#really its just starting unnecessary fights and might be a large part of the problem of 'safety' because you won’t allow

[dxxtruction]

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[pan-ick]

Golden Child Pt. 1

I literally can't remember where I found it but I read a headcannon for an angsty SBI +Reader and I loved it so much that I had to write something similar to it but I think I might have forgotten to like it, so if you know what the original is please tell me so I can credit them I was partially inspired by@helliontherapscallion's "Adrenaline Junkie" series, simply for the fact that because of them i haven't stopped thinking of inventor reader. Also let's just pretend that uh my human biology degree isn't going to waste by me writing blindness incorrectly ha ha. This is a purely fictional way that blindness works.

(REMINDER YOU IDIOT, FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS STORY: Wilbur is 26, Techno is 20, Tommy is 16, Phil is 32, SO READER IS 22, GET IT RIGHT AND STOP MESSING UP)

As soon as Y/N's wings started developing, they were instantly the favorite child. Philza still showed his love to Wilbur, but nowhere near as much as he did to his winged child. If he had to choose between spending time with them or Wilbur, he'd pick them in a heartbeat. Wilbur was usually upset when this happened, but he had gotten used to it and had learned ways to cope with it.

This was until Techno showed up. On their doorstep. Next to a freezing Philza who had sacrificed most his warmth to the young piglin. Wilbur had his thoughts on this, yhough he kept them to himself. But Y/N couldn't be happier! This meant a new friend, AND they were right when they said that Phil was just a nice person, there wasn't a favorite child! Right?

They quickly realized that Techno wasn't their friend, as the first interaction they had together was them getting a claw to the face by the piglin. Philza just simply sighed and made sure the wound would stop bleeding before tending back to the scared pig.

Y/N was only eight at the time, they didn't know what they were feeling. But whatever it was didn't feel good.

Since that day, Y/N was the new Wilbur and 'Technoblade' was the golden child. Y/N wanted the spotlight back, so they tried hard at everything. Nothing ever worked. Nothing was better than what Techno could do. Nothing was more amazing than Techno's knowledge, or his skills in fighting, or his odd way of speaking, or those stupid things that he did, or the fact that he'd always blame it on some 'voices' in his head. That he had a God complex. That he was better than Wilbur. He was better than Tommy. He was better than you...

He was always better than you. Of course. Thats what you felt when you first met. Not amazement, not the happiness of having another friend. Of course not. It was overwhelming jealousy. But he was your brother, so you had to suck it up just like Wilbur did.

But soon enough, they came to peace with this. They moved on and worked on what they actually enjoyed, not what Philza enjoyed. Mechanics. Phil would have killed you if he learned of all the dangers that you put yourself through to consider yourself an inventor. Or.... Would he?

One day your older brother approached you with his idea to create "L'manburg". At first you couldn't help but laugh. But when it was realized that Wilbur wasn't joking and that he had already recruited Tommy, they agreed to join the fight for freedom. It was a way to pay Wilbur back for being there for them, afterall.

Y/N never imagined the true horrors that they would have to go through so they could say a 'thank you' to Wilbur. They never even truly said it to him, L'manburg was already exploded and he was killed before they could say it to him. Not even saying it to Ghostbur was good enough.

Y/N was forced to suffer through watching her loved ones go mad. Sometimes, they would try coming up with inventions that could help her friends out, and some that could help some regular problems in the world for other people. Most of them didn't work, they were only able to produce goggles that could just barely help fully blind people see. But it was a step in the right direction.

Then doomsday came. Y/N didn't want to be part of it, they didn't want to even try hurting their father and younger brother. They aren't even sure how they came to that point.

Before they knew it, they were begging the man who once gave them anything in the world for him to stop. The whole server was one big family especially everyone in the homes he was about to destroy. But what they wanted didn't matter anymore. It's what Technoblade wanted, and he wanted blood.

At the last moment, Y/N remembered Friend. Ghostbur would be devastated if Friend died.

Falling down to the ground from the small warning of TNT, Friend flooded their mind.

If they couldn't save L'Manburg, they needed to save Friend. Ghostbur wasn't the same, but Ghostbur is Wilbur. They still never said thank you. They have to show their gratitude through the miracle of Friend surviving.

And so that's what they set off to do. With no mind to their own self-preservation, Y/N got up and flew as fast as they could to save Friend. But before they could reach the sheep, a large pile of rubble fell on one of their wings, almost snapping it right off. Y/N tried to get it off but to no avail, and their whole body wasn't safe. As they saw more rubble they crouched down while covering their head with their hands and covering the undamaged wing with their body, they prepared for impact.

The last thing they could speak out was almost incomprehensible.

"Wil..... Will...... Ghosbu.............. Tommy.......... Dad............."

And then everything went black. Y/N couldn't see or feel anything. Not even after her youngest brother, the ghost of her older brother, and the three fiances of the SMP untrapped them. There was nothing.

After what felt like years for the brothers, there was finally a glimpse of Y/N waking up. But they continued to drift in and out of consciousness and whenever someone tried communicating they were completely unresponsive.

During this amount of time, it was agreed that it was in their best interest for their wings to be removed. They were both utterly useless now after being crushed and would just be extra weight with unnecessary pain that can be avoided the sooner their wings get removed. Just in case Y/N was still aware of everything going on, they were put under amnesia to lower the chance of them feeling the agony of a wing removal surgery.

Slowly Y/N began more responsive to people, but never to the same amount. Everyone that took care of them were absolutely heartbroken when they figured out part of the rock that fell on them damaged a vital organ that allowed a person to see. Luck was in fact on their side for damaging their eyesight instead of the brain, however most people didn't see it that way.

Ghostbur took it upon himself to become Y/N's seeing-eye dog. He missed having Friend nearby and Y/N was the thing he connected to the most after Friend's death.

After a few months of trying to get used to no longer having sight or wings Y/N was finally allowed back in their lab with a large amount of supervision from Ghostbur. While carefully running their hands across some unfinished inventions, Y/N comes across the goggles that they made at least a year ago. It immediately smarked a memory deep within their brain, the closest thing they had felt to seeing something ever since doomsday.

"Ghostbur, what color are these?" "Oh, they're blue. Blue's a really nice color, it reminds me of Friend. Do you remember Frien- Why are you looking down at those like that? Would you like some blue, it takes your sadness away! Wait dont put them on, the glass has cracks!" Y/N snickers as the ghost tries to take them away from them without being super forceful, "I'm already blind, what's the worst it can do?"

"Dont say that!" Ghostbur gasps, "We will find a way to get your vision back, those goggles might make it impossible!"

"I made these around the time you first showed up. I ran multiple tests with them and I was able to help a blind person see the world again. Sure, it was very blurry, hard to distinguish a lot of colors from each other, we have a different kind of blindness, and its been more that a year since I last tested them, but they might still work." Y/N explains, then they turn their back to Ghostbur and put the goggles on. This time, Ghostbut only makes a sound in protest.

Blinking, Y/N could feel the stimulation in their brain that they lost along with their eyesight come back. They moved their hands from the position they were in to put the invention on to Y/N's line of sight, and they could see their hands again. Fuzzy, shapeless, hands with a few bandaids and many scars on them.

"So, are they working?"

The voice of your brother brings Y/N back to reality and they turn to look at him. They had completely forgotten what Ghostbur looked like, only remembering vaguely what child Wilbur looked liked and a brief description of how Ghostbur's appearance differed for Wilbur's.

Y/N wraps their arms around the Ghost, not actually hugging but just doing the motion to where they would hug a person they could actually touch, as they tried to not cry in front of him.

(WOOOOOO THIS ENDED UP A LOT LONGER THAN I EXPECTED AND I'M NOT EVEN DONE YET, SO I SEPARATED IT INTO TWO PARTS)

[4aloysius-porteu]

i am your ally || tsukishima kei.

pairing; tsukishima kei x f! reader

genre: oneshot, drama, flangst, a little comedy

word count: 5.6k

details: 3rd year Tsukishima, artist reader

warnings: reader going missing, verbal abuse, crushing of dreams, lots of sadness, heavy parental argument, everything that happens here hits home

synopsis: tsukishima didnt know what is the right thing to say after he heard of (y/n)’s situation, but the words that stumbled out from his mouth were a surprise, yet it blossomed to a meaningful talk that happens once in a blue moon.

(a/n): wrote in the middle of my depressing days to find a little comfort from this character that I love with all my heart. inspired by true situations irl; if you, my friend, is feeling down today, i hope reading this work of mine can help. i might make this into a full story if this got enough attention tho.

(Y/N) was nowhere to be found. 

It wasn't Tsukishima's habit to eavesdrop on other people's conversation, but he couldn't help but listen when he heard her name from her classmates. She was a consistent top student that will never neglect her studies, so it was unusual to know that she was absent today. He thought that maybe she got sick or she decided to go crazy and skip school. If it was the latter, he hoped that she knows what she's doing, because midterms are coming in 3 days, and he's not going to listen to her whines and begs to help her study for the tests.

And now he just happened to overhear that she was missing. 

He saw her parents walk out of the campus after talking to the vice-principal and to the teachers. Gossip filled the corridors and rooms. Tsukishima went back to his room, clearly annoyed with the unnecessary noise.

He listened to the lectures of each subject and continued to write down important points, but the thought of (Y/N) lingered in his head. What could've happened that led to her disappearance? Was she kidnapped? No, he just walked her home last night and she'll never leave her place past midnight. Kidnappers won't dare to make a move in daylight because of the town's high authority visibility. There's no way she'll be lost in an area she's very familiar with. 

She ran away from home. That is the only logical possibility he could come up with, but he couldn't think of an idea as to why. (Y/N), who loves to be cooped up in her room with music blaring in her earphones while drawing, left her home without a trace. Tsukishima was a little worried, but he won't let his face show whatever the hell he's feeling. 

His plays and blocks aren't exactly bad, but Yamaguchi could sense that Tsukishima was thinking of something other than the volleyball practice. He approached his friend who was resting on the floor, his long arms covering his curled up legs. 

"Tsukki, what's with that expression? Did you get a failing score in a quiz?" Yamaguchi started, in an attempt to lighten up the atmosphere. 

The blonde's eyes darted to him, "Like hell, I'm going to let that happen. What do you want?"

He shrugged, "Nothing, I just noticed that you were a little quieter and more passive today. Normally, you would've chewed the first years out with their simple blocking errors, but you didn't say a thing. You're scarier in their eyes when you're silent."

"I was tired. I'll only waste my voice pointing out something I did a million times." A sigh escaped his lips 

"Right..." Yamaguchi paused, "So, I assume you have heard?"

"Heard of what?"

"That (Y/N) is missing."

"Oh," A frown fell on his features. It wasn't his usual frown. People who really know him would notice that his eyes are full of worry. 

He sat beside Tsukishima before he spoke again. "I know you have ideas on places (Y/N) could've gone to."

"I do not know what you're talking about."

The latter chuckled, "Oh, humor me, Tsukki. If you're that worried, I can excuse you for today's practice. No problem."

"Does that mean that you aren't concerned?"

"I am concerned. I want to look for her as well, but I have to whip the other players into shape. I'm sorry if I couldn't accompany you right away."

Tsukishima stood up and sighed again, "You will excuse me, you said?"

"Yeah."

There were silence and the background noise of balls and shoes colliding on the floor. He wiped the sweat off his face before replying, "I'll be leaving the gym in a few minutes."

He changed his clothes and packed his things up, causing the team to exchange glances.

"Tsukki!" Yamaguchi called, throwing his friend's large jacket to him, which the other caught. "Take care! I hope you find (Y/N) and get her home safe."

"I wish. Then, I'll leave it to you, Captain."

The green-haired middle blocker's eyes teared up and sparkled as he beamed a smile back, "I got it!"

Tsukishima started to look for (Y/N) at the places she liked to go to; the art store, the Central Park, the kid's playground, the museum, and the prefectural library. But there was no sign of her anywhere. He looked at the nearby places to no avail. He walked on while dialing her number, but her phone is out of coverage area. He spent 3 more hours finding the girl and soon received a message from Yamaguchi, telling him that (Y/N) hasn't been found yet and that he joined the authorities to help them find her. 

He walked back to the direction of his home, panting softly. He had failed to find (Y/N), yet his brain won't stop thinking about her possible whereabouts. The cool breeze of winter hit Tsukishima's face and shivered at the contact. He had hoped again that she is inside of an establishment, safe from such cold weather.

Tsukishima's home has its lights out. Her mother was invited into her colleagues' reunion as said in her text, and both his father and brother are busy at work. He reached for his key in his pocket and was opening the door, not until he heard a loud sob from somewhere. Tsukishima looked around the place as the sobbing continued. He searched for the source and ended up in their backyard. He caught the sight of a small figure behind the bushes and went closer to confirm.

It was a cat. It had scurried away once he got close to it. Oh, how stupid he is to get his hopes up only to find a scared animal. But he was certain he heard a sob somewhere near. And cats aren't capable of making a sound like that. Or maybe he was only hearing things?

He dragged his feet to the main door to unlock it, but this time, there was a loud noise of scrubbing on the roof. What is it this time? He moved back and looked upon where it came from. 

To his surprise, it wasn't another cat but a person. Their legs were curled up, arms covered around them, with their chin on their knees. Tsukishima turned on his phone's flashlight and there she was. 

It was (Y/N). Her shoulders shook, either from the cold or trying her best not to cry out loud. 

"H-Help me."

He stared at the girl, confused and fighting back laughter because of how scared (Y/N) looked. "How the heck did you get in there?"

"I climbed that tree and jumped off to break in and hide in your room. Turned out that the windows are locked. I don't know how to jump back and I-I was too high from the ground. You know I'm scared of heights! Why did you lock the window?! Stupid!"

"Of course, I would lock the window for the security. And wow, aren't you the stupid one for knowing how to climb and jump up to my window and not knowing how to get down? Why did you climb if you are scared of heights? Such an idiot."

"Fine, fine. I am an idiot. Now, can you help me get off this roof?"

He crossed his arms and smirked, "No."

"Ugh! Please, Kei. I've been trapped here for hours. I am begging you to help me get down. Please?"

He sighed in defeat and raised his arms. "Here. Jump."

For seconds, (Y/N) didn't respond as she was having second thoughts about jumping.

"What? Do you expect me to get a ladder? I'm sorry, but it's in the basement, broken." He said in a mocking tone. "Don't you want to come down?"

"Can you catch me properly? Are your arms stable? Won't you fall on your ass?" (Y/N) interrogated.

Tsukishima rolled his eyes, "Alright, stay there and freeze to death."

"No, wait! I was just asking! Come back! Don't leave meeee!"

The blonde looked up to her and raised his arms again, "Don't think. Trust me, I will catch you properly and you won't crash to the ground. You weigh like nothing anyway."

"Are you talking about yourself?" She retorted, pertaining to his weight.

"Can you please just jump?"

(Y/N) inhaled and went to the edge of the roof. It was a scary view for her, just looking down makes her dizzy, and want to throw up.  She thought he would have the largest frown on his face because of how irritatingly slow she was, but there was Tsukishima waiting for her with the calmest expression. She smiled a little.

"Here I go..."

She took off, closing her eyes, and swallowing her fears. The gravity pulled her feet down shortly after, and Tsukishima readied himself for the impact as he reached her waist. He held on to her lower torso while (Y/N) placed her arms around his shoulders tightly and legs on his waist. The athlete's balance slightly went off, so he took a step back to support both their weights. It was now steady. 

"I'm surprised you didn't lose your balance. Where's the weak boned beanpole 3 years ago?"

"I did for a second."

"Doesn't matter. You caught me. Thank you."

They had stayed in that way for a moment until Tsukishima spoke, "Do you plan to get off?"

"No. I'm tired."

"I am too." Yet she refused to let go.

He exhaled, carrying (Y/N) to the main entrance and finally unlocking the door. Her hoodie was cold and some parts are wet, but it didn't rain on that day. He took her in and placed her on the couch. Tsukishima went to his room, changed clothes, and brought a spare sweatshirt, handkerchief, and a towel. He went down but didn't find (Y/N) where he left her, so he walked to the kitchen counter and found the girl on the corner, shivering like a pup.

He tossed the clothing at her without further words. There was a note from her mom beside the curry in the table, saying she had eaten and she left rolls in the refrigerator. He was about to turn on the stove to reheat the food his mother left, but his eyes landed on (Y/N) who sat quietly, hugging the sweatshirt instead of wearing it. Her hair was disheveled, the sleeves and neck part of her hoodie was damp, her nose was red and her puffy, bloodshot eyes implied that she has been crying for who knows how long. He set the pan down to get her a glass of water. 

"Everyone was looking for you." Said Tsukishima.

"No one was really looking for me." (Y/N) replied, clearing her nose. 

"I didn't spend the last 3 hours tiring myself to scan the whole town for no reason." He sat beside her, handing the glass. "Care to spill the tea?"

(Y/N) drank first before speaking weakly, "I hate them. So much."

The male remained quiet, waiting for her to continue her dilemma.

"Remember when I told you and the class that I will be the most successful doctor in Japan after I finished my studies? It was a lie. It wasn't my dream to stay in a hospital and treat ill people, I only wanted to draw and paint. I didn't care if it never made them or anyone happy, I am happy doing it. And they are taking it away from me."

He knew from the start that her dream job as a doctor wasn't true. For years she stayed close to him as a friend or more, she won't blabber anything of the medical topic. She was terrified of syringes. He saw her reading an article about surgeries and like, but her focus was easily taken away.

She will get a pencil then start scribbling and drawing. Something that Tsukishima always sees her doing whenever she has a pen and paper, but she insists that it was a mere hobby. Her notebooks are well designed and organized, but the back is always full of artistic doodles instead of algebra solutions. She only has very few art materials yet she can make a portrait with only her fingers to shade. She makes digital art without a stylus. She would drag him to the museum after class to view some western and eastern paintings or any work of art while he admires the dinosaur fossils. For times she's watching an art tutorial and talk about art, draw and paint, she has those stupid sparkles in her eyes and a huge smile on her face. 

"You know Tsukishima, after I finish studying and became a doctor, I'll become an artist and if the time let's it, I'll open my own art gallery. That's my ultimate dream." She looked alive and delighted.

Very much the opposite of what she looks like right now. 

Even though she was a slave of art, as Tsukishima was a slave of his own interests, (Y/N) prioritized her studies so much. He understood why when he went to her house and met her parents before their study sessions. He had noticed everything but chose to stay quiet. 

"I-I was drawing last night. Dad entered my room but I didn't notice so he ripped the music away from my ears and yelled. He said that I would always lock myself in my room and draw every night. It was never-ending and irritates the shit out of him. He asked why would I do something so useless that isn't even connected to any academic subject. He was looking down on my art like he was looking at a piece of crap. He told me to stop and threatened me if I didn't. Why would I get punished for drawing? I couldn't get myself to stay silent so I retorted. If he doesn't want to see me drawing, then he shouldn't enter my room at all. He should stop meddling with my hobbies. His anger only went up."

(Y/N) stopped for a while to wipe her tears and snot with her sleeves but Tsukishima placed a handkerchief on her hands. She muttered her thanks and blew her nose and soon followed with a sneeze.

"Soon, it became a full-blown argument. He said that he was checking out if I was doing my projects, but oh he was so disappointed only to find his daughter drawing for nothing. What the heck? I gave them the best grades I could get, and part of it was because of you, Tsukishima, but they still aren't satisfied? I balanced drawing and academics, but they made it seem that all I was doing was my hobby, completely ignoring my efforts at school. I finished the school activities and I reviewed for midterms and all I want is to be left alone and draw. What, they want me to go crazy by studying every hour with things I won't even apply in real life?"

Her fake laughter echoed in the kitchen for seconds before her depressed tone took over again.

"Mom heard all the shouting and joined the argument. Of course, she sided with dad without listening to my feelings and there they ridiculed their youngest child's interests and talent. They told me that everything I do is bullshit and wrong, that I was useless, that I was the huge opposite of their expectations, and... and how come God gave them a joke. She said they raised me so that I could help them, not to do such useless things. It hurts to shout back but I did to explain why I'm so passionate about art in hopes that they will listen and understand but, I was so wrong. I was suddenly slapped..." She placed her hand to her left cheek, her lips quivered a little. 

"I-It stung so much. Mom complained about how the Internet generation is so rebellious and won't listen to the elders. They didn't raise and teach me to talk back at them, but here is their child being a bitch. They started comparing me to my elder siblings or relatives who focused on their studies and who are at the door of success. I know they only want me to achieve the best, but my success isn't up to them! It's on me!! And I've invested a lot for that! They shouted at me as mom pulled my hair. It was so loud I thought I was going deaf. Dad blamed the gadget's influence and my drawings. I have only drawn decent fanarts of fictional characters, people, and sceneries, but they believed that because of these, I turned into a mannerless bastard. So mom decided to get my phone and lessen my allowance so that I wouldn't buy any art materials that are a waste of fortune--"

She bit her lower lip that is trembling uncontrollably and her eyesight blurred as her fat tears got in the way.

"and... D-Dad... he... he... he tore m-my sketch pad apart..."

Tsukishima's eyes widened. (Y/N) brought that thing with her almost everywhere she went and it was filled with good drawings and art plans. She has a lot of them though, but Tsukishima could only imagine how she felt when her efforts were trampled over by someone important to her. 

(Y/N) broke down, bawled her eyes out, and shrieked hysterically. He looked at her with a heavy heart. He had seen her crying sometimes, be it because of a sad movie or empathy, but never like this. A depressed, emotional wreck. Her eyes were sore enough after a lot of hours, but she won't stop crying. It was heartbreaking to see and hear his significant other in this state, yet Tsukishima didn't know what is the right thing to say. 

But maybe there was no need to say anything at all.

Kei wrapped his arms around her weeping figure and pulled her towards him. Cry it out, pipsqueak. (Y/N) didn't expect this action, nonetheless cried in his shoulder He didn't care anymore if this meant he gets his clothes drenched in her snot and tears as long as she felt a little less lonely. He rubbed her back and hair in an attempt to comfort his lover. (Y/N)'s airways hurt, but she screamed the pain out, in hopes that the pain in her heart would vanish. Her weeping went on for long minutes until she choked in her own sobs that Tsukishima had to get her another glass of water.

"Tell me, Kei." She began, wiping her eyes, "Is there... something wrong with me? Is my dream really that insignificant?"

"There's nothing wrong with you. You followed your ideals. Anyone including me would've done the same." He answered beside her.

"I-It's realistic, right?"

"It is."

"Then... why did it turn out like this?" Her voice was cracking.

Tsukishima looked down, "The society is just very cruel."

"Yeah. It sure is. Such a cruel society to live with." 

(Y/N) let out a dejected sigh and leaned on Tsukki's shoulder. "I couldn't look at them without such overwhelming fear and hate anymore. I wonder if... they knew that I was doing this for them. I'd like to make them smile with something I've made myself. Once, I made each of them a portrait. A realistic one made from a pencil. I couldn't afford a material set that can be used to paint realistically, but I tried my best to impress them with a charcoal one. Oh, if only you saw their faces when I gave them the portraits. They returned a half-hearted smile. It wasn't the same kind of joy I see whenever I give them perfect scores on tests. I didn't spend 3 sleepless nights just to see their half happy, half unpleased reaction. I wish they could feel more proud of their daughter who worked hard for them... I wonder if they threw it away as he did on my sketch pad..." 

They let silence engulf the atmosphere for a while. (Y/N) had calmed down a little, despite shedding smaller tears from the side of her eyes. Tsukishima held the sweatshirt he gave her earlier to make her wear it on the top of her hoodie to lessen her shivering. He stared at her, while the other gazed down on the floor with dead eyes.

Tsukishima asked, "So, what are you going to do now?"

"What am I going to do now huh..." (Y/N) repeated. "I'll probably... put everything to an end."

"You know I won't let you."

"I'm not talking about my life, silly. I might stop drawing and all. I've lost it."

"Isn't your life and drawing one and the same? And I'm pretty sure you have that immense talent to continue."

"No... Besides, talent isn't a talent if it doesn't make anyone happy."

The blonde mentally scoffed. She just said that it makes her happy in the beginning.

"Oh? Fine, stop doing that one thing you put everything into. What would that girl you received a commission from would feel if she were to hear you though?"

(Y/N) was stunned. She had completely forgotten about the whole commission thing she opened in her social media accounts. Tsukishima accompanied (Y/N) on giving the commissioned charcoal portrait to a girl last 3 weeks ago. It was (Y/N)'s first commission for years she's making art. Someone liked her work for the first time and paid for it, and her client looks very contented and glad. The words she said filled her thoughts with inspiration.

"Wow, this is awesome! I'm so happy!! Thank you for making this, it was exactly what I've pictured on my mind! You're amazing! All the excitement I've bottled up for this day is so worth it," The girl, probably a little older than them paused and admired the painting she received from (Y/N).

"Would you ignore those words she said?"

 'Please don't stop drawing, I'll be looking forward to your future works!' 

A pang of guilt hit her chest. She wants to pursue art, but there are these shackles and chains on her limbs and around her neck that made it hard for her to move forward. She couldn't breathe. What happened yesterday night was too much. Her parents went overboard. 

"B-But—"

A monotone voice interrupted her, "Don't. Never stop striving for something you have been building for years. You might be defeated now, but surely, you will win some time. There's no way you'll stay in the lowest level of the ladder after I saw how hard you worked. You will go to nationals again, and I will continue to support you. I'll cheer for you and stay by your side! So please, do not stop! Let me see those beautiful blocks that you execute in the game once more! And I will watch you reach the top! Doesn't matter how many times, I'll never get weary of watching you do amazing things!"

She was silenced by that statement. She had definitely heard those before, but couldn't quite remember where. 

"Does the sentiment seem familiar to you? Those are the same words that came from your mouth when I was planning to quit volleyball after our huge loss to Date Tech last year. I am returning them back to you."

"Huh?" She replied with a meek voice.

"That time, you really did a good job meddling with my decisions. It annoyed me first, but what you had stated held a weight that I couldn't disregard. You gave me the small push I didn't know I needed. In the end, I'd like to pay you back." Tsukishima stated with a far away look in his eyes.

(Y/N) listened with watery eyes. This Tsukishima's side isn't definitely the one she gets to see every day so she couldn't feel anything but the warm, fuzzy feeling that is healing her heart. 

"It's probably selfish for me to say this but, don't you dare give up. I didn't stop. No matter how long and hard the game is, no matter how tired and discouraged I get, and no matter how many pessimistic thoughts clouded my head, I didn't stop chasing after a falling ball and thinking of another tactic to counter the enemy. I kept your words with me in court. It was you who told me not to in the first place, and I'm not going to forgive you if you ever dropped everything. I won't let the stupid, starry-eyed (Y/N) die today."

The girl beside her started sobbing. "But you told me once that my drawing are ugly."

"Oh. That. I... kind of remember that. I'm not sorry about what I said because I did it to provoke and rile you up. It was a lie though. As someone who always sees you drawing, I can't call your work ugly at all. Your art is... astounding. You make it look like it's so easy to do. I think you forgot next sentence after I told you that."

"What was the sentence after?"

Tsukishima sighed, "I told you to keep doing it, right?"

The sound of (Y/N) crying engulfed the kitchen, "Oh gosh, why did I forget that... I'm sorry, I'm so idiotic..."

The blonde brought her back to his arms, "Will you stop crying, you've been too hard on yourself today,"

(Y/N) hid her face on his chest, muffling her speech, "c-couldn't help it... my mind is such a mess... I do not know..." She paused, coughing. "It's no use if m-my parents don't acknowledge me..."

"Hundreds, or perhaps thousands of people who follow you on social media account recognize you. People in school recognizes you. I recognize you. I am your ally. Isn't that enough reason for you to get back on your feet? I will support you just like how you supported me. You have a lot of people who admire you, but I only have a few people and you. Yet your words are enough. I'm certain that soon, you will reach your parents' standards and get them to acknowledge you. It's not impossible."

(Y/N) fixed her tear-stained face before looking up to him, "You know what? Who are you? Is a good spirit possessing your body? The Kei I know will either stay quiet or laugh at me for being pathetic."

"I was trying to be nice for once and this is what I get?" He frowned.

(Y/N) chuckled and hugged Tsukishima, "I'm sorry. Everything you said meant the world to me. Thank you very much."

She relaxed against his lean body, "I have a question though..."

"What?"

"You literally had no business in my art, it was my own problem. Why are you doing this?"

"Why don't you ask yourself after you argued with me that night? Why did you have to butt in with my choices?"

"Because you like volleyball! You might look like that someone stole your dinosaur collection when you're at practice, but you're good at it and have a future in it! It is a part of you, and you're deciding to throw it away? Your potential is too big to be wasted and I refuse to let that happen." Her voice is a little louder now, but hoarse.

"There's your answer, little gremlin."

"How is that— Oh."

"But I'd like to add something."

"What is it?"

"You look better doing what you really like. It makes you look less like a hag."

It was silent after that. (Y/N) punched his arm. Tsukishima didn't even wince but asked, "What was that for?"

"The last statement was unnecessary, and the first one is sweet yet cringey." She criticized. 

"C'mon, I'm just a teenager. Aren't you the cringey one most of the times?"

She used the handkerchief to sniffle her runny nose away, "Why do you have a knack of returning everything I said to me?"

"I won't do it if it's not appropriate." Tsukishima placed his hands on her back and to her hair, "So, what are you going to do now, (Y/N)?"

"I'll think things through. My brain is still slightly messy, but I'll be fine, thanks to you. But Kei..."

He hummed as a response. "I don't want to go home. I want to run away."

"Not possible. You can't survive on your own. You're almost 18 and until now, you don't understand how a washing machine works with all your perfect scores in exams."

"This is just a thought. I didn't say I'll be alone. I'm taking you with me."

"I refuse."

"Why?"

"Couldn't you wait for more months until we graduate?"

(Y/N)'s eyebrows raised, "So basically, you're agreeing, but not this time?"

"No, but you'll be free of your parents' suffocating control. Who knows how huge is your potential by that time."

"How considerate of you." The girl smiled.

"Only this time. And no, we won't live in the same place in college. Not yet. Not until we finish our studies, have secured jobs, and get important things done." 

"Will you be playing volleyball at college?"

He lazily replied, "Probably."

"Don't give me such an ambiguous answer!"

"Probably yes." 

"Hmm. Fine by me. I'll continue to draw, then." (Y/N) rested her head near Tsukishima's neck. 

He smiled a little at her answer, "Another thing though. I don't think... you should leave things with your parents like that. There'll be a time where you have to face it."

"Yes, that sucks... I don't want to think about it but I'll have to go back eventually... When that confrontation happens, I'll try to calmly talk it out with them. I will never be certain if it will end well. But my hate and fear of them won't change."

"You can always run back here if it didn't end well."

"Kei, don't want to see their faces just yet. Can I stay here for a while?"

"You even bother to ask. You are welcome anytime in this household. Just enter the house in the front door, not in my window."

"Right... thank you."

"Oh, now it's my turn to ask. How did you get in there?"

(Y/N) sighed, "It was on 4:30pm. I was on the loose and I looked for a store where anyone can't recognize me so I can eat for lunch. But there's this creep who kept on following me—"

"Did he hurt you?" He abruptly questioned.

"No. I ran as fast as I could before he could even get close to me, but in the next block, there were the town authorities with my mom, and I knew they were looking for me, so I blended into the people with my hoodie on and made my way. I climbed the tree in panic that they'll find me and hid there. It took me hours to notice that your house is just next to it, so I decided to climb to your window. However, the window was locked, and I was stuck."

Tsukishima sighed in relief. "It was a miracle that a klutz like you didn't fell off the tree and surprisingly, no one found you."

"I was high in adrenaline when I climbed the tree. My blending and hiding skills are in ninja-tier now, I beat you."

"Whatever. What did you have for breakfast?"

"...a melon bread."

"Just that?"

"Just that." 

Tsukishima kissed her forehead before lifting her up with him. "Go change. Borrow any of my clothes. I'll reheat the food."

(Y/N) kissed his cheek, slowly got off him and went upstairs. Tsukishima opened his phone to text Yamaguchi about her situation and proceeded to reheat the spicy curry. 

"Wait, Kei! Is it okay for me to eat?" She shouted from upstairs.

"What kind of question is that? Of course you can." He shouted back.

"Your mom left that for you, for your dad and for your brother. I'd feel bad."

"My brother and dad will come home late and I'm sure they've eaten already. So is mom."

"Are you sure? I can replace the food." She said while going down the stairs.

"Oh, you can cook? I'm afraid you'll burn the whole kitchen." He mocked.

"At least not the whole house." (Y/N) laughed, "Just kidding, I have a tiny knowledge in cooking."

"You don't have to, I told you they already ate. I'll bring out the sushi mom made if you still want to eat."

"Alright. Thank you for the food."

Few hours later, Tsukishima's mom came home and took off her shoes. "I'm home."

As she was about to enter the living room, Akiteru greeted her and placed his finger in front of his lips, indicating her to keep quiet. She wondered what was going on and saw her youngest son and his girlfriend leaning on his shoulder, asleep on the couch in front of the TV. He signaled her to read the note Kei left on the table. 

To mom, dad, and brother,

Earlier in the morning, (Y/N) went missing and her parents and town authorities were looking for her. I found her on the way home, but it turns out that she ran away from her home because of an intense argument between her parents, and doesn't want to be found yet. Please let her stay here for a while. I'll do most of the household chores or any favor you ask me in return. 

Mom, I shared the curry and sushi rolls with her. I left for some for dad and brother. (Y/N) said it was very delicious. 

Love, 

Kei.

She smiled after reading the note and looked at the sleeping kids. She took notice of (Y/N)'s eyes and quickly understood the situation. Before she left to rest in her room, she looked for a spare blanket and laid it atop them to keep them warm. 

(Y/N) snuggled further to Tsukishima's arms, satisfied on how this night will end well, unlike yesterday's.

©4aloysius.porteu.2021. please do not repost, copy, or edit. plagiarism is punishable by law.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Delight in Misery (ao3) - part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5

- Chapter 6 - 

It was strange, Lan Wangji reflected, to be in public again after so long an absence. Stranger still to be addressed by strangers, to be called the Second Jade of Lan, or Lan-er-gongzi –

He wished that they would use his personal title instead. It might reduce the awkwardness.

Though, he reflected, it was likely that nothing would really reduce the awkwardness inherent in the situation, for all its old nostalgic familiarity: his brother walking in the lead, he and his uncle one step behind him, the representatives of the Lan sect in all their glory, beauty, and righteousness.

Looking at their tranquil expressions and sedate pace, one would never know that Lan Qiren was still furiously angry at Lan Wangji for his decision to abandon his sect and family, now made several times over; that Lan Wangji had been shockingly disrespectful by Lan standards in his response; that Lan Xichen had ordered that neither of them were permitted to speak until they could behave civilly (he’d used the term “like human beings”) once again.

It had been a very quiet journey to Koi Tower.

Luckily, even once they arrived, their customary reserve meant that no one noticed the tensions between them – not even the normally astute Lianfeng-zun, who greeted them at the door, much less his father and brother, and certainly not Chifeng-zun, who was listening to another sect leader speak with the stiff and stern expression that, after several years of keeping company with Jiang Cheng, Lan Wangji now recognized as please stop talking to me.  

(Lan Wangji briefly considered that he ought to suggest that Jiang Cheng spend more time with Chifeng-zun. They shared a history as young men who assumed control over their sects too soon as a result of the same enemy, and he knew Jiang Cheng highly esteemed Chifeng-zun – but then he rejected the idea as unnecessary and likely full of potential political pitfalls, especially given the Jiang sect’s role in the Jin sect’s current one-sided rivalry with the Nie sect.

As the Second Jade of Lan, he didn’t need to worry about political concerns, or at least not those beyond the basic premise of ‘don’t lose face for the sect’. His uncle and brother handled everything of that nature, just as they always had, holding up the sky for him and allowing him to focus on cultivation and his own interests, only he had been Jiang Cheng’s secret sounding board for too long now to fail to think of the potential problems anyway.

He found to his surprise that he missed it.)

Jiang Cheng would have noticed the tension, but he had yet to arrive – they had agreed that it would make everything easier if he would arrive to the gathering a little late, minimizing the amount of chatter they would need to endure about the two of them before the formal events began.

This would be Lan Wangji’s first discussion conference after having “left seclusion”, as people were calling it – his uncle with notably more sarcasm than usual – and the first test of his new public relationship with Jiang Cheng. They’d settled the public fight aspect with some degree of enjoyment, having a spar that extended throughout the rooftops and alleyways of the Lotus Pier, matching Bichen again Sandu and Wangji against Zidian, and the rumors had run wild ever since then. Finally, Jin Guangyao had intervened in his father’s name to “force” the compromise they’d all agreed upon: that Lan Sizhui would fall under Lan Wangji’s personal supervision, as was his right as the (assumed) father, but that he would remain at the Lotus Pier for most of the year to avoid a sudden and traumatic readjustment.

That this coincidentally would result in Lan Wangji spending most of his time at the Lotus Pier had largely passed unnoticed. Most people were far, far too busy gossiping about Lan Wangji’s mysterious Jiang sect wife, each one adding new salacious details atop the other. Some of the nonsense he’d heard…!

At least, he comforted himself, none of them would be rude enough to actually ask him about it directly.

“Lan-er-gongzi!” a voice called, and Lan Wangji would have stiffened if his back hadn’t already been straighter than a board. His uncle coughed and stroked his beard to conceal his expression of amusement – he probably thought that having to deal with Nie Huaisang, inveterate gossip and useless person extraordinaire, was exactly what Lan Wangji deserved.

He was probably right, too. Lan Wangji had brought this on his own head.

“Nie-gongzi,” he said, very reluctantly, as the Second Young Master of Qinghe Nie showed up with a feckless smile, promptly clutching at his arm and insisting that they go catch up and indulge in nostalgia about their shared school days.

Which ones, Lan Wangji wasn’t sure – Nie Huaisang had attended his uncle’s classes three times over before passing, and whether or not that final pass had been fairly earned or whether his uncle had simply yielded to his desire never to see Nie Huaisang’s face in his classroom ever again, Lan Wangji remained unsure.

Still, it suited him not to be forced to make nice with all those sect leaders pretending that they weren’t gawking at him, and so he permitted Nie Huaisang to drag him off to some unoccupied garden he had somehow managed to uncover, the other man chattering in his ear like a magpie the entire time.

“ – supposed I really should call you Hanguang-jun now, but that just seems so formal, though at least I remember it. I barely remember anyone’s title. Though now that my big brother’s sworn brotherhood with your big brother, I could probably just get away with calling you Wangji-gege –”

“No.”

“You’re so mean!” Nie Huaisang wailed. “Aren’t we old friends?”

“No.”

“Well, we’re close enough to count, anyway,” Nie Huaisang said. “Jiang Cheng’s my friend as well, you know; you can’t keep him to yourself just because you’re angry at your family! That’s just selfish. Aren’t there Lan sect rules against being selfish? I assume so, though I admit I’ve forgotten more of them than I’ve learned…don’t tell your uncle that, I’m afraid he’ll revoke my sympathy pass.”

Lan Wangji reflected briefly that it was good that Nie Huaisang was self-aware enough to recognize that the pass mark had likely been given out of sympathy rather than for merit, but then returned to the more critical point of what Nie Huaisang had said.

“Why do you think I’m angry at my family?” he asked. And what was that about Jiang Cheng?

It was critical that Sect Leader Jin, among others, not suspect that Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng shared a closer relationship than apparent – even Jin Guangyao had agreed with that – and if they had been sussed out so quickly, and by Nie Huaisang…

Nie Huaisang rolled his eyes at him. “You may be an unreadable stone wall, my – er, acquaintance, but do you really think I can’t tell when your uncle is upset? Me, of all people?”

This was a good point.

“And if your uncle’s upset at you, again, of all people, and you haven’t apologized or made up to him yet, that means you’re the one that’s angry,” Nie Huaisang concluded. “And anyway, why else would you agree to stay for so long at the Lotus Pier if you weren’t angry? You and Jiang Cheng must drive each other up the walls.”

Lan Wangji relaxed minutely. That was a reasonable explanation.

A moment later, he tensed up again – he was abruptly convinced, albeit without any logical basis, that the explanation was too reasonable, meant to put him at ease, designed to allow him to move on with the conversation without thinking too much or questioning too deeply. No one else had put the facts together the way Nie Huaisang had, and, most notably, Nie Huaisang hadn’t yet asked a single question about Lan Sizhui, who was, without making an appearance, the main subject matter of the day.

But then, a moment after that, he relaxed again, somewhat unwillingly – this was Nie Huaisang, who’d been born useless, grown up useless, and remained useless. It was a little absurd to suspect him of having figured out something that had duped the entire rest of the cultivation world.  

As Nie Huaisang said – of all people…

“What do you want?” he asked, shaking his head a little to try to clear it. It must be the oppressive atmosphere of Koi Tower, gilded and rotten, that was affecting his thoughts.

“What do I always want?” Nie Huaisang asked philosophically, and then helpfully answered his own question: “Attention.”

Lan Wangji was starting to remember why he’d avoided Nie Huaisang so thoroughly in their youth.

“I’m not telling you anything about Sizhui,” he said.

Nie Huaisang pouted at him. He was still clinging to Lan Wangji’s arm, and Lan Wangji wondered whether it would count as ‘losing the sect face’ if he threw him out a window.

(He wished Jiang Cheng were around so that he could mention the thought to him - he suspected it would make the other man turn purple with suppressed laughter, and probably get some sort of comment about it being the only sort of flying Nie Huaisang could manage, with or without a blade.)

“Fine,” Nie Huaisang said sulkily. “Turns out you’re still no fun, even after all these years. I’ll have you know, Jiang Cheng’s a lot nicer than you. He appreciates all the things I bring to the table.”

Lan Wangji seriously doubted it – unless perhaps if Nie Huaisang was speaking literally, referring to fine foods and liquor – but his mood improved a bit nonetheless at the compliment. Given the Jiang sect’s relatively isolated political position, with all the smaller sects looking at it hungrily, just waiting for it to trip up and give them a chance to snatch away the title of being the fourth Great Sect, it was only good that the second young master of Qinghe Nie had a positive impression of the ever-prickly Jiang Cheng.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Nie Huaisang said, and dug something out of his sleeve. “Give this back to er-ge for me, will you?”

Lan Wangji stared blankly. “His passage token for Koi Tower?”

He had planned to ask his brother later if he could borrow it – perhaps not that night, since it was the first day of the discussion conference and he suspected his brother would want to visit with his sworn brothers, but in the next day or two. That was the only reason he had agreed to go to Koi Tower at all, agreed to visit Lanling at all: so that he might try to steal away at some opportune moment to visit Mo Xuanyu unattended, before anyone noticed where he’d gone, and talk to him about the request for safe harbor that he had made of Jiang Cheng.

Lan Wangji had still been thinking over how he would phrase the request for the token without giving away his suspicions of the boy’s mistreatment, which his brother would likely take as a slight against Jin Guangyao even though it was fairly obvious to everyone that Sect Leader Jin was keeping Mo Xuanyu as a weapon against Jin Guangyao. He hadn’t yet managed to think of a way to do it.

And now – how had the token ended up here, in Nie Huaisang’s hands?

“Well, yes,” Nie Huaisang said. “I wanted to talk to you privately, without everyone eavesdropping, so I asked him for it. Da-ge never lets me use his, he says I’m a menace to both people and property, and for some reason san-ge never lets me take his. Probably because he’s always so busy all the time.”

That sounded – very much like all three of them, in fact. Nie Mingjue, bluntly refusing; Jin Guangyao, politely eliding; his brother, yielding in utter capitulation to the first bit of begging, confident enough in his own righteous reputation to not worry about the consequences…

An idea appeared in Lan Wangji’s mind.

It was not the sort of idea that might naturally come to a member of the Lan sect. Perhaps his uncle was right in saying that he’d been lingering at the Lotus Pier for too long.

“Nie-gongzi,” Lan Wangji said, looking at the token. “You are right.”

“I…what?” Nie Huaisang frowned. “Are you getting sick, Lan-er-gongzi? I’m never right.”

“I am angry at my family,” Lan Wangji continued, deciding to ignore him. He did not specify why he was angry – let Nie Huaisang assume, as everyone else assumed, that it was because they had not retrieved Lan Sizhui earlier, and for sticking him with the ‘compromise’ of having to stay at the Lotus Pier, no matter how far that was from the truth. “I have not had the opportunity to vent my feelings.”

Nie Huaisang blinked at him. “You…vent feelings?” he said, sounding doubtful, but a moment later he brightened, as Lan Wangji had expected he would. “We could play a prank on somebody! That always makes me feel better – something petty and ridiculous, so that they won’t get really angry, but still know that you’re upset.”

Lan Wangji nodded.

Nie Huaisang appeared somewhat dazed by his agreement. “We could do so many things,” he marveled. “I mean, the possibilities are countless. We could throw paint at something, we could put water on top of a door, we could…”

“I do not want to be publicly associated with it,” Lan Wangji said.

Nie Huaisang pouted, but tapped his fan against his cheek, thinking. “That makes things harder, but not impossible, I suppose…oh, I know! Why don’t we pretend that you’re your brother? You two look like peas in a pod, but for the color of your eyes and your expressions – if I’m hanging around and calling you er-ge and no one looks too closely, they would have no idea it was you involved.”

That was precisely the idea Lan Wangji had hit upon, and the one that he had hoped to lead Nie Huaisang towards suggesting. He had gotten to the point much quicker than Lan Wangji had thought he would; it seemed, useless as he might be, Nie Huaisang was still apparently capable of accepting at least some guidance.

(Unless perhaps...but no. It was Nie Huaisang.)

“This evening?” he suggested, and Nie Huaisang nodded.

“That’ll give me time to think of a proper prank,” he said happily. It was as if he’d never encountered a care in his life, Sunshot Campaign or no. “Don’t you worry, Wangji-gege! Leave it all to me!”

Lan Wangji returned to the main hall, the token tucked into his sleeve, and said nothing when his older brother smiled at him, faintly apologetic, nor when his uncle turned his face away from him. By that point, Jiang Cheng had arrived, scowling as usual, and he was mingling, speaking with the smaller sect leaders with a stiff and stern expression that said please don’t talk to me – Lan Wangji really would have to see about convincing him to invite Chifeng-zun to the Lotus Pier, politics or no politics – and he and Lan Wangji stared at each other briefly before turning away from each other, whispers sprouting up around them like grass.

Why must we put up with people? Jiang Cheng’s expression eloquently conveyed, and Lan Wangji didn’t disagree in the slightest. Life was so much easier in his little room back at the Lotus Pier, where he could shut the door and not let in the world – sometimes he wondered if all of this was really worth it.

Later that evening, he was reminded that it was.

Mo Xuanyu had been invited to the opening ceremonies, sitting in the main row with the important people of the Jin sect – directly beside Jin Guangyao, as if everyone didn’t know his purpose already – but he hadn’t spoken at all, keeping his face down and demeanor as withdrawn as possible. Sect Leader Jin had found an opportunity to praise him for his humility and obedience, and even Lan Wangji, who did not like Jin Guangyao, was indignant on the man���s behalf in the face of such obvious humiliation.

Etiquette dictated that no one could intervene in another man’s family affairs, but Chifeng-zun had rather loudly remarked to Lan Xichen – as if only just remembering – that it must be good to have his brother (subtext: notable for being humble and obedient) out of seclusion at last, inquiring as to whether Lan Wangji was planning on attending any night-hunts in the near future and, if so, whether he would be bringing his son, for whom he cared so deeply, along.

Lan Wangji was accustomed to being the other person’s child, held up as a positive comparison to the annoyance of the person being compared, and it took Jiang Cheng’s eyes crinkling with barely concealed laughter for him to realize that the person he was being compared favorably against this time was Jin Guangshan, absent father extraordinaire, and not poor Mo Xuanyu.

Later, when his brother slipped away to meet with his sworn brothers, as Lan Wangji expected, and Jiang Cheng was gone reluctantly to take Jin Ling to visit with his grandfather, Lan Wangji headed out with Nie Huaisang, who had come up with some prank involving feathers and glue that Lan Wangji wanted nothing to do with.

“But it would be funny,” Nie Huaisang argued.

Lan Wangji blamed Jiang Cheng for the fact that he even considered it.

“We can simply walk around in the guise we agreed,” he finally said, banishing that unhelpful part of him that loved chaos a little too much – the Wei Wuxian part, perhaps. “That will be confusing enough.”

“Oh, all right,” Nie Huaisang said. “But the feathers are hidden in the linen closet off the main guest hallway if you change your mind.”

With Nie Huaisang complaisant, it was easy enough to gradually make their way through Koi Tower, seeming to stroll without any apparent goal but in fact edging closer to Lan Wangji’s destination: the Jin family quarters.

“Wangji-gege – oops, I mean, er-ge,” Nie Huaisang said after he had exhausted at least three other pointless topics. “Why don’t you trust me?”

Lan Wangji looked at him, surprised by the question.

Nie Huaisang was pouting. “You clearly have a goal,” he said. “I know I’m not much, you know, but I’m not nothing. I could still help. If you wanted.”

Lan Wangji opened his mouth to refuse on instinct – the idea that Nie Huaisang could be helpful to him in any way seemed utterly absurd, utterly impossible – but then he paused.

Attempt the impossible, he reminded himself. After all, was it really so long ago that he himself had done what he had never dreamt he could do and chosen to leave his sect behind?

For a life at the Lotus Pier with Jiang Cheng, no less?

Maybe even Nie Huaisang could overturn expectations.

“I want to speak with Mo Xuanyu,” he finally said. “And, if he is unhappy, remove him from Koi Tower. Is that something in which you think you can assist me?”

Nie Huaisang blinked at him, just once – he did not appear nearly as surprised by the request as Lan Wangji thought he probably should be – and then smiled.

[chibimyumi]

Kuromyu 2021 - First Review

So, yesterday 05-03-2021 was the First Day Performance of Kuromyu 2021, “The Secret of the Boarding School”. It is no secret that I am no fan of the Boarding School Arc, but even so I was very, very curious to see this arc being translated to a stage media.

This review shall not be without spoilers. Not just the story itself, because I think by now most people know how the story unfolds. I mean the execution of the stage play itself.

I shall not lie and admit that my review WILL contain my opinions, meaning it is by no means objective and might influence your opinions. For people who wish to experience the production entirely objectively for themselves, I recommend NOT clicking “keep reading” to reveal the spoiler section.

For now, I shall give my spoiler-free rating per category.

Faithful to canon: ⭐⭐⭐⭐★

Script:       ⭐⭐ ★★★

Acting:      ⭐ ★★★★

Singing:    ⭐ ⭐★★★

Music:       ⭐⭐⭐★★

Dancing:   ⭐⭐ ★★★

Stage & Costume:  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Hereunder I shall give the spoiler-section first preceded by “First Impression”, and then followed by the categories listed here above.

First Impression

The stream started, and seeing the Kuromyu logo in present day again after three years really was very exciting. Since 2010 on as always, Kuromyu opened with the contract scene, and I was positively surprised to see the stage set being quite elaborate! This set was the largest and most elaborate one so far without TOHO’s help.

After the contract scene the prologue gave a very quick recap of the Jack the Ripper, Circus, and the Campania Arc. I am not sure whether it was necessary to show the Jack the Ripper and Circus Arc as they provide no information needed to understand Weston Arc. But I think it was mainly inserted to speak to the nostalgia in Kuromyu fans, and as a Kuromyu fan myself, I have to say it did work. It did not take much time, I think maybe 1 minute per arc, so it was fine.

The recap of the Campania Arc was important as it served to equip the audience with the information that there’s a reaper who creates zombies. Undertaker was shown as the main antagonist of the Campania Arc and responsible for the bizarre dolls.

There was a short brawl between Undertaker and Sebastian, which is in fact a very good choice in my opinion to showcase the dynamic between these two supernatural powers...............except that only 10 minutes in, and the musical already MASSIVELY screwed up by portraying the fight as though Sebastian beat Undertaker. The ONLY reason Sebas is still alive is because Undertaker decided so. Normally I wouldn’t care that much about errors in a recap, but this time it serves as the exposition of Undertaker and Sebastian’s dynamic: It should have shown that Undertaker is an incredibly dangerous foe and that Sebas is scared shitless because of that. Especially because this ties in with how this arc was concluded.

“But okay, fine. Maybe the script has other plans, so I shall let it be,” I thought. Moving on. But it did “plant a seed” in me that this musical is either going to contradict itself, or that it is going to defy canon. That was the first impression.

The prologue transitions into the setup of the case quite smoothly, and I have to say it was skillful. You very quickly see Ciel change into the Weston uniform and the admission ceremony was swiftly started. Immediately you get introduced to Agares, the prefects and their fags, and the musical does a good job defining the atmosphere as: “something is off here”.

Faithful to canon: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ ★

The overall musical was really quite faithful to canon. Most plot points were as they were in the manga, and enough so that I would recommend anybody who doesn’t understand Japanese to first re-read the arc as homework. If you have the arc fresh in your memory, it is very easy to trace every action back to the canon.

There are some details that were omitted or changed, probably done so in consideration for the stage medium or run-time, and done reasonably so. Unlike the previous Kuromyus, 2021 adds very little new elements that were not there in the manga. No added extra depth, but also no unnecessary additions.

There were a few things that were very off-canon, namely the characters. But I think that falls under the “acting” header, rather than this header.

Script:       ⭐⭐ ★ ★ ★

The script was a real disappointment. You might wonder how faithfulness to canon can be 4/5, and yet the script only a 2/5 in my opinion. WELL, most dialogue was based on the text in the manga, but told as dry as possible. It was also as though the script writers didn’t trust its audience intelligent enough to understand things on their own, or even remember something that was said literally 5 minutes ago.

Exposition Ad Nauseam

There was a tremendous amount of exposition, exposition, exposition, ad nauseam. There was exposition about who Ciel is and what the Queen’s Watchdog is and what his job entails, and that is entirely fine. That’s necessary background information for spectators unfamiliar with Black Butler. However, there was also a lot of exposition that could easily have been left out, or concluded through context. For example, there were quite many expositions about the history and status of the Weston College. In my opinion, a competent script writer could have let the audience known that the Weston College is really important just by giving the information that the blood relative of the QUEEN attends the school, and by showing the Red House, since their entrance is based on social status.

In this post I wrote about my following concern:

Unlike tennis, cricket is a very foreign sport to most people. Cricket cannot be shown without explaining the rules. So if Kuromyu were to happen, these expositions that were dry in the manga to begin with, are going to be even dryer on stage. Does an actor narrate the rules? Do we want Sebastian to sing us the rules??? Or do we want the kids to sing us the rules themselves while they are batting the balls? 

And alas, true to my fear, Sebas indeed narrates the rules to us...  But even worse, he also explains cricket by using baseball analogy... This is an incredibly ineffective and time-wasting method, because:

it takes the audience out of the moment,

it assumes the audience knows enough about baseball to let it help understand cricket,

and it assumes the audience actually cares about the name of every single strike....

Repetition Ad Nauseam

Then there is the problem where many info-dumps sounded like: “LIKE I JUST SAIDDDDD, DON’T FORGET!!!”. The script for Sebas is the biggest offender. There were many moments Sebas was just saying the same thing twice. At times he repeated the same information, and there were some moments where he regurgitated already given information. (Sorry I’m just being nasty here, but that’s what it felt like (;;≽▽≼;;) )

Sebastian has this obsession with constantly proclaiming himself an omnipotent, one hell of a butler, which makes him capable of doing anything... and after a while it just gets a bit tedious. I have the feeling the scriptwriter really has the hots for him, and therefore can’t shut up about how powerful he is.

While Sebas is the biggest offender, he is by far not the only one. This musical is guilty of doing a lot of very unnatural lines that no person would ever say. Soma for example, seems incapable of saying anything without shouting that he is the Prince of India and Ciel’s BFF. First time, FINE. But the entire time? My god....

Characterisation

Then there is the characterisation of characters in the script. Of course in great part the characterisation is dependent on the actors too, but no matter how amazing an actor is, you do as the script demands.

As discussed above, Sebas is done dirtiest by the script. This script also makes him incredibly arrogant and a bit too happy to be in his master’s service. Similarly, Ciel is also written entirely dependent on Sebastian, and equally happy that Sebas is happy to serve. In the first song between Ciel and Sebastian, without any prompt Sebastian asks his master for his orders, as though that’s what Sebas is looking forward to all day. And the first thing Ciel says in response is: “can you take on this reaper [Undertaker] and the large number of moving corpses?” to which Sebas responds: “Leave everything to me, because I am the Phantomhive butler.” ........and then he proceeds to defeat Undertaker effortlessly.........!?!?!?!?!?! When fighting Undertaker, Sebas also says: “what a bother” as though it’s just a bit of an unpleasant chore rather than a life-threatening fight.  And just before Undertaker disappeared all the way at the finale of the arc, Sebas seriously says: “I really don’t get along with you”. SERIOUSLY, WHO WROTE THIS?!

Myu!Ciel is CLEARLY the master of this Sebastian as he seems to be on a permanent power trip. He “it’s an order”s Sebastian for the most trivial of things. At the beginning when Sebas was fighting intruders already, Ciel “it’s an order”s Sebas to take down the intruders.... HE’S ALREADY AT IT!!!

In chapter 70 where Sebas and Ciel simultaneously think of Soma, Ciel doesn’t give Sebas an official order. This shows the audience that there is a certain level of trust between master and servant that they’re on the same page AND that Sebas has come to a stage where he will actually do what’s necessary.

In the musical however, Ciel gives a full “Sebastian, it’s an order, get the procedures done to get him here, to the Weston College.”

This is also an example of how unnatural and repetitive the script is. Who would EVER say “get the procedures done to get him here, to the Weston College”???? Of course procedures need to happen first! And “here” alone would have sufficed, scriptwriters. We KNOW where “here” is! We didn’t forget since 5 seconds ago!

Lyrics

The lyrics are technically not the script, but they are ridden with the same problem as the script itself, so I shall take the liberty of discussing these under the same paragraph.

There is a LOT of repetition in the lyrics as well. The P4 especially sing “Weston” and “tradition” like the ENTIRE time. One song literally goes: “this is Weston, Weston, Weston, Weston, at Weston we uphold our traditions, traditions, traditions, traditions.” The other song is: “It’s cricket, it’s cricket, it’s cricket,” and another “I am Ciel’s BFF, BFF, BFF, Ciel, lord Ciel, lord Ciel, lord Ciel’s BFF.”...... *shudders* ((ﾟﾟ((Д))ﾟﾟ)) AAAAHHHH!!!!

Acting:      ⭐ ★ ★ ★ ★

The acting was by far the most abominable in the musical safe for two gems: Chesslock and Derek. There are too many characters to discuss, so I shall keep it to the main/noteworthy ones.

The gems

Chesslock has this tremendous energy and something very wild about him, and his jumps are so incredibly precise it’s amazing! Derek has but a very small role, but the moment he showed up as the zombie you already immediately saw there was something “off” about him. It was very subtle, but still clearly unhinged. When he was acting living-Derek, you also clearly saw what type of prick he was. Amazing! These two were the brightest stars of the show.

The....... not gems

The most unwatchable ones were Soma and Harcourt. Soma doesn’t have a big role, but he bothered me so much he is ironically the most memorable one. It’s like Okada saw “loud and obnoxious (in a good way)” in the manga, turned it up to 12, and gave the worst portrayal possible. As said above, the script making him repeat “Indian prince” and “BFF” the entire time doesn’t help, but blaming just the script would be letting Okada off too easily.

Harcourt...... gave me so much secondhand embarrassment I literally got a cramp looking at him. When the diarrhea happened he was screaming like a pig about to be raped and slaughtered... and I am NOT making a rape-joke here. I would never. He really did sound like he was unwillingly aroused and terrified at the same time.

Sebastian

Let’s start with the good things: Tateishi’s Sebas did have his presence and his movements were fairly neat. He was never just standing there. He is quite elegant, and not swaggering or pulling spasms on stage unlike a CERTAIN someoneeeeee. He could work a BIT on the coordination of his extremities, but that’s only when I’m nitpicking.

But otherwise.... he was a bit underwhelming to be honest. The main problem is not necessarily Tateishi’s acting-skill maybe, but his interpretation I think... but I can’t say his acting was amazing even at knife-point. The way he acts Sebas makes him look like a complete fanboy of Ciel... which is just not Sebas. He is incredibly eager and at times I could almost see a puppy tail wagging. Whenever he is getting an order from his master he is just beaming. And with Undertaker there was not a single hint that Sebas is scared of the only foe who managed to mortally wound him.

His interaction with Ciel was also very SebaCiel heavy. In the manga where Ciel challenges Sebas why he didn’t go after Undertaker, Sebas is clearly emphasising the importance of the contract, and half-threatening his master not to dare “it’s an order” him to go after Undertaker.

In the musical however, Sebas is all UWU, as though saying: “I couldn’t let the big baddy hurt you... uwu”. Without exaggerating, Sebas caresses Ciel’s face THREE times and then embraces him.

Ciel

Ciel was very unbearable to watch in my opinion. Not as bad as Soma and Harcourt, but otherwise an “honourable” third place after them. In the manga it was a bit cringey to begin with because he is supposed to fake being (*ÓωÒ*), but seeing a 20 year old man do that... and play it up to 11 was just jarring. Ciel is like “tehe” very often, but never actively skipping like a forest fairy.

This Ciel also has tremendous mood-swings! He is either UWU or actively a ice-cold diva... and at times he is also being UWU when he’s not around others???? There was also not a single moment where I could see him cooking up a plan. No hint of intelligence or cunningness to be found.

Unlike with Tateishi I can’t really come up with anything good to say about him.

Undertaker

Undertaker was the best among the main three (not that the bar is very high). He is making efforts to tease-threaten Sebas, which I think is a very nice added detail (it’s just that Sebas reacts to none of them... sad.) and even though his role is pathetically small (he doesn’t show up as the principal), he still managed to present himself in the spotlights.

P4

Greenhill had his energy, he was funny, and something really funnily militaristic about him. Though, I was missing nuance in his acting because at not a single point could you see Greenhill might have a trauma for killing people.

Redmond was Viscount of Druitt light and he had a very strong emphasis on the BL aspect with Maurice......which was just personally not my cup of tea. But I have to admit that aspect was played up too in the manga. So I guess he was faithful to canon.

Violet was quite charming and eccentric. He did play up the gothicness of the Violet house, which was actually kinda nice! He also had a deep friendship with Chesslock, which I really liked. When Violet didn’t do shit during the tournament Chesslock was really miffed about that, and challenged him. And then Violet showed Chesslock a portrait he drew of him, saying: “you just looked so cool I had to capture that.” That was amazing! He is a bit bitchier and sassier than in the manga, but I really don’t mind. 

Bluer.... William light. He was the least memorable of all of them.

Singing:    ⭐ ⭐ ★ ★ ★

Nobody really hurt my ears, but also nobody quite hit the notes... and the notes weren’t that hard.

Music:       ⭐⭐⭐ ★ ★

Eehhhhhhhhhhhh I’d say the songwriter played most songs a BIT too much on the safe side. Not a single song was memorable, but they didn’t offend me either. The main theme was fairly nice actually, but only when just the instrumentals played. I think it might have been the singing just being too chaotic for me to actually hear the music.

Dancing:   ⭐⭐ ★ ★ ★

Chesslock is an tremendously good dancer, his movements were precise and energetic. But otherwise.... nobody really popped out, but there was nobody who looked like a noodle on stage either.

The main problem is choreography; with some exceptions they were very underwhelming and messy. There were a lot of group dances, but often enough people were just a bit out of sync and messy.

Stage & Costume:  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Stage Set

The stage set was VERY good. It was well made and mobile; they could be moved around and functioned as different props. Examples include the cellar in which Derek and his gang were committing crimes, and the boat of the parade even. The set also had this really magical aesthetic about it which communicated the glamour of the Weston College well.

Costumes

The costumes were well made. The logo on the uniforms for example were actually embroidered rather than those iron-on plastic things. The wigs were .... very messy after jumping around a bit and they looked very greasy. But that’s fine. They did their job and I realise I’m just spoiled. TOHO makes their wigs using real human hair, and that’d be an astronomical sum for any normal 2.5D company.

My ONLY problem is Ciel’s “lord costume”. This photoshoot photo underneath is doable, but trust me, on stage it is a nightmare. There are no clear photos of this costume on stage, and I think I understand why.

It was glittery velvet which just SCREAMS cheap Halloween costume, it was ill-fitted, almost like it was 2 sizes too large. The costume makers didn’t take stage-lighting into account, so the fabric and details glistened all over the place. Under the limelight the “golden” aiguillettes were PISS yellow. And the suddenly black sock suspenders protruding from his white boots were just...... distracting.

BUT, this was just one costume and he only wears it in the prologue and the finale of the show. Even though it’s God-awful, the rest were well made enough to compensate for this abomination.

Conclusion

So now finally the conclusion! The musical was..... fairly faithful to canon, but the execution leaves quite a lot to be desired. The interpretation/acting of the characters were the most disappointing one, while the stage/costumes were the most charming.

Do I recommend buying the stream/DVD/BD?

Stream: Yes.

I personally do recommend buying the stream as it’s only 3800 yen, especially if you like the Weston Arc itself, and/or are curious to see how they did it. Even though I myself really hate the Weston Arc in and of itself, I was very curious to see how it’d be translated to a stage medium. Despite my mostly negative opinion of the musical, I don’t regret buying the stream at all!

The best reason in my opinion to buy the stream though; it’s a very good and legal way to get a “preview” to see if you want to spend approximately 10000 yen on the proshot.

DVD/BD: Depends on you.

I myself have decided not to buy the DVD because I don’t think I’ll be rewatching it after the stream-archive period is over. The DVD/BD are the most expensive so far, and to me the final product is just not worth that amount of money.

But if you like the Weston Arc, or the performers, or you think you will be rewatching it and you are a collector, I think it is a very nice addition to your shelve.

[itsclydebitches]

I ask you because you’re good at articulating your thoughts but why do you like BB? I just wanna know the hype behind this ship, I’ve seen people outside the fandom either say they’re waiting for it to be canon to get into the show or they claim it’s the only good thing about it.

Hey, anon! Ah, getting a lovely compliment about articulating thoughts while I sit here struggling to articulate my thoughts lol.

Okay, I want to start by saying that I personally like Yang/Blake about as much as the majority of the ships I have. Meaning, the 95% of fictional characters I enjoy seeing as a canonical couple and/or imagining as a potential couple, excluding the 5% that I get really, really into. I've got OTPs and I've got casual ships. BB is the latter. Why is this important? Because I think BB has been under an extreme amount of pressure over the years, with that pressure only increasing as time goes on and that... kinda sucks. They represent the growing demand for explicitly queer relationships. They're tied to a webseries and a fandom rather infamous at this point for its heated, controversial content. They're a part of an era where fans are more focused than ever on canonical status, whereas back in the day you just enjoyed ships for the hell of it, regardless of their chances of getting together on screen. It used to be that people unironically adored ships for characters who had never exchanged a single greeting. Nowadays, you need a ten page essay explaining why the ship is supposedly The Best. Blake/Yang is bound up in all of that, resulting in a community that, yeah, hypes things up to an arguably unnecessary degree. We've reached a point where this couple supposedly makes or breaks the entire show; it's either the greatest ship to every grace the small screen, or it's the ruin of the entire franchise. In reality, Blake/Yang is just... a ship. Like any other ship. Some people like it. Some people don't. It should be far more casual than it is. Which isn't to say fans aren't justified in being invested in the politics of the queer relationship — I am — or even just emotionally invested in a ship they really enjoy, but rather that I think the hype is due more to these external factors than the relationship itself. Blake and Yang arguably aren't unique in what makes them an attractive couple. Are they important in terms of that representation for an American webseries? Yes. Are they exceptional in regards to these two character types being shipped by a fandom? Not by a longshot. I could give you hundreds of ships that look just like Blake and Yang.

And that for me is part of the appeal. I like many of the same sorts of things in my ships. One of those is the "opposites attract" setup, where we have the brash party girl coupled with the quieter bookworm. They balance each other in a number of significant ways, from fighting styles to their backgrounds. And, for fic purposes, that balance can also provide great conflict for them to work through, resulting in a stronger couple down the line. Going off of that, I enjoy that they're already partners at the (near) start of the show. The different definitions of "partner" is always fun, but beyond that — and despite the before mentioned shipping of characters who have never interacted — there's a tendency to pair of the duos who have already been paired up by the story. There's a sense of inevitability about it (fate, perhaps?) alongside the practical benefit of them getting a lot of screen time together. There's a reason why Blake/Yang and Ruby/Weiss got popular, with the former arguably surpassing the latter only because of its likelihood of becoming canon. We reached a point where the show is actively pushing Blake/Yang in a way they never did Ruby/Weiss — their coding is far stronger — and that creates a snowball effect: popular ships keep getting more popular the more attention they're paid; you pay the popular stuff more attention. Round and round we go. But I also enjoy their awkward flirting and tender moments, no matter how many problems might be attached to those in the story's context. I like how they tease and push one another — even if, again, the story has largely failed in that regard. They have a lot of good potential, shall we say, which is all a fan ever needs. Whether you're analyzing one of their clearly coded moments, or just running with the balanced color scheme — Yang has purple eyes with Blake wearing purple, Blake has yellow eyes with Yang wearing yellow — there's a lot in the show to connect them together, making the already easy job of shipping even easier.

Blake/Yang is a solid ship. They just also happen to be a ship bearing most of the weight of their show. I've made the comparison before, but it's not unlike Dean/Cas becoming the cornerstone of Supernatural. You reach a point where the story itself is such a mess that the most popular pairing becomes the supposed answer to all these problems: it's either the saving grace, or the reason for the show's destruction. It'll either save RWBY or function as the explanation for its downfall. Yang/Blake is heading more and more in that direction, either built up or torn down to an extreme degree as it tries to bear that weight. But honestly? I don't think it's any better or worse than those hundred other ships I could toss out. Ignoring the f/f rep, they're a pretty classic setup, a dime a dozen, and the important takeaway is that there's nothing wrong with that. There's a reason pairings like Blake/Yang got popular in the first place. Saying "I've seen it before" isn't a bad thing because fans like familiarity. But it simultaneously means they're not the best thing since sliced bread. They're neither the devil nor the angel the RWBY community has made them out to be.

So basically, my own casual enjoyment aside, I don't think the external factors propelling the love/hatred for the ship means the ship itself is actually that astounding or horrific. In a better written show, a less controversial show, setting aside those fans who have Yang/Blake as their first OTP and are pouring all that intense love into it, etc. I think the ship would still be popular... but we wouldn't be in this "it's the only good thing about the show"/"this was the show's downfall" territory. Pretty much every large fandom is going to develop that one, popular ship — just look at how fast Loki/Mobius happened — which shows that Blake/Yang is not unique in regards to getting the majority of a community's attention. It's just that other shows are solid enough to let ships be ships, without expecting any one ship to prove the show's worth. Or herald its downfall.

[octalove]

Back Then

(Batsis/Jason Todd/Dick Grayson)

Description: Reader’s little brother is having some trouble adjusting to his new life. Sad toward the end.

The sun was bashfully hiding behind some thin gray clouds, not unusual for any given afternoon. Leaning against my still-warm black Maybach 57, I tried not to grow impatient. “Maybe he joined an after school activity.” Dick mumbled through the Twix bar I’d picked up for him at the vending machine during lunch. He was sitting in the front seat, with the window rolled down, listening to Adele. I rolled my eyes, knowing full well that Jason Peter Todd would rather be skinned than join an after school activity. Still, though, Gotham Preparatory School for Boys had let out eleven minutes ago, and most of the other boys had gotten into their parent’s cars and sped away to their uptown abodes. Dick and I had come straight from Gotham Academy, punctual as usual, so as to avoid a folly of disapproving glares from dad and Alfred at dinner tonight. Where the hell was that kid?

“Maybe he ran away. Joined the circus.” Dick tried again. “Maybe I’m gonna put you in a circus.” “Back in a circus.” He corrected with a grin. Finally, at 4:15, Jason emerged from the school’s artfully carved wooden doors. His head was bowed, dark hair sticking up in all different directions, brow furrowed. He looked small in his school uniform, plaid socks and disheveled blazer. He hugged a book to his chest. A leathery hand lay on his shoulder, attached to a spindly man in his late 50’s, with receding salt and pepper hair, and golden oval glasses perched on his beak-like nose. I narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms, and upon spotting me, the man turned pale as a ghost, just as Jason looked up to reveal a purple bruise under his eye. He snapped his gaze back down. Dick quickly assessed the situation as well, and hopped out of the car, standing equal to me at a solid 5’8, but with all the toned muscle of a gymnast since walking age. We were about to play good cop bad cop- me, the polite, sophisticated elder sister who didn’t want to involve her egregiously powerful father, unless provoked by lack of cooperation, and Dick, the ill-tempered 15-year-old brother ready to raise hell if he didn’t get a good idea of what the fuck happened.

“Headmaster Ellison.” I said tersely, smoothing out my Gotham Academy uniform. I was thoroughly familiar with him from Dick’s days at the prep school- he’d called him Headmaster Hellison, and had a catalogue of grievances as long as his list of unfinished assignments.

“Ah, Miss Wayne. You look lovely today.” I had to steel my face into something vaguely agreeable, because even though it appeared he was the one afraid of me, I was 17 and in a schoolgirl skirt, and something about getting complimented by old men always skeeved me.

“What happened?” I cut right to the point, deciding small talk might soften my resolve, and I was in the mood for this to piss me off.

“Well, you see, we had a small incident today-“

“It’s okay! Can we go home?” Jason piped up abruptly and nervously, eyes pleading with me to let it go. Unfortunately, Waynes skewed toward long grudges.

“Come here, let me see.” I said more softly. Stiffly, Jason trudged across the neatly cut grass, still avoiding my eye. The bruise itself wasn’t bad, but I could tell it had just begun to bloom.

The Headmaster cleared his throat. “Jason has been encountering some problems with some of the other boys. This wouldn’t be the first incident, but it did escalate this time-“

“Not the first incident?” I clipped.

“It never got physical before, just some small verbal altercations that we easily handled.”

“Obviously they weren’t handled.” It was Dick’s turn to interrupt. It always struck me how he could make his voice go from lazily playful to stark and authoritative, biting off words almost as effectively as dad. Who needed Batman and Robin when Y/N Wayne and Dick Grayson were on the case?

“Please, can we just go? I’m okay, honest.” Jason begged, grabbing my hand and tugging just a little. His bronzed face was all swollen and puffy- not just from the fight. I could tell his eyes were rimmed with red. But he looked at me with all the determination and bravado of a street rat from Gotham, and my heart always bled for him in that regard. I sighed.

“Well, I have violin practice here shortly, Headmaster Ellison, so I’m going to take my brother home,” I bit off the brother part with a special zeal to emphasize that Jason Todd, no matter his name or background, was a Wayne, and I was his reminder. “And my father will be calling this evening to handle it once he gets off work.” Work that includes being able to liquidize this whole school right into his bank account in the time it takes to send an email.

“Get in, Jason.” I said. He did.

After a silent ride home, in which Dick tried to coax the full story out of an increasingly moody Jason, we arrived back at the manor whereupon I briefed Alfred, concerned, supportive, and called dad, exasperated, quiet. I let my little brother stew in his room until later that night, when I finally got tired of waiting him out and knocked on the door.

“Jaybird.” I cooed softly.

“…”

“Jay. If I open this door and you’re not there, I will set up the largest manhunt this city has ever witnessed.”

“I’m okay.” A quiet voice called back, sounding annoyed.

“May I come in?” I asked.

“…”

“…”

“Ok.”

I cracked the door open. He was balled up in his window nook, engrossed in a book. The room was dark, and he was reading with a flashlight, which was really unnecessary because he had about a dozen lamps, including a really cool lava lamp that Dick had gotten him. He’d changed out of his uniform and into pants and a hoodie, his hood pulled over with the strings pulled taut. He glanced down at the keys in my hand, narrowing his eyes.

“Come on.” I said.

“Where?”

“You haven’t eaten since you got home, kiddo.” His gaze fell askance. When it came to Jason, food was the way to ensure the answer was yes, whatever the question was.

“Can you bring me back something?” He grumbled quietly after a moment. I shook my head.

“I’m going to Sherman’s. Dine in only. One time offer.” I said with a smile. He frowned.

“I don’t wanna talk to Bruce.”

“Bruce isn’t coming. Just you and me. And we don’t even have to talk.” After some consideration, he pulled himself from his nook and brushed past me on his way out. I grinned to myself. Too easy.

Sherman’s Diner was the finest restaurant experience in Gotham City. The reflection of the neon lights skewed across puddles which danced with the drizzling rain. Fuchsia, cyan, lime green, red. Cracked white tiles and a sign with Sherman himself; a little plump chef man who, despite his jovial countenance and enthusiastic smile, appeared to be weeping tears of rust. Inside, the floor was unswept, the tables a bit sticky from all the no-show teenage staff of the payroll, and one of the lights above a lonely booth flickered. Jason loved it. The waitresses loved him.

“Come on in and sit down, hun, we’ll get ya some coffee!” A blonde woman called from behind the counter. One thing about Gothamites and Diners, black coffee was a 24/7 ordeal; 9pm on a school night was no exception. I let Jason pick the booth- he usually went for the same one, creature of habit that he was. We slid into the cool, torn red leather and neither of us needed to look at the menu. We sipped our coffees quietly for a while- Jason pretending to like it because it was the worldly thing to do. He’d never admit that he only started after he saw that dad and I always passed on sugar and cream.

It seemed our little evening standoff was going to bleed into the night. I took it as an opportunity to show him how patient I could be when necessary. The waitress- Darcy- set down a small slice of Oreo cake on the table. For him. Finally, he sighed, taking a bite of it.

“I hate school.” He mumbled.

“The school? Or the kids?” He didn’t answer. “What happened, Jay? Last week you loved school.”

“I like English.” He offered.

“Jason.” I said, leaning forward and folding my hands on the table. Food hadn’t worked. Patience was out the window. It was time to apply pressure. “If you don’t tell me who hit you, I, on my honor as a Wayne, am obligated to track down every snotty little boy who ever set foot in Gotham Prep and hit their snotty little faces to see how they like it.”

Jason’s lips tugged into a smile, which he fought, and eventually lost. So he hid it behind his cake. But after a minute, his smile fell. Something else crossed his face and he looked out the window.

“I hit first.” He said quietly. Solemnly. I blinked at him, surprised.

“You did?”

“Yeah. Jared Mullins. I hit him first.”

“Why?”

He sniffed, furrowing his brow to try and fool me into believing he was something tougher than a ten year old boy. Maybe he was. Tougher than the likes of whoever the hell Jared Mullins was. “He said…”

I waited.

“He said I was poor. Said I don’t belong at the school. That Bruce only took me in cause he felt sorry for me.”

“Sounds like he deserved to get hit.” I sipped my coffee. He didn’t smile again. A beat passed in its place.

“I don’t know why I hit him.”

“Because it was a stupid thing to say.” He shook his head.

“That’s not it. He was right.”

My heart fluttered in my chest. “Jason! The fuck he was. You know that’s not true.” Alfred would’ve been appalled to have me cuss in front of him, as if it wasn’t a large majority of his vocabulary since before he came to the manor.

“You don’t get it.” He said, eyes glued to the rain on the window. “You’re his daughter. His real daughter.”

“And Dick isn’t his real son?” Dick was usually the one to advise him when his legitimacy came into question, not me. Because in truth, I didn’t understand. Jason didn’t answer the question. A plate of chicken tenders and fries appeared, but they went untouched.

“Look at me please.” He did.

“It doesn’t matter that you’re not dad’s real son. And it definitely doesn’t matter that Jared whoever the hell thinks so or not. Dad took you in because of who you are, and everything you’re going to be. You belong in this family and wherever else you go, because you’re worthy of everything Gotham has to offer- and more.”

Jason’s face crumpled a little before he composed himself, blinking fast and wrestling with the emotion. He didn’t say thanks, but that was thanks enough.

“Hey. Did you see how scared Headmaster Hellison was?” I asked smugly.

A small smile. “Yeah.”

“That’s because you’re one of us. And we scare the piss out of people like him and Jared Mullins. Cause we’re a damn good family.”

Jason smiled at me. “Yeah. I guess we are.”

*

People like us

I watched- all I could do was watch. There was no way in hell I could stop him. The Jason that stood before me was 6’3 and impenetrable. Even if I thought I could get the gun from his hand, I wasn’t going to save anyone. The only thing about himself he kept when he drug himself out of the grave was his stubborn conviction. Anyone he wanted dead would wind up that way.

Scare the piss out of people like him.

The man let out a guttural, desperate noise as he tried to crawl away, pale as a ghost as Jason stood over him. He was a criminal, to be sure, but not one willing to die for his trade. Evidently, that wasn’t enough.

Cause we’re a damn good family.

“Red Hood! Stand down, now.” Batman’s voice snarled, echoing off of the concrete walls and floor. I flinched. Jason didn’t. A single shot, blood spatter, all the rest. His red monochrome helmet was on the ground, black hair all mussed and disheveled from the fight. A bruise was blooming under his eye.

His gaze flicked up, landing on me. Any trace, any remnant of my brother was gone. The man who came back was a dejected, solemn thing, who carried this dark look in his eye and looked like he could eat me whole. I tried to convey something to him with my eyes. It didn’t appear to take effect.

“You’re late to the party.” His voice rumbled in his chest, and he turned his attention to Batman.

I tried not to let my voice shake as I stepped forward.

“We’re here now.” I said.

His jaw clenched at the sound of my voice. Something grim passed his features.

“Yeah. I guess we are.”

[hold-your-applause]

My wedding anniversary was a few days ago, and I've been ruminating on the topic of domesticity and what it means to me ever since. Allow me to remove some mystery and show you how it looks to me

Earwax

It had been his day off when Daichi woke up unable to hear out of his left ear. When he lifted his head off the pillow, he felt an unfamiliar tight pressure that left his head pulsing. He told you immediately of his distress, and even the ibuprofen didn't give him any relief.

"Do you think it could be an infection?" You had asked. You couldn't think of a reason why he would have one, but it was the first thing that came to your mind.

"No, I don't think so. It just feels like something is in there. Like some kind of blockage." He said. His head was in his hands, trying not to move too much to avoid unnecessary throbbing.

That was all you needed to hear to know what was wrong. You smiled to yourself.

"I think I know what the problem is. You go lay down, I need to grab something from the store, and when I get back we can take care of it ourselves. You just hang tight until then."

Trusting you implicitly, he nodded before carefully heading back to the bedroom to do as you said, and possibly try to get a little more rest.

You weren't sure if he remembered you telling him the story of what had happened when you were younger; with eight years of marriage under your belt, you were bound to lose track of some things you said to each other. But it sounded so familiar, and it would be harmless to try, so you got properly dressed and headed to pharmacy down the street.

You weren't gone too long, and when you got back, he had just barely begun to doze off. You unloaded your supplies and started working on the special mixture, following the directions on the box. When you moved to the bedroom, you smiled as you saw him lying on his side, breathing easy despite the state he was in.

"Daichi."

No response.

He was laying on his right side, meaning that his congested ear was away from the pillow. He couldn't hear you.

"Daichi!"

He stirred, lifting his head with a wince.

"Yeah?"

You moved closer to him, gently resting your hand on his shoulder to help him move onto his back. You held up the cup you had brought with you.

"I'm back, and I need to you do what I tell you."

He eyed the cup, still a bit bleary from pain and from his short-lived nap.

"What is it?"

You smiled.

"I think you've got a bunch of wax built up in there. So I'm going to put this solution in your ear, and we're going to wait a few minutes before we put some water in there to drain it out. Sound good?"

His nose crinkled at the thought, but he was willing to take your suggestion if it meant the pain would stop, no matter how gross it was.

"Yeah, I think so. What do you need me to do?"

You rubbed his shoulder in an attempt to help him relax a bit more. "I just need you to lie the way you were a minute ago. Then I'll set a timer and come get you when it's time to get up. Just let me do the work, okay?"

He nodded tiredly, sluggishly moving back into his previous position. You had a habit of being right about most things, so he learned not to fight you when you got an idea in your head.

You were also very good at taking care of him.

You took the eyedropper you had grabbed while you were out and filled it with some of the solution. Your free hand found its way into his hair, both to stabilize yourself and to help soothe him. It seemed to work; you felt him relax. You rested your arm on his shoulder, hovering the dropper over his ear before dropping one, two, three, four, five drops straight into his ear canal.

He jumped before you could pull away, surprising you, and he let out a strange noise of discomfort.

"What's wrong?" You asked, worried you had somehow hurt him.

"I can hear it working. It sounds weird, and feels weirder."

You blinked, then chuckled with a shake of your head. "Just stay put and I'll come get you. Hopefully this will fix everything."

He grabbed your wrist before you could get away, gently pressing a kiss to your knuckles in a silent thank you before letting you slip out to prepare the rest of the treatment.

You got a towel, debating on bringing a second one for the inevitable mess this would make, but decided you could just clean up while he did a second round if he needed it. You placed it next to the sink and filled a new cup full of hot water. By the time the timer would go off, the water would be warm, and usable for the next step. You opened one last box, thinking to yourself that he might not want your help for this part, if he was willing to do it at all.

Before you knew it, the five minutes were up, and you headed back in to fetch him.

"Hey, you. How do you feel?"

He lifted his head, seeming to perk up.

"I can hear you, for one. So I'd say pretty good."

You chuckled.

"Good. Come on, one more part and then we're hopefully done."

You led him to the bathroom, noting that he didn't seem to be as miserable as when he woke up this morning. If he was able to hear, that probably meant that some of the pressure was released, and his head wasn't hurting anymore.

Once again, you had been right on the money.

He took a look at your set up before turning to you.

"What next?"

You clasped your hands together.

"We're going to use an ear syringe to put water in your ear and drain everything out."

He blanched, shoulders tensing.

"I can do it for you, or you can do it yourself. It's up to you. Which one do you think will be better?"

He slumped. Clearly, he didn't want to do it at all, but the first step had already given him some relief, so you had been right about what was wrong. He had no choice but to go through with the rest of the process.

"I can do it. You've done enough for me so far, I can handle the rest."

You smiled as he ran an appreciative hand through your hair before picking up the strange looking syringe.

"So I just put it in my ear and go? That's it?"

You nodded.

"That's it. Simple as that."

He made a face, but filled the syringe with water before turning to look in the mirror to make sure he was doing it properly. He didn't bother asking you to leave; he knew you wanted to make sure everything was alright.

He breathed out, sticking the syringe in his ear. He counted to three in his head before pushing slowly on the plunger, yelping in surprise and moving to lean over the sink as the water leaked out of his ear. He finished pushing all the water out and pulled the syringe out, and when he felt the water finish draining, he looked down and saw something in the sink.

It seemed to be working.

He turned and smiled at you.

"One more time, I think." He said, and loaded it up again. It was an odd thing to be excited about, but considering how poorly he was doing this morning, he couldn't really help himself.

You chuckled, leaning in the doorway as you watched him do it again, watching him hovering over the sink as the water dripped out of his ear, and this time he let out a triumphant shout when he could suddenly hear clearly. He grabbed the towel and wiped his ear, pulling back to look at it before gagging.

"Eugh, gross! Look at this!" He held up the light blue towel to show you the large smear of dark brown and red from the impacted wax.

"Ew, put that down! I need to wash it." You laughed.

"No, I'm not done." He grinned, using a clean corner to dry the inside of his ear. He leaned down and gave you a quick kiss.

"Thanks for coming to my rescue."

You smiled, taking the towel from him. "Always."

It's not something you notice while it's happening. It's the type of thing that slaps you in the face one day out of nowhere.

Intimacy is more than just passion; it's vulnerability on levels unspoken. To allow someone to see every side of you, no matter how unflattering it might be. It's allowing someone to see you angry, in pain, at rock bottom.

It's fear, it's doubt, it's grief.

It's disgusting.

And it's allowing someone to hold you through all of it.

It's waiting 16 hours in a hospital waiting room while he gets his appendix removed.

It's him leaving work early when cramps leave you stuck in bed.

It's cleaning the blood off his clothes when he has a nasty fall that scars his knees.

It's him teasing you when you're high on allergy medication.

It's earwax.

[t0wnspersonb]

See You Again (Tendou Satori x Reader)

Word Count: 2,354

Warnings: mentions of drugs, alcohol, yakuza, suggestive language, bad language, my shit writing

Summary: As the daughter of a yakuza boss there are certain things you must uphold to, but when a night out at the club comes around, you find yourself being saved by the son of a rival clan. After a quick chat, you find yourself completely enraptured by him, and you can’t help but want to see him again. 

~~~~

Anonymous said:

Tendou meets someone whos kinda slightly insane and is a Yakuza boss, y'know shady type stuff. Can you write something where they kind of obsess over eachother and it's like a match made in hell? Thank you so much for your time. ❤️❤️😈

~~~~

This is part 1!!! I’ve decided to make this story two parts, so stay tuned for part 2! I really enjoyed this idea of a yakuza!Tendou. I definitely tweaked it quit a bit, I hope you don’t mind too much anon! 

I’m still writing out some requests so please be patient with me! I know I haven’t posted anything new recently and I’m so sorry for that! Life has been so busy for me. 

I hope you guys enjoy this one and please let me know what you think! 😊😊😊 I hope you guys have a wonderful week!

~~~~

The atmosphere thumped around you violently. Filled to the brim with alcohol and smoke; violently shaking you with strong vibrations as you swayed back and forth to the music. 

 Sweat and cheap perfume filled the space within your nose, but that was a given. You could feel a trickle of sweat sliding down the back of your neck, matting strands of hair to your overheated skin. 

 Bodies were pressed close together, grabbing and grinding against anything that moved. 

 You could feel a hand sliding against your waist, tugging you closer to the body pressed tight behind you. The person’s lower half pressed against the curve of your ass.

 Your eyes flashed open. Your hand that was held in the air lowered, your drink sloshing out of the cup and dripping down your fingers. You could feel your face twisting in disgust as you easily jabbed your elbow into their ribs, separating the two of you.

 You glanced back at the male that was wincing in pain, glaring at you accusingly. You rolled your eyes before shoving your body through the crowd of people, making your way off the dancefloor.

 The group you had come with were still situated in a booth at the corner of the club. The seats were sticky against the bare skin of your thighs, either from spilled drinks or another substance that you would rather not think of.

 Typical club atmosphere. 

 “Wanna do a line?” one of the males asked, looking at you with glazed eyes. 

 This was another thing that was typical in this atmosphere; it was entirely predictable, and while it came with the territory, it was entirely boring.

 “No.” you said curtly, preventing your face from morphing into a look of complete disgust. 

 “Don’t you know? Daddy will get mad if he found out his little princess was doing drugs.” another voice chimed in.

 You rolled your eyes. “You forget that he would throw your ass dead in a ditch somewhere. Know your place.” You sneered.

 For a moment, the air around the booth was thick with tension, your piercing gaze could put Medusa to shame as you stared down the two males that had decided to speak to you. 

 “Calm down killer,” a large hand rested against the top of your head, ruffling your hair. You huffed, swatting the hand away in annoyance. “Honestly though guys, show a bit more respect towards our next clan head. If Boss doesn’t throw your ass dead in a ditch, you know that she will.”

 “Forgive us Little Lady.” they bowed their heads towards you. 

 You snorted, waving them off as your eyes glanced around the room.

 The tension lifted easily, everyone getting back to their side conversations that they were doing beforehand.

 Leave it to one of your father’s direct underlings to stick up for you. 

 But it was entirely appreciated, although you would never say those words aloud. To survive in this world, you had to command respect from those around you, it was one of the many lessons you were taught growing up.

 Being the head’s daughter came with its own set of rules, and the fact that you were going to inherit it all, well, you had to be cautious about certain things.

 Which is why one of your father’s direct underlings went with you and other clan members to the club tonight. For the most part, the clan was completely fine with you taking over after your father retired, there were others that were a bit skeptical, you would be the first female head. The slight doubts and the teasing forced your hand to be, well, a bitch. 

 You were fine with that though. 

 “What the fuck are they doing here?” 

 You frowned at the statement, your eyes flickering across the room to see why everyone at the table was now on edge. 

 Nothing seemed out of place…

 Oh. 

 Your eyes zeroed in at the entrance, the sea of bodies parting to make room for the group that was walking towards an empty booth.

 “This is neutral territory. They have every right to be here as we do. Don’t start any unnecessary shit.” Your father’s direct said firmly. 

 “I don’t give a fuck, they know we go to this club all the time, why the fuck… Little Lady is here too!”

 “It’s fine.” you said curtly, looking at your group. “It’s neutral territory, we all know the rules. They aren’t going to start a fight unless we provoke them. So, mind your business. Is that clear?”

 Despite the angry and suspicious looks from your group they all agreed in understanding. But despite your words, you were definitely concerned, you didn’t want any problems to come up. 

 It would be fine right?

 “I’m going to get another drink.” You muttered, sliding out of the sticky booth, your fingers adjusting your dress accordingly. 

 “I’ll go with yo-” 

 You held your hand up. “No need, I’ll be fine.” 

 You were already walking off towards the bar, ignoring the pointed and concerned looks from the table. 

 Tonight definitely wasn’t what you had planned. You figured that you would get drunk and dance, maybe find someone to hook up with, definitely wasn’t planning on having a rival clan show up.

 Fuck, you just wanted to go home now. 

 Your fingers tapped against the bar counter as you waited for your drink to be made, body swaying with the beat of the music.

 “You all alone sweetheart?” you could feel a hand wrap around your waist.

 You could feel your nostrils flaring in anger, tonight definitely was not your night. You glanced over to see a tall man staring down at you with a wide smirk, clearly drunk.

 If it was any other night you might’ve considered flirting with him, he wasn’t bad on the eyes, definitely not your type though. 

 “I’m with my group of friends.” You said curtly, wiggling your way out of his grip. “I’m just getting a drink.”

 “But you’re all by yourself… Did your friends ditch you? Wanna come hang out with me and my friends?” He grabbed at your wrist, yanking you into his body easily.

 You ignored the panic that started to bubble up in your chest. Your eyes flickered over to your booth only to find out that you were completely blocked from the booth’s view, meaning that your group couldn’t see you at all.

 “No thanks.” you snapped, attempting to yank yourself free from the male. His grip on your wrist tightened dramatically, causing you to wince in pain.

 “Come on sugar, don’t be like that. Let’s go have some fun yeah?” he peered down at you; face incredibly close to your own.

 Fuck. 

 This was so fucked. 

 He was way too big for you to handle yourself. 

 How were you going to - “I don’t think she wants to go anywhere with you buddy.” long fingers wrapped in white tape were suddenly placed on the male’s shoulder, easily pushing him to the side, exposing your savior to your wide, panicked eyes.

 Red, calculating eyes peered down at you, flickering across your face before sliding over to the male that was still gripping your wrist tightly.

 “You know you’re hurting her right? I think you should let go.” His large hand tightened on your assailant’s shoulder, causing the male to wince and release his grip on you immediately.

 “Who the fuck are yo-” You could visibly see the male gulp in fear, fully taking in the tall redheaded male.

 Tendou Satori.

 Of all the people to come to your rescue, it had to be him, didn’t it?

 Just your fucking luck.

 Tendou tilted his head to the side slightly, his gaze never wavering from his face. His tall stature stooped down lower until he was eye level with the fear-stricken man.

 If you thought that disgusting man was too big, you were clearly wrong. Tendou overpowered him completely.

 “F-Forgive me, Tendou-sama! I-I didn’t know she was your woman!” The man wailed.

 Your eyebrows raised up at his statement, his woman? Like hell.

 “Oh I don’t even know who she is.” Tendou said, his index finger tapping against his chin as he pondered aloud. “But you were clearly making her uncomfortable. Men like you… piss me off. So,” he grabbed the man’s shoulder once more, his eyes turning into slits, a sardonic smile covering his lips. “You should leave.”

 The man yelped, apologizing profusely before running out of the club.

 You blinked after him in confusion before sighing loudly, your body drooping as your heart rate began to thump at a normal level now.

 You grabbed your drink that was on the bar counter, chugging it down.

 What a fucking night. What a fucking joke.

 “Are you okay?” Tendou asked suddenly, now by your side.

 You jumped at his voice, thinking that he had already left. Your eyes slide over to him, he was watching you closely, a curious look coating his face.

 “I’m fine.” you said, tone short. “You can leave now.”

 You could see his lips twitch into an amused smile at your dismissal, his body shifting just a tad bit closer to you.

 “You might be able to order your clan members around doll, but last I checked I’m not part of your clan.” he chuckled deeply.

 You ignored the deep twist in your gut at the sound. 

 “I thought you didn’t even know who I was.” you mocked, body turning to face him completely.

 You’d be lying if you said you didn’t find Tendou incredibly attractive; because he was. You knew exactly who you were dealing with. The next head in your rival clan. The same as you. 

 This might’ve been the longest conversation that you’ve ever held with him though. Of course you knew of him, there were many times where he and his father had come to your estate to negotiate with your father. You also knew of him based on the various stories you’ve heard from your own clan and others.

 He was just as dangerous as he was handsome.

 A terrible mix.

 “I lied.” he said easily, red eyes shining in amusement. “I know exactly who you are Little Lady.”

 “So then you know that I’m not alone right?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

 He shrugged, waving down the bartender and ordering a drink. He leaned against the bar counter easily, almost looking completely out of place in this shitshow of a club. Your eyes scanned down his figure, taking notice of his attire. 

 He definitely looked out of place here. The dark suit clung to his lean muscles, his tie loosened, and the first couple of buttons on his white dress shirt were undone, as if he had just finished a long day at the office.

 If his reputation wasn’t well known that’s probably what people would have thought until they got a closer look at him.

 His clan ring gleamed from the lights of the club, standing out amongst his other taped fingers. 

 “Like what you see?” he teased, looking over at you.

 You scoffed. “Don’t flatter yourself. Did you just come back from a meeting?” you asked, taking a sip of your new drink.

 “Wouldn’t you like to know.” he said, an eyebrow quirking up. 

 You huffed in annoyance; he had a point though. You wouldn’t want someone from an outside clan knowing your business.

 “So if you’re with your people, why didn’t they save you from that guy?” he asked curiously.

 “I could’ve handled it myself.” You said immediately. “I’m not some helpless little girl.”

 You knew how to handle yourself that much was true, but you knew that there was an obvious difference. Even though you could handle weapons, and had combat training, per orders from your father; you were still a girl. You could still be easily overpowered by males much larger than you. You weren’t stupid, you knew how to pick your battles.

 “Aren’t you though?” Tendou’s eyes slid down your figure, drinking you in completely, shamelessly.

 You could feel your thighs clenching together unconsciously. His gaze burned your body, made you incredibly hot, but also made you feel incredibly exposed.

 Maybe you didn’t know how to pick your battles.

 “I’m not.” You argued, mentally swearing at yourself. You did sound like a child, a stupid little girl in the eyes of your rival.

 “You would be with me.” he answered simply, eyes darkening dramatically. His body turned towards you now, his long fingers grabbing at a strand of your hair, rubbing the strands between taped fingertips. 

 His eyes bore into yours, as his fingers moved from your hair to run carefully against your neck and jaw, carefully cupping your chin between his thumb and forefinger.

 Your breath hitched, your body breaking out in a cold sweat as you stared back at him; prey caught between the hands of a predator.

 “What do you say? Want to test my theory little girl?” he murmured, eyes flickering down towards your lips as they parted.

 Your mind went blank.

 What the fuck was this?

 This sudden desire for the tall red headed male? 

 There was never a moment in your life where you felt weak, until now. You had never felt small in your entire life, even when you were a little girl. Your father had raised you to be strong, raised you to be the tallest person in a room full of males.

 So then why… Why was Tendou able to reduce you in such a way? 

 He made you want to cling to him, he made you desperate for him, and that was obvious in the way that heat pooled in your lower stomach, obvious in the way that your thighs clenched together tightly.

 His eyes flickered behind you, his grip on your chin releasing as he stepped back, grabbing his drink off the bar.

 “Maybe some other time. I’ll see you around little one.” he said, his face entirely amused as he walked off.

 What -

 “Little Lady! Are you okay!?” 

 Oh.

 This definitely wasn’t your night. 

 But now… you definitely hoped to see him around again. 

[annalyticall]

Anime Newbie in her Twenties Ranks her First 10 Anime

With the recommendations of my sister @ging-ler​ and friends, I started watching anime just over a year ago and within that time I’ve watched a total of 10 - some clocking in at almost 200 episodes and some with only 12. I told myself a while ago that once I had finished 10 anime shows I would rank them like some Anime Newbie WatchMojo list, so, here we are. Really this is just an excuse to force more of my unwarranted opinions onto unwilling followers.

I should also preface this by saying I don’t think any of the anime I watched this year was bad, and I enjoyed a lot about every show even if I ranked some low. However, the top three anime on my list are the ones I would recommend to anyone following me even if they don’t watch anime.

10. Death Note

Despite absolutely loathing the “protagonist” since episode one, I really enjoyed the first half of Death Note! The story was intriguing with all of its wild twist and turns and I found myself immediately invested in what was going to happen next. Unfortunately, after the death of who I thought was by far the best character, the show seems to go off the rails as it introduces new characters and contrived plot devices in the second half that were frankly hard for me to care about at that point. The ending was satisfying but I forced myself to sit through a lot of painful meandering to get there.

9. Cowboy Bebop

Cowboy Bebop was the first anime I watched as suggested to me by @mcsherrybr​. The smooth and jazzy art, atmosphere, animation, action, and music were all a lot of fun, as were the lovable ragtag group of misfits that made up the main cast. I enjoyed myself a lot while watching this western/sci-fi melding pot of a show, and I only ranked it so low because the last few episodes were a huge disappointment to my found-family-trope-loving heart.

8. Violet Evergarden

Violet Evergarden, following the story of a child soldier learning to love, is absolutely beautiful to look at and listen to. The music in this anime is, for me, THE best music from any show on this list. This is also the only anime that made me sob several times while watching it. The collection of short episodic stories that explore the deep facets of human love and connection are incredibly resonant and will stay with me for a long time. However, the strength of the small story arcs made the rushed overarching war story and finale weaker in comparison. Similarly, the memorable characters introduced in the one-off side plots were more interesting to me than the cast of rather bland reoccurring supporting characters. While I will remember a lot of great individual moments, I can’t seem to remember a single character’s name besides Violet’s, but that might also be due to being one of the shorter entries at only 12 episodes.

7. Hunter x Hunter (2011)

Going from one of the shortest anime on this list to the longest, Hunter x Hunter was an great and engrossing story during the entirety of its 160+ episodes. It’s colorful and playful, but can also be very dark and at times even heart-wrenching. Because it contains so many distinct arcs, there is a wide variety characters and stories to get attached to, and some, like the Chimera Ant Arc, I even cried over. But this also left me with issues regarding the pacing. The show has great action and introspective moments but will often drag with long drawn-out pauses between fights to explain simple concepts (though I understand that’s a common trope in old shonen anime in general). The world-building is rich but also caught me off guard with some strange ideas, and admittedly not all of them I liked. Some eccentric characters and concepts rubbed me the wrong way and ended up hindering my enjoyment of the show. Overall though, it was a lot of fun and I left with a few more endearing favorite characters, like Leorio and Killua.

6. Erased

Also a 12 episode anime, Erased was amazingly impactful for how short it was. Even as I followed the unfolding murder mystery, I was also touched by the meaningful themes and kind-hearted characters I met along the way. The already-strong story is accentuated with great symbolism, art, and music. The only problem I had was with the mystery itself; I was able to tell who the true killer was within the first 4 episodes, which didn’t lend itself well to suspense and I spent the remaining episodes frustrated that the main characters couldn’t see some obvious clues.This is a minor problem, though, since the finale has less to do with mystery and more about the morals and resolution of themes that I felt was satisfying.

5. Demon Slayer

Demon Slayer is gorgeous. The stunning art style, fluid animation, and breath-taking music are all valid reasons to watch it, but the main character Tanjiro and his unwavering devotion to find a cure for his sister-turned-demon Nezuko are the reasons to stay. Tanjiro is unbelievably gentle as he shows even the evil demons he has to slay a hard-fought kindness, and it’s those tender moments between all of the amazing action sequences that really elevate this show for me. The issues I have lie with the rest of the cast. While I love some supporting characters, like the pig-headed Inosuke and the stoic Giyuu, others have very niche personalities that can get annoying if they’re on screen for too long, which they definitely tend to be. Still, the bond between Tanjiro and Nezuko is so strong that it gets me through even those dragging scenes.

And it’s written by a woman!

4. My Hero Academia

Hey so this might come as a shock for anyone who’s followed me for a while: My Hero Academia is not my favorite anime! I do love it a lot - it’s the only anime on this list that has inspired me to read the manga, write fic, and buy merch. There are so many lovable characters and exciting arcs in this show that there is bound to be something for everyone to enjoy, both inside and outside of canon. It’s a wonderfully paced and animated deconstruction of the superhero genre and besides its deeper themes and commentary, there’s also just a lot of endearing teenage goofin’ to be had, and the show balances the tone of these two almost-equally engaging aspects of the story fairly well.

The downside, for me, is the show’s sexualization of female characters, especially the teenagers. With the likes of pervy fellow classmate Mineta, it’s a flaw that’s hard to avoid and takes up an unfortunate amount of screen time. There are in-universe characters that protest against this behavior, and the female characters are still well-written for the most part, but that doesn’t make up for the canon material including it at all. It’s not a huge part of the show but it’s present enough that it really knocks the ranking down for me.

3. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Out of my top 5, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is the only one that is complete. Because of that, I can tentatively say that so far, it is the best completed story on this list. From beginning to end, the pacing was perfect - the action never dragged, the characters were never unnecessary, and the plot twists were never unearned. I found myself more invested than I thought I would ever be for the large cast of characters, and everything, including its ending, was satisfying to watch. The animation is fluid and lent itself well to the most impactful scenes, especially involving the flame alchemist Roy Mustang. It’s also written by a woman! Really, the only nitpicks I have were with tonal problems - serious moments would sometimes be ruined by too much slapstick or visual gags.

As I mentioned before, my Top 3 are shows I would recommend to anyone who’s unfamiliar with anime simply because they’re good solid stories with almost no distracting anime tropes. This is a good place to start.

2. The Promised Neverland

The Promised Neverland is deceiving; on the surface it looks like a sweet show about a bunch of adorable kids playing together in the spacious green backyard of their quaint orphanage. Once you finish the first episode, however, you will quickly discover that there is definitely something more sinister lurking under the surface. This show is an expertly executed dark horror/thriller that always had me on the edge of my seat. The cute aesthetic never distracts from the suspense, in fact, it adds to the discomfort when the horrific visuals and expressions are contrasted against the character designs. I loved all of the characters, including the antagonist, who manages to be just as sympathetic as she is menacing. The sound design and music are also beautiful and adds so much to the rich atmosphere. I am definitely excited to see where this series will go!

1. Mob Psycho 100

ONE, the creator of Mob Psycho 100, said the single word he used for the concept for the series was “kindness”. Kindness shines through so much of this story following the life of Mob, a super-psychic kid that just wants to fit in, and I adore every second of it. While many shonen anime stories force the child protagonist to get stronger, become more powerful, and fight in battles against hostile adults, Mob Psycho 100 says “that’s stupid. Kids shouldn’t have to be traumatized by immature power-hungry adults. The only strength that anyone should pursue is strength of character, motivated by self-love and love for others.” And it says it with the most beautiful animation I have EVER seen in a show. The simplistic character designs mean the animators can have as much creative freedom as they like with expressions and movement, and they absolutely use that freedom. Humor is a large part of this mostly-comedy anime, but it makes the serious and introspective scenes so much more important when they do happen. The shifts between these two tones never feel awkward or imbalanced.

Mob Psycho 100 has inspired me to become more experimental and joy-seeking with my art, as well as just become a better person in my own life, which I can’t say for many other anime or many other pieces of media period. Even though a Season 3 hasn’t been officially announced yet, I can still safely say Mob Psycho 100 will forever hold a special place in my heart.

[talesofealdancynedom]

Concept of the Dragon King, in human form.

Tale 21: What The Wagon Was For (chapter 7 - Perfect Pie 7/8 ) part 6. Stories of wizards

           To be enchanted. Containing magic, and thus it’s laws and limits; But also, its abilities. Blessing, veiling a curse. This is what it means to be an enfeyed Warg. making a pact with a fey, so its essence lives within a mage. Being a Warg was rare but not associated with magery. Everything was enchanted after all. As mages discovered how to integrate into wizard culture, they appear talented instead of dangerous. Like a fey passing as a human, a mage may pass as an ordinary wizard, forgetting what they truly are. Whether it be a rare naiad professor, or even a lady enfeyed with the lost Stag Queen, becoming a head paladin. Magic can be simply about perspective. In the Day Veil, the Shadow Veil, separated by the existence of the Beast Kings, touches everything. Enchantment, is invisible.

           The problem with infinity, is eventually. No matter the secret, things will come to light, or change. After a series of adventures far from home, Morgan and Emilia were found. The government of the Grand West took in Morgan, and realized immediately he was a mage. Worse yet, He may be traumatized to the point of walking a wire, between inflicting pain on others, or being used as a tool. Morgan was now a conspiracy, in need of sweeping under the rug. Thus, while he waited for a new home, Morgan ended up being passed from master to master like a game of magic hot potato. The counsel of wizards, desperately tried to mold Morgan into something that resembled a wizard. Unlike Morgan’s parents, they knew keeping magic from him was futile. It wasn’t just that he was attracted to it, but now it was attracted to him. The best they could do, was send Morgan to a reform magic academy, to save him before emotions corrupted him.

           To go along with a recovery plan, Emilia was removed from the situation. Morgan was placed in a dorm at the school, and then given a variety of powerful teachers to stop him from studying magery; And growing in power. Which implied Morgan had a goal of achieving power, and not just wanting to avoid his problems. Magic just happened to be his vice. Like Teflon, each master couldn’t stick around long. Lead Paladin Estella, calm, strong and respected, was first. She was to watch his every move, and guide him towards wizardry. Instead, Estella ended up watching him free the Dragon Queen from a wizard bank, and make fey friends. Emilia kept cropping up, to help out. The will to quest was so strong, not even Estella could stop him. So, Estella’s employers sent her to capture a missing suspect, Ceberus Monafyra, hoping Morgan would become a casualty in the crossfire. But they were soon disappointed.

As Estella tried to catch Cerberus and protect Morgan, he had his eyes on the prize; He was near the Dragon Gate, in Grand Snow. He remembered it was open from the year prior, when he had visited the Shadow Veil. Now, understanding that the kingdom stones made him King Mage, and thus a sibling and friend to all magic, Morgan wanted the last stone. He assumed some ritualistically slain goat, brought through the open gate, to the mouth of the largest dragon in existence, would make them friends. While Estella and Cerberus threw spells at each other, Morgan was once again blissfully lost in adventure. The world disappeared when his id called him to adventure. Estella was helpless to watch Morgan walk into the Shadow Veil, with Cerberus behind him. Cerberus, a mage unaccustomed to the veil, fled; But Morgan presented a dead goat to the Dragon King.

“Sorry I was gone so long, Dragon King.” Morgan said, holding the goat up to the massive muzzle of the Dragon King.

“You came to me with tales, then returned my wife, brother. I will accept your gift, but I promise it is unnecessary. It is but a small token, compared to your other deeds. Not to mention, you seem calmer; Found a true love perhaps? Stone Queen Io would be thrilled to hear such news.” The Dragon King teased, taking the goat. Morgan didn’t say anything.

“You called me brother; Does that mean I had the stone the entire time?”

“Yes. You told me a tale, of the life of men; Can you share another from today? I would love to hear as many tales of humanity as I can.” The Dragon King responded, taking human form.

“Well to start, I’m upset I killed that goat. Also, I have a heartman mage fighting my magic knight; He is charged with fratricide, and inciting a dragon in Fountain. mages keep being scape goats; I wish I could change that.”

“Fountain? Oh no; One of my daughters did that. Also, if you mean Cerberus, he opened the Dragon Gate, causing spring to return to Grand Snow. He trained the new Mage of The Dragon Gate! He fell in after you just now; We will keep him here ‘for safe keeping’. You need not be in danger, my friend. Now tell me more.” The Dragon King said, taking a seat atop his mountain.

At Pepperidge Academy, Morgan met his next master: Woodwick. Whom Morgan immediately recognized as a Fountain Nymph. The school didn’t believe him, at first. Emilia was sent back to try and reunite her with her own family, in the meantime. Thus, making Morgan feel empty again. After only a month, Morgan was once again opted to distracted himself from his loneliness, and wandered to Tiberius Gate; The black tower in the center of a large stone walled forest, containing a dormant magic landscape. Morgan liked the Idea of a magic forest. He found instructions to open the gate, causing him to go missing, and forcing Estella and Woodwick to come look for him. Estella never returned, as she was enfeyed with the lost Stag Queen. Then, Woodwick was fired; Ten years of employment, didn’t negate the fact he was a fairy.

So, now Morgan was the King Mage of Tiberius Gate, going to magic school, soon reunited with Emilia, but with no home or therapy. Magic had never felt so good, nor treated so well. His third Master was a prodigy seer named Hara Fyrstan. Lucky for Morgan, his new master was also a fey loving mage, and thus did not disappear, but actually helped Morgan become a top student. It was almost the happily ever after Morgan yearned for.

There comes a moment, when laying in bed, after being suddenly woken by terror, that materialized from nothing. Though sleep is deep, anxiety diminishes it’s benefits. The sudden burst of energy, in an otherwise quiet environment, allows existential reflection though a lens of catastrophe. Magic was no longer enough to comfort or enchant. Peace, the opposite of conflict, can create its foe; For something cannot exist, without an opposite. Years of trauma had started to sink in, and sharpen, in the middle of the night. Something about realizing the pain is still there. Wishing to speak up, but fearing the response of new friends. Consumed by the whiles and whims of magic, and subconsciously reliant on a single person for every emotional need, was enabling. In silence, and darkness, one awakes in absolute loneliness.

Feeling inescapably separate from the world, and the security of family, the sweet serenity, from a dreamlike ether, that bathes the world each day, is appealing. It cleared the fog, making a disturbing scene forefront in the mind. No chance left of sleep, wandering to a desk, in front of a perfect new journal, with pen in hand. The leather unworn, and parchment smelling warm and woody. Unsatisfied with the world, taking out ink, desiring to bleed the depths of the mind onto paper, but too mortified with such monsters, to write their names. Morgan was reduced to tears.

“Morgan? Are you ok? You seemed to be doing so much better,” Emilia said. “But suddenly you keep waking up; I’m worried.” She whispered. Morgan had woken her too. Emilia got out of the purple soft sheets; Still warm, upon the bed, in the center of the room, inside the tower. Just the two of them. Emilia softly walked forward, and went for a hug; For the first time, Morgan flinched at her touch. Emilia felt cold; like his emotions were radiating into her. She could never unknown his struggles, of which he entrusted with her alone.

“Emilia, I miss my mom and dad; And I hate it.” Morgan cried.

“I never asked, because I don’t miss my own family; But what was your family like?”

“I have an aunt, uncle, and cousin. No more grandparents, but my mom and dad really love me. They hurt me, but only because they care. I want to hate them, because I now know they abused me. But I just can’t.” He sobbed.

“If you have an aunt and uncle, why didn’t they just adopt you? Their next of kin, and can keep the family together.” Emilia said. That might have been a bit insensitive. Morgan stopped crying, and stared into the tear-soaked journal. He had need of Emilia’s hair dryer. Two teens in a tower, going to magic school. Where were the adults? Morgan needed an adult. Her question solidified his torment. Morgan wanted to be hugged. He had no answer to her question. He knew so many things now, but had no clue how to recover or where his uncle Cetus was.

NEXT--->

<---PREVIOUS

[whitecatindisguise]

Let Me Make You Proud 1

I hereby give you my new/old fanfiction. It's been stuck on my drive for months already, waiting to be finished. It's not done yet, but I figured maybe actually posting it will give me the boost needed to finally finish it.

Be ready for angst and, ofc, LOTS of Varian.

So, without further ado...

-----

Chapter 1: Maybe I Make Things A Mess

“Thank you, have a nice day!” The bell over the door to the apothecary jingled, as they opened and closed, letting the client out of the shop.

He was carrying a lot of bags, packages, bottles and vials full of strange-coloured materials. He turned around and almost fell, his shoppings swaying dangerously in his arms. He stumbled, trying to both stop his fall and not let any of the things he carried leave his arms. There was a chitter, and a racoon quickly climbed up his body and stabilized the tower of ingredients. Varian let out the sigh of relief.

“Thanks, Ruddiger. You’re a lifesaver” He smiled at his friend. He tried to pet it, but the packages swayed dangerously again, and they barely managed to save all of them again. “Phew, I don’t want to think what would happen if any of those fell. Some are really unstable and need to be handled with utmost caution.”

The racoon chittered and nodded its head in agreement. He positioned himself on the boy’s shoulders, ready to stabilize the tower, if needed. 

“I can’t wait until we’re back home. I have so many ideas I can use them for.” Varian babbled as he continued down the road. “I could finally finish that recipe I am working on, the one used for laundry. Or create more of my goo-bombs, never know when I’ll be needing those. Or-”

He stopped abruptly, as he fell into someone in front of him. The ingredients swayed dangerously again. Varian and Ruddiger rushed to make stop them from falling. They both released a sigh of relief when they were stabilized again. 

“I- I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.” Varian apologized to whoever he fell into. “I actually don’t see much, with all that stuff and everything.” He chuckled nervously. 

“Don’t worry about that.” The voice that answered sent a chill down the alchemist’s spine. It was familiar, and not in a good way. He gulped and took a few steps back.

“O-Okay, then. If nothing happened then I’ll be on my way. I have lots of work, my dad’s waiting for me to come back, and-” He babbled, continuing to move away. Suddenly, his back hit something and two strong hands grabbed him by the shoulders.

“Oh, you should stay, Varian. It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other.” The items he was holding lifted from his hands and levitated away, uncovering a man standing in front of him.

He had dark-tanned skin, black hair and black beard. He stood confidently, his arms crossed on his chest and a sword hanging by his side. 

“A-Andrew. Long time, no-” The alchemist tried to play it cool, but stopped abruptly when faced with a tip of the sword just barely inches from his nose. 

“Long time, in deed ” Andrew agreed, smirking at the younger boy. “How long was it? Five months?”

“It was actually six months, three weeks and five days, but who’s counting.” Varian chuckled nervously and tried to move away, only to be stopped by the strong hands keeping him in place. “We-Weren’t you supposed to be in jail?” 

“Yes, but thanks to you, we’re free as birds.” Andrew took back his sword and brushed it with his finger. 

“Thanks to me? I don’t remember-” Varian protested but Andrew shushed him quickly. He reached to his pocket and produced a vial with very familiar green-luminescent liquid. 

“Your fast-melting acid sure comes in handy in situations like this. Especially, as a clue to the guards searching the cell.” The Saporian explained with an evil smile.

Varian felt his blood draining from his face. If the guards find HIS potion in the empty cell with a melted lock and the prisoners gone…

“W-Well, it COULD have worked, if you didn’t tell me about it ” He said, trying to sound tough but his voice cracking somewhere in the middle. “Now all I need is to tell Rapunzel and-”

“Oh, but who said you can tell anyone?” Andrew cut him in again and came closer. “After you helped us escape, you couldn’t have stayed behind, right? This would be unwise. You could be caught, or worse…”

The pressure on Varian’s shoulders strengthened and he swallowed nervously. 

“Rapunzel will never fall for it!” He exclaimed confidently. 

“Oh, yes. Princess Rapunzel. The protector of weak and unrightfully accused citizens of Corona.” Andrew laughed, followed by three other voices. “Too bad she’s more focused on other problems. Like a traitor friend.”

“Cass is not a traitor!” Varian shouted in anger. 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say.” The Saporian shrugged his arms and turned around.” Well, enough chit-chat, we need to move. Kai, grab him. Clemetine, get his things. We don’t want to leave any UNNECESSARY evidence.” He ordered. 

Varian tried to fight, but the large Saporian was much stronger than he was. With no problem he grabbed the alchemist and threw him over his shoulder. 

“Hel-!” He tried calling out, but a sword to his throat proved to be enough to stop him. 

“One sound, and I won’t be so nice.” Andrew threatened. “We need you alive, but we can skip the undamaged part.” 

They moved fast through the back streets, emerging at the empty square somewhere in the outskirts of the town. In the middle, ready to go, stood a hot-air balloon with one more Saporian inside it. 

“Took you long enough!” The Saporian woman scoffed, eyeing Varian. 

“Relax, we’re just in time for-” Andrew started but an angry shout from behind cut him in.

“There they are! Don’t let them escape!” Captain of the Royal Guard cried, pointing his sword at the group. 

“Get in!” The leader ordered and took out one more potion from his pocket, this time a pink one. “Varian says hi!” He laughed as he threw the potion at the incoming guards. 

There was a large cloud of pink smoke, and the guards were glued to the ground with a large dose of pink goo. Andrew laughed and caught the rope from the balloon, which was already several feet in the air. 

Varian looked with a growing fear as the guards on the ground became smaller and smaller with each passing second. He didn’t have time to think about it too much, though, as he was forcefully grabbed and thrown to the floor of the balloon. Ruddiger scrambled to his side and he hugged him defensively. 

“Wh-What do you want from me?” He asked, his voice trembling in fear.

“Oh, you’ll learn soon enough...” Andrew replied, playing with the blade of his sword.

He crouched in front of the terrified boy and leaned in so close, Varian felt his back pushing the wall of the basket outside. The Saporian smirked and smacked the boy’s cheek in a playful manner.

“Don’t open your eyes so much or they’ll fall out, kid.” He laughed and the others quickly joined in. 

“My-My dad will notice I’m missing.” The alchemist tried again, his stuttering making him sound like a scared five-year-old. “I was supposed to be back home soon."

“I am sure the Royal Guards will be more than happy to enlighten him how his son helped one of the most dangerous criminals escape from the dungeons.” Andrew smirked as he stood up and walked to the other side of the basket. “What do you think will be his reaction?”

Varian opened his mouth but no words came out. He looked down and hugged Ruddiger, still sitting on his laps. He imagined his father’s face, painted with sadness. It was a face he’d seen so many times already, everytime one of his inventions blew up or didn’t act like he designed it to. Disappointed.

He felt Ruddiger reaching out its paw and touching his cheek. He felt his eyes watering but managed to stop it. He didn’t want to cry, not in front of these people. But it didn’t stop him from feeling he’d failed his father once more. 

'It would have probably been better if I wasn’t born', he thought with a heavy heart, as the balloon moved further and further away from the capital of Corona.

-----

And that concludes the first chapter. We're in for a long ride, full of angst. Hope you have seatbelts fastened.

I will try to update once a week, since it will give me more time to actually finish the story. Once I've written everything, the updates might be more frequent.

[cateringisalie]

9 years later and we have at last got a new Eva film and the end of the Rebuild project.

Much was made at the start of Rebuild of the desire to introduce Eva to a new audience. 1.0 more or less leant into its original goal and restaged episodes 1 to 6 of the TV series with a bigger budget, CGI, some more blunt and early reveals and a few weird alterations for the existing fan base. The Angel numbering was off; everyone knows Lilith is stuck in the basement, Seele just default to their monoliths. Kaworu is actively introduced at the tail-end rather than alluded to in the opening titles. As an intro, its fine (though most would agree the equivalent stage of the TV series isn’t really a struggle to cope with either), though a few stylistic and environmental changes lead many to conclude this was a direct sequel to End of Evangelion. 2.0 seemed content to build off of the intro but steer away from the relevant section of episodes – roughly 8 to 17. Recognisable moments like the falling Angel, the corrupted Unit 03 and the ribbon angel and Unit 01’s impossible reactivation share the screen with altered relationship dynamics. Now we get Mari one of the few wholly new characters who gets to open the second film in a wildly dramatic fashion. The key of Nebuchadnezzar (which does at least re-enter proceedings in the final film, but I am even shakier on what it is or used for – even fandom seem to have struggle to explain this as anything other than a blunt drop-in replacement for the Adam embryo in the TV series). And come the end its time for Third Impact already, Shinji altering the world around him to rescue Rei from the depths of an Angel. Kaworu uses an unfamiliar spear to incapacitate Shinji and the preview hints at a story further from the rails than ever. 3.0 is as promised more or less completely divorced from anything Eva had done before. Just not the off-the rails version 2.0 advertised. Some will be quick to note that none of the Rebuild previews have entirely accurately advertised their subsequent instalment; 1.0’s features at least one key scene that never happened (Mistao slapping Ristuko in a seeming allusion to the Sea of Dirac Angel) while even the sequences of animation that did make it look nothing alike. Which is fair, but even then 2.0’s bears absolutely no resemblance to 3.0 and even 3.0’s very strange preview doesn’t really jibe with 3.0+1.0 ultimately. 3.0 is post-post-apocalypse and with a whole 14 years just evaporated between films. There’s a distinct last third of Nadia feel to it. About the only part similar to a former incarnation is Kaworu and Shinji’s relationship which while not even roughly mapping to episode 24 serves the same function; to make Shinji distraught before the climax of this story. But 3.0 is also the point where that initial premise of the series slams headlong into the drift from familiar territory. Where the film is a quantum leap away from the mystery terms and slow reveals. The oddities and confusions pile up given the glimpsed state of the world, the strange gridded moon, the sea of Eva corpses, the strange state of Lilith in the depths of Nerv. An awful lot happened while Shinji was (for reasons no one has explained or seems to care about except me) IN SPACE and the film only ever alludes to the sequence of events occurring between these two films in the broadest of strokes. Which if done a certain way can be compelling though I did not find it to be the case here in the slightest. It’s a huge struggle to build up even a vague idea of what went down and that’s with heavy deferral back to the TV series again. If you’re new, none of this means much of anything. Even mixed media doesn’t help. The reveal there was a limited run manga of events prior to 3.0 had a potential for answers, but upon reading a synopsis... Nope. Helps not even a tiny amount. Also this mixed media attitude is never to be encouraged. So, I didn’t like film 3 much at all. Film 4 does little to not be based on where it left off. Which is a small mercy that it doesn’t effectively toss everything out again and skip further ahead in time. And 3.0+1.0 does at least make use of some of what 2.0 revealed and setup in the spirit of trying to get this into something cohesive. It fails, but it tried. Maybe the points it touches on were the intended direction of the films. Maybe Anno changed his mind on this one. It’s not like Rebuild’s failure to cohere should be a surprise – the title of the film is simply confusing in sequence. Titled neither 4.0 nor 4.44, instead we have the pretty inexplicable 3.0+1.0 which is just annoying to type. Even thematically this doesn’t feel right given its more like 2.0 mushed into 3.0 but I suppose that’s technically film 5 so... Unless, 1.0 here is supposed to mean the original TV series or EoE, which... End of Evangelion figures unexpectedly largely in the film. Could be that its meant to infer some collection of the Eva cast (the original pilots + Mari? The Ikari family + Mari? The pilots from 1.0 (Shinji and Rei) plus the pilots from 3.0 (Asuka and Mari)?). The other part of course, is that the three prior films had titles in the form of [Thing](Not)]Thing]. 3.0+1.0 decides to dispense with this entirely and instead is titled “Thrice Upon a Time”. Nothing like confusing matters (and instead media library ordering) by not only giving the film a title that puts it before the 3rd film (since prior to this cinema releases are .0 and the home media (excepting the first release of 1.0) are triple digits of their instalment number) but also has another reference to three within it. It might be some kind of holy trinity allusion, some play on Third Impact, or an acknowledgement that this is theoretically the third version of events surrounding the end of the world (if you take TV series as 1, EoE as 2, and Rebuild as 3). Also potentially a literary reference about cyclical time and messages from the future which is all well and good and fits into a whole other essay about how Rebuild and FFVII Remake are operating on the same basis and making many of the same mistakes by both trying to be fan-service for the new fans and draw in new ones and do the big fan-moments similarly but diverge wildly off in others. Good start! The final film starts with bombast as per 2 and 3 (and thus focused on Mari) though the setup and point of the action is possibly more confused and less explicable (which is saying something given 3.0 opened with retrieving Unit 01 from space. No, I will continue to complain about not getting this. Yes it was very exciting but why was Unit 01 in space? In a strange crucifix coffin. Anyone at all?) – and only vaguely connected to anything resembling the plot. At least 2.0 and 3.0 had some immediate and long term stakes with a cover for Kaji stealing something and bringing Shinji into the plot. This film opens with a scrounge for spare parts in a red Paris that the tertiary cast make no longer red while Mari fights off a massed horde of Evas while battleships are puppeteered from orbit. It’s all terrible cool and everything, but given at no point do we even begin to understand what is going on or what the stakes even are. Which is a problem with the latter half of the sequence. 2.0 might have started with an Eva vs Angel fight but while there was ambiguity over the situation it at least seemed to lead into the eventual plot. Here we’re getting Eva spare parts for later and a whole dose of new terminology the film has no interest in explaining. Which is par for the course for prior Eva incarnations but again, I feel there was more explanation setting the weirdness up. Here we are reduced to keywords that sound important. The film proper opens with our familiar trio of Eva pilots winding up at a village with their old classmates (which of course, to follow the proliferations of 3 all the way down and also match to Tokyo-3, is in fact, Village 3. The far future sequel to Resident Evil 8 presumably). Who are necessarily now 14 years older than them. Asuka is naked (in a sequence to contrast to 1.0 and 2.0) or in her underwear for far too much of this sequence (and just as creepy as 2.0 got with this) as Shinji struggles in the aftermath of Kaworu’s death, Ayanami (critically not the Rei of 2.0) learns about life (and visits a library with – I’m not kidding – a poster for Sugar Sugar Rune on display. I like to think not many in the audience caught this slightly odd reference). 30 minutes of the film are taken up with Rei being happy and contented with her life while Shinji slowly recovers and re-enters polite society (sulks, throws up at the sight of the DSS collar, is insulted and force-fed). There’s a good case for this section just being an unnecessary time filler, though you don’t need to fill time in a film that is 2 ½ hours. But if it was cut down, perhaps it would have the same strange feeling as 1.0 had where the aftermath of Shinji’s second Angel fight lead was mostly skipped and left that part of 1.0 feeling strangely hasty and actively (and badly) abridged. Maybe that’s just my familiarity with the source material again. There’s still an edge of weirdness in the air on the film hits the 45 minute mark; even prior to this gigantic sections of the land are missing, and some things just float around now (apparently because). Past this mark is where weirdness creeps in; the barriers keeping the village from suffering the fate of Paris – the structures a curious match to the Cocytus facility at the start of 2.0. There are headless Eva copies who roam the landscape. An indicator on Ayanami’s suit runs down. Shinji is advised to talk to his father before he loses the opportunity forever. This one made me laugh, and even Asuka comments that given who Shinji’s father is and what he’s done don’t really make this plausible (or sensible). Ayanami concludes her pastoral life and this stage of the film by transforming back to her original white plug-suit; her AT Field then dissipates and she bursts in a familiar spill of LCL. For such a previously central character, Rei or Ayanami or Lilith will have exceptionally little bearing on the remainder of the film. The plot now kicks in properly as Gendo decides enough is enough and he’s going to be doing some world ending. Our Eva pilots are ready but not the same; we have Asuka, Mari and Shinji. And standing orders for Shinji to be shot if he tries to pilot anything (but given we’re at the end of the world and basically the original plan fails to stop Nerv bringing about the end of the world, that people still try to shoot him is... a little weird and an almost pointless resolution of factors the quaternary cast brought up in 3.0). The entire rest of the film is even more impenetrable and confusing than Kaworu’s sweeping explanations of what happened between films 2 and 3. If 3.0 fumbled the ball on being newcomer friendly 3.0+1.0 actively doesn’t care. Not that familiarity with series helps since so much new terminology is thrown at the audience. The entire cast – literally the entire cast – are not only caught up on but also understand the varying levels of psychological, biological and religious nonsense that Eva has formerly wielded as something almost coherent. You, as audience member, are not privy to a fraction of this understanding and thus left to flail for the remainder of the film making what you can of the maddening breadcrumb trail of exclamations and partial explanations. Shinji is no help here and infuriatingly asks barely a single question about what is going on (thankfully he does prompt Gendo to explain a few things – presumably where even the staff had gotten lost on what was supposedly going on). For existing fans, you might get a sense of it by application of known quantities from the previous incarnations (I pity newcomers struggling to make sense of this). What the Lance of Cassius is a thing introduced abruptly into the series – and contrasted with the Lance of Longinus you can muddle through to get some idea of what was going on. 3.0+1.0 however, decides that even that grip on its story is too much and adds a bunch more unnamed spears. Some of them formed from Lilith. This is a thing of some import apparently, though ultimately is effectively buzzword name-checking. We know who Lilith is in context from both 1.0 and the TV series but how that relates to spear formation is beyond me. And then there’s the part where one of the flying ships (there were four made according to Seele’s plan. Seele, the former sinister puppet-masters, who died in film 3, and if the flying ships were their idea or this stated at all, I had totally forgotten it in the last 9 years (checking wikia seems to indicate no one else knew this either so I feel vindicated). Seele feel an artefact of the old Eva Anno has no time for – EoE had what equated to three groups vying for control of the process of human instrumentality. Seele are adhering to a prophecy of sorts, Gendo is trying to subvert that process for his own ends, and Misato is trying to stop it. In terms of economical story-telling, the distinction between Seele and Gendo’s goals in causing Third Impact are so slim as to be basically zero (few critical differences though), I suspect Seele were deemed unnecessary and shuffled out of proceedings hastily despite their continued name-checking at this late stage) is turned into another spear because if all the spears are used up, the end of the world can’t be averted. You will have to forgive me for failing to notice how and where most of these spears (save three) wound up or what most of that means or why or how or anything. But we have a budget to squander and why not channel the Gurren Lagann energy for action one last time? And there is some action, this presumably part of what a good section of the audience have waited for with baited breath, that thing the TV series so rapidly lost interest in; that EoE staged for narrative cruelty. Smashy giant robot action time! So we get billions of Eva enemies for Asuka and Mari to cut through without problem. They explode and fall away despite exhaustively overwhelming numbers. There is a palpable lack of threat here. A few hitches but nothing the pilots can’t cope with. It’s just empty fan-service, a boast about how much can be rendered into a single frame. We get Asuka, unable to stab critically important Unit 13 (looking distinctly Unit 01-like just with four arms), and then hooking into an odd leftover thread from 2.0. Her accident in the activation test of Unit 03 has left her with a part of herself now more correctly classified as an Angel. And like 2.0 for surprise value, her Eva has special Angel blood injectors to again overcharge her Eva (which seems to be a thing in the latter three films – turn the Eva safety off and go beserk. As if Unit 01 didn’t do that all on its own in the first and second film). And this too fails. But this too is just another moment of important and pretention. Where the audience is meant to gasp at Eva/Angel hybridisation (not that the dividing line between Angles and Evas is ever completely clear (not least Unit 03)), at Asuka revealing herself to be part Angel (as if Kaworu and Rei weren’t established examples). So her Eva bloated and animalistic is... just another moment. We saw this in 2.0 with Mari releasing her limiters. We saw it in 3.0 in almost the same way. The distinction isn’t meaningfully different to the last few times the Evas were let off the leash and became more brutal. And just like the prior times this escalation of Eva body horror, ferocity, blood and over-indulged violence doesn’t actually help the situation. Asuka fails in her task as the Unit 13 counter-attacks. She’s saved by getting pulled out of reality moments before her end. Of course this being narrative, this being Eva; Gendo, the architect of this situation, is three steps ahead. Misato’s flying ship is badly and perhaps critically damaged so Gendo can retrieve the limbless body of Unit 01 formerly powering the flying ship. Shooting Gendo doesn’t work thanks to the key of Nebuchadnezzar (which did... Uh. Something? Kaji noted it as the lost number kept as a spare in 2.0 which implied Angel or Eva or... No I don’t know nor can I make sense of what it’s done to Gendo. Wikia informs me that while it’s never seen on-screen past the one time, its case is in some shots of 3.0. How amazing) and he leaves. And thus, of course, Shinji must get in the f-ing robot once more. But we’re back to the confident, more certain Shinji who 2.0 birthed as we enter the last (but still very long) final stage of the film – and restage End of Evangelion. Curious of course; EoE by turns can feel like a legitimate replacement for the final two TV series episodes or a bleakly, darkly, disturbing and flippant retort to the low-budget metaphysic version of the TV apocalypse. EoE to some has been not so much the intended ending (though buying a complete set of the old Eva in Japan will always net you the 26 original TV episodes, the four amended episodes and EoE), but more a poisoned chalice for the people who wanted a less introspective version of the end of the world and the process of human instrumentality. Anno was free to do what he wanted and veer off the tracks here – he can’t get away from the end of the world – this is integral to Eva’s base concept. 2.0’s glimpse of Second and the starts of Third Impact depict a process completely unfamiliar from the TV series’s version (reading Wikia explains some of 2.0’s imagery but is still bewildering with reference to 3.0+1.0’s reveals). In Rebuild, the end of the world is staged in the space below the strange aftermath of Second Impact, in an anti-universe where humans cannot venture. And yet, we are still clearly revisiting End of Evangelion. Not exactly the same, but a lot of imagery (the symbols in the sky, the gigantic form of Lilith at multiple points, the crucifix explosions across Earth’s surface) – to say nothing of some actual sections of animation – are taken straight from the 1997 film. Those moments and images were haunting and disturbing (the more overtly sexualised imagery has been completely removed). Clearly no matter what was said at the time or in the interim, EoE is in fact how the ending must play out; this is, or has become, what happens externally and internally when these characters attempt to force a next stage of evolution. The End of Evangelion will always be the end. ...just not quite the same. Not least it is missing most of the infamous moments (Shinji in Asuka’s hospital room is notably completely absent). There’s no moment where Shinji strangles Asuka, Komm Susser Tod is missing entire (in favour of something similar sounding but in Japanese), the live-action sequences of the empty cinema or the world without Evas aren’t utilised (though some live action footage is included), Rei betraying Gendo and beginning Third Impact outside his control etc. It's actively absurd to type this, but Lilith – Lilith! – has less character here. Which is so astonishingly absurd given the only depiction of Lilith we get is effectively Rei/Rei was Lilith the entire time, but those introspective sequences hinting at something more involved with Rei or the points Lilith does talk directly to Shinji are gone too. This shouldn’t be a surprise – we are after all missing a Rei character at the climax. Mostly. 3.0+1.0 almost expects you to remember the last time you saw Eva end the world and contrast it to this new version. The EoE imagery, the footage of Lilith descending from the crucifix, the looming figure of Lilith rising as humanity ends. Even something like the sequence of the backsides of cels running backward is reused – this footage also cribbed from EoE and played out on a wall between two characters. The animation breaks down into scratchy storyboards and later degenerates from finished footage down to outlines, animatics, and storyboard. The end of the world is this time around is more heavily meta. Both EoE and the TV episodes “staged” the process of Instrumentality (or parts of it) for Shinji. It occurs in filming spaces and on sets, there’s lighting equipment and dolls as stand-ins. The strange artificiality of pulling back the curtain on the TV or film production, or else the effect of  setting the camera back further than you should for filming a theatrical experience. But even that’s a false layer given a true pull-back would be to people in front of computers or previously drawing key-frames. Here the staging is more blunt still. It begins with an Eva vs Eva fight between Gendo and Shinji in the anti-universe where their brains make sense of the impossible space with artificially staged areas of familiar locations. A fight in a city has a huge sheet as a backdrop and carboard buildings the Evas kick around. They fight in front of Nerv headquarters and in Misato’s kitchen. A blow knocks over a section of scenery and sprawls Shinji in the studio space surrounding the set. A crossroads of sort where Shinji will move on from Gendo to meet with Rei, Kaworu and Asuka. The major difference to EoE is that the end here is much more concerned with Gendo; we dive into his psyche and his past. His isolation and desire for it. This feels extremely confessional for Anno all things considered given Gendo was always previously kept at arm’s length. This feels revealing about the man behind it all, a reflection of the director. He has admitted during production that at his stage of life he is far closer to Gendo than Shinji – I think this is barely obfuscated here. The flashback is more about understanding Gendo and how Yui changed him than anything about Evas or the end of the world. Gendo’s motivation is revealed to be the same as always; this is how he gets to be with Yui again. Odd details catch as this past plays out. And is that Mari in his memories? Mari, who Fuyustuki calls Mary Iscariot upon meeting her and has prepared something for her. Which feels much more like religious buzz words; there’s an obvious implication coached in that selection of a name, but how it actually relates to the story or the circumstances is really unclear. Nor am I clear on what Fuyutsuki prepared. He explodes into LCL like last time too. The process is so close to EoE but the mood is lighter and the reasoning behind the cast a little different. Asuka is part of a clone series – same as Rei. Just without the physical signifiers that Kaworu and Rei exhibit and the prior short-hand for clones in this universe (as noted, their design is intended to invoke lab rats). Nice consistency there. The beach ending from EoE is re-done under a blue sky; Asuka is saved thanks to Shinji and Mari working in concert. Kaworu’s beach meeting with Shinji is restaged, the newer, confident Shinji discussing the circular system that delivers Kaworu into his place at the end of the world. So Eva has happened before, meta-wise or time-wise or dimensionally. Take it as you will, no interpretation is more valid than another. Only that Kaworu remembers them all. It’s happened before and it’s expected to happen again. But Shinji’s different now, so the end of the world is different. Now it’s time to move on; Kaworu is left with Kaji to tend the earth assured the cycle of Eva productions is at an end – both have been dead all this time. Anno’s attitude to his seeming forever association with this one franchise his and his desire to set it down and move on? EoE finished in space; 3.0+1.0 finishes beneath the Antarctic. The idea of Unit 01 living forever as a testament to humanity is no factor at all Shinji intending (and his parents possibly driving) the final riddance of the Evas from reality – none can be allowed to remain. But now, the film takes an odd turn, and as with EoE, there’s the coda. In EoE this was the beach scene. For Rebuild: The sun shines, the sky is blue. An adult Shinji sits in a train station and meets with Mari. She’s older too now; the pair share a kiss and run from the station hand in hand. So. Uh. Yeah. That happened. There’s Kaworu and Rei seemingly alive and well as adults. And Asuka of course. But Shinji winds up with Mari. Mari who knew everything the whole time and might somehow have been part of Gendo’s group at university and known Yui and no, we are not getting any insight into those peculiarities! (or more plausibly it could be Mari’s mother who looks near identical to Mari but... What are we meant to take from this, really?). Mari who met Shinji in a handful of brief moments and has never spent any actual time with him. Mari won the love-triangle! But this is not some simple alternate reality, a different better take world where the cast existed in something resembling our reality; Shinji still wears the exploding DSS collar given to him before rejoining the giant robot fray. Mari effortlessly removes it from his neck. The film ends with a live-action sequence – this is reportedly Anno’s hometown. The world without Evas; we passed the relevant date while 3.0+1.0 was stalled. Shinji made it to 2014, or more plausibly past it in a world without Second Impact. And he’s happy, well-adjusted, and... Not really recognisable as Shinji. Shinji now exists in the present, not the future as he had for so long in pop-culture. But he’s in a different 2021; a world without the pandemic. And that was Rebuild; a project intended as a new introduction to Evangelion that blatantly had its entire core conceit revised at least twice (the 4th film delayed because of Shin Godzilla and then a struggle to write at all) that increasingly and confusingly leant more and more on its famed initial incarnation even as it veered increasingly and erratically away from the familiar sequences. I liked 3.0+1.0 more than 3.0, but can’t help but still bemoan whatever 3.0 was going to be when 2.0 happened. The alternate other sequence. And despite it all, despite the allusions to a repetition of Eva and of this being the break in the chain, even those working on and involved with the film see even this as a definitive end. Even Anno’s not convinced that’s the last word. Eva will come back all over again; naturally – there’s money to be made here, and what’s yet another alternate take to add to the TV series, the manga, the games, the other manga, EoE, Rebuild and so on. Kaworu apparently is indeed doomed to revisit this forever alongside everyone else and also remember that for once he was gifted a true end. An impossible conclusion for modern pop-culture it feels.

[sugaabooga]

Chance | 4

Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5

Pairing: Seokjin x Reader | Jimin x Reader

Genre: Fluff, Angst, rich!Seokjin, rich!Jimin

Word Count: 2.0k

Warnings: like one curse word, PG-13

Synopsis: Seokjin had no problem of getting girls and also had no problem of getting rid of them. One girl after the next. So why was it that you - a middle-class citizen - was an exception? You - a middle-class citizen - made Seokjin question if he really did have it all. But one thing’s for sure. He didn’t have any of your chances.

Should I?

No. You look weak.

But. . . should I still?

She’s middle class.

Seokjin groans, flopping onto his back and throwing his phone somewhere across his blankets, frustrated from his internal debate.

Why was he even contemplating whether or not to text you? Girls were always a come and go for Seokjin. As soon as he deemed a girl “boring” he would move on. 

But that was the exact thing that made him stick to you. You weren’t boring. Every moment with you was new and different. The more he talked to you, the more curious he became.

Previously, the qualifications Seokjin set for his future wife were just three things.

Appearance, reputation, and status.

Seokjin had to admit that you were quite beautiful. It is only due to the fact that you put little to no makeup, always have a messy bun, and often hide behind a pair of glasses that initially fooled Seokjin into thinking you did not meet his standards. However, he quickly saw that behind all that, your bare face was a beauty.

Your reputation was not well-known, Seokjin now realizes. His only eyewitness was the threatening statement from his brother, Jimin, who shared that you were his long-time friend. Right off the bat, Seokjin assumed you were the elite upper class of Korea due to Jimin’s habit of speaking highly of you.

The day Seokjin finally asked about your parents, he came to the shocking realization that you were indeed not of high, elite status. Due to his short, impulsive thinking, Seokjin became so consumed with the fact that you were merely middle class whom he shared months of a relationship with that he immediately called it off. Now as he looks back, Seokjin knows that you mean more to him than just a mistake or a casual fling. You were the first girl he met that he wanted to know more of, the one who made him flustered, the one he wanted to fight for.

Heck, you were the only girl that he had a relationship with for over a month.

Seokjin sits up on his bed with a slight grunt, reaching over his wide mattress to grab his tossed phone.

Seokjin: Hey. . .

Seokjin starts typing then shakes his head.

Seokjin: Can we meet at Yumi’s?

Seokjin huffs, deeming the meeting location to be a bad choice. Too many people, too many distractions. . . Yumi’s just would not be a good place to try wooing a girl back to him.

Seokjin: Meet me in front of the library near your workplace.

Seokjin’s thumb hovers over the blue arrow as he contemplates whether or not to send his message. Is it too sudden? Too demanding? Shameless?

Well, he was a pretty shameless person.

No. That’s not the concept he’s going for. 

Seokjin quickly deletes the message and rolls onto his back, hopelessly staring at his high ceiling for a solid minute before jumping up as if a light bulb lit up above his head.

He glances at the time and nods to himself, knowing it was almost for you to get off of work.

Seokjin hastily changes into a turtleneck and slacks, shoves his arms through a coat and hurries out his penthouse door.

__

Meanwhile, a loud crack resonates within your tiny cubicle as your droopy eyes lazily glance over at the bottom right corner of the desktop computer. You were working overtime.

Again.

“Take a break,” Jina, one of your fellow co-workers suggests with an encouraging smile as she gets ready to leave after working an extra two hours herself.

You shake your head in exhaustion. “I wish. But Hoseok won’t let me live.”

“Hoseok what now?”

Jina’s spine straightens as she squeaks at the sudden appearance of the said man and quickly greets both of you goodnight, leaving you to deal with your sharp, picky boss.

You gulp, eyes hesitantly skimming over his stoic face. 

You’re pretty sure you saw Hoseok laughing his heart out with Jimin one time. Needless to say, his laughter was quite the surprise but immediately after stepping out the lounge room, his professionalism came back as if he had never once cracked a smile in his twenty seven years of living.

“Miss Y/N,” Hoseok addresses in a monotonous but firm tone.

“Y-Yes?” you answer, back unintentionally straightening.

“Are you having a hard time?”

You’re slightly taken aback by the question but a shiver runs down your spine once you realize he was not asking out of concern.

It was a test.

You immediately shake your head, pulling your hands together on top of your desk to cease their slight tremble. “Not at all.”

Hoseok crosses his arms, slightly bending over your cubicle with scrutinizing eyes.

“Am I uncomfortable to be around?”

Your eyes widen, body abruptly stopping its unintentional lean back and instead lean forward into a normal position. 

“Of course not,” you smile nervously, lying straight through your teeth. Hoseok was certainly not the bad kind of uncomfortable. He was a decent male. However, he sure was intimidating which often made you wary of his presence.

Hoseok lets out a small sigh, nodding and starting to turn back around.

“That’s good. Well, sorry about the workload, Y/N,” he apologizes in a straight faced manner, making you wonder if he was even genuinely sorry for you. “I’ll make sure you get the right amount of pay.”

You merely nod in understanding as Hoseok wishes you good luck and heads home for the night.

You peek your head out from behind your divider, deflating back into your chair once you realize you were the only one left in the office.

You debate calling Jimin but immediately shake that idea out of your head. He had left earlier, claiming to have important plans for the evening. You were sure he wasn’t aware of you working overtime. Not wanting to be an unnecessary bother, you slide away your phone and instead focus on finishing up your team’s proposal.

It was tiring managing such various parts of the team. Not only did you have to finish your part and put all the slides together, but you were in charge of editing everyone’s materials. It was quite unfortunate that your other coworkers took advantage of your mercy by bull crapping their whole part and leaving you to do the whole thing by yourself.

You were very tempted to tell Hoseok about it, who would no doubt break out into another intense lecture with some possible screaming involved.

It had happened before.

Then, everyone would know you as the snitch, possibly outcasting you from all the company gatherings. But it would also mean you wouldn’t have to work these extra hours and deal with all this stress.

It’s not worth being a snitch, you nod. You might as well work hard and quit by next year without making enemies along the way.

But as your dull eyes skim over Minu’s absolute garbage bullet points, you grit your teeth. 

Yup. This is definitely the last time you’re covering for them.

You tap your phone, sighing at how you would’ve been off about three hours ago. 

No. It’s not time to mope. This is the last time you’ll be doing this. So get through it and just email Hoseok a complaint later.

You huff, taking a large gulp of your water to calm your infuriating soul and stretch out your fingers. You aggressively flip through the hardcopy of your notes and vigorously clack against the keys, words forming at an insane speed due to your newfound determination.

Another hour passes by and you’re nearly finished. All that was left was covering the effect this proposal would have on the company with its expected high consumer ratings.

As you lean back on your chair, stretching out your joints and back, you don’t notice the figure in view from your window leaving a parallel parked fancy automobile, making its way into your high-rise office building.

__

Seokjin gives a small bow to the security guard in the front lobby who smoothly opens the door for him with a bright grin.

Hm. Quite happy for working the night shift.

He hears the front desk receptionist on night-duty let out a small gasp but it doesn’t have the same effect on him as it would’ve before. Seokjin doesn’t feel the usual urge to smirk nor the surge of pride swelling in his chest. Instead, all he can think about is:

“Which floor is Y/N L/N on?”

The receptionist’s face drops at the mention of another woman’s name and thanks the business regulations for privacy. “Sorry. . . I’m afraid we can’t just give out information like that.”

Seokjin digs in his coat pocket for his business card, quickly handing it to her.

“Business,” he states.

The receptionist’s eyes double their size at his card title: 

Kim Seokjin. JJ Corporations. Executive Director.

She gasps. “JJ Corp-”

“We’re scouting,” Seokjin lies, cutting off the receptionist’s shock. “I heard Y/N L/N was on the management team?”

The young girl frantically nods, clicking away at her computer and pulling up the management team’s information.

“She should be on the thirty-fourth floor.”

Seokjin bids a quick thank you and walks over to an elevator.

The receptionist tilts her head as the man who claims he’s scouting enters the elevator, swinging around a plastic black, convenience store bag.

“Hm,” she squints her eyes in brief suspicion then shrugs. “Must be bribery.”

____

The bell dings, announcing the elevator’s arrival on the 34th floor. Seokjin’s posture is calm as he gets out the elevator but he quickly has to breathe out out of sheer nervousness, feeling the unfamiliar butterflies in his stomach. 

He had heard a black-haired male, who seemed to be some kind of manager, muttering how you were always working overtime over the phone as he walked towards the bus stop. Hearing this, Seokjin drove to the nearest convenience store, picking up some snacks and a pre-packaged dinner plate. It was his first time entering such a humble store, but Seokjin was quite satisfied by the efficiency of it. He planned to visit frequently.

That’s besides the point.

As he nears the entrance of all the cubicles, Seokjin lets out a huff, giving himself a short little pep talk as he stops in front of the doors. He didn’t debate in the car for over an hour just to turn back and go home once he got up here. 

Let’s go Kim Seokjin. What’s the worst that can happen? Rejection?

Seokjin grimaces. He shakes his head, throwing the negative thoughts out of his mind and regains his usual arrogance confidence.

Seokjin’s confident steps slow down to a stop once he spots your face peeking out from the divider, a harsh white light from the computer screen illuminating your tired face.

Just as he lets out a breath to begin walking towards you with a sweet smile, Seokjin’s gaze slowly flickers over to the male’s head popping up next to you.

His smile disappears as the said male lounges beside you on his own chair, spinning lazily.

Jimin.

Seokjin hears an incoherent conversation briefly exchanged between the two of you, heart clenching when your face lights up with a smile at Jimin’s silliness.

Seokjin is frozen, fist tightening on the plastic handles of the black bag, jaw clenching.

Unable to watch as Jimin shifts closer to you, Seokjin swiftly turns around, leaving the room like he was never there to begin with and goes unnoticed by the both of you.

Seokjin huffs, feeling a complexity of emotions as he sees flashes of red. He was angry, somewhat broken, and jealous. It was a flurry of emotions he had never felt towards a girl before. Seokjin firmly presses the elevator button, looking down as the plastic bag loudly crinkles in his clenched fist.

Seokjin grits his teeth, anger and green jealousy getting the best of him. 

What kind of lowlives eat this instant shit?

The elevators slide open. The black bag is flung at the wall. Expensive shoes clack against tiles. A designer coat is flung back by the wind.

With a soft growl of a fancy engine, Seokjin leaves.

[idontcare4030]

Hunter!Nico Au

the background of Supernatural basically matches the Rickrordanverse. Rick has the background of if you believe it, it's true while supernatural has the background of Everything Is Real even if it's not if you believe enough and it will be. I believe that this could be interpreted as they all happened in the same verse.

When Nico was first joining The hunting business he was simply doing jobs for his dad and as I said before during the "fighting analysis," he slowly started finding jobs for himself. This one can be simplified to, he became a hunter. He quickly became a very famous Hunter both for his young age, he wouldn't be that much older than 12 at this time, and that he has no problem hunting down monsters. While he wasn't the best at killing them at first, he quickly became very good at it. He became a source, kind of like Bobby was, where hunters would contact him about questions or getting resources.

He got the ability over time to hide objects in the shadows so if a person came to him asking for a weapon to kill such and such he would simply grab something out of the shadows and give it to them, of course he would go into a different room first so that no one knew that he was literally getting them out of thin air, but he was getting the weapons from a storage that only he and his sister could access. the knowledge from his own little library of information, books, and lots of experience made it so that people would often call him, ask him a question about a case that they are in (sometimes in the middle of a fight) and he would respond without questioning give them an answer and any advice he had before hanging up on them and going back to what he was doing.

This made it so that not only does he have more connections than a person can dream, but he also is very powerful in many circles that he shouldn't even be a part of. An example of this is how well he is at finding old cursed objects, especially ones that were lost for a long time. Because of this and the fact that after he would kill monsters that we're living a double life he would make it so that all the properties, money, and items would belong to him he would  Have a very large, very confusing, and very unnecessary collection of many many things.

 In his later years (AKA whenever he actually settled down and stop doing all this) he would give some property, some money, Etc to half-bloods who are trying to live a normal life. He wouldn't lie to them he would tell exactly what happened on the property or what happened to the objects but normally it would be enough for them to start a life. At this time though he would normally just let the objects sit and collect dust. he rents out a few of the properties and houses to people who need a place to stay for very low rent and he does use some of the places.

One of the places that he uses is a very cluttered old house that he refers to as simply the cursed place. This place is very full of cursed items and he uses it to contain all of them, he has a Enchanted table of sorts that he uses to bring in cursed objects and take them away from Everyday People therefore stopping problems before they start. He doesn't often stay there but it's full of possessed objects as well so he has plenty of reasons to be the one to keep all of them. Whenever a person wants a cursed object or a possessed object they have to fully explain why and what they're going to do with it to Nico before he even considers giving them the Items. A lot of the time people would come in and be very confused by the extremely cluttered house and would be asked questions in the living room before they go to the specific place where the object is. Here he gives directions such as don't touch it with bare skin, don't be left alone with it etcetera. But if you don't return the item when you say you will without a proper reason he will hunt you down and forcibly take it from you though everyone knows not to disobey his rules after what's happened to the last ones.

Because of this he gets calls in the middle of meetings or when he's talking with people that sound frantic to people in the room with him but Nico is very passive and calm during the whole thing because he's used to it by now. As they start to spend more time with him they become more wary of this and end up asking him straight forward what all this means and why he keeps getting these calls to which he explains without even hesitating the whole situation. I forgot to state that "they" are the 7 +

Whenever it comes to connections this makes it so no matter where they are or what mission they are doing Nico and the 7 plus very likely to run into one of his friends who call him a different name every single time which has started to become a betting game between the 7 plus to see who can and guess what the next name is going to be.

No Hunters at all know that Nico is a Half-Blood or that half-bloods even exist, this means that they often get in confusing situations when they're hunting with Nico. Well they expect that he isn't fully human they have no clue that he is truly that powerful and he could tell what their intentions were the second he gave them a drink the first time you met them and accidentally grazed their hands. By this I mean he learned to take a peek into their past to see how they got into haunting since it is most often a death or a family business as this happens he also looks to see how they have responded to the grief if they were were the type that got into it by losing a loved one to monsters. Surprisingly this can tell a lot about a person's reasoning behind what they do. If he has more time, if he's shaking their hands there's more time than if he accidentally grazes the person's hand he will look into past cases to see more about the person. At first he felt bad doing this but over time he learned how important it was to know a person's true intentions before agreeing to work with them

This is one of the many many many reasons he doesn't like touching people because there is a chance that he will accidentally look into they're past and he doesn't feel comfortable doing that unless necessary. 

As he met more people he gained more and more information that he shouldn't know at such a young age such as how to dismantle a gun how to clean one and how to tell the difference between them using bullet holes. He also gained a lot of knowledge on how to be on the Run though he who has been too smart to make it traceable so as he is 15 it's only just being placed together that there is a possibility that these cases are attached, it takes 4 plus years to say for certain that they are connected and they never find the true culprit both this very very large serial killer. He does learn and embrace the not so legal ways of making money that Hunters are famed for being perfect at. He does take a different route then credit card theft though. For the most part the most illegal part of how he makes money is that hes way under the legal age for getting jobs, let alone at places like casinos which is where he mainly worked. His shadow traveling made it so he was a master at sleight of hand making it so he was a never losing card player though he barely had to cheat as he was simply very good at the card games themselves anyway. He learned very quickly how to find tells and how to use the fact that he was in fact a tiny to his advantage by making it so he was underestimated by people in the casino. He was also very good at picking out the people who are the most addicted to gambling but the ones that are also very high up in scales so they would have enough money to lose and they always lost. It was not the most legal Casino which is how he ended up getting a job there simply because there was so much crime going on already what was a little bit more and he was also a very promising worker considering that he already knew exactly how to play the most famous games that they had there.

He was very often treated as a Cryptid even by hunters and as a person that you only contact under very dire circumstances and its said he will keep up his end of the bargain as long as you keep up yours and if you don't then things will go bad very quickly. But whenever he started going back to school things became a little weirder. When he first started going back to the school that he might as well have been kidnapped from, people were excited to see him but could tell that he change. Before and he had left him and his sister basically ran the entire School. It wasn't as much of a dictatorship and more like a they have the power here you do what they say and follow their rules. Their rules were more along the lines of if we see you bullying someone else then you will disappear and if you are pushing someone that is too weak to fight back then Nico will fight you. It was never really questioned that much after the first couple weeks of it since it wasn't a very sudden thing. As all this went down it wasn't surprising that they were shown the most respected people in all of the school. This was at a point where the principal who had been slowly getting worse and worse to the students over time suddenly disappeared they didn't question it and simply turned towards the siblings. By the time Nico started going to school again the school had gone downhill without any of the enforcers there. Almost immediately when he returned those who had been there the same time as he did started to immediately get back into what they were doing before but not that many of those people were left after so many years. As he slowly forced people back into the way they were before they had to readjust to him, this time they stop treating him as a normal person and treated him as if he was a Cryptid, just not in the same way as the hunters. Their way was leaving small objects, getting out of his way when he walked around campus, and coming to make “deals” with him. The deals were often simple things such as tell me what blah blah blah is saying behind my back and in return they would give him small valuable items such as jewelry or other items that are valuable in different ways such as vintage books and important items on a Sentimental level. The more expensive ones would be the ones where he specifically had to jump in instead of Simply listening into some things going on. This could be talking to a specific person or standing up against a person who was being rude to the buyer. These things would often be paid for in more expensive items or more important stuff then the smaller jobs. There is only one case of a person giving him fake items, and let's just say there is a reason no one even tries to do that anymore. If he understands where you're coming from, respects it, but is unable to do it he will return the thing you paid him with and speak (which is a very rare thing from him) and explain the situation. He lives in the same dorm he did back then but now there is a mailbox nailed into his door that he empties out every day to find small objects like I said before. These can be scraps of cloth, bones, jewelry, food, money, or any such items. When Will transfers to this school he is immediately caught off guard by how Nico was treated but as he explained to him what goes on to be treated this way, will understands. If he sees bullying he responds the same way he did as a child and the person either will not be seen, will not be seen for a short amount of time before returning, or he will simply fight them then and there and they always lose. To school over time becomes a kind of sanctuary for Half-Blood kids as he makes it sure that the teachers are very trauma-informed and know how to treat kids with ADHD Etc. He also makes it so that it's very obvious to tell what is an accident and what was on purpose considering how even the teachers know what's going on with Nico and his Cryptidness. I know that this seems like a long shot, the school part of this au-ish thing, but I think it's a very interesting thing to imagine And a not very common a way you can make a character be treated and still stay in character.

Thats all thank you for reading!

[scottymcgeesterwrites]

10 Underrated Movies of the 2010s

1. John Carter (2012)

Before Snow White and the Seven Dwarves was even produced in 1937, Disney was considering producing an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough’s A Princess of Mars as Disney’s first animated film. During its pre-production stage, producers weren’t quite receptive to the concept. The story was about a man being transported to Mars, where its gravity gave him super powers, and he fought with four-armed green-skinned aliens. Back then, space ideas were the last things on people’s minds in the ‘30’s. They wanted something uplifting from The Great Depression. Disney didn’t quite scrap the story; they shelved it for later and decided to go with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves as Disney’s (and the world’s) first feature-length animated movie. John Carter holds the award for the movie with the longest time spent in “development hell”. For the next 75 years, different directors and producers would try to bring back the classic tale of daring-do on the planet Mars. Growing up reading Edgar Rice Burrough’s novels, I was enthralled to hear that they finally produced a live-action film to be released on 2012 – and it was even near my birthday! March of 2012 marked 100 years since Edgar Rice Burroughs published A Princess of Mars. It was like all the stars were truly aligned for something great. The movie finally came out and it . . . didn’t do well at all. It’s also notable for being one of the most expensive movies ever made – and it was all for nothing. What happened? Most of you reading this may even be unaware of the hero John Carter or A Princess of Mars. I find that the main issue was the problem of John Carter being largely unknown because it has been long overshadowed by Flash Gordon, Superman, Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, and literally everything else that owes its inspiration to John Carter. Superman got its concept of gravity-granting superpowers from John Carter. Flash Gordon got its human-on-another-planet heroics from John Carter. Star Wars derived nearly everything from Flash Gordon. The domino effect goes on. The further you go, the more people forget the original inspiration, and we live in a world now where people don’t really care about who did it first, but who did it best.

There’s a particular scene in the movie John Carter where the titular hero has to fight monsters in an arena. Many critics were bored of the scene, claiming they saw it already in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones; which is ironic being that the arena scene was written almost a full century before Attack of the Clones. Scantily clad Carrie Fisher in Return of the Jedi? That’s a Deja Thoris reference from A Princess of Mars.

It can be difficult to judge a movie or story by itself aside from other derivative works. When that source material is some obscure adventure tale that is literally older than World War I, you should realize that probably not a lot of people have heard about it nowadays.

The film suffers from two other major points: the runtime and the combination of books one and two of Burrough’s original trilogy. A Princess of Mars is a rather simple tale of a man saving a princess on Mars. Its sequel, The Gods of Mars, goes into more complex matters as the evil Therns are revealed as a group of mysterious aliens controlling all culture and life on Mars for their benefit. The movie John Carter tries to combine the two, and I see why. Modern audiences are uninterested in seeing another adventure tale about a guy saving a princess. Ironically, that would have worked much better in the 1930’s, but the Disney board at the time was like, “Space? What’s that? Mars? What’s this newfangled spaceship business?” John Carter ultimately had the unfortunate and unique experiences of being both too ahead and too dated for its time.

I still highly recommend it because the production value is amazing and it’s still highly entertaining. The score is fantastic (Michael Giacchino), and the performances are great, albeit with some cheesy dialogue. The screenwriters added more depth to the character of John Carter that really pulls some heartstrings, especially during one particular scene where he’s bashing hundreds of aliens to a pulp.Unfortunately, the poor performance of John Carter prevented its sequel and the planned trilogy from ever being produced. At the end of the day, I’m still content with seeing the world’s very first space adventure that ultimately inspired Star Wars finally put on screen. 2. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

I was frankly surprised when nobody else cared about a Solo movie coming out. Having read A.C. Crispin’s Han Solo Trilogy when I was a kid and having overall grown up loving the character, I thought ANY Star Wars fan would be pumped. That was the issue right away before the movie even hit theaters – Nobody. Fucking. Cared. The previous year’s Last Jedi left a sour, divisive taste in the Star Wars fandom. Toxic fans threw their hands in uproar and an entire debacle unseen since the prequel trilogy exploded. Like with Jake Lloyd in The Phantom Menace, fans had continually harassed and bullied Kelly Marie Tran for playing Rose to the point where she quit Instagram. YouTube videos nearly 30 minutes long were dedicated to bashing the film and “SJW culture” and “virtue signaling”. The entire debacle was a nightmare that makes me shudder to even think about. It was like everyone was tired of Star Wars by the next year. Some people like to say that “Star Wars fatigue” wasn’t the thing because nobody was tired of Marvel movies. I disagree. First of all, I witnessed immediate responses to people’s reactions at the trailer. They said “I don’t care” and “Why do we need that?”. Second, Star Wars and Marvel are two completely different universes. Marvel has a nearly infinite range of various stories with various atmospheres and moods and characters. One Marvel fan can “specialize” in Doctor Strange while another mostly loves Thor. Star Wars follows the same group of characters over the same damn story that we’ve already known for the past 42 years. Like John Carter, Solo had the same problem by being too confident and throwing too much money into its production. Solo also happens to be on the list of the most expensive movies ever made. Its poor performance and inability to make a return on the total costs scrapped the possibility of any more future standalone Star Wars films. Further dissections of why it didn’t work out vary. Some people hate the droid L3-37 and claim unnecessary SJW content. I disagree with that too. In my rulebook, something in a story is not unnecessary unless it proves crucial to the plot; L3-37 is the reason why the Kessel Run worked. Were it not for her fanatic desire of starting a droid revolution, Han wouldn’t have survived. The idea of revolution is also crucial and foreshadows the coming Rebel Alliance. I wonder if people would have had the same reaction to L3-37 if the movie had been released years before the current political situation; if we would have just seen her as a cool, kooky and rebellious droid instead. Solo: A Star Wars Story reveals that Han has always been around instances of rebellion, which he has tried to ignore. It isn’t until A New Hope that he finally gives in for good. I honestly don’t see why some people say it doesn’t fit with A New Hope when it clearly does. One of my favorite parts is when Q’ira tells Han, “I know who you really are.” From the trailer, you would expect her to say “A scoundrel.” But in the film, she says, “The good guy.” The film cements the idea that Han has always tried to look and act cool but deep down he gives in to doing the right thing, which separates him from the other scoundrels at the cantina. It’s because of this adventure that he ends up helping to blow up the Death Star later on. Also, like John Carter, the score is absolutely fantastic. I could go on about it but that would derail the topic for another time. 3. The Gift (2015)

I ended up seeing this movie on a whim by myself after someone bailed on me at the last minute to hang out. I had nothing to do but wanted to do something and checked what was playing in theaters at the time at my local theater. The synopsis hadn’t told me enough about what was really going on while at the same time enticing me. Jason Bateman though really surprised me in this role.I really don’t want to give anything away other than what you can find on the basic synopsis. Jason Bateman is married to Rebecca Hall and the two share a completely content life, until an old school friend of Jason’s starts visiting them. Joel Edgerton plays the school friend, and it’s quite amazing that he both wrote and directed this film too. 4. Prisoners (2013)

This movie was great – and absolutely nobody talks about it. I recall wanting to see a movie with my mom around fall of that year. We realized there was really nothing interesting in theaters. It was a lull where there was nothing really interesting playing. No blockbusters and no Oscar buzz. We chose Prisoners solely based on the fact that we like Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal, and I guess we also gathered the general sense that it was a mystery.I became glued to the screen during the entire movie. The story revolves around Hugh Jackman’s daughter supposedly abducted by Paul Dano, who plays a mentally ill suspect. Jake Gyllenhaal plays the detective tasked with finding the daughter. With Paul Dano being unable to articulate his thoughts, everyone is left distraught on how to solve this case. Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal take drastically different routes in trying to find the girl.Out of everything on my list of underrated films here, this was the most nail-biting. Highly recommend. That ending. Whoo. 5. Source Code (2011)

This movie is a real mindbender. It might be so much of a mindbender that it’s the reason why people didn’t talk about it more. They probably just thought, “Huh?” and wanted to rewatch the previous year’s Inception again instead.Jake Gyllenhaal is on a mission to find a bomber on a train in a computer simulation. That’s how it starts at least. . .   Another movie I probably shouldn’t explain too much, but it explored themes about a post 9/11 world and the nature of self. 6. The Big Short (2015)

This movie was a hit and then everybody forgot about it. Heck, I know a bunch of you didn’t even see it. I find this really concerning. Brought to you by the director of none other than Anchorman, Adam McKay directed a very entertaining but distressing take on the Great Recession. It has an ensemble cast of Brad Pitt, Steve Carrell, Ryan Gosling, and Christian Bale. The movie manages to translate complicated, bullshit concepts in Wall Street into layman’s terms. Every performance delivers, yes, but it was also staggeringly prophetic in what would come a year later in the 2016 election – “I have a feeling, in a few years people are going to be doing what they always do when the economy tanks. They will be blaming immigrants and poor people.” This movie should have seriously started a riot. But it didn’t. Watch it. 7. Spectre (2015)

Many Bond fans hated Spectre, and it’s often compared to the supposed high-and-mighty Skyfall. I beg to differ. Spectre brought back the fun in Bond without also resorting to the really obnoxious misogyny. The Daniel Craig era of Bond films went back to Ian Fleming’s original intention of Bond being more of a “blunt instrument” than the tongue-in-cheek action hero he came to be known in the film series. And that’s okay. But you can’t help but be bored once and a while by the recent trend of “making things gritty in the new millennium”. Spectre brought back the evil Blofeld, Bond’s nemesis. Fans hated it because this movie implies that every other Daniel Craig movie has been tied to Spectre, ruining the standalone nature of Skyfall and feeling like Spectre was a shoe-in.

This situation requires a lot of explaining, but I’ll be brief.

The creative entities of Spectre and Blofeld were tied up in a copyright battle for almost half a century. Back when Ian Fleming was still alive, he was working on a script for Thunderball with a screenwriter named Kevin McClory. Long story short, there was a dispute on who created Spectre and Blofeld – Fleming or McClory. McClory won the dispute and MGM (the producers of the Bond films) were prohibited from using the names and characters of Spectre and Blofeld.

The last time we officially saw the character in name was in 1971’s Diamonds are Forever. Blofeld made a cameo in 1981’s For Your Eyes Only but was never mentioned by name, but you knew it was Blofeld because he was always the man with the white cat. McClory did eventually make his own version of Thunderball in 1983’s Never Say Never Again, which was an unofficial Bond movie yet it still starred Sean Connery (crazy, I know).

Fast-forward to when the Daniel Craig era started in 2006 with Casino Royale. Spectre and Blofeld were still under copyright protection of McClory. Instead of using the name Spectre, the writers had to come up with another Specter-inspired evil corporation. So they came up with “Quantum”, the evil company behind the plots of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.

BUT THEN, the McClory estate officially settled the matter with MGM in 2013, and Spectre and Blofeld could now be used. The writers jumped on it and that’s why to some Spectre feels like it was a shoehorned at the last minute.In my opinion, Skyfall had more issues being a standalone film. The villain Silva was supposed to be working alone and yet somehow create all these elaborate, time-sensitive plots that was just too much for one man with maybe a few henchmen to pull off. In Spectre, it’s implied that Silva used Spectre’s resources to help him plan his revenge. This would realistically make more sense. After all, it’s in the name: SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion. One would go to Spectre in order to enact revenge on someone if one didn’t have the means or resources.

And the whole Quantum being a part of Spectre thing – so what? Quantum was meant to be the same thing anyway. Lastly, there is some dispute on to the nature of Blofeld’s relationship with Bond. Bond suddenly has an evil foster brother now? Some complained about it. I thought it was fine. It gives a reason for Blofeld to go out of his way to torture Bond rather than just shoot him, which is a point always parodied in Bond spoofs. So again, it actually makes sense. I thoroughly enjoyed Spectre. It was virtually not misogynist out of the new Bond films. It treated the main girl, Madeline, very well, as well as the “other” girl Lucia. Yeah, some of the action is dumb and more out of spectacle than realism. It’s still done with the same wit and style of the old Bond films. 8. Shazam! (2019)

Yeah. I get it. Everyone’s tired of the god-awful, insipid DC Cinematic Universe (except for Wonder Woman), which pales in comparison to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But Shazam! was finally a very fresh, funny, and lively DC movie. What makes it stand out to me was how it ended up revolving around the main character’s friends standing together with him, rather than just simply being an origin story of one superhero. Nothing felt like it fell flat. The humor was spot on. The action was good. You had a really pained, terrible villain. Some of the plot may be simple but it had a satisfying ending. Shazam! has the same kind of energy as Spider-man: Homecoming, but by doing its own thing and having its own theme of what a family really means. It revels in the genre by literally putting you in the shoes of a child’s wish fulfillment. 9. Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

I saw this movie on a whim on Netflix. Nobody has made any fuss about it. I think it was fantastic. It’s a quirky sci-fi comedy with Aubrey Plaza playing a newspaper reporter investigating an ad someone put in the classifieds asking for a time travel companion. She goes along with two other co-workers, played by Jake Johnson and Karan Soni (who later becomes the taxi guy in Deadpool). I have to be honest – I don’t find Jake Johnson that funny. In most things I’ve seen him in, I feel like his reactions are forced. But his deadpan deliveries in this movie are on the spot. Mark Duplass was still relatively unknown at this time, and played the oddball guy who placed the ad and firmly believes he made a time machine. The entire movie only costed $750,000! Movies today need to spend over $10 million in order to try and make something as compelling as this. This movie alone influenced the modern indie film industry by combining forces with Netflix. Maybe Netflix and chill wouldn’t have been a thing if it weren’t for this movie. 10. The Nice Guys (2016)

I saved my personal favorite for last. The Nice Guys is my favorite underrated movie that I have seen this past decade. It has everything I love in a buddy film; wit and style. Written and directed by Shane Black, this movie has some real zingers and hilarious deliveries. Ryan Gosling plays a jittery private detective, who unwillingly teams up with Russel Crowe, who beats up people for a living. The story revolves around a missing girl who is a key witness to a grander conspiracy involving the automobile industry. This is one of those movies that never fails to make me laugh. I can rewatch the same scenes over and over and still crack up with laughter. My only gripe is that the final confrontation can be a bit unrealistic at times, which can be close to breaking that border of “Okay, is this witty satire like Coen Brothers or just outright comedy sketch like The Naked Gun?” So to me it felt a little imbalanced in the last quarter. Still, the rest of the movie really hits the right marks.