#so some things have to be lost in translation lmao

[not-poignant]

Your dialogue is incredible, do you have any advice on how to write like that? Like the actual process you use to arrive at what's on the page. Do you write a ton of dialogue and then cut it down to the gems? Or does it just come out like that when you write? The characterisation in the dialogue is superb, and somehow it never feels overwrought or unnatural. I guess I'm just hoping it's a carefully-honed craft you can give practical tips on, rather than something you can just innately 'do' 😂 xx

Hi anon,

So firstly, I'm so sorry anon because this will probably piss you off: I do find dialogue extremely easy to do, which is why all of my stories are so dialogue heavy. I don't sit there writing a ton of dialogue and then whittling it down, and it just comes out as I write. At most I sometimes just have to double check tone continuity on certain characters (i.e. 'would Augus / Dr Gary / the Raven Prince use this exact phrasing or would they use something else')

When I daydream about my stories, I daydream about the dialogue first. I 'listen' to my characters and the things they say. When I write it down, I don't sit and think 'what would they say' I just write what they'd say. But...I've been doing this for like a long time now, and I do believe there are things that can be done to build the skill.

I feel like throughout my life, I've done things that at least some other people don't do, which makes dialogue easier for me.

But firstly, down to mechanics, here's a link to a post I've made before on things to focus on re: honing dialogue as a skill.

What some folks don't realise is that constructing a vocabulary or tone for a character is like constructing a character. A character's voice says so much about them - how much money they make (or if they're nouveau riche in some cases), where they live, if they were popular or unpopular in school, if they're shy or extroverted or charismatic, if they care about how they come across, if they're a precise or messy thinker, etc. Each character you have, you need to be spending time just thinking about elements of their voice and dialogue if you're not used to doing this already.

The best place to start with this, honestly, is by rewatching some of your favourite shows or rereading some of your favourite books and noting down things about the dialogue that are unique to each character. (Ideally this will be in stories that have very unique dialogue patterns lol). This is actually fantastic for fanfic because you can end up with a cheat sheet (which I've also written about) that will instantly make your character's dialogue sound 'true to form' without having to overthink it.

And the rest I'm putting under a Read More because it's literally just me rambling:

Another place to research is simply by listening to conversations. Listen to the people around you talk, and write down the things that are specific to them. How do they agree or disagree with something? Are there sayings they're using particular or specific to where they live? Do they use a lot of slang? And if so, is it generational? Who are the overspeakers? The underspeakers? the ones who deflect? The ones who shut things down? When you're listening to people talk, think about the words they use, the pitch, if their voice is croaky or smooth, confident or shy, what makes it shy? Is it soft? Do they hesitate? If it's confident, what makes it confident? Is it loud? Do they almost never say 'um' or other words of hesitation?

Think about how these people's voices might differ from place to place. How do they talk to a waiter vs. customer service on the phone vs. a best friend vs. a family member vs. a teacher? Think about the changes you make in those circumstances.

Over time, this knowledge comes to you more instinctively. I've spent my entire life being very interested in the way people talk (I'm neurodivergent, and chameleon-like, and I will adopt other people's patterns of speaking unconsciously in order to 'blend in' - but it gave me a pretty good knack with dialogue! As did 'practising conversations' in my head growing up, lol.)

A really good place to look at character voice sometimes is also in actor interviews. Go and check out like... the Hot Ones interviews or something on YouTube, and you'll see a ton of extremely distinct character voices that are right there to research. How Jack Black talks vs. someone like Tom Hanks vs. someone like Nick Offerman vs. someone like Tom Holland shows huge variation in what makes dialogue unique from person to person.

Your characters don't need to sound like caricatures, ideally they will feel things and embody things strongly enough that this isn't really a problem (even Benoit Blanc sounds like a genuine person despite sounding like a cartoon character because of the emotion / feeling he can get into that voice). Your main goal, imho, is to make sure that all your characters don't end up sounding like carbon copies of yourself. I think this is a problem even people who write natural dialogue can stumble into (that I've been guilty of too), it flows naturally because they're just writing how they'd think/react to something, but it's 6 characters and you realise 'hang on, I'm just reading 6 versions of the author.'

This is where researching the distinctness of character voice is really important, and making a cheat sheet to check when you're going back through a chapter can be invaluable.

There are little things I do fairly naturally these days, to use Underline the Black (or Underline the Rainbow more generally) as an example. Temsen says things like 'Goodness!' instead of 'oh my god.' He can still do the latter, but he's far more likely to be quite sort of formal when he's surprised or shocked by something (and Kent has picked that up, so he does it too, lol, which makes sense - because they work together and people adopt each other's speech patterns when they get along).

Efnisien is very comfortable with swearing, he's got 'juvenile alpha who had to fight with Gwyn all his life' throughout his dialogue. Gary is quite formal and talks in complete sentences almost always. He very rarely hedges or restarts his sentences, and as Efnisien observes: He speaks like someone who's about to go onto a podium and confidently deliver a lecture. He's very self-assured. Efnisien on the other hand hedges a lot, shuts himself down, doesn't finish sentences, and bites back some of his words. Dr Gary doesn't use endearments in general, and can be extremely sarcastic. His humour veers towards deadpan.

Caleb is very forward, bold and confident. He uses endearments like 'baby' and 'sweetheart.' He's flirtatious, and he doesn't talk too much. His voice when he says something tends to fill the space - he has the respect and attention of the people around him. He speaks in complete sentences that are generally quite short (but not short-tempered) and to the point. He comes across as someone who's looking for a good time, but he's not obviously emotionally available when he speaks.

Nate (in Underline the Blue) is people pleasing and generally obsequious (but his inner dialogue indicates there's a snarky voice waiting to get out). He hedges, but ultimately tries to be pleasing. A lot of 'what do you like best? What do you want?' He redirects with questions and tries to avoid talking about his personal life. His voice is quiet in tone, and also quite lacking. He sounds like someone who hasn't had the opportunity to enjoy conversation for its own sake. He shuts conversations down rather than opening them up. He almost never initiates any dialogue at all.

I can do this across all my characters because I have their mental cheat sheets relatively memorised. Whatever book or story you're focusing on, it's a good habit to be able to just mentally know a paragraph or two about your character's voice. Checking in with that mental knowledge (or cheat sheet until you learn it) before starting writing any chapter can help guide you.

The way a character talks determines how the story flows. Nate doesn't start conversations, so he needs to be paired with someone who does. This means if Nate starts a conversation - he's going to be more anxious than usual most times, which creates many opportunities for angsty scenes.

Efnisien is hostile and combative, especially when he's afraid or upset, which creates a lot of opportunities - simply through the way he talks - for increased chemistry with a more calm but still incisive opponent like Gary. Once you start to get a handle on dialogue, how your characters speak alone will create flow through the plot, and also create ways to get through a plot or reach certain points. I know for example that Efnisien's verbal response to the directives softens Gary towards him. Or I know that Gary's softer coaxing voice when he's soothing Efnisien will genuinely soothe Efnisien - even against his will. That's a powerful thing to know about my character's voices!

You're gonna pick this up in no time, anon. You might even have really good dialogue instincts and just be over-thinking it. But I do think in general, sit down with whoever you like to listen to - your fave YouTubers, people on TikTok, your favourite shows etc. and then just...listen to the dialogue. Be wary of subtitles in this case, because they can sometimes erase or hide the actual unique details of a person's voice to make it more 'generic.' Some are better than others.

And then just write down the things that feel unique to those people. Especially notice turns of phrase that you don't use yourself. (Which also means thinking about the kind of cheat sheet you'd write for yourself! Tbh that's probably a good place to start lmao).

Definitely click on the links I've put in this post, the first one in particular breaks down all the details of dialogue more specifically. And doesn't take like 4000 words to not actually make much of a point, like in this post sdlkfjas

If I'd posted it as dialogue we wouldn't have been here for so long but anyway tl;dr I find dialogue stupid easy but that's because I've been observing dialogue and what makes it unique all my life and there's no real short-cut for that but if you start doing it now you'll find writing dialogue way easier really soon.

[bobzora]

there are some bits of what they did with the rooftop scene that i like and others where i was like :/ this isn't as good as it could be. and this is an important scene lmao

[akkivee]

the mtr dh and bat seiyuu had their group post 9th live funtime vid released last week and in it:

they played this game where given a set of topics, all nine would have to vote on who fit said topic best!!! if they were chosen, they’d move on to the next round and those not chosen lost the game lol. this would go on until the last two standing!!!

hayami-san chose the topic ‘who is the biggest scaredy-cat??’

all of them decided they would appeal to the theme in order to sway votes lol

sakakihara: ooh me!! 👋 i wake up in the middle of night all the time because i’m scared i’m late for something!!

kawanishi: 👋 so i know we’re on the same team but i’m terrified of kuroda-san 💀

kuroda: HEY NOW 💢

hayama: 👋 haunted houses are waaay to scary to enter~ 🥺🥺🥺

iwasaki: liar!!!!!

hayami: 👋 manjuu buns are terrifying

the program: *this is a manzai reference*

totto: 👋 i’m terrified of showing up to a job and there’s no script reading

everyone: yeah

so they vote lol and the ones who move on to the next round are kijima, totto, kawanishi, iwasaki, kuroda and sakakihara (who amassed four votes total lmao)

all of dh voted for sakakihara-san lmao

hayama-san was the only one who voted for iwasaki-san so when asked why he told him, ‘when we performed division rep battle, any time i try to make eye contact, your eyes dart away lol’

iwasaki:🧍‍♂️

sakakihara: our leader is wildly intense 😅

just as hayama-san started to wrap up round one, hayami-san suddenly flipped his answer to takeuchi-san with a drawing that nearly killed him and here’s my artistic recreation of it

hayami-san kept his original choice of kuroda-san tho lmao

on to round two!!!! iwasaki-san chose the topic ‘who do you think will live the longest??’

kijima: 👋 actually my family all have long life spans!! my grandmother is 102 years old 🙂

totto: it’s true!!! it’s that amazing???

kawanishi: why are you acting like you’re representing the kijima family

sakakihara: 👋 i drink a lot of peach wine!!! (peaches are a fruit of longevity in asian folktales)

kuroda: 👋 i smoke a lot 😎

iwasaki: 👋 i laugh a lot and laughter is always the best medicine!!!!!

kuroda: *gestures to sakakihara-san* we’ll drink to that 😎

iwasaki: how about you kawanishi-san???

kawanishi: me?? yeah i wonder about me…..

they vote lmao and kijima, totto, kawanishi and iwasaki advanced to round three!!!

kuroda: man it looks like our drinking wasn’t good enough for this one 😎😎😎

sakakihara: 😅😅😅

hayama-san, with sakakihara-san supporting the choice in his lead up, chose the topic, ‘out of everyone who has the best ass??’ LOL

for this one, tho only votes from the four finalists count, everyone decided they wanted to vote too so they did lmao

kawanishi-san unintentionally appealed by saying he was wearing a thong under his tight pants lol

kuroda-san voted for himself 😎

hayami-san voted for totto and included more art so here’s another artistic rendition

the winners were both iwasaki-san and kawanishi-san!!!!!

all of bat voted for kawanishi-san lmao like why wouldn’t they when he taps that during what a osaka lmao

kuroda-san tried to piggyback on their victory like osaka has the best asses which prompted hayama-san to bring up bat is the ✨ass✨ division as bad ass temple

tho that doesn’t mean their asses are good since it’s bad ass lmao

hayami: *looking at his pic* you know i should put some underwear on this…………

hayami:

everyone and especially totto: THE UNDERWEAR IS SO HIGH?????

totto: *draws the real length on hayami-san’s pic lmao*

[kyushiblast]

⤷ 〝 jealous much? 〞

➞ pairings : grusha , arven , & jacq ( separate ) x gn! reader

➞ summary : how they react when jealous.

➞ genre : fluff

➞ cw / other : nothing

➞ a/n : need requests y’all

❝ grusha ❞

— ♥ the incident of his career hadn’t just affected him physically, a mental toll was in state along with it including his bit of possessiveness for you.

— ♥ he can’t help it. after all, you’re on his list of most cherished. and as cheesy as it sounds, he’d hate losing someone so precious to him as he’d lost his occupation.

— ♥ so when he sees this person shamelessly hitting on you, of course he’s going to step in and say something.

— ♥ glaseado mountain has a few forms. sometimes calm, sometimes sharp and unforgiving as if mad at the people climbing its skin. grusha’s cold persona towards the person embodied that.

— ♥ would probably threaten to pokémon battle. just because he’s an ice type gym leader doesn’t mean that he’ll just have ice type pokémon on hand every time, so he’d most likely use varieties including those you’ve traded with him.

— ♥ he’ll be levelheaded as much as he can until the other person initiates a snap or an aggressive show, but either way in the end he’ll definitely come up to you and ask if you’re okay.

— ♥ expect a brief hug after, and maybe a few kisses or two. he’s not too big on pda, especially if some people come by to watch him battle and he’s waiting for the area to clear up.

— ♥ but the best part is him being in denial about being clingy afterwards. that’s when teasing him is essential.

❝ arven ❞

— ❀ he’s the type to be suspicious and accusatory first, ask later.

— ❀ will cross his arms and be sassy. maybe something like, “is this person bothering you, (y/n)? i can deal with ‘em.”

— ❀ when he’s jealous he’s obvious. he’ll pull you in more, scowl and throw sarcastic comments at the other person, and he’ll suggest to go somewhere else.

— ❀ WILL throw in a regular pokemon challenge to the other if it gets to that point. like might as well make it a tradition or smth to go up to someone and challenge them whenever lmao ,, wait that already happens

— ❀ arven would also grasp onto your arm or sleeve subconsciously, afterwards backing away and apologizing after the person’s gone for just grabbing your arm.

— ❀ “i hate it when people just keep persisting on someone even when they’re obviously taken…” arven would sigh, “…but hey, it means you’re hot stuff if people keep coming to take you away from me!”

— ❀ then he’d offer to go on a picnic or something, whatever you’d like. he’s just glad that you’re there with him, no matter what.

❝ jacq ❞

— ☾ the other person isn’t gonna take jacq seriously. i mean, he does look like he just woke up, with his laid back attitude and ruffled clothing. but the charm in it was something you could admire, and clearly the other person didn’t see that.

— ☾ he’s a lil irritated. not just because this person’s competing against him, but also because they have a solid chance.

— ☾ they looked better and dressed better, they were smooth with talking, and in no way did jacq feel as if he could compete properly against them.

— ☾ you seemed to sense his thoughts, holding his hand comfortingly. his heart, as if a weight was pushed off of it, immediately lightened.

— ☾ THEN he had the confidence to say some things. and after you both left the scene, a semi-heartbroken person left behind, he’d kiss you on the forehead thanking you for everything.

— ☾ sure, it was just a small scenario that doesn’t hold much significance in one’s eye. but it strengthened your relationship in the end, and as dorky as it seems, it mattered.

— ☾ jacq’s a good person. he just needs you there to remind him of it. give him one compliment and he’ll pay back tenfold.

work of kyushiblast , please do not translate , copy , or repost here or on any other platform !!

[blondephil]

hello (one of the) resident phannie data analyst(s) here with some parasocial stats on dnp’s movie tastes! following: distribution of dan and phil's ratings overall, movies they each rated 5 stars, their lowest-rated movies, and the similarities + differences in their tastes

(lore moment: yes i am a data analyst in my real job. yes i surprised myself with wanting to do this in my spare time. but then i remembered when we read dracula in college (yes i was an english major) and i graphed like, how many times dracula was referred to as vampire versus monster or something. so i shouldn’t be surprised.

first up, their overall rating patterns and by ~special status~ (i.e., wall-e, kill bill, avatar, lmao, plus big hero 6 for the fun of it)

dan’s rated 304 movies and phil’s rated 305. both of them have mean and median ratings of 4 with min 1 and max 5.

both rated kill bill vols. 1 and 2 a 5. wall-e got a 4.5 from dan and a 4 from phil (phake phans). both gave avatar a 3.5. and big hero 6 3.5 (dan) and 4.5 (phil)

rating distribution:

i did analyses here by genre but i need to fix the output (i’m writing all of these based on the markdown document from my phone on the subway, but i need to fix the outputs and i don’t have my computer. so those are pending but there are other genre analyses that i could do & haven’t yet!)

while i was sorting through the data i got the impression that dan overall rated movies higher than phil. so, among movies that they've both rated, here's some information

number of movies dan rated higher than phil: 65

Empire Strikes Back, Blade Runner, Return of the Jedi, My Neighbor Totoro, Back to the Future II, Nightmare Before Christmas, Toy Story, Phantom Mence, Donnie Darko, Attack of the Clones, Finding Nemo, Oldboy, The Notebook, Batman Begins, Brokeback Mountain, WALL-E, (500) Days of Summer, Up, The Hangover, Drive, The Cabin in the Woods, The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, Life of Pi, Skyfall, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Whiplash, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Room, The Hateful Eight, The Force Awakens, Manchester by the Sea, Deadpool, La La Land, Moonlight, Rogue One, Call Me By Your Name, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2., Wonder Woman, Spider-Man: Homecoming, I, Tonya, Thor: Ragnorak, Phantom Thread, Roma, The Favourite, The Lighthouse, Toy Story 4, Midsommar, Ad Astra, Knives Out, Soul, The Green Knight, No Time to Die, Don't Look Up, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Turning Red, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder, The Banshees of Inisherin, The Fabelmans, Glass Onion, Beau is Afraid, Barbie, Oppenheimer, Poor Things

number of movies phil rated higher than dan: 55

Star Wars (New Hope), Blair Witch Project, Requiem for a Dream, Memento, Ocean's Eleven, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Moonrise Kingdom, Iron Man 3, Gravity, Prisoners, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Imitation Game, Nightcrawler, John Wick, Gone Girl, Big Hero 6, Jurassic World, The Martian, The Revenant, Nocturnal Animals, Split, Get Out, Baby Driver, The Disaster Artist, Dunkirk, The Shape of Water, The Greatest Showman, The Last Jedi, Ready Player One, Crazy Rich Asians, A Star is Born, Rocketman, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Joker, The Rise of Skywalker, The Invisible Man, A Quiet Place Part II, Greenland, Tenet, Malignant, Eternals, The Matrix Resurrections, Scream (2022), Nope, Prey, Talk to Me, Avatar: The Way of the Water, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

number of movies they rated the same: 99!

Alien, ET, Gremlins, Back to the Future, Top Gun, Aliens, Home Alone, Silence of the Lambs, Jurassic Park, Pulp Fiction, The Lion King, Se7en, Scream, The Fifth Element, Titanic, The Truman Show, The Matrix, Magnolia, Spirited Away, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Spider-Man, Lost in Translation, Kill Bill, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Mean Girls, Howl's Moving Castle, Children of Men, The Dark Knight, Pontypool, Inglourious Basterds, Avatar, Toy Story 3, Inception, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Black Swan, The Social Network, 21 Jump Street, The Hunger Games, Silver Linings Playbook, The Conjuring, Snowpiercer, Her, Thor: The Dark World, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Boyhood, It Follows, Guardians of the Galaxy, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Interstellar, Ex Machina, The Witch, Avengers: The Age of Ultron, Mad Max: Fury Road, Inside Out, Ant-Man, Captain America: Civil War, Your Name., Arrival, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, mother!, It, Blade Runner 2049, Hereditary, Black Panther, Annihilation, A Quiet Place, Avengers: Infinity War, Captain Marvel, Us, Avengers: Endgame, Parasite, It Chapter Two, Marriage Story, Uncut Gems, 1917, Black Widow, The Suicide Squad, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Dune, Last Night in Soho, The Batman (2022), Everything Everywhere All at Once, X, The Northman, Top Gun: Maverick, Bullet Train, Barbarian, Pearl, M3GAN, Dungeons and Dragongs: Honor Among Thieves, Evil Dead Rise, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3., No Hard Feelings, Saltburn, Priscilla, Society of the Snow, Saw X, Leave the World Behind

i didn't analyse this by genre or anything, but i could -- so if you're interested lmk!

the 5 movies with the most different ratings between dan and phil

- Iron Man 2 (dan: 2, phil 3.5)

- The Greatest Showman (d: 2.5, p: 4)

- Malignant (d: 3, p: 4.5)

- Scream (2022) (d: 2.5, p: 4)

- Beau is Afraid (d: 3, p: 1.5)

Interesting that even though dan has more higher rated movies, 4/5 of these ones phil rated higher.

next, their 5-star movies

dan's five stars: 80

Alien, Empire Strikes Back, ET, Blade Runner, Gremlins, Back to the Future, Top Gun, Aliens, Stand by Me, The Grave of the Fireflies, My Neighbor Totoro, Back to the Future II, Home Alone, Silence of the Lambs, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Jurassic Park, Nightmare Before Christmas, Schindler's List, Pulp Fiction, The Lion King, Toy Story, Fargo, Scream, The Fifth Element, Hercules, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Titanic, The Truman Show, The Matrix, Fight Club, Magnolia, The Emperor's New Groove, Donnie Darko, Moulin Rouge, Shrek, Spirited Away, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Finding Nemo, Kill Bill, Oldboy, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Shaun of the Dead, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Howl's Moving Castle, Revenge of the Sith, Brokeback Mountain, No Country for Old Men, The Dark Knight, Inception, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The Tree of Life, 21 Jump Street, The Avengers, Life of Pi, Skyfall, Under the Skin, Whiplash, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Interstellar, Mad Max: Fury Road, Sicario, The Hateful Eight, La La Land, Arrival, mother!, Blade Runner 2049, Avengers: Infinity War, First Man, The Favourite, The Lighthouse, Parasite, Midsommar, Uncut Gems, 1917, Dune, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Top Gun: Maverick, Oppenheimer, Poor Things

phil's five stars:

Star Wars (New Hope), Alien, ET, Gremlins, Back to the Future, Top Gun, Aliens, Home Alone, Silence of the Lambs, Jurassic Park, Pulp Fiction, The Lion King, Scream, The Fifth Element, Titanic, The Truman Show, The Matrix, Magnolia, Requiem for a Dream, Memento, Spirited Away, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Kill Bill, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Howl's Moving Castle, The Dark Knight, Inception, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 21 Jump Street, Interstellar, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant, Arrival, Dunkirk, mother!, Blade Runner 2049, Avengers: Infinity War, Parasite, Uncut Gems, 1917, Dune, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Top Gun: Maverick, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Shawshank Redemption, Gladiator, Little Miss Sunshine

overlap: 39

Alien, ET, Gremlins, Back to the Future, Top Gun, Aliens, Home Alone, Silence of the Lambs, Jurassic Park, Pulp Fiction, The Lion King, Scream, The Fifth Element, Titanic, The Truman Show, The Matrix, Magnolia, Spirited Away, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Kill Bill, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Howl's Moving Castle, The Dark Knight, Inception, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, 21 Jump Street, Interstellar, Mad Max: Fury Road, Arrival, mother!, Blade Runner 2049, Avengers: Infinity War, Parasite, Uncut Gems, 1917, Dune, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Top Gun: Maverick

& their lowest rated movies...

dan: matrix resurrections (1) , thor: the dark world (1.5), the rise of skywalker (1.5)

phil: crimes of the future (1), attack of the clones (1.5), thor: the dark world (1.5), don’t look up (1.5), the matrix resurrections (1.5), doctor strange in the multiverse of madness (1.5), beau is afraid (1.5), black bear (1.5)

not even chris hemsworth could save thor the dark world, i guess (kat dennings, though…)

movies they logged on the same date:

note that this is like, non-exhaustive, because this is only based on their diaries that list the date. i think in reality they've watched most of these movies together. frequently dan logged a couple days after phil which aren’t shown here. procrastination queen

Pontypool, Eternals, The Northman, Nope, Barbarian, The Banshees of Inisherin, Glass Onion, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Beau is Afraid, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3., Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, Saltburn, Poor Things, Priscilla, Saw X, Leave the World Behind

movies that one logged and not the other:

dan but not phil: 85

The Exorcist, Stand by Me, The Grave of the Fireflies, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Home Alone 2, Schindler's List, Fargo, Romeo & Juliet, Hercules, Men in Black, Neon Genesis Evangelion, The Mummy, The 13th Warrior, Fight Club, The Emperor's New Groove, Moulin Rouge, Shrek, Legally Blonde, Monsters, Inc, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Scooby-Doo, 28 Days Later, Matrix Reloaded, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, School of Rock, Matrix Revolutions, Saw, Shaun of the Dead, Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Revenge of the Sith, The Devil Wears Prada, Borat, Casino Royale, No Country for Old Men, Death Proof, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, There Will Be Blood, Tropic Thunder, Slumdog Millionaire, Moon, District 9, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The King's Speech, We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Tree of Life, X-Men: First Class, Prometheus, Argo, Les Miserables, Django Unchained, World War Z, Pacific Rim, Under the Skin, 12 Years a Slave, American Hustle, The Babadook, The Lego Movie, x-Men: Days of Future Past, 22 Jump Street, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, The Theory of Everything, Green Room, Sicario, Spotlight, The Big Short, 10 Cloverfield Lane, The Conjuring 2, Train to Busan, Hacksaw Ridge, Doctor Strange, Hidden Figures, Logan, You Were Never Really Here, Game Night, Isle of Dogs, First Man, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Suspiria, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Glass, Hustlers, Pig, Violent Night

phil but not dan: 86

Jaws, The Terminator, Beetlejuice, Die Hard, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Groundhog Day, The Shawshank Redemption, Leon: The Professional, The Usual Suspects, The Frighteners, The Sixth Sense, Being John Malkovich, American Beauty, The Green Mile, Gladiator, Catch Me if You Can, Elf, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Little Miss Sunshine, Pan's Labyrinth, The Prestige, Zodiac, Spider-Man 3, Iron Man, Juno, Lake Mungo, Twilight, Zombieland, Kick-Ass, Brave, Evil Dead, The Great Gatsby, Now You See Me, Monsters University, Man of Steel, About Time, Dallas Buyers Club, Edge of Tomorrow, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, The Boy, Raw, Finding Dory, Suicide Squad, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, John Wick: Chapter 2, Lady Bird, The Ritual, Happy Death Day, Deadpool 2, Ocean's 8, Ant-Man and The Wasp, Bird Box, Booksmart, Crawl, Spider-Man: Far From Home, The Platform, Black Bear, Palm Springs, The Empty Man, The Innocents, Titane, Old, Free Guy, The Black Phone, Fresh, Watcher, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Ambulance, Aftersun, Crimes of the Future, Fall, Bones and All, The Menu, Sanctuary, Do Revenge, Smile, Hellraiser (2022), Mr. Harrigan's Phone, Plane, Missing, Infinity Pool, Past Lives, Knock at the Cabin, Scream VI

i’m interested to see how this varies by genre!

miscellaneous non-statistical things that made me parasocially emotional and/or laugh during this process:

they watched nope together on christmas eve 2022 <3

dan rated moulin rouge a 5 <3 nature boy <3

he also rated shrek a 5. of course. (valid).

4.5 from dan and 4 from phil from the notebook

5 from danny for brokeback mountain <3 and a 4.5 from philly

cmbyn, yes, has its issues, but dan rated 4.5 and phil 4

the shape of water got a 4.5 from monsterfucker phil lester (dan gave it a 4)

surprisingly phil rated rocketman higher than dan! surprising because dan liked so many musicals

dan gave hustlers a 3.5. i don't know why i think this is funny, but i do. phil doesn't have it logged or rated, lmao.

a 4 (d) and a 3.5 (p) for barbie!

phil gave twilight a 3. lol.

phil also gave do revenge only a 3.5. tragique.

phil watched a LOT of horror alone in october 2022 (aka while dan was on tour). anyway he's just like me <3

[sirenologyyy]

LOST MY HEART!

street racer!carlos sainz x fem leclerc!reader

✴ summary: where you somehow found yourself in a skimpy maroon cocktail dress watching cars race eachother in the heart of the city and where carlos sainz found himself wondering what on earth had been keeping you from him all these years?

✴ warnings: swearing, google translated french, asshole-ish carlos kinda, mentions of murder, injuries, death, & suicide, blood, police chases.

✴ author's note: so uhh I guess this is me on my first attempt at entering the f1 side of tumblr LMAO. If you see any spelling or grammatical errors, no you didn't. Was this inspired by 2 Fast 2 Furious? Yeah.

The foul stench of decade old nail polish is like a good sock to the face. You had been sitting on the windowsill as the balmy summer air wafts in and out of your quaint little studio apartment, your tailbone nestled awkwardly against the ridges of the windowsill making you shift positions every 10 seconds instead of simply choosing to continue your business on your bed where your mattress and pillows were far more forgiving than the metal windowsill. You carefully and meticulously coat each of your bare fingernails with wine red nail polish as some 70s reality show continues to play in your TV in the background; the dialogue blurring with the faint buzzing of the electric fan rotating on its axis, the only reason why you weren't melting at this very moment.

You were on the last finger, carefully spreading the polish around so as not to get it to stick on one of your cuticles until your phone started to ring, you see your phone light up in the distance and you scramble to get to it. It had been Alexandra calling, you recognise the picture of her face before you even see the name.

You couldn't help but glance up at the upper left most corner of your phone and your eyes widen a centimeter as you slide the button to accept her call. "Where are you? Are you okay?" You demand and when she didn't answer in all but the 3 seconds you gave her you leapt off the windowsill and began scurrying around your apartment, beginning to gather your things to leave the house.

Then, you hear her tinkly laugh on the other end of the call. "Would you calm down? Everything's alright here chérie, no one has died."

You halt to a stop in the middle of your apartment. "Are you aware what time it is Alex?"

"Yes, I am." She replies, hearing the giant grin through her voice along with her velveteen monegasque accent that tickled anybody's brain.

You look at your wallclock, 2:45. "So why on Earth are you still awake?"

Before she could even respond, the obnoxious sounds of cars revving their engines answered for her. You roll your eyes as you pressed the video feature waiting for her to finally accept, and when she did you were greeted by your friend grinning cheekily at you along with throngs of people whooping and cheering behind three sports cars lined up and ready to race. "Come on," Alex says, giggling blithely at your disdainful expression. "You promised to come today!"

You visibly stiff. Oh yeah, you did. A week or so ago when you made her try Filipino street food for the first time, you hastily agreed to come to one of the street races so she would try kwek-kwek dipped in spicy vinegar, you've completely forgotten about it.

"You've forgotten, haven't you?-" Alex mused, voicing your conscience.

Your brows thread. "-Of course not!" You're quick to defend as she laughs at you once more and she gives you this sort of endearing look that made you feel bad. "Fine, what if I have?" You say, giving up. You walk back to the windowsill in hopes to finish off your nails.

"Make it up to me, come to the race today. I'll even pick you up!" Says Alex.

You guffaw as you twist the nailpolish bottle closed. "That's not likely."

"I'm serious!" Alex persists as she moves away from the boisterous crowd, hearing their voices fade away more and more by the second. She sits down somewhere and places the camera in front of her face, prompting you to do the same. "Come on, Y/N/N, come today! Support Charles! You know how much it would mean to him if you came and cheered him on! You haven't been to one of his races since Jules."

Your jaw tightens, your chest begins to feel immensely heavy, and your stomach churns. Not in that particular order. "I didn't have it in me."

Alex sighs. "I'm not forcing you to come, I'm just... heavily encouraging you."

"I know, I know" you reply somewhat distantly, though barely enough for Alexandra to notice; and as she speaks to somebody else about a lychee martini presumably ordering one from the 24 hour bar beside the track, you begin to weigh your options. It would just be one race, and anyway Suzuka was 9 years ago, it wouldn't kill you if you came today.

It wasn't like you had a sleeping schedule to maintain.

"You're thinking so hard you look like you're gunna bust a vein." Alex quipped, ultimately pulling you out of your reverie and causing you to blink repeatedly.

"I'm warming up to it." You confessed, jerking your right shoulder upwards. Suddenly, a notification pops up saying Charles was calling you and your eyes widened. "Why the fuck is he calling?"

"Who is?" Alex wonders.

"I'll be right back Alex, hold on." You replied, distracted.

"30 minutes." She says, pointing at you.

You roll your eyes as you laugh through your nose. "No promises."

She blows you a kiss, you do the same before you ended the call and accepted Charles'.

It automatically sends the both of you into video and you see Charles inside a car, your mood sours even more than it already has. "Chou, come today." You hear him say with a stern look in his eyes while the edges of his mouth curl up into a grin you recognise all too well.

You scowled at him. "Alex called me, she tried winning me over too. She's a great negotiator."

He lights up at the prospect of you finally coming to one of his street races. "So you're coming?"

"If I do will you finally propose?"

"That's not fair!" He exclaimed, laughing at you.

"You whore! The amount of testosterone I had to live with in my 23 years of existence was appalling! Enzo's settled down, Arthur is seeing that girl he met in Milos, what about you?" You demand, your older brother watches you berate him with a fond smile on his face, wondering just how fast time flies.

"I'm waiting for the right moment, you can't blame me." He replies simply making you scoff.

"That's bullshit and you know it."

He clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Language."

"Is Arthur there?"

He adjusts the grip on his phone. "No, that's why I want you to come."

"But you have Alex, isn't she enough?" You fought.

Charles sighed. "She's just my girlfriend Y/N not my sister, at the end of the day it's still drastically different."

You raise a quizzical brow. "Just your girlfriend? Wait til she hears this-"

"Come on chou, one race." Charles pressed, and you can feel yourself losing restraint as each second evades you. 9 years of hearing about Charles' accomplishments and failures instead of being able to witness them firsthand, tonight was the night where the incessant begging of Charles, Alex, and even your twin brother Arthur on the rare occasion would finally change all that. "juste une course." Just one race.

"One race." You found yourself saying, Charles smiles.

"I'll see you in an hour." You shook your head at him giving him a shrewd little smile. "You stink."

"Not as much as you, Chou." He replies swiftly. You flip him off, hearing the last remnants of his laugh reach your end before you grunt a quick 'bye' and finally end the call. By the time Alex arrives in your apartment, (also known as her breaking and entering because you forgot to tell her you've changed locks and hadn't given her a new key yet.) You've gotten yourself dolled up in a new maroon cocktail dress you found while thrifting a few weeks back, wearing it for the second time around. Alex did your makeup since she insisted she wanted to try a new eyeshadow hack she saw off of TikTok and you styled your hair.

As you two are about to leave, she stops you from putting on your black ballet flats and pulls you back to the vanity.

"One last thing." She says to you before she lines your lips with a crimson lip liner and then filling it in with a red lipstick you had lying around. She turns you around fixing your gold heart necklace so that the clasp would be hidden in the back. You turn back around to face yourself in the mirror, checking yourself out. "Now you're ready." Alex grinned. "That way you're less inclined to smoke because I spent a good 10 minutes on your lips!"

You snort as you throw on your deep brown leather jacket. "Let's see about that."

Within an hour the both of you are out the door, you had the radio on full blast with the pair of you screaming the lyrics to Love by Keyshia Cole. The roof of Alex's silver convertible had been down, allowing the crisp dusk air to billow through your tresses as you sped through the otherwise empty streets save for the few cars that hung back and watched as you two zoomed past them, eventually stopping at the closed off avenue where the race was located. It took Alexandra 20 minutes to parallel park (with you cheerfully taking a video of your best friend visibly struggling and in dire need of help to send to your brother.)

Once she has surmounted such a great feat you two were off to find your brother who, funnily enough, chanced upon you first.

Charles takes off his amber tinted sunglasses, donning his signature baggy jeans that flopped as he waltzed towards the pair of you. "do my eyes deceive me or is my baby sister finally at a race???"

You smirk as you entrap him in a fleeting hug. "No this is Papa, I've come to take you with me."

Charles harshly pokes your side making you recoil. "Agh Putain! " You hissed, clutching your left rib as you scowl at your older brother.

"I see you haven't outgrown your foul-mouthed tendencies." Charles mused, boxing his arms in front of his chest.

You raised a quizzical brow as Alexandra giggled loudly beside you. "You do know who I grew up with, right?"

"It's great to have you here, Chou." Charles beamed fondly at you, causing the ends of your lips to curl upwards into a smile, a sudden wave of melancholy overcoming you. "Can't believe it's been this long since you've watched me race."

"Me too." You replied, returning his smile. "I'm excited to see if you still like to shred the side of your car against the sides of the track like when you were 14."

The tip of Charles' ears turn crimson at the sound of Alex's tinkly giggles. "You're never letting me live that down are you?" You giggle loudly as you shook your head at him.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Okay, look, I'm in the lineup for the next race. If they'd known I left my car minutes before I'm set to compete I'm toast."

You rolled your eyes. "Alors dépêches toi, I'll see you later." Hurry up then.

He began to retreat towards the starting line. "Watch me win that fat stack of cash, and once I do I'll take you out for ice cream." He assured you oh so confidently in the true Leclerc fashion, pointing at your face.

"You better, or I'm cracking your head open on the asphalt like an egg." You call after him, watching as he danced his way through the crowd. "We'll see about that." You caught wind of him saying causing you and Alex to burst out into a fit of giggles, which were promptly drowned out by the arrival of two cars that had presumably been racing since before you got here. The crowd's thunderous cheering and whistling made you wince as Alex started whooping along with glee.

The drivers each exit their cars slamming their doors rather harshly. You stood silently as you watch one of them shove the other one in the chest causing him to stumble backwards and collide with his car, a Honda S2000. The cheers drastically begin to fall in a decrescendo when the crowd notices they start to get into a heated argument, from your vantage point one of the men with features so sharp it could cut diamonds seemed like he was berating his opponent that looked defensive, with his eyebrows furrowed as they exchanged sides.

One of your brother's friends, Pierre, who helped organise street races like these quickly intervened and told them to walk it off, dismissing the crowd who had just began to cheer for a fight telling them that if they were here for one they should take their business elsewhere.

"Yeesh," Alex makes a face as your eyes trail after one of the men. "There he goes again, all dark and broody."

"You know him or something?" You wonder, turning to Alex.

Alex looks at you. "He and Charles are leading in wins, his name's Carlos." She tells you, you turn your head to the direction he previously was in to find that he was gone.

Your eyebrows thread. "Sounds like you can't trust him with your drink."

Alex snorts. "With your ex-girlfriends either, once he learns you and your girlfriend have broken up he swoops right in and sleeps with her."

"That sounds a little dramatic." You say, giving him the benefit of the doubt. Alex gives you a pointed look as she places her hands atop your shoulders. "Chérie, trust me. I know you, you do not wanna get mixed up with that guy."

Your eyes widen, as you look at her almost scandalised. "What are you talking about???"

"I'm just saying!" She laughed, shrugging. "Just- be careful."

You resist the urge to roll your eyes at your friend and instead you give her a comforting smile. "Fine, I'll steer clear of him. I promise." You assure her.

As the minutes ticked on and your brother, who was seated in his custom Ferrari 360 modena had sped off into the distance with his opponents, you had covertly slipped away whilst Alex had began mingling with the other racers' girlfriends (she was too scared to leave you alone but you insisted you'd be fine.) to light one up.

Walking off to a secluded part of the track, you take out your cigarettes and lighter from the pocket within your jacket. After a series of attempts of igniting your lighter and to no avail, you grew irritated.

"Allez... allez allume. Come on you stupid little thing." You mutter, obstructed by the cigarette trapped in between your lips. Come on... come on light up.

"No use in forcing it if its that stubborn." Your eyes traverse from your lighter and towards the voice, a man's voice. Your heart so traitorously skipped a beat as you laid your eyes on him, approaching you as he takes his cigarette away from his plump lips. "Have mine." He tells you.

Clad in a shiny leather jacket, a white shirt, and deep blue jeans, he takes out his lighter from his front pocket and ignites it before your very eyes. The blistering amber flame danced as the wind dared to put it out which otherwise gave life to his eyes. In which you thought were dark fathomless pits of naught were apparently balmy and tantalising, doe-like and pleasant. "Do you mind if I join you?" He wonders.

"No not at all." You answered, lips still pinching that cigarette together. He laughed a little, making you grin out of awkwardness.

This was the same man you were warned to avoid and yet pleasant was the word that came to mind when you thought of his eyes that soon meet yours, and you didn't quite find it in yourself to pull away.

Only when you heard the familiar sizzle of your cigarette coming to life was when you take a hit and then promptly pulled it away from your lips.

You exhaled a cloud of smoke, a foul, gaseous barrier that stood in between the two of you. "Honestly I could've done it myself." You refuted, avoiding his eyes. You didn't want to fall victim to the ironclad grip of his warm gaze like you so foolishly allowed yourself to succumb to before.

He chuckles in a low baritone. "What can I say? My mother raised a gentleman." He replies in his sultry Spanish accent that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Oh pull yourself together, he's just a man.

You hummed at him, clearly amused. "A gentleman sure, but not a very good sportsman."

He grinned at you. "I take it you saw that little spat earlier, no?"

Your finally look at him once more. "Me? Everybody did. You looked like you were about to choke him until his eyeballs pop outta their sockets."

He chuckles at that, a sound that made your smile widen, even if it was just a tad. "He was being too aggressive during the lap, drove right into me from behind. Like uhh, the bumper cars." He recalls, snapping his fingers gleefully. "Almost had me flying."

"You still won though." You postulate, paying close attention to his reaction. Through the darkness you saw a light blush spread across his sun-kissed cheeks as he brought his cigarette towards his lips. "Why, are you glad I did?"

A scoff left your lips as you shook your head, the ends of your lips curlong upwards a tad to form some semblance of a smile before you stopped it from growing wider. "Don't get ahead of yourself."

This gets a chuckle out of him, glancing over at you. "My mistake I guess."

You rolled your eyes, before they carefully combed through the area to see if Alex had chanced upon you and caught you fraternising with your brother's competitor. Oh the absolute horror. "Oh poor you, I bet everytime you do donuts you're convinced it'd get all the girls to drop their panties for you."

Carlos blinked. "I wouldn't know myself," He juts his right shoulder upwards before taking yet another hit of his cigarette. "D'you wanna test that theory?" He asks you, smoke leaving his mouth and nostrils like a dragon.

"Oh you're a real treat aren't you?" You feigned a smile.

"Just about." He replied, cheekily grinning at you.

You furrow your brows at him. "Funny." You said. "Don't push your luck, connard." Jerk. You cussed as you shook your head. Finally, the sad baby cow eyes effect were wearing off, you thought. But then again, this was a street racer you were talking to. Even your brother had his questionable moments at times.

"Ahh, tough luck I guess. Usually the French love me." You hear him say as you checked the time on the dainty watch that once belonged to your Maman's wrapped around your wrist.

"Thank God I'm Monegasque then." You humored, causing him to raise an eyebrow and nod, almost piecing something together. You drop your cigarette to the ground, mercilessly crushing it up beneath your ballerina flats. "I guess I'll see you around?" You ask him politely, a light drawl hanging off your tone, but he offers you a polite smile in return.

"Can I expect you to come to another race soon?" He wondered as you slowly retreated back to where Alexandra had left you. It made you think all of a sudden.

"Don't hold your breath." You answered him.

He makes a face. "I don't have a lot of things to hope on."

You rolled your eyes playfully as you took a few slow steps backwards. "Dosen't sound like my problem." Carlos grinned at you as you pivot on your heel and walked off trying to suppress a grin, hands inside your jacket pockets as you quickly made it back to find Alexandra. Only for her to find you first.

"Where have you been?" She asks you, grabbing your shoulder and turning you around swiftly. "I was looking everywhere for you! Cha finished first you know, he's competing against the previous race winners right now. We were wondering where you ran off to!" Alexandra exclaimed.

"I was just walking around, doing some people watching. The usual." You lied casually, causing her to make a face at you.

"That dosen't explain why you smell like cigarettes again." She says, causing you to grimace inwardly. You forgot to shove some mints in your purse before leaving your apartment. Usually chucking a couple of them into your mouth would help cover your tracks, but your carelessness has bitten you in the ass once more.

"It's a street race Alex, it's bound to get a little dusty." You tell her laughing. "You dont get to talk either, you smell like you bathed in a vat of lychee martinis when you left."

She hummed, crossing her hands over her chest. "Touché"

You look back at her, sporting a victorious little grin one to which she rolled her eyes that faded oh so quickly when someone from behind you suddenly made you stumble forward, you were about to cuss them off when the infamous red and blue lights of police cars drew nearer and nearer alongside the blaring sirens.

"Holy shit." Alexandra gasped as she took a hold of your hand while everybody started bolting the other way like disturbed garden bugs once residing underneath an overturned rock.

"Jesus Christ-" You said before you began squeezing yourself into the distressed crowd. People were ramming into the pair of you from different directions as you tried to make your escape, you hear the police officers making arrests in the far off distance as you continued to fight your way through the throngs of people. Only when you finally ran off to where you had smoked a cigarette prior to the arrival of the police had you realized Alex hadn't followed you out like you so foolishly hoped she did.

The churning in your stomach only worsens when you hear more police cars arrive on the scene. "ALEX?! Jesus Christ- ALEX???" You yelled, trying to find her amidst the sea of people running for their lives, quite literally. "ALEX?!? ALEX WHERE ARE YOU?!?"

You unceremoniously jumped out of your skin when you hear a car pull up behind you causing you to gear up to try and run away, that was until the shotgun window rolled down and there was Carlos strapped in the driver's seat. "Get in!"

You were apalled. "I- I can't find my friend! I don't know where she is!" You shout back.

"Less likely of a chance you'll be able to find her when you're behind bars, come on!" The man insisted with a caring sense of urgency in his eyes.

Your frown deepened as you looked behind you, the sirens were starting to sound nearer. "Carlos I have to find her!" You say, turning back to look at him.

You saw a bulge form on his temple as his fingers flexed around the leather of his steering wheel. "I'll help you find her after the heat dies down, but please do yourself a favor and get in the car!" Carlos yelled before you open the door to the shot gun half-heartedly. You threw yourself inside and before you could even close the door he zoomed off. It felt like you had been suctioned onto the back of the seat as you were sure Carlos had floored it. You turn to look at him, only now you realize how dry your mouth felt, how your tongue felt foreign and rough like sand paper. "Thank you... for that."

"Don't mention it." He replied, dancing past the other cars that ran the speed limit as he drove the pair of you into the highway.

"You're right your ego'll inflate so much to the point it'll slow us down." You equipped, trying to ease the situation a little.

Even Carlos' hard exterior crumbles at that as you hear him chuckle. "Are you always this sweet to people who save your ass?"

"Usually, why?" You replied looking at him who shrugged, smiling ever so slightly. "Can't blame a guy for being curious."

That gets a little chuckle out of you which was promptly interjected by the sounds of sirens coming from behind you. You whip your head around to see at least 3- no, 4 police cars making their way through the traffic behind you. You turn to Carlos, mouth parted to warn him but it seems that he was a step ahead of you was the car went faster.

"They're right on us Carlos." You tell him, trying your hardest to keep your breakfast down as he deliberately ran a red light, causing a collision on the intersection, the car narrowly missing it.

"You doing okay? You don't sound like it." He asks you, taking a few seconds to look at you before they are back on the road as you force yourself to nod.

"Mm-hm, I just love the way car-chases make my knees weak."

"You sure it's the car and not me, hermosa?" He asks you mischievously. You giggled loudly at that. You're not a school-girl get it together. "Shut up, it almost sounds like you want us to get arrested."

He shrugged, smiling a shrewd smile. "Hey, it would be a killer story to relive and laugh about over some dinner sometime."

You glare at him and even in the dark you can see the distinct mischievous glint in his brown eyes. "Did you really just ask me out on a date? Now? While we're this close to being incarcerated???" You interrogate him loudly.

"If we get outta this alive and unscathed? I mean... it couldn't be the worst thing, no?"

You guffawed at his statement turning to him as he sped through yet another red light. "Yes it would, it seems like the only viable option for me now is to jump outta the car and surrender myself to the police."

He laughs boisterously at that. "Dios Mío, you're so mean!" Carlos exclaimed, sporting a boyish smile with his brows furrowed that made your heart do a somersault. "Speaking of police... I think we've lost them." He announces, switching his gaze from his riverview mirror to his sidemirror, with a victorious grin.

"Really??? Jesus Christ that was," you stopped to chuckle in disbelief, wiping the sweat of of your temples. "Exhilirating." You finish, finally landing on a word.

"Eh, same old, same old." Carlos sang dismissively, his face causing you to giggle. "When you've managed to accidentally rob a liquor store at 15 with your friends before school only for you to crash your dad's car into the river and have it blow up in flames all while avoiding being caught by the police, nothing surprises you anymore."

You snort. "How do you accidentally rob a liquor store?"

"Too long a story, I won't bother you with such details." He answers you, drawing a line with the air using his hand. "But the bottom line is that I'm never going to try and see how many bottles of cerveza fit inside my dad's military grade duffel bag."

You sucked in air through your teeth, shaking your head amusedly. "Christ, that behavior warrants you into being the favorite then, dosen't it?"

He hummed at you delightfully. "Look at that, we've only met tonight and yet it seems like I've known you forever." Carlos mused with a genuine smile on his face. "How do you do it?"

"Easy, I was the favorite growing up too." You replied. "Like calls to like after all."

"You're the oldest daughter followed by boys aren't you?"

"No, I was the one that followed boys, 3 of them. After years and years of trying Maman and Papa finally got the daughter they so desperately wished to have." You say, with a distant smile.

"Wow, I'm not good at this." Carlos replied dismally, raking a hand over his face with dread causing you to laugh at him again. "Hats off to them then, their daughter's pretty special."

"If I ever meet your parents I'd say the exact same thing." You replied.

He looks at you teasingly. "No you wouldn't."

"No, I wouldn't." You laughed, causing him to laugh too.

The night further blurred after that, to the point that even now several hours later you couldn't exactly pinpoint where you and Carlos have gone after you exited the highway, what you have done, what you have said.

Based off of the egregious headache you were nursing, a wadded up paper bag of chic-fil-a on the chair beside you, and a familiar soreness emanating through your limbs you finally pieced everything together.

Of course, the second you came home to your apartment a call from Charles lit up your phone screen. As much as you wanted to let your phone ring into oblivion, you begrudgingly answered his call.

"vous plaisantez j'espère? c'est la millionième fois que je t'appelle et pourtant tu ne réponds que maintenant à ton téléphone?" Charles practically bellowed the second your call came through. You try not to roll your eyes in front of him. are you kidding me? this is the millionth time i've called you and yet you only answer your phone now?

"laisse-moi mettre fin à l'appel alors, essayons d'atteindre cent millions." You bounced back, pausing your show to divert your full attention to your distressed brother who had probably not even slept a wink since last night... well, earlier this morning. let me end the call then, let's try and reach a hundred million.

"quel ennui tu es! je n'ai pas dormi du tout depuis que tu as décidé de disparaître après la course et de ne pas me dire, ni à Arthur, ni à Enzo, ni même à Alex où tu étais allé!" Charles reasoned loudly making you flinch at the volume of his voice, having to calibrate your own volume settings so your head dosen't explode. what a pain you are! i havent slept at all since you decided you'd disappear after the race and not tell me, or Arthur, or Enzo or even Alex where you'd gone!

"Chill the fuck out will you? I've arrived in my apartment in one piece. I haven't been taken by the police, I don't have any injuries. Je vais parfairtement bien." I'm perfectly fine. You managed, massaging your temple off camera.

"Where were you?" Charles asks you now. "And where did your necklace go? That used to be Mamans."

"I took it off, Jesus." You lied quickly. In truth, you didn't know where the hell it was, but you decided to lie to not make the conversation last any longer than it should. "And I was off with someone- I don't- Why do I have to tell you these things? I'm as old as Arthur aren't I? I don't see you grilling him when he comes home late, in fact your fucking praise him for it!" You defend, finding it in yourself to finally raise your voice at you brother. Who scratched his head in frustration.

Charles remains silent for a second before he opens his mouth. "Fine... Fine! je ne te forcerai pas." I wont force it out of you. Charles exclaimed, ultimately giving in.

You fiddle with the remote in silence before you look back at him, bristling on your spot in the couch. "For what it's worth Cha, I'm sorry I made you worry so much. That was insensitive of me."

His face softens a little when he laughs through his nose. "Whatever, whatever. Truce." He mused, trying to sound all irritated when in fact he was not, causing you to giggle. "Don't pull shit like that the next time you come to my races, putain. I can see why Maman was so eager to let you move out."

You scowled. "you're goddamn insane if you really think i'm going to another race."

"See you Chou, take care." Says Charles, sporting a grin you were relieved to see back on his face. You rolled your eyes at him endearingly. "See you soon, Cha." You then end the call.

When you were about to put your phone down to continue watching the show you had paused, you receive a text message from an unknown number. You decide to view it so you could delete it and not have it take space in your phone storage but forgot about all of that when you finally read the message.

[maxtermind]

SCENE 2 :: HOW MUCH TRAGEDY ↳ you were never not mine — carlos sainz ༉‧₊˚✧

★ : pairing :: carlos sainz x reader ★ : genre :: angst; fluff separated by a hidden emotional turmoil, carlos and y/n navigate the complexities of co-parenting their twins amidst the high-stakes f1 world. amidst paddock visits and personal healing, will they go further apart or find their way back to each other? ★ : a/n :: text posts are going to return from tom till then you can enjoy this<3 taglist form is in the series masterlist btw!! HATS OFF TO EVERY SINGLE SMAU WRITER BECAUSE THIS IS SO HARD LMAO

( series masterlist \ main masterlist \ drop a request )

carlos is typing... (y/n's pov)

f1 10 mins ago

f1 LET'S GET THE EUROPEAN LEG OF THE SEASON STARTED! 🇮🇹

username oh the admin knows what they did with carlos at the front lmao username can't wait for the races! let's goooo! 🇮🇹🏁 username so excited for this leg of the season! bring it on! 🤩 username hoping for some amazing races! good luck to all the drivers! 🙌 username here for the racing, not y/n’s drama ⤷ username ugh yes like can we focus on racing and not y/n’s drama? username italy, here we come! forza ferrari! ❤️ ⤷ username poor carlos, dealing with y/n’s drama and still racing username ready for some intense racing action! 🏎🔥 username who else is here for the drama? carlos and y/n's relationship update please! 😂 ⤷ username i hope carlos and y/n figure things out. it was so nice seeing her at the race again

yn.user 20 mins ago

yn.user behind every successful man is his loving fam❤️ congratulations papa sainz

username this is a joke, right? after all the drama? lilymhe wow such a hottie and a MOM? smash! ⤷ yn.user date and time🙏 ⤷ alexalbon uhm... im right here? username weren't you just out with another man? hypocrite ⤷ username loving fam? like she didn't just get caught with another guy? 😂 username wow, pretending everything is fine now? ⤷ username guess she's trying to clean up her image good luck with that username this is so fake everyone knows the truth username acting like a loving family after everything? sure, y/n ⤷ username like who the fuck are you fooling, y/n? we know the real story username you're so pretty, y/n! i bought the tickets just to see you irl username didn't take long for the fake posts to start

carlossainz 20 mins ago

carlossainz victory feels even sweeter with my kids by my side!🏆❤️

username congrats, carlos! the kids are your ONLY real supporters. username so glad you’re focusing on the kids and not the drama. ⤷ username victory without y/n? this is peak comedy😭 ⤷ username way to go, carlos! the kids are all you need! username finally, a win focused on the right people. congrats, carlos! username oh god we really lost the great war huh username great win, carlos! the kids must be so proud. ⤷ username this is the content we love. kids over drama! username well done! no need for distractions we're so proud❤️ ⤷ username the kids are his real mvps so lol username congrats, carlos! the kids are your biggest fans.

twitter

boo is typing... (y/n's pov)

lily is typing… (y/n's pov)

yn.user 20 mins ago

yn.user as my boys said: finally a worthy opponent✨

username this is why some people shouldn't have kids. username she's a mess. no wonder they broke up ⤷ username using her kids for attention. disgusting! carlossainz so you're also bad at scrabble? ⤷ username oh shit carlos didn't come to play ⤷ username you tell her carlos!! username no stability for those poor kids with her around. ⤷ username kids must be so confused with a new man every week username pathetic attempt to make carlos jealous. GROW UP, Y/N!!!

carlos is typing… (y/n's pov)

instagram stories

©maxtermind // do not copy, rewrite or translate any of my work on any platforms.

[late-draft]

Hello, Dema here!

First off—I have fallen desperately in love with your artworks. You have a very particular style, strong and fluid all the same, and I can't help but admire the way you draw and how you approach character design.

And talking about character design...

I saw your post about Zuko's bold design in S1 when compared to what we got in S3 and—as much as I love S3-Zuko—I completely agree with you. Something I've always loved about Zuko in S1 is just how striking he was, how much of a presence he had, even when he was being tossed around by a twelve-year-old. That being said, I love Zuko, I love him in armor and pointy shoes and with a ponytail, and I loved your alternative design for him.

What do you think about his S2 character design? How does it flow with the story beats and his overall character arc? Much has been said about the Hair-Growth-Means-Character-Growth (and I find it interesting, also, that he cut his hair again before joining the Gaang), but I'd like to know your opinion on how that translates to character design and how the decisions made in the show could be either good or bad in that regard.

Sorry about the long ask! I've just been thinking about this a lot, lately, and would like to know what you think. Hope you have a good day ❤️

AAAA Dema hii!!! I'm so happy I got a message from you, I didn't expect it!!

I'm super glad to hear, I'll wear it as a badge of honour and I must tell you that I also love your art, you wonderfully do volume and the shading done through a contrast of sharp and soft areas! Super solid anatomy too and I'd be lying if I said I didn't look up to your art!

Yess the character designs in the show actually are rather strong, I like a good balance between memorable and functional. Zuko is just *chef kiss* but, considering just how many appearance changes he goes through, some are bound to be weaker than the starting one. That said, I'm gonna go through a few of his S2 looks and make this reply long, ha!

The starting one when he ends up huddling with uncle Iroh with other poor refugees, fits extremely well for the narrative at the moment. It's actually one of my least liked looks for him, and that's great!! It's precisely how it should be, because he's also arguably at one of his two lowest moral points in the story - he basically lost almost all hope, no clear goal, nothing to fight for, he's desperate precisely because of the lack of orientation and thus his morals degrade and sink veeery low. He gets on my nerves so goddamn much in this period LMAO I want to beat him up, he looks like a recovering drug addict... annoying, entitled whiny jerk stealing food and anything shiny for his uncle, but even then he just does not cross the moral event horizon. Excellent characterization. He just looks atrocious and it's great because it fits this low point.

Next he gets the standard boyish square of a hair, no notes here...

But theeeen, he arrives at one of my favourite looks of his, and it's not just because the clothes fit him very nicely (I've seen fandom say they look too big for him which, maybe?? But it doesn't look like he's swimming in them to me) And a thing I've noticed which, maybe it was just an accident on design part but I'm not sure considering they colour coded the entire cave scene; in this part his clothes match the shape of Katara's, first one in bottom then the one in top. The collar is the same haf-circle design but I don't know, maybe there was a limited pool of clothes designs guide which they cycled through. Or, he really is meant to come close but miss Katara by a beat, like sine and cosine chasing each other.

But besides this outfit fitting the inconspicuous Earth Kingdom customer service persona, it also (perhaps inadvertently) does this VERY cool thing:

It makes his shape look closed off and guarded, supposedly non-threatening. It's most visible in his fight against Jet, whose shape is open and goes in many directions like an aggressive star. But then look at what Zuko's shape does:

When he attacks, it opens up to reveal the hidden aspect, again the aggressive star shape shows up! The same thing happens in "Zuko alone" episode but I think it's most clearly visible in this fight against Jet because here he has a direct contrast and comparing with Jet. I think this is an example where the outfit, whose similar design exists irl, overlaps with a great visual metaphor and enhances the narrative at that moment in story. He's still that combative firebender but he has to keep that aspect concealed most of the time. Plus it just looks badass as hell!!

Animators really knocked it out of the park with many frames. I think Jun was too early and missed his better hairstyle, but Katara was just in time.

I agree it's super funny how his hair in the Beach is awfully long, covers his face to an uncomfortable degree and then he apparently shortens it before joining the Gaang, insane behaviour Truly an "I'm so angry and depressed I won't show my face nor be capable of seeing anything because there's nothing nice to see in my life" look...

I guess all his appearances in S2 cover his mental states, but only one of them is extremely Extra (the tea server, doesn't even take the apron off and goes to fight) and I don't see any spot where a similar tier design could be shoved in, narratively speaking. So all in all, S2 did as much as S2 could have. More tea server arc please though, the Guru episode really feels like it skipped 800 km of plot and everything that happened in it is so crammed and pretty sus in terms of character behaviour.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 425: New Normal

Previously on BnHA: Everyone was all “and with that we conclude our final battle for better or worse!! We will now commence our slow return to the new normal, beginning with our protagonist and deuteragonist who are miraculously more or less intact, albeit exhausted and mildly traumatized. Also the words ‘more or less’ are kind of doing a lot of heavy lifting there.”

Today on BnHA: The Big 3 and Aoyama are OUT. Shinsou is IN. The Tododrama is PENDING, and the mysterious figure in the shadows is UNIDENTIFIED. Also class 1-A finally becomes class 2-A and it only took them 425 chapters and TEN LONG YEARS. Can you imagine if this series had actually run throughout their high school experience like people once expected. “THE YEAR IS 2044 AND MY HERO ACADEMIA IS FINALLY WINDING TO A CLOSE.” There’s an alternate universe somewhere where this actually happened and we were all so very, very tired.

This is once again a shorter than usual reaction summary post, as opposed to my typical page-by-page liveblog. Not gonna have time to do those for a while yet most likely, but like hell am I gonna miss out on the last days of the series, so here we are.

Once again basing this off of @pikahlua’s spoiler translation summary here!

watching the eighteen inch tall Rat Principal standing at a podium overseeing this graduation ceremony is surreal in the most wonderful way. it’s like receiving your diploma from a sentient Funko Pop

I love how they established that Mic sitting there screaming at the top of his lungs is also a beloved U.A. graduation tradition, and that the senpais just roll with it while everyone else is in varying stages of trying to decide if it’s too late to transfer to another school

ngl sometimes I forget that Ochako and Toga were actually the second canonical f/f ship in this series. shoutout to Hadou and her adorable girlfriend whose name I absolutely cannot recall

absolutely wild that Horikoshi gives credit to Rat Principal for coordinating the entire disaster recovery nationwide. are you serious. the “world-famous” Principal Nezu?? you’re telling me this little capybara is effectively the secret president of Japan now or something. when does he even sleep

“the principal made great contributions to quirk morality education” is also a VERY interesting tidbit that I really want to know more about. “hey guys what if we did a better job at teaching people not to be dicks with their quirks” AND JUST LIKE THAT JAPAN WAS SAVED huzzah

“we lost many things, but we gained nothing” is both HILARIOUS and soundly depressing, but I can see what he’s trying to get at. still an odd choice for a graduation speech though. “our job is all about harm reduction, and we couldn’t even do that this time around, but in the future we hope to balance things out and maybe even get some net positive impact going!” lmao. again it’s all true, and in all honesty it’s spectacular that they managed as well as they did, all things considered. and I guess it would have been disingenuous to just ignore the reality of everything this particular school body has been through and pretend like everything is great right now. but I still can’t help feeling like there was probably a more inspiring way to get this message across lol

regardless of what he says, Aizawa 100% either bribed or threatened Rat Principal behind the scenes in order to stay with his class. and will do so again next year. he can and will keep getting away with it. he is never leaving these kids

and the sheer relief from all of them upon hearing it is all the justification he needs. these kids have four thousand nine hundred and seventeen accumulated traumas among them. they don’t need a four thousand nine hundred and eighteenth. this man is their father ffs. MINA WAS CRYING AND EVERYTHING

Kacchan watched that YouTube video about a dozen times until he managed to tie his tie all on his own with the one hand. and he did an amazing job. he’s such a model citizen now

also it looks to me like he has his right arm hidden in a sling underneath his shirt, which is interesting. if I’m not mistaken (and I very well could be, since it’s been a hot minute since I did any BnHA timeline math), the final battle took place sometime in early May, so this chapter is taking place roughly one month later. the hospital chapter took place about a week after the battle, so it’s been about 3-4 weeks since then. I really want to know what kind of shape Kacchan’s arm is in, but I guess Horikoshi will get to it when he gets to it

also, “we all gotta be together today” was a real wakeup call to me in that it gave me just an absolutely ridiculous amount of feels. just a totally unreasonable amount. and it’s like. listen, self. Kacchan has completed his character growth arc. he’s a team player and a leader who loves all his friends and they all love him in return. we’ve known this for years now. it’s an established fact. you can’t keep bursting into tears or whatever every time he shows it. this is no way to live your life. I need an intervention

anyways later this evening class 2-A is gonna have a celebratory movie night in the common room, and Kacchan is gonna fall asleep two minutes in peacefully surrounded by all his classmates, and they’re all gonna nudge each other and smile fondly and cover him with a blanket and stay up until 2am and Aizawa will have no mercy on them the following morning. it’s gonna be so wholesome you guys

(ETA: I decided to go back and have some more feels about this one tiny Kacchan panel, because apparently the four paragraphs I already wrote about it weren't enough. so the thing is, Sero's wonderment at Katsuki being out of the hospital initially read to me as half bemused awe, and half "oh boy, time to get back into our usual rhythm of antagonizing Kacchan!" but my second time around, I can't help remembering that all of Kacchan's classmates got to watch this kid getting tortured and strangled and stabbed through the heart in 4K. like, even if they were busy with their own fights at the time, there's no way they didn't see the footage later on afterwards.

and that had to have been traumatic for them. their friend literally died and was just lying there so still for so long afterwards. and him getting better and going back to his usual asskicking self later on doesn't just erase those memories, you know? especially with him having lasting, permanent damage afterward. not just his arm, even! like who even knows if his heart is going to be okay long term. when people get organ transplants they have to go on immunosuppressants afterwards because otherwise their body will try to attack the replacement organ. so I wonder how exactly it works when it's still your heart, but it's being held together by various bits and pieces of a spindly little floss man. idk, but I bet you it's still pretty rough.

anyway so long story short, I'm now reading this as one-third bemused awe, one-third joking antagonism, and one-third genuine "no seriously, is it okay for you to be here, please don't do anything to put your health at risk because we seriously cannot handle you dying on us again." and Kacchan's not even disagreeing with him lol, which has to be the most concerning thing of all. "they said it's okay if I rest." even he knows he's pushing it, but it was too important of an occasion to miss. anyway please take it easy kiddo.)

Aoyama leaving makes me sad but it makes total sense for his character after what he’s been through. he needs time to sort things out and continue down his own personal honor-regaining journey. respect

also glad to hear that it was his own choice and that both Rat Principal and Nao would have supported him if he stayed. I still to this day do not understand Naomasa’s actual level of authority lol. like, he’s supposedly a detective, and yet he seems to be personally in charge of every single important police operation, on like a national level. and he has the authority to make decisions like letting Aoyama go free. he is the law, literally

Aoyama trying to feed Deku some farewell cheese also took me out. like he just walked in there and was all “sorry everyone, I’m leaving, but I’ll still aim for the path of a hero and will one day return, don’t you worry!” and at some point in the midst of this tearful speech he made a beeline directly to Izuku and tried to give him some cheese that he apparently just had in his pocket or something. and Izuku was all “YEAH!” all solemnly but HE DIDN’T EVEN TOUCH THAT POCKET CHEESE. like he loves you and accepts you for who you are Yuuga but COME ON

at this point in the chapter it also became clear to me that Aizawa has his hair up in some sort of loosely assembled messy bun and that’s why it looks so especially flowing and gorgeous today. this is great cinema

and then AT LONG LAST, the admission of Shinsou into class 2-A. they tried everything they could to keep him out, BUT NOT EVEN THE END OF THE WORLD COULD STOP HIM. his rightful place

Ojiro’s scandalized response to hearing Fuwa refer to Aizawa as “Era-sen”, and then Fuwa subsequently revealing all of Aizawa’s secrets and Aizawa getting flustered and kicking her out, was one of the most delightful sequences I’ve read. “nooooo don’t tell them that, what the hell am I gonna threaten them with now”

Izuku has not even attempted to crack a smile since the final battle, aside from when he was frantically trying to reassure Kacchan in the hospital. I’m worried about him but also loving this a little bit, ngl. I am content to wait for you to eventually have a proper breakdown, mister Greatest Hero

also I singled him out on the whole not-smiling thing, but really this is true for just about all of them. my heart aches :(

were there really so many people freaking out over Izuku’s hair that Horikoshi felt compelled to throw in that “HEY DEKU-KUN, YOU SHAVED YOUR HAIR LIKE THAT DUE TO AN INJURY, RIGHT? BUT IT’LL GROW BACK, RIGHT!?” line in there lol. the hilarious thing is that this chapter was already in the books before 424 was released, so it means that Horikoshi anticipated the backlash ahead of time. the man knows his audience

and now for this mysterious little barefoot man randomly emerging from some rubble somewhere. who are you. fandom already thinks you’re everyone from Tenko to Hisashi lol. my personal theory is that he’s just a random citizen who’s hurt and traumatized and needs help. and unlike what happened with baby Tenko once upon a time, this young man actually will be helped by a hero in his moment of need, and it’ll be all hopeful and stuff because SOCIETY IS CHANGING FOR THE BETTER NOW HOORAY

or maybe he really is Tenko, idk. what do I know lol. don’t listen to me

lastly, Shouto out here immediately leaving U.A. after class and ruining my dreams of a class 2-A movie night. FINE THEN. GO AND BE WITH YOUR FAMILY my precious little life preserver. and I’m actually really, really excited to see what their endgame is actually, so yes, Horikoshi, bring it on please and thank you

[matenr0u]

Riku: Island Breeze

I was going to put this in my combat analysis, but it absolutely deserves its own post.

In 358/2 days, Riku wields Oblivion/Bygone Memories for the final encounter he has with Roxas. Having called out to him and realized that Roxas really is Sora’s nobody, Riku goes all out to bring him to Castle Oblivion where his best friend is sound asleep, having his memories pieced back together. 

During this iconic battle, Riku is specifically vulnerable to Aero: the power of wind. 

Why is this relevant, you might wonder. Riku is associated with a fair handful of things: bat wings, darkness, fleur-de-lis, but not wind.

On the contrary, Riku has a little known fondness for the wind. You could even say, it makes him feel nostalgic.

Fair enough, Roxas can hurt Riku with the wind because he misses the island breeze. Neat gameplay detail, no big deal. But if I can compel you to peer just a little closer… Because this is Riku— the guy who spent his days gazing enviously at the sea and the sky and brooding over his dark angsty feelings. This time, it actually is that deep. 

In other words Riku is weak to Roxas’ Aero attack because it reminds him of Sora.

Sounds like a reach, right? Allow me to demonstrate.

This passage alone is insane, but there’s more.

While Riku is elsewhere in Castle Oblivion reminiscing, Sora battles Repliku for the first time. This is before they have both been consumed with false memories.

Everything about this exchange is so Riku. It’s all of the real Riku’s messy, complicated feelings dialled up to 100 and Repliku doesn’t even understand why he’s having these thoughts. Sora is clueless of course.

So he runs away, and as he leaves, Sora picks up this…

After defeating Repliku, Sora finds the Aero card. The island breeze. Riku’s memories of chasing each other, rolling in the sand together, of jealously watching from afar as Sora and Kairi grew closer.

The way poor Repliku’s dramatic ass just drops it and runs away lmao

Some time later, following the second battle against Repliku, Sora obtains his lost Oblivion/Bygone Memories keyblade after talking to Namine. Wonder why Namine had that keyblade. Probably just a coincidence…

I’ll close this post with a few more of Riku’s thoughts.

Other Diamonds:

Chain of Memories:

“The wind brushed through Riku’s hair.

I wonder if I really will meet someone from my memories in this castle… I want to meet— Sora. More than Kairi, more than anything, I want to see Sora. I want to see him— and apologize.”

Translation credit: goldpanner, keijitranslates

[alatushours]

☆ LOVE POTION, various — he doesn’t know much about love, but he’ll try his best for you.

contents. featuring xiao, dan heng, and roronoa zoro. gender neutral reader, fluff. xiao + zoro is canon au, dan heng’s is modern! your first date with each of the boys ♡ word count. 537

notes. writing the prompt “love potion” for my own event despite it having been closed for a month LMAO i just need an excuse to write something… anyways uh pls pretend i’m not writing xiao when i said i wouldn’t in a while 🫣 i have a wip for tighnari otw i promise !!!

xiao has never been interested in mortal celebrations. but after meeting you, he can’t help but want to learn more about them. “would you… want to come to the lantern rite with me?”

you were pleasantly surprised when he asked; glad to see that the yaksha was finally coming out of his shell. you laughed, took his hand (which prompted a blushing mess out of him), and led him down to the harbor, where the festivities were already starting.

figuring he still wasn’t too comfortable being around large crowds of mortals, you took him to a secluded spot on a hill by the pavilion, close enough so that you could still see the lanterns that lit up the sky.

“they’re beautiful, aren’t they?” you ask him, following his eyes as he stared at tiny glowing dots fading in the night. xiao nods slowly, seemingly mesmerized by the sight. you smile softly, leaning your head on his shoulder as the two of you watch the fireworks show that followed.

dan heng, being a bit of a bookworm, was a little… socially awkward, to say the least. luckily, you found his quirks entertaining. “there’s a new bookstore that opened across the street… would you be interested?”

so one tuesday afternoon, you meet him by the park, where he stood with a bouquet of flowers in his hands. you giggle when he awkwardly offers them to you. “of course, why else would you have bought them for?”

making you way to the bookstore, dan heng watches as you stroll down the aisles, picking out some you wanted. he felt his heart swell as he spies his favorite novel in your hand. “i didn’t know you liked that book too…”

the two of you end up spending the rest of the afternoon in the cafe next door, chatting about your favorite books over coffee. he smiles, maybe being a geek isn’t a such bad thing after all.

zoro never quite wanted to leave the sunny when the crew docked on a new island; he preferred to stay behind and take a nap, or train. but you always encouraged him to come along, and he finally decided to go along with it. “i’m gonna go explore… if ‘ya wanna come with.”

there happened to be a small crafts market in the town nearby, so you and zoro (mostly just you) went admiring the handicrafts the stalls had on display. "aww, how lovely!" you admire a little clockwork deer that reminded you a bit of chopper.

then you realized you had some business to attend to in town, so you left zoro behind for a few minutes, saying, "don't you dare get lost while i'm gone!" he stands there awkwardly, before glancing back at the crafts stall. while i'm here...

...and then of course you happen to accidentally encounter the marines, causing you to have to run back to the ship with zoro in tow. when you're finally safe in the crow's nest of the sunny, however... he presented you with the mechanical deer toy from earlier, to your joy. "i don't have that many berries but.. i know you wanted it, so i guess i'll just have to pay nami back later."

end notes. i thought i would write a lot for xiao but i ended up writing more for zoro lmao he’s been taking up all of my brain recently but i hope you enjoyed <3

© alatushours 2024. please do not copy, modify, or translate my work in any way, nor upload to any other platforms. in the meantime, if you enjoyed, please like, reblog, and consider leaving a follow! it helps a lot ♡

[visualtaehyun]

Love Sea 🌊 is here and I'm being so normal about it! Entirely normal! Totally didn't already write half an essay on pronoun predictions back when the intro trailer came out or anything haha...

This is gonna be a bit meandering because it's partly my chronological notes and partly me trying to gather similar things into one category so please excuse the chaotic nature of this post lol

Disclaimer: not a native Thai speaker, still learning 🙏

Overworked secretary Mook is already my favorite 😂 She's adorable and clumsy and clearly thinks way too much! The way she frustratedly strikes through 'high voice' on her 30-step-script/plan I LOVE HER

Sidenote: I see why Vi and Rak are besties, she's such a schemester omg ViMook are gonna be an excellent side couple! It's also such a delight to see Aya in a completely different role from Wa in Wedding Plan. :>

Back to Mook's desk though- We know that BossNoeul are gonna have a cameo as themselves during the book fair Mook mentions on the phone because we've seen them with the "Boy Next World" novel in the trailer-

So let's take a look at Rak's manuscripts:

1) "Love Sand" - which is the novel that Connor and his boyfriend Khom, played by Pentor in Love Sea, are from! 2) "Test Love" - specifically, the illustration looks to be from the special novel and the middle couple, Ryu and Sun. We know them from Wedding Plan because none other than Forth, who plays Palm in Love Sea, played Sun:

Since I'm talking about him already- Palm saying ขอนั่งนะ /khaaw nang na/ (= Can I sit?) as he's literally already gettin comfy?? djshshjs this kid is so- fucking- nonchalant? overly casual? (in his speech too) it's hilarious! Also, I'm not sure if he's the best or the worst wingman ever lmao

แล้วถ้าเกิดที่นี่มีดีสุดแค่เนี้ย พี่ก็ไม่อยากได้ที่เหลือเหมือนกัน /laaeo thaa geert thee nee mee dee soot kaae niia, phi gaaw mai yaak dai thee leuua meuuan gan/ = If the best this place has to offer is just this then I don't want the rest either. -> I love and appreciate MMY's translator but it's entirely implication if he means the drink, the bar or Mahasamut

When Mut asked if Connor's talking about a person or dog and Connor said Rak is more like a cat which he'll see once he meets him, Mut texted:

/khun Connor phuut meuuan pom rap liiang laaeo/ = You say that like I've already adopted him/agreed to raise him.

And the word เลี้ยง /liiang/ comes up several times then-

This one's subbed as 'take for a walk' but it's actually เลี้ยง /liiang/ again, not that Rak understands a single word anyway when Mut's speaking Southern dialect lmao Sidenote: His dialect isn't even that strong btw, especially compared to some of the folks he interacted with at the beginning of the episode. Mut and Connor are just clearly pulling one over on Rak lmao I couldn't stop laughing at Mut keeping on pulling out the dialect to get on city boy Rak's nerves! Similarly, I love that Rak clearly underestimates Mut at first and thinks he's a huge idiot and country bumpkin, even trying to manipulate Mut with his body, meanwhile Mut plays his part so well 😂

... as well as the cat/pet implication:

He actually said 'brush your fur' lol

Here we've got an idiom that got lost in translation cause it wouldn't make sense:

หลงตัวเอง ผีเจาะปากมาพูด* /lohng dtuua eng. phee jaw bpaak maa phuut/ = So full of yourself/such a narcissist. You sure like hearing yourself talk*. -> *it's an idiom that literally translates to 'a ghost pierced your mouth to make you talk' and describes someone who talks endlessly ผีอะไรมันจะหล่อขนาดนี้คุณ /phee a rai man ja laaw khanaat nee, khun/ = What ghost would be this handsome?

Lastly- the seagull laugh after Rak trips on the beach is so. fucking. funny!

[ruckis--rookie]

Since this has become a hot topic as of recent, in regards to the statement "support other monster collecting games that aren't pokemon"...

pLEASE!!please!!! PLAY YO-KAI WATCH!!! I am BEGGING YOU PLAY YOKAI WATCH!! ITS SO GOOD.

It's like if you took a monster collector, but instead of little monsters you have foreign ghosts with their own afterlives, unique backstories, and personalities! I loathe when people accuse it of being just a poke-clone because it's so much more than that!

Pros include many hours of laughs, playtime, variety in characters and content. Like seriously if ya'll thought things like Pokemon BW and their sequels had a lot of content worth going back to, the 3rd game in the installment should you choose to go the completionist route is 300+ hours. I'm *still* trying to complete it. Also if fever dream, random, cheesy type humor is your taste you'll like this series. It's one of my favorite comfort games that makes my autism go 😊 while I do enjoy the English dub I recommend the sub, not only is it easier to find but a lot of the humor is swept under the rug and a looot of episodes weren't dubbed because of difficulty translating more mature jokes. The anime's humor can be very bipolar. Which leads me to my next point!

Cons include: very bipolar sense of humor. This is mostly in reference to the anime. It gets more riske the more the show progresses, but its also victim to some hella childish humor. Especially early on. Its not a stranger to potty humor. If it gets to crude or tiring I just skip the episode lmao. a lot of it is lost media and it is SO hard to find the anime episodes as well as physical games, especially the English translations. Because this series flopped so hard initially in the Americas a lot of the English stuff has been lost, and those that are found are... spensive... I was lucky enough to have gotten a physical cart of Yokai Watch 3 before it shot up in price. It's easily my most expensive game of... the last I checked... 600 dollars..... oh also if you don't like pikaclones too bad there's duplicate Yokai out the rear. And the fandom rn is incredibly miniscule. If you're a completionest this series might be a nightmare for you because of how obscenely hard some of the things are to collect. I hope you're blessed by RNGesus

So don't wait! See if you like Yokai Watch today! I need more people to talk to about this silly little series that brings me so much joy! DONT LEAVE ME IN HERE MICHAEL-

[jen-with-a-pen]

F O X ＨＵＮＴ

summary: Not only has HYDRA executed their infiltration on S.H.I.E.L.D., but they have also reclaimed their finest weapon. Your safety isn't the only thing that's compromised.

pairings: WS!Beefy!Bucky Barnes x F!Avenger!Reader

word count: 6.1k

warnings: chasing, being hunted down, implied n0n-con elements, canon-level violence, cursing, implied t0rture, blood, beat1ngs, forced nud1ty, language, HYDRA-level cruelty, Bucky gets Brainwashed (again), there's Steve x Reader if you squint REALLY REALLY hard

read here on ao3!

a/n: This was inspired by last year's Whumptober Day 2: NOWHERE TO RUN - CORNERED, CAGED AND CONFRONTATION. I know it's February JUNE, but shit came up and my motivation tanked lmao thanks adhd med trials Literally have never done a dark(er?) fic before and this one has been cooking for god knows how fucking long now. I hope y'all like it <3 (also the hydra victory au is something i discovered from the lovely @lunarbuck reset series and stewed obsessively over for literal months now. still obsessed with it whoops)

dividers by @firefly-graphics | gif by @lost-shoe | @hydravictrix

my ao3 | my masterlist

Translations

Lisitsa | лисица - fox/little fox

Soldat | солдат - soldier

Syuda | сюда - over here

Khitraya suka | хитрая сука - sly bitch

Moy priz | мой приз - my prize

Glupaya pizda | глупая пизда - stupid cunt

Moye | мое - mine

The infiltration was subtle at the start.

A few missions gone mysteriously wrong, agents killed in action or disappearing entirely, hacks that were, thankfully, contained within an inch of a full-blown data breach. All of it seemed so coincidental when it happened, swept under the rug each and every single time before Director Fury could have a swear-filled say as to what the hell was going on. 

But hindsight is 20/20. It always is.

The day S.H.I.E.L.D. fell was, ironically, the perfect day: brilliant sunshine, clear blue skies, a breeze weaving between the towering buildings and skyscrapers. It was almost eerie, in a way, how perfect of a day it was. 

You found yourself in the gym, Steve and Sam hashing it out on whose turn it was in sparring. You had all but knocked Sam out cold in the previous round as Steve watched from behind the ropes, cheering you on with a cocky, proud grin as he watched all of his hard work in your training pay off.

Of course, the stubborn ass he was, Sam wanted another go. 

“C’mon, Steve! I wanna rematch!” Sam protested, gesturing wildly in your direction with one hand while his other held an ice pack to his bruised temple. Steve stifled a laugh, tossing a glance over his shoulder to you. You shook your head, smiling back as you gulped down the rest of your water bottle. Cool strands spilled out from the corners of your lips and down your chest. You welcomed the relief from the sweat gluing your t-shirt to your skin. 

“How ‘bout I take Steve instead of giving you another concussion?” you retorted, giggling as Sam shot a narrow look at you. He huffed, forfeiting his argument by waving a dismissive hand. 

“Fine, ’m gonna go find some pain meds,” he grumbled, turning to point a swollen finger at Steve. “I better see you in the infirmary next, Cap.” 

He stomped off through the metal doors and left the two of you in silence.

“Whaddya say, sweetheart? You up for round two?” Steve teased, stepping under the ropes and into the ring. He wrapped his hands as he moved to the center, muscle memory carrying him while keeping his eager gaze on you. His eyes carried excitement as they journeyed up and down your figure, rolling his lip between his teeth as he drank you with his stare. 

You did little to hide your pride at the Captain checking you out, chewing the corner of your cheek to tame your own smirk at the beautiful blond. You turned away, hiding the heat from your cheeks as you tossed your bottle at your bag. You weaved under the ropes, coming face to face with your willing opponent in the center. You lifted your chin to meet his, the hidden smirk on your lips growing into a grin.

“With you? Always, old man,” you purred. You tossed him a teasing wink as you positioned your fists in front of you, feet planted firmly in the starting stance. Steve lingered on you for a second longer, tongue swiping across his lips hungrily as he cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders, raising his hands to mirror you.

The two of you began to circle one another, dancing in a familiar pattern you knew by heart. Steve took his first swipe at you and you ducked, managing a hit to his stomach. A grunt escaped from him– not of hurt but of thrill. He lunged for you as you dodged again, blocking his failed strike to your head. 

“Wow! You really can’t teach an old dog new tricks!” you taunted, dodging another blow, his wrapped fist only grazing your shoulder. You rolled it back, holding back a slight wince as you continued the violent waltz. 

You lunged at him, instead faltering and falling to the ground. Readying the curse on your tongue, it stopped short of your lips as you looked up at Steve. 

He stood frozen in place, panting, fists at his sides clenching tighter and tighter. As you opened your mouth to unload even more cursing questions, screeching erupted from the loudspeakers around the room. High-pitched tones screaming above, a robotic voice speaking clinically and quickly. You scrambled off the floor, unease creeping in as you latched onto Steve’s arm, his arm tensing under your touch.

CODE WHITE. CODE SILVER. ALL SECURITY AND TEAM UNITS URGENTLY NEEDED. 40th FLOOR. THREAT IS ACTIVE AND HIGHLY DANGEROUS. REPEAT. CODE WHITE. CODE SILVER. ALL SECURITY AND TEAM UNITS–

The message had cut out, static replacing it alongside the echoing alarms throughout the hallways outside the gym. You looked up at Steve. Anxiety surged upon finding his face devoid of all blood, his jaw slack, eyes boring into the metal doors leading to the hallway. He looked scared. 

You’d never seen Steve scared before. 

“Steve, what the fuck was that–”

“Get to the locker rooms and hide,” he ordered. He pulled his arm from you, jumping over the ropes and sprinting to his duffel bag on the floor. He pulled out his phone and dialed frantically as he ran to the doors. 

“Steve!” You stood trembling in the ring as your stomach churned. 

“Now!” he yelled. “I’ll come back for you!” 

He didn’t wait to hear your response as he slammed the gym doors shut, followed by a whir and click.

He locked you in. 

You didn’t– couldn’t– hesitate as a surge of urgency overtook you. You needed to hide. Now. Fast.

Your legs carried you as you jumped out of the ring and raced to grab your duffel bag, sprinting to the back of the gym through another set of double doors. You wove through the tiled maze of the locker room searching for some sort of hiding spot, settling on the showers. You snuck over to the stall at the very end, the closest one to the emergency exit, and ducked under the opaque plastic curtain. Your bag fell to the floor as you climbed onto the stall seat. Blood pumped in your ears, thumping as quickly as your shaky, shallow breathing. Millions of thoughts and questions and worries rushed through your mind at impossible speeds.

White and Silver. Which alert was that for?

You racked through fleeting memories, distant recollections of training and orientation from months ago, searching for anything remotely familiar. You remembered all of the other codes– red, orange, teal– but no white, no silver. 

A faint buzzing sounded from inside your duffel. You lunged, unzipping it and fishing out your phone. Natasha. Her name lit up the screen and you frantically hit the answer key before the call could even think about dropping.

“Where the fuck are you?” Her panicked voice hissed into your ear. Her edged tone was enough to make your stomach backflip faster. 

“Locker rooms, forty-fifth floor. What the fuck is going on, Nat?” Your voice shook as anger and confusion boiled in your blood.

A muffled swear. “Where’s Steve?”

“He ran out, locked me in, told me to hide.” More incoherent curses.

“Fuck, fuck, okay, look, trust me on this, you need to stay where you are, okay? I can get you out, I–” 

High-pitched ringing overtook the speaker, sending you reeling away from the receiver. Static echoed out of the speakers.

“You what? Natasha!”

“No– time– you–”

“Natasha! Hello?”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

You tore the phone away from your ear and choked back the bile rising in your throat. Service was out. The blinking bars at the top of the screen mocked you and your sudden plunge into isolation. 

The lights went next. 

The dull fluorescents flickered. Someone cut the electricity, sending you into almost darkness as the backup generator lights kicked on. Scattered lights from above cast an eerie yellow glow over the shower tiles. You’d only seen this kind of outage happen once before, when New York was hit with Hurricane Noah a few years back.

The fear you felt in that storm paled in comparison to what you felt now.

You sighed, shaky and surrendering, and pulled your body closer to you on the shower bench. A chill snaked its way down your spine as your skin brushed the cool ceramic, an unwelcome addition to the cold already enveloping you. Your sweat-soaked t-shirt and shorts failed to aid you and your aching muscles. Fingernails dug into your kneecaps in a struggle to stop trembling as you tried to focus on your breathing. Inhaling, exhaling, in, out. Screwing your eyes shut, praying to any deity imaginable it was all just a drill, it was all an accident or a misunderstanding or–

The ground shook as a loud bang echoed from outside the locker room. A panicked yelp escaped your throat before your hands could scramble and cover your mouth. You froze as the tremors subsided and listened. It, or they, sounded close. 

Too close. 

Another BANG! Then another. 

Rhythmic, steady blows, each quicker and more powerful than the last. Hands clamped tighter over your lips until your blood froze at the sounds of crushing steel and crumbling concrete. The lump in your throat grew as horrific realization flooded over you. 

They, or it, broke in.

You couldn’t wrap your head around it– those doors were more fortified than Tony’s lab. Four-inch-thick, steel and plexiglass doors with a three-tier secured locking system. Nothing, nobody– not even the strongest Super Soldier– was powerful enough to make the faintest of dents in them.

Racing through who, or what, could have possibly broken into the gym, your train of thought derailed as echoes of men yelling indecipherable words and mixed commands shattered the remaining air of safety you clung to. Listening intently, a mix of combat boots and tactical gear filtered in with the echoed commands.

The S.T.R.I.K.E. Team.

Your legs begged for reprieve from crouching, but your body disobeyed and froze you in place. Part of you didn’t trust who was outside. Footsteps and gruff voices became heavier, closer. The relief that greeted you was replaced again by panic as you listened closer.

Clear, Russian commands resonated at the entrance to the locker rooms. They were coming in. 

Your breath hitched, blood running cold as footsteps closed in. It was one person, but their steps didn’t sound like the heavy boots before them. They sounded more like…

Sneakers?

The rubber from the intruder’s shoes squeaked on the tiled floors. Ragged breathing echoed off the walls. A low growl, accompanied by quiet whirring. Someone big, someone mean. 

Your heart made its way to your throat as the intruder inched closer. Slow, methodical, as if trained in search and rescue. 

It didn’t feel like a rescue.

The lump almost turned into a scream as an echoed BANG carried from the bathroom stalls around the corner. Silence followed, then a growl, then another BANG. The cycle repeated for the remaining stalls, the intruder slowly creeping along. Growls became deeper upon each disappointment. 

Hostages. They were looking for hostages.

Soles squeaked as the intruder changed course, stomping around the corner to search the line of shower stalls. You hiccuped a sob, realizing tears started to trail down your cheeks. Biting your palm only proved a lame attempt to calm your racing heart, a scream threatening to leave your throat as they began tearing the plastic curtains off the stalls. Each clang of metal cracking onto the tile became closer as you ground your teeth into the meat of your hand. Eyes screwed shut, silent prayers raced in your head, pleading to wake up; to wake up from this hellscape of a sick, twisted nightmare. 

The intruder’s steps stopped. 

Your eyes opened, widening at the blurred, hulking shadow standing outside of your stall. They had to be well over six feet. Towering, bulky, monstrous. 

Slowly, the shadow’s hand reached for the curtain. One by one, its fingers closed around the plastic’s edge, preparing to rip it down and rip you open. Eyes burning, hot tears felt like molten metal as you attempted to make yourself as small as possible in your corner, huddling your knees as close as they could be. This was it. This was the end. You prayed– actually fucking prayed– hoping they couldn’t hear your pathetic whimpering, hoping they would make this quick, painless; break your neck or put a gun to your head and get it over with. Leave your body for someone else to find.

“Soldat, syuda!” 

The command made your heart stop.

The shadow froze, stopped by a call from the entrance to the locker room. Skin met your teeth as you bit harder into your hand. Lungs began panicking as you started hyperventilating, bile reaching your throat and burning the back of your tongue. 

The shadow, the monster, growled in protest. It retracted the curled hand from the curtain, wordlessly moving back towards the bathroom stalls. Footsteps faded as muffled conversation floated away from the locker room.

You needed to get the fuck out of there. 

You slid off the bench, legs aching and knees popping as you crouched silently over to the curtain, peeking out behind the plastic. It crinkled quietly and you bit your lip, leaning out ever so slightly over the threshold. 

Tiptoeing around the corner, you faced the emergency exit. The glowing sign omitted a creepy, green glow that added to the eeriness brought by the generator lights. 

This was it.

You slammed the push bar down, throwing the door open with your body and spilling out into the hallway. Sunlight flashed through the infinite glass hallway, blinding you. In your frozen state, you hear commotion from behind the door as it slammed shut. Banging from the other side, the sound of metal on metal, made your teeth grind. Indents from punches dented the door, deforming its smooth outside. You didn’t stay frozen for long as your body screamed at you to fucking move, now.

Your legs obeyed immediately, carrying you through the corridor to the closest means of escape you could find. As you rounded the corner, the crushing sounds of the door breaking off of its hinges hit your ears. You didn’t dare to look back, sprinting through the twists and turns of the infinite hallway. You followed what felt familiar, burning muscles egged on by the sound of pounding footsteps getting closer and closer.

Finally, you stumbled onto the entrance to a stairwell, pausing to gasp for air your lungs demanded. The burn in your legs and chest only aided in the physiological need to hyperventilate. Sweat dripped from your temple and your head pounded as hard as your feet hitting the ground. 

You leaned into the safety bar, inches away from further distancing yourself from whatever, whoever, was on your trail, when a yell erupted from the end of the hallway. 

It felt like slow-motion; one of those scenes in those cheesy horror movies Sam always made you and Steve watch on weekends off. The ones with cheap FX, bad sound, but somehow great editing for the budget. The scenes where realization hits the main character and suddenly everything is half the speed while they still move in real time. 

You turned your head towards the source. Then, it hit you. Blood drained from your face as the horror of realization hit you, like a speeding sixteen-wheeler head on.

Bucky Barnes stood hulking at the end of the hallway. Generator lights and setting sun illuminated his snarling teeth, gleaming from parted lips that had him panting like a rabid dog. If you hadn’t known better it would’ve looked like he was heading for the gym for his daily workout. Blown pupils, sweat-stuck hair, complimented by a shaking frame– most definitely caused by adrenaline, dopamine, and a slew of Gods-knew-what other drugs he had pumped into his system. Splotches of drying, smeared blood coated his neck and shirt while even more dripped onto the ground from his fists. The crimson contrasted with the medically white floors. 

Bile rose in your throat again. The acidic taste made you dry heave at the sight of the blood, knowing from the looks of Bucky it definitely wasn’t his.

He snarled as your eyes finally met. Fists of flesh and metal flexed. Rippling muscles shook as he readied to launch forward.

“You’re mine, lisitsa!” he barked. His voice booming louder than the speed of sound, it made your ears ring.

Your throat finally opened. You screamed as he sprinted towards you, making more ground down the hallway than an apex predator out of hibernation. You shoved the exit door open, heaving your legs forward as you ascended the stairs. No choice but to go up, you refused to look back– nay you didn’t dare to even consider it. Muscles and tendons and joints burned, yearning for you to stop, but the door slamming from flights below you only pushed you harder, flying up and passing floor after floor. 

You were fast, but he was faster. 

Dizziness overtook you as your vision began to blur. Darkened edges of your peripherals made you stop your climb at level 50, pausing for a split second to hear Bucky’s progress. He was close behind, but you still had more of an advantage. You knew the Tower better than him. You knew level 50 had another stairwell on the opposite side of the floor, through another hallway off the corner of your current one. Sneakers pounded too close for comfort as you shoved the door open and made a break for it down another corridor labyrinth.

If you made it out of this alive, you swore you’d kill Tony’s architect yourself. 

“You can’t hide forever, lisitsa!” Bucky’s voice rang out from the stairwell as you rounded the corner, sprinting through more identical-looking hallways. Another corner later and the glowing red EXIT sign appeared above the next stairwell. A beacon of hope, almost. Relieved, you head straight for it, body and mind and soul pushing against the burning and the gasping for air. You were right there, hand outstretched, fingertips grasping the metal bar–

It felt like a car crash. 

Not an accident or fender bender. No, it felt like seventy miles an hour meets a tree with no intent of moving. That split-second feeling where your stomach drops and you can all but brace for the deadly impact destined for you to meet.

Time stopped as you were yanked backwards. Cold, slick metal wrapped around your ankle, bloody hand print smearing some poor bastard’s DNA all over your calf as your body fell to the ground. Hard. Your jaw clenched as your chin slammed into the linoleum. Teeth ground into your tongue as copper flooded your tastebuds. Your lungs, with little wind left in them, gasped for oxygen. Another scream rising in your throat became stuck in your vocal cords. 

Bucky whipped you around as you struggled to free your lower half. You landed on your shoulder, head bouncing against the floor and teary eyes struggled to stay open and endure the pain. He straddled your form, the weight crashing down on your bones and organs. A sharp inhale impaled your chest as you met Bucky’s darkened eyes, then; the familiar steel blue replaced entirely with dilated, unhinged pupils. 

It was the first time you got a good look at his face. His face is speckled with blood spatter and several bruises spread across his cheek down his neck. Two black eyes, a bloody nose– one you hoped was his– and a broken lip. The bloodied collar of his shirt only aided in the mess of his hair. His soft, chocolate strands stuck in mats to his neck and temples with sweat and blood.��

Out of sheer habit, because he looked like your Bucky, you couldn’t help but reach a hand out to him. A soft plea for the man behind his eyes, one you begged everything holy was still there. He held your stare, face contorting into unrecognizable emotions. Tears brimmed your eyes as your hand stretched further, sobs escaping as your fingers inched closer and closer to his battered face.

“Bucky, it’s me–”

Your appeal transformed into a shriek, quickly snuffed out as Bucky wrapped his crimson-spattered metal hand around your throat. You choked, sputtering lost pleas as your hands flew to your neck. Fingernails flailed in futile attempts to claw off the weapons-grade titanium. 

“You’re done running, khitraya suka,” Bucky’s hot breath fanned your face as he leaned in. His mouth grazed your jaw, titanium hand on your throat flexing with each syllable. He slowly made his way down your neck, pushing harder into your chest with his forearm. A heavy growl. His grip only tightened as you tried to knee him in the groin, picking you up by your neck and slamming you down again.

Stars circled your blurred vision, eyes rolling back into your head. The corridor, the lights, everything split into two.

“You owe me for my victory, lisitsa,” Bucky’s husky whisper resonated in your ear as he licked the side of your face, his hot, wet mouth against your tear-stained cheek. As his free hand moved to the waistband of your shorts, another surge of panic washed through you. You tried to sputter a weak cry from your closed-off throat, blood turning cold, another scream building and building in your chest and aching for release. 

“You owe me what’s mine –!” 

BANG!

Something from somewhere all of a sudden. The object slammed into Bucky, throwing him off of you and spilling across the floor. 

Finally, your lungs lunged at the chance for air, leaving you a heaving, choking, coughing mess. Spitting at the ground as you made your way shakily to your hands and knees, a freed hand traveling to rub the fresh strangulation bruises forming on the column of your stiff neck. 

“Get the fuck off her, Bucky!” 

Steve.

As your vision cleared, the shield whizzed past you as it ricocheted back into Steve’s open arms. Bucky groaned, low and guttural, but only for a moment is he subdued. Slowly, he rose, like smoke from extinguished ashes, looking to his metal vice. A large dent adorned the weathered, bloodied appendage where his bicep met his shoulder. He then turned his attention to Steve, baring his teeth, anger coursing through him as he immediately disregarded you. His sights set on a new target, launching himself at Steve without a beat lost.

Steve grunted as Bucky’s metal fist met the vibranium shield with a deafening clang. Steve gritted his teeth and pushed back, managing to break Bucky’s attack and aim a kick for his stomach.

“Go! I got him!” Steve yelled to you through a gasp as Bucky countered with his own swipe at Steve’s middle. Your body stayed put, relishing in the ability to fucking breathe again, also painfully aware how screwed you’d be if you didn’t escape as you had the chance. You willed yourself to move, to run and to keep going, to no avail. As Steve landed a blow to Bucky, his eyes met yours once more. His baby blues, pained and tired, begged for you to listen to him for once in your life. 

“Now!”

The strain in Steve’s voice seemed to ignite a fire underneath you. Pushing yourself up, you willed your legs to carry you to the exit. Bloody shoe prints tracked your route as you slammed through the doorway. You cursed, knowing they’ll give away which way you’d go, knowing your life matters more than a twenty-dollar pair of sneakers. Kicking them off, throwing the pair down the exit, praying they made it far enough Bucky wouldn’t know any better. 

You threw yourself up the stars, tremors and pain afflicting every limb as the cold concrete seeped in through your socks in each step. The railing helped as you heaved yourself forward with help from the railing. Sweaty palms slipped on the bars, but your grip only grew tighter. 

You didn’t know how you, or your body, was able to do it, making it up seven more flights of stairs before your knees buckled on level 57. Heaving the door open and slamming it shut, you stumbled out into the new hallway. You hadn’t visited that level before. Something Steve and the others– especially Doctor Banner– said was “just a business floor.”

The sign on the wall directing to ‘SAFELAB’ said otherwise. Nothing in the Tower was “just business.” 

What you did know was that every SAFELAB on every floor was located in the same, far-east hallway. 

Wiping the sweat from your temple, you turned right, jogging down the darkened, emptied-out hallway. It felt like the apocalypse. No sign of anybody else. Doors left ajar, papers and bags and other employee memorabilia scattered throughout abandoned offices and cubicles. You hoped everyone was able to make it out, at least.

Part of you didn’t hope for much, though. 

The door to the lab came into view as you rounded the last corner. The door was still locked, the lab inside sterile and untouched. A sigh of relief escaped you. Holding your palm to the door’s scanner, it answered your prayers in a soft beep and whir, miraculously allowing you in. 

You maneuvered through the multiple security doors, four in total, crouching low once you managed to slip into the lab itself. The gigantic window at the front of the labspace spared no room for you to hide easily, but you had zero room to complain about it. It was your only option, after all.

Well, besides the roof. 

Crouched, you snuck your way around the counters and various equipment to one of the supply closets. The furthest corner from the entrance. You scoured through drawers and cupboards for some sort of weaponry; the most you could find was a new scalpel out of a box of extras. 

You closed in on the supply closet, reaching up and grasping the handle, turning it slowly to prevent any squeaks from the inner hinge. A tear glided down your cheek in relief. You hadn’t realized you started crying. Again. 

The door swung open. It greeted you mostly empty, deep enough for you to cram your body into. Crawling inside, bones and limbs contorted into the most comfortable position you could manage. You pinched the edges of the doors to close them as best as you can, accepting they, in fact, couldn’t close all the way from the inside. A curse under your breath, the sliver of dim light through the crack cast onto your face. Once settled, you crumpled your damp t-shirt up from the collar and shoved the fabric into your mouth. Teeth and tongue greeted sweaty cotton and hints of copper as you bit down on the collar, covering your mouth with a free hand. 

At last, after Gods knew how long it had been since you ceased moving, a silenced sob heaved out of your chest. Tremors only worsened as your nervous system rode out the fumes of its adrenaline high and flight mode instincts. Hot tears spilled down your cheeks, mixing with snot further down your face, slipping down to your neck and leaving behind streaked paths in the bloodied, hand-printed bruises adorned on your flesh. The pain from the near-strangulation you suffered broke through the shock and endorphins that were keeping you sane until then. You knew, though, you couldn’t break down. Not yet. Not until you saw Natasha or Steve or someone you trusted face-to-face. 

You started counting your breaths. Mind racing, thoughts traveling near sonic speeds through your mind carrying questions at how the hell it all happened.

You thought for sure S.H.I.E.L.D. was secure, especially after the ordeal with Bucky, Steve, and the whole ‘defeating HYDRA’ ordeal from a few years back. Hell, you thought it was safer than taking the FBI’s recon mission that was offered to you before being referred to Tony himself. Your mind raced, what-ifs and endless possibilities flashing across your eyes like a snuff film. You hoped Steve was okay. You hoped Natasha was on her way to your location any second. You hoped Sam was safe and made it out okay. You hoped Bucky –

Bucky. 

Christ, you hadn’t even stopped to think about how the hell everything happened to him. He’d been doing so well in his recovery program. Steve was even telling you about it that same morning, bragging about how well Bucky was doing, how much progress he was making, how soon they’d finally be able to move in together once Doctor Banner cleared him. Another sob overtook you. How you’d never seen him like that before, the feeling of his titanium arm slowly crushing your windpipe, the weight of his entire body crushing your internal organs as he’d held you down. The things he’d said. You tried to wrap your head around what he’d said, what he was going to do–

Crashing followed by shattering glass emitted a muffled yelp from you as your blood ran cold. Another wave of tears flooded out of your burning eyes, chest heaving unevenly. Your hand clamped even tighter over your mouth as teeth bit into the salty fabric of your shirt, drying up any more moisture your mouth was grateful to finally have.

BANG! Then another. Then more in rapid succession. Shattering, crashing, shattering, silence. The final blow to the security doors sounded from inside the lab itself. Your breath hitched and bile began bubbling in your stomach, reaching the back of your throat and across your tongue. You forced yourself to swallow the acid, listening intently to the crunch of sneakers on shattered glass.

He’d found you. 

“Lisitsaaa,” Bucky drawled, his voice dropped to a primally low octave. Lower than before. You almost couldn’t make out the words, a mixture of growled mumblings of English and Russian. Knees folded closer to your chest, you tightened your grip on the handle of the scalpel. Bucky’s footsteps were slow, methodical, predatorial. 

His heavy steps inched closer, each followed by a pause, then sudden crashing of lab equipment and smashing of drawers. More glass and metal slammed to the ground and walls after each pause. He sounded feet away. Then inches. 

Your breathing stopped as the sliver of light clouded over. The lump in your throat threatened more puke to rise as you dared to peer up through the crack, heart dropping like a dead weight to your stomach as your eyes fell on freshly bloodied sneakers. A stifled scream in your lungs choked you. You refused to think about whose blood that was.

Eyes darted back up. You could see Bucky’s blurred features clouded in shadows. The only light visible, then, was the glint from his wicked smile. Bloodied teeth shone as he licked his lips hungrily, a predator finally cornering its prey. 

Ever so slowly he crouched, shoving his face closer into the seam in the door. Tears and snot continued to stream down your face, your body hyperventilating as you forced yourself to look into his eyes. There was nothing else you could do. Nothing else to say, to cry about. There was nowhere left to run. He got you. 

“There you are, moy priz,” Bucky hissed before reaching through and throwing the doors open, heavy hands leaving imprints in the flimsy metal. Frozen, your fist was still closed around the scalpel, your muscles tensed as joints locked in place. His evil eyes scanned your body greedily, looking for which cut of meat to divulge in first. His gaze stopped at your fist and he chuckled, tisking in a disappointed tone. 

“Oh, glupaya pizda,” Bucky shook his head, amused at your meager choice of weaponry. Compared to him, you might as well have been waving a white flag. His smile only grew, tongue jutting out to lick his lips. Specks of blood coated the sides of his cheeks and edges of his mouth, smeared about from ear to ear with the back of his hand.

“Come with me and they might consider your life, lisitsa–”

You sprung into him, swinging your arm, landing the scalpel into the middle of his flesh hand, impaling straight through it. In an instant, blood spewed from the impact. Bucky screamed out in pain, a slew of mixed language curses reverberating in your skull. You scrambled out of your hiding place, bashing him with a balled fist to the face as you tumbled out and onto your feet, sprinting to the lab’s only exit. Freedom was only an arm’s length away when an overturned stool tripped you. The impact didn’t hurt near as much as the millions of shattered glass bits shredded cut into your skin, your hands and knees and arms and face littered as blood smeared under you and across the once-sterile white floors. You cried out, writhing around. Battered and bloodied, struggling to rise and run again despite the searing pain in your ankle.

Before you could form your next thought, a rough hand snatched your scalp and dragged you up by your hair. You uttered a panicked scream as Bucky hoisted you to eye level, snarling like a rabid dog as he shook you hard.

“I thought you were smarter than that, lisitsa,” he sneered, “but I was wrong.”

He hurled you back onto the floor, his bloodied, titanium fist still gripping your hair, dragging you over to one of the disheveled lab tables. More glass shredded your skin, blood and sweat and tears mixing and pouring over your face and hands and body. With ease and a free hand, he swiped the rest of the contents off another counter; beakers and burners crashed to the floor. His grip tightened as he threw you up onto the stainless steel counter, the dead weight of your body banging onto the table, landing you hard on your back. Eardrums rang into your skull and jaw, radiating down your spine and out your limbs. Your hands slip against the smooth metal from the blood, futile attempts to grab onto something, anything. You groaned and huffed excess sobs. The pain, unbearable; the fear, unimaginable. 

Bucky hoisted himself onto the table, landing on top of your broken body, his knee hitting your spine and knocking your last breath out of you. Straddling you, his thick thighs bulged through tattered sweatpants, squeezing into your rib cage. He looped another fist into your hair, raising your head and slamming it down. The side of your face smushed into the steel table, smearing around more blood as he did it again. And again. The cartilage in your nose cracked and throbbing pain radiated into your eyes, your skull. Warmth from the break and the blood poured over your face. The pain, dulling into numbness as you began to fade in and out of consciousness.

Your vision started to blur and blacken, stars and specks orbiting around Bucky like a halo of hallucination. Your body, finally surrendering to him. No fight left. Any strength you could have mustered, funneled into staying awake, proved useless. 

A new sound, then: ripping.

You didn’t have to look to witness Bucky unrelentingly tear your t-shirt away from your body, training his eyes on your open form. Bruised skin exposed to cool air, your chest still momentarily held together by your sports bra. He made quick work of it next, the nylon snapping off in one swipe, sending goosebumps racing down your spine. 

Ice-cold titanium fingers untangled from your matted hair and made their way from your nape, to the small of your back, to the waistband of your gym shorts. Muscles tensed as you felt each digit wrap almost leisurely onto the elastic. He tore them away swiftly, baring the rest of you and your skin to him. A growl, one of pleasure, vibrated into you from him, emitted he palmed the skin of your ass. His fingers journeyed languidly in a slow trail from your back to your core. You squirmed, wasting the last of your strength, a hopeless attempt to get away one last time. 

A crack came across your face. Flesh against flesh, he slapped you. A punishment. A command for obedience. Your body fell limp. Breathing raggedly and gagging on blood and spit, you shuddered as he took your wrists and tied them together with your t-shirt. 

Satisfied, his prey finally submitting, Bucky paused, panting as he leaned down to you. He wet his lips before speaking, gruff words slurred against your ringing eardrum. As he spoke, cold metal grazed your entrance, a threat of what was to come. 

“Now, I get to take what’s mine.”

Your screams echoed as the world fell dark.

[starhvney]

𝐒𝐔𝐁𝐉𝐄𝐂𝐓 𝟑 | 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟕: 𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐏 𝐃𝐀𝐘

𝐂𝐖: more blackmailing lol, minor mentions of anxiety from both aphmau and reader, reader’s dad suggests self defense with a pocket knife but he’s not serious, possible bad translation of spanish pls if anyone is fluent let me know if it's wrong lmao i only know beginner level

𝐀/𝐍: next chapter is finally out guys!! i hope the obnoxiously long word count makes up for how long it took to come out lol

𝐖𝐂: 7,300 +

𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 ☆ 𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓 | 𝐀𝐎𝟑 | 𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 | 𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊𝐒

despite your better judgment, you didn't mention a thing to your mom about gene when you got home yesterday. what were you supposed to tell her?

"oh, hey! sorry i'm late today, i went to buy cigarettes with a delinquent from school who holds the outcome of the rest of my high school career on his phone! no biggie, mom!"

yeah, that would go insanely well.

you did text aphmau about it, and she reacted exactly how you expected—reaffirming exactly why you weren't going to say anything.

aphmau: we have to tell our moms!! that's awful!!

you: no!!

you: i already know it was bad, i don't need the biggest lecture of my life and possibly being grounded on top of already knowing it was a bad idea.

you: i usually tell my mom about these things but not this time

aphmau: :(

aphmau: well we can't just let him get away with it?? what if they get us in more trouble

aphmau: that would be just as bad if the pictures got out

you: i know i know

you: i don't have a plan yet but we'll work it out.

you: sorry that's not super reassuring but

aphmau: no it's okay

aphmau: i don't want to tell my mom either

aphmau: knowing her she might pull me out to be homeschooled again

you: the good thing is we at least are with each other on this

aphmau: yeah, that's true :')

aphmau: okay, i'm going to try to forget about it and get some sleep

aphmau: good night!

you: good night aph

laurance also texted you later that night—of course—with how observant he is and how loyal he's made himself out to be you'd be shocked if he didn't ask you more about it.

laurance: hey :) how are you?

you: hii! i'm good :) 

you: how are you? did you win against o'khasis? 

you: sorry i didn't come back to see the game after school 

laurance: not gonna lie i was a little sad you weren't there :,) but it's okay

laurance: T-T and no

laurance: but i already knew we wouldn't

you: that's why you lost!! 

you: you should've believed you'd win!!! 

laurance: hey!! tell that to my teammates lol i know i'm the best

you: wow cocky much

laurance: nuh uh it's not being cocky if it's true :P

laurance: hey

laurance: can i ask a question?

you: what's up??

laurance: i just was thinking about the whole thing that happened at lunch

laurance: i know i can't tell you who to hang out with, but i genuinely really don't think you should hang out near them at all

laurance: they can be very

laurance: influencing

laurance: i know cause when i hung out with them i ended up getting into some bad stuff

you: bad stuff? 

laurance: just stuff i'm not proud of

laurance: like pressuring me into vandalizing and smoking and drinking

laurance: i thought they were cool so i didn't say no when i should've

you: i know you said you had a history with them but i had no idea 

you: they made you do that? 

laurance: technically i had a choice??

laurance: i just made the bad ones

laurance: i really regret not saying no to them sometimes

you: well i can tell you're nothing like that now laurance 

you: it was a year ago but you were also a freshman 

you: i think it's really respectable that even after that you choose to be a really good person now who makes the right decisions 

laurance: that means a lot actually, thank you.

laurance: but that's why i wanted to ask you about it

laurance: cause i know you're also nothing like them so

laurance: i just wanted to make sure they weren't like, pressuring you or trying to threaten you to do something?

...shit. you can't go around or avoid the question now. should you really lie to him about this?

you: yeah i get why you're worried now 

you: i promise i haven't been pressured into anything and if they try i'll completely drop them 

laurance: hey if something bad happened and they're making you hang out with them

laurance: everyone knows by now that you're a good friend and a good student

laurance: so don't be scared to say something

the thought is comforting, but he doesn't know that it involves one of the most influential girls in the school.

you: it's just, complicated

you: i don't want to get into it right now but i just think i can handle the issue on my own

you: for now 

laurance: i really don't like this

laurance: but if you think you're fine then i won't stop you obviously

laurance: just know that i'll trust you over anything they try to hold over your head, okay? you can always come talk to me

you can feel your heart painfully twist in your chest.

you: thank you. you're an amazing friend laurance 

you: if i need help i promise i'll let you know 

laurance: okay, if you say so

laurance: and i know i'm pretty cool B)

you: the coolest B) 

you: good night laurance! see you tomorrow 

laurance: good night :)

while laurance was pretty popular, how much clean up work on rumors could he do compared to ivy and gene's influence? not everyone would believe him, and who's to say he wouldn't be affected by the rumors for sticking up for you?

you've already been friends for a few months now, but you don't want him to suffer because of you. and who's to say he won't get tired and drop you because of it? he seems like a super loyal friend, but would he die on a hill for a girl he just met this school year?

the walk to school with aphmau was quiet. you could practically feel the anxiety looming in the air around the both of you, zapping any urge to start a conversation. you hadn't felt like this since the first day of school here, your fingertips and cheeks feeling like pins and needles while your chest felt heavy with a sense of dread.

maybe a part of you was hoping that if you simply acted like it didn't happen, everything would blow over and be dropped. after all, messing with you couldn't be that fun, right? right??

wrong.

"leave us alone." aphmau says, her voice surprisingly quite firm as she glares up at the three delinquents, who had blocked the two of you off in the empty hallway.

how did you always manage to end up alone in the hallways?

"nuh uh." zenix quips back, laughing with a teasing smile at your friend.

"aw, c'mon. after our bonding walk you're already mad at me again?" he directs his question at you, mocking fake sadness. "tell the smaller kitty that we're friends now, kitty."

"don't call either of us that!" she protests, her grip she had on your hand tightening. a quiet comfort to you, but probably mostly her.

"why not? kitty's a cute nickname. when people give you a nickname it means they have a special affection for you."

"oh, so you like us?" she sarcastically raises a thin eyebrow, lips forming in a frustrated line.

"hm," gene hums, seeming to seriously consider her question, dark eyes darting between the two of you. "you? not really. i kinda like her, though."

aphmau huffs. "then why did you go out of your way to bother us?"

"i just like messing with people. thought that was pretty obvious, no?" he scoffs. "and you two, especially you little missy, make yourselves the perfect targets."

you suppress a tense sigh.

"which is exactly why you two are skipping with us today," gene says simply with a shrug, face smug as he leans on the wall, hands shoved in his pockets.

"excuse me?" you ask incredulously.

"you heard me. let's go." he lifts himself from the wall, not opening the conversation up for any more questioning as he leisurely walks away from the classrooms.

aphmau sends you a panicked glance, amber eyes round. the trio walks ahead of you once they see you both uneasily following along, beginning to whisper among themselves when a looming tall boy nearly runs into the two of you from around the corner.

you recognize him as that aaron guy, who outside of aphmau's stories had gained an even larger reputation of getting into fights and winning. he gives you a once over, making you tap your thigh nervously before you watch his nearly black eyes dart down to aphmau.

the short girl gives a very direct "hmph!" before turning away from him, grabbing your arm, and dragging you closer to the group. her distaste for him seemingly was much larger than what she held for the shadow knights.

you glance back to see aaron watching you two walk away from him, his eyebrows furrowed and mouth slightly agape in shock. truthfully, it was an amusing sight, and you have to stop yourself from laughing at his expression when his eyes dart back to yours.

his mouth snaps shut and he rolls his eyes, quickly turning away and stalking off down the hall without a single word being muttered.

gene huffs out an amused laugh. "see? that's so funny. no one but you of all people is able to look that guy in the eye. now c'mon."

you and aphmau stare at him, faces unamused.

"if not, i'm sure your friends and the rest of the school would love to see my photography skills!" he grins, raising his eyebrows challengingly.

soon you find yourself following the group down the sidewalk, with aph clinging onto your arm. you could feel her hands tremble nervously against your blazer, and every once in a while her head would dart around with a guilty look in her eye.

"if you get us into any more trouble than just skipping—" she starts, only to swiftly be cut off by the leader ahead.

"relax. you're both just going to get to know us better. we're gonna hang out and then get some coffee later. no biggie."

"you drink coffee?" aphmau questions.

"yep. dark and bitter."

"calm down, edge lord. drinking black coffee doesn't make you any cooler." you grumble, earning a tiny chuckle from both aphmau and surprisingly zenix.

"after our last little walk together and you still don't like me?" gene sighs, shaking his head and clicking his tongue.

"i can't say buying cigarettes is a fun bonding experience for me, sorry to say." you quip back.

"...you know what, fair enough, kitty. i get both of your little goody-two-shoes attitudes—well i don't really get it, but—i'll strike you both a deal." gene turns to look at the two of you as you cross the street, walking towards an older park. "if you two still don't like us after skipping today, i will never ask you two to skip class again."

"you promise?" aphmau stutters, leaning forward with hopeful eyes.

"i promise!" he concurs. "i just want you to know us outside of the rumors you've heard."

you think you'd believe laurance's "rumors" over these three's catty smirks any day.

"we're not all that bad." gene shrugs, before turning to see sasha and zenix ahead going off the path into some shrubbery.

aphmau glances up at you, before looking back to gene with a resigned sigh. "ok, fine. deal."

"great!" he grins before waving a hand towards the shrubbery. "ladies first."

you stare at him as aphmau walks forward, raising an eyebrow. "and what if this is an elaborate plan to get us alone and murder us?"

"oh, kitty, if i wanted to do something to you i would've done it when you walked home with me." he scoffs, throwing an arm around your shoulder and guiding you with him after the rest of the group.

"uh-huh." you deadpan, earning a carefree chuckle from the boy.

when the shrubs part for a clearing, you look up to see an old brick bridge for a train track. it was likely abandoned a long time ago based on the trees and plants overgrown on the top and the layers of graffiti plastered on the sides. under the bridge ran part of the large river that goes through the whole city, though this part seems to be a thinner and slower-moving part of it.

gene releases you from his arm, shoving his hands in his pockets as he walks ahead a few steps.

truthfully, it was a really cool spot. you'd even hang out here alone to draw or read in your free time if you had come across it on your own. you doubt that's what the shadow knights did here, though.

suddenly, your phone buzzes, and you look down to check the notification.

kate: hey, you're not in homeroom today?

kate: you sick?

you curse under your breath, looking to aphmau who was distracted by something sasha was saying, before looking back down. your fingers hover over the keyboard as you contemplate what to say.

you: ugh yeah sorry i didn't tell you 

you: probably just ate something bad, i'll be better by tomorrow 

kate: ohh alright then

kate: i'll see you tomorrow then, hopefully?

kate: feel better! and rest up!

you: thanks kate! i will!

guilt eats at you from the inside of your chest, screaming at you how wrong you were, how you need to tell your friends the truth.

you slide your phone back in your pocket.

"alright, you two. make our new friends here feel welcomed. they'll be joining our group here pretty soon." gene muses, holding his hands out to prompt zenix and sasha to actually talk.

"join? they said yes?" sasha raises her eyebrows, eyes shifting to aphmau and you in mild surprise.

"not yet." gene shrugs. "i'm not gonna force a good thing. they'll join on their own, but they've got to get to know us, first."

"ah, i see." sasha's eyebrows relax to rest in their usual unimpressed position.

zenix scoffs. "neither of them are hardcore enough."

"shut up, zenix."

the boy comically huffs in response and crosses his arms, like an annoyed kid who just got told off. aphmau seems pretty uneasy by his aggressive demeanor, slowly shuffling to stand closer to you again.

"i swear zenix has the same temper as that zane kid. speaking of him, why don't we let him in the group?" sasha looks over at gene.

your eyebrows furrow at her words, the middle ro'meave brother popping into your mind. he was rude to you last time, for sure, but him? in this gang of kids? the thought of it makes you feel strangely... protective over your friend's bratty younger brother.

"zane is just a poser. plus, he's no fun to play with. he was so eager to join us it made him look pathetic." gene rolls his eyes, and you can't help crossing your arms. "i'll give him until next semester to see how he does on his own, then maybe i'll think of it."

you look at aphmau, who is also looking at you with an unappeased expression on her face.

"make him work for it, huh?" sasha muses.

"what's the point of us having an exclusive group if we just let any emo kid in?"

"we're not emo, though," sasha says, dark purple fingernails ironically raking through her chopped side swoop bangs.

"not us. zane."

"oh, whoops. my bad."

gene ruins his fingers through the mess of dark curls on his head as he starts walking back where we just came from. "anyways, i'm going to get the stuff. i forgot it. keep them entertained."

"kay. hurry up." sasha says, stretching her arms out before sitting down on a soft patch of grass by the river.

the stuff?

"stuff?" you repeat, lip curling up and eyes squinting in accusation.

gene snorts. "don't worry, kitty. it's not drugs if that's what you're thinking."

he walks off, not giving any further explanation before he's gone.

"it's stuff for our art. you'll see." sasha looks over to you and aphmau, waving you both over to sit next to her as zenix stalks off closer to the bridge.

"i don't think i like the sound of that." aphmau whispers before you both settle onto the grass.

sasha turns to look at you both, a small amount of interest shines in her deep purple eyes. you want to laugh at how cliche it sounds in your head, but they really looked like someone had carved out two amethysts and stuck them into her eyes. black eyeliner lined her eyes, one side a little smudged on the corner. she managed to pull it off, somehow still looking like a little doll with her smooth porcelain skin.

"so, what kind of grades do you two get?"

"huh?" aphmau blinks.

"are you a straight-a student? average? dumb?" sasha presses.

"oh, uh..." your friend stutters, picking at her fingernails. "so far i've gotten all a's and some b's. i'm not that great at math though."

sasha hums, her eyes lazily drifting over to you.

"...pretty much all a's." you say, curiously looking back at her. why did she want to know? was she gonna try to get you to do her homework?

"cool. good to know we're not letting in anyone with bad grades."

"you mean you guys don't?" aphmau unashamedly asks, her face baffled.

sasha doesn't seem offended by this, the corner of her lip lifting. "nah."

"but you guys skip almost every day? that doesn't make any sense, i don't get how that works." she insists.

"we're not dumb. we get bad grades because we miss class and tend not to listen to the teacher, so that obviously reflects on our records. it's an attempt for the "man" to control us with these letters that we find such validation in." sasha returns.

so they do make bad grades.

"huh...? that was really a mouthful."

oh, aphmau.

"just words, sweetheart." sasha returns with a tiny smirk. "honestly, gene, zenix and i are very smart when it comes to our studies. we're just bored because nothing challenges us in academics anymore. hence why we skip class. if i'm going to be bored, i don't want to be bored in that building we call school."

"oh, i see. well, that doesn't make any sense." aphmau says.

sasha hums with a raised eyebrow, prompting her to elaborate.

"it's just... if you're so smart that you don't feel challenged, why sacrifice your good grades to do nothing? why not go the extra mile and challenge yourself by making a presentation? or writing a report on how the teachers can help you more?"

sasha quietly stares at her, expression blank—though eyes seemingly deep in thought.

"the teachers don't know everything, they're trying to figure life out, too. so if you're super bored, why not teach them back?" you add, bringing up your knees for your chin to rest on. "not caring and being lazy every once in a while is fun, but i think everyone should have a goal. otherwise you'll find yourself stuck in the same place."

"hm. i can see why gene took an interest in the both of you." sasha looks out to the river as she says this, lips pursed.

suddenly she reaches out a hand, the dark metal rings and bracelets she wore clinking together. "give me your hands."

"what, why?" aphmau asks cautiously, watching as you place your hand on the older girl's one.

"i do palm readings as a hobby. just a little thing i like to do." she says, her thumb already tracing over the lines in your hand as she brings it closer to her face.

"you're not going to do something weird are you?" aph leans back.

"just give me your stupid hand." she flicks her free hand demandingly.

aphmau goes quiet, nervously giving up one of her hands to the girl. sasha brings both of your hands side by side, pursing her lips as she compares the two.

"interesting." she says, a few moments passing before she continues. "both of you have lots of creativity. i'm not shocked by the lack of openness for feelings and emotions on your hand—" she nudges up your palm. "—but apparently aphmau is more open. which isn't a lie if we were comparing you both together... but neither of you are open. otherwise you two wouldn't be here in the first place."

you and aphmau make the same little noise of surprise.

sasha's eyebrows furrow, as she stretches out both of your hands. she focuses on yours, humming in stumped confusion as she mutters to herself. "that's weird. i haven't seen a fate line like yours. it's all... broken up. what does that mean? interesting..."

"quit holding hands with them, sasha!" zenix suddenly shouts from where he had scaled up to the top of the bridge, looking down over all three of you.

"quit being emo, zenix!" she shouts back without a second of thinking, looking up at you with an eye roll. "so glad there's girls now. he's—"

"don't tell me how to live my life!"

sasha ignores his response, looking at aphmau's palm. "your life is pretty dull. according to your palm."

"uhh..." aphmau's shoulders slump.

"i don't need a fake palm reader who learned all her lessons from the internet to tell me how to live my life!" zenix continues.

"ignore him." sasha rolls her eyes again. "he's just yelling to yell."

"i like yelling!"

"i like when you shut up!"

"come make me!" he challenges, puffing out his chest.

"kitty." sasha coos at you, batting her eyelashes. "be a dear and go shut zenix up for me? i want to relax and take a nap before gene makes you do the hazing initiation thingy."

aphmau flinches. "hazing? initiation? what initiation?!"

sasha lays down, closing her eyes and ignoring both of your protests.

"what—are you serious?" aphmau huffs, as sasha continues to ignore her words. "great. we didn't even agree to join and they're talking about an initiation. what even is the initiation?"

aphmau looks up to zenix, before her round eyes slowly drift back to you. "...can you go ask him?" she whispers.

"huh? why can't you?" you cross your arms, hushing your voice back

"because he scares me! you go talk to him!" aphmau complains back.

"i'm not gonna talk to him. you do it."

"no, you!"

"you!"

"oh! suddenly i'm feeling really sleepy..." aphmau fake yawns, lying down in the grass like sasha and closing her eyes.

"oh my—whatever! he's not even scary, you baby!" you quietly shout, standing up with a huff and ignoring the quiet snickers from sasha.

you turn to march over to the bridge, looking up to the top where zenix was kicking stray rocks into the river. "um, zenix?"

"what do you want?" he looks down at you, eyes narrowing. "did sasha get you to do her dirty work for her already? of course you'd listen to her." he snorts.

"no. i was just wondering what this initiation thing was about?"

"i can't spoil the surprise." he grins, and you deadpan. "just know that if you do it, you'll be super hardcore in my book."

"right, because i'm so desperate for your approval." you raise your eyebrows, resting a hand on your hip. "what, skipping class isn't hardcore enough for you?"

zenix huffs, flustering rather immediately at your words as he turns to kick a rock rather harshly into the water. "skipping class isn't hard. it's whatever."

"why are you so huffy and angry?"

"why are you so calm and happy?"

you shrug. "cause it's better."

"says who?" he quips, tilting his head at you in a challenge.

"says me."

"well aren't you important." he sarcastically huffs.

"so are you."

he looks down at you with a strange look.

"yeah? says who?"

"says me."

the shrubbery rustles and leaves crunch, signaling gene was back from wherever he had gone off to.

"looks like you all are getting along well." he says.

"she's weird," zenix says, still looking at you with a confused expression.

"well we like weirdos, don't we?" gene raises an eyebrow with an amused chuckle.

"...i guess," zenix says, walking along the bridge to find a way down.

"you two, come here," gene says, the bag in his hand rustling as he waves you and aphmau over.

"so," he starts when you're both standing in front of him. "how do you like our group so far?"

you glance at aphmau, before speaking up first. "you guys are fine, but we aren't into the whole skipping school and breaking the rules thing."

gene raises an eyebrow, looking over to aphmau when she pipes up.

"yeah, we're not interested in joining. i just want to finish this day of skipping and leave."

he hums quietly, looking off in thought. "...alright. i'll let you two go."

"really?" aphmau eagerly says, eyes wide and hopeful. "and you'll delete the pictures?"

"who said anything about deleting the pictures?" gene shoots down the second request in a heartbeat, snorting in amusement. "i'm keeping them, i just won't make you two skip school again, is all."

aphmau scoffs in displeasure.

"now now, no need to get too worked up." gene tsks, waving the bag in front of you two. "there's still something else i need you both to do for me before i let you go."

"what is it?" aphmau huffs, crossing her arms.

"you're going to tag a wall with the shadow knights logo."

"what?!" she squeaks, jaw dropping in horror, and you feel your face drop.

"you heard me." gene snickers watching your eyes drift to the hidden bridge that had a ton of graffiti on it already.

"no no. not there." gene smirks, nodding his head for you two to follow him.

your group walks back to the more polished part of the path, where gene points to a clean concrete wall that would most definitely be seen by people going by on their walks.

"here." he grins, gesturing to the wall.

"no way!" aphmau stutters, stepping closer to you with that same horrified look on her face.

"we're not criminals. that's illegal." you say, glaring up at gene who merely widens his smile, leaning down by his torso and tilting his head at you.

"you're a criminal as long as you're mine."

you wrinkle your nose. "you don't own me or aph just cause you have those pictures."

"oh? then i'm sure garroth and the rest of your friends would love to see said pictures of the school's precious sweet ivy getting the shit beat out of her by two rando new girls." he shrugs, straightening his back and dangling the bag in front of him. "it's up to you..."

you snap your mouth shut, before yanking the bag from his hands. "just shut up."

gene ooh's in amusement, stepping aside with a smirk as he watches you march to the wall, crouching near the bag as you drop it and pulling out the spray paints from inside.

"...if i do this, does it mean i'm part of your group?" aphmau nervously asks from behind you.

"nope, it just means that you're doing the work of tagging this place for me. plus, if you do this one time, i'll never ask you to tag this place for me again."

"tag any place." you interject, looking back to send a harsh glare at him.

gene looks you up and down, before quietly chuckling and raising his arms. "any place." he concedes.

"okay, fine." aphmau shakily agrees, coming up beside you to help.

you've never spray painted before, and neither had aphmau, but surprisingly the logo ended up looking pretty good. if it was done in a place you were allowed to tag and not vandalizing, you'd probably be proud of it.

but you were vandalizing, and you felt the opposite of pride as you and aphmau backed up from the wall, smelling like spray paint as some of it dripped from your fingers.

"not bad." gene grins, hands on his hips as he observes your handiwork.

"looks pretty great." sasha's voice pipes up, she and zenix appearing behind you two.

zenix crosses his arms as he analyzes the logo. "...maybe you two are hardcore enough." he admits.

"you're both free to go home now. we're gonna go to the coffee shop down the road if you two want to join us." gene says, snagging up the bag and cans to likely use later.

you and aphmau shake your head no at the same time.

"no thanks..." she stutters quietly.

gene shrugs, leading his two accomplices along the sidewalk. "suit yourselves. let's go."

you and aphmau silently watch as the group leaves, glancing back at the graffiti you both did with dejected looks on your faces. aphmau suddenly snatches up your hand, quickly walking away.

"i don't wanna be caught next to that." she mutters and you agree, keeping in pace with her if not speeding up.

you both walk in silence for a bit longer before you feel aphmau's hand tighten on yours and hear a quiet sniff. glancing over in surprise you see her round eyes filled with tears, her nose red as she looks away from you.

"i'm sorry i'm crying, i just feel so awful that we did that and so mad too..." she stops talking when her voice shakes a bit, burying her face in her hand with another sniffle.

"me too..."

your nose tingles as you rapidly blink to make your own urge to cry go away, breathing in a frustrated sigh. suddenly your feet stop on the sidewalk and you're tugging onto aphmau's hand, bringing her in for a hug.

"it's gonna be okay." you reassure when she hugs you back. "i'm sorry i let it get this far—"

"it's my fault, too." she interrupts.

"—we can go back and clean off the paint tonight. then we'll tell gene we're done with him and deal with the consequences." you finish, patting her back and pulling away from the hug. "we shouldn't let people like him make us cry, right?"

she looks up at you, blinking away the mistiness in her eyes and gulping down her urge to cry as she nods. "yeah! we can go clean it! that's a good idea. then no more shadow knights and... we can deal with the rest later."

you smile at the optimistic look in her eyes, patting her shoulders as you both continue to walk home.

☆

cleaning concrete without a pressure washer or at the very least a strong hose is extremely hard. you honestly wouldn't force a prisoner to do this as work.

you and aphmau had been at it for ten minutes already, and you'd barely even scrubbed off a layer of the graffiti.

"dang it. i should've brought paint thinner." you groan when your hand slips and you scrape your finger against the rough surface. "this sucks."

"we're gonna be here all night," aphmau whines, focusing in on one spot and groaning when there's no difference under the sponge. "but we have to get it off. this is horrible."

you hear quiet footsteps nearby, and before you can react to it a bright light shines over the two of you, blinding the two of you.

"hey!" a man's voice calls out, the tone so stern and aggressive that you knock over the soapy water bucket and drop your sponge with a gasp.

"uh!" aphmau startles, before she realizes who it is, her words tumbling out of her mouth. "oh, officer! we—"

"we've been looking for the kids who've been tagging this place with that logo." he cuts her off, tone completely accusatory.

to be fair, you both decided on wearing black hoodies and sweatpants, making you look much more suspicious than you already did. but didn't he see the sponges and literal soap bucket next to your feet?

"wait! that's not how this happened! we didn't—"

"save it! the criminals always return to the scene of the crime. come on, you're both coming with me." he says, pacing over to you both and snatching you both by the arms, likely thinking you'd both run away.

you find yourself at a loss for words, mouth gaping and eyes filling with tears as you're dragged along with the cop. you couldn't even defend yourself, completely in shock that you were getting in trouble in the first place.

being in the back of a cop car on a tuesday night was never a possibility in your mind. yet here you are, at the ripe age of sixteen, being escorted to your parents on a school night.

aphmau hasn't stopped sniffling, the only thing keeping her from bawling her eyes out was likely the fact that you were in this with her.

to aphmau's relief and to your chagrin, the cop stops at your house first, marching you right up the sidewalk to your door and knocking, looking down at you like you had kicked a puppy and laughed. you knew nothing would change this guy's mind, so you merely watch your front door and hope it was your mom who opened it.

it wasn't, and dread fills every fiber of your being when your dad's figure stands in the open doorway. he looks at the officer in confusion, then down to you, his eyes blown wide open. his jaw clenches as he whips his head to the staircase where you were supposed to have retired for the night, before looking back at you with an immense amount of disappointment.

you shrink in on yourself when he doesn't say a word to you, turning to look at the officer who greets him. eyes drift and zone out on the floor as the officer explains why he's here, only to be startled by dad's deep voice.

"do you have any proof?" he asks, stopping the officer in his tracks.

"i... sorry?"

"do. you. have. any. proof? or do you like throwing around little girls into your car for a little power trip instead of catching actual criminals?" your dad grits, making you lean back against the doorway.

"that is not—sir, i—" the officer stutters, taken aback by the sudden accusation.

"let's talk." your dad yanks you inside as he steps outside next to the officer and shuts the door.

oh shit.

you hear a call of your name and turn to see your mom staring at you in confusion, her arms crossed over her robe.

"um..." you start, looking to the ground in shame.

"was that an officer?" she asks, eyes wide as she shuffles over to you.

immediately you burst out crying, leaning in to hug her while every emotion you had kept in about the situation tumbled out in fat tears that dripped down your face.

"i'm sorry! i didn't mean to do anything wrong!" you hiccup as mom shushes you, wrapping her arms around you and rubbing your back.

"just take a deep breath and tell me what happened."

and you do. from what you told her about ivy to the things she didn't know about gene, from the pictures to the gas station and the vandalism. the disappointed look on her face stings as you talk, but at least she was listening. with how distressed you were behaving and the fact you had never done anything like this before, mom clearly was open to hearing your side of the story on this.

as you finish your spill and calm down from your hysterics, the front door opens. aphmau comes in first looking uneasy, with your dad following behind.

"call sylvanna to come over here." he says, huffing and giving you a stern look as aphmau sits next to you on the couch.

"...what did you tell the cop?" you ask, eyebrows pinched together as you glance at the window to see the cop car not even parked in your driveway anymore.

he huffs. "don't worry about it."

...that's incredibly unsettling.

mom makes the call as you two wait in tense silence on the couch, and it's probably only a minute later tops that all hell breaks loose.

"¡aphmau!" sylvanna bursts through the door, hair a mess and pajamas crooked as she hops on one foot, sliding her flip flop off of her foot. "¡te juro que si estuvieras besando a un chico te golpearía con mi chancla tan fuerte que volarías hasta el año que viene!"

aphmau squeaks, shrinking into you like she was planning on using you as a shield.

"sylvanna, calm down. while what they did was disappointing, they weren't rebelling against us or being deceitful." mom says, interrupting sylvanna's heated rant and placing a hand on her shoulder. "actually, let me explain it to you in the kitchen."

aphmau sighs in relief as both of the moms and your dad go into the kitchen, voices quiet and hushed.

"she is so terrifying." she whispers to you, staring at the coffee table and tapping on her leg. "this day has been the worst."

"yeah..." you sigh, wringing your hands together. "i wonder how much trouble we'll be in when they're done talking about it."

"i don't want to be grounded." aphmau groans.

"me neither."

more tense silence passes, hushed voices barely heard from the kitchen before they all return to the living room.

sylvanna steps forward, arms crossed. "mija."

aphmau tenses. "yes ma'am?"

"i am," she inhales. "very disappointed that you didn't tell me about this when it was happening—"

the girl's head drops.

"—but. you did try to fix your mistake. and for that... i'm proud. pero si esto vuelve a ocurrir te juro que estarás castigado hasta el día de tu muerte. there will be no next time!"

aphmau cringes, before nodding. "yes ma'am..."

the two soon are out the door and on their walk home, seeming as it had already transitioned from late tuesday hours to the early hours of wednesday.

after a good talking to from both of your parents and truthfully some more crying on your end, you found yourself lying on your bedroom carpet, arms spread out as you tapped your feet on the ground.

it was just difficult to sleep now, your mind racing with what to do when gene will inevitably confront you again. your phone buzzes.

aph: are you still up ;-;

you: yeah, can't sleep 

aph: me neither...

aph: i'm so glad my mom didn't overreact

aph: i was sure i was a goner

you: yeahhh 

you: good thing my mom talked her down 

aph: yeah she's a life saver

aph: speaking of which i think both of them are talking to zianna on the phone right now about everything

you: what!! 

you: oh no i really hope garroth doesn't overhear the details or anything if they're talking loud 

you get halfway up from your floor, crawling over to your door and pressing your ear against it, straining to listen while glancing down at your phone again.

aph: oh crap i didn't think about that!

aph: hopefully not

aph: if he hears it from his mom i think he'd take it well, but that's still kinda awkward

you: yeah no kidding

you: then he'd probably tell the rest of our friends too

you: which wouldn't be the worst if they believed us

aph: yeah

aph: surely they would

aph: right???

you: i think they would 

you: the thought of drama with ivy veleno being public knowledge in the school makes my stomach hurt though 

aph: ugh i know me too

aph: i guess our faces look extra victimy to the bad kids

aph: because why are all of them out for us

aph: literally what did we do T-T

you: that's what i'm saying!! like since day one 

the conversation outside of the door is too muffled, so you slowly crack open your door and crawl towards the staircase to get a better listen.

"i swear if any boy puts a hand on either of my girls i'll go up to that school myself so help me!" you hear zianna shout over the phone.

"he didn't put his hands on either of them or trust me my husband would be in jail right now for murdering that little boy." mom says.

"i would be too!" sylvanna shouts, sounding the most heated of the three.

you: omg did you hear that??

aph: yeah

aph: we're zianna's girls ;p

you: and your mom is completely down with murder it seems

aph: i feel like we knew that already though

"oh, that just makes me so mad! they're so sweet and innocent, they shouldn't be having to deal with that punk ass kid! i swear i'll murder him too!" zianna huffs.

you: zianna cusses?? hahaha

aph: out of our three moms she seems the least likely lol

"well all i know is that if i find out either of them, especially my mija was covering up the fact that she was smooching with some boy i swear!!!" sylvanna gripes.

"i know when my daughter is lying and she would've told me if something like that happened. and i know you know aphmau was telling us the truth, too." mom sighs.

sylvanna sighs loudly. "yeah, you're right. i just worry about her!"

you: your mom is still stuck on the boy thing?

aph: yeah :/ she's kinda crazy about that stuff

you: my mom is protective over that kinda stuff too

you: but geez

aph: i know right?

you flinch as the door across from you opens, revealing your dad from behind it. he stops when he sees you hunched by the stairs, raising his eyebrows at your behavior.

"what're you doin', kiddo?" he asks, taking a step forward and sighing when he faintly hears your mom on speakerphone.

"...i couldn't sleep." you whisper back, clutching your phone to your chest.

he sighs again, pointing to your bedroom door. "well, sitting at the top of the stairs on your phone won't help. go to sleep."

"...okay..." you mutter, getting up and staring at the floor as you scurry back to your room.

a gruff call of your name stops you, and you turn back to see dad's contemplative face.

"and put away that phone."

"yes sir..."

"and..."

you stare at him, rocking on your feet. "...yeah?"

"...i put a pocket knife in your backpack."

"wha—" you guffaw. "dad, i can't bring a knife to school?!"

"says who?"

"oh my—says me! dad, that's illegal!"

he huffs. "not if no one knows."

"i just got in trouble for illegal stuff now you're encouraging me to stab people?"

"just one, possibly."

"dad, i am not taking a knife or weapon of any kind to my tenth-grade english class that is insane."

"i did it when i was picked on."

"you stabbed someone?" you ask in horror.

"no... but the threat worked well enough."

"okay well, i am a lot more likely to go to jail for that now than when you were a kid."

he sighs. "alright. but i won't be mad if i get a call from the school saying you kicked that boy in his balls."

"okay, dad! i'm going to sleep now." you back up, eyebrows raised.

dad's hardened eyes soften to amusement as he chuckles. "goodnight, baby girl. i love you."

"love you too, dad."

you shut the door behind you with a sigh.

you: got caught eavesdropping

you: gonna go to sleep before i get in more trouble

you: and before my dad suggests another torture method or weapon to use on gene

aph: your dad is so scary

aph: that seems like something he'd suggest

aph: and good night!

you: haha well he was just kidding

you: i think

©starhvney, 2024. please do not steal or repost my works as your own.

[patroxlos]

when next update 😔

...ngl it was supposed to be last week HAHA everyday i end up getting swept up by other things :') but i am still dedicated to mr. ken sato

however! here's a small snippet from the wip chapter!

I have the headcanon that our star athlete/model struggles to read kanji!

I believe he can speak Japanese just fine because it's how he communicates with his mom, but reading is a whole other story. I noticed in my first watch of Ultraman: Rising that he seems to pronounce Japanese words quite well and I thought it was a voice actor trick way to let the audience know that while the entire movie is in English by default, he is still speaking fluent Japanese in that world.

I think he texts in English and can read some basic words in hiragana/katakana but he struggles with reading Japanese in general.

Basic words I'm sure he knows are stuff on his mom's grocery list, road signs and casual conversation texting

He gets away with not reading because surprisingly he's not expected to much when in public lmao and when he does have to read on the spot, he has Mina to auto-translate in a pinch.

dont ask him to write tho then he is a true lost cause

BUT WAIT!! He is seen reading the newspaper/books in the movie! He can definitely read Japanese!

For me, I felt like the parenting advice from Mina/the books he read seemed Western. I get the 5 S's but Asian babies do not get swaddled lmao. Those are English books 100%.

Yet even if they are JP books, I found it curious that he was reading a lot of physical books and news while watching the movie. The explanation I came up with for myself is that Kenji can't read Japanese characters, but he is definitely practicing

I headcanon that Mina is his language tutor, and that part of his practice is that he has to read physical text so that he won't feel tempted to get it auto-translated.

He's getting the hang of it though! look at this boy. isn't he a fast learner. he's getting there

it's just that the thing he has to read in the chapter is highly technical so he doesnt know words

just pls dont ask him to write ok. baby steps he is trying his best

What a cutie. illiterate as hell. we like to think of him as a stroke master but he cannot remember character stroke orders

that snippet isn't final yet! i just wanted to make a really quick reference in the chapter to the Octopimp 50% Off Abridged Series hehe if any of u are familiar :')

Chapter 8 will be out soon promise!