#gotta go my own waaaaay

[killemwithkawaii]

Alright, the kewk classic 'face hole' design it is~ 📊✅

"Ain't he a doll?" 💋💦💕

And now while I fuck with this anatomy sketch 5ever, we gotta decide on a background! I'm thinking Sal would prefer to do his love-sick swooning in the privacy of his bedroom, but where, exactly? 🤔

'The bed'-

Perks: seems more routine, sowft snuggly nest to daydream and swoon in, [darling] collage on the wall, '... okay, what have you been doing with that pillow...?'

Drawbacks: Limited space, have to take stability/sinking into account with props, perspective is Hard and I will make that headboard look good or die trying

'The floor'-

Perks: seems more impulsive, more yan/NEET clutter potential (more room to spread out), a glimpse under his bed (and at all the [darling] stuff he's got shoved under there)

Drawbacks: That carpet is UGLY, I will probably (definitely) bite off more than I can chew trying to fill all that space with props, it hurts my Everything just thinking about lying on the floor like that for too long

'Secret third thing'-

....???? idk you tell me lol

[flightfoot]

ML Fanfic recs for 2023: 2K - 5K Words

So I’ve been going through and adding particularly good fics I’ve read throughout the year. Only Complete fics, of course. Enjoy!

An uncaffeinated Marinette makes for an easily misunderstood Marinette.

Luka’s a ghost. Naturally, he does some haunting. He didn’t expect to fall in love along the way.

Nathaniel keeps trying to confess his feelings to Ivan. Marc keeps trying to sabotage those attempts in order to confess his own feelings. Why does it seem like things never go right?

Cat Walker’s under orders to fight Ladybug. That doesn’t stop Adrien from helping his girlfriend.

Zoe and Kagami discuss the intricacies of relationships while being mildly inconvenienced by zombies.

Kagami awakens to find herself in a house with a zombie. This is less of a problem than you might think.

Sabine keeps having nightmares about Ladybug and Chat Noir killing Marinette. She has some basis to worry.

All this and more below the break!

---

They fill you with the faults they had. And add some extra, just for you by @unecoccinellenoire 

The thing is, Adrien Agreste isn’t a sentimonster. That’s the problem.

It’s left ambiguous exactly what’s happening, but... instead of the characters who’re canonically sentis being controlled, it looks like another method’s been used to keep them under their parents thumb. Basically, that what we thought were the kids amoks’ were actually used to brainwash more generally. Which leads to some complicated ethical questions for Adrien, since he now holds the rings. Especially since he can now use the rings on others the way they were used on him. 

---

what if we got married in the park by my house in the middle of the school year by @wooawi

Marinette comes up with an ingenious plan to take Adrien away from Gabriel's garbage parenting.

This was just fun. Of course Marinette’s immediate plan to get Adrien away from his garbage family is to make him part of her own. It’s hilarious and adorable and Adrien rocks the wedding dress!

---

Slip of the Tongue (And Not Enough Caffiene) by That_WildChild

Marinette is tired. Marinette is also uncaffeinated. This is not a good combination.

A sleepy Marinette accidentally suggests that she shares her bed with Ladybug. At least she's protecting her identity?

Pure Crack.

Ah, sweet, sweet crack! I giggled during the story. Marinette is “fucking Ladybug” indeed. At least her classmates are supportive! 

---

See This Chance by @19thsentry-blog

Luka died in 2016. Yep. Crushed by the Arc de Triumph when Mayura’s Robustus slammed into it. It was kind of a big deal, but once you’re dead, you’re dead—especially when there’s no Lucky Charm to bring you back.

Luka’s been dealing with it in the typical ways.

Written for FeLuka week 2023.

Yes, this is FeLuka. Not one of the typical ships I read, but I ain’t opposed to it, and this is a nice foray into the pairing. I love ghost AUs! Luka’s just fumbling around, unsure what to do with his incorporeal existence, until he starts haunting Felix. It’s an intriguing plot and I gotta admit, I wish it was longer so it could be fleshed out more, but what’s here is good.

---

Confession Plans of Questionable Sanity by yellow14

Nathanael Kurtzberg has a confession to make. He's in love with his big classmate Ivan. With the help of Marc, Marinette, Adrien and Nino, he's going to confess, using increasingly complicated schemes.

Marc meanwhile, is busy coming up with even more complicated schemes to sabotage those schemes so he can confess HIS feelings for his redheaded friend.

Nothing could POSSIBLY go wrong with this, right?

Written for the March 2023 gift exchange on the Miraculous Fanworks Discord forum for CassieTheweirdWolf.

This fic’s just really funny. These kids love to make things waaaaay harder than they need to be. But hey, everything ends up working out in the end, even if it’s not the way they planned!

---

at our wedding by @anna-scribbles

“Chloé,” Adrien said slowly, “At our wedding, are we gonna have to…”

“No!” Chloé shook her head firmly. “We don’t have to kiss. We can do whatever we want. It’s our wedding.”

“Oh, good,” Adrien sighed.

“You have to kiss at a wedding,” Félix argued.

“I don’t have to do anything and you’re not the boss of me!” Chloé shouted.

“Yeah!” Adrien grinned. He grabbed Chloé’s hand again. “Yeah, it’s our wedding.”

//

Adrien and Chloé, wedding planning through the years.

Despite what the summary sounds like, this is NOT a Chloe/Adrien fic - this concentrates on their platonic relationship (and a bit with Felix, he shows up a few times) throughout the years. I especially liked seeing Chloe’s reaction to Adrien coming to school and making friends besides her, being jealous and feeling abandoned, and how she finally had a breakdown over Adrien somehow staying nice despite everything, while she... hasn’t. It’s a great character study!

---

Showing Love by @generalluxun

After the fiasco of Queen Wasp is over, Marinette knows what she had to do. If she just brings Chloé and her mother together, all will be fixed. A mother's love is just the thing to turn Chloé around, and it all must really just be a misunderstanding right?

Nothing else makes sense.

Marinette's mistake was forgetting that life never has to make sense, but she's Ladybug, and when one path closes she finds another.

I love Marinette really comprehending how little Audrey cares about Chloe here, and taking Chloe home with her to show her what a family should be like, reaching out to her even after everything. It’s just really nice.

---

the legend of the firefly by @agnes-writes

“She’s… beautiful.

If he were to describe her, he’d say that they bottled summer in her eyes, and painted the night sky in her hair. Her lips are curved into a wistful smile, eyes trailing the thicket of trees where Adrien stands.

Her gaze sets his heart stuttering in his chest as it softens, and Adrien almost believes that look is meant for him.”

OR: A pair of lovers create a romance that transcends time, and leaves a mark like no other.

This is an incredibly well-written folk tale, one that I highly recommend anyone who loves mythological, folktale, fantasy, etc AUs for Adrienette to read! It’s on the shorter side, but woven so perfectly that it packs an outsized punch, and feels like it belongs in one of those collections of folk tales and myths I read as a kid! 

Adrien’s a god, gifting prosperity to those under his protection, but never interacting with them... until a farm girl catches his eye.

---

The Cat’s Out of the Purse by The_Rabbit42

Adrien just took the ring off to be safe.

Plagg just got bored and wanted to annoy Tikki.

Rose just opened her purse and SURPRISE!

Ladybug just wants to get the ring back to her partner.

This was a fun fic, never seen Rose and Plagg interact like this before! It’s a treat getting more Rose and Plagg focus in general of course, but I really like their relationship here. Plagg’s really good with his wielders in general, and I love how he emphasizes that while he needs to get back to Chat Noir, while Rose is transformed with him, she’s as much her own wielder as he is. It reminds me of how he acted with Zoe, Plagg’s just a treasure XD

---

home is where the fight is by @rosie-b

Nadja Chamack’s voice greeted Adrien as he sat up straight, wiping his clammy hands on his pants and ignoring the black kwami floating by his shoulder.

“—shocked to see our heroine fall in battle today, taking a direct hit from the akuma just as she detransformed. Parisians are torn between blaming Hawk Moth and Cat Walker for their roles in this tragedy, which ultimately revealed the civilian identity of Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

Adrien turned off the TV and lowered his head as his vision blurred.

Written for Ladrien June Day 7: Injured

I adore this fic! Which shouldn’t be a a surprise, it’s no secret that I love Sentiadrien Enemies AU. Adrien’s so worried about Marinette getting hurt, and wishes that he could help keep her safer, could tell her what’s really going on or get rid of the ring or something, but he can’t. Still, he IS able to find clever ways around some of his father’s more problematic orders. Loopholes for the win!

---

Attack of the Crystal Zombies by @trainsinanime

Kagami had spent more and more time hanging out with Zoé, talking about things like families, expectations and crushes on Marinette. It was only natural, probably, that she would help Zoé practice flirting. That was definitely a great idea.

Granted, the deadly Akuma battle around them was a bit of an issue…

Quality Zoegami fic here! I loved how Kagami kept thinking she was bad at flirting, but it was sure working on Zoe XD. The akuma attack going on around them, interweaving with their conversation, added a bit of spice to the whole affair!

---

Closure by @bisexually-finger-guns

After the events of “Trust”, Alya tries to find closure.

I love this. A lot of the time, only the effects of Lila’s lies and manipulation on Marinette is explored, with the feelings of the people she tried to trick and use, with the Miracuclass and Alya in particular, ignored, downplayed, or even used to just rail at the kids for being gullible.

Not so here. Alya gets to go to a school counselor and talk about her feelings about Lila manipulating her, using her. Ladybug even gives her the Fox Miraculous to try a Burn-letter therapy technique on, telling an illusion of Lila everything she wants to say to her in order to get some closure. 

---

Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite! by 55Anon

In which Hawkmoth is defeated by a strike.

So basically, Parisians get pissed at Hawkmoth and decide that hey, maybe they can’t stop him themselves, and they can’t just stay entirely positive at all times, but they sure as hell can direct every bit of their hatred and anger at him so that if he akumatizes one of them, they make a beeline for his lair. Hawkmoth didn’t stand a chance against the contempt of Paris!

---

All Of Them? Every Single One? by @liiinerle

It turns out that Marinette loves a lot more people than she'd initially thought.

This is hilarious and adorable. Tikki lays out how Marinette has a crush on basically every girl she’s met - and even girls she doesn’t know are girls yet XD. 

---

Anchor by @liiinerle

“Marinette. Please take that sabre out of your neck.”

“Right. Thanks. I forgot it was there.” She grabbed hold of the guard and pulled; the blade slid out like it had only been run through butter. After dropping it on the floor, she picked up one of the teacups and picked up a biscuit from a tin she’d brought in; she placed the biscuit on the saucer plate and handed the whole thing to Kagami, who could only really resign herself to accepting it.

-----

Marinette has raised Kagami from the dead, and also happens to be dead herself. It turns out some bad choices were made in the past. But that doesn't mean they'll lead to bad outcomes for them now.

I love this, Marinette’s incredibly blase about being a zombie - which makes sense, given how long she’s had to get used to the idea. And she’s waited so long, tried so hard to bring Kagami back as well, though if she didn’t WANT to be back, she’d accede to that request. Luckily, Kagami doesn’t seem to mind as long as she’s with Marinette XD.

---

safe and sound by Lady_Bryght

A crazed fan is stalking Adrien with violent intentions, and Ladybug is determined to protect him. When the school goes on lockdown and Marinette can't transform, she does her best to keep him safe without the use of a miraculous.

So this is a bit of a suspenseful thriller with a twist ending - well, sort of an ending, it’s a oneshot so far with an ambiguous ending that reveals what’s going on, but not how things actually resolve. It’s the sort of story where, after you see the ending, you look back through the story for foreshadowing. Can’t really go much more in detail, without spoiling the twist.

---

Worth Your Time by @pearl484-blog

After the events of the Season 4 finale, Adrien leaves a series of voicemails for Felix after learning he is missing. Just because Felix is out of sight, doesn't mean he's out of mind for his cousin.

Entry for Adrien AUGreste prompt: Rings

I’d honestly forgotten about Adrien being told by Amelie that Felix was missing, and how that might have affected him. He doesn’t know that Felix is okay - he just knows that Felix disappeared after giving the Miraculous to Monarch, and that not even his mom (supposedly) knows where he is. So naturally, he fears the worst, and after awhile of leaving voicemails and not getting replies, he almost starts using the voicemails as a diary of sorts about the various events of season 5 - up until Emotion that is, for obvious reasons.

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the less I seek my source for some definitive by katrinette

When the akuma manages to smash a hole in the hull of the colony ship that's supposed to be unbreakable, Ladybug has to take drastic action to keep everyone safe.

This is an interesting sci-fi AU! Ladybug and Chat Noir pilot the last few fighter ships of their colony ship, the only defense against the akumas that keep on appearing and attacking the ship. But when one of the akumas smashes a hole in the ship, well Ladybug is willing to go to extreme measures to make sure everyone doesn’t die from the depressurization - measures that do not include any regard for her own safety, much to Chat’s displeasure.

---

Guilty by Association by @rosie-b

Marinette respected Adrien’s strength and courage more and more every day. No matter how many times people threw nasty words or literal tomatoes at him; no matter how many companies refused to work with him anymore; no matter how clear it was becoming that he would never be forgiven for his father’s crimes, he chose to greet new people with a smile and hope that this time, someone would recognize the kind heart hidden behind his hated name.

She wished she’d had the chance to meet him before she’d accidentally ruined his life.

Written for the Ml Writers Guild September event 'back to school'

I love how Marinette keeps reaching out to Adrien, trying to protect him, even if it doesn’t always work. To let him know that she’s in his corner at least. Hawk Moth had to be taken down, but the consequences for Adrien... she never wanted anyone to get hurt in the process. 

---

The Supreme Movers by PearlO_O

Continuation of Tales of Shadybug and Claw Noir.

Adrien and Marinette battle with the emotional aftermath of meeting their alternate selves.

This was an excellent follow-up to the Paris Special! To be clear, the Adrien and Marinette here are Claw Noir and Shady Bug, not the ones from the show we’ve been following all this time. I really liked Adrien and Marinette reflecting and recontextualizing how their parents have been acting in more positive ways, and getting more positive responses in turn, along with them reassessing how they’ve been acting and reaching out to Alya and Nino. There’s this theme of “it doesn’t matter who we were or what mistakes we made, but who we want to be and that we keep moving forward”.

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Keep Me Safe Inside by RoFair

Adrien Agreste, formally known as Claw Noir attempts to get to know the girl he admires behind the mask of the reformed Shadybug. He has a plan, but it is derailed by a blonde bully.

I love how smitten Adrien is with Marinette! He might have a lot of bravado as Claw Noir, but he’s kinda shy as a civilian. Of course, that all goes out the window when Marinette needs help - like when she’s being bullied and is nearing a breakdown.

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delicate in every way but one by katrinette

When Marinette finds a wanted ad that provokes just enough questions in her mind that she can't help answering it, the reward is sweeter than she could have imagined.

I love the little bit of worldbuilding we get here about vampire society, and Adrien’s usual awkward adorableness in asking Marinette for a certain necessary favor. It’s always neat to see such familiar characterization in a supernatural setting like this.

---

Lost Feather by @a-flaming-idiot

Sabine has always liked and respected Ladybug and Chat Noir. They've always been wonderful heroes and inspirations to all of Paris and she wouldn't trade them for the world. But that isn't to say she didn't begin to get worried when the heroes of Paris made it their mission to destroy all sentimonsters in their path. Though she knew they never would, it was hard to not worry for the safety of her daughter.

I liked this glimpse of what might happen if Marinette was a sentimonster as well! Poor Sabine, of course she’d have nightmares about the Heroes of Paris killing her daughter. While she likes and respects the Heroes and understands why they’ve been killing sentimonsters, given that the ones Shadow Moth spawns often don’t even seem sentient and are wreaking havoc, she’s still afraid for Marinette, that Ladybug might purify her Amok without ever considering that Marinette might be an actual person.

---

Partners in [Chaos] by @aidanchaser

Griffe Noire's needs no excuse to crash a fashion show competition, but when he sees the baker from his favorite bakery is involved, he decides to shift from spreading destruction to a different sort of chaos. He's not ready for her to see through him better than he knows himself.

Remixed from Partners in Clown by MiaBrown

I love Adrien’s portrayal here, how he lies to himself about how bad the cracks are getting, while also relishing them in a way, feeling like he’s living because of the self-harm he’s inflicting every time he unleashes a Cataclysm, it fits with his portrayal in the special. I like Marinette here too, you can see a bit of her vulnerabilities in this piece, though it’s not in her POV so she’s out of focus.

---

Perfect by @deinde_prandium

It’s Adrien and Marinette’s wedding day! On site to ensure the event goes perfectly is their friend and famed wedding planner Kagami Tsuguri, and so far all has been going according to plan. There's just one problem: no one ever told her about Adrien, Marinette, and their struggles with automatic doors. Add to this the fact that Marinette’s determination to play matchmaker between her and a certain wedding singer…

Needless to say, Kagami is not pleased.

This is mostly a Kagami-centric fic, with a touch of Lukagami at the end. I loved the callback to Adrienette’s automatic door troubles, and Kagami and Luka being sneaky XD. 

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Patrolling with a friend for Christmas by @seasofsilver

Adrien just wanted to gift his Lady some time off and hang out more with Marinette during the festive season - it didn't exactly go to plan, but somehow ended up... better?

This was adorable! Chat Noir tries to give Ladybug a break by recruiting Multimouse to replace her on patrols for a bit, and Ladybug returns the favor by recruiting Aspik to replace Chat. Yep, it’s Snekmouse!

---

Far-Fetched Plans by @cravingcraze

“While that’s true, and I was going to bring that up, I wanted to talk about… when Wishmaker hit you,” he sat up and looked at Felix with… concern? Why was he concerned for him?

“You only care about my secret identity,” Felix deflected. No, there was no way fucking Viperion, Luka Couffaine of all people was worried about him.

(It was hard to imagine anyone working with Ladybug worried about him.)

So this is an intriguing prospect. Gabriel’s forcing Felix to work with him to try and get Ladybug’s and Chat Noir’s Miraculous, something Felix isn’t thrilled about. But Luka finds out Felix’s secret identity, and decides to try and help him to break free.

---

Life with a Stolen Slime by RustyAce

Sharp, dagger-like stabs from his stomach made the small creature whimper as they curled into himself. Hunger. A frequent state he should be used to by now, but a painful one nonetheless. His gelatinous form was nearly a ball as he tried to self soothe himself, with just portions of slime forming ears and a tail that stuck out of his main body. Usually this worked, but the slime made a distressed moan as they pressed their forehead against his glass prison.

Oh, how he wished he could escape this jar he was in. The humans never came often enough to give him enough food, or even to let him out to stretch his legs. No, instead they carefully opened the jar’s lid just enough to slip some disgusting trash into it with some forceps. They, it seemed, did not appreciate his surprisingly sharp bites or scratches when they first brought him here. A shame.

The slime let out a small sigh, their eyes closing in an attempt to fall asleep to ignore his hunger. Perhaps if he fell asleep, he would wake up to them bringing him food.

So this fic is based off the Reverse world presented in the Paris special. Claw Noir’s a small cat-slime that’s being held captive in a jar, until Marinette eventually rescues him and puts him in a bigger container and feeds him better food at least. It’s cute, and it makes me curious about the setting of this story (like where he came from and why humans were keeping him captive, along with how Marinette stumbled across him), and where the story might go from here (this is a oneshot, but I’d love to see this explored more, if you can’t tell).

---

Changeling by @unecoccinellenoire

Gabriel makes the Wish believing that he regretted everything with Adrien. The results suggest that he in fact regrets Adrien

So this is interesting. It’s giving a glimpse into a universe where Gabriel and Emilie never found the Peacock Miraculous, and they (along with Amelie and Colt) just adopted. Which unfortunately meant that Adrien and Felix as we know them never existed, and Gabriel finds that he misses his original son, which is especially acute when interacting with his new adopted son and knowing how much he’s NOT Adrien.

---

Here for now, but I can see the better days by @nirby-wirby

Now, laying on his bed with only the soft light of a bedside lamp illuminating the room, he felt guilt eating at him from inside his chest. His miraculous burned on his finger, a reminder of what he’d given up. Of what had somehow led to his father helping Ladybug and dying in the process. The guilt was suffocating, building more and more until he felt like all that was left of him was guilt.

———— Or: Adrien deals with the grief and guilt of losing his father with some help. Set post-s5 finale and written for the ML Secret Santa Exchange of 2023

I love the support Adrien gets here, both from Nathalie in a more motherly role, and from his friends. He even tells Nathalie his secret identity, which gets her thinking about how badly Adrien got screwed over. Especially with him feeling guilty over Gabriel’s fate, when she knows he has no reason to.

---

Under the Umbrella by @fruitdragon1a

Almost everyone has a soulmate. What are Adrien and Marinette supposed to do when they meet theirs?

ML Secret Santa gift for Mei! Merry Christmas!

Thank you to Now Loading and Rewan Demontay for beta reading this fic!

So this is a version of soulmarks I haven’t seen before. Around age six, soulmates get a soulmark that shows what their soulmate is thinking when they first meet them. Though I guess it doesn’t register while transformed, since it only counts for this one when Adrien and Marinette meet as civilians, and not when they first meet as superheroes.

[asterrrific]

How I think SKZ would react if they see you sleeping on their side of the bed🌱

Scenario: SKZ comes home late. You told yourself that you'd stay up and wait for them but it's already waaay past midnight and you were already waaaaay too sleepy.

Genre: fluff fluff

Warnings: none

OT8 x reader

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

CHAN

"Y/N???" over and over and when no one answers, he concludes you're already asleep.

Would literally tiptoe all the way to your room up till he lays in bed with you.

"Wait, y/n's sleeping on my side of the bed tho-"

Will try to carry you back to your side but you stirred so he draws back and sits for a bit to think of something else.

"Oh, whatever." and proceeds to sleep as he lays on your side of the bed instead and cuddles you to him.

LeeKnow

SLAMS THE DOOR OPEN ANNOUNCING THAT HE'S HOME AND ASKING WHERE HIS BABY'S AT

Realizes you're already asleep when he notices you already tucked in so he shuts his mouth immediately.

"Wait, that's my side y/n's sleeping on! Y/N! (lightly taps your leg) HEY Y/N!!! (REALLY taps your leg) THAT'S MY SIDE, GO BACK TO YOURS."

You follow and go back to your side ✨grumpily✨ but he follows right after you. He grabs you by the shoulder and turns you so you're facing him.

"I'm kidding. I missed you." starts to pepper you with butterfly kisses and you smile in your sleep.

Changbin

Knows that you'll be asleep by the time he comes home.

Does his business quietly as you sleep on to dreamland.

Was about to go to bed and cuddle you when he realizes you're in his spot and hugging HIS pillows.

"Aww, fine. You can have my pillows. You're better to hug than those."

Slips in carefully so as not to disturb you but you still feel him as he pulls you closer to his chest so you mumble his name.

"Shh, go back to sleep. I love you." as he drops a kiss on the top of your head.

Hyunjin

Mans would 🤨 when he sees you sleeping in his spot.

Would rant to the air about why you should sleep in your own spot instead as he prepares himself for sleep.

"What am I gonna do with you?" he wonders out loud as he tries different ways on how to move you back to your side.

Stops in his tracks when he sees you smiling in your sleep.

"Okay, just this once. Only coz you must be having sweet sweet dreams rn and i dont wanna ruin it for you." then he slips in behind you, bidding you good night as he leaves a soft kiss on your neck.

Han

"MY BABY LOOKS SO PRETTY EVEN IN SLEEP WHAT EVEN IS THIS LIFE THIS WORLD IS SO UNFAIR."

Rants to you on why he looks like a sleeping chipmunk when he's asleep while you look like a sleeping princess (as if you could hear him.)

MANS WONT EVEN CARE IF YOU'RE IN HIS SPOT.

"Cute, y/n's snuggling with my pillows🥺 aww."

Tucks both of you in, then wraps his arms around your waist as he burries his face on the crook of your neck.

He feels you stir a bit in your sleep so he feels for your hand, squeezes it, then holds it in his as he rubs lazy circles on the back of it using his thumb.

Felix

"Baby, hi, I'm home."

Wakes you up gently but he doesn't realize you fell asleep in his spot yet until you apologized about it.

"It's okay, baby. You can have my spot anytime. I'm sorry I came home late."

Kisses your forehead and tells you to go back to sleep and that he'll join you later, he just gotta take a shower first.

Carefully slips in behind you but you still feel him so you turn and face him, your eyes still sleepy but you watch him get settled.

"Missed me that much? C'mere, you can lay on my chest, I'll snuggle you back to sleep."

Gives you lots of forehead kisses until you both fall asleep.

Seungmin

Goes about his bedtime routine silently while throwing glances at your sleeping form.

"Y/N fell asleep on my spot again."

Tries to roll you back to your spot but you won't budge.

"Y/N... Y/N wake up, go back to your side of the bed."

Gives up when you don't follow suit.

"Fine, but just this once." he smiles as he goes around the other side of the bed so he can finally settle in with you.

Looms over you to watch you sleeping soundly then swoops in to give you a lingering kiss on the cheek before going back down beside you, arms around your waist.

I.N.

Immediately tries to carry you back to your spot.

SUCCESSFULLY carries you back to your spot.

"Y/N always sleeps on my spot when I'm not around."

Your eyes flutter open as soon as you feel him get in bed after taking a shower.

"I'm sorry, did I wake you? I had to carry you awb because you were sleeping in my spot."

Tells you not to worry about it and that you can sleep on his side of the bed anytime but tonight he invites you to to cuddle with him.

Asks you to be the big spoon because he missed you too much today and that he needs your hugs to recharge.

-end

Time check: 1:16am🥹 I had to write this down jajfsoxhaha I was about to go asleep when I wodered what it would be like to have skz come home late to you 🥺

As always, thank you for showing my other works some love! (I had it pinned now) if you have any requests, I'll try my best to make it for you!

Lablaaaab~

[amazingmsme]

Okokok i have my headcannons ready (tg anon!)

- not sure if you’ve touched any ao3 fics about tg:m yet (if you haven’t, let me recommend PurpleArrowzandLeather and EarthAngel_44 for starters, but i have SO MANY ao3 recs), but i totally love the idea that mav ends up kind of adopting the dagger squad and they always end up at his house somehow

- everyone will have regular movie nights at mav and rooster’s, and whenever one of them is stateside they’ll stay at their place

- mav was DEFINITELY the one to expose to the group that Rooster is ticklish, probably telling a story from when he was a kid, and it definitely led to a massive dagger squad tickle fight

- i think everyone learns pretty early that bob is ticklish, phoenix is probably trying to get him to let lose and ends up poking him and he falls off his chair at the hard deck (or,, he really did get “baby on board” from being crazy ticklish, so hangman already knows prior to the mission that bob is crazy ticklish)

- bob has the cutest squeaky laugh, and mav usually can’t even tell the other daggers to stop because it’s just a such a cute sight

- in contrast, i think phoenix is only ticklish in very few places (her knees and hips) but she will actually maim anyone that even tries to tickle her (… i also headcannon phoenix as a lesbian bc i am a lesbian and she is fine as hell with very lesbian energy)

- I think rooster probably got lucky at some point, maybe phoenix was comforting him after finding out everything that happened when he was a kid and he ended up finding out that she was ticklish and she just kinda let it happen to cheer him up

- rooster is not as ticklish as bob (or hangman 👀) but he’s definitely surprisingly ticklish in a lot of places

- he kind of just giggles and erratically swats around when someone tickles him, but he can’t really manage to get them away

- i also hc rooster’s worse spots to be his ribs and his hips

- i think hangman is probably a 7/10 on the scale of ticklishness, nothing compared to bob’s 10/10 but also a lot compared to phoenix’s 4/10

- his chest and neck are super sensitive, which the team probably found out when mav squeezed his shoulder in passing

- i think he has a really hearty, big laugh, and he kind of just lays there with his arms to his chest and takes it (i headcannon that he comes from a family of only sisters, so he’s used to just letting them tickle him sometimes because he knows he’s a lot stronger than them)

- i think coyote is probably secretly very ticklish, but only jake knows since they’ve known each other so long, and he would absolutely expose every spot on jake’s body if he ever told anyone

FEAST YOUR EYES!! EVERYONE LOOK AT THIS! Seriously, if this doesn’t convince you to watch Top Gun Maverick I think you’re just a lost cause lol (I kid, I kid) & thanks for the fic recs, I’ll have to check them out! But I gotta be honest, I haven’t been reading as many fics what with school & all eating up my time

Group movie nights are the goat for any fandom with a lot of characters. Like, they’re just BEGGING for a sleepover! & Maverick totally exposed Rooster because he’s a cheeky lil shit like that. But I don’t think he meant to, he said it as an offhand comment & then when Rooster inevitably tells him to shut up about it or Jake wants to know more he gets all >:) about it

I’m a huge simp for Rooster so I like to think he’s pretty bad, but you’ve got MAJOR big brain energy for saying Hangman’s worse. Like, that man is waaaaay too smug & cocky, he needs an anti hubris button. & lucky for everyone else, he does 😊

Thank you SO MUCH for these headcanons, I go bouncing off the walls whenever someone sends me headcanons like this. Seriously, you made my day

& I just have to add my own 2 cents on this, because I LOVE the idea of the dagger squad finding out Maverick is ticklish. They’d jump at the opportunity to bully him. I feel like he’d be watching Rooster wreck Bob & say something like “you’re just as ruthless as your dad” & he immediately stops & is all like 👀 & turns his sights on him. Like just slowly stalking closer & asking “nonchalant” questions. & when Mav puts the pieces together it’s too late

[rearranged-fanfic]

You said you've been doing fanfic for a while right? Which fandom did you start in? What other pairings if any do you write for? Have you always been on archive of our own? And if not where did you used to post?

I wanted to find more of your work so I was wondering. Sorry if that's too many questions or if you don't want to share!!!

Sorry I took so long to respond; I took some mental health days to just unwind.

All very good questions! So, I started waaaaay back when Quizilla was still a thing. And I originally posted to there and Fanfiction.net. my cousin is the person who got me into writing, and I co-authored 4 or 5 stories with them. They're autistic, so they aren't able to sit down and write, and we came up with a nice partnership: they were the idea person and I was the fingers to do the actual story-planning and typing. We posted to their profile and they ended up taking most of the credit for the works (with my permission because in the end they were THEIR stories, not mine). Eventually, we stopped doing fanfictions because of a difference in interests and lack of time to work together. Most of our shared work was purged from their profile because they felt like it was unfair that they were getting all the attention from what they considered to be primarily my labor. So, most of my old stories are essentially dead and buried. Sorry!

I wrote primarily for anime, western cartoons, and videogames - things like Naruto, Baccano, Danny Phantom, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Fallout, Borderlands... I had a pretty wide variety of interests, which have narrowed over the years.

So, I absolutely adore crack pairings or OC pairings. Especially if there's some intrigue added by the pairing, like and age gap or an "enemies to lovers" scenario, or societal boundaries. They seem to be on the less popular end of the spectrum for most fandoms, which is sad because they need love too!

There are some stories that I have conceptualized, which I don't honestly know if I want to share. Like, there are some Hatake Kakashi/Reader and Haruno Sakura/Hatake Kakashi ideas that are lingering on my hard drive for Naruto. And I was asked recently if I'm going to pick up the Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Shisui story that remains on the shared FFnet account. I have a fully-outlined Hawks/Reader for My Hero Academia. There's an Arthur Maxson/OC for Fallout 4 with two chapters finished... I have a half-abandoned Far Cry 5 story posted to my AO3 account.

But all of this is currently taking a back seat to REARRANGED.

And, honestly, I'm not quite prepared to share anything else with the world yet. I'm not sure how it'll be received, since I usually write darker subject matter (gotta cope with that childhood trauma somehow, I guess).

I'm glad you asked, because it's fun to share the other stuff going on in my writing with you guys! Sorry that I don't have more available for you to peruse.

Much love, as always 🥰

[boxingcleverrr]

This ramble is ultimately gonna be just me turning Taika Waititi over slowly in my hands, but.

I've talked before about unpacking the reasons why I rarely ever go feral for m/m ships in fandom. Like, I ALWAYS enjoy and appreciate a well-written gay ship, of course, be it in canon or fanwork (Good Omens eyy). But as far as deeply connecting to, blorbo-ing, whatever the kids say now, it just...almost never happens.

(also trans men are men, trans women are women, so write that down)

Now for a long time I thought it was just the contrarian nature that was particularly strong in me between my late teens all through my 20s. Like "uuuuugh they're great but y'all are soooooo annoying, etc etc." and even some of ye olde "aren't you guys all women? this is fetishizing gay men blah blah"

Well-intentioned, and widely shared in fandom spaces 10ish years ago, but deeply misguided, wrong 99.9% of the times, and most of us know better now. Especially as we all got older and OH HAY! Lots of those women weren't actually women, gender was being discovered within these characters for them all around!

So with that thinking deconstructed and left behind, I still found myself not fav-ing the boys very often. What was left after my own gender and sexuality work on myself was OH! I just...don't see myself in men! In fact, despite always knowing I was bi, I am waaaaay more sapphic than I ever realized! I want to see women being loved, giving love, loving each other, that's what I go feral over. That's what latches onto my heart and fixates my brain - there's gotta be a woman. Is it 2 women? An OT3? A het-appearing ship? A pile of lesbians? It will be my jam.

All that said, the two m/m gay ships that HAVE made me go feral in recent years? Both birthed by Taika.

Ed/Stede and Nandor/Guillermo. I weep, I claw my face at the softness, the miscommunication, the FEAR of showing softness. And as Kate summed it up once, "Unwashed Hottie/Person Who Brings Outfits".

I am wildly interested in every theory, knowing the above about myself, as to how it is he's the one to get me right in the gut with The Lads. Lots of people talk about his humor being uniquely indigenous, a kind of deeply kind sarcasm. He's a dad of girls. He's messed up some relationships big time. What's in your sauce, sir.

[d4ngerous-shadowbanned]

𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍.

—BASICS

NAME : cazcaine, caz

PRONOUNS : he/him

ZODIAC SIGN : sagittarius 

TAKEN OR SINGLE : poly actually

— THREE FACTS

i love beagles.

i own a beagle, he's a rescue beagle, his name is tracker and he's my emotional support everything i love him sm i will send photos

i also love leon kennedy. with my whole heart.

— EXPERIENCE

PLATFORMS USED : tumblr and private discord servers. used to use forums when i started a waaaaays back.

PLOTTING / WINGING IT / MEMES : horrible at plotting, can't come up with ideas on the spot for the life of me so if you wanna plot you gotta have something in mind for me to bounce off of. i prefer to wing it but most thing i love is just goin off ask memes.

—MUSE PREFERENCE

GENDER : for personally writing; trans men. for interacting; any.

MULTI OR SINGLE : i prefer multi because brain go brr when it's me writing. i don't have any preference for writing with, everyone's valid for what they wanna do with they blog.

LEAST FAVOURITE FACECLAIM(S) : i'll be honest i can't stand ta/ylor sw/ift's face. idk what it is. i just dislike it. obvi not supporting anyone who did anything bigoted or stuff like that but idk this stuff of top of my head.

— FLUFF / ANGST / SMUT

FLUFF: certain muses at certain times i'll fluff with but usually oneshot asks for the most part if it makes sense. too much and i disconnect a bit.

ANGST: i've been told i make people cry when i write angst? idk. it's fun. i like it.

SMUT: admittedly? yes. love it. will write more vanilla/normal stuff on this blog and keep any k/ink for a n/sfw blog i have.

tagged; no one tags me i stole this tagging; idk who hasn't so... say i tagged you if you ain't done it?

[gentil-minou]

Hello! I’ve loved your ml psychology analyses, and I was wondering if you’d being to answer a question of mine! I’ve been thinking on whether or not I want to study psychology and be a counselor, as I love to figure out how people (fictional characters for the most part lol) end up the way they do, and what is influencing their choices. I also really like to help other people who are struggling and try to give them as much support as possible because I’ve also struggled in the past, and I thought that maybe analysis and Listening skills would indicate that I might like the career, but I’m still unsure. Sorry for the rambling, but I guess I was just wondering what made you want to work in mental health and did you find your initial idea of what psychology is vs what you learned in school to be jarring? Sorry to bug, but I thought hearing what someone who’s work I look up fo would think!

ahhhh i always love questions like this because this field is, in my humble and completely unbiased opinion, one of the most important out there, and so i just love when folks are interested! especially because it's such a rewarding career even with all its difficulty!

Read more cause i rambled too much what a shock hfdjsd

my own path towards becoming a therapist is a bit of a weird one because i didn't actually take any psych classes until I was getting my masters in it shjdjkdfs (I was originally in STEM sciences).

becoming a therapist kind of happened by fortuitous happenstance: i was a teacher and found i had an especially great talent for getting kids to open up and talk about themselves and their worries. i'm also very neurodivergent and have my own complicated healing history, and once i got better i realized i really didn't want kids to go through what i went through growing up. it feels a bit selfish but in the best way, because by helping kids out i can make up for the time i spent suffering. it makes me feel good, i guess if that makes sense djkfhds

anyways, my rambling aside i think there are a couple main takeaways that i hope people going into this field can be prepared for so!

practice!!!!!!!!!!! like seriously this is one field where i think the best practice is by doing.

therapy is kinda like dating, in that sometimes you won't click with your client and they might ask to see someone else. it might not be anything personal or it might be, maybe wrong gender or ethnicity or orientation, or they just don't like your vibes. it will be okay, and it doesn't mean anything about you. when that happens i usually focus on the clients i have clicked really well with and remind myself that the client who is leaving is looking to get the best support possible, and it helps

dont trust the movies, it's way more complicated than just asking how someone feels. a lot of times people don't know how they're feeling. kinda got to work your way up to it, and first learn what feelings are

get comfortable with silence. i hate it, i suck at it. but sometimes you gotta make it reallyyyyy awkward before it can get better and the client cant open up

you will have to explain things so sometimes it will feel a lot like teaching. but it's not always so bad

so many fucking acronyms. be prepared

don't be your friends/family's therapist. don't offer unsolicited advice, unless they are open or interested. once you recognize the signs and can diagnose people it becomes waaaaay too easy. it's not always welcome, and sometimes we have to be okay with that

people won't always have the same values or opinions as you, and sometimes it might be triggering. i have a number of clients i wouldn't like or want to be around outside of work, and that's okay. remember to check in with yourself and let yourself have feelings. rely on your empathy and understanding to remind you that the person is what matters, not their beliefs/values. and what your job is

if you work with kids (both young and teens) you will have to work with parents. it might not be fun, but you gotta

you are human, you are born with emotions. you WILL be affected by the things people say and are going through. it isn't easy. the most important thing for anyone in this field is to get their own therapist and really make sure you stay on top of your self-care. think of it like how on airplanes you have to put an oxygen mask on yourself before you can help others; you have to help yourself before you help others.

depending on what you might specialize in (for me it's depression and anxiety) there is a significant chance you might lose a client in the worst way. it will suck and you will grieve, and it will be okay but not really. it's the reality of the field and one that's hard to accept, but i hope folks realize that

nothing beats the feeling of a client you've been seeing for a while start to unconsciously do the things you practiced in session. actually the one thing that beats it is when the client realizes they've gotten better and have made progress. it's the best feeling in the world

kinda related to the last one but it's not uncommon for someone who has made loadsssss of progress to end up experiencing something minor or major that spirals them down. they will feel bad and upset and disappointed, and that's normal. just remember that life is a series of hurdles and it's important to get back up.

this goes the same for therapists!!!! you will make mistakes! and it will be okay! you might say or do something that you think back on and go ah shit i really shouldnt have done that. and that's okay, just get back up and try again

I realize this is becoming very long and may not be as specific, but i feel like this is what i learned that was most valuable over my years in this field. if you have any specific questions i'm happy to go into more details (though my education was a bit unorthodox soooo)

[kyogre-blue]

I’ve finished the major world quest of the 3.6 new area and, despite my own intentions, am about 80% through the exploration, so I guess I’ll quickly give my thoughts. 

For the world quest, I set it to auto and didn’t read much of anything, though I’ll try to check out the summary on the wiki later (it’s not done yet). It was long! Not sure if longer than Aranara, but definitely long. And given that this is yet another race of squishy floating things, I really just... I do not care. That’s too many small creatures that we’ll never see again because they’re tied to a specific area. It’s not even NPC land anymore, we’re not even dealing with humans now. I’m tired of it all. 

Regarding the lore, it seems to be just another round of “things got real fucked up 500 years ago and these brave souls died to stop it, btw your brother was here.” A mention of Dain too, but doesn’t seem to be anything actually new in all this. 

I also did all the other local world quests except the time gated one with the Fontaine artist and the one for dealing with the tree circle gates or whatever. 

Regarding the gadget, I hate it. It’s really annoying to have to switch to it and back all the time, since that always gets you a loading screen, and some of the mechanics require you to alternate between doing a thing as Sorush and doing a thing as Traveler. Almost as annoying is when you only switch in to press her skill once and then switch back out, which really feels like... why is there not an option to just have her use her skill while she’s following you? 

But worse is the three axis movement. Going up is okay. But going down? It’s tied to left Ctrl key, and it is extremely unnatural. I also keep pressing Z instead which... exits the gadget mode.............. Awful design. 

Speaking of the new mechanics, there are waaaaay too many. They’re all crammed into this one area, and it’s not like they’re complex, but it’s silly to have all these different tutorials just for mechanics that are going to get discarded in no time. Half the time, I don’t even engage with them. Yeah, Sorush can move that zipline, but you know, I can also just climb the cliff with less hassle. 

It’s all just really intrusive, imo, and Sorush’s animations seem to be bigger and more distracting than previous pets too. 

In regard to the actual area itself, it’s kind of a mixed bag. 

Part of it is More Desert, there’s also More Caves, which are not good things. Part of it is a rather pretty forest, and there’s also the industrial areas from Khaenri’ah underground as well. I guess my overall feeling is that it’s simultaneously too similar to the rest of Sumeru but they also went too hard on the small details in an attempt to set it apart. It really just feels like a rehash of Aranyaka in a lot of ways, which isn’t great. 

I didn’t necessarily feel the exploration itself was bad, but the up-down of the cliffs, combined with their difficult to climb shape, makes it not really enjoyable to traverse casually. 

It’s actually somewhat reminiscent of Watatsumi. The way some of the puzzles will lead you around areas is similar from what I remember as well. A youtuber mentioned just after the version update that it seems like Genshin has several teams working on creating new areas, and the teams have individual quirks in how they design the maps, so I wonder if maybe the same people worked on this and Watatsumi. It’s just my speculation though. 

But it looks like I’ll be able to wrap this place up before the flagship event starts, come back for the exploration event somewhere later in the patch, and then never return again. Just gotta make sure to get all the Kaveh flowers while I’m here lol

[tlacehualli]

“ kiss or kill , kiss or kill … ? “

Sombra looks entirely relaxed for someone that just got half-threatened (fully threatened?) by an actual demon, sitting on a couch as if she owned the place (and it was her apartment in Venice so, she did), a half-smoked cigarette between her middle and pointer finger with the lit end leaning against a fancy little ashtray and a half-filled glass of tequila in the other. She's looking at some corner of her room, definitely not at Evelynn, absently keeping track of the smell of cooking enchiladas. Actually made from scratch this time.

You cook for a woman and she threatens to kill you. That really was her life. Unfortunate.

"I don't know that I wanna keep kissing you. It's been like three times at this point, don't wanna give people the impression that there's something special going on." The words pour out of her mouth with deep derision - along with the stout implication that she didn't want Evelynn to think this was something special either. People like her didn't get to indulge in romance.

She tilts her head sideways, thinking for a moment - then turns it to meet the demon's eyes with her own magenta. They're glowing extra brightly - the AI is assessing the chance of actual danger. As usual, there is a network of translocators around. She's not so dumb as to think their little encounters are devoid of danger. "Definitely don't want to be killed either." She taps the circuits on the side of her head; they're tight against her skull but not in a way that injures her, just secure and glowing the same shade as her eyes. "I didn't get metal and tech drilled into my skull and my eyes and my arms and my spine to die that easily. Shit was expensive, you know. Gotta squeeze out every penny's worth before I kick the bucket."

Sombra laughs and swirls the glass of tequila in her hand, taking another sip. Clearly sobriety hadn't worked the way she wanted, so what was the point - but the tolerance break had made it so she didn't quite need the same volume to achieve her desired state of mind. Silver linings. "Plus, no offense, I think I want a waaaaay flashier death. Maybe I'm walking down the street and a piano falls on me. Or someone hits me with a missile and I explode like 'boom'." Or something. She didn't think she was the type of person to get a quiet, peaceful, lovely death.

"Let's go with option three. One of us gets bored and ghosts the other." This time, she takes a drag of the cigarette - a little longer than necessary, but her cheeks puff with withheld smoke before she concentrates and blows a little smoke ring. Just for fun. Then inhales the rest. "Don't worry. I won't take it personal if it's you who ghosts me." She winks at Evelynn - then she's distracted by the notification in the overlay the AI keeps over her vision. Enchiladas are ready. She puts out the cigarette and leaves it in the ashtray, next to where she sets her tequila down, then gets up and moves into the kitchen.

"What's that thing people say? All's fair in love and war or whatever?" Her voice calls out louder now, so as to be heard from the kitchen. She didn't think she was capable of loving people that way, she did feel particularly old and bitter, but whatever the fuck was between them had to count. "Whatever. Enchiladas are ready though!"

[toosunni]

I had the coolest dream (and slightly scary)

Man, I gotta tell you about this dream I had. I literally just woke up, so I have to write it down before I forget.

I'm not really sure where I was, but in my room there was this massive hole in the wall. Don't ask why I wasn't afraid of it, I guess I just had balls of steel. Anyway, I was with a friend and we were discussing this hole. He told me it was weird we had one in the wall and took out his phone and shone a light through it. I didn't personally see anything, but he claimed he saw a pair of eyes that were reflecting the light or whatever. I was obviously a little freaked out by this.

The dream then skips to my bestie and I chatting with the landlord -- I guess we were renting this place. He has handed us this bill that had both a landline and our regular phones. We both argued that we did, in fact, not have a landline. But he brushed us off and told us to pay the bill.

The dream skips again to me just standing by myself in the room with the hole. I have my back facing it and this fucked up looking creature comes crawling out of it. He got behind me and knocked my ass out. The best way I can kind of explain this thing is he had the same face as the mayor in A Nightmare Before Christmas.

That dude, but his limbs were waaaaay longer, and he was more... disheveled. I don't know how to explain him. Anyway, the dream skips again to me on the phone with my dad, and I'm explaining everything to him.

I told him about how there was a section of this massive house we didn't go to. We called it a super cool name, but I can't remember what it was. These next few parts are going to be a bit jumbled because I can't remember the entire dream (I'm starting to forget some details now ☹️).

But I was explaining to my dad about the phone bill we were paying and how we didn't own the landline. Then I looked down at the ground and the creature was curled up in a ball, dead. So, while my ass was knocked out, someone had come in and killed it. I didn't seem to know who, or maybe I woke up before I could spill the deets to my dad. Either way, homie was dead as fuck.

I then started to explain the forbidden zone of the house. My dad, being the only normal one in the dream it seems, asks why there's a whole section of the house that's closed off to the rest of the occupants. I shrug it off like it's no big deal and say I don't know, we just can't go in it. I think I also told him about this massive hole in the wall, but I can't remember.

Along the way, I started to formulate this idea of who this creature was and why there was a landline charge on my phone bill. However, it felt like I knew this part of the plot, not the person who I was playing -- it was like real life Sunni was given parts of the plot, but not dream Sunni. So, apparently, this creature was a corrupt judge and the forbidden part of the house was where he operated with a bunch of other people.

The landline was being used to do some sketchy shit and to hide their tracks, they had added it to my phone bill so I would pay for it, and I guess I wouldn't notice it? No idea the logic behind that decision. Anyway, something horrible happened and this corrupt judge was turned into this horrible creature. I had this feeling there were more creatures in the forbidden zone, and there was this massive secret that I was about to uncover. But I woke up before my dream self could uncover the entire plot.

But yeah, I'm sad I didn't get to solve the mystery of the landline phone or the origins of the fucked up judge dude. That dream was one of my cooler ones and I kinda want to make a story out of it. I dunno. Either way, that was a cool-ass dream and I wanted to share it here.

[aotvfilm]

Hey it's your holiday Pal! Hope you're doing well today and enjoying the festive mood.

Yeah Christmas is usually just a day of food and gift giving, but on my own I do celebrate Yule! What are you most looking forward to this month?

Also saw you might try and write your first fic that's so exciting! I encourage you to go for it!! I'm trying to segue from another fandom into Larry (though I've been a Larry for a while!) May I ask what you're thinking about writing?

Who-hoo yay for reading! What are you reading, fic or literature or?

That is truly the sweetest interview, they are so boyfriend and young there! What are some of Harry and Louis' traits that you admire and do you see any of them within yourself?

I'm actually traveling right now, but after Christmas we go to south america so I'm feel very blessed and excited!

All the love to you ❤️

Hiii pal!! :) How do you celebrate Yule? No one that I know personally does so I’d love to hear about your traditions! I’d say this month I’m most looking forward to just seeing family. I don’t see my brother very often and we have a Christmas dinner planned so I can’t wait to hang out with him :) How about you? I imagine you’re very excited about your trip abroad!

As for writing a fic, I may give it a shot! I really love model/footballer aus 👀 but i’m not set on anything yet (nor do I currently have enough knowledge of football to write a cohesive fic involving it). I love reading and have a couple fictional books on my list but so far I’ve been too engrossed in fic reading. But it’s the reading that counts! Even if it’s exclusively Larry fics.

How long have you been a larrie? I forget exactly when I joined the fandom but it was before the Gotta Be You music video because they shot it at my brother’s college and I was livid he didn’t get an autograph or picture for me. I was literally 10 or 11 so I don’t remember very well. and I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t a larrie - I remember running larrie accounts (and making fucking terrible edits) even waaaaay back when.

I love Harry’s kindness. He’s such a pure soul and literally sunshine in a human form. As for Louis, I especially admire his dedication and how hard he loves. I love that they just seem like everyday people. Neither of them have forgotten their roots. I definitely see Harry’s kindness in myself. I couldn’t do anything that I thought would hurt someone else and I really believe in putting good energy out there. I also love really hard too.

You mentioned another fandom - what other ones are you apart of?

Safe travels pal and talk soon!!! xx

[thedaveandkimmershow]

One of the things that struck me about yesterday is the transistor radio. Not an original, you can charge it with USB or charge it by hand-cranking if you can believe that. Otherwise, it's gotta antenna and dials for turning and volume.

Plus it's straight up solid red.

And we listened to it a bunch yesterday while we were hanging out behind our van whilst cooking,.adjusting the overhead tarp, or just lounging in our camp chairs.

KXXO Radio, by the way. 106.1.

Not even sure how we got there... but they sure have our number.

U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" was the first song to catch my ear as we were relaxing. It caught my ear 'cause I thought it was coming from another camp site... but really it was coming from right next to me. The radio's legit, but,.of course, the speaker's ridiculously weak.

Still, though, it created a vibe of nostalgia.

Of old times.

We we're talking about our plans for the day. Where should we go? Port Townsend? Hurricane Ridge? Or maybe something closer... one of the waterfall hikes?

In the end, our tarp set-up's a critically balanced affair. And since we're a small rig, everything has to be packed just so.

So we're only looking to break it all down once.

When we leave.

So the day was a bit of living there. Peacing out. And if we went anywhere... it was on foot.

The ice and water at Yelvik General Store a half mile or so down the road?

We walked there and back, running across the local United States Postal Service picking up and dropping off at a mailbox we happened to be photographing at the time.

We also ran across the welcome booth to the local Shrimp Festival... alone, in the middle of a field.

So of course after all that... we took a nap.

An actual...

Nap.

Right there in the back of our temporarily converted minivan.

After that?

Making and eating dinner

Then walking and buying ice cream sandwiches.

Then sitting down and eating those ice cream sandwiches.

Out on a porch.

Sitting in rocking chairs.

After that it was back to the van to grab a coat and then, on our way out of the RV park, on its very edge, we get into a conversation with a couple occupying the camping space right there. They've gotta camper that reminds Kimmer of the old Fairlight her parents used once upon a time. An observation that led immediately to an invitation to see the work being done inside this camper that was being used whilst their house was being built.

Oh, and they have two lovely dogs, Willow and Wendy.

Willow's a most friendly border collie of some kind with black and copper fur. Wendy's the most awkward, ancient Chihuahua you've ever seen, with massive health issues... but she's a sweetheart through and through.

After the impromptu visit, we stop back at our minivan one more time before walking out to Jackson Cove about a mile away along the same road we used to get to that general store.

There wasn't much to do once we're at the beach... so we set a spell. Taking it in.

In fact, when we first arrive at the beach, all rocks and white shells of it, a car sped by on the highway nearby, catching our attention.

As the car receded in the distance and as the sound of its passing receded I'm the distance...

We became acutely aware of the forest.

The grass.

The water.

The air.

The "silence" of Nature.

It's really something, I've gotta say.

Eventually, on our way back, we're passing out own RV park's general store when we get a call from a dear friend. So we take to the porch and those rocking chairs again to talk a spell. 😉

Later, once we're settled in for the night, we indulge a coupla episode of the new Wonder Years, our current streaming obsession. Even with semi-sketchy WiFi. By which time it's coming up on midnight.

Now, if that sounds like a typical peace-out day trip... you'd be right. What that particular description doesn't capture is how massive the day was. How much time we actually experienced which was waaaaay more than our days at home.

No kidding. Somehow it was peaceful, relaxing, engaging, and it just.

Kept.

Going.

Proving once again that Einstein was right. That, according to the Special Theory of Relativity, Time is relative. That the speed at which Time passes depends on your frame of reference.

And when your frame of reference is doing nothing in particular...

Turns out there more time in the day than can possibly, logically be expected.

😁😁😁

[saulbaby]

Fuck I reread some of my bad novel last night and it's even worse than I thought it was

[the-witches-you-couldnt-burn]

It started with a whisper

I originally wrote ‘Like I did with you’ as a one-shot but people wanted a sequel. This turned out to be waaaaay longer than expected (4.7k word count). Inspired by Everybody Talks by Neon Trees. I hope you lot enjoy!

Ao3

(Also this is Mari’s new outfit, all credits go to the original artist)

————

Two teens stood upon the balcony of a large banquet hall, exposed to the midsummer night air. The sky was a lilac blanket that hung over the Parisian buildings, speckled with glowing stars. The moon, with it’s crescent smile, beamed down of the young couple.

Hey, baby, won't you look my way?

Marinette’s eyes were closed as she rested her head upon his shoulder, relaxing after the night’s rapid escalation. Tonight she had arrived at the ball with the intent to be there for her friends, but somehow she found herself within the arms of Gotham’s (and probably Paris’) Ice Prince. She had overheard his nickname from the Gotham students, one of which being Jon, who was in the middle of mocking the young Wayne. She had never considered that nickname as suitable; sure he was temperamental & had a tendency to snap, but icey to the core? No.

I can be your new addiction

Damian was calm. For the first time in his life he felt like he could take a breath. His exhale was carried off by a small gust of wind, the bush over hanging the stone railing rustled. With his inhale, the scent of Marinette’s perfume became present once more. Mixed with the crisp night’s air, her usual scent of pastries was mixed with what could only be described as ambrosia. His phone vibrated within his pocket, it was never on volume due to the potential risk it caused during his heroic activities.

“Shit.” Notifications covered his screen, multiple tweets, Instagrams and Tiktoks in which he had been tagged in. But the alert came from his family’s private messaging chat. The whole thread was a shit storm, Grayson and Todd’s messages were completely capitalised (he learnt years ago this meant ‘to yell’ in writing form) and both had multiple ‘keyboard spasms’. Drake, like the thorough detective he is, had combed through the images and videos, investigating their validity. His honorary sisters had replied with ‘awwwww’(s) and ‘Omg we MUST meet this girl! I need to know how she tamed the demon!’. He could practically hear Brown’s shrill voice from across the ocean.

Hey, baby, what you gotta say?

No reply from his father or Alfred. The two of them were the only semblance of ‘normal’ paternal figures he had within his life, after the sham of a relationship he had previously held with his grandfather. Their silence unnerved him.

Marinette had noticed his attention had shifted to his phone, her own mobile was buzzing away within her baby pink purse. Messages, notifications of account tagging and comments galore. A sigh left her lips when she saw her parents seemed to be none the wiser. Good, she didn’t need to deal with future adoration for ‘The boy who swept our daughter off of her feet’ (or something along those lines).

Her cheeks regained some of the warmth they held before as she thought of her parent’s reaction. Scrolling through her Twitter she saw her friends had posted multiple images of the night’s events, majority being her shared dance.

Chloé Bourgeois @TheBestBourgeois

what kind of Disney shit is this? (Insert video of two teens dancing around an mostly empty dance floor.)

Alix Kubdel @Sk8trGirl

Replying to @TheBestBourgeois

I KNOW RIGHT?! THEY WERE FUCKING FLOATING!!!

All you're giving me is fiction

She was thankful that they hadn’t tagged her but she hadn’t been spared by others in attendance. Her post thread had blown up, thousands had commented and even more had viewed the evidence. There was no way she would come out of this unscathed.

“Has anyone been on Twitter today?” The blonde of the family asked as she walked into the dining room. Her eyes focused on her scrolling screen, brows furrowed in confusion. “Actually has anyone seen what’s happening on any of our socials?”

It was early in the afternoon and the family had recently returned home after a straining stakeout. The Joker had broken out of Arkham and the Batfam had to deal with his minions. Dick’s arm was in a sling (sprained from a grapple gone wrong), Jason was icing his hand, Alfred was stitching Bruce’s chest wounds while Tim and the girls escaped without severe injuries. All were still recuperating and finally able to recharge.

Alfred always enforced a strict ‘no devices at the dinner table’ rule; no matter how urgent it was, it could wait until after sustenance was consumed. Tim strongly opposed this, but there was no arguing with Agent A. This all surmises that probably no one had seen the crap storm on social media.

I'm a sorry sucker and this happens all the time

Bruce sighed, bringing his free arm up to rub his eyes. Tilting his head back to look at Steph, “Who was it this time?” Barbara quickly took out her phone to see what Stephanie was talking about, all the while glancing accusingly at Dick and Jason. Both of whom held up their arms (or in Dick’s case arm), declaring their innocence.

“It wasn’t fucking me!”

“Jason! Language!” Dick shot a glare at Jason and was met with one in return. “It wasn’t me either.”

“Then who-“ Bruce started before being cut off by his most rambunctious daughter.

I found out that everybody talks

Stephanie with a squeal, exclaimed that it was Damian. Visions of what the Wayne brat could have done flashed through the heads of everyone in the room. He had been sent overseas before the quarantines and lockdowns hit. During Damian’s first month in France he had been forced into online schooling and then finally when he got to go to in-person classes he hated it. Described the class as a kindergarten with petty and vindictive toddlers.

Had he broken someone’s arm? Was that person of such importance that it had spread over multiple social media platforms? France’s government had announced on June 15th, that teens were now being inoculated so him having COVID-19 was doubtful. Had he insulted the wrong person? Had he taken over the government? He certainly had the potential.

Everybody talks, everybody talks

What they saw stunned them, even Steph as she watched it for the 7th time. Damian Wayne was dancing. But not only that, he was dancing with a girl.

It started with a whisper

“What is this shit?”

No one verbally objected to Jason’s outburst but he was sent a harsh glare from Alfred, Dick and Bruce. Their focus soon returned to the images and videos before them. Babs’ and Steph’s phones were returned to them as the others ran to grab their own devices. They all met back at the table, comparing the posts and comparing their notes.

I can hear the chitchat

“There’s no way this can be real.”

“Jesus Tim,” Barbara rolls her eyes, “have you seen the amount of posts there are? You’d be an idiot to think otherwise.”

Take me to your love shack

“I’m with Tim, how do we know this isn’t some skit. I mean, Demon Spawn almost looks normal. That’s a matter of concern.” He almost dry heaved when he agreed with Tim. Damian couldn’t be capable of naturally exuding that amount of humanity unless there was something in it for him.

Mamas always gotta backtrack

“I was just saying Babs, that we should check the credibility of these images. For all we know they could be gorilla glued together and trying to get unstuck.” Tim cringed at his own reasoning, he really needed to either sleep (probably not going to happen anytime soon) or find his favourite coffee brand (which had been one of the first to vanish after the covid hoarders appeared).

When everybody talks back

Dick was too busy freaking out and spam messaging the youngest Wayne, to defend Damian’s humanity. The family saw this and followed suit, wanting to get information from the source.

Chat name: Alfred supremacy

BigBird: AHHHHHH DAMIAN!

BigBird: YOU LOOK SO CUTE!!!

BigBird: HAIFJDNDNFI

LittleWing: WTF HAPPENED DEMON SPAWN YOU LOOK ALMOST HUMAN

Babs: who knew the city of love would influence the brat

Blondie: they are so cuteeeeeee!

Blondie: We HAVE to meet her!

Silent-but-deadly: agreed.

Timbo: YO DEMON

Timbo: Apparently the videos are legit

Timbo: are you being blackmailed?

And it just devolved into more chaos from there, fueled by the fact that they saw Damian’s ‘Blood Son’ account appear online before vanishing once more. Dick shrieked, “I FOUND HER ACCOUNT!”

The family gathered around the eldest son, peering over his shoulder to view his iPhone 12max screen. They saw a young girl’s Instagram account. It was locked but they could see her profile pic, the girl had black hair and looked to be if Asian decent. They compared it to the videos but it was hard to see due to the hall’s lighting and the minimised facial features of the pfp. Alfred suggested that they search up her username and see who has tagged her, some might have other photos of her.

After research for awhile, the family began to get frustrated with lack of results.

Hey honey you could be my drug

You could be my new prescription

“Come on!” Jason complained, “What kind of teenage girl doesn’t post her life online?” He ignored the girls glares and went back to researching. How had the account by the name of ‘mariiiiinette’ to managed to prevent the entire Wayne clan from accessing it? Damn Instagram privacy settings. He groaned, dragging a hand down his face, “We are fucking stupid. Why don’t we just use the Bat-computer? It would be so much fucking easier.”

“It shouldn’t be used for civilian issues-“

Too much could be an overdose

“The girl could be a meta for all we know! We aren’t safe until we know who she is.” Jason points a finger at Tim, his paranoia flared up and even though he would never admit it, Jason would do anything to protect each member of his family (although Bruce is still debatable).

All this trash talk make me itching

Barbara and Tim took their usual positions as Oracle and Red Robin (who had been banned from patrol due to lack of sleep). The rest of the Batfam stood behind them either with arms crossed or still failing at researching.

Oh my my shit

“The account is owned by a girl called Marinette Dupian-Cheng. She is French-Chinese and her parents own a popular bakery. Also if it wasn’t already obvious, she goes to Collège Françoise Dupont, aka Damian’s French school.” Tim begun informing his nosy family, “But this account has been inactive for the past 6 months, which is strange due to her frequent posting schedule before hand. It seems she probably has a second account and this is her old one.”

Everybody talks, everybody talks

“Not only that,” Barbara interrupted. “There are unopened messages from other accounts that accuse her of being a bully. There is a whole Facebook page about this girl and how she has been hurting her old friends, but neither side seems reliable. The so called victims seem to be twisting the truth but there is barely any information about Marinette so we can’t disprove it either.”

“Read out some of the messages.” Bruce took a cup of coffee from Alfred and sipped it.

The main screen of the bat computer displayed a Facebook group with the banner picture being a photo of Marinette. “They are mostly complaints expected of teen girls when there is a girl they don’t like; ‘Marinette is such a know-it-all’, ‘She is constantly insulting Lila’s intelligence’. They go on to talk about how Marinette was briefly expelled from the Collège before being reinstated by the principle for a reason unknown to them.”

Everybody talks too much

“Her school reports up until this year were good. The newest one states, ‘While Marinette is a wonderful and bright student, I encourage her to settle her disagreements outside of class. This seems to only be a recent occurrence and I implore her to go to the guidance council if she is in need of help.’” A beat of silence echoes through the cave, Tim sighed. “Jason’s meta theory could be correct. She could have just recently started exhibiting her abilities and using them to get what she wants.”

“Bruce what do you want to do?”

“We’re going to Paris.”

She opened her eyes to the blaring morning light that streamed through the blinds. Her lashes still painted with mascara that refused to leave. She felt a pang of sorrow when she was removing her makeup and dress last night, she never wanted the night to end. She shuffled down the stairs to the kitchen, covering her mouth when she yawned. She greeted her mother as she entered the kitchen to get breakfast.

She glanced at her phone and there was the chaos that was started hours ago and it was still occurring. It was the weekend, she wouldn’t need to deal with her classmates until Monday. But she would still have to survive her parent’s interrogation. Out of the corner of her eye she caught her mother smirking at her.

Everybody talks

“Nadja told me some interesting news about last night.” Marinette held her breath, glaring at the toaster, willing it to hurry up so she could escape. “Well,” Sabine patted her shoulder before rubbing Mari’s back. “I know you didn’t want to go but I hope you had fun.”

With that she exited the kitchen, probably going to help her father in the bakery. The ravenette stared after her, eye widened in shock, jumping when the toaster went off. Buttering her toast she went over the conversation, her brows furrowed in confusion. She had expected a ‘When do I get to meet the oh so famous prince?’ or ‘Should I be expecting a new guest sometime in the near future?’ or at least a ‘Who was that young man, Bǎozàng (宝藏 it means treasure)?’ But she said nothing.

A small smile was plastered upon her face as she changed and went down to help her parents in the bakery. Her father didn’t say anything either, he gave her a knowing smile before continuing to kneed the dough. She sat at the the store front as the cashier whilst her parents were busy making ‘Paris’s Finest Pastries’.

Her musings slowly faded as she was brought back to reality by badly hushed whispers. Two young preteens were by the bread roll casing near the door. She had seen them come in before with their parents, the girls went to the prestigious international school over in the 16th arrondissement. The one with purple hair kept whispering to the brunette, both ‘subtly’ glancing towards her. Using her enhanced hearing she listened in on their conversation.

“That’s her, I swear that’s her in the video.”

The blonde’s face soured likes she sucked on a lemon. “No, it wasn’t good lighting there is no way he would dance with someone like her.”

Everybody talks

Marinette had tough skin but their words had an impact, only a small one due to her defence mechanism of repressing emotions. She stopped listening and went back to drawing in her sketchpad, she was in desperate need of a new school outfit.

The two girls eventually came up to the counter, goods in hand. Marinette rung up and bagged their items (paper because save the turtles sksksk) in a tired daze. A phone was shoved into her face, her eyes barely adjusted to view the screen before the blonde spoke.

“Is this your instagram?” She asked in a tone so snobbish that it should be illegal from a person her age. Marinette finally was able to view the screen that was barely an inch from her face. Her old Instagram ‘mariiiiinette’ was displayed on screen, she hesitantly nodded, gaze flicking back to the two in front of her.

The blonde’s nose scrunched up and the purple goth girl squealed in delight. They soon after left the store, their conversation had devolved into ‘See! I told you’ and ‘Yeah, yeah. You were right.’

Walking to school on Monday, she had finally come down from cloud nine. She still rode the tail end of her high as she rushed along her path to her campus, she wasn’t going to be late but she sure wasn’t going to be early. She had spent the better part of the weekend designing and sewing a brand new outfit. Her new look was composed of a black cropped singlet (L'amour gagne hemmed into it and it’s straps), paired matching peach plaid cropped overshirt and a-line miniskirt. Her hair was down, ballet flats were worn and her makeup was the usual with the added edition of a rose gold eyeshadow.

Even though her face was covered in a black and gold mask, she looked hot.

She reached the campus and the whispers started again, people were still buzzing from Friday night. Her classmates, the majority of her grade and the younger years seemed to gossiping before class about the formal’s events. She couldn’t spot any of her friends or the two Gotham transfers, so she was stuck listening the the chitchat. Why couldn’t she have been late like usual?

Damian had a fowl disposition and it showed in multiple icey glares (and that was before he even reached the collège). His family had made their appearance known in Paris at 1am Sunday morning. He could have used his dorm to escape but his family didn’t have the word ‘privacy’ within their vocabulary. He didn’t want to have to pay for a lock replacement due to his brothers’ (most likely Todd with Drake & Grayson laughing at him) lock picking habit.

The Ice Prince was back with full force. He had just been... influenced by all the other couples. Yes he did respect Dupain-Cheng and he appreciated her company & pleasant conversations. He would struggle to hide a small smile at the memory of the dance, even if he denied himself the happiness of normality, he felt content when reminiscing.

“Ooo the Ice Prince is here, did he have a fight with his princess or something?” The voice seemed to mock him.

“The Disney Magic is gone. The demon is back.”

Everybody talks

At the second jeer he shot a glare at the perpetrator. Jon held his hands up in an ‘I surrender manner’, laughing as he joined Damian at his side. The two entered the school’s large foyer and looked to see if any of the classes were open yet. Sadly they weren’t, before he was wrong and the his class was plain torture but this was truely hell.

He saw Dupain-Cheng sitting alone on the stairs, drawing within her sketchpad. He wondered how a girl like her, who always seemed to be involved in other’s lives (for the better) was ignoring all of the comments about her. She felt his focus centre on her, eyes flicking up to meet his, she provided him with a small wave before continuing to draw.

Jon nudged him with an elbow to his ribs and dragged him off to the side, into the boy’s locker rooms. Jon scowled at the door, “It’s a mad house out there. You’ve heard what some people are saying right?”

“Why would I care about these imbeciles?”

Jon jabbed Damian in the chest, causing the demon to stumble. Green eyes darted from blue eyes to the tan finger. “You care when lies hurt people you care about.”

The day began to rapidly decline once the two dance partners took their seats, next to each other. They had both been placed up the back of the class and them sitting together hadn’t been a problem until now apparently. She wasn’t even safe when the teacher started their lecture, whispers and glances were cast towards them. Once the two got to biology it was better, Ms Mendeleiev was a strict teacher and was able to control the class.

Everybody talks

But the recess came. When the bell rang she slowly started packing up her equipment, Alix and Max (who she shared biology with) waited for her; she watched as the Ice Prince left through the door. She knew she didn’t need to be concerned about her friends joining in with the gossiping, if anything they would dispel people and tell them to ‘Mind their own fucking business’ because this whole situations is ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.

She did receive some slight teasing from Alix about being a Disney princess, but Marinette quipped back about the skater’s fairytale story being ‘Pinknette, the Geek and the Beast’. The three met up with the other two of their group, they had just come from geography. Kim was complaining that Argentina was a state in America.

“That’s Arkansas you idiot!” Chloe shrieked, lightly hitting his arm with her white handbag. Max held his head in his hand as he approached, how had his tutoring sessions failed so badly?

Chloe turned to Marinette, a smile forming from her glare. The blonde examined the designer’s clothing, nodding. “You look like you are about to have a hot girl summer.”

Marinette’s face burned, the tips of her ears coated in red. Alix chuckled and nudged her shoulder.

Everybody talks

“Look at her, she is so desperate for his attention that she probably copied those designs.”

“Why do you think he danced with her anyways? Maybe she has something on him? I mean, she forces him to sit next to her in class, who knows what else she has done.”

What. The. Fuck.

Chloe glowered towards Lila’s posy. “We have a fucking seating plan, those cretins-“ She made a motion to storm over but was caught by the ravenette, looking back to Mari, her rage decreased from a boil to a simmer.

“No Chlo. It’s fine, it’s not worth it.”

Everybody talks... back

The group walked out to the school’s front steps, it was a mad house... a mad courtyard? Students sitting on the stairs, on the grass and standing around mingling, all of them now were staring at her. She held her backpack close to her chest (she had swapped her signature coin-bag purse for the pastel pink bag), pretending its a shield. Her friends circled around her becoming an obstacle to prevent their stares. If people were afraid of a scowling Kim then they don’t know the scorn of Chloe or Alix’s bite. And Max, sweet quiet Max.... you better hope he doesn’t have blackmail on you (he probably does), he can dismantle your life with a single anonymous post.

Rushed footsteps approached them. The group was broken apart by a rude Wayne boy, he swept Mari away from the school and the gossip crowds within. Her four friends shouted at him and he kept walking, shooting a glare at them in response. He kept pushing Marinette forward with a hand placed on the small of her back, her backpack was now swung over his other shoulder.

They ended up in her favourite alcove. She had brought him here with the other Gotham transfers for a native’s tour of Paris. It had always been her safe place to be creative.

It started with a whisper (everybody talks, everybody talks)

“My apologises for our rushed departure but you seemed to want to get out of their anyhow.” His gruff tone danced through the silence, his head still peaking around the corner; watching for any unwelcome guests.

“Thank you.” She whispered, her voice almost being carried off by the gentle wind. A genuine smile illustrated upon her face.

“We weren’t able to converse after the events of the other night. I would like to formally apologise once more for my actions causing this adverse reaction. If I had kn-“

“You don’t need to apologise!” She squeaked, hiding her eyes behind her fisted hand. Her shoulders curled inwards as she tried to make herself seem as small as possible, a side effect of her common use of her secondary miraculous form: Multimouse.

“I chose to dance with you, you don’t need to apologise for my own actions.” He stared at her with confusion. He had taken the blame so she wouldn’t need to do so herself; but she had taken it anyways. He had given her an out. Why does she always take the blame, even for things out of her control?

“But if I hadn’t danced with you then you wouldn’t have been the focus of the entire school.”

Marinette stepped forward, her eyes hardened and blazing. “Damian Friday night I went there out of obligation to my friends, I didn’t want to be there. But dancing with you? That was the highlight of my week, probably my month too. I enjoyed our time together.” Her face softened, lips twitched downwards ever so slightly. “I don’t regret anything about that night, but do you?”

He was bad at comfort. Everyone in his family avoided him when they were in need, he plainly didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t visibly upset but he sensed that she is disappointed that he apparently didn’t share the same opinion of the night. The only thing he regretted about that night was letting Jon call him a coward, but then again if he didn’t he never would have danced with Dupa- Marinette.

He picked up her clenched hand, the tension in her body alleviated at his embrace. He remembered how Grayson would apologise to Kor’i or how his father interacted with Ms Kyle. He brought their hands up and placed a kiss upon her knuckles.

And that was when I kissed her (everybody talks, everybody talks)

“I do not regret anything either—“ he cleared his throat, “In fact, I’d appreciate if we would be able to interact more, especially outside of that cesspit.”

Was he...?

It didn’t matter.

She smiled the same dazzling smile she gave him at the dance. She nodded while laughing, “I’d love that.”

Everybody talks

The two stay talking, hidden within their secret alcove for the rest of the day. She texted her parents to say she was with a friend and would be back later that night. Damian didn’t bother texting his family, Marinette knew he had to be back soon due to his dorm’s curfew.

The sun was setting at they walked back together, he did the gentlemanly thing and dropped her off at her bakery door. She could see her mother behind the register inconspicuously looking over at the two of them. Damian’s lips quirked upwards, she was satisfied with his kinda-smile.

He walked back, hands in pockets and a neutral expression upon his face instead of a scowl. He reached his door and took his keys, he found that it was already open. Damn.

His family was splayed out within his two roomed dorm. Todd and Drake were fighting over a place to sit on his bed, whilst his father sat at his desk, watching the commotion. The three of them turned to him as he enter the room, they were the only family members able to attend on short notice; Cain had a ballet audition, Gordon & Brown had concert tickets for tomorrow, Grayson had to take care of Mar’i while Kor’i was on Tamaran and Alfred stayed to ensure no one died during their night time activities.

“We need to talk Damian.” His father stood, leaning onto the desk chair. “The school called and said you had an unexcused absence for half the day. Where were you Damian?”

Damian stared into his father’s eyes. He was fifteen, almost an adult, but was treated like he was ten again.

“I was with a friend.”

“Probably the girl from the dance. Marinette, right?” Todd mocked him. Damian snapped his head in the direction of his bed, glaring at both his brothers.

“That’s what I want to talk about with you Damian. Now I don’t know her personally but from what we’ve discovered through our investigation we have some concerns. What’s happened Damian?”

The youngest Wayne’s glare shifted off of his brothers to the floor, and then finally to his father; his family sitting in wait for his answer. Straightening his posture, his shoulders clicked as he rolled then back. His statement’s tone was sure and steady, “Everybody talks father.”

Everybody talks... back

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Can we take a moment to talk about what a tragic character Minerva is? Y’all know that for the longest time I haven’t been the biggest fan of her, and honestly I’m still not? but I think I might’ve had a breakthrough on why that is. 

Whenever I’ve asked around to see why people find her so appealing or why they consider her their favorite, I’ll get answers like, “she’s such a complex character and she deserved a redemption arc!” or “she should’ve come back to the school with us! Let Minnie be happy, you cowards! Telltale did her dirty! I could write paragraph after paragraph about her!” all sorts of things along those lines… but like, no one seems to want to actually talk about her. I find that interesting? Since when I do follow up with a “care to explain further?” I get nothing. Radio static. Like…. no, talk to me please, I just wanna understand-

Minerva within the context of TFS is such a tragedy. She grew up in a school for troubled youth where all the adults left them for death at the start of the breakout, they had walkers trying to eat the living all around them, and I’m sure she saw her fair share of traumatic violence and despair… but on the bright side, she always had her twin sister, Sophie, and little brother, Tenn. She had her friend and eventual girlfriend, Violet. She had music, and a dorm full of pretty paintings done by Sophie. She and Louis composed a song together to make everyone feel better. There are worse places to live than the school. 

Then one day she got traded away to a bunch of raiders against her will, having no idea what the hell these people were gonna do to her and Sophie. They were made to be soldiers to fight in a war that had nothing to do with them. The delta fucking broke her. If we’re to believe Lilly’s story about the twins, they started their brainwashing process early on when Sophie was still alive, and it seems like Minerva was easier to control as Sophie was still planning a way out and causing trouble. Then, when Sophie convinced her to steal a boat and get the hell out, they got caught and the delta forced her to murder her own twin sister. 

Like…. I’m sorry, not only did Minerva kill her own sister, but she was made to believe that was the right thing to do? That line she says about how she had to prove her loyalty to the place she calls home? That shit’s ingrained in her brain, you can tell that isn’t the first time she’s heard or said that very thing. That is what made her family to the delta. Delta is her home now, her family. Sophie was just a thing that needed to be dealt with. You keep your head down, do as you’re told, and you survive.  You survive and you get to go home, eat a hot meal, take a shower, and be with your delta family.  If not, you end up like Sophie.

What’s also fucked is that Minerva actually cares about these people now. Think about that. After everything they did to her and made her do, she’s been trained to see them as her family and obey. When you save Louis and he kills Dorian, Minerva actually cries out and is visibly hurt by her death. When she’s with the other raiders on land, she's screaming at walkers to get away from them. She cares about the people who made her kill Sophie… and no one ever talks about that??

She fucking hates Clementine. Clementine is just another thing in Minnie’s way. I know the part of the fandom likes to ship these two together and they think it’s hot when they fight and shit, but within the canon text, Minerva wants Clementine gone. Dead. She is the thing stopping her from having her old family merge with her new family. If Clementine hadn’t made them fight, they all would’ve been captured and they’d all be a delta family now. She would’ve had Tenn back. 

Clementine is the problem, she made everyone fight back and that’s why people are dead. Minerva hates her for it… it’s not a “I hate you but like the sexual tension, y’know?” that I see people pretend it is, it’s “you are ruining everything and if I have to, I will kill you myself and I won’t give a second thought about it when they toss your body overboard.”

Like….. seriously, think about how fucked up all of this is. Minerva is a husk of who she was before she was taken away. Sure, you do have to keep in mind that when Tenn and Violet are describing her, their sights are a bit clouded, y’know? But I do believe that she was someone who was kind and cared about people, she wanted to make people feel safe and comforted. 

Now she’s a brainwashed soldier who won’t help the people she used to call friends when they’re about to get limbs cut off. She won’t hesitate to knock someone unconscious or threaten a child.  She’s willing to trick them into being captured with no regard for what’s going to happen to them. … all she knows is this was the mission, and now they all get to be together again back at the delta. 

Then when she finds out there’s a bomb on the boat, she ditches Violet to blow up with it in order to make it to land herself. She loses her shit seeing everyone die and gets her face chewed off by a walker… and then she tries to blow Clementine and AJ up with a grenade. 

Oh, and who can forget the fact that she tracks the group down with plans of murdering Tenn so that they can go to a better place together? And she’ll take down anyone who gets in her way?

Like….. jesus christ, Minerva’s waaaaay too far gone. It’s awful. 

I think that’s what stumps me about why she’s so loved in the way that she is. It’s not that I don’t understand why she’s complex and well-written, I get that perfectly fine. She’s a compelling character study when you comb over all her scenes and take different factors into account.

What I don’t understand is why we tend to just throw everything interesting about her away? For what? 

These days, I never see anyone talking about any of this unless they’re insisting she deserved a redemption arc which…. Eh, I’ll touch on this later. What I mostly see here and mostly other platforms is how great it would be if she and Clementine made out, or hey what if she and Violet got back together if she did come back to the school? Or they just….the best term I have for this is “uwu-ify.” As in she’s reduced to a caricature of a tall, pretty, mean, white lesbian who has “good damage.” 

People insist that Telltale are cowards or bastards because their predictions of her turning on the delta to save Clem and crew didn’t happen. Instead, Minerva ends up being the final baddie you gotta get away from, and she ends up taking someone down with her. But did you really expect to just do a 180 and suddenly decide being brainwashed for over a year was lame and Clementine and friends are cool? Gonna help them out and be with Tenn again? Sure, there’s some left over trauma but love conquers and fixes everything, right?

Uh…. no? That’s not how people work? Honestly, if we entertain the idea that Minerva wasn’t bit and somehow didn’t murder Clementine when they all got back to the school…. romance is the last thing she is ever gonna think of??

I think that’s what bothers me most when reading these au’s and rants about redemption and the entire idea of clemerva as a whole. It’s the same thing that I see happen with Violet- Minerva only has value to fans if she’s in a wlw relationship. By herself, she doesn’t matter. They don’t care about her canon story, they don’t care about Sophie, they don’t care about discussing what could’ve happened if she and Tenn reunited under better circumstances or had a healing recovery together. But why?

Throwing a girlfriend at her isn’t some band aid that’s gonna cover up all the bad she went through?? Having an enemies to lovers romance with Clementine isn’t going to fix a years worth of brainwashing, trauma or the fact that she murdered her own sister and the delta told her she's proved her worth to them?? 

Having the support of those around her is a good thing, don’t get me wrong. The idea of the Ericson crew as a whole trying to help her out and do the best they can to accommodate her is bittersweet since there’s only so much they can do. They’re not trained therapists, which is what Minerva would need and plenty of years ahead of her to work through and come to terms with everything that happened as well as taking steps forward. I’m not saying that she shouldn’t have friends or that she couldn’t have a healthy romantic relationship someday... but that isn’t the solution, y’know? 

I don’t know how else to explain this, but it makes me feel weird that all of this stuff is flat out overlooked or doesn’t appear to matter to fans of her. 

Look, I get it. We all want these characters to be happy. AU’s are a thing, after all. Sometimes we want to forget about the bad things and focus on the good that bring us comfort. You wanna gush about the idea of an AU where the twins never got traded, the raiders didn’t exist, and Clementine got to meet them the way they were before? I feel that, AU’s are super comforting and fun to explore, and my point isn’t to try and shame anyone who has an AU you like this. 

Hell, you think I don’t have days where I pretend mute Louis isn’t a thing because the whole concept of Louis having his tongue cut out of his mouth breaks my fucking heart? No, lot’s of days I just want to forget everything about that route, I want to set aside all the bad and just intake as much clouis fluff as I can get…. But that doesn’t mean I always ignore or refuse to acknowledge the bad just because I don’t like it. I fucking hate the fact that Louis loses his tongue when you don’t save him, but guess what? That’s a canon route you can play, just like any other route, and the possibilities that come with a mute Louis are vast and compelling. 

This is how it is for me… my favorite characters are my favorite for a reason, and I take all the bad with the good. Louis isn’t perfect, and I don’t want him to be. I was to dive into his backstory about why did that to his parents, I like to talk about what he went through with Marlon’s murder and his feelings about AJ and Clementine at the point, I like to view his love of music as bittersweet. He can stand on his own, and while he is a love interest for Clementine, that isn’t his only purpose. 

I know everyone’s different, they express their love for characters in their own ways, but I do have a genuine question: do you guys actually like Minerva?

Believe it or not, I’m not trying to step on toes or make everyone feel defensive which I know is how people will react to this. “You’re just saying all of this to make us feel bad for shipping clemerva! You don’t even like Minnie so you don’t get to say shit!” yeah yeah, I hear you and look, it’s true that she’s not my favorite character. I know I’ve said I hate her in the past but upon reflection and throwing out fandom interpretations.... I don’t hate her. I get it now. She’s a great character study to dissect and analyze and I think she deserves more than what the writers and the fandom have given her. 

And yeah, what I do hate is clemerva, and I’ve explained why. It’s not for me, it makes me uncomfortable, but at the end of the day, who cares? Me not liking it doesn’t mean anything to those who create AU’s for them. They have their reasons, they can do as they please as long as they’re not hurting anyone. I’m just here pointing out things I see and things that bother me in hopes of starting a discussion.

There’s my ramble about Minerva. I’m gonna go make some tea now.