#yeah i was bound to make this image eventually

[chrissv4mp]

❀ romantic homicide

♫ now playing . . . track eight: romantic homicide

warnings. angst, cheating, asshole!billie, arguments, crying, language.

synopsis. billie hasn't been the best girlfriend recently, falling out of love and showing it in many subtle ways. however, you're more than gratified when you finally express your feelings to her.

words. 1.6k

letters. ......synopsis probably makes no sense—i also maybe sorta possibly wrote this yesterday??? who knows, maybe im writing the last fic as we speak bcus i got lazy and forgot to write them beforehand 🤥

PETALS TO THORNS WRITING MARATHON

to say your relationship with billie is complicated was... a huge understatement.

a more appropriate word would be a mess. every aspect about the relationship was falling apart day by day—the love, the understanding, the longing. fuck, even the lust. you'd never felt more... bored with anyone before billie.

at first, everything went smooth. you'd genuinely felt like she loved and cared for you endlessly. but, as the years went on and her media presence grew bigger and bigger, it was like you lost a part of her that she used to be so comfortable sharing—but now was closed off and unable to be reached anymore.

all of it was due to the media. paparazzi. the never-ending camera flashes and leaked photos and rumors circulating around the internet of her—and her secret lover. you, some girl that didn't have as much of a media presence as her but wasn't exactly unknown. and that's what the fans really picked apart, why they thought sending out posts of you not being "attractive enough" or being "too comfortable around girls that weren't billie" or even just being "too mysterious."

that wasn't even the worst part. because, yeah, it was pretty demoralizing, but none of it was true—not to you, not to the little fan base that you'd grown yourself, and definitely not billie. or, that's what you believed, at least.

the absolute worst part of it was that, after the fourth year of dating billie—and practically the fans—she never once spoke up or even made an effort to block the mean, hateful comments directed toward you. dodged the questions about you during interviews. rarely posted about you.

fans and media outlets speculated it was because she "wanted to make things private again." but even behind closed doors, she wasn't any different. rather, she was more closed off. distant. lifeless, sometimes.

but you loved her.

you think.

so you don't comment on any of it. don't even bring it up in the quiet moments between dull conversations and kisses void of any emotion. you just let the unspoken emotions sit and marinate in the silence between you two. heavy. bound to overflow at any moment.

bound to bubble over and become too much.

and that's exactly what happens one comfortable night. you're lounging lazily on the couch in the living room, eyes sleepy and hardly paying attention to the movie playing on the TV, illuminating the walls and curtains in the dark atmosphere of the space.

billie left for some party—that you can't remember what for—at eight, but now it's nearing midnight, and you're not sure if she's planning on coming back home any time soon. you told her, when she left, that you'd stay up for her, even when she brushed you off and told you not to waste your time.

and you really should've, but you've already stayed up for so long, so why throw away the progress now?

the movie eventually cuts to the end credits, but you don't bother to grab the remote and play another, you just let them roll and reach for your phone stuffed in the front pocket of your hoodie.

five new notifications.

one from instagram.

a post from billie's private account.

you bite your lip, chest already tightening in nervous anticipation.

then you click the first one. your screen fills with the image of—something you can't really make out in the first few seconds of seeing it. but then you examine it for a moment longer, and the image becomes more clear. it's billie and some girl you don't recognize, along with quen and ava. it's a selfie. the four girls are bathed in strobe lights, complimented by purple and blue LED light glowing from all corners of the building that you can make out.

she's smiling. lips pressed to the unknown girls cheek. probably drunk out of her mind.

you slowly swipe to left, trying to prepare yourself. but nothing could prepare you for the video you're about to watch.

it's billie and that girl again—but she's not holding the phone this time. by the incoherent commentary behind the phone, you can tell that quen's recording. in the middle of the video is billie, hands on the brunette girls hips. the girl is bent over slightly, looking over her shoulder with a tipsy grin as she grinds back against billie.

your breath catches.

the video blurs for a moment, shaking slightly before following the actions of quen, who's jumping up and down to the music, judging by the rapid movement. you squint your eyes, just enough to see the way billie leans into the girl from behind and presses a very obvious kiss to the nape of her neck.

you turn off your phone.

because what the fuck was that?

doubt comes before the inevitable anger. your head spins with the aftermath of what you just witnessed, pulse rapid in your ears with the knowledge that the video might've been filmed a few hours ago, earlier into the party, and you're just now seeing it. you bite down on your lip, hard enough for your teeth to break skin.

"fuck," you breathe.

because that's all you can think to say.

all that seems to be in your vocabulary right now.

tears prick in your eyes. your chest rises and falls quicker now as you sit up, rise to your feet and try to take a few deep breaths. but nothing helps. not when every frame of the video is imprinted into your brain.

questions spiral in your mind.

but one pushes to the front, stands out in the sea of self-doubt.

why were you still here?

why? if you weren't enough for her and you knew it, why did you feel the need to stay? why did you feel the need to endure the pain when it wasn't the good kind that everyone said they needed to live through to grow?

you can't comprehend it anymore.

you can hardly breathe without another question crashing into your mind and collapsing into the other mind-wrecking thoughts like a pile up of vehicles.

until something breaks through the noise.

a jingle of keys.

then a click.

your eyes snap up to the door.

it opens with a slow creak.

and billie steps through. cool and confident in that way you used to admire but are now starting to really hate.

she doesn't look as wrecked as she did in the video. she actually looks pretty put-together, like she wasn't just practically dry-humping another girl at a party a few hours ago. your fists clench at your sides, chest tightening. the anger comes in quick.

"hi, baby," she greets. soft, feigning innocence.

your jaw ticks.

"no," you whisper, shaking your head and stepping closer. your voice rises, "no, you don't get to call me that anymore. not after that."

she cocks a brow, like she's genuinely confused. she steps closer. "baby, what are you—?"

"i said don't fucking call me that!" you shout, eyes wild and red-rimmed from your previous tears. she flinches, but she doesn't back down. just continues with the fake-innocent facade.

but before she can speak again—maybe even pull you back around her finger—you speak again.

"what the fuck is wrong with you?" you ask, voice quieter now. controlled, almost, and that's what makes billie crumble. just a little. because she's not used to seeing you so independant and strong like this—not without her being there to guide you. "seriously, billie—what kind of person strings someone on for half of their relationship just to ruin everything in one accidental post?"

she's silent. unable to form words. she swallows hard, nervous.

you bite your tongue.

"why?" you mutter, voice cracking. "why even let me think that you still loved? that you still even had a shred of care left in your heart for me?"

her eyes meet yours—because it's the least she could do.

but she still doesn't answer you.

"i'm sick of it, billie," you cry, tears finally reaching you again. but the tightness in your chest is slowly unraveling as the words spill. "i'm so sick of waiting patiently for someone that won't even reciprocate half of the love i give them—that i give you."

"because i give you my all, and you discard it like i'm just some fucking toy that you can break," you sob. her eye twitches. you can see the way she tries to swallow the lump in her throat.

"i'm sorry," she murmurs. finally.

but it's empty.

meaningless after everything she's done.

"you're sorry," you repeat. "that's all?"

she nods. subtle. but you see.

her eyes are glassy now. a little lighter than before in that way you hardly ever see anymore. like she's genuinely feeling something.

but it's not guilt.

never that.

your breath is even now. free, almost.

almost.

because you just need to say it.

"i hate you."

and, for the first time since your second year anniversary, you're finally saying something that feels real. that's actually true and not just for show. because it's been gnawing at you since the second you decided to move in with her and sleep in her sheets beside her.

she flinches.

and it's real this time.

real fear.

real sadness.

real emotion for the first time in what seems like forever.

and you can finally feel something you haven't.

free.

tears don't well up in your eyes anymore, your heart isn't pounding fiercely against your chest, your chest doesn't feel as heavy as it did a few minutes ago.

you feel okay.

and you don't even regret the words.

tags. @mseilishmwah @sophloveswomen @bilsbunni @livvydunneness @chxhir0 @tan1shere @cierraonline @dandelions4us @rumbussa @ifwdominicfike @slxtarchive @bilsdillldough @47lake @hopingforgoodblogs @mybluebossanova @fleurfiles @justtr @greenbttrflyy @billsbaby @bilsova @lottiepierce @northlndnisred @asterisk-eyes @dragoneyelashart @xxangelfarrlzxx @ilomiloblohshh @hanoxoxo @meliciousmel13 @jul3esz @rightarion @eilishssiennaa @skinnyhmhas @dragoneyelashart @thinkshespretty @cnnibalize @canthelpit0 @hailwiggly @karaeilish @ttheeblueee @drunkinyourbenz @aka-persephone @bitchesbrokenpromises @jayjaywetforbils @slvt4subchratt @cantlandonmyfeet @tezzzzzzzz @emi-inspace @sacred3ugene @ariieeesworld

[cvpunit-91832]

HELLLLLOOOOO SAILUH...

[the-avengers-not-the-nazis]

Bad moon rising I

Summary: After a nasty divorce, you and your family are forced to live with your Grandpa in the lovely notorious Santa Carla, California. Filled with punks, geeks, surfer nazis and apparently all kinds of creatures of the night.

Word count: 3.1k

Poly!lost boys x Emerson!reader

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

A/n: This is the first time writing for the lost boys, I will let yall know if there are any major warnings in each chapters or not. But I hope that you guys enjoy reading the first chapter.

‘Don't go around tonight

Well it's bound to take your life

There's a bad moon on the rise’

Your legs were killing you. 

After hours of sitting in the back seat of the Land Cruiser, you were growing restless. And Nanook didn’t really help when the dog draped his entire body over your lap, his weight making both of your legs go numb. 

You could hear the sounds of your brothers and mom arguing over which radio station they should listen too for the rest of the drive. The occasional static from the radio making you roll your eyes. 

Maybe your legs weren’t the only thing tired from the long drive, maybe the voices of your family were starting to drive you crazy. 

“Oh,” your mom suddenly said, turning up the music that was currently on. “This one is from my generation.” A smile inched its way on your face as you watched mom dance along to the music. 

Both Sam and Micheal turned to face each other, a soft grin playing other lips as they listened to the ole timey song. “Keep going.” They said together. 

“Ok, ok, I get it.” Mom said as she switched the channel. “My music isn’t hip enough for you guys.”

You leaned forward in your seat, hand resting on Nanooks fur to keep him still. “Hip?” 

“Yeah, you know. Cool, fresh, narly.” Your mom told you, bringing her hand up to do a surfers hand gesture. 

You glanced over at Micheal, trying to see if he too was hearing what mom was describing. He just gave you a playful eye roll, and a shake of his head. Not wanting to tell mom that nobody actually used those words in real life. 

“We’re almost there.” Your mom told you in a sing song manor. 

Glancing past Micheal you saw a billboard, the words Welcome to Santa Carla read across the front, an image of the towns beach drawn on cartoonishly. 

Sam let out a gag, his nose turnt up towards the window. “What’s that smell?” He asked, quickly rolling up the glass to try and block the stench from entering the car. 

Mom closed her eyes, taking a long sniff of the outside breeze. “That’s the ocean air, baby”

“It smells like someone died.”

You snorted at your youngest brothers comment, he wasn’t totally wrong. The saltyness that suffocated the air around you was a bit much, but you’d grow used to it, you all will eventually. 

“Look guys, I know the last year has been tough.” Mom said, glancing back at the rear view mirror at both you and Micheal. “But I think your really gonna like it here.”

You couldn’t count on either hands on how many times your mother had said those exact words to you three. It always starts with the ‘I know’ and always ends in your really gonna like this place. But, if you were being a hundred percent honest you missed back home. 

All of your friends and what’s left of your now broken family is all back home in Phoenix. And you know that mom is doing all that she can to keep everything positive, but deep down you know that the divorce is hurting her just as badly as it is hurting you and your brothers. 

As the car continued to drive down the road, you watched as the sign showed the back. It was packed with graffiti art and even a couple of stickers stuck to wood. But, what caught your attention most was the five letter word painted in black and red. 

Murder capital of the world.

Upon entering Santa Carla, you’ve noticed that there is just about any type of person you could imagine walking along the streets. There were girls in bathing suits, guys with halve shaved heads, groups of tourists, the locals, nerds, jocks. Hell you even saw a dog with its fur colored pink. 

You just hoped that at night the people were better looking. 

Mom pulled beneath the cover of a food shack, allowing everyone to step out and get some fresh air after ten hours on the road. Sam leashed up Nanook and took him to the bathroom, also venturing his new home town by himself as he did so. 

You woke up your legs as you stepped out of the Land Cruiser, the nerves shooting up and down your body, you wobbled a bit on your feet before steadying yourself against the car. You felt sweat begin to form beneath your clothes, causing them to stick uncomfortably to your skin. “Holy cow.” You muttered gently fanning yourself to try and cool off a little. 

You were used to the heat from the sun, but God, the humidity is what’s gonna kill you this summer.  

As you continued to fan yourself off, you noticed all the small shops that surrounded you. They were old and kind of antique-ish looking. But, past that laid the boardwalk, were you knew you’d be spending the remainder of you summer break and nights. 

Sam came jogging back towards the car, Nanook right on his tail. He stopped before mom as he pointed a finger at the boardwalk behind him. “Mom! Mom, there’s and amusement park right on the beach.”

Instead of acknowledging the said park, you watched as mom pulled out a small wad of cash. Placing it in Sam’s hand she gestured to a group of homeless kids rummaging through the dumpster. “Sam, tell those kids to eat something. Will ya’?”

As you watch Sam walk over towards the kids, you notice a telephone pole covered from head to toe in posters. Stepping away from the car and wandering over you read a few, hoping to catch a couple help wanted ads or even just something small enough to help out your family. 

Though instead of any job listing you did find a good amount of missing children posters. Actually, it’s just about a missing everyone poster. There is a little boy that looks about six, a grainy picture of him is nailed down with staples. And beside it is a man in what looks like his mid to early fourties, his balding head and crooked teeth makes you wonder who would miss a guy like that. 

Glancing past the telephone pole, you eyed the teenagers in the dumpster carefully. For all you know these kids could go missing next, and no one would try and look for them. 

The thought made your stomach twist in a discusted knot, the idea that you or even one of your brothers could turn up missing one day and nobody would bat an eye, didn’t sit right with you. 

A car honked from behind you, turning around you noticed that your family is back in the cars AC and that they are all waiting on you. “Y/n, sweetheart.” Your mom called, poking her head out the window. “We have to go, grandpas waiting for us.”

You quickly made your way back to the car, plopping back down in your seat as mom slowly pulled out of the food shack. The feeling of cold breeze in your face cooled you off a lot more than your hand did. 

After a while the car pulled up to an old two story house, the arch way made out of tree limbs and nails made you question how sturdy that would actually be in a storm. Once the car came to a complete stop everyone piled out, the dirt road beneath you dirtied up the end of your blue jeans. The bottom of your converse’s making little patterns in the grime. 

Micheal, who had decided to ride his bike for the rest of the drive, slowly unstradled the vehicle, his eyes darting around the front yard of the house. Wood carvings of animals and an old trailer was near the back of the yard, the fence that surrounded us was slightly spaced out and cut into sharp ends. 

“This is homey.” You muttered to micheal, the backpack that you carried felt heavy on your back after hours of not wearing it. 

Micheal hummed in agreement, albeit sarcasticly. 

Glancing back at the house itself, you took in the porch, it had one too many rocking chairs and wooden tables for you to count. There were even empty beer bottles rolling across the porch floor. But, you stopped judging the home style around you when you noticed a pair of legs laid out on the ground. 

Taking erie steps, you all cautiously eyed the body. Both fear and concern bubbling deep inside of you. Fear that this would be the first dead body you’ve seen and concern over who will come and clean it. 

Mom walked ahead of you and your brothers, crouching down by the head of the body. “Dad?” She asked, swiping hair out of his face as she did so. “Dad?”

“It looks like he’s dead.” Micheal stated, eyes glancing swiftly from his mom and the supposedly dead body before them. 

Mom shook her head, gently shaking her dad awake. “No, he’s just a heavy sleeper.” 

“Why is he asleep on the porch?” Micheal asked, trying to understand the older man. 

You leaned over Sam’s shoulder, taking in the supposedly dead corpse in front of you. “Is the heat from the sun gonna make his body decay faster?” You pondered out loud, ignoring the glare your mom gave you. 

“Yeah. And if he’s dead can we move back to Phoenix?” Sam added on for you, receiving the same look your mom just gave you. 

“The both of you be quiet.” She scolded. 

Suddenly grandpas head popped up, his eyes half lidded as he held a smug smirk. “Playin’ dead. And, from what I heard doing a damn good job of it, too.”

You watched as mom playfully swatted at her dad, before leaning down and giving him a good hug. Sharing a quick glance at your brothers, they both held the same expression that you did. Confused and slightly baffled at how the old man acts. 

The inside of the house looked just like the cabins from Friday the thirteenth. The floor was wood, the stairs were wood, an even the walls were wood. You honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the refrigerator and sink were made out it, too.

You walked through the house with a cardboard box labeled kitchen, both Sam and Micheal right behind you. Though Micheal was carrying a barbell with a couple of weights and shirts on it, and Sam had a bowl on his head with tied up comics ontop. 

“This place is straight out of a horror movie.” Sam whined, as they reached the kitchen. “I wouldn’t be surprised if their are dead body’s buried somewhere.”

“It’s not that bad.” you tried to reason, placing the box onto the counter and cutting through the tape. 

Sam stared at you bewildered, “Not that bad? Not that bad!” He started to raise his voice, setting down the comics and bowl beside you as he continued. “There’s no TV. Have you seen a TV? I haven’t seen a TV.”

You shrugged your shoulders, taking a couple porcelain plates from the box and setting them in a cabinet. “Use your imagination.”

“Imagination?” The boy raised his voice a little bit higher. “You know who else used there imagination? The Torrence family, and they ended up trying to kill each other.”

“Ok, one this is not The Shinning. And, two, you kill me I’ll haunt you for the rest of your life.” 

Micheal chuckled at yours and Sam’s conversation, “Oh, you think this is funny Micheal?” Sam asked the irritation of no TV or even MTV was starting to get to him. 

“A little.” He told his brother, placing the barbell down and walking back towards the car. “But, we’re flat broke, Sammy. Can’t afford a new TV for this joke of a place.”

You walked back and forth from the car, box after box, cutting open and placing your stuff with Grandpas. It was tiring, but, you wanted to get it done now so that you could go to the boardwalk tonight. 

Though your brothers on the other hand, weren’t as helpful as you were trying to be. 

Sam ran through the living room, swaying between the boxes that littered the ground as he sprinted away from Micheal. The said older boy was running down the stairs, he hoped over the railing near the bottom and took off after Sam. 

You were pulling out a vase from a box, tearing off the bubble wrap and placing it perfectly on the table. You took a small step back and eyed the spot, debating if you should move it one way or another for it to look right. 

But, as you stepped back, you acidently stood right infront of Micheal’s path. He collided with your side, sending you both tumbling to the ground. “Dammit, Micheal!” You shouted, quickly getting up just as your brother did. Continuing with his chase after Sam, you immediately ran after him. 

“Hey, guys, no running in the house.” Mom called out to the three of you, though no one paid her any mind as you all just continued to chase one another. 

Sam stopped before two sliding doors, shoving each of them open. You and Micheal caught up with your brother, you about ready to shove Micheal for knocking you to the ground, when you saw what laid behind the double doors. 

Taxidermy animals laid on the table in front of you, some were even hung up to the ceiling because there was no more room on the surface. The three of you stood shocked at the room, you more disturbed that so many dead animals were cut open like they currently were. 

“I think we found the dead bodies, Sam.” You told him, referring to your earlier talk about grandpa hiding dead corpses. 

Sam let out a snort, eyeing the room with interest. Micheal leaned up against your side, his elbow coming up to rest on your shoulder. Even at pratically the same height he liked to remind you which of the two was the tallest. 

“Talk about Texas chainsaw massacre.” 

“Rules.” A voice suddenly called out, bringing each of your attention to grandpa who had a cardboard box in hand. “We got some rules around here.”

He gestured with his hand to follow, which you all did begrudgingly. The old man led you to the refrigerator, and upon opening it you saw a sign that read, ‘Old fart’. You hid your amused smile behind your hand as Grandpa began to explain the rules. 

“The second shelf is mine.” He stated matter of factly, easing the sign to show a couple of beer bottles and a box of Oreos hidden behind it. He waved a finger at all three of you, “Don’t nobody touch the second shelf, ya’ hear.”

You nodded along with your brothers, grandpa then waddled out of the kitchen leaving you to trail behind him. You watched discustedly as Micheal began to shove his finger in Sam’s ear, the younger boy trying to push him away when Micheal wrapped an arm around the poor boys neck. 

Clearing his throat, Micheal directed his attention back at grandpa. “Hey, grandpa? Is it true that Santa Carla is the murder capital of the world?” He asked, refusing to let Sam go from his grasp. 

Murder capital of the world. 

Those were the exact words you’d read off the back of the billboard. You hadn’t known that Micheal had read that aswell, although he appears to be taking the towns chosen nickname more jokingly than you had. 

Grandpa slowly turned back around to face the three of you, his eyes darting across each face. “There are some bad elements around here.” He told you, though his voice seemed to be a lot more serious than anything. 

Sam finally shoves Micheal off of him, “Woah, wait a minute. You mean to tell me that we moved to the murder capital of the world?” He asked, getting close to the old man’s face. “Are you serious grandpa?”

You watched as grandpa took his time with his next words of choice. “Well- let me put it this way; if all the corpses buried around here were to stand up at once, we’d have a serious population problem.”

That did about anything but soothe your racing mind. Are we gonna get killed here? Are you actually going to go missing and nobody would care? Could Sam, Micheal or even mom turn up dead one day?

Your thoughts immediately went back to the missing posters, all the untraced people that had disappeared off the face of the earth. And not one of them had been found. You don’t think your gonna like it here all that much, you concluded. 

Mom suddenly sauntered in the living room, a stack of hats resting ontop of her head. “Oh, Dad. You’re gonna give them nightmares.” She told him, not wanting to deal with three teenagers wandering into her room at night complaining about what grandpa had told them. 

Grandpa waved his hand, dismissing her accusation. Changjng the conversation, he picked up a TV guide that sat on the end table, waving back to you and your brothers he began to explain another rule of his. 

“Now, when the mailman brings the TV guide on wensdays, sometimes the corner of the address label will curl up.” He pointed to the address label on the guide, the corner slowly thrusting itself up towards the ceiling. “You’ll be tempted to peel it off. Don’t. You’ll end up ripping the cover, and I don’t like that

He tossed the TV guide back on a different table, making his way back to the taxidermy room. He yanked the sliding doors together and they closed with a great, smack. “And stay out of here.”

Grandpa then walked away, though not before Sam stood in his pathway, excitement rising in his chest. “There’s a TV?” He asked, slightly crossing his fingers for the man to say yes. 

“No. I just like to read the TV guide. Read the guide and you don’t need the Tv.” He then walked away, leaving Sam with a disappointed look. 

“See,” you told him, walking towards a couple of boxes that were laid about the living room floor. “Now, you get to use you imagination.”

Sam pointed a finger at you, “When we go crazy, here- and we will, you’ll be the first that I kill.”

You pushed Sam out of your way with your shoulder, balancing the box on your hip. “Then be prepared for me to haunt you until the end of times, Samuel Emerson.”

A/a/n: Hello and thank you for reading the first chapter :) Now we won’t meet the boys until the next chapter, but I am debating if I should just make that chapter about you meeting them or add on. I still haven’t decided. But thank you again and the next chapter will be done as quickly as possible ;)

[theanimeoftheblackbunnymask]

What type of yandere do you think sigma and nikolai would be?

Sure!

Links: {Masterlist} {Jouno and Tecchou Yandere Idea}

Nikolai Gogol (Yandere Idea)

Nikolai is a lot to deal with, privacy is no longer a thing. Nikolai will never give you moment of peace. He's always talking to you, throwing random quizzes at you, using his ability to either see you, touch you or just mess with you.

But don't let this fool you, Nikolai is quite the manipulator. Nikolai tends to guilt trip you a lot, and likes to mock you and degrade you for his personal amusement while he hugs you.

A question you ask yourself a lot is if he actually loves you. It's not on a "He treats me like shit," kind of way, it'd more like, "He treats like I'm a pet/doll."

Nikolai often dresses you up in little outfits and has you help out with his tricks, even if they're super easy. Nikolai confuses you a lot. He claims that he hates human emotions and will kill you eventually, but his actions often contradict himself.

Also, out of all the yanderes, his punishments are the most cruel. His often energetic personality becomes a lot more sinister when he's upset. His smile wouldn't have any joy, it would sadistic and filled with anger, and the look in his eyes send a chill down your spine. When it comes to actual punishments, I can see Nikolai being on the more physical and emotional side of things. His punishments are often a mixture of emotional and physical pain. He'd always start his punishments off as a game, giving you two options on which game the two of you will be playing. This really fucks with your brain because he'll purposely make the game you choose harder and more painful. Games often very, but all of them end with you hiding in a dark corner, hugging your knees as you cry. Nikolai would only laugh at your expense and tell you that you're no fun. But keep in mind, his energy and joy during punishments is all an act, if you tic him off during these punishments, even a little bit, the facade will drop.

If it wasn't clear enough, Nikolai is definitely on the more playful and teasing side of things as a yandere, rarely taking things seriously and constantly being a pain in your side. It takes a lot to make him mad, he's attempting to lose all emotions afterall, but if you do, he just becomes a husk of a person, a truly terrifying sight.

King of stalking. He can literally disguise himself as anyone, and he uses this skill to his advantage. He often pretends to be the worker at places you often go to. That one Cafe across the street, oh yeah, he was hired there last week.

However, despite his strong desire to kill you, his biggest fear is losing you. You make him feel something, you make feel love, you make him weak. You keep him bound to the chains of emotions and make him never reach true freedom, so he wants to kill you, to be freed of you. But, the way you smile, the way you cry when he hurts you, the you walk, the way you yell at him when you grow sick of his mind games and quizzes, he grows more and more obsessed. He can't let you go. He just can't.

Fyodor influences his actions like crazy ngl. He loves talking about you, especially to Fyodor, and one day Fyodor told him that if he truly wanted you to love him, even if he does cruel things to you, he'd have to break you down into nothing, make you dependent on him for everything, and then build you back up in his image. However, Nikolai wants a doll that still has a lot of life in them, making you cry and scream would be much more enjoyable when it's sincere. But, a sweet, quiet, obedient doll, he wouldn't mind that either. With Nikolai, I feel like your actions will dictate how he'll want you.

Nikolai is very hard yandere to understand, and if his darling even wants to try and use Manipulation to get their way, you got another thing coming. Nikolai is far from dumb, and is also extremely aware, so sure, he'll play into the idea that you're gaining control over him day by day, but in reality, it's the other way around.

So in conclusion, Nikolai is definitely one of the more scary yanderes. He's extremely deceiving, but if I had to compare him to Fyodor, Dazai, or even worse, Jouno, than he's a fucking angel.

Sigma (Yandere Idea)

Sigma would be the sweetest fucking yandere, dear lord.

Sigma is probably the only yandere in BSD that wouldn't be abusive in nature. Maybe a little bit manipulative, but that's damn near about it.

I can see Sigma being a very protective darling, wanting to keep you away from any harm, emotional and physical.

He would do everything in his power to keep you a secret. He's already in a very dangerous position as a member of the DOA, but if Nikolai, or even worse Fyodor, finds out about your existence, he can't help but imagine what they'll do to you.

I'd say the relationship Sigma would have with his darling would be pretty normal for the most part. Whenever he comes home after a long day at the casino, he always makes sure to get you a gift, may it be flowers or a piece of jewelry.

Sigma would be very awkward with his love. He's barely lived life, let alone been in a relationship. The feelings he has for you are very foreign and often causes him stress, but whenever you do something romantic for him, he often goes blank.

Now, would Sigma kidnap you? Ehhhh, maybe, it depends. Sigma doesn't want to hurt you in anyway, and if you're not very keen on the idea of being kidnapped, he'll have to find another way to get to you.

When it comes to the topic of punishments, Sigma hates them. Sigma is extremely patient, so making him so upset to the point he'll punish you is a fucking talent. But, his punishments would be very light. He'll lock you in your room as a punishment, but the moment you start crying and begging to be let out, he caves. He has a massive soft spot for you and just wants your love and affection.

One downside of being with Sigma is your freedom. Sigma is very concerned about your safety, so in the beginning he would keep you hidden while he tended at the casino. However, as time went on, his paranoia began to grow. What if someone finds you and you get hurt? What if you get kidnapped? What if you left him? Thoughts like that would race in his head while at the casino, causing him to not be at the top of his game. So, he decided to keep you at the casino with him, keeping in his office while be worked. Keeping you secret from the DOA became significantly harder, but at least you're not alone.

You would definitely get stockholm syndrome with Sigma, if not just fall in love with him normally. Sigma is such a sweetheart, probably the best boyfriend in BSD. He is very awkward in the beginning due to him being unfamiliar with romance, but once he gets more comfortable, he becomes the perfect boyfriend.

[jamminvroomvroom]

4 with lando :)))

flashing lights - kanye west (respect the art not the artist!)

LN4 x reader

tysm for the request xoxo!! finally continuing my requests (sorry it took ages whoops) flipped my list and went from the bottom for this bc otherwise we were gonna have some repeats lol

images below from pinterest - i claim no ownership 🙃

warnings: none! some swearing, some fluff, lando being a funny little camera shy pr machine - but fr minors pls just dni with my work okay tysm!!!

lando was frantically pacing your apartment when you walked in, eyes wild, as if he hadn’t slept, and hair an absolute disheveled state. his usually sun-kissed skin seemed to get even paler when he heard the door shut behind you, coming to a halt in your kitchen and staring at you as though he’d seen a ghost.

“lando?” you questioned, confused as to, a) why he was here so early, and b) why he looked like he was about to confess that he had killed your entire bloodline.

“baby, i’m so sorry.” your blood ran cold. what had he done? he closed the space between you, tentatively taking your hands.

“lando… what’s going on?” you tilted your head, starting to sweat in your oversized leather jacket. you’d just been out running errands, picking up bits for the dinner you were supposed to be sharing with the mclaren driver, much later in the day.

“i didn’t think anyone had seen us but then i had my assistant, the entire pr department and my mother phoning me, and then max called and said that him and pietra wanted to see if we were okay, before i could call anyone else back which confused the fuck outta me, so i finally checked twitter and there it was and i just got in the car and came here but god, i’m so sorry.” lando finally exhaled, looking like he was about to pass out, with creases so deep on his forehead that you thought they’d stay there permanently.

“okay, lando? sweetheart? yeah, okay i’m gonna need a bit more info.” you over enunciated each word, stressing that you were still in the absolute dark about whatever was on the verge of sending him into cardiac arrest.

“there’s photos. of us. kissing.” he finally said, quietly, and after a good ten seconds of staring at you in utter fear.

“fucking hell, i thought something terrible had happened. jesus christ, lando.” you exhaled, eyes wide. he stared at you like you’d grown a second head, stepping forward to mockingly rest his hand against your forehead as if he was checking your temperature.

“are you… are you… okay?” lando asked, eyebrow quirked. he was shocked at how calm you were.

you’d both agreed to keep your relationship private, and over the last five months, that had gone swimmingly well. but some low quality photos taken, as you waited for some friends outside a restaurant in the outskirts of london, had fucking launched the cat out of the bag.

“how bad are the pictures? are we naked or something?” you scoffed at him and now lando was truly confused.

“no, but- but i thought we were gonna keep this quiet.” he murmured.

“i know, baby, but okay, it’s out. is that really so bad? it was bound to happen eventually.” you reasoned, and lando finally saw your point.

“i just want to protect you, from all of the lights and the flashing cameras. love you too much to lose you to those vultures.” lando dipped his forehead against yours as he spoke, eyes locked on yours. you couldn’t help but smile at him, the loveliest man you could have wished for.

“oh, my sweet, sweet boy,” you crooned, pecking his lips. “you know i love to show off.” he laughed at that, a low rumbling in his chest.

you pulled away, stepping around him and walking further into your apartment, dropping all of your stuff down in your kitchen.

“anyways, i already saw the pictures. we look hot.” you ignored his incredulous ‘what?’, waving him off. “now, come here and help me make dinner.”

[smolkooks]

gotcha! - part i.

summary: eren yeager is spiderman. of course, nobody knows. not even you. not yet.

pairings: spiderman!eren yeager x reader

genre: college/university au, fluff, angst

a/n: this is part one of a short story! it's also posted on my ao3, linked here <3

🕷🕸️✩°★°⋆ 🎧✮🕸🕷🕸️✩°★°⋆ 🎧✮🕸🕷🕸️✩°★°⋆ 🎧✮🕸🕷

“You know,” you said dryly, sighing even as your captor bound up your hands with a rope you’d become all too familiar with, “I’m kind of sick and tired of this.”

The villain tsked behind his dark mask but didn’t reply as he tightened the binds and then kicked your feet loose off the edge of the skyscraper until you were hanging in midair. Despite yourself, your heart skipped a beat, and your breath hitched even as you tried to remain the image of a perfectly calm, cool and collected kidnapping victim.

“Spiderman probably won’t even come,” you leered in a sing-song voice, trying to do anything but look down at the infinite abyss of air below your feet, your fate secured only by a single, aged and swinging rope.

Maybe leering your kidnapper wasn’t a great idea. Especially not when you were currently hanging off the top of the Freedom Tower, the wind whipping at your cheeks so hard that it felt like your skin would peel right off your bones verysoon. The whistling of the air in your ears became a roar as it combined with the rushing of your blood, and you tried to keep your eyes trained on the dark of the night sky around you rather than the rushing of New York City’s rush hour traffic thousands of feet below.

Stars, you tried to distract yourself, you loved the stars. You would love to live another day to see more of them. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, and you doubted it would be the last, but still…

“You talk too much,” the villain finally growled out, dropping your rope even lower—a threat, but one that you were used to. It made you wince all the same as your body swung dangerously. You prayed that this wouldn’t make it onto the news, even though you knew that it eventually, probably, definitely would. You hadn’t even gotten dressed up today, after finishing off your labs. It was entering exam season, and being a fourth-year pre-med student wasn’t light work. Getting kidnapped every other week really wasn’t helping either.

You opened your mouth, “I think I talk a perfectly normal—,”

The air was snatched out of your throat. All you could see was the blur of lights, the chaos of traffic below, and the overwhelming feeling of impending doom. You could barely register the dropping feeling in your gut, too drowned in your own shock. You squeezed your eyes shut. You couldn’t even manage tears in your shock. Couldn’t even scream.

Hanging from skyscrapers wasn’t new. Dropping from one though—you had never actually died, before. Despite your earlier words, Spiderman had always—

“Gotcha.”

Warm. The familiar feeling of arms was around you, and suddenly you were snatched you out of the air. You gulped in air, your lungs feeling like they’d collapsed. When you tried to scream, your throat was too dry to make any sound.

“Hey, hey. You’re alright.”

“S-spiderman,” you gasped out, voice more of a hoarse croak. You managed to open your eyes, just barely, just enough to peer at your saviour. Sure enough, the same familiar face that had always, without fail, come to your rescue met your gaze. His eyes were wide—well, the ones in his red-and-blue mask—and he blinked down at you in wonderment, almost—at least, that was what you thought it was.

“Oh—um, yeah that’s me!” He said, suddenly sounding a little nervous and looking away almost awkwardly? Could you say that about a world-famous superhero? Instead of looking at you, he fixed his gaze forward and swung you through the buildings, gradually taking you lower and lower until he safely dropped you off on the sidewalk in one of the quieter streets.

“Thanks,” you managed, stumbling and finding yourself leaning against the wall, still trying to catch your breath, “You cut it a bit close this time. Any later and I—,” you heaved a breath, suddenly feeling like throwing up, “I would’ve been a splatter on the road.”

Despite his earlier light demeanour, Spiderman’s expression became grim, and he seemed to pause, deep in murderous thought, before he said, “You gonna be alright to get home?”

“Oh,” you said, suddenly feeling a little guilty about your own jab at him. It had meant to be a bit of a joke, maybe to lighten the mood, but you supposed it might’ve come off a bit insulting to a superhero. “Y-yeah, I’ll be fine.”

“Great. Gotta stop Doc from causing more trouble,” he gestured up at the sky, turning his gaze upwards. Doc—the nickname for the most recent villain of the city, seemingly out for Spiderman’s blood, like they always were. Were they fixated on the idea that if they took out Spiderman, the city would be theirs? Did all supervillains have such low faith in the general law enforcement of the New York City?

Before you could respond, Spiderman had shot out a web from his hands, swung himself upward, and with a quick thwip, he was gone.

***

On your walk home, you couldn’t help but deliberate on how exactly you were going to apologise to Spiderman. You supposed you should have been more grateful after he’d saved you from certain death, rather than insulting his lateness. It really hadn’t been your intention, but after replaying the conversation over and over, you couldn’t help but feel like maybe his sudden switch in attitude had been because of your unappreciative words.

Superheros must be busy, after all. There was no way he’d be able to get you every single time.

“Shit,” you sighed, making your way up the stairs of your dorm building. You lived on the first floor, and briefly wondered if that was the reason all these villains could find you so easily. Should you invest in better security? Why the fuck were they after you anyway, just an average college student?

Kicking off your shoes and shrugging off your coat, you found yourself collapsing onto the couch and trying to catch your breath again—not from the stairs (well, maybe a bit)—but instead, from the sudden memory of hanging off the side of the skyscraper. The overwhelming feeling like your life had been forfeit. Feeling so certain that you were going to die, and yet not knowing what to think, what to do. Not being able to do anything.

Your breathing quickened, and you felt the tears start to well in your eyes even as you willed them away. How many college students could say they’d had that experience? Maybe you should put that on your med school written applications, you thought bitterly, clenching your fist in the cushions.

Knock. Knock.

You straightened, tears immediately drying. Who the hell was knocking at this time? Right after you’d been kidnapped too? There was nobody who’d look for you at this hour, you were sure, and suddenly your heart was dropping to your stomach at the thought of being taken again—

“Hello? Are you home?”

Immediately, you couldn’t help the relieved smile that broke across your face. The familiar voice almost immediately made you feel at ease, and suddenly your doom was forgotten. Instead, you felt quite light on your feet as you hopped over to the door, peeping through the peephole just to be sure—

Despite the familiar face, what you saw made your eyes widen in panic. What the—

Tearing the door open, you whisper-shouted, “Eren! What the hell happened to you?” You gripped his upper arm, dragging him into your apartment before shutting the door behind him. It wasn’t rare that your friend—best friend—Eren Yeager would come over late at night, just to say hi. Sometimes to drop off snacks, but most of the time just to see how you were doing or what you were doing. You’d thought it was weird when he’d first started doing it, but he supposed with how often you were getting kidnapped, it was really nice of him to care about you so much. Reasonable, at least.

And yet, his face was beaten to a pulp. Well, maybe you were exaggerating a little. There was a cut across his brow, which dripped blood down his cheeks. It looked like he’d accidentally smeared it across the bruises on his high cheekbones, making him look like he’d just been through the ringer. The bruises were nasty, blossoming into purple marks that you were sure hurt like hell. His lip was busted, too, but not as badly as his brow. His dark hair, which he usually kept impeccable care of, was matted with blood and tangled as if it had been whipped by the sea wind.

“Eren,” you said, a bit more quietly as you pushed him to sit down on your couch, fussing through your kitchen drawers to find your first aid kit, “What happened?” you repeated, feeling furious and worried and scared, when he didn’t respond immediately.

Instead, he had a bit of a dazed, almost relieved expression on his face as he said, “You’re okay.”

You gave him a weird look, “Eren, of course I’m okay. You’re the one who’s covered in blood.”

“You should see the other guy.”

“Eren!” You scolded, “It’s not the time to be joking right now!”

“I’m being serious!” His hand on your cheek made you turn to meet his wide, green eyes. Even with the blood, you felt your breath hitch a little bit, and he said a bit more quietly, “I’m just glad to see you.”

You swallowed, fighting the flush that threatened to crawl its way up your neck, “You’re being weird.” Really weird. And really not helping the embarrassing crush you’d had on him ever since you met him in your first year at college here.

Eren laughed a little, a rare, tinkling laugh so different to his usual loudness, “Can I not be happy you’re here?” His tone lilted into a teasing one as he continued, “Couldn’t have asked for a prettier doctor to nurse me back to health.”

You swatted at his hand with a cotton bud, freeing your face from his touch so that he wouldn’t feel the heat on your skin and muttered, “Shut up.” Instead of looking at his eyes, you focused on cleaning up the cut on his face. The bleeding had slowed—remarkably quickly, you noted absently as you dried up his wound. You’d helped Eren clean up his injuries a few times—being an athlete, his injuries weren’t a rarity, but he’d never come over and looked this horrible before. Well, not horrible—obviously he was hot—but—

None of your thoughts were helping with the flush on your face.

“Getting a little bit red there, doc,” Eren said lightly, the corners of his lips lifting.

You gritted your teeth and rolled your eyes, “I know you’re trying to distract me from asking about what happened to you.” You weren’t dumb. Eren should know that, after so many years. It sucked that he was such a talented distraction.

He sighed, “Can’t get anything past you, can I?” His touch was soft this time, taking your hands gently, making you pause your dabbing at his wounds. He took your hands in his and pressed them to his lips, speaking quietly, “Just got a bit caught up after training,” he looked at you, and in this position, with you crouched just over his lap, he had to look up a little to meet your eyes, making him look all the more pleading. A rarity, considering how much taller he was than you. “Some of the guys weren’t too happy with me.”

You sighed, “Eren, you shouldn’t let them get to you.”

His emerald gaze was earnest, and maybe a little angry, as he said, “How can I when they threaten my girl?”

“I—,” you were too caught off-guard, and you knew by his satisfied grin that he’d succeeded, “I’m not your girl!”

“Aren’t you?” He mused, pressing another kiss to your hands, “Everyone seems to think so.” His brows lowered, furrowing in what almost seemed like frustration, “I hate seeing you get hurt.”

“I’m not hurt, Eren,” you pointed out, still feeling a bit light-headed as his words bounced around your brain like ping-pong balls, “You are.” You returned to dabbing at his blood, even as most of it had already crusted up. You probably needed saline, but more than cleaning up, you just wanted something to occupy your hands before you got too flustered to move or talk or even breathe.

“Yeah,” he exhaled deeply through his nose, giving you a light smile that seemed to carry too many layers of worry, more than what seemed necessary given the situation, “You’re right.” He touched your hair gently, adoringly, “I’m worried for nothing, aren’t I?”

“I’m the one who should be worried,” you retorted, smacking him in the head. He winced indignantly but didn’t object when you continued, “You show up here every few weeks with a new injury. Are you being a bully at training?”

“Hey!” He protested, “You know me. I would never hurt a fly.”

You raised a brow dubiously, “Pretty sure I saw you kill one the other day.” Finally satisfied with your work, you started to pack up your first-aid kit and directed Eren to stand up. You were grateful that your earlier embarrassment had fully faded.

“Not the point,” Eren insisted, “Sometimes I just get pissed off by the things they say,” he shrugged, but winced a little again as though it hurt, even as he tried to hide it. Rolling out his shoulder, he continued, “You don’t have to worry. I can handle myself.”

“Did you hurt your shoulder?” You asked sharply.

“Shit, really can’t get anything past you,” Eren grumbled.

[fandom-lover2]

Hellos and Goodbyes

Dean has to give his little sister some bad news. Thankfully, an interruption arrives to make the ordeal a little easier

-image not mine-

“Hey Andy?”

“Yes Denise?” I shot back, keeping my focus on my textbook.

Only two weeks into my new school and Sioux Falls High doesn’t play around.

“Could you hand me the half inch?” Dean continued, hand stuck out behind him and palm open expectantly, his head still bowed to look into his car’s hood.

I looked up from the driver’s seat of Baby with a glare, and then sighed, dropping my history book to the seat and slipping from the car.

“’Hey Little Sister? Wanna have a bonding experience?’” I mocked his words earlier, moving to the toolbox and rifling through it. “’Sure Dean. That’d be fun!’” I repeated my own words, grabbing it and placing it into his hand.

He didn’t even look at it. “Not the half inch.”

“Ugh, why am I out here?” I took the tool back and dug through the box again, looking for what I thought would be a half inch.

“Bobby and Sam are on a hunt in Idaho and I offered to stay behind and keep an eye on you. And I can’t do that in you’re inside the house and I’m out here.”

I turned to him, glaring at the back of his head. “You are aware that needing to watch a kid constantly is only for babies, right?”

“Hey, I’m remembering all the shit Sam and I got into as kids. Not letting you follow in our footsteps.”

I rolled my eyes, pilfering through the box. “Why didn’t you go with again?”

He was quiet for a while. Long enough to tell me he was trying to come up with a lie. “Sounded boring.”

“And not because you’re at all worried about me and wanted some alone time?”

He sighed, and I heard him move out from being hunched over the engine. “Actually, there is something I wanna talk about.”

I spun too, watching as he leaned against Baby. And then he changed his mind and held out a hand, beckoning me to go to him.

I did and settled against his side as he dropped a kiss to the top of my head.

“So, remember when we told you about all the seals breaking?” he started, which I nodded at. “Well, things are getting bad out there and we need to get back to trying to stop ‘em from breaking.”

“So, you’re leaving?” I summed up when he didn’t say anymore.

I had known this day was coming. Three weeks of bliss was bound to end eventually.

And it wasn’t like I expected them to stick around forever. I had just hoped it might’ve been for a little longer.

“Hey, no. We aren’t leaving.” Dean corrected softly, moving to stand before me. “We are not leaving you, alright?”

“But you’re-”

“Yeah, we’re going. But it’s not like we won’t be back. We’ll come visit, every month. And call you every day.”

I looked away from him.

Why was this hurting so much? I knew it was going to happen. I knew they were going to leave.

I just hoped maybe I’d be enough for them to want to stay.

“Baby, look at me.” Dean called gently, guiding my face to look back at him, wiping a tear from my cheek. “We will be back all the time. So much, that you’ll be beggin’ us to leave.”

“Not possible.”

“And you and Bobby will be great together. You’re gonna have so much fun with him.”

“I’d have more fun with you.” I whispered after a while.

Which wasn’t true or fair to Bobby.

He was great, amazing, awesome. He was a good dad.

But Sam and Dean were my brothers.

“Hey now, just cause I let you eat ice cream for breakfast doesn’t mean Bobby’s any less cool.”

“I guess.” I shrugged, smiling.

“Good Kid.” Dean rewarded, patting my head. “Now go find me the half inch.”

Such an asshole. “Yes sir.”

Dean turned back to his car, and I returned to digging in the toolbox.

The hair on the back of my neck rose, a cold chill settling at the back of my head.

Something was here.

I spun, swinging the tool.

It connected with his head, snapping half. He didn’t even flinch.

“Why do you Winchesters insist on attacking me the first time you meet me?”

“Why do you paranormal beings insist on appearing behind us?” I shot back.

Dean rushed between us, and it wasn’t lost on me that he put himself between me and it, forcing me to take a step back. “Woah, woah. Easy Cas.”

“I am not here to hurt her.” ‘Cas’ replied, sounding bored.

“Who is this?”

“Castiel. The angel we told you about.”

I leaned past Dean, eyeing the guy up and down. He didn’t look like an angel. More like an accountant who got lost in a Mr Bean movie.

“If you say so.”

“Dean,” the angel interrupted, pulling my brother’s attention, which gave me a chance to step out from behind him. “More seals are breaking. I understand you need time, as you said, but I need you and Sam to…”

Trench coat trailed off, his eyes focusing on something else.

That something being my chest.

My hands snapped up to cover my chest. “Dean! Your angel is ogling my boobs.”

Dean stepped between us again, and I could only imagine the angry scowl on his fast as he barked, “Cas!”

“I am not- I am not looking at her body.” Cas corrected with an annoyed frown. “I am looking at her soul.” He cocked his head to the side a little. “It’s beautiful.”

I glanced to Dean, finding a matching look of confusion. “Uhh, thanks?”

“Dean’s is as well. It is rare to see in humans these days. A soul so pure, even after all the suffering you’ve endured.”

My brother huffed a laugh, wrapping an arm around me. “Knew you took after me.”

I shoved him away. “Eww. Please don’t say that. I don’t wanna end up ugly.”

His mouth dropped open with a squawk. “Ugly? Listen here you little-”

“We do not have time for this.” Cas interrupted. “Dean, more seals are breaking. I need you and your brother.”

Dean sighed. “I know Cas. Sam and Bobby are on their way back now. We’ll leave tonight.”

“Tonight?”

My brother turned to me, regret in his eyes. “I’m sorry Sweetheart, but we need to get goin’.”

“But you said it was dangerous. What if you get hurt, or die. Then what?”

Dean opened his mouth a couple times, then closed it.

“Do you know the true powers of an angel?” Castiel spoke instead. When I shook my head no, he took a step towards me. “Strong enough that I can reassure you, I will allow no harm to come to your brothers.”

When I didn’t look convinced, he rested a hand on my shoulder, though the gesture seemed foreign to him. “I promise.”

I didn’t believe him for a second, but there was nothing I could do to stop any of this happening. “Ok.”

“Let me know when you’re on your way.” Cas ordered.

“On our way whe-”

We both turned back to where the angel had been standing, and he was gone.

“Does he do that often?” I asked, to which Dean hummed in reply.

We finished up with Baby and headed inside to make hamburgers for dinner.

When Sam and Bobby finally rolled in, we all ate together, Sam showered, and then we were on the porch.

“Now, you stay outta trouble. Don’t be too much like us. And don’t give Bobby any more gray hairs. We gave him too many.”

“And no ice cream for breakfast, kiddo.” Sam added, ruffling my hair.

I hugged them both tight, and hid tears as best I could, sending a silent plea to Cas. ‘Please, don’t let me burn another brother’.

We waited till Baby’s headlights were nothing but distant, dim red glows.

“Come on, Buddy. Bedtime. You have school tomorrow.”

I waited a second more, then turned when he placed an arm around me and guided me inside.

“You know, since the world is ending-” I started.

“Don’t even finish that sentence.”

Wayward Adjacent Chapter One: Who Are You

[changingplumbob]

The pregnancy progressed and Glenn found himself getting more and more clumsy. If he wasn't sneezing apart his flower arrangements then he was almost slipping in puddles. Silver did try and fix whatever plumbing he broke but he often forgot about the water left behind. Luckily Glenn had been taught a quick spell to dissipate the water.

Eventually Glenn relented to the werewolf's pleading and stopped going for runs. He found a good number of work out videos he could do with little stress. Well, little stress at the start. As he got rounder and rounder the same workouts got harder and harder.

Silver seemed to get more protective as time passed. He wouldn't stop Glenn visiting friends or having friends come and visit but the werewolf started staying closer to the house. He did all his workouts inside where he could be easily reached if Glenn needed help for anything. What do you know, getting up off the floor while pregnant? Actually difficult.

Glenn began to stock up on potions of plentiful needs, he loved food but sometimes a potion to fix an empty belly or a sleepless night was needed. He also figured that when the baby was born he and Silver might well be to busy for woohoo, if he could even have it without being in pain. It made sense to brew potions that would help them get through while he could.

Sure, Ophelia was a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but she was Glenn's friend. So he and Silver began taking more time to talk to Oakley about what was happening in the house and in the world. If Oakley could actually understand he was bound to appreciate the insight. If he didn't understand, well what was the harm?

Silver: I'm so excited to meet our kid

Glenn: Yeah, me to Beefcake

Silver: What do you think they'll be like

Glenn: Honestly? I have no clue. From the sounds of the tests and imaging, they're pretty adaptable

The due date neared and Silver took Glenn on one last date to the local pub while they were simply two and not three. They were both excited to meet their kid but didn't want to risk forgetting what they had together as a couple. Before they knew it they were in a sterile room getting ready for the caesarean.

Glenn: You don't mind that I wanted to wait until they were born before we got married? I swear I am going to marry you

Silver: I know Babycakes. Just breathe and sway with me

Glenn: If I don't have a cervix why does it hurt so much

Silver: Miranda said it looks like the womb sack is migrating closer to the surface to make delivery easier. So things are still moving inside you, that's got to hurt

The procedure was pretty straight forward in the end, much like the ones male werewolves had. Glenn and Silver had their first kid. It turned out that the imaging issues were due to them being intersex. Deciding to follow Ophelia's comment that they hadn't decided who they wanted to be yet the dad's decided to treat their newborn as non-binary until they could indicate their preference.

Eden Sutherland joined the household

To say the two men were proud of their kid was an understatement.

Glenn: Papa has planted some veges here, right by your crib, so you can have some outside even if you can't go outside yet

Silver: They don't have bugs do they

Glenn: Did you hear that Eden? Your Daddy thinks bugs on indoor plants are bad. Don't you want to get nice and big so you can correct him

Silver: Don't start ganging up on me before they can even talk

Glenn: Do you want to hold our tadpole while I sort dinner

Silver: Oh yes, come to Daddy little froggy

Glenn: You know, some frogs can change their sex

Silver: They can?

Glenn: Yeah so froggy and tadpole are good nicknames for Eden

Silver: Biology classes have progressed since I grew up

Glenn: Oh no, I learnt that from Jurassic Park

The first few days of having Eden in the house were a breeze. Glenn had made enough plentiful needs potions that both he and Silver could spend the majority of their time looking after or just watching Eden.

Previous ... Next (conclusion)

[the-mountain-flower]

The Exiled And The Outcast

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Tale As Old As Time

Ao3 link

Previous chapter

Final chapter (!)

Technically, the book never actually said the word “demon”. But since it was a translation of a book actually written in the Rauan language, Falst knew he couldn't think of that as foolproof. What it did tell, was suspiciously similar to the legends Dainix had shared about what his people knew of demons.

So, Falst grabbed the original tome and handed it to Dainix. And by the look on Dainix’s face as he read it, it was the right choice.

This time Falst didn’t even make an effort to not stare, or act like he wasn’t. He doubted Dainix would even notice anyway. It was beautiful, the way his eyes lit up every time he came across something familiar, and now that light reminded Falst of a strong flame. Every once in a while Dainix would nod or hum, but aside from his eye moving as he read, the view looked almost like a painting, the sun coming through the window perfectly illuminating him in a golden glow that framed him so beautifully it almost had to be intentional.

When he got to the end of the tome, Dainix flipped a few pages back and ran over some of the words with his finger as if looking for something specific.

“Find anything?” Falst asked.

“Probably. There’s some important theories I’ll keep in mind, but mostly it recommends something that is apparently written by a past demon!”

“Wait, really?!” Falst didn’t think he’d ever seen Dainix so excited or hopeful before.

“Yeah! Here, A Treatise On Soulfire. Does that ring any bells?”

“Hm, I don’t think so? But I have an idea where to look first.”

Now that they were looking for a specific title, their search throughout the shelves of the library went much faster than they ever had in the past. Still, it took them until almost nightfall as they combed through every shelf in the library, twice, and searched every nook and cranny for anything that might have fallen out of place. Falst even dashed off to a couple of the disused offices and bedrooms at one point to see if there was anything taken out there.

“I might have to look elsewhere,” Dainix mused, “If I could find someone who’s read it, or even has an idea of where I could find-”

“Oh!” Falst snapped his fingers as the realization hit him. “The mirror!”

The two of them rushed to the study where the lacrima-framed hand mirror was, still next to the pile of research and experimental notes that accompanied it.

“We just need a name, right?” Dainix confirmed as he picked up the mirror, “so a title should work?”

“I don’t see why not.” Falst agreed. “Not sure if it’ll be as effective without the Wind soul thing, though. Maybe add the author’s name with it.”

Dainix nodded, “Good idea.” He held the mirror up and took a deep breath.

This better work! Or I got him all excited and hopeful for nothing. No fucking way am I gonna let this slip away from us, even if I have to scour the whole world for it!

Huh, Falst still wasn’t used to feeling so strongly about anyone. This whole thing was still so strange and new to him, and it had been so long since he’d felt any kind of love he’d kind of forgotten what it felt like.

Maybe that’s why it scared him so much.

“Show me A Treatise On Soulfire,” Dainix said aloud, immediately followed by naming the treatise’s author.

For a moment, nothing changed in the glass surface, only Dainix’s reflection staring back. His expression changed to one of anxiety.

Then that reflection shifted, the colors swirling and merging in the middle, just to part to reveal a new image, one that didn’t reflect the view in front of it, but the image of a small, leather-bound book on a wooden shelf.

“Yes!” Dainix said excitedly.

It took some futzing around with the verbal commands and several minutes, but eventually they were able to get the mirror to show them a wider view of where they could find the treatise. First, they figured out its place in a large yet humble building in a mountainous region. Then further to reveal where it was on a continent, whose shape soon became recognizable.

“Helm, huh?” Falst crossed his arms. “An entire ocean away and in the middle of a mountain-y wasteland. Not exactly the most accessible place.”

Dainix’s expression took Falst a moment to decipher what it meant: it was one of determination. “Neither is the Rauan Desert, for most.” He gave a nervous smile, “Guess I’ll have to figure out how to get passage there.”

Falst gave him a playful nudge. “You’ll finally be out of this dingy castle then, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Wait. Shit. Dainix was going to leave.

“Thank you.”

“Huh- for what?”

“For helping me. I don’t know if I’d have been able to find this without you.”

“Oh.” Falst’s face heated up. “It’s- don’t worry about it.”

Dainix was leaving. Going off to find out how to manage this thing about himself. Falst knew it was gong to happen eventually, that was the goal after all. He just... hadn’t really thought that far ahead. It had been forever since Falst had been able to focus on literally any goal other than surviving the next day. Find his next meal. Figure out somewhere relatively safe to sleep. Stay close enough to a decent enough water source. Survive. He’d never had the space for anything else... until now.

What would he do now? He couldn’t stay at the castle, especially with Dainix gone, then the villagers would figure it out soon enough and eventually get bold enough to come after him again. Not that could‘ve stayed very long anyway. Where would he go... he had someone he cared for now. Life without him seemed even more bleak then ever before, and that was saying something given what he’d been thorough. He... he might never even see Dainix again...

“Would you come with me?” Dainix asked.

Falst’s breath caught. “What?”

“To Helm. I know it’s a big ask, and you don’t have to, but, I’d like to go with you.”

Falst’s world may as well have turned upside down. Though it had already turned upside down when Dainix came into it, so by that logic would it mean it was righted back up?

Eh, that was sappy nonsense. Falst knew what he wanted the next step to be.

“It’s not like I have anything to stay here for. Plus, I might as well finish helping you with your search. It’s only fair.” Falst smirked. “And it’ll be helpful to have someone with experience surviving outside of the desert.”

“Yes!” Dainix reached forward to give Falst a hug.

Falst returned it, reveling in the warmth and the feeling of Dainix’s arms around him. “But if you’re too annoying of a travel companion, I’ll disappear into those mountains faster than you can blink.”

“Ha! I’ll do my best.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Falst you literally just became boyfriends I don't think he'd just abandon you like that

Second-to-last chapter I'm…………………….. full of emotions <3

Remember to drink water, eat food, take your meds (if applicable), and get enough sleep. Love you all, and have a great [insert time here]! <3

[itsdrawingmen]

How do you think yoosung and zen came to realise that they are bisexual men who love both men and women especially given the fact that they are from a highly patriachal and heteronormative country where they are expected to be only attracted to women

Hey there! Going under the cut 'cause it got pretty long, and be aware, all of that is Extensive Headcanon Territory. I admit I need to refresh my memory of canon, but my headcanon world is so nice and cozy...

So I often touch on their relationship to own bisexuality in my writing, especially when writing Zen, because I think he's much more affected by that. So I'll be happy to see you on my Ao3, if you haven't peeked there yet :3

Basically, both realised that when they fell for a man. I don't really know how else one can realise that stuff, really.

For Zen, it was his teenage delinquent days. I talked about that before, but from what Zen mentions about his past, he spent a significant chunk of time at least around biker gangs. That sort of all-male environment is bound to be, on the one hand, a place of pretty powerful indoctrination into patriarchal mindsets, but on the other, a place where his attraction to men would actually make itself known.

I hc he fell for the guy who essentially saved his life and helped him survive, who I named Sol. Sol was pretty aware of his own bisexuality, but he explained it off to himself as 'using any hole available is not gay'. 'Gay' was only to be the receiving party. He understood pretty easily that Zen liked him, and used his leverage as someone he owed and looked up to to take advantage of the teenage boy at his disposal. For Zen, it was a way to get close to someone he loved, so he was ready to bear any pain, humiliation, and risk (to which Sol subjected him plenty). He was pretty much obsessed, and even if he was ashamed, it got sidelined: moreso he simply understood the 'rules'. Eventually, though, Sol got bored with his toy and moved on, and Zen had his heart broken violently and mercilessly, on top of being left alone without support. He had to try and quickly shape up to fit in, but that backfired with another powerful man with a mindset similar to Sol's doling out 'punishments' to anyone who stepped out of line. Soooo... yeah, that's what he had to deal with. He fought like hell to leave that all behind, and part of 'that' was being used by men (and it's still hard for him to fathom in canon that anyone, especially a man, can help him no strings attached: to pay V back, he joins the RFA; he flat out refuses Jumin's help, and most often Yoosung's; and when Seven promos him, he mostly does it behind the scenes without really letting Zen know).

I usually put it as him knowing he's bi, and 'trying to forget'. I think he's more or less fine with others being non-het where he is not concerned and his Big Hetero image is not threatened. But I don't know if he ever really fully accepts it about himself and stops ever feeling dubious about it.

Yoosung, on the other hand, grew up surrounded by women (and media geared towards women). Even though his family was fairly conservative, still he witnessed and internalised different stuff than Zen. Besides, Yoosung is a sucker for friends to lovers, by his own admission, very emotional, and a huge romantic, and I have a big headcanon that for a while he has trouble distinguishing between friendly feelings and romantic/sexual attraction. People in general make him feel strongly (at least ever since he learns it's okay for him to feel things, thanks to Rika's influence). His family makes him feel strongly, his friends make him feel strongly, people he falls for make him feel strongly... I think he'd struggle with the difference. Hugging this friend makes his heart beat faster, but that's just because they're such good friends, right? He wants to go out of his way to help this guy, but then, he'd go out of his way to help anyone, right?! He thinks this man is sexy, but that's just because he's objectively sexy, and Yoosung has eyes, RIGHT?!?!

I think Yoosung realises somehow gradually, and even though he's surprised, he doesn't really feel bad about it. But what he *does* feel bad about is his feelings being unrequited (now even more likely, because, uhm, Zen says gay people have an *aura*, and, well, Zen doesn't have any sort of *aura*, right? How's the *aura* supposed to look like, again?)

So yeah, that's my take! Thanks for the ask <3

[animejay0666]

The Geminis Mate Part IV

(image found online)

Pairing: Baby Saja x OC

Summary: All Léa Esper wanted to do was keep her head down; it's all she had known for the past several years.  But keeping your presence unknown is hard when you feel eyes possibly on you. However, those feelings only increase when her already knotted soul becomes bound with a demon. Her life is turned upside down…without any possibility of it returning to normal.  

Warnings!: Talk of mental illness, schizophrenia, insomnia, nightmares, violence, smut, possessiveness, language. dark romance, death, past trauma (Some of these are not present in this chapter but will be present in later parts.)

Part I Part II Part III Part IV

Dinner with a demon

Léa sat sipping her coffee, Leo across from her enjoying a beverage all the same.

“What do you mean it stopped?” He asks, his eyebrow cocking in confusion.

“I mean it just stopped…the vivid dreams. One night they were there and then they were just gone,” She explains.

One week had passed since Léa's encounter with Baby and one week since the vivid dreams had stopped. Well, stopped ish. Being soul bound to a demon was an…adjustment to say the least. While the dreams that woke Léa up in a cold sweat have ceased, that hasn't stopped the Saja boy from entering her psyche. However, there was only so much a demon could permeate when it came to a family line “curse”. So Baby couldn't fully fix her insomnia, she would definitely have to explain this to him eventually, but at this point she wasn’t ready to discuss that with him. 

“Huh,” Leo replied, “Maybe it was your meds,” He concluded shrugging.      

“Maybe,” She hasn’t told Leo about Baby Saja. Or the fact that the Saja boys are all demons. He would probably think she was crazy, so that would also be a conversation to have with him. 

Demons don’t exactly have the best reputation with the gemini bloodline. As Léas mind began to wander, her phone started going off. 

“Work call?” Leo asks, looking at his own phone. 

She nods, swiping across the screen to answer, “Léa Esper,” She answers, swirling her mug of coffee. 

Leo can’t make out the conversation, not that he would have any idea what they are talking about. He’s a professor not an architect. After about three minutes, Léa agrees to something before hanging up. She downs the rest of her coffee and begins to gather her things.

“Headning out?” Her brother asks.

“Yeah,” Léa responds fast, “For the pent houses they want me to find some old blue prints, knowing grandpa probably kept his old ones.” Leo almost chokes on his drink at Léa mentioning that, “You're gonna go through all of that?” He asks, “Do you realize how long that would take?”

Léa shrugs and a cocky grin forms on her lips, “I mean, they asked, and if what they said is true and grandpa worked there a long time ago then they would know what I’m getting into and they can wait.”

Her brother begins to laugh, sending positive waves through her body via her brothmark…another gemini thing.

“You’re a smart-ass,” he says.

“I’m aware,” Léa responds, “See ya.”

Once Léa had gotten home, she headed down to her basement. As a kid she hated going down there, it was always dark and musky and way too quiet for comfort, but now as an adult…she does mind the quiet and the hidden historical gems she’d find down there. All she had to do was turn on some music and she found her rhythm. After about two hours of sifting, her hair was pulled out of her face, she had discarded her nice shirt opting for a plain t-shirt and her body was coated in a thin layer of sweat. She finally found what she was looking for, blue prints. Jackpot! After getting the box out from its wedged away prison and blowing off the dust, she opened it and began peeling through the drawings. As she did so, the room suddenly became cold and her head burned…she wasn't alone. From the corner of the basement, something fell, making a noise. She screamed and turned to the source; Baby Saja, a cocky grin plastered on his face.

“Stop doing that!” Léa shouts, grabbing an old rag and throwing it at him. 

Of course, being a demon he teleports out of the rags path and casually leans against a nearby wall, chuckling infectiously. Léa can’t help but chuckle nervously herself. 

“Hello beautiful,” Baby says, moving closer.

Léa rolls her eyes, “Oh, stop.” Ever since he had told her they were mates, he has called her a variety of pet names: doll, darling, baby girl, sweetheart. All of which made Léa cringe so hard that she could see her fucking brain.

“Oh come on, these names gotta be better than the last ones,” Baby whined, leaning over a box.

She pauses and glances at him, he is looking at her like she is the most beautiful gem in the world, “Ok, that one is a little bit better.”

Baby laughs joyously, “I’m making a note of that Beautiful."

Léa felt her face heat up, but went back to looking through the box of blueprints, “I’m really busy here Baby, is there something you need?” She asks.

“Too busy to join me upstairs for dinner?” He asks. 

This makes Léa pause, “I’m sorry what?”

“Dinner, have you eaten yet?”

She glances at her watch, it's a little past six. She was so lost in her boxes that she must have forgotten to eat.

“No, I haven’t,” She replies.

The baby takes the stack of papers and carefully places them in a neat pile to be looked at later. 

“I know you're a workaholic, but could you spare just a little break to eat with me?”

Léa sighs, but smiles at the demon, “Yes I can.”

The demon's eyes flash excitedly, “Ok, meet me upstairs then.” His cold fingers brush her cheek, making her spine shiver. 

She has mentioned it before, but she normally hates physical contact, unless it's from family. But for some reason Baby's touch is soothing and it makes her forget about everything. To give her hair a chance to breathe for a bit, she takes it out of the pony tail, letting her locks fall. Making her way upstairs her nose was greeted by the smell of spices and it didn’t really occur to her how hungry she was. In her dining area, Baby looked very proudly and admittedly very cutely, at a couple of take out containers. She couldn't help but chuckle a little bit as she approached him.

“I didn’t know demons knew about take out,” She said, eating the white, foam containers.

“I’m still learning, Beautiful,” Baby replied, “Things are way different then what they were four-hundred years ago.”

He opened up the first one and the sight made Léa's heart skip a beat. Inside was tteokbokki. Her absolute favorite from childhood. She looked at Baby, who seemed even more proud of himself.

“How’d you know this was my favorite?” She asked. 

“I have my ways?” He replied slightly.

“Are you a social media stalker or what?”

“Maybe,” he grins at her.

Léa goes and grabs chopsticks for both of them and immediately dunks them into the bright orange, rice cake dish. She moaned in delight, but had one comment to make about the dish.

“Its good, but it's not my grandpa's.”

Baby perks up at the mention of a family member, “Oh, maybe I’ll have to make it just like he did.” Léa laughs while sitting, “Yeah, good luck with that Saja Boy.”

The two continue to eat, but that raises a question from the dark-haired woman, “So, what are five demons doing here anyway? No way you guys came here top side just to be a good looking boy band.” Baby chokes on his food. He wasn’t at all ready to tell her why he and the Saja boys were here. To destroy the honmoon and get Gwi-Ma souls. 

“Uh,” He says, “Nothing important.” He just lied straight to his mate's face, and she clearly didn't fall for it, as the look on her face faltered. 

“Look, you don’t have to tell me now, but I’d like to know eventually.” 

‘That could work’, Baby thought. Jinu was already on his ass for this whole mating thing, but that was for him to worry about and only him.

Dinner finished quietly, and Léa took the time to clean their chopsticks, as well as the other few dishes in the sink. The baby threw out their containers and took the liberty of looking around the house…for any unwanted guests. When he turned around, his eyes went directly to his mate…and the large birthmark that peeked out from her t-shirt. He was curious…he meant no harm. Walking over he brushed her hair away.

“Whats this?” he asked.

Léa snapped, turned around and swatted his hand away, “It's nothing!” She shouted.

Her shout was enough to make him jump, Léa's eyes swirled uneasily, but calmed. Absently she began to scratch the top of the mark, “Its…nothing.” She finishes.

Seems like both of them lied to each other's faces. Each was hiding something that neither wanted to talk about. 

“I’m sorry,” Baby chimed.

“Me too,” Léa replied, “I’m just not ready to talk about it.”

Baby approaches Léa, taking her hands in his, “And I won’t force you too, you tell me when your ready.”

Léa watch began going off, eight o’clock…time flies when you're having…fun. She had never once thought that in a long time.

“You're tired,” Baby stated, “Go get some sleep and I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Léa nods, “Ok, thanks for dinner by the way.”

The demon can’t help himself, leaning forward to peck Léa on the cheek, “No need to thank me Beautiful, goodnight.”

With that, he disappeared in a cloud of smoke, while Léa's face heated with forgotten excitement and her heart thumped the most beautiful beat. 

[flightfoot]

Do you have any fic recs with guardian Alya? Or ladybug Alya?

Oh yeah, sure! I mean, Alya WAS Scarabella canonically.

---

Adrift by @aidanchaser

Alya thinks of home. Her Miraculous Black Cat partner joins her. ML tumblr Secret Santa gift for thequeenofspace beta read by Samsim

---

the best laid plans of bugs and bakers by @mexicancat-girl

Paris is buzzing with the appearance of a new ladybug-themed hero, Scarabella. Alya decides to use her second hero identity to help her best friend Marinette. A bit of her flirting with Marinette is bound to make Marinette's crushes jealous and finally ask her out! Her plan is fool-proof…! Except when it's not. Not enough people are talking about Scarabella flirting with Marinette. How can Alya properly help her best friend if the news can't be bothered to cover Marinette's budding romance with Scarabella and only posts things about Marinette with Chat Noir?! So Alya puts her all into her plan, upping up her flirting each time she appears as the newbie hero Scarabella. This totally does not backfire in any way.

I adore fics that center on Alya, I haven’t exactly been shy about that fact. This is a nice one for some Alyanette adorableness! (And some Scarabella and Chat banter, I really enjoyed reading that as well). “Fake” flirting to make crushes jealous tends to turn real very quickly, and this is no exception. It’s hilarious, Alya’s the last one to figure out that her romantic relationship with Marinette is very much real XD.

---

Thanks, but no by @pauliestorylover

For every miraculous that Fu cupped in his palms, an image of the same blue-eyed girl flashed through his mind. Marinette Dupain-Cheng was born to hold the miraculous—she resonated with every single one of them far better than even the late Celestial Guardian, and it was Fu’s duty as the last Guardian not to allow such talent to slip through his hands. Too bad Marinette wasn’t on the same page. Or; au where Master Fu keeps throwing miraculous at Marinette hoping one will stick, Marinette goes around handing out miraculous like candy, and Wayzz has never seen anything so ridiculous in his millennia-long lifespan.

This one’s fun. Everyone except for Adrien ends up with a different Miraculous than in canon, and it’s really interesting to see how they all adapt. Marinette’s thorough noping out is pretty funny too, and there’s some sweet bits of Adrino and Alyanette in here!

---

final girl by @picayunearts

Marinette has ninety-nine problems, and the superhero trio of Paris counts for a hundred. [AU where Marinette follows through on giving up her earrings after Stoneheart, but becomes the Guardian to protect her replacement.]

This is just great. Marinette thinks she failed, but the other heroes wouldn’t agree. And eventually, she gains some confidence in herself as well.

[isalisewrites]

Hiiiiiiiii,

Just before I ask what I wanna ask xD I want to let you know that I got absolutely OBSESSED with Terrible, But Great!

And because of that, I am working on a typeset so that I can print it and make it into a physical book. As I enjoy having them as physical trophies and as a way to save them forever. As, sadly some fics I love have disappeared of the face of the earth ;-;

And I know Terrible, But Great isn't done yet. But I know that Act one is done. I remember that you posted at the end of one of the chapters how many Acts you had planned out and how many chapters those Acts will have, but I can't seem to find it anymore. I kinda wanted to use it as a guide to divide the fic into multiple books as I don't like holding big books and would rather divide them logically than to pick at random. Would you mind letting me know which chapters belong/are going to belong to which Act so that I can set up the typesets for them?

As prove of my trophies I'll attach these images; I make my own typeset and covers.

Okay, so a few things.

I fucking adore you. First off.

I love that you want TBG bound in book form. That's definitely what I want, too, when I'm done. I actually had an image of what I did in one of the chapters, but when you link discord images, they seem to expire after two weeks. I'll be moving it eventually to tumblr.

I own Vellum, which is a program to typeset ebooks and print books. So, I have the first arc already formatted. I planned to print out five books, one for each arc. Arc Two will be the longest arc.

However, there are a couple of inconsistencies in the first arc that I need to edit out and I haven't done that yet in favor of pushing forward. They're rather minor, but still important. When I began writing TBG, there were a lot of lore things that I didn't know about until later. Plus, Harry's glasses went invisible in my mind and Harry's height sometimes is taller than it should be.

Next, I wasn't content with my formatting. I didn't like how large the font ended up being in print. Didn't like my cover after awhile. I have since decided on overarching cover themes for all five arcs and I will probably end up commissioning artwork for it.

As for the arc structure, this information was in the notes in the first chapter. It's out of date now, though.

There will be a total of five Arcs.

Arc One is complete with chapters 1 - 22.

Arc Two will be completed on December 31st with chapters 23 - 53.

Arcs Three - Five length could fluctuate since Arc Two expanded by 4 chapters and I wasnt prepared for that. So, this is all projection from here.

Arc Three is: 54 - 76.

Arc Four 77 - 99

Arc Five 100 - 121 plus Epilogue.

You're totally free to make your own copy at any point, but just be aware that Arc One will get some edits in the future to refine a couple of things. And I know you mentioned this in a second ask, but yeah. So long as it doesn't go on sale due to legality reasons, you can do whatever you want with it.

I love your trophies btw!!! I understand the fear of losing your favorite fics. No matter what comes my way, I will never delete TBG. Because I know that fear very well. Should AO3, in the unlikely outcome, ever go down, I will find a new platform to upload it to or share it through other ways. I know what it means to have these fics in your life. There are so many fics that are sacred to my heart and I don't want others to feel a loss.

[serendertothesquad]

Seren's Studies: Odd Squad UK -- Episode Titles! Crackpot Theories! Venting! Excitement?

Honestly? I expected at least something from Odd Squad UK. It's the first of August (at the time of writing), advanced schedules have been put out and now go through October...I mean there was bound to be something, right?

Well, yes. Inverse Pandora's Box. (Or is it an actual Pandora's Box, given my criticisms?)

Episode titles. Synopses (of the basic kind). That promo image up there that came from PBS Kids themselves after I tweeted about my findings. It's like going to the bathroom after having not been in it for nearly a year, opening the door, and suddenly being hit with a flood of bathwater coming at you. When I say there was absolutely nothing of substance that I could dig up over the course of that time beyond a 30-second trailer and a Kidscreen Magazine image that everyone and their mothers use to talk about the series, I mean it. Go ahead. Go punch in "odd squad uk" into Google and get back to me with how long it takes to see my username in the search results.

I'm going to set aside my Seren's Study about PBS's mistreatment of Odd Squad and shift gears just a little bit. This Seren's Study will cover all of the theories, discussion, and thoughts I have about these episodes and characters, in lieu of a Seren Reacts video (an XP-era laptop does not good for OBS Studio recording make). You will see me scream, cry, melt (shit's hot outside), and ask if I can put any of this on my job resume.

Before we begin, I'm going to warn folks that there will be spoilers ahead for those that haven't seen the episode titles and synopses, nor the trailer for OSUK. If you want to take a peek at those, I made a handy-dandy Google doc here. As for the trailer, I made a Seren's Study on that a while back.

Oh yes, and I'll be referring to Odd Squad UK as a whole as a series, not a season. Technically, it is a spinoff series, just marketed in America as Season 4 of Odd Squad.

All right, warnings are out of the way...now we can dive in. Less'go!

A Refresher

Let's get caught up to speed on what we know so far. Couldn't hurt, y'know?

Odd Squad UK -- or Season 4 of the regular Odd Squad series, in the delulu minds of PBS Kids execs -- is a spinoff series of Odd Squad, following Odd Squad Mobile Unit (Season 3). The premise involves a girl named Orli, an Odd Squad agent working on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls who is transferred to a precinct in the UK to boost numbers and help deal with the rise of oddness. She eventually partners up with Ozzie, an agent of the UK precinct, and begins working under one Captain O, a Director who loves anything nautical and aquatic. From there, we see a lot of other characters who take the spotlight -- deadpan Security agent Orwell, quirky Scientist guy Onom, a Chef O, and a girl in a rather mysterious department.

Keeping in line with the reputation of Britain having series with shockingly low episode counts (there's even a trope for it!), Odd Squad UK has 12 episodes in total, the lowest of any season/series to date. However, the crew is open to making more episodes if there is enough demand for them -- a cliche that has plagued a ton of animated kids shows as of late due to the flakiness of the industry.

...That's really all I can give you in the way of a refresher. So let's move on to what the episodes contain.

------------------------------------------------------------

What's the Story, Seren?

Press releases and articles for Odd Squad UK have touted focus on Orli. Once. Exactly once. By all accounts, it seems like the focus of the series is on her struggling to fit in with British culture, customs, and of course, their wacky mathematics. That, however, is not the case -- instead, Ozzie is the focus of the series' story arc.

...Yeah, it has a story arc. They're pullin' an anime with this one and I don't know if I like that.

The arc features Ozzie and his relationship with the Terrible Three, a villainous trio of (what I can presume are) youngsters who seek to spread oddness throughout the town. And guys, I feel obligated to put this tweet from my moot here:

Because they're right. On every single account. This leads into my first criticism, which I will compile at the end. Moving on, though.

Due to that arc, a majority of these 12 episodes feature villains in some kind of capacity. This is not unusual for Odd Squad as a franchise, of course -- villains to them are what air is to a living being. Goes hand-in-hand, and there are many episodes that have villains as antagonists. What is unusual, however, is having well over half of your episodes feature a villain in a major capacity, and while I do love myself a good villain, it seems like one hell of an overdose.

Outside of that, though, the series will feature Orli attempting to fit in to British life. Because after all, she isn't just transferred to the UK -- she has to upright pack up and move nearly halfway across the world. Which I won't deny is a nice premise...but again, 12 episodes.

Enough complaining, though. Let's move on to what I'm sure y'all came here for.

------------------------------------------------------------

The Episodes, or: Netflix is Quaking in their Boots

ISS' CRACK THEORY TIIIIIIIIIME.

In this section, I'll go over each of the episodes revealed thus far, share my thoughts, theories, and what I, for one, hope to expect. (I'd use the colloquial "we", but different strokes for different folks and not even I know what's gonna happen.)

So let's dive into our very first one...

------------------------------------------------------------

Odd Ones In

James Rallison is marching his way on over with a nice fat happy lawsuit as we speak.

...Okay, I kid. He's not. He knows about PBS Kids, but trust...trust me guys, he is not suing anyone.

While this synopsis, like all the other synopses PBS Kids has ever put out ever, is barebones, most of the stuff in this episode can be gleaned from the trailer. The episode is split into two parts for a 22-minute episode in total.

The first part basically deals with Orli transferred, and by extension moving, from the Canadian side of Niagara Falls to good old Britain. Touted as being "the best agent in the world" to help solve oddness, the British agents realize that she sure as hell can't stand on the same pedestal as the thirteen already-existing living legends do, especially since she has no idea how the fuck British people go about their lives. The second part features Orli and Ozzie teaming up to deal with a creature known as an Icy Mousey that is freezing agents left and right.

Let's be honest right out the gate: this is already a better premise for a 22-minute season premiere than "Odd Beginnings" was in 44. And yeah, I know "First Day" is similar, but Olympia didn't have to move to an entirely different country when she graduated from the Odd Squad Academy, y'know? Nor was she branded a "best agent" because she wasn't one yet. Here, we have Orli becoming a Canadian transplant who echoes the sentiments of everyone who has ever traveled to another country and failed to do the research beforehand. Which makes sense, because she's supposed to be an audience surrogate.

I really can't discuss this episode at length without heading into the next episode, though, because it ties into that and the trailer. So, may I present:

------------------------------------------------------------

A Dish Served Odd

Died in 2015. Born in 2024. Welcome back, Seren Taking Food-Oriented Odd Squad Episode Titles to Reflect Episodes About Food That Are Not About Food At All.

*the longest sigh I have ever taken in my life*

Following up from the season premiere, this episode takes a look at the UK town of [REDACTED], where Orli wishes to explore. Most of the stuff in the trailer is taken from this episode, up to and including the alternate-angle image included in the initial press release of Orli and Ozzie telling someone to "stop right there". We have Orli fighting a woman for tour bus tickets using Rock-Paper-Scissors (and I am not talking about the Nickelodeon cartoon, thank you), Brits attending an Odd Squad movie event, and The Trifler.

...I mean okay, there's more, but the hell do you think I have, an eidetic memory or somethin'?

I do find it odd (hehehe lol obvious joke) that an episode out of 12 is dedicated to Orli learning about her new hometown. I get why -- if you discount the fact she does not magically learn all about a goddamn country within a day, she really needs the tour, and we really need the tour, because Let's Go Luna got the axe and someone needs to pick up the slack -- but to not, say, expand "Odd Ones In" to include a tour seems like a waste, especially since the "watch our shit or the show gets killed off" guillotine is hanging over this franchise's head. You can compare Toronto to this -- I'm a dumb lil' American who sees Canada as the land of free healthcare, maple syrup, and a choir of red-shirted children singing "O Canada" with an orchestra in the near-dead of night. Seasons 1 and 2 take place in Toronto, though they never say it outright. There's signage and places that scream Canadian. So why, then, did we not get lessons about Canadian culture? Because if Olive and Otto took the time to teach me lessons about Canada, the writers probably would have fumbled the bag and ruined the world tour story arc of Odd Todd. Which...wouldn't really be a good thing.

I don't know. My opinions will probably shift when I watch the episode itself. At the very least, it's gonna give us McDonald's product placement, which will give me good leverage the next time I roll up behind an asshole in the drive-thru.

------------------------------------------------------------

Odd Jubilee

Not to be confused with Ruby Jubilee, a popular pegasus character from G5 of My Little Pony. This is her...odder cousin.

...No, actually, if you think about it, it fits, because Pinkie Pie and Olympia. Bite me.

So this episode is the start of many, many Ozzie-centric episodes. Which, given whom this series' story arc is about, makes sense. In this one, "Party Agents" (Party Department?) arrive with a box that, of course, contains a party. Like Pinkie Pie's party ca- okay, you know, I joke a lot about Olympia being Pinkie Pie (and I even have a pretty smeggin' good fanfic goin' about it right now!), but the comparisons are fucking writing themselves here. Lest we forget this franchise made a Friendship is Magic reference back in Season 2 with Party Pam's balloon colors.

But I digress. The conflict of the episode comes in the form of Ozzie, who has the key needed to open the box. Unfortunately for him, and for the rest of the UK precinct agents, he's vamooshed and needs to be found.

...If this isn't tying into the story arc, shove an apple into my mouth and send me to Walmart. You couldn't put a sign on any episode here that wouldn't make it any more obvious that there's a story arc. At least Season 1 was humble about it and kept all the 43s hidden as cool lil' Easter eggs. (Season 2 stumbled a little. Season 3 was when shit hit the fan and the smell and the sight of it was made obvious to everyone.)

I might as well get this out of the way now: there's a bit of a problem when it comes to whom, exactly, the series focuses on. We have a core cast of seven main characters. The franchise as a whole is notable for focusing on two agents in particular, mainly two Investigation agents. Orli is an audience surrogate and we're supposed to see the world through her eyes. Ozzie has a bitch-ass past and a wild-ass story arc, hence why he gets the most focus. While residing in seasons with higher episode counts, Olive and Otto, as well as Olympia and Otis, have an equal balance of screentime between each other, despite two of them having an ongoing story arc.

So lemme ask: who am I supposed to focus on here?

Looking at it now, a core cast of seven main characters instead of the four we've gotten before is a great shakeup, but not if you have 12 episodes and a threat of cancellation hanging over your head while your body's infected with Network-Don't-Care-Anymore Disease. Even the synopses alone tell me that this is 100% going to be a hell of a mess, and more than one main character is going to be lacking in the character development section.

Maybe I'm being a little too cynical, especially after Odd Squad Mobile Unit. But this is a franchise that is going on 10 years and made a "jumping the shark" joke only 3 years in. Odd Squad is not immune from rot, so I'm not surprised when it happens.

------------------------------------------------------------

The New Ozzie

Congrats everyone, we now have a name we can pin on the Mysterious Department Girl. Only took us nearly a year!

Opie -- not to be confused with the Opie from Season 1, mind you; different gender, precinct, and department -- is in the Department of Help and Human Services and is being promoted to its topmost position, called a Head. (The Season 3 episode "O For a Day" implied there were head agents of departments in Odd Squad, but nothing was outright confirmed in terms of the organization as a whole -- it likely was exclusively for the Seattle precinct.) Ozzie, who was the previous Head of the Department of Help and has since moved to the Investigation department (neither a promotion or a demotion; both departments have the same shape with the same number of sides), needs to help her learn the ropes. Problem is, he also has to solve oddness in town. What do?

This episode pretty much solves the question of "is he wearing an H on a hexagon or is that a bridge?" It's an H. The department's logo is an H. I can't even be mad at that, but I'm not happy about it either. Ozzie was a leader, and now he's a run-of-the-mill Investigation agent, which could raise some interesting conflicts given the story arc. It can be a superiority complex. It could be the "British people evil" cliche. Or it could lead to absolutely nothing. It's 12 episodes, take your pick.

------------------------------------------------------------

Bad-Luck-itis

Okay. They paid the "Find the Cure" fee. Can they please get their paychecks and go the fuck home already, guys?

Seems the gadget competition video served as some weird foreshadowing, if you replaced Orli and Osgood with Captain O and Orwell and the Mondays with...well, Bad-Luck-itis. Basically, Ozzie becomes a walking disaster area, and his partner, plus another agent named Osgood, have to find ingredients to make the cure.

This can reasonably go one of two ways: either we get an episode that's a direct copy, or we get an episode that's actually unique and puts a spin on things. Until we get a bigger and more explanatory synopsis, it can go either way, and, well...we don't right now. So I can't really say much about this. I will say, however, that given "Off the Clock" from Odd Squad Mobile Unit, I'm hoping "Bad Luck-Itis" "Bad-Luck-itis" can keep up the pace. That was a solid episode, for what it was worth.

------------------------------------------------------------

The Triangle Sisters

Not to be confused with the Triangle siblings from "Crime at Shapely Manor". Thass'...thass' a whole 'nother ball game.

There's really not much to this one either. The synopsis tells of Orli and Ozzie attempting to hunt down villains -- the eponymous siblings, natch -- who have stolen shapes from a museum. That's about it. Either this is "Crime at the Britain Museum" or it's something unique. Like with "Bad-Luck-itis", it's too soon to know yet.

...But that wording is very suspicious, given Ozzie's story arc...makes you wonder.

------------------------------------------------------------

Miss Information

Ah. Three for three with the "is originality as dead as chivalry" comments.

This one concerns "Bad Lemonade" in particular, in that it's about a villain using bar graphs to bring some kind of harm to a character. Imagine Odd Todd, then imagine him slandering an entire pseudo-government organization instead of just Polly Graph. Now make him an adult woman, and you've got this episode.

If they really wanna spice it up, they could slip in some wondrous British social commentary that dumb lil' Americans like myself would never get. But Odd Squad as a franchise has never really been about that (I am slapping the word "really" so hard my hand is red, thank you), so here I'll sit in my delusion for two months.

...Also, Canada slander. Just to get under Orli's skin.

------------------------------------------------------------

A Dicey Situation

Oh yeah, we had a Director character, didn't we? Let's employ her in a- ohhhhhhhhh, it's another one of those episodes.

Look, I love "Totally Odd Squad". Provides some excellent backstory for Oprah, gives us some lore as to the inner workings of Odd Squad as an organization, and it had O'Donahue flirting with his boss in one of the most expressive romantic things in the entire franchise. Same goes for "Fistful of Fruit Juice"; I loved that too.

On a more negative note, if you've ever seen my Seren Reacts video on it, you'd know that "Mission O Possible" is on the lower end of the ladder for me. Among other criticisms, it's a parody of Mission Impossible that utterly bombs due to network restrictions and poor choice of central character. I'm not exactly banking on "A Dicey Situation" to parody anything, but I'm not holding confidence that it's going to be good either.

At the very least, the villain's name is unique. If her last name is Doubloon, I'm hoping we can get a financial math moral that can put me and the rest of the fandom at ease when it comes to the sheer irony of this franchise tackling every aspect of math but finances. You can't say "kids today don't wanna work anymore" if the shows made for them are too afraid to teach them about a new app called The Fucking Dollar Bill.

------------------------------------------------------------

Lift Off

Now here's where shit gets good.

Imagine, if you will, me, going to Japan to buy some Precure merch and not understanding any cultural customs.

Now imagine Orli in the same spot, in Britain, with elevators. Oops, sorry, lifts.

Here's a fun fact some of you may not know: there was an episode with a working title of "See You Later Elevator", all the way back in Season 2. No one knows what that episode was turned into, if it went beyond the script and name-registering stage, or what it was about. And while it was made sometime in 2017, predating this episode by a good 7 years, it makes you stop and think for a moment about if "See You Later Elevator" did get past the script stage but was retooled to fit Orli instead. Depending on who you ask, it's at least a better title than "Lift Off".

This episode could best be summed up as "how does Britain work?", as Orli must send an interdimensional clam (God did not create enough animals to populate Europe, clearly) back to its home but has trouble working the lifts because they're different from the elevators she had in Canada. And I gotta be honest, folks...this might be one of my favorite episodes of the entire series. 11 minutes of Orli being a silly ding-dong and toying with a machine that can cause immediate death is gonna be real fun to watch. (Only...y'know...no gore. For obvious reasons.) It's like if you had 11 minutes of Orla trying to figure out some item in the modern world and kept messing things up, and I'd enjoy that too in spite of what I think about Season 3.

------------------------------------------------------------

A Tour of Odd Squad

Not to be confused with "Welcome to Odd Squad" from Odd Squad Mobile Unit; I'm sure this episode won't be as bad as this one.

...

I'm overshooting the mark, aren't I? Shit.

Old-timers to the fandom might remember all the tours held of the studio set the first two seasons used. In-universe, "Disorder in the Court" is the only episode I can vividly recall where a tour is offered someone who wasn't an Odd Squad agent. As a freebie, to boot. (When I first saw "A Tour of Odd Squad" as a title and its synopsis, I was under the impression that tours given to non-clients and non-agents were not a concept that existed. I was wrong.)

This episode, however, has an Odd Squad Superfan tour. A bit of a different breed, though if you want to believe the Odd Squad Superfan Tour exists in "Disorder in the Court", feel free! I know I will.

Basically, it's a "spot the imposter" type situation. One villain has come into the tour in disguise as a fan of Odd Squad, and Opie must stomp them out. This is another episode that raises quite a few suspicions concerning Ozzie's story arc, because we don't know if it's a child disguised as an adult, a child that looks like a child, or an adult that looks like an adult. The synopsis doesn't tell us that much. If it is a child that looks like a child, though, I have to wonder if they'll pull an "I'm separated from my mommy and she's in the group, help me get back to her" gambit. It's a villain trio that describes one of the worst periods in a parent's goddamn life. Kids are smarter than most would think. I can envision it.

Good premise either way, though. I look forward to seeing how things play out.

I am also expecting as much meta commentary as Oprah did in "First Day". Hey, they did it once 8 years ago, and I wanna see them do it again. Clap back!

------------------------------------------------------------

Club 37

Not to be confused with Club 24- okay, look, this is fucking annoying and I can't keep doing this. Just set your bars low, people. Set them seven feet from the ground and call it a day.

Oy...okay. So this episode involves the exclusive titular club. To gain access, an agent or a partner pair must solve a total of 37 cases, which Orli and Ozzie must do. Because...in 6 episodes, they haven't solved that many? There goes Orli being Odd Squad's best agent to stem the rise of oddness in the UK.

...I dunno, guys. You think the crew saw my "What Odd Squad Got Past Censors" video, realized the implications of Club 24, and made a kid-friendly variant instead? It's a very slim chance, next to nonexistent, but I can't help but wonder. After all, not every day you see two preteens enter a nightclub where the line is full of solely adults.

This episode does have a few similarities to "The O Team", though, just in the way Olympia and Otis have to solve a select amount of cases. Hoping it isn't a retread, because "The O Team" was a great way to shine some light on two side characters and "Club 37"...isn't. PBS synopses do not pull red herrings, people.

------------------------------------------------------------

Odd Way Round

Go ahead, take a shot for every "odd" pun they make in this season. At this point, Popularity Papers did a funnier thing with their Odd Squad title reference. (And also has better, more inspirational titles than just making puns out of "popularity" and "papers".)

Putting aside the title, though, the episode has a pretty straightforward premise -- Orli needs to get to the Odd Squad Test Center, but is repeatedly stopped by villains as she's trying to get there.

All right, first question: exactly what does Odd Squad need a Test Center for? I'm not buying that it's a British thing, because even with my dumb lil' American ways that's the stupidest shit I ever heard. And second of all, how the hell are they keeping that shit staffed? Who's staffing it? How much money does the Britain HQ have in the bank to keep that shit staffed?

Best way I can really sum this up is that it'll be 11 minutes of battle scenes with a payoff of her coming to the Test Center and being told "lol your test is on another day". Not exactly enthused, but I'm not going to actively hate it out the gate either.

------------------------------------------------------------

Strictly Odd Dancing

Now this. This is the kind of punny shit I live for with this franchise. It's another "odd" pun, sure, but it's also a pop culture reference very few people would get. Hell, it took someone in the Odd Squad Discord server to tell me they were referencing the British version of Dancing with the Stars! This is what I like!

Moving on to the premise: the episode features two minor characters, Ostin and Olyla (you'd think with the latter name, PBS would be all over it...'cuz Lyla in the Loop and all that), who tell a story to some agents about how they went from "singing and dancing gross" to "singing and dancing great" due to a villain's influence.

It's...another storytelling episode. Which, again, I'd be fine with, if there weren't 12 episodes in the entire damn series. Focusing on minor characters (not side characters; "minor" here refers to oneshots) is nothing new for the franchise, but most episodes that do it are in seasons with high episode counts. This series does not.

Let's be honest for a moment: the only saving grace this episode has for me is if we get a musical number. It's a singing and dancing episode. It'd be a crime not to have a song. LET ME HEAR THE BELTING OF THE BRITISH CHILDREN, GOD DAMN IT. I DESERVE IT.

------------------------------------------------------------

Villain of the Year

If this synopsis refers to Ozzie as the "unlikely villain", I am going to throw myself onto my front lawn, scream into the grass, and let the ticks consume me.

And that's not even getting into the other times we've gotten award mentions and episodes. Do we really need a villain variant of the Agent of the Year award that Odd Squad Book of Games introduced? What is point? Why is point? I was fine with the villain report cards Season 2 introduced! Leave it at that!

I'm just...I'm tired. Only a select handful of these synopses are inspiring confidence in me. If Season 3 came up with more original synopses than this series, with a return to form, does, then we're in trouble. That is with a capital T. A T as big as the Titans Tower, that's right.

------------------------------------------------------------

Planes, Trains, and Oddmobiles

God this is a good pun. God I love this pun. Best title of the franchise, hands down. Even beats out "Assistants' Creed". Took them ten fucking years to make the pun, but...it's here, and I love it. It barely even relates to the episode from what I can tell from the synopsis, but damn if they didn't do good.

And speaking of the synopsis, this one has a sort of similar plotline to "Nature of the Sandbeast" from Odd Squad Mobile Unit, in that there is a female creature with eggs missing who is incredibly pissed off and is seeking to harm anyone and anything until she gets them back. That episode had the titular creature; this one features a Huggle Monster. That episode had Orla, Osmerelda, and Omar fighting off the creature; this episode has Orli and Ozzie. Not exactly a repeat, but we'll see where things go.

...Okay, I'm taking my above comment back about the title not relating to the episode, because I just figured out what the math moral is.

It's about which mode of transportation is the fastest: a plane, a train, or a car.

I don't know whether to cackle because kids can't drive either of those things (and for "car", I'm talking about big-boi cars like Audis and Toyotas, thank you), or clap because they made a pun that encapsulates the math moral.

God bless them.

------------------------------------------------------------

Part of the Furniture

Now here's an episode title I really am scratching my head about. It's not a pun. It's not some kind of typo. It doesn't relate to the episode as far as the synopsis goes. It looks like a lost memo from a Bob's Discount Furniture employee meeting.

You wanna know the best part, though? The episode deals with Orli joining a bunch of clubs but not having time for all of them and helping Orwell at the same time. Which...I...look, if she doesn't join some kind of furniture-related club, then what is point? Is this some British pun I don't- ah fucking hell, it's a British pun I don't get, isn't it. God damn it.

Not really much to go off of with this one, but man is that title gonna be eating away at me for the next two months. I have to sleep at night, people. 15 years of sleep deprivation weighs on a person!

------------------------------------------------------------

The Odd Ness Monster

Look. The Oddverse has kraken. It's only justified that it'd have the Loch Ness Monster, too.

Me, I'm just surprised it took them way too many franchise installments to get to this point.

The synopsis for the episode, however, is a little confusing. The best I can gather is this: Onom and Orwell are doing something when the Loch- shit, the Odd Ness Monster wakes up. From there, they have to put it to sleep before it destroys Headquarters (which, I will remind you, is fucking underground and doesn't need much protecting against a creature commonly depicted in fiction as a seafarer).

It's incorrect, but this is PBS we're talking about. Wait until mid-September when we get stuff from the BBC.

Outside of the "destroying HQ" stuff, I look forward to seeing how a Scientist and a Security agent with differing personalities handle Odd Squad's take on Nessie. I guess the Britain HQ lacks a Creature Care department, otherwise either Onom or Orwell would be replaced.

------------------------------------------------------------

Oddtober the Thirteenth

Died around 2016.

Born 2024.

Welcome the fuck back, Oddtober.

For those out of the loop, Oddtober is the name of an event PBS Kids held to celebrate Odd Squad having new episodes in October. Because, y'know, they actually loved the show back then and didn't treat it like shit. The event died off when Season 2 premiered and was replaced by a more generalized "Celebrate Halloween All Month Long with PBS Kids" event, which has been in place for years now and covers multiple shows on the lineup. And now it's back, in episode title form.

If this wasn't intentional, you're lying to my face. If this was intentional, you're giving me a chance to gloat.

But what about the episode itself? Well...it's not another Halloween episode, unfortunately. It's not even airing on October 13, which sucks, but...that's a Sunday and PBS Kids doesn't premiere new content on a Sunday in most cases. The episode's premise is actually pretty unique -- the British agents wants a day off from oddness, which villains are, surprisingly, more than happy to give them...provided their happiness meters break the limit. To do this, agents throw them a party.

I...another party episode? Really? The fuck were they celebrating over in the writers room, the fact that Odd Squad got greenlit for another season and PBS didn't kill it off like it was forest game? I mean it's a good thing to celebrate, but again...12 episodes. And the crew was the one who gave the "you want more OSUK stuff, watch what we got to offer" ultimatum to begin with!

Given the title of the episode, though, I expect things to go down south very quickly. At the very least, we know where it falls on the incredibly messy franchise timeline.

------------------------------------------------------------

Agent Overhill's Last Day

Oh, another episode focusing on a minor character. I'd actually spit more fire at this if it weren't for the fact that this episode inches the line closer to the season/series finale. It's up in the air whether the "one last villain" is Ozzie or not. However, I can appreciate the use of "Overhill" as a name. As in, "over the hill". As in...someone who is old and past their prime.

...Yeeeeeeah, 10 fuckin' cookies they won't touch on that shit. Established rules for that haven't changed in 10 years, and just because it's Britain doesn't mean it'll be changed. I do like how they're willing to go further into retirement from Odd Squad after only featuring it for a one-off gag or an offhand mention here and there, though.

------------------------------------------------------------

The Ne- Wait, I Mean The Other Ozzie

And the prize for Most Unoriginal Episode Title goes to.

Seriously, there are a host of puns involving the color purple they could have gone with. Instead, they pulled from a previous episode title and changed the goddamn adjective. Now there's something to confuse the kids.

But what is the episode about? Well, Orli's being featured this time around, partnering up with an agent named Oz from the Movie Star Dimension to find out who is turning civilians purple.

I'm going to shove the elephant in the room out the door and let it go back to its native habitat: this Oz has absolutely no relation to the Oz from Season 1, nor Ozelprazelwixelmist from Season 1, and if you believe otherwise then I will respect that but you are wrong. Realistically, they could bring Oz back, especially since Odd Squad Book of Games brought him back via a mention and...well, he's an invisible agent, so there's no need to cast another kid to act physically. But this episode looks to involve a counterpart of Ozzie, which neither Oz nor Ozelprazelwindowsmistplay is. And I highly doubt they'd bring the latter back from the "silly lol gag" dead and put them in a major role.

Putting that aside, though, this episode actually contains what is known in TV Tropes parlance as a Mythology Gag, which is when a franchise references previous installments that are not canon to the work containing the gag.

In this particular case, I'll direct your attention to the pilot. Some of you reading this may have seen it, others may have not, and others I probably melted your minds just by telling you it exists. (Mass apology to those people.) At the beginning of it, Olive explains what Odd Squad is and what they do, coupled with slides that show oddness in action. One of these incidents is a family and their dog, who are all colored purple.

And thus, you have the basis for this episode.

Given how the pilot and Odd Squad UK have different staff and different prodcos, I don't know if this was intentional or not...but Tim McKeon is at least working on it, so it makes you wonder. What better way to celebrate the franchise's 10th anniversary than a throwback to the piece of media that started it all 12 years ago?

------------------------------------------------------------

Three is the Oddest Number

Huh. Did I just crack the code for why this franchise is keen on four-person teamups? Because it feels like I just cracked the code for why this franchise is keen on four-person teamups. (Okay, fine, five if you count Odd Squad Mobile Unit with both Oprah and Orpita. But this episode's not called "Five is the Oddest Number" so weh to ye.)

Anyway, this episode kicks off the two-part sea- sorry, series finale. I have no confirmation it is the series finale, but I've seen PBS Kids execs throw this franchise around like a ragdoll for the past few years and I can see a very clear path ahead. Almost crystal, even.

This is an 11-minute episode, similar to past season finales ("Who is Agent Otis?" as well as "Odds and Ends", "Sunny Sides Add Up" as well as "Old Odd, New Tricks"). Here, we're introduced to the Terrible Three in proper, who begin to bring their reign of terror upon Britain. We also get to see why Ozzie seems to know them, and unravel the story arc.

Again, I will refer to my Twitter mutual's tweet at the beginning of this post, and reiterate that the "main character knows the villains somehow" schtick is getting a little old. They would have had something good going with Olando if they didn't fuck things up, because that story was actually kind of unique. (Yes, discounting that Olando is a male Orla.) If they want people to watch Odd Squad UK so it gets more episodes, then they better hit a homerun with this go-around of an apparently popular story.

------------------------------------------------------------

Should Odd Acquaintance Be Forgot

I won't lie: before I found out what this title was alluding to, I genuinely thought PBS fucked up on the grammar. I thought, "Shouldn't it be 'Should Odd Acquaintance Be Forgotten'?"

But lol, no...it's a reference to a lyric in "Auld Lang Syne". God bless Google. God bless search engines.

This episode, the second part of the two-part series finale that is 22 minutes in length, picks up where "Three is the Oddest Number" left off, natch. It seems that the Terrible Three have broken into Headquarters and are close to securing a win against Odd Squad, but have hidden from the agents, who need to find them.

...I don't know about you, but I'm getting some Secret Catch Teenieping vibes. Only, y'know, there's no "the Teenieping is hiding in one of three objects". The episode could lean that way, though...wouldn't be unlike them.

In any case, the second half of the episode has the Terrible Three still on a rampage, opening up some containment units that will spread oddness throughout the town. The Britain HQ's agents are now forced to answer the question that I'm sure they'll be asked: "Oh yeah? You and what army?"

By finding other kids to help them.

...I know exactly what the fuck you're thinking right now and I'm here with the thorn in my foot squashing your hopes and dreams and letting the thorn go even deeper in.

If you have ever seen any reaction I've ever had to "Odd Together Now", you're probably aware that I died a little inside. With the ending involving clips of past seasons, even moreso. The Seren Reacts video...I had already gotten up once and came back when they showed Olive and Otto. That ending made me want to physically leave my house. And I have depression.

Smart is knowing tomato is a fruit. Wise is not putting it in a fruit salad. Peak intelligence is realizing that nearly every single child actor that has been on Odd Squad is now too old to reprise their roles and then not begging for them to come back. I want them to come back too, but that's what fanworks are for. Fanfics, fan videos, animations and skits, all that jazz. It can be done. Hell, I've made fanfics with Odd Squad characters. Other people have too. There are Odd Squad fanpieces all over the 'Net, if you look. Some are good, some are bad. But the fact of the matter is that they all have the creator's own personal brand of creativity to them.

But fanworks are a topic for another Seren's Study on another day. For now, I'll just say that I hope they go out with a bang with this one, for being only 12 episodes.

------------------------------------------------------------

The Future of Odd Squad UK: Cancellation or Resuscitation?

I will forever stand by my theory that Odd Squad UK was birthed merely to fill a quota, and the extra win for SSE and FRP of financial gain. But the quota part is what I'm specifically focusing on, because when it comes to this franchise, my ire largely falls with PBS Kids execs. Last I read, Sara DeWitt wanted about twenty shows by end of year. I lost count somewhere around March, but I don't know...if you count the season premieres (and Lyla in the Loop), I'd say it's nearing or exceeding that number.

...No, actually, they probably do count season premieres. Look at our very own OSUK.

The issue with PBS Kids and OSUK is something I'm setting aside for another Seren's Study that is currently a work in progress. However, it's no surprise that execs frown upon Odd Squad as a whole and include it in promotional media only for gratuity purposes. Like a way to remind the audience that yes, however creator-driven they may be, they do own the Odd Squad IP and they will shove it up as many hairy nostrils as humanly possible.

Because of this, it's entirely up in the air whether Odd Squad UK will get greenlit for another season, maybe with a higher episode count than just a meager 12.

...You would think. Bitch you would think.

It is worth noting that this is a coproduction, so PBS didn't solely produce this -- BBC Studios Kids and Family had a hefty hand in it, because, y'know, it's their own damn fault country. Hence, it's largely up to them whether Odd Squad UK will continue. And unlike PBS, they salivate over ratings over most anything else, and Odd Squad's is pretty well up there...so it does make you wonder.

Either way, I can't reiterate this enough: if you want OSUK to continue, watch it. TV, on the app, through official streaming services, anything that's legal. Hatewatch it, even; like I've said before, hatewatching is a nice happy form of reverse psychology at work, and everyone involved on OSUK could not even give a shit about you satisfying your curiosity if you gave them Bezos level of monies. Every little bit counts.

As for me, I'm not going to hatewatch OSUK, but rather, I'm going to try and go in with a relatively open mind and then rip into episodes accordingly. We do still have that gadget competition results video coming in September, so that'll be another tease that people who have read titles and synopses can see. And then they can judge the quality of the show itself with that in mind, of course.

If you've read all this and digested it and didn't just click on the links above, then thank you. Expect another Seren's Study on PBS's mistreatment of Odd Squad as a whole franchise soon.

(Would you believe me if I said I wanted to take a break for August? But the franchise never sleeps, and apparently neither do I.)

Seren out.

[primamchorus]

Sylleblossom

Noctis' treatments have been going well...well enough that it seems evident that the royal Lucian family may be leaving soon. Lunafreya returns to that room in her home that houses Noctis, a red, leather bound notebook in her hands. With this Notebook of Memories, she makes a simple request.

Word Count: 1,052

FFXV: Reimagined Table of Contents

<- Previous • Next ->

Another day, another book in hand. Though, this was not just any kind of book that Lunafreya held; it was a red, leather bound journal embossed on the right corner with the image of flowers with petals that flared out, and a bird flying overhead in golden ink. She held it knowing that the time she had with the Prince of Lucis was limited, and she wanted to keep their budding friendship going till it could fully bloom.

Behind Lunafreya were two dogs that often accompanied her — a pair of black and white canines. One a cross between a shiba and a malamute, the other more of a spitz.

Lunafreya rapped her knuckles against the door, waiting patiently until someone opened it. When finally the door opened, Lunafreya ended up looking at a woman dressed in a gown of green, her brown hair pinned back neatly, and a kind look on her face. Lunafreya had not often been in Aurae’s presence a lot of the time — generally, she was not allowed over when Aurae was helping quell Noctis’ pain.

“Young Princess Lunafreya,” Aurae greeted, offering a courteous bow to the young royal. “Noctis is doing quite well today. Are you here to visit?”

“Mhm!” Lunafreya hummed in response. “I have a gift for him since I know you are to return to Lucis sometime soon.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Aurae commented, taking a moment to look over toward Noctis. Noctis was leaning over in his bed, peeking around the blue floral design partition that separated the entrance from the rest of the room. It was a sight that caused Aurae to smile in amusement before looking back toward Lunafreya and motioning into the room, inviting her in. “I dare say the young prince is eager to have some company.”

Reining in her want to gleefully skip inside, Lunafreya entered into the room with a hurried step, a smile growing upon her face. Both dogs that were at her back followed after her. Her appearance from beyond the partition made Noctis perk up with a smile of his own as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed in preparation for her to spend time with him. Once Lunafreya had a seat on the bed, she handed the book she had out toward him.

In the meantime, Aurae quietly excused herself with a warm smile on her face, closing the door as she departed. Noctis took hold of the book just as the door clicked shut, his attention going toward the exit for just a moment before he turned the leather bound book over in his hands.

“It's a notebook,” Lunafreya commented. Both dogs had taken a moment to pace and find a place to lay down not too far from them. Noctis followed them with his eyes briefly before he turned his attention back down toward the notebook.

“Oh.” Noctis opened it and flipped through the empty pages, noting the blank stationery. He eventually turned the pages over till he got to what was making a noticeable lump in the paper. Set there with a golden wax seal was a pressed dried flower, blue with flared petals. “Nice flower.”

“It's the same kind we sewed our crowns from.” Lunafreya brought her hand to her hair, feathering her fingers against her flaxen tresses as she imagined a sylleblossom crown adorning her head. She then leaned in to look over at the flower with a fond smile.

“Oh yeah, ‘sylleblossoms,’” Noctis recollected, running his fingers along the page close to the flower, a small smile growing upon his lips as he took in more of the appearance of it. His expression faltered somewhat before he looked at Lunafreya more directly. “Is there…anything you want me to do with it?”

“So…” Lunafreya began, kneeling down and resting her arms on the bed. “Take the notebook with you when you go back to Lucis. I'd like you to put something in the book and send it back.”

“‘Send it back’?” Noctis looked confused for a moment. He closed the notebook and looked at it with a furrowed brow. “How am I supposed to do that if even us being here is supposed to be secret? Won’t…Won’t Niflheim find out if we try to send each other stuff?”

Lunafreya looked over her shoulder toward the two dogs who basked in the sunlight that fell upon the tile. Her expression softened. “Those are Umbra and Pryna… They're divine messengers sworn to the family of Fleuret. They will see that the notebook is passed safely from you to me, or me to you. You need only call them, and they will hear you and appear before you.”

Nodding, Noctis replied with a simple, “Sure,” while holding the book closely. He hummed in thought, soon asking the important question: “What kind of stuff should I send back?”

At this, Lunafreya’s eyes brightened as her smile widened with Noctis’ interest. “Memories. Experiences. Things you don’t want to forget. Things you want to share. Stickers. Souvenirs. Anything that you think is interesting or worthy of your time.”

Reaching over, Lunafreya brought the empty notebook back to the pressed sylleblossom. “This is my first memory that I wanted to share that you can keep every time the book comes back to you. A reminder of your time here, and a symbol of Tenebrae.”

“Then…” Noctis mulled over his thoughts. “Oh! What if I sent you back a flower from Lucis? We have these really nice ones. Auntie Aurae calls them ‘morning glories’, but Dad calls them ‘moonflowers’. I can have Auntie Aurae make it like the one you have of the sylleblossom and send it back so you can see it!”

“I’d love to see it!” Lunafreya replied, her grin uncontrollable as it blossomed over her face. “I don’t get to see a lot of flowers outside of the ones we grow here in our gardens. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a moonflower.”

“I think you’ll really like it. It’s big and round,” Noctis described, recalling how the flowers looked in his mind. “They only bloom at night. But…”

Noctis pointed a finger down on the blank page opposite the sylleblossom and gave Lunafreya a confident smile. “I’ll write down anything neat about it for you, too!”

[diabolica45]

Chapter 10: Controlla

Sage and Maeve talk it out. Stan reads up on his most valuable asset. And tee hee! Homelander and Reader plan a date for Valentine's Day! What could go wrong?

Sage walked briskly down the hall, pulse hammering in her ears. After that shit show of a therapy session, she'd stormed to her room, and stared herself down in the mirror, gaze hot as lava as she shook, hands gripping the counter.

That fucking Dr. Rangel... Sage's mind churned violently, imaging the therapist's gruesome demise; her face, caved in, bones jutting out like icicles. Homelander, lasering into her skull until her entrails spilled out at her feet. 

Fuck. Her. 

For a moment, the rancor washed over her, dark and molten, and she sat under its plunge, head bowed. It surged through her like electricity, until she'd been burnt out; when she faced her reflection again, her eyes were tired. Extinguished. 

They didn't listen to her, she thought. None of them did. They all thought of her as this arrogant know-it-all, who was only good for spouting knowledge or words they couldn't understand, and so they shunned her. She couldn't find solace in the other women of the Seven - not Second Coming Starlight, or Southern Belle Firecracker, or...

Sage turned on her heel, and left the bathroom, away from that train of thought, and onto the next one, sorting her thoughts and shoving that one toward the bottom.

Fuck her, too.

Sage sighed, disgusted with herself, before striding out of her quarters - and landing solidly into Maeve, who caught her before she could crash headfirst into her armor. Sage struggled out of her grasp, walking faster. Maeve caught up to her in one long bound, matching her pace.

"Where are you going?" Go away.

"To see Stan. About Dr. Rangel. It doesn't concern you."

"Yes, it does. I hate her, too."

Sage let the moment lie, marching to Stan's office, the sound of their boots on the linoleum grounding her. Maeve's boots on the linoleum, she thought, before banishing the thought.

Eventually they reached their destination, only to be stopped by Vought Security. The guard held a hand out, halting them. "Mr. Edgar has requested complete privacy for the next 2 hours. He is not to be disturbed by anybody." Sage furrowed her brow, mouth open in a retort, when the guard interjected, his voice hardening, and his stance turning offensive. 

"He is not... to be disturbed... by anybody."  

The two woman listened from the other side of Stan's office, as the faint sound of pages turning wafted under the door. Sage looked at Maeve, who nodded.

"That's fine. We live here. We can wait for two hours." The guard nodded, watching them until they left, and passed the corner.

Maeve and Sage walked silently to the plaza outside, and a waiter soon appeared with glasses of water. Sage held up her hand, reaching for her canteen instead. The two sipped quietly, the idle chatter of Vought personnel cutting through the icy silence between them.

"It was incredibly  fucked up, to ask me to do that to you," Maeve finally said, setting down her glass. Sage set her jaw. "Well... you did it." Maeve scoffed.

"Yeah - and you put me out after, like I was some whore."

"I would never treat a whore like that."

Maeve looked at her in disbelief, an incredulous upturn on her open mouth. Sage felt the deep burn of regret roil through her; she tightened her grip on her canteen, though she couldn't feel the cold.

"Does it make you feel good? To make me feel this way? To treat me like a toy, instead of facing that you did it because you were scared?" Sage leaned away, a bitter smirk twisting her mouth.

"Taking notes from Rangel?" Maeve rolled her eyes. "You know what? I think you hate her... because she was right about you. You'd do anything to feel like you're a part of a unit, except make any real effort to do so." Sage raised her brow.

"Are you really going to pretend you're anyone to make that point? Like she didn't read you for filth in that session, too?" Sage heard the last word before she said it, and bit the inside of her cheek. Fuck.

Maeve heard it, too; she felt her hackles lower despite herself, and felt the anger fade from her body. The two sat at the table pensively, dismissing the waiter when he came asking for their orders. The wind gusted gently around them and wafted Maeve's hair, the scent of it wisping toward Sage. Lilac. Sage felt a terrible quaking within her, and looked up.

"I'm sorry, Maeve," Sage said quietly, her voice cracking.

Maeve gazed into the raw umber of her eyes, and felt a pulling sensation in her chest, though she remained upright. She let out the exhale she'd been holding and nodded, the hand on the table flexing minutely, towards Sage. She nodded again, frost blue eyes brighter in the wake of a ray of sunlight, that burst from behind the clouds.

Stan sat in his office, the glow of the lamp casting a gentle shadow on his face as he read. The old, leather notebook in his hand was soft and pliable; its surface weathered with pockmarks, the stories of which were lost to time. He leaned forward in his chair, the words echoing in his mind.

04/19/2000

Journal:

Today is... day five of the sleep deprivation trial. I think it's day five, anyway. Mr. Vogelbaum says not to think of it as "sleep deprivation". He says to think of it as a test of my endurance. I said that if it was a test, then I'd pass it. I heard a kid say that on television once, and the adults had laughed, ruffled his hair. I waited, but Mr. Vogelbaum only smiled. No ruffle.

I'm not hungry, I'm not even tired anymore; I told Barbara, and she looked proud of me. I don't know if she was. I wanted her to be. But there's something wrong with my bedroom, I tried telling them. At night, these... centipedes fall from the ceiling, crawl towards me. When I told them, they'd just said that I was so much stronger  than a centipede - so why was I scared?

Last night, one of them actually dropped onto me, and I screamed, lasered a hole in the ceiling, the wall. I heard them talking this morning, about calling off the experiment, and I almost cried. They sounded disappointed in me.

Stan closed the notebook, a sigh blowing through him. Some moments, it had seemed to be only days ago that John was that scared little boy, whose tears had sizzled his cheeks when he used his lasers. He looked at the man before him now on the laptop as he slow-danced with his woman in her apartment, the faint hint of music tinny through Vought's microphones. 

It would have been easy, Stan thought, to let him be, to abandon the project. But he knew better; John had died sometime during the experiments and the torture, and stepped out of that broken shell crystalized. There was no boy named "John", and there would never be again.

Even still, as the thought settled over him, something akin to... remorse? No... regret, lapped at his insides, the dull lick of its fiery burn making him shift in his seat. There would never be the return of a boy named John - but he thought of the boy in the entry, and considered what might have been. He buried the thought.

There would be no Vought, no Stan, without Homelander - and so the boy had been the sacrificial lamb. From his mangled body sprouted the first greenery of Spring, and by Winter, beneath the thicket of trees, lied the husk of his remains. Cold, unyielding - just like the frost in his eyes.

Homelander turned the woman in a slow spin, cradling her close, cheeks touching. Stan sighed. It would be cruel, to the world, he thought, to let them keep up the charade for much longer. 

The woman melted into Homelander's embrace, the feel of his hand at the small of her back steadying her. She could feel his heartbeat against her chest, the sound deep and comforting, that intimate rumble of his voice as he sang into her hair.

Close your eyes, I'll be here in the morning. Close your eyes, I'll be here for a while.

She looked up at him, eyes shining, the words burning to escape her:

I love you.

She reached up to kiss him, tears transferring onto his cheek, the melody wrapping around them both in a tight embrace.

I love you, Homelander thought, brushing her lip with his thumb when he pulled away.

They swayed in place for a moment, the warmth of the apartment making their movements slow and dreamy, when Homelander pulled away to head into the kitchen, kissing her on the forehead as he went. He returned with a bucket of ice that housed a bottle of champagne, and two glasses. He kissed her again on the way to the couch, waiting for her to join him before he focused his lasers on the cork in the bottle, grinning when the woman gasped as it soared into the air, then applauded, kissing him on the cheek.

"What's the occasion?" she asked, clinking her glass to his. He took a sip, eyes dancing. "Well... you know, Valentine's Day is in two weeks," Homelander said, his voice carrying a note of excitement.

The woman's heart raced. Their first Valentine's Day...

She'd never celebrated the holiday before. There had been the schoolyard passing of notes, the conversation hearts. The lonely, bitter tears of high school, of college. And then those two years in the asylum, the lobby hall filled with pairs of patients, medical gowns ghostly in their sway. It hadn't seemed to matter, until she met him.

But, then, he'd never had a real Valentine's Day, either, had he?  she thought. But this year would be different; they'd have each other.

"Two weeks? You big romantic," she teased, though she was just as excited. "What should we do?"

Homelander considered. 

There was dinner, which, of course, he loved - but they could do that anytime. He could fly her to Paris, kiss her atop the Eiffel Tower. Cliché, yes, but it was a cliché for a reason: it was damn effective.

And romantic, he thought shyly. He gave a thoughtful little noise, and looked at her.

"I don't know. Where's somewhere you've always wanted to go?"

The woman pursed her lips in thought, before gracing Homelander with a shy smile. "Well... I've always dreamed of going to Voughtland for Valentine's Day..." she said wistfully. Homelander wrinkled his nose. "Voughtland?" he said, incredulous. The woman playfully tapped his arm.

"Yes, Voughtland," she said, mimicking his tone before her eyes grew soft again. "You know... kissing at the top of the Ferris Wheel, or in the tunnel of love... you knocking down the tower of bottles and winning me a big teddy bear..." she batted her eyelashes at him. Homelander rolled his eyes, fighting the smile that tugged at his lips.

"I can buy you the world's largest teddy bear. Have you seen it? It's the size of your bed - bigger, I think!" The woman set down her glass and slunk into his lap, playing with his hair. 

"Yes... but this would be one that you won for me, because you're just so strong... and your aim is so accurate... you're like a bow and arrow, personified," she murmured, her voice dipping and setting Homelander's insides dancing. He kissed her, hungrily, hands roving up and down her body, mouth hot against her lips, her neck. Homelander growled low into the hollow of her throat, bouncing his hips into her with a mischievous glimmer in his eye.

"Okay..." he sighed in mock resignation, rolling his eyes dramatically. The woman peppered his face in kisses, grinning all the time. "Yay!" she squealed, pulling him into her as she let herself fall back on the couch, kicking her feet and giggling. Homelander chuckled quietly in response, and pressed himself closer, her laugh resounding in his bones.