#even in a timeline where they had basically no chance of having a happy relationship their obsession for each other was unquenchable

[bookgobloblin]

Fionna and Cake screenshot redraw because the Star has an IRON GRIP on my brain right now original screenshot under the cut

[redfoxwritesstuff]

Sunflower: Book 1, Chapter 1

Tom Hiddleston x ofc (Mia Sull) Chapter 2 Masterlist Series Rating: M Chapter Warnings: Mentions of sexual health items, alcohol use, Nudity Series warnings: Sexual content, alcohol use

RPF Note- This is a fictional version of Tom Hiddleston. I have and will continue to play with the timeline of his career. All characters are fictional. Out of respect for the actual Tom, I have fictionalized his family members beyond the most basic details as well as as past romantic entanglements. Please do NOT take this romantic work of fiction as disapproval of his current relationship. He appears happy, has a family and I am happy for him. I have a hundred and one fictional versions of him in my head, I don't need the real life man single.

Summary: Las Vegas drew in people like him. Heart broken, lonely and rejected while his ex married someone else. Here he could be anyone though, flying under the radar of his skyrocketing fame.

Las Vegas was home to people like her. Lonely, broke and with the weight of the world on her shoulders. There was never enough of anything except stress. She was one of the countless faces that lived in the shadow of the glittering lights.

Two worlds collide in a drunken night neither can remember. What do you do when what happens in Vegas is a legally binding marriage contract between two strangers?

Chapter One

Shrill ringing cut through the silence. Slitting open her eyes, Mia regretted it instantly. The bright sunlight of the day stabbed her eyes without care for the pain it caused. Blindly, she groped toward the cursed sound of her phone ringing. Pawing at it, she dismissed the alarm or call or alert- what exactly she didn’t know and didn’t care at that moment. 

“Fucking hell…” It was hard to talk. Her throat felt like someone had stuffed it full of cotton balls. Her head pounded and it felt like she was floating. 

“Agreed…” she could have sworn a voice mumbled behind her. She had had far too much to drink the night before and couldn’t trust her senses.

“Where are you?” The voice was a distant squawk. It turned out that it was a call and, rather than dismissing it she had answered it. 

“Fuck.” she said again, not registering much but dragging the phone to her ear. “What?”

“Breakfast. You’re missing from it. Where are you?” It was her sister Ashley on the other end of the call. 

Breakfast… shit. Breakfast. “I’ll get right on that.”

“Where are you?” Ashley’s voice was so loud. Was the phone on speaker or was the volume punishing her for the night before?

“Hotel room?” Mia said.

“Mandalay Bay.” The voice behind her offered slightly stronger. The bed shifted under the weight of another occupant moving. The voice earlier hadn’t been a figment of her imagination after all.

“Who was that?” Ashley asked.

“I don’t honestly know.” She admitted, not caring if she hurt the occupant’s feelings but trying to keep her voice down. 

If there wasn’t a thousand angry hornets surfing on shifting sand in her skull, it may have occurred to her that admitting that while in a hotel alone- she assumed they were alone at least- with a strange man was likely not the greatest choice. 

“Tom.” The mystery man supplied as if that actually gave her any information. Did he expect her to remember him? Did he remember her?

“He says his name is Tom.” Did she even know a Tom? She had no memory of a Tom. 

“I heard.” Ashley was not pleased. She was whatever existed below highly displeased was. “Who the hell is-”

“Give me ten to fifteen, kay?” Mia didn’t give her a chance to answer before disconnecting the call. 

“What the hell happened?” It took all the strength in her body to roll from her stomach to her back. Her limbs felt like they had been replaced with sacks of potatoes. How much did I drink?

The thought was cut off when she saw him. Light brown hair was lit up gold in the offensively bright Las Vegas morning sun, defining the curl to the short stands. He had a sharp jaw peppered with morning stubble and defined cheekbones. Most importantly, he was without a shirt. Hopefully that was all the clothes missing from him. 

He held his hand up over his chest, suspended and looking at it incredulously. A Simple gold ring reflected off his left hand. 

Fuck. Her leg brushed against his as she shifted to face him. She was very much naked and anything resembling pant legs did not cover his leg. Fuckity fuck fuck. She fucked a married man. When the fuck did she sink so low?

“I think we got married?” Tom’s voice had fewer cotton balls and gravel now as he shifted again in the bed. 

“Oh thank god, you’re not married.” The words slipped out in a breath before the real meaning of his words sank in and she bolted upright. “Wait, what? Fuck.” She yanked the too thin blankets up to her naked chest as soon as the overly cold hotel room air made contact with her bare breasts. In the process, she stole blankets from the mystery Tom. His long toned thigh and hip was reveled and yep- he was naked too.

“I believe we’re married.” The words came slowly, calmly as he watched her. Absently, he tugged the blanket to cover his hip and maintain his cover, though he seemed far less concerned with potential exposure than she was. Who could blame him? His chest and abdomen were toned. No wonder she fell into bed with him. 

But marry him? She wouldn’t. She didn’t know him. And they couldn’t, anyway. “There’s no way.”

“Shall we find out?” Muscles rippled and contracted as he sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. His back was as nice to look at as the rest of him. Quickly, she chastised herself for thinking that way. 

This was insanity. 

Look away, she reminded herself, as he leaned down and slipped on a pair of boxers. Before she could stop herself, she noticed how they hugged the curve of his ass. It was possible he had a nicer ass than her. 

Tom rummaged around as she tried to make a gown out of the blanket before handing her a white button-down shirt. It was too large for her and clearly was his. “Your dress is ripped down the zipper.” 

“Turn around.” 

He complied, but a chuckle slipped from him as he did so. “It’s a bit late for that, eh?” 

“We don’t know that.” It was a lie, she knew it was. Her hips ached in a way that made it impossible to lie to herself, but she sure as hell would lie to him.

“The condom in the trash over here says we did,” or maybe lying to him wasn’t an option. “It’s okay if you don’t remember- I only remember bits. We shouldn’t have.” 

“But we did.” It killed her to admit that. “Look, if we were so drunk we couldn’t remember having sex, they wouldn’t have given us a marriage license.”

“You think?” It didn’t sound like he was listening to her as he rummaged through some papers that were scattered on the floor. 

“I know, Tom- that’s your name, right? Look, these sorts of things happen in movies and books. Sure, you can walk into the clerk’s office and get a marriage license damn near 24/7 and walk out with a license within 30 minutes, but they’re trained to look for people too damn drunk to make that decision.”

“And what if I just found the paperwork?” When she faced him, he was looking at her intently and holding a stack of papers in his hand. 

“No.” He pulled the papers from her as she reached for them, eyebrow raised. 

“You don’t know me?” His whole demeanor changed with the question, body becoming rigid.

What the fuck sort of question was that? “Should I?”

“It doesn’t’ matter.” Sure, he was hot, but what the fuck was with that ‘do you know who I am?’ shit? But he seemed to relax with that answer. He didn’t look like a mafia throwback at least. 

When she reached for the papers again, he let her take them. She didn’t exactly have the right clothes on to try and climb the man to steal them if he had decided to be childish. The official papers were all there. Everything looked legit and the yellow carbon copies were present with the official white sheets missing. 

“Fuck me.” 

“I would make a joke, but I suspect now isn’t the time.” Tom cracked a slight smile, but she only returned a glare. 

“Not the time.” 

“So, are we married?” 

“I think so.” She wanted to puke. It wasn’t fair. She was so hung over and yet the adrenalin was letting her think through the shifting sands in her brain. There wasn’t anything she wanted to do more than puke in the moment, yet her mouth was dryer than the desert. 

“Maria, correct?” Tom spoke softer. “The paperwork said your name is Maria?”

“Mia,” She corrected absently. She was only Maria when someone was mad at her. “Hiddleston? That’s my new name? What the fuck kind of name is that?” Realizing how harsh her words were, she tacked on a quick, “Sorry.” 

“I can’t say none taken, but we’re under stress, so I’ll let it pass.” 

Fiddling with the ring on her finger, she stood in silence for a moment before sitting in a heap on the bed. It wasn’t her intention to insult his name, but she hadn’t expected to have woken up to a husband.

“Here.” A glass of water waved through the tears she hadn’t realized were gathering in her eyes. “You’re probably dehydrated. I know my head is pounding,  yours surely is too.” 

“Thank you.” She wasn’t aware of how thirsty she was until she took the first gulp of water to wash down the Advil he also handed to her.

“Slow down,” He cautioned, “or you’ll make yourself sick. 

Looking down at the last bit of water in the glass, she was silent as her stomach rolled. They had to do something. This shouldn’t have been able to happen. She couldn’t be married to a stranger. 

“We need to file for an annulment.” the words came out softly and silence hung in the air after. “The ring is pretty- hopefully it can be refunded. Do you think you picked it or me?” She was talking to fill the void in the room. 

“I did,” He sounded… something. Down. Perhaps the reality of the situation was weighing on him as well. “You wouldn’t have any part of picking it.” 

“You remember?” 

“Bits and pieces are coming back.” 

“You picked a nice one.” The ring fit her well, sparkling with promises fit for a princess she would never get to be. “Hopefully you can get a refund.” 

Silence again. There were no analog clocks in hotels anymore, but she could somehow still hear the ticking of a clock marking off the seconds in her soul.

“I can have Ashley, my sister, bring me some clothes and we can go get the paperwork filed.” The words were flowing out quickly, trying to fill the room. “We can get this taken care of and be done with it. You won’t have to see me again. I won’t make it dif-”

“What if we don’t?” Long nimble fingers that made her remember warmth twisted his simple band around his finger. 

“What?” Surely she didn’t hear him right.

“I was raised to believe things happened for a reason. The amount of things that should have stood in the way to prevent this- what if it happened for a reason?” He couldn’t be serious.

“So what, we just stay married?” 

“Well,” She cut him off. 

“We don’t even know eachother!” 

This was insanity. He was insane. Why would a man like him want to be married to some random woman he didn’t know? He looked like a goddamn god, surely women fall at his feet. She wasn’t special. Any woman could have fallen into his bed. It just happened to be her this time. 

“Hear me out,” He said. It was hard not to look at him. What woman wouldn’t want a tall, handsome man pleading with her while wearing nothing but his well fitted boxers? “Let’s take some time. Let’s get to know eachother. We don’t have to rush-”

“You’re actually insane.” In her exasperation, she flopped back on the bed. The hem of the shirt- his shirt- rode up her thighs, and she quickly sat back up and yanked the fabric down. “If we ‘take our time’, the window for annulment will close. Then-”

“Then we get a divorce.” He said it as if it was that simple. 

“Divorce means lawyers and court fees. I don’t exactly have shit to split but-” 

“I’m not concerned about my assets.” 

“How long do you want? A few days?” She ran her hands through her waves in frustration, but quickly yanked them down again as she felt the hem of the shirt creeping higher again. “I need some damn pants.”

“What about a year?” 

~~~~~~

Alcohol was burning in his throat even as he called for another. Ice clanked against the cold glass. Lights and sounds blinked and clanged around him and yet, thanks to the insulation, it sounded distant. Condensation dampened his fingertips.

It was childish; he knew that. He was far too grown to be drowning his sorrows in a bar. It was risky too- with the attention and influx of fans, he could only dream of it wouldn’t be unexpected for someone to recognize him. 

“Excuse me?” A soft voice called behind his shoulder. This was it, he was found out. 

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m on per-” She slipped into the empty seat next to him. The bar was packed, and it had only recently been vacated. Though he looked at her, she had her eyes on the bartender.

“Washington apple?” She ordered.

Brown waves cascaded down her back. Were they as soft as they looked? The scent of flowers clung to the surrounding air. 

“Mia!” The bartender knew her. “Shouldn’t you have gone home hours ago?” 

“No point. I wouldn’t sleep anyway.” The glass slid into her hand with practiced coordination that gave away a history between her and the bartender.

“Why’s that?” He shouldn’t be listening in on their conversation, but the whiskey buzzed in his head, making it hard not to.

“AC is down. No one would get any sleep, anyway.” 

Tom downed his whiskey and ordered another. His ex may be getting married, but why should he spend that time alone?

“I couldn’t imagine trying to sleep here with no air conditioning.” 

~~~~~~~~~<3 Tag List:

@winterisakiller @alexakeyloveloki @jennyggggrrr @dangertoozmanykids101 @tilltheendwilliwrite @tinchentitri @wizardcherryblossom (Strikeout = couldn't tag)

[darkcanid19]

ok i'll bite. what is the hi fi normal au

So glad you asked (deranged)! To make a very long story short - paraphrased from @artdragon122 , the basic gist of it is that it follows a timeline where Kale survives and the "bad guys" play nice with the "good guys". A redemption arc if you will, and that was what the original plan was.

Full rundown under cut; General TWs for child abuse and neglect (Kale is not a happy camper).

Dragon and I came up with the AU following just that - everyone is happy and coexists with one another, and it gave us a chance to insert our OCs as well. No one died (well. kind of) and there was really nothing wrong. But I think the general trend with anything I, and by extension Dragon, touch never ends up being pure and happy and blissful.

We mostly use this AU for roleplay scenarios, so the both of us have different characters assigned to one another. The most important thing you should know about this is that Dragon had the ability to handle Kale, and miraculously, turned him into the saddest most tragic wet cat of a man ever. And by that I mean we both noticed that his poor relationship with the rest of his family is. Not that great. We took the fact that neither Peppermint nor Roxanne even batted an eye at his death in the game and ran with it.

Without going too deep into it just yet, Kale was heavily neglected and abused by his mother for not being the favorite child. Peppermint was raised to think he was the scum of the earth and thus treated him as such. Spectra ended up being the result of that, and was originally filled with the intent to brainwash his mother into giving him the love and care he was never able to have. Over time it evolved into something more sinister, thus bringing the events of the game to fruition.

While the other bosses survived Chai's escapades, Kale was not so lucky. He, quite literally, exploded to bits and was very lucky to even be able to be repaired. Chai had to and continues to live with the guilt that he did wind up killing someone. As Kale recovers, Chai and his gang handle the events at the secret Spectra lab below the island. Dragon had the brilliant idea of changing the memos you usually find down there to be a log of Kale's descent into insanity. It's very eye-opening for them and changes their entire perspective on why Kale did anything at all (except for Peppermint, we'll get to that later).

A few months later, a groupchat is made (where we stsrted this whole thing) in order to help everyone get along with each other better. It does go well save for a few incidents, one involving Chai stupidly throwing himself into a "rematch" with Roquefort and barely surviving, and some unlikely friendships are made. It slowly becomes obvious that Kale has a lot more going on than originally thought, even after everything, and surprisingly Chai is able to help him and Peppermint restore their relationship as siblings who deserve to care for one another.

Although, there is a more fucked up timeline to all this where Peppermint practically undergoes a villain arc which Dragon and I have dubbed the "Cocomelon AU". That's not important right now though.

That's basically all we have in terms of canon events for now, but here's some extra info that is just a bunch of things we decided to say "fuck it" and make canon:

• Roquefort and Drake (Dragon's OC) are married but like to pretend that they aren't. They're the pinnacle of ""toxic"" yaoi (they care about each other a lot).

• Chai is hopelessly head over heels for Kale. Kale is in that mixed stage of "why do I care about him so much" and no further moves have been made despite Chai's desperate attempts to get together. They'll figure it out eventually.

• Zanzo and Mimosa kiss each other apparently and they make it everyone's problem once people find out. It's horrid (awesome).

• We can make any franchise we want canon. This includes Monster Hunter and Ultrakill. Chai and Peppermint, who are completely "normal" about UK, were able to convince Zanzo to design IRL replicas of V1 and V2.

• Chai is a streamer and a very surprisingly wealthy furry artist. His top paying commissioner is Roquefort. It makes for very funny blackmail material.

• CNMN apparently works retail.

• Chai, Kale, and Peppermint are trans.

• Kale suffers from chronic migraines and is unfortunately subjected to the effects of getting high off of high doses of ibuprofen (may or may not have caused some emotional phone calls with his sister).

Holy fucking shit this is long. We will end up making this a sideblog at some point so if any of you are interested in this AU there will be that! If Dragon sees this feel free to add on LMAO

[takerfoxx]

Seeing as you mentioned your thoughts on polyshipping and the Israfel Special (it can't happen in canon, but with the slightest tweaks it would be very beneficial to all three of them and work quite well), any thoughts in that direction in the fun world of Madoka? Homura is, of course, going to be the tricky part, but if Rebellion implies her true happy fantasy has all of them around she's probably not as hard as she might seem.

You know, there's a real funny story about that, which I'll get to in a second.

Anyway, like the Israfel Special, I don't think it would work out in canon, but for opposite reasons. I think that circumstances and compatible personalities would actually make a Shinji x Rei x Asuka poly relationship work, but their respective issues would ultimately doom it. For the megucas, while they don't have the same incredibly specific trauma-related issues that would sabotage such a relationship (with one major exception), I just don't see them being the sort to go for something like that. That being said, there is good evidence supporting every individual pairing, so mixing them all together is certainly intriguing.

Like, I think out of all of them, Kyoko would be the one that probably the most down to give it a try. Sayaka would probably be very freaked out by the idea (Wait, you can do that? But why would you do that?), but might come around. Madoka is a toss-up on whether she would be intimidated by the idea or just sort of easily slide into it without even noticing, and Mami would probably run herself ragged trying to make herself available to everyone.

Homura, of course, is the biggest obstacle, ESPECIALLY if it's late-game Homura. Moemura has a better chance of giving it a try, but late-game Homura's self-loathing practically causes her to self-sabotage anything that makes her happy. And she's so focused on Madoka and has several timeloops of bad experiences with the others that I really don't see it working.

Honestly, the best possible chance for Poly Magi is if the other four are already in some kind of poly relationship that early-game Moemura is brought into. I do recall one incredibly lewd but also pretty adorable fic that had that premise.

Anyway, the reason I found this question hilarious is, well, I kind have been working on a story off-and-on for years with more-or-less that general idea. You weren't here for this, but a few years, when I started to experiment with sexual content, I mentioned that I have a few spicy side-projects that I work on whenever I get writer's block on my main stories to practice, as sex has always been something I've found kind of uncomfortable (aromantic, intimacy-avoidant, that sort of thing).

And one of them is a Poly Magi story, where the basic premise is that Homura finds herself in a timeline where none of the usual tragedies are happening (Nagisa never contracts, Yuma is saved from her parents, Mami surives, Kyoko comes back early, Sayaka and Madoka both make early contracts and they all form a team, etc.), which motivates her to give telling everyone everything a shot. Then Hitomi finds out about everything and makes a contract as well, they all beat Walpurgisnacht, split off into three couples, only to discover that in the battle their souls got linked and things get increasingly frisky.

Anyway, I go back and forth on whether I'll ever get around to posting or even finishing it, as it's in several incomplete pieces, but maybe one day.

[truetgirl]

Alright gang, home stretch. Since I do these little writeups every other day, I only have today the 25th, 27th, and 29th left to go. Maybe I’ll do something extra on the last day of the month, just to wrap up. We’ll see. For today:

Amberprice!

My congratulations to Chloe Price on the distinction of being the only character to show up in two of these this month. Well done, madam. Ya just gotta love split-timeline stories in which they take the opportunity to have multiple happy scenarios in the end.

But yes, Rachel and Chloe. It was an odd journey for me to liking these two together. Really it was mostly a function of it taking a long time to decide how I felt about Rachel. From the starting point of Rachel being the missing kinda-sorta-maybe (definitely) ex in LiS 1, to the semi manic pixie dream girl but with real human flaws and problems thing in Before the Storm, to the more grown up and better adjusted version we get to meet in the comics... Rachel covers a lot of ground. But we’re here to talk about their relationship, both of them together, not just Rachel, and for that, we’re gonna need to go a mental journey down one of these possible paths.

First let’s set up how I think we get to the point of them living together before meeting them in the comics. I think the point of divergence is where you, as Chloe, Have a chance to ask Rachel to prove she’s serious about leaving Arcadia Bay together.

Now the interesting thing here is that only the kiss displays an out-and-out, intensely present romantic interest. The other interesting thing? In the first game, Rachel has this tattoo (the one in this pic being a placeholder Chloe drew on):

Meanwhile, if we check the comics...

No tattoo, not here or in even a single other panel of the entire series.

Basically my theory is that, in the timeline of the original game, Chloe asked Rachel to get a tattoo, she did, and then the events we’re familiar with played out.

In the comic timeline, meanwhile, she decided to be brave and go for the kiss. That would have changed how Rachel though of Chloe and their relationship, made her take things a bit more seriously. Eventually, they did end up leaving together, and they went right to where they always said they’d go, where Max would meet them: Santa Monica.

Why is this important? Because I think the key difference is Chloe being honest, vulnerable, and brave with her feelings. It’s hard for anyone to do, let alone Chloe at that point in her life. It’s a big difference, especially when they were that early in their relationship, and it would have had ripple effects. Regardless, how they get there is secondary. There are many things I like about their relationship in the comics, bu what I really want to highlight is something about their lives once they’ve gotten to Santa Monica.

In Before the Storm both of their stories center on hard to deal with emotions surrounding their families in general and their fathers especially. Chloe’s dad is dead and she’s having tremendous issues with her well-meaning but not always great mom and her new soon-to-be-stepdad. Rachel’s dad, as far as she can tell, is cheating on her mother, shattering her previously idealized picture of him. By the end I think I’d wish it were that simple, if I were her.

Both of them are going through these deeply, deeply painful experiences centered on their parents; feeling alienated from them, being unable to accept what seem to them like completely voluntary choices that do nothing but hurt them, be it Joyce inviting David to move in or Mr. Amber’s apparent infidelity. They are, at the end of the day, two very different people from very different homes who nonetheless feel hurt in a very similar way, and they find comfort in each other.

But by the time we meet them in the comics? We hear about none of it. We never hear anything about this timeline’s Joyce and David, even though we know for sure they’re fine, as Arcadia Bay is still standing. We never hear about Rachel’s family situation either. Nothing like that, in fact. Nothing at all. We just see the two of them happy, together, and living life.

Do you know how inspiring a message that can be? Especially for a lot queer people, the message of “your family hurting you is not the be-all end-all, there is life after them and it is a life that can be full of joy without them” is HUGE. Their lives are free of even the shadows of their painful family ties. They are living happily, well, and free, and that is beautiful to me.

[coolcattime]

hey! how do you interpret/characterize capsize and Ianite’s relationship? whether it’s them being romantic and/or platonic.

While obviously the exact characterization depends on the exact story I'm writing, for the most part I see them as romantic, but not acting on it due to current circumstances, with some complications added if in scenario where Capsize is revived.

Like I imagine Capsize has basically decided to publicly not mention anything since she knows it'll just put a bigger target on her than she already has. I don't think she's particularly good at hiding it (I think most of Ianerea knows that she would be with the Goddess if she had the chance), and I think this is where her appearing jealous of Jordan comes in. She doesn't particularly want to be champion, it was just a very easy excuse for her closeness and devotion to Ianite.

Ianite I would be almost tempted to say didn't fully know how to describe and unpack her own feelings, but there's a clear difference between how she treats Jordan and Capsize so I think even in this scenario she does see them as very close friends. But I do think it was romantic, with her intending to act on it properly after she was freed which was then quashed by Capsize's death (though with Capsize dying slightly later in my post timeline, I do plan on having them act before she dies).

After Capsize actually gets revived, I imagine things get a little shaky as Ianite got a very clear message that one of them is a mostly immortal Goddess and the other can die very easily. Even if she made Capsize immortal, that still isn't a completely happy solution as she would then outlive everyone she currently knows (with some possible exception, but definitely her brother) which is A LOT to put on someone. So I characterize post timeline stuff as Ianite seeming distant, which Capsize sees as a continuing distance from when she was getting frustrated with Jordan which leads to more distance and basically a knot that's going to take some effort to untangle.

[that-thing-that-feeling]

If stancy were endgame I can't even imagine how they'd handle Jonathan, unless they did it by doing a big time jump at the end where jancy had spent years together but amicably split and she reconciled with Steve later. In the current timeline, if jancy were endgame, I think Steve would move on much easier. He's already acknowledged he's a better person now, is moving forward slowly, has good friends and support in robin and Dustin and could go on and make something of himself if he pushed himself to. Jonathan is a little trickier. He has trust issues which wouldn't be helped by his girlfriend going back to the ex they said they didn't love. It would probably make him question if their relationship had ever been genuine. Would he resign himself to just staying with his family because he's so loyal and maybe because he can't afford a decent college? Does he become a loner again if argyle goes back to Cali? Would he go back to Cali with argyle to community college which I think would be a big disservice to his character.

The only good ending I would like to see for his character if jancy isn't endgame and off at college together would be for him to go to NYU but do they even remember that? I just hope they don't resolve the love triangle by killing Jonathan off ( I don't think they'll ever kill Steve, especially after Dustin's grief with Eddie) and having stancy endgame because she retreats back to Steve with Jonathan gone thinking he deserved another chance with her.

Hmmm that’s a good point about what would they do with Jonathan in the event Jancy isn’t endgame (this is just a hypothetical—they could be endgame). I mean yeah it would affect his trust issues a lot, but the bigger problem there is they don’t let him address his trust issues that come from being abused and co-parenting since the age of 12. It’s not like a relationship can fix his trust issues, even if it made him come out of his shell more.

Yeah idk—I think either he’d be devastated but expect it bc he’s already doing a ‘push them away before they push you away’ thing. Or because he’s braced for it and is really concerned for her happiness to the point he didn’t tell her about Lenora CC so she wouldn’t set her dreams aside (I still don’t get why he thinks she would), that he would accept it for the sake of her happiness, maybe?

But his self esteem is so fragile rn it seems, it makes you wonder how he’d do with his future plans—which imo is unfair to his character, a character who in s1 had problems, but was independent and had dreams in spite of hardships in his life. But now they’ve made him sort of losing sight of his dreams bc of his relationship problems which I don’t find sweet, I find unhealthy. He should be able to stand alone as a character. It also makes a lot of sense they finally showed him having all the pressure really get to him so he was basically self-medicating.

I do think Hopper becoming his father and Jonathan no longer feeling like he has to take care of his family in the same way (though he will always love and be very caring to them) would help him out whether Jancy stays together or not. He’d feel more free to pursue whatever dreams he has, even if those take him far away from home. Again, would love to see that addressed though in s5, like in a scene between Joyce and Jonathan. I do think the financial issues are still there though. And we don’t know if the show just forgot about NYU or what.

I am a little worried they could kill off Jonathan in s5 for a few reasons. But if stancy got together after that, that would look a mess.

[firestarved]

I wrote about them in my absence, so here is a vague timeline / info dump on Aomora's family. All of this defaults to Aomora's Warcraft verse. Enjoy!

Note that the WoW timeline is actual garbage and I tried my best to get the numbers right. I am also terrible with numbers, so I apologize if this is a little inconsistent in terms of numbers in general. Basically, take the numbers featured here with a grain of salt.

AGES & ASSOCIATED HERBS ( AS OF DRAGONFLIGHT ) ➤

Reyana, the Ranger ( Firebloom ) : Died age 350. Dethran, the Magister ( Goldthorn ) : Died age 322. Elanthe, the Priestess ( Sanguine Hibiscus ) : Age 242. Liendra, the Farstrider ( Kingsblood ) : Age 188. Thoran'das, the Blood Knight ( Mageroyal ) : Died age ~123. Solniar, the Hunter ( Talandra's Rose ) : Age ~130. Erendras, the Soldier ( Peacebloom ) : Age 101. Aomora, the Pyromancer ( Tiger Lily ) : Age 59. Cyrana, the Warlock ( Wildvine ) : Age 51.

DEATHS ( AS OF DRAGONFLIGHT ) ➤

→ Dethran ( The father ) was the first immediate family member to die, as he defended Quel'Thalas against the Scourge some ~18 years ago.

→ Thoran'das ( Twin of Solniar ) fell during the Fourth War, fighting to keep Quel'Thalas safe at the Arathi warfront, roughly ~7 years ago.

→ Reyana ( The mother ) died to a mysterious illness very recently.

TIMELINE ( AS OF DRAGONFLIGHT ) ➤

→ Once upon a time, Dethran, a soon-to-be Magister, happened upon the opportunity to work with the rangers of Silvermoon. Reyana, already well on her way to become a fine ranger, caught his eye. And though it would take the poor man several years to prove his worth to her, Rey eventually fell for his courting attempts.

→ 118 years later, Reyana had their first child, and she was named Elanthe. Though no one knew yet, Ela would serve as the perfect first child, for she set the tone well for what was to come ━ chaos. Ela was like any other child, really, mischievous and always trying to get away with things she really shouldn't. And where Deth was more likely to entertain this, Rey was the exact opposite. She wanted to give her children a better shot at life than she had had, and thus, she would raise them in more of a firm manner.

→ Liendra, on the other hand, has always been a goody-two-shoes. Whenever Ela would cause a ruckus, Lia would be there to berate her. Two two sisters have always had a strained relationship for this reason, to the point where it quickly became clear to Reyana that she would have to one day pass on her mantle to her second eldest, rather than her eldest. It would take Lia twice as long, and twice as much effort to prove herself to her mother, simply because she wasn't the eldest. This caused Lia to build some level of resentment towards Ela, rather than their mother, however, which only further deepened the gap between the two.

→ The twins, Thoran'das and Solniar, were born on a day while the sun stood high in the sky, with Thora being slightly older than Sol by a few moments. As the years went by, the twins always had a close bond, and Elanthe particularly held her hand over them growing up. Thora had a sense of justice even as a kid, and always liked to ponder over life and its many aspects. Sol, always a free spirit, was just happy whenever they got a chance to go outside the walls of their home.

→ Erendras. Gestures vaguely.

→ Aomora was a handful from day one. Where her siblings may have caused their parents to gain a few grey hairs, she likely caused said hairs to fall out. She threw tantrums on a near constant basis, and was generally just.. rebelling against the whole neat and confined aesthetic that Reyana had worked tirelessly to maintain for her family. To the point that, at age 16, she told Mora to pack her bags and leave their home for a little while to teach her a lesson. Mora took this as a ' leave and never return ' kind of thing, and so she did.

→ Shortly before their sorrow over their lost daughter, Reyana and Dethran had their last child, Cyrana. Seeing as Rey did not want a repeat of what happened with Aomora, she was a lot more lenient with her youngest. This caused Rana to develop the unfortunate ' I can get away with anything ' little sister trait. So much so, she fell for the allure of fel magic, a regret Rey took with her to the grave.

ET CAETERA ➤

→ Elanthe was the one who sat down and assigned her entire immediate family a herb each. She did this sometime during the BfA timeline, shortly after her brother died. The idea was to distract herself from her loss by doing, in the grand scheme of things, small exercises like it, to focus on her family ━ the ones who were left, and honor the memories of those fallen. The idea of herbs being used came from the fact that Liendra would always refer to Aomora as ' Tiger lily '.

More might be added at a later date, idk, I'm exhausted.

[agentem]

Emily rewatches "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness"

Just watched this for the first time since the theater on Disney+. I was unhappy with it when I first saw it. I really wanted it to be Wanda's story and it's not.

But if you actually pay attention to the dumb Stephen bits it does make more sense. Or at least it has more of an internal logic than I thought it did before.

I got, on the first viewing, that Stephen saw the star in the Book of Vishanti and intuited that America's powers were similar, so that is why she told America she had to fight Wanda. But I guess I hadn't extrapolated out as far as I did on the second viewing.

We're exploring various extremes of Strange along two measures that I guess are the most Strange-ish (Strange-y) which is his need to "hold the knife", as Christine says, and how that changes with the intervention of the Book if Vishanti or the Darkhold.

We open in the Gap Junction with our most Strangey Strange: Defender Strange. The movie defines Stranges by Christine's line that he always had to be the one holding the knife. So when I say he's the most Strangey, I mean he's the one who holds the knife the most, but has never encountered the book of Vishanti or the Darkhold (until now).

But what America (or if you are cynical, the story) needs in that moment is a Strange who WILL NOT use the knife, one who will let her use her powers. Because she is basically the human embodiment of the Book of Vishanti, which are supposed to be what you need at that moment. "It gives you what you need."

So she opens a portal and it takes her to what she needs, which is "our Strange." I refuse to call him 616.

Our Strange is at a wedding and Christine asks him if he's happy. This is important because it gives us two separate timelines diverging from this moment. One where America comes into his life and one where she doesn't. If she doesn't, apparently he gets the Darkhold and becomes Sinister Strange and ruins the universe. I don't like that it's not explained how he would get the Darkhold from Wanda.

Sinister Strange is more important that 838 Strange, who has lived in what appears to be a different timeline (again I am unclear about the difference between timelines and universes but it seems like 838 branches off WAY before Sinister Strange's timeline does, because the entire battle with Thanos went differently).

I'm not really sure what 838 is supposed to show our Strange, really. Because in theory, each time America opens a portal it is to the place you need to go. But all Strange seems to learn is that Incursions are bad, but he could've just went directly to Sinister Strange and learned that as well.

It could be to remind him, and us the audience, that Wanda doesn't have to be evil. That seems to be her universe where she is her "best self," where she gets what she needs and she never encounters the Darkhold.

The film keeps giving Wanda the line "I'm not a monster, I'm a mother" which is annoying because the MCU already had problems with that binary. But the intention is not quite the same as Whedon. It's more like Wanda doesn't see herself as a monster because she is a mother. Like that is defense to do anything. Strange asks her what happens to the twins' actual mother and she doesn't ever get the chance to respond. Wong asks her why she can't be happy knowing the kids are happy elsewhere and she throws him off the cliff.

838 Wanda is certainly the Wanda that our Wanda needs though. Because even though our Wanda takes her body, and throws her across a room, (and possibly wants her dead if our Wanda ever responded to the what happens to her question), that Wanda offers forgiveness to our Wanda and finally makes her realize (she stumbles over the word mother, and looks at 838 Wanda as if realizes she is the true mother?) that she has been corrupted by the Darkhold and her reasoning is flawed.

So it's possible 838 is the convenient, solving the plot problems dimension, I guess. Because it is also where Stephen makes peace with his relationship with Christine being over, instead of going home and using the Darkhold to get what he wants (and it's possible that is how Sinister Strange got the Darkhold, from Wanda in this instance? I think it would've been cooler if they made that clear.)

And then when America opens another portal in the Gap Junction, it finally takes them to where Stephen needs to go which is to the Darkhold where Sinister Strange has it.

But the universes don't fully square up along the want/need vs knife/no knife axis.

It might also imply that our Strange has to kill the two most extreme Stranges (Defender and Sinister) versions of himself to get what he "needs." And that is why Defender Strange's corpse and Sinister Strange's copy of the Darkhold (all Darkholds) are destroyed with Wanda.

And I'm not sure what it says about the incidents with Thanos and the Time Stone. I mean the existence of the film suggests things that "need" to happen do, which is a very complicated way of saying "because of reasons."

It also implies that when America saw that bee, her parents NEEDED to be sucked away from her and leave her an orphan and I'm not at all certain why that would be the case. Because she needs to be an orphan? That seems wrong.

At the end, Strange asks Wong if he is happy, and I'd love to see the movie examining his character along the multiverse. Like what is his central conflict? But we won't get it.

[anoddopal]

!!Masterpost of Details on My Personal Crash AU(s)!!

These are fully self-indulgent and exist purely for my own amusement. Selfship content ahead! You have been warned!

Other Warnings: Fictional character being in a romantically ambiguous situation with an AU version of themselves, mentions of periods of turmoil in relationships, mentions of canon/headcanon deaths of characters

Everything is fine and healthy in the end!! :)

Normal/Canon Timeline: “Normalverse”

- Follows the canonical events of the games (with some self indulgent modifications).

- Nefarious returned to his original universe after the events of Crash 4. FemTr.opy returned to hers. He spends loooooots of time kissing up to his wife, though he eventually ends back up in Opal’s good graces.

- Not too much to say about this one! The protagonists win. The villains (Tr.opy especially) are immensely humbled. Everything is well! (…. For now??)

Alt!Tawna + FemTr.opy’s original Timeline: “Tawnaverse”

- Follows the events of the dimension where our beloved bandicoot protagonists are no more. A bittersweet reality.

- FemTr.opy was married to Opal up until she murdered Crash, Coco, and her dimension's version of Co.rtex. Upon learning of their demise Opal was completely heartbroken. She packed her bags and fled. The woman joined the remaining bandicoots (who had teamed up with Tawna to take down the great evil that loomed over them). Here she met Ami. A romance blossomed between them and they went on to marry.

- In this particular instance, FemTr.opy was forced to return to her home world after the events of Crash 4, where she would eventually be caught and imprisoned for her crimes. She would remain locked up until her eventual passing.

- In this timeline, Opal essentially became a 'werebilby' due to drinking one of Brio's concoctions. It took her a while to get control of, but now she can phase between her human form and bilby form as she pleases.

- In the end, all those who deserve it get to live out their happily ever after in this universe... except for Crash and Coco. This fact looms over the heads of all the survivors. No matter how much time passes, it doesn't get easier for those who knew the siblings.

Most Commonly Depicted Timeline: “OT3verse”

- Follows an AU where the Tr.opys reign supreme but are constantly reined in by their significantly shorter, good-doer wife. Hijinks ensure.

- This timeline is the result of Nefarious bringing Nefertiti back to his original dimension after the events of Crash 4, rather than returning alone as he did in other AUs.

- Opal was NOT HAPPY when her husband brought back his other self. How dare? He invalidate?? The sanctity of their fucking marriage?? She was this close to separating from him/wouldn’t even acknowledge FemTr.opy. Both Tr.opys freaked out. The course of events may have played out VERY differently if it weren’t for FemTr.opy’s determination to make things right. It took months. Opal eventually was willing to give them both a chance but they had to start from square one. Trust had to be established. Rules and boundaries had to be made. Eventually one thing let to another and before they knew it they were planning the largest wedding celebration the world would ever see. 🕒🐇🕒

- The Tr.opys technically win in this universe. Of course Opal wasn't about to let them get away with smiting their enemies, so a compromise had to be made. It was agreed that a brand new dimension would be created to satisfy the masters of time while the bandicoots (and basically anyone else they don't care for) would live undisturbed in another pocket of the universe.

- Having lost her beloved wife (not to mention basically everything) in her old timeline, this FemTr.opy has taken it upon herself to not repeat her past mistakes. She isn't an entirely different person by any means, but in order to make things work this time around she needed to drop her cruelty to animals and find more... constructive ways to manage her tendencies.

- The relationship between the Tro.pys isn't inherently romantic. For them, it's more like having a clone to relate to. Why, imagine being a self-absorbed individual with a mirror reflection that can interact with you! In other words, they view the other as an extension of themselves. Certainly there's flirting between them, but that's mostly it.

- That being said, both Tro.pys know what if it came down to it, Nefertiti has the capacity to throw Nefarious into a raging fire with little to no remorse. She has more of a mean streak than he does, and she is fully determined to not lose what she had a second time around. He does not care to get on her bad side,

- Opal keeps her horologist spouses in line. They need someone to keep them in check. Hey, they can still be evil, sure! They just need to be evil within reason.

MORE SHIP DYNAMIC INFO:

Opal/Tr.opy- The exact moment Nefarious started to take an interest in her was when she worriedly asked Dr. Cor.tex about his obvious jaundice. She wasn't trying to be mean, but everyone who was present at the time broke out into laughter at Neo's expense. Opal and Nefarious share a love of history, traveling through time, and appreciating the cultures of various societies- both old and new. They both also enjoy puns, though he only takes interest in time-related jokes. Their relationship has an air of nostalgic decorum. However there is a small point of contention, as ever so often Nefarious lets it slip he thinks he's smarter than her (in multiple contexts he is but that's not the point). 

Opal/Tr.opy (f)- Their relationship is surprising, given Nefertiti's pension for brutality. In the Tawnaverse, her sadistic tendencies were the reason Opal insisted upon a divorce. In order to make things work the second time around, the female Tr.opy had to redirect her destructiveness into more conductive avenues. She is incredibly soft on her wife, and has a hard time telling Opal “no”. They bond over history and exploring the world via time travel as well, but with an added fascination of the more morbid elements to reality. The Mistress of Time can be ice cold at the best of times but she'll absolutely melt in Opal's presence. It's a bit of a sight to behold.

Opal/Ami- They're two super soft dorks. Both are 100% fully grown individuals who are ready to cry over anything from an a fictional character's death to an adorable bunny at any given moment. They like indulging each other's interests, so much so that they've successfully converted their respective spouse dabble in the other's hobbies (Opal does a bit of noncompetitive racing and Ami now has immense respect for creative processes). Ami encourages Opal to be more active while Opal reminds Ami to settle down and chill out regularly. 

RELEVENT ART/POSTS:

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[dipdyedsilence-blog]

Encebollado

Here we go with another story of a failed experienced with the male species, but this one is the worst lol. I have come to realize that writing is truly where my energy is best released. I completely forgot that i have a whole series to look back on about how much i hate men. This one though, i gave him a year of my life. Well, a year and some change. Maybe one day we will make a podcast or write a book about all of the experiences i have had that have made me who i am. Hopefully i can look to this one day and laugh, smile, and remember how far i have come. I met encebollado through a friend that i had at work. The same work place where i had met Tarzan believe it or not. It was a passionate affair im not going to lie. I had no interest in encebollado at the beginning. He had reached to his cousin basically in love with me and begging him to meet me after seeing him throughout his social media. I was never interested in him because at the time i was still in the hurricane that was Tarzan and had been dealing with school and just a lot of change and uncertainty. I went on a date with him though and i had the best time. I felt an immediate connection. We went to dinner, we went out dancing, we jammed in his truck to Versace on the floor, and we just enjoyed each others company (im crying lol).  I dont really remember too well the timelines. But it is funny to think that you can connect with people on the level we had, and then have them simply leave your life like they were never there in the first place. After you have invested, yes invested, so much time and energy into them and building a relationship with them that you should hope would last forever. But ANYWAY, i am detaching from the story. One of my first memories with him also was one of the first times/ if not the first time i met him. I was working that day and his cousin kept calling me over to his table. I was working cashier so i was not very present on the floor that day but he kept calling me and would not leave me alone until i came to say hi. I went over there and was introduced to everyone. It was my friend, his other cousin and his wife, and encebollado. I remember him being so nervous to speak to me, he barely even looked at me. i remember thinking, tf is wrong with this dude lol. So bold over the text messages but when im infront of him, he did not even look me in the eyes. Nonetheless, that was the start of our story. Me, being me, i ended things with him after the firstish date. I had felt he was very jealous and i did not like that. I liked him, i enjoyed our time together a lot, but i was not about to get into a relationship with someone who was jealous and insecure because i know myself and the loyalty i can bring. So we ended there. Maybe a month later, if not a little less, i saw him again. I went to his cousins house and we were watching a movie. Encebollado came in with another one of their cousins and a friend drunk as hell (and yes, they have a lot of cousins). I just remember that day really wanting to follow my heart. He came up to me all sweet. I could tell he wanted to sit next to me but he wanted to give me my space, so i called him over. Then after that day, it all really started. We would go out, we would dance, we would go get dinner, we would spend the night with one another ***no funny business*** and just simply enjoy one anothers company. It felt amazing, i was so happy. He treated me so well and i felt myself opening up to him. He asked me a couple of times to date one another, but i wanted to take things slow. then the tables turned and i wanted to be with him and he wanted more time, until one day, he asked me to be his girlfriend to which i obviously accepted. I was so happy that day too. I had been battling with whether or not i wanted to open myself up to someone and i decided to take the chance with him. After all, he gave me hope in love. He had shown me what it was like to be loved and cared for right. And i loved that. He was my person at the time, my best friend. Yeah we would have little arguments or moments, but it was all natural. It was nothing i was concerned with because i knew we just were two people with very different backgrounds. We just needed time to understand one another. I know with him what i felt was love. The main time i felt like maybe we werent meant for one another was around my birthday. He had just started his new job, he was frustrated, dealing with a lot of stress, and we would bicker a bit. I dont know if i psyched myself out into thinking he didnt care about me or what but i just remember thinking, whatever he does for my birthday will prove his love for me. And it did. This was the first year that i did not cry on my birthday in a long time and that was all thanks to him. He surprised me, made me feel so special, treated me with so much love and care that i was amazed. Fast forward some more to his birthday... I really tried my best to make him happy and make him feel special but for some reason i guess i had failed. I had gotten him so many cool things that i thought he had loved and appreciated but i just remember that night him going off on me for God knows what reason. And i really thought it was going to be over that night. We had a flight at 4am the next day to go to miami and i was not looking forward to it. But we went, we had a good time, or at least i think we did. I do know there was tension, but i had a good time. He kept saying he had never taken anyone on a trip like that before and how he had a great time with me. But i didnt feel it. And i will never know if that was from my own hurt, or if there was something wrong. Fast forward some more to the week before my graduation. I find out about some bad news with my family and he was with me the day it happened. He comforted me in the way i needed. He just hugged me and let me cry. Thats all i need, is to be hugged and allowed to cry. And for the first time in a long time, he comforted me in the best of ways. Not even a week later we have a big spectacle. I was crying one day and asking him for some reassurance and he just blew up on me and wanted to talk about breaking up. We spoke later that day for NINE hours. Trying to adjust our situation and talk through it. I cried more than i feel like i have every cried that day. and im not going to lie, i begged him to stay. And in hindsight, it was not the best choice. Next day we went to the beach and had a great time. You would have never thought the hours before were consumed by tears. The weeks after were great, he was loving again, he was romantic, he made me feel loved like he used to. One day i was feeling down, and he brought me flowers and wrote me the sweetest card. I will never forget how loved and thoughtful that was. Now i realize that should be a bare minimum. I got sick a couple of weeks after the fight and for some reason i feel like everything just really went downhill from there. I went from feeling like the most special, loved, and luckiest girl in the world by my partner to feeling like i was annoying, an inconvenience, and depressing. And well, that lead up to our break up almost two weeks ago. I can make that another story, but yeah, here we are. Almost two weeks after him and i have parted ways and i can at least say the sadness is more bearable. But a part of me feels like i am just used to being sad right now. The difference is this time that there is definite hope that i will come out of this sadness instead of the faulty hope that he would get better and take away the sadness. I am taking it a day at a time, allowing myself to express and feel and learning to love life again. I still miss him. i miss our memories, i miss the person i was once in love with, and i miss my best friend. But i have come to realize that he was not that person for a long time. and i was struggling to hold on to a person who did not exist anymore and that was why i was so sad. I would rather live in the past than accepting the reality that he was not the person he used to be. And yes, people change and it is natural, but they should always change for the better, not the worse. And unfortunately in this situation, it was the latter. 

[hallownestfictives]

Hello! This blog is mostly for the group of Hollow Knight Fictives that are in this system. Below the cut you may find information about each fictive!

Dni:Anti-endos and other basic dni criteria. Also if you use anything but they/them for the vessels.

The list of the Fictives are as follows(in order of date being active);

Galiant Subsystem(they/them/it/its):

This subsystem is made of of Asa(they/them), Hollow(they/it), and an unknown part. They are a fictive of The Hollow Knight/Pure Vessel from a universe where Asa had gotten the powers of the dream realm and was slowly rebuilding Hallownest with Ghost and Hornet. Hollow is Asa’s shade and no one knows who the unknown part is. Asa had a boyfriend in his source, a moth. Asa’s main front trigger is the pure vessel theme from the game (you can bet this makes it hard to play the game sometimes).

Radiance/Radi(She/her):

Radi is a rather stubborn individual, which often leads to her butting heads with Evanthe and Mo-mo. But she’s also very kind. For the longest time we thought she was pregame Radi fictive, simply due to the fact she was always angry and was lashing out at the rest of the system and generally not being the nicest. But it turns out she wasn’t. She’s from the same timeline as Evanthe and the others, and she developed these traits during her relationship with Evanthe that happened before Evanthe had met Callisto. She never had a chance to unlearn those reactions until she was in our system and she has been doing amazingly. She is beloved by the system and a wonderful caretaker.

Grimm (He/Him):

Grimm is Radi’s brother, he’s a very happy go lucky guy and he adores singing and reading plays. He’s a theater nerd at heart and he often tries to get others to have fun as well. He doesn’t do well with negative emotions of other people outside the system but he tries his best.

The Time Subsystem(they/them/it/its):

This subsystem takes form of Ghost. The headmates of this subsystem is Mo-Mo(they/them), Shade(it/its), Veyin(they/them), and Little Shadow(it/its). They come from the normal games timeline with no major differences other than Quirrel and Tiso ended up saving eachother and some of the vessels were still alive. They share a source with Moth, Quirrel, and Kalmia.

Patiel (He/Him):

Patiel is a Pale King fictive from an au called Time Heals (more info about au found on @feralcoffeebug ). We have no idea why he showed up but he is a great protector and tends to stop Callisto from doing anything stupid to the body or the body’s friends. He loves his children very much even if he is horrible at showing it.

Lace (she/her):

A lace fictive from silksong. She’s very gay for hornet even though she never got to tell her. The prequel for “The Bells Ring in the Distance but All I Can Think of is You” by feralcoffeebug on ao3 rings mostly true to her memories as she wrote it with her past in mind. She is a wingless Silk moth.

Quirrel (he/him):

Quirrel shares a timeline with the Time Subsystem, he missed Tiso and beats himself up for leaving him behind.

Kalmia (they/them):

A lost kin fictive, Kalmia is very shy and tends to stick to themself if someone is not fronting with them. They like watching cartoons and playing random games they can get their hands onto. They also enjoy sword fighting and find the thought of it fun.

Evanthe(she/her):

Evanthe is a fictive of the White Lady and would prefer you call her White Lady or WL. She is a persecutor (self assigned) but she can still be an interesting talk and she tends to be rather polite. We affectionately call her source the Fucked Up Version of Hollow Knight.

Moth (they/them):

Moth is a darling individual who adores running around and playing with the cats. However they also are extremely shy. They love the streamer Skurry and will co front if they can when we are watching them.

Castillo(he/him):

Evanthe’s Husband, very supportive of her and weak from being around void too much. Evanthe babies him a lot and enjoys carrying him around. He is also a persecutor and from the same source as Evanthe.

Honey(She/her):

Hornet fictive, Herrah got killed by Callisto when she was very young leaving her to be raised by Evanthe and Callisto. She still learned how to fight, but she is much more reserved than Hornet in source. She was at first affectionately called Honey Hornet but it soon shortened to just Honey.

Azazel(it/its):

A fictive of the Pure Vessel, holds itself up to high standards. It is currently questioning if it still wishes to identify as a persecutor as it has done some thinking. It tends to have a hard time trusting it’s feelings and expressing them. The child of Callisto and Evanthe

[jikookiekosmos]

Use My Best Colors For Your Portrait || jjk

➥Pairing: best friend!jungkook/reader, boyfriend!jungkook/reader, artist!jungkook

➥Summary: After surprising Jungkook with his own studio room for his paintings, he couldn’t be any more over the moon. All’s well and good until he’s struggling to find inspiration...which you happily provide him with. He’s ecstatic to find his muse in you, and painting your portrait brings him so much joy. Things take a turn however, when he suddenly realizes what else he wants to paint.

➥Genre: established relationship, tiny bit of angst if you squint, fluff, smut

➥Rating: 18+

➥Words: ~7.9k (small drabbles don’t exist for me apparently, oops)

➥Content warnings: most of this at the beginning is just cute fluff domestic times (finally not much angst!), blonde jungkook, jk ties his hair up at some point (my weakness), jk puts paints on the reader, making out, slight hair pulling, cursing, shower sex times, jungkook has a big dick, oral (m. receiving), very slight mouth fucking, dirty talk, fingering (very brief), unprotected sex (safe sex is great sex), biting, cumming inside, cute times in the shower, jungkook is actually the sweetest, reader and jk are so in love with each other it hurts, also jk saying ‘only for you’ is a thing i started and can’t stop now oops

A/N: hello! This is part of my Only for You (OFY) Drabble series, but it can be read as a stand-alone! Their relationship will make a lot more sense though if you’ve read OFY beforehand. This fic takes place roughly around six months after the events of OFY (so in between that and the dream drabble I also posted).

Once again, thank you to @dntaewithluv​ for her endless support and always giving me feedback, I forever appreciate you and your friendship is more than I could ever ask for 💜

I’ve written a few other drabbles and will list them below, along with a general timeline:

When I Dream of You - ~1 year after OFY

Stay With Me - a few months after the dream drabble

Also, I hope that if you read this, you enjoy it~

➥OFY Spotify Playlist (songs I listened to for inspo)

➥Series Masterlist

➥All Works Masterlist

taglist: @inlovewiththemoonn​

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

You would do absolutely anything in the world for Jeon Jungkook.

Seeing him happy had to be at the top of your list of favorite things in the world, as it had been for many years as his best friend, and now in the several months since the two of you started dating. Some things just never changed, you guessed.

Which is why you took it upon yourself to change one of the spare rooms in the house you two were renting into a space where he could thrive as the artist he was. Initially, the two of you thought it would be nice to use that space as a work area for you, since your job required you to sometimes do work from home. And for a little while, that’s exactly what you did.

But ever since you found out Jungkook liked to paint – scratch that, he loved to paint, and had been doing so for longer than you thought – the gears started turning in your head.

The current space he was using to create his art was definitely less than ideal. The house had a decent sized garage area, so there was enough room for him to store his supplies and be able to paint without it being too much of an issue. The downside, though, was it was cramped and even though Jungkook said he didn’t mind it, you still couldn’t help the frown from masking your features whenever you saw him huddled up so close to his easel.

For the last few weeks, and with lots of help from internet searches, you’d been slowly converting your space into something like a studio. You didn’t have to worry about Jungkook finding out, either, since he very rarely went into that room seeing as he had no reason to. He respected your privacy the same as you respected his, so this made everything infinitely easier for you in the long run.

The day had finally arrived where you would show the new space to Jungkook. Everything was set up as perfect as you could manage it – at least you hoped so – and you were dying of excitement to show him as soon as possible.

You were also, however, incredibly nervous at the same time. What if he didn’t like it? Even worse, what if he hated it?

Of course, you knew deep down that there was no way Jungkook could hate anything you ever did, unless it was something horrible, but you worried about everything because that’s just how you were. So, when the two of you were sitting at the dinner table one night, you tried hard to swallow the lump in your throat as you listened to Jungkook talk about his newest work.

“I really think you’re gonna like how this one turns out, angel.” Jungkook was offering you a sweet smile as he went to grab another bite of food from his plate. You managed to smile back, despite the hammering of your heart against your chest. He was basically handing you the perfect opening for you to segue the conversation!

“I know I’ll love it, Koo.” You watched as his small smile turned into a full grin, his nose scrunching up in that adorable way that had you falling in love with him all over again every time you saw it.

“Speaking of your paintings,” you started off, clearing your throat while he swallowed down his food. He looked at you with his undivided attention and it made your heart skip a beat.

Ok let’s be real, every damn thing this man did made your heart skip a beat.

“Yeah? What about them?” He twirled more of the noodles around his fork while he waited on your answer.

You gulped. “Wouldn’t you like it if you had more space?”

Jungkook chuckled and placed his fork down, shaking his head as he placed on hand on top of yours that was still resting by your plate. You’d barely touched your food and he noticed.

“Baby,” he started, “as much as I would love to have a bigger space, what I have now is just fine. I know you think it’s stifling my creativity in there, but I’m still creating things and am comfortable.” He squeezed you hand gently before returning to his food.

“I get that you think the garage is fine but what if I told you that- that you could have a bigger workspace.” You finally picked up your fork and were poking around at your own food now, avoiding his gaze. You could feel his stare boring into you regardless, though.

“I mean – yeah, hypothetically I could have more space, but it’s not in the cards for us right now and that’s ok, too. Maybe one day.”

The way he always was optimistic about your future together made you feel warm all over. Jungkook liked to look on the bright side of every situation, and it’s been enough to help you keep your own wits about yourself numerous times now.

But this time you wanted to show him that the future could be closer than he realized.

“Koo, can you come with me real quick? I have something I want to show you.”

You didn’t miss the confused look that flashed across his face for a second before his calm demeanor took over again.

“Of course.” He hopped up from the table, that smile you adored now plastered on his face. “Lead the way.”

“Ok but I also need you to close your eyes.” You reached out to take his hand and were rewarded with an eyebrow raise.

He hummed thoughtfully but did as you asked, closing his eyes and grasping your hand tighter so you could lead him wherever you planned to.

You walked through the house pulling him behind you, feeling your heartbeat quicken with every step to where its pace was almost concerning. Whether or not it was mostly from excitement or nervousness, you weren’t sure.

You finally reached your destination and let go of his hand so you could open the door.

“Keep your eyes closed, ok,” you asked. Jungkook simply nodded and you saw a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. He had no idea what you were about to show him, but knowing you and how much he loved pretty much anything you did, he was sure it’d probably make him happy.

And he couldn’t have been more correct in his assumption.

At the quiet sound of you telling him he could open his eyes he did so, slowly at first, blinking to adjust to the light the now flooded over the both of you. It took him several seconds to register exactly what he was seeing, and when he did he couldn’t speak. All he could do was stare around the room, mouth agape.

Decorating the walls were the paintings he had given you, beautiful works of various sizes and themes. Alongside the far wall was a tall shelf that housed all his supplies (how had you managed to get them past him without him noticing?), and even some new things like paints he’d been eyeing for a while and other tools he hadn’t had a chance to get himself yet.

But in the middle of the room stood his easel and chair, set up in the similar fashion as it had been in the garage. His apron was draped across the back of the chair, and there was even tarp laid out underneath the workspace. You research had paid off because everything was set up in such a way that it created the perfect atmosphere for Jungkook’s creativity to shine through in ways it hadn’t been able to before.

You weren’t aware of this yet, however, because you were still watching Jungkook’s reaction. He still hadn’t said anything, and as you pulled your bottom lip between your teeth, you started to wonder if this was the right call-

Strong arms were pulling you up from the ground and spinning you around before you could process it, making you squeal with delight as Jungkook twirled you before bringing you back down to pepper kisses all over you face.

“Angel, I can’t believe this, you did all this for me?” He was still holding onto your hips tightly, beaming as he looked down at you. Your nod and giggle was all the confirmation he needed before he pulled you into another kiss, this one slightly more heated than the ones before.

“Do you like it,” you questioned when the both of you pulled away to breathe. Jungkook laughed before taking your face in his hands and brushing his nose along yours.

“Do I like it? Baby, I love it. It’s perfect! Thank you so much.” Another kiss. “I love it and I love you, I love you so fucking much.”

His happiness made your heart soar and you definitely knew that you’d do something like this an infinite amount of times if it meant he’d keep that smile on his face.

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

A few weeks passed by and Jungkook had been using his new studio nearly everyday at this point. His creations had been increasing in numbers and he was starting to receive commissions from others thanks to his small online shop he’d set up with your help. He still worked at the bar as his primary job, but he was also grateful to have a hobby on the side that could potentially yield something lucrative.

Of course, Jungkook’s increase in his time spent on his art still didn’t take away from his time with you. If anything, it gave the both of you another way to spend time together, since now there was enough space for you to sit in and observe him paint when you couldn’t before. You often sat quietly and either did some of your own work or engaged in your own hobbies while he painted, and it was always peaceful.

There came a day, though, that you never thought you’d experience: Jungkook had run out of inspiration. He’d hit his first real artist’s block and it was taking a bigger toll on him than he would’ve liked.

You rubbed his shoulders as he sat in front of his easel one night, groaning in frustration about his current work. “It’s not turning out at all like I want it to. I’ve been struggling with finding new inspiration and it clearly shows in whatever this is.” He vaguely gestured to the canvas, prompting you to place a kiss on his cheek as you ran your hand through his pretty blonde hair. You knew that always helped to calm him down and this case was no exception.

Jungkook sighed heavily, turning to place a kiss on your palm that was still lingering around his face. “Sorry, I don’t mean to get worked up. It just sucks, you know? I’d been on this really good streak of creating things and now I just…can’t. It’s weird and I don’t like it.” He pouted slightly and the sight made you giggle.

“I know, baby, but you’ll figure something out. You always do.” You placed a kiss on top of his head before you walked around to sit on his lap. You wrapped your arms around his neck and one of his hands cradled your waist to steady you.

He was humming thoughtfully as he looked you up and down, your hands now playing with the hair at the nape of his neck.

“What are you thinking about?”

He smiled slyly. “You.”

You rolled you eyes before returning the smile. “Ok, what about me? I’m curious.”

His hand was rubbing up and down your side. “Nothing in particular, just usually looking at you can help me with inspiration.”

His confession made you gasp. “Really?”

He nodded and smiled wider. “Really. You inspire me a lot.” He placed a chaste kiss on your lips before sighing again. “This time though it’s not really working like I’d hoped.”

You watched his eyes close and his brows furrow before an idea popped into your head. “Hey,” you reached down to tilt his chin up so he’d look at you, “It might be a long shot, but: have you ever considered painting portraits?”

He pursed his lips as he thought about it. The simple act made you want to kiss him but now wasn’t the time.

“Honestly…no. I’ve never thought about it before because I usually prefer to paint scenery.”

You searched his eyes as you asked your next question. “Well, if you want to try, maybe you could paint me? Even if it doesn’t go anywhere, maybe it can help spark a new idea or something?”

You watched as his eyes slowly lit up at your suggestion, his face morphing into a smile that you mirrored.

“That’s a great idea! It’s something new and it also includes you, so I already love it.” You chuckled in his lap as he hugged you closer, placing a small kiss on your neck. “Thank you.”

You ran your hands through his hair again before leaning back. “Anything for you. Do you want to start now?”

He thought about it for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, we can do that. Is there, uh – was there something specific you wanted to wear for it?”

You wiggled your eyebrows suggestively. “Are you suggesting you want to paint a nude portrait?”

Even though Jungkook knew your body better than you did at this point, your words still managed to make him blush as he groaned. “No, I wasn’t thinking that- not that I’d mind of course just you know, whatever makes you comfortable-”

You laughed at his flustered nature before hopping off his lap. “You’re so cute. I’ll go find something to change into, it shouldn’t take long.”

“R-right,” he stuttered, still clearly somewhat affected by what you had said. You shook your head with amusement as you went to your bedroom to find something to wear. You settled for a purple dress that you knew Jungkook loved, and considering a lot of his paintings involved shades of purple and blue, you figured it would be perfect.

You knew you made the right choice when you stepped back into the room and saw Jungkook’s face when his eyes fell on you. He looked like he’d never seen someone so beautiful (he looked at you like that a lot and it always did something to you) and your lips curled upwards into a smile before you could realize it.

You stopped in the doorway and twirled, giving him a full view of the dress. “Is this ok?”

You already knew the answer, but it was always nice to hear him say it.

He cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, it’s perfect. You can, uh, you can take a seat whenever you’re ready.”

While you were changing, Jungkook had pulled one of the loveseats from the living room into the space so you’d have somewhere to sit or lay while he painted you. The loveseat was a dark blue color and it contrasted beautifully against the color of your dress. You decided to lay on it in a comfortable pose, and you couldn’t help the small giggle you let out at Jungkook’s reaction to your choice.

You had laid an arm behind your head, turning your face so you were looking at him while the rest of your body was sprawled out on the loveseat. One of your legs dangled over the side, making the skirt of your dress hike up somewhat. You were very comfortable, and Jungkook was very happy with your pose.

“Make it pretty, ok,” you joked with him. He smirked at your comment.

“You know I will. I’ll use my best colors, just for you.”

“Wow, I feel special,” you quipped back. You were rewarded with the sound of his beautiful laughter as it echoed off the walls.

“You’re the most special,” he admitted honestly. You gave him a brilliant smile and he felt his heart stutter.

With the way you were looking at him, Jungkook thought that if he didn’t start painting, he may never start. So, he forced himself to tear his eyes away from you so he could find the paints he needed to get started. He tied up his hair, a few of the blonde strands escaped and framed his face but he didn’t seem to mind it too much as he got to work.

Thankfully, since you’d chosen a good position, the process was easier than you thought it would be. You just had to lie there and watch him work, which you happily did. You enjoyed watching his face scrunch up in concentration before relaxing again as he brushed stroke after stroke onto the canvas.

You were so beyond proud of him that it made your heart swell inside your chest.

Jungkook had been painting for a little over half an hour before he announced it was time to take a break. He could paint for hours on end without stopping, but that was when he didn’t have a live subject he was working with. He walked over to you with a bottle of water so you could sip from it without having to disturb your position too much.

You sat up slightly so you could drink, and while you did so, one of your dress straps started falling down your arm. Jungkook immediately went to move it back into place, but as he did, he couldn’t help but stare at the dark contrast of the purple satin against your skin. He thought it was so pretty, and his mind started wandering to how the paint itself might look-

He shook his head to rid himself of the thought. He may have been covered in paint himself, but that didn’t mean he needed to go putting paint on you.

When you were re-situated on the loveseat once more, Jungkook strolled back over to this easel. Unfortunately, since that thought of you covered in paint first took up residence inside his head, he now found it hard to focus on anything else. While he stared at you to try and resume your portrait, he just kept picturing you with painted streaks covering your skin instead.

You must have noticed he was distracted because soon you were calling over to him. “Kook? Is something wrong?”

He gulped and shook his head. “No, nothing’s wrong! You’re doing great, baby.”

“Do you need me some other way?”

Such a simple statement and yet it was stirring something inside of him. Asking him if he needed you a certain way ignited that desire to once again paint you and he found himself unable to hold back from asking anymore.

“Yeah, I uh, I wanted to try something.” You were confused when he got up and started walking toward you, only carrying his paint supplies. At first you thought maybe he just wanted to get closer, but he didn’t bring the easel with him.

“What are you wanting to try,” your voice was laced with curiosity. He gave you a shy smile.

“I was just thinking about how pretty it would be,” he looked down at the floor then back up at your face before he continued, “if I used you as a canvas instead.”

You felt your breath hitch in your throat at the request. Jungkook was asking to paint you, not paint you on a portrait, but to paint you. The suggestion intrigued you a lot more than you thought it would, which is ultimately what led to you nodding your agreement. “I think I’d like to try that, too.”

Jungkook’s face broke into such a dazzling smile that excited you to no end. You watched as he pulled his chair close to you, as well as some tarp to place around the area. When he was situated where he wanted to be, he dipped his brush into some of the purple paint on his palette and gently lifted your arm. The feeling of the paint as it brushed along your arm was foreign but not unwelcome. There was something about it that was almost calming.

You were now also recalling all the times you’d told Jungkook how pretty he looked even covered in paint. The pretty colors contrasting with his beautiful, golden skin tone never failed to take your breath away no matter how many times you saw it. You wondered briefly if this is what he was experiencing now as he took his time painting your skin.

He was focusing on your with such intensity and taking great care to only get the paint where he wanted it, so as to not stain certain parts of you or your dress. The sight of his caution made that familiar warmth bloom in your chest again.

He took his time painting beautiful designs along your arm before moving down to paint on your thighs and legs. He was alternating between purple and blue hues now, and the swirling patterns reminded you a lot of his tattoos that you adored. You had spent many nights lying next to him in bed, tracing the lines of his tattoos until you were too sleepy to keep it up. Seeing the patterns against your own skin briefly made you think about if you would ever want to get a tattoo. Before you put too much thought into it, your attention was pulled back to Jungkook who was sitting up now and admiring his work.

The time had passed by much quicker than you anticipated, and it was starting to get dark outside as the light was no longer filtering in through the windows of the room.

He seemed satisfied as he nodded and smiled. “Wait here, I’ll be right back. Stay just like this,” he placed a gentle kiss on your forehead before leaving the room. When he returned, he had his coveted polaroid camera in his hands. Jungkook was also big into photography, and every one of his hobbies suited him perfectly in some way.

“Is it ok if I take a photo of you, baby?”

You grinned and nodded, being careful not to move too much from your current position. He snapped the photo and the polaroid was printing immediately after. When he pulled it from the camera, he laid it down on the table next to his easel so it could develop properly.

Jungkook wiped his hands off on his apron before taking it off and drawing his attention back to you. He could stare at you like this all day, but he knew it would probably be best to get you both cleaned up and paint-free.

He offered a hand for you so he could help pull you off the loveseat. When you were up fully, he wrapped his arms around you, careful to not get any of his exposed, paint-covered skin on your dress.

“You look so beautiful like this,” he murmured softly, brushing some of your hair out of your face as his eyes scanned up and down your body to admire his creation. “And as much as I love seeing it, we should probably get this paint off soon. When it dries too much, it can be a bitch to scrub off, and I don’t want that for you.”

You chuckled at that and simply nodded your head. You’d been lying there for nearly 2 hours at this point, so you were pretty tired and ready to just relax for the night.

The two of you hopped into the shower shortly after, helping each other rid your bodies of the remnants of paint covering you both. You always loved taking showers with Jungkook, because whether or not it was a short, regular shower, or one shared after a night of intimacy, these moments were some that you cherished the most and wouldn’t change for the world.

You got lost in the feeling of Jungkook scrubbing shampoo into your hair, letting out soft noises as your eyes slipped closed.

Your noises always threatened to drive Jungkook crazy, and this time was no exception. He couldn’t deny the stirring of his cock as he listened to the little moans slipping from your mouth at such a simple action.

Of course, since he was so close to you, there was no way you didn’t feel him. His cock was hardening against your thigh, and the fact that you were turning him on by not doing much turned you on.

You could feel the wetness start to slip past your folds, but you decided to not make any moves yet, wondering how far you could take this before either of you snapped. You knew that teasing him was one of the quickest ways to get Jungkook riled up.

“Feels so good, Koo,” you shamelessly moaned out as he kept massaging the shampoo into your hair. You heard him let out a small grunt at your deliberate words, feeling him twitch against your thigh as he got harder.

You leaned your head back to give him a better view of your neck, since you knew he loved to mark you up there. His hands were starting to tangle in your hair, but he took care to not pull too hard as he brought his attention back to the task(s) at hand.

He was currently focusing on two things: 1) getting the rest of the shampoo out of your hair, and 2) not fucking you up against the shower wall. Doing the first thing was currently keeping him from acting on the second, but you certainly weren’t helping with that.

Your head lolled around on your neck, your eyes still closed as your sounds got louder. He knew you were messing with him now, so as retaliation he pulled on your hair a little tighter, making you gasp.

“You’re doing this on purpose, angel,” you could hear the dark tone of his voice over the waterfall in the shower clearly, and it just made you more aroused. You chanced opening your eyes to look at him, and the sight you were met with made you moan louder, this time without trying.

Jungkook was staring at you, mouth slightly parted as he let out pants of his own, his blonde, soaked tresses falling in his face and covering his eyes. His tongue darted out to lick his lips as he tugged on your hair again, making you reach out to place your hands on his chest.

“You’re teasing me to get me worked up, hm?” All you could do was nod, his husky voice and the feeling of his hand wrapped in your hair making you wetter by the second. There was no use in playing coy any longer. You wanted him, and he wanted you.

The question now was: who would make the first move?

You realized that you wanted to be the one to make the first move, so you did.

“So, what if I am,” you asked sweetly, wrapping your hand around his length and pumping him slowly. His eyes closed and he leaned his forehead against your shoulder, fingers now digging into your waist.

“You know what happens when you do that,” Jungkook warned. You absolutely knew what happened, and you definitely wanted it to happen.

“Hmm, I don’t know, maybe you should enlighten me.” You teased him as you gently nibbled on his earlobe, increasing your pace as you continued to stroke him. You heard him let out a soft moan against your shoulder as he placed a kiss there.

With no more hesitation, you turned him slightly and sank down to your knees in front of him, delighted by how his cock jerked in your hold when you steadied it with your hand.

Jungkook stared at you wide-eyed as you started moving your hand around his shaft before placing a gentle kiss on his tip, the prettiest groan falling from his lips. “Fuck, Y/N, are you sure you want to do this?”

You peeked up at him as you fluttered your eyelashes, knowing that seeing you like this always aroused him beyond belief. You continued moving your hand in slow, languid strokes, and he was almost fully hard now.

He let his head hit the wall behind him, soft curses and praises for you tumbling from his mouth. 

Seeing him like this had to be near the top of the list of your favorite sights to ever witness. And right then is when you figured it’d be the perfect time to surprise him. Without a warning you opened your mouth and took all of him in that you could reach.

Jungkook’s reaction was immediate.

“Hey wait what are y- oh my God, fuck.” His loud moan echoed off the walls of the room, causing a fresh wave of arousal to pool between your thighs. You sucked harder as you hollowed out your cheeks, ignoring the way your throat constricted around him.

“Y/N, shit, you feel so good, your mouth- fuck, angel, I don’t want to hurt you,” Jungkook was panting hard above you, eyes shut and brows furrowed, jaw slack as he unabashedly continued to moan at your actions. He was reaching behind him to try and hold something, but the smooth wall had nothing to offer him. His fingers were slipping against the tile, so he gave up and instead settled for clenching and unclenching his fists.

You pulled off him with a pop, a string of saliva left in your wake. You smiled up at him as you kept stroking him, not wanting his pleasure to disappear in the slightest.

“You won’t hurt me, Koo,” you reassured him, earning another groan from the man falling apart under your touch. He twitched in your hold, and you stuck your tongue out again to run it along the underside of his length. 

Jungkook chanced looking down at you, only to look up at the ceiling a moment later while he muttered a strained “holy shit.” 

“C’mon baby, don’t you want to look at me,” you taunted him as your tongue played with the head of his cock, swirling around him. The low groans coming from above you let you know that he enjoyed that a lot.

“Fuck, angel, I-” Jungkook’s sentence died as a moan ripped itself from his throat when you surged back down to take all of him in again. This time you continued moving, feeling the tears in the corners of your eyes but not stopping.

It wasn’t like you’d never sucked him off like this before, seeing as it was one of your favorite activities, after all. But it was a rare occasion where Jungkook would let you take all of him in one go for fear of hurting you. So, you took these chances whenever they presented themselves, and the reward was always, always worth it.

Tears along with the water droplets from the shower were coating your face but you didn’t care. All of your focus was on Jungkook and how he was trying so hard to restrain himself above you. You watched his fists clench and unclench and you could feel himself struggle to keep his hips from moving forward so he didn’t fuck your mouth.

Yeah, you weren’t having that. You wanted him to let go, wanted him to know that it was ok, that you wanted this. You reached out to grab one of his hands and placed it in your hair, relishing in the way his fingers immediately tangled themselves into the wet strands. You pulled your mouth off of him again, but not before letting your tongue drag slowly across every inch of him.

You looked up at him again as you pumped him leisurely, waiting until he brought his gaze down to stare at you, only for him to quickly close his eyes again.

“God, I can’t look at you, like I want to, fuck do I want to, but you look so fucking good like this, I’m not gonna last-”

You always found his stammering to be cute and you didn’t want to torture him too much longer. Deciding that you’d teased him enough, you took all of him into your mouth again, intertwining your fingers with his unoccupied hand and giving it a squeeze. The intimacy of this particular action was always enough to get both of you going, and it had Jungkook’s hips stuttering as you sucked hard.

“Fuck, baby, always take me so good like this. Always so good for me, I love you, fuck,” he was groaning as his head hit the wall behind him again, his hold in your hair tightening the same moment you felt him buck his hips like you’d been wanting all this time.

Unfortunately, for you, whenever Jungkook would fuck your mouth, no matter how much you wanted to sit there and take it without issue, his size always proved to be too big for you to handle and it had you coughing around his length in no time. Which, of course, always made Jungkook stop what he was doing before either of you had the chance to enjoy it much.

“Fuck, baby, I’m so sorry, are you ok?” Jungkook pulled you up while you kept coughing, brushing the wet strands of hair out of your face and looking at you with worry. You nodded and tried to reassure him, wanting to get back on your knees for him, but he held you in place.

“You don’t want me to continue,” you asked, your voice a little more hoarse than usual thanks to what your throat had just endured.

Jungkook shook his head. “No, angel, it’s not that. If you do keep going, I’ll cum in no time.” He brushed some of the water away from under your eyes, not knowing if it was tears or from the shower. He bent down to place a rough kiss on your lips, such a contrast from how his hands caressed your face.

“I want to be inside of you when that happens,” he murmured against you, gently biting down on your bottom lip and pulling a whine from you, in turn causing more wetness to gush between your legs. “If you’ll let me, of course.”

You almost laughed. “Koo, you know I’ll let you do anything at this point.”

He chuckled. “That’s a dangerous admission, baby. You sure about that?”

You nodded, wrapping your arms around his neck to pull him closer. “Of course I’m sure. I’d let you do anything you want because I trust you. Because I love you,” it was your turn to kiss him this time, and it was filled with so much passion it nearly made him dizzy. Jungkook could never get tired of the feeling of your lips against his, of hearing you say that you loved him, of feeling your skin pressed against each other during times like these.

Jungkook was hooked on you and he never wanted to go back to a time where he wasn’t.

You pulled him out of his thoughts as you tugged on some of his hair, earning a delicious sounding grunt from him. You whispered your next snarky comment right by his ear.

“You gonna fuck me now, baby?”

Your bluntness had his cock quickly stirring back to life after it had softened some during your coughing incident. He growled low and dark as he started placing love bites on your collarbone.

“Sure you don’t want me to return the favor first, angel?” He was marking up your skin while he asked this, so you almost didn’t realize what he was asking specifically but then it dawned on you.

“As much I love seeing you with your head between my legs,” you responded, tugging on his hair again, “I’d rather have you fuck me up against this wall.”

He moaned against your collarbone, the action vibrating your skin. He pulled off of you and brought your lips to his in a filthy kiss. “Your wish is my command.”

Jungkook lifted you up then by placing his hands under your ass and you got the message, wrapping your legs around him as he held you up. He turned so your back was against the wall, the only things now holding you up being his strong arms and the smooth tile behind you.

He first plunged two fingers inside you without a warning, making you let out a silent scream. He smirked at the way you clenched around his fingers, scissoring them before pulling them out again. You whined at the loss and he shushed you with a gentle kiss on your nose.

“Had to make sure you’re ready, baby.” He had one arm wrapped around your waist, trapped in between your back and the shower wall. With his now free hand, he lined himself up with your entrance, moaning when the tip of his cock was sucked in by your velvety walls.

“Fuck, you already feel so good and I’m barely in yet,” he clenched his jaw as he sank further into you inch by inch. When he finally bottomed out and was filling you up in the best way possible, you clenched around him to tease him further, making him curse.

“Watch it, angel,” he growled. “You’re gonna make it very hard for me to not blow it if you keep doing that, and I want you there with me when I do.”

“Then I guess you’d better start moving,” you teased, wrapping your arms more tightly around his neck. You knew what was coming next; Jungkook would put you exactly in your place, just like you wanted. And for that you needed to hold on tight for dear life because that man could rock you like nothing ever had before.

Jungkook grabbed your hips firmly in his hold as he fucked up into you, making sure you were held against the wall and weren’t in danger of falling down as he did so. Despite this, each thrust had you sliding more up the wall until he would bring you back down again. When he found a pace that was he was sure he could resume without either of you getting hurt, he finally let go.

To say you saw stars would be an understatement. Jungkook was fucking you with so much vigor that you weren’t just seeing stars, you were sure you were seeing entire galaxies. Your sounds kept dying out on your tongue because the feeling was so overwhelming and it had your trembling around him in no time.

“Can’t make any sounds when I’m fucking you this good, angel?” Jungkook was taunting you now and quite frankly, he was right, he was fucking you so good that you were finding it hard to say anything. And the mixture of his dirty words with the sweet pet name you adored had you clenching even tighter around him, causing him to groan loudly and grip your waist tighter.

You eventually found your voice again when Jungkook hit a certain spot inside of you, pulling an embarrassingly loud whine from your throat. You buried your face in the crook of his neck, tears almost brimming in your eyes once again at how good he felt.

“Fuck, Jungkook, feels so good, oh my God-” your praises made him twitch inside you as he moved his hands now from your waist to hold you up by cupping your ass, squeezing tightly in time with his thrusts. He was bouncing you up and down on his cock now with his strength alone, and the thought of it made your orgasm start to approach at an alarmingly fast rate.

“I love feeling you so close like this, I love you, so fucking much, shit-” Jungkook cut himself off as threw his head back to get his hair out of his face, careful not to let his balance falter or his grip slip on you. He had to do it though because his hair was keeping him from seeing your face now that you were leaning your head back against the wall, and he couldn’t have that.

“I love you, Jungkook, I’m close, fuck,” you were breathing hard as you couldn’t control your moans any longer, eyes squeezed shut and tears falling from just how much pleasure you were receiving and also how much you loved this man. Jungkook was the man you’d loved for so many years before you were finally able to call him yours. He always took care of you in every aspect of life, and you reciprocated it as best you could. And it was because of this kind of love you two had for each other that made these intimate times all the more meaningful. You were sitting here, back up against a shower wall in the arms of the man you loved while he rearranged your guts, and it was such an emotional experience alongside being a pleasurable one that the tears actually made sense.

Jungkook bit down on your shoulder and pulled you out of your reverie, making you cry out as he muffled his own sounds against your skin. You could tell by his thrusts that he was getting close now, his grunts happening more frequently and louder, echoing off the tiled shower walls. The water had already started to get cold but neither of you cared. Nothing outside of the two of you existed in this moment, and that was exactly how you liked it.

“Touch yourself for me, baby, I’m close, want you to be there with me,” Jungkook breathed out, his grip on your ass harsher now and you were sure there’d be marks tomorrow. You loved it when he marked you up, and even though he always felt slightly bad about it, you knew Jungkook loved seeing the marks, too.

You obeyed his command and reached down to rub your clit, nearly shrieking at the new wave of pleasure that washed over you. The sensations on your clit, his cock hitting that perfect spot inside of you, the way he was holding you, and all the things he was saying to you was enough to finally push you over the edge.

“Jungkook, I’m cumming, fuck-” you barely had time to utter out your warning before you were cumming hard around his length, your body spasming as he held you through it.

He sped up then, chasing his own high now, the feeling of your walls clenching around him making his eyes roll back. “Fuck, I can feel you, always so perfect for me, I’m close-”

His eyes were closed now so he didn’t see you reach for him. You pulled him closer so you could kiss him, hoping to help him along this way, swallowing down every beautiful sound he was making. “C’mon Koo, cum for me, wanna feel you fill me up.”

“Fuuuuck,” he moaned out, loud and long as that was the last thing he needed to get him there. His hips stuttered a few more times before you felt him twitch and fill you up, just like you wanted. Because gravity was working against you due to your current position, you could feel some of it dripping out of you despite Jungkook still being inside of you. The feeling made you scrunch up your nose, and the action made Jungkook laugh and mumble out ‘cute’ as he placed a kiss on the tip of your nose.

He pulled out of you carefully before moving you away from the wall so he could set you down on your feet. Your legs were a little wobbly, so he let you brace yourself against him as he helped you clean up.

The water was nearing a very uncomfortable cold temperature, but the both of you would rather endure that than leave the shower without cleaning off completely. After the workout you both had, there was nothing more you wanted than to curl up with each other in the bed.

After helping each other get clean again, and stealing quite a few kisses while doing so, Jungkook helped you out of the shower since you still didn’t trust your legs and dried you off before taking care of himself. Your heart swelled at the sight of him as it always did when he would take care of you like this.

You just hoped that you were taking care of him in all the ways he needed as well. You were certainly trying your best and would continue to do so for the rest of your life.

Once you were both snuggled into bed, him with an arm under you and you with your face nuzzling against his chest, you broke the silence first.

“If that’s what happens when I let you put paint on me, we should do that more often.”

Jungkook, who was tracing invisible patterns on your back in between your shoulder blades, laughed so hard you shook along with him. When he finally calmed down, he was able to answer you. “I totally agree. Although, I don’t think that happened because I painted you. It happened because you-” he booped you on the nose “-teased me, knowing full well what happens when you do.”

You shrugged as best you could with his arms around you. “You love it, though.”

Jungkook chuckled. “Indeed I do.” He placed a kiss on the top of your head and resumed his earlier soothing tracing of patterns on your skin. You rested your cheek against his chest and could hear his heartbeat, slow and steady. The combined actions of his hands and the steady thrum of his heartbeat was enough to have slumber calling your name in a matter of minutes.

Jungkook had something more to say, however.

“Hey,” he called gently, making you look up at him with groggy eyes. He smiled at the sight. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For helping me. For being my muse. I’ve got more ideas now about what else to create, and I don’t think I could’ve gotten there without your help.”

You smiled at him before you placed your head down again and shut your eyes once more, breathing deeply. “You would’ve eventually. That’s just how you are. Maybe I sped up the process, but you would’ve done fine.”

“Perhaps,” he sighed and looked at the ceiling. His glance travelled down to look at your nearly sleeping form, laying on him calm and unbothered. Moments like these topped his list of favorite things, and he wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world.

“Goodnight, angel,” he murmured softly, not sure if you were asleep or not yet. You muttered something unintelligible back, but he knew you were telling him goodnight all the same, and it brought a smile to his face.

Jungkook wanted to tackle life with you, the good, the bad, all of it; he wanted to do it with you by his side. He wanted to make sure every day of your life from here on out was filled with happiness and love and everything you deserved in the world, just as you wanted to do the same for him. He knew you’d do anything for him, and he’d do anything for you.

Only for you.

[pineapple-lover-boy]

Can- can I just talk about the Victuuri relationship? Pretty please?

I just…. I’ve never seen a healthy relationship that starts from idolization and a need to get out that has ended in a satisfying way.

Let me elaborate:

We all know that Yuri idolized Victor. It’s why he was so nervous in the beginning and why it took time for them to build on their relationship, he saw Victor as a god.

Victor? He was depressed. He loved the ice so much but he longer found excitement in competitions. He didn’t have any worthy opponents that had a chance of beating him (sorry Chris).

I believe Victor “fell in love” at the banquet. He was attracted to Yuri but, even though he lost, he also saw potential in him. That night was probably the most exciting night for him in a long time. I think he felt genuine affection for Yuri but also saw a way to get out of his predicament.

Then, of course, Yuri didn’t show up the following season (a year had passed before the present timeline). He was most likely annoyed that someone who had gave him excitement didn’t show up. Did he think Yuri had a chance of beating him at first? Probably not. Did he see potential or at least someone he could have fun with during the season? Hell yes!

And then when he saw the video of Yuri skating Stay Close To Me, something that awarded him a gold medal. That’s all he needed. He saw how Yuri not only skated it perfectly but I bet he thought Yuri skated it better. Let’s not forget that emotion is a huge part of skating. If you don’t skate with the passion your supposed to hold for whatever theme you have, your performance can almost seem futile. Victor obviously won because he perfected it but if it was based on how he presented it alone, he would’ve lost. He saw someone worthy of skating an gold medal piece while also having the heart to do it. That’s talent.

Anyways, because of this, their relationship doesn’t hold well in the beginning. He’s passive aggressive towards Yuri because he doesn’t see his own talent and Yuri is just going along for the ride because holy shit it’s Victor fucking Nikiforov.

As they get to know each other and Yuri opens up more (plus Victor getting info on Yuri from the others) Victor starts to see Yuri as an actual person and not someone he can use to project himself onto and then later skate against. And Yuri starts to see him as an actual person too.

I saw on another post talking about how we didn’t see them during the summer and how the end credits of every episode suggest they got to know each other better as both in the credits and in the show they (Yuri) are able to touch each other more. I 100% believe this.

I also believe they might’ve had an argument or two on this topic. It’s not easy to switch from inadvertently seeing someone as anything but a person to an actual person with emotions and feelings. I believe Victor would’ve tried to back away from this subject but Yuri wouldn’t let him. It wasn’t big arguments like in episode 7. It was probably little quarrels that annoyed them both but after having a long conversation they finally started to become more comfortable with each other.

Yuri started letting go of the notion that Victor was a god like creature and Victor saw him as something other than a pawn. Yuri stopped getting as embarrassed with Victor touching him and Victor stopped trying to seduce him as much just so he could see the man from the banquet.

This most definitely leads the way towards a healthier relationship but episode 7 was inevitable. Yuri’s anxiety was at an all time high when he comes out on top. The fact that he needs to stay on top and not mess up is getting to him. As a person with anxiety, it’s pure hell. The thoughts of failing won’t get out of his head and even as he turns off all the monitors he can still hear everything.

Victor takes him away from prying eyes and has no idea what to do. Despite an obvious change that would’ve had to include some emotions from both occurring over the summer, he still has no idea how to help someone in distress.

Then he makes his first mistake. Yuri is visibly shaken by someone’s scores (can’t remember who) and Victor, who is at his wits end, yells at him to stop listening and puts his hands over Yuri’s ears. This tells Yuri how nervous Victor is too and despite knowing that Victor wouldn’t leave him now it shows to him that Victor doesn’t have faith in him (even if he does).

Victor tried to shatter Yuri’s heart. He must’ve expected Yuri to maybe sign heavily but tell him that he’ll do everything in his power to win (probably something that’s happened with him and Yakov). Instead he see’s the consequences of his carelessness. Yuri rightfully lashes out at him and even through all that Victor stills says “should I kiss you?”. Idk what Yuri was thinking but if I were him I would be extremely offended that Victor would try and use me like some doll he can play with and can assume that physical affection and love can fix everything, which was probably what Yuri was thinking.

There’s something off about Yuri and Victor when they emerge but Yuri is surprisingly better now. Cathartic crying can do wonders, kids. There’s also my favorite part of the entire show (couldn’t find a gif):

*head jab* “Hey, fuck you.”

*more head jabs* “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. I know you don’t like this you unempathetic dicknip.”

*head pat* “You’re forgiven.”

We all know what happens next: Yuri ends his love story with Victor’s signature move and Victor kisses him out of joy and the need to one up him (with love, of course).

I’m gonna get a little sloppy here with the timeline because I have the memory of a female protagonist that needs to go back to work to get something only to accidentally bump into the jerk CEO of which she will develop a toxic relationship for fan service, so forgive me.

Gonna skip ahead to the scene where Yuri tells Victor that he’s leaving skating, and basically Victor too. (At this moment I realized I’ve been spelling Viktor with a c and not a k which is really fucking with my brain but it’s too late to go back). Victor starts crying and realizes just how Yuri felt when he was rejecting him.

I believe Yuri found some light in the situation because of that fact, which Victor was not having. They’ve been closer than ever now. They’ve kissed, they’ve also announced they they’re getting married, so what the hell?!

Yuri, as we know, feels he’s keeping Victor from the ice. Victor, while he misses the ice and wouldn’t mind being competitive again, has found meaning and if he’s going to be Yuri’s coach to stay where he is than so be it.

He wanted to coach Yuri because he wanted a worthy competitor and while he still wants that, what matters most now is his relationship with Yuri. If he stops being Yuri’s coach and Yuri goes off the ice he knows it will be the end. Yuri loves the ice too and I’d bet he’d try to distance himself from Victor as to not feel regret from leaving without actually knowing that he’s doing it.

They’ve grown so much at this point. But that doesn’t mean it’s over. After all they’ve been through Yuri doesn’t realize that consequences of parting from one another. While being too dependent on your spouse isn’t good, it’s what they both need right now. They are what caused the other person to be happy again and while I hate those types of storylines this one executed it perfectly.

I find Victor’s silent plea to Yurio absolutely heartbreaking. He knows it’s bad to put pressure on people but now he’s doing that to a 15 year old boy. He’s putting his relationship and his life into this child’s hands because he knows there’s nothing else he can do.

I do think Yurio had a crush on Yuri but even if he didn’t: Yuri has taught him so much. He, although being an ass most of the time, has really come to love Yuri as family. It’s clear that Yurio was always lonely (Otabek being his first friend and all) but once he came to Japan and lived, truly lived there, he wasn’t lonely anymore.

Yurio wins, Yuri gets silver and all’s well that ends well.

I guess my point of this was to show how well the relationship in YOI was. I could’ve included some more detail on some points but I usually write stuff in one take (it’s very hard to revise without my mind shutting on itself).

I just love how an implicitly toxic relationship can come out so healthy. They don’t do any of that miscommunication bullshit and when they do it’s because the characters don’t know what to do or how to handle something. Like humans do!

They could’ve easily made this the hot famous guy thinks the kawai girl boy is just so adorable and the kawai girl boy is absolutely infatuated with the hot guy. Hijinks ensue which includes the kawai girl boy thinking the hot guy is in love with someone else. She He gets pushed into thinking that she’s he’s more independent in the end and happily ever after for the couple that will divorce in less than five years! Yay!

Seriously, I thought that was what was going to happen but YOI subverted my expectations so much. They are people that grew from their bad mindsets. And you know what? Yuri still has anxiety! Victor is still bad with handling emotions! And that’s ok! We don’t change that quickly. It takes time and hopefully another season.

I’m definitely using this show as a template for healthy relationships. It’s so hard for me to properly write them when I’ve never been in one and I’m not given the chance to see it happen in different environments (when searching it up all I get is “they trust each other. They blame each other. They’re compassionate.” Like ok but can you show me how?)

Yuri!!! On ice…. I love you so much. You have done so much for my mental health and my writing. Thank you.

[cali-holland]

An Irregular Romance ★ Harrison Osterfield One Shot

Pairing: Harrison Osterfield X Reader

Summary: Over five years ago, Harrison followed his heart (a.k.a. you) to drama school, and the day he asked you out was the day he discovered you had a boyfriend. He thought that part of his past was behind him, but then he was cast as Leo in The Irregulars and you were cast as Bea. Romance and shenanigans ensue as he tries to navigate the resurrection of his crush on you.

Word Count: 10k

Warnings: spoilers for The Irregulars, swearing, drinking (reader gets v drunk at one point), cheating boyfriend + “open relationship” drama

Masterlist in bio

*Gif is not mine

A/N: inspired by harrison literally saying he followed the girl he liked to drama school but she didn’t like him back; the drama school is the brit school (idk if that’s what he was talking about but age wise it works better); also darci is 18+ in this fic bc it just fits better to make her around their age; plus i had to re-post this bc the tags didn’t work so rip

also just like to say a massive thank you to @duskholland​​ for proofreading this for me :) you’re the best! this fic would be missing 90% of its commas if it wasn’t for you lmao

❁❁❁❁❁

Harrison had been buzzing with excitement all week. While he knew for sure that he had landed the role of Prince Leo in The Irregulars, he had no idea who the other cast members were. His agent learned from Netflix that they’d announce the cast on Saturday, so now here he sat, anxiously awaiting the news as he drank another pint with his good friends.

“Anything yet?” Tuwaine asked, refreshing his Twitter timeline.

“Nope.” Harrison said with a shake of his head as Netflix’s Instagram page remained unchanged as another minute went by.

“Maybe they’re announcing it at midnight.” Tom shrugged, trying to be useful to ease his friend’s nerves.

“Everyone would be asleep.” The blond replied before taking another long drink of his beer.

“Well, congratulations whenever they officially announce it.” Harry stated, standing up with his empty glass. “Next round’s on me.”

The conversation began to wander off, and Harrison found himself deep in thought, pondering his mysterious, new castmates. Would he like them? Would they like him? Were they big names or no names? Were they people he had screen-tested with (because, truthfully, he only screen-tested with a few girls, but even then, he didn’t screen test with all of the potential actresses)? As he got stuck, trying to think of someone he’d actually liked when they screen-tested together, he was snapped out of his thoughts by Tom yelling.

“It’s up!” Tom held his phone in the middle of the table as he, Harrison, Tuwaine, and Harry, who was now back with more beer, looked over the cast. A sense of pride soared through the group at Harrison’s picture and name being on the official Netflix page for The Irregulars. Harrison read over the other names, wondering if he knew any by happenstance. Just as he recognized one name in particular, Tom spoke up.

“Y/N Y/L/N? Isn’t that the girl you fancied in drama school?” Tom asked with a smirk. His smirk seemed to widen as Harrison blushed a deeper shade of red.

“No, no, no!” Harrison grumbled, taking out his phone to look over the post for himself because maybe, if he looked from his own account, the cast would magically change. When he looked at your name and picture right beside his, realization hit him. He slumped over, putting his head down on the table regretfully.

“I’d nearly forgotten about Haz’s girl that wasn’t his girl.” Tuwaine joked.

“Wait, what girl?” Harry questioned, out of the loop.

Perhaps the stupidest but best choice Harrison had ever made in his life was following you, his biggest crush, to drama school. Why his mother even let him chase after a girl like that was beyond him; he thought she should’ve advised him against it, but with the whole “follow your heart” attitude, his mum was his biggest supporter. He did his best to impress you, to get you to notice him, but you were unfazed by him. The day that he finally got the courage to ask you out was the day that he learned you’d had a boyfriend for the past two months.

Though he didn’t get the girl in drama school, he actually enjoyed it, and look where he ended up now— a new Netflix show was on the horizon for him. Despite the fact that he was (and still sort of is) crushed and embarrassed by the fact that you (very kindly) rejected him five years ago, drama school turned out to be a blessing.

“Harrison, here,” Tom laughed as he clapped his friend’s shoulder as Harrison still didn’t lift his head from his pitiful position, “thought he’d pursue acting because Y/N wanted to be an actress. He didn’t realize that in order to get her attention, he’d have to actually talk to her.”

That was enough to make Harrison lift his head, eyeing his friend questioningly. Cutting Tom off, he defended himself, “What do you mean? I did talk to her.”

“Right— you’d have maybe one conversation with her every three weeks.” Tom turned back to his brother, “Anyway, Haz finally asked her out and, turns out, she’d been dating this other guy for months.”

“Whatever. I only asked her out because you and Tuwaine shoved me into her. Maybe she doesn’t even remember me.” Harrison pulled out his phone to check over Netflix’s Instagram, wanting to see for himself the new cast again. When he opened the app, it notified him of all the new followers he had gotten, and, with one glance at the list of names, one account stood out to him.

‘@yourusername started following you’. Harrison let out a sigh, not wanting to dwell on this any further.

“She works fast.” Harry teased, looking over the blond’s shoulder.

“We’re co-stars now. She probably followed everyone else too.”

As if on cue, a new notification came through his Instagram— ‘@yourusername sent you a message’. With bated breath, he opened it to see the message that confirmed his worst fear— you remembered him.

‘Hey stranger! How have you been?’

❁❁❁❁❁

With every passing day, Harrison’s excitement for this new big project grew… but so did his dread about seeing you again. He wasn’t entirely sure now as to why his gut was filled with butterflies mixed with anxiety just thinking about you. You were only ever nice to him, both before and after he asked you out. It all led him back to the same conclusion that he still had a thing for you, but yet again, maybe it’s just life that your first real crush always has some power over you.

As he walked down the strangely long hallway to the conference room, he adjusted the collar of his letterman’s jacket. Today was the big day— the first table read for The Irregulars, and the first day he’d be confronted by you after all these years. Just on the other side of this door, his co-stars and the main production crew were waiting. Everything was real now; production would start in just a few days.

With one last nervous breath, he pushed open the heavy oak door and entered the room. People were chatting as they sat around the large conference table, which had small name cards at each seat. Harrison’s eyes found you almost immediately. You were locked into a conversation with your co-star, Darci, seated to your left for the table read. To your right was one of the last available seats, and Harrison’s name was on the little card on the table. All hopes of being unnoticed by you were instantaneously gone as he took his seat beside you.

“Fancy seeing you here.” You said to Harrison with a laugh, and he was instantly reminded of how that laugh basically drove him to where he was today.

“How long has it been?” Harrison asked, trying to play it cool like he hadn’t been rehearsing this day in his mind for the past several months.

“Far too long.” You smiled.

As the last few people trickled into the room, introductions flew around the table as everyone met their new coworkers. After a cold read-through of the script and a few words from the show’s creator, the table read was deemed over. Just when Harrison thought he was free to forget about your existence for a few more days, you pulled him aside.

“Hey, Darci and I were going to get drinks with McKell and Jojo. You should come.” You offered, and Harrison chanced a glance across the room to where Darci was chatting with your other two main co-stars.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Harrison replied. He cleared his throat before giving you a definite nod that yes, that’d be a great idea.

“Perfect.”

And just like that, the five of you made your way across town to a pub. Darci had chosen the spot, explaining that it was the best place for drinks in Liverpool, and, seeing as she’d lived there her whole life, none of you tried to argue with her.

Harrison felt a strange pit in his stomach as everyone talked and laughed over some beers, as if you weren’t all strangers a few hours ago. His eyes always seemed to land on you and your contagious smile. You looked almost exactly how he remembered you, and you still were the same happy, go-lucky girl he’d fallen hard for. It was crazy to him how quickly you gave him butterflies, how effortlessly you made him feel like a silly schoolboy all over again. He couldn’t help but wonder if you thought he’d changed since his school days, too… or if you even thought about him enough to notice. So far, you’d made no indication that he was anyone besides an old friend from drama school, making him hope you didn’t remember that dreadful day.

As you and Darci excused yourself for a bathroom break, Harrison gave himself a little reminder that he was meant to be getting to know all of his co-stars right now and wasn’t meant to be focusing so intently on you. He took another sip of his beer, turning back to Jojo and McKell.

“So how do you and Y/N know each other?” McKell asked, and Jojo tried to hide his shit-eating grin behind his beer.

“Drama school, a few years ago.” Harrison replied, trying to play ignorant.

“Ah, so it’s a schoolboy crush, then?” Jojo questioned teasingly.

Harrison felt his face heat up. Jojo and McKell were practically strangers to him, and they already knew. He was cornered, “Is it that obvious?”

“A little.” McKell said while Jojo simultaneously replied, “Very.”

“Just ask her out.” Jojo encouraged.

“That’s the problem— I did.” Harrison replied, and both of their jaws dropped.

“No way. Did she let you down easy at least?” McKell’s voice was somewhere between a disbelieving, teasing, and pitiful tone.

Harrison scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, “Well, yeah? I mean she wasn’t rude about it, but it was still a bit awkward. She was dating this other guy at the time. He didn’t go to our school, though, so I had no clue about him.”

“That’s rough.” Jojo grimaced, before he gave Harrison a hopeful smile, “Maybe she’s single now.”

“I’ve been rejected by Y/N once— I don’t need her to reject me a second time.” He shook his head with a small laugh to conceal his embarrassment. He took a drink of his beer, hoping that would calm his nerves a little.

“Incoming,” McKell said quietly, nodding in the direction of the bathroom.

“What’d we miss?” Darci asked as she slipped back into her seat. You remained standing to put your jacket on, both you and Darci completely unaware of the boys’ conversation.

“Nothing, just Jojo being an idiot.” McKell joked, to which his newfound friend just punched him in the arm, taking another long drink of his beer.

“I think I might head back to the hotel.” Your words were met with a collective groan from three of your co-stars— Harrison silently frowned as he sipped on his beer.

As your head was down to collect your things, Jojo swiftly kicked Harrison under the table. Harrison looked at him quizzically, sending him a “what the hell was that for” look. When his co-star just nodded his head encouragingly towards you, Harrison got the idea.

“I’ll walk you.” Harrison said, making you look over at him. Standing up from his seat, he insisted, “I was just about to head out, too.”

“Okay,” You smiled, still completely unaware of his interaction with Jojo.

After you all exchanged phone numbers and created a group chat lovingly titled “The Irregz”, you and Harrison left the pub. You fell in step together, walking along the sidewalk in the chilly Liverpool air back to the hotel that you’d all be staying at for the next few months.

“So what have you been up to since graduation?” Harrison asked you, his hands deep in the pockets of his letterman’s jacket.

“All sorts of things, really.” You shrugged with a smile, “I got a few TV roles here and there, did some modeling, but so far none of it has really stuck, so I’m hopeful that this will be a foot in the door. What about you?”

“The same as you, really, but, instead of shows, I’ve done some short films.”

“I see you’re still best friends with Tom.” You said in a teasing tone. Harrison felt an unusual, upsetting tug on his heartstring. Not noticing any change in his demeanor, you continued with a laugh, “It’s funny. I would’ve placed my bets on you being world-famous after graduation.”

“Me?” He questioned, surprised by your words.

“Yeah, you didn’t go to LAMDA for nothing.” You playfully nudged his arm with your elbow, and he felt his cheeks heat up once more. “Don’t be modest— I’m not wrong.”

“Can’t argue with that logic.” A laugh passed his lips, any previous bashful reservations slowly fading away.

Before Harrison could say anything further, your phone began to ring. You fished it out of your pocket and barely looked at the caller ID before sending it to voicemail. Your actions were fast, but Harrison still caught the name of who was calling, Davey, followed by a red heart emoji. And that’s when it hit him— you were still with the same boyfriend from drama school, all those years ago.

And just like that, Harrison felt a tsunami wave of heartbreak from drama school wash over him.

“Hey, Y/N!” Harrison called out as he stumbled his way over to stall you from leaving school. He had one hand holding onto his book bag strap tight enough that his knuckles were turning white, and he shuffled his other through his hair.

“Hey, is everything alright?” You asked, concerned at how nervous he seemed.

“Yeah, um, well, tonight’s opening night for West Side Story, and I was wondering if you wanted to go with me? I know it’s your favorite play, and it’s one of mine too, so, yeah, I thought maybe we could go together?” He was sure that he’d never sounded so unsure of himself. Truth is, he didn’t want to ask you out right now, but Tom and Tuwaine had quite literally shoved him in your direction, physically encouraging him. He felt rushed and unprepared.

When you smiled so captivatingly and softly at him, he felt his racing heart speed up even more. Was this it? Was he really going to take you on a date? He thought to himself. His hopes weren’t up for long as you spoke up, “I can’t. I’ve already got tickets for tonight. I’m going with Davey.”

“Davey?”

“My boyfriend.” You replied, a hint of guilt in your voice.

His heart shattered. The only reason he was here, at this school, was because of you, and now he just had all of his hopes for any future dates with you thrown out the window.

“You and Davey are still together?” Harrison wondered aloud as you two arrived at the hotel.

“Yeah,” Your response was hesitant and quiet. He knew why— there was that elephant in the room between the two of you.

Before he could stop himself from mentioning it, he blurted out, “You don’t have to feel guilty about it, you know.”

You paused, watching unsure as he ran a hand through his hair nervously. “I kinda wonder what would’ve happened if I had said yes. Davey and I didn’t even end up seeing  West Side Story, anyway, so I wonder if you and I would’ve ended up any differently.”

It wasn’t much, but his heart sped up ever so slightly— so you had thought about him, even in the dating context. Harrison couldn’t think of a response (his brain repeated “fuck Davey, ask her out again”) fast enough as you stopped at the front desk. You mumbled something about needing some towels, and Harrison took that as his cue to just continue walking. He bid you a quick farewell, wanting to escape to his room as fast as possible.

Nothing you had said tonight had been particularly flirty, but he still rewound the events in his head because maybe he missed something. As he laid down in his bed that night, his mind drifted off with thoughts of you, wondering just how he’d manage to pull off these next few months without falling for you all over again.

Over the next several weeks, his predicament only seemed to grow. Spending so much time with you (and your other three co-stars) just made Harrison wish even more that he’d asked you out sooner in drama school, and having to spend most of his screen time gawking over you added to it further. Maybe it was another school boy crush, or maybe it was intense method acting— either way, he definitely liked you.

Ever since he read the script for episode four, he knew that eventually your two characters would become romantically involved. He would’ve felt giddy over the thought (because his eighteen-year-old self would’ve died at this opportunity), but whenever he thought of the scene, he was reminded about your boyfriend. Harrison wasn’t the type of guy to hate his crush’s boyfriend, but something just didn’t seem right about Davey.

Harrison was lying on his hotel bed, reading over the episode’s script for what must have been the fifth time through that afternoon. It was Sunday, the day before you’d both film Leo and Bea’s kiss. With a beer on his side table and an array of highlighters beside it, he was set. As the words started to run together, and his glasses began to feel uncomfortable on his nose, he heard a knock at his door.

“Coming!” Harrison called out. Setting his script aside, he rolled off the bed. He was confused at who could possibly be at his door, but, figuring it was someone from set, he had the decency to slip on a white t-shirt, opting for not answering the door in nothing but grey sweats. He was thankful for his last-minute decision as he opened the door and was met with you on his doorstep. Smiling at you and leaning on the doorframe, he let out a small, “Hey.”

“Hey, I was wondering if you wanted to rehearse tomorrow’s scene.” You offered with a friendly smile on your face.

“Right now?” He asked, glancing back into his room to decipher if it was clean enough or not.

“Oh, is this a bad time?” You replied, subconsciously stepping back. “Is someone here?”

“What?” Harrison looked at you, confused before it clicked what you thought, “Oh, no, no. There’s no one here. I was just rehearsing, too.”

“So is that a yes then or-?” You trailed off.

“Yeah, come on in.” He opened his door fully, allowing you to step in. He chivalrously closed the door behind you. “Would you like water or anything?”

“Can I have a beer?” You asked, spotting the one on his nightstand.

“Sure.” Harrison nodded. While he got you a beer and grabbed his own half-consumed bottle and script, you settled on the couch with your pages in hand.

“Thank you.” You smiled as he handed you the beer, and you took a sip happily. “You know, I’m honestly so jealous of you this week.”

“Why?” He asked with a laugh, thrown off guard by your confession.

“You get to do all the palace scenes again.”

“I also throw myself off a balcony.”

“But still.” You insisted. “Leo really needs to sneak Bea into the palace just so I can have one of those extravagant ball dress scenes. I just want to feel like a princess, and I feel like it’s what Bea deserves.”

Harrison looked at you admiringly for a moment. “You are a princess.” His face dropped as soon as he realized he’d said his thoughts aloud. Coughing, he tried to cover it up, “I mean—- you were kind of princess-like in episode 3, right?”

“Smooth.” You laughed, but didn’t press the situation. Your phone began to ring, and Harrison watched as you rolled your eyes, declining the call and ultimately silencing your phone.

“Spam call?”

“More like clingy non-committal somewhat boyfriend.” You stated, rolling your eyes.

He furrowed his eyebrows, confused. You hadn’t mentioned Davey in the past few weeks— not that Harrison was complaining, but he just assumed you were private about your personal life. “I thought you and Davey were on good terms?”

“We are? I don’t know.” You sighed, taking a sip of your beer.

“If you’re not comfortable with the topic, we can just rehearse-”

“No, it’s fine. I just haven’t really talked about it with anyone. Before I came here, he asked about having an open relationship while I’m away, and I told him no. And the last time we talked, we got into an argument and that was a couple days ago. I’m not ready to talk to him, and at this point, I’d much rather talk to you than him. It’s very frustrating that he wants to have an open relationship, but he still expects me to be at his beck and call. It’s like he’s looking for someone to substitute me, but I can’t have a life of my own. He wasn’t the most supportive of me taking this job in the first place, too.” You paused, with a small shrug, “I know you’re probably thinking I should leave him, but I can’t. We’ve been together for 5 years. I don’t know anything else at this point.”

“I get it.” Harrison said softly, hesitantly resting a comforting hand on your knee. “He was your first love. It makes sense that it’s hard to move on.” He felt his own heart sink at his ironic words. After all, you were his first love.

“I wouldn’t say he’s my first love.” You said softly, placing your hand on his, squeezing it gently. “Plus, at this point, I wouldn’t even say I love him.”

A silence fell in the room. Harrison really didn’t know what to say now. He would have told you to leave him, but you already knew that, so what was the point in him repeating it? Besides, it was your relationship, and you needed to make the decision for yourself… or let Davey make it for you.

“Let’s go through the scene, yeah?” You asked, changing the topic. You dropped his hand to pick up your script again.

“Right.” Harrison mumbled to himself, flicking through the pages to the scene.

You glanced around his hotel suite for a moment, looking for something similar to a bridge rail to lean on. “Should we use the kitchen counter? As the bridge rail?”

“Yeah, that works.” He nodded. The two of you got up, scripts in hand. Harrison stood to your right, just as the stage direction had called for. There was some space between the two of you, enough room for Harrison to shuffle closer to you later, as scripted.

“You’re not on your own, Beatrice. You must remember that.” Harrison said to you, leaning on the counter but looking over to you with his icy blue eyes. “You’re very different to anyone I’ve ever met.”

“What do you mean?” You asked, looking at him curiously.

“You have something about you.” He started, awkwardly.

You cut him off, “Like a smell?”

“No, like a quality.” He chuckled softly before continuing, “I don’t know what it is, but I really like it.”

“Well, when you think of it, let me know.”

“I’ll be sure to.” He smiled at you, his confidence slowly building as the scene continued on. Harrison stepped closer to you until he was right beside you, leaning sideways on the counter. “And I’m not saying you don’t smell, by the way. I’m just saying that that’s not the thing.”

You laughed, turning your head away from him in disbelief. “You know, I was thinking of kissing you, but now I’m not gonna.”

Harrison paused, taking a moment to mentally hype himself up for what was about to happen, but also taking a moment because it was scripted for Leo to be nervous. “Well, uh, I suppose I have to kiss you then.”

You turned to him, smiling coyly. Slowly, Harrison closed his eyes and leaned in. His heart started racing faster as he felt your breath fan against his face before his lips finally found yours. It was gentle and hesitant, everything that it had been scripted to be. As much as he wanted to keep kissing you and keep tasting the sweet strawberries of your lipgloss, it had to end. He pulled away after a moment, and you seemed almost breathless as you opened your eyes to see him again.

“I meant it when I said you’re not on your own.” Harrison looked at you with more hesitancy this time, but he still kissed you with the softest passion. The script said that Leo and Bea kiss and continue to kiss for a few seconds; Harrison wasn’t counting, but he was sure this kiss was longer than it was meant to be. Again, he found himself dreading its inevitable end. If there was one thing he could do for the rest of his life, it’d be this… well, this amongst other things with you. His stomach started to stir with guilt as he remembered Davey; you were still technically in a relationship, open or not, arguing currently or not. But then it clicked with Harrison, you weren’t pulling away— no, you were fully kissing him back.

Before he could pull away and end the scene with his last few lines, a knock came from his door. Regretfully, he stepped away from you. He didn’t meet your eye as he went to answer the door while you read over the script on the counter. Flustered, he opened the door.

“Mum! You’re here.” Harrison’s eyes went wide, surprised to see his mother and his sister standing before him.

“Surprise!” She smiled, hugging him almost immediately. “We had to come and see you at your big job.”

“Are you not happy to see us?” Charlotte teased, and Harrison shook his head, pulling her in for a hug. As they all stepped into Harrison’s apartment, you waved from the kitchen.

“Hi.” You smiled, coming over to introduce yourself.

“Oh, mum, Charlotte, this is Y/N. Y/N, this is my mum and Charlotte, my sister.” Harrison introduced the three of you.

“You’re Y/N Y/L/N from drama school?” Phil said with a smile, making the connection as you shook her hand. Charlotte seemed to stifle a laugh as Harrison’s cheeks heated up.

“Yes, that sounds like me.” You laughed, brushing off any awkwardness that Harrison feared was there. “We were just rehearsing our scene for tomorrow.”

“Maybe we can come to set.” Phil suggested, sending Harrison an expectant look.

“I’ll have to ask. This is so, so last-minute, though, so I don’t know.” He replied.

“It’s a spontaneous weekend trip.” Charlotte clarified.

“We should get some dinner. We haven’t eaten much all day.” Phil told Harrison before turning to you, “Y/N, you should come, too. It’d be so lovely to get to know you.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” You trailed off, glancing at Harrison. He sent you a silent look that said ‘she seriously does want you to come… If you don’t come, I won’t hear the end of it’. “I’d love to. I just need to go change first.”

You grabbed your script off the counter, and Harrison walked you to the door. “How long do you need?”

“Like 10 minutes?” You replied, and he nodded.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know they were coming, or that they’d invite you to dinner.” He said quietly, making you laugh.

“It’s fine, but I do have to warn you, if my parents spontaneously drop by, they don’t know who you are.” You teased.

He let out an embarrassed groan, “Let’s not talk about that.”

“See you in ten.” You sent him a wink before leaving to your own hotel room. As Harrison closed the door and turned back around, he was met with the smirking faces of his mother and sister.

“So, is there anything you want to tell us?” Phil asked.

“We were rehearsing. That’s all.” Harrison insisted, going through the wardrobe to find some clothes to change into for dinner.

“Huh,” Charlotte trailed off, crossing her arms. “So, you wearing sparkly lip gloss that matches Y/N’s is a coincidence?”

“It’s a kiss scene tomorrow. We rehearsed the lines and the kisses, too.” He explained. With a pair of jeans, a clean shirt, and his red letterman jacket in hand, he made his way to the bathroom.

“Oh, multiple kisses.” She teased, making him roll his eyes.

“She has a boyfriend!” Harrison ended the conversation, closing the door to the bathroom.

Ten minutes later, you returned back to Harrison’s room, and the four of you left, making your way to an Italian restaurant nearby. You and Harrison shared anecdotes about filming so far, keeping spoilers to a minimum until the server came with your food.

“We got in so much trouble from the makeup and hair department.” You laughed as Harrison finished telling them of how you two went on the playground last week, much to the chagrin of the crew.

“It was worth it.” He added.

“Who would’ve known you’d play a Netflix prince?” Charlotte asked teasingly, but it was clear she was still proud of his achievements.

“Look at that face. He couldn’t play anything but a prince.” You joked, and he smiled smugly.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He stated.

“Phil, I have to say, I’ve never met someone more well suited to play a well-mannered prince.” You told her, playfully pinching Harrison’s cheek beside you.

“I remember when there was a time he was revolted at the idea of playing a prince.” Phil said, her lips growing into a smirk, and Harrison knew exactly what that meant.

“Mum, no—“ He started, but you just shushed him, wanting to hear whatever embarrassing story was about to be told.

“He watched a single Batman movie growing up— and not even a good one at that, and decided he simply had to be Batman.” She explained. “Then the Christopher Nolan ones came out, and there was no stopping him.”

“Every kid wants to be a superhero, and Batman is simply the best one.” He said as if it was obvious.

“I didn’t know you had a Batman phase.” You teased.

“Phase? He still has posters and comic books and dolls.” Charlotte added.

“Action figures.” He corrected her, making you laugh at the humor of it all.

“You know, honestly, I think I still have Catwoman action figures.” You admitted, trying to make him feel better, and Phil’s eyes lit up as she remembered another story.

“I cleaned your room a couple weeks ago, Harrison, and I was surprised to see you still Anne Hathaway as Catwoman posters.”

“Do we really have to talk about that? Does this torture not end?” He groaned.

“Fine. That’s enough for tonight.” Phil let out a defeated sigh, clearly enjoying herself.

“Y/N, if you want the really embarrassing stories, you’ve got to talk to Tom. He’s told me embarrassing Harrison stories that I can’t say in front of mum.” Charlotte laughed, and Harrison’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head at his sister’s words.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” You smiled coyly.

“Sometimes, I wonder if he forgets that I know just as much embarrassing shit that he did growing up, too.” Harrison stated, shaking his head.

The night went on with minimal embarrassment on Harrison’s end. After Phil and Charlotte went back to their hotel, you and Harrison started the walk back to your own hotel. As you walked, your hands would brush against each other’s every so often, but neither of you made any move to take it further.

“Darci’s going to be so jealous in the morning.” You said, making him laugh a little.

“Why’s that?”

“That’s her favorite restaurant in town. Plus, I just got a free meal.” You laughed. A visible shiver coursed through you as the chilly night air picked up.

“Are you cold?” Harrison asked, already taking off his letterman’s jacket.

“Thank you.” You replied, taking his offer of warmth. Your short sleeves did nothing to shield you from the cold, but he had at least been prepared enough with long sleeves. “Are you sure you won’t get chilly?”

“I’ll be fine.” He reassured you.

“I had a really nice time tonight. I’m glad your mum invited me.” You admitted happily.

“Me, too. Apart from all of the embarrassment I just went through, I enjoyed tonight.”

“I never knew you had a secret Batman fanboy side.”

“I never knew you had a secret Catwoman fangirl side.” He countered with a smile.

“Guess that means we make a good team, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess it does.”

As you smiled at him, completely content under the moonlight, he wanted nothing more than to kiss you right then, to taste the sweetness of your strawberry lip gloss again. The last bit of your walk was filled with you two arguing over Batwoman and Catwoman, two things that neither of you had ever realized you had in common before.

Harrison’s wish finally came true the next day, as you two ran through the kiss scene multiple times. It was strange at first for him, because his sister and mother were intently watching, proud to see him in action, even if it was just a kiss scene over and over again. But, with you there, he grew more and more comfortable with each take.

As a few more weeks passed by, Harrison thought that perhaps you and Davey had officially ended things, but then he heard through Darci that you had magically worked it out. Whatever magic it was, he was upset about it, and he found himself increasingly irritated at the mention of Davey.

“Ooh, we finally get to meet the Davey tonight?” Darci asked as the five of you enjoyed lunch in between shots. It had been two weeks Harrison’s mother and sister visited, and now Davey was coming, much to Harrison chagrin.

“He’s only here for two days.” You explained, taking a bite of your sandwich.

“Ah, so you’ll be very busy, then.” McKell teased, suggestively nudging your side with his elbow. You brushed off his comment with a laugh, avoiding Harrison’s eyes.

“We should get him to do that calzone challenge with us.” Jojo said to Harrison. Although Jojo and McKell had been rather supportive of Harrison’s interest in you at the beginning, they seemed to forget about it most of the time now— for which he was actually kind of grateful.

The conversation couldn’t go any further as the director came into the room, holding the script in his hands. The look on his face told all of you that something was up. He looked between you and Harrison before speaking, “Change of plans for tomorrow. Eileen isn’t feeling well, so we’ll film Bea and Leo’s scene tomorrow instead of her scenes.”

“But tomorrow was supposed to be—“ You started, but cut yourself short, realizing there was no point in arguing. Schedules, plans, things all change, and this was just part of the job. “Never mind.”

“Well, tomorrow will be interesting.” Darci said quietly, voicing what was on everybody’s minds.

The director left with a silent nod, and the room fell silent for a moment. You and Harrison wouldn’t dare to look at each other, both of you feeling awkward suddenly. Making out with Harrison multiple times, especially with your boyfriend there, was not something either of you particularly enjoyed the thought of.

Having to film no more scenes today, Harrison went back to the hotel with Jojo and McKell. He didn’t end up seeing you for the rest of the day, but he was okay with that as he wanted to go as long as he could without meeting Davey. The director had taken some pity on the two of you, asking you to come in later in the morning instead of at 6 AM like usual.

Harrison made his way down to the hotel gym, wanting to utilize his newfound free time. Normally, he’d get his daily workout in after filming, but he didn’t see a reason to not get an early start today. He didn’t expect anyone to be up this early, but as he got closer to the gym, he could hear a voice coming from inside the room, the door cracked just slightly.

“Love, I promise I’ll be back in two days.” The stranger paused before continuing, “You know I’m only here for business, nothing else.”

Curious and trying to decide if he should even enter the room, Harrison snuck a quick glance through the crack in the doorway. He felt his blood run cold as he immediately recognized the guy sitting on the weight bench. Afterall, Harrison had looked at your social media enough to recognize your olive-skinned boyfriend, Davey.

“Bit early for you, isn’t it?” Harrison nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of your voice from down the hall. He heard Davey mumbled something on the other side of the door, probably having heard your voice too.

“Yeah, but I just figured I’d start my pull-ups early today.” He replied before opening the door for you, acting like he had no clue that Davey had been in there.

“Hello, gorgeous.” Davey said to you, completely ignoring Harrison. He stood from his spot at the weight bench to wrap his arms around your waist and kiss you possessively.

“Davey, this is Harrison, he plays Leo. Harrison, this is Davey.” You introduced the two guys.

Davey looked Harrison up and down with his dark brown eyes and seemed to stand straighter, even though the blond was inches taller. Harrison was the first to step forward and politely outstretch a hand to the raven-haired guy before him. With a tight smile, Davey shook his hand, “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

Davey turned back to you, “Spot me?”

“Actually, I wanted to-” Your eyes drifted over to the treadmill as Harrison got in position to start his pull-ups at the bar. Davey looked at you expectantly, and you nodded, silently agreeing to stand there and spot Davey while he bench pressed.

Slipping on his headphones and turning on some music, Harrison began his workout. He played his music loud enough to block out your conversations with Davey. Not only was it none of his business, but god, Harrison really hated everything about him already. Hearing silence between you and Davey when his song changed, Harrison spared a glance over towards you. He was surprised when he found your eyes trained on him or, rather, trained on his abdomen that seemed to stick out from his tight white shirt. Still unaware of his eyes on you, your own eyes trailed up to his arms, watching as they flexed with each pull-up. Feeling flustered by your fixed gaze, Harrison faltered a little, and your eyes immediately darted back to Davey in front of you. Harrison couldn’t help the proud smile that ghosted his lips as he continued— you were checking him out.

Harrison finished his workout and decided to get cleaned up before heading to set in half an hour, leaving you and Davey in the gym. When he left, he was surprised that you were still spotting Davey, getting no work out in like you had planned. The whole time he was getting cleaned up (and brushing his teeth repeatedly to ensure he had good breath), he just kept picturing your staring in his head. He had worked very hard to get his body in this shape, and he was very proud of himself too, but he was even prouder that you’d clearly taken notice. If anything, it almost excited him that they’d be filming this scene today. There were a few times in this episode specifically in which Leo is shirtless, but none of those scenes had been filmed— and if this scene was going to be anything like it was scripted to be, then you’d definitely get a better show than in the hotel gym.

He didn’t see you again until the two of you were on set, in full costume and makeup. He had a loose shirt on, but underneath it, his chest had been painted with blues and purples to make convincing bruises. As he went to his mark, Leo’s makeshift bed on the floor of the cellar, Harrison spotted Davey across the set, looking bored and unhappy. His blue eyes drifted over to you next, and he refrained himself from smirking as he noticed your makeup artist applying chapstick to your lips.

While you gathered your prop lantern and the lights dimmed around you all, Harrison made himself comfortable under the ragged blankets. The director called out “Action!” and Harrison closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep as he waited for you to come into the shot. Hearing your footsteps, Harrison stirred, blinking his eyes open.

“Bea, is everything alright?” He asked, looking up at you as you stood over him.

“Let me see your body.” You said definitively.

“Beatrice—” He started, but you cut him off.

“Show me, Leo. I want to see it.” At your words, Harrison shifted slowly, moving as if in pain. He pulled the blankets down and went to roll up his shirt. “Take your top off.”

He paused, looking at you questioningly with a hint of fear in his eyes. Groaning a little, Harrison sat up and removed his shirt. He looked at you expectantly, and you set aside the lantern before kneeling on the blankets beside him. Your hand drifted over the painted bruise tentatively, ghosting over the same abs that you had been studying just hours earlier. Harrison waited for you to deliver your next line, knowing he was scripted to kiss you after it. It felt like ages that he was waiting for you, wanting nothing more than to kiss you right now. His mind went blank as your eyes found his and you leaned in to kiss him.

It was unscripted, and he was surprised, but he didn’t let his surprise stop him from immediately kissing you back. Your chapstick tasted of strawberries, just as it had the last time the two of you had a kissing scene, and he swore he was in love with the taste of it. He expected to hear the director yell cut, to hear him question why you suddenly improvised, but when nothing came, he just continued to kiss you. You pulled back, a shy smile on your face, “I don’t want you to hide your body from me anymore. It’s too nice to be hidden.”

His heart leapt as he leaned forward to catch your lips once more, this time scripted. His hands shuffled to your waist, pulling you down to lay beside him as he rolled onto his side, his chest leaning over yours. Your fingers tangled into his hair, and he savored the feeling.

You pulled back again, whispering up to him, “No more hiding.”

“No more hiding.” He reaffirmed. As he continued to kiss you, his hands sensually wandered down your back, keeping you as close to him as possible. Part of him wanted to pause the intimate scene and pinch himself, just to make sure it was really happening, but he was worried if he stopped kissing you now that he’d never get the opportunity to kiss you like this again.

“Cut!” The director called, and Harrison reluctantly pulled away from you. He could’ve sworn a small frown passed your lips as he looked down at you, not having shifted off of you yet.

“Spearmint— my favorite.” You teased quietly, as if it was only for the two of you to hear. As you laughed underneath him, Harrison couldn’t help but wonder what his younger self would think if he knew he’d one day get to make out with Y/N Y/L/N. Even if it was just for the show, it was a sight that he’d always want to remember.

“I’ve always enjoyed the taste of strawberries.” He replied softly, rolling away from you.

The director ran you two through a couple pointers for the scene, and, to Harrison’s surprise, he even suggested Bea kissing Leo first, just like you had improvised. You reasoned that you forgot your line momentarily, but something about the way you kissed Harrison made him feel like that wasn’t the case; no, it seemed like you’d truly wanted to kiss him.

After running through the scene a few more times, the director was satisfied. While you stayed behind on set to film more scenes, Harrison returned to his hotel room. Just as he was searching his toiletry bag for some much-needed chapstick, his phone began to ring with a Facetime call. Seeing Harry’s contact photo light up on his screen, he accepted and set his phone aside momentarily. He didn’t need to wonder what Harry (and most likely Tom, Tuwaine and maybe even Sam) were calling about— he had made the dire mistake of telling his easily-excited best friends about today’s scene.

“Why are we looking at your ceiling?” Harry asked almost immediately.

“I’m, uh, looking for lip balm.” Harrison admitted quietly and smiled to himself when he found some. He quickly put it on and then grabbed his phone, heading to his bed where he could comfortably talk to his friends.

As expected, his friends let out an incoherent chorus of excitement. Sam seemed to calm down enough first to ask (more like, shout through the phone), “How was it?”

“Does she really kiss with tongue? Remember Jack used to say-” Tom started, and Harrison scoffed, hearing the name of one of their old classmates who swears he had a summer fling with you once.

“I still don’t believe him, but no, not today at least.” Harrison was honestly a bit embarrassed to admit it. You were in a relationship… with a possibly cheating moron, but still. It just didn’t feel right to talk about you in that way.

“Not today? So there could be another time!” Tuwaine shouted encouragingly.

“Is she still with that prick?” Tom asked.

“Yes, but,” Harrison paused, and they all looked at him expectantly, waiting for elaboration, “I think he might be cheating on her.”

“What makes you say that?” Harry questioned. “Mate, just because you fancy her doesn’t mean her boyfriend’s a cheater.”

“No, I mean I heard him on the phone, and he said he was in Liverpool for business, not for his girlfriend.” He reasoned, “I’m just very suspicious of him.”

“You should tell her if you think he is.” Sam stated, “If he isn’t, then, oh no, you’re on bad terms with her boyfriend, who probably already hates you after today. If he is, well, she’d hate you if she finds out you kept it from her.”

Harrison let out a small sigh as the others nodded. “I don’t know. It’s not my place. Besides, she said something a few weeks about him wanting an open relationship. Maybe it’s that?”

“Okay, look, forget I asked about him.” Tom said, shaking his head, while the others looked at Harrison skeptically through the phone, “How was it to finally have your drama school dreams fulfilled?”

“Fucking heaven.” Harrison admitted with a laugh.

For the next week, Harrison resisted the urge to tell you about Davey. He wanted to, he really did, but whenever he’d finally be alone with you and mentally prepare himself for the conversation, you would always just seem so happy and content. He couldn’t bring himself to disturb your happiness, especially when it was Harrison making you happy. After Davey left, it’s like something changed within you, and Harrison had no clue what it was, but he enjoyed it.

‘You have to tell her.’ Harrison read over his most recent text from Tom again. He let out a small sigh, trying to get the courage to tell you as you sat across from him at the booth.

It was Saturday, and you two, along with Darci, Jojo, and McKell, had made your way to a club, wanting to celebrate another week down. With only two episodes left to film, you all knew your time together was starting to run low. You were all a few drinks in by now, happily buzzed. Jojo and McKell were off somewhere, probably attempting to be each other’s wingmen. Darci was telling you a story so wild that Harrison wondered if it was even true. He finished the rest of his drink and shuffled out of the booth.

“I’m going to grab another drink.” Harrison said to you two, and, without waiting for a response, he left. He made no move to flag down the bartender, leaning against an empty spot in the bar. Pulling on the collar of his blue shirt, he started to feel hot, unsure if he could handle this.

“What happened to getting another drink?” You asked him, stepping up beside him.

“Where’s Darci?” He replied, not wanting to answer your question.

“Found a friend in the crowd.” You laughed and turned to flag down the bartender. You ordered a round of shots, to Harrison’s surprise.

“Are you good?” He asked skeptically.

“Yeah,” You nodded, but with how your eyes were glazed over the alcohol and another unreadable emotion, Harrison didn’t quite believe you. Playfully, you nudged him, “I should ask you the same thing. You’re the one who’s been moping all night for god knows why.”

“I haven’t been moping.” He argued as a tray of four shots was placed in front of you two. You handed one to him and took one for yourself.

“Cheers to another week done.” You clinked your shot glass against his before both of you downed them.

As you went to grab your second shot, Harrison reached a hand and stopped you. Concerned, he asked, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Davey and I broke up— for good this time.” You admitted, and his hold on your wrist softened while he looked at you pitifully. “He told me when he was here that he went through with his ‘open relationship’ plan, even though I never agreed to it, so he’s been basically cheating on me since I left for this job. Then tonight, he drunkenly texts me, and I know it’s just a booty call. He’s done it for years, but now I actually see it for what it is. So now, my shitty boyfriend is gone, I’m finally single, and my only plans for tonight is to get properly drunk. Maybe even hookup with a stranger— god knows it’s been a while since I had decent sex.” Harrison was speechless, and you continued, a smile finding its way to your face at the end of your venting. “Dance with me after this shot?”

“Do I have a choice?” He asked playfully, feeling your mood lighten once more. You winked at him, handing him a full shot glass. He made a mental note to keep a close eye on you and to keep you from drinking anymore.

After you both drank back the burning liquid, you grabbed his hand and pulled him out to the dancefloor. Harrison had felt the alcohol that was flooding his system earlier, but the colored lights, pounding music, and countless bodies around him seemed to make the alcohol hit him harder. There was a weight off his shoulders, knowing you were actually single as you danced with him, and yet he still felt strange about his current state with you— were you truly into him or was he just the first guy you could drunkenly hook up with?

You turned to face him, a small frown on your face, “Haz, you’re being a bit of a killjoy.”

It was then that he realized, while you were fully grinding on his body, he was relatively motionless. Your hands found his, and you planted one on your hip and another on the small of your back, low enough though that it teetered being on your ass. You leaned in closer to him, letting him get a whiff of your perfume. While one of your hands trailed along the hem of his shirt, daring to even dip below his shirt, the other traced through his hair.

As you planted a kiss on Harrison’s neck, not caring at all for the dancing bodies around you, you heard him let out a strangled groan of your name. Your nails light scratched over the deep V in his hips, hooking onto where his jeans met the line.

“Should we get out of here?” You asked Harrison, your lips right next to his ear as your voice dripped with seduction. He felt his heart flip with intoxicating excitement before he was immediately reminded of the gravity of the situation. You went to kiss him, but he moved back quickly, stepping out of your reach. Pouting, you asked, “Do you not want me? After all this time?”

“No, I do.” Harrison insisted. “I want you, but not like this, not when you’re drunk. You’re not in the right headspace for this. I don’t want to be your drunken rebound.”

“How can you be a rebound when it’s always been you?”

Harrison sighed. Oh, how much he’d love to hear that from you— sober. He was saved from having to reply when Darci, McKell, and Jojo found you two. They looked at the two of you skeptically, but Harrison just shook his head.

“I’m going to take Y/N back to the hotel.” He said as he stepped closer to the group so that they could hear him over the music.

“We’ll come, too.” Jojo insisted, even though, with his words slurred and his eyes glazed over, he was thoroughly drunk, too.

“Where did Y/N go?” McKell asked, realizing your sudden absence.

“Oh god,” Harrison muttered, and the four of them dispersed in the crowd to find you, tripping over the other sweaty bodies. Darci found you first, unable to stop you from having a couple more shots.

“No, no, you’re done.” She argued with you. You reached for the last shot that she had taken from you, but, in your intoxicated state, you easily lost your balance. Harrison quickly wrapped an arm around your waist to hold you up.

“I don’t think she can walk.” Jojo commented.

“What gave that away?” McKell asked sarcastically.

“Come on, let’s get you home.” With a small sigh, Harrison, as the most sober of the group (though he still felt fairly tipsy), proceeded to lead you out of the club.

Darci hailed a cab for the five of you, and while it was an illegally tight fit, you all made it work. You leaned on Harrison as he was pressed right up against you. On your other side sat Jojo. You mumbled softly to Harrison, one of your hands falling onto his knee, “Do you remember that year when they put up mistletoe at school?”

“Where are you going with this?” He asked you softly.

“I saw you kiss Vivian at the one outside of the gym, and I couldn’t walk in that area for three months without thinking of you. I was so jealous of her, and you just looked like such a good kisser, which I’m happy to report you are.”

“Babes, maybe stop with the drunk talking.” Darci said, because all of you could tell this was stuff sober you would never say.

Harrison looked at you in surprise— he barely even remembered when Vivian dragged him under the mistletoe, so the fact that you remembered and were jealous? And you said he was a good kisser, too. He felt a glimmer of pride overcome him.

“Ask me tomorrow, it’s the truth.” You shuffled in your seat, laying your head against Jojo’s shoulder, “Jojo, wanna know a secret?”

“Y/N, maybe-” Darci started, but Jojo cut her off.

“No, go on, Y/N.” He laughed, wanting to hear your drunk thoughts.

“Do you think I’d make a good Catwoman?” You asked, words slurring together as you grew tired.

“Catwoman? Like Anne Hathaway?” He questioned, and you hummed a ‘yes’. “Yeah, you’d make a good Catwoman.”

“Good. Tell Haz he needs to my Batman then.” Your voice was quiet, as if it was something just meant for the two of you to hear, but your voice wasn’t nearly as soft as you had thought it was, meaning Harrison and the rest of your friends were truly aware of your little drunken secret

“Okay, I’ll tell him.” Jojo reassured you, a shit-eating grin on his face as he glanced over your head to look at the embarrassed Harrison.

The rest of the car ride was silent, and Harrison helped you out of your seat. With the help of the others, he got you safely inside your hotel room. Everyone retreated to their own rooms, except for Harrison who stayed with you. He laid you down on your bed and went searching for your pajamas, which to his luck were stowed underneath your pillow.

“Can you change or—?” Harrison asked, holding out the clothes to you

“I’ve got it, though I wouldn’t mind you helping.” You said with a wink. As you started to change out of your club clothes, Harrison turned away from you and focused on getting out some much-needed pain reliever and a glass of water for you to have in the morning. He heard you shuffle on the bed behind him before you let out a small huff, “Hazzy, can you come here?”

Hazzy— that was a new nickname. To his surprise, you were already tucked up in bed, your previously worn clothes scattered on the floor around you. He set the water and meds on your nightstand before kneeling to your level, “What’s wrong, love?”

“Do you know why Davey wasn’t my first love?” You asked quietly, your eyes beginning to droop with sleep. You reached a hand out to tentatively run your fingers over his cheek before you cupped it, smiling softly at him.

He had a hunch, but he played along anyway, wanting to hear you say it, in case he never heard it again. “Why?”

“Because you were.” Your voice was so quiet that he barely heard you, but he was so glad that he did. He leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss to your forehead, and you let your hand fall from his face.

“Get some sleep. We can talk in the morning.”

“Can you stay tonight? Please?”

“Of course, love.” Harrison stood to his full height, and when he looked at you again, you were already asleep. He softly readjusted the blankets on your bed to make sure you were warm enough, before he made his way over to the couch. Grabbing a throw blanket off the back of the couch, he settled into his bed for the night. Just like every other night lately, he drifted off thinking of you, but this time, there was an excited flutter in his heart.

The next day, Harrison woke up to you letting out a groan, loudly asking, “Why the fuck is it so bright in here?”

He slowly sat up from the couch to check on you. A smile crossed his face as you took the pain meds he’d left out and downed the glass of water. Your eyes seemed to bulge out of your head when you noticed his presence in the room. Laughing, he greeted you, “Good morning, sunshine.”

“Please tell me you miraculously don’t remember anything I said last night because I remember, and I don’t want to.” You said, pulling your knees up to your chest.

“Sorry to disappoint then.” He sent you a sympathetic smile.

With a sigh, you patted the spot beside you on your bed. Wordlessly, Harrison got up from the couch and came to sit beside you on the bed. He expected you to say something, but when you were silent, seemingly caught up in your thoughts, he spoke up, “Did you mean it? When you said I was your first love?”

“Yes.” There was no hesitation in your reply, and you turned to finally meet his eye, “It was a very intense schoolgirl crush, hence why I hated Vivian after that mistletoe incident, but seeing you again just made me realize that it was more than just a crush. I’ve regretted saying no to you all those years ago ever since you came back into my life.”

“Well, I thought I was over my crush on you, but turns out, there are just some things time can’t change.”

A comfortable silence overfell you two again before you finally spoke up with the words that had been on your mind for weeks, “I think I’m in love with you.”

“I think I’m in love with you, too.” Harrison sealed his words by leaning in to kiss you.

With no script to follow now, he felt fireworks as you kissed him back. One of your hands drifted to the back of his neck, silently urging him to continue kissing you. His hands snaked around your waist before he shifted to lay on his back, rolling you on top of him. You deepened the kiss, your tongue finding its way into his mouth. He moaned at first, fully enjoying himself, before his lips curved into a smile, and he started to laugh against your lips.

“What’s so funny?” You asked, pulling away from his lips. His hands wandered from your hips up to where your own hands were resting on his chest, and he casually intertwined your fingers.

“It’s nothing.” He said in an attempt to play it off, but the smile on his face told you that whatever he was thinking was hilarious to him. “You remember Jack Evans? He told everyone that you were the best french kisser in school, and, well, he’s not wrong.”

You let out a scoff before giggling to yourself, “First of all, how many girls have you french kissed from drama school and should I be jealous? Second of all, Jack was an ass who couldn’t kiss for shit, but I’ll take it as a compliment that he told everyone that.” You leaned down until your lips were just barely touching, “And thirdly, do you want to keep talking about drama school, or do you want me to keep kissing you?”

“You don’t need to be jealous, but I kinda like that you are.” He replied with a cheeky smile. “And you’re right. He was an ass.”

“And for the last one?” You asked, raising your eyebrows at him.

Harrison pretended to think about it for a second before he let go of your hand to cup your cheek, bringing your lips crashing back down to his.

[ilikekidsshows]

The Marinette and Kagami Sub Arc Breakdown

Okay, it's finally done, the big analysis, where I tackle a topic I've wanted to write for simply because it's a topic I personally find interesting and fun, AKA, The Best Sub Arc in the Entire Series So Far, AKA, How Marinette Proved Without a Shadow of a Doubt that She'd Never Be Like Chloé And We Stan.

One of the most interesting parts of the Marinette and Kagami rivals to friends sub arc is that it's one of the aspects of the show that directly connects to Marinette's past as a victim of bullying and is, in a way, about her overcoming that past. Not many things in the show remind us of the revelation in 'Origins' that Chloé had been bullying Marinette for years before the show's timeline, especially since Chloé became pretty declawed as a school level threat as the series went on to the degree where I think many people watching forgot that she used to hold a lot more power, and Marinette used to be wary of her.

But, the reason why Marinette being a bully victim is important in her arc with Kagami is this: people who have been victimized don't necessarily recognize it when they're victimizing others, and I believe that Marinette shows signs of this mentality in the show, particularly in season three. I'll illustrate how Marinette's ex-bully victim mindset informed the early stages of her relationship with Kagami and how Marinette overcame her internal biases when it comes to Kagami and her behavior towards Kagami.

In 'Origins', when Alya quotes Majestia's by now immortal line, she also says something that is very much what someone who has been victimized would identify with: "That girl over there is evil, while we are the good people." While Alya was very accurate that she and Marinette are good people, she didn't really know much about Marinette at this point, so she was actually pretty much guessing. The reason why this line is important is because it relies on an assumption that a moral binary exists on the bully-victim scale, instead of these roles being dynamic and socially formed. If you’re a victim of a bully, the bully is evil and you are a Good Person.

Some people who've been systematically victimized think on some level that them being victims means that they can never be instigators, that they're automatically morally pure because the person who victimizes them is the evil one. This is a very typical argument in social justice circles, where a person who is victimized for one thing might say bigoted things about another group and claim that they can't be a bigot because they suffer from bigotry. The simplest example I can give is white women refusing to accept that something they've said about black women could be offensive to black women specifically, because "how could a victim of sexism be racist". Now, what happens between Marinette and Kagami in the show is nowhere near this level of victimization switcheroo, but it still has that false binary in that Marinette thinks that her actions have more moral justification than they actually do.

The interesting thing about how Kagami is introduced is that her future role as a love rival was downplayed in ‘Riposte’. Her Akumatization was because of family issues and the idea that she might be attracted to Adrien came from Marinette's jealous grumblings while she was rescuing him from Riposte (I'm mostly referring to the "She doesn't deserve you" line). Outside of that little bit, 'Riposte' comes across as a pretty standard Victim of the Week episode, instead of setting up a romance sub arc. As such, Marinette already viewing Kagami's Riposte form as a romantic rival serves more as foreshadowing rather than it actually forming their relationship.

Then we get to 'Frozer'. Marinette doesn't really know much of anything about Kagami at the start of this episode, as we can see in her mental image of Kagami as a cackling mean girl. Because Marinette doesn't really know Kagami at this point, when Adrien tells her he's thinking of asking Kagami out, her mind gives a placeholder mental image of her, seemingly based off of Chloé, another rich girl with a (supposed) crush on Adrien. This is the episode that establishes Kagami as a romantic rival to both the audience and Marinette, and Marinette’s negative mental image of Kagami establishes the idea of this rivalry being antagonistic. However, because this setup happens in Marinette's headscape, it's actually a one-sided antagonism.

Kagami isn't actually antagonistic towards Marinette in 'Frozer', but there is a certain assertiveness and physical presence to her in the episode that Marinette, as a former bully victim, might find imposing. Kagami gets in her personal space, because she's telling Marinette something she's sure Marinette doesn't want the boys to hear, but to Marinette, the body language could have come across as threatening. The way Marinette stares at Kagami throughout the scene with a deer-in-headlights look can indicate more general startlement or a sense of foreboding. And the episode ends with Kagami kissing Adrien on the cheek, establishing her as a threat in Marinette's eyes. From Marinette's view, Kagami's behavior in 'Frozer' confirmed her fears about Kagami, that she was a rich bully.

This interpretation of Kagami informs a lot of Marinette's actions in 'Animaestro'. Here we see just how much Marinette has started to view Kagami as the new Chloé in her mind. Even when the actual Chloé shows up, Marinette is more ready to side with her than Kagami. And why this happens is because Chloé actually accidentally enforces the idea that, because Marinette is a Good Person, any person who works against her happiness is a bully and a Bad Person. While we could argue that Marinette has no reason to listen to anything Chloé says, we have to remember that Marinette has been lowkey hoping Chloé would become a better person in episodes like 'Antibug' and 'Zombizou'. When they both agree that Kagami has to go, Marinette could have taken it as another sign that Chloé's not all bad, or Marinette could have simply come to the conclusion that Kagami is actually worse than Chloé, and so teaming up with Chloé to take her down is justified.

It's important to note that 'Animaestro' chronologically takes place right after 'Chameleon', another episode where Marinette thinks she's morally justified in practically bullying someone because they're acting in a way she disagrees with. Because Lila was revealed to be able to dish back the same, if not even worse, that Marinette could unleash, Marinette never learned that her behavior at the start of the episode was bullying and therefore bad. Lila "justified" Marinette's actions after the fact because she was actually a bad person all along, so Marinette doesn't need to feel bad about basically harassing her. If Lila had just been someone who fibs for fun, with no malicious intentions, Marinette's behavior would have been completely out of proportion.

This is why the approach Chloé and, by extension, Marinette take against Kagami is so vital. With Chloé hatching a scheme that was so much like one Marinette would put together, the lines between Marinette and Chloé were blurred in this episode. Simply because it was such a convoluted plan might have also been why Marinette didn't seem to realize the implications of what she was trying to accomplish. I mentioned during my liveblog of this episode that Marinette doesn't seem to consider that, since the plan was to publicly humiliate Kagami, the plan working would have meant hurting Kagami really badly. I also pointed out that, because the trap triggered for the wrong target, this fact didn't really register with Marinette completely, since she merely noted that of course Chloé would have a bad plan. The plan was bad because it failed, not because it was morally wrong.

However, even though we didn't see it happen in the episode itself, what happened at the movie premiere did alter Marinette's perception of Kagami. Most likely it was contrasting Kagami to the actual Chloé and realizing that she had been mistakenly attributing Chloé's traits to Kagami. The change in Marinette's perception is clear in her panic spiral when she realizes Kagami is her partner for the game in 'Ikari Gozen': "She's brilliant, strong, cute!" Marinette would never spell out all of Chloé's better features in such a way, which means her stance on Kagami has moved away from seeing her as The New Chloé.

Even though Marinette doesn't see Kagami as a bad person at this point anymore, she does still consider her strictly opposition. She refuses to work with her, preferring instead to sabotage her and her chances with Adrien, just this time without the attempted humiliation. This is mostly because Marinette sees Kagami and thinks she has it all: looks, confidence, influence, a connection with Adrien. Marinette is absolutely convinced that if they won the contest, all attention would be on Kagami and she'd be sidelined in favor of her. It's easy to think that a little bit of sabotage is okay when Kagami seems to have such an unfair advantage.

Unfortunately for Marinette's peace of mind, the point of 'Ikari Gozen' is to dissuade her of the notion that Kagami is fortunate in every way possible. We can see that Marinette thought that sabotaging the game was fine because Kagami had so many advantages because, as soon as she discovers that Kagami is friendless and has no connection to Adrien outside of fencing, she feels very bad for what she was trying to do. Marinette didn't actually want to hurt or upset Kagami. In 'Animaestro', Marinette didn't think about Kagami's feelings at all in relation to how Chloé's scheme might make Kagami feel, but this time she is thinking about them, she simply misjudged them at the start. She thought her purposefully throwing the contest would be a minor setback to Kagami, not what it ended up being: a betrayal by someone she was hoping to befriend.

I noted during my liveblog of this episode that Marinette's relationship with Adrien also started with a misunderstanding where Marinette first saw Adrien in a more negative light before that impression was proven to be false and they became friends. The development in 'Ikari Gozen' mirrors what happens in 'Origins' in that Marinette first has a false impression of Kagami, but is ultimately proven wrong in her assumptions and becomes friends with her. Marinette nominating herself as Kagami's friend even in her phone call with Tomoe suggests that Marinette recognized a similar need for friends in Kagami that she's seen in Adrien.

Marinette has gotten over seeing Kagami as an opponent in 'Desperada', where we see how Marinette reacts to Kagami and Adrien enjoying an inside joke together: she is miserable. Marinette recognizes the similarity between Kagami and Adrien and, rather than making her mad with jealousy, it makes her feel defeated. While Marinette's perception that Kagami was put together and perfect was taken down in 'Ikari Gozen', 'Desperada' shows us that she still thinks she can't measure up against Kagami, although now it's for the reason that she can see the connection between Adrien and Kagami and doesn't think she has what it takes to compete with that.

'Love Hunter' is the episode where this new sense of insecurity comes to a head. When Marinette's hair falls out of its usual style, it signifies her letting down her guard and enjoying both Kagami and Adrien's company, because Adrien and Kagami are both her friends at this point. However, when Marinette is reminded that there are things that Kagami and Adrien experience that she can't relate to ("It's not every day we can escape from everything they expect from us"), she hastily ties her hair back into the usual twintails, her insecurity forcing her to put her walls back up again.

Marinette is in emotional turmoil throughout the episode, allowing Adrien and Kagami to have what could constitute as an ice cream date alone at first, only to interrupt Kagami's attempt to kiss Adrien a few minutes later by whisking Kagami away to help solve the Akuma situation. This is why Marinette wanted André to pick the ice cream blend, because she started to project her relationships with Adrien and Kagami onto the ice cream too much. Marinette values her friends' happiness very high, high enough to stand aside when Kagami refers to their similarity as the reason she and Adrien are made for each other. Marinette does respond to Kagami that choices can be hard, so her standing aside is also about Marinette simply not acting at all, either to allow Kagami to go for Adrien unchallenged or to pursue Adrien herself. The choice between Adrien and Kagami was too much for her. Marinette being indecisive is of course a major character flaw I've discussed on this blog repeatedly, so the idea that it might have played a role here too makes sense from my perspective.

So far the Marinette and Kagami arc has been about Marinette learning not to subject other people to the kind of treatment she gets from Chloé, overcoming the temptation to turn into a bully to protect herself, and also making friends along the way. But there is still more ground that can be covered with this immensely interesting relationship. This is actually why I feel we really need to see Kagami and Marinette interacting after Kagami and Adrien break up. Because Marinette still has unresolved feelings about Kagami and not just Adrien after the season three finale.