#He's just a simple bug who has a lot to unpack

[cometcrystal]

schrucy songs. if you even care

since other schrucy nation ppl were doing it i wanna do it too.

this doesn't have any classical songs bc i don't really listen to classical at all. sorry schroeder. featuring select lyrics from each song

just what i needed - the cars

this song is simple and straightforward and could be applied to a lot of ships in a general sense but the reason it sticks out as a schrucy song to me is the insistence that the singer ENJOYS having this other person stick around and bug them and so on and so forth. schroeder POV obviously. echoes of the van pelt moving arc are here. also the line “i needed someone to bleed” god. idk where to begin unpacking that with them but its lots of fun. something something their best match is always gonna be someone who they can be a bit of a cunt around

i don’t mind you coming here / and wasting all my time

i guess you’re just what i needed / i needed someone to feed / i guess you’re just what i needed / i needed someone to bleed

i think you're alright - jay som

if i had to pick only 3 songs to attach to schrucy, this would be one of them for sure. my GOD i don’t even know where to begin. schroeder POV again. the blood on the concrete line referencing lucy’s hotheaded nature... maybe after a fistfight with a 3rd party. saying that someone is pretty, then that their smile is unforgiving; two contrasting statements at first glance. and then “i’ll place it where nobody can find” in reference to that same smile. this 100% reads as a song about someone being in love with someone who is mean and abrasive, but the singer still treasures them. and THEN, after all that praise, the singer’s just like “yeah you’re okay i guess” which is SO funny and good. idk man. just listen to it. if you get it you get it.

and god, you’re so pretty / your smile’s unforgiving / i’ll place it where nobody can find / i’ll play all your favorite songs

build me up buttercup - the foundations

this one’s a lucy POV and its pretty straightforward.... this is one of the most canon-compliant songs on this list. i don’t feel the need to elaborate too much its just a fun bop about an unrequited crush (or is it...)

although you’re untrue / i’m attracted to you all the more

she's always a woman - billy joel

of COURSE this song was gonna make this list. was there ever any doubt??? this is THE schrucy song. the amount of respect and understanding and ADMIRATION the singer has for this woman that sounds like a nightmare to deal with is INCREDIBLE. he talks about her flaws the same way you’d expect him to talk about her graces. this reads to me like a married, adult schrucy, who are very much settled into their lives and are in that stage where there’s not many surprises from either of them but they’re just cozy with each other

she never gives out / and she never gives in / she just changes her mind

she’ll bring out the best and the worst you can be / blame it all on yourself / cause she’s always a woman to me

ringtone - 100 gecs

YES i am putting a 100 gecs song on this list. if it fits IT FITS. we get both POVs this time! i think the original is kind of alluding to a breakup or something negative, but i’m choosing to make it about unresolved feelings for my own purposes. of COURSE a modern lucy would give schroeder a custom ringtone and be overjoyed whenever she hears it. schroeder hearing the ring that he has set for lucy on HIS phone and feeling sick because he’s realized that he likes her now. etc etc. anyway this song is fun and i like

it’s my way of trying to let you know / i’ve got a little thing for you / i’ve got a little crush or somethin’

mastermind - taylor swift

this song is so damn lucy it HURTS. once she and schroeder get together she’s probably very annoying (affectionate) about it and is like “I planned this all along >:)” and the mention of people not liking her so she has to actively manipulate the situation to make them like her???? ITS SO GOOD!!

no one wanted to play with me as a little kid / so i’ve been scheming like a criminal ever since

and i swear / i’m only cryptic and machiavellian cause i care

how to embrace a swamp creature - the mountain goats

this one’s a bit of a stretch but this is my list not yours. this could be from either of their POVs tbh... schroeder while he’s preparing to confess how he feels? lucy while she tries to grapple with the fact that her feelings are finally requited after so long? theyr’e both SUCH complex and messy characters and their relationship is no different. it takes them a while to stop feeling so strange, even if it is a good strange

i try to tell you just why i’ve come / it’s like i’ve got molasses on my tongue

end of post. no i will not put this under a cut. read my post boy

[reksink]

Some appreciation for Dirthmouth's favorite musician

[lenaariewrld]

content loading

KUROO — 8. a strange feeling

You wake up when you feel an unexpected weight suddenly placed on your chest, a gentle rumbling echoing through your ribcage. Your eyes peek open to see your cat, a shark hat strapped under her chin. “Bimmie!” You coo sleepily, your arms cradling the cat and rubbing her spine. She arches her butt against your palms.

“Good morning. Time to get up,” Kuroo stands at the foot of your bed, fully dressed and staring at you over a mug of coffee. You turn your attention away from your cat to glare at him.

“What time is it?”

“Seven,”

“Fuck that,” You turn back to loving on your cat, scratching her ears and chin and rubbing the sides of her fluffy body. She purrs and coos from all the wonderful attention, kneading her paws into you particularly hard when she enjoys the rubs you give her. A gentle laugh leaves you when she finally decides she has had enough and she saunters her way to the space on your bed not occupied by humans, curling up and tucking her paws beneath herself.

Kuroo is still standing by your bed and waiting for you to get up. You sigh and sit up, frowning deeply. “Why am I getting up so early for?” You ask, “It better be for those good pancakes, or else I will kill you,” You threaten softly.

The man chuckles, watching you get up sluggishly. His amusement continues as you drag yourself around the room to gather your proper materials for waking up and being a functioning member of society. Because mornings do not make you look like a functional member of society.

He seats himself in your chair while you leave to head to your bathroom.

“We need to go grocery shopping... I got the others to make lists of things they wanted or needed, what meals we could make, and all that. I just need someone to keep track of the list,” He informs you, spinning the chair to look around your room.

The walls are decorated with posters of your favorite characters from anime and tv shows you like, shelves stacked with manga or figurines from games you’ve adored. Your desk is a neat mess of gaming things and just cute knick-knacks that make it look more you. Kuroo finds himself smiling at it all.

The bathroom door opens sometime later and he turns his head to hear you if you should speak. “Okay, I’m assuming this is your roundabout way of telling me if I go, you’ll buy me snacks?” You pose the question, rubbing a towel over your head to dry your hair.

Kuroo hums.

“You got a deal,” He finally declares, a cheeky smile flashing in your direction. You sarcastically smile back, heading to your closet and grabbing clothes to change into. Kuroo once again takes the time to look around your room.

You don’t go through your entire morning routine this time, deciding to save the man the trouble and put it off until you feel more energized to actually have thoughts. Instead, you just settle for a good shower and clean clothes. Kuroo waits patiently for you the entire time, standing up and holding out his mug for you. To your surprise, it’s not his coffee but yours, made exactly how you like it.

A funny warmth spreads in your chest, and you haven’t even drank the coffee yet.

“Thank you,” You hum, following him downstairs and towards the front door, nursing your mug the whole way. It’s not piping hot so drinking larger gulps is much easier.

You make a quick stop in the kitchen to transfer your coffee to a more portable cup before heading outside. Kuroo is waiting for you once again, a patient smile on his face.

The whole drive he plays soft music, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. You notice he only moves his pointer finger or pinkie to drum.

“Okay,” You brace yourself in your seat, wiggling your body as much as you can to face Kuroo more. “What is the plan this time, chief?” You raise your brow and slide your cup into the cup holder that separates the driver and passenger seat.

“I’ve already organized the shopping list into different categories so we can just go from aisle to aisle and get it all rather than jumping throughout the whole store,” Kuroo says, “It’s on my phone,” He adds before you can question where this oh-so-meticulously put-together list is. Instead, you nod. Kuroo smiles and hands you the device from his sweatpants pocket.

“Add your snacks,”

The rest of the drive is short and helps wake you up completely. By the time Kuroo parks and you climb out, you have the energy to ransack a whole 7-11. Hypothetically.

Kuroo leads you inside, letting you push the cart and being, for once, responsible about the shopping while you trail behind with a small smile. He tells you all the tips for making sure vegetables are ripe or fruits are the kind of look and taste you might want, how to get the best quality of items without overpaying, and what to look for when buying fresh meat.

Admittedly, you are indulging him. You know a good portion of the tips (let’s be honest, who doesn’t know how to make sure an apple or a tomato is good?). However, his happiness to tell you and his earnest helpfulness are refreshing.

“Do you eat salads?” You question as he turns the third variety of lettuce in his hand, inspecting it for bug bites and dirt. “Because that’s the only thing I can think of why you need multiple kinds of lettuces,” You add when he looks at you. Kuroo pouts.

“Don’t be mean,” He huffs. You giggle.

“Then put down the lettuce. Stick to the list. And I don’t see three types of lettuces on here,”

Kuroo sets down the lettuce and turns to you, lightly keeping his hand on the cart. He leans close to you as if preparing to share a secret. “What if I just wanted us all to be healthier?” He says, adding a ‘hmm’ at the end as if he owned you with his sick hypothetical logic. You bump his shoulder and keep pushing the cart past all the leafy vegetables.

“As if you care,”

Kuroo dramatically slaps his hand over his chest. “I am wounded, muffin,” He leans over the cart to lay against your back, laughing as you try to shove him off. However, he was an athlete in high school and still kind of works out thanks to Bokuto being his roommate. You, who has never even looked at an exercise machine, are not as strong as him, and struggle to move him.

“You’re wounding me now!” You shove his bicep, earning a laugh from him. He only drapes his arms around your shoulders, relaxing his body against you further without actually hurting you.

A few other shoppers in the store look at you two. It’s mainly older women, and they simply smile at the two of you and shuffle past without saying anything.

How cute they are, they must think, so happy.

You finally manage to get Kuroo off of you and continue the shopping trip, now with a lot fewer distractions. You make Kuroo keep one hand on the cart as a precaution, reading off items he needs to grab. He doesn’t pout or complain, simply nodding along and going with what you say.

“I know this song,” You comment as you push the cart farther into an aisle. You strain your ears to hear the music faintly playing over the store’s speakers, a smile spreading on your lips as you recognize the tune you had listened to on repeat before. “It’s one of my favorites,”

“Really?” Kuroo carefully grabs a jar of jam and sets it in the car basket. You hum and nod. He smiles back and crosses his arms as he leans on the side of the cart, watching your face. “Why did you like it?”

You stop pushing the cart to check the list. “Why wouldn’t I? It was a great dancing song,” You shrug and cross off the items the both of you already set in the cart. A good chunk of the list had been cleared, and you smile at how much you’ve already completed of this trip. You turn off the phone and hold it out for the man, letting him take it back.

“Show me?” Kuroo asks, holding out his hand. You let out a small laugh. Dancing in the middle of a store aisle sounds like something from a romantic book or movie. Gently, you take his hand and step closer to him. The shopping was temporarily forgotten.

You start leading him in a simple dance, stumbling through the motions as you try to hear the music over the other noises of the store. Kuroo chuckles and follows your lead, holding both your hands and twisting around the small space. A laugh bubbles in your throat and he twirls you, his hand coming around your waist to pull you in again. “You’re quite skilled!” You say, squeezing his hand twice.

He squeezes back.

Again, you feel a funny warmth in your chest. This time, paired with a fluttering in your stomach. Kuroo’s smile never fades as he stares at you, continuing the silly made-up dance you both perform.

“You’re the one leading, I should say that about you,” Kuroo once again twirls you. You release one of his hands and extend your arm, twirling back in until your back hits his chest. You giggle. “See?” He comments, humming along to the song.

You both rock back and forth like that for a moment.

“Now you’re just being cheesy,” You tease, stepping away from the man. He shakes his head playfully, brushing off your words. You run your fingers through your hair, clearing your throat. “We should get back to the shopping,” You take the cart again. Kuroo is right behind you, already with a new item from the list in his hand. He sets it in the basket before placing his hand back on the handle.

You pat the back of his hand, relaxing your hand over his absentmindedly.

The shopping continues like normal, with occasional breaks for Kuroo to look at items or point out interesting things he sees. It’s quick work, and you find yourself at the checkout before you know it, packing your items into bags and carrying them to the car.

The strange stomach twisting doesn’t die down. Even when you unpack the bags with Kuroo, roping Kageyama and Bokuto into helping you both put all the groceries away, it sticks.

Strange.

previous | masterlist | next

funfacts:

Kuroo is in charge of the grocery shopping because he’s the only one who likes doing it

Kenma or Yamaguchi usually go shopping with Kuroo but he decided to torment you instead

taglist: @odxrilove @pogpixelz @toshiswifey @thechaosoflonging @anime-meme-sanctuary @chaseyui @lucyrocks86 @mirikusashes @bolinhodadestruicao @w0rm-babie @fandomsgotmefucked @meena-in-a-nutshell @halcyondaisy @emisse @cerealfrdinner797 @sakusasimpbot

[unknownwriting]

Summary- going on a date

Character(s)- Kaminari Denki, Kirishima Eijiro, Mina Ashido, Aizawa Shōta

Warnings- just so one comes for me, everyones aged up!!, besides that none :)

Notes- ahh look at me trying to expanding my fandoms

Kaminari Denki

Definitely an arcade date. A simple yet fun idea.

Of course when he invites you, it mostly as a joke. He’s not expecting you to actually answer. But when you did this man is like so excited. If he could he would’ve planned the date that day but of course he waits till the weekend.

It’s a casual date, nothing to fancy just the 2 of you enjoy the little things. It’s one of those dates that feel like a date yet at the same time doesn’t.

It’s like those dates y’all see in like those cheesy romance movies. It’s a very cute date 🥺💕

Of course y’all don’t spend the whole date at the arcade, it was just the first out of many spots. Y’all basically play till y’all can’t anymore then go out to eat.

Y’all end up chatting about anything and everything, whatever topic pops up yall talk about it. At one point you make him charge you phone, limited his ability to talk. But you end up talking the most anyways.

After y’all had eat and enjoyed a dessert or 2, the 2 of y’all go a goof off at some random park. Talking on the swings, climbing up the monkey bars, petting to local cats.

Over all the date was just a simple one but it was probably the best one Denki has ever had and will have.

Before the date, he knew you only as a classmate, not knowing the small things about you. After the date he learns and remembers all the little things about you.

Your favorite color, your dream pet, what you what to do as a side job, how you wanna help people. All the little things.

Denki felt so unbelievably happy when the date was over. He hasn’t be on many dates before more like none so going on a date with you, and it being an actual date made him so happy. Y’all are definitely gonna be going in more dates from now on

Kirishima Eijiro

Unlike Denki, dates with Kirishima take a bit more time to plan. Kirishima loves to go hiking, so why not go on a hiking date with him.

You honestly had never been on one so you have no idea what y’all would even do but you decided to go along with it. It something new for you to try and plus Kirishima seemed really happy when he was talking about it.

You clearly underestimate him and the date. By a lot. To start of with, y’all met up together just as the sun had reached over the horizon. It was to early.

2nd, he just had to pick the most ‘manliest’ trail. It was an gorgeous trail, don’t think it wasn’t. There were so many animals, birds, and beautiful flowers. But also bugs, and awkward wooden stairs and rocks, and a lot of walking. At that point you weren’t sure if this was a date or extra training.

However, you went along with it. Although it wasn’t your thing, it was nice change of pace and something else fun to try. The date wasn’t bad either, the two of y’all cracked jokes, chatted about the latest gossip at the school and about y’all’s works study, and just talking about random topics.

At one point y’all ended up holding hands and walking shoulder to shoulder, until however the 2 of y’all didn’t even know how or when y’all did it. The only time y’all noticed it was when Kirishima tried to head off into a bush to pee but next he knew you just continued to follow him. His flustered face was so unmanly.

After hours and hours of talking, sunset came and you noticed that y’all weren’t near the entrance of the trail. You brought your concern with him, but he simply smiled, grabbed you hand once again and asked, “Trust me. You’ll love it.”

There was no way you couldn’t trust that smile. So you continued to follow him until the sun began to dip under the horizon. And an hour before the light had disappeared completely, Kirishima brought you to a lovely field and a small picnic area

You were speechless, you were definitely not expecting that. It was so strange yet cute. So while you stood there, speechless, Kirishima began to unpack a bunch of snacks, of course ones that didn’t need to be referated. Once he set them all out, he looked back at you and smiled sheepishly, “Hehe, I hope you don’t mind a pinic date.” 

and of course you loved it. The date lasted on for about 2 more hours before yall decided to head back. Although the walk back was scary and surprising a lot shorter bc he apparently knew a short cut, it was still fun. The date was very new and nice, it was very different from any date you went on before. So this just might become a regular thing for you.

Mina Ashido 

a night out on the town all the way. Kinda like Kaminari but not at the same time...

Even though the date is technically at night. The 2 of y’all spend the day together anyways. Not going out and partying, but lazing around the house doing nothing. Mina liked to call it your girl time where y’all gossip, watch rom-coms, fantasize about the future, sending each other memes, simply stuff like that.

It wasn’t until around 5 when the date was finally starting. Y’all would get all dressed up, do each other’s make up, complement the hell out of each other, flirt, and try on like 5 different outfits before finally heading out.

The night started off relatively calm. The 2 of y’all would start the date off by going out to dinner at a somewhat fancy restaurant. Where y’all would continued to gossip and talk about random things.

After the dinner date the 2 of y’all would sneak off to an ice cream parlor and enjoy an ice or 2 together. Completely ruining y’all’s outfits. Besides the dinner date and the ice cream, everything after that wasn’t planned at all. It was all up to Mina where y’all would go.

To the club! Is the first place Mina’s gonna drag you too. It was popular club too where citizens, heroes and even villains would attend. The only rule that’s enforced at the clubs is: no sharing your real identity with a stranger. Besides that it’s a free for all.

Dancing, drinking, partying. They do it all, and y’all definitely do it all. Of course still having a sense of responsibility, y’all don’t drink too much but y’all definitely make that up on the dance floor.

While dancing you even ran into a few friends and decided to join their little party. Y’all did everything: drinking games, dance, encourage fights, ate till y’all couldn’t stand, threw it all up in the bathroom then did it again. You were pretty sure you saw some people from the league of villains but who cares. You were on a date not a night patrol.

Of course y’all aren’t super human well technically you are butttt so eventually even y’all had to call it quiets. It was around 3 am tho. It was a good thing that y’all didn’t have work in the morning. So the 2 of y’all said you goodbyes and slowly stumbled y’all’s way back to your apartment. Both of y’all took turned carrying each

As soon as y’all go home y’all had enough energy go pull off your outfits before crashing on the bed make up and all. The next morning, or next afternoon Mina was the first to wake up so she was quick to get dress and clean up before she began to make breakfast for you and a hot drink. When you woke up Mina was quick to check up on you and make sure you were feeling ok.

Once again y’all spent the day doing nothing and relaxing with each. And after a night like that, y’all couldn’t ask for more.

Aizawa Shōta

This man is like so romantic...when he wants to be lol. It really all just depends on his mood. Normally a date with him would be a very simple and easy going one.

Because he is a teacher, there’s a lot of time where’s he stuck grading papers and when that happens, He loves to cuddle up with you under a blanket and while you watch a movie or read or play on your phone he’ll grade the papers. Taking many breaks of course.

Most of the time his breaks will consist of him complaining about how one of his students didn’t get a question right or didn’t even answer it or just put something crazy. Most of the time he’s not to talkative but when it comes to school, especially his students, he won’t shut up. So you let him rant, you enjoy hearing this stories too anyways. His students are amazing.

Occasionally if it’s a simple worksheet with an answer sheet he made before hand, He’ll make you grade the papers while he sleeps or does something else. You love when this happens cause then your can give them a few extra points just bc.

Of course the date is not grading papers with him. The date comes after. Once all the papers are graded, the 2 of y’all would put in some relatively decent clothes and head out to the nearest coffee shop. A chance to get y’all out of the house and a nice breath of fresh air. Normally it’s your idea to go on the date but Aizawa always loves it.

Once y’all reach the cafe that’s when Aizawa would normally take over the date. He’ll either find something else he wants to do like see a movie or take a walk in the part the. Something he’ll just want to go back to the appointment and just sleep and relax.

It really doesn’t matter what y’all do. Aizawa’s the type of person to just savor the time spent with you. As long as he’s with you he doesn’t mind what y’all do. With thag in mind, he would prefer to just lay around the house and cuddle but he’s also open to your date ideas.

Like I said before Aizawa can be one hell of a charmer when it comes down to it. So when y’all go on actually dates. He knows exactly how to dress, act, and what do it. It’s almost like a completely different person but his lazy reaction remind you he’s still the same man you fell in love with.

Even the romantic dates are simple, going out to eat at a fancy restaurant and going out for a walk hand in hand. If y’all do something too exciting, he thinks it will take away from your beauty and distract him so that he’a not focused on you. So he keeps the dates simple so that he won’t have any distractions from you.

To others y’all’s dates might be too simple and boring, but y’all love them. The dates aren’t about seeing how much y’all could do together, it about spending time with each. So if all y’all do it go off to some cafe that’s around the block and talk, y’all are completely happy and satisfied.

[soup-du-silence]

One more ask and then I’ll stop bugging you. (I’m sorry, there’s just so much to unpack with this AU)

What does Luca’s ex think of Alberto? Does she know about him? Was Luca’s past with Alberto at all present in his relationship with his wife?

No worries! I probably wont actually write much of it so talking about it is pretty much the only chance it has to exist

This isnt something Ive given a lot of thought to, because I tend to favor following Alberto in my narratives.

-She must know something about Alberto, he's a vital part of Luca's childhood.

-its possible she didnt know they were dating. I dont know. One the one hand I'm thinking "how closely will Luca guard his queerness?" More or less than he will guard his fish-ness? She knows about the fish, why shouldnt she know about his ex-boyfriend?

-A Luca who is smitten with Alberto will find more reasons to bring him up and gush about him than a Luca who is feeling guilty about breaking it off with him. Maybe mentions of Alberto just fade away in time.

-Alberto will have visited Luca at University at least once, and found the visit really unpleasant. He felt out of place, left out, too simple and clumsy and dumb compared to Luca's friends. I wonder if she was in that friend group at the time? Did she meet Alberto then? Was Luca open about their relationship to his friends?

Tl; dr: I dont actually know! Sorry!

[hey-there-love]

Foolish

Summary: Being the new kid is hard right? Try moving across the world to attend the elite hero course at U.A. Unfortunately following the path of straight and narrow is difficult when you find a blonde ball of death throwing twists in it. Nobody said it was easy. New experiences, new friends, new interests...what could go wrong?

Chapter 2: Oh You’re Feisty

Content Warnings: Adult Language, Cringy Situations

Word Count: 2.2K

Once you gathered yourself, you opened the door and peaked around, searching for any sign of life. Grateful you were by yourself, you began to search for towels. After they were located, you washed the grime from the long flight away.

Quickly you got dressed, brushed your hair, and began to apply a light coat of mascara. You began to sing to yourself to calm your nerves about meeting your new class mates.

“Are you singing Ariana Grande? I love her!” Someone squealed, rushing into the bathroom. You jumped at the voice and managed to hit your lid with the whole mascara wand. You clutched your chest and whipped your head around.

“Hey look! Twins!” The pink girl cracked a joke. You embarrassingly horse laughed because she wasn’t wrong. She had sweet deep eyes that were black and brown.

“I swear I think I’ll have a heart attack before I even start my classes here.” You shook your head and inspected the damage to your makeup. You ran your finger under the faucet and began to scrub your eyelid making the simple error into a huge smudge. You groaned and glanced back to her with pleading eyes.

“Here,” she began digging into a drawer, pulling out a pack of makeup wipes. “Uraraka usually keeps these in here.”

“I’m assuming you’re Mina, my new neighbor right?” You questioned, thankful as you wiped the makeup off.

“You’d be correct! It’s good to meet you Y/N. I can already tell we’re going to be fast friends. Cute jeans by the way.”

“Thanks! I got these from H&M. I literally bought every color , so if you ever wanna borrow a pair let me know.”

“I’ll definitely take you up on that offer! Are you ready? Dinner is almost done and I figured I’d come check on you.” She responded, taking a seat on the counter top next to you.

“I am. Just let me drop my stuff off in my room.” You said opting to give up on the mascara after your incident. You finished primping and picked your things up.

As you walked back to your room she began to question your previous statement. “Who else gave you a heart attack? You’ve only been here for an hour!”

“Oh, actually I was heading into the bathroom and I guess I wasn’t paying attention and I crashed right into a guy. I felt so bad.” You said, unlocking your room and setting your things down on the desk.

“It was probably Kirishima! He came back downstairs whenever I got up. ” She giggled and leaned against your door frame.

“Well he definitely laughed at me after he pulled my underwear off of my shoulder!” You said slapping yourself in the forehead.

“Oh my gosh!” Mina squealed. “He never said anything so I guess your secret it safe. I hope they were old lady underwear for his sake. He definitely gets flustered easily.”

“He didn’t blush in the least and it was a thong! I don’t even think I could look him in the eye! Wait what does he look like?” You asked examining yourself for a final time and spraying a little bit of body spray.

“Spiked red hair, sharp teeth, the cutest boy wonder smile ever.” She gushed. That definitely wasn’t who you encountered.

“No it wasn’t him then, he had a permanent look of disgust. ” Her eyes grew wide and your face dropped. “What?”

“KATSUKI FREAKING BAKUGO TOUCHED YOUR PANTIES?” She hollered, making your ears ring. You shushed her not wanting to relive the experience.

“Not so loud! I don’t need everyone to know about my underwear!” You cried out , cheeks heating up.

“That’s hilarious. King of Murder and Destruction Bakugo. Laid hands. On. Your. Thong.” You swore she was about fall over laughing.

“Do you think he said anything?” You covered your face, completely and utterly mortified.

“Maybe just Kirishima because they’re best bros, but he despises everyone else so you have nothing to worry about!”

You groaned. “Can we please forget that ever happened and go?” Pleading as you pushed her out the door.

“Sure thing bestie my lips are sealed.” Mina replied, mimicking a zip and locking her mouth. She then looped her arm through yours and made you skip to the elevator.

“Can you give me a quick run down of what I’m about to walk into?” You questioned as she pressed the button on the elevator.

“Well, the girls are the most awesome people you’ll ever meet. You’ve met Momo, but there’s Jiro, who has a great taste in tunes but kinda moody. Uraraka, the biggest ray of sunshine on the planet. Hakegure, who has the best personality ever. Tsu, is a little different, but is hilarious, and of course the greatest person you’ll ever meet...me!” She laughed, squeezing your arm.

“And the guys...well they’re guys of course. Kirishima, a total sweetheart and a feminist might I add. Midoryia, nice kid but villain magnet. Ayoma, he’s from France and I think he’s on the DL if you catch my drift. Absolutely at all costs stay away from Mineta. The little grape asshole with give you permanent taste of vomit in your mouth.” You crinkled your nose at the last comment. She continued, “Todoroki, which is the number one pro her Endeavor’s son and a total hottie.” She wagged her eyebrows making you laugh. “Shinso, who is the strong quiet type. Tokoyami, very respectful, the type you’d take home for Sunday dinner.”

“There’s Sero, he gives great advice he’s almost like the class therapist. Koda is a modern day Snow White and has the cutest bunny ever. Sato bakes like it’s nobody’s business and will literally make you gain 10 pounds. Then finally there’s the angry Pomeranian Bakugo.” Mina finished finally. You were pretty sure she just ran out of breath after trying to explain to you quickly before the elevator doors opened.

Mina guides you through the threshold where a bright banner read ‘Welcome to Class 3-A Y/N!’ “That’s so nice!” You said excitedly and pulled out your phone to snap a picture. Low music flowed through the large room as people mingled. No one seemed to notice that you two had joined the group. “Hello? The guest of honor is here!” Mina called out. Soon there were eyes centered on you. You waved slightly to the crowd.

You were met with bright grins and greetings. “Well hello gorgeous.” Someone spoke, you began to search for the voice. “Hey, I’m right here!” You looked slightly down and discovered a...vertically challenged boy staring at you. Well he was actually trying to stare at your boobs through your baggy sweatshirt.

“Um...hey? My eyes are up here dude.” You grimaced. Mina rolled her eyes.

“Oh I know this view is much sexier. I’m Minuro Mineta, class 3-A stud. What’s your name babe?” He wiggled his eye brows and blew you a kiss.

Ugh gross. You thought.

“This is Y/N. Back away now maggot or I’ll crush you like a bug.” Mina hissed.

“Ooooh. I’ve never been stepped on before, but if you’re doing it Mina I’d love to try.” He smirked back licking his lips. A blonde quickly rushed over and pushed Mineta back before Mina lunged at him.

“Whoa dude chill. Let her acclimate before you start being gross. I’m Denki Kaminari by the way.” He said sticking out his fist. You extended yours and fist bumped him.

“Hey, I’m Y/N nice to meet you.” You replied.

“Weren’t you interning with Hopewing back in the States? She totally rocks, I actually got her autograph whenever we went to the I-Expo a few years back.” Kaminari seemed pretty interested in the Pro Hero so you indulged him a little.

“Sure did, she taught me a whole lot about quirk control and management. Hopewing was a great influence on me, she’s kinda like my All Might I guess.” You laughed and scratched the back of your head.

“Super cool,” Kaminari replied, “Come meet the guys we were all actually interested in your quirk. Maybe you could show it off?” He grabbed your hand and lead you over to the couch where a few people sat talking. You looked over your shoulder at Mina who gave you a thumbs up.

“Guys, this is Y/N! She’s pretty cool!” Kaminari said eagerly. A chorus of greetings rang in your ears. “Kirishima, Sero, Todoroki, and Bakubro.” He pointed to each one of them and sat down on the arm of the couch, leaving you awkwardly standing infront of the group. You met Bakugo’s eyes for a split second before gaining a glare and quickly averted your eyes.

“So where are you from?” Kirishma questioned.

Before you could answer Bakugo spoke up, “The states dumbass where else?” He crossed his arms across his chest. His friend glanced at him and stuck his tongue out.

“Ignore him, he hasn’t eaten since this afternoon. He gets a little cranky when he doesn’t fed around the clock.” He reached across and pinched Bakugos cheek lightly.

“Remove your hand Shitty hair before I blast your ass.” Bakugo scowled.

“See?”

“Shitty hair...” He warned and his hand began to heat up emitting a small cloud of smoke. The group rolled their eyes.

“Anyways, I’m from Chicago, Illinois.” You answered before Bakugo could make his threat a reality. You weren’t really scared, but slightly intimidated by the man.

“Is that kinda like New York City?” Sero questioned thoughtfully.

“Kinda. Chicago isn’t nearly as big.”

“You must be tired from the flight over.” Todoroki spoke up noticing you were getting standing uncomfortablely. He stood up from the love seat he sat on, offering you his spot.

“It’s no biggie. I’m just over this jet lag.” You said, ushering him to sit back down.

“Well at least sit with me then? I’m respectful.” He continued before you took him up on his offer and sat down on the arm of the chair.

“Of course you are Icy-Hot.” Bakugo mocked. The comment being brushed off.

The hell was this dudes problem?

“The jet lag is kinda awful, but it’ll be nothing compared to this time change. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep much tonight, I might just finish unpacking everything.” You said leaning back and closing your eyes for a second.

“Well if you need some help I’d be more than happy to assist my floor neighbor.” Kirishma offered.

“I’d actually really like that I have a book shelf that needs to be put together and I have no handiness what so ever.” You smiled. You felt eyes on you and peaked at Bakugo from your peripheral.

“So, like I saying earlier...this quirk?” Kaminari spoke up breaking the encounter with Kirishma.

“Kaminari why do I feel like you only friended me for my quirk?” You joked sarcastically.

“I did not! I’m just saying I think you owe me a demonstration since I practically saved you from Mineta humping your leg.” Sero fake gagged.

“Fine fine. Todoroki, I’d scoot over just a little bit I don’t want to ruin your vision like mine.” You said. His eyes grew wide and squeezed himself into the opposite arm of the chair. You closed your eyes and began to relax your body then staring at your finger tip. Your finger began to glow.

“That’s it?” Bakugo said, unimpressed. All of a sudden your hand began to glow blue before plasma rose through your skin. You began to use your other hand to shape it into a sphere. You tossed it slightly in the air and caught it before absorbing it back into your hand. You smiled

“Whoa...” the group responded. “What’s that called?” Sero questioned.

Just as you were about to share a guy came running over. “You have Ultra Violence?” He yelled and planted himself sitting across from you on the edge of the coffee table.

“You know my quirk?” You asked propping your elbows on your knees.

“Of course! I can’t believe I didn’t put it together before you got here! You’re the daughter of Stage Four! The plasma hero! His whole body can change into plasma! Can you do that too?” He said as he pulled a notebook out of seemingly thin air.

“Damn Deku. I thought I burned that thing?” Bakugo said, nostrils flaring.

“Oh you did Kachan...multiple times.” The guy said showing off the burn edges. He nervously smiled.

“Put that weird shit away before I finish it.”

“I think it’s cool. I’d like to see it sometime.” You said motioning to his prized possession.

“Just cause you’re new doesn’t mean you have to kiss everyone’s ass, you know.” Bakugo retorted.

“Are you just jealous because I’m not kissing yours?” You countered, a sly smile spreading across your lips.

He paused, thinking of a response. Obviously flustered, “Tch, screw you newbie.”

“Jeez Bakugo, if you suck your teeth anymore they’ll go straight down your throat.”

It looks could kill, you’d be 6 feet under. A small amount of smoke began to rise from him until he huffed and stormed away.

“Well shit, I think she just might make it around here. She defused the bomb!” Kaminari clapped and grinned ear to ear. You sat back down feeling completely flushed.

“Dinner is served!” Iida called from the kitchen.

“Midoryia right?” You asked. The green haired boy nodded his head quickly. “We’ll talk later and I can answer all your questions.” You smiled kindly and placed a hand of his arm, squeezing lightly

[popculturebuffet]

Amphibia Weekly Reviews: Bessie and Mircroangelo/The Third Temple “The Things We’ve Set into Motion Cannot Be Stopped”

Hello all you happy people. It’s been a long road, with an even longer road trip, but the season’s almost over: just two more weeks of Amphibia.. and with all the build up weighing down on our heroes two things are clear: this cannot end well for Anne or anyone involved, and this is going to hurt. It’s going to hurt a LOT. it’s going to be some...

... how have I not used more MST3K gifs. Questions for later. Point is with emotional pain immient, a revolution on the way this episode only ratchets up the tension.. while also sparing some time for makeover jokes and a breather episode about snail mentorships, fashion montages and giant crabs. I do love me some giant crabs. And i’ll tell you allllll about it under the cut. 

Bessie and MicroAngelo:

This episode finds our heroes preparing for the third and final temple, loading up the wagon and preparing weapons, maps, potions, all that good stuff. 

We end up getting two plots out of this. The first is the titular one: so Polly can help prepare, Hop Pop gives Bessie the task of watchin gher snail and certified cutie MicroAngelo, that tiny Snail who I assumed would disappear forever after his intitial apperance because that’s usually what cartoons does. But much like One Piece, Al Ewing and that owl what watches me while I sleeps, Amphibia never forgets. 

It’s some Looney Tunes style shenanigans.. not the bugs or daffy, more on him later today, kind more the “Bigger more responsible party protects the smaller more vunerable or reckless one” kind you’d see eveyr so often. Tom and Jerry also really loved this. And Amphibia wears it well, with some good gags and really cute bonding and some really excellent animation on Bessie, giving the old girl plenty of life and animation. The only part I genuinely do not like is Hop Pop  blaming Bessie for.. running after micro angelo afte rhe ran off. Aka doing the job you assigned her. 

Someone i’m looking at. Regardless otherwise it’s just some fun, adorable slapstick with a downright precious ending. And hop pop DOES apologize.. and wish he was a cute snail. I do not have time to unpack all the implications there nor ponder what Hop Pop would look like in a snail costume. This week’s given my brain enough nightmares. 

So anyway, our subplot has Marcy trying to give Anne a Makeover... and her past attempts with Sasha have been objectively horrifying so Anne is rightly scared, though the armorer who comes to help with it has a blue crab so tha’ts where all my attention. I fucking love crabs.. they just look so neat. Some see the fact a spider crab being out and about in animal crossing as horrifying. I see it as oh look at my cool terrifying crab friend. About the only crab I don’t like is this asshole. 

And even then he can be VERY funny. .he’s just also an exploitative douchebag and having worked in food service, let me tell you I.. I get why Squidward is the way he is. That said Krabbyland is a masterpiece entirely because he’s such a terrible person, so it ballances out when the show’s doing it’s best. 

Point is I like crabs and I like this subplot.. though mostly because it says a LOT about who Anne and Marcy are and where there at. Part of why Marcy is so gung ho about helping Anne is she figures this is her last shot to be whoever she wants to be. But really she’s just projecting: it’s been obvious since we properly met her that Marcy.. likes living HERE more than earth. On earth she’s an outcast: her hyperfixations, her tendency to babble about things she likes, her smartness... alll things that just make people turn away from her or pick on her on earth, with only two people relaly understanding and appricating her.. maybe more but we don’t know the situation with her parents yet. As someone who is a lot of those things, I get where she’s coming from. 

So ending up in a world straight out of an rpg... she florished. Everything that made her life difficult at home suddenly made her florish: her skill with RPG’s meant she could blend in easily with the courtly high class of Newtopia, gave her a love of taking on missions, and allowed her to put her hyperfixation, knowledge and enthusasim to real world use, creating massive improvments in an already ritzy city. Everything that made her an outcast in our world made her a hero there. It’s why I worry about what’s to come: to both Grime and Andrias.. she’s the perfectly made pawn: too desperate to have Sasha back to see the kinfe he wants her to plant in Marcy’s, and too happy to be accepted to see the rpg convention, the benevolent ruler turning out ot be a puppet for the big bad, starring her in the face. Amphibia’s given her her freedom.. but it’s also left her very vunerable and may leave her alone. 

As for Anne.. she realizes how far she’s come: from selfish and kind of distructive to selfless and self reliant.. and still kind of destructive but hey, you can’t cahnge eveyrthing about yourself. It’s why when given heavy armor.. all she needs is the core of it.. something simple to guard her but nothing too complex. She’s fine with who she is.. and it’s why she’s in the best place of the three girls. And why she’s left smack in the middle of the war to come. A war she can’t stop and that will leave her having to choose one... or do the right , hard thing and choose neither and try and free them from the bad influences they’ve embded themselves in. Either way this is going to hurt both her and the audience. 

Final Thoughts: Bessie and Mircoangelo is good classic cartoon fun with a suprisingly deep subplot. Simple, but a nice pallete clensar, especially since the next episode is pretty tense and given it’s ending and eveyrthing that’s been building this season, it’s likely only going to get worse from here, so it’s nice to have a quick and breezy break before hell comes to frogtown. 

The Third Temple:

Before we get to the final temple we get a flashback showing how Sasha met Anne and Marcy. The other two were playing on the swings when two big dillholes pushed them off and Sasha selflessly and fearlessly stood up to them. And promptly beat herself up more than the bullies who dodged her and eventually got so freaked out by whatever the hell this was they ran and a friendship was born. But noticably she’s a lot diffrent 7 years ago, aproximately, than she is at 13: she’s every bit as fearless and willfull.. but the compassion she once had got buried under a need for control. It’s easy to see now WHY Marcy and Anne loved her so much: she was their friend, their protector, she cared about them.. and while she never STOPPED somewhere along the way it became less about doing the right thing for the women she loves and more about getting her way. 

And now the two have had time to heal from what their friend girlfriend became.. it’s time to rip that wound wide open as finally, after almost a season of waiting, Sasha reunites with Marcy for the first time and Anne for the second. 

Naturally her return is in time for her gem to be charged, though our heroes unware of that didn’t seek her out before going in. This time Frobo’s riding claw though weirdly dosen’t come inside. Which is a problem with Frobo’s addition to the cast as the whole: they’ve kept him out of any episode since his induction into the family and only properly explained it once. It just dosen’t make a lot of sense to me; Yes he is massively powerful but his childlike thought process counters that. He’s easy enough to write in but is left out becasue the writers don’t want to deal with an extra character. And I had more than enough of that shit when watching Ducktales. I don’t need it when your main cast isn’t NEARLY as large or hard to juggle. It’s just galling to have spent an entire season showing he was following them, give him a whole episode.. and then just forget about him because i’ts convient. Hopefully he’ll play a bigger role as things progress and we find out where he came from because his misuse is a dark spot on an otherwise great second half of the season. 

Frobo does get to prove himself useful though and open s the temple door he just weirdly dosen’t come along. But this does leave the door open for Sasha to come in as our heroes struggle with the first puzzle: Turns out this dungeon was built by a bro, seriously the temple languge is very broey and VERY hilarious contrasted with how normal for a fantasy setting the others were, as is fitting the strength gem, so our heroes have to compete feats of strength. Unfortunately this does not mean wrestling the ghost of Jerry Stiller to the ground but instead fighting some Lava Worms, and fighting just ONE of them and lifting the provided warhammers is a challenge for Anne.. and she’s the only one who can with Marcy not having enough upper body stregnth and the plantars all de-hydrated spongebob style. 

So naturally Sasha ends up being their savor, easily dispatching them and getting some help from grime who while also dehydrated, is still phsycially strong enough to be of some help. Marcy is overjoyed to see her.. and is the only one. Given Marcy hasn’t been on the wrong end of Sasha and Grime like they have, it’s understandable: while Marcy’s grappled with Sasha’s actions and grip on her and Anne, it’s been clear it hasn’t hit her as hard as it has for Anne and she likely dosen’t get the full scope of it like Anne does. To her Sasha just made a mistake and she’s back now and tha’ts what matters. To Anne and the Plantars... sasha and grime tried to kill them and Sasha then tried commiting suciide to save them. The scars of that haven’t really healed for them, nor should they. 

And given Sasha has spent the season clearly blamiing everything on Anne defying her and has been raising an army based on her resentment, and given she flew into a jealous blinding rage at finding her exes were fine and dandy without her she.. wholheartdly apologizes. 

Yeah she apologizes.. but tellingly while she talks about her and Grime being left homeless following the battle.. she leaves out everything after: The fight with Yuan, the growing rebellion, driving her friends away, the horrifying army Grime now commands. Something’s off. 

Anne naturally dosen’t trust her to do this herself and insists on coming along sitll. The next task is juts.. asking how much you lift bro, which Sasha easily passes by lifting, bro. 

The final test in Jim Crunch’s Temple of Fitness, I mean who else could’ve wrote this, is of course a big fight with a giant statue of a toad, fitting how each temple so far was built by one of the civlizations: there were frog statues and symbols in the first temple, the second was guarded by a newt and the last now has a toad guard.Though curiously.. the test itself is wholly designed for a human. Before it wasn’t 100% clear even with the hyroglyps if the chosen ones had to be human or not.. but now it’s impossible to argue otherwise. There were hints : The fact the guardian pegged her as a possible chosen one on sight , the ruins in the background of the title cards which also depict the watcher with a thousand eyes (which is what i’ll be calling him till we get his, her , they or it’s actually name. ).. but here the chamber includes a gravity increase dbz style, meaning our heroines are the only ones who can stand as the Plantars and Grimes frog and toad bodies respectively aren’t strong enough to stand anymore. And while Marcy tries it ends up falling on Anne and Sasha with Sasha being Angry Anne doesn’t trust her.. and Anne not refuting it, pointing out she has EVERY REASON not to. As she puts it “it’s not just toad tower”. For most of their lives Sasha has been controlling, caring about what she wants and not what the people she loves wants. It wasn’t just the fight there... it was simply the wakeup call to how bad a person Sasha had been. 

And for the first time in the episode.. Sasha is geniune, apologizing for what she did, and genuinely admitting how she treated Anne wasn’t wrong. it was something she coudln’t admit to herself episodes ago.. but faced with both loosing two more people due to her behavior, and having plenty of time to reflect on said behavhior.. she finally relaizes it’s her. Fuck man.. what else is there to say. 

Oh right the giant monster thing, which Anne trusts Sasha to finish.. and we get anothe rDBZ homage as Sasha removes part of her armor, which creates a CRATER, which lowers her weight enough to fight the thing. She gets a thumbs up and the honor of recharging it. 

Anne suggests opening the box.. but Marcy is VERY quick to shoot that down and suggest talking to the king. And while her reason SOUNDS good,, they don’t want to get warped somewhere ELSE at random.. it’s very clear from her actions and how quick she tried to stop it that she needs them to get to Andrias for whatever he’s talked her into. And I emphasis talked her into: Marcy trusts the king, and was in a very emotional place when he was about to talk to her at the end of season 2a... and he knew it. He knew she was at her most vunerable, most malable and trusted him completely.. and knew right then and there was his shot at getting vengance.. for him and his master. Whatever he has planned.. it’s not good. The mechancial lovecraftian horror he keeps in his creepy basement full of lost souls is a dead giveaway from that. But I don’t.. fault Marcy for it. It’s not just because I sympahtize.. to her Andrias is a good noble king trying to help her. He’s the kindly mentor she always wanted, a person who enjoys her skills dosen’t care how much she talks and has complete faith in her, something even Anne struggles with. 

But it’s VERY clear, to me at least he’s been likely using her from the moment they met: to her sh’es just an optomistic pawn, someone gullible enough to do whatever he says. I’ve always felt that her “missions” probably had some darker purpose she wasn’t aware of: getting Andrias things he needs for his army, an army she has no idea is opressing people. She’s insulated from that and instead surronded by adoring people who accept her for once. Even going to wartwood, she hasn’t yet made the connection between the toad towers and what their purpose is. I think deep down she might suspect this stuff.. but she can’t ACCEPT that the one person who every had nothing but faith in her.. is a horrible person who opresses others and somehow has even WORSE plans in store. 

Sasha likewise is facing the pressure of her parental figure.. while her patching it up with Anne was legitmate... her and Grime’s own plans rely on getting in there and Grime simply sees the other two as pawns , and just like the king he wants he wants to overthrow, their use expires once his plans in motion. 

But the thing is.. it’s clear despite assuring Grime she’s still all in.. her face in the last shot, as seen above.. says otherwise. Her apology was legitmate, not just an attempt to get close to the one thing in her way of power, but what she’s come to realize: she’s gone from blaming Anne for it.. to realizing it was her. But she’s also stuck: while Marcy is unaware of the strings her pupeteer is pulling her towards.. Sasha is all too aware of what her mentor is planning. And the thing was she was all too willing to go for it. She blamed Anne for what happened at the tower, blamed Anne for turning marcy against her and blamed the plantars and co for turning anne against her. But in the harsh light of day... none of that’s true. Marcy dosen’t hate her, neither does anne, they didn’t turn against her.. they were just tired of her shitty behavior and wanted the friend they found that day on the playground back, the woman they loved who’d go to hell and back for someone and not the bitter, manipultive person she became. She’s once again realized it was her fault.. the question is if that’s enough for her to do the right thing or not. And the hardest question of all is IF not reblling isn’t the right thing. Wfhile the Toad’s probably shoudln’t be in charge either, Andrias REALLY shouldn’t. There’s NO easy answers here, no happy outcome that makes everyone live’s better. There’s no easy way out, no shortcut home.. just the louder and louder drumbeats of war and one girl’s decision of whose side she’s going to take.

Final Thoughts on the Third Temple: As with the other four sasha episodes thus far, this was frogging brilliant. Shoudln’t be a suprise and it makes me both look forward and dread the war to come

Next Week: The plantars try to bury the hatchet with Sasha and Grime, the girls enter a battle of the bands, and the finale comes ever closer.

If you liked this review follow me for more, and join my patreon. At just 2 dollars a month you get acess to my discord, exclusive reviews, and get me closer to my stretch goals. See you at the next rainbow

[dukeofonions]

Duke Gets Personal

So I’ve been doing a bit of thinking lately (dangerous I know) since the last Asides and I’ve come to this conclusion: I miss enjoying this series. 

(This gets long and is just a mess of feelings and thoughts so sorry in advance)

I miss analyzing videos and the characters, I miss looking at theories and coming up with my own, I miss getting excited for future episodes. I really wanted to stop enjoying it and move on to something else, but then this flipping video dropped and I just loved it.

This is the first time I’ve just genuinely loved and enjoyed an episode since Dealing With Intrusive Thoughts, the one where I stayed up until almost 2 or 3 in the morning to watch even though I had work the next day. 

The videos that followed just didn’t really do it for me, and the whole concept of Asides didn’t help either since it’s purpose seemed to have been lost with the first episode. Heck, I hesitated to call this last one an Asides just because it feels like it should have been a main episode.

That combined with the waits (especially after Putting Others First) also killed a lot of my engagement with the series. I’ve said before that POF felt like it was set up to lead directly to the finale, only for Asides to be crammed in and forcing us to wait longer for the conclusion to that episode, and season two as a whole.

I’ve said countless times how Asides has messed with the flow of the original series, with the complete tonal whiplash that was Flirting With Social Anxiety being the follow up to POF, and how the introduction of Nico completely undid everything that happened (at least to Roman) at the end of POF by having things suddenly be happy and good between him and Thomas.

I’ve said that certain moments (like seeing Virgil having to face Thomas again after his confession) were ruined by the Asides as well since we don’t get to see them happen in the main series and tend to be, well, brushed aside.

And you know, to an extent, I still see Asides as completely unnecessary and it feels like it was thrown in at the last second because they forgot they wanted to add a love interest to the plot so had to find some way to do it without disrupting the flow of the main series but ended up doing so anyway and so far all these Asides could just be regular episodes because they were apparently necessary to have before the season finale despite Asides being a relatively new concept so why would we have to have them before the season finale unless you were planning to go this route the whole time so why bother making a “separate” series in the first place when you were just going to be telling the same story anyway???

Sorry for the run on sentence but it felt like the best way to describe my confusion.

But to summarize, the last episode clearly shows that things are being set up for the finale. Everyone is reaching their breaking point and clearly, everything is not as fine and dandy as I initially thought the series was implying. And it’s here that I get to the actual reason of this little post.

The thing is, I’ve been jumping to conclusions about the series and making judgments about it as if I have the complete picture when, that’s not even remotely true.

Like this episode clearly showed that things are being put into place, and there is more thought to the story and characters going on than I initially gave them credit for. Sure, there are things I still don’t like, but I’m starting to come to the realization that I just need to wait and see where things go before jumping to judge something I don’t even have yet.

And part of that is because I do want things to get better. Like take Virgil for instance. I hate how he’s been written lately because it feels like all his negative actions just get excused and the show never addresses how harmful some of the things he says and the solutions to dealing with him (I’m glaring at you Embarrassing Phases) aren’t actually good or healthy at all and maybe I’ll elaborate on that later. 

But my point is that I need to see these things be resolved and for them to get better. It feels like all these characters flipping hate each other right now and it’s exhausting to see them like this. I just want them to work things out and start on the road to getting better because my gosh I just want them to feel like a family again. 

And I understand that story-wise it makes sense as to why they’re all so prickly with each other but y’all, Virgil’s been mad at Patton for who-knows-what for awhile now and we still don’t have a conclusion to that and again, I think the waits are a problem when it comes to this series because things get left unresolved for months, or even years, only for an episode to finally drop and the issue is never even brought up because those characters are completely absent.

And that’s why the Asides bug me so much because they initially promised something (less angsty content that we’d get more frequently between the heavier longer episodes) that we never ended up getting and it gets treated like a joke. 

Like I understand that so far the main thing that separates Asides from Sanders Sides is that they tend to be filmed in a different format, but is that really enough to count it as a separate series when it’s existence is deemed necessary for the series you’ve already been working on for awhile now?

I dunno, I loved this episode, I genuinely did and I’ve loved seeing people pick it apart and analyze it because there’s so much to unpack with it. And just from a technical standpoint, my inner film lover was geeking out at the use of camera angles, lighting, music, all of it.

And since I loved it so much it started to make me wonder if I’ve been being too harsh on the series, and even Thomas and the team in general. Most of my thoughts have come through assumptions made, and my own personal feelings, towards Thomas and the team, and I’ve realized that yeah, I have been harsh. And honestly, a bit unfair.

I’m not saying I don’t still have my own personal issues with them all, but a lot of the things I’ve said have just been, well, assumptions. Especially in regards to how much care and planning actually goes into this series. With all the details put into this last episode, how could they not have been planning things out?

Now part of me is hesitant to let my guard down in regards to how this series will go due to a number of things. One of them being that this could probably be the last episode that Joan had any input in, and personal feelings towards them aside you couldn’t deny that they had so much passion and love for the series. And it makes me wonder if future videos will be better, worse, or even the same without them.

Another thing is, again, the waits for videos. I still don’t understand why Thomas’s content in general takes so long to make, especially the unscripted videos which are fairly simple in terms of their content, so why do they take months to come out? And with everything they’ve talked about wanting to do or are planning to do, it makes me wonder if anything will ever get done due to them not seeming to be able to find a way to make their videos faster.

Like I don’t know if it’s an issue with finding people to work on videos, or them continuing to make things more difficult than they need to be, or maybe them just not working as much as they say, or a combination of multiple things. But again, I don’t know if any of that is the case.

All we have is Thomas’s word and the end product when it does finally come out. And yeah, this last video was really good in terms of the production, but there are still some things about it that make me feel iffy about certain aspects of the series that could come in the future, but this post is already getting longer than I intended for it to be so I’m just gonna wrap things up here.

On one hand, I don’t want to get my hopes up all the way due to one video that exceeded my expectations (which I had zero expectations to begin with) when the rest of the series could end up going downhill. On the other hand, I want to let myself try and enjoy the series again and find things to love about it instead of constantly focusing on the negatives.

Negatives that, technically, aren’t even real negatives to begin with.

So what does this mean for my blog? Well like I said, I still have some issues with the series and other things that I’m not gonna push aside (I use that word a lot don’t I?) just because of one video. However, I’m going to try and stop making harsh conclusions about the series before I’ve gotten the whole picture.

And of course, my blog is still open to anyone that has their gripes with the series because that’s what it’s for. Even if we don’t agree I like to get other perspectives from people and a lot of y’all really do bring up some good points. And the last thing I’m gonna do is turn around and start saying that y’all are wrong for feeling a certain way about the series.

This is all personal here. How I’ve been thinking and feeling in regards to what I’ve been personally saying. And you know what? This could all completely change by the time the next episode finally comes out because who knows what could happen between now and then?

When you’re presented with a new perspective or new information, sometimes you’re just bound to change your own and that’s just the way it goes. 

I’m probably going to start delving into the fandom and series again. Maybe write a fic or two or just some simple analysis. I do have one passion project of mine that’s been in the works for awhile and I’m finally getting closer to making it a real thing so I’m excited about that.

But I also really wanna start branching out into other media as well. Talk about movies or shows that I like, dislike, or have some kind of connection to. Whatever it is, I just wanna start having fun again, in whatever form that takes. 

So, yeah. That’s the long and short of it. 

I am gonna make an actual post talking about the video because oh boy there’s a lot to unpack with that one. But this has been pressing on my mind quite a bit since the episode and I just needed to get my thoughts out. If y’all stuck around to this point I’m sorry for the emotional spiel, and I’m also sorry if anything I’ve ever said has made anyone feel bad or ashamed for liking the series because really, there’s a lot to love about it and I don’t want people to think they shouldn’t like it just because of what some random person thinks.

I mean heck, I love movies and shows that are considered “bad” by most and who cares? As long as it’s not my family hating on the things I love than I don’t care. 

*laughs in family issues*

Alright, gonna atually close this out now so... see y’all and hope y’all are going okay.

[lostbutterflyutau]

The Best Medicine

Note: While this does fit the first Ship Week prompt, it’s actually an excerpt from a longer fic that I’ve been working on behind-the-scenes for awhile (I’m trying to finish it before considering posting). Context is that when Mateo and Carla get sick at the same time -- a time when Elena and co. are planning for a royal visit and her family is away on diplomatic matters -- Rafa is brought in to care for them. Unfortunately, Carla proves to be a very stubborn and resistant patient until someone else drops by to lend a hand.

Also featuring the smallest bit of Rafa and Mateo family fluff.

*********

Despite the occasional nagging worry in the back of her mind, Rafa had fun putting lunch together. Once she explained the situation to the cook, he gave her free reign of part of the kitchen. The only stipulations were that she kept to that section, focused on only Mateo and Carla’s meals and didn’t get in his way.

She smiled to herself as she finished the tray off, hoped that Carla would at least try what she made. Having never cooked for her before, Rafa wasn’t sure if the girl was picky or not, but figured that the plain dishes she had made were a safe bet, both for Carla’s tastes and health. Unfortunately, despite being up by the time she made her way back to the room, Carla wanted nothing to do with the food. She had looked from it to Rafa and back again before rolling over and refusing to move.

“Come on, Carla,” Rafa coaxed as she sat down, set a hand on Carla’s back. “You have to eat something.”

Carla didn’t respond, only pulled the blanket up and over her head in a vain attempt to make Rafa go away. She wasn’t interested in the food, and even less in arguing, she just wanted to be left alone.

Rafa sighed to herself. She didn’t want to push too far, but also knew she couldn’t just give in to Carla’s stubbornness. Even if she didn’t want to, she needed to eat at least a little something for her health.

“How about you just take a small bite? See if you like it?”

“Go away,” Carla muttered, gripped her blanket tighter in case the older woman decided to try and pull it off the same way Abuela did when she was being stubborn.

“You know I can’t do that,” Rafa replied, moved her hand up and down along Carla’s back.

Carla ignored her, hoped that if she kept quiet, Rafa would eventually give up. Nothing she said was going to make her want to eat, not when her stomach was still turning. She was afraid that anything she ate would just come back up and the last thing she wanted was to experience that again.

Her lack of reaction drew another frown from Rafa as she considered her options. Being forceful wasn’t an option, nor was it her style, but waiting it out didn’t seem like a good choice either. Finally, she gripped the blanket with intent to carefully pull it back and at least make Carla look at her, but before she could even make the first tug, she was stopped by a soft rapping.

“Knock knock,” A soft, masculine voice said and Rafa turned.

“Gabe?” Carla said to herself, pushed the blanket off as she shifted and sat up.

Unable to help himself, Gabe gave a small smile at her ruffled appearance. Of course, he wasn’t happy that Carla was sick, especially not after hearing from Elena how she’d actually gotten worse overnight, but her mussed hair and the way she held onto her blanket were too adorable. Though, the novelty quickly wore off when he caught how rundown she looked. She had already looked bad the night before, but now there was more than tiredness in her eyes. Despite the way she smiled at him, he could tell from the way the smile – which quickly faded – didn’t reach her eyes that she was miserable.

He made his way over, took Rafa’s spot when she stood and stepped aside. “Hi, Cutie,” He teased, gently tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.

“Cutie?” Rafa echoed, her eyes filled with curiosity.

Gabe winced. He wanted to kick himself for not thinking. He’d been so focused on Carla that he forgot for a moment that they weren’t alone, and that she wasn’t in her own room. He rubbed the back of his neck, a sheepish look washing over his face. But, before he could even think of an explanation, Carla turned, her narrowed eyes locking onto Mateo’s mother.

“Don’t even think about it. And don’t you dare tell anyone, got it?”

Rafa opened her mouth to speak, but immediately shut it again when realised she had nothing to say in response. The look in Carla’s eyes, as feverish as it was, made it clear how important keeping the secret was to her. Finally, she nodded. “Of course.

Carla kept her glare in place, her eyes roving over the older woman’s, looking for any hint of deceit. While she didn’t know Rafa well enough to say so with complete certainty, she knew enough about spotting lies to know she meant what she said. She thought to speak again, but any thoughts she had of doing so faded away when she felt a hand settle on her cheek.

Gabe smiled at the way she instinctively leaned into his hand, asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Sick,” She replied as she toyed with her blanket.

“Sick like how?” He already knew she was sick. Even without being told, that fact was obvious. But no one had told him yet exactly what she had.

“I’m hot and everything hurts and my stomach won’t stop turning.”

“But you’re not sneezy? No sniffles this time?”

Carla shook her head, part of her wishing that she did have those things instead. She didn’t like being any kind of sick, but a cold was far easier to manage than whatever stomach bug she had caught.

“She has a tummy bug,” Rafa interjected. “And she was already sick twice this morning.”

Gabe blinked, looked from Rafa to Carla – who turned her gaze down to the blanket – as he processed the words. “You threw up?”

Carla nodded, kept her focus on the blanket as the awful memories from that morning came back. She hated him knowing that and hated Rafa for telling him.  

He gave her a sympathetic smile, reached over to take one of her hands and whispered as he gently ran his thumb over the back, “My poor, sick Cutie.”

She flicked her eyes up at him briefly and then quickly turned them back down again just as his own gaze fell on the table nearest to them.

“What’s that?” He asked.

“It’s supposed to be her lunch, but I can’t get her to eat. She just ignores me,” Rafa explained. She tried not to take it too personally due to the circumstances but couldn’t help the small sting that tugged at her at the fact that Carla hadn’t wanted to even taste her food.

Gabe nodded once, turned back to Carla. “Carla, you need to eat.”

Carla pretended to be interested in a piece of fuzz on the blanket.

“Carla,” Gabe pressed gently.  

“I’m just going to throw it up,” She said.

“I know that’s not fun. But you’ll never get better if you don’t eat even a little bit. Besides, it’s better to have something in your stomach. You’re going to be sick regardless, but it will feel a lot worse with an empty stomach,” He tried to explain, sighing lightly when she didn’t answer. He then turned to Rafa, motioned with his hand for the small bowl on the food tray. “Can I have that?”

Though she was hesitant, Rafa handed over the bowl, watching as he carefully stirred the broth around before taking a small spoonful and holding it up to Carla.

“Come on, Cutie. At least try it,” He encouraged, hoping that using her affectionate name would make her more agreeable. It was more than her stubbornness, though. He knew that she was probably upset about not being in her own bed and all of her usual caretakers being either gone or busy. Her refusal wasn’t meant to be rebellious or annoying, she was genuinely bothered by being looked after by someone she wasn’t used to and he felt awful for that. If he didn’t have so much on his plate, he’d take on the role himself, if only to make her more comfortable.

Glancing up, Carla considered her options. She knew his concern was nothing but honest, as it always was. Rafa’s was too, but there was something about the way Gabe regarded her that finally made her lean forward and accept the spoon he was offering her.

“Good?” He asked, knowing from the way her eyes had widened slightly when she caught the taste that it was. Still, he watched as she nodded and then offered her another spoonful, saying as she took it, “I’m not going to sit here and feed you. But I will sit with you while you eat if that’s what you want.”

“Can you?”

“Of course.”  He smiled at the eagerness in her gaze, stood to return the bowl as she shifted around in order to give him room to sit and settle himself. Once he did, she crawled over, slid into the space between his arm and the cushions.

Rafa gave her own smile at the sight, part of her wondering how, with just his presence, Gabe was able to get Carla to cooperate after she’d struggled so much with her. She grabbed the tray, carefully handed it over to Gabe, who held onto it after giving Carla her soup bowl.

Carla ate slowly, carefully, pausing every so often to make sure the food would stay down before either taking another bite or switching dishes. The meal was extremely simple, consisting of only warm broth, plain rice and a banana that Gabe cut into sections for her, carefully handing one over when she asked.

With Carla settled, Rafa resumed her chores from earlier, deciding to leave the couple alone while she bustled around the room, tidying up little things and finishing the laundry she had been folding. Only once that was done did she turn to her own belongings and start unpacking the clothing and various small items she’d brought for Mateo, including a small stack of storybooks that she set on the table she’d moved near her own side of the sofa. Instead of staying in a separate room, she decided that it would be easier to stay with Mateo and Carla and opted for the sofa that Carla wasn’t sleeping on.

She glanced back briefly when she heard clattering dishes followed by footsteps as Gabe stood with the tray in hand.  

“She ate about half,” He said when he caught Rafa’s eyes.

“That’s about what I expected,” She replied, moved to take the tray from him. “I’ll take this back. You stay with her.”

“Gabe!” Carla said, reaching over to pull at his shirt when he returned to her side. When he looked down, she pointed over to Rafa’s table, “She has the kitty book!”

He blinked, turned to where she was pointing and, upon seeing the stack of books, finally connected the dots. Sensing what she wanted, he headed over, picked up the picture book entitled “The Lost Kitten” from the top of the stack. He’d learned of her love for it the first time he’d looked after her when sick and caught her flipping through the palace library’s old copy. She had told him then that it was her favourite childhood book and that she actually loved kittens. Then, a few days later, she cuddled up with him while they read the book together since she still wasn’t well enough to attend the first night of Festival of Love and Friendship.

When he returned to her side, she immediately snuggled up to him, looked up with eager eyes as he opened the book.

“Am I reading this to you or with you?” He teased while he brought his arm around and settled his hand on her back.

Carla grabbed the other end of the book. “With.”

He smiled at her enthusiasm and kissed her head before reading the first line, enjoying the way she nestled herself into his side and read the pages in a soft voice as he turned them. Though she was obviously still sick, she was at least relaxed and resting until, just as he finished off the last page, he felt her tense against him, the fingers of the hand that had been gripping the book curling even further around it.

“Are you okay?” He asked as he gently closed the book, frowning when he didn’t get a response as she slunk down beside him. He went to speak again and stopped when he finally registered the sound of footsteps as Mateo made his way around his bed. As he moved into the attached bathroom, Gabe thought for a moment about Carla’s reaction and quickly realised that the whole sharing situation was probably uncomfortable for her, particularly since it was Mateo she was rooming with. If it was one of the girls, she’d probably be more comfortable.

He brought his hand up, ran it over her hair. “This is weird for you, huh?”

Carla nodded, curled into him further. “Very.”

Gabe ran his hand over her hair again, pressed another soft kiss to her head. “I’m sorry. But you know they didn’t do it to make you purposefully uncomfortable.”

He felt Carla’s head shifting as she nodded and mumbled something incoherent. For a second, he thought about asking what it was she had said, but she didn’t seem to be looking for a response.

She wrapped her arm around him, let out a soft sigh as she curled even further into him, the mix between his soap’s faint smell and his natural scent calming her. With his soft t-shirt, he was almost like a big stuffed animal, except with a gentle heartbeat that sent a slow wave of peacefulness through her like a soothing lullaby.

Feeling her relax completely against him, her breathing deepening and steadying as time went on, Gabe decided to stay put for awhile, a warm calmness slowly spreading through him as he closed his eyes, moved his hand down to softly rub her back.

“Why are you two in my bedroom?”

Though the voice hadn’t been particularly loud, both Gabe and Carla flinched when it broke through their peaceful moment. They looked up at the same time, saw a confused Mateo – who had apparently returned from the bathroom – standing next to the sofa. They then exchanged the same unsure look, wondering how neither had registered his presence as he approached.

“And why does Carla look like she’s been sleeping here?” He said it as if it was an afterthought, eyes looking first to the sofa – his sofa – that had been taken over by sheets, blankets and pillows in various shades of purple and then Carla curled up next to Gabe in what looked like a nightgown.

“Because I have?” Carla replied, the statement coming out like a question as she tilted her head slightly. Had nobody told Mateo? And if not, then why? It seemed like something he should know, especially considering his temporary roommate was a woman.  

Mateo opened his mouth to speak again, but barely got a word out before he was interrupted.

“Mijo! What are you doing out of bed?” Rafa said as she crossed the doorway, laundry basket in hand.

“What is Carla doing here?” Mateo asked, ignoring the fact that his mother even asked a question.

Rafa set the basket down, stepped over and sat a careful hand on her son’s back, explained as gave him a gentle push towards his bed. “Carla is here because she’s sick too. And it’s easier to have her stay here then for me to have to run up and down the hallway all day.”

He gave a slow nod in response, climbed back up into bed and waited while his mother adjusted and pulled up his blanket. Usually, he would do it himself, but she was so happy taking care of him that he let her do it.

“Can I get you anything?” She asked, smoothed the covers down one last time.

Mateo thought for a moment, the sudden realisation that he was hungry hitting him as his stomach grumbled. “I guess I could use a snack.”

Rafa kissed his head “Alright. I’ll get you something after I take care of Carla.”

Hearing her name, Carla sat up slightly, glanced from Gabe to Rafa. “Take care of Carla how?”

“By brushing your hair,” Rafa said, pulling a brush from one of her dress pockets as she descended the stairs. “I want to tie it back so –”

“No,” Carla cut her off, buried her head back into Gabe’s shoulder. She didn’t want Rafa even touching her hair. There was no way she would know how to do it right. And, even if she did somehow know exactly how she liked it brushed, Carla still didn’t want a near-stranger’s hands near her hair, especially when that person wasn’t a professional stylist.

“But, Carla…” Rafa tried to start.

“I said ‘no,’” Carla repeated. Her voice was muffled by Gabe’s shoulder, but they both still caught the gist of her answer.

Gabe turned to Rafa, who looked slightly offended, and gave her an apologetic smile. He knew that Carla could be difficult from time to time and that because she struggled with expressing her feelings, she wasn’t always the easiest to figure out, especially when she was sick or distressed. He wished for a moment that he had the same telepathy powers Carla did, if only so he could tell Rafa what he thought Carla was feeling without betraying her trust. But, since he didn’t, he turned his attention back to Carla instead.

Running a gentle hand over her back, Gabe coaxed, “Carla, look at me.”

Carla stayed put for a minute, seemingly contemplating her options before lifting her head to look him in the eyes.

“There’s my Cutie,” He teased. “Look, I know this hasn’t been easy for you, but if Señora de Alva says your hair needs to be tied back, it needs to be tied back.”

“Then you do it.”

“You know I’m not good at that kind of thing. Just give her a chance.”

“But that’s not even the right brush!”

Rafa looked down at the plain brown brush in her hand, raised an eyebrow. As far as she knew, a brush was a brush. Were there different kinds she didn’t know about? She thought to ask, but was interrupted by Gabe laughing as he played with a piece of his girlfriend’s hair.

“That’s an easy fix,” He said and then turned to Rafa again. “I can show you where she keeps her brush and hair accessories.”

Carla’s face fell as she clung to him tighter. “You can’t go! You just got here!”

Gabe smiled, gently patted her back. While she loved affection and kissing and cuddling in private, it was rare that Carla got so clingy. He’d only seen it a handful of times, all of which were when she was either scared or not feeling well. If he was honest with himself, he didn’t particularly like leaving her like this, especially when she was asking. The way she looked at him with those sad, pleading eyes always tugged at his heart just slightly, in part because he knew how real they were. She might have been able to use her eyes and bat her lashes to trick other people, but not him. Never him.

Instead of resisting, he knew it was best to be soft and play along a little. “I know you need me, but I don’t think you want someone going through your stuff unsupervised.”

Her eyes widened slightly at the idea as she realised that the thought had never crossed her mind. In order to get her brush, Rafa would have to go in her room and look for it not knowing which drawer it or her ponytails and ribbons were in. Finally, she murmured, “No.”

“I thought so,” Gabe said, carefully scooting away as she loosened her grip. “I’ll be back in a bit, I promise.” He left her with a soft kiss on the head, motioned for Rafa to follow him.

[guiltybystanders]

Beastars has ended! Two days ago, but I didn’t realize until today... And that ending... I have thoughts about it. Mostly that Beastars was a great story that completely lost its way in the last arc.

Warning for spoilers for the whole series, though this is focused more on a few big picture problems instead of individual characters and plotlines that got shafted.

I still really like Beastars, even if I'm no longer as gung-ho about recommending it to people after the last arc. The characters (when being paid adequate attention) were complex people with compelling flaws and fascinating worldviews. The worldbuilding (apart from a few bits of weirdness and the end) was some of the most interesting and thought-out I've read this past year, especially for something that starts as a slice of life story. And the commentary on gender (because this is definitely a story about gender) was nuanced and explored from many angles, and honestly a very thoughtful take on (non-toxic but still distinctly masculine) masculinity. Tho, for a story about gender and forbidden love, the fact there was next to no acknowledgment of LGBT themes was strange and actually made it a weaker story. Louis should have been gay tbh. Overall, there's a lot there to recommend.

Unfortunately, the best parts of the series (the complicated worldbuilding and how that society affected the characters, and the psychology of those characters) were less focused on than external forces and fighting towards the end, as the pacing rocketed up and many subplots were dropped to speed to the ending as soon as possible. Beastars was never super realistic in its drama (Haru was captured by the fucking mafia back when it was still mostly slice of life) but before the last arc, it still mostly felt internally-focused—it was a character-focused drama despite crazy action subplots. For instance, Legosi's training arc was undeniably an anime training arc, but more so it was about him struggling to be strong without eating meat, culminating in the scene where he does take a life by eating a bug. Even when shit got shonen, it was still a story of masculinity and finding your place in society, and I didn't mind the crazier aspects of that because it still felt mostly dedicated to the characters' emotional states (and the crazy shit was often sick as hell tbh.) I didn't feel the same way later on—Legosi still thought about what he was feeling, but almost always through dramatic monologues (often during fights) instead of moments of true self-reflection, and many of the supporting characters were sidelined with their potential wasted (such as Haru, who not only was never given her own storyline like she deserved, but also was still treated as Legosi's main motivation and yet was barely shown in his life.) The plot wasn't what drew me to Beastars—the characters and world were—but the plot is what got the focus in the end. And with the ending and the worldbuilding; the complete destruction of the Back Alley Market after one single moment felt pretty antithetical to a lot of other parts of the series—the Back Alley Market was challenged throughout the whole series as something to change and overcome, but we were also shown it was not so simple to completely end carnivore urges. To wrap it up in one big dramatic moment kind of destroys a lot of the best aspects of the worldbuilding, which was so horribly morally complicated.

There are parts of the last arc I did like, or at least think had potential if done differently, but none are enough to justify the last part of the manga. I liked Melon, at first. I think he brought some fascinating ideas to the story, ones that would have really shined had his arc been better written and paced. As it was, he became less compelling to me as time went on and the story became about defeating him instead of who the characters were as people, and his own character became more melodramatic. I liked the story of Legosi's mom, which only came after Melon's introduction. But then the part with Gosha's wife's suicide didn't really make much sense and felt shoehorned in to me. I liked Yahya’s introduction and his dynamic with Gosha. But I feel like his character was never fully unpacked, and his past with Gosha (while fun) sometimes overshadowed learning about his ideals or what it meant to actually be the Beastar. I loved seeing the "world of adults" in the city, and all of Legosi's neighbors. But they were largely written out as well, just as surely as most of the Cherryton students were. And the Cherryton characters were written out, even ones that seemed important, like Juno and Bill. The most egregious example of a character being written out was Haru: she started out as one of the three main characters with her own complex problems and worldview—and it was Legosi's feelings about her that motivated him throughout the entire story—but by the end, she was barely even a character, her own problems inconsistently addressed and glossed over, mostly showing up just for Legosi to Feel A Thing He Needs To For Plot. As it is... I can't help but think that it would have been best to end the story when Legosi caught the killer and left school, when things were relatively tied up, even if that would have come at the expense of some parts I really did like.

The ending dropped the ball on a lot of accounts—forgetting subplots, sidelining characters, oversimplifying the worldbuilding, bizarre pacing—and that really is a damn shame. However, I still like the beginning and the middle enough that I like this series overall, and in the end I'm glad I read it.

[juminsmysticmc]

Yes! *forever excited about open requests*. How would Jumin react if Mc wants to take him on "poor student" vacation? Like hitchhiking, sleeping in shelters or in a tent and just spending time together? Love your writing!

Jumin x Mc at a ,,Poor Student’’ Vacation 

Hey~ I‘m happy that you’re excited about my open requests! I hope that you like the story because to be honest I hate ,,poor students“ vacations.I just hate hiking (I‘m lazy lol) or sleeping in shelters or in a tent 😵It would be death for me...but I still tried my best! So please give me your honest opinion about the story (and ignore my personal feelings, lol)Have a nice day my love!

,,Mhhh…“ you mumbled as you looked through the various places.There was nothing you liked.Italy had too many tourists around this time, Spain and French looked good, and the USA looked awesome too, but your problem was that you were getting bored by all of the fancy places you could visit.Suddenly an ad made it impossible for you to look for other places.Annoyed, you kept watching the video while a woman’s voice was talking.,,None knows anymore how to go on a relaxing vacation. Everyone goes out to Malibu, Rome, Madrid or Fuerteventura but no one knows anything about their own homeland.Everyone is busy posting pictures on Instagram or showing pictures to friends.Everyone has to bring little presents and get stressed out, but that’s not what a vacancy is for,“ the woman ended her speech, making you concentrate on her ad.,,Try out little adventures. They cost less and you have the possibility of making a lot of memories!“ the woman said.You were finally able to close the ad, however, you shut down your computer entirely.You decided.

Jumin and you had no need to save money, but you thought something easy would perhaps make you feel a bit better.And so, you took out a paper and began to search for places you could hike.Jumin would be able to take time off work for a week and so you had to carefully think about what you would do.,,I‘m home my love,“ Jumin called, taking off his shoes.You quickly approached him to take his jacket and bag.He smiled at you as you carefully took care of him.,,My love, I‘m always so thankful to you, did I ever tell you that?“ he asked you after he kissed you.You chuckled at his cute words and enjoyed the warmth you received.,,By the way,“ you began, ,,I found something for our vacation! It took me a while, but now I finally decided what we can do!“ you happily confessed.Jumin watched you and waited for you to tell him what you wanted to do.However, he didn’t expect you to decide on something so...poor.,,You want to go camping?“ he asked you to make sure that he understood you. You strongly nodded and told him why you wanted to do it.

,,In college I went camping with my friends and it was the best time ever.We stayed here in Korea and enjoyed the nature of our country! Surprisingly, we also got to know things about each other we didn’t expect at first at all! We don’t need our phones. We have freedom and can do something different!“ you told him, your voice filled with enthusiasm.Jumin smiled at you. Well, how bad could it be? He asked himself.

Your vacation slowly came near and you were busy with the preparation.You luckily found a tent again and also two sleeping bags.Not to forget some gadgets and sunscreen.Jumin was excited to get to know this part of you better, even though he had the feeling that he wouldn’t be able to enjoy it 100%.,,So...these clothes are what I should wear…?“ he asked you unsure.You began to laugh loudly as you saw his expression.,,Yes, hahaha! Husband, you look handsome!“ you honestly told him and chose some more clothes for him.And so your new adventure began, bags filled with the things you would need for sure and your heart filled with excitement and happiness.

,,So...this is a camping site…?“ Jumin asked you as a lot of people sat together. Some of them were eating, others were just talking or playing something.You nodded strongly and inhaled the fresh air.,,Can you feel that too?“ you asked him, overjoyed.Jumin wasn‘t sure if he should answer yes or if he should stay silent because he could feel something, but for sure you didn’t mean the heat and sweat he felt or the slippery ground underneath his feet.You quickly unpacked the tent and tried your best to explain to Jumin how it worked.,,My my, are you guys newlyweds?“ a woman with a baby in her arms asked you, observing you both.You proudly nodded and smiled at Jumin, which made his heart melt.,,Ohh! How cute! We and the others will eat dinner together. I'll be waiting for you, okay?“ she laughed and went away after you told her that you guys would come over for sure.And so the week went by. Jumin slowly adapted to the life of eating together with strangers every evening, showering in a public bath or, what bugged him a bit, going on the toilet where other people made their work too.But he still had fun and he found out that marshmallows fit together with everything over the fire while others were singing, in hot chocolate or as a simple snack.,,So, what are you guys doing?“ the woman who invited you asked you.,,I‘m in charge of my father’s company and the next CEO,“ he told them.,,My wife is a host for charity parties,“ he then proudly answered and hugged you.,,And you still go camping? Is that a hobby?“ a man asked you.You, however, explained to him what you told Jumin before and the others understood immediately.

,,It’s much better like that, right?“ you asked Jumin after you took out another blanket and made it cozy for the both of you.,,I want to make a family with you quickly so that I can show our children what kind of people they should become...the kind of people who share their food even though they don’t have a lot and can laugh easily with others…“ Jumin whispered to you, as he held you in his arms.,,I‘m sure that we can make our children turn out like that for sure…“

And so you guys indeed went camping twice a year, in the future even with more people…

[tenpointstoq]

Geraskier Oxford Professor Modern Au

Geralt is sent to watch over Jaskier a Mythology teacher at Oxford.

I am putting this up to see if people even want me to bother with it so 🤷🏻

He’s so impossibly beautiful it makes the wolf’s heart ache. His glasses slipping down his delicate nose, brown curls an utter mess because he’s been running his hands through it idly for hours now. Geralts been watching the man for a few weeks now. He’s a suspected target, a fancy word for, this pretty boy is bait. Oxford is a rather pleasant place to camp out, considering some of the places Geralt has been lately, watching a beautiful professor for days on end inside fire warm rooms, indulging himself in the mans chamomile and honey sweet scent. He’s counting himself lucky.

Jaskier naturally had no idea about any of this, he’s been a professor of mythological studies for a few years now. While his subject matter covers a lot of rather dangerous cases, he’s never come close to being in actual danger. His battles are read in the depths of the library, not out in the wilds like some of his friends who chose to do field work studies. For one it would mean Jaskier would have to give up his fine easier costs, suits and wonderful jumpers and no thank you. He was all too fond of his wardrobe. Jakier likes his life, his students are a dream to teach, eating up his every word, the paper he’s been writing is coming along nicely and if he plays his cards right he may just romance the new library assistant into an evening of fine wine. With the protection of the college mages he believes his teachings on the more recent occurrences of occult magic and their capabilities of conjuring dark entities will bring him no harm. The poor boy couldn’t be any less wrong.

Yen is the one who get’s Geralt the job, she’s been freelancing for oxford for a while now, with the rise in varying schools of magic over the recent years the way her order works has had to adapt. Almost no one stayed at a post for too long, with Witcher’s on the decline and unknown magics raging war around the world Yennefer and her fellow mages had their hands full. Geralt himself had been overwhelmed with work as of late, for once the idea of protection duty actually sounded nice. Though the dark creatures that he was tasked with protecting Jaskier from rather took away from the holiday like experience Oxford otherwise promised.

The campus was crawling with magical beings, many the kind that were simple pests Geralt wouldn’t mind swatting, however the rules of the damn college gave the creatures safe passage. The students and teachers studied them and as payment the creatures were given a safe space to reside. They had a Kelpie in the lake for fucks sake. Though when Geralt had visited it, he was glad to see that it seemed entirely uninterested in eating him, though it was delighted to meet roach. Things were going oddly well for a solid month of Geralt's protection duty, during winter Witcher’s tended to return to their training grounds, while Geralt no longer followed such traditions he did tend to leave the wilds when the frosts set in. Getting paid to stay indoors with fires and good food wasn’t something he was going to complain about anytime soon. The people at the college were perfectly pleasant, watching Jaskiers classes were in general rather amusing, the mans love for his subject matter was highly evident as his excitement bubbled from him in every lesson. It was rather endearing really, the way his ocean blue eyes would light up at a particularly tricky question posed to him by a student. When the man wasn’t teaching he tended to be stuck in dusty corners of the library or in his own quarters, frantically writing and reading. That wasn’t to say Jaskier was a saint, no, Geralt had spent many a night watching the gorgeous young thing drinking at the university tavern, chatting up men and women alike, he was rather popular, though on more than one occasion Geralt had helped Jaskier escape a jealous partner who had gone after Jaskier for dipping his hand into someone else’s box of sweets. He was discreet of course, Jaskier had no idea he had a guardian angel, if Geralt had it his way he never would.

That was the thing with a world of Monster and chaos, one rarely got their way and so it was that half way through a presentation on a collection of relics Jaskier had surprised the head of his faculty with, that Jaskier almost fell prey to a corrupted Jorogumo. The Yokai was clever, she had masked herself well, with the scent of magical creature so thickly wound into the damn campus Geralt had needed to use his other senses to detect his prey. As the pretty woman beside him burst open, enormous spiders legs unfurling from her back, an inhuman scream tearing from her lips, Geralt was already pushing Jaskier behind him, barking a ‘FUCK OFF’ to the other equally shocked staff as they scrambled to get out of the way and escape.

Jaskier’s eyes went wide as Geralt, his silver hair flashing in the twilight, stood over him, his silver sword slashing through the air before him. “Stay close” he growled at Jaskier, before he dodged to the side, drawing the woman’s poison oozing mandibles as far from Jaskier as he could. While Jorogumo were a bit of a handful on a good day, a corrupted one was something all together, Geralt’s eyes flooded black as he side stepped another attack, the glass bottle in his hand smashing across the floor. She moved with a grace that Geralt would have admired if she wasn’t trying to kill him. There was so much to watch with this kind of creature. Her objective was to capture Jaskier with her web, something she could do even while bound in combat. Geralt was fast, casting signs to push her back, his teeth gritting as he met her claws with his blade, the dark magics within her allowing her exoskeleton to act more like armour. He would have to be clever, to strike the woman’s body, hanging in the middle of it’s form. In the end it was Jaskier who allowed him to make the fatal blow. As he and the creature went toe to toe, parrying each blow, crushing one another into the ancient stone of the hall, Jaskier had scuttled back to gather his bags, inside he kept several potions, which, if mixed just so could be of use for such situations. While he wasn’t a trained fighter, he wasn’t foolish enough to study monsters without any form of protection.

“HIRUMI!” Through the haze of his potion Geralt blinked as the creature slowed, dropping him as she turned towards Jaskiers a feral grin spreading her too wide mouth into a horrifying expression, her long teeth red with blood. Jaskier had poured a potion of some kind all over himself, the scent drew as Geralt's senses for a moment, he felt the beast within him shift, his nose raised to the air, the man's scent utterly intoxicating. He really was making himself bait. He had used a scenting spell that made it near impossible for magical beings to resist him. In her haste to get to her prize, the creature lost her footing, allowing Geralt a moment to strike, one he took with precise action, slicing through the soft space between her front legs, dragging himself up as she began to rear back Geralt let out a growl as he watched Jaskier run forwards, drawing the woman’s attention once more, as Geralt pressed his blade through her heart. The creature collapsed upon the two men, coating them in black acrid blood, pinning them to the stone flagstones.

As Jaskier panted, a gentle groan emerging from his chest as he pushed one of her legs from him, he turned, looking as Geralt through smashed glasses, “Suppose this is about as good a time as any to introduce myself?” Geralt gave the young man a grunt in response, pushing the dead carcass from his sword. Once on his feet he pulled Jaskier up, pulling at his clothing to check for wound marks. “Or you could manhandle me, that’s fine too. You know if you want to know if I am inured you could just ask?” Jaskier chimed, black blood dripping onto his cheek as Geralt's hands stilled, his thumb settling over a red mark towards the back of Jaskiers neck. “When did you get this?” Geralt growled, cursing under his breath as he looked at the wound site.

“Oh that? Sometime yesterday? Hirumi was helping me unpack the relics I was… oh.” Jaskier stopped, his eyes going wide as he looked over the obliterated room around them. “The Relics! There are utterly destroyed! Fuck, they were on lend from Cambridge. They are going to have an utter field day, it been hard eno-.” “JASKIER.” Geralt interrupted, drawing Jakiers gaze back to the man who’s strong hands were fisted in his jacket. “Yes well see it’s just a little bug bite, when you deal with old books and relics you can’t help but end up with creepy crawlies.” He admitted, watching as the dark color in Geralt's face slowly began to retract.His eyes shifting from black to gold. Realising all too late that he was in the presence of an actual Witcher.

“That’s why I couldn’t smell her.” Geralt cursed, glancing over his shoulder before he slid his sword back into its hilt and started to make his way towards the door, Jaskier in tow. “Shouldn’t we do something about that?” Jaskier squeaked, glancing over his shoulder as part of the ceiling rained down onto the dead monster. “Your people have people ready for this kind of thing, we need to get you to a mage.” Geralt growled.

So shall I bother with this? Y? N?

[pixie-circle-au]

Chapter One: New Home, New Friends, and Lots of Boxes To Unpack.

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four (Coming Soon)

Content Warnings: Food [DM or send an ask for something to be tagged]

Words: 2037

Editors: Aqua (@duckswithbucks)

Taglist: @fandom-nerd-girl555 @justmeandmygayships

Notes: Here’s the first chapter! My goal is to upload once a week, but I’m not sure how that’ll go.

The young pixie stared up at the house, a bright smile on his face. His parents stood beside him, similar smiles on their faces. The family was glowing with excitement for their new life in Brookside— a new life free of the disapproval and fear that had chased them in Worshire.

“Patton, can you help your father with the boxes?” The feral pixie nodded, heading to the truck that carried the last of their possessions. The big furniture had been moved last week, so now it was just… everything else. The family was definitely going to be spending the day moving boxes. It wasn’t ideal, but they could explore the town once there were actually sheets on the beds.

By midday, all the essentials were done. Dinner was in the fridge, ready to be eaten. Patton and his father, Geoni, were sitting at the table, reviewing their packing lists, and crossing off boxes. Patton’s mother, Julia, was pacing around anxiously, checking her phone every few minutes.

“Mom, what’s bugging you now?”

“Oh! Dear,” she laid a hand on her son’s shoulder, “Patton, and Geo, dear, I’ve been talking with the family next door— they’re quite a lovely family—and I wanted to ask: would you be alright with them coming for dinner?”

Patton shrugged, “I don’t mind.”

“I see no problem with it,” said Geoni matter-of-factly, “It’s the fae one, yes?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Ah, then I’d love to meet them! Tell them we’ll make sure to have a lovely dinner prepared, I’ll make stew. They aren’t feral, are they?” Julia shook her head and began to type on her phone.

“Well, it’ll be nice to meet the neighbors. If you don’t mind, I have to deal with some personal items, call me if you need me.” Geoni nodded, rising from his chair to his full height. 

“Come down in half an hour, will you? I’ll need some help with the stew.” Patton nodded before grabbing a box with his name and rushing upstairs.

Patton had already spent a lot of time in this room, deciding where everything would go. Still it seemed foreign. Already the dresser, bed, and a side table had been put in, but other than that, it was bland and empty. The walls had at least been painted a sky blue, the pixie’s favorite color. 

He set to work putting up pictures of memories, posters of shows he watched, and decorating with nostalgic pieces of art and trophies he’d won as a child in various competitions. He managed to get through a good part of the box before his father called him down to help with the stew. 

It was a pretty simple recipe, but it always got a ton of compliments. Geoni was an excellent chef, and was almost always in charge of cooking when there were guests. Patton didn’t share his father’s talents, but he could at least do things like chop onions and pass spices without messing up.

Pretty soon the table was ready with a steaming pot of stew in the middle, and just in time, as the doorbell rang. 

“Patton, can you get that?” Said Geoni, who was putting ice in the glasses. The feral pixie nodded, rushing to the door. He opened it with a smile. 

“Hello!” The family at the door was dressed in fine, dark clothing. Each with a yellow emblem of two snakes circling each other on their chest. There was a tall, serious man, a young-looking woman, who wore a warm smile, and a teenager with messy, shoulder length red hair. They all wore dark hats. 

“Hello,” the man stepped forward, and Patton could see well trimmed red hair peek out from his hat, he extended a hand covered in a black glove to Patton, and the feral pixie took it.

“I’m Patton, Patton Talisman. It’s a pleasure to meet you, why don’t you come in?” The pixie stopped back, making way for the family to stroll in. Once they were all inside, Patton shut the door.

“I’m Ilani Sepentes, or Charity. This is my husband Hanson, or Disguise. And my son, Janus, or Deceit.” said the woman.

“Oh, ha, I’m Morality. I’m not quite used to using my fae name.”

“Ah yes, not every circle uses it quite that often.”

“Why don’t you come sit down, dinner’s already made.”

“Ah! Janus, be a dear and grab the pie from the car, I nearly forgot.” 

The young fae nodded and rushed out to the car, coming back a few moments later as the parents were setting down to the table. 

“Oh,” Julia took the pie, “How lovely, I’ll put it on the counter.”

“It was the least we could do to welcome you to our town. My son made it though, so thank him.”

“Ah, yes.” Julia stepped forward, “Janus, was it?”

“Yes.” He smiled, extending a gloved hand. Patton noticed that the son’s gloves were yellow, rather than the black of the mother and father. 

“Thank you so much, why don’t you all take a seat.”

The meal started in awkward silence. The Talisman family was shy of the Sepentes [AN: it’s pronounced sep-ENT-ess], and didn’t really know how to start the conversation. Thankfully, Ilani spoke first. 

“Me and my husband, if you haven’t heard already, are the leaders of the circle. If you didn’t live next door we’d probably be here anyway.”

Julia dabbed at her mouth with a napkin before speaking. “It’s lovely to meet you, then. I was considering asking about the leader anyway.” She paused, for a moment, apparently concentrating hard. “I probably should have figured that out, as you know, this is the Sepentes… pixie… circle.”

Ilani laughed. “Yes, our family has been running this circle for centuries now.”

“Say, do you host monthly meetings?” Asked Geoni, wiping the blood of his food from his hands. 

“We host them the first and second Monday of the month at nine at night.”

“Well then, me and my son will have to show up!” Said Patton’s father with a smile.

“What, you’re wife’s not up to it?” Said Hanson snidely.

“Dear! Be respectful.” She sighed. “My husband was not raised in a welcoming circle so… he can be rude about things.”

Julia nodded. “Well, at least you aren’t going to ban my husband and son from attending pixie circle and basically threatening to kill me if Geoni doesn’t get a divorce and kill his son.”

“Oh god, did that happen?” Ilani’s mouth hung open.

“More or less. It’s why we moved, that and the manics.” She gestured to Patton, who gave an awkward wave.

Ilani nodded understandingly. Hanson huffed, and grudgingly said “My apologies, ma’am.” 

The rest of the dinner went well, most with Ilani, Geoni, and Julia chatting happily, talking about Brookside and the Talisman’s experiences in Worshire. Patton made the occasional remark, but stayed mostly quiet, casting glances at Janus and his imposing father.

“What grade are you in?” Asked the son softly, turning towards Patton. The cat pixie looked up, and turned towards the other as well.

“I’m a freshman, I’m transferring into the high school mid year,” he paused, “I’m a little nervous to be honest.”

Janus smiled, “Nothing to be worried about. I’m a freshman too, and I have friends in freshman year. There’s Virgil--he’s a shadow elf-- and Remus, he’s human.”

“You're really friends with humans?”

“I’d figure you’d get it, you know, since your mom is one.”

“Ha, yeah, I guess. I’ve just always been told not to be friends with humans, in case they find you, you know.”

“That’s fair I guess. Human or not, do you want to meet them? It’d be nice to start off your life in a new town with some friends.”

“Yeah, I guess that's good.”

“Cool, you can hang out with us sometime before school starts maybe?”

“Sure.” Patton smiled. He was nervous, as he didn’t really have friends in his old town. The life of a fae with a human parent, I guess. After everyone had eaten, Patton was charged with cleaning up and bringing out the pie. The jovial chatter between the three adults continued, with Hanson even jumping in a bit. 

“Is everyone done with dessert?” asked Julia.

Positive murmurs rose around the table.

“Alright. Patton, why don’t you talk with Janus and clean up? The adults want to talk in the living room.” The feral pixie nodded as the four adults headed into the sparse living room, which had yet to be decorated.

“So what do you do here in Brookside?” Said Patton, gathering the dishes. Janus stood, picking up the rest of the pie.

“Oh, you know. The woods are pretty fun to walk around in. There’s a couple of ice cream shops. Me and the boys go roller skating once a month.”

“‘You and the boys’?” Patton chuckled.

“Yeah, ha. I’m friends with Remus and Virgil, but those two also bring along Roman and sometimes Logan, although I think they just feel bad for Logan.”

Patton smiled. “What are Remus and Virgil like?”

“Well you’ll meet them,” Janus pulled some ceran wrap out of the cupboard and began wrapping up the pie, “But I guess I should warn you. Virgil is nice, but he’s really anxious and shy, it’ll take you a bit to get close to him. When you first meet him though, and he doesn’t say a single word and just mopes in the corner, well, he looks like he’s ready to shoot you dead. Heh, he prolly could. Remus is… the exact opposite. He’s got this gorgeous face, I mean like gorgeous. He looks all sweet and kind and… he is nothing like that, lord. He’s got a very… wild imagination.”

“How long have you all known each other?”

“Well me and Virgil have been friends for a few years, seeing as we’re both fae, but Remus we met freshman year.”

Patton began wiping down the table, “So, your parents run the circle. What’s that like?”

Janus paused, seemingly thinking. “It’s alright I guess. It does mean I have to go to every single god damn meeting.”

“Language!”

Janus smiled, “Wow, what vulgar language I just used, oh golly,” he snickered, “Sorry, I’ll try not to curse.” 

Patton smiled satisfactorily. 

“But yeah, it’s not much except for the professional stuff. And I mean, if my older sister doesn’t take over, I’ll have to run it. I’m gonna have some place in leadership either way, but at least if she takes over I won’t be full time. She’s a lot more suited anyway. And I mean it’s not like my parents are close to retirement any-- sorry for rambling, ha.”

“It’s alright,” Patton smiled. “Wanna go upstairs? I think we’re bugging the adults.” 

“Sure.”

The two headed up the stairs into Patton’s room, still only partially decorated. Janus looked around, smiling at the decorations already up. “I’m almost done with this room, just have a bit more to do.” The feral pixie placed the box on his bed, and Janus took a seat.

“This…” Patton pulled out a poster, “Is my favorite band. They aren’t together anymore but, I still like them. You can find their music on the web though.” The poster had a painting of a wolf on it and said ‘Timber at Dawn’.

“Wow, that’s nice.”

“Yeah, I have CDs of three of their albums, and records of all of them. My record player broke though.” The feral pixie took the records and stashed them before preparing to hand the poster.

“I have a record player, you can come to my house sometime and we can listen to them.” 

“Really?” Patton smiled excitedly. It’d been nearly a year since he’d been able to listen to those albums.

“Yeah.”

The two spent the next hour chatting while Patton decorated his room. They talked about music, and clothing, and a dozen other meaningless things. They barely noticed any time had passed before Hanson was calling Janus to come down to leave. 

“I’ll walk you out, but uh, do you want my number.”

“I would have forgotten. Trade numbers?”

The two entered their numbers into the other’s phones before rushing down the stairs. The group exchanged goodbyes, and soon the house was quiet again. Patton slept well last night, excited for a new life in Brookside.

[timelock97]

Time Never Stops

Chapter One: Always Interrupting

Word Count: 1763

Prologue

Warnings: Language, fluff

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

[Present Day]

I enter my newly furnished recording studio with a water bottle in one hand and a plate with a sandwich on it in the other. I set the plate down and reach under my desk to start my computer for today's events. While I wait, I spin around in my swivel chair and look at the room. The black and green padding on the walls were set in a diagonal pattern, and a white board with this weeks schedule placed in between some of the padding. Two bookshelves sit nestled against the back wall on either side of the door; the shelves are covered in merch, fan gifts, and several pictures of friends and me. Most of the pictures had been of Tom and I throughout the years, my favorite of the bunch sitting beside my monitor on my desk. His arm is around my waist while he stands behind me, donning a pair of black swim trunks, smiling into the side of my face as I laugh in a black and white checkered bikini. We are standing in the ocean, vacationing in Hilton Head, South Carolina, when we were seventeen.

Tom Holland, my best friend for as long as I can remember, and long time crush. Gotta love that the one person that knows you the best, happens to be the one that you fall for so easily. I didn't know if it was his sunshine smile, the infectious laugh, or the fact that he knows me better than I know myself; but, he is the one person I wish nothing more to have at my side for the rest of my life. However, it isn't that simple. With him being busy with his acting career and me being busy with YouTube, we hadn't had much time to spend together, not that it would have changed anything. Tom is my best friend, and that was that. I just have to be happy that he is still in my life after all these years, and hadn't lost contact while we went from immature teens to slightly more mature adults.

I smiled when my computer finally loads. I log on and set up my software before I clap my hands together, testing the frequency of the mic. I set up the game, placing my headphones over my beanie covered hair, and check to make sure that everything is running smoothly before I click record on the second monitor. I smile at the camera and begin my intro, "What's up, guys? You're on with Timelock! And today, as you can already tell, we are playing Detroit: Become Human. I have been beyond excited to play this game for the past three weeks, but of course since I was away in the UK visiting with Dan and Phil doing some fun videos and joining Sean, aka Jacksepticeye, and Mark, aka Markiplier, for a charity livestream kept me from starting the game. Which reminds me, I cannot believe how well we did on the livestream and I wanted to thank everyone who watched and participated with us across all platforms. You guys are amazing. Now going back to the game, Sean said that it is worth the wait, so without anymore interruptions, I hope, let's get started!"

~

"Holy shit, so that's what happened to Kara." I breathe as I move the character from Alice's room down to the first floor. I glance up at the next activity for the character, "See Todd for further instructions." I let out a gasp as I watch the scene unfold in front of me, watching as Todd yells at his daughter and frighten her. "Shit, I thought that was going to end badly, I mean, it could have. This game is already super interesting, now I know why everyone has been talking this game up! But, guys, the clock is ticking! Thank you so much for watching, and if you enjoyed the video, don't forget to give that like button a little bit of love. And I will see you, in the next one! Time-" I jump as my phone begins to blare the old Spider-Man theme song from inside my desk. I glance at the drawer and pull it out to see a picture of Tom sticking his middle finger up his nose, his name place directly over his face. I roll my eyes and look back at the camera. "I said there would be no interruptions, I stand corrected." I answer the phone, "Hold up thirty seconds, I'm saying my outro."

Tom's laugh echoes through the receiver, "Okay, okay."

"Let's try this again. Time resume." I point at the screen for a few seconds before I end the recording and place my phone back against my ear. "You really have impeccable timing. What is this, the sixth time in the past two weeks?"

"Sorry, love, figured you would be done by now." He chuckled, "And I miss you."

"I miss you too, Thomas." I smile, grabbing my camera so I can begin uploading the recording to my editing software. "How's filming?"

"Good, good," he pauses, shifting in the background. "We actually finished yesterday and are going to be heading out to start promoting the movie, then I am off to start filming for the newest Avengers movie."

"Ooh," I enthuse, plugging in my camera and shifting to save and close out of the game, "That sounds amazing, Tom." I sigh, happy to hear that he was doing well after long months of filming, advertising, repeating. "But it also sounds exhausting."

"Honestly, it is," he sighs. "How was London and Brighton? My mum said you visited and Harrison was sending me snapchats of you at the flat."

"It was really nice. Actually, Harrison decided, even though I discussed it with him a month previous, that he did not want to let me stay. However, Tessa pushed past him into the hallway when she heard me." I pause my rant as I hear Tom laugh at the statement, "It was an entertaining two weeks in London, and I spend two days with your mum, dad, and brothers. It was nice spending time with them and not having to worry about working." I say, watching the video finally load up into the editing software. "And Brighton was amazing. When you're home, and I can find time to fly out, we have to go and spend a week out there. Its beautiful."

"Sounds like a plan, bug." He sighs.

"I do have to edit, do you wanna Skype so we can continue the conversation?"

"Yeah, I'd love that," he whispered. I quickly pulled up my Skype, after a few minutes, his face popped up into my screen.

"Hey! Its my favorite boy!" I yell, throwing my hands over my head. I watched as Tom's smile fades as he looks behind me with knitted eyebrows. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"That's not your normal studio, is it?" He asked, sounding concerned.

"Oh, I thought I told you the good news?" I said rolling backwards so that I was in the middle of my recording studio, "I got the apartment!" I looked at him in excitement, but I noticed he wasn't smiling. "What's wrong? I thought you would be happy."

"I- I am, I just," he runs his hand through his hair, "God, I've missed so much by being gone all the time."

"Tom..." I murmur, "Hey, it's okay. What you're doing is just as important-"

"But, it's your first flat," he whispers, "I was going to come and help you unpack, make sure that your first night wasn't spent alone," he pouts at me, but I can see the small smile on his lips at the promise he made me years ago.

"I didn't spend it alone! I made a girls night out of it! I had Izzy, Haley, and Mia spend the night with me and it was a lot of fun. I know you wanted it to be you, but when you get done with everything I can show you the place." Tom sighs and places his head on his fist. "I know what'll make you feel better, how about I promise next time you are here we marathon all the Marvel movies."

"All the movies?" he teases, his frown disappearing. I nod and he smiles back, "That sounds awesome." He laughs.

I roll back up to my desk to start editing while Tom tells me about some of the more entertaining things that have happened the last few weeks. Another Skype message pops up from JacKyleGameplays, interrupting his rambling. Hey, TL. We and the girls are going to play some prop hunt, wanna join? ~Jac

"What was that?" Tom asks, tilting his head to the side.

"GameSquad wants to play prophunt," I state, getting ready to tell them that I had some things to finish and wouldn't be able to get on today.

"I'll let you go then-"

"No, it's okay, I can stay on." I tell him, looking back at the camera, "We always get interrupted, I can play prophunt any other time. I almost never see you anymore."

"You sure? I don't mind, I can just call later." Even though he says it's fine, I can see in his eyes he really doesn't want me to hang up.

"Nope, I want to talk to you, I can always talk to the GameSquad." I finish sending the message and mute the rest of my chats, "There, no interruptions this time."

"Is it because I am Mr. Always Interrupting?"

"Damn straight," I say giggling, "Now, who out of all the people you have played as is your favorite character? And you can't pick Spider-Man."

"But, I am Spider-Man!"

"No, you are Thomas Stanley Holland!" I shout playfully, making him laugh, "My best friend since two years old, my tiny-toddling husband, knight in shining armor, and the one person that knows me better than I know myself."

He immediately begins to laugh harder, "My Mum sent me that video of us "getting married" last week."

"I asked if she would since we found it. I was hoping it would make you smile."

"It did, my little lovely wife." He sighs, "and my favorite character? Definitely your best friend, because that's the one I get to play for the rest of my life."

A blush creeps up my neck as I look away from the screen, "That's cheesy, and you're only saying it because I said it first!"

"But being your best friend is my favorite thing, you know me more than I know myself."

"I should, I've known you my whole life" I whisper.

"And I wouldn't have it any other way," he says with a dopey smile. "Now, what were you recording before I so rudely interrupted?"

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

A/N: Comment and reblog! What did you think? Let me know if you want to be tagged. IDK what else I’m supposed to put at the bottom. I’m going to try and post chapters Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday (since I already finished writing it).

@revenantwriting

Chapter Two

[crazyrandomfucker]

Adrien Augreste: Tropical Island

"You're going to what!?" she screamed.

"We're going on holidays to the Agreste's island and we want to take you all with us" explained Adrien.

"Dude, your dad has an island?" asked Nino.

"Technically it's our mother's island, he bought it for her" said Adrienne.

"Man, that's so awesome. We're going to a private island" said Alen daydreaming.

"We've already been there" said Chloe and Cleón at unison.

"People, focus" said Alya. "Why have we only heard about it now sunshines?"

"Because since mom and uncle... You know... Since then, father hasn't let anyone set a feet on the island" explained the blond model.

"But after a lot of begging, he sold the island to us!" said Adrienne excited.

"Gurl, you're telling me that you own an island?" said Nina.

"More like half of it, Adrien has the other half" she explained.

"Well then, when are we going?" said Marin.

"Frankly, we could fly there tomorrow, but probably you'll need time to prepare, so we decided to go next week" said Adrien.

"Most importantly, is there going to be a responsible adult?" asked Mari.

"Girl, you're an adult and a responsible one" teased Alya. "Thought our kwamis have like a few millenias".

"I'd never count Plagg as a responsible adult" said Adrien. "But yes, there will be the staff and our bodyguards to keep an eye on us".

"What a shame, guess we'll have to behave then" joked Nina.

"We still can surprise our boys with some nice tropical views" said Alya with a wink.

"One day of us you're going to kill us" said Nino deadpanned.

"Oh, but wouldn't it be a very pleasurable death?" teased Alya, making Nino blush.

"I'm feeling like a ninth wheel right now" said Cleón.

"Oh but you shouldn't, your boyfriend is invited to come too and so is your girlfriend Chlo" said Adrienne with a hint of mischief on her voice.

"Yeah, wouldn't it be nice? Taking your Sabrina and Sebastian to the beach, stargazing while cuddling, ..." said Adrien with a Chesire grin.

"Okay, we get it! We will invite them but please stop with the teasing!" said a very flustered Chloe.

Everybody burst into laughs, it was very recently that the bees had discovered their secret crush in their life long friends, but everything had gone smooth for them since Raincomprix twins seemed to feel more than simple friendship and admiration for them. So now, the miraculous gang used to tease them a lot, specially because Sabrina and Sebastian had become temporarily the users of the Dog's miraculous back when Hawk Moth and Monarch were still on a rampage. Even with all the teasing, the heroes couldn't help it but to feel happy for them. The bees had surely been throught a lot and become rotten because of it, but they had made the effort to change themselves and improve their behaviour towards others, so everyone knew that they deserved that bit of happiness.

____________________

A week later, Adrien and Adrienne were saying goodbye to their father before they entered the limousine. Their bodyguards/chofers drove them to the Dupain-Cheng bakery to pick up Mar and Mari. While they were going to the airport Adrienne and Marinette were discussing something in a very low voice while the boys, who prefered to ignore what their girlfriends were planning, talked about all the things they could do in the beach, like surfing, snorkeling or paddle surf.

Some moments later, the cats and the bugs were in the airport waiting for their friends. Tue bees arrived moments later with their couples in a helicopter. Sabrina thanked Adrien and Adrienne for the invitation and Sebastian implied a thanks in a weird head gesture. Then, Nina and Alya arrived with their hands pretty empty, but minutes later Nino and Alen appeared carrying a lot of luggage and excusing themselves for being late explaining that some ladies left them to find a parking slot and carry all the luggage. Marin and Adrien laughed at that and helped them to carry some of the bags while Adrienne took the lead and guided them to the private jet.

After some remarks to the cats money and some teasing to the bugs for getting such catches, everybody entered to the plane and made themselves comfy in their seats. The flight wasn't particulary special and nothing happened, but most of them used their very comfortable seats to take a good nap (*cough cough* Mari). They had to make a couple of stops to make sure the plane had enough fuel, so the whole thing dured about 12 hours, but none of them was bored for a single minute. The plane landed around six pm and the group was greeted by the beautyful sight of crystaline water, white sand and a very lovely blue sky. There was a gentle breeze that brought the smell of seawater and palm trees, making the young adults feel as if they we're in the paradise.

They arrived to the summer house that was built there and everybody let their things at the reception, since they still had to organize themselves, make plans and last, but certainly not least, they had to decide how and where would they sleep. It had just recently came to them that they didn't know how were they going to be divided to sleep or if it would even be a necessity for them to divide. But the cats looked at eachother with a particulary mischievous Chesire-like grin.

"It's a pity isn't it brother?" said Adrienne after faking a phone call.

"It certainly is sister, what are we possibly going to do?" agreed Adrien grinning.

"What happens?" asked Marinette suspicious.

"Ah princess, you see there is a problem with the rooms" said Adrien dramatically.

"What happens with the rooms?" asked Marin already predicting the outcome.

"There only are six rooms unoccupied by the staff. What are we going to do?" said Adrienne.

 Everybody looked at each other, flustering as they understood exactly what the models were implying. Marin, however was a bit calm about everything. "We all know what you two are trying to say and I'm pretty sure how we're going to organize the rooms, so how about we get ourselves installed in the rooms and then we meet here" he said.

"As expected of my Lord, so cool, calm and collected" joked Adrien.

"I think it's a great idea sweetheart" said Adrien. Suddenly she grinned. "Ah, but please be careful, all the rooms are insonoritzated and if you fall or get hurt we couldn't hear you even if you were screamingat the top of your lungs" everybody, including Marin, instantly blushed, getting the message.

They split up and were guided to their respective rooms by the staff, who couldn't help but all smile at the sight of the happy group. Adrien, with a very Chat like demaneour, offered to carry some of Marinette's luggage, flexing to prove his point just like he had done all those years ago when Devillustrator had attacked. Mari giggled, amused by her silly cat, and booped his nose, reminding him that she was strong enough to carry her bags and had spare strength to carry him too. Adrien smiled lovestruck by his amazing girlfriend. He really loved teasing her and seeing her blush, stutter or mumble, but he couldn't helpto fall more in love with her each time she returned his teasing or made a move on him.

They entered their room and discovered that, aside from being huge and well equiped, they had a couple sized bed and two normal beds, so the option to share a bed orsleep separatedly was purely for them to make. Flustered, the young model and his designer began to unpack their things and place their clothes in the two separate closets. Marinette sended a text to her parents to reassure that they had arrived safe and sound just in case Marin hadn't already done it.

After gathering again, the miraculous gang (plus the Raincomprix) went to explore the island. It wasn't really big, just around 12 hectares, but there was a small lake in the center of the island, so it wasn't that much of land. They observed the sunset in the beach, watching the sun dissapear as if it was engulfed by the sea. Then, they returned to the summer house and had dinner before returning to their respective rooms.

Honestly speaking, Adrien would never even think of doing to Mari anything she didn't wanted him to do, the whooe tuing about the rooms was just a bit of teasing, but he had tor ecognise that, despite how tired he was, he wouldn't mind to stay awake for a bit if it meant snuggling with his lady and kissing her. But that would only happened if she ever asked for it, so Adrien simply sighed and changed to his pajama while Mari changed in the bathroom. It has to be said, that because of the weather and the constat corporal heat produced by his body, his pajama consisted only of his pijama shorts, which he feared that would scare Mari or misunderstand it for him wanting to do something.

Unbeknownst to him, Marinette was regretting hearing to Alya as she was undressing her self before putting on her pajama, which coincidentally was a pair of lime green loose pajama pants with black paw prints and a very big black jumper with an acid green paw print on the front and two cat ears on the hoodie. She was sure Adrien would be uncomfortable with it and she was going to kill Alya for it, but then she went out of the bathroom and saw Adrien's bare back, with all the muscles he had gained over the years of superheroing, and her face turned crimson red.

"A-Adrien? Are you g-going to sleep l-l-like that?" said Marinette nervous.

"I'm sorry princess, but this cat is too hot to put on a shirt" said Adrien half teasingly.

Marinette suddenly felt less sorry for him and gained some confidence. "Is that so kitty? Why don't you turn around with your eyes closed?" asked Mari.

He did as she said and grinned. "Like what you see Bugaboo?"

"Oh totally~" said Mari. "Why don't you see mine and see if you like it?" said as sue put on the hoodie.

"But m'Lady everything you wea-" begun Adrien but stopped when he saw her, immediately blushing.

"Like what you see Hot Stuff?" teased Mari as she scratched under his chin, melting him into pleasure.

"A lot" said Adrien with a dreamy voice as he couldn't take his eyes of her.

"Good, because this bug is sleepy and will soon cover in the bed sheets, so enjoy whioe you can~"

"Wait Mari" said Adrien snapping out of his dreams. "I'll take one of the mini beds, so take the biggest bed".

"No way, this is your summer house and you won't sleep on a worst bed than me" replied the designer.

"Then how about we take turns for it? You sleep there today, I'll do it tomorrow" said Adrien.

"Hmm... Okay, just for today because I'm too tired to discuss about it" said Mari and she slipped into the bed and fell asleep almost instantly, ingoring how Adrien smiled as he couldn't take his gaze off her.

The next morning, Adrien woke up exactly as he had fallen asleep just four hours ago: laying on his left side (which he could no longer feel) and facing Marinette. He hadn't slept much due to the high temperatures, but he was able to at least dream all night long with a possible future in which he could sleep all night long with Mari, hugging her and waking up with her (preferably with her kiss, but she would probably sleep far more than he). When he woke up, Mari had kicked off the blanket and she was spreading her arms and legs on the bed, her hair was a mess and it was going out of her hoodie, but Adrien thought how cute she was with that adorable face and that messy hair of her.

She woke up and, still half asleep, stared at Adrien for a long time, until she finally acknowledged his presence (and his shirtlessness) and blushed as she rushed to fix her hair, giving him a sheepy and shy smile. Adrien laughed at that and went to her bed to hug her and give her a kiss on the cheek, making her blush turn from a light pink to a crimson red. She gently punched him and told him to dress up to go and meet the others.

Surprisingly thought, they were the first to woke up, which made the super duo burst into laugh and then blush as they realized why could have their friends done last night to make them sleep more than Marinette, which made them blush once again and feel embarrassed. However, Nino came later complaining about how Alya kicks and punches in her sleep as he caressed his leftside and his left cheek. The bees and their lovers came few minutes later, not precisely in a lovey-dovey mood, but acting quite shy. Then Adrienne came and begged Marinette to go to help her waking Marin. Once Marin came, Nina appeared with a somewhat annoyed expression and Alen followed her asking for forgiveness. Apparently, Alen hugs in his sleep and he doesn't precisely let's go which, as Nina said, it was sweet but also claustrophobic.

Once Alya woke up and appologised to Nino, the gang went to have breakfast and then to prepare themselves for the day. The girls decided to go to the beach to sunbath and the boys decided to go fishing at the lake, making a competition to see who was the one to catch the biggest fish. Hours later, after not having caught even a single fish, they decided to put on the swimsuit and go to the beach with the girls. When they got to the beach Nino, Alen, Marin and Adrien were speechless. None of them could take their eyes off their beautyful girlfriends or stop blushing because of their bikinis and the girls surely knew, since all of them suddenly grinned.

Adrien went and occupied the chair next to Mari. Her bikini was ligh pink with white polka dots and it certainly brought up her skin tone. She looked sassier than usual due to her sunglasses and also the mischievous green she had since Adrien appeared. When he sat down, Marinette turned her head and looked at Adrien for a short time, inspecting her swimming trunks and his blue Hawaiian shirt.

"Looking good Hot Stuff" said Marinette teasingly.

"Thanks, y-you too" said Adrien a bit nervous.

"Do you like my looks?" said the designer as she smiled smugly.

"Q-Quite a lot" answered the model.

"Good Kitten" said Marinette and scratched him under his chin.

"Crap, this woman is going to be the death of me" thought Adrien as he gulped and blushed.

"You have it bad kid" whispered Plagg from inside Adrien's shirt.

"Shut up" replied Adrien blushing.

"Well then minou, will my brave knight swim for a bit with his lady?" said Mari as she put down her sunglasses and stood up.

"It will be my honor Princess" said Adrien bowing.

"Let's race then kitty-cat, the winner can give a single order to the loser" said Mari winking as she began to run.

"Oh it's on Maribug" said Adrien as he chased her.

[vexing-imogen]

(’til death) do us part

“Okay, so there is something super important that Fjord and I have to tell you before we enter the Menagerie Coast,” Jester starts. She’s gathered everyone together in Caleb’s magic bubble, and all eyes are trained on them. Fjord is very uncomfortable, she can tell, because he literally isn’t looking at anyone. “And, well, the reason we left it to the very last minute is that it’s pretty awkward, and Fjord really doesn’t like to talk about it.”

Beau and Nott share a knowing look, and Caleb actually looks fairly alarmed. Jester takes a deep breath before she continues.

“Okay, so technically Fjord and I have been married for the entire time that you’ve known us, technically.”

Everyone’s reactions are pretty much what she expected. Beau’s jaw drops, and she swears loudly, looking kind of offended. Caleb goes very still, his alarm not going away. He also swears, but very, very quietly. Nott is making a lot of unnecessary noise, frankly. And Caduceus is just nodding to himself, like it’s not something that he ever considered, but now that he knows, isn’t all that shocking.

“Okay, there’s a lot to fucking unpack here,” Beau says, once Nott has settled down. “Like how the two of you got married after knowing each other for like, a day or two? And why the fuck you haven’t mentioned it before now.”

Jester shrugs. “We never mentioned it because it wasn’t all that important,” she says. “Not outside of the Menagerie Coast, anyway.”

“As for why we got married in the first place,” Fjord says, still staring at the ground like he’s hoping it will swallow him whole, “that’s kind of a long fuckin’ story.”

“Basically, we were probably about to be arrested and put in jail for a really long time, so we went to hide in a temple,” Jester explains. “And then we had to explain why we were in the temple so late at night, and Fjord kind of...panicked. And now we’re married.”

“So, if it was just a thing of convenience,” Caleb says slowly, “why did you stay married this entire time? Why not just get a divorce?”

“Uh, ‘cause we can’t,” Fjord says, scratching the back of his head. “Not on the Coast.”

“What, really?” Beau asks.

Jester sighs. “Yeah, so here’s the thing, marriage is, like, super duper sacred on the Menagerie Coast. Like, once you get married, you are literally married until one of you dies. Divorce is literally not an option. It is super old fashioned, and really, really weird, honestly.”

“I mean, it’s kinda romantic,” Fjord says softly. “If you think about it. Like, when you meet a couple that’s been married for a real long time...that’s somethin’ special, y’know?”

“Well, yeah,” Jester says. “But, also like 99 percent of the murders that happen outside of, like, the really big cities are committed by people who are just sick of being married, you know?”

“That is phenomenally fucked up,” Beau says. “But this is also the funniest fucking thing I’ve heard in my entire life.”

“The Traveler does think it’s really funny,” Jester says with a grin.

“Yup, it’s a real barrel of pixies,” Fjord mutters.

“So, is this going to affect anything with our travels?” Nott asks. “Is it going to cause us any trouble?”

“It shouldn’t,” Jester says after a moment of consideration. “Really, Fjord and I just have to make sure we’re always wearing these special rings, and we’re going to have to bunk together in inns, that’s about it.” She gasps quietly, remembering something. “Also, maybe don’t let it slip that we haven’t technically consummated anything. That’s really important.”

“Yep, that about covers it,” Fjord says quickly. “Any other questions ‘fore I go die of embarrassment?”

Most everyone shakes their heads, but Caduceus raises his hand slowly. “Do we have to buy you a wedding present? Because I’m kind of running low on funds.” The sly grin that crawls across his face makes Jester giggle, breaking the tension.

Everyone disperses to their bedrolls after that, Fjord and Caduceus leaving the bubble to take first watch for the night. Nott and Beau set up on either side of Jester, and she recognizes gossip mode when she sees it.

“So, you and Fjord are fuckin’ married,” Beau marvels. “I honestly can’t believe you’ve kept it a secret for this long.”

Jester shrugs. “Fjord really doesn’t like to talk about it,” she explains. “I think he feels bad, you know? Like, he maybe sort of feels like he forced me into something that I didn’t want to do.” She shrugs again. “I’ve tried to tell him not to worry so much about it. I wouldn’t have done it if it were a super big deal or something.”

Nott inhales sharply, and she shakes Jester’s arm. “What is your mother going to say when she finds out?” she asks. “Ooh, or does she already know?”

Jester shakes her head frantically. “Oh no, my mother is never going to find out about this. Like ever,” she says. “It would make her so super sad, you guys.”

“Is she, like, super opposed to marriage?” Beau asks.

“Just the opposite, actually,” Jester says. “She super believes in the sacredness of all of it. That’s why it was such a big deal that she was going to marry my dad, you know? Because it’s so important to her. And I really, really don’t want to disappoint her, you guys.”

“I mean, I’m sure she’d prefer this to you being locked up in jail,” Beau reasons.

“Yeah, I guess, maybe,” Jester says. “But just in case, don’t bring it up, okay?”

“Okay,” Nott agrees, and Beau nods too.

“Oh! And will you also both promise not to tease Fjord about this too much?” she asks. “I know it seems silly, but it really does bother him, you know?”

“Alright, fine,” Beau says begrudgingly. “I still think it’s really fuckin’ funny.”

After they’ve both fallen asleep, Jester pulls out her sketchbook and begins to draw. She starts with a pretty great doodle of Beau’s eyes bugging out of her head, and Nott with her jaw on the ground. And then, remembering Fjords words from before, she draws the two of them, but as super old versions of themselves, sitting in rocking chairs, doing old people things.

She feels a warmth in her chest, hears a familiar chuckle in the back of her mind. “I know,” she says quietly. “Super wishful thinking, right?”

When Fjord wakes her a few hours later for her watch, he stops her from leaving right away. He pulls a thin gold band out of his pack and slips it onto her finger. “I know it ain’t really your style, but I figured we should do this now ‘fore we forget,” he says.

She takes his ring out of the haversack and puts it on him, admiring the gold against the green of his skin. They’re simple, really, but they carry a heavy enchantment. They won’t be able to pass into the Menagerie Coast without them on.

He keeps her hand in his for a minute longer, sighs heavily. “I know you’ve told me about a million times to stop apologizing for this, but I really am sorry,” he says. “But, I’m also sorry for how I’ve acted about being married to you, ‘specially since it was my doin’. Truth be told, Jes, there’s no one I can think of that I’d rather be married to.”

Her heart flutters hopefully in her chest. “It really doesn’t bother me, Fjord, I promise,” she says, kissing him on the cheek. “And, for the record, if I have to be bound to someone for the rest of my life, I’m pretty glad that it’s you.”

She’s pretty sure that he blushes at that, but she doesn’t tease him about it like she normally would. She gets up, goes to join Caleb outside of the dome. “Sweet dreams, Fjord.”

(He makes sure she’s out of earshot before whispering, “Only if you’re in ‘em.”)