And Now Kenma Locks The Door When He Streams

omg this extra sketch has haunted me for yEars and i haven't been able to find it (it's at the end of chp. 196 btw). but like, is yamaguchi joking?? is he being genuine?? is it sarcasm?? bc the tone /reads/ as genuine to me, but then tsukki is always comparing hinata to an annoying bug buzzing in his field of view so like does he REALLY look at bugs with warm eyes hmm?? and also "tsukki likes all living things" sounds so specific?? so like. is this some sort of topic or conversation that's come up before?? is it an actual subtle reference to the dinosaur figurines in his room that are literally never mentioned in canon??? /does/ tsukki even like animals or is yamaguchi just projecting?? bc we know /yamaguchi/ likes animals what with always taking pictures of dogs etc in official art and things. OR is yamaguchi actually being facetious and messing with them? i have QUESTIONS

I love when you finish reading a good story and discover that it has altered the rhythm of your own thoughts for a time.

“I think fanfiction is literature and literature, for the most part, is fanfiction, and that anyone that dismisses it simply on the grounds that it’s derivative knows fuck-all about literature and needs to get the hell off my lawn. Most of the history of Western literature (and probably much of non-Western literature, but I can’t speak to that) is adapted or appropriated from something else. Homer wrote historyfic and Virgil wrote Homerfic and Dante wrote Virgilfic (where he makes himself a character and writes himself hanging out with Homer and Virgil and they’re like “OMG Dante you’re so cool.” He was the original Gary Stu). Milton wrote Bible fanfic, and everyone and their mom spent the Middle Ages writing King Arthur fanfic. In the sixteenth century you and another dude could translate the same Petrarchan sonnet and somehow have it count as two separate poems, and no one gave a fuck. Shakespeare doesn’t have a single original plot—although much of it would be more rightly termed RPF—and then John Fletcher and Mary Cowden Clarke and Gloria Naylor and Jane Smiley and Stephen Sondheim wrote Shakespeare fanfic. Guys like Pope and Dryden took old narratives and rewrote them to make fun of people they didn’t like, because the eighteenth century was basically high school. And Spenser! Don’t even get me started on Spenser. Here’s what fanfic authors/fans need to remember when anyone gives them shit: the idea that originality is somehow a good thing, an innately preferable thing, is a completely modern notion. Until about three hundred years ago, a good writer, by and large, was someone who could take a tried-and-true story and make it even more awesome. (If you want to sound fancy, the technical term is imitatio.) People were like, why would I wanna read something about some dude I’ve never heard of? There’s a new Sir Gawain story out, man! (As to when and how that changed, I tend to blame Daniel Defoe, or the Modernists, or reality television, depending on my mood.) I also find fanfic fascinating because it takes all the barriers that keep people from professional authorship—barriers that have weakened over the centuries but are nevertheless still very real—and blows right past them. Producing literature, much less circulating it, was something that was well nigh impossible for the vast majority of people for most of human history. First you had to live in a culture where people thought it was acceptable for you to even want to be literate in the first place. And then you had to find someone who could teach you how to read and write (the two didn’t necessarily go together). And you needed sufficient leisure time to learn. And be able to afford books, or at least be friends with someone rich enough to own books who would lend them to you. Good writers are usually well-read and professional writing is a full-time job, so you needed a lot of books, and a lot of leisure time both for reading and writing. And then you had to be in a high enough social position that someone would take you seriously and want to read your work—to have access to circulation/publication in addition to education and leisure time. A very tiny percentage of the population fit those parameters (in England, which is the only place I can speak of with some authority, that meant from 500-1000 A.D.: monks; 1000-1500: aristocratic men and the very occasional aristocratic woman; 1500-1800: aristocratic men, some middle-class men, a few aristocratic women; 1800-on, some middle-class women as well). What’s amazing is how many people who didn’t fit those parameters kept writing in spite of the constant message they got from society that no one cared about what they had to say, writing letters and diaries and stories and poems that often weren’t discovered until hundreds of years later. Humans have an urge to express themselves, to tell stories, and fanfic lets them. If you’ve got access to a computer and an hour or two to while away of an evening, you can create something that people will see and respond to instantly, with a built-in community of people who care about what you have to say. I do write the occasional fic; I wish I had the time and mental energy to write more. I’ll admit I don’t read a lot of fic these days because most of it is not—and I know how snobbish this sounds—particularly well-written. That doesn’t mean it’s “not good”—there are a lot of reasons people read fic and not all of them have to do with wanting to read finely crafted prose. That’s why fic is awesome—it creates a place for all kinds of storytelling. But for me personally, now that my job entails reading about 1500 pages of undergraduate writing per year, when I have time to read for enjoyment I want it to be by someone who really knows what they’re doing. There’s tons of high-quality fic, of course, but I no longer have the time and patience to go searching for it that I had ten years ago. But whether I’m reading it or not, I love that fanfiction exists. Because without people doing what fanfiction writers do, literature wouldn’t exist. (And then I’d be out of a job and, frankly, I don’t know how to do anything else.)”

— “As a professor, may I ask you what you think about fanfiction?” (via meiringens)

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Haikyuu!! Rating: Explicit Warnings: Underage Relationships: Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi Characters: Tsukishima Kei, Yamaguchi Tadashi Additional Tags: Soft Tsukishima Kei, dubcon, Mildly Dubious Consent, Tsukishima Kei is Bad at Feelings, Vulnerable Tsukishima Kei, PWP, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Yamaguchi Tadashi is Good at Feelings, First Time Blow Jobs, Cock Worship, Porn with Feelings, Sex as Connection, For Being So Observant Tsukki Sure is Oblivious, Is Yamaguchi Topping from the Bottom Here? It's Hard to Tell, Beginnings, therapeutic sex, Oral Sex, Cum Swallowing, Awkward Tsukishima Kei, Mentioned Ushijima Wakatoshi, Confident Yamaguchi Tadashi, First Year Yamaguchi Tadashi, First Year Tsukishima Kei, Non-Traditional Power Dynamics, Sex as a Force for Good, Figuring Things Out, Listen Yamaguchi Has Spent a Lot of Time Studying Up On This Okay?, Sex Is Not The Enemy, Emotionally Overwhelmed Tsukishima Kei, Porn with a little bit of Plot, Crying Tsukishima Kei, Tsukishima Kei Is Secretly A Soft Cinnamon Roll That Needs Protecting, Yamaguchi Tadashi Worships The Ground Tsukishima Kei Walks On, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Farsighted Tsukishima Kei Series: Part 1 of Unable to Connect, Please Try Again Summary:

When Yamaguchi confronts Tsukishima in the bathroom after the match against Shiratorizawa, things take a decidedly different turn and Kei's entire world shifts.

It turns out that sometimes, to see yourself, you need someone else to see you first.

Hey I haven't written fanfic in about four years and this is the first time I've ever left my OG fandom. Have a Tsukishima x Yamaguchi confession.

x

"Can we talk?"

The walk home in silence has been painfully awkward. Silence isn't unusual from Tsukishima after a long day of school and practice, but for him to force himself one step ahead of Yamaguchi and to ignore every word he tries to say, that's beyond unusual. That's wrong.

"Tsukki, seriously," he begs, jumping ahead of his friend, landing squarely in his path. "Stop."

Tsukishima rolls his eyes, side-steps and continues.

"Tsukki!" he yells, disrupting the quiet evening. "Stop!"

"What?! What could you possibly want to talk about right now?" Tsukishima asks, spinning around. "Because as far as I'm concerned we've got nothing to talk about, Yamaguchi."

"Nothing? You're not gonna talk about how you've been ignoring me all day and how you've been cruel to Shoyo at practice since you found out we've been studying together? What is up with you?!"

"Me?! What's up with you picking him all of a sudden? Do you think you can just replace me, is that it?" Tsukishima lurches forward, making Yamaguchi step back in tandem. "You've been sooo focused on Hinata recently that you're just gonna throw me to the side like nothing? Like you don't care at all about what I want?"

"What are you even talking about?! We're just studying!"

"When you're supposed to be with me! We walk home together every day, we go to practice together, we hang out sometimes and you've been canceling on me. Am I replaceable to you, is that it? You think I'll just back down and let him have you?"

"Tsukki!" Yamaguchi gasps as his back hits the wall of the building they stopped beside. He looks into his best friend's bewildered eyes and has never seen so much anger, so much anguish directed at him before.

"Shoyo's my friend. He just needed some help studying. You're not being replaced. You're my best friend--"

"Don't say we're just fucking friends!" Tsukishima's voice tears out of him. He slams a fist against the wall beside Yamaguchi's head. "Don't! We're more than that and you know it." He raises his other arm to box Yamaguchi in. His heart is pounding, the blood rushing in his ears nearly deafening him to the sound of Yamaguchi's gasp and indignant stuttering.

Tsukishima takes a moment to gather his thoughts, to steady his breath and return to his level-headed self.

"Don't think I would let you go that easily," he mumbles.

"I-I really... Tsukki, I didn't know..."

"Bullshit," he tsks. "Bullshit... How long has it been since we've just been friends? How long since you started coming to me for comfort? Not just protection from playground bullies, but for crying on my shoulder, and laying your head in my lap while we watch movies? How many times have we held hands on that stretch of road where the streetlights are out so no one can see us? How long since we started spending holidays together? Look me in the eyes and tell me how many days its been since we kissed on Christmas Eve, because I know you know."

Tears prick at Yamaguchi's eyes. His already racing heart refuses to slow down, and the adrenaline coursing through his system makes his hands and voice shake.

"It's been... One hundred and eight..." he says, eyes squeezed shut, too embarrassed to meet Tsukishima's golden eyes.

A smile quirks at the corner of Tsukishima's mouth.

"It's been a hundred and eight days since we've kissed and you've not brought it up once or asked me for another. Why's that?"

"You haven't either..."

"I thought I didn't need to. I thought you knew how I felt about you. It's been only you for years. I thought you knew."

"But you never said!" His tone is accusatory as he finally meets Tsukishima's gaze.

"It wasn't a thing we did," Tsukishima chuckles. "I've always known about your feelings. I can see how you feel when you look at me, and lately you've been looking differently. You've been spending more time with Hinata and lighting up when you talk about him and I don't like it. That look's for me, isn't it?"

"It's different," Yamaguchi admits. "For Shoyo we really are just friends. It's nice to have someone who's as happy as I am, you know...? Not that you're not happy--!"

Tsukishima laughs. He leans in close enough to feel the body heat radiate between them.

"My happy is different than your happy. My happy is much quieter, more 'I'm content walking home with my love,' and less 'I'm jumping twice my height because someone gave me some free juice.'"

Yamaguchi laughs, his nerves finally cooling down. Tsukishima smiles, leans in, noses at Yamaguchi's cheek.

"Say we're not just friends."

"We're not."

"And what are we?"

"I-I don't know..."

"You don't? I thought it was obvious." Tsukishima grazes his lips against Yamaguchi's jaw.

"Tell me and we'll be it," Yamaguchi says, reaching his arms up to wrap around Tsukishima's waist.

"Best friends... Partners in crime... Boyfriends."

"Yes. Yes, yes, all of it."

Tsukishima raises his head so he's face to face with Yamaguchi, a soft smile etched into his usually stoic face. He leans in for a kiss that Yamaguchi meets half-way.

finally a proper ‘back from hiatus’ drawing lol

ah- I just like them sm alright.