they promptly wrestled against each other.

Finnick went to help y/n after having realized why she’d pushed him aside. Only, he found himself having to fight off Brutus instead. He growled as he attempted to finish the battle quickly.

Finnick had barely rose back up from his knees after a blade seemingly tossed by y/n scraped Brutus’s shoulder and scared him away when Peeta was running after the monster of a victor. He stopped Peeta’s offensive move, knowing he’d easily be outmatched by the District 2 tribute. He shoved Peeta’s resisting frame back as his eyes searched the cornucopia for y/n. Just as his eyes found y/n’s tousled hair, he was knocked down as the ground underneath him began to spin.

Y/n gasped as she was suddenly thrown off of Cashmere as the cornucopia rotated. Her fingers frantically searched the damp rocks for a place to hold onto. Just when she thought she’d found one, a slab of metal flung off the dome and knocked her hands off of the thin grasp she had on the structure of the cornucopia. She let out an uncharacteristic scream as her body tumbled down the wet foundation towards the water. It wasn’t the water that worried her, it was how fast the surface was spinning above the water that was the problem. If she were to hit the side of it on her way down, she’d suffer the same fate she just watched Cashmere endure.

“Y/n!” Finnick shouted upon hearing her scream. He held tightly onto the surface as he mentally pleaded for y/n to be okay. He instinctively caught Peeta when his body slid down the rocks beside him, keeping him afloat without having to shift his mind off of thoughts about y/n’s wellbeing. His blood ran cold as he heard his love let out another scream.

“Y/n! No!” Johanna screamed, futilely reaching towards the surging water below her. She and Katniss were both still struggling to stay on shore, but y/n had been flung off despite three victors’ best efforts.

Finnick found himself unable to breathe when the cornucopia stopped spinning. But it wasn’t from the surge of adrenaline, nor from the speed of the spinning motion. Instead, his fear and concern for y/n had rendered him breathless. He scrambled to his feet the second the surface stopped moving. The trident in his hand shook nervously as he frantically searched the island for her.

“Finnick!” Johanna shouted, waving him over.

“She fell in,” Katniss explained breathily, giving Finnick a remorseful look.

“F-Fi-,” y/n forced out, choking on the freezing water as she breached the shore. She hadn’t seen what happened to him after she’d thrown the blade at Brutus awhile ago. Long before the very ground they were on literally turned against them. She needed to know he was okay.

Finnick once again picked up on y/n’s quiet exclamation. His eyes snapped in the direction of her voice and he sighed in slight relief upon seeing her alive and breathing. He tossed his trident aside as he ran down the stone trail that lead to where she was. He helped her pull herself ashore, holding her to him immediately. “I thought I lost you,” he whimpered, tightening his grip on her frail and trembling body.

Finnick pulled back after a moment, his eyes searching y/n’s face. “Say something,” he begged. Her timidity was too concerning right now. “Are you hurt?!”

Y/n grabbed Finnick’s bicep as she staggered backwards to show him her leg. During her fight with Cashmere, she’d been stabbed in the thigh. Having been dragged down the rough surface of the cornucopia surely hadn’t done much to help the wound. She swallowed as she took note of just how much worse the injury now was.

“N…no, no, no, no, no, no, no,” Finnick rambled, his eyes watering. He dropped to his knees, his hands pressing firmly against y/n’s wound. “Y/n?” He questioned when he didn’t hear her whimper even slightly at the pressure. His eyes gazed up at her as he sucked in short choppy breaths. “Hey, I’ve got you, you’re going to be okay,” he promised, seeing the defeated look in y/n’s eyes.

“Keep your eyes on me,” Finnick instructed, adjusting his hand placement when Johanna ran up to him with a small first aid kit from the cornucopia. “O-okay? Honey,” he whispered, trying to prevent his voice from showing the fear that was surging inside him, “just focus on me… We’re going to be okay!”

As Katniss discussed the plan with Peeta, y/n walked over to Finnick. She tried to hide her limp, not wanting to worry him further. “Do you need anything Finn?” She asked softly as she set her hand on his shoulder.

Finnick quickly turned his head upwards, not knowing she was going with Katniss on the supply run. “No, love, where are you going?” He asked rhetorically. He knew where y/n was planning on going based off her question and the plan they’d all formed. But, he was hoping by asking she’d reconsider.

“She needs help,” y/n whispered shyly.

Finnick smiled lovingly at y/n but shook his head. “I’ll go with,” he proposed, knowing y/n wasn’t going to relent on her helping Katniss.

“Finny,” y/n sighed. “You don’t have t-“.

“I know,” Finnick said. He picked his trident up off the ground and took her hand in his other. “Ready?” He asked.

Y/n’s eyes shot open as she heard Finnick screaming her name. She whipped her head back and forth in search of her boyfriend. She silently ran after him as he bolted into the gathering of trees. She froze when she heard her own voice screaming for Finnick’s help. Jabberjays. “It’s not real!” She yelled, resuming her running. Only, the Jabberjays playback of her voice was far louder and Finnick had run too far for her to reach him.

“He can’t see you, stop!” Johanna explained, motioning towards the clear barrier between the hourly sectors as she held y/n back.

Katniss was on her knees, pressed up against the invisible divider between her and the others as the Jabberjays mimicked her sister Prim’s voice. The District 12 victor had been fortunate enough to see the others through on the opposite side of the divide before she was overtaken by the screaming. So at least she knew it wasn’t real.

Finnick wasn’t that lucky. He’d left Johanna watching over y/n as she and Peeta slept. Meanwhile he was only a few hundred feet away, teaching Katniss how to form some knots for the next step in their plan. That’s when the Jabberjays attacked. He hadn’t even thought to look back to where he’d last seen y/n when he heard her voice crying for him to help her. Instead, he instinctively rushed towards the sound. As such, he’d ventured further into the Jabberjay sector than Katniss and didn’t have the chance to see the others were safe, to see y/n was actually safe. Sure Katniss tried to remind him that they were just Jabberjays. But, he knew Jabberjays copied things they’d heard. Meaning y/n could very well be hurt somewhere in the arena somehow right now, begging for him to come to her rescue.

Tears streamed down Finnick’s face as he knelt on the damp grass. His hands were shaking as they covered his ears, his heart racing out of control. This had to be fake. The screams coming from the Jabberjays were excruciating. If y/n were truly screaming at that volume instead of the Jabberjays increasing it for the purpose of his torture, she had to be in a near-death state. He’d never heard her this loud before. It had to be fake. He couldn’t live without her. It had to be fake. It had to be.

“I know, I know,” y/n cooed as she embraced Finnick. She had wrapped herself around his crumpled frame the second the invisible barrier between them had absolved. “I’m here, handsome, I’m here,” she promised, gasping as he clung onto her.

“You’re sure you’re okay?!” Finnick repeated frantically, leaning back to see y/n. His eyes analyzed her several-hour-old wound on her thigh despite her nodding her head. He pulled her back into his embrace, pressing kisses all over her face.

Y/n gasped as Finnick jumped in front of her, intentionally trapping her between him and the tree behind her so she couldn’t take the arrow that Katniss had pointed at them instead of him.

“Katniss, remember who the real enemy is,” Finnick spoke calmly. He slid his foot backwards to signal for y/n to stop trying to wordlessly squirm her way out from behind him. He wasn’t going to let her try and block the arrow him hitting him. If one of them had to go down like this, it was going to be him.

Finnick didn’t need to see y/n’s expression to know she was too timid to say anything, her fear silencing her. Nor did he need words to know she was angry that he was making this decision for the both of them. But he had to.

Finnick let out a sigh when he watched Katniss move her bow away from him and point it towards the artificial sky above them. He felt y/n move to his side, his hand finding her hip and tugging her closer while his gaze cautiously stayed on Katniss.

As the girl from District 12 released her bow, Finnick moved y/n back. He guided them both to the ground before the impact could knock them down. Finnick saw y/n’s worried stare and he stroked her cheek before he covered her with his body. “Stay down honey, we’re getting out of this together,” he murmured lovingly.

Finnick Odair Taglist: @ell0ra-br3kk3r

Finnick Odair Navigation

Book Boyfriends Navigation

My Main Masterlist (All My Works) Navigation

452 notes · View notes

buckybarnesevents · 1 month

Text

WE'RE BACK! Hot Bucky Summer returns for its second year in a row with new prompts to get those spicy ideas going!

This event runs from June 1st, 2024 to August, 31, 2024. Each week starting June 1st, we’ve given you a theme (phrase) and some further prompts to spark your imagination. You do not have to strictly include the exact phrase or prompt words in your works - they are meant to encourage you and inspire your overall idea!

📢 RULES

Tag accordingly, please! General blog rules apply to this, please read before participating.

There is no minimum or maximum limit.

We will not be reblogging works outside of the assigned week (ex: if you fill a week 1 prompt but we are already in July, we will not be reglogging), however, these prompts are meant to inspire your muses and you can use them as you desire.

Your works do not have to be inherently M or E rated to participate, they are up to your interpretation.

There is no limit on how many works you create. Even if you only participate in one week, we encourage and welcome all participants!

📢 HOW TO SHARE YOUR WORKS:

Please mention us (@buckybarnesevents) and use the tag #hotbuckysummer2024 in your post for us to reblog your works!

We MUST be able to clearly identify what week/prompt you are using. Again, we will not be reblogging works outside of the assigned week. If we cannot easily tell what prompt you are using when tagged, we will not be reblogging.

You can also tag us again in your masterpost for us to reblog a summary of your works for this event.

⏩ Ao3 Collection: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/HotBuckySummer2024

⏩ Discord: https://discord.gg/P5S3CjM6yU

⏩ Last year's works: https://buckybarnesevents.tumblr.com/eventarchive

For a word version (enabling copy and paste), please see below the cut.

Happy creating!

💙 HR

1 June 1st - June 7th | “Louder, let everyone hear you.” | [Screaming/Noisy Sex | Gangbang | Exhibiotionism]

2 June 8th - June 14th | “What should I call you?” | [Master | Alpha | Pet]

3 June 15th - June 21st | “Really? Here?!” | [Someone Else’s House | Public Bathroom | Mile High Club]

4 June 22nd - June 28th | FREE WEEK | [Optional prompts: “A” - Anal Hook, Acarophilia, Age Play]

5 June 29th - July 5th | “We’re…” | [Friends with Benefits | Exes | Enemies to Lovers]

6 July 6th - July 12th | “I won’t be able to stop myself.” | [Sex Pollen | Gone Feral | Fuck or Die]

7 July 13th - July 19th | “Put this on for me.” | [Blindfolds | Cock Cage | Collars]

8 July 20th - July 26th | “Maybe this'll help you relax” | [Hot Bath | Another Drink | Cockwarming]

9 July 27th - August 2nd | FREE WEEK | Optional Prompts: “W” - Wax Play, Watersports, WAM (Wet & Messy), Weapon Play]

10 August 3rd - August 9th | “Shhhhhhhhh…” | [Gagged | Voyeurism | Somnophilia]

11 August 10th - August 16th | “You look good like this.”| [Kneeling | Tied Down | Ruined]

12 August 17th - August 23rd | “What should I wear?” | [Lingerie | Chastity Belt | Nothing]

13 August 24th - August 30th | FREE WEEK | [Optional Prompts: “M” - (Mutual) Masturbation, Masochism, Medical Play]

#bucky barnes events #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fanart #bucky barnes fanwork #bucky barnes content #hotbuckysummer2024 #event page

199 notes · View notes

dailyadventureprompts · 1 year

Text

Alright, guess it’s time to address the apocalyptic legal elephant in the room:

For those who might not know, WotC plans were leaked to “update” the OGL in what is basically a scorched earth policy with regards to 3rd party material/creators in the hopes of cutting out the competition and forcing people to use their new products.

As someone who lived through the 4th edition/pathfinder schism, the situation is laughably similar: D&D is flourishing more than it ever has (thanks primarily to the OGL) but the execs at Hasbro want more of the money spent on the hobby to wind up in their pockets. Oblivious to the fact that the opensource nature of the game is what draws people to it, they task the design team with creating a proprietary virtual tabletop through which they can sell d&d content without having to worry about books or pdfs being pirated. This rightfully outrages the fandom and burns every scrap of good will they had towards WotC, resulting in a dead edition that’s maligned years afterword as folks hop to the newer, easier game system.

The thing that’s different this time is that the d&d playerbase has grown exponentially since the days of the first OGL, with 5th edition being the easiest version of the game to run/pick up and so many resources online, there’s almost no barrier to entry besides finding a stable/accommodating group. Hell, with the explosive popularity of liveplay series you don’t even need to be actively playing in order to be in the fandom. All of these people are networked together in a fandom hivemind spread across twitter/reddit/youtube and WotC just made an enemy of every single one of them with its shameless and destructive cashgrab. No streamer or 3rd party publisher wants to give Hasbro 25% of their revenue, to say nothing of having their project “cancelled” if WotC sees it as a threat to any of their current projects ( see the huge number of spelljammer materials published after the company dropped the ball).

It took about two years after the announcement of 4th edition for Paizo to come out with pathfinder, and I have no doubt the OGL leak kickstarted every major 3rd party publisher brainstorming some legally distinct version of the 5e ruleset. In the coming months I expect to see a number of these surrogate systems floating around the internet in much the same way that the onednd playtest content, but spurred on with the added “fuck you Hasbro” energy. After that, it’s only a matter of time till one of the big streamers picks up one of these systems and popularizes it, not wanting to pay the 25%tithe to WotC. Personally my money’s on Critical Role: they were one of the major factors in popularizing 5th edition and they’ve got the fandom pull to legitimize any claimant to the throne.

To step away from playing oracle for a bit, I’d like to finish up this post by dunking on WotC:

*ahem*

HOW FUCKING DUMB TO YOU HAVE TO BE TO TURN YOUR ENTIRE CUSTOMER BASE AGAINST YOU IN ONE NIGHT? This is some new coke/Reynolds pamphlet/invading Russia in winter levels of shooting yourself in the foot. Wizards was on shaky ground to begin with given that they’re coming off a series of notably disappointing products AND trying to launch a new edition/virtual tabletop/battlepass system, but to follow that up with a retroactive rules change that lets them outright steal from or shut down creators? It’s laughable. Maybe, MAYBE they could have made this work if they were knocking it out of the park with new releases every year and cultivating a base of diehard WotC loyalists, but the fact of the matter is that aside from the brand name, the hobby has largely passed them by. Everything that Wizards does, from player options to settings to monsters to rules modules, someone else does better because they’re willing to take risks and put in the effort. Aside from the elegant simplicity of 5e’s base system, I can count maybe two pieces of actual game design (piety from Theros, ship combat from Saltmash) that I consider usable at my table, which is SAYING SOMETHING considering we’re nearing the end of the game’s ten year golden age.

I know we’ll weather this storm, we always have, and regardless of what happens I still know my friends and I will enjoy gathering around the table and slinging dice even though we might not be playing “dungeons and dragons” in a couple years time. I’ll keep my eye on the horizon, and let you know where I find safe harbour.

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #d&d #5e #dm advice #dm tip #dm tips #dm tools #writing advice #one d&d #dapper digresses #ogl #ogl 1.1 #hasbro #critical role #open d&d #opend&d

2K notes · View notes

heyitsmeyourfavoritechick · 9 months

Text

⋆*･ﾟLibra Observation⋆*･ﾟ

It’s true that’s it’s hard for them to make a decision on anything and it slowly brings out they’re insecurities. (Kinda like scrambling around to see what is right or not) like a humming bird figuring out what house has the best feed, going back and forth etc.

When they overthink it’s sometimes about the bad and the good in different situations and scenarios and also put themselves in other peoples situations, (like a 3rd party view) so they see how the other person should’ve dealt lt with it that scenarios.

Its not that they cant make a decision, they just want to see more options, or classic scales “weigh out the options” to see what’s best fit. Because like queen libra herself Cardi B said “I can get them both, I don’t wanna choose” and it’s true they would rather have both than to choose or have someone else pick for them. classic.

They see both sides so don’t be offended if you see them talking to your “foes” or trying to get all sides of the story. It’s them trying to “find justice” in in whatever situation. (unless they have heavy water placements then they have some kind of loyalty towards you and wouldn’t do this for no reason)

Libra betters themselves and everyone around them, it’s they’re version of love language even when people don’t listen they’re still doing better than you.

Usually get anyone/anything they want. Perks of being ruled by Venus (mostly talking about the girls here)

Libra usually have this shy confidence. It’s hard to explain but they’re not shy with they’re eyes. So pay attention.

A libra women doesn’t need you, you need her.

Libra women are more open to being bisexual or engaging with the opposite sex more so than a male libra but male Libras have so many man crushes even on they’re own guy friends and it makes you question….

Freaky like Scorpios but keeps this hidden by this white picket fence home wife/husband persona of theirs.

Elegant in the streets freak in the sheets

Never met a libra that had any self hate or any self inflecting harm towards themselves, They carry beauty and love and treat themselves in a nice manner and after awhile when they get older they have a lot of self love and respect for themselves. (It’s a treasure to be around and to learn from!, I’m slowly trying to learn this myself but they are the master at this)

Guys take home libra women sooner to meet their mothers than any other sign. I don’t know why but libra women make men feel like little boys being cared for all over again.

The libra women remind any Astro male the feminine nature that women carry, and that in itself is changing for him and rare to be around so please appreciate they’re softness.

Love all things beauty and beautiful objects and people and don’t be surprised if they do anything hands on or creative in their jobs or daily life. Fashion also is a creative outlook too, I never seen a libra that dresses bad even if it’s laundry day best believe they have the cutest lounge/lazy clothes or anything that matches them aesthetically.

Libra usually are attracted to younger or much older people, but with a youth like appearance or energy and maybe smooth sculpted bodies like a Greek statue, also a weakness for European or foreign men in general.

454 notes · View notes

yanderederee · 1 month

Text

TummyAche

a/n: tummy ache girlies unite; Hiragi is here to save the day lol. Please love him with me♡

ct: reader is straightforward and dorky♡

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯✦

The day began as it would any other for Hiragi Toma. As always, he went about his morning, paroling the attentively. Aa uneventful as it was, the cool morning air and lull of pedestrian idle commotion served to tire the delinquent more than usual. So, en route back to school, he decided to stop by the vending machine for a quick black coffee.

However, hidden just beyond the vending machines broad stature, he noticed a human figure huddled over. He easily could have missed it had he not been so close. Cautiously, Hiragi toed in closer.

“Hey, are you okay?” He asked, folding down to one knee to reach your current height. You gasped, not expecting for another person’s presence. “Sorry.” He quickly apologized.

You shook your head, groaning quietly. “You’re fine… my stomach just… really hurts…”

Hiragi nodded understandably. “Well, luckily for you,” he hummed, pulling out his tried and true Gas-kun 10. “I happen to have stomach medicine on me. Here, it’s chewable.” He offered you one of the small pills.

Awkarddky, you felt embarrassed having to admit, “I don’t like the powdery taste a chewable pill leaves behind…” Hiragi chuckled, and stood to his full height.

“Can’t blame ya there. Hang tight,” He examined the contents of the vending machine, quickly spotting a green tea option. That would probably be best for a stomach ache, right? After purchasing both of your drinks, he squatted back beside you, handing you the tea and medicine.

Quickly, you took both ingestibles’. After taking one, two, three, four large gulps of the offered tea, you released the can with a quiet ‘haaaaah’.

Though it may not have been your preferred drink of choice, it was rather good. “Do you just… always carry stomach medicine?” You asked, finally taking a good look at the kind bystander.

Hiragi laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, well… I get stomach aches pretty often, so it’s pretty much essential.” You giggled at his reply. “That’s unexpected.”

Together, you shared a few more words, a few more giggles. Until eventually, you could tell his attention was beginning to drift, as though he needed to be elsewhere soon.

“Say, what’s your name?” You asked, finally feeling well enough to stand.

“Hiragi Toma, 3rd year at Furin high school. Nice to meet you.”

You smiled at his introduction. He was kind, and easy to talk to. By the looks of him, in his tight leather pants and the dangerous aura radiating off of him, you were pleasantly surprised. Tall, respectful and thoughtful— and by your standards, very hot… just your type.

“Say… I hope this doesn’t come off strong but… can I… have your contact information?” You asked nervously.

Hiragi became baffled, eyes wide in disbelief. No one’s ever asked for his contact information so quickly upon meeting him. Sure, he thought you were cute; the way you laughed made his heart skip a little, and the way he felt so calm with your presence had made him let his guard down.

…But it wouldn’t be a bad thing to become closer to you…

“S…sure… is my number fine?”

⎯⎯⎯⎯✦

Days after your aforementioned meeting of one another, Hiragi found himself becoming more and more infatuated with you. For some reason, any free thought that wasn’t taken up by Bofurin, Umemiya, or his unpunctual juniors— had become filled with little thoughts about you.

Wondering if you got stomach aches often as well. Were you eating well? Hopefully. Maybe he’d ought to ask you himself, given how frequently you would text him. Perhaps he should find the frequency of your initiated chats bothersome, but it was quite the opposite; he instead felt giddy with every time his phone would vibrate, eager for a chance to duck out to check your message away from prying eyes umemiya.

Like now, he realized from a familiar buzzing. Peeking over to make sure his underclassmen were all distracted with other things, he quickly stepped off behind a corner, pulling out his phone to read your name.

Y/n: class is so boring… I can’t keep my eyes open (● ˃̶͈̀ロ˂̶͈́)੭ꠥ⁾⁾ what are u doing ???

Hiragi♡: that’s not good. how about you try paying attention.

Y/n: so rude!!’ and u didn’t ansr my ??? !

Hiragi♡: im helping my friend out with gardening

Y/n: GARDENING‽?‽?!(๑･̑◡･̑๑) lol what a surprise!! i didn’t know u had a green thumb!!!!

Hiragi♡: i dont. i just water them whenever hes too busy

Y/n: interstng

Hiragi♡: you should probably put your phone away in class

Y/n: just got busted!!_:(´ཀ`」 ∠): ttyl

What the hell did ttyl stand for? Hiragi chucked audibly, rereading over the conversation a few times, heart feeling full. You were much more of a dork than you first let on, but in an endearing way…

Soon, he began feeling the oncoming presence of his curious juniors approaching. Quickly, he pocketed the devise, and joined back up with them.

⎯⎯⎯✦

A few days after that, your texts became less frequent. Hiragi was becoming increasingly irritable as the pattern spanned for the fifth day. You texted him maybe once a day, if only to say good morning, but hadn’t continued with your usual banters and chatter.

Had he done something wrong? He tried reasoning what it could be. Were you bored of him? It was possible… damnit! What should he do… Let it go? You weren’t inclined to message him after all…

But still, something was eating at him… he didn’t want you to stop. Hiragi looked forward to your daily rants and gripes. Just reading your messages was enough to make him break out in a smile. He was even becoming less careful in hiding your existence— Umemiya almost caught him once…

After toiling on it for too long, he decided the best thing to do would be to own up to it… soon. Maybe he would start with messaging you first.

Hiragi♡？: morning. are you at still in school?

Y/n: yahh..

Hiragi♡？: sounds rough. what time do you get out?

Y/n: two hours(@_@)

Hiragi♡？: do you want to grab a bite to eat after? i have a free meal coupon for ashitaba that i need to use.

Even while in class, you were notorious for answering his messages with lightning speed. Yet, after his latest text, all messages from you halted for an entire hour.

Did he come off too strong? Shit. He wasn’t used to this type of thing, maybe he should take it back before you decided to stop talking to him altogether.

An hour and a half passes, before hes sprung back into life with a new text.

Y/n: I’ve never eaten as ashitaba before. Id like to try it though

Was that a yes? Should he take it as a yes? Unsure, he scanned the message a few times.

“Oooohhh~ does our ‘ragi have a daaate?~” a sudden teasing voice cooed into his ear. “GODDAMNIT!” Hiragi screamed unexpectedly, instinctively throwing a punch into the white haired boy’s face.

Undeterred, Umemiya laughed. “Hohoho~ so it’s true! Hiragi’s got giiiiirlfriend~” Annoyed, Hiragi clicked his tongue. “We aren’t dating!” He snapped back. Umemiya audibly ‘oop’ed, covering his mouth in mild surprise. “An ex..?” “NEITHER!”

…

“So, you weren’t sure about her feelings, so you asked her out to eat to find out?” Umemiya asked, after Hiragi begrudgingly responded to his pestering to tell him everything there was to know about you.

Hiragi shrugged. “I… guess. It just felt like they were putting distance between us and i guess i just… didn’t want that to happen.”

Umemiya nodded along. “So you like them, right?” This question earned a grunt to leave Hiragi’s chest. “Who knows.” He huffed, standing up to leave the conversation.

“Good luuuck! Charm the pants off ‘er, so i can meet her next time!!”

…

Just by your school gate, Hiragi waited, scrolling on his phone.

Hiragi♡？: im outside ur school. spot me by the gate.

Y/n: YOURE HERE????????? (=ↀΩↀ=)

Seeing no reason to reply further, since you’d be seeing him in person before long, he smiled at the cute emoji you sent, and looked around.

Everyone. Was staring at him.

“I-is that a Furin uniform? Scary!!”

“Let’s walk the other way…”

“What’s he here for? Is he looking for a fight?”

“Should i call the police?”

Shit. It wasn’t exactly common knowledge for neighboring schools to know how the image of Furin has changed over the years. To the outside eye, Furin was still a good for nothing delinquent school who fought anyone and everyone. Maybe meeting you at school was a bad idea.

“Hii~ra~giii~” chimed a cheerful voice, breaking out against the harsh whispers around him. A particular group of girls stared the two of you down with wide, shocked eyes. Based on where you were skipping from and their placement, they looked to be your friends. “Ready?”

Hiragi looked a little uneasy, glancing between you and your very suspicious friends, all gathered and whispering with one another. “Uh… yeah.” He mumbled, looking away.

Side by side, the two of you walked to the restaurant he’d mentioned, all while your chipper chatter filled the silence. Talking about anything, asking him questions, leaving room for breathing space as to not overwhelm the conversation too badly.

You had just a weird way of making him feel… at ease. He thought he didn’t much care for carefree individuals who couldn’t mind their business. That’s how it was with Umemiya at least; but your comforting presence did something to ease any aggression lurking inside him.

Coming up on the restaurant, he pulled open the door expectedly for you. You gave a quiet thanks before entering. “Welcome i—“ the older man called in greeting, only to cut himself off when he was met with an unfamiliar face accompanying one of his most regular customers.

Baffled, the older man starred at you in gaping awe. There was no way in hell Hiragi was bringing someone as fine as you on a date here of all places.

“Quit it with the crazy eyes old man, table for two, please.” Hiragi spoke up after closing the door. While the old man was still taken by shock, he did his best to welcome the two of you in with open arms. Quickly, the two of you were seated, and met with hardy conversation with the cook.

“Well you’ve got to forgive me, but this is just about the most unexpected thing! The Bofurin boys come in here all the time, but it’s unusual for them to bring guests like this! Here, try this to start off! I got a few other things frying up right now, it’ll be ready in just’a sec.”

“That’s so kind of you..! I can’t wait to try it! But before that… Bofurin boys? Like, Furin high school, right?” You seemed to be puzzling little things together. You’ve been in town before, of course, but the only thing readily known about Furin was its notorious reputation; and how it had only in recent years began to change.

“You dont know Bofurin? Oh boy! They’re just about the most helpful bunch o’guys around! Can’t tell ya the number of times Toma here has unloaded a full truck for me on delivery day!” The old man hollered with laughter, slapping Hiragi on the back hard.

After putting in your respective orders, Hiragi sighed in embarrassment. “Sorry if he’s over the top. He means well.“

“No way!” You waved off his apology with a happy grin. “I’m even more interested now. Tell me about Bofurin! The locals seem to know you as a hero or something. Only had four random people call out to you asking if you needed anything. What’s that about?”

And so, Hiragi began unwinding the ever telling story of Furin’s history, how it came to be, and who they were now. The story took you by storm; your eyes glued to him as you watched the dangerous looking boy go on about how it’s important to help the people in his community, subconsciously smiling to himself.

Hiragi was compassionate. Perhaps a little harsh spoken and rough looking, but soft in the ways it counted.

“So cool,” you whispered to yourself, thinking only of the boy in front of you in that moment. “Huh? Yeah, i guess we try acting cool for everyone’s sake.” He chuckled back, earning a hot wave of embarrassment to flow over you. You weren’t about to correct him.

The food was great, full of flavor and home cooked goodness. “This is amazing sir!!” You yelled from your table, comfortable in doing so thanks to being the only three people in the eatery. “Don’t tell him that, it’ll go straight to his head.” Hiragi chuckled again. “My head is a respectable size thank you very much. Here, try these too Y/n!”

Finally after having been stuffed full of food, and sent out with more leftovers than you could carry alone, you were elated.

“Thanks for taking me out today, Hiragi! It was awful kind of Mr Ashitaba to tab our meals!”

Hiragi smiled, proud of his community for showing you such hospitality. “This is pretty normal honestly. I’ll make sure to pay him back next time though.”

Sharing amongst yourself a few more lines of conversation, Hiragi’s thoughts began drifting back to your lukewarm messages lately. Should he bring it up, or just leave it be? Would it be overstepping to insinuate any necessity to your conversations?

“Hiiragi? You there?” You asked, waving a hand in front of his face inquisitively. “Huh? Oh, yeah.” He cleared his throat.

You looked at him for a moment, as if reading his mind. “You can ask whatever it is you’re thinking. I have an answer.” You smiled knowingly.

Maybe you were sharper than he took you for. Finally, he exhaled. “It’s fine, honestly. I’m not upset or anything. I was… just curious. How do i even say it…” he grumbled, unable to find the words he meant. “Why my messages have been so dry recently?” You asked.

Slowly, he nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. “I know it’s not really my place to ask that. We only just met, so it’s not like there’s any obligation or anything.” He cleared the gnawing feeling setting into the conversation, hopeful you remained understanding.

“Honestly… I was worried about bothering you, at first.” You answered. “I didn’t want to annoy you, so I tried holding back just texting you every little thing that crossed my mind… but then, after a day or two, I began feeling like, maybe you weren’t really that interested in me.” You looked away bashful.

“So I asked my school friends what I should do, and they said I shouldn’t message you at all… that if-if you were I-interested in me.. than you would show it… So… ”

Hiragi stopped walking, frozen in place. ‘Interested’, like in a relationship, right? Was he? He probably was, almost positively was. But with the way you were talking… is that something you wanted too?

“Sorry, I guess that kinda sounds like I was testing you… that was wrong of me, wasn’t it?” You looked down.

Hiragi’s heart was beating out of his chest.

“That’s fine,” he spoke calmly, slowly walking to close the distance separating you. He stood close, squeezing the bag straps of leftovers in his opposite hand. “Because of that, I realized how much I really like talking to you. I missed talking to you. And I know now that I want to keep that.” Hiragi slowly raised his free hand, careful in the way he gently brushed a loose strand of hair from your face.

“It’s new, but I think I like you.” He admitted boldly, locking eyes with you. Your face immediately ran hot, surely flush with embarrassment. Hiragi smiled at your cute reaction, and rested his palm on your warm cheek.

You wanted to reply, speak what was on your mind as you usually would… but you felt stunned, having Hiragi so close. You could smell the notes of musk from his cologne, feel the leather material of his jacket, and hear the soft exhales he released in nervous tension.

He made no movements, simply shifting his gaze from looking you in the eyes, to your lips, to examine your face, all to catch you off guard again with such intense eye contact.

He never did really get a good look at you the first time you met. Most of your interactions since then have been over the phone. Now that he could really pay attention to you, and put details to the face he kept imagining for the last few weeks.

Hiragi thought you were beautiful.

“Hiragi…” you would only manage a whisper, hearts racing in mutual tandem.

You gulped, and finally smiled, laying a hand on the back of his own. It was rough, his knuckles were dry and cracked, yet the texture felt comforting as you circled your finger tips over them. “I think I really like you too.”

It was so simple, so little words, that meant so much. He broke out in an uncontrollable smile, shark teeth on full display as his eyes squinted shut. Hiragi surely wasn’t looking for anything like this, a relationship. But he would be damned if he gave you up because of some half assed reason like that.

“I want to take you out again sometime. Soon. How does that sound?”

“Tomorrow?!”

“Well… I might have some free time. Have anywhere in mind?”

“Oh yeah! There’s this movie I’ve been really looking forward to,”

As you went on about planning your next date, Hiragi felt elated basking in your radiance; listening to you talk on about your movie interests, and answering when you asked him about his own opinions. All while helplessly reciprocating the hold on each others hand.

Even when you made it home, your energy felt palpable. Yet, you looked sad. “How will I know you made it home safe?”

He chuckled, patting your head. “I’ll text you when I get home.”

“Can I call you instead?” You asked.

“Sure,” his heart swelled at your borderline clingy nature. With these feelings being so new, he welcomed it. “See you tomorrow.”

Hiragi began to turn, but instinctively, you reached a hand out to grab his shirt. He paused, eyeing you curiously. It was too soon to admit you wanted to kiss him, right? But he seemed to like your straightforwardness, especially when it was tinged in shyness. And with how nervous you were, that’s exactly what you were.

“Can… I call you Toma?” You asked.

He smiled again. “Only if I can return the favor-“

“Absolutely! Please do.” You grinned so wide, grip tightening around his shirt. “Okay then,” you lifted yourself on your tip toes, pulling slightly on the materiel of his shirt, instinctively causing him to bend his knees ever so slightly at your will.

And quickly, you lay a firmly affectionate kiss on the side of his lips, not sure if it was more of his cheek. It was rushed, after all. Embarrassed but satisfied, you pulled back, practically fuming hot air from your ears. “W-well! G-good night Toma! Make it home safe!!” You yelled, quickly rushing for the door and slamming it shut.

Dumbstruck, Hiragi Toma remained on your doorstep, mouth gaping wide open, red as a damn apple. How the hell were you just going to run away from him like that? How was he supposed to react to that? WHAT THE HELL??

With no other way to release this sudden influx of deep emotions, he released a loud closed mouth scream into the palms of his hands. Quick to not make more of a fool of himself, he ran from the scene of the almost murder(his own murder); beet red and heart pounding unbelievably hard.

#wind breaker #windbreaker #wind breaker (satoru nii)#wind breaker x reader #windbreaker x reader #wind breaker headcanons #wind breaker hiragi #hiragi toma #toma hiragi #hiragi x reader #hiragi toma x reader #x reader

117 notes · View notes

psychickiss · 1 year

Text

accident

— saiki kusuo x reader (no 3rd person pronouns, 2nd pov)

— summary: You and Saiki partner up for an assignment. Things go... not-smooth. Saiki lets you know he has powers in the worst way possible (to him).

— notes: never beta read hell yeah also there are mentions of cockroaches here and i hate them so its just one not-so-paragraph paragraph

— things: platonic maybe ooc you could see this as romantic whatevs

— masterlist | request form | retrospring

“Oh, Saiki! I didn’t know this was your house.” You smile warmly, but deep down you and Saiki both know that you knew where he lived.

“You’re joking, right? You’ve tagged along with Nendou, Kaidou, and I on the numerous occasions we walked home together.” Was what Saiki wanted to say. However, he couldn’t make any snarky comments at you whatsoever, not with his mother standing behind him.

“Ku? Is this another lovely friend of yours?”

Saiki gives you a blank glance then turns to his mother. “I guess.”

Saiki’s mother approaches you with a smile on her face, you look at her cheery expression then at Saiki’s lack of one. Polar opposites, you think. You quickly introduce yourself.

“You look lovely, Mrs. Saiki. It’s nice to meet you.”

She holds your hand gently and asks, “It’s nice to meet you too! What brings you here?”

You answer her, “I wanted to ask Saiki out.”

Saiki’s mother immediately lets go of your hand and gasps loudly. “On a date?! Do you and my Ku like each other?!”

You laugh awkwardly as you shake your head. “Goodness, no! Saiki doesn’t seem to have a romantic bone in his body.”

Well, you’re right about that. Saiki thinks to himself as he stands quietly while you talk with his mother.

“I just wanted to ask if he has a partner for our summer Pre-Calculus assignment, I was absent when it was assigned and most of the people I know have partners already. I’d text your son, but I don’t have his number– does he even have a phone?”

Saiki takes a step forward, closer to you and his mother. “I don’t have a partner yet, and Nendou wasn’t an option for me. Do you know what the assignment is?”

“If my memory serves me right, Hairo told me we had to find a partner and explain derivatives and anti-derivatives, then cite any problems with real-life situations.”

Saiki exhales, a small smile appears on his face for a second. You’d be lying if you said he didn’t look nice at the action, rarely did Saiki smile, after all. You didn’t expect as well that he’d be smiling at you. “Your memory is quite well, then. We can do this in the public library.”

Saiki’s mother turns to him, frowning. “You’re not going to let your friend stay for drinks?”

Saiki shakes his head. “We can get drinks outside, thank you.” He turns to you and says, “Wait a minute. I’ll go grab my stuff. You could... talk to my mom while you wait.”

You shoot him a thumbs up and Saiki nods as well. He says something to his mother before heading up the stairs in their house.

“So, you and Ku are good friends?”

You turn to Saiki’s mother. “You could say that. He’s a pretty chill guy, and he listens to what people have to say.”

Saiki’s mother’s face grows more cheerful than before. “I’m relieved to hear that...! He’s had a hard time making friends with his powers, being psychic and all.”

You laugh, taking every single word as a lighthearted joke. “Is he like Kaidou? I think it’s nice that you play along with his imagination. Ah, I’m sorry! I just went and assumed you knew him.”

Saiki’s mother awkwardly laughs before she answers you, “Mhm, yep! We have talked to Kaidou before, he’s a nice boy. The one with red bandages on his arm. He and Saiki are definitely friends for that!”

You nod. “Yep, he says it’s to “keep his powers at bay,” but we all know it’s fake, and we still play along. Well, some of us.” You point your index finger upwards and position your hands above your head.

“And I bet Saiki’s funky hair clips limit his powers too!” You heartily laugh. You don’t notice the way Saiki’s mother desperately keeps looking back at the stairs, waiting for her son to come down.

Powers? Please.

You see Saiki walking down the stairs and you quickly put your hands down. You ask him, “Shall we go?”

Saiki nods. You two say your goodbyes to his mother before leaving the house.

“Uhm, were you serious about the whole “getting drinks outside” thing?” You ask. Saiki looks at you confused for a second.

Ah. The thing he said to his mother earlier. He answers you, “If you want to. It’s fine by me.”

You shrug. “I could go for some coffee right now. You?”

Saiki stops to walk and looks at you. He doesn’t really know what to reply, so he stays quiet.

“Straight to the library is alright.”

You both walk side-by-side on your way to the library, not saying anything. You aren’t too nervous, and your thoughts are mostly related to the assignment and how you wish to get it completely over with so you could relax. Saiki shares the same sentiment.

You and Saiki finally arrive at the library– it’s quiet and not too crowded, so there were lots of empty seats for you two to occupy. The whole place seemed a little unclean but you two didn’t mind. You both opted for the most secluded area possible.

You sit down and look at the empty chair beside you, then at Saiki, who is still standing up. “You aren’t going to sit down yet?”

Saiki shakes his head. “I’m going to go look for books we could use as references.”

You slowly nod. “Okay, thanks.” Saiki nods back and walks off to search for books.

You place your bag on the table before you and take out the stuff you figured you two would need – ballpens, paper, etc.

...

This assignment is fucking killing me...

“Hey, Kusuo, do you know how many of these we should be writing down?”

“18. With proper citation. APA format. Also, Kusuo?”

You groan. You drop your pen for a second and shake your hand, exhausted from continuous writing and page-turning. 3 problems left...

You say to Saiki, “I didn’t know you were left-handed,” as you cracked your fingers. He nods in response. “Also, calling you by your name just felt natural.”

18 is such a weird number of problems to require, to be honest. I’m glad we don’t have to solve it ourselves.

You exhale and look at your surroundings. Come to think of it, this library looks pretty old. Probably why there aren’t a lot of people today. I’m glad there aren’t any cockroaches.

As you babble on with your thoughts, Saiki stops writing, the thought of a roach interrupting his work mortifies him.

Usually there’d be a roach or two in places like these, especially in Saiki’s and my spot. It’d be pretty funny if one did come crawling or flying around here–

Horrendously perfect timing and the worst of luck bestows you and Saiki as a large cockroach appears itself in front of you, it crawls its disgusting little legs on one of the books next to you.

You and Saiki act immediately and irrationally.

You cover your mouth with one hand to stop yourself from squealing and have an instant grip on Saiki’s sleeve with the other, and;

Saiki, figuring since he’s in a secluded area, teleports far, far away from the cockroach... with you.

...

You stare at your surroundings, slowly lowering your hand from your mouth. Your other hand still on Saiki’s sleeve, you give him a slight pinch.

Good grief. It was Saiki’s turn to stop you from screaming.

WHAT THE FUCK!!!! WHERE ARE WE!!!!!! HOW DID WE GET HERE!!!!!

“Shut up.”

You shakily ask, “Huh? I didn’t say anything... God, don’t tell me you can hear thoughts too...”

Saiki takes a deep breath and shakes his head.

LIAR.

“Fine. I can.”

You step away from him. “Are you... serious?”

Saiki stares at you with the same blank expression he always wore.

Oh my God.

“Does anyone else know? Where are we?”

Saiki answers, “Toritsuka, Aiura, they both have powers, and Akechi, due to his stubbornness and intelligence. I think we are somewhere on the other side of the world... Paris”

“That’s crazy... PARIS?”

Saiki nods.

You smile mischievously, “We should ditch our homework.”

Saiki doesn’t respond. You can feel his judginess through his unwavering stare at you without a word spoken. Jesus, do you blink?

Saiki blinks and you frown.

“Come on! We’re in Paris! City of love! Don’t they have pretty cafés here? We should eat a bunch of baked goods.”

“We don’t have any money.”

You click your tongue. ... Right. “It’s back to our stupid assignment, I guess.” You tug on the back of his shirt. “To Japan.”

“Wait.” Saiki crosses his eyes. You try your best not to question the action. “The coast is clear. Let’s go.”

In an instant, you two were back at the library.

You remember your words from earlier. Power limiters... Don’t tell me they’re real... Oh God, you probably know about me making fun of your hairpins earlier...

“They’re real.”

You whisper angrily, “I get that you can hear my thoughts but wait for me to actually say it out loud!”

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright. Let’s just finish this and maybe finally get coffee, yeah?”

Saiki nods.

An hour or two passes and you two are finally done with your shared assignment.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, what other powers do you have?”

Your bag floats towards you. “Telekinesis.”

A small flame ignites on the tip of Saiki’s index finger. “Pyrokinesis.”

Saiki removes an incredulous thin glove from his hand and touches one of the books you two had used. “Psychometry. This book was returned just the other day.” He quickly wears the glove, and it amazes you how it seems like nothing is even there.

Saiki holds up his notebook and a ¥500 coin appears in its place. “Apport. It lets me exchange items of the same value.”

“Okay. Can we teleport to a café?”

Saiki shakes his head.

“Come on! You have powers and you won’t use them like that?”

He shakes his head at you again. “Have you ever seen me use my powers at school before?”

You shake your head. “I guess I see why... You’d probably be popular if you did, in a good way and bad way. Has it been like that since... well, the start?”

Saiki nods.

“Ah... I’m sorry.” Saiki doesn’t say anything else. In an attempt to break the silence, you ask, “Café, then?”

He nods again. “I could buy coffee jelly.”

“No. Allow me to treat you to coffee jelly, as thanks for letting me in on a secret this big.”

“If telling people I’m psychic meant getting free coffee jelly, I’d probably tell the world.”

“It’s not worth it.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

#saiki k #saiki x reader #saiki k x reader #saiki kusuo x reader #saiki kusuo #ok

552 notes · View notes

decolonize-the-left · 8 months

Note

You are literally going to get people killed by pushing them to vote third party. People voting third party is why Trump won in 2016, which allowed him to stack the Supreme Court with conservative garbage which is going to negatively affect us for DECADES to come (already has, since it led to the repeal of Roe v. Wade which has LITERALLY killed people). I'm baffled, because you've done so much good work on this website (like I still go back and regularly reread your posts on whiteness etc because they're so informative), but advocating for voting third party going into one of the most important elections in recent memory is actively harmful.

Like have you heard of Project 2025? In case you haven't it's literally like a 1000 page manifesto for the Republican party to reshape the federal government to essentially let the President become a dictator. It also expressly mentions plans to roll back rights for women, the LGBT community, and pretty much any other minority you can think of. I know things are bad now - not arguing that at all - but if Republicans win next year, things will get EXPONENTIALLY WORSE.

You can sit there and yell about Democrats being "just as bad" until you're blue in the face, but it's literally not true. The Democratic Party itself is obviously just another problematic institution and there are definitely Dems who showed their entire asses with supporting Israel, but like... Progressive Democrats do exist and while they're obviously not perfect, it's absolutely a step in the right direction. Not to mention Republicans literally need to cheat by gerrymandering and attacking voting rights for minorities in order to even get elected in a lot of places, whereas Democrats tend to win when more people are registered and actually show up to vote. They are not the same, and the harm they do is not the same.

Again, I have a lot of respect for the work you do, especially with your recent posts on the Palestinian genocide. But I vehemently disagree with your stance on voting third party in this upcoming election. Ideally I would love if we could vote third party and actually have multiple options that more accurately represent us as a population, but our current system is a two party one and unfortunately we literally do have to vote for the lesser of two evils, because one option sucks but preserves what little democracy we have (and gives us a chance of making it better) and one will literally bring genocide against trans people. I would personally rather not see that happen.

How can you say this and mention the Palestinian genocide in the same ask.

Democrats are getting people killed. In fact they're committing one of The worst crime against humanity possible and then only thing you're worried about is that things might get worse for gay people if a Republicans wins.

I'm the biggest queer I know. I'm native. I'm brown. I'm almost definitely on a watch list. And listen to me and understand the depth of my words when I say: my people have been oppressed the way Project2025 outlines.

And maybe you personally cared or helped us protest that. But most people didn't. In fact I can't remember the last time the US supported native rights at all.

But now that YOURE under threat I'm supposed to risk my life because the queer community can't be bothered to stop discoursing about neopronouns long enough to actual give an shit about saving the community?

Y'all got a lot of damn nerve, let me tell you.

Go bark up some other tree cuz this is not the one.

Also I'm not pushing anyone to vote 3rd party. I'm laying out facts. Facts are a Gallup poll says 63% of people would vote 3rd party. Facts are my Tumblr poll says that number is STILL at least 45% on the hellsite.

And since people are interested in voting 3rd party they should know their options. The people who say "I would vote 3rd party but they don't have support" also deserve to see the articles that said 63% of people would join them.

They deserve to know that 3rd parties currently hold a not insignificant amount percentage of support from the two main parties. 20% of votes. When 33% is an even split are good odds. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sorry, blue Fascists, but this country is in fact still a democracy and just because you Want people to vote blue doesn't mean they have to and you feeling they're the best doesn't make you right!

Other people aren't "wrong" for not wanting your conservative Jurassic party in power anymore.

They can vote how they want.

And if you see a poll that says 63% of people would rather NOT vote for either major party and your first thought is not: wow 63% is enough to elect someone we want, I'll support that.

And instead you go: how can I force them to vote for my party instead.

Then please understand it is not THEM splitting the vote. Biden will get MAYBE 40% votes. You gonna force 63% of the country to vote for someone they don't even want?

There's a name for that yeah?

How'd it work out in 2016 when y'all "forced" us to vote for Hillary by putting her on the ballot? She lost and she wasn't even actively commiting a genocide.

But you think Biden will not only earn votes from that 63% but he'll also win the election. Against trump. Which less blatantly shitty democrats have struggled to contend with?

Democrats are legitimately delusional.

Your problem is you see Democrats as being better than Republicans. While the rest of us see less and less of a difference every year. And you can only say you're "better" if you're different enough.

See this is what happens when you vote for the "lesser evil." Eventually that evil balances back out and you're left with the truth that your two main options are just evil.

Now the only people actually different enough to make that argument are third parties.

Coincidentally, that's what people are drawn to right now.

I know, go figure. It's almost like it makes sense to lose support when you consistently prop up shitty candidates nobody asked for every 4 years.

We do not have a two party system and you know that, that's why you sent this ask.

Cuz you're stressed dems might lose. Cuz you KNOW people have other options.

Good. Cuz they will lose if Biden is the democrat's nominee and Claudia de la Cruz stays in the race, which she will since she's running with PSL not democrats. So there's no competition. Her party is organized and chosen her and a VP already, she's guaranteed every one of their votes because her party works like a union does.

It's a wrap.

Biden can't use his "lesser evil" script with Claudia De La Cruz on the ballot actively challenging his genocide and imperialism.

Vote Claudia De La Cruz cuz you are a scooping water out of the Titanic trying to get 63% of Americans to think voting for a Genocidal warmonger is what's best for any of us, let alone the planet. And we didn't want him BEFORE he did any of this.

#asked #answered #voting

264 notes · View notes

twstfanblog · 4 days

Text

*~Period Drama~* Wednesday

A/N: Sorry this took me so fucking long. There is no real excuse, I kept getting sick and then with the intense move we had to do a lot was happening in the few months. WordCount: 7.1K Warnings: She/They OC Pronouns

~Taglist @twistedcece @deltrea @krenenbaker @koebishrimpuwu @cat100200 @emyluwinter @obsessionswithfandoms @ady-hilborn @lucid-stories @girl-nahh-two @itz-hydrodeptus-foxy7 @chyluna @riddlesimps @death-the-jo @a-twistedheartslonging @qixlin @chaosistheonlyway @welcome-to-my-horde @abell2029cluster @kirans-wonderland @coffee-or-hot-cocoa @the-ace-reader @iamsoconfusedallofthetime @chroniccorvus @marvelous-maxi @prolonged-eyecontact @lozplayer @jabberwocky-warrior @thateldribitch @bun-lapin @mel1rose @ladyraeka @ladyzsgolla @kimdourden @noncreativepage-blog @girl-nahh-two @shironakuronatasa @colombia-chan @roseapov @anunholyabomination Start, Part 2 (Octavinelle), Part 3 (Heartslabyul), Part 4 (Savanaclaw), Part 4.5 (Diasomnia pt1), Part 5 (Diasomnia pt2), Part 6 (Here)

The Diasomnia crew left before Yuu even finished their breakfast on Wednesday. Crewel was not happy seeing Malleus clinging to them when he came to deliver their dinner last night, but the potions teacher didn't say anything past a scoff and an eye roll. Like the past few days the bicolored man had scolded them for their life choices, then shoved a pattern book at them and asked for their preferences.

Morning came, an Octavinelle student showed up with his arms shaking full of food for Yuu and the four Diasomnia students. Breakfast was a calm affair, only for Malleus to stand once he finished his food. He pressed a kiss to Yuu's forehead and gave a small blessing, wishing them a pleasant rest of their day before moving to leave the room.

Lilia called out to him, raising an eyebrow, “Where are you off to? We still have a good hour before we need to go back to Diasomnia to prepare for classes. I'd think you'd want to continue your duty as the royal heating pad…” he chuckled lightly, ignoring Sebek's angered snort.

“I'm aware and I had planned on it. But, I was going to make a stop in Octavinelle to speak with Azul while there was still time.”

…

Yuu fully turned around in their seat, raising an eyebrow at the smiling fae, “About what?”

Malleus only tilted his head in a conscious effort to appear cuter, “You are aware that I adore you, correct Yuu?”

“Malleus, that's my fucking- Don't- don't fucking bully Azul into agreeing with you.”

“I would never. I simply wish to speak to him civilly until we come to an agreement on things…”

Lilia looks up from his meal, already seeing what the younger fae was planning, “Malleus…”

“In fact, I'll bring Jamil with me. He should be a part of this conversation too.”

“Malleus-”

The horned fae had then disappeared in a flurry of green light. Lilia was quick to order Sebek and Silver to search the two dorms that Malleus was headed for while he started his search in Diasomnia; Malleus could be in either dorm. Each of them giving Yuu a rushed farewell before running out of Ramshackle, hopeful they'd find Malleus before he started his ‘conversation’ with the two sophomores.

Even Grim had left a few hours later, playfully stating one of them had to pick up the slack since Yuu wasn't allowed to attend class. Now that they were alone again, Yuu could physically feel their mood dropping. There were options, as there always were. Several friends that they could text throughout the day to keep their mind off of things. Cater, of course, but he was a 3rd year and Yuu could never really tell how serious he was about his schoolwork. Ace and Deuce were a choice, but Crewel might actually give them concussions if he caught them texting during homeroom. (They were filed under maybe, they can suffer in Ramshackle together if the Adeuce duo got concussed). They briefly thought of adding Lilia to that list then decided against it, along with Azul, Jamil, Silver and Sebek; they'd no doubt have their hands full of talking Malleus down.

Idia was most likely in his room dual-screening his classes and whatever RPG-mmo or anime he had started recently. Maybe he could answer them on why Ortho had been radio silent since they saw him on Saturday…

But, in the end, laziness won and Yuu simply returned to the nest Malleus had so lovingly crafted for them. It was warm and cozy, but definitely too big for just themselves; left too much space for their thoughts, mental conversations that told them of the multiple things they needed to do yet physically seemed too daunting at the moment. There were dishes to do that were never finished from Saturday, they definitely needed a shower, or at least to wash their face properly. Sighing, they just curled up in their too-big nest and closed their eyes. A nap fixes everything after all.

Three sharp knocks wake them up. Blinking in mild confusion before another three sharp knocks echo in the downstairs rooms. Yuu grabs their phone from outside the nest and looks at the time, only a few minutes past noon. Crewel must be bringing them lunch. But then they remembered Crewel had a horrible habit of thinking he was too good to knock on doors, simply opening and slamming them so hard he had no doubt gotten a door knob stuck in drywall before.

So who the hell-

The door opens, the sound of heels clicking against the hardwood floors flanked by more muted footsteps after the door was shut again. Yuu looked up from their phone to see Vil walk into the entryway of the lounge, hands filled with a cloth-wrapped package and a shiny hydro flask complete with a teal straw. From the side of the archway, Yuu could see Epel and Rook poking their heads in with expressions of wariness and glee respectfully.

“Oh, so you are awake. I knocked and you deliberately ignored me.” The actor rolled his eyes, walking further into the room and placing the package and hydro flask at the edge of the nest as faux offerings, “I took the liberty to make you lunch to reflect your body's needs. I expect you to eat it all.”

Yuu looked at the packaged food, no doubt filled with Vil's horrible idea of a ‘balanced’ meal; AKA, unseasoned. They blink, looking up to the junior, “I just woke up.”

Vil's expression grows more exasperated, the corner of his lip curling over his almost unnoticeable fangs in a mild sneer, “It's past noon…”

“Wow, Vil. You're so good at telling time. That's an amazing skill you got there…” Yuu's tone was flat, eyes slowly blinking as they kept focus on Vil's displeased face, “Did you train to read clocks or like-”

“Alright, that's enough out of you-”

“Mon vieille amor! It's been so long since I've seen your visage.” Rook rushed in, kneeling in front of Yuu's prone form before they could actually gode Vil into a scuffle, “I've been in a state of heartbreak since Crewel placed the visitor ban on your home. Though my woes eased and soul sung when I noticed you were still accepting guests regardless! Is company an aid or a sacrifice during your plight?”

Yuu looks to Rook, making sure the Florian could see them blinking one eye at a time; a common way Yuu could silently tell Rook to ‘Shut up’, “...Could be better…could be better…”

Vil's brows creased, his annoyed expression moving to confusion, “That…is not answering the question…”

“What are you, a fucking lawyer?” Yuu rubs their eyes, “I just woke up, give me a minute.”

“Honestly-”

“Isit true yur bleeding out yur butt?” Epel called out from the entryway, ducking back when Vil quickly snapped to glare over his shoulder at the first-year.

“Epel!”

“A-ah wanna know!”

Yuu finally propped themselves up, leaning weight on their elbows as they looked at Epel in confusion, “Why the fuck would I be bleeding out my ass!?”

“That's what Deuce said!”

“Why is Deuce saying I'm bleeding out my ass!?”

Epel shrugs, his face just as bewildered as Yuu's, “Ah don' know!? He said Riddle said sum shit about it-”

“Epel.”

The first-year shut his mouth, looking away from Vil's no doubt glacial glare and tapping his pointer fingers together before he clears his throat. Epel spoke carefully, his accent being lost in his conscious effort to not swear, “Um…Deuce read some of Riddle's notes? I don't think he read them right, but then again I don't really…know where you're bleeding from…”

Yuu scoffs, “It's not my ass, I'll tell you that much…”

Rook perks up, eyes wide as his hands cover his mouth in a show of surprise, “Mon Dieu! I had hoped I misheard Monsieur Crewel. Are you truly bleeding from such an area, mon vieille amor…?”

“Ye…”

Vil gave them a concerned glance, opening his mouth only to whip around to glare at Epel's softly muttered ‘gross’. Once he was properly scolded into silence, Vil looked back to Yuu, “Are you feeling alright? I heard from Crewel that he wasn't going to give you any more pain potions. Which is valid, so many potions in such a short amount of time isn't healthy for the body. But that does leave you without proper pain relief…”

“Lowkey, it’s so fucking weird you and Crewel hang out as like puh-seudo equals. Like, just admit you're both part of a fucked up clone project to destroy teenage boys through fashion and aggressively sharp eyeliner.”

Vil's look of concern quickly fell, glaring down his nose at the equally stone-faced first-year, “Oh, are we fighting? Is that what you decided is going to happen? I come to you civilly, with food and concern, and you decide we're going to have a petty argument as my thanks. Understandable. You are a child.”

“How's it feel to fight a child and lose? Because you are, you're losing.”

“It feels like listening to you prattle on is clogging my pores…”

“You know what pores are?” Yuu gasps, mockingly covering their mouth as they whisper to Rook, “Embarrassing.”

“What does that MEAN-”

Epel and Rook share a look, letting the two continue with their back-and-forth ‘bickering’. To the outside view, the two seemed to actually be arguing. But Epel knew Yuu and Rook knew Vil. While Yuu was a bully at their core, the way they poked at Vil was much softer than the people they actually verbally bit at. And Rook knew his queen was an icon of polite rebuffs, though that wasn't always his thoughts. Vil felt the need to chew people out every now and again as any stressed individual would. Yuu simply was a worthy opponent of wordplay.

The two film research members did enjoy each other's company though, they wouldn't keep spending time with each other if they didn't. If they found joy in verbally slapping at each other and critiquing bad movies until they were a fine paste, who were they to judge them…?

Truly, ‘Sibling Core’ as Cater once joked (only to be promptly cursed by Vil to trip every third step until he took back his statement).

“You're like an egg…that was cracked in the carton and just got a sticky film all over the other eggs so you don’t wanna touch them.”

Vil tilted his head back to let out a single laugh before glaring back down at Yuu, “Oh, I'm a residue now? You're one to talk, you greasy onion. You look a mess, your hair is even more a bird's nest than normal, and I can see the state of your skin from here. You clearly haven't been using the skincare routine I gifted you…”

…

Yuu opened and then closed their mouth, a repeated action that made Vil raise a single eyebrow. The star already had another comeback locked and loaded, but he could be patient for Yuu to think up a response. He had to be fair after all…

But the comeback never came. Instead, Yuu started to blink rapidly, a look of frustration blooming on their face before they simply bowed their head and let out a single sniffle. Then one sniffle became a choked back sob, as they fully curled into themselves to hide from view.

Rook straightened himself beside the nest, already reaching out to comfort Yuu, “Oh, mon-” only to be shoved out of the way as Vil dropped to his knees to grab at Yuu's shoulders.

“Are you crying!? No, I'm being completely serious, are you actually crying?” When the response was another wet-sounding sniffle and whimper, he climbed into the nest, a look of panicked determination slowly overtaking his face, “Don't-don't cry. Come on, let me- is it the cramps? Here, this yoga pose should help ease the pain. Let me get you into it.”

Vil worked quickly but gently, managing to put Yuu into a sitting position with their knees bent and the soles of their feet pressed together. He crawled deeper into the nest, placing himself behind them and wrapped his arms around their middle when the crying first-year tried to fold back in on themselves.

“No! You're going to hurt yourself, you are not that flexible. Is this helping? I have other poses that should help. Please, stop crying. We can watch one of your horrifically scarring children's movies if you stop.”

Epel had retreated back to the entryway, gripping onto the wood and looking at Yuu in confused terror, “What's happening!? What did you do!?”

Vil glared at Epel, shaking his head, “Don't you blame this on me- Yuu, don't tell Crewel I made you cry.”

Yuu sniffled, trying to lay limply in Vil's hold but the 3rd year kept them upright, “I'm sorry, I don't wanna cry anymore…”

Rook had pulled himself from the floor, gently cupping Yuu's cheek as he gazed at them in worry, “Mon petite! What has caused such sorrow? Truly mon roi’s words weren't so harsh…?”

“I just…I feel bad. I haven't really felt good and it makes it hard to do things. I gotta list of chores I haven't done because I've been on the edge of hysteria for the past few days. I haven't showered since Saturday because I just wanna sleep and standing is annoying. Vil, I was gonna call you Monday, I promise. but then I went to school and everything was annoying and then I threw up and I forgot-”

Yuu's ramble slowly turned into more tearful crying. Vil was only mildly elated, as his words seemed to simply be a trigger instead of the main cause. The issue now was that they didn't seem to be stopping anytime soon. And the last thing Vil wanted was for the first year to manage to cry themselves actually sick during his visit. Crewel would never let him hear the end of it…

Vil reached out of the nest, grabbing the thermos and trying to place the straw into Yuu's wailing mouth, “Here, have some smoothie. Get a healthy liquid in your body-”

“I don't want your fucking green juice, Vil!”

Everyone subtly leaned away from Yuu, eyes wide at the raw anger they suddenly displayed. Vil still pressed the cool flask to the first-year's face. Both to pointedly demand they drink the smoothie and to help cool the flushing of Yuu's cheeks.

“It's not my blend. I used nothing but fruit in this! Strawberries, peaches, and mangos!” And a handful of spinach because lord forbid this child eat a vegetable; but he wasn't going to tell them that, “It's a treat, since you've been so ill…”

Yuu cast a disbelieving look to Vil, face pinched together before they finally took a sip from the flask's straw. At the promised taste of nothing but fruit, they took another gulp. Taking the flask from Vil they weakly say, “It's good…thank you…”

Just as the Pomefiore trio thought they were in the clear, Yuu took in a shuddering breath that quickly turned back to a tearful muttering, “Sorry. I'm serious, I'm trying to stop crying.”

Epel called out from the archway, finally stepping fully into the room now that Vil was half grappling with Yuu, “What ya even cryin’ about? Ah know Vil's smoothies suck but they aint always that bad…”

Vil muttered briefly for Epel to stop blaming him for Yuu's crying fits. Yuu had taken another pause to gulp at the chilly fruit smoothie, taking the offered wrap Rook had handed them from the now-opened lunchbox.

“Dude, I've been a fucking train wreck for the past half week. This shit is normally over by now and I'm still dropping clots.”

Rook and Vil share a mildly horrified look at the mention of clots. Why are clots involved in this? Are clots supposed to be involved?

“I'm reaching new mental and emotional ATLs at, like, random intervals, I've got a sink full of dishes that I don't wanna do and I don't wanna ask anyone to do. I gotta shower, that's just a fucking fact; I don't wanna shower because while I'll feel great afterwards, that's a whole mental race just to get into the shower for some reason. And I'm also upset because I've gotta do so much laundry once this shit is over because I've been bleeding all over the nice things you guys have given me for the past four days-”

“Okay, okay.” Vil quickly shushed Yuu, guiding the chicken wrap from the lunch into their mouth in an effort to stop their hysterical spiral. Once Yuu was chewing the food, he snapped his fingers and called his other dorm members to attention, “Epel, go to Crewel and get the surprise. Whatever he has ready, simply package it and bring it back here. Rook, go to Pomefiore and bring me my spa kit.”

Epel nodded, turning around and rushing out of the room to race back to the school with nothing said other than ‘I'm on it’. Rook smiles, kneeling on one knee and bowing with a hand over his heart.

“Which kit would you prefer, mon roi?”

“The big one.” Vil looked to the freshman in his arms, sighing softly before turning back to Rook, “And stop by Sam's to get them another treat…” He smiles at Yuu, tilting his head in a questioning manner, “Would you like a treat, dear little onion?”

“...” Yuu sniffled, “I want a chocolate bar…”

Vil nodded, petting Yuu's head, “Get them a dark chocolate bar-”

“I want a milk chocolate bar…”

“Dark chocolate is healthier, onion…”

Yuu sniffles, voice breaking at random intervals as they start to cry again, “I want a milk chocolate bar-”

“Fine. Oh my seven. Rook, get them a milk chocolate candy bar and my large spa kit from my room.”

“Oui!” With a chuckle and tip of his hat, Rook turned to exit the room, “Please no fighting while alone, you both fight dirty when no one is looking. Je reviens!” He waves as he disappears around the corner.

With Rook gone, Vil sighed. Mildly resigning himself to the act of cuddling his pseudo-sister until the others return. Gently carding his hand through their hair, he couldn't fight the grimace his face did at feeling its texture.

“Lord, your hair is greasy…”

Yuu looks at him, face almost pathetic with tears in their eyes, “Vil-”

“I'm going to fix it! It's fine! Shhhhh, eat your wrap. It was strangely hard to make food for you…”

Yuu takes another bite of the wrap, speaking around their full mouth, “I can see why. It actually tastes good, that must of been hard for you to do.”

Vil scoffs, petting Yuu's head as he glared off to the side and mumbled under his breath, “You are so lucky you're in pain…”

Epel was mildly surprised he managed to beat Rook back to Ramshackle. With an oblong box tucked under his arm he entered the dorm, stopping briefly in the entry hall as he heard music. Closing the door behind him, he walked further in; the sound of the upbeat music getting louder and accompanied by soft groans.

“Hello?” Epel peaked into the lounge, his confused face fading seeing Vil lead a very unwilling looking Yuu in exercise.

Vil's voice cut through the music, jacket off as he gracefully did knee lifts to the beat of the music, “ -One and two, and one and two, and- knees up, onion! No wonder you feel awful, you've been doing nothing but laze around for days straight.”

Yuu groans, but picks their knees up higher in the standing knee lifts Vil had bullied them into doing, “Fuck you! I've been in pain for the past few days! I'm allowed to be lazy!”

The third-year rolls his eyes, his only show of solidarity being he was exercising alongside Yuu, “Please. You've become so lazy in a matter of days that your own body is deteriorating; You could normally do this easily; I'm not letting you whine and pout your way out keeping yourself healthy.”

Yuu glared over to Vil, shaking their head slowly yet staying in pace with his knee lifts, “I swear to the Seven, I'm gonna find your fucking Eros Era white suede jacket you hide from me and I’m gonna fucking bleed all over it.”

Vil glared back with a matching intensity, “You stay away from my white clothing, you little-”

“Ah'm back!” Epel quickly yelled out, holding the box into the air, “Ah got the goods!”

“Oh perfect timing, the infant was getting on my nerves…” Vil was quick to stop the music, handing a panting Yuu the hydro flask before walking over to Epel. He clicked his tongue, seeing Crewel had taken the time to wrap the box before giving it to Epel, “How many did he finish?”

“Hm…” Epel looked down at the box; matte black wrapping paper and a bright teal ribbon tied into a bow. Thinking back he tried to remember just how many colorful pieces of cloth he saw Crewel throw into the box, “Ah think…around nine? Maybe ten? There were a lot of patterns…”

“Good enough…” Vil sighed, but took the box from Epel's hands, calling out to Yuu chugging from the hydro flask, “Yuu! Come here, we have a gift for you in this trying time.”

“If you give me more health shit, I will actually start swinging…”

“Just open the box.”

Yuu rolls their eyes at Vil's annoyed pout, snatching the box away from him and tearing the paper away. Once the box was bare, they opened it and looked inside in confusion, “What are these? Fabric samples?”

They reach into the box, pulling out one of the ‘samples’ only to see it had already been cut and stitched into the shape of boyshort panties. They almost put the underwear back into the box, a mix of annoyance and frustration at seeing the cute patterns. What use was underwear to them right now? They would just ruin it by bleeding through it…

Then they notice the black fabric seeming to take up the entire inner lining of the panties. Yuu raised an eyebrow, rubbing their thumb against the foreign feeling material, “What…is this?”

Vil smiled, watching as Yuu seemed to slowly realize what they were holding, “These took quite some doing; Crewel has been working on these articles since Saturday, I believe. He had to consult with Ms. Oster on what materials would respond best to the blood absorption potion, since gauze would certainly be unpleasant against such an area…”

Yuu's eyes seemed to widen, glittering as they looked through the box at the adorable patterns, “He made me period panties!? Holy shit, I love this!” They squealed, moving to rush off to put their new underwear on, “I'm gonna wear them right now!”

Before Yuu could rush past Epel, Vil gripped the back of their shirt and yanked them back, “Oh no, you're not. You're going to get into the shower and scrub up. Then we're going to wait until Rook is back with my spa kit and then you're going in the tub.”

“Does the mold in the air give you hyper bitch powers? Is that why you act like a total mom anytime you're in here?”

Epel mumbled under his breath, looking at the corners of the room in concern, “Wait, there's still mold…?”

Vil scoffed, snatching the box and underwear from Yuu's hands pointing to the stairs, “Just get in the shower before you start growing mold.”

Yuu mumbles in a high pitched tone, mocking Vil as they walked up the stairs.

Rook had luckily appeared only a few minutes after Yuu had exited the shower. Though firmly scrubbed down and ready for a long soak, Vil had spent the past five minutes critiquing Yuu's unwashed hair. The annoyed first-year stating Vil was the one who said he was going to ‘fix it’.

What Yuu wasn't expecting was the size of Vil's ‘big’ spa kit. They had assumed it would at best be a briefcase filled with a few high quality bottles of bubble bath and skin care. Instead Rook walked back into the lounge wheeling behind him what Yuu could only think was the biggest rolling suitcase they had ever seen in their life. It was dark indigo, gold trimmed and hard shelled; a small lock keeping it closed.

Rook sighed, pulling the suitcase to stand in front of him, “Mon roi, apologizes. I would have been back sooner but you had changed the passcode to access your more extensive kits…” He looks to Yuu, pulling a large candy bar from his breast pocket, “And your treat, mon petite!”

Yuu smiled, taking the candy from Rook and pocketing it in their fuzzy robe, “Oh, sick, thank you, Rook. Also, what the fuck is that?” They pointed to the hard plastic carrier, looking questioningly as Vil walked forward. They raise an eyebrow, watching Vil pull a key from a chain around his neck and unlock the suitcase, “Oh, damn; is this it? Is that the launch codes?”

“Shush. Now pick a fragrance; some of these oils do NOT mix nicely together…”

“Uh…floral?” Yuu watches as Vil rolls his eyes, and opens the suitcase.

The case had bottles upon bottles of various liquids strapped to the lid. In the bottom half, Vil folded out multi-shelved displays holding more secured glass and gold trimmed vials. The bottom of the suitcase holding a sealed container of white powder.

Both Epel and Yuu blinked in wonder as Vil seemed to build out an entire pantry’s worth of shelves. Rook stood behind them smiling. The other 3rd-year adored watching Vil work, the very fact this was only one of his kits never failed to amaze him.

“Honestly, the most basic…It's fine I can work with that…” Vil looks through the multiple shelves, grabbing vials from labeled sections. He snaps his fingers, conjuring an ornate bottle and filling it half way with the powder. Grabbing vials, he delicately pours small amounts into the bottle, “Jasmine…Vanilla…and…” he smiles, grabbing one more vial, “And Lavender!” Vil pours the final oil into the bottle, grabbing a few other vials and adding them in before capping the bottle.

With a flick of his wrist, magic courses through the glass and mixes the contents perfectly. Vil smiles as he presents the ombred soap to Yuu, “There we are. One floral scented bubble bath to promote muscle relaxation, moisturize, and just a bit of skin protection.”

Yuu oo’s and aa’s, laughing at Vil's glare seeing they were clearly taunting him.

“Just go get in the tub. You've eaten, exercised, and showered off the days of grime. Now you can simply relax and let the warm water fully heal you.”

Yuu was already half up the stairs, smiling at the swirling colored soap in hand, “Don't gotta tell me twice…”

Ramshackle was a big building. It was hard to see at times with how massive the other ‘official’ dorms were, but Ramshackle was an insanely big home for two people alone. A fact that was discovered during the VDC.

There were many a locked room in Ramshackle; a fact Crowley seemed to find no issue with and only produced random keys to open the doors for them when he wanted to.

But, luckily for Yuu, during the VDC Rook had ‘revealed’ his love of kicking down doors. So of course Yuu let him kick to his heart's desires. And surprisingly, one room had been a massive bathroom; a small pool-sized indoor onsen that sat in a raised stone platform, the area seemingly themed after a jungle grotto. Kalim had concluded it was potentially a group bath, noting that behind the brittle vines were changing rooms and there was a clogged drain in the center of the room. Vil had been elated to see it, and after a thorough cleaning the group had taken to after practice soaks in the warm waters.

But now, it was simply Yuu's favorite bathtub.

They sighed contently, the bottle of bubble bath already half gone. Flora scented color changing bubbles blanketing them. A small towel over their face, they had no plans to leave the tub for the next four days if the water stayed toasty.

They sighed, hearing a knock on the door, “Come in, I guess…”

Vil opened the door lightly asking if they were covered before entering. When Yuu consented he stepped into the room, his arms filled with a basket holding a number of bottles and more towels.

“Honestly, you would waste the water to fill this tub up, just for yourself.”

Removing the towel on their face, Yuu flipped Vil off but didn't move as the third-year knelt beside them, “Leave me alone. It's my tub anyway. I'll waste the water if I want.” They sunk lower into the tub, ignoring Vil gently tugging on their hair to bring them to the edge.

“Come here, I'm washing your hair.”

“I already washed it.”

Vil tugged harder, fully jerking Yuu's head around as he glared. Their hair was an offensive texture, mildly wet, yet still clearly greasy, “You did not. Now stop being a brat and rest your head against the edge.”

Yuu groaned loudly, letting Vil place one of the towels at their neck before tilting their head back. Vil poured water over their hair, thoroughly soaking it before applying the first of many the products he had brought up.

Vil sighed, working the shampoo into Yuu's hair and scalp, muttering under his breath, “I swear, I have no idea what this aliment is but you've managed to deteriorate in a matter of days. And you went to classes in this state? Your motives don't add up if you were trying to keep this all a secret.”

“Are you here to just nag me and have the option to drown me if I talk back?” Yuu had deadpanned, blinking lazily at the ceiling. They tilted their head back further to look at Vil when he sighed heavily.

“I was very…concerned. Well connected you are, you seem to forget you are a teenage girl who's been displaced in a completely new world with no actual support system past your schoolmates. There was no telling what had happened to you when I didn't hear back…” Vil poured more water into Yuu's hair, rinsing out the suds and applying a second lather. “I take my care for you very seriously.”

Yuu huffed, rolling their eyes but keeping still as Vil cleaned their hair, “Yeah, is that why you made me exercise?”

“Yes.” Vil scoffed, rinsing Yuu's hair again and looking over his assortment before picking up a new bottle, “Annoying as you may be, you are one of the freshmen I've chosen to take under my wing. And as such I will help you reach your full potential.”

“By force?”

“If it comes to it; we both know in an actual fight I would win…” Vil hummed working the product through Yuu's hair, “I know whatever is happening is painful for you and that is tragic on its own. But lazing around was doing you no good in the long run. If anything it was making things worse since you barely had the energy to move.”

Yuu rolls their eyes, “Well, yeah…this shit hurts. I don't wanna move or do anything…”

“But once you did, you felt more energized, didn’t you?” At Yuu's silence he smirked in triumph, “Call me mean all you like, but I expect you to treat yourself properly at all times. That means eating healthy, exercising, and pampering yourself as needed. Since you are in pain and quarantined, I will pamper you myself today.”

“...” Yuu tilts their head back again, smiling at Vil who smiles back, “Thanks…” Yuu moves to fully relax in the tub, color shifting bubbles acting as a faux blanket while Vil massages the product into their hair.

Only a few moments passed before Yuu's eyes blinked open. The products smelling familiar yet still foreign, “Wait, what stuff are you using?”

Vil didn't answer, contently working more product into Yuu's hair.

Managing a glance to the basket, their eyes caught a familiar bottle that made them groan and attempt to escape Vil's grasp, “GOD DAMN IT, VIL!”

“I will drown you, stop fighting me-DON'T YOU SPLASH ME!”

Yuu scowled, glaring at an all too pleased Vil as he sat in the nest beside them applying a green tinted face mask to his cheeks. Their once straight hair had been restored into its natural state of fluffy 4A curls, “You just can’t let shit fucking be.”

“The very fact you willingly heat damage your hair to keep it straight is a crime I should kill you for.” Vil gently cupped a handful of curls in his hand, smiling as he bounced them lightly, “Your natural hair is gorgeous, you should wear it like this more option.”

“I should shave your head.”

“I should-”

Epel spoke from his spot beside Yuu, hair pinned back as he wore his own face mask, “Can y’all not fight when Ah'm like two inches away from ya?”

Vil huffed, rolling his eyes but releasing Yuu's hair, “We're not fighting.”

“Y’all are two cherry pits away from actually swinging on each other…”

Yuu snorted, whispering loudly to Vil so that Epel could still hear, “He's traumatized because me and Sebek bumped into him when we had a disagreement at a sleepover once-”

Epel glared, punching at Yuu's thigh, “You two rolled onta me while I was asleep and fought on top of me until Jack pulled ya off!”

Yuu whined, forcibly trying to kick Epel away from them as the other first year started to punch at them repeatedly, “Vil! Epel hit me!”

Vil hummed, checking his nails and barely acknowledging the two squabbling next to him, “Epel don't hit Yuu. She's already leaking blood.”

Epel groaned and made a series of grossed out noises before trying to escape Yuu's range.

Yuu hummed and lifted their sleep shirt, looking at their new brightly patterned underwear, “Leaking isn't a problem anymore. These bad boys are iron clad; I don't even feel damp.”

“Put your shirt down.” Vil groaned, quickly pulling Yuu's shirt down to cover their underwear properly. Rolling his eyes as Yuu flashed their panties one more time before he stood, “I'm going to make myself a snack for the movie.”

“Rook is making us snacks for the movie.”

“No, Rook is making you both snacks. I'm making myself a snack that isn't going to be an unhealthy mess drowned in mayo and salt.”

The third-year walked away, waving over his shoulder, “Don't fight and please, Epel don't eat the mask.”

Epel gave a noncommittal noise, already swiping a finger across his face. Don't eat the mask; don't make a face mask from bananas and avocados…

Silence passes over the room, Yuu clicking through their laptop to make sure their movie of choice was fully loaded and prepped for viewing. Epel would glance over to his friend before looking away. Before long he finally huffed and angled his body to face them directly.

“So…yur bleeding out your butt-”

“Not my ass, but go on.”

Epel scoffed rolling over to his back to stare at the ceiling, “So yur bleeding…and that's…normal?”

“Ye.”

“...” Epel's face pinches, his mind connecting the information yet still refusing it, “That sounds awful.”

Yuu chuckled, moving to lay down beside on their stomach, “Yeah, it fucking sucks. I wanna like…curl up and cry but also fist fight the sun.”

“It sounds like a curse. Like a really fucked up ole fae curse that they'd do to a cheater or somethin’. Make'em just leak blood for days…”

“...” Yuu's smile widened, “Could you imagine?” At Epel's confused expression they continued, “If you could, like…learn to cast this as a curse, who would you cast it on?”

“...” Epel hummed, brows creasing before he snapped his fingers, “Crewel.”

“Oh my god? WHY!?”

Epel giggled, “Ah mean, if it'll be anythin’ like yurs, we'd get a week off from lessons because he'd rather be in a ditch somewhere.”

Yuu snorted, “Or, he'd keep coming to classes and take his blood rage out on us.”

“Damn…true…”He nudges Yuu with his knee, raising an eyebrow, “Who would you curse?”

“...I mean if we're being correct, I would have started to sync up with the vaginas I spend the most time with. So…that'd actually be you and Vil.”

“No.”

“Yes. Could you imagine? All three of us synced up and trying to stay alive?”

“Ah would actually take ma’self out. The very idea of blood leakin’ outta me for days is so fuckin’ distressin’. But pair that with you and Vil? Ah couldn't survive…”

Yuu snorts, rolling their eyes and turning back to the laptop, “Weak bitch.”

Epel swings his arm to punch against Yuu's thigh again, “If ya could pick though, who'd it be?”

“Oh, Leona.”

Epel had to set up as he gagged, his laugh choking him, “Why!?”

“He already acts like he's got PMS. I wanna see if he just, like…slips into a coma-stop punching me!”

They laughed and giggled, shoving and smacking each other as they chose more of their friends they would ‘curse’.

Rook had appeared midway through Epel and Yuu recreating a WWE smackdown match. His blunt bangs pulled from his face by a sparkly fuzzy scrunchie.

“Ah! Such grace, such brutality. A duality of kin by spirit than blood. Marvelous, 100 points!”

Yuu spoke calmly, keeping Epel in a full nelson while the other first-year swore under his breath and squirmed, “Oh, hey Rook, did you need something?”

“Oui, mon petite amor. I wished to show you a new skill to aid you in this trying time. I will need you to release Monsieur Pommette to do so…”

Sighing, Yuu released Epel from their grasp and let him breath, “Did you leave Vil in my kitchen? With my poor defenseless seasonings?”

Rook's only reply was to pat Yuu on the head and sit beside them, “May I touch your body mon petite?”

“Rook, I'm begging you to learn how to speak to people in, like…some semblance of the average human being.”

Rook smiles, holding his hands out in silent command to place their body in his grasp.

Yuu sighs, elbowing a grumbling Epel beside them, “Can you make sure Vil doesn't actually throw out my seasonings he deems ‘unnecessary'?”

Epel grumbles a bit more but stands to walk into the kitchen. Once the other first-year was gone, Yuu placed both of their hands into Rook's waiting ones, “Okay. What are you showing me?”

Humming, Rook looked over their hands, his thumbs gently pressing into their palms periodically, “Is Acupuncture a practice in your world?”

“Yeah; it's the Eastern practice where you use needles on pressure points. Never had it done though, the idea of needles in my face was freaky.”

“Tres bien! It's similar then. I have always wondered if your body carried the same pressure points as ours, though I wasn't sure we were close enough to test such a theory. Be it physically or relationship wise.”

Rook grabs one of Yuu's hands in both of his own; one to cradle Yuu's palm gently, and the other making firm small circles in the place between their thumb and pointer finger.”

“Yeah…40 year marriage or not, I would not trust you near me with a pack of needles…”

Rook chuckles, fingers not stopping as they massage the point, “Luckily for me, these methods do not require needles. Though I do hope you will let me try one day.”

“Fuck no. You and needles are not something I wanna be in a room with- Oh…oh…”

“Ah! Is it taking effect?”

Yuu touched their head, blinking in mild astonishment, “My headache isn't so bad anymore.”

“And this is one of the few points I shall teach you! It is called Large Intestine 6, it can alleviate headaches. Though do be careful, you can bruise yourself with these methods.”

Rook then spent the next few minutes showing Yuu the functions of various pressure points to ease their period symptoms. He even gleefully showed them other points where pressure would cause pain and momentary complete bodily paralysis.

Rook hummed as he gently thumbed the skin on the back of Yuu's neck, “For maximum effect I would recommend applying pressure via an elbow jab.”

“I can't wait to stun Vil's arm the next time he tries to pull my ear while scolding me.”

“Please, do not. He will know I taught you this and back hand both of us into next week.”

Vil spoke as he and Epel walked back into the room, each carrying loaded trays, “Taught them what?”

“How to properly hold their head in a sitting position, mon roi!” Rook’s hand moved gently, firmly grasping the base of Yuu's skull and puppeteering their head to a more correct posture, “There we go! Now she may sit with her spine straight.”

Vil hummed, setting the large tray of snacks in front of the nest and looking Yuu over with a critical eye, “...I suppose it will have to do for now. This is a ‘Relax Day’ after all…”

Epel handed Yuu and Rook tall glasses of fruit smoothie, sitting beside Yuu and looking over their laptop, “Is the movie ready?”

Yuu took a moment, simply enjoying the taste of strawberries, mangos, and the hinted kick of tart orange juice. With a few clicks, the TV came to life mirroring their laptop, “Yep! Epel the master remote should have a button for the lights.”

Soon, everyone was cozy in the nest, snacks close and each with a chilled beverage.

Vil raised an eyebrow, already judging the movie by the overly cartoony opening, “And this movie is for…children?”

“Ye…I think…it was an 80’s movie. So ‘For Kids’ normally just meant no titties or swear words.”

Epel’s face quickly soured, glaring at Yuu, “Ah swear ta the Seven, if this anything like that Oz movie-”

Yuu giggled, shushing Epel, “Making you guys watch 'Return to Oz*’ was for my own sick pleasure. This won't be like that I promise.”

Rook sighed, “I should hope not. Monsieur Pommette could not sleep for days…”

Waving them off, Yuu kept their eyes glued to the screen as the movie’s opening twist was revealed, “Don't worry. ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’ is the perfect relax day movie.”

The Pomefiore boys all sat huddled around Yuu, eyes wide in terror as they watched the villain stalk closer and closer to the detective.

“When I killed ya brother! I talked! Just! Like! THIIIIIIIIIIIS!”

Vil whispered harshly to Yuu, mildly afraid to take his eyes off the screen, “This movie is for children?”

“Yeah. The 80’s were wild…”

*Lowkey I wanted to put The Wiz instead but I remembered that movie being delightful besides the single scene in the subway. Return to Oz, however, keeps getting purged from my memory every time I watch it for good reason.

#twisted wonderland #twst #disney twst #twst wonderland #yuu oc #vil schoenheit #rook hunt #epel felmier #pomefiore

88 notes · View notes

sillyyuserr · 4 months

Text

idk if you could call this an analysis but something i wanna talk ab

i expect like 1-2 ppl to see this but i cant stop thinking ab chapter 96 😭😭

Lets look at this, a “private” (kind of out in the open) conversation between akane and aoi, but in the circled panel it almost looks as if a 3rd party is looking in. who could that be?

Even in the next panel it looks as though someone could be looking down on them from somewhere. It also shows in the bottom corner someone literally looking down at them.

who could that be?

this fucker. “aoikane” this “aoiaoi” that WHAT ABOUT HIM 😭

like you can see here he’s almost disappointedly looking down at them from afar, with akane more in the middle, seemingly looking at him

which im not Implying he’s all “omg akane 🥺 dont flirt with her ….. 🫣😔💔” which very well could he what he’s doing (less exaggerated obv) but i really have no clue. AidaIro did a really good job at keeping his stance on how he sees akane ambiguous, that he really could be thinking anything here. And yes, they do show us he cares about him but caring about someones is very different from the way you may view them / feel about them.

but why would he be disappointed/sad? Let’s look at possible opitions.

Option 1, he could like aoi and not like how akane seems to be “genuinely” smiling at her when talking to her and holding her hand.

“but evie! wouldnt he be sad ALL the time since akane’s ALWAYS fawning over her?!!”

he literally has stated he doesnt like how akane likes aoi (or at least how he shows it)

Option 2, he straight up wasn’t even peeping in on their convo and was just looking down on them all having fun w/o him (haha loser) (jk i love him)

3rd and final Option, he’s sad akane and aoi are closer, not because he wishes downfall on their relationship but maybe because he likes akane.

which he himself literally said he likes someone, and at this point in time he hasnt met aoi yet, but from panels of akane + teru when they had recently met, he was in a middle school uniform showing that they had known eachother for a bit.

And yeah, this is from CHAPTER 1 and it could have very well been an excuse but cmon man this is enough to take into consideration.

To boil it down, the big question is: “does teru like akane, or aoi?”

Also bro literally tried to stop them from kissing 😭 like which one do u like man JUST CHOOSE

Edit:

I JUST REALIZED HE NEVER CLARIFIED IF IT WAS A GIRL OR NOT. HE SAYS THEM NOT HER (also meaning it could still be a girl 💀)

#terukane #aoi akane #minamoto teru #akane aoi #tbhk #jshk #bruh

137 notes · View notes

paper-crab · 7 months

Text

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before

summary: letters to your past crushes get out and its a whole mess, based on the movie/book, yadayada

warnings: swearing, cliché, very rushed

wc: 6914

ignore any grammar mistakes it’s too long for me to reread and if it doesn’t flow smoothly i’m so sorry i rushed it so bad

Writing letters was an emotional release; something healthy to pass the time, and look back on later.

That’s why you’d written a series of letters, spanning from 3rd grade to now- senior year. They were intimate letters, ones you wrote to get your mind off of a crush you’d gained, so when you’d looked for the box to add a new letter and couldn’t find it, you freaked out.

Luckily, younger you was only able to get her hands on two addresses.

Unfortunately, those addresses were the two worst ones you could have gotten. Everybody else had either moved, or come out. They were irrelevant.

Who had gotten the letters, however, were not irrelevant: your school's player, and your best friend's boyfriend. You were fully in panic mode now, how are you supposed to recover from that? You can only contemplate your options for so long before anxiety eats at you. Maybe if you skipped a week or so of school it would blow over.

“Yeah, not happening. Rise and shine.”

You groan. “Dad, you don’t understand. This could ruin my life, I might actually die.”

He doesn’t respond, leaving you to grovel and pick up the pieces of your pride.

In order to avoid your friend's boyfriend, you need to avoid her, which means you’re walking around school alone. You know you’ll need to have that awkward conversation, telling him ‘I liked you when you were just my childhood best friend- those feelings have passed’, but you also know that you are going to avoid it for as long as humanly possible. Asserting yourself was never really your strong suit.

You had grown up next door to her boyfriend, and fell out of touch with him in middle school. While he was blossoming as a social butterfly, you lurked in the background, like a moth drawn to his effervescent light. Like the sun, the light was too hot for you to stay in, and you stopped talking until mid junior year when your friend had reintroduced you.

The other letter, the heartthrob, had been a lot kinder in middle school. You’d heard some not-so-kind stories about him recently though, and they were the exact opposite of the kid, Matt, that you knew.

You hadn’t been particularly close or anything, only exchanging a few words in your 7th grade math class, but you were infatuated with him. When you were younger, he hardly talked, but lacrosse had brought him out of his shell; the shell you’d never managed to crack- or rather the cocoon you’d never emerged from.

Matt probably didn’t know your name, even though you’d boldly signed it in your letter, so you were confident he wouldn’t find you. It’d be just another day for him, hopefully.

Your friend's boyfriend, on the other hand, was constantly with you. He lived right next door to you, and you felt like it was impossible to avoid him. You’d try to get through the school day without an encounter, then lock yourself in your room to never be seen again.

The first couple periods you had? Had gone off without a hitch. Then you hit lunch, and even if you tried, you couldn’t run from your friend forever. She found you, her boyfriend trailing behind.

“I missed you this morning!” She tells you, reaching to give you a hug. You don’t do much but nervously laugh, pulling away from her. “Yeah, I came late.” You lied.

“Ugh I wish, I’m going to get lunch, you coming with?” She says, more to her boyfriend than you. He shakes his head, “I’m good.”

“Alright, be back in a minute!”

“Can we ta-”

You cut him off immediately, nervous laughter coming back. “I have a test to study for, so I’m going to the library, sorry. We’ll catch up later. He knows what you’re doing, but he doesn’t really want to talk about it himself.

After excusing yourself, you make a beeline for the library, seeking a moment of respite. The library turns out not to offer that much solace either, because you see Matt’s two brothers enter, meaning he can’t be far behind. When he rounds the corner, his eyes land on you, lighting up slightly. You see him excuse himself from his brothers, and you immediately stand and run out of there, muttering “Nope, no, no,” under your breath. The sound of you slamming the library door open definitely isn’t quiet.

You can’t help but begin to panic, packing up your things and abruptly running out of the school, through the parking lot, and jumping into your car. If studying wasn’t how you were going to escape the situation, avoiding lunch apparently was. It’s tempting, incredibly so, to skip the rest of your day, but you know you’d be in so much trouble. You can’t handle that right now.

You head back in and continue your day, just praying, wishing, dreaming that you won’t encounter the two people you don’t want to see most- but now you’re seeing them out of the corner of your eye in every passing period; and you can’t even confide in the one person you most want to.

The school day ending feels like your saving grace. You’re exhausted, mentally and physically, from running away from your friend and her boyfriend, and narrowly avoiding Matt didn’t help.

You walk out of the school, into the parking lot towards the direction of your car, ready to be done with the day.

In highschool, you’re never done.

Your friend's boyfriend is leaning against your car, looking around for you, arms crossed. You make a sharp left, in the direction of the lacrosse field and bleachers. You’re not really thinking about it when you do it, it’s just the closest shelter, other than walking back in the hellhole that is the school.

You make your way onto the bleachers mindlessly, trying not to think about the events of today. You set your backpack next to you, not realizing there’s an unexpected guest making his way up to the top of the bleachers where you sat.

“Hi.” You jump, startled by the sudden voice as he sits next to you. You recognize that voice, obviously, so you flinch before turning to him. “Y/n, right?”

You nod, not sure how to continue this. There’s a plethora of things he could say, and you’d rather not hear any of them. Matt taps his fingers on the bleachers, waiting for you to acknowledge that he’s said anything; when you realize you nod.

“Look,” he starts, and that’s never a good sign, “Your letter was really kind and whatever, but I just broke up with my girlfriend. I’m not really ready for anything serious, so if you’re looking for casual-”

“I wrote that in 7th grade.”

“Oh.” He says, scratching his head. “Why’d you send the letter then?” You look to your left, spotting your friend's boyfriend walking towards you, and you panic.

“Kiss me,”

“Okay.” He shrugs, grabbing you. His eyes are closed, but you don’t bother closing yours. You’re a bit busy glancing in the direction of your other victim, and when you watch his face fall as he turns back around, you finally close your eyes. “Not that I’m mad about it, but what just happened?”

“It’s really hard to explain, but you’re not the only one that got a letter. The other person is my best friends boyfriend,”

“Damn. That’s low of you, and I’m not special? My feelings are hurt.” He smiles a little bit, trying to ease your tense expression. “I wrote his before I ever wrote yours, and before they knew each other. I can’t talk to him, though, and if she ever finds out, it'll break her heart.”

“Okay, respect. I gotta get to practice, but I’ll find you tomorrow?”

You want to say no, but you don’t. He did just do you a big favor after all. “Yeah, see you then.”

He sticks to his words, finding you in the library the next day. His mouth twists into a grin when he sees you, and he shuffles over holding eye contact with you.

“Hey,” He says, slightly whispering. It might be lunch, but the librarian is still strict. She wants to preserve the quiet atmosphere of the room, in which you can only hear the sound of flipping pages and an occasional murmur. “Mind if I join?” He settles in next to you.

“Uhm.. listen,” You say, launching into a monologue, “about the whole letter thing, It’s, uh, not what it seems. Well it is, but it’s not. I wrote those letters a long time ago, and they don’t reflect my feelings now, and I never meant for them to get out, so, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drag you into it, and I’m sorry you did, get dragged into it, that is.”

“If you didn’t mean for them to get out, why would you send them?” He questions, tilting his head.

“I didn’t send them.”

“Okay, uhm, who did?”

“I don’t know, but I cannot talk to my friend's boyfriend, like ever.”

He nods, a mixture of concern and confusion evident on his face, like he’s really mulling the situation over.

“So, someone sent those letters behind your back? That’s not cool, dude. Messed up, but I think we can help each other out here, take control of the situation.” A wicked grin takes over his face. If you squint hard enough you can imagine a lightbulb over his head, like he’s had an “aha!” moment. “I have an idea,”

“What do you mean, control?”

“Yeah, control. Think about it, we fake date. You need your friend’s boyfriend off your back, and I need my ex to get jealous and come back to me. Win win, and it gives us a chance to control the narrative.”

“Yeah, I mean… it could work, maybe?” You respond, uncertainty in your tone. “How would it even work?

“I don’t see how it couldn’t.”

“Okay, I guess, but I don’t see how it could be that simple.”

“Yeah, it could. Trust me, we play it smart, manipulate the situation, and we get what we want.”

“Okay, yeah. Let’s do it.”

“You sure about this?” Matt asks, searching your eyes for confirmation.

“Yeah, I mean, you said it best. I can’t talk to him about this, not for a long while, anyways.”

“Sick.”

“So, uhm, what next?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, rules and stuff?”

“You want rules, you make ‘em’” He shrugs. You grab out a notebook, labeling the top ‘Rules’ in neat handwriting. “Oh, you’re serious.”

“No kissing,” you start writing, and Matt groans.

“If we’re not kissing, how do you expect anyone to believe we’re dating?” You squirm a little bit.

“Matt,” you say in a hushed tone. Heat rises to your cheeks. “I don’t really kiss people,”

“Wait,” he chuckles, trying to make a joke, “was I your first kiss?”

When you don’t answer, he gasps. It almost makes him feel bad, but not enough to apologize. “No kissing then,” he confirms, trying to steer the conversation forward. “What else?”

“No couple-y social media shit,”

“Agreed. We keep it low-key.” He nods. “What about spending time together? How often do we go on dates, and are we hanging out all the time?”

“I don’t know, maybe like, once a week? And I don’t wanna be around your friends all the time.”

“You don’t want to be around yours either,” he points out.

“Fair point. Once a week, I hang out with you?”

“Most days, yeah.”

“Also, no meeting the parents. That makes it too real.” You add.

“Off the table. Oh, I’m not calling you babe or any of that gross shit.” He says. You pale at the thought, literally gagging. “Please don’t, I think I’d throw up.”

“That it?” He laughs at you.

“Uh, yeah, I think so.”

The bell rings. “I’ll walk you to class,”

Your face morphs into confusion. “Why would you do that?”

“To make it seem like we’re really dating..?”

“Oh. Yeah,”

He walks you to class, hugging you when he drops you off. “Meet by the bleachers after school?”

“Yeah,” You say, slightly dazed by his request.

When you walk out of your classroom, you let your mind wander back to his ask, ‘what could he possibly want’ playing through your head. You walk through the front doors, taking a sharp left towards the bleachers; just like yesterday.

You’re not waiting for very long when Matt sneaks up on you, whispering “Boo.” into your ear.

You jump, caught off guard, but that’s besides the point.

“Hey,” he says, putting his hands on your waist.

“What are you doing?”

“People are looking.” He shrugs a little. You’re eager for him to get to the point; the longer you’re away from your bed, the more cozy and inviting it sounds. He clears his throat. “I need your number,”

He’s careful to make it come out as a whisper so surrounding students don’t hear. To them, you’re already a couple.

“And your address, so I can pick you up tomorrow.”

“What?”

“As your boyfriend, I’ll be driving you to school, and home, and I need to pick you up for our date too.”

“Date tomorrow?”

“If you’re free, for the ‘spending time together’ bit,” he says, pulling his hands from your waist and doing air quotes with his fingers.

“I can drive myself,” You tell him, as he grabs his phone out and hands it to you sneakily. You proceed to put your number in, and your address, before handing it back to you.

“You can, but it’s more convincing if we come together.” He murmurs, absorbed in drafting you a message. After a moment, you hear the familiar ping of a notification.

“There,” he grins proudly, showing you the message. “Now it’s official.”

The morning sun casts a warm glow on you, making you feel cozy and relaxed, despite the nerves growing. The idea of Matt, and his brothers, coming to pick you up scares you a bit. You fiddle with the strap of your backpack as you wait on your front porch.

When you see a car pull up, you know that’s your cue to start walking down your driveway. Matt hops out, rushing to hug you and open the passenger door for you.

“Doesn’t Chris usually sit there?” You ask quietly, still smiling to keep up the charade. “Yeah, I made him move.” He whispers back before he walks to the driver's seat.

“Good morning,” Nick says, sounding completely done. Chris doesn’t even raise his head, giving you a small wave. “Hi, it’s nice to meet you guys.” You say softly, not wanting to disturb them. You think them going out of their way to pick you up this morning was disturbing enough.

The car ride was a mixture of awkward silence and small talk. Nick and Chris are both too tired to engage much, but Matt is trying his hardest to keep them involved.

You pull up to the school gates after a short while, Matt parks the car. You get out and he walks over to you, joining your hands while you walk in. He gives you a reassuring smile as you walk in, “Don’t worry, they’re not always like this in the morning. I promise it’s not personal.”

You nod, trying your best to offer a smile that comes out faint. “Yeah, I won’t take it personally. Thanks again for the ride, Matt.”

“Of course,”

The second you get into the school, Nick and Chris part ways with you two. You’re still holding hands, you realize, when the murmurs and glances direct themselves towards you. Matt can feel the anxious energy you radiate because of it, so he leans in to whisper in your ear, rubbing the back of your hand with his thumb. “Don’t worry, it’ll blow over soon.”

For all the stories you’d heard about him, you hadn’t expected him to be even half as polite. Maybe it’s because you were faking, you decide.

The rest of the day seems to float by in a blur, but Matt was right; the buzz around your relationship did seem to dissipate the more people saw you together. During lunch, you find yourself next to Matt. You’re doing your best to maintain the facade with his lacrosse friends, Chris among the group.

You can feel the stare of your best friend and her boyfriend though, and it only brings back those feelings of guilt and anxiety. You’re grateful for the distraction of food, though, because it provides you an out from conversations.

You’re not used to basking in the light like this.

As the bell rings, you feel a mixture of relief and apprehension. Matt walks you to your last class, of course, offering you a quick hug before parting ways.

The class passed by slowly as you try to piece together the events of the day. In under a week, you went from a nobody with 3 friends to a somebody dating one of the most popular boys. Fake dating.

When you’re finally dismissed from the shackles of public school, you feel an odd sense of relief. You know it won’t last very long because of your scheduled date tonight, but it’s there nonetheless.

You find Matt waiting outside your classroom, as promised, a smile on his face. He falls into step beside you as you make your way towards his car. The chatter of surrounding students fades into background noise when you’re with him. A cool breeze dances through the air, making you shiver a bit. For a moment, you stayed silent, enjoying the comfort he brought you just by being next to you.

It was reminiscent of middle school; his silence made you comfortable because you weren’t alone.

“Wait, don’t you have lacrosse practice?” You interrupt.

“I take Nick home everyday, I have time to take you too.”

You nod. As you navigate through the sea of juniors and seniors preparing to leave, Matt turns his head towards you. “Hey, you okay?” he asks, concern evident.

“Yeah, yeah,” you nod, offering a chuckle and a hesitant smile, “Just processing the day, you know? It’s kinda weird.”

He nods understandingly, turning his head back towards the car that Nick is already waiting at. The ride to your home feels significantly shorter when you engage in pleasant conversation with Nick and Matt.

Despite the guilt you feel over keeping up this act, the conversation flows genuinely and you find yourself really enjoying it. He pulls into your driveway, putting the car in park and smiling at you.

“Thank you, and thanks for today.”

“No problem, I’ll see you tonight?”

“You bet,” You say, waving goodbye to Nick. You walk into your house and feel like a puddle of goo, every emotion flooding your body in one go. It’s only the second day of pretending, and you’re feeling like a fly stuck in a web of lies.

Despite your conflicting feelings, you begin to get ready for your date, feeling genuine excitement. Even if it’s just as friends, Matt is really pleasant to be around.

Matt: Movie at 7:30?

You: Perfect, see you then.

The hours tick by as you prepare yourself to hang out with him. You hear a knock on your front door that makes you jump. “Dad, I'm going out!” You yell, rushing out to join Matt.

You weren’t expecting him to hug you when you stepped out. There was no one around to keep it up for, but you decided not to question it. “Hi Matt,”

“Hi.” He grins, pulling away from you. “I didn’t buy tickets yet because I wanted you to choose the movie,”

“You didn’t have to do that.” You tell him, heart filled with gratitude. It was a small gesture, yet it immediately made your middle school crush on him come back.

“I feel like you know a lot about me, so I thought you choosing the movie would help me learn something about you.” He said as you pulled into the movie theater parking lot.

“Yeah, I’ll pick.” You giggle at him, hopping out. When you walk in, you’re overwhelmed by the aggressive scent of buttered popcorn. Matt glanced around, beginning to guide you to the ticket counter. “Shit, that’s my ex.”

“It’s cool, play up the pda to make her more jealous,”

His arm wraps around your waist as he leans into you, pretending to whisper something in your ear. When you walk up to the counter, he unwraps his arm for a mere second to grab his wallet.

“Movie?” He asks. You tell him and he nods. “Two tickets please, he hands his ex his card.

“Hi, Matt.” She says, smiling at him. You immediately get possessive vibes that make you feel uncomfortable, but that means the plan is working. “Oh hey,” He smiles lightly, acting nonchalant.

“Who’s this?” You can literally feel the jealousy she's emitting, and it makes you shift in his grasp. “This is my girlfriend, the tickets?”

“Oh, sorry.” She hands him the tickets, making sure to brush his hand while she glared at you. As you walk towards the next counter to buy popcorn, you start laughing. “I don’t think she liked me much.”

“Good, means the plan is working.” He says, going to fish for his wallet again.

“Nuh-uh. My turn.”

“That’s not really how dates work, but nice try.”

It feels like the hours have crept away from you. The movie comes to an end, despite you willing it to last longer. Matt offers you a hand and pulls you up, making sure to hold your hand when you exit the theater. It almost makes your heart flutter; then you remember why he’s doing it.

“So, what did you think of the movie?” He says, offering you his jacket when you step into the brisk air. You smile, feeling fulfillment while you slide his jacket on. “I liked it, thanks for letting me choose. And, um, thanks for tonight. It was… interesting.”

“No problem,” he says, sounding relaxed. “I liked it too. We make a good fake couple, don’t we?”

You continue chatting while you walk to the car, and while he drops you off. Matt gets out to walk you up to your door, genuinely surprising you. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to.” He says, offering you another hug. You slide off his jacket and melt into him before handing it back. “Thanks, Matt.”

“See you tomorrow morning?”

You nod.

You close the door behind you, feeling the weight of the day settle into your skin. You’re beginning to ease into the fake relationship; even as the facade gets increasingly complex. You sink into your bed, shifting off to dreamland.

As the week goes on, your arrangement only gets better. You avoid your friend's boyfriend, and he starts getting desperate texts from his ex. By the end of the week, you’re sure he’s close to breaking it off.

When Matt drops you off at home on Friday afternoon, you’re insanely smiley. You feel on top of the world. The day seemed normal enough, for your new normal anyways, but there was an odd air of tension everywhere you went. You knew something was wrong when your best friend landed on your doorstep mere moments later.

She was your best friend for a reason- you trusted her with almost everything, so she didn’t understand why this week, you’d suddenly gone ghost. You normally talked every second of every hour if you could, but this week, your communication had been limited to fleeting glances across the cafeteria, or in the hallway.

You open your front door to find her standing there, eyes ablaze with anger. “Hey.. what’s up?” You say, prompting her to talk and cut through the thick silence.

“Where have you been all week?”

“At school..?”

“No, I mean, where have you been? You avoided me on Monday, and you started dating Matthew Sturniolo out of nowhere; I didn’t even know you were talking! I’ve barely seen you this week and normally we spend all our time together. Something isn’t right.”

You feel like you’re shrinking under her intense gaze. Stammering out an apology isn’t really working for her, or you, because the weight of your fabricated relationship with Matt pinned your tongue. “It’s not like that..”

“Don’t give me that!” She says, glaring at you. “We tell each other everything. Why are you shutting me out now?”

You wrack your brain for an excuse, trying to think of anything to get her off your back when you remember a conversation you’d had with her about Matt. “Look, I know I’ve been unfair to you… but I know you don’t like Matt, and I really do. I’ve been caught up with him, and I didn’t want to tangle you into it because I know you don’t like him.”

“He’s a dick.” She says to you, bluntly. “I don’t think you should be dating him, much less talking to him and ignoring me for him. Haven’t you heard the shit he’s pulled with other girls?”

“Of course I have but-”

“I don’t know who you think you are, but you’re not different. He’s going to leave you in the dust too.”

Her words cut through you, sharp and painful. The truth hovered on the tip of your tongue, but the weight of secrecy still held it down. You didn’t know how to get out of this one. “He’s not like that with me,” you attempt to defend, feeling the tears well up in your eyes. “People change, you know?”

“You’re being naïve, and I hate seeing you like this. Ignoring your best friend for a guy who’s going to hurt you in the end.”

You’re feeling shackled, like you’re in the ocean trying to stay above the surface, but there’s a weight tied to your ankle.

“I appreciate your concern,” you say, voice shaking “but I know what I’m doing. We’re happy together. You say, a feigned smile gracing your lips. Her harsh glare softens. “I trust you. Just, be careful. Okay?”

“Yeah, of course.” You nod, acting like you’re relieved, but the pit in your stomach only deepens as the web of woven lies becomes more intricate. She leaves, and you close the door behind you, sinking down to the floor.

All of this because of some letters.

The sound of a message coming through your phone snaps you out of your contemplation. You glance at it, immediately smiling when you see Matt’s name pop up.

Matt: Hangout tomorrow? Nick and Chris r asking

You: Yeah, what time?

Matt: Noon?

You: I’ll be there

Matt: I’ll pick you up

You heart the message, standing from the floor. When you retire for the night, your friend's warning re-enters your mind. You know she’s right, but the reality of your fake dating thing with Matt tugs you back into its tangled web, as it always does.

Each text from Matt, while making you smile, feels like another string of deceit weaving into a thousand more. It just deepens as time goes on. The lure of his attention and the comfort of the familiarity you feel with him vie against the guilt that gnaws at your conscience.

You’ve realized the gravity of the situation, but the truth remains locked in, barricaded by fear and the entanglements you’ve created. You want to call it off, you’ve wanted to, but you don’t want to risk falling into a chasm of more confrontations- from both your friend, and her boyfriend.

You try to shove it out of your mind so you can sleep though, preparing for your day with Matt tomorrow.

When you wake up the next morning, you feel giddy. You put more effort into getting ready than you normally would on a Saturday. Then, there’s a knock on your door and a hug awaiting you. This time, you don’t question if people are around, you just accept it with a grin.

“Nick and Chris wanted to come get you,” He tells you, pulling you down the driveway. Yet again, the front seat is empty for you. The energy of the triplets was infectious, in the best way possible. You immediately found yourself comforted by their presence, the simplicity of just being around them had an inexplicable effect on your already good mood.

The drive feels effortless as you settle into conversation with the group. It reminds you of how uncomfortable you’d been mere days ago, and how much had changed. You kind of frown at the thought, but quickly catch it. Matt’s smile never faltered though, leaving you with an odd sense of melancholy when you’re reminded that it’s all fake.

You can’t help but be surprised by your surroundings when you enter the house. You knew the outside, obviously having known the address, but the inside exceeds all your expectations. Family pictures litter the walls, candles are everywhere. It’s cute.

“Your parents aren’t here, right?” You whisper. “Nope.”

“So, what should we do?” Chris speaks up, cutting through the silence. You shrug in response while Matt and Nick go into deep thought.

“We should bake!”

“Nope.” Matt says at the same time you say “Okay.”

When Matt hears you, he turns in your direction. Seeing your smile at the presented idea, he changes his mind. “Yeah, baking sounds good.”

Nick glances at him skeptically, the switch-up being unusual. When your eyes wander towards Chris, you notice his confusion too.

“Baking it is.” Nick mumbles, leading you to the kitchen.

“Alright, what are we making?” Chris pipes in, pulling out various bowls. “Brownies?” Matt suggests, “I think we have a mix and I don’t wanna run to the store right now.”

“Wait, we’re awful at baking. Why are we baking?” Chris questions, wracking his brain to find the answer.

“It’ll be eventful,” Nick replies.

“If we mess shit up and it gets messy, I’m blaming it on you.”

Nick groans, going to grab the mix and the various ingredients listed on the box. “If you do that, I’m gonna tell mom about that time that you-”

“And that’s enough!” Matt cuts him off, grabbing eggs out of Nick’s hand. He ushers you further into the action of the kitchen, imploring you to get comfortable.

“You bake a lot?” He asks, smiling.

“Not really,” You admit, laughing at the commotion surrounding you. It’s fascinating to you how those around you have become such an integral part of your everyday life in the week you’d known them, despite only being in your circle for under a week.

You know your relationship with Matt is false- how could you not? You remind yourself constantly, but these new relationships you’d forged because of Matt? Some of the realest ones you’d ever experienced.

A crack snaps you out of your thoughts, followed by a millisecond of silence. “Chris!” Nick yells, looking at the fallen egg.

“How is this my fault?!” Matt finds himself laughing with you.

The brownies turn out so horribly burnt you’re not even sure if you can call them brownies anymore, and the mess is colossal, but even when Matt drops you off you only have good things to say about, and to, the group.

“Thank you,”

“Of course. I’ll pick you up on Monday?”

“See you then.” You say, waving to Nick and Chris.

The next couple weeks go by so smoothly, you almost forget you’re acting. They’re relatively the same as the first, save for more interactions with your friend. Being with Matt and his brothers, and even his friends, feels natural. Your weeks become more routine, and the plan is working. Matt’s ex is obviously getting more green as time goes on, and your friend's boyfriend won’t even spare you a passing glance.

By your one-month ‘anniversary’, you’re almost 100% sure you two are in the clear. You’re waiting at home for Matt to pick you up, excited to be with him, but feeling a pit on your stomach nonetheless. When you hear the now-familiar knock on your door, you can’t help but run to answer it.

“Hi Matt,”

“Hi.” He smiles and reaches out to hug you, like normal, but the smile doesn’t meet his eyes in the way it usually does. It’s missing its charm. He guides you to the car, sure to open the passenger door for you, but the gesture is missing its usual warmth. He takes you to this cute diner, one that you’ve mentioned in a passing conversation, but the earlier apprehension you felt only grows stronger.

When you sit down, you finally decide you can’t take it anymore. “Is something wrong, Matt?”

“Not wrong, really. My ex wants me back. She texted me the other night,”

“Oh,” Is all you can say, trying to force a smile to your face. “That’s good.”

“Yeah,” He says. You’re not sure if you’re grasping at straws, but you feel like he sounds like he’s trying to convince himself too. “Do you think you’re okay to break this off?”

“Uhm, yeah. I think my friend’s boyfriend is leaving me alone.” You nod at him, looking everywhere but his face. “Should we just go?”

He can’t argue with that, so instead of getting that cute little dinner date you were promised, you’re sitting back in Matt’s car in silence as he drives you home. The atmosphere felt heavy. You’re stopped at a red light when you finally glance over at him for the first time this entire ride back. He’s tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, a nervous tic you’d never noticed before, while his eyes are set on the traffic lights.

“I’m sorry,” He finally says, the second the light turns green.

“For what?” You reply, trying to keep your voice steady.

“For coming up with this idea. It was stupid and I shouldn’t have-”

“Don’t be sorry, Matt. I knew what I was getting into when I agreed. It wasn’t stupid; it did what we wanted it to do.”

He nodded, but your gaze lingered on him. You could see the mixture of guilt and gratitude swirling through his eyes. “At least it’s over, right? We manipulated the situation.” You say, trying to bring up the mood. You’re trying not to make something of nothing, but his mood seems just as melancholic as yours. “At least it’s over.”

When the car reaches your house, Matt can’t find it in himself to move, to walk you to your door. He hears your seatbelt click, signaling that you’re taking your leave.

“See you around?”

“See you around, Matt.”

When you exit the car, a bittersweet realization washes over Matt. This isn’t what he wanted. He grips the steering wheel, hurriedly putting his car into reverse. He can’t linger any longer, or he’ll make a rash decision and run back to you. He wanted his ex back, and now that’s what he’s getting.

The next day, you wake up with absolutely zero pep in your step. You drag yourself out of bed, drag yourself into your car, and drag yourself through the halls in the morning. The entire world seems more quiet without Matt next to you; your steps echo in your ears. You catch glimpses of familiar faces, but today, they seem almost alien. It makes you wish you’d never left your bed. By lunch, everybody knows something is wrong. Your spot by Matt’s side has been reclaimed by his ex girlfriend. You don’t miss the pitying looks his friends give you, especially Nick and Chris.

You never realized how humiliating it’d be when people saw that Matt left you for his ex.

You settle in your old spot, across from your best friend and her boyfriend, trying to make the whole thing feel natural. It doesn’t.

The whispers and glances you’re receiving from others feel like needles pricking at your already unsettled emotions, and your friend’s compassionate eyes don’t make you feel any more comfortable.

“Matt’s a jerk. I hate him.” She tells you, and it hurts your heart a bit.

“I don’t.” You reply, voice barely above a whisper, the weight of the situation pressing on you. She winces at you defending him, but rebounds. There’s a strong desire to call him every name in the book, but resorts to saying “I can't believe he would do that to you.”

You want to tell her the truth, the lies of the situation having weighed heavy on your mind, but you know that’d defeat the purpose. You thought that when you’d ended the relationship, the entanglement of fibs you’d found yourself in would unravel, but you feel as though they’d only gotten more complicated. “You told me he would.” You say, pushing your school lunch around. She winces again.

“I’m here for you.”

“Thank you.”

When Matt stands next to his ex, who all his friends tell him is a catch, he can’t help but feel empty. His eyes wander away from his table, landing on you. Memories flood back, a mixture of genuine and orchestrated moments swirling within his mind. He’s completely dipped out of the conversation his friends are having, his grip on his new-old girlfriend's waist weakening as he thinks of you.

He catches the slightest glimpse of your eyes, one that you immediately divert; a mixture of confusion and hurt sprinkled within. A pant of guilt hits him, but he tries to forget about it as he turns back to the conversation presented to him.

“What’s gotten into you dude?” Someone asks. Matt shrugs, trying to stay involved. His eyes wander back to you, and then over to Chris, who mouths “Get her back.” at him.

He tries to pretend like he didn’t see that. He has what he wants, his girlfriend, and you have what you want, maybe.

He knows one thing: he doesn’t like the hole your absence has left in his daily routine.

The week comes and goes, Friday night rolling around and the pain of losing each other doesn’t go away. Matt’s battling himself internally to convince himself that both you and him are happier apart; he knows that’s not true. You’re fighting with yourself constantly to not spill your guts to someone, pressure that you had shared with him before the fake, but impossibly real split, weighing on you. It’s past midnight by the time your wandering mind calms enough for you to sleep.

At this point, Matt’s drafted up about 4 text messages to you, and none of them convey what he’s truly wanted to say. He called it off already with his ex-ex girlfriend. The moment she’d started badmouthing you in front his friends put a sour taste in his mouth; that, and he’d realized he was searching for you in every one of their interactions.

He’s restless, consumed by thoughts of longing for your presence. In the silence of the night, he’s grabbing his keys and heading. You think you’re imagining it when you’re awoken by the stall of an engine, but you’re forced to confront the taps on your window.

As you slowly approach the window, pulling back the curtain, you're confronted by Matt’s anxious gaze, illuminated by the faint, cool glow of the moonlight. You rush downstairs, barely stopping to slide a hoodie and some shoes on. The mix of emotions you feel are mirrored in his expression- a blend of nervousness, vulnerability, and longing. With the weight of unspoken words hanging between you, he opens his arms, pulling you in for a warm hug. He’s worried you won’t hear him out, desperate to express what he wanted to tell you in his unsent messages, but his desire to hold you far outweighs his uneasiness.

“I couldn’t keep lying to myself, and you.” He says, face buried in your neck. “I’ve been lost without you, and I can’t pretend I’m happier this way. I miss us, even if it wasn’t real.” His voice contains traces of sincerity, regret, and insecurity, but he feels a sense of strong relief take over at his admission. “I know it was fake- it started out fake- but I’m in love with you now.”

His honesty resonates as his eyebrows unfurrow, his entire body relaxing, and the weight that’s been dragging you to the bottom of the ocean is shed. Rather than sinking, you’re floating peacefully above the soft waves. You pull away from him, your anxieties dissipating like mist under the moonlight. The depth of his words stir an array of emotions within you: astonishment, relief, and a spark of hope. You search his calm eyes, being practically slapped in the face by his sincere and loving expression.

You can’t help but kiss him, seeing the way the moon puts an ethereal glow on his gestures. “I missed us too,” You start, in a soft voice. The air between you is finally cleared. “and I love you too.”

“Can we date, for real this time?” Matt blurts out, going to kiss you again. He feels intoxicated, your second-ever kiss not being a fraction of enough to sate his ever-growing hunger.

You might have started as a fraud, but somewhere along the way, when the tides shifted and your world changed, you emerged from your cocoon, into a glorious and charismatic butterfly.

“If you’ll have me as your girlfriend, for real this time.”

He kisses you again.

#matthew sturniolo x reader #matt sturniolo #chris sturniolo #nick sturniolo #sturniolo triplets #matt sturniolo x reader #sturniolo x reader #matthew sturniolo #christopher sturniolo #nicolas sturniolo

167 notes · View notes

talenlee · 3 months

Text

Why Is Druid?

Say that like ‘where is Wizard Hut?‘

I love the 4e Druid. This is a marked change from how much I liked the 3e druid, or how often you might see me playing a druid in a Baldur’s Gate game. Back in 3rd edition, the druid, despite being very powerful, never really engaged me, in part perhaps because I was always trying to find something exploitative and powerful rather than merely accepting the juggernaut of a toolkit the game just left in the Player’s Handbook. You couldn’t get clever with the Druid, you just had to pick it up and use it, like some sort of society of creative anachronisms where one of the anachronisms available to the players was has gun. Valid, but hardly sporting.

The Druid in 4th edition is different. Wildly different. Weirdly different, and different in one of those ways that shows what I think of as a seam in the design between 4th and 3rd editions of D&D.

The Druid was one of 3rd edition’s great mistakes, a full spellcasting class with healer capacity to serve as a pinch-hitter healer in a group that wanted things a little more varied, addressing an enormously complex potential build from its earlier edition, 2e, and all in the process, resulting in some deeply confused mash up of abilities that attempted to address confusion with volume. The druid of 2e had a special unique set of rules compared to the Cleric — for example, at a certain level, you passed into a specific category of Druidic ability and now you were technically a Hierophant, and Hierophants had seven extra spells of every level. Of course there was a limited supply of Hierophants in the world, so there was a question of if you could level up if another one existed, and maybe there’s a one-in, one-out policy? First in, first fired?

Anyway, I can’t speak to how it played, but I am at least aware, on the edges of it, that the 2e druid was odd. It had a lot of things it could do, but much of how it worked, reading the books, seemed to be interesting but challenging to manage. You could wild shape, you could heal, you could cast utility spells, you could even fight with some melee weapons — personally, I didn’t see any of it worth it, because none of the things it could do it could do very well.

3e addressed this seeming difficulty by instead taking all those different options and bringing them all up to the same level. Wild Shape worked by checking traits of monster units, which meant that you weren’t limited to specific reinterpretations of animals and instead could do what a druid feels like it should do — you know, turn into an animal. The spells were rebalanced and shared across different classes, which meant that they tended to work in a more standardised way. Armour rules were aggregated, and weapons were made less terrible.

The result was that the 3e druid went from being ‘decent’ at a bunch of things to ‘good’ at everything it wanted to do. The problem of the druid then became about picking the thing you wanted to at every opportunity, and doing a good job of it — you’d have druids carrying wands of healing so they could dedicate their spell slots to more important tasks, like Flame Striking opponents, or messing up the battlefield with roots. You’d also see druids keeping the ‘best’ list of animals on hand, and every new monster book presented a new chance for druids to develop a new best form.

It also created the strange question of What does the druid do?

The answer was ‘everything.’

The 4e Druid, in comparison and contrast to these designs is something very different that touches, at best, on the periphery of what the 3e Druid could be. I mean it stands to reason, you can only ever touch on doing everything when something you’re working from is so powerful. 4e with its role system of Defender, Striker, Leader and Controller, and its reliable, reusable balance math suddenly was confronted with fitting an elephant into a shoebox.

How do you represent something busted that could do everything in the context of a new system that sought to explicitly prevent that? I joked when the game was new that the four roles were Defender, Striker, Leader and Miscellaneous. That any class too powerful, with too much stuff it could potentially do, got thrown to the Controller role as suggested by the first Controller we ever saw being the Wizard. Oh and back in Player’s Handbook 1, the Wizard had a few builds that were pretty ridiculously pushed — the pinball wizard, I’ll talk about it sometime — and that meant that it was easy to feel like the Controller Does Everything.

That impression diluted through experience, of course, and eventually it came to that while yes, the Controller sure has some Miscellaneous vibes, the core of what the Controller was there to do was to attack the enemy action economy. Nice and obvious to a non giga-nerd, right? Okay, how about this: The leader lets you do more things, the controller stops them from doing more things?

And into this space, they poured the druid.

It works beautifully, for my tastes; the druid needs to do lots of things to feel properly druidy, but you need to make sure the doing lots of things doesn’t unbalance the game. Controllers have the widest variety of things they can do and ways they can do them – inflicting status conditions, changing enemy position, preventing specific action types, making areas on the battlefield inaccessible, these are all ‘controllery’ things, and that means there’s a lot of different ways you can flavour them. The Invoker is most famous for making zones in the play space hard to deal with, the Wizard has a build that slides things all over the place, and the psion controls people with immense penalties to their damage rolls.

Obligatory pause where, while reading this aloud, for either Fox or I to comment on how amazing it is that Dishearten is an AOE power.

Anyway, the druid was designed to be a mode switcher class. That is, there are two ways a druid can do things. One is a melee controller that makes a single target’s life harder, the other is a ranged controller that makes a large group of enemies’ lives harder. This mode switching then adds a new element to the class that your powers can interact with, where you now have control powers that can add a mode switching element to them as well. This is your Wild Shape – you transform into some kind of nonspecific beast, which can use your Wild Shape powers. Each form has fewer powers to manage, and you can build your druid to specialise in one or the other or do a mix.

This lets the druid do the ‘a lot’ without letting them actually do everything. You have a lot of choices and a lot of ways to play with those pieces, but even just how often you use the mode switch is part of what the druid does to control the battlefield. When I first played a druid, it was not uncommon to start a fight out of wild shape, use the first turn to make some kind of area control power, then shift into wild shape for the rest of the fight kicking people into that area control power. There are druids builds that work like wizards and only ever shapeshift to get away from problems, and make a hit while scuttling away, or to sit on a specific type of problem. There were druids who focused on summoning monsters and using them as kind of turrets on the battlefield, positioning allies in a way that benefitted them around those summons.

Lone artillery combat encounters, where you have a bunch of stuff in front of a long-ranged attacker? Druids love those. Even at level 1, that artillery is spending their days completely stuck underneath a Fire Hawk power.

Problem is, of course, that if you want to do Everything doing a Lot is going to miss something. That was what led to the subclasses of the druid, the ones that added healer elements to the druid, because the druid back in 3e could do that. It added animal companions, because the druid back in 3e could do that. Now I don’t worry too much about these things because if I wanted an animal companion on my Druid, I’d take a theme for that, but also because these changes were introduced in an Essentials book.

Which is to say, they’re crap.

They’re not crap crap, like I try to defend Essentials as giving players a choice for simplified character builds, but in the specific case of the Essentials Druids, in order to work with the simplified choices, these Essentials druids with their animal companions and their healing powers have to look at all other Druid powers and not use them. The only use they get out of their animal companion is using the specific subset of powers that make them work, and that makes combat more samey. But again: That’s a thing you probably want if you want a simplified build.

Still, it gives rise to my favourite joke – I mean like, funny thing, not really a joke, there’s no subversion of reality or anything here – about the Healer Druid. See, every Leader in the game gets an encounter power, usable twice a combat at level 1, that heals an ally with a bonus. Every class gets their own version that lets them distinguish their class specifically and add some interesting detail that shows how this Leader differs from other Leaders.

The Healer druid build gets Healing Word.

The Cleric power.

Literally, the same power, same name, listed as a Cleric power.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#DnD 4e #Dungeons &amp; Dragons #Games

93 notes · View notes