#better case: shes okay with it and i have 1 less thing to worry about until friday 3pm

[annymation]

Reimagining the characters in Wish

(Part 1- Asha)

Hey guys! I don’t really know how to start this, but let’s just say that I… Didn’t like how Disney’s 100th anniversary movie turned out, like at all.

But I can tell there was a lot of unexplored potential beneath this story, that in my opinion felt overly simple and bare bones.

But if you love it, that’s awesome, more power to you, I wish I could’ve loved it too. And I don’t want to rewrite it to show I’m “better than the writers at Disney” because I’m definitely not lol, I have no experience in writing, and I’m sure they put a lot of passion into the project and I respect them for that. But this movie inspired me with ideas for a different story that I think is worth telling.

But I won’t start telling it today, instead, I'll start a series of blogs sharing my ideas for changes in the characters and their stories, after I get some feedback I will start posting more of the story itself.

If you’re interested, then come along!

Asha✨

Personality

- Asha is a 18 year old girl, with a passion for drawing and helping those around her, sometimes even worrying more about helping others than helping herself

- She’s like a big sister to her 7 friends, always being the voice of reason and acting responsible, but not in a bossy way, she’s actually very playful with them

- To the people of Rosas tho, she's seen as kind of a weirdo, for you see, she spends almost every time of the day drawing in her sketchbook

- She practices everyday to become a better artist, and the people of Rosas find this to be very peculiar, after all, why would you take so much effort to perfect a talent when you can simply wait to turn 18 and wish for the king to make you an amazing artist?

- Asha doesn’t mind these comments, although they have made her less willing to share her drawings with others that aren’t her 7 friends

- As the story progresses we see Asha flourish from a shy and introverted girl to a brave woman who after discovering a terrifying secret about the kingdom’s rulers, steps in and inspires others to join her and fight an evil sorcerer king and his alchemist wife (yes, I made Amaya an alchemist, more on that on part 2 when I talk about how I’d change Magnifico and Amaya)

- Some Disney characters that share similarities with her personality wise are: Belle, Tiana, Pocahontas and Esmeralda

Main Traits:

Calm and mature

Determined

Passionate about her interests (drawing, dancing, philosophy and stars)

Helpful and generous

Perceptive and always questioning things around her that no one pays attention to (like why do all the artists only paint the King and Queen?)

Playful

Compassionate

Backstory

Oooh boy I gave this poor girl so much angst, okay let’s go

Asha grew up with her grandfather, her parents both died in a fire when she was just a baby

(this isn’t just to fit the “haha Disney princess has no parents” cliche, there’s plot relevance in this “mysterious fire” that I’ll talk about later)

Growing up with her grandpa, he’d always support her dream to be an artist, like her mother, who was an art teacher

Her mother not only drew really well, but she also was able to create the illusion that her drawings could move, by flipping through the pages of her sketch books

In other words, her mom was an animator

Asha saw this technic her mom used as a form of magic, so she would often tell her grandpa she wanted to “Do magic just like my mom”

Her father was a philosopher (this was established in the actual movie but never explored haha whyyyy), who taught people that working hard to achieve your dreams is not only rewarding, but also essential, because it’s part of the human nature to persevere and fight for what we believe, even if we fail, even if it’s hard, just keep moving forward.

This philosophy may sound very “umm duh” for me and you since we all know and hear everywhere nothing in life comes for free… But that’s not the case in Rosas

In this rewrite the kingdom wasn’t created by Magnifico, but rather the kingdom has existed for many generations, being ruled by different kings before Magnifico who also granted wishes… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The point is that the culture of just asking the king to give you or make you whatever you want to be has been in this kingdom’s culture since forever, so when Asha’s dad comes out saying “hey! Maybe we should stop just relying on the king to make our dreams come true, right?” He’s actually being quite a revolutionary… and sharing a very dangerous belief to other people…

At this point you might suspect what caused that “mysterious fire”

So, back to Asha, growing up with her grandpa, they shared a lot of happy memories together. Reading her father's books and her mother's art books helped Asha connect with them even tho she never had them in her life.

But as her grandfather grew older, he became senile.

Asha went from being taken care of by her grandpa to being the one who took care of him when she was still around 13 years old, and when she turned 15 her grandfather passed away of old age

Asha went on to live with her best friend Dahlia, the two became like sisters.

Though she managed to move on from the loss of her grandfather, she could never shake the feeling that he died without getting his wish granted... But she had no way to prove that, it was just a feeling

The wish granting system works different in my rewrite, instead of there being a public wish granting ceremony once a month, there would only be a public wish TAKING ceremony, that would work just like in the movie, you turn 18, you go give your wish to the king yada yada yada.

But the wish granting part would work like this: Almost every night the king would release the wishes up in the sky, they would float down like balloons to their respective owners while they sleep, and once they woke up in the morning they'd feel that their wishes were granted, for they would wake up changed.

With this method, there's no way of confirming if someone really got their wish granted or not, unless you went to ask the king.

Asha never did ask the king if he granted her grandfather's wish, but her grandfather would sometimes express how he wasn't feeling completely fulfilled in his life, he felt like there was something... missing.

This feeling of hollowness persisted in him until the very end, no matter how hard Asha tried to help her grandfather, she never knew him as his real self, because he gave part of his soul to the king, the most beautiful part of his soul, his wish.

Asha had no proof that her grandfather didn't get his wish granted, only a gut feeling.

But because of this, Asha wasn't that thrilled to give her own wish to king magnifico, knowing there was the possibility of it never being granted.

Not to mention she didn’t even know what to wish for, “I’m just 18 and you guys expect me to already know what’s my heart’s deepest desire? I’m still figuring that out, all I know is that I wanna draw”

Plus she wanted to follow her father's philosophy and achieve her wish on her own, eventually, when she figured out what her wish even was.

Asha never rebelled against the system tho, she wasn't a confrontational person. She just accepted the people of Rosas preferred to rely on the king's magic, but that just wasn't for her.

However, on her 18 birthday, when it was expected of her to give her wish to the king, she simply said she didn't have a wish, and even if she did she wouldn’t want to hand it over, she wanted to make it come true on her own. This lead to an argument with the king, and after a series of events (that I don't have time to summarize here, but you can find out about it on my rewrite) leads to her finding out a terrible truth about her kingdom. And that's how her story begins.

Design

- I’d keep these braid ornaments that Asha had in the concept art

- Since in my rewrite she’s not that invested in the kingdom of Rosas, I’d remove all the Kingdom of Rosas symbols that are present in her design (there are a LOT of them)

- I’d replace these Rosas insignia with more star and constellations themed symbols, to reflect how Asha believes that the stars are connected to people and they can guide us, just like how her father believed.

Final Thoughts

My intentions with these changes were to give Asha a strong emotional hook, and something that makes her feel relatable.

The emotional hook here is how she spent so much of her life taking care of her grandfather that she kinda never had time to worry about her own desires, that alone can be relatable to caregivers of elderly people that watch their grandparents or even their own parents lose themselves as time passes, and end up worrying more about the person they’re taking care of than themselves.

Asha has this internal emotional conflict where she feels she needs to constantly help others the same way she helped her grandfather, and one of the things she’ll learn as the story progresses is that it’s not selfish of her to want more for HERSELF.

Another thing that would be relatable about Asha is her passion for drawing, and how most people in Rosas would say she’s wasting her time practicing so much when she can just wait until she turns 18 and wish to be amazing at drawing.

She’d never stop believing that taking her time to improve on her talent and trying again and again was worth every second of her time, because let me tell ya folks, drawing is HARD, and animating like Asha’s mom did is even HARDER, it takes a whole lot of practice, and Asha was determined to keep trying.

She’d be much like Belle, remaining true to herself even tho those around her considered her odd, and very passionate about drawing just as much Belle was passionate about reading.

I also find it funny how Asha’s motivations are fairly down to earth, like in Disney movies you usually have:

I want to be free from these palace walls!

I want to explore the ocean!

I want to open a restaurant!

I want to find true love!

And then there’s Asha here like

“My life is fine, I just wanna chill and draw stuff”

And that’s it, but, in her environment where everyone is expected to have this great wish that they have to give to the king so he’ll make it a reality, she’s kinda the odd one out, and I love that. Would be a great subversion of the Disney formula.

Of course after she learns Magnifico and Amaya’s true intentions she gets a lot more agency and the desire to save her people, her “call for adventure” if you will.

But what are Magnifico and Amaya’s true intentions? Click here for part 2 and find out!

Thank You For Reading!

[bestworstcase]

Question from someone who's attempting to write rwby fanfiction. Do you have any advice on how avoid portraying team RWBY and their peers (JNPR, Penny, Oscar, etc) as people who are 'just better' or somehow more inherently virtuous than Those Evil Villains Over There Who Must Be Defeated and The Failures Of Generations Past? Because I want to write the girls and their friends bringing an end to a millennia-long conflict and upending the status quo and yeeting the brother gods, but like. I don't want to somehow imply that they have some special holy righteous sacred innate thing that made them succeed where others couldn't. And I feel like I keep accidentally implying that.

step 1. Worry Less.

if you don’t believe that RWBY et al are intrinsically Just Better Somehow you’re probably not going to write your story in a way that inadvertently implies as much even if they’re ultimately the ones who Solve The Problem. they’re just in the right place at the right time to escape this cycle these things happen bfrgk

step 2. remember that everybody does what they think is right

no one is a Bad Person on purpose and even when someone does something they know or believe to be wrong there is always some rationalization going on that makes it okay or makes it something outside of their control. keeping this in mind whenever you write character conflict is really important for portraying conflict in a naturalistic way—even if it isn’t something you put In The Text it’s useful for you as a writer to know what’s Going On in the heads of the characters who are wrong and why they’re doing the things that they do.

(a good exercise if you want to practice is to rewrite a scene from the other side’s point of view; if you have for example an argument between two characters who are both extremely convinced of their own rightness and don’t like each other, can you leap into the antagonist’s perspective and write that argument from their side in a way that paints the protagonist as irrational, stubborn, foolish? if you can switch your writer POV around like that to see things from the Wrong Perspective it becomes a lot easier to handle complex conflicts because you have a really solid grasp on what everyone’s stakes and opinions and reasons are.)

step 3. don’t be afraid to let the Good Guys fuck up & don’t be afraid to let the Bad Guys have a point

rwby does this really really really well. nobody is ever one hundred percent completely right—not in the story and not in real life—so letting the good guys be a little bit wrong and the bad guys be a little bit right creates points of common ground and margins for compromise to be built in between. and obviously if you have protagonists who are able to make mistakes and grow and accept compromise then Innately you have protagonists who are flawed and three dimensional, because if they were Perfect they wouldn’t need to learn or grow.

step 4. think about Why these characters are the ones who solve the problem

this is something that’s just helpful to have in mind as a writer to clarify your own framing; often the answer is a lot more about circumstance than any intrinsic Betterness and in the case of rwby a lot of it just comes down to the fact that salem attacked when she did—team rwby et al weren’t inculcated into the paranoid keeping secrets cult and didn’t have ozpin to lead them, so they figured out their own way of doing things that (because it plays to humanity’s strengths) works a lot better.

y’know how every time someone new is let in on the secret, the first question they ask is “why don’t people know? why not tell everyone?” the story is making the point that the natural, instinctive human response to finding out about a secret war is to go “it shouldn’t be secret!”—ozpin has to work very hard and be extremely careful about Who he initiates into this conspiracy because his methods run contrary to human nature. it takes active effort to quash that reflex to ask for help. what makes team rwby et al "special" isn’t anything unique to them, per se; its that they learnt the truth outside of this coercive environment that trained the old guard to Never Tell Anyone, so they intuitively grasp that telling more people and asking for help is better than not. because Most People put into this situation would intuitively grasp that.

[xjulixred45x]

OKAY! I know I had to bring a petition today but this idea came to me and I had to get it out as soon as possible! I will publish the next petition tomorrow or the day after tomorrow at the latest I swear!

Hunter (Toh) x Lorna (Over the Garden wall) Reader

Like, the reader is a girl who was cursed from a very young age, maybe by wild magic, maybe by enemies of her family, but she has an entity that absorbs her energy, making her sick and can only be controlled with a special bell (it's like its equivalent to Eda's elixir).

Her auntie Whispers overprotects her A LOT, since it is the only family she has and because she doesn't want anyone to be a victim of Lorna reader's curse if she is activated, but she also specializes in the healing coven to be able to help her niece.

It's one of the ways she could meet Hunter.

Whether Hunter as a Golden Guard goes to collect something from Auntie Whispers' house or she takes the reader to the palace to be treated by healers, Hunter is left with the impression of the girl, someone quite weak, yes, but when he knows which is because she is cursed, he can't help but empathize and compare the situation a little with Belos (as UNHEALTY as it is, Hunter still loved his uncle back then).

Can you imagine if Hunter at first also thought that Lorna!reader did live in an abusive home? ironically auntie whispers was a better aunt/uncle with him in 1 hour than Belos was in his entire life 🤣

Hunter at first would try to talk to Lorna! reader for research purposes, he believes that if he can know how other people's curses work then he could understand Belos' curse, but as I said his empathy skyrockets when he sees how Lorna! reader has to distract herself from having a sick body (being partially controlled by a demon) by doing household chores to try to suppress the entity that now controls her life.

Lorna!reader allowed the interactions because 1- Hunter was around her age and 2- she believed that if she had a better understanding of her curse, it would be easier to handle it. Besides, she wanted a friend.

From this, Hunter would begin to show his most real side and not just that of the Golden Guard, if he had to run an errand to Auntie Whispers, he would help with Lorna! reader's task (even if he had to learn them from scratch because he had NO IDEA what house maintenance was like. Let's just say that now he appreciates the cleaning crew more), if he ran into her running an errand now he was carrying her things or if she was just walking, he was taking her on his back to her house. Don't you know that with these winds you can catch a cold? If she wants to avoid getting sick she should make less effort.

Hunter even feels comfortable telling the reader about the things he read about wild magic, he justifies himself by saying that he wants her to try every possible method to cure her curse, and that's partly true, but in general he likes as reader listens carefully to his rants without getting bored and shows a real interest in what he has to say.

Hunter would definitely be pretty upset/worried if he had to deal with Reader's cursed transformation, although more than anything he would be very disturbed by the fact that Reader has to deal with that thing on a daily basis.

Let's say it triggers his most protective side, PHYSICALLY PROTECTIVE, Hunter will be somewhat ignorant as a Golden Guard, but at this point he is also a friend of the reader and will not let her be lynched for something she cannot control.

Hunter likes to talk to the reader about the outside world, he knows what it feels like to be locked up and without interaction (although in the reader's case, it is for the safety of others), so he ends up stopping by when he has free time and tells her a couple of anecdotes he has about work or when he was a scout, you know, being that figure that he would have liked to have.

By the time Hunter realizes the interest he has in Lorna! reader is not the same as he has with, for example, his flyer dervy colleagues, he is a blushing mess, and they are probably the ones who encourage him to be more open with her.

If we talk about a full-fledged relationship, it's all FLUFF.

Hunter tries to help as much as possible to prevent the reader's curse from acting, whether by getting bells, helping Auntie Whispers in her research, bringing remedies to improve the reader's physical condition and thus make her healthier, etc.

If the curse is indeed CURABLE then Hunter highly encourages the reader to seek said cure and do it together, even if she got used to living with the curse, Hunter would be so SO happy to see his partner live peacefully and without pain because of guilt of the curse.

HUNTER LETTING READER USE FLAPJACK WHEN SHE HAS A BAD TIME WITH THE CURSE I CAN'T---

If, on the other hand, the curse has no cure as such, then they try to find alternatives together to keep her asleep and make it more manageable, apart from the fact that if someone tries to judge the reader for her curse (EHEMEHEMBOSCAEHEHEHEME) Hunter or 1, gives them The Look and they shut up or 2, use the old scare tactics they used in the emperor's coven.

Hunter would be quite distraught over Lorna! reader during her time in the human kingdom, but at the same time I think she would make mental notes of things that she would have liked to see (she even learns several of Camila's home remedies for colds and flus that she wants to try on reader).

HUNTER DOING TO LORNA! READER A PALISMAAAAAAAAN-

In general, two little sunshines being little sunshines.

Shares, reblogs and comments are very welcome!

[inariter]

Stay With Me-6

Masterlist:

Stay With Me-1

Stay With Me-2

Stay With Me-3

Stay With Me-4

Stay With Me-5

Stay With Me-6

A million thoughts ran through OA’s head as he listened to Maggie’s words. It felt like his entire world was going in slow motion as he held his breathe. He could feel the panic that coursed through his veins. His gaze falling on (Y/n)’s resting body, trying to wrap his mind around it all.

“We’re still hunting him down but Jubal says you need to stay by her side.” OA knew that Jubal was right, he knew that there was too many conflicts of interest. That he could easily loose his cool if he was involved.  

“Okay...okay.”

“We’re going to find this guy.” Maggie told him, in some way to reassure him. But he knew until they caught the guy and he was locked away, there was no way he could relax, much less be assured for the better. 

Especially after the information Maggie began to give him, there had actually been two more shootings. One before Maggie gave him a call and another shortly after. Five more victims were added to the tally, all hit in the exact same place. All hospital workers. An organized crime with intended purposes and targets. 

“As soon as anything else happens, I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks Maggie.”

Anytime.” They were partners, they had each other’s back. But even now, it was hard to help. “How is she doing?”

“She’s out of the woods now. But she hasn’t woken up yet.”

“She will. She’s gotten through the worse of it.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m hoping for.” Sighing, OA ended the call, turning his attention back to (Y/n). He sat down next to her bed, holding her hand. The times he wished he could have done this very thing, almost too many to recount. “I love you (Y/n). I want to tell you face to face. I want to ask you on a date or do so much. So just open your eyes, alright?”

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

She knew this sight well, a dreary atmosphere that settled over the waiting room. She could see the worried etched on their faces as they all try to cope with their loss. Trying to keep it all together, to not let the tears or any other emotions show.

“She’s in good hands.” (Y/n) said, breaking the silence as their eyes fell on her. Confusion turned to recognition, seeing she was the first to attend to Kristen as soon as she came rolling through the ER doors. (Y/n) started working fast, doing what she could with her skill set before calling the trauma specialist, one more skilled in such matters. Even despite her own capabilities, she wasn’t going to let pride or arrogance prevent them from saving a life. “Our best trauma specialist is operating on her now, the odds are in favor.”

“How can you be so sure?” OA asked, standing up to meet her. He towered over (Y/n) given the difference in their builds. Yet she didn’t cower or stand down. She looked him straight on, a small yet knowing smile on her lips. 

“I know how good my colleagues are. But I’m saying this for reassurance, I know you all need some right now.” He could only guess how many scenes she seen like this. How many times she needed to break the news to friends and family. 

He knew, she didn’t have to do this. To come out and personally meet them, to try and ease their worries. She probably had another case or had something better to do.

Yet (Y/n) made the time to do this. Just for them. He found it touching.

“Look, you’ll hear more soon. But you all at least should have heard this.” She gave them all a small smile, before beginning to walk away. Tossing OA a snack in the process. “Name is (Y/n) by the way. Keep your head high, cause I have high hopes your friend will be fine.”

As she walked away, her smile grew, thinking back to OA. He easily caught her eye without even speaking. Her eyes had landed on him from the moment she looked at them from the end of the hall. Wondering when would be the next time they could see one another.

Something that would be sooner than she realized. Unaware he happened to be thinking something similar.

Days passed when she went about her daily routine when she was greeted with a familiar face standing in the lobby. Looking a little lost to say the least.

“Oh, agent, what brings you here?”

“Looking for you actually.” Oa smirked a little, twisting the ring on his finger as he walked closer to her. “I just wanted to say thanks. Kristen turned out just fine like you said.”

“And why are you thanking me?”

“You didn’t have to come and talk to us. You didn’t have to do anything but your job.”

“It was nothing. I’ve seen enough people like you and your friends to know they need something. Even the smallest bit helps.”

“Thank you for doing that. It did help. And thanks for granola bar.”

“Anytime.” (Y/n) said, giving him a small smile. Before her pager went on, signaling her that she was needed elsewhere. “Well, that’s my call.”

“Could I take you to lunch?” OA asked, calming his nerves enough to blurt out the question. He wasn’t why he felt as nervous as he did. Nor why he was even at the hospital to begin with. He just knew he ended up here, talking with (Y/n) and now asking her to a meal. His heart beating loud against his chest as he awaited her answer. 

“How about dinner tonight? I can go after my shift.”

“Sure...sure. That works.”

“Good, I’ll meet you here at 7 o’clock, tonight.” Her pager once again beeps. “Until then agent.”

With that, (Y/n) ran off to her job, OA watching her as her figure disappeared. Unable to shake the smile on his lips, wondering how or why she even agreed to begin with. 

But it was something. It was something for sure. 

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

Something was wrong, he knew it even before he opened his eyes. Before he looked around the hospital room. His instincts were screaming at him, telling him to move fast, to get up and grab the closest thing near him. And hearing his ringtone stop and go again didn’t help much.

Yet before he could make a move, before he could answer his phone, he heard a gun cock followed by a voice. 

“Don’t move or I’ll shoot you both.” 

[atopvisenyashill]

hm, how could shireen win?

okay so i was actually thinking about stannis battle at winterfell and how he wins that but the thing is we don’t even know how he’s going to LOSE THAT age very well might have ALREADY lost but he also very well might have faked his death. but is he still going to lose even after faking his death? does he get run out because of the rickon plot? where the hell is shireen fitting into this bc if HE is the one to burn her, they’re not even in the same place right now! it’s possible he gains winterfell, sends for shireen, then winds up in a siege and burns her then? where the fuck is jon in all this?? still hanging out in ghost???? i hate guessing about this because it has to do with complex timeline stuff and i am so ass at that.

now regardless - what Stannis needs to win is a) more supplies to last the winter b) more fucking men and specifically northerners flocking to his cause and c) a stark in hand!! i do think, with rumors of several stark children flying about, that stannis is going to have a hard time keeping the attention of the northerners. and he NEEDS THEM here bc they’re the ones who are experienced with fighting and living in winter! and he NEEDS SUPPLIES bc the storms are getting worse, and everyone is already getting human sacrifice happy so if he wants to get control of that, he needs rations that are going to LAST. the easiest way to get all of these things is to take winterfell, but *tywin voice* can he hold it?? until ramsay is dead and the freys are dealt with, he’s fighting a very tricky and dangerous war against an enemy who does not fight fair. AND i think it’s not unlikely that the moment he tries to execute theon, bran (future bran, current bran, some combination? who knows) is gonna start screeching through the birds and the weirwoods to knock that shit off, that’s bran’s emotional support idiot thanks, and stannis is gonna have to deal with THAT too.

now how does shireen win? honestly….she just needs a single just one (1) competent guardian looking out for her. someone who doesn’t want to burn her, someone who is mentally aware enough to get her out of danger (sorry patchface). jon is generally anti burning people but he just got caesard and he’s gonna be living in ghost for a while. so she has her mom and melisandre.

her best bet is jon getting back to his body and back in control as soon as possible. from there….i mean again, it’s at winterfell with jon. he’s just the only adult besides davos who can keep her from being burned. i don’t know that winterfell will last through the long night but i do think being there is better than a lot of other places.

although if we’re talking “how does shireen win the war of five kings” again, this requires stannis to be a little less stannis. reaches out to robb with his intent to declare before robb is declared king, offers the men he’s been able to raise at dragonstone as backup to robb’s riverlands campaign. it’s fine if he tries to kill renly (he can cursed by the gods and just do it more lowkey ya know), but in that case he needs to reach out to dorne, offer shireen to trystane, so he has a little bit more backup here. he needs to get the tyrell’s before littlefinger - even if all he’s doing is cutting them off from the capital, and not making any sort of alliance - so when he and robb and maybe doran take the black water (with DAVOS in charge perhaps and not the idiots he originally had) the tyrell’s don’t fuck them from behind. he needs king’s landing, he needs to hold it. don’t ask me what the vale is doing right now.

once he wins, there will be questions about his heir - renly got merked, shireen is a girl. maybe melisandre is like “don’t worry we got this” or maybe stannis is like “did i stutter i said shireen is my heir” and that makes trystane prince/king consort, lmao. it’s possible he goes for a tyrell match up right away…..willas is old but that might be seen as a good thing, and mace gets his grandkid on the throne after all. or maybe shireen gets a brother and retires to highgarden/dorne to be left alone singing songs with patchface.

[illfoandillfie]

Hi! I’m the same anon from the “Lazy Sunday” ask. First off, you’re welcome! It’s a brilliant story! As far as blurb ideas go, I always go back to the line where Reader tells Roger that he’s going to make a “dorky dad”. I kind of like the idea of a blurb taking place later in time where Reader is trying to tell Roger that she’s pregnant and keeps getting interrupted throughout the day. But you’re the amazing author, I’m sure that you could probably think of something much better than I could. 😊

Blurb Advent 2023: Day 1

Anon this is an amazing idea, I apologise it took so long for me to write anything for it lmao but here it is, the sequel to Lazy Sunday, and the first of the 2023 Advent prompts!

No warnings for this except a few suggestive themes and that Roger's a bit of a dumbass skfksfjskdj

Also editing on these has been minimal, so ignore any typos/weirdness lmao

9.28 AM 

As soon as the phone rang you grabbed it. Roger was upstairs, gathering up some scribbled song ideas that he’d left floating around which, thankfully, meant it was easy to have a quiet conversation with your doctor to confirm the results of your test. You were pregnant. It all felt a little surreal. You hadn’t even realised you were late at first, mostly because you never properly tracked your cycle so you hadn’t picked up on the irregularity until you were really really late.  

There had been a conversation, of course. You’d sat down and talked about what it would mean, how it would work when Rog toured, whether both of you felt capable of raising a child. And you’d agreed you were in a good place if it happened. Roger had been diplomatic and calm during the chat, always acknowledging when things would be hard, never getting too caught up in things like how little and cute baby clothes are. But you could tell he was excited at the thought of starting a family. He’d always loved his friends kids and it was clear he was more than ready to try having a few of his own. Luckily you felt the same, though perhaps a little more apprehensive. But remembering that had made you decide to keep it from Roger until you were one hundred percent certain, just in case you were wrong. 

But now that you knew it was happening all you felt was relief. It was a relief that you’d been right, that you could give Roger the good news, that you wouldn’t be disappointing him with a false alarm. But it was also a relief that there wouldn’t be months of agonising over why you weren't conceiving, worrying that there was something wrong. It had happened fairly easily. As bad as it might sound, it had happened without you really even trying. All you’d done was tell Roger when your pills last ran out and then didn’t go get new ones. It was less effort than you usually made. Neither of you had done any more planning than that. You’d not thought to track when you were ovulating, not changed anything about your lives that might have impacted fertility. You didn’t even really have sex any more than usual since you were having it fairly frequently anyway. It was very much a ‘wait and see’ kind of approach, almost lazy even. And apparently it had worked.  

The reality of what the doctor had said began to properly sink in as you hung up and you let out a little squeal of excitement while you had the room to yourself. Roger had to know as soon as possible, of course. And when you heard his hurried footsteps, muffled only slightly by the carpeted stairs, you moved out into the hall to catch him. He didn’t seem to notice you were bursting with news, leaning in to kiss your cheek as he apologised.   “Sorry love, I’m running late. I’ll see you later, okay? Love you.” And then he was out the door before you could even begin telling him to wait.   You blew out a breath, a little annoyed, but it was fine. You’d just call him and give him the good news and maybe make him feel a little bad for leaving so quickly. It usually took him about half an hour to get to Freddie’s place so you headed upstairs to dress and get ready for the day.  

10.15 AM 

Freddie answered after a handful of rings and after a minute or two handed to phone to Roger.   Unfortunately, upon hearing his voice, you realised you didn’t really want to tell him over the phone. Pettiness in response to mild carelessness was not a good reason and you really wanted to see his reaction in person.  “What is it love?” Roger asked after you’d been too quiet for too long, "Is everything okay?”  “Oh, yeah,” you said, trying to laugh in a casual sort of way, “I just wanted to check what time you’ll be home. You were in such a rush I didn’t get a chance to ask and I was thinking of doing something nice for dinner but if you and the guys are gonna be at it until late I won’t worry.”  There was a pause from the other end of the line and then Roger said, “Ohhhh I get love. I know what this is.” His voice was a little hushed like he was trying not to be overheard but it didn’t stop him from sounding cocky.   “No, that’s not it.”  “Was that what you were trying to tell me when I left? It’s okay, I get it.”  “You get it?”  “Y’know it’s kinda hot that we’re not using protection, and we didn’t fuck last night. I bet you want me desperately by now. Might have to resort to that toy of yours, at least until I get home. Which will be round fiveish at the latest I think. And I promise you can have whatever you need then.”  You were still trying to sputter out an answer, to tell Roger how wrong he was, when he hung up. And for a moment or two you were incapable of moving, listening to the repetitive beep that signalled the end of the call, as you wondered whether Roger’s stupidity was genetic.  

12.45 PM 

You thought about it a lot through the day, trying to come up with a fun way to tell Roger. A few years before a friend of yours had surprised her husband with a mug that said ‘Number 1 Dad’ on it. At the time you’d privately thought it was beyond cheesy but now it seemed kind of cute. You didn’t want to copy exactly what she’d done but an alternative didn’t jump out at you immediately, so you kept thinking about it as you went about your day. At one point you considered baking a cake and writing the message in icing. That idea morphed into making a loaf of bread so he could discover the bun in the oven. The problem with both was you’d never been much of a baker and you didn’t want to waste ingredients making inedible food. Then you thought maybe you should just run to the local shop and find a card, or perhaps some baby clothes. Keep it simple and impossible to misunderstand. But neither was a particularly exciting idea. If you were going to do something it should be fun and interesting. Besides, you didn’t really feel like leaving the house. At some point you got it stuck in your head that you could make him a more personalised announcement, maybe a card with a reference to one of his songs, or perhaps cut up old magazines to make a collage. But nothing really seemed to stick. You’d think the idea was good for about two minutes, and then you’d look at what ingredients or craft supplies you had, and decided it was a horrible idea that would never work. So you kept thinking.  

4.08 PM

Roger wrapped his arms around you and pressed his lips to your throat, “Don’t worry love, I’m here. How do you want me?”  You’d not even heard him come in. The TV had masked the sound of his keys but you’d been in your own little world anyway, very aware that you were running out of time before he’d be home and you still didn’t have a cute way of revealing the news. The suddenness of it all – his voice all low and gravely against your ear, his lips on your throat – was a shock and, unthinkingly, you blurted out a few incomprehensible noises and then, “no- I- you- daddy.”  Roger paused, moving around to better see your face, “Oh, that’s new. I didn’t know you were into that sort of thing but hey, I’ll give it a shot. Is it just calling me Daddy or is there more to it? Is this where all that like bondage stuff comes into it?”  You snorted with laughter and pushed him back a little, “No, dumbass, you surprised me. I was thinking about something else.”  “What?” he asked, suspiciously, “Can’t be your actual dad cause I’ve never heard you call him daddy before. What other daddies do you know?”  “Well....theres you. I’m pregnant.”  Roger stopped and blinked a couple of times like his brain had short circuited. “You are? Really?”  “Yeah, got the confirmation this morning. I tried to tell you but you were in such a rush.” Most of it was said laughingly into Roger’s shoulder as he wrapped his arms around you and squeezed you tight. 

[excalculus]

I've been told I should in fact flame Pokémon characters for PPE violations, so let's go.

Specifically I'll stick to the professors and use their appearance from the main game they first appeared in, because I've played almost all of those. Most if not all of them are implied to be biologists or bio-adjacent. I've done my time in academia on top of my current job still being in bio labwork so I know how this is supposed to go.

As for criteria, let's say basic bench science PPE standards (close-toed shoes, long pants, and no long dangling hair or accessories), and in the interest of fairness I'll only go after people who are at least attempting to dress for lab by wearing a lab coat or other obvious PPE item. I also won't worry about things that can be fixed up in a minute or two before going into the lab itself, like buttoning up the lab coat, putting on gloves, etc. Honestly wearing a lab coat outside the lab isn't really supposed to happen, but it's not the end of the world and also if I stuck to that I'd have to cancel everyone.

(Am I being a horrible pedant? Maybe, but I've also never had to fill out lab accident paperwork, so I think I'm still winning.)

Oak

This is normal except for his shoes looking alarmingly like slippers. I suspect that's an issue with this specific piece of art though, since later versions do clearly show normal shoes. Do not wear slippers in lab.

Elm

Really short labcoat, possibly just a weird art choice? Also more or less normal. Looks amusingly like my cell bio professor if you squint a little.

Birch

If this is supposed to be for lab you need long pants, and something that isn't sandals/flip flops. If this is supposed to be for the field, better shoes and pants are probably still a good idea, and the lab coat is useless - it can't protect you from basically anything out there, and if you're worried about contaminating the environment it's also woefully inadequate. To be honest though, the fact that he couldn't deal with a level 2 Zigzagoon makes me think he isn't a field biologist at all. I've met those people at conferences and they'll casually do things like run back towards a probable tornado when their data or equipment is on the line. I heard two (2) angry jaguar stories at the same dinner and in both cases the reaction was basically "If I die, I die". In conclusion I think this is a really bad lab outfit and not a kind of suspect fieldwork outfit, and the only thing I can say in its defense is that I did in fact see someone try to do cell culture while wearing shorts back when I was in SoCal. More accurately, I heard him getting busted by the lab manager from the other side of the lab.

Rowan

Not dressed for lab at all, so no comment. Looks like a math professor.

Juniper

The miniskirt is very bad. Credit where credit is due though, good job on the comfortable nonslip footwear - you'd be surprised how easy it is to go flying if someone's gotten a bit of water on the floor. I've also decided at this point that I'm not going to worry about interesting style/art choices on the lab coats themselves, like whatever is up with that collar.

Sycamore

Roll down your coat sleeves before you go in and this is fine. On a real person I'd say that length of hair likely needs to be secured somehow, but if we assume it stays in position via anime physics instead of falling into things we can ignore that.

Kukui

No shirt, short pants, open shoes, no science. +1 for safety glasses -1000 for everything else. EH&S is coming for your ass.

Magnolia

Some places are okay with a long skirt or dress instead of pants, given that the main idea there is to not have exposed skin that can either get hit by a chemical spill/dropped object or shed contaminants. The dress, shoes, and no socks combo here is... maybe not the greatest? However if I remember right she's basically retired when we see her in game, so it may not be an issue if she's not doing lab work anymore.

Turo

I hate to say it, but technically this passes. The only immediate issue I see is that in the rare case that you do spill something bad on yourself you need to yeet both your coat and any affected item of clothing as fast as you can, which might be challenging with the space onesie. If it's impermeable to whatever got spilled that's theoretically okay, but I've seen the chemical compatibility charts. Nothing is immune to all possible spills even if you stay away from the nasty shit the chemists have.

Sada

[EXTREMELY LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER]

[kme-sims]

Moving In! + Barn tour || Kiwi's Vlogs - 21/1/2024

🔴 📹 …. Recording …

Hey guys! Welcome to today's vlog, I'm Marquis, better known as Ki or Kiwi and this ones an exciting one. I mentioned there was some big changes coming this year and I've been keeping *hush hush* about it but I can finally reveal the big news: I've bought my own stables! and I'm moving the horses in today!

For the longest time I've kept my horses and English Yew and for the last couple of years have been renting out a little three-stall stable block and field to keep my two and whatever project I had on hand at the time, and I had been intentionally holding off on getting another project horse *because* of this behind-this-scenes project. Now this move doesn't mean I'm abandoning English Yew, I still work there and will be continuing business as usual, the new place is like ten minutes from there so don't worry- that's not changing. But, I've been wanting somewhere a bit quieter as English Yew continues to grow and get busier, and I've managed to get my hands on just that.

Wait till the end to see the tour, mind you it's not anything super fancy, it's rather quaint- but I want to let the ponies settle in and squared away before I show you around. Alright, enough chit chat lets get on with it!

Felix was very generous to come out today and help me move the two goobers. They loaded up fine and like I mentioned earlier- it was like a ten minute drive so it wasn't a huge trip at all, just loaded them up, drove down the street, fenagled my truck and trailer into the very tiny drive way, and got thing one and thing two off.

Rob was first off because he can get a little *explosive* if left standing in the trailer for too long and he was VERY looky, as expected. But overall, for Robin standards, he did a great job. He just had quite the speedwalk going for him, but I expect nothing less from him.

Dandy was next and I could tell she was a little on-edge, but she unloaded like the unbothered queen she is and Felix and her followed Robin and I straight into the field without any complaints.

We decided it would be easiest to let the two run loose in the biggest of the three fields so they can stretch their legs out and get all the excitement out with plenty of room before showing them around the rest of the property. Yes I turned them out in their halters, but it was in case the excitement was a little too much and they didn't want to be caught and they were only going to be in there for a bit before I moved them to their actual field. That and I can pretty much see them from anywhere on the property which is a huge plus.

Once they were out in the paddock and we were out of their way, Dandy went right to trotting around and exploring the new scenery and Robin… uh Robin didn't really know how to handle himself. He kinda just froze for a little and stopped functioning.

Felix: "Robin.exe has stopped responding…"

Ki: "That's for sure."

"Eventually the gears started turning in his head again and he exploded back into consciousness and immediately went to galloping around the field to express his strong emotions on the situation. Naturally Dandy joined in and they had lots of zoomies to get out.

Fast forward to the next morning: I decided to leave Rob and Dandy out last night, I'm a strong advocate for the longer turnout time the merrier so they were given lots of time to explore their new surroundings. So they're out and I'm about to head down to give them their breakfast and looking out my bedroom windows - ugh I'm so excited about that - they're both in one piece and look pretty relaxed out there! I'm gonna put the camera down and take care of the ponies, so you guys are gonna right to the tour!

QUE THE MONTAGE

Overview

Okay! Here it is, the new home. Right now you're looking at some drone shots of the entire property, like I mentioned- it's not huge, but it is plenty of space for me and my horses. The property has two fully fenced paddocks that I've separated into three with some line and conveniently has three run in sheds so no matter where the horses are turned out they've got shelter. You can see the nice big arena that’ll you see closer up soon, the very tiny driveway I mentioned earlier, and if you’re curious the house is three-bedroom, three-bath, but I won’t be doing a house tour just yet. But overall, beautiful little farm property, super excited to call it mine.

Moving on to the stables!

Stables + Tackroom

The stables has four functional stalls, a wash bay, and an extra stall that has been converted into a feed/tack room that you can see I've already got myself situated in. The tack/feed room has a door which leads right into my kitchen which is convenient but there's also a hose right outside which is also very convenient. The stalls themselves all have autowaterers, two water buckets each, a nice little feed bin and I've fit them with new hooks for hay nets. I don't stall my horses a whole bunch, but when I do bring them in and I want them to be as comfortable as possible. Overall, I'm really liking the set up I've got going on with the stable block, everything is close together and cozy and very convenient in my opinion. I'm really looking forward to getting to work my horses here.

Right, last but not least, the arena!

Riding Arena

I'm really excited about this part. When I was starting my hunt about six months ago I was really unsure whether or not I'd find somewhere with a decent ring that was in my price range. It was not looking good at first, but this place came up on the market around... late November? if I remember correctly, when I had just about given up on getting the arena I wanted, and it was like the perfect property was conveniently placed right in my lap. I cannot for the life of me remember the dimensions of this ring but it is plenty big for what I was looking for. It's got rubber mulch for the footing and it actually has a little concrete boarder to keep everything in which is unique! but, I think that should work just fine. You'll notice it's connected to the garage as well, which is convenient for jump storage. Even though I now have to share jump storage with my miata- I'll live I guess. But very very excited, cannot wait to ride in this ring!

Right, that will about wrap up today's vlog! I hope you all enjoyed, I'm really excited for this new chapter and I hope you all are too. I've got to get back to unpacking things in the house, I will see you all next week, thanks for watching! Cheers!

[multifandomfanficss]

More Than I’m Willing To Lose Part 4 (finale)

Adrian Chase/Vigilante x Reader

Featuring platonic!11th Street Kids.

Adrian Chase Masterlist

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Prompt: The team has found Jack and they’ll stop at nothing to take him down, but you and Adrian just want to keep each other safe.

Warnings: panic, gun violence, scientific experimentation, mentions of sex in a joking manner, cannon typical Peacemaker violence and language

A/N: Here it is! The final chapter! It’s so crazy to me that I’m actually posting this almost exactly a year ago from when I started writing the first chapter in August of last year. I didn’t think I’d ever finish this one. I always intended to, but never did. I’m happy I finally got around to it. I hope you guys enjoy! 🥰🧜‍♂️

You sat and listened as Harcourt gave the rundown on how the mission would go. From what they could tell there was only one guy really involved. Jack seemed to be working alone. Nobody really knew why, but they didn’t care. Leota was going to run the mission, John would be running head on tech and coms, and Adrian and Chris would be the muscle. Emilia planned on staying back to watch you, just in case anyone tried anything while the team was gone.

“I’m not staying home. I’m going.” You decide.

“No, you’re not.” Adrian says adamantly.

“That’s not fair! I’m the reason we’re in this mess. Why can’t I go?” You question him.

“We’re not talking about this right now.” He tries to avoid the subject, walking away, continuing to aggressively pack a bag of weapons.

“Yes, we are. I’m a part of this team too. My shoulder is healing great and it’s not like I do much field work anyway. I’ll stay in the van! Why can’t I go?” You ask again, following him.

“Because you’re more than I’m willing to lose!” Adrian snaps. You stare at Adrian in shock. You don’t know what to think about that statement, but you don’t want him to go without you.

“Kid, he’s right-“ Chris starts.

“When have you ever agreed with him?!” You turn to look at Chris.

“Look, kid-“ You cut him off.

“I’m a grown adult don’t treat me like a fucking child.” You snap. You feel bad. You know he’s not calling you a child when he says that, but you just got so angry. You’re not even angry. You’re just scared. You sigh. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t think you need to be on this mission. It’s not a big deal. It should be easy peasy. Just let us get in, take care of it, and get out. Nobody thinks any less of you, we just think you don’t need to worry about it.” Leota tries to reason with you.

“I updated the coms and there’s trackers inside now. You can watch them at all times no matter how far away you are and I’ll loop you in if we need anything.” John promises.

“Please,” Adrian takes a deep breath. “Please stay here with Harcourt.” He begs.

“Okay.” You say flatly.

“Okay?” Adrian is relieved.

“Yeah. I’ll stay.” You weren’t happy about it.

“Thank you.” He sighs, hugging you before going to help load the van. “It’ll be okay.”

“You know he’s just trying to protect you right?” Harcourt asks once they’re gone.

“I know.” You sigh. “I just don’t like not being there in case he needs me. You and I both know how reckless he is sometimes, especially when someone’s really pissed him off.”

“He’s gonna be okay. He’s an idiot, but he’s practically indestructible.”

“I know. It’s just the practically part that scares me.” You watch the computer closely, trying not to think of all the what ifs.

“You really love him don’t you?” She asks as you stalk the coms tracker.

“Is it that obvious?” You give a dry laugh.

“Yeah, but if it helps I’m pretty sure it’s mutual. If I didn’t know you two, I’d assume you were dating.” You look at her in disbelief.

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. Chase doesn’t look at me like that.” She smiles at you in an effort to make you feel better. Moments like this were rare with Emilia. You would consider her your friend, but you didn’t often get to talk with her like this.

“Leota said the same thing.” You smile.

“Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe Adebayo and I are right? We all see it.”

“Really?” You question.

“Yes. Why haven’t you told him yet?” She asks.

“I don’t have the best track record with people I like. I tend to get rejected far more than anything else and I’ve lost friends because of it. Our friendship means too much to me to change it or lose it because I couldn’t keep my feelings to myself.” You sigh.

“Something tells me he feels pretty similarly.”

“Why won’t he just tell me? Why do I have to tell him?”

“I think he’s been trying to tell you, but doesn’t know how far is too far with boundaries. He’s probably just as scared to lose you. I don’t know why you can’t see that. You can read him better than anyone else. It’s like you two are the twins from the fucking Shinning.” You laugh at her comparison.

The joy doesn’t last long. Suddenly the trackers start to go offline. “What the fuck is happening?” You try to refrain from freaking out. Harcourt picks up her phone, making a call.

“John, why did they all just go offline?” She has him on speaker phone.

“I don’t know, but the last thing I heard before they went out was that they think we might have underestimated how many people are involved.” He seems nervous.

“Fuck!” You let out a nervous yelp.

“Can you see their last known location?” Harcourt asks. You nod, showing her your screen.

“Get in the car.” She says, packing up her weapons. You pack your computer equipment, speeding off with Harcourt to meet up with Economos. You stare out the windshield silently.

“They’re gonna be okay.” She says.

“They fucking better be…I- I never told him…” Your voice trails off.

“You’ll get to tell him. If the night doesn’t end with you and Chase cuddled up on the couch ranting about your weird fucking nerd shows and making gross kissy faces at each other then I’m gonna kill every fucking mobster in this goddamn city until I find our team.” She says, gripping the steering wheel.

You see the van and you park alongside it, hoping in.

“Thank god you’re here.” Economos lets out a sigh of relief. As Harcourt and Economos devise a plan you start to get ready to head out into the field.

“What are you doing?” John asks.

“I’m going out there and neither of you are fucking stopping me this time.”

“Chase wouldn’t like this.” Harcourt starts.

“Well Adrian isn’t fucking here. I’m getting him back.” You head out and she follows you.

“Fine, but I’m leading.” She walks ahead of you with her gun drawn into the building their coms went out in.

“John, I think we figured out why we were only ever able to see one guy in this building…” Harcourt trailed off, staring into the entrance to the cave. “It looks like their operations are mostly underground. I think they took over an old butterfly base.” She guesses.

“Are we sure they aren’t butterflies?” He questions.

“I don’t seen an excess amount of amber fluid anywhere and they’d have to have it stock piled because the cow is dead now. There’s only a couple jars. They need so much to survive. It’s their only food source.” You remind him.

“We’re going into the tunnel. I’m not sure if this will cut off our signal or not.” Harcourt informs him before you start climbing down. There are multiple rooms. The first one you reach seems to be a meeting room for operations. You start reading papers on the tables. Harcourt was a solider. She was used to this, but analyzing was your job. You could actually do a lot of helping with this part. Your eyes start to water as you stare at the papers. “What?” She looks at you, sensing your discomfort.

“They’re not butterflies. They’re trying to become butterflies. We need to find the others they’re in a lot of fucking danger right now.” You say, starting to grow panicked looking at the failed experiments before you, records of trials done to turn humans into super soldiers with the strength of butterflies without being alien. They were using the amber fluid they found at the abandoned Glen Tai factory, but it wasn’t enough. They needed more data on the butterfly DNA. That’s what Jack was stealing from your laptop.

“What the fuck do you mean become butterflies?” She was confused.

“That’s what he needed from me. He wanted the data on the butterfly DNA that I had stored on my laptop.”

“Well aren’t you smarter than I gave you credit for?” You heard a voice you never wanted to hear again from the doorway. Harcourt drew her gun. “I’ve got your little boyfriend locked up and being prepped for trials as we speak.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.” You try to remain calm.

“Oh that’s right. You just wish he was. That’s why you went out with me…because he doesn’t love you. You know, I didn’t expect to have to shoot you.” He shrugs. “Not in the street at least. I was hoping you’d invite me in so we didn’t have to make a scene, but you’re still saving yourself for that idiot.” He laughs at you.

“What do you want, Jack?” You cringe, thinking of the night.

“I’ve already got everything I want. I have my data. I have more test subjects. I even have you right where I want you.”

“What are you talking about?” You ask as Harcourt scans the room. She watches as more men come around the corner with guns. She’s trying to plan an exist strategy.

“I hate to admit it, but I need your help. You can help me or you can try and fail to save the guy that’s been leading you on for a year to the point where you stopped dating completely. I may not love you, but at least I’m not leading you on.”

You look at Harcourt and see she has a plan before you make your next move.

“Sure because asking me out on a date only just to shoot me and rob me isn’t leading me on at all.” You laugh. You shoot him and Harcourt takes out the other men. “What was it you said to me? You thought this way would be more fun? I hope you’re having fun, Jack.” He isn’t dead yet, but you know he’s not getting up anytime soon. “Watch him I’m going to find the others.” You start to run out the door.

“Since when do I take orders from you?!” Harcourt yells after you.

“Please?” You ask more nicely, popping your head through the door again.

“Go.” She smiles. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t get up and nobody gets away with these documents.” You smile back at her before running out the door and down the hall. You check every room, careful not to draw any unwanted attention in case anyone is left. Finally you open a door to see Chris.

“I’m glad you’re here, but your ex boyfriend is fucking crazy.” Chris jokes.

“He’s not my ex. Don’t call him that.”

“Did you bang?” He questions as you untie him.

“No, of course we didn’t!” You protest.

“Hey, don’t judge. One time I banged this chick and she had like crazy stamina. I thought she was just super into me, but turns out she was a butterfly.” You cringe.

“Oh my god please stop talking about your sex life for once and go find Leota!” You beg him.

“I’ll stop, but only because you’re getting upset because you don’t have one and I feel bad for you because you got shot.” You and Chris part ways before you can kill him to find the rest of your teammates. You open door after door until finally you find him.

“Adrian!” You run to him. He snaps his head up from it’s relaxed position to face you. He’s not wearing his mask. They must have ripped it off of him. He looks a little roughed up.

“No no no no what are you doing here? You can’t be here.” He starts to worry.

“It’s okay. I’m okay. You’re okay. Everybody is okay. I shot him. I think we took out all his people.” You start untying him.

“You shot him?!” He’s surprised.

“Yeah…”

“I’m so fucking proud of you!” He gushes. You blush. “I mean I really wanted to shoot him, but I’m glad if anyone else did it, it was you.”

“I’m sorry. I know you didn’t want me down here. I know you were trying to protect me, but I couldn’t lose you.” You continue to work on his bindings.

“I couldn’t lose you either.” You finish untying the last knot and he shakes the ropes off.

“No, Adrian, you don’t understand. I think I’d die if I lost you. Like-“ You pause, sighing. “I can’t keep pretending like I didn’t hear you say you loved me that night in the hospital and- and if you said that just because you thought I was gonna die….” You pause taking a deep breath. “You can take it back- if you meant it just as friends you can take it back, but I can’t keep pretending like it didn’t happen. I can’t write it off as drugs or sleep deprivation anymore. I don’t want to! I love you! I love you and I’m saying it sober and of my own free will because I need you to know and god I hope I’m not gonna fuck up our friendship by saying this, but I need you to know I love you and- and you said that I’m more than you’re willing to lose, well…if I lost you I’d lose everything… Okay?” He stared at you. You started to grow nervous. “Please say something…”

“I’m a fucking idiot.” He laughs, pulling you into his arms, kissing you.

“I didn’t want to go out with Jack. I’ve had feelings for you this whole time. That’s why I never dated anyone. I had started giving up hope of you liking me back so I decided going on a date was the only way to try to get over you.”

“This whole time I was worried about getting rejected or crossing your boundaries. You’re the only person who gets me and laughs at my jokes and is always nice to me. Chris told me I would creep you out and you’d ditch me. I should have just said something. I’m so sorry, (Y/N).”

“It’s okay, Ade. It doesn’t matter anymore.” You kiss him again.

“I can’t believe you shot him.” He laughs. “The motherfucker deserved it, but I bet he didn’t expect it.”

“I didn’t even expect it.” You laugh.

“Well I’m proud of you and I actually think that’s super cool and sexy of you.” He smirks.

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah, babe.” He kisses you again. You break off the kiss when you hear Leota and Chris’ voices from the doorway.

“You owe me 20 bucks.” She laughs.

Harcourt drove Jack to Belle Reve in her car while the rest of you took the van back to headquarters. You all laughed and danced to music, but this time it was different. You felt stronger. You were more confident now. Not only did you now have a successful relationship starting with Adrian’s arm around you as John drove, but you were also leaving a mission where you’d taken down a notorious criminal doing human trials on an alien drug that shouldn’t exist.

Things were finally starting to fall into place. Things were changing around here for the better. You knew the team would grow and change, you just thought it would be when they added more muscle to the team. You didn’t realize you were the muscle the team needed all along. After all, the heart is the most important muscle in the human body. Love is where you found your strength; through your friends, through Adrian, and through yourself.

[theluckyyyoneee]

antipode | pcy

pairing: park chanyeol x reader

contents: high school!au, soccerplayer!chanyeol with like 1% actual inclusion of the sport, lots of inner turmoil, sad!chanyeol to happy!chanyeol, smooching, fluFF, yn gets hit with another soccer ball oof lmao

word count: 10,4k

summary: AlternateUniverseAU! When the guy you hate—and who you’re certain hates you—becomes your boyfriend after you swore he kicked a soccer ball at your head. 

part 01  /  part 02  / part 03:finale

“No, I really—”

“Oh come on, just try it!”

“No, I don’t think...”

Placing the guitar in your hesitant hands, you sighed in defeat at the look of pleading Chanyeol sent you, his pout changing in an instant to a smile of victory. He gingerly sat you down, then began directing your hands to the proper placements, a look of concentration as he attempted to fix the stiff joints in your fingers. 

The more time you spent with this man, the less you were finding yourself able to defend yourself against any wishes he had. Whether it was going out shopping, to the movies, restaurants, random drives along the town, arcades, or in this case; impromptu guitar lessons. 

Apparently you’d been receiving guitar lessons from Chanyeol for a few months now, and he was convinced that you two had practiced enough that maybe muscle memory would kick in and it could maybe trigger a long lost memory of some sort, or be able to play a short tune. 

Which, yeah, it might’ve worked if it was you who had been receiving the lessons. But you weren’t. 

Little did he know you weren’t the Y/n he knew and you were one hundred percent sure that this was going to go very badly considering you knew absolutely nothing about the guitar, just looking at the instrument filled you with tremendous anxiety and impending doom, not wanting to accidentally damage it with your inherent clumsiness. 

Not that going to his house and meeting his parents for the first time didn’t twist your stomach into knots, either. 

Chanyeol had mentioned when he’d first informed you of the guitar lessons that his parents really wanted to see you again, and that they wouldn’t stop bugging him about it, if you wanted to meet them, to which you agreed without much mulling over. 

You didn’t see why not, even though you felt the nervousness build in the pit of your stomach at the mere thought of it. If you and him were going to spending a lot more time together, it was only right to meet his parents... ‘again’.

It was a bit intimidating walking up the porch steps to his impressive looking house, barely having set your feet inside and started to look around the room in wonderment for a tiny fraction of a second before you were suddenly being engulfed in a tight embrace.

“Y/n! We missed you so much, how are you doing now, dear? Are you feeling okay, you wanna sit down?” A comforting warmth enveloped you and felt yourself instantly and subconsciously relaxing entirely. “Are you sure you’re okay, honey? Remember, try to take it easy—” 

She was cut off and pulled away from the heartening (she was highkey suffocating you) hug she’d cocooned you into by who had to be Chanyeol’s dad. “You’re gonna scare her away, relax a little.” He laughed charmingly to his wife, a mild expression of embarrassment graced her features as she gave you some space.

“Oh, I’m fine, please don’t worry. I appreciate the heartfelt welcome, I was a little nervous so it made me feel better,” you awkwardly got out, suddenly very shy with all the attention on you.

“Oh, you’re still so cute—”

Chanyeol quickly moved you to stand in front of him by the stairs, cutting his mother off in her move to gather you into what you guessed would be another smothering hug. “Alright, we’re gonna go upstairs now, you guys can talk to her another day, let’s not overwhelm her. I’ll leave the door wide open, don’t worry,” his voice was notably more hushed for the last thing he got out at the subtle look his mom sent his way. 

Relief flooded you, you weren’t completely sure you could handle being alone in an enclosed space with him just yet. You sent an agreeing nod at his words, placing a polite smile on your face as you sneaked a glance at his face, daring you to think he was a little... embarrassed?

He was pushing you lightly up the stairs in front of you the next possible second, always making sure his eyes were averted away from you and to maintain a respectable distance your bodies. A soft smile came to your lips as you noticed this fact, his parents murmuring to each other with hidden smiles look how cute they are, glad that their son seemed to be happier lately and knowing just who was the reason for that.

The two of you rounded the stairs where he just as quickly took his hands off your shoulders, looking at you with an apologetic smile. “Sorry if my mom scared you, it’s just—you two were really close and she just misses you, I think. And, the—” Chanyeol paused to clear his throat, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked elsewhere, “the keeping the door open is one of my mom’s rules.”

He gestured to the closest room to you with pink cheeks. “Um, this is my room. I cleaned before you came over, I promise—and I’ll keep this open the whole time, okay?” He pushed the door completely open, but he made no further move, as if waiting for your permission. 

“Thanks.” You shyly smiled up at him as you passed, silently examining the room you had just stepped into. It was very... him. You didn’t know why, but it felt like him. To the cool color of his bedding, the amount of soccer items adorning the room, medals adorning the walls. It made you smile at the strangely soothing scene in front of you. “It looks cozy.”

The words had slipped right out of your mouth on their own, not realizing until it was already too late. Silence surrounded the two of you and you graciously accepted his invitation to sit on the bed, turning around to grab something. Your heart raced in your chest as you tried to calm yourself down and willed yourself to act normal. 

Back to the present, Chanyeol was still knelt in front of you as he finished the finger placements. Once he was satisfied, he hummed as a grin popped on his face, stepping away to stand in front of you. 

“Alright, now try and see if you remember how to play an A Chord.” He reached for something behind him on his nightstand by his bed and turned around again, placing a plain dark blue pick in your hand.

“How would I even—” your attempt to dismiss this whole thing falters as you catch the hopeful glint in his eyes and took note of his feet that he had been shuffling back and forth in what seemed a nervous habit. He was peeking down down at you from under his hair as he chewed on the nail of his thumb. “Okay, let’s see...” 

You were becoming a total softie for Chanyeol and it wasn’t something you knew how to stop.

You had no idea what chord he was talking about, and you had no idea where you were supposed to place your fingers on the coarse strings, but you shrugged and slowly placed them in a way that felt most natural to you and ran the pick softly along the strings, the resulting sound not at all an appealing one. Somehow you applied too much force and the pick ran down the strings very roughly, both of you cringing away at the sound, looking at him apologetically for possibly damaging his instrument.

“No, huh?”

“No,” he sighed, his shoulders slumping forward from their tense lock that he had them in. His face which was somewhat a mix between hopeful and expectant also fell, but he masked it quickly. A carefree smile adorned his lips as he shrugged off the weird mood that had rose between the two of you, coming to plop himself down right next to you. “It’s okay, you can learn everything again. No worries.”

“Wow, lucky me.” You joked, nudging him with your shoulder in a way to lighten up the mood, relieved when his grin turned more genuine, his eyes softening as the two of you stared at each other, your once calm heart began to pick up pace the longer you looked at him.

It was when you looked away and saw a picture of you and Chanyeol, framed, on his nightstand. Well, the other you. The original you. 

You startled when you felt his fingers on yours, glancing down to see him rearranging your fingers into what you assumed was the correct placement for the A Chord, his lips forming words but you couldn’t hear him, your mind becoming the tiniest bit fuzzy as you were enveloped more in his warm embrace and the starting to become familiar scent of his cologne. 

“You probably don’t remember, but the first time you came to my house, you...”

It was at times like these where you felt yourself feeling sorry for the man who was determined to keep you by his side. Feeling sorry that he was left to remember all these treasured memories alone. 

You would study the wide and nostalgic smile that would appear on his face when he told you story after story of your many adventures and experiences the two of you embarked together. That smile would always vanish whenever he returned to the present and see you staring at him with a guilty expression that had in some way found its way to your face. 

“Don’t feel sorry.” He would always respond to your remorseful apologies, gracing you with an ever kind and patient smile. But him smiling at you like that only made your mood worsen even more, knowing the only reason he was so understanding and sanguine was because he fully believed you were the woman he fell in love with, the woman he so desperately wanted back.

But you weren’t.

It was obvious from the countless tales you heard and watched him fawn over.

The Y/n in this universe was much more outgoing, brave and endearing than you ever considered yourself to be, people worried about her to an extent you really didn’t understand. 

No matter how much you wished you were the person he fell in love with, the person that held his heart—that wish only growing stronger each day you spent with this charming and lovable human being—you could never be her. 

You feared you wouldn’t be able to live up to his expectations. 

Strange to think you’d ever be jealous of another version of yourself. 

Chanyeol was a good teacher, he made you feel at ease as you fumbled and struggled to make a pretty sound out of the wooded instrument, reassuring you whenever you would retreat into yourself and hyping you up when you actually did something right. 

Eventually you relaxed and was able to joke around with him somewhat, though the feel of his fingers covering yours was something you couldn’t get used to no matter how many times he helped you (he totally didn’t need to help you that much he just wanted to hold your hand).

Your phones vibration pulled you out of your thoughts and you reluctantly detached your fingers from his to find a message from Junmyeon, not realizing just how long you’d been here for. "Oh, I gotta go. I'm having dinner at Mr. and Mrs. Kim's house." Junmyeon had told you that his parents were worried about you, and how they too kept pestering him about inviting you over dinner, and he had finally caved and asked you yesterday to which you agreed.

You loved his parents almost as much you loved your own in your last universe, and you can only hope that they were the same as you remembered them, and they hadn’t changed as well.

“Oh, okay.” He hopped up from your side and you were instantly cold when you felt like you were burning up a few seconds ago. He placed the guitar back to its place in the corner where he kept it as you, too, stood up. “Um, so I’ll text you later?” Chanyeol scratched the back of his head and he stared at you with a hopeful expression, the tone of his voice giving away of how unsure he really felt despite the brave face he’d been putting on for you.

It was your fault he was suffering, you thought to yourself glumly. You told him you’d try and get to know him again, the word again giving an illusion that maybe he’d get back the relationship with the girl he loved and thought that you were again.

Filled with the false hope that things would go back to normal as he smiled at you so sweetly and comforted you. Here you were, liking him more and more each day as you were subjected to the past memories of his real love, which wasn’t you.

"Y/n? Are you okay?" Chanyeol eyed you with worry etched onto his face as you had just suddenly zoned out. It was discomforting but it was also a regular occurrence. He so desperately wanted to find out what was in that head of yours, but didn’t want to overwhelm you any more than you already were. If only you trusted him as you did before. 

"Huh?" Blinking, you regained your senses to find him staring at you in worry. You backtracked to what you two were saying before you got all lost in your thoughts and smiled at him as convincingly as you could, "yeah, we should figure out what to do later, let's do anything you want to do." As retribution, to ease this smothering feeling inside you.

You rang the doorbell, and it was as if they were just waiting by the door because it didn't even feel like two seconds later when the door swung open and Junmyeon was ushering you inside by the arm, a look of joy on his face. All you got out was a quick greeting to his parents and sister—who very excitedly ran up to you as soon as you entered the house and enveloped you into a big hug—who you acted a bit awkwardly around, because after all, this was your first time ever meeting her. 

You were meeting a lot of people today. She was absolutely gorgeous, but of course that came as no surprise. Also you were still getting used to the fact that Junmyeon had a sister in this universe, fully expecting to see Minseok bound down the stairs and give you one of those big brotherly hugs you were missing at the moment. 

“Let me talk to her first. Hey Y/n, glad you could make it, how are you?” Junmyeon spewed out the question after dragging you to a secluded area of his living room, not giving you the chance to even answer because after he took a quick breath, he was immediately continuing his rant, “there’s something that I’ve been curious about, and I was hoping you could answer it for me. I would’ve texted you but I knew you were coming over for dinner tonight, so I figured I’d just wait."

It took everything in you to not burst out laughing at his unexpected manic behavior. “Okay, what are you curious about?”

Have you found any substantial new evidence that would somehow be able to explain the possibility of parallel or alternate universe? Have you found out why you were sent here?

These were the types of questions you fully expected to be hit with from Junmyeon, ever the rational and inquisitive guy—

“In your universe, was I just as attractive and sophisticated as I am in this one? No, right? I’m the better Junmyeon, right?” He took extra precaution to make sure no one could possibly hear your conversation, lowering his voice down to a whisper and his eyes were wide with curiosity as they tracked your expression for a reaction.

You blinked at him for awhile before you choked out a laugh. Somehow with his insane question he managed to strangely rid the worries you had running through your head. You looked up at him and nodded, patting his shoulder as his eyes lit up in anticipation to your response. “You know, that’s a very Junmyeon number one thing to say.”

"Wait, is that how you've been referring to me in your head? Junmyeon number two?" It was funny how offended he seemed, even pointing at himself in disbelief, brows furrowed and mouth parted open.

"I mean, it is the number that comes after one, and I knew the other one first, so naturally..." You pursed your lips and shrugged nonchalantly, prolonging the teasing.

“I refuse to be known as a number two.” His face scrunched up in disgust as he said those words, shaking his head at you. Just then, you two were told that dinner was ready and you two started making your way to the table, but you couldn't help but tease him some more.

“You’re more annoying, though, number two."

Dinner was a bit bizarre for you to say the least. In the spot you clearly remembered Minseok occupying, now sat Jooyeon. You smiled fondly as you watched Mr and Mrs. Kim piling meat and more vegetables on her plate, speaking to her in the most adoring way.

It was a tender scene to gaze upon.

You’d always remembered Mrs. Kim telling you just how much she wished she had a daughter, and if you wanted to be the daughter she never had, that she’d treat you well. You didn’t doubt that for a second and it was nice to see they loved each other so much.

Jooyeon had taken hold of your hands after you helped bring the dishes to the kitchen and after you were refused in your offer to help clean and took you upstairs to her room. You figured you two were close from that action alone. 

The standard interrogation about your health commenced and after you managed to ease her worries enough she switched the conversation over to Chanyeol with a gentle stare.

"So, how are you and Chanyeol doing? I can't imagine it's easy now that you lost your memories of him."

You nodded slowly, sat on her bed with her and you kept your eyes on your sock clad feet as you swung your legs softly, pondering on how to answer her question. “It’s still a little weird. I just feel bad, he’s trying so hard to get back the love he had with her...” you hadn’t noticed you had referred to the other Y/n in third person, as a separate person, out loud instead of in your head like you usually did.

“Unni,” she whined, eyes narrowed as she scolded you quietly. “Why are you talking like you’re another person?” You couldn’t help but look away from her intense gaze, only to whip around to face her again when she suddenly took your hand in hers, expression earnest and sincere. “Is that how you’ve been feeling lately?”

You sighed, “Chanyeol... is still in love with the me of the past....” Literally the Y/n of the past. Before you arrived here.

Jooyeon giggled, breaking your solemn state to gape at her in surprise, wondering what was so funny with your words. “Unni, the you of the past is you. The only thing that’s really changed about you is you losing six months worth of memories. But you gaining them back or not doesn’t affect who you are. Nor is it going to affect his love for you.”

His love for you... wasn’t meant for you.

“Chanyeol and me aren’t close at all,” Jooyeon started, glancing at you with big eyes that became the shape of crescent moons when she smiled after your prolonged state of silence, “but I do remember before you guys started officially dating, he approached me one day and asked what would be the best way to officially ask you to be his girlfriend. He wanted to impress you so bad, something you just couldn’t say no to."

“Really?”

She nodded enthusiastically, laughing a bit. “You would not believe how he wanted to ask you to be his girlfriend. He had this great idea—of course you know what I mean by great. Anyway, he obviously wanted something to do with soccer...” she started to tell you the specifics of the story but you got sucked into your own inner turmoil instead, a normalcy for you. 

You were sure it was a nice story and all, probably very sentimental and affectionate just like him, but you really weren’t in the mood for a story right now. You weren’t any closer in figuring out why you were sent here, and was just racked in guilt the more time you spent with Chanyeol trying to find it out. 

Jooyeon gave you a warm hug before you left, as did the rest of the Kim family. It was a nice break from your worrying and headed home feeling a little better than usual.

But it still didn’t stop you from further distancing yourself from Chanyeol.

You avoided answering his calls and texts, not knowing what to say to him at his sweet and excited offer of a picnic, managing to dwindle your guys’ interactions down to nothing more than a stranger you saw everyday.

Once again it was Saturday night, alone at home after telling your parents to take the night to themselves for their health and stress levels.

Just you and the night, you and the house to yourself, preparing to re-binge The Good Place for your stress levels. Or maybe you’d rewatch Shrek for the thousandth time. Who cares, you had no plans and nowhere to be besides your couch.

Which is why the knocking on the front door had scared you as much as it did. Your survival instincts about turned on as you sneakily looked out the peephole to slump against the door in relief, which turned into guilt. 

Chanyeol. 

You opened the door quietly, the two of you staring at each other for a few moments before you sidestepped to let him in, wordlessly asking him to talk. “You’re gonna let the bugs in, with you just standing there. You gonna come in or not?” 

Hoping that your awkward teasing could ease this tension to being relieved about the small smile that had erupted on his lips at your words, following your lead. 

He stepped towards you and you backed away instinctively and he entered your living room swiftly and you could only shut the door behind you as you and he eyed each other. “Why are you avoiding me again? Did I do something, I thought it was going well, I...”

It was his frustrated expression giving way to that sadness you’d also learned to associate with him, the ambivalence in his voice tearing you up inside. 

“I’m not the person you fell in love with—” you ended spewing the true reason to ease his worries that it had anything to do with him. Just his happiness. “—and... and every time I look at you I just feel so guilty, and I’m really sorry.” You didn’t dare look at him and instead focused on the cuticles of your nails, your heart thundering in your chest as you heard footsteps coming closer. 

Warm fingers wrapped around your wrists to gain your attention gently, the words being spoken as equally soft and tender. “What are you talking about? Of course you are.”

“No, I’m not.” You frowned as you said that, not knowing how to get him to understand that you were but a replica of the true Y/n he fell in love with, is in love with. 

Chanyeol’s concerned face came into view before you were pulled into his embrace suddenly, his arms wrapped securely around you to hold you tight against him. “Sure, it’s taking a little longer for you to let go and trust me, and you’re a little more shy than I remember,” his words were spoken with a small laugh, an easy grin on his lips as he glanced down at you. Averting your eyes as you listened to him list the differences, he sighed softly before continuing, his arms tightening around you, “but you’re still the same unbelievably charming and adorable person. And besides, they’re just new sides of you I got to fall in love with. It was like falling in love with you all over again.”

Your breath caught in your throat and you pulled back enough to stare into his eyes in surprise, feeling so... happy.

He... was falling in love with you? 

You?

He stared back at you in full earnestness, his sure expression telling you a thousand words in the silence between the two of you. 

You couldn’t tell which one of you started closing the distance between you two, maybe both of you, but all you were able to concentrate on was his whisper as he leaned in closer, “I only hope you can say the same.”

“I can.” The words left your mouth unthinkingly in response to his own words, your heart thump thump thumping in your chest as you bravely pressed a small kiss to his lips, leaning up on your tiptoes using his shoulders for support as Chanyeol gazed at you like you had hung the stars in the night sky. 

Reaching up and tenderly pushing fallen strands of hair behind your ears, Chanyeol leaned down the rest of the way and enveloped your lips in another kiss, a proper kiss, cradling your face and softly caressing your jaw in a manner that matched the way his lips met with yours, careful yet you could feel the yearning and longing. Incredibly soft and a bit hesitant at first, the kiss slowly grew more passionate though still maintaining that slow burn that did exactly that.

His hands slowly made their way down your shoulders and sides to settle at your hips, squeezing your flesh gingerly as he pulled you closer to him. You felt him smile into the kiss as your fingers slowly ran along his broad shoulders to feel the soft locks in between your fingertips, your lips mirroring his in an instant, subconsciously. 

Suddenly wrapping his arms around your middle, he picked you up off the floor so your feet were dangling in the air, he pulled away from your lips as he swung you around like the two of you were the main characters in a cliche romcom—which you’d never admit out loud you enjoyed just a little bit. 

“Will you please go on a picnic with me tomorrow?” He still had that tight grip on you, not seeming the least bit tired from holding you up as you clung to him for dear life, pouting at you from a few inches away.

Your lips still tingling with the lingering sensation of his on yours, you felt your heart about melt in your chest. Remembering the position you were in, being pressed up against him had your face flushing and you tapped his shoulders to wordlessly signal you wanted to be let down which he did without question and immediately, you taking a couple steps back as you sobered up a little, your past actions coming back to you. 

“You sure you still wanna... be with me after how I’ve been treating you all this time?” You mumbled the words to the ground, shame enveloping your entire being at your behavior and you couldn’t find it in yourself to meet his eyes.

“Do you need me to declare my love for you again to get through that thick head of yours? Or maybe another kiss?” His tone turned playful his last four words he spoke, your eyes flicking from your dining room table to him in response, that cheeky smirk you were used to seeing adorned on his lips. The confidence in his stare making you almost choke on your spit as you hurried to look away, cheeks and neck warming up comically fast. 

“I love you, and I think I heard you tell me you love me, too?” His gaze switched to a much softer and genuine one, an encouraging smile on his lips that replaced the smirk as he waited for you to agree with his words, a pleased look on his face, shrugging casually as he reached over to envelop your hands in his. “Then everything else doesn’t matter, not even your lost memories—oh, as long as you promise to not run away anymore and talk what you’re feeling out with me before pushing me away. Deal?”

Feeling completely at ease for the first time in a long time, you smiled and nodded at his words. “I can do that.”

“Good.” Chanyeol all but collapsed onto your couch, never letting go of your hands as he did so, situating himself as close as he could possibly sit next to you without one of you ending up on the lap of the other person, the mere idea of sitting on his lap had your cheeks on fire. He pinched your cheeks, his tone back to teasing along with a wide smile as he asked, “What are you thinking about that’s got your face so red?”  

Glaring at him, you removed his hands from your face but kept the contact as you faced the television that was still going on, clearing your throat. “I’m not thinking about anything, it’s just hot in here. It’s basically summer and you’re sitting so close to me, scoot over there.”

“Okay, okay, I won’t tease you anymore, just don’t make me move. It’s so nice to finally be able to be with you like this again.” He clung to you like a koala would cling to a tree, which was funny because it seemed like a tree clinging to a koala with how different you two were in sizes. Though maybe you should compare him to a kitty or puppy with how he was rubbing his face along the fabric covering your shoulder.

Chanyeol squeezed your hand tighter in his before relaxing and laying his head on your shoulder as he realized what show was playing. “Oh, I like this show. Especially how Eleanor and Chidi kept falling in love with each other even after getting their memories erased.” His head shot up from your shoulder to shoot you a sweet grin. “Kind of like you. Which I can’t say I blame you or that you really stood a chance, I am pretty charming.”

Rolling your eyes, you playfully began detangling yourself from his hold, to which he clung to you tighter, not knowing just how much his words resonated with you but didn’t let it show. “Yeah, yeah, I just can’t escape you, huh?” His smile turned a bit puzzled at your little inside joke but before he could ask you about it, you smiled down at him and pressed a quick kiss to his lips before patting your shoulder for him to lean on again, heart racing in your chest at your brave actions and at his words as he relaxed into your hold again.

“If it was me who lost their memory, I think I’d still end up falling in love with you, too. Even if I was somehow transported to another world, and I had the extreme luck to find you wherever I was, I don’t think I could help but fall for you over and over again.”

Soccer was more difficult than you’d previously believed it to be. You thought it was just kicking a ball around a field in knee high socks, not ever having paid attention to the intricate and tedious footwork that needed to happen immediately during a match.

You honestly didn’t think it would be this hard to make a fucking goal, an as wide as the ocean goalpost, and no one was even blocking you, at least not anymore. 

“Park Chanyeol! This is cheating! You’re not even on her team, you can’t just help her because she’s your girlfriend!” You snickered to yourself as your boyfriend’s lanky form happily and all too eagerly blocked the annoyed younger man as you struggled to keep the ball rolling in front of you while running like a maniac towards the goal, having tripped over your own feet more times than you’d like to admit.

Ignoring Sehun’s irritated voice as it rang in the air all the while he attempted to escape Chanyeol’s hold to steal the ball from, Jongin was so unconcerned, cackling beside him as he aided in keeping him further from you. Quickly approaching the goal, you kicked the ball into the net a few moments later, as uncoordinated as possible. It was only then that Sehun was released, his lethal glare aimed at all three of you, which you were shielded from as Chanyeol rushed over to excitedly embrace you, arms wide.

The excitement about having scored a goal came back to you and you jumped into his waiting embrace, Jongin’s cheering and Sehun’s it doesn’t count! faded into the background as you melted into his arms, not even minding the fact that the two of you were sweaty from running around in this hot weather. 

“Thank you for helping me score a goal, but I feel bad you guys lost, even if it was just for practice.” You propped your chin on his chest as you looked up at him, your lips forming a subconscious pout. He leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to your mouth, smiling down at you so softly that you knew he wasn’t upset about losing at all, this extremely competitive guy.

“It was Sehun’s idea in the first place, having a mock two vs. two match. He makes us practice everyday, and now you know that even the weekends aren’t safe from him hounding us. I know it’s not the most fun for you to just watch us run around the park, so I’m glad I could assist you in having some fun. Don’t worry too much.” Chanyeol tried easing your worries as you snuck another glance at a grumpy and sulky Sehun who had his arms crossed over his chest as Jongin seemed to gloat about something you couldn’t hear. 

He really was upset. 

Seeing where your gaze led, Chanyeol turned his head to glance over at him as well, Sehun scoffing and turning around as he did so. “Eh, he’ll get over it.” Chanyeol turned back to you with a cheeky grin on his face. “I doubt he’s upset at losing as much as he is that he lost to Jongin. Those two arranged a bet before we started playing, Sehun thinking it was an easy match to win since you, uh... play as well as a toddler does.”

Choosing to disregard the way he’d laughed as he dissed your soccer skills because they were true, you really did not play well, you tsked mockingly at him. “Wow, betraying one of your best friends for me. I didn’t know you liked me that much.”

You were sure the two of you were about to have an incredibly sappy moment, but before it could happen it was interrupted by a shout in your guys’ direction.

“Alright, she’s not allowed at practices anymore, our star player keeps getting distracted at practices.”

He rolled his eyes at Sehun’s words, stepping away but keeping an arm around your waist and kissing your temple, silently urging you not to take his words to heart. “Chill out. You’re just mad you lost.”

“I lost? We lost, you traitor.” At that, he decided he was done talking and began walking back to the center of the field, and you knew he wasn’t too mad or upset when he waved you guys over to him. “Well, what are you guys doing? The game is a week away and we need all the practice we need! Let’s go!”

Jongin had warmed back up to you pretty quickly after your relationship with Chanyeol improved, treating you warmly and it was like meeting a long lost friend, feeling weirdly comfortable around him and getting along surprisingly well when you hadn’t expected it to be so easy.

Sehun on the other hand... well, it wasn’t as if his distrust came from nowhere. He still regarded you with suspicion, something you completely understood. Responding in five words or less to anything you asked or said to him, fighting a smile at any joke you would crack, he was unrelenting. 

He was locked onto your every action and word, every expression that crossed your face, especially whenever you interacted with Chanyeol around him. His intense stare daring you to break his bestfriend’s heart again on his watch. A nonverbal warning: I’m watching you.

It stung, oddly enough, but you knew you deserved it, so you didn’t push it. 

As if sensing you were getting lost in your thoughts, Chanyeol squeezed your hand in his and led you to the blanket he’d laid down on the ground for you earlier. Sitting you down and placing some food, drink and your book you’d brought in front of you, he kissed your cheek sweetly and ran back to Sehun and Jongin before he got yelled at again.

Jongin shook his head at the lovesick puppy heading towards him while Sehun just eyed the two of you sternly before initiating some drills. Chanyeol made sure to get your attention from your book every now and then with excited calls of your name, shooting you wide smiles with a big wave and you would smile and wave back just as happily. 

Things between you and Chanyeol were going amazing. You had no idea that you’d ever like someone this much, and you still thought you didn’t really deserve him. But he always made sure to let you know how happy he was with you, and who were you to argue when he looked at you with that smiling face?

Maybe it was because you were ridiculously happy with how things were going, but you were even branching out and willingly initiating conversations with people around you, something you’ve never done in your life past age ten. 

Even your tense relationship with Sehun seemed to improve over time. You were a regular at soccer practices now, lazing around reading and yelling out encouragements from the bench. The big match was set just a few days from now, and you were handing out waters to the heavily sweaty and exhausted players and Sehun took the water you offered him with a small thanks and a smile. 

Chanyeol’s answering grin matched yours as he saw how excited you were, playfully tackling Sehun to the ground, the latter fighting his laughter as he fought the other giant off him. 

“Listen, I just wanted to say I’m sorry for being so hard on you, especially when you lost your memories and all.” Sehun shocked you as he sprung you with this heartfelt apology out of nowhere. “I just saw my bestfriend hurt and took it out on you. But you make him happy and I’m glad he has you. You’re okay in my book.” His expression was warm as he playfully punched you on the arm, the two of you sharing a laugh as he suddenly straightened and warned in a more serious tone, “I’m still watching you, though, and if you hurt him, you’ll be answering to me. Got it?”

You saluted him and shouted a, “Yes, sir!”

Yeah, you were happy where you were right now.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to be here after hours!” You whisper-yelled after Chanyeol’s jogging figure, trying your best to stay quiet and follow his fast pace, paranoid as you looked behind you every other second.

He led you through the fence with an easy smile, bringing you closer as he adjusted his gym bag over his other shoulder. “Come on, look, the lights are on and everything. It’s like they wanted us to sneak in. I just want to practice my aim before the big game tomorrow. It’ll help calm my nerves. Please? Hmm? Please?”

“Ugh, no fair. You’re too cute for your own good.” You grumbled your answer after he stretched out the last please, looking down at you with those wide eyes and that pout you could never say no to. 

Grinning and laughing in victory, he set his bag down on the empty bench and brought his hands up to run through your hair. “That’s my line.” You shooed him away after his cheesy line, smiling to yourself as he ran to the field with the soccer ball he’d brought from home. 

Graduation was coming up right around the corner and here you were, still stuck in this alternate/parallel world, whatever you wanted to call it. You still had no idea how or why you were here, but you were done complaining or contemplating.

You honestly had no idea if you would ever go back to the world you came from, but decided not to stress it too much. Things were great—more than, beyond great—here and it just felt right—

“Y/n! Look out!”

Heart rate elevating at the sudden warning, you shook yourself out of your daze and realized with impending doom that the soccer ball was very quickly and very accurately making its way right towards you. 

Oh shit.

Experiencing major deja vu, gazing at the same beige walls and sat in the same stiff twin bed in the nurses room, your left temple throbbing and the now familiar feeling of an ice pack being placed on your head made you freeze. 

Oh no. 

You knew by now who was your company by the smell of his laundry detergent and cologne. You kept your eyesight fixed in front of you, flinching slightly as Chanyeol adjusted the ice on your bruise, afraid of the reaction he would make once you made eye contact with him. 

What had changed now? What kind of life were you living now and what role did he play in your life this time? And would he play a major character no matter what life you lived?

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” his words were breathy and rushed as you flinched again as he pressed down a bit harder than he meant to, his anxious expression coming into view as you finally gathered the courage to turn your head in his direction, not liking how distressed he was.

What did you say, how did you react? Did you snap at him or tell him that everything was alright and that you were okay?

“Please say something.” Chanyeol practically begged from beside you, only growing more and more uneasy as you continued in your silent staring contest.

“Can you hand me my phone?” You asked slowly and awkwardly, watching him nod quickly and quickly hop up from his seat to where you saw your bag lay on the floor by the door, heard some rummaging and before you knew it, your phone was being carefully placed in your hand. “Thank you.” You mumbled quietly, heart racing at the possibility of either seeing his face on your screen but were instead met with familiar album cover you remembered setting.

Were you back?

It was then you noticed several messages waiting for you, your passwords being seen as correct now and you saw it was from Junmyeon, a sense of relief you so wanted to believe blossoming in your chest. 

Did you give the notebook to him?

I’d rather be tutoring tbh my grandma has fed me at least 20 of those disgusting peppermints already. save. me.

also i barely managed to escaped minseok’s wrath by a few seconds lol

“We have Ms. Lee’s class together, right?” You waited with bated breath after asking that question, watching Chanyeol’s brows furrow in confusion at your odd question, studying the way you casually responded to Junmyeon’s texts, sending back yes, but come over when you can, we need to talk

“Um, yeah. Yeah, we do.” Chanyeol nodded as he answered you to which you sighed in relief at his response. So far so good. 

You were back. You think. 

Swinging your legs around the stiff bed, you slowly stood to your feet, eyeing his helpful hands on your arm with a bit of uncertainty. You continued to eyed him strangely as he gently offered you your bag and held the door open for you. 

“Are you okay?”

“Are you dizzy?”

Jongin and Sehun surrounded you as you two exited the nurses office and you shrank back a bit from their sudden proximity and intense inspections, this scene also very familiar... yet not at all. 

“Guys, give her some space.” Chanyeol emerged in the middle of you, pushing them back the tiniest bit to give you space to breathe. 

“Oh, sorry. We haven’t introduced ourselves yet, huh? I’m Sehun and this is Jongin.” Their observant expressions changed in an instant to cheeky grins as they waved to you in a casual manner, like you weren’t currently sporting yet again another head injury. “We’ve seen you around school a lot, but we’ve never actually talked.”

You blinked at his words, your eyes transitioning from one to the other, remembering just how close you three got in the other world... or wherever you were. But you just nodded a little in silent greeting and turned to walk away. Like last time, you really needed to go home and make sure you were really home now. 

“H-Hey, are you sure you don’t need to go to the doctors? I can help you—”

Shaking your head, you flinched slightly and told Chanyeol quickly when you saw him start to make his way over to you. “I’m fine, really. I can go by myself.” Not that you really felt you needed to go, the last time you went to the hospital for this, they just did a bunch of expensive tests that came back normal and gave you an ice pack and some painkillers in the end. 

But you had a feeling you’d be going whether you wanted to or not.

“Are you sure? I just...” he offered again, a guilty expression clear as day on his handsome face, you having the strong urge to grab his hand in an effort to calm him down, but knowing you couldn’t or shouldn’t. “I just feel really bad.”

“You should.” Sehun piped up from behind him, to which you sent an amused glance to. 

“As long as it wasn’t on purpose, it’s okay.”

“I swear it wasn’t.” 

You nodded at his words, your previously belief of him kicking the ball at you on purpose long gone now as you stared at the transparent distress adorning his face. “I believe you, no worries. Just be careful next time.”

“She’s surprisingly laid-back for just getting knocked out. Maybe she's still out of it? I thought for sure she’d at least rip an arm or leg off,” Jongin murmured to himself after you left, eyeing the door you’d calmly exited from. 

“Way to go, Chanyeol. Knocking your crush out with a soccer ball you kicked because you were trying to impress her. Might as well give up now.”

“I told her everything was fine, that I didn’t need to go to the hospital.” You sighed to Junmyeon on your bed, throwing yourself back with another sigh, placing the extra strength painkillers and your ice pack down on your nightstand after your long hospital visit, Junmyeon having rushed over once he heard the news.

“Y/n, obviously she’s gonna take you to the hospital, what if you got amnesia and lost your memories, or something? Plus you asked something weird as soon as you saw me...”

That was true. As soon as you saw your long-lost bestfriend, you asked, “How many friends am I lucky to have?” To which he answered with a confused expression, “...three?”

You erupted into laughter at that, laughing more as you saw the same confused expression spread across his face at your reaction. “Why are you laughing? This is not something to laugh about, young lady!” 

“Sorry, I just thought you’d find it funny.” 

“Why would I find this funny?”

You just shrugged as he stared you incredulously, as if you had lost your mind, a secret smile on your face as you thought about Junmyeon number two. 

"Well, I’m glad that you’re okay, but didn’t you say you had something you wanted to talk about?"

Pursing your lips in thought, you debated telling him about the whole strange journey you’d been on, but decided that maybe it’d be better to leave it in the past, as a strange memory; a dream, nothing less and nothing more than that. “Nothing, I just missed you, best friend.” You leaned over and wrapped your arms around his middle—or at least attempted to.

“Ew, what are you doing?” Junmyeon evaded your touch at the last second, jumping up and created some distance between the two of you, pressing himself against your wall as he stared at you in obvious disgust, you glaring back at him after you regained your balance. “What do you mean you missed me, we just saw each other a few hours ago before you ran into a soccer ball.”

“Fine, I didn’t miss you. And I did not run into a soccer ball, I got hit with a soccer ball, there’s a difference.”

“Chanyeol kicked the ball at you, right? I thought he liked you and was just awkward expressing it, but maybe not if he’d do something so despicable. I’m gonna get revenge for you, Y/n, don’t worry.” Junmyeon began ranting at high speed and all you could do was stare in both mild shock and terror as the glint in his eyes grew more and more calculating. “What should I do—I know! I’m gonna give him all the wrong material for the finals so he’ll fail and—”

“Oh my god, remind me to never get on your bad side.” You grew more alarmed as more words escaped his mouth, the expression on his face growing more and more passionate as he worded his plans out loud and you hurried to stop him and clear the misunderstanding. “But I don’t think he did it on purpose anymore, so there’s no need. You can reign in your inner psycho again, please.”

“You’re even sticking up for him now? What the hell, what brought on this change, did you get hit harder than I thought?” 

You smacked his hand away that was slowly approaching with narrowed eyes, before sighing. “I don’t know, just call it a random change of heart and leave it at that.”

“I’m gonna keep a close eye on you. You say you’re fine but you’re acting really weird, you know that, right?”

Simply nodding at his words, he sighed and exhaled as he made his way to your door. “Alright, well I’d better go and let my parents and Minseok know you’re okay. Call me if you need anything, but you probably won’t. You’re a big kid, you got this. Fighting.” 

You snickered at his lackluster encouragement and also at him trying to slip in his support for you before insulting you; something that happened every time you got hurt. “Tell them I said hi and that I’ll visit soon. And go already. You’ve stayed too long and I didn’t have the heart to tell you to leave when you’re this worried about lil ol’ me.”

The finger is the only reply you received before you heard him yell from the staircase below moments after he left your room, “By the way, I gave Chanyeol your number! Bye, love you!”

The slight rustling of the leaves in the trees from the cooling wind mixed with the warm sun hitting your face calmed your nerves a little. You were sat on a bench located in a park close to your house, gazing up at the clouds in the ceaseless blue sky. 

You’d gotten a text from Chanyeol almost immediately after Junmyeon told you he’d given him your number. He’d apologized repeatedly and to let him know if there was anything he could do for you.

Replying back that you were fine and not to worry, you’d asked him to meet you at said park after soccer practice on Friday if he had time, which was today. He’d texted back not even ten seconds later, agreeing and that he would see you there.

You remember smiling to yourself and thought that maybe he wasn’t so bad after all. Now that you were back, you just didn’t want to waste anymore time. You wanted to hash things out, clear things up... and maybe, you missed him just a little bit.

“Y/n!” The sound of your name being called by that oh so familiar voice had your head turning to the right, eyes widening as you saw Chanyeol sprinting full speed in your direction. He was still dressed in his soccer uniform, barely managing to stop himself from running into your perched figure at the last second, drenched in sweat and trying to talk through his panting. “Sorry... I came as fast as I could... you weren’t waiting long, were you?”

Shaking your head, you scooted to the left a bit, patting the bench next to you for him to take a seat to rest. “Did you run here straight from practice?” He took a seat with a grateful smile, nodding to your question. “You could’ve taken your time, it’s really nice, I don’t mind waiting a bit. I feel bad for rushing you.”

“Nah, don’t worry, I’m used to running. I just didn’t want you waiting alone long.”

Chanyeol’s words had your skin warming and you were sure it had nothing to do with the weather. He was still trying to catch his breath and you eyed his matted hair and that drop of sweat that was beginning to run down the side of his face. 

Knuckle gingerly meeting the skin right above his eyebrow, you froze the next second in alarm, screaming to yourself what the hell are you doing. Wide eyes staring at each other, the two of you stayed in that position for a short while before you averted your eyes and cleared your throat awkwardly, letting your hand fall back into your lap. 

He wiped the sweat off his face as best he could, scooting further from you a bit. “Sorry if I smell like sweat, I should’ve showered quick before meeting you. How’s your head?”

“I’m good. My doctor said there’s nothing to worry about as long as I take it easy the next few days.”

“That’s good to hear, I really am sorry about... everything, again.”

It was a bit of an awkward silence between the two of you and you took in a deep breath, deciding to just get straight to the point when Chanyeol spoke up before you could. “I think I know what you wanted to talk about... I-I heard from Junmyeon, when he gave me your number, that I might’ve said and done some things to make you think that I don’t like you. But I swear that’s not it and I can explain, if you let me.”

You were taken aback by his words, and you tore your eyes away from your lap to look up at him in shock. He became more nervous the longer you took to reply, hearing the gravel beneath his feet as he began shuffling them a bit. “So you don’t... hate me?”

He shook his head at your question, completely earnest as he rushed to reply. “I could never hate you! It’s just the opposite! I’m just... not good at this flirting thing...”

Eyes going wide at his admission, you felt your heartbeat thunder in your chest. “F-Flirting? This whole time you’ve been... flirting with me?”

An embarrassed look crossed his face at your question, nodding slowly. “Yeah... or at least I was trying to.”

“Oh.” 

You felt bad that that was all you could say, but your mind was going a trillion miles a second trying to process the information you’d just learned. It was like your brain was correcting old incorrect flashbacks of when you thought he was out to get you, but now that you knew he wasn’t, you could now see clearly in your mind just how purely happy his smile always was whenever he saw you.

Then that time when he’d asked if you and Junmyeon were dating... And here you were thinking he was a giant jerk when really he—

“Remember when I asked you if you had any friends in class all those months ago?”

“Of course, I do. I was so embarrassed...”

“What I uh, what I actually meant to ask that day was if I could be your friend.”

“Huh?”

“I’m serious...”

You stared at him, not totally believing him, still remembering the humiliation you felt that day clearly. “So you asking me if I had any friends...” you trailed off and looked at him expectantly, needing to reassure yourself, to hear his side again to really determine if you believed him or not. 

“I really didn’t mean to embarrass you, I promise. I just really wanted to become friends—I still do! You just... you kind of intimidate me, and I thought... that you’d be less likely to reject my offer of friendship if I did it publicly and it came out like that...”

“What about the, ‘Nice hair, sleeping beauty!’ comment?”

Chanyeol blinked at you, pink dusting his cheeks and the tips of his ears as he averted your eyes, gaze falling briefly on your tendrils dancing softly in the wind before quietly answering, his gaze glazing over a little as a soft smile crept up on his lips. “Well, you do have nice hair. It’s really pretty and I’ve... always liked it. But that day was the first and only time I’ve seen you with your hair up, so I was able to see your face—” he abruptly cut himself off as he felt himself begin to ramble, eyes widening as he shook his head to get back to the question at hand, he finished abashedly, “—and the sleeping beauty comment was because it was also the first and only time I’d ever seen you not show up early to school from oversleeping, so I just blurted it out... maybe I shouldn’t have done that...” He met your stare again as he offered a sheepish smile. 

Your poor heart couldn’t keep up with the words you were hearing leave Chanyeol’s mouth. He was too cute. Pure. 

Not a malicious thought in that brain of his. You were having trouble fighting back the smile that wanted to show itself. 

“...and the, ‘What’s up, nerd? And knocking the books out of my hands?” You couldn’t look him in the eyes but when he straightened suddenly, you glanced at him, not expecting the adorable clumsiness of a reason for the incident. 

“I knocked your books out of your hands when I tripped?”

It was your turn to blink at him. “You’re saying you fell?”

Chanyeol nodded slowly, a laugh escaping him. “I’m actually really clumsy. I can’t go a day without tripping on my own feet at least once. I’m really sorry I knocked them out of your hands. I was trying to get your attention so I called you nerd as a kind of a nickname of sorts, ‘cause you’re always studying hard and reading a new book every time I see you, and I remember tripping right when I was walking past you and I... got embarrassed and sped out of there... sorry.”

The more you listened to him, the harder it was to keep a neutral expression in order to not make is apparent embarrassment any worse. You didn’t want him to think you were laughing at him, but he was just so... cute. How could you have ever misunderstood him so badly?

Seemingly oblivious to the smile almost erupting on your lips, he continued without a pause. “My friend told me that girls like the confident, bad boy type. That I had to pretend that I had no interest in you whatsoever, but I still wanted to talk and see you so I just...” he trailed off, his features scrunching up as he ruffled his hair with a quiet groan. “Okay, now I see it.”

You couldn’t keep the full-blown grin anymore and burst out laughing. “Which friend told you all that? It was Sehun, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah! How’d you know it was him?” Chanyeol was smiling in response to your smile but also in amazement at how you immediately guessed right. 

“Just a guess. But I don’t think he’s the best person to be getting advice from, for future reference.”

He laughed with you, breathing out a big sigh next to you. “Did I... answer all your questions?”

“You really didn’t mean to hit me with the soccer ball, right?”

“No, of course not!” He was quick to defend himself, shuffling his feet and awkwardly fiddling with his fingers as he muttered softly, “I was trying to impress you by making a goal, not realizing that you weren’t even paying attention and it somehow hit the goalpost at an angle and... I’m really sorry.”

Nodding at his answer, you ducked your head for a few seconds before interlacing your fingers into his, sending his shocked self a smile. “Okay.”

“O-Okay?”

“I can see now that I’ve misunderstood you this whole time, and I’m really sorry for that. And... if it’s okay with you, I’d like to get to know you and see where this takes us.”

It was a sensation of deja-vu; 

     the way he absolutely beamed down at you, his grin wide, eyes formed into crescents... 

     down to the way your insides felt all warm just from looking at him. 

     even down to his reply:

“That sounds great.”

Maybe it was worth taking a risk on people sometimes, especially when someone you least expected to becomes so special to you, becomes the first person to make you feel this way, that someone who smiles at you like that. 

tag list: @rashidamesrur @totallynerdstuff @organic-hemp @etaerealboy @yasmini24 @imlonelysometimeshappy @rpavlxk @sebootyforlife @arinamesari @xxluckydreamsxx @delightpcy @buttercupbbh @coffee-prince-kyungsoo​ @aarohadream​

i was planning on going into more detail, but it just felt right stopping it there and i really like this ending lol. no excuses yall, i’m so sorry this took so long. i’ve not had the will to write ANYTHING but here it is!! i hope yall like it as much as i do after writing for the first time after a bit. much love! ty for everyone who stuck w this series T.T ♥ ♥ ♥ 

[gouthepro]

okay do YOU have any lynether thoughts i'd love to hear them if you do

why yes I do!

teapot voicelines imply Aether looks after some of Lyney's pets for him in the teapot, so in my mind they're co-parenting a bunch of animals together like cats and birds (specifically doves because of Lyney's 2nd troubles voicelines) by this point Rosseland is the only pet that's still fully Lyney's and not co-parented by Aether

for as much as Lyney flirts I think he gets really awkward when he's being genuine about it, which is why his flirting with Aether is always so overdramatic because if he gave a genuine compliment and phrased it like a genuine compliment then he'd probably trip over his words and die from embarrassment a minute later (Aether would find it cute though)

on that note, the one time Aether flirted back Lyney got extremely flustered

I think they'd be so sweet with each other honestly

whenever Aether gets upset about his travels or not having his sister, Lyney comforts him and looks after him until he's feeling better. he can understand better than anyone else Aether knows what it's like to be seperated from a sibling (and a twin too) even if it was only for a short amount of time in Lyney's case

Aether also helps Lyney with his stage fright before shows by encouraging and reassuring him and helping out with his hair and make-up so Lyney has a few less things to worry about before the performance

Aether (affectionately) hates introducing Lyney to his friends because it's often chaos. you can't tell me Lyney wouldn't perform a magic show for Klee based around her bombs and dodoco or that Heizou or Albedo wouldn't try to figure out how Lyney's magic works. Hu Tao would somehow find out about the court case and try to convince Lyney to become one of her clients, Venti would start sneezing because of all of the cat hair on Lyney from Rosseland and all his other cats and Gaming and Lyney are both so friendly and talkative (or in Lyney's case, he appears to be talkative) they'd chat for hours about anything. Everytime after Aether has introduced Lyney to another one of his friends he feels so tired.

also related but Lyney would be really good with kids due to growing up with younger siblings and all the others at the house of the hearth so all of Aether's younger friends like Yaoyao, Qiqi, Sayu, Klee and even Diona like him. (Nahida isn't technically a younger friend because she's 500 but I think she'd like Lyney too.) Just hear me out, he'd put on magic shows for Klee and Qiqi, he'd chat with Yaoyao and he'd let Sayu and Diona hang out with his pet cats including Rosseland

I feel like they'd have similar taste in literature and would enjoy reading books together or going to watch a play together.

Lynette and Paimon had bets on when Lyney and Aether would confess to each other and on who would confess first.

Freminet was the first to know when Lyney and Aether actually started dating though.

Arlecchino is somewhere between being supportive of Lyney's relationship and also questioning why out of all the people he could've chosen it had to be Aether, the Fatui's no.1 problem.

"Yes I'm very happy for you and your relationship, I hope it lasts and I'm sure you're both perfect for each other.. Now if you could tell that boyfriend of yours to STOP FIGHTING THE RECRUITS that would be excellent."

[trashlie]

ILY FP 237

Wanna know something that feels insane? I went to go reread 151 for yknow, reasons, lmao and I noticed it came out September 30, 2021.

/2021/!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IT'S BEEN 2 YEARS SINCE THAT EPISODE DROPPED?! NO WONDER WE CAN'T BE NORMAL ABOUT ANYTHING!!!!! NO WONDER WE'RE ALL AS FERAL AS SHINAE AND CLIMBING WALLS AND CHEWING THROUGH OUR KEYBOARDS. I can't get my head around this lmao TWO WHOLE YEARS?! What the HECK?! This has been WILD!!!!!!!

Anyway, I kind of wish you guys could have seen me immediately after reading this episode because I swear it felt like I went through the five stages of like, grief or something, for reasons I'll get to lmao like, my friends and i live blog at each other as we read and it was just a wall of screaming cat emotes sent over and over and DREAD and STRESS and some kind of dramatic chaos and calamity before we got it out of our systems and were like "okay i can be normal* about this now

*as normal as possible all things considered lmao

Anyway. AN EPISODE AIN'T IT? Let's go

I had fantasized a lot about how I waned Dieter and Nol's conversation to go, and as always, I was not entirely on the mark. That's why I'm not the one writing ILY XD But regardless, I love what we got, and we got things that I did NOT expect at all!

There's something about how it starts off with that sort of.... "we're pretending everything is normal and that you didn't totally oversee me making moves on the girl you like while i thought you were sleeping and you don't even know why I came back after blocking all of you let's definitely make visitation plans" that is so funny to me, even though that's absolutely how I expected it to go. Dieter is the master of playing it cool, much to his own detriment, but it works in this case, because Nol is so very like a feral cat, isn't he?

I'm actually really glad that we touched on the topic of visitation because I was SO CERTAIN Nol wouldn't want them to visit him, wouldn't want to be seen like that, wouldn't want to be reminded of their lives going on while he's stuck behind bars for a crime he didn't commit. And Dieter is not that subtle with the way he goes down the list of the potential visitors Nol can have - not that there's, yknow.... many..... lol but we all know what he's getting at, carefully hedging the important matters at hand. "It would make you happy if she visited you, too... right?"

Something so funny about my agitation at the end of this episode was that I so badly wanted to comment on how Nol's reaction to Dieter winning the game reminded me SO MUCH of the expressions Shinae makes lol I don't know if that's just a result of quimchee's artstyle or just one of those many things they have in common, but it makes me laugh a lot.

Dieter possesses a rather straight forward nature that I'm so envious of. I'm the kind of person who struggles to bring up things that I need to talk to friends about, too burned by past experiences that didn't go well that I still get worried that addressing important topics with my friends will go south even though I know better, so I beat around the bush, I hem and haw. But Dieter is SO direct with Nol, even as Nol tries to deflect, even as he attempts to bush it off. It's so admirable! Especially while Nol is being.... well. Nol lmao

I CANNOT believe that he really went nine-year-old on the playground being accused of liking a girl like. He LITERALLY went BLEH why would I even HURL alkfjkafjafjkafkjafjk MY GUY?! ALKFKAFJAKFKAJFKJ?1 He is akjffakfj a MENACE truly related to Nana!!!!!!!!!

I think this must be the most open and honest Nol has ever been with Dieter. When you think about it, Dieter really is the one friend who has been the most "on the outside" of Nol's life, he has only known Yeonggi, and it wasn't for malicious reasons. That's all the stuff Nol dislikes about his life, that he tries to neatly compartmentalize. Up until recently, he was able to do so. Kousuke was off his back, he was more or less free. Everything changed when Rand went out of country and Kousuke had Nol helping out at the office. Dieter had no reason to really know much more about Kousuke and Nol's relationship because Soushi joining their group meant Kousuke wasn't around as often, and we saw that they both were able to thrive (as well as possible) outside of the way of each other.

So for Nol to open up enough to tell him that he doesn't really make friends, despite how it looks. That most people don't really seem to like him, that he doesn't like his peers or his family, that they are really the only people he has let into his life is big. There's so much Dieter still doesn't know about him, but baby steps. You can't just dump all of that, even if he was ready to.

And in him saying this, to some degree I understand. After all, all this while Nol wasn't even aware of those feelings, of what she meant. I think there were moments - like at the formal when he made her laugh - but it wasn't anything like when he had his head rest upon her shoulder, feeling at peace despite his injuries, feeling calm despite the location, feeling like he could fall asleep and learned that it had nothing to do with medication that made him realize it. So on the one hand I DO get his logic, because what if he IS misplacing this feeling, what if he IS wrong, what if he's making something out of nothing?

But I'm sure on another level he knows better, because he knows what Dieter saw, because he was acting on what he felt.

I think Nol has never had feelings for anyone, because he has nothing to compare this to. He said he "tried to make it work" with Alyssa, but there's a sense that he was never actually into her, that there weren't actually any feelings there and they never grew as time went on. And now that he feels these unfamiliar things for Shinae, how is he to know?

What's really funny is that this is the same tactic as Shinae, but in reverse. When she told him we're all friends and he adamantly told her no, because he knows better, because it wasn't platonic, because their kind of friend is so different from how she's friends with Dieter. And even though he's the one who knows his feeling and suspects hers, he still tries the same logic she used: that anyone else could be in her position and maybe he'd still feel the same, that maybe it's just because he's so starved for kindness that he's responding to that.

Again, we know better, but it's so funny to me that she literally tried to use the logic that all friendships are different but also she could put anyone else in his place and it would be the same.

Please. I need them to stop kidding themselves lmaoooooo

For Nol's sake, though, he needs it to be a thing that will pass, because in his mind not only does he endanger Shinae by caring about her, but he also betrays his friend, only further hurts him, and given that Nol's whole deal is that he tries to rebalance the bad he brings into the world by making up for it with good, he's really doing a terrible job.

Unfortunately for Nol, feelings don't work like that and logic can't control them. He can tell himself it might be a thing that can pass, that it might be something that he'd get over, but that doesn't change Shinae's feelings, and the fact that she clearly likes him, not Dieter. It would be so much easier for Nol if Dieter actually treated it like a betrayal, if he was mad at him, if he felt like Nol had wronged him. He wants him to be angry, because he can at least use Dieter's anger and pain as a reason to step back, because god knows Nol himself does not have the will power to do it on his own. If he can say "Acting on my feelings is hurting my friendship with Dieter" he could have a concrete reason to ignore them, because it's not worth losing his friendship.

But that's not who Dieter is. He isn't giving him that kind of excuse.

We can see, too, just how important those friendships are to Nol, that hurting Dieter would be reason enough to drop his feelings! Because these are the only friends he has. The only people who have made him feel like he has value. Made him feel not like nothing but something. A somebody. Special. That's not something worth throwing away, which is ironically what gets him into this problem. These people made him feel special, and he came to care about them as they care about him, and in his mind this has endangered them all, and it's more than enough reason to hold them at arms' length, to smother his feelings and hope they'll die out like cold embers, hope that if he doesn't fans the flames or add new wood, it will go cold.

I really feel for Dieter having this conversation because honestly, it can't be easy. Even though he's holding himself together, we know that it still hurts. His expression with his eyes closed when he mentions how he's seen the way Shinae cries for him... agonizing! He's seen it multiple times now! He's always the one who picks up her pieces and gives her comfort, even though it hurts him to do, even though he knows why she's crying. It wasn't just what he saw that morning when they thought he was asleep - he's been watching this all along, from the beginning, always consciously comparing himself to the people in her life and how she interacts with them. Even as a friend, he doesn't have what she has with Minhyuk or Nol. Dieter knew all along what he was getting into, knew all along the way they interact, the way they gravitate towards each other, and he couldn't help but hope he might have that, too. That with enough time they could be like that. All this morning did was show him that he was never going to have that with her, that he never really stood a chance. ;~; But he tried! It's more than Nol can say right now....

Nol's agitation is such a BIG deal! Again, Dieter has never really known Nol. Yeonggi wasn't like this! Yeonggi didn't have this energy, that feral cat energy, that edge! His shock in response to how Nol responds shows that much - because to him this isn't a big deal, if he likes her then he likes her and he just wanted Nol to know that he won't hold it against him. But there is just so much Dieter doesn't know! He can't understand at this point why Nol is so emotional about it, why he seems so agitated and upset, why he's insisting it will never happen. Seeing those emotions on his face!!! The way Dieter goes from startled to defensive to concerned.

"If you don't like seeing her hurt, it's in your best interest to keep her away from me."

That sounds so threatening! He's the only one who is hurting Shinae, what Nol is saying can't possibly make any sense to Dieter.

He doesn't know about the formal.

He doesn't know about Shinae getting tricked by Yui, how she was coerced to attend that harrowing formal in order to protect someone who it turned out didn't need protecting.

He doesn't know about the fall from the pool and how she hit her head and was in the hospital when she should have been at home getting a good night's sleep the night before her college entrance exams.

He doesn't know about the contract she's locked into.

About the roofies, about Sangchul.

About how Shinae could have been assaulted, or how she could have died.

This is the most honest Nol has probably ever been with Dieter, with anyone but Shinae at this point, frankly, and unfortunately Dieter doesn't know anything, can't understand, but what he can see is that Nol means it. The fear on his face! He looks so childlike in how distressed and afraid he is!

When we really think about it, in Nol's eyes, it is about him. That he is a blight, a mistake who was never supposed to exist. That what happened to his mom was because of him, because he exists. Because he didn't treat her well. What happened to Shinae is because he took interest in her, because she meant something to him, and that wasn't acceptable. He believes harm comes to those he cares about, but in his view that's the extent of it. It's not that Yui is a monster, it's that she's a monster to him.

He doesn't have our objective knowledge. He doesn't know that Kousuke has been drugged and manipulated his whole life, that she drove that wedge between him and his father. He doesn't know that Yui invited Shinae to Kousuke's apartment and treated her inappropriately, tried to undress her, put her in Kousuke's clothes. Does he even really understand how Shinae wound up at the formal? That it wasn't about him at all - that Shinae was convinced Kousuke did something wrong by giving her a job she didn't deserve, that she had to attend the formal to "protect his job".

So to him, it's just because it's him. Because he cares. Because he is a mistake and doesn't deserve any of this, and that they are punished for him not knowing his place. His worries extend to Dieter and Soushi as well, because they are also people he cares about, and maybe the universe will harm them, too, to remind him of his place.

He doesn't know what he has to protect them from, just that he must.

One of these days, we are going to get flashbacks of what happened when Nol was taken away to Hirahara Memorial, and I'm not ready. The way he looks so small and childlike sitting there in his bed with all of his fear and distress, all of these feelings so knotted up inside. What did they do to him when he was in there? What did they say to him, that made him so deeply internalize this belief? Almost two years of being broken down, being convinced that the things that happen to those you care about are the direct result of you caring of your existence. And that's the most frustrating part about it - it's so deeply ingrained, so intricately woven into his psyche that he can't just change his way of thinking. It's going to be so difficult to undo that thinking!

Not that this is really new to us but, just getting to really mull over this is so heartbreaking. Nol is so terrified of losing her, that he's willing to lose her to protect her. He'd rather not have her at all if it will keep her safe, if it will protect her from harm, even though it's so clear that he wants the opposite. He cares so much and it makes him so very afraid. How does he live like that?! That constant battle of wanting vs what he fears, how he let them into his life and broke his rules and in his mind this has put them in danger.

"If you don't like seeing her hurt, it's in your best interest to keep her away from me!"

He really would rather be the one that hurts her to protect her than to take any chances and it just makes me feel SO EMOTIONAL. ;A; OKAY. Because what can you even do to help him? He is so..... I don't like it when people say the word broken, because it often feels low-key like they mean someone is too traumatized to ever be "repaired" but when I say Nol is so broken, I mean that he has been put in situations that have damaged his self-view, that have damaged his psyche, that have altered the way he thinks and feels to such a degree that he is sitting here willing to hurt people in order to protect them, because he lives in this constant fear of unknown that he cannot predict. They took this vulnerable kid and put him through absolute HELL, they broke him and then they refused to put the pieces back together.

I hope that Dieter will talk to someone about it. Is it something he can talk about with Shinae? Can he pull together any clues? He's our most observant character, but does he know enough to start to grasp this very real fear that has gripped Nol? He was there at the arcade when Kousuke and Yui came to pick up Nol, when he reacted strangely to her being there, when he slapped away Kousuke's hand. Is that something that he'd remember, think is worth pursuing? And even if so, what can come of it? He looks genuinely worried and concerned, though, and I hope that something will be able to come of it, because I think even if he can't understand what Nol fears, he at least knows that to him it's very real.

Soushi's timing with the jello just.... KILLED me. KILLED ME what a time to interrupt ;______; How do you get back to that conversation?! And especially with Kousuke there now, it's effectively over. It just!!! LKFAFKJAJFKAKJFAJKFKJAF KLJAFKJAF AKJFKAJFKAFJKAF IT KILLS ME OKAY AAAAAUUUUUGGGGGGH

And while I know very well that Kousuke is there with good intentions, that he looks so haunted standing in the hallway waiting for Nol, I can't help but feel a heavy curtain of foreboding coming down, because Kousuke comes in like an omen. Because things go bad when he shows up, even when he's not the one trying to stir things up. And frankly, I don't look forward to this, because I know whatever is going to go down is going to hurt! There's something so..... I guess bitter about Kousuke's very too little too late moment, how he has struggled all these years with how badly he wants Rand's love, how much he fears not being good enough, how terrified he was that Nol could have it and replace him, the guilt for destroying a young child who was never a real threat to him (even though Yui absolutely made him out as a real threat in Kousuke's mind). It's like... knowing that Kousuke is starting to unlock this, is starting to see the insidious underbelly, while knowing it's too late. Nol has wiped his hands of him. He literally nearly died as a result of what happened the night before and even if Kousuke is coming to reach out to him, or to confirm something, Nol has no reason to entertain him, to hep him.

I feel like we are very much seeing that table turn, the role reversal. We're going to watch Kousuke fall apart, trying his best to hold himself together, with no one to turn to, no one he can actually trust, his paranoia eating him alive. It's not that I think anything heavy is going to go down as much as.... maybe we're going to watch Kousuke reach out to him, whether for help or to acknowledge something - that Nol, too, was drugged, that this must be why he hates tea so much, that so many times he ignored Nol's pleas for help - and Nol is probably going to reiterate how very done with him he is, that he wants nothing to do with him or this family any more, that he is done with them and what they've done to him. And just. AUGH ALKJAFKJJKFJKAF IT KILLS ME I'M SO EMOTIONAL I'M SO DISTRESSED BECAUSE WE KNOW WHY KOUSUKE WAS LIKE THAT WE KNOW HOW HE WAS MANIPULATED, HOW THE DRUGGING WAS USED TO ALTER HIS MEMORIES AND HOW HE RECALLED EVENTS HOW HE BELIEVES IN THIS FICTITIOUS VERSION OF NOL WHO WAS FORMED BY YUI'S WORDS AND IT KILLS ME BECAUSE NOL IS SO WELL WITHIN HIS RIGHT AND I JUST. TRAAAAAAGIIIIIIIIIIIIC SIIIIIIIIIBLLLLLLLLIIIIIIIIINNNNGSSSSSSSSS ;A;

And things just always go south when Kousuke comes around. He puts Nol in a worse mood, he starts to act out more. We literally watched this kid jump off a fucking balcony into a pool below and revisit the last time he was at the bottom of a pool, contemplating never returning to the surface! THINGS NEVER GO WELL WHEN KOUSUKE IS INVOLVED AND I'M NERVOUS AND SCARED AND I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS ;A;

At this point, I feel like everything really is up to Shinae at this point, because Nol is back to trying to rebuild his walls and put them up as high as he can, so ready to try to ignore these feelings, to play them off, to tell her that it probably means nothing, that he must just be acting this way because she's been nice when no one else has and if it was anyone else he'd probably feel the same way and GOD I am ready for her to go off on him. He all but told her to leave and come back when you know why you're fighting so hard for me, but I don't think he's actually PREPARED for her going back knowing her feelings, knowing what she wants.

Until now, there's always been a disadvantage between Shinae and Nol in their relationship, where he is always the one with the leg up, the one who knows more, the one who is making moves, the one who is in control of things. But I think we're going to see that change, based on her very feral way of fighting her feelings, how she was about to try to break down his door in order to continue their conversation, how agitated she is by the thought of him throwing her away.

It really does come down to her pure determination, and I'm fully expecting her to go in there and get into an argument with him lmao and frankly, I welcome it. I think that's the only way they're going to get anywhere. There's so many things they need to talk about, they need a heart to heart DESPERATELY but I don't think we're going to lead with it. I go back and forth on how I expect her to go, because she was SO READY to go back in and demand her things back "if I can't have you" (SCREAMING STILL) but now that she knows her feelings... will she? I hope she will, still. Because now it's almost worse, right? That he's taken all these things from her AND he still has a girlfriend AND he now has her heart? HOW IS THAT FAIR, GIVE IT BACK, GIVE BACK EVERYTHING!

I want them to argue because I think they're both a little more honest when they aren't thinking about what they're saying, when they let the hotheaded energy take over and words come out. Nol is probably going to play the "this probably doesn't even mean anything" game, the "this will probably pass and we'll both move on" game, the "maybe i'm just a selfish asshole friend and none of this means anything" game and Shinae is too hardheaded to let that slide.

I want her jealousy and insecurity to come out when Nol tries to shield himself with “I have a girlfriend” and I want her to remind him he said it was fake and he resents her. I want her to look him in the eye and ask if he can really throw it all away, if he wouldn’t have any regrets if he gave up and left her. I want him to fail to answer and instead tell her that maybe he can, who knows, maybe none of this is really real. And I want her to kiss him and prove to him how very real it is, how very much they both want it, and how very much they need each other.

And when she pulls away he can lean in, following her, pulling her back in, his brain off because god knows the moment her mouth touches his it's all over, he's melting, his resolve is crumbling and he's going all in, pulling her against him fingers in her hair mouth crashing back on hers so hungry so touch-starved so full of want.

They can talk about everything else once she's convinced him this isn't so fleeting. She can remind him what she already said, that she deserves a choice in this matter, that leaving doesn't change anything because she still works for the company she's still under contract and now there's more she can tell him - how Yui made her an offer that would essentially tether her to them, how Rand told her to take it that he says Yui will never let her go. That it was not about him that Yui is a witch, tell him about Kousuke's birthday, tell him about the way she got tricked, tell him about the things she tried to do to her.

I've already acknowledged that nothing can undo the years of damage that was done to Nol in the hospital and through years of abuse, but I think Shinae can, at the very least, make him see that she very much is just as trapped, that she's worse off if he leaves, that together they are so much stronger, that they don't have to endure this alone. He can tell her how scared he is and she can stroke his hair and reassure him the best she can that he's allowed to be scared in front of her that she feels scared, too, but maybe she's more afraid of losing someone who means so much to her, who is literally the reason she's gotten through everything she did. That maybe he thinks he's a monster but she's something else in him, that he is the sole reason she could endure that harrowing night.

I WANT THEM TO HAVE AN HONEST HEART TO HEART SO BADLY. I feel like we MUST be going that direction. There's been too much build up not to. As Lil Anon put it, ILY has never been quick to reward, and we must go through the ups and downs to get there. We've had this moment dangled in front of us for so long but we're not getting it easy. But we can see it in the narrative - the emphasis on their mutually realized feelings, that Nol was given that 3 day extension that leads so close to Christmas, the emphasis on her mouth, that these feelings happened before he went to jail. If there wasn't going to be a resolution, NONE of this would have needed to happen, especially not the 3 day extension. Quimchee is absolutely drawing this out - and not even in the "putting up pointless obstacles just to draw it out" kind of way but in the "you are going to be so satisfied when we get there" kind of way lol. It's just so easy to get spooked because that's what the writing is doing! That's tension, baby.

Hopeful optimism is always my downfall lmao but I just feel like we ARE going to have that resolution, that even if there's no relationship at this time, they will know where they stand, that she can convince him not to push her away, that they are too important to give each other up. Whatever he's afraid of, they can brave it together! I WANT IT AND I FEEL LIKE IT'S SO CLOSE OKAY AND I'MA FLKJAFLKJAF AFLKJAFLKJAFKLA FLKJAFLAKJFLKAFJLAFKAFKLAFJAFKJFKAA

We were given two small asides about Nol's phone and the Bible, and I wonder if we'll be seeing those play out the 22nd. The phone is obviously coming in Kousuke's visit next week, but I wonder: does it even work anymore after everything that happened? It was still working after the pool fall, which feels like a miracle, but after falling from the second floor, after getting slammed around in the snow, now covered in blood, will it still be able to turn back on?! lmao I'm not sure what to make yet of Alyssa's messages left hanging like that, especially after walking "into the light" with Gun. There's the fact that she's off to some schedule, so could there be a chance for those dating rumors to come up that she has to strike down? On the one hand, they feel like they could be left hanging, which kind of feels so symbolic of their whole relationship lmao but. IDK!!!! At the very least it probably needs a charge LMAO but idk idk this is the area I get murky because I think it can go so many ways. I don't think Nol has any intention of breaking up with her at this time, especially because he'll probably try to use it as a shield against Shinae, but.... I've always felt the break up would come from her due to dating rumors. Especially because of how bad his reputation is at this point (violence, roofies which makes it sound like he sexually assaults people) it would be EASY for Alyssa's agency to spin it and make it sound like indeed, she does not have a relationship with him and in fact he has frightened her or something. They were even in public at the Christmas party arguing even on the dance floor, before what happened later so. Idk SOMETHING will come of that, I'm sure.

But I'm also hoping referencing the Bible means that maybe he will find it when everyone else has left and he's bored - especially if his phone won't turn on - and take a look at the letters Shinae mentioned, since he only thought there was the one.

This is really important to me, because I need Nol so badly to see how he stands in the same place his father did. I want him to be able to better understand his parents - how his mom stayed clinging to a married man who she could not really be with, how she uprooted her child and herself to move closer to him. How she tried over and over to be there for him, to try to support him, and Rand didn't allow it. How unlike Rand, Nol has less to lose. He isn't married, he doesn't have a child, a family. He doesn't NEED to stay in a relationship that will only suffocate him, that will turn him into a hollow husk of a man like Rand did. I NEED him to realize that he is on a fast track of following in his father's footsteps, in becoming this empty meaningless man.

I want him to see how Rand's feelings for Nessa never went away. Even after she died, he still carried her around in that Bible. In her letters, in the photograph of Nol. He carried her around because he never got over her. And is Nol prepared to live that way?

This is also why I'm perfectly fine with Nol and Shinae kissing before he and Alyssa break up, because I think it would help him better understand his parents - how Rand had a duty to his marriage, but he fell in love with someone who actually meant something, and how she was the love of his life that he never got over. To understand how his mom could be with someone who was married. For him to understand that feelings are NOT logical, that you can't really control them. He never meant to develop feelings for the girl his friend likes - but it still happened.

Maybe if Nol can understand them, it will help him forgive them a little, give him a tiny bit of peace. And hopefully help him to make the right decision, to accept the love people give him, and to face his fears together with them.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[lanternkiwi]

bllk characters as conversations i’ve had with my friends

a thrilling saga

.

bachira: i’m going to go take a shower

isagi (me): it’s one in the morning!??!?

bachira: i know

.

oliver: how big do you think sae is

oliver: i feel like hes packing six inches

shidou (me): four inches soft six hard its curved up a little when hard too and the tip is coral pink

shidou (me): he’s got a vein on the right side too

oliver: WHY ARE YOU SO DETAILED

shidou (me): i’ve thought about it a lot

.

nagi: reo are you free in like fifteen minutes

reo, waiting for his call (me): yeah

nagi: OKAY ONE MORE ROUND REO

nagi: god i sound like one of those bad boyfriends

.

isagi (me): no, i think that’s midwest... cause every single thing in it is MID

bachira: OOOHH SO THE MIDDLE PART OF AMERICA IS CALLED THE MIDWEST

isagi: GIRL YES????

bachira: I CALLED IT FUCKING CENTRAL AMERICA

bachira: BUT THAT’S A WHOLE OTHER REGION

.

hiori: FOOTSIES??? IN CLASS????

reo (me): EXACTLLYY LIKE DO YOU HAVE NO CLASS

hiori: OBVIOUSLY NOT

hiori: HE CARRIES AROUND CONDOMS JUST IN CASE

hiori: AND HE’S NEVER HAD SEX

reo: AND HE NEVER WILL

reo: bros allergic to rizz

hiori: ALLERGIC TO RIZZ IS WILD

.

sae: shut up license-less

rin (me): fuck you

sae: my one victory

rin: yeah like 1-5738

sae: WHY IS IT IN THE THOUSANDS

rin: BECAUSE IM BETTER THAN YOU

.

chigiri: he’s playing mitski at ten am on the way home

reo (me): i did that once

kunigami: we know

.

bachira (me): omg you guys missed our smash or pass game

isagi: of cat pokemon

isagi: for clarification

bachria: you literally participated too

bachira: i heard what you said about litten’s mid evo

.

sae: i introduced shidou to my mom

oliver (me): OH AND ?????

sae: she was like i have to see him in the day

oliver: OH HEELLLLL

oliver: that’s a VIOLATION

.

chigiri: welcome healing girl winter

reo (me): slut era

reo: oh

kunigami:

chigiri:

reo: yess healing girl winter!!!

.

reo (me): literally an hour after we broke up he came back and apologized

chigiri: HES SO GOOFY

.

chigiri (me): reo folded so hard

chigiri: hydraulic press style

isagi: LOL NOT EVEN ORIGAMI STYLE ANYMORE

chigiri: IT’S MORE SEVERE THAN THAT NOW

isagi: whats after hydraulic press

chigiri: mukbang

.

sae (me): and really throw it back

sae: and not ass wise

shidou: ass wise is pennywise’s slutty sister

.

isagi: i’ll do anything with you

bachira (me): awww

isagi: except murder

bachira: aw

isagi: HUHH

.

rin, drunk as fuck: they called me soft

rin: but i am no softy

rin: too bad so sad

rin: its not my fault im sentimental

sae (me): you’re so corny

rin: never mind

rin: goodnight ugly

.

oliver: damn so everybody died huh

sendou: dead as hell

oliver: don’t worry i’ll plan your funerals

kazuma (me): what shoes we got on

sendou: my dawgs are out

oliver: im going BAREFOOT

oliver: for you guys <3

kazuma: don’t let shidou hear about that

.

rin: sorry shidou i have a game so i cant come to lunch

sae (me): not you leaving shidou

sae: smh rin

rin: YOU ARE LITERALLY IN SPAIN RIGHT NOW

sae: SHUT THE FUCK UP

shidou: everyone leaving me smh

sae: nice guys always finish last huh

rin: SAE SHUT THE FUCK UP

.

shidou: would you guys rather use a banana or a cucumber

sendou (me): cucumber

shidou: i feel like a cucumber cause what if it breaks up there.. like if i use a banana its gonna break my ass

sendou: it’s smoother and it had more girth too

sendou: just use the other end so you don’t feel the stem

oliver: team cucumber

sae: what the fuck guys

.

ego: just queef it out

anri (me): YOU KNOW WHAT A QUEEF IS???

ego: a pussy fart?

.

sae: wow shidou’s goal was jaw dropping

oliver (me): yeah. drop his pants next

sae: BITCH THE FUCK

.

sae (me): i did win a sparring tournament back when i did karate against guys my age

shidou: what when you were 12??

sae: 15 (i just turned seventeen at the time)

shidou: oh!

shidou: that’s hot

.

bachira: i’m not sure i understand the assignment

rin (me): when have you ever

rin: i watched you do your homework bro

bachira:

bachira: that was uncalled for

[wish-incorrect-quotes]

Fairy Godmother Practice: Chapter 5

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

“For the last time, I do not want you testing out your little glowy stick on me!”

Gabo was proving to be her trickiest task so far. It would have helped a good deal if he had been more willing to cooperate, but he was making it very clear he still didn’t trust Asha’s magic to have safe results yet. But while Gabo might be stubborn, she could be equally persistent, and she was sure she was getting close to figuring out the best way to help him.

“It’s a wand, not just a stick.” Asha replied insistently. “And I wasn’t going to use it on you. Just, you know… something near you, probably.”

“That’s still too close! I don’t need anything in the same room as me exploding.”

“Okay, I admit I haven’t always gotten everything right on the first try, but I have never made anything explode.”

“Not yet.”

They weren’t completely alone in the kitchen as they argued. Dahlia was standing at her usual table, rolling out her latest batch of dough. But so far, she hadn’t shown any signs of speaking up, or even pulling her eyes away from her work. It was possible she didn’t want to bother getting involved, but it was more likely she trusted Asha to sort this out, even if it seemed difficult at the moment.

“Alright…” Asha let out a defeated sigh. “If you really don’t want me to, I won’t try to do any magic for you until I’ve gotten some more experience. But could I ask you to help me out with something else?”

Gabo folded his arms, looking at her skeptically. “What is it?”

Asha quickly went to retrieve a few books for a nearby shelf, where she’d been keeping them to read whenever things were quiet in the kitchen.

“Amaya let me take a couple of books from the study, so I could see if there’s anything useful while I’m learning. And I’m gonna get around to reading them as soon as I can, it’s just… well, I think we’ve all learned the can be some stuff you don’t wanna mess with in spellbooks. Could you maybe take a quick look through these? Just to make sure they’re all okay?”

Gabo hesitated for a long moment, and Asha started to worry he was going to refuse. But eventually, he let out a huffy sigh and reached out to take the books. “Fine. I guess someone needs to make sure you don’t cause a disaster with that wand.”

When he had stomped out of earshot, Dahlia finally decided to talk to Asha.

“You’ve already read all of those books. Several times.”

“Yep.” Asha confirmed.

“And you know there’s nothing dangerous in them.”

“Also true.”

All of the texts she had selected for the day were more or less a children’s introduction to magic. The queen had assured her that all of the books except the one that had been behind the glass case should be perfectly safe to read, but Asha would be especially surprised if the collections of simple, easy-to-perform magic tricks had anything concerning inside.

“Then what was the point of that?” Dahlia asked.

Asha shrugged. “He’ll feel a lot better if he gets to check it out for himself.”

In his own surly sort of way, she knew Gabo cared about looking out for his friends, and he didn’t like the thought of anyone taking any big risks. And with how long magic that wasn’t controlled by the king had been banned in their kingdom, a lot of this was uncharted territory. Hopefully, it would help to put his mind at ease if he could learn more about what she was getting into.

[disorganizedkitten]

You'll Survive Chapter 1

Miraculous Ladybug | 2018 | 820 | Ao3 | Masterlist | Next

Growing up and leaving the nest is hard, but being with friends lightens the blow. Unless you are Chloe Bourgeois, in which case you have to make friends to help pull that weight. Or maybe you already have some, you just didn’t think of them.

Chloe slung her purse over her shoulder, intent to meet up with her roommates and convince them that she’ll be a good housemate.

She had been trying a little better to be nice, with Pollen’s help of course, but it was hard. Hard enough that most of the people she had been paired with for rooming had been overly hostile and happy to get her out of the house. If this set didn’t work out, she’d probably just have to get her own place. That wasn’t a problem, but she really wanted to make a friend. At least one!

It was lonely without Sabrina, but Chloe wanted her friend to be happy, and that meant letting the redhead follow her own dreams.

Chloe started up the concrete stairs, breathing deeply so she didn’t freak out. This should not make her this nervous.

It shouldn’t!

She started counting doors as soon as she reached the top. E7, E9, F1, F3, and finally, F4. Oh heckle she was here. “Wish me luck Pollen,” she breathed quietly, reaching her hand into the purse she carried the Kwami around in.

“You can do it Chloe! I believe in you! Besides, thirteenth time’s the charm, right?”

“I hope you’re right.”

Chloe pulled her hand away from Pollen’s comforting fur and knocked. Thirteenth time’s the charm.

“Race you!” sound erupted from the apartment, giggles, yells, and a bang on the door from that side.

“Hey!”

“I win!”

“I was a room farther away!”

“Oh sure you were ‘miss faster than a cat,’” the door swung open as the second voice grumbled. “Hello- Chloe?”

Chloe froze. “Alya?”

“Yeah, actually. What’s up?”

Marinette poked her head over Alya’s shoulder, eyes wide. “Is this a you-know-what emergency?”

“No, um, I’m supposed to be doing a roommate interview here?” Chloe didn’t sound as confident as she hoped. But, this was Alya and Marinette. Two of her superpowered teammates. How bad could it be?

Marinette’s face lit up at her words. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re accepted,” Marinette said, not even pausing to consider anything.

“She is?” Alya asked, turning to her friend.

“I am?” Chloe parroted. That, was fast.

Marinette waved Chloe inside and dragged Alya over to a couch. The apartment was small, but obviously decorated by the two. The decor was an easy mix of Creolian, Chinese, and French, with pink and white furniture and framed pictures of Alya, Marinette, and their friends and families.

“Would Pollen like a snack?” Marinette asked, moving over to the small kitchen and digging through a container.

“Yes please!” Pollen replied, poking her head out of Chloe’s purse.

Marinette dropped a couple things on a tray and brought it over to the living room’s small table, carefully moving a stack of papers over so it could fit.

“Chloe, are you joining us?”

“Sure,” Chloe moved over to sit down on the edge of the couch, feeling less apprehensive.

Marinette sat down in between Alya and Chloe, opening her purse to let her own Kwami, Tikki, out. Tikki moved over to the tray and picked up a cookie, waving Pollen over. Pollen hugged Chloe’s arm encouragingly before moving over to her fellow.

“Right, why are we taking her in Marinette?” Alya asked, as her orange Kwami, Trixx, joined Tikki and Pollen on the snack tray.

“Chloe, do you want to convince her or do you want me too?” Marinette asked cooly.

“Um,-”

“See, she doesn’t even have a reason,” Alya cut in.

“Okay, Alya, why not?”

Alya scowled, but didn’t answer.

“I promise I’ll pull my weight, and I already know about Kwami and Miraculous, so you don’t have to worry about those, and I,” Chloe paused and looked at Pollen for encouragement.

Pollen brushed some crumbs off her fluff and floated up a little bit. “With Sabrina doing that Genius school in Britain, we need someone to stay with. It’s no fun being friendless.”

Alya’s scowl turned into a frown. “That, I can agree with. Okay.”

“See? All good, and Chloe’s a much better roommate than some stranger. Let me grab the papers,” She stood up and dashed down a short hallway to another room.

“Sorry about that Chloe,” Alya said, quietly. “I know you’re not the same person you were then, but it’s harder for me to accept than it should be. Marinette, the girl’s kindness incarnate and is happy you are. I’m happy you’re breaking out of your Mother’s shadow, please don’t doubt that, but first impressions leave a, well, an impression.”

“That’s okay. I’m glad you’re letting me prove myself to you.”

“Always. You’ve helped us fight against a worse evil than you ever were, just know that sometimes I’ll be rude out of context.”

“Considering how many times I was to you, just for the fun of it, go ahead.”

“Teammates?” Alya asked, holding out a hand.

“Roommates,” Chloe corrected, taking it.

“Friends,” Marinette added, coming back into the room.

[klonoadreams]

Okay I have 3 questions for your Into the Wild thing because I have hyperfocused and read all of it including the tumblr posts in one night.

1) Can Akari mimic an alpha’s call? Like. Can she change pitch when she mimics the noises? Because imagine there’s someone just out trying to get crunchy salt and they hear her and Miyuki on either side and they’re just like OH FUCK

2) Wh. Where did Akari get her zoroark pelts I need to know

3) The baby riolu that eventually appears- will they have any physical traits from their mother? Markings or extra floof or anything? Will any zorua from them get, idk, spikes when they evolve? I am curious how you do Pokémon hybrids

Also pokemon who have friendship evolutions that exist in the wild I am pretty sure canonically exist bc those can happen when they befriend other Pokémon and I’m very happy about this knowledge and needed to share

ALRIGHT, i've been meaning to answer this ask but couldn't find the energy to do so until now, SO.

She doesn't have the same pitch, but the intensity is there enough that it really doesn't matter if it's not the same pitch as an Alpha. Can still scare the shit out of people though.

Ginkgo Guild. Miyuki can and will rummage through Ginkgo Guild merchandise for Punch Baby Akari, and the Ginkgo Guild effectively lets it happen because it's better than pissing off an Alpha Hisuian Zoroark. The pelts were part of that, since it's always best to make the most out of the things you find in the wild, like say, a dead Hisuian Zoroark, whose pelt would fetch a pretty penny on the market. :V So yeah, no need to worry. The Zoroark was already dead (old age/sickness, something like that). Mama Miyuki just decided to take back what she feels was hers (even if the Zoroark in particular was no one she recognized - she feels that it would be best for Akari to have it).

Pokemon Hybrids do exist, but my headcanon for them is that they are VERY rare. So it's not something that often happens. Like, the chances are pretty rare, that it's pretty much unheard of (especially during this time in Hisui, where everyone is afraid to get too close to them or really do anything out of the norm, like cross breeding) You're less likely to see anything that drastic, beyond maybe some markings or colorations that can be chalked up as an outside influence, in the same way Akari's been getting influenced by being around Tetsuya and Miyuki (her fangs and eventual markings - like with Coco and Zarude). And also just random chance, because Mama Miyuki is deviating from her own coloration as she grows into her Alpha size. (you're more likely to see a hybrid in Also-Ran, with how busy Dante the Grimmsnarl and Bayonetta the Hatterene are, with their massive number of children - goth Hatenna anyone? lmaooo)

Friendship evos do exist in the wild, most definitely, because it's all about that friendship and if not that, I have a headcanon that extreme duress or dure situations can sometimes force an evolution to happen (even in the case where it normally requires a stone, trade, item - whatever, because how else do these fuckers evolve naturally in the wild?????). Still worth noting that, at everyone's current catching level, it would be far easier to go after the pre-evolved state of the friendship evolution, because would you rather dead with a possible Petal Dance and poison spikes from a Roselia? Or spores from a Budew?

(frankly, I'd choose the Budew, and I'd also choose to nab a Riolu over a very angy Lucario that can Aura Sphere me on sight - which is how I caught Tetsuya as a Riolu during my gameplay lmaooo)

(sorry, just wanted to share that, because it's still so funny how I was throwing balls at a Lucario, and then told him to fuck off when he wouldn't stay in the ball before throwing a ball at a nearby Riolu that actually LET me catch him)