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bltngames · 10 months ago

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I Have Complicated Thoughts About Mother 3

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Confined to a tiny room, I pulled out my off-brand retro portable and loaded up the fan translation of Mother 3. It had been on my list of "important games to play" for literal years at this point, if not more than a decade, and playing Mother 3 was bottle necking a lot of other stuff -- for example, I also wanted to play Undertale, but swore I'd need to finish Mother 3 first, despite being very graciously gifted Undertale only a few months after it came out on PC.

Being something I wanted to play, that obviously meant avoiding spoilers. When the ability was added to places like Twitter or Tumblr to block specific keywords, often the first one I'd block was "Mother 3" alongside the names of a handful of characters I knew like Lucas, Claus, and Kumatora.

I'd played a couple hours of Mother 3 once before, right when the translation patch first came out, so I knew what happened in the opening scenes of the game. I knew what a gut punch it was. It definitely worried me, because as I started the game back up, now in 2021, I silently thought about what it would be like playing a game that starts with your player character's mother dying, as I looked up at my own bed ridden mother.

It was May of 2021 that she developed debilitating back pain. There was an easy enough explanation for that; we had just gone through a hellish (and potentially legally dubious) renovation forced upon us by the corporation that owned our gigantic apartment complex. Due to a scheduling error, we had less than a week to pack up our whole apartment so they could move us out, renovate the unit, and then move us back in. We attributed her back pain to that moving process -- lifting cardboard boxes and such.

But the back pain kept getting worse. They prescribed her stronger and stronger medication for what they claimed was sciatica, but it never seemed to help. After multiple trips to the emergency room, she was finally admitted to the hospital proper, where her femur randomly shattered during a routine procedure. The femur is the longest, strongest bone in your body, and typically only breaks during extremely violent impacts, like car crashes and stuff. For my mother, it broke as nurses were shifting her around to clean her bedding. Tests for bone cancer seemed to come back negative, so the doctors shrugged at us and considered it a freak accident and just the toll of old age.

There was no way she was making it back up the stairs to our apartment any time soon (if ever), so it was decided she'd have to heal from that broken leg at my brother's place, and since my brother and his wife both work day jobs, I volunteered to take care of my Mom while she got better. Hence why I was stuck in this tiny room, booting up Mother 3 in July or August of 2021.

My Mom never got better. It would be eight months before they told us they had somehow missed detecting her cancer, and by then, it had spread so viciously they weren't even sure where it originally started from. By the time they told us this, she had only days left.

Every step of the way in those 8 months, as she insisted over and over she was healing and told me about all the things she wanted to get back to doing, I believed her. But my Mom also taught me to always expect and brace for the worst. So as I watched Mother 3's Claus and Lucas bury their own deceased mom, there was an undeniable heaviness swelling in my heart. A feeling I could not shake. Though I didn't know yet, I knew something wasn't right, even if the doctors continued to shrug as more symptoms mounted. I could see myself in the same shoes as Claus and Lucas, and I didn't like it.

Once upon a time, I loved RPGs. I cut my teeth on Final Fantasy 2 for the SNES. Though to be honest, I don't remember my time with it very fondly. I didn't really understand the genre; I thought "hit points" referred to points on the body you could be struck at. Like, your elbow is a hit point. Your ear is a hit point. So on and so forth. When the game told me a monster like Scarmiliogne had "3,000 Hit Points", I figured that meant he was a giant, and thus had more surface area to strike at. I was not a very bright kid, but in my defense, nobody ever bothered to correct me, either.

The first RPG to really stick out in my head was Earthbound (known in Japan as Mother 2). On the surface, Earthbound felt like a kitschy look at hometown Americana, as filtered through the lens of a Japanese writer. Though Earthbound sort of focused on contemporary America when it came out, to me, it's always carried this vibe of Norman Rockwell by way of The Peanuts gang. Though you chat it up with mohawk wearing punks, visit video arcades, and order pizza over the phone, something about its story feels deliberately retro and nostalgic, even in the mid-90's when it first came out.

Earthbound is about leaving home for the first time, feeling sad about it, and calling your Mom at a payphone to cheer up. It's about taking on huge responsibilities while you're still just a kid swinging a baseball bat. It's about going from your house on a dirt road and traveling all the way up to the big city and beyond. It's about making best friends and bullies, and some of those story elements hit close to home for me. It's about finding an inner strength you didn't know was there, and to keep going, no matter what. It's about music and the secret song that plays in your soul.

Earthbound is a warm, deeply heart-felt game that also happens to feature zombies, bubblegum chewing monkeys, time travel, secret civilizations full of unknown creatures, and a sequence where you beat up an entire police force one cop at a time.

That is not the kind of game Mother 3 is.

I suppose I wasn't really sure what I expected Mother 3 was going to be. All I'd really known was Earthbound, plus the 5 or so hours I'd played of the original NES game, retroactively renamed from "Mother" to "Earthbound Beginnings" in 2015. The retro Americana vibes I felt in Earthbound are even stronger in Beginnings. Though the story of Earthbound Beginnings claims it takes place in the 1980's, the visual identity rings much closer to the 50's or 60's. One of round vintage Cadillacs, greasers with big pompadours, and roaming hippies preaching peace and love.

Mother 3 deliberately obscures when and where it's set, for reasons that will eventually become clear. You better get used to it too, because holding information back is kind of a running theme.

Because if I'm being totally honest, I didn't like Mother 3. And at first, I was struggling to figure out why. Earlier when I said "I loved RPGs", that's because my life changed to a point where I felt like I didn't have room for them anymore. Games with lots of dialog meant they demanded my full, undivided attention. When I was sitting at a TV or a computer, I was often multitasking between multiple forms of output -- I'd be doing work while watching a Youtube video or listening to a podcast, and that slowly began to push out story-driven games like RPGs in favor of lighter, more replayable experiences I could engage with while I also did something else.

The one place that was not true was in the portable space. I didn't have a smartphone for the longest time, so I'd often find myself in a commute or on a lunch break at work with nothing to do but pull out something like my Nintendo DS and crank away at an RPG. I devoured games like Final Fantasy IV, Phantasy Star Zero and Bowser's Inside Story. Even games I did not particularly like, such as Kingdom Hearts re:Coded and Pokemon Pearl ended up getting a lot of play.

At some point that changed, and it changed so gradually I didn't even realize it for the longest time. Over the last ten years I have tried and failed to enjoy portable versions of Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI, and found neither game to my taste. FF5 felt far too boilerplate in terms of structure and I simply got bored of it halfway in. With FF6, hype had led me to believe it was some kind of life-changing RPG super-classic, and I came away extremely unimpressed with both its story and its pacing.

Both FF5 and FF6 came at a time after I'd finally gotten a few Android devices of my own -- in fact, most of Final Fantasy V was played on a Samsung tablet while I was at work. By now, I was starting to question whether or not having breezy mobile games like Pac-Man 256 was hurting my ability to commit to longer RPGs, even in the last space where it felt like I could sit down and focus on them.

This is sort of what spurred me to start Mother 3 at all: since I was at my brother's place, my desktop computer and most of my video games were on the other side of town. All I had with me was a 12 year old laptop that was only good as a word processor, and a handheld emulation device called an "Anbernic". As the weeks stretched into months, I needed something to do or I was going to go insane. It seemed like no better time to knock something off my bucket list, but now it was starting to feel like strike three with portable RPGs.

My malaise only added fuel to the fire: am I now simply too distractible everywhere? Would I rather be playing simple, quick-hit arcade style games, forever?

It seemed like the perfect scapegoat, too. Maybe the problem wasn't that Final Fantasy VI hasn't aged very well, and more just the fact that my tastes had changed. After all, Final Fantasy VI is deeply beloved and considered one of the best games in the series. Perhaps I was the problem.

But that's not entirely true. The problem with FF6 is that its story simultaneously felt too complex and dead simple at the same time. By now, I was engaging with RPGs where I'd only play them for 20-30 minutes once a week, and I could never remember what was going on because the plot felt like it was over my head. But when a major event would happen, it was always conveyed in this rushed, shallow way. The reason I could never remember what was going on is because nothing ever felt important enough to leave a lasting impact on me.

That was never true with Mother 3. Even though it took me close to three full years to finish it, it wasn't that hard to recall where I'd left off, even if "where I'd left off" was over four months ago.

No, the further I got into Mother 3, the clearer it became that I was not vibing with the story.

Whereas the first two Earthbound games seemed to be deeply mired in warm feelings of childhood nostalgia, Mother 3 is a bitter, angry game about how much growing up sucks. All three games are of children coming of age and taking their first shaky steps into adulthood, but whereas Earthbound wields rose-tinted sweetness, Mother 3 grabs you by the neck and lays out a cold, harsh reality.

You play as Lucas, who has a twin brother named Claus, and a father, a cowboy named Flint. The death of their mother shatters their entire family; both Flint and Claus have emotional breakdowns, the latter of which ends in Claus running away from home and Flint leaving to go find him. Both of them vanish. That leaves you, as Lucas, in the care of your grandfather, Alec.

Unfortunately for Lucas, the accident that killed his mother was only the start of a dangerous chain of events, and he soon finds himself swept up in adventure in the way RPG protagonists generally do. Earthbound set itself apart from typical RPG tropes by getting away from fantastical elements and basing itself in real life (albeit a strange, exaggerated version of it). Places with bicycles, fast food, and ATMs.

Mother 3 generally avoids this. You're introduced to Tazmily Village, an isolated farming community of log cabins and dirt roads, buried deep within the heart of the Sunshine Forest.

It's not really known when or where Mother 3 is set. Compared to Earthbound's attachment to contemporary America, Sunshine Forest and the areas surrounding it feature strange creatures like dragons, and even old, dilapidated castles. And yet Mother 3 also seems to have more in common with the wild-west-era American frontier than it does anything else, but even that isn't quite right.

Tazmily is presented as the ultimate in idyllic life. It's a place where everybody helps everybody, intrinsically, out of the goodness of their own hearts. Poke around at the start of the game and you'll find that though they do have a jail, it's never been used, because nobody has ever committed a crime.

Until one day, a mysterious man named Fassad appears. He's quick to charm the residents of Tazmily, and introduces the village to the concept of money. He also introduces the concept of deception, as in the night, Fassad steals some of that same money, sowing the first seeds of greed and distrust in these simple people. This rapidly transforms Tazmily from a sleepy, easy-going community to a bustling town of paved roads, automobiles, and even, thanks to further gifts from Fassad, technological entertainment delivered by his "Happy Boxes" -- cubes with embedded, glowing screens that emit a hypnotic signal intended to make people feel good (and more willing to spend their newly acquired finances).

As Lucas, you oppose all of this. Fassad is clearly an evil, scheming man, both establishing and sabotaging a structure of financial power for his own gain, and its changing Tazmily for the worse. Since Fassad has arrived, Tazmily has seen an increase in monster attacks, and eventually even freak lightning storms that destroy whole entire buildings -- which coincidentally always belong to people that oppose Fassad.

Funny how that works.

After Lucas and his grandpa Alec accuse Fassad, he uses his foothold with the people of Tazmily to brand you as a traitor. The very people that once treated you like family now curse your name for daring to threaten their modernized way of life. Soon, the first mayor of Tazmily officially disowns you, your grandfather is locked up in the newly built elderly care center, and your house somehow ends up being the next thing obliterated by the mysterious lightning storm.

It's a hell of a first impression. The dominating message Mother 3 sends in its opening chapters is that things used to be better. Back when it was just people helping people, before the days of television, and cars, and roads, and even money. When the only thing that mattered was the sweat on your brow, the food in your stomach, and where the sun was in the sky.

It felt cynical to me. Jaded. Things were different in 2006 when Mother 3 first came out, but it's hard not to read that today as some extension of the tired complaints around having too many devices and too much convenience. Like that meme that simply blames all of society's problems on having a phone. And it's a well Mother 3 goes back to over and over and over again: that Fassad brings the corruption of money, the corruption of technology, and the corruption of modern civilization, turning the residents of Tazmily into rude, vapid, ignorant zombies who have grown complacent with the increasingly bad things happening around them.

And that's not the only thing in the game that can be read as cynical, either. More than once Mother 3 presents us with scenarios where Lucas faces down adult responsibilities and uses this as a way to express something depressing or frustrating as just being the way the world works. Such as early on when Lucas has to enter a factory as a new employee, and we're told about the joys of child labor -- including the hard hours you're expected to work for minimal pay.

Or how about when you receive a fast travel vehicle halfway through the game. Not only will it become permanently unusable if you accidentally allow it to run out of fuel (pretty easy, considering there's no visible fuel gauge), but refueling it incorrectly will cause it to explode, also rendering the vehicle useless. After all, you're just a dumb kid, and complex machines like these are meant to be cared for properly.

Some of this is definitely meant to be more funny than serious or soul crushing, but the whole game has this rough edge to it that wasn't there in the original Earthbound, where Lucas brushes up against some fact of adulthood and it serves as an uncomfortable lesson. I couldn't help but read it as the game imparting something about how much growing up sucks, and how much that's just a part of life. Your parents will die, your neighbors are ignorant, work sucks and you'll probably mess it up anyway. Get over it.

I even got this impression coming from the game's own upgrade systems. Both Lucas and another party member Kumatora can learn PSI abilities, which are basically the game's magic spells. When Lucas or Kumatora gets strong enough to learn a new PSI ability, they break out in an uncontrollable fever, a status effect that limits your ability to do certain things like sprinting. Until that fever breaks, you have to slowly walk everywhere.

It doesn't really add anything to the experience. It doesn't make the game more fun, or more exciting. It's just one of those annoying things you have to put up with, because again, that's life, kid. Sometimes you get sick and you just can't move very fast.

The overall vibe of cynicism gets even worse as you start encountering Mother 3's handful of references to Earthbound. Mother 3 may go out of its way to forge a narrative separate from Earthbound, but there are definitely more than a few scenes referencing special moments from that game, and at least to me, all of them felt extremely pandering. It was as if Mother 3 was beating me over the head, jumping up and down shouting, "It's that thing you remember! Do you remember? Remember Earthbound? Look, we can do that thing too!"

The further you progress in the game, the more these references change from feeling pandering to almost being mocking. It's eventually revealed that the game's true antagonist, and the man giving orders to Fassad, is Porky, the mean little rich kid from Earthbound. Porky has now become a man who seemingly lives in the past, having constructed multiple shrines of mementos from his adventures battling Ness and friends in the previous game. The ultimate version of this is his monument to nostalgia, New Pork City, the final area of Mother 3.

It's effectively one gigantic theme park patterned after the major locales of Earthbound, all focused around celebrating how great Porky was back then, and how great he apparently still is.

And again, it felt unnecessarily angry. Just like how Fassad conquered and spoiled the idyllic village of Tazmily, Porky had taken ownership over Earthbound nostalgia and made it feel dirty. It felt like Mother 3, a game that went out of its way to be so different from Earthbound, sometimes almost shockingly so, was now spitting directly in my face. Porky, the ultimate obnoxious loser who just won't go away, refuses to let go of Earthbound. And you don't want to be like Porky, do you?

It started to feel insulting. Several times over the course of playing Mother 3, I was considering quitting the game and never looking back because it seemed to be going out of its way to twist the knife. Was Mother 3 somehow bitter about Earthbound's legacy?

Again, I had done my absolute best to avoid spoilers. Blocking Mother-related tags on social media was just the first step. In general, when Mother 3 came up in casual conversations I was privy to, I would quietly excuse myself and find somewhere else to be until I was sure they had changed subjects.

There has been a degree of "spoiler culture" discourse in recent years. Some claim it's a marketing tactic. Marvel movies only make you care so much about spoilers because that's how they get butts in seats on opening weekend. I don't know about that -- I've cared about spoilers my entire life, and I know I'm not alone. The pilot episode of the seminal sitcom Seinfeld ends with Jerry trying to avoid spoilers for a Mets baseball game that he recorded. And that was 1989. It's been a valid concern for much longer than any notion of a summer blockbuster movie.

Simply put, surprises are better when they are surprising. That doesn't mean you necessarily have to like surprises, but I think you'd have to be a pretty sad sack to go out of your way to ruin a surprise for someone else. For people who aren't curmudgeons about it, there are few things better in life than a nice surprise. Something unexpected like that could make a person's whole day, if not their whole week.

If modern movie culture has done anything, it's made people unable to keep spoilers to themselves. Blocking social media terms will only get you so far. When an artist posts a piece of fan art or friends share memes and they don't include any text, then there's nothing for the blocking algorithm to detect. And when a conversation starts with spoilers, there's simply no time to avoid the landmine -- which, to be fair, was the final punchline Jerry suffered in the Seinfeld pilot, as his neighbor Kramer blurted out the results of the game before Jerry had a chance to protest.

Many of Mother 3's biggest mysteries were spoiled well in advance of me ever actually playing the game. The biggest one being the reveal of the mastermind behind the game's Pigmask Army, the aforementioned Porky Minch. Mother 3 goes to great lengths to tease this mystery out across its entire 30 hour run time, dropping major hints as you pass the halfway point.

And then Porky, in his Mother 3 form, cameos as an early boss battle in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, one of the ten best selling games on the Nintendo Wii. Thanks to director Masahiro Sakurai, more people know who the final boss of Mother 3 is than have actually played Mother 3 (or, let's be honest, will ever play Mother 3).

This is why I freely mentioned Porky earlier, because if anyone knows anything about Mother 3 at this point, it's that Porky is the primary villain. The same goes for New Pork City, which was a prominent arena in Smash Bros.

In a roundabout way, Smash Bros. was also responsible for the other major Mother 3 spoiler I bore witness to; Mother 3 pixel artwork ended up being used in other Smash Bros. games over the years, including artwork of other characters with secret identities. That hasn't stopped a number of Smash Bros. fans from casually name-dropping the true, unmasked identity of this character online. I may have avoided conversations about Mother 3, but the tendrils of these spoilers extended far beyond its humble borders. Sometimes, you just can't escape it.

This is not me drumming up any sort of "woe is me" sympathy, mind you. But ultimately, it did have an effect on me. In most of Mother 3's cutscenes, I was waiting for the big reveals I knew were coming. Expectation is everything, and when you're watching every cutscene through a microscope, it changes how you see things. There's the old adage about being so focused on one tree that you miss seeing the rest of the forest, but imagine you're so zoomed in you can't even see the one tree, and you're just kind of... stuck there.

I often wondered if my general frustration with Mother 3's aggressive tone was related to the fact I knew some of its biggest late game emotional beats 30 hours in advance.

Would its numerous Earthbound references still feel so patronizing if I didn't know what was coming? Or would all of its cute little surprises and shocking revelations make for a more enjoyable game over the long term?

Maybe the whole thing started off on the wrong foot in general. It's definitely a choice to play a game about characters processing the death of their mother while you yourself are processing the death of your mother. Characters in the game itself get bitter about this, so doesn't it make sense that I would be, too? Again, expectation is everything, and sometimes you just wake up on the wrong side of the bed. It could have just been a bad time in my life to experience this story.

And to some degree that's true, because the thing about Mother 3 is that I just didn't get it for the longest time.

Despite a big rant about spoiler culture just now, I can't talk about this without spoiling Mother 3's last big secret, because it turns out to be central to the game's entire theme. However, in my defense, I am giving you a big warning: If you've somehow read this far and still care about preserving the game's final mystery (and parts of the ending to Earthbound, too), this is your signal to turn back now.

Okay. Ready?

So while the people of Tazmily are comfortable and protective of their newly developed suburban lifestyle, past the game's halfway point they all start talking about a far off land: the big city. It's a place where dreams are made, or so they're told. And as Mother 3 starts down its home stretch, Lucas and friends return to find Tazmily deserted. Everyone who's anyone has left for New Pork City.

The reality of New Pork City is a lot more depressing than the dream, but then it always would be. The residents of Tazmily find it more trashy than cool. A lot of the theme park rides are broken, and those that still function are kind of dangerous. There's even open sewer vents leaking noxious gasses. And at the center of it all stands the massive Empire Porky Building.

Lucas and his friends are only allowed into the building when the time is right. Until then, you have to wander around New Pork City and explore.

Those open vents turn out to be an invitation to enter the sewer when Lucas's dog, Boney, becomes lost. Reuniting with Boney leads you to discover a secret entrance to the less glamorous parts of New Pork City, and you find yourself in an old, run down apartment complex. Though the hall is strewn with trash and grime, at the very end you find an apartment belonging to a strange man named Leder.

You initially meet Leder very early in the game. He's an older resident of Tazmily known for being unnaturally tall -- well over four times taller than most characters in the game. And to most people living in Tazmily, Leder is known to never speak. His only job is acting as a human watch tower, armed with a bell to be rung when there is danger.

Leder's apartment in New Pork City is reasonably sized for a single person, with two floors, but for a man of his stature, Leder makes the space look tiny. However, by climbing up to the second floor, Lucas can now finally talk to Leder face to face for the first time. As it turns out, Leder can talk, but by being so tall, most people couldn't hear him. Not that it mattered much, given Leder had taken a vow of silence in order to protect the true origin of Tazmily Village. Given the circumstances, and considering Lucas is old enough now, Leder believes it is finally time to learn the truth.

The truth being that despite Mother 3's outward appearance of taking place in a fantasy land full of dragons and chimera, it is in fact a distant future earth. Or, well... what's left of it.

According to Leder's retelling, after bracing itself for the apocalypse, humanity finally found itself at the end of the world as we know it. Facing mutually assured extinction, a select group of individuals boarded something known as "The White Ship" and traveled to the furthest, most secretive location on earth in order to escape destruction. Once they arrived at this mysterious island, those people used a device to erase the memories of their past lives.

The idea was to start over from scratch, free from the bonds that lead to the destruction of the old world. And so, the simple farming village of Tazmily was born. It is very likely that Lucas is one of the first generation of people born and raised in Tazmily.

For years, Leder not only kept watch over Tazmily Village, but over its people, as well. Entrusted as one of the only people who knew the truth.

Tazmily Village was a success. Its people lived in peace and prosperity, free from greed and power. However, one day, a man named Porky appeared. Porky was not from this world -- not from the old world, and not a part of this new one, either. Using the Phase Distortion machine from the end of Earthbound, Porky had been carving a swath of chaos through all of time and space. Having been defeated and ejected from pretty much every other reality, Porky eventually found himself here: the last, most defenseless place on the timeline.

With nobody around to tell him no, Porky set about treating the island like his own personal playground. He used the Phase Distortion Machine to pull in creatures from alternate dimensions, he used forbidden science to establish an army and build factories. And, once Porky became aware of Tazmily and the truth of "The White Ship", he made it one of his goals to restore their memories and further exploit their desires.

Leder's story recontextualizes all of Mother 3. It's not a game about people being corrupted by modern society; instead, it's a game about people being unable to escape it. That, despite their best efforts to run away from it, forget about it, and start over, who they are still catches up to them. When the residents of Tazmily brand Lucas as a traitor, they aren't doing it drunk on their shiny new toys, it's more that their old habits are re-asserting themselves. Not a people being corrupted, but a people who simply had their existing nature freed. Human beings acting like human beings.

This recontextualizes Porky's role in the story, too. More than being the harbinger of nostalgia, Porky takes advantage of Tazmily's amnesia to rewrite history to his benefit. His shrines to Earthbound memorabilia are less about making us remember what happened in the previous game and more about establishing his version of events, where he can refer to Ness, Paula, Jeff and Poo as his "precious friends" instead of what they actually were: the band of kids that stopped him from bringing about the eradication of the known universe.

Instead of shunning the past, Mother 3 is telling us that not only is running away from our history impossible, but in trying to do so, we open ourselves up to an even worse and easily exploitable weakness where guys like Porky get to catalyze their twisted version of history. Only by moving forward, unafraid, with courage and the full knowledge of where we came from, can we create a truly better world. We cannot bury who we used to be; we must accept and grow beyond it.

There is no stronger denouement to this ideal than the game's very, very end.

All throughout the game, Lucas has dealt with two of Porky's highest ranking officers. The first one being Fassad, who brings commerce and greed to the people of Tazmily. The other one, someone I haven't really mentioned until now, is only known as "The Masked Man." Mother 3 pits The Masked Man against Lucas as sort of a rival -- he's one of the small handful of humans you meet able to use PSI abilities, and most of them are identical to what Lucas can do.

In the lead up to actually meeting Porky in the flesh for the first time, Lucas finally catches up with his dad, Flint. Lucas hasn't seen his father in years, not since the incident after their mother's funeral that broke up their family. And yet Mother 3 treats his reappearance as strangely casual. There's no big, emotional reunion. Flint and Lucas barely even acknowledge it. Flint is just here now, another NPC milling about with the residents of Tazmily.

On the way to the final showdown, Flint will suddenly ask you to stay behind. He plans to face Porky alone.

And this is probably supposed to raise all kinds of strange questions. Could Flint be the Masked Man? After all, if Lucas has PSI abilities, maybe that's a trait that runs in the family. Maybe he inherited it from Flint, and that's why The Masked Man has all the same abilities.

But just one or two rooms later, you find Flint completely laid out. He faced Porky and The Masked Man and came away defeated. It now falls on Lucas and his friends to stop them. Before Lucas leaves, Flint offers one more piece of information for us: The Masked Man, the rival Lucas has faced almost the entire game, is actually his twin brother, Claus.

Once Porky is successfully dealt with, the final battle of Mother 3 comes down to brother versus brother. Claus, the boy who ran from his tragedy, and Lucas, the hero, the boy who became a stronger person by overcoming that tragedy.

That's it. That's everything Mother 3 is trying to say. It doesn't get much clearer than that.

Watching the credits roll, I couldn't help but think back to earlier in the game. There I was, having just arrived in New Pork City, and I was talking to my friends about how it had taken me close to three years to finish Mother 3. I'd only play the game in fits and starts because I didn't really like it, but I was forcing myself through it anyway.

One friend told me, "If you haven't enjoyed the first 25 hours, then it's not like the last five or ten is going to change your mind."

It really cannot be understated how talking to Leder completely rewrote my entire perspective on this game. But then you also have to wonder: how many more people were in the same boat I was and didn't keep going? People who got fed up with feeling like the game was bitter and patronizing and just gave up?

I knew there must have been something special in this game. You have to figure that, given the circumstances (sequel to a 10+ year old RPG, only released in Japan), total lifetime sales figures for Mother 3 are probably under five million copies. Probably under two million, if I'm being honest. That's still in the realm of success, especially for 2006, but Nintendo is also a company that deals in games with 20 million, 40 million, even 60 and 80 million plus sales. Mother 3 is some very small potatoes for them.

Despite such a comparatively modest success, Mother 3's influence feels hard to ignore. From fueling skits on Robot Chicken to Adventure Time and Undertale's whole... everything, Mother 3 (and the wider franchise as a whole) is extremely beloved by many, even if it doesn't do record breaking sales numbers.

And that's before you figure in the whole fan translation angle, too. Everything about Mother 3 screams something that should be niche, and yet it's downright prolific.

It demanded more respect than giving up before seeing the credits roll. If I had quit upon reaching New Pork City, I would have missed this game's whole redemption arc.

I suppose, then, that just makes this the chronicle of a long, difficult, emotional journey. One I originally felt like I needed to do more than I actually wanted to. That in itself is just another one of those many things adults just have to deal with, right? That's in keeping with the themes of the game.

And, ultimately, there is light at the end of this tunnel. I guess it's not really about charging forward with courage, it's more that as long as you hold on to yourself, everything will be okay. Everyone has their tragedies. But closing yourself off from tragedy or running away from it isn't going to fix you. Your love is what will save you.

The love you share with family. The love you share with friends. The love you share with the world.

Love meant Flint never gave up trying to save Claus, even as that same boy tried to kill him.

Love led Kumatora, Duster and Boney to stay with Lucas no matter how strange or frightening things became. Together, they faced deadly mutants, the darkest hallucinations, and even had to contend with the possibility that all human life on their planet might cease to exist.

Love was Lucas never abandoning the people of Tazmily, even as they shunned him.

Love will provide you with a strength beyond anything else in this universe. No matter how much adult life beats you down, love will always be the single greatest and most simple thing we all have. Rich or poor, old or young, love is the power that binds us all. It deserves to be cultivated, protected, and celebrated. Love heals all. Without it, we cease to be human. And believing in love is what takes the most courage.

But only through love can we find the way forward.

#writing #nintendo #HAL Laboratory #gameboy advance #mother 3 #shigisato itoi #shogo sakai #essay

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 2 months ago

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hi bestie, i am just dropping by to say that i LOVE the keys of heaven so far!!!!!!!!!! i am already eagerly anticipating their hookup and i know it is going to be 🥵🥵🥵 i was just curious as to if you had any personal experience with catholicism that inspired this story? thank you and if its too personal of course you dont have to answer :)

Hello bestie!!! Thank you so much for your question 🥰 Okay so here's some storytime with Maggie you did not sign up for:

So I generally was not raised to be religious, my mom dabbled in a lot of random religions and my dad and stepmom are kinda Southern Baptists but I never really felt drawn to any particular faith.

But for a few years when I was a kid, my mom was married to this Italian dude Charles. Charles was kind of odd but pretty harmless and he tried to buy my love with donuts and goldfish (which kept dying). Anyway, Charles believed I should go to Catholic school, so that's what I did for 1st and 2nd grade when I was approximately 6-7 years old. I don't have a ton of memories from Catholic school, but I remember the nuns and teachers being mean to me because I was a really quiet creative kid with bad handwriting. Overall I wouldn't say it was a positive experience, but I did think the rituals and saint stories were neat!

The strongest memory I have from Catholic school is my best friend Scott. When we met he was pretty sad because his mom had recently died of cancer. I don't remember how we started hanging out but soon we were together ALL the time, and we would sit next to each other in every class, and when I got my ears pierced I chose his birthstone as the color (ruby for July). The teachers would joke about it and say we were going to get married one day.

Scott and I were so obsessed with each other that our parents started arranging playdates. Scott's dad Hugo was nice and they had this cute dog named Bandit and I absolutely LOVED getting to go to Scott's house and play with toy dinosaurs and stuff. My mom actually left me with Scott + Hugo for a long weekend so she could go on a work trip and we saw the first Harry Potter movie in the theater together. Hugo gave me coal for Christmas as a joke but I like rocks so I was genuinely into it, and he thought that was hilarious and had to explain the joke to me.

Then my mom and Charles broke up (she kicked him out of the main part of the house and he had to live in the basement and "shower" in the pool out back with a bar of soap), and Hugo wanted to marry my mom so we could be a big happy family. Scott and I were SOOOOO down for this and thought we were going to be real siblings, which obviously would have made things weird if we did end up getting married one day, but we were simple souls and didn't realize this. My mom and Hugo dated for a while but from what she said I guess Hugo was reallllllllllllllly Catholic and had strict ideas of gender roles and didn't believe in sex except for procreation and stuff, so my mom thought he was a freak (derogatory) and it did not work out.

We moved across town and since I didn't have an Italian stepdad anymore, my mom didn't see any point in me going to Catholic school and couldn't afford it anyway, so I switched schools and never really saw Scott again, except for ONE TIME when my mom randomly invited Scott and Hugo over for dinner and didn't tell me in advance, and when I saw Scott I legitimately started crying because I was so happy and we hugged for like 10 minutes.

It's strange because it was always super innocent (we never even tried to kiss or anything) but also emotionally consuming, and to this day when I think about Catholic school I remember Scott and I can still physically feel that drive to be close to him and how comfortable I felt in that "relationship."

Anyway, since then I've looked him up on Facebook (we have mutual friends) and he seems like kind of a loser so I guess it worked out for the best! Or maybe I could have fixed him 😢

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hanakihan · 2 years ago

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thanks to Vlad and his videos about pretending to be a girl at Omegle (plz check it out it’s pure comedy material) me and homies created cracked AU

so like Jinchul coming from orphanage is really proficient in girly things because he was really close to girls during his orphanage years. Girls found him pretty enough to drag into their circle to try make up on him or just style his hair plus with younger girls he usually ended up the one to style their hair at mornings. He also had friends among boys but boys mostly avoided him because he looked different and was mostly by himself.

So anyway after leaving orphanage Jinchul still kept in touch with others from orphanage from time to time. And one day they gathered for drinks and jinchul lost probably the most dumb bet in his life and he absolutely forgot that betting against group of girls IS a death or life gambling.

So yea he lost and they decided to remember old times so they dress him as a girl and for amusement and funny reactions make him go on Omegle or shit and so jinchul plays really convincing lady until he lets out his real voice and that fun continues for serval hours while his friends die on background from laughter. Jinchul isn’t uncomfortable but it makes him feel awkward because many actually complemented how pretty she looks.

And then randomly they end up connecting with jinwoo and his company and jinchul just starts to sweat nervously because what the actual fuck hunter sung is doing here with his sister and his friend—

jinchul is always this close to failure because his voice just keeps cracking and stuttering and he’s panicking and feels his face continuing become redder and redder because it’s jinah, jinho and songyi doing all the talk and jinwoo just stares at him with ✨suspicion✨ until jinwoo just opens his mouth and asks for phone number and jinchul finally freaks out by making a weird squeaking voice and turning connection off.

Days pass jinchul is kinda panicking around jinwoo because he just keeps staring at him from time to time as if trying to connect the dots (he hopes he won’t).

Jinwoo: Chief, I would be really grateful if you’ll help me find one lady, I would really like to meet her.

Jinchul, sweating nervously: how about N O

Funny thing jinwoo did eventually stumble upon group of girls he saw hanging with that lady and approached them asking if they know how he can contact their friend. They are this close to laugh their asses off but agree to organize a ‘date’ and later jinchul just wants to murder them but he can’t because he cared for them during orphanage years goddamnit.

So yea they actually meet, jinchul dies inside almost entire time (god I hope he won’t notice my mana signature god—), jinchul jokes about being a rather tall lady (and dying inside) and honestly when he’s home he just falls backwards right on door like ‘holy fucking hell’

And then next time he and jinwoo meet at KHA jinwoo like a true little shit admits that he figured out its jinchul because of same mannerisms and stuff plus it’s a national trend now that a local man dresses like a lady perfectly only to give people heart attacks with his real voice. Jinchul dying inside and asking why the meeting then and jinwoo just admits that he wanted to see top tier levels of disguise that Chief Woo is able to pull out (and also to witness him panicking entire time because it’s hilarious)

#solo leveling #woo jin chul #jinchul definitely knows about women’s fashion #he knows how to apply make up and style hair fight me #have you seen this man’s build #his waist is so slim I AM JEALOUS #he’s honestly so well proportioned a dress with pronounced waist would suit him #lmao imagine going undercover with jinwoo to come all perfect disguise and even voice #jinchul just grabbing jinwoo’s tie and dragging him closer and asking him not to fuck up #going from silky lady or velvet man voice #jinwoo’s like ‘step on me please’

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prettyboykatsuki-moved · 1 year ago

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hi my lovely fang!! ramadan kareem! also happy belated isagi day!! loll i’m tipsy doing my skincare and watching formula 1 + premier league football (<-being delusional abt my teams winning. i’m no better than a m*n) but my mind ran on you so i said lemme go blab in your askbox <33

not day drinking or anything dw. just came back in from a bday dinner and then we ended up at a nightclub ?? for some reason ?? the music was really good and it felt good to be out with friends. idk, the old me wouldnt have even entertained the idea of going out so i hope ur proud of me for socializing even when i got drained like an hour into the whole thing.

hope the spring's been good to you so far. (i for one am salty since this weather still feels treacherously winterlike to me.) and remember to pace yourself for school.

life has been so interesting lately: moved out of a toxic household and decided to establish boundaries with family (got villainised for it), trying to learn an instrument as a hobby, became a deku fan (‼️♥️☹️‼️) and an arthur morgan enthusiast (⁉️), my kitchen sink randomly flooded and my landlord was an ass abt it, finally watched howl’s moving castle,

always always still thinking of oliver tho. atp i mentally chant his name like my own personal litany against going apeshit in law school. i think u were talking abt songs that remind u of him and i would like to add for ur consideration: that tyler song w/ pharell? called “ifhy”. also DONT LAUGH but i cannot hear anything off the wiped out album without some association to him. some russ songs too. idk what it is abt that bastard but i enjoy putting him in mental aus he has no business being in: like we both know he’d be a regency AU scoundrel or like a rake or smth and yet i’ll be on the subway crafting it in my mind palace LMAO

back in the day i used to depression-watch the encore westerns channel so those scruffy ruffians u have been read dead posting abt are making my ears perk up a little (a lot).

if i was actually writing you as a legit penpal i would decorate your letter and use different coloured ink and stickers and send u a polaroid and stuff. i am so fond of you like whoa. hugging and squeezing and pulling you 🫂🫂🫂🫂 like taffy!! have a great day and an even greater eid !!

-resident oliver gremlin xoxo

RAMADAN KAREEM EVEN THO I AM ANSWERING POST EID AS SOME KIND OF FOUL BEAST!!!! and happy belated isagi day to u twin i hope it was wonderful

i actually heard alot about the f1 stuff from beloved mutuals posting and general internet circulation!!! lots of . stuff going on in that place from what i can tell . i hope ur special sports guys won i love u !!

also glad ur not drinking too much. a birthday dinner and nightclub feel like a random combo sdjhsdkfj but sometimes u just dont want the night to end so i really get it. im not a club girl either it is so overstimulation for me in a way i have a hard time with so im SO proud of you

i feel u abt spring it is so midwest core how cold it fawking is rn fdkjkhdjfkg. but its fine we ball

ALSO SO PROUD OF U!!!!! setting boundaries w fam is sooo dogshit but u did right by yourself and thats all that matters. iA it becomes easier. also instrument, deku fan, and arthur....... ohhh anon it has been a busy and fun life i see.

I MISS OLIVER SOOO FREAKING MUCH IM HAPPY U BRING HIM UP. i agree ifhy by tyler suits him so much im going to throw my guts up fkgjdffgklsd. also no he is very russ song actually.... best on earth ft him and bia.... i will eat glass. im glad his horrible and annoying ass can support the bad beautiful shorty u are thru law school... the most he is capable of im afraid. ALSO WAIT REGENCY AU KIND OF EATS...... WILL BE SIMMERING ON THAT ..... i think him being a sleazy powerful noble who's been enaged a billion times and broken up with even more chasing u a mean noble girl who hates him ohhh .. ohhhhh

ALSO IM GLAD U LIKE MY RDR POSTING. i am. completely out of my mind about them forreal its actually notfunny anymore JKFDJLKS. but thats alright.

I WOULD LOVE GLITTER PEN. mine would have so many stickers. SO FOND OF U TOO ANON... WE ARE KISSING AND HOLDING HANDS... EID MUBARAK AND MANY BLESSINGS

#return to sender #resident oliver gremlin #JKDSHFKJS

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kyloswarstars · 4 years ago

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ROOMMATES • Part 8

Divergent • College AU • Eric x Reader

ROOMMATES masterlist 💫 Divergent masterlist

You escaped your current living situation by moving in with your friend Christina – and five other college students. Little did you know that one of them was the guy who was your ultimate pain in the neck since your first semester. Now, you had to find a way to not strangle him in his sleep out of pure frustration. Also, you had to find a way to get rid of those weird butterfly feelings for him that slowly grew in your stomach.

Words • 2.7k

The enemies to lovers story no one needed.

/////

The day in the zoo was sad and great and irritating and left you with a faint emptiness. Eric kept a physical distance ever since. His hand didn’t brush yours randomly when you met in the hallway. He didn’t stand close to you at the check out when you went grocery shopping together. His feet didn’t accidentally pump into yours under the dining table when you had the roommate gatherings. He didn’t sat down next to you on the balcony, he didn’t bump into you when you got out of the bathroom and he certainly did not press his side to yours anymore. His thigh, his arm, his shoulder wasn’t burning against yours, the magnetising pull just eradicated as if you had never felt it at all.

Your bodies didn’t touch anymore and that made sure that none of all those times, you had wondered if it had been on accident, had been on accident. It had always been on purpose. Eric had wanted to be close and now he didn’t want to anymore. And the weirdest thing of it all was that you still wanted to be close.

The weeks went by. Chicago finally decided that it was time for all the stuffy air to vanish. With one big, biblical doomsday thunderstorm the sky cleared itself with heavy rain and sent all the heat it had held to the future. Stored it for next summer. It was still warm, still summer but it slowly came closer to its end, moving on from the start, moving on from you moving into this apartment.

You stared at the walls in the night. There was still the knocking. Every single night, his knuckles morsed ‚GN‘ and you returned it. That was the closest your hands got – six inches divided by a wall.

While Eric remained this physical distance, his eyes didn’t stop staring at you. And lacking his side pressed against yours in the most random situations, you stared right back. Whenever you sensed his eyes on you, you were drawn to them immediately. As if the magnet had been shoved into them, now that is wasn’t in your thigh anymore.

It’s fine. Everything is fine. A good mantra to repeat when you worked on the study. For a few days you had to repeat it almost every minute to concentrate. But the more time, days and then eventually weeks passed, it got easier. Peter had still been on your mind now and then but he just wasn’t worth it. And, even without Eric stating the obvious back at the zoo, you knew it. It was summer break still, but as soon as the new semester would start, there would be no time to think about a guy anymore. Not about Peter and not about Eric.

With that you fully regained the realistic side of your mind. You concentrated on your beloved constant in life called mathematics. You tidied your room, threw out stuff you didn’t need anymore. You made pizza with Eric for all the roommates, he didn’t press himself next to you at the countertop but instead let you knead the dough on your own. Eric occasionally searched for a conversation and it was all still very sincere, way too friendly for the guy who had argued with you for more than two years in your classes. But no. physical. contact.

Reality. You focused on it and decided it was time to call your brothers. During the summer break your contact always faded a little, giving the fact that Cole had to be at every party, Levi saving his ass and leading a group of volunteers at the sea turtle rescue centre and you being wrapped up in whatever went through your mind.

It surprised you that both of them actually accepted the video call. Instant homesickness greeted you. Especially from Levi’s window. He was sitting in the kitchen, your mom cooking dinner in the background.

„Honey!“ She blurted over the boiling pots. Levi didn’t even have the chance to say hello. Cole, in his window, rolled his eyes. „Didn’t I and your father tell you to at least text once a week? So we know you didn’t fall of the earth’s surface, yet?“

She joked a little but you heard the seriousness in her voice. And it instantly made you feel guilty, knowing very well that a simple one word ‚alive‘ message would be enough for them. And you didn’t know why it was so hard for you to simply do that.

„I pledge improvement.“ You promised and tried to stick to it this time.

„Levi, move! Before dad comes around and threatens Y/N to fly up there every week to make sure she’s okay.“ Cole was laughing and Levi left the kitchen on his order.

„So you are alive,“ Levi stated. With him and Cole it wasn’t that much guilt anymore. Still a little but less than with your parents.

You affirmed and then lead the conversation in a different direction, tricked them into telling you about their summers without having to talk about yours.

Cole got drunk every second day, Levi got his ass home whenever he couldn’t walk straight anymore. No surprise. Levi gave a detailed report about the current numbers of turtle nests and the amount of baby turtles they expected to hatch. It was Levi’s first summer break since he had started college. Instead of freaking out like Cole and running to every beach gathering he could find, he sticked to be the responsible volunteer he was and cared for the turtle protection. It made you proud. Cole, was still on the team too. Only on the afternoons, though. After he had slept off his hangover and before he made sure to get a new one.

Brothers.

At the end of the call your dad fetched Levi’s phone, who sat on the porch by now, and stared at you for a second. He wasn’t as carefree anymore. A few years ago he would just blurb about everything that came to his mind. Now, he thought more about the things he said and what to hold back.

„You need more sleep, honey,“ he said, looked at you with a caring smile and ended the call. I know.

Shortly after the beeping of your phone, indicating the finished call, a knock on your door made you turn to it. By now you could tell apart your roommates by the rhythm of their knocking.

„Are you ready for the store?“ Eric peeked his head in and you wanted to say no but couldn’t. The golden rules of this household were sacred.

„Yes,“ you said instead and followed him outside to his car, parked right in front of the building. A rare parking spot – luck had to be fully on your side to find it free.

Uncomfortable memories of going to the grocery store and the aftermath of it accompanied you once again. This time, nothing would happen, you told yourself. No-one would see you and even if someone did, there was no chance for Peter to reach out to you again. Every possibility had been eliminated by Eric and you.

Eric pushed the cart, you loaded everything in. No blueberry fight, pizza wasn’t on the menu tonight and chocolate pretzels were fully stocked. No repeating of that awful day!

Eric came to stand next to you in front of the snack shelf, within a good distance of course. He grabbed a huge bag of chips, threw it in the cart and waited for you to continue. You stared at the chips in the cart.

„Not on our shopping list,“ you mumbled and almost would’ve returned them to the shelf but Eric grabbed the bag in time to save it from your hands.

„We will need it later,“ he said, his lips pulled in a honest smile.

„Why? What is later?“

He still held the bag of chips with one hand and pushed the cart down the aisle with the other. When he passed you, he dramatically stared at you for a second. „Big time cinema!“

Eric’s silly wide eyes made you laugh – and wish for his arm to actually brush you by accident. Just this one time. It didn’t. He was adamant to not touch you.

/////

With ‚big time cinema’ he meant Toy Story. So it was indeed big time cinema. And big was also the fact that you found yourself watching a movie. With Eric. In his bed. His laptop on his desk played the movie, you laid next to each other, backs propped on a lot of pillows and the bag of chips between you. He didn’t touch you and that gap between you could easily fit Christina if she was there.

At first you shook your head at his suggestion to watch a movie with him in his room. When he went for a good old debate on why you shouldn’t, you surrendered and hoped the dining table full of roommates didn’t make any remarks. No-one did. Christina only wiggled her eyebrows and hid her grin behind a spoon full of veggies.

But now you were here, on Eric’s bed, wearing some joggers and a hoodie and laughed at the screen whenever Rex the tyrannosaur had something to say.

„As a kid I always wondered if my own toys were alive as well when I wasn’t around.“ Eric mumbled with some chips in his mouth.

„Same,“ you whispered. „I wanted them to be real so bad!“

„Right? I wanted my toy cars to be real so they could drive to the kitchen and get me snacks.“ A single chip has fallen down on the way from the bag to his face. You were fast to steal it from the mattress and shove it in your mouth.

Eric turned to you, gasped and whispered in fake consternation: „Don’t you dare!“

You laughed once more. „I remember you saying that we will need this bag of chips. Not only you.“

He was quick to drop it and smiled at you as he placed the bag in the gap between you again. After having a huge bowl of veggies with noodles you still managed to kill the whole bag of chips with Eric. He was a little sad when he stared into the empty bag. He crumpled it up and tossed it into a corner of the room.

The positive side of running out of chips was the newfound silence and therefore finally understanding every word that was spoken in the movie.

„How are you, Y/N?“

There his question was again. In the zoo wasn’t the only and last time he asked. He kept asking whenever he pleased. And he wanted you to answer sincerely, you knew that. And you did, every time. The first time in long that you answered that question in full honesty. And he did as well, whenever you applied the question on him.

It was a lot easier now to answer him. „I feel good.“

„Yeah?“

„Yeah,“ you turned to see his face, the movie still playing in the background but of no importance for the moment. „I feel more like myself again. I understand now that my troubled thoughts about Peter are not worth it. That he’s not worth it but I am. I don’t care about him anymore. Not one tiny bit.“

Your words made his tensed face ease up a little. His lungs let out a breath he must have held. „Good,“ he smiled. He smiled and smiled and smiled. Then he turned to face his laptop again.

„What about you? How are you?“

„I feel more than good now,“ he stated which made you feel even better.

The movie continued playing. Woody and Buzz fought at the gas station. They eventually fell out of the car and were left behind. You were partially concentrating on the scenes, the Pizza Planet truck, when you noticed Eric’s hand moving closer to yours. Your hand, as well as his, was laying flat on the mattress. Out of the corner of your eye you saw it coming closer in ultra slow motion. Did he think you wouldn’t notice? Did he think you would scare away if he moved his hand faster? What did he think?

You took smaller breaths and tried to concentrate only on the movie but Eric’s hand was still getting closer. It was closer than your knuckles at night, when they knocked ‚good night’. Your eyes shifted between the screen, his hand, your hand. All while you didn’t turn your head. This stupid little heart inside of your chest quickened. It activated the butterflies in your stomach, sent them flying through your whole body. Excitement over the almost physical contact was rushing through you.

When his pinky spread out and ever so slightly brushed yours, he waited. For you to draw back, to possibly shout at him for what he was doing. You didn’t. You didn’t look at him, knowing very well that Eric wasn’t looking at the movie on his laptop at all. He kept his finger steady against yours, didn’t dare to move it or to breathe. You didn’t breathe either. Instead you linked your little finger with his, tying them like a knot.

Both of you exhaled at the same time. No one said a word. You still stared at the movie and sensed Eric’s head returning to the screen as well. All the butterflies gathered in your hand and made it tingle. They demanded for more. More than this simple but electrifying knot of your pinkies.

You couldn’t bring yourself to take his full hand, though. A million thoughts were running through your brain and all of them were leading back to this tiny touch. You were scared he would break the physical contact again if you searched for more. Unsure as to why he even had closed the gap and reached out after weeks of adamantly making sure no accidental body contact happened.

You were irritated. And you were… happy. And you stopped breathing once more. Eric stopped your train of thoughts abruptly.

He started to intertwine his fingers with yours. Just the way he had tried to in the furniture store. Back then you had drawn back but this time you didn’t. You welcomed his fingers between yours. When they were perfectly locked in place, you squeezed them shortly, causing Eric to sigh in relief. He grabbed onto your hand and held it tight, not giving you the choice of letting go anymore. Never would you have let go of his big hand entangled with yours. This pure feeling of holding his hand almost made you burst because it silenced the oppressing feeling of homesickness. It captured those butterflies and turned them into a vibrant, positive version of that doomsday thunderstorm from a few days ago. If holding hands could make you feel that way… what would a kiss feel like then?

That thought made your head turn to look at him. You just stared at him as he watched the movie with a grin on his lips. When the closing credits appeared on the screen, reflecting in his eyes, Eric turned to you again.

„I don’t want to leave just yet,“ you said, not really sure why this honest admittance sent heat to your cheeks.

„Okay,“ he whispered and leaned forward to start Toy Story 2 without letting go of your hand. When he pushed himself back into the pillows, he entirely closed the space between your bodies this time. He placed the bundle of hands that wouldn’t let go off each other, on his abdomen and just like that you laid next to each other. His thumb brushed over yours while the second movie unfolded in front of you. A smile was chiseled into your face. You noticed Eric shifting at some point and placing the bundle of hands on his chest. You noticed the movie's noises fainting after a while, your eyelids grew heavy. A wave of Eric’s sent was pushed over, calming you and dragging you into a sheltered sleep.

/////

Taglist • @longlostinanotherworld • @dosentier • @dhunhdchrih • @coryisagee

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purplerose244 · 4 years ago

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My thoughts on Seabound!!! 🌊🌊🌊 (4/4)

Here we are! What a journey, and while perhaps this season wasn't at MoM level it was REALLY good, with great new villains/allies, great little throwbacks and an awesome story! 🤩

How to get this was very good to great? Give me a very good ending Seabound!! 💕💕

Alright, here we go!

GENERAL THOUGHTS

I genuinely got too much into this remaining four episodes and forgot to put any general thoughts 😅 So you'll see me rambling at the end, see you there ��

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

This title really summarize my feelings so far, like, I'm seriously wondering how it will move on from now, but I do expect the outcome to be CRAZY 🤯

Aaahhhh, yep, the one in Shintaro is a fake 😅 I wonder when did the change happen? How did Kalmaar pulled that off, wow

I'M SORRY WHY ARE WE PUTTING THE TITLE SCREEN WITHOUT THE INTRO?? THAT'S A FIRST EPISODE STUFF AND IT HONESTLY SCARES ME??? It reminds me of Winds of Change too and that episode was WOW 😭😭😭

Heeeeyyy, it's youuuu... huh... *watch scribble on hand* google snake guy, huh... Glucose... yep, good old Glutine and everything 😅

Are we having a "I may have made a mistake being evil" with this guy?

Jay: ah, Prime Empire! I was in that game you know! I fought for my life and the ones of all of Ninjago and I've seen my best friends and the love of my life die before my eyes... good times 🙂

Jay and Nya having fun at DDR has to be one of my favorite thing, they are so in sync and so lovable ❤💙❤💙

DID THEY ACTUALLY PUT THE JAYA SHIP NAME INTO THE SHOW??? OMG GUYS THE FANDOM IS TAKING OVER THE SHOW AT LAST!!! 🤯🤯🤯 The electric Jaya, heeeyy, niiicee 😎😎😎

HOW CUTE CAN YOU BE

MY SHIP 💙❤💙❤ They even gave each other high gives... this is neat, and it means something awful will happen right 🙂

Commissioner: he's saying something about a giant snake... and the end of the world... didn't we already have something like that?

Okay yep, he did the trick while fighting Nya, dang Kalmaar is sneaky! Not too shabby... but I gotta say, the summoning of the Great Devourer was a lot more dramatic 🤣🤣 Props to the serpentine, still my favorite snakes 💪💪

Wojira seems to be a little smaller than the Devourer maybe? His head way bigger than the bounty, while hers is not that massive even in comparison with Kalmaar

I might be wrong but at first glance, I stand by my opinion and by the superiority of the OG giant snake 🤷‍♀️

Yep Glutine guy did have a change of heart, better late than never 🤷‍♀️

You're telling me that Jay doesn't do engineering anymore, okay... HOW IS KAI A BETTER SOLUTION??? 🤣🤣🤣 Lol look at the messy brothers, love Lloyd and Kai so much I miss them interact 💚❤💚❤

Thank you Kelly for the alert 😗

It makes me wonder if they actually do have simulations of evacuations often, it would be pretty smart considering the city 🤷‍♀️

OKINO IS THERE HI DUDE!!! 😍 I hope he's doing great! 🥰🥰

Gail Gossip! Been a while!

WOW, this is going Deluge like, my first Spinjitzu Master! 😱 How... how do we go with three episodes from here? Like, I'm guessing Nya will have to do what Nyad did before her (which TERRIFIES me), so are they going to struggle trying to find another way? IDK BUT I'M IN LET'S GO!! 🤯

ASSAULT ON NINJAGO CITY

Alright, pretty straightforward title, let's see what we got here!

Tourists?... that actually makes sense, I mean, I would want to visit all the places where history was made on this island 😍 Aww nice to see they remember the battle against Garmy of Hunted, also that it is known that Jay was the one who faced Unagami 👍👍

DARETH!!! 🤎🤎🤎

Where have you been you knucklehead, I've missed you! 💕 I think I've last seen him in a commercial from the Fire Chapter?

This is a terrible guide 😵 Not knowing the brown ninja? Owner of the dojo the Green Ninja had trained in? Brief commander of the Stone Army? Master of makeup and puffy potstickers? Unforgivable, someone fire this woman ASAP 😡😡

LOOK AT DARETH TAKING CHARGE!!! 🤩 He's right, he should get involved every once in a while, come on guys!

Ah okay good, I'm not the only one struggling with that google snake name 😂

Yay Bentho is fully integrated with the team! He is a great addiction, like, I know he'll probably take the throne at the end or something but I do hope we'll need his help again in the future! 💙

Sometimes I forget how much I love Kai and Zane interacting 🤣 The brainiac and the airhead 🤍❤🤍❤

Oh right, Cole came back from Shintaro! So... now in this extremely secret city there is a fake amulet hanging into a highly secured place... how is it always Shintaro the keeper of flukes? 😂😂

A bath as a boat but it has a whole 😂😂 I love this show's randomness

What ears are they supposed to cover 😅

I LOVE THIS ATMOSPHERE!!! 😍😍😍 Between the gray sky of storm and the sea underneath, this is the perfect scenario for Wojira and it's not even forced! I love how they are handling backgrounds for Ninjago recently, I really hope it gets as good as in the finale of Prime Empire 💙💙💙

AAAAAAHHHHHhhhhh okay for a moment I was scared Wojira was going to eat Jay 😅 After The Island this is already the second time Bluebell risks it... STOP

WHY THE CLIFFHANGER!?!?

NUUUUU WHAT NOW??? 😱😱😱 We have two more episodes, how is this going to end? I DON'T KNOW AND I REALLY WANT TO PLEASE GIVE ME A GOOD FINALE SEABOUND!!! 🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️

NYAD

I AM SCARED FOR MY WATER LILY OKAY

Daaaang she can just float on that? She got super good at controlling water! Now I want her and Kai just randomly flying around with their powers 😂😂 Kai got missiles in his hands come on 🔥🔥🔥

JAY CAN YOU LET ME WORRY ABOUT YOU GUYS ONE AT THE TIME??? 😱

What would Kai do? WHAT WOULD KAI DO?? DID YOU DECIDE YOU WANT TO DIE JAY WHY WOULD YOU THINK OF HIM??? ... although technically Kai is the only one with Jay who didn't straight up die before coming back to life in a dramatic moment... huh... Kai might be the most reasonable choice after all 😅

We grew up from Ninja never quit to NINJA AREN'T IDIOTS AND KNOW WHEN TO GET THE HECK OUT 😎😎 Even our motto got a character development 💪

JAY NOOOOOOOO 😱😱😱😱

BENTHO YAAAAAAASSSS 🥳🥳🥳🥳 Did I ever say that I love shark boy? BECAUSE I FREAKING DO!! 💙

Master prankster Wu once again, take that empty ship Calamari head 😎 Although the poor bounty doesn't deserve to get destroyed as many times as it did until now, it's my favorite ship... pun intended 😜

Ah more ninjajan, wait a moment

"Auto Pilot". Fair enough, although I was hoping for a "psych" or something 😂😂

NO WAIT NO WHAT THE HECK!!! I THOUGHT JAY GOT SAVED HE INHALED WATER??!? BLUEBELL NOOOO!!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

But Cole running to his best friend immediately? HECK yes 🖤💙🖤💙

NYA CARRYING HER BOYFRIEND BRIDAL STYLE THIS IS THE RIGHTEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN!!! ❤💙❤💙❤💙❤💙 Gosh this season gave me amazing Jaya moments, I've been fed 👌👌

Okay Lloyd pacing back and forth? Kai already mad at their enemies? All the guys eager to help Jay? MY FAVORITE NINJA FAMILY BABY!!! 😎😎

I NEED A MOMENT 😭

Oh... oh gosh I knew Nya doing the Nyad thing was meant to happen, but this way? My heart is melting already 😭

I remember a post that said that Jay told Nya that he loves her many times, while she never did. Tommy reponded that she lets her actions speak... boy do I see it now, I see all of her love 😢😢

I never felt such conflicting emotions for a villain like I do for Kalmaar, like, he caused so much pain to Nya... but he is voiced by Giles... but he is the reason Jay is hurt... but that startle gag 😂😂😂

Okay this? Is adorable?

What the HECK? The police in this city is generally not very helpful, but the Commissioner is very wholesome 💜

Nyaaaaaaa 😭😭😭😭 I didn't think it was possible to love her even more, she was ignored for so long during the show, but now we finally see all of her. She is an amazing warrior, a selfless person, and a real hero 💪💪 And coming from such a mature girl that doesn't like to act irrationally, this means so much more

Jaya grew up so much, it went through some very questionable phases yes, but what they have here? It's the result of all they had lived together 💙❤💙❤

I have chills, this is amazing so far, I'm legit scared of going further 😱

SHE SAID IT!!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭 Okay this moment, everything, EVERYTHING, is absolutely marvelous. Nya said I love you without a voice, alone, showing again that she values the actions more, but still her feelings are 100% truthful. Then the transformation (THERE IT IS HER BEAUTIFUL WATER FORM 😍😍😍), Jay getting saved, the realization of what she just did from everyone... DANG IT IT'S ALL BEAUTIFUL HOW LONG DID IT TAKE TO THINK OF THIS SCENE???

*slow clap for Bragi, Tommy, and the Ninjago crew*

Jay and water Nya with their hands together gives me big The Form of Water vibes... LOVE THAT MOVIE WHO'S READY FOR AN AU??

Jay wants to help her, I had no doubt 💙 They always help each other in these BOUNDs seasons 😍😍😍

Kalmaar: where are the ninja??

Commissioner: I don't know, they are ninja!

FINAL BATTLE INCOMING AAAAHHH I HOPE THIS WILL HAVE A GOOD ENDING OMG BRING IT!!! 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

THE TURN OF THE TIDE

Oh, curious title? It feels a little vague, I don't really know what it could be

YES GIRL GO GET HIS CALAMARI BUTT HECK YES!!! Just how cool can you be for walking slowly while the attacks go straight through you? 😂

Hey Nya still recognizes Jay! 😃😃

HEY NYA GOT VAPORIZED WTH 😱😱 It's too early, I don't believe that's it!

WHOA JAY WENT BERSERK JUST NOW!! I don't think I've seen this before, this is the coolest thing! 💙💙💙 I just love when he shows how strong he is, you can be a comic relief AND kick butts 😎

FIGHTING ANIMATIONS MAN I LOVE THESE SCENES!! 😍😍😍

What the- was... was that a cameo of the lightning chicken? Ninjago what the HECK I love your randomness 😂😂

BENTHOMAAR TAGS IN!!! Showing off why he is best boy of the season 💙 These fightings are very cool but I can't help imagining Wojira just chilling while there are midgets getting very angry at each other onto her head 🤣🤣🤣

WHOA, CALAMARI BITE! Kalmaar got the Pythor treatment... might change color by next season if he returns 😅

(Please return I loved having Giles' voice in this season 💙💙💙)

NYA IS A DRAGON!!! I REPEAT NYA IS A DRAGON!!! 😍😍😍😍😍😍 I was wondering where the dragon moment was, this is Ninjago after all 🤷‍♀️

Head empty, just Jay smiling softy at Nya because he loves her 💙💙💙

IT'S RAINING NYA, HALLELUIA IT'S RAINING NYA, HEYE!! ☔☔☔ This fight is MASSIVE! We had finales with big creatures before but now one of the ninja is big enough to face them and that's 🤯

NYA DID IT!!! 🤩🤩🤩 ... now onto the angst that I KNOW it's coming

Kai being unbelieving is tragic, and Jay's "don't leave me" broke my heart. Please end this misery, where is the deus ex machina that solves everything?

Wait she left?

...

WAIT SHE ACTUALLY LEFT??? WHAT THE HECK THEY AREN'T ENDING IT LIKE THIS

...

OH MY GOSH

ARE THEY?!?

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

Omg the grief in this is beautiful, nice to see Jay and Maya so close to each other! Also Kai leaning onto his mom while Cole is comforting his best best friend? Amazing, they really do these scenes great 👌

EVERYONE SHOWED UP I LOVE THIS CITY SO MUCH 😭😭😭 Aww Ed and Edna, wasn't this such a sad situation I would be so much happier to see you guys 🥺

Master Wu even mentioned that she built Samurai X, you really want to make me cry now do you? 🥺🥺

MAYA AND RAY 😢😢😢😢😢😢

Omg look at Cole being there for his best friend, he is amazing 🖤💙🖤💙

I have such Rebooted vibes from this... is it hopeful? That Nya comes back like Zane? She's no nindroid but still... oh my gosh they got her symbol on the vase I just noticed, I need more tissues 😭😭

"In loving memory of Kirby Morrow". Always in our hearts 🖤🖤🖤

...

Wow

WOW

THEY ACTUALLY DID IT I NEED ANOTHER MOMENT 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 WHAT IN THE WORLD THIS IS THE BIGGEST CHANGE THEY DID IN A WHILE!!!

AND NOW WHAT??? 🤯🤯🤯

FINAL THOUGHTS

I'm speechless... like that's true, have A LOT to write over here 😅

This type of plot twist reminds me of our early seasons. Zane sacrificing himself, Garmadon giving up his life, those moments that made me so curious and excited about the following. I have no idea what will be the outcome for this, but I can't wait to find out

With that out of the way, AMAZING SEASON 😍😍😍 I think this finale beats MoM's, just because it was really unexpected and opens up a SEA of possibilities... yeah too soon 😭

I'm still shaken, my world, they did something HUGE and I do hope it will be a good shake to the entire Ninjago plotline. Nya is "gone", we still don't know about the person behind all that vengestone, we haven't heard from Garmy in forever, there are so many good ideas out there now that they've set the ground for more 🤩🤩

Voice acting was *chef's kiss*, not only for the villain which I already stressed enough about, I think Kelly reached a new level of emotional intimacy with Nya and I'm so happy she showed her skills 💜💜

Animation is TOP, there's little to no point into saying anything else since they showed it very clearly in the latest season ☺

This was the emotional, witty and engaging writing I was looking for! Good jokes, meaningful dialogues, emotional scenes, everything was really good and I'm gonna rewatch some scenes especially for that 😍

It turned out having Maya and Ray back was kind of a distraction to fool us all 😅😅 Well played actually, and it was very cool seeing them again in any case 🙋‍♀️

And now? Jay lost his love, I have no idea if the show will work on him getting over her or hold onto her memory (thinking of Jay probably the latter, although I do think that handling the first would be an interesting idea). KAI LOST HIS SISTER 😢😢😢 I have no doubt he's gonna beat himself up for it, like he did when Zane was gone too. Everyone lost their friend, she had become such a vital part of the team and now she is not here anymore it will be hard...

They are back with the four plus one green savior formation, I sincerely don't know how I feel about that 😅 I'm always happy when we get the OGs, but this is about going on without Nya... maybe Skylor will be called? Or Pixal will be more active? That could be interesting to see, who knows 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Gosh, how are they going to handle the next season? It will have to give A LOT of answers to the millions questions we all have right now. Man I can't wait, it could be anything!!! This is a Ninjago revolution!

But if I have to mention a little complain, and I'm a fangirl so I absolutely have to, Kai didn't show much of a reaction to Nya's "departure". Okay, she didn't straight up die like in Skybound (I'm gonna fear all BOUND seasons from now on 😱), but he's her brother and he loves deeply his family. Either we're gonna see him go all out next season, or the writers really did only focus on Jaya. A tiny bit salty... but you got me a fantastic finale so I'll move on 👍

Outstanding, I'm blown away. Whenever I think I'm used to this show they do stuff like this. I'm so glad and sad you guys 😅 But mostly happy that despite everything I still get very strong emotions while I watch this long time favorite show of mine 💜💜💜

What else can I say at this point? ONTO NEXT SEASON!!! 🤩🤩🤩

Thank you for reading me freaking out over LEGO spinning ninja as always! It helps me calm down but this time it might be harder thant the others... *sobs*

I need to lay down and process all of this, I'll be on my way 😂😂 BYE!!! 💜

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livingforcoopsandoknutzy · 4 years ago

Note

I just read all of your fics and they are so so good! Can you write something with 41 and 45 for coops?

Thank you so much!! <33

“Do you want to talk about it or be distracted from it?” + “It’s bad again. It’s really, really bad again."

All credit goes to @lumosinlove bless that beautiful brain of hers

TW: depression/mentions of past abuse

Remus could always tell when Sirius was trapped in his head. Sirius would get reclusive and silent, he would go from being clingy to touch averse and it broke Remus’s heart without fail every single time.

Sirius would often get that way around the anniversary of leaving and a certain time in November, which was what was happening now. It was November 19th and Sirius had been in the process of shutting down for two days but today was the worst of it.

Remus had gone to bed at two in the morning, not being able to stay up any longer. Sirius had promised to come to bed soon but when Remus woke up the next morning the sheets on his bed were still made.

Making his way downstairs, he found Sirius sitting on the couch staring blankly at the wall, purple bags under his eyes that confirmed Remus’s suspicions that he hadn’t slept at all. Remus had made his way loudly over to the couch in hopes of not startling Sirius.

It hadn’t helped and as soon as Remus sat down Sirius’s head snapped to him, his eyes wide and panicked. Remus knew better than to touch him when he got like this so he sat farther away and talked to him in a calming voice.

“Baby, it’s just me. You weren’t there when I woke up, did you sleep in here?” He asked gently, relieved that Sirius had calmed down when he realized it was Remus instead of freaking out further. Sirius just shook his head, not vocalizing which Remus had expected.

Remus just nodded and snuggled into the couch, offering a silent strength for Sirius if he needed it. They sat like that for about an hour before the tension finally left Sirius and he actually laid his head down in Remus’s lap.

Sirius let out a quiet sigh when Remus’s hand found his hair. “You okay, love?” He asked quietly. Sirius shuddered at the name and shook his head slowly. “It’s bad again. It’s really, really bad again.” He said quietly, a slight waver in his voice. Remus dropped his head so he could kiss Sirius’s forehead.

“I’ve got you, baby. Do you want to talk about it or be distracted from it?” Sirius laid quietly for a second, his hand finding Remus’s free one and playing with his fingers. “Can I talk about it?” Remus was almost shocked into silence. Sirius seldom talked about things from his past, not more than two sentences and never into details but Remus would be damned if he didn’t listen when Sirius finally did.

Remus just nodded, his arm tightening around Sirius’s waist so he could pull him to where he was more laying on him than sitting his head in Remus’s lap. Sirius snuggled into the embrace, his forehead pressed into Remus’s neck.

“When I was growing up there were only two people in my family who didn’t hate me. Two people besides my brother who never laid a hand on me.” Remus clenched his jaw, fighting the anger that washed over him every time Sirius mentions or subtly mentions the abuse he suffered as a child.

“My Great Uncle Alfred and my cousin Andromeda. My Great Uncle Alfred was cast out when I was about six years old, he’d send me secret cards when he could and would tell me to keep my head up. He’d been gay and when my family learned his secret they’d kicked him out. They burned him off the stupid family tree.” Remus buried his nose into Sirius’s curls when Sirius took a break to get his voice back under control. Sirius leaned his head back into the touch.

“He was great and I loved him but Andromeda was always there for me. She’d show up randomly as if she could just tell when things were getting worse and she’d take me away for a weekend or something.” Sirius had a faint smile on his face, it was bittersweet and Remus was almost afraid to hear the rest of the story. “Eight years ago today she came and told everyone she was moving away with her boyfriend who was half Swedish.”

Sirius scoffed and Remus felt his heart sink when he saw the tears in his eyes. “My family, of course, lost their minds because he wasn’t French and she was kicked out of the family, her picture burned off the family tree just like that.” Sirius cleared his throat and pushed harder against Remus’s neck as if he needed the reminder that Remus was there.

Remus held his head close and dropped kisses to his dark locks. “I was so mad at her for leaving me, I was just so angry but my family kept talking about her. They kept calling her a blood traitor and a whole bunch of other names I didn’t understand then. I went off, told them that if anything she was doing the right thing, she deserved to get away she was too good for us all anyway.” Sirius let out a weak laugh and shook his head.

“I told my mother that they shouldn’t talk about her like that because at least she wasn’t still in the loop of inbreds.” His voice dropped off and when he started talking again it was much darker. “My mother hadn’t found that amusing. She had slapped me across the face before it even left my mouth. She had been too angry to properly punish me so she left it to my father.” Sirius started trembling and Remus tightened his hold around him protectively.

“I’ve got you. You’re okay.” Remus whispered as he pressed a kiss to Sirius’s temple. Sirius just huddled closer and fell silent for a minute. “He beat me so bad I nearly died. I broke three ribs and my wrist but they wouldn’t let me go to the doctor. My mother locked me in the cellar and left me there for a week. Regulus had to come and sneak me food because neither of my parents thought about the fact that I was going to starve.” Sirius let out a bitter laugh. “Or maybe they did, maybe that was the point.”

Remus bit his lip hard as his vision swarmed with tears. How could someone so precious and so amazing be treated like that? It was times like these that Remus remembered how strong Sirius was, if it had been anyone else Remus knew for a fact they would have been broken by now.

“I was so mad at Andromeda for such a long time. I never returned any of her letters but she never stopped sending them.” Sirius sniffled and closed his eyes tightly. “Until she did. I thought she had finally taken the hint, it had made me much sadder than I thought it would have since I was the one ignoring her anyway. Turns out she had a daughter and had died during childbirth. Regulus had to tell me since no one else ever spoke of her.”

Sirius shifted so he could press his forehead against Remus’s seeking more comfort than Remus knew how to give. Remus tightened his grip and pulled Sirius closer until he was straddling Remus, chests flush together but in a way that was more intimate than any of their other ‘intimate’ moments.

Sirius made a broken sound and Remus felt tears fall from his own eyes as he watched Sirius’s expression change into a deeply tortured expression. “It was my own fault for never reaching out to her. I- I should have answered.” Sirius let out a sob and buried his face in Remus’s chest. “If I had just returned her letters instead of being stupid and petty I would have gotten to see how she was, I would have gotten to knew her daughter. Re, I could’ve been an Uncle to her but I was so angry about being alone that I ignored all of it. She probably hates me.”

Sirius made an utterly broken sound and Remus held him as tightly as he could, trying to keep his own cries silent.

“Baby, I’m so sorry.” He said quietly, wishing at that moment harder than he ever had that he could have known Sirius growing up, that he could have helped him through all the stuff he went through. He never should have had to go through that, much less as a child. Nothing in Sirius’s life was fair and all Remus wanted was to fix it.

“You’re so strong, kind, and good Sirius. She couldn’t hate you, it sounded like she loved you a lot. You never should have gone through any of that and I’m so sorry you had to go through it alone, just know you don’t have to anymore. You’ve got me, or James, or Dumo. You have the whole team, you’re not alone anymore.”

Remus dropped sloppy kisses all over Sirius’s shoulder. “Thank you for telling me, I know that’s hard.” Sirius let out shuddering breaths and pulled back to look at Remus. A slightly hysterical laugh rose from his throat and he rested his forehead back on Remus’s.

“You’re not supposed to be crying mon loup, that wasn’t my intention.” Remus shook his head quickly. “I know I’m sorry but just- none of that was fair. You shouldn’t have had to go through any of that.” Sirius laughed softly and kissed Remus gently.

“I love you.” Sirius whispered, his eyes fluttering closed again. Remus basked in the warm feeling of being so close to Sirius. “Je t'aime aussi.” Sirius opened his eyes and shook his head, a fond smile on his face as Remus wiped the tears on his cheeks away with the pad of his thumbs.

“We should go to bed, I know you didn’t sleep last night.” Remus said softly, pressing a gentle kiss to Sirius’s nose. Sirius just buried his face in Remus’s neck. “You know me too well, mon loup.” Remus laughed quietly.

Sirius pulled his face away with a tired smile. “Carry me?” Remus laughed as he gripped Sirius’s thighs and shifted to the edge of the couch. Sirius let out a contented sigh and wrapped his arms around Remus’s neck.

Remus picked him up with minimal problems and carried him to the bed where he dumped him precariously on the bed making Sirius laugh. Remus smiled at the sound, it was something that he hadn’t heard in days and he had missed it more than he cared to admit.

Remus climbed in next to him and put his arm out so Sirius could tuck himself into his side. When Sirius was in the need of comfort he would tuck himself into a ball and rest his knees on Remus’s stomach.

Normally, Remus would push them off but Sirius was already drifting and Remus didn’t think he could move him even if he wanted to. So he ignored the ache it caused and turned his nose into Sirius’s hair seeking out the comforting smell he hadn’t gotten in a few days.

Remus kissed Sirius’s forehead and sighed. “I hope you’re happy now. I hope you know you have a family and we are here no matter what. We love you no matter what.” It fell on deaf ears as Sirius had already fallen asleep, Remus drifted soon after.

#coops #remus lupin #sirius black #fanfics for a fanfic #lumosinlove #tw: mentions of past abuse #tw: depression

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ledbiantastic · 4 years ago

Text

Okay, it's time for my Harrow The Ninth read through post. Spoilers, obviously. Thanks to @shakespearerants, @irascibubble, and @mayasaura for encouraging me to keep going. Enjoy!

I am on page 33 of Harrow the Ninth and I am making a prediction. I initially thought the Body referred to the dead girl in the locked tomb, but now I think it's Gideon. We'll see if I'm right.

Page 44 says it is the dead girl in the tomb, but I'm not convinced it isn't also Gideon

Gideon must be important to have to be erased from Harrow's mind like that, right?

Did Ortus the First kill/try to kill Gideon's mom? The timeline adds up, they said he messed something up nineteen years ago, Gideon was 18 in the last book and time has passed

In the weird retconned memories, after every death, or during, someone says "is this how it happens" which makes me think it's, like, Harrow's brain asking that

Who are those notes from and to? What's up with that?

I love seeing Harrow spend time with Magnus and Abigail. I liked them

If Harrow is haunted, but this is not the real version of the past, is her mind creating the ghost? Is it Gideon? I don't think Gideon would write notes like that though...

Page 291 is Ortus talking to her like she's Gideon's mother? IS HE ASKING WHY SHE BROUGHT ALONG THE BABY?

Is Ortus' cavalier more active or something? Like he doesn't remember because she takes control?

Page 315 "he had seen me" who is he and who is me? Who is narrating this to Harrowhark? Is. It. Gideon? (Later I decide it's Palamedes seeing the Sleeper, who is also narrating and is possibly Gideon. We'll see if that's right.)

Is the poster on page 318 Gideon? Is It? IS IT? But Gideon's hair didn't go down to her shoulders. Is it her mom?

Are Camilla and Coronabeth on the side of the rebellion? BOE? Is old Harrow? I KNEW IT! But I'm sad they're on different sides.

Is Ianthe the spy? Is that how she knew Coronabeth was alive?

Does the Sleeper represent the part of Harrow and/or her brain that erased her memories and it's cleaning up the debris in her psyche? OR IS IT GIDEON? AKA the DORMANT part of Harrow-as-Lyctor? When the Sleeper is unmasked, will we see Harrow or Gideon?

Did Gideon's mother start the rebellion or something? Is that why they had a poster of her? Was she Eden?

So, Canaan house was on earth then?

Did Harrow (old Harrow) tamper with her own temporal lobe? Did Mercymorn? Ianthe?

Whose idea was it for Ortus to kill her then? John? Augustine? Mercymorn? Someone else?

Did Harrow break into the locked tomb? I want to believe she did, because I support her. But if not, who is the Body?

Shit, I can't remember what color Gideon's eyes were. Page 363 when Harrow's eyes are two different colors, black and gold

Ianthe wants to marry Harrow? Weird. I don't ship it. But I'm kind of stuck on Gideon and if I wasn't, maybe.

See a man about a queen? What does it mean? What is Ianthe doing? Also love that she cursed Harrow's hair to grow extra, just to be petty.

I'm so confused by chapter 40. What the hell is going on? Why is Harrow trying to be a cavalier? The fuck? Role swapped false memory? What is even happening?

Is Harrowhark's brain just, like, randomly spit-balling while she's dying or something? Love that Abigail and Magnus seem to be aware that it's not real.

OH OH OH THAT WAS GIDEON! SERVING THE COFFEE AND MAKING HARROW BLUSH IN THE THIRD(?) FALSE MEMORY OR DREAM OR WHATEVER! I love that Abigail is NOT having this, like, no I'm not gonna watch your romance novel version unfold.

I think I've noticed that the ones who have speaking roles the weird memories are the ones who died in the last book.

Are they all taking active part in these false scenarios? All the dead from Canaan house?

Oh my god oh my god here it is she remembers and she's so sad!

So she erased Gideon to save her soul. Nope nope nope nope nope I can't. I can't deal with these feelings. Y.Y

Who the fuck is the angry spirit?!?!

Who fucking stabbed her?

IS GIDEON DRIVING HARROW'S FUCKING BODY AROUND DURING A FIGHT? HELL YES! AND THAT MEANS I WAS RIGHT THAT SHE'S NARRATING!

OH AND I PREDICT THE GHOST IS CYTHERIA!

I'm still thinking about what Harrow did. It's so sweet and so sad and she's so lonely and she didn't even know how lonely she was.

Also I'm already excited to reread this series.

Oh yeah, this is GIDEON in here, swearing up a storm and trying to use a sword.

Okay, first I'm getting emotional just from heading Gideon's voice, then I'm emotional about what it was like for her to be in Harrow's body/mind, then I'm emotional about all the things she wanted to say but didn't have time, AND THEN I'M EMOTIONAL when Gideon says why she thinks Harrow did it and I'm like baby nooooooo it was because she loved you, not because she didn't want to rely on you! Honey, baby, no!

"Harrowhark, I gave you my whole life and you didn't even want it." HARROWHARK, I GAVE YOU MY WHOLE LIFE AND YOU DIDN'T EVEN WANT IT. 💔💔💔😟😟😟😭😭😭 Excuse me while my heart breaks.

Oh, also a bigger issue in this book is the whole concept of the afterlife? And it's messed up because of the emperor? I don't know why I wasn't prepared for that but I wasn't.

Ortus holding Harrow and pointing out that she and Gideon were neglected children is making my therapist soul ascend.

I'm such an idiot. His name wasn't Ortus, it was Gideon. He did kill Gideon's mother, that's why she shouted his name. Or they were in love? One or the other... Or both?

Harrow did a find and replace in her brain and it had unexpected consequences.

I've been leaning more and more towards the Sleeper and ghost being Cytheria.

Oh my sweet sword lesbian himbo, how I've missed you. "The sword I had to hold overhead in one hand as I used the other to keep everything inside you; stuff was coming out, Harrow, I don't know precisely what stuff because I'm not a goddamn necromancer."

Gideon is OCCUPYING HARROW'S BODY during a deadly invasion and is like, 'I'm gonna shut my eyes to reach under the shirt and get rid of encumbrances. I tried not to touch you, so don't get mad.' I feel like Harrow would be the first one to say 'do whatever you have to do to stay alive, you imbecile!'

So Mercymorn stabbed Harrow... So the heralds would eat her as a way to buy time? Was that the plan? Gideon calling her "my necromancer" made my heart do a thing.

I want to understand what she's saying about Gideon's mother. Was Gideon a science experiment? Like Kipo?

Where. THE FUCK did Cytheria get the gun?

Dulcie is *horny for revenge* Abigail is a BAMF and my new (and final?) prediction is that the Sleeper is Gideon's mom.

Gideon and Ianthe is a fun dynamic. I love how protective Gideon is, that she's mad at Ianthe for hurting Harrow's heart.

Gideon must have her mother's eyes to be freaking all the lyctors the fuck out.

"I wanted you to use me... I wanted you to live and not die... Harrow. I already gave my flesh to you, and I already gave you my end. I gave you my sword. I gave you myself. I did it while knowing I'd do it all again, without hesitation, because all I ever wanted you to do was eat me." Why am I crying? 😭😭😭😭😭 Why is this the most romantic thing when it's also full of insults and curses and is followed by a your mom joke? What a Gideon thing to do, be so romantic and gross and sassy all at once. I love her, I want to be her. Gideon forever.

Love that Ianthe also thinks Harrow got rid of Gideon because she didn't want her. /s I'm starting to worry that it's silly for me to hold onto the 'because she can't live without Gideon' explanation.'

"But Nonagesimus, you hating me always meant more than anyone else in this hot and stupid universe loving me. At least I'd had your full attention." That's why indifference is the opposite of love, hate is still passionate attention. But this also makes me feel so bad for Gideon because she deserves to be loved, dammit!

Okay, "gall on gall" is pretty hilarious. Good job Ianthe.

Love that the ghost of Matthias Nonius speaks in meter because he's been so deified by the Ninth house, and he's confused by it. It's like people in a musical being aware they're in a musical, like, why am I singing?

Ortus' poem was important after all!

Is it the sword? Does Harrow have to destroy Gideon's sword? Because that would break my heart a little.

"It bewildered her, back at Canaan House, how the whole of her always seemed to come back to Gideon. For one brief and beautiful space of time, she has welcomed it: that microcosm of eternity between forgiveness and the slow uncomprehending agony of the fall. Gideon rolling up her shirt sleeves. Gideon dappled in shadow, breaking promises. One idiot with a sword and an asymmetrical smile had proved to be Harrow's end." I just... This is so beautifully written. And describing Gideon as one idiot with a sword is so perfect and right and I just... 🖤🖤🖤😭😭😭

No no no I hate this either/or bullshit! I know I'm a sappy optimist, but I want both of them to survive, damnit! I want Harrow to be able to go back to her body without losing Gideon's soul. I want Gideon to keep existing.

What does Dulcinea know?!?!

Commander? That's Gideon's mom, right? Awake Remembrance of These Valiant Dead Kia Hua Ko Te Pai Snap Back to Reality Oops There Goes Gravity

What does that all mean? Are those Eminem lyrics? What other language is in there?

WHAT'S ALL COME OUT?

I knew she was in the sword.

Oh my god, if you need John to get in the tomb, and she was trying to get in the tomb and had something, a tool... Samples... She was armed with the baby... Is Gideon's father John? Is Gideon the fucking child of God?

She named the baby Bomb... This whole series could have been Bomb the Ninth... Bomb Nav...

Yep yep called it, child of God. The first time they put that plan in action was to get sperm to make Gideon. The second time was so Harrow could kill the first Gideon.

A dad joke?! A DAD JOKE?!

Gideon and Harrow were so cruel to each other as kids. It just makes me so sad.

Was Harrow able to get into the tomb because she made Gideon bleed?

So is Alecto John's cavalier? Annabel and Alecto... Are the same person? I'm so confused. She's the body in the locked tomb? But how is that related to her eyes being in his genes?

Wait, the eyes switched? I continue to be confused. Did he do the lyctor thing but also put a part of both him and his cavalier into the cavalier's body? But she was never human? What's going on? Why do they think she never had genes?

Oh cool, Mercy killed God and now everyone's gonna die... ... ... Ooooor not.

I love that beating up Harrow is Gideon's job AND saving Harrow is Gideon's job. Very cute.

Sooooo Gideon the OG and Pyrrha both fucked Gideon's mom... With the same body...

Gideon, such a romantic, wishing she had Harrow's name on her lips as she died. "I mean, yeah, I was thinking about you too; if I could've turned that off I would've turned it off years ago" HAHAHAHAHA You can't stop thinking about Harrow even if you want to! God, what a sweet himbo.

"Yes, well, jail for mother" says Gideon... Is she referencing Miette? Jail for mother for one thousand years!

Okay, so we have definitely confirmed that the Body is Alecto/Annabel/God's cavalier.

What did Dulcinea tell her? That Gideon is moving her body around? Doesn't she know that? Shouldn't that not be a surprise?

Okay, so, wait, what happened to Harrowhark?

ARRRRRGH I'm not smart enough for this book! Or I'm not visual enough! I know I should recognize the description of bobbed hair and "lambent" eyes but I have no idea who it is and also WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO GIDEON AND HARROWHARK?! UGH NOW I HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE NEXT BOOK AND I'M GONNA BE SO IMPATIENT AND CONFUSED!

Well that was fun to reread. Impressed I got some things right, but mostly I was very wrong.

#harrow the ninth #spoilers #locked tomb spoilers #locked tomb trilogy #doing my best #lesbians are just so good #disaster lesbian #it's me i'm the disaster lesbian here #i love this himbo #himbo gideon nav #live blogging #abigail pent #dulcinea septimus #ianthe the first #long post

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imo-chan-imagines · 5 years ago

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『 Haikyuu!! Week 2020 | Day 5 』

· Sept. 29th → Habit is Second Nature ·

Characters: female!reader, Kageyama Tobio, Hinata Shouyou, Tsukishima Kei, Yamaguchi Tadashi (+ bonus characters: Bokuto Koutarou, Kuroo Testurou)

Prompts: A. best character development + B. patterns and habits

Tags/warnings: Haikyuu!! (anime), PG, fluff, headcanons, patterns and habits, best character development

A/N: I haven't done any character x reader stuff for this challenge yet because I tend to do NSFW stuff. But I thought I'd do some fluffy stuff about the characters with the best development and their habits as your boyfriend! (Plus a couple of bonus boys, because I couldn't help myself!! 🥰)

All my Haikyuu Week 2020 posts will be SFW, but I have NSFW stuff on my blog too. Feel free to take a gander. Thanks for reading! Please enjoy ♡ Imo~

Haikyuu × reader / patterns and habits

☆ Kageyama Tobio ☆

Gets up at 5:30am to go for a run every morning but forgets to send you a 'good morning' text don't be upset, it just doesn't really occur to him

Gets all giddy when he receives one from you, though literally cannot stop smiling. Doesn't know what to do with himself

Often forgets his pencil case and comes by your class to borrow stuff

When he buys milk from the vending machine, he will start buying some for you as well without you asking he's trying to show he cares

Milk makes him happy, so it should make you happy too, right? 😭

Frowns and blushes when you start hugging and nuzzling him in public he'll start stammering, too, if you took him by surprise

But then he pouts when you stop 🤭

Is embarrassed about asking you to touch him my poor touch-starved baby 😭

Blushes and looks at the floor whenever he talks about something romantic or intimate

Leans his forehead against yours when he wants to express how he feels but doesn't know how I might be crying...

He loves hearing the sound of your voice, so he often falls asleep while in the middle of a late-night phone call with you you can hear the soft sound of his breathing through the receiver 😭😭

Writes down important dates you tell him because he just knows he's going to forget them

Discretely interlaces his fingers with yours when he feels vulnerable prOTECT HIM

Lots and lots of hugs from behind because eye contact can be a bit much for him, and he's sometimes nervous about you seeing his face

Can get angry and shout at you without warning when he's stressed or upset, and he feels terrible after

Writes out his apologies on reams and reams of paper and rehearses them a million times in front of the mirror but somehow still forgets most of it?

Smiles like a literal angel when he does something to make you happy that's all he wants, y'all 😭

Will try his best at everything, whether it's trying new things with you or doing the same old stuff he's always done

Nuzzles the back of your neck when you're spooning, and kisses his way across your shoulders and down your back as a way of saying, 'I love you and you're mine'

☆ Hinata Shouyou ☆

Says the cheesiest, most romantic things to you with a straight face, but blushes and hides his face when you return the favour

Bounces around the room when he's excited

Always asks you how your day was and is genuinely interested

Rests his head on your shoulder when you're sitting together

Shouts really loudly at random moments because of surprise/frustration/excitement/any sudden emotion, really 😅 gives you mini heart attacks

Always sneezes really fucking loudly??

Sends you adorable cat videos when he knows you've had a bad day

Subtly presses his leg against yours whenever you're sat together, especially when you're both supposed to be studying 👀

Wipes your cheeks and kisses the end of your nose whenever you've been crying

Sings in the shower because he thinks you can't hear him

Will give his gym towel to you with a smile whenever you get soaked in the rain rather than dry himself off

Treasures every little gift you get him

Is fine becoming a human hot water bottle by little-spooning every month when your period comes around he runs at a really high temperature, and actually really enjoys it. So cute 😍

Runs down the halls to your class every break to bring you your favourite drink from the vending machine

Loves sharing cakes with you and feeding each other it sounds cringy, but he makes it so cute and natural

Always pulls goofy faces when he Snapchats you

Leaves you cute voicemails when he wanted to talk to you but you're busy

Shows up unannounced at your house when he's troubled because he just really needs to see you

If he just sees your face, then he knows that it's somehow going to be alright

Y'all, I can't 😭😭🤧

☆ Tsukishima Kei ☆

Teases the crap out of you on a regular basis just to see you all pouty and frustrated

Pretends not to remember your birthday/anniversary/etc. every year so he can drop by your house later that day and surprise you with a gift

Pulls your cheeks when he thinks you're being too cute

Kisses the ends of your fingers when he wants to show affection but doesn't know how

Flicks your forehead whenever he thinks you're being stupid or irritating 🙄

Lowkey blushes every time he sees you cheering for him in the stands I SEE THAT LITTLE SMILE, TSUKKI

Makes you sit on his lap all the time for no good reason other than to tease you bruh

Often ends up taking the teasing too far and winds up feeling rotten because you're now genuinely upset

Sucks at applogies, but will always try to set it right if he's at fault, even if it's awkward

Gives the biggest, warmest hugs when he wants to which isn't much, but hey. Take what you can get

Always sends you a text to make sure you've got home safe, but it's never in those words. It's always under the guise of something else Tsukki, pLEaSE

Grumbles to himself out of jealousy whenever you show attention to other guys, especially his brother

Deliberately gives you his sweaters and hoodies to wear after a shower because he thinks it's super cute, but acts like it's nothing you ain't slick, Tsukki 🤣

☆ Yamaguchi Tadashi ☆

Reaches for your hand first whenever you're together

Nose and forehead kisses when he sees you in the morning

Hand-picks a bunch of flowers for you every Monday because he knows you hate Mondays 🥺🤧

Waits for you at the gate after school every day

Always stands up for you, no matter what he may be soft, but he's not a WUSS 😠

Asks to borrow your other earphone whenever you're listening to something

Wants to spoon with you whenever he's feeling down and you'll never refuse

Always arrives 15 minutes early for every date despite changing his outfit several times out of nervousness

Blushes in pride whenever he lends you his jacket because you're cold adorbs

Sends you little pick-me-up messages when you're busy so you can read them when you're free

Helps you tie up your hair for gym class, and is surprisingly good at making pretty hairstyles

Traces his fingers over your palms and other body parts whenever you're curled up together

Has your name saved on every social media and contact list as something cute like 'My Sunshine 💛' or 'My Honeybee 🐝'

Twiddles his hair around his finger a lot, especially when he's daydreaming about you let's hope he doesn't start balding 😭

Will rush to your class with an umbrella on rainy days in case you forgot one

Loves sitting on the swings with you whenever you pass them on the way home, and making you giggle by pushing you higher and higher

(Bonus boys)

☆ Bokuto Koutarou ☆

Sends a stream of soppy hype-texts every morning for you to wake up to

Will stop by your house and pick you up for school, even if you live literal miles away from him he just wants to see you

Grabs you by the waist and picks you up at least once a day, often in front of a crowd of people he's a fan of PDA

Peppers you with kisses when he sees you for the first time each day

Hypes you up to no end. Literally cannot sing your praises enough

Is constantly looking for compliments, and is not-so subtle about it

Gets easily depressed when you don't notice he did something differently etc.

Will kiss you in front of everyone when he wins a game and you come down to congratulate him literally doesn't care. He's too proud of you

Is constantly asking for massages, whether or not he needs them, because he enjoys the contact

Sometimes you want to staple his mouth shut because he has a habit of getting too excited and talking with his mouth full 🙃

Doesn't stop texting you and sending you Snapchats

Is kind of oblivious if he's done something that upset you, and starts freaking out when someone Akaashi finally tells him

Doesn't plan or rehearse his apologies, because he literally just says exactly what he means 100% of the time

May start choking up and crying if what he did was bad enough, because he just feels so, so guilty

Constantly reminds you when you said you would make him a lunchbox because he loves it so much and wants to boast to his friends

Likes you sitting on his lap while you do stuff together I mean...👀

Calls you 'puppy' and 'kitten' etc. unabashedly in public boi, pLEASE

Insists on giving you piggyback rides whenever your feet hurt 🐷

Saves every single selfie you send him. He treasures every single one, and tears sometimes come to his eyes when he scrolls through them he's so whipped for you, my gal

☆ Kuroo Testurou ☆

Stays up all night texting you he might be getting bags

But it's fine. It just adds to the emo look

Takes your bag and carries it for you without you asking him to

Facetimes you randomly

When you ask what it's about, he says he just missed you/wanted to see your face smooth mf

His hand always finds its way around your waist whenever you're walking together

He scrolls through your old conversations when he misses you

Will ruffle your hair to tease you just so he can spend the next 20 minutes brushing it for you

Steals food from your lunch every day he's lucky he's pretty

Stands outside your house with a boombox blasting love ballads like a giant nerd when he wants to surprise you just imagine it for a second. Let the image sink in

Ends up stroking your hair when you're cuddling together

And subconsciously cradles your stomach a lot because he really wants to start a family with you Testu!!! 🥺😭🤧

Always sends you 'Send This To Your Crush Without Context' videos, despite the fact that you guys have literally been dating for years no caption or anything, either. Just the video

Will probably continue to do it even once you're married, tbh

Always, always, always walks you home

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peeterparkr · 5 years ago

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perfidy;tom holland|12

chapter 12: the antagonist

enemies to lovers au/enemies with benefits

chapter summary:

per·fi·dy /ˈpərfədē/ (noun): 1: the quality or state of being faithless or disloyal: TREACHERY. 2: an act or an instance of disloyalty 3: deceitfulness; untrustworthiness.

pairing: tom holland x y/n

warnings: swearing,,alcohol mention, french, tom trying to flirt

word count: 6.9k

here’s a playlist

and here’s another one

and here’s another one inspired by 1D

social media before you read (IMPORTANT FOR THE CHAPTER) :

during chapter: Sam freaks out. Tom and y/n text and subtweet. Y/N is not jealous.

after chapter: Y/N loves Dirty Dancing. Timmy doesn’t. People reach out and a group chat is made.

previous chapter next chapter series masterlist wanna be tagged?

It was no secret that Timothée was very, very observant. Some people thought he was quiet, he wasn’t, not with the right people. He loved to laugh and make people laugh. He was a simple man. He liked to stay with things that made him happy, and get rid off things that didn’t. He was someone who didn’t need much, if he enjoyed a sunset, he’d stay quiet to watch it. If he found something funny, he laughed. If he liked a song, he listened to it. He wasn’t complicated at all. But he was fascinated by everything, by life, by people. Even if he was simple, he was a man with intense emotions. And he liked complex people.

Complicated minds.

Like y/n. He was never bored with her. How delicate she was, and how she put attention in details. How he’d noticed she was a little bit of a kleptomaniac. Not in a bad way. But he noticed how she’d sometimes pick up a pebble when they’d go to their dates near the river, or how she’d keep the movie tickets, or how she’d always pick up maps of whatever places they went to.

But Timmy, Timmy had feelings. Very strong feelings.

So of course when he saw what he saw, the love of his life kissing another man, he had to go to the bathroom and wash off his face. He leaned against the sink. Of course he’d seen it coming, but not as soon.

Not that soon.

He stared at his reflection. He needed to calm down.

He had spoken about it once with y/n. How heartbreaks can be felt.

It felt like a dagger across his chest, all the way down to his stomach.

He wished he hadn’t seen this. He hadn’t expected it, not today. Not when he’d seen them ignore each other. What the fuck had led to that kiss?

Sure, he knew it would come. Not that soon.

But Timmy had been observant, and he saw the way she looked at him. He knew this was coming. Not that soon. But not that soon.

But it was so obvious, they had stopped with their usual bickering, she would laugh more. Less fighting. And she’d blush sometimes when Tom looked at her. Of course this all came from the fact that Tom and y/n were spending more time together. Timmy liked to hope that nothing else had happened.

But after seeing them kiss… he wasn’t that sure.

Because he’d seen her, laughing when Tom was in makeup or wardrobe as he would actually make sure to make her smile. The way that Tom would playfully smear whatever condiment his lunch was having. Or the way he’d randomly lean over to whisper to her.

And yes, they had continued with the whole hate speech but it was different. Timothee had noticed.

And he’d seen Tom. And of course he had seen Tom drooling for his ex girlfriend before.

How Tom would look at her from the other side of the room, or how he’d actually pay attention to her. Tom could be ignoring everyone in the room but whenever y/n spoke he’d look up, even if it was just to make an insult.

Or how Tom would turn away whenever y/n kissed Tim. Timothee saw the way Tom would have to clench his jaw and take a deep breath.

And then y/n’s last birthday. The bloody vinyl. It didn’t technically bother him, because y/n had smiled but Tom was so obvious.

But he wasn’t sure that y/n felt the same, y/n had been so keen on making sure everyone knew she hated him. And she genuinely did. But what about now?

Because she looked hurt whenever Tom walked into a room, especially at the beginning of their relationship. Tim had never known what had happened between them. The uncertainty had him anxious.

Especially because he knew it was related to the night they’d met. Not sure why he thought so.

But he knew y/n had been so difficult to start dating and to tumble down her walls. But he’d fallen in love with her from the first moment he’d seen her. He remembered her, running into the classroom, with her hair wet from the rain and a coffee in her hand, as she was carrying tons of bags. Not sure what for.

And she’d quietly snuck into the back, and made a mess while pulling out that old notebook. Too old fashioned.

And he remembered how she’d dropped her stuff making everyone turn around to see her, and that had made Timothee laugh under his breath.

And then when they started to actually talk, after the night in the club, he remembered how y/n had been… sad. And he’d seen her blossom again, slowly. Then she finally accepted to go on a date with him, and she’d been so nervous and quiet but giggly. He remembered how she had been reserved, but then she’d kissed his cheek. Timmy knew she still had one of the flowers he’d given her.

And that’s all it took him to fall in love with her and knowing he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

They were meant to be, it was so ridiculous. Their favourite movies, their favourite colors. It seemed stupid not to think they were meant for each other.

But maybe she didn’t think that way. Because Tom… Tom.

But this all came to 4 months ago. He hadn’t gotten down in one knee, but he knew y/n, so he might have stolen the idea from her favourite movie. A film canister. And he remembered giving it to her, it was a little inside joke they had. He’d give her little notes in them.

But he hadn’t expected her reaction. You know, usually, Timmy was so observant that he could know what could happen. How did he not see that she’d say no? How could he know she’d open the film canister and not want the ring inside it.

Timmy knew y/n wasn’t an ‘I love you’ giver, she didn’t say it that much. She had her own way of saying it. ‘Shut up, you’re an idiot.’ ‘Oh my god, you’re sooo silly’ ‘You’re dumb.’ Yes, not the best. but Tim had caught on to it.

But she hadn’t said it that one time.

Shed just stayed quiet, and she had simply stopped saying it. But she’d said those words: ‘Tim, I need you to know that I love you but right now I’m not ready for this.’

And that’s when it had gone downhill. Because love blinds us. And she’s stopped saying it. She’d say: ‘I love you’, but it didn’t feel like it. She didn’t say “you’re so silly,” and roll her eyes with a smile. Not anymore.

And well, he’d been blinded again if he thought y/n wouldn’t go running to Tom after Tim told her too.

Timmy wasn’t of the jealous type, he trusted y/n. But when y/n had said those words 3 months ago, he’d been conflicted. Drunk words are sober thoughts, and y/n had said it: ‘There’s still a part of me that will always wonder if Tom’s the love of my life.’

But Tom wasn’t. He couldn’t be.

Was it too pretentious of Tim to believe he was the one for y/n? But he couldn’t stop himself from thinking that, even if they were barely lies. Even if right now he could barely trust himself.

Or y/n. But right now, he knew this wasn’t y/n trying to hurt him.

Not really.

But Tom couldn’t be the love of her life, because Tom… was her perfidy. Tim had told her once.

“He will gain my trust and then betray it, on purpose,” Y/N had said.

“Perfidy.”

Y/N had looked up, frowning, as she was scattering around a storyboard. “Hm?”

What had Tom done this time? He couldn’t even remember.

Tim was on her bed, throwing a ball up and down. “Such a pretty word for such a horrible feeling,” explained Timmy as he turned to her. “It was used in the context of war, when someone pretends to be good to earn their enemies trust just to deliberately betray them.”

“Perfidy, yes… That’s Tom, my perfidy.”

Why was she kissing her perfidy?

But Tim wanted to turn into her perfidy right now, so of course he had to stop it. If she was so in love with the idea of someone hurting her, did he have to? And he wouldn’t.

He, with rage controlling every muscle in his body, went for the choreographer, claiming Tom was looking for him. Timmy wasn’t stupid, he wouldn’t walk in. Y/N didn’t need to know he’d seen them.

Tim probably needed a cigarette, or two or three. He needed to calm down.

But he walked in 5 minutes after the choreographer, and he noticed how y/n’s smile could brighten up the whole room. And her sight was on Tom and only Tom.

She was sitting down, watching Tom rehearsing. She didn’t even notice Timmy was in the room as well.

And then he heard her:

“Oh my god, Thomas stop, you’re an idiot.”

That’s when he had walked out of that room. But he still had some hope. Tom, after all, was her perfidy. Timothee had to wait until Tom betrayed y/n again.

And after that, y/n had noticed that Tim had changed. The next days were different. Tim would avoid her. He didn’t even look her in the eyes. But y/n thought it was for the best.

But Tom had been different, too. He hadn’t asked her out again, but they haven’t… had anything else either.

Well, maybe, almost.

After seeing Tom dance, and after that kiss it was no secret y/n was left with hunger for more. So of course, when he’d finished she had made sure nobody was watching, she’d placed her hands on the sides of his head and kissed him.

He’d kissed back right away, of course, his hands in her waist as he had pulled her closer. But he had immediately pulled back.

“No, y/n, I want to do this right, I mean it. No more… Whatever this is, I want to do this right.”

And that had y/n thinking. And y/n would spend more time with him, even more time with him. But they had kept their bickering.

And she had been able to write more and keep sending her little notes to Alessandra.

Sam had come to set once and he’d been particularly weird, watching y/n very observantly. And he’d asked about Timmy. But it hurt, because Timmy wasn’t around anymore. Y/N had cried once about it, at home, when nobody saw her.

But when Sam and Haz had come to set, Tom had… been nice. Y/N hadn’t, she had to keep up the whole hatred act going on.

“Hey, but what’s up with that group chat?” Y/N asked. “I really need some context”

“I don’t know,” Sam chuckled. “Haz?”

“Ah, I don’t know,” Haz grinned. “I just love enemies who fall in love with each other.”

Y/N frowned. “Ah, yeah, good trope, kind of impossible in real life.”

“Is it really?” Harrison smirked.

“Yes, because they’re enemies, and enemies usually disagree on everything, so,” Y/N rolled her eyes. “But why did you make that group-”

“Let’s see if your enemy agrees,” he smirked. “Tom?”

Tom looked up from his phone. “Yeah?”

“Thoughts on enemies falling in love with each other?” Haz smirked.

Sam snickered.

Tom rolled his eyes. “Impossible.”

“Huh, he agrees with you,” Harrison laughed. “Who would’ve thought?”

That hadn’t stopped.

And it hadn’t really stopped.

“You’re an idiot.”

“You’re silly.”

It hadn’t stopped. Like that day when y/n had told Tom she’d do his makeup and made him look like a clown. Y/N had laughed all day about it. Haz had been there too.

“Huh, funny, y/n is once again making a clown out of you,” he had said.

But something had changed. Tom was… nicer. Actual gentleman. And he would find excuses to randomly touch her, like pulling her hair back, or lifting up her chin, and pointing out her outfits. He’d kissed her cheek once. Y/N had thought about it since. So sweet.

But she seemed like a teenager all over again.

Especially because they had talked about where he wanted to go with this.

“When will you finally let me ask you out,” Tom asked once after hours on set, they were going to go hang out with the cast and crew. They’d be leaving in a few days to New York to continue filming. Y/N was texting Tim if he was going to go, too. Tim didn’t answer.

Y/N didn’t know why he had all of sudden become so cold but he’d said to her that he was giving her her space. But y/n missed Tim. You know, it’s normal, she was so used to having him around. Even as a friend.

“Why do you even want to ask me out?” Y/N asked, looking up. Tom was driving. “Please I need to know, you already got what you wanted,” Y/N pointed out.

“What?” He chuckled. “What do I even want?”

“We’ve slept together Tom, we don’t need to sugar coat it, we could keep up-”

“Who said that’s what I want.”

“What else would you want, dumbass?” She wondered.

Tom chuckled. “A date’s goal is not to have sex with someone.”

“Well, what’s your goal?” She rolled her eyes.

“I dunno, y/n,” he sighed. “And though your clothes look prettier on the floor, that’s not where I’m trying to go with-- I mean,” he coughed. “I want that, too, you know? But--I also want to make you smile.”

She chuckled. “You do that already,” she grinned.

“Oh yes, but I do that with everybody,” he chuckled.

“You’re an idiot,” she stated.

“Well, yeah, but I’m trying to be your idiot,” he gulped. “Like hold your stupid hand whenever I want to and shit.”

“Hold my stupid hand?” She giggled

“Yes, and...cuddle you,” he cleared his throat. “Aggressively cuddle you, I mean.”

“Tom Holland are you trying to flirt with me?” She smirked.

He laughed. “Been trying to for the past month but thanks for noticing.”

Y/N looked at him. “Well, what exactly is your goal?”

Tom pursed his lips. “A relationship, didn’t you get it from what I just told you?”

That’s when y/n had gone quiet. The question had remained in the air. Her chest had curled up, and she had to look out the window.

“Y/N?” He asked, with fear.

She kept quiet, for a bit more. Until they arrived.

“When?” She finally asked, as he’d parked.

Tom’s eyes widened. “What?”

She cleared her throat. “When would this… date take place?”

“Are you accepting?” He grinned.

“We’re leaving soon to New York and I need to… pack,” she looked away. “And tomorrow I know you’re going out with James and I am going out with my friends so…When?”

“Leave that to me,” He grinned, and he’d kissed her cheek.

Timmy was there, for sure. And he had glanced at y/n, and he’d clenched his jaw when he saw Tom had pulled out the chair for y/n, and sat right beside her.

Timmy had ignored y/n.

But Timmy hadn’t played fair.

“So, Mads, Tom,” Tim grinned, the dinner was honestly going phenomena. “You guys have excellent chemistry.”

“We do!” Madison grinned.

Tom chuckled. “Huh.”

“Yeah, why don’t you guys date,” Tim had pushed.

Maddison grinned. “Huh, Tom had asked me out once but—“

“Oh, you did, Tom?” Timmy asked.

Y/N only turned slightly to look at him.

“I—Only asked you for lunch, I think we’re good as friends Mads, let’s keep it professional,” Tom had answered, glaring at Tim.

The night continued, Tom had rested his arm behind y/n’s back. And Tim kept playing that game he had. As if he was trying to prove something to Tom. And he decided to stop ignoring y/n, a little too much for Tom’s convenience.

“No, but—His face!” Timmy laughed. “No, y/n here—I swear, you remember right?”

“Stop,” y/n laughed. “Sometimes I am super stupid!”

“Half an hour, trying to get directions, imagine this! No one speaks French but me, and y/n had taken like 4 lessons!” Tim laughed. “That didn’t stop her from claiming she is soooo good at french, and she was the one who wanted to speak!”

“I—I was okay,” y/n laughed. “Hey, you were my teacher! If anything this is your fault.”

““But—“This other guy, blue shirt, name is not important. “how bad could it be? Mispronouncing one word?“

“no, it was bad!” Y/N laughed.

“Okay, but there is a difference, okay? Between poutine and putain!” Timothee laughed. “But okay, okay, she went completely serious, and she just approached the old man, she was—She was going for it,” Tom grinned. “And she goes with this face,” Tim sucked in his cheeks. “High pitched voice: ‘excusez-moi, monsieurrrr, ou est-ce-que nous—-pouvons? Pouvons? Trouver…. PUTAIN!”

Y/N covered her face. Tom chuckled.

“Why—what does that mean?” Tom frowned, angry that y/n clearly still had that connection and dynamic with Tim.

“So you see, poutine is a Canadian dish, and putain.... Means whore. Basically she asked where we could get whores instead of poutine! Big difference y/n!” Tim laughed.

The whole table burst into laughter.

“Wait, how do you guys know each other?” Maddison asked, watching Tim and y/n. “I—I mean I know Tom and y/n are childhood friends but you, Timmy?”

Y/N cleared her throat.

“Well—Uh,” Tim smiled sadly.

“They went to college together,” Tom was the one to answer.

“We used to date,” Tim said.

Maddison widened her sight. “Oh, and what happened?” Maddison chuckled. “You guys have great chemistry.”

Tim locked eyes with y/n but then he glanced at Tom.

y/n cleared her throat. “Well, Mads, that’s a story for another time.”

Tom shrugged. “Sometimes it doesn’t work out, it’s no big deal.”

Tim clenched his jaw. “Yeah, and we… We were supposed to be apart but then y/n took this job, so… Who knows?” Timmy grinned at y/n.

Y/N took a long sip of her drink.

Tom also wanted to play that game, which had basically turned into a ‘who has more anecdotes with y/n’ kind of game.

“No, but we actually knocked the piano over,” Tom explained, between laughs.

“Why?” Someone else, green t-shirt, asked. “How do you knock a piano over?”

“We are enemies,” y/n explained. “And sometimes—“She chuckled. “We went too far.”

Tom had proven that he had more. But they all seemed… Different. Tom realized how different from the stories Timmy had his own stories were. Because Timmy built it up, in a way that made Tom boil up with jealousy again as if he was reliving it again.

But then he’d pulled out the card, the whole, I’ve known her my whole life, and he’d be winning again. But Timmy. Timmy didn’t even make it seem like a competition. He was just.. Being Timmy. Proving that even if he’d known her for only three years, he knew y/n.

And they continued with that game, until y/n had caught on to it. She was not amused.

But she had ignored them, both. She was angry, Tom could notice.

“Hey so—I bought a Polaroid,” Tom said almost at the end of the evening.

Y/N had stopped, to look at him. “You what?”

“Yeah,” Tom said, as he pulled it out. “So, we might as well take a picture all together, yeah?”

Tim had also been skeptical.

And they had taken a picture.

Timmy had kissed y/n’s cheek to say goodbye.

When they were making the way back to the car, Tom was still looking at the picture. And still thinking about the way Tim had placed his lips against y/n, so slowly. As if trying to prove something to Tom.

“Wait, y/n?”

She looked back at him.

“Can I take a picture of you, idiot?” Tom asked.

She rolled her eyes with a smile. “No.”

“Why not?” He frowned, quickly reaching out for her, taking her hand.

“What for? So you can give it to Tim and prove a point?” She asked.

He pursed his lips. “No, to keep this moment.”

She coughed as she tried to avoid his gaze. “You know, I’m not amused by whatever you were doing, both of you--”

“He started.”

“He didn’t,” she crossed her arms. “And if you think that this is a game and--”

“Well, I’m winning, anyway, I’m the one taking you home.”

“So I’m a prize?” She snapped.

“No, no I didn’t…” Tom squeezed his eyes shut. “No, I’m sorry.”

Y/N believed in little things that made up a person, certain events, songs, and even insignificant things, like a beer cap or a napkin stained with lipstick. There are times when it’s impossible to take a picture and even more impossible to take a polaroid. Like after she’d danced with Tom. She really didn’t want to read much into it, because he knew how Tom was. Tim had said it, Tom was her perfidy.

But she had wanted to take a picture.

She hugged herself, watching him

“Do you even know how to use a Polaroid?” She questioned him.

“It’s just taking a picture, y/n,” he looked away. “Forget it.”

“And what kind of moment is there to keep here?” She wondered. “Walking in a parking lot?”

He scoffed. “The fact you accepted to go out with me.”

She smiled. “Ah, but I didn’t say yes, did I?” She smirked.

His eyes widened. “But I thought—“

“Sh, let’s just take that damn picture, silly,” she grinned as she took the camera off his hands, leaned over to his side.

Tom blinked but then leaned away, as she smiled as she snapped the picture.

He stared down as she waited for the picture to dry out, he placed a soft loving kiss to her cheek.

She blushed and then blinked, looking at himself “Now let's go, dumbass,” she cleared her throat.

He snickered watching her.

“Dumbass in a… cute and caring way,” she added, before coughing away the awkwardness.

This was going to be different.

Tom had changed. Of course, he had to be subtle otherwise he knew y/n would go insane. But little by little he had been nicer, he wondered if she’d noticed. It seemed that after that very one particular kiss, y/n had sensed something changing, too. But he could only pretend to be her enemy for just a little bit longer. Of course, some habits couldn’t wear out but this was… different.

Y/N seemed to be conflicted, though. There were times when he saw her building up her walls, and being defensive but just as if she was reminded of something, she’d let loose.

His brother and friend had noticed a change, too. Texting, all day. And they’d said that y/n had been too observant. Haz had been bothering y/n in front of Tom:

“You were totally checking him out.”

“I was not,” Y/N had said.

“Don’t worry, he checks you out all the time, too.”

Of course, he wanted to kill Harrison.

But he knew y/n was being defensive. But there old habits that didn’t wear out, like him casually pushing her away when he walked by. Or her flipping him off whenever he looked at her.

“Dumbass” “Idiot.” “Stupid.” Those weren’t going to go away.

But they were flirting.

And now she’d accepted a date. And Tom had to think of a date. Would they have their first date in New York? They couldn’t.

Tom had gone to her apartment by surprise to help her pack.

It was only for two weeks but he, as stupid and cheesy as it may seem, wanted to make sure she packed outfits for what he had planned.

But it didn’t make sense, did it? He knew he couldn’t—the dates couldn’t be usual.

And then his mind was going places to where the date would go, he did have a certain idea. But he was debating on little details? Did he have to get her flowers?

He knew she loved flowers. But he couldn’t just choose yellow flowers. But what other kind of flowers? He remembered how difficult it was to choose flowers for her, how does one choose flowers for a girl who has a garden in her eyes?

“What are you doing?” Y/N asked, as she was folding some clothes but she looked up as Tom was looking at her wall full of Polaroids and picked up a hanger.

“I’m— going to hang this one,” Tom smirked as he fanned the picture they’d taken at the parking lot.

Y/N laughed. “And who says I want your silly face hanging there?”

He chuckled as he walked over, wrapping his arms around her waist. “You don’t?”

“No.”

“I’m going to hang it out anyway,” he claimed with a smile and then placed a kiss on her cheek.

She rolled her eyes.

She cleared out her throat after a while, as Tom was only admiring her wall.

“So—Uh, what exactly?” She cleared her throat. “Should I pack for—the date?“

He grinned. “Ah, right,” he chuckled. “Well all your clothes are ugly so it doesn’t matter.”

“You’re right, you’re going to be showing your stupid face so it won’t matter,” she snapped. “Hey… wait toss me that pink scarf from that top drawer, idiot.”

“Top—?”he stared at the drawers and decided to randomly open one. And that definitely was pleased with that drawer. “Oh.”

“What?”

A drawer full of lingerie.

“Yeah these—All of this drawer is coming.”

Y/N looked up. “Huh?”

He smirked as he pulled out a very nice set of pink bikini lingerie. Very, very nice. With flowers. “Especially this one,” he waved the two pieced set in the air. “This, this one is for the date.”

“Oh my god,” y/n ran over to try and pull it off his hands and close the drawer. “That was not the top drawer, oh my god, you’re so stupid.”

Tom lifted up his hand and ran away with the set as he couldn’t stop laughing. Y/N rushed after him.

“Thomas!”

And he was faster than her, but this felt like when they were kids, when Tom stole something from y/n. This felt so familiar.

“Thomas, oh my god,” she continued as he rushed back to her bedroom and casually placed it in her suitcase.

“That, you’re wearing that,” he smirked, as she punched him in his arm. “That’s the outfit for the date.

“No,” she took it out.

Tom grinned again, placing it back in. “Yes.”

“There won’t be a date now,” she rolled her eyes, chuckling.

“Why not?” He pouted. “That’s a great outfit.”

“Because you’re acting like a child,” she said, chuckling, still embarrassed as she took the set back where it belonged.

Tom rushed after her, hugging her from behind. “Well, not for the date but you should pack it anyway,” he grinned.

“Just in case?” She laughed.

“Oh, no, I’m 100% sure you’ll end up wearing it,” he sassed, hands in her waist, brushing his lips against her ear, fanning his breath against her neck.

“I wouldn’t be that sure, idiot, the odds are actually very small,” she laughed, pushing him away.

But he pulled her back to him, staring at her lips. “Why?”

He grinned.

“Because I’m still deciding whether or not I want to do this,” she bit her lip, watching him.

“I’m not trying to break your heart this time, you know,” he reminded her as he cupped her cheeks.

“No, but I’m afraid I am,” she had said.

He didn’t know what that meant, and though he was dying to kiss her, he hadn’t. He didn’t. He couldn’t, he had to do it right.

He helped her again, and he might or might have not slipped the set in again, she didn’t say anything this time.

“What’s… this?” Tom asked as he was lurking through her closet, he found two shoeboxes. One said Tim, one said Tom. He frowned.

Y/N looked up again, with fear, not wanting to deal with yet another shenanigan made by Tom.

“What?”

“It’s got my name in it,” Tom pointed out. And then y/n rushed to shut her closet door closed, realizing what he’d seend.

“None of your business,” she said, with a nervous smile.

“What is it?” He chuckled nervously.

“Nothing,” she emphasized.

He frowned. “Why do you have a Tim box? And why do you have a Tom box?”

Y/N looked away. “Nothing.”

He poked her sides. “Y/N?”

“The…”She closed her eyes. “The TIm box is stuff that belongs to him that I haven't’ had the guts to give him back.”

“And… the one with my name?”

She shrugged, calmly. “That’s where I keep track of your schedule, you know I hate using the phone calendar, so it’s there.”

“May I see it?” Tom asked.

“No, because you’re going to mess everything up,” she said, pushing him away, and then pulling him to the front door. “Now, it’s getting late and you should probably leave because I need to get ready to hang out with my friends.”

And he was going to hang out with James. Not sure why James seemed so cold lately. They’d have a beer. Tom kept thinking about the box.

Tom saw James as a big brotherly figure, in a way that James had constantly given him advice and in a way that James was not afraid to call him out on his bullshit. But it was also kind of scary. Especially due to the fact that Tom now felt guilty that he’d slept with y/n, and Tom knew how protective James was when it came to y/n.

Of course, you know, the first chit chat that’s only catching up wasn’t intense. But Tom was sweating, because he feared that James would ask him about it. And he was scared because he had once heard James say: ‘Tim is the one for y/n, they’re so perfect for each other it’s ridiculous.’

And James was the first one to call Tom out whenever he’d crossed lines with y/n. James understood that they had the whole enemies thing, but James didn’t let Tom pull any kind of bad bullshit.

However, James didn’t know about the yellow flowers. At least, Tom thought so.

But Tom wasn’t really paying attention; he was wondering what exactly that box could have.

“So, what’s going on with y/n?” James blurted out.

Tom almost spat his beer as he had to cough away his choking. “Hm?”

James laughed, rolling his eyes. “Are you not going to tell me?”

Tom felt sweat falling down his forehead as he stared at the older brother of the love of his life. Suddenly he regretted every single thing he’d pulled over the last month, from sleeping with her to waving around her underwear.

“Tell--tell you what?” Tom played dumb.

James watched Tom, and rolled his eyes scoffing. “Tom.”

Tom started to peel off the paper from the beer. “What?”

“She told me.”

“What—did she tell you?” Tom’s heart felt like it was going to pop right out of his chest.

James watched him. “That you asked her out…” He cackled. “Was she… supposed to tell me anything else?”

Tom felt his soul coming back to his body. He blushed as he let out a nervous snicker. “Ah, yeah. No, I mean, no that’s it but—Yeah I asked her out.”

“Well, that’s such a turn of events right?” James asked. “I thought you—hated her.”

Tom stared at his beer.

“I’m in love with her,” Tom stated.

James watched him, took a sip of his beer. “Okay. So?”

Tom frowned. “Aren’t you… surprised?”

“Oh, sorry,” James cleared his throat. “That’s brand new information!” He faked surprise.

Tom frowned. “What?”

“Okay, I know that, you haven’t been subtle and while all of you were running around pretending to be enemies, me, the grown up noticed a lot of things.”

Tom felt betrayed. He didn’t know why but he was offended. Why wasn’t he surprised? Sam and Haz had been… A little. But this was his best kept secret and James knew.

“What?” Tom repeated.

“Please you’ve been drooling over her your whole life,” James pushed. “I… I am only wondering, what’s up with this?”

“Well uh---”

“And what about Harry?” James questioned. “Because, Tom, this…He’s your brother, and I know you, I’ve seen you toy around with y/n and act all adorable but the moment Harry walks in you push her away, and you break her heart, and look, right now, she… She doesn’t have to deal with that kind of crap, alright?”

Tom watched him. “I know, I fucked up, but now… I… I really want to work this out.”

“Look, Tom, you’re… You’re my friend, okay?” James squeezed his eyes shut. “But she’s my sister and she comes first, and I don’t want you fooling around with her, okay? Besides… I don’t know how she’s going to react to all of this, alright?”

“Well, she seems to be up for it,” Tom sighed. “I’m not trying to fool around, I genuinely love her.”

James watched him and took a deep breath. “What about Tim?”

Tom clenched his jaw. “What about him?”

“I dunno,” James sighed. “I’d be nervous having around the man who proposed to the woman I love.”

“Tim… proposed?”

That was… Now that was brand new information.

Y/N wasn’t far from there, having dinner with her friends, Charlie and Danielle, whom she really hadn’t talked to in a while. They’d spoken about life, about Joe Holt, whom was now also hitting on Danielle, but had asked about y/n, and about Charlie’s tinder experience.

Y/N had been quiet. She had been thinking about Tom. And Tim, who had been texting her since that dinner. She wondered if she was doing the right thing. Because now guilt was invading her.

And she was confused. Was she falling back in love with Tom? And how dangerous was it to fall in love when she was writing about it?

When Tom had left, she’d opened Timmy’s box. A box full of secrets, of napkins, of movie tickets and beer caps, of an egg shell from the first time he’d ever made breakfast for her, and sweeteners of their first café date. Of memories and film canisters.

One very special film canister.

But she was thinking about Tom’s box. One filled with both good and bad memories. Dried out yellow flowers, and lipsticks she hadn’t touched in years because he’d kissed those. With scripts she’d written for them. And now, with a beer cap, from the first night they’d slept together. The package of pasta of when he’d cooked dinner for her, and now she’d taken that polaroid he’d hung to place it in her box, to remember the day he’d asked her out.

She didn’t want to ruin this. She really didn’t want to break his heart, she had to stop.

“Okay, spill it,” Charlie smirked. “Y/N I can’t believe you literally have to work for your wrost enemy and have your ex there!”

“I wouldn’t be able to do it,” Danielle pointed out. “How’s it going?”

Like hell. Y/N would be lying if she admitted that she would constantly be very stressed out. She cried, a lot. Besides, she was making a fool of herself. Who was she trying to kid? She was falling back in love with Tom. But then she still had feelings for Timmy. Because Timmy was perfect.

“It’s been fine,” she lied.

“Have you fucked Tom, yet?” Charlie asked.

Y/N blushed. “Why do you always assume--?”

“Ah, please, y/n, it’s all over you, you’ve got that glow everybody talks about, you’ve been getting laid so I can only assume it’s...No,” he paused himself. “Are you sleeping with perfect Timmo boy?”

Danielle chirped. “Oh my God, yes, you should get back together with him you made a perfect couple!”

“Honestly, yes, you guys were maaaade for each other,” Charlie sang.

Y/N only sipped of her cosmo.

“No, I didn’t sleep with Tim.”

Charlie watched her with a proud smirk. “Fine, don’t tell us… By the way Alessandra is loving everything you’re sending her,” Charlie laughed. “She said she’s doing your script, no doubt.”

Y/N pinched the bridge of her nose. This couldn’t be happening. “But I don’t want to write it anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Danielle frowned. “It’s brilliant, I asked Alessandra today what it’s about and it’s brilliant! Enemies with benefits! How did you even come up with that?”

Y/N stayed quiet.

“Yes, the whole enemies to lovers, 80’s couple, revenge party kind of thing, it’s amazing,” Charlie added. “I love it, you should be proud of yourself.”

Y/N only sipped more. “I can’t--”

“Why not?” Danielle frowned.

Charlie then stopped to stare at y/n, as if he was connecting two and two. “Wait a minute.”

Y/N rubbed her face.

“You slept with Tom,” Charlie whispered. “You’re shitting me,” he pitched his voice. “You’re.. Shit, you’re kidding me, you’re.. You’re enemies with benefits with Tom.”

Danielle’s eyes widened as her mouth o-shaped with surprise.

“Sh, sh, ‘kay, yes, yes, I…” Y/N squeezed her eyes shut. “But… Look, I need to stop this, I need to change the script now, okay? I can’t write about this, it’s fucked up, I know it’s wrong and…I well.”

“You caught feelings,” Charlie smirked.

“What?”

“How do you even know this?” Danielle frowned.

Charlie rolled his eyes. “Please a woman in love is easy to give away, and y/n here has always been in love with Tom so…” Charlie chuckled. “You’re in love, aren’t you?”

“Maybe,” y/n admitted. “No... Not in love. I’m not sure. I dunno. But okay, he asked me out and I think… I think it would be nice, you know?”

Charlie nodded. “But you’re afraid he’ll find the script.”

“Yes because it’ll blow up in my face,” y/n said.

Charlie nodded. “But then again…”He paused. “Look, I’ve been reading the script, you know Alessandra always makes me edit everything,” he remembered. “And from what I’ve caught on so far is you’re really trying to get your revenge because he broke your heart, I don’t know what’s fiction or not but you’ve made it clear he was an asshole.”

Y/N stayed quiet.

Danielle blinked. “And was he?”

“Yes,” y/n sighed. “But…”

“But?” Charlie watched her. “y/n, what do you want?”

“I don’t know anymore,” she sighed. “I… have feelings for him.”

“But you also said he was your… What did you call him? This weird word, that meant someone who’s only trying to get your trust to break your heart or some poetic shit like that?”

“I know,” y/n said. “I… Just...I want to believe this time it’s different and I… don’t want to break his heart.”

“But what if he breaks yours? What if he keeps on with that weird word, because look, y/n, even as much as I tried to ship you with him, deep down I’ve seen how shitty he’s been with you,” Charlie continued.

Danielle nodded. “That’s true, whenever he’s been at your parties, he was a really big asshole.”

Y/N nodded.

“He doesn’t have to find the script,” Charlie said. “Make sure he doesn’t and--”

“But what if they film it,” Y/N pushed. “What will I say then?”

“The story is different enough, I’m sure, I didn’t get it was you and Tom, but only because I know you and because Alessandra made sure to ask it was a based in real events kind of thing, but nobody else knows about it, it’s set in the 80’s, and if he asks about it--”

“But it’s…”

“Is it the same story?” Charlie questioned.

“No,” y/n shook her head. “No, I’ve made sure it’s different enough, I’ve only… made sure it’s about enemies with benefits and her trying to get her revenge but no, it’s got nothing to do with me, but you see the problem, right?”

“Well, I do,” Charlie admitted. “But--- You could say that it was only inspired by it.”

“That’s true...But do you really love him?” Danielle asked.

Y/N stayed quiet.

“Don’t you think he’ll break your heart first?” Charlie pushed.

Yes. He was going to break her heart first.

“He was that weird word, wasn’t he? what was it? Danielle I told you about it, how it was such a great word!”Charlie attempted to recall.

“Oh!” Danielle closed her eyes. “Yes, yes… Uh, serendipity?”

Charlie laughed. “No, that’s the movie with John Cuscak, but I know a word for you… stupidity.”

“It was something like… perdifidity,” Danielle recalled.

“Perfidy,” y/n said. “Yeah, he’ll probably commit perfidy.”

“So, when he does, then you’ll...be ready with your own perfidy,” Charlie said. “It’s only fair.”

But she really didn’t want to commit perfidy.

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cyclogenesis · 4 years ago

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i have to tell you that the second i saw cal and ash on that mountain getaway a couple weeks ago, i thought about how desperately i would love a sequel to your turks & caicos fic set during that trip. (this is not a request, i promise, i just wanted to tell you bc that is one of my fav fics of all time)

Aw anon!! 🥺 Gosh I hadn't even thought about that when I was in my feelings about the mountain getaway pictures, which is wild because I am just remembering now that I started a fic after the honeymoon comment initially happened (like, very soon after, because @elliebirdthings was at that show and told me about it and we were freaking out haha), before we knew that they went to Turks & Caicos, and I had them taking that trip to a cabin in Maine.

Just for kicks, because this message made me smile and I love you for that, here's the beginning of that fic. It's unfinished obviously (not even any kissing!), but there's some nice stuff in there I think. This fic was going to be titled A whole fucking lifetime of this after the American Pleasure Club album which was a title I should have kept, goddammit. Also randomly in here I have them driving to the cabin while listening to My Bloody Valentine, who Ashton later called out as one of his main influences for Superbloom.

1600 words of unfinished Cashton under the cut! 😘

The day after the last meeting about the promo schedule the dressing room conversation turns, as it does, to plans for the break. It’s a month out, but they’ve to a man developed a fetish for planning their free time carefully as soon as the schedule’s set. Planning things makes Ashton feel like a grown-up. He likes renting cars. Sometimes he scrolls through AirBnB for hours just to see what’s out there.

“I’m going straight back, we got Dodgers tickets,” Michael says.

“I remember when you used to say ‘we’ and it meant you and me,” Calum says. He wiggles a little from where he’s snuggled against Michael on the couch like he wants to get away, but of course Michael doesn’t let him. Ashton thinks he probably wasn’t really trying.

“Aw, you’ll always be my first love,” Michael tells him, squeezing Calum to him more tightly. “You wanna make out just for old times sake?”

“I do not,” says Calum, but he lets Michael give him a big kiss on the forehead, his face squinching up happily.

“I just wanna get away for a bit, no work or social media or anything,” says Ashton, ignoring their tomfoolery. “A little cabin by a lake somewhere.”

“Oh yeah?” Luke says. “Where are you and Cal going this time?”

“Maine,” Calum says, at the same time as Ashton says, “Why would you assume we’re going somewhere together?”

A small silence falls over the room.

With dignity, Ashton says, “Calum and I are going to Maine.”

“Just get out in front of it this time,” Michael advises. “Let everyone know it’s another honeymoon. Take control of the narrative.”

“How many times can you go on a honeymoon before you have to acknowledge that you’re married?” Luke asks nobody in particular.

“It’s a bro trip,” Ashton says firmly. “For bros.”

“It’s very bromantic,” Luke says. “It’s okay, I’m not hurt I wasn’t invited. I love going back to LA and jerking off alone.”

“It’s nice that we’ve all got plans,” Calum says. He’s settled peacefully back against Michael, Michael absently petting his hair.

“It’s not a honeymoon,” Ashton insists.

Whatever, Ashton called it what he called it, okay? Might as well control the narrative.

Over drinks at the bar after their last show Calum asks, “Where would you want to go on your honeymoon, anyway? Somewhere new?”

Ashton pokes at the ice in his cocktail with his straw. Aren’t they supposed to not be using straws anymore because of the ocean or whatever? Ashton loves the ocean, it’s very important to him. Also this cocktail sucks. “Can I try your drink?” he asks. “I don’t love mine.” Calum has something with ginger in it, and bubbles. Calum slides his obligingly over, and Ashton passes his own over to be fair.

“I like yours better,” Calum says after a sip. “You wanna trade?”

Sometimes Ashton does believe in soulmates. “Yes, thank you.” He takes a long drink. “It would be nice to spend more time in Italy. Not one of the tourist-y parts though, somewhere quiet. Up north, maybe, one of the smaller towns.” He tries to picture what it would be like: olive groves, blue skies, stone churches. An old villa with lemon trees and a view of the hills. He’s so used to traveling with the band or just with Calum that it’s hard to picture anyone else there with him. They’re all as prone as anyone to get swept up with girls to the exclusion of most everything else, but Ashton can’t really imagine a future without seeing Calum all the time, without talking to him every day. Maybe he and Calum could just get married around the same time and they could all go on a honeymoon together.

“Yeah, that’d be pretty nice,” Calum says, looking wistful. Ashton wants to take a picture of him, capture the way a curl rests against his temple, how the blue neon lights behind the bar hit the glitter he let Ashton smear on his cheekbones before the show. They made a no social media pledge for this trip but Ashton’s bringing his camera anyway. He has to keep in practice, doesn’t he? Anyway, it’s important to capture these memories.

“Maybe we should just go,” Ashton tells him. “Why not? Who knows how long it could take for me to fool someone into living with this forever?” He sucks down the last of his drink, feeling sorry for himself now. What if he falls in love and she moves in and Calum stops coming over in the morning to walk to their favorite coffee shop together, and stops picking Ashton up so they can go hike Runyon, and stops bringing Duke over like he owns the damn place and doesn’t care about the dog hair that Ashton has to hoover off his couch pillows? That would be terrible. Worst of all, what if it was Ashton that suddenly wanted those things to stop?

“I’ll live with you forever,” Calum says, too busy flagging down the bartender to intuit Ashton’s emotional crisis. He gestures to Ashton’s empty drink. “Another one of those, right?” His own is still half full. Maybe he didn’t really like Ashton’s better after all.

“Yeah, thanks man,” Ashton sighs.

Calum bumps his knee against Ashton’s, the barstool squeaking beneath him. “Ash, you’re gonna find somebody if that’s what you want. Anyone would be the luckiest person alive to be with you. Maybe we could do Italy after the tour wraps, we’ll finish in Spain so it won’t be far.”

The thought cheers Ashton a bit; that’s a decent amount of time to get on AirBnB and see what he can find that’s available. It’ll be nice to have something to look forward to, Italian sunshine and limoncello and the quiet.

“Mike and Luke will definitely give us shit though about planning another honeymoon while we’re still on this one,” Calum says.

“Let ‘em,” says Ashton.

It’s not a long flight but it’s a bit of a drive from there to get to the cabin. But Calum said he wanted something remote and quiet, so it’s worth the wait, the drive in the dark. There’s moonlight, anyway, and Calum took the wheel, getting them the rest of the way there in their little silver Prius rental. He puts on My Bloody Valentine and sings along, low and comforting to listen to after so many days straight of playing, of promo. Halfway through the trip Ashton thinks he sees a shooting star, maybe thought he dreamed it until he felt Calum’s soft nudge of knuckles against his arm, heard his quiet, “You see that, bro?”

The way gets bumpy, thick with trees, dark and hard to navigate once they turn off the main road. At the end of it all there’s the cabin, looming in the dark, lights left on for them and the key exactly where it’s supposed to be. It’s past one a.m. but they still give the place a wander, stopping at the largest bedroom facing the lake. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows Ashton sees trees, darkness, the black glitter of water under starlight. Calum asks, “You want this one?”

Ashton looks further and just sees more darkness. “It’s kind of unnerving at night,” he says. “Anyone could be out there.” The other bedroom has smaller windows, but the point stands. “Do you wanna just watch TV or something in here and then decide?”

“If we get axe murdered here I hope our ghosts come back and leave a one star review,” Calum says, but he’s already shrugging his duffel off his shoulders and kicking off his shoes.

The host left them a bottle of pinot grigio so Ashton pours up a few glasses while Calum strips down to his boxers and gets in bed. The boxers have cartoon pugs all over them. “I can’t believe that’s the lingerie you’re wearing for our honeymoon,” Ashton says, handing him a glass. “I also can’t believe those boxers even exist.”

Calum raises it to him in a salute and takes a sip. “These boxers are fantastic, but I guess if you want me to take them off…” he trails off, eyebrow raised, thumb hooked in the waistband pushing them down past his hipbone, then further until Ashton can see the crease of his thigh.

“No, no,” Ashton says hurriedly, “I’m just saying, what’s wrong with a nice pair of footie pajamas? Keeps you warm. Keeps you modest.” Nevertheless he shucks his own clothes except for his own (very grown-up, perfectly normal, in a flattering shade of dark green) boxers and joins Calum in bed. Calum’s already stopped paying attention to him, too busy trying to figure out how to work the remote. He finally gets the screen to flash on, and Ashton stays quiet, sipping his wine while Calum flips channels, finally landing on something in black and white. Cary Grant comes on screen but Ashton still isn’t sure what movie it is; Calum seems interested enough, setting the remote down between them, so he doesn’t complain. The wine goes down easy and Ashton does too after not too long.

He rolls onto his side and sees that Calum’s eyes are already closed. It doesn’t look like he’s asleep yet; it always takes him a bit, leaving him in a dozy stage for about ten minutes during which he might respond crankily to any communication or with adorable mumbling affection. Ashton turns the sound down and says, as quietly as he can, “TV off?” Calum’s eyes don’t open, but he nods a little. “Okay. You want me to go sleep in the other room?”

Calum moves then, a sleepy shift of his body, fumbling a hand up and blindly patting the sheet until he makes contact with Ashton’s hand on the remote and squeezes it, links their fingers together like he can’t quite figure out how to make it work. It feels nice. “’S’okay,” he murmurs. “Stay here.”

Ashton didn’t feel like getting up anyway.

#asks #anonymous #cashton #my fic #5sos #extremely hurtful btw to look at my 5sos unfinished fic folder #1k of lashton living together #2k of cashton h/c #2k of ot4 #4k of mashton that was going to become ot4 #6k of calum/ashton/luke which is the one i'm probably most mad about it bc there's so much good stuff in there #rip my sweet children you were fun while you lasted #OH MY GOD and the almost 5k of michael/luke in an au where 5sos were a queercore band #i am sorry stories!! i wanted better for all of you!!!!!

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birdsaesthetic · 5 years ago

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Jane’s sketchbook

Summary: Jane freaking out over losing her sketchbook, my participation for 12 Days of Blindspot.

A/N: I wrote this a while ago then ignored it... But then I saw these prompts from @holidayblindspot which reminded me of already having written something that goes with one of the prompts, so I thought this was a sign for me to edit it real quick and post it. I’m so exited to be sharing this here because it’s beautiful and really worth sharing. ENJOY!

Day 5: A ruined day.

“Kurt,” Jane called from across the front room, to which Kurt immediately looked up and responded, “Yeah?”

“Have you seen my sketchbook?”

Looking around him quickly yet carefully, Kurt murmured, “No,” he then looked up at her, who seemed stunned at having heard the No from him.

The two were in the middle of unpacking the boxes they brought up with them from their old apartment in New York all the way to the new one in Colorado, which, after managing to unpack the majority of the boxes and placing their contents ever since morning, it finally started to feel like home. Like their old apartment in New York.

Doing so had been so fun at first, each one was having a glass of red wine in hand and there was loud music playing in the background and, since there weren’t curtains covering the windows just yet, there was the beautiful addition of bright and warm sunlight streaming inside the spacious front room that felt so rewarding and motivating. But when the sun went down, taking with it its light and warmth, the work got monotonous, and so by now they were both exhausted and hungry.

Jane was also confused now.

She looked down at all the boxes scattered on the floor around her, which were almost empty by now, and she felt the world spinning around her in confusion and fear for having been unable to locate her sketchbook among all these boxes.

“Why? Couldn’t you find it?” Asked Kurt, seemingly confused too as he approached her.

Creases were starting to form on her forehead as she shook her head in confusion. “No,” she said quietly, then jumped from one box to another, double checking each one, randomly, quickly and with both hands, as if she were digging into a hole. And then, after all of that, which was in a span of thirty seconds, she shook her head yet again, though this time in disappointment, and looked up at Kurt in a plea for understanding. “I don’t know why I can’t find it because it should be here. I put it here. I put all my small things here, and I didn’t have a lot of things!”

Kurt was standing right before her by now, hunching over to check inside the boxes again. It was helpless, he knew; she’d already rummaged in all those boxes with eager hands and big eyes and yet found nothing... But if there was a one-in-a-million chance, he would absolutely take it when it came to her.

When his eyes, wide open, met hers, he suggested, “Okay, maybe you’ve just got confused. Try to remember where you’ve last seen it.” She swallowed hard and tried to do as told, mouth slightly open. She settled her gaze at a random spot on his chest as both of them stood close against one another, then she pushed her mind so hard to visualize where she’d last seen the sketchbook and what she was doing, so she could retrace her steps in the process and hopefully remember something.

But it was after a long, unbearable moment when Jane pushed her lower lip out in a sad pout and gave a shake of her head. Kurt hugged her loosely then. “It’s okay, we still have another set of boxes to be delivered here tomorrow morning.” He reminded her. “Hopefully we find it within one of the boxes then.”

Jane pulled back to look up at him, the sad look remained on her face. “But those coming boxes only have the kitchen supplies!”

“You don’t know, maybe you forgot it there!”

“It’s not possible... I put it here,”

“Everything is possible.” He encouraged, then added, “Aren’t you hungry by now, though? Because I’m so hungry! How about pb&j for dinner, huh?”

“I don’t mind.” Jane muttered with a shrug.

Together they decided to call it a day after dinner and climbed into bed, crawling close to each other as they lied down against the mattress. Their foreheads were touching as they shared a loving gaze, then Kurt whispered, “Can I get my good night kiss, or you don’t feel like—”

“No—yes, of course you’re getting your good night kiss!” She rushed to say, reassuring him just before she smiled the tiniest of smiles and kissed him hard on the lips, to which he kissed her back even harder. After that, she placed her hand over his arm that had been wrapped around her waist beneath the blanket, lifted it, rolled over to her side, and again let his arm be wrapped around her waist. This was how she’d always loved to sleep with him: she’d turn her back to him and he’d take the cue and cuddle her from behind with a light arm across her waist beneath the blanket and a soft kiss right behind her ear that would make her hum and snuggle deeper into his embrace until they’d look like two spoons in a drawer, very tight against each other.

As she closed her eyes and tried to sleep, hoping to raise up to a promising morning that would bring with it her sketchbook, she could swear she saw the vague afterimage of the sketchbook in her eyes, but then she opened her eyes and only saw the darkness of the bedroom...

She didn’t own a lot of things, really. The only things she owned and loved so much were that sketchbook and her marriage ring. The engagement ring was as if glued to her finger ever since she had worn it years ago. As for the sketchbook, she had always made sure to keep it within her hand reach, though this time around it oddly disappeared!

It was the very first purchase she made solely for herself when she started to receive a regular paycheck after working formally for the FBI. At first she didn’t know what to do with such a decent amount of money since she’d already been provided with a place to stay in, clothes, a cell phone and food—usually her detail had dropped food at her place without even asking for anything back, which made her really embarrassed.

It could be the crack of dawn or early morning when Jane fluttered her eyes open the next day, and after a long moment of gazing at Kurt’s sleeping face, she gave him a soft kiss on the temple then eased herself out of bed. With her eyes half closed, she managed to step the few paces toward the bathroom, rinsed her face in the sink, brushed her teeth and finally put on a comfy sweater she gripped from the hanger.

Yawing, she stumbled across the front room that was messy with boxes they hadn’t even bothered to flatten or push away last night, until she made it into the kitchen. There she stood in the center, stretched her neck, and yawned some more with her eyes pressed close. When she reopened her eyes, the sight of a can of cocoa shoved in the far corner suddenly inspired her. And so, as if drawn by a magnet, she stepped toward the refrigerator, opened it and examined its contents, though there wasn’t much to see. There was random stuff and among them was a brand-new bottle of milk, which she only needed to fix a cup of hot cocoa for now.

She took it out then brought up a pan. There she poured some of the milk, dissolved cocoa powder, and finally put it on the stove to simmer. Standing with folded arms in the dim lighting in the kitchen, she stared down at the pan as the milk boiled within it, and after a full minute of waiting, small curls of steam rose into the air and the scents of cocoa powered revolved all around her, to which she felt torn between wanting to savour it immediately or just stand there and inhale it. But she awaited a bit more. Next she poured everything into an oversized cup with a faint smile.

Warming her fingers with the cup, she made her way to the dining table, then settled on a seat there as she began taking small sips of the hot cocoa before it had even cooled off, to which it took her by surprise at first at how hot it was, scalding even.

During such times, when she woke earlier than she would and was by herself, she would bring up her sketchbook and sketch on it whatever she was feeling at the given moment. It was the perfect timing and place to do so; her thoughts would emerge so originally in the early mornings, they wouldn’t be conflicted nor affected by the day’s activities just yet.

She hadn’t known how good she was at sketching until one day she held a pencil, a very sharp one, and began sketching without any struggle. Back then, when solving her tattoos had been what her life was basically all about, she used to sketch them individually in hopes of finding any connection that might help figure out what they actually meant. But then as the days passed, she thought she wanted to do something else, something that was in a good way stirring her heart down to the depths, just like the way her spoon was stirring her cup of cocoa now.

And so, with her pencil sharp, she began with a light outline of a face, next she worked on the eyes, which she made them like the shape of almond. She let out a sigh then, knowing that the eyes must be the toughest part, before continuing with them. She drew the first pupil, purposely making it darker than the eye, then did the same for the other eye. She added a little shading underneath the eyes and from there she started with the nose, extending two lines where the inner corners of each eye were located.

The rest went easy: she did the eyebrows, the lips, the beard and then the hair, creating a solid and visible looking hairline from the sides of the head.

It was Kurt’s face that she sketched and it looked impressive at the end. She made him look as if staring at her, and made his expression soft with a faint smile—the way he’d usually look at her.

It was quiet around her now, not a single sound, until she heard running waters within the bathroom and, a minute later, she saw Kurt emerge and approach her. “Mornin,” he smiled, his face awash with decent sleep, his hair... so fluffy she couldn’t help but think it needed a trim, so badly.

“Mornin,” she replied.

He bent down and stole his morning kiss from her then hummed. “You taste like a really good hot cocoa!”

“Because I was drinking one.” She told him, showing him her cup, almost empty by now.

“Can I have the same?”

“Sure.” She got up and started doing the same thing she did earlier, taking the same measurements.

“Did you sleep well, Jane?” He asked as she waited by the stove for the cocoa to simmer. “Yeah.”

“You don’t look like you slept well.” He claimed.

“I slept well, Kurt. Now tell me, when is our ship gonna get here?”

“Maybe after a bit.”

She served him his cocoa in a brand-new cup, and he took it with all smiles after thanking her.

When their another set of boxes arrived, after some time, Jane tucked all of her hair back behind her ears and, kneeling down, she eagerly began looking thoroughly in each box along with Kurt. As she’d said before, the boxes contain kitchen supplies: dishes, cups, mixing bowls, knives and spoons, a cutting board, blender, vegetable peeler and a number of whisks.

But even after all this effort, they couldn’t find it, Jane’s sketchbook, among all of those things.

She stood up on her feet then, and took a deep breath, tired and disappointed, her palm wiping away the sweat on her forehead and her eyes, helplessly, maintained searching in the mess of boxes on the floor.

“It’s alright, I’ll get you a new one, I promise.” Kurt tried to soothe her, to which she looked up at him and, shaking her head, she complained, “It’s not about getting a new one, Kurt. I need my old one back. It carries lots of memories and...” she trailed off with her head falling down, but after a moment of silence Kurt approached forward until he closed the gap between them and cupped her face in his hands, lifting it to his level. “We will be making new memories here. Beautiful ones.”

“I know, but...there’s just one drawing of you within the sketchbook that I just love so much and I want it back.”

“You have lots of pencils and papers here. You also have me here. I will sit still the whole day so that you can draw me, I really wouldn’t mind, you know me.” He suggested, to which she smiled the way one corner of her mouth tilted up whenever she felt affection for him, then chuckled. “You don’t have to. I can draw you easily without having to look at you.”

He grinned. “Right, because you’re the most talented person I’ve ever met.”

“It’s not wholly because I’m that talented though. I wouldn’t be able to do that with anyone else except for you, because I always have you in my head—this is how and why I drew you in the first place. I know your face very well—even more than my own, I would say—and I know how you would look from every angle.”

He pushed his lower lip out in an impressive pout, feeling awash with affection for her. “You know lots of things about me! Do you also wanna know what I know about you?” He asked, having already slipped both hands from her face down her neck, shoulders, and finally her waist. And before she could say anything in response, he was tickling her there. “I know how to make you laugh, and laugh, and laugh.”

She was laughing then, pleading him to stop it, squirming her body out of his arms, and calling his name aloud and repeatedly, but that was only for him to reward her with more stroking against her waist, the area where he knew was very sensitive for her. She tried to fight his firm grip around her, tried to push him away, tried to run away, but seconds later she was, almost instinctively, clutching into him hard, as if holding for her life, and kept laughing nonstop, like she never had in her whole life, head dropped back exposing her neck for him to bury his face there, mouth open to the fullest, and eyes squeezed. Her laughters rolled about the front room in the early morning, like a child's spinning top, vibrant and heart-warming as it moved around them in its chaotic way. It came in fits and bursts—loud to soft to nothing when she was gasping for breaths in-between, then back to loud again and so on.

Just like this, her previous, sad face was replaced with a happy and laughing one.

He really knew how to butter her up. Always had.

A/N: I don’t really support the idea of Jeller moving out of New York after canon. I love them to be there and I think it suits them perfectly to be New Yorkers. But I had to fake it only for this fic’s plot. So they’re still in New York in my head now, enjoying themselves...

#blindspot #blindspotfic #jeller #holidayblindspot

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princess-of-inarizaki · 5 years ago

Text

Happy semi day!

It's my smol bean from Shiratorizawa's birthday and I figured I should write something, simply because he deserves so much love.

11/11, an angel number, perfect for my angelic little setter <3

Surprising your boyfriend at his concert

Character: Semi Eita

Warnings: it gets a bit 18+ at the end :') not particularly smut, but uhhh mature??

Semi missed you. It was hard enough being away from you for so long. He understood that you needed to spread your wings, and leave the small town you grew up in. So while you were out seeing the world, Semi was missing you, his world.

He sighed and strummed the guitar softly, warming up before the concert started. It wasn't a big one, but it was enough for him. He was going to grow at his own pace, and someday, he would be playing at the Tokyo Dome.

That's what he told himself.

“Hey Eita, are you ready?” his bandmate played around with the bass, and motioned for the curtain to be raised, after checking everyone's positions.

Semi's mind went back to the text of you wishing him luck, and he smiled softly as he focused on giving the best performance he possibly could.

He felt alive, on the stage. Alive when his guitar was resting perfectly in between his hands, and the lights and music was reverberating.

Not as alive as when he was kissing you, but definitely a close second.

.*+` |

His eyes swept through the crowd as he noticed a familiar face.

Hair slightly longer, but still as gorgeous as he remembered, there you were, standing and cheering for him with the most adoring look in your eyes.

His eyes trained down to what you were wearing and he immediately blushed, mixing up a few chords in the process. A black top outlined your silhouette, and the material was see-through in a few places, showing off your skin. It was paired with ripped jeans and high heels.

He felt as flustered as he did as a schoolboy in Shiratorizawa, nervous to ask you out.

You winked and moved along to the music. He got the message. Finish the concert first, talk later.

A faint blush dusted his cheeks as he continued playing the guitar, closing his eyes and pretending he was playing for you, and only you.

His eyes found yours in the crowd again. It was time for his solo. He took a deep breath and began singing.

The entire room disappeared, in his eyes, and only you remained. He sang to you, expressing his love, and how much he missed you in a few well written verses, which he had written with you in mind.

You blushed furiously, your eyes radiating love for him from afar.

It was a special moment.

.*+` |

The concert ended not long after, and you ran backstage, right into his open arms.

His guitar was resting against a wall as he spun you around, burying his face in the crook of your neck as silent tears made their way down his face.

I missed you so much was the only thing he kept murmuring under his breath as you ran your fingers through his soft hair, placing delicate kisses all over his face.

Let's go home, sweetheart.

.*+` |

He couldn't help himself, your hand was in his, and he constantly kissed it every few minutes. He couldn't even believe you were right next to him. He wanted to ask you a billion questions, but the words just weren't coming out.

Let tonight just be a night of love, you whispered, because you felt the exact same way.

Questions could wait until tomorrow. Tonight is for the two of us.

He slipped his hand in the back pocket of your jeans, and together, Semi brought you home, the pale moonlight illuminating your faces.

.*+` |

He pinned you against the wall, gently kissing your neck and nuzzling his face in it. You smiled softly and stroked his hair, tipping his face to you.

Communicating with only your eyes, you gently kissed his forehead, moving lower to his temple, his nose, and finally his lips.

You felt the heat from his face with each kiss, as he burned underneath your touch.

I love you more than life itself he confessed feverishly. Your lips on his skin felt like euphoria, and he wanted nothing more than to hold you tightly, and be in your embrace once again.

He gently carried you bridal style to his bed, and lowered you carefully.

With his eyes burning with passion and adoration, he began removing your clothing. He didn't want to be rough. He just wanted to love you tonight in the best way he knew how.

“Your body is beautiful” he said softly, as his eyes outlined your curves and imperfections. You blushed underneath his gaze and turned away, shy.

He had to stress his point, because he felt like you didn't believe him.

“y/n, you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my life. You make me go crazy with longing, I've never wanted to be someone else's more than I want to be yours.”

He slowly kisses a trail down your chest, making his way to your tummy.

His fingers running over your stretch marks as small tears run down his cheeks. You've never felt more in love, as you gently tug his shirt up, lifting it over his head.

His chain falls over you, as you gently intertwine it with the matching one, glinting on your bare chest.

“these were our promises to each other, remember? Promises that we'd always love each other, promises that we'd be there for each other, and promises that we belonged to each other?”

He nodded, still hovering above you, his chain delicately held by you.

“i don't think I could ever break it, Semi Eita. Because whatever souls are made of, ours are made of the same thing. How could I betray someone, I hold more dearly to me than myself?”

Semi was at a lost of words and instead reached down to capture your lips in a kiss.

“you'll be mine for as long as eternity endures” was all he managed to say, before making love to you until the sun rose.

*.+` |

Ari's note: AHHHH so how did I do?? I honestly freaked out halfway because I like, wanted to write smut?? At the same time, I've never written it before?? And it ended up just becoming the most romantic thing I've ever written??

Tho no cap if you date me, I'd probably be exactly like this. Just randomly spewing romantic lines about how we're mEaNt for each other and stuff ugh pls I'm so cringey don't date me

Taglist: @k-sakusa-old

#semi eita #inarizaki #inarizaki x reader #semi eita hc #happy birthday semi #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu hcs #haikyuufanfics #haikyuu #semi haikyuu #semi haikyuu fanfics

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storage73011 · 5 years ago

Text

What are you smiling about?

➳ Prompt #2 - What are you smiling about? (more prompts)

➳ Summary: Y/N reminisces about the past

➳ Pairing: Izuku Midoriya x Reader

➳ Warnings: Fluff, Angst if you squeeze, no beta we die like man, english not being my main language, so I am sorry if I made any mistakes, please don’t hesitate to correct me

➳ Word Count: 2k+

➳ Requests are open

A tired sign pushed throw your lips as you settled the last box, it was certainly being a hassle to make the sift from your old place, but it was stupidly worth it, it was closer to everything, price of the things was better anyway too, closer to your work, and just overall the whole package deal, amazing space, amazing view, a freaking reasonable price that you actually leave you enough money to not need to live off microwave food-

“(Y/N), do you have the box with the pans?”

Oh, and of course, the whole reason why you even considered doing anything in your life, Deku to the world, but for you he would always be Izuku Midoriya, your boyfriend, you could still remember it all as if it were yesterday, precious memories from when you were just starting at UA, as well as him.

Truth to be told, you didn’t quite expect much when you were in the support course, your plan was to make in the world as a pillar for the heroes, with your inventions as to enhance their powers, their abilities, people never use to talk much of them because of the lack of the glamour, but the one time you saw people actively “milking the sweat” out of a hero in training to make a costume that would allow him to use his quirk more efficiently … you knew that people were missing out on tons of good stories.

Meeting Izuku happened on an accident, actually, you weren’t the student assigned to him, UA wasn’t crazy (ok maybe they were a tad crazy looking back) to let only a first year to take care of other first years, most of the hard job would rely on the third years the most since they were going to go to the real working world real soon, but wouldn’t you know that your friendship with the overly energetic Hatsume would let you met the love of your life uh?

It would be like the scene right from a cheap shonen manga when you opened the door and found the girl literally pining the poor green haired boy down forcing him to test some of her inventions, you were so shocked you almost stepped back and decided to ignore that, almost. If it weren’t for a string of fast spoken words as soon as Hatsume was off the boy, babbles that you still couldn’t make sense for the life of you, you were never going to be here now, happy now.

“Yes Zuku, it was the last box!” you shouted back, walking pass the living room to the kitchen.

The pink haired girl laughed it off, as usual, ignoring the fact that she was forcing the boy to something he did not, chuckling it up to “it’s just her way to do things” there was no ill intent, you knew, but still had to have yet another pep talk about people’s personal spaces.

He introduced himself to you rather clumsy, with an unnecessary over the top bow considering that you both were the same age, that was the first time he had made you smile, giggling a little, you did the same.

“I thought we were going to order take out for today, you know, since we worked so god damn hard moving all the things from our old places” you said lazily resting your upper body over in the kitchen counter, eyes darting over your boyfriend while he was placing the new set of plates on the table, his curly hair was even more of a mess, but he didn’t seem tired at all, you even dared to say he was excited.

“I know, I know” he gave a soft laugh, looking at you oh so softly, with a hand over the base of his neck, he used to do this when he was slightly nervous you noticed, he was averting his eyes a bit, still, after all these years, he would still act nervous around you in times like this, you gave a half smile. “I just … though that it would be nice for us to make something together, I mean I understand if you are too tired to want to make something from scratch, you had a full day of work with the new flow of sidekicks in the agency and then still have to finish moving here with me but this is our first time l-living together… and I mean, I just wanted to…. I wanted to” oh god you couldn’t believe he could get even redder, Izuku was great with words when he wanted to be, but new experiences, especially in the relationship usually left him a little overwhelmed.

It could be coincidence or fate, but ever since your first time meeting the hero, he was always there when you had to talk to Mei, or randomly he would find you in the lab testing something out, he’d even volunteer to try some of your newest creations, it wasn’t until you were late to your usual time on the lab that you found him searching for your presence on the empty lab that you knew he was actively trying to spend time with you.

You also found out that a new shade of red existed when you caught him in the act while he mumbled excuses.

It was in the end of second year that he confessed to you, you guys were outside of UA for once, and by some miracle nobody tried to actively murder his class (another whole set of stories, many of them ending up with him crying while you placed gentle touches on his back), it was the middle of summer, the start of the night was hot as hell, you all just had said your goodbyes to your friends, Izuku would always offer to walk you home, even if his house was in the other direction of yours. You were happily playing with one cheap rubber water ball you brough in the small open fair that you guys spend the day looking at stuff while talking to him about some heroes status, you were in the middle of a pretty furious fit of giggles with the uniform of some of the pro heroes when Izuku stopped walking for a moment, you stopped moments later when you realized he wasn’t moving.

He was looking at you tenderly for a second before his face turned into determination and them a sudden realization that made him blush hard, but still stood his ground, not daring for a second to look away from you. You never felt more conscious of everything, in yourself, in him, the breathing, the rest was the rest and you were only focused on him and vice versa.

Taking a deep breath, he took his shot, the words coming out directly, louder than he intended, but ever so clear.

“(Y/N), I am in love with you!”

Then it was quiet. He wouldn’t dare to open his eyes, as if he was afraid of the reaction, of what he had just done. But it wasn’t needed when he could feel you throwing yourself at him in a hug, and the words he needed to hear so much after hearing the ones you wanted the most, so delicately in a whisper, almost as if it was a prayer.

“I love you too, Izuku”

You stepped closer to him, his voice was extremely low, and quiet, if any nose were to be there you would miss it. You placed your hands in each side of his cheeks, he was taller than you now, and gave him a reassuring smile, Izuku still would not dare to make eye contact.

“Want to…?” you tried to keep with the same low tone he was, as if you talked louder you could startle him, the smile never leaving your lips.

“…To make memories with you” Green orbs were now your focus, big doe eyes that would get you every time you looked at them with that sparkle that was always there when he talked to you, you felt your right hand being enveloped by a much larger, rougher one, slightly sliding over his lips, where he placed a delicate kiss over your palm. “I guess I just want us to have a great start together here” he let go of you hand while leaning towards the other that was still on his cheek, finally admitted to his small domestic desire.

“Then get me the ingredients, mister” you responded in a heartbeat, slightly booping his nose then placing both of your hands on your hips with more enthusiasm than you actually had “because we are making curry then”

“Don’t force yourself for me, (Y/N)” He said, softly, even if he could not hide his contentment.

“Izu, you’re always doing things for me, this is the least I could do, believe me, this is a two-way street after all” you added with a slightly smug face while already getting the carrots ready to be sliced.

Seemly satisfied with your answer, your boyfriend turned over to make his part of the meal, while you were humming a song.

Sometimes, being on support was brutal, people would complain to you about things that were not even your work but since it didn’t worked well with the other amalgamation of equipment’s they have, suddenly it was all your fault over and over again, turns out that Karens could actually be heroes and this information would have been so much nicer if people could have focused that while you were studying but oh well.

You flopped in your boyfriend’s place again, too tired to actually wait more time to take the train to go to your house, you needed a break.

Your lovely boyfriend chuckled a little once you walked upon the doors looking like a zombie and flopping onto the couch without any grace.

“Don’t laugh at my suffering Zuzu” you whined, not taking your face off the soft pillow.

“Sorry honey” you could feel him sitting next to you, his fingers running through your hair, you almost melted in fabric. “Hard day?”

“Something like that” You were non nonchalant, looking up a little to see him, he could and would lift your humor without even noticing, you missed seem him everyday like this. “Thank for letting me here again Zuzu, I just am very tired and plus having to travel half of the city just so I can sleep doesn’t seem much worth it hehe”

“I see… but” He cleared this throat, in a half cough, you tilted your head slightly, his cheeks were flushed, but his hand was still over your head “I… I mean… you could always live here”

“Really?” That aught your attention, you guys were together for quite a while now but you didn’t want to rush him in any way.

“It … It would make sense and you would be more rested too, besides here is a great place, I have more than enough space as it is, the seller of the place himself actually was telling me on and on that his place was too big for only one person, but I would assure him that I wouldn’t be here alone for long and…” He would have continued to ramble if he didn’t register that he spilled his plan to you, keeping himself quiet.

“Of course I will move in with you Izuku!” there was never a doubt of it.

Two strong arms were slowly placed around your waist, with a small nuzzle on the back right were your head met your neck, his breathing sending shivers down your spine.

“What are you smiling about?” You could feel his own smile against your skin, making the smile you weren’t aware you had even wider.

“That I love you so much” your arms were over his, placing your fingers over each on of his “so much”

You couldn’t see, but as the hug got a little bit tighter, his lips tracing over your neck, you could tell, or at least hope he had the same blush on his face that you were having right now.

“I love you too, (Y/N)”

#midoriya x reader #izuku x reader #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bnha imagines #writing prompt #deku x reader #reader insert #izuku midoria x reader #izuku midoriya #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #this was suppoused to be a drabble #I love izuku so much #iagjdfgajrl #fiction writes

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