When The Main Manga Doesn't Have Our Backs Kunigiri Stans, We Can Count On Episode Nagi 🔥

back in the game

drew this with Smooth Operator in mind

Fuyuhiko stared back at him, still unable to focus his vision. "You…" Hajime barely kept himself from grabbing Fuyuhiko's hand to try to encourage him. Mikan hadn't bandaged the many, many wounds there, yet. "Yeah. Me."

again, from this writing by @causeitsagame .

talking with bestie about whether matt or juan would propose and i have reasoning for both. Here It Is.

Juan: He's been engaged once before. Clearly that did not work out. Unrest in pieces, bitch, I hate you Inpax. He's determined to get it right this time, because he's with the right person this time. Matt has always been the man he was meant to be with. They will always find their way back to each other, and Juan wants to ensure that there's no way he could ever lose him again. He's also a hopeless romantic as we know and I'd be lying if I said I didn't think he has a scrapbook laying around of different proposal ideas. He knows the shit that Matt has gone through, and probably not even the worst parts of it. That's a terrifying thought, and he wants to put as much of that pain in the past as he can. He wants to move forward with their lives, he wants to promise himself to Matt forever. He wants to promise Matt a soft forever, a delicate one, free of hurt and anguish. He's going to do it right.

Matt: Honestly, he needs a sense of control in his love life. So much of his relationships haven't had any of his input, and while of course Juan is nothing like that, the fear remains. Trauma does that to a guy. Again, fuck you Inpax. He likes the comfort and security of being agentic, making decisions. And he knows that Juan is the type to provide the grand romantic gestures instead of receiving them. Matt wants to change that. When his life went to shit, he lost control, he wasn't there for Juan, he couldn't provide comfort and love and care. He's back on the right track now. He can make up for lost time. He can get down on one knee and in spite of all his flaws, all his mistakes, the sins of his past that nearly cost his beloved his life, he can pledge to love this man forever. He already does. But Juan likes this cheesy shit (and Matt is learning to, though the process is slow). He wants to make Juan feel loved, he wants this proposal to be everything he's ever dreamed of. Everything he couldn't get the first time. It would be grandiose. Sentimental. Multifaceted. Intimate. A perfect whirlwind combination of what's in Juan's scrapbook and that charismatic clumsiness, maybe the heat of something A Little Too Personal, that is undeniably Matt Engarde.

okay yeah and these are my ramblings. enrida/juangarde i love you. The them. The sillies.

Aaaaahh that's absolutely incredible!!!!!!! I am honored you put so much thought and care into this <3 your art is so so so beautiful

More fanart based on fanfics!!!!

This piece is based on TWO fics, We'll Hold Each Other Soon... by @cosmicallylyss and ...In The Blackest of Rooms by StarsRemain on AO3, and both of them absolutely destroyed me emotionally oh my god

So in my musings on What If™ Kira was used not as a throwaway character/shocking elim but a rival to Jinpachi Ego himself in terms of ideology and moral value and was one of/The protagonist(s) of Blue Lock, I've accidentally created a rarepair (ship or platonic duo I can see it both ways) inside my mind so please get ready for the biggest hear me out [analysis and more thoughts under the cut just pls pls pls hear me out i am begging]. Look at them and then hear me out.

So! First off thank you for hearing me out.

First Selection: Oh boy Kira does not like this guy. He's a team player in a world of egoists, obviously he doesn't like this self-proclaimed king! He thinks the selfish playstyle is terrible but he's also not an idiot and can not deny that clearly, results are showing for the unsportsmanlike behavior.

Second Selection: I'm not too sure on how I'm gonna screw with this one for the purposes of adding in Kira, all I know is that I want him to play with Reo (I think he'd be really beneficial to him as a friend and teammate post ReoNagi breakup) so hey maybe he'll get to play against Barou at some point here if I screw with the 3v3? Anyway, I want them to be on opposite teams again and I want Kira to see the whole idea of devouring/Barou's villain complex and have a moment of "Maybe this is team play, it's just a selfish way of doing it??" and we see his whole power of friendship mentality shake a little bit.

Third Selection: Very few ideas for what the two of them do here in relation to each other. In all honesty it's not that important to me right now

U-20: Okay yeah I'm not a Kira fan to an unrealistic standpoint, he most likely benchwarms this game or maybe gets a few minutes of being subbed in because Ego knows showcasing the jewel of Japanese soccer will bring in some great publicity. Maybe he plays a few minutes in the first half of the match and he's subbed out when Barou subs in (maybe they directly switch??) and Kira gets to say something about "Ah, wish I could've gotten a closer look at your playstyle." or something to that effect. He's not really praising it but he's stopped outright condemning it. Character development!

Neo Egoist League: I want Kira on the Ubers. "Strategy and teamwork" and although he's gained a bit of an ego and some selfishness to survive up to this point, it doesn't discount that we've seen him display the love he has for his high school team in the beginning of the series. Anyway, my main point is that I think he's good enough, especially with his Blue Lock training for him to play really anywhere. However he'd probably stay an offensive player; maybe on Ubers they either do two main strikers with him and Barou as forwards or maybe they have him as left/right winger and he does more of a supportive role for Barou as he's one of the only people on the team to keep up with him offensively? He'll still be scoring goals for himself of course, and I can very easily see Blue Lock making him more of a teasing kind of guy, he'll pass to Barou once and then when Barou steals the ball from him later in the match, he says something like "Reading my moves means you care about what the rest of the team's doing! Good on you, you selfish team player." Also just imagine them playing together both as forwards like. "The King and his Crown" tell me you would not be scared to face those guys they have such a good narrative nickname.

In general—I think the opposing ideologies and playstyles of these characters make them an interesting pair. I think it would be fun to watch Kira go from detesting Barou to admiring him to considering him an ally. Barou is also a main driver of Kira developing an ego/selfishness as their bond strengthens throughout the series. I believe Barou would go from not caring about Kira (just another donkey, y'know?) to considering him a rival (not an enemy!) on equal standing. I think he would appreciate that Kira is a neat guy (headcanon) and although the friendliness can be a bit overbearing Kira seems to know when to pull back. I think Kira is important in Barou considering his team more. He obviously shouldn't change too much from his selfish ways, but I would love to see Kira giving him a little perspective switch—if he wants to command a team, he should understand his team. The most powerful king is one who knows his subjects, isn't it?

In sum, live laugh rarepair dynamics, I might actually turn these headcanons into an actual canon divergence AU because I really really wanna write for kira

sentences from my wip matt/juan hurt/comfort fic that i had a little giggle while writing because matt engarde third person limited pov is one of my favorite writing styles:

- ...he doesn’t know where to put his hands and they rest awkwardly on Matt’s shoulders, and there’s enough space in between them to appease Jesus at a fucking middle school dance. [just to clarify the 'he' here is not Juan]

- ...the guy’s only sticking his tongue in Matt’s mouth and not doing anything with it. He’s like a frog. [this is the same guy as above, still not Juan]

- He slurs out a response that amounts to something something whiskey dick, and he’s in the clear for now.

- Matt’s in a high enough tax bracket that buying everyone in this seedy shithole three rounds of his favorite top shelf brandy wouldn’t make a dent in his monthly earnings, but he’s not the type to turn down free booze.

and what if i rewrite blue lock with kira as a protag just because i like him and i miss him . what happens then? what if he gets to be a lovely protagonist of his story solely because i think he is neat??? he and isagi get a sort of rival best friends relationship throughout first selection, second selection gives him the reo team-up for a moment, exploring how he feels about abandoning the high school team we've seen him care so deeply for to play in the u-20 match. to win over the u-20 team. to already have a big fanbase going into the nel??? im undecided on exactly which team he'd play for but i saw really pretty ubers kira art a little bit ago.

my final piece for @turnabout-cinema! had an absolute blast working on this one :]

it follows by waterparks but through the lens of matt engarde:

"kiss me like nobody would when i was 15" taken not in the way that nobody kissed him, but nobody did so with care, with tenderness, with respect. love him, all he wants is love. something real and true and messy, sure, but in the way love is. Not lust. Kiss him in all the cheesy teen romance ways he was never allowed to experience.