#adds has a natural troublemaker brain ...

[muntitled]

Can I request babysitter Seunghan who’s also a plug ( you don’t have to add the plug part if you don’t want to) hired to watch you because you’re a troublemaker

A/n: I love this man and this request... as always, I kinda just wrote and allowed whatever extra stuff to spring up but I hope you like it

𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥 𝐁𝐲 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐨𝐨𝐫𝐰𝐚𝐲 | 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐞𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐡𝐚𝐧

Babysitter!Seunghan x fem!Reader

Warnings: Language, Forbidden Romance, Brothers Best Friend au!, Brief!Mentions of Suicide, Angst, Recreational Drug Use, Enemies to Lovers, Smut (+18), Dom!Seunghan, Sub!Reader, Choking, Rough Sex, Marking, Innocence Kink, Masturbation (fem!rec), Praise Kink, Massive Degradation Kink, Breeding Kink, Dry Humping

The coldness of the heavily chlorinated water hits you first and you distinctly remember thinking: You really should not have finished an entire bowl of pasta before going for a late night dive.

But here you are, and there the ledge is… far from your grasp.

The panic sets in causing a gust of bubbles to rush up from your nose while you cradle the cramp stopping you from swimming all too well. You're trapped in the aquatic abyss, flailing your arms while bouts of water make it inside your system. You're drowning.

Your lungs are thinning.

You need to swim to the ledge but it's too far.

You're getting weaker and weaker.

Your brain has rung the alarm and your mouth opens, subconsciously gulping in a generous bout of pool water. Before you can swallow, however, there's a pair of hands under your armpits dragging you to the ledge.

While you gasp in air, your arms shakily hold onto the concrete.

His voice is far too mellow over the sound of your raucous, sickly sputtering as you fight to find your footing in the shallow end of the pool.

"I don’t know what's worse.” The voice says, breathing heavily, “You trying to kill yourself, or you trying to kill yourself on my watch."

There is nothing but vexation and discontent laced in his baritone.

It looks far too natural on Seunghan's face. It is a look of contempt usually aimed at Sungchan who deserved it, and Eunseok who reciprocated it.

He lifts himself effortlessly out of the pool but not without shooting you an icy, unimpressed glare.

While you were not very often on the receiving end of his disapproval, his glare is nothing new to you. In fact, you're more focused on regaining your breathing pattern.

This glare is nothing new at all.

"You must be evil to kill yourself on my watch," he laughs humorlessly to himself (That earth shattering, blood-rushing row of perfect teeth) as he walks over to the deck chair adjacent to the neon-lit swimming pool.

"Couldn't you have found some other night to do it?” He asks as he angrily pats down at his drenched shorts with a towel. Seunghan mindlessly hooks his fingers into the hem of his soaked shirt, and you fight the urge to look away as he peels the material off of him.

Your weak arms finally garner enough strength to push yourself out of the pool. Thousands of beads of water that could have been the weapon of your destruction eases down your soft body, before sinking into the generic one piece swimming costume you had slipped into.

You're not sure why you feel self conscious right now but you do. How dare your self consciousness decide to rear its ugly, insecure head in the presence of your adversary?

"Who the fuck let in?" You ask in a dangerous octave, despite already knowing the answer. "I thought I told Sungchan to stop letting his strange boyfriends into our crib."

Once you've recovered from the overall shock of nearly dying (at perhaps the sight of a shirtless Seunghan) you manage to glare perfect daggers up at him.

Seunghan releases a humourless chuckle as he plants his butt onto the deck chair, “Down tiger,” he teases before rolling his dark eyes into the back of his head. His earrings glint under the moonlight as he pushes a hand through his jet black hair.

"Of course your brain can't comprehend this as a moment for you to be grateful." He looks up at the night sky, releasing a sigh to the constellations before patting his hand down on the towel in search of his prized tiny metal container.

"You really do stress me out," he whispers in complete awe.

“You can't smoke here,” You try helplessly.

“We're outside.” He says, before sighing heavily with his eyelids heavy, “You don't own the outside.”

You pad over the other presiding deck chair, in quick succession. Hoping you aren't in his presence for any longer than you have to be.

He curses under his breath as he bends over his open metal tin, gliding his fingers over what you knew was a significant amount of weed.

Another byproduct of Sungchan and Seunghan's friendship.

You feel zero empathy for his complaints, choosing instead to roll your eyes to the back of your head as he continues, "Now it's gonna make for a sucky roll. Thanks."

"Your suicide water got all over the paper." He says monotonously.

You're quick to wrap the towel around your front, terrified of the very real possibility that any other one of Sungchan's raucous frat boyfriends might pop up around your parents' villa.

If Sungchan was asking for the family villa, then he had nothing but partying on his mind.

You knew absolutely nothing good could come from your adoptive brother proposing a 'relaxing weekend getaway' to your parents before the academic year began. You saw past the doe eyes and over the exaggerated poutiness.

Your parents, however, were not completely unaware of Sungchan's intentions.

“That's fine,” your mother had said. "But take your sister with you," Ignoring your fierce protests, your mom looked squarely into Sungchan's pleading eyes, challenging him to talk back to her.

"Those bags under your eyes are only going to grow darker, honey" Your mother had chided you, "You're going."

Something that perhaps doubled your complaints was when your mother suddenly exclaimed, “I'd feel better if you take that Hong Seunghan with you as well,” she shook her head before smiling dreamily, “He has been such a good influence on you, Sungchan.” And you had resumed your dinner in a troubled silence while your mom piloted the conversations.

She should've just left you at the damn orphanage…

You understood the trip for what it really was. A chance for Sungchan and his close-knit group of degenerates to get high or drunk or both.

"I'm so very sorry that my drowning killed your vibe." You shoot at Seunghan before gathering up your belongings up from the deck chair. Instead of turning back to catch a glimpse of Seunghan swiping his tongue over the rolling paper, you evade all eye contact.

You sigh as you walk past him, hell bent on making your way inside the villa and locking yourself in your bedroom for all time. Never turning around, you firmly say, "I definitely don't have time for this-"

"I appreciate the apology." He says, nodding in gross sincerity, "I'd just prefer it if you don't let this suicide shit happen again? You fucked with my ritual." He looks up at your retreating frame, smiling boyishly before lighting the end of his blunt.

You bristle in the knowledge that Seunghan was once again put on babysitting duty.

While Seunghan blows out wispy clouds of smoke, he interrupts, "-Is what I said when I found out I'm stuck here while your brother bones one of the other island girls."

"I don't need a babysitter." You hiss while your fingers curl around the thin glass panels of the sliding door. "I haven't needed one for 15 fucking years-"

"-She says, after having just attempted to drown herself." He snorts and he pulls back and concludes with, "Evidently, Princess, you kinda do." You hated the satisfaction in his tone. You abhorred how absolutely satiated he appeared when your blood ran hot and your limbs shook with ferocity.

You wished he died...

You knew your aberration extended to your brother as well, for sinking his claws into your crush before you could ever work up the courage to talk to him. 10 years in and that big brained, sensitive tree of a boy you jad initially fallen in love with is gone.

Or perhaps you wished he had never met Sungchan.

Lost in a vague reanimation of your brother.

You wished to hurt him as much as he hurt you everyday he spent at your brother's side and so, without breaking eye contact, you quietly and succinctly said, "Yeah well, you're just his lap dog that he sends to babysit his little sister-"

Seunghan only laughs unperturbed, "Sick burn from the basket case-" and you quickly shoot back.

There is complete silence between the two of you. A silence that hangs like wet washing.

"You're not even really a part of them," you snicker, "Where do you think they all are right now? Probably at a party by the beach, doing lines of coke down a model's sternum." The worse flow from your lips in quick succession. "All of them just fucking relieved to get rid of overbearing, burden Seunghan." You say, "Seunghan the prude. How utterly sad."

"I'm not a prude." He says quietly, hands stilling on his lap. You're utterly, mystified to find that you've struck some sort of nerve.

Perfect…

"It's the 21st century, Seunghan. It's okay to be a virgin," you nod condescendingly. "It may not be cool but it's definitely okay!" You exclaim before turning on your heels, letting the big open mansion swallow you whole, while you hum in utter glee.

Before you're out of earshot, his voice reaches your ears. They perk when you hear a very low, very deep

"Fucking bitch,"

-which not only has you smiling wider... but it has a deep warmth running hot in your core.

You plop yourself down on your bed, before staring up at the beams in complete and utter silence. Almost instinctively, as if you had no say in the matter at all, your short manicured nails trail down your belly before stopping right above your pubic bone.

You're peeling your clothes off of you the very second you make it back into your room, having climbed the elaborate wooden staircase two at a time. His words seem to have rocked you to your very being and your stomach does fiery somersaults as his words replay like a broken record within the confines of your brain. For 3 whole years since you've pledged to forgo this childish crush on him and it's as though your feelings have only doubled in magnitude.

A thick wad of saliva fights to make its way down your throat as your eyes finally give in to the darkness by fluttering shut.

Who does he think he is, your mind echoes wildly.

Who is he to think he can talk to you however he pleases?

It enrages you to imagine Sungchan has given him this right, and it enrages you further to imagine yourself growing impossibly hotter at his tense and crude tone of degradation. It was a feat to get Seunghan to swear, the boy was something akin to a turtle. Never without its shell. Never without the threat of sinking back into himself when things got uncomfortable.

‘Fucking bitch’

You finally accepted the knots in your stomach for what it was before plunging your hands in between your open legs.

You'd always prized yourself on your self control but that is a fickle thing as you press your palm to your slick and sticky cunt. You spread your arousal all over your inner thighs as your back arches off the mattress.

“Fuck-” you hiss into the quiet night air, as you picture a very distinct smile from a very distinct ravenlike boy, hovering above you. You imagine him watching you try helplessly to please yourself by withholding his own ministrations as some sort of punishment. You swear you can feel his lips brush against your ear and you can hear the soft tinbre of his deep voice as he whispers, “You're such a fucking slut, you know that?”

Your desperation tumbles out of your mouth, and you vaguely are aware that you're too far gone, trapped in the web of the fantasies that you've woven.

“F-Fuck, Seunghan- I'm close- ” And the embarrassment of crying out into an empty room, about a boy who could not give less of a fuck whether you live or died, is suddenly, made very fucking real, very fucking quickly when you hear-

“Hey… So, I just wanted to apologise-”

Your thighs clamp shut around the hand that was coaxing you to orgasm, while your knees simultaneously lock around you.

Seunghan stands there in your open doorway, sans blunt or shirt, with his plump pink lips hanging open in stark shock.

How enamoured by your own fantasy you had been, to not realise that you had left the door to your room wide open. How deep had you sunken into your own lust not to have noticed the boy standing at the door?

“Oh my fucking God-” your heart sinks into the very pits of your stomach as you rush to pull your pillow over your naked frame. Every nauseating emotion: fear, pity, acrimony, embarrassment, antipathy and worry, wash over you like a volcanic wave of molten lava. There are tears stinging your eyes as you move to rush over to the door. Before you're able to move however, Seunghan's voice is very stern and very quiet when he says, “Lay back down,”

There is a ringing in your ear that is spurred on by your erratic heartbeat and the wave of emotions running through your mind…

“W-What?” You truly felt as though you're unable to talk, unable to form any coherent response that might do this moment justice.

Here he is, the boy you have quite literally been pining over since your brother had been parading him around you.

Here he is, stepping over the threshold of your bedroom, but not before sending one gaze behind his back.

“You heard me,” Seunghan says before swinging your door shut using his back, so as never to remove his eyes from you. “You better make it quick.” He warns, “I don't know how long that party might keep your brother entertained.”

A billion questions stream through your consciousness but they all fail to reap even a single explanation and soon, you're idly complying. Pushing your head back slowly, until your braids are buried in the Egyptian linen. Your heart races when you hear his footsteps close the distance between the two of you and somehow you're still fighting to convince yourself that this is real. That Seunghan, and his dangerously sweet smile and inky black hair, is standing above you right now.

While you are here… naked.

That is enough to want to illicit a wave of nausea because no way, on God's green earth, were you going to let him see you naked.

“This is fucking insane-”

“Sit the fuck back down.” He does not shout, but still relays a level of conviction that has you propping yourself up by your elbows as you gaze up at the man in front of you.

“So she listens to orders,” he notes quietly, “Interesting…” Seunghan immediately lowers himself on the edge of your bed, careful not to let your skin touch as he flutters his eyes closed, seemingly thinking something through before nodding with finality.

“Make your fingers wet for me,”

“Seunghan-”

“Is that a no?”

You couldn't very well tell him how desperate you are. You couldn't tell him that his presence and his voice alone has your legs tense and trembling under the pillow. Instead, all you do is hesitantly bring your index and middle finger up to your lips. You suck on them without ever bringing eye contact and once again, Seunghan shuts his eyes in an almost pained expression.

“Fuck, we should not be doing this-”

He says to himself, completely eliminating you as an entity of reason in the space around him, which was fine by you because you can feel yourself slipping deeper and deeper into subspace.

“I shouldn't be doing this,” He says, despite having the bed dip as she shifts closer towards you.

“Sungchan is gonna fucking freak,” he says before finally laying his palm against your steepled knee.

“I don't care,” it's the first words you've said since the severity of the situation sunk in and your voice is hoarse.

Seunghan's earings glint under the warm lights of your bedroom lamp and you never break eye contact once.

“Lay back down and open your legs for me.” He commands oh so quietly until yojre automatically complying; removing the pillow from your front until you were naked in front of him.

Every bad feeling is overridden by lust as you watch Seunghan's heavy eyes skate over your body. “I really wanna watch you fuck yourself with your fingers,” he admits gravely.

Almost instinctively, your hands begin to move in between your parted thighs but he stops you- “Next time.” He promises, and it sends a wave of goosebumps over your skin along with harsh shivers.

“Right now though,” Seunghan gingerly grabs at your waist, until soon, he's manoeuvring you on top of him. You're straddling his hips as he lowers his back onto the bed and Seunghan immediately presses your hips flush against his clothed cock.

“F-Fuck-” both your hips stutter against each other. Yours and Seunghan's lips are hanging open, seemingly surprised by how much you've actually needed each other until now. He cranes his neck back as he rocks you back and forth against him. Yous eize the opportunity to latch your lips onto his skin, eliciting a long and pained groan from him.

“I need to fuck you,” he admits, pawing at your breasts desperately. You whine against him, mind still fuzzy from Seunghan's hard-on rubbing against your soaked cunt.

You're a whimpering moaning mess when he latches his other hand against your throat, pulling you up until his lips were crashing onto yours.

He wastes no time, kissing you hard and rough with his velvety tongue pushing inside your mouth.

“If we carry on like this I'm gonna cum,” he says before pulling his hand away from your boobs and down to his cock in between you both. “Can't have that,” he whispers.

“I'm close too,” you whisper back, “It's fine-”

“You're so fucking desperate. Just be patient.” Despite the iciness in his tone, Seunghan is shocked to find your hips stuttering against him at the words.

“You like that?” He asks breathlessly as he pulls his cock out of his shorts. “You like being my desperate little slut-”

“F-Fuck Seunghan, you need to fuck me p-lease-” before the words even leave yoir mouth, he's sinking into you with an acute roughness that has you screaming in your room.

“Oh my fucking- fuck-” Your eyes roll to the back of your head as your hips almost instinctively begin to ride him, your body now hellbent on chasing it's own orgasm.

You prop yourself up by your arm, leaving Seunghan to stare up at you and clamp his hand around your tits once more.

“Such a good girl,” he whispers, never once taking his eyes off your completely fucked out expression. “You're being such a good fucking girl.”

The depth in his voice, the aching expression in his face and his cock fucking into you at such a rabid pace has your inhibitions melting into incoherence. You were completely and utterly cock drunk. You would do anything he asked you to. Anything he wanted you to do.

“Fuck- You're fucking filth, y'know that?” Seunghan whispers, unable to stop his hips from fucking up into you, “But you're so fucking pretty too?” He says, “M-My pretty girl- FUCK-”

And somehow, those exact words have you both cumming with your moans swimming in the open air. He clutches you tightly as he emptied himself inside of you and you let him, with your eyes rolled back and your tits pressed firmly,against his chest. He claws at your back while you both fight to keep your eyes from slipping shut.

After what feels like ages, you're both breathing heavily and the weight of it all comes crashing down.

“You're so fucking hot." Seunghan's fingers draw lazy shapes against your back as he looks up at the ceiling. “I've always thought that.”

“Well why didn't you say anything?”

“I'm saying something right now.”

Apologies for grammatical or spelling errors, it's 1am

[robotics-and-additions-7a]

★ [ The android was looking at the two from the top of the stairs, listening in on the conversation with a slightly worried expression. 'If- if the place that Zero mentioned was getting too full for more people, then, maybe I could find someplace else!' A-7 thought, idly petting Screwdriver who was in its arms. ] ★

★ [ The support walked back over to the balcony, looking at the creature outside chasing down the other survivors. For some reason, he was tempted to jump down there. What's the reason? A-7 was tempted to see if it can annoy the creature... ] ★

-> Distant footsteps could be heard. Not just one pair, but a couple. - @radical-exploits [:3c]

★ [ ...The android seemed to be just sitting on the grass. It had walked around for awhile earlier, trying to find that mansion he'd been told about, but it eventually gave up. He fidgeted with its scarf, one of his antenna flicking every few seconds. ] ★

★ [ The support raised its head at the sound of footsteps, both of his antennas raising a bit. It stood up from where he was sitting, turning its head in the direction of the footsteps. ] ★

" ...Hellooo? "

[sakinotfound]

I want prompts 26. "I knew I would love kissing you, but this was..." "Even better than the dream?" "Yes." For Yamato Tenzou and fem!reader? I don’t mind if you want to add nsfw

fucking kiss me | yamato

cw: fem!reader, female bodied reader, pinch of angst to fluff, use of cuss words like always, you and yamato kissy kissy and make out a little thas it

prompt: "i knew i would love kissing you, but this was..." "even better than the dream?" "yes."

a/n: here's your request @kaylalovefanfic , finally lol. thanks for requesting and sorry for the delay😭

yamato has been acting weird for a couple of days now. weirder than usual actually.

everytime you entered the same room as him, he would immediately leave it. anytime you joined the same group as him, he would immediately shut up and won't contribute in the conversation anymore. worst part, he wouldn't even look at you. you are in a gathering with your friends or discussing about mission details, he would interact with anyone but you. whenever you talked to him, or at least tried to, he would somehow become busy and evacuate the area in a rush.

you weren't sure if you did something wrong, something to offend or hurt him. but his constant escaping you and ignoring you on purpose hurt you for sure. and it also annoyed you. there were times when you were certain that he hated you and found your presence a nuisance in his life.

your worries and insecurities were quickly dismissed by kakashi, though. when you confided in him after he caught you talking to yourself in the empty jonin office, he stared at you like an owl for a solid minute before he burst out laughing. mocking you in the process for thinking that tenzoū of all people would hate you. whatever he meant by that anyways.

it was another beautiful day in konoha. it had rained last night so naturally the many trees of konoha looked freshly bathed and vibrant, small puddles of water formed here and there. you could see small children playing with boats in the corners. there was still a faint fragrance of wet soil in the air. it was a pleasant morning.

you, on the other hand, were not pleasant at all. ask anybody in the jonin office and they would advise to steer clear of you. well by anyone, i meant sane people. not troublemakers like anko and genma, purposefully trying to test your patience.

your eyebrow twitched and you clenched your jaw. your mind was already clogged since last night. thinking about how unfair it was that he suddenly changed his attitude towards you and now acted hostile. like c'mon! talk it out like two mature adults.

you just couldn't stop thinking about the brunet. he was all you could think about for a few days now. you remember how you spent countless nights thinking about him, him & you and him & you. if you know what i mean.

slamming your mission report which you were trying to read, keyword trying; you abruptly got up. pushing the chair far away in the process. anger flaring and fumes leaving your nostrils and ears you strode towards the door and slammed it shut on your way out.

you didn't even know when you reached yamato's office until you saw the man standing in front of you. your brain was full of every type of hormones right now. anger, sadness, hurt, stress, anxiety.

forgetting your manners to knock before entering… or maybe you purposefully said fuck you to manners, you slammed this door shut in the process too.

yamato jolted. for a ninja, he wasn't really alert today. he should have sensed your arrival sooner and that would have given him ample time to escape, again.

but luck was on your side today. you locked the door from inside, blocking one way to escape at least.

you took long strides towards your crush and pushed his shoulders hard. pushing him against the wall as his back made a harsh contact with the hard surface behind him.

everything happened so fast that he had no reaction time to process anything— your entry, your flaring chakra, your deathly glare, and your breasts pressing into his toned chests, forget about reacting.

your irises stared into his dark ones. the warm breath from him tickled your face and at that moment, something snapped within you. perhaps, it was common sense. you just realised just how close you two were and just exactly what you were doing to him.

your face heated up and so did his, bright red colouring his pale skin. but still, you didn't back away. not now, this was probably your one and only chance.

"why are you ignoring me?" your voice came out quieter and raspier than you intended it to be. soft if you will, almost…hurt. your goal was to sound intimidating and loud, bold and accusatory.

he didn't respond. choosing to shy away and look elsewhere. dodging your questions but your eyes followed his.

a frown settled on your face, eyebrows furrowing. you held his jaw and turned it to make him face you. "look at me when i am talking to you."

he gulped. "i asked you, why are you ignoring me?"

his eyes begged you to just let him be, to not make him answer that question. but you didn't budge.

he sighed, "you won't understand."

"try me."

he looked into your eyes, a frown on his face too. he looked down at your lips, his gaze stayed upon them for a little too long before he looked back up.

"yamato-" you gasped. "do you- are you-"

"i like you. i like you a lot actually. i- mhmph!"

you pressed your lips to his soft ones in a heartbeat. tilting your head to your left, you deepened the kiss. shocked at first, but he got right back real quick. he returned the kiss. holding you by your waist, he pulled you closer. now interlocked you moved your lips slowly against each other, enjoying the feel of each other's lips against your own, relishing the taste you imagined for so long. eyes closed, glued together by an adhesive of love, longing and desire, you two finally kissed each other until you had to break apart. gasping for the much need oxygen, yamato looked at your swollen lips.

"i knew i would love kissing you, but this was..." he breathed in.

"even better than the dream?" you grinned.

"yes." he breathed out.

[alwaysthegeorges]

Wednesday's child is full of woe

Summary - I wanted to explore the poem Wednesday Addams was named after and made a little universe, assigning each line of the poem to a different Addams sister. Kind of similar to a headcanon but a little more depth and no bullet points. No real storyline, just a little fun, and I think it turned out cute!

Warnings - none

Word Count - 1.4k

a/n - original lines of poem in bold. just some cutesy fun i decided to try at 3 a.m.

!gif not mine!

Monday's child is fair of face

Monday Addams was always known as “the pretty one”. Taking after her mother, the young woman lit up every room she entered. Her soft jawline and faint natural blush- despite having more of a pale skin tone compared to other people- made heads turn at every angle. Her luscious black hair flowed to her lower back like Morticia’s did as well. The other sisters grew envious of the attention her beauty garnered, even though she wasn’t half as quick-witted or well-read as them. All except Wednesday, of course. She was not like her sisters in the slightest. Monday took on her role as “the pretty one” and took it very seriously, bringing home stories of a different boy attempting to woo her each week. She failed to accept their offers and they all moved on eventually, deciding that trying to go after her wasn’t as fun due to her walnut for a brain, and decided they wanted more of a challenge. It didn’t stop the boys from coming, though. They never failed to attempt to gain her approval or attention, no matter how many stories they had heard. What they didn’t know, however, is that like her mother and sisters, she contained a power. Her power wasn’t controllable by her, more of an air that carried around her at all times, but it lured boys in like a siren song. They couldn’t resist bringing her flowers and showering her with their family jewels after getting caught in her song. Turns out there’s more to “the pretty one” than meets the eye.

---

Tuesday's child is full of grace

Tuesday Addams was the dancer of the family. The poem she and her sisters were named after rang true in her life as well, filling her with the grace and poise of the most pristine principle dancer in all of Jericho, and even the country. Tuesday showed such promise at a young age that teachers were begging to get her into their ballet classes, and by the age of 5, she had been admitted as a model student in 3 different studios. Luckily for Tuesday, she enjoyed the fine art, and continued it all throughout her life. Sometimes, she and Wednesday even bonded by the sisters performing their talents together in the backyard, Tuesday gliding and spinning to the smooth sounds of her sister’s cello. By the time she turned 16, she had been scouted for the most prestigious dance companies in all of the country, and the parents finally allowed her to graduate early (of course she also had to be gracefully smart, what were you expecting?) and move to perform with the New York City Ballet as their principal dancer. As far as the family knows, she is still dancing her heart out and living her best life in those rehearsal studios.

---

Wednesday's child is full of woe

We’ve all heard of Wednesday Addams, so what more is there to say? She is equally as talented and smart as Tuesday, has the same boy-luring qualities (without the magic of course) as Monday, and has gotten visions just like her gorgeous mother. Wednesday of course is a bit of a troublemaker, causing her to end up living her own best life at Nevermore with boys chasing after her left and right, and she is painfully different personality-wise from her siblings, making her the most unique of the bunch. Her knack for mystery-solving and using creative energy to write and play music adds more layers to her than people would think if they didn’t bother to know her, which is most people. Wednesday’s aura is full of woe, like the poem states, and she can have a scary energy that comes off when you first meet her. Therefore, getting her to open up and be herself takes quite a bit. A lot of people don’t have the guts to try, but some people, like her best friend Enid and her sisters, aren’t phased by her woeful antics and go on to include her anyway. It just adds to the mystery and depth of her personality.

---

Thursday's child has far to go

Thursday Addams has never been the most beautiful, most talented, or the most sought-after. What she is, however, is clever. She is skilled in psychology, despite being only the age of 14, and easily reads people. (Some may say she actually did inherit an ability, the ability to mind-read, even though their ghostly doctor declared she didn’t receive one.) She strings up mood boards and has made one-too-many “life plans” scribbled onto pieces of paper that adorn her beige walls (she says color makes it harder to think). The young lady journals often, claiming that it’s “good for the soul and mind” and “you all should try it sometime”. Thursday is adamant on becoming a psychiatrist one day and getting a Doctorate at Colombia University, therefore claiming she will make all her family members call her “Doctor Thursday”. Wednesday smacked her upside the head at dinner when she announced it to the family one evening. Thursday has far to go, but she will go so far with her ambition and spirit (not to mention smarts).

---

Friday's child is loving and giving

Friday Addams is the most generous of the Addams family. Since learning of the more unfortunate in the third grade, she has devoted her life to helping and will do whatever she can so that they may feel a little less alone. Though she is only 13, she has volunteered at countless soup kitchens, and has even devoted every weekend to helping out at food banks. Her famous phrase, “they need all the help they can get”, has been said to the rest of the family so many times that they can tell when she is about to spew it to them again. It is a fact in her mind, and the fact that she believes in helping others so deeply inspires the rest of the family (minus the few oddballs) to help out when they can, too. Moriticia started picking up a few extra canned soups at the store each trip so that Friday can take them with her to the food bank, and even Wednesday’s friend Xavier has been roped in, selling paintings he wants to part with and donating the money to homeless shelters. Friday is a good fit, helping to inspire a family that isn’t the most happy-go-lucky to be a little more ethical.

---

Saturday's child works hard for his living

Saturday Addams sadly didn’t get very far in life. The first boy born to the family after five girls wasn’t expected or destined to stick around for long, anyways. After only a few months of life, his birth-given power of teleportation swallowed him unintentionally into a black abyss, and he hasn’t been seen since. The boy worked hard to try to come home, showing up in family member’s dreams, trying to gain contact through seances, but nevertheless, he grew up in that abyss. Maybe one day he’ll harness his power enough to return, but until then he must keep working and fighting for his life back.

---

And the child that is born on the Sabbath day

Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

Sunday Addams, the youngest of the sisters, was of course born on Sunday, the Sabbath day. She is the one that doesn’t resemble the others at all. With her natural, bright complexion and golden blonde hair, she sticks out like a sore thumb. Luckily, the family loves to embrace soreness and pain. It’s in their blood. Sunday is the most peculiar, constantly joyful, and very squeamish. She tries to participate in Wednesday’s activities, but has to leave very early on, due to the inability to stomach her sister’s squirrel autopsies. At least she tries. The poem rings true in her life, just as the others, and she is constantly the joy that fills a room full of death. During family dinners, they don’t even have to light candles, because her presence is enough to light the whole room up. She is a perfect mix of all her sisters, maybe excluding Wednesday, making her to be the most thoughtful, happy, adorable, joyful sister on the family tree. Though she is so different from them all, the family loves each sister for who they truly are, and no one seems out of place in this ancestry of oddballs.

---

a/n - thanks for reading! much love to this fandom. glad i got to share this fun tidbit! <3 for more, here’s my links!

⬧ masterlist | taglist form | author’s favs list | owlery ⬧

[8beats-per-minute]

Uncanny Valley AU Designs!!

ITS FINALLY HERE

You can skip to the designs if you want then come back, I wouldn’t blame you but I would like to apologize.

I don’t know what happened, I started this right after Christmas 2022 then worked on it basically nonstop for a week and a half. I basically finished Mikey’s design with a few changes and started brainstorming for Raph then my brain was like “lol no”.

It might have been part finding reference poses for Raph or stress from school and exams or burnout or idk. Whatever it was made my motivation disappear. For 3 1/2 months.

I was like “yes stuff is coming!!!! I’m making stuff!!!” And then that just didn’t happen.

Again, I’m sorry.

I’m not going to do much in descriptions (unless I add them later) cause it’s late and I’m tired. I’ve been actually busy for the past 2 weeks.

General design notes!!

I need up doing the connected ears to head idea so that’s why they look so flat

These are meant to reflect Black and Japanese features. I AM NEITHER. If I did something offensive to one of these groups in these drawings I can guarantee I did not know and did not do this on purpose.

PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I DID SOMETHING OFFENSIVE AND I WILL CHANGE IT. I would appreciate it if it is done in a calm matter but I understand if it’s not. Just please don’t call me stupid or racist cause I also have feelings. You can yell at me if I take longer than a week to respond. It would also be best if it was in the comments so it’s easier to respond.

They all have naturally really sharp and thick nails, I just couldn’t show for some of them

I tried giving them masks that incorporated how they wear fabric in their hair. It looks okay but a little weird, especially for Leo and Donnie

I’m writing/posting this between 11pm and midnight after a very long day and with a long day tomorrow so I’m not writing the (aaa I forgot the name for it. The text that explains what the picture looks like) I’ll add it when I have time I’m really sorry tho

Now, without further ado…

The designs!!!

(These might be changed, I have a tendency to change things after and be like wait I like that more but these are basically the designs. They’re also all post-movie so if you want to see pre-movie, as kids or apocalypse let me know :)).

LEO

I gave Leo both vitiligo and red birthmark stripes. Everything is blue (of course) and I’m not a huge fan of what I did for his clothes design but oh well he’s allowed to switch styles. I was stuck between giving him short hair and long hair and blond extensions or not but this is what I settled on. He’s also 10% the type of person to have little bracelets on (Mikey made him the braided one obviously). I have this headcanon that he’d look the most similar to Splinter (as a human obv so Lou Jitsu) so I tried to do that, it’s just hard to go from animated to semi-realistic. Anyway he’s got that superstar dazzling smile/mysterious troublemaker grin. You can’t see but his hair tie is blue. Maybe an actual hair tie maybe a strip of fabric, maybe a scrunchie. It changes every few hours. 

DONNIE

I was actually pretty excited to do Donnie’s face specifically (him and his very square face). I had a really fun time with his shell tho and all the little spots and scars and spiny parts. I tried to make him look similar but not the exact same and I think I did okay. I definitely think they’d look pretty similar just cause it’d be like “haha were twins :)) -Leo”. I was going to give him headphone but forgot so just pretend there’s headphone plz lol. I also believe he’d wear very baggy clothes but I made his collar way too high cause I feel like he’d hate the feeling of stuff on his neck (no this is not me projecting 👀). He also has sharp teeth but I didn’t show them.

MIKEY

Oooh boy. I was so excited for Mikey!!! I also gave him vitiligo on his face, arms, hands and legs )not visible). I also feel like he’d change his hair around A LOT so I gave him a few different hairstyles. He also definitely has paint on most of his clothes and paints on them intentionally. He’s a cool sock guy I just KNOW it. I tried keeping his little shell stickers on his “casual” design but had to move it to the other one cause it looked weird. I did put them on his knee pads if you looks close. I had to keep his other cool face knee pads of course, they’re iconic. And I of course kept his off-centre gap tooth.

Last but certainly not least…

RAPH

I had so many ideas for him and I got most of them but they’re so half-assed I’m sorry Raph 😭. Especially the pose ughhhh it’s so bad. And the shoes 🥲. Anyways instead of focusing on what I did badly were going to focus more on the idea. A few thoughts I knew I wanted was the scar on his eye and shoulder and to add markings cause Raph deserves to glow too. I added some markings on his forehead and just below his ears if you look close. I also added some on his shell and the spikes on his shoulders. He definitely has the most obvious shell out of his brothers but it’s still smaller than how it is in the show. AH I JUST REALIZED I FORGOT HIS RAPH CHASM 😭. Sorryyyy. I also wish Raph’s markings were lighter but oh well.

That’s all for now! Now that I can stop stressing about finishing this I can try and post more about this, whether it be art or talking about it idk.

Also I plan on making a proper logo soon I just have a very busy month ahead of me so we’ll see how fast that gets done

[stylistiquements]

Day 1 : Soap Bubbles.

𐐪𐑂 Pairing : Sapnap x fem!reader {Playlist}

𐐪𐑂 Summary : You're being introduce to the internet in a peculiar way, it's up to you to decide what you're going to do with it.

𐐪𐑂 Word count : 1.4k | W: written part underneath

𐐪𐑂 Warning : very few swears

Masterlist | Previous | Next

.・゜゜・　　・゜゜・　　 .・゜゜・　　・゜゜・

The coffee that sinks inside your stomach brings out a grimace and a click of your tongue where the taste stains; too bitter, too acidic but you’ll drink it anyway and to the last drop; there is something about the idea of spending time with three best friends that is so made of spring and honey that you wish to miss none of it.

“Someone is lurking,” George contemplates out loud, and the call goes silent for a second as if to look for the intruder. And it would so easy to flinch, to hit the back pedal, because you almost feel like one being exposed front stage like that. But today- today is not that day.

It's not that you don't want to join the discussion, it's that it takes a second to warm up, to absorb the energy and become one with it.

And sometimes, all it takes is Sapnap to exclaim, “Panini head, my beloved!” for your smile synchronizes with his chuckles. Somehow, once noticed by the right person, life flows back naturally.

George and Dream greets you in trailing unison, like two kids forced to greet their unwelcomed aunt on a sunday afternoon.

“H-hey troublemakers,” you finally say. Your voice is still quiet, not reluctant, but rather uncertain. It doesn't bother anyone.

“I’m beating Dream’s ass at chess and he’s bitter,” Sap explains, and you silently nod, as if they were able to see you.

A long silence follows along, rythmed by clicks of mouses and keyboards and it falls in your ears like high droplets. It's comfortable. It's intimate, shared with friends only.

"We haven't heard from you in a while," Dream says. "I mean ... before the clout fiasco."

You wouldn't exactly call it a fiasco, even though you don't really like the idea of being perceived a little too closely from the eyes of twitter.com, but you do agree anyway, "I've been caught up on college essays lately."

"That sucks," George probably adds.

“Good thing you’re here, then,” Dream notes, simple as a breath. “This is a worry-free zone.”

It hovers for a second, carried by George’s approval hum.

You squint suspiciously, detective mode, at the profile pictures that light on and off before your eyes, “Thanks, dream.”

He scoffs a “sure” and you’re not sure why you sense a bit of irony stuck on the back of his teeth. You're so tempted to call him out, but you don't. Instead, you write a mental note of this odd moment.

“It’s because I told him about your three brothers and now he’s scared they’re gonna find him and kick his ass,” Sap explains as if he just read your mind.

Sometimes, there’s this thing in the air, though you’re miles away. Something like a connection. There’s this thing when you don’t need to talk for Sap to understand. Sharing one brain cell, you dismiss ironically. Probably coincidences and predictability, but it always sounds a little special, a little like something you’d wish to be out of this world, like morning dew and fairy circles. And it makes you feel safe, at home, just like snuggling up in the sheets during a stormy night. Your smile washes up the sleeve of your hoodie, covered palm carefully hiding your chuckles.

“Three older brothers,” George muses, and there’s no telling if it’s something meant for you to hear. “That’s kinda scary.”

“You better be scared, one of them is probably your FBI agent,” you tease mindlessly, though there's nothing scary about those three grown men.

“I’m British, Bunny,” he points out. Whether the exasperation in his tone is fake or genuine, that, you can’t tell, but you play it cool, grin carved so deep it almost hurts. Dream’s wheezes rise and fall in the background.

“Say that to his face then,” you outbid smirkingly after a second of silence, heels growing into the carpet to make your chair spin slowly left and right, so breezily.

“I’d praise you for the rest of my life if you-Oooooooh your ass is wacked. Your ass is so wacked, dude. You fucked up so bad,” Sapnap chokes out between strings of giggles.

“Oh no, my streamer is losing his game?” You theatrically pout. “My streamer Dreamwastaken, have you met him? Guess you don’t need any of my brothers to kick your ass.”

“Okay yeah- no- it’s not my fault if your- they’re distracting me, okay?” Dream defends.

Slowly, the energy lowers again and the call remembers peace as Dream admits defeat.

“I’m not playing against you anymore,” he mumbles through greeted teeth, your hoodie shelters a muffled giggle. “Let’s talk about y/n’s twitter fame instead.”

“Let’s just not-” you mutter, both because seeing Dream lose at something is a miracle that has to be witnessed once and because you’re somewhat reluctant. “Let’s just not talk about that.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. I had no idea it would draw this much attention to you,” Sap admits.

“Well, you talk about her all the time it was only a matter of time before twitter finds out,” George taunts and you secretly smile, listening to the way your best friend tries to defend himself, mind flooded with the last memories you have of when you were able to see those chuckles for real.

“Yeah, Quackity already told me you guys talk behind my back,” you fakely muse. “That’s totally fine, I don’t wanna know what you guys are talking about at all.” It’s a lie, obviously, the idea creeps upon your mind with assumptions you can’t quite get a grip of nor let go.

“You and Quackity talk?’ Sapnap asks, hint of surprise, and you hum.

“Or rather, he talks to me. He keeps calling-.” Shit. The forsaken word traps itself into your mouth. It’s too silly anyway.

“Come on, just say it,” Dream pushes as if he knew too much, more than you even do, and your cheeks flush mindlessly. You don’t notice.

“Dream, quit it!” You demand.

“Quit what?”

“You talk as if you knew more than anyone did.”

“Maybe I just do,” he coos, so dream-like.

Oblivious or careless, Sapnap asks, “Is Quackity bothering you or something?”

“He-" you begin but stop to look for the right way to put it, "He triggers my flight or fight response.”

"I mean, duh," Sapnap probably rolls his eyes.

"But I like him. He's funny."

After a second of silence, George says, “Well that was unexpected.”

“Not so much, I think we’re both chaotic neutral people.”

“What is that neutral chaotic thing anyway?” Dream is confused.

Roll up your sleeve girl boss because now is your time to shine! You offer your best dream smp alignment chart to the classroom. They're speechless, but they listen carefully.

"Then you're more chaotic good than neutral. You're too sweet anyway," Sap says.

"I'd even say lawful good," George debates.

"That's because you haven't seen Bunny during her crazy cat hour."

"True," you note.

"She'll go absolutely batshit."

“What?" George burst between confusion and surprise. "We've never seen you like that."

"A lady never reveal her secrets," you retort. No one answer.

It leaves a second for your mind to enjoy peace. For your eyes to lay on c!tubbo on lawful good and think true, then on c!dream on chaotic evil and think also very true. You huff and it's like a wave; as sarcasm leaves your breath, an idea comes in.

"Sap, check your DMs," you request.

Surrounded by the evening lull, Sapnap’s laugh pops like soap bubbles, "God, you’re so stupid. Why can't you just marry me?"

“So, is it Sapnap approved?” You chuckle lightly to prevent Sapnap’s morning fresh laugh to fill your chest and leak everywhere.

“Just press ‘send tweet’ please,” he confirms with leftovers of a smile in his voice.

"George, get me out of here. They're doing it again," Dream whines.

"Doing what?" He asks, unbothered.

"Act like they're alone in the convo. Just get a room." And you don't get to stand up for yourself that you and your best friend are actually sent to another room.

"Well this one is chaotic evil confirmed," you mumble as you roll your eyes but the vibes are much peaceful, much more comfortable in here. "So ... hi."

"Hi," he chuckles in return.

Maybe that's for the best; a moment that needs to stay a little timeless, secretive and special. It hasn't happened in so long, you don't even remember the last time it did.

"I'm glad you're here. I miss you, you know?" He says, and it's hard to not feel so bittersweet about it. It's hard when longing involves a craved touch, a real smile and an eye contact. Your shoulder sinks in the chair a little harder.

"I miss you too. I'll be here soon," you promise. And soon couldn't come any sooner.

But the conversation, soft and free, will wash up any worries, as always, and you'll end up talking about everything and nothing, about streams and planned videos and college and god knows what. As long as it makes the two of you happy and smiling. Just like the old days, you'll both think and it's fair to say until the evening turns into night and night turns into fatigue.

"Are you sure you're okay about that clout?" He asks once again. "I know you don't like being exposed like that."

"Yeah, yeah don't worry too much about it. I'll try to make good use of it."

"I'm sure you will," he murmurs, but oh boy did he not know what was about to come until you two meet.

.・゜゜・　　・゜゜・　　 .・゜゜・　　・゜゜・

Taglist : @open-minded-chip-101 ; @itsoakaa ; @gaysludge

A/N : so first of all it has come to my attention that 129 days from now on is actually my birthday so that's a weird coincidence lol. Hi how are you guys?? welcome to the first part I hope you liked it. I'm fairly new to the mcyt community and that's the first time I write for them, so bear with me. Feedbacks are always appreciated. Until next time (ɔˆ ³(ˆ⌣ˆc)

[hiccanna-tidbits]

this is a genuine, curious question! what's appealing 2 u about jackunzel :^] ??

Sure, I can talk about why I ship Jackunzel!!!

@gryffindorkxdraws has some posts about why she likes Jackunzel here, here, and here, so those are a pretty good rundown of reasons to supplement mine. But I’ll make a list of my own!

Why Jackunzel Owns My Entire Soul: An Essay in Disorganized Bullet Points ~I dig the sun/moon symbolism! Like Jack was chosen by the moon and Rapunzel has the powers of the sun. It’s such a nice contrast, and it also lends itself really well to star-crossed lover-type fantasy/fairy tale AUs (which I am ALWAYS a sucker for!) ~From what little we know about Jack’s preference in girls (i.e. the slight crush he seemed to have on Tooth), Rapunzel seems like EXACTLY his type--bubbly, energetic, optimistic girls with a bit of a maternal streak. I think even the RotG director confirmed Punz is the kind of girl Jack would like! ~Jack also absolutely seems like Punzel’s type--if Flynn/Eugene is anything to go by, she’s kind of into sarcastic troublemakers with a hidden soft side XD And she also seems to like guys who are good with kids, if Eugene reading “The Adventures of Flynnigan Rider” to the younger kids at the orphanage is anything to go by! ~They both seem to be naturally pretty social people who suffered a lot from being isolated for a really long time--Jack had it worse, obviously (300 years--OUCH), but it was rough on Punz as well, growing up for 18 years with no one for company but Mother Gothel and Pascal. Jack, spending all that time with no one able to see him and only the guardians (who weren’t even really his friends from much of that time) for company, would understand that pain a lot. I feel like they’d be able to connect on a really deep and intimate level about the pain they felt at being isolated for so long, and this would give them a really strong bond that I can easily see turning into something romantic. ~They’re both just such genuinely lively and fun-loving people, and I can imagine them having a ton of fun together and just genuinely really enjoying spending time together. Like imagine the snowball fights!!! The ice-skating!!! The sledding!!! Chasing each other through the forest!!! Jack grabbing onto Punz and her wrapping her hair around a tree and swinging them around Tarzan-style!!! Like literally the entire scene where Punzel leaves her tower for the first time and is goofing off and doing Silly Shit for like an hour straight??? Like man...if Jack was there, they’d have the TIME OF THEIR LIVES together. Idk I just really love couples who I think would have a lot of fun together, it’s so pure <3 ~They’re both so loving!!! Like Rapunzel goes out of her way to be supportive to an entire tavernful of terrifying “ruffians and thugs” because they have dreams, and she’s so sweet to Flynn/Eugene no matter how many times he snarks at her and tries to alienate her!!! And Jack loves loves LOVES entertaining kids, and it genuinely makes him so happy to give them snow days :3 I just feel like they’d shower each other with love, and it’s honestly no less than they both deserve!!! ~Rapunzel especially is such an affectionate person, and I can see her doing just absolutely everything in her power to make Jack feel as seen and as loved as possible after 300 years of being alone. And god, does he NEED it, too. Like no way is this boy NOT touch-starved, and with some MAJOR self-esteem issues (although he’s good at hiding them). Rapunzel would do absolutely everything in her power to build him up and make him feel wanted and validated--and since it’s in her nature to do so, it would never feel like a burden or an effort for her. And she’d love him so much that hyping him up just comes naturally! She’s just got the kind of nurturing personality that someone as affection-starved as Jack really needs, and I think she could help him feel safe, comfortable, and loved in a way a lot of people couldn’t. ~For all the fun they’d have together, I also feel like Jack needs someone to ground him a bit and provide the Brain Cell to perhaps reign in that Unchecked Chaotic Energy of his sometimes XD Rapunzel certainly has a smart and rational side--I mean, she charted STARS as a teenager!!! She figured out how to get this stranger she captured to take her into the kingdom to see the lanterns!!! Girl can be spontaneous and goofy, sure, but she’s got smarts and kind of a mature streak that I think mesh with Jack really well. He’d never feel like she was a wet blanket stifling his fun, but she’d also have a sense of when to transition away from goofing off and focus on responsibilities (princess and guardian responsibilities in this case, I suppose?) ~On the flipside, I don’t see Rapunzel as being someone annoyed or irritated by Jack’s antics. She might like...gently scold him if he takes a prank too far, but she never finds his shenanigans to be grating and tiresome the way other people might. Rather, I think she’d be endlessly entertained by him. Like in his memory reel when he’s dicking around pretending to be a deer, she’d get a kick out of that! Jack would always be trying to make her laugh and make her smile, and Punz would love that so much about him! ~They’re both searching for a deeper meaning and a deeper sense of purpose in their lives. Rapunzel entertains herself with hobbies, but doesn’t feel like her life has really “begun” and is desperate to find out if her hunch is right and the floating lights really ARE meant for her. Jack has no idea why he was chosen by the moon or what he’s meant to do, and he’s determined to find out so he can finally have a sense of purpose. Rapunzel clearly wants a sense of purpose too, since she wants to do more with her life than pass the time with hobbies. I can definitely see them bonding over this! ~They’re both just so adventurous, and love to explore! Rapunzel is curious, and loves to read and learn, and she wants more than anything else to see the world and all it has to offer. Jack loves adventuring and flying around the globe spreading winter and fun, and he could show Punz everything she ever wanted to see. A perfect match, honestly! ~Aesthetically I LOVE the similarities!!! Like they both like to go barefoot, kinda showing their free-spirited natures. And I love how they’re both naturally brunette, but had their hair turned a different color by magic. It’s a little thing, but I think it’s a really neat parallel and it helps cement me thinking they really ARE perfect for each other in every little way! Haha XD AND they both have small green companions, and as of Ralph Breaks The Internet, they’re hoodie buddies as well!!! Not that surface-level parallels like that are actually that significant BUT I just think they’re neat XD ~While I am fond of Flynnzel/Eugenzel (still my favorite canon Disney couple!), finding out their age gap is around 8 years admittedly made me a bit uncomfy and just pushed me further into loving Jackunzel as an alternative option. I still really love Eugene as a character and adore his and Punzel’s dynamic, but these days I prefer their relationship as more of a big bro/little sis type thing. Jack I think is the best match for Rapunzel romantically, and Eugene I prefer with Elsa--or poooossibly Tooth, Astrid, or Zarina, if I read a fic that sells the pairing well enough! ~On a related note, I was into Jack x Tooth the first time I watched RotG, but after discovering Jackunzel, there was no going back--I was hooked! Rewatching the movie, Tooth strikes me more as a mom figure/”fun aunt” for Jack, and I actually prefer her with Bunnymund (I am WEAK for “the grumpy one is soft for the sunshine one” lmao)

Well, I think that just about covers it!!! I’ll add more reasons if I think of them! Thank you for the ask, and I’m always happy to answer more ship asks about CGI crossover pairings :3

Also @ the anon who asked for Jackunzel headcanons--fear not, I shall provide them!!! I just wanna make a complete list and accumulate all the ones from my various fics so it’s gonna take a while XD

[plumoh]

[SK8] whirlwind

Rating: G

Word count: 2341

Summary: Three times Kaoru gets into a fight; Kojirou is never too far away. / high school era.

Note: AO3 link. As usual, high school era means pre-relationship and Kaoru being a little bit oblivious to Kojirou’s feelings haha.

i.

Kaoru didn’t mean to punch him.

Well. That’s not exactly true. He did want to punch that smug smile off the bastard’s face, but he didn’t mean to knock him out. It’s not his fault that his punch landed exactly at an angle that made the guy’s head twist on the side and bang on the streetlamp, before collapsing on the ground and invoking a silence so loud everyone’s breathing felt like an entire storm.

And then all the guy’s goons start screaming and yelling for blood, pointing accusing fingers at Kaoru like Kaoru just killed someone (their boss isn’t dead, not yet), and most of them also start crowding around him with a palpable vengeful intent. As if that will ever intimidate him.

Nobody thinks that Kaoru is built to fight, which propels them into a state of shock and complete disbelief when he attacks first and manages to strike down two people by smashing their heads together and kicking them in the stomach for good measure. He doesn’t stop moving, always ready to spring back and to collide his fist with something breakable or crouching low to dodge and literally sweep them off their feet. He’s like a volcano being poked until it swallows everything around him.

His impulsiveness means he gets hurt too, mostly from his own moves that use more strength than necessary, but also from attacks he decides to go up against instead of avoiding, simply to get closer to his opponent. He ends up with scratches on his face and bruises on his legs or cuts on his arms, in a way that undeniably adds to his overall appearance of a troublemaker. He doesn’t give a shit; the messier and more dangerous he looks, the better.

It’s when most of the guys have fled, leaving Kaoru breathing hard and leaning forward with his hands on his knees, that Kojirou materializes next to him.

“What the hell, Kaoru?” Kojirou yells, not knowing if touching Kaoru will be a wise idea. “Did you pick a fight with random people again?”

“I didn’t pick a fight with them, they provoked me,” Kaoru growls, wiping the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. It comes away with a little blood. “Why do you always assume I’m the one instigating?”

“Maybe because two times out of three you’re the one who throws the first punch,” Kojirou mumbles.

“Thank you for the vote of confidence.”

“Am I wrong, though?”

Kaoru makes a poor attempt at shoving Kojirou in the shoulder but he misses by a large margin and ends up swatting at his chest, which does nothing to abate Kojirou’s annoyance.

“Shut up,” Kaoru says.

Kojirou shakes his head and takes Kaoru’s arm to steady him, dragging him towards a less crowded and more luminous place to get a look at his injuries with supplies that seem to have appeared from nowhere.

ii.

Kojirou nearly lands on his face after failing a trick, all graceless and devoid of finesse, which makes Kaoru double over in laughter.

“That was really stupid,” Kaoru snorts.

“Yeah, I didn’t see you try doing that trick,” Kojirou scoffs.

“At least I don’t look like a limp caterpillar when I’m on the ground like you are.”

“You’re insufferable, you know that?”

Kojirou picks himself up from the ground and dusts off his pants, looking back at the track that he just descended from. Kaoru watches the way Kojirou is considering the path again, eyes focused on the last meters of the bumpy pavement. They chose this part of the track specifically because it isn’t well-maintained, full of holes and uneven ground that forces them to work on their stability. Kojirou, like the brainless ape he is, wanted to show off by doing some fancy trick that only served as evidence of his stupidity.

“Hey, you’re Sakurayashiki, right?”

Kaoru turns around and raises en eyebrow. He has no idea who the guy talking to him is.

“Get out of our turf,” the guy says on a tone that’s supposed to be menacing. “Or you’ll regret it.”

“Your turf?” Kaoru repeats, unimpressed. “The hell are you on?”

“You thought you could swing by after sending some of our guys to the hospital?”

The words go in Kaoru’s ear and make a swift exit in the other. He blinks.

“I didn’t send anyone in the hospital,” he says, tone raising like a question as he turns around to address Kojirou.

Kojirou lifts his hands in sign of innocence. “I don’t know, I’m not there to watch you fight every single person in this city.”

“You would remember if I did anything like that, wouldn’t you?”

“I just said I don’t know!”

“Stop ignoring me!”

Kojirou shouts wordlessly and yanks Kaoru by the arm, saving him from a well-aimed kick that would have sent Kaoru sprawling, and suddenly it’s like a switch has been flipped.

People say that Kaoru has a bad temper, an accusation that’s not totally unfounded. He’s quick to anger and he doesn’t mince his words—when he’s having a casual conversation with someone, many wrinkle their nose at his lack of proper forms of address, and others outright say he shouldn’t be so aggressive in his choice of words. One can only imagine how vulgar and straightforward he is when he’s insulting someone or spitting out a string of curses that are probably not yet in the dictionary.

Kojirou, of course, has a deep knowledge of the ways Kaoru can react before a taunt, a physical threat or a low blow to his ego. He’s not exactly a saint either, since he will without a doubt get into a fight if he’s provoked enough, or throw back cruel words when the situation calls for it, but between the two, Kojirou has less difficulty keeping his bad mood in check.

Kaoru twists around and is ready to swing his fist at full speed, but Kojirou is already scolding him while having a grip of iron on his arm. He’s also trying to drag him back, stopping him from making even one step towards their opponent who is, quite frankly, looking too fucking pleased with himself.

“What, too chicken to fight me?” the guy snickers. “Too scared of hurting your little hands?”

“I’m gonna punch a hole through your skull, you absolute buffoon,” Kaoru hisses, struggling against Kojirou’s grip. “Let me go, Kojirou!”

“Stop getting into fights, damn it!” Kojirou yells.

“He asked for it!”

“Same difference, you idiot!”

Kojirou loops his arms under Kaoru’s armpits and keeps him still, pressed against his torso, even when Kaoru is trying to pull forward with the sheer force of his will. Kojirou’s stronger than Kaoru, but Kaoru doesn’t give a shit when he is moved by rage alone, stomping and wriggling and squirming in the hopes of getting away.

The guy is watching them with the most self-satisfied smirk ever, as if Kaoru’s inaction is proof of his victory over a petty squabble that Kaoru himself doesn’t remember. It pisses him off.

He usually wouldn’t resort to such dirty tactics. In a fight, the more they use their fists and feet and entire bodies, the more gratifying it is. Sporting injuries and scars are simply a natural consequence of it, and everyone should wear them proudly—like real battle scars, resembling a physical history of their hard-won fights.

Kaoru’s skateboard is within leg reach. He has long legs, Kojirou keeps reminding him, so might as well make use of them. He makes one big step forward, grunting when he’s met with resistance due to Kojirou holding him back, but he manages to have his foot on the tail-end of the deck and brings the skateboard at his feet. He can feel Kojirou’s and the bastard’s confused and intrigued gazes on him; all he does is offer a grin, the sunlight catching on his lip ring like some wicked gleam of mischievousness.

Kaoru gives a harsh kick into his skateboard that goes straight towards the guy, hitting his ankle at full speed and tearing a cry of pain and surprise out of his throat. He puts all his weight on his other foot and cradles his injured ankle, glaring at Kaoru with burning anger. Kaoru isn’t sorry in the least.

“I’ll end you,” the man threatens, visibly shaking with fury.

“Good luck with that ankle,” Kaoru replies smugly. “You’ll fall over before you can land a single hit on me.”

Kojirou audibly sighs and shakes his head. And then, two things happen at once.

The first is that their friend bends down with difficulty, not wishing to put strain on his ankle, and picks up the skateboard. He gives it a long contemplative look, like he’s wondering if this object is worth his interest, before dropping it back on the ground and getting on it.

The second is Kaoru watching this with mounting irritation and rage, and he decides that stomping on Kojirou’s foot to let him go is less aggravating than letting some random prick steal his skateboard. So he does just that with minimal hesitation, causing Kojirou to loudly yelp as his grip loosens enough for Kaoru to slip out.

Skating all day doesn’t mean they can’t run with their feet. Kaoru pushes on his feet like his life depends on it and in a few large strides he catches up to the guy just as he starts skating away, and Kaoru, without a second thought, decks him.

Skateboard back in hand, a broad smile splitting his face in two, Kaoru leaves the track with a victorious fist lifted in the air, to Kojirou’s growing exasperation.

iii.

Kaoru presses his lips together and remains stubbornly silent.

“Kaoru.”

Arms crossed and a frown deeper than usual on his face, Kojirou is staring at him with disappointment so clear that Kaoru actually feels bad, for once. He shrugs.

“You’re lucky that it didn’t rip off your lip,” Kojirou continues. “Why did you get piercings if you know you’ll never resist fighting people? Do you want to risk permanent damage just because your brain is filled with a useless need to fight?”

“Shut up, Kojirou,” Kaoru mutters.

Kaoru winces when Kojirou presses something cold on his mouth, gently dabbing at it and being careful about the lip ring, whose presence alone did a number on his face. Having his head smashed into the ground would do that, he supposes.

Kojirou is silently working on cleaning and bandaging his various cuts and bruises on his face. Kaoru glances up, noticing that the tense line of Kojirou’s shoulders is heavier than usual, a bit more worried, as if today’s encounter could have ended in a disaster. It wasn’t any worse than the previous times. Maybe Kaoru got roughed up a bit more and maybe he got kicked in the ribs more times than necessary and yes, maybe he should have taken off his earrings and lip ring before going skating, but these are all possible factors disrupting his routine he always considers before doing anything. And it’s not like he knows in advance that someone will pick a fight with him. He just got unlucky this time.

Kaoru watches Kojirou’s brows knit together in concentration. This isn’t a rare expression on his face, but Kaoru has never noticed the way Kojirou’s focus is single-minded when he does this kind of detail-oriented tasks, or the way he purses his lips like he does when he’s trying to solve a complicated math problem. It’s the face he makes when something requires his entire attention, unperturbed and going at the pace he needs to finish what he started.

“Hm,” Kaoru says, partly because he’s thinking and partly because he shouldn’t open his still bleeding mouth.

“What?” Kojirou’s gaze never strays from Kaoru’s injury.

Kojirou takes Kaoru’s hand and guides it towards the compress placed on the corner of his mouth, and makes him apply pressure while the cleaning shifts to his ear. Kaoru’s lip isn’t bleeding as much as before, judging by the color of the compress that didn’t become completely red in five seconds, so he supposes talking shouldn’t make matters worse.

“Your precision is a bit surprising,” he admits, laughter in his voice. “I didn’t think you could be so calm while handling things that need careful maneuvering.”

“I’m not the one who can’t break eggs without dropping pieces of shell in them,” Kojirou snipes back.

Kaoru rolls his eyes. “Breaking eggs needs practicing, and I can still pick out the shell pieces if I really need to. If you poke someone in the wrong place while tending to their injuries then you’ll make it worse, moron.”

Kojirou is visibly putting all his efforts into remaining focused on his task, trying not to get riled up by Kaoru’s comments. It would be funny to watch, actually, if Kaoru wasn’t the one receiving treatment.

“I haven’t let you down yet, have I?” Kojirou asks.

And Kaoru can’t find anything scathing as an answer, staring at Kojirou’s bright eyes that never hide what he’s feeling.

“I suppose you haven’t, no,” Kaoru says lowly.

“You’re so much trouble, you know that?” Kojirou sighs.

But he finally meets Kaoru’s gaze and Kaoru is almost taken aback by the sincerity and raw emotion shining in it, like Kojirou is looking at a treasure he has locked behind a chest and kept the key close to his heart. Kaoru swallows.

“Not as much as you,” he replies with less bite than he intended.

“Says the one who is covered in bandages and band-aids.”

“I have to put up with your nonsense every day!”

“And I have to drag your ass back from whatever scuffle you get involved in!”

Kaoru shoves his hand in Kojirou’s face, and they start jostling each other, as if they weren’t being as still and cautious as possible to avoid complicating the process of patching Kaoru up. This familiarity, too, is something that will never change, no matter what happens—Kojirou has Kaoru’s back.

[roboticonography]

Fic Preview: Except Perhaps in Spring

Dear @formerlyir,

I’m your Secret Santa! I’ve so enjoyed getting to know you in 2020, and I look forward to many more chats and Snippets Mondays. I guess now you know why I was so cagey with you about what I was working on for the exchange! ;)

It’s been a lot of fun working on a story just for you, but December has been an eventful month for me, and in the end it got away from me a little. So here’s a taste of your story, “Except Perhaps in Spring.” I hope you have as much fun reading it as I’ve had writing it.

Happy New Year!

=======

As she would maintain for many years afterwards, Peggy hadn’t wanted to go to the pub in the first place.

It wasn’t that she disapproved of such amusements. She liked a stiff drink as much as the next field agent (though not, perhaps, as much as Colonel Phillips, who kept a bottle of bourbon at the back of his middle desk drawer for “medicinal purposes”).

And she appreciated that the boys from the 107th invited her along on their madcap outings—not out of a misguided sense of chivalry, or some crack-brained scheme to charm her out of her knickers, but because they genuinely enjoyed her company.

Along with their fearless leader, the three biggest troublemakers of the group were in London for one night to accept an award on behalf of the 107th. Dugan, Barnes, and Morita had been invited to accompany Steve to the award ceremony, but not to any of the PR opportunities that followed. While Steve spent his afternoon posing for pictures with various elected officials, his boys would spend theirs loitering around the SSR’s London headquarters, trying to convince Peggy to come out on the town with them that night.

Peggy was in no mood.

It had been raining in sheets all day, and her umbrella had already given out on the walk in. The cavernous underground war room was freezing: everyone was wearing scarves and gloves at their stations. 

Peggy’s office—little more than an alcove with a door, really—had sprung a leak during the night, which meant she’d arrived that morning to find a stack of finished paperwork completely drenched. Aside from shoving her desk against the wall and putting a rubbish bin under the steady drip, there wasn’t much to be done.

Thanks to some especially severe belt-tightening, there was no comfort to be had even in a hot drink: the coffee was dismal sludge, the tea in the communal bucket had been stewed to within an inch of its life, and there was, naturally, no milk or sugar to be found anywhere on the premises.

Peggy had spent most of her day hunched over her typewriter, re-typing a twelve-page report that Colonel Phillips would undoubtedly skim for two seconds before it would disappear into the SSR’s vast storehouse of files, never to be seen again.

So when the invitations started, Peggy’s polite-but-firm no, thank you was already locked and loaded, and her aim was true.

She hadn’t counted on the boys being either bored or bold enough to try their luck again as a trio, wedging themselves into her office three abreast, with Dugan as the filling in the sandwich.

“I said no, gentlemen.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard this song before,” said Dugan, grinning. 

“Me too,” chimed in Barnes. “‘Her lips said no, but her eyes said—’”

“On your bike,” said Peggy curtly.

“She’ll change her tune when we tell her who’s coming,” said Dugan. “Won’t she, boys?”

His companions gave solemn nods.

“Yep,” said Morita, drawing the word out. “She’ll come around pretty quick when she hears that we convinced him.”

Peggy glared at each of them in turn. 

“All right,” she said at last. “Who is it?”

“Me, of course,” said Howard, shoving his way in between Morita and Dugan. “See? I told you she’d be excited.”

“Thrilled,” Peggy deadpanned.

“I think she thought we meant someone else,” said Barnes.

“Someone taller,” Dugan agreed.

Howard feigned indignance. “Taller, maybe, but I can guarantee I’m a better dancer. Did you know there’s a leak in your ceiling?” he added helpfully.

“Right. All of you, out.”

The unholy barbershop quartet reluctantly took its leave.

It wasn’t the first time they’d implied that there was something between her and Steve. She didn’t appreciate them doing it in earshot of her office colleagues, though she was certain there must be talk already: Steve’s last visit to HQ had ended in a legendary bust-up between them, after she’d interrupted him with Private Lorraine, mid-embrace.

She wasn’t only angry that he’d kissed someone else. She was angry that he’d kissed a woman he barely knew, after he’d made himself out to be a different sort of man. She’d felt foolish for believing him, for liking him, when he’d told her he was waiting for the right partner.

She was angry that he’d had the nerve, afterwards, to try and brush it aside, pretending it hadn’t meant anything. If a kiss like that didn’t mean anything, how many others had there been? And how many more would there be while they were apart?

(And, though she’d never admit it, she was angry that Steve appeared to be a decent kisser.)

Then, to add insult to injury, he’d brought up Howard’s one-sided flirting—as though she had any control over the invitations and innuendo men chose to pitch at her day after day, as casually and aimlessly as they dropped their litter in the street.

If that was all it took to drive Steve into the arms of another woman, then perhaps it was best that they remained separated by the English Channel for the time being.

*

Peggy applied herself to her work, ignoring any further overtures. As much as she appreciated the inclusion, she didn’t want to spend her evening sitting in a smoky pub, drinking cheap beer and bellowing herself hoarse. She wanted a warm bath and a warm bed. There was only one person she was interested in inviting to join her in either, and even if she hadn’t still been a bit cross with him, the chance of her seeing him at all on this brief visit grew more remote with every hour that passed. His itinerary included supper with Senator Brandt at his hotel, and was liable to be a late night—the senator’s aide had also arranged for a room for Steve at the hotel, presumably to avoid cutting their evening short.

She was grateful Steve would have a chance to get a decent meal and a good night’s sleep while he was in London, even if it meant she wouldn’t get to see his preposterously good-looking face in person. She knew from the dispatches that he was doing gruelling work, and that he often passed up opportunities for respite so that other men could take leave.

By six, it seemed as though the boys from the 107th had all cleared off at last, along with the rest of the office. Peggy slipped into the women’s locker room to change clothes. Transit to and from home in uniform for women was allowed, but not precisely encouraged—and the uniform had a way of making a person more approachable, which was the very last thing Peggy wanted just now. 

She quickly tidied her hair, and reapplied her lipstick and a small dab of eau de toilette, before donning her trusty navy shirtwaist dress. It was slightly threadbare at the cuffs and collar, but still serviceable, and a decent fit, even if it wasn’t as stylish as one might wish for. Peggy knew that plain outfits were a small sacrifice for such a worthy cause—but she still longed for the day when she could have a new dress every season, with features and embellishments, in colours so rich her mouth watered at the thought.

Daydreams of pleated skirts and pockets carried her all the way back to her desk, where she collected her hat and gloves, and tried to revive her sad umbrella. If her office ceiling was any indication, it was still pouring outside, but she knew better than to risk bad luck opening the thing indoors.

Just as she’d started to don her Mackintosh, she heard Barnes’s customary “shave-and-a-haircut” knock on the open door behind her.

She didn’t bother turning around. “For the last time, sod off!” She didn’t often use that kind of language in a professional setting, but if they weren’t going to accept a polite refusal, then—

“Yes, ma’am,” said a familiar voice.

She spun on her heel.

Steve was leaning against the door frame, hands in his pockets. His dress uniform jacket was tucked under his arm, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow. His tie had come loose, his collar unbuttoned, and his hair was mussed, tumbling boyishly over his brow. 

He looked, in short, half-undone and entirely ravishing.

All of the sensible reasons she had for keeping her distance suddenly seemed small and remote in comparison.

“Steve,” she said, unnecessarily. “Hello.”

“Hi.” The warm smile he gave her suggested that he hadn’t taken her dismissal personally, at least.

Peggy had imagined this exact scenario an embarrassing number of times: the two of them, in the office after hours, all alone. The fantasies ranged from fairly chaste (teasing, light flirting, an innocent kiss or two) to positively filthy (Steve’s hands roaming her body, his mouth open and demanding against hers).

Looking at him now, her preference was decidedly for the latter option.

Oblivious to the turn her thoughts had taken, Steve asked, “Rough day?”

“Not really, not—” Not anymore, she wanted to say, but clamped her mouth shut just in time. “I didn’t know you were coming in.”

“I’m not here—not officially. I was just gonna leave this on your desk.” 

He jiggled a small brown paper packet at her. It took her a moment to recognize it as the portion of sugar from a ration box.

“How on earth did you manage to hang onto that?”

“We’re still getting it in the K-rats. And I like to save mine for a rainy day.”

“It certainly is that,” she conceded, glancing up at the ceiling. “Are you sure you won’t miss it?”

A different sort of man, a smooth operator, would have taken the opportunity to feed her a line: not as much as I’ll miss you, or, how about you just owe me something sweet? But Steve just shrugged, and tucked the packet gently under the corner of her desk blotter.

Peggy was both touched and exasperated.

She knew that in combat, even with no experience, he could be confident, creative, and quick-thinking. He was almost certainly capable of applying that approach in other situations too. But he hadn’t—at least, not with her.

She wanted one romantic overture from him. Just one. A single, unmistakable gesture, something that couldn’t possibly be attributed to kindness or friendship or sheer accident. 

She felt she deserved at least that.

Still, he’d come halfway across town, to bring her less than an ounce of sugar that he’d probably gone hungry to save. It wasn’t a passionate kiss, but it counted for something.

And so she smiled, and thanked him, adding, “I’m glad I was here to accept it in person.”

“Me too.”

“I thought you had supper with the senator and his cronies.”

“I told him I had an early start tomorrow. I think he got enough of my time.” His tone made it plain that he would rather have spent his day getting shot at by HYDRA. “I told the guys they ought to ask you to come out with us tonight. I’m sorry they bothered you.”

“No, it’s fine—I mean, yes, they did, but—” Being half-in and half-out of her coat meant that instead of breezily waving his apology aside, she wound up flapping her sleeve at him, ineffectually.

Obligingly, Steve stepped closer, and held her coat up by the collar.

“Oh,” said Peggy, letting him slip the coat over her shoulders. “Thank you.”

It was a simple gesture, one any kind person would make, and Steve was nothing if not kind. There was absolutely no reason for her heart to be racing, she told herself sternly.

His hand still held her collar; she turned, drawing the circle of his arm around her shoulders, as though they were about to dance.

Up close, she could see the faint dusting of freckles across his nose, the speck of a mole on his cheek. Details that the artists who depicted Captain America always seemed to miss, slight imperfections that belonged only to Steve Rogers. She was strangely tempted to brush her fingertips over them, to prove that they were real, that he was real. 

His eyes were wide, his gaze clear blue and bottomless, and she suddenly felt in danger of drowning.

A hard pellet of water hit her cheek, making her jump.

“Don’t tell me it’s raining in here, too,” said Steve, glancing up at the ceiling with his hand outstretched.

“It’s London in March,” she observed, stepping out of the line of fire. “It’s raining everywhere.” She emphasized the point by buttoning her coat and hooking her umbrella over her arm.

“Can I walk you to the train?” His look was hopeful. 

“Actually,” she said, against her better judgement, “I think I will come for a drink, after all.”

Steve beamed. “Swell.”

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

[kazuwhora]

Hey, could I have a Tokyo Rev matchup? If that's alright ☺ I FORGOT TO ADD MY APPEARANCE ALSO I'M SORRY IF THIS IS TOO MUCH 😭😫🙏🏾

Ok so I'm a bisexual girl who uses any pronouns, mostly she/they. I am also around 5'5, I kinda wish I was taller so I could intimidate men with my height 😈 I am a Virgo, although I don't think I act like one. It's probably because I'm an Aries Rising and Pisces Moon. But n e wayz I am an ISFP 4w5 and tbh I kinda tone down my personality depending where I'm at💀 At school, people would describe me as kind, quiet, chill, smart, weird, innocent looking(that completely changes once I start talking because I say weird things. I once told my teacher about how some astronauts had herpes in Space 🏃🏾‍♀️). At home, my family(and friends) would describe as loud(Once I laughed so hard to the point where my mom could hear me outside), crazy, weird, chaotic, dumb(I say a lot of stupid things that make no sense 🤷🏾‍♀️), annoying, a troublemaker, competative, argumentative, mean, chill at times, really talkative although I have a stutter. I have noticed that in both areas, people have said that I'm a people magnet and a good person to be around 😁 When I'm alone I like to read fanfics 😏, listen to music, read my Warrior Cats books and when I'm with my sister or with Family, I love to dance, listen to music, watch anime, play sports, go for walks. I've been dancing ever since I was young, never went to lessons but still performed a lot for School. Most of the time, it's actually what people know me for. With my family, I was known as the Snake Girl for a few years because I really wanted one, I never got one but I do have 5 rats now 🐀 I've always loved animals, when I was younger I made a list of all the animals I wanted and there were like 20+ pets on there 😭 And because I love animals so much, I've decided I want to help them in the future but I also want to help people. I've been wondering what I should be in the future and it's changed multiple times(mostly because the hours were too long and I HATE 9-5 jobs) but helping animals and helping people is something I always want to do. So, I've decided that I'll do everything I want to do in the future and no one will stop me 😾 That's probably why I'm listed as the Troublemaker in the Family, I do what I want to do and say what I want to say without caring how other people feel because I'm my own person(Mostly, because I love having fun but also because they really need to hear it). My family doesn't like it tho 😕 whenever my sister does the same, she's always told that she's acting like me and that it's a bad thing but idc. When I'm of age, I'm gonna live my life the way I want 😌 I'm gonna get tattoos, get piercings, be a stripper while I get my desired degree in College/University. I'M GONNA DO IT ALL 💃🏾

I would also like to add that I smile and laugh a lot. I literally have smile lines from how hard I smile all the time. I could be experiencing any emotion like Anger, Happiness, Sadness, etc. and I'll still smile and laugh. I think it's the eye contact 😃

Appearance: I'm around the age of the Tokyo Rev characters, I'm 5'5, I'm not skinny or fat so I'm kinda in the middle, I have Auburn hair and eyebrows and have braided hair with beads in it 😩 I'm very hot, I also have glasses I wear occasionally although I really need them for my left eye 😫 I do think that the glasses make me look hotter tho so I wear em 👀

I hope that's a good representation of how I am and also thank you in advance <3

u are the definition of an aries rising LOL

IM MATCHING YOU UP WITH NAHOYA SO YOU CAN BE THE MOST CHAOTIC DUO TO EVER EXIST

im not even gonna lie to you here. y'all scare me. nahoya scares me, u kinda scare me (in a good way dw I literally dropped out of highschool nothing can truly scare me) but the way y'all absolutely hype each other up an energize yourselves off of each other is freaky and mildly concerning. its like, the two of you are somehow a match made in both heaven and hell because your brains are wired the exact same way but at the same time should we really be putting those two brains together????

all jokes aside though you really are mirrored versions of yourself and its fun as fuck for the both of you. nahoya, who lives for chaos and humour is delightfully enabled by your ability to take his jokes and follow along with his chaotic nature at the same speed without a skip in your step. you, are enabled by his ability to also match your speed and encourage you to do whatever the fuck you want because its your life and you should live it how you want.

when I decided on nahoya I didn't even think of the smiley thing but it just makes so much sense as I go back and reread your description?? like its meant to be ok

you two are THE trouble makers. ppl can't handle you and if you ever show up at any toman event mikey is immediately separating the two of you because even HE can't handle it. double trouble for sure.

nahoya says fuck a job. you can just hang out with him every day right?? no but for real, he 100% does not understand responsibilities and he doesn't get why you can't actually just hang out with him every day. he has so much fun with you and when you're gone he's like ?? tf do I do now?? disturb shit on my own?? damn. he does not like it one bit and will huff at you for having responsibilities. he swears he'll become rich so you don't have to do anything and he can just spoil you so you'll stay with him forever and cause ruckus together for the rest of your lives. this is his goal.

he's one of the top 3 worst boyfriends so im not even gonna lie that hes a shit boyfriend but I bet you wont care because the fun you have together and the freedom that your relationship holds is enough to make it all worth it.

psst.. he doesn't have to say I love you for you to know. it'll be clear in the way his eyes twinkle every time he sees you <3

[snidgetwidgeon]

Insurrection Recollections Series: Royal Etiquette & Funding

Zelda sighed and began distracting herself with the clouds rolling by through the large windows of the Reception Hall. About a quarter of the size of the Great Hall, it was filled with amenities for entertaining delegates, courtiers, and their guests. At ten in the morning on Mondays, however- when nothing social was ever scheduled- Governess Beatrice utilized the space to teach young ladies from the upper and middle classes in Castle Town, as well as the noble families across Hyrule, about etiquette. She was currently standing at the head of the table, which was draped decoratively in neutral linens, and decked out with just about every dish, glass and piece of silverware one could imagine; including those that featured on the tables of all the races in Hyrule. Eye-catching pops of color were provided by the matching table runner and napkins, all in complementary shades of red, but to Zelda, it seemed frilly and way over the top.

Governess Beatrice must have known, or planned herself what the display was going to look like today, because she matched it perfectly. She wore a deep crimson gown over a cream chemise with long sleeves trailing from her elbow. In her hand, she held a fan which Zelda could swear was permanently attached to her body if it weren’t for the fact that it always changed to align with her elaborate ensembles. She was also partial to big hair and small hats.

As she droned on, Zelda went further into her daydream and thought she could see the Royal Crest in the clouds. Perhaps it was a sign from Hylia. Maybe if she prayed now, the power would come to her. What if she didn’t even need her robe, heirloom jewelry, or to be penitent before Hylia’s statue? Maybe she just needed to be open to celestial signs in the clouds. She clasped her hands under the table and moved her lips silently in prayer, eyes locked on the crest that had already begun to morph out of shape.

“Princess Zelda? Princess, may I have your attention please?” After no answer, Beatrice smacked her fan on the edge of the table. “Princess Zelda! Pray tell, what is so important that you are ignoring my class?”

Zelda snapped out of her focus and looked sadly at her instructor, “I thought I had received a sign from the Goddess.” She looked down at her hands, “But she has not answered my prayer.”

Beatrice was taken aback, reprimands dying on her tongue. “I see.” She did feel somewhat sympathetic, though still frustrated. When Zelda had first joined her classes, she been instructed to allow the Princess to seek the divine if she felt naturally inclined. After recalling the directive, Beatrice opened the fan with the flick of her wrist and offered graciously, “Perhaps your Highness would like to retire to the chapel to continue communing with Hylia?”

Zelda closed her eyes and nodded wistfully.

“Very well then, you may be excused.” Beatrice clipped.

Zelda stood and elegantly held her hands in front of her the way she knew Governess Beatrice liked. When she stepped away from the table, an attendant skillfully blending into the wall nearby, approached to push her vacated chair back in. They immediately returned to their position of observation.

Before she made her way out, she made a request. “Governess Beatrice, could Lady Agitha please accompany me?”

The two were inseparable, Beatrice noted, and the lesson was nearly done so she couldn’t see too much harm in it. “Lady Agitha, you may join the Princess. I expect you both to be diligent and learn from your peers what you’ve missed. Perhaps you can invite some of them to tea before Thursday.”

Agitha had leapt from her chair and practically scurried over to Zelda. She hadn’t yet grasped the finer points of subversion.

Beatrice clapped her hands, “Ah, ah! Girls... decorum.”

Zelda gave Agitha a look to ‘cut-it-out’ and took her friend’s arm in her own. They departed, Zelda’s steady steps guiding Agitha’s giddy ones.

~~~

It had been a few months of constant tedium and Zelda found that she could not always sealshit her way out of it. Twice a week, they learned how to speak, walk, stand, sit, breath, and exist as a lady. If it had to be done, there was a proper way to do everything, even blow your nose. But no one ever dared break wind. As far as Governess Beatrice was concerned, ladies did not poot.

Zelda’s eleventh birthday was approaching and Beatrice was using the event as a reason for the girls to begin perfecting their curtsies. First, they began by learning basic form. Once the general sweep of the leg, the dip of the head, and suspension of the arm was well practiced, she started to demonstrate the different levels one observed for varying degrees of rank. Zelda had been exposed to this all her life but Governess Beatrice was exceptionally exacting and expected nothing less than perfect preciseness. She thought of attempting escape again but she’d already done it twice this month. Anything more would surely attract suspicion.

Just as she started to feel a brain melt coming on after the fiftieth-odd curtsy, the Governess called an end to their lesson for that day. She entreated them to practice before later in the week when they would continue, and her excitement was practically terrifying when she announced they’d be presented with a varied wardrobe to study with. The morning was sure to be overflowing with petticoats, laces and frills.

Zelda wondered if she could play sick, or hide in the library. She much preferred it there, and recently she had managed to make a friend with an acquaintance of the Head Librarian Laslin. Her name was Impa and she had come to Castle Town recently with her older sister from Kakariko Village up in the Necluda mountains. They were here to research Ancient Sheikah Technology and were apparently already well informed on the subject. Zelda didn’t know much beyond the fact that the Astral Observatory was Sheikah. She adored that part of the castle and held dear a few faint, but very warm memories of her mother teaching her about the constellations.

“I’ll say it one more time ladies. You’d do well to practice on your own because we will be staying on this until you have all transformed into elegant herons.” She finished in the sing song voice that she thought made her seem nice, but really just grated on everyone’s nerves.

Zelda’s legs were so sore the following week after the extra curtsy lessons that it reminded her of the time she had tried ballet. The stiffness of her thighs made everything difficult, even using the lavatory; especially in her court dress. She smoothed the skirts and made sure everything was back in place before returning to the high tea being held in the courtyards. She was hoping she could get away with doing nothing more than sit and look pleasant for the rest of the afternoon, but just as she made herself comfortable under the pavilion, Governess Beatrice announced that they would be taking a stroll through the gardens.

Zelda sighed and rolled her eyes, which her friend Agitha had seen and giggled. She came to join Zelda as the sore Princess got up again and took her arm. “It’s better if you keep walking around you know,” she imparted as if she was full of infinite wisdom.

“How do you know that?” Zelda asked skeptically.

“Because my older brother told me. He goes on lots of adventures.” She paused as they both received parasols upon entry to the gardens, and ignored Beatrice’s spiel extolling the virtues of parasols. “He gets to do all the fun things with father while I have to stay here ‘because it’s tradition’,” she quoted her mother in a mocking voice.

“I thought brothers were no-good troublemakers.” Zelda stated with an air of query.

“Mine’s ok... most of the time.” Agitha laughed at her own joke while Zelda smiled, then continued, “When we’re both at home he helps me to find the best bugs.”

Zelda halted in shock and pulled Agitha to the side of the path so the other girls could pass. She whispered excitedly, “You like hunting for bugs!?”

Agitha dropped her parasol over their heads to whisper back, “I have a collection! I haven’t been able to add to it for a while though. Too much lady stuff to do,” she spat out with a scrunched face.

“I know the best rocks to look under, follow me!”

They were suddenly a flurry of giggles disappearing around the corner of a hedged bush. The other girls rolled their eyes and the teacher’s pet of the bunch took it upon herself to go and inform the Governess that there had been a break of rank in there very serious garden stroll.

Zelda dropped her parasol to the ground carelessly when they arrived in her old hunting grounds. There was a garden bed separated from the gravel path by a curved line of medium sized stones. She dropped to her knees and began turning them over one by one, inspecting the microcosm under each. Agitha joined her on the ground after folding and leaning her parasol against a bush with slightly more decorum, but once she was into the bugs, all sense of propriety was forgotten. They dirtied their dresses in the upturned soil and Agitha stood back up to hold out a layer of her skirts to make a receptacle. She directed Zelda which bugs to throw in and they devolved into fits of giggles as they rediscovered one of their beloved childhood activities. When they were found, Governess Beatrice was beside herself at their display of unladylike behavior.

All the other girls had followed to see what the commotion was about and were entertained beyond measure that the Princess of Hyrule was in trouble. They stood in their pristine, high tea finery, with slightly agape mouths hidden by dainty gloved fingers.

“Lady Agitha! Princess Zelda!” Beatrice’s head kept jerking back and forth between the two of them as if she couldn’t decide whom to admonish first. She decided on the royalty. “Princess Zelda, stand up at once! You have completely dirtied yourself!”

Zelda stood and brushed some of the dirt off the fabric over her knees. She started to tip the rocks back to rights with her foot while Beatrice turned her frustration to Agitha.

“And- Lady Agitha!” she admonished while straightening her back.

Agitha clutched her skirt closed around her waist and started to feel distraught that she would lose her new friends.

“What in Hyrule are you doing? It is very improper to be showing your petticoats in public. Put them to rights this instant,” she demanded. When Agitha hesitated, she became cross. She snapped her fan and came closer in an effort to appear more intimidating. “I said fix your dress, girl. You look like a harlot!”

Zelda glared daggers at the woman and vowed to get her back somehow, but Agitha took care of it herself.

Fear gave way to anger and she decided to unleash her new army upon Beatrice in frustration for not being allowed to be who she was any more. She hated growing up. With a dramatic cry of, “Have them, then!” she flung her dress open and the bugs were hurled in her direction.

The woman proceeded to scream, throwing up her parasol and flapping her fan all over to get the critters away. As she carried on, all the young ladies started laughing... and Agitha curtsied.

~~~

Four Years Later

Agitha kept moving restlessly from the parlor table to the tall balcony windows, peering out at the long and empty road leading up to the Windvane Manor.

After hearing her sigh for the umpteenth time, her older brother Theudric drawled, “At this rate, you’ll dull the marble. Why don’t you busy yourself and go check on the refreshments?” He was draped on the chaise lounge reading and when she came back over to scowl at him, he smirked.

“And miss her arrival? Absolutely not!” Her hip bounced a little and she admitted, “Though I do need to powder my nose.”

Just as her dress swished around the corner and out of the room, Theudric yelled, “Agitha! She’s here!”

“Finally!” She came peeling back round, almost slipping on the polished floors, and raced to the window only to find the same empty cobblestones. She heard her brother snickering behind his book and stomped over with a withering glare. “You remember the last time?” she threatened. “What ended up in your bed?”

His eyes went wide and he fell silent, burying his face in the book again, but his shoulders were still bouncing slightly.

It was still another three quarters of an hour before their guest arrived. Zelda appeared bright and cheerful, too excited to be tired from her journey, and refused offers of an afternoon’s repose. The opportunities to spend time with her friend were dwindling far too much so she wanted to take advantage of all the limited time they’d have. If she could give up sleep she would.

Agitha held her for an age in a warm embrace and then brought her to the parlor where they could all have luncheon. The moment they entered, Theudric snapped his book shut and stood ramrod straight, a slight color entering his cheeks.

“Zelda, you remember my brother, Theudric?”

Zelda smiled as he approached and gave a curt bow. “Princess Zelda, it is my pleasure to receive you to the manor. Lord and Lady Windvane send their apologies since they are away on business.”

“Thank you, and please give them my regards when they return,” she performed a small curtsy.

“Right,” Agitha announced. “Are we done with the pleasantries? Let’s eat! I’m famished.”

They gathered around the table and Theudric jumped to Zelda’s side to pull out her chair. “If you’ll allow me one more pleasantry.”

“Oh, thank you.”

Agitha stood near her own chair watching the lingering interaction and then cleared her throat.

Theudric shook his head a little in exasperation, “Oh, of course. Let me get that for you Aggi.”

They caught up while they ate and shared their latest interests. Agitha declared that she had a lovely surprise for Zelda in the lower storerooms of the house and Zelda spoke about her obsession with ancient Sheikah technology after the Divine Beasts had been discovered. A new friend, Dr. Purah, had lead the excavation for the last one in Eldin about two years prior and her younger sister Impa had begun advising the King on the subject. Zelda had since signed on to help where she could.

As she continued regaling her company with anecdotes about her translation work, Theudric sat riveted; he was so impressed with her academic achievements. A lot of people held the incorrect assumption that the Princess frittered away her time in court. She did make appearances in court- he had seen her himself on a few occasions when he went to the castle with his father on business- but she hardly wasted her time there. In fact, it seemed to him that she stayed the bare minimum that was acceptable. He vowed from then on that he would defend her honor and brilliance to anyone who stated anything to the contrary.

When he joined in the conversation and spoke of what their parents were up to lately, Agitha put on her most irksome, bored face. “Theu, that’s not interesting in the slightest- Zelda, have you had enough?” she interrupted herself to change the subject. “I can’t wait any longer to show you my new collection.”

Zelda laughed and regarded Theudric with a look of apology. “Forgive me Master Theudric, I appear to be summoned to the bowels of the house. Will you be joining us?” she asked as she stood.

He rose with her out of respect and opened his mouth but Agitha cut in, “He will not. He told me earlier that the day was so lovely he might go riding, and it’s about time I got you all to myself.”

Theudric put on mock dramatics, “I’m afraid I can’t join your Highness as I have a previous engagement with my horse. Missing an appointment with her would be a most egregious offense.” He bowed deeply. “Please forgive my absence.”

Agitha rolled her eyes and Zelda smiled bemusedly. She heard pandering like this all the time but it was much more palatable when delivered in jest rather than earnestly. It could become very tiring when people tried too hard and spoke only to her rank instead of to her person. It was why these less frequent opportunities to visit her friend away from the castle had become all the more important. She could relax and be herself out here, especially with Agitha. The only other respite she had was Gerudo Town and a trip there was even harder to wrangle as her responsibilities grew with each passing year.

“That’s quite understandable,” Zelda related. “My Rune also gets temperamental if I don’t visit him regularly.” She dipped her head and took one more little triangle egg sandwich from the table as Agitha dragged her off. “Enjoy your ride!”

Agitha led Zelda downstairs to one of the cooler, stone-lined basement store rooms. Behind the heavy wooden door that Agitha held open for her, Zelda’s breath was taken away by all of the glass terrariums lit by a plethora of lanterns. Each one had a manicured ecosystem and held from one, to many different species of bugs. Zelda bounced from one to the next as Agitha stood back, pleased with her reaction.

“This is wonderful Agitha! How did you manage to curate this?”

“Mother finally caved and said I could pursue my entomology hobby as long as it ‘doesn’t interfere with my other obligations’,” she quoted, exaggerating her mother’s shrill voice.

“I’m so happy for you. Oh! What’s this one? It doesn’t have a sign yet.”

Agitha approached to get a closer look. “Ah, that’s one of the rainy beauties, a Thunderwing Butterfly. Mother had a cow when I went to collect it because I was running around the meadow in a downpour.” She sighed, “Honestly, I’m so glad when she goes away because then I can just do my thing without her fretting over me.”

In a soft voice that sounded wistfully sad, Zelda offered a different perspective. “I’m sure that whatever she does, she does it out of love.”

Agitha was about to argue but when she noticed Zelda’s face after turning her attention away from the butterfly, she understood what she’d done. “Yeah... I’m sure you’re right.”

~~~

The next morning, Theudric found himself in front of the mirror trying to make himself look extra spiffy. He’d already asked his valet to put out one of his smartest ensembles. It included a red vest with gold buttons, brown trousers and calf-high boots. He was about to second guess if it was too fancy when he got distracted by his hair and proceeded to fiddle with it for a good twenty minutes. There were only so many things he could do with a short brown mop so finally, he just slicked it back and finished with a spritz of cologne.

He came downstairs, ready to entertain but he couldn’t see the girls anywhere. Their breakfast was half eaten and in his curiosity to find out where they could have gone, he gulped a bit of apple juice and grabbed a boiled egg to eat on his way out.

He wasn’t expecting to run right into them after turning the corner of the garden hedge, so he covered his mouth unceremoniously as he chewed quickly, the pasty egg yolk clinging to his teeth and tongue.

Zelda looked up and smiled radiantly under her sun hat. "Good morning Master Theudric." She was bent over the rim of a new large terrarium on a table, carefully placing a bit of hollow log inside to add to the habitat.

“Yes,” he finished swallowing his breakfast, “it is indeed a very beautiful morning. What are you ladies up to?”

Agitha gave him a withering stare. “What does it look like, genius?”

“Give me a break, I haven’t even been able to have my coffee,” he defended himself. “Had to come looking for you instead, didn’t I.”

“And just in time too. This one’s almost finished,” she said as she placed seedlings in pre-prepared holes in the soil at the bottom. “You can help us carry it downstairs.”

“Oh! Ah, I just remembered,” he started with a pained look on his face. “I have this thing.” He started to retreat and Agitha produced a flat and unamused expression that made him chuckle. “I’m just kidding Aggi. Are we carrying it or is it heavy enough that I need to get Genly?

“Mmmm, yes. I think Genly would be a good idea. I saw him in the stables earlier when I went to get some manure.”

“Wow, you aren’t messing around,” he said with a mix of curiosity and disgust.

“Only the best for my babies,” she answered.

His brow raised skeptically. “Riiiight... I’ll just go fetch Genly, then,” he stated while letting his gaze linger on Zelda as she brushed her hands together to remove the soil.

He had just turned away when she looked up to speak, the thought of allowing some self indulgence crossing her mind. “Master Theudric, do you mind if I join you? I’d love to meet the mare that stole you away from us yesterday.” Of course all three of them had known it was a pretense, but she enjoyed keeping up the ruse.

Theudric curtly bowed at the waist and gestured toward the stables. “Absolutely, your Highness. Posy would be enchanted.”

“She’s enchanted by hydromelons and if you visit her without them she’ll be a right little piece of twatittude,” Agitha warned. “I’m going to water this in. Don’t take too long.”

While Zelda bribed her way into Posy’s affections, Theudric searched the stables for Genly and found him organizing in the tack room. He was a kindly, middle aged man who’d worked for the Windvane family since he was about fifteen. His family ran the Highland Stable down south but rather than taking on the business and starting a family as he would have been expected to do when he got older, he decided to make his own way and live quietly alone in a little house on the grounds.

“Ah, Master Theudric,” Genly greeted him with a smile under his bushy mustache, tipping his hat. “Going for a ride this fine morning?”

“Morning Genly. Not at the moment.” He was about to continue with his request when an idea occurred to him. “Though maybe a bit later. I’m afraid I’m just after assistance with some heavy lifting. Aggi needs a new tank taken downstairs to her lair.”

“Righto,” Genly said as he laid some rope on the table to return to later. “Always happy to help; point the way.”

Zelda opted to continue making Posy’s acquaintance. She was entertained by the fact that the temperamental mare was pacified by hydromelons. They weren’t the usual fare at the castle stables and she thought perhaps she should acquire some for Rune to try. Maybe it would help them to bond better.

Theudric wasn’t long in returning and Genly, who was in tow to head back to what he’d initially been doing, took one look at them and steered clear out the other end of the stables to do something else. He tipped his hat as he passed by, “Your Highness.”

She smiled and nodded, then regarded Theudric with a hand on Posy’s muzzle. “Well, shall we get back? Agitha will certainly be getting restless by now.”

He leaned against the gate of Posy’s enclosure and smoothed his hair back with one hand before saying, “Actually, I’m wondering if you’d be willing to humor me for awhile. I’d love to hear more about the ancient Sheikah research you’re into.” His face was all keen interest.

“I’d be wary of that if I were you,” she warned. “Once you get me going on the subject, I’ll forget the time and talk you to exhaustion, I’m sure!”

His lips turned up into a dashing smile. “Try me.”

She seemed reticent but still in good humor, so he pursued a different tactic. “How about a deal then?”

She forgot her manners and snorted derisively, accidentally startling Posy. “Of what sort- oh, sorry Posy, I’ll leave you to the rest of your melon,” she said as she put the remaining pieces in her feed trough.

“A hobby for a hobby. You tell me all about yours while I escort you to mine. That way, there will be mutually assured boredom.”

She enjoyed his company. He seemed to not judge her natural proclivities and she appreciated that. “I really can’t fault your logic, Master Theudric.”

“Please, call me Theu,” he requested earnestly.

Agitha had just arrived on the scene to find out what had been keeping them and rolled her eyes so hard her whole body teetered to one side. “Uuugh, you’re not taking her to the Collie, are you?”

“Why not? If we take the horses, it will be a fun, midday outing. We can take a lunch.”

“What’s going on at the Coliseum?” Zelda asked, unable to hide her curiosity.

Theudric began to speak but Agitha cut him off again, “Only his pet project which daddy is sooo proud of.”

Before Agitha could continue teasing, Zelda said earnestly, “It’s a wonderful thing to have a father’s approval. I think I’d like to see the hobby that garnered such a thing. Maybe I can get some tips so father can see the value in my hobby as well.”

Theudric’s ears perked up and he asked, “Are you short of funding?”

“Honestly, I can’t complain. The research has been well funded, but it has grown to the point where we need a second location. There is an energy source that must be tapped if we want to progress as quickly as possible.”

“Sounds very interesting.”

“You say that, but there’s a catch. It’s almost as far east as you can get, near the Village of Hateno.”

“Ahh, the boonies. Father calls it bum ffff- never mind,” he caught himself from almost being incredibly uncouth in front of the Princess of Hyrule and straightened his posture. He just found her so easy to be around. Quite a different flavor from other young ladies he’d socialized with.

She suppressed a chuckle and caught Agitha’s bored expression from where she was sitting on a bale of hay, twirling pieces in her hand and waiting. “Agitha, are you going to join us? I think a ride with lunch sounds lovely.”

“It’s ok. You two go on ahead.” She stood up and stretched. “I’m going to finish the habitat for the second tank. I’ll send something from the kitchen while the horses get tacked up.”

Theudric looked incredulous. “Thanks Aggi.”

She left the stables and just as he was about to continue his conversation with Zelda, she poked her head around the corner. “Don’t take all day, you hear?!”

Zelda waved cheerfully and had a look at the other horses in their stalls. “So Theu, who shall I get ready to ride today?”

“Oh! Um...” he quickly turned away from her so he could hide the warmth he felt on his cheeks, no doubt manifesting as a full on blush at hearing his nickname as he’d requested. He led her to a brown and white spotted mare about three stalls down. “We’ll have to take Daisy because she’s the only one that Posy likes hanging around with.”

“Daisy and Posy, hm? All we need is another flower and we’ll be on our way to a bouquet,” Zelda joked.

And she made silly jokes. He was a goner.

Theudric led Daisy out to introduce them and laughed nervously. “Actually, you’re not far off. All the horses have been bred at my Uncle Talon’s farm on the other side of the field and he’s a... a quirky one. Names all his horses after flowers.” He leaned over to look past Zelda outside, “I’ll just find Genly to tack up.”

As he brushed past, she touched his arm, “It’s ok, I like doing it myself. Besides, that way Daisy can get to know me better before we go. Isn’t that right, beautiful girl?” she cooed, gently stroking Daisy’s face.

Theudric felt rude for letting his surprise show but she was paying more attention to Daisy anyhow. “Alright then, let’s get ready.”

He collected saddles and reins from the tack room and they got to work. She asked him about his project but he only touched on it briefly, wanting to share the full story during their outing when he could show as well as tell. He did let on that it was his innovation to combine the annual Kingdom Games with a harvest market. It would be a whirlwind fortnight of competition and bartering, boosting trade in the region for smaller, local farmers, and trades people. It was also ideally situated to receive the quality gem crafts and fabrics coming out of Gerudo Desert.

Zelda sat astride her mount first and was glad she brought her hat as she rode out into the clear summer day. Genly came past with another tip of his hat and handed her a packed lunch. “This came from the big house. I hope you enjoy your ride, your Highness. I’ll take care of the girls when you get back.”

“Thank you, Genly,” she beamed.

He shrugged shyly over the Princess of Hyrule remembering his name and passed Theudric’s lunch to him as he emerged next from the stables astride Posy. The two horses nibbled at each other and snorted, but otherwise got on.

“Well, then. Shall we?” Theudric asked.

Zelda clicked her heels and set off at a cantor. “We shall!”

~~~

The moment Zelda pulled away and the last of her small retinue were out of earshot, Agitha turned on her brother with a look of disdain. "I hardly get to see Zelda anymore. I'd appreciate you not stealing her from me next time she visits."

He finished waving and rolled his eyes at her as he turned to go back in the house.

When he didn't say anything, she kept on. "Theu! Seriously, you used to pay us no mind whatsoever. Why are you butting in?"

He kept walking through the vaulted foyer and answered nonchalantly, "I like her."

She froze in a silent gasp but recovered from the shock quickly, catching up to him in a flurry of clicking steps that reverberated off the polished floor. "Well- then-," she struggled to retain the argument after such a bombshell. "Then go see her on your own time and-"

He whirled on her, having become slightly annoyed at her petulance, "Honestly, I don't know why you're so upset. If she likes me back, you two could end up being sisters, and then you can spend as much time with her as you like."

A loud and deep gasp filled the room this time, as if she'd inhaled all the available air in the house, "YOU'RE RIGHT!"

She then left him with a bemused expression as she made a mad dash to her writing desk upstairs. She'd begin matchmaking right away, starting with a letter to Zelda. Subtle hints, not too overt. She'd have to gauge if he was even on her radar. Probably not, all she talked about was ancient Sheikah tech...

She giggled as she wrote, imagining the day when they could be sisters.

[olderthannetfic]

Let’s take a break from specific fandoms to talk about:

Platform Wars

In 2020, we’re all asking what’s next after Tumblr. This is nothing new. “Is thing X killing thing Y?” is a question fandom has been asking since long before Escapade. But these panels offer comfort and insight into our current fear of change.

They’re also fucking hilarious.

So, without further ado, here are some past Escapade panels on the subject of Change Is Scary:

1997 - Effects of the Internet on Fandom & Slash (On the upside: more fans, more conventions, more excitement and a 24-hour party. On the downside: are the connections more shallow? Are the changes made to "fandom as we knew it" change what we enjoy? Do print fans have something to fear? Or is this simple another wave?)

2000 - Less is More: Gluttony & the Decline of Quality in Fanfic

2004 - Amusing Ourselves to Death (Fannish Discourse in the the Age of the Internet By sheer quantity, has the quality of our conversation declined to predominantly static?)

2004 - LiveJournal, Boon or Bane? (Has the advent of LiveJournal brought about the demise of mailing lists? Has it splintered the venue for discussion to the point where it's impossible to have meaningful conversation? Is the LJ phenomenon just one big egotrip? Come join us to discuss these and other questions.)

2007 - Is F’locked the New Black (Is the flocked post the future of fan communication? Are we returning to the dark ages of closed lists, zines under the table, and "have to know someone"? More and more LJ posts are locked, communities are closed, and groups are invitation only. Is there a way to protect our RL selves (and our fannish selves), yet share our fannish commentary and fic? How does this all look to a newbie? Where is our new comfort zone? And how do we keep track of all of this?)

2008 - The Organization for Transformative Works (The Best Thing Since Ever, or the End Of Days? The OTW is an incorporated nonprofit organization established by fans to serve the interests of fans in multiple ways, including by providing open-source archive software (and an archive), legal assistance, and various efforts to preserve the history of fanworks and fan culture.)

2011 - Delicious - Rumors of Death Greatly Exaggerated? (Delicious, fandom's favorite bookmarking site may be getting shut down (or at least sold out) by The Man. What to do?)

2016 - Fandom Is Fic: from BNF to TL;DR. (From paper through Usenet to Livejournal, text was king. On Tumblr, long text is an imposition—isn’t it? Has fic been dethroned from its place at the top of the heap and fic-writing BNFs along with it? Discuss the dirty little social dynamics of the shifting patterns of fannish value and how we define 'fandom' itself. And what of zines and zine eds?)

2017 - The Kids Are Not the Problem (In recent years, media fandom has grown enormously. It has also scattered, spreading out to new platforms and meeting spaces. You often hear talk about "the kids" vs. "the olds," Tumblr vs. LiveJournal, or the problem of recruiting and retaining new fans. In this panel, let’s try flipping that script. If kids are not the problem, how can we change and grow? What awesome things are other fans doing/trying that people at Escapade should know about? Most importantly, what strategies can we use to leave our fannish bubbles and more fully experience fandom in 2017?)

2019 - The fall of tumblr (Fans have always looked for a good place to build communities on line. Recent events with Tumblr and other platforms like Facebook are restricting our gathering places and even blocking and purging our self-made content. How are people dealing with this? Fandom will survive, but where? Come discuss the problems and options out there.)

And below the cut, a whole bunch more panels on platforms and change:

1991 - Quality Control in Zine Publication/Economics of Fandom (Who is making money in fandom? Should they be? How accountable are fans? Editors? Artists? Have you ever written an LOC?)

1993 -  Supply and Demand in Fandom (Can we have too much of a good thing? How many cons or zine is too many? Are we glutting the market?)

1994 - Changing Nature of Fannish Communication (E-mail, and virtual zines, computer video editing and morphing -- all the new toys at our disposal...)

1996 - Internet—Will it eat your brain? Or take you to the poorhouse? (Nearly everyone has or can get access to a computer and thereby the Internet and the World Wide Web. What's out there for fans? What should you look for? What might you want to watch out for? How can you protect your pocketbook at the same time?)

1997 - Net Fiction & Print Fiction (Is the very existence of net fic changing the characteristics or reducing the quantity of print fic? Are there really stylistic and/or content differences? What makes some shows predominantly produce netfic, while others happily generate both? How do the barriers of access to each affect the fan community?)

1997 - History of Fan Socialization (Was fandom really different in the "old days"? Was there a feeling of community that we're missing now? Or is that just nostalgia clouding our memories? In today's net-connected fandom, what is (or should be) different? And what elements of the past should we try and retain?)

1998 - Professionals: Is the Circuit Dead? (Or has it just moved on-line? Is Pros fandom split on the subject of the internet? Many old circuit writers don't want anything to do with the new on-line library. They have objected to having their stories retyped an sent out, even on private e-mail. Has the paper circuit given way to the on-line library?)

1998 - Netfic Formatting A: How to Print It Prettily (An instructional panel, covering the basics of formatting, macros, and other time-saving tips to get the results you want.)

1998 - Privacy and Community: Pseudonyms, Screen Names and Face-to-Face Meetings (As more and more fandom is found online, how are we adapting to the anonymity that comes with it?)

1998  - Netfic Formatting B: From Word to Web, Making Shapely Net Slash (This panel is for everyone who wants to venture into the world of online slash, but gets nervous when faced with the myriad technical difficulties. Relax, it's easier than you think. We look at stylistic conventions, how to make your work newsgroup and e-mail friendly, and the dreaded subject header alphabet soup. We'll also cover some basic info on how to make a www archive site user friendly.)

1998 - Crossing the Line (An instructional panel on how to get what you want (more stories) in a world that may be unfamiliar to you (the web for print fans, and the insular world of zines for net fans).)

1999 - Does Print Fandom Have a Future? (In the age of instant, free net fic, is print fandom a dinosaur on its way to extinction, or a promise of reasonable quality in a sea of mediocrity? What are the key differences between zines and netfic, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Can the two coexist happily? )

2000 - Promoting Critique on Mailing Lists (How to promote critical discussion and attention to the mechanics of writing on email lists?)

2000 - Changing Power Dynamics in Fandom (With the decline of zine editors and growth of the Net, what's changed, and how does it affect us and our fanfic?)

2001 - Website Workshop 2 by the lady of shalott (Setting up and maintaining a fanfic archive, and in particular how to set up the Automated Archive software used by 852 Prospect and the Due South archives.) [NB: Yes, she went through a bunch of name versions before ‘astolat’.]

2002 - How to run a Fiction Archive (and Maintain Your Sanity)

2002 - Nobody Here But Us Sockpuppets (How multiple personality disorder takes on a whole new meaning in the world of mailing lists.)

2003 - Getting slash onto your PalmPilot for computer free reading

2003 - Recs Databases! Creation and Commiseration (Do you run a recs database and want to commiserate? Do you currently have a recs page and want to become database-driven? Want to talk about the relative merits of using PHP, MySQL, or Access to organize smut?)

2003 - How to Set Up and Maintain Fanfiction Archives (If you're thinking of running an archive, or already do and need some help, this is the panel for you. We'll cover everything from choosing a method of archiving, handling fandom growth, dealing with troublemakers, and just how much time, webspace and money are we talking, anyway? Come pick the archivists' brains.)

2003 - Has Escapade Run Its Course (Scuttlebut says: It's not like it used to be. My old friends don't come any more. My new friends can't get in. It's too big. It's too small. Oxnard, for god's sake? I'm getting sick and tired of the same shit year after year. Is Escapade old and tired? Does it need to be retired?)

2004 - HTML and Website Introduction (if you don't have a website and want to create one. where doyoustart'This will cover creating basic HTML pages and common webhosting options, as well as things to think about as you set iin vour first website.)

2005 - Where Have All The Good Conversations Gone? Rise & Fall of the Escapade Panel (Are people still interested in talking about the characters, plots, and themes of their shows? Has in-depth analysis of our fandoms been abandoned in favor of meta and fannish introspection? The forums for analytical discussion are disappearing as self-censorship and over-moderation increase. Can we change this? Do we want to?)

2005 - The Fannish Wiki (So we have the directorium, the directory of All Things Fannish. We visit it and it's just so cool, and we look for our fandom to see what it says... and it's not there! How to add it? What sort of info belongs there? How does a wiki work?)

2005 - I Was So Much Older Then, I'm Younger Than That Now (We've all heard about or lived through the tumultuous era when fandom moved online. But how has slash fandom, particularly slash fandom, changed since then? Are the changes the result of online fandom, or simply of a change in culture?)

2005 - Fanfic Archives (Setting up and administering fanfic archives: concepts, considerations, techniques.)

2006 - Putting your fic on the web (Basic skills for putting your fic on the web, including building your own very basic website, using LJ as a fic-site building tool, various options for labeling adult content, and using the standard upload interfaces for popular self-submit story archive software.)

2006 - Nifty Technology and the Future of Fandom (Fandom is quick to adapt to change and continues to bring fen together and to create fannish product. Fans have thrived regardless of how they communicate; via the post office, mailing lists, message boards, and Livejournal; they've pushed the frontiers of video and audio technology; and have managed to survive changes in copyright, pornography, and other laws. What are the upcoming trends and shiny new technologies on the horizon and how will fen use them to enhance fandom?)

2006 - Intermediate Webmastering (Designing your website for usability, options for restricting access to your website, making your stories easily accessed by mobile devices, and things to consider so fans can easily locale your site.)

2007 - Free Webtools and How to Take Fandom Advantage (Lots of free tools are available on the web to help the needy fan! Tools to edit pictures, make icons, write stories, share recommendations, share stories, and be fannish are becoming more available and more user friendly. Come chat about tools like del.icio.us, google docs, pxn8 audacity, itunes, the gimp, bittorrent, imeem, youtube and lll other things that you come and tell us about!)

2008 - E-book Readers (Sony PRS-505 or Amazon Kindle what's all the fuss about? Introduction to E-Ink and other mobile devices. What are the pros and cons of various devices? Where do you find e- books and fan fiction, and most importantly how do you get fan fiction formatted so you can read it on your ebook reader?)

2008 - If You Build It, Will They Come? (Roundtable on meta fannish infrastructure building strategies. bethbethbeth can talk about some of the specific challenges OTW is facing in its brave new fan territory, while oulangi can talk about why metafandom has flourished while very similar projects have failed, while we'll both discuss some of the challenges of the established meta/fannish structure of new communities, new fans, new technologies—and most of all, how do you keep the meta-fan conversation moving forward?)

2008 - Livejournal: Should Fans Take Their Business Elsewhere? (A discussion of the pros and cons of fannish communication on the various blogging entities.)

2008 - How to Find and Use Free Stuff on the Web (All kinds of free webapps are available for fic, art, icons, communication, and all sort of other fannish stuff. Come share favorite sites—we can bookmark everything we talk about on del.icio.us in real time!)

2009 - The Organization for Transformative Works (Off the ground and starting to soar! Come here about the latest developments in the OTW's projects and discuss where you'd like to see it go next.)

2010 - Is Somebody Taking Notes On This?: A Discussion of the Role of Fannish History (In honor of Escapade's 20th anniversary, let's talk about recording fannish history. What are the challenges? Is it worth doing? Can it be done in a fair way? What are we afraid of happening if we try? Is Fanlore the right vehicle for the project?)

2010 - The OTW in Its Third Year led by Elke Tanzer and Shoshanna (Okay, sure, the Organization for Transformative Works bought its own goddamn servers and hosted an archive (that hosted Yuletide) and published a journal (with a special issue on Supernatural) and saved a bunch of Geocities sites and testified at the DMCA hearings (supporting the FFF's proposed exemptions for vidders and other remix artists) and made a bunch of lolcats—but what have they done for us lately? [5] What do you want them to do?)

2010 - We Are All Naked (On The Internet Now) led by treewishes (Social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter are conspiring with Google and your ISP to out your slash pseudonym to your RL friends, and to tell all your slash buddies your real name. Is there any way to stop the wave of facial recognition software or your oh-so-helpful friends who type your birthday into the cloud? Or is all this an inevitable consequence of evolving technology? Come on in and let's talk conspiracy theories!)

2011 - Fanlore: Are BNFs Writing Our History?, led by Sandy H (Fanlore has an official policy of 'plural points of view', but is that really happening? Have you ever looked up a kerfluffle you were involved in, and seen how your side of the battle was portrayed.' And on the other side, are we afraid of conflict, to the point that Fanlore is bland and safe?)

2011 - OTW/AO3 Wish List Conversation, led by Sandy H (Do you feel like you don't know how to get your A03 or OTW wishlist through the bureaucracy? A03 is getting better all the time, but there's a ways to go. Let's brainstorm and turn a list over at the end of the panel.)

2011 - The Reccing Crew (Recommending a fanwork is deeply woven into our culture. Are there new social mores at work when we make public recs? How has the move from letters to mailing lists to Livejournal and Delicious affected reccing? Delicious was conceived as a bookmarking site, but often operates as a recs and comments site. If it goes away, what would replace it?)

2012 - Tumblr, Twitter, and Pinboard, Oh My (and GetGlue, too!) (In the past year, the ongoing fannish diaspora has picked up speed, as more fannish activity has moved away from LiveJournal and Dreamwidth, and onto sites like Tumblr and Twitter. And then there was the Delicious implosion. Now there's GetGlue, a social network specifically for entertainment. Let's talk about navigating these sites—their strengths and weaknesses, and how to use them.)

2012 - The Kids These Days (Ever wanted to tell someone to get offa your lawn? Strangle the next person who said that? Revive a dead fandom? Joined a fandom you were 20 years "too old" (or young!) for? Did you go from Usenet to mailing lists? From zines to livejournal? Are you eyeing Tumblr and Twitter with alarm? Let's talk about weathering changes in fandom with grace—or at least a little humor.)

2013 - Privacy, Secrecy, and the Fourth Wall (The fourth wall between fans and The Powers That Be is shrinking day by day. Are the technologies we're using changing fannish etiquette {from invite-only mailing lists, to friends-locked journals, to all public all the time tumblr)? Should we run for the hills or embrace the change? Discuss!)

2013 - The What With the Where Now?! (Every time you turn around fandom is playing on a new site that has new functionality, new ways of interacting and new lingo. Join us in surveying places like tumblr, twitter and getglue.)

2014 - Tumblr: Missing Missing E (So you've just gotten the hang of Livejournal when all of a sudden fandom has jumped shipped to this new "microblogging" platform called Tumblr. What is "microblogging" anyway, and where do you even start? Join us in this tutorial/discussion on creating an account, deciphering the culture, finding fandom, and making Tumblr work for you.)

2014 - Out Of Step With the World (You have no current fandom. You can't even get Tumblr to load. What do you do when you're feeling disconnected and alienated, but you don't want to leave fandom for good? If this sounds like you, come join us to figure out some strategies for rekindling the love, making new friends, and finding your place.)

2014 - Real Fannish Community (Has AO3 ended the era of real fannish community or has it ushered in a new era of increased connectedness? Is Tumblr better or worse than the old days (and were the old days livejournal? yahoo groups? APA snail mail zine groups?)? I'm hoping for equal parts 'get off my lawn' and 'the future's so bright I gotta wear shades' debate here.)

2015 - Tumblr 102: Into Darkness. You’re here, now what? Here we talk about etiquette and xkit and making the most of your fannish tumblr experience.

2017 - Home on the Web (LJ's Russian overlords have removed HTTPS support and are moving the server activity to Russia; some say a shutdown of US services is on the horizon. Yahoo fails to make money with Tumblr. Dreamwidth is slow, and doesn't have media hosting. Email lists are a hassle. Imzy, a startup, places branding aesthetics over design usability. Where's the next place for fandom, or should we reclaim one or more of the platforms from the past?)

2018 - How to Tumblr (Like it or not (often, mostly not), tumblr is where fandom is most active right now. How do you find anything? How do you have conversations? How do you archive the bits you like best? The good news: the answers are not, "you don't; you don't; you don't." Bad news: Those aren't actually good questions for being fannish on tumblr.)

2019 - Social Network of Our Own (SNO3?) (Between FOSTA/SESTA, Article 13, Facebook's new "don't mention that sex exists" policy, and the Tumblrpocalypse, is it time for our own fannish social site? Or are Dreamwidth and Pillowfort enough?)

[himbowelsh]

your fics are amazing ❤️ can i have anything about baberoe but julian also appears in the fic🤣? thank you so much ❤️

This is probably way more than you wanted, doll, but here you go!!

It’s been a long time since Gene picked up a late shift at Smokey’s Bar. Longer than he’s proud of, really. Medical school don’t pay for itself, even on a scholarship, and it’s a stretch to think that changes on an intern’s salary. Just because his daily routine is filled with a lot more triages and tracheotomies now doesn’t mean he’s forgotten where he came from. 

Hell, Gene spent two years in this cozy backstreet establishment, serving drinks well into the midnight hours with his textbooks stashed just below the counter. The job at Smokey’s was the only reason he could afford an apartment at the time; without it, he might not‘ve even had a shirt on his back. The regular crowd was always great, the bar’s owner was a true gentilhomme, and there was no hard feelings when Gene left to start his internship. Smokey accepted it with grace, and everybody wished him well.

Of course, if he’d known he’d be back just a few months later, he’d have protested the going away party.

“You’re a real lifesaver,” Smokey declares as Gene steps back behind the familiar counter. “Skinny’s out tonight — something about helping his Granny with her pet cat, which I’d be glad to believe, if I didn’t know for a fact his Granny lives across the country — and we called Blithe about ten times, but no answer there.”

“It’s no problem.” Gene offers his old boss a thin-lipped smile, running hands hands lightly over the oiled bar top. It’s been a while; best to get the feel of the place before the night rush arrives.

“It is, though, Gene. Big favor you’re doing me. If you ever need anything —“

“Don’t worry about it.” Maybe in two years he and Smokey got past the point of “boss and employee”. Gene wouldn't call them friends, but they’re close enough. Helping out a friend is just what you do, and you don’t complain about it. “I’m happy to be here. Missed these old walls more than I realized.”

Smokey barks out a laugh. “Yeah! See it every night, and you get tired real fast.” The bar door rattles open without warning, ushering a familiar crew — half a dozen guys, all with the same swagger and grins on their faces. “Same old ugly mugs each night, too!” Smokey exclaims, brightening like the sun’s come out at midnight. “Not sure why we let you guys in at this point!”

“You’d go broke without us, Smoke!” Bill Guarnere’s voice is loud as ever, and as rowdy as Gene remembers it. “You know we pay half the bills ‘round here.”

“Lose us and you lose your nightlife too,” Floyd Talbert adds with a grin, already stripping off his heavy jacket. 

The atmosphere is familiar; every corner is known, and fondly remembered. Across the room, a 90s rock beat pulses from a pseudo-modern jukebox, all but rattling that side of the building. Smokey’s has got a dance floor, a pool table, a dartboard... everything a person could need for a rowdy night out. “Except the dancers,” Smokey said once. “We tried to put in these nice cages, but seems like you need permits and all that. Why waste the money when Luz gets up on the tables after a few drinks for free?”

It’s a respectable place, and a cozy one. The city will never feel like home — home to Gene is warm air, thick as honey against your skin, the symphony of the bayou floating around you like zydeco in the night air — but Smokey’s is close. The closest Gene feels anywhere in the city, and he’ll take what he can get.

Gene settles back behind the bar, and falls into the familiar dance; he still remembers all the steps, and hasn’t lost his touch yet. Smokey’s isn’t a cocktail place; Gene’s job is generally restricted to serving up beer and chips, with the occasional harder drink coming in. He can toss together a good whiskey sour, and his Dark and Stormy’s are excellent, so he’s been told. It shouldn’t be this easy to pick up the old rhythm again; his days since leaving Smokey’s have been filled with nonstop work. The nights he isn’t on shift, he spends studying, memorizing so many conditions and treatments that there shouldn’t be room for anything else. The brain works in mysterious ways, though. This old job carved grooves into his memory, and he slides back into them now without even having to try.

George Luz grins at him, loudly proclaiming how good it is to have Gene back. “Place just wasn’t the same without you, Doc,” he declares, and a round of cheers from Luz’s group echo their agreement. Muck and Malarkey team up on him, pestering him about how work at the hospital is going. Gene suspects they’re only in it to hear the stories every doctor acquired over time. He humors them with one about a man who’s ent swimming in the buff, ending up with a fish stuck where no fish should ever be. Offhandedly, he tacks on a mention about the frequent cases of alcohol poisoning they get in the ER. Plenty of gory detail to go into there. From the grimaces on the duo’s face, and the way Muck eyes his third beer of the night warily, they definitely get the message.

A ruckus near the dance floor rings out, distracting Gene from mixing a whiskey-and-lime. His hands fumble with the bottle; it nearly slips from his grip, but he catches it without looking. The commotion is much more interesting. some spaghetti-limbed kid, all deer-in-the-headlights, is squared off against Roy Cobb, who’s already had one drink too many. Flushed and surly-eyed, Cobb steps up into the kid’s face, rearing up like a pissed off moode.

“You think I can’t hear you? What, you think no one in here hears you running your mouth?”

“Christ, buddy, I didn’t say a word about you!” the kid replies, stumbling back a clumsy step. “Why don’t you siddown, huh?”

“Don’t need to sit down, don’t need you to tell me —“

Now, Smokey’s isn’t the sort of place where fights break out as a rule; sometimes men get a bit riled up, but it rarely turns ugly. When it does, they’ve got Bull on hand to break up any fight before it can start, and probably break some costly furniture in the process… but it’s Bull’s night off. By now, the rest of the bar’s taken notice of the fight. Tension thrums through the room like a live wire, sparking off and just itching to catch on something. Everyone’s watching them, and no one’s looking towards the other side of the room. Gene does, and he spots the kindling.

Bill Guarnere, fists clenched and face red, is slicing straight through the crowd. At his heels is another kid, gangly, with a mop of messy ginger hair; he looks twice as pissed off as Bill, but doesn’t wear it quite as threateningly.

Gene moves forward without a sound, setting his drink on the table. In a few seconds, the situation’s gonna get three times worse. Better snuff it out before they get the chance.

“Cobb.”

Gene’s the quiet sort by nature — but when he wants to, his voice can ring through a room, cutting over shouts and curses as clear as a roll of thunder. Before he spoke, he might as well’ve not even been in the room. Suddenly, every eye’s on him, and Smokey’s is silent. He braces himself against the bar, red-hot gaze trained on the troublemaker. “Come here.” One hand gestures Cobb over; it’s not a suggestion. “Free drink for your trouble. Sit down, we’ll talk.”

“Don’t need to talk,” Cobb replies, voice dropping low and rough. The kid takes the opportunity to remove himself from the situation, scurrying back to his friends’ side. Bill Guarnere claps him on the shoulder, and sends a glance towards Gene; his nod, short and grateful, is all it takes to finish the threat off. Reluctantly, with the tension broken, Cobb trudges towards the bar and accepts the beer Gene slides towards him.

“Now,” Gene says, strictly business. “What’s goin’ on with you? You tell me, I’m here to listen.”

Offering an ear to a drunk’s sorrows is always a shot in the dark. God forbid Cobb disappointed. Gene ends up spending the next forty minutes listening to Roy Cobb’s woes about his job, his girl, and everything in between — until his last drink’s done, and he’s vented enough that he no longer seems ready to snap. Gene calls the taxi for him, and sees him out.

It all goes smoothly after that. Not an interesting shift; for his first time back, and probably his last time, Gene’s a little let down. At least on his last night there was cake. Tonight, all he gets it a thank-you text from Smokey, complete with copious emojis, and a few “see ya, Gene!” and “thanks a lot, Gene!”s at last call. Once all the patrons have cleared out and the bar’s gone dark, Gene lingers in the doorway for just a minute before locking up. Just one more minute… and then he’ll say goodbye to the old place. For good, this time.

“Aw christ, Julian, my goddamn shoes!”

A shrill voice echoing from around the corner… kind of kills the moment.

Uncertain, Gene lets the door fall shut, and hastily turns his key in the lock. Something about that voice is familiar, but he can’t put a finger on it. There’s no one else in sight, not even any stragglers from closing time… but as he tucks his key in his pocket and rounds the corner, the source of the disturbance makes itself painfully clear.

Some idiot is sticking ass-first outta the dumpster.

“No!” The idiot’s friend exclaims, bouncing on his heels as he tries to grab hold of a thrashing, sneaker-capped leg. “Get out of the — get out — this ain’t my job! Do I look like your mother to you?”

“Ain't my kink, babe,” echoes a voice from within. One second later, and the set of legs vanished completely; the dumpster consumes its victim, leaving nothing behind but a loud rustling, and the clank of limbs against metal.

I don’t want to know, Gene acknowledges, weighing the situation like a detective at a crime scene. I don’t need to know. It’s late. I’m tired. I’ve got a shift in twelve hours.

“Everything alright here?” he blurts out, before god-given common sense can talk him out of it.

The friend turns on his heels, with a soft grunt of surprise. Immediately, Gene realizes why he sounded so familiar — the head of messy red hair is familiar, as are the lanky limbs and the telltale freckled Irish skin. Bill Guarnere’s buddy, in the flesh.

Since it’s definitely not Bill in the dumpster, Gene’s got a good clue who it is.

“Your buddy’s recovered well,” he observes, crossing his arms, “from the mess earlier.”

“Huh? Yeah! He, uhh — shit, he sure has. We don’t make a hobby outta this, you know.” The kid goes to run a tired hand over his face, then seems to think better of it. There’s a puddle of liquid near his feet, with the telltale sheen of half-digested liquor. His eyes are haggard, mouth twisted up like he’s not sure whether to laugh or scream. Maybe it wasn’t an awful night for Gene, but someone’s clearly taking the brunt of it.

“I hope not,” he observes, cocking his head slightly at another thud from inside the dumpster. “Strange sorta hobby.”

“It’s just that Julian — well, he’s an asshole, right, and he ain’t used to drinking like the rest of us — lightweight. You know how it is. He don’t have any rights.” As if to emphasize the point, the kid aims a kick at the side of the dumpster. From within, Julian yelps. “We try not to give ‘im too much, but he was real rattled from the whole thing, so we thought —“

“I remember.” Gene distinctly recalls Bill Guarnere’s unusual order, and the effort it took for him to remain stone-faced through it. “Vodka schnapps.”

“Yeah. A fuck-load of ‘em.” The kid offers up a smile, crooked and half-desperate. Whatever the hell his heart does in the moment, Gene isn’t prepared; it feels like a mini heart attack. To cover up, he hastily turns his gaze back on the dumpster again, making out like he’s more concerned than he really is. “I was gettin’ ready to call an Uber, but my phone — if some jackass hadn’t tried snatching it outta my hands, and then not let go ‘til it went flying —“

“Blamin’ me? Babe! Butterfingers!”

“Shut up, you!” Butterfingers Babe aims another kick at the dumpster’s side. This time, Julian shouts . His friend doesn’t seem a bit concerned. “Just find the damn thing!”

“You got an iPhone 6! ‘S right where it belongs!”

“You wanna buy me a new one?”

Julian has to pause, like he’s genuinely considering it. Butterfingers Babe taps his foot. Eugene crosses his arms and waits.

“Like hell,” Julian finally declares, and a new round of thunks echo from within the garbage can.

“Okay,” says Gene. That’s all it takes to get Butterfingers’s attention back on him, like for a moment he’d genuinely forgotten Gene was there. As soon as their eyes lock, though, the kid flashes him a smile like Gene’s never seen before — downright fluorescent, definitely lit up by liquor, but something more, too. Gene’s never smiled like that at a stranger; hell, he’s never smiled like that in his life, and definitely never had one sent his way.

It takes a minute for his thoughts to snap back on track again, still wavering dangerously, like the kid’s grin has shot the wheels right out from under him. “Okay,” he says again, clearing his throat. “Uhh, if you want, I can just call you a ride.”

“Nah, that ain’t your job. Thanks, but you don’t gotta —“

“I don’t mind.” Gene shrugs, tucking his hands in the pockets of his jeans to hide them from the biting cold. “Don’t actually work here anyways, so…”

Butterfingers Babe’s brows furrow. Slowly, he tilts his head.

“You mean, you… just walked in and started pouring drinks, then?”

It takes an inhuman amount of effort for Gene to hide a smirk. “Yeah. Call it a hobby.”

“You can do that? Holy shit.” The kid stamps his foot on the ground, turning to the trash can as if genuinely forgetting that his buddy can’t react back at him. “Did you hear that? Julian! We could take over a bar for real!”

“Always been your fantasy, babe, not m— ahh , god dammit, there’s a rat!”

As the eight circle of hell echoes from inside the dumpster, Butterfingers turns his wide grin back on Gene. “So, how do you even — like…” As his words trail off, his smile calcifies at the corners, before crumbling away. “Hey, you’re yanking my chain, arentcha?”

Now Gene really can’t help it — he smiles, quick and unashamed. “Sorry.”

“You really got my hopes up.” He doesn’t look too upset, though, even as he drags a hand through his struggle hair and shakes his head. “Damn. New plan, Jules.”

“Call,” shrieks Julian, “the police! The army! Satan!”

“Must be the name of the rat,” Gene observes sagely.

Butterfingers crosses both arms over his chest, and takes a step back, bracing against his heel. Gene mirrors the casual posture. The both watch for a few moments, enjoying the show, as Julian apparently wrestles with one of Philadelphia’s notorious cannibal street rats and emerges victorious from the fray. At last, he breaks into fresh air, exploding from between bags of garbage like the parasite in Alien . His black hair is a scruffy mess, there are scratches on his cheeks that he’ll definitely need some shots for, and when he thrusts his arm into the air, a banana peel dangles from it.

“I found it! I found your goddamn phone!”

“Amazing,” Butterfingers drawls. “Now can we get outta here before my nose freezes off my freakin’ face? All the booze in the world can’t make tonight warm.”

Julian makes a noncommittal noise, and suddenly vanishes back into the garbage bag abyss again, like someone’s grabbed his leg and pulled.

“For chrissakes , Julian!”

“He always like this?” Gene can’t help but ask. “I mean… has he done similar stuff, in the time you’ve been…” Butterfingers stares blankly at him. Gene gestures vaguely, as if that stands a chance of making his meaning any clearer. “I mean. Not to be rude.”

“You ain’t being rude. He’s an idiot.”

“Yeah, but…” Gene clears his throat, intensely uncomfortable. “Did he do this on your first date, too?”

“Dating?” The word escapes the kid’s mouth in a squawk loud enough to wake the entire neighborhood. Gene jumps, and scrambled to regain his composure; in that time, Butterfingers has already doubled over, wheezing. “Jesus, Julian, didja know we’re on a date?”

“No kidding,” Julian calls from inside the dumpster. “Y’gotts tell me these things, Babe.”

With two drunken strangers laughing in his face at three in the morning — one of them hanging out of a dumpster — Gene suddenly feels like the fool. To be fair, what else is he supposed to think — hearing Babe, Babe, over and over again?

“My name’s Babe,” the Babe in question clarifies. “I mean — it’s really Edward, but everyone calls me Babe, even my ma, though she says —“

“No one cares,” says Julian. “Now goddamn help me, huh? The rat’s comin’ back.”

Suddenly, ending this encounter as soon as possible— and saving whatever dignity he has left — is more tempting than a twelve-hour nap. Gene gestures towards the struggling Julian with renewed eagerness. “We should probably —“

“Yeah, we really should!” agrees Babe, spinning back around again. Only then does Gene feel comfortable getting closer. Somehow, with lots of trial and error, they each manage to seize hold of one of Julian’s gangly arms. With a great tug, they haul him out. He ends up sprawled on the pavement, a lot worse for wear, but with an iPhone in his hand.

“Ha ha,” he declares, and, victorious, flops backwards onto the filthy ground. “Ha ha ha, ha. I did it.”

“Sure did, buddy,” Babe agrees, snatching the phone out of his hand. His nose crinkles as soon as he’s holding it; too quickly, he tosses it back down onto Julian’s chest, wiping his hand off on the rear of his jeans. The alleyway isn’t that well-lit, but when he looks back up, Gene catches a spark of hope in his eyes.

“Hey, y’know, I don’t mean to ask —“

Gene’s already ordering the Uber. “It’s no problem.”

Grateful, Babe gives him his address, and tucks his thumbs in his pockets as Gene sends the order through. When Gene holds up the phone for his inspection, he huffs in relief. “Twelve dollars, huh? I’ll pay you back.” He goes pawing through his pants, urgency increasing when both pockets turn up empty. “Shit, I mean — when I come back again, some other night, I’ll —“

“I won’t be here.” In spite of himself, Gene feels a stab of regret. “Actually don’t work here, I was just filling in tonight. As a favor to Smokey.”

Babe huffs a laugh, and it inflates Gene’s chest, warming him in spite of the bitter January chill. “That’s real great of you.” Babe runs a hand through his hair again, almost awkward, though the way he bounces on his heels dulls any tension between them. “I mean, I still feel bad —“

“Uber’s coming in two minutes,” Gene observes.

“Right! Umm, umm, ya know what —“ Babe snaps his fingers, then suddenly lunges forward, gesturing towards the phone in Gene’s hand. “My number! Is that okay? I could give you, and then, we could just —“

“Sure,” Gene says, in the same second as Babe blurts out, “Yeah?” They blink at each other for a second before Gene echoes, “Yeah,” and Babe exclaims “Sorry”, still at the same time.

As Babe claps a hand over his mouth, he can’t seem to help snorting. “Jesus Christ, I’m a lot better at this when I’m less sober — swear to you, just gimme the chance to prove it. My number, it’s 215—“

Gene’s quick fingers tap the number into his contacts, despite the chill gradually creeping its way into each digit. He titles the contact “Edward”... and then, after a second thought, adds “Babe” in parentheses. Just to keep from mixing him up with Cousin Edward from Lafayette. 

A sleek grey car sidles up to the curb. Gene checks the license plate and nods towards it. 

“That’s your ride,” he says, and the weight of parting presses down against his chest until his ribs creak beneath it. “See you… around then, Edward.”

“Edward?” A squawk like that has no right to sound damn charming . “Aww, c’mon, what’d I just say —“

“Save ‘Babe’ for the second date,” Julian advises, still flat on the ground. His friend aims a precise kick to his ribs; grunting, Julian jolts upright, only to be hauled to his feet by Babe’s grip on the collar of his jacket. They lead each other forward, both stumbling over their own feet — though for Babe, that might be just the effort of leading his friend along. Or the vodka schnapps. Hard to be sure.

At the last moment, Babe looks up through the Uber’s brightly lit window and raises a hand to Gene. Gene waves back, half-smiling, until the car pulls away.

Left alone on a street corner at well past three in the morning, he sighs and tucks his phone back in his pocket. It’s an ungodly hour; he’s got work tomorrow; his schedule can barely accommodate his body’s inconvenient need for sleep, let alone falling in love.

But maybe, just maybe, Gene can fit in a few extra shifts at Smokey’s sometime soon.

[luminescentauthor]

Enami Amiya Information

For Amiya’s character profile and pictures, click here! I recommend reading that first for context on Amiya.

Perpetually 110% done with the disaster lesbians she calls friends

Futaba: I know right??? They’re awful

Amiya: just because you’re better than them doesn’t mean you aren’t terrible, Futaba-san. I’ve seen you with Kaoruko-san.

Futaba: *sputtering*

Grew up in America with her moms, moved to Japan at the start of her first year in high school (the start of Karen and crew’s second year).

Her name means “Night rain” -- I didn’t choose her name with any meaning in mind, that’s just what I found when I looked it up. However, it is fitting.

Chronic insomniac, cause un-diagnosed. She takes about two hours and a half to fall asleep on average. Her doctors in America said it might be RLS, a weird case of fibromyalgia, or a lack of the neurotransmitters required to put the body to sleep. Might be something else entirely. In any case, Amiya can’t sleep unless she’s physically exhausted, and has as such adopted a habit of over-working herself and exercising at weird hours.

Japanese is her third language after English and French (both of which she speaks fluently) and she struggles with it quite a bit. Add that to starting the school year two weeks late, and Amiya is having a really hard time making friends in her year. While she has long spoken Japanese at a conversational level, she’s not good enough to use it day in and day out. This goes double for when she’s tired or sleep-deprived. And she’s usually sleep-deprived.

In acting, Amiya is extremely expressive in her face and voice. It’s something about her that gets noted a lot.

Amiya has high trust for her instincts and will immediately leap backwards if she meets someone like Michiru. She’s also dealt with her fair share of two-faced folks, and is utterly unafraid to call them out.

Blunt as they come and swears way too much in all 3 languages

When she decided she like someone, she calls them by their first name or a nickname.

She mostly wears sweatshirts, leather jackets, ripped jeans, and converse. Telling her to “act like a girl” will get you punched in the face faster than anything else in your life.

Always wears a simple black band choker that sort of be seen in one of the images in the post linked above. Usually wears stud earrings in black, blue, or silver, but sometimes goes red, white, gold, or purple. Wears smaller silver studs with her school uniform.

Speaking of which, she has what can only be a chronic inability to wear her uniform right??? She usually doesn’t do up the top button of her shirt, the bow is 95% of the time undone and draped around her neck like bow ties sometimes are, and no one knows where she left her jacket. Shirt sleeves are often rolled up to her elbows. Always wears her choker, too. Absolute refusal to wear the uniform shoes, instead shoes like Toms or some neutral colored semi-formal looking sneakers.

(The uniforms shoes actually hurt her feet, and when she explains on day #1 that she doesn’t think she can perform her best if forced to wear shoes that hurt her feet, the teachers agree and make an exception. AmiyaRelief.jpg. So the shoes were never against the rules because Amiya addressed that issue with the teachers as soon as she realized there was a problem.)

Still, she gets punished for wearing her uniform wrong. For. Months. Until the teachers tell her that if she doesn’t wear it right she can’t transfer up, and she merely blinks at them and carries on doing what she does as always, and they officially give up when she transfers because as it turns out, the principal does not care if Amiya wears her uniform wrong sometimes, she’s moving Amiya up a class anyway.

Do not get Amiya started on her hair she won’t shut up for an hour. She hates hair maintenance and her naturally wavy hair is very prone to tangling and very disinclined towards detangling. She owns like fifty different hair products and hates it. She’s constantly threatening to get an undercut and just be done with it. Futaba suggests getting a cut like her own, but some reason Amiya’s brain is dead set on Long Or Undercut. (She just doesn’t like bobs that much, dude.)

Amiya can’t get along with her fellow Seisho first years to save her life. Frankly, Amiya struggles with people in general, since she’s blunt and has a penchant for getting into fights. Combine that with a language barrier and the fact that she joined the class two weeks in (due to personal life problems; see the fourth to last bullet point under “The Parents!”), and, well, Amiya has basically no friends.

Then she meets Claudine, who speaks fluent French -- which Amiya also speaks! Amiya is so relieved she’s much more inclined towards being friendly than usual, and Claudine is hardly the type to be deterred by a prickly personality anyway (she eats lunch with Maya, guys.)

Claudine eventually finds out that Amiya eats all alone and either tells Maya she’s going to eat with a friend or vanishes without explanation, depending on how prideful she’s feeling. Maya is probably confused the first time this happens, goes to eat with their other friends the second, but as it starts happening with more and more frequency, she eventually confronts Claudine about it. (Amiya has told Claudine to go eat with her friends. Claudine ignored her.) Claudine probably first tells Maya it’s none of her business, but when pressed, says that she’s spending time with a friend who eats alone. She introduces the two and they take to eating lunch all three of them.

Then Claudine learns that Amiya’s first language is English, and introduces her to Hikari.

Amiya has maybe never been so happy in her life, because suddenly she has people around to translate for her when her brain shorts out on her and gives her the wrong language. She can always provide English or French, if not both, it’s Japanese that she struggles with.

When Amiya has to ask Hikari to translate because both French and Japanese are failing, at first Hikari seems indifferent, but she soon starts doing this small affectionate smile whenever Amiya asks for help. It’s pretty obvious she has a growing soft spot for her.

They don’t seem like they’d be friends, but soon enough they get along like a house on fire. They can often be seen whispering to each other in English and giggling. (It is usually memes and/or Amiya giving Hikari a hard time for being a disaster lesbian.)

Amiya, Claudine, and Maya just start eating lunch with the rest of the main nine. Amiya is happy for the first time in a while.

Seisho does a cross-year session and given what Amiya is like, the second years are kind of surprised that she seems to shrink in on herself on the stage? However: they’re doing improv. (Languagebarrierfear.jpg) Amiya explains that later with a sigh. Probably doesn’t eat lunch with the squad that day though, and has to be hunted down in order for the explanation to be gotten.

Anyway during a second cross-year session Amiya has memorized the script and the meaning so knows what she’s doing. And they’re astounded by the difference, because Amiya is clearly very skilled. She’s the kind of actress who projects the kind of confidence that comes from years of practice and being on stage, and her body, in particular, is very expressive.

The second session is after Amiya has already made a decision: she wants to transfer to the 99th class. Because she already knows the material in her current classes, she doesn’t have any friends, and she think she’ll do better with the help of people who she likes and can help her translate.

When she approaches her parents to ask them to talk to the school board, they have an extensive conversation about what this means for Amiya. Amiya is aware that it means a lot of work, but points out that the teacher is covering points that Amiya already knows - her problem is Japanese.

Amiya transfer up to the 99th class after her mom, an alum, speaks with the school board and she covers the material. See, Amiya, being a chronic insomniac and a chronic troublemaker, is unafraid of picking the locks on the training rooms for the purpose of practicing for longer than most people. (They eventually just give her keys when she asks for them.) She also stays up late covering academic material. Since she has no friends in her year, she also doesn’t socialize a lot.

Like mentioned in the bullet point about her insomnia, Amiya doesn’t sleep much, and sleeps best when physically exhausted. If she’s going to spend two hours staring at the ceiling if she doesn’t exercise, she’d much rather be productive. This is the main thing that enables Amiya’s transfer -- she overworks herself. That, plus the fact that her mom is a famous actress and alum.

By the time she transfers, Amiya has finally gotten the hang of Japanese and grown confident in it and she just clicks. Suddenly everyone in the 99th class understands why Amiya had no fear of being subpar in acting despite struggling with Japanese. She’s not just good -- she’s spectacular, an absolute glory to watch. Her voice has completely changed, rising and falling, incredibly expressive, and -- oh, is this what she was like before she had to change languages? 

Claudine had thought to look up Amiya’s old performances, and a fair number were recorded, so there were clips online, and she had undeniably had far more confidence in them, but Claudine didn’t understand English fluently, and in Japanese, it’s even better. She’s stunned. Everyone is. Also very impressed.

Amiya first joins the revues shortly after joining the 99th class. She’s had one or two, probably, when she has one against Nana, who is warned to be cautious by Maya. Nana brushes the warning off, and this is... a mistake.

Amiya’s movements are not what any of them are used to. Amiya, unlike the rest of them, is trained with a literal, actual sword, and has been fencing since she was pretty little (see the “Parents” section for more.) Nana is ambidextrous, and Amiya is less so but her sheer skill makes up for it and more.

(In this, Nana fights with her anime weapon. Double katana, rather than a katana and wakizashi set, as she does in the stage plays. I don’t care. I watched the anime first; deal with it. I gave Amiya the same weapon without knowing that’s what Nana fought with.)

Amiya kind of blindsides Nana with her different fighting style, and wins. See, most stage girls put drama > fighting skill. Amiya, on the other hand does not; one of her moms is a casual martial artist, the other is a professional fencer, and Amiya is feisty and gets detention for getting into fights all the time — she’s gotten better about that since coming to Japan, but she’s still got a lot of experience. Amiya is efficient and cutting with her movements, and does not bother swinging her sword around needlessly when she’s fighting (though she does twirl it around a lot when she’s not engaged.) She’s still a stage girl, and sings and dances extremely well, but she’s a stage girl who can and will kick your ass in the street with her bare hands, and, well, her origins in fighting are very clear.

The Giraffe is mildly displeased. Amiya tells the Giraffe in no uncertain terms where he can stick his displeasure. 

Claudine doesn’t stop laughing for a solid fifteen minutes.

LOTS more info below the cut!

Relationships:

One of Amiya’s closest friends is Siegfeld third year Takayama Naoko, who only ever goes by Nao. She belongs to @revueofblue​!

Amiya is Nao’s entire common sense and Nao is the only thing stopping Amiya from self-destructing, because Amiya has terrible coping mechanisms. 

Nao: CrypticSmile.jpg

Amiya: You Stop That Right Now

But hurt one of them and the other one will come for you, no questions asked.

“Amiya-chan not sleeping for two days and trying to fight everyone who enters your vicinity is not how you cope with emotional distress?”

“Nao-san I really wish I could sleep but in case you’ve forgotten: I’M INSOMNIAC.”

“Okay yeah but that doesn’t make what you’re doing any less stupid-”

Her closest Seisho friends, in order of closeness, are Claudine, Maya, Hikari, Futaba, Junna, Mahiru, Karen, Nana, and Kaoruko.

She has a sister-like relationship with both Claudine and, later, Maya.

She and Hikari mostly bond over making fun of Americans because Amiya might be American but she is totally down for clowning them (I say, as an American who’s favorite pastime is making fun of my idiot country.)

She and Futaba get along like a house on fire once Amiya transfers up. They both excel at fight scenes, are blunt, and have no patience left for putting up with the disaster lesbians they call friends.

Amiya’s first inter-school friend is Rui! She’s super curious about kendō. Rui, on the other hand, is quite interested in western athletic fencing. Mei Fan soon joins them. They basically bond over “we’re first years who want to fight things”

Still, a lot of other first years are intimidated by her, because she skipped up a year. At one of the most prestigious performance academies in the country.

Rui, however, is having none of this, and drags her to meet Yuyuko and crew

Doesn’t super get along with Yachiyo. Really doesn’t like Michiru.

Everyone, upon seeing Amiya hiss and jump back from Michiru: What.

Amiya: she has Bad Vibes okay????

There are year-group meetings among the four main schools’ revue-involved students. Amiya is kind of a member of neither the first or second years. Rui and Mei Fan are the ones who drag her to the first year group.

Tamao is actually the one who takes her to the second year group. (Her own second years just like. Aren’t used to thinking of her as a second year. Junna, after Amiya shows up hiding behind Tamao, feels awful and takes it upon herself to make Amiya comfortable.)

Amiya tends to stick to the first years after they decide they like her and need not be intimidated, though, since she’s uncomfortable with Michiru and prefers folks her own age.

Fumi takes an immediate liking to Amiya. You want blunt? You got it. Lots of folks don’t like Amiya because they don’t like being smacked in the face with the brutal truth, and Amiya is smart, observant, and unafraid to tell it like it is.

Fumi, on the other hand, takes one look at this girl who gets into fights three times a month and has no filter and goes, “Oh I like this one Tamao can we keep her”

This ends up backfiring a bit because Amiya takes one look at her relationship with Shiori and goes “What the fuck were you thinking? Just reconnect with her? The longer you put it off the worse it’s going to be. you’re just running away. It’s one thing to leave a toxic environment like Siegfeld, and another to avoid your problems.”

(And Fumi can admit in hindsight that she maybe kind of sort of needed to hear it.)

Not super close with anyone from Frontier. All of them are pretty happy-go-lucky and Amiya is very... not. Has a very amiable relationship with Misora though, they get along quite well until Aruru crashes their conversation, and then it’s chaos. Good chaos, though.

Fighting Style:

Weapons: Stormbringers, daishō (katana and wakizashi set). Unnamed tantō (knife that is technically a sword with about an 18 cm [7″] blade) strapped to her thigh, hidden under her skirt.

Note: Banana uses a daishō in the stage play and I’m pretty sure in the game as well; however, since I watched the anime first, I’m familiar with her sword that splits into two swords. I did not intentionally give Amiya the same weapon.

She wears her katana on her back and her wakizashi at her left hip. Learning how to draw it with her left hand was a process. (Traditionally, they are both worn at the left hip.)

She doesn’t use sheaths. There’s two holds on her back, one for just below the handle and one for the point; the wakizashi is only held in place by partial sheath that covers the six inches of the blade right below the handle. How she hasn’t killed herself yet is a mystery. (At first, she actually did use sheaths, but they kept getting in her way.)

ReLive! Position: Front-line attacker. Sits just behind the tanks and specializes in dishing out high damage to a single opponent.

Amiya, being trained in fencing from a young age by her professional fencer mother, has done it on the side of acting for most of her life; she only dropped it when she moved to Japan. And she was never a star fencer, she wouldn’t get first at tournaments, but she was consistently up there in the top ten. She competed in saber.

When cornered or nervous in a revue, she will often drop into a traditional athletic fencing stance. Then she’ll shift out of it, because you’re holding a katana, Amiya, not a saber-

(Note that tournaments often overlapped with plays and tech week and this got really tough really quickly. Add this to the summers and holidays Amiya spent overseas in France or Japan with family, and committing to fencing was hard. This is sad, actually, because Amiya could have been a stellar fencer, and she really likes the sport.)

Amiya has since adapted that skill to traditional Japanese weapons. While the moves and fighting style are totally different, the instincts she’s built up are not gone. And Amiya has found ways to transfer a lot of her skills; her style is an nontraditional blend of the Western fencing sport and the Japanese tradition of sword-work. This makes her a tough opponent, because you aren’t going to find that mix in stage girls often. The only one who handles it well is Hikari, who competed against Western stage girls before.

Amiya also learned martial arts, mostly for the purpose of exercise and self-defense. She’s never really trained formally, but since other mom does martial arts pretty seriously, she learned from her. Amiya later adapts her bad coping mechanism of “punch things/people” into “practice marital arts with breathing exercises.” Takes it up formally in addition to school at some point during the year she starts doing revues, for the sake of her mental health. She finds the repetition of practice calming. She doesn’t even go “hey this will make me a better fighter,” but then it does, so.

Did I make her OP?

Maybe.

She mostly uses the skill for foot sweeps with close-range opponents.

As mentioned above, she also got in fights WAY too much back in America (and has scars to prove it, mostly on her hands but a couple others too) and while she’s gotten better about that since coming to Japan, she still has street-fighting skills.

She’s most dangerous as a one-on-one opponent. If you want to take her down, you need to outnumber her, and even then she is still a very dangerous opponent. Her dual swords permit her to take down multiple low-level opponents pretty quickly.

You also do not want to be a short-range fighter when you’re up against Amiya. You would much rather be like, Junna or Aruru or Yachiyo.

If Amiya is stuck at long range from you, she’s mildly screwed, but Amiya is more than capable of dodging projectiles, so it’s just a matter of “can you take Amiya down faster than she can reach you” and while that’s actually a pretty decent opening assuming you keep moving, it’s not a massive one.

Amiya is also just like “No one ever said I couldn’t just yank your button off with my hand. Who cares if it isn’t poetic? I still win.” And given that most stage girls don’t have that attitude, it tends to catch people off guard.

Physically, she’s all wiry muscle. She’s very strong, even though you wouldn’t immediately know if you were just looking at her. She can lift a fair amount of weight.

She’s not very fast as a whole, but she doesn’t need to be, because her sword work is. Have you ever watched a fencing match? They’re as fast as bats out of hell. It’s impossible to follow with the naked eye.

It’s not innate speed; it’s skill, pure and simple. She’s not the type who can dart in and out of a fray with a knife. It’s a matter of hand and footwork. Her speed comes from the efficiency of her movements. A single twirl of the wrist allows you to dodge your opponent’s parry and get in a successful hit, and the like.

(I’m not a serious fencer. I fenced for maybe four months some three years ago before dropping it due a combination of lack of interest, asthma, and the fact that I pulled this one muscle in my left leg some three times. Still, I do know the basics.)

Regarding the tantō: Amiya only draws her knife when she’s been disarmed of both swords. There is an explanation for Amiya carrying a second weapon. It’s actually her mother’s old revue weapon, though Amiya doesn’t know that. It has three main purposes:

One, she’s been disarmed and needs a surprise attack to take off the opponent’s coat while they’re gloating. I will not name who she does this to, but it’s the first time anyone finds out that Amiya is the only stage girl who gets a secondary weapon in addition to her main. (Since dual-wielded weapons count as the same primary weapon.) 

Two, surprise throwing weapon. She takes off one or two people’s coats this way by just yeeting it at them with deadly accuracy from across the stage. Also yeets it at the Giraffe at least once. (Amiya can and will strangle that Giraffe one day. Maya is down to help.)

Three, defense. Amiya can draw her tantō faster than even her wakizashi, and can use it to block most attacks; as physically fit as most stage girls are, most of them don’t lift weights because some stigma about “putting on muscle.” Amiya has no such qualms, and definitely lifts weights. By putting one hand on the handle and the other on the flat of the blade (as Karen does a few times in the anime), she can block most attacks by making sure the weapons collide where she wants them to and by using her strength advantage. This obviously goes double if Amiya’s been disarmed and needs to get her swords back.

The Parents!

Amiya’s French-American mom (who she just calls “mom” in English) is named Kyrielle; her Japanese mom (aka “okaa-chan”) is named Hoshiko

Amiya’s moms are the best

Kyrielle means “poetess” (French name)

Hoshiko means “star” (Japanese name)

When Amiya was two, her moms moved from Japan to America for a number of reasons. One, Kyrielle had lived in Japan for a couple years but had decided to pursue fencing at the professional level and wanted to do it in a country where she had citizenship (fair). Two, to live with Kyrielle’s family, as they were very young when they had Amiya, and needed financial support. While Hoshiko’s family was willing to provide, Kyrielle’s family simply had more money.

Kyrielle’s father was not happy to hear that his daughter a) was in a relationship with a woman and b) was in a relationship with a pregnant woman. Kyrielle’s mother, Elayna, responded by physically punching him when he started on a homophic rant and getting a divorce.

Elayna is a retired actress; her name means “shining light”

Kyrielle has a younger twin named Chlarinda, also an actress, who lives in Paris. Chlarinda means bright, clear, dazzling, and intense.

Hoshiko is a talented actress and Seisho alum; she moved to America to pursue a career in Hollywood. She does martial arts in her free time, and all her own stunts until recently (“I’m getting old, Amiya, that’s why.”)

Kyrielle is a recently-retired professional fencer. She went to the Olympics three times, the most recent time being about a year ago. She’s planning on opening a fencing studio soon. They’re both 34. They were 18/19-ish when Amiya was born. Like I said. Very young.

Pursing active careers that require a lot of travel in addition to raising a child was hard, but both of them say it was more than worth it. Still, Amiya often spent summers with family in France (since Chlarinda lives there) or California (where Hoshiko’s older brother lives with his family, since he works in the tech industry and met his American partner while living in Santa Clara.) They both try really hard to have an active part in Amiya’s life, but like... transitioning to dorms is not hard for Amiya. Actually, since Kyrielle has retired, she gets to see her a lot more.

Despite having spent infant-hood in Japan and spending a lot of time around her Japanese relatives, Amiya’s Japanese is still kind of sub-par. This is mostly accidental. Her parents mostly spoke English to her to help her learn the language in their new country, and most of her relatives speak English, so there was never any need for her to speak fluent Japanese (though she has long since spoken it at a conversational level.) 

Kyrielle lived in Japan as a foreign exchange student during high school, which is when she met and fell for Hoshiko. The two eventually started a secret relationship after a lot of pursuit on Kyrielle’s behalf, because Hoshiko was pretty afraid of homophobia and her family disapproving (her family, as it turns out, was confused and surprised but overall chill with it.)

Hoshiko’s father got very ill shortly before our story begins, and Hoshiko went to go stay with him, leaving Kyrielle and Amiya in America. Kyrielle and Amiya eventually followed after a lot of lengthy conversations between all three of them about Amiya’s education and social life, but Amiya was drawn to the idea of an acting-focused school, which isn’t a huge thing in the States. (She hadn’t realized how big the language barrier would be.)

Kyrielle now lives in an apartment in Tokyo, and Hoshiko is there most of the time, but takes frequent trips to check on her parents. They’re roughly a half hour commute from Amiya, so she usually visits them on weekends.

Hoshiko is looking into getting jobs in Japanese film. The moms have agreed on one thing very strongly: they are not uprooting Amiya’s life again.

Especially not since Amiya has found what she struggled to find even back in America: real, true friends, in Claudine and Maya. Claudine actually comes over for dinner with the moms quite a few times. Maybe all three of them give her a hard time about her Big Lesbian Crush on Maya and how she needs to woman up and confess.

Let’s be real: Claudine is just an Enami now. They’re kind of her third family after the school squad and her bio family.

Regarding the two moms thing: 

Amiya is actually their Entire Biological Child. When she asked about it when she was a toddler, she was hastily told some story about an experimental procedure.

We’re waiting for the day when Amiya thinks on it again for so much as a tenth of a second and goes “wAIT-”

”Wait, but how do two women have a biological daughter???” you may ask. Well, one of them is a former stage girl. Stage girls can interact with giraffes and wacky shit. Make the rest up yourself.

(No but there is actually a story there, and a long one, but not for today.)

But for a little hint: Like I said, they were 18/19 when Amiya was born. They wanted a child, but it was sort of... crazy. All happened at once.

[ice-cream-nekogirl]

The Zombie Trio~! 

A trio of misfit teenagers and best friends who are tired of all the bullshit in their lives and taking a stand for themselves together. They’re fierce, sassy and powerful, but also silly and love to have a good time, especially with one another and the rest of their classmates in the Hero Course. 

(From Left to Right): Ashlen Kyanse (OC), Amy Martinez (OC) and Hitoshi Shinsou (Canon)

Note: This is all fiction and part of a fanfiction that my girl @ashleigh-luvs-14cats and I collab on~!  And I felt like making TV Tropes for our group that we made in the fanfics with Shinsou~! :3 

Adorkable: The three of them are pretty quirky and dorky in ways that make them quite endearing, especially when they start singing and dancing together or taking goofy pictures and playing games with each other.

Affectionate Nickname: They give each other a LOT of cutesy nicknames.

Amy has ‘Ames’ (by both Shinsou and Ashlen), Witchy (by Ashlen) and Dummy (by Shinsou)

Ashlen has ‘Ash’ (by both Amy and Shinsou), Love (by Shinsou) and Honey (by Amy)

Shinsou has ‘Toshi’ (by both Amy and Ashlen), Tosh (by Amy) and My Heart (by Ashlen)

All of The Other Reindeer: All three of them have experienced rejection and bullying from their peers simply for being different from other people.

Amy was mocked for supposedly being ‘quirkless’ and then later when she discovers that she’s a witch, the pro-heroes felt too intimidated to care for her so they abandoned her and left her in the care of other witches. But even in America after the coven was outed to the world she was bullied by other witches for her quirky personality.

Ashlen had no friends in her school upon being moved to America and taken in by a rich family, because her peers thought she was snobby or dangerous to be around once some of her peers pretended to be her friend and discovered her second quirk.

Shinsou’s only real friend was Amy while other kids picked on him or made him a scapegoat because they called his quirk ‘villainous’ and he was ignored by his peers, who also called him a ‘future villain’ and as a result he had no other friends except for Amy.

Ambiguous Disorder: All three of them have some variety of undiagnosed mental health issues that shows up from time to time but it’s never confirmed.

Iida believes that Amy has some sort of Bipolar Disorder or Borderline Personality Disorder due to her mood swings, lashing out, risky behaviors, unstable relationships and extreme fear of abandonment. However, Amy’s inability to control her emotions and relationship difficulties and triggers that come from either certain events or certain people also highly resemble Complex Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Although Amy also shows many signs of Depression as well since she’s had moments of self-loathing, suicidal thoughts and detaches herself from loved ones when her intrusive thoughts haunt her.

Ashlen, similarly, has several moments of anxiety, self-loathing, depression, panic attacks and overwhelming emotional reactions especially when she is triggered by her painful memories to the point where she needs her dog The Colonel for emotional support and takes medication to regulate her troubled emotions. Implying that she may have some sort of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or Depression, as she, like Amy, suffers from self-hatred and also has a poor self-image that adds to her own intrusive thoughts.

Likewise, Shinsou is prone to panic attacks, night terrors and anxiety when he’s overwhelmed, has poor sleeping patterns  (that may indicate some form of insomnia), poor coping mechanisms (eating and over-indulgence) and moments of self-loathing, intrusive and troubling thoughts, and anxiety imply that like Amy and Ashlen, he may have some type of Depression.  

Anti-Hero Team: All three of them count, while Amy and Shinsou are straight examples of anti-heroes by being selfish and/or rude troublemakers who look out mainly for themselves but still have the goal of being heroes and do occasionally do the right thing. Ashlen is more of a Classical Anti-Hero as her insecurities are the only thing holding her back rather than a compromised morality.

Badass Crew: They’re all capable of fighting villains on their own, but together they’re quite a force to be reckoned with as their classmates each dread the idea of taking on all three of them together as a crew due to Amy’s magic, Ashlen cancel quirk and Shinsou’s brainwashing.

Beauty, Brains and Brawn: Sweet and bright Ashlen is the Beauty, sarcastic and gloomy Shinsou is the Brains while impulsive and magical Amy is the Brawn.

Beware The Silly Ones: They love to joke around with others, especially people they think are stupid, but are NOT to be underestimated.

Amy embodies this trope, as she certainly looks like a harmless and ditsy girl but she’s an extremely powerful witch who can hex, jinx and curse people, and is very easily provoked.

Shinsou doesn’t look like a silly guy, but he’s pretty deadpan, witty and can easily join in Amy’s wackiness from time to time (esp. when Panic! At The Disco is involved), but he’s still a proficient fighter and knows how to brainwash people just like that especially when angry.

Ashlen is the least silly of the three as well as the nicest, but she does have a sense of humor and can joke around just as much as Amy and Shinsou, however angering her  is a very, very bad idea since she’s very good with swords and WILL paralyze your ass if you piss her off.

Birds of A Feather/Not So Different: Two introverts and an introverted extrovert, while they seem pretty opposite at first glance, the three of them actually have a LOT in common with each other.

Amy and Shinsou relate to feeling discriminated and hated by others for having ‘villainous’ powers, and they’re both equally witty and mischievous and have been friends since childhood because of this. And Amy and Ashlen are probably more different than her and Shinsou, but Ashlen has a similar sense of humor and tastes in movies, cartoons and music, as well as feelings of loneliness and isolation that enables the girls to bond. And then Ashlen and Shinsou can bond over having very practical quirks, while she’s a nicer person than he is, he gets along with her great because they’re both introverts, insecure by nature and then they also discover that they’re both pretty smart-alecky and learn to appreciate each other to the point where they start dating. 

The Caretaker: They each can act as this towards one another. Ashlen is the prime example as she often plays mother hen to both Amy and Shinsou by making sure they’re both healthy and feeling secure. Shinsou also acted as one to Amy before Ashlen by making sure the witch was feeling okay and recovering from an incident. But he can also easily take care of Ashlen, especially when she is suffering from a panic attack or is in need of comfort. And while Amy is usually being cared for by either Shinsou or Ashlen, she can still play the role just as well by checking up on either one, whether it’s consoling Shinsou when he’s upset, or spending time with Ashlen and comforting her when she’s sad or overwhelmed.

Color-Coded Characters: They each have their own different colors schemes, Amy (Pink), Ashlen (Blue) and Shinsou (Purple).

Comic Trio: Downplayed due to Shinsou and Ashlen being far more level-headed than Amy.

Amy is usually the schemer who comes up with the crazy ideas, Shinsou isn’t a Fool by any means but nonetheless tends to follow Amy’s lead because he thinks it’ll be hilarious, while Ashlen plays the Only Sane Man and attempts (but usually fails) at reigning the two of them in.

Dance Battler: They’re all quite proficient in dancing.

Amy is the only one who hasn’t had any professional training in dancing, but she learns how to be quite good at it by watching videos and is good at physical comedy and making funny faces to make her dancing very entertaining and impossible to not watch. Although she does later get lessons so she can dance with Bakugo. 

Ashlen is the only one of three to be considered a dancer as she has had professional training and is highly skilled in ballet, waltzing, salsa and other forms of dance, is very flexible and can also perform some very impressive flips, pirouettes and spins that make her a marvel to watch and she also can utilize some dance moves in combat.

Shinsou had to take dance lessons for a school play during the second Culture Festival, as he had no real training in dancing and merely danced along with Amy but also learned watching some videos, especially ones with Yanis Marshall and gradually became a skilled dancer.

Dark and Troubled Past: They all carry some emotional baggage from their pasts, which actually enables them to bond because they all agree that they’re each ‘pretty fucked up’.

Amy was discriminated against because she was believed to be quirkless as her powers didn’t start manifesting until she was 9 years old. When she found out her witch heritage, hunters emerged from the shadows and killed her parents by burning her mother and lynching her father, while the pro-heroes saved her from getting killed they gave her away to Fiona to live at the coven in New Orleans, which forced Amy to leave Shinsou. The coven was small but very dysfunctional under Fiona’s neglectful care and undermining Cordelia as Amy tried and failed to have her sisters get along. And then Amy witnessed several murders, bloodshed and betrayal that traumatized her into the hardened but unstable girl she is today and she still has anger and abandonment issues.

Ashlen had a normal and happy life complete with an ordinary but useful quirk, but All For One arrived one fateful night and murdered her parents right before her eyes and then implanted her second quirk in her which was extremely painful and nearly killed her. Although the Sennen family adopted her, she was ostracized by her peers  at school who either thought she was a monster due to her second quirk or believed her to be snobby and entitled due to her family namesake. Then what friends she did made turned out to be fake who only used her in an attempt to make themselves look better. As a result, Ashlen grew up reserved, distrusting of others and fearful of herself due to her unstable powers and still suffers from self-esteem issues and a guilt complex.

Shinsou came from a normal family, but because of his brainwashing quirk he also faced some discrimination as his peers and even some teachers deemed it a ‘villainous quirk’ which diminished his self-esteem especially when students either bullied him or when his classmates deliberately ignored him and pretended he didn’t exist. While he had Amy to make it better, her leaving made him feel more alone than before. Without his only friend, he became much colder and more distant, which made him an easier target. In middle school, he acted out times by brainwashing two bullies into beating each other up, while he mellowed out in the 9th grade, he became much more cynical and aloof, having no desire to make friends until Amy returned in his life.

Dysfunction Junction: Despite getting along really well, they’re not immune to bickering, especially Amy and Shinsou, with Ashlen having to play the peacekeeper and break them up. And then Shinsou often acts as Amy’s enabler and lets her do anything she wants (much to Ashlen’s disapproval), particularly when the witch is in a bad mood with Ashlen uncertain of how to approach her and vice-versa, Amy can easily enable Shinsou when he’s in a bad mood. At times the three end up walking on eggshells around each other when things get tense. Which is ultimately why Amy says they’re more like family than a mere friendship because they actually deal with important things beyond school.

Exhausted Eyebags: All three of them sport them from time to time. Shinsou’s are almost always prominent, but Amy and Ashlen’s eyebags show when they’re overwhelmed or anxious. Although Amy’s are also more prominent when she’s angry or in a foul mood. In fact, this trait is also partially why they called themselves ‘The Zombie Trio’.

Fighter, Mage, Thief: Ashlen is the (Fighter) due to her swordsmanship, expert combat skills and speed she utilizes for her Cancel quirk and she’s the one who’s mostly on the straight and narrow. Amy is the (Mage) as she’s a witch with several powers and can use 6 of the 7 wonders that she uses any chance needed. And Shinsou is the (Thief), having to rely on being manipulative and sneaky for his Brainwashing quirk to work and allow him to trick and deceive opponents.

Fruedian Trio:

Amy is the emotional, reckless and borderline psychotic Id

Ashlen is the calm, collected and grounded Ego

Shinsou is the logical, deadpan and pragmatic Superego

Gasshole: They sometimes casually engage in burping contests between each other, especially Amy and Shinsou, joined by Kaminari and Kirishima, with Amy and Shinsou being quite proficient in the ‘art of burping’. But to their surprise, Ashlen herself can belt out some fairly impressive, unladylike belches when she loosens up and plays around with them.

Amy: YAY! Ash! You’re as nasty as we are!

Good Is Not Soft: Amy and Shinsou are trouble-makers but also training to be heroes and Ashlen is the nicest of the three, but neither three of them are pushovers and have no issue roughing up villains or playing dirty if needed.

Good Parents: They each have some pretty decent and upright parental figures in their lives.

While Amy had an Abusive Parent in Fiona, Cordelia is Amy’s godmother  who loves her unconditionally although she is prone to spoiling her too. But she never stops looking out for her and is very supportive of her. Amy’s biological mother and father were very loving towards her and comforted her in their final moments.

Shinsou’s mother and father support and love him and always express pride in their son for getting himself in the Hero Course. They’re also Good Parents to Amy, despite her not being their biological child.

Ashlen’s biological mother and father were great parents who adored their daughter, and Ashlen’s parental figures that include her sisters and adoptive father also love her dearly and look out for her.

Heartbreak and Ice Cream: Their go-to whenever one of them is extremely depressed and upset, as Amy shamelessly drinks soda and binge-eats cookies, chocolate, candy and ice cream when she’s sad, and then she has no issue sharing her sweets with Ashlen and Shinsou. Ashlen, a sweet tooth herself sometimes may have a soda and some sweets when she’s sad, and even Shinsou has no shame in eating cookies and ice cream when he’s upset or heartbroken.

In-Series Nickname: Bakugo has nicknames for each of them, calling Amy ‘Witch Bitch’, Shinsou ‘Eyebags’ and Ashlen ‘Princess’.

Likewise, Madison tends to call Amy ‘Hermione’, Shinsou ‘Purplehead’ and Ashlen ‘Ellen Ripley’.

Interclass Friendship: A variation as each of them come from a unique background that doesn’t at all affect their friendship.

Amy, while she used to come from a normal upper middle-class family with a mother who was both a witch and a hero, she later had to move with the coven, an independent group of socialites and politically active witches who descended from Salem. Whom are also warriors who act as allies for hero society and Amy being something of an upper-class socialite and witch warrior.

Ashlen also came from a pretty normal upper-middle class family, but she was taken in by the Sennen family. A royal family  that dates back to the ancient times of the pharaohs and is connected with Magic and spirit energy lead by two powerful women and Ashlen’s adoptive sisters and royal-like figures. Making Ashlen a princess of sorts, but she’s still  a fighter from a high class family.

Shinsou is the only one who comes from a relatively normal family with his parents having modest occupations and his father being a doctor rather than a hero, so his family makes good enough money for Shinsou to be considered upper middle class but unlike Amy and Ashlen, his family has no connections.

Kiddie Kid: In a way, all three of them oscillate between endearing acting-their-age childishness and adult-like maturity. Although it’s Played Straight with Amy, Downplayed with Shinsou and Ashlen.

Amy’s pretty impulsive and immature, even enjoying things that would probably be more suited for pre-teens (toys, cute things, etc.) and still likes playing childish games like Hide and Seek and Tag You’re It.

Shinsou, despite being more mature than Amy, laughs at some of her childish jokes, isn’t above playing along with her games (especially Tag) and can sometimes be just as immature (if not more so) as Amy. 

Ashlen is actually the most mature of the three, but she can also loosen up enough to play around and fun with Amy and she enjoys the same cute things and toys that Amy likes.

Lame Comeback: Amy, Ashlen and Shinsou are usually pretty witty but when they’re too angry they usually make some lame remarks when they’re too upset to think of anything good.  

Like An Old Married Couple: At times the three resemble a family, with Ashlen being ‘The Mommy’ of the group, Shinsou being ‘The Daddy’ and Amy being ‘the Child’. Shinsou often enables Amy’s antics, but knows how to dish out Toguh Love when needed, and Ashlen, although nurturing and loving, encourages Shinsou to not be so lenient on Amy, their hyperactive, mischievous best friend. It’s even more prominent when Shinsou and Ashlen are discussing and/or arguing about Amy’s behavior as if they were parents talking about their child and even dote on her at times. Likewise, Amy at times can cling to either Ashlen or Shinsou if they were a mom and dad, and also going to Shinsou when she wants something from him, and Ashlen when in need for emotional support. 

Like Brother and Sister: Amy and Shinsou are very much like brother and sister, and Amy considers Ashlen like a sister to her and all three of them function together like a family.

Living Emotional Crutch: All three of them function as this to each other in some way.

Amy says that Shinsou’s the only reason she came back to Japan and doesn’t know what she’d do without him as she suffers an emotional breakdown at the thought of not having him in her life because he was her first ally from the very beginning and best friend from the start. However, because she cares about him so much she nearly cuts off ties with him again just to protect him from her. And as she befriends Ashlen, she admits to feeling closer to her than anyone she’s ever met, feels comfortable around her but also greatly fears her leaving her the most which is why she had another mental breakdown at the thought and went back to her mansion for a time, and then she confesses that she probably would have gone on another homicidal rage if not for Ashlen’s influence.

Shinsou feels closest to Amy overall since she was his very first friend the best friend he’s ever had, and when she left to New Orleans, he took it badly and broke down hard, becoming more distant from others. And he nearly breaks down when Amy lied by saying she didn’t want to be his friend anymore after she went on a rampage at UA. He also at times clings to Amy because he knows that no matter what, she’ll always support him. Also, as Ashlen enters the picture, because she’s the first person to ever show him any true, intimate love he feels especially close to her, adores her and takes any argument they have hard and admits that while she’s his first and only girlfriend, that he couldn’t love another woman the way he loves her, because she’s the only one who can make him feel loved and secure. 

Upon meeting Amy, Ashlen loves her very much and sees her as her very best friend and a true friend, even nurtures her because she grew to love her so much. Even as Amy starts to show her true colors and deeper psychological issues, Ashlen’s love doesn’t fade, but she does fear the thought of losing Amy more than anything, and at one point pleaded with her not to leave her alone without a best friend. Finally, when she finds love in Shinsou, she feels safe, warm and loved by him, and not unlike him, takes their arguments extremely hard, even taking all the blame because she fears losing him just as much due to her unconditional love for him. 

Nice, Mean and In-between: Ashlen (Nice), Shinsou(Mean) and Amy (In-between). However Shinsou and Amy can switch the roles where Amy is acting as the crueler one and Shinsou can be more laid-back and decent, but Ashlen is almost always the Nice on.

Odd Friendship: These three make up a pretty odd but nonetheless very close friendship.

First you have Amy and Shinsou, a chaotic girl with energy for days and a low-key, apathetic guy who doesn’t care about much things, but they’re best friends and have been since childhood.

Then Amy meets Ashlen, a sweet but shy girl who became very close and best friends with the much more outgoing and obnoxious Amy.

Then there’s Ashlen and Shinsou, she’s much more of a sunshiny optimist while Shinsou’s more of a cynical pessimist.

Positive Friend Influence: When they’re not being bad influences or doing mischievous pranks, each make each other happier and better people overall.

For Amy, Shinsou reminds her of her humanity and all other better memories before the coven. Shinsou also can at times be able to reign her in when she’s upset, and enables her to think before she acts. And then Ashlen’s influence is what allows Amy to be much more reasonable and gentler, as her friendship helps Amy learn more lessons in being kinder to people and to forgive the people she felt hurt by.

For Ashlen, having an outgoing and supportive friend like Amy made her much more confident in herself, allowing her to be more assertive, proud of who she is, and she also learns to see her own beauty and even gains a newfound wild side. Likewise, Shinsou encourages her to loosen up a little bit and his endless attraction and devotion to her also adds to her confidence and boosts her self-image.

For Shinsou, Amy’s fun-loving and cheerful personality makes him laugh and allows him to have fun and get a little bit goofy as he humors her and can join in on her antics without letting life overwhelm him. And then having Ashlen as his friend and girlfriend makes him want to be more compassionate and he also learns to be less envious of others, more secure in himself and she also helps him boost his own self-image as well. 

Power Trio: Together they’re a ridiculously powerful group of fighters who are even stronger together.

Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: They’re a group of friends made up of a witch, a trained fighter and a world-weary cynic trying to become heroes. Together the trio consists of.

A loud-mouthed, hyperactive Cute Witch who grew up in an infamous coven of powerful witches. Who happens to have a wide array of powers and is a little bit unstable to boot.

A skilled but troubled Warrior Princess with two quirks, one being highly unstable and dangerous. But she still has a strong sense of justice even if people haven’t been kind to her.

A curt and surly Deadpan Snarker with the power of Mind Manipulation and a less than approachable demeanor. However, he still wants to do the right thing, even if he is a bit of a Troll too.

Red Baron:

Amy: “The Coven Heroine: Tricky Witch”

Ashlen: “The Neutralizer”

Shinsou: “Mindjack”

Red Oni Blue Oni: Amy is the Red Oni to both Ashlen and Shinsou’s Blue Oni, although Ashlen can also be the Red Oni to Shinsou’s Blue Oni.

Serious Business: Four Words: Panic! At The Disco. Amy and Shinsou take Brendon Urie very seriously and take any ill remark against him as blasphemy and they manage to get Ashlen on the bandwagon.

Socially Awkward Hero: They’re all pretty socially awkward in their own ways.

Amy is overwhelmingly cheerful and over-the-top for most people, vulgar in speech, has no sense of personal space (as she constantly touches and hugs other people randomly) and usually unintentionally makes people uncomfortable by talking about inappropriate things that really shouldn’t be discussed in public, but she is generally friendly and does mean well.

Ashlen has the best social skills out of the three, but is still pretty shy, awkward by nature, prone to social anxiety, and gets nervous around people she doesn’t know, and is also easily flustered around boys she likes.

Shinsou is aloof, rude and snarky, and doesn’t go out of his way to befriend anyone except Amy, but is also pretty awkward when someone is being genuinely nice to him, and then he gets extremely nervous and flustered around Ashlen, to the point where he resembles Midoriya when he speaks to her.

Superpowered Evil Side: All three of them have superpowered sides or experienced power highs that enabled them to go berserk, lose control of their powers and even made them turn homicidal, even towards allies.

Amy’s Sentio Compassios can turn into Sentio Furia when greatly provoked. Already legitimately insane, she easily gets drunk on her magic and loves toying with her opponents, and when she’s that angry she freely lets go of all control during a rampage to unleash her power and destroy almost everything and anybody in her path, friend or foe.

Ashlen’s second quirk Dark Manifest is what makes her go berserk, even though she’s level-headed by nature. she has issues controlling her second quirk as when she’s pushed to the brink, it causes Dark Manifest to overwhelm her right mind and turns her into a bloodthirsty murderer and makes her lose her morality and kill whoever provoked her and anyone else who she feels like purely for fun.

Shinsou developed an alter-ego that Amy calls ‘Control Freak’. He wanted to get stronger and took up a training session with Amy’s friend Nan, and she and Madison give him a potion to amplify his brainwashing to make it more like Concilium. However, as his quirk’s power was amplified, the potion cost him his sanity and he lost himself momentarily and attacked even his friends and forced them to fight each other because the power high gave him an overwhelming sense of control over everyone regardless of who got seriously hurt..

Sweet Tooth: Amy is the most obvious one with a sweet tooth, but Ashlen also very much enjoys sweets and while Shinsou says he doesn’t love sweets, he’ll still eat them, especially when upset.

Token Trio:  Amy (witch), Ashlen (two quirks) and Shinsou (single quirk)

Toxic Friend Influence: Downplayed, at least with Ashlen. Amy and Shinsou are toxic friend influences to each other to begin with and bring out each other’s bitchy side, but they can also sometimes be able to encourage Ashlen to indulge in wild and crazy antics such as drinking Amy’s infamous Magic Juice at a party or pulling hilarious pranks on other classmates.

!Tres Amigos!: Duh.

True Companions: They all came together recently, with Amy and Shinsou being Childhood Friends and later meeting Ashlen, but the three of them are very close, tight-knit, love each other’s company, comfort each other when upset and always support each other and have each other’s back no matter what.

Two Girls And A Guy: Amy and Ashlen are both girls with Shinsou as the sole guy of the trio.

Underestimating Badassery: Since Amy and Shinsou often bicker or make crude jokes with Ashlen having to look after them like a babysitter, people often take them at face value... until all three of them start beating the living hell out of villains and showing just how powerful they are.

Weirdness Magnet: They’ve all been exposed and/or attracted to some of the craziest supernatural things that are weird even by hero society standards.

Amy, being a witch, gets exposed to all types of weird and magical happenings with witches, vampires, demons, ghosts, a minotaur, voodoo queens and the Anti-Christ so she claims ‘nothing shocks her’.

Ashlen’s family actually overlooks several different supernatural things that include ghosts and demons, and so Ashlen is no stranger to the supernatural and is unsurprised by stranger things.

And because Shinsou’s close to Amy and Madison, he knows many things about witches and has become less and less fazed when something strange happens.

With a Friend and a Stranger: The whole set-up of the dynamic with Amy and Shinsou being childhood friends and Ashlen being Amy’s new friend who instantly gets along with Shinsou, and later, becomes his girlfriend. Unlike many examples though, these three are NOT a love-triangle, but DO involve one or two different love triangles OUTSIDE of the the trio.

You Wouldn’t Like Me When I’m Angry: Angering either three of them equals big trouble.

Amy is very easy to provoke and she’s The Dreaded in her class for a reason as she will start screaming, destroying things and fly into a rage if angered. And should you push a major button, it was nice knowing you.

Ashlen is actually quite slow to anger, but when she’s angry she gives a fierce glare and ALWAYS delivers righteous punishment to the one who angers her. And this is scary even when her second quirk isn’t awoken yet...

Shinsou is usually pretty levelheaded but when he gets upset, he gets upset, becoming both irrational and aggressive as he will attack the person who pissed him off, and play dirty as well just to let them feel pain.

[commanders-sole-braincell]

I've been pulling my hair out about ages since I started making up backstories simply so I can work out the ages of my own characters. Makes me wonder though, what if no one knows a Charrs' natural lifespan because Charr die fighting before they can die of old age (I don't even know what that means so...)? OH! Not only can anyone join the Warband, they are free to leave it as they wish and if anyone once apart of the Warband asks OS for something 1/ -Numbered Anon

they'll do everything in their power to do it (so long as it not an attack on a 'band member or the three Legions), not that anyone asks though. Huh, wonder what would be different about Brahams introduction, would Rytlock pause and listen for a second? And Rox's reaction to OS being her backup. And the reactions to Kass, Jory and Logan working out that OS is what Humans would call a War Hero (OS calls it being a soldier and nothing else) 2/ -Numbered Anon

Taimi adores OS, because never once have they looked at her and thought 'child' only 'cub' and there's a difference. Canach...yeah I have no clue for him. I'll be over here pretending that I didn't forget about Aurene and imagine Caithe's reaction to being hunted down by the Warband very easily. Oh, just a thought, OS and the Warband singing as they make their way through HoT maps, a song to send off the dead, a song the other Charr join in singing, a song DW take the time 3/ -Numbered Anon

to learn. And the jungle is filled with singing to send Trahearne off. OS doesn't care about the things they eat because you can't be picky on the front-lines. OS tugs on a pendent Cre wears -engraved on it is Rylands name and DoB, an idea she got from OS, the only difference is that there's no room for DoD- whenever she gets lost in her head. Flame Legion Cubs freak out when OS comes to their camp in Grothmar because of the stories they've heard, ones 4/ -Numbered Anon

that paint OS as the monster under the bed -which to Flame, that's what OS is. Thinking back to Braham, I think OS might scruff the Norn around the neck to make him stop and listen because OS has seen this happen before one too many times and in doing so, might make Braham resent OS more. OS compares pocket raptors to teething cubs. OS will mount and unmount as little as possible because the actions grinds on their bones. Because the Warband has lost many members 5/ -Numbered Anon 

 they have a set date to remember their fallen 'band members on. ALSO THAT ADD ON ABOUT BALTH?!?!?! IT WOULD BE KINDER TO SIMPLY KILL ME!! Oooh, love the idea of Bangar twisting Rytlocks mind slightly to get him away from Ryland. And I think that's it from my brain today, it's gone poof! 6/6 -Numbered Anon

OOh you’re right! ngl I tried to work out what an old charr would be for a character of mine and just gave up cuz even the wiki’s like ‘no clue’ - my only basis is Norn can live for at least a few hundred if I remember correctly, so, so can charr! (Make me wonder how old those ‘too old to fight’ charr are in the black citadel?)

and YESSS them having specific dates for mourning the fallen, it's the one day the whole warband gets together - and the singing, especially at the end of HoT? Ow my HEART! After every great battle, you can find the Old Commander singing to the dead, as they grumble and try to remember which races’ customs are which, and which soldier wanted what, paws caked in mud and bandages too clean and new against the soil. 

and oooh yess! Flame Legion cubs huddle together (even Efram admits to being nervous as he shakes their paw), when Efram’s daughter mentions the bullying, OS has a glitn in their eye and spends the rest of that day teaching, talking to, and helping the cubs. They leave with promises of letters and a reminder that there’s always one warband open to them - if they don’t mind the old, absence troublemaker dropping in from time to time. 

I imagine they handle Braham’s grief liek you said, but also with a bit more grace than a younger Commander? Like they understand it’s not personal, and that their teenage cub needs to get this out of his system, they trust Rox to keep an eye on him, but the loneliness bites at them a little more. 

They train their mounts to go low to the ground to help them get on, or to stand stock still while they haul themselves in using various items as mounting blocks - huffing when Kasmeer giggles a little at them