#ltoss

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boyfriend has been watching heated rivalry while i grade exams and very excitedly reported to me that the first name plot point of ltoss appears in the show which i find genuinely hilarious

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interlude: nobody's watching

leave the other stories standing chapter 5/7 out now!

rating: explicit | rinsagi (itoshi rin/isagi yoichi) | no blue lock, slow burn, falling in love, trans isagi yoichi, non-linear narrative (timeskip), getting married

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Rin wipes the sleep from his eyes and looks at it, trying not to be annoyed that Yoichi hadn’t kissed him good morning on the day of their fucking wedding. The photo that Yoichi holds in front of his face is of them leaving the Tom Ford store two days ago, and Yoichi is right: it’s horrible quality. 

Groggily, Rin asks, “What happened to ‘good morning?’”

“Oh, yeah, that too.” He offers a halfway smile.

read here!

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the body is a blade

the chapter that everyone's been waiting for: chapter 6/7 of leave the other stories standing is finally out!

rating: explicit | rinsagi (itoshi rin/isagi yoichi) | no blue lock, slow burn, falling in love, trans isagi yoichi, non-linear narrative (college au + timeskip), getting married

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This is a death spiral, Yoichi realizes. He's seen it in a documentary before: it’s a courtship ritual performed by birds of prey where they lock talons and plummet towards the ground, trusting each other enough to disengage before impact.

Here's the difference, though: Yoichi doesn't know how to let go of Rin. He doesn't think he can. All he can do is wait for external forces—pride, time, and distance—to do it for him.

So, here they are, locked together. The ground is getting closer and closer no matter what either of them do now. All they have is the rest of the winter, maybe a few scoops of spring, and by the time the summer sun turns everything to ash, there’ll be nothing left.

read here!

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how did rin fare after isagi left? how did he feel and what did he do during the time isagi was in germany?

i could spend hours upon hours writing a response to this but i'm going to try to be as succinct as possible!

the first reason i didn't elaborate on this particular plot point is, i guess, a cop out. i often feel my goal/calling as a writer is to force readers to understand characters better rather than trying to push my own ideas and agendas. of course, there's a grey area there, but i ultimately felt it was important to leave that part of the story up to interpretation that falls in line with the rest of his characterization in both timelines

the second reason has an answer in many parts, which i will summarize below:

how did rin fare after isagi left? difficult question to answer. let's go with badly. if anything, i tried to accentuate their extreme levels of codependency in this fic to subtly call attention to the way that the lines between emotional/romantic/platonic intimacy are getting crossed even as early as chapter 2.

how did he feel and what did he do during the time isagi was in germany? i've actually considered writing a oneshot to accompany ltoss to fill this gap, but as of right now, i've elected not to. why? well, i think the mystery about this is part of the fun; what would he do to eat away at the summer as a rehearsal to what he believed would be the rest of his life without isagi?

but to actually answer your question, considering how chapter 5 is an interlude about the itoshi brothers, i like to imagine that rin actually does learn his lesson from losing sae and is much more accepting of the idea that oh, okay, i'm never going to get over this and that's just a fact of life now. that's not to say that he doesn't care/isn't upset—quite the opposite, actually, because rin loves to care about things—but he is more open to the idea of love never actually going away.

i think this section of chapter 7 sums it up perfectly:

“I don’t want to fight, Rin.” “Yes, you do,” Rin replies, openly disdainful as he puts his bag down, “because you could’ve just left me alone.”

he harbors this sense of resignation toward the whole ordeal with isagi instead of the hatred he held for sae, maybe out of maturity and maybe out of not wanting to make the same mistakes twice. i also think this means that there is no fundamental shift in his routines—rin is who he is, and one of those things is disciplined (for the most part)—whereas isagi's suffering has much more of an external effect.

but hey, that's just my interpretation! to each their own :)

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only tomorrow

finally, we've arrived. the final chapter of leave the other stories standing is out now!

rating: explicit | rinsagi (itoshi rin/isagi yoichi) | no blue lock, slow burn, falling in love, trans isagi yoichi, non-linear narrative (college au + timeskip), getting married

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Yoichi stares, his mind completely empty for one beautifully blissful second. He can’t even attempt to keep his mouth moving, to continue whatever conversation he’s still technically in; he can’t help it.

And Rin sees him. And Rin looks at him––really looks at him, quietly assessing, locking on to Yoichi’s eyes without a shred of fear. And Rin stops, doesn’t head out onto the pitch, and stands still exactly where he is. 

And that shared gaze stretches on and on and on.

read here! :)

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the ltoss playlist

7 songs for 7 chapters! mostly indie rock because that's what i love to listen to. read the fanfic here!

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it's probably a really good thing that i finished ltoss before this new lorde album came out because that finale would've been 10x more devastating if i was listening to this album while writing

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i put on some old men i trust and mitski and started going to town on the ltoss finale. mark my words, this fic will be finished TODAY.