#'everyone is happy AND there are no drawbacks to being a magical girl? I call bullshit'

[silvermoon424]

It always gets me how in Rebellion, Homura starts getting suspicious and eventually breaks out of her conditioning because she's too happy. She's like "Wait a minute.... my friends are too happy, I'm too happy, things are just too good to be true. Something smells fishy."

Imagine breaking out of your own Witch barrier brainwashing because you know deep down you're not supposed to be that happy. Like Homura, girl.....

[miraculouscontent]

Didn’t Need Burrow (August 7th-September 13th)

Anonymous asked:

Didn’t Need Burrow: Ladybug and Chat Noir will be asked to participate in judging a competition that Marinette and Adrien are both a part of. Ladybug will want to vote for herself as Marinette, but Tikki will tell her(once detransformed and while she is snacking) that she can’t because then people will know that Marinette is Ladybug. Chat Noir, meanwhile, will freely vote for Adrien with no repercussions or drawbacks, and Adrien will end up winning the competition. Marinette will admit that she was “so silly” to even think of voting for herself, especially since “Adrien needs the award more so that I do” despite being rich, white, male, and “perfect”(oh, I’m sorry, “purrfect”!), since all of Marinette’s legitimate problems of anxiety, dyspraxia, and the like get thrown out the window because the writers’ perfect sunshine boy incel stand-in has a “saaad home life!”, and Marinette needs to give him pity and put his feelings above his rather than wish for her own success. Cuz Girl Power.

tbh, given the leaks script, I’d reverse that and saying that Adrien voted for LadyNoir as Couple of the Year.

Anonymous asked:

Didn’t Need Burrow: Marinette and Adrien will reveal their identities, and Marinette actually WILL be disappointed that the boy who goofed off in fights and didn’t take no for an answer is none other than her perfect modeling celebrity crush. However, rather than this being a point towards Adrien needing to learn how to improve himself and accept Marinette’s feelings, this scene is used to make HER look bad(because of course it is) and she is blamed for expecting Adrien to be perfect(despite being encouraged and told to see him as such), and told that she should be happy that Chat was hitting on her even when she didn’t like it or it got in the way of battle plans, likely by Alya, because it was her true love under the mask all along. Eventually she “learns her lesson”(ick) and comes to accept Adrichat for who he is, warts and all. Bonus if she has a flashback to when Chat said “if you saw me without my mask you wouldn’t be able to resist me” as she realizes that he was right.

Didn’t Need Burrow? More like “Didn’t Need to Think About This”

i hate it

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: Luka will be Chat Blanc "2.0"

But Luka doesn’t have Chat-level favoritism going so Bunnyx won’t be there to defend him from consequences.

Anonymous asked:

We will have Ladybug!Alya in Marinette's akumatization episode. Obviously everyone would think that she is "better" than "old" Ladybug. (Bonus points if Ladybug!Alya don't "alienate" Chat Noir, mostly by catering to his whims)

Oh, of course! No one will miss the “old” Ladybug.

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: Bob Roth is akumatized into Rip Off, a supervillain with power to copy anything he sees (including powers of heroes)

Okay but that’s genius.

(I know we already had it in “Miraculer” but I like this more.)

Anonymous asked:

DNB: Now that Luka knows their identities, he will push the Love Square in a romantic manner. Stans would be totally fine with this because it doesn't interfere with their endgame :)

Well, obviously!

I’m just waiting for them to basically say that the secret identities don’t matter and, because they like one side, also means they like the other side.

Because forget nuance, am I right?

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: In the end, (after Adrienette gets together) Narrator reveals himself (herself?) as Alya with words "that's how I helped my bestie [Marinette] get a relationship with love of her life [Adrien]" or something similar.

wait, Alya, are you filming a Ladybug biography

why did you include all the humilation

why

That explains her making herself look good though.

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: Luka will finally reveal that he knows Heroes' secret identities... to Alya, who obviously decide to hide from Marinette that Luka knows her identity (Bonus Points if reason provided by Alya why she is doing this is utterly ridiculous)

AAAAAAAAAAAA

I guess Luka would have to realize that Alya knows. Bonus if he tells her Chat’s identity too so love square shipping can commence.

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: "Knitting Fairy" will be name of Marinette's akumatized form.

Can you say “reused design”? I certainly can, we’re used to it.

Anonymous asked:

Didn’t Need Burrow:

Luka keeping his knowledge about the identities (esp. Ladybug’s) will somehow blow up in a way for the writers to paint him in a bad light, probably ending with Marinette not trusting him. (As well as no hint of irony that Adrien did the same thing for completely selfish reasons in Chat Blanc).

MiraculousMX: Platonic soulmates!

us: Source??

Anonymous asked:

DNB: If LS gets reversed, Adrien complains about Marinette having other friends. Not just being friends with Luka or any other guys, but friends PERIOD, showing the same jealousy/desire for his 'love interest' to be isolated as Chat Noir. These MASSIVE RED FLAGS are treated as Just More Innocent Sadrien Things, because he's sOoOoOo Sad and SoOoOoO Lonely~

Oh god, now I had an awful thought that this is where Adrien getting jealous of Luka, and Luka feels bad/”knows what’s best” so he either ditches Marinette/finds an excuse to leave or makes sure that Adrien gets his time with her.

Because it’s the love square so it’s “important” that Marinette spend time with Adrien.

Anonymous asked:

Dnb: assuming the Senti-Adrien theory is true, in the season finale, Viperion joins the fight, stops SM from using the ladybug an cat miraculi by going back in time only to use them by himself, wishing for Adrien to be a real boy (and love Marinette). Of course Luka needs to give something in exchange, worst case scenario, his life.

That got really dark.

Though tbh with how much they push Luka and Marinette around, one of them will probably have to give up something huge for Adrien (they both already sacrificed their relationship, so--).

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: If Chat Noir joins Shadow Moth then he is treated by both Gabriel and Heroes as his greatest asset, even through he is still complete joke that is defeated by rest of Heroes faster than Mr Pigeon in "Timetagger". (Bonus points if Heroes defeat him by "Backhand Offhand", Offscreen or he is defeated by "Friendly Fire" from Akuma of the Week due to his own stupidity)

tbh I could probably do more sad math with “how often Chat Noir/Cataclysm is useless,” bonus if it’s put up against characters/Ladybug stroking his ego.

Anonymous asked:

DNB: Adrien's fears concerning Ladybug are made more explicit through a nightmare/vision (possibly akuma-induced) of Ladybug calling him unreliable/saying she doesn't need him anymore because she has partners she can actually COUNT on. Naturally, this is treated as Pure Sadrien Hours rather than a fair critique. Bonus if he ditches/forces her to beg for his assistance AGAIN to soothe his poor bruised baby ego.

*“Malediktator” flashbacks, but Adrien instead of Chloe*

Anonymous asked:

Didn't Need Burrow: Adrien/Chat Noir skips out on a fight/akuma attack for some spiteful, selfish reason or another. Ladybug handles it without him, either completely through her own skill or with help from Rena/other heroes. Adrien then angsts about 'not being needed', with Marinette's 'Mistake of the Day' being that she didn't cater to his pity party due to being too busy DOING HER DAMNED JOB.

me seeing that one leaked script where they talk about how Chat/Cataclysm would make things easier: *sigh*

Anonymous asked:

Didn't Need Burrow: Plagg will encourage Adrien to act even more selfishly, skipping more battles and being even brattier. This is so his stans can blame Plagg for being 'a bad influence' on their perfect angel, even when it's clear the two of them are on the same wavelength. Oooh, he's twisting his rubber arm; how AWFUL--! Adrien would NEVER do all these Awful Things he's already done if he didn't have Plagg~! What a bad kitty~!

“rubber arm” jdfkgjndfjgfg

tbh Plagg already is super laidback and doesn’t really like transforming/complains about going into battle, so this isn’t much of a stretch.

Anonymous asked:

DNB: "Gabriel Agreste" or other episodes will reveal that Gabriel flew many, if not ALL of the same Red Flags his son displays on a regular basis. The narrative treats this as though this makes Gabriel more 'sweet, sad and sympathetic' rather than illustrating that both of them are dangerously entitled and generally awful.

This sounded really intriguing as a sort of “apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” thing until that last sentence kicked in.

That’s damn accurate to what they’d do too, ugh.

Anonymous asked:

DNB: Plagg is the one that discovers that Gabriel is Hawk/Shadowmoth, but is forcibly sworn to silence by Adrien. Bonus if Adrien somehow gives this command without learning what Plagg is trying to tell him -- i.e. he get irritated and orders Plagg to shut up in a way that bars him from EVER saying what he was attempting to say -- so that Adrien's stans can claim it was all a big misunderstanding and blame Plagg entirely for it. Or Marinette. Somehow.

Oh oh oh!

Alternatively, Adrien silences Plagg without realizing that he has that kind of power (like saying, “you can’t tell anyone!” and we see the magic hit Plagg’s mouth), so the fandom can say, “HE DOESN’T KNOOOW THAT HE DID IT.”

Anonymous asked:

dntb: Luka is gonna be villianised in some way for not telling Marinette he knows the identities of both of them

Meanwhile, Alya, slipping the bouncer her free pass.

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: After one of the kwamis ​​makes one snickering comment too many, Marinette snaps and tells them all to shut up (with obvious outcome). Narrative obviously equals it to scene between Gabriel and Noroo from "Sandboy" (Bonus Points if Narrative deems Marinette worse than Gabriel, because "Gabriel forbid Noroo from talking as joke")

oh my goooooood

Marinette: *snaps because she’s stressed out*

the fandom: SHE SO MEAN!!! ;o;

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: Adrien's reveal as Sentimonster just for additional souce of "sad points" for him

this DNB: i am inevitable

mystic-lionroar asked:

Didn't Need Burrow: The writers' Status-Quo allergy kicks in when someone very pointedly implies Chloe, Lila and/or Gabriel work for Hawk Moth with how many Akumas they tend to cause... only to get reminded point blank that "Hawk Moth is the sole one responsible for this mess, no one else". Cue two episodes later, both the characters and the writers' memories of this scene are erased. What erased it? ╰( ･ ᗜ ･ )╯Why, Marinette can be held responsible for this one, of course! (Me: (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻)

╰（‵□′）╯

OH MY GOOOOD

“Crocoduel” also basically already blamed Marinette for two akumatizations so at this point we’re just waiting.

Anonymous asked:

DNB: To further cement the whole 'destined to be' shlock, after the shock of the eventual reveal wears off, we get a call back to how frequently Chat Noir told Ladybug that they were meant for each other and that she 'was the only one who didn't see it'. Marinette agrees that she was silly and foolish for not recognizing it sooner, parroting Adrien's bullshit in order to further cement the notion that she's HAPPILY accepting her 'fate' to be nothing more than his personal prize.

You can’t see it but I have my head in my hands in grief.

Anonymous asked:

DNB: Adrien's gross sense of entitlement towards Ladybug will become even more explicit, with him angrily ranting about how he DESERVES to 'get the girl'. No matter how awful and nasty he gets, the narrative continues to treat him as though he's 100% right to be pissed off at her for DARING to have agency or thinking she has a say in things. As clearly, the biggest mistake Marinette has ever made is thinking she gets to have Opinions or make her own decisions. G-girl power...?

Marinette needing to be constantly told what’s best for her by other people and it’s okay because she needs to accept+follow all opinions.

end me

Anonymous asked:

DNB: The double standard between Adrien and other characters will be more noticeable. Adrien will still be put on a pedestal.

Because no one will notice Adrien if they didn’t put him on a metaphorical and physical pedastal.

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: Foxy Cat and CaraBug

omg Fox Adrien.is one of the worst hero choices I’ve ever heard fjdgjfjdglfkdg

I could at least see why Marinette thought that Adrien fit the snake since the narrative gushes for him so hard.

Anonymous asked:

Didn’t Need Burrow: As a result of being written by a straight white male writing team, the show starts to use Marinette’s girliness against her. From her love of pink being mocked to the kwamis admitting(in the spirit of another DNB) that they don’t respect Marinette because she’s “too girly”, to her fashion designing being treated as a cutesy but ultimately fickle pastime(in the spirit that all teenage girls’ interests are treated), the show absolutely throws Girl Power out the window in favor of giving Marinette absolute hell for daring to present herself in a traditionally feminine way, treating her femininity as the butt of a joke that no one is laughing at. Bonus points of someone says(or even outright tells her to her face) that she’s “such a girl”, as if that’s supposed to be an insult. Alternatively, this happens to Rose instead of Marinette, as she’s just as girly if not more so than her, or it happens to both of them(regardless of whether or not it’s at the same time).

WOOOOW

I mean, honestly, yeah.

Anonymous asked:

Didn’t Need Burrow: Things other characters did that were bad will be retconned into things that Marinette did instead, or will otherwise be retconned into being her fault, no matter how improbable or contradictory. Meanwhile, bad things characters did to Marinette or good things characters did FOR Marinette will be retconned into nonexistence.

I MEAN THEY BLAMED MARINETTE FOR “SILENCER” SO--

MATTER OF TIME.

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: Simultaneous Akumatization of Manon, Chris, Ella and Etta, obviously when they are babysat by Marinette, because otherwise ML Writers wouldn't be able to paint it as Marinette's fault

oh god

please no

I mean, not even just to blame Marinette for it, but I can’t even stand these kids when they’re on their own, MUCH LESS TOGETHER.

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: If Adrien gets akumatized, then it would be just Chat Blanc with shoulder pads and crown

Is this a reference to my Miracle Queen post?

Because yes.

Anonymous asked:

Didn't need burrow: In Hack-San Chat Noir will pull a Sentibubler and refuse to listen to Alya with the Ladybug Miraculous as he doesn't have a brain unless he can progress the not so progressive four-sided Hellfire, which is actually still the best-case-scenario. I mean he could just not come at all, since he's only there to flirt with and seduce Ladybug with unfunny jokes.

Anonymous asked:

DNB: Adrien causes problems because of Alyabug.

ugggggh

Anonymous asked:

DNB: Alya will immediately have access to things like the creation of charms despite how long it took for Marinette to be able to do that.

Wait--

If she doesn’t, did they literally just give Alya the ladybug miraculous because they knew that Markov wouldn’t have a way of hiding the amulet on him and they didn’t feel like putting it on his model???

Anonymous asked:

Didn’t Need Burrow: Alya’s Ladybug name is “Coccinelle” aka “Ladybug” in French. Or something equally lazy such as The Red Spotted One or the Scarlett Beetle. Even if it sounds cool at first glance, it will ultimately boil down to a plain and obvious name, because apparently EVERY superhero’s name has to so blatantly relate to the animal their Miraculous is based off of. For some reason. Somehow. -_-

fhkgjfdkgdfg okay but “The Red Spotted One” made me laugh.

Anonymous asked:

Hack-San DNB’s:

• Chat Noir will be upset that Ladybug trusted her miraculous to someone else.

• There will be a comment on how Alya was a just as good, if not better Ladybug than Marinette.

• Alya’s performance as LB will be used as another instance to show Marinette made the ‘right choice’ telling her her identity.

• Using the Horse to teleport back instead giving the earrings to Alya will not be mentioned as an option.

• Scene of Adrichat being sad about ‘feeling replaced’.

Especially on that “comment that Alya is just as good, if not better,” one, it probably won’t even be used as a reassurance for Marinette like, “oh, that’s good to know that I’m not the only one who can be Ladybug,” it’ll just be praise for Alya.

Anonymous asked:

Hack-San DNB: Chat Noir gets angry with LB for not telling him she was leaving & she has to apologize for it.

(Despite making sure there was a backup Ladybug to protect Paris, unlike Chat in the NY special who left the city completely unprotected).

Convenient.

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: "Dearest Family" (episode where both of Marinette's parents are akumatized) will be about Marinette learning "true value" of Chat Noir

Either that or incorporating Adrien into the family.

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: Psycomedian will be blatant Joker rip-off

You can just say “all akuma in the season will either be rip-offs of themselves or past akuma,” it’s okay. :P

Anonymous asked:

Another DNB for Hack-San, since we see Jagged Stone in the trailer, so if they show it..:

The “most precious possession” of Jagged’s will be Fang and not, y’know, either of his children.

I missed that trailer.

Honestly there could be some funny moments with the concept, but if Jagged is the only joke made about it then yes, I will be very bitter.

Alternatively, Jagged picks his guitar instead.

Anonymous asked:

DNB: In the Alyabug episode, Alya will either be Practically Perfect In Every Way™, or will royally screw up in a way that will somehow lead to Marinette. Either way, Cat Noir will flirt with the new Ladybug, or pull a Sentibubbler. Or both. There may or may not be a comment about how Alyabug's costume is so much better than Marinette's despite being a fashion designer.

dkfgkjdfgjf I adore how this whole thing is just, “there’s so many ways it could go wrong!”

[thinwhitewritings]

A Shot and A Story - Ashton

Summary: Based off of that one video of Ashton bringing a fan on stage to take a shot with her for her birthday - can’t stop thinking of it and I need it. 

Warnings: Alcohol, drunk endeavors, lots of touching, crowds, mini makeout sesh

Rating: 18+ (no smut, a lil kiss kiss and some adult stuff but not smut)

This is unedited because I’m impatient. Enjoy!

You’d been dying to go to a concert for your birthday. Especially your twenty-first. A drink in your hand with music and friends - how could it be better? So, your friends all pitched in to get you guys floor seats to a 5 Seconds of Summer concert. You had all seen them live on your own but this would be the first time you went as a group, and it was beyond exciting, especially since they just so happened to have a show on your birthday. 

The only drawback had been it wasn’t in your hometown. You had to take a small trip to get to the city where they were performing, and somehow your parents had booked a hotel for the four of you who were going, a birthday gift they’d called it. You were surprised either way. The group checked into the hotel, which was just down the street from the venue, a few bars littered along the street - which you would hit at some point. If that was before or after the show, you didn’t care. You were here with your favorite people and going to see your favorite band for the first time in a very long time - and got to get drunk all the while. 

Your friends had brought goodies along, including a sash, mini shots to sneak into the venue, and a sign that said ‘She’s 21 today, get her drunk!’ They claimed it was for the bars, but one of them decided to sneak it with you to the show. You’d gone to dinner and gotten plenty of attention in the form of a free drink from a guy across from your table, and a free dessert from the restaurant. You felt on top of the world, and the night was just getting started. 

You made it to the show with ease, using the opening act to get drinks from a bar in the arena, coming back to your spot just as the lights came down. Screams erupt from the crowds around you, and you felt the excitement from your chest to your toes. The band came onstage with energy, opening up the show with enough motion and lights to blind an entire highway of cars. Song by song passed, your friends making sure you continuously had a drink in your hand. About halfway through the first half of the show, your friend broke out that magical sign, holding it above all of you as you sang along and bounced and screamed. They’d just wrapped up Empty Wallets when Luke speaks up. “Hey, wait, wait - who’s birthday is it?” He asks, pulling an in-ear out and coming to the edge of the stage, pointing in your groups direction. Before you can get a word out, they begin shoving you forward, Luke laughing as they beg for him to get you a drink. 

“Who told you there was alcohol up here?” Ashton remarks, now moving out from his drum set holding up a red solo cup. 

“Ash, you’re very clearly holding an unmarked beverage. In a solo cup of shittin’ things.” Michael laughs. 

You’re trying to pay attention, but a security guard has moved the barrier so that he can lead you to the stage ramp - and it hits you, holy shit this is actually happening. You’re thanking the buzz that’s in your veins for the lack of nerves you have once you’re on stage all of them greeting you with wide smiles and cheers. “Ok but really, to... no one’s surprise, there is alcohol up here.” Calum points to the bottle towards the back of the stage, Ashton quickly grabbing it as the others start asking you your name. One of them asks to double check that you are in fact 21 before pouring out alcohol in front of a whole ass arena. Once it’s in Luke’s hand, he’s moving to Michael’s side, leaning into him as they both assess the card. “Yep, that is definitely today.” Michael confirms. 

“And that is 21 years from today - we are clear for take off everyone.” You haven’t said more than five words but you just feel blissfully happy. A hand comes up to your back and you jump a little, not expecting it, but are greeted with Ashton at your side. He’s leaning into Calum’s mic for everyone to hear. “This might look like water, but I promise everyone that this is 100% tequila.” Screams come from the crowd as he hands over the plastic cup, raising it. You take it and match him, about to take the shot before he stops. Under the immense amount of sound and projected discussion from the other bandmates, Ashton leans to your ear, his free hand taking your wrist carefully and very lightly. “Wait, let’s link arms.” He pulls back with a look of ‘you wanna?’ and you give a wide grin and a nod of your head. With ease, your arms are intertwined and you are nearly chest to chest with the drummer. A few more cries leave the massive audience you have before they all give you a hug, a few birthday wishes before dismissing you off stage. 

Your friends are all shaking your arms and bouncing incessantly when you return asking how you felt, and generally freaking out. The only thing you could get out was “Please tell me you have that on video.”

. . . 

After the show, you decided to run over to one more bar before you headed in for the night, really wanting to make the night well rounded and capture all of the experiences you could. Getting to the bar you realize that it’s actually more of a club. And when you get in there, you almost immediately lose your friends. You’d managed so well up until now, but you figure that you’re better off trying to find them at the bar, since there was only one of them. 

So you navigate your way there, and flag down a bartender for a drink. As you finishing up your payment, you could’ve sworn you heard your name. You turn your head a few times, looking in the crowd for your friends’ faces - only to come up with one that wasn’t in your group. It’s Ashton, approaching with what seems like a crew member behind him, both of them with a glass of beer in their hand. “Hey! It’s the birthday girl!” He greets, swinging an arm open to offer another hug, which you happily take. You back up, holding your drink before leaning towards him, his head dipping to listen to you. “Where’s the other guys?” He gives a nod, a hand running through his hair. 

“They were kind of exhausted, and bailed on me. They’re holed up at our table. No fun if you ask me.” He taunts, giving you a smile which you return. He moves to introduce the guy behind him, to be met with a stranger. You can’t help but laugh as he exasperatedly turns back to you. “What the hell, do I smell or something? I showered before I came here.” He jokes and you can’t stop the smile on your face. 

“If it’s any consolation, my friends and I got split up the second we got here. So it’s kind of a miracle that you managed to have him around that long.” Ashton laughs at your words, and you find a hand on your back again as he leans in. 

“He probably went to our table. Do you wanna go check with me?” You give a nod once he’s asked, and he grins, hand unmoving from your back. He proceeds to guide you to the table he speaks of, a few more familiar faces which all light up at the sight of you. A few utterances of your name come through again, greeting you happily. 

You sit with the group, meeting Sierra and Crystal while you were there, finding yourself somehow completely comfortable with this group. Afterall, you practically grew up with these guys, even if you’d never met them until tonight. A few rounds go by, and you’re finally starting to think about calling it a night. You’re looking at your phone, seeing that your friends have all said to just meet at the hotel, as they’re not having any luck finding each other, let alone you. You try another text - seeing as this happened because you couldn’t get any messages through - and hope that if any of them go through it was that one. That you were safe and had plenty of stories to tell. You’d been chugging water after the third round, telling Ashton that you’d needed to head home tomorrow and wanted to make sure you wouldn’t be sick for the drive, which he then cut you off in response. He however, had still been drinking. So as you lean into him to speak, his arm wraps around you, staying planted as you speak. “Do you know where the bathroom is?” You ask and he nods, the hand holding his drink points in the general direction. 

“Do you want me to walk you over there?” He questions, and you look at him, seeing his features in the very dim neon lights. His hand feels firm, but his thumb is slowly tracing an up and down line into your skin, and you’re trying your best to soak it in. This had to be a dream. The whole time you’d been at the table, his hand had jumped around, on the booth back just above your shoulders, on your thigh, pushing hair out of your eyes - any way he could linger on you he had. Which is why you let him escort you to the bathroom. 

The walk over was pretty uneventful, aside from Ashton spilling the rest of his drink due to someone elbowing his glass. He was annoyed by this, but didn’t let it show in his expressions. In the hallway of the restroom, it’s rather dark, give for the slight light shining through the cracks of the closed bathroom door. You’d turned to Ashton to tell him he could go back to the table, but he’d thrown his beer glass away, and was facing you fully. The hand that had been in yours, now slinks up to your waist, the other matching it. He can see you’re about to say something and leans to your ear to speak. “What is it beautiful?”

Suddenly, you don’t want him to go back to the table. When you see his face again, his forehead is nearly on yours, your breath hitching. “N-Nothing. I just...” You shake your head minutely, being careful not to move too much in the crowded space. Your eyes meet as music blasts around you, not letting you be able to think. His face suddenly is encased in light as the bathroom door swings open. His eyes shift to the door and he looks back to you. “Bathroom’s free.” He points out, and in the boldest move you’ve ever made, you grab his hand on your waist and pull him into the bathroom. 

Ashton shuts the door and locks it with a click, being quick to move back to where you had been positioned before, but this time, takes no time to cup your face and pull your lips to his. Your eyes shut as your own hands move to gently hold the bottom of his arms, as his tongue dips along your bottom lip. Hands move from your face to the back of your neck, your energies moving so simultaneously. You finally pull back from what seems like forever to someone banging on the door. The two of you had both looked to the door and you laugh. “Let me use the restroom, and then we can go back.” You offer, slowly pulling away to move to the stall, and Ashton’s head tilts, looking to your backside. 

“And by back, you mean my hotel room, right?”

So much for your parent’s hotel room ‘gift’.

[popculturebuffet]

Prince of Wishful Thinking (Tom Retrospective): Tough Love or The True Monster

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to Prince of Wishful Thinking, what is usually my look at the life and times of Tom Lucitor but since I NEED to cover the season 3 finale as vital part of Tom’s story, we’re taking one last look at the tragic tale of Meteora Butterfly before the finale sends these two stories hurtling together. You’d THINK this would be the last detour of this already sizeable arc.. and you’d be wrong as i’ll also be covering Kelly’s World, as I feel it’s vital for both “Curse of the Blood Moon” and “A Boy and his hard to remember title”, as it provides extra context for Marco’s anguish in the former.. and provides extra evidence for why a CERTAIN MOMENT in the latter pisses me off to no end.. seriously even when as universe dies and the only people left are Frankllin Richards and Galactus, there will still be a little note reading “Fuck how they treated Kelly” written in all caps so Galactus remembers to yell it. 

So sadly that DOES mean it’s been three entries in this retrospective in a row that either haven’t feature Tom at all or in the case of the last episode only had him in short cameos. I mean we did get his love affair for pie but we also got a creepy goblin man forcing his girlfriend and best friend to kiss each other, his best friend being WAY to eager to jump to that conclusion, and neither considering using Marco’s Scissors because the writers only remember he has those half the time in Season 3... and clearly I ddn’t either as I forgot to mention that plot hole, something @jess-the-vampire​ brought up to me. Sadly I DID forget to consult on this when we talked earlier this week , and she’s not online as I write this so I won’t have her insight for this one. 

But if you want some Tom content, i’m happy to share my crossover ship for the boy with you. I’ve been shipping him with Octavia from Helluva Boss lately.  Because of course it’s Helluva Boss, i’ve not been at all subtle with my obession with it and much like Letterkenny, X-Men and Dragon Ball Z Abriged it is a love I never plan to be subtle about. 

But I just think they compliment each other well: They have contrasting atittudes, and tastes in music, but seem like they’d share hobbies. Like taxidermy.. I could see Tom buying this... demonic combination of a badger, a skunk, a deer and my nightmares Octavia is preciously holding up.

Granted I also feel tom would both animate them with their dead souls.. and then use his new woodland friends of the dammned as a chorus to sing “Can You Picture That” from the Muppet Movie, because that’s what my mind does on a regular day. I think the contrasting attitude creates great chemstiry and it made me also realize I have a thing for ships with directly contrasting home lives.  Tom has two loving decent parents who deeply love one another and at worst simply didn’t reign in his worse behavior because it was standard for demon stuff. Octavia in contrast simply has two parents, one who DOES love her and tries his best, but his best includes calling his side piece “My big dicked blitzy” right in front of her and hiring said side piece to guard them, and her mother who clearly thinks so little of her daughter’s emotional well being she hired a cowboy to shoot her daddy dead in the middle of a large crowd. The point is I think they’d be adorable and they both badly need to be happy after being emotionally fucked over by people they care about. 

But  alas my new ship will have to wait as we marginally important things to get down too.. things that will impact both this season and the next’s endgame and utterly destroy Eclipsa and Moon’s relationship for good. Sound fun? Well if so join me under the cut won’t you?

We open in the Pidgeon Kingdom.. and things aren’t exactly great.. and by that I mean Meteora stomped a hole through it and ravaged the place and Rich demands blood.. and vengance.. and possibly blood vengance. But not Tekken Blood Vengance.. he already has like 5 copies of that on dvd. Still needs it on Blu Ray though, hook him up if you got it. 

So Moon and Eclipsa are trying to smooth this over/find out which way did she go George which way did she go, and are angrily dismissed after they try Rich’s patience, not helped by Eclipsa not being familiar with the Pidgeon Kingdom because they hadn’t slaughtered everyone who used to live there yet. Look that’s what happened, Star outright mentions in the Big Book of Spells that htey suddenly sprung up where another kingdom was and no one knows what happens. There was some bird murders up in that place.. or birdur if you will. Some birds drank some human blood. This is what Alfred Hitchock tried to warn us about with his film built on horrifying actress abuse. 

The point is with some more pidgeon-led murder stabbings on the cards our heroines are trying to find her since their attempts to convince Rich not to go on an Archer Style Rampage fell on deaf ears. 

But it’s clear from the second the two are alone both have diffrent priorties: Eclipsa desperatley wants to find the daughter she lost and talk her down from what sh’es become, help her become better and hopefuly heal from the pain she’s been in. She’s lost her husband, her kingdom and centuries. She can’t loose her baby girl too.

Moon on the other hand... clearly has no intrest in helping Meteora or stopping this peacefully. Her first thought is stopping Meteora. Her living through it is not necessary. It’s also clear her racisim isn’t REMOTELY gone depsite Buff Frog and Star’s best attempts and despite learning just how deeply and horribly Mewni’s engrained racism has hurt eclipsa and destoryed Moon’s own family history. To Moon this is just a big monster to fight.. i’ll dive into this more in a bit.

For now our heroines encounter an angry mob. This time their not here for Homer Simpson, but for Meteora as her rampages have destroyd their towns, livelehoods and given some weird guy a hat. It’s the best bit of the episode and i’m embarassed I forgot it happened. 

So with them being no help our queens back out but end up finding some actual help: Eddie! You know the guy from the episode I skipped over... River’s cousin or something like that. He dosen’t have a wiki entry, I do not know why. He’s voiced by Rhys Dharby of Flight of the Conchords Fame whose since made quite the career as a voice actor. No major roles yet that i’m aware of, but a lot of delightful minor ones like this. It’s good to see him he was one of the highlights of that show and not just because he sang this..

Eddie showed up in the Bog Beast of Boggabah and I honestly forgot he was in this episode.. but again, it’s Rhys Dharby. It’s not like suddenly finding out “Aw god dammit Pauly Shore is in this”. So Eddie agrees to help as he’s been tracknig Meteora.. and we find out something troubling: Meteora is getting BIGGER. Gradually, to the point the bog from said episode Is skipped over is drained because she DRANK IT. We also get a great exchange “I’d hate to see the size of her mother” “Actually her father more than helped with that”

Awwwww.... seriously Esme Blanco is a national treasure and has some great deliveries in this one.. and some heartbreaking ones. But before we can get to that it turns out Meteora sucked the powers out of Eddies family.. who he misses..e xcept one guy> That guy can fuck right off. Seriously Eddie is also a national treasure and I wish he’d shown up in season 4. I mean he couldn’t of HURT it. For one it’s Rhys Dharby and for another that season shot itself in the face, both feet, the groin and then the face again enough that I don’t think anything could hurt it as bad as the writers already did. 

But sadly we say farwell to Eddie as he goes out how men have since the begining of time.. deciding to poke a strange creature till it murdered him. Or took his soul out in this case, speaking of which...

Yeah while I couldn’t get Jess in time for this review, she did bring this up in the past: Meteora’s ablility to pull a 

Comes right the fuck out of nowhere with no build up and no explination for it. She DID drain personalites and according to this episode youth.. but that was with a big ole machine. It MIGHT have been intended to be one of Globgor’s powers.. but that makes zero sense, as if he COULD do that, as we saw with Toffee last season when he had that power, also out of nowhere but at least it made a touch more sense given his power was draining magical energy anyway at the time, so adding souls to that isn’t a huge stretch, but as we saw that would’ve been game over for the comission, especially since we DO see him fighting them one on three next season. If he had this power, he wouldn’t be in crystal and I think they realized that, but just tried to act as if his daugther COULDN’T do that and assumed everyone would casually forget. And I get not accounting for me writing about this years later, even I wouldn’t of thought that, but not counting on fans both young and old to latch onto a continuity error? Have you met fandoms Disney, have you? It dosen’t bring the story down entirely and I get WHY ti’s there, so she can nonlethally kill people so we’re not down most of the cast for Season 4, but it feels like an easy win button and one she barely uses despite it being eye beam activated. It should be easy enough to pull, boom, soul suck, win, rinse and repeat. It’s okay to have uber powerful tequniques but they have to have a drawback. For instance the Kaioken from DBZ. It’s a really damn cool technique that gives the user a neat red aura and amplifies poewr.. but the more you amplify the more strain it puts on your body and the more likely you’ll die, and Super later creatively explained why it hadn’t been used since Super Sayian was introduced because said form would’ve sped it up so much it’d be too much for a body to take. Here whie Meteora dosen’t use it in EVERY fight, she uses it enough that it makes no sense this isn’t just her first move for every fight she gets into, mental breakdown or not. 

That being said Meteora’s current mental state as she talks to her mother, having regressed to talking in only a few words and acting like a child, makes perfect sense. Henious already wasn’t in great mental shape to begin with, having a slow sustained breakdown since Marco overthrew her. and now on top of this she remembers her whole life has been a lie, starts to mutate into her natural state at a rapid and likely unehalthy pace, and then finds out on top of all of this Mewni is rightfully owed to her. Given she ended last episode blowing a guy up for rejecting her, it’s not a stretch that given even more power and no time to process anything, Metora would deteroate further. 

Esme and Jessica really knock this scene out of the park as Eclipsa presents Metora with her old doll Bobo and gently trying ot talk to her.. but you also get the fear Eclipsa feels as she tries to awkardly manuver around the fact her daughter is far more unhinged than she was prepared for, even threanting Eclipsa simply because Eclipsa wanted to be called mother instead of mommy. But despite this fear.. Eclipsa wants to help and Walter beautifuly captured metoera as a hulk like tragic figure:a being with low sanity and too much power desperate to be loved by the one person it cares about. And it makes it even more heartbreaking as Eclipsa explains what happened: bad people trapped her , a disfunctoinal society with a racist queen and even more racist subjects has taken hold in her absence... and it’s clear both want opposite things: Meteora wants what sh’es owed, her family back on the throne and Mewni back in her graps, but has lost herself so much to rage, anger and insanity she can’t see it’s not hers to take, while Eclipsa.. just wants her daughter back. She’d be happy just settling down with her and having a LIFE after hers was taken away. Eclipsa just wants a chance to be with what family she has left. It just HURTS to know that despite RIGHTFULLY hating the comission, despite having eveyr reason to take the crown from Moon by force and make the world better by force.. she dosen’t want that. She just wants some peace. It’s selfish... but it’s hard not to be when you havealmost nothing to hold onto. Eclipsa has lost her legacy, her husband and her crown... Meteora is all she has and all she wants and sh’ed of been happy if she just accepted that. If that was enough. 

But the real telling part, and the thing that ultimately makes this go as bad as it does.. is Moon’s reactions to all of this. Sh’es CONFUSED by Meteora having a toy as if that’s foreign to her a monster would, and she’s cleaerly livid , if restrianing it, at both Meteora’s deire for the crown and Eclipsa RIGHTFULLY calling out the state of how things are, and mildly at that. Despite seeing how much damage Mewni’s inherent racisim has done, how it lead to her living a lie, ruined Eclipss, Globgore and Metora’s lives, despite how DESPERTLY her daughter struggles to fight against it, despite seeing firsthand that Monsters can have famiies and lives... she can’t let it go. She can’t see monsters as people. SHe dosen’t see a flawed person who was turned into a metpohrical monster by years of brainwashing and abuse and is slowly unravling under the weight of her true self.. she just sees a threat to her kingdom. She dosen’t see her kingdom as racist, just as it should be. And she dosen’t see herself as stepping down like hse damn well should’ve the MOMENT she found out everything. Because at her heart Moon can’t accept the truth and clings to her racisim. 

And that my friends.. is what ultimately leads to Tragedy. Not Meteora’s unraveling mental state, not Eclipsa’s naitvite. What happens next is ENITRELY Moon’s fault. Whle Eclipsa was failing to get through to Metora, she was trying her best and might of gotten somewhere.. but Moon was already settling to attack.. and does so, making it look like Eclipsa set her own child up. 

A fight ensues, a suprisingly even one... but Eclipsa breaks it up and PROVES her way could’ve worked. In one of Esme’s best performances sshe tearfully tells her daughter she loves her.. that ALL she wants is time with her to make up for what she’s lost.. she dosen’t need a kingdom or her crown or her wand, all things she DESERVES... she just wants her daughter. She just wants to help her baby girl before she goes so far down this path of hatred and vengance she’s alreayd well trod upon there is no point to return to. 

It gets through to Meteora, makes her stop... and Moon TAKES ADANTAGE OF THAT. She then restrains metoera with a magical rock barrier and starts palpatineing her to death. It’s a horrifying moment that ultimately shows who Moon really is.. that when given the chance to let Meteora go, let her CHANGE and grow as a person and help the kingdom.. she instead tries to kill her. When she’s no longer a threat,  hasn’t seriously hurt her in their fight, and could use her power to RESTORE the damage she’s done, fix what she’s broken and help the kingdom grow and mend the bridges racisim has torn down. But all she can see is a monster, and something to destroy.. not someONE to save. 

So Eclipsa does what Moon would do if it were star about to die and saves her daughter, desperatly trying to stop mooon.. and allowing Meteora to get a clear shot and take half of moon’s soul. While Eclipsa is able to stop her from taking the full thing, Moon is left disoreinted and half alive and leaves on insticnt to parts unknown while Meteora escapes. Eclipsa is left alone, devistated and with her daughter truly lost. And the worst is truly yet to come. 

Before we get into final thoughts i’d like to talk about how this scene impacts Moon’s betryal later. To me having rewatched this scene.. it only makes it work MORE making it clear Moon simply can’t fahtom racial equality and that she can’t fahtom that eclipsa had very good reason for doing what she did ... to me it comes off as her using Eclipsa betryaing her as a very flimsy justifcation to not validate her rule and to first retire and then try a coup. That “Well she “BETRAYED” me so i’m fine. “ But in truth... she betrayed Eclipsa first. She attacked her daughter TWICE when Eclipsa was close to getting through to her Her reasons are flimsy.. because i’ts not ABOUT eclipsa, but what eclipsa represents: equality with a race Moon dosen’t see as people. It’s about Moon’s racisim coloring everything tills h’es truly blinded and should have lost everything She didn’t because the ending is a fucking disgrace, but we might get to that at some point, the point here is for all that disgrace’s faults... it did get it right here, and Moon was always portrayed as being unable to let go of her racisim no matter what it cost her or how much her daughter despteratly tried to change her. Trust me as someone whose Dad used to argue that gay marriage meant he should be able to marry his cat, and who still argues against trans people using the bathroom of their choice, I get trying desperatley to change someone who don’t wanna. “Sigh”. 

Final Thoughts: This episode is truly excellent. The writing is top notch as is the voice acting for all involved and the climax isa true, well led up to tragedy. The animation is also on point, with the characters emotions on perfect display. This is an episode I now realize is one of the series best and worth ar ewatch if you haven’ts een it. Truly amazing stuff that gets me pumped for the finale.. and disapoints me in how the series could reach these highs for one finale.. but would sink to it’s lowest point for next seasons.  Next Time on Prince of Wishful Thinking: Star tries depseratly to find her mom, while Marco, Tom and a motely crew of misfits try to take down Meteora and Tom learns the awful truth from the photo booth and wears a zuko ponytail which weirdly looks good on him. That boy can rock anything let me tell you. 

If you enjoyed this reviews, please consider joining my patreon at patreon.com/popculturebuffet. As mentioned my 30 dollar stretch goal includes a review of the cluster fuck that is the series final arc, and the goals up to that , me making 20 and 25 dollars a month repectively, have their own nifty rewards: At 20 i’ll review Darkwing Duck once a month, the two remaning Ducktales 87 mini series I have not covered and the Danny Phantom film The Ultimate Enemy. 25 meanwhile gets you reviews of the Proud Family Movie, the theatrical recess movie and the Kim Possible almost finale movie so the drama. And 30 also gets you reviews of every episode of gravity falls season 1 at least one a month till I finish it at some point, so as you can see you get a lot of bang for your buck and these reviews will be public for everybody. Not only that but joining my patreon gets you a review a month if you pitch in 5 dollars and evne if you can’t swing THAT much just 2 bucks gets you access to my discord, a guarnateed pick in my shorts, votes for patreon exclusive reviews, and SAID patreon exclusive reviews. It’s a lot of bang for your buck is what i’m saying so please help me out so I can make a living off this and sign up today. I even JUST ADDED an exclusive and utterly insane scrooge mcduck review, The Great Wig Mystery. So throw in a buck to check that out. 

And if your intrested in Tomtavia... please hit me up. I’m really proud of it and until then... i’ll see you at the next rainbow. 

[mercutiotakethewheel]

Halp! I read Crooked Kingdom and Spinning Silver in the same week. Is there any point in reading any other book ever again?!?!?!?!?!?!!!?!!! (Genuinely open to recommendations.) I am bereft at having finished them, and wondering how soon is too soon to reread Spinning Silver...

lmao god that’s a mood. I mean those are very much my two of my favorites, but of course I have recommendations.

Spinning Silver has a “mirror” novel called Uprooted that explores Naomi Novik’s polish roots and fairytale; it’s a twist on the classic girl gets sacrificed to be locked in a tower by a “dragon” but with wizards and a sick wood.

As for the grishaverse, I don’t know if you’ve already read the grisha trilogy or the Nikolai duology, but I certainly recommend King of Scars at the very least. Nina’s in it and Nikolai and Zoya are two of the best grisha trilogy characters (along with Genya, Tolya, and Tamar who are all also here). I haven’t about to read Rule of Wolves but I haven’t yet. Now the grisha trilogy is disappointing in general, but especially in comparison to Crooked Kingdom, Bardugo’s best novel, in my opinion. However, it’s also not quite as bad as everyone says. The worldbuilding established here is pretty cool, the politics in seige and storm are really fun, and there are really cool characters in it, even if the main protagonist… well. Alina’s not actually a boring or awful of a protagonist, or at least she has the opportunity not to be. She’s incredibly selfish to the point of moral ambiguity, and she’s terribly funny and combative. However, and this is my main issue with these books, she is very much punished by the narrative anytime she seeks agency or power or really does anything interesting, which leaves us with our magical girl chosen one just sort of passively shoved around the board.

Bardugo also wrote Ninth house, which I highly recommend. It’s an adult novel, so the violence -and there is a lot of it- tends to be described and gory and there’s a lot of talk about drug abuse so keep that in mind (plus the main character being abused and her best friend being killed/raped/drugged) so keep that in mind. The main protagonist is really interesting, and features Bardugo’s usual moral greyness. She’s angry, she can see ghosts, she’s traumatised, she has a terrible secret, and she does all of her fighting for abused women. The book has a lot of commentary on classism and elitism, as one should expect from a book about an impoverished women attending an ivy league with dangerous, poorly run, magical societies in it. The worldbuilding is a treat, but expect a lot of ghosts and a lot of rituals.

If you’re looking for more fantasy novels with fairytale vibes/retellings and strong female characters, that’s one of my favorite genres, so I have a few. I’m terribly fond of A Creature of Moonlight, which features a moving wood, a dragon’s daughter, royal court politics, and an uberindependent protagonist. The Cruel Prince is the only faerie book that counts along with the rest of Holly Black’s works, and if you’re looking for more enemies to lovers, you are in luck. The main reasons to read this book, though, is the political intrigue and the murder happy main character. The Once and Future Witches is a take on the suffragette period and witch fairytales. It’s not necessarily my favourite nor do I think it has the makings to be anyone’s favorite, really, but I do recommend it if only for the fairytale retellings and historical elements. Howl’s Moving Castle is an absolute delight, with lots of fun, bickering, main characters, and a very fairytale take on the magic system. I need to read Deathless so bad, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. I hear only great things about the retelling of the Russian fairytale, though, so I’ll go ahead and recommend it.

Revenge stories are also a favourite of mine, so if you want more of those, my main recommendations are The Count of Monte Cristo and Vicious. The Count of Monte Cristo features our antihero being wrongfully imprisoned due to the machinations of three people. After escaping and getting rich beyond his wildest imagination, Edmound seeks to utterly ruin all three of them, destroying a lot of innocent lives in the process, rethinking the ethics of his revenge plan a lot, and a lot of claiming he’s sold his soul to become Providence. The main drawback is that the novel deals handedly in Orientalism( though I have a lot to say about why discussion of Orientalism is important to understanding Edmound’s character and why he is percieved the way he is by the other characters) and that it features an enslaved woman falling in love with her captor, who is also our protagonist. So yeah, grain of salt. It was written in 1844. Vicious tells us the backstory and the mainstory side by side throughout the novel, featuring two ex-best friends who experimented with killing themselves in order to gain superhero powers. When one of them lands the other one in prison and devotes his time to killing other ExtraOrdinaries, what our superheroes/more-like-supervillains-usually are called, because he likes to play god, our protagonist, the imprisoned friend, escapes for a revenge quest. Along the way he forms an incredibly clunky, adorable found family. I love this novel so much.

If you’re looking for more historical fantasy, I have some recommendations here as well. Diviners is an occult murder mystery set in the 1920s, that really really spends time putting you in the 1920s. It features a fun ensemble cast that grows with each installation, though the main main character of the first book does take a while to grow on you and there’s a boring ass love triangle. Read it for the 1920s and the ensemble cast that really takes off in the second book. The Poppy War is based on the Second Sino-Japanese War with a very enthralling magic system, and a main character who takes moral greyness to whole new heights. It has a laundry list of trigger warnings you need to read before you pick up the book, but the two most important things to understand before getting into it is that there’s a section based on the Rape of Nanjing, which does not pull its punches and the first book ends with our protagonist committing magical genocide on an entire country. In general, this book absolutely refuses to pull its punches and that’s my number one reason for recommending it. London Calling is an exploration of fatherhood with themes on family and catholicism that features time traveling to the London blitz. It’s barely fantasy, and it’s again not a favorite nor will it become yours, but it’s very moving.

Also, this is more of a general recommendation, but I highly recommend Gideon the Ninth. “Necromancer Lesbians explore a haunted gothic castle in space.” What more do you need to hear? Our main character is a snarky butch swordswoman in the first book and the second book is her goth depressed over-achiever enemy turned sort of girlfriend turned mind pal. The fun villain behavior is off the chart, the worldbuilding is immaculate (there’s an in-universe essay in the back that finishes with someone’s snarky graffiti), and it’s funny as hell. The book is about necromancers so the gory descriptions of dead bodies is very much not for the faint of heart. Keep that in mind.

[sunbird-tells-stories]

I was rewatching one of my favorite episodes of Xiaolin Showdown lately and I’ve been thinking of Jesse’s/Jessie’s character. I really like her a lot. I was always fascinated with that character from the moment I first saw her. Clay was my favorite Dragon, so to learn he had a sister??? Who was a biker girl??? And a BAD GUY?! Like, it was crazy! I loved the episode, and I still love it to this day. I love the lore, the aesthetic, the Black Vipers, the story, and the ending with Jesse under a starry desert sky flying off into the moon leaving behind a magical rainbow trail behind her? Like, tell me that’s not awesome!

So, since I’m bored and have Xiaolin on my mind, I’m gonna rant about her for a little bit.

First off, Jesse’s listed in the credits with the male version of the name, aka Jessie without the “I.” And the first thing I thought about when I mulled over this choice for a name was that it reminded me of Jesse James, who was a famous outlaw back in the days of the Wild West. So it was maybe a crew choice to give her that name as a shout-out to her criminal nature, and because of that, I like to think that in the show’s universe, Jesse used to be Jessie but dropped the “I” the day she left the Bailey Ranch. You know, to show that a) she was starting a new life and leaving her old persona behind and b) maybe to challenge the stifling old gender norms she was relegated to at the ranch. I mean, Daddy Bailey, as cool as he is, did ooze vibes of toxic masculinity in the one episode we saw him. If he was hyper focused on making Clay the manliest man, then it makes sense that he’d push Jesse to be the girliest girl.

But like, Jesse’s her own person, man. She’s hotheaded and stubborn and determined, and she’s got enough grit and pride in her to say “You know what? Screw this. I’m not happy here, I’ll never be enough for you, and life is too short to live in a place where you’re either ignored because everyone’s paying attention to your brother or being pressured and prodded into being something you’re not.”

So she left. I mean we never got a backstory on that (and I would have loved one, trust me), but she left, and she left on bitter terms too, considering Clay’s instinctive animosity towards her on sight. Like, no “hey, how’s life” or “where have you been.” The first thing he did after recognizing her was to call her a varmint. A nuisance. A lowlife.

That’s....uncharacteristically harsh, Clay. You’re supposed to be the sweetheart of the group, and the first thing you do when you see your baby sister after who knows how long...is to insult her?

Wow. There’s a story there. And if we don’t get any background on it, then maybe I’ll write it later? There’s always fandom, kids! And fanfic. And fanart.

But Jessie really does fascinate me as a character. Like even more than Ashley, or Wuya, or Shadow, or even Kimiko! Out of all the (very few!) female characters in the Xiaolin lore, she’s the one I’m interested in the most. It’s everything about her you know? It’s her backstory, it’s her personality, her skills, her likes and dislikes, the way she chooses to live her life, the way she’s constantly double crossing everyone around her - even her brother! No one is safe from her except for her loyal Vipers, who must also like her and trust her a lot too, since as soon as there’s a brief void in the leadership role, they automatically welcome her and her alone back into it, instead of squabbling over who should be the leader of their biker gang. For all their trouble and deceit, the Black Vipers stick together.

Probably because they’re all they’ve got.

I mean the girls live in a MINE! (An abandoned mine, like seriously, how cool is that?!) and they’ve got pet vultures, and know every inch of their hideout, and the place is falling apart in some areas but it’s HUGE and awesome and it looks wicked cool so it balances out.

But that alone implies that none of them have actual houses or trailers or apartments or condos where they actually crash. None of them have a home to go home to.

And why would they? I mean, you don’t just wake up one day and choose to live a life of crime. The show always likes to hammer in the fact that the world’s not black and white. Everyone’s got some good chi and bad chi in them. Everyone’s a shade of grey. And that includes the Vipers. And something tells me that they’re a darker shade of grey than most girls, and not entirely by choice either. Girls don’t just wake up and become bad guys. It’s a lot more complicated than that.

I worry about these girls. All of them are so young, early-late teens at most, but they’ve each got a criminal record and have scored enough infamy to be known all through the American Southwest. That’s kind of awesome. But mostly really, really sad.

Sadly we don’t get much personality from the girls, but I wish we did, I love the quirks in their character designs like WallEyed Short Girl and Tall Freckled Mopey Girl, and even Belle! Yes, the redhead has a name, and it’s Belle. Personally she’s my favorite design out of all four Vipers. The bright red hair paired with the turquoise in her necklace and hat is simple but unique. And her sass! And the fact that she’s like the ONLY XS character with brown eyes. Aaah! I love her so much!

But even with their lack of screen time or even voice lines, there’s enough evidence to infer that these girls are each other’s family. They’re sisters. They’re partners in crime wherever they go, from the arid deserts of Arizona to the neon casinos of Nevada, from the white sands of New Mexico to the empty-hearted prairies of Oklahoma, and hey maybe even as far west as Baja California!

And of course, Texas.

It’s interesting that even though she cut all ties with her dad and her brothers and her mom (I mean, if she even has one), she still wanders through Texas. The last thing she screamed at Jack as he took off in a huff with no Wu was “Don’t Mess With Texas”! She may have turned her back on her family and the ranch, but she’ll never turn her back on her home state. That’s kind of beautiful. It’s nice to think that the big bad biker chick who rules over a gang that kidnaps people and robs them blind....still has a soft spot.

But I mean, of course she has a soft spot. She’s a person, right? Good chi and bad chi coexisting together in a single human being. She’s got dreams, right? Secret wishes that keep her up at night, keep her going when the chips are down, keep her going when things get hard for her gang and she has to be the one to stay strong and lead them through it despite being a KID...yeah. It’s abundantly clear that Jesse is an adventurous soul. I mean, you gotta be if you spend your days riding through the desert and running from cops, and your nights sleeping in a creepy, abandoned mine that goes on for miles underground. That’s certainly not a lifestyle for the faint of heart, but Jesse seems just fine with it.

Because as crazy and as sad as her situation is, a teen girl with no home and, thanks to her record, no happy future to speak of, she’s happy where she is. Probably the happiest that she’s ever been in her life. She certainly has a lot more freedom, and values that freedom to Hell and back (probably.) She’s seriously gotta love the sweet, simple feeling of going wherever she wants and doing whatever she wants. Stealing from people probably gives her such a thrill, and with the jumps she made with her bike during the Showdown in her one and only episode...yeah, our girl’s an adrenaline junkie. Fer sure.

I wonder if she’d ever leave the desert at some point in her life. I mean, being an outlaw is cool and all but it’s definitely got a lot of drawbacks, and it isn’t very sustainable. And, I mean...people change. Maybe someday she’d just grow out of the lifestyle. Maybe one night she’d sit her Vipers down for one last talk, pass her leadership over to Belle, give them all one big hug and wish them luck, get on her bike and just...leave.

I wonder where’d she go then. Definitely not back home. Probably not with Clay. Being a Xiaolin hero, going to monk school, fighting over Warts...that’s his life, not hers. And I mean, she does have that inferiority complex, which aren’t exactly easy to grow out of. Maybe she’d secretly feel that she wasn’t good enough to be Xiaolin. But she definitely wouldn’t want to go full evil and switch to the Heylin side.

Jesse’s not Xiaolin, or Heylin. She’s just....Jesse. And that’s why we love her so.

I think she would wander. She’d wander all over the US, through every last state, seeing all that there is to see. Some places impress her. Some do not. Some remind her far too much of her home back at the ranch and some are so alien and foreign that her heart almost breaks from the loneliness. Sometimes she falls in love. Then, she falls right out of love, never unexpectedly, but only sometimes by choice. And after a few hours of heartbreak and self care, she’s back on her feet again, hunting down her next adventure. If she sees a Wu, she contacts Clay, and waits for him and the others to come. It’s easier to talk to him now, so they talk often. She sends him a pretty postcard from each city she visits. And with each message, she writes an animal fact about a local critter, just for him.

Home is....it’s not home anymore. Daddy Bailey, Mama Bailey, even Patrick...they don’t consider her family no more. At least that’s what she believes. She never writes to them. She doesn’t see the point. As far as she’s concerned, they all said what they had to say the day she left the ranch. Soemtimes she’s overcome with the temptation to give them a call and see how things are. But no matter how hard she tries, she always hangs up as soon as they answer.

It’s too late to fix what I broke, she tells herself.

And sometimes, she believes it.

But no matter what gets her down, Jessie’s a tough girl. She’s smart and clever and knows how to get by on her own. Her independent nature was hard-earned. She can take care of herself. So she does. And she wanders. And she sees the world beyond the desert.

Hey, remember that one line during her episode where she says “the only thing better than riding is flying,” or that out of all the Wu she could have kept for herself - out of all powers she could have had at her disposal - she opted to keep the Wings of Tinabi, aka the flying Shen Gong Wu?

I like to think that Jesse, like her brothers, is a smart cookie. But while Clay’s got animal facts and Patrick’s got computers, she’s more of an engineer. I mean, she’s got to keep her rides in tip top shape right? And those weren’t ordinary motorcycles either. I wonder if she was the one who designed the Black Viper’s iconic bikes. Maybe she built them all from scratch. Maybe they all did.

And maybe building bikes isn’t all she’s good at. I like to think that as Jesse gets older she takes on a whole new kind of project. As soon as she gets enough material and enough space to house her new baby, she gets to work on something she’s always been wanting to make in the back of her mind but never could before. It’s more complicated than motorcycles or cars or even tractors, and there’s a lot to lose if something goes wrong. But Jesse’s a risk taker, and a dreamer. And above all, she believes in herself. She has to. She’s always had to, because no one ever else did. Not until she chose to be her own biggest fan did she ever have someone in the stands cheering her on. She can do it. Of course she can. She’s Jesse Gotdang Bailey, and she can do anything.

I like to think, after a while on the road, exploring every last corner of America, and hey, maybe even Canada and Mexico, she finally gets around to building herself a plane. Wheels and steel are a beautiful combination, but wings? Wings can take you anywhere. They offer a freedom like no other. Hundreds and hundreds of people over countless generations have looked up at the sky and wished to be up there. And Jesse wouldn’t be any different from them.

I like to think that she finishes it right as she reaches adulthood. I like to think that she actually goes legit - for once - and gets herself a pilot’s license. I like to think that she gives her new ride a bright coat of paint, puts on the last finishing touches, gets herself a viper tattoo as a way to honor the occasion, and takes off towards the Xiaolin Temple the very next morning to show Clay how far she’s come.

And I would like to think that on the side of the plane, in beautiful rainbow lettering, is the name she chose for her new aircraft:

The Wings of Tinabi.

[bookishable]

order of the phoenix book moments

“listening to the news! again?” “well, it changes every day, you see”

vernon: we’re not stupid harry: WeLL tHaT’s nEwS tO mE

“did he say you look like a pig that’s been taught to walk on its hind legs? ’cause that’s not cheek, dud, that’s true.”

“not this brave at night, are you?” “this is night, diddykins. that’s what we call it when it goes all dark like this.”

“what d’you mean, i’m not brave when i’m in bed? what am i supposed to be frightened of, pillows or something?”

“fought ’em off, did you, son? gave ’em the old one-two?” “you can’t give a dementor the old one-two”

tonks sending the dursleys a letter telling them they’d been short listed for the (non-existent) all-england best kept suburban lawn competition to keep them out the house so they could rescue harry

“snape’s on our side now” “doesn’t stop him being a git”

“dumbledore says he doesn’t care what they do as long as they don’t take him off the chocolate frog cards”

“kreacher lives to serve the noble house of black—” “and it’s getting blacker every day, it’s filthy”

arthur and kingsley’s fake chat at the ministry

“if you can get away before seven, molly’s making meatballs.”

‘a powerful emotion had risen in harry’s chest at the sight of dumbledore, a fortified, hopeful feeling rather like that which phoenix song gave him.’

“you got our message that the time and place of the hearing had been changed?” “i must have missed it, however, due to a lucky mistake i arrived at the ministry three hours early”

“a prefect! that’s everyone in the family!” “what are fred and i, next-door neighbours?”

harry’s personal growth moment where he realises he is happy for ron being made prefect and beating him at something for the first time, and that harry isn’t any better than him

luna: you’re harry potter harry: i know i am

neville saying “i’m nobody” and ginny being like “no you’re not” ugh we stan this friendship

the quibbler’s article on whether sirius is a notorious mass murderer or innocent singing sensation

“i, unlike you, have been made a prefect, which means that i, unlike you, have the power to hand out punishments.” “yeah, but you, unlike me, are a git, so get out and leave us alone.”

‘luna did not seem perturbed by ron’s rudeness; on the contrary, she simply watched him for a while as though he were a mildly interesting television programme.’

“i told her to keep her big fat mouth shut about you, actually. and it would be quite nice if you stopped jumping down our throats, harry, because in case you haven’t noticed, ron and i are on your side.”

“i dreamed i was playing quidditch the other night, what do you reckon that means?” “probably that you’re going to be eaten by a giant marshmallow or something”

“have a biscuit, potter.”

hermione knitting hats for the house-elves

“they didn’t look anything like hats to me, more like woolly bladders.” hermione did not speak to him all morning.

harry and ron meeting each other in the hallway, both trying to hide something but failing, harry being excited that ron wants to join the quidditch team, and ron noticing harry’s injury and being horrified we love this friendship

“ron had been honest with him, so he told ron the truth”

harry’s excellent attempt at writing a letter to sirius without obscurely revealing anything in case it got intercepted

“if you want to ‘sever ties’ with me, i swear i won’t get violent.”

“yeah, quirrell was a great teacher, there was just that minor drawback of him having lord voldemort sticking out of the back of his head.”

“i was just wondering, professor, whether you received my note telling you of the date and time of your inspec—” “obviously i received it, or i would have asked you what you are doing in my classroom” minerva strikes again

luna: the ministry’s got an army of heliopaths neville: an army of what luna: great flaming creatures that gallop across the ground burning everyth— hermione: they don’t exist, neville luna: oh yes they do

harry pretending to be ill so he could skip history of magic and find someone to help hedwig

“i can’t see any boils” “no, well, you wouldn’t, they’re not in a place we generally display to the public.” “but they make sitting on a broom a right pain in the—”

“the DA’s good, only let’s make it stand for dumbledore’s army, because that’s the ministry’s worst fear, isn’t it?”

hermione making the fake galleons and everyone being like what because it’s NEWT level magic

‘even fred had said that ron might yet make him and george proud, and that they were seriously considering admitting he was related to them, something they assured him they had been trying to deny for four years.’

“hey, potty, i heard warrington’s sworn to knock you off your broom on saturday” “warrington’s aim’s so pathetic i’d be more worried if he was aiming for the person next to me” god i love harry in this book

luna’s lion hat: “i wanted to have it chewing up a serpent to represent slytherin, you know, but there wasn’t time.”

dobby decorating the room of requirement with baubles of harry’s face saying ‘have a very harry christmas’

“ron, you are the most insensitive wart i have ever had the misfortune to meet.” it’s not true but it’s funny lmao

harry: next minute she’s crying all over me and i didn’t know what to do ron: don’t blame you, mate

‘that’s what they should teach us here, how girls’ brains work… it’d be more useful than divination, anyway…’

“i didn’t want anyone to talk to me” “well, that was a bit stupid of you, seeing as you don’t know anyone but me who’s been possessed by you-know-who, and i can tell you how it feels.” “i forgot” “lucky you”

sirius singing ‘god rest ye, merry hippogriffs’

arthur using stitches on his snake bites and molly exploding “it sounds as though you’ve been trying to sew your skin back together… WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THAT’S THE GENERAL IDEA?”

harry trying to distract the others when he realises neville’s parents are in the same ward that they are in, so neville can leave unnoticed

harry being oblivious to the fact cho wants to go to hogsmeade with him for valentine’s day

“if we can’t trust dumbledore, we can’t trust anyone.”

harry being oblivious (the sequel) and telling cho he was meeting hermione after their date, bless my son he’s trying his best

“why does she always want to drag up a subject that makes her act like a human hosepipe?”

‘hermione was sitting at a table with the unlikeliest pair of drinking mates he could ever have imagined: luna lovegood and none other than rita skeeter, one of hermione’s least favourite people in the world.’

“cho? a girl?” “it’s none of your business if harry’s been with a hundred girls” this is my favourite version of hermione

“it might have been a good idea to mention how ugly you think i am, too,” hermione added as an afterthought. “but i don’t think you’re ugly”

“she’s been breaking into your broom shed in the garden since the age of six and taking each of your brooms out in turn when you weren’t looking”

“if zacharias smith beats us i might have to kill myself.” “kill him, more like”

“hermione, you’re good on feelings and stuff, but you just don’t understand about quidditch.” “maybe not, but at least my happiness doesn’t depend on ron’s goalkeeping ability.”

‘out of respect for his feelings, harry waited a while before going up to the dormitory himself, so that ron could pretend to be asleep if he wanted to.’

dumbledore choosing firenze to teach divination knowing full well umbridge hated half-breeds

kingsley, dumbledore and mcgonagall’s genius way of saving the situation in dumbledore’s office after the DA meetings had been uncovered

“well, usually when a person shakes their head, they mean ‘no’. so unless miss edgecombe is using a form of sign-language as yet unknown to humans—”

“i have absolutely no intention of being sent to azkaban. i could break out, of course—but what a waste of time, and frankly, i can think of a whole host of things i would rather be doing.”

all the teachers pretending they couldn’t get rid of the fireworks to make umbridge run around the entire school to do so

“i could have got rid of the sparklers myself, of course, but i wasn’t sure whether or not i had the authority.”

“give five signs that identify the werewolf. one: he’s sitting in my chair. two: he’s wearing my clothes. three: his name’s remus lupin.”

“the thing about growing up with fred and george, is that you sort of start thinking anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.”

“you’d need more than a good sense of fun to liaise with my uncle, good sense of when to duck, more like.”

“are you quite sure you wouldn’t like a cough drop, dolores?”

“he has achieved high marks in all defence against the dark arts tests set by a competent teacher.”

“this boy has as much chance of becoming an auror as dumbledore has of ever returning to this school.” “a very good chance, then”

“she hated him!” “nah, she didn’t”

“your father was the best friend i ever had and he was a good person. a lot of people are idiots at the age of fifteen. he grew out of it.”

“give her hell from us, peeves.”

the catchphrase “one more lesson like that and i might just do a weasley” being a trend

‘umbridge-itis’

harry witnessed professor mcgonagall walking right past peeves, who was determinedly loosening a crystal chandelier, and could have sworn he heard her tell the poltergeist out of the corner of her mouth, “it unscrews the other way.”

WEASLEY IS OUR KING

the fifth and seventh years starting a black-market trade selling ‘brain stimulants’ for the exams

“i don’t care if my tea-leaves spell die, ron die—i’m just chucking them in the bin where they belong.”

‘even through his anger and impatience, harry recognised hermione’s offer to accompany him into umbridge’s office as a sign of solidarity and loyalty.’

ginny’s notorious bat bogey hex

“we were all in the DA together, it was all supposed to be about fighting you-know-who, wasn’t it? and this is the first chance we’ve had to do something real—or was that all just a game or something?”

“you do care, you care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.”

“by all means continue destroying my possessions, i daresay i have too many.”

“in the end, it mattered not that you could not close your mind. it was your heart that saved you.”

‘sirius seemed a million miles away already; even now a part of harry still believed that if he had only pulled back that veil, he would have found sirius looking back at him, greeting him, perhaps, with his laugh like a bark…’

flitwick leaving a patch of the swamp as a monument to fred and george, and because it was “a really good bit of magic”

“you’re dead, potter.” “funny, you’d think i’d have stopped walking around…”

mgonagall arriving back at hogwarts just as snape tries to take points from gryffindor like ‘no bitch, they can have 500 points instead for fighting death eaters’

‘professor mcgonagall was clearly heard to express a regret that she could not run cheering after umbridge herself, because peeves had borrowed her walking stick.’

“i expect what you’re not aware of would fill several books, dursley”

“are you threatening me, sir?” “yes, i am,” said mad-eye, who seemed rather pleased that uncle vernon had grasped this fact so quickly.

“do i look like the kind of man who can be intimidated?” “yes, i’d have to say you do” moody just ended this book with three straight burns

[thewolfisawake]

Critical Role

Favorite character:

In CR1, Percy and Scanlan. And gonna sound so hipster but I did legitimately like Percy prior to the Briarwood arc. I liked his place as the more subdued person that didn’t need fanfare for his support. And then I was scared and intrigued when he was more...forthcoming in that arc since he was quieter before (I think I read this was also because Taliesin was bit shy starting out but got comfortable). And Scanlan, was the man I shed tears for because I kept crying ‘oh god, someone please notice. Someone HELP HIM.’ They both had some serious gut punches and their stories did shift the dynamics (of the story and the party respectively) permanently. They are also great support and yet also had some amazing solos. 

In CR2, Caleb and Fjord. I just like me some sad boys apparently. I think Caleb’s bumbling and trying to do right but struggling with doing what’s good for you so painfully relatable. As of writing this, I haven’t caught up yet but I’ve seen him make such leaps and bounds in terms of letting people in and being a support to others. I also think mechanically he’s a show of how the drawbacks like his fear can make for good moments. As for Fjord, he’s just in general how I think a moral compass or herder character can be done without irritating both the player and viewer. I mean morals of this cast is more wonky but in general Fjord seems to put forward a general ‘we all get through this’ and respect towards the team. 

Least Favorite character:

In CR1, Keyleth. And no, it’s got nothing to do with Marisha. She’s cool. I honestly felt bad for her because Keyleth had to pick up the moral slack whenever Pike wasn’t there, which was often. Some of her best moments were when she had to draw the hard line. But it was far outweighed with having this moral high horse for some reason even though they promptly do something just as low down as the ones she looked down on. Also, I feel it’s hard to do a character that is naive but also very likable so again, sorry for Marisha. 

In CR2, I like so many but I’ll go with Mollymauk. And it was a bit of a shame because he was like the one person I heard so much about. I did like that he was the one that tended to push into some of the best shenanigans I’ve listened to. However, he was just fine. There wasn’t much to push him into love him so much nor much to say I dislike him. I’m a little disappointed of not being able to know what his deal was I guess was what I would choose if I have to say what made him least favorite. 

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon):

Vax’limore - Their interactions just oozed banter and playfulness. There was no intro to how that this happened, it just jumps into their flirtations. And it was that cute banter and the real ‘I’d do anything for you, my friend’ that ended up hurting seeing Gilmore have his heart strings pulled as they did. Like if you love him, let him go. For real. Don’t dangle it in front of him like that. 

Pike/Percy - Weird thought but I thought it was pretty clear that Pike liked Percy. Everyone sees her as a stalwart beacon but she still has wants and falls off from time to time. But she tries. And she saw something within Percy that was dark and I don’t think it was necessarily ‘I want to fix him’ but ‘I want to save him.’ And Percy find a light in Pike like many do but also seeing her as just Pike.  

Perc’ahlia - I mean, it’s canon. Thing is that I can’t pinpoint a moment when it began. Just that it happened and that felt okay. I think they’re both maniacs in their own right and it’s kind of cute how they indulge each other’s passion/excitement. Gifts feels like Percy’s love language and he shows it so much in how he tinkers for Vex and her glee in what new way she can fuck shit up is enough for him. And also it’s really delicious the parallel with them and the Briarwoods and Laura has stated that if Percy had died died, that it was possible Vex end up the same kind of menace Delilah was. 

Vex/Zahra - In some other life, they would have been the femme fatale couple. All of their interactions were enjoyable and they so clearly enjoy each other. Just looking over and it’s the eyes with them.

Widobrave - Partners in crime. I think that their dynamic isn’t simple and that’s what’s so interesting. They see each other as someone to protect and don’t exactly see how the other views them as the one to be protected. And they have ‘without question’ sort of trust in each other and are genuinely awed and so happy when they witness one do something great. It gets sad with more of their backstory. And it gets me that both immediately felt guilty for keeping it a secret from them. Not the entire party, their partner. They both have seen past appearances and see the strength, the zaniness and the brilliance the other possesses and I can’t wait to get to more of their moments. 

Character I find most attractive:

CR1: Gilmore. My god he was gorgeous. Vax why did you just walk away from that? Raishan. Look, she was hot and smart and even if she fell eventually, she made the most of when she was there. 

CR2: Cali is so frickin’ adorable. Like she’s so cute and hey, if not for the whole cult chasing her thing, it’d be nice to stick around and sightsee. I am also a ‘Jester is really cute’ person.

Character I would marry:

I don’t really think there’s anyone I’d actually--well, I think maybe Pike because stronk lady that can get into mischief with but at the same time just be able to be content with.

No one in this campaign so far. 

Character I would be best friends with:

I would LIKE to be friends with Cassandra because everyone continues to ignore how this woman has been tormented and then thrust into very important position. All while harboring guilt for what she had to do to survive. The girl needs a break and I’m here with a blanket and some tea.

I would like to be friends with Nott actually. She’s really cool and I think it’s fun to let her be her zany self. 

a random thought:

So who is really credited as the inventor of firearms, Percy, who did technically make it, or Ripley, who is the one that sold the schematics to make them mass-produced? 

Is there just an abundance of mysterious magic ladies in Wildemount or what? 

An unpopular opinion:

Scanlan deserved his anger and feelings of being unappreciated. Even if he was brought back, it does not lessen that there was uncertainty nor the lack of respect towards his body. Vox Machina had gotten cocky and it drove one of their members away. Vex and Vax were the only ones that took Scanlan’s frustration to heart and did not mess up with Tary for that reason. Also Tary was a parallel of the worst of the party, which is why most of them couldn’t stand him. 

The small races are not fucking children. I don’t get why they get called children or thought of like that. They’re just short, goddammit!

My Canon OTP:

CR1: Perc’ahlia for above reasons.

CR2: None to be seen so far?

My Non-canon OTP:

CR1: Because I’m hella fucked up, I am enamored by the thought that Percy had a crush on Ripley. Because she paid attention to him, one of the younger and less interesting of his family. And to him she was brilliant and she took advantage of that, which is how he survived or why they got in. And Percy never forgot or forgave her. 

CR2: “And they were roommates” “oh god they were roommates.” * whispers * I kind of liked Fjord and Molly. They felt like foils that were amicable with each other aaaaannndddd actually had nice interactions? 

Most Badass Character:

CR1: NO MERCY PERCY

CR2: Shakaste is pretty awesome and Khary Payton is awesome. 

Most Epic Villain:

CR1: Raishan. Like I wish she could’ve been a bigger villain but alas the dice were not on her side. I think her arc was the most interesting as she was the true threat in the party’s eyes despite there being a dragon terraforming their home. 

CR2: At this point? There hasn’t been a major villain for the party.  

Pairing I am not a fan of:

I don’t really have anything I can’t ship in this one.

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another):

Can’t really say anyone ‘screwed up’ since this is a lot of improv and all that. So I guess miss chances I think would only really be Molly since y’know, he’s dead. 

Favourite Friendship:

CR1: Pike & Grog - They’re Best Buddies, y’all. I can’t get over how much they just pal around like that’s just the usual for them. And technically it is. They can go get wasted together and then kick ass after. It’s just the casualness of their relationships and how much respect and lack of reverence that I like. Pike is just Pike to Grog so he finds no reason to hold back or hold her as a light unlike the rest of the party. But he does want to do good by her because she’s his friend and he doesn’t want to disappoint her. And Pike never insults Grog’s intellect and actively works to help him improve and deflects the party’s remarks of how he is. 

CR2: Empire Kids - They’ve come a long way from their seats of mistrust and standoff-ishness. I think there was a post that put it best that they’re ‘learning how to human.’ And because they both are at the same point of it, they are struggling together. As a result they’ve come to lean on each other to keep themselves from going to far. They’re not perfect but they’re trying to keep this found family of theirs together. 

Character I most identify with:

CR1: Keyleth. Being the one to try to keep people together or on the straight on narrow isn’t easy. It sucks and I’m not usually the person that should do it but here I am.

CR2: Caleb. I am very off-beat and odd but I do want to have friends and the like....just not stellar at showing that...

Character I wish I could be:

I mean, this is D&D where awesome shit goes on all the time. So anyone I guess?

[thebloodychampion]

Harry Potter Tag

Just for fun since I seem to be in the Harry Potter hellhole, with rereading all the books. I am currently on the 5th book “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”

1. Favourite Harry Potter Book

“That one is hard, cause I like them all. But I would say ‘Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince’.”

2. Least Favourite Harry Potter Book

“‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’. I just can’t with that book. Also because Sirius dies in there, Umbridge and the whole Ministry of Magic situation.”

3. Favourite Harry Potter Movie

“‘Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban’. It is just a wonderful movie as a whole. Alfonso Cuaron made it so special with his unique way of directing a movie. Making Hogwarts not just about magic, robes and wands. I love how the students wear normal clothes outside of classes. I love Lupin, Sirius, the design of the Dementors. Even the werewolf design.”

4. Least Favourite Harry Potter Movie

“‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’. Nothing against the book, but the movie is just so weird. Like why in the hell does nobody get a haircut. Are Harry, Ron, Fred and George in the rebellious teenage phase. The tournament is good, the resurrection Voldemort and the duel is amazing. But still not my favourite.”

5. Favourite Quote

From the books:

“There is no need to call me ‘sir’ Professor” (from Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince)

Followed close by:

“Yeah, Quirrell was a great teacher. There was just that minor drawback of him having Lord Voldemort sticking out of the back of his head!”

From the movies

Ron Weasley: Oh, my God. What am I going to do? My wife’s all alone downstairs. Harry Potter: Ron, you don’t have a wife. Ron Weasley: Oh, right.

6. Your Favourite Weasley

“Bill Weasley. Don’t ask why I just like him.”

7. Favourite Female Character

” Luna Lovegood. With very close Hermione Granger behind her.”

8. Favourite Villain

“I am not gonna say Voldemort. That one is too obvious. Maybe Barty Crouch Jr.”

9. Favourite Male Character

“Probably Remus Lupin. Followed close by Neville Longbottom. But I am sorry, Remus got bitten by Fenrir Greyback when he was like very young, went to Hogwarts feeling he had no friends but then he had friends. But after Hogwarts everyone thought he was a traitor because of being  a werewolf. He lived in poverty, could never really get a job because of the prececution against werewolves. And then he died in the Battle of Hogwarts. Not to mention he lost all of his friends before he himself died.”

10. Favourite Professor

“Not gonna say Lupin. Maybe Fake Moody. Yeah fake moody was amazing. Also Snape. But he can be an ass. Oh McGonagall. So many.”

11. A Character You Felt Different About In The Movies

“Not sure Bellatrix maybe…she never seems so crazy in the books, at least to me she didn’t. So maybe her. Also Draco seemed to be less evil in the movies than in the books.”

12. A Movie You Prefer To The Book

“‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’ Clear answer.”

13. Remake Any Of The Movies. Which One?

“‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ Probably that one.”

14. Which House Was Your First Gut Feeling You’d Be Part Of?

“When Harry Potter first came out, I always thought I was a Ravenclaw. Turns out I am more of a silver green type of girl.”

15. Which Class Would Be Your Favourite?

“Care of Magical Creatures. I would love that.”

16. Which Spell Would Be The Most Useful?

“Not sure actually…maybe Stupify. I mean for Expelliarmus you need to have some aim not to jug the other person across the room. Oh no Accio. For the lazy people.”

17. Which Character Do You Think You’d Instantly Become Friends With?

“Maybe Hermione…but I would probably go for Luna. Or maybe Neville. I am not very outgoing.”

18. If You Could Earn One Of Three Hallows, Which Would It Be?

“Invisibility Cloak. Honestly the other two I think are not as useful.”

19. Is There Any Aspect Of The Books You Want To Change?

“Yeah…not have Sirius Black die, like seriously. Or maybe have a more meaningful situation and conversation with Tonks and Lupin. Don’t let Teddy be parentless.”

20. If You Could Bring One Character Back To Life, Who Would It Be?

“Sirius Black. Fucking let the man have a peaceful and happy life. Yeah I know Lupin would still be dead. But Sirius spent 12 years in Azkaban. Had to be on the run for another two years and one year trapped in the house of his parents. Let that man live with Harry after the war is over somewhere remote. Have him look after Harry and Ginny’s children. Be there ‘pet dog’. No matter.”

21. Hallows or Horcruxes

“Hallows. I am not going to split my soul and murder someone.”

[whenimgoodandready]

4 years ago, I heard about “Star vs. The Forces of Evil”. I didn’t think much of it, but I gave it a shot (it was like a childhood callback to my “Sailor Moon” phase when I was younger) to see how it was. I made a little review about it to let everyone know what I thought and after a couple of more episodes, I was drawn to it! A twist on the Magical Girl genre of the heroine open with her being magical and fighting villains while still going about an everyday life. Neat characters, funny dialogue, cool storylines, original music scores, plot twists and the shipping dramas! I was so obsessed I made fanart/animation, bought whatever merchandise there was of it! (Star and Marco’s Guide to Mastering Every Dimension (original and Stump Day Edition) and The Magic Book of Spells) and been having dreams of the show as well! My reviews have changed since the first season. It started out as just words, but then came frames and then later pictures and now, finally gifs! Writing is my passion. I just love writing down how I feel about things and having others see it and what I have to say about it as if I’m a voice to the people. Speaking of which, I gotta get to this finale review before I’m over my writing limit is up. Lol!

We open with what we saw in the promo for finale. Star transforms in her golden Mewberty form getting ready to enter the portal to The Realm of Magic, say The Whispering Spell there and destroy all the magic. Despite the major drawback to the aftermath (No Starco😢). She turns down Eclipsa and Moons advice on taking on Mina all together and is just single minded on her plan. Star, maybe that would’ve been a better idea. You know, like the whole Total Annihilation Spell thing that Eclipsa used! That could still work! Huh!? HUH!? HUH!? C’mon!!! (are we not gonna call her out for making a hasty decision based on her impulsive anger from her Moms betrayal!?) Before that however, she didn’t tell Marco the bad news of her plan to save him from heartbreak and Hekapoo was cool with Star going forward with her plan. Uh, seriously Hekapoo!? YOU’RE GONNA DIE! WHO’S THIS CHILL ABOUT DYING!? Guess after literally everything she thought, “Eh, I lived a long life. Besides, magic sucks a**”. Okay, I mean, if that’s how she feels then.

Marco goes with her and after getting one last back handed burning slap on the head (“Running with Scissors”), takes the wand from Moon and gives it the old “Marcos wand” look! (“Deep Dive”) Unknownst to Moon that he’s used it before. (the drawn on mole would’ve been a nice touch. I’m just sayin’). This is it! Their one last adventure before the whole things over. With that, they hold hands (Marco choosing the top arm of Stars left) and walk into the portal to destroy the magic. Oh God!

They arrive in The Realm of Magic and Star tries to do The Whispering Spell while Marco eats pudding that Glossaryck left behind for him and Star. Unfortunately, Star starts to lose her memories and Marco realizes he’s still fine. He finds out it’s the pudding! The Pudding!? OMG! You mean to tell me this is why Glossaryck kept eating pudding the whole time!? Not just because it was delicious! WOW! Marco shoves some pudding in Star which help keep her memories and then they see..............

Thomas Draconius Lucitor! Riding on the corrupted dark unicorn from “Mama Star”! Hey Tom! How you been!? Haven’t seen you since well, that episode I just mentioned! Last we checked, you were stuck in your demon form on fire and with that seatbelt still on!..............which you’re now wearing as a sash for some reason. Guess you never were sent back to Mewni, or the Underworld, or wherever else cuz no one bothered to mention what became of you. Tom, we can explain! A lot of sh*t happened in Mewni and it was all Mina (and Moons) fault! Also Starco is for finally canon and Stars gonna destroy the magic! Btw, why do you have glowing blank eyes like Stars real/fake ancestry?....................Tom, you’re scaring us............Tom, why are you charging at Starco!? Are you pissed that they forgot you!? TOM! TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Back on Mewni, River and Eddie finally make it to the sanctuary to save Globgor and just before they could open it, Mina catches them and the two biggest idiots of Mewni accidentally blurt out what they’re gonna do! (face palms). No thanks to that, Mina now tries to get into the sanctuary.

Over to The Realm of Magic again, Marco fights off Tom using the wand by blasting every bit of whimsical spell Star does and some with his own while Star finally does The Whispering Spell and for the finale, we actually hear what all that whispering was! “Break the bond, tear the fabric, cleave the stone, stop the magic” again and again. And it works! HOLY SH*T IT ACTUALLY WORKS! I didn’t think her plan would work by doing that, but it’s true! It’s freakin’ true!

However, it still doesn’t work. I knew it, I mean, saying the Whispering Spell in The Realm of Magic to destroy all magic! Puh-leeze! It’s only for the wand! :P. Just then, Moon and Eclipsa w/ Meteora show up and decide to help. That’s the quickest moment of forgiving I’ve ever seen, after all what Moon did, Star just accepted her again! Marco finally stops Tom from killing him w/ the corrupted dark unicorn by feeding him pudding, but in the process, getting stabbed! Don! Don! Don! After Tom is cured, he and Marco head back to Star. 

Star, Moon, Eclipsa and Meteora Dip Down in their Mewberty forms (the fandom gets their wish on seeing Eclipsa do that) and are joined by the Past Queens of Mewni (starting from Skywynne not the 26 before her cuz that’s all the queens the book mentioned cuz the staff didn’t have enough time to come up with designs, personalities, history, etc for them and also Skywynnes mother, Lyric, didn’t save the original Magic Book of Spells :P) in spiritual form assisting them with destroying magic. They still don’t talk as they didn’t have time to that and cuz it’s the last episode and we’re about wrapping up here, so :P to that.

Mina finds The Realm of Magic and charges after Star, Moon, Eclipsa and Meteora, but gets distracted when she sees her queen, Solaria, and gets attacked by the dark corrupted unicorn. Mina calls out to her for help, but Solaria, the queen that created Mina, transformed her and thought of her as her answer to finishing off monsters, did nothing! Nada, ZIP! Sure she hated monsters, but did she hate monsters more than she loves her daughter!? Some things are just more important. 

After he was done with Mina, the dark unicorn goes after the queens, but Marco f**king flips the horse! DAMN! Well, he’s fought monsters, did a bunch of cool sh*t in the Neverzone, helped save Mewni twice and punched Toffee right through him! So yeah! He can flip a horse! 

Suddenly, the magic starts getting destroyed, the baby unicorns melt, the wand is no more and the realm prepares its destruction.

The Queens start disappearing with Moon seeing her mother, Comet, one last time, Solaria accepting of Eclipsas monster love and her hybrid granddaughter and most of all, Glossaryck goin’in bye bye. Farewell Glossaryck, you were pretty annoying, but kinda right. It was nice knowin’ ya. 

Star then tells Marco he needs to go up the waterfall to Earth, but doesn’t answer him on the bad news that they’ll never see each other again :’(. However, I think he figured it out from their tearful good-bye.

 Everyone comes out the well, but Star makes a big sacrifice and decides to go to Earth to be with Marco. Turns out, Marco stayed behind in the destruction of The Realm of Magic cuz he too thought, with or without magic, ღ they belong together! ღ STARCO FOREVER! 

With that, they hug for the very last time with their last bit of magic giving them their glowing cheek marks, unknown what will become of them during the destruction (possibly death) and then 💥BOOM!💥

The sanctuary is now gone along with the magic, well dimension traveling, (the narwhal blasting) and most of all, no more signature cheek marks on Star or anyone else who had ‘em on the show! And Star floats a drift on an alligator where Moon finds her riding on another alligator like a jet ski.

The new Solarian army falls apart and all the Monsters, like Buff Frog and his kids, are now finally safe from harm all thanks to Star. Destroying the magic actually did turn out to be the solution to fix everything (I personally didn’t think so cuz I would’ve preferred Star go with Eclipsa’s Total Annihilation Spell from the beginning) and Stars tapestry did predict the outcome of it:Magic gone, no more Glossaryck, Mina defeated, Monsters safe, Reconciled with Moon, Eclipsa and her family alive and well and the Monster Temple still standing, but still, no Starco 😢. However, Star was still happy all the monsters were okay, her family safe and even Eclipsa and her family safe.

With the magic gone, Mina Loveberry has been brought down to normal and unfortunately, still coo coo! Now, with the other villains in the show, most of ‘em got redeemed (Ludo, Tom and Meteora) and others died (Toffee), but our final “Forces of Evil”, Mina, who can no longer transform into her Hulk-like warrior self, still remains mentally ill (there’s no cure for that). Moon tries to talk some final sense into her and help her out with her diseased mind, but Mina refuses her help cuz despite the fact that she’s depowered, she runs off continuing her goal on eliminating monsters cuz it “lingers to her”. Well, she’s a lost cause and no one really gives a sh*t about her anymore (except maybe Manfred), so good-luck to ya ya psycho b*tch!

Moon apologizes to Star for working along side with Mina and making the biggest f*ck up in history, but Star easily forgives her since she (Star) always f*cks up too. I guess the apple doesn’t really fall far from the tree after all, huh!? Star says it’s cuz all families f*ck up (some more so than others), but that what they need to do is just live and learn from it all. So yeah, it’s true. Star heads back to the infirmary to check up on her friends and since the magics gone, those Solarian fatal wounds have already disappeared and everyones okay. Like Pony Head and Rich Pigeon! Star tells Pony Head that destroying the magic was the only solution there was to defeat Mina and save everyone, but despite the fact that she’s happy all is well and done, the tragedy of it is there’s no more Marco Ubaldo Diaz! NO MORE STARCO! IT DIDN’T LAST! 😭 He’s just back on Earth with Janna cuz that’s where they belong much like how Kelly went back to Woolandia and Talon at that Dragon Spit bar thing and that she can’t deal with Pony Heads sassy character trait stuff right now! 

Pony Head sees how heartbroken Star is and cheers her up by saying that Kelly is crying tears...........of joy! And happily goin’ on adventures with her “Battle Buddy” Jorby and that Talon is making up cool stories about his adventure to the bar taverns and it does in fact cheer Star up.

From the magic gone, we learn what became of the MHC and that they were reduced to just junk. Omnitraxus Prime is now a lifeless skull like the ones you see stereotypically in the desert, Rhombulus is now a lifeless crystal which was originally his head and his free will snake arms are now just regular old snakes and Idk what happened to Hekapoo, but I’m assuming since she was a demoness, she must’ve just turned to a poof of smoke or something. Omnitraxus was so close to be mature, but sadly he failed to realize what Hekapoo saw. Still disappointed in how Rhombulous turned out (sigh) oh so disappointed. Oh! And uh, Sean just overfilled himself on pizza. He was never important. Whatever. 

Just then, Tom shows up and he’s okay too! Pony Head didn’t mention that he was looking for Star after she decided to supposedly leave Mewni to live on Earth and I think it’s cuz she ships Starco now cuz we all know Tomstar failed not once, but twice! Hey! It’s the finale, so I’m tellin’ it like it so :P (third times not always the charm). Any way, Tom shows Star a portal that”s floating around in the distance and that it leads to Earth! (gasp)

Speaking of Earth, since the The Realm of Magic was located under Britta’s Tacos, and is now gone, the restaurant is too. Oh great! 😒 First we lose The Bounce Lounge, then Quest Buy and now the taco place! (as if it wasn’t bad enough we don’t have Starco!). The whole destruction to them was known as an “earthquake”. 

Marco is on a gurney, but he’s safe and healed now that the magics gone with that unicorn wound no longer there and his parents and baby sister are relived he’s okay. Sadly, much like Star, he's miserable without her. 

Janna rolls in on her gurney attached to a heart rate monitor and she cheers up Marco by saying even though he lost Star, they still have each other as friends. Despite the fact that she drove him nuts most of the time, he did in fact consider her a friend and vice versa. Janna then tells Marco about a portal from a distance that leads to Mewni! (gasp). Janna then tells Marco that he should run for it while she fakes her death in 60 seconds to distract everyone. DAMN! RUN! DIAZ! RUN!

So I’m guessing their last bit of magic together while embracing one last time was the result of that portal (no it’s not a “gas leak” from the “earthquake”), but how long is it gonna remain open!? Both our heroes run like Hell to see each again with a build up theme tune playing with Star punching her way through the Forest of Certain Death and Marco violating traffic laws cuz one thing is set on their minds, make Starco canon! 

Marco uses Jackies skateboard to head faster while Star turns down a friendly game of basketball with Ludo and Dennis. So nice that we saw more of the minor characters again. sk8er girl Jackie with her new French mate, Chloe, starter villain Ludo fully redeemed and happy, those two guys that Daron never wanted to exist, Alfonzo and Ferguson, fangirl Starfan13, mean girl Brittany (well finally! Where was she!? Still wish we saw Jeremy though even if he was a little sh*t, I’d still would've liked to have seen him) we even saw that creepy woman and her new dog, “Willoughby”! (”Fetch”). 

Okay enough about them, let’s get back to Starco! They’re getting closer!........

closer!.........

CLOSER! AND- 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! 

WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHY!? THIS CAN’T BE! YOU MEAN TO TELL ME I WAITED 4 YEARS, WATCHED 4 SEASONS AND WENT THROUGH 4 SHIPS (JARCO, OSTAR, TOMSTAR AND KELLCO) FOR NOTHING! Why does Daron hate us!? Huh, why!? This is it! THIS is how the story ends!? No Starco, no endgame, no HAPPILY EVER AFTER! NO NOTHING! WHAT’S IT GONNA TAKE TO MAKE STARCO HAPPEN!? WHEN DRAGONCYCLES FLY ACROSS THE EARTH SKY!?

Wait! Are those dragoncylces? Flying across the Earth sky!? Holy Sh*t! They are! 

And are those, mermaids!? Swimming in the aqueduct!? (was that a giant spider?).  

Is that Rich Pigeon getting chased up a tree by Earth dogs!? 

Did a helicopter just fly by the Cloud Kingdom over the Pony Head family!? 

Whoa! Whoa!.....WHOA! Are you telling me, that Earth and Mewni have merged into one whole dimension and that it’s now Earthni!? Was it that last bit of Starco magic from the embrace that caused that portal to open and explode to do this!? WOW! Now I get it! “Cleaved”! Good one there, good one! Okay, so it’s a little hectic what with the two worlds becoming one thing, but maybe with time, everyone will get used to it (shrugs).

So if the two worlds merged then that means.............................

STARCO AT LAST! The final unification! Better than the one from “Battle for Mewni”, not awkward like in “Lint Catcher” just pure unadulterated Starco and with their beautiful theme music playing once again to emphasize it. They meet, they smile, they walk towards each other and...............they say Hi. No big kiss or hug or even a silent stare, just plain old “Hey how ya doin’?”. It’s a little tame, but considering this is a children's show, it’s still sweet and more importantly, it was endgame ;). 

🎶 I wanna be your endgame,

I wanna be your first string,

I wanna be your A-Team,

I wanna be your endgame, endgame 🎶

Since Star Butterfly wasn’t there to do her closing inner monologue like how she did with her opening one in the pilot of the show, I’ll be doing it here. So the show ended with Starco like we all hoped for except with the unexpected twist that both their worlds, Earth and Mewni, collided together. Never in a millions years would we have thought this would happen! I’ve seen fan works of Starco either living together on Earth or living as royals in Mewni with their “Starco child(ren)”, but the fact that we got a best of both worlds finale was a huge surprise! Now the happy couple can still be with their families and friends and even have Meteora and Mariposa grow up together like they promised they would. If you ask me, this sounds more like a new beginning, like how are the Humans and Mewmens gonna adapt to their new surroundings and interactions among each other like it’s the start of a whole new season! But I guess that was left to the fans to use their imagination on how that’ll go cuz so many people already had left the show to pursue other things and that they needed to wrap it up quickly. However, we’re still left with some unanswered questions such as why we didn’t see the Septarian, Seth, and how he was the head honcho of the Septarian army cuz he was a big deal in The Magic Book of Spells and since that book was foreshadowing everything in the final season, I assumed we might’ve gotten a look at him and maybe have him make an appearance since it was last said he disappeared, but I guess like in the book, he’s history. Second, there’s Toffee, from the very beginning he wanted the magic destroyed such as having Star use The Whispering Spell in the Season 1 finale and then corrupting it in the tv movie and it wasn’t until near the end where Star realized he was right to do so after all the chaos that’s been goin’ on. Granted it wasn’t for the same reasons she wanted, but overall just doing away with it to not give anyone an advantage to use against someone. I actually thought (like some fans) that he’d come back again, cuz he was mentioned a lot and it was hinted in the final seasons episode premiere about the use of magic and that he might’ve, but after two seasons and a movie, I suppose it was enough and at least he got a cameo in one. Still, his actions were a big concern for Star. Thirdly, the rebel princesses, last we saw, Meteora blew up the whole school after finding out about her true background and we never saw what became of ‘em. Hopefully, they’re fine like Pony Head is and that our minds shouldn’t go into a dark place thinking about that. Speaking of darkness, monster arm, he looked to be hinted at coming back after his defeat, but instead he was just left as a scare gag and irrelevance to the plot. Lastly, the same goes for that mysterious sun/moon/star room in St.Olga’s. It looked to be a big plot point to bring up in a later episode, but alas, we got nothing out of it! We suspected it had something to do with The Blood Moon, but even that was all for nothing! Never did we find out what that room was supposed to mean and I guess it was never meant to have been pointed out in-universe cuz that was for us fans to see it as an up and coming big Starco moment like how the Blood Moon was never magic and that it was just a gimmick with the whole “soul binding” thing to spice up it’s appeal. The finale was good. Could’ve done it as an hour long special or tv movie to close it off, but since Daron and the staff kept goin’ through so many changes in episode plots (and believe me, I’ve seen plenty of “what-could’ve-been” plots like the original idea for the show with Star younger and non-magical annoying everyone around her with her big imagination of her being a magical girl princess), I kinda think maybe they rushed into it, but even so, it was a nice finale and it left a good memory for me. I found some nice people through this fandom and just to name a few there was that ever popular head cannon blog, @svtfoeheadcanons which than went onto @seddm. Thank you for your words and blog and answering some of my questions (even though it was kinda anon, but I think you might’ve recognized me from my writings) you are brilliant, @moringmark, your comics of the Starco/Jarco child clashing story were fun as well as your Starco Child Headquarters comic and I am now enjoying your “F.R.I.E.N.D.S” parody of the Past Queens of Mewni and also the Meteora and Mariposa comic, thank you for your comics, I always check on and comment on ‘em and last, but certainly not least, my good svtfoe friend, @agentpfangirl1997. Hey girl! I love how I found her and we chatted about what we thought about the show and checking each others reviews and fan arts of it. Her drawings are awesome! Glad I got to know such a great person. Even with the show, we still keep it alive through our love for it and will treasure it for years to come. Thank you, Daron Nefcy! @daronnefcy 

[dreamingofsecrets]

Giggles [Cisco Ramon x Reader]

Show: The Flash

Pairing: Cisco Ramon x Reader

Word Count: 1,483

Author's Notes: The italics is when you are communicating telepathically! I am a big fan of Cisco, I cannot get enough of him. I feel like there needs to be more love for him! I haven't written in a while so I would definitely love your feedback!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You stared at one of the computer screens hoping for a metahuman attack to drag you out of this boredom. Across from you sat a busy Cisco buried deep into his research. You couldn't help but stare at him as he rapidly tapped his fingers onto the keyboard, only to pause to remove his hair from his face.  

"Well look at you Cisco, so fast on those fingers you'd think it was Barry on there." A devilish smile appears on your face when you don't get Cisco's attention, you lean more onto the table and rest your cheek on your palm.

'Hey Cisco' You ring telepathically which makes him jump in his chair.

"____! I have told you to warn me before you do that!" He turns his direction towards you while placing his hand over his chest.

"You almost sent me to my grave ____." He takes big exaggerated breaths to prove how much you surprised him.

"I did warn you, but you were so concentrated you didn't hear me. I didn't meant to scare you but I also didn't want to interrupt you." You smile innocently earning an eye roll from Cisco.

"A tap on the shoulder would have worked just fine too." You can't help but laugh as his pouting expression.

"Cisco. I. Am. Bored. Everyone left a while ago, you stayed to finish your research for your tinkering and I had to stay since it is my turn keep watch. I'm still unsure what for when we have the magical app you came up with."

"____ not a magical app." He closes his eyes whilst shaking his head as he gets up from his chair to lean at the edge of the table you are at only to point an accusing finger at you.

"I tell you all the time-"

'It's not magical...I get it. But isn't it odd that as soon as I became part of Team Flash, all of a sudden we take turns where only I stay with someone else? I have not seen you or anyone else stay. Like I am incapable of being left on my own. I understand I don't have super strength or your pulses to attack, but I can still very much defend myself. I'm just not allowed to go and save people or fight.'

Cisco  calmly sits on the chair next to you, the one Iris always sits on, brushes his hair back with his hand and gives you a reassuring look. You return the gaze with a forced smile.

'It's not that we think you are incapable of defending yourself. But you are too pretty to go out and let the public see you.'You stick your tongue out at Cisco and kick his chair which makes him roll away from you.

'No. You can't make me feel better by complimenting me, but seriously though I can pretty much help. Not in the way I would love to.'

'Well what I was researching before you scared me half to death, I was able to come up with a device that could possibly boost your telepathy. You'll be one badass girl!'

You squealed happily while giving Cisco a hug and a kiss on the cheek. You were too lost in thought to see the blush appear on his face.

"Does this mean I may be able to do what I did to Barry by accident the other time?" You let go of Cisco and spin around in the chair.

"More or less.." He shyly looks away from you while scratching the back of his head.

You smiled contently as you spin remembering the time you were testing out your telepathic powers on Barry for the first time, you were having a normal conversation in your minds until he had said something that made you upset which made you 'brain push' him. It didn't hurt Barry but you left him in a state of confusion for a bit which made you excited and guilty. Since then Team Flash has been trying to train you to maximize that 'brain push'.

"___ I still cannot believe you didn't let me name it something cooler."

"If I did you might have probably picked something from Pokémon or that Star Trek Wars." Cisco stops your chair and grabs you by the shoulders. You feel a tiny electric tingle as you look up at him yet remain silent as you try to think nothing of the tingle, so he won't hear your thoughts.

That was one drawback of your powers; you could read anyone's thoughts up to 30 feet away and you could choose who was welcomed to your mind, but the moment anyone touched you skin-on-skin they were in your mind unless you let go of them or pushed them away. Cisco had given you gloves but you only ever wore them in public and you usually wore a sweater, but right now you wore a shirt that exposed your shoulders.

"____?" Cisco lets go of your shoulders when he realizes you zoned out. You blink and nod. You didn't realize you had zoned out to prevent him from reading your mind which was something you have never done before.

"Sorry ____ I didn't mean to grab you, but I had to stop you right there. Star Trek Wars?? In what world is that.. wait. HR probably knows. But in this world that we both live in.. Nuh-uh! Not in my presence girl." He pulls you up by the hand and leads you to his workshop.

He lets go of your hand to grab a device from his table. He motions you to the chair which you quickly walk to, as you take a seat you notice some sort of headband in his hands.

"I was unsure if it had to be near your head, so for now I made it into this headband! Afterwards I can make it to something more comfortable." He softly pushes your hair away from your face and without skipping a beat he gently places the headband on your head. His left fingers linger behind your ear as you hear him moving some sort of knob. A sudden thought comes into your mind.

"Cisco?" He doesn't seem to have heard you due to him being too concentrated on his device. You grab his arm which causes him to halt on the device and is able to hear your thoughts by touch.

'You aren't going to make me use it on you right now. Are you?'

"No I was going to call Barry. I know how much you love doing it to him." He chuckles as he returns to the settings.

"Better him than you." A small blush appears on your face but he doesn't notice as he takes out his phone.

"I'm flattered ____. You do think of my wellbeing." Cisco laughs with his cheesy smile and begins to message Barry. You remain in your thoughts excited to practice on The Flash.

'Of course, I wouldn't dare hurt the guy I like.' You happily think to yourself.

"___? What?" His question brings you out of your thoughts, you notice him staring at you with a shocked look.

"Was that meant for me to hear ___?" You stare back puzzled until you realize you hadn't exactly said anything out loud or in your mind that was only meant for you.

"Cisco?"

"Y-yeah ___?"

"What exactly did you hear?" You close your eyes and rub your eyebrow in hopes to calm down the blush that starts to slowly creep on your face. The air in the room starts to get heavy you feel as if you can't breathe properly.

"You like me?" He says this slowly as you look up to face him. You can feel your heart beat louder with every passing second as you try to process what has just occurred.

"How exactly does this headband work?"

"It's supposed to maximize your powers, I didn't think it would allow me to be able to ..." He trails off,  remains quiet and soon after he has the biggest smile on his face. He leans closer to you and places a kiss on your forehead.

"___ I'm glad this happened. I like you too." He removes the headband from your head and then cups your cheek with his hand.

"I'll try to fix this so no one can hear that beautiful secret." He laughs as you blush, you playfully punch him on the shoulder and giggle.

You were actually quite happy with how this eventful night ended, even after those hectic feelings. When Cisco decided to take a break from the headband to finish up until the next day, he drove you home and promised that he wouldn't say anything until you were ready. You were glad for that so leaned in and kissed him right before you got out the van.

[apocalypseprodromus]

Barriers Between (Chapter 4)

Warning: Angst. And Yandere behavior... And pretty fricking long!

Being forcefully pulled by her arm, Trinitas took this opportunity to admire the handsome young man in front of her. He was strangely attractive when he was angered. They finally came to a stop somewhere outside the pocket dimension.

“I’m sorry for what happened back there. I don’t know why you’re upset but you shouldn’t be. These are my problems, not yours.” Trinitas despondently uttered.

Squall didn’t know how to reply. He didn’t want her thinking he was somehow angry at her. In fact, he sympathized with her. The two of them had more similarities than they initially understood.

“We’re in the same boat.” Squall smiled bleakly. “Our fears aren’t so different.”

She couldn’t discern what he meant from those words. Instead, she grabs his hand while her eyes glowed a shade of emerald for half a second.

At that moment she understood what he meant...

Standing puzzled as to what she was doing with his hand, a voice other than his own entered his mind.

I’m not going to abandon you. As long as you don’t do that to me. I want to be a constant in your life for as long as I’m able. It’s so easy to denounce the promises of others as plain lies, and I know words don’t count for much if you never follow through with them. Let me fill the void left by others. I want to be all you’ll ever need and you can be the same for me. I don’t care what’s on the inside, it’s you... and that’s all it’ll ever need to be.

Squall looked back at the girl in wonderment of her abilities as she drew closer to him. Playing with his hand, delicate fingertips skimmed the leather on the knuckles of his gloves.

He’d never understand her, but perhaps he didn’t need to. “Let’s just get going.” He broke her out of her trance quietly before starting off in a new direction.

“You betcha!” She exclaimed before running to his side.

-

“So, if my crystal heart isn’t the crystal I’m supposed to look for, what could it possibly be?” Trinitas looked to the gemstone organ she got back from Squall in the previous ‘cycle’ as it were.

“It’s supposed to be something representative of who you are. It’s one of those ‘you’ll know it when you see it’ type of deals.” Squall shrugged.

“Hm.” She acknowledged what he said but it still left more questions than answers.

“We’ll get it... somehow.” Squall assured the momentarily distant girl.

“I wonder where the others are...” Trinitas mused.

Squall sighed as he looked to the side and saw ‘others’ in the distance. He stopped Trinitas and turned her to the side. “There you go. Play nice with the other children.”

Trinitas’ vision caught the sight of some fellow Warriors of Cosmos. “Very funny Squall.” Her tone far from actual amusement.

Squall often teased her about her short stature, in conjunction with her hot-headedness. For a harbinger of ill tidings, she was rather unintimidating and unassuming. But she continuously claimed it worked in her favor, despite the drawbacks of perpetually looking like a 15-year-old.

“You laugh now but just watch! No one ever suspects the things I’m capable of.”

“I have firsthand knowledge you know. Don’t think I could forget about that.” Squall remembers a time where Trinitas used someone’s face as a springboard, before landing elegantly with the soles of her shoes digging firmly into their crotch.

How classy. While the memory makes Squall simultaneously want to roll his eyes and contemplate the safety of his own crotch, he can’t help but be impressed by his partner’s agility.

“Hey, guys!” The call of the Cosmos warriors alluded to before catches their attention. Zidane and Bartz run to catch up to the two of them.

Squall feels a slight pang of irritation from the smile Trinitas gave to them.

“So, are you two still looking for your crystals?” She remarked casually.

Zidane and Bartz began talking to the green-eyed girl but Squall couldn’t help but feel green-eyed himself at the prospect of the conversation. He didn't really take into account what they said anymore. What caught his attention was how close Zidane was attempting to get to Trinitas. The blond male seemed to notice Squall’s icy piercing glare and seemed to get the message.

“We’ll leave you guys to it! Let’s go, Bartz.” Zidane cheerily bid, calmly walking away from the brunette female and her menacing teammate.

“Um, shouldn’t we be working together?” Bartz tried to suggest.

Zidane met Squall’s frigid gaze once more and dismissed the notion outright. “They’ll be fine by themselves. We’ll also cover a lot more ground that way. See ya’ guys later!”

“I guess we’ll be going now,” Bartz stated baffled at Zidane’s counter excuse. “Good luck, you two!” He chirped before his eyes caught sight of Squall.

He quickly felt unwelcome.

“That was strange. Let’s get to finding those crystals!” Trinitas shouted, ignoring the bizarre tone of their farewells.

Squall followed closely to the young woman in front of him, his mind slightly dazed from the experience.

What was that? I don’t remember ever feeling that emotion before.

-

The duo had traveled for what seemed like a day and a half, having met Laguna at the Crystal Tower, a small area with a courtyard.

The blue dressed gunman watched as Firion and a few others made their departures. “He’s pretty interesting.”

“Of course you’d think that.” Squall muttered under his breath.

Laguna managed to catch what he said. “Well, don’t you think so? These guys carry weapons straight out of a fairy tale. Not to mention the magic they can use. They’ve got armor like I’ve never seen, and one of ‘em even has a tail! Oh yeah, the tail guy? He sure wasn’t happy when I yanked on it. That thing is real.”

Squall grimaced slightly. He yanked on it...?

Trinitas chuckled at the silly black-haired man. “Why would you do that?”

“Just wanted to know if it was real. Think about it, we’d never’ve met these people if all this hadn’t happened. Gotta take the chance to get to know ‘em.” Laguna held his hand to his chest. “Yep, expand our horizontals.”

Squall rolled his eyes. Horizontals? My first assumption was accurate. This guy is a moron...

“Um, it’s horizons. Also, would you’ve liked it if I yanked on your tail?” Trinitas surmised from his monologue, her hands sassily on her hips.

“Wouldn’t know, I don’t have one. Ya’ know, you’re rather fascinating too, Trinitas. You’re dressed like a modern-day gothic princess and give off this eerie vibe, but you’re not really what others would assume of you.” Laguna retorted thoughtfully. “Looking at you not knowing who you were, I’d assume that you were some kind of primordial force or an angel of death. Not an optimistic altruistic idealist with a cosmic case of borderline personality disorder.”

Squall looked to Trinitas worriedly, afraid Laguna may have said something to depress her. Fortunately, Trinitas took no offense to the statements made by the older male. Trinitas smiles sadly. “You got me there.” She shrugged.

“And you...” Laguna turned his attention to Squall. “Well, you’re kind of a mystery yourself. Especially since your sentences are so few and far between. How d’you expect to make any friends?” Laguna reasons with a slight tilt of his head.

“This is a battlefield, why do I need to ‘make friends’? Why bother making friends when we’re all headed back to our own worlds anyway? Besides, I don’t want to make friends with people who don’t understand me.” Squall looked to Trinitas in the corner of his eye. She looked disheartened by his answer.

“So the solution is to just... what? Shut everyone out? That sounds very counter-productive to me. You can’t really be serious, can you? You're not even allowing anyone a chance to get to know you in the first place. For a grown man, that’s pretty naive. ‘If it’s not forever, there’s no point getting close to anyone. If they don’t understand me right off the bat, why bother?’.”

Squall grew a bit offended at Laguna’s mocking monotone of him but more so of Laguna misinterpreting his words. That’s not what I meant. Squall scowled at the raven nuisance.

“Listen. Even if we lived in the same world...”

Which we unfortunately do.

“... there’d come a time where life would pull us apart. S’not a reason to avoid people, that and them not understanding you. Even if it’s someone you love more than life itself, that time will come.” Laguna mused. Meanwhile, Squall glanced at Trinitas briefly.

“There’s no guarantee you’ll even get to say goodbye. But before that happens, you get to be together, right? You can’t just waste all that potential for a rewarding relationship, even if it means you hit some bumps along the road.”

The blue-eyed young man looked to his companion to see her nodding along with Laguna in agreement.

“Squall! Do you see what I’m saying? You gotta forget about the stuff you can’t change and enjoy the now! I guess what I mean is, let’s try to get along. You’d think you would’ve learned something from your time with Trin.” Laguna laughed as he walked away from the two young brunettes.

“He has a point, you know.”

“Shut up, Trin. Let’s go.” Squall didn’t bother looking down at her as he grasped her hand. He knew if he looked, he’d find a smug smirk on her face.

-

The road to finding the crystals was fraught with difficulties. Slowly other warriors began regaining their memories of the previous cycles with each victory. Some of them even managed to find their crystals. But the same couldn’t be said for Squall and Trinitas.

“It’s fine Trin. There are still some stragglers... We’ll find our crystals in time.” Squall tried reasoning with the erratic girl frantically pacing one of Rift’s grassy patches quizzically trying to deduce why they haven’t found theirs.

“I just want to make sure we have it before something bad happens! I didn’t retrieve it last time and everyone died! I fucked up and everyone else paid the price. I don’t want that to- NO, I can’t let that happen again!” Trinitas distraughtly bellowed, startling Squall.

She blames herself for this? That’s not right. “Trin, it wasn’t your fault that Chaos was more prepared than us. Not very many of us were even ready to face Chaos...” He trailed off as he noticed Trinitas leaving the area. He strides to catch up with her. “And where are you going?”

He didn’t get an immediate response which was bothering.

“I’m going off on my own.” She started floating in the air and Squall grabbed her leg attempting to pull her back to the ground before he found himself floating with her.

“We don’t need to split up, Trin! We just need to-”

“ENOUGH! LET GO, LEONHART!” Trinitas attempted to fly a little faster and get a little closer to the ground so she could kick him off of her. “Let go!” She screeched at the boy currently dangling from her boot.

“You were the one who said you wouldn’t abandon me! And I’d hate if anything happened to you!” Squall yelled back trying not to get kicked in the face by the agitated female. This made her stop recoiling her foot.

Her expression was grim as she hovered inches from the ground. “I’m immortal. Nothing I’ve ever tried has ever come close to ending me. I can’t die, Squall. I think you’re making excuses. What for? I may have told you that I’d stay but if I need to break that promise to find my crystal for everyone’s sake, so be it. You’re the one who believes our friendship is destined to fail anyway. We come from separate worlds, right? One day we’ll have to just... part. I’m sorry that it hurts, Squall. It hurts me too. But you know what would hurt worse? Is watching everyone die again, and not getting another opportunity to do what’s best for them. Squall, so long as I get my crystal I believe we can prevent another pointless tragedy. If it’s what I’m supposed to do then I’ll be okay. If not, then just make sure Chaos doesn’t win.”

Trinitas quickly teleported away before Squall could reply.

He felt his heart plummet in his chest. “Trin.”

-

The sky above turned a dark foreboding green sometime after Trinitas’ disappearance. His heart started racing and his vision got hazier. Something was wrong with Trinitas and his inner voice went haywire, repeating her name ceaselessly in his mind. He needed to find her, right now.

Squall searched everywhere for her, the rest of the Rift, the Phantom Train, the Crystal Tower, the World of Darkness, Ultimecia's Castle, the Old Chaos Shine... she didn’t seem to be anywhere.

He faced many Warriors of Chaos and came to the rescue of several of his comrades, not because he wanted to, only for the fact he was looking desperately for Trinitas.

When trying to speak to him he would start taking off to the next location on his mind. Other Cosmos Warriors noticed the look of hysteria on his face when he found out that what he was looking for wasn’t around and decided to follow him.

“Squall, what’s wrong? Where’s Trinitas, I thought she was with you?” Yuna tried stopping the panicked young man to no avail as he ran right past her Terra and Vaan.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that expression on his face before.” Vaan regarded anxiously.

“You think something bad happened to Trinitas?” Terra asked, concerned with the state of the smaller brunette.

“It must be. Squall’s not one to behave in such a berserk manner.” Yuna was still shocked by the usually taciturn individual bolting right past her.

“Guess we’re in agreement then. I’ll follow Squall, you two let everyone else know what’s going on then gather up some others to search for Trinitas.” Vaan declared

“Right!” Terra and Yuna proclaimed before going to find others and tell Cosmos respectively.

-

Squall ran across the vast grassland in the hopes that Trinitas would just be in the meadow but no, it’s not that simple. It never is. A white entryway occupied the space Trinitas normally sits in.

The bombardment of disturbing jargon became nothing more than background noise to his addled mind. He was more curious about why he’s acting this way but his body isn’t stopping for no one. Not even himself.

He passes through the portal of white light, unknowingly followed shortly after. The voices threatening to drive him insane abruptly halted.

This place is one he’s unfamiliar with. Tall white walls with equally as tall white stone pillars under a glass ceiling. The sky is a bright shade of blue with the sun hanging just barely in sight. The floor was covered by a black and silver-lined rug, underneath a grayscaled swirled marble ranging from black to white and every gray in between. On the pillars hung thin black banners with a silver skull ribcage and pelvis bone over-lapped by skeletal arms and bordered by a v-formatted pattern.

It can’t just be a coincidence that this all reminds me of Trinitas. She has to be here somewhere. Squall reasoned looking back behind the portal only to notice how dark the dead end looked. An undercurrent of ominousness told him to avoid the dark space.

He turned back to the double doors at the end of the short corridor before something else caught his eye. Above the doorframe, presented by the glass ceiling, he saw inky wisps of blackness rising from the glass dome in the next room. Too busy observing his surroundings he failed to realize that Vaan was hidden behind a pillar to his left, seeing exactly what he was seeing.

Squall rushed to the doors as they slowly opened in reaction to his proximity. Vaan quickly followed after, alerting Squall to his presence once inside the dark atrium. Squall didn’t bother caring where he came from. He only cared if he could help him look for her.

Squall looked to the center of the room and saw a small light almost completely drowned out by the darkness. As he got closer to it the figure took a familiar shape... Trinitas unconscious, and the outline of her crystal heart giving off the faintest amount of light he’s ever seen.

“Trin!” He whispered surprisingly catching Vaan’s attention, but before Vaan could make his way over a shadow hovering near Trinitas’ body stopped him from advancing. “Uh, Squall, I don’t know if you should...” Vaan’s words trailed off when he observed the determined brunette getting closer anyway.

Squall ran to Trinitas but was blocked by a shadow slowly given form. She looked eerily like Trinitas... 

This is not Trinitas.

This woman appeared slightly older than her, taller with her hair in a bun and eyes a murky viridian. A longer dress with long sleeves... And a T-shaped platinum looking scythe clutched in her left hand. She wore a menacing smile. 

“Welcome to Vulneris.” 

She raised her scythe faster than Squall could raise his gunblade and struck him away from Trinitas. Vaan ran to Squall’s side to see that he was livid.

“AND WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO BE?!” Squall hastily clamored to his feet shouting at the facsimile of his friend.

“Viridi. And I’m waiting for the last little light in Trinitas to go out. That is to say, I’m waiting for the corruption to spread to the Curator of Vulneris who’s currently underneath the terminal.” The woman referring to herself as ‘Viridi’ saunters over to the console hidden in the darkness of the room. “How are you doing, Soci? I know you’re still there.” Viridi taps the metal covering under the enormous immaculate slate holding the keyboard.

“Burn in Ifrit’s Inferno!” A voice more similar to Trinitas’ screeched from behind the metal.

A fireball flew at the women from beside Squall. “I can do that for ya’!” Vaan playfully yelled as he offered another incendiary. The first blitz hit its target but she dodged the second one advancing towards Vaan in a frenzy. Squall took it upon himself to cast Lightning Shot as she passed him, drawing her in close just enough for a Fated Circle.

The more they fought Viridi, the more light found its way into the atrium. If they had to kill this bitch to make things right then that was fine by Squall. After all... That wasn’t his Trinitas.

-

Sometime during the battle, reinforcements found their way to the strange pocket dimension Vulneris. Viridi didn’t go down easy, she might’ve even been immortal like Trinitas but they didn’t take the time to find out.

Trinitas’ body was moved out of the way and under the console during the fight while Viridi was preoccupied fending off the Warrior of Light, Cecil, Terra, Vaan, and Tifa.

“Will she be okay?” Squall asked Yuna anxiously. “She seems to be tied to this place, the brightness of Vulneris somehow matching the light of Trinitas’ crystal heart. And it seems to work the other way around. I’m sure that once the light returns to Vulneris, Trinitas will wake up.” Yuna tried to comfort her worried comrade.

“Glad I didn’t have to be Miss Exposition for once. Everything you said is true. This world is tied to Trinitas’ mental state. Viridi gains more power with Trinitas’ every emotional wound or mental scar.” A voice from behind the console’s bottom half declared.

“And no, I’m not coming out until that intruder has been dealt with!” Soci’s muffled voice called to the two warriors talking beside the console.

“How do we defeat her?” Yuna asked the person on the other side.

“You don’t. Even if she wasn’t an original part of Vulneris, she’ll just come back in response to Trinitas’ mental duress. The most you can do is weaken her, drive her back into the dark and close the door.” Soci blandly stated.

And that’s what they chose to do.

Squall and Yuna ran off to join the fight, attempting to repel the incessant threat.

-

The jarring slam to a door shutting brought the combat to an end. Viridi was now locked behind closed doors for now, and the light was slowly restored to Vulneris. 

Soci removed herself from a hatch beneath the console. “Thanks for that. Both for myself and Trinitas. Although... all of you should probably get yourselves and Trinitas out of here. I’m not really content having Trinitas so close to Viridi, even now. Perhaps I’ll see you all again in the future when I’ll be better able to explain the intricacies of this place.”

The woman was more similar to the darkly dressed Trinitas. Her hair has the same shade of dark brown but cut chin-length. Her eyes are grey-green. Her clothing was a greyish white dress of modest length with no sleeves. It matched her mild-mannered nature.

Squall picked up Trinitas, about to follow the others out when Soci stopped him. “Squall, please for the love of Shiva, please be extra careful with Trinitas. You hold her heart the closest, she trusts you and believes in you. Don’t make her think you don’t care... ever.” Soci solemnly finished her warning letting Squall leave with her charge.

Squall thought good and long about what Soci said to him holding Trinitas’ sleeping form tighter to himself. He began to feel a soft grasp on him. Squall’s eyes met Trinitas’ as they peered weakly at him.

“I’m sorry I ran off, that you had to come to my rescue, that I’m weak without you.” She ashamedly hung her head, tears gathering in her eyes.

Squall shook his head disapprovingly but smiling nonetheless. “I’m not upset with you. I’m proud that you had the courage to try to go it alone. Even if what I learned is that there’s no shame in relying on others. The way I rely on you... The way I can’t do this without you. I can’t make it alone, but I’m not. I have you. And even if I never see you again, I’ll still remember our time together and it’ll be enough for me.”

Before the affirmations could conclude a light hovered about them. Two silver crystals were enveloped in its radiance, one a cluster of silvery spikes, the other a replica silver crystal of the emblem found in Vulneris.

They finally found their crystals. They finally had the strength they needed to face the future, and all it really took... was one another.

-

The days that followed involved helping other Cosmos Warriors obtain their crystals, however it was required. There was a day of rest offered before the fight would be brought to Chaos’ doorstep. Everyone took the time to talk about battle strategy, their worlds, their dreams...

Trinitas recounted her journey from Insomnia to Altissia with Noctis Gladiolus Prompto and Ignis. The downright fearful attitude she had throughout the journey, how scared the people she met along the way made her feel. How she wished she’d enjoyed it more instead of spending time worrying about the future. 

Despite the torment, it was rewarding to see how life carried on. Even when all hope seems lost... when life loses all it's color, flavor, texture, fragrance, melody... its very meaning. What do you do when you go numb from existence? How do you handle loss? You just keep finding something else to tether yourself to. She pushed others away, believing they were out to abuse her trust. That they wanted to get close to her for ulterior purposes. These people stuck their necks out for her. It didn’t matter what the reason was. They still worried more for her as an ally than an asset. It felt so rare to be treated like a regular person by strangers.

Strangers... Another thing she regretted. That she was only truly getting to know these people now.

The conversations continued from dawn ‘til dusk. When it was finally time to call it quits, Trinitas snuck out of Order’s Sanctuary to the Rift.

-

Once there she noted how the night sky looked identical to that one night she spent with Squall in the last cycle. A green and blue hue with no noticeable discrepancies.

“This familiar to you too?” The comforting baritone of Squall’s voice alerted her at first but still elicited a sense of tranquility.

“How did you know-”

“I followed you out of Order’s Sanctuary. It’s not safe to go wandering out by yourself. Immortal or not, I still get worried.” Squall kept his gaze on her’s as her eyes lit up.

“Well, that’s very sweet of you, Squall. It’s nice to know you care.” Trinitas beamed.

He made his way beside her sitting to her right like the night they spent together last time. “If you love someone, it’s only natural to care about them, right?” Squall coyly shrugged in response.

She was taken aback by that one little word... love.

“You love me?” Trinitas was stunned. “Wait, like a friend or something... more?”

In response Squall slowly drew his face closer to her’s, stopping just enough that her eyes became his center of vision. He held her head in his hands closing his eyes before finally saying what’s been on his mind lately. “I love you, Trinitas, And if I only get one chance to say it, I want that chance to be now.” He murmured in a humble tone.

While his eyes were closed, Trinitas grabbed his face and found herself entranced when his eyes opened again. “I love you too, Squall.”

A breath he wasn’t even aware he was holding finally escaped him in a sigh of relief. He smiled sweetly at her before planting a delicate kiss on her lips.

When he pulled away and began pressing smaller kisses to her face and neck, Trinitas giggled as she playfully shoved him away. Squall’s grin never faded.

He was content sharing this moment with her for what it was; A moment. And while he may be disappointed at the prospect of losing her, not having used the opportunity to tell her how he felt would’ve hurt him far more.

The duo made their way back to Order’s Sanctuary for the night. The next morning, they would be preparing to march into the Lands of Discord.

[ionica01]

A Cup of Magic 7

I’ve just remembered I haven’t updated this in forever I’m a horrible disgusting human being who doesn’t deserve to live another day!

Anyhooow, here is my favourite chapter up to date! It’s all thanks to @kitanoko who brainstormed the last scene with me! Thanks, Dora!

Chapter 7: Smiles that Bend Science to Their Will

Shouto neither likes nor hates crowded places. In fact, there aren't many things he cares for enough to “like” or “hate” them. Unless something or someone goes out of their way to step on his toes, he doesn’t see any reason to make an effort to label them as “likeable” or “dislikeable”. There are just better things he can do during that time, like focusing on his studies or calling his sister. Occasionally, he goes out with Midoriya- mostly when he has to buy a present for Uraraka, his girlfriend of almost three years now, and spends 3 to 4 hours freaking out before giving in and calling Shouto and Iida for help.

The cafe he goes to daily used to be neutral, too. One would argue that visiting it with the religious regularity Shouto does proves otherwise, but that wasn’t the case. The place was quiet enough for him to study, but not so quiet that it would leave him time to dwell on the cold, dark apartment that he could never bring himself to call home. The people working there were nice, although Shouto sometimes thought they smiled too much (and he pitied them for the muscle pain in their cheeks), but not so nice that he’d bother learning their names.

As he crouches to the ground, pulling cat food out of one pocket, Shouto feels the weight of the other bag he’s carrying- a brown paper bag, one that didn’t use to hang from his hand merely a few days ago.

The cat Shouto feeds every day on his way to the cafe peeks shily from the bushes, recognises her benefactor and approaches. She sniffs at her food and pushes her head in Shouto’s open palm before nibbling on the treat. He scratches her between her ears, and thinks that some things never change.

This cat, for example, is here every day, a constant in his life, an anchor that Shouto has tied himself to, afraid to lose himself otherwise. He doesn’t know exactly where he’d lose himself- whether it be in life or just in the mix of threads that he doesn’t dare separate called feelings- but he knows he can’t let her go, no matter what.

But there are variables in his life, too- they are usually the ones Shouto at least despises, if not outright hates. There was having to move out, for instance, leaving the calm lifestyle he shared with his sister and being left to fend for himself. There’s the fridge that can’t refill itself and the convenience store that was only two blocks away that closed down last week, so now Shouto has to take a fifteen minute walk when he doesn’t feel like falling asleep to the grumbles of his stomach.

And then there’s her.

She’s the one exception to every single one of the feeble rules that dictate Shouto’s life. One day, she waltzed up to the bar instead of the man who drew smiles on his cup and started talking to him without any ulterior motive. She made him want to remember the names of the baristas in the cafe, and told him stories about them that gave them a background and made them feel real. She made him add a dessert to every cup of indifferent green tea he drank.

She forced A Cup of Magic off the “indifferent” list where Shouto had pinned it and put it on the very short list of things Shouto likes. His mother and sister. His older twin brothers, when they aren’t teasing him. Midoriya and Iida. His cat. Green tea. Dancing. Classical music.

A Cup of Magic.

Momo.

He gets up and the weight of the brown bag tugs on his hand, but it somehow doesn’t feel like a burden. It’s quite the opposite, Shouto thinks, not without surprise: the changes that she brought in his life make him lighter, and he walks towards the cafe as if he grew wings. He spares the stray cat a last look, but she has already ducked her head and sprang in the narrow alleyway where she hides most of the day.

The path to the cafe is always the same, barely visible under the people rushing out of university to grab their daily caffeine supply, hopefully enough to last them until their evening classes are over. Shouto inwardly sighs relieved, thinking that being a third year brings several advantages, one of which is the loose program. His backpack, heavy with research material, reminds him what the price for his freedom is.

People rushing in and out of the cafe make the chimes jingle almost without pause, but it doesn’t bother Shouto. Its chirp is actually one of his favourite sounds now, because whenever it pierces through the atmospheric music, it makes her lift her head, her eyes tracking the shop to him and her face breaking into a wide smile.

This smile is perhaps number 1 on Shouto’s list of favourite things. When he was in highschool, he had to explain the passage “and when she smiled, the stars lit up and the world stopped moving all at once” in an exam. He remembers thinking that the sentence was quite pretentious, and that it was a clear exaggeration to emphasise the character’s feelings.

Shouto regrets not remembering who wrote that passage, because he’d like to tell him that he now understands. He understands it’s actually a simplification of the real feeling, or that the author hasn’t seen her smile, in which case Shouto pities him, because he’s certain that her smile is the single, most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

The night sky is nothing in comparison to her smiling face, and no star has anything on the way her eyes sparkle with genuine emotion. It reminds Shouto of his mother’s face when she sees him enter her perfectly white room,but it's different from that, because it sets his heart racing and makes him feel something he didn’t know he was capable of mustering.

As he sits in line, Shouto watches her serve everyone with a smile, and realises he may have gone crazy, because he’s positive that the smile she gives him is different. For once, her lips part just barely when she sees him, revealing pearl-like teeth, and her honest onyx eyes glint with something unidentifiable. He wonders if that is the cause for the fuzzy feeling in his chest whose name he has googled more times that he can remember, but found only gibberish: he’s either in love or dying.

“Hello,” she greets him when it’s finally his turn, and it rolls of her tongue naturally, as if she knew he would be there around now. She effortlessly drows a cup from the stack on the counter and starts writing his name, about to jot down the usual order when Shouto stops her.

“I want the Winter Wonderland today,” he throws away one more constant in his life out of the window but regrets nothing, because after she blinks confused she smiles. Shouto wonders if it would be too weird to take a picture of it and make it his wallpaper.

Instead of drawing out his phone though, he puts the brown bag on the counter. “They had blueberry filling today,” he says and watches her smile bloom into a grin. There’s that surge of happiness in his chest again, the one Shouto would like to get checked at a hospital, but he does his best not to let it show on his face. She worried so much about his cold hand that he doesn’t want her to have a heart attack when she hears his heart is beating too fast.

“Thank you,” she nods and hands the cup over to Uravity. The name feels weird in Shouto’s mind- he’s only recently began referring to the round-faced, brown-haired girl like that.

He leaves the counter faster than he wants to. Uravity gives him a smile with a tilt of something daring to it, but he doesn’t dwell on the meaning of her dimples when he notices that she looks more flushed than usual.

“Are you feeling alright?” he asks as he picks up his drink.

“Of course!” She nods less energetically than usual, and Shouto can’t help but feel a pang of sharp pain through his chest. The last time he felt that was when Momo almost fell on Friday, and when Midoriya broke his arm last year. He gulps the fear back and lingers a moment longer than needed, deciding to retreat in the end.

Still worried about Uravity, Shouto has difficulty in focusing on his work, and contemplates the drawbacks of putting living beings on his “like” list- they make him concerned when they are feeling unwell. He catches himself staring at Momo and loosens a breath he didn’t realise he was holding.

When he first chose this seat, it was because it felt secure, hidden in a corner of the cafe, protecting him from the buzz of the counter. He can now see another advantage to it: from here, he can watch the baristas work around the customers, swirling on their heels to deliver the orders. Sometimes, Shouto is sure they will collide and holds his breath, but the staff is so tightly knit together that it’s like they know what path the others will take, and they dance by each other effortlessly.

He never used to watch the people, preferring the calming mahogany of the wooden furniture. The counter with its countless little drawers for herbal infusions, the jars of ground coffee and the general smell of the shop are exactly how Shouto imagined a witch’s house in the stories his mother used to read to him. But the air smelling of melted chocolate and the music that lures him into a drowsy state are proof enough that whichever witch designed A Cup of Magic must have worked against the forces of evil.

In the middle of the buzz hour, from the counter where good witches (fairies, perhaps?) hide, Momo finds a smile for everyone, and Shouto loses track of time as he watches her. He wouldn't describe himself as a stalker, but he doesn’t stare at her like she’s a work of art either, though granted, she is beautiful. Watching her is more of a healing process for Shouto, as it inexplicably makes him feel at ease and brings him peace of mind, inducing that kind of mentality he needs to sort through his thermodynamics assignments.

Today is just another one of those calm days when he loses himself in the pace of the cafe and in his work, or at least that’s what Shouto thinks. And until he empties half of his drink and finishes the bulk of his homework for All Might, nothing proves him wrong.

And then there’s a thud.

It’s so loud that Shouto looks up from his research immediately and almost jumps from his seat when he sees it. It all happens too quickly, but he’s at the counter before he knows what willed his feet to move, elbowing his way through the growing crowd around the island.

“Uravity!” Momo raises her voice in the commotion, and Shouto hears it before he can see the scene. “Ochako!” she yells now, and Shouto freezes just as his eyes fall upon the scene, because he knows that name and how hasn’t he made the connection before?

“Hey, Midoriya, what’s with that bracelet you’re always wearing?” Shouto asks as he watches Midoriya sigh in relief, clenching his fist around the bracelet that almost fell into the centrifugal wheel.

He looks up and smiles sheepishly, one finger absentmindedly tracing the symbol of infinity carved in metal and tied by two straps of green leather over his wrist, where it has been ever since Shouto met him. “It was a gift from my girlfriend,” he admits and blushes at the use of the word.

Shouto isn’t surprised that Midoriya has a girlfriend, despite him never bragging about her. He guesses it might be the “Uraraka” that keeps popping up in their discussions.

Still, Midoriya adds, “I bought her a pendant in the shape of infinity for her birthday, and she bought me this for Christmas. I guess we were thinking of the same thing.”

The way Midoriya talks is nonchalant, but there’s a serene look on his face and he keeps tracking the outline of his bracelet with a faraway look that tells Shouto there’s more to it than just a present. He doesn’t really get “love”, but his sister has tortured him with enough cheesy romance movies to teach him that matching items are more than just a coincidence.

They’re an unspoken promise.

The pendant hanging around Uravity’s neck reflects the light of the cafe and it burns Shouto’s retinas. He jumps over the counter before anyone can stop him.

“Uraraka, are you okay?” The words rip from his throat as if they’re too big to get out and need to be pulled by force.

She flashes him a weak smile. “It’s nothing, I’m just a bit dizzy.”

“You fainted!” Momo says as she wipes Uraraka’s brow and frowns. “Ah, as expected, you have a fever. This isn’t nothing. You need to get home and rest.”

“It’s fine, I can at least finish my shift. The shop is crowded and-” she speaks softly, her eyelids half closed despite her efforts to seem okay. Shouto glances around the counter, where Sato is keeping the others at bay and assuring them their favourite Uravity is alright, but he doesn’t look too convinced of the fact himself.

“I’ll call Midoriya to pick you up,” Shouto decides after giving Uraraka a pointed look and blaming himself for not pushing for details earlier.

“Deku?” Uraraka faintly menages, and flaps her hands weakly in front of her. “He’ll get worried, don’t-”

But it’s too late. Midoriya picks up from the third ring and asks, “Todoroki? This is rare, is everything alright?”

He ignores Momo’s flicker of curiosity amidst the worry for Uraraka that paints her face and breathes in. “I need you to come to the coffee shop next to the university. Uraraka has collapsed.”

He hears Midoriya get up and there’s rustling on the other end of the phone. “Is she awake? Wait, how do you- actually no, do I need to bring something?” There’s the jingle of keys accompanying the urgency in his tone and then tensed silence.

“No. She has a fever and passed out earlier, but no other symptoms.”

He looks at Momo for more details, but she only mumbles,  “Probably from overworking herself.”

There’s rustling again, and then the thud of Midoriya’s footsteps against cement. “Thank you for letting me know. Please look after her until I get there.”

Shouto can read the modulations in Midoriya’s voice, the confusion, the worry and the adrenaline rush, the fear caused by his attachment to Uraraka, and wonders if he ever was or will be so concerned about someone. His eyes flicker to Momo and he wonders how he would react if someone called to tell him she had fainted. He decides he doesn’t want to know the answer.

“Will do,” he assures Midoriya and hangs up. “He should be here in about 15 minutes,” he informs the girls after he quickly calculates how far Midoriya’s apartment is. Maybe 10, if he runs.

“Thank you,” Momo says and doesn’t ask why he knows Midoriya or that Uraraka is his girlfriend, but instead allows herself to look a bit relieved. Shouto glances down at Ochako, whose cheeks have grown even redder. She stops resisting Midoriya’s arrival, using the energy she has left to inhale the mint Momo has placed under her nose to clear her nostrils. “We should carry her to the lockers,” Momo says, not taking her eyes off Uraraka.

“I’ll do it,” he offers. Nobody complains as he scoops up Uraraka, trying to figure out how to carry her without making her uncomfortable. He tucks a hand under her knees and one rests on the small of her back, and she adjusts by circling his throat with one of her arms, weakly clinging to him.

She’s surprisingly light, and Shouto suddenly feels like she’s fragile, an object that can break as a result of his own carelessness, and he lightens his grip on her, just enough so he won’t drop her. Is this what it means to be protective?

“I’m sorry,” she mutters under her breath, so only Shouto can hear.

He doesn’t know what she’s apologising for, but he mutters back, “It’s okay. He’ll be here soon.”

He feels her nod against his chest, and despite her state, a fond smile curls around her lips, one that Shouto think only people that have others to worry for them can show. It’s new, seeing the bouncy Uravity show this side of her, and it only solidifies her place on the list of things Shouto cares for.

Momo jumbles with the keys, unlocking the space reserved to the staff members. As soon as they’re in, she makes Uraraka sit down, and then she dips a cloth in freshwater and places it on Uraraka’s forehead. The next five minutes are more of Momo running around the locker, searching her purse for pills and asking Sato to fix their friend a cup of chamomile tea, all while Uraraka declines the attention and care directed in her way.

“Listen,” Momo eventually snaps, cutting through all that Uraraka has to say. “You are sick and we are your friends, so would you just shut up and let us help you?” She doesn’t wait for an answer and hands the cloth she had just peeled off Uraraka’s forehead to Shouto before leaving to get the tea and a blanket.

Left alone with Uraraka, Shouto finds himself saying “She’s right.” He doesn’t know what prompted him to talk, but her curious look makes him continue, “People would naturally worry about you because they care. I think this is proof you’re important to them,” he tells her as he brushes her bangs apart and puts the now cold again cloth on her forehead. The image of his sister doing the same for him after he had fallen in a frozen pond when he was 6 flashes before his eyes and he smiles a little.

Uraraka mirrors the smile. “You’re right. Thank you,” she says weakly and lays on the bench she’s resting on. “Momo’s going to lecture me once I get better, isn’t she?” she mumbles to herself.

“Probably,” Shouto admits. Her having a cold doesn’t mean he should lie to her.

Momo enters the room shortly thereafter, a fluffy blanket in her arms and a cup of tea fuming in her hand. “Here,” she hands Shouto the drink and proceeds to wrap Uraraka like a baby, which elicits a small giggle out of the sick girl. Momo’s eyebrows arch, but Shouto notices a fond smile nestling on her lips and feels himself relax. Somehow, it feels like, if Momo’s here, nothing can go wrong.

Midoriya is escorted in by Sato only two minutes later, panting and cheeks red, and Shouto concludes he must have ran all the way here- he only needed 8 minutes, too.

“Ah, Deku!” Uraraka greets from her cocoon of blankets and warmth.

Nobody has a chance to explain what happened, because Midoriya closes the distance between him and Uraraka in an instant and presses a hand against her forehead, checking her temperature. His face darkens as he asks, “Does anything hurt? Throat? Head? Since when? Do you need medicine?”

He only stops when Uraraka muffles his mouth with her hand. “I won’t die, Deku,” she says lightly, but as he removes her hand from his face gently, her smile withers, because he looks dead serious.

“I know,” he sighs, squeezing her hand tightly. “But I hate seeing you suffer.”

Shouto can only watch silently, retreating in a corner to give the couple space. They look like they are already family, and Shouto notices the bracelet hanging from Deku’s wrist again. He know finds the answer to his earlier question: this is being protective.

Something brushes against his arm and Shouto sees Momo has retreated next to him. “She’ll be fine now,” she says confidently and Shouto can only nod in return. She’s in good hands.

After Midoriya is done with his interrogating Uraraka and thanking the staff for looking after her, he listens to Momo’s instructions and picks Uraraka up, together with her blanket, piggyback style. He thanks Shouto for a tenth time and is about to leave when Uraraka yelps, “What about my shift? The cafe-”

“We can manage,” Momo assures her. Shouto steals a glance outside the lockers and wonders if two people can really face that crowd. Momo is smiling confidently, but it’s probably for Uraraka’s sake.

“I can do it,” Shouto says before he meaning of the words that have left his mouth sink in and feels everyone staring at him.

***

When Shouto suddenly offered to take over Uraraka’s shift, Momo wasn’t sure she heard him right. And yet here he is, blue apron tied around his waist, jotting down orders, taking his job as serious as he takes his studies. She had her doubts about suddenly dumping the job on him- the new baristas usually undergo a thorough training- but he caught the drift of taking orders fast.

He’s handling the customers politely, but he’s a bit rusty with his smiles and doesn’t seem to be aware of the many first time female customers ogling him. When he was sitting in a corner of the cafe, he was safe from prying eyes, but here, in his uniform and in everyone’s view, Momo can’t deny he looks dashingly good. She shakes the pang of jealousy she feels- she has no right to feel that way, and it benefits their business so-

“-mo. Momo,” someone calls her. When she whips her head around, she’s met with mismatched eyes too close for comfort and feels the blood rising to her cheeks. “Did you catch a cold, as well?” Shouto asks and is about to press his palm to her forehead.

She takes a step back and smiles what she hopes to be a convincing smile. “No, I’m alright. Do you need help with something?”

He doesn’t look persuaded, but only says, “It’s almost closing time. Should I inform that group?” he asks, pointing towards the five or so teenager girls batting their eyelashes sweetly at him.

Momo’s eyes shift from him to them and back to him. He hasn’t even spared them a sideways glance. She feels stupid now, because it’s obvious he has taken no interest in his fans, and she made him worry, too. “It’s alright, I can tell them,” she smiles, suddenly feeling pity for the girls.

“Okay. I’ll start cleaning up then,” he says as he picks a wiping cloth and make his way towards the back corner, but not as a customer this time.

***

The shop is mostly empty, save for the two people swiping the floor. Sato left early today, excusing himself to go pick up his parents from the train station- he has been excited about their visiting his new apartment and workplace for a while now- and Momo assured him she and Shouto could close up just fine.

She would like to thank him somehow, but she also has oh so many questions to ask: how does he know Midoriya? Did he know Ochako was Midoriya’s girlfriend? Why did he offer to help? So many words bubble up inside her, racing to get out the fastest, that she can’t decide what to say.

Because she can’t speak, she supposes she’d let music do it for her, and fishes an old vinyl disc from the back room.

When the music fills the shop with its first violin accords, he raises his eyes from the wooden tiles on the floor. “Strauss-The Blue Danube,” he immediately recognises the piece. “Switching back to classical music?” he asks, but it’s more of an observation than an actual question.

She feels it would be too cheesy to admit that she’s associated the piece with Shouto ever since she saw him, because of his blue eye and serene atmosphere surrounding him. Instead, she says, “It was the least I could do. After all, you’ve been a huge help today.”

She doesn’t know how she expected him to react, but it certainly wasn’t like this, because after he stares at her for almost a whole minute, seemingly pondering something, he lets the broom rest against a table and stretches his hand out to her. Momo’s eyes dart towards the old pickup, and then back to him, wondering if she’s misunderstanding.

“Do you want to dance?” he voices her thoughts out loud.

She doesn’t get a chance to answer more properly than with a nod: as soon as she approves, he takes her hand and leads the well known waltz, spinning her around the tables in the cafe. Momo quickly finds her pacing, and she also finds out that Shouto is a great dancer. She doesn’t know many people that could whirl around the chairs and armchairs without skipping a beat.

“You’re good at this,” she eventually decides to tell him, after they’ve almost completed a tour of the entire shop.

It may be her imagination- as this whole evening could be, because what barista’s normal shift culminates with waltzing in the closed shop with dim lights- but his lips crook into something akin to a smirk. “I may have not taken piano or violin lessons, but I didn’t escape the dance classes. And apparently, neither did you.”

Under normal circumstances, Momo would blush, but the song just got faster and she has already decided this is a dream, so she smirks back. Maybe it’s because of the music, or the unrealistic situation, or just the timing, but the words finally reach her lips and fall off them with ease. “So you know Midoriya?”

He doesn’t hesitate to answer either. “Yes, he is my friend. We’ve been having classes together ever since the start of the year.”

“So you’re a Physics major?” There’s more spinning, more avoiding tables, more music, more talking. She doesn’t know if he has pulled her closer or if her body moved on her own, but she is close enough to realise he is just a bit taller than her, and to look into his mismatched eyes. She decides that people who say that heterochromatic eyes are confusing are lying.

“Yes. Well, actually, I’m a Thermodynamics major, and Midoriya’s a Quantum Mechanics major, so we only have a handful of classes together.”

“Then I imagine you must be quite good friends if you knew Ochako.”

“Actually, I’ve never seen them together. He did tell me a few things about her, though. I should have recognised her sooner.” Something curtains his eyes and Momo can tell it’s concern, so she changes the subject.

“I’m a Chemistry major. Food Chemistry, to be exact.”

There’s silence as their feet slow down with the music, and she wonders if she failed to distract him, but then he says, “It fits you.”

“How so?”

He pinpoints her with his mismatched eyes, and spins her for the last encore. “You look like you want to break the world apart and rebuild it so that everybody will be happy,” he says as the last notes of The Blue Danube echo in the shop, and then adds,  "When it's you that says they believe in magic, I almost believe it, too."

They come to a halt as the melody dies out. For a moment, she stares at him blankly, too focused on his words to even wheeze after the waltz, still holding his hand- the hot one.

“Is something wrong?” he asks, not letting go of her either, and she wonders if she made him worry again.

“Nothing,” she smiles, and the smile blooms into a giggle that escalates into a genuine laugh. He looks at her weirdly, but she just finds the situation too bizarre to react to in any other way. It’s not long before she hears a deep chuckle, like a purr, mingle with her own and she laughs even louder.

Maybe Ochako was right after all. Maybe she does have a crush on him.

[accidental-ducky]

How Love Goes (Steter, Mortal Instruments AU)

Peter has seen the young warlock around the bookstore a few times before, usually browsing through the fantasy section while a Shadowhunter lurked nearby. He was handsome as far as warlocks go, little horns curling up from his forehead that only those with the Sight were able to see, and even then they were nearly obscured by his carefully styled brown hair.

The Shadowhunter with him wasn’t nearly so interesting, just a girl with distrusting eyes and the thick lines of Runes dotted here and there when clothing wasn’t obscuring them. The only interesting thing about her was the scent of an Alpha that clung to her, and there weren’t very many of those in California as a whole. In fact, there were only two and something told Peter that she wasn’t hanging around Deucalion.

Either way, Peter did his best to put the teenager out of his mind as he went back to the novel propped up on his knee. He had more pressing issues to worry about, like the fact that the Seelie Queen—bitch that she is—is demanding an audience with the leaders of certain groups of Downworlders. Peter would decline if he didn’t value his health and good looks so much.

Still, he finds himself tracking the boy’s movements from section to section until he reached the counter to pay for his finds. His jeans were tight in just the right way and Peter only felt a small flush of guilt as he eyed the boy’s round, perky ass. Of course, that’s the moment the boy decides to glance over his shoulder and meets Peter’s gaze head on.

And the warlock winks.

***

The next time he sees the warlock is as he’s leaving the Beacon Hills entrance to the Seelie Court, a small cove near the beach that Mundanes saw as a rundown hut. The boy was dressed to the nines in a shiny blue suit, hair stylishly messy and revealing those beautiful horns that glittered blue and green like a mermaid’s scales under the moonlight.

“Is your master sending you here in their place,” he teases, hands in the pockets of his own suit of charcoal gray. Black just didn’t look good on Peter, it made his aura something straight out of a Disney movie, and not in a favorable light either. “A chance for you to learn how the Seelie Queen is when she’s not happy?”

“Not quite,” the boy answers in a voice like honey. “I haven’t had a master since I was a kid.” Peter arches a brow, not subtle as his gaze moves from the boy’s horns to the ratty Converse he wore on his feet. “I’m six hundred years old. I know, it’s a shock to everyone that doesn’t already know.”

“A nice one, at least.” And the boy grins at him, cheeky and wonderful and Peter could live for that flash of white teeth. “I’m Peter.” He holds out a hand and the boy reaches out to shake it, a spark of something shooting through the wolf on contact and a static shock seems to rip through his chest as his eyes flash Alpha red. The boy’s eyes flash in return, fire bright before fading to their usual amber in sunlight.

“Stiles.”

***

Battles were hard things no matter your species, though why he was called to New York of all places could only be explained by the text his nephew had sent just twelve hours before. Sometimes it really sucked to like one’s family and their continued existence. And to make matters that much worse, the fight was on a goddamn boat and he was surrounded by all kinds of Shadowhunters.

The one good thing to come out of it was seeing Stiles in all his glory fighting alongside his Shadowhunter buddy. He was a force to behold, flinging spells every which way when he’s able or even just a bat with Runes burned into the wood to enhance its strength as he flings it left and right against the oncoming demons. The Shadowhunter wasn’t awful, he supposes, but he’s never been a fan of the Clave and all their rules.

After it was done and Derek’s reason for dragging him all the way here was rescued—a relatively young werewolf that had been meant to be sacrificed—Peter was intending to just go back to Derek’s apartment and sleep for seven hours and then go find Luke and have a drink. Things didn’t end up going that way, however, because Stiles was bleeding and his pet Shadowhunter looked ready to play a game of Murder Time with whatever had caused the deep scratch along the warlock’s cheek.

“I take it warlocks don’t have the best healing factor,” Peter snarks, sidling up to the pair with a smirk. The Shadowhunter went to step between the pair, but aborted the motion when Stiles touches her wrist.

“It’s alright, Ally. I know him.”

“So does everyone in the Institute,” Ally remarks, sending Peter a frown that more than hinted at I saw you at the Christmas party three years ago, you nasty fucker. And really, how was he supposed to know the punch had been spiked and that he’d end up banging a shifter named Peg in the women’s bathroom?

“Oh, that was you, huh? Very impressive, man.”

“I rather thought so,” Peter agrees, trying his best to ignore Ally. It wasn’t hard, not with the way the dawn light highlighted the small moles scattered over the left side of Stiles’ face in a way that made Peter want to follow that trail with his teeth.

“Peter,” yelled the familiar voice of Magnus Bane,” stop creeping on my protégé!”

***

So, it turns out that pale warlocks with amber eyes and magic bats are Peter’s type.

Who knew?

***

Stiles likes to smoke. It’s not really a big deal for Peter because Stiles’ just uses his magic to make the smoke scentless. Whenever Peter finds Stiles’ in the little park down the street from the school, the warlock is usually swinging slowly and blowing smoke rings. When he wants to show off, he’ll turn the billows of smoke into little ships or paw prints or, once, a triskelion.

Peter asked him why he smoked once, after he learned that Stiles had changed the cigarette’s taste to strawberries. “Because I like watching the smoke curl and dance,” he’d answered, doing just that as he turned the smoke shades of blue and bright red.

Sometimes he’d find Stiles just wandering through the town as though he was searching for something, smoke floating over his shoulder and grief in his scent. Peter never bothered him on those nights, just watched to make sure no one tried to sneak up on him while he was lost in his thoughts.

One night, the second one Stiles had ever spent with him, the warlock woke him up with a bitten off curse and it took Peter a moment to realize that the wriggling boy next to him was still deep in sleep. He writhed and twisted as though trying to escape, Polish rolling off his tongue as easy as English, calling and begging for his father to be saved.

When Peter had finally managed to get Stiles awake and convince him that he was safe, Stiles told him about the mother that had abandoned him after she realized her child wasn’t human; he told him about the father that fought and protected him through thick and thin until the man’s heart had given out. Then, in the early hours of the morning, he told Peter how his father had always smoked a pipe at night, how he’d blown smoke rings to Stiles’ delight and would always grin so proudly when Stiles managed to turn those rings into flowers.

After that, Peter never asked about Stiles’ obsession with smoking.

***

Their one year anniversary sneaks up on both of them and they only realize how momentous the day is when Stiles checks his Facebook and the memory of their first date pops up in his feed. Their first date had been the thing of legends, the one you tell future generations about because it had been perfection; a high end restaurant that needed reservations three years in advance unless you threatened to eat the owner’s pet rabbit (Peter wasn’t proud of that, but he’d stand by his choices), a walk along the beach to a blanket with chilled champagne and strawberries waiting on them, and the sweetest kiss goodnight to finish it off (followed by mind-blowing sex, but he’d save that until his kids were old enough to really embarrass).

Their first anniversary was just as perfect in a different sort of way; Pizza Hut delivery that they got free because Stiles glamoured their apartment so that the pizza was exactly thirty-one minutes late, a Parks and Rec marathon on TV that they could quote word for word (and they did, they even made a game out of it that was bound to become tradition), and a garlic-laced goodnight kiss that had Peter laughing because he’d never pictured this being how he and Stiles spent their anniversary during the first few months of them dating (followed by sex on the couch because they were too full to actually make it to bed).

After that, Peter swore that their second anniversary would be different and they’d at least have something fancier for dessert than a shared pint of Ben and Jerry’s. Stiles had laughed, baring the pale column of his throat, and he’d curled tighter around Peter as they attempted not to slide off the couch.

“This was perfect,” he said, flashing Peter that grin he loved so much.

And Peter really thought it was.

***

Turns out dating the best friend of a Shadowhunter has more drawbacks than Peter had originally thought. There were two of them in his apartment when he got home from his shift at the bookshop, just dirtying up his couch like they had any right to it and it took all his years of training not to at least growl at them in warning. Instead, he sets the new stack of books down on his kitchen table and turns to face his intruders.

“You know, normal people call before dropping by,” he tells them, arching his brows.

“You’re dating Stiles,” Ally says in response, as though that gives her every right to break a perfectly good window and climb inside using the fire escape.

“Is this the part where you tell me that you’ll kill me if I break his heart? Before you do that, you could at least introduce your friend.” The other Shadowhunter, a man around Peter’s age with hard blue eyes and blond hair that was slowly graying, looks unimpressed with Peter altogether. If he didn’t want to see me, then he shouldn’t have broken into my apartment.

“My name is Chris Argent,” the man says, all condescension and arrogance that Shadowhunters are well known for. The Argents were fairly high up in the ranks, the Inquisitor’s lap dogs from what Peter had heard. Still, they weren’t as prominent as the Lightwoods or the Waylands. “And I’m fairly confident that Stiles could dispose of your body with barely a flick of his pinky if he wanted to.”

“That’s lovely. Now, if you’d see yourselves out I’d be forever grateful.” He gestures at the broken window, already making plans to send that particular bill to the Institute or wherever these two were holed up.

“We’re just here as a reminder that Stiles won’t have to kill you himself, Hale.”

“Since when are Shadowhunters so concerned about warlocks? Is it some new fad or just something that happens when you hang around Magnus Bane for long periods of time?” Which reminds Peter that he needs to send Bane a fruit basket for not threatening him this way.

“Just remember that you’re outnumbered here,” Ally states, and the glint in her eyes tells him that she’s already thought up seven different ways to kill him slow should Stiles even sneeze wrong.

***

Magnus Bane wasn’t getting a fruit basket, but he might get a foot up his ass for breaking Peter’s window again when he could have just used a portal for God’s sake.

***

It’s three years later when Peter’s stumbling around the famed city of Alicante that he realizes just how much he loves Stiles. Dead bodies are littered all over the ground from the what would come to be known as the Dark War, there’s blood basically painting Stiles when he comes around the corner, but neither of those things stop Peter from grabbing the boy and just holding him.

He buries his face in the crook of Stiles’ neck, breathing in the heady scent of home and pack and mate. And Stiles was doing much the same thing, shaking as he tangles his fingers in the back of Peter’s ruined coat, clinging to him like some kind of shell-shocked koala as he worked through the panic attack.

Peter never wanted to let Stiles go again, barely managed to free an arm to wrap around his nephew and pull him close. This was his pack, his goddamn family, and the Fair Folk had nearly torn that away from him in one harsh sweep against the Nephilim stronghold. He’d nearly lost control of himself during the fight and the only thing that kept him anchored was that constant pulse under his ribs that said Stiles was still alive, Derek was still fighting tooth and claw.

He would kill the next person that thought they could destroy his pack, he would tear their heart out and feed it to his mate like a delicacy, paired with the finest wine he could get his hands on. Looking at the other two confirmed they felt much the same way, Stiles’ eyes flecked with gold and Derek’s blazing a bright electric blue.

No one would ever threaten them again.

***

Seven years later, Peter didn’t think Stiles was actually capable of shocking him anymore. Not after he’d learned about the warlock’s banishment from Peru (something about psychotic monkeys and trying to one-up Bane), or the fact that Stiles could change into a fox if he felt like it, or even that his father’s side of the family were made up of Shadowhunters that had ended up forming the Argent line (which, yeah, that connection cleared a lot of things up).

So, when he’d come home for lunch that day and found Stiles sitting on their kitchen table wearing only a silk tie and matching boxers with a velvet box balanced in the palm of one hand, Peter realized that there were still plenty of ways Stiles could still shock him. “So,” Stiles said, swinging his feet back and forth through the air,” you wanna tie the knot or not, old man?”

“I guess we should since the neighbors are starting to gossip,” Peter replies, and he takes a special interest in getting Stiles out of those purple boxers. He never did make it back to the shop that afternoon.

Now, was that the most romantic way to propose to a person? Probably not. Did Peter actually give a damn about elaborate proposals? Not really, but that didn’t stop him from standing outside Stiles’ window with a boombox blasting In Your Eyes with a velvet box of his own.

“You’re such a fucking showoff,” Stiles tells him as he comes outside.

“It’ll make sure all our stories are memorable, sweetheart,” Peter promises as he hands the box over. Stiles flicks it open and tilts his head back in a full body laugh that never failed to make Peter revel in his beauty all over again. He also manages a smirk this time because the delicate silver band has the Batman logo etched into it.

***

Their wedding turns out to be nothing fancy, just the two Argents and Derek attending with Deaton replacing a priest. Their vows were simple things, their first dance was uncoordinated because apparently Stiles is only graceful when he’s fighting, and everyone had tears in their eyes once it was done. Even Peter did, though he’d never admit that to anyone but his husband.

Peter spent the afternoon and early evening just trying to process the fact that the beautiful man sitting next to him, the one with the glittering horns and sweet-as-honey voice, was really all his. That he’d get to wake up every morning and see Stiles for the rest of his life; he’d get to listen to Stiles’ off-key singing in the shower, eat the unpronounceable Polish meals he whipped up for special occasions, and hold him whenever he wanted.

And Stiles seemed to be just as excited, unable to sit still even through the speeches the other three insisted on making. The Argents had managed to slip a few thinly veiled threats into their speeches, something about sticking tasers in Peter’s squishy bits if he ever even entertained the thought of leaving Stiles. Derek’s was by far the classiest of the speeches, though that didn’t take much effort.

“You guys really belong together, you’re the same level of assholes,” he had said, and raised his glass of champagne.

***

It’s not until they get home from a great honeymoon in Mexico that they realized they’d forgotten to inform Magnus of their nuptials. They realized that because the older warlock was sitting in the living room of the newly rebuilt Hale House when they returned home, and all the glitter in the world couldn’t hide the rage burning in those gold-green eyes of his.

“Really,” Magnus had practically growled,” you couldn’t even send a fucking text that you two were getting hitched? Couldn’t shoot me an email or just mention it in passing or even use smoke signals so I wouldn’t be blindsided when Derek talks about how nice the fish was?” He glowers at them from across the room (he’d broken another window and the glass was scattered deliberately across the hardwood floors), and Peter was legitimately scared the warlock might blast them into next month.

“Did you still get us a present,” Stiles asked, because he has no sense of self-preservation and he’s the world’s biggest asshole at the best of times.

Peter really did choose the perfect mate.

[sending-the-message]

Tobias by Ilunibi

The one drawback of Dead Coyote keeping himself clean-ish was that his social circle collapsed in on itself like a dying star. The regulars I’d grown up with were pretty sour that Dead Coyote kicked them to the curb after his first relapse, when he realized that their mere presence made him regress back to his old, self-destructive self. People who’d demonized him when he was a known dealer were incapable of wrapping their minds around the fact that he could turn over a new leaf, and very few were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. That’s not even to start in on the folks who wanted him to “go back to Mexico” when they realized that he was approved for disability because of all the emotional backlash of overcoming his addiction, accusing him of stealing their hard-earned money when he “probably doesn’t have a green card.”

He chose to find humor in it, or tried. Still, you could tell that he was jonesing for something a bit more substantial than a hit of heroin, and it got worse when I went to college.

His girlfriend was dead. His princess was an hour away. His family wasn’t really on speaking terms with him. The most companionship he usually had, surprisingly enough, was my mother, who’d stop by from time to time just to make sure that he was eating. After all, he was the surrogate father to a daughter she hadn’t got a chance to raise. Even if she still had nagging thoughts in the back of her mind that he was a dirty junkie with impure thoughts about her little girl, nine years of committed babysitting had secretly won her over.

Me? I worried. Even at the age of eighteen, and even having seen Dead Coyote in less-than-flattering situations, I still had this very childish, idealized view of him in my head. He wasn’t perfect, but I always thought of him as strong and unshakable and unbreakable. He’d overcome demons and hexes and curses and heroin, and did things no sane man would do without batting an eye, succeeding more often than not.

But that’s not really Dead Coyote. Dead Coyote is a perpetually exhausted, well-meaning man who made bad choices when he was my age because he lost all hope that he could do better. Dead Coyote has impulse control problems and anger issues and spends a lot of his time depressed and worried. He’s a human being who puffs himself up because he’s never been given the option of being weak, but he’s actually scared of a lot of things he stands up against. And he is hurt that he was essentially abandoned by everyone he ever knew, right down to Cheryl overdosing in her apartment.

My sixth sense tingled every time I talked to him on the phone. He began to sound more hopeless and listless, and I was terrified that he’d either wind up back with a needle in his arm or I would one day get a call from mom that they found him with a bullet in his head. Life without DC in it just seemed impossible and hollow, and I spent a lot of time crying over the thought.

Fortunately, it seemed the stars aligned just right enough for a single, solitary person to show up in his life. Or rather, reappear. He called me, confused, the weekend before finals week and told me that he’d heard from an old friend he hadn’t spoken to in years.

“Tobias,” he muttered, flabbergasted. “Of all the fuckin’ people, princess, it was Tobias.”

Now, Tobias was Dead Coyote’s best friend before he moved away from home. I’d heard a lot about him but never met the man because, well, Maryland was a pretty good distance away and I was under the impression that he was about as broke as either of us. Travel wasn’t really an option. But I did know that he taught him a lot about magic, he was the person responsible for the nickname “Dead Coyote,” and that he was eerily good at predicting things. Apparently, their old crew gave him the alias “Seer” because of it, and some people outright stopped talking to him because of how accurate he wound up being, accusing him of being the harbinger of everything he foresaw.

Not that he was psychic, no. When I suggested that on the ride home from campus for a summer of black magic and beer, Dead Coyote just laughed at me and shook his head. Psychics, he said, aren’t real, but spirits are. Tobias was just very, very good at reading omens and signs and was dedicated enough that he built up quite the rapport with a particular demon by the name of Vine.

Vine is, essentially, an oracle who takes the form of a circus lion. You think I’m joking, but what else do you think of when you imagine a big cat on horseback? Silly as that may sound, he supposedly knows all things past, present, and future, and doubles as a one-spirit demolition crew when riled. Allegedly. I can’t think of a time I’ve ever heard of a building toppling and immediately wanted to pin it on an archaic demon, but the capability is recorded in the old grimoires and just the thought of somebody being good enough at what they do to build up a working relationship with that was both terrifying and impressive.

The first few weeks of summer break, I was treated to quite a few stories of the good old days, Dead Coyote making it perfectly obvious that hearing from somebody who wasn’t me or my mother had made his goddamn life. The part of me that would have been jealous had pretty much died, because more than anything I was just happy to hear him happy. His one complaint was that he wished they could actually meet up. Phone calls are nice, but they’re nothing compared to sharing shitty beer in person and loudly complaining about said shitty beer.

“Maybe we could visit,” I suggested. He liked the idea and we tried to figure out the logistics of it in a drunken, emotional haze that eventually turned into an in-depth discussion about Beast Wars. Still, the seeds had been planted and we almost had a pretty good rough draft in place for our first ever unorthodox family vacation.

But, we never got to act on it.

A few days after our discussion, I woke up to the sound of somebody knocking, loudly, on the door. It was the kind of knock that instantly makes your heart leap into your throat: heavy, hard, and relentless. Not knuckle knocking, but side of the fist, open-this-goddamn-door-right-fucking-now knocking. It startled me so much that I took a spill off of the couch and waited in the floor, hopeful that I’d hear Dead Coyote shuffling around upstairs. That was obviously expecting too much. The man could sleep through the apocalypse.

My first thought was that it was somebody from the housing authority. They had a tendency to be assholes and I was bad at keeping track of the pest control regimen or the quarterly inspections. Maybe it was a very aggressive postman with yet another official letter from yet another person to whom Dead Coyote owed money. I crept toward the door, peeked out the peephole, and didn’t even have a chance to say anything before a voice boomed back at me.

“Where’s Angelo?”

I blinked. Nobody called Dead Coyote by his real name, not even the people at the complex’s offices. I actually forgot he had a real name.

I stood in silence on the other side of the door, holding my breath and trying to make sense of what was going on. I couldn’t even see anyone on the other side of the door. The opposite end of the peephole was covered, like whoever was on the other side had leaned in close trying to see their way in.

“Know you’re there. Know you’re not Angelo. Where is he?”

As deep and terrifying as the voice was, it wasn’t angry. I decided to take that as a good sign. Realizing that Dead Coyote wasn’t waking up and that I was now an adult who had to handle scary adult things myself, even if it was potentially a home invasion, I made the not-so-wise decision to open the door a crack. I only undid three of the locks, though, leaving the chain in place.

Hair a mess, glasses crooked, and still in my pajamas, I glanced through the gap between the door and the jamb and stared wide-eyed at the man on the other side. He had dreadlocks for days, half-tied back and half tied down with a bandana. He looked like a cross between a fortune teller and Medusa.

“You’re Seymour?”

I stared at him blankly and tried to close the door. He stopped it with his foot. I suddenly had a lot of regrets.

“Tobias. Where’s Angelo?”

And so, I met Tobias.

Tobias was strange. He was the human equivalent of a Clydesdale horse with dark skin, bright blue eyes, and a withering expression that just seemed to be his default. I also couldn’t peg what he was supposed to be for the life of me, beyond human. You could look at Dead Coyote and tell he was Hispanic, or look at me and tell I was Celtic as fuck, but Tobias just was.

Uncomfortable as it was, we sat and made small talk as we waited for Dead Coyote to drag himself up from his hangover and ooze down the stairs. He was polite enough, if a bit blunt and quiet, though it seemed less out of a sense of awkwardness than the fact he had too much on his mind. Halfway through our on-and-off conversation, he reached into his pocket and fished out a deck of playing cards, shuffling them and cutting them as though it was a nervous tic. His eyes never left the floor.

By the time Dead Coyote finally decided to join us, Tobias had cleared off the coffee table and laid out a chaotic spread of cards that began as a game of solitaire and turned into something like a tarot spread. The only thing that interrupted him was seeing his old friend, the two exploding into a series of excited yelps and overly manly hugs. According to Dead Coyote, Tobias hadn’t changed a bit. According to Tobias, though, Dead Coyote looked like he’d been crushed in a dumpster sometime between the ages of nineteen and thirty.

“How did you find me?” Dead Coyote finally asked as they cracked open a couple of morning brews and I sat awkwardly on the sideline. Tobias shrugged.

“Not a lot of people with the last name ‘Sepulveda.’”

“And why come all this way, man?”

Tobias gestured at his cards. I had no idea what the hell any of it meant, but Dead Coyote looked at the weird arrangement like an art connoisseur sizing up a painting. With each card he glanced over, the more concerned his expression became. Before I could ask what was going on, Tobias began to speak. It was as though he knew what I was going to ask.

He said he’d come because his readings and rituals were beginning to become more and more focused on Dead Coyote, seemingly out of nowhere. When he slammed into an actual coyote with his car and killed it--an apparent rarity in his parts--he took it as a sign from Vine and tracked down his old friend through a mixture of good old fashioned asking around and even more old fashioned divination. A few calls didn’t ease his worries, so he’d chucked a fair chunk of change for a one-way Greyhound ticket and had come to figure out what in the hell was going on.

“Knew you were bad when you left, but you didn’t set off the alarms. Now you do. Worried me.”

Despite the somber tone, I honestly didn’t have a damn clue what was going on. The only thing I knew was that almost every card in Tobias’ reading for Dead Coyote was a spade. When Tobias finally left, albeit reluctantly, he gave us a single warning to watch ourselves. Something was very, very wrong. His gaze lingered on me a bit longer than I would have liked and I shrank away as he disappeared out the door.

“I don’t get it,” I said, once the apartment was quiet and we had settled on the couch. Dead Coyote inhaled deeply and immediately fished for his cigarettes.

“He does cartomancy, princess. If it were anyone else, I’d think it was bullshit, but it’s Seer, so… you know.”

Cartomancy, he said, was like tarot but using a deck of regular old playing cards. It’s more direct and less interpretive, and the cards all had set meanings that made them more believable and less sketchy than the vague readings tarot spat out. Typically, Dead Coyote laughs at anyone who takes that sort of thing seriously, but Tobias had used cards for as long as he’d known him to tease out concrete answers from the powers that be. It was one of the many ways he interpreted signs and omens, because it was honest, quick, and handy. There was no specific store to buy them in or any hocus-pocus “relationship” you had to have with the deck. If you needed them, you just picked some up from the dollar store and got to work.

And spades? They’re bad. Very bad. I hadn’t gathered heads or tails of the reading Tobias had laid out on the table while Dead Coyote was asleep, but it predicted everything from debilitating depression to disruption in the apartment to death. I didn’t have a goddamn clue how one person could get all of that out of a game of solitaire, but Dead Coyote was shaken to the core of his being. It bothered me to see that sort of uncharacteristic weakness, to see him reacting with anything other than anger or apathy. The only thing that seemed to bring him back down to earth was reminding him that Tobias wouldn’t have come and told him if he didn’t think something could be done.

Honestly, I needed to hear it, too. Seeing him freaked out did nothing to help me calm down, and the fear was so overwhelming that my brain could only process it as anger. That night, I laid on the couch and stared at the ceiling and wondered aloud to myself just what in the fuck was going on and who the fuck Tobias thought he was. The prediction of “death” loomed over me like a storm cloud and I tried to think of all the ways something could happen to Dead Coyote and what I could do to stop it, if anything. It became a borderline obsession, this nagging fear, a paranoia more powerful than when I just wondered if his loneliness would drive him to self destruction.

The next few days were a blur; I couldn’t bring myself to pay attention to anything, especially when Tobias would stop by to do his wellness checks. He was a distraction, an unlikeable distraction whose “man of few words” act was beginning to grate on my last nerve. Even though Dead Coyote would light up and temporarily forget what fate had willed for him whenever he stopped by, I couldn’t find it in my heart to like the guy. When I looked at him, all I could think about was where the hell he’d been when Dead Coyote needed him most, why it took so long for him to realize his friend was in trouble, and whether or not they could even still be considered friends after not seeing each other for years and years.

I could stomach it for about a week. It was a week of watching Tobias pull spades repeatedly, knit his brows together, and pull them again. It was a week of watching him do nothing to try to figure out where it was coming from. Seven entire days of looking up from whatever I was doing to see him glaring at me like somehow this was all my fault. All I could think of was how desperate I was to prove Tobias wrong and how offended I was that--if he was correct--he was doing nothing but the same thing over and over, like an idiot, to try to “fix” things.

I had had enough.

Dead Coyote had gone to bed, drunk. I tried, but I couldn’t. Yet again, I lay on the couch and conversed with the ceiling until I felt this urge throughout my entire body to get up, a horrible and uncomfortable twinge in my legs and arms that compelled me to move. I stood, I paced, but I was still so fucking restless. And angry. And fed-up.

And scared.

Being a dumb eighteen-year-old is both magical and puzzling, because to this day I have no idea why the hell I decided to go steal Dead Coyote’s phone out of his room. He was snoring on his mattress, shirtless and tangled into a drunken mess of limbs, and for all intents and purposes he was dead to the world. I snatched it off the charger, snuck back down to the kitchen, and sat at the table in the corner staring at his contact list debating whether or not I should call his little friend. You know, just give him a little ring and demand he tell me what needed to be done to reverse fate and who in the screaming hell he thought he was bringing that kind of negativity into our apartment.

I wanted to tell him fortune telling was bullshit and that I didn’t believe he was as powerful as Dead Coyote had told me. I wanted to face down that giant of a man and threaten to kick his ass up one side and back down the other. I pressed the button, let it ring twice, then disconnected with a furious growl. Phone calls and voicemails didn’t seem like they would send a powerful enough message. I needed to tell him to fuck off in person.

I knew where he was, too. He was at an Econolodge just a few blocks away on the edge of the complex, holed up with a dirt-cheap weekly rate that I hoped he wouldn’t have to use for another week. It was dark and it was in a bad neighborhood, but I’d lived in that neighborhood my entire life and I’d wandered around at later hours. Granted, I usually wasn’t by myself, but I was a dumb college kid with renewed belief that I was invulnerable, just like when I was a kid. Old enough to have the confidence, young enough to be stupid.

I quickly threw on a bra and jeans, slipped on my shoes, and slipped outside.

For as much as I talk about growing up in the projects, I don’t think I’ve ever given you a good idea of what it looks like. During the day, it’s almost nice aside from the bars on the windows and the grass growing through the cracks in the sidewalk, the only real eyesore being the fact that people clutter up the stoops to their apartment with more bikes and junkyard trash than any one family would have a use for. At night, though, it’s like a scene from some kind of movie: dark with flickering street lights, and dogs barking on chains attached to the window bars, kicked out of the house now that the housing authority office was closed and their owners didn’t have to hide their undocumented pets. It’s unnerving with somebody, let alone by yourself, and had I not been propelled by a combination of sheer idiocy, desperation, and anger, common sense might have kicked in and told me to go back home.

But, it didn’t. I soldiered on, hands rammed in my pockets and glasses sliding down my nose, hair a mess and mouth held in such a powerful scowl that my entire face hurt. Hell, it hurt behind my eyes and the entire back of my head felt like it was being crushed. I’d never had a rage migraine before, and I hope I never have one again.

I could see the lights of the Econolodge sign when things took a sharp turn south.

You see, it had been years since Joseph Shepherd, the charming man who tried to molest me as a kid, had graced the neighborhood with his presence. Being a dick who chases his girlfriend with battery acid is overlookable, I suppose, but touching a little girl is not. Mean as he was, the neighbors just couldn’t tolerate him popping his face up in their territory any longer, and after his release he was treated to a few choice ass-kickings. Dumb as he was and as vicious as he played at, after a couple of years it finally sank in that it was only a matter of time before something more than his tires got slashed and he skipped town.

His place had been taken, oddly enough, by a kid I grew up with.

Adam Emmert was almost my friend once, though that “almost” should be bolded and underlined for effect. I was a lonely child and he had seemed lonely, too, though I was too young to realize that he wasn’t a young, neglected kid like I had been. No, there was something deeply wrong with Adam in much the same way there had been something wrong with Joseph. Trade in throwing grade schoolers in front of a bus with threatening kids with broken glass and poisoning the neighborhood dogs for fun, and it seemed as though our lovely complex actually upgraded in terms of their local villain. And he only got worse as he got older, when he realized how much he hated anyone who wasn’t white.

I knew to avoid him, everyone did. I was not, however, expecting him to be sitting outside on the sidewalk with a crew of fellow miscreants at two in the goddamn morning. To be honest, I didn’t even really register who it was at first, stomping by with my eyes focused on the no-tell motel where Tobias was hiding, waving their cigarette smoke out of my face as I passed. No, it didn’t even occur to me who the ringleader of the group was until I heard his voice, unusually loud and echoing in the abandoned streets.

“It’s Seymour!”

It was almost a singsong. I stopped, turned, and short circuited. He stood up from the curb, grinning with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, looking at me from underneath the brim of his trucker cap. He was the epitome of white trash, and had a dangerous gleam in his eye.

“Who?” a dazed girl asked.

“That fuckin’ wetback’s whore.”

I didn’t answer because I suddenly lost the ability to do so. All I could think of was, in the previous week, I had developed quite the knack for being an idiot. I should have never been out alone at night.

“She fucks that greasy fuck? Jesus.”

I realized I had forgotten my phone and Dead Coyote’s phone in the kitchen.

“Oh, yeah. But why are you out now, Seymour? Side job? Meetin’ up with a John, eh? Guess crazy money doesn’t keep your little fuckbuddy on his feet very well, huh?”

What was in his waistband? What did he reach for? It was shining. Was it a knife? I thought of Joseph’s friend, the alley, the threat of being stabbed. I always thought a knife would be worse than a gun, but I was having second thoughts realizing that what he was holding was most definitely not a cheap folding knife.

“Maybe she needs a real man,” one of his toadies offered.

My brain was white noise, television static.

“She’ll have to pay first. What do you say, Seymour? Wanna walk crooked for the next few days?”

Amid their laughter, I found enough clarity to run, dead in the opposite direction of my apartment. I bolted for the Econolodge, faster than I think I have ever run in my life. A gunshot cracked through the night and I swore I could feel something whizz past me as I stumbled over my feet and landed on my palms. The asphalt scraped away the skin but I ignored it and sprinted, bleeding and crying, all the way to the lobby office of that shitheap motel.

Blood and dirt smeared the glass as I forced the door closed and twisted the lock. I’d lost my glasses somewhere between point A and point B, so finding my way to the desk was an adventure in and of itself. The attendant was nowhere to be seen (not that I could see), so I slammed on the bell until he came ambling out like a tired old dog, his voice shaking when I finally coaxed him to speak. That is, if you can call screaming hysterically that somebody was trying to shoot me “coaxing.”

“Tobias!” I yelped. “I need to speak to Tobias!”

“What’s the last name, ma’am?”

I could tell from his tone he really wanted to help me, but there were rules. So many damn rules. I didn’t have a surname or a room number, and my demands were so quick-fire and desperate that calling the cops seems to have been the last thing on his mind. I was my own worst enemy, a distraction from real help, scaring a poor middle-aged hotel clerk so badly that he seemed to believe that finding my “friend” was the only way to solve the problem.

He was about to offer to call him, refusing to give me the room number, when I heard a tapping on the glass. Somebody tried the locked door. I couldn’t see worth a damn to figure out who it was and every part of me was convinced it was Adam. Even when the clerk let out a sigh of relief, every nerve in my body buzzed with adrenaline.

“Oh, thank god.”

It was Tobias. With my glasses, no less. Apparently, I had lost them just out on the sidewalk.

Even if I had come with the intent of laying into him with all the fury of a particularly whiny hurricane, in that one moment, I could have kissed him. That all went away when, after he handed me my glasses, he didn’t even bother to ask what happened or if I needed help. He looked at my bloody hands, reached into the pocket of his jeans, and pulled out that same goddamn deck of cards he’d been carrying the whole time he’d been visiting. Instead of a spread, he drew just one and stared at it, intently and with mounting worry. I stole a peek and saw the ace of spades staring back at me.

He didn’t say a word, not to me, not to the desk attendant. He just hurriedly crammed his cards back into his pocket, turned tail, and ran back in the direction of Dead Coyote’s home.

I followed, like the idiot I had proven to be. Panic was the primary motivator, Dead Coyote’s voice ringing in my head. He’d said that spades were bad, very bad, and if the whole suite was awful wouldn’t the ace card be worst of all? I thought of Adam and his cronies, and it sank in that after I hit the Econolodge they never showed up at the lobby. I had spent a good five to ten minutes shrieking like a banshee about how somebody was trying to kill me. They had more than enough time to catch up.

So where did they go?

Even though I am built for strength, not speed, I did a pretty decent job of keeping up with Tobias for a while. I noticed that Adam wasn’t where he had been and my mind came to a screeching halt when I realized that that wasn’t exactly a good thing. Had I locked the door to the apartment when I left?

I hadn’t. For the love of fuck, I hadn’t.

Despite being a straight shot from the Econolodge to Dead Coyote’s apartment, I couldn’t really see far enough ahead to see if my fears were founded. My vision was blurred, people’s stoops were stacked high with bullshit, and there were more than enough overflowing garbage cans dotting the sidewalk. Eventually, I even lost Tobias in the maze of trash, panting and lagging behind like an old race horse. Even fear couldn’t keep me going forever, I guess.

I only stopped running, though, when I heard a gunshot. Then a scream. It was too high-pitched to be Tobias or Dead Coyote, though, and I thanked my lucky stars for that. Still, when home was finally in sight I didn’t expect to see a gigantic mass of dreadlocks and hate sitting on top of the neighborhood psychopath beneath the bottom step of our stoop. Nor did I expect to see Adam’s less-than-loyal cronies scatter past me like roaches.

Yet, there he was: Tobias, in all his glory, pinning Adam down to the sidewalk with his sheer weight. Adam squalled and lights began to turn on one by one, heads poking out of windows, people stepping out onto the street. I walked up behind Tobias, wheezing and gasping, waiting for him to make some kind of idle threat to Adam, but he just sat there in almost infuriating silence, eyes boring holes into Adam’s skull.

Then I heard Dead Coyote. I glanced up to see his head dangling out of the window, his hair a mess and his eyes squinting against the street lamps. Right as one of the neighbors demanded to know what was going on, Tobias calmly looked up at his good friend and huffed in exasperation.

“Call the police. Asshole was trying to break in.”

Calling the police made Tobias a sort of pariah, just as it had done to Dead Coyote briefly all those years ago. Not that he cared. It was the only way to make sure the threat was gone for a good, long while and he had a sneaking suspicion that they may have been what he was seeing in the cards and omens and dreams. And it was something that I had inadvertently triggered, he warned me, by leaving Dead Coyote alone and alerting the neighborhood ne’er-do-well to the fact.

He told me I was really dumb. Dead Coyote glared at him, but honestly? I agreed.

“Dunno what they’d steal,” Dead Coyote groaned, hiding from the living room lights as Tobias sauntered in, sat down on my couch, and began to lay out his cards. “Not like I got shit.”

“Car. Television. Five dollars in your wallet,” Tobias answered, making a gun with his fingers and pointing it at Dead Coyote. “Also, you’re brown with an accent. Enough for him, I think.”

I watched, transfixed as he spread the cards in the same chaotic pattern as before. I was still shaken, I was nauseous, and a part of me still wanted to kick Tobias in the throat, but as I saw the cards being drawn, my emotions began to settle.

Not a spade in sight. One red card after another, which he kindly explained out loud when he noticed me gawking, palms still bleeding and tears in my eyes. Success and unexpected good fortune and health and support from friends and family. All of it was really wishy-washy, but it brought a smile to my face.

“King of Clubs and Queen of Diamonds. Huh.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, Dead Coyote yawning on the floor as Tobias quickly shuffled his cards back together.

“Mm. Nothing bad. Not just Angelo’s reading, I guess.”

I won’t lie and say Tobias and I got along immediately. I also won’t lie and say that his residency didn’t end up being pretty permanent. However, in that one night, I realized why it was that Dead Coyote respected him so much, and I fell asleep wondering just how good of a connection one had to have with a demon to get that skilled at what they do. Tobias is kind of a jerk, but he’s also fairly amazing.

Even if, in the deepest parts of my heart, I still think cartomancy is full of shit.

[imagineclaireandjamie]

I'm in dire need of a fluffy scene where Claire tries to read the lines on Jamie's palm and she ends up failing miserably.

Liv says: So this isn’t fluff, so to speak—but I hope it’s still fun! Set about 2-3 years before puir Frank the Mailman died in the Three Witches AU. No worries if you haven’t read it. This one stands alone! :)

Intersection: A Three Witches Story

Claire knew this was against coven rules. Like, totally outside the realm of acceptable witch behavior.

To dole out one’s magical talents—particularly at the county fair—was a bit manipulative (in regards to the customers), a bit sad (in regards to Claire). Still, she liked to think she was working for a kind of greater good. Ensuring the happiness of all mankind! And that was almost admirable, wasn’t it? Giving hopeful glimmers of adulthood to the stork-like teenagers, comforting the mopey singletons who trudged around, heads bent? She’d offered such assurances as:

“A new man will come into your life. A handsome one—with a huge prick! His name…I think his name begins with a ‘T’.” (This to the recent divorcee, clutching her naked ring finger like a burn. She hadn’t known what a “prick” was but was no less forthcoming with her money.)

Or this, to the bucktoothed 16-year old picking at his acne scars: “You’ll be the coolest person in college. Captain of the ultimate frisbee team!” He’d been disappointed at that one, enormous chompers clamping over his bottom lip. “Ho ho ho there, young man!” she’d said then. “Ultimate frisbee is cool where you’re going. The coolest cool.” And then he’d smiled, a patchwork of teeth and holes, which Claire hoped someone might find endearing. A nice and wholesome blind girl, maybe.

And then this, to the both of them: “For just $5 more, I can guarantee it! All you have to do is buy this magical rock and carry it with you wherever you go.” Nevermind that said magical rock was actually from Claire’s backyard. Nevermind that several of them were speckled in bird shit. Maybe some cicada guts.

But that was the thing about desperate Mortals. Metaphorically speaking, their whole lives were a succession of bird shit plops and smeared bug guts. So they didn’t even notice when it was covering their $5, not-magical rock.

“Yes please! I’ll take two!” the divorcee had cried, handing Claire a ten dollar bill. (Did she think this would bring two men into her life? Because that’s not how Claire’s bird shit rocks worked.)

“Um. Yeah. That’s sounds pretty sick,” said Beaver Bobby. “I’ll buy a rock.” He’d paid in all quarters but, hey, beggars can’t be choosers.

If her best friend Gillian were here, she would likely call this “an exploitative farce,” two terms she would’ve picked up from her beloved Word of the Day calendar.

“Claire,” she would hiss, “this is such an exploitative (Wednesday’s word) farce (last Friday’s word).” And then she’d pull out her Moleskin, update her word count with a self-satisfied tick. Her record, she claimed, was sixty words in a single morning, and Claire imagined a horrible plague descending upon their town, zombifying everyone until they could only grunt “verisimilitude.” Gillian thought an expanded vocabulary made her smarter but, really, it just increased her smart-assedness to a barely tolerable level.

Luckily, Gillian wasn’t here to offer one of her impressive synonyms because she’d bailed on their plans. If Claire could place money on it—and she couldn’t, with only $7 to her name, the very reason for this “manipulative/sad/exploitative farce”—Gillian was protesting GMO’s one county over. Perhaps arguing for the rights of beluga whales. Or, and this was the most likely, she was loitering at the Creamy Whip, breasts thrust at a very specific angle so that customers’ cones would find their shirts and not their mouths.

Psh! Now if that wasn’t an “exploitative farce” then Claire didn’t know what was. Gillian had mosquito bite boobs and a push-up bra more magical than her own powers.

But here was the thing: Claire wasn’t completely faking it. She wasn’t, so to speak, wearing a bra with three inches of padding. She could read palms, see futures unfurl, weblike, across strangers’ skins. Forks, divots, complex branches—each had such a distinct voice, that Claire had no doubt as to whether or not, say, Mr. Duncan over there would choke on a hot dog and die very suddenly. Or whether young Malva—that girl with the cotton candy and ruffled socks—would pop out a kid by the time she was 17. Claire, being a witch, knew precisely what would befall her clients by simply looking at their hands.

But of course, teenage pregnancy and death by synthetic meat logs weren’t exactly good for customer satisfaction. And so Claire would read Mr. Duncan’s palm, and she would see Mr. Duncan’s red face, gasping on a particularly troublesome bit of hot dog, but say he’d live until he was 85. A little white lie for a happy client. And a happy client meant A) money, B) a potential second visit, and thus C) more money. The $5 rocks weren’t scams, just for-profit business cards.

So she was lying, but not, y’know, totally lying. She’d deal with the prevention of hot dog-induced deaths later, when it better benefitted her monthly budget. (Because just as she wasn’t a complete liar, she wasn’t a complete asshole either.)

The fair had died down to a trickling of stragglers: mostly drunks, a couple of junkies who’d staggered into Nayawenne County for cheap-rate smack. Sighing, Claire stood to begin packing up, turned off the moody sound effects, gathered Gillian’s stack of Tarot cards (all hand-painted variations of herself: man Gillian; tree Gillian; Gillian with bigger-than-mosquito-bite boobs).

In the five hours since Claire had arrived, she’d made $120. Not a terrible turnout if one compared it to last year’s fair, when an angry swarm of Bible-thumpers had tossed her earnings into the funnel cake fryer. Sally Bain—or, as Claire called her, Sally Bane-of-Her-Existence—had rallied her troop of Jesus warriors and thrust crucifixes into Claire’s face, chanting things like, “Begone Satan!” and “This is God’s land!”

Which was kind of funny when you thought about it. If God wanted to claim ownership of Nayawenne—out of every other place in the universe—then he was pretty damn stupid.

Fortunately, Claire had suffered no further Bible-thumping, crucifix-wielding disturbances. Sally Bane-of-Her-Existence had fled town once she’d discovered her husband had fucked the organ player up in the ass. And in the church rectory, no less. (Such irony! Claire’d had absolutely nothing to do with it. Ha.)

It had been a windy afternoon, and Claire’s crystal ball was now coated in a fine layer of dust. Though it was only for decorative purposes—for customer satisfaction!—Claire decided she ought to give it a nice shine, make it look at least halfway capable of revealing visions of tomorrow.

Witch Tip #1: Unbeknownst to Mortals, crystal balls were like kisses from a true love. Which was to say, not powerful in the slightest. The most a kiss could do was give you mouth herpes. And, at its highest power, a crystal ball would fly across a room, break a window and the pinky toe of an irritating significant other. Not that Claire had experience with either situation. Certainly not the mouth herpes.

Claire ripped off a paper towel and went to grab the Windex, only to realize she’d left the Windex at home. Had, by a stroke of poor planning, only brought the herbal tonic she sometimes had to spritz into her eyes when they got a bit cloudy.

Witch Tip #2: Seeing the future had its drawbacks. Your eyes would get all crusty if you did it too much. As if your body was punishing you with goopy morning blindness. Honestly, it was pretty gross.

Well shit, Claire thought. She spat on her hand and rubbed the ball, hoping the couple beside “Whack-A-Democrat” wouldn’t think she was, like, doing something sexual to an inanimate object.

But whatever the couple thought, they were watching her, whispering behind their hands and giving her darting glances. Oh God, Claire thought, Bible-thumper radar blaring. Did Sally Bain send them? Did she organize a sabotage via prayer? Was it possible to raise an army of vengeful Baptists an entire state away? (Claire wouldn’t be surprised. She’d heard of stranger things. Done some of them herself. See also: anally-fucked organ player before he was anally fucked.)  

But no, the couple wasn’t looking at Claire with the fury of God in their eyes—but fascination. The woman, a petite but sturdy thing, was shoving her partner in Claire’s direction. Making a not-so-obvious pointing gesture, like, Her. Her! that he seemed somewhat reluctant to obey. Still, he did, and soon he was striding towards Claire, long legs stomping up clouds of dirt dust, red hair matching the synthetic blood of a “whacked” Bill Clinton.

“Are you…” the man began, looking nervously over his shoulder. The woman pursed her lips, arched her brow like, Do it, you pussy. He shoved his hands in his pockets, defeated. “Are ye done for the day, lass?”

“I was just about to pack up, but I’ve time for another reading if you’re interested.”

“Aye…” he said, completely unconvincing. “Aye, I suppose I’m interested.”

“Well then, take a seat, Mr…?”

“Fraser. Jamie.”

He was huge. Like, mega huge. Like, he could probably eat her. He was also ridiculously attractive, which meant that if he did eat her, Claire would ask him to do it again. She most definitely would not mind being inside his mouth.

“So what’s it going to be this evening, Jamie? Tarot? Crystal ball? A pal—”

“My sister says as I should have ye read my palm.”

“Oh! Splendid. Is that your sister back there?”

“Aye, that’s Jenny.” Again, he looked over his shoulder at the woman, her eyes unblinking despite the tidal wave of dust. As if to explain her behavior, he said, “We just moved here from Scotland. Only been in Nayawenne County for a few weeks now.”

“Dear me,” Claire replied, and then cringed. Attractive, mega huge men made her nervous—and sometimes her nerves made her sound like a 50’s housewife. It was a problem, she now realized, she ought to fix. “I mean, like,” she continued, “bloody hell. That’s a long way.”

“Family orders.” He shrugged. “But yer not so close to home yourself. British, by your accent.”

Claire nodded. “I’ve been here for a while now. Packed my bags when I was 20 and moved for…” She floundered for a plausible explanation. “Well. A guy.”

This, like Claire’s palm reading, was not a total lie. She had, indeed, come to America for a man: Ray, one of her classmates, had sought her input on a new enchantment in ‘04. A healing spell—Claire’s specialty —prepared from some rare fungi found in the hills of Appalachia. But Claire had about as many romantic feelings for Ray as she would a toad. Too many all-nighters spent with his warty nose and her (she liked the think) perfectly attractive nose stuck in the same spell book.

She’d stayed, though, after that. Anything—even bumfuck Ohio—was better than going back to England, where every witch wanted to hex her…

But that was a story for another time. 

This story, right here, continued with a ripple of concern across Jamie’s face. Claire regarded him, wary, but glad Gillian wasn’t here to ruin their conversation with Words of the Day, beluga whales, or push-up bras. Jamie was, at the moment, only hers.

“He’s out of the picture now,” she said. “The guy, that is.”

“Sorry to hear that. I’m just out of a break-up myself. One of the reasons I was none so unhappy about leaving Scotland.”

“Oh, well…” She looked down as if expecting two beverages to materialize, waiting to be held aloft. Instead, she grabbed her bottle of eye tonic. Lamely spritzed it into the air. “Here’s to being single then!”

“Aye, to being single,” he said, the mist falling slowly between them. Claire had never heard a proper guffaw before, but the sound that came from Jamie’s mouth was what she’d always imagined a guffaw to be. Warm, kinda strange, totally hot.

“So,” she began, getting back on track. “You said your sister put you up to this? Any specific reason for that?”

“Dinna ken,” Jamie replied, smiling a little beneath his (also) perfectly attractive nose. “I dinna question Jenny when she tells me to do something. She’s into this kind of…” He looked at the crystal ball, the cards, the rather tasteless turban sitting lopsided on Claire’s head. “Weel, whatever you call this.”

“How wonderful,” Claire said, giving Jenny another once-over. Adorable, really, when Mortals got caught up in the craft. One minute they were watching Oprah, swallowing her New Age-y drivel, and the next thing they thought they were gods. Practicing divinations, performing séances in the streets with Glade candles and getting hit by Aramark trucks. (She’d read about it in the paper once.)

“Well, I suppose we should get on with it then. Will you open your hand for me? Palm up, please.”

Jamie laid his hand on the table. It, like the rest of him, was huge.

The last man Claire went out with had also had large hands. He’d taken her to the theater and—there was really no other description for it—had swallowed her with his bulk. Sucked her face, handled her boobs like a hungry squirrel might stockpile acorns. She could still taste his buttery-saltiness on her tongue, the little bit of crunched kernel that had slid from between his teeth to the back of her throat. She’d coughed, choking, and when he’d reached to pat her back, he’d decided to take a handful of her tit instead. Just held onto it, leech-like, while the fugitive kernel slowly killed her. (Luckily, his other hand—the one not squeezing her boob—handed her the Diet Coke, and she survived.)

Jamie wouldn’t do that, she thought. His big and gentle hand would pat her back first, then return, lightly graze her tit as if by accident. It would, quite possibly, be the most artful tit-graze in all of human history.

And sitting here, trying to read Jamie’s palm, Claire realized she wanted his hand, right there, quite badly. To have his thumb teasing her nipple through her shirt, maybe traveling a bit lower. Slipping beneath the elastic waistband of her panties, to her crotch, which Louise at Louise’s would’ve waxed just for the occasion. The noises she would make would disturb the other viewers, but Jamie, with those big and gentle hands, would not muffle them.

“D’ye see anything interesting?” Jamie asked now, and the image of his hand on her tit, while fingering her in the 13th row of the Regal Cinema, vanished. Was promptly replaced by worry.

“Well, it’s funny, really…”

The true answer was: nope, nada. Nothing. Not even a flicker of Jamie wrapped around a toilet bowl, vomiting bad cheeseburger on a Saturday night. Jamie Fraser’s palm was like one of those ancient texts she and Ray had pored over, all bizarre hieroglyphs and nonsensical syntaxes. But while they had managed a crude translation, this was something entirely different. Jamie Fraser’s palm, Claire knew, would never reveal its secrets—no matter how hard she tried.

Which was why Claire swooned a little bit, and why Jamie had to reach over to keep her from toppling to the ground. His hand, though it did not brush against that sacred spot of her breast, did find the small of her back, stayed there a touch too long. Through her fog of shock, Claire thought: There’s some sort of time etiquette for this kind of thing, right? A three-second max before it veers from a purely platonic gesture into something kinda sexual?

“That bad was it?” Jamie said, smirking.

“Sorry,” Claire replied, leaning into him. She lingered over his face but found no indication that he was feeling the same way, or even thinking, Blimey! That just veered from a purely platonic gesture into some thing kind of sexual!

“Fine. I’m fine. Peachy keen as they say!” Claire cleared her throat to keep her voice from cracking. “It’s just—your hand is a bit unusual is all. I’ve not seen anything like it.”

“Is ‘unusual’ a good thing or a bad thing?”

Well, Claire thought, that depended on what exactly was being called “unusual”. Because what she was feeling was really fucking unusual, and what she was feeling was a bone-deep, stomach-fluttering ache. Like Cupid had shot his arrow straight up her ass, punctured all her gory insides and skewered her heart like a shish kebab.

“I dunno, really. I guess it means—”

“I’m special?”

“You could say that.” Was she blushing? She was blushing. “Mr. Fraser…”

“Jamie.”

“Right. Jamie. I’m afraid—God, this is a little embarrassing—I can’t actually read your palm. There’s nothing there.” She slid the fiver across the table, feeling too frazzled to consider spinning one of her lies.  “These things happen from time to time. I’m, uh, probably just tired. But you can have this back. I won’t take your money.”

“‘Nothing,’ ye said? You didn’t see a thing?”

“Afraid so. Nothing to worry about though. It’s not necessarily a bad omen…It’s—it’s hard to explain.”

For a man being given a very sincere and full refund, Jamie’s face was abnormally pale. The color had drained from his cheeks, and his hands—so incapable of leech-like grabs!—began to tremble. Two crooked fingers beat a nervous rhythm into his pant leg, and he quickly got to his feet.

“Keep the money, lass,” he said, “You can pay me back later.” And if he wasn’t in such a rush, Claire would’ve been able to confirm that she had, in fact, heard him say, “I’ll see you soon, Claire.” That her name wasn’t a tacked-on politeness, but something he’d said with the utmost tenderness.

And if Claire had been an upstanding member of the Coven Coalition— a studious practitioner of spells—she would’ve been able to hear Jenny and Jamie’s conversation from 50 feet away. Instead, she was forced to define Jenny’s smug whoop as if it were Gillian’s Word of the Day.

Jenny’s Smug Whoop (n):

1) a victory celebration, i.e. I told ye so, did I no’?!

2) proof of a mutual understanding of Witch Tip #3, i.e. A witch cannot see her own future (yet another palm-reading glitch). If, for example, Claire read a client’s palm, and her reading was filled with blips of blankness, then she had likely stumbled upon a deep intersection. Or, rather: a point in time where her future and the client’s were so intertwined—beyond family, beyond friendship—that Claire could not see the specific event due to her involvement and the aforementioned glitch.

And so there was one reason—one very momentous reason—that Claire could not read Jamie Fraser’s palm. He had a future, no doubt about it, but every second was marked by a certain curly-haired, British witch. (Refer to: a deep, ongoing intersection.) She, Claire Beauchamp—who was not at all an upstanding member of the Coven Coalition but who would certainly enjoy having those big, gentle hands in her underwear for the rest of her days—was Jamie Fraser’s future. You could, if you were of the romantic persuasion, even say they were soul mates.

The discovery of one’s soul mate has adverse effects on one’s respiratory system, and so Claire found it hard to breathe. She scrambled through her purse, found her flask, and took a hearty pull.

“I take it yer off duty, then?” said an unfamiliar voice. “Claire, is it?”

Claire looked up to find Jenny Fraser, that same smug wash of victory tugging at her eyes.

“Aye, but of course it is. I ken that already.” Jenny cleared her throat, expanded her chest like a sermonizing Sally Bain. “You’re Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp, born October 20th, 1989 in Oxford, England. Parents, deceased—verra sorry for yer loss, by the way—and an uncle, missing in action. Yer also currently broke, by the looks of it, which is why yer selling wee pebbles covered in shite.”

Claire, utterly speechless, simply said, “Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,” through a mouthful of gin.

“Christ, to be sure. Sadly, Mr. FDR is a bit worse for wear. Got a proper skelping back there.”

Claire looked around wildly and found Jamie watching them—albeit, still visibly flustered—by the freshly bludgeoned Roosevelt.

“Did the Coalition send you?” she asked, frantic. “Am I in trouble? Because…Look! I’ll stop selling the bird shit rocks, all right? Just please don’t report me.”

Jenny shook her head, laughing.

“Nay, it’s nothing like that. It’s only—weel, it appears you’ve just confirmed something I’ve suspected for some time now. About you and my brother.”

Witch Tip #4: Magical beings—witches, wizards, fairies, vampires, etc. etc.—are everywhere. The old woman throwing Reese’s Pieces at the ducks could very well be a shapeshifter. Your random client at the county fair could have a witch for a sister.

“If you’re referring to how I couldn’t read Jamie’s palm, then yeah, I—”

But Jenny interrupted, happily offered her hand for shake.

“I’d say that settles it,” she said. “If yer going to make a lovesick fool of my brother, then I think we should be friends, aye?”