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thanksjro · 2 months

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More Than Meets the Eye #50 — The Midlife Crisis Cruise Comes to an End

Our issue begins on Earth— not Swearth, but honest-to-god Earth— where Optimus Prime and Jetfire are watching a broadcast. It’s not syndicated television like I Love Lucy or The Transformers (1984), however. No, this broadcast is coming from some of our favorite Lost Lighters, detailing their last will and testament.

Nautica wants to be buried on her home planet, and doesn’t give a hot gay fuck what they engrave on her sparkcase. Also she’s missing a good chunk of her face, but don’t worry about that too much.

Chromedome’s just happy that he’s dying WITH his husband this go around. I’m sure Brainstorm’s also thrilled to not have the “please please please stop stabbing yourself in the brain to avoid the pain of being a widower Jesus Christ we can’t keep doing this”.

Rewind takes the opportunity to poke Chromedome in the inferiority complex one last time, making his message out to Dominus Ambus. Our resident lovebirds want to “enter the after spark simultaneously”, though that seems more like something to address with whoever’s killing them.

Over on Cybertron, in Metroplex’s titties, it would seem this broadcast is VERY wideband, as Starscream and Scoop (we’ll go over whatever the fuck’s going on there in another post) witness Nightbeat’s will and testament, though considering Nightbeat’s technically undead, I’m not sure how much legal weight it holds. Having done the whole “dying” thing before, I’m sure he’s spent many a long, sleepless night thinking about how it would happen next time. Ikea Johnson wants a “Neoprimalist” funeral, where they preserve only the head. Interesting that Nightbeat's religious sect is the same as Flywheels, the Scavenger who only existed to be a stand-in for the word "fuck".

Over on Luna 1, Red Alert is convinced that Megatron is using his gun mode to threaten Nightbeat. Fort Max isn’t so sure.

Minimus shows off the most recent trick he’s learned, saying the word “fun” with only stuttering twice. He wants to be buried on the moon, next to all of Rodimus’s failed pregnancies, and wearing the skin of a man who’s been dead for thousands of years.

Whirl doesn’t want a funeral, though you’d think he’d at least want his corpse thrown in the general direction of the Wreckers’ base, where every member gets a slot in the Zone of Remembrance as part of the onboarding. I know he got kicked out, but being shot out of a rail gun at Debris sounds roughly his speed.

Rung only requests that, should he die in his vape pen form, that he be dismantled. He’s so committed to preventing underage smoking, and for that I commend him.

Rung’s request greatly disturbs the Scavengers, who seem to have forgone fixing the Krok-shaped hole in the wall and buying a couch more than two of them can sit on at a time, in order to afford a replacement TV, after Krok fastball-specialed a golden disc through the last one.

On another part of Cybertron, Windblade and Wheeljack watch Velocity state that she doesn’t regret a single thing that’s happened while she’s been a part of the Lost Light. To recap, in the few months Velocity’s been aboard: Thunderclash almost died of being too perfect, Velocity’s first boss ran off to go bang a billionaire with a sword collection, Swerve almost died from too much television, her second boss ran off to get roped into the Polycule Wars, Tailgate exploded, Rung was revealed to be practicing without a license by way of a weird gibbon with a ball gag and his serial killer boyfriend, and she became the only practicing medical professional aboard a ship of over 200, after failing to pass her medical exams ten times. Oh, and she wants to be recycled.

Optimus wants to go save them, thinking that there’s still time. However, the Lost Light isn’t responding, and it doesn’t actually matter anyhow— these recording were sent out weeks ago.

Looks like that’s a series wrap on Nautica, Chromedome, Rewind, Nightbeat, Minimus, Whirl, Rung, and Velocity! Let’s give ‘em a hand, folks!

Three weeks prior, on the planet of Miliarium, action is happening:

Being on your headset in the middle of a battle seems rather rude, but I suppose sacrifices to politeness have to be made, when one of your co-captains is effectively forbidden from stepping foot on any planet that’s aware of Cybertron’s existence, given that he, y’know, is the face of a cause that slaughtered billions over the course of millions of years.

(No, don’t ask Optimus how relations with Earth are going.)

Megatron, continuing to command from orbit, tells Whirl to go help Cyclonus and Crossblades with the Rust Giants’ longship, asking for no casualties. Which is sort of like asking a horse on cocaine to not freak out and kick someone in the head, if that horse also had guns tied to 30% of its body.

Rodimus asks Megatron if he’s enjoying himself, playing a pacifist run of a wartime strategy game with their lives, and Megatron says that he’s “rumbled”; which I’m not sure if I’m search-engining wrong, but I don’t know that even the British are saying that to mean they’re right chuffed or tallywackered about a situation, or whatever. Rodimus is suddenly faced with a Rust Giant that he doesn’t even come up to the knee of, but luckily we have a new superhero to save the day, by way of incredible violence.

Looks like we’re still workshopping the battle-cries.

Tailgate punched this guy so hard it cause a jump-cut to the post-battle celebration, where Rodimus shows off his multi-typefacial abilities, Megatron perpetrates his bigotry towards organics, the Cybertronians make galactic news for a not-awful reason for once, and Swerve is also here! For some reason! It looks like it’s gonna be all peaches and cream from here on, so long as we ignore the first three pages of this issue!

Hey, Cyclonus, you have to wait for him to call you, you're not an Autobot. Just because the little white guy you're Sufjan Stevens-level attached to is going, doesn't mean— Cyclonus, hey. Hey, Cyclonus. Cyclonus. Cycl—

Later, back on the Lost Light, class is in session. We finally get a look at those course Megatron’s been teaching, only briefly mentioned by Riptide in issue #29. The current course track is on the Knights of Cybertron, Megatron having assigned those in attendance to write essays tackling “pre-Functionist folklore and contested heritage”.

Today’s class consists of:

Minimus (old as balls, former high society)

Skids (the best at everything)

Brainstorm (literal genius)

Perceptor (slightly-less-literal genius)

Nautica (jack-of-all-trades brainiac and bibliophile)

Crosscut (former senator, current playwright, therefore probably has at least some sort of degree)

Nightbeat (nosy as fuck, loves to figure shit out)

Hound (former Primal Vanguard)

Thunderclash (perfect student, researcher, friend, confidante, and maybe even lover)

Grapple (not much to say here, other than he’s fucking jacked in IDW)

Xaaron (chief legal advisor for the Autobots)

And Riptide (created during the war and therefore has the least connection to Cybertron's folklore, canonically not a good test-taker)

Poor Riptide's grades don’t stand a snowball's chance in hell against his peers', but good on him for sticking with the classes regardless.

This essay was assigned to help students establish context for the Knights within a world where they have not existed for millions of years, having disappeared since they embarked on their quest to Cyberutopia; a world where information creep, the slow degradation of memory as time passes, has made them into mythological figures. Megatron posits that the only thing we really know about the Knights is that they failed to do what they set out to do, as the universe is not a peaceful place, himself arguably being exhibit A of that failure. Still, he intends to use this course to help the Lost Light’s crew understand the Knights to the best of their current, modernity-biased ability, prior to potentially meeting them. Considering that the Knights will be deciding Megatron’s fate, perhaps this is also for him to grapple with understanding his own end.

Anyway, let’s look at a plot device.

The last time we saw this symbol was during issue #46, both drawn by Grimlock on his walls, paired with the words “prepare confront repel”, and then on some mysterious fellows who were working with Krok’s nasty little friend Demus and someone called "The Grand Architect". However, the first time we saw it was with Skids in #21, after he went through Tyrest’s space bridge and talked to a giant technicolor ball of light.

Seeing this image kickstarts Skids’s memory, enough so that he interrupts class over it. Nautica has also seen this symbol, at an exhibit on Troja Major (a planet that Roberts will use as a dumping ground for many plot points in the sequel series to MTMTE) where it was claimed to be some sort of coat of arms. Thunderclash also knows this symbol, having seen it with his beautiful mind and kind heart in his visions, the same visions that were leading him to the Knights and allowing him to create a map to Cyberutopia. Nautica asks Skids to write out the symbol that he “heard” phonetically into her space phone, in a move that will prove HIGHLY useful later on. Perceptor adds in his two cents, showing off that he’s wearing the “feminine” nose-type today, stating that he had talked to one of the Circle of Light members back in Season 1, who had theorized that the Knights of Cybertron was either originally made up of OR broke down into clans, and that the symbol/map Rodimus and Thunderclash were drawing is merely connected to part of the Knights, and that there could be others floating around.

Nightbeat thinks that all this brainstorming (which hasn’t involved Brainstorm, oddly enough) is super cool and great, showing off his anime thumb in approval. When Minimus tries to give Megatron props for bringing everyone together to figure this out, he finds that Megatron is having some troubles, hunched over his podium as far as his fucked up old man toy articulation will allow. When Minimus approaches to see what’s wrong, he gets punched clear across the room for his troubles. Then this happens:

Look, I don’t care if 99.9% of the Cybertronian population can reclaim, you shouldn’t just limp your wrist at your first officer in the middle of class.

No, what Megatron is actually doing is pointing the fusion cannon he doesn’t have anymore, but had attached to his arm for roughly 4 million years, directly at Minimus’s tiny little skull. Quickly coming back to himself, Megatron is both horrified and mortified by what he’s done, offering nothing more but a quick apology before he dismisses the class and bolts, not even helping Minimus off of the floor.

The following day, Velocity’s paying a visit to Megatron’s room, which is STILL as barren as the most dire of single male living spaces. Velocity’s here because Megatron missed his appointment yesterday, after whatever happened in the classroom. Megatron reminds her that the weekly appointment is for him receiving his ration of “fool’s energon” which is meant to keep him in a weakened state, which arguably shouldn’t make it medicine in the traditional sense. Velocity reminds him that he nearly knocked Minimus Ambus’s (yeah, she uses his full name, guess she’s not been around long enough to get “just Minimus” privileges) block off, and that if Megatron had been at full strength, we might be dealing with a murder situation instead.

Though Minimus IS a load bearer, who regularly slings around a body three times his size, on top of weapons, so maybe not. Also, there’s an even smaller guy inside the first mustached guy, so honestly it’d probably be fine.

Does Velocity even know about the irreducible Minimus? Is that in his medical history? Does she even know that Ultra Magnus and Minimus Ambus are the same person? Because Megatron didn’t even know until they found that corpse on the quantum duplicate Lost Light, and Magnus was his lawyer for the trial as well as being his SIC. Really, what are the legal ramifications of Minimus having assumed the identity of a dead man, now that Tyrest isn’t there to keep up the charade and the secret is a bit more open? Does Minimus have legal claim to Magnus’s identity, or at least ownership of the armor? Can Minimus lay claim to any property he purchased as Magnus, or that the previous Magnuses had purchased prior to their deaths? Was Minimus legally declared dead prior to undertaking the role of Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord, if only to make things easier in terms of paperwork? Can Minimus sign off on things, and if so, does he use his own signature, or Magnus’s? If he signed something as Magnus, would any contract bearing it be rendered temporarily void whenever he’s not wearing his work pants? How much of Minimus’s existence makes him cry late into the night with how legally dubious it is? Does Delta Magnus know about Ultra Magnus being a skin suit? I feel like we don’t focus on how fucked up this whole situation is nearly enough.

Anyway, Velocity asks after Megatron’s medicine, probably because First Aid’s medical note-taking skills often get usurped by his need to write SpringerxReader fanfiction. She mentions that what they’ve been feeding Megatron over the last year have some side effects, which Megatron seems surprised by. Considering he’s felt sickly and crampy this whole time, the side effects are likely meant to be the intent of the medication.

Velocity then takes a gander at the dents Megatron put into his head when he had his little freakout, stating that “chemo-sedatives” can change one’s whole personality in extreme cases, as well as increased stress levels, as Megatron admits that the reason he crushed his head with his hands is that he heard voices screaming. However, Megatron doesn’t think stress caused such a thing.

To recap how the last year has gone for Megatron: he was forced to renounce the cause he had led for the last 4 million years, became co-captain of a fucking Carnival cruise ship, had 95% of his crew disappear from reality, found a bunch of corpses, got slapped in the face by Soundwave’s dad, had to lie to Rewind’s face to make him okay with killing himself so that everyone else might live, got shot as an infant, gaining anywhere from three-to-five fathers as a result, visited the most passive-aggressive garden in the galaxy, got stabbed in the chest and brained with a flat-screen television and then had to apologize for it, and was non-consensually hugged by a swarm of flesh-eating insects parading around in his SIC’s skin suit.

Velocity gets a call on her smart watch, Swerve on the other end demanding her presence at the medibay, seeing as she’s the only doctor on the ship now, and there are multiple people having a crisis.

Smash cut to Swerve, Cyclonus, Tailgate, Chromedome, Rewind, Rung, and Megatron standing on the bridge, their colors looking super fucked up and light bloomed out, because this is a 40-page issue with a shit-ton of detail and characters, so we’ve got three colorists, two artists, and an extra inker on for this one. They’re meeting with Rodimus, whose fingers have shrunk down to the size of shoestring potato fries, because Swerve, Tailgate, Rewind, Rung, and Megatron heard some sort of awful noise in their brains at the exact same time. Chromedome is here to support his husband, because he loves him so, so much, kissy-noise kissy-noise. Cyclonus is here mainly to clarify that he’s a badass who no one has ever heard cry, because emotional vulnerability and expressing pain are for pussies, unless you’re doing it by way of self-harming directly onto your face meat.

Only Tailgate and Rewind actually admit to what they heard, Tailgate hearing Cyclonus berate him for falling for Getaway’s tricks and Rewind hearing Dominus berate him for not doing enough to find him. I’d imagine both Rung and Swerve were hearing things relating to their professionalism, given that Rung fucking sucks at his job, and Swerve’s gonna fry the moment Ten gets a union sorted out. Megatron, is well, Megatron, so there’s a litany of awful things that he could have heard.

Rodimus has Blaster reveal that the ship received a signal at the exact same time that these people had their little brain event. Brainstorm hypothesizes that what happened was some sort of psychological assault, perhaps of Galactic Council origin, as a means of testing a new brain weapon. Magnus, who has been up on an upper level with a clipboard up to this point, notes that they could trace the signal. Mainframe informs him that they have, but the origin doesn’t seem to correspond to any known location in the navigation, and they’d have to physically go there to see what’s up. Which isn’t sketchy in the slightest.

Rodimus wants to load up on his big, beautiful Rodpod with everyone, so they can find who did this and make them stop. When Magnus questions if this is a wise course of action, Rodimus uses American grammar to trip up Magnus’s British-based spellcheck, so he gets to do whatever he wants. This is a trick he’s picked up since Drift left, as the old game of “pitting my people-pleaser hippy dippy boytoy and my no-nonsense stick-up-the-ass sentient rulebook against one another, so whatever I wanted to do from the start can seem like a pleasantly centralized option” doesn’t work very well when you replace the boytoy with a grumpy old man who tried to murder everything with a heartbeat.

Velocity wants to join the trip alongside Team Rodimus, but Mainframe has his reservations. I don’t blame him, considering she is, again, the only medical doctor currently on board this ship. He suggests she take along some personal protection, just in case.

…I mean, he’ll definitely make sure any bad guys who come her way will die horribly, if nothing else. Also, apparently the Rodpod's artificial gravity goes all the way around.

Nautica’s spent the last few weeks tricking out the Rodpod with a fancy schmancy new teleport drive, because Rodimus was annoying her to the point where if she didn’t give him what he was moaning about she might have had to kill him. Megatron is hesitant to use the drive, but after being informed that there are safety perimeters in place that’ll keep the ol’ Rodimus Podimus from teleporting inside a asteroid or whatever, he pulls the level and they end up in the dark.

No, not space dark, don’t be funny. That’s my job, and they don’t pay me for it, which should tell you how dire the situation is. This is a special sort of dark. The sort of dark that leads to panic and lethal levels of quipping. Rodimus cuts the lights on, but it does very little to offset the absolutely suffocating darkness outside. Rewind notes that there aren’t any stars, and Tailgate admits that he doesn’t know how space works. That’s alright Tailgate, neither do any of the people who draw or color this comic. You’re amongst (created by?) friends here.

The scanners reveal that there’s something 3000 miles in front of them. And behind them. And to the left, to the right, 12 o'clock, three o'clock, six o'clock, nine o'clock, rock around the clock tonight— that is to say, they’re surrounded by something the size of a planet. After disabling the safety protocols on the Rodimus Podimus, the gang find themselves on the surface of Necroworld, where the Necrobot Censere lives and operates his many plinths to the living and dead. Megatron isn’t exactly thrilled to be back here. Nightbeat on the other hand, is overdose on mystery, and he couldn’t be happier. Nobody’s sure what the fuck is going on. There’s no time to theorize, however, as half the gang just got blown sky high.

Everyone books it back to the Rodpod to escape the dozen attack craft coming after them, but there’s more trouble here— the teleport drive is dead. Which is weird, because they should have had enough juice to get to and from their little trip. When Rodimus tries to contact the Lost Light, there’s no response. They’re not responding. Megatron tells him that those are two different things, mirroring the same thing Optimus said about trying to contact the Lost Light after he and Jetfire viewed the will tapes. Everyone else is busy trying to figure out who the hell could be firing on them, all of them roughly coming to the same conclusion that Cybertronians as a whole aren’t terribly well liked, and the Lost Lighters have made a bit of a name (derogatory) for themselves, since they insulted the Galactic Council, caused the end of the 16-million year Stentarian war, and have ruined at least one bar with physical violence over home movies.

Rodimus tells Megatron to park the Rodpod at the Necrobot’s citadel, just in time for a missile to hit the ass-end of the shuttle, blowing off Magnus’s arm, shredding off roughly half of Nautica’s face, and giving Cyclonus an excuse to hold Tailgate in his arms. Everyone bolts to get inside, Nautica being carried by Skids so we can further solidify the straightest pairing in the series. Once they’re all inside, their attackers retreat, and we see where Censere’s gotten to in all this.

Let’s give him a hand, folks!

While Velocity looks over the body, Nightbeat deals with his personal Santa Claus being dead by way of trying to figure out what happened. Megatron, meanwhile, noticed that the craft that attacked them were of Decepticon design, and he tells Ravage to go check it out. Honestly, I doubt he was the only one to notice, given that all but three of the people on this trip were dealing with the Decepticons in some form or fashion all throughout the war, and could therefore identify the make of the crafts, if not the model, so I’m not sure what the deal is with this secrecy.

Brainstorm is brought over to Nightbeat to help solve this mystery, and he promptly identifies that some of Censere’s equipment is very similar to the stuff Tyrest used for the Aequitas trials, likely used to figure out what sparkflowers to plant where. Rewind, having popped on his sparkliest nipple pasties on, because he hates Censere and wants to get glitter all over his house, asks the boys to scootch on over so he can try to call the Lost Light. Nightbeat thinks that Censere tried to sabotage a signal someone else had sent in an attempt to lure Team Rodimus (and friends) to the planet, and that resulted in the brain attack that had happened earlier in the day. Unfortunately, Censere didn’t spend any time with Rodimus the last time the Lost Light visited, so he didn’t get a taste of the ridiculous way Rodimus likes to live his life, and why the psychic attack wouldn’t work.

Rewind gets the phone working, calling Rodimus over to get on the horn. Magnus stands in the background, showing off his grievous amputation. After a bit of fiddling with the settings on their end, the Lost Light makes official contact with Team Rodimus.

Getaway, last we saw him, was very much in prison, but Rodimus isn’t going to focus on that niggling little detail right now, as he asks for the Lost Light to swing by to pick up the team so they don’t all die. Getaway sort of DOES want to focus on that detail, however, as he very much didn’t appreciate being fetish fuel throughout the holiday season, and, despite his name, didn’t actually escape that setup. No, Getaway had help.

Man, guess Megatron should’ve reconsidered failing Riptide on his essay.

Speaking of Megatron, he walks up about now to see what all the hubbub’s about. Rodimus, looking like he’s about to cry, realizes that Mainframe lied to them about not being able to track the signal. Getaway gives him points for getting that right, but really, he wants to drive home the point that the entirety of the crew wanted Megatron’s little pals off the ship. And that’s what it’s really about, at the end of the day. Getaway hates that high command gave Megatron a party cruise to live out his last days on, last days that might not even happen, with the track record of this goddamned quest. He’s sick of Rodimus and pals acting like this whole arrangement isn’t an affront to every single life that’s been snuffed out because of Megatron’s actions.

Everyone other than Whirl seems pretty bummed out by these accusations. Swerve pipes up, enraged that he’s been doomed to die alongside everyone else— he doesn’t even LIKE Megatron. Getaway reveals that at some point or another, he and Atomizer (the interior designer turned bowman, you’ll recall) approached every single crew member and asked if they thought Megatron deserved to have a second chance and also, completely unrelated, but what would you do in the event of a coup? Anyone who didn’t provide a desirable answer got visited by the nudge gun fairy— that gun that can fire thought into your brain, or just erase memories if fired dry. The collection of headaches main cast have been experiencing over the last several issues? The side effect of being shot. Skids especially does not like this reveal.

Of course, Getaway isn’t just upset with Megatron’s leadership— he’s also mad as hell what’s supposed to be a trip to find their ancestors, who will guide them back onto the straight and narrow, has, in actuality, been Rodimus’s midlife crisis road trip. Getaway wasn’t even here for Rodimus and Drift’s ass-slapping contests and insulting galactic officials who want the Cybertronians dead, but he didn’t need to be. He took one look at the Rodpod and decided he needed to kill Rodimus right then and there.

Rodimus, at this point, remembers the list Atomizer had offered him back during the trial. Magnus, biting his lip at the idea of a list existing, asks what that’s all about, and Rodimus explains. Getaway really was hoping that Rodimus would take the bait, so he could’ve blackmailed Rodimus into stepping down and letting literally anyone else take over. Probably Magnus, at that point in the timeline, given that he hadn’t gotten buddy-buddy with Megatron yet at that point. Unless Getaway considers acting as someone’s lawyer under order of the space pope as being too close to an individual.

Getaway decides that this conversation has reached its natural conclusion, as he’s got questing to get done, and it should be moving at a pretty even clip now, since he’s excised all the distractions. Rodimus swears to come after him, but Getaway doubts it’ll happen, given what’s happening next.

While this debacle has been happening, Ravage has been busy searching a crash site, trying to uncover the identity of who the hell’s decided to attack them. Tarn commits a microagression at him, before firing his twin fusion cannons.

The call ends, Getaway cutting off the comm to all contact.

Ravage shows back up at this point, to give everyone the bad news.

Nightbeat, honey, the tragedy is in the opposite direction.

Now, that’s technically the finale of the main story, but there’s a little bonus comic attached to the end, acting as a sort of sideways epilogue to hint at what Getaway and his merry band of mutineers will be getting up to, since we aren’t seeing them again for a bit.

Our little backup strip begins right before the original launch of the Lost Light, where we see some guys we haven’t seen the 2012 Annual issue. Shock and Ore wander around what will one day become Swerve’s, Shock convinced that this ship is actually the ship they lost 5 million years prior, the Unitrex-1. Ore isn’t so sure, but as the readers, we saw the exact moment that Unitrex-1 disappeared in issue #38, after Rodimus forgot to wash his hands while putting the quantum engine together. Shock, wanting to prove that he’s right, fumbles around in the dark, looking for the graffiti he carved into the underside of a table. Ore gets a call on his space Blackberry while he’s doing this, and we finally get the other half of that call Prowl made in issue #1, after he failed to get Chromedome to stay on Cybertron. The Duobots have 20 minutes to get Overlord’s massive, lippy ass on the ship. Knowing that that isn’t a ton of time, the two quickly book it out of the bar, leaving the spectral form of Skids to look really bummed out.

Later, at Swerve’s grand (secret) opening, we see some more old faces.

Whoa now, Drift, you’re not supposed to be back until next issue!

Pipes thinks he’s been cursed to not have friends, since Hubcap is still at his dead-end job with the Wreckers, and Riptide was too busy being in a coma to come say goodbye. How rude!

Drift doesn’t seem to particularly want Pipes around more than necessary, pushing him to be friends with Rewind, who he describes as having kind eyes. Whether Drift is doing this to keep Pipes safe from overhearing any Overlord-related secrets, keeping his ass-slapping and sexually-tense sword training time with Rodimus safe, or just because he finds Pipes to be mildly annoying isn’t clear. Pipes, however, is looking for more than friendship— he’s looking to bone down.

Pipes’s ideal partner is wide as they are tall, with tits to match and at least one alt-mode that he can use as a yacht. Drift tells him he can introduce him to Tailgate, though something tells me Pipes isn’t really Tailgate’s type, given that he can actually say what he means and doesn’t have some fucked-up facial situation.

It’s really too bad that Pipes died, because I bet he would have loved Nautica, and he would have REALLY loved Nickel.

Later still, we see all of our doctors together— even Ambulon is there! In one piece, even! Ambulon wants to tell First Aid something, and First Aid automatically tries to make it a cosmetic thing, because of COURSE Ambulon would be insecure about his bad skin, and what he really needs is a better cleanser. What Ambulon actually wants to talk about, though, is his alt mode, and the fact that the puns involved with being part of a Combiner make him want to die. First Aid understands, but Swerve, known menace to society, might not be so compassionate, as he throws a grenade into the back of Ambulon’s head, triggering his transformation. Ambulon is mortified, and Swerve does the thing that Ambulon literally just said he hates. First Aid continues to rip flakes of paint off of Ambulon, as the specter of Velocity watches, looking pretty bummed about the fact that she never got to be part of banter like this.

Later on than that, Rewind and a wheelchair-bound Rung are in the currently-empty Swerve’s, as Rewind calls Chromedome to gather up one of the groups for those storytelling circles Rewind organized to try to fix Rung’s brain. He hangs up, then tells Rung that once his brain works again, they’re going to have a goddamned chat about Dominus Ambus, which is only mildly hampered in its threat by the fact that Rewind standing is barely the same height as Rung sitting down.

Rewind then gets to work writing out the story map for when the “Shadowplay” group gets there, as the specter of Chromedome reaches out longingly for the dead version of his husband. He laments that this Rewind died without closure, but the ghostly specter of Rung reminds him that there are rules to this, and they have to leave now. Not sure why Rung’s here to watch himself be threatened by Pipsqueak McGee. Is he actually doing his job for once, helping guide someone through their grief? I doubt it, since Chromedome isn’t a hottie bo-body like Skids, and his problems haven’t (directly, at least) caused the sort of trouble that make entire star systems hate you like Megatron.

Later, during the Overlord disaster, Perceptor sprints into Swerve’s, shouting for a medic, as the rest of the battered and beaten watch. Hoist, himself hooked up to the wall by some sort of cable, while wearing his extra-special Rodimus Star, offers to help, though he’s technically an engineer, and whatever he’s gonna do probably won’t have any consideration for the soul or ability to feel pain. Perceptor was using Tripodeca— sweet, beloved, friend to all, who was the star of the post-Overlord mass funeral Tripodeca— as a, uh, tripod for his rifle, when Overlord probably noticed that the ol’ science sniper looked sort of familiar and did a lil’ grabbing with his big nasty hands. Hoist asks if Perceptor is going to stop Overlord, and considering how things went the last time Overlord was the star of the show, I doubt Perceptor thought he was gonna get lucky twice in terms of survival, especially when Overlord is riGHT BEHIND HIM OH GOD LORDY JESUS MARY AND JOSEPH

How Perceptor survived this isn't clear, but we know he did, as he continued to show up in the story past issue #15 in a decidedly alive, non-paste form. His specter watches this scene unfold, expression unreadable.

Post-Luna 1, Swerve stands in his ruined bar dejectedly, when he realizes that quite a few people have shown up to help him clean up the mess, as long as he promises to reward their hard work with reopening once it’s done. As everyone works to get things back in order, Swerve tells them to keep an eye out for a non-trashed Legislator that he could use as a bouncer, once he fucks around with its head enough to make it do what he wants. Ten’s specter watches as his shitty boss and arguable father is gifted the body that would become him, making a note to get his union going with a bit more urgency.

Later, on the day of the “Fuck Off Megatron 2-for-1 Drink Deal”, Crosscut lead Riptide, Mirage, and Nautica on a tour of the ship. Mirage notes that Swerve’s is a bit of a dive, not suited to his refined tastes in the slightest. In a booth, Getaway and Atomizer have boxed Mainframe in on either side to have a little chat. Swerve and Bluestreak talk television, Bluestreak making a little jab at MTMTE’s second season not being quite as well-received by fans as the first. Over at the bar, Highbrow and Perceptor talk about Quark, while Brainstorm watches while having his briefcase, which he is NOT supposed to have in here.

Crosscut goes on about this bar being where all things happen and where bittersweet is the most often-felt emotion, then calls Trailcutter/blazer an alcoholic as he dances on the ceiling. The specters of just about everyone on the ship watch their fallen friend, enjoying the moment and missing him terribly, as Perceptor brings them back to the here and now of the story, which turns out to be just after the holiday special, judging by the Christmas lights.

Minimus asks if this is safe, and Perceptor says that it is, as nobody can actually interact with the past, because Brainstorm is the only one who’s ever actually perfected that tech, not that this isn’t his fault either. It turns out that when you try to fly against the stream of time as it naturally occurs, you tear a few thousand itty bitty holes on the way to perfecting the process. Perceptor’s found a way to let others view the past, at least for a little while. Minimus is fine with it, as long as everyone continues to behave, and it seems like they are, as everyone mingles in Swerve’s.

The two of them sit down, Megatron handing Minimus what I’m sure is a mocktail, and Perceptor explains that while the window into the past is closing for now, it may open back up in the future. When Rodimus asks when that might be, he then immediately decides that he doesn’t want to know, instead wanting to have a fun little surprise for later. They don’t get very many of those, fun surprises.

As everyone toasts to the dead and to future adventures, the specter of Getaway watches on, smug as hell.

That’s the end of “No Guns, No Swords, No Briefcases” but that is STILL not the end of the issue! It never ends, this thing! Because the number 50 is very big and impressive, obviously this is a double-sized spectacular, and has to cap off with a note from the man himself— James Roberts.

And then after that we get a new notes from fans, but this is already obscenely long and I think I can show you the crux of what they’re all saying right here: MTMTE (2012) is fucking good. It’s a good series. Make your goddamn family, friends, coworkers, librarians, and goldfish read it. Share it with people you’ve never met. Get a long-term personal project out of it. Get long-term friends out of it. Get a long-term romantic partner out of it. If I can do it, so can you!

#transformers #MTMTE #issue 50 #maccadam #hannzreads #text post #long post #comic script writing #overthinking about robots #incoming analysis

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yumeka-sxf · 7 months

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The cruise arc continues!

And yes, this new key visual does go with the previous one to make a continuous image! There should be at least one more section of the image with next week's episode...not sure how many more after that.

Again, I'm not gonna analyze this episodes yet since I'm saving that for the new installments of my Twiyor posts! So my brief thoughts are...

I love the scenes between Yor and Olka. It's nice for Yor to have someone who not only knows her real profession, but is also sympathetic to the fact that she cares more about her "fake" family than she realizes.

She's so cute, even when she's slaying people 😅 Unlike Twilight, Yor doesn't have to create a phony personality for herself while on the job...she's still the same polite sweetheart whether she's being a wife/mother or assassin! (well, as polite as one can be when killing, lol)

Meanwhile, we get this adorable temper tantrum from Anya 😆

More of her hilarious expressions and reactions too!

The scenes where she's afraid of Loid and/or Yor finding out each other's identities are great not just because they're funny and so perfectly match her childish view of things, but also because, on a deeper level, they're actually very sad...that she's so afraid she'll be abandoned so easily. There's always some bit of tragedy in all great humor and that's what makes Endo's style of comedy so relatable.

And of course, we got the below classic Anya expression, a face so ambiguous it left poor Loid completely devastated 🤣

The part where Loid is trying so hard to be a good dad by getting Anya the keychain, only to utterly misunderstand her reaction, is one of the funniest scenes and I was so glad to finally see it animated 😂

Can't wait for next week episode to see Yor face off against Barnaby!

And surprisingly, an actual SxF cruise was announced for later this month from Yokohama to Takeshiba Pier 😀 Gah, I wish I could go! At least I can try to find merch for the event!

#spy family #spy x family #sxf #spyxfamily #loid forger #yor forger #anya forger #sxf anime

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loversj0y · 1 year

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'tis the damn season

chapter one - we could call it even

its your first day back home from winter break, and the overwhelming extent of the holidays leads to some interesting rekindlings

'tis the damn season masterlist

pairing: cc!wilbur soot x gn!reader

fluff and angst (quite a lot of angst in fact)

trigger warnings: reader's mother is abusive (not physically) and father is emotionally absent. this will be talked about in extensive detail. alcohol, some suggestive themes, and a lot of anxiety.

author's note: WELCOME! to the very first installment of a multichaptered fic inspired by taylor swift's tis the damn season! this work has been in progress for about. 4 months now so !! yipee!!! hope u enjoy (chapter two should be out sometime within the next week; i wont make the wait too long between chapters) dont like tumblr formatting? ao3 version is available here!

word count: 6.3k

If you had to be honest, you despised the holidays. It was always stressful, no matter how prepared you tried to be. But regardless, being in your final year of Uni, it was pretty nice to get a final winter break before graduation. The idea of staying with your parents wasn’t ideal. They’d spent years neglecting you and taking a toll on you emotionally, but in the time you’d been gone, it had seemed like things had improved. You agreed to go home for the holidays under this idea, hoping to have a nice break from everything, despite the heavy feeling in your chest that came from being in your hometown – that you’d proudly left behind – and the general dread of the holidays.

Wilbur wasn’t exactly the opposite. While he didn’t mind the holidays themselves, he hated the social conventions of it all. Particularly the insistence that you must be with family or else the holiday isn’t worth anything. However, Wilbur seemed to luck out this year. His mother and stepfather happened to book a cruise for the holidays, and all they wanted from him was to watch the house while they were gone. It gave him both the convention of helping out family without dealing with the mental decline that he gets from actually being around them, mostly his stepfather. So, he’d spend a month in his old bedroom, in the town he dreaded because the number of good memories he’d had all involved one person that left not long before he did.

When you’d finally arrived, it wasn’t long before your parents were hugging you and peppering kisses on your face, talking about how much they’d missed you, and asking if you were eating alright. It was loving, and you did appreciate it, but you felt uneasy. As your mother hugged you, it felt unfulfilling as you looked around the room, each familiar surrounding bringing up memories of your mother’s yelling. You’d settled down fairly easily, which tended to be a perk of returning to your childhood bedroom. After changing into something much more comfortable, you’d returned to where it seemed your family members had accumulated.

“Y/n, darling, my goodness, you’ve grown so much since I’ve last seen you! What are they feeding you out there in London?” It was your aunt who spoke to you. She was tame enough, save for when she got her hands on enough cosmopolitans to feel the need to share everyone’s gossip.

“It’s nice to see you too. And I cook for myself, in case you were wondering.” You deadpanned. Honestly, you just didn't feel like humoring her advances to pull information out of you. You’d fallen for them as a kid, but now, even with little to hide, you couldn’t quite trust her.

“Of course, you are, my genius. How’s the dating scene been?”

You rolled your eyes at the nickname, brushing it off, “Boring as ever.”

She hummed, taking a sip of her drink. Ah, looks like she may already be ready to gossip, you thought, noticing the soft flush on her cheeks consistent with her drunkness. Your suspicions were confirmed when she continued, “You know, your mum told me she saw that old fling of yours at the shops the other day. What was his name?” She hummed for a moment, “Wilbur! That’s what it is.”

Your chest turned to stone in a matter of seconds, and you forced out a response, “Oh, cool.”

It was not “oh, cool” however, it was very much not cool. You and Wilbur had been friends since the third form, and while you weren’t incredibly close at first, you became much closer as time went on and as social circles grew smaller and smaller. It came to the point where you two were inseparable, the best friend you’d had even until now. Your “fling” couldn't even really be classified as such. Despite how much you loved Wilbur Soot, you and him just never seemed to break that barrier, save for one weekend in your final year of A-levels. You’d planned to go to prom together, neither of you being romantically involved with anyone else, but you never actually made it to prom. You both went and sat in a field outside the back of the school, sharing a bottle of vodka he’d lifted from his stepdad’s stash. It was then that he’d opened up to you about how embarrassed he felt to be leaving school without having ever kissed a girl before. The mixture of his vodka and your love for him ultimately amounted to a few sloppy kisses, a moment’s worth of making out, before the two of you both had to run from a counselor who was looking for any delinquent students. Neither of you ever addressed it again.

The years you two had known each other eventually culminated in the same relationship that you had with most people these days: you leaving him and losing contact. You didn’t mean to leave him behind, but between a full scholarship in London and his insistence on how shitty London is, you had to leave.

You thought about him frequently. There were numerous nights where you’d open up his contact and attempt to draft a message, but it always ended in watching the cursor blink as you struggled to find the words. Honestly, you never thought you’d see him again. You knew nothing about him anymore, what he was like, what he was doing. It was impossible to decide if you dreaded seeing him or would go out of your way to attempt to see him.

After catching up with your family for a bit longer, you decided to step out. Honestly, you didn’t know where you were going. It was late, almost midnight, and you just needed the fresh air. After walking into town, you found the one thing that would realistically be open this time of night: the pub. It was mostly empty, save for a few older folks sitting in some booths around the wall. You recognized the bartender, he was a few years above you back in school, but he always made an effort to be kind to everyone. He grinned at you once you sat at the bar.

“Well, if it isn’t Y/N L/N. Shit, I would’ve thought you died," he chuckled, "You visiting for the holidays?”

“Yep. And trust me, I’d quite rather be dead than be around my whole family all day.”

He laughed, “Let me guess, a martini for the sophisticated Londoner?”

You laughed back, “God, no, I haven’t exactly been converted over yet. Just a pint.”

“Still the same as before?”

“Mmhm,” you nodded out, sighing softly. Being here felt a lot less tense than being at home. At least here you didn’t have to deal with the hushed fights and curses whispered between spouses.

Wilbur had been incredibly excited by the idea of being alone when he first arrived at his old house a week before. It wasn’t long before it got old.

“Alright, chat, who should we raid?”

His chat moved rapidly in response to his words. He’d been playing Minecraft with Tommy, not unlike usual, but he’d been live for an hour and a half, which was a long time to hold up a persona for. Once he’d ended, he stayed on call with Tommy through Discord.

“I dunno, man. I like being alone, like having the place to myself, but I’ve never felt so lonely,” Wilbur paused, “This place is way bigger than I remember.”

“So go somewhere,” Tommy offered.

Wilbur groaned, “You do understand that there is nothing to do here. It’s part of the reason I settled on Brighton.”

“Oh, c’mon, there’s gotta be something there for you to do. Don’t you have at least, like, a park or a pub maybe? You could go meet women!”

“Tommy, I know every woman in this town, nobody has moved here or left here since I left,” he sighed, “we do have a pub though. Honestly, that’s not a bad idea. I could go for a drink.”

“See! Just gotta think outside the box. Have a little optimism, man. Maybe you’ll see that person you knew in school.”

“Tommy, don’t.” Wilbur genuinely considered leaving the call, his heart sinking at the mention of his old friend, “They haven’t been back since they left, alright?”

“Yeah, but you never know! Have you thought about what you’d say to them if you did see them?”

“No,” he groaned, “I don’t know why I’m humoring this, but if I saw them, I’d probably be nice. As much as it hurts, I miss them, and it’s not like I reached out much either, so.”

Tommy hummed, “Wilbur the Wise, you are. At least maybe if you do see them, you’ll be much less bored.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Wilbur sighed, pulling an old beanie on. “Alright, I’m going to head out, talk to you later, man.”

“Have fun!”

Wilbur hung up the call after a moment, sighing a bit as he stretched. While he didn’t actually want to go to the pub, it was a better idea than staying in another night. Plus, at least he could get to walk his old path and try and see some of the cats he always used to stop for.

His walk did end up taking quite a while. He only spotted two cats on the way, but he’d given them as much attention and love as they’d allow. But that wasn’t really what took up so much of his time. He kept going back to what Tommy had asked. Honestly, he did not even consider he’d see you here. For a long time after you’d left for school, he thought that one day he’d see you walking to the shops and he’d go up to you, and just by saying hello, everything would feel like it used to. After a while, he’d lost hope that he’d ever see you again. He’d tried to find you online, some scrap to see how you had been and to see if you were okay, but he knew he couldn’t exactly just follow you without the risk of questions. He cursed himself for a long while over his pettiness in never reaching out. He thought about that prom night often. Part of him couldn’t make peace with the idea that his best friend, someone who he’d fallen in love with the second they’d spoken to him, was now just a stranger to him. It didn’t make sense to him, but what made even less sense was when Wilbur opened the door to the pub to find you sitting alone at the bar.

Wilbur’s breathing went full stop when he saw you. He couldn’t feel his fingers, but whether that was from the cold or the shock he felt seeing you, he couldn’t tell. Once he could feel his body again, he felt his heart pounding in his chest. He’d have to make a choice right now, and he’d have to make one he wouldn’t eventually regret, but-

“Wilbur! Mate, close the door, would you, you’re lettin' in a draft!”

You felt frozen in your seat when you heard the bartender– whose name, you were kindly reminded, was Liam– yell to Wilbur. You didn’t know if you wanted to look up at him or look anywhere but him. Eventually, curiosity got the best of you, and you looked up directly into his eyes as he stood in the doorway. He seemed to come back to life after a second, turning to walk towards the bar.

“Uh, right, sorry, man. Could I get a pint?”

He sat across the corner of the bar, close but still seemingly holding you at a distance.

After Liam walked away, he turned back to you, and for a moment, you both stared, trying to find words. He’d grown quite fit since the last time you’d seen him. He was still tall, but not quite as lanky. His shoulders have filled out nicely.

You decided to start, stuttering a bit as you began, “Hi, Wilbur.”

He seemed to think for a moment before the look faded from his face and something kinder replaced it, “Hi.”

“How- um,” you contemplated even asking, but you’d rather ask than be sitting here in awkward silence with the boy you’ve loved for years, “How have you been?”

“I’ve been…” He took in a breath, a moment to compose himself, before responding, “I’ve been good, actually. How about you?”

You considered lying. “I’m okay, could be better but…”

“But?”

“Well, I’m still doing the whole uni thing, so still just living in London. Not many developments.”

“Right. How is London?”

You thought back to your apartment. Your shitty apartment and your three roommates who you never spoke to, the leaks in the ceilings, the constant noise, the crowds, the grey fogs that would weigh down on your lungs, the deaths on the tube, the harassment just from walking to campus, everything. “It sucks. The city is horrible,” you sighed, “The school is alright, though. The people are standoffish and don’t talk, but the education is good.”

Wilbur looked as though he was fighting off a smile, taking a sip from the beer he’d been given. “I’m sorry to hear that. Glad the school is good. It may not be my place exactly, but do you mind if I say something?”

Dread filled your chest. “Well, you have to now.”

A smile crossed his face, his eyes wrinkling at the corners. “I told you so.”

A moment of processing passed before you burst into laughter. Of course, after all the years you knew Wilbur Soot, you probably could have predicted that would be the first thing he’d want to say to you.

“Okay, okay, I can admit. Maybe you were a little right. I’ve got my regrets, but despite the city, I don’t hate my choice,” you took a sip from your pint, “what about you? How’s life been?”

He shrugged a bit, “I’d say good. I did some schooling online and graduated a bit ago. Been doing some work, uh, online, so yeah. It’s been good.”

“Oh, that sounds cool. Anything I’d know?”

“Uh, maybe…” He went quiet for a moment before continuing, “I work for Twitch if you know that company.”

You shrugged, “I know of them. That’s cool though, I’m glad you found something you enjoy.”

He smiled a bit, “Yeah, it’s been nice. I’ve made quite a few friends.”

“Really?” That was a bit of a surprise, “Shy little Wilby is making work friends?”

He seemed to flush a bit, chuckling, “I’ve gotten better about the shyness.”

“That’s good. You seem to be doing better in that department than I have. I haven’t changed much at all, I think.”

He hummed, pondering. He stared for a moment, and you almost felt shy under his gaze. Finally, after what felt like ages, he spoke up, “You do your hair differently. You used to part it to the side.”

You laughed, surprised by the unexpected statement, instinctively reaching up to fix some stray hairs. It brought a blush up to your cheeks, as you couldn’t remember the last time someone had noticed such a small detail as that. You bit your lip for a moment before responding, “Yeah, I- I guess so. Though, to be fair, we kind of had the whole edginess thing going on back then. Had to look the part.”

“Very true,” He snorted a bit, “I still listen to the same music for the most part though.”

“Oh, let me guess. Favorite band is still Los Campesinos!?”

“Yeah,” he laughed, “though I play a bit of my music now too.”

“Oh?” that was a major development. Wilbur spent a significant amount of time in school talking about how much he wanted to play music, always humming some tune to himself, “Will, that’s fantastic. You’ll have to show me sometime.”

“I could show you now, if you’d like. I’m just watching the house for my parents, so I brought some of my music equipment with me.”

You don’t know what made you so willing to say yes. Maybe it was the fact that you’d finished your pint. Maybe it was just the way that being here and talking to Wilbur made the heaviness in your chest finally lighten up since you first realized you’d have to go home. Either way, before you knew it, you and Wilbur were walking back to his place, chatting lightly the whole way there.

“Wow, this place hasn’t changed.”

You took off your coat as you and Wilbur entered his front door.

“My parent’s haven’t made much of an effort to change things. They think the nineties are still in.” He joked lightly as he locked the door behind you both.

You chuckled, “Yeah, I can see that.” You followed him up the stairs, “So, you said you were just watching the place for them. I take it you don’t live here anymore?”

“Nope, I’ve been living in Brighton, actually. I think you’d really like it. It’s still England, so it’s not great, but the ocean is gorgeous.”

“I’ve been meaning to go down there, actually. It’s only about an hour's train from me, so sometimes my roommates go down there for long weekends. I just haven’t had the time.”

He hummed, “Well, whenever you do have the time, let me know. I’ve got a pretty nice spare room. Plus, I could introduce you to my mates.”

You smiled softly, mostly to yourself, “Yeah. That would be nice.”

He sat down on his bed, reaching behind him and grabbing his guitar. You took a moment to look around the room. The same posters were still hung up, the dents in the wall from you and him goofing off and throwing things, even the scuffs on the floorboards from when you and him rearranged all his furniture. In the years of separation, you expected more of a difference. The only actual difference was that the room was cleaned for once. You hesitated before sitting next to him as you made your observations. He noticed.

“What’s up?”

I shrugged, “It’s weird. Being back here, I mean. I haven’t sat here since A-levels.”

He nodded, thinking it over for a moment. “Yeah. It is a bit weird. Doesn’t it kind of seem like nothing’s changed though?” He chuckled, “I mean, despite the time gap, you always did say being here made you feel safe.”

“Yeah,” I sighed, “the feeling is still there. I just feel… weird. I’m used to missing you and all of our memories, but I’m not used to being here again after everything that has changed.”

He smiled slightly, “you missed me?”

I chuckled, “Obviously, man. I missed you every day. Missed having a best friend to bully.”

He snorted, “Hey, all of our bullying was friendly. Unlike some of the other wankers at our school.”

You laughed, throwing your head back, “Oh god, yeah. Bloody hell, man, I feel bad for their kids. Marshall’s going into medicine, and my god, I pray I never end up as his patient. I feel like his negligence alone would kill me.”

Wilbur laughed, leaning into you a bit. “God, that is not a man who should have a medical license,” he sighed softly. “Don’t fret, though. I missed you a lot too. I missed having someone yell at me to go outside or cut my hair.”

You laughed, “Yeah, my yelling comes from a good place, though.”

He hummed, “True. It did help me not go stir-crazy for a while there.” He paused for a moment, turning towards you slightly. “Wait, if you missed me, then… why didn’t you ever call?”

You took a deep breath, sighing softly. “Honestly, at first… I thought you might be mad at me for leaving. We did kind of have a whole argument about it, and I didn’t know if you’d want to hear from me. And then, once some time had passed, I considered it. I considered looking you up and trying to talk to you, or even just texting you, but I just felt like it might’ve been weird for me to just text you out of the blue. I didn’t want you to think I was just contacting you because I needed something or something stupid like that. I got busy, and more time passed, and reaching out just felt weirder and weirder each time I considered it.”

He nodded softly. He didn’t make eye contact as he listened and thought. “If I’m being honest as well, I didn’t want to hear from you at first. I was pretty upset. But after a while, I just missed my best friend. And I was going to text you, but I thought you’d be upset with how we left things. I wanted you to reach out because if I had hurt you, I couldn’t handle reaching out only to get anger, or even worse, just silence,” He sighed, “but if I knew you were thinking the same, I would have dedicated as much effort as I have to keep you in my life.”

You flushed a bit, “I would have too.” You made eye contact with him and everything felt warm for a moment, as if his gaze was sunlight peering through dark clouds.

“Now that I know, though,” he started, “I am going to annoy the fuck out of you.”

You laughed loudly at that, grinning up at him, “I wouldn’t have it any other way. We’ve got a few years to make up for after all.”

He grinned softly, looking down for a moment. He pulled his guitar up a bit, smiling, “Well, now that that’s settled. Let me play you something.”

Wilbur’s music was beautiful. He played for an hour before he decided to stop, something about not wanting to play anything he hadn’t quite finished yet.

“Always the perfectionist, you are,” you commented as he placed his guitar down.

“Not always, I’ve gotten better about it. But I want to impress you mostly.”

“Really?” He sat back down on the bed next to you, “You wanted to impress me?”

He nodded, humming out a soft ‘mmhm’.

“If I knew we were trying to impress each other, I would’ve made my life sound much cooler.”

“Oh, really, how so?”

“I dunno, would’ve made it sound like I have some millionaire boyfriend who takes me to Spain for a casual date.”

He hesitated, his teeth taking his bottom lip in thought. “Do you have one?”

“A millionaire boyfriend?” You laughed out, “No, Wilbur, I d-“

“No, I just meant like, a boyfriend.”

“Oh.” You frowned a bit, “No. I don’t. Haven’t exactly gotten to know many people there. Plus, all the men are quite shit.”

He nodded, “Just like everything else in London?”

“Pretty much,” You chuckled softly, “What about you though? A handsome guy like you in Brighton, I’m sure you’ve gotten yourself, someone, by now.”

He shrugged, “Tried it out for a while, but I just didn’t have much luck.” He stopped as he processed your response in full, “Hold on, handsome? You think I’m handsome?” He teased.

You lightly blushed, rolling your eyes, “Obviously, man. You’ve always been quite fit. Especially with that haircut rather than that straight line cut you used to have.”

He laughed, “God, that was horrendous. Well, wait, how about now,” he took his hands and pushed his hair back, revealing his forehead.

You burst out laughing, “Somehow, yes, even if your forehead takes up half your face.”

He laughed, moving his hands and shaking his head to get his hair to fall back into place. “I can safely say, I find myself quite flattered. Especially coming from an incredibly pretty person such as yourself.”

You flushed a soft pink, “You think?”

“No, I don’t think, I just know facts.”

You blushed darker, chuckling. “Well, thanks.” You lightly nudged him with your side.

He repeated the action, albeit slightly harder. You two did this for a moment, each going slightly harder until he’d accidentally gone a bit too hard, knocking both of you down.

You both laughed, him laying his head against your side for a moment, before pulling himself up and holding himself up by his arm above you.

“You’re still as goofy, Mr. Soot.”

“Only with you.”

“Oh?”

“Actually, no. But this kind of goofy, yes.”

“And what kind is that?”

He just stared down at you for a moment. You felt yourself flush a bit under his gaze, and you stared back up at him. The light from his room gave him a soft halo glow around his head that made him look completely angelic. You’d always thought him attractive, but fuck he was ethereal like this.

“The kind I do to make pretty people laugh.”

Your breath hitched, but you were quiet otherwise. You couldn’t remember a time when your best friend was ever so… bold. Maybe part of you was reading into the tension, but the most gorgeous man you’d ever know just called you pretty. That plus his position above you was enough to make your heartbeat faster. You wanted to kiss him. Something in you felt so strongly the urge to wrap your hands around his neck and kiss him. For some reason you couldn’t quite fathom, though, you didn’t.

“Well, feels nice being special, then.”

He laid down next to you, the both of you just staring at the ceiling for a few quiet moments as the tension diffused.

He turned to you. “I can’t tell if I still know almost everything about you or if I know nothing anymore.”

“I can’t tell either.” You turned back to him, sighing, “Honestly, you probably still know more about me than I do.”

“You think?”

You nodded.

He thought to himself, “Still play Minecraft?”

“God, no,” You laughed, “I wish. I just don’t have the time for anything like that. I’ve just been studying constantly.”

“Unfortunate. If you ever need a break from studying, we could always play together.” He hummed, “ They’ve added a lot of cool things to the game.”

“You still play?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, “I play a lot. It’s a fantastic narrative tool, in fact.”

“Oh, really?”

“If you have enough people willing to work out a story and act it out, it makes for a cool platform to tell stories.”

You smiled, despite it being only for Wilbur’s sake. Honestly, you were sad that you didn’t know what he was talking about.

“What’s up?”

“Hm?” You questioned softly.

“Something’s wrong. I still know one of your fake smiles when I see them.”

“Oh,” you mumbled, “no, it’s just… I missed you. I’m a bit bummed that I can’t see the cool stuff you’ve done since.”

“Well,” he started, rubbing the back of his neck, “actually, you can.”

You gave him a confused look as he continued.

“You know how I mentioned I worked for Twitch?” You nodded, “well when I say that, I mean that I stream, actually, so playing live for people and that includes all my stories.”

“Wilbur, that’s amazing.”

“I know,” he laughed, “I’m still shocked people are interested in what I write and create.”

“If they’re anything like your DnD campaigns, I’m not shocked at all.”

He laughed again, throwing his head back, “Oh, man, I loved making those as convoluted as possible though, you were the one who made the stories make sense. These are more streamlined since we have to deal with so many different schedules and coordinate stuff.”

“God, that sounds stressful. I can barely coordinate plans with one person.”

He shrugged, “It’s easier since streaming is all of our jobs. It’s more like assigning work shifts.”

You hummed, “That makes sense.”

“Yeah, I can send you some stuff from it. Though, be warned, without your aid, some pieces of lore are wildly convoluted.”

You chuckled, “I expect nothing less.”

You and Wilbur continued to talk for hours, just catching each other up on life and new habits, and every detail missed between the cracks of time you two were separated from each other. You couldn’t be sure when you or Will fell asleep, but you woke up feeling safer than you’d had in a long time. When you’d briefly woken up to the morning light coming through the blinds, and you noticed his lanky arm wrapped around you, you gently reached down and held his hand in yours before falling back into the kind arms of rest.

You woke up again about two hours later. You were facing him now, both of your legs wrapped between each other, and his arm was still lightly cupping your back. You opened your eyes to see him still sleeping, a soft and peaceful expression on his face. You gently reached a hand up to brush some of his hair away from his eyes. You were so busy staring at his soft features that you barely noticed his eyes open.

“Good morning to you too, then,” he spoke, his voice laced with sleep.

Your hand jumped back, a blush immediately rising to your cheeks, “Sorry.”

“‘s alright. Felt quite nice, actually.” He blinked the sleep out of his eyes after a moment, and he flushed himself, going to move his hand off your waist, “Oh, sorr-“

“No.” You stopped him, his arm halting midair, “It’s okay. It felt quite nice,” you said, mimicking his words from a moment ago.

He blushed, cautiously lowering his arm back onto your side.

“Did you sleep well?” He asked.

“Yeah. Your room feels more familiar than mine, honestly.”

He chuckled, his laughter slightly gruff from the early morning, “You probably spent more time here than at your own place, so I can’t say I’m shocked.”

You laughed, “Oh, almost definitely. What about you, did you sleep well?”

He smiled at you, nodding, “Best I’ve slept since I got here. I felt much less lonely.”

“I know what you mean. My room kind of just feels cold. Not temperature-wise, but just like,” you sighed, “you know what I mean.”

“Luckily, I do.” He smiled, “You’re welcome to stay here again, if you like.”

You hummed, “I might consider it. Though I would like to stop home to put on something clean.”

He nodded, “Right, of course, yeah. I actually have to stream today, too, so, if anything, just,” he trailed off, “text me around eight?”

“Yeah,” you nodded, “That sounds good. I can bring some food from home too, given that I know you have probably just been eating takeout or, god forbid, have been trying to cook by yourself.”

“Hey, I’m much better at cooking than I used to be,” he laughed. “You’re right about the takeout, though.”

You snorted, “I know you well, Mr. Soot.”

He smiled fondly, “You sure do.”

The two of you just lay there quietly, basking in the early air and light. After a few minutes, you sighed, leaning your head against his chest quietly.

“Is everything alright?” He whispered.

You nodded against him, burying your face deeper against him while he wrapped his arms tighter around you. You felt emotional all of a sudden as you held onto him: Your best friend, who you’d secretly loved for years. And now, you thought about what held you back in the past. The main thing you were afraid of was losing him, but in the end, that ended up happening anyway. Love confession or not, you lost him, and now, you were given another chance by whatever fateful creature may exist out there. And as insistent as you were to not lose this chance, your logic stopped you. This trip was just that: a trip. In two weeks, you’d be back to your place in London and he would be back in Brighton. But yet there was an ache in your chest, consistent with longing and want but entirely unattainable.

“Stop thinking so much,” he spoke softly, placing his chin on top of your head.

“Wilbur, you know that is entirely impossible for me.”

“Okay,” he trailed off, “then do you want to talk about it, so it can at least be out of your head?”

You did. You wanted to talk about it all, in its entirety, if only just to know if the ache present in your chest matched an ache in him. But you couldn’t. If that ache wasn’t present in him, who would you be to share it with him? The solution seemed to lie in half-truths.

“I’m just thinking about how I go home in two weeks and how much I’m dreading it. I don’t want to go back to schoolwork.”

He hummed, nodding, “It’s probably not helpful to say, but if you dwell on that the whole time you’re here, then it will come twice as fast. You’ve got to slow your brain down a bit. Try and just be in the moment.”

You snorted, “That’s rich coming from you.”

He chuckled, “Hey, my anxiety might take over sometimes, but it really does help to try and just focus on what’s happening, you know. You’re safe here,” he lightly kissed the top of your head, “so just focus on being here.”

You sighed, “I’ll try.” You shifted your focus to the soft sound of his heartbeat against your ear, the feeling of his arms wrapped around your back. Every detail was comprised of him.

You eventually did have to go home, after receiving a frantic call from your mum about how you “couldn’t just sneak off every time you got bored” which, granted, you disagreed with; you knew this town like the back of your hand, and you’re an adult so it’s not like she can dictate your every move. When you made it home, you went to your room to change and shower, but your thoughts immediately drifted back to Will. You never really noticed just how many minute details you had memorized, like the way his eyes crinkled when he laughed, or the way he would tilt his head back when something that caught him offguard made him really laugh. You thought about the way he would hiccup in between laughter so strong it made his ribs hurt. The sly smile he would give you when you made eye contact but neither of you had anything to say. Your thoughts were entirely consumed by him.

By the time it was dinner, you had done almost extensive research into Wilbur’s online persona. You watched as many videos as you could, some of his, some of them fan-made. It was a weird concept, your best friend having fans. You’d gone onto the online space briefly before backing away. You didn’t exactly want to intrude on fan debates given how much you knew about Wilbur really. It was odd watching him talk to his chat and everything. It was so different. He didn’t seem like the shy, almost moody, boy you knew. He was much more confident and comfortable. It did warm your heart to see him being so strong in himself. Your mind wonderer over this new information, how different he was from the person you knew, as you ate. You almost didn’t hear your mum speaking to you.

“Dear, are you listening?”

You brought yourself out of your thoughts, grimacing. She hated when you weren’t listening, “Oh, sorry. No, uhm, what’s up?”

She frowned, giving you a cold stare, “I asked if you’ve found any jobs lined up yet. For after graduation?”

You sighed, “Not yet, Mum.”

“Because my old work friend, Charles, he could use the extra folks there. They’re looking into expanding into America.” She never actually cared much about what you wanted to do, always trying to push you into the field she wanted you to pursue.

“I’ll be fine. I can find a job myself. And Charles doesn’t even work in the same field my degree is in.”

“Just trying to help,” she tutted, tucking her arms defensively in front of her. “What’s on your mind these days?”

You shrugged tensely, “School and work. I haven’t had time for much else.”

She cooed, almost mocking, “You really should be looking into a relationship, dearie. You don’t want all the good ones taken, right?”

“God, mum, stop that. I’m fine on my own.”

“But are you happy?” She laughed, as if taunting you.

“I resent the implication that I cannot be perfectly fine and happy on my own without the presence of another person to fulfill me.” You spat.

“I’m not saying that specifically, I’m just saying, you really ought to try harder. I’m sure most people don’t find your constant sweatpants that attractive.”

You groaned, standing. “I can’t be here for this anymore.”

She did this every year. Constantly reminding you of your own loneliness under the guise of being thoughtful and caring, rather than just understanding that you are your own person who’d rather be alone before feeling like someone’s personal doll.

You strode to the kitchen, filling a container with some leftovers for Wilbur as your mother tried helplessly to justify her own points. You waved her off, grabbing your bag before walking out the door.

You let out a sigh once you headed out. You walked to the end of the street and sat on the curb, pulling out your phone to text Wilbur. Once you got confirmation that you could come, you stood and walked the short distance to his place.

He opened the door, and you walked in casually.

“You look annoyed about something,” he noted.

“I would like you to take a wild guess,” you hummed, handing him the leftovers.

He murmured a quick ‘thank you’ before responding, “Your mum?”

“Still as bad as before, she is.”

He sighed, “At least you’ve got mine to hide out at. Want to watch a movie or something?”

taglist: @shubblelive / @superioritycomplexes (dm me or send an ask to be added!)

#wilbur soot x reader #wilbur soot #mcyt x reader #dsmp x reader #mar writes #wilbur x reader #tis the damn season au #mcyt x you #wilbur soot x you #wilbur soot fanfiction #mcytumblr #mcyt wilbur

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lostfirefly · 5 months

Text

You’ve Got the Same Dream as Me (Ch.4)

Hello, kiddos! The idea for this fanfic came to me from a dream (again) I had about a month ago. Тhe main characters were Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill (don't ask me why), but with a light hand they have been replaced (sorry, guys). The main action of the dream took place somewhere in the sands. Аlthough this fanfic will feature Sir Crocodile and our beloved Buggy, the action shifts to the desert. No marines, ships etc. Sorry, not sorry :) The devil fruit's abilities are preserved. Catch the Mummy and Indiana Jones vibes :) I have no idea how many chapters there will be. Different titles and names from the original source material will be used to emphasise the general OP's vibe.

Since English is not my native language, errors may occur. As always, feel free to share your thoughts :)

And thank you to my dear @yujo-nishimura and @laurasoretta for believing in me :)

Description: Catherine, a librarian who is searching for the trail of her sister who went missing on an expedition. Notes in books and diaries lead her to Cairo. There she finds a retailer from an artifact shop who, in exchange for selling her a map and equipment, insists that Catherine take her along. They get into a little (or maybe a big) adventure..

Warnings: 12+, I think. As always, no smut, angst, violence. Adventures and fun only. Buggy x OC, Sir Crocodile x OC.

Words: 1236

The title is taken from «You've Got the Same Dream as Me» (Sonya Belousova & Giona Ostinelli) (One Piece, Netflix)

✎﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3

✎﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

"A car?" Catherine looked in amazement at the big black jeep.

"What did you expect?" Buggy asked, leaning back on the bonnet, taking off his striped bandana.

"Well, I don't know. We’re in Cairo… But.. You got people around town who look like fish. And there's… just a car", she said, glancing at his long blue hair.

"Sorry, cotton candy, my personal flying dragon is at home. I can take you for a ride next time", he replied with a sneer in voice, wrapping his hair into a ponytail.

"Ew, jeez", Catherine pursed her lips.

"If you keep yucking, I'm not taking you with me,. You can go to the nearest rental shop and book yourself a magic carpet if you want".

"Tell me, were you born to be such an asshole? Or did it come with age?" Catherine drilled Buggy with her eyes.

"Stop it, both of you. Save your love quarrels for later!" Rika said loudly, locking the shop door shut. "By some completely idiotic irony, we all need to get to the same place. Let's focus on the case. Cathie, get out your maps and records".

"He started it first!"

"I don't care! I'm not going to be your mom or dad. I said, get out your maps and records now! Here's your book by professor Alabasta", Rika put it on the bonnet.

It was a large book, in a brown cover with golden monograms on it. The pages were a little yellowed in places, but fortunately the text was legible.

"Woooow", Catherine whispered and gently ran her hands over the sheets.

"You see?" Rika opened one of Cathrine's diaries and pointed her index finger at one of the entries. "The numbers here and here match. I think that old man Alabasta knew something. I don't know if they point to the location of the treasure or not, maybe it's just one of the dots, but I'm more than sure that this is where we should be heading".

"But if he found treasure, for example, why didn't he take it? Maybe it's not there anymore", Catherine asked, "and why did my sister go there? She and I are both adventurers, but I still don't understand".

"Maybe she didn't go looking for the treasure. Maybe your sister got so tired of your endless whining that she decided to join a caravan and hide from you forever. That's what I would do", Buggy said, leaning between the two girls, glancing briefly at Catherine and putting his hand on her back.

"You're pissing me off already", she whispered.

"Well, I don't know your sister, so her motives are unclear to me, - Rika said, shaking her head, "but I know what I want to find there".

"And what is that?" Catherine asked with surprise.

"It doesn't matter".

"Look, there are several routes", Catherine ran her finger along the lines on the page. "I think we should take the shortest route so we can get there faster. The less time I spend in the car with this clown, the better".

"No, no", Buggy shook his head negatively. "You see, this short cut is guarded by Baroque Works men. We can't make two steps out there. We'd be quickly captured and sent to some underwater prison. Believe me, you won't like it there. We'll take this way", he pointed down the long road, "sorry, you'll have to bear with me".

He started to put the bags in the boot of the car.

"Trust me, you'll be happy to be in those places with me. Because if we meet a man with a hook there, I'll be your best bet for salvation".

"A man with a hook? Have you been drinking since this morning?" Catherine moved closer to his face to test her hunch.

"Where the hell did you come from, cutie biscuit?" he whispered in her ear.

"Loguetown, why are you asking?"

"Oh, just curious. Alright. Hop in, girls. Rika. And my cotton candy", he said with a wink, getting into the car.

"Stop calling me that!"

⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭

The journey to the coordinates indicated on the map took about two hours. The car stopped somewhere in the middle of a hot desert. There was only a small building, which looked more like an old barracks.

"Well, where are we? You said you could read maps", Catherine got out of the car and looked around, "I thought we'd be in the right place on time".

"Can you stop nagging, I'm getting a headache", Buggy said, looking for something in the boot of the car.

"Don't tell me what to do and what not to do. You're the one who brought us here", Catherine walked briskly over to Buggy. "Fuck, if I'd known you didn't know anything, I wouldn't have messed with you in life".

"Listen, pie", Buggy grabbed her arm and hissed, glaring at her with his green eyes. "I'm sick of your hysterics. If you don't stop acting like this, I'm gonna leave you here in the middle of the desert to be eaten by the local sand creatures. And drive back. Believe me, I'd rather be in a bar than stuck here with you right now".

Catherine felt his warm hand squeeze her arm with force.

"Okay, people, break", Rika said, getting closer to them. "According to the coordinates, we're in the right spot now. Catherine, anticipating your question, no, we're not at the final point of our journey yet. While you two were arguing the whole way, I was trying to get a good look at the map. But it was difficult, with your love dialogues distracting my attention".

Catherine rolled her eyes.

"And? What's next?" she asked.

"We should go into that building over there. There must be something important in there, since it's marked on the map. It looks like a shop or a small hotel. I don't know. At least it's on the map and in the diaries. You see it?" Rika pointed her finger in the notebook.

Catherine noticed Buggy re-hiding a small black, oddly shaped box.

"What's that in there?" she asked, placing her hand gently on his back, peering over his shoulder.

"It's nothing special".

"Okay… We'll go to that building then, see what I can find out".

Catherine took two steps forward and stopped. She turned round and was about to take half a step back.

"Buggy…"

"What?" he sounded annoyed.

"I'm s... You know. Never mind".

Catherine and Rika walked into a small building together. Inside, there were shelves with some bags of herbs and jars of oddly coloured water. The place smelled of coriander and lavender for some reason.

"What can I do for you, young girls?" a hoarse voice came from the corner of the room. A grown big-boned man with a grey beard and long grey hair sat in a chair.

"Good afternoon, sir. We seem to be a little lost. We need to go to the Sab...", Catherine didn't have time to finish her sentence because Rika stepped on her foot, silencing her.

"Rayleigh, I bet they're going there for the same reason I am", a low voice came from the front door.

"Sab... what? The Sabaody Desert? Why would you want to go there?

" the man asked, rising from his chair.

The tall man slowly began to approach the counter.

"Well, lassies, tell me what you're looking for there?", he asked, placing both hands on the table.

Catherine whispered in Rika's ear.

"Do you see that too? Does he have a… a hook instead of a hand?"

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ghostshadow-k-r · 1 year

Text

Oh gods...I forgot to save this whole as a draft and I had to type it again......

Enough complain,let's start with Crow.

Wisdom Magnifier was well known as the next Detective Prince.His charming look polite attitude and clever mind,his fangirls could never imagined that beneath the facade of the detective prince,a bloodthirsty psychopath serial umbrum murderer hid within it.

He was born at the junction of special species and pony housing estates,crime is frequent there, and many special species live there hiding their identities,his mother was also one of them.

When he was born,he didn't show a lot of umbrum trait expect that his horn was a bit bent and his eye will glow in dark.He was unable to cast dark crystal magic and having a complete shadow form.His mother was relieved because of that,and she had to take some male back home to earn money.Everytime that happens,she will let Magnifier go to the bathhouse nearby.At first,Magnifier don't understand...until he start to understand when he had start to go to school.

When he was 8,he saw that his mother killed herself because of stress,miserable and despair.Before she killed herself,she gave him a true name and told him everything including who his father was.Negative emotions that had suppressed for a long time in his heart was being ignited by his mother's death,he gained a complete shadow form,the ability of casting dark crystal magic and those hidden traits was shown because of that.

After that,he learns to pretend himself as a good behave child in the foster center,getting good grade and act polite to meet the expectations of others.As soon as he grown up,he become a lot like his mother,but deep inside,his twisted heart maybe is more a like to his scum father.

When he was 15,he awakened both of his persona in Mementos and he decided to avenge to the male that ruined his life,Lion Pride.He becomes his personal assassin to help him out by causing mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns.He didn't want to have Lion Pride killed,he wants Lion Pride to feel the pain that he had put him through ever since he was born.

But when he met the Phantom Theives,he was starting to question himself.Unfortunately,he chose to ignoring it.After a few months of getting along,he entered the Phantom Theives in the codename,Crow.Which was a part of his true name,Dark Crow.

When he saw Cloven Foliate's palace,he feels complicated.But he decided to treat her better to repay that,although he knows that it won't change the fact that he killed her mother.

Under the order of Lion Pride,he has to kill Noir's father.And he choose to cause him a psychotic breakdown,but it still ends up killing Noir's father.

I think you guys should know what happened after that,right?About the thing that happened on the cruise.

#my drawings #mlp au #digital art #shin megami tensai persona #persona 5 #akechi goro #lion pride #dark crow #masayoshi shido #wisdom magnifier #crow #phantom thieves

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smokeybrandreviews · 1 year

Text

Guten Essen

It’s been a few weeks since Confluence of Nothingness completed and i was able to sweep the new Iron Blood ships. That sh*t taxed my pockets way more than i would have liked but, i must say, just Bismarck Zwei has been worth the effort. She has been everything Ultra Rare ship should be. In terms of raw power, Zwei is a whole ass problem. Sure, stat wise, she’s slightly above average but her skills, when executed properly, are kind of f*cking amazing. Zwei is, admittedly, no Musashi but for a UR KMS, I'm here for all of it. Regensberg is a fun ship, overall, but kind of a pain to use properly. A lot of her appeal is based on how she’s deployed but i kind of don’t care about that type of stuff. I have my Feet which i run and Regensberg is, more or less, eye candy to me. Also, but that Dark Dragon, Brilliant Beach, though! I just really love her design. Now, Otto von Alvensleben, on the other hand, is a gem. This ship is quite the powerhouse and really made the grind to max out my new boats, a total breeze. Otto eats mobs for breakfast and when you’re about that power leveling, this sh*t is a goddamn godsend. Confluence of Nothingness paid off tremendously for me in terms of raw power and i am completely satisfied with the results.

As far as the grind is concerned, i have finished maxing the levels of all of the Nothingness ships, their affection, as well as their skills, save U-556 META. Still debating whether to actually grind her out as i don’t use META ships at all but, you know, KMS main and all so we’ll see. It’s odd having completely maxed out the new boats in such a short time, took me about three days after they dropped from the Banner, one of which is topped out at 125. I’ll let you guess which one that is, or not. It’s Zwei. Of course it’s Zwei. She’s a UR Kraut. Of course i would break her limit first. The problem i have now is the fact i only have enough of those goddamn Cognitive Arrays to Limit Break one of my SR ships. I’m leaning toward Otto for the sheer versatility but i REALLY like Regensberg. I’ll get enough to break the other one during the next Seasonal Cruise but, i mean, right now? The Limit Break grind is the only thing i have left for these two so it kind of doesn’t matter either way but, like, doesn’t it? Decisions, decisions. It’ll probably be Otto but, you know, Musashi is also an option. She’s just sitting over there in my neglected Sakura dock, looking awesome and being the best UR available in the game right now, with a stockpile of Experience that will immediately blast her to level 125 the second i Break her. But that’s kind of the point. The short-lived KMS grind is complete and i have found myself at the same impasse i was at before Azur Lane dropped Confluence of Nothingness: What do i do next?

Marco Polo is basically complete, i just need to grind out that last bit of Experience. I mean, U-556 META is always an option but I'll never use her for anything, especially considering the other Super Rare KMS subs in my Fleet are, technically, better and they’re all topped out at level 125 already. I could construct another PR ship or two, kind of gave up on the other Docks because that sh*t was getting expensive and i don’t care to do it in general. I still want Kronshtadt and Shimakaze, but, like, i don’t particularly care to finish the rest of those docks. And the Ruskies are actually my second favorite Fleet in the entire game! Maybe I'll focus on the Rainbow Ships for now. Not only the Ultra Rare boats but the Decisive ones, too, because, holy sh*t, some of those Decisives are a big time. Azuma dropped way back in Series Two so i imagine a Fate Simulation may be on the way and, even without one, she’s still a problem. Her Series mate, Friedrich, got one a few months back and that sh*t has made her an absolute monster, even if she was one to begin with. I dunno, man, I'll think about it while i enjoy my buffed up Iron Blood dock for a while. So far, we KMS mains aren’t eating like last year but the dish served up this time, was absolutely decadent.

#Azur Lane #Iron Blood #Confluence of Nothingness #Regensberg #Otto von Alvensleben #Bismarck Zwei #Jade

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bi-lavelent · 23 hours

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Lone Wolf (Quinn Fabray x Fem-Reader part 7)

Warning: Fluff, Angst, Cussing, Bullying, Smut

We were all sat in the auditorium. Everybody except for me was watching Sue and Mr.Schue fight. I needed to talk to Sue after practice she needed to take the glee club down and I was ready to help. You see since the glee day Quinn still has not talked to me. I overheard that she giving the baby to terry. This highschool had never been this dramatic til now. It may or may have not also been the fact that I haven’t gotten layed recently. With glee I didn’t have time to go Cruising lately so I had to stay on home turf. Which wouldn’t had been an issue my freshman year when I was in the closet or any of the other years when there was ladies willing to do a little lady on top of lady stuff. But instead I’ve had to use my message gun and my fingers. It’s not the same I understand why sue is always angry. I have gone full out against the glee club not only do I not have friends except for the freshman. I’ve got nothing Santana won’t even flirt with me anymore. Which she started freshman year before all this glee club shit. Sue had decided to turn the minorities against the others. As the meeting ended I ran up to Sue

“Hay sue” I said

“Yes Y/N” Sue said

“Can we talk in you office” I asked

“Sure” Sue said

As we both walked to her office together

“I can help you destroy Glee club. But you have to promise me two things one you won’t get kick Quinn off the Cheerios and two you’ll protect me if they come after me.” I said

“What do you got?” Sue asked

“I got things that will tear each of them apart. I’m tired of them bashing kids with special needs.” I told her.

The next day, was sitting in the choir room as everybody entered. As sue called out the names for her special club. Called Sues Special kids

“k just take the football players and you Cheerios” Mr.Schue said

“K when you hear your name cross over to my side of the black shiny thing.” Sue said

“That’s called the piano sue” Schue said

“Santana, Wheels, Gay kid, Asian, other Asian, Arthea, Shaft and Y/n” Sue said

As I was sitting in the glee room waiting for sue santana came in.

“Hay” I said

“Don’t talk to me” Santana said

“look I know we were never friends. But we at-least talked. We were becoming friends.” I said

“Okay than what’s going on with you and Puck.” She said

“Nothings going on I’m not flirting with him I’m mad at him. He got Quinn kicked off the Cheerios cause he blabbed to coach Sue about her pregnancy.” I said

“Why would he care? Why would either of you care?” she asked

“Because Finn isn’t the father he is she felt shitty about herself he got her extremely drunk and took advantage of her. Oh yeah I should while you two were together.” I said

“Okay that does not answer why you’re helping Quinn.” She said

“What I’m about to tell you only two people in this school know. Sue and Quinn and know you. Freshman year I went worlds on the schools boxing team I was dating a hockey, football player who was a senior. I got pregnant 6 months before school ended. The dad left for college I have never seen him since I then had the baby all alone no one was there for me. Because I had pushed everyone I cared about away. My babby lives on a farm in Kansas. It was an open adoption so she can find me when she turns 18. But that’s why helping Quinn I was Quinn. I was popular I was cheerleader I’m not hot or sexy enough to be one. But I was popular I lost everything so since Puck told Sue I’ve been trying everything to save Quinn’s reputation at this school. I even agreed to help you guys destroy Glee club I care okay.” I said

“Wait that’s actually really nice.” Santana said “Wait do you think I’m hot?”

“Maybe I guess you will never know” I said

“Look When Sue told me to take glee club down. She also said that if I needed to get credit for a source to take you guys down too.” I said

“Of course she did” she said

“I really like you guys, you’re nice to my sister. I’m glade she has you guys as friends.” I said

“Thanks your not to bad yourself and hay I won’t get offended when you come at us. You’re actually kinda nice. This doesn't make us friends though” She said

“Oh trust me we will be friends one day.” I said

“Okay when pigs fly.” She said

As everyone else came in including sue went to sit next to each other she sprawled out on two chairs her head was on my feet as I was also sprawled out on two chairs.

Me and Santana sat up and danced together and sang along to song that Sue had chosen. What apparently connected to us being minorities.

The next day in glee we all were sat in there singing rid with me

Where they at? Where they at? Where they at? Where they at? Where they at? Where they at? Where they at? Where they at? (Come on, now)

If you want to go and take a ride with me We 3-wheeling in the fo' with the gold D's Oh, why do I live this way? (Hey, must be the money) If you wanna go and get high with me Smoke a L in the back of the Benz-E Oh, why must I feel this way? (Hey, must be the money)

In the club on the late night, feeling right Looking, trying to spot something real nice Looking for a little shorty I noticed so that I can take home (I can take home) She can be 18 (18) with an attitude Or 19, kinda snotty, acting real rude But as long as you a thicky-thicky-thick girl You know that it's on (you know that it's on)

I peep something coming towards me on the dance floor Sexy and real slow Saying she was peeping and I dig the last video "So when Nelly, can we go?" How could I tell her no? Her measurements were 36-25-34 "I like the way you brush your hair And I like those stylish clothes you wear I like the way the light hit the ice and glare And I can see you, boo, from way over there"

Face and body Frontenac, don't know how to act Without no vouchers on her boots she's bringing nothing back You should feel the impact, shop on plastic When the sky's the limit and them haters can't get past that Watch me as I gas that 4 dot 6 Range Watch the candy paint change, every time I switch lanes It feel strange now Making a living off my brain, instead of 'caine now I got the title from my momma, put the whip in my own name now Damn, shit done changed now Running credit checks with no shame now I feel the fame now (come on), I can't complain now (no more) Shit, I'm the mayne now, in and out my own town I'm getting pages out of New Jersey from Courtney B Telling me about a party up in NYC And can I make it? Damn right, I be on the next flight Paying cash, first class, sitting next to Vanna White, c'mon

Check, check, yo, I know something you don't know And I've got something to tell ya You won't believe how many people straight doubted the flow Most said that I was a failure But now the same motherfuckers asking me for dough And I'm yelling, "I can't help ya" "But Nelly can we get tickets to the next show?" Hell no (what's witchyou?), you for real?

Hey yo, now that I'm a fly guy, and I fly high Niggas want to know why, why I fly by But yo, it's all good, Range Rover all wood Do me like you should, fuck me good, suck me good We be them stud niggas, 'wishing you was' niggas Popping like we drug dealers, sipping Crissy, bubb' macking Honey in the club, me in the Benz Icy grip, telling me to leave with you and your friends

So if shorty wanna knock, we knocking to this And if shorty wanna rock, we rocking to this And if shorty wanna pop, we popping the Crist' Shorty wanna see the ice, then I ice the wrist City talk, Nelly listen, Nelly talk, city listen When I fuck fly bitches, when I walk pay attention See the ice and the glist', niggas staring, know they diss Honies looking all "They wish, " come on boo, gimme kiss, c'mon

Hey, must be the money Hey, must be the money Hey, must be the money Must be the money

After the song ended

Rachel said “I miss us all being together”

“I hope we don’t get in trouble for our covert jam session” Artie said

we all laughed

“If sue catches us mingling we’re cooked. She told me if I even talked to one of Mr.Schues kid that she would shave my head and I just can’t rock that look. Even Justin Timberlake is growing his frow back.” Kurt said

“Well we gotta go you guys Mrs.Sylvester is expecting us in ten minutes. In the dance studio.” Mercedes said

I started to walk down and waited for Santana to finish her hug with Brittnay.

we all said bye and left

“Bye white people” Artie said

“hay what are you guys doing here” Mr.Schue said

“oh we’re just stopping bye to say hello.” Tina said

“Hay at-least I still get you Freshman” I said after we had left

“Hay what minority are you?” Matt asked

“yeah” everyone said

“I’ll tell you guys just not right now okay. Let’s go get to Sue before she yells at us for being late.” I said

I wrapped my arms around Mercedes and Kurt shoulders as we walked to the classroom.

Two days later in glee club. We all got sat down after Mr.Schue

“You’ll all minorities cause your in the glee club now there’s only 14 of you so it doesn’t matter that Rachel is Jewish or that Finn is” Mr.schue said

“unable to tell my rights from my lefts” Finn said

we all laugh

“or that Santana is Latina or that Quinn is” Mr. Schue says

“pregnant” Sue said

“Sorry Q it will be all over the blogosphere this afternoon. Now everybody knows. Including me.” Sue said

I meet Jacob leaving school. “Jacob no I don’t care what Sue made you do. I told you not to run that story. Hell Rachael even gave you her underwear. I gave you everything you wanted. One day you’re going to have to realize that the things you weight can destroy peoples lives. You not journalists Jacob you’re a nerd who’s a bully. You just ruined Quinn’s life and she friends right now so I’m not gonna hurt you. But if you ever come after someone in Glee again and destroy life I will burn your house down and kill you. Do you understand me.” I asked

“yes can I go know” he asked running off

#quinn fabray imagine #quinn fabray x reader #lesbain #santana lopez #glee #glee x reader #queer #diana agron #santana lopez imagine #lesbian community

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smokeybrand · 1 year

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Guten Essen

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stark-tones · 1 year

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my himbo dylan o'brien has landed a spot on a popular tv show as the trashy boyfriend of one of the main beloved characters on the show. only, their chemistry has taken it off camera and not only have they tried to hide their romance, they're about to have a surprise oopsie to hide too. dylan o'brien, audreyena michelle.

mbj x open - flight pilot that has been flirting with a stewardess for months and things are about to heat up.

crew members on an expensive cruise ship, but the three week trip and their constant flirting is drawing to a climax.

nashville plot - they were both a song-writing hit duo, but when his troubled past met his partying lifestyle, he was forced to walk away and spend the next five years in and out of rehab. now, two years after that, he's finally getting his life in proper order, and she's come knocking on his door to help her fix the writing block that's been keeping her from her next album. rudy pankow

she was the daughter of the alpha, and her brother was supposed to be the next in line. only, my character stepped up and challenged him cause everyone knew he was a shitty guy and a shittier leader. now it's been five years.

Sky high villain.

Boy band celeb and fan.

vampire hunters that are getting some serious sexual tension a la vampire academy.

save the last dance insp plot

oliver stark viking has returned home with his captives and feels so out of place, and has started talking to one of the people he brought home.

glen powell hotshot lawyer

magic is addictive. and when he starts toying around in dark magic, she tries to stop him… until he's started dragging her in too. (mentions of addiction)

batman / catwoman early meetings and relationships

hollywood crappy apartment complex. his neighbor and her boyfriend have been fighting a lot, and its toxic and dv. one night after a bad fight, the boyfriend storms off and she comes over to his place to ask if she can crash on his couch. they got to hollywood around the same time, became neighbors and became kind of friendly, talking about life and random things they had in common before she got her boyfriend and became distant.

mikey madison + / lip gallagher +

cole + phoebe

his dad owns the apartment building where she lives, and as he's gotten too old to do a lot of the handy work around the place, he's picked up the slack. only, she's been here the past few months and things keep "breaking".

malia and styles, werewolf girlfriend

conman romances billionaires daughter, only to skip out of town after switching out a priceless (or not) piece of artwork for his own copy, before skipping out of town. she's noticed, but never said anything to her family, only to run into him seven years later at a family event and prepared to confront him for using her.

(ric and evie) indiana jones style character paleontologist (chris evans?) that spent fifteen years trying to find a treasure. he teamed up with another "paleontologist" to help him find it. when he found it, she poisoned him and snuck off with the treasure. they meet five years later at an art gallery and flirting ensues.

young clark and lois at the office.

30 pact that they'll get married. only, she hasn't had any luck and she's come back to their hometown after a long string of bad luck in a big city to see him happy and successful…. and engaged, and decided she never should have waited and going to win him over.

she's discovered that her boyfriend has been cheating on her, and rather than confronting him again, she's decided she's going to go to the town asshole and convince him to fuck her until she forgets.

she's one of the few females that's ever been born into the pack, so there's been "expectations". but, when she turned 18, she decided she couldn't sing up for that life in the pack and took off to college (or whatever) far away, and made a life for herself. only, she's come back and things are different. her old best friend (yay lanky friendzone vibes for a boy that filled out into a man) is the alpha now and they're going to catch up on things and new feelings for her.

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drgreg · 2 years

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Ongcweti Besifo Sikashukela Diabetic South Africans

Such a trip is past bucket listing, as a outcome of few folks may even imagine that it's attainable. Unfortunately did not go, however wont miss out on the next one. Amazing alternative to experience one thing actually distinctive. Amazing journey, Well accomplished to the Birdlife Africa and MSC team.

The camp happened from Sunday 22nd August until Tuesday 24nd August 2021. At Kingswood, we're so lucky to be supported by a talented and highly-qualified group and this week, we have been reminded of that. Our second Dads and Daughters Camp occurred two weekends in the past. The function of the Dads & Daughters Weekend has been specifically designed to create house for Dads to spend time with their daughter, strengthen relationships and study new things. This discuss by Old Kingswoodian, Ms Belz Mabandla will take a look at how one should deal with rejection. This past weekend the Kingswood boys 1st squash team competed within the Western Province Youth Squash & Peter Furstenberg Stayers’ Festival.

Today we celebrate the lifetime of Uyinene Mrwetyana who would have celebrated her 20th birthday at present. As we start out on this journey we're very conscious of all the challenges that you as dad and mom of young children are dealing with right now. We would actually like to share this burden with you, and not switch more of a burden onto what's already an enormous ask. Mrs Carissa Wilson, our Deputy Head within the Junior School shared a particular message with our Junior pupils this morning and we want to lengthen this message to our broader Kingswood community. The 12 months by which the world stood nonetheless, driven apart by the covid-19 pandemic.

The South African Medical Congress met in East London from 31 August to five September, presided over by Dr Robert J. Roulston of that metropolis. Some 30 papers had been learn, in the classes Surgery, Medicine, Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Public Health, Ophthalmology, and Special Subjects. Congress thought-about two of the papers on public well being so important that it was determined 'to ask the lay Press to publish them'. The two papers were 'Tuberculosis', by Dr J. Barcroft Anderson, and a complete evaluation of 'Hygiene in South Africa', the presidential address of Dr W. Watkins-Pitchford. The Transvaal Biological Society was inaugurated at a gathering held in Pretoria on 9 December 1907, convened by C.W. A constitution was adopted on 13 January 1908 and Theiler elected as president for the first year.

Well done Birdlife South Africa and Flock to Marrion. You certainly are a wonderful contributer to tourism and conservation. BLSA must dr gregory hough south africa be congratulated for this unique expertise it offered for so many individuals.

Fantastic bird island that’s desperately needs protection. Next time simply might you cock the water with fish oil and offal, simply whereas we aren't in Marion Waters. This was a great initiative to handle the mouse drawback at Marion Island. I actually loved the suggestions from the members. This cruise/fund raiser is certainly worth each rand spent. I watched the Kirstenbosch/Struik presentation via Zoom & enjoyed every minute.

It was Marius, who gestured across his throat that Group thirteen was going to kill her and he or she was terrified. When she discovered a useless cat tied to their garden gate, she determined to flee. Engela hitchhiked to her brother and his wife in Bloemfontein, she seemed for a job for 3 weeks, with a one-page CV however had no luck. This previous weekend the Kingswood boys and girls 1st groups competed within the annual Dave Hodgson Squash Festival.

Some of these women don't even have breasts but. In some circumstances, they are taken to clubs and brothels where they're saved drugged, overwhelmed and abused. They are stored prisoner and are continually watched.

Lots of logistics handled beautifully, and a wonderful alternative for birders, and Birdlife SA. I honestly don’t know what this country will do with out BirdLife South Africa. It’s simple to provide them the thumbs up for his dr gregory hough south africa or her onerous work. Great travel experience with once in a lifetime alternatives. Surprisingly enjoyable for me accompanying my husband who is the eager birder in the household.

A wonderful initiative bringing national and international tourists collectively,giving us a chance to view incredible birdlife, attend informative lectures, and assist the environment whereas enjoying a vacation cruise. It blew worldwide guests away many taking the prospect to go to birding hotspots in our land before or after the cruise. This article rethinks sin and evil via the life of a child known as Engela who has been ‘sold’ into sex slavery. Focus is placed on the high worth with which youngsters ought to be regarded, particularly youngsters who have been sold as intercourse slaves. During this argument the emphasis is placed on ecclesiastical evolutionary perspectives on creation as nicely as related and modern understandings of sin and evil, and associated to this, the devil and hell. Towards the end of the article theological consideration is given to fatherlessness, as a result of Engela’s father was usually absent in her life.

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tfbotmblr · 2 years

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How Prewriting Social Media Posts Saves You Time (And Your House)

We travelers love to curate social media posts as much as we love traveling.

But there's a catch, and some people actually have their residences RANSACKED doing so.

I watched one video of the defunct YT channel ACTUALLY HAPPENED. It was about a teen whose family went to Paris, France. Her troubles start when she shared details of her trip days before with friends. She post pictures of her flight to France, the food she was in the process of eating, the sites as she visits, and her flight back to the USA.

Once they return, the family discovers that their home was trashed and burglarized. The teen notices that her stash of savings was wiped out, too. As the police investigates, one of the officers informs the father about recent burglaries of travelers' homes, often incited by social media posts while they are away.

The teen starts to feel very contrite, and when she hands him her phone, she becomes more embarrassed as he angrily scrolls through her feed. He calls her an "idiot."

Though the story was likely made up, people who get carried away with their social media dispatches when they are on the move from home are likely to live it. Even day-trippers depart home to the beach and post gratuitously on their handles only to find their abodes ransacked once they return for the night.

A 2011 Credit Sesame survey speaks truth about the story. 78% of 50 UK burglars surveyed admitted that they'd use Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare before they pinpoint a specific house to ransack.

All security experts say that you should wait until you get home to post photos of your escapades, but there are numbers of travelers who have very instant gratification.

Like, how can a band mom remember how great her son's high school marching unit sounded and presented as it files down the middle of Main Street USA at the Magic Kingdom 3 days till their 2-day bus ride back home from Orlando? Or how can a cruise insider find the right words to report on the latest vessel to set sail once he gets home from the port it departed during her maiden closed-loop cruise?

There are some apps and sites that allow you to schedule your posts, but they limit a certain number of photos and posts a week to a month. Some even have video limits per scheduled post, and some of them require fees or monthly subscriptions.

The best way to curate your social media posts while you're away WHILE keeping your home safe is prewriting them. Almost every phone or tablet (or computer, if you're bringing it in tow when traveling) has an app or software preinstalled in each to take notes.

To prewrite for your social media posts of your trips, first, preview the photos or videos you have taken. Next, jot down the date and place you took the photos or videos for each rough draft of your captions. Include any hashtags and mentions relevant to the post. (I suggest you hold off on the SEO stuff till you revise it and finally post the posts once you get home.)

It's also helpful if you have a notepad and a writing utensil to prewrite your captions, which is useful when photos nor videos (cell phone or otherwise) are neither allowed on the site (some interiors of churches, such as St. Paul's Cathedral in London, as well as the Titanic Museum Attraction in Pigeon Forge, TN, are examples) or if a foodstuff is impractical to eat while photographing it.

That way, even if you have taken exterior shots or the sign of a store, you'll remember how the experience went or how the food tasted.

"When you prioritize posting to social media while you travel, you’re not living in the moment," Megan Jerrard, Australian travel photographer and blogger at Mapping Megan, advises, "You’re missing out on experiences purely because you want other people to know."

"But one thing I’ve learned is that it truly doesn’t matter if you post images from your trip now vs later. People don’t care about being in the know at the exact moment something happens, and saving your posts for later means you have the chance to re-live the moment after you’ve returned home."

"Think about how much time it takes to not only snap a photo, but then pull up social media, maybe by this stage you’ve already spent time cropping and editing it, think up clever captions, and find a bunch of hashtags? And then you see the notifications on your phone, which of course, you can’t ignore, so you start scrolling through your feed and responding to friends and family, all the while, missing out on what’s happening around you."

"Why would you not save all of that for when you’re sitting at home bored, wishing you were still on vacation, than waste your precious travel time?"

"If you’re worried about forgetting details, jot down updates and descriptions that will help you remember when you sit down back at home to write the caption. I personally use the sound recorder on my phone to make quick verbal notes."

youtube

Another way is to use scheduling apps. Some of them require fees to maximize posts you want to schedule and/or selections of your handles in which you want to schedule days after returning home from a vacation.

But compared to the costs of renovating and vainly replacing EVERYTHING the burglars took from your home all because you’re posting stuff on social media pertaining to your vacation WHILE ON VACATION, investing in paid apps that schedule your posts is cheaper. Plus, it helps curb your enthusiasm and helps you live in the moment of your trip!

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sinswithpleasure · 3 years

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Tonight (ft. TWICE’s Tzuyu) [Birthday Fluff]

In reference to this ask!

So umm would you mind if I requested a full on fluff with Tzuyu for Tzuyu's birthday?

I wrote in a lot of the songs I listened to while writing, just for fun! I’ll link them below: The 1975 - Robbers The 1975 - Chocolate The Weeknd - Blinding Lights

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

It goes without saying that you adored your girlfriend. While both of you hadn’t dated for long, you really wanted to do something amazing for her on her birthday.

You had racked your brain for a good month. This was the first birthday of her’s you were spending with her, and you really wanted to make the effort to give her a birthday to remember. How were you going to do that? You grabbed at any source of information you could find - the Internet, books, magazines, articles, whatever.

The thought of your girlfriend was always enough for you to break out in all smiles. You’d met her at a concert, after months of being friends online. Both of you were in a clique made up of fans of the band whose concert you were attending. That was your first time meeting up, and through the few days you spent together for the concert, both of you hit it off. The cherry on top was that both of you ended up finding out that your residences were only ten minutes away from the other, which meant that both of you could regularly met up every weekend for coffee, a movie, or just to hang out. Soon enough, these friendly meetups blossomed into dates, and your friendship blossomed into a relationship. The whole friends-to-lovers trope seemed less unrealistic now that you’d fallen under that category.

Back to her birthday though. As you sat down to plan, you thought about a conversation you had with your girlfriend from a month back.

-----

“Yah, babe, babe, babe, look!”

Chou Tzuyu excitedly tapped your arm, shoving her phone in your face with an amazed smile on her face. A picture of the night sky was displayed on a photography account on Instagram, and you held her hand steady to grab a good look. Tzuyu seemed to vibrate with excitement, rushing to like and save the post. “I love shots like these! I really wanna see the night sky like that someday... Oh, how I want to lie under the stars, and be free of stress. Nothing but me and the stars, the wind, the peace and quiet...” She clasped her hands together, holding them close to her chest. She closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath, then exhaling with a smile. You just stared, moving to face her on the sofa both of you were sitting on. Tzuyu returned to viewing more photography on her phone, and you lay there thinking about how cute she was gushing about the night sky.

-----

You had your answer.

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

“Babe! What’re you doing here?” You gave her a wave, leaning against your truck parked outside her bakery.

Chou Tzuyu ran a bakery in the city center. Her bread was one of the best you’d ever tasted. Each bun was fluffier than the clouds overhead, the taste fresher than any other bread in the world. To you, when it came to bread, it was either hers, or nothing. She put her heart and soul into every single creation of hers. If you left her alone, there was no doubt she’d eat bread for all three meals of the day, and if you left her alone for even longer, she’d turn your kitchen into her laboratory to experiment with more pastries and how to make them.

Tzuyu ran to you, almost barreling you over with how hard she hugged you. She had the brightest grin on her face, nothing hiding her happiness at seeing you outside of her workplace. She looked just like the puppies she held so dearly in her heart, so pure, so unfiltered in her happiness. If she had a tail and puppy ears, you knew her ears would be soft and relaxed, and her tail would be wagging frantically.

“Hi baby.” Tzuyu smelled like bread and butter. Whenever you met her after work, she would smell just like that. You learnt to love the smell, as where she went, the fragrance would follow. Your arms wrapped around her tightly, as both of you swayed left and right in front of your truck, uncaring of whoever saw you on the street. “How was work?” You opened the door to your truck, letting her in, before shutting it and going over to the driver’s seat.

“Good, I earned about 1.5K today, and tomorrow’s my off day!” Tzuyu closed her bakery one day a week to rest, and you loved how it fell nicely after her birthday today. You smiled, grabbing her hand, rubbing your thumb on the back of her hand. “Happy birthday, baby.” You leaned towards her, planting a kiss on her cheek. Tzuyu squealed in surprise. “Thank you, babe!”

“Come, let’s go for dinner. I have somewhere I want to take you.”

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

Dinner was relatively uneventful, though you went all out and took her to one of the best Chinese restaurants. You knew she missed home - there were days she would seem out of it, and would look at photographs of her family. Tzuyu had moved here for her studies years ago and stayed to start up her bakery. You wanted her to at least be able to taste home on her birthday. She was clearly enjoying the spread on the table, her hands moving quicker than you could imagine, grabbing tons of food off the plates. She really missed the food from Taiwan. You didn’t each much, just enough to fill you, and you let her have the rest of it. It wasn’t often she had the chance to enjoy herself like this, and you loved seeing her cut loose.

After a bit of bickering about the bill (”It’s your birthday, I’m paying!” “No, I ate so much, I should be paying!”), you led Tzuyu out, pulling her to your truck. “Let’s go, we have a lot to do tonight.” You could see Tzuyu’s curiosity, but you refused to sate it, instead pulling out of the parking lot towards your next destination. “It’ll be a long ride, let’s listen to some music.” As your speakers began to play a familiar guitar riff, Tzuyu gasped, before exclaiming, “Robbers!” Yes, both you and Tzuyu were fans of The 1975, and it was at their concert that you’d met each other. As you drove through the roads of the city at night, you could hear Tzuyu singing the song softly. You decided to join in, grabbing her hand once more, squeezing it, before beginning to sing with her.

‘She had a face straight out a magazine God only knows but you'll never leave her’

As both of you sang, you could feel Tzuyu rub your knuckles, her smile somehow audible. You knew how much she enjoyed drives at night, and cruising with her significant other was something she loved.

‘You've got a pretty kind of dirty face And when she's leaving your home she's begging you to stay, stay, stay, stay, stay’

You thought about how much you cherished her presence in your life. Since the concert, she had quickly grown from friend, to crush, to girlfriend relatively quickly, and it all stemmed from how much both of you enjoyed this song. As you let go of her hand to turn the steering wheel with both hands, you could hear Tzuyu whine at the loss of contact. Laughing, you let your hand return to hers after your truck moved towards the exit of the city. You were lucky that traffic was relatively light tonight. The truck neared the exit as the song built to the outro. Both of you fell to the emotion of the song, duetting it together as you left the city.

As you exited the city, another familiar guitar riff plays. This time, neither announced the title of the song; Tzuyu just begins singing again, and you spare a few glances at her as she vibed with the music. Under the illumination of the streetlights, she looks just as gorgeous as compared to when she was bathed in natural light. Every glance you spared her led to you gaining an epiphany - you wanted to spend more moments like this with her. While your relationship was still relatively new, you began to suspect that she might be “The One”.

“Join me!” Tzuyu taps your arm incessantly, and you snap out of your thoughts as you navigate the road. You are mostly the only vehicle on the road, with the occasional oncoming truck, or car on the other side. Discarding your train of thought, you let yourself fall to the chorus of the song.

‘Oh we go where nobody knows With guns hidden under our petticoats No we're never gonna quit it No we're never gonna quit it, no Yeah we're dressed in black from head to toe We've got guns hidden under our petticoats No we're never gonna quit it No we're never gonna quit it, no’

Both you and her cruise in the night, enjoying the songs playing from your phone connected to the speakers in your truck. The night was yours, and there were hours to burn.

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

“We’re here!”

The radio is turned down to silence, and you stop the engine of the truck. Tzuyu gets out and surveys the surroundings. You grab a mat, cushions, and some blankets from the backseat, laying them out on the back of the truck. Beside you, you hear Tzuyu’s scream of happiness as she looks up at the sky. Above you, the stars shine brighter than they ever had, the full glory of the night sky displayed in the expanse above the both of you. The wind blew around you, the night breeze chilly against your skin.

“Come, baby.” You helped Tzuyu onto the truck, passing her a small bottle of cider for her to warm herself up in the night chill. Both of you sat at the back of the truck in comfortable silence, her sipping from her bottle, while you stuck to juice, since you needed to drive. Both of you carried on gazing at the sky.

“Look, do you see the Big Dipper? That’s also called the Great Bear...”

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

‘Ring!’ A mobile phone ringtone broke the peace and quiet after your impromptu lesson. Tzuyu fished for her mobile phone, and from the screen, you could make out vague Chinese characters. Your questions were answered instantly when Tzuyu’s face lit up, and she answered with “Hello, Mama!”

You turned to your side, getting up to greet Tzuyu’s mother. After exchanging pleasantries, Tzuyu began to converse with her mother in Mandarin, which left you out of the conversation. However, you did not mind trading that for the view of your girlfriend with unbridled joy stemming from spending time with her family members. You lay back down on your side, looking up at the smile of pure happiness on Tzuyu’s face. You let your love for her show through your expressions. She was your world, your pearl, your home. She was your everything, and the flame of love in your heart was shocking, considering how strong it burnt for her.

Somewhere along the line, Tzuyu began to laugh, covering her face in shyness, before turning to you, then giggling. Her mother began to laugh, saying something in rapid Mandarin. Moments later, Tzuyu hung up, turning to you and planting a kiss onto your lips.

“What did your mother say?”

“She told me to marry you.”

“What?”

“She told me to get married to you. Her reasoning was that you looked at me like the sun shone out of my ass, and this time wasn’t the first. Every video call she’s seen it happen.”

“It’s true. I love you. Every part of you. Through your flaws, insecurities, everything. They make you who you are, and I love you.”

Tzuyu’s eyes glistened with tears. You drew her into a hug, holding on tightly to her. “Don’t cry, oh no, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m so happy. I love you so much. I really do.”

“I love you too. So much.” You broke the hug, wiping at her tears with a handkerchief you brought. “Let’s finish up before we go back.”

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

The drive back was just as fun as it was on the way there. Both Tzuyu and you were somewhat dancing while singing along to the song playing on the speakers.

‘And I said, ooh, I'm blinded by the lights No, I can't sleep until I feel your touch I said, ooh, I'm drowning in the night Oh, when I'm like this, you're the one I trust‘

You wanted tonight to last forever. Driving back and viewing the skyline of the city with this song as accompaniment was magical, and the experience was brought to the next level with your girlfriend- no, your world next to you.

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

“Thank you for today, babe. I loved it so much. I love you so much. Thank you.”

“No problem, baby. I love you too. Happy birthday.”

Tzuyu rose to kiss you deeply on your lips, staring deeply into your eyes after the kiss ended. “This has been the best birthday ever.” You smiled, pushing her towards her house. “Go on, I’ll see you tomorrow. Goodnight, Tzuyu.”

“Goodnight, babe.”

As you drove off, you thought about that ring you saw back in that jeweler’s before you left to pick her up. Maybe...

#chou tzuyu #twice tzuyu #tzuyu fluff #twice fluff #kpop fluff #kpop fanfiction #kpop fanfic #fluff is good for the heart #sfw #request

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simplymurdock · 3 years

Note

Are you accepting orders? If yes, could you do mine? Please... What would happen if the reader saved Simon Kalivoda before he was killed by the assassin. (Maybe just I think, but I would like a happy ending for him, contrary to what actually happened in the movie)

Late Night Shopping ?

summary: during the showdown at the grocery store the four teenagers distract the four dead killers as deena helps to kill sam.

pairing: simon x fem! reader

warnings: cruising, mentions of overdose, sucide, death/dying/killing. (that’s all i could think of but if i missed anything let me know and i’ll add it <3)

word count: 3,495 (did not expect it to be this long)

authors note: i was always gunna to write something like this but later on after i figured out how to write simon but the sweet @sweetpotato-97 requested this and i haven’t stopped thinking about it. Iii really hope you enjoy it and for anyone wondering i am open for any request anyone has. and hopefully will have a more formula list and rules to help clairfi who and what i’m comfortable with writing. but i really hope you enjoy this !

The grocery was something (y/n) was far too familiar with, rather that being from normal shopping, dropping things off for Simon, or picking him up from his night shift she was familiar with it. She also thought it was a nice fun place, either it being Simon boosting with joy about being employee of the month or helping him out at night after everyone left. And if anyone asked they definitely have never made out in the back by the loading docks.

So it was no surprise when Simon followed (y/n) behind the pharmacy counter and started searching for the right pills they needed. “A few months ago, my brother Timothy had an unfortunate experience in which he ingested too much of a certain substance.” Simon started to explained walking to the front desk where the group stood.

“Hun,” (y/n) shouted, tossing him two boxes that were about to fall from her grips.

“He was dead for two minutes. But… “ He trailed off glancing over at the girl next to him as they both turned back to the counter doing a little drum roll. “We got him back!”

(y/n) pushed all the boxes to her and Kate’s direction. “Kate, you up for a little mix-and-match?” The girl nodded as they started getting to work, (y/n) unboxing whatever pills and helping un cap before helping organize the different pills.

“You need to take these in order.” Simon started to say leaning on (y/n) shoulder to try and keep her calm and concentrated. “Pile one takes the edge off.” She explained pushing the large pink oval and small light blue pills closer together, closer to Sam. “You’re gonna feel like you’re being fucked by a unicorn.” (y/n) gave him a weird look as he just shrugged before Kate called her back to the topic.

“Pile two cools your core temp to were you might feel sick. But this is the most important part that Dee needs to remember cause you’re gunna be out of it. You need to take a five minute interval between the second pile and the third one. Because pile three is gunna K.O. So take that five or shit hits the fan!” She explained staying oddly calm which only freaked Sam out. “Have you eaten anything?”

“Why is any of this--?”

“Cause,” (y/n) cut Dee off as Kate finished off the piles, “She’s about to take a shit load of pills, and phrymist aren’t kidding when they say you should eat before pills. It helps make the pills work faster so Dee start filling her up with milk and bread, but mostly milk.”

“How many do we have?” Kate asked, getting their attention holding white tubes with blue tops. “Tons. Like a thousand.” Simon answered as (y/n) nodded remembering where the boxes full of them were.

“Wait. EpiPens?”

“Epinephrine, also known as adrenaline. This is what brings her back. This is Jesus!” He exclaimed making (y/n) smile widely at his excitement for what might be their last night alive.

Sam marked each of them as her blood, walking up to (y/n) who was putting the pile of pills into different cups keeping them separated but still in order. “It’s your turn,” Sam said, making her turn to the dirty blonde, clearly tired girl. “Mark me up baby,” She remarked after sighing lightly feeling the after effects of adrenaline rush after adrenaline rush.

There was a pause of silences as Sam fought with the question in her head trying to figure out if she should ask it or not. “Do you think this will work?” She asked as she made a large ‘X’ across (y/n) “PROPERTY OF SHADYSIDE HIGH GYM” grey shirt.

(y/n) thought about it for a second knowing this could work, or it could completely fail and they all die. “In theory it sounds questionable, but then again so does dead serial killers trying to fulfill a curse from a witch.” She joked making both the girls smile. “But I think it will, something just feels like this is the end. Rather it means the end for them or us. But it is the end of the curse.”

Sam smiled at her, (y/n)’s words were confusing yet comforting. Smiling at her before grabbing a napkin for her hand as (y/n) went back to the cups. “How much did you drink and how long ago?” She asked getting a confused looking from Sam.

“Uh...half a gallon and about thirty-ish minutes ago, why?”

“I take back what I said. This is definitely working.”

“Hot stuff!” Kate called getting (y/n)’s attention as she had always called her that. “We’re running interference up here!” (y/n) nodded walking up next to the dark haired girl, linking their arms.

“We got back door portal” Simon told Josh before holding his hand out as (y/n) grabbed it both squeezing it tightly before letting their fingers slowly leave one anothers.

“Hey!” Kate called getting both boys' attention before walking up, grabbing Josh’s face and kissing him. Simon looked at his girlfriend who just smiled shrugging as he smiled looking between them as Kate started walking towards the front making (y/n) running up to catch them. She reached Simon, reaching up and kissed his cheek, “I would appreciate it, if you would kiss me right now.” He whispered to her, making her smile widely feeling small goosebumps start to rise as they, “Fine, but you’ll have to survive all this first.”

“(y/n)!”

“On your tail, sweetheart!” (y/n) called running up reaching Kate linking their arms before starting to make their rounds. Both kept to themselves after agreeing to talk about everything when they weren’t being hunted down by dead serial killers. They walked down an aisle as (y/n) held a small hand held shopping baskets as Kate put random things into it. “Late night shopping?” She asked, breaking the silence as Kate gave her a smug smile. “No, it’s for--” She went to inform but was cut off when they both quickly looked behind them as a piece of metal clanged against something startling them.

Both now officially on edge, Kate taking something from the basket before (y/n) set it on the floor. Nodding at each other before going separate ways to check down each aisle. And that’s when it started. The heavy footsteps. Each of them getting closer and heavier, booming with each step making the anxiety in the (y/n) on;y grow more and more. Each boom made her stomach drop, pull and knot. Unsure where it was coming from, looking behind her and in front of her with each step. Trying to keep her back against a wall or big blocky aisle that looked like someone couldn’t jump from above. But a scream broke her from her thoughts.

Running towards it seeing Kate using the hairspray and lighter she had grabbed from the basket at the cheap now horrific skeleton. “Go! Go! Go!” She shouted.

(y/n) crouched down next to Sam, not even batting an eye at the strong puke smell which would normally make her sick. Deena looked over at them confused and still scared, “Let’s go!” (y/n) shouted as she nodded, running down the back wall where they were as (y/n) followed by keeping one of Sam’s arm around her neck as her arm held her waist. Practically dragging the poor barely conscious girl.

“I need to die. I need to die.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re working on that.” (y/n) remarked as Deena grabbed her other side helping (y/n) out making them go faster towards the other side of the store. “We’re gonna figure this out!” She replied as they stopped for a second. (y/n) looking back at Kate seeing she was already running from the killer and seeing Dee didn’t have any of the pills.

“Lobster tank,”

“What?”

“The lobster tank!” Dee repeated as it started clicking in (y/n)’s head. “You have her?” She nodded repeatedly, “Okay go kill Sam I’ll try and keep them away.” She said making sure she had the dirty blonde before letting her go.

Walking to the end of the aisle peeking around the corner to see the skeleton looking around as neither saw any sign of Kate. It looked back towards (y/n) who quickly threw herself back, hiding father in the aisle. Hearing the heavy footsteps coming closer her way as he breathing started to become faster and faster trying to think of what to do. The only thought she had that wasn’t “oh my god I’m about to die” was to run.

So she did so, taking a quick breath peeking around the corner seeing the skeleton looking straight at her. Jumping back and starting to run, “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!” She shouted running down the store. Quickly meeting with a wall, “Son of a bitch!” She turned right running towards the bakery knowing that if she turned left then she would have led him straight to Sam and Deena. Snaking down aisles and threw herself into the shelves, crawling behind stroller boxes and watching through the tiny slit as the killer walked right past her.

Thinking she had gotten away but jumped back hearing the screams of Kate. Quickly crawling out and running towards her screaming best friend. Hearing the bread cutter on looking up and seeing the skeleton killer slamming Kate’s face into a cake. “No! No!” She kept screaming over and over as she tried fighting him off.

“Think, think think…” (y/n) muttered hearing a large crash coming from a few aisle down. She ran up to the cutter shutting off while grabbing a muffin tin. The killer had his knife drawn back about to stab Kate who was screaming with Kate over her face while the killer held her by her throat. Salming the tin into the killer’s head, hitting it repeatedly as it quickly let Kate go. “Go! Go! Go! Get the fuck out!” She shouted hitting the killer with each word she said.

Kate thought about helping her but only got shouted at to run away. So she did, looking back every second seeing (y/n) fighting the killer off. Running straight into a panicked Simon, “Go! She’s right behind me!”

He turned her around trying to get her to run back she just came from seeing Josh gasping for air as they nodded spriting back down the aisle. Reaching the end of the aisle as Kate started frantically searching for any sign of (y/n) or the killer but seeing no one. “Where..is she?”

“Who?” Josh asked, looking around for any killers.

“(y/n) she saved me from getting diced.”

Neither of them noticing the psycho axe wielding maniac running towards them.Only ecoming aware when a large white smoke filled the air as they heard a loud clink in a row seeing a shadow hitting the axe murder. All trying to fan the smoke from their face seeing (y/n) holding a fire extinguisher panting as the killer’s head was bashed in and slowly started to come back to life.

“Move it before he chops off your head!” She shouted, grabbing Simon’s hand as they started running back down the aisle.

“But Ruby’s this way!” Josh yelled as him and Kate were running behind her and Simon.

“Then break right, I’ve got a plan!” She shouted as the turned right at the end of the aisle. Following the heavy breathing girl to a pile of stuff on top of the table where Sam put her bloody napkins on.

“Okay, clean up.” She started, throwing Kate a washcloth to whip the cake off her face. Turning back to the table grabbing the baby wipes and throwing it to Simon while also tossing Josh a new shirt.

“What?”

“Why?’

“Because we are about to play a very fucked up game of cat and mouse” She stated dropping down to the large bowl of Sam’s watered down blood. “I’m getting Carried so that way they will all be after me. Josh stays with Dee and Sam. While Si and Kate help me keep their interest.”

Simon crouched down next her placing his hands on top of her’s getting her full attention. “Are you sure about this? I mean you can die from this. Like shit can very likely go wrong.”

“Si, I got this just trust me, yeah?” (y/n) said in full confidence making Simon nod, “I trust you completely.” He said making her smile.

“Kate you ready?” She looked up at the dark haired girl who threw the washcloth down and pulled her shirt off changing it with another. “That skull motherfucker tried to shove me throw a bread silcerr I want his fucking head.”

“Josh?” He sighed before nodding, “Good, now back up.” She stated as they did so, watching her pick up the large bowl as she poured it over her head. Gasping at the sudden cold, whipping her eyes and mouth.

Josh had ran back to Dee who was half way drowning Sam. Leaving the three as they heard the footsteps coming their way. The skull and axe murder appeared on the other end of the aisle. Both their speeds picking up as (y/n) started to run off, “Si, stay away from that Ruby bitch!” She yelled snaking through each aisle ending up with the axe murder folloing right behind her as the skeleton followed on the other end of the aisle. Simon and Kate kept their distance, picking up anything they can throw to (y/n) to help ping-pong their attention to her. While also looking for Ruby seeing no sign of her anywhere, but hearing her singing erraly through the entire store.

Ending up getting trapped the axe murder on one end and the skeleton on the other while Ruby pooked herself from behind the flaps that lead into the back freezer. (y/n) panting while starting to panic looking at all of them. “Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!” She cursed trying to find a solution hearing Simon and Kate running her way but knowing they wouldn’t make it.

And so she did the only thing she could, shut her eyes and hope for the best. Hearing the light buzzing of the lights as she peeked one eye open to see they were all gone. As an electrical thud sounded through the building as it looked like nothing was there. Like the killers never even where here. That was of course besides the cuts and bruises they had from the night.

“Josh, Josh! Come help me! Get the pens! Someone get the fucking pens!” Deena shouted repeating for someone to get the EpiPens.

All four of them ran up chucking whatever pens they had. Simon helped bring her down to the floor as Dee sat next to her holding her face. Taking each pen and stabbing it into the wet dead girl’s chest. “Are you even doing it right?” Josh asked worried it wasn’t working after the third one.

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” She breathed out clearly panicking. Taking more pens and stabbing her chest and still getting nothing.

(y/n) grabbed Simon’s hand squeezing his hand tightly not taking her eyes off Sam’s body. All watched in horror as Deena went through every pen they had and still getting nothing.

Deena gasped seeing none left, reaching up and holding her face desperately looking for any sign of her being alive. “Sam?”

“Wait, it’s not working cause her blood isn’t flowing.” Kate explained as Dee’s eyes widened before stacking her hands on top of one another and starting CPR. “Come on!” All watched in anticipation as the teen girls body laid flat and still. And for the first time in the night (y/n)’s eyes started to water everything hitting all at once, turning back to Simon who wrapped his arms around her hugging her tightly.

Hearing nothing but the pants of everyone trying to catch their breaths and Dee’s counting as she was still at the CPR. All slowly losing hope until the coughing started. Watching as Sam started coughing and retching up a white foam liquid, and once it all came up she was only coughing up water.

“It’s over,” Dee started to sooth the blonde pulling her head into her lap as everyone let out a sigh of relief seeing her alive and breathing, while trying to catch her breath but breathing nonetheless.

+°✮*. · ∘ .

It was now the next night, they had spent the rest of the night and the following day talking to the police. Having their story be that Simon had asked (y/n) to came help him get something he left at the store. They thought someone was trying to break in so they called their friends to come and get them. The hardest part to explain was why (y/n) was covered in dried blood. She lied to Goode that she had run into the freezer to check the side door when she tripped and spilled animal blood over herself.

And she had just gotten out of her second shower, opening the bathroom door leaving the steamy room, turning the light off as she walked into her room. “Okay,” She said, getting Simon’s attention who was sitting on her bed waiting for her. “I need you to check me over cause I really don’t want to take another shower.”

He smiled at her, pressing his lips together as he just looked at her. “Do you like what you see?” She teased, raising her brow. “You know I always do,” He replied, pulling her onto the bed getting on top of her and placing sloppy messy kisses all over her face. She smiled widely laughing, “Si stop it you’re--” She started to complain int between laughs as sorten kisses would tickle her skin.

“I can’t help it, your lips are just too damn kissable.” He said simply, smiling looking at her before his eyes narrowed as she mocked him doing the same, breaking into a smirk, “What?’

“You still owe me that kiss,”

She tilted her head to acting like she was thinking about something. “I do? Uh, I guess I just don’t -- Oh that kiss?”

“Yeah that kiss. I survived thanks to you, might need an inhaler for a bit but who the fuck cares about that when we beat the shit ou tof some ghost?!” He exclaimed sitting up while still straddling her.

“Yeah, I wasn’t thinking about our overall health with the fumes and what not...I just had to save you.” She said muttering the last part remembering running off after hitting the skeleton killer more than enough and hearing voices and running. Grabbing the fire extinguisher thinking it could help and arriving just as the axe murder was drawing his axe back about to kill Simon. Not worrying about the side effects the fumes from spraying might have. And it ended up giving them a prescription for inhalers.

“Hey,” He said softly, breaking her attention abc to him. “We did it, oaky? Everything is okay, we are all okay, it's over and everything is over.” He reassured her as she smiled sweetly up at him, feeling nothing but love and safeness. Reaching up at him, placing both palms on either side of his face and pulling him into a kiss. A sweet passionate kiss that felt like electricity filled your body. Both ended up smiling during the kiss. Pulling apart and just looking into each other’s eyes. Not noticing or caring about any of the minutes passing.

(y/n) pressed her lips together as she wrapped her arms around his neck pulling him down with her. He wrapped his arms around her waist as they brought each closer, nuzzling her face into his neck. Feeling comfortable and safe, both enjoying one another's presens after the hell night that had just gone through.

#fear street #fear street 1994 x reader #fear street part one: 1994 #fear street 1994 #fear street deena #fear street josh #fear street kate #fear street sam #fear street simon #fear street x reader #horror #simon kalivoda x reader #simon kalivoda #horror x reader #netflix horror #netflix #fear street 1978 #fear street 1666

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apiratewhopines · 3 years

Text

Thanks again to @teamhook for the artwork and being the muse for this one! You wanted a movie fic and I did my best 🙂

Midnight

Chapter 7 — The Slipper

Summary: In which our heroine resets the clock

Chapter 7 on AO3 (That’s all folks!!)

“You’ll never know

How many dreams I dreamed about you”

-It’s Been a Long, Long Time, Bing Crosby

It was receiving the invitation to Arthur and Guinevere’s second wedding that did it. Emma’s fairy godfather stayed in touch after their weekend in the country, offering investment advice for her windfall and acting for all the world like her adopted brother. She knew he felt guilty for finding his happy ending at her expense. Despite her reassurances she messed up her chances hours before he came on the scene, maybe months if she were really honest.

Three months ago, she left the estate a little more scarred, a little less hopeful, and much more wealthy. She paid back the money stolen from Granny but couldn’t bring herself to buy a place in the city like she originally planned. Instead, she took the remainder and invested it per Arthur’s overbearing instruction. She doubled it in a week and tripled that figure by the end of the month.

She still wasn’t satisfied, though. Dreams of a certain blue-eyed man haunted her, his last words whispering through her mind like a mantra and a curse. So she found Neal’s trail again and spent the next couple of weeks looking for him in the shadows and muck. She found him mooching off his mother of all people.

All the hate, anger, and embarrassment she buried deeply at the end of their relationship dissipated the moment she saw him. Why had she given him so much real estate in her mind, allowed the ghost of him to rob her of her sanity and potential happiness?

It was with satisfaction at a job well done rather than his impeding downfall that she turned him over to the local authorities and headed back to the east coast.

By the time she arrived, she was richer and even more lonely.

She was listless and finding no reason to stay, Emma accepted Arthur’s latest proposition that she needed to see the world. Using his numerous estates as a guide, she flitted across the globe, experiencing all the world had to offer and looking. Always looking.

It took her longer than it should have to realize she wouldn’t find what she was missing in the new people she met or the natural wonders she explored. The whole time her mind and soul were calling out for a more familiar setting and a dearer face.

Lancelot was right. She was running scared, and the only thing it was going to get her was absolutely nothing.

The handsome, almost homewrecker had not attempted to reach out since their quiet conversation on the beach, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know what he was up to. After calling it quits, he realized the US hadn’t been the best place for him. He returned with great fanfare to France, where he took on the daily running of the family business. He was said to have the Midas touch, working with the locals to improve the processes and products they offered. His vineyard was becoming the trendiest tourist destination in the country.

Not even a month after his departure, the press reported on the fairytale romance of the champagne millionaire and his widowed neighbor, Belle French. The pair’s engagement announcement ran in every major newspaper in the world.

It was quick work, even for Lancelot du Lac. She couldn’t begrudge him, though. He was never truly a bad man, just a regular one who made bad decisions. She could certainly relate.

Cutting her trip short, she returned to the city where it all started, to a tiny loft apartment she rented on a month-by-month basis above Granny’s diner. There didn’t seem to be much point in seeing the world when the only world she was interested in was centered about four hours away.

The news of Killian was more challenging to come by than the other people involved in her charade, but that only made it more precious. A charity fundraiser here, a life saved there, the ever-present and never changing picture on the hospital website she checked so often it was now saved as her homepage. She thought glimpses and scraps were all she was entitled to at first. However, the longer she tried to resist his pull, the more she started to think maybe she did deserve a chance.

Maybe she wasn’t too late.

Staring at the thick cream-colored invitation with scrolling words waxing romance, dates, and times, she came to a decision and packed her bags.

—

It wasn’t hard to find the exact location of their meeting. It was burned into Emma’s memory. Their initial encounter cemented as one of those moments that seem routine when they happen but take root in your fate and grow, threading through every aspect of your life until all traces of happiness are tied to one serendipitous second in time.

After departing from Arthur’s estate in a chauffeured car all those months ago, she had returned to this spot and found her Bug right where she left it. Someone, probably the Prince Charming she was determined to break, had filled the tank with gas. So, she bid adieu to Arthur’s employee and drove off into the sunset all alone. Like she did everything.

Nothing had changed about the place in the intervening months. It was thirty minutes to midnight. The dark sky was clear, stars twinkling from space and the moon a tiny thumbnail above the evergreens. She would wait all night if she had to, but sooner or later, she would catch her quarry.

Emma Swan always got her man.

Unfortunately, she didn’t always get him on her first try. She waited for a couple hours the first night, but no black BMW could be seen cresting the hill. Admitting defeat, she went back to her hotel and vowed to try again.

She knew she could have sprung an unannounced visit on him at his job. After all, it wasn’t difficult to pick out his dark sedan in the parking lot when she cruised by the hospital several times a day. Nor would it have been difficult to track down his address and ambush him one evening when he returned home. The idea had a lot of appeal since his place lived in a variety of fantasies involving oversized shirts and pancakes.

Deep down, she knew after she had robbed him of his choice so many times in their brief acquaintance, it would be wrong to show up and act like nothing happened. She needed to allow him to invite her back in or send her away.

God, she hoped he invited her in.

It took three nights, but eventually, she saw headlights. Smoothing down the hem of her black tank top over her skinny jeans, she took a cleansing breath and stepped out into the middle of the road.

She had no doubt it was him, the cautious pace slicing through the night at exactly the same time as before. She could even tell the precise moment he spotted her in the bright lights of his high beams, the luxury car swerving slightly into the other lane. It was less than a minute later he rolled to a stop about ten feet away.

Then, nothing. The silence of a door not opening was deafening.

Maybe this was her answer.

She wished she could see past the glare and through the windshield. Look into his eyes at least once more and tell him everything she figured out over the past couple of months. The same things he had tried to say to her before he left.

Finally, a lifetime later, she heard the door open. She felt every footfall in the far reaches of her heart, each measured step in time with the rapid beating in her chest. She was lightheaded with longing, her eyes frantically trying to adjust between light and dark and make out Killian’s beloved form in the nighttime.

“Fancy meeting you here, Captain.”

There was another long pause and then he stepped into the narrow, car-sized area of light. He was even more handsome than she remembered. The static, professionally staged photo on the website never did him justice in the first place. “Emma, when did you get back?”

She heard the question for what it really was, ‘Emma, why are you here?’

Smiling past her nerves, she took a step closer. He looked like the proverbial deer in the highlights, like any sudden movement would cause him to turn tail and run. She did this to him. It was her fault her cocky Prince Charming looked spooked. “A couple of days ago. I need a ride to Misthaven. I’m late for an appointment.”

“An appointment? It’s almost midnight. I’m getting the strangest sense of deja vu.”

“You see, there’s a man. He’s actually the best thing that ever happened to me. But I felt like I didn’t deserve him, like I didn’t deserve anyone, really, so I ran. Several times. And even though I pushed him away and ruined everything, I need to let him know that he was never nothing. His feelings were never nothing. As a matter of fact, he’s come to mean everything to me, and I wanted to tell him I was sorry it took me so long to say it.”

Taking a step forward, he stood nearly toe to toe with her. His hair was sticking out at odd angles, his face twisted in thought, hands hanging in fists at his side. “Is that so?”

Reaching out, she placed her hands on his shoulders and she looked up into his eyes, whispering, “I’ve loved you since you let me have all the bites with whipped cream. I was just too scared to admit it.”

She waited when all she wanted to do was pull him closer and bury her face in his neck, inhale his intoxicating scent again and taste his skin. She had said what she needed to say, but it didn’t give her the right to waltz back into his life if that wasn’t what he wanted. “Killian, I—“

Her words were cut off by his abrupt kiss. He grabbed her like he was drowning and she was the only thing that could save him. His chest heaving and lips brutal in their quest. He hitched her up slightly, settling her against the hood of his car. He half leaned over her as he continued to explore every neglected inch of her mouth, every lonely corner of her soul. When he finally broke off his passionate embrace, his breathing was ragged and his voice harsh with emotion. “I have big plans for you and whipped cream, love.”

Laughter filled the inches between them, his forehead resting against hers. Peppering his face with soft kisses, her fingertips tracing the line of his jaw, she teased, “Prove it.”

—

The trail of clothes leading to the bedroom remained untouched for days. They survived the early days of their relationship on pancakes, whipped cream, and borrowed shirts.

Over the years, people asked her when she knew Killian Jones was the one. Her answer was always the same.

At the stroke of midnight.

Every night for the rest of their lives.

Note:

Midnight — Info about the movie

@teamhook @kmomof4 @jrob64 @stahlop @xarandomdreamx @xsajx @motherkatereloyshipper @klynn-stormz

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