#fascinating guy. very effective. something deeply wrong with him though

[fire-on-fuel]

kind of underrated how manipulative kal skirata is and I dont mean that in the "kal skirata should burn in hell" way it's just very striking to me that within the first half of triple zero he uses zey's sense of responsibility for the war to set up the corufresh op, uses ordo to prove a point to civilians (or educate, as he puts it. ordo is fine with it cause it's ordo), uses etain's sense of shame and responsibility to uphold the clones's autonomy to get her to join the op, and then uses her compassion to convince her to torture someone. obviously in all of these situations except the one with ordo (also notable to me) the other person has an out if they want to take it, but the purpose of it is to make the out look unappealing. And now I'm just getting into manipulation semantics and what counts as free will (these are all characters who made those choices anyways. minus ordo) but it feels like KT is almost playing with your discernment skills, giving you everyone's opinion on him and what that reflects on them while also putting all of kal's actions in front of you from neutral pov's and saying what do you make of this? this is important, don't forget it.

[got-that-d-in-my-name]

Why I Ship Dofcora: an essay

I've been wanting to write this for a while since dofcora is an understandably controversial ship, and it's one of the ships I'm most interested in currently, and I want something I can point people to in order to explain why I ship them and why I don't think it's morally wrong to do so.

The thing that got me started shipping dofcora was my obsession with Doflamingo. He's a stinky little bastard man, but I am deeply fascinated with him, and I love putting him in Situations. From my point of view, if Doflamingo had any romantic or sexual interest in his brother he absolutely would do his best to seduce/coerce Rosi into a relationship.

Oda has written the Celestial Dragons in a way that strongly alludes to historical European monarchs - Charlos even looks like a Habsburg, to me. The glorification of their pure blood adds to my belief that incest would at the very least be much less taboo in Celestial Dragon culture. I don't know that it would be more than marrying one's cousins, but I believe an element of inbreeding would make perfect sense given how they are written. Doflamingo's relationship to his prior status and belief in his own perfection would make him particularly susceptible to the idea that only someone else of his blood was worthy of his love.

Doflamingo gets what he wants, no matter the cost. Even when Caesar Clown is getting his ass beat during Punk Hazard, Doffy isn't worried, because it's unthinkable that someone could pluck one of his prizes out of his web. He's always in control, he's always achieving what he wants. He truly does gaslight-gatekeep-girlboss his way into anything his twisted heart desires.

Speaking of desires, do you really think Doffy wouldn't want Rosi? Now, sometimes I like to imagine that Doflamingo is an entirely straight man. I think it's unlikely (because I need him to be at least gay enough to consider liking me), but it's a slightly different read of his character that I find fun to mentally parse through. Still, though. Even if Doffy was completely heterosexual, do you think he could resist those warm eyes peeking up through a mop of fluffy blond hair? I think not! Donquixote Rosinante is one of the most beautiful men to ever exist, and I find it very easy to imagine that Doflamingo would want him - and as we've already established, from Doffy’s perspective there's no valid reason for him to ignore that impulse, and what Joker wants, Joker gets.

I know this has been very Doflamingo-centric, and I'm afraid it's going to stay that way, but my approach to dofcora tends to be centered on Doflamingo wanting Cora, and varying levels of interest coming from Cora depending on how dark I want it to be (I like a bit of dead dove with my toxic yaoi sometimes, sue me - or read my fucked up forcefem dofcora fic, maybe??).

Doflamingo is a bad person. He's a criminal, he's a murderer, he's a rapist (there is debate about this, but in what world was him having sex with Viola genuinely consensual?), he has committed so many crimes.

I love watching Doffy be a silly little guy. I find him fascinating, and I spend a great deal of time just rotating him in my brain.

I will never say he is a good person. I will never excuse what he's done or say that it was justified.

Incest isn't all that different from everything else he's done. If it's morally wrong to ship dofcora (which I don't think it is, but we're getting to that in a bit) then it's morally wrong to like Doflamingo at all. He's a bad guy, and frankly I don't think fucking his brother could make him worse. You don't have to ship dofcora or like Doflamingo, but if you're judging dofcora more or differently from Doflamingo's other various crimes, that's a deeply flawed approach. Either morality in fiction matters or it doesn't.

Morality in fiction doesn't matter as much as we think it does.

I will not deny that there are times engaging in certain types of art can have a negative effect on your life. I believe there's a necessary level of self-awareness to safely engage with dark media. If a piece of fiction is negatively impacting your real life, you're either interacting with it in a way that doesn't work for you, or it's simply not something you should be interacting with at all.

Fictional characters cannot be harmed. They inherently don't exist, so they cannot be damaged (note: I'm talking about the characters in the media, not any fictionkins or fictives etc, that's a whole different scenario and I'd argue that's more a matter of what the fictive/fictionkin themselves is comfortable with interacting with, and I'd say it's their job to navigate fandom spaces accordingly - but I'm not very educated on that topic so actually don't listen to me).

If my forcefem dofcora fic made me go around manipulating people into nonconsensually transitioning, that would be inherently bad. If my forcefem dofcora fic made me get in an obsessive cycle of wanting to manipulate people into a nonconsensual transition, that would also be bad, even if I didn't act on those urges, because it would damage my mental stability.

My forcefem dofcora fic has done none of those things to me, and I warned and tagged it as best I could to avoid other people being harmed by it. No Doflamingo or Rosinante was harmed in the making of that fic because they are not real and physically cannot be harmed by a work of fiction.

No one has to like any ship. Hell, you don't even have to ship Morticia and Gomez Addams. No ship is required, but I think fandom needs a good strong dose of "Don't Like, Don't Read." Don't harm yourself or others when possible but acknowledge that you have no real way to tell if someone else is getting harmed, and yelling at them about a ship they like will never help regardless.

A last caveat for this section:

Real life incest is almost always bad because it is almost always abuse. That is simply the fact of it. Real life incest is bad because it's abuse (there are some grey areas, but those are really rare).

Alright, so those are my reasons for why I think shipping dofcora is morally permissible and relatively canon-compliant, but why do I ship them?

It's just plain fun. They're two tall hot men with a complicated bond, and the dynamic possibilities are endless, which is unfortunately not the case for every ship - as a zosan fan I think I can say that zosan can often fall into the same dynamic across most fics (including my own, I know I do this, too) and it's hard to feel like there's a truly unique and not watered-down vibe between them because there's so much content and so much of it is similar. Obviously there are stellar zosan fics that capture a canonical dynamic that's still unique, but those can be hard to find.

Dofcora doesn't have that problem. There's not nearly as much content, and there are so many different ways their relationship can be approached. From my own fics alone I have a few examples of "they really are just brothers but there's something a bit weird and obsessive about how they treat each other," as well as a "Doflamingo only realizes he loved Cora after Minion Island and is a wreck about it," and my forcefem "Doflamingo decides the only way to have an heir with blood as pure as his own is to manipulate and abuse his younger brother into carrying it." Like I said earlier, sometimes I enjoy a bit of dead dove.

I've read dofcora fics that are so soft and sweet and loving that they make me feel warm and fuzzy (despite my severe case of aromanticism) while still keeping them in character. I've read some hot smut where they're the only ones truly made to fit each other. I've read as many stories as I can find where Rosi falls so in love he gives up on his mission just to stay by Doffy's side. They can be cute, they can be toxic, they're devoted because only they understand what their shared childhood was like, they're deeply similar and diametrically opposed... even while staying within canon personalities the dynamics are so, so flexible.

Someday I'll move on to a different ship (maybe even a different fandom) and I'll leave this era behind me. I don't think I'll regret it, though, because my shenanigans in the dofcora fandom have been some of the most silly and joyful and fun interactions I've had in a fandom space.

Like I said, you don't have to ship it. You don't need to. But so long as you're being smart and reasonable about your own limits, you are allowed to ship them, and you don't have to be ashamed about it.

As a final note, if you're going to disagree with me please be as fair and logical as I've tried to be in this essay, I don't come to tumblr to shout at people and I will block people who don't debate reasonably and respectfully <3

[thexgrayxlady]

What I Read in April/May 2025

The Stone Sky by NK Jemisin - 5.00/5.00

It's just cycles all the way down. Geological, societal, familial, all of the cycles.

This is another situation where I liked a book and I was into it so I didn't take very many notes. The prose is simple, but lyrical. As someone who has a sometimes complicated relationship with their family, this book is deeply cathartic. I love Nassun's relationship with Schaffa. There is a line that I should have highlighted about conditional love feeling safer that struck me hard. From the reader's perspective, it is so tense. And Essun's fear when she realizes that Nassun is with him is so tangible. Seeing Essun's growing relationships with the comm is fascinating and her growing willingness to allow those connections is ultimately vital to the story. At first I didn't really like the sections set in the past because they broke up the flow of Essun and Nassun's stories, but by the half way point, I was down for them and I don't think that this book would work as well without them. I love how this series starts out with one person's story and it expands as it goes to show how things are carried forwards and the ripple effects everything has. Shaffa breaks a young Essun's hand. Essun does the same to her daughter. And despite how Shaffa was made to change, you the reader are never really comfortable I like that the ending is hopeful, but naively so. I know people think it's a downer ending, but I think it's just not naive about how much work has to go into building a better future. Yes, the cycles are halted, but that doesn't mean that the damage is undone and that there isn't going to be a lot of work to keep them from starting anew. But there's a chance to start again and make something better.

This book never met a pulp trope it didn't gleefully set about throwing itself into like a pig in slop. Don't get me wrong. This is a bad book. This is a bad, bad, bad pulp fantasy that does not respect women. However, it has the decency to be both bad in ways that are very funny and less than four hundred pages. Like on the one hand, you have just the most mustache twirling bad guys you can imagine. But they're so evil that they loop back around to being funny. There's one scene at a wedding where the fake groom is about to kill the fake bride and I remember dying laughing at the picnic table at work when I read, "Die you stupid bitch!" For the most part, this book does not treat its female characters very well. Everyone is so mean to Tippa and I was so sad when she died. I went from Kushiel's Dart, which handles topics of sexual assault maturely and with the respect it deserves, to this, which Does Not. But on the other hand, I like the werewolves and how being one impacts Kait. There's some really interesting world building and the world feels lived in. I like that there are fantasy disposable cups. Like the author thought through how to make disposable cups in their world. And it's cool! This only serves to make how otherwise bad this book is so goddamn frustrating. I've inadvertently acquired this entire series through little free libraries and used book stores over the years and again, so while I cannot recommend it, I might finish it.

Diplomacy of Wolves by Holly Lisle - 2.75/5.00

This book has a bad case of middle book syndrome. I don't think the author had enough plot for a trilogy, so even though this is only a little over four hundred pages, it feels like it's wasting your time. I think I should have read a summary of the first book before moving onto this one because it took me a long time to remember what happened in the first book. There are still too many POVs. Only one of which doesn't spend the book treading water. The author isn't skilled enough at writing politicking to dedicate most of this book to it. Zagiri's plot line, on the whole, feels undercooked and mishandled. The author tries to reckon with her privilege, but does it so clumsily that it only serves to draw attention to the fact that this very privileged, wealthy woman is just so much better at running a street gang or a rebellion than the largely faceless underclasses. It's ultimately only interested in paying lip service to Zagiri's privilege. Anahid's story is the most interesting part of the book, but because it isn't relevant to the overall plot, it feels tacked on and takes up too much space. It's still a bit clumsy, but overall I liked it. Siyon's on the other hand is just a whole lot of nothing. He is so passive. He has nothing to do until the last fifty pages. Like, he should have had Zagiri's council plot. That would have been more interesting. Here's this poor man who suddenly comes into a lot of power and the problems he runs into trying to use that power to benefit his people because the upper classes can't get rid of him, but he's also not one of them. This wasn't the worst book I've ever read, but it's too long and too slow. The cool, dimension hopping magic gets put to the side to focus on a clumsy political plot.

Shadow Baron by Davinia Evans - 2.25/5.00

[draingang-agora]

TLDR: I dont really see dfw as someone whose imitating voices and you should expand on why you think this if you feel like it(im interested) - this rant was written under the influence of a lot of stimulants so mileage may vary(!!)

This is interesting to me because I don't think of DFW as imitating voices, (I'm unsure if you meant the authors he's inspired by like Pynchon or Delilo or his actual tendency to get into characters interior monologues but I want an excuse to ramble abt dfw, no idea if this breaks tumblr reblog norms because i don't understand this site so sorry to subjecting you to this if it does) where he succeeds at capturing different voices is generally where I get the impression that he's taken an aspect of his own personality and exaggerated it(something I do in my fiction all the time), I think of DFW's charm and strength as an author like chiefly having a really really singularly distinctive voice that is omni present in every aspect of the text and this is why I think he's quintessentially a third person author unless the character he's presenting is somewhat similar to himself, when the entire story is subsumed under the narrator as a coherent voice and presence his inability to get other people and groups doesn't matter but occasionally (wardine be cry and a lot of his female characters) he tries to actually inhabit them per se, and it always just looks like DFW in a funny costume doing a bad accent and waving his arms about, this is also largely why his journalism and essays are so good, he can subsume an entire world through his very very distinctive voice, I don't really care if he quote shops because he is so good at presenting the world through his eyes, and the world through his eyes looks a lot like the world through mine so even though he's a deeply strange person the "normal guy in weird situation" effect works utterly perfectly. Like when people commonly say that DFW writes how they think - and this is something I say when I pitch IJ to people - this makes me think he "gets" me, because he is like me, rather then that he is a gifted observer of the other. what makes IJ so sad in particular is the sense that a of what he is talking about is first personal, the thematic conflict of that book is largely a rebuke of excessive introspection, and by subsuming the entire text under such an identifiable narrator, who has clear patterns of speech and thought, the books form kind of rallies against itself, it adds a second layer of character drama because I get the sense the narrator is trying just as hard as Hal and Gately to get out of his own head. To tie this back to the question of whether voice refers to narrative voice in general or his ability to capture different people, I think in either case his "voice" is singular, it's a mono-voice, that kind of literary form just happens to perfectly capture his voice and the voice in our heads in the current culture, I guess that's probably what you mean by the language of the enemy, railing against ironic pomo in its own terms, but tbh I also never saw it as that kind of deliberate subterfuge, DFW seems just to genuinely like that kind of fiction a lot, and though he doesn't clarify this as much as would be wanted(making it sound like he's rallying against pomo lit as such) it's more the adoption of irony in television(maybe this is still what you meant) but...

"DFW imitates voices" is just such a strange way of describing him to me, I get how you got there, but it's so alien to how I see the work that it feels kind of bizarre that someone could experience it so differently. To me a writer who captures voices is someone like Joyce, if we're sticking with hysterical realism, then I think Zadie Smith is doing what you describe DFW as(which isnt to say he isnt and you're wrong im just fascinated by different perceptions we have), she seems really capable of bringing people to life in their own terms in a way I have never felt like DFW could and especially not for women, black people, transsexuals, homosexuals, etc. I think the pale kind is an exception in some important ways here and I think it would have been a decisive evolution in his fiction w/r/t this had it been published but that's life(still has some of his all time best writing, definitely his best writing of women as such)

Anyway I'm very interested in why you describe his work like this, especially if its occurs as a key aspect to you, I would very much like for you to elaborate in as much detail as you can be shagged to throw in!

I think dfw is the exact same base-level type of guy as weird al, just with a sprinkle of depression on top

[is0gild]

Ice Cream and Fire Oven Pizza - Chapter 29

Pairing: Elsa x Lea/Axel || Side Pairing: Riku x OC

Summary: Modern AU. She's an introvert ball of nerves who works at Ice Palace, a mall food court ice cream shop. He's the outgoing, sassy goofball who works at the Pizza Planet across the way. Hilarity, snark, and fluffy romcom hijinks ensue.

Word Count: 8,417

FIRST CHAPTER || PREVIOUS CHAPTER || NEXT CHAPTER

Credit for super friggin’ cute and super friggin’ amazing cover art goes to the super friggin’ talented ky-jane here on tumblr!

"What the everliving fuck, Lea?! Why the hell are you naked in our kitchen?!"

Riku's muffled shout had me jerking awake and shooting up in bed, my hand clutching the blanket.

"Er, heh… laundry day?"

Lea's response.

Both voices had come from the other side of my closed bedroom door. I heard a ruckus out there ensue - possibly the sounds of a chase? Wincing at the sunlight pouring in through my window, I glanced towards the clock on my nightstand. Ugh, we'd only gotten to sleep a few short hours ago.

...speaking of…

I lifted my blanket slightly away from me as I looked down at myself.

Yup.

Not a stitch on me.

Not sure what else I could've possibly expected.

My door suddenly burst open and I gasped, hugging my comforter to my chest once more as Lea came barreling in. Okay, at least he wasn't completely naked. He had one of my bed sheets wrapped around his waist. Thankfully. I don't think that my heart could have survived such a visual otherwise at this precise moment.

He leapt into bed with me, sniggering as he hid behind me. Or rather, tried to anyway. My frame was far too small to be concealing such a large man. "Mornin', gorgeous!" he chirped, planting a swift peck to my cheek.

Face heating and groggy brain still trying to catch up, I began, "I- Wha-"

"Why, Lea?! Just… why?!" Riku yelled from the other side of the door, which seemed to have hit a wall and bounced back to almost closing again. It was now just barely open a crack for us to clearly hear my annoyed roommate's voice through it.

"Was trynta scrounge something up for breakfast!" Lea called back. "El was hungry!"

...I was?

My stomach growled.

Oh. Apparently, yes. Yes I was.

...oh gosh, it hadn't been gurgling in my sleep, had it? How embarrassing.

Riku's voice snarled, "You couldn't have put some goddamn pants on first?!"

"It was an emergency! Hadta get some food in the woman, stat!"

There was a loud angry huff from the other side of the door. "Whatever, you just better not have sat on anything out here or I swear…"

It hadn't escaped my notice that Riku hadn't followed Lea in here. Perhaps the implications of Lea barging in first in his current state of undress had not been lost on him and so he was staying out there to preserve my modesty.

Rayne on the other hand…

My door banged open for a second time to reveal her suddenly standing in the threshold, a huge ear-to-ear grin splitting her face in two. "Oh my god, it finally happened!"

Rayne had no such compunctions.

She squealed before running further into the room, holding something up in one hand. "Ahh, I'm so excited! So, so happy for you guys! Oh dear lord, you have no idea how frustrating it's been watching the two of you just dancing around each other this whole time but not bloody doing a damn thing about it! It was driving me up the goddamn wall!" Turns out that thing in her grasp was her phone, or so I came to realize when she shoved it in my face, "But finally! The day we've all been hoping for is here at last! The day you've become," pause for dramatic effect,"...a woman! Halle-freakin-lujah! Do you have any words you'd like to commemorate this momentous event with?"

"Why the phone?" was my oh so moving speech as I scrunched up my face and put my hand to the device, pushing it away.

She beamed and shrugged. "I'm recording this."

"You're what?!" I blanched.

"Yup! To immortalize this historic occasion! Plus, I need video evidence cuz otherwise there is no way Anna will ever believe this. She's gonna flip her-" she suddenly gasped, free hand shooting forward to brush my hair back off my shoulder while getting in close with her phone again. "Holy Jesus H Christ, Lea, what the hell did you do to the woman's throat?!"

I jerked back from her touch, brow furrowing. "My...?" I brought my hand up to brush a finger to my neck. Huh. It was rather sore…

"Dude," she fixed me with a pointed look from the other side of her phone. "It's absolutely covered in hickeys."

"H-?!" I choked on the word, eyes widening and face an inferno.

"Seriously. That thing is more bruise than neck at this point." Rayne leaned in even further with her mobile, fascinated. "Would you lookit that? All the lil ones are coming together to form - dun, dun dun," her voice dropped to intone with deep reverence, "the Mother Hickey!"

I slapped a hand over the spot, trying to cover it up.

She snerked then cackled. "Oh, sweetie. Your hand would have to be the size of an extra large, double stuffed pizza to conceal that monster! Damn, Red, for real… that's a masterpiece!"

Lea gave a sheepish laugh beside me, fingers ruffling his wild bedhead hair. "Guess it is some o' my best work, huh?"

Squeaking, I burrowed into my blankets to hide from the rest of the world.

"Alright, no further comment, show's over now. Riku!" Lea gave a sudden shout. "Come corral your woman!"

I heard a slow creak from my door, then the sound of feet awkwardly shuffling in. "Sorry about-" There was a thud and Riku hissed, "Ow! ...about this, Elsa. I pr-" Whump. "Gah! Promise I'm not-" Bang. "Goddamn it! I'm not-"

"Oh for the love of…" A sigh from Rayne. "Riku! You can remove your hand from your eyes, you goob! She's hiding under the sheets."

"I think I'll keep my hand right where it is, thank you very much!" he grumbled back. He could be heard shambling about for a bit more, peppered here and there by him bumping and crashing into a few more things, before finally, "Ah-ha! There you are!"

"Ack! Riku!" The sounds of what could only be described as a kerfuffle followed. "Put me down, brat!"

"We'll, uh… go get breakfast going and give you two some… privacy," Riku grunted out. Pretty sure I could hear him now literally dragging his wife out of the room. How he managed that one-handed (as I could only assume the other was still being used to shield his eyes), I'll never know. Eventually, mercifully, I heard my door click shut.

Lea gave a soft snort. "So… wanna come out and show me your beautiful face?" he then coaxed gently.

Twitching slightly, I gripped harder at the fabric of the comforter - aka my sanctuary. "Hmm… mm-mm, no, I think I'm good in here, thanks."

There was a brief pause. Then, "Alright. Guess me and my beautiful face are just gonna have to come in there instead." The blankets abruptly lifted, but only just enough for Lea to scooch in next to me under them before tucking them back down around us once more. His shoulders hunched, sheet overhead smooshing his hair down as he shot me a grin. "Hi."

Oh gosh, it was bad enough that he'd been naked before. Now he was naked and close. Not that I could really see anything below the waist - he was still wrapped in sheet down there. Still, even though I couldn't see him in all his nude glory, didn't mean I wasn't one hundred and ten percent fully aware of it and that thought alone was enough to send the blood rushing to my face all over again.

Ugh, calm down, cheeks. You'd think after last night, there'd be nothing left to get so red over.

"Wanna talk about it?" he tipped his head to one side.

"Hm?" I hummed absently, dragging my eyes up to meet his. While the actual goods were currently out of sight, I was still finding just the sight of his bare chest rather, hrm… distracting.

He gave a small shrug, "Whatever it is that's bothering you."

I gnawed on my lower lip and glanced away, clutching the undersheet more tightly to my chest.

...last night had been…

...amazing…

...slow and tender at times, and… heated and passionate at others, as well as, er… how shall I put it... enlightening? Sure, let's go with that. But also, it'd been…

...confusing.

I mean, not in the moment itself, it hadn't been. But now…? Well, it was just… we hadn't really talked about anything beforehand. Frankly, we'd let hormones do all the talking. Hormones were a new experience for me. I'd never even had so much as an inkling of a single solitary hormone ever before and last night I'd been struck by a whole raging tsunami of the damn things. Who knew they could be so, er… persuasive. It'd been all too easy to get swept up in the torrent. But now that the storm had died down, now that morning was here and I could think more clearly, I…

Well, I didn't regret it. No, not one bit. But… I guess I just had questions. Like where did this leave Lea and me? I hadn't forgotten the little detail that he'd never really been the relationship type before, and I had no real solid reason to believe that that was about to change just for me. And what about his whole "no girls until graduation" rule? Just what had this been for him then? A temporary lapse in judgement? A moment of weakness? Yeesh, I didn't want to be one of those girls who got all, "What does this mean?" after they sleep with a guy, but…

You know what? No, there was nothing wrong with being one of those girls. Those girls were valid. Those girls had a right to know and so did I, damn it! I deserved to know if this had actually meant something to him or if I'd just been a… another notch on the headboard or… or if he'd just been sowing his wild oats or-

"Oh gosh, was I just an oat to you?!" I suddenly blurted out, snatching the comforter down off my head with a huff.

"Uh…" Lea fought with the blanket a bit himself before his top half broke free to join me out here, blinking at me owlishly. "...no?" he tried, his guyliner-smudged eyes squinting uncertainly.

Right. Good job, mouth. Way to make me sound like a total crackpot.

Inhaling deeply through my nose and then puffing out a slow breath, I gave it another go. "...was last night just a…" The blush returned as I struggled for the right words. "...a one night stand?"

His shoulders stiffened as his head rocked back. "What?! No. God no! El, I-" his hand was reaching for me, but it stopped just short of my arm. He frowned, pulling it back to instead rub over his mouth then drag along the nape of his neck with a sigh. "Shit, we're always doing things so backwards, aren't we? Kissing before we'd even so much as said our first hello to each other… Going steady before we'd even been on a single date… Now hopping into bed together before taking a minute to tell each other how we really…" he trailed off with another sigh, leaving the thought unfinished.

I remained silent, just looking down as I drew my blanketed knees up, hugging them to my chest.

Lea shifted around so he was instead facing me now, clasping his own sheet to keep it firmly wrapped around his waist. Pulling one knee up himself, he propped an elbow atop it as he bent forward to my eye-level. "Do you remember the story I told about how we met?"

My eyes blinked. "You mean the plot of Before Sunrise?"

Grinning softly now, he said, "If you'll recall, that movie starts on the train. But that's not where the story I told began."

A crease formed between my eyebrows. "No, it started with the lantern festival."

"That's right," he nodded. "...I was there, El. I was really there, same time as you."

My spine snapped straight as I inhaled, small and sharp. "You were?"

"Yup! Everything… seeing you there, the lanterns going up, even the bit about me faceplanting into a lamppost… all of it, and I do mean all of it, was true."

I gaped slightly before shaking my head slowly. "But… you said you'd never seen the lantern show."

"I haven't. Oh sure, I was there, but I was too busy watching you instead," he chuckled, tapping me on the nose.

There was a small flutter inside my ribcage. Still, I frowned. "But… but I was the one who said the city we met in was Corona."

He snorted, scratching a spot behind his ear, "Yeah, and I was floored when ya did. Thought for a sec that maybe you actually had noticed me at the festival. But nope, turned out to just be a lucky shot in the dark!" Lea laughed, then paused with a wistful smile. "...obviously in the real story, I didn't end up following you onto that train, but shit, you dunno how bad I wanted to. But I'd just sworn off girls to focus on college only the day before, and I didn't wanna be so weak as to go tossing that out the window less than twenty-four hours in." His lips then pursed to one side, eyes downcast. "In a way, maybe it was for the best. I don't think the time was right for either of us yet. I… wouldn't have been ready to be the person you needed me to be."

I didn't know what to say to that. Even if I did, I'm not sure if I would have been able to get any words out past the tightening in my throat. So instead, I just settled for reaching for his hand.

Flashing me a grin, he brought it up so he could press his lips lightly to my knuckles before going on, "But man, did I regret letting you get away without even so much as talking to you. Was kicking myself ever since, thinking I'd never see you again." His eyes crinkled as he leaned in closer now, "So imagine my shock 'bout a year later when I spot a very cute, very familiar new girl working the ice cream counter across the food court from me. It'd seemed fate had decided to give me a second chance with the divine creature from the lantern festival. I just hadta meet her."

One corner of my mouth tugged up, "What about your dating hiatus?"

"Hey now, I was just trying to get to know you! You were the one who kissed me first, remember?" his lips twisted into a smirk and I rolled my eyes, feeling heat creeping up the back of my neck. His gaze turned serious however. "...women have always kinda been a weakness for me. I'd practically made a career out of skirt chasing. Whenever it came down to making a choice between the ladies and getting my shit together, I picked ladies every time. But when I finally decided, and I mean really decided to buckle down, I cut that part of my life out completely. I thought it would be hard, but it actually really wasn't. Turns out they'd just been a bad habit I hadta kick. Having them around had been a distraction.

"But when it came to you…" his eyes softened as he reached for a lock of my hair to fiddle with. "The more I got to know you, it… The distraction was… not having you around. I couldn't concentrate on anything else… not school, not work... I was thinking about you all the time. Couldn't get you outta my head. Not for a damn second."

"Lea…" my hand came up of its own accord to brush along his cheek.

He covered it with his own, turning his head slightly to kiss my palm. "...you know with crushes, or love at first sight, or whatever the hell you wanna call it… they say you're not really falling for the person, but rather just the idea of them. That you're just building 'em up in your head, putting 'em on a pedestal… but that when you actually finally do get to know the person, it'll be a letdown. That they won't turn out to be who you wanted them to be." Pressing our foreheads together now, he nuzzled the tip of his nose to mine, "But you turned out to be so much better than I ever coulda imagined."

I scoffed, face burning as I muttered, "Sounds like someone's been watching too many of those cornball movies."

"I mean it, so shush, you," he chided, biting back a grin. Then he was shifting a little closer to me. "What I'm trying to tell ya is that you're stuck with me. I'm not going anywhere. I'm yours, if you'll have me. I am all in."

My breath hitched as I stared into those stunning green eyes of his. I hesitated for a second, my thumb idly stroking along where he still had my hand clasped to his cheek. Then I bent forward, giving him a gentle kiss. "...I'm all in too."

"Yeah?" he murmured, grin twitching wider. "So how 'bout it then? Can I be your boyfriend for real this time?"

I hummed a soft laugh, nodding. "I'd like that very much."

"Good." Lea curled a finger under my chin, pressing his lips soundly to mine. Then he used his hold on my chin to carefully turn my head to one side, eyes half-lidded as he got a closer look at, er, heh… at the Mother Hickey. "Hmm, I really did do a number on this side of your neck, huh? Gotta a bit carried away." He planted a quick peck to the tender skin there, making it tingle pleasantly. Then he was sweeping my hair forward over that shoulder and turning my head the other way, tsking, "While this side," a kiss to said side, "is looking rather neglected. You're rather lopsided here and we can't have that, now can we?"

"No?" I breathed, shivering as I felt his lips graze over my skin, my hand drifting down to trail along his chest.

"Mm-mm. Why don't we see what we can do here to correct this oversight," he said, voice low as he began nibbling at my throat. I could feel him hooking a finger into where I had the blanket hugged to my torso, giving it a gentle tug and-

My door abruptly flew open for the third time. "Elsa! I need to talk to-" Anna - that's right, Anna - gasped from where she stood in the doorway now, slapping a hand over her eyes. Lea and I jerked apart, me clutching the comforter more fiercely to my body than ever. My sister parted her fingers for a peek, then snapped them back closed with a giggle. "Oo la la! You two really go the extra mile to sell this girlfriend-boyfriend act! You do remember calling the whole thing off yesterday though, right?"

Lea hung his head and sighed heavily while I scooted off the bed with an annoyed little growl. Keeping the blanket firmly wrapped around me like a misshapen, makeshift dress, I narrowed my eyes and marched over to her. "What are you doing here, Anna? Why didn't you just call?"

"Your phone's been-"

I snatched her hand down from where it was still covering her eyes, since I refused to hold a conversation with her while she looked so silly. She blinked a couple times before a tiny laugh bubbled out of her, "Oh hi!" I merely drooped my eyelids at her and she cleared her throat, expression hardening. "Your phone's been going straight to voicemail and this couldn't wait!"

That's right. My phone was still dead and I never got around to charging it last night. I'd been a little otherwise, ahem… preoccupied.

I pinched the bridge of my nose with an irritated huff. I didn't want to deal with this right now. Taking hold of Anna's shoulder, I spun her around and pushed her back towards my door, "Fine, then just... try calling me again later."

"What?! No, wait!" Her hands flew out to grab either side of the doorframe and she dug in her heels, bringing us both to a lurching stop. "Sis, I really, really need to talk to you!"

"Well I don't want to talk to you!" I snapped back, pressing my shoulder into her back and putting my full weight into trying to get her moving again. No dice. She wouldn't budge.

"Elsa, please!" she whirled around to face me once more, unleashing the full might of her devastating pout on me.

Fudge. I'd never been able to say no to those big, sad, puppy-dog eyes of hers.

I puffed out a small breath with a scowl. Then I grumbled, "Fine. Just give me a minute to get-"

Dressed.

That's the word I'd been about to say.

However, Anna's excited squeal cut me off and she grabbed my elbow, yanking me along with her as she ran out into the living room. I tried to resist, making a desperate grab for my doorknob but only succeeded in slamming the door shut behind me before it slipped free of my grip. Before I knew it, Hurricane Anna had plonked me down on one of the living room sofas with her flumping down beside me.

"Ugh, not you too," came Riku's groan from the kitchen.

Glancing over, I saw him standing next to a pan sizzling on a stove burner, one of his hands holding a large spatula while the other blurred up to clasp over his eyes. Rayne sniggered at him as she pulled something out of the fridge.

"Hey, I tried to change," I shot back before turning my accusatory gaze on my sister. She merely beamed and shrugged in response. Rolling my eyes, I primly adjusted my blanket-dress with as much dignity as I could muster to ensure I remained one hundred percent PG. My other hand went to my hair, which was still gathered forward over one shoulder, thankfully covering the Mother Hickey.

No need for Anna to spot that, thank you very much.

"Come on, hon, let's get you somewhere where you're free to see," Rayne snorted, relieving him of the spatula and taking his hand in hers so she could start guiding him towards their bedroom.

I shot Anna a dull stare now, waiting with a frown.

Her cue to begin.

"Alright, first of all, we're going to have to come back to that later," she waved a hand towards my bedroom door. "Because okay, wow!"

"I know, right?" Rayne chimed in with a laugh, not having quite reached her room yet. I fixed her with an unamused look and she winced. "Sorry," she whispered, returning all her focus on getting her temporarily blinded husband out of there.

Once they'd disappeared through their door, Anna sat up a little straighter, squared her shoulders, and tugged at her skirt, straightening out its wrinkles. Then she took a deep breath, "Right. Okay, where to begin… well, for starters, I did not - you hear me? Not," she reiterated, striking up a finger for emphasis, "suggest the whole you and Lea thing just to keep Mom and Dad from getting mad about the whole Hans and me thing."

I gave her a flat look, quirking a dubious eyebrow.

"I didn't! I swear I didn't! My actual reasons were threefold. Count 'em, three," she held up the matching number of fingers, wiggling them slightly. Then she ticked off the first one, "A, as I brought up yesterday, I figured having him backing you up would give you the courage to face Mom and Dad. B, I thought that big, scary, redheaded ox of a man would make Mom and Dad think twice before still trying to tell you what to do. Which, in hindsight, kinda backfired… but hey, was worth a shot at least, right?" she gave a nervous chuckle.

I did not laugh with her.

She cleared her throat and hastily pressed on, "And C, it was so obvious that you and Lea had the total friggin' mega hots for each other, so I thought I might play cupid and help that along a lil." Her eyes darted to my bedroom door again before she leaned in closer, waggling her eyebrows, "You're welcome, by the way."

Now I full on glowered at her.

Sense the tone, brat.

She gulped, pulling back again, eyes darting about as she fidgeted with her fingers. Then she huffed, "And fine, okay sure, did I realize you two playing lovebirds in front of Mom and Dad might keep some of the heat off of me and Hans? Yes, but that was more of a… an afterthought! Ya know, like… a nice lil perk on the side. Was it a perk I should have taken advantage of? No. Should I have figured out a different weekend to drop the Hans-bomb? Maybe. But-"

"Sorry, sorry!" Rayne suddenly popped back into the room, sneaking past us towards the kitchen. "Just don't want the bacon to burn. Pretend I'm not here."

Returning my attention to Anna, I saw her frowning, deep in thought and possibly trying to think up a different tactic here. Then she was opening her mouth again, "Look, Sis... he and I didn't mean for this to happen-"

I scoffed, "You said that already yesterday."

"No, let me finish! We didn't mean for it to happen, but it did and nothing can change that now. And you know what? I wouldn't want to change that. I am not sorry." I looked at her sharply and she swiftly amended, "I am sorry if it hurt you. So, so sorry, you have no idea! But I'm not sorry that it happened. You have to understand, he and I… Elsa, it's nothing like I've ever known before! It… it's like fireworks! It's amazing and magical and-"

"He who?" Rayne was suddenly next to us in the living room, making me jerk in surprise.

Jeez, I hadn't even heard her leave the kitchen!

Hand covering my rapid, startled heartbeat, I told her, "Hans. My ex."

"Oh…" the corners of her mouth turned down. Then a blink and a louder, "Oh!" Followed by her eyes narrowing on my sister with a disapproving, "Anna!"

"Fireworks, Ray-Ray! Fireworks!" she snapped back in her defense.

Shaking her head, Rayne directed my attention to what she was holding in her hands - a small bowl of mixed, sliced fruit. "To tide you over until the rest of the food is ready," she explained, depositing it onto the coffee table before making her way back over to the stove.

I stared blankly at the little snack, as if not quite sure what to do with it. Then my stomach gave another growl to remind me.

Oh yeah. That.

"The point," Anna steadfastly insisted, "is that we both know you didn't love him. But I-"

A derisive snort escaped me as I started poking through the fruit. "That is so not the point and you know it."

Her face pinched in annoyance and she spat out, "But I do!"

Snagging a grape, my brow furrowed. "...do what?"

"Love him!"

My eyes widened briefly, then I shot her a dull stare. "...you can't love a man you've just been dating a few weeks."

"And why not?" she glared at me as I popped the grape into my mouth. "You and Lea have been only pretending to date for a few weeks and you're in love with him!"

Cue choking on said grape.

Blasted things are hazardous to your health!

Face roasting as I banged a fist to my chest to dislodge the damn thing and let blessed oxygen back in again, I wheezed, "I'm not- We're not- I mean, it's just-"

"Oh please!" she rolled her eyes. "It's you, Elsa. You. You're the very definition of ice queen. You don't just go around having crazy wild monkey sex-"

"Oh my god, Anna!" I buried my face in my hands.

"Don't oh-my-god-Anna me! It's true! You don't! You never do this! So the only obvious conclusion is that you-"

I clamped a hand over her mouth, fixing her with a tiny scowl. Then I said calmly and evenly, "One, it is not the only conclusion. And two, this isn't about Lea and me. This is about you and Hans." I slowly started to lower my hand but when I saw her sucking in breath to go off once more, I quickly gagged her again. Then I shot her a warning look, silently demanding that she zip it. Her eyelids drooped and I took that as reluctant consent. Taking my hand back now, I looked to the bowl of fruit once more. Hm… maybe a banana slice? Yeah, that seemed less likely to murder me. Bending forward to reach for it, I went on, "Now I know you might think you two are in love, but-"

She abruptly gasped, "Holy friggin' cow, what's that?!"

Suppressing a groan at being interrupted, I grumbled, "What's what?"

"That! On your neck!" With a start, I realized some of my hair had slipped back behind me, no longer concealing the Mother Hickey. The monstrosity had broken loose to wreak its unholy havoc. Anna gaped in pure awe, "Damn, Sis, what was that boy trying to do to you? Draw blood, the friggin' vampire?"

"She liked it!" came Lea's voice suddenly as he exited my bedroom, shutting the door behind him with a smug grin.

Cheeks bursting into flames, I grabbed a raspberry to chuck at him for oversharing.

He caught it easily and sniggered. "Thanks, babe!" he chirped, tossing it up into the air before catching it in his mouth.

Then I looked at him. Really looked at him and came to a realization.

That jerk now had clothes on.

"Hey, no fair! How come he got to get dressed and I didn't?!" I snapped, hand balling more tightly into my blanket-dress in my continued effort to keep the thing together and in place.

Anna whined in frustration, "Sis, focus! We're talking about something important here!"

Says the girl who just got sidetracked by the Mother Hickey.

"Okay, maybe Hans and I haven't been dating for long," she began as out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Lea poking about the living room in various places, searching for something. "But just like you, I grew up with him. We've known each other all our lives. I know him, Elsa. Really, really know him." At last he seemed to spot it - his leather jacket, which he snatched up now from wherever he'd tossed it last night. He came over to me and draped it around my shoulders, ducking down to brush a peck to my temple as he did so. "Know him and… and care about him. I actually feel like this has been a long time coming, Sis. That he and I were just meant to be. It's the kind of stuff that cheesy romcom flicks are made of, what everyone's singing about in all those sappy songs. Ya know… true love."

"Come on, Anna," I sighed as I tugged Lea's jacket closer, grateful for the added bit of coverage. Thumb idly running up and down the metal teeth of the zipper, I muttered, "Thought you outgrew fairytales a long time ago."

"What's with the shit-eating grin?" I heard Rayne asking Lea as he moved to join her in the kitchen.

He shrugged, plopping down into one of the dining chairs, "You'd have one too if El had just agreed to be your girlfriend."

"Oof, point taken."

"Fairytale or no, I love him," Anna said, drawing my focus back to her. "And he loves me! And I'm sorry that we went about it in the way wrong way and hurt you in the process. I really, truly am! But what's done is done. I know I don't deserve your forgiveness so soon, but I'm asking… hoping, really, that you'll still give it… because I need you right now, Elsa."

She reached out for my hand, squeezing it as her face fell as she momentarily paused. Then, "I need my big sis. Hans' parents… they're furious about all this. They didn't want their son with the second Fryse daughter, they wanted you. They're blowing a friggin' gasket, which is making Mom and Dad blow their own stupid gaskets too. Which is whatever, fine, I can take it… but not if you're mad at me too." She sniffled, eyes downcast and bottom lip quivering. "...I could really use you in my corner right now, Sis. Please."

I frowned at her, eyebrows knitting together and not saying anything right away. Then, "...you two… really love each other?"

"Oh my god, so much," she gave a weak wobble of a laugh, fingers swiping at the corner of her eye. "I love him with all of my heart and I know he feels the same way about me too."

I inhaled and exhaled softly. Then I covered her hand with mine. "Fine. I forgive you. And I'm here for you, whatever you need."

"Really?!" Anna cried out. I nodded and she broke out into a huge grin, eyes welling up even further to the point where tears escaped. Then she was tackling me in a hug that knocked the wind out of me. "Oh thank you, thank you! You're the bestest, most amazing, most beautiful big sis ever!"

Who was I to stand in the way of love?

True love, no less. Apparently.

As she pulled away, she was now a blubbering mess and I had to stifle a snort. She'd always been such an endearingly ugly cryer. Jamming the heel of her palm to her nose in an attempt to dam the flow of snot, she asked, "Can I take a minute or two to clean myself up in your bathroom?"

I gestured a hand towards the restroom door and she got up, starting to make her way over to it. "Anna," I said abruptly and she stopped in her tracks, glancing back over her shoulder at me. I hesitated briefly, gnawing on my lower lip and almost losing my nerve. But then finally I began, "Would you… that is, later, would you maybe like to…" my lips clamped shut. Oh gosh, I was getting so awkward over such a silly little question. Taking a steadying breath, I then braved a tiny smile for her, "...do you want to make some scotcheroos?"

...would she even remember?

She blinked. "You mean… as in like when we were…?" Then it seemed to click and her face did this funny thing were it both lit up and brimmed over with even more tears. "Yes! Yes, I'd like that very much! I… Just gimme a sec, I'll be right back!" Then she hastily disappeared into the bathroom, clicking the door shut behind her.

I jolted in surprise as Lea suddenly one-hand vaulted himself over the back of the couch, quick to take the seat next to me that Anna had just vacated. He gave me a toothy grin as he slung an arm around my shoulders, tugging me closer to him.

...okay, this was going to take some getting used to.

A couple weeks of fake dating had in no way prepared me for the real thing.

However, as I felt him pressing his lips to the top of my head and nuzzling his nose into my hair as he did so, I relaxed a bit into his side.

I might... enjoy getting used to this.

Now if only everything else could be so simple. In particular, my family-

"Oh gosh, my family!" I suddenly stiffened.

"Hm?" his hand rubbed up and down my arm outside the jacket. "What about them?"

I groaned, "I just finished telling them yesterday that you and I weren't dating. Now we have to tell them that we are."

Lea squinted up at the ceiling, pursing his lips to the left. "...do we though?"

"Yes! I mean, maybe not right now, but eventually."

His free hand came up to scratch the tip of his nose, then he smiled down at me. "Hey, lookit the bright side though. Now we don't have to explain any of this craziness to the mall or tell 'em we broke up or anything like that."

I fixed him with a deadpan look. "Not helping."

"Doesn't it though?"

I narrowed my eyes up at him. Then I relented with a small huff, "...okay, maybe a little."

"Can I come out yet?" came Riku's rather pathetic call from his bedroom.

"Not yet, she's still naked!" Rayne shouted back as she used her spatula to shift the eggs frying in the pan. In response, Riku made an annoyed noise that was half growl, half moan.

Reaching for a blueberry now, I asked her over my shoulder, "Hey, were you two out all night?"

"Mm-hm!" she hummed back chipperly.

"They were just walking through the front door when they happened upon me in the kitchen in nothing but the bed sheet," Lea supplied, biting into a strawberry.

Glancing her way, I cocked my head. "Where were you guys?"

"Riku surprised me with a romantic weekend getaway!" Rayne beamed, opening the fridge back up. "Speaking of, I noticed as I was dropping my bag off in the bedroom this morning that our room seemed to be a bit, er… tossed about." She wrinkled her nose, "I seriously doubt it, but you two didn't… you know... in there, right?"

My cheeks flared up. "Oh god, no! That was, um…" I cleared my throat, my fingers fiddling with the zipper clasp on the leather jacket, "...Lea was just looking for, uh… for protection."

Rayne glanced at him, eyelids drooping. "And you weren't packing any of that already, stud?"

His fingers ruffled his hair with a chuckle, "Stopped carrying anything like that on me a year ago when I called it quits with the ladies. Didn't want any excuses to give into temptation."

"Ah," she shook her head, stepping back over to the frying pan. Then her shoulders tensed and her head snapped up as a thought suddenly seemed to strike her. "Heh… you, er… didn't happen to find the, uh…"

"Pumpkin spice flavored condoms?" I said dryly and she twitched. "Yes, we did. And Rayne? You have a problem."

I felt Lea's whole body rumble with a laugh, "Yeah seriously, Raindrop, what the actual fuck?"

Turning several shades of deeper and deeper red, her eyes flicked nervously about. "S-someone gave them to me as a gag gift, I swear!" Yeah, wasn't buying it. Didn't help that Lea had found the box already opened. "You, uh… you two didn't actually… use those, right?"

"Heh… needs must when the Devil drives!" Lea snerked as I facepalmed.

Rayne silently squirmed where she stood for an uncomfortable moment as she poked the spatula at the eggs some more. Then, "...let's never speak of this again."

"Agreed," I gave a single, firm nod. Then I was standing up, slipping out of Lea's jacket and leaving it behind on the couch as I started heading towards my bedroom. "And on that awkward note, I think I'll go put clothes on."

"Lemme help ya!" Lea grinned, hopping up to his feet behind me. However, he didn't get very far.

"Ah-ah!" Rayne was suddenly beside him, snagging him by the ear. He gave a pained hiss through grit teeth as she yanked on it, forcing him to hunch down to her height so she could glare at him. "Getting clothes on that girl is the absolute furthest thing from your mind, bucko."

He clasped a hand to his chest in mock offense. "You insult me, madame! I promise I had only the purest, most honorable of intentions!" She stared at him blankly before pinching his earlobe harder, forcing a tiny yelp out of him. "Okay fine, my intentions may of been hovering, teetering towards the slightly dishonorable."

She sighed, "Need I remind you that that room is a future baby nursery?"

"And oh if those walls could talk, the stories they would tell your future bouncing bundle of joy."

Rayne scoffed, dragging him by the ear back towards the kitchen with him grunting the whole way. Shoving him down into one of the dining chairs, she snapped, "Now sit your ass down here and if you even think about taking so much as one step closer to her bedroom door, I'm gonna neuter you with this thing," she poked him in the nose with her spatula. "Capisce, loverboy?"

He held his hands up in surrender, "Capisce!"

I'd almost made it to my room when my stomach gurgled again. I swiftly made a u-turn and went back for the bowl of fruit, picking it up and carrying it back with me. For the road! As I ate a kiwi slice, Riku called out again, "Now can I come out?"

"Almost, Hon! She's heading for her door now," Rayne yelled back as she started taking plates out of the overhead cupboard, still maintaining a wary eye on Lea the whole time.

"Finally!"

However, I was only halfway across the living room when abruptly there was loud, frantic banging on the front door, nearly making me drop the whole bowl.

Ugh, now what?

"Elsa! Are you in there?" called a voice from the other side. A voice that made me stop dead in my tracks and whip around, wide eyed and cheeks bulging with fruit. More thunderous knocking. "Please answer the door, I have to see you!"

That… sounded like…

"...Hans?" I squeaked after choking my food down.

What on earth was he doing here?!

Lea's whole body went rigid as he quickly looked from me to the source of the hammering. Both eyebrows shot up Rayne's forehead. Then she was turning off the stove burner and wiping her hands on her blue plaid shorts as she made her way over to the door. She unlocked it and opened it a crack, politely but cautiously asking, "Hi, can I help y-"

Hans was suddenly shoving his way inside, pushing past her and shouting, "Elsa, where are you? We have to-" His eyes landed on me and he froze. Then determination seared across his eyes and he was marching towards me, "Elsa, I need to talk to you!"

I'd been hearing that an awful lot this morning.

I blinked, taking a step back and shaking my head, "Hans, what are you-"

That's when he finished closing the distance between us, grabbed me by the shoulders and brought his lips crashing down onto me. This time, I did drop the bowl, sending mixed fruit tumbling everywhere across the carpet. Rayne and Lea gawked at us.

I- Wha- Th- Huh-

Just what...

...the actual hell...

...was up with this friggin' morning?!

I mean, come on! More had happened to me in the past thirty minutes than usually happens to me on any normal given week!

And all while I was still wearing nothing but a stupid bedsheet, for crying out loud!

It took a split second for the shock to wear off, then I was scrabbling to wedge my arms between us, shoving him away and furiously scrubbing my mouth with the back of my hand.

"Oh hell fucking no!" Lea was on his feet in a heartbeat, green eyes flashing dangerously and face twisted into a snarl.

However Rayne stopped him with a hand on his chest. "Cool your jets, Red, and shush!"

"But-" he spluttered, apparently too outraged for words. Instead he settled for gesturing both hands angrily towards Hans with a growling huff. Rayne just struck up a warning finger at him.

Fingers abusing the fabric of my comforter as I clutched it to me desperately now, I frowned, "Hans, what is this? Why are you here? How did you even know where I live?"

His brow furrowed and he stepped closer as I hastily took another step back. "I asked your parents and they had Gerda give me the address. But that's not what's important right now. What's important is I want you back!"

Um… excuse me?!

Riku's voice once more came calling from beyond his bedroom door, "What's going on out there? Who's here?"

"Shush!" Rayne snapped back, eyes wide and unblinking so as not to miss a single second of the little soap opera now unfolding in her living room. "Things. Just. Got. Interesting!"

"But-" Riku tried again.

"I said shush, damnit!"

I just stared at Hans, jaw hanging open in disbelief. "...I'm sorry, you what?"

I must've misheard. Yeah, that had to be. It'd be the only thing that'd make any sense and-

"I want you back."

Nope. Heard him right the first time.

"Elsa, sweetheart, we were good together, right? I mean, we weren't perfect, but what couple is? We had a nice thing going though, didn't we? We belong together," he was saying now, his words soft and soothing as he started to reach for me once more.

I swatted his hands away and walked past him, away from him. Unfortunately he moved to follow, pursuing me around the room. "Hans, did you forget I left you at the altar?"

"And I'm willing to look past that!" He grabbed my elbow, making me stop and face him once more. "If I can put that behind us, then you should be able to too. Think about it, sweetheart. Things could go back to the way they were with us. We were happy, weren't we? We made sense!"

"But I don't want to marry you!" I snapped, jerking my arm free of his grasp.

How was he not getting this? Just… how?

He brought up hands in a placating gesture, "And that's fine, we don't have to get married! Not right away, anyway! It was too soon and you weren't ready, I understand that now. Getting married is not the important part. What matters is that we're together. I still care about you and after yesterday, I know that you still care about me too."

"...after yesterday?" Huh? I glared down at my crossed arms, thoroughly confused now. "...what about yesterday gave you that idea?"

"That whole little speech you gave your parents," Hans stated, as if it were obvious. "I could tell how sad and full of regret you were. Regret over breaking things off with me." Uh… what now? "I could tell you wanted me back, that you went through this whole ruse to pretend like you were okay about the way things ended between us, but you really weren't." I wasn't? That was certainly news to me. "I know you're worried you could never earn my trust back, but it's okay, sweetheart. I forgive you." ...gee, thanks? "I want you back. I need you back." He was reaching for me again, this time for my hand, "Please, if we can just-"

I wrenched my hand back, "Why are you saying all of this? You've never talked like this before. Why are you-" I inhaled sharply, suddenly hit with a thought. "...this isn't you… this is your parents talking through you, isn't it? What'd they do? Threaten to cut you off? Oh Hans, you can't just let them-"

"This isn't about them or anything they may or may not have threatened me with!" Translation: yes. Yes it was. "This is about us! This is-" His words abruptly stopped as he blinked, eyeing me up and down. "...are you wearing nothing but a blanket right now?"

Was Mr Perceptive just now realizing this?

Also, kill me. Kill me now.

"And what did you do to your neck?" he squinted, brushing my hair back off my shoulder.

And the cursed Mother Hickey strikes again!

Swear to god, I was going to friggin' kill Lea for giving me the dumb thing!

Hans gave himself a shake, face hardening. "Doesn't matter! What matters is," he snatched up both my hands now, clasping them together between his, "I love you, Elsa!"

...what was this day even?! I mean, seriously! I had absolutely zero clue what was even happening anymore!

However, his words sent a shock of a reminder through my system and my eyes darted over to the bathroom door, which Hans currently had his back to. Still closed. Still with Anna in there. What with the whirlwind the past five minutes had been, I'd all but forgotten she was still here. Oh gosh, could she hear all this?

Licking my dry lips, my gaze returned to Hans and I weakly shook my head. "You… you don't mean that. What about you and Anna? I thought you two were-"

"A mistake," he said firmly, his grasp around my hands tightening. "That's what we were. A mistake. You have to understand, sweetheart, I was… was hurt. And weak. I did something I'm not proud of. But it meant nothing to me, understand? Absolutely nothing! It's you, Elsa. It's always been you. You're the only woman for me."

"But Hans, she loves you!" I argued, wrestling my hands free of his. I could see the bathroom door behind him slowly beginning to creak open now.

He gave a derisive snort. "No she doesn't! She's just naive and thinks she does. Trust me, Anna will be fine. She'll get over it. Anyway, forget about her. The only thing I want to talk about right now is you and me."

My sister stood in the doorway, expression unreadable as she just stared silently at Hans' back. Oh Anna. Poor dear, sweet Anna. She wasn't like me. She didn't know how to guard her heart and not let people in. She wore her emotions on her sleeve. This was going to break her. What would she even say? What would she even do? How-

"YOU BASTARD!" she suddenly roared, charging towards him.

He whirled around with a startled, "Anna? Wha-"

She bodyslammed into him hard, sending them both crashing to the ground where she then proceeded to start royally whaling on him and calling him every nasty word under the sun while I and the rest of the room's onlookers just watched blankly.

...huh.

Apparently, that's what she'd say and do.

Welp. Guess that answered that.

Author's Note: Oh gosh, this really WAS a lot to happen to Elsa in the space of… yeah, 30 minutes sounds about right xD All with only that infernal bed sheet to keep her modesty intact! I just have too much fun torturing my precious awkward penguin, it's all done out of love, I swear xD Anyhoo *throws confetti and blares trumpets* it's official, Lea and Elsa are a couple for REAL this time, huzzah! Did anyone guess that Lea had actually been at the lantern festival? I dropped hints throughout the story, but dunno, maybe they were too subtle… or too obvious and just no one said anything to me xD Anyhoo, not much left to go now, just a lil bit of wrap up!

Next time, how will things unfold from here on out for our newly minted couple? Will Elsa EVER actually get to put on clothes? Will Riku EVER get to leave his own bedroom ever again? Just HOW deep does Rayne's pumpkin spice addiction really go? Is the Mother Hickey ACTUALLY proof that Lea is secretly a vampire? Will Anna LITERALLY get away with murder by the time she's through with Hans? Sorry, running on empty with questions at this point, got nothing but silly ones left for ya'll xD Anyway, stay tuned!

Thanks for reading, I super duper appreciate it! And an extra BIG thank you to those of you who’ve liked, reblogged, and followed so far, seeing those lil notifications always brings the biggest, goofiest smile to my face!

FIRST CHAPTER || PREVIOUS CHAPTER || NEXT CHAPTER

[astyle-alex]

[Fanfic] Museum Mishap | the BatFam

Heya! As we approach the End of 2020 (FINALLY), I’m realizing that this story is ridiculously close to reaching the milestone of 25k hits on Ao3. To celebrate, I’ll be posting the whole thing here on Tumblr!

(I would however, deeply appreciate it if y’all would pop over to view it on Ao3, briefly, so I can get the view counted as a hit and actually make it over the line for 25k in views before the close of 2020!)

Museum Mishap  |  Chapter 1/6

Fandom: the DC Universe, Batman & co. Pairings: Jay x Tim Characters: Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson Rating: Gen Audiences Warnings: None

Total Word Count: 38,590

Summary:

Middle-School Tim Drake is on a field trip to the Science Museum, but with a WE exhibition of top-secret new technologies being staged in the basement, Tim separates from his classmates and breaks into the staff-only areas by using the skills he's developed over years of stalking Batman and Robin.

Current-Robin Jason Todd catches him in the act, but he's not there to confront Tim for trespassing or truancy - he's there because there's a rumor on the street that Tim Drake knows Batman's real name. And the rumor's gaining ground, quick, drawing in the wrong kind of attention.

When a Drug-Lord decides to take the rumor seriously enough to kidnap the little genius, Jason jumps into the crossfire. It all goes downhill from there. Fast.

(Jason is 14, Tim is 12)

Chapter 1 : Special Access

           A trip to Gotham’s History of Science and Technology Museum would’ve been exciting for even your average twelve year old – it was a day of school that didn’t feel like school, and it meant a chance to hang out, relatively unsupervised, with your friends all day instead of just the one or two classes you managed to luck into having together.

           Timothy Jackson Drake was not your average twelve year old, and a trip to the SciTech Muse was the kind of thing that made his enrollment in middle school entirely worth it. For starters, it was an entire day spent in the heart of the city surrounded by some of the coolest artifacts of science humans could craft.

           And to make things even better, the trip was an all-day, delayed opening affair, starting at 10am and ending at 6pm – which meant he’d actually been able to get enough sleep last night to be well-rested, a rarity in its own right with his particular extra-curriculars. Better yet, he’d been able to tell the Drake housekeeper / nanny that he’d be having dinner with his class so she could go home right at 6 without having to wait for him to get back so she could cook for him.

           That part wasn’t true, of course, but he had concrete evidence that had been legitimately published by the school to help back up his story. Mrs. Simz had her own kid, and was therefore harder to convince than some of the others Tim’s parents had hired, but that also meant she had more reason to hurry home when presented with a believable reason excusing it.

           Being a sixth-grader meant Tim couldn’t just stay in the heart of the city when the field trip was over, he was on a rollcall and the bus back to Gotham Academy wouldn’t leave without his name getting checked off. The high schoolers were allowed to take public transit home if they had a signed permission slip from their parents, but Tim had to wait a few more years before he could con his way into having such freedoms.

           Still, getting over to the West Side from where his school was in Coventry would be far easier than getting there from the Drake Estate way out in Bristol. The extra hour and a half he’d save himself in commuting time mean he would be able to grab some coffee and something to eat without having to rush to get in place for the nighttime adventure he’d planned.

           Beyond all that, the fact that the field trip was this week, meant there was a special exhibition from the cutting-edge tech division of Wayne Enterprises in the midst of being set up. All the main components were being staged in the museum's basement and the ones too big to steal were as close to unprotected as they would ever be – and Tim intended to take full advantage of that.

           He’d been summarily and repeatedly denied acceptance to the WayneTech summer camps as his parents owned one of the company's main competitors: Drake Industries. Apparently corporate espionage was a big enough problem that even ten year olds were suspect. Tim found it ridiculous that the one time he would’ve been entirely okay with having his abilities underestimated was the one time he wasn’t assumed to be just another dumb kid. Honestly, Tim was pretty sure that no one had actually read his application – the computer had probably scanned his ID and kicked his profile out of the running before it had even made it to a human that might care about his actual qualifications.

           Tim hadn’t figured out how to make a bulletproof fake identity profile – not yet, at least – And he certainly wasn’t going to get caught trying to gain illegal access to WE on a sub-par fake ID. Because there were all kinds of ways that would go poorly for him – between his parents possibly being disappointed in him enough to hire a live-in Nanny to the legal ramifications he’d face, even as a minor, it just wasn’t worth it.

           But the thought of getting an up-close look at the new tech WE was rolling out still made Tim's heart pound like he’d just downed a full pot of coffee. WE took a very different approach to developing their tech than DI – more of a ‘you know what would be cool? can we make that reasonable?’ philosophy than a ‘how do we solve this problem?’ sort of thing. Tim found the both the WE approach and their results utterly fascinating.

           Not that Tim had been allowed to play with much of DI's tech, being that his parents would hear about him attempting to gain unsupervised lab access, and promptly ground him, and anyone who might supervise treated him like a kid far too young to understand or unobtrusively observe the work going on inside the places he wanted to see.

           So, the fact that a spectacular spread of WE tech was set up in the basement of a rather glaringly unsecured staff only area in the very building Tim’s class was touring stood as an open invitation for Tim to investigate.

           An invitation that Tim took very seriously. He’d spent at least 18 hours over the past week examining the museum’s blueprints – courtesy of the Gotham City Hall Public Archives – And the rundown of the security, both in terms of the human guards and staff on-hand and the electronic countermeasures – via close examination of the extensive repertoire of ‘insider access’ videos on the museum’s own webpage. Tim would probably end up sending the museum an anonymous suggestion about adjusting that at some point, but he’d worry about that later.

           After he used it to his tech fantasy fulfillment advantage.

           For now, he simply slipped away from the unwatchful eyes of his teachers, stuck headphones in his ears, and carefully made his way – casually, calmly, and like he had no destination in mind – over to the hallway by the cafeteria near the east wing gift shop. The hallway that had restrooms and a staff-only door halfway down it. A door secured with a heavy-duty machine-lock, with a ten-digit keypad, but a door that was not alarmed.

           The human guards were always more focused on preventing shoplifters from stealing over-priced – for a good cause, but still over-priced – museum memorabilia than on the high-traffic restroom hall by the cafeteria. Using his headphones as an excuse to tap his fingers to keep count – while his eyes and most of his brainpower focused on evaluating targets – Tim tracked the museum employees on their lunch breaks and calculated the best option to use as his ticket backstage. He had some in mind, but he had contingencies for last-minute adjustment.

           Tim settled on a big guy whose name he’d read on staff profiles but had forgotten with the other useless information provided about his role in the marketing department. What Tim hadn’t forgotten about him was that his department’s office was right by the staff door he was eyeing – 4.5 meters down and to the left, to be exact – which meant that, even with his slow stride, he would be behind another door in the hallway approximately 17 seconds after the door Tim needed closed behind him.

           When Mr. Marketing got up and lumbered over to the trash, Tim sidled over towards an informational sign with a museum map. As Mr. Marketing passed him, Tim counted off 4 seconds before he turned around to follow. He slid his hand into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around the u-shaped metallic magnet he'd had to smuggle in by jamming it into his mouth and using sleight of hand to pretend it was his retainer – Less than sanitary, but effective, and he’d taken an extra vitamin this morning as a precaution.

           Mr. Marketing punched in his code and pulled the door open to well over 90° before he lumbered through the gap. Tim kept his pace consistent; patient, he could be patient – even though it made his heart rate kick up uncomfortably as he put his faith in his calculations instead of in his feet. He reached the door with almost 6 inches of clearance left for him to slide his hand in and clip his magnet into place over the latch.

           The door closed as he withdrew his hand and kept walking, but it did not click.

           The machine lock whirred with an attempt to close, but its components struck the flat surface of his magnet and failed to properly secure the door. Had the door been alarmed, that would have drawn a lot of unwanted attention, but as it was Tim made it to the restroom with almost nothing noticeably amiss.

           The restroom was crowded enough that his entrance didn’t draw attention and he shut himself in one of the stalls to count off exactly 10 seconds. Then he washed his hands, acquired a paper towel that he did not immediately dispose of, and went to retrieve his magnet. The paper towel allowed him to grasp the handle without leaving fingerprints and he retrieved his magnet without incident – opening the door onto an empty hallway and promptly swerving right to access the unsecured stairwell he knew would be there.

           Tim had no way to hide himself from the singular security camera watching the hallway, but the area was so highly trafficked that he doubted any security guard had been monitoring closely enough to spot his detour. He would get in a ton of trouble if he was caught here – phone calls to his parents would be unavoidable and they’d likely be so angry at him they’d fly back from Spain a week early. But he’d almost certainly avoid any kind of legal consequences.

           Besides, he wasn’t going to get caught. He’d planned this too well for that.

           Tim made his way through the less convenient passageways in the museum’s basement until he reached the corner of the sub-basement where the WayneTech exhibit was being staged. It was, as he’d known it would be, isolated and completely vacant of staff.

           A smile split his face as the relief he felt in making it there successfully was quickly replaced by the buzz of unadulterated excitement. He set his backpack down carefully – mindful, as always, of his precious camera. Then he rolled up his sleeves as he stepped closer to the first machine he saw with the WE logo stamped proudly on its side.

           According to the signage prepped in the binder sitting next to the behemoth, it was a component of the quantum computer WayneTech was developing to facilitate physically interactive virtual realities. Tim bounced on his toes as he warred with himself – half wanting to read more about the technical specs and half wanting to dive right in and see it for himself.

           Tim made it through another two pages of engineering details before he gave up and literally tackled the machine to hoist himself up high enough to look inside via the glass panel built in for that specific purpose. There were at least a dozen windows in the casing and Tim wondered – for a brief moment of distraction from the tech itself as he clambered higher up its exterior – how the museum was going to work in ramps and such for visitors to get the best views. If he didn’t get arrested tonight or banned from the museum forever, he might have to come back to see it in its full glory.

           He’d finagled his way to the last protrusion from top and was marveling at the neat rows of complicated wiring laid out below him when something crucial changed: he discovered that he was not, in fact, alone.

           “Ya know, I don’t think you’re supposed to be down here.”

           Tim really wanted to pretend he didn’t yelp like a kicked puppy when the sudden voice scared him half out of his skin, but the basement echoed enough for him to know it would be ridiculous to think the newcomer hadn’t heard him. Tim ducked his head in shame as his ears burned red and he turned to face whoever had caught him with hunched shoulders and guilty hands raised in surrender.

           And then he spotted his accuser on the floor and froze.

           It was Jason Peter Todd.

           Jason Peter Todd – Bruce Wayne’s new ward and the new Robin. And also kinda Tim’s neighbor. Well, as far as the word ‘neighbor' applied when your respective estates were so big it took an hour to hike door to door. Tim’s brain got caught in a loop of wondering what the frack Jason Peter Todd, of all people, was doing at the museum on a Thursday afternoon. Was doing down here, in this particular sub-basement, on a Thursday afternoon.

           Tim had fully been expecting to see the new Robin today, but that was when he was in full costume and wasn’t supposed to be for at least ten more hours. And Tim had not – in any of his contingencies – planned for Robin to see him.

           “Uh, hi,” Tim floundered.

           “Hi,” returned the crime fighting teenager Tim idolized and had been planning to stalk through Coventry later today. There was a glint in his eyes as he stared up at Tim with a smirk.

           They stared at each other in silence for way longer than could possibly be considered reasonable and Tim's ears resumed to burn at that, and at the distinct realization he had no idea what to say next.

           Because what exactly are you supposed to say when Jason Peter Todd catches you red handed in an off-limits part of a museum? Sitting on top of a piece of cutting edge computer engineering that you had absolutely no right to touch?

           “You're Tim Drake, aren’t you,” Jason asked – in a way that was definitely not really a question and also made it clear that Jason was laughing at him. “We met last month at the charity gala. I’m Jason.”

           “I remember, Mr. Todd,” Tim spouted, falling back on the robotic safety net of manners his mother had drilled into him. “Um, what brings you here?”

           “It’s just ‘Jason’, kid.” He jerked his chin at the machine Tim clung to, continuing, “That shit’s WayneTech. B sent me over to make sure it’s got all the right bits with it.”

           Tim nodded like a puppet, trying not to drown in his horror as he realized what it meant that Jason had caught him. He was messing with tech that Batman owned. There were probably a hundred undetectable BatSecurity features on this thing. Robin had probably been sent to see if someone was trying to steal it when one of Batman’s invisible alarms had gone off.

           “How about you, kid,” Jason asked, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his cargo pants. He regarded Tim with openly amused parody as he asked, “What brings you here?”

           “Field trip,” Tim responded automatically.

           “Field trip?” Jason echoed with an incredulous chuckle.

           He stared at Tim for another long moment and Tim stared back, terrified and unblinking and too tongue tied to substantiate his claim.

           “Alright then,” Jason said eventually, with a one shoulder shrug inside his leather jacket. “So, you got yourself stuck up there or are you gonna come have lunch with me?”

           “Lunch?”

        ��  “Yeah, ya know, food. You eat it,” Jason explained. “I know I could use some pizza.”

           Tim frowned – at the confirmation of the non-sequitur of lunch plans, not the various insults attached to it.

           Jason seemed to falter briefly. “You actually stuck up there, Tim?”

           “No,” Tim huffed, willing to admit he sounded slightly petulant about it.

           “Well then get your skinny ass down here,” Jason prompted – a beat too late in a way Tim didn’t quite understand. He blinked, trying to puzzle out what didn’t sit right, but Jason arched an eyebrow – in the way Tim had seen him do as Robin, magically managing the expression despite the mask – and Tim realized he was supposed to be doing something.

           He was already in enough trouble as it was, so Tim scrambled down the computer and found himself face to face with the second Robin. Or face to chest, as it were.

           Tim hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet, so he knew he was a scrawny twelve, but he hadn’t thought Jason would be that much taller. Jason was only two years older and he was stocky to start with. It was different when he’d been in the suit he’d worn for the charity gala. In civvies he looked broad and strong, and he stood up straighter.

           Jason pulled one hand from his pocket and threw his arm around Tim’s shoulders – began dragging him towards the exit. Tim lunged for his backpack as they passed it and clutched it close to his chest as Jason continued to drag him back upstairs.

           They ended up in the west cafeteria, in a corner that Jason had clearly selected for it’s state of semi-privacy. It was crowded and public enough to make raised voices problematic, but private enough to discuss sensitive details without much worry of being over heard. And it was neutral ground, like Jason was trying to make Tim comfortable before hashing out exactly how much trouble he was in for touching Batman’s stuff without express permission.

           Jason had acquired a large pizza, dripping with extra cheese and a blanket of peperoni, and two double-thick paper plates – one of which he piled high with three slices and placed in front of Tim. He gave himself five slices and settled down to chat having somehow already inhaled half of a sixth.

           “So,” Jason started around a mouthful of food as Tim poked tentatively as his own serving, “Some people are saying you’ve got some sort of connection to the Batman.”

           Tim frowned, his gaze snapping up to evaluate Jason.

           He’d spoken quietly, conspiratorially – like he wanted in on a secret Tim had. Like he wasn’t about to threaten to hang Tim by his thumbs in the depths of Batman’s secret lair for the rest of the foreseeable future.

           Awareness that Jason didn’t know that Tim knew his vigilante identity sparked inside Tim’s brain. He might be able to get out of this. If Robin didn’t know then Tim was only in trouble for touching the quantum computer because Batman didn’t want anyone touching it, and Jason was limited in how he could exact vengeance because the wrong move would reveal his role as Robin. All Tim had to do was talk his way out of this.

           Tim could do that. Right?

           All he had to do was figure out how.

           “I’m sorry I touched the quantum computer,” he blurted.

           Probably not like that.

           Tim hunched down into his shoulders and poked again at his pizza to avoid eye contact with Jason. His ears began to burn again as he felt Jason staring at him.

           “Shit, kid,” Jason said, after swallowing his bite this time, “You’re not in trouble.”

           Tim’s finger paused mid-poke. “I’m not?”

           “Nah,” Jason promised. “Fuck the Man.”

           Tim blinked. “Then why are you talking to me?”

           Jason blinked. A sort of confused expression that was vaguely pitying flickered across his face. Then he reiterated, “’Cause I hear you know who the Batman is, ya know, under the cowl.”

           Okay. So, Jason didn’t know he knew, but he suspected.

           Tim could work with that. Probably.

           He took a bite of pizza purely to keep himself from blurting anymore unhelpful apologies and attempted to calculate the best response.

           “Nobody knows who Batman is,” Tim said eventually.

           “But you’re a fan, right?” Jason nodded at Tim sweater – at the big black and yellow R embroidered on the left-hand side of the red-wool knitwork. Mrs. Davis had made this sweater for him, before her kids had insisted that she retire from babysitting rich Gotham kids and go be a grandmother in the safety and comfort of their town in Florida. Mrs. Davis had been one of the very few people who had supported Tim’s moderately obsessive interest in Batman and Robin.

           She hadn’t really understood, but Tim missed her – missed being able to talk about it.

           “You’ve gotta have some theories,” Jason was saying, his voice persistent enough to pull Tim back out from inside his own head.

           “I don’t have any theories,” Tim said. And it was true enough. He’d had theories. But that was before. Now, he had evidence. Another bite of pizza kept him from saying that out loud.

           “Seriously? None?”

           Tim shrugged and counted the circles of peperoni left on his first slice. Nine more circles, fifteen more bites. His stomach was already wary of the food he was putting in it. If this interrogation lasted more than ten bites, Tim’s stomach would probably begin to protest.

           Adamantly.

           He peeked up at Jason. Who was somehow already finishing slice number three.

           “Then why’s the word on the street that you’ve got insider know-how on ole Batsy?”

           “I dunno,” Tim said with another shrug. Truthfully, the question was bothering him too.

           Tim had never been seen when he’d staked out a spot to catch the dynamic duo on patrol or in the midst of a big bust. Never. They would’ve confronted him then and there if they’d ever found him with a camera full of very clear photos of them in action.

           So, how did Robin know enough to suspect him?

           “Who’d you hear it from?”

           This time, Jason shrugged. “I dunno. People. But like seriously, you don’t have any fucking idea why someone would think you know Batman’s real name?”

           Tim shook his head silently. He wanted to save his pizza for the questions that really needed him to have something to do with his mouth other than blabbing out his secrets.

           “Huh.”

           Jason’s eyes were narrowed, not quite threateningly, but pressingly – like he wasn’t quite sure a threat would be appropriate, but he was certain that Tim wasn’t telling the truth. It was another look Tim had captured him using as Robin. A kind of gentled-down BatglareTM for Robin to use on uncooperative victims instead of how Batman used his on uncooperative criminals – because victims could be uncooperative for all kinds of non-criminal reasons.

           Tim suddenly understood why it was so effective.

           He squirmed in his seat and caved to the need to take another bite of pizza.

           But he wasn’t a victim. Was he?

           Suddenly, Robin’s presence at the museum seemed a lot more suspect. It made sense for Robin to be there because Tim had triggered some sort of invisible Batalarm on the quantum computer, but he’d gotten there way too quickly for that to have been what brought him to the museum initially. He’d’ve had to have already been inside the building.

           But why?

           Tim’s class had been scheduled for this museum trip over a month ago. He’d even talked about it briefly with Bruce Wayne himself at the charity gala he’d attended with his parents – that’s how he’d known about the WayneTech exhibition far enough in advance to plan effectively to sneak down to the basements.

           “When’d you start hearing that rumor?”

           Tim’s question was so sudden and loud in his own ears that he startled himself.

           He seemed to have startled Jason too – who was starting on pizza slice number five and appeared to have been in the middle of a sentence when Tim had jolted into questioning him.

           “Uh, about a week ago, I guess,” Jason explained. “Your name had come up a few times before that in regards to you being a fan, but it wasn’t too long ago that it changed to you having special access or some shit.”

           Tim nodded absently.

           Two weeks ago, there’d been a major drug bust in a neighborhood just over half a mile away from his school. Batman had been tipped off about the drug ring in the same way Tim had: kids who came to school high rode the bus home and the chalk marks on the benches at the stops used by the kids who were using weren’t terribly sophisticated code.

           Tim had snagged some really spectacular shots the night that bust went down.

           Several of Tim’s classmates had exhibited symptoms of withdrawal shortly after that. A few of those students – namely some who’d never seemed to be able to have a civil conversation or simply let Tim pass in silence – had stopped exhibiting those symptoms a few days later. Tim had assumed they’d found a new dealer.

           Maybe they’d needed to find something more valuable to trade too, to make up for getting their old dealer busted.

           Info on the Bat who’d busted them would be pretty valuable.

           Even just a lead on info would’ve been valuable. Tim had been outright stalking Batman and Robin for over a third of his entire lifespan, at this point, and only just recently figured out who Batman really was. And he was a verified genius who’d happenstantially acquired the right life experiences to recognize things like quadruple somersaults. Who’d circumstantially idolized and stalked two different costumed acrobats for several years before he realized they were actually the same person and begun to extrapolate from there.

           Nobody knew anything about Batman.

           A tip on someone who might, would be very valuable indeed.

           Tim was being interrogated by Robin because he was a victim. He just hadn’t been victimized quite yet.

           Tim dropped his pizza like it’d burned him and began to rifle through his backpack for the new cellphone his mother had bought him when school started. It was ‘so he could fit in with his peers’. It was too big to fit in his pocket and he’d never liked wearing a watch, so he’d had to dig to find it and figure out the time.

           It was 4:32pm.

           Shift change for the guards was in less than an hour and they were already definitely antsy for it. Most of the science staff were already heading home to beat the traffic, and most of the new guards wouldn’t be coming in for at least another twenty minutes.

           If Tim were going to lead a team to invade this place and capture an unwilling potential asset, he would do it in the next ten to fifteen minutes.

           “We have to get out of here.”

           Jason frowned, his confusion pronounced with wary unease. But he demonstrated a willingness to trust Tim at his word for no other reason than Tim wanted him to and clambered to his feet. He took his last slice of pizza with him though – and nabbed the two untouched pieces from Tim’s plate as he followed.

           “What’s wrong, Tim,” Jason asked, carefully nonchalant. His hands were full of pizza in the way Tim’s mouth had been to stop him from doing what he wanted to do when asked a stupid question he should’ve known better than to answer – Tim suspected that if Jason wasn’t holding onto the pizza he’d’ve grabbed Tim’s shoulder at this point.

           Tim didn’t know how to answer at all, let alone efficiently communicate what he’d deduced about their current situation. Especially not without revealing that he knew Jason was Robin and could guess why Robin was here talking to him to begin with.

           Jason was rapidly eating though the pizza that was keeping him from grabbing onto Tim’s arm to stop their not-so-subtle scramble towards the museum’s main exit. They made it to within sight of the doors before Jason had inhaled the last piece of crust, and Tim had probably ignored several unheard comments and questions about their rapid egress, when Jason finally lost the battle to avoid physical contact and wrapped his hand around Tim’s elbow.

           Tim swung around to face him as his inertia asserted dominance.

           “Timmy, what’s got you so spooked?” Jason asked. “C’mon. You can tell me. Anything. I won’t rat on you, even if it’s something bad. Lemme help.”

           “I can’t – it’s not – You don’t,” Tim could practically feel the whine building in his voice at all the false starts that his brain attempted to send through his mouth to make the act of communication happen. His brain apparently thought it worked something like magic.

           Tim was frustrated and embarrassed and still very acutely aware of the fact that they needed to get out of the building. Right now.

           And Jason was doing the Robin look, the other one – the one for the scared little bunnies of the victims they came across that needed to be soothed and calmed and promised that they had a friend somewhere in the cold cruel world. Tim knew why it worked – felt it working on him – and yet he was mortified that Robin thought it necessary.

           He wasn’t a bunny. He was an asset. Currently being targeted.

           Recentered, he focused and forced words to come out of his mouth intelligibly.

           “We have to get out of the building.”

           Jason had moved to holding onto both of Tim’s shoulders at some point – holding him steady, holding him still. He looked Tim right in the eye and asked gently, “Why?”

           The words got jammed up in Tim’s throat again and he squeaked.

           And then the museum’s windows exploded inward with a dramatic shower of glass and gunfire as more goons than Tim could count began to repel their way inside.

           Tim closed his eyes and winced at the bite of regret on how fracking close they’d been to getting out of this without any major complications.

           “That’s why,” he groaned.

-----

||   Read on Ao3  |  Read on FF.net  |  Follow updates on Patreon   ||

[secretradiobrooklyn]

SECRET RADIO | 9.26.20

Secret Radio | 9.26.20 |  Hear it here.

“We don’t know where you are but we’re glad you’re here”

Liner notes by Evan, except * means Paige

1. Ayalew Mesfin - “Hasabe (My Worries)”

This track comes to us via Marc Hawthorne in San Francisco and is some hot Ethiopian stomp. Marc has been turning me on to crucial music for years, but I feel like both of our palates have expanded in unexpected directions lately. I love how foreign and how relatable this song sounds at once — “hasabe” really does sound like a guy singing about his worries, which makes it feel like he’s speaking the same language. 

2. Witch - “Introduction”

Such a commandingly hip voice announcing the band and getting us all in the groove. Witch is Zambian rock in a pretty unhinged style — apparently WITCH stands for “We Intend To Create Havoc,” which if true is basically the greatest band name ever. 

3. Erkin Koray - “Cemelim”

Every time I hear this track I think of Jefferson Airplane’s foreboding sense of dark anticipation. The added frills of shifting into Turkish bent-note vocals takes it up another level. This track is from 1974 but carries the whole psychedelic ‘60s wave forward in an unbroken wave. As we mentioned, the video is worth checking out not just because the singer/guitarist is mesmerizing or because the bassist is inherently hilarious but because their outfits are legendary. Our thanks to Brian and Mona for the heads up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-k_Fr67bPQ

4. The Velvet Underground - “Coney Island Steeplechase”

“Lies and betrayals / fruit-covered nails” — naw, just kiddin, this song happens long before Pavement, or the Strokes for that matter. I never really understood what people meant when they said that the Strokes sound like VU, but listening to this song in headphones it kinda feels like the Julian Casablancas built an entire career off Lou’s vocal delivery on this song. And who could blame him? Lou wasn’t usin it anymore.

Hailu Mergia - “Sintayehu”

We got this record during the pandemic and it has been like a stress dissolver. There’s a tape that we got in Manhattan Kansas at a house show we played, a band called Casino Gardens, that I think of every time we hear this album. Not the same in particulars, but very much the same in spirit.

5. Divino Niño - “Melty Caramelo”

One of Sleepy Kitty’s first tours was with Divino Niño (thanks, Brandon!) just as they were assembling, and they have always been a band of fellows we enjoy as much as the music that they write. I did this set of dates with a broken bone in my swole-up, purple right hand, which I wouldn’t recommend to any drummers out there. I will say though that every single drummer in the bar that night told me that they had broken the same exact bone the same way. Not by drumming but by punching an inanimate object. 

6. Moodoïd - “Je suis la montagne”

I think this song is a benefit of Paige learning French for the last couple of years. Found it on a 3.5 hour French mix on Spotify.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCuthCn8zxs

7. Sleepy Kitty - “Dreaming of Waterfalls” demo *

There are like, 7 people who have heard this song until now. This song came pretty mysteriously to me after a completely transformative trip to Kauaʻi for the wedding of ace folks and dear friends Stewart and Trenton. People who have gone to Hawaiʻi have always told me how amazing Hawaiʻi is and how it’ll change your life and it’s the best place in the entire world, and I was always like, “ok, sure whatever” until we went and now I am forever changed. I won’t get too into it here, but it’s all totally true and as amazing as they say. I can’t remember if this song was literally in the dream I had in San Diego the night we returned to the contiguous 48, or if it somehow emerged out of thinking of that dream, but it basically just appeared and I thought about it and thought about it and kept it in my head the whole plane ride back to St. Louis and recorded it pretty much immediately when we got back. I played 2 songs at our friends’ wedding on uke (where I was relieved to get approval from the Hawaiian family, ha ha) and it’s still a very unfamiliar instrument to me but it was the only answer for this song.

This is also one of a few recordings I made shortly before the first of 2 vocal surgeries around that time. It was kind of a stressful time musically; I was still figuring out what was going on, knowing something was wrong, getting hoarse all the time but not knowing what was going on yet.  Learning the songs for the wedding, and this song and this recording are positive memories in what was a very uncertain period in Sleepy Kitty life. I can definitely remember the challenges and limitations of that time, but it’s great to have this beautiful little moment that came out of that time too. When I hear this now, I like it and I’m glad to have it. It transports me back to that magical place and I’m thankful to Stewart and Trenton for having us there to celebrate with them.

8. The Fall - “Arms Control Poseur” (Bonus Version) (whatever that means)

“What do you fear?”

“Being found out.”

“The why do you always give yourself away?”

After initially being repulsed by The Fall, I eventually had what felt like essentially a religious experience after falling asleep listening to them on repeat in the tour bus — somehow their perverse aesthetic had become grafted into my DNA. I became an avid proselytizer for the band, with few takers, for years. Eventually I kind of gave up, baffled both by how intensely I felt their music and how immune everyone else apparently was to it. 

Cut to years later in an apartment on North Ave in Chicago, watching Paige bike up the street towards the window where I stood. She apologized as she walked her bike up the stairs. Sorry I’m late, she said, I just got caught up in the Fall. I don’t know how to explain it. You don’t understand, The Fall is not like other bands.

I literally thought that she was teasing me, and that I must have talked her ear off about the band at some point. But NO — she’d had the exact sort of conversion experience as me. In her case it was to “Extricate,” which was one of my very favorite albums, being the second one I personally owned. 

Still, this record’s aesthetic is completely dominant in my life. I couldn’t even guess how many times I’ve listened to it, and it still fascinates me every time.

“I quite very very much enjoyed 

his jovial lies

lying”

9. T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo - “Wodeka Kpoe”

The day I found this track I was completely distracted by it. It’s so muscular and lean and intense. I love everything about the almost metallic drum sound, the dry vocals, the guitar telling its own narrative, the sharp little shaker going the whole time. It’s the closest thing to punk in Beninese music that I’ve heard. I read recently that this was on a 1983 Albarika Records comp LP (the person referred to the as “legendary,” but I don’t know to whom, or when), and when I looked it up a lot of other tracks that we love from the Soundway comp were there. But as far as I know, it’s not on any of those 21st century collections. So good!

10. Orchestre Abass - “Haka Dunia”

The cover of this 6-song burner shows a guy with a guitar behind a keyboard called TIGER 61, with his foot up on… what? the keys bench? There’s a single pedal on the floor that leads up into the keyboard. The sounds that come from that board though! This is a tone I think of as completely desirable. I guess this is also punk, this one from Togo. I mean, I have no idea what he/they think they’re doing, but to me it feels like it has all the stuff that I love in punk music.

Hailu Mergia

11. T.P. Orchestre de Cotonou Benin - “Moulon Devia”

I just realized this track can be found elsewhere, but I found it on a record credited to T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou Benin, with a great photo of Yehouessi Leopold and Zoundegnon Papillon Bernard on the cover looking like the coolest dudes in the world cos they are. There are some great stereo panning effects, no doubt done live, on the horns at the beginning and the keys solo in the middle, which really enriches the headphone experience. This keys solo uses a suite of sounds that I absolutely love from them — and which are apparently the work of Papillon himself! I knew he was the guitarist who builds sand castles in the air of T.P. songs, but I only just realized that he’s also the guy throwing down those supper trippy Farfisa sounds! Holy smokes, that’s just ridiculous. He and Yehouessi are probably my favorite rhythm combo ever. PLUS they’ve got Bentho Gustave on bass, whose T.P. album was the first one we bought abroad. I mean, this track is so epic.

12. Patrick Juvet - “Où sont les femmes”*

I have a new awesome French teacher, who sends me cabaret songs to check out and says things like “I’m an old queen! What am I to do!” He played this song over Zoom for some live hold music while I was printing something for a recent lesson. I’m excited to hopefully hear more French music from him and also to hear more of his stories of discotheques in the 80s.

Evan adds: The video is well worth your attention as well, especially if you like red sequins glinting disco diamonds beneath deeply feathered hair. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqc7mVZQNFo

13. Le Tigre - “Deceptacon”

This is one of the all-time top art school party songs as far as I know. And why the hell not? It’s pure Olympia, and all the hooks line up all the way down.

I video that someone made for school has essentially become the official video of the song because it’s totally awesome and fits like a pure expression of the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SyBR-M2YvU

14. Themne Song Track 1  

I don’t know who performed this track or what it’s called — it’s just identified as “Themne Song Track 1,” Themne being the name of a tribe in Sierra Leone. I think it might be a “comedian story teller” called Miranda T Denkenneh, but can’t tell.

I’ve been into Janka Nabay and the Bubu Gang for a couple of years now. Nabay is a Sierra Leonan musician who came to NYC and put together a band of hip NY musicians who make this rhythmically complex yet somehow austere dance music that I find totally fascinating. Reading up on them, he was described as translating the music he came from into a more electric style. Well, it turns out that is indeed the case, based on this track from Sierra Leone. This sounds like Janka Nabay but warm and large where his music is focused and tight. I totally see both how damn danceable this Themne 

One of my favorite things about discovering this song is: the notes on the YouTube track are exclusively from ex-pats loving music from home and the old days, calling out their tribe and checking in from wherever they are. One guy, Ibrahim Noah Koroma, writes from Senegal:

tears fall down in my eyes when I listing dis song missing u SL 🇸🇱🇸🇱💪💪💪 I'm proud of my tribe temne 💯💪💪💪

15. The Sugarcubes - “Regina”

The setup of this song is such an angular, proggy spiky comic thing, definitely cool in its own way, but man, when it hits the chorus, it’s absolutely the most gorgeous thing. The lyrics are truly bizarre, and they’re making me appreciate how this band impacted Bjork’s later work. One thing I don’t understand: does she pronounce “Regina” with a hard G because that’s how that word is pronounced in Icelandic? Or is that just something she does?

16. Gétatchèw Mèkurya - “Ambassèl”

The more we learn about Ethiopian jazz and popular music before and after their political strife, the more there is to learn. In fact, one thing I learned about Mèkurya is that he played with Dutch socialist punks The Ex, a band I have admired for a couple of decades now, though mostly because I’m stuck on their album “Scrabbling at the Lock.” They apparently toured together in the aughties… and all of a sudden I can hear how their very different sounds actually relate very aptly. Man. That’s enough to fall in love with music all over again.

Also, one fact that must be acknowledged: Gétatchèw is maybe the best first name ever.

17. Jacques Dutronc - “Et moi, et moi, et moi”

I just dropped these lyrics into Google translate and it turns out he’s got a very identifiable brand of humor — wry, confident, diffident. He always makes me think of Dylan with his delivery.

18. Meas Samon - “Jol Dondeung Kone Key (Going to Get Engaged)”

So much feel! Those key dives just to open the song, man, I don’t even know. And the vocals are spilling over with character — it’s like watching a movie unfold. This is Cambodian, from the late sixties or early seventies. Every time it gets to the keys solos I think about how much I want Dave Grelle to hear this track, like, right now. It’s between this and Abass for sickest keys distortion to be found.

19. T.P. Orchestre - “Senamin” *

What is up with this song? We came across it and kind of set it aside, and then it was just in my head all. the. time. At first I wasn’t sure about the 1996 movie version “I’d Be Surprisingly Good For You” style sax (my LEAST favorite song in Evita) But, even so this song is so...majestic! And mysterious! The haunting melodies dancing around together at the end really got me.  

20. Hallelujah Chicken Run Band - “Alikilula”

The constant interaction of 3s and 4s in Chicken Run songs never fails to delight me. The shapes of the songs are almost like Guided By Voices tracks — one good idea perfectly expressed, and then they’re outta there. 

21. Antoine Dougbé - “Nou Akuenon Hwlin Me Sin Koussio”

If I could pick one album for all of my friends to spin a few times in a row… that would not be easy. But lately, that record would be “Legends of Benin,” the totally headspinning comp put out by Analog Africa. Every track is a deep insight into what rock music can be. In the liner notes, Samy Ben Redjeb takes the listener on a whole record-buying expedition through the southern coast of west Africa, describing where he picked up particular LPs, falling into conversations with some of the musicians, and generally providing insights both romantic and invaluable. (His notes on Dougbé are worth the price of admission.) In one note he mentions talking to a friend about how Africa doesn’t seem to deal well in reggae, and he considers “Nou Akuenon” one of the best attempts on the continent. It hadn’t occurred to me to think of this as reggae… and I still don’t hear it that way. But I like thinking of the band reaching for reggae and making this instead. 

22. Francoise Hardy - “Les temps de l’amour”

23. Ros Sereysothea - Chnam oun Dop-Pram Muy “I’m 16”

I love how fully developed these Cambodian songs are. They’re not aping a particular song or building replicas of songs in English or French: they’re working in pop music just like anyone else. The arrangements are so tight and well structured, and everybody is adding in more than their share on their instruments. Though Ros’s voice steals the show, the backing vocals on this song are especially good as well.

24. Aerovons - “Say Georgia”

Man, one of the pleasures of living in St. Louis was learning the story of The Aerovons, a group of high school kids who got flown across the Atlantic to record at Abbey Road with all of the same gear and technicians who were busy putting together records for The Beatles… only to have the album go unreleased for decades. It’s truly a reminder to appreciate the experience itself and not just the results. These guys experienced the absolute pinnacle of the studio recording dream — there is none higher — but that’s it. None of the fame or the attendant glory, just the knowledge of what they’d been able to do together.

“Texas Thunder Soul 1968-1974”

25. Ravi Shankar - Jazzmine - “Mishrank (Finale)”

The whole “Jazzmine” album is a mindblower, and it’s almost a shame to cut right to the finale of an album that builds its case song by song, illustrating the paths that Shankar’s raga and jazz take toward each other, from “Melodic Moods” to the amazing tabla solos of “Taalank” to “Deshank (Folk Patterns)” to crest with “Mishrank,” where Zep meets jazz club meets Somalian backroom in an Indian realm. Every solo brings a ton of new information about whose voices are adding to this total experience. And more than anything, it sounds like fun.

One thing I dig about this recording is that, as far as I can tell, more than one performance of this song is spliced together into this single track. That seems like a big no-no among jazz folks, but I really don’t mind it one bit — if anything, that helps me hear the song relative to more jarring experimental tape manipulation bands. 

[marsqrd-blog]

          hey guys, i’m oliver. this is mario aka mar. i’m from buffalo, ny so when i learned there was a buffalo, mn, i knew absolutely had to do it ‘em.

❛  ｡ ‹  xavier serrano. he/him. male.  ›  “  MARIO MARINO at dean levinson’s office please.  “  it’s that TWENTY-ONE year old JUNIOR from BUFFALO, MN, right ? can’t imagine what they’re in for this time, after all they are LAIDBACK & LOYAL. then again, their PRIVATE & UNFORTHCOMING tendencies could land them in the dean’s office any time of the day. from what i’ve heard they’ve joined THE MEN'S ICE HOCKEY TEAM and majoring in ARCHITECTURE, but their trademark style consists of SNOWFLAKES CLINGING TO HIS HOODIE AND HAIR, A SMILE LIKE A WARNING BEFORE EVERY HIT, GRUESOME SCARS YOU'VE LEARNED TO LOVE.  ˚ ◝ oliver. 21. they/them. est.

THE STORY ( honestly ngl this part reads like a wikipedia page so skip down to MISC for somewhat more relevant things )

-- minnesota : land of 1000 lakes, the state of hockey, of cold, long winters you learn to love or leave to forget ---- that was where he was born, on the coldest day of the year. maybe there’s something to that because he doesn’t get cold very often. ( yes, the cold never bothered him anyway...).

-- he had a pretty simple childhood, the only son of a single mother ( #doubleshifting ), growing up just a short walk from the lake --- wakeboarding in the summer and playing pond hockey in the winter. 

-- they weren’t a wealthy family, though not struggling mightily either. hockey was an expensive sport, though, and he played through his early days and partially through high school with second and third hand gear when possible.

-- early on, he learned being flexible, adaptable, and always having a good attitude was highly important ; his upbringing definitely had a large effect on that. once he turned 16, he picked up a gig as a waiter to earn some cash for himself. besides being able to scrape enough together to buy a nice new stick, it was certainly a character building experience.

-- architecture was something that felt natural to pursue. hockey wasn’t the end all, be all, though he hoped he would remain connected to the sport ( beyond beer league ) after his prime playing days ended. he had a certain knack for sketching and accurately capturing perspectives -- uncharacteristic maybe, but there all the same. he turned to architecture in the hopes of someday being able to design an nhl arena in the future.

-- cornell felt like a huge longshot : prestigious, ivy league, and terrifyingly expensive. it was his reach school ( st. cloud state was his fallback ), but seemed worth the risk. as luck would have it, cornell had it’s eye on someone on a rival team his high school team played in the state tournament at the end of his junior year, but in the particular game they visited, he caught their eye as well. that conversation afterward was a shock to him, the first time he considered possibly being good enough to make hockey more than just a fun pastime. from there, it seemed too good to be true : acceptance into cornell, a nice athletic scholarship, hockey on a d1 team. 

-- that summer, it was one of his days off from the restaurant and he was at a friend’s lakehouse watching the nhl draft with some friends. he was aware it was a very slim possibility ( and well, everyone who plays always hopes just a little right? ). so they had day two of the draft on in the background, while they were eating some freshly grilled burgers and drinking some not completely legally obtained beer and making plans to go out on the lake later. mar was on the couch cracking some joke when he saw his name on the tv : the fourth round, 95th overall to the vancouver canucks. he kinda stared at it not comprehending, and once he did, he stood up and told his friends they were going to the lake.

-- he’s tried not to let himself think to hard about the fact. the fourth round is a very long shot at best --- but it’s not impossible. he’s dutifully gone to development camp every summer since, but his focus has remained to his school and on his work.

-- he knows he has a choice to make at the end of this season : stay another year to finish college or take that next step forward. architecture is what he likes but hockey is what he loves, and maybe he didn’t really realize he might actually get a chance to live out his true nhl dream. he’s been trying not to focus on it. what he does know, is that this year or after he graduates he plans on signing with vancouver if they’ll still have him -- no matter what anyone tells him. they’re the ones that believed enough in him to draft him three years ago, and he feels a sense of loyalty to them for that.

MISC

-- he almost exclusively goes by ‘mar’. no one knows if it’s taken from his first or last name : it’s a left twix/right twix kinda debate. his teammates probably call him marsy or some shit like that.

-- 6′3″, 193 lbs

-- his wardrobe is pretty much all adidas pants, cornell hockey hoodies, t-shirts from various hockey tournaments, running races, and other misc things you get free t-shirts from. he also has a pretty big chunk of canucks related things from the three development camps he’s been to, but he doesn’t wear it too much because it feels a little like a brag to him sometimes.

-- he’s not that superstitious. he does have a routine before every game, but if things get messed up or done in the wrong order, it doesn’t phase him at all.

-- when he was accepted into cornell, he took some of his long-stashed savings to buy brand new bauer skates. it was the first time he’d ever had brand-new skates. they fittingly ended up having red accents. all his pads are still secondhand, though.

-- he has a small sketchbook. he’s constantly sketching buildings, usually in pen. when it’s nice out, you can find him on the quad drawing some campus building or another. he’s likely redesigned lynah rink like a hundred times already.

-- he prefers to be in the shadows rather than the limelight, and his style of play dictates that. he’s not a goal-scorer, not an offensive defenseman, and isn’t all the flashy. very much has a  “if no one notices me, then i’m doing my job”-type mentality, because he assumes if someone does it’s probably because he didn’t do enough to prevent a goal.

-- his reaction to being drafted is very On Brand : constantly brushing off things that are pretty momentous. it comes from a bit of a place of feeling like he’s not really worthy of praise. not that he doesn’t like praise, it’s just... it’s complicated ?.

-- very much a steadying force. knows when to laugh, when to be serious, how to just be a rock on the blue line and in the locker room. he tries not to let too much phase him or get to him either. sometimes people joke he would’ve made a good goalie because of it. ( he laughs because while he loves his goalies, they’re really a complete different breed ).

PERSONALITY

+ laidback, loyal - private, unforthcoming

mar is the kind of guy you want to be friends with. he laughs easily and has a certain friendliness about him. that being said, he has a way to make you feel like you know him but you really don’t. he’s a deeply private person and doesn’t freely disclose much of his close personal life : everything from his emotions, to the fact his wrist is bothering him, to any doubts he has. the frivolous things are given freely : weekend plans, parties, opinions. there’s no true reason for his private state, just that he feels it’s important to keep some things very close to your chest.

on the ice he’s far more imposing, unafraid to throw big hits or get in a scrum if he needs to. he’ll protect his goalie as well as his fellow teammates if the occasion arises.

THE AESTHETICS

SNOWFLAKES CLINGING TO HIS HOODIE AND HAIR...      not the type to wear a winter jacket even if the weather maybe calls for it. he loves when it snows and enjoys walking to class when it does so.

A SMILE LIKE A WARNING BEFORE EVERY HIT...      “ MARINO smiles before every hit in this thing so the other guy knows what’s coming. ” it’s no secret that mar is a physical presence on the ice ; not dirty, just physical. and he enjoys it.

( tw. kinda graphic injury?? ) GRUESOME SCARS YOU'VE LEARNED TO LOVE...           well... mar almost died when he was sixteen, in the middle of playing a tournament. someone crashed the net, he went down trying to defend it, and a skate slashed his neck. it’s a miracle it was a shallow cut --- a few millimeters more and his main artery would’ve been slashed. his souvenir from the incident is a three inch scar on his neck that starts near his adam’s apple and extends at a diagonal toward his right ear. it’s healed to look a bit like a rash or hickey.

ACCOLADES

RUNNER UP, ECAC DEFENSIVE DEFENSEMAN OF THE YEAR ( 2018-19 ) : given to the best defensive defenseman in the conference as voted by the coaches of each ECAC team.

NCAA (ECAC) ALL-ROOKIE TEAM ( 2017-18 )

95th OVERALL, 2017 NHL DRAFT ( vancouver canucks )

SCOUTING REPORT

MARINO provides a strong, physical and highly reliable defensive presence on the blue line. he is unafraid to block shots and sacrifice his body to do so. his skating ability, while not elite, is more than proficient and he can get significant speed when necessary. his is more likely to stand up to hits rather than evade them. MARINO exhibits exceptional passing ability; however, he could do well to improve his overall offensive capabilities and on-ice agility. regardless, his value on the penalty kill and ability to diffuse high danger situations from the opposing team must not be overlooked.

WANTED CONNECTIONS

-- i can see him being friends with whoever the student photographer is that captures the team. creative processes fascinate him.

-- close friend on the team: preferably another dman or goalie. why is this here. i should just send it into the main for the wc list huh.

i suck at coming up with these honestly, so i’m just going to go read intros and hopefully be inspired along the way.

[ryanmeft]

Movie Review: Motherless Brooklyn

The greatest villains of noir are never the central antagonists. The corrupt cops, the slimy businessmen, and the small time hoods and assassins typified by the genre’s heyday are of course all vital to the seedy underrealms these movies sink us into, but the true villain is always the world itself, and specifically the rotten and festering systems whose waste drips down and creates the conditions for battered, weary detectives and crooks with no hope in the first place. This was implied in most classic noir, but Edward Norton’s Motherless Brooklyn makes it explicit. It focuses on a man seen by others as a freak, trying to do a good thing in a city that exists because of bad things. He’s up against such a vital underpinning of his entire world that he might as well be trying to punch out the moon.

Lionel Essrog is not exactly the first person you might choose in such a fight, even if one overlooks his Tourette’s syndrome, which in the decidedly unenlightened 1950’s is unlikely. He’s one of several detectives working for the aging Frank Minna (Bruce Willis), whose particular skills would have been equally applicable on the other side of the law. Also under Minna, in a crew the older man pulled from the morass of an abusive orphanage and led through World War II, are the force-and-bluster tough guy Tony Vermonte (Bobby Cannavale), who has an interesting relationship with Minna’s widow (Leslie Mann); the sharp information-gathering Danny Fantl (Dallas Roberts); and the reserved and slightly bumbling Gilbert Coney (Ethan Suplee). The film opens with a terribly thrilling sequence in which Minna seems to be trying to make a deal with some underworld figures, and as one might expect the deal goes wrong, resulting in Minna’s eventual death.

Let’s take a moment and look at that sequence. It takes up the first half hour or so of the film, and it takes its time. Essrog, played by Norton, listens in for a signal from Minna, and you know something is going to go wrong. Yet where other movies might make that a quick and easy scene, Norton gets our hopes up that Minna might live, and it is genuinely affecting when he doesn’t, because of how much he clearly meant to our protagonist. This death is more than just a device to set off the plot of the film. It defines Lionel’s key character traits: loyalty to those he trusts, suspicion towards most everyone else, all of the wariness that a lifetime of being infantilized by others would give a man. His character is not defined by Tourette’s, which, for the record, is presented accurately as the repetition of tics and phrases rather than by the cliche and rare repeating of profanity. His photographic memory is a tool for detective work, but also a burden; imagine never forgetting anything, and if you’ve suffered at all in life you might realize that isn’t a superpower. He wears his boss’s old hat and coat, in tribute to the man rather than to try and be him. Lionel is a fully developed character, and not a gimmick. The film is patient with him and with the plot, the kind of patience lacking in modern films where audiences will sit for more than two hours only if computer effects are involved.

His case is no gimmick, either, but a fully developed and twisted web that goes, of course, up to the Very Top. The central question: why was Minna, ostensibly a licensed private eye, talking to mobsters as if they were dealing with each other? Lionel digs into this, and it becomes clear it involves the city’s powerful planning commissioner, Moses Randolph (Alec Baldwin). He seems able to demand whatever he wants from the government, behaves like a Godfather instead of a public servant, and is involved in the demolition of slums. Ostensibly, the plan is to provide better housing for the mostly black residents, an assertion which is challenged by two people. The first is wary-but-idealistic housing activist Laura Rose (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who develops a connection with Lionel that feels true and complex and not like an obligatory screenplay romance. Mbatha-Raw is a seriously undervalued actress, and here she represents the counter-culture of jazz, which was primarily African-American and seen as degenerate at the time. Her uncle Billy (Robert Wisdom) and cool-as-ice trumpet-playing friend (Michael K. Williams) have some level of insight into what exactly is happening to Brooklyn’s poor black population, and they become allies. It must be noted that scenes in nightclubs are handled perfectly, feeling like the close, crowded, smoky places that jazz clubs should be.

The second is a ragged man with a frantic voice named Paul (Willem Dafoe), who appears at meetings and angrily whips the crowd into frenzies against Moses. He lays out what crooked deals are going on, but encourages Lionel to be the one to stop it; he cannot, for reasons that will be revealed. I found him the most fascinating supporting character on the canvas, and a perfect role for Dafoe. In movies, most of the good-aligned characters we meet will eventually abandon all self-centered interests and heroically join the cause at great self-sacrifice. Film noir is decidedly unsuited to such sentiment, but in the old days often suffered from it nonetheless. Paul is the apotheosis of that: he is legitimately angry at the conspiracies he sees, but has been too hurt by his own failures to fix them in the past, and now wants to pass the buck so he does not have to suffer any more losses. In our heart of hearts, most of us know we are more like Paul.

Earlier I mentioned the look of the jazz world, but I must mention the look of the rest of the world, as well. Regular Mike Leigh cinematographer Dick Pope films a mid-century New York reproduced by production designer Beth Mickie, that is lost, where boat-sized cars rumble down narrow streets and dark shadows are hidden in the eaves of bridges and corners of doorways. Lionel is at one point invited to meet with Moses to strike a deal, and Moses’ office is as spacious as the rest of the city is not; in an excellent wide shot, he patrols this throne room as a king, passing judgments and decisions entirely as it pleases him. This is not a man who will fall like a typical movie crook, and indeed the film leaves open whether Lionel succeeds at all.

Norton, who is friends with novelist Jonathan Lethem, has, with the author’s consent, done what a filmmaker should: used the parts of the book that suit, and changed those that did not. Most notably, he has moved the 90’s setting (this project has been long gestating) to the 1950’s and wrapped up the plot in one of our great modern national stains, the New York housing discrimination that still affects the African-American community today. The parallels are both obvious and buried, and though Norton has discussed the connections between Moses and Donald Trump, this is not an overtly political picture. It is instead a deeply involving mystery with highly engaging characters and an intriguing world, that happens to have greater points under the surface for those who are looking.

Verdict: Highly Recommended

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

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[newt-the-newt]

The Mandalorian’s Everything - Chapter 6

Story Masterlist

Episode 2- "Chapter 2: The Child"

Word Count: 9800

Warnings: Whatever happens in the episode oof

"... and the Mandalorian swooped in and saved the day!" you beamed as you swung the kid above your head, making it giggle both at the ride and the ship noises you were making.

Said Mandalorian was walking a few paces ahead of the you, half listening to the stories you were telling the Child about the two of you over the years and half looking out for any threats, especially since you now had a very valuable target on your hands.

He was wary; speaking from plenty of experience, anything could happen at anytime.

The more he thought about the threats that could happen, the more he thought about protecting you, and now the kid.

There was no denying that you and the kid have already become best friends. Or, even more so, like mother and child. It was obvious in the first 30 seconds of meeting the baby you would be a great mother, and it was proved the longer he observed your interactions with each other. You'd be strong and stern, yet tender and kind and loving and gentle and really, really, really...

He shook his head to get rid of those thoughts and continued forward, the egg thingy floating behind him and you trailing a few paces back.

The bounty hunter was doing his best to walk the three of you back to the ship, but it was becoming increasingly difficult.

Mud was sticking to his shoes and was beginning to crawl its way up his legs. He had to turn around and catch you twice from some particularly slippery patches.

It didn't seem to phase you though, since he heard you pointing out the little lizards you saw and kept your smile on at all times. You had asked if it was okay for you to carry the Child, to which he answered of course, but he still brought the... carriage?... just in case.

"Now, let me tell you about an even better superhero than the Mandalorian. I know what you're thinking! Y/n, how could there be someone even better than the Mandalorian, he sounds like such a great guy. And I would say well, he is, but sometimes he can get grumpy (especially when he's hungry), and nobody likes a grumpy man, oh no. But this superhero is the most courageous, brave, beautiful, strong, smart, and funny person, and she goes by the name of-"

The Mandalorian furrowed his eyebrows and slowed to a stop as he heard the sound of something new, though he couldn't quite place it. "Y/N," he called hesitantly to you. It sounded like footsteps.

He heard you stop abruptly, both in walking and your story. "Are you serious?" you asked. "I just told like 6 stories about you, don't I get a turn-"

"Y/N," he called a bit louder this time and waved you over. He placed his hand on his gun and looked around while he waited for you to catch up. Right now you were surrounded by tall rocks besides the path in front and behind you. You were standing in the shade because the sun was blocked out by the tall cliffs, but the heat was still intense as he could see some sweat dripping off your forehead.

As you came and stood next to him the Mandalorian whispered, "Keep the kid close." He could see you nod in his peripherals, staying silent because he knew you could hear it too: the sound of movement of something much bigger than those lizards.

The bounty hunter instinctually put his left arm in front of you while the other gripped the gun. It was silent, save for the wind blowing in your faces and your heavy breathing in anticipation. To his right he noticed a shadow move quickly, making him look left to find the source.

All of a sudden a Trandoshan, an alien with orange-brown scaly skin and four short horns on the crown of it's head, jumped towards the Mandalorian, swinging it's vibro-axe and attacking the bounty hunter.

"Get back," he grunted in your direction as he quickly pushed the carriage away and turned to try and shoot his attacker, but he wasn't quick enough.

The Trandoshan knocked the blaster out of his hand and swung it's axe straight for the bounty hunter, so he swiftly shot his head back and blocked the repeated hits with his wrist guards.

On the fourth swing the Mandalorian caught the axe and began wrestling the alien for it. The Trandoshan tried to punch him in the head but that failed when the bounty hunter deflected it with one arm and twisted the axe with the other, effectively making the attacker lose his balance and flip onto the ground.

Just as the bounty hunter was about to stab the opponent, another of it's kind came from nowhere and thrust it's own axe out, blocking the Mandalorian from his actions and tangling the two axes together.

The second Trandoshan freed his axe and swung again, crippling the blade of the bounty hunter's axe causing him to throw it to the side, rendering it useless. Panting, the Mandalorian ducked under another swing of the axe before taking out his Amban Rifle and using it to combat his foe.

First he waved the rifle above his head an maneuvered it to be in front of him, turning on the electricity and shocking the scaled enemy till it was dead. He groaned as the Trandoshan he knocked down earlier used the broken axe to cut deeply into his left arm, but the bounty hunter quickly turned to face the surprise attacker and smacked it's head with the razor sharp edge of the rifle.

With both of his opponents on the ground he whipped his head around to find you in your own mess, a third Trandoshan standing behind you with his arm around your neck. He ran over as fast as he could, watching as you elbowed the alien in the stomach and slithered out of its grip, then kicked its legs so hard the scaly alien fell back and hit its head on the ground.

The Mandalorian aimed his rifle at the Trandoshan's head and as soon as he could see you crouching and covering your own, he shot the alien and watched as it disintegrated into ashes.

With heavy breathing coming from the both of you the bounty hunter held his hand out to you, gently helping you stand up. He looked to his left and was relieved to see you had put the kid in the floating egg, and it was just sitting there cooing at the two of you.

That was when he heard what sounded like beeping, causing the both of you to look to your right and see a tracking fob sitting in the mud. You quickly rushed over to it and picked up a rock, smashing the fob into tiny pieces.

"Does this mean they're always going to be onto us?" you panted, looking to the Mandalorian for some answers. He slowly nodded his head and looked at the kid, now realizing just how dangerous this situation was going to be. ---

It was beginning to get dark out, so the bounty hunter offered to rest for a while which you didn't hesitate to agree upon.

He was sitting next to the small oil lamp you had turned on, grunting in pain as you sat next to him and tended to the wound on his arm.

He did his best to focus on anything but his arm, opting on your features and humming as you continuously shocked the wound with the very small taser. He had to admit, the distraction was working quite well.

Your hair had fallen out of it's ponytail long ago, leaving it to cascade down your back and occasionally fall into your eyes. There was a small crease between your eyebrows as you concentrated on the task at hand, and your skin had strange reflections dancing across it from the glow of the lamp.

You had stopped for a moment to look down at something, and the Mandalorian was about to ask you what was wrong before he saw it too. The kid had somehow managed to climb out of the carriage and walk it's way over to you, trying to climb up onto your leg.

Giggling at it you gently picked it up and brought it back over to the egg, carefully putting it back inside. "I have to go help Lumpy for a few more minutes," you whispered in its direction, wrapping the blankets around its tiny body. "So I need you to wait in here. Okay?"

The baby only cooed back and grabbed onto the finger you were using to caress its face. The Mandalorian watched as you smiled brightly and gave it one of your leather wrist bands to inspect and hopefully grab its attention enough to keep it out of trouble.

He saw you nod in satisfaction that the kid was preoccupied with the intricate designs of the wrist band before you turned back to the bounty hunter's arm, picking up the taser and beginning again.

This went on for a few more minutes, you shocking the wound in an attempt to close it while humming, the baby turning the piece of fabric in his hands over and over again in complete and utter fascination, and the bounty hunter wondering how the hell you were managing to make him fall even more in love with you after all this time. It truly wasn't fair.

As he watched you with a silent admiration behind his mask, he couldn't help but get lost in his thoughts. The Mandalorian loved and hated the mask for many reasons when it came to you. He loved it because it allowed him to be able to memorize your features without you even noticing, but he hated it because he wasn't able to do anything about it.

How much longer was he supposed to go on with this stupid game of pretending like everything was okay? Because, at least in his mind, it most certainly was not. He just wanted to be able to hold you and love you and never ever let you go, but some stupid gut feeling told him that now was not the time. Not yet.

He's never hated his gut feeling more. It hasn't let him down yet, though, so that means he's sticking to it. The worst part about it is that this is the one time he can't even ask you for your opinion, your help and view of the situation, which has guided him in the right direction countless times.

It's all so messed up, but the bounty hunter's hoping that soon he'll be able to work up the courage to at least tell you something. Anything.

His thoughts got cut off by you talking to him with a very gentle tone as you started to wrap the wound on his arm.

"I think I closed your cut as far as it can go, but I'll still have to wrap it so it won't get infected. Even though it's extremely useless for me to say this you're gonna have to try and ease up a bit on that arm, just for a day or two to help it heal. However, it seems like with our luck right now that isn't going to happen," you sighed, beginning to clean up all of the supplies.

"Thank you for helping me," he grunted out, biting his lip to stop him from crying out in pain as he picked up his broken chest plate and began shocking that as well in hopes of bringing the pieces of metal back together.

He flicked some sort of switch and an orange light came on, effectively making the author question what the hell was going on.

The bounty hunter was interrupted by your gasp and quickly whipped his head up, watching you put your hand over your heart. He was about to ask what was wrong before he saw you pick up the kid from beside you place him in your lap.

"You almost gave me a heart attack, how did you get out of the carriage again?"

The Child only replied by giggling and waving your leather wrist band above its head, making you chuckle as well. "Yes, that is pretty interesting isn't it?"

You laughed again when you gave it the second bracelet, watching as the baby gasped and slowly reached out for the second one. It held one in each hand and looked back and forth between them, not sure what it was supposed to do with two wrist bands.

The Mandalorian continued tinkering with the machine while he faintly heard you talking to the kid. When he was finished he glanced up to see the you lying on the ground with your eyes closed and the kid snuggled up into your arms, both of your breathing patterns slow and even.

He sighed as he grabbed the blanket from inside the carriage and opened it, shook it out and then laid it on top of you before putting out the lamp and attempting to get comfortable on the rocks as well.

He didn't go to sleep, even though he wouldn't tell you that, and chose to stay on look out in case something were to attack again. ---

It was bright and early on the next day when the three of you walked over a ridge with the sun slowly rising behind you. The Mandalorian could tell you didn't get enough sleep because you kept rubbing your eyes and yawning, but he knew time was slim ever since the kid was around, meaning you had to keep moving.

He wasn't sure how much longer you walked when you reached the ship, but he did know it was about mid-day because the sun was high in the sky by now. He wasn't paying too much attention to the sun, though, because a situation much more pressing presented itself and now he was fuming.

He had walked days upon days in the desert only to come back and find out that some stupid Jawas thought they could rip his ship into pieces and steal whatever they wanted. Well, not on his watch, that's for damn sure.

Before he could wait for you to catch up the Mandalorian took full advantage of his position on the higher ground and took out his rifle, quickly aiming and shooting at one of the Jawas stealing his things. He then reloaded his rifle and aimed at another one, not thinking about the consequences it may hold later.

As he began reloading for the third shot you kneeled down in front of him and placed your hands on either side of his helmet.

"What the hell are you doing?" you screamed, looking at him with wild eyes.

"What do you mean what am I doing," he yelled back, just as exasperated. "They've just torn a part the entire ship!"

"We can get it back, but it's not going to be easy now that you've killed some of them-" your arguing was cut off by the Jawa's Sandcrawler starting up and beginning to drive away.

"Y/N we've got to get our stuff back!" He didn't wait for your response as he bolted for the Sandcrawler, running at full speed. When he got closer the bounty hunter knelt on one knee and aimed for a main power source to the vehicle, firing as quickly as he could. It slowed down the Sandcrawler but not enough to stop it, making the Mandalorian sigh as he got back up to chase it again.

Once he got right beside the massive machine he jumped to his left and grabbed onto the droid chute, using his arms to pull his body up to reach the ladder. He gripped the first rung of the ladder with one hand and swung his other over, then stopped for a minute to take a breath.

With legs dangling the bounty hunter did his best to pull himself up, using the momentum of the Sandcrawler. The second his leg reached the first rung of the ladder the Mandalorian began climbing it, not hear your screaming for him to stop and think for a second.

Grunting from the pain in his arm because of the gash (he rolled his eyes internally as he realized you were correct in the situation not letting him take it easy), he continued to pull himself up the ladder. Just as his hands reached the top rung, he felt the Sandcrawler turn to the right, making him look to the right as well.

That's when he noticed what the Jawas were doing; there was a large piece of rock sticking out from a wall, and they were going to try knocking him off with it. Luckily he was at the top of the ladder, meaning he could quickly lay down on his side on the small ledge and avoid the jutting out rock.

He did just this, with seconds to spare.

After a big breath of relief the Mandalorian looked up only to see the Jawas were throwing spare parts down the side of their Sandcrawler in an attempt to knock him off, but this failed when he grabbed onto the ladder again for support.

The bounty hunter climbed back onto the ledge and stood up, back leaning against the outside of the vehicle, looking all around while thinking of what to do next. The Jawas were above and throwing more things at him, and you were to his right running at a slower pace behind the baby carriage, but he knew that you knew as long as you could see the massive tin can you'd be fine.

Glancing to his left the Mandalorian noticed that there were pieces of metal sticking out of the exterior wall of the Sandcrawler and immediately began climbing them, determined to get his ship pieces back.

He climbed about half the height of the wall when a Jawa opened a window just above him, making him reach for the ledge as extra support than the tiny pieces of metal sticking out.

This did not work in his favour, however, because the Jawa then shut the lid of the window on his fingers so hard the bounty hunter had to pull back immediately, his feet slipping too. This lead to him hanging on for dear life by just his right hand, and he could hear you scream his name as he almost fell off the Sandcrawler.

Grunting from the exertion the Mandalorian rolled his eyes at his own stupidity before launching his whipcord thrower at the large canon resting on the roof of the vehicle. Once the line wrapped around the gun and was stable enough to support his weight the bounty hunter then placed both feet on the side of the Sandcrawler and began slowly walking up.

The Jawa's continued to throw miscellaneous items at him but the bounty hunter's grip on the cord was stronger, and he slowly pulled himself up the huge machine. Debris kept falling in his face but it was really only starting to annoy him and made him want to push further even more.

For good measure he grabbed one of the Jawas poking its head out of a window and tossed it behind him, not really paying attention to its scream as it fell to its death.

Even though he couldn't make out the exact words you were saying the Mandalorian could hear in your tone that you were scolding him greatly for what he just did, and he instantly felt a bit bad. A bit.

The Jawas then began hitting the cord with the tips of their weapons, causing the rope to slack and give him away a bit, but it held and the Mandalorian climbed the whole way up, reaching the top and throwing another Jawa off the Sandcrawler.

He then placed both arms on the lip of the floor and heaved his way up, then quickly got to his feet and drew his gun.

As soon as he stood up to full height, though, the Mandalorian knew that this was a big mistake. He was extremely outnumbered with at least 20 Jawas all aiming their own ion blaster at him. Each and every single one was fired, making his body go stiff for a second, then convulse, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. The last thing he felt being the sensation of falling to the sound of your screams of anguish.

---

You watched with horror as the Mandalorian got shot at multiple times by an ion blaster and fell back off of the Sandcrawler, hitting the ground so hard you cringed, then went limp.

"LUMPY!" you screamed, running at full speed to get to his body and ignoring the tears that started streaming down your face.

You knelt down beside him as soon as you could, shaking his shoulders and his head, sobbing.

"Lumpy, get up, please, it's okay," you sniffled, feeling around where you could for any injuries. "Come back to me!"

You glanced up to see the Sandcrawler slowly moving forward with the Jawas standing on top and laughing at you, making you feel quite angry at their rude behaviour.

"You get back here right now and help him," you yelled at them. "I know for a fact that it is not the Jawa way to-"

You were cut off by a shot from one of the short creatures by its ion blaster hitting you directly in the chest, making you convulse the same way the Mandalorian did and fall back next to him, shaking uncontrollably. You watched the world go black as your eyes rolled to the back of your head and your throat began to close from the electric shock, making it hard to breathe.

The last thing you remember is hearing the Jawa's tedious laughter, and the throbbing of your head from the lack of oxygen.

---

The Mandalorian shot his eyes open and groaned as he sat up, taking in his surroundings. To his right he noticed the tracks of the Sandcrawler belonging to the thieving Jawas continue to further than the eye could see, the machine long gone in the time he was passed out.

To his left he saw you lying beside him and immediately crawled over your body, quickly becoming desperate as he shook your body and called your name.

"Y/N, hey open your eyes for me, come on now," he pleaded. The bounty hunter could see your chest slowly rising and falling, encouraging him to continue his attempts at waking you up.

"Come on, sweetheart, you know I can't do this without you. Y/N, come on, you gotta wake up," he ignored the light shaking of desperation in his voice as he pressed on, determined to wake you up.

He breathed a sigh a of relief as you opened your eyes just as suddenly as he did and sat up, scanning everywhere with wild eyes as your breathing picked up instantly. Sensing your panic he brought your face to his, making you look at him directly.

"Hey, it's okay, I'm right here," he stated firmly, trying to make you understand. "You're safe, it's okay, I've got you." At hearing these words your body seemed to deflate into his, and he let you rest your head on his shoulder as you cried, hugging you and rocking you slowly back and forth.

"I thought you were dead," you whispered, making him glance down at you quickly.

"I'm not, I'm right here," he vowed, tightening his grip just a bit.

"You know," you sniffled, rubbing your cheeks to rid of the tears but keeping your head buried in his shoulder. "You can be really stupid sometimes."

This made the Mandalorian laugh through his nose and nod his head, agreeing with your statement. "Yeah, I know."

Together the two of you looked at the kid and its cute little frown, and then back at each other. The bounty hunter placed his hands on your hips and helped you up, saying, "Let's head back to the ship, then we can make our next move."

With your nod of confirmation the three of you headed back, dreading the information of just how bad the ship's condition was in.

---

The closer he got to the ship the more angry the bounty hunter seemed to get. The Jawas had literally left nothing behind, taking even the smallest things, including the panels of the outside walls of the ship.

He walked inside and went straight for the weapon's closet, slamming them shut in anger when he saw that it was completely empty.  He then climbed up to the cockpit to see you sitting in the pilot's seat, flipping switches and pushing buttons to see just how many things weren't working.

The Mandalorian glanced back at the left engine to only to see black smoke puffing out of it, then looked to the right one to see it met the same fate. He heard you sigh and turned to face you, waiting to hear your news.

"We're completely offline," you stated, crossing your arms and looking around. "It's the Jawa nature to steal anything even remotely useful, and that's what they did." You heaved a big sigh before continuing.  "What do you think we should do?"

Before he could reply the both of you heard a cooing noise and turned to face it. The Mandalorian saw the kid walking slowly up the ramp with it's tiny legs, reaching it's hand out towards you.

This made you put a on a bright smile and run to go pick it up, spinning it around to make the Child giggle. The bounty hunter couldn't help but smile softly at what was going on in front of him, observing as you then placed the Child on your hip. Despite the circumstance, he realized that he was indeed very lucky to not be doing it alone.

"Should we go ask the Ugnaught for help?" you suggested as you rocked the kid back and forth in your arms.

The Mandalorian sighed and slumped over, looking at the ground. "I don't think we have a choice," he replied in a very defeated tone.

"Well then," you perked up as you tickled the baby on its stomach, walking down the ramp and in a random direction. "We better get moving."

"Y/N," he called, laughing a bit through his nose as you continued your trek.

"Yeah?"

"He lives that way," the bounty hunter smirked, pointing in the complete opposite direction of where you were going. He watched with amusement as you slyly turned yourself around and began walking in that direction, stating,

"I knew that, I was just testing to make sure you knew that too."

The Mandalorian rolled his eyes at that statement and began following you, not realizing how glad he was to have you in such a situation like this.

---

After at least another day of walking tirelessly through the desert, the three of you came upon the moisture farm of the alien that helped you a few days prior.

It was getting close to nighttime and the bounty hunter could tell that you were starting to get cold, but kept quiet because he knew his arguing would work to no avail.

Together you walked up to the shorter man who was up on his radio tower, fixing something at the very top.

"I thought you were dead," the Ugnaught deadpanned as he continued with his task, not bothering to even look down to see who approached him.

The both of you stayed silent as he stepped down the ladder and looked at the baby that you had set down on the ground. "This is what was causing all the fuss?" he asked, confusion lacing his tone.

"We think it's a child," the Mandalorian stated, pressing buttons on his wrist as he spoke.

You whipped your head around to face him and gave him a dumbfounded look. "You don't say," you expressed in a mocking tone, pointing to the baby that was preoccupied following a frog.

The Mandalorian stuck his tongue out at you even though you couldn't see and continued on. "Our ship has been destroyed," he explained. "We're trapped here."

"Stripped, not destroyed," the Ugnaught corrected as he grabbed another tool. "The Jawas steal, they don't destroy."

"Stolen or destroyed, it makes no difference to me," the bounty hunter replied as he accepted the small device offered to fix his wrist control panel. You walked over and ripped the tool from his hands, giving him a glare at his tone and set to work on fixing the panel.

He ignored it and continued on. "They're protected by their crawling fortress, meaning there's no way to recover the parts."

"You can trade," the Ugnaught countered, looking directly at the bounty hunter.

"With Jawas?" he exclaimed in a very unconvinced tone. "Are you out of your mind?"

The bounty hunter yelped as he felt a small shock in his forearm, and looked down to see your smirking face. "It's not a bad idea, Lumpy. I used to do it all the time with my Grandma."

The shorter alien nodded. "I will take you to them."

The Mandalorian sighed as he knew he had no choice but to comply.

"I have spoken."

Together the three of you turned around to look at the kid, and watched as it put a frog in its mouth.

"Hey," scolded to Mandalorian. "Spit that out." He then rolled his eyes as the baby instead ignored his words ate the frog whole, turning to see the look of laughter on your face.

You then looked up at him and shrugged, knowing he was giving you a look of question. "You gotta eat what you gotta eat, and that is clearly what he wants to eat."

"Why do you have to say it in such a weird way?"

"Am I wrong?"

"... No."

You shrugged again and then went over to the baby, picked him up and sat him on your shoulders as you walked back to the Ugnaught's small home.

The Mandalorian mumbled under his breath as he followed you, shaking his head and contemplating many of his life choices.

---

After a very long and rainy ride in the trolley attached to the blurrg, you arrived at the campsite of the Jawas.

The Mandalorian jumped off and held his hand out for you, keeping a wary eye out for the stupid tiny aliens that tore apart his whole ship.

He held his gun out in the other, the Jawa's attention on him not going unnoticed.

"They really don't like you," observed the Ugnaught.

The Mandalorian watched you roll your eyes as you responded, "Yeah, well he did disintegrate a few of them."

"You need to drop your rifle," the shorter man said.

The bounty hunter shook his head. "I'm a Mandalorian. Weapons are part of my religion."

"Then you are not getting your parts back," the Ugnaught deadpanned, and the Mandalorian glared your giggle.

He sighed, and relctantly gave in. "Fine."

"And the blaster." The Ugnaught then turned around in greetings of the Jawas. "Good day!" he shouted in Jawaese, raising his hands above his head. As the shorter man continued his conversation with the thieves, the bounty hunter turned to face you.

He watched as you placed the Child on your head and cooed at its giggles, then walked up to you and booped the baby's nose. The kid laughed much louder than expected from such a tiny body, making the Mandalorian smile and look down to see you doing the same.

"Stay here," he whispered. He pinched your elbow lightly to make you laugh then spun around and went to meet the Jawas and get his parts back. He went and sat down beside the shorter man, awaiting what was to be said.

"They will trade all the parts for the beskar," the Ugnaught translated.

"What? I'm not gonna trade anything. These are my parts," the Mandalorian shot back, ignoring the holes you were burning into his skull with your glare. "They stole them from me."

He then tried to speak back in their language, doing his best to remember some of the words you taught him last night. "They, they... belong... to me!" He said in a frustrated tone, trying to get his point across to the poopyhead Jawas.

The smaller aliens then began laughing at him, teasing him for butchering the pronunciation of their language.

"You speak terrible Jawa," their leader(?) criticized. "You sound like a Wookiee." he said in a sarcastic tone, putting his hand up to his ear in mock confusion. The bounty hunter was becoming increasingly outraged, and missed the way you quickly put the baby down and started rushing to his side.

"Do you understand this?" he asked in a very bitter tone, lighting the fire from his wrist straight towards the leader before it quickly got put down by your hand.

"Stop it!" you frowned, giving him an angry scowl that made the Mandalorian look down in shame before turning around and blocking him from view.

"Please, please, lower your weapons," you begged, placing one hand out protectively in front of your body. The bounty hunter watched at your careful approach and rebuked himself internally.

"Please forgive his aggressive behaviour, but he is a Mandalorian, he can not give up his armour. There must be something else we can trade."

The Jawa then pointed to something behind you, making all three of you look back.

"Get away from it!" the bounty hunter demanded, now becoming even more ticked off with the situation. He felt the slightest bit of relief when you stood up and collected the baby in your arms, then came back to sit beside him.

"Please, there must be something else," you begged, keeping the Child close to your body.

The Jawas then all turned to face each other and huddled together, disscussing what the Mandalorian assumed would be something he would be willing to trade.

When their decision was made, the leader then spun to face them, waving his hand in your faces.

"We will require The Egg," he demanded. "Bring us The Egg."

The bounty hunter furrowed his brows in confusion, and you looked at him with the same expression.

"The Egg? What egg?" he asked, the both of you turning to the Ugnaught in hopes of some answers.

The Jawas then began chanting "The Egg! The Egg!" making the bounty hunter what in the name of all living things could be so special about an egg.

"It seems they will take you there," the Ugnaught observed, noticing the the Jawas were boarding their Sandcrawler and waving for him to get on as well.

Letting his head fall for a minute, the Mandalorian sighed at how this all could have been avoided if these stupid Jawas were anywhere else on the planet and wouldn't have taken apart his ship.

He was brought out of his stupor by the feeling of a hand on his shoulder. The bounty hunter looked up to see you smiling gently at him, and he nodded. "Let's go."

He stood up and held his hand out for you, then brought the carriage to his side and followed you up the ramp into the massive vehicle.

---

It was at least another day's travel when the Mandalorian reached the entrance to a cave, toying around with the idea if he should actually go in there.

"Is there where the Jawas said it would be?" you asked as you walked up to stand beside him, furrowing your brows at the very vague information given.

"I think so," the bounty hunter nodded, feeling just as confused as you were.

"Well, let's go," you shrugged, taking a few steps towards the opening.

"Woah woah woah. What?"

"What do you mean, what? We need that egg, so let's go get it!" He groaned internally at your stubbornness.  Why were you so determined to suddenly go on all of these expeditions? Why did he even agree to you coming along? He should have said no in the first place, but as per usual he caved and agreed to you coming along. But why were you suddenly so interested in running into the face of danger?

"Look at this place, you can't just go marching in! It's pitch black in there!"

"You have a light that sits on your head!"

"Yeah, it's enough for me but is it enough for you?"

"Well, do you have any other suggestions, cause I'm all ears!"

"Yeah, I go in, and you stay here."

"Oh, yeah because that's so much better!"

"Yes it is!"

"Why, because I won't be in your way and you can go do all the hero stuff while I sit back?"

What?

"No! Because I'm the one with all the armour, and this way if something happens at least I'm being protected!"

"Oh good, and I just get to watch it all happen?"

"No! Because it's pitch black in there, and you'll be safe out here!"

"Even better! I won't even get to know what happens to you if you die because I'll be left out here all alone!"

"That's not a valid point, because it might be all sunshine and rainbows in there and I'll be fine!"

"Then why can't I go in if it's all sunshine and rainbows?"

Dammit.

"Because what if it's not!"

Oh yeah, valid point she's on your side now, go me, yet again.

"Oh, you're such a-"

Your argument was cut off by a low grunting noise that did not sound happy at all. The both of you turned to see a giant Mudhorn walking its way out of the cave, giving what seemed to be a death glare directed at him more than you.

Before he had time to react you reached up and unclasped the flashlight from his helmet, then stood in front of him and did the ritual of placing your forehead on his. Immediately he snaked his arms around your waist and brought you closer.

"You distract it, I'll get the egg. I think it likes you more," you whispered, making the bounty hunter let out an embarrassing snort.

"Seems more like hate to me."

This made you shrug, but giggle nonetheless. "Don't die, please. I do still need you, you know."

The bounty hunter could then feel his heart in his throat at your words. He could've poured all his feelings out right there, but he knew that yet again, now was not the time. Instead he only responded with, "Come back to me."

He smiled as you grinned as well, and found himself holding on just a little bit longer. "Always."

With that, you made a mad dash to his right in an attempt to go around the large rhino. Said Mudhorn didn't notice you at all, much to your amusement, and lowered it's upper body to the ground, getting into position to start running.

How the hell am I gonna fight this thing?

The Mandalorian didn't have much time to answer that question before the Mudhorn began sprinting straight towards him. Out of the corner of his eye the bounty hunter saw a glimpse of your hair as you ran into the cave, and that split second of distraction was enough of an opening for the Mudhorn to run into him and knock him back a good 30 feet.

He groaned as his back hit the ground and his body slid back in the mud, feeling it get under his armour and seep through his clothes. His neck felt sore as his head smacked against the ground, but he did his best to quickly stand back up.

He then grabbed his rifle and tried to load it, but the mud had jammed the loading cartridge, rendering the whole rifle useless. Still, the bounty hunter pressed on, desperate to get as much defense as he possibly could against the animal 5 times the size of himself.

His finagling attempt ended up being a bust as the Mudhorn ran at him again at full speed, knocking him back another 40 feet. The bounty hunter groaned again as his head whipped back against the ground and he slid back in the mud again, hurriedly trying to come up with a new plan.

He sat up quickly and tried wiping his wrist clean, thinking that maybe he could use the fire to fend off the beast.

That worked for about 2 seconds before the large rhino used its massive front horn to ram it into his chest, knocking the wind out of the Mandalorian and making him see stars. The bounty hunter gasped for breath as he willed the blinding pain in his chest to go away before using his whipcord and getting it stuck in the beast's face.

That also only proved to be useful for about 3 seconds before the Mudhorn quickly became irritated and started running in the opposite direction, making the bounty hunter go flying as his arm was still attached to the cord.

His shoulder screamed at him for ever thinking that would be a good idea, and he went for a little roll in the mud as the cord broke from the force of the Mudhorn acting against him.

The animal then rammed into his chest again, once more making him lose his breath and go tumbling backwards. His vision was starting to go all fuzzy as the pain increased tenfold, and he found himself wheezing from now having crushed ribs.

He glanced down to see his chest plate had completely opened up again and was sparking with electricity, making him groan this time in frustration more than anything else.

The Mandalorian's legs and arms felt all tingly as he realized he was drained; his adrenaline was completely worn out and every muscle in his body ached beyond belief.

Mud was covering most of his vizor, leaving him barely able to see, but nonetheless, he willed his legs to move and stand him up. Panting, he brought himself on one knee and grabbed the small knife from his boot, coming to terms with the fact that there was not much else he could do. This is certainly not the way he wanted to die, but it seemed like he had no choice.

As the Mudhorn sprinted straight towards him, the bounty hunter's life flashed before his eyes, and he found that most of it was you.

Sure, there was the odd memory here and there about becoming a Mandalorian, but the ones he enjoyed, the ones he wanted to see were of you.

And they mostly centered around the thought that he's spent years not telling you how he feels. But how could he? He's certain that if you felt the same way, there'd be no more Mandalorian from him. And if you didn't, you'd leave him forever and his life would no longer have any meaning.

But would not being the Mandalorian be such a bad thing? He's not so sure he's ready to settle down just yet, but he knows the second you told him you wanted to he would.

Is that a problem? Yes.

But does he care? No.

Sighing, he stood up to his full height as the Mudhorn sprinted towards him at full speed, while the Mandalorian just lazily held the knife out in front of his body; his energy had been completely drained, and there really was nothing else he could do.

Maybe if he died this way then he wouldn't have to live with the possible rejection. That thought made him roll his eyes instantly. What a coward.

Very unacceptimg of this fate, the Mandalorian held his knife in front of him, determined to fight no matter how tired he was.

However, as soon as the rhino got about 4 feet away, it all of a sudden couldn't move forward anymore. The bounty hunter stood there in shock and confusion, wondering what was going on. He could clearly see that the animal was desperately trying to get to him, but something was holding it back. He continued to stand there dumbfounded as you came up in front of the now floating Mudhorn and placed your hand on its head, doing your best to soothe the beast and calm it down.

"Hey! Hey, it's okay, it's okay." The creature immediately began calming down, and the bounty hunter gave an even bigger look of confusion as he thought it was you keeping it in place. Since when could you do that?

That thought was quickly diminished, however, when he looked to his left and noticed the kid was holding its hand out with its eyes closed. It seemed to be concentrating very hard. The baby became tired very quickly from the obvious overexertion of whatever it was doing, and it clued in that you were trying to calm the creature down to put less strain on the Child's work load.

It seemed your help wasn't enough though, because after a few seconds the kid backed up in his carriage and passed out, exhausted from doing... the floaty of the Mudhorn thing.

As soon as the kid fell back the Mudhorn dropped to the ground, and that's when the Mandalorian stepped forward and plunged his knife straight into the beast's neck, killing it almost instantly.

The bounty hunter gasped for air as he fell back, but had a much softer landing than he expected. He glanced up to see your face looking back down at him with an obviously worried expression.

"Lumpy, I said distract the thing, not take a mud bath with it."

The Mandalorian could form no response in his attempt to catch his breath, knowing if he tried to speak it would probably end up being offensive in another language. He rested his head on your legs and desperately tried to regain his energy as you wiped the mud away from where his eyes would be.

"Did you... get the... the egg?" he asked in a still very breathless tone, and you looked at him with a concerned face.

"Well, I was hoping you wouldn't notice so quickly but I actually couldn't find any egg-"

"WHAT?"

You giggled as you wiped some more mud off of the bounty hunter's helmet and looked down to see the rest of the damage done to his armour. "I'm just kidding, of course I got it. I put it over there, it's fine. I'm so sorry I put you through this."

The Mandalorian waved his hand around in a non-chalant manner, but in an overly dramatic way. "Nah, it's fine, I mean I did almost die multiple times, but it's all good-"

He smiled at the scoff you made as you responded, "You know what you're right, I think I just over estimated your skills and abilities to be able to-"

"Are you serious? Did you see the size of that thing?"

"Yes, I did, and the baby seemed to have much more success in taking it down than you did!"

"Yeah, well he's got weird magic stuff and look now, he's knocked out."

"Aw, the poor thing's probably exhausted. We need to get him back."

The bounty hunter sighed at your statement because he knew you were right but he didn't want to move, partially because it physically hurt him to do so, but mostly because he just wanted to stay like this forever, even though it was super uncomfortable with all of the mud. "Just... a few more minutes."

He smirked at the small smile you sent him and closed his eyes, revelling in the last few minutes he had before you had to make the long journey back to the Jawas.

"Lumpy?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm really worried about the baby."

He sighed again, not wanting to get up. He mentally went through the list of all the things that had to be done and internally groaned in frustration. You had to help the kid, and then he had to figure out a way to put the ship back together. Not to mention his armour needed an extreme fix up too. And then get the kid back to the client.

With one last deep breath, the bounty hunter sat up, agreeing.

"Alright, let's get going."

---

The Mandalorian handed the egg to the Jawas, feeling much more relieved now that he can finally get the parts back and get off the planet. He shook his head in disgust and turned your body around to face the Ugnaught as the Jawas began feasting on the furry egg, opting out on watching them stick their hands in it and slurp it up.

"I'm surprised you waited for us," he said to the shorter man.

The bounty hunter snickered as you shoved his shoulder and stepped in front of him. "What he means to say is thank you for waiting for us."

The Ugnaught only shrugged and responded, "I'm just surprised it took you so long."

The bounty hunter only rolled his eyes at the punch to his ego, but determined that after seeing you laugh at the comment, he would take all the jabs in the galaxy to see it again. "Yes, well, there were some minor complications," he tried to play it cool, and almost broke the façade from your stare of disbelief at his words.

The shorter man nodded his head in knowing and walked up the ramp with the Jawas. The Mandalorian watched as you followed him and started laughing at a small joke he made as you began loading the parts onto the cart, and he rolled his eyes at his own stupidity.

Years. It's been years you idiot, get over it.

But could he really do that?

---

On the ride back to the ship, you sat next to the Mandalorian and gently cradled the Child in your arms, glancing up at him with worry.

"Is it still sleeping?" the Ugnaught asked as he was riding the blurrg pulling the cart.

You nodded your head as you stroked the baby's cheek.

"Yes," the bounty hunter replied, obvious concern laced in his voice as well.

"Was it injured?"

"I don't think so," you answered.

"At least, not physically," the bounty hunter clarified, and he smiled at your nod of confirmation.

"Explain it to me again," the shorter man asked, still not understanding what exactly happened.

"Lumpy, do you think it has the Force?" you asked him, furrowing your eyebrows in thought.

"The Force?"

You nodded your head in affirmation. "Yeah, like in the stories my Grandma used to tell. You remember Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, don't you? Those stories went on for ages."

The Mandalorian thought about what you were saying, and remembered you telling him about how Darth Vader was the cause of the destruction of your home. Not to mention the Battle of Yandor was such a pivotal point in history that the whole galaxy knew about it within days.

"I don't know," you shrugged. "I just can't think of any specific species that could do such a thing."

The bounty hunter slowly nodded at your words but didn't have an answer. He had certainly heard of those things, but had no idea if it was true or not.

The conversation was cut short by the arrival at the Razor Crest, and the Mandalorian let out a loud and rather annoyed sigh. He walked up to it and placed his hand on the side, wondering how it was going to get fixed.

"There's no way we're gonna get this to work without a full maintenance facility. This is gonna take days to fix."

He heard you scoff yet again behind him, making him turn around to face you with his eyebrows raised.

"How dare you doubt our knowledge," you accused as you gently placed the baby back down in the carriage and gave it another quick glance before jogging beside the Ugnaught.

"If you care to help, it might go faster," the shorter man quipped, and the bounty hunter glared at the little fist bump you shared with the Ugnaught.

"Don't mind him, he's a little slow when it comes to technical stuff like this," you explained, talking as if he wasn't 3 feet away from you and very much listening to every word you were saying.

"How do you manage to do it all on your own?" the shorter man teased, and the Mandalorian grinned as you snorted at that question and picked up a torch and some goggles.

"Beats me."

The Ugnaught then brought a metal plate over to the Mandalorian and held it out to him. "There is much work to do."

The bounty hunter looked up at the ship and sighed. You were already climbing up to the top with another metal sheet to weld onto the ship and he obeyed, knowing there was indeed much to be done.

It was an entire week of giggles, little jokes, small arguments, worry over the baby, almost no food or sleep, story telling, burn marks littered over everyone's body, from comfortable silence to loud breakouts in song, and everything in between before the Razor Crest was fully operational once more.

The Mandalorian then sat in the cockpit and turned everything on, sighing in relief as everything seemed to be the way it needed to be.

He smiled as you came up behind him, carrying the baby because you were still very worried, and hung the dice you gave him all those years ago back up on the little hook attached to the windshield.

The bounty hunter looked up at you and noticed there was still mud caked into your hair, making him realize if you needed a shower, he definitely did. You made eye contact with him and gave him a small grin of your own, cradling the baby in one arm and using the other to flick a few more switches.

"Seems like we're all good now," you observed, checking all the computer screens for any signs of something going wrong.

The Mandalorian stood up and nodded his head in agreement, then made his way over to you. He looked down at the sleeping Child in your arms and frowned. "I think it's gonna be okay," you whispered, gently caressing its face with your finger and rocking it slowly. "We just gotta give it some time."

The bounty hunter only nodded again and looked at your face, trying to read your expression. He could see the increased worry from the little creases forming between your brows and the squinting of your eyes as you tried to figure out a way to help the baby.

Without saying anything the Mandalorian pulled you into a hug, even though he knew he smelled like literal poo, and held you as close as he possibly could towards himself. He internally sighed in relief as you seemed to snuggle a bit closer, and he knew that it was going to be very difficult to let the baby go.

Pushing that thought aside, because that was not a road he wanted to go down right now, he gently reminded you that it's time to go.

You nodded, responding quietly, "We have to go say thank you, our new friend deserves the world for his kindness."

The bounty hunter agreed and followed you out of the cockpit to where the Ugnaught was standing. Together the three of you looked out of the open hatch, enjoying the view of the planet now that you were done building.

"We can't thank you enough," you started. "For absolutely everything."

"Please allow us to give you a portion of the reward," the bounty hunter offered, feeling just as grateful as you were towards him.

"I cannot accept," the Ugnaught declined. "You are my guests, and I am therefore at your service."

The bounty hunter watched as you slowly nodded your head and gave him a big hug with your free arm. "Then all we can offer you is our sincerest thanks."

"And I offer mine," the shorter man replied, making the bounty hunter scrunch his nose in confusion.

"What for?"

"Well, thank you for bringing peace to my valley. And for giving me a happy memory to look back on, despite the circumstance." He then collected his bag and walked down the ramp, leaving the bounty hunter to wrap his arm around your waist as he climbed onto his blurrg.

"Good luck with the Child," he waved, and while the bounty hunter nodded, you gave a sad smile and wave back. "May it survive and bring you a handsome reward."

The frown you gave after that sentence did not go unnoticed by the bounty hunter, but he kept his mouth shut and simply nodded.

"I have spoken," the Ugnaught finished, and with that, he turned the blurrg around and began the long journey back to his home. The Mandalorian squeezed your hip a little as you rested your head on his shoulder, but no words were spoken between the two of you.

Silently you headed back to the cockpit, the bounty hunter sitting in the pilot's seat and you in the one behind it, not putting the Child down for even a second.

The Mandalorian started up the engine and pressed any more buttons that had to be pressed, successfully letting the ship take off away from the planet.

After you were floating in space for a minute or two, the bounty hunter turned around to see a small tear falling down your cheek. He quietly leaned over and wiped it from your face, only using a gentle whisper to talk to you.

"We've gotta bring it to the client. I'm sure it'll be okay."

He sighed as you only nodded and kept your eyes on the baby, making the Mandalorian turn back around in his seat and plug in the coordinates. He didn't like it at all, but this was his job.

So he sucked it up and let the autopilot take over, watching the millions of stars go by as he contemplated whether giving up the Child was a good idea.

From what he could tell by his gut instinct, it was not a good idea at all.

[tiaragqueen]

On A Silver Platter

✂ Pairing: Yandere! Kim Seokjin x Reader

✂ Word Count: 1,4k

✂ Trigger Warning: Implied cannibalism, cheating, slight manipulation, possessiveness

✂  The story is fictional and for amusement only. I don't believe any of the members would do this in real life. As always, thank you for reading and I hope you have a good day!

Do not re-upload my writing to another website or use it without my permission.

[Edited]

***

If you like my writing, please support me on ko-fi!

“And I’m crazy for loving you. Crazy for thinking that my love could hold you. I’m crazy for trying and crazy for crying. And I’m crazy for loving you.” - Crazy [Patsy Cline]

              You were a curious woman.

      There was always something that caught your interest; be it a simple action such as how to get rid of thorns to why people do the things they do. Sometimes, you also asked some questionable things and usually gave evasive responses when people questioned your reason. You weren’t jaded like most people he knew, and you never felt as if you knew and experienced everything in this world.

      Like a moth to the flame, Jin was hopelessly and utterly enamored with you.

      However, no human is perfect.

      Due to your bottomless curiosity, you were often bored with banality and had a short span of attention before you moved on to a new, more exciting matter.

      It would be a huge turn off for some men, knowing that you might not be the most committed woman out there. And yes, even you felt that you couldn’t stay loyal to your partner.

      Jin knew it too, and yet he still endeavored to pursue a relationship with you.

      No fear or hesitation radiated from his being as he boldly confessed his undying feelings for you. He maintained a solid eye-contact throughout, and although you weren’t necessarily attracted to him in the first place, you could say that you were impressed with his bravery. Very few men would approach a woman and tell her their true feelings in fear of rejection.

      Thus, you began your relationship with the famous chef in the city, Kim Seokjin.

      At first, it was all sunshine and rainbows. You were an interesting girlfriend, always had something up her sleeves, and plan the strangest and spontaneous dates. You would share your discoveries and voice out the problems that had been gnawing your mind for the whole day.

      Jin was fascinated by how your mind worked; how you always questioned why things worked that way. To other people, you might seem nosy and fussy. But not Jin. Every day, he fell deeper in love with your personality. Those little quirks you unconsciously did when you were doing some things, your childish curiosity, the sparkles in your eyes, that cute grin when you finally figured something out, the triumphant smile when you bragged about a fact that you thought he didn’t know, or the appreciative look when you noticed him listening to your rambling wholeheartedly.

      You could count on one hand the people who truly focused on your subject of interest without interrupting or rolling their eyes in annoyance.

      But just because you were grateful for his attentiveness, doesn’t mean you would be together forever. Nor did you want to.

      You were a cruel woman, you knew that. Yet, you couldn’t change what you were born with.

      Slowly, you distanced yourself from him. It wasn’t anything new to be honest, as you had always been the person who wants their space, particularly after a bad day. Jin respected it, and despite his longing to dispel all of your worries, he knew that he shouldn’t push your boundaries.

      But when you started to spare him no glance or speaking with that dismissive tone when replying to his inquiries, Jin knew. He knew and realized that his fear had come true. And he definitely hadn’t expected it to happen within two months of your relationship.

      “Hey, want to meet up in that bar down the street?”

      It was by pure luck that he managed to catch that message on your phone. Maybe God finally pitied him and decided to give him a peek of what was going on behind the curtains.

      Jin couldn’t be more thankful.

      Snooping into someone’s business is wrong, but he could – no, needed – to make an exception to this one. He had to push aside his morals and the lines that you’ve set very early before you two started, for the sake of shedding some light on to your dubious relationship with this person.

      Unlocking your phone was an easy task, fortunately. It was your birthday, after all. How predictable, yet convenient in situations like this.

      There were a lot of messages from the same number, displaying witty banters and innuendos. He supposed that this person brought a naughtier side of you that he had never seen before. Either you wanted to put on a facade of an inquisitive child trapped in a grown woman’s body, or you just hadn’t found the right partner.

      Until now, that is.

      Thanks to his wide connections, Jin was able to learn the nearest bar they were talking about. Taking up your mannerisms in texting, he began to reply as fast as he could in fear of being caught in the act. You might have cheated on him, you might have been hiding things from him, but he would never want you to think less of him. He’d much prefer you going on with another man behind his back and still being with him than handling your hatred.

      How love had changed him for the worse.

      “Waiting for someone?” he asked casually, sliding down the stool next to a guy with light punky hair. Jin couldn’t believe this was the same man who had been flirting with you through text messages, although he knew that you never paid too much attention to people’s appearance. Even if it was a beggar, and they seemed interesting, then they would still be interested in your eyes.

      “Yeah.” Quiet guy, Jin observed. Not very expected given his eye-catching looks.

      With every passing moment, the guy became increasingly anxious with your lack of presence and stress drinking like a thirsty man he was. Jin made a mental note on every whiskey that he’d belted down and started counting down the second where he would eventually grow tipsy.

      When he was fully intoxicated, which didn’t take too long, Jin offered to accompany him searching for clear air outside. The guy had refused, but Jin insisted with a deceptively friendly smile. He guided him to the back of the bar until Jin proceeded with the first phase of his intricate plan.

      He punched the guy into oblivion.

***

      You came home to a delightful smell of food after another boring, tiring day at work. Inhaling deeply, you followed the source to the kitchen and found Jin cooking with his back facing you. You smiled, proud of your boyfriend’s diligence, and skipped towards him.

      “Jinnie~!” you sang, hugging his wide stomach. God, he was so huggable.

      The said man looked down and smiled. “Jagi, welcome home! How was work?”

      “It was boring~!” you whined as you shuffled over the dining table and plopped down on the chair. “Sometimes I want the time to move faster, but other times I want it to go slower. I’m so fickle, aren’t I?”

      “No, not at all.” Jin put down a platter of fried meat on the table and noticed – with pride swelling in his chest – your eyes lit up. “You’re just flexible, is all. It’s not a bad thing, you know? I’d say that it’s your main charm.”

      Regardless of the white lies, he’d told you – because it was true; you really were fickle – Jin was glad that there was another fact that he could use to his advantage.

      The fact that you were a foodie, just like him.

      “Yeah, yeah, thank you,” you said distractedly. Although your gratitude sounded insincere, he decided to gloss over it. You were always serious about food anyway, and it was nice to know that you were just as intrigued by his new creation as he had expected you to. “What’s this? Is this a new menu? You’ve never cooked this before.”

      Jin hummed in confirmation. “I’ve been wanting to try out this new recipe I’ve found a week ago. I hope you like it.”

      You laughed, and he swore he teared up a little at the melodious sound. How long has it been since the last time he heard you laugh – for him, even – like this? He never knew just how much he missed your laughter, or you paying attention to him in general.

      “Oh, Jin,” you wiped the tears from the corner of your eyes and smiled, unaware of the effects you’d inadvertently caused to him. “You know I’ll always like your cooking better than anyone in this world.”

      Jin forced himself to smile despite the overwhelming relief and happiness that threatened to flow. “Thank you. I’m so glad you still choose to be with me, even though there are more interesting men out there that want your attention just as much. Thank you... for always being with me.”

      It was low of him, he admitted, to alluded to your cheating situation like that. Especially when you flinched a bit; engrossed with your guilt and fear to notice the fact that he had never compared himself to other people before.

      But he didn’t care. It was about time you realized that he knew about your other relationship, and stopped your little act of innocence.

       Even if he had to serve that guy to you on a silver platter.

[detectivejigsawpines]

ORN-Part 6 (Climb Every Mountain)

“It didn’t last very long,” Ford admitted, deciding after a few seconds that Stan’s laughter wasn’t malicious and he didn’t need to take too much offense.  “Among other problems, her family never approved of me.  In fact, her grandmother demanded on numerous occasions to know why she hadn’t eaten me yet.”

Stan cackled again.  “Sounds feisty; I like it.”

Ford could feel himself blushing, and hurriedly he said, “Well, in the long run we decided it was better to end things.”  Then, in a desperate attempt to change the subject, he asked, “How about you?  Any relationships recently?”

Within seconds all traces of Stan’s amusement were gone.  He looked away, towards the mountains, and finally said, “Those caves are this way, right?”  And without further ado he started walking.

Ford hurried after him.  His first impulse was to point out the obvious cop-out and that if he was going to make Ford share details, then he had to too in the name of fairness.  Instead, though, he asked after a second, “That bad, huh?”

Stan’s shoulders tightened... and then lowered.  “Yeah.”

“Was she the one who…?”  Ford indicated the bruises.

Stan’s chin dipped in a terse nod.  Then, seeming to make an internal decision, he put on his patented ‘I am absolutely fine, you don’t need to worry about me’ smile.  “Aside from that, y’know, she was just my type.  We even got married for a hot minute, before I realized she was after my car.”

Ford gaped at Stan; then, in the same tone of voice his brother had used, he asked, “You married someone?!”

Stan laughed a little and shoved his shoulder.  “Ah, shut up.”

********

An hour later they reached the trail leading up the side of the mountain, and began the somewhat more arduous climb to the caves.  They didn’t talk much, saving their breath for walking uphill.  Inside Ford’s head, however, he was abuzz with excitement.

What kind of answers would they find?

Maybe there would be some kind of ancient cave drawings depicting how so many weird and fantastic beings had arrived at Gravity Falls, and why they chose to stay here.

Maybe he’d find an ancient curse, or a magical talisman, or even another alien crash site!  Either way, all his questions would be answered; he could already envision himself standing in front of an adoring crowd, accepting an award for his brilliance in discovering this fascinating town, and not a single soul looking askance at his extra fingers.  In his mind’s eye, his family was standing at the front of the crowd.  Mom had tears in her eyes; Pa was actually smiling under his mustache, giving him that little nod of approval that meant he was truly impressed; Shermie and his family were next to them, cheering their heads off; and Stanley-

Where did that leave Stanley?

Speak of the devil, his brother was currently flopping down against the side of the mountain with an exhausted groan, not appearing to care about getting his freshly washed clothes and hair dirty.

Stanley had not exactly been in this fantasy for a long time.  Partly-well, mostly because Ford had tried his hardest not to think about him.  But in his best moments, he’d often pictured him breaking all the rules to leap up onto the stage next to him, throwing an arm around his neck in an affectionate headlock and pointing at him in a way that said, “Yes!  This is my genius brother, people!  Look at this guy and how awesome he is!”  Or something to that effect, in less stilted tones.  In his worst moments, Stan had not been at the ceremony at all-but even then, sometimes he dared to imagine him watching it somewhere, like maybe on a television in a dingy bar, hopefully regretting how deeply he’d wronged him.

But now here he was, just like old times, joining Ford in one of his adventures looking for the supernatural.

If this was the breakthrough he was hoping for, where did Stan fit into his little fantasy?

********

Stan gulped down some water, and poured more of it onto his head, before finally standing up.

“We almost there?” he asked, pushing his damp bangs out of his face.

Ford shook himself.  “Yes, I believe the caves we’re looking for are about ten minutes away.”

For a minute he thought his brother was going to groan about the extra distance...but he just sighed and readjusted his bags.

“Lead on, Poindexter.”

It occurred to Ford that Stan might be afraid to complain about being tired, either out of some misplaced machismo or fear of being left behind if Ford thought he couldn’t handle all this walking.  It felt more than a little odd, considering how many of their childhood conversations had been somewhere along the lines of “Wait up, Stanley!” “Yeah, you should keep up!”

He also suspected any questioning on his part about whether Stan needed to stop and rest would be met with stubborn assertion that he was just fine.  So instead he said, “There’s no rush.  I’m a little winded from the climb,” and sat down on a nearby boulder, pulling out his own water and taking what he realized was a much-needed drink.

Stan, after a second, shrugged and flopped down on the ground again.

Once they were both sufficiently refreshed they resumed their little trek, and a little under ten minutes later they were standing at the mouth of one of the caves.

[elizabethrobertajones]

I was wondering if you could pls describe (or show me some tags if its easier) the traits of some writers of spn..? I usually hear "X writer usually writes more sam" or "this strucutre is usual in X's episodes" but I've never been able to pick on those; the only ones I've been able to pick up are bucklmming and its beacuse they are somehow instantly bad :/ ps. u dont have to like explain EVERY single writer or anything, just general things that you know or notice in their respective episodes

Hiya :D 

Yeah, it’s a thing that’s really, like, aside from Buckleming being bad and coming with a warning notice that we’re all helpless, please don’t burn the fandom down after their episodes, it’s not really more than nerdy interest that means anything about knowing who the writers are, so in that sense you have the toolkit you need to function :P

Buuut from my very very deeply nerdy and writery observations through what is now more than a decade (eep) of watching this bloody thing…

The show starts with a Generic Tone, and most of the original writers have this tone. This is in NO WAY a bad thing, but of all the writers, you have to really delve to connect common themes in their episodes, and for many of the writers who didn’t endure out of seasons 1-5, we don’t really have a clear profile on their habits, for reasons I’ll get to. 

We can see Sera Gamble’s fingerprints a bit more because we get 2 seasons of her as a showrunner, but by and large as one of the original writers, she really sets the tone so her writing IS Supernatural, as much as Kripke or John Shiban or Raelle Tucker or Cathryn Humphries and whoever else wrote multiple episodes seasons 1-5. They have things they might like but dropping into a random early episode doesn’t give much away because they had a much tighter playbook. 

1x13 shows this because despite serious, painful hindsight of all the things they do wrong that we recognise NOW from seasons of their nonsense, Buckleming wrote far more to the brief than they ever do these days; the difference in style has to be almost entirely attributed to being a first season and close creative control and enforced use of a playbook that disguised a ton of their worst habits which go unchecked these days, and @justanotheridijiton has dug up evidence of them cheerfully commenting on writing in such a way into deep history >.> Despite it being technically their best episode, they were fired and given a 6 year writing ban until Kripke left. So I’m guessing it was fairly obvious they had these problems regardless.

Of all these writers in the early seasons, Edlund pops up in season 2, and he is a wild card with a personality, and he does not write ~generic SPN~ and never did: it’s always Edlund SPN and it gels perfectly with the slightly less technicolour SPN, frequently breaking the format and creating the modern version of SPN… If he does comic it’s Bad Day at Black Rock and if he does deep it’s On The Head Of A Pin, and if you look at what he wrote, very very few of his episodes are duds, because he has a brain swirling deep with interesting and bizarre nonsense. He’s also the biggest Cas stan ever. 

Jeremy Carver pre-Carver era helped, which I think is why he gets to be part of Carver Edlund - we have 3 and a half years of his showrunning to know what fascinated him, so I’ll just say, in his very first episode in season 3, he alludes to Cain and Abel for the first time. He’s very big on narrative structure being used in fascinating ways, and his episodes are all very technically accomplished, but the downfall was that by the end he was writing narrative symbolism as a sort of withered husk of his former self with no emotion whatsoever, just hitting storytelling marks. 11x01 is the single most depressing episode to me in terms of “this is the man who wrote Mystery Spot and Changing Channels”

Fortunately, and I’m skipping over a ton of writers to tell this story, but could go back and talk about more of the interesting ones in between, if you watch 11x01 and 11x02 back to back, they work perfectly as a single episode and it’s like after the break all the life and emotion and intrigue is breathed back into the show in a rush of colour and character. Now, Dabb is one of the OG writers in my standards, in the sense that he and Loflin showed up in season 4, and to this day Dabb’s writing to me still shows a touch of writing within the original SPN playbook as a writer who CAN write alongside Kripke, Gamble, etc, and chameleon into the background as not writing Dabbnatural, but writing Supernatural. To me this is a part of his strength when it comes to story and why he and originally Loflin shot up the ranks in Gamble era to the point where they wrote 7x23, and from there Dabb always wrote the second, middle and last episode in a second-in-command writer role, which, now we hit season 14, means that’s half the length of the show he’s been clearly estimated as one of the powerhouses. 

Because he had a co-writer for 4 years, originally you might think that it’s hard to tell what he is and isn’t writing, but he and Loflin split up, I hope just to ease empty seats in the writer room, and we get 2 Loflin episodes which betray a few of his weaknesses when it comes to story/structure/pace, but reveal he was the quippier, funnier, more manic one of the two. Like, I’d say Plucky’s (my no joke favourite episode) is probably something where he would have steered it more than Dabb :P But Dabb meanwhile, writing alone, writes 8x08 which is also funny but in a very sublime way based on situation and framing etc which makes us laugh without breaking up the story for quips so much as coming from character, such as “it’s a shortened version of my name”, “stop smelling the dead guy, Cas,” and ALL the uses of cartoon effects as part of the embedded storytelling. It’s like his resume for considering what he can do as a solo writer and he blows it out of the water.

Dabb is very good at characters who might have brief one off appearances, like, even within a scene, but still have a bunch of unique personality, as well as excellent handling of the main characters, and he can write some killer speeches and emotional pleas and stuff. He’s also absolutely filled with callbacks and repeats and narrative loops, and he started this on a smaller level, either to his own episodes, or dutifully doing his job to foreshadow and build the mytharc, but in Dabb era, this has turned into absolutely exploding the show’s callbacks into a weird fractal of meanings, which I think works wonderfully for supporting a 14 year old show on its own legs, because each callback and loop goes in a different, often wild direction, but still at the same time has an emotional continuity and truth to the story based on the story predecessors. The fact he writes like this is of no surprise to meta writers who’ve been keeping tabs on him far longer than I have. In fact, a combination of all Dabb’s strengths put to work versus his One Weakness, his kryptonite, is a terrible story of Lizzy’s hubris of not paying attention to the show and a hard learned lesson :P 

After 10x21 I was utterly bereft and hated the show for what it had done, but I was gonna keep watching, as sarcastically and eye-rollingly as I could, and 10x22 started to deliver in spades. Dean drove ALL THE WAY down south and back, somehow missing Cas tailing him (without a car, we later learned) and all while Sam was on an urgent timeline to get things done before Dean got back… driving an hour back and forth in the immediate vicinity of the Bunker. The last times we see Sam are Urgent Driving Montages to get there in time while he’s basically coming from up the street, and meanwhile, Dean and Cas have logged like 20 hours of driving plus farting around murdering people, and I was GLEEFULLY tearing this episode to SHREDS for its car continuity, like, HOWLING with laughter. 

Anyway I took a break to get some tea and came back ready to eye-roll through the end of the episode, hit play, and walked smack into the DeanCas confrontation and dramatic speeches about everyone you love could be dead, except me, and accidentally got so tense and enraptured that I spilled an entire mug of scalding tea down my front when Dean attacked Cas and I jumped out of my skin and screamed and then yelled again because OH YEAH I WAS HOLDING TEA, and from that day on I have A: loathed Dabb for his car continuity and B: always kept my eye on that fucker and when it’s his episode and what he’s up to… Once burned etc… 

Dabb’s squad are awesome though. Obviously excluding buckleming, and I think with all the bingos and complaining you know what to look for in their episodes :D 

Berens has been around since season 9, which makes him a veteran in remaining writers terms, just because Carver era had an en masse leaving when contracts were up (no hard feelings, just bad timing and Berens had been newer than all of them at one point :P) Berens is another writer I think can occasionally dip into pretending to be generic SPN on some mytharc episodes but he’s just obviously not been around in ye olde days, and joined in the time when, through Gamble era and then Carver in spades, the MotW writers in particular really fell into a new style of writing the show that I absolutely adore, which is where the individual episodes rather than mytharc stuff were increasingly left to the writers to do whatever they wanted with, and become more and more writing style and structure etc as standalone canvasses for your own skills, personality, etc. Because you CAN’T keep writing the same SPN episode over and over and over, and if one of the season 1 writers came back and wrote a season of season 1 style episodes, they’d be stiflingly boring, in tone and range, compared to what we have now. To keep people interested after so long, quirkiness and the ideas that an individual writer brings to the table as THEMSELVES, becomes increasingly the only way forward to keep the show fresh. Season 4 onwards began to have more of this, and Edlund had been doing it since his first episode anyway, but to me season 6 has very specific feeling tones for the episodes, while season 7 and Robbie Thompson’s arrival in particular start to set the tone for allowing the writers to be adventurous, and to me season 7 is the shift to the style of season we had from then onwards. 

I think Berens episodes feel quite muted and cleverly restrained, but really really intelligent behind that. He’s written some incredible episodes that turn the season on the head while being standalones, and his run of 14th episode being where things were knocked out of the park but on a small stage, like, conflicts in a storage unit, barn, submarine, the BMoL hq and an abandoned hotel, all have devastating and dramatic emotional consequences while still somehow seeming understated and natural, quiet, almost, in the sense of what they turn on - looks and small agreements and emotional revelations etc. He doesn’t do fun and loud and flashy very often, and he delves very serious themes of suicide and depression, so I read his episodes and quiet, powerful, and very very pointed and driven and well-constructed to get to that point. His back and forth between scenes for dramatic irony is one of the biggest features I enjoy and identify, and that was an overall theme in season 13, on a much bigger level. 13x21 and Sam’s death, and, well, the whole thing really, was a wonderful example of the tension he can hold you in this way. Also: proof he CAN have fun but only when it’s super gay :P

I think Meredith Glynn gels really well with his writing, to the point where they co-wrote an episode within her first year on the show and then she took over the 14th episode slot for the first time since Berens got to the show and wrote an excellent episode that you could have told me was one of his and I’d have believed you, since it was structurally very very similar to any of his episode 14s which I have legit started seeing as a subgenre of the show in my own weird brain sorting way :P She has a great deal more fun though. She accidentally made the Worst Timed Episode Ever In The History Of Anything with 12x05 and I think got off on the wrong foot with fandom, but since then every episode has been an improvement on the last, and she’s had some absolutely wild rides, with 13x08 being I think her masterpiece overall, though Gog and Magog are funnier as an individual set piece :P 

Her writing is playful and fun and shows a deep care for the character histories and how they affect them - 12x11 is hard to believe is someone’s 2nd episode if you don’t think the new writers did their homework, because she absolutely guts Dean, and throws in a Rowena backstory freebie along with, AND handles Sam handling Dean with perfect ups and downs and brotherly affection and horror etc. I also think her Gabriel episode is the best Gabriel episode ever, for him as a character, and in terms of fun, the unholy combination of her writing and Speight directing and acting and also acting was utterly unbelievable. 10/10 would use as the episode to drag friends back to the show if they only saw seasons 1-5... It’s not even comparable with her other episodes, because she seriously levelled up as a writer while doing it. I can’t wait to see what she is up to next season :D

Davy Perez is like the dark side of the coin of Glynn, where he is fun but dark as fuck, and 13x11 has the best example of that with his cheery music-playing serial killers, but it’s an attitude he’s had all along. He does his best with Buckleming characters they do their worst with, so he singlehandedly made me think things for Crowley weren’t going to be as bad as they were in season 12 with 12x12/15 and he absolutely was the only person to give Ketch and Asmodeus anything resembling an interesting dynamic in 13x17. 12x12 was an absolute masterpiece of non-linear writing, which requires a good brain to do and then he made it funny AND all while ripping off tarantino but in SPN and not making it corny and writing Cas and Crowley’s most dramatic love confessions… 12x04 was my personal reassurance that Dabb era was going to care about Sam again after Carver neglected to deal with his shit for 4 years while dumping on him in the narrative, and Davy betrays the old Gamble sam girl traits of doing stuff like tying him up and telling us in the same breath his heart is worth 100x its weight in gold :P 

His episodes are wacky and fun in a way that draws blood and makes you seriously fear for the characters, even ones you think are fine and can’t possibly die in that episode, and his darkness frequently takes what looks like it could have been a Buckleming brief and makes you care about the characters they’ve been mauling all season in their own mis-applied love of writing the villains. You NEED someone who loves writing the villains, and Davy has a real relish to it that doesn’t woobify or jerk off to their evilness, it just makes them raw and scary to the point where you might actually believe Asmodeus is threatening for half a second, or that Crowley could win season 12, or to sell us on Ketch having a glimmer of a soul.

As for Yockey… I don’t know where Dabb found him but thank GOODNESS he did because sometimes you just need to take a random gay playwright with minimal TV experience, throw them into your writers room, and say, here, go nuts. Yockey has written like half a SPN episode and multiple literal excellent stage plays that are somehow on screen with our characters, which got to the point where in 13x19 I wrote like 40k episode notes while openly weeping because my Literature degree was being yanked so hard :P His nonsense often has multiple amazing side characters, like, sometimes a LOT of amazing side characters, and he knows how to make them all work. He literally has rude mechanicals like in 13x19 and the poor drunk angel. Shakespearean tropes. If you’re ever watching a SPN episode and it’s like why is this person writing for us and not a world famous literary darling? then it’s probably a Yockey episode. I am still struggling with how to handle it, and describe what’s going on, and all I can think is of 12x10 where an article about it literally was like, here is every single episode Cas has ever been in, and how this episode pulled on it and turned it into magic gold. Like, now 4x16 and 6x20 are the straw that Yockey turns to gold. I am too emotionally compromised to write something coherent and non-fangirlish about Yockey because he’s like, #writergoals in a totally bananas set the bar as high as the moon kind of way. He’s got that rare once in a generation talent and dammit I think he counts as my generation, so there goes my chance to be that person :P

And he’s writing for fucking Supernatural.

[acexadia-blog]

Claudia and Soren, Azula and Zuko

Some comparisons, contrasts, and thoughts.

The brother-sister team on the side of the ‘bad guys’ is nothing new--I’ve seen it in multiple other cartoons and shows. And there’s nothing wrong with that! Tropes (if this can be called one) aren’t in and of themselves awful. They’re a tool. How you use that tool is what determines how effective, or repetitive, the trope is.

Azula and Zuko had an incredibly well-written, complicated, and compelling relationship. It’s one of the best dysfunctional sibling relationships that I’ve ever seen. (...not that that’s saying much...) Likewise, Soren and Claudia have a fascinating relationship--but one that’s far healthier and cooperative than their counterparts. 

Will Claudia and Soren’s relationship be on the same level as Azula and Zuko’s? If the writers keep delivering the way they have in season 1, I think they will. But how will that relationship develop? Will they end up like Azula and Zuko, on opposite sides of the story, one fighting with Viren and one against? (Will there be such a fight at all?) Or will they be able to hold onto each other and stick to one side--whatever that side may be?

There are some clear similarities that can be drawn between these sets of siblings. Both pairs have a father who plays the role of antagonist in the story. Both pairs are sent to hunt down the protagonists. Both pairs are, to some extent, older than the protagonists. Both are close to the throne of a nation.

The female sibling is a prodigy in a system of magic, and favored by their father. The male sibling is a skilled fighter, and looked down upon (to some extent) by their father. Both pairs don’t have a maternal presence.

On the other hand, there’s one clear difference between Claudia and Soren and Azula and Zuko. Claudia and Soren aren’t competing with one another.

Ozai pitched continually pitched Zuko and Azula against each other. For most of their lives, they were on opposite sides, trying to win their father’s approval, and Azula always won. She was the golden child, and Zuko was the mistake. In the finale, this is reflected in Azula’s conversation with Ozai when he decides to leave her behind. She sees it as a punishment--and responds by accusing Ozai of treating her like Zuko. Her entire world has been shaped by this relationship to her brother. She’s the one who wins, and he’s the one who loses. Zuko is the one who escapes this binary, and even though he doesn’t defeat Azula during the final battle, he manages to heal and find happiness.

Claudia and Soren, on the other hand, have always been shown as a team. They aren’t chasing after one another, or arresting one another, or competing for their father’s love. While Viren is shown to favor Claudia and responds positively to her and negatively to Soren, they’ve never been put on opposite sides. Different levels of affection in regards to their father, but never on opposite sides. Because of that, they have a bond that Azula and Zuko never had.

They care about each other, support each other, and work together. They have different strengths, and don’t belittle each other for not being a skilled fighter or mage. They care about her deeply. I think Viren made a mistake when he told Claudia to prioritize the egg over Soren--Viren might look down upon Soren, but Claudia doesn’t. Telling her to let Soren get hurt or even die if it meant getting the egg back put doubts in Claudia’s mind.

These siblings might have many comparisons, but if Ozai told Azula to prioritize just about anything over Zuko’s life while they were on a mission together, she wouldn’t hesitate. Claudia already has.

Claudia and Soren both have hesitations about the mission they’ve been given, and they sought each other out. Even if neither came clean or opened up to the other one, Claudia especially is trying to protect her brother and her father at the same time. They’re both preforming a balancing act with those they care about--something Azula and Zuko never had to face.

While Zuko always had Uncle Iroh to support and uplift him, he never saw that relationship clearly untill the end of the series when they reconciled. Azula and Zuko both thought they only had the mission and a driving force behind them: Ozai. When that connection to Ozai and thus, the mission to capture Aang was lost, Zuko had nothing left, and was forced to go on a journey of self-discovery.

Claudia and Soren are trying to make their father proud, but they’re also balancing all their relationships, friendships, and loyalties. Claudia doesn’t want to lose Soren, and if she works hard enough, she won’t have to, right? Soren doesn’t want to kill the princes, one of whom he’s trained (or tried to train) in swordfighting, and protected at the cost of a pretty hefty injury. An arrow to the shoulder is a big deal (even worse when you rip out the arrow, wtf Soren)

I think for Claudia and Soren, some relationship is going to break, and that will decide who they side with. For Zuko, all his relationships fell apart, and he was able to put himself back together by forming new connections--and in the case of his uncle, repairing an old one. I doubt these two will lose everything, but their options and all the combinations thereof aren’t good.

If Soren and Claudia had no connection to the princes, it would be a different story. For Zuko, it came down to morals--to honor. He lost his connections to everyone and built himself up. For Claudia and Soren, I don’t see a likely posibility where they lose everything. Even if they fail in their mission and return home, if they destroy their relationships with the princes and with Viren, they’ll still have each other. If they lose each other, it will likely be over a split between who to be loyal to.

Soren’s relationship with the princes will make it difficult for him to complete his mission. Claudia’s relationship with her father will make it hard for her to betray him. But no matter what side they fall on, I think in the very end, they won’t end up like Zuko and Azula. That relationship is shattered. Claudia and Soren are too much of a good team for that to happen without a major, major break. Given the possible scenarios, I don’t think that’s likely. 

No matter what happens, even if they split for some time, I think they’ll come out on the same side. Whether it’s Viren or team egg... we’ll just have to wait and see.

[writemoment]

Conflicted Attraction

Writer: Ellie-Mae (Pen Name)

Part: 1/1

Summary: (Request) Can I request a Thor x female reader scenario? They live in the stark tower (avengers and all) but for some reason they don't like each other?lots of angst pls and a happy ending. @hufflepuff-chan

Pairing: Marvel Thor x Reader

Warnings/Rated: Slight angst, fluff and happy ending (as promised) 

Word Count: 4,074

( Reader ) P.O.V.

Pinpricks of light littered through the blanket of dark, building up to great masses illuminating through. The very sight brought a shiver of goosebumps across my skin. Looking down at the city I call home, with it’s spectacular beauty in all it’s spectacles, made me relish from such a privilege. 

Living in Avengers Tower was something I don’t think I’d ever get used to. Though everything felt like a familiar and warm embrace, it still brought a tilt to my lips at the unexpected joy that is accompany. Closing my eyes, I inhale deeply. I try to memorize this moment, the peace that is settled over the night.

Fore a change is soon upon us.

My eyes shift towards the blackened sky, searching among the faint splatters of light littered to the farthest horizon. Searching with the knowledge that we shall soon be joined by two new members as they travel from such amazing distances. Being an Avenger came with great responsibility and I knew that when joining in the fight. Even so, it always brings a certain amount of uncertainty when it came to change.

I’ve never met either of the gods, Thor nor Loki, but I know that they’ll be great assets to the team. With everything having been sorted out with the battle of New York that Loki brought down, he was able to clear his name and that brought a sense of relief through me.

Running my hands up my sides and to my arms, I hug myself as I try to steady my thoughts. I trust my team. There’s no way that they’d risk ever putting someone untrustworthy and dangerous for our own safety on the team.

With that in mind, I close my eyes and let the distant city noise numb out my thinking. Everything will be fine, Y/n. There’s no need to be conflicted...

****

It has been over a month since Thor and Loki have arrived. My arms are crossed over my chest as I lean against the shelves, waiting for Loki to choose a book. “It’s just so irritating!” I grumble.

“That is normal when it comes to my brother, I’m afraid.” Loki replies distractedly. When he hears me huff, he finally diverts his attention to me. “Thor may have grown a lot since his first encounter with Midgard but he is still accustomed to royalty. He’s dimwitted when it comes to the behavior of earth.” He sighs before returning to his search.

When they had first arrived, I had been more nervous over meeting Loki than anything. In the end, it turns out that Loki and I find each others company worth keeping. Thor, however, grated on my last nerves for a reason unbeknownst to me. 

From the way he charmed his way to get things he wanted to how he took charge over our missions regardless of planning- it all just irritated me to no end. Apparently, I have a similar effect on the god of thunder. Or at least, that’s what Loki tells me.

“I know, I know! Still, it doesn’t change the fact that Tony assigned that mission to me. Not him! I may not have freaking sparkly powers from ancient Norse gods but I can hold my own out there! If I couldn’t, I wouldn’t be an Avenger.” I complain.

Loki chuckles at me, bringing a slight smirk to my lips. “You have such a way with words, Y/n.” Rolling my eyes, I join his side and help him choose something to read. “There is truth to your words. I think Thor may be a bit intimidated by the idea of a mere mortal being chosen over him. Which adds to the shared conflict between the two of you.”

Scoffing, I slide a paperback spine from the shelves and push it to his chest. With a raised eyebrow, Loki turns to see that I’ve handed him a volume of Shakespeare sonnets. “I am much more than a mere mortal and I believe you’ll find Shakespeare fascinating.” 

Lowering the book in his hand to his side, he looks at me with curious eyes. “Perhaps you should show him that. Prove yourself by continuing to be yourself, Y/n.” Sighing, I feel my shoulders sag in defeat as I mouth ‘fine’ to him. He smiles victoriously at me and we walk back to the living room together.

As we both settle back into the furniture, I hear Bruce come in with Natasha. “Hey, guys.” I greet, waving at them from beside Loki. My elbow finds itself jammed into his side before he growls at me and greets the two of them as well.

“I thought you were supposed to be on a mission, Y/n.” Bruce wonders out loud. I can hear Loki mumbling, ‘here we go again’ underneath his breath as the irritation boils over once more.

“I was supposed to be! Thor went instead of me, though...” Inhaling deeply, I try to release the tension built up in my shoulders, “But I guess that’s okay. I’ll just get the next one.” Natasha smiles sympathetically at me and Bruce looks apologetic.

Shrugging, I return my attention to reading over Loki’s shoulder as Nat and Bruce continue on their way. “Am I overreacting, Loki?” I ask quietly. My head lolls back onto the couch cushion as I ponder my behavior.

“Perhaps my brother is a trigger for your behavior, Y/n. You only seem to be this way when pertaining him.” He observes. Groaning, I throw an arm over my eyes in a lousy attempt to block out these feelings.

Maybe he’s right and this is all in my head.

****

Two days had passed and I was starting to feel confident on my fresh outlook concerning the infamous god of thunder. That is, until he finally returned from my stolen mission. Several of the Avengers were gathered around the kitchen island when we heard the paging overhead. 

Someone’s injured...

Immediately, I feel anxiety drop into the pit of my stomach as I imagine what could have gone wrong during the mission. Thor, Peter and Tony went together. I feel myself panicking.

Blindly, I push my way to the hall and sprint in the direction of the infirmary. My mind is clouded with possibilities and jumping to the worst conclusions. I pass Loki on my way and I feel him fall into step beside me, silently. As quickly as I possibly can without full-on running, I maneuver through the corridor.

Reaching the sliding doors, I shove my way inside and catch sight of Tony and Thor having an intense discussion away from the cots. Ignoring them for the time being, though they’ve taken notice of me, I see Peter laying on the bed with cuts and contusions along with his leg in a cast.

Peter smiles weakly at me and that’s when I snap. Rushing over to him, I kneel as I take in his wounds and make sure he’s okay. “Y/n, I’m fine. I promise. Just got into a bit of unexpected trouble.” He attempts to reassure me. Pushing his curls away from his forehead, he winces at the cuts that litter his skin.

I smile at him, but even Peter can see the fire behind my eyes. Standing tall, I turn as I stomp my way over to the pompous blonde and Playboy philanthropist. "What the hell happened?"

Tony knows better than to deny me in this state and he eyes Thor with an emotion that gives him away. “The way we had planned to retreat had been forgotten in the moment and led us astray. We had encountered more trouble than we originally bargained for.” Tony explains with a tight voice.

“Forgotten in the moment?” I gasp out, not believing it for a single moment, “How can something so important to a successful mission be forgotten like that? Huh?” I growl.

That’s when Thor decides to weigh into the conversation, “Listen, Y/n, it was all a misunderstanding-” He starts but this triggers a snap of irritation inside me.

“A misunderstanding! Ha, that’s rich.” My words are dipped in venom, directing them at the god of thunder. Thor seems a bit amused at my outburst and I clench my fists in an attempt to keep my emotions under my control.

Tony can no longer keep himself in check either, “Thor decided to take the mission into his own hands. Though it helped to reach our main goal, it lead us into a mess that caused the kid to get injured!” 

Thor struggles to remain stoic underneath the piercing eyes surrounding him. Peter stays quiet, not sure what to say and feeling small in the room full of intense feelings. My feet move forward on their own accord, influenced by my emotions but I soon feel a firm grip on my shoulder, stopping my movements.

Loki’s blue eyes scan me, searching for something I’m not quite sure of. Sighing, I shrug him off and decide it’s best not to engage. Scoffing, I walk back over to Peter and smile with tight lips. Peter has a frown replacing his usual smile and I can tell that stress has taken a hold of him.

“Don’t even start, brother.” Loki warns with a rough tone. I call out to Loki and when he looks my way, I make a subtle motion to Peter. He understands and immediately drags his brother into the hallway. After saying a quick get well to the young boy, Tony takes my spot and I rush to find Loki.

Rushed and murmured voices can be heard when I step out of the infirmary, making it easy to find the royal brothers. The closer I get, the clearer the words become. “You had no right to go on that mission in the first place, let alone lead them through it! Humans may not be as strong as us but they plan these out for a reason!” Loki hisses.

“And what? You expected your little friend, Y/n, to be able to bring a team back from a mission safely? You’re being generous.” Thor sneers. My feet stop as I listen closely, not wanting to be spotted.

Loki scoffs, “You’re just threatened by the idea, aren’t you? The god of Thunder, Prince of Asgard and ruler of the nine realms being showed up by a mortal woman. Well, I’ll tell you, brother, Y/n is anything but a mere mortal.” 

His words bring an appreciative smirk to my lips, which splits into a grin when no response is given from Thor. Feeling triumphant in secret, I turn and disappear back into the hall. Thor will never be able to accept me as a woman being just as capable as a god.

****

Sitting beside Peter as he rests, I thumb through a book Loki suggested. These past couple days have consisted of me keeping the young boy company. Peter feels quite uncomfortable with the tension his injuries have caused, but it’s truthfully not his fault. This would have happened eventually, no doubt.

The sound of him mumbling in his sleep makes me giggle to myself. Feeling a bit parched, I finish my page before setting the paperback down and aiming to get a bottle of water. Just as I stand and turn, I run smack into a tray of food. The contents disperse down my shirt and smeared across my skin.

Crying out, I feel hot liquid burn my skin and leaving the area scarlet, splotchy. Looking up, I see Thor looking startled at the collision. Internally growling, I glance back to Peter, who is now awake and looking concerned. “I’m sorry,” I murmur before excusing myself.

Thor stutters over different sounds but I don’t pay it any attention. Scurrying from the room, I practically sprint to the nearest sink to wash away the remnants of food. Small blisters are littered across my chest and I wince as I clean them. Sharp hisses are exhaled between my teeth at the pain I’m bringing myself, not being able to see exactly where to clean or not.

“Y/n? Y/n!” I hear my name growing ever more prominent as it nears. Thor comes jogging into my line of sight, looking relieved. Though, it’s soon replaced with furrowed brows and a frown. 

Before I can ask what his problem is, he’s standing in front of me. The sudden action causes me to flinch and yelp at the fast motion pulling at my skin. “You got burned.” Thor concludes.

“Wow. Nice deduction, Sherlock.” I sneer. Even though I don’t care for Thor, I do feel slightly bad about my quip. “It’s not your fault...I’ll be fine.” I sigh, my body sagging ever so slightly.

Thor’s hand reaches out before stopping just above my chest, “May I?” Nodding, he takes over dabbing the wounds with the cloth I had been using. Surprisingly, he’s very cautious with his actions and is always quick to soothe me when it hurts.

When Thor’s not being a pompous jerk, he actually has a gentle tone about him that I hadn’t yet seen. It’s peculiar and fascinating. When he’s finished, he advises me to get it looked at by Bruce or Nat and even suggested Loki could help the pain with his magic. Thanking him, he smiles genuinely at me and I surprise myself by mirroring his actions.

“I’m sorry about our collision and I do hope it doesn’t cause too much inconvenience.” Thor says, apologetically. 

Shaking my head, I wave him off, “No worries. Thank you, Thor.” With that, he excuses himself and leaves me alone, baffled. Never did I think he and I would have a pleasant conversation. Yet, here we were, doing just that!

My pulse races rapidly beneath my skin and I stare at the open window with a wide mouth. I can hardly believe what happened, but I definitely wouldn’t mind being convinced.

****

I’ve been spending most of my time with Peter, especially since Loki has been working on a mission with Stark. But things are different, now.

Thor has been joining us a lot lately and I don’t shy away from his company. Listening to his banter with Pete makes me feel warm and never fails to bring a smile to my face. Although Peter’s injury doesn’t need much assistance, I constantly catch Thor offering his hand.

Tonight, however, is spent with Loki. The two of us catch up on reading beside the tall, wide window as we lounge on the furniture. Listening to his smooth voice reading aloud, I feel the familiar comfort surround me.

Soon, Loki’s voice softens and I hear his audible sigh. “I hear you’ve been spending time with my brother, lately. Must I say, I’m quite shocked to find you without complaint.”

This truth strikes me and I feel the muscles in my shoulders tighten. Sitting up straight, I look to Loki and mirror his raised brow, “How do you know that I’m not just biting my tongue?” I challenge.

He snorts, “Because you’ve never utilized such capabilities in the past, my friend. Not that it’s any of my business. I’m simply peaked by my curiosity.” He explains, shrugging it off nonchalantly.

Pondering his statement, I begin to question myself. Images of Thor’s white teeth peeking through a chuckle, the way his blue eyes sparkle as they watch me geek out with Peter, the feeling of his gentle hands taking care of me when I got burned....

Thump. thump, thump, thump, thump.

I feel a stampede erupt in the pit of my stomach, filling my chest with warmth and the surface of my skin with goosebumps. The thought of his fingertips grazing my skin, his breath fanning against my cheek- it’s overwhelming.

In that moment, I realized I had inadvertently developed feelings for the very person I once despised. With a simple glance, he could have made me lash out. Now, with just an image in my head, he could have me blushing fiercely.

“Y/n? Y/n!” I hear Loki calling me, snapping my out of me reverie. “Your face is red and you look sick. Are you okay?” He asks, sounding concerned. My eyes flicker to my hands, fidgeting in my lap.

Even if I knew where to start, I’m not sure I would want to reveal such new emotions to the brother of my conflicted affection! Shaking my head, I push his curiosity away the best I can. “Just lost in thought, that’s all.”

Loki remains unconvinced but doesn’t push his thoughts upon me. Soon, he returns to reading out loud but my thoughts are too jumbled with feelings. Everything fades into white-noise as I attempt to sort out what my next move will be.

( Thor ) P.O.V.

My reflection stares back at me, wrinkles deep set as I think. Surely I’m not developing romantic feelings toward Y/n. She’s always drove me mad with her know-it-all attitude, sour against my every breath. Yet, I can’t stop thinking about her.

I adore the way she wrinkles her nose when she laughs, throwing her head back slightly. Her beautiful eyes captivate me, making even the galaxy’s most breathtaking spectacles dim in comparison. Seeing her eyes soften at the sight of me, it sends a foreign electricity flowing through my veins.

Becoming so lost in thought, I jump at the sound of Loki entering my chambers. “A bit jumpy, are we brother?” His mocking voice fills my ears. Huffing, I stand up to fetch myself a drink.

“What do I owe the pleasure of your company, Loki?” I study his posture in the mirror, waiting for his response.

Chuckling, Loki leans against the door post with ease, “Owe it to the fact that Y/n was drifting to sleep during our reading. Sent her to bed before coming here.” The sound of her name brings a sense of excitement to me that I can’t ignore.

“I was wondering, brother, if you had any clue as to her behavior as of late?” Loki asks, clearly fishing for information.

Shaking my head, I take a swig from my glass before setting it down, “What’s wrong with her behavior?” She hasn’t seemed awfully different to me, but then again, I didn’t know her as well as others.

“Well, for one, she’s not spewing about her distastes of you. Another, she seems distracted by her inner thoughts.” Loki says, catching my attention. “When I brought these to her knowledge, she seemed confused and quite conflicted. Particularly odd for a girl, such as Y/n.”

Sighing, I move to the edge of the bed and run my fingers through my golden strands. “Loki, I am...I’m developing feelings for Y/n.” Admitting those words out loud bring on a satisfied smile.

“You like Y/n? My gods.” Loki mumbles to himself.

“I know she doesn’t favor me and I may have judged her too quickly, but she has infected my every thought. When I don’t see her, I catch myself going out of my way to find her. I feel as if I’m losing my mind.”

The mischievous brother smirks, “Perhaps you are, Thor. However, you may still be assuming too quickly. You won’t truly know of her feelings if you never ask.” With that, Loki walks away with a peculiar and knowing look adorning his face.

My thoughts turns his words over and over in my head, wondering about what I should do next. In all my life, I have never felt such nerves overwhelm me as when I am with Y/n. The very thought of having her, claiming her as mine, it makes me determined to speak of my growing affections.

****

( Reader ) P.O.V.

Walking through the halls, I roam my way outside as I look to take a stroll. Before getting too far, I hear a throat clearing and I jump at the abrupt sound. “Sorry to frighten you, Y/n.” Thor says, stepping closer to me.

My heartbeat picks up and I feel my skin heating up, “N-no it’s okay. I’m just on my way for a stroll outside.” I tell him. He looks as if his words are caught in his throat and a source of bold overtakes me, “Would you like to join me?”

Thor smiles widely, seeming relieved at my invitation. “I would love to. Thank you.” Falling into step beside me, we pace ourselves outside and into the surrounding nature. A comforting heat radiates off him, making me feel at ease as we walk.

“Lovely day to be out, isn’t it?” He attempts to make conversation.

Giggling, I attempt to contain my smile, “Are you making small talk, Thor?” I tease him lightly. He just smiles at me, nodding. “Then, yes. It is a lovely day.” I agree.

Soon, we come across a huge weeping willow tree and I beam up at the sight. “Wow!” I exclaim, scurrying forth to brush my hands through it’s hanging brush. “I haven’t walked this far, so I had never seen this!”

“It’s beautiful.” Thor agrees, weaving in-between the green. I’m so absorbed in exploring that I don’t pay much mind to my footing. Tangled up in the roots and lingering branches, I fall forward, bracing myself for the impact.

That’s when my hands land on flesh and I feel strong arms snake around my waist. “Whoa, hey- are you alright?” Thor asks, eyes wide with concern. Nodding quickly, I push myself from his embrace and start apologizing. “Y/n-”

“I’m sorry, Thor. You don’t have to feel obligated to stay here with me. I, I’ll just be going, then.” I rush out, feeling the embarrassment sting behind my eyes. I hear him call my name again and then his fingers wrap around my wrist.

“Y/n, I don’t feel obligated. What do you mean?” He asks, feeling extremely confused. All that falls from my lips are ‘sorry’s and sniffles. “Why are you apologizing?”

My last wall crumbles and the words flow forth with no filter, “Because I know we don’t get along, okay? I know that you’re only here because of Peter, trying to make up for whatever happened. I get it, Thor. You don’t need to try so hard anymore.” I say, my voice becoming hoarse with unshed tears.

Deep inside of me, I feel the sadness begging me to take my words back. Seeing the hurt on his face makes me want to plead for him to stay, for things to truly be this way, but I continue to stand there quietly.

“You’re right. I did start this because of the kid, as an apology. But that is not why I am standing here with you, right now. Yes, we didn’t get along but the laughter we’ve shared these past days have not been for show. That was all real, Y/n. That’s why I’m here.”

All I can do is stare at him, listening to him and waiting for him to continue, “I keep on craving the laughter and comfort I feel when you’re by my side. Constantly, I seek you out because your company is greatly missed when we are apart. And perhaps you don’t feel the same, but if there’s one thing you should never doubt, it’s my growing affections for you, Y/n.”

Speechless.

Looking into his stormy blue eyes, I see how sincere his words are. Yet, I can’t stop this growing fear in my heart. “It’s okay to be conflicted. But I promise, I will convince you.” Thor says with determination.

Finally, everything seems clear. Turning into his embrace, I scan his features and how I, also, long for the wrinkles of his smiles and hearing my name staining his tongue. “Then convince me.” I say, leaning towards him.

With little hesitation, Thor bends down and our lips connect. It’s much different than what I expected. Soft, gentle and full of care. Amazing. It’s not a deep kiss, yet it’s filled with all of his promises and I know, in that moment, that I will willingly follow him. 

Pulling back, my lips tingle from the lack of warmth that once occupied the cold. His hand is cradled behind my neck, thumb brushing over my jaw with purpose- as if he’s memorizing every inch that he can. “Stay at my side, Y/n.”

Smiling, I tangle my free hand in his hair as my other rests on his forearm. Everything is changing, but it’s a change that I will be all too eager to accept, “Gladly.”

Masterlist Here

A/N: Sorry this took so long!!! I had a huge writers block and wasn’t sure where to take this. A lot has happened and this month will be so hectic. So please bare with me as I work on more stories. - Ellie-Mae

Taglist: @britishfangirl @jcalpha1 @unrestrained-chaosss

[broken-clover]

Dust Strikers Story Mode 4/4

Part four of the story transcripts for Guilty Gear: Dust Strikers. I apologize for taking so long to submit this last section, I was suffering from a case of my-computer-is-laggy-and-I-can’t-play-Anji-to-save-my-life. I hope you can forgive me.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 (Slayer, I-no, Zappa, Bridget, Anji)

Slayer

Slayer: Interesting Bridget: What is it? Excuse me, you don't happen to have a bounty on your head by any chance? Slayer: Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not worth much of anything. But if your skills measure up to me, I might be worth your time. Johnny: Even though he's an old guy, I'm impressed that she wants to take on a guy. It just fascinates me. Anji: You think? I'm interested in guys too. Johnny: What did you say? Anji: Don't get any wrong ideas, now. I'm interested in their powers. Slayer: I agree with that way of thinking. That simplifies matters. Johnny: Wait, I'm not really... Anji: Now you're talking! I'm pumped!

Faust: This is an interesting symptom. I see, it's a cause and effect cycle. Axl: You, I never asked you to check up on me! Even though it's true that I've been through a lot, I've never had any doubts about my body. Faust: Oh, is that right? If there aren't any cures, that may very well be the best treatment. Axl: I'm more concerned about your body. Looks a little mysterious. Faust: Not to worry. It's all functional Slayer: Irregulars with an added spice that changes the world of men. Axl: You talking about us? Slayer: It's because of people like you that makes humans interesting. Even though you're blessed with great powers, it's normal to you. Very typical of how humans behave. Axl: It'll stress you out if you think so deeply. Zappa: Hahahahaha! Slayer: Look. Yet another fellow favored by the goddess of fortune. Axl: I do like women but I'm not sure about the goddess. Slayer: It must be the uncertainty factor that led you into running into me Axl: C'mon, let's just have fun...I thought this was supposed to be a party!

Potemkin: I heard from the president. I've been looking forward to this day to finally exchange shots with you. Slayer: One of the disciples, I gather. You think you can take me? You should beat him before coming to me. You'll pay a high price for this! Chipp: HEY! Hold it right there! You're the dude who founded the guild, aren't you? Slayer: That was quite a long time ago...I no longer have any involvement...but it is true that I am the founder. Chipp: That simplifies matters. I'm gonna destroy you! Jam: Looks like I've gotten myself into a hostile environment. Better get outta here... Slayer: Hmm, looks like you're a ki wielder. I'm interested in your combat style. Would you mind showing me some of it? Jam: I'm no cheap street performer. If you give me some of that spice, I'll think about it. Slayer: I should be able to accommodate you. Jam: That's a promise! Chipp: Quit ignoring me, both of you! You're going down!

Slayer: This is quite an unusual combination. Sol: I'm starting to get tired of your face Testament: Different being. What do you want? Slayer: Nope. Nothing in particular. Just happened to pass by. Testament: Then please go away Dizzy: Oh, you're Mr. Slayer, aren't you? Please excuse Testament's words. He doesn't mean any harm. Slayer: I'm not bothered by it. Don't worry. But this is quite interesting. Sol: So what the hell is your point? Slayer: Those who have veered off the path. I guess the same must be said of me. Testament: What are you insinuating? You better have a good explanation Slayer: My apologies if I offended you. I'm just genuinely interested in your powers Sol: You using us to kill your boredom? I think it's time you hung em up.

Millia: So...we meet again...Zato. Eddie: So you still haven't gotten over him? Millia: Shut up, you damn beast...I'm talking to him, not you! Eddie: What do you want to talk to ME about? Millia: I'm taking you down. I'm sick and tired of looking at your pathetic, bony remains. Venom: Not so fast...! Master Zato is regarded as the crown-jewel of the guild. You'll have to hand him over to me...! Slayer: I've told you the Guild is no more. No raison d'etre and no purpose. Continued existence will only bring further regret and despair. Venom: Oldtimers can keep their mouth shut. The guild no longer belongs to you. Millia: It has nothing to do with me anymore, I don't care what happens to it. I just want to take care of this guy with my very own hands. Eddie: Do you think it will be that easy? What do "I" think?"...Not so easy, "I" say. Venom: I sense you...Master Zato. I am going to free you, Master, from the evil spell of death! Eddie: Ha ha...this is great! Lowly humans who cannot accept death. That's the right evil spirit to have! Slayer: I'm the one who started all of this. I must atone for my past deeds. Fine, let us put an end to it all.

Slayer: Just when I thought it was all over. Gig: Grr... Slayer: Don't want to be adding more trouble. You looking for a dance partner? Gig: Grrrgh! Slayer: Very well then, mademoiselle.

Gig: Grr...grr... Slayer: That was very passionate, wasn't it? I had better get going now... Gig: Ghhh... Slayer: So long! Farewell!

Slayer: Take a look, Sharon. Tonight the moon shines beautifully. The red moon in the dark night sky seems to epitomize the world of man. Those that will shine and stand out amidst this corrupt day and age are those with immortal justice....Don't you think, Sharon?

I-no

I-no: That's an exciting combination. Potemkin: That red outfit and guitar...you must be... I-no: You remember me? That's nice to know. Potemkin: Someone like you go unchecked...lucky for you I'm a little busy now. You pull out and I'll let you go. Zappa: Grrr! I'm gonna curse you! Faust: Looks like this won't need treatment. If we take too much time, the patient is not going to make it. I-no: Look, the beasts are making noise. But I'm afraid I don't understand what they're saying. So loud and annoying. Potemkin: That should be enough! It's time for me to shut you up. Faust: Looks like it is your mind-set that needs treatment. Fine, I shall treat you, then. I-no: Trying to act tough, are we? You damned animals. I'll cut you up and feed the dogs!

Bridget: Something I can help you with? I-no: What a sweetie you are. What do I want? Let's see... May: If you're asking to be hooked up with Johnny, there's no way. I-no: I see, so there's more of you. Hey, I have a fun idea. Bridget: What is it? I've got cool tricks too. I-no: Demons' groaning sounds beautiful. Even more when they're in harmony. Dizzy: Are you trying to hurt everyone? I'm not going to let you do that. I-no: I love all that energy. Come on, play a tune for me. Bridget: I wouldn't underestimate me if I were you. Fall into the hands of the law.

I-no: What do we have here, the desperate bachelorettes council? Baiken: What kind of greeting is that? That's not a very nice thing to say Jam: That's right! You're rude! And what about you? I-no: Oh dear, don't be so uptight. It's just a joke, honey. Or were you offended 'cause I was right on the mark? Millia: You're a joke. Why don't you get outta here. I-no: Oh no. I'm scared. I guess this is how women become as they get older. Baiken: You crazy! I'll cut you up into pieces! Jam: I'm not showing you any mercy either! Millia: If you're not gonna get outta here, we'll have to get rid of you. It's as simple as that. I-no: You're such sweethearts. Very well, I make you cry lots. We'll find out how loud you can cry.

I-no: Hi there. Testament: What the hell do you want? I-no: Don't glare at me like that. You're scaring me. Testament: Get the hell outta here if you don't want anything. Unless of course you want to die. I-no: What do I want? Let's see...I'm here to hunt down all the monsters. I'd like all of you to die. Slayer: Ha, calling us all monsters, huh? You do realize I'm a disparate type? Too caught up in your own powers? Let me give you a lesson on manners. Eddie: Some excellent subject material. I shall test you to see if you are adequate for my body. I-no: Who do you think you're talking to? You can all bathe in your own blood! Testament: I'll show you this monster's power. You can repent your losses in hell!

I-no: You're late. You shouldn't make ladies wait like that. Sol: shut up. What are you wandering around for? Johnny: Hey, what a coincidence. Didn't expect to run into you here....guess yu're busy with a woman Sol: You stay out of it I-no: Ooh, another cute guy Ky: All of you! Freeze right there! I-no: and now a cute boy, too. Ky: Sol..! And Johnny the pirate, and you're..! I-no: I'd stay out of it if I were you. Why don't you just go home to mommy? Sol: That's enough chit chatting. Let's let the fists do the talking! Ky: ...Sol! I-no: The violent guy as always. Sure, why not...I'll cut you all up into pieces! Ky: I guess there's no alternative. Holy Knight combat was initially meant for handling multiple enemies. I'll show you what it's all about!

I-no: I see... Gig: Grr... I-no: So the caterpillar couldn't become a butterfly. Once a piece of junk, always a piece of junk, I guess. Gig: Grrrgh! I-no: Hahaha! What a joke!

Gig: Grr...grr... I-no: How was it? Did you like it? I'm sure you're quite satisfied. Gig: Ghh... I-no: I say that's enough for one day! Time for you to go to hell! Gig: Grr...

That Man:...good. Job well done. You may go now. I-no: Yes, sir! That Man: Well...I'll let you go this time. But refrain from actions that may throw off our plan. Especially if it had to do with him. I-no: But sir! That Man:... I-no: My apologies, sir. That Man: Now there is another good reason...to be killed by him.

Zappa

Zappa: Hey! Miss! Millia:...Yes? Zappa: If it's possible, can you be my wi... Millia:... Zappa: Actually, never mind... Axl: Dude, let me show you how it's done. Hey, you in the beautiful blond hair! Let me buy you a cup of coffee so I can see which glows brighter, your hair or your eyes. Millia:...Um, I'm in a hurry. Ky: You're Millia, the former assassin. If you're not with the guild anymore, leave the rest to the police force. No need to put yourself in danger. Millia: I'll take care of him. It's none of your business. Ky: But no, we have to... Zappa: What's all this talk about? Even the police are here. Maybe I should get outta...NO!...Happiness. Hatred! Hatred! Millia: Why don't I ever have luck with men?

Johnny: Whoa, check out this beautiful lady. How flirty you are. Jam: I'm not into guys like you. Take a hike. Johnny: Playing hard to get, are we? Zappa: Good cook! Good cook! Good cook! Jam: What's that? Zappa: High points as a wife candidate. Ready for engagement. Let me eat you up! Johnny: That's a dangerous pick up line Jam: A ghost? Very unscientific. Eddie: Ha! Your body shall be mine! Jam: You're much more scientific than him. Anyway, you're not my type either. You can all take a hike.

Zappa: Um, excuse me! I'm lost and was wondering if...if, if you wanted to die! Sol: Out of my way. Zappa: Where'd this big burn come from? Help me! I don't wanna die!...Die! You shall die! Dizzy: What's going on? No, Necro! Zappa: Wh, what?! My head's cold...It's blood! No! No! No!...Tear you up into pieces! Slayer:...Just a little nudge. Zappa:...Huh? Why am I going backwards when I'm moving forward? Huh? My head's on the wrong way...

Zappa: Um, excuse me, I was wondering... Baiken: Yeah what? Why are you so fidgety? Act like a man, will you? Zappa: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm looking for a person, Fa- Baiken: Fa...who? Zappa:...Fricken nasty! Baiken: What's going on here? I'm surrounded by freaks. Testament: How rude of you to say that. I've long given up my human name, but by no means am I a freak. Venom: This is a supernatural phenomenon. Quite interesting. I'd like to see more of your powers. Baiken: Man, this is a real drag. I'll blow you all away! Testament: Lowly humans shall die!

Bridget: Wow, what a massive frame you got. Potemkin: Well, I was born big. This fist I use for what I believe in and to engage in art, nothing else. Bridget: So you're an artist. Good for you. Maybe you can draw something for me? Faust: Should be safe if I've come this far. Bridget: Wow, landing using just an umbrella, that's amazing. You from the circus? Faust: No actually, believe it or not I'm a... Zappa: Dr. Faust! (sigh...sigh...) Faust: My goodness, he's caught up already. Bridget: This is remarkable! How do you bend your joints and run like that? You must be a yoga expert. Zappa: Quick, doctor, please do something! Look! I'm bent all over the place! Oh no!!! Faust: Looks like it's begun. I'll have to take drastic measures. Potemkin: Is it fate that I happen to be here? What the heck, I can help out. Bridget:...! What amazing tricks! Now it's my turn! Check this out!

Zappa: Good grief! I'm lost again. Plus it's getting dark. Gig: Grr... Zappa: Huh? Excuse me, is someone there? Gig: Grrrgh! Zappa: Aaaagh! Good time to pass out!

Gig: Grr...grr... Zappa:...I can sense it from you! I sense...a bitter grudge! Very similar...to me...aaaagh! Gig: Ghhh... Zappa:...Huh? What's going on? Why's my whole body so beat up? Gig: Grr... Zappa:...Huh?

Bridget

Bridget: Are you Testament? Testament:...you a bounty hunter? Bridget: You got it. Testament: Aren't you a little too young? What is this world coming to? Bridget: Nothing's going to change if you're so pessimistic all the time. Testament: How come you don't realize you are turning yourself into a machine at the price of countless bloodshed. I must teach you a lesson! Ky: Hold it right there! International Police Force is now... Jam: Ayah!!! Yes! This is my lucky day! Testament: Yet another shameless human looking to land a bounty... Jam: That's not what I'm here for. It's not very often you can hire 3 cute waiters in one day! Bridget: Umm, I'm a bounty hunter. Jam: Quick, let's have a match! I win, and you all have to work for me! I don't mind if it's 3 on 1. Cute guys beating you up is cool too! Testament: I can't deal with this. Let me through. Bridget: Fine, then. We'll do it all in one go! Ky: What? Me too?

Bridget: Something I can help you with? I-no: What a sweetie you are. What do I want? Let's see... May: If you're asking to be hooked up with Johnny, there's no way. I-no: I see, so there's more of you. Hey, I have a fun idea. Bridget: What is it? I've got cool tricks too. I-no: Demons' groaning sounds beautiful. Even more when they're in harmony. Dizzy: Are you trying to hurt everyone? I'm not going to let you do that. I-no: I love all that energy. Come on, play a tune for me. Bridget: I wouldn't underestimate me if I were you. Fall into the hands of the law.

Axl: Hey, what's that you're holding? I didn't know you had those toys, even in this day and age. Bridget: This is not a toy! It's a tool of my trade! Axl: Ouch! I'm sorry! What have we here? Playing pool at a place like this? Venom: How dare you insult my combat style. I say you deserve a beating. Axl: Hang on a sec! Something wrong with this era. Every toy's being used as a weapon. So what do people actually play with? Johnny: The best for of entertainment, I'd say is the thrill and romance of playing with fireworks at night. I'm pretty sure that's the consensus. Axl: You know what you're talking about! I'm actually great with fire myself...here we go!

Bridget: Whoah, everybody looks tough Chipp: Hey! what's a kid doing here? Eddie: A child. Attractive in terms of her youthfulness but too immature to become my host Bridget: You're not taking me seriously? Then let me show you my moves Sol:...back off. Don't be wasting my time Eddie: Interesting. I shall keep a record of the battle results for future reference Bridget: Don't be surprised! Here I come! Sol: What am I, a babysitter? I can't deal with this...

Bridget: Wow, what a massive frame you got. Potemkin: Well, I was born big. This fist I use for what I believe in and to engage in art, nothing else. Bridget: So you're an artist. Good for you. Maybe you can draw something for me? Faust: Should be safe if I've come this far. Bridget: Wow, landing using just an umbrella, that's amazing. You from the circus? Faust: No actually, believe it or not I'm a... Zappa: Dr. Faust! (sigh...sigh...) Faust: My goodness, he's caught up already. Bridget: This is remarkable! How do you bend your joints and run like that? You must be a yoga expert. Zappa: Quick, doctor, please do something! Look! I'm bent all over the place! Oh no!!! Faust: Looks like it's begun. I'll have to take drastic measures. Potemkin: Is it fate that I happen to be here? What the heck, I can help out. Bridget:...! What amazing tricks! Now it's my turn! Check this out!

Bridget: Whoa! What's this? Gig: Grr... Bridget: Some sort of costume party? That's a great costume. Gig: Grrrgh! Bridget: Wait. Is it real?

Gig: Grr...grr... Bridget: Phew, that was hard work. He's a big guy but that made it easier to get up close. Gig: Ghhh... Bridget: Umm...guess there's no bounty. Okay then, see you later. Gig: Grr...

Bridget: Hmm...starting to run out of travel money...and I'm getting hungry. Hey! That guy! Maybe he's... Bridget:....Umm, excuse me, sir...is there a bounty on your head?

Anji

Anji: You must be Ky Kiske, former leader of the Sacred Order of Holy Knights Ky: Yes, that would be me. And who are you? Anji: Last name is Mito, first name is Anji. I'm just a journeyman Ky: So what can I help you with? Anji: I'd like to challenge you to a match. I wanted to see firsthand the skills of a top-class warrior like yourself. Ky: I can tell from your presence that you're not an ordinary foe. Asian martial arts? Interesting. I accept your challenge. Slayer: In that case, count me in too. Fighting for the sake of fighting. To me fighting is life's best form of entertainment. Don't you think? Potemkin: I myself haven’t had any worthy opponents recently. Sure, I'll take you on. Ky: This is getting interesting. It's been a while for me too. Bring it on!

Anji: You're using that thing as a weapon? 'Assassins' are something, aren't they. Venom:...You should talk! Your combat style is bizarre too! Anji: I don't mean to be conceited, but my moves are second to none. How about a quick match? It may help me to learn new tactics. I'd like to say yes to your offer, but... Anji: I guess it's not going to be 1 on 1. Chipp: That's right. I'm not a nice enough guy to let go of this great chance at revenge! Testament: Sacred treasures? How effective my sorcery will be....please allow me to test it on you.

Anji: So you're Dizzy... Dizzy:...That is correct. What can I do for you? There's no bounty on my head anymore. Anji: Nope, nothing vicious like that. Jam: By the way, I'm the one who got the bounty. Thanks to the money, I've been able to open up my own restaurant Bridget: Hey, I wanted that bounty too. First come first serve, I guess. Life isn't always fair. Anji: I wanted to know where 'That Man' is. Do you know something? Dizzy: I'm sorry, I don't know much. Anji: All right, then. I guess I'll try somewhere else. Bridget: Is there a bounty on his head? Then I wanna know, too! Jam: I wanna know, too! Good chance to expand my restaurant! Anji: Hey, you guys are missing the point.

Anji: You know Sol, don't you? I-no: You meet a woman for the first time and that's the first thing you ask me? I want to know more about you. Anji: My apologies. Last name is Mito, first name is Anji. I'm just a journeyman. I-no: thanks for the introduction. And what can I help you with? Anji: I've been wanting to meet 'That Man.' I-no: Really. You won't live long, dear. Eddie: That's not necessarily the case. As long as you become a part of my body! Ha! Anji: Two on one? This is a tough situation. Faust: Looks like you're having trouble. I can assist you to the best of my humble ability. I-no. Thanks for showing up to your own funeral, doc! Faust: No matter who, my mission is to save lives. Let us apply some drastic remedies, shall we?

Anji: Finally found you. Sol:...It's you again. Anji: Let me ask you straight out. Do you have any idea where 'he' is? Sol: So what if I know? Anji: Can you tell me where he is? Of course I'm willing to work for it. You and I have a bout, and if I win, you tell me. Sounds fair? Baiken: Wait! Let me in on the festivities Sol: Sorry, not interested. You guys enjoy each other's company Anji: Even Justice feared my powers...Still not interested? Sol:...! Baiken: Shut your trap! You're starting to get on my nerves. I'll kick all of your butts right now! Axl: Whoa!...Damn it...is this a bad time? Baiken: Eavesdropping, are we? I'm not impressed! Axl: I just wanted to ask chief something Sol: And even you. Why does everyone want to stick their noses in other people's business! Axl: No worries, chief! Just a quick bout, no hard feelings! Sol: I'm not responsible for what happens.

Anji: Well, well... Gig: Grr... Anji: I'd like to see if my calculations...were correct or not, but... Gig: Grrgh! Anji: He's probably not willing to talk.

Gig: Grr...grr... Anji: Man, I thought I was gonna die! My victory, nevertheless! Gig: Grr...

Anji: If Gear wasn't created as a weapon...then what was the creator thinking...actually, no point think about it. Anji: Won't know until I meet him anyway. So...I wonder where he is now...