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stagefoureddiediaz · 1 month ago

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Costume Meta 812 Disconnected

Ok so this would’ve been out a couple of days ago if it hadn’t been a super busy week at work and if a certain something relating to Bobby hadn’t distracted me so this didn’t get finished! It’s also a monster post - I got very carried away with colour theory - but it’s all done now - in the Knick of time before 813 starts - so lets dive in!

I will be focusing on costumes, but there will be quite a bit of set stuff in this meta because it is relevant as it interacts with the costumes, but also because yellow and blue colour theory really was out in full force in this episode which made me so very happy! We also had red and blue colour theory playing out as well in the first Buck and Eddie video call - but we’ll get to that in a little bit.

Let’s start with orange and brown colour theming - the two colours I have spoken about in a lot of my other metas as being the overall colour theme for the season. Here in this episode we get a lot of orange and brown cropping up - especially in connection with Eddie. Most noticable is the amount of brown Eddie is wearing and the journey it goes on through the episode - both in terms of quantity of it, and also in terms of shade!

We see the first brown Eddie is wearing on his yellow ochre cream and brown plaid shirt - the cream and yellow ochre are the more dominant colours, but the Brown is there. After that the next time we see Eddie wearing brown, it is again at the Diaz house. In fact at the Diaz house, we only see Eddie in shades of brown. The rest is below the cut to save your dash!

I have to say I love Ryans answer to the question about Eddies costumes for this episode. As a costumer it’s always great when you have an actor who is invested in what their character is wearing, how they wear it and why they are wearing a certain item. It makes the process collaborative and so much easier - you can really get to know what that actor is seeing in the script and how they are intending to play each scene - what their read on where the character is at and where they are going. Ryan talking about Eddie wearing different clothing in El Paso and how he wanted that to be a thing that we could see is exactly right - it is likely what ABP and her team were intending on doing to some extent, but Ryan specifically stating that he felt that should be the case makes it clear that he too is viewing Eddie as reverting and trying to fit himself back into that mould he broke free of. And the fact that we see the El Paso Eddie most clearly in the costuming when he is around his parents and when he is selling his car makes it even clearer where they are going with their intentions when it comes to costuming, and costuming Eddie in particular in this episode. More on that a bit later!

With the idea of Texas Eddie being different from LA Eddie firmly in mind, lets start with the costumes he wears when interacting with Helena and Ramon. This shirt with the yellow ochre is the brightest of all his outfits for the episode (technically the white tee is brighter, but the grey hoodie tones that outfit down making this one brighter!) and its interesting that we see it as his second outfit - at a point when he is still full of hope and optimism about reconnecting with Chris and the move being a good thing. This is Eddie in the closest colouring to yellow that we’ve seen him in a long time - it’s Eddie closest to his truest self - but even that is at cross purposes because of the check patterning - indicating that its not going to go well for him. In this scene he’s full of hope at beginning to reconnect with Chris and he is hopeful of the job at the firehouse and that having his own place will encourage Chris to move back in with him. After this - when the ps5 doesn’t work in getting Chris back to him and we see his parents undermining him at every turn, his colours mute and become dull and actually drain Eddie of colour as they are not a great choice for him tonally.

Which is exactly what we see with the final Diaz family scene which mirrors the first. This shirt, it is a much darker and more muted toned shirt - where before the yellow ochre and cream were the more dominant colours, here we have the brown being dominant with the beige and green taking a back seat. It’s a reversal of the ochre shirt in the same way that this scene is a reversal of the first scene. Where the brighter colours and lighter tone was indicative of Eddies hope and joy at being reconnected with his son and the possibility of a firefighting job - making him feel like he had stability and that he was succeeding, the darkening and more muted tone of this shirt is indicative of the impact his parents are having on him, and the fact that none of his hopes around his move to El Paso appear to be coming to fruition. The check pattern is indicating that what is happening in that scene is important and will come into play shortly and its also the first time we see Eddie in green toning in this episode - playing into the idea that the army version of Eddie is creeping back in - we’ve barely seen Eddie in green in seasons 7 or 8 - compared with how often we used to see him in it. In fact the only time we’ve actually seen him in green in the past two seasons have been in scenes that have played into that idea of a battle or conflict of some kind. For example - Eddie is in green in 704 when he arrives at the hangar, or he’s in green when he’s out on the boating lake with Kim, or when he’s trying to sublet his house - all scenes that are part of a building conflict within Eddies life.

So to have green appearing here is all about that thread of conflict starting to creep in. If that is meant to be the conflict we get with Chris discovering he’s not a firefighter but an uber driver (which is more an internal conflict) or if its about establishing the up coming conflict with his parents - Mom - remains to be seen - my feeling is its likely to be about both as they are likely connected. He is also not wearing his watch at this point either - which I will come back to in a moment.

In the middle of this we have this burgundy shirt - which is very brown toned. There is no check here, so its not about establishing check theory - although Ramon then takes up that check theory mantle and wears check is shirt is interesting to me and not only because it almost matches the mug! It looked much more maroon toned in the stills we got, but seeing it on screen, it is definitely more burgundy. Burgundy is a colour that is meant to represent power and sophistication. But it is also a colour that is connected to being prideful, introspection, being reserved and compassionate but also being a control freak. It also ties into the colouring I spoke about in my stills drop meta about the Diaz kitchen in 517. In that meta (read it here) I spoke about the darker red centred around Ramon being a symbol of poor health, while the brighter red in that scene surrounding Eddie was about him being in a healthier place, and that it was a symbol of Ramon missing out on things - on time and is what we’re kind of seeing in play here - this is Eddie not in a great place - his life is not going how he’d hoped - he’s struggling with connecting with Chris, he’s not a firefighter and he thinks that’s the only thing that Chris has ever been proud of him for so he’s failed there, he’s actively lying again and the job he has got is not going well and he had to give up the truck as part of that and he is having to let his parents provide for Chirs even further as he doesn’t have money coming in. He is also dealing with them undermining him, so it’s a symbol of everything compounding on him. To further add to this - he is not wearing his new blue strap watch - a symbol of the life he has left behind in LA (as it’s a firefighter watch). The fact that this scene and the brown check shirt scene are both missing the watch is pretty revealing. If you look at all the Eddie scenes across the episode you can see the watch in all of them, except these two - the two scenes when Eddie is at his lowest and feels like the biggest failure, when he isn’t having any success in anything - including getting to hear his son actually ask for his opinion on something he wants to do. Eddie feels like he is against the clock ans we actively see him missing out on something he came back to El Paso to try and do - parent his son. He has placed importance on being able to financially provide for Chris and he’s failing at doing that and then he is asleep and so misses Chris actively choosing to include him in his life and weigh in on an decision. The watch returns the moment Eddie starts making money - when he is able to provide in a financial way for Chris again - he has time once more.

It’s also one of the few times we see his hair not in his Texas helmet hairstyle around his parents - which to me feels like its about showing him as the not put together Eddie he’s trying to portray to his parents - when he’s asking for his parents to cover chess club fees because he’s not yet making any money as uber Eddie - its about showing us that his parents are seeing Eddie as a failure in that moment.

The other scene we have at the Diaz family home is on the couch when he is handing a computer game to Chris. I will talk about the insane amount of yellow and blue in this scene later on, but for now, we’re looking at costumes. You can see yet more check on Ramon in this scene, while Chris is in horizontal stripes - in yellow ochre and brown. Helena is in pale pink and white vertical stripes, while Eddie is in a solid black Henley and back to wearing his new watch - like I said above - he has time on the parenting clock once more.

In many ways the black Henley is a symbol of both Texas and LA Eddie - we see him wearing Henley’s of multiple colours in both environments in the show. Black ones however seem to be heavily attached to scenes that lead into issues - most of which surround Chris.

As a very quick rundown of when he wears a black Henley we have stolen money interrogation in 215 (which is attached to the flashbacks of arguments with Shannon about Chris’s surfing lessons and money), Eddie picking up Chris after Shannons death in 217, and in 218 when Bobby returns to the firehouse but Buck is still not there and Eddie makes his ‘almost’ comment about things being back to normal. Then we don’t see another one until Eddie takes in Hoover in 605, in 609 when he is playing computer games when Buck tells everyone he has successfully helped to create life, in 614 at Pepa’s house when she is setting Eddie up on a blind date, which ultimately leads to him dating Marisol, and finally in 701 When Buck talks to Chris about dating and Eddie then gives Chris the letter Shannon wrote for him.

As I hope you can see, most - but not all - are connected to Chris is some way - the only ones I would say aren’t directly connected to Chris are the 218 one at the firehouse and the sperm donor one in 609 - although it is connected into the concept of fatherhood - and that is what I think the black Henley means on Eddie - its about Eddie as a father and his ability to be able to provide for his son being called into question in some way - financially or through the provision of a second parental figure - either Shannon as Chris’s actual mother, or through the family expectation that a mother figure should exist in some way - which is then technically connected back to Shannon because Marisol is caught up in the Kim of it all (that part of this is technically a retcon as the Marisol of it all and the subsequent bringing back of Shannon within that arc wouldn’t have been known when the 614 scene was shot). The thing with all these scenes is that they precede issues of varying degrees treat Eddie encounters as a father.

Here in this scene we have Eddie able to provide for his son - financially - but Helena is still subtly calling him out and we know that he is lying about his income source at this point in time and that this lie is going to get discovered - it’s preceding the issue he is about to face of Chris discovering him in another lie.

We see Eddie in this episode wearing blue a couple of times, the first time we have the blue Eddie is as we open the episode with him at the 270 El Paso firehouse. Eddie is wearing what is effectively a blue check version of a firefighters uniform - navy trousers, black shoes and a blue shirt, even down to the belt with the square silver buckle imitating a firefighter belt. Eddie is also wearing his firefighter watch - adding further to the blue on blue of this costume. The shirt is a navy check over a lighter blue background, which is obviously not fully replicating a fire fighters uniform shirt, but it is about playing into check theory - that its Eddie at a crossroads and that things are not likely to go well for him at the firehouse in this episode (the dialogue is suggestive that the hiring freeze will end and he’ll get to become a firefighter again, but that he will also fulfill the captains fears and leave - when LA tugs at him and pulls him back) - but the use of all blue is really about pushing the narrative of Eddie identifying himself as a firefighter. It’s check theory establishing the fact that Eddie has relied on that identity as a firefighter in the same way he did with his identity as a soldier. It’s telling us that Eddie isn’t going to be able to identify himself through that route anymore - it’s about stripping that part of him away in the same way they removed his identity as a father. This is the deconstruction of Eddie in costume - giving a nod to his past (for now) career as a firefighter, whilst also setting him up as a wearer of check as he becomes ‘more Texas’ and essentially reverts back to pre LA Eddie - the one we saw in 315.

Then we see him in his new home in a short sleeved blue Henley with khaki green trousers. This costume was perhaps the most interesting choice in the entire episode to me and becasue even more so after Ryans interview answer about Eddies style changing in Texas. Becasue this costume is the one that most loudly speaks of Eddies style in LA - and it really helps to showcase the duality of Eddie in this moment - something his costumes across the entire episode play into. Around his parents - at their house specifically - and in that opening scene at the firehouse, we get a lot of check and a lot of clear nods to Texas Eddie. While in other scenes - when he’s talking to Buck and therefore connected in to LA, or in the last scene when he reconnects with Chris, we see his costumes closer to his LA style. You can see this style most clearly in his first video call with Buck - he’s just found out he hasn’t got a job at the firehouse in El Paso and is contemplating a return to LA so he can at least keep on providing for Chris.

The blue is a greyish blue and has that muted tone to it I spoke about earlier, but it is very much an outfit I would associate with LA Eddie and its doing multiple things in this scene, its connecting him into LA yes, but a part of that is showing where he actually belongs - the fact he’s wearing it when the El Paso captain calls to tell him about the hiring freeze is about the fact that part of him is still in LA - but it also connects him into being a firefighter because Eddie doesn’t wear blue that often - he does wear it, but its infrequent in his non uniform attire. It’s also about connecting him to Buck in two ways, firstly the few times we do see him in blue outside of his uniform, it is nearly always connected to Buck in some way - think Poker date, or the conversation about his dad in Chris’s room in Hero complex or when he’s telling him about the will or asking Buck for Help with Chris when he won’t come out of his room. And secondly, by having them both in blue for this scene and then also having them both connected into red - Bucks apron being the same maroon red as the chair Eddie sits in. Both aspects of this connection to Buck are about showing the depth of the our connection and also about Eddie listening to and hearing Buck - which is also something we see in those other scenes when Eddie wears blue.

The other thing its doing is telling us that when Eddie is alone - when he’s isn’t performing in any way, he reverts to wearing what he would wear in LA - that is his true style and true self. The show is literally showing us who Eddie is - at a moment when he’s had everything he holds as his identity stripped away from him (just like he’s stripping off that wallpaper I will get to in a minute!) - he isn’t a firefighter and he isn’t a father (in this moment as Chris is still not back with him and Eddie is feeling that divide) - the two things he has put at the centre of who he is and all he is left with is the parts of himself he hasn’t considered part of his identity - LA and Buck - its about that red string of fate connecting Eddie to those two things. That is why we have the red armchair in use here and why they have changed out Bucks usual firehouse apron for the maroon one. (I am going to point out that Buck is seemingly working on a salad at he firehouse - if you want to add it into salad theory then feel free to do so😎)

We also have the blue of the denim shirt. This outfit mirrors the one from the above scene - the blue and khaki combo - but a more Texas version. I’ve already written a lot about this outfit in my pre episode meta - and I stand by a lot of what I said about the repeat outfit of it and how it is connected into the concept of family and being on the right path, but also how it is connected to breaking free. I wanted to see the scene in full before I committed to anything solid around Shannon and Eddies grief and while we didn’t get anything explicit in the scene around Shannon - Eddies difficulty and sadness over giving up the Denali really does play into that concept of it being tied to Shannon and his grief and of letting her go. The reason I say this is because up to this point he hasn’t had much luck in connecting with Chris and things are not looking great for him, but in getting rid of the truck he does actually start to make progress and even though he lies about his job, he is able to salvage things with Chris - he owns up to his lying -thanks to Buck stopping his spiral and prompting him into making contact and actually pushing a bit - something he hasn’t done up to this point (that we’ve been shown) and his doing so bears fruit and he gets to reconnect with Chris - the act of letting go of the truck (and also his conviction that being a firefighter is the only thing Chris is proud of him for) symbolically is Eddie letting go of the last piece of his old life and that final piece being gone essentially frees Chris from the burden of it as well. I don’t know how much the show is going to show Chris and Eddie rebuilding their relationship from here - or if it will contain much angst (my feeling is that it won’t - that the angst will come from the Helena and Ramon side of things in Texas - but I do know that they’ve effectively cleared that final hurdle and that Chris and Eddie will just be seen rebuilding their relationship into something new before they return to LA. The key scene link with this outfit is the one from Eddie begins - it sets this costume as Texas Eddie, but it also connects into a scene where Eddie and Chris bond and begin to forge a new relationship - after his fight with his parents. The fight hasn’t happened yet but this outfit marks the same point in Eddie and Chris’s relationship as it did in Eddie begins - the actual beginning - when they were actually on the same page and able to connect - in a period after Shannon had left (the car representing Shannon leaving in this 812 scene).

A slight detour from costumes so that I can talk about Yellow and blue colour theory and its insane levels and use in this episode! I have already mentioned it a couple of times above and I did speak about it at length in my pre episode meta as well, but now I have seen the full extent of the car lot, and seen more of Eddies house and the make up of those scenes, I have a lot to say!

Car lot first - soooooo much yellow - like an insane amount of yellow as you can see in the picture above and below - Eddie is literally surrounded by it. There is also a lot of blue there as well in the scene - it’s just not visible in these screen grabs - but it is in the stills.

The Diaz parents house - which I’ve spoken about at length is also heavily coded yellow and blue - you can see the couch in the picture I included earlier, but below you can see a wide overhead shot which really highlights just how much blue and especially yellow there is. We‘re set up for Eddies arc of self discovery and now he has regained some grasp on fatherhood - we will be able to watch him continue to dismantle himself through his fixer upper and then build the new version of Eddie - but we’re still in the deconstruction part right now (more on that in a minute!) It’s no coincidence that the entirety of the Diaz parented house is yellow and blue coded. The screen grab of the wider high up angle shots we got show us the blue and yellow of it all - it’s essentially queer coding Eddies childhood in my eyes - the house being multiple shades of yellow and it being on the walls, while the blue is more there in scent form - chairs and curtains or dish towels. Yellow is Eddies colour and there was no reason for them to have gone that heavy on the yellow and blue coding in this episode around Eddie (espeically when you consider the madney scenes are heavily red coded!) in his parents house if it wasn’t about playing on the yellow and blue colour theory. They could have chosen any colour combination to decorate Helena and Ramon’s house but they chose these colours because Eddie is the main character here and Helena and Ramon are essentially plot devices - there to serve Eddies storyline and therefore their home is there to serve that same narrative, hence why it is colour coded for Eddie.

I’ve gone on and on about how yellow and blue colour coding in media is about queer coding - how it stems from the Wizard of Oz and the ‘friend of Dorothy’ being code for being gay and how it really found its feet during the Hayes code era, but how it has essentially become shorthand for queer subtext when it was still taboo for queer narratives to be told and how that has then transferred into actual queer media as an indicator of it being queer media (Heartstopper, RWRB, love Simon, stranger things, Mary and George etc etc all using the colour theory as part of the visual narrative), so to have Eddies childhood home (we assume - its certainly implied in Hero complex to be the case) so heavily yellow and blue coded (yellow especially) is suggestive that Eddies queer arc is going to stem from his childhood. Espeically as like I said in my pre episode meta - the yellow and blue is much more heavily surrounding Eddie than others in those scenes - look at Chris and Ramon on the yellow couch while Eddie is on the armchair - the room is yellow dominant - the darker yellow walls, the yellow of the couch and armchair themselves. But while the couch throw cushions are brown toned the throw cushion on the armchair is blue - subtly placing Eddie in the yellow/blue colouring while Chris and Ramon are yellow/ brown coded. Even Ramons blue check shirt is helping surround Eddie in the yellow and blue as he reaches over to hand Chris a computer game.

At the dining table during the scenes set there, the yellow walls and blue curtains are much more heavily surrounding Eddie compared with anyone else. Ramon and Chris have a lot more of the white of the cupboards or the nets at the windows in their backgrounds, and in the case of Helena, the net curtains and the painting makes up her background, breaking up the yellow and blue. We even have the very yellow lampshade positioned above Eddie during the scene - yes Ramon also appears under it, but it’s held in shot over Eddie far longer.

The fact that it’s specifically the walls that are yellow is also key. The show is very heavily playing on the metaphor of a house being a representation of the person who owns/ lives there - it’s something they’ve been doing with Eddie since the beginning. We were shown the LA Diaz house in season 2 early on and shown that all the spaces Chris occupied were far more decorated than Eddies bedroom, with brighter colours used in the decorative aspects such as furniture, pictures and carpets etc while Eddies room is painted magnolia with a simple dark blue bedspread, sparsely furnished and no art on the walls - it was all about showing us that Chris is Eddies focus - that he comes first in every aspect of who Eddie is - to the detriment of Eddie himself. The bedroom being sparse and cold is symbolic of Eddie neglecting himself - his own wellbeing. We only see this change slowly over time with the introduction of a bit of art on the walls - which all connects into his Texas and Mexican roots but plays on the idea of it being an inhospitable environment - cactus artworks suggesting prickliness. After he has destroyed his room we see the most drastic change - Eddies room gets colour - the walls are painted blue and we get new artwork, new lamps and furniture. The room is still cold though - the blue is icy and the art is a black and white photo of El Capitan and the yellow toned painting of a lone cowboy on a horse. Its saying that Eddies room is still not a warm and comfortable and inviting space - that his mind isn’t - that he still has a mountain to climb and also that he is a bit of a Lone Ranger.

So here, in what we are going to assume is Eddies childhood home, to have the walls being multiple shades of yellow is about the concept of yellow representing the very fabric of who Eddie is. Like the foundations, the walls and roof of a house are fundamental aspects of the structure - they are basic requirements of a house - and are therefore representative of the core parts of who someone is - Eddie in this case - and because it is his childhood home these walls are showing us who young Eddie is/was. They’re telling us this is the Eddie that needs to be rediscovered and then they further this concept by having Eddie ripping down the wallpaper in his fixer upper house - revealing yellow walls beneath the blue - in a yellow that is the same colour as the walls in the Diaz family house - suggesting Eddie is getting back to who that Eddie is.

The blue check pattern wallpaper in Eddies new house is also giving us information about Eddie - its telling us that check pattern theory is in play in Eddies life in a big way - indicating that big change is coming in the fundamentals of who Eddie has become - that the very fabric of who he is currently is going to be changed.

There is something to be said about Eddie removing the blue from the house and revealing the yellow of his childhood underneath. It’s not just about the fact that that Buck is blue coded while Eddie is yellow - which is important and plays on the idea that we are stripping back Bucks perspective of Eddie and seeing the real Eddie to a certain extent, but its also about Eddie removing layers of the things he himself has hidden behind - he’s hidden behind Buck and allowed himself to not get lost exactly, but to almost fade down. It’s about the show giving us Bucks pov on so much of Eddie that we don’t actually see who Eddie is and this plot line is about the fullness of Eddie being revealed - that we’re able to now see Eddie without the Buck goggles on - but also that Eddie is able to do that as well - Buck has provided Eddie with a huge safety net up to this point - stepping in and being that coparent to Chris with him and having his back at work. Eddie now gets to figure himself out - he still has Buck in his life and Buck is still going to have his back, but Eddie is learning to do things for himself to a much greater extent and this shows that transition for him. The entire house is a metaphor for Eddie finding himself now he has had everything stripped away from him. He is starting to put some of himself together - setting up furniture and making it feel a bit more homely even if the building itself needs a lot more work and its no coincidence that we see Chris coming to him at the moment we get to see that he has actually made inroads in that unpacking himself and setting up his living room - a space that is a shared one which enables him to be vulnerable in a way he hasn‘t really done before with Chris.

The show was given us box POV on so much of Eddie that we don’t actually see who Eddie is and this plot line is about the fullness of Eddie being revealed they were able to now see Eddie without the buck goggles on and without his identity as a firefighter but also that Eddie is able to do that for himself as well. we saw this concept played out to a certain extent in Season five after Eddie‘s breakdown when he left the 118, but he was still technically a firefighter then but was physically there providing Eddie with a huge safety in it stepping in and supporting him. Eddie is now in a situation where all that has been taken away from him and he now gets to figure himself out – he still has back in his life and is still going to have His back, he’s still a safety in it – as we see through the video calls, but Eddie is learning to do things for himself to a much greater extent this episode is about setting that up and showing that transition for him.

I do just quickly want to mention the sagey green wall at the far end of the room which appears to be the wall with the doors that go through to the bedroom and bathroom parts of the house. The fact this wall is green is playing into Eddie‘s army green colouring, the bedrooms are the most private spaces in a house and therefore are representative of your innermost self, your truest self. We’ve seen this metaphor play out before with Eddie when he destroyed his bedroom back in season five it was about him trying to destroy part of who he was at his core. so using Green on that wall is suggestive that Eddie is not ready to deal with that part of himself yet and that is why he’s focused on the living room, the shared space of the house and will work his way towards the bedrooms.

Staying with the set aspect of it all for a little bit longer - we need to talk about couch theory because sue it was doing some very heavy lifting in this episode - and not just because Eddie mentions that he might need to sleep on Bucks uncomfortable couch! Because when Eddie is making that comment his couch is in shot – I need his covered in a dust sheet. At his own couch is not available to him and the show is taking great care and effort to establish the idea that Eddies couch is the right couch – but it’s the one both buck and Eddie are comfortable on and that they are able to be themselves on it and leather filters down. But falling asleep there easily after the lightning strike when he was having trouble sleeping on his own loft, Eddie discovering joy for himself heavily featuring the couch and then we also see both of them sat on it together for the very first time after that – showing them sharing joy and sorry together and just being able to be – not needing to say a word.

There is something to be said about Eddie removing the blue from the house and revealing the yellow of his childhood underneath. It’s not just about the fact that buck is blue coated well Eddie is yellow which is important and plays into the idea that we are stripping back box perspective, Eddie and seeing the real Eddie to a certain extent, but it is also about Eddie removing the layers of things he himself has hidden behind most of his life. He’s hidden behind various people or jobs for most of his life, Helena in the beginning, Shannon in his team and young adult is, the army, Chris as soon as he was born, and Eddie became a father and since moving to LA, being a firefighter and buck. This allowed himself to, not get lost exactly, but it just exist in the safe space that these people and jobs help create and that meant he didn’t have to examine those parts himself at his core.

It being covered over with a dust sheet here in this scene is about protecting it – it’s the most important thing in the scene – it’s literally the only piece of furniture that Eddie has covered up, yes there are things still in boxes, but may many of those are semi unpacked and none of the rest of his furniture is covered to protect it. Eddie is tearing down the house, but the couch is the one thing he has chosen to ensure has protection from the fallout while he literally stripped back the walls – stripping back the layers of himself.

It’s also a metaphor for Eddie not wanting to look at what the couch represents in that moment – that he is not ready to examine what the couch means – family, love, and comfort. Is a way of Eddie denying himself those things – he is still punishing himself and he needs to work on the fabric of himself before he can begin to examine what exists on the couch. Doing this also gives us a parallel with fucking 601 choosing not to replace his couch and just use the armchair – to work on himself before he finds a couch that is the right couch for him. In this scene Eddie only has his red leather chair to sit up. He is denying himself the comfort and love the couch provides. It is a show building further layers to the couch metaphor, which they take even further with the living room itself.

Eddie does eventually set up the living room - even as he is still working to remove the blue wallpaper - but he only sets the couch up once the blue is removed from the couch side of the room - so that the walls around the couch are yellow - bringing yellow and blue colour theory into play once again. The other thing about the living room itself is the way that its been set up to replicate the way he had his living room set up in LA - the front door behind the couch to its left, set up in front of the fireplace, with the red leather chair to the left of the fireplace. The room is narrower, so it’s a more compact version, but even the windows are located the same positions, they have even set up the dining room shelves in a position that mimics the large carved cabinet in Eddies LA living room set up (I assume the cabinet is in one of the bedrooms and that’s why we don’t see it - because it wouldn’t actually fit there!)! This is showing us that LA is where Eddie actually wants to be - where he feels he truly belongs - it’s about that home he had set up in LA being the right home for him and the couch now being set up is about Eddie being ready for Chris and Chris is the only one to sit on it - Eddie hugs Chris on the couch, but he never actually interacts with it himself.

And then there is the additional fact that in the previous episode, Buck sets up his own furniture in the Diaz LA living room in the same layout that Eddie had his - Buck toys with the idea of having the furniture in a different layout as you can see from this screen grab below

but the show makes a big effort to then show us that he has it set up to replicate Eddies layout. It really shows us that they belong together - that they are a family and that set up is a representation of their family dynamic. The other aspect of Buck decor is how cold it is - Buck is making it home by setting it out in the same way, right down to the armchair as Eddie had it but the colouring of his furniture doesn’t work with the cream walls where it did in the loft with its industrial and darker toned spaces. The loft was all greys and blacks and white and warm toned browns and high ceilings. But Eddies house is magnolia and the ceilings are lower and the lighting is brighter and coming from all angles instead of from one. Because of this it makes the space look like it lacks in colour - Eddie had coloured furniture and a rug to add warmth to the space, as well as the art on the walls, but Bucks furniture and art is making it look very flat toned and bland. It really plays into the idea of Bucks world being drained of colour without Eddie in it (not that he has been drained of colour, but the world around him).

The other aspect of the set design - before we go back to costumes, is the three magnets on Bucks fridge! Yes magnet theory is back in business! we only have the three magnets on Bucks fridge - which I find very interesting considering the fact that he had gone for a full assault of magnets and pictures on his fridge during 8a. the fact we have a yellow magnet, a blue magnet and a white/grey magnet and their positioning is making me thing about the sun moon and earth. Buck is the blue magnet as per yellow blue colour theory, and Eddie is the yellow one and I think the grey one is meant to represent Tommy.

The reason I think this is because it’s meant to be a play on the way Eddie and Tommy had been lit around Buck, as well as the use of lighting in 811 for the Tommy scenes - the use of darkness for the hook up especially (in fact its no coincidence that the majority of the BT scenes took place at night!). In 704 we were shown Eddie being bathed in light - glowing with light haloed around him, Tommy in that same episode was always in shadow or darkly lit - you can see it very clearly during the basketball game, but the loft scene between Buck and Tommy also shows Tommy being lit darkly and partially in shadow.

Even the kitchen scene in 811 shows Tommy always in shadow - he never goes near the windows - always in the shadow of the cabinets or on the far side of the room away from the light. This is because Buck is the earth and he orbits around Eddie - who is the sun, while Tommy essentially orbits around Buck (he’s a plot device that’s what they do!). The sun generates its own heat and light, whereas the moon can only reflect the sun’s light.

This is a play on the fact that Buck has misunderstood who’s attention he was trying to get - its no mistake that scene at the loft took place at night while all the times Buck was trying to get someone’s attention it was bright daylight. The moon is known as a symbol of enlightenment and transformation (and madness) and those are both things Tommy has helped Buck with but at the end of the day, the moon is borrowing its light from the sun in the same way Tommy is borrowing light from Eddie. The sun is a life force, but the moon is not - its reflected light can help guide you in the dark when it is full, but it cannot sustain life. That is exactly what we have seen play out with Buck Tommy and Eddie so far - Buck has been enlightened by Tommy, but he cannot be sustained by that - he needs the sun - Eddie - to thrive!

Back to costumes now and while we’re here, we’ll talk about Bucks teal. Teal is such an interesting colour - its a combination of of blue and green and can lean in either direction - this one is more blue toned - its almost peacock blue - but there is enough green in it to class it as teal (Bucks phone case is more peacock blue) Teal is a colour of clarity and openmindedness and objectivity and wisdom. These are all key traits we see Buck exibitiing in this scene - especially objectivity and clarity which he provides to Eddie and which Eddie takes on board and as a result is able to really make some inroads into healing things with Chris.

We are also meant to draw a comparison between Buck and Chris - who are both on Eddies dash in shades of blue. Buck is obviously in teal as we;ve just discussed, while Chris is in a blue that looks like Bucks normal blue. Chris being in blue here is really important as blue is a colour associated with trust, responsibility and protection - the little photo of Chris here is a representation of what Eddie is trying to regain - his parental responsibilities for his child who he wants to protect (and feels he failed) and Chris’s trust and Buck in his teal hoodie is able to provide the wisdom clarity and objectivity that allows Eddie to begin to do just that later in the episode.

I do just want to quickly mention the tree air fresheners while we’re here as well. We see Eddie fit a blue tree to his rear view mirror at the beginning of his uber Eddie arc and he then purchases a green one and switches them out just before he picks up Ezra and Chris and it remains during his talk with Buck. It’s no coincidence that we get this colour switch at this moment in time. The blue tree is representing those traits we spoke about above - trust, responsibility, and protection and blue can also be a symbol of reliability as well as conservatism. These are all traits Eddie needs to be an uber driver and that is why we have the blue tree there during the montage of his adventures in that job. But in the scene with Chris and the chat with Buck the green colour meaning is needed. Green is growth and renewal, hope and the future, but it is also judgemental. Eddie is judging himself in this couple of scenes and he thinks Chirs is too, but Buck also helps him to find some hope for the future and we see Eddies growth in the fact that he takes on board Bucks advice and actually actions it which leads to the renewal of Eddie and Chris’s relationship.

There is a second aspect to the green tree as well - back in 701 Eddie talks to Buck about Chris dating multiple girls and asks him to talk to Chris about it. They are dealing with a small car fire and Buck hands the cars owner a green tree air freshener and says that it wasn’t a total loss when he asks. We have a parallel conversation here between Buck and Eddie and once again - it’s not a total loss for Eddie - he has a chance to salvage something.

Let’s finish up on Eddies grey which has an interesting journey with Eddie. We’ve seen him wear an increasing amount of grey in the seasons where he is going through mental health arcs - so seasons 5 and 6 are grey heavy. This seaosn so far hasn’t been, but we get a pretty sizeable chunk of this episode with him in grey.

We start with the montage of him dealing with all the various issues in his fixer upper house showing us a hint of the reality of what Eddie has purchased, and then we spend all of his time as an uber driver with him wearing a grey hoodie over a white tee. Grey is a neutral, balanced colour and is also ambiguous and considered a colour of safety, professionalism and practicality.

The fact that they have been increasing the amount of grey Eddie wears as we go through the seasons where he is dealing with his mental health is interesting, because of its neutrality as well as safety, but here in this season I find interesting not only on that front, but also its ambiguous connotations. The fact that we see him trying to settle into his fixer upper house - dealing with leaks and faulty electrics etc whilst wearing grey (or grey blue as that is what he was wearing in the scene when he didn’t get he firefighting job - it needed to be both blue and grey!) makes that ambiguity clear - Eddie is unsure about what he is doing - if it is the right thing to be doing at all. It also ties that ambiguity to Eddie tearing down and rebuilding his life and himself - ambiguity about which way it could go - success or failure - but also straight or queer. Its a bit of a tease from the wardrobe team as to Eddie’s arc - that the straight or queer question is one that needs to be asked and if that needs to be asked then the answer will fall in the queer camp - hence the yellow and blue coding in the rooms themselves.

The hoodie over the white tee is essentially Eddie in uniform and it plays into those other meanings of grey - safety professionalism and practicality - once more all things we see Eddie exhibit in his uber driver scenes - especially when he has learnt the unwritten rules of being an uber driver from his very helpful passenger. The blue ties and zip give a little nod to the trustworthy and protection and responsibility elements of blue as well all working together with the grey but also still keeping him connected to his blue firefighters uniform in a low key way - suggesting things he learnt as a firefighter are relevant to him i his job as an uber driver.

Right, I’m going to stop waffling now as this has got super long and is super late! As always, I hope you enjoyed this costume meta that was more a set meta and colour theory conversation than about the costumes this week, and thanks for taking the time to read it - it means a lot to me.

Tagged people below and do let me know if you want adding to the list!

@lover-of-mine @spotsandsocks @fruityfirehose @wanderingwomanwondering @livingwherethesidewalkends @buddiediaz118 @bewitchedbewilderedbisexual @satvojihusana @elvensorceress @icebergeddie @buckleyanddiaz @eddiedisasterdiaz @kejfeblintz @cookie-kat777 @leothil @bucksbelly @kyoteugly @bi-moonlight @somebodycall911onabc @trudayss @chaosandwolves @lemotmo

#Kym costume meta #911 costume meta #911 colour theory #Kym colour theory #911 set design #this is so much later than I intended to get it out!#its been a bit of an insane week!#911 abc #eddie diaz #evan buckley #buddie #911 on abc

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fandom-geek17 · 2 years ago

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Destined For More

Neteyam x Omatikaya!Reader

Synopsis: Being a close family friend of the Sully's, and Kiri's best friend, it was hard to be around Neteyam and not fall in love with him. Supressing those feelings were even harder, especially when his parents start pressuring him about finding a mate...

Rating: E MINORS DNI🔞🔞

Tags: Friends to lovers! Eventual smut! Semi public smut! P in V smut, Reader has a name, no use of Y/N

Vocabulary: Nantang (Viperwolf), Marui (Pods/tents), Skxawng (Moron), Tanhì (Bioluminescent freckles/stars)

Ages: Neteyam (21), reader (20), Kiri (20), Lo'ak (19), Tuk (13)

Can also be read on AO3

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3

“There child” Mo’at told you gently, standing over your shoulder as you crushed the herbs in the mortar. “Perfect.” You smiled to yourself. You were a decent healer, but hearing it from her directly meant everything. Kiri had always been the best healer, always would be, but you enjoyed the profession. Feeling like you could contribute with something else other than making clothes.

Alongside you and Kiri, there were two other healers in training, and everyone was currently busy helping a hunting party that had been attacked by a group of Nantang. None had been seriously injured, but there were a lot of bites and scratches to clean and bandage. They were lucky, it could have been worse. But since there were suddenly so many patients, the supply of medicines ran low. As Kiri and the other two worked on the patients, you were happy to sit in the corner, making more healing paste as fast as you could. The patients were an important part of being a healer, but the thing that had always interested you most was the science behind it. Discovering how new plants could optimize healing, which ones soothed pain, which ones killed bacteria. You had recently discovered that alternating the weaving pattern of the bandages caused more air to flow through without exposing the wounds to the elements. That way, it lessened the chance of infection.

“Emmy, can you pass me those?” Kiri asked, pointing to a pile of leaves next to you. She smiled in thanks as you gave them to her. Your real name was Emreyìte, meaning surviving daughter. It was a bit on the nose, but you liked it. You mother had labored for over two days to bring you into the world, and you nearly didn’t make it. The name was supposed to convey the strength you had already displayed coming into this world.

When you finished crushing the herbs, you put them in the water stewing above the fire. Stirring slowly, and evenly, the water slowly changed color. But it needed to steep for a little while longer. This particular mixture of herbs soothed pain very efficiently when boiled into a tea. But the taste wasn’t particularly pleasant, so you always added some sweetness in the hopes of counteracting the bitter taste. All the hunters were given a cup of the liquid to drink. They all grimaced badly, making you smile a little. It was terrible, but you were still experimenting with the recipe.

You all worked in quiet unison until all the hunters had been treated. It was well past the start of the communal dinner by then, evening setting in slowly. The other two healers went to get something to eat whilst Kiri helped Mo’at to her marui. You stayed behind to clean up. And also take inventory of how much of the supplies had been used. Hunger rumbled in your belly, but it would have to wait.

“Knock, knock” a voice murmured. A voice you knew all too well. Butterflies erupted in your stomach as your breath hitched.

You turned around and indeed. “Neteyam” you breathed. “What are you doing here?”

He shrugged, watching you with a small smile from under his eyelashes. “I saw all the other healers join the dinner, but not you. I figured you’d be here, too wrapped up in your research to eat again.” He held out a steaming bowl in front of you. “So I brought you this.”

The smell of Yerik stew filled your nostrils, making your stomach rumble again. Neteyam smirked, proving his point. “Thank you” you said, accepting his gift. But it was only when he stepped inside the hut properly that you noticed the wound on his shoulder, making you gasp slightly. “Neteyam, what happened to your shoulder?”

“Nothing! It’s fine, don’t worry about it” he assured you, but not very convincingly.

“That needs to be cleaned” you stated, setting the bowl aside. “What happened?” You looked at his expectantly until he finally caved, quirking his brow in your direction.

“I caught a tree branch during fighting practice” he admitted with a nonchalant tone. “It’s fine.”

“Did you clean it, at least?” you asked, observing the wound. You already knew the answer.

“Yes” Neteyam said.

“Well, not well enough. Sit! Does it hurt?”

“No.”

You quirked at eyebrow at him, your tail swishing impatiently.

“A bit.” Neteyam’s ears flicked as his eyes flitted between you and the bowl of Yerik stew. “Can you at least eat first? Waiting a couple of more minutes won’t kill me.” He smiled at you playfully. He was normally very reserved, the smiling Neteyam was usually saved for his family.

But you only huffed, filling a cup with the last of the tea from earlier. “Here, drink this while I eat.” As you sat down with your bowl of stew, Neteyam took a small gulp of the liquid in his cup. His brows furrowed but other than that, he did an okay job of hiding his disgust. But having known him since you were kids, you could tell when he hid the truth. “You can grimace, you know” you giggled over the bowl. “It won’t hurt my feelings. I know it’s disgusting.”

Neteyam hummed, only making a small grimace after his next sip. “It’s not the best” he admitted with a sheepish smile. “But it’s effective. And a lot better than the last time. You’re getting very good at this, experimenting with medicine.” You couldn’t help but blush at his praise.

But you had also just stuffed your mouth full of food, so the only answer he got was that damned blush you wished would go away. As soon as you finished the bowl, you go to work on his shoulder.

Your hand trembled slightly as it made contact with Neteyam’s warm skin, holding him steady while the other hand cleaned his wound with a cloth. Your hand rose and fell with each of his breaths, and you leaned in to see properly in the firelight. Eywa, he smelled so good. Always had. It was intoxicating, and also the reason why you never got too close to him.

Your family and the Sully family had been friends since forever, you and your brother grew up together with the Sully’s, but as your brother made lots of other friends, your only real friend was Kiri. Of course, Kiri came with Lo’ak, Spider and Tuk and they were great, like additional siblings. But they weren’t Neteyam. With his broad shoulders, gentle voice, infectious smile, kind heart and protective older brother demeanor, it was impossible to not gain a crush on him. That crush had lasted on and on since you were fourteen. At seventeen, even you had to admit to yourself that you had fallen in love with him. And how could you not? He was everything, had everything. He was the handsome son of the Olo'eyktan that all the women gazed after, giggled around and tried to flirt with. He was the dream you could never have. It had been clear over the years that he only saw you as a friend, as Kiri’s best friend. So you had become very good at dreaming in silence and later suppressing your feelings for the man sitting before you.

Dreams of exploring with him, laughing with him, him confessing his undying love for you and making you his mate. And also not so innocent dreams, dreams of being with him. Of him kissing you, running his hands all over your body, his mouth following suit, him pushing his cock deep into your pussy, joining his kuru with yours, finally creating that everlasting bond…

A hiss from the man in question broke you out of your train of thought. “Sorry” you whispered, your mouth and throat suddenly very dry.

“It’s okay” Neteyam whispered back. You could have sworn that his voice was deeper, throatier, but it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. “It just stings a little.”

You nodded quietly and swallowed, desperately trying to regain some moisture in your mouth so you could get your voice back. Standing up, you took a deep breath that you hoped was subtle and went to get the Yalna bark mixture. This was exactly why you tried to avoid being too close to him. Every time those big golden orbs watched you intently or his smell surrounded you, thought and memories of your illicit fantasies caught up with you and you had to remember that Neteyam was destined for so much more than a healer who was more interested in playing with plants than helping her patients.

He was watching you right now, you could tell. His gaze burned at the back of your neck, but when you turned back around, he thankfully looked away. You had to say something, quickly. The longer you stayed quiet, more memories of last night flooded your brain. Those fantasies of him wrapping your legs around his neck before he-

“Why didn’t you come here before?” you blurt out, desperately avoiding eye contact, trying to calm the erratic beating of your heart.

Neteyam shrugged with his good shoulder, his eyes following the movement of you fingers as you dipped them in the mixture. “There were so many wounded hunters, thought you should prioritize them.”

You huffed at his stubbornness. “Skxawng” you muttered, trying to not take in how defined the muscles around his shoulder area were. “I al- we always have time for you” you corrected quickly. Please Eywa, don’t let him catch that slip up!

You dared a quick glance at his eyes, but you couldn’t read the expression there. He opened his mouth and closed it several times before speaking. “I’ll remember that” he breathed.

Quickly, you looked back down at his wound and shuffled closer to be able to apply the ointment. Too late you noticed that this position practically placed you between his legs. His knees rubbed against your waist as you leaned forward. Again, you placed one hand on his chest for support before rubbing your coated fingers over his wound.

A small groan left his lips. A groan that caused you to close your eyes and legs tighter together. Thank Eywa that your braids covered your face as you worked, if he saw the deep violet of your cheeks or your eyes that were more black than yellow, he’d probably bolt out and you’d have to dig yourself into a hole of embarrassment and stay there forever. There was nothing sexual about that groan! He was in pain, you reminded yourself. Still, all you could feel was the beating of your heart and the lightning bolts of pleasure going from your stomach to your core.

This was exactly why you needed to keep a safe distance from him! When there were other people around or you kept yourself at a respectable distance, it was easier to remember that all you would ever be was his friend. It made it easier to suppress everything.

As soon as you could, you bolted from your position as if you had just been burnt. Clearing your throat, you look away, letting your braids hide your face again. “Okay, you’re all set” you murmured under the guise of putting everything back at its rightful place.

You could hear Neteyam standing up behind you, shuffling about a little. “Thank you, Emreyìtre. I appreciate it.” It was so rare for someone to call you by your full name. It caused a flutter of your heart that made you feel both happy and sad at the same time. “Are you staying here long?”

Why did he want to know? Did it matter what you did? “Probably not” you answered slowly, finally turning around to face him. “We used up a lot of Mo’at’s supply today. I was going to forage some more for her so we can all start fresh tomorrow.”

“Now?” he questioned, gesturing to the setting sun outside of the tent. “It will be dark soon.”

You crossed your arms, tail swishing slightly. “So? I’m not afraid of the dark.”

Neteyam’s ears flicked upwards along with his tail. “I know” he smiled. “But I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

You sighed… You wanted to say something derogatory to distract him from the real reason you didn’t want him accompanying you. It’s not like you could tell him you wanted the alone time to cool off and maybe shoot a couple of arrows in between gathering. But when you looked into those hopeful, determined eyes of his, you couldn’t lie. Damn him! “Fine. As long as you remember that I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself then you can make yourself useful and help me carry everything.”

You thrusted a satchel bag into his hands. Neteyam snorted and slung it over his shoulder before accepting the large pile of smaller containers that you had woven for this very purpose. You gathered the same equipment for yourself before also armoring yourself with your daggers and bow and arrow.

As you walked, you tried to stay a couple of paces ahead of him, both to show him the way but also to give yourself some space to think. As eclipse slowly set in, his tanhì would illuminate more and more, creating that perfect canvas of speckled light. He had always been so beautiful in the dark, his features somehow more prominent than during the day. Over the years, you had spent many evenings around a campfire with him and his family. Carefully watching him out of the corner of your eye, you had decided that nighttime was his best look.

But you couldn’t think of that right now! If this was going to work, having him accompany you, then it couldn’t be awkward. You had to treat him the same way as you would anyone else helping you. And that meant no ogling! Hence why you were walking ahead of him.

Neteyam walked diligently behind you, not saying much, just following in your footsteps. Eventually you stopped in front of a clearing.

“Here” you pointed towards a patch of green. “See those plants with the rounded leaves?” He nodded, stepping closer to you to observe the plants. “Dig up the roots, clean them and put them in one container. As many as you can fit.”

“What do they do?” he asked curiously as he sunk down to his knees.

“They calm anxiousness” you answered immediately. “They can also help people sleep if prepared properly.”

As Neteyam worked on the roots, you used your knife to gather the same herbs you had boiled earlier today. Neteyam proved to excel at this, like everything else. He quickly filled the woven bag with roots and immediately asked for a new task. You set him to work as much as you could, both to get the work done faster and because you secretly wanted to see that pleased smile whenever he showed you his collection of plants. He was like one of those yellow canines Jake had showed you on a computer once. The ones that existed on earth. He had that same eagerness to please and do well.

It warmed your heart that he genuinely wanted to help. Yet you also had to remind yourself that this eagerness was not singled out for you. He probably wanted to help everyone with the same fervor. He was the next Olo’eyktan, after all. If the people were supposed to follow him, then he had to show he would be there for them with the same loyalty.

But as the evening went on, Neteyam followed you more and more, asking you to tell him about each and every plant you collected. And it was nice to have something to talk about. Something that you could sink into without feeling self-conscious. So, you happily shared your knowledge.

“See this one?” you sat down in front of a plant with thick, pointy stems and sharp edges. “Kiri and I discovered the use of it a while ago. It soothes burns, produces a cooling sensation.” You broke off a piece of the stem and cut it in half. A clear, gel-like liquid oozed out. You collected some on your fingers and you could swear you heard your foraging partner swallow. But before you had time to process whether he did, you reached for his arm to stroke some on it. “Feel that?” you smiled up at him.

“Yeah” he murmured before looking up at you. “That’s incredible.”

“I’m experimenting with it, to see if I can make turn it into an ointment somehow.”

Neteyam looked at you with hooded eyes. “If anyone can, it’s you.”

A blush spread across your cheeks. He had given you so many compliments tonight, it was hard to believe that this wasn’t one of your daydreams. Even harder when you observed the way his tanhì glowed in the moonlight, the way his braids fell to perfectly frame his face, his gentle smile, his golden eyes looking up at you from under his eyelashes again. The urge to be closer to him was overwhelming. Every fibre of your being longed for him, to feel his lips against yours. But you had to stay strong. He was forbidden territory. Kiri’s brother, the future clan leader, and most importantly; he wasn’t interested. And making any kind of move would ruin whatever it was that you two had.

So you cleared your throat and stood up. “After we get some of these, we should be set to head back” you said quietly, turning away from him.

The two of you quickly gathered the last plant and began walking back. But before you had gotten far you stumbled upon some of your favorite materials for making clothing. A small squeal of happiness left your lips as you bent down to scoop up some of the pebbles.

“Do these have a medical purpose?” Neteyam asked you curiously and picked some up himself.

“No” you admitted bashfully, placing the small white pebbles in your bag. “I use them to make beads and other decorations for my chest coverings.”

“Oh…” Neteyam’s eyes flitted downwards for a moment before he bent down to scoop some more pebbles into his hand to examine them further. “Is it hard to make beads out of them?”

“No” you shrugged. “Just time consuming.” Neteyam nodded slowly.

The two of you walked the rest of the way in silence. It had been such a nice evening and you desperately tried to remember that it was simply an outing between friends. You couldn’t get your hopes up over this one thing. He just came along to make sure you didn’t get lost out there…

“Hey” Neteyam stopped you with a hand on your elbow when the village appeared ahead. “Thank you for letting me come with you. I really needed to clear my head for a bit.”

Your ears perked in interest. “Oh?” His mood seemed to have dampened somewhat, judging by the way his eyes suddenly had darkened and his tail swished slightly when he looked at his family’s marui. “Can I ask why?” you probed gently. “Or is it too personal?” Whatever it was, a part of you really wanted, needed, to know.

Neteyam rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “Mom and dad have been trying to have a conversation with me for a couple of days. A conversation I don’t really want to have.” He looked at his home, his cheeks a bit more violet than usual. You nodded gently for him to continue. He cleared his throat and refused to meet your gaze. “They want me to start looking for a mate.”

And just like that, you could feel cracks appearing in your heart. “Oh…” you whispered, now avoiding his gaze, as well. You had always known this day would come, but mentally preparing and being slapped in the face with it were two entirely different things.

“And it’s not that I don’t want a mate” he added hurriedly. “I do. I just don’t want to be rushed into any big decisions. Whoever I mate with will have to burden a lot of responsibility and I don’t want to force that on anyone. I know what’s like to have so much responsibility thrust upon you that you didn’t ask for.”

You nodded slowly, blinking furiously. Tears prickled at the corners of your eyes, but they had to stay away! You would not cry over the news that a friend was supposed to celebrate. Be supportive! “I’m sure whoever it will be will make a great tsahìk one day” you murmured, clutching your bag closer to your chest. “Since we’re here, I can take the bags to the healing hut.”

“I can help you with that!” Neteyam offered immediately, making you want to cry even more. But not now, not yet!

“No, no I’ll be fine” you lied, your voice a lot shakier than you would have liked. “Go home, Neteyam. I’m sure your parents are wondering where you are.” He reluctantly handed you the bag he was carrying. You gave him a forced smile. “Goodbye.”

You started to walk away before he could answer, desperate to get away. He called after you. “Goodbye Emmy!”

The tears finally spilled over. It felt like a ‘goodbye’ in more ways than one…

Let me know what you think!!!

#avatar #avatar the way of water #atwow #neteyam #neteyam te suli tsyeyk'itan #neteyam x reader #neteyam x omaticaya!reader #neteyam fanfiction #neteyam lives #canon divergence #neteyam x you #ao3 fanfic #swedishlittleowl #avatar x reader #neteyam sully x na’vi!reader #na’vi smut #neteyam x Reader smut

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skyrider3217artz · 3 months ago

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I have had several projects lined up already. Exciting stuff! Just a quick note of what's going on in this small corner of Tumblr.

I have been revisiting an older plush. If this looks familiar, yes, this is my Mizusune pattern from a while back.

I'm just trying to optimize my workflow, and it's turning out really well. Just a quick thing while the main project is being developed.

There is another plush I am revisiting that is one of my more recent works, but more on that later.

Stay tuned for that!

And as always, stay crafty, friends!

At this point in time, commissions are NOT open for new monsters or other plushies. I have a waitlist to go through before I open those up.

#plush wip #wip #monster hunter

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tanoraqui · 19 days ago

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Please enjoy this start of a fic for Tress of the Emerald Sea, which I wrote just after reading the book but stopped because I didn’t know where it was going, and now, several months later, I know even less.

Tress was just settling into a really good nap when someone knocked urgently on her cabin door and called for the captain.

It really would have been a really good nap. She'd stayed up late the night before testing crimson/rose spore blends, which as certain loved ones repeatedly pointed out was less advisable scheduling in her mid-forties than in her late teens. They were sailing west in winter through the Rose Sea, so the sun came in her porthole at just the right angle to make her bed optimally cozy in the late afternoon. And best of all, Charlie was curled up in that sunbeam with her—because even sleep, that most individual of activities, is most pleasant with someone you love at your side.

(And none of the kids were young enough any more to crawl into the bed and join them—sleep is improved by the addition of loved ones, but it does require both peace and quiet.)

Charlie, who still took his duties as Captain's Valet quite seriously, kissed Tress on the ear then slipped out from under the covers and went to answer the door.

"What's the matter, Elmer?" he asked softly. "Captain's napping."

Elmer the cabin girl did not take the cue to lower her voice. "Sorry to interrupt your conjugal time, Cap, but you gotta come up! These people just fell outta the sky!"

Half a step behind her, their younger daughter Lemina added enthusiastically, "Mr. Ford says they're sorcerers!"

Tress and Charlie exchanged the raised eyebrows of experienced ship-captain and valet and parents. But there was audibly some sort of hullabaloo on the open deck above. So Tress valiantly resisted the urge to shove her face back into the sunlit pillow, and instead tossed back the covers and pulled on her boots.

There was indeed a hullabaloo on the top deck. It was the sort only achievable by sailors who've been at sea for a long time without anything particularly interesting happening, and who haven't yet decided whether this sudden new thing is auspicious, ill-omened, or merely very entertaining. A few people were still doing their jobs—including, to their credit, the lookout and the helmswoman. The rest had abandoned scrub-brushes and ropes, and some ran up from below just ahead of or just behind the captain and her valet, to crowd around the center of the fuss.

And what a strange center it was! So far as anyone could tell, including the lookout, two people had dropped out of the open sky, in a swift but controlled fall that had ended with a smooth, feet-first landing upon the foredeck.

They were both on the tall side, with white hair, wide-brimmed straw hats, and a bizarre assortment of luggage. The woman was fine of feature and distractingly voluptuous of form. This was accentuated by her skintight, faintly shimmery top with only thin straps for shoulders, and the way the breeze blew her thin cotton skirt about her legs. The man was pointed from his nose to his knees, with special credit to his elbows and the finger he was just now jabbing at Ford's speaking board (the quartermaster having already been on deck when the Incident began). Aside from the straw hat, he was dressed in a subtly but notably more fashionable version of his most famous outfit on this world: a floral-patterned red shirt buttoned to display only a tasteful amount of chest, knee-length tan shorts and sandals without socks.

"Hoid?" Tress exclaimed. "What are you doing here? Where have you been?" She looked around at the open, rose-colored sea, and the sky with nary a cloud in sight. "How did you get here?"

"—still dangerously hacka— Captain Tress!"

Hoid swept his hat from his head as he turned with a glad cry, and used it to sweep a particularly extravagant bow. When he rose, he began ticking off on his fingers.

"In order: Yes, it is I! Well-spotted. I'm here for a vacation. I have been many places, most of which you haven't heard of, many of which I'll be happy to regale you with stories of. And I got here in a particularly clever way involving three faked identities, a barrel of Bilming gin, a borrowed spaceship, and... Actually, given your predilictions, I'd better not tell that one, either. This is Design, by the way. Design, this is Tress, Charlie, and..."

He cast around for more familiar crew, and indeed, there weren't many. Even with a captain as notable as Tress of the Five Cups, little at sea was permanent, especially not for nearly thirty years. Of her original officers, only Ford remained—Ann had gotten her own ship captaincy; Laggart had taken up the king's wages on the Rock and gotten married; and Salay's father had gotten too old to continue running around a ship, so she'd taken up a post in the Royal Naval Academy. Of the sailors, only Pakdaughter, Doug, and the unfortunately one-month-younger LIttle Doug remained.

(Hoid didn't look a day older than when they'd first sailed the Midnight Sea, all those years ago.)

Undaunted by the lapse, Design stuck her hand out with a wide smile.

"Charmed!" she said. "I've heard so much about you."

"It's nice to meet you," Tress said reflexively, returning the handshake. Charlie followed suit.

"Say, this is the right place to set up, right?" Design gestured a contraption that she’d already shrugged off her back, a folded jumble of metal rods and more shimmering fabric. She leaned forward with a conspiratorial wink. "It should be—they're deck chairs!"

Baffled, Tress defaulted to one of the many lessons she'd learned from Ford over the years.

"I'm sorry," she said, "but the Five Cups is not a free 'vacation' ship. Either you're a paying passenger, or you're part of the crew."

As though by magic, Hoid suddenly had a flute in his hands.

"I shall pay our way as a storyteller!" he said brightly.

"We already have one of those, and a damn fine one, too." Tress jerked a thumb at Charlie, who grinned.

"And!" Tress added in the tone of one realizing that she could finally only complain of an underlying grievance. "How do I even know you'd be good for it, in work or coin?" She returned Hoid's earlier jabbing finger with interest. "You disappeared without a word last time, in the middle of Kingsport! You didn't even wait to see if Charlie's curse was removed!"

(There was a susurrus from the sailors around them, as those who knew the full story of The Captain Versus the Sorceress leapt to inform those who did not.)

"Well, it was," said Hoid, gesturing at Charlie's notably humanoid form.

"It was not!" Tress cried. "If he doesn't take me home and poetry at me once a day, he starts to turn back into a rat!"

"It's alright," Charlie said quickly. He slid his arm around Tress's waist. "Tress and the kids are my home, as we are hers. And I've gotten quite good at poetry."

Hoid, about to be genuinely concerned, instead beamed. Tress smiled as well, because there are some things you just can't not smile at.

[Then Tress and Charlie catch Hoid up on what he’s missed, most importantly that they have three kids now ranging about 15 to 20 years old, one of whom may or may not technically be Charlie’s second cousin a prince who’s run away from home to join their crew; relatedly, they recently returned from privateering to piracy. Hoid and Design completely fail to explain who or what Design is, leaving the whole crew to bet energetically on whether they’re siblings, lovers, neither, or both. At some point, Hoid sorcerously saves the ship from a royal navy attack, which Tress concedes is at least partial payment for using it as a vacation spot. Teenage shenanigans and/or heroism?!?]

#tress of the emerald sea #my fic #ficlet #hoid #cosmere

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jungkoode · 2 months ago

Text

THE 25TH HOUR | MEMORIES

"𝐁𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐏𝐒"

"Sometimes, the best thing we can do for someone is stay away. And sometimes, that feels worse than endless memories and infinite timelines."

index : main story — The 25th Hour

word count: 1,1k

pairing: yoongi x f!reader

genre: angst, longing

timeline: 742

Three hundred and forty-seven days since your last reset.

Three hundred and forty-seven days of watching you build a life you'd forget.

Again.

The monitors flickered in the dimly lit room, casting an ethereal blue glow across Yoongi's face. He adjusted the display, fingers finding the exact pressure points on the screen without looking.

How many times had he done this?

Thousands.

Tens of thousands.

Time was meaningless when you remembered everything.

"She's leaving work early today," Hoseok said from the doorway, his usual warmth dampened to a solemn observation.

Yoongi didn't turn around. "She always leaves early on Tuesdays."

Silence engulfed the room. They'd all watched this pattern unfold sixteen times before. The mundane routines of A-735. This version of you worked at a bookstore three blocks from the Chrono Monitoring Center.

The irony wasn't lost on Yoongi. You always gravitated toward time, even when CHRONOS tried to push you away from it.

"You should sleep," Hoseok said finally.

Yoongi's lips twitched into something that wasn't quite a smile. "You know I don't need to."

The door closed, and Yoongi was alone again with his screens, his calculations, and the hollow ache that never subsided.

"She bought another watch," Namjoon reported, sliding a photograph across the table. "Analog. The third one this month."

The resistance headquarters were particularly silent that day. They always were, when you weren’t around. But Yoongi noticed it more than usual.

Their corner remained a bubble of tense focus. Seokjin looked up from his notebook, hand pausing mid-equation.

"That's earlier than last time," he noted.

Yoongi picked up the photo, fingertips barely touching the edges. You stood at a street vendor's table, examining an antique pocket watch, your hair swept back in a practical ponytail.

Always a ponytail.

Never a hair out of place.

Except when it’s just you and him, him and you, and the ghost of other timelines as companions.

This version of you is more severe around the edges—sharper cheekbones, darker clothes, fewer smiles. CHRONOS was getting more aggressive with each reset, pushing you further from who you had been.

But they couldn't erase everything.

"She’s starting to feel it," Yoongi said, voice a harsh attempt at neutral despite the way gold flared around his fingertips. "The 25th hour is calling her."

"It's still too soon," Taehyung cautioned from across the room where he sat with Jungkook, their usual silent communication evident in their matching postures. "Timeline projections indicate at least another seventy-three days before optimal awakening conditions."

Yoongi slid the photo back across the table. "Tell that to her subconscious."

Jimin entered, Chrono-Sync watch modified to emit false temporal signatures and all, movements precise in the way they always were after infiltrating CHRONOS. "They're accelerating the Monitoring Center recruitment. They're planning to reach out to her."

The room temperature seemed to drop several degrees.

Earlier than scheduled. Earlier than the last sixteen times.

"They know," Yoongi stated flatly.

"They suspect," Jimin corrected, his voice carrying an edge whenever he spoke about you. "They're setting the trap earlier, hoping to recruit her before she awakens. Get her on their side."

"So she can complete what she was created for," Yoongi muttered.

No one challenged the assertion. You were both the key to restoring the original timeline and to eliminate Yoongi.

They all knew.

Yet.

Sixteen times you'd failed to follow through. Sixteen times you'd chosen Yoongi instead of the timeline. Of Chronos. Of the resistance.

Sixteen resets that could have been avoided.

“You don’t know that, Yoongi.” Seokjin muttered.

“She’s my exact opposite. She was made to eliminate me.” Yoongi’s voice remained monotone. “She has no other purpose to exist but that. Chronos just wants her abilities to assert their version of time. We want them to restore the normal flow. But the convergence point is the same.”

The room fills with unspoken words. For ten seconds, nothing but the sounds of breathing can be heard.

“Getting you out of the way.” Namjoon infers.

Which is a fact everyone in the room acknowledged, but nobody dared give voice to.

“Yeah, she doesn’t seem to agree.” Hoseok singsang under his breath.

"No way.” Jimin fake gasped. “You think, Hobs? Seventeen times—”

Yoongi stood, his chair scraping across the concrete floor. "I need to see the Master Clock projections."

No one stopped him as he left.

They knew better.

The 25th hour always settled around him like a heavy weight.

Familiar, but thick and oppressing with both possibilities and regrets.

Yoongi stood in your apartment, careful not to disrupt anything. You wouldn't know he was there. Time was frozen. The world was frozen. But he couldn't help himself from these visits.

You always slept with your hand curled near your face, fingers slightly parted as if reaching for something.

For someone.

Your Chrono-Sync Watch lay on the nightstand, its standard-issue band replaced with a handmade leather one you'd bought at a craft fair three months ago.

Another unconscious act of rebellion.

"You're already fighting them," he murmured, his voice disturbing nothing in the suspended air. "You don't even know why."

He should leave. He always told himself to leave. But instead, he found himself sinking into the chair across from your bed, watching the frozen rise and fall of your chest that only he could perceive within the stopped time.

"I'm still here, Noma," he said, the nickname slipping out despite his best intentions. "Seventeen resets and I'm still here."

His fingers traced patterns in the air, golden temporal energy following their path in glimmering threads that only another Outlier would see. He was careful not to touch you. Never to touch you while you slept. That wasn't his right.

"They're moving faster this time," he continued, the one-sided conversation a ritual he couldn't abandon. "But so are you. You bought the pocket watch. You're sensing the temporal anomalies two weeks earlier than last time."

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, studying your face for the millionth time, cataloging the differences in this version.

The small scar above your eyebrow was new. The tension in your jaw, even in sleep, was new. This version of you had fought harder against your programming than the others.

"You're going to remember faster this time," he promised. "I can feel it."

The golden traces of his temporal energy swirled around the room, disobeying his usual tight control.

He was tired.

Not physically—Time Anchors didn't experience fatigue the way others did—but soul-deep tired.

Seventeen times watching you discover, fight, and ultimately be erased.

Seventeen times of you recognizing him, kissing him, holding him—before they ultimately took you away.

"I wonder which part you'll remember first," he said softly. "Last time, it was the way I take my coffee. Before that, it was the temporal correction equation. The time before that..."

He trailed off; the memory of your fingers brushing against his wrist, your eyes widening with shock as the skin contact triggered a cascade of memories; too sharp to continue thinking about.

Your hand twitched in sleep, another impossibility in frozen time that only happened with potential Outliers on the verge of awakening.

Yoongi stood immediately, heart racing despite himself. It was happening. Sooner than projected. Sooner than they were prepared for.

He moved to the door, then paused, looking back at you one last time.

"Wake up soon, Noma," he whispered. "I can't do this alone anymore."

"CHRONOS has prepared her recruitment package," Jimin reported, sliding a tablet across the meeting table. "They're planning first contact tomorrow, likely offering an entry position within the Monitoring Division."

Yoongi's fingers tightened around his cup, the ceramic hot enough to burn anyone else. "That's eleven days ahead of schedule."

"We can't be ready that fast," Namjoon said, running calculations on his screen. "The security protocols—"

"We'll have to be," Yoongi cut him off. "She's already experiencing temporal vertigo. Yesterday she stood staring at the clock in the bookstore for eight minutes. The day before, she called in sick because of what she described as 'time feeling wrong.'"

Seokjin looked up sharply. "Did she use those exact words?"

Yoongi nodded once.

"That's the earliest any version has verbalized temporal awareness," Seokjin said, excitement breaking through. "Yoongi, this could be—"

"Don't," Yoongi warned. "We've thought that before."

The room fell silent.

They had.

The twelfth reset had shown early promise too. That had been their closest success—and their most devastating failure.

"Still," Jungkook ventured, "the patterns are different this time. My mimicry picked up trace elements of temporal sensitivity when I passed her on the street yesterday."

Yoongi ran a hand through his hair, the strands still damp from the rain he'd walked through to get here. Sixteen failures had taught him not to hope, but the evidence was mounting. You were remembering faster.

"I'll adjust the timeline," he said finally. "Taehyung, recalibrate the system interfaces. Hoseok, we need that security blind spot operational now, not next week."

"What's CHRONOS's plan this time?" Seokjin asked, turning to Jimin.

Jimin's expression was blank, professional, but his eyes betrayed his disdain. "Same as always. Recruit her as a 'special consultant' for 'temporal anomalies.' Position themselves as the protectors. Make her believe she's fulfilling her purpose by eliminating him." He gestured vaguely toward Yoongi.

“Same old shit.” Namjoon added. “We are mom, they are dad, and she’s the child stuck in the middle of the divorce.”

“More like a teen that’s constantly in her rebellious phase.” Jimin scoffed, looking to the side. “It’s never mom and dad for her, just her boyfriend. Always chooses Yoongi over her purpose. Over all of us. Over the entire timeline."

"That's enough," Yoongi said quietly, but with enough force that the room fell silent. Then stood, decision made. "Move everything up. Full operational status by tomorrow. I'm going to the Clock."

"Yoongi," Seokjin called after him, "what if she doesn't remember this time?"

Yoongi paused at the door, not turning around.

"She will," he said, with a certainty he didn't feel. "She always does."

The Master Clock loomed in his vision, accessible only through the specialized temporal viewing equipment they'd built in the base. Its massive gears and temporal conduits hummed with energy that only he could truly see.

Yoongi placed his palm against the quantum glass, feeling the pulse of manipulated time beyond.

"God, I miss you," he whispered to the empty room, his voice breaking on the words. "Every fucking second of every day, I miss you."

Sixteen times you’d fallen into the same pattern. Sixteen times you'd awakened, and despite his best intentions, he'd drawn too close. Sixteen times you'd found each other, inevitably, like temporal magnets pulled across realities.

Sixteen times you'd fallen in love with him, and he with you.

And sixteen times, when the moment came for you to fulfill your purposes—you'd chosen him instead.

Chosen love over duty. Chosen him over the world.

And CHRONOS had reset you, again and again.

This time would be different. This time, he would stay away. Keep his distance. Let you fulfill your purpose without the complication of falling for him again. It was the only way to break the cycle—to let you restore the timeline, even if it meant his erasure from existence.

Even if it meant you'd live on, happy in the original timeline, with no memory of him or what you'd shared sixteen times before.

The temporal energy around his hand flared gold against his will, betraying the emotions he fought to contain. Along his forearm, the thin scars from the twelfth reset shimmered faintly—temporal wounds never fully healed.

"I have to let you go this time," he whispered, voice raw with longing as his fingers pressed harder against the glass. "But god, Noma, I don't know how. Seventeen yous, and I still can't..."

He pressed his forehead against the cold surface, closing his eyes tight against the memory of your smile, your touch, your voice calling his name when you finally remembered.

"I'd burn down the world to keep you," he confessed to the silence. "But I can't do that to them. To Namjoon. Seokjin. To Jungkook and Taehyung. To Hoseok. Even to Jimin, who hates all of this the most. They deserve their world back."

His hand curled into a fist against the glass.

"But I just want you," he breathed, the admission torn from somewhere deep inside him. "I just want us. Like we were. Just once more."

The Clock's mechanisms remained notoriously indifferent to his plea.

But somewhere, deep in its quantum core, a pattern shifted.

A calculation adjusted.

A possibility emerged.

Yoongi felt it—a tremor in the temporal field so slight that even he almost missed it. His head snapped up, eyes wide, a mixture of hope and dread washing over him.

"Noma," he breathed, hating how his heart raced at the thought of seeing you again, knowing he should stay away.

Miles away, you woke from a dream of golden light and frozen time, your heart pounding to a rhythm you couldn't quite place—like a second heartbeat echoing your own.

You reached for your phone: 1:59 AM.

And for the first time in seventeen resets, you stayed awake, watching as the clock ticked over to 2:00.

Waiting, though you didn't know why, for something to happen.

taglist: @cannotalwaysbenight @livingformintyoongi @itstoastsworld @somehowukook @stutixmaru @chloepiccoliniii @kimnamjoonmiddletoe @ktownshizzle @yoongiiuu93 @billy-jeans23 @annyeongbitch7 @mar-lo-pap @hobis-sprite0218

no reposts, translations or adaptations

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nalooksthrough · 8 months ago

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Pe-Az Canon Analysis

I think before I start making headcanons about the Pe-Az. I should do an analysis on what the show has already told and/or shown us. I'm writing it out because writing helps me form more structured thoughts.

Be warned this is a rather long post.

General

Going to start off with their ship. It's in the shape of a pod because 'peas in a pod' and all that, very goofy. It also glows a bright green leaving behind a small green trail when they travel. Speaking of travel, they don't move in a straight line, they pilot in a zig zag pattern.

They also fly their ship backwards which is a weird choice but okay you do you.

They refer to themselves as an intergalactic peace negotiating team called the Pe-Az. So yeah, Pe-Az isn't the name of their race, it's their team name. Their team consists of a Statistical Leader (top), an Optimism Captain (middle) and a member simply known as The Closer (bottom). Who remains mute until they exhausted all other options. Basically he's their trump card. They are also call each other brother so that's sweet. Siblings working in a intergalactic peace team together.

They say that they have been setting human disputes for centuries (with pictures to prove it) and they personally have helped with 293 negotiations before the events of "Peace of Pizza". And yet somehow out of 293 disrupts they never once came across a person whose lactose intolerant or has an allergy to dairy. In fact they don't even seem to know that it's a thing.

Now I'm not sure if they mean they as in the team or they as in they themselves have been helping settle human disputes over the centuries. The three of them could possibly be centuries old.

Also want to point out that fairies are only present in the 1950 burger fry treaty which makes me think that they have only just recently started to work with them.

They also seem to be overly confident in their belief that pizza is like the key to all negotiations, that it's the universal incentive and that everyone loves Pizza. Which okay sure, good luck trying that with the Yugopotamians.

They are so confident in this fact that they even made an on/off switch for it. Their technology must to insane if they create a device to turn the concept of pizza off (and remove Italy from existence) like that's scary man.

Also they just carry around different types of pizza with them in briefcases, which might just be disguised pizza boxes. Even for non-existing pizzas like ice-cream pizza. Wonder how many other types of pizza they have hidden away?

And I guess if they are being this non descript and vague about what a pizza is than it very well could be the universal incentive.

Their written language has a lot of arrows, lines and dots. Also that's a lot of repeating characters for such a short text. They must not have a big alphabet.

They have rules when it comes to their negotiations! The only one we know of so far is that if someone manages to out negotiate them, they have to go on their side. Even is they don't want to and it ends with the removal of all pizza in the world. They have no choice.

This isn't totally related to my analysis but think it's sweet that even though they are clearly uncomfortable. They were still willing to play video games with Dev or maybe it was just out fear. Dev was the first person to ever out negotiate them. The lactose intolerant child scares them.

Apparently they are monsters and eat their pizza crust first.

They also not only managed to sneak into the Galax institute completely undetected but also none of these parasciencist are even questioning their green colouring at all? What are they even doing there anyway? Are they trying to keep tabs on what the humans know about alien life?

Abilities

Going to start with the one they use the most. Their ability to Assimilate. They can seemly sprout humanoid forms from their sphere bodies and are relatively good at mimicking the human form with only minimal hiccups. And given they are intergalactic peace keepers this most likely extends to other non-human forms as well.

But they can't seem to change their colouration which you think would be a problem but no. No one seems to question them about it, no one even seems to even question where they came from or how they got here. Which makes me think they also have a way to mentally assimilate, not just physically.

I like how even in these forms, they will naturally assume their normal stack positions. They even do it in their proper order (Stat top, Opt middle, Close bottom). They can't help it!

The next ability I'm gonna talk about is their screen projection. Which they can not only use to display written text but also screenshots of what may be their memories but I'm not sure.

At first I thought it was just Opt who could do this. But Stat also does it, so it must be something they can all do.

Another ability which might not even be an ability is their ability to teleport objects. This might just be done with tech since they don't really do this often. But it also has a similar effect to when they display another ability that I will soon mention so I can't fully rule it out.

They can also seemly float/float objects but they can seemly only do this when they are in their true form. Their assimilated forms must take energy for them to keep up or something.

And finally their weirdest and most disturbing ability. The ability to turn living beings into pizza. Which brings to mind the horrifying question of "is this where they get all their pizza from?"

This also shows that while they promote peace, they are willing to use more forceful methods if pushed. So they're not fully pacifistic.

Hello? Sir? What are going to do with that pizza slice? 😥

#fop #fop a new wish #fairly oddparents #the fairly oddparents #fairly oddparents a new wish #the fairly oddparents a new wish #the pe-az #they are so goofy and silly #three alien brothers helping the humans keep the peace through the power of pizza #which may or may not be other people #but we don't talk about that #long post

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gamerbot-22 · 3 months ago

Text

Let the Spirit Move You

Prompt: Singing

TW/CW: Luocha officiates(?) a funeral, pre-canon, unnamed original characters, barely proofread and I appreciate spellchecks!

Word Count: 855

A/N: Oh god I have no idea how in-character this one is. Luocha is one of those handful of characters in this game that I... have no idea what to make of? Apparently he was really important in another Hoyoverse game but that hasn't carried into Star Rail very much outside his quest in the Xianzhou storyline. Unless I'm stupid and missed something Big and Obvious.

Likes and Reblogs appreciated and Requests are Open! Read this story on Ao3 here!

<- Previous Ficlet | Collection Post | Next Ficlet ->

The dividers in this post were made by @/gamerbot-22 (me!) ☆

People asked questions about the coffin Luocha carried everywhere he went. He had anticipated questions once he arrived on the Xianzhou, considering that coffins were not the custom there, but even on the way there he was being stopped and asked about it. He supposed that's what he got for carrying the coffin himself instead of getting a more formal procession...

And he'd thought that his cover as a merchant would work, but it turns out having a Massive Suspicious Coffin isn't enough to convince some people.

So here he was, standing by a riverbank on some swampy planet, shoes sinking into the mud as he listened to an elderly local give a eulogy over a funerary raft. The body was covered with the skins of native animals, each one a different shade of brown or green for optimal camouflage. He shifted his weight to try and get a better look at the patterns--just so he had something else to focus on--and only felt his shoes go even deeper into the dirt. Ugh... How did he get roped into this again?

Something jostled his side. "That's your cue," muttered a soft voice beside him.

Ah yes, she was the reason he got into this. This poor girl just lost her... father? Grandfather? And they were short a priest to lay him to rest properly. He'd told her about a dozen times that he wasn't a priest, that the coffin was just a tool of his trade and he really did have to make the next ship off of this planet, but... Well, the girl had spirit, he would give her that much.

"I still don't know what you want from me," he whispered back. "I don't know your custom."

"You getting up there is the custom," she hissed. Her patience with this stranger was wearing thin. "Go stand where Baba just was and let his spirit sing through you."

"Sing?"

The girl growled something under her breath, the words either too quiet or too foreign for Luocha to catch properly. "Yes. Go up there and let my grandfather's--" Aha! Grandfather! "--spirit move you so I can mourn without having to coach you!"

Her voice was starting to raise, and with no one up by the riverbank speaking, her scolding was drawing people's attention. The eyes on him were pointed, and he didn't have the time to argue. With a sigh and a sidelong glance at the coffin he carried--the thing that got him into this mess in the first place--he walked up to the riverbank.

The eyes followed him, but he kept his on the girl who'd gotten him here in the first place. He just stood up there, in his muddy shoes, and gathered his thoughts. If this had been a funerary custom he was used to--he recited a prayer or a Path's teachings, everyone wept, then went home--he would've been able to push through just fine, but singing? Did it have to be something specific? He didn't know the man who died, much less the planet he had lived on and the culture that followed, and he was already on a time crunch...

His chosen observer mouthed something at him.

A wind started to blow through the marshlands. Gentle at first, but it picked up fast, causing the tall grass by the riverside to bow its many heads, the leaves to whisper, and the water itself to tremble. The mourners stood fast in the face of the breeze, even as their hair blew into their faces and their cloaks flapped like the wings of doves. No matter how much the wind whorled around them and the trees shook and shuddered, no one dared leave this riverbank.

The wind reached his ears, and in the strangest way... it sounded like music. Not something that could be heard on a radio or at a show on a busier planet, but... music all the same. There were notes, there were tones, there was a melody.

But no words.

There didn't have to be.

Luocha hummed along, just to catch the wind's rhythm, and after maybe two or so bars, his lips parted, and the humming became vocalizing, a simple "ah" sound that rose and fell as the wind did. He grew more confident, more proud of his simple sound as time passed, the seconds ticking into minutes. It began to feel almost like the wind was his own voice, that he was the one making the grass bend and the water ripple.

The wind passed. His voice faded. Silence fell on the little congregation.

He looked at the girl in the crowd. She wasn't looking at him. She had her arm around the elder who had been standing where he was now and was holding her tight as she wept. That was probably his cue to leave. Luocha bowed to the crowd and murmured an excuse.

He trudged through the mud, dragging Tayzzyronth's coffin behind him. If the girl who had hauled him here called him to stay, he didn't hear it. This had been nice, but the moment had passed. He had somewhere to be.

#Rosie Writes #Luocha #Honkai Star Rail #HSR #Honkai Star Rail Fanfic #HSR Fanfic #Daily HSR Ficlet

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theamityelf · 11 months ago

Note

For the kamukura wrangler au what if Makoto gets sick, like really out of it kind of sick, and Taka takes care of him BUT it brings back memories of when Makoto used to take care of him when he was sick, in much less durable body and weaker body?

"He's noisy when he's in pain," Celeste observes.

"Not especially, for a normal human," Kyoko replies.

"I never compared him to normal humans. I said that he is noisy."

Kyoko hums in acknowledgement.

They're both watching Taka dose Makoto with an expectorant and a glass of juice. Every time the luckster coughs, there is a quiet groan or whimper to follow; it pains his throat, and he no longer has the presence of mind to downplay it.

"It might not have gotten this bad, had Ishimaru not insisted on performing chemical analysis on the pills he was provided," Leon muses uninvestedly. He is in his cot, bouncing a ball so that it ricochets from the floor to the ceiling and then back to his hand. "You gave the disease time to progress."

"It was that or risk letting them poison him," Taka replies, swiping a new sheen of sweat from Makoto's brow, as he does every few minutes.

Makoto groans. His headache has lessened, now that they've turned the lights off– thankfully, Taka can see in the dim lighting –but the pain still flares in the aftermath of his coughing.

"Shhh," Taka soothes. "It's just a side-effect of your congested sinuses. In another twelve hours, you'll be through the worst of it. At least you can breathe, now."

"The clogged nasal passages were annoying," Celeste agrees.

"As was Ishimaru's extreme vigilance, as if he thought Naegi would suffocate," Leon says.

Taka ignores them. Makoto's eyes have opened. They shortly drift closed again. It's been happening this way for hours now, through a bowl of soup and now a glass of juice. There have also been a few delirious murmurings: "In a minute," "Thanks, I forgot," and one half-chuckling "Relax." He doesn't murmur anything this time, but he does smile slightly, which is a welcome break from the pained faces he makes each time he coughs or sneezes.

He...likes it, when Makoto's eyes open. Even if it's not for long. And even though he knows Makoto needs his rest.

"I'm just going to take your temperature again, okay?" Taka says, and something about those precise words...it feels as though he's recited something. The feeling of a square peg entering a square hole; something natural and correct. I'm just going to check your temperature again, okay?

It sounds like...

He knows that he's occasionally found himself imitating Makoto's speech patterns, just as a means of making himself understood (and perhaps as an attempt to be a real person), but in this case it feels so utterly natural to imagine those same words uttered by Makoto's voice that he feels sure he must have heard them at some point.

But no. Makoto has never taken his temperature. Why would he? This experiment's health is perfect, his immune system optimized, and...

He suddenly vividly imagines a feeling of muscles aching, a feeling of a congested nose, and a prohibitively hazy image of Makoto's face.

I'm just going to check your temperature again, okay?

"Ishimaru?" Kyoko probes.

Taka takes up the tympanic thermometer he set aside earlier and turns it on. "You really shouldn't call me that," he says, as he checks on Makoto's fever.

#danganronpa #kamukura wrangler au #makoto naegi #kiyotaka ishimaru #naeishi #celestia ludenberg #kyoko kirigiri #leon kuwata

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floatingcatacombs · 4 months ago

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Trying to Talk About Touhou Two

12 Days of Aniblogging 2024, Day 10

Hot off the heels of my touhoublogging last year, I continued playing through the games, and am proud to say that I now have a one-credit clear on every Touhou game from 6 to 19! It’s been a hell of a journey, and I’m legitimately proud of myself for rising up to the challenge, taking my own advice from last year whenever I could to great effect. Today’s post is mostly going to be about various official Touhou manga, but I might as well wrap up the game discussion from last year first.

My favorite games of the pack ended up being Subterranean Animism (11), Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom (15), and Double Dealing Character (14). While I praised the hell out of Subterranean Animism last year, the other two might surprise you! I’ve totally flipped on LoLK since last year – it’s a rough game if played traditionally, because it’s really meant to be played on the new checkpointing mode. The checkpointing system unique to Touhou 15 also leads to the spell cards in having a fundamentally different design than the rest of the series – attacks are actively designed to trip you up, like they’re puzzles to be solved more than anything. There’s a lot of micrododging and fast maneuvering required, but most of the patterns are fairly deterministic, so experimentation is strongly encouraged. It leads to a frustrating first playthrough but an incredible sense of satisfaction with every small bit of ground gained, and the ability to save and quit and return later helps sell the feeling of going on a long journey that the game’s plot is conveying. The music is amazing and I love you Junko. Meanwhile, Double Dealing Character ended up being a sleeper hit for me! It’s got a chaotic and lighthearted story where you beat up a bunch of monstergirls before proceeding to explore an upside-down castle, which means that it’s legally a Castlevania game. There’s a real sense of constant forward momentum here, with the expanded point of collection system encouraging frantic risk-taking with very high potential rewards on the other side. It’s straightforward, simple fun, and Seija’s whole deal is great, so I'm glad that she got her own spinoff. The soundfont for Touhou 14 and 15 really feels special…. I love you Retrologue Crystal Lake and Retrologue Pristine Chime for being part of ZUN’s toolkit during this time.

Of course, there are some more flawed games, too. One of the reasons that Touhou 14 feels like such a breath of fresh air is that 13 is just plain sleepy. Ten Desires offers very few resources to the player, meaning that dying once early on can be a run-ender. There aren’t really any systems you can engage with to gain extra bombs or lives beyond a passive accumulation of fragments over time, making the whole thing a slow and unexciting affair. Miko’s fight is at least brilliant. Touhou 16, Hidden Star in Four Seasons, sought to provide a very “traditional” experience for those turned off by LoLK’s radical one-time changes. Unfortunately, this leaves it a bit uninteresting and aesthetically bland, though I get that it’s important to the lore. Finally, Touhou 18, Unconnected Marketeers, is ZUN’s first swing at metaprogression mechanics, and suffers a lot for it. It’s very difficult to gain power in this game, which means that dying just once is ruinous, especially since it's a very hard game to begin with. You really have to cheese this one, which means that I kept going for the same ability cards again and again once I found out what worked. I managed to beat it with liberal use of the “your power cannot fall below 3” card, so thanks Mamizou. Unconnected Marketeers does at least have a spinoff called 100th Black Market which I found to be great. People tend to like one or the other, but not both, because the metaprogression systems play out very differently even if they share ability cards.

So, what are my Optimal Touhou Design takeaways from all of this? You want an extra lives system which rewards you the more you engage with it, while also allowing for small mistakes here and there. Games with a higher ceiling of earnable lives feel a lot better than the alternative, while being stingy with bombs is a valid decision and makes those games feel like an extra challenge to rise up to. I’ll learn to love the new characters no matter what if the game is fun enough, but the music and atmosphere are important to get right. And lastly, continued experimentation is decidedly worth it.

Having familiarized myself with all of the modern Touhou characters, I could finally read all the manga! I tried a few times in the past, when the only games I’d really played were 6 and 10, but I felt intimidated by an endless onslaught of characters I didn’t know and was expected to at least be somewhat familiar with. While I’m sure some wiki-diving would have cleared that up, playing through all of the games felt like it would be the more fun approach, and it paid off. Without further ado… some Touhou manga I read this year!

Wild and Horned Hermit

First things first, the artistic evolution here is quite impressive. The manga goes from dinky little sketches in the early chapters to a fully developed and soothing style. Wild and Horned Hermit was being published for ten years! That's a long run for any manga, but here it means that it spanned from Touhou 12 to Touhou 17, which was an incredibly pivotal time for the project that introduced some of my favorite characters. As far as broader arcs go, we move from the religious wars into the sage conflicts, but these generally aren't the main focus of the manga. Instead, Wild and Horned Hermit is about the minor antics and everyday lives of all the humans and youkai you’ve hopefully come to know and love. This is the slice of life-inflected version of Gensokyo that’s plenty implied in the games, but that you can’t ever actually experience there because you’re too busy shooting danmaku at every fairy and youkai in sight. The Incidents of each main game happen off-screen, which seems to be a constant with ZUN-written manga. Instead, we’re dealing with the setup and aftermath of larger events, and the girls from the new games will usually get be introduced with a few focus chapters, which is nice. Kasen is a fairly straightforward POV character, even if she’s got plenty of mysterious connections, helping her bridge the gap between the humans and some of the more out-there youkai. But ultimately, the manga’s goal is to follow Reimu and Marisa as they go about their lives, and it’s a joy to witness.

Forbidden Scrollery

I know this manga has its fans (it’s also the only one to be officially published in English), but it didn’t leave nearly as much of an impression on me as Wild and Horned Hermit. They actually ran concurrently for a while! Our insert character this time is a librarian in the human village, so the stories lean towards rumors and legends, though there’s plenty of other youkai schemes afoot as there always are. It’s funny to see which youkai keep showing up in these largely human-centric stories, and it makes sense that it’s Aya and Mamizou, both of whom really like blending in with humans and causing mischief. As far as I can tell, this is the manga that introduced Aya’s plucky newsboy outfit, so I can’t be too hard on it.

you are perfect

The Fairy Bullshit

Makoto Hirasaka has illustrated three separate comedy manga series about the misadventures of the shitty little fairies that live in a tree by Reimu’s shrine. He also did the all the portraits for the spinoff game Fairy Wars! These are breezy, inessential reads, but the artwork really is special. It is canon to me that all of the fairies look this stumpy, and maybe also Marisa.

Marisa exists in the superposition of being both 5'1" and 6'1"

Lotus Eaters

This may well be the definitive Touhou manga. While Wild and Horned Hermit has the privilege of getting to introduce a lot of important characters and lore details as they emerge, Lotus Eaters demands more of a setting understanding up front. But if you’ve got that, it’s like seeing old friends. This is what Touhou has ultimately become to me and so many other people – a framework for these beloved characters to hang out, occasionally get up to some antics, and otherwise take things easy. Every mini-incident in this manga begins and gets wrapped up in two long chapters, which provides a nice narrative rhythm that still manages to feel fairly organic. The new character, Miyoi, is far less of a presence than Keisen was – this is The Reimu Show, and maybe sometimes The Mamizou Show. And isn’t that why we’re here at the end of the day? To check in on the friends and inhabitants of the Hakurei Shrine, especially the times when they're not resolving major incidents. And in that regard, it’s decadent. True to the narrative framing of a supernatural bar, this is Touhou Cheers. Characters are constantly drinking together and running festivals and having a grand old time, and I love it. The manga really does feel true to its name. Coming from Forbidden Scrollery and Hornet Hermit, the artstyle here took a few chapters to get used to, but now I truly adore it. It’s like everyone’s hair has been ruffled just a bit.

There are a few stray series that I didn’t get to, and obviously an endless amount of doujin to chip away at, but I’ve really enjoyed my time in the world of Touhou manga. All of these would probably be uninteresting as standalone works, but as corollaries to the games and the broader Touhou world, they’re fantastic. The games and the print works really round each other out – characters don’t get many lines in the games, and the world of Gensokyo is only broadly sketched out. The manga helps fill in these spaces, making them feel more real and lived-in, while also periodically canonizing popular fan characterizations and extrapolations.

Maybe next year I’ll become a Hifuuhead, but seeing as I’ve already read its greatest cultural export (Otherside Picnic), it doesn’t feel quite as urgent. Adieu.

#12 days of anime #touhou

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mysticinsightstarot · 4 months ago

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💟NingNing Aespa Ideal Type💟

IMAGES NOT MINE CREDIT TO THE RIGHTFUL OWNER

👉🏻PLEASE CHECK MY WEBSITE M IN URGENT NEED OF FUNDS 👈🏻

🎴 NingNing’s Ideal Type Spread: What Makes Her Heart Flutter? 💕✨

*Alright, besties, let’s spill the tea on NingNing’s ideal type! Grab your popcorn because this is gonna be a rollercoaster of dreamy vibes, reality checks, and spicy insights (spoiler: *the Devil* is lurking at the bottom 👀). Let’s break it down!*

1. Core Personality – 7 of Cups 🍸✨

NingNing is drawn to someone who’s got that dreamy, creative vibe—someone who’s full of ideas and possibilities, like they’ve got a whole universe in their head. 🪐 But wait—no wishy-washy energy here! She wants a partner who can turn those dreamy vibes into reality instead of just staying lost in the clouds.

2. Emotional Connection – The Fool + 5 of Swords 🌪️

She’s craving someone with a free spirit who can dive into life with optimism and zero baggage. 🌈 BUT (big but) they also need to know how to handle conflict gracefully. No petty drama, please! NingNing wants someone who can argue and make up without holding grudges. 🤝✨

3. Physical Attributes – 6 of Swords + Queen of Swords ⚔️

Okay, so she’s into people who exude a calm, collected vibe—like they’ve been through storms and come out looking chic as hell. 🌬️💃 Someone sharp, stylish, and classy with a touch of mystery. Think elegant but approachable, like they could lowkey star in a K-drama.

4. Intellectual Compatibility – Temperance 🌈

Balanced minds are sexy to NingNing. 🧠✨ She’s all about that intellectual yin-yang, so her ideal partner needs to know how to mix logic with creativity, facts with feelings, and chaos with calm. A good conversationalist who isn’t afraid to compromise? Major green flag. 🟢

5. Shared Values – The Hermit + Strength + The Chariot 🔮

This trio screams power and growth. NingNing values independence (The Hermit), inner strength (Strength), and drive (The Chariot). 🚀 She’s looking for someone who knows themselves, has goals, and is unafraid to chase them. Basically, she wants a self-aware, emotionally mature go-getter. 💪

6. Romantic Style – 8 of Swords + 9 of Swords + 7 of Swords 🕸️

Oof, here’s where things get spicy (and complicated). NingNing might be a little drawn to the “emotionally unavailable” aesthetic (you know, the mysterious types who make you work for their love 😩). BUT she secretly wants someone to help her break out of her own overthinking tendencies. A partner who can hold her through her worries and bring clarity when things feel foggy? Yes, please. 💕

7. Challenges/Turn-Offs – 8 of Cups + King of Wands + 4 of Pentacles 🚪🔥

Hello, red flags! NingNing is turned off by overly possessive or clingy types (4 of Pentacles—yikes). 🚩 She needs someone who can balance passion (King of Wands) with emotional maturity, not someone who burns too hot and then walks away when things get deep (8 of Cups). Stability > intensity.

8. Future Vision – Ace of Wands + Page of Wands + 2 of Wands 🔥✨

NingNing’s dream partner has BIG visionary energy. 🗺️ They’re someone who’s constantly dreaming, exploring, and planning for the future while keeping that spark alive in the relationship. Think spontaneous getaways, creative projects, and always hyping her up to chase her own dreams.

Bottom of the Deck – The Devil 😈

Okay, real talk: the underlying vibe here is intense. NingNing might lowkey be drawn to someone with a little edge—think someone who challenges her but in a healthy way (no toxic vibes allowed!). The Devil here warns of unhealthy patterns, so she’s gotta watch out for partners who come with strings attached. ✂️

TL;DR NingNing’s Ideal Type Checklist: ✔️ Dreamy and creative, but grounded. ✔️ Free-spirited but knows how to handle conflict. ✔️ Sharp, stylish, and mysterious (bonus points for K-drama energy). ✔️ Balanced AF—logical and emotional. ✔️ Independent and emotionally mature. ✔️ Knows how to support her when she’s overthinking. ✔️ Stable, not overly possessive or dramatic. ✔️ Passionate with BIG plans for the future.

There you have it! So, who’s ready to slide into NingNing’s DMs with these vibes? 👀💌

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mortalasworld · 6 months ago

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maybe opposites do attract

Character Profile

Name: Tsukiyomi Yuna (月読ユナ)

Appearance:

-Hair: Long, flowing dark brown hair with illusions of silver that shimmer like moonlight.

-Eyes: Vibrant, starry violet.

-Haori: Custom haori featuring a pattern of stars and constellations, giving her a celestial appearance.

Breathing Technique: Star Breathing (星の呼吸, Hoshi no Kokyū)

-First Form: Shooting Star Slash (一ノ型: 流星斬り, Ichi no Kata: Ryūsei Giri) - Yuna dashes forward at incredible speed, delivering a powerful, singular slash that leaves a trail of sparkling light.

-Second Form: Meteor Shower (二ノ型: 流星群, Ni no Kata: Ryūseigun) - A series of rapid, consecutive strikes that overwhelm the opponent, resembling a shower of falling stars.

-Third Form: Celestial Shield (三ノ型: 天の盾, San no Kata: Ten no Tate) - A defensive technique that creates a barrier of light, protecting Yuna from incoming attacks.

-Fourth Form: Supernova Burst (四ノ型: 超新星爆発, Shi no Kata: Chōshinsei Bakuhatsu) - A powerful, explosive attack that releases a burst of energy, capable of obliterating multiple demons at once.

-Fifth Form: Starfall Finale (五ノ型: 星降りの終幕, Go no Kata: Hoshifuri no Shūmaku) - A finishing move where Yuna leaps into the air and descends with a devastating, star-infused strike.

-Sixth Form: Nebula Dance (六ノ型: 星雲の舞, Roku no Kata: Seiun no Mai) - A graceful, swirling attack that confuses and disorients enemies, making it difficult for them to land a hit.

-Seventh Form: Comet Strike (七ノ型: 彗星突き, Shichi no Kata: Suisei Tsuki) - A high-speed, piercing attack that targets a single point with immense force, similar to a comet's impact.

-Eighth Form: Galactic Spiral (八ノ型: 銀河螺旋, Hachi no Kata: Ginga Rasen) - A spiraling attack that creates a vortex of energy, drawing in and slicing through multiple enemies at once.

-Ninth Form: Lunar Eclipse (九ノ型: 月食, Kyū no Kata: Gesshoku) - A stealthy attack that allows Yuna to disappear momentarily and reappear behind her opponent for a surprise strike.

-Tenth Form: Starry Night (十ノ型: 星夜, Jū no Kata: Seiya) - A defensive maneuver that creates an illusion of multiple Yunas, confusing the enemy and providing openings for counterattacks.

-Eleventh Form: Cosmic Ray (十一ノ型: 宇宙線, Jūichi no Kata: Uchūsen) - A concentrated beam of energy that can pierce through the toughest defenses.

-Twelfth Form: Astral Ascendancy (十二ノ型: 星霊昇天, Jūni no Kata: Seirei Shōten) - An ultimate form where Yuna channels the full power of the stars, unleashing a devastating attack that can turn the tide of any battle.

Personality:

Yuna is determined, introverted, compassionate, and fiercely loyal. She is driven by a strong sense of justice and a desire to protect those she cares about. Despite her tragic past, she remains hopeful and finds strength in her bonds with others.

Background:

Yuna was born into a family of renowned swordsmiths in a small village nestled in the mountains. From a young age, she was fascinated by the art of swordsmanship and the stories of the Demon Slayer Corps. Her father, a master swordsmith, crafted her first Nichirin blade when she was just ten years old. Tragically, her village was attacked by demons when she was twelve, and she lost her entire family in the massacre. This event fueled her determination to join the Demon Slayer Corps and avenge her family.

Yuna trained relentlessly, mastering her breathing technique and honing her skills. Her dedication and natural talent quickly caught the attention of the Hashira, and she was taken under the wing of the Flame Hashira, Kyojuro Rengoku. Under his guidance, she developed her own unique breathing style, which she named Star Breathing.

Relationships:

-Best Friend: Kyojuro Rengoku (煉獄杏寿郎): Yuna shares a deep bond with Kyojuro, who not only mentored her but also became her closest friend. His unwavering optimism and fiery spirit inspire Yuna to push her limits and stay true to her mission.

Love Interests:

-Tengen Uzui (宇髄天元): Yuna's path crossed with Tengen during a joint mission to eliminate a powerful demon. Impressed by her skills and determination, Tengen invited her to train with him and his wives. Over time, Yuna developed a deep bond with Tengen, finding in him a strong and supportive partner.

-Makio (まきを): Yuna and Makio share a mutual respect and admiration for each other's strength and bravery. Their relationship blossomed into a deep and loving connection.

-Suma (須磨): Suma's gentle and caring nature complements Yuna's determination, creating a strong emotional bond between them.

-Hinatsuru (雛鶴): Hinatsuru's wisdom and calm demeanor provide Yuna with a sense of stability and support, strengthening their relationship.

KNY character Masterlist

I’ll eventually get the hang of this

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tommybowefuneralattendee · 1 year ago

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66 with shaymien please

number 66 on the spreadsheet is from this list of prompts the prompt you generated in specific is: drawing circles and patterns on their chest

linked on ao3 || read under the cut || 6.3k, rated E

summary:

[ Tweet from Damien Haas @DamienHaas on Dec 7, 2023 at 6:27pm reading: "Hey y'all, I know it's a streaming night, but I've been a very lucky fellow with some really cool stuff going on this week and am therefore extremely tired. Think it's best I listen to my (actually kinda dizzy at this point) body and sit this one out. 😬👍" ] || or, shayne comes to check on damien.

Check your front door. It's a text from Shayne, so honestly, it's not as weird as it could be. He's just standing in his kitchen and trying to make himself focus for long enough to make himself something actually good to eat and not just order takeout for the third time this week, so it's not like the front door checking is interrupting anything important. Still, he takes his time making it through the apartment, not rushing in the hopes of not aggravating his already irritated joints. This always happens when he doesn't sleep enough. He overdoes it and then his body tells him all about it like he wasn't there the whole time. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

It's never easy to remind himself that he's just an animal. That he's doing his best. He pulls open the door to something he does not expect for some reason, like Shayne's mother-henning ass hasn't always been like this. Virgo man motherfucker. Psychology degree asshole. Damien hates how warm and cared for the hovering always makes him feel, how it makes him feel so close to something that he still doesn't know how to ask Shayne for, even as long as they've been friends.

He leans against the door frame, tired but as happy to see Shayne as he always is. "What are you doing here, Shayne?" he asks, not really harsh but not as nice a tone he would typically take with Shayne either. Guilt immediately stirs in Damien's stomach, but Shayne just pushes past him, not lingering on it in the slightest. He has two grocery bags hanging off his arm like a middle aged mother of three, his hip cocked out when he turns around to look at Damien completing the image. There's a moment of silent communication, Shayne looking at him with that irritating (incredible, incandescent, inspiring) optimism and Damien looking back with fatigue dripping from every piece and part of him.

"Dude, I'm sorry, but if you say on fucking Twitter that you're so tired you're dizzy, me not coming over is not how this is going to go down," Shayne says, shrugging his shoulders. He claps his hands together once and moves through Damien's apartment like he owns the place, no regard for whether Damien actually intended for him to stay or not. Something warm sits in Damien's chest at his insistence, but really, he can handle himself. It's been a good little while since he and Shayne lived together, and he's been totally fine. Mostly fine. Adequately fine.

He's gotten medicated and he thinks that's a good start.

"Shayne, you know I'm a grown up, right?" he asks, raising an eyebrow as he follows his best friend into the kitchen, watching as he pulls groceries out of the two bags he brought in. This bastard. Shayne stacks comfort food after comfort food of Damien Haas onto the counter, almost exactly what Damien would have bought if he had energy to go to the store earlier. There are even some things he would have forgotten or just missed, little candies and a drink and a bag of chips that he loves but never would have occurred to him, but Shayne picked them out for him anyway. Embarrassingly enough, tears prick at the corners of Damien's eyes. Maybe he isn't as grown up as he thought; adults cry, adults cry, adults cry. When he sniffs, unable to help it, Shayne looks over from his bounty with concern.

"Hey, hey, bud, come here," he says gently, pulling Damien into his arms and rubbing his back soothingly. Damien can't fucking help it. He clings to Shayne and just starts sobbing, not really upset but just so fucking tired. He feels like a toddler, crying just because he's overwhelmed, but Shayne is just pulling him closer, making soothing sounds as he guides Damien over to his own couch. He's suddenly but viscerally glad that he has the apartment alone for the night. Shayne seeing him in this condition is bad enough, but anyone on this goddamn planet who isn't Shayne Robert Topp? So much fucking worse. Shayne has seen him through a twelve hour flight to Tokyo, through every bad phase he's had in his adult life, through struggle and thriving and everything between. Now, he cards his fingers through Damien's hair, sitting back against one of the arms of the couch with Damien so close he's almost in his lap.

"'m sorry," he says, muffled against Shayne's t-shirt. Shayne wraps his arms around him a little tighter, pulls him a little closer, and it's so fucking nice. Like how dogs with anxiety are given thunder vests. The thought startles a raspy giggle out of him, a sound like laughter went through the dishwasher.

"No need to be sorry," Shayne says, hands firm on Damien's back. "You should tell me what's funny, though. Letting me in on the joke always makes you feel a little better," he jokes, but honestly? It's true. A joke can be great, but it will always be better followed by Shayne's laughter. Even in public, he can't help the way he looks to make sure that Shayne laughs at things he says, can't help but tune his humor exactly to his best friend's tastes. They typically have a fairly similar sense of humor anyway, but there are some jokes he would never make without Shayne in the room, just because he knows that he could save it and make his best friend laugh so hard he cries. And that's awesome. Unlike the way that Damien is crying into his shoulder right now. Totally not awesome. He does this a lot, extracting himself from the situation mentally so that he can view it through a detached, analytical lens. His therapist says it's fairly typical for autistic adults. Still, Damien's body does not agree with the lack of attention that he'd like to give it. He makes himself fully tune back into Shayne.

"You're my thunder vest," he says nonsensically; it startles some giggles from Shayne anyway, a cute little snort too. Shayne is already being so nice to him, he shouldn't fuck it up by thinking of him like that. That's something that he's pushed down his entire adult life, he can push it down again now. Repress, reframe, repeat.

"Are you a Pomeranian having an anxiety attack?" Shayne asks, voice shot through with that tender humor, that tone he takes when he's trying to make Damien laugh for his own sake rather than for humor itself. He huffs a laugh against the side of Shayne's neck, hiding his face. He can feel himself returning to equilibrium, thankfully not lingering in that teary, fragile place that he can get stuck in sometimes. Mostly when he's overwhelmed. Shayne helps with that, though. Thunder vest.

"Nah, just a really tired dude. Pressure's still nice, though," Damien says, snuggling deeper against his best friend. Shayne rests a warm, steady hand on the back of his neck.

"You wanna get in bed with your weighted blanket and I'll come sit with you after I make you a little snack?" he suggests, making it abundantly clear that Damien's choice on the matter will be whatever they're doing tonight. They hadn't even planned to hang out tonight. Shayne is so ready to throw away his entire evening for this. For him. Damien makes a protesting noise.

"You're comfy," he says, his words so close to a whine that he's a little embarrassed. Shayne chuckles, the hand on the back of Damien's neck squeezing for just a second.

"What, you want me to come lay down with you?" Shayne asks, and it's obvious that he's joking, that this is a bit, but does Damien want that? Absolutely. He wants to be in bed with Shayne, he wants the comfort of Shayne holding him, he wants to fall asleep with Shayne's arms around him. He must tense, or flinch, or something, too tired to keep himself in check and masked, because Shayne pulls him up by the back of his neck, hauling him up just enough to look him in the eye. Still, Damien avoids eye contact. Shayne dips his head, just looking at Damien for a moment. "We can do that, you know. Nothing's stopping us," he says, still so fucking gentle, so quiet it's practically a whisper. Damien still can't make eye contact with him, gaze resting on the calming blue of Shayne's shirt. Everything about Shayne is calming to him. He just wishes he didn't need him so much.

"You don't have to," he says, fist balled in the bottom of Shayne's shirt. Shayne hums, smoothing a hand over his back.

"Well, I don't really have to do much of anything, but you've never been something I had to do, Damien," he says, brushing his lips over Damien's temple before he starts pushing him up, manipulating him physically to move if he can't do so verbally. A wet laugh cracks out of Damien as he gives into the direction, standing and offering a hand to Shayne to help him do the same. Shayne takes the help, keeping their hands linked as he leads Damien to his own bedroom, as if this isn't an apartment Damien could traverse with his fucking eyes closed. He follows anyway, because he would follow Shayne anywhere, and isn't that the truest thing about him, that dedication he's had to his best friend for his entire adult life. He and Shayne have been defined in relation to one another so many times over their years together, and while with most people, Damien minds, in this, he's settled. He's so fucking tired. He really does close his eyes for a long second before they reach his doorway.

"You don't have to," he repeats softly. Shayne turns to look at him, not releasing his hand but just looking at Damien, reading his face and his body language, reading all of these signs he knows better than anyone Damien's ever known. He lifts his free hand to Damien's face, palm warm against his cheek. Damien can't help leaning into it.

"I want to," Shayne says softly, sounding more like a reminder than anything, and really, it is. He knows that Shayne loves him. He knows that Shayne cares. He knows that Shayne wouldn't be here if Shayne didn't want to be, that it's always one hundred percent easier to do nothing than it is to do something, but still. Shayne's hand moves to the back of his neck. "How do you wanna do this, Dames? Your circus, your monkeys," he says; Damien snorts, unlacing their fingers to push at Shayne's chest. He stumbles back a little, the dramatic shithead, grinning at Damien as he sits on the edge of the bed. God, he cannot fucking look up at him like that. Sleepy eyed and ridiculously fond, Damien scratches his nails through the hair at the nape of Shayne's neck.

He clears his throat. It's never been easy to ask for what he wants. Shayne's hands are steady on his hips, too comforting for words. "Can I, um," he starts, stopping himself to clear his throat again. Shayne pulls on him a little, not enough to knock him at all, but enough to keep him in the moment. Damien's not sure he knows how to be anywhere else. "I wanna lay on your chest, dude. Is that, like. Is that cool?" he asks, his speech stunted and apparently his emotions too, fuck. Shayne's smile gets wider before it gets softer- he knows the look of Shayne Topp choosing kindness, and this is one of those times. Shayne lets go of him and lays back, kicking off his jeans before he's scooting up to the head of the bed and looking at Damien for his next cue. He looks pretty against Damien's pillows. Impatient with his hesitation, Shayne reaches for him.

"Come on, man, lay on me, let's do this," he says. Damien can't help laughing, tension breaking as he rids himself of his pants and kneels on the edge of the bed, lowering himself down over Shayne carefully. Shayne pulls at him, quick and confident where Damien's slow and hesitant, always compensating for one another whether they mean to or not. Damien curls his fingers in Shayne's shirt, the fabric soft between his fingers. Pulling Damien's weighted blanket over them, Shayne shuffles a bit til Damien is pulled close against his side, finally settling when their legs are slotted together, Damien's knee between his own. Between the warmth of Shayne beneath him and the weight of his blanket across his shoulders, Damien is probably the most comfortable he's been in weeks if not months if not years. He presses his face into Shayne's shoulder.

"Thank you," he says quietly, unable to make himself louder but needing to say it anyway. Shayne's arm tightens around his lower back briefly. Damien occupies himself drawing shapes on Shayne's chest, circles and patterns and just feeling the warmth there, feeling Shayne's heartbeat beneath his fingertips.

"Any time, Deem," Shayne whispers back, rubbing his hand across the small of Damien's back, rucking up his shirt a bit. Damien doesn't even mind the slight discomfort of the bunched fabric for the way Shayne's hand on his skin makes him feel. He doesn't know how to describe it, the absolute safety he feels with Shayne holding him like this and the undercurrent of electricity that flows through it, how the safety and the fog of attraction do not argue with one another in the slightest, but rather make Damien drowsy and comfortable, secure where he lay. He doesn't fall asleep immediately, rather floating in this comfortable place where the sound of Shayne's breathing is the only noise he needs. The fingers of his free hand have trailed just a bit under Shayne's shirt at the jut of his hip. His face hidden, his senses tuned almost completely out. He doesn't even recognize the comfortable arousal for what it is, pooling at the base of his spine.

He doesn't realize he's essentially dry humping his best friend until he's already doing it, and he couldn't say for sure how long he's been doing it, really. Fuck. Shayne catches him by the hip when Damien freezes, holding him in place. Damien's heart nearly stops in his chest. Leaning back a bit to face the music of this actually able to see one another's face, he starts to try to pull back even more, equal parts not wanting to make Shayne uncomfortable and sure he already has. He's held in place with a firmer grip.

"No, can I-" Shayne starts, big blue eyes looking up at Damien with so many emotions it's like a kaleidoscope of sky and sea. "I wanna take care of you," he murmurs, sliding his hand back up the back of Damien's shirt. It's only with the touch of skin on skin that Damien even understands what he's saying, blinking rapidly. Oh. Oh? Oh. Damien clears his throat, gaze locked somewhere to the left of Shayne's face.

"You really do not have to do that," Damien says, too afraid that this is just another thing that Shayne would be willing to do for him but not strong enough to tell him no outright. Shayne's hand is on his jaw again. Fuck.

"I really want to," he breathes, kissing Damien softly on the mouth. If they were younger, maybe this would have been a surprise. Maybe he would have freaked out and shot out of bed and not spoken to Shayne for a couple of days, maybe if they were younger, he would press Shayne into the mattress and take care of this himself, but. They're older now, and even if neither of them really feel fully grown, the growing they have done has been with each other in mind, and Damien relaxes into Shayne so reflexively, so naturally. There's something about your best friend that will always make you feel safe with your heart in their hands. Their kiss is gentle and slow, Shayne's hand holding him steady and Damien's eyes close, safe. It's so fucking safe. The hand on his back pulls Damien forward a bit, just enough to rock his pelvis against his best friend's hip and holy fuck.

"Shayne," he says raggedly, breaking the kiss to hide his face in Shayne's shoulder. Shayne guides him forward again, Damien going willingly this time. He can't help the soft whine that tears itself out of his throat at the new contact, desperate to rut against Shayne's hip til he cums, but too embarrassed to just... reach out and take what Shayne is offering. When Shayne next speaks, his mouth close to Damien's ear, the deep rumble of his voice makes him shudder.

"Go ahead, Dames. Come on," he urges him, pulling Damien to roll his hips forward again; Damien sinks his teeth into Shayne's shoulder through his shirt, not really a choice but an instinct, a desire he simply cannot push down. Shayne gives him a pleased little noise, not quite a moan and not a hum either, really. He encourages Damien forward again, pulling him in like getting Damien off is just as good for him as it is for Damien himself. Damien resettles the weight of his hips, making himself more able to grind his thigh against Shayne's crotch. The other man keens, high and clear, and there's no way Damien can keep going under these conditions.

"Dude, you're gonna make me cum both touching me and sounding like that," he teases, lazy grin pressed against Shayne's skin.

"Are you sure? I could finger you open, fuck you to sleep," Shayne offers, his surely lascivious smile painting the words even dirtier than they are. Damien groans, even his arousal tinted with laughter when it's with Shayne. Holy shit.

"Jesus fucking Christ, yeah, we're definitely doing that at some point in the future, but I don't know if-" he cuts himself off, not really sure why he doesn't want to, but just that he doesn't. He's looking up at him when Shayne's expression softens and he busses a kiss across Damien's temple, pulling him forward gently again. He kisses Damien's head again, hands so careful on his skin, like Damien is delicate, like Damien is precious. He rolls his hips slow, almost tentative, like Damien wasn't the one who started this. Damien's fingers curl in Shayne's shirt; Shayne pushes him up a bit for a second, whipping off his shirt before pulling Damien back down. Immediately overwhelmed by all of the freshly available skin, Damien does the first thing that comes to mind: again, he bites. The muscle of Shayne's peck is fucking satisfying between his teeth, the noise Shayne makes even more so. Even as tired as he is, desperation pulls at Damien, not just to feel good himself but to make Shayne feel good, to be the reason his boy makes those noises.

"Oh fuck, good. Good, Dames. Take what you need," Shayne coaxes him. Heat shoots through Damien at the praise, the encouragement, all of it. He wasn't even really aware that was something he liked partners to give him, really. Praise has never been high on the priority list. From Shayne, it makes pre-cum spill into his boxers. He ruts against Shayne til his breath comes short, Shayne's hand firm on the back of his neck. So turned on, and sleepy, and comfortable, and safe, Damien trails his fingers beneath the waistband of Shayne's, pausing for long enough to look him in the eye.

"Can I?" he asks. His voice breaks a little, lust shot through it. Shayne hums, pulling off his own boxers and then raising an eyebrow at Damien, fingers hooked in to take Damien's off as well. Damien nods, and Shayne follows through immediately, such is his nature. He guides Damien out of his shirt as well, quick and efficient. He's never known Shayne to disappoint him, to take any more time than was needed. With that said, he doesn't expect a calloused hand to wrap around his cock immediately, thumbing over the head with practiced ease.

"Jesus, baby boy," Damien says, halfway between a gasp and a whimper, embarrassing if Damien gave a single fuck right now at this moment with his cock leaking in Shayne's hand, feeling so good and calm and taken care of that there are tears pricking at his eyes again. Shayne cups the back of his head, fingernails scratching through Damien's hair a little harder than before, enough to make Damien press into it.

"You sound so pretty, Deem. Come on, baby. Take what you need. You're doing so good," Shayne praises, coaxing and encouraging and so, so sweet. Affection drips from him like making Damien cum is just another way to take care of him, and maybe it is. Maybe all they've been doing for years is taking care of one another, maybe Damien loves Shayne more than he's ever loved anybody in his life, maybe Shayne is so deeply beneath his skin that Damien doesn't know where he ends and Shayne begins. Damien drops his head to lean against Shayne's collarbone, hot breath fanning across Shayne's chest is as he thrusts into Shayne's hand, shivers rolling down his spine in droves.

"Shayne," he says brokenly, his voice coming more ragged by the second. Shayne lets go of his dick and Damien can't help the whine that follows, though it turns quickly into a moan as Shayne pulls at him, encouraging him to continue rubbing off against his best friend. The syrupy pleasure of it makes Damien's head feel more thick with sleep rather than lessening its hold on him. Still, he grinds down against Shayne as well, never a selfish lover, but Shayne redirects his motion.

"I'll take care of me later, okay? Let me take care of you right now," he whispers, fingers carding through Damien's hair. Damien blinks down at him, head tilted toward the side and motion stopping all together. "You're tired, Deem. You'll get a chance to touch me, but this is about you. Let me make this about you, okay?" he requests, and how can Damien deny him anything? He tucks his face against Shayne's throat and rolls his hips, obediently losing any and all focus to the sensation of thrusting against Shayne's skin. Shayne's nails dig into his scalp a little harder, reflexive, and Damien bites down on Shayne's shoulder, reactionary. A soft, pleased noise falls from Shayne's mouth and then there's a kiss pressed to Damien's hair, that one spot of innocent affection in the middle of all of this sex and friction sending Damien right off that deep end.

He knows that Shayne is praising him and rubbing his back, hands careful on his skin, but Damien feels a million miles away. Love, love, love beats a tattoo in his chest, overwhelming and cosmic, so overwhelming in fact that it rolls back around to feel like the most natural thing in the world. He pulls Shayne in for a desperate kiss, starting to get a little bit overstimulated but not enough to stop, not enough to know better. Even coming down from the high of cumming on his best friend, Damien knows that this was not the solution to making him more able to actually get to sleep. The need to touch Shayne is buzzing beneath his skin, thick and heavy, obvious and reckless, and Damien presses down onto Shayne with a gentle kiss to his mouth, enthusiastic but careful. Shayne sighs against his mouth, lacing his fingers in Damien's hair. Damien gives him another kiss, but ultimately pulls back to look at Shayne's face.

Shayne tries to push himself back to get up, but Damien grabs onto him, not entirely on purpose but not really an accident either. Shayne raises an eyebrow at him. "I want-" he stumbles over his words, unable to make himself just be honest, even when Shayne so obviously just wants to make him happy. He pushes his face into Shayne's shoulder, sure that the other man is getting impatient with him, but Shayne just cups his face, pulling him in to give him such a fucking gentle look.

"What do you want, Dames? Anything you want," Shayne promises softly, not breaking eye contact with Damien. He can feel his face going red, and he knows that he's flustered and embarrassed, but it's what he wants. He wants to be able to tell Shayne what he wants. He clears his throat.

"Can we, um. I've thought about something, like. A lot. Like at least once every time we've ever sat on a bed together maybe, a lot," he says, finally able to externalize some of it but still unable to look Shayne in the eye for more than a split second at a time. "I'm exhausted. But keyed up. So I'm probably not going to be able to sleep yet so," he pauses again, distracted as Shayne's fingers card through his hair. Though, that's probably just an excuse. "When you're sitting back against the headboard of a bed, reading or what the fuck ever it is that you do," he says as if he's not the most informed person on what the fuck Shayne does at all times, "I want to put my head in your lap. And. Your dick in my mouth. And. Suck your dick but like slow? I'm explaining this really badly, dude."

"Baby, that's called cockwarming, and we can definitely do that," Shayne says with a grin, his eyes practically sparkling as he looks up at Damien.

"Oh, he knows the word for it," Damien teases, happy to be back in the sphere where he and Shayne tease each other. He wants the sex, and he even wants the romance if Shayne wants it too, but he doesn't want either if their friendship would be the collateral. Shayne smiles back, kissing Damien's cheek as he pulls himself to sit back against the headboard as referenced. He leans over to grab the book he had left on Damien's bedside table last time he was in here. That probably should have been something of an indicator shouldn't it be? When was the last time a friend who isn't Shayne was in his room, let alone leaving their belongings in it? He knows that if he looked around, he'd only be able to find more of Shayne's belongings, certain things he owns that neither he nor Shayne are sure of the origin of anymore, and all of that is far too overwhelming to think too much about right at this moment, sleepy and finally getting something he's wanted a long, long time.

"Ian was into researching BDSM for a while, I got caught in the infodump," Shayne clarifies a few beats late, casual. Damien squints up at him.

"Never say Ian's name when I'm about to suck your dick ever again," he says, wrinkling his nose for dramatic effect. It doesn't occur to him that he's just assumed this is going to become part of their relationship, not a one time affair, until after it's already come out of his mouth. He doesn't even have time to start spilling apologies in a deluge, conscious of being presumptuous, because Shayne just raises an eyebrow at him, hands holding and stroking Damien's face between them. The affectionate attention makes it easier to relax, Damien's blinks coming slower, his somewhat elevated heartbeat coming back down from the high. Shayne gives a breathless little chuckle, adorable, and Damien can't help the open adoration he looks up at him with.

"You just said his name when you're about to suck my dick, so really, equal offense," he says, rubbing his thumb over Damien's bottom lip. It presses just a bit and Damien drops his mouth open, allowing the digit to rest on his tongue. It's not what Damien wants, but it still feels far too soon when Shayne pulls it out.

"Shayne." It comes out as a whine, Damien's patience running thin when all he wants it right in front of him and he just... needs Shayne to tell him to actually do it. For some reason. Consent maybe? He's already expressed being okay with this, but it still feels like Damien should wait. Shayne smiles down at him, his expression soft as he runs his fingers through Damien's hair. He guides Damien forward and down, gentle as he controls the pace at which Damien takes him down his throat. That is what he wanted. Everything's already gaining a fuzzy softness, all of his senses tuning down to this one sensation, this one thing. One of Shayne's hands stays resting heavy at the nape of his neck, the other moved to genuinely read his fucking book. He doesn't think this is weird. He doesn't think Damien is weird for wanting this. He's just reading his book. He lets go of a tension he didn't realize he was keeping, his shoulders dropping and a slow breath blown out through his nose. Shayne's nails are dull scratching through the hair beneath them.

"Good, Dames. You're so pretty like this. All sweet and relaxed. So good for me," Shayne murmurs. Damien closes his eyes, swallowing around Shayne's cock reflexively. Shayne's fingers flex in his hair. There's a sweet little gray space that Damien wasn't aware existed in his mind; it envelopes him now, warm and calm, the world only lit by the lamp at his bedside and the world itself small, centered in his best friend's lap. Everything is smaller like this. Calmer. His eyes slide shut. Damien couldn't even hazard a guess as to how long they stay like that, how long he lays between Shayne's knees rapturous, at peace. Shayne's always been his safe place to land. This feels so much like an extension of that idea that he isn't sure what they had been doing in the first place.

Shayne starts reading to him somewhere in the middle of the book, at no specific marker in the story or in the passage of time that Damien can puzzle out. He doesn't want to attribute it to the fact that Damien had been getting somewhat restless, hands bracing Shayne's lower back and nails digging into his skin every once in a while. The sounds of his voice is soothing; it's some old Russian classic, maybe, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky or maybe Chekhov. He's seen the book probably a hundred times, but past registering that it was Shayne's, he hasn't really looked at it much. For this, he's glad that he never picked the book up. The characters' stories mean absolutely nothing to him because he doesn't know who Kostya and Kitty even are, let alone what they're doing, so his thoughts aren't getting snagged on trying to follow the story.

It's just Shayne. He's getting sleepy again, but he doesn't want to go to sleep without making Shayne cum. It's not even the theoretical idea of reciprocation. He knows without discussion that Shayne wouldn't hold it against Damien if he wanted to go to sleep right now. He just wants Shayne's cum in his mouth, really. He swallows around the cock in his mouth, bobbing his head just once before waiting for Shayne's response. Shayne hums, fingers flexing in his hair again before he removes his hand entirely. When Damien opens his eyes to look up at him, Shayne is putting a bookmark in his book, setting it back on the bedside table before returning his gaze to Damien, his hand following quickly to cup Damien's jaw. Damien leans into it but doesn't pull off. Shayne hums again.

"Getting sleepy again?" he asks softly, thumb stroking over Damien's cheekbone. It's barely even a question, really, so Damien just swallows around his dick as a response, figuring it will communicate enough of a message to get his point across. To Shayne, at least. Anybody else and Damien would never have gotten here in the first place, but especially he wouldn't have gotten here in so few words. "You wanna get me off before going to sleep, huh?" his companion asks, this one even less of a question than the one before, but Damien hums in agreement anyway. Shayne chuckles, not something that Damien can actually physically feel, but still enough to make his heart flutter in his chest. The weight of approval is heavy on his shoulders, comforting. Weighted blanket. Shayne strokes his fingers through Damien's hair. "Go ahead, baby."

It's the third time that Shayne has called him that. He's surprised by how much he likes it.

He clears his mind by coming most of the way off of Shayne's dick, playing with the head with his tongue in slow, broad strokes. Shayne groans, his head listing back against the wall above the headboard. Damien digs his tongue into his slit and drops down, taking Shayne all the way down to the root in one fluid movement. Shayne's fingers are laced in his hair again, loose fist just barely pulling. Damien hums, reaching a hand up to press on the one on his head. Shayne grips his hair tighter, pulling tentatively and then much more confidently as it brings embarrassing noises from Damien's throat. The weight of Shayne in his mouth is only made better when Shayne's hips twitch up, just a little bit of pressure on Damien's head keeping him in place as Shayne hits the back of his throat. The sensation makes him choke a little, but it's fucking hot too, Shayne losing that little bit of control to the heat of Damien's mouth enough to have him whining and moaning, desperate to please. Fuck.

"You're so fucking good for me. Gonna make me cum, Dames," Shayne breathes out, a warning that only makes Damien redouble his efforts. Shayne grabs the back of his head, holding Damien in place as he thrusts up into Damien's mouth once, twice, three times before he's shooting hot down Damien's throat. Damien groans and holds Shayne and his cum in his mouth for a second, not wanting to give up the feeling yet. Shayne's fingers stroke through his hair, gentle again, and he did not need to know that this is a way Shayne can be in bed. Certainly not on their first time. This hot and cold of gentle and rough is making him actually dizzy now, not even hyperbolically dizzy but dizzy, in the best way possible. Once he's sufficiently calmed, he swallows down the cum, pulling off of Shayne's dick. Shayne pulls him up and kisses him on the mouth before the taste is off Damien's tongue, pulling him in to taste it for himself.

"Thank you," Damien says as he pulls away from the kiss, not exactly sure what he's thanking him for but grateful all the same. His nose is pressed against Shayne's collarbone, knees on either side of the other man's hips. Shayne pulls him even closer, dropping kisses across Damien's shoulder chastely.

"You did so good, Dames. Love you. Love you so much," Shayne repeats before gentle kisses, his words so comfortable that it doesn't even reek of confidence, but rather a sense of being at ease. He wouldn't be able to count how many times he's heard those words come out of Shayne's mouth, and this time is no different than all the rest, really. Maybe they're doing different things now, loving each other another way, but the love he feels for Shayne? That's been star bright and distracting in the corner of his version for nearly his entire adult life. That's his best friend. Everything else is window dressing.

"Love you," he whispers, lips brushing against the skin of Shayne's throat. Shayne presses another kiss to his skin before leaning over to grab a wet wipe from Damien's bedside table; of course he knows where Damien keeps his fucking wet wipes. Have a chronic nosebleed thing and suddenly a guy knows where you keep the stuff you use to clean up blood. Now, there's an air of reverence to Shayne as he wipes away the cum on Damien's stomach, on his own hip, and when he catches Damien looking at him during his perfunctory sweep over Damien's cock, he grins, closing his hand around Damien loosely. He chuckles when Damien lists against his collarbone, a whimper small but detectable coming from the back of his throat. He finishes wiping both of them off and throws the wet wipe into the trash. Damien catches his mouth in a quick kiss. Well, it was intended to be quick, but Shayne is as thorough in this as he is in everything else. Damien can't help grinning as he peppers kissing on Shayne's face, giggles pouring out of both of them. Shayne slips a hand in his hair and holds Damien still, just looking at him.

"I love you," he says again, kissing Damien just once before pulling back again. "Food or sleep, baby? If you just wanna take a nap, I can set an alarm," Shayne offers, shrugging his shoulders. Damien hums, leaning forward to kiss him, kiss him, kiss him again and again. The taste of Shayne's smile beneath his tongue is the sweetest thing to ever cross Damien's lips. Besotted doesn't even begin to cover it. He feels like he's floating. He feels the most settled he's ever been.

"Snacks and blankets in the living room? A movie, maybe?" Damien suggests, resting his temple against Shayne's as they breathe one another's air. Shayne hums in the affirmative, another kiss gentle on Damien's mouth.

"Anything you want, Dames. Anything you want."

#mine #shaymien #shayne #damien #rpf #prompt filled #spreadsheet fill #smosh fic #hope you like it !!#thank u for prompting me <33333 #ask answered #anonymous

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