#also she is totally gonna depose him <3

[galavant-song-tournament]

Round 3

Propaganda for Gwynne:

I mean were it not for Chef chickening out, she would have fully succeeded in engineering a plan to kill absolutely every powerful person in the world of Galavant except for Galavant and Isabella and Sid who hadn't arrived yet but she later gets on just fine with.

My money’s on Gwynne. She’s got the brains and ruthlessness to carry out schemes while also being sincere enough to form alliances that won’t betray her, and being a servant means others will underestimate her until it’s too late

Gywnne already thinks she's in GOT tbh. Her poisoning plot is very red wedding. She failed because she's in Galavant.

Gwyn is smart enough to avoid situations that would put her in danger. She keeps allies at arms length and avoids enemies, can throw down if she needs to but knows to do that as a last resort, and most importantly: knows when to hit the fucking bricks.

Honestly I think Gwynne is crafty enough and she's in a low enough position people won't expect her (or suspect her). She's not royalty or a fighter

Not only would Gwynne survive GOT, she would win it. She DID win it when she nearly killed every significant character and threat to her, she only failed because Chef was in Galavant and not GOT. (But a reminder that she would then have killed Madalena, another of the people's top choices for winner here. I don't think she'd bother taking out Tad Cooper because he's nice but there's good reasons to assume he'd die in a GOT world.)

Propaganda for Tad Cooper:

In bearded dragon form no one would bother with him since he's nonthreatening. In dragon form he'd be a target but he's also a dragon and breathes fire so he'd certainly be able to fight back. It's established that Galavant has killed a dragon, so clearly there is an in-universe way to kill dragons but it's also told as a brag so it's got to be difficult at least.

tad cooper’s gonna win solely because he isn’t enough of an apparent threat for anyone to kill on GOT until he’s grown up

I think tad cooper’s gonna win solely because I SUPER BELIEVE IN YOU TAD COOPER!

Tad Cooper is a big target by nature of being a goddamn dragon. Everyone and their mother would be coming up with a strategy to take him out. What's worse, he's a loyal dragon--more specifically, he's loyal to Absolute Buffoon™ King Richard. By nature of Richard being a figure in power many would want deposed and his biggest piece of protection being a living WMD that Richard's enemies would be planning to take out first, I'm afraid Tad Cooper is toast.

We've got to remember that Tad Cooper isn't a dragon that no one is after, he's either a totally defenseless little creature that no one's after or he's a threatening dragon that everyone would be after. And even in his defenseless and unthreatening state, he's probably in the blast zone of any attacks on Richard since he's kept in Richard's coat, and let's be real, Richard would be being attacked so much.

He nearly did die in the finale of Galavant when Wormwood smacks him from Richard's hand, he just survives because it's Galavant not GOT.

[lee-scribbles-and-doodles]

S3 ep5

Current emotional status: FEAR

Cthulu Max has been on the rampage for a whole week!?

Ew, the narrator

Oh man, are they sending the airforce after him?

I really like Cthulu Max's design

Momma Bosco 💗

Oh hey, Norrington and Papierwaite are alive.

Superball are you saying you tried to send the Maimtrons up Max's--

Also he's acting president while Max is... deposed of.

Superball is only giving Sam until 6am :(

Featherly!

"Wandering around the moleman tunnels is no fun without Max."

"You got it all wrong, we're trying to help Max." "We will help him... to a generous serving of ass whooping."

"That is one rabbit who will be multiplied... into 2,000 smoldering pieces."

Carol ran off with Blustet

"I only want her to be happy, is all." Aw, Curt

Superball just admitted to having separation anxiety from Max

Ok Momma can't come but Papierwaite and Norringron can.

I like Norrington :)

GASP

Is it?

It is!

SYBIL!!!!

RETURN OF THE QUEEN

Oh, she is very pregnant

She was a wizard at one point?

She's gonna help!

Superball there's no such thing as acceptable losses

Abe has his body back

"Four score and seven tons of raw power"

HE CAN FLY NOW!?

Sybil, I love you, but why did you mod someone else's car???

Grandpa Stinky I love you

Oh, he just handed us the recipe for once.

Asdfff the spore maxes swarming Grandpa

They stole Grandpa's hotdogs

"We must feed the host! Piglets and sphinkters make us stronger!" "We regret nothing!"

Grandpa hasn't slept in three years

Sam just casually taking the last of Grandpa's corndogs

The spores are trying to get it

Lol Sam slapped them

Sal's alive!

He's hiding from Sam :(

Lol we can control Cthulu Max with Corndogs

Ew, the cornstarch got mixed in with the giant puddle 🤢 Looks gross

Love how Sybil completely ignores the Flaming Max head

Also the look of disappointment on the spore's face made me laugh

Fifth trimester???

The way the one Max spore by Grandpa's truck is bobbing in circles with his mouth open is making me laugh.

Sam showing concern for Sybil because she’s preggers 🥺

Her being pregnant with Abe's child implies that statues have working genital in this universe

She put a weiner scented airfreshener in the desoto

At least Sam and a Max spore seem to like that (of course they do)

"Sybil you're the best!" Hell yeah she is!

Sam's mind went to the color bar codes to prevent being traumatized by Sybil's oversharing

We drowned the desoto

Asdfgh Sam just botched slapped one of the spores for trying to say "that's none of your damn buisness."

Ew, Max's spine is pointing out

Oh hey, Satan and Jurgen

Why is Jurgen wearing his old fashioned clothes instead of his emo clothes?

Lol Sam snuck into frame to shout "Go Mets! New York rules!"

"--besides it's just a good and noble thing to do." "You're not familiar with my previous work, are you?"

"Sam, what happened to you to make you so cynical?" Gee, Jurgen, I wonder what could have possibly happened.

Oh so the water tower counts as vegetable oil because Momma did something to it

Pfft we can replace Satan's microphone with a corndog

Omg they jumped off the building to avoid Max

Oh, they're fine, and the oil is in the giant puddle.

I'm thankful to Featherly for giving us an egg but I'd have preferred not to watch him lay it. Granted it was just in a cartoon way but he still made weird noises

Also TRANS FEATHERLY 2021

"I desperately wanted to see that, sir. Ask him if he'll lay another one."

Oh hey, the Flaming Max heads helped heat up the giant desoto corndog

Since I'm playing this in 2021 the Maimtron's song references are super dated, which defeats Superball's efforts

Oooh! A unique opening sequence???

Oh this music is jazzy af

Sam really doesn't like the Max spores

Sam how do you already know what Max's insides look like???

"Even when he's not a collasal monster Max's food comas can last for weeks."

Ok we wake Max up with the coffee beans, right?

Yup!

The gi Max spore is so sad he doesn't get to come 😢

"But I'm a horrible monster!"

"I suppose Max's brain always looks like a living room?" "Well, Max is host to all kinds of weird parasites, and he likes to he a good host!" WHAT

No really, this brings up so many questions about lagomorphs. Are they some kind of Symbiote or something?

And a previous episode confirmed Max is amphibious

Max has tumors!!!

It shocked Sam!

"Eugh! Get away fake Max!" "Do you find my warmth... alarming, Sam?"

"What do nightmares taste like, anyway?" "Pepsi"

Max wants to be author 💗

He also writes fanfiction about Flint 🤣

I'd unironically read his books.

Tina Belcher voice: Friend fiction

Max has an experimental fusion jazz band???

"He just killed a great white shark--"

Max being completely unable to describe a woman is very gay of him. Good for him.

Max's brain teleported everyone to different parts of the body.

Found Sybil in the gym/legs

The brain is broadcasting Sam's thoughts???

Sam couldn't think of a joke for the medicine balls :(

"Wow Max is looking pretty buff. Would it be too weird if I asked him to turn around?"

Sam! Stop thinking bad things about Sybil's pregnancy she can hear you you putz!

She's upset with him now

"Can you believe this guy?" "I find the entire situation to be very contrived and misogynistic." Same spore Max, same.

Sam stop being so mean omg!

"I changed Sybil, I totally get the whole parenthood thing now." "Really now?" "Tax deductions."

In Max's inventory now

Y'know, I never really thought about it as a storage house

Hit The Road reference :3

Baby roach hatched in

"Pa..papa?" "Now I am little champion, now I am!"

Max has a Maximus shrine

Sam turned into a roomba!

Aw, he named it Sam Jr 🥺

We won Sybil back through his love of Sam Jr

Found the conjoined twins

Huh, Max lost as eye. Does that mean he has a glass one, or do lagomorphs have regenerative abilities?

Pfft we have to play twister to control his arma

The brain is messing with things again

Oh, we need a roach to operate the game because of radiation

Well, let's kidnap Sal

Oh, poor Girl Stinky. She's really going through it

Aw, Sal feels bad

Sal?

Honey, are alright?

He's dying???

He's not immune to irradiation!?

Oh no, he's gone

I'm so sad 😞

Gotta pick up Sam Jr. Before I control Max

They mad Max do a magical girl pose

Ugh the narrator is back

Wait, what?

He's Max's brain??? SUPEREGO???

WHAT

"I was always ignored" Yo if my super ego was as pretentious as you I 'd ignore it too 😤

He wants to kill himself and Max???

I know Max had a self loathing complex but holy shit

The super ego is perfectly fine with destroying half the east coast what a jerk

Just noticed Sam's tie is red. Had no idea about this while drawing PI!Sam lol

We have to help Max get his memories back to use the ASTRO projector

Skunkapes has three Sam clones imprisoned

Sam had canon ocd?

Gasp Gordon???

No, it's Sammun Mak

I love him, little child tyrant

Just make him a mobile brain in a jar and let Sam and Max adopt him

Why is Grandpa here?

He isn't talking like Stinky

Too polite

Sam sees it too

He's a space gorilla

They switched brains?

Found the cloning g chamber

Let's go to Momma's first

CONE OF SHAME CONE OF SHAME CONE OF SHAME

Superball is "wracked with guilt"

"Keep it together Superball. Sam will be able to save the day. He always does."

Ok, let's go to the cloning facility

I'm still thinking about poor Sal yo

FLIIIIIINT!

He's punching space apes!

Girl Stinky really playing up the evil Mistress role

The doggleganger has a bomb on him!!!

Wait so Girl really is a mermaid??? I thought that was just her aestetic

God I love Flint

Haha we tricked Skunkape with scooby doo villain tactics

Got the robot

Her water broke... and it was pennies

Max wants to save Sybil! 😭🥺💕

Super Ego is here

Oh now he wants to save Max

The only thing here are those records

Super Ego waved goodbye

Cthulu Max is cute when he cries

Wait What?

His head is on fire!

The maimtron hit him!

He waved goodbye... and teleported away.

He exploaded!!!!

He promised he'd take Sam with him and he didn't!!!!

AAAAAAH

I thought the dead Max thing was popular angst fanon fic thingy!

We're cloning Max?

It didn't work 😭😭😭😭😭

Superball ran off crying

Oh God the credits are just Sam walking sadly what the hell

He's not even stopping to fight any crime 😢

💔💔💔

God the way he's clinging to himself

What?

The elevator???

MAAAAX

he's back???

Past Max???

He blew his Sam up???

Wait hold on I'm glad they're together again but this doesn't fix anything

There's so much trauma from this season

All the horrible things that happened during 301-304 happened in like 3 days tops, then Sam had to deal with Max being a monster for a week before watching him die!

And the new (?) Max had BLOW HIS SAM UP!!!

And they left the franchise like that for a decade????

What the hell?

I want to be happy but this shit is going to consume my brain for the next week at least what the hell

Aaaaaaah!

Like maybe they really do just brush it off but it feels unlikely

I know Max has a connection with his other selves so it'll be easier for him to adjust but certainly Sam is going to notice the discrepancies since he doesn't get the same deal

Someone told me there were multiple endings hold on

Aw, they walked off into the sunrise together

But still

AAAAAAAAH

[bestofthemoth]

Bearing Witness

D. Parvaz

In the summer of 2013 I was in Cairo, Egypt. I was on assignment for Al-Jazeera and I was covering a major political upheaval. The president at the time, a guy named Mohammad Morsi who was affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood party, had been deposed and jailed in what his supporters said was an illeigmiate military coup. So in protest they set up these sit-ins, two of them in the city. And it was this hot, crazy summer, really tense, and by the middle of August the government finally did what it had threatened to do, which was clear the sit-ins. But they did so with unabated violence. They started shooting at people in the sit-ins and in the surrounding neighborhoods around 7 in the morning and didn’t stop until well into the night, until pretty much everybody was either dead or arrested. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was a massacre in broad daylight in a capital city of roughly 20 million. 

So the next day, along with a producer who worked in the local bureau and could translate Arabic for me, I went to a mosque where maybe 200 of these bodies were kept. A lot of them were also burned really badly and there were blocks of ice on top of them. And there were these family members going in and out of this mosque to identify their loved ones. It was intensely chaotic and emotional. So my colleague and I walk outside and we start talking to this woman. And she says her husband is among the dead and she’s shaking and in shock. She’s describing her last phone conversation with her husband when the shooting started. And she describes him as an engineer who was unarmed, and he was the father of her 4 children. And my colleague is translating and I’m not even looking, I’m in my notebook, furiously not wanting to miss a detail. And then he stops translating while she’s still talking and I look up at him finally, which is what he was waiting for, and the look on my face is like “Dude, what?” And he leans in and whispers, “Now would be a good time for you to put an arm around her. And this makes my little reporters brain totally short circuit. I am not a touchy-feely person. I don’t hug you for you to tell me your story. But the look on his face was just clear: get over yourself, be human now, and put your arm around her. 

So I really robotically lift my arm to put around her shoulder, and the second my hand touches her she collapses into my chest. And she’s a very very tiny woman, very petite. But she just sinks into me and starts sobbing as she’s holding onto me, and I’ve got my pen and paper and it  hits me really hard that this woman doesnt care what kind of reporter I am, or what my stupid little rules are. She wants me to register what is happening to her on the worst day of her life. She wants me to bear witness to what’s happening to her. And I should have known better, and in fact I did know better.

A few years prior to that in the spring of 2011 was the start of the uprising in Syria, what is now the civil war. And I was sitting in the newsroom, in Al-Jazeera’s headquarters in Qatar, watching this grainy YouTube footage of civilians being mowed down by the Syrian military. And at the same time we had a government spokesperson on our airwaves claiming that this wasn’t really happening, that it was a distortion of the truth, there was a conspiracy. And we couldn’t confirm any of this because they’d already closed down our bureau in Damascus and they weren’t issuing journalists visas, so what to do? Well. I’m a multinational, I have an Iranian passport. So my boss agreed to deploy me to Syria, where I wouldn’t need a visa to enter, just to see what’s going on.

So I fly into Damascus and unfortunately for me at this point the Syrian authorities have already become super paranoid. So they go through my luggage and they find a satellite phone, which is not a big deal. If you travel in that part of the world you know that outside of major cities you don’t have cell phone coverage. You can buy a satellite phone at any shopping mall, it’s not spy gear. But this was enough for them to get really suspicious, so they strip searched me and found my American passport in the pocket of my jeans. And in this passport was a stamp from Al-Jazeera, my sponsored visa, for Qatar, it’s what I needed to reenter the country. And this escalated things. So they took me into an office. They sat me between these two guys on this couch. There’s all these other guys in the office chain smoking, banging out some kind of report on their computer about me. And when that report was done the two guys sitting on either side of me got up, and they strapped on a bunch of guns, and they peeled me from the couch, and they led me to the parking garage under the airport. And they sat me between them in the back seat, with another armed man in the front seat, and drove off into the night. 

We pulled into a compound, there were 3-4 checkpoints to get into this compound, so I assumed it was some sort of government building, where they pulled me out of the car by my hair and threw me in front of a desk in this dimly lit office. And there were all these men yelling at me and I looked down and saw that I was standing in a considerable amount of somebody else's blood. So they processed me for some kind of arrest, blind folded me, handcuffed me, and ended up taking me to an interrogation with a man who told me to call him Ferras. And nothing I said was accepted by Ferras. That I was a reporter, that I wasn’t part of some kind of conspiracy… he didn’t even believe that I didn’t speak Arabic. So I realized very quickly that truth had no currency there. They threw me into a cell that was absolutely covered in blood. Like, so much that I didn’t know where to stand or lean. So I squatted in this corner and tried to sort of wrap my head around the hell that I was in. 

Maybe an hour or two later a guy comes to the door. He blindfolds me and handcuffs me and I thought I was being taken to another interrogation, but he took me outside into a courtyard and slammed me up against the wall. And I could hear people being tortured a few feet away from me. And I could hear the guards joking, and laughing, and I could smell their cigarettes, they were just acting like regular employees on a coffee break. And I sat against that wall and I thought to myself, they’re going to kill me. And worse than that though, believe it or not, worse than dying, was the thought of dying like that. Which is to say, alone. Because I was alone. I couldn’t locate the humanity in the people around me. And I knew that I was going to be an anonymous body. If I was lucky they would throw me in a ditch, maybe. And my father would never have any peace, he’d never know what happened to me. And I’ve never been so alone in my life. 

After about 20 minutes shivering against this wall, and waiting to be shot in the head, I get pulled off and taken back inside. And I keep thinking, well they didn’t kill me, they didn’t kill me now, but they’re going to kill me, because why, why, why would they not allow a reporter to cover a street protest but see in here all of this, and live? Of course I’m going to write about it, why would they do this? I’m gonna die. They’re going to kill me. I’m gonna die. And this was on a pretty tight loop in my head as they threw me back in a cell. And I can hear people being tortured inside this compound, outside this compound, the voices kind of echo and come and go and blend in and then there’s this one voice that stands out. And I can’t exactly figure out why except that he sounded extremely young, he sounded like a teenager, a boy. And I could tell that there was more than one person hurting him, and he was just howling. He was swearing he didn’t know things, swearing to God he hadn’t done anything wrong. He was calling out to God, calling out to his mother, and I couldn’t take it anymore. It was brutal. And so I put my hands up to my ears to just try to block it out. And the second I did that I felt such shame. Because I realized that this kid was in his own, far worse version of the wall -- that's where he was. He was alone. He was dying alone. That’s what was happening. And so I pulled my hands down, just to do what I could, which was to hear him. I couldn’t call out to him to say, “I hear you're not alone,” couldn't identify him, I didn’t know his name, couldn’t contact his family, couldn’t do anything. All I had was the ability to bear witness in that fashion. The kid was choking on his own blood, in his own country, and nobody was going to know. I felt that it was the least I could do. So I listened to him for a while, and every scream was excruciating. It was like a hole being cut inside me with every one of them. And then rather abruptly, his voice just stopped. 

So a couple of days later the Syrians decided that maybe it wasn’t a good idea for them to permanently disappear an Iranian citizen because they have a good relationship with the Iranian government. So they sent me to Iran via extraordinary rendition for additional questioning for another couple of weeks at another prison there. And much to my surprise the Iranain authorities freed me and sent me back to my family. Which was great, I needed the time off for a little bit, but I didn’t want to not be working. I didn’t need to go to a spa and to breathe alpine air. What I needed was to get back to work. Because not being busy and not working meant the wall was always there. I could feel it. And I wanted to push back against that feeling. I couldn’t wait to get back to work, so I did. The second I could I flung myself back into my job. Every assignment if they didn't give me the assignment I would fight for it. Egypt, Libya, nuclear meltdown in Japan, didn’t matter, I was doing it. And I succeeded. A little too well, in pushing back against that wall and that feeling. And what I did in doing so was I also built a distance between myself and the things that I was reporting on, the people I was reporting on. 

But when that woman in Egypt fell into my chest and started crying in the second that it took her to fall into me and cry she destroyed that distance. Entirely eradicated it. And I was back at the wall, and the boy’s voices in my head. And as painful as it is, I realized that it was necessary to bear witness, fully, to what’s happening to someone beyond the couple of paragraphs they might actually get in the story. And as much as some stories will leave a mark, sometimes that’s just what it takes.

Live at The Moth

[secretagentspydetectiveninja]

The Misadventures of Prince Kim - chapter 17

(aka the royalty AU story)

[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16] [AO3]

The spring dance – which Max insisted actually took place during late winter – was going to be a mandatory, formal event. The seasonal socials all seemed to alternate in this way, with the autumn ball having been optional and formal, the winter party being mandatory but informal, and the later summer gala being both optional and informal. In that case, this spring one was definitely going to be the least fun.

Kim did not know what to do. He wanted to ask Alix to go with him, but would that be too obvious? And what would even be the best way to ask about it? His awkward attempts back before the autumn ball had not exactly been smooth, so…

Walking through the square alone one windy evening, trying to figure out how to go about this, he saw someone in the distance. Could that be… no, it was Adrien! Why did it have to be him?

Kim’s first instinct was to go hide behind the nearest doorway until Adrien had safely passed so that he wouldn’t have to look at him. Things were still far too uncomfortable between those two, even though it had been months since the winter party. They hadn’t even properly talked to each other since then. Would things ever be able to go back to normal?

Well, nothing would go back to normal if they just kept avoiding each other like this! Maybe it was time to do something. Kim marched forwards, gulping down the mild terror that was welling up inside him.

“Hi Adrien,” he said, trying to keep his voice sounding casual.

“Good evening Kim,” Adrien replied. He was standing formally with his hands behind his back, not even smiling. “How are you?”

“I’m good, thanks. How are you?”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

There was a long, frosty silence between them, the only sound being the wind whistling through the square.

Say something! Kim’s brain was screaming. But what should he say?

Anything! Anything at all!

“The weather is windy,” he mumbled.

“Indeed, it is.”

Another long silence.

Kim frantically tried to think of something sensible to actually talk about, but his mind was still so preoccupied with thoughts about the spring dance! What if he talked about duelling club? No, that was all they ever talked about… Should he bring up what happened at the winter party? No, that would make things more awkward…What if he flirted with him – no! Where did that come from?

“I’ll see you in class then, I suppose,” Adrien said, the corners of his mouth lifting into what might have been a brief smile, before he started to walk off again.

No, you can’t let him leave again without sorting this out! Just say something –

“Will you go to the spring dance with me?”

Kim quickly clapped his hands over his mouth and stepped back. But it was too late. Adrien had heard what he said and had turned around to face him again, looking shocked.

“Kim… that’s…”

Weird? Stupid? Creepy? Awkward?

“…very sweet of you.” Adrien stared at the ground, nervously fiddling with the tassels on his coat. “But Marinette already asked me, and I said yes to her. Sorry about that.”

“That’s okay!” Kim babbled. “It’s fine – you should go with her – I didn’t mean it anyway –”

“You didn’t mean it?” Adrien looked back up at him, his voice sounding different all of a sudden, like he was… hurt?

“No that’s… that’s not what I meant! I totally did… I mean… I…”

There was no salvaging this situation now, not when Kim’s brain seemed to be on fire and perhaps exploding at the same time. He took to his heels and ran off without another word, leaving Adrien standing there confused.

The very next day in the library, poor Max had to deal with Kim lamenting over it to him.

“And then I didn’t even say anything, I just ran away!” Kim said, his face buried in Max’s shoulder. “I’m such an idiot! And he probably thinks I don’t like him! But I do like him! … Well, not like that, but… okay, maybe yes like that? I don’t even know! Save me, Max!”

Max awkwardly patted Kim on the head, not really being sure what to do. Dealing with emotionally distraught people was not his strong point, especially not when that emotionally distraught person was Kim. Max hoped the goosebumps on his arms weren’t too noticeable, or that Kim wouldn’t somehow be able to feel the insane speed of his pulse through the fabric of his shirt.

“It’ll be alright,” Max said, knowing  that kind, calming statements usually tended to bring people to ease. “Things will be fine.”

“But what if they won’t be? What if he declares war on me?”

“For what, being gay enough to ask him to a dance? He’s nicer than that.”

Kim sat up properly. “Being what?”

Max was about to explain when Alix walked into view, carrying a pile of books that was practically the same height as she was. She dumped them onto the table with a thud.

“Alright, that stupid spring dance thing is coming up and since I’m being forced to go this time, either one of you nerds is going with me,” she snapped. “Or both. I’m not fussy. I just don’t want to be bored while I’m there. Formal events are always boring when you don’t have friends to mess around with.”

Aha, this was a good opportunity to be a matchmaker. If Max could somehow sneak his way out of this and get Kim and Alix to go to the dance together, well… The thought gave him a rather lonely pang in his heart, but he paid no attention to it. He had to do this for his friends.

Before he could speak up, however, Kim had cleared his throat and said, “Yeah, let’s just all three go together as friends!”

“Awesome.” Alix picked up the stack of books again. “Now I’ve got homework to do, and you know I get too distracted hanging around with you guys. Apparently if I hand it in late again I’ll get a detention and you know I’m not letting that happen. See you later.” Staggering under the giant weight of the books, she slowly left.

“Kim, you could have–”

“I know, I know,” Kim sighed, resting his head sideways on the table and looking at Max. “I could have asked her to go with me properly. But I just wasn’t thinking straight! I’m still freaking out over what happened with Adrien, and I can never even think sensibly around Alix anyway, and… and… I need you, Max.”

“W-what?”

“I need you there. At the spring dance. It’s gonna be a formal event and I have no idea what I’m doing at those, ever. If I went alone with Alix it would just be a disaster. At least if you’re with me I might not accidentally commit treason or something.”

Max stuffed his hands into his pockets so Kim wouldn’t see them shaking. “Oh, well, I’m sure you’d do fine…”

“And anyway, I can’t just leave you all alone to go by yourself, can I? You’re my best friend, you mean so much to me! I’d love to go with you. Heck, I should have just asked you all along.”

Every word seemed to give Max a mini heart attack. It was platonic, so very platonic, and… it was killing him. Slowly, on the inside, every single thing Kim did was killing him.

“Max, are you okay?”

The way Kim was looking at him, frowning ever so slightly, the sweetest mixture of puzzled and concerned… it was too much.

“I don’t feel very well,” Max muttered, standing up and pushing his chair in. “I think I’ll just go take a nap or something.”

“Oh, well I hope you feel better soon, bro! Let me know if you need anything.”

“Thank you, Kim.”

It could never work. He knew that. Logically, statistically, everything – it could never work! Kim’s feelings for him were wholly platonic! And even if they weren’t, then what? They were princes! Expected to rule their own kingdoms someday! Unlike commoners they had a duty, and one they couldn’t simply throw away just like that.

Max knew he would never, ever abdicate. Not even a chance. Being a good ruler to his kingdom meant too much to him. And would Kim ever abdicate? Not before sorting out whatever mess his family had with Agreste, first. Kim wouldn’t leave something like that in the hands of people who already didn’t like Adrien. But without abdicating, how could rulers of two such distant countries ever be together?

Not to mention the backlash. Oh dear, the backlash. Not so much from Kanté, which was thankfully fairly accepting, but the rest of the world. In the not-too-distant past monarchs had been deposed for things as simple as marrying commoners, so there was no way something like this could go down well…

Never mind. It didn’t matter, because it would never happen. The chances were absolutely miniscule. No, the most likely thing to happen would be Kim finally asking Alix to be his sweetheart, staying on the throne long enough to make peace with the Agreste Empire, then abdicating and marrying her, living happily ever after…

And that would be fine. Max would be happy for Kim, he really would. He cared about Kim too much to be selfish over something like that. He wasn’t jealous, just…

Sad.

Kim returned to his room to find another letter from his family. Part of him was tempted just to throw it away without reading it, but that was probably a bad idea. He opened it and skimmed through. Well… it had been a good thing he hadn’t thrown it away. This time there was more than just him being told off.

It might be wise of you to come back home soon before things escalate. There has been an increase in raids near the border, correlating with rising tensions between our kingdom and the Agreste Empire, and it may not be safe for you away from home. We won’t call you back just yet, but please be aware. We also implore you not to socialize with Adrien further; he may be your classmate but any product of an empire like that can only be an enemy.

Enemy??? No. Things may not have been great between him and Adrien, but that poor kid was definitely not Kim’s enemy! And he would prove it! He ran over to Adrien’s room and knocked on the door.

“I have to speak to Adrien about something,” he said to the huge bodyguard who opened the door.

“Kim, is that you?” Adrien squeezed round the side of his bodyguard into the doorway. “Oh good, I wanted to talk to you too!” He looked up at his bodyguard. “Could you please let us have a moment? And please don’t tell my father.”

The bodyguard grunted and walked away, leaving the two of them alone. Adrien pulled Kim into the room and closed the door.

“My parents are saying you’re my enemy because you’re from Agreste, but it’s not true,” Kim said quickly, trying not to look at Adrien in case he would get flustered and mess up again. “You’re not my enemy. You’re my friend. At least… I hope you are. I know things got weird after, uh… you know…”

“I’m sorry,” Adrien said. “I didn’t mean to change anything between us, I just…” He hid his face in his hands. “I think I had a mini crush on you and I didn’t know what to do about it! There, I said it.”

“Really?”

“I know, it’s weird, I don’t even know why or where it came from, I only realized it at the winter party and I was too nervous to talk to you about it!”

Kim breathed a sigh of relief. “Me too, Adrien, me too.”

Adrien lifted his head out of his hands slightly. “You liked me too?”

“Yeah. I mean, um, I think I did. I’m not completely sure. It’s kinda confusing, especially because there’s someone else I like a lot more and I was focusing way more on that, but… yeah. I didn’t realize it until the winter party either.”

“Wow, that’s kind of funny,” Adrien said, giggling a little. “It’s so similar with me. I’ve been liking Marinette a lot for the past few weeks, and so the only person who I told about you was Nino…”

“And the only person I told about you was Max!” Kim laughed, finally being able to look at Adrien properly. “Anyway, I think most of all I want to be your friend, just like how we were before. I was being too much of an awkward idiot in between, but I’m sorry about that. You’re awesome, never mind what my parents think.”

“Aww, that’s really sweet of you! You’re awesome too, and we should definitely still be friends!”

“And I’m pretty sure you and Marinette make such a cute couple.”

Adrien blushed. “You think so?”

“Yeah, trust me. You two deserve each other. You’re both so cool.”

“Thank you! And I’m sure you’ll make a cute couple with… well, whoever it is that you like. I’m guessing it’s Alix.”

Now it was Kim’s turn to blush. “What? N-no… it’s not… I mean…”

“I won’t tell anyone, don’t worry!”

“How did you even know?”

“Everyone does. It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“What?!” Kim blushed even more. “I’m not obvious! I’m like… super subtle! Yeah!”

Adrien burst into laughter. “If you say so!”

There was a knock on the door and Adrien opened it to see that his bodyguard had returned.

“Time’s up, I guess. Bye, Kim! It was really good to talk to you again!”

“Yeah, same!”

Kim waved and left the room, feeling much lighter than he had before, like a huge weight had been lifted off his mind. Adrien was his friend again… thank goodness.