#which may or may not involve cliffs

[vani-candy]

silly headcanon story i came up with: i imagine Fang gets nightmares often and has trouble sleeping. Mitty caught wind of this (probably from X running his mouth) and she tailored up a set of soft pajamas for him. At first Fang's kinda just like "okay nice i guess idk why you did all this for me tho" until he realizes how soft and comfy they are and falls in love with them!!

TL;DR they do their job....maybe a lil too well AKFDSHS

[horus-unofficial]

hello hello welcome welcome. welcome 2 the HORUS guide 4 HORUS tech aka horus-unofficial.tumblr3.un gives you extremely comprehensive and very useful insight into its "pattern groups" and "licenses". we are your host harold HORUS here today to talk to you about our beautiful darling cunt of a child, the LICH

nobody knows how the lich came 2 be. some buddies of ours say they invented it 9989 years from now which is weird bcos anyone normal would wait another decade before sending that shit back in time to hit that sweet 9999 and keep people guessing as to whether these files actually are from that far in the future, or if the lucky terminal receiving this code just stopped bothering to count the years after 15015u. either way, the lich is here now, and back then, and most certainly at some point in the future, and it kinda looks like we probably did invent it so that means we are in the clear to act like we're the ones who made it!

the lich sucks! its terrible! with glass bones and paper skin and a reactor that overheats at room temperature, a gust of wind could leave a dent in this PG's plating, which is made from samples of styrofoam and bubble wrap warped straight from the insides of pre-Fall packages labeled "FRAGILE, HANDLE WITH CARE" (a perfect bumper sticker for your lich, should you find yourself piloting one sometime within the next -50 to 250 years). you can tell no former members of harrison armory's R&D department were involved in the designing of the lich because the only thing those fuckers know how to do is create industrial microwaves, and the lich's reactor is the most slipshod, poorly-coded shit in the known universe. the only code regulating the lich's reactor is "reactor = cool" and not only are neither "reactor" nor "cool" defined anywhere in the system code, but HOR_OS doesn't even use = signs.

you may ask us, "if the lich is so shit, why do people pilot it?" and we are so glad you asked! generally speaking, answers to this question fall into one of two variations: - "it's a funny mech" - "why is everyone saying i pilot a lich??? i pilot a nelson!!! what do you mean that's my lich frame in the mech bay and i've had it for years, i literally don't have a single HORUS license, @horus-unofficial please advise"

the lich's victorian orphan-esque constitution aside, its biggest strength as a frame is likely its ability to send itself to the seaside for a much needed mental health break should it encounter the slightest hint of adversity on the battlefield. its no wonder the lich is so frail, the entirety of our nonexistent R&D budget went into making this thing the most annoying roleplayer on the playground. "you hit me with your sword? nuh-uh, i dodge. oh you run me through on your spear, killing me instantly? well it turns out that that body wasn't actually me, i've been dramatically looking down upon this duel from up there on those cliffs the whole time!" <- words most commonly spoken by future lich pilots at 11 years old

this allows it to be unexpectedly versatile in combat- with a refundable get out of jail free card and a maximum speed comparable to most of SSC's catalogue, it can weave through dangerous zones in combat with unexpected efficiency, allowing it to support allies from virtually any range, and instigate the occasional skirmish if its pilot is so inclined. we dont necessarily advise that you choose violence as a lich pilot, only that its a more viable choice of function than you might initially think

the lich plays with the timestream with the same enthusiasm as a preschooler in a sandbox, both in regards to itself and anything (un)fortunate enough to be within its sensor range. for every timeline where the lich is playing support for its allies and being so kind and niceys, there's another timeline where it gleefully tears into its adversaries until it overextends and dies respawns in another timeline, and it's through this universal law that an unusually principled lich pilot might find themselves taking a hit for its allies before immediately redeeming that get out of jail free card we mentioned earlier. of course, "principled HORUS pilot" is an oxymoron, so if your squad has a lich pilot what actually happens is more along the lines of being teamed with the biggest fucking nuisance on your planet, who pretends to toodle about the battlefield all combat because the truth is they've been stuck in a time loop for 7 years, and are well beyond the point of caring.

bottom line: if you encounter a lich in combat, dont even bother targeting it. it's unkillable except for when it isn't, and its banned from every omninet roleplay forum in the known universe for a reason

[petermorwood]

How on earth did these goats get there?

*****

In reality the goats are lying on their sides on rocky ground, looking up at a crane-mounted camera. The photograph was taken some years ago, part of a series reconstructing Central European folk customs and traditions which have fallen from favour or are now prohibited.

This old-fashioned rural blood-sport was originally practiced in parts of Anatolia, Turkey, where the game was called keçi fırlatmak, and also in the Carpathian Alps of Romania, possibly imported during the Ottoman conquest. The name there was aruncarea caprei.

*****

The goats would have been coated in a strong adhesive traditionally distilled from pine resin.(represented pictorially here by darker patches of dye on the flanks) and were then thrown upwards towards a cliff or rock-face with makeshift catapults, often a primitive form of counterweight trebuchet assembled from wooden beams and weighted with rocks.

The game ended when the glue dried and lost adhesion, and the goats fell to their deaths. They were then cooked and eaten, their meat being valued like that of Spanish fighting bulls.

The meat of the last goat to fall (başarılı keçi or cea mai durabilă capră) was prized as a special delicacy and selected cuts from the legs of this particular “winner” goat were often smoked and dried into a kind of jerky.

*****

In his “Grandes Histoires Vraies d'un Voyageur le 1er Avril” (pub. Mensonges & Faussetés, Paris, 1871) French folk-historian, anthropologist and retired cavalry general Gilles-Etienne Gérârd wrote about witnessing a festival near Sighișoara, Transylvania, in 1868.

There he claims to have seen catapults improvised from jeunes arbres, très élastiques et souples - “very springy and flexible young trees” - which were drawn back with ropes and then released.

Bets were placed before the throw, and marks given afterwards, according to what way up the goats adhered and for how long. The reconstruction, with both goats upright, facing outward and still in place, shows what would have been a potential high score.

The practice has been officially banned in both countries since the late 1940s, but supposedly still occurred in more isolated areas up to the end of the 20th century. Wooden beams from which the catapults were constructed could easily be disguised as barn-rafters etc., and of course flexible trees were, and are, just trees.

*****

Gérârd’s book incorrectly calls the goat jerky “pastrami”, to which he gives the meaning "meat of preservation".

While pastrami may be a printing error for the Turkish word bastırma or the Romanian pastramă, both meaning “preserved meat”, at least one reviewer claims that Gérârd misunderstood his guide-translator, who would have been working from rural dialect to formal Romanian to scholarly French.

Since this jerky was considered a good-luck food for shepherds, mountaineers, steeplejacks and others whose work involved a risk of falling, Gérârd's assumption seems a reasonable one.

However, several critical comments on that review have dismissed its conclusion, claiming "no translator could be so clumsy", but in its defence, other comments point out confusion between slang usage in the same language.

One cites American and British English, noting that even before differences in spelling (tire / tyre, kerb / curb etc.) "guns" can mean biceps or firearms, "flat" can mean a deflated wheel or a place to live, "ass" can mean buttocks or donkey and adds, with undisguised relish, some of the more embarrassing examples.

This comment concludes that since the errors "usually make sense in context", Gérârd's misapprehension is entitled to the same respect.

*****

The good-luck aspect of the meat apparently extended to work which involved "falling safely", since its last known use was believed to be in ration packs issued to the 1. Hava İndirme Tugayı (1st Airborne Brigade) of the Turkish Army, immediately before the invasion of Cyprus in July 1974.

Nothing more recent has been officially recorded, because the presence of cameras near military bases or possible - and of course illegal - contests is strongly (sometimes forcefully) discouraged, and the sport’s very existence is increasingly dismissed as an urban or more correctly rural legend.

The official line taken by both Anatolian and Carpathian authorities is that it was only ever a joke played on tourists, similar to the Australian “Drop-bear”, the Scottish “Wild Haggis” and the North American “Jackalope”.

They dismiss the evidence of Gérârd’s personal observation as “a wild fable to encourage sales of his book”, “a city-dweller’s misinterpretation of country practices”, or even “the deliberate deception of a gullible foreigner by humorous peasants”.

And as for those paratroop ration packs, Turkish involvement in Cyprus is still such a delicate subject that the standard response remains “no comment”.

[seat-safety-switch]

"I hear there's a whole crew of eager young faces out there just ready to ride the rapids!" hollers our rafting guide, a man who I would later discover from the TV news was actually named Ralph. This man continued to give us a short-form version of his life story, before instructing us on the proper way to wear a life vest (or "personal flotation device," if you're German.) The tourists around me oohed and aahed and snapped pictures, enough to be already halfway through what, in a simpler time, would have been a roll of Kodak film.

Why was I engaging in this pursuit, one which was not just dangerous but without the involvement of any motorized transportation whatsoever? Simple. I had gotten a free ticket from a coworker who "couldn't make it," and I had heard that there were some old hoopties crashed in the forests around the white-water rapids.

See, way back in the era when old cars were new cars, there was no good way to recycle them. Tow truck technology was in its infancy. Junkyards were just called "yards." And China hadn't been invented yet. Or it had, but they were probably also busy building their own new cars and didn't want to take some idiot's old Ford Business Coupe off his hands. So folks just left that shit on the side of roads, in forests, or pushed them off a cliff and watched what happened before driving off in their new car. Tragic, I know, but it means that lots of perfectly good running gear is all over this part of the country.

Ralph led us out on the water. He was pretty good, except for the part where he kept yelling at me to perform manual labour for which I was receiving no compensation. After a couple hours into the trip, I had seen no cars whatsoever and was beginning to lose hope entirely. I was damned to be stuck on this orange pool toy as we shot down the water in order to be rewarded with yet more water. Thrilling though it may be to some people, I was perfectly familiar with going dangerously fast and getting uncomfortably wet from any daily commute in my harem of rusty cars.

That's when I saw it. Anyone else would have easily missed a glimpse of the fender of a 1929 Chevy International roadster. I pulled my backpack off, discarding my oar to do so, and retrieved my homemade grappling hook from within. With a quick burst of compressed air and a not-so-quick burst of nitromethane-fuelled Sanden air-conditioning compressor exhaust, I was flown from the piteous grasp of Mother Kinda-Wet to the warm embrace of Mother Earth. And boy, did she ever have that fender. Not much else, of course, but if you squinted, you could kinda see part of the headlight was now being adopted by the accumulated moss.

After guessing the vague location of it, I dug in and left with my quarry: one extremely rusty, pig-iron "Oakland" vee-eight engine. It was really light, because almost none of it was left, which is good because I had a long way to walk home. A chipmunk kept me company along the way, probably because he used to live in #3 before I picked up his whole sub-development.

As for the other occupants of the river rafting tour, I'm told that at least half of them, perhaps deluded by hours of direct sunlight and lack of access to proper nutrition, believed my sudden escape was actually proof of my having been abducted by angels. I rolled that into a few other paying gigs upon my return to civilization, but it didn't really do much for the fleet. Tax-exempt crooked megachurches have very strict rules about only buying new cars.

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

Not liking a driver does not give you a free pass to bodyshame them, or to wish literal death and severe harm on them, or to be racist and/or xenophobic towards them. Not liking a team doesn't give you a right to do the above to those afflicted with the team either, or to be misogynistic towards the women involved with those teams. Not liking which team or driver someone supports, does not give you a right to do any of the above.

The drivers and the teams may never see the hate you spill but wait. We all know that they do;

Nicolas Latifi got such severe death threats he had to hire security

I'm not touching on the disgusting racist abuse faced by many of the drivers because there has been far too much to easily unpack but I do want to note that it got so bad last year that Alex for instance got such severe abuse last year his fans had to tell his family to go offline for a few days (not to forget the people who made up conspiracies about him and used his mother's past as a means to justify the abuse they were directing towards him).

I'll never forgot the amount of sexist hate directed at Hannah Schmitz, one of the few and one of the most recognizable women in the paddock who has lead red bulls strategy department the last couple of years, - because apparently women in motorsport are only valid if they're not under the red bull umbrella - which got so bad multiple of the drivers called it out publicly.

The multiple conspiracies created about and general racial discrimination faced by Yuki and Zhou which was and continues to be encouraged and spread by primarily the English speaking journalists and commentators

Let's not forget the sexist chants sung about Sophie Kumpen; Max's mother at Monza, or the literal death threats that were sent to his sister and young nephews.

The way some of you talk about Michael Schumacher, I don't have the words. The ski jokes has not once in the last decade been funny.

I could go on and on. I could literally do this all day.

Sure the drivers might never see it but that doesn't mean nobody will and we all see how conditional any form of your allyship is. "Racism is wrong unless it's about x, sexism is wrong unless it's about y, death threats are wrong unless it's about z, etc". Do better. You cannot claim the moral high ground, if you do any of the above, no matter how much higher you perceive yourself to be than the person you're directing the above towards.

As for death wishes or crash wishes, cop yourselves on to fuck. I would never wish what I've been through, what my family has been through, on my worst enemy, let alone some driver I'll probably never even meet. F1 is nowadays a safe enough sport but that has not always been the case and there is still no 100% guarantee of completely safety. The risk is still there even with all the advancements in safety. So many drivers have lost their lives or have had their lives altered forever as a result of a crash. Some of the drivers on the current grid are directly impacted or know those whose lives have been lost or altered because of a crash. Nearly everyone on that grid has a story. Some of you have their photos as your icons as you wish literal death and injury on their coworkers, their friends. They would be beyond disgusted by you. I can name far too many drivers who lost their lives in this sport, it shouldn't take naming them to make people realize that wishing for some to die like they did is a disgusting act. If it were to come true, would you celebrate? Would you cheer as the red flag came out? I don't think I want to know the answer, considering some of the things I've seen in the main tags over the last couple of years (see that one person who wanted to violently and literally stab and kill a driver or see that disgusting poll about which way would be best to literally kill another driver).

Don't start with but x did this or y fans did that, if they jumped off a cliff, would you? Why are you so eager to lower yourself to what you feel are their low standards or morals? And I don't blame a driver for the actions of someone who calls themselves a fan while doing anything that I've mentioned in this post, because they're not fans, they're people who use the driver they claim to back as a shield and as an excuse for their appalling behavior.

Also, if you have to say "I don't like driver x but I agree nobody deserves this type of abuse", get rid of everything before the but. You don't have to like someone to offer them basic respect or human decency.

[g0kotta]

Relationships with TR men

|Haitani Ran|Hanma Shuji|Draken x reader

Angsty in Draken’s part

Haitani Ran

Brent Faiyaz-Role model

After meeting Ran while you worked as a bartender for a club In Roppongi your life changed. With him it was like living in a movie. Everything was fast, shiny, expensive, dangerous. Every day felt like an adventure, yet a dangerous one. He was a part of a big and dangerous gang and you knew when you got with him you signed a contract with death. You became a target to other gangs going after Toman. But with his name and power he got you the best security in Japan, not wanting to risk losing you.

Ran as a person is cocky and likes when everyone in the room stares at him when he walks in. The attention always has to be on him and he does attract it with his look and expensive personality.

Still, Ran had a personality that drew you in despite his lavish appearance. He made you feel like you were the centre of his world. You were enchanted by his presence, needing both his company and the rush that came from being by his side.

You became more and more involved in Ran's life and the dangerous and dark world of organized crime. You watched the gang's threats of violence, power conflicts over territory, and tortures of the poor souls that crossed Toman. Loyalty was valued highly in that society, and betrayal may have severe consequences. Ran always made sure you were safe despite the danger.

Living with Ran was like balancing dangerously on the edge of a cliff; one false move would send everything tumbling off. But despite the chaos, you were prepared to take that chance because you discovered a love that was both thrilling and addictive.

———

Hanma Shuji

The Weeknd - house of balloons / glass table girls

You were warned about guys like him ever since you were a kid. Gangsters that always have a lingering scent of cigarettes around them, mysterious to the point of disappearing for a few days once in a while, always covered in blood with bruised knuckles. Hanma practically screamed the word “danger”.

He was tall and handsome with a straightforward personality. He always knew what he wanted and would do whatever he needed to get it. And the age of 17 Hanma knew he had to have you.

And at first, you were drawn to his dangerous personality. There was an undeniable curiosity in his presence. The way he carried himself with confidence, as if the world was his, intrigued you. He had this freedom that you dreamt of having. Hanma cared about nothing - his main goal in life was just to have fun.

Hanma's infatuation with you grew stronger, and he made his intentions clear. He desired to have you, not just physically but emotionally as well. It was a mix of passion and possessiveness that left you confused with yourself.

As your relationship with Hanma deepened, you found yourself at a crossroads. The warnings from your past echoed in your mind, reminding you of the potential dangers and the uncertain future that awaited you. Yet, you also couldn't deny the connection you felt with him, the chemistry that sparked between you. With him it was a battle between reason and desire.

But it wasn’t like you even had a choice.

Without you even knowing - you already belonged to Hanma before you two even started talking.

———

Draken

Lauv - who (ft. BTS)

You two were childhood friends. He was always your protector. He made sure bullies would never bother you and he spent almost every minute with you. Ever since you were kids he promised you he would marry you in the future. And you two waited for that promised moment in your lives. Though once he met Mikey, Draken changed. He started to push you out of his life without even noticing. His priority became Toman and Mikey’s younger sister Emma.

You saw how he looked at her and vice versa. Everyone was talking how they belonged together which left you feeling more lonely than ever. Not only did you feel like you were losing the guy you were in love with - you were also losing your best friend.

Though Draken made it complicated. At moments it felt like he was still that young boy who gifted you a plastic ring and called you his soulmate. It felt like he himself didn’t really know what he wanted.

You found yourself at a crossroads. Should you continue holding onto the hope that Draken would remember his promise and find his way back to you? Or should you just let go of him and the past?

The path forward was uncertain. All you could do was navigate the complexity of emotions, understanding that sometimes people change, and relationships evolve in unexpected ways.

When you felt like giving up Draken was always there-waiting for you. But once it felt like everything was perfect he would go back to Emma.

And with all of this happening you finally started to see your self worth. You chose yourself.

[silverlullabies]

Always Been You

Summary: Aizawa knows that just because his students graduate, doesn’t mean he stops being a mentor to them. They’ll reach out to him for help and he’ll drop everything to assist, every single time. And then you show up at his door, asking for help that may cross a boundary he can’t come back from. But what kind of teacher would he be, if he says no?

Pairing: Aizawa x Reader

Word Count: 7.4k+

Warnings: Smut (18+), hurt/comfort, teacher/student relationship if you squint, dirty talk, porn with a plot, references to dubcon acts and drugging, afab reader, oral (fem receiving), creampies, Aizawa drinks his respect-women juice daily, social constructs of virginity are fake and toxic but for the sake of the plot Reader believes in them, references to toxic sexual education, talk of human trafficking, panic attack, college boys (because they need their own warning)

A/N: I haven’t written a reader insert in years y’all but I woke up the other day thinking of this plot and it hasn’t left my brain since. I just? Love? Aizawa so much??? But I’ve always had a thing for every teacher in any manga/anime so that’s not surprising. (Kakashi, Urahara, Gojo, Stein??? They just do something for me). Anyway, this really got away from me, especially at the end, but I wanted to end it on a sweet note. I have a small bonus chapter in mind to tie off the (possible) cliff hanger at the end of this chapter.

Aizawa Shoto knows all too well that just because his students graduate doesn’t mean he stops being their teacher. Maybe other teachers in other schools had that luxury, but not him, not in this profession.

He isn’t surprised when he gets emails or texts from students asking for advice and his professional opinion. They taper off the more settled into being a hero his former students become. What starts out as multiple messages a week slowly filters into a couple messages a month into a few a year until all that remains is well wishes on holidays and birthdays.

His coworkers go through the same thing. It’s bittersweet, he thinks, when they no longer send panic filled messages at simple villain encounters and only reach out with greetings instead. Despite them receiving a graduation ceremony and a license; not reaching out at every turn is when Aizawa and the other teachers truly consider their former students as full-fledged heroes.

Some of those students become closer to the teachers. What was once a student-teacher relationship blossom into friendships. Despite how much Nemuri and Hizashi tease Aizawa about adopting all of his students, they’re both just as bad. Nemuri alone has been named God Mom to no less than 8 former students' children and Hizashi is honorary uncle to 12.

Aizawa has always extended an open door policy at school, which for some of his former students, translates into an open door policy for his home. They come to him with wounds that need patched, or a place to crash for the night if exhaustion after a long patrol makes it unsafe to travel further than his front door. A few times, he’s had to work them through panic attacks or episodes of self doubt after a particularly bad fight. Usually if he sees on the news one of his former students involved in an attack where civilians are killed, he preemptively sets out what he knows will bring that particular student comfort before they even stumble to his front door.

Every once in a blue moon, some of his former students (who are all little shits, he swears) will come knocking with no other purpose than to check up on him bother him. They’ll breeze past him once he opens the door, bags of groceries or piles of take out in hand. They’ll mumble a half hearted “I was in the neighborhood” not convincingly at all and set about guilt tripping persuading Aizawa to eat a proper meal with them (because you don’t spend three years with Aizawa as your teacher without learning he’s horrible at caring for himself).

You’re one of them. Despite having been in the first class Aizawa had ever taught as a teacher, you still reach out constantly show up several times a month, the same excuse falling from your lips as you slip past him and into his apartment with a cheeky grin. Aizawa always grumbles as you replenish his fridge with actual food instead of jelly packets before cleaning up parts of his apartment all the while cooking him dinner, filling the air with polite talk and the smell of food that never fails to make his stomach rumble.

So he isn’t surprised when you knock on his door one evening even though you were just over two nights ago. He is surprised when he opens the door to find you standing there with nothing but a file in your hands, face flushed, and gaze averted.

“Y/N,” he grunts, eyebrow raised.

“Uh. F-fancy seeing you here.” Your eyes dart everywhere but his face. This was not the cool confident person that he knew. Your shoulders are dragged up to your ears, the folder held in front of you like a shield, while you shift your weight back and forth on the balls of your feet.

“I live here,” Aizawa responds.

“Right! Right…” you trail off, before blurting. “I need your help and you’re the only one I could think of!”

He looks at you, taking in your uncharacteristic stance, before sighing and moving to the side, holding the door open for you to come in.

After the both of you are settled at the dining room table, cups of fresh coffee steaming in your hands, he clears his throat. “You needed help?”

You jump slightly and bite your bottom lip, before sliding the folder over towards him. He picks it up and begins to flip through it, eyes raking the pages as his eyebrows begin to steadily climb his forehead. “The Commission wants me to go undercover in a sex trafficking ring. There’s been a recent uprising in human trafficking and the ring they want me to go undercover in has a massive influence in Japan. At least 27% of all trafficking happens due to them and another 36% happens through connections with them.” Aizawa grunts, reading through the same information that you were providing verbally.

“This operation has been in the works for years now and my part in the mission could destabilize the human trafficking in Japan and provide us with some breathing room to put some contingency plans in place for the next trafficking ring that pops up.” You tap the side of the mug with your perfectly manicured fingers.

Aizawa let out a breath. “That’s a lot. Jesus kid. Congratulations.”

An operation like that would rocket you into the top 100 easily, if not the top 50.

You hum in reply, a bouncing leg joining the rhythmic tapping of the mug in what he recognizes as a nervous tic. You’ve never been one to be nervous so immediately his concern and curiosity is piqued. His eyes slid to your face over the top of the folder calculating.

“What do you need my help with then?” He asks. If they wanted to bring him in for information or as a hero on the case, why send you and not someone from the Commision? Before he can start processing this enigma, you reach over, pulling the folder from his hands and flip through to the back, taking out a section of the folder once you find what you’re looking for. You slid it to him.

He takes it into his hands, looking down at it briefly to read the information, and then raises his gaze to meet yours.

“Your undercover identity?”

You nod. “They want me to go in as one of the victims. It would be easier and less time consuming than trying to infiltrate as a villain. But sources think they’re subduing them with drugs to make it easier to hold and transport the victims as well as prevent them from fighting back. With my Quirk, I’ll be able to infiltrate easily and find their base or bases of operation without being inhibited. We’re confident they’re bouncing the victims around several locations to make it harder to track. While I’m in, I can tag the locations for a future raid so the heroes can hit them all at once and minimize the chance of escape or loss of life.”

Your Quirk neutralized drugs, poisons, and other toxins on yourself and other people. You were primarily a rescue hero that took care of things like toxic spills, gas leaks, and exposures. He recalls one time a child who suddenly got their Quirk (a simple but powerful ability to change the structure of molecules at will) and wound up turning the air in a grocery store to carbon monoxide, poisoning everyone inside. While emergency workers and other heroes wore gas masks, you simply waltzed inside and gave the scared kid a dose of Quirk suppressants to temporarily nullify his power until he saw a Quirk counselor and learned to control it. All the while you sat there with him in your arms agreeing with him that space was very cool, not at all affected by the deadly gas while you went about ventilating the place. Aizawa could see why the Commission reached out to you for this assignment versus someone else with more experience in infiltration.

“And where do I come in?” He asks again.

“Sensei… I’ll be going in as a victim. I’ll be undercover for a while. Best guess is several weeks, worst is several months. I’m under no illusion that I’ll be able to walk away with my…,” you purse your lips. “… dignity still intact. I’m… not ok with it per say… but I’m willing to do it to save lives. Besides, I've already been set up with mandatory therapy before and afterwards.”

“Y/N… that’s a lot.” Aizawa’s eyebrows furrow together in concern.

You nod your head. “Yeah. But I’m the only one. I can neutralize the drugs and leave me in the right state of mind. Not to mention that bacteria and viruses count as a toxin to my Quirk so I’m at no risk for picking up anything. And I’ve already started on long term birth control. Nobody else can fill these parameters.”

He got that. It sucked, but he got it. “So when do you leave,” he asks, sliding the paper back to you, which you tuck neatly back into the folder.

“In two weeks.” His eyes widen and he sat up straight.

“So soon??”

You look up at him, something simmering beneath your gaze. “For you maybe. This has been in the works for a long time now on my end. I’m only telling you for two reasons. I… uh… got permission to explain it to you.”

His eyes narrow. “Why?”

“The first is to ask you to look after my cat, obviously.” You give him a cheeky grin. He nods, well used to former students asking him of this when missions took longer than a day to be completed.

“And the second thing?”

You avert your gaze again, back to fiddling with the mug in your hands. “Sensei… do you remember the night of the typhoon nearly a year ago?”

He nods, heat rising to his ears. Of course he remembered. How could he forget?

You showed up on his doorstep halfway through a typhoon that hit Japan and effectively shut everything down. The only people out were emergency workers and pro heroes that could handle the rampaging storm and assist in relocation of citizens who’s homes had been destroyed or help them towards hospitals.

He had pulled you inside, soaked to the bone, and helped you dry off while grumbling about how illogical it was for you to be out in this. Despite offering you a change of his dry clothes, you were still freezing, so he got to work on setting up the heater for you. It ran for four minutes before the electricity in his building cut out.

He debated for exactly ten seconds before pulling you into his bed with him, limbs tangled together, while he attempted to rub feelings back into your skin.

All the while, he was hyper aware of how you had taken off your underwear, leaving your breasts squished against his chest, while your legs were tangled together. He fought against the growing erection in his pants, diligently thinking about everything that would turn him off like the statistics of cats that die in shelters year round.

Your shivers die off slowly which leads to your eyes flickering up at him, gaze too wide, lips parted into a soft sigh. “Aizawa-sensei…”

And then he was taking your lips into a slow deep kiss, lips parting slightly. He drew your bottom lip between his teeth, mouth slanted across yours. One arm snaked behind the small of your back tugging you closer, while the other trailed under your shirt, fingers lightly caressing your skin in a way that had you arching, as he settled his fingers under the curve of your breast teasingly.

You sighed under his touch, as he deepened the kiss, tongue darting out. He moved, positioning himself over top of you between your legs. The hand that was behind your back was suddenly cupping your face in a way that seemed to sear your flesh in its intimacy. His other hand cupped your breast, fingers dragging along your hardened nipple in a way that had you moaning, pushing up into him, pelvis grinding into his hard on in a way that made him see stars.

His hands trailed down to your hips, tugging at the waistline, and just as you lifted his hips to give him access, the lights flashed back on, freezing Aizawa in place.

Shame flooded every ounce of his body. Here he was, taking advantage of you when you needed his help. What kind of pro hero was he? What kind of teacher? What kind of friend-?

“I-“ he started, eyes dancing around to avoid look at your flushed face. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

He untangled himself from your limbs, unable to fully look at you through his guilt. Before you could even say anything, he was gone.

The next morning you were gone too. You stayed away for several weeks, the longest amount of time for you, to the point where he had convinced himself he had ruined that relationship you had with him. He hated himself for it. Sure, he had thought about you in that way before. Sure, he had had dreams of you before (starting after Nemuri teased him, saying you were always acting like Aizawa’s wife so when was he gonna make it official?) that spilled over into fantasies when he touched himself or even when he entertained other women. But he had never let himself act on those thoughts because he was respectful and responsible. And he didn’t want to risk driving you away. Until now.

So when you showed up a few weeks later, arms full of groceries, breezing in and acting like nothing had happened, he nearly collapsed in relief. And then proceeded to follow your lead and never talk of it again, even if it meant the fantasies became more frequent and intense.

“Of course I remember.” He shifts in his seat, this time averting his gaze. This was the first time you had brought it up.

You brought the mug to your lips and drank deeply from it, before settling it back down between your two hands. “You asked me why I was out in such a storm and I never answered you, but the truth is, that was the day I officially learned of everything this assignment detailed. And because of that I… I wanted to see you immediately. Enough to risk the wrath of Mother Nature herself.”

“Why,” he murmurs.

Fingers tap the side of the mug again as your eyes shifts. “I knew what I would eventually have to do. But the truth is…I came here that night with ulterior motives. Because I haven’t… done that kind of thing before. You were the furthest I’ve ever gone with anyone, that is. And I was willing to go further. Of course your guilt complex and morals had to get in the way of that.” You give him a cheeky grin, before the smile falters. “And in the end I was too embarrassed and too much of a coward to explain that to you at the time. What you must have thought of me… I became convinced you were disgusted and believed I was indecent. Therapy has helped me overcome the idea that salacious desires are wrong, but I grew up in an area where we were taught carnal wants were misguided and bad. So you can imagine the internal war I was waging with myself.”

A blush stains your cheeks as you become interested in the whorl design of the wooden table.

“I’ve never thought that way about you,” Aizawa says in a way that leaves no room for argument.

You smile softly up at him. “I know. You’re much too kind.”

He looks away at that, unable to find the words to say to counter your statement. He swallows hard, his mouth too dry. “So you‘ve never….”

“Had, uh.” You clear your throat. “Sex. I’ve never had sex. With anyone. There’s only ever been one person. That I’ve been interested in, that is. But I’ve never gone further than holding hands. And kissing. But mostly just holding hands. After that night, I tried to find someone else… but I could never go through with it.”

“I still don’t understand what that has to do with your mission…” he trails off suddenly, as he connects the dots.

Oh.

Oooh.

He swallows hard again and straightens in his seat. He gets it now. But he needs to hear you say it.

You bit your lip, continually tapping at the mug with your fingers. “I don’t want my first time to be with some sleazy guy in a dingy back alley room. I want it to be with someone meaningful, someone I trust. Someone I respect and admire and care for deeply.”

“And who is that,” he says, voice lower than normal.

“You,” you whisper, tapping at the mug like it’s your lifeline.

He could feel his restraint failing him and his knuckles turn white with the effort to not… do something, anything. “Y/N… do you know what you’re asking?”

Your eyes find his obsidian ones. “Of course. It’s always been you. It wasn’t until that day, when I became aware of all that my assignment truly entailed, and I knew I needed to be with someone else first so I had that memory not be tarnished by this mission… that’s when I understood then that I’ve liked you for a very long time, when I realized I could think of no one else but you to go to. That there was no one else I wanted but you and that I’ve subconsciously been wanting you this whole time and why I’ve never entertained another man in my bed even after overcoming my views on sex or had relationships that lasted longer than a few dates. It has always been you.”

There’s a blush glowing on his cheeks. He falls quiet and the silence lasts for so long, that with nothing but the sound of a clock ticking in another room and the frantic tapping of your fingers, your mind begins to wander in panic and you slowly begin to doubt, wondering if maybe you’re asking your former sensei too much. You had thought after that kiss that maybe he felt the same way as you, but perhaps you’ve just been deluding yourself this whole time. The silence eats at you and your stomach turns, causing you to swallow and clear your throat. You need to speak now, to salvage this before it’s too late. “If this is crossing a line… if this is crossing a boundary, I understand. I recognize I’m asking a lot of you.” You try not to let the disappointment in your voice show.

You start to stand, draining the last of the now-cold coffee from the mug in an effort to not cry in disappointment in front of him. “Ah. Sorry to ask this of you. I know it’s inappropriate, and I can only hope this doesn’t change things between us. I’ll… uh, get going then. I’ll be back with my cat before I leave. I’ll be bringing her supplies, and some actual food for you too. It’ll be a lot this time- think of it as a prepayment for cat-sitting before I’m able to actually pay you properly. That being said, please clean out your fridge before I come over. I think I saw yogurt in there that expired two months ago, the other-“

“Where are you gonna go,” Aizawa’s voice cuts off your nervous rambling. “If I don’t…”

He trails off, but you know what he’s trying to convey. You shrug in reply, placing the mug in the cupboard after washing it and head back towards the front door. “I don’t know? The bar probably. Any random college kid would take me up on my offer-“

A heavy hand wraps itself around your wrist and yanks, spinning you around and slamming you against the wall. It takes you a second to realize Aizawa’s body is hovering over yours, hands on either side of your head caging you inside. You blink up at him and oh… you recognize that look. He’s angry. Why is he angry?

“A college kid.” He drawls, unimpressed.

You shrug at him again. “It’s my only option and they’ll be better than some sleazy guy in a dingy back alley- ”

He moves closer and your voice dies a swift death in your throat as you can feel his body heat through your clothes. You stare down at his chest, not willing to meet his eyes, suddenly finding your mouth too dry and your palms too sweaty with nerves. A finger snakes under your chin and forces your head up to look at him. Your eyes dart to the side, unable to find the courage to look him in the face.

“Y/N… look at me.” He murmurs. “Please.”

The desperation in his voice when he says please is what causes you to look at him and you something dark in his gaze. The hand under your chin slides to the back of your neck, causing your skin to prickle.

“What kind of teacher would I be if I didn’t help out one of my students when they need me,” He says and it’s enough to cause you to almost laugh and or collapse in relief. “Especially when it’s you.”

He dips his head, kissing you desperate and hungry, pulling you into his arms with a frantic sense of urgency. His kiss is sloppy and needy, nothing like the slow kiss you two shared a year ago. He hands slide down, gripping your thighs and pulls, wrapping your legs around his waist. You gasp into his mouth and his tongue almost immediately pushes past your lips with a swirl.

You kiss back with a feverish frenzy as he walks the two of you back towards his bedroom. His hand snakes up through your clothes, snapping off your bra, and drags it and your shirt off. You break the kiss long enough for him to pull your clothes over your head and toss them somewhere off to the side.

“Especially when it’s me?” You question, panting against his lips.

He draws back, eyes still dark. “Me too. It's always been you, to me.” He echoes your words from earlier and deposits you into his bed, climbing over top of you, while he drags his own shirt off.

Your mouth waters as you take him in. You always knew that Aizawa was fit, as a pro hero he had to be, but his baggy clothes really do hide how ripped he is. He bends his head, teeth dragging along the pulse point on your neck, latching on to the heated skin.

“Tell me if it’s too much and you want to stop. I won’t do anything you don’t want to do. Promise me, you’ll tell me.” He rumbles in your ear.

“I trust you,” you tell him.

“Promise me.” He demands soft but deliberate.

“I promise.” You answer him.

His hands slip down to your waistband, unbuttoning and unzipping your pants, while his teeth nip and suck open-mouthed kisses on your clavicle causing you to shudder. You moan, leaning into his touch, and dear God, nothing has happened yet but you’ve never been so turned on before in your life. Your head rushes at the surge of adrenaline that hums beneath the surface of your skin.

He drags his lips up to your ear. “Lift your hips for me.” You oblige, allowing him to grasp your pants and underwear and rake them down over your ass and thighs. He sits up, peeling them from your legs, and tosses them aside. You stare up at him, body flushed, and eyes wide, suddenly self conscious of the way he’s dragging his eyes over your figure admiring every single inch. You’ve never felt so exposed.

He must sense that because he leans over again, capturing your lips into his, distracting you from your embarrassment while he explores your mouth. He breaks the kiss, scraping his teeth along your jaw, down your neck, and across your chest. He nips and sucks at your breasts in a way that has you aching and rocking your hips to drag against the growing bulge in his pants.

He moans, gradually working his way down your stomach, biting at your hips, before he settles between your legs. Teeth and lips leave marks at the sensitive skin on your inner thighs that cause you to pant and tremble under his touch.

“Tell me if you want to stop.” He says again, looking up at you. You can do nothing but nod weakly at him, breath erratic, heart pounding in your ear drums. Every single nerve in your body feels on fire.

He smirks at your disheveled appearance, before he dips his head and licks a stripe at your glistening cunt. “Oh!” Your voice sounds so surprised, hands flying to his hair immediately, hips bucking up to meet his mouth. Your fingers have never made you feel like that. You need more.

He licks and sucks at your mound, going slow and hard in a way that has your entire body quivering beneath him. You whine, muscles straining, as electricity and heat swirl through your entire body making your toes curl. Every motion he makes with his mouth is molten pleasure seeping through every vein in your body. Just when you think he can’t get any better, he moves in a different way, and the crest of euphoria drags you up and up and up leaving you delirious and intoxicated from the feeling of teetering on the edge.

“Fuck, Aizawa.” You moan, head tipped back, as your fingers dig into his scalp to find purchase, anything to hold on to as he strings your body along hard. He can tell you’re getting close already, and slips a finger in your cunt, pumping it slowly, before dragging another one in. He curls them, finding the bundle of nerves that has you lifting off the bed chasing the pleasure you desperately crave. You fold into him, wailing as you cum, spasming around his digits so tightly, his cock throbs with want and need. He doesn’t stop sucking and fucking his fingers into you until your wails turn to sobs, thrashing in his iron grip as he drags your orgasm along for as long as possible.

You collapse back on the bed, huffing, body twitching as you come down from the high. Aizawa pulls himself up, dragging his pants off in one motion. “Good girl.” He coos, and oh- doesn’t his words just send sparks of pleasure shooting up your spine? Aizawa’s praise always did make you preen.

“That was better than anything I’ve ever imagined.” You breathe.

He pauses and slowly a smirk spreads across his face. “Better than anything you’ve imagined?”

“Yes.” You pant. “Do you think I haven’t touched myself to thoughts of you?”

Aizawa leans over you again, dragging your knees up to your chest, and settles himself between your legs, his cock bumping against your slick folds. He hovers, leaving a few centimeters between the two of you, and looks you deeply in the eyes.

“Still not too late to back out and go have your first time with someone else,” he mutters, wanting to hear you consent one last time before you never get this moment back. This is the last time you can ever claim to be a virgin and he needs to know you’re ok with him taking this from you. It makes you fall for him more to know that despite him not caring about concepts of virginity, he’s still taking this seriously because you do care about it.

You shake your head. “Only you. I want- no I need it to be you. It’s always been you.”

“Ok.” He breathes out through his nose. “I’m going to go slow. We can stop at any time. Tell me if you want to stop.”

“Aizawa, please,” you whine, aching with need.

“Tell me.”

“I will.”

And then he’s entering you, breaching your entrance leaving you both gasping and moaning. The self restraint on him is admirable as he thrusts into you shallowly and slowly, inching his way in bit by bit, ignoring the primal urge to just slam into you so rough and fast that it has you screaming. He wants to do so many other things, wants you in so many other positions, wants to whisper so many filthy things in your ear; but he doesn’t want to scare you away. He’s patient, he has to be, if he wants you to come back for more.

Even though he worked you open, you're tight, so impossibly tight, that he has to grit his teeth against your neck and fight against how much your silky walls are sucking him in too fast and too soon.

He hears you whimper and that has him freezing, eyes snapping to your face. Your eyes are shut tight, hands squeezing around his biceps, as you let out shuddering breaths.

Just as he’s about to ask if you’re ok, you open your eyes and look at him with so much adoration that has him feeling raw and exposed, choking on emotions that threaten to squeeze his throat shut. He sucks in a breath through his teeth when you reach up, curling your arms around his head and pull his face down to yours, whining. “Don’t stop. Oh please don’t stop.”

His mouth smashes against yours, wanting and needy, as you gasp against his lips, your begs tasting delicious on his tongue as he rolls his hips again, sliding the last few inches in. His forehead falls to yours as he moans in your mouth, stilling flush against your pelvis to give you a moment to adjust, stretched out and impossibly full. You feel so hot and warm, gripping him so firmly, that Aizawa rapidly recalculates his worldview, and comes to the conclusion that this is what pure happiness feels like, this is nirvana. He never wants this moment to end, wants to live in this brief period of time forever, buried to the hilt in your pussy that feels like the Gods personally formed it just for him and his cock.

He looks at you, brushing your sweat slicked hair out of his face and returns to the look of veneration. “You’re so perfect, so beautiful. You’re doing so good. Look at how well you took me.” He praises causing your cunt to squeeze him.

His eyes, more awake and alert than you’ve ever seen them, flutter for the briefest of moments at the increased pressure, before he looks at you again. “I’m going to move now, ok?”

You nod and so he starts with a slow and steady pace. You shake beneath him, back arched, chin tilted as fireworks explode behind your eyelids. He watches your face, adjusting his position or depth or speed anytime the look of pleasure starts to turn into a grimace. He wants this to be as good for you as it is for him, doesn’t want to be the cause for any discomfort or pain. Your pants are mixed with moans and you bring the back of your hand to your mouth to muffle the sounds. In any other circumstance, he would pull your hand away and demand you let him hear every sweet noise you make. But he doesn’t want to overwhelm you, so for just this one time, he lets you cover your mouth, to provide an ounce of comfort.

“Aizawa, I-“ you whine.

“I know, kitten. I know.” His chest rumbles. “That’s my good girl. You’re doing so well. Fuck, you feel amazing.” He can feel how wetter you’re getting with each passing thrust, how much more you’re squeezing him to the point where it’s almost painful to not just fuck into you with a fervor.

The growing pleasure is almost uncomfortable for you. You’ve gotten yourself off on your fingers before, but this is a whole new level. Everything is blurring together, swallowing you whole, drowning out every thought until there’s nothing left but Aizawa.

The growing pressure is agony, making you sob, hot tears splashing down your cheeks that he quickly kisses away, as the tension pulls tighter and tighter. You don’t know how much longer it can last, you’re sure the next second, the next thrust is the one that sends you over the edge, but it never does. It builds and builds and builds, the desperation leaving you trembling under his touch, babbling incoherently, lips slicked with drool, fingernails digging into his flesh as each roll of his hips brings you to a new high.

Your senses are heightened and dulled at the same time. You can feel his hands wandering your body, exploring the valley of your breasts, feather light on your navel, and bruising on your hips. His mouth kisses and licks and sucks and bites every bit of skin he can reach. He praises you in words that sound too distant, too far away, too soft to be heard over the roar of blood in your ears. It feels incredible. It feels like too much. It makes your head swim.

“Please, Aizawa, please, I need- I need.” You blubber, willing to offer up your soul to this man for the relief you so frantically chase.

His tempo changes as he moves a hand between your folds, fingers finding your clit. “I wanna spoil you so much more kitten, but I’m not gonna last much longer. Cum for me. I wanna feel you cum on my cock.” He circles his finger once, twice, three times and the thread inside you snaps, finally tumbling you over that edge.

Your arms wrap around his neck as waves of euphoria crash into you, gripping him like a lifeline as your mind threatens to smother you in it. He groans into your neck, hips thrusting erratically, as your walls clench around him, milking the cum from his dick. You’ve never felt so good before. Your body buzzes, head on cloud nine, toes curling, as he rocks a few more thrusts into you to prolong your orgasm. Your whole body sings, amplified by lightning that flutters in your cunt.

Your senses return as the pleasure ebbs away. You’re hot and sweaty, muscles aching and sore, tangled in Aizawa’s arms while he lays beside you (how did you not notice him move?) and strokes your hair. He mutters praises in your ear telling you what a good job you did and he’s so proud, while he peppers your face with feather light kisses.

“How are you feeling,” he asks when he can see your eyes clear and awareness flood back in.

“Amazing, actually. I had no idea I could feel that way. I can see why people like doing it so much.” You smile up at him drunk on the happiness while he peppers a kiss to your forehead and runs his hands up and down your shoulder.

“Good.” He hums, before sitting up on the edge of the bed. He looks at you with soft eyes and reaches out, smoothing your hair down once more. “Stay here and relax, kitten. I’ll be right back with water and something to clean you up with, okay?”

He grabs his pants and pulls them on as he stands before leaving the room. You watch him disappear around the corner and a tenseness you hadn’t known was bound in your shoulders suddenly loosens. This was better than you ever imagined. You feel so fulfilled, so happy, so so in love.

But…

You also feel…heavy? Satisfied and overwhelmingly happy to the point where it makes you giddy.

But you’re still heavy.

The feeling is enough to cause your chest to convulse suddenly from the weight, pulling a sob from your throat that you hastily try to stifle by shoving your fist into your mouth. Something in you breaks unexpectedly and despite fighting to swallow the wails, you collapse in on yourself, white hot tears rolling down your face as you gasp, gulping down spasming breaths, never quite able to pull enough air into your lungs. Dark spots break out in your vision as you try and fail to stop this emotional storm that rolls over you. Why? Aizawa is everything you ever wanted, and you’ve been dreaming of this moment for so long. It’s always been him. So why?? Why does it feel like your heart is breaking?

A hand suddenly slides under your shoulders and knees, pulling you into a broad chest, arm wrapping around your body in a way that makes you feel so safe and protected. Aizawa runs his hand up and down your back, making soothing noises as he works you through your panic attack. A blanket appears in your peripheral, wrapping around your body, tucking you into his large frame. Your sobs start to subside, leaving you with little shuddering breaths.

“I-I’m sorry.” you hiccup, looking up at him apprehensive, worried he’s going to think you’re ridiculous for crying after you two just had sex. There’s no such judgement on his face though, just concern and worry.

“You have nothing to be sorry about.” He assures you, reaching to his side to produce a bottle of water that he hands you. You drink from it, draining the whole thing in nearly one go, not realizing just how thirsty you were until then. The few seconds the action grants you, allows you to relax against him, suddenly so exhausted from all the emotions you’ve felt since you knocked on his door.

“I- I have no idea why I started crying.”

“Well, what are you feeling,” he asked, tucking your head under his chin. “Talk to me. Maybe we can find the answer together.”

You looked down at your hands, flexing them around the bottle. “I- I feel…” you trailed off, unsure on how to put it into words. “I’m so overjoyed that it’s making me giddy. I’m exhausted from everything that happened but I’m so blissful that I can feel an energy buzzing under my skin despite that. I want to smile so hard it hurts. It’s always been you, probably since the first time I saw you walk through the doors of homeroom all those years ago and expel five people on the first day because they weren’t taking hero work seriously. You were only a couple years older than me, and yet already so confident and sure of yourself. It drew me in like a moth to a flame. I knew deep down, in that moment I would follow you to the ends of the earth. Everything you did was so breathtaking and it always pushed me to be better, to be the kind of person that could someday stand next to someone on your level. I wanted you to be proud of me. It’s why, even when I graduated, even when I debuted as a hero and became established in the pro hero world, even when I was no longer the naive child that wore rose tinted glasses about the world around us, I still came over whenever I could, because I still chased after you, still wanted you. I was captivated- enamored by you even back then. It was love at first sight, I just… didn’t realize it at the time.”

You smile softly, lost in thought. “And now that we’ve done this, I finally feel like I’ve gotten my dream. This is the happiest moment of my life. But…” the smile falters as you drag your hand to your chest. “Right here. It feels so heavy.”

Aizawa hums. “Well first, I’m happy you see me that way. It means a lot to me, truly. Second? I’ve always been proud of you. I’ve always thought you had potential. I didn’t expel you because I saw that, right from the beginning. I always knew you would make a fantastic pro hero, it was illogical to think otherwise. And I’ve always admired you. No matter what happened, you always remained kind and compassionate. I watched you calm down a terrified little boy who developed a scary new Quirk and accidentally hurt everyone around him, by only talking to him. Any other pro hero would have knocked him out, but you sat with him while his parents were treated by doctors and enthusiastically talked to him about rocket ships and astronauts. I guarantee that kid has never forgotten your patience and understanding in that moment. And even though it’s been almost a decade since you graduated, you still continue to show up to check on me. You still talk to the other teachers at UA regularly which means a lot to them. And every time one of your former classmates or teachers winds up injured in a fight, you show up. You say you were drawn to me like a moth to a flame but I don’t think you give yourself enough credit to how truly radiant you are. I think I fell for you a couple years after you graduated when you knocked on Mic’s door, lying horribly about being in the neighborhood, bringing him take out for no other reason than you found out he was injured in a fight and was concerned he wasn’t taking care of himself properly. That type of kindness is rare in this world.”

He takes a deep breath and loops a finger under your chin so you look at him, see the raw emotion in his eyes. “And I’m honored that you trusted me enough to want your first time to be with me. I didn’t take it lightly and I never will.”

Tears begin to mist in your eyes. Your throat squeezes and your nose burns. Oh… now you understand why you feel so heavy. Why you cried hysterically earlier. “It’s not fair.”

Confusion flits across his face but you let out a shuddering breath. “I’ve wanted you for so long and now that I have you, it’s almost time to go. It doesn’t feel fair. Suddenly, I wish I didn’t have this Quirk, that I wasn’t best suited for this mission. I want to be selfish and stay here with you.”

Aizawa is quiet for a moment, because what can he even say to that? To make this situation better. “I’ll be here. I’ll wait. For however long you take. I’ll be right here waiting for you when you come back.”

“I might come back changed.”

“I’m expecting it.” He already knew. At minimum he was expecting PTSD. It’s why the Commission already started you on therapy. This is the part of hero work that nobody talks about and scares him when he looks at new students. He seems them in situations- on missions like this- and it terrifies him to the bone. He would rather expel them than send them out unready for the reality, expecting big flashy fights on TV, only to find themselves mentally broken when faced with scenarios like this.

“It might be a while before I want you to touch me again, when I come back.” You point out.

“I’ll wait until you’re ready. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do.” He assured you.

Your eyes flicked up to him. “Why?”

He studied your face. “Only for you. I’ll wait forever if I have to, because you’re worth the wait. It’s always been you.”

You let out a chuckled sob and lean up, kissing him with bittersweet emotions, full of longing and regret. You memorized the way his lips fit against yours, the feel of his hands on your skin. You want this day to be the moment you thought about during your mission, to push you to keep going when you want to give up. Coming back to him is your new goal and you grasp it firmly in your heart, stubbornly refusing to let it go. He’s the reason you became a hero, the reason you kept going when the mantle was too much to bear sometimes. And now, right now, wrapped in his arms, you try to convey with your kiss that he’s the reason you’ll come back.

It’s always been him.

[vagabond-umlaut]

sweet & sour is a horrible flavour

Chapter 2 of functio laesa Gojo x Fem!Reader; Geto & Reader [platonic]; Canon Divergent AU; Isekai. Fluff & Angst & Drama & Humor; Reincarnation; Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies; Incredibly Self-Indulgent; Eventual Happy Ending; Eventual Friendships & Romance.

Writing the Reader & Geto interact with each other is actually fun...

Chapter warnings: Reader is unable to pay her hospital bills. There's a small mention or two of cops. Sad Reader [briefly]. Cult leader Geto. [This chapter's not as serious or gloomy as the warnings make it seem; still, it never hurts to be careful while listing them.]

Scratch whatever you thought three days ago.

Yeah, yeah, you're sure. Totally scratch that.

Yeah. So. You see, the thing is: dying is actually fun.

What is not fun is dying, then waking up, next falling into a boiling hot bowl of soup. Especially one garnished with legal shit out of everything. Double especially, one which may or may not involve the hospital folks wanting to call the cops on you.

Gulping down the last dredges of your cold coffee [no, not the cold coffee™️; it's the coffee which's turned cold], you shoot a quick smile to the woman at the billing counter. Only to earn an insultingly suspicious look in return, one which darts from you to the landline on her desk far too many times for your liking.

Defeated, you drop the act and sigh. Then erupt into a gush of tears.

"Please, Ma'am," you beg, voice trembling and warbling, "I'm not any criminal on the run, I swear. I had an accident in the forest following which I lost consciousness. I woke up after how many hours, I don't know, but only when I was lying on the hospital bed. With several bandages wrapped around my limbs and a stitch on my forehead, that too."

You pause, wanting to gauge your listener's reaction. Still suspicious, maybe more than before... Fine. Never mind. Carry on.

"I know I look very fishy right now but–"

"You can just pay your hospital bills and leave," The woman cuts you off, none too gently. You should take offense for that but you decide not to. You need to be in her good books to get out of this safely. And swiftly. And–

"How much was the total amount again?" you ask.

"Ten thousand yen."

You check your pockets [the eighth time in the last thirty minutes] and sniffle, "But I don't even have one yen with me."

"You can always call your family or friends and arrange some help," A kind elderly lady interjects from beside. You shake your head in the most crestfallen fashion you can manage. Not that it's too hard or anything. The very mention of your loved ones is more than enough to send you down a new cliff of depression. "I've no one left in the world, Ma'am. I'm all alone."

"What about your insurance?" Another person joins in. Yet another kind stranger. "Surely, it'll be enough to cover your bills?"

"Yeah..." You start, but the woman doesn't let you finish, butting in, "Of course, the insurance will be enough but the thing is she doesn't have an insurance. And before you suggest her applying for one, she cannot: her name is mysteriously not there even in a single government rec–"

"I shall pay twenty thousand yen. Let her off the hook, please?" A friendly voice cuts her off in one short smooth stroke.

You screw your eyes shut.

Wondering, if now is too late a time to beg the lady to call the cops on you instead.

At the very least, you won't meet your end, being called a monkey in the jail.

****

"Is that all you would like to eat?"

A simple question, really.

But you know the man asking it is not so simple. Very possibly, nor his intentions behind asking you either. For all you know [which is A LOT], he could be fattening you up like a pig before getting rid of you in a sacrifice or some shit. He does run a murderous cult, after all... You borrow a beat to chew the cupcake then return a curt nod.

"Are you sure?" Geto continues to press, however, sounding as worried as he looks. The sweet taste on your tongue turns bitter all of a sudden. "You need not worry about the money, if that's what—"

In retrospect, you know you'll regret your next course of action. If anything ever goes wrong, you know this will be when and where everything goes wrong first. Yet, you don't let anything stop you from placing your cupcake back on the plate and interrupting his sentence with a scoff. Eyes burning and chest aching from the uncanny resemblance between the care you used to receive from your friends, back in your world, and the care you're being shown now, by Geto Suguru of all people.

You manage to twist your face into a weak smile. "You wanted to ask questions from me, right?"

The man across from you stares at you for a bit. Then nods, quickly slipping into his usual mask of cordiality. It makes you want to scoff again, but you hold yourself back this time. You might lose control of your emotions from time to time, but you're better than digging your own grave... Yeah, you're better than that. You have to be if you don't wanna die a second time.

Geto leans back into his chair, wearing a warm expression. Have you already mentioned how good an actor he can be? He hums, "That I do, but I would much rather if I don't ask you those here. My home is a couple of hours away. Mind accompanying me there?"

"No, I don't think I will mind," You answer immediately but slowly. Almost as if you're muliing your words over while speaking them out. You aren't, though. You know what to say, what to ask, what to expect. A quiet feel of knowing sneaks into your careful query. "But I don't think you'll let me go soon, will you?"

"No," He agrees easily after watching you for a while [sort of taken aback, you can tell], "You're a peculiar specimen. It's rare to come across ones like you."

Specimen? SPECIMEN???

You draw in a deep breath to calm yourself before shoving out a tense chuckle. He is finally showing his true colours, huh?

"Very funny choice of words, Geto-san," You comment, thoughts in a bloody war with your words, "But the teeny-tiny problem here is: I Am Not A Specimen. And..." Pausing to take a sip of your chai, you resume, "Since I'll be giving answers to your questions, I shall be expecting something in return. Okay, yea?"

An amused look. Curious too, boredly so.

You beg your self-esteem to remain unhurt for a minute more. Just. A. Minute. More.

Geto inquires, "What do you want in return?"

"I want you to let me live," You shoot without a moment wasted, adopting a steely tone to hide your apprehension while you say the words you've been rehearsing in your mind for a while now, "But it's not just in the literal sense of the word 'live'. I want to live how any human being likes to live. With my well-being and dignity intact. If you want me to return the help you showed me earlier, I can cook or clean your house or tutor your kids— but I won't let you hold that over my head to keep me as a prisoner or a slave." Leaning forwards towards the centre of the table, you pin the man under a grave stare. "Do you agree or do you not?"

A beat passes. Then another. And another. Geto cracks a smile at you, but you can see it's not a smile. It's a sliver of a warning. He hums, "You do know you're in a more disadvantageous place than me, right?"

"In terms of cursed energy and all that stuff, I am," You agree easily, then add, smiling the exact same smile you're being shown, "But in terms of knowledge, I doubt you're anywhere near me. The things I know can change everything. Agree to my demands and I promise to answer whatever question you ask truthfully, be it regarding the past, the present or the future. What do you think? Fair deal, right?"

Of course, it is!!! An indignant voice screams in the back of your head. It is right. You know. Still, you decide to keep quiet, deciding to finish the rest of your breakfast while your listener mulls over the terms you laid down— or maybe, thinks of ways to murder you without creating a fuss in this crowded café. You don't think you can be very sure right now...

You didn't go too far, did you?

A cough draws your attention away from the empty plates before. Absently, you think the cupcakes and the scrambled eggs weren't too bad for a last meal. Geto regards you, as curiously as ever but now with a new tinge of disquiet. The sight fills you with a dark form of glee— a twisted sense of victory.

He lets go of a disturbingly long sigh.

"I agree to your demands," The man says, wearing the stiffest smile you've ever seen him wear, be it in this world or in yours, "But only if you promise to never tell me anything of the future— don't ask why, I am simply not fond of spoilers," He adds firmly when you open your mouth; you snap it shut. His tone doesn't scare you, however. Nor does the edge in his voice when he asks, repeating your words from earlier, "Do you agree or do you not?"

"I won't give you spoilers, alright, okay," You hum after a few moments. Decidedly satisfied after cutting open every word spoken to you and extracting its deepest meanings and implications, until there's nothing left for you to see— well, almost nothing. You hesitate a little before giving in to voice out the confusion nagging and poking you.

"But aren't you interested in what I know, Geto-san? Isn't me knowing too much why you called me 'a peculiar specimen'?"

Your question earns no response for a while... Until he leans back into his seat and with an odd glint in his gaze, asks, "You think you coming here was simply an accident and nothing more, don't you?"

"Yeah..." You answer honestly, despite the sudden feeling of uncertainty creeping into your senses and crawling down your spine. Tainting and troubling the brief lull of comfort and security you've built for yourself.

You watch Geto regard you for a few more seconds before he offers a faint grin— one that spells nothing nice. Nothing good. His voice drops to a hushed whisper.

"Then I don't think you know as much as you believe you do, Miss."

Reader: *flexing her isekai-granted muscles like there's no tomorrow*

Geto, meanwhile: *having a traumatic flashback to that time in HS, Gojo spoilt a movie the poor boy was waiting eagerly for, for nearly a year*

Divider by @benkeibear. Header from Pinterest. I don't own the characters used here.

[alpinearts]

im normal about my frostpunk ocs (left guy is seth ratigan and right guy is pallav sachdeva)

im going through a giant artblock right now so this all looks like shit but ohh my goddddddd therye soooo goofy. infodump under the cut

before you read, this story has a bad ending. this'll involve talk of cannibalism, murder-suicides, and apocalyptic stuff. i dont think ive done a bad ending before so im going a bit wild with it.

theyre for the frostpunk arks scenario where a bunch of engineers have to preserve seeds for the future of humanity! along the way they gotta automate the whole settlement before a huge storm hits so the seeds survive even after everyone dies.

seth ratigan is the lead mech engineer who helped draft a bunch of automaton designs and pallav sachdeva is the lead botanist. they met in university (roommates because im a sucker for that trope) and fell in love there! both of them are closeted and keep the relationship a secret.

pallav has a sister, nima, whos an ecologist. when they arrive at the arks shes drafted as a scout and gives the reader a view as to whats happening out in the field so to speak. at the beginning of the story when all the engineers are climbing a cliff, seth slips and knocks himself out. everyone keeps climbing except for nima and pallav, and she pulls him to safety. towards the end she gets lost on a scouting expedition and ends up completely spiralling and killing her fellow explorers. cannibalism mightve been involved. she represents corruption in the pursuit of survival. she may or may not be azulin from unicorn wars

sethhhh....... sethhh..... he represents loss of hope. as lead engineer he gives the reader insight into the inner workings of the arks, both mechanically and politically. hes irish and OHH ITS 1:51 AM AND I HAVE WORK AT 9 AM !!!!! hes IRISH!!! and AWESOME!!!!! AND HE SERVES AS THE VOICE OF DOUBT!!! towards the end as the storm approaches, he gets completely overworked by the leader and the stress + sleep deprivation just drives him over the edge. and at the height of the storm when everyone else is dead he kinda. he kinda kills pallav. and then himself. not cool dude.

pallav serves as our insight into how the people are reacting to all this and he represents altruism + perseverence in the face of certain death. oh its 1:55. oh my god. once the arks are fully automated he gets moved to the hothouses as a supervisor, which means he has more proximity to cookhouses and medical tents than our other protagonists. while seth and nima go from kindhearted and optimistic to corrupt and hopeless, pallav stays steady. throughout the whole series he maintains a positive attitude and is always looking to help people. at first seth just laughs along and entertains him, such as the scene at the very top of this post where they're talking about flowers and cottages. im thinking pallav wants to pretend with seth, for just a moment, that all of this will blow over and they can go back to their life in england, get a cottage and whatnot. seth pushes back saying that realistically they wont make it, pallav asks him to play along and so he does. its a stark contrast to their deaths and how much the arks have changed them.

the seedlings survived, but at what cost?

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

in which buggy doesn’t sleep well, missed breakfast food so much in prison, tells tall tales, and schedules a—not a date. a… day to catch up with an old… person. shanks. whatever.

the next part to this story, which is a follow-up to this one, which was itself a second take at—actually, here’s a tag for all of the near miss stories & related talk, go there if you want the context. (i’ve linked to the chronological order sorting of the tag, so you should see the “thinking about near misses in east blue” post first.)

Buggy was still mad at Galdino hours later, when he got fed up with his feet being tripped over in the dark and the rest of him (sitting up in the rigging, sulking hiding just sitting) had gotten cold.  But given the very limited space on the Red Force, it was either bunk with someone or sleep on the deck, and Buggy was not about to do that.  The men—ugh, now Galdino had him doing it!—were way too excited about following Buggy’s every move, he shuddered to think what they might do at night.  Assuming he could even get to sleep with all of them hovering like that.

So if he was bunking with someone, there was really only the one option: the only other guest on this ship who’d treated him like a human being.

But he wasn’t happy about it.

Galdino paid him no mind, using a borrowed mirror to inspect himself as he prepared for bed, applying a thin layer of wax along the edge of his hairline.  When he was done with the mirror, he silently held it up so Buggy could look himself over.  He used pretty long-lasting makeup, the better to survive bloody fistfights and brackish ocean spray—and some of it had even survived the sterilizing baths they dunked you in when you arrived at Impel Down!  Buggy would write to the brand, to tell them to use that fact in their advertising, but that degree of longevity probably wasn’t a huge selling point now that Ivankov and his ilk had escaped the prison.

Anyway, nothing had happened today that could really mess it up.  His face was fine.

…it could use a touch-up, though.  Just to solidify the linework on the crossbones, make the edge of his lip really crisp.  Buggy touched the corner of his lip, considering, and very much against his will recalled how it had felt for someone else to touch that part of his face.

It had been a long time.

Not so long that Shanks’ hand was the first to touch him since Shanks, mind you.  But a long time all the same.

He scowled, and threw himself into bed.  Touching up his makeup—and who, exactly, would he be doing that for?!  That kind of thinking could wait until morning.  When, hopefully, he would have recovered his sanity in full.

As he was drifting off, Buggy heard Galdino roll over and say, softly, “You may think of that guy as some dope you used to sail with, but fact is he’s an Emperor.  One who’s taken an interest in you.  I’m just trying to look out for you.”

“And who asked you to do that?” Buggy muttered into his pillow.

“No one,” Galdino acknowledged.  “But if I’m hitching my wagon to yours—and it sure looks like that’s what’s happening here—I want to make sure we aren’t about to ride off a cliff.”

With that grim visual in his head, Buggy sunk into an uneasy sleep.

The next day dawned warm and bright.  Buggy had thoughtlessly picked a bed that sat under the one small window in the room, right where an early morning sunbeam would shine in his face.  He groaned a protest, but unfortunately, once up he was up.  Leaving Galdino to sleep his fill, he stretched, grumbled, and made himself presentable.

(This did not involve touching up his makeup in any way.)

A handful of Red-Haired Pirates were also up and about, though Buggy couldn’t tell how many were early risers and how many had been on watch overnight.  A few nodded at him with the bleary eyes of hungover men.  Uneasy at the acknowledgement, however small, Buggy ducked into the mess, praying that there would be something hot to eat at this hour.

Prayers were answered in the form of the ever-grinning Lucky Roux, who was setting out large pans of a few types of porridge under warming lamps, with toppings (both savory and sweet) laid out in small bowls.  Buggy opted for oats with some dried fruit and syrup on top, something that would fill him up and leave a sweet aftertaste.  Though he might go back for the rice porridge later if he could get a soft-boiled egg to go with it… oh, eggs.  He’d missed eggs.

There were also two steaming pots of liquid sitting to one side, one a tisane that smelled oddly familiar—after a moment, Buggy remembered the hangover cure Rayleigh had sworn by, and had to bite back a nauseous stab of nostalgia.  He went for the other, not caring what it was so long as it was hot.  It turned out to be awfully bitter, so he stole a bit of the porridge syrup to sweeten it.

Loaded down with food and drink, Buggy set himself up next to the kitchen, facing the rest of the mess.  No one would be able to sneak up on him but Roux, and the day a man that size could—

“Any special requests?”

Biting back a shriek, Buggy spun to see Roux poking his head through a small window between the kitchen and mess.  “I’m no short-order cook,” he said with a grin, “but this early I’m happy to make people what they want, so long as I have the ingredients on hand.”

What Buggy really wanted was a hot dog.  Fuck, he missed bread.  And meat.  But he didn’t want a cheffy take on it, he wanted the greasy sausage and halfway stale bun you got when you bought a hot dog at a boardwalk.  Since that wasn't likely to happen… “Over-easy eggs and toast?  Oh, and ham, or bacon, whatever meat you’ve got.”

“That, I can do.”

Buggy dug into his oats, watching other men slowly creep into the mess in varying states of wakefulness and dress.  The most tired looking came straight to the kitchen, where Roux already had plates waiting—the night watch men, then, being rewarded for that unpleasant duty.  That was smart, Buggy thought, reluctant but firm in his admiration.  If he ever got a really top-tier chef in his crew, that’d be the way to get people to do the worst chores: give them good food after.

“Building Snake says we're making landfall this afternoon?” one of the night watch guys said to another.  Buggy tried to lean in without making it obvious that he was eavesdropping.  “Seriously, that soon?”

“We need to resupply if we're gonna keep housing these guys for much longer,” the other replied, glancing over at a cluster of Whitebeard Pirates around one table, Marco’s distinctive tuft of fiery orange hair poking out of the center.  “We buy goods today, give all of them shore leave so they aren't in the way while we load up tomorrow, and if the winds favor us we offload the clown and his troupe the next day.”

Buggy twitched.  What now?

“Oh, did Rockstar find the Buggy Pirates already?” Roux asked, handing the pair of men their plates.  “When’s he gonna learn he doesn't have to work so hard to impress us?”  The three of them shared a laugh over this overachiever who’d apparently found Buggy’s ship in under a day. (The hell were they doing so close to the Calm Belt?) Leaning down to hand Buggy his requested dish, Roux said, “Only three days from your crew!  That must be a relief, huh?”

Ignoring the startled looks on the night watch pair’s faces as they ran off—yes, Buggy had been here the whole time, so good of you to finally notice—Buggy grabbed the plate and breathed in deeply.  Eggs soft as silk, bacon just the far side of well-done, toast triangles gleaming with butter… god damn, but it was worth being awake at this hour to get quality food.  “It’ll be nice to be home,” he said around a mouthful, “but I’ll miss this.”

Roux burst into big, booming laughter.  “You guys!  Always so appreciative of good food.  I’d expected to rate higher than prison fare, but I’m flattered to hear I’m also better than your usual!”

In the middle of stabbing the yolks of his eggs with a sharp corner of toast , Buggy squinted suspiciously up at Roux.  “What do you mean by ‘you guys?’”

“I mean Roger Pirates, of course!”

Buggy blinked.

“Shanks is always happy to eat whatever, but he can’t hide how much happier he is when I make his favorites.  And that Silvers Rayleigh…” Roux shook his head.

Buggy nearly choked on an egg.  “You’ve met Rayleigh?!”

“Oh sure, about ten years back?  We’d barely been on the Grand Line six months, just hit Sabaody and were debating whether to move forward to the New World or stay in Paradise a little longer, and suddenly Shanks was running off to talk to this old man.  Of course I had to feed him, if just to prove to the guy that I deserved my job.  He really—”  Roux sniffed the air, spun around and yelped, and disappeared back into the kitchen.

So that was how they had Rayleigh’s hangover cure on this ship.  “Sabaody, huh…?”  Buggy wouldn't have thought he’d end up there, with how often world nobles visited the place.  Did Rayleigh have a death wish?  Or was he just old enough at this point to escape notice?  Buggy snorted.  Lucky him.

A storm of feet came thundering from out on the deck, drawing the attention of most of the room—until the mess door flung open to reveal a cluster of men in ragged Impel Down uniforms.  They spotted Buggy and cried out, “Captain Buggy!  There you are!”

This got eye rolls and looks of annoyance all around, which Buggy almost wanted to join in on.  Seriously, did these guys need their hands held on the way to the bathroom too?

“Here I am,” he said dryly, sipping at his drink.  “Don’t you people remember what mealtimes are?  Where else would I be at this hour?”  Ignoring their responses (“Of course!  Captain Buggy’s so smart!” “So logical!”), he edged a little closer to the wall, having a feeling he was about to get crushed.

The men did flock to his side the second they were able—attempting to offer choice bits of food to him, like he didn’t clearly already have something better on his plate—but their devotion was thankfully balanced by respect, and they didn’t sit so close he couldn’t breathe.

They were still totally incapable of keeping their mouths shut, though.

“Captain Buggy, will you tell us of another of your adventures?”

Buggy bit back a grimace as pirates less enamored with him gave his group a dirty look. Yeah, he wouldn’t want to be in tight quarters with them either, if he were hungover and not a Buggy fan. But how could he ignore their request? “Sure! Anything for you guys!”  What stories hadn’t he told yet…?  “Have I told you the story of… how my crew acquired our fiercest member, Richie the Lion?”

“A lion?!”  “No, Captain Buggy!”

“Alright, then.  It all started when my brave crew was exploring a jungle island, years ago…” The actual story of how they’d gotten Richie was nothing special—it was really the story of how he’d met Mohji, a mistreated performer in an East Blue circus where Buggy had hidden out until the first time someone mentioned his nose, at which point he wrecked the place.  But who here would know if he adapted the story of a day he’d spent on a jungle island with Captain Roger and Shanks? (…besides the obvious person, of course.) So he wove a tale of cleverness and might, of Captain Buggy spotting a dangerous beast that had a crying child trapped up in a tree and tricking it into pursuing him instead, only for the lion to be instantly tamed by his sheer power… and of course, Buggy being richly rewarded for the rescue.

“And that’s why we named him Richie,” Buggy concluded.  “After the riches and fortune he brought me that day.”

“How touching!”  “How bold!”  “How amazing!”

How exhausting.  “Now,” Buggy said, mopping up a smear of egg yolk with his last corner of toast, “are you satisfied for the moment, or do you need another—” Glancing up, he nearly choked on his bite.  Shanks was standing in the midst of the men, sipping from a steaming hot mug and watching Buggy with an amused smile on his face.  That fucker definitely remembered being stuck up a tree with a lion clawing at their feet.  “Shanks!  W-what do you want?”

“Oh, don’t stop on my account,” he said, glancing down at the man sitting across the table from Buggy.  It seemed the men had been so captivated by Buggy’s storytelling that they hadn’t noticed Shanks either; now that they had, they quickly moved to accommodate him.  Taking the suddenly empty seat, he set down his mug—Buggy’s nose wrinkled up, it was the hangover tisane—and leaned his chin on his fist.  “If you’re taking requests, how about when we first met Oden?  That’s a good story.”

“I—that—” Like hell Shanks just wanted a story.

Lucky Roux got Buggy’s attention, and held out a plate clearly meant for Shanks; it was the same kind of breakfast he’d favored as a child, down to the diced tomatoes perched atop the eggs—originally a deterrent to keep Buggy from stealing his food, at some point it had become a highlight of the dish for Shanks, the freak.

…maybe he did just want a story.  For all that he was an Emperor now, Shanks didn’t seem to have changed much as a person.  Buggy passed the plate along to Shanks, and tried to relax. “That is a good one.”

Turning to the men watching this exchange wide-eyed, Buggy barked out, “Now, who among you swabs recognizes the name of Kozuki Oden, once heir to the shogunate of Wano?!”  This got a couple of looks of recognition, but mostly confusion—except for, from the far side of the room, a few angry grumbles.  Buggy laughed.  “Don’t tell me the Whitebeards still hold a grudge?  Just because our crews fought for three days, and Oden chose to come with us in the end?”

This garnered a far more impressed reaction from the ex-prisoner crowd, and some narrow-eyed looks from the Whitebeards.  Oh, they definitely still held a grudge.  But Shanks was smiling ever so slightly, and that was enough to make Buggy smirk and say, “Well, feel free to offer corrections if you think I’m telling the story wrong.”

And then he told the most overblown, exaggerated version of events he possibly could.

Some of the Whitebeard Pirates threw out corrections—and insults against Buggy’s memory and honesty—but Buggy gave as good as he got, Shanks occasionally chimed in with falsely innocuous comments like “that’s not how I remember it” to their corrections, and the story was all the better for the pushback.  That was the thing with lying: the larger lie sounded more believable when someone objected to small details, because your audience assumed that everything that hadn’t been corrected must be true.

For all the insults and slander tossed around about dead men, the mood in the room was significantly lighter by the time Buggy finished the story.  Most of the Red-Haired Pirates had left, their duties for the morning calling, but the former prisoners and Whitebeard Pirates lingered to hear Buggy out until the end, with Oden and his family sailing off on the Oro Jackson, Whitebeard’s men calling out fond farewells and complaints at his disloyalty in equal measure.

Even Marco the Phoenix was convinced to speak up at that point, saying, “Pops never forgave Roger for that, yoi,” with a slight, sad smile.

“For stealing Oden?” Buggy snorted a laugh.  “If you wanted him to stick around, you should’ve gone to the last island yourselves!  That man wanted adventure, and we were going on the greatest one imaginable.”

Marco protested—Oden had been like family to Whitebeard, didn’t that mean something?—and with the story complete and the breakfast hour long passed, the crowd began to disperse. (They’d learned yesterday that people who lingered in the mess tended to get roped into dishwashing duty, whether they were crew aboard the Red Force or not.) A couple people still remained: Shanks, who’d spent so much time egging on the Whitebeards that he’d scarcely touched his food; Marco, going back for a third or fourth cup of the not-tisane; and a few especially devoted ex-prisoners, staring starry-eyed at Buggy.

“The last island…” One of them breathed.  “Captain Buggy, what’s it like?”

Buggy blinked.  “Laugh Tale?”  He glanced at Shanks, who was watching him with a perfectly neutral expression, then down at the bitter dregs left in his cup.  What to say? Buggy flushed.  He wouldn’t—couldn’t—lie about this.  “I, uh, I don’t know.”

“What?!”

“We didn’t go,” Shanks said, getting a grateful look from Buggy and surprise from the rest of the room.  “Buggy got sick, and I stayed behind to look after him.”  This won Shanks some undeserved admiration from Buggy’s fans—what a sacrifice he’d made, and for Captain Buggy’s sake!  Yeah, right.

…well.

Well.

What other reason could he have had, to stay behind?

Galdino’s (terrible, awful) words from yesterday popped up in Buggy’s head.  Gah, surely not that!  Surely he hadn’t—not back then.  Surely he didn’t now, for that matter!  Buggy grimaced.  It wasn’t like he could just ask, not around all these people.

Not around them.  But maybe…

“Shanks, I—”

“Listen, Buggy…”

They blinked, dumbfounded.  After a moment’s silence, Shanks gestured for Buggy to go ahead.

Buggy scratched at an itch along his jawline.  It would be nice to be back on the Big Top, where he could get something like a clean shave again.  But before that… if he could just get the question out.  He gritted his teeth.  Why was asking for things so hard?  “Yesterday, you said you’d like to sit down and catch up if you weren’t so busy. If you really meant that… I hear tomorrow’s gonna be a shore day, at least for people who don’t have a real role on your ship, so I was thinking…” Buggy shrugged.  “I dunno.  Maybe we could do that? Can you spare an hour for me?”

“Yeah!”  Shanks grinned, so wide and bright Buggy could hardly bear to look at it.  “Yeah, I’d love that.  But forget an hour, I can give you the whole day.”  When Buggy frowned, puzzled, Shanks explained, “I was about to ask you to spend time with me.”

Buggy laughed under his breath.  “Figures.” All those nerves for nothing!  If he’d just kept his mouth shut a few seconds longer, Shanks would’ve asked, and then Buggy could’ve looked like he was doing him a favor by giving him exactly what Buggy wanted. Oh, well.  Turning to the men hovering behind him, Buggy snapped, “You hear that?!  You boys are gonna have to find something else to do tomorrow, I’m gonna be too busy to hang around telling you stories of my greatness!”

“Yessir, Captain Buggy!” (“Wow!  An elite captain-to-captain meeting!”)

“And if any of you dare to follow or interrupt us, you’ll live to regret it!  Spread the word!”

The men disappeared obediently.  Buggy let himself bask for a moment—god, but it was nice to be listened to.  Even if they did take it to extremes.  And even if they only did it because they thought Buggy was a pirate on Captain Roger’s level, and not just a kid the guy had taken a liking to.  And even if… with a little sigh, Buggy turned back around.  Gathering up his dishes—even if he managed to avoid dishwashing duty today, clearing his place was the least he could do—Buggy glanced up at Shanks and froze at the look on his face.  That fond little smile… heat rushed to Buggy’s cheeks, and he groaned, shoving a hand in Shanks’ face.

“Don’t look at me like that!”

“Like what?” Shanks laughed, pushing Buggy’s hand out of the way, still looking at him like…

“Like—” Buggy remembered Galdino’s words and violently shoved the memory down.  He remembered a similar look on Shanks’ face, years ago, and violently shoved that memory down too.  Getting to his feet, he floated his stack of plates through the kitchen window and bolted.  “Just don’t!”

But even as he left, he knew Shanks’ expression hadn’t changed.  He was still looking at Buggy like he liked him.

And Buggy had just agreed to spend the day with him tomorrow.

What had he been thinking?

[d3nt4l-d4m4g3]

The issue is not with people who believe themselves to be transgender. Who are given the choices that they believe will free them from various constant, chronic miseries. 

The issue is that some choices should not exist. This has been demonstrated again and again in our history. Once the decision to lobotomize one’s free-spirited daughter was a sensible and accessible one; once it was sensible to dose a colicky baby with whiskey; once it was common to take heroin for a cough, laudanum for a high-strung temperament, cocaine for depression. 

At least two patients not long ago, afflicted only by the mighty conviction they should have been born without a limb, were graciously permitted to have these heathy appendages surgically removed. 

And let me remind you that these patients were grateful, and may go to their graves grateful for the disabilities they asked for and received. 

Such choices summon an ill-humored genie, grab greedy fingers round the monkey’s paw. Such choices disguise the cost of a reckless wish, often forever to the wisher in their lifetime. Such choices come with a binding understanding on the condition that one be willfully opaque to, a fact which if one were to choose to accept and humble oneself before it, would bring the most awful of consequences.

To admit you were wrong would ruin you.

The people who believe they are transgender have every stake in this fight. If they accept that their choices were wrong, immoral, unjust, psychologically and mentally damaging, at cost of truth, genuity, sense, self, health, and life, their proceeding state would naturally be one of great shame and despair. At the harm they have caused and the lies they have told to themselves and others. Of the crushing farce of their lives, now shortened by unnecessary, gruesome, barbaric surgical and chemical altercations. Of the enormous sum of their own poisonous self-hatred, and the hatred of whatever differences they may possess by the world.

Those who perform these altercations: the genies, the sharp-toothed yellow-nailed monkeys, who offer the choices grandly and gluttonously, sleep well at night with bodies strong enough and hands deft enough to ruin all the bodies they touch. The victims smile, believing themselves saved. The monkeys smile, large sums on paper glowing in their rancid heads.  Many of these doctors, surgeons, so-called scientists believe themselves to be doing good in the world (Though some certainly only have a taste for power, money, and mutilation. The do-gooder has a secondhand sour unspoken knowledge, which is that if he is wrong he is a modern Mengele. What else do you call someone who meddles with the bodies of children, with the mentally compromised, with the most utterly desperate, who says goodnight to a whole person and good morning to a mutilated one with a smile? With a smile, with a smile.

Victims are annoying. They are. You don't want to look at them. They are self-involved, destructive, unreasonable as a long-caged animal. They are unnattractively pitiable because they cling to their sickness with the grip of someone hanging off a cliff. They are fickle, flaky, flagrantly inconsiderate of the families, friends and lovers they have alienated with the choices they have made. It is all too tempting to kick such a pathetic creature while it’s down, mocking it shivering in a cage of its own creation.

  But their choices should not have existed, their self-imposed cage should never have been imposed concretely by simpering false sympathizers. It is cruel and unproductive to blame a person who has been alienated, marked and mutilated by the esteemed healers of this savage society. A victim, victimized, naturally appears gnarled and unattractive, unpersonable because she has not been treated like a person; the perpetrator, clean-handed, immaculately white-coated, appears godlike. But don’t let that distract you from the true enemy. The enemy is not the choice maker, but the choice giver. 

[the12thnightproject]

Hi! Can I have a request please in which MC decides to have le Warlords try the "Period Cramp Simulator"? Just imagine them boasting that they'll be fine, only for them to kneel over in pain. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Again, Anon, I am sorry for taking so long. Hopefully my schedule should clear up soon…? But here is your request!

Oh, this is a fun request. But it involved some serious thinks… these warlords are pretty stoic. In my memory they’ve been shot (arrows and bullets) beaten up, fallen (or jumped) off cliffs, stabbed in battle, stabbed daily by Kenshin and defied a terminal illness without complaint….

So, really, are they going to be defeated by a period simulator? Are they? Let's see....

Upon hearing of such a device there is a great argument over who would be able to last the longest. And so a contest is proposed….

Contest Rules:

One: Mai is not allowed to watch as all agree that none of them will admit to pain in her presence. (She hides in the ceiling and watches anyway).

Two: Yelling, yelping, screaming are grounds for elimation.

Three: Sasuke runs the experiment and controls the simulator. He is the judge as to whether or not a warlord has been eliminated. Why Sasuke? First, because they all trust him enough to run the device equally and not cheating for your lord, Hideyoshi and Kanetsugu. Second, because he is a sensitive new age guy and freely admits that period cramps hurt (he secretly tested the stimulator on himself when he was alone and tapped out at level eight).

Let the games begin! Sasuke places the simulator patches on everyone, and from a master switch, turns the device on so that everyone hits level one simultaneously.

Level One:

All warlords are fine. Ranmaru earns the wrath of the room by noting that it “kind of tickles.”

Sasuke bumps the intensity to Level Two:

Such serious faces. Everyone is concentrating.

Sasuke bumps the intensity to Level Three:

There are a few deep breaths happening now, but nothing that could be defined as yelling, yelping, or screaming.

Sasuke bumps the intensity to Level Four:

Sasuke walks around the room for a long, slow time, looking at everyone’s faces, until Kenshin tells him to get on with things and start making it hurt. When is the pain going to start? Kanetsugu chimes in, telling Sasuke to move things along, so that Kenshin can have his pain. There are quiet whispers of, ‘yes, hurry, let’s move it along,” and a lot of internal, “let’s get this over with now, kthxbye” thoughts.

Sasuke bumps the intensity to Level Five:

Kicho accuses Nobunaga of wincing. Motonari is quick to agree that Nobunaga winced. Hideyoshi defends Nobunaga, says that he would never wince, it was just a natural blink. After a short discussion, it is decided that Nobunaga did not wince, and further accusations of wincing, or yelling, or thereof will be cause for forfeit.

Nobunaga silently admits to himself that he quite possibly winced, but now that he knows what to expect, he is prepared for the next wave of … oh shit.

Sasuke bumps the intensity to Level Six:

Ranmaru, Keiji and Yoshimoto incur a forfeit by accusing each other of wincing. They escape the room. The fourteen remaining warlords quickly look around, but no other accusations are made.

Sasuke bumps the intensity to Level Seven:

There is a lot of visible sweat, careful breathing, and gritted teeth happening. Internally, there is a lot of very creative swearing, using words in combination rarely spoken out loud.

Kennyo puts himself into a meditative state. Masamune wonders if that would be considered cheating, but Kennyo points out that he’s not preventing anyone else from meditating, he’s just using the skills he has.  No one is willing to discuss the matter further, and Shingen notes that Kennyo is correct, and can they please keep going.

Privately, Shingen vows to give every one of his female spies three days off a month, and a pay raise.

Sasuke bumps the intensity to Level Eight:

Sasuke looks at every face and pauses at Ieyasu’s for a long time. Ieyasu says that while he is not bothered by the cramp simulator, Sasuke is making him very uncomfortable. Sasuke replies that he’s impressed by Ieyasu’s stoicism and by the way when this is over, can he have Ieyasu’s autograph. Ieyasu rips the simulator off and stomps out, deciding that while he can endure the pain, he can’t deal with Sasuke.

Ieyasu goes home and hugs his emotional support sourdough starter for the rest of the day.

Sasuke bumps the intensity to Level Nine:

Kanetsugu looks over at Mitsuhide and Hideyoshi…. “Are you two holding hands?!” Mitsuhide and Hideyoshi look down at their joined hands and instantly let go of each other. “No!” they both yelp.

Some time is lost while it is debated whether or not that counts as period simulator yelping, and after everyone votes (voting signified by slow careful hand raises), they are both allowed to continue in the competition.

Yukimura curls himself into a silent, fetal ball – but he does not yelp or yell, so Sasuke is inclined to let him continue.

Sasuke bumps the intensity to Level Ten:

The warlords sit in silent agony.

Time ticks onward.

Slowly.

No one taps out.

Everyone stares at each other’s faces.

“Perhaps we can consider this a tie,” Shingen suggests.

There is immediate universal assent from the rest of the room, and Sasuke agrees. “Take off your simulators.”

Twelve warlords quickly – but nonchalantly – remove their devices. Then Masamune notices… “Mitsunari, lad, you can take the device off now.”  Hideyoshi rushes over to his vassal, worried that perhaps the young man has passed out.

Mitsunari looks up from the book he has been reading. “I’m sorry, did you say something? He gazes around the room. “Oh, are we starting the contest now? Go ahead, Master Sasuke, I’m ready.”

Mitsunari declared the winner.

There will be a celebratory banquet for him…. next week… when everyone else has recovered.

@lorei-writes

[odditycircus-2002]

Medusa!Reader and Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat 1 Story Mode Part 10

PREVIOUS

NEXT

Spoilers for MK1 Story Mode ahead: Proceed with caution

You went with Liu Kang, Geras, Sindel and her daughters, Tanya, and the former Lin Kuei brothers who saved you, back to Ying's Fortress in Earthrealm. You made your way to the main courtyard with Sindel along with the two ninja brothers. Occasionally taking out any soldiers posted on guard duty, which included you turning them into stone before they could scream and tipping them over the steep cliff the walls sit on. When you arrived there, you followed Sindel to shut down the soul stealers when splitting up the group on behalf of Lord Liu Kang's suggestion.

There you did what you do best in combat, cutting down enemies with your blades and poisoning the rest, sometimes even using their stone selves as shields. While Sindel knows that even the Healers in her court are taught some combat, it's still a bit surprising to be reminded of your more violent tendencies. Although, you both missed being in one another's company even with kombat involved.

Unfortunately, you could do nothing as some floating hooded figure sent Mileena and Tanya flying into another section of the courtyard, not when you were busy trying not to get your head sliced off. Even worse, some soldiers were quick thinkers and used their shields or swords to spot you when you took off your mask. Fortunately, you were able to rely on the others, including Liu Kang, to occasionally help take out Shao's loyal soldiers in your blindspots. It wasn't too long before every one of the soldiers was disposed of and the soul stealers disposed of. You quickly rush to the women's side when you see them, already conjuring a thousand different scenarios on how they may need healing. However, what you weren't expecting was to find the floating hooded figure wearing the face of Outworld's late Emperor, Jerrod. Jerrod who has always treated everyone in the palace, including you and your fellow trainees, well. The Emperor who saw you, a young woman from nowhere, had great potential. When you saw that it is him, you gave a bow.

"My Emperor, how we have all missed you, dearly."

"You seem to have come far, Y/N. Please, attend to Tanya. I believe she may be suffering from broken bones."

You don’t waste time getting to work and luckily for you and Tanya, her ribs weren’t broken as much as some were cracked and internal bleeding. Both which isn’t hard for you to fix with a little magic. You’re also not surprised to hear from Jerrod that it wasn’t Li Mei’s fault for his death. But one problem at a time, all of you have two Sorcerers to defeat.

Kuai Liang and you lead the others through the maze of tunnels within the mountain until you find the gigantic chamber housing the Dragon Army. You had to swallow back some venom that threatened to spill from your lips, not noticing how a few drops spilled on the stone warrior you hid behind when you found Shang Tsung and Quan-chi smugly watching their animated army train for the upcoming battle. To think, in a past timeline, you would’ve joined them in their heinous crimes!

You glance towards Sindel in concern when Mileena offers to distract the Sorcerers so the rest of you can surround them. Luckily, the heiress’s plan goes off without a hitch thanks to her compelling performance that would’ve had you fooled. You sprang into action at Mileena’s signal, automatically going for Shang Tsung’s neck only to barely avoid a magical blast from Quan-chi, thanks to Mileena’s last-minute interference. Shang Tsung reaches for his neck before letting out a patronizing chuckle. Quan-chi smirks in amusement.

”For someone that appears to hate you so much, she seems incredibly determined to end you herself.”

”A most romantic gesture.”

You give a hiss “Will it still be considered one when I make you watch me tear out your beating heart?”

You and Mileena fight together against the Deadly Alliance, your hydromancy being the perfect counter against Shang Tsung’s fire magic. It felt good seeing the Sorcerer’s smug expression morph into one of fear when they almost repeatedly get bit by your snakes or you. Mileena managed to knock out the crown Shang Tsung used to control the Dragon Army during the fight. When the Sorcerer realizes it’s no longer on his head, you put one scythe to this throat and one to Quan-chi’s to keep either of them from reaching for it. Yet nothing could ever be that easy, could it?

You expected to see the Sorceress Lord Liu Kang warned about earlier, rather than another version of Shang Tsung and… You??? Your counterpart was lovingly holding the other Shang’s arm and wearing a complimenting regal outfit like him. What shocked you the most was that she had your features, but Ashe wasn’t wearing a mask! It also appears the Shang Tsung, you know, seemed just as baffled. Your other self’s gaze landed on you with such contempt that it threatened to make you curl into a ball. You let out an undignified squeak when she grabs your face with her claws, threatening to break the skin.

“I have to agree, darling husband. Even with our interference, she barely proved useful. What more, your poor copy lost this one to a bloody savage.”

She then pushed you away, causing you to stumble in place. You barely heard Liu Kang explaining what’s happening as Your mind reels from the information that another YOU not only caused your accident but is also MARRIED to Shang Tsung?!? And apparently, Lord Liu Kang once turned another version of you into sand at your request?!?

”Of course, I tried to make Shang Tsung in my timeline but it just couldn’t beat the original.”

Your counterpart gives a longing look toward the other Shang Tsung, who takes her hand to kiss it.

”So when he found me again, I was so overjoyed that I didn’t mind exterminating all life in my timeline. Not as long as I can be his side for all times.”

”Always”

You felt like vomiting at the two Titans. Your other self giggled when the Shang Tsung and Quan-chi you knew voiced their outrage at being pawns and left to slaughter. Titan Shang Tsung then holds the crown the other Sorcerers made up to your Titan Counterpart, requesting a kiss for good luck. She obliged, causing a venomous glow to spread throughout the crown from her lips before Titan Shang Tsung crumpled it like paper to control all the souls within it. They both bid all of you goodbye before teleporting away, leaving behind a dark alternate, Sindel and Raiden. You hold up your scythe to Shang Tsung’s throat once more.

”If I sense any treachery from you or Quan-chi, I will finish you both.”

Shang Tsung only gives a chuckle as he agrees that’s fair enough.

It would appear that all of you were facing foes more powerful than initially thought when the other Sindel shrieked to halt you long enough for Raiden to electrocute the ground. This attack causes Mileena’s serum to wear off and her Tarkatan symptoms to become apparent, giving her enough edge to defeat Raiden. But there was still the other Sindel to handle.

You always knew your Empress to be a force of nature, but this new one was entirely new! All of you fought her at once, but she annihilated you like you were nothing but bugs to her. This Sindel knew to use her hair to strike you in the head before your stone gaze could affect her, causing you to fall to the ground and hit your head against the stone beneath with a resounding CRACK.

When you came too, your ears rang, and everything sounded underwater, the world around you shaking. Your head feels fuzzy, and you distantly note that you may have a concussion. However, when the name "Sindel" is heard, your hearing and vision immediately focus again. Kitana was shaking you and telling you Sindel was severely injured. You swiftly get into action as you are led/dragged by Kitana to wear a bleeding Sindel lies.

You feel your face pale behind your mask, and your heart races before you steady yourself and narrow your eyes in determination. You first use water from your flask to wash away the excess blood from Sindel to see where the bleeding is coming from, then you tear open her clothing for better access. You bark for Jerrod to carefully bend Sindel's knees and for him and Kitana to talk gently to her and keep her awake. You then dig into your apothecary bag to pull out some pain-killing seeds for Sindel to chew on before you get to work stuffing gauze in her wound, and then more cause before attempting to patch her up with a slightly wettened bandage. However, soon, more blood leaks through and completely drenches it, and Sindel's skin becomes cold and pasty. It's as you feared; the other Sindel stabbed her in the stomach artery and lost blood too fast.

You've never been the praying type but you fervently pray to Deliah and Argus under your breath to save Sindel.

"I'll do anything asked of me and pay any boon, just please, please, please, save Sindel. Save my dear friend. "

Sindel puts her hand over yours.

"You did your best, Y/N"

Your eyes fill with tears as you are gently pushed to the side by Kitana so She, Mileena, and her father can be around Sindel as she takes her last breath, naming Mileena Empress of Outworld. Your hands are still stained with her blood. Although Jerrod absorbs Sindel's soul into his body, it comforts you little, knowing you failed. You reluctantly follow Lord Lui Kang out of the fortress, leaving behind Sindel's body.

A/N: I make no apologies. 😈😈😈

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

I was just scrolling through Instagram and the following question popped into my head:

If Bella never had those hallucinations of Edward in New Moon, would something significant have changed? Or would it just mean that she wouldn’t seek out Jacob?

Alright, let's go through this, I'm intrigued.

Bella Never Hallucinates Edward

Bella's in Port Angeles with Jessica to get Charlie off her back so he won't ship her off to Florida. They have an alright time, by which 'alright' is terrible for Jessica and Bella just hates the whole thing but is too depressed to function. They see the scary biker men, this time, Edward's not there to tell Bella not to go with the scary looking people who resemble her would have been rapists.

I imagine Bella stares at them for a weirdly long moment and Jessica, frowning, tugs Bella away and is very disturbed by the whole thing "Please don't make eye contact with them, Bella". Jessica, however, isn't as wigged out because Bella didn't actually approach them and mostly thinks Edward really fucked Bella up. She is not doing good.

"Maybe we have girl's night at home next time," Jessica reasons, seems more low key for Bella who really looks like she should be staying close to home.

"Yeah sure whatever" I imagine is Bella's reply, as she'll need something to keep Charlie from freaking out and if occasionally doing things with Jessica is it then why not.

As you note, without having hallucinated Edward, Bella has no motivation to endanger herself (first by approaching scary men, realizing this is too spicy, then saying "motorcycles, Edward would hate that"). So, Bella never gets the motorcycles and as a result never thinks of Jacob.

She never approaches him and doesn't befriend him.

I imagine what follows instead is that Bella has increasingly awkward girls nights with Jessica and Angela, and accidental dates with Mike Newton, where she tries to convince Charlie she's great. She's... awesome, but she's not actually getting better because she doesn't even have Jacob in this timeline.

I imagine she still motivates herself to search for the meadow but just gets increasingly lost in the woods without Jacob's help. She may stumble across it as she did in canon, nearly get eaten by Laurent, at which point she's saved by the wolves but even if this happens while she'd now know Victoria is after her sh edoesn't know about the wolves and Jacob isn't close enough to tell her/try to tell her as he did in canon.

Things continue, Bella doesn't jump off a cliff because she doesn't see the La Push guys doing it/isn't hallucinating Edward. As a result..

Probably, what happens, is either Victoria does eventually get to Bella and kills her or else the Volturi get involved as Victoria's building up the newborn army and, since Edward never came and told them he broke the rules, they have no reason to stall the destruction of the army and Victoria herself.

Bella never realizes there was a newborn army or how close Forks came to being wiped out by vampires.

As it is Bella... well, she'll either get better, or she'll continue to spiral into the suicidal behavior we saw in canon. My hope is that, after long enough, as in canon she begins to accept the Cullens will not return and tells Charlie/Renee "I think I need help" rather than what she did in canon (which was conclude she needs to rebound on Jacob to fix her problems).

Edward will likely eventually return, but we don't know when this will be, and when he does... if he'll content himself watching from afar or else will begin intervening in her life and scaring off boyfriends.

But the rest of the plot doesn't happen.

[gumnut-logic]

Scott was ever so tired, but when John requested he not return Thunderbird One to her hangar, but instead nest her up with Two, he had to do as his brother asked.

John’s reasoning didn’t involve words, just a photo that had Scott hitting the brakes over Tonga and gliding in as quietly as he could.

The fact Virgil was behind him only had him waiting longer as the cargo ship needed to touch down before One could park securely. After all, the whole reason they hid the Thunderbirds like they did on their deserted Island was to protect them from accidentally being seen. There were holographic shields and security networks galore protecting the Island, but ultimately, if a fishing boat either wandered in or needed safety, it was a good idea to keep the Thunderbirds much less than obvious.

In summary, they didn’t tend to leave the sports car on the lawn for the neighbourhood to gawk at.

So instead, Scott set One to hover a respectful distance away while he waited for Two to catch up.

And try not to fall asleep in his pilot’s chair.

Fortunately, Virgil wasn’t as far behind as he could have been and the green behemoth soon appeared on One’s sensors. Scott stared as his younger brother glided in under minimal power and set down with a short spurt of VTOL in a rather impressive manoeuvre. It was the closest to landing silently that Two could probably get.

Scott let One follow almost immediately. She wasn’t as quiet as Two, the fact she had had to hover removing any chance at a glide out of the equation.

In any case, he slipped One in behind her sister and stashed her in the massive hangar so Two could still deploy if necessary and One could as well, albeit a touch slower than usual.

But considering her pilot was a zombie, it wouldn’t matter for another eight hours at least.

Climbing out, he met an equally tired Virgil and they plodded to the elevator together, drowning their exhaustion in the showers, and throwing on pyjamas that Grandma had obviously left out for them.

Scott’s t-shirt had the slogan on the front ‘Born to fly’, which he found appropriate, but the shirt having come from Gordon, the back followed up with ‘Farts in the sky’.

But he was too tired to care right now. Shoving it on and pulling the pants up over aching hips - he really shouldn’t have jumped from that cliff – he stretched to finally get any of the remaining kinks out of his system.

Only to find Virgil wearing a slightly too small t-shirt also obviously of the Gordon purchase pile that pectorally declared, ‘Warning: Do not decaffeinate, may decapitate’.

Well, perhaps, Gordon did have a point there.

Scott sighed. “Want to check on them?”

Virgil’s answer was only an eyebrow, but it clearly declared Scott an idiot for asking such a stupid question.

That ended all energy for future verbalisation and, finishing up, Virgil fell into step beside Scott as he headed off towards the lounge.

Because Allie was in the lounge.

And Allie was injured.

That fact, that entire concept, cut into Scott’s gut like a blunted knife.

John’s frantic yell the week before had aged the commander several years in a matter of seconds. Allie had been up helping a space freighter that had lost power and was in the process of losing orbit along with it. It should have been simple, but some high-speed space trash had collided with the vessel while Alan was out repairing broken electronics.

His suit had been compromised by what was basically a small meteor of human origin and for a bit there it had been damned scary.

But Brains made above average spacesuits and a certain self-healing polymer invented by a smart brother automatically resealed the suit.

Not before the damage to Alan’s leg had been done, however. A gash the length of his calf with both hot and cold burns leaving his leg a mess and their little brother grounded for weeks.

Scott was just happy to have him safe, and those weeks gave Scott the time to process the fact that, ultimately, he would have to let Alan out into space again.

But for now, he was safe at home.

Virgil was on his right when they entered the comms room. There was only one lamp providing illumination beside the moon shining through the rafters, but there was enough light to see Alan and Gordon curled up in what appeared to be the remains of a blanket fort.

Scott stepped quietly, Virgil on his heels.

Both little brothers were asleep, Gordon curled protectively around Allie, snuggled in a pile of pillows and bedclothes. Alan’s bandaged leg stuck out at an angle, but rested on a cushion, his foot sporting a pink fluffy slipper.

But it wasn’t the rather heart-warming sight of his two sleeping brothers that raised his eyebrows.

It was the swarm, a literal school of plushies that surrounded them that had Scott’s eyes bugging out...at least a little.

His brothers were curled up on the floor, but sitting on the couches where International Rescues were decided on and deployed was a literal cornucopia of sea life cuddly toys.

There was a giant prawn as big as Alan perched as if waiting for the holoprojector to activate. Eight octopuses of varying size, lined up in a row, sat beside it, three squid keeping them company.

A whale took up the entirety of one couch all by itself, a plethora of rays and fluffy sharks were piled up in mounds.

A furry red crab was sitting on the steps alongside something else that was white and vaguely bug like. The rest of the floor was covered by starfish, multiple clownfish and a whole variety of other plushie marine organisms including a six-metre-long oarfish that Scott only knew the name of because Gordon had pounded it into his head the day he bought it.

Literally, Gordon had whacked him across the head with it.

Virgil tiptoed into the mess silently on bare feet and there was a flicker of yellow light as he scanned his little brother.

The engineer retreated back to Scott’s side just as quietly, so there was obviously nothing to be concerned about.

John flickered in above the table, obviously on dim projection. He didn’t say anything, just smiling a little down at his brothers before looking up at Scott and Virgil.

Scott absently saluted him and that smile widened just a little before he blinked out again.

There was definitely a good reason why Thunderbird One needed to be parked out back.

Virgil tugged on his arm.

A glance at his brother and Virgil nodded him in the direction of the elevator.

Scott looked back at his two sleeping little brothers once more, a breath releasing through his teeth. Gordon obviously had a sea creature plushie addiction that might require a few questions at a later time, but there was something about the scene that swelled Scott’s heart and part of him wanted to curl up in the pile with them.

Virgil tugged on his arm again and Scott relented, following the engineer from the room.

Nothing much was said between them in the elevator, both caught up in their thoughts. Now they were out of sight of their little brothers, exhaustion once again crept in.

Virgil squeezed Scott’s shoulder as they exited onto the residential level and both of them disappeared into their rooms.

Five minutes later there was a knock at Scott’s door.

Bleary eyed and heart sinking he opened it, only to find Virgil standing there with his arms full of a giant black teddy bear. His brother shoved it at Scott, forcing him to either grab a hold or drop it.

Nothing was said, but Virgil did squeeze his hand before disappearing as abruptly as he had appeared.

Scott was left holding a giant black teddy bear.

It took him a moment, but he shut the door and retreated back into his bedroom.

The bear stared at him.

This was foolish.

But exhaustion continued to gnaw at him and it was with a certain lack of care that found Scott grabbing the bear and curling up in bed around it as the lights finally shut off.

Its fur was ever so soft.

And warm.

As he relaxed into sleep.

-o-o-o-

[deluweil]

To be honest the way part of the fandom has treated this Tommy character as a god makes me dislike him more. Unfortunately the Buck bi arc was tainted for me because it all feels force. Also what doesn't help is that Eddie was to much involved in that storyline.

The way people are acting like it's a perfect relationship and yet we barely saw them together feels just weird.

Also I don't like how some literally push Eddie away for this new white man.

This is Taylor Kelly all over again. The sad part is that the season is short and people wAnt to to spend their time giving more to the new guy.

I hope him and Marisol are gone, but I'm afraid. These two characters took the joy out of the Buck and Eddie storyline for me.

The fandom, I think, in this case, is definitely the problem here,

Lou is completely unassuming and enjoying the process and being a buddie shipper just like us - if one actually bothers to read the interviews and not just pick and choose what to talk about.

That is what makes me like Lou.

The fandom has somehow glorified Tommy's character after a couple of episodes and yeah it rubs the wrong way, because, what about the story we had so far?

Is season 7 a reset to 911? and everything that came before that doesn't count? Why not just make it 911 abc pilot then?

I don't think that's the case, but I think the last minute switch between Buck and Eddie kind of ruined it for the Tim because, yes, in a way it feels forced and out of left field.

Supposed that Buck was indeed vying for Tommy's attention, why do it like that? and why involve Eddie in the first place?

I have a lot of questions and my main problem here is not that Buck is experimenting with Tommy, it's the way they practically propelled this ship off the cliff into a dangerous spin, they went from zero to 200 in a second. - That is not how you build a relationship.

You don't try to figure out what you want, mess up the first date, then invite said date to an apology coffee and then invite him to family wedding on the way. It just doesn't work that way.

I may be straight, but I have gay and bi and lesbian friends, neither one of them has ever brought a second or even a third date to so much as a friends get together before they were sure that this is something that would last, before they brought the intended victim to be judged by friends and family.

And people who talk about Tommy as being established in the 118 family, that is not true. He has a connection with Chimney in that that he owes him his life and an acquaintance with Hen, who is clearly not very fond of him, because of obvious past she had with him and their old house before Bobby came into the picture. - Remember - Chimney was her ONLY lifeline in that house.

Tommy was not a liked character before.

Arguably Buck had more history with Taylor than he did with Tommy (which is none at all) - But Taylor is a strong opinionated and often self-serving woman (not unlike Buck mind you), emphasis on woman. - That is the only reason she never stood a chance. Because the writers could have made her and Buck the greatest love story this show has seen, but they continuously managed to ruin any fondness for any female LI to ever grace that set.

And this season is short, to bring in a new LI kinda defeats the purpose of re-establishing the team and this show, because it does feel the same as any of Buck's old relationships that were being pushed for the benefit of 'god forbid Buck actually learns how to be alone and healthy and happy' - the only thing that changed in Buck this season is his sexuality and nothing else, and that vexes me.

My problem is not with Tommy, it's the perpetuation of 'poor baby Buck' society. - I love Oliver and I love Buck - I am tired of the ever repeating pattern of forgiveness for his self serving ways without any accountability that we keep seeing.

I don't think Buck's or even Eddie's firsts or you know what? even seconds should be each other, I am more than happy to make this journey with them, but let it be a marathon not a sprint to the finish line - they knew they would get renewed for another season, they could have written and built it better than what we got - because the moment they switched gears after the second episode, the story became written in the same messy last minute way both S4 and most of S5 were written.

There is no grand plan, at this point they are merely winging it and see where the wind takes them. - And that is idiotic, they had SO MUCH TIME to make this a well written story with the strike and long break after that, to write as they film is lazy and stupid and mostly childish.

And yes this is Taylor all over again, not in that they are the same type of people, but that Buck is jumping head first into a relationship without actually knowing how he got there. - Bobby said that himself - and it is the same, because who in their right mind invite a second (kinda) date to a family event? Like dude have you ever dated before? Do you how this works?

It is a LOT of pressure and not even for Buck himself - because he brought this on himself - but rather for Tommy (aka the intended victim) to be first introduced to the family after a couple of dates when he himself has no idea where he and Buck are standing.

Marisol, has indeed sucked the joy out of the Eddie's story, I don't get why do either of the boys had to be in a relationship starting this season to begin with. Like, she is literally a handbag, the token hetero symbol, so to speak, what she is doing there? is beyond me.

The catholic guilt of her being a nun is bullshit, and as Bobby said himself, Eddie has no problem committing to certain people/things. She serves no purpose this season other than a seat warmer/ glorified babysitter since Buck is otherwise engaged.

They could have gone for Eddie finding his way in the department, Eddie dealing with his mommy issues, Eddie trying to figure out what and who he wants in his life, Eddie trying to navigate Chris' terrible teenage years.

They could have explored the fact that a guy going with his supposed gf/wife in the golf course checking Eddie's hot ass (6X17) - Oh wait, they were going to... the ground for Eddie's coming out was all laid out and they took a sharp turn to left field in the second episode of S7 and made it all about Buck again, because the Natalia actress couldn't come?? what kind of a weak ass reason is that?

And yes, the cliche of receiving the odd white man out (who played a controversial role in early seasons) rather than the regular casted poc male or the guest starring woman, for that matter, better is all kind of f-ed up, but no one would talk about that, of course. 👀

Anyway, I am hoping that whatever is coming next will be worthy of our time and attention because so far we got about more of the same as far as Buck and Eddie are concerned - except that Buck has just broaden his variety and has a bigger pallet of mate choosing at his disposal.

I have two very close bi friends, so I know how their minds work, because God knows they share with me more than I ever wanted to know lol. And one of them is watching 911 with me and she is happy for the rep as well, but unhappy with how it was developed too.

At the moment, I have decided to put any Buck and Eddie topics aside and just want to get the LONG AWAITED Madney wedding, if anyone deserve a happy ending, it's them. ❤️