#i feel so bad for laughing and enjoying the thrilling saga

[robert-deniro]

[invisibleinorange]

A Different Ending |  7/?

Chapters: 7/? Fandom: Bridgerton Rating: M Warnings:  Only be forewarned that this is an AU from the Adrift saga but Colin actually died in this one, so if he’s mentioned he’s actually gone. Relationships: Benedict Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington, Colin Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington (past feelings),  Eloise Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington(besties),  Bridgerton Family Dynamics,  Daphne Bridgerton/Simon Hastings Characters:  Penelope Featherington, Eloise Bridgerton, Benedict Bridgerton, Daphne Bridgerton, Anthony Bridgerton Additional Tags:  Bridgerton, Penadict (do we have a ship name yet?)

Summary:  There were some requests for an alternate/Parallel word to "Bridgerton's Adrift" where Benedict and Penelope actually did get married. So this is the result of that peer pressure.

Benedict was grateful to have found reasonable contractors who knew the urgency to have his and Penelope’s new home finished.  While they’d managed to make the most of his bachelor home, he wanted to provide more for her.  That was why he spent the majority of his days in Kensington, watching the progress and ensuring that everything was falling into place.

Despite the fact he didn’t want to be without his wife for any extended period of time, his mother had practically begged that Penelope be allowed to join the family at Aubrey Hall.  The plan was to seal the deal on Anthony’s match to Edwina Sheffield.  Benedict had his doubts that it would happen if only because Penelope seemed fairly certain that Anthony was better suited to Kate. He knew better than to bet against his wife.

It made sense for Penelope to help chaperone at Aubrey Hall. Her presence allowed her to stay abreast on the happenings of the parties and he could make sure their home was completed before the worst of the rainy seasons arrived.  It was only a matter of a week but it felt like a century without her.

He’d been fully prepared to show her how much he missed her upon her return.  He’d planned to have her favorite meal ready for her when she got home. They’d be able to sit together and she could tell him about everything he’d missed while they ate.

He knew that Anthony would escort her home but he was not quite prepared for her to him to practically be keeping her up right.  He’d known Penelope most of her life and while he hadn’t been around her while she was ill, he instinctively knew that her coloring was wrong.

“Pen,” he murmured moving to collect her from his brother. Concern creased her features as he moved her inside and to a small sitting room, so he could sit her down.

“I’m okay. Just a little carriage sick,” she said, protest clear in her voice though she wasn’t quite in a carriage anymore and she looked as if she was struggling to not retch. “I don’t need all this fuss.”

Benedict gave his older brother a look, as if waiting to verify the veracity of that statement.  If she’d been fine before departing Aubrey Hall he might could pass it off as carriage sickness. He’d been in many carriages with her at this point and not once had she been ill though.

“That’s a lie,” Anthony confirmed. “She’s been sickly since the last dinner party. She gave us all a bit of a laugh though.  She apparently tried to excuse herself from that miserable Cressida Cowper and she wouldn’t stop talking.”

“You didn’t?”  Benedict said trying not to laugh at the thought of Cressida covered in vomitus.  He was actually concerned for his wife but even he wasn’t foolish enough to note see the humor in that.

Penelope nodded though when she attempted to open her mouth, her eyes widened and she covered mouth. She was to her feet trying to run and find somewhere to properly retch.  Benedict’s eyes followed with concern. He really was going to have to go take care of her.

“Trying to upstage my engagement with a baby?” Anthony asked raising an eyebrow.

The two parts hit Benedict with equal force.  Anthony was engaged and he was going to have a baby?  They’d both seen their mother pregnant so many times that it was almost foolish that it didn’t hit him immediately. In a matter of seconds, his face flickered from confusion to excitement to absolute elation.

“Does she know?” he found himself asking.

“About my engagement to Kate? Of course. They’re strangely fond of each other. I daresay Kate might like Penelope more than she likes me,” Anthony said.

Kate. Penelope had been right about that one.

He shook his head though. That wasn’t what he was inquiring about.

“As happy as I am that you’ve selected a wife. I meant about the baby. Does Penelope think she’s with child?” he asked again.

“No. She seems to think she’s had a bad run of food poisoning and travel sickness,” Anthony said with a laugh. “Should I have a physician stop drop by tomorrow?”

“No – yes,” Benedict said after a long moment.  “Does anyone else share in your suspicion?”

“Mother,” Anthony said after a moment. “She didn’t verbalize it to me but I did see her and Mrs. Featherington chatting rather suspiciously in recent days. They’ve been peddling a ‘digestion’ tonic toward her for days.”

“Well thank you for returning her safely home,” he said. “I should probably go take care of her but please forward my congratulations to Kate.  We’ll have to have you both over for dinner while you plan your wedding.”

Anthony nodded before taking his leave.

--

Benedict took the steps to the wash room two at a time.  They’d only ever vaguely discussed children in the sense that they knew that they wanted children to be part of their life and not just because it was what society dictated that children should be a product of marriages.

He hadn’t really given much thought to when it would happen. He’d been so busy focusing on the construction of their home and finding his stride with her that he hadn’t imagined it happening so soon. He was honestly thrilled at the prospect of being a father.

“Everything okay?” he asked gently from the doorway when he found her, bent over though no longer retching. The smell let him know that she definitely had been. She was breathing fairly heavily from the effort.  He crossed the space to lean sit in the floor next to her and rub her back.

“You shouldn’t see me like this,” she told him, embarrassed by the whole thing. Penelope felt dirty. She honestly hadn’t planned to be ill upon her return to him.  God how she’d missed him while at Aubrey Hall though.  Her bed felt empty without him.  Her days were boring without the conversations or the company.

“Sorry but you’re stuck with me,” he told her stubbornly. It had been quite a few years since his mother’s last pregnancy and he admittedly tried to block out those memories. It was painful to look back and think of Hyacinth growing in his mother’s belly and the way his father had absolutely doted over her until his death.  He didn’t care if other men chose to be absent. He fully intended to dote over Penelope. “I’ve seen worse. If I had known you were ill, I would have come to you.”

She offered a weak smile as she managed to sit up.

“I’m home now,” she told him quietly. “You’re not going to be mad if I just want to bath and sleep, will you?”

He pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head.

“No, I’ll even prepare a hot bath for you,” he told her.

“You really don’t have to,” she told protested. “I can do it.”

“No. Go grab yourself a cup of tea and a biscuit from the kitchen if you can stomach it and I’ll come get you when it’s ready.”

He didn’t tend to keep staff here full-time. It wasn’t like in the family home.  He did have people who came and went during the day to ensure cleaning and cooking was done. He had little complaint of handling basic things like starting fires or preparing water on his own.

He stood, rolling up his sleeves before setting into motion, helping her to her feet first before he set off on his task.  It wasn’t quick a quick task but he did manage to heat up water over a fire and fill the movable tub in the washroom until it was at a satisfactory temperature.

He was pleased to see a little color back in her when she came by up to try and help him.  He’d been about to go grab her though so there was little left to be done aside from enjoy.

“I’m spoiled,” she told him, curling into him slightly for a moment in gratitude. “I saw the dinner you had prepared. I’m honestly so sorry for being sickly. Tomorrow when I’m better, I’m going to make it up to you.”

He shook his head.

“You don’t have anything to make up to me,” he insisted. He debated telling her of his suspicion but he also didn’t want to get ahead of himself.  If it turned out she was just ill and not carrying his child, he would feel foolish for suggesting it. He turned his head enough so he could lean down and kiss her appreciatively. “I’ll leave you to your bath, Mrs. Bridgerton.  Please do call if you need any further assistance. I’m pretty good with a wash cloth.”

“Don’t go,” she told him when he started to pull and walk away. Her hand reached out to grab his arm in an attempt to stop him. It worked quite effectively.  “I want to hear about everything I’ve missed in London while I was away.”

Benedict smiled, helping her out of her clothing and into the tub. He couldn’t help but envisioned how her form might change if she was carrying his child. He pushed the thought out of his head though so he could comply with her request. He had a lot to tell her and even more he wanted to hear from her.

He loved his wife.

[fullregalia]

quar on the floor.

I wrote this last year for my friend’s website--reposting here because I am so excited for season three. 

A few years ago, I was using someone else’s HBO password, streaming on borrowed time. I had exhausted my appetite for the platform’s comedic offerings of Veep, Curb, and Silicon Valley—stories of narcissists and egomaniacs in DC, LA, and SF—when I started to hear about a show called Succession. Created by Jesse Armstrong (a former writer in Veep creator Armando Iannucci’s room for The Thick of It), the show is ostensibly about the machinations of the Murdoch-inspired Roy family to retain their conglomerate’s dominance in media’s evolving landscape, and the infighting that arises from the children jockeying for patriarch Logan’s love, approval, and, most importantly, title. Think Arrested Development meets a Shakespearean tragedy. It is a story of narcissists and egomaniacs in NYC. The Roys and their courtiers are mean, extravagant, brash, and delusional—stereotypically obnoxious 0.01%-ers, that is—characters who do nothing to earn neither your affection nor trust, yet somehow that hasn’t stopped me from loving this show and the messy family at the center of it. 

Succession is a rich text. One could write numerous essays on what makes this show something to appreciate: its liberal use of “fuck off” while having practically zero on-screen sex, its clever signaling through nouveau riche clothing, its wry sendup of the Bancroft family (former family owners of the Wall Street Journal) as WASP-y hypocrites, its glee at lampooning the media industry, its theme song that is, canonically, the most important song of all time, its penchant for scenes at a formal dining table, its shrewd depiction of the ways capital exploits labor, its ability to make you fully dissociate when a grown man cringe raps about his dad.

Eventually, my erstwhile HBO password was changed, and finally I caved: I couldn’t live without on-demand access to this family’s particular brand of garbage-language trauma bonding. Revisiting it during quarantine became an escape and a balm. Look at these horrible people, gallivanting across the globe, carefree thanks to deep pockets and complete disregard for anyone but themselves! Am I talking about lockdown rule-breakers, our last administration, or the Roys? Who can tell! While our lives have become myopic in scope—a routine of bed, desk, kitchen, desk, bed for most—we can still live vicariously through this “viper’s nest” of a family that find themselves not only being out and about in the world, but also shaping it. A family whose primary concerns include fretting over cold butter at gala dinners (“The butter’s all fucked! You fuckwads, there’s dinner rolls out there ripping as we speak!”) and complaining about syphilitic rivals at thought leadership convenings (“You don’t hear much about syphilis these days… very much the MySpace of STDs”).

Instead of, I don’t know, traveling to see my family in England this past summer, I got to watch Roman and Shiv have an excruciating dinner of pigeon—watch out for the shot!—with their horrible mother in London. Instead of finding a new apartment after grad school, I moved back home, but I watched cousin Greg jump for joy in his new Soho loft, a gift from Kendall because “developers overestimated demand, so I bought all five units.” Instead of dinner parties with friends, I got to watch the world’s most sentient puffer vest Tom Wambsgans get humiliated by his wife and brother-in-law for wearing suits that make him “look like a divorce attorney from the Twin Cities,” a trait exacerbated by his “agricultural walk.”

In the second season the audience, ensconced in the warm embrace of Loro Piana knits and lulled by crass familial scheming, is reminded that cruelty has consequences. Logan’s paranoia leads to a humiliating round of “boar on the floor” during an executive retreat, and a plotline regarding a coverup of corporate malfeasance in the cruise division comes to a crescendo. (Cruises, the canary in the coal mine of this pandemic, seem to be good vehicles for Problematic Moments in general.) It is revealed that internally, Waystar Royco executives would refer to the victims of one executive’s lascivious (and, in fact, criminal) behavior as “NRPI”—no real person involved. Despite living in the rarified air where the hoi polloi are disposable, the rot is exposed. A piece of shit covered in cashmere is still essentially a piece of shit.

Season two ended four months before the pandemic began, and returning to it felt timely. Throughout this fuzzy, uncertain year, I’ve indulged in bad habits to numb existential dread: I can have two cookies for breakfast, as a treat. The Roys can have a little megayacht R&R, as a treat. To really grapple with the collateral damage of COVID and derelict leadership is devastating. Feeling powerless, locked down, and waiting for stimulus checks, one gets the revolutionary urge. In lieu of liberté and égalité, I eat cake and revel in the Roy’s twisted fraternité.

In those uncanny ways that life imitates art, I found myself working on contract for an international media conglomerate, one that is not unlike Waystar Royco, during the pandemic. There are indeed cheerful brand videos that tout inclusivity, boldly progressive values that encourage treating women as equals, and all-staff emails congratulating everybody on their hard work for “delivering highest quarterly EBITDA” and “record-breaking revenue year-over-year” (productivity in a pandemic, boy, I don’t know….). All these people, myself included, get paid ok-to-decent wages to put a human face on a corporation with the sole purpose of churning out content on market data and celebrity gossip. 99% of the company completely divorced from the handful of executives that get to make Important Decisions. Complicity creeps up on you that way, stuck on your couch finding yourself in a land where the border between disdain and aspiration is blurred. Not having an office to commute to or colleagues to complain with, I must be getting some sort of vicarious thrill from watching the Roy clan et. al. infight behind the glass walls of corner offices and bicker over the dull roar of a cocktail party. If this is the price of admission, maybe it’s fine I can’t afford it.

Perhaps that’s why I keep returning to this wretched family, enjoying its chaos and laughing at its bond so acerbic it can only charitably be called affection. Perhaps, in bingeing Succession intermittently, I am absolving myself of the frustration I feel for my inability to hold power to account, or my lack of tangible accomplishment. For what these sociopaths have in money and influence, they lack in emotional intelligence and a moral compass. After all, who really gets hurt when I delight in the tragedy and farce that is the Roy family’s saga? When it comes to the fate of the Waystar Royco empire, there are no real people involved.

[iffeelscouldkill]

say what we wanna do, make it all come true (chapter 2)

A/N: In my original notes for this fic I had written that Chapter 3 might be rolled into Chapter 2 depending on length because I thought that Chapter 2 was going to be super short. *laughs wildly in 7.1k-long chapter* But this is my favourite chapter of the fic, so it's nice that we get to spend extra time with it!

No particular content warnings for this; everything’s pretty chill. Enjoy! <3

Link to Chapter One | Read on AO3

“That, dear listeners, was ‘Landers Never Stand Down’, the hit single – or should that be anthem? – by beloved indie band Rumor, from their debut album, ‘Ghost Squid’. If you’re just joining us, I’m Piper Tanaka, and this is Radio Indie, Folk and Techno. With us in the studio are Rumor frontwoman Sana Tripathi-”

“Hello again.”

“-and bassist Arkady Patel. We’ve just been hearing the stunning true story of how the band added a new member to its line-up, drummer Violet Liu, after she was discovered trying to obtain confidential files in order to blow the whistle on her employer, the notorious IGR Corp, and its development of an unethical surveillance device.”

“Isn’t that, really, the only logical way to join a band?” Kestrel quipped.

“It sure worked out well for the Rumor crew!” said Piper. “On a more musical note, though – and yes, that pun was intended – that was a great track we just heard. I’m curious about the name you picked for your debut album; is there a story there?”

Sana glanced at Arkady, amused. “Call it an in joke,” she said. “We were originally going to go with ‘In the Deep’, since there’s kind of a loose space theme to the first album, and then… after rehearsal one day, we were just riffing on what kind of creatures might live out in the depths of outer space-” They had also been pretty drunk at the time, but she didn’t need to mention that live on air. “-and Arkady suggested that maybe there’d be giant squid, like in the depths of the ocean.”

“Space squid!” Piper enthused. “Now there’s a concept I can get behind.”

“Right, but Violet, who is our resident science expert – she has a Masters in Molecular Biology–”

“Fancy. Love a woman of science.”

“-pointed out that a squid could never propel itself in a vacuum. Unless it was, you know, a ghost squid.”

“How much had you guys been drinking?” Kestrel asked shrewdly. Arkady coughed.

“It was a dumb joke, but we thought it would make a pretty unique name for a first album,” she finished.

“You were right there!” said Piper brightly. “Then, of course, there’s your upcoming second album, which we’ve heard will be titled ‘More Than a Rumor’.”

“That’s right,” Sana confirmed. “We’ve been working on some really cool material for this one, and we’re excited to bring it to you all.”

“We’ve been hearing some interesting talk about what exactly that material might be,” said Piper. “The discussion boards online are buzzing about one track, ‘The Saga of the House of Zravshen’, which is said to be a thirteen-minute-long “epic space opera ballad” written by Brian Jeeter.”

Arkady made a derisive noise. “It’ll be a thirteen-minute-long something, all right.”

“Arkady, maybe you could tell us about ‘Nanoswarm’,” said Kestrel slyly. “I’ve heard that you and Violet Liu collaborated closely on that track.”

“I – we didn’t – what I mean is, uh, it really wasn’t a formal – collaboration–”

Arkady’s transformation from self-assured to completely flustered was delightful to behold, even though Sana felt like she should maybe step in and save her best friend from herself.

“It was more of a, uh, sort of a side project – we just worked on it and it sounded pretty cool, so it, uh – went onto the album.”

“What I think is really great about ‘More Than a Rumor’,” Sana intervened smoothly, and Arkady let out a breath, sitting back in her chair, “is that there are various tracks where different band members get a chance to shine. Building on ‘Ghost Squid’, which was the introduction to the band as a whole, we really delve into different members’ specialisms in our second album, which has made the material really varied as a result. But at the same time, we’ve worked hard to give it a cohesive flow…”

---

Not everything about adding a new member to the band had been as seamless as that first set. They’d improvised together well over the course of a performance, sure, but there was a different quality to rehearsals now that there were five of them instead of four; they were still figuring out how to navigate each other, adapting routines and in-jokes to accommodate a new person.

A lot of their original material sounded different now with the addition of a keytar and a new drummer; Liu was more technically capable than Jeeter had been, and she also wasn’t content with just falling into a role that had been laid down for her. She had ideas, things she wanted to change, and they weren’t bad ideas, but they still bugged Arkady anyway. She was just attached to a lot of their old songs, that was all.

And okay, maybe she’d pushed back on a few suggestions during rehearsals in a way that had Sana raising an amused eyebrow at her and Krejjh pretending to duck and cover. To her credit, Liu didn’t just roll over and give up on her ideas at the first sign of resistance, sticking to her guns in a way that Arkady respected even if it was also annoying. Things never deteriorated too far, mainly because Sana was quick to play peacemaker, but there always seemed to be some kind of friction between the two of them. It was like an itch under Arkady’s skin whenever she was around Liu, quick to flare up.

Then there was the time that Liu had made an offhanded comment that, “Everyone here went to an underground concert or two in college, right?” in the context of discussing the kinds of set-ups that they’d performed with in the past. Arkady had said nothing, but could feel her teeth grinding as she played an overly loud riff on her bass. It was an innocuous enough comment on its own, but the easy presumptions behind it – the idea that everyone had had access to the same educational opportunities that Liu had had – were what pissed Arkady off.

But contradicting her would have meant talking about something that was personal to Arkady, something that cut way too close to the bone, and she didn’t want to do that. Liu hadn’t earned that from her. Instead, Jeeter made a joke about having been way too immersed in books to find time for concerts, and Sana tactfully steered the conversation out of dangerous waters.

After the rehearsal, she’d pulled Arkady aside. “If you want me to talk to her about—”

Arkady shook her head. “It’s not a big deal. Really,” she added at Sana’s unconvinced look. “It was a stupid assumption, but I can let it go. I’d rather just… let it go.”

They were in a band together, but that didn’t mean they had to be best friends. Arkady could maintain a civil working relationship. It didn’t matter what she’d… thought when she first met Liu, or what Liu might have been about to say to her in the bar. All of that was in the past, so there was no point dwelling on it. All Arkady needed to do was work with Liu within the context of the band; she could do that.

Until one afternoon when Arkady arrived early for rehearsal without really meaning to, and found that the only other person in the warehouse was Liu, who was setting up her drumkit. Before Arkady could turn around and pretend she’d never been there, Liu looked up and spotted her.

“Oh… hey. I was just planning to run through a few drum lines before the rehearsal… try some stuff out,” she said.

“Right,” Arkady said, casting about for an excuse that would get her out of the warehouse until the others arrived. “Uh, I’m gonna go get some coffee from the-”

“Arkady, listen, can we, uh… Can we clear the air between us?” Liu asked, the last few words coming out all in a rush.

Arkady froze. “Clear… what air?” she asked, hoping to god that Liu would say something innocuous about why she thought the drum line on Fear for the Storm needed work.

No such luck. “Look, I get that you’re not… thrilled with having me in the band,” Liu said, quietly, though her voice still carried in the echoey space. “I’ve been in a lot of workplace environments where I’m not welcome, so I… know how to spot the signs. And maybe I’m being hypersensitive, or looking for things to worry about, but something still feels off between us, so whatever it is, can we just talk about it and deal with it? Please?”

Arkady’s chest clenched at Liu’s mention of not being welcome in ‘workplace environments’. Damn it, she didn’t want to make Liu feel the same way she’d felt in whatever white dudebro-filled tech companies she’d worked for. But she also didn’t want to go into the reasons why she wasn’t always a ray of sunshine when they interacted. There was no way that that conversation was going to make anything better.

“I don’t have a problem with you being in the band. Really,” she said instead. “If it comes off that way, it’s just because… Sana and I worked on a lot of those early songs together, and I’m… attached to how they sound. That’s all.”

“So… this is really just a musical disagreement?” said Liu, sounding unconvinced. “Because it feels like there’s… something else. I know you’re not the biggest fan of my former employer – and I mean, me neither – but I figure if it bothered you that much, you wouldn’t have come to help me when Seiders was threatening me-”

“I wasn’t going to just let you die,” Arkady said, nettled. “And no, I’m not in the habit of judging people for where they work. I’ve worked my fair share of jobs for shitty employers just to get by.” She shrugged. Then, almost without meaning to, she added, “Of course, I didn’t have the choice that you probably had…”

Liu frowned, but more like she was confused than like she was annoyed by Arkady’s comment. “What do you mean?”

Arkady sighed. “Not everyone went to college, Liu,” she said. “I’m a high school dropout. So no, I didn’t go to any underground concerts. Or any kind of gigs in college.”

Liu’s eyes widened as her comment from earlier came back to her. “Oh my god,” she groaned, putting her hand to her head. “I am so sorry, Arkady – I should know better than to make assumptions like that. I was just – I’d been talking to Brian about his studies and how he met Krejjh doing fieldwork, and I guess I assumed you guys had all met in college-”

Arkady barked out a laugh, too startled to even really be annoyed. “What, you thought that I could’ve been studying alongside Jeeter? You know he went to Brightwell, right? That elite college that’s supposed to be harder than Harvard to get into?”

Liu shrugged like the idea was actually plausible and not something that sounded like part of a bizarre alternate reality. “Yeah, I don’t see why not.” Then, quickly, as if she was afraid that this might have offended Arkady even more, she added, “But like I said – I really shouldn’t have assumed, and I’m sorry – I know better than that. I was only able to go to the college I did because I won a scholarship.”

Keen to move away from the topic of Arkady possibly having gone to Brightwell – because really, what – Arkady said, “You went to uh, that all-girls college, right? Harmony?” She vaguely remembered overhearing a conversation between Liu and Jeeter where Liu had talked about there being a Latin motto. “It sounded… interesting.”

Liu pulled a face. “Yeah, that’s one word for it.” She went on almost shyly, like she was confessing to a deeply-held secret, “I would have liked to study something more artistic – music, maybe – or at least do more extra-curriculars, but… I got that scholarship, and I was under a lot of pressure from my parents to do something ‘worthwhile’. Plus, I really wanted to show the kids who said I only got that scholarship because I was ‘a minority’.” There was an anger and a bitterness and a tiredness underlying those last two words that Arkady knew far too well.

“They what,” she spat out. God, was she glad she’d never been to college. Then again, she’d worked at places where she’d come up against the exact same attitude.

“Yeah,” Liu said wearily, fiddling with the drumsticks she was holding. “It wasn’t all bad, though. Being away at college was the first time I was really able to be myself – play the drums, be out. I got this haircut in my freshman year that was just – wild, it was awful.” She laughed, though Arkady barely heard her, her heartbeat suddenly pounding in her ears at the word ‘out’. God, Patel, get a grip. “My parents never liked the drums, they thought they were too – un-feminine,” she pulled a face again. “I play the flute, too, but I’m bad at it.”

“We should add that into the line-up,” said Arkady, to distract herself from thinking about Violet’s – Liu’s – flushed cheeks and her smile as she talked about her old haircut. “Sana can write a flute part.”

“Oh god, no,” Liu said, laughing again. “I don’t even have my flute any more, I sold it in grad school.”

“So… if you went to grad school… you can’t have hated it that much, right?” Arkady asked. “Uh – the biology, not the – flute playing.”

“Oh, no, I love biology,” Liu enthused. “It’s the study of living things – what’s not to love? Grad school itself, though, was…” She pulled a face. “I came close to quitting, a few times.”

“What happened?” Arkady asked. They were pretty far off their original subject by now, and Arkady was willing to admit to herself (and only herself) that maybe she was enjoying the conversation. It was all in the name of building better inter-band relationships, of course. Sana would be thrilled that they were bonding like this.

Liu sighed. “Let’s just say there were a few people on my course who were determined to let me know I didn’t belong. We had a lab work module where we were supposed to carry out an experiment as a group, and… I got put in charge of our group of six. My teammates would do things like pretend not to understand my instructions, or move things I needed to shelves I couldn’t reach… make comments they knew I could overhear… Growing up with an anxiety disorder, everyone’s always telling you not to worry – you learn to doubt your own thoughts. And my advisor just dismissed my concerns as ‘over-sensitivity’, so…” Arkady’s eyes narrowed further with every word that Liu spoke. “It was too late for me to transfer to another module. In the end I wound up carrying the whole project basically by myself.”

Liu gave Arkady a weak smile. “So, y’know, you didn’t miss out on much. I interned for a pharmaceutical company for a couple of years after college, did some work as a research assistant. When I got the job offer from IGR Corp, I felt like I’d finally made it – and look how that turned out.”

“Hey, it’s not your fault that IGR Corp turned out to be a special brand of greedy, soul-sucking and unethical,” said Arkady bluntly – even though she’d previously thought that maybe Liu could have had less awful taste in employers. “That’s on them. Look… I know a thing or two about soul-sucking workplaces myself.”

Arkady hadn’t intended this to turn into Personal Story Hour, but at the same time she felt like she should at least offer something after Liu had opened up about her time in college. She hadn’t needed to justify herself; she could just have apologised and left it at that. Instead, she’d shared something that Arkady suspected she didn’t talk about to a lot of people.

“The last job I worked before Sana and I started Rumor was for Telemachus Enterprises,” Arkady said, and Liu’s eyes widened in recognition.

“The global consulting firm? That’s very… well…”

“Capitalist? Soullessly corporate?” Arkady finished for her.

“I was going to say stable,” Liu said diplomatically.

“Sure, as long as you also like ladder-climbing, backstabbing and toxic work environments,” said Arkady. “I was an assistant, doing all the crap work like photocopying, fetching coffee, making calls, scheduling appointments and dealing with angry clients. It was the kind of job you get to get a ‘foothold’ in the world of business, and all of the other assistants were recent college grads who were way younger than me. I hated it.”

Liu nodded, listening intently, not offering any kind of commentary or judgement.

“Playing the bass was kind of the only thing that kept me sane, so… I used to go down to these shitty clubs at night and play, sometimes straight from work because the overtime was ridiculous. I’d join up with a couple of other musicians and do jam sessions, or sometimes play solo stuff. I’d sing, sometimes, too,” she added, a little self-consciously, even though she sang backing vocals on most of Rumor’s songs, and everyone in the band had heard her sing.

“I moved around a lot, never performed at the same place two nights in a row, so that no-one got to know me too well. I used to use different stage names – my favourite was Duchess Calpurnia Higginsworth-Cobb.”

Liu burst out laughing. “You didn’t really tell people that was your name?”

“Drunk people will believe anything,” Arkady told her. “I’m still known as ‘Duchess’ in a few places. It was a precaution, in case anything got back to my work, but in the end… the person who recognised me was someone I hadn’t seen in over a decade. Sana.”

Liu’s eyes widened. “You guys go back that far?”

“Kind of,” Arkady said. “It’s a long story–” delving into the tale of The Landing and her and Sana’s shared history definitely felt like it would be going a step too far – “but uh, I used to do work at a tattoo parlour that Sana came to a few times. I didn’t think she’d really noticed me at the time, but she remembered me well enough that when I played at a club near her workplace, she recognised me. She managed to catch a few more of my performances, figure out where I’d be, and one night she showed up with her guitar, and… we played together.”

Arkady smiled a little, remembering that night, the spark she’d felt as soon as they started to play. The drummer had been awful, some white asshole named Ricky who thought he was God’s gift to music – and wasn’t – but they’d sounded like magic anyway.

“Somehow she managed to figure out where I worked, showed up one day, invited me to get lunch, and after she found out how much I hated it there, she told me I should quit so that we could start a band,” Arkady said.

“And you did?” Liu asked, sounding half impressed, half scandalised.

“I really hated that job,” Arkady said. “Besides, the Capt- Sana can be really persuasive. We joke about her motivational speeches, but she’s…” Arkady hated to admit this, because it sounded so goddamn cheesy, but there wasn’t another word to describe it. “…inspirational.”

Liu smiled. “Yeah, I can tell. She seems like that kind of person.”

“We wrote a lot of our early songs together during that time,” Arkady said. “‘Landers Never Stand Down’, ‘Fear for the Storm’… they kind of – ugh, this is going to sound so corny, but they were about our hope for something better. So… that’s why I’m weird about changing them.”

Liu’s expression softened. “I completely get it. Look, I know that all of this has been pretty sudden – me joining the band, us trying to put together an album – and I’d understand if you wanted me to… back off a little. I was throwing out ideas for things that I thought would sound good with our new line-up, but I should have appreciated that these aren’t just songs to you and Sana.”

“No, it’s – you’re – okay,” Arkady said awkwardly. “You’re fine. They’re… they’re uh, really…” God, Arkady, just spit it out. People pay each other compliments all the time – it doesn’t have to mean anything. (Even if you might want it to mean something). “They’re really good. Ideas, I mean. And the others seem to like them! So… don’t stop on my account.”

Arkady’s urge to just leave the building after finally stumbling through that awkward admission was pretty strong, but she managed to resist. Which turned out to be worth it to see the small, pleased smile unfolding on Liu’s face. It was a different kind of smile to the one that she wore when the Captain paid her a compliment, though Arkady couldn’t have said exactly how. It just felt… personal to her.

“Well, in that case,” said Liu. “I had this idea I really wanted to try out on ‘Landers’, and… I’d love to get your thoughts? On how it sounds?”

Which was how, when Sana showed up for the start of the rehearsal fifteen minutes later, Arkady and Violet came to be mid-debate about the merits of speeding up the tempo of the drum line in the first half of the second verse, Arkady singing Sana’s part of the vocals to illustrate her point.

“Am I late?” Sana joked, throwing Arkady an amused glance. “Sorry, I didn’t realise practice was starting early.”

“The cool kids show up to practice a half hour early to go over new drum lines,” Arkady deadpanned, and Liu laughed. Sana smiled as she brought out her guitar.

“What you were playing just then sounded really good – can you go over it again?”

The conversation with Liu didn’t magically fix everything between them, but the tension eased up significantly after that, and it became easier for Arkady and Liu to come to a compromise whenever they disagreed. The album started to come together much more quickly, and when Red Gregor stopped by (which he did a lot more than he strictly needed to as the head of their record label, and Arkady suspected he was mostly there to see Sana), he was full of praise for the new arrangements.

It also somehow became a habit for Arkady to start showing up early to rehearsal. She told herself it was because the line in the coffee shop was easier to deal with at that time, and it was true that at some point she’d bought enough coffee for both her and Violet to have Violet’s regular order memorised; but it also had something to do with the fact that more often than not, Violet would arrive while she was setting up, or vice versa, and they’d run through the parts that had been bugging them, each lending the other an honest and unjudgemental ear. Sometimes they’d play around with something new, or improvise, trying on new techniques and styles for size.

Arkady honestly hadn’t had this much fun experimenting with music since those first early, heady days with Sana, when they started to lay down exactly what kind of performers they wanted to be. It was different with Violet – they had a different relationship, a different vibe – but there was still something about their sessions that felt similar, like they were breaking new ground.

One day, Arkady had been messing around with a bass line that she couldn’t get out of her head – she’d been thinking of adding it to ‘The Carmen Gambit’, one of the band’s originals that Jeeter had helped write, but it didn’t really fit. She liked how it sounded on its own, though. Liu had been listening, head tilted to one side, which Arkady didn’t really think anything of until quietly, underneath the bass line, Violet started to add a drum part.

Arkady was startled, mostly by how well the two fit together; after a slight fumble, she carried on playing, improvising and adding a couple of variations to the bass line when she ran out of material. Liu smoothly changed up the rhythm of the drum line to match just a second later, and Arkady realised that they had something that almost sounded like… a real piece of music. Something organic, something that flowed and moved and changed with-

Crap. Arkady came to a stop at the end of a section as she realised she didn’t have any idea what to play next. “Uh…” She threw an apologetic glance in Violet’s direction. “I haven’t really figured out what comes after that.”

Violet nodded, not seeming put out by this. “What about…” She hummed the end section of the melody that Arkady had been playing, and then another phrase that almost mirrored it. “Actually, that part could come before the-”

“Right, right-” Arkady understood Violet’s meaning, and quickly picked up the tune on her bass.

The song (well, technically it was an instrumental) they were writing didn’t have a name for the first few days. Arkady and Violet would pick up where they left off each time they came to rehearsal, and would throw around ideas for additions and changes, discussing the overall sound and vibe, but it didn’t feel like there was a need to put a name to it.

Then in the middle of one of these discussions, Violet started scribbling something in a notebook, and Arkady realised she was writing down their song. She peered curiously at the letters and notes, and Violet grimaced self-consciously.

“I’m not sure if I’ve got all of the bass chords right,” she admitted, tilting the notebook so Arkady could see it better. “Feel free to correct any bits that are wrong, I was mostly trying to get the drum part down for my own benefit. My memory’s not as good as yours is.”

Arkady hesitated. She was tempted to lie and say the notation was fine; Violet would accept it, and it probably wouldn’t come up again. There was a time when she would have done it without a second’s thought. But Violet already knew that Arkady had dropped out of high school; knew bits and pieces of her background, if not the whole story; and Arkady had to admit that she’d been enjoying being herself more around Violet. She didn’t want to backtrack on that.

“I never really learned to read sheet music,” she admitted. “I can recognise a few chords, but… I mostly learned how to play from YouTube videos, so it always seemed easier to just watch someone else play the chords, and learn which ones went with which songs, and… for performances I always had to memorise stuff anyway, so, um.” Arkady was rambling, and Violet was staring at her, which was possibly not good. “There didn’t seem much point in having it written down.”

“So… you never had a bass teacher?” Violet said slowly. “All of your playing, your singing – it’s all self-taught?”

“Uh,” Arkady cringed. “Yes?”

“Wow,” Violet said, and Arkady suddenly realised that she was dumbfounded because she was impressed, not because she’d just realised she was playing with an amateur. “That’s… really impressive.”

Arkady fidgeted, uncomfortable with the pure admiration in Violet’s gaze. “It’s not really – I mean sure, I put in a lot of hours, but so does every musician,” she hedged. “It wasn’t anything special, I just – couldn’t afford to pay for classes.”

She braced herself for an awkward silence to follow, but instead Violet nodded. “No, you’re right, everyone has to put in the work if they want to improve,” she agreed. “But I imagine that it would be harder to motivate yourself when it’s just you and the instrument.”

Arkady shrugged her shoulder slightly. “It wasn’t so bad. It helped that I enjoyed it, I guess.” After the disaster that was her high school education, it had been a relief to find something she’d felt like she was good at – and wasn’t being assessed on.

Violet smiled, and mercifully changed the topic by looking down at the notation she’d scribbled and saying lightly, “Well, now that it’s been written down, it feels like we should give it a name.”

Arkady thought about it. “Anything that’s shorter than whatever the hell it is Jeeter and Krejjh are working on,” she said, because Jeeter had been waxing lyrical about the ‘epic space opera ballad’ that he’d been composing with his fiancé. Apparently it was about a race of fictional aliens, and some of the lyrics were in a made-up alien language that Jeeter had invented. Arkady had no idea why Jeeter had such a dedicated following among their fans for the weird shit that he came up with, but there you were.

Violet grinned, tapping her pen against the space above the lines and notations. “So, one word, then. It’s got a pretty futuristic sound… What about ‘Cyberpunk’?”

Arkady couldn’t help grimacing a little bit. “Yeah, too clichéd,” Violet agreed. “Maybe something themed around space… ‘Supernova’?”

They tossed around a few other ideas, but none of them quite seemed to fit the mood of the song. Violet frowned down at the music she’d written, and Arkady was about to suggest they come back to it later when she said, “This might sound like a weird association for a piece of music, but I was reading a paper the other day on nanotechnology, you know, technology used at the atomic and molecular level?”

“Sounds kind of dry for bedtime reading, but I’m with you,” Arkady said.

Violet laughed, blushing a little. “Yeah, a friend from my Masters sent it to me; I still like to keep up with new developments in the field, and there are fascinating implications for biology. But I’m thinking, what if none of the space names fit because they’re too big, too grand? What if instead we went really small, like… ‘Nanobot’?”

“Nanobot…” Arkady turned the name over in her mind, thinking about the quick, intricate rhythms of the song they were creating together. It was a surprisingly good fit, but something about it felt off. Something about the ‘bot’ part was too… lonely. “What about ‘Nanoswarm’?”

Violet’s eyes widened slightly and a smile spread across her face. “Nanoswarm,” she said, and wrote the song title in blocky capitals above their music. “I like it.”

Both Red Gregor and Campbell came to rehearsal that night, which Arkady took as a sign that they were there to discuss something Important. Their album, ‘Ghost Squid’, was selling more copies than any of them had expected, and had actually got them some interview requests from indie music blogs and magazines. This seemed to be partly down to Red Gregor, who apparently had enough of a reputation as a business investor that his decision to start up a record label had attracted a lot of interest, and consequently a lot of interest in the first band he’d signed to it. But they’d also had some great reviews, including from Radio, Indie, Folk and Techno (also known as RIFT), the go-to station for all things indie music, who had covered it on their ‘Rave Review Hour’.

There’d also been a noticeably bigger audience at most of their gigs. They’d had a modest but dedicated following before Violet had joined the band, and were regulars at a couple of underground venues where they pulled decent crowds, plus one bar where Arkady had managed not to piss off the owner (the other four were… long stories); a bunch of people also streamed their music from various parts of the world. But since Ghost Squid came out, they’d started playing at (and filling) much bigger venues across a much wider area. It was fun, but also a little surreal.

“What’s the good word, Campbell?” Krejjh asked, leaning on their keyboard. “Are you here to tell us how much the people love us?”

Campbell’s lips twitched in amusement. “They love you a whole lot,” he said. “More every day.”

Krejjh fist-pumped, and Arkady asked, “So, what are you guys here for? Is this about ‘Ghost Squid 2: Electric Boogaloo’?”

They’d had a discussion with Red Gregor about beginning work on a second album; this one would take longer, since they’d had plenty of existing songs to draw on for ‘Ghost Squid’, and hadn’t needed to put together any new material. But, as Gregor had pointed out, it was better to start thinking about that sooner rather than later, and they’d been working on a few new songs anyway. So far, the second album was still nameless, but they’d taken to calling it by a range of joke nicknames.

Red Gregor grinned. “Sort of, in the sense that it’ll be good promo,” he said. Spreading his hands out to either side like a showman introducing his next act, he said grandly, “I’ve landed you a gig at the CUI Stadium.”

Jeeter’s mouth dropped open, Krejjh flailed and exclaimed, “Holy moley!”, and Violet repeated, “Stadium?!” in an almost horrified tone. Even Sana seemed surprised by the news.

“You actually got it?” she asked Red Gregor, who nodded.

Arkady’s eyes narrowed. “Okay, what’s the catch?” she asked. “They don’t let just anyone play the CUI Stadium.”

“No catch,” Campbell promised them. “Red has some contacts who tipped him off that the CUI is looking for some new, lesser-known talent to put on its billing. Once upon a time, the CUI had a reputation for scouting the best undiscovered bands and giving them a bigger stage – literally – and they feel they’ve been losing their touch.”

Put like that, it did make a kind of sense. “Cool, so who are we supporting?” Jeeter asked. “Oooh, maybe it’s Hremreh.”

Hremreh was a weird electronic band that Jeeter and Krejjh were completely obsessed with. Arkady rolled her eyes. “I hope the CUI has more taste than that.”

“Excuse you, Hremreh is an underrated gem of a band,” Krejjh retorted.

“The Destroyer?” Violet suggested jokingly. “They’re local.”

Arkady knew from having spent time with Violet that The Destroyer was one of her favourite bands from college, whose gigs she’d religiously attended during her freshman year. Everyone else looked interested but bemused, and Violet hurriedly added, “Uh, that was a bit of a niche joke. I used to go to their gigs a lot in college.”

“All great guesses,” Red Gregor said, “but you’re all missing one important piece of information. You’ll be the headline act.”

“What?” said Arkady.

“Heck yeah!” Krejjh exclaimed, and high-fived Jeeter.

“So, someone will be supporting us?” Violet said a little faintly.

“Red, exactly how many strings did you pull?” Sana asked, sounding halfway between amused and disapproving. Red Gregor held up his hands.

“I just talked to my contacts, I promise,” he said. “It gave me a chance to put your name forward, but that was all I needed to do. You guys have a great sound; they’re excited to have you on.”

Everything dissolved into a flurry of noise and celebration. Jeeter played a celebratory tune on his keytar that Arkady was fairly sure was from some video game, Krejjh whooped and slid their hands up the keys of their keyboard, and Campbell picked up Sana and spun her around, both of them and Red Gregor laughing. Violet caught Arkady’s eye, grinned, and did a little roll on one of her cymbals. Arkady huffed and rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t fight the smile that was trying to emerge.

“So, when is the gig?” Sana asked, flushed and catching her breath, after Campbell had put her down.

“A month from today,” Red told them. Sana straightened up.

“Wow, okay, we need to get rehearsing! Everyone—”

They quickly got into position, picking up instruments and drumsticks and plugging in amplifiers. Sana beamed around at the assembled band members.

“I just want to say how proud I am of all of you for what we’ve accomplished so far, and everything that lies ahead of us. I-”

“Not to head you off at the pass,” Arkady interrupted, sensing a long Sana Monologue was coming, “but didn’t you say we needed to get rehearsing? Maybe save the speech for after?”

Most people would have taken offence at being interrupted, but Sana, being Sana, smiled at Arkady. “Thank you for the reminder, Arkady. I am proud of you all, but I’ll tell you exactly how proud once we’re done.”

Rehearsal went well, everyone energetic and buoyed up from the good news. As they were packing down afterwards, under the noise of Sana, Krejjh, Jeeter, Campbell and Gregor eagerly discussing where they could go out for drinks to celebrate, Violet said to Arkady,

“I forgot to tell you earlier, but I heard back from the journalist. Emily Craddock.”

Arkady fumbled the wire that she was looping around itself. “Yeah? What did she say?”

“She said that she thinks we have enough for a story. Even with the missing data,” Violet said.

She looked happy, but something in Arkady’s chest still clenched. It had been nearly four weeks since the fateful gig at IGR Corp, and so far, everything had been quiet. The band had been on high alert at all of their performances at first, not spending any more time than was necessary setting up or lingering on the stage, but there’d been no attempts at sabotage, no suspicious ‘fans’ trying to approach them after a set. (There had been a few real fans whom Arkady had cross-examined a bit too aggressively when they tried to get close to the band, but people seemed to actually find it funny and no-one got offended).

They figured that IGR Corp must not know about the files that Violet had managed to copy across; Seiders had been unconscious, after all, and it was possible that they hadn’t realised that Violet had made off with anything, or had downplayed the severity of the incident to the higher-ups. Arkady had, in spite of her misgivings, broken the encryption on the files for Violet, but she’d been secretly hoping that the data wouldn’t turn out to be useful, or that there wouldn’t be enough of it to do anything with.

She’d hoped that even after Violet told her that she’d found a tech journalist who was interested in taking a look at the files and potentially investigate the story. Of course Arkady was a fan of doing whatever they could to stick it to the corporates; she just wished there was a way to do it that wouldn’t involve Violet painting a huge target on her back.

“That’s… good,” Arkady managed, and even she could hear how unconvincing it sounded. Violet looked at her questioningly. “It’s just…” She tried to find a way to word things that wasn’t, ‘I’m afraid that you won’t be safe’. “Once the information is out there, IGR Corp is going to know who leaked it. What happens if they come after you?”

“By that point, they should have bigger things to worry about, if the evidence that Emily Craddock has found is as damning as she says it is,” Violet pointed out. “She’s been looking into that engineer that Seiders mentioned, Alvy Connors. It’s not really clear whether something… happened to him, or whether he just made a run for it, but he definitely disappeared. And it wasn’t that long after he started work on Project ADVANCE.”

As they talked, the other band members had been clearing equipment away and loading it into the van, until Violet and Arkady were the only ones left in the warehouse.

“I know there’s risk involved,” Violet said. “But I can’t just forget everything I’ve learned. And this is bigger than me – I have to do it for Alvy, too, and his family and friends, and everyone else who could be affected by Project ADVANCE. What IGR Corp is doing-”

“I know, I know,” Arkady said. “Don’t get me wrong, I think they deserve to have the cover blown right off their shitty, awful surveillance plan.”

“I’m going to talk to the Captain before I do anything,” Violet assured her. “I know this could affect the band, too. I just wanted to tell you first.”

Why? Arkady wanted to ask, but that would have taken the conversation down a road that Arkady was not prepared to go down. Either Violet would say something like, ‘Because we’re friends’, or ‘Because you’re my bandmate’, and Arkady would feel like a moron for having hoped for anything different. Or she wouldn’t, and that would be worse, because Arkady had no idea how to respond to Violet saying… Well, it didn’t matter, because it would never happen, anyway.

“Sana will tell you to go for it,” she said. “If it’s what you think is right, she’ll be behind you all the way.”

“And… you?” Violet asked quietly.

“I…”

Why was it so hard for Arkady to just say that she approved? Violet was a grown woman who could make her own decisions; she didn’t need Arkady second-guessing her. Violet didn’t even need Arkady to agree with what she was doing – she could just go and do it anyway. But the fact that she’d asked Arkady meant that she cared what Arkady thought… and that made Arkady want to be honest with her.

And honesty was terrifying.

The moment stretched out; Arkady composed and drafted half a dozen different versions of what she wanted to say in her head. ‘I just need you to be careful’ – ugh, that sounded like something Sana would say. Also, of course Violet was going to be careful; that didn’t mean there was no risk involved. ‘I trust you to make the right choice’ – vague, and it also made Arkady feel weird. ‘If they hurt you, they’ll wish they’d never been born’ – alarming, and probably too honest.

Arkady took a breath in, gathering her nerve – and then both of them jumped as the van horn beeped loudly from outside.

“Paging bandmates Liu and Patel!” Krejjh shouted. “Bandmates Liu and Patel to the Rumormobile, please!”

Violet laughed a little, as Arkady huffed, inwardly cursing her own goddamn indecision. She’d spent so long trying to figure out what to say that she’d lost the chance to say anything.

“I guess we shouldn’t keep them waiting,” Violet said, slanting a small smile in Arkady’s direction.

“I trust you,” Arkady found herself saying, almost without meaning to. Violet looked puzzled, and Arkady scrambled to clarify. “Uh, that is – if you think this is the right thing to do. Then, you should… do it. Just…”

She still couldn’t say it, but Violet’s smile widened, her eyes softening like she knew what Arkady was trying (and failing) to tell her. “I’ll be careful,” she promised.

[dragonclaw29]

Top Ten Manga

Well my top ten anime list did surprisingly well so I thought might as well do manga. So before I get to distracted let's begin.

10 Goblin Slayer

Is it violent, yes, sometimes gratuitous, yes, is it also good, definitely yes. This is one of those few manga where I read the first chapter and realized that I would enjoy this series. The manga is dark and full of strife and struggle. The man character is cold and driven by a singular purpose. This is a good manga to release how bad living in a monster invested world could be.

9 Monthly Girl's Nozaki-kun

On the opposite side of the spectrum, get used to that with this list, Monthly Girl's Nozaki-kun is a fun light hearted comedy that is guaranteed to get you laughing. This show plays a lot with the ideas of troops and it's hilarious to see how they mess with the formula. All the characters are great and each of them bring some new wacky thing to the table!

8 The Girl from the Other Side

This dark mystery tells the tale of a young girl and the monster she finds herself with. With stunning art and heart tugging story arcs this ongoing manga will have you chomping at the bit.

7 Kawaii Hito

This manga tells the story of a man with an unfortunate face and the girl he is in love with. It's a very cutesy manga with not a lot of drama but it's good if you are looking for something sweet and romantic.

6 Please don't bully me Nagatoro

What happens when you take the average otaku and insert a cute bully into his life. Nagatoro is a funny tale of a guy being picked on. Funny tale and bully doesn't seem to go hand and hand but for some odd reason this manga pulls it off. I can be a bit fanservicy at times so far warning but honestly it's a good read.

5 Saga of Tanya the Evil

This manga is beautiful which is funny cause the anime makes the characters look kinda like potatoes. This thrilling manga has a well crafted story with interesting developments at every turn. I love the anime and I really love the manga. This is a manga I can recommend to anyone.

4 A Silent Voice

Want to make a grown man cry? Want to make him cry again when he reads it a second time. The first time I read this manga I binged it for six hours and stayed up until 5 am. I love this manga and the characters are beautifully written. This manga was one of the things that made me realize how bright the world is and how sometimes all you need to do is push past your boundaries.

3. Claymore

Claymore takes the good idea of monster hunters and turns it into a masterpiece . With an ending that will surprise you, in the good way, Claymore is a action packed manga that doesn't pull any punches. The thing that stands out to me the most is the character development that is shown in the manga. Characters seem almost real with how they grow and learn in the world they find themselves in.

2 Yotsuba

If I'm ever feeling really down and I just want a pick me up I read this manga. This manga I have probably read about six times in the past year and I will probably continue to reread it. I love this manga it genuinely makes me happy and reminds me that there is a lot of joy and wonder in the world.

1 Berserk

If I was teaching a writing course Berserk would be in it. I can say with full honesty it is one of the best written, best drawn things that had ever been made. Everything about this manga is amazing, except it haitus`s. The art is stunning, the characters extremely lifelike, plot interesting and unique, pacing perfect. I can't put into words how good this is. One warning though this is a very dark and twisted world so be prepared for the dark and twisted.

Well there is my list. If you don't like it or want to argue shoot me a message, or if you want to ask me some questions. I hope you enjoy this list I had fun making it!

[superhusbands-superfan]

What if Steve is planning to propose to Tony but the night they go out they see pepper and Steve doesn't propose and to throw Tony off he starts to talk againts marriage which pisses Tony off, pepper tells Tony she wants to marry him, Tony and Steve have a fight and Tony goes to pepper for comfort but turns her down eventually and when Steve arrives at pepper's Tony's gone home and when Steve gets home Tony proposes( as the rest of the gang have finally told him about Steve's plans) / next ask

/ so Tony gets down on one knee and says: I never thought I would be so lucky ... You know , the whole, monica chandler proposal scene :))

I blame this entirely on @avengersnewb who has CLEARLY determined that Friends-related Stony prompts are apparently a weakness of mine ;). Sorry for the delay in response to your ask, but I hope this little fic makes up for it. I really hope you enjoy!

The Proposal that Wasn’t (and the one that was)

“It’s really great, Steve,” Natasha said, smiling down at the ring and then glancing at Steve. “Tony’s going to love it.”

“Really? You think so?”

Nat stood on her tiptoes to kiss Steve’s cheek and then squeezed his shoulder affectionately.

“I know so,” Nat said with a sharp, definitive nod. “When are you going to ask him?”

“I’m thinking tonight at the benefit I’ll convince him to sneak off with me for a minute alone. The event’s at the same place where we had our first kiss, so I know there’s a private balcony Tony can get us access to. And it shouldn’t be too hard to get him to agree for nostalgia’s sake.” Steve smiled at the memory and then grimaced a little when he realized he was definitely wearing his dopey, lovestruck smile. “Is that horribly cheesy?”

Nat shrugged with one shoulder. “Maybe a tiny bit,” she admitted, smirking. “For me? Absolutely. For Tony? It’s exactly the kind of cheesy romance Tony not-so-subtly lives for. It’s why you’re so perfect together.”

Steve smiled. “You think he’ll say yes?”

“I’d bet my life on it.”

Coming from Natasha, that was all but a guarantee.

Read it on Ao3.

They were on the dance floor when Steve finally worked up the courage to suggest they slip off to somewhere more private. Steve was sure Tony would take the suggestion to be sexual in nature, but he could work with that. And hey, if there ended up being a post-proposal sexual encounter, well… it wasn’t like Steve was going to have a problem with that.

Hell, it wouldn’t be the first time they… repurposed, for lack of a better word, these dragged-out black-tie events for something more exciting.

That said, it was also almost eleven fifteen. That was a perfectly respectable time to call it a night if they wanted to head home.

“Is it horrible that I’ve completely forgotten what this event is for?” Tony asked, his voice pitched low and his mouth near Steve’s ear as they continued to dance in small circles to the rhythm of the classical music being played.

Steve laughed a little and shook his head. “No, that’s what you have me for. We’ve made a sizable donation to the charity in the spotlight this evening. So there’s nothing to worry about.”

“My hero,” Tony said, meeting Steve’s gaze with a soft, flirty smile and love in his eyes.

This was the right moment, the right night. Steve could feel it.

Steve cut their dance short and grabbed Tony’s hand in his to pull him away from the dance floor and toward a quiet corner. “What would you say if I suggested — ”

“Tony?” a voice called from somewhere over Tony’s shoulder.

Seconds later, the one and only Pepper Potts emerged, smiling and looking as flawless as ever in a brilliant green dress that complemented but didn’t clash with her red hair, which fell down her back tonight in loose curls. The dress had lace on top and across the off-the-shoulder cap sleeves, but the skirt was simple silk and fell elegantly to where it almost brushed the floor.

Tony turned to greet her with a bit of tension in his shoulders, but no hint of annoyance or genuine discomfort. At least, not anything that Steve could detect — and after more than a year of dating, Steve considered himself fairly adept at reading Tony.

“Pepper?” It was almost more statement and greeting than question, but not quite.

“I thought that was you two,” she said, smiling at Steve as she moved to hug Tony hello. Tony reciprocated easily and then stepped away.

“What are you doing here?” Tony asked after Pepper had also given Steve a quick hug.

It was a fair enough question, Steve thought. They generally divided and conquered at these sorts of things. Pepper would attend some in her capacity as CEO and Tony and Steve would attend others as the still-incredibly-public faces of Stark Industries and the Avengers. Usually, they divided the events by location. Pepper was living in L.A. so she took the west half of the country, and Tony and Steve covered the East coast. International events were a toss-up and were typically decided based on availability and proximity to wherever the Avengers last averted world-ending disasters.

In short, it was rare that the three of them ended up at an event together.

It wasn’t that they avoided each other, really — the three of them got along just fine — but the media tended to make Steve and Pepper’s every interaction out to be part of a jilted lover saga and none of them needed or wanted that sort of press. When they spent time together, it was generally in the safety of their respective homes.

“To keep a long story short, the host of the evening is a close friend from college. She specifically asked me to show up tonight and I had a last-minute cancellation that made it possible for me to fly out.”

“And here you are,” Tony said easily. “Looking stunning, as always.”

Steve wasn’t going to be jealous about that, he decided resolutely. Tony had told countless people how great they looked tonight; it was practically protocol at these events, like chatting about the weather and complaining about uncomfortable footwear.

Besides, Steve's evening had started with Tony describing in detail the things he wanted to do to Steve when he saw him in his tux.

“Thank you, Tony,” Pepper said, a faint pink blush on her cheeks. “You’re sweet. And you both look great as well.”

It was kind of her to say, but her eyes were on Tony the entire time. Steve couldn’t exactly blame her — it’s where his eyes had been all night, too — but he wasn’t necessarily thrilled about what a look like that might mean. He was probably reading into it far too much.

“Thanks, Pep,” Tony said. “How’ve you been lately? I’ve received surprisingly few phone calls berating me for missing one thing or another, I was starting to worry.”

Steve caught just the slightest hint of an embarrassed flush across Pepper’s cheeks.

“Yes, well you’ve been surprisingly mindful of your commitments and almost startlingly punctual recently, so there hasn’t been much of a need for my nagging,” Pepper said, voice full of good-natured humor. “I suppose that’s your doing, Steve?”

“Me?” Steve asked, incredulous. “I doubt it. I certainly can’t get him to do anything he doesn’t want to.”

“I guess your responsibility is just rubbing off on me, then,” Tony teased, grinning up at Steve.

Steve smiled back at him, but he glanced at Pepper in time to catch a look of hurt flash across her features. It was gone before Tony would notice, Steve noted, but it had definitely been there.

Now Steve was getting a little worried.

He knew plenty about Tony and Pepper’s failed relationship and enduring friendship. He appreciated Pepper’s place in Tony’s life even if he didn’t always understand it, exactly. They’d split on amicable, if awkward terms.

According to Tony, he’d ‘always been more interested in talking about future plans’ than Pepper had been, and he’d always been certain that he wanted to keep the option of having a family on the table. Tony had also emphasized that his being Iron Man had been a major part of why their relationship broke down.

Tony had been heartbroken and hurt, but he’d healed. He and Pepper were still friends and colleagues. Tony had found Steve. He’d fallen in love with Steve just as much as Steve had fallen in love with Tony. Things were good between them.

They were good, Steve knew that. He did. He and Tony had talked about what they wanted in their lives many times. Lately, they talked about their future as a definite, shared entity. It was why Steve wanted to propose.

So why the hell couldn’t he shut down the voice in the back of his head whispering that maybe, just maybe, he’d become an easily-forgotten ex if Pepper happened to have decided that she wanted the same things as Tony?

It was ridiculous. Steve knew Tony would never do that.

“How fortunate,” Pepper said, drawing Steve out of his spiraling thoughts with her easy teasing. “Have you two enjoyed the evening?”

Steve nodded agreeably, but for the most part, he let Tony field the question. He distantly heard Tony praising the food and decor, but his focus had drifted to the ring tucked into his jacket pocket that now seemed unnecessary.

The moment had slipped away. It was more than a little disappointing, but it couldn't be helped. Steve wasn’t about to cut the evening short now that Tony had a chance to catch up with Pepper, especially considering the wide, genuine smile he was wearing.

Steve could be a good sport about it. Pepper had no idea she’d interrupted an almost-moment, after all, and Tony didn’t have a clue that this night was meant to be anything more than another dull black-tie affair.

“Steve?” Tony sounded worried. Steve snapped to attention, eyes on Tony’s face even as he relaxed and forced a smile. “You okay?”

“Yes, sorry I got a little lost in my head,” Steve said, happy he was at least telling the truth on that front. “I’m a little warm, actually. I might step out and get some air, if you’ll both excuse me.” Also true, and not a half-bad excuse; Steve was always hot and regularly ducked out of stuffy places full of people for a breath of fresh air.

Tony knew that, but he still narrowed his eyes at Steve skeptically, clearly not buying it. Before he could say anything though, Pepper cut in.

“I bet we could squeeze in a quick dance before the band packs up for the night,” she suggested with a friendly smile. “If you wanted, Tony?”

“Oh uh, sure,” Tony nodded, still looking at Steve for signs of distress.

“Great idea,” Steve said, firmly ignoring that a part of him he didn’t want to examine too closely that thought that was absolutely the opposite of what might reasonably be considered a great idea.

He managed a quick smile and then made a break for the nearest balcony. When he made it outside, he pulled out his phone and navigated to the secret group chat he’d requested JARVIS keep carefully hidden whenever Tony was in the room.

He had 27 unread messages from their friends, a pointless engagement ring in his pocket, and what felt like a massive headache forming.

SGR: Proposal’s on hold for now. Will explain later.

His phone rang approximately thirty seconds later.

“Hey,” Steve said, finally letting his disappointment and general frustration seep into his voice.

“Hey man,” Sam said, sounding sympathetic already without even know what happened. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing bad, really. Honest. We just ran into Pepper and — ”

“Tony’s ex, Pepper?”

“How many Peppers do you know?”

Sam snorted a little. “Good point. Why’s that getting in the way of your proposal though?”

Steve shrugged even though he knew Sam couldn’t see him. “I can’t explain it really, but there was a moment — the moment — but then we were interrupted and now…” Steve glanced behind him through the floor-to-ceiling windows and spotted them on the dance floor, easily picking out Pepper’s green evening gown. “Well, now he’s dancing with Pepper.”

“What?!”

“No, nothing like what you’re thinking. It’s just friendly. But it’s…” Steve didn’t really know what else to say.

“Yeah,” Sam said after a minute. He was using that unfairly sympathetic tone he used sometimes that always managed to convince anyone who heard it that he fully understood whatever you were going through, no matter how bizarrely specific of a situation it happened to be. “I’m sorry. That sucks.”

Steve sighed. “A little bit, but I’ll survive. Just didn’t want to keep you all waiting on big news that wasn’t coming.”

“What a shame, we’ll have to hide all the champagne for a little while longer.”

Steve’s mouth twitched up in a smile.

“Hopefully not much longer, though,” Sam said. It was a nudge if Steve had ever heard one.

“Definitely not.”

“Okay, good. We’ll see you tomorrow then. We’re all going to bed now.”

Steve laughed. Eleven thirty at night and half the team was going to bed, Steve was mourning his failed proposal, and Tony was dancing with his ex-girlfriend. “We’re getting too old for this shit.”

“Honestly,” Sam said. “Goodnight, Steve.”

“Night, Sam.”

-

Steve should have known things wouldn’t quite be that simple. They made it back to the Tower without trouble, Tony regaling Steve the whole time with a story Pepper had told him — Steve was trying hard not to be bitter about that because it wasn’t Pepper’s fault, damn it — about a recent SI investor who’d turned out to be horribly sexist, and whom Pepper had swiftly and humorously dealt with.

Unfortunately, when the doors of the elevator opened to the communal Avengers floor, Clint was sitting cross-legged on the floor, his crossbow entirely deconstructed in front of him.

It was close to two in the morning — Pepper and Tony had talked for a while — and based on all available intel, Steve realized a few things at once.

One, Clint only ever took apart his bow when he wanted to deep-clean and polish it and he only ever wanted to do that after he’d spent hours using it on a mission or at the Tower range. Two, Clint never used or checked his phone when he was shooting — the whole point of range practice was to get out of his own head and his phone had the exact opposite effect. Steve understood that, but just today, he also resented it. Because it meant Steve was about ninety percent sure Clint hadn’t heard the news that he’d called off his Propose to Tony mission.

The way Clint perked up as they shuffled out of the elevator only served to prove Steve’s theory.

“Hey lovebirds,” Clint said, looking at Tony. “What did you think of the — ?”

“The benefit was great,” Steve said quickly, his voice too loud and rushed to be considered casual.

“Right,” Clint said, his forehead creased in confusion as he stared at Steve. “But you were going to ask Tony to — ”

“I was,” Steve said, cutting Clint off sharply in a tone of voice he typically reserved for missions. “But I haven’t gotten to it quite yet.”

“Uh,” Tony looked from Clint — who suddenly found his scattered bow parts utterly fascinating and all-consuming of his attention — to Steve. “What’s going on?”

Steve squeezed the bridge of his nose and prayed for a miracle.

“Nothing, sweetheart,” Steve said, trying to infuse his voice with the natural softness that typically came to him whenever he addressed Tony. It was more difficult than it should be, but then he had been dealt a few more disappointments today than usual. “Just a little miscommunication, that’s all.”

“Sure… but about what?”

“Nothing you need to worry about, especially this late,” Steve said, placing his hand at the small of Tony’s back and trying to guide him gently toward their room. “I’ll explain in the morning.”

This was a problem for future-Steve, he decided. The headache he’d felt coming on earlier had arrived in full-force and Steve was just… well, sad. Sleep sounded good.

Tony went with him to their room, calling “Night, Clint!” over his shoulder for the both of them, but he was watching Steve wearily the whole time. It continued even as they silently got ready for bed and when they crawled under the covers together, curled into one another, same as always.

Steve knew he was being unreasonably unfair to Tony, who had absolutely no idea what had caused Steve’s sudden 180-degree mood swing, but he also couldn’t fully reign in his emotions.

“I love you,” Tony said. He sounded so… tentative. Like he wasn’t sure how his words would be received and that was just entirely unacceptable, no matter how Steve felt about the direction the evening had gone.

“I love you too, Tony,” Steve said, trying to infuse as much certainty and love into the words as he could. He pulled Tony close so his spine was pressed tight to Steve’s chest. Tony relaxed almost immediately and Steve cursed himself for being stupid enough to allow Tony to doubt anything about their relationship, even for a second. “Very, very much.”

Tony sighed pleasantly and mumbled, “G’night, Steve.”

“Night, Tony,” Steve whispered. “Sweet dreams.”

-

In the morning, Steve’s head was clearer, but Tony’s questions were also more pointed.

“So…” he said, broaching the subject before they’d even gotten out of bed. “Do you want to tell me what Clint was talking about last night?”

“Hm?” Steve asked, pretending to be absorbed in something on his phone that he actually couldn't care less about.

“He said you were going to ask me something,” Tony said, his voice a little bit sharper now in an effort to command Steve’s full attention. It worked. Steve put his phone on the nightstand. “And you uh. Well, you freaked a little. So?”

Yeah, Steve should have spent less time sleeping and more time working out his cover story for that nightmare of an interaction. Hindsight.

“I told you, it’s really nothing — ”

“Steve.”

“Alright, fine,” Steve sighed. He scrambled for a minute, remembered Natasha’s advice that the best lies were always grounded in a little bit of the truth, and decided to run with his first instinct no matter how stupid it may be. “I’d been planning to talk to you last night. To um, well, I guess I just wanted to ask you… how do you feel about marriage?”

Tony’s eyes widened and there were too many emotions in them for Steve to attempt to decode first thing in the morning, even if it was already ten.

“How I feel about marriage as in…?” Tony made a vague gesture between the two of them.

“No, no, nothing that serious,” Steve shook his head quickly, hoping that he was doing a good impression of someone who definitely hadn’t dreamed about calling Tony his fiancée on numerous and increasingly sappy occasions. “Marriage as an institution. The concept of it.”

Tony’s expression slipped from cautiously surprised and maybe pleased to suspicious in an instant.

“And you talked to Clint about this conversation you wanted to have?”

Yeah, that was a glaring flaw in his plan. He confided in each of his teammates in different ways, but no one ever really consulted Clint for relationship advice. Steve snorted.

“It came up in a way that would be very difficult to try to explain, but yes,” Steve said. He was aiming for it to sound like an awkward admission, and he thought he was at least close. “Against my better judgment,” he added for good measure.

“Right…” Tony sighed. “Well. I feel like I’m at a bit of a disadvantage here, if I’m honest. Lobbing a question at me about the institution of marriage without any idea how you feel about it all?”

It was a probing question if Steve had ever heard one, but he decided not to answer.

“But all right, fine,” Tony said finally. “I guess… I’m generally in favor of marriage? I mean, what’s not to like, right?”

“Well, high divorce rate, all the business with joint finances…” Steve trailed off, already out of potential drawbacks.

Tony’s face fell a little, shifting from confused by the direction of the conversation to disappointed and Steve hated himself just a little bit more.

“Oh, so. You’re… not a proponent of marriage, then?”

“I’m not necessarily opposed,” Steve hedged. “I just read this article about how same-sex couples getting married could be playing into our largely heteronormative culture in society — the idea that being married is what makes a family, for example — and I got to thinking.”

It was all true. He’d read the article in question and thought about it. It was interesting, no doubt. Food for thought and something to keep in mind. But even after he’d finished the piece, he’d still overwhelmingly wanted to be Tony’s husband and have Tony be his as well. It was probably old-fashioned and meant they’d be conforming, but he wanted it nonetheless.

“Fair enough,” Tony said with a small shrug. “It’s not for everyone, I guess. It’s an excuse to get all your friends and family together, though. Celebrate the importance of your relationship.”

“True.”

“Is it… Is it something you’ve ever thought about for us?”

“Sure.” Steve shrugged as nonchalantly as he was able. “In the abstract, maybe.” No stretch of the imagination could make that true. There was nothing abstract about mentally drafting wedding vows. “You?”

“About the same,” Tony mumbled, staring down at the sheets he was twisting in his hands. God this was miserable. What the fuck was he doing?

Mercifully, Tony’s phone rang. He answered, seeming as grateful for the interruption as Steve was. It was a short conversation, but when it ended Tony was headed straight for the shower, apologizing for having to cut their conversation short.

Steve rolled over and smashed his head into the pillow to silence his frustrated groan.

-

Tony wasn't sure he’d ever been more grateful to be called into the office for a weekend manufacturing emergency. Anything to bail out of that conversation which, in all honesty, had been breaking his heart a little.

He’d just… he’d really thought they were on the same page. Tony did want to get married, and whatever he told Steve, he'd absolutely thought about it in more than abstract terms.

He tried to put it out of his mind and fend off phone call after phone call from one of their overseas plants.

When the storm had mostly passed, Tony busied himself by fiddling with the specs for a new prototype he was toying with the idea for. If he was honest with himself, he was stalling.

“Oh, you’re still here,” Pepper said, peeking into the office Tony rarely ever used. She sounded a little breathless. “I expected you’d have gone home already.”

Tony looked at her and could pick out the signs of tiredness and frustration, same as always. She’d been dealing with the crisis this morning in her own ways, too.

“Not yet, no,” he said. He knew she’d sense that something was off and Pepper didn’t disappoint.

“Is something wrong?”

Tony shrugged.

“What’s going on?”

“Just a weird conversation with Steve this morning. It’s throwing me off, I guess.”

Pepper nodded thoughtfully. “Did you ever figure out why he was acting strange last night?”

“He said it was nothing. Had a headache, I guess. But…”

“But you’re worried?”

“I was under the impression we were on the same page. But it’s starting to look like I was mistaken.”

“On what front?” Pepper asked, before seeming to remember herself. “If you want to talk about it, that is.”

“Marriage. And who knows what else, honestly.”

Pepper frowned, her expression soft and understanding. “I’m sorry, Tony.”

“You should know where he’s coming from,” Tony said, trying for teasing but mostly sounding tired and sad. “You weren’t exactly gunning for the chance to marry me.”

Pepper didn’t say anything for a long pause. She looked conflicted, like she wasn’t sure whether to say anything in response to that.

“I think about that a lot, you know. About how I never really wanted to talk about our future together or make things more serious. It was a mistake, Tony. And if you give Steve the chance, I’m sure he’ll realize the same thing.”

Tony blinked at Pepper in confusion. He sort of felt like he was missing something. “What?”

“Anyone would be lucky to call you their husband, Tony. I wish I’d realized that sooner. And if Steve really can’t see that, well. Maybe he isn’t the person you’re meant to marry.”

Yeah, okay so Tony couldn’t have asked her to make that plainer. But he also wasn’t really sure what to say when his ex — a woman he’d been head-over-heels in love with for years and had, at one point, wanted to marry — told him that she’d been wrong about him. Said that anyone would be lucky to call him their husband.

It felt good, sure, but it felt just as wrong if not more so because he didn’t want Pepper to be the one saying it. Not anymore.

“Maybe,” Tony said, though the word tasted bitter and all just plain false. “I don’t know. But thanks, Pep. For talking with me, and uh.” He shrugged. He wasn’t quite sure how to phrase any of the rest of it, but he thought Pepper would understand.

She smiled her soft, genuine smile and nodded a little. She stood up and was almost out the door when she turned back and said, “I hope you two work it out. I like Steve. You guys are great together.”

Tony sighed as she pulled the door to his office closed and decided it was probably about time he went home.

-

Steve wasn’t there when he arrived, and Tony supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. No matter how long they were together, every time they fought their first instinct was to avoid each other. Tony didn’t even really consider this a fight, but he’d avoided Steve so it only made sense that Steve was also avoiding him.

What he hadn’t expected was Clint being in the shared Avengers kitchen. He was in almost the same position as last night, except he was sitting at the counter with his bow spread out in pieces across the countertop instead of on the ground.

Tony was surprised to find that he was frustrated with Clint because of last night, no matter how unfair that was.

“Hey Tony,” Clint said, still focused on putting together a portion of the bow. Looking closer, Tony realized this wasn’t the same bow from last night. It was a different, older model.

“Hey,” Tony said, grimacing at the sharp tone he couldn’t manage to keep out of his voice. “Have you seen Rhodey? Or Natasha?”

Tony had enough of a handle on his emotions these days to know when it was important to turn to his friends for help.

“Uh, no. Not lately.” Clint looked at Tony now that he’d caught onto his mood, and his expression shifted from one of intense focus to concern. “Why? What’s the matter?”

Tony opened the fridge and pulled out a container of raspberries. Might as well stress-eat snacks if he had to have this conversation.

“Steve and I finally talked about what you were asking about last night, and we… well let’s just say we don’t exactly have the same mindset.”

Clint’s eyes went wide and his hands stilled. “You don’t — not the same mindset? What?”

“Yeah, I know. Shocking. Tony Stark playboy-bachelor-extraordinaire turned guy-who-just-wants-to-settle-down. I just can’t figure out how I’ve been reading things wrong this whole time.”

“Reading things wrong how, exactly?” Clint was choosing his words carefully, his tone reserved and measured as he stared at Tony through narrowed eyes.

“I don’t know, I just thought marriage was something we were both excited about. Not, you know, like right now. But at some point. I didn’t realize how ambivalent Steve was toward the idea.”

Clint stared at him in complete silence.

“Have you lost your mind?” Natasha said, entering the room and the conversation simultaneously. “I could not possibly have heard you say that.”

Tony turned to her. “Right? See, this is what I mean. Didn’t Steve seem like the marrying type to you?”

Nat shot a look at Clint who raised his hands in a way that clearly said ‘don’t look at me, I had nothing to do with this.’ She rolled her eyes.

“Yes, he’s absolutely the marrying type. God, you’re both idiots.” She sighed loudly, her eyes falling closed as she allowed herself a moment to decide what to say next. “What has Steve done now?” she demanded, finally.

So Tony explained. He talked about the sense of wrongness last night at the benefit, the way Steve had cut Clint off in the kitchen and gotten all twitchy — at which point Natasha glared at Clint and said, “I thought you said this wasn’t your doing” — and his disheartening conversation with Steve that morning. He even mentioned his chat with Pepper, against his better judgment.  

By the end, Nat was rubbing her temples like she needed assistance from a higher power to fend off the mother of all headaches. Clint was just sitting there looking vaguely uncomfortable, and Tony couldn’t really blame him. Clint looked at Nat for help, but she only shook her head and then waved him out of the kitchen. He fled, leaving the deconstructed bow behind.

Nat looked at Tony again. Her expression was a unique mix of frustration, concern, and fondness. Tony didn’t know what to make of that.

“Nearly everything you’ve just said is the result of a frankly incredible culmination of several misunderstandings,” she said after a contemplative pause. “Except for what Pepper told you. Anyone would be lucky to call you their husband; she was entirely right about that. And Steve would probably die a little inside if he knew that Pepper was the person to tell you that first instead of him. So, please, let me clarify a few things…”

-

“Welcome home, Captain Dumbass,” Natasha said by way of greeting when Steve got off the tower elevator a couple of hours later.

Steve winced. “I take it you’ve talked to Tony?”

“You could say that. How exactly did you manage to fuck this up so spectacularly?”

“I’ve been asking myself that all day. I’m an idiot. And I really need to talk to him. Do you know where he is?”

“He’s holed up in the workshop, I think. I mean, he knows you, Steve. He’s pretty positive you want to get married someday, so he’s just thinking you don’t want to marry him.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, basically. I tried to explain, but he didn’t really want to hear it from me. Would you please go talk to him?”

“Yes. Yeah, of course. I’m going.”

Steve took off for the stairs, taking them two at a time when he reached them. In his hurry to get down to Tony, he completely missed Natasha’s small, mischievous smirk.

-

Tony was wearing a welding mask and holding a blowtorch when Steve got to him. He was working on something Steve couldn’t see.

That wasn’t the most confusing part of the scene in front of him. Oddly enough, in the main clearing of the workshop, Tony had clearly called the bots into action.

Dum-E was holding a bottle of champagne by its neck and had a print-off image of a bouquet of flowers taped to his metal arm.

U was on camera duty as usual, but Tony didn’t seem to be testing a new type of suit so Steve really didn’t understand the need for a camera. Especially considering JARVIS could just film everything anyway, and usually Tony only asked U to film so the other bot wouldn’t feel left out of the Important Stuff.

“Tony?” Steve called over the quiet roar of the blowtorch.

Tony jumped up, turned off the blowtorch, and pulled his mask off. He turned to Steve with a wide smile.

“Hey!” His smile faltered a little and he looked frustrated for a second. “JARVIS, what the hell happened to my warning?”

“I delivered it, sir. Several times. I believe you opted to ignore me.”

Tony rolled his eyes and walked over to Steve and the bots.

“Nat said you were upset…” Steve said, clearly confused beyond belief. Tony was, well, the opposite of upset. He looked happy, excited even. Maybe a touch nervous? But otherwise, fine.

“Nope, not anymore.” Tony was wearing a black wife beater that allowed the blue glow of the arc reactor to shine through just a little, and a pair of work pants he only ever wore when he was in the shop. He patted at his right pocket for a minute until he found whatever he was looking for. Steve didn’t realize it was a ring box until well after Tony said, “Natasha said it was important to you that this was a surprise, so I thought I could manage that,” and got down on one knee.

Steve was speechless. He’d just been hit with a wave of emotion so strong that he didn’t think he could form words if his life depended on it. He’d come down here to explain and beg for Tony’s forgiveness and now. Well.

“Steve, I never thought I would be lucky enough to fall in love with my best friend. I mean — don’t get me wrong, I knew when I met you that I was going to fall for you. But I never could have predicted how much you mean to me.

“You’re more than just the love of my life. More than just my best friend. You’re my partner, in every sense of the word. My other half. I'm not half as good at anything as I am when I'm doing it next to you. And I would really love to marry you, if you’ll have me. So.” Tony opened the box to reveal that he did, in fact, have a ring. “What do you say?”

Steve let out a small, wet-sounding laugh as he nodded aggressively and reached out to pull Tony back to his feet. Tony let himself be manhandled into a forceful kiss that he melted into immediately. “Yes,” Steve said, the words hot against Tony’s mouth, just to be certain there were no more miscommunications.

After a minute or so, Steve pulled back with a wide smile. Tony returned the smile in force.

“So Nat lied, then?” Steve asked, teasing.

“Same way you did,” Tony shot back just as playful.

Steve’s expression turned serious. “I’m sorry about all of that. I was being stupid. I thought that it mattered what I said or where I said it, but that’s not what’s most important.

“The only thing that matters is that you know that you make me happier than I ever dreamed I could be. When I woke up seventy years in the future, I never even let myself hope that I’d find what we have. You gave me a place to call home and a family — people that make it a home — without even really trying. You’re everything to me. And if you’ll let me, I’ll gladly spend the rest of my life trying to make you as happy as you make me.”

They both had tears in their eyes all over again. Steve pulled his own ring out of his pocket and held it out for Tony to see. It wasn’t in a box because, well, boxes weren’t exactly easy to hide when you were aiming for the surprise factor.

“I think I can live with that,” Tony said, his voice a little shaky. He took the ring from Steve’s hands and slipped it on his finger. They both smiled when it was a perfect fit, and Tony kissed Steve again.

“I think your ring is on the floor,” Tony said when they parted. “Your fault.”

“Yep, that one’s on me.” Steve was pretty sure he’d knocked the box out of his hands in his desperation to kiss Tony after the proposal. He glanced around them and remembered Dum-E and U. “I guess I don’t have to ask what the bots are doing now, do I?”

“Nope,” Tony said, delighted. “They had to be part of the big surprise. Dum-E, I’ll take the champagne now.” The robot whirred toward them and relinquished the bottle to Tony, the paper flowers taped to his arm swaying slightly. “The flowers were JARVIS’ idea, by the way.”

“Captain Rogers, I feel obliged to inform you that I suggested Master Stark order a bouquet of flowers from the store. Not make use of the printer he uses so infrequently he forgot it existed.”

Steve laughed. Tony patted Dum-E’s claw affectionately before he popped open the champagne with practiced ease.

“It’s perfect.” Steve noticed Dum-E preening under the praise. “And thanks, U, for dutifully recording it all for us.”

The other bot made an excited sound, and Tony smiled fondly as he handed Steve a glass. “I love you,” he said.

“I love you too, Tony.”

“J, you can send the others down if you want.”

JARVIS did, and a minute or two later Steve and Tony were engulfed in a huge group hug to celebrate their newly-engaged status.

- The End - 

I do apologize that I deviated a bit from your prompt @avengersnewb (and also from Friends lol!) but I wanted to really flesh out every part I wrote, and I couldn’t quite do everything the way it was done in the show. And I also adore Pepper Potts and can’t ever really imagine her throwing herself at a man in a relationship, so we ended up with what I put here. I hope you still enjoyed it, though! Please let me know what you think

Also: all my lovely followers and readers are more than welcome to send me all your prompts and headcanons you like because I love hearing them, but (regretfully) I can’t promise to write something for every prompt I receive. That said, I also can’t promise not to write something either — clearly ;).

[recentanimenews]

Ranking All 49 One Piece Anime Arcs (Yes, Even The Filler)

  On July 7th, the long-awaited Wano arc of One Piece begins, and because we're about to jump into an arc that's been building up for eleven years, I think it's as good a time as any to rank all 49 of the arcs that we have already. And I'm going to include the filler arcs, too, because even though many of them can't really hold a candle to the main narrative, I think a few of them are quite underrated. 

  49. Buggy's Crew Adventures

    This isn't really an arc so much as a sigh of relief after the runaway train of emotion of the last few episodes of Arlong Park. You can laugh at Buggy for a bit after watching Nami's soul get ripped apart (and then put back together again).

48. Post Alabasta

    You know video game sidequests that are basically around to level up your specific partner characters so that they don't get immediately wiped out in boss fights? This is the anime filler arc version of that. It's fun, though.

47. Foxy's Return

    I loooooove Foxy and I looooove the Davy Back Fight arc. But Foxy's Return doesn't quite hit home. It might be because we last saw Foxy six episodes ago, but it truly speaks to Foxy's character that he'd try to make a grand, dramatic return after he got the crap kicked out of him so recently.  

46. Spa Island

    Foxy returns again in Spa Island, though this filler arc is mostly notable for the fact that Luffy uses Gear Third to split an artificial island in half. That alone wins this arc points.

45. Warship Island

    Warship Island isn't a bad filler arc, just a victim of poor placement. It comes right after Loguetown and right after the Straw Hats have each declared their dreams. So it becomes a pit stop arc, like the Straw Hat crew getting gas and snacks before they head out on the Grand Line.

44. Little East Blue

    I like to think of Little East Blue as a celebration of pre time skip One Piece, where the Straw Hats get (deservedly) celebrated for a bit. It's cute and it's a nice prologue to the Strong World movie. 

43. Z's Ambition

    The filler arcs that precede the movies are an odd bunch, as they tend to end with the main villain of the movie showing up in the last five minutes and declaring their plans. So it's hard to enjoy them on their own. That said, Z's Ambition has enough action that even if you don't watch Film Z (but you should, as it's great), you won't really mind the cliffhanger finale.

42. Straw Hat Separation

    After Kuma wiped out the crew, this batch of episodes shows where they all ended up. And it's mainly a montage of Straw Hats being confused. And don't get me wrong—the Straw Hats do confusion like nobody's business. But you get more out of their separation in the Post War arc when they finally get around to business. 

41. Diary of Koby-Meppo

    Koby is a character that has always deserved more time, so getting a few episodes devoted to him and Helmeppo training to be Marines is welcome. Also, my dude Garp shows up for the first time, which means that I've rewatched these two episodes FAR more than I should. 

40. Goat Island

    Goat Island doesn't feel as "classic" as G-8, nor is it as entertaining as Ocean's Dream. In fact, it's about as fluffy as the goats that appear in it. But a three episode arc where Chopper talks to goats and Luffy doesn't beat up a villain but rather causes him to get shipwrecked? I'm FOR it. 

  39. Chopper Man Special

    Chopper Man has Chopper in a cape. It's worth it for that. Please @ me. Chopper Man, you're my hero, and I hope you one day get a Chopper Man & Sogeking Save The Grand Line special.

  38. Romance Dawn

    Romance Dawn establishes a lot of things that will become classic tropes in One Piece: Going to a new island, meeting new crew members, helping out little kids, taking out a power hungry warlord, etc. It's a blueprint arc, and it works well as that. Sadly, the anime would not continue the "introduce a Straw Hat character with rad guitar" idea like they do with Zoro here. 

37. Orange Town

    The East Blue saga only gets better as it goes along, and Orange Town provides a nice counter to Romance Dawn. For example, if Axe-Hand Morgan represented the seriousness of the Marine threat in the last arc, then Buggy represents the other side of the villains that the Straw Hat Crew will encounter: cartoonish, loud, and beaten in a really fun way. 

36. Ruluka Island

    Ruluka Island feels like condensed One Piece, like you'd just add some water to turn this four episode arc into a twenty episode one. It's a nice arc to stretch your legs in before you go to the big themes of Jaya.

35. Ice Hunter

    Ice Hunter is neat because it gives every member of the Straw Hat crew a little time to shine in a story that is action-packed and intriguing. If you miss pre timeskip One Piece and haven't watched the Ice Hunter arc, give it a shot.

34. Marine Rookie

    I know that we're all eager to see the Straw Hats reunite in Wano, but if you want to see more of Whole Cake's Sanji Retrieval Team, the Marine Rookie arc makes for a solid bonus round. Also, the only reason it starts is because Luffy eats all of the Straw Hats' supplies, which, logically, should be the beginning of waaaaay more One Piece arcs.

33. Silver Mine

    If you didn't get enough Bartolomeo in Dressrosa, then surprise! They made a filler arc just for you. 

  32. Boss Luffy Specials

    You know when you fall asleep watching a show, and then you wake back up and, in your grogginess, suddenly whatever is on TV looks insane? That's what happened to me with Boss Luffy. I had just finished watching Ace's fight with Blackbeard and then, boom. I was out. Then I wake up and see the Straw Hats in 19th century Japan. The Boss Luffy stuff is fun, but I think it's best viewed when you're in a delirious half sleep. That's just my personal preference, though.

31. Caesar Retrieval

    Caesar made for a fine antagonist on Punk Hazard, but he's even better as shreiking deadweight that the Straw Hat Crew and Company have to keep alive. 

30. Little Garden

    Little Garden isn't as cool as Whisky Peak, nor does it provide the emotional gut punch of Drum Island. Instead, it's mainly here to further the theme of what it means to be a true warrior and introduce giants (and dinosaurs!) in the One Piece universe. It gives Usopp some of the character development that he needs and Zoro almost cuts off his own feet in an effort to keep fighting. Any arc that illustrates how hard Zoro goes gets at least one thumb up from me.

29. Loguetown

      Loguetown is a fun arc when you consider just how much it expands the scope of the world. Smoker and Tashigi truly begin the Navy's quest to stop the Straw Hats, Dragon gets introduced in a big, mysterious way, and Luffy takes a massive step in establishing himself in the realm of pirating. However, the Straw Hat side stories in the middle (aside from Zoro's awesome bit in the sword shop) slow it down a little. 

28. Zou

    Zou might be one of the most visually rich arcs in the series. From the massive elephant to the Mink tribe to the terror of Jack to more lessons about the poneglyphs, there's a lot shoved into this short span. And between the intense epics of Dressrosa and Whole Cake Island, it's fits nicely as 10 cc's of wonder and fantasy injected into the New World.  

27. Fishman Island

    Fishman Island occupies a weird spot. It's thematically heavy, but also serves as the action-packed Straw Hat Crew comeback tour. It needs to stand on its own, but it also caps off with a declaration of war against Big Mom, a villain that won't be encountered for years. In all, I feel that the importance of the Fishman Island arc is yet to be truly realized. 

26. Ocean's Dream

    One of the final two filler arcs on this list, Ocean's Dream seems like One Piece fan fiction in the best way. If you were dissatisfied with Luffy's fight with Zoro on Whisky Peak, you get another round of it here while Zoro is being mind controlled. 

25. Syrup Village

    If Romance Dawn and Orange Town were warm up laps, Syrup Village is when One Piece begins to break out in a sprint. The introduction of Usopp and the Going Merry make for some great moments and it's this arc that got me hooked on One Piece when I first started watching it. 

24. Dressrosa

    Dressrosa, for better (and sometimes for worse) is massive. Doflamingo is a threat that had been popping up since the Jaya arc, but because of Dressrosa's scope, his defeat can feel a little lackluster, especially when you consider that he's a pitstop on the road to Kaido. But Dressrosa introduces the endlessly cool Fujitora and the Straw Hats' big pirate alliance, and also gives us the dual backstories to Law and Doflamingo, neither of which disappoint. Also, Doflamingo's abilities lead to some of the coolest action scenes in the series. 

23. Return to Sabaody

    The post-timeskip starts with a bang, as the Return to Sabaody arc is both hilarious and thrilling. The Straw Hats get to show off their newfound strength as they do what they definitely couldn't do in the first Sabaody arc (easily knock out a Pacifista). And we also get to meet the Fake Straw Hat crew, which does a nice job of illuminating just how much the legend of the Straw Hats has grown since they were last together. 

22. Reverse Mountain

    One of the major strengths of One Piece is that it can accomplish three kinds of storytelling at once—giving us a narrative that is immediately satisying, giving us a narrative that will be satisfying in the near future, and giving us a narrative that will be satisfying in the long term. In the Reverse Mountain arc, we not only get a nice story about Laboon, but we also get introduced to Baroque Works (who will be the main antagonists of the saga), and also, we get hints that will only pay off when Brook is introduced years later. Reverse Mountain is short, but it also displays Eiichiro Oda's wonderful talent as a writer. 

21. Long Ring Long Land

    I've seen people on the internet say stuff like "WHEN I REACHED THE DAVY BACK FIGHT ARC, I NEARLY STOPPED READING!" and man, why? Quitting a series that you love because it slightly diverts from the hero fighting god-like enemies in order to participate in some fun games? Everyone has their own opinions, but your opinion of what fiction should be is wrong. That said, this arc is hilarious and great. 

20. Whisky Peak

    Whisky Peak is so cool. It's an anime arc with swagger, the kind that steps into a bar and buys everyone a round. I want to be friends with Whisky Peak but I know, deep down, that Whisky Peak is far too rad to be friends with me.

  19. Reverie

    The best thing about the Reverie arc is that it makes the world of One Piece a little more conveniently manageable (Oh neat. All of the major side characters get to hang out for a while), while also opening a can of worms (What's with the giant straw hat? WHAT'S WITH THE GIANT STRAW HAT?). Because this is the most recent arc, I don't know if we've seen the ripples that it will create across the One Piece world, but I sure am excited to.

  18. Post Enies Lobby

    This isn't the first time the Straw Hats have been forced to flee a place. However, this is the first time that it's felt like they'd be wiped out if they didn't. The return of Garp (and the spectre of the Yonko) throw the Straw Hats into all new territory, one where maybe being the plucky underdog team isn't enough to save them from the threats that come. Also, goofy Franky joins the team, which provides a nice counter-balance to the hints of oblivion. 

17. Punk Hazard

    Punk Hazard is home to one of my top 10 One Piece fights (Vergo vs Law & Smoker), features one of my favorite locations (an island that is half fire/magma and half ice/snow and home to an evil science base), and introduces a character that has only grown on me with time (Here's a hint on who he is: He laughs like "SHERURURURURURU SHERURURURURURU). It's kind of a prequel to Dressrosa, but in that spot, does a great job at furthering the menace of Doflamingo. 

16. Post War

      The introduction of Sabo aka Steampunk Ace aka I'm Just Kidding Sabo Is Kinda Cool and Luffy realizing that he has his crew to keep him going make the Post-War arc into a short but powerful cap to the pre-timeskip era. 

15. Amazon Lily

    Boa Hancock is a supremely underrated One Piece character, with a terribly sad backstory, amazing powers, and a hilarious crush on Luffy. And Amazon Lily helps further the major trend that will reach fever pitch in Dressrosa of Luffy amassing supporters because he's just such a dang ol' nice guy. Hopefully Hancock will one day meet Bartolomeo and together they will start a Luffy fan club and then argue over who gets to be President. 

14. Jaya

    If you were in the dark as to what the themes of One Piece are, here comes Jaya with a flashlight. This is basically a montage of the things that are important to the Straw Hat crew, and it introduces Blackbeard, a guy that will go from "Oh he seems interesting" to "OH I HATE HIM" over the next few hundred chapters. Luffy saying "Do I know how to throw a punch, you ask?" before absolutely walloping Bellamy still gives me goose bumps.

13. Thriller Bark

      There's so much good to Thriller Bark—the spooky atmosphere, the introduction of Brook, the underrated Gekko Moriah, the Binks' Sake song, the Straw Hats teaming up to face a giant zombie, etc. And just when you think it can't get any better, Kuma shows up and rocks the One Piece world. 

12. Impel Down

    Hey! It's Buggy! And Mr. 3! And Mr. 2! And Crocodile! And our new best boy Jinbe! And Ivankov! As both a launching point for new protagonists and a comeback for old foes (along with introducing Magellan, one of the best villains in the series, and Shiryu, one of the scariest villains in the series), Impel Down succeeds. I love it more and more with time.

11. Drum Island

    I've written an entire article about why the arc where we first meet Tony Tony Chopper makes me weep, so I'll try to be brief here. Drum Island is beautiful. It's the story of a little deer guy that couldn't find a place in the world and the loud rubber bro that gave him one. It's an arc about the price of dreams and the power of having someone stand up for you when you need it most. It's about love and respect and kindess. And now I'm about to cry again. THANKS A LOT, ONE PIECE.

10. Baratie

    The Baratie arc is the first hint that we'll get about how hectic the One Piece world is. We meet Sanji, we meet Don Krieg, and we meet Mihawk (and is stronger than the whole cast of the show combined at this point). Syrup Village is about leaving your comfort zones and Baratie is about finding a home in the chaos that follows. 

9. G-8

    The best One Piece filler arc and the One Piece arc that I most revisit (it's only 11 episodes, can you blame me?), G-8 is a One Piece Greatest Hits collection and possibly the first thing you should show someone if they want to get into One Piece but don't have long to do so. 

8. Alabasta

    Are the Straw Hats ready for the Grand Line? Are they ready to topple evil villains and protect those that need help? That's what Alabasta asks and the answer is "Oh yeah." Luffy punching Crocodile up through the center of the city is an iconic moment, showing us that the Straw Hats, whether they mean to be or not, are forces of good in the world. 

7. Marineford

    Marineford is loud and chaotic and powerful, forcing Luffy into a situation where he is simply an especially energetic pawn on the chessboard of battle. It's just as much of a rescue mission as it is a quest for survival for him, but in the midst of Whitebeard and the three admirals and the Shichibukai, Luffy makes his mark. However, he doesn't do it through displays of awe-inspiring force, but through his willpower. Aokiji is right when he says that Luffy isn't "ready for this stage yet," but the thing that scares the Navy most is that one day, he will be. 

6. Sabaody Archipelago

    This is not a happy arc. It's a satisfying one (Luffy punching the Celestial Dragon will never get old), and it's an illuminating one (Silver Rayleigh, y'all!), but it's not one that will end with cheering. Kizaru shows up to put an entire generation of pirates in their place and Kuma wipes out the Straw Hats. That said, even if it concludes with the most uncertain moment in the series, it's still a fun ride. 

5. Arlong Park

      Nami is the soul of the Straw Hat Crew, and learning what she's been through at the hands of the despicable Arlong is heart-breaking. But Luffy doesn't need to know every detail to know that he needs to help and the Straw Hats walking to Arlong Park is another one of those "One Piece is literally the best thing ever" moments. And by the end, every Straw Hat bro gets a victory, Luffy gets a bounty, and Nami gets her freedom. And what does she do with this freedom? She joins a ship full of dummies as their navigator. And I'm so happy about that. 

4. Enies Lobby

    For many, Enies Lobby is THE arc and I'm not disagreeing with them. It's such a display of raw emotion and exciting battles, a nonstop rollercoaster of everything that makes One Piece great. And it ends with a Viking funeral for the Going Merry, a scene that reveals Oda's true power as a writer: He makes you sob about a ship. 

3. Whole Cake Island

    If Enies Lobby is about being a hero, then Whole Cake Island is about letting that idea go. The Straw Hats can't beat Big Mom or her crew and will have to settle with getting Sanji and getting out. And Katakuri, the protective brother of the Charlotte family, learns that he doesn't have to be perfect all the time. It's a beautiful arc that shows that Oda is willing to play around with some of the pre-established ideas of One Piece.

2. Water 7

    Robin leaves. Usopp defects, Luffy is forced to do things that no captain wants to, and a villainous team shows up that seems unstoppable. Water 7 may be the first half of a story that continues with Enies Lobby, but I find it to be the better one (though not by much). It's an arc that constantly leaves you saying "Well, what else could go wrong?" and then something else does. And it's just so good.

1. Skypiea

    This is it. Everything good about One Piece, from the powerful villain (with a great weakness), to the touching themes, to enchanting locations, to the gripping adventures, is wrapped up in Skypiea. And while I have no problems with arcs being connected, there's just something about the standalone nature of Skypiea that leads me to regularly revisit it. It's an arc that makes me glad that I started this nearly 900 episode adventure in the first place. And that's the highest compliment that I can give.

  Want to make your own ranking? Then watch One Piece on Crunchyroll! It's literally the only way.

  What is your favorite One Piece arc? How do you feel about this ranking? Let us know in the comments!

    ------------------------

  Daniel Dockery is a writer and editor for Crunchyroll. He has a Twitter, where you can disagree with him. 

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[seriouslyhooked]

Scoring Your Love (Part 15/18)

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six,Part Seven,Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten, Part Eleven, Part Twelve, Part Thirteen, Part Fourteen. Story also on FF here and AO3 here. Banner by the wonderful @timetravelandfairytales

Modern AU where Killian is a world famous soccer star who has hit rock bottom and been sentenced to the place where ‘football’ legends go to die – America. While here he crosses paths with Emma, an up and coming musician and film scorer who challenges everything he thought he knew and makes him want more than the game he’s always loved. Will be filled with fluff for days. Rated M.

A/N: Hello friends. This chapter is coming to you after a little extra time away, but I hope you will forgive me after you read it. I enjoyed writing this because it brings a little closure in some ways, and sets CS up for more of the cuteness that the end of my stories always bring. I hope that you guys like it and I would love to hear what you all think! Thanks for reading!

Sitting in Regina’s palatial office on the top floor of the Mills Inc. building, there was no denying that she and her family were loaded.

Killian was by no means a poor man. He’d been saving for years, and his contracts were some of the highest paying that the sport had ever seen. With Liam’s advice and know-how, Killian had taken large chunks of his wealth and made more money on the right kind of investments and endorsements, but still there was a difference between rich and obscenely wealthy. Regina was clearly in the latter category.

“I’d say you get used to it, but I’m not big on lying,” Robin whispered as they awaited their host. Killian shook his head and turned his attention back to his coach, amused by the commentary.

“So if I asked where you and Her Majesty are relationship wise you would say…?”

“I plead the fifth.” 

Robin responded with a grin and a jovial laugh that spoke to his happiness. Killian didn’t need more confirmation than that. His coach and the team’s owner were clearly together, and Killian was glad for them. Robin was a good man, and though Regina was… well, Regina… Killian wished them both well in whatever they were doing.

“Smart move,” Regina said as she walked into her personal office, giving away that she’d been listening for a while. Both men made to stand up but she waved them away. “No need for that. We’re at war gentleman. Ceremony has no place in a warzone.”

“War?” Robin questioned, clearly entertained by the ferocity in Regina’s voice. His lightheartedness in the face of her fire put Robin in a category all his own. Few men would see such intensity and be interested, but Robin looked downright infatuated. “Isn’t that a bit… much?”

“Maybe. But I love a good battle,” Regina said, looking happier than Killian could imagine any sane person being under the circumstances. “What do you think, Killian? Is it a war you want?”

“No,” Killian said, surprising himself and Regina as well. Honestly though, when he thought of it he didn’t want a never-ending saga. His heart wasn’t set on vengeance or revenge, it just wanted Gold to be gone and gone for good. “I want peace for me and Emma. Now if the only way to get that is through a fight, then so be it. But I’m willing to bet there’s another way.”

“Good. I like the no fighting idea. Let’s go with that,” Robin said enthusiastically, drawing a deep sigh from Regina.

“Well, I was going to save this for a big finale – let us get a few good rounds in before just to mess with him - but I guess if you two are hell bent on taking the high road…”

The revelations that came from Regina thereafter were astounding to Killian, and he almost didn’t believe the words that the team owner imparted to him and to Robin. It turned out that for more than a year Regina had been cultivating a plant within Gold Industries, and that plant had been slowly moving up the ladder, gaining more and more access to the deeply unethical underbelly of a company that seemed clean on the outside. They were tracking and logging all of the happenings, and to Killian’s amazement, Regina was now confident that there was enough to take to the feds and get Gold in seriously hot water.

“I honestly didn’t expect these kind of results so soon, but Gold got sloppy, as fickle minded men are prone to doing.”

Regina’s words again could have been a turn off for a more ordinary bloke, but when Killian glanced over at Robin he looked proud of his woman instead of put off by her disdain for the male population. At another time Killian would seek to further analyze such a dynamic, but instead he focused on Regina’s words, which were more than he could have ever hoped for.

“It turns out Gold couldn’t juggle his hatred for you and his illegal business dealings all at once. We’re talking everything – corporate espionage, bribery, a hint of treason… and a couple of people on his personal black list who just so happened to get hurt or go missing. My source has documented all she can. All I have to do is make a call to my contact at the Bureau and that’ll be the end of it. He’s going away, no matter how much money he has.”

“You’re serious?” Killian asked, still stunned at the revelation. Regina held the key to the demise of a man they all know to be abhorrent, but still she waited. She should have acted weeks ago, or whenever the bloody hell she’d had enough to take this to the authorities. “Then what are you waiting for? Make the call.”

“I want to, really, I do. There’s just one problem. The second I make that call, you don’t need me anymore. If there’s no Gold there’s nothing keeping you from leaving when your contract is fulfilled. You’ll be back to Europe the second the season’s over.”

And there it was, the ultimatum. Killian knew the other shoe was going to drop at some point and now it had, but it wasn’t as bad a prospect as it could have been. As far as blackmail went, this was of a rather tame variety: keep playing for Regina’s team and Gold would go away. It was an easy trade in Killian’s estimations.

“Regina.”

Robin’s tone of censure was harder than Killian was used to hearing it. He clearly did not find this funny any more, and this final proposal was not something Robin would let stand. In fact, this was the closest to angry that Killian had ever seen his coach. The usually calm man looked downright heated, and again the intrigue of what he was witnessing struck Killian. If only the team were here to witness this with him. This was something that needed to be seen to be believed.

“You want me to sign on for longer with the team in exchange for bringing down Gold?” Killian asked as Regina and Robin remained locked in some kind of stare down.  He only asked to clarify, and there was no resentment in his tone because the truth was he had already been thinking at length about staying on.

Meeting Emma had fundamentally changed Killian’s earlier expectations. Where before he viewed this relocation as a punishment that must be born to get back to a better place, now his time on the team represented a new start that he vastly preferred to the life he had before. All of that had to do with Emma, and since Emma’s life was here, his would be too. That left him with two viable options: continue playing for this team or leave the game for good. He found that he didn’t have an issue with either plan, but all things considered he’d like to stay on with the sport he loved, even if the competition would never match what he’d once known.

“No, she’s not saying that,” Robin exclaimed at the exact time Regina said, “Exactly.”

“Regina, are you kidding? Tell me you’re kidding,” Robin begged as Regina looked at him like the man had three heads.

“What? You want him on the team, you told me so yourself,” Regina explained. “I’m giving you what you want.”

By this time Robin had jumped up from his seat and begun to pace the floor of the office. His hands rested on his hips and his head shook forcefully, as if the action would physically erase the thought he found so terrible. He looked disgusted at the way Regina was going about this, and while Killian wasn’t quite as clueless as Regina, he had to admit he was taken aback by such a strong reaction. This situation didn’t merit such an incised response, but Robin was a man guided by character and integrity, so it stood to reason that such a play would make him uncomfortable.

“I don’t want it. Not like this, Regina. It’s bad enough he was forced to come here in the first place. You want to hold him hostage all over again? You want to take away his will, for what? Another winning season? No, sorry. I won’t be a part of that.”

“Fine,” Regina said with a sharp exhale after a moment’s pause. “I’ll make the call, no strings. Happy?”

“Thrilled,” Robin said, and though he still looked huffy he walked to where Regina was behind her desk and planted a kiss on her that was by no means work appropriate. Killian ducked his head to give them some privacy, but still, there was no denying he’d just been privy to something that was not fit for public consumption. “We’re going now.”

“I think that would be best,” Regina murmured, her voice so much softer and less testy than it was before.

“I’ll see you tonight?” Robin whispered lowly, but Killian still heard the man. He pretended to completely miss the question for everyone’s sake, but it was hard to act like everything was normal given the situation.

“Yes, tonight,” Regina agreed before she set her eyes back on Killian. “Sorry, Jones. Old habits die hard.”

Receiving an apology from Regina felt like a once in a lifetime kind of thing. The woman was hard headed, stubborn, and pushy. She’d crossed a few lines already and stepped on more than a few toes before, but never had he seen her apologize. He knew the change in her was likely brought on by her feelings for Robin, but either way Killian would accept it. There was no sense turning down her small display of humility, not when they were both on the same team.

“You handle Gold and send a competitive offer to my brother and I’ll consider it,” Killian replied, and though it wasn’t a direct verbal acceptance of her apology it was symbolically.

Leaving Regina with a victorious look on her face, Robin and Killian made their way to the elevator bay in silence. It had been quite a meeting they’d just attended, and there was a lot that could be said about what had just transpired inside the four walls of that office. Killian didn’t dare to broach any of it though. He had no desire to make things awkward with a man who he considered to be his friend and who had put himself on the line for Killian’s benefit. To do so would lack all honor, and Killian knew better than that.

“Not a word about this to the others.” Robin’s words might sound like a coach’s orders to some, but Killian knew it was a sincere request and not a demand.

“I was never going back to London,” Killian said, giving Robin his own secret to hold onto. It would keep things equal between them, and Killian could tell from the look in Robin’s eyes that his coach understood the gesture and appreciated it. “Do me a favor and keep that from the Queen for the time being, aye?”

Robin agreed that he would as the elevators opened on the first floor. At that point the two men said their goodbyes, and Killian headed off, allowing himself to fully rejoice in the good news now that he was alone. Gold was done for, and soon enough justice would be served. He and Emma might not be free from the pressures of the press, for those would never truly go away while he lived anywhere near the public eye, but his worst adversary was soon to be toppled. Knowing that that lifted a heavy weight from Killian’s shoulders, and by the time he ended up at Emma’s apartment, he was practically floating with that happiness.

Standing in front of the door, Killian pulled out the key that Emma had given him a few nights before. After they’d said I love you the exchange between them seemed merited. Killian wanted Emma in every corner of his life, and she felt the same way. Killian felt the privilege of her trusting him like this sincerely though, and as he walked inside his smile couldn’t be contained. This was a beautiful life that he’d stumbled upon and he, quite frankly, couldn’t imagine being happier.

“Oh come on! That’s a totally bogus call. He was off sides! Are you blind, ref?”

Emma’s irritated words spoken allowed led Killian to believe they might not be alone tonight despite his hopes, but when he walked into the living room and found his Swan she was very much by herself. It was quite a sight to behold: Emma, a novice to the game, who had no love in her heart for the sport before meeting him, was willingly watching a match between his next opponent and another team in the league. Her focus was entirely on the television before her, her eyes taking stock of the ball as it moved across the screen and there was no denying as he watched her for a moment before she could notice he was here that she was enjoying himself. It did something to his heart to witness this from Emma, because he knew she was invested because of him. Learning the game and watching it played was about trying to understand that part of his life, and Killian was flattered and elated that she loved him enough to take this on.

“Ugh, these calls are bogus. It’s gotta be rigged,” she murmured, talking to herself as so many millions of fans had done before her.

“Feels that way sometimes, doesn’t it?” Killian asked, pulling Emma’s attention to him. Her smile at seeing him was immediate, but he noticed the blush that spread over her cheeks. She’d been caught indulging in this and she knew it, but Killian couldn’t bear to comment on it before coming over to kiss her. He’d gone hours without getting the chance to do so, and he was about to share such happy news with her, it seemed only fitting.  

“If I knew watching ‘football’ would turn you on like this I would have started ages ago,” Emma said when they came up for air. During the kiss Killian had taken a seat with Emma and she had managed to find her way into his lap, just as he wanted her to be.

“You really want to pretend this is your first time watching, Swan?” Killian asked with a raised brow and Emma shrugged.

“It just happened to be on, that’s all.”

Killian laughed at her attempt to hide the truth and Emma caved to the laughter too, burying her giggle in the crook of his neck and sending the reverberation of that gorgeous sound pulsing through him. The reality of the situation was so transparent, especially since the channels to watch these games in the states was so obscure no one ever saw it. People were more likely to watch his old league play than American ‘soccer’ and so there was no chance of casually happening upon the station. It required active searching or a preexisting knowledge of what number would provide the right coverage, but Killian would let her words slide, knowing in his heart what she’d really been doing for him.

“You seem happy,” Emma claimed, her eyes coming back to meet his as if she was searching for any other kind of emotion.

“I am happy, Emma. Gloriously so,” he confessed as his fingers came up to brush a few wayward locks of her blonde hair back behind her ears. God she was perfect, and she was, thankfully, all his.

“So the meeting went well then?”

He explained to her all the ways in which it had gone better than well, watching as Emma’s eyes grew wider and answering any questions she had along the way. It shocked her that Gold could be undone like this and that the time for his demise would come so soon. A couple of times she asked for more details on Robin and Regina (since she and her friends had all long since heard of the strange match that existed between them), but her interest always circled back to Gold and the triumph of good over a bad.

“I can’t believe it,” she finally whispered. “He’s really going to be gone, just like that?”

“Well I imagine there will be some dramatics involved. A man of his stature isn’t going to go down without a fight, and he’s hardly the most even-tempered man to begin with.”

“How long do you think he’ll be in prison?”

“Depends on how the trial goes. But I suspect it’ll be a very, very long time.”

Relief washed over Emma at his words, and Killian wanted to promise her that he would take care of everything and that there was no way Gold would ever taste freedom again, but he couldn’t do that. All he could do was trust that the system would prevail, and rest assured that if it didn’t, Regina wasn’t above getting dirty to make sure he went down and stayed down. As it was, this was truly an ending to the chapter of their lives that had anything to do with Gold. His time had come and gone, and there would be no rise of that monstrous man every again.

“It’s just…” Emma paused, trying to find the right words to relay her thoughts on the extraordinary circumstances. “I mean you couldn’t write a cleaner ending. It’s like that part in the movies where the villain meets their terrible fate.  The bad guy lost and the heroes live to fight another day.”

“And in this movie what role do we play, Swan?”

“The heroes, duh,” she said, teasing him as a playful smile appeared at her lips.

“Right. And these heroes, they’re the ones that get the happy endings, correct?” Killian prompted as his hand ran up her side. He wanted to hear Emma say again how she loved him, and that, yes, they were destined for a happy ending. Instead she rolled her eyes at his cheesiness, but even that action couldn’t deter from how good he felt right now.

“Like you don’t know,” Emma huffed, pretending to be annoyed. Before she could take her act too far and leave him though, Killian’s hold on her tightened. The air between them swirled with a new delicious tension, and Killian saw the moment Emma felt the shift as lust colored her jade colored eyes.

“I do know, Emma. I know you and I are destined for miraculous things, and as for happy endings…”

Killian’s hand traced a delicate design along Emma’s skin, finding the flesh beneath her shirt and teasing her with his touch. He pressed a kiss to her lips, then to her jaw and to her neck and he felt Emma gasp for breath only to sigh into the action. Her heart beat at the same frantic rhythm as his, and she melted into him, her fingers grasping onto his shirt as if letting go would mean the end of this perfect thing between them.

“Yes?” Emma asked, reminding him about his earlier thought where her gorgeous body had driven him to distraction. He pulled back to look in her eyes, his hand cupping her cheek in a tender motion.

“Ours is bound to be better than any that came before.”

And with that promise, and some fancy maneuvering to get them both up from the couch and into her room, Killian attempted to show Emma just how breathtaking and wonderful and life-affirming their story was bound to be. For the road before them was long and light, and though dark days may come again, it was nothing they couldn’t handle, as long as they faced it as they always should: together.

Post-Note: Hey all! So I have closed the door (for the most part) on the Gold story line now. Still ahead we have some Liam stuff to get to, but rest assured next chapter will address that last hiccup for good.. I hope that you enjoyed and I would love to hear what you thought! Anyway thanks so much for reading and hope you have a great rest of your day!

[otomeverything]

NOTE: This review is SPOILER FREE.

7’SCARLET

Release Date: May 25, 2018 (North America) Developers:  Toybox Inc, Otomate Publishers:  Idea Factory, Aksys Games Platforms:  PS Vita ESRB Rating: T (Teen)

As the second title released by Aksys Games for their Summer Mystery Bundle, 7’scarlet offers one gripping mystery-solving game play amplified with a cute touch of romance.

Walkthroughs:

Hino Kagutsuchi Isora Amari Toa Kushinada Sosuke Tatehira Yuzuki Murakumo True Route & Final Character

  Read the game’s synopsis here.

  FIRST IMPRESSIONS Otome Visual Novels are either a hit or a miss when it comes to it’s story narratives. Just like Collar x Malice, 7’scarlet did one hell of a job foregoing a very intriguing mystery-type plot line while having a few romantic events as an additive to its overarching deep story. Like a really good book or a TV series, it was so hard to brush off the game’s story build-up as it became curiously engaging in each chapter you progress.

With the help of it’s unique visuals and animations, playing 7’scarlet was close to watching your favorite anime series.

  ART One of the things I really enjoyed while playing 7’scarlet was seeing its astonishing BG images. It’s just so pretty, it’s like wallpaper material, no kidding! (giggle)

. The game’s artist was non other than, Kurahana Chinatsu an illustrator who’s also famous for her other popular works such as the character designs for Uta no Prince-Sama, Lamento (Beyond the Void), and Togainu no Chi.

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Looking at these lovely BG images reminded me of browsing through expensive art catalogs!

  SOUNDTRACK AND VOICE ACTING There are two opening themes, “World’s End Syndrome” and “LOVESICK”, you can unlock the latter after finishing a certain route in the game. The BGMs are good too, some are rather simple but very fitting for the game’s setting and story transitions. Heck, I ended up buying the whole 7’scarlet soundtrack in iTunes.

And like any other game, there will always be that one song you’ll end up getting stuck with, even after completing  the game. Dat-one-song that gave you so much FEELS. In 7’scarlet, mine would have to be the song “Starry”.

  Voice Acting

Nobunaga Shimazaki “Hino“ – Napoleon (Ikevamp), Kurogane Naoto (BlazBlue), Mitsuhide (Sengoku Nightblood)

Tetsuya Kakihara “Isora“ – Shin (Amnesia), Victor Frankenstein (Code Realize), Karasuba (Pyschedelica BB), Toki Tanba (Charming Empire)

Showtaro Morikubo “Toa“ – Impey (Code Realize), Reiji (Uta no Prince-sama), Okita (Hakuoki)

Chiharu Sawashiro “Sosuke“ – Shila (Snow White and the Red hair), Hero (Caligula Effect)

Shinichirou Miki “Yuzuki“ – Hijikata (Hakuoki), Nesso Galland (Black Wolves Saga), Bucket-Sensei (Bad Apple Wars)

Sanae Kobayashi “Yuki“ – Sara Nome (Macross Zero), Nagisa (Maid Sama)

Hiroki Yasumoto “Mr. Karasuma“ – Azrael (BlazBlue), Nidai Nekomaru (Danganropa V3), Hyuga (KLAP)

Hiroki Takahashi “Kagura Tsukuyomi“ – Rayne (Neo Angelique Abyss), Otohiko (Kamisama Kiss), Koujaku (DRAMAtical Murder)

Daisuke Kishio “Yasu“ – Azusa (Diabolik Lovers), Mizushima Arata (Kiniro no Corda: Bluesky), Kuzuryuu (Danganropa V3)

Chiwa Saito “Yua“ – Aoi Asahina (Danganropa V3), Taokaka (BlazBlue), Domina (Period Cube), Fate (Caster)

  MAIN CHARACTERS (SPOILER FREE)

Recommended play order:

1)Hino 2)Isora 3)Toa – only unlocks after finishing Hino and Isora’s good ending 4)Sosuke – only unlocks after finishing Toa’s good ending 5)Yuzuki – only unlocks after finishing all of the character’s good ending

  Hino Kagutsuchi

Childhood friend

Sporty

Dork

Hino’s story was cute. It had very few spoilers regarding the game’s overarching plot but his route did a good job catering as a story build-up for the oncoming routes you’ll get in to after finishing the first two recommended ones (his and Isora’s). I enjoyed the fact that Hino was physically a jock on the outside but covertly the biggest dork on the inside

(the guy fangirls on ‘kawaii’ things! Awww). His romance ventured more into the friendship-type-love rather than a mature one. His route wasn’t my favorite, but it was definitely a good start, nevertheless.

  Isora Amari

Best Chef

Hot tempered

Jealous

Yandere

Just like Hino’s route, Isora’s story offers very few spoilers of the game’s underlying plot but was well written enough to create a very mysterious atmosphere of the town, Okunezato. Isora’s character depth was also deeper than I expected and I wished the writers expounded more on the justification of this character’s actions rather than just throwing it on the spot. Despite this, I love Isora Amari’s story. It had great pacing, enough to give you that creep factor you seek in every mystery-themed visual novel. His romance, on the other hand may or may not suit everyone’s preferences. Although I personally enjoyed it, I can understand how it may not work for some. ┐(︶▽︶)┌

  Toa Kushinada

Cat mom

Clumsy af

Color blind

such a sweet boi!

So my first impression with Toa was: “Really?! I have to romance this clumsy nerd, seriously, game?”. Then I started playing his route just to get it over with and oh my goodness! I did not expected the sudden turn of events! 

As I’ve probably mentioned repeatedly on my previous reviews… I absolutely love it when a game catches you off guard, and this route takes the cake! I was left speechless.  I couldn’t talk more about his story without going into spoiler territory so I’ll leave it at this: Toa was such a great character and he deserves all the love in the world! Best boy (imo), one that’s definitely unforgettable.

  Sosuke Tatehira

Smart

Neat freak!

Best Doctor

OC!

If there was one route that got me at the edge of my seat in 7’scarlet ~ it was definitely Sosuke’s. His story had great pacing where it started off very light and warm then surprisingly escalated into a few bemusing affairs. His route also introduced a more definitive and deeper story regarding the mysteries surrounding the town of Okunezato. While the suspense was a little overwhelming in this route, I wanted to commend on how the romance never took a back seat in Sosuke’s story. His relationship with the heroine felt genuinely real and I love both his and Ichiko’s character development. I also loved the fact that Sosuke was such a neat freak and becomes very obsessive-compulsive about something so simple such as a goldfish scooping game! The perfect husbando, if you ask me! (chuckles)

  Yuzuki Murakumo

Jerk Boss

Hot!!!

Intense

Tsundere

While the suspense was building up in Sosuke’s previous route, Yuzuki’s story on the other hand was a power house of thrill and drama coupled with a few action packed scenes and romantic events… And although it happened so fast, all at the same time, I’ve got to say it was paced really well that it didn’t came out too forced nor too overwhelming with information. I personally love Yuzuki’s character. He’s cold and irritable on the outside but inside his icy personality is one very warm fluffy husbando! 

 His story was probably the most compelling as far as solving the mysteries of Okunezato goes.

  Ichiko Hanamaki (You)

amnesiac heroine (explained in ??? ‘s route)

hates strawberries (explained in ??? ‘s route)

can’t swim (explained in ??? ‘s route)

Despite the the main protagonist’s naivety and recklessness to a point where you’d clearly have to question this heroine’s sense of danger 

 (laughs), Ichiko Hanamaki had a couple of good points up her sleeve such as her strong will and determination to look for her disappeared older brother in spite of being absolutely clueless on where to begin. Another enjoyable aspect, was how this heroine sometimes gets shamelessly clumsy in declaring her love to the gentleman of her liking. She had a couple of funny moments that got me all “wtf lol” ~ so it was never a dull moment playing her as the MC. 

    And it gets better… So the story doesn’t really end there. After finishing Hino, Isora, Toa, Sosuke, and Yuzuki’s route. Two more routes unlocks in this game.

Who is the culprit?

Another factor why this game was so entertaining to me was that it reminded me of playing Mafiascum; where each player gets to accuse anybody as the culprit and the accused needs to present alibis to which another player/s confirms it to prove his innocence.

As someone who’s been playing mafiascum online for a long time, the game’s conclusion was somewhat predictable but I’ve got to admit, it was one gripping read and the “True Ending” was painfully heartbreaking.

  TRAILER

  OVERALL THOUGHTS?

7’scarlet is a very well written mystery themed visual novel. While the story appeared so simple, the events where paced so good that the rise and fall of tension as you unravel the mysteries remained suspenseful enough to keep you wanting for more.

I had a couple of moments where I really couldn’t put down the game for a second just to eat or sleep because I had to know, I NEEED to know what will happen next!

Truth be told, I had never expected I’d get so emotionally attached to this game. It’s really one gripping read. It’s one of those titles that’s hard to get over with even after finishing the game play. I think an overall rating of 4.5/5 is an appropriate mark for 7’scarlet. The rest of the .05 completing the perfect score is just me wishing they could’ve done more with the last secret route as I did felt it to be a little lacking as far as how the story concluded.

I would say the animation and movie clips were an additional plus points. Although without it, the game still excels as one of the most compelling stories an otome game has to offer. Do I recommend this game? YESSSS! If you’re looking for a good mystery-romance themed visual novel with great art, music, animation and one unforgettable story that will rob you of words, 7’scarlet is the perfect choice. All your money’s worth it too.

            Romance and Folklore – 7’scarlet Review NOTE: This review is SPOILER FREE. 7'SCARLET Release Date: May 25, 2018 (North America) Developers:  Toybox Inc, Otomate…

[thefinny-d]

Where Your Love Lies

Tagging: Finn & Rachel Location: California Notes: A series of moments from Finn and Rachel’s relationship when they were in high school.

Finn was relieved to have the apartment all to himself for once. His mom and dad had gone off somewhere for the weekend and while he was pretty sure he'd be worried about his mom the whole time, he knew he needed a break. When Rachel had agreed to spend the night at his apartment, he was more than excited about it, especially since she told him that he could play video games with her. Well, she would watch him play video games since she wasn't too interested in playing, but still - he was excited. Rachel and video games were his two favorite things and he was excited for the night ahead. In preparation for their night together, Finn had made sure to clean the apartment so it looked nice and he nervously double checked that he had condoms in his nightstand. It had only been about a month since they had sex for the first time and while he was more than comfortable with her now, he was still a little nervous sometimes. His girlfriend was Rachel Berry and he had a hard time believing she wanted to be near him sometimes, let alone have sexual relations with him. It wasn't long before he heard a knock at the door and Finn gave himself a quick glance in the mirror hoping he looked alright before he headed towards it. "Hi Rach," he said with a smile as he opened the door, him shifting back and forth on his feet nervously before he quickly dipped his head down to press a kiss to her lips. "You look pretty," he told her as he pulled away, him stepping aside so she could move into the apartment. "I um - I know we usually hang out at your place but I'm really excited that you're here tonight. I know we've played Halo together - at least, you tried to play Halo but tonight I'm treating you to the fifth installment of the Elder Scrolls saga. Tonight, we're playing Skyrim," he said excitedly as he moved into the apartment, the game already loaded up on the TV screen. "Before the game begins, would you like anything to drink or snack on?" he asked her. "I'd be a pretty terrible boyfriend and host if I didn't ask." Finn adjusted his glasses on his face and smiled at her as he looked into her eyes, more than excited that she actually wanted to hang out with him even if he knew it wasn't particularly thrilling like he knew she preferred.

Rachel didn't know how she had started dating Finn Hudson, but she was pretty sure that it was the best relationship that she had ever had. He actually genuinely cared about her, he didn't just care about getting her naked. While they were having sex now, it wasn't like that was the only thing he cared about. They didn't even have sex every day, which was a little strange for her, especially since she was used to relationships being super intense, but she was just happy that Finn really cared about her and that he wanted to be with her. When she arrived at Finn's apartment, she smiled as he opened the door for her. "Hey," She said with a smile before leaning up to meet his kiss. "Thanks. You don't look too bad yourself," She smirked, her stepping into the apartment and looking at him. "You know that I don't care what we do. And hey, we don't always need to be at my place. I mean, obviously it's better if we want to fuck or whatever because no one is ever home and we always have alone time, but it's nice to... I don't know. To see your shit, too." She said, shrugging before tucking some hair behind her ear. "And nah, I ate before. If you're going to eat something I'll snack on whatever you want but I'm not starving. I'm okay." She said as she looked at him, moving over to him to kiss him again before moving towards the couch. "If I need a drink or something, I think I'm capable of getting myself a glass of water," She said with a teasing smile before sitting down on the couch and crossing her legs. "Alright, show me everything there is to know about the Elder Stars or whatever you said it was," She said with a small smile, her looking up at him.

Finn felt his face heat up slightly as Rachel spoke. "Uh yeah, the alone time at your house is nice. But I'm glad you're happy to be here too," he said softly. It was rare that Rachel came to his apartment because he just didn't want her to have to see his mom drunk and he definitely never wanted her to meet his father. The older man was horrible to everyone and the last thing he ever wanted was to be that way towards the girl he loved. When she pressed another kiss to his lips, he smiled softly and as she moved towards the couch, he looked after her with love in his eyes. He really didn't think that he would ever get over the fact that he was dating Rachel Berry. God, how was it possible to feel this way about someone when he was only eighteen? "I know you're more than capable," he said with a soft laugh as he moved to sit down beside her, him reaching for the Xbox controller. "Baby, it's Elder Scrolls," he corrected her, a small smile on his face as he leaned back into the couch, him leaning over to press a kiss to her cheek before he loaded up his game. "Okay, so since we're starting kind of in the middle of the story here, let me give you a small preface. The main storyline is that my character is refered to as a dragon born. Now, this term in this era hasn't been used in thousands of years - actually, not since the Septim bloodline died out. So my character is the first of their kind in all that time and the reason for this is because dragons have come back. They've also been gone for thousands of years and were believed to be extinct but really, they were lost in time. Basically in another dimension. So, as dragon born it is my duty to kill the main antagonist of the game who is a dragon named Alduin. He's trying to end the world as we know it and have dragons take over once again. Right now I'm doing a quest trying to find an Elder Scroll which will grant me a special power - known as a shout - that will help me defeat him." Finn barely even realized how much he was rambling on as he was playing, him just excited to have Rachel with him as he played one of his favorite games. "Like I said before this is the fifth installment of the series. Tamriel is the name of the continent that we're on and Skyrim is one of the provinces, basically. The previous games featured other provinces like Cyrodiil and Morrowind."

Rachel was so happy that she had Finn. He was everything that she really wanted and he really was just so sweet to her and he had her doing normal things. She was just not used to someone actually being a good guy and she was waiting for him to screw something up or be an asshole, but Rachel honestly didn't think that he had an asshole bone in his body. "Sorry, sorry. I'm not good with names of games, you know that. I was barely able to understand Halo, but I tried to listen." She said, laughing gently before getting comfortable against him. As he started to talk about the game, she honestly didn't really understand a word that he was saying, but she was trying to be nice and pay attention for him. He always tried new things for her, and she knew that he deserved to have her pay attention to him, too. She did pay attention to him, but stuff like this she just really had trouble relating to in the slightest. "I know that you play a lot of games, but I really don't understand why all of the games you've ever showed me have crazy ass names. Like... why can't they have normal names. I really want to meet the people that make this shit up and I want to ask them what the fuck goes through their minds," She laughed gently, her moving to lean her head against his arm as she watched the game on the TV. "So I mean... I get that you're supposed to kill that guy with the name that starts with an A or whatever but like... what do you do? In the game? I mean, Halo was like super crazy and you did a lot of shit in it but... I don't know. What do you do here? Do you just like... run around and kill stuff?" Rachel moved to wrap one of her arms around him slightly, her hand resting at her lower stomach. Rachel knew that her and Finn hadn't been together long sexually, and she knew that if they wanted to have normal dates to do normal things, she couldn't really try to tease him because he didn't take much to get him going and while she knew that she'd rather be having sex than watching this game, she wanted to be able to do things that he enjoyed, as well.

Finn felt like half of the time in his relationship with Rachel, he was waiting for her to realize exactly who she was dating and leave him. He was - well, a loser and she was - god, she was Rachel Berry and it amazed him that she loved him. It certainly terrified him to love her as much as he did because he knew if she did walk away that he would be totally broken. "I have no idea how they come up with the names. It amazes me how they create these whole words with their own histories and lore, you know? Like... the amount of time and thought it took to create all of this is crazy." Finn smiled to himself as Rachel leaned against his arm and he glanced down at her as she spoke. He knew she didn't exactly care about video games but it made his heart swell with love to hear her asking him questions and showing interest even if he knew she didn't really care all that much. She wanted to do things with him just as he wanted to do things with her and it each time they shared moments like this it proved to him that this was real. She loved him and she cared because he knew she wouldn't be this way with anyone else. "I mean, the game is open-world so you can freely explore Skyrim. Running around and killing stuff is kind of a basic summary though," he said with a laugh, him glancing down at her hand on his stomach for a moment before he looked back to the TV screen. "Halo is a more straight-forward, fast paced storyline than this but that's because it's an FPS - first person shooter," he explained. "See look? That's a dragon. They're pretty difficult to fight but see how cool they look?," he said as he fought off the dragon in the game, him smiling once it was defeated. Finn shifted his gaze away from the screen and down to Rachel and he couldn't help but smile. He was so in love with her and it made him so happy that she wanted to spend time with him like this. "You're the best girlfriend ever, you know that? I - um... it's okay if you'd rather we do something else, though. I know watching me play Skyrim probably isn't super entertaining."

Rachel looked at Finn as he continued playing his game, her just happy to be with him rather than to be alone in her huge house with nothing to do. She loved being with him, especially when she just got to be alone with him. She didn't want to worry about anything else when she was with him like this. "Oh, okay." She said as he explained more about the game, her offering him a small smile. "I feel like running around and killing stuff is pretty much the usual when it comes to the games that you play. Well, the games that anyone plays, honestly." She said, shrugging as she gripped onto the fabric of his shirt for a moment, her thumb rubbing against him as she moved her gaze back to the TV screen again. "Well, yeah, I mean, I feel like you could sit down and beat Halo in one sitting. Not everyone, but you definitely could," She laughed, her keeping quiet for a moment as he began to fight some dragon in the game. She really wasn't interested in the game, honestly. However, she was interested in Finn and she was interested in making him happy by supporting things that he liked. "No, you can keep playing." She said as he asked her if she wanted to do something else. "Babe, we do stuff I like all of the time, and I don't care if we do something you like. And I mean, you like playing the game and I just like being with you." Rachel moved her head away from his arm to look at him more fully, her offering him a small smile. "Plus, I mean, you're enjoying yourself and if you're enjoying yourself, so am I." Rachel leaned forward to kiss him, smiling when she pulled away. "I won't distract you from your game anymore," She grinned as she went to lean her head against his arm again, watching the screen once again.

Finn smiled softly when Rachel told him that he could beat Halo in one sitting. "The earlier games, yeah but, I mean, I don't know about the newer ones. You should see people who speed run games - it's crazy." When he asked her if she wanted to do something else and she said no, he looked down at her with a bit of surprise in his gaze. It wasn't that he thought Rachel was miserable watching him play video games but he knew it also wasn't the most fun thing that they could be doing when they had his apartment to themselves for the night. When she leaned in to press a kiss to his lips, he couldn't help but smile softly, his eyes fluttering open as she pulled away. "I love you so much, you know that?" he told her. It amazed him sometimes just thinking about the fact that Rachel Berry was his girlfriend. He had a crush on her since he was fourteen and here they were, eighteen years old and they were in love with each other. She didn't even mind sitting with him playing video games and while to some people that wouldn't mean anything, to him it meant so much. To him it proved she loved him because he knew Rachel Berry didn't do anything she didn't want to do. As Finn focused back on the game, he couldn't help but smile to himself as he felt Rachel leaning against him. "Hey, Rach? Do you think what we have is like... the real love that people always talk about?" he asked her softly. "Because I just - I don't know - I think it is. I think we might be it." Finn shifted his focus from the TV for a moment to look a her and he couldn't help but smile softly as their eyes met.

Rachel looked at Finn as he told her that he loved her, a small smile on her lips. "Yeah. I know. I love you, too. You know that," She said softly, looking into his eyes as she sat next to him. She loved him so much and she was convinced that he would be the only guy she ever loved. She cared about Josh, but that was never the end all for her. She knew that she deserved more for her life and after meeting Finn? She knew that this was it. It had to. She never thought she'd be the girl who would be in a relationship, but with Finn? She felt like it was really the only person that she could ever be like with this. She couldn't imagine just sitting around with someone and telling them she loved them with anyone else other than Finn. Rachel brought her attention back to the TV for a few moments before she looked back at him when she heard him speak again. "Hm?" She asked softly, looking into his eyes. "I think so." She honestly did. SHe really couldn't imagine anything else in her life and she just loved him more than anything in the world and she just couldn't wait to experience more with him. "I never thought that I'd find someone like you. Someone I thought that I could really be with and just... do all of these new things with. Because I- you're changing me, Finn. You are. But for the better. And I- I love you so much, you know? I don't give a fuck what we do with our day and I- I could sit here with you and watch you play video games or- or we could just sit and talk all day and I'd fucking love it because I'm so in love with you. And a year ago I never thought I'd be saying that to anyone. But I am now and I'm so happy that I am because I could never see myself with anyone else. And it makes me so confident that this is that kind of love that you're talking about, you know?" She said, her smiling gently and leaning forward to kiss him gently before pulling away and looking into his eyes. "We're still really young and I don't know, it's weird to feel like this, but we both do and I'm so happy that we do. Because I just- I can't imagine me being here without you at this point in my life. I know you're in my life for a reason, Finn. And I'm just- I'm so happy that you chose to love me."

Finn couldn't help but smile as Rachel spoke, agreeing with him when he said that he thought that the love they had was the real love that people always talked about. He knew that they were young and that they weren't perfect but he knew he was in love with Rachel and he knew that he had never felt this way about someone before in his life. When she kissed him, he sighed happily against her lips. It meant the world to him that she loved him just as intensely as he loved her. "It's just... it's crazy to hear you say that you're happy that I chose to love you when I'm the one constantly in shock that you love me. I mean - look at me, you know? I'm... I'm me and you're well - you're you. When we first started dating I was so scared that maybe it was just some joke but you just - you make me so happy, Rachel. I know you say that I changed you for the better but you've changed me for the better too. You - you make me want to come out of my shell a little and take risks and realize that I can have a little fun and still achieve my dreams." Finn smiled softly as he looked down into her eyes before he leaned in to press another kiss to her lips, him deepening it for a moment before pulling away slowly. "I think I'm going to be in a state of shock that someone like you could ever love someone like me for the rest of my life. But I um... I promise that I'll always make sure you feel loved and I'll always take care of you to the best of my ability." Finn looked at Rachel with adoration in his gaze before he set his controller down on the coffee table and settled more comfortably onto the couch with Rachel, his arms slipping around her waist. "I appreciate that you'll sit here with me all night and watch me play video games but I really want to focus on you tonight," he said softly as he looked into her eyes, him smiling before he pressed his lips back to hers.

Rachel smiled gently as Finn spoke, her eyes on his. She honestly knew that it was crazy. Everyone always looked at them walking down the halls and thought that they were insane. While this was the first time in a while that she didn't really care about what people thought, it was still weird walking down the hallway with Finn. She knew that people talked about him -- she had popular friends that would tease him, and of course, she always stood up for him. And honestly, she knew that the Finn they saw wasn't really the Finn that she saw. He was so amazing and so sweet and she was just so happy to have him. "Well, I'm glad I make you want to come out of your shell a little bit. I know that there's things that you'll never do and that's okay. Because there's things I don't want to do anymore that I know that you don't ever want to do. And... I don't know. Maybe we can do new things together, you know?" She said with a small smile. As Finn moved to put his controller in front of them on the coffee table, she smirked gently as he went to wrap his arms around her. "Mmm, I like the sound of that. And I mean, how could we not take advantage of the empty apartment?" She asked softly as she pulled away from their kiss for a moment. Rachel smiled gently before leaning forward to kiss him again, her moving to straddle him on the couch. "I'm more important than video games, huh? Proud of you for being the guy who's obsessed with video games but still knows that they can't get him off like a girl can," She laughed gently before pressing her lips against his and deepening the kiss for a moment. Her lips traveled to his jaw for a moment, her sighing contently. "Fuck, I love you." She said, her moving to kiss back to his lips.

Finn liked the sound of him and Rachel doing new things together. While they were pretty much polar opposites, they also had a lot in common and he was excited to keep exploring new things with her by his side. When she shifted on the couch and moved to straddle him, Finn smiled into their kiss as he held her close, his hands resting on the curve of her hips. "Hey, I might love video games but I'm not stupid. I love you way more," he said with a smile before they kissed once more. When her lips moved to the curve of his jaw, Finn's eyes fluttered shut for a moment. It felt so good to be with her like this and while he was still fairly inexperienced with sex, he was certainly more comfortable than he had been. "I love you too," he whispered before her lips pressed back to his. Finn kissed her back eagerly as he held her close, his hands slipping down to her thighs and squeezing gently. There was nothing that could compare to how good it felt to have her in his arms and he knew that he wanted this for the rest of his life. He didn't care if it sounded crazy, he knew that Rachel was it for him. God, he knew he was meant to love her. "You're so beautiful, Rachel," he whispered between kisses, him pulling away for a moment so he could look into her eyes, a smile tugging up at the corner of his lips.

Rachel loved being able to be close to Finn all of the time. She knew that it was weird to be with him. It truly was. Not even because he was who he was, just because she never really had an actual relationship like this. Sure, she had been pretty steady with Josh for a long time, but this was nothing like that. She actually felt like Finn cared about her more than just for sex. It was proof enough that they had waited as long as they did to have sex. Most people she was with, they started having sex pretty much right after she met them, but Rachel was just happy to finally have someone who cared about more than just her body. Even though Finn was definitely starting to appreciate sex, it wasn't the main part of their relationship, even though she was sure it would be the focus whenever they had her house or his apartment to themselves. As he called her beautiful, Rachel looked at him when he fully pulled away. She could feel her heart swell in her chest, her bringing her hand to his cheek, a thumb rubbing against his bottom lip. "You have no idea," She whispered out, looking at his lips before looking into his eyes. "You just have no idea what you make me feel like when you say shit like that, Finn. I've heard sexy and hot and perfect and just... shit like that but it's just... I don't know. It's how I know you're different. I mean, I still like when you call me hot and sexy and stuff, but I- I don't know. I just love that you're different, you know?" She said, leaning forward to kiss him again. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself impossibly closer to him. She wanted nothing more than to be with him and to experience everything that they had to look forward to in the future.

Finn looked at Rachel with love in his eyes as she brought her hand to his cheek and he couldn't help but smile as her thumb ran across his bottom lip for a moment. He loved her so much and he really didn't think there were any words that could describe what he felt for her. "Well you are beautiful and I always want to make sure you know that. You're hot and sexy too but, you know, very beautiful," he said softly before her lips pressed to his. Finn knew that in previous relationships Rachel hadn't been appreciated the right way. She had always been in weird relationships that weren't fully monogamous and were with guys who treated her more as a body than the person that they loved. Finn wanted to make sure she always knew how much he loved her - how much he adored her inside and out. She really was such an amazing person and it made him so happy to know that she wanted to share herself with him the same way he did with her. He knew he was a loser in school but when he was with her he actually felt cool. He felt important and she was the only person who had ever managed to make him feel that way. As they kissed eagerly, Finn couldn't help but smile against her lips before he pulled away after another moment. "Should we go to my room?" he asked her with a small smile pulling up at the corner of his lips. "Because, you know, as much as I wouldn't mind staying right here, I won't be able to think of this couch the same when I'm sitting here with my mom," he said with a laugh before he pressed a soft peck to her lips.

Rachel rolled her eyes playfully as he spoke. "Well, I mean, I'm glad you also think that I'm hot and sexy because I'd be pretty offended if you didn't," She teased gently as she looked into his eyes after pulling away from their kiss for a moment. Rachel leaned forward to kiss him again and she grinned gently against his lips before she felt him pull away. Rachel was so happy that they were able to be with each other like this. While sex wasn't everything in her relationships, she knew it was a pretty major part of being connected to the person that she was with. She was more than happy with Finn before anything had happened, but she also knew that she definitely appreciated being able to feel good and to make him feel good. When he asked her if they should go to his room, she just looked at him and bit down on her bottom lip. "I mean... we could stay here, babe. Because I don't know, you sitting in this spot and getting turned on thinking about fucking me here kind of turns me on. But we'll go to your bed, I guess. So you don't hate every second of sitting with your mom in front of the TV," She teased, her giggling and moving to get off of his lap. Rachel went to pull off her shirt as she went towards his bedroom, her looking back at him with a small smirk. "Come on, Hudson. I don't have all day." She laughed as she started to take off her bra as well, disappearing into his room. She was more than excited for the rest of the day, especially being able to take advantage of their alone time without anyone at his apartment for a while. Her house was always empty, but his was not, so it was nice to have alone time in his own place, as well.

-

Finn couldn't believe that high school was over and he certainly couldn't believe that he was going to prom. He was going to prom with his girlfriend. He was going to prom with Rachel Berry. Finn knew that he had never expected this moment to happen. If someone had told him in his freshman year that he would be dating Rachel and taking her to prom, he absolutely would have thought they were lying to him. And yet here he was and he couldn't believe it. "I can't believe we're really going to prom," he said to both Sam and Artie as Sam drove towards Rachel's house so they could pick her up. He had borrowed his dads nice car and was driving extremely carefully and Finn couldn't help but find it funny. "I know, we always used to talk about not even bothering to show up at this thing. But here we are - and hey, one of us has a date," Artie said with a laugh. "I'm telling you, man, we can find a date there. Plenty of girls are going solo and we'll just try and find someone that way," Sam said, not taking his eyes off the road. When they reached Rachel's house, Sam and Artie waited as Finn got out of the car and rang the doorbell. As he waited, he nervously adjusted his tie, feeling more anxious than ever in a suit since it was so out of his comfort zone. He wasn't sure if her father's were home or not but he knew that he just wanted to see his beautiful girlfriend already.

Rachel had been to plenty of dances in her lifetime. She had usually just gone with a big group of people, though it had always been assumed that her and Josh were going together as a date. However, now, she knew that this year was a nice change. Being able to go with Finn and being able to experience this with him was just so exciting. While most people would have their parents doing everything for them the day of prom, Rachel didn't. Her parents were away, but she didn't exactly care. She got her nails done that morning and she had gone home to do her hair, and after spending a lifetime on her hair, she did her makeup. She didn't want to go too extreme, especially because she knew Finn would love it any single way. Rachel was putting on her shoes as she heard Finn ring the door bell, her opening the door and smiling gently as she saw him. "Hi." She said softly, her looking at him as she held onto the door. "You look really handsome." Every time she saw him and she saw his little smile on his face, she just never could get over the fact that they were really together and that they were doing so well. "My dads aren't home, so.... if you want to come back here after prom, we can." She looked at him for a moment before closing the door behind her and locking it, biting down on her bottom lip before turning around and looking to him. "God, you look so fucking good." Rachel moved closer to him and she played with his tie slightly for a moment before looking up into his eyes. "I love you. And... and thank you for picking me up."

Finn felt his heart stop for a moment when Rachel opened the door, his jaw dropping slightly at the sight of her. She was the most beautiful person he had ever seen in his entire life and he knew that he was so, so in love with her. When she told him that he looked handsome, he felt his face flush slightly and he smiled nervously, looking down for a moment before looking back into her eyes. "Thanks, baby. You look - you look - wow. You're the most beautiful girl in the world," he told her. When she said that her dads weren't home, Finn smiled softly. "I'd like that. I want to spent the night with you." Finn watched as she locked the door and when she turned back to face him, he felt his heart skip a beat once more. "I look good? You look amazing. I can't believe you're my girlfriend sometimes," he said softly. "I love you too. And don't thank me, I mean, it's really Sam driving. And, you know, we have the nice car because of his dad," he said with a slight laugh. "Oh! I - I almost forgot." Finn quickly held up the tiny plastic container that the corsage he had gotten Rachel was in, him smiling nervously as he held it up. "I know that - you know, these are kind of stupid or whatever but, you know, they're tradition, right? And plus, I mean, I picked it because I think it matches your eyes and you mentioned your dress color so I figured it would look pretty." Finn forced himself to stop talking before he looked into Rachel's eyes. It amazed him how she could still make him nervous sometimes but he knew it was just because he wanted everything to be perfect.

Rachel couldn't believe that this was her life sometimes, but she was so happy that to be close to him and to have these experiences with him. "Well, thanks. I spent the entire day getting ready, practically. I know you don't exactly care about me looking like a model so I just- I didn't want to go crazy. But I'm glad you think that I look good. I just- I wanted to look good for you because I knew you'd look good, obviously. Any man in a suit is hot, but you know, you somehow make it even better," She said teasingly as she looked at him. When he held up the corsage for her, she bit down on her bottom lip and held out her wrist. "You didn't have to, Finn. I've been without one during every other single school dance, so it would have been fine. But it's beautiful," She told him, her looking at it before she leaned forward to press a kiss to his lips. "We could have had a fake prom right in my living room in our PJs and I would have loved it just as much as going out. Anything with you is perfect, babe." Rachel knew that while she did enjoy prom, she also did just enjoy spending time with Finn by herself. Rachel went to her bag and looked at him after pulling out a tiny box. "I got you a boutonniere, but... it's not as nice as what you got for me." Rachel grabbed the box and she went to put it on his suit, her looking up into his eyes for a moment. "We don't have the crazy parents taking five million pictures of us, so this makes it a lot easier. And that we we don't need to hold up your friends."

Finn didn't understand how Rachel just seemed to get more beautiful every time he saw her but she absolutely did. "I wanted to get you one, Rach. I want tonight to be perfect," he said softly as he looked into her eyes before they shared a soft kiss. "We can always continue prom in the living room after the real prom in case it sucks." Finn smiled at his girlfriend and when she grabbed a tiny box from her bag and took out a boutonniere, he couldn't help but feel his heart swell with love. "I love it, Rach. And I love that you got it for me," he said, looking down as she pinned it to his suit. "I guess that's one nice thing about having absent parents, right? We don't have to have people taking pictures of us all night." Finn smiled softly at Rachel before he took her hand in his and led her towards the car. He helped her inside before he moved to sit beside her, him still amazed that this was really happening. "Wow, Rachel, you look great," Sam said, Artie nodding in agreement. "I still can't believe that one of us has a girlfriend let alone a date to prom," Artie said as he looked back at them. "I mean, I thought it would be me but I'm happy for you, Finn," he said jokingly, causing Finn to laugh. "Hey, I can't believe it either." As Sam started driving towards the venue where prom was being held, Finn looked down and Rachel and smiled softly at her before he dipped his head down to press a kiss to her lips. "I love you," he whispered. "Tonight is going to be perfect."

Rachel managed a soft laugh as Finn spoke about their parents being gone. "Yeah, I guess that's true. I mean, not having them around is good for a lot of reasons. Some that I'm sure we'll explore tonight," She said with a soft laugh as she looked up into his eyes. Once they got back to the car, Rachel leaned against him slightly and leaned her head against his shoulder for a moment. "Thanks, guys. I mean, I only slaved over the way I looked today for half of the morning." Rachel looked at them as she sat next to Finn before she went to sit up fully again. "Hey, come on, I really don't think it's that odd that Finn has a girlfriend. Plus, you guys are really nice and it's not like you're bad looking. You guys can totally get a date if you tried. And you can try and find some girl there. Because a lot of girls at places like this are always down to fuck or find some random guy to dance with. I wouldn't be scared of finding someone," She said with a soft laugh before looking over at Finn. "Love you, too. So much." She said, looking at Finn and going to kiss him again after he pulled away. "It's gonna be really perfect," She said as her hand moved to his leg for a moment before pulling away with a slight smirk and looking forward. "It'll be fun, guys. And I mean, it's not like you need to leave us alone all night, I don't care if we're not by ourselves. I mean, we all came together, obviously. We can all hang out and stuff when we're there."

Finn laughed softly as Rachel spoke to Sam and Artie. He knew his friends wanted to try and find girls at prom and he really did hope that they could. It wasn't fair that people like Josh were the ones who always got attention from girls when he treated them horribly. As he focused back on his girlfriend, he felt his heart swell with happiness as she told him that she loved him back. He was pretty sure that he would never get tired of hearing that from her. When she moved her hand to his leg for a moment, he felt his body heat up. God, he really couldn't wait for the night ahead because it was clear what Rachel planned on doing once they left prom. "I mean, yeah we're all gonna hang out tonight but like, we also really don't want to hang out while you two are dancing or telling each other you love each other every ten seconds," Artie said with a laugh, Sam nodding in agreement. "Yeah, I mean, we love you guys but when you bring someone to prom the whole point is kind of for it to be romantic so we'll give you two space when it's clear you need it." Finn laughed softly at his friends words and when they finally arrived at the venue, he got out of the car before holding out his hand for Rachel to take. As they started walking, Sam and Artie walked ahead of them a bit and Finn squeezed Rachel's hand gently in his. "Is it weird that I'm kind of nervous? I just... I've never really been to anything that our whole grade is basically at and I'm kind of just, you know, waiting for someone to break my glasses or throw a drink in my face," he told her. "I just... I know how some of your friends feel about you being with me and I don't want tonight to be anything but perfect," he said as they started walking inside, him feeling his anxiety building slightly.

Rachel knew that her and Finn were all over each other a lot of the time, but she couldn't exactly help it. She always wanted to be around him and she loved that things always felt so perfect between them. "Hey, we don't tell each other that we love each other every ten seconds. And I mean, come on. I promise I won't be grinding on him the entire night," She laughed, looking at them as she sat next to Finn. "But yeah, I guess we'll be all mushy and romantic and shit." Rachel knew that it would definitely be a change of pace for her, especially because her other proms were so different. As they got to the venue, Rachel smiled as Finn took her hand in his. "Don't be nervous. And I don't give a fuck about what they think, so don't worry. I promise that it'll be fine. And if anyone ruins your night, they'll ruin mine too, and well, they know not to fuck with me." She said as she walked with him inside of the venue, her still holding herself close to him. "We look really great, and I know that we'll have a perfect prom. Because babe," She said as she continued to walk inside, holding onto his hand, "You know that I don't care about what other people think when it comes to us. I love you and I love what we have and I just want to have a good night." She knew that they would, especially if they just got to dance and enjoy themselves. "And if things get shitty or we're not having a good time, you know we can always leave and do our own thing if you wanted to. I don't really mind either way. I just want to enjoy our prom together and dance, you know?"

Finn nodded when Rachel told him not to feel nervous but he knew it was easier said than done. He wanted this night to be perfect but being around everyone in their grade scared him since there were a lot of people there who's lives seemed dedicated to making his existence miserable. As Rachel spoke he looked down at her and he couldn't help but smile softly as he looked into her eyes, feeling his nerves calm slightly. "I love you too and I know as long as we're together we'll have a good night," he said softly. When a photographer motioned for them to take a picture, he watching as Sam and Artie headed further into the venue before he stepped to the backdrop that was set up with Rachel. "I can't believe I actually have a date to prom," he said with a laugh before he smiled for the picture, hoping desperately that he didn't look terrible in it. "Let's go see where Sam and Artie are sitting," he said as he walked with her once the picture was done. Finn could feel people staring at them as they walked and he knew that there were still a lot of people that were shocked Rachel was dating the biggest loser in school. He didn't want to feel insecure but it was tough when he knew that so many people had no idea why she was with him. A shaky breath escaped his lips and he adjusted his glasses with one hand while the other gripped her hand just a bit tighter. When they approached the table Sam and Artie were sitting at, Finn quickly moved to pull out a chair for Rachel before he sat beside her. "Does this suit look weird on me?" he asked Rachel. "Because I - I feel like people are looking at me," he said before he looked down, attempting to adjust his tie or fix anything that might be amiss. "Wow, would you look at that." Finn felt himself shrink at the sound of Josh's voice and as he looked up at him, he felt himself growing even more anxious. Maybe prom was a mistake. "You clean up nice, Berry," Josh said with a smirk. "And you're still doing your charity work," he added as he gestured to Finn. He kept his gaze firmly on the table, knowing that he really didn't want to have to deal with Josh tonight. "Just thought I'd let you know that if you want to have a real party after this, there will be one at my house. You're invited but, you know, that dress isn't," Josh said with a smirk.

Rachel didn't want Finn to feel awkward about this entire thing. She didn't want him to feel weird that he was at prom with her or feel as if everyone was judging him. She just wanted him to enjoy himself and to just have this amazing memory with her. She wanted to be able to look back on this moment and just be able to say that she was so incredibly happy. Rachel followed Finn to where his friends were sitting, her still holding onto his hand to keep herself close to him. As she saw him adjust his glasses, she smiled gently and looked at him, squeezing his hand gently. She went to sit down and she looked over at him when he spoke. "Babe, stop fussing. You look good. And stop messing with your tie. If you pull that shit any tighter you're going to choke yourself," Rachel laughed gently before her laugh died when she heard Josh's voice. She looked over to him and leaned back in her chair slightly. She rolled her eyes, looking to her boyfriend for a moment before looking up at Josh again. "Oh, tempting. You know, the party. But I don't think you have to worry about me having fun later. Because, actually, I'm already going to a party later," She said, her eyes on Josh's. "And don't worry, the dress isn't invited to that one. But Finn can take care of getting it off for me." Josh laughed, rolling his eyes. "The dress is probably the only thing he'll be getting off." Rachel sighed. "Don't worry, he doesn't really have a problem in that department. Just fuck off, Josh. Let me actually enjoy my fucking night," She said, her turning towards Finn and moving to loosen his tie slightly, her hand resting on his chest for a moment. When she didn't hear footsteps, she looked back over at Josh. "Did you not fucking hear me?" She saw Josh roll her eyes and she could feel her anger start to rise. "Well, if you change your mind, you actually can get off later and hang with your actual friends." Rachel sighed and went to look towards Finn again. "I swear, I'm going to fucking kill him. I just want to enjoy you. Can we please just try and pretend like he's not here tonight? Please?"

Finn hated that he was such a loser sometimes. He knew he had a lot of trouble with confidence and while being with Rachel was certainly helping him, he knew he had a long way to go before he would feel comfortable in his own skin. God, he was so happy high school was almost over because he knew he was ready for college and the rest of what life had to offer. As Rachel spoke back to Josh, Finn looked at her with a small smile on his face. It meant the world to him when she stood up for him and it was definitely in moments like these where he felt the love she had for him. He hated that Josh always seemed to act like he wasn't good enough for Rachel sexually when Finn knew that he could take care of his girlfriend. Sure, in the beginning it had taken him time to learn exactly what she liked but he knew now and he was going to continue to memorize her and make her feel amazing. When Rachel focused her attention back on him, her loosening his tie, Finn offered her a small smile before he looked back up at Josh. "We can do that. We can - we can pretend that he's not here," he said softly, relieved when Josh finally walked away. "He just - he picks on the sexual stuff because he knows he can't live up to the boyfriend part of the relationship." "Why didn't you say that to him?" Sam asked, Artie nodding in agreement. "Because I don't - I don't want to fight with him. It's not worth it. I - I already won anyway." Finn turned back to Rachel and smiled at her before he leaned down to press a kiss to her lips. "I love you. A - And he won't ruin our night," he said softly. Finn shifted his gaze downwards for a moment as he sat facing Rachel before he looked back up into her eyes. "I know this isn't probably how you planned on spending your senior prom. And if you... if you want to go to that party later, we can. I just - I want you to have fun." Finn knew he wasn't the most exciting person, he wasn't the most fun person but he loved Rachel and he wanted this night to be everything she wanted and more. He wanted her to know that she could have fun with him because he knew once upon a time Josh was the person she had fun with and he didn't want to lose her because of that.

Rachel knew that Finn was insecure about a lot of things. However, things got a lot better. There were times where she could never imagine her life without Finn, which was definitely most of the time. She loved that they had grown so much together and she definitely loved that he had mellowed her out some. It wasn't too much, because she definitely still was insane, but she was happy to be able to be with him and to experience things that he liked, as well. As Finn spoke once Josh left, she sighed. "Babe, you really don't have to worry about shit like that, you keep me more than satisfied, he just knows how to push your buttons, that's all." She said as she looked at him before smiling as he talked about winning. "You're so fucking lame," She laughed with a slight roll of her eyes before leaning forward to meet him for a kiss. "Believe me, this is going to be a great prom. And I don't want to go to any lame party, I already know that we're going to have a really, really fun party later at my place," She whispered as she looked into his eyes, a smirk rising on her lip before she leaned forward to grab onto his tie, pulling him forward slightly to kiss him again. "I'm gonna have lots of fun tonight." She said as she pulled away. "Let's dance. I know you're kind of awkward on your feet, but you know, we can manage. We can handle a few dances. And some slow dances. And if we get bored, then we can go back to my place and eat random shit and just lay around in bed. Because I bought really great snacks for a little later and I'm definitely looking forward to just laying around naked in bed all night. So I mean, I hope you don't have any other plans tonight because I plan on keeping you really busy."

Finn laughed softly when Rachel told him that he was lame before they shared a soft kiss. He knew he wasn't the best looking or the most popular but when Rachel looked at him the way she did, he really did start to believe that he wasn't as big of a loser as he felt he was. She made him see himself in a whole new light, in a whole new confidence and while that was still developing, he was feel better every moment he spent with her. When she told him that they were going to have a fun party at her place later, he felt his heart speed up for a moment before she pressed her lips to his. Yeah, she definitely gave him a confidence that he had never felt before because knowing that she wanted him the way that she did made him feel so good. "I like the sound of that," he whispered, him smiling softly as she pulled away. When she told him that she wanted to dance, Finn looked at her nervously. He wasn't exactly gifted when it came to coordination but if his girlfriend wanted to dance, he was going to dance with her. "We're gonna see if we can find any fellow single ladies, you two have fun," Sam said with a smirk as he headed off with Artie. "In what world would I have any other plans tonight that don't involve you?" he said to Rachel with a smile as they made their way onto the dance floor. Finn looked around nervously for a moment before he brought his focus down to Rachel, him offering her a small smile. "I'm so bad at dancing," he told her. "This is how you know I love you, I hope you know that," he said as a soft laugh escaped his lips. Finn looked around at some of the people dancing around them and tried to mimic some of their moves and while he knew he probably looked stupid, he just wanted to have fun with Rachel, especially when he knew they only had the summer before they had to be long distance. "Did I mention how amazing you look tonight?" he said to Rachel, raising his voice a bit since the music was fairly loud. "I can't believe I get to be your boyfriend," he said before he attempted to start dancing again, trying his best not to look like he was struggling with what he was supposed to do. These were the moments he hated how tall and awkward he was.

Rachel laughed gently as Sam said to have fun. "Oh, don't worry. We will," She said before bring her attention back to Finn. She was grateful that he wanted to dance with her, even if she was sure that they'd mostly be just standing around and swaying to the music. It was one thing she loved about him and being able to be with him was because they could make the best out of everything. "No one is bad at dancing. I mean, Finn, we could just fucking sway here and I'd be happy," She laughed gently as she looked at him for a moment, her shaking her head with a smile. "You might have mentioned it, but I like hearing it." She said as she looked at him before managing a soft laugh. "Babe, I fucking love you. You're so awkward in the best way. Just like... relax. And anyway, guys don't even really dance," She said as she went to wrap her arms around his neck for a moment, looking up into his eyes before she went to kiss him. "Guys kind of just stand there and let the girls grind up on them all night, but you know, it's a little change," She said with a laugh before she turned in his arms to have her back to his chest, her hips against his. "This is kind of the standard, but knowing us, I don't know how long we'll last if we're on top of each other all night. Well, I'll rephrase that," She said, leaning up to kiss his jaw, "I probably won't be able to hold myself back, not the other way around." Rachel smirked before she went to run her hand through her hair, pulling it to one side of her neck.

Finn didn't exactly know what he was doing when it came to dancing and when Rachel told him that he was awkward in the best way, he couldn't help but laugh softly. "I'm trying to relax - do I not look relaxed?" he asked her quickly. "I told you I'm not good at this." The two of them kissed softly and when she wrapped her arms around his neck, he slipped his arms around her waist. "I just... you know, I've never been that guy before," he told her as she explained that guys typically just stood there while a girl grinded on them all night. While he had been to a couple parties with Rachel, no one was ever usually dancing and he ended up feeling so uncomfortable that they didn't stay long. He wasn't the guy who danced or knew what to do in environments like this and while it intimidated him, he wanted to have a good time and if Rachel wanted to dance, he was going to try his best to figure out how to do that. When she turned away from him, her back pressed against his chest, he bit down on his lip just feeling her body pressed against his. He truly had the most beautiful girl in the room and it made him feel so good knowing that she wanted him the way that she did. "I mean... if you keep doing that I might not be able to hold myself back either," he breathed out as she pressed her lips to his jaw. Finn kept his hands on her hips, him squeezing gently as he tried his best to move to the music with her. As they danced, he dipped his head down to press soft kisses along the curve of her shoulder, trailing them slowly to her neck. "I kinda like dancing now," he whispered softly in her ear, him smiling for a moment before he resumed his gentle kisses to her soft skin.

Rachel obviously knew that her boyfriend wasn't exactly the most popular kid in school. However, she didn't care. She didn't care how experienced he was with certain things and she didn't care whether or not he liked things that she did. She just loved him and loved how they both were with each other and she just wanted to be able to introduce him to things while he introduced her to new things, as well. As she moved against him and he commented about not being able to hold himself back, she felt a small smirk rise against her lips. "Mmm, good. That sounds like a good plan. I mean, I did spend a lot of money on this dress so we'll have to stay for a little bit but us leaving early and going home definitely sounds like a plan. This may be a good party to some, but I mean, I think we know how to party a little better than this." She said as she felt him squeeze her hips slightly. She let her eyes shut for a moment as his lips moved along her shoulder before she laughed gently at his words. "Mm, I knew you would." She said before she opened her eyes, looking around her for a moment before she caught Josh's eyes. Rachel had been with Josh long enough to know his looks. And this was one that previously would get her going because she'd know exactly what he wanted. Her. And at one point, she would have dropped everything for that gaze, but not now. Not when she knew that someone else could give her everything so much better than he could. "I think dancing is way better with you," She said, her hands moving to his on her hips for a moment before she turned around in his arms and went to look into his eyes for a moment before leaning forward to kiss him gently. "I love you. I know that this isn't exactly the first place you'd want to be, but I'm really happy that we're here. That I'm here with you."

Finn couldn't help but smile as Rachel said that they knew how to party a little better than this. He was definitely excited for the night ahead of them, that much was for sure. While the whole prom part of the night made him a little uncomfortable, he was happy to be spending time with Rachel and he loved knowing that she was his girlfriend - he loved knowing she wanted everyone to see that he was her boyfriend, too. He laughed softly as she spoke, him trying his best to move with her hips as she danced against him. Obviously he knew he wasn't great at dancing but he finally felt like he was getting the hang of it for the most part. "I think dancing is better with you too. Although, I mean, I only really know dancing with you but I'm happy with that experience level," he said with a laugh as she turned in his arms. Finn smiled at her as their eyes met and when she leaned up to press her lips to his, he kissed her back tenderly. "I love you too," he said softly, him feeling his heart swell with love as he looked down at her. "I'm happy anywhere if I'm with you, Rach. This might be... you know, out of my comfort zone but, I don't care. I love you, you look beautiful and this whole night is worth it because of you." Finn looked down at her with a small smile before he dipped his head down to press a kiss to her lips, deepening it for a moment before he pulled away and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I swear I'm going to love you for the rest of my life," he breathed out. "Because I know that nothing else will ever make me feel the way you do."

Rachel knew that they had a lot to look forward to with the night still. Obviously, things weren't going to be boring when it came to them. While he was a lot more mellow, honestly, sometimes she would have preferred to do what he wanted to do. Sitting down and just being near him or watching him play video games was just everything that she needed. She just wanted him and everything that he wanted. "Me too. And I just- I'm glad it's out of your comfort zone. I don't want to push you, but I want you to do more things with me. I love that you are." She said as she looked at him before she went to meet him for a kiss, her smiling as he pulled away and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I hope you do. I really hope you do." She really didn't know what she'd do without someone in her life like Finn. Someone like Josh was fun, but he wasn't someone that she'd be able to be with for the rest of her life. It wasn't a meaningful relationship, it just used to be good sex and someone who had the same dream as her. But now? Now everything was just so much better and she felt like she really found something that was going to last. Rachel knew that they probably looked incredibly lame just practically standing on the dance floor, but as the song changed to a slow one, she figured that they at least looked a little more normal. "All I ever wanted was you. And I mean, I would go through all of the shitty guys I was ever with to get to this point. To you. And that's so fucking cheesy but I don't know. I mean, we just- we work, you know? I would have never believed that I'd be dancing with you at prom when I was a freshman. I wouldn't have thought that I'd be having you take me home later. But I mean, here we are. And believe me, I want this with you. For the rest of my life. And you know I don't say shit like that and I- I really mean it, Finn. You're so fucking scary to me sometimes because this is shit that I never thought I'd have and it's just fucking wild that I get to have it with you. I mean, you fucking bought me a corsage and we're at prom. That's more than I could have ever asked for."

Finn knew if someone had told him when he was a freshman that he would be taking Rachel Berry - his girlfriend - to his senior prom that he would have thought they were crazy. But this was real life. This was happening and he knew he had never felt like this before. No one had ever loved him before, not the way Rachel did and he knew that now that he had found her that he never wanted to let her go. He knew they were young and he knew they had a lot of life left to live but he was so, so certain that he wanted to live it all with her. He wanted to be with her for the rest of his life. When the song changed to a slow one, he kept his hands around her waist as he attempted to sway to the music accordingly with her, him looking down into her eyes. "I like it when you're cheesy," he said with a small smile on his face. "A-And, Rachel, believe me, I never thought I'd be here with you either. I thought - I thought that on prom night I'd be at home. I never thought that I'd have a girlfriend let alone fall in love with the most amazing girl on the planet and have her love me back." Finn looked down for a moment before he looked back into her eyes. "I wish you didn't have to deal with shitty guys in your past but I promise that you'll never have to again. You deserve the world, Rachel and I mean that. You're... you're so special a-and beautiful and intelligent and you make me laugh and I just - I really do mean it too when I say that I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I want to spend the rest of my life making sure you're happy and loved." Finn smiled for a moment before he leaned down to kiss her slowly, him resting his forehead against hers for a moment as he pulled away. "I love you more than anything," he whispered. "I still can't believe that I'm at prom with Rachel Berry." A playful smile formed on his face as he pulled away from her slightly so he could look down at her, him running his hand up along her back to play with the ends of her hair. "You're so beautiful, you know? You're stunning," he told her, knowing that he would be in awe of this moment with her for the rest of his life.

Rachel wanted to believe that things would be perfect. She wanted to picture herself with Finn for years and years to come, and honestly, it was easy to. It was easy to imagine herself just chilling at home with him or sharing a home with him because that was what she wanted. Finn was the one guy who made her believe that it was all possible for her because a couple of years ago, she really didn't think it was. As Finn spoke, she could feel her heart swell with love and she knew that she was never happier in her life with anyone else. He just made her feel so loved and so appreciated and he made her feel like she was good for more than just a night in bed. Hell, they had been all over each other and all lovey-dovey right after they got together, they didn't need the sex to feel like that. That was what made her sure that Finn was different. "Well, you're also incredibly hot and very, very handsome so I think we both got pretty lucky," She said softly as she looked at him, a small smile on her lips. "If you don't want to dance or do anything crazy, we don't have to, babe. We can just sit for a while if you want. I'm cool to do anything. And if you ever get bored, I'm always down to leave. Just you know, not yet." She added at the end with a soft laugh. "It just feels really good to be here and to know that this bullshit is almost over. School. Seeing all of these people. Then we can just focus on us for a while."

Finn felt his face flush slightly when Rachel told him that he was hot and very handsome. He was pretty sure that he'd never get used to her saying those things about him. "Rach, I want to do whatever you want to do tonight. As much as I don't really feel comfortable dancing, I want tonight to be perfect so that when we look back on it one day we know we made the most of it, you know?" Finn smiled softly as he looked at Rachel before he shifted his gaze downwards when she brought up school almost being over. "It's scary that it's almost over," he said softly. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad it is. I mean, it'll be really nice not to get shoved face first into walls anymore but I just - it's scary. I'm scared to go away to Stanford and I - I just don't even want to think about being away from you, you know? I just love you so much and we're together so much I can't imagine not being with you all the time." Finn knew that they were going to make the most of every second of their summer together and while going away to school was scary, he knew they could handle it. Their relationship was strong enough to handle anything.

-

Rachel looked from the screen that was in front of her to Finn who was next to her on the couch. She was so happy to just be here with him after everything and she knew that things could have gone so differently. How they got to this point definitely wasn't smooth or perfect, but she knew that while she would change some things, she couldn't when it led her to this point. She was pregnant, engaged to the love of her life and she just knew that she didn't want to change anything. Rachel looked back at the screen for a moment and bit down on her bottom lip for a moment. She could remember this exact moment happening so many different times in their past and each and every time they were just in such different points in their lives. But here they were. Better than ever. But that was what it always felt like between them, she just really hoped that it was different this time. They had so many bumps in the road, but now she was just happy to be in a stable place. When her eyes caught sight of her engagement ring, she smiled, her thumb toying with the band before she looked back up at Finn. "Hey, Finn?" She asked softly, her turning herself more towards him slightly. She knew that things were good now, but she also knew how crazy their relationship had been. It had just been a crazy ride and she couldn't believe that they were here sometimes. Not when they both were so close to being in other positions. "I know you're going to say I'm just being stupid and crazy but I- You still really want to marry me, right?" God, she knew she was being stupid. But thinking back to how they were years ago in this exact moment absolutely terrified her. They were in such a different place now, but still, she knew that all it really took was one thing for everything to completely turn around.

Finn bit down on his lip as he focused on the TV screen while he played Fallout 4. It wasn't often that he got to really sit down and play video games between work, Rachel, wedding planning, getting ready to move and preparing for a baby but when he got the chance, he made every second count. It meant the world to him that Rachel didn't mind to sit with him while he played. It was something they had done together their whole relationship and while to some people it was stupid, to him it meant everything. When she said his name, Finn paused the game and set the controller on the coffee table before he turned to face her, offering her a small smile. "Yeah, Rach?" he asked her softly as he looked into her eyes. When she asked him if he still wanted to marry her, Finn's eyebrows furrowed in confusion for a moment. "I - what? Of course I want to marry you, Rachel," he told her. "I want to marry you more than anything. And I want this baby with you more than anything," he said softly, him shifting a bit closer to her before he brought his hand up to cup her cheek, his thumb brushing against her soft skin. "Why are you asking me that?" Finn knew that after everything that happened between them that there were a lot of people who doubted them but he figured there had always been people like that in their lives. While he knew their relationship had been crazy, it was all worth it to get to the place that they were in now and he knew that he wanted to marry her. He knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her and their little family that they would be starting in a matter of months.

Rachel knew it was a stupid question to even ask, especially since he was the one who had to ask her to marry him in the first place, so he was obviously sure, but she was still scared of him deciding something else when they got closer to having their actual wedding. "I just-" Rachel sighed as he continued to speak, her looking down for a moment before she felt him cup her cheek, her looking up into his eyes. "I don't know. I just feel like I've been doing a lot of thinking about our past and I know it's stupid because we're really different now, but I don't know. I just- it's stupid. I just- I love you so much and I really want to marry you but I know that some people just stick around to support a kid together and I know that's not you, but it just scares me." Rachel looked down and bit down on her bottom lip for a moment before moving to look up at him again. "I love you, Finn. So much. And I want to marry you so badly. But you know who I was like... so many years ago and how I never thought that I'd have a kid or get married and here I am and I just- I don't want you to... I don't know. Regret marrying me, that's all." She said, her shrugging slightly. "It was a stupid question. I don't know. I guess I'm just being hormonal and overthinking everything because that's what I've been doing the past week and I've just been crying over stupid shit all of the time, so that's probably what it is. I just can't believe that... that this is where we are in life right now."

Finn looked at Rachel sadly as she spoke. He stayed silent as she talked and he knew that he loved her more than anything. He knew there were moments in the past where he hated how much he loved her. Where he hated how he couldn't give up on her. However, he was grateful for all of those moments because it finally brought them to where they were now and he was so glad that they had never given up on each other despite all the ups and downs in their past. "First of all, I'd never marry you just to stick around for our baby. I'm marrying you because I love you and I want you to be my wife. I want to be with you for the rest of my life," he told her, him offering her a small smile. "And Rach, yeah, I do know what you were like so many years ago but you need to remember that I fell in love with you over and over again all those years ago and I never stopped. And I wasn't the best version of myself then either, you know? It's not a stupid question but I don't want you to doubt this or how much I want this, okay?" Finn looked at her with love in his eyes before he closed the space between them and pressed a kiss to her lips. "I told you this when we were seventeen and I'll tell you again now - I'm going to love you for the rest of my life. I don't care about mistakes we've made in the past or problems we've had in the past - I care about now. You are the most amazing woman I've ever known and I know you have moments where you don't always see that but I promise you, Rach, you are. I love you so, so much and I never want you to think for a second that I'd regret marrying you. I'm honored to marry you and I'll be shocked that I'm lucky enough to be your husband for the rest of my life."

Rachel nodded gently as Finn spoke, her looking down for a moment before meeting his eyes again. "I know, I just- I know that things are better now but it's been so rocky in the past. But I know that I want to marry you so badly, you know? I still can't believe that we're having a baby sometimes. I mean, I'm going to have your baby. That's so crazy. I just- I don't know. I always was afraid to be a mom but you kind of make me think I can do it. That I can be a mom and a wife and make you happy. And I know that I make you happy already and you make me happy and everything." Rachel moved to kiss him as he leaned in to kiss her, a small smile on her lips as he pulled away. "I- okay." She said softly, looking into his eyes and smiling gently. "I don't think that you'd regret marrying me. And we're going to just have a really beautiful wedding and then we're going to have an even more beautiful baby," She murmured softly before leaning forward to meet his lips again. "We're gonna be together for the rest of our lives. It's so crazy. And just... wow. We're going to be parents. You're literally making me do the two things that I said I never would. Get married and have a kid," She said with a soft laugh, her shaking her head as she looked down for a moment. God, she really still couldn't believe that she was here with him sometimes but she knew that she couldn't change anything for the world. "I already knew that you were gonna change my life and I'm so glad you did, babe. So glad. Because I couldn't imagine anything different. I can't believe that you want to marry me and that... that we're gonna have a baby."

Finn knew that his and Rachel's past was scary but he knew that they weren't going to go down that road again. They weren't going to break up again. They weren't going to lose each other. It just wasn't an option anymore, not after everything they had been through. "You can do it, Rach. You're going to be an amazing mom," he said softly. Finn knew that they were going through a lot pretty quickly. They were getting married, having a baby and having to look for a new place but it was all going to be worth it. God, he knew it would all be worth it. "We're going to have a perfect baby," he said with a smile before they shared another soft kiss. He couldn't help but laugh when she told him that he was making her do the two things that she said she never would. "I mean, it makes me pretty happy to know that I'm the person that you'd want those things with. I always wanted to get married and have a family but I guess my whole life I just never thought I'd find anyone that wanted to be with me. But... here you are. You actually want me and I'm pretty sure I'll be in shock over that for the rest of my life." It felt so good to know that they were where they were meant to be in their lives because he knew they had fought through hell and back to get to this point. "I'm glad you changed my life too. And I definitely can't imagine anything different. I just - I love you so much and I'm so excited for everything that we're going to experience together. It's all happening really fast but I - I'm so happy."

Rachel knew that they'd be a perfect family. She knew Finn would do absolutely anything for their kid and she already knew that he'd be the perfect father. He had wanted to be a dad for a long time, she knew that. However, they really weren't in a stable place to even have a child, but the couple of pregnancy scares they had proved that he would have done absolutely anything to make sure that their child had a stable environment. She didn't want their child to relive their pasts -- she just wanted them to have two loving parents. "I know we will. I know this little bean will be absolutely perfect," She said as she rested her hand against her stomach for a moment. "Of course I want a family with you. I would have given you a family years ago, but I mean, we weren't ready and I definitely wasn't in a good place. But I feel really good and... normal. And I know that now is the right time, you know? We're stable and we just have so much going for us. I'm just happy that we're able to just... support our family. I know my job isn't exactly conventional and yours definitely is insane with hours, but I know that we're going to make so much time for this baby. It'll be our lives, obviously. I'm excited. But I'm nervous." She said as she looked at him and smiled gently. "Because you're right, it is happening really fast but it's stuff we want to happen. And I know it's really stressful but it feels so good to be at this point because I feel really good and I- I feel like we're really good now and we're ready to have a baby and I just- I feel healthy and so happy and I know that we're ready for this all. I mean, we're gonna have a really nice house and a beautiful family and we're gonna have all the lame traditions and shit with our own family. I'm just... I'm so excited. And I'm really, really excited to marry you. And I'm excited for our honeymoon. Because I'm already pregnant and horny all of the time and honeymoons are basically made for nonstop sex so I mean, me being pregnant just makes that even more nonstop," She said with a soft laugh, her leaning forward to kiss him. "I wish I was kidding but I'm not."

Finn smiled softly as Rachel spoke. "Now is definitely the right time. And I'm nervous too, believe me. I've always wanted to have kids but, I mean, it's going to be a lot, you know? Our whole lives are going to change and I'm nervous but I'm also just so, so excited. I'm ready to be a dad, I know I am." Finn wasn't confident about a lot of things in his life but he was one hundred percent confident in the fact that he was going to be a good dad and he was going to take care of his family with everything he had. It made him so happy to know that Rachel wanted this too, that she felt so good about herself and about everything that was happening. He knew they had never been in such a good place before and he was so happy to finally be moving forward after such a long period of back and forth. As she started talking about them getting married and their honeymoon, he couldn't help but laugh softly. When she pressed her lips to his, he kissed her back lovingly, a smile on his face when they pulled away. "Believe me, I know you're not kidding, Rach," he said with a laugh. "I didn't think it was really possible for you to be more horny than you normally are but being pregnant definitely proved it absolutely is possible. Not that I'm complaining, of course. I'll take care of you whenever you need me. And I promise our honeymoon will be filled with plenty of nonstop sex." Finn smiled as he looked at Rachel before he pressed another kiss to her lips, him deepening it for a moment before he pulled away. "I love you so much, baby. And I know we fought like hell for each other to get to where we are now but I - god, I'd go through everything over and over again to finally be at this moment with you."

Rachel looked at Finn and laughed gently at he pulled away. "What can I say? I mean, we're already addicted to each other and I know it's just going to get worse. And I mean, if I'm this horny the entire time I'm pregnant, we can have as many kids as you want," She teased gently before smiling when he leaned in to press another kiss to her lips. "I love you, too. And I know we went through a lot to get here. I know that. I mean, I knew you were different, you know? I knew that we were going to be something really amazing and I'm just glad that we actually got to this point where we can be together and not worry about anything else. I mean, babe, I really couldn't imagine myself in this position with anyone else, and I know that you probably feel the same way." She said before she moved to lean against him more, her moving to take his hand in both of hers, a small smile on her lips. "I love that we're here. I love that we're doing all of this new stuff together because it just makes me so happy. I mean, I just can't wait to move in somewhere new and just... organize everything. I mean, I have like five friends so if I have a baby shower it'll be really small, but I mean, fuck, Finn. I can't wait to see all the little clothes and shit. It's going to be so crazy. And I know that I'm nervous deep down inside and everything and I know that I'm enjoying being pregnant right now but I know I'm going to feel like a beached whale in a few months but you're going to think I actually look good, probably." She teased, her smiling before rubbing her hand over his and intertwining their fingers.

[theshatteredrose]

The Treasure Seeker - Saga 1 (Etrian Odyssey 5 Fanfiction)

AN: This chapter turned out a little longer than expected, but I’m pleased with it nonetheless. I’m also pleased that I’ve managed to maintain my schedule. Hopefully with Christmas coming up, I’ll still be writing and posting~ Anywho, I hope you enjoy this chapter and do let me know if you like it~

Wattpad | AO3 | FFNet

Chapter 5:

The Crescentia was a hell of a lot bigger than Drayce had anticipated. There were more rooms on the first floor he didn’t know about and there appeared to be at least fifteen, yes fifteen bedrooms on the second floor.

So, yes, this place could easily bed thirty people at once. A hell of a lot more if you had to. Hell, if sleeping on the floor was an option, the seating room alone could easily sleep thirty people in futons.

This place was massive.

Why was it so big? Ah, who cares!

“This is like a prelude to the labyrinth,” Blayke complained as he followed Drayce around as he continued his inspection of the first floor. “What could possibly be on the third floor? Wait, does this place have a basement and an attic, too?”

Such good questions!

“This is so awesome,” Drayce said almost giddily. “Can you imagine the treasures that are possibly hidden in here? I bet Dad and Grandpa found a shit-tonne of stuff themselves. Oh man, I really need to catalogue this place or something.”

“After you finish the first mission,” Blayke grumpily chimed in.

“Yes yes, no need to remind me every five seconds, Blakie.”

“Stop calling me Blakie.”

“Stop being such a fusspot.”

Blayke glared at him as he huffed, though made no attempt to rebuke him. Instead he turned his attention to their next room to inspect and grasped the handle tightly. He twisted it and paused. His brow furrowed as he twisted the handle again before his uttered a noise of frustration.

“It’s locked,” he said.

Drayce shrugged as he reached into an inside pocket of his coat. “No problem. I’ll just pick the lock.”

“Do you really carry your lock-picking kit with you everywhere?” Blayke asked with a tone that was a mixture of incredulous and exasperation.

“Naturally,” Drayce replied as he pulled out a wallet size leather kit and with a flick of his wrist, opened it and pulled out a thin pin. “What’s the point of coming across a locked chest if you can’t open it?”

Blayke simply snorted in response and chose to say nothing more. Instead he leaned against the wall next to the door and folded his arms, waiting to watch Drayce go to work. Drayce didn’t find that at all unusual. Despite his grumpiness, he did find the thought of treasure hunting interesting.

Drayce will get him as obsessed with the idea one day.

Crouching down, Drayce balanced the lock picking kit on his knee as he inspected the lock before him. He could see clear through to the other side, indicating that there wasn’t anything jamming it nor was there a key in the other side. Now all he needed to do was to figure how to best move the tumblers to open the door.

Should only take a few seconds.

With a bit of twisting and pulling, poking and prodding, Drayce finally heard that satisfying ‘click’ of the tumblers falling into place and the door creaking.

“See? Piece of cake,” Drayce said in triumph as he quickly put away his lock-picking tools and placed them into the pocket of his jacket. With them hidden safely where they belong, he pushed himself to his feet and pushed the door open further to allow for him and Blayke to enter the room.

The room was dark as there appeared to be thick curtains covering the windows. There was also a light musty smell, probably due from being locked up and unused for so long.

And as Drayce looked around the room, he soon realised what it was used for. The bed in the corner, the strange mechanical equipment, the shelves of bottles. Despite it being locked up for a few years at least, there was still a distinct disinfectant smell in the air.

It was a clinic.

Yeah, an actual clinic.

He couldn’t help but wonder why such an important room was locked up.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting this,” Drayce said as walked over to a cabinet and looked through the glass where rows of marked medica bottles could be seen. “Though having a clinic like room at the guildhouse would make sense.”

“Only if you know how to use it,” Blayke added. “I wonder how old these bottles are, though. And if they’re safe to use.”

“Yeah, good point,” Drayce said as he reasoned with himself not to touch anything.

Yeah, not wanting to physically lay his hands on something was difficult for someone like him, but honestly, he really didn’t want to mess around with any of this medical stuff. He may not know much about the medicine and disinfectant chemicals, but better safe than sorry.

“I wonder if I could get Fiorello to check this place out later,” Drayce mused. “If these are dangerous to our health, a professional like him would be better equipped to deal with it, right?”

“Why don’t you ask him to join the guild?” Blayke unexpectedly asked him.

“Nah,” Drayce replied as he moved away from the cabinet and carefully made his way out of the room so not to disturb anything. “He has a sore spot in regards to explorers. Understandable from what I’ve learned. I mean, if he wants to join, that’s his choice, but I’m not going to force him.”

Blayke followed him out and closed the door behind him. “Ok, so the first floor has a seating area, a dining room, a kitchen, a clinic, and two other seemingly empty, miscellaneous rooms. And the second floor appears to be the sleeping quarters with three bathrooms. What is left that would be on the third floor?”

Drayce held his chin in thought. “Knowing Grandpa, there’s possibly a library, drawing room, treasure room, weapon storage room, and a something akin to a games room for just hanging out. Oh, and probably a bar because he did like the occasional drink.”

Blayke stared at him for a moment before he made an exasperated expression and ran his hand over his face. “This is ridiculous,” he said. “This guildhouse is massive. It has all the facilities that our entire village back home did! What are we going to do with all this space?”

Now, Blayke was exaggerating a little. The guildhouse wasn’t as big as their village. Maybe half the size? From what he had seen so far at least.

Drayce shrugged carelessly. “To be fair, the third floor and possible attic is probably filled with useless trinkets and doodads.”

That, for some reason, didn’t thrill Blayke all that much. “Brilliant,” he muttered under his breath.

“Don’t worry too much about it,” Drayce said as he slapped Blayke on the back in an effort to knock him out of his grumpy mood. “Once we start bringing in guildmates, we’ll be happy to have all this space. At least we won’t get in each other’s way.”

“We could lose guildmates in here! Disappear to be never seen again!”

Drayce laughed. “Come on, it’s not that bad. Better than being lost to the labyrinth, yeah?”

Now, what should he do next?

As interested as he was to explore the third floor and all the mysterious rooms, he wanted to check in on Fiorello to see if their unnamed patient had awakened at all. He was pretty sure he had improved somewhat, enough not to cause any alarm, but hopefully he would awaken soon.

“Hey, I’m just going to check in on Fiorello and the kid,” Drayce said as he made his way over to the stairs. “If you find anything else interesting, let me know.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Blayke responded idly as he shooed him away.

With a nod of acknowledge, Drayce turned on his heel and headed upstairs. As he climbed the stairs, he found his thoughts unwittingly drifting to that chance encounter in the street that led him to Fiorello’s door.

Zohar, the necromancer, had been a peculiar man, but nice and harmless all the same. He wondered if he lived with Fiorello and if they were friends or merely acquaintances. Fiorello obviously wasn’t a part of a guild, so could he assume the same of Zohar? If not, why not?

He definitely piqued his curiosity.

As he reached the top step Drayce pulled himself out of his thoughts and quickly made his way to the closest room, the one with the door slightly ajar. He knocked on it once lightly before he pushed it open and stepped into the room.

Fiorello was sat in a chair at the foot of the bed, seemingly reading to pass the time while the white wolf that was the loyal companion to the unnamed Therian sat by his bed, his head resting on the bed near the young man’s arm. The wolf barely acknowledged Drayce’s presence while Fiorello lifted his head to look at him.

“Hey, just checking up on the patient,” Drayce said as he moved further into the room to pause near the bed.

He took a moment to study the young patient and noted with relief that he didn’t appear as red or sweaty as previous. Whatever medicine Fiorello had concocted for him seemed to have worked wonders. His breathing even seemed easier.

Good.

“He should actually be waking up soon,” Fiorello said as he closed his book. “He responded quickly to the medicine. However the dehydration and malnutrition can’t be as cured as easily.”

Drayce had figured as much.

“Um, hey?” Drayce said as he turned his full attention to Fiorello. “Do you mind if I ask you a question about Zohar? He seems protective of you.”

Fiorello rolled his eyes as he set his book aside. Although that action is usually accompanied by an expression of exasperation, he had a look of fondness on his face. “He feels that he owes me.”

Drayce blinked. “Owe?”

“A situation similar to this, honestly,” Fiorello replied as he leaned back into his chair. “I found him on the outskirts of town, sick injured and barely alive. I managed to talk a guard into dragging him to my place. He had…quite a few injuries. Honestly, I wasn’t sure he would make it. To say he was in bad shape would be an understatement.”

Drayce didn’t know how to respond to that. The knot of sympathy and surprising worry in his stomach made it difficult to think of anything worthwhile in response. All those scars he saw…were they the result of his near death? They were so…bad. Deep. He…

“He had a strong will,” Fiorello continued as a wry smile appeared on his lips. “He was alone so and no one came for him, so I was kinda stuck with him.”

…No one came for him? That was…unfair. So unfair.

“I…I see,” Drayce muttered. “To be honest, I don’t know what to say. I had no idea. But…he’s all right now, right?”

Fiorello gave him a peculiar look. “As all right as a necromancer can be.”

Before Drayce could ask him what he meant by that a soft groan of disorientation and discomfort was heard from the direction of the bed. Immediately Drayce snapped his attention in their patient’s direction, noting that the wolf, too, had sat up straight, full attention to the one lying on the bed.

Drayce made his way closer to the bed, but not too close so that he would appear intimidating or menacing in anyway. He waited patiently, but quietly as the purple and blue haired Therian slowly pulled himself out of his post sleep haze.

He rolled his head to the side and furrowed his brow. “Nashoba,” he croaked out as he lifted his hand toward the softly whimpering wolf. “Where-?”

His eyes then suddenly widened upon realising that he was in a room and bed he obviously didn’t recognised. Despite it being bad for his health, he sat up straight and with wide, panicking eyes looked around the room.

“Hey, stop moving,” Fiorello said in a scolding tone. “You’re going to make yourself faint again.”

The kid abruptly stopped moving, only snapping his head in Fiorello’s direction. His mouth dropped open in surprise and he seemed unable to form any words. Drayce immediately took pity on him and was about to explain to him what had happened and that he was safe, but was cut off by Fiorello.

“When was the last time you ate or drank?” Fiorello asked him in a manner that was honestly close to that of a parent figure; scolding with subtle concern. “How about the last time you slept comfortably? How you could let yourself get this sick is beyond me.”

The kid snapped his mouth shut and seemed to shrink back into the pillows of the bed, his ears folding back meekly. Fiorello, however, wasn’t finished.

“You’re lucky that this guy was the one to find you,” Fiorello said as he smacked Drayce’s leg with the back of his hand, never taking his gaze off of the young rover. “You owe him one hell of a thanks, kiddo. Anyone else would have dumped you at the inn and to that scatterbrained inn-keeper, no offense to her family. If they bothered with you at all.”

Ok, the kid looked really meek. The poor thing. Really, Drayce felt sorry for him. He also made the mental note not to piss off the dedicated botanist. At all.

“Honestly, you need a minder,” Fiorello finished with a huff as he folded his arms across his chest. “Kids these days.”

The kid flushed deeply, and it wasn’t from the fever. “S-sorry…”

Drayce gave him a hopefully reassuring smile. “Really, it’s fine. You haven’t been a bother. My guildhouse has plenty of room. What’s your name? My name is Drayce and the dedicated healer here is Fiorello.”

“I, ah, m-my name is Faelen,” he replied as he pinched the hem of the bedsheet between his finger and thumb in a fidgeting manner as he indicated to the white wolf with his other hand. “And this is Nashoba.”

“Well, Faelen,” Drayce said as he moved closer and sat himself down onto a chair that was close to the bed. “Despite the circumstances, it’s nice to meet you. Your wolf companion hasn’t left your side for even a second.”

Faelen nodded his head as he reached out with a hand and idly ran his fingers through white wolf’s fur. “Nashoba is normally very protective of me,” he said as he turned his gaze to Drayce to look at him curiously. “I’m…a little surprised that he let you get close.”

Drayce gave him a light shrug. “Nashoba must have known that I meant no harm. Which was lucky for me because, honestly, even if he didn’t like, I couldn’t have left you there.”

With one hand still stroking Nashoba’s coat, Faelen lifted his other hand to touch his forehead and he furrowed his brow in thought. “I fainted?”

“Right in front of me,” Drayce replied.

“I don’t remember,” Faelen muttered, to which earned him a scoff from Fiorello.

“You never do, do you?”

“I’m really sorry,” Faelen said as he dropped his hand from his forehead and turned to look at Drayce, his cheeks flushed and his lips twisted into a cute but apologetic pout. “I didn’t mean to cause you so much trouble. I’m even taking up room. I’m sorry.”

Drayce held up his hand, somewhat concerned by how apologetic the young rover truly seemed to be. He wasn’t just apologizing for causing trouble (which, honestly, he wasn’t) but because he saw himself as a burden. Drayce wasn’t entirely sure if his assumption was right, but it felt right to him.

“Easy now,” he said. “As I said, it’s fine. My guildhouse has plenty of room. I mean, plenty of room.”

From what he had seen so far and with still so much left to explore of his own guildhouse, to say he had plenty of room was really an understatement.

“But you don’t know me,” Faelen murmured with an innocently confused expression.

Drayce had to bite back a sigh. He wasn’t going to go into that again. “Where I come from, helping others is completely normal. I may be new to Iorys, but I’m not going to stop being reasonable.”

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeesh. Was helping others without reward or gain really that much of a confusion and troubling concept to understand?

Faelen seemed to perk up a little for some reason. “You’re new here, too?” he asked with a slight sense of excitement in his voice. “So are we. We’ve been here a few days, but…”

Faelen then suddenly looked downcast and he dropped his gaze to his hand on his lap. Immediately, Drayce felt a sense of concern bubble in his chest.

“Did something happen?” he asked as he furrowed his brow.

“No one wanted to take us into their guilds,” Faelen replied with a defeated sigh as his ears drooped slightly. “They wouldn’t say why, just no. They wouldn’t even give us a chance.”

Drayce really couldn’t understand why.

“How old are you, kiddo?” Fiorello suddenly asked.

“I’m fifteen,” Faelen answered.

Fiorello hummed as he held his chin in thought. “Hm, young, but I’ve seen younger. Maybe these guilds you approached were simply assholes? There’s honestly a few of them around.”

Surprisingly, Drayce felt a surge of protectiveness. The reason why they didn’t take Faelen into their guilds there and then was probably because he wasn’t what they were looking for at that very moment. Or their previous rover teammate hadn’t panned out the way they wanted, so wanted another more ‘useful’ class or something.

Of course he could wrong, but that was just the gut feeling he got. And his dad always told him to trust his gut.

“Faelen,” Drayce said as he gained the young rover’s attention. “I want you to join my guild.”

Faelen’s ears perked up straight and he all but whirled around to face Drayce. His mouth dropped open ever so slightly as he stared at him, speechless. After a second or so he managed to gather himself and an expression of genuine relief mixed with cautiousness appeared on his face.

“Really?” he asked.

“You need to enter the labyrinth, right?” Drayce returned. “Whatever the reason, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want, but you do need to enter otherwise you wouldn’t have been neglecting your health by trying to enter another guild.”

Faelen looked unjustifiably guilty. “Well, yeah…”

“So do I,” Drayce continued. “I only moved here yesterday and I haven’t had the chance to register with the guildmaster yet, but I will. I need to enter the labyrinth for special reasons, too.”

Drayce paused for a moment as he thought back to the reasons why he needed to enter. Surely the two before him could be trusted with that information. Especially if he wanted one of them to enter his guild as his guildmate. He honestly wanted Fiorello to become a member to because he would feel more at ease having a talented and dedicated healer on his side.

He could also see that both Fiorello and Faelen looked intrigued. So it should be ok. Blayke might bitch at him later, but he was just protective.

“I come from a long line of treasure hunters,” Drayce said as he waved a hand idly at their surroundings. “This place is known as the Crescentia, a guildhouse that has belonged in my family for generations. My grandfather gave me the deed a little while ago before launching himself into another adventure.”

Drayce paused for a moment to think about his wild and eccentric but still loving grandfather. He hoped that he was out having the adventure of his life. And was staying out of trouble.

Nah, knowing him, he was getting into all sorts of mischief. Well, that was fine, as long as he came to visit and to tell him everything that he had seen and experienced.

Drayce shook his head slightly to focus himself. “This place isn’t the reason why I’m here, though. I was summoned here by Prince Ramus himself for a special purpose.”

Faelen uttered a soft gasp of surprise while Fiorello made a slight hum of intrigue. “Prince Ramus, you say? Well, you must be here for an important purpose indeed.”

“He wishes for me to find information or the locations on the Lost Treasures of the Legendary War,” Drayce answered with a grin. “Of course, I will need to successfully complete the first mission that the Council Hall issues to all new explorers, hence the reason why I need some trusted guildmates to help me. Soooo, how about it?”

“I’ll help!” Faelen eagerly answered.

Drayce’s smile grew a little bigger and he leaned forward to ruffle Faelen’s hair between his ears, earning himself a tiny embarrassed squeak from him. Let he didn’t pull away and he didn’t seem to detest the display in anyway.

“Glad to hear it,” Drayce said. “Welcome to Guild Angelward then, Faelen. We just need a couple more members before we can enter the labyrinth, so take this time to get rid of your fever, ok?”

A precious smile appeared on Faelen’s lips and he looked both happy and intensely relieved. Honestly, seeing that expression made Drayce glad that he had agreed to join his guild and he hadn’t been taking in by someone else. Those guilds that turned him down didn’t deserve him.

“Well, I’ve made up my mind,” Fiorello suddenly stated, seemingly making up his mind about an important decision. “Guild Angelward, was it? Well, that’s a worthy guild for me, too.”

Drayce removed his hand from Faelen’s hair to look at the botanist with an expression of surprise on his face. “You want to join?”

Fiorello folded his arms across his chest and gave Drayce a truly cheeky smile. “After all this talk about treasure and royal missions, you won’t be able to get rid of me.”

Honestly, that was a relief! He just needed to find one more willing explorer to join and he would have a recommended party of five. But…

“What about Zohar?”

“Hmm,” Fiorello made a sound that was similar to that of a chuckle. “He tends to do his own thing. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to know I agreed to join a guild, even though the hypocrite refuses to join one himself.”

That…was a little disappointing. Would he really be ok with Fiorello joining? Maybe Drayce could talk him into joining as well, so that he…wouldn’t be alone. No one should be alone like that.

“Well, I’m glad you chose to join,” Drayce smiled brightly. “Now I can confidently tell you about the clinic we have here without feeling like I’m trying to bribe you into joining.”

Fiorello arched an eyebrow at him. “You have a private clinic? How big is this place?”

“Not a clue! But I’m going to have fun finding out!”

[drink-n-watch]

  Genre: Comedy, Slice of Life, Surrealism, Romane, Fish

Episodes: 13

Studio: Shaft

  When we last left Arakawa and its assortment of wacky residents, it was a silly place that was at times warm and welcoming and at times slightly pointless. So much has changed since then. Now… There’s an Amazon that visits occasionally. Arakawa has long been a refuge for those that don’t quite belong in society. A place where even the overachieving Kou could loosen his tie and relax. People like to pretend that we can force some order on the world but what about those that don’t fit the boxes? They gather in magical places like Arakawa and prepare to go to Venus. Dreamers, artists and gardeners alike come together to make the world just a little less ordered and dreamy.

I had seen the first season of this anime some time ago and remembered it as one of the few romantic series I didn’t mind. When I rewatched it more recently and I found that it was also creative and silly in that distinctive Shaft style. I also discovered that there was a second season and I was surprisingly thrilled. Now, I’ve watched that second season!

let me tell you about it

I don’t actually know how much time passed between the production of season 1 and season 2 of Arakawa under the Bridge. As far as the technical aspects are concerned, you could tell me they were concurrently produced and I wouldn’t be surprised at all. They look and sound pretty much the same. Bridge x Bridge might be slightly more animated on average but that’s about it.

The only clear improvement in the production is the OPs. I love this thing. From the lushly coloured visuals drawn in a style that never appears at all in the series, to the cutesy, bubbly song and the extremely distinctive and perfectly chosen singer, these are some of the funnest OP s I’ve seen in a while. And of course I’ll share the main one with you:

  If the animation hasn’t changed much between seasons, the delivery sure has. I’m exaggerating, it’s really not that flagrant. There’s a bit of a tightening in the writing. Wow that sentence made no sense! What I mean is that the first season was all over the place. It had a loose, experimental feel, blending all kinds of visual styles with disparate types of humor and seemingly random and absurd storylines. Characters acted in non sequitur ways and consistency was achieved through comical repetitiveness rather than logical follow-through.

The second season cleans that up a little. There are running gags that evolve rather than simply repeat and actual mini arcs that take multiple episodes to conclude. The humour has become much more referential (a staple of comedic anime). All together it feels as though the season was more thought out with a better defined sense of narrative direction.

where is this going….

However, it also felt, for lack of a better word, less fun. At least to me. It’s a bit like it traded in some of that carefree attitude for a more polished and professional approach. That’s not a bad thing in and of itself mind you. There are some fantastic moments in season two. And depending on your personal sense of humor you might even prefer this approach.

Another thing the second season did, is pull the focus away from Nino and Kou a bit to explore more thoroughly the supporting characters making this more of an ensemble piece than before.  There are a lot of weirdos in Arakawa and they would probably need at least one more season to develop them properly. I did enjoy this start though. Particularly the ongoing saga of Jacqueline and Billy who consistently made me laugh.

I’m still not sure what’s written there

You know, there’s not that much for me to say about a show like Arakawa Under the Bridge x Bridge. It’s a silly little absurdist slice of life with some interesting stylistic touches and some very light romantic elements. If that sounds like your jam, you should give it a shot. Let me put it this way, if you enjoyed the first season but thought it was just a little too random for your tastes, you might like this second season better. If you didn’t like the first season, then stay away. There are some tweaks in tone and approach but it’s still very much the same show.

For me it’s one of those grower series. Shows I seem to enjoy more in hindsight than in the moment. This said, I believe Arakawa Under the Bridge x Bridge is the type of series that greatly benefits from you being in the right “mood”. It can get boring or even a bit grating if you’re not up for a nonsense comedy with over the top characters.

So what’s the verdict? It’s a well made show with specific humour. If you haven’t seen any of it before, give an episode or two a try. Whatever else it may be, it’s unusual enough to offer an experience not easily reproduced and that’s always valuable.

you’ve earned it!

Favorite character: Sister and Maria, as a couple!

What this anime taught me: eventually, it’s time to go back to Venus

Now if you’ll excuse me, tonight’s bad decision isn’t going to make itself

Suggested drink: Sex on the Bridge

Every time we learn of Birds and Bees – Raise your glass

Every time we hear the narrator – take a sip

Every time Nino sleepwalks – take a sip

Every time we see the inside of someone’s “home” – take a sip

Every time the chief dispenses “sage” advice – take a gulp

Every time we see a fish – get a snack

Every time P-ko gets lost in romance – take a sip

Every time anyone says Venus or Venusian – take a sip

Every time Sister’s scar opens – take a sip

Every time Nino cries – oh no!

Every time Rec makes a weird facial expression – take a sip

Every time Hoshi tries to steal Nino away – take a sip

Every time anyone gets “moefied” – take a sip

Every time Billy is just too cool – cheer!

this seems like a good place to leave things

I ended up with a surprising amount of great pics. I’m going to add a few and you can see the rest here

Arakawa Under the Bridge x Bridge – No Place Like Home Genre: Comedy, Slice of Life, Surrealism, Romane, Fish Episodes: 13 Studio: Shaft When we last left Arakawa and its assortment of wacky residents, it was a silly place that was at times warm and welcoming and at times slightly pointless.

[superhusbands-superfan]

The Proposal that Wasn’t (and the one that was)

Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark | Words: ~6k | Rating: T

Additional Tags: Past Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Marriage Proposal, Established Relationship, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark Friendship, Avengers Family, Avengers Tower, Inspired by Friends (TV), Tony's robot children

Summary: Steve has A Plan to propose, and it's going to be the perfect, romantic surprise Tony deserves. Things are going exactly according to schedule... until they bump into Tony's ex-girlfriend, Pepper Potts. 

Things go a bit off-book from there. 

Or the Stony adaptation of Chandler and Monica's proposal story — because who doesn't love throwing Friends at the Avengers?

Read it on Ao3.

The Proposal that Wasn’t (and the one that was)

“It’s really great, Steve,” Natasha said, smiling down at the ring and then glancing at Steve. “Tony’s going to love it.”

“Really? You think so?”

Nat stood on her tiptoes to kiss Steve’s cheek and then squeezed his shoulder affectionately.

“I know so,” Nat said with a sharp, definitive nod. “When are you going to ask him?”

“I’m thinking tonight at the benefit I’ll convince him to sneak off with me for a minute alone. The event’s at the same place where we had our first kiss, so I know there’s a private balcony Tony can get us access to. And it shouldn’t be too hard to get him to agree for nostalgia’s sake.” Steve smiled at the memory and then grimaced a little when he realized he was definitely wearing his dopey, lovestruck smile. “Is that horribly cheesy?”

Nat shrugged with one shoulder. “Maybe a tiny bit,” she admitted, smirking. “For me? Absolutely. For Tony? It’s exactly the kind of cheesy romance Tony not-so-subtly lives for. It’s why you’re so perfect together.”

Steve smiled. “You think he’ll say yes?”

“I’d bet my life on it.”

Coming from Natasha, that was all but a guarantee.

-

They were on the dance floor when Steve finally worked up the courage to suggest they slip off to somewhere more private. Steve was sure Tony would take the suggestion to be sexual in nature, but he could work with that. And hey, if there ended up being a post-proposal sexual encounter, well… it wasn’t like Steve was going to have a problem with that.

Hell, it wouldn’t be the first time they… repurposed, for lack of a better word, these dragged-out black-tie events for something more exciting.

That said, it was also almost eleven fifteen. That was a perfectly respectable time to call it a night if they wanted to head home.

“Is it horrible that I’ve completely forgotten what this event is for?” Tony asked, his voice pitched low and his mouth near Steve’s ear as they continued to dance in small circles to the rhythm of the classical music being played.

Steve laughed a little and shook his head. “No, that’s what you have me for. We’ve made a sizable donation to the charity in the spotlight this evening. So there’s nothing to worry about.”

“My hero,” Tony said, meeting Steve’s gaze with a soft, flirty smile and love in his eyes.

This was the right moment, the right night. Steve could feel it.

Steve cut their dance short and grabbed Tony’s hand in his to pull him away from the dance floor and toward a quiet corner. “What would you say if I suggested — ”

“Tony?” a voice called from somewhere over Tony’s shoulder.

Seconds later, the one and only Pepper Potts emerged, smiling and looking as flawless as ever in a brilliant green dress that complemented but didn’t clash with her red hair, which fell down her back tonight in loose curls. The dress had lace on top and across the off-the-shoulder cap sleeves, but the skirt was simple silk and fell elegantly to where it almost brushed the floor.

Tony turned to greet her with a bit of tension in his shoulders, but no hint of annoyance or genuine discomfort. At least, not anything that Steve could detect — and after more than a year of dating, Steve considered himself fairly adept at reading Tony.

“Pepper?” It was almost more statement and greeting than question, but not quite.

“I thought that was you two,” she said, smiling at Steve as she moved to hug Tony hello. Tony reciprocated easily and then stepped away.

“What are you doing here?” Tony asked after Pepper had also given Steve a quick hug.

It was a fair enough question, Steve thought. They generally divided and conquered at these sorts of things. Pepper would attend some in her capacity as CEO and Tony and Steve would attend others as the still-incredibly-public faces of Stark Industries and the Avengers. Usually, they divided the events by location. Pepper was living in L.A. so she took the west half of the country, and Tony and Steve covered the East coast. International events were a toss-up and were typically decided based on availability and proximity to wherever the Avengers last averted world-ending disasters.

In short, it was rare that the three of them ended up at an event together.

It wasn’t that they avoided each other, really — the three of them got along just fine — but the media tended to make Steve and Pepper’s every interaction out to be part of a jilted lover saga and none of them needed or wanted that sort of press. When they spent time together, it was generally in the safety of their respective homes.

“To keep a long story short, the host of the evening is a close friend from college. She specifically asked me to show up tonight and I had a last-minute cancellation that made it possible for me to fly out.”

“And here you are,” Tony said easily. “Looking stunning, as always.”

Steve wasn’t going to be jealous about that, he decided resolutely. Tony had told countless people how great they looked tonight; it was practically protocol at these events, like chatting about the weather and complaining about uncomfortable footwear.

Besides, Steve’s evening had started with Tony describing in detail the things he wanted to do to Steve when he saw him in his tux.

“Thank you, Tony,” Pepper said, a faint pink blush on her cheeks. “You’re sweet. And you both look great as well.”

It was kind of her to say, but her eyes were on Tony the entire time. Steve couldn’t exactly blame her — it’s where his eyes had been all night, too — but he wasn’t necessarily thrilled about what a look like that might mean. He was probably reading into it far too much.

“Thanks, Pep,” Tony said. “How’ve you been lately? I’ve received surprisingly few phone calls berating me for missing one thing or another, I was starting to worry.”

Steve caught just the slightest hint of an embarrassed flush across Pepper’s cheeks.

“Yes, well you’ve been surprisingly mindful of your commitments and almost startlingly punctual recently, so there hasn’t been much of a need for my nagging,” Pepper said, voice full of good-natured humor. “I suppose that’s your doing, Steve?”

“Me?” Steve asked, incredulous. “I doubt it. I certainly can’t get him to do anything he doesn’t want to.”

“I guess your responsibility is just rubbing off on me, then,” Tony teased, grinning up at Steve.

Steve smiled back at him, but he glanced at Pepper in time to catch a look of hurt flash across her features. It was gone before Tony would notice, Steve noted, but it had definitely been there.

Now Steve was getting a little worried.

He knew plenty about Tony and Pepper’s failed relationship and enduring friendship. He appreciated Pepper’s place in Tony’s life even if he didn’t always understand it, exactly. They’d split on amicable, if awkward terms.

According to Tony, he’d ‘always been more interested in talking about future plans’ than Pepper had been, and he’d always been certain that he wanted to keep the option of having a family on the table. Tony had also emphasized that his being Iron Man had been a major part of why their relationship broke down.

Tony had been heartbroken and hurt, but he’d healed. He and Pepper were still friends and colleagues. Tony had found Steve. He’d fallen in love with Steve just as much as Steve had fallen in love with Tony. Things were good between them.

They were good, Steve knew that. He did. He and Tony had talked about what they wanted in their lives many times. Lately, they talked about their future as a definite, shared entity. It was why Steve wanted to propose.

So why the hell couldn’t he shut down the voice in the back of his head whispering that maybe, just maybe, he’d become an easily-forgotten ex if Pepper happened to have decided that she wanted the same things as Tony?

It was ridiculous. Steve knew Tony would never do that.

“How fortunate,” Pepper said, drawing Steve out of his spiraling thoughts with her easy teasing. “Have you two enjoyed the evening?”

Steve nodded agreeably, but for the most part, he let Tony field the question. He distantly heard Tony praising the food and decor, but his focus had drifted to the ring tucked into his jacket pocket that now seemed unnecessary.

The moment had slipped away. It was more than a little disappointing, but it couldn’t be helped. Steve wasn’t about to cut the evening short now that Tony had a chance to catch up with Pepper, especially considering the wide, genuine smile he was wearing.

Steve could be a good sport about it. Pepper had no idea she’d interrupted an almost-moment, after all, and Tony didn’t have a clue that this night was meant to be anything more than another dull black-tie affair.

“Steve?” Tony sounded worried. Steve snapped to attention, eyes on Tony’s face even as he relaxed and forced a smile. “You okay?”

“Yes, sorry I got a little lost in my head,” Steve said, happy he was at least telling the truth on that front. “I’m a little warm, actually. I might step out and get some air, if you’ll both excuse me.” Also true, and not a half-bad excuse; Steve was always hot and regularly ducked out of stuffy places full of people for a breath of fresh air.

Tony knew that, but he still narrowed his eyes at Steve skeptically, clearly not buying it. Before he could say anything though, Pepper cut in.

“I bet we could squeeze in a quick dance before the band packs up for the night,” she suggested with a friendly smile. “If you wanted, Tony?”

“Oh uh, sure,” Tony nodded, still looking at Steve for signs of distress.

“Great idea,” Steve said, firmly ignoring that a part of him he didn’t want to examine too closely that thought that was absolutely the opposite of what might reasonably be considered a great idea.

He managed a quick smile and then made a break for the nearest balcony. When he made it outside, he pulled out his phone and navigated to the secret group chat he’d requested JARVIS keep carefully hidden whenever Tony was in the room.

He had 27 unread messages from their friends, a pointless engagement ring in his pocket, and what felt like a massive headache forming.

SGR: Proposal’s on hold for now. Will explain later.

His phone rang approximately thirty seconds later.

“Hey,” Steve said, finally letting his disappointment and general frustration seep into his voice.

“Hey man,” Sam said, sounding sympathetic already without even know what happened. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing bad, really. Honest. We just ran into Pepper and — ”

“Tony’s ex, Pepper?”

“How many Peppers do you know?”

Sam snorted a little. “Good point. Why’s that getting in the way of your proposal though?”

Steve shrugged even though he knew Sam couldn’t see him. “I can’t explain it really, but there was a moment — the moment — but then we were interrupted and now…” Steve glanced behind him through the floor-to-ceiling windows and spotted them on the dance floor, easily picking out Pepper’s green evening gown. “Well, now he’s dancing with Pepper.”

“What?!”

“No, nothing like what you’re thinking. It’s just friendly. But it’s…” Steve didn’t really know what else to say.

“Yeah,” Sam said after a minute. He was using that unfairly sympathetic tone he used sometimes that always managed to convince anyone who heard it that he fully understood whatever you were going through, no matter how bizarrely specific of a situation it happened to be. “I’m sorry. That sucks.”

Steve sighed. “A little bit, but I’ll survive. Just didn’t want to keep you all waiting on big news that wasn’t coming.”

“What a shame, we’ll have to hide all the champagne for a little while longer.”

Steve’s mouth twitched up in a smile.

“Hopefully not much longer, though,” Sam said. It was a nudge if Steve had ever heard one.

“Definitely not.”

“Okay, good. We’ll see you tomorrow then. We’re all going to bed now.”

Steve laughed. Eleven thirty at night and half the team was going to bed, Steve was mourning his failed proposal, and Tony was dancing with his ex-girlfriend. “We’re getting too old for this shit.”

“Honestly,” Sam said. “Goodnight, Steve.”

“Night, Sam.”

-

Steve should have known things wouldn’t quite be that simple. They made it back to the Tower without trouble, Tony regaling Steve the whole time with a story Pepper had told him — Steve was trying hard not to be bitter about that because it wasn’t Pepper’s fault, damn it — about a recent SI investor who’d turned out to be horribly sexist, and whom Pepper had swiftly and humorously dealt with.

Unfortunately, when the doors of the elevator opened to the communal Avengers floor, Clint was sitting cross-legged on the floor, his crossbow entirely deconstructed in front of him.

It was close to two in the morning — Pepper and Tony had talked for a while — and based on all available intel, Steve realized a few things at once.

One, Clint only ever took apart his bow when he wanted to deep-clean and polish it and he only ever wanted to do that after he’d spent hours using it on a mission or at the Tower range. Two, Clint never used or checked his phone when he was shooting — the whole point of range practice was to get out of his own head and his phone had the exact opposite effect. Steve understood that, but just today, he also resented it. Because it meant Steve was about ninety percent sure Clint hadn’t heard the news that he’d called off his Propose to Tony mission.

The way Clint perked up as they shuffled out of the elevator only served to prove Steve’s theory.

“Hey lovebirds,” Clint said, looking at Tony. “What did you think of the — ?”

“The benefit was great,” Steve said quickly, his voice too loud and rushed to be considered casual.

“Right,” Clint said, his forehead creased in confusion as he stared at Steve. “But you were going to ask Tony to — ”

“I was,” Steve said, cutting Clint off sharply in a tone of voice he typically reserved for missions. “But I haven’t gotten to it quite yet.”

“Uh,” Tony looked from Clint — who suddenly found his scattered bow parts utterly fascinating and all-consuming of his attention — to Steve. “What’s going on?”

Steve squeezed the bridge of his nose and prayed for a miracle.

“Nothing, sweetheart,” Steve said, trying to infuse his voice with the natural softness that typically came to him whenever he addressed Tony. It was more difficult than it should be, but then he had been dealt a few more disappointments today than usual. “Just a little miscommunication, that’s all.”

“Sure… but about what?”

“Nothing you need to worry about, especially this late,” Steve said, placing his hand at the small of Tony’s back and trying to guide him gently toward their room. “I’ll explain in the morning.”

This was a problem for future-Steve, he decided. The headache he’d felt coming on earlier had arrived in full-force and Steve was just… well, sad. Sleep sounded good.

Tony went with him to their room, calling “Night, Clint!” over his shoulder for the both of them, but he was watching Steve wearily the whole time. It continued even as they silently got ready for bed and when they crawled under the covers together, curled into one another, same as always.

Steve knew he was being unreasonably unfair to Tony, who had absolutely no idea what had caused Steve’s sudden 180-degree mood swing, but he also couldn’t fully reign in his emotions.

“I love you,” Tony said. He sounded so… tentative. Like he wasn’t sure how his words would be received and that was just entirely unacceptable, no matter how Steve felt about the direction the evening had gone.

“I love you too, Tony,” Steve said, trying to infuse as much certainty and love into the words as he could. He pulled Tony close so his spine was pressed tight to Steve’s chest. Tony relaxed almost immediately and Steve cursed himself for being stupid enough to allow Tony to doubt anything about their relationship, even for a second. “Very, very much.”

Tony sighed pleasantly and mumbled, “G’night, Steve.”

“Night, Tony,” Steve whispered. “Sweet dreams.”

-

In the morning, Steve’s head was clearer, but Tony’s questions were also more pointed.

“So…” he said, broaching the subject before they’d even gotten out of bed. “Do you want to tell me what Clint was talking about last night?”

“Hm?” Steve asked, pretending to be absorbed in something on his phone that he actually couldn’t care less about.

“He said you were going to ask me something,” Tony said, his voice a little bit sharper now in an effort to command Steve’s full attention. It worked. Steve put his phone on the nightstand. “And you uh. Well, you freaked a little. So?”

Yeah, Steve should have spent less time sleeping and more time working out his cover story for that nightmare of an interaction. Hindsight.

“I told you, it’s really nothing — ”

“Steve.”

“Alright, fine,” Steve sighed. He scrambled for a minute, remembered Natasha’s advice that the best lies were always grounded in a little bit of the truth, and decided to run with his first instinct no matter how stupid it may be. “I’d been planning to talk to you last night. To um, well, I guess I just wanted to ask you… how do you feel about marriage?”

Tony’s eyes widened and there were too many emotions in them for Steve to attempt to decode first thing in the morning, even if it was already ten.

“How I feel about marriage as in…?” Tony made a vague gesture between the two of them.

“No, no, nothing that serious,” Steve shook his head quickly, hoping that he was doing a good impression of someone who definitely hadn’t dreamed about calling Tony his fiancée on numerous and increasingly sappy occasions. “Marriage as an institution. The concept of it.”

Tony’s expression slipped from cautiously surprised and maybe pleased to suspicious in an instant.

“And you talked to Clint about this conversation you wanted to have?”

Yeah, that was a glaring flaw in his plan. He confided in each of his teammates in different ways, but no one ever really consulted Clint for relationship advice. Steve snorted.

“It came up in a way that would be very difficult to try to explain, but yes,” Steve said. He was aiming for it to sound like an awkward admission, and he thought he was at least close. “Against my better judgment,” he added for good measure.

“Right…” Tony sighed. “Well. I feel like I’m at a bit of a disadvantage here, if I’m honest. Lobbing a question at me about the institution of marriage without any idea how you feel about it all?”

It was a probing question if Steve had ever heard one, but he decided not to answer.

“But all right, fine,” Tony said finally. “I guess… I’m generally in favor of marriage? I mean, what’s not to like, right?”

“Well, high divorce rate, all the business with joint finances…” Steve trailed off, already out of potential drawbacks.

Tony’s face fell a little, shifting from confused by the direction of the conversation to disappointed and Steve hated himself just a little bit more.

“Oh, so. You’re… not a proponent of marriage, then?”

“I’m not necessarily opposed,” Steve hedged. “I just read this article about how same-sex couples getting married could be playing into our largely heteronormative culture in society — the idea that being married is what makes a family, for example — and I got to thinking.”

It was all true. He’d read the article in question and thought about it. It was interesting, no doubt. Food for thought and something to keep in mind. But even after he’d finished the piece, he’d still overwhelmingly wanted to be Tony’s husband and have Tony be his as well. It was probably old-fashioned and meant they’d be conforming, but he wanted it nonetheless.

“Fair enough,” Tony said with a small shrug. “It’s not for everyone, I guess. It’s an excuse to get all your friends and family together, though. Celebrate the importance of your relationship.”

“True.”

“Is it… Is it something you’ve ever thought about for us?”

“Sure.” Steve shrugged as nonchalantly as he was able. “In the abstract, maybe.” No stretch of the imagination could make that true. There was nothing abstract about mentally drafting wedding vows. “You?”

“About the same,” Tony mumbled, staring down at the sheets he was twisting in his hands. God this was miserable. What the fuck was he doing?

Mercifully, Tony’s phone rang. He answered, seeming as grateful for the interruption as Steve was. It was a short conversation, but when it ended Tony was headed straight for the shower, apologizing for having to cut their conversation short.

Steve rolled over and smashed his head into the pillow to silence his frustrated groan.

-

Tony wasn’t sure he’d ever been more grateful to be called into the office for a weekend manufacturing emergency. Anything to bail out of that conversation which, in all honesty, had been breaking his heart a little.

He’d just… he’d really thought they were on the same page. Tony did want to get married, and whatever he told Steve, he’d absolutely thought about it in more than abstract terms.

He tried to put it out of his mind and fend off phone call after phone call from one of their overseas plants.

When the storm had mostly passed, Tony busied himself by fiddling with the specs for a new prototype he was toying with the idea for. If he was honest with himself, he was stalling.

“Oh, you’re still here,” Pepper said, peeking into the office Tony rarely ever used. She sounded a little breathless. “I expected you’d have gone home already.”

Tony looked at her and could pick out the signs of tiredness and frustration, same as always. She’d been dealing with the crisis this morning in her own ways, too.

“Not yet, no,” he said. He knew she’d sense that something was off and Pepper didn’t disappoint.

“Is something wrong?”

Tony shrugged.

“What’s going on?”

“Just a weird conversation with Steve this morning. It’s throwing me off, I guess.”

Pepper nodded thoughtfully. “Did you ever figure out why he was acting strange last night?”

“He said it was nothing. Had a headache, I guess. But…”

“But you’re worried?”

“I was under the impression we were on the same page. But it’s starting to look like I was mistaken.”

“On what front?” Pepper asked, before seeming to remember herself. “If you want to talk about it, that is.”

“Marriage. And who knows what else, honestly.”

Pepper frowned, her expression soft and understanding. “I’m sorry, Tony.”

“You should know where he’s coming from,” Tony said, trying for teasing but mostly sounding tired and sad. “You weren’t exactly gunning for the chance to marry me.”

Pepper didn’t say anything for a long pause. She looked conflicted, like she wasn’t sure whether to say anything in response to that.

“I think about that a lot, you know. About how I never really wanted to talk about our future together or make things more serious. It was a mistake, Tony. And if you give Steve the chance, I’m sure he’ll realize the same thing.”

Tony blinked at Pepper in confusion. He sort of felt like he was missing something. “What?”

“Anyone would be lucky to call you their husband, Tony. I wish I’d realized that sooner. And if Steve really can’t see that, well. Maybe he isn’t the person you’re meant to marry.”

Yeah, okay so Tony couldn’t have asked her to make that plainer. But he also wasn’t really sure what to say when his ex — a woman he’d been head-over-heels in love with for years and had, at one point, wanted to marry — told him that she’d been wrong about him. Said that anyone would be lucky to call him their husband.

It felt good, sure, but it felt just as wrong if not more so because he didn’t want Pepper to be the one saying it. Not anymore.

“Maybe,” Tony said, though the word tasted bitter and all just plain false. “I don’t know. But thanks, Pep. For talking with me, and uh.” He shrugged. He wasn’t quite sure how to phrase any of the rest of it, but he thought Pepper would understand.

She smiled her soft, genuine smile and nodded a little. She stood up and was almost out the door when she turned back and said, “I hope you two work it out. I like Steve. You guys are great together.”

Tony sighed as she pulled the door to his office closed and decided it was probably about time he went home.

-

Steve wasn’t there when he arrived, and Tony supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. No matter how long they were together, every time they fought their first instinct was to avoid each other. Tony didn’t even really consider this a fight, but he’d avoided Steve so it only made sense that Steve was also avoiding him.

What he hadn’t expected was Clint being in the shared Avengers kitchen. He was in almost the same position as last night, except he was sitting at the counter with his bow spread out in pieces across the countertop instead of on the ground.

Tony was surprised to find that he was frustrated with Clint because of last night, no matter how unfair that was.

“Hey Tony,” Clint said, still focused on putting together a portion of the bow. Looking closer, Tony realized this wasn’t the same bow from last night. It was a different, older model.

“Hey,” Tony said, grimacing at the sharp tone he couldn’t manage to keep out of his voice. “Have you seen Rhodey? Or Natasha?”

Tony had enough of a handle on his emotions these days to know when it was important to turn to his friends for help.

“Uh, no. Not lately.” Clint looked at Tony now that he’d caught onto his mood, and his expression shifted from one of intense focus to concern. “Why? What’s the matter?”

Tony opened the fridge and pulled out a container of raspberries. Might as well stress-eat snacks if he had to have this conversation.

“Steve and I finally talked about what you were asking about last night, and we… well let’s just say we don’t exactly have the same mindset.”

Clint’s eyes went wide and his hands stilled. “You don’t — not the same mindset? What?”

“Yeah, I know. Shocking. Tony Stark playboy-bachelor-extraordinaire turned guy-who-just-wants-to-settle-down. I just can’t figure out how I’ve been reading things wrong this whole time.”

“Reading things wrong how, exactly?” Clint was choosing his words carefully, his tone reserved and measured as he stared at Tony through narrowed eyes.

“I don’t know, I just thought marriage was something we were both excited about. Not, you know, like right now. But at some point. I didn’t realize how ambivalent Steve was toward the idea.”

Clint stared at him in complete silence.

“Have you lost your mind?” Natasha said, entering the room and the conversation simultaneously. “I could not possibly have heard you say that.”

Tony turned to her. “Right? See, this is what I mean. Didn’t Steve seem like the marrying type to you?”

Nat shot a look at Clint who raised his hands in a way that clearly said ‘don’t look at me, I had nothing to do with this.’ She rolled her eyes.

“Yes, he’s absolutely the marrying type. God, you’re both idiots.” She sighed loudly, her eyes falling closed as she allowed herself a moment to decide what to say next. “What has Steve done now?” she demanded, finally.

So Tony explained. He talked about the sense of wrongness last night at the benefit, the way Steve had cut Clint off in the kitchen and gotten all twitchy — at which point Natasha glared at Clint and said, “I thought you said this wasn’t your doing” — and his disheartening conversation with Steve that morning. He even mentioned his chat with Pepper, against his better judgment.  

By the end, Nat was rubbing her temples like she needed assistance from a higher power to fend off the mother of all headaches. Clint was just sitting there looking vaguely uncomfortable, and Tony couldn’t really blame him. Clint looked at Nat for help, but she only shook her head and then waved him out of the kitchen. He fled, leaving the deconstructed bow behind.

Nat looked at Tony again. Her expression was a unique mix of frustration, concern, and fondness. Tony didn’t know what to make of that.

“Nearly everything you’ve just said is the result of a frankly incredible culmination of several misunderstandings,” she said after a contemplative pause. “Except for what Pepper told you. Anyone would be lucky to call you their husband; she was entirely right about that. And Steve would probably die a little inside if he knew that Pepper was the person to tell you that first instead of him. So, please, let me clarify a few things…”

-

“Welcome home, Captain Dumbass,” Natasha said by way of greeting when Steve got off the tower elevator a couple of hours later.

Steve winced. “I take it you’ve talked to Tony?”

“You could say that. How exactly did you manage to fuck this up so spectacularly?”

“I’ve been asking myself that all day. I’m an idiot. And I really need to talk to him. Do you know where he is?”

“He’s holed up in the workshop, I think. I mean, he knows you, Steve. He’s pretty positive you want to get married someday, so he’s just thinking you don’t want to marry him.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, basically. I tried to explain, but he didn’t really want to hear it from me. Would you please go talk to him?”

“Yes. Yeah, of course. I’m going.”

Steve took off for the stairs, taking them two at a time when he reached them. In his hurry to get down to Tony, he completely missed Natasha’s small, mischievous smirk.

-

Tony was wearing a welding mask and holding a blowtorch when Steve got to him. He was working on something Steve couldn’t see.

That wasn’t the most confusing part of the scene in front of him. Oddly enough, in the main clearing of the workshop, Tony had clearly called the bots into action.

Dum-E was holding a bottle of champagne by its neck and had a print-off image of a bouquet of flowers taped to his metal arm.

U was on camera duty as usual, but Tony didn’t seem to be testing a new type of suit so Steve really didn’t understand the need for a camera. Especially considering JARVIS could just film everything anyway, and usually Tony only asked U to film so the other bot wouldn’t feel left out of the Important Stuff.

“Tony?” Steve called over the quiet roar of the blowtorch.

Tony jumped up, turned off the blowtorch, and pulled his mask off. He turned to Steve with a wide smile.

“Hey!” His smile faltered a little and he looked frustrated for a second. “JARVIS, what the hell happened to my warning?”

“I delivered it, sir. Several times. I believe you opted to ignore me.”

Tony rolled his eyes and walked over to Steve and the bots.

“Nat said you were upset…” Steve said, clearly confused beyond belief. Tony was, well, the opposite of upset. He looked happy, excited even. Maybe a touch nervous? But otherwise, fine.

“Nope, not anymore.” Tony was wearing a black wife beater that allowed the blue glow of the arc reactor to shine through just a little, and a pair of work pants he only ever wore when he was in the shop. He patted at his right pocket for a minute until he found whatever he was looking for. Steve didn’t realize it was a ring box until well after Tony said, “Natasha said it was important to you that this was a surprise, so I thought I could manage that,” and got down on one knee.

Steve was speechless. He’d just been hit with a wave of emotion so strong that he didn’t think he could form words if his life depended on it. He’d come down here to explain and beg for Tony’s forgiveness and now. Well.

“Steve, I never thought I would be lucky enough to fall in love with my best friend. I mean — don’t get me wrong, I knew when I met you that I was going to fall for you. But I never could have predicted how much you mean to me.

“You’re more than just the love of my life. More than just my best friend. You’re my partner, in every sense of the word. My other half. I’m not half as good at anything as I am when I’m doing it next to you. And I would really love to marry you, if you’ll have me. So.” Tony opened the box to reveal that he did, in fact, have a ring. “What do you say?”

Steve let out a small, wet-sounding laugh as he nodded aggressively and reached out to pull Tony back to his feet. Tony let himself be manhandled into a forceful kiss that he melted into immediately. “Yes,” Steve said, the words hot against Tony’s mouth, just to be certain there were no more miscommunications.

After a minute or so, Steve pulled back with a wide smile. Tony returned the smile in force.

“So Nat lied, then?” Steve asked, teasing.

“Same way you did,” Tony shot back just as playful.

Steve’s expression turned serious. “I’m sorry about all of that. I was being stupid. I thought that it mattered what I said or where I said it, but that’s not what’s most important.

“The only thing that matters is that you know that you make me happier than I ever dreamed I could be. When I woke up seventy years in the future, I never even let myself hope that I’d find what we have. You gave me a place to call home and a family — people that make it a home — without even really trying. You’re everything to me. And if you’ll let me, I’ll gladly spend the rest of my life trying to make you as happy as you make me.”

They both had tears in their eyes all over again. Steve pulled his own ring out of his pocket and held it out for Tony to see. It wasn’t in a box because, well, boxes weren’t exactly easy to hide when you were aiming for the surprise factor.

“I think I can live with that,” Tony said, his voice a little shaky. He took the ring from Steve’s hands and slipped it on his finger. They both smiled when it was a perfect fit, and Tony kissed Steve again.

“I think your ring is on the floor,” Tony said when they parted. “Your fault.”

“Yep, that one’s on me.” Steve was pretty sure he’d knocked the box out of his hands in his desperation to kiss Tony after the proposal. He glanced around them and remembered Dum-E and U. “I guess I don’t have to ask what the bots are doing now, do I?”

“Nope,” Tony said, delighted. “They had to be part of the big surprise. Dum-E, I’ll take the champagne now.” The robot whirred toward them and relinquished the bottle to Tony, the paper flowers taped to his arm swaying slightly. “The flowers were JARVIS’ idea, by the way.”

“Captain Rogers, I feel obliged to inform you that I suggested Master Stark order a bouquet of flowers from the store. Not make use of the printer he uses so infrequently he forgot it existed.”

Steve laughed. Tony patted Dum-E’s claw affectionately before he popped open the champagne with practiced ease.

“It’s perfect.” Steve noticed Dum-E preening under the praise. “And thanks, U, for dutifully recording it all for us.”

The other bot made an excited sound, and Tony smiled fondly as he handed Steve a glass. “I love you,” he said.

“I love you too, Tony.”

“J, you can send the others down if you want.”

JARVIS did, and a minute or two later Steve and Tony were engulfed in a huge group hug to celebrate their newly-engaged status.

[mrmichaelchadler]

Monica Castillo's Top Ten Films of 2018

As much as I like putting together these year-end lists, I also somewhat dread them. I always change my mind after sending them in, always want to fit in one more movie and worry that my rankings are off. This year was more troubling than usual because I liked so many movies—a good and bad thing. The good news is I easily thought of ten movies I loved this year. The bad news was I had to pare down a list of 30 or so films I really enjoyed this year. There are worse problems to have, so I’m just happy to have found some escapism, reflection and joy at the movies this year.

10. "Annihilation"

This women-led sci-fi movie has inspired some of the best writing about film in 2018, and I regret having waited so long to get around to it. The interpretations are many, but the one I hold onto to is that the film is a metaphor for depression, what it does to you and what it can make you do. Alex Garland’s adaptation of the novel by the same name looks stylish and weirdly colorful with a pastel color palette to create the divide between our world and that of an alien presence that has leeched onto a marshy spot on earth. Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Gina Rodriguez and Jennifer Jason Leigh play women sent into this new unknown, finding not just an alien enemy that rearranges DNA and warps time, but also to face-off against their worst self-destructive habits.

9. "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" 

What seems like a desperate set of grim yet cheeky stories based in an antiquated vision of the frontier are united under the Coen brothers’ acerbic wit for one delightfully weird journey to the old West. Step right up for a funny yarn from a singing cowboy, a heartbreaker about showbiz, a warning about the dangerous side of anxiety or be charmed by the oddly endearing quest of a lonely prospector digging for his biggest score. Each vignette in the Coen brothers’ movie has its own unique style, set of costumes and cinematography, but they share at least one final punchline: we’re all headed to the same grim reaper, one way or another.

8. "Zama" 

Lucrecia Martel has no mercy for her leading man in her scathing adaptation of the Argentine novel. The movie’s namesake Latin American-born Spanish subject endures several demotions and indignities in his Sisyphean quest to try to get a transfer to a happier part of the country. He is denied, but through his tortured experience, audiences have the pleasure of experiencing one of Latin America’s sharpest directors examine issues of colonialism, gender, class, duty and society until the jungle comes to claim what’s left of him.

7. "Sorry to Bother You"

Musician and director Boots Riley made his feature debut with a rollicking, off-the-wall satire about capitalism, love, art and selling out. Cassius “Cash” Green (Lakeith Stanfield) lands a much-needed job at a telemarketing firm where they push him to achieve impossible selling goals to get a promotion. He does so at a terrible personal cost and perhaps learns a bit too much about the shadier side of his business. There’s so much going on at once—from the film’s neon lit cinematography and Riley’s eclectic soundtrack—and I loved every surreal minute of this film.  

6. "Private Life"

After years of unsuccessful fertility treatments, a middle-aged couple (Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti) are at their wit’s end about what to do next. Tamara Jenkins’ bittersweet comedy explores the many emotions tied up with trying to conceive, how society judges peoples’ personal decisions and the pull towards starting a family when you hit a certain age. The script is at once devastatingly clever yet heartbreaking in its honest depictions of those private family feelings. The film’s jaw-dropping ending is possibly one of the best final moments in a movie all year.

5. "Shoplifters"

In the middle of a bustling city, a group of misfits and cast-offs find each other through desperate circumstances and create a rogue family of shoplifters, con artists and survivors. The makeshift family at the center of Hirokazu Kore-eda's quiet film may only be loosely connected to one another, yet each has a role to play in the family. Because they believe in their family so deeply, eventually, you do too. There’s a beautiful loveliness to their united perseverance even as their home is overcrowded by too many people and overshadowed by the booming skyscrapers around them.

4. "Shirkers"

I raved about Sandi Tan’s “Shirkers” earlier this year, and my feelings for this rescued documentary has not waned. Back in her rebellious youthful years, Tan and her two friends, Jasmine Ng and Sophie Siddique, collaborated with their film teacher Georges Cardona to shoot an experimental and existential road movie. It could have been a breakout work of Singapore cinema. Unfortunately, after the young women wrapped filming, their mentor took off with the footage, leaving behind a painful mystery and a stalled career of an aspiring woman filmmaker who looked up to him. But the story doesn’t stop there, and the highs and lows of Tan’s saga rival those of the best fictional page-turners. Matching insightful interviews with her friends with what colorful 16mm remnants survives of their project, Tan examines the past in order to reclaim it.

3. "Cold War" 

After meeting at an audition, Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) and Zula (Joanna Kulig) embark on the kind of fiery romance that burns beyond distance and time at the height of—you guessed it—the Cold War. It is a love that magnetically pulls the two wildly different personalities into each others’ arms. Loosely based on his parents’ relationship, Pawel Pawlikowski’s film wonderfully melts style, emotions and an evocative soundtrack for a moving work that has haunted and thrilled me ever since.

2. "Can You Ever Forgive Me?"

Like Marielle Heller’s breakout film, “The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” her second movie “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” follows a fiercely imperfect yet independent female character through an introspective time in their lives. Melissa McCarthy gives a career-best performance as Lee Israel, a curmudgeonly writer down on her luck who figures out how to forge antique letters from famous authors, earning herself a nice income and the attention of the FBI. McCarthy’s co-star, Richard E. Grant, nearly steals the movie from her as a dashingly charming scammer turned friend and accomplice. Smartly adapted by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty from Israel's memoir, “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” is a delicious black comedy about queer friendships, the strange world of collecting culture, and the bygone New York of the early ‘90s.

1. "Roma"

I laughed, I cried, I loved this movie so much. Alfonso Cuarón's latest is based loosely on his childhood and the memories of the domestic worker, Libo Rodríguez, who looked after his family. “Roma” feels like a sweeping epic, both intimate and distant, so specific yet somehow universal. Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), the character based on Libo, lives and works for a middle-class family in Mexico City, but her life and those of her employers undergo a tumultuous period when Cleo’s boyfriend leaves her after learning she’s pregnant and the family’s patriarch runs off with his mistress. There’s much technical prowess to admire in Cuarón's film, especially since he also served as the film’s director of photography, editor, writer, and producer.

from All Content https://ift.tt/2SKdnEb

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: Why It Works: Tanya the Evil's Unlikely Conscience

Hey all, and welcome back to Why It Works! Today we’ll be talking some Tanya. Saga of Tanya the Evil has turned out to be one of my favorite shows of the season, something I really didn’t expect going in. I’m usually not a big fan of action shows or war stories, but Tanya the Evil’s mix of snappy direction and storytelling, charmingly terrible characters, and almost slapstick sense of poetic justice has made it a consistently fun ride throughout.

  Normally the show’s shtick is “Tanya is thrust into a terrible situation, figures out how to handle it, becomes supremely overconfident, and is dunked on again,” which provides fairly consistent laughs and thrills. But Tanya’s seventh episode didn’t really stick to the formula, and also wasn’t all that “fun” in a traditional sense. Instead, Tanya’s seventh episode went for the war story brass ring - depicting a thrilling battle while simultaneously declaring that war isn’t composed of thrilling battles, and is actually a miserable, sordid, and morally vacuous affair.

War stories have a long history of segueing rapidly between viewing war as a terrible atrocity and viewing war as a source of entertainment, and anime war stories are no exception. Franchises like Gundam often try to split the difference between these two goals - while an overt narrative catalogs the injustices of war, glamorous action scenes present fights between robots and other weaponry as stylish, thrilling affairs. This disconnect between what a show is showing you (awesome fights!) and telling you (fights aren’t awesome) generally results in a thematic muddle that only supports the second point in an intellectual sense, while the emotional experience of the show hinges heavily on enjoying the battle scenes. It’s trying to have your cake and eat it too, except in this case it’s more like a lesson about the high sugar content of cakes written in icing on the cake you're currently eating.

There are ways to avoid this issues, but not ones that gracefully square those two goals - having fun and reflecting the horror of war. For many shows, the answer is to accept that thrilling action stories are not necessarily the best vehicle for sober messages on the price of violence, and thus divorce the action from any sense of horror or consequence. Girls und Panzer accomplishes this by making tank battles a beloved sport, while shows that stick to real battles often present the enemy as irredeemable, faceless, or unknowable. But Tanya’s seventh episode went in the exact opposite direction, discarding any pretensions of fun in favor of a legitimate punch in the gut.

Tanya was not the protagonist of Tanya the Evil’s seventh episode. Tanya is always a “villain” in that she’s a villainous person, but she’s also generally the focus character we’re following and feeling invested in. Instead, this episode focused more on the politics of the Entente Alliance to Tanya’s north, and specifically on one army officer she first met a few episodes back - Colonel Anson Sioux. We get to see this man in a variety of contexts - conversing with his close associates, saying goodbye to his daughter, and even commenting on the overall war effort. All of these encounters help to establish him as a conflicted but ultimately honorable man, one driven by love of family and country, and one who has his own reservations about the ongoing conflict.

  Those sequences are important. As I said above, one of the ways war stories often divorce their events from painful consequences is by dehumanizing the opposing force - making them simply an “other,” an invader to be defeated. When some group is regarded as a foreign mass, it’s easy to avoid feeling personally responsible or guilty for any violence inflicted upon them. “Scale” doesn’t really matter here - ten thousand deaths isn’t really any different from ten million in our minds, if we can’t visualize any individual faces.

Tanya the Evil’s seventh episode forces us to visualize a face, and to attach a human history to it. By humanizing Anson, the show humanizes his side in general by proxy, making us feel invested in the fortunes of his doomed operation. And thus when Tanya and her forces arrive, they’re not gunning down generic targets, they’re gunning down the beloved friends of someone we know.

The framing of Tanya’s attack amplifies the effect of this choice. Tanya’s actions aren’t presented as “epic” in the way even the show itself often has before. Tanya the Evil has on occasion used dramatic compositions, intriguing scifi jargon, audio buildup, or pithy one-liners to make Tanya’s fights feel fun and rewarding. Even if Tanya is a horrible person, if the camera aligns us with her, we exult in her victory. Her wins allow us to feel clever or powerful as well.

This fight had none of that. Tanya’s actions are all presented from a great distance, with none of the back-and-forth, dogfighting, or tactical choices that made prior fights thrilling. The emphasis on Tanya going up against impossible odds is also absent here - this is a risky assault, but we get no sequences of Tanya ever seeming overwhelmed by it. This is a slaughter and a chore to Tanya, while on the other side, all of Anson’s actions are presented as desperate and emotionally charged. The fact that Tanya is throwing out snarky commentary while Anson bleeds for his country actually makes Tanya seem even more despicable, instead of brash or charming. How can we think it’s cool to be emotionally removed from this slaughter, when the people dying are as human as us?

  In the end, Tanya barely even recognizes the man so desperate to stop her. After witnessing the deaths of his countrymen and ruin of his defenses (something we’re not allowed to look away from either), Anson makes a reckless charge after Tanya. He is presented as a classic hero in this situation, with tension ratcheting through close cuts and his repeated evasion of Tanya’s minions. Tanya isn’t the underdog here, she’s the oppressor - but when the hero finally reaches her, he is cut down as well.

Tanya the Evil’s seventh episode didn’t really make me feel good, and that’s absolutely the point. Throwing an underline under the overall episode’s message, its finale sees Tanya glibly accepting the final gift of Anson’s daughter as a present to herself, casually reminding us of his humanity and her indifference in one. Tanya’s a bad person, but this war gave her no reason to care about this particular man, and by humanizing him while maintaining Tanya’s usual behavior, the episode emphasized the horror that always exists in this show, and that we often just take for granted. Every blast of a cannon silences ten men with stories just as sympathetic as Anson’s. All of Tanya’s one-liners precede actions we’d consider unconscionable in polite society, but accept as necessary in war, and even celebrate as thrilling in fiction.

  I don’t expect Tanya the Evil to turn its second half into a dedicated meditation on the horror of war, but I was happy to see it spend an episode letting that horror peek through. It’s easy to hate Tanya because she’s a personally unsympathetic individual. It’s harder to accept that even if Tanya were the nicest person in the world, war makes monsters of us all.

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Nick Creamer has been writing about cartoons for too many years now, and is always ready to cry about Madoka. You can find more of his work at his blog Wrong Every Time, or follow him on Twitter.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[pointofgeeks]

New Post has been published on https://www.pointofgeeks.com/media-round-up-november-2017-movies-to-see/

Media Round Up – November 2017 – Movies To See

The month of November is here and the movie season is back in full swing! The next few months will rival the summer blockbuster period and most of the action begins this Friday. So get ready for our trademark preview series, known as the Monthly Media Roundup, featuring the most intriguing options coming to your local cinema in the next four weeks. Enjoy!

  November 1st

    A Bad Moms Christmas

  Stars: Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn, Jay Hernandez, Justin Hartley, Christine Baranski, Susan Sarandon

Director: Jon Lucas, Scott Moore

Official Synopsis:

A Bad Moms Christmas follows our three under-appreciated and over-burdened women as they rebel against the challenges and expectations of the Super Bowl for moms: Christmas. And if creating a more perfect holiday for their families wasn’t hard enough, they have to do all of that while hosting and entertaining their own mothers.

By the end of the journey, our moms will redefine how to make the holidays special for all and discover a closer relationship with their mothers.

The first movie was an unexpected hit, however this sequel is flying well below the radar. After the success of Girl’s Trip and the end of the month release of Daddy’s Home 2, it’s curious this doesn’t have more buzz, or at least marketing. It will be interesting to see how the counter-programming against Thor: Ragnarok works out for the new release. We will find out Monday morning…

      November 3rd

    Thor: Ragnarok

  Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Cate Blanchett, Tessa Thompson, Tom Hiddleston, Jeff Goldblum, Karl Urban

Director: Taika Waititi

Official Synopsis:

In Marvel Studios’ “Thor: Ragnarok,” Thor is imprisoned on the other side of the universe without his mighty hammer and finds himself in a race against time to get back to Asgard to stop Ragnarok—the destruction of his homeworld and the end of Asgardian civilization—at the hands of an all-powerful new threat, the ruthless Hela. But first he must survive a deadly gladiatorial contest that pits him against his former ally and fellow Avenger—the Incredible Hulk!

Judging from the early word, Thor: Ragnarok is Christmas come early for Marvel fans. The irreverent, yet relevant, third chapter of the Thor saga looks to give the franchise a makeover with eccentric filmmaker Taika Waititi at the helm. Getting to see Thor, Hulk, and even some surprise MCU characters in the same movie is like a Saturday morning cartoon dream made in reality. The entire industry will also be watching the unspoken showdown with DC Films’ Justice League which should add to intrigue of the release. This will be such fun!

    LBJ

  Stars: Woody Harrelson, Bill Pullman, Jennifer Jason Leigh

Director: Rob Reiner

Official Synopsis:

After powerful Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson (Woody Harrelson) loses the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination to Senator John F. Kennedy (Jeffrey Donovan), he agrees to be his young rival’s running mate. But once they win the election, despite his extensive legislative experience and shrewd political instincts, Johnson finds himself sidelined in the role of vice president. That all changes on Nov. 22, 1963, when Kennedy is assassinated and Johnson, with his devoted wife Lady Bird (Jennifer Jason Leigh) by his side, is suddenly thrust into the presidency. As the nation mourns, Johnson must contend with longtime adversary Attorney General Bobby Kennedy (Michael Stahl-David) and one-time mentor Georgia Senator Richard Russell (Richard Jenkins) as he seeks to honor JFK’s legacy by championing the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964.

2017 has taught us a lot of lessons about leadership, abuse of power, and the current state of race relations. Reiner is not a shrinking violet when it comes to his political leanings, so it will be interesting to see what his film has to say about the presidency. Woody Harrelson has long been one of my favorite actors and watching him disappear into the role of Lyndon B. Johnson is a solid dramatic ticket to balance out the whimsy of Thor: Ragnarok.

    Last Flag Flying

  Stars: Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne

Director: Richard Linklater

Official Synopsis:

In 2003, 30 years after they served together in the Vietnam War, former Navy Corps medic Larry “Doc” Shepherd (Steve Carell) re-unites with ex-Marine Sal Nealon (Bryan Cranston) and Reverend Richard Mueller (Laurence Fishburne) on a different type of mission: to bury Doc’s son, a young Marine killed in the Iraq War. Doc decides to forgo burial at Arlington Cemetery and, with the help of his old buddies, takes the casket on a bittersweet trip up the East Coast to his home in suburban New Hampshire. Along the way, Doc, Sal and Mueller reminisce and come to terms with shared memories of the war that continues to shape their lives.

Linklater has been known for making nostalgic movies about growing up and capturing the feeling of historical eras. However, with his latest effort he is dealing with the inherent sadness and bonds that come from old age. The cast is beyond impressive, so it’s hard to imagine how this won’t be the perfect drama for a mellow night.

    November 10th

    Murder On the Orient Express

  Stars: Kenneth Branagh, Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley, Michael Pena, Judi Dench, Tom Bateman, Josh Gad, Penelope Cruz,  Willem Dafoe, Leslie Odom Jr.

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Official Synopsis:

What starts out as a lavish train ride through Europe quickly unfolds into one of the most stylish, suspenseful and thrilling mysteries ever told. From the novel by best-selling author Agatha Christie, “Murder on the Orient Express” tells the tale of thirteen strangers stranded on a train, where everyone’s a suspect. One man must race against time to solve the puzzle before the murderer strikes again. 

It’s hard to dismiss or ignore Murder on the Orient Express’ star power and I am never too good for an old-fashioned caper flick. The first trailer left a lot to be desired, however the latest looks have shown enough of the story and action to get me all into the mystery. Let’s see if there is enough steam behind this freight train of a movie.

    Daddy’s Home 2

  Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Will Ferrell, Mel Gibson, John Lithgow, John Cena

Director: Sean Anders

Official Synopsis:

In the sequel to the 2015 global smash, father and stepfather, Dusty (Mark Wahlberg) and Brad (Will Ferrell) have joined forces to provide their kids with the perfect Christmas. Their newfound partnership is put to the test when Dusty’s old-school, macho Dad (Mel Gibson) and Brad’s ultra-affectionate and emotional Dad (John Lithgow) arrive just in time to throw the holiday into complete chaos.

It’s rare when I get more enthusiastic about a comedy sequel than the original, however the casting of the Daddy’s Home 2 has me eagerly awaiting the upcoming follow-up. The trailer made me laugh out loud and watching Mel Gibson be a jerk…is well…perfect. The premise is standard 80’s fare, but it’s hard to imagine the film not being worth the price of admission. 

    November 17th

    Justice League

  Stars: Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa, Ezra Miller, Ray Fisher, Jeremy Irons, Ciaran Hinds, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, J.K. Simmons, Amber Heard

Director: Zack Snyder (w/Joss Whedon)

Official Synopsis:

Fueled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman’s selfless act, Bruce Wayne enlists the help of his newfound ally, Diana Prince, to face an even greater enemy. Together, Batman and Wonder Woman work quickly to find and recruit a team of metahumans to stand against this newly awakened threat. But despite the formation of this unprecedented league of heroes—Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash—it may already be too late to save the planet from an assault of catastrophic proportions.

This is the movie that will decide the entire future of the DC Films…so how could I not be there to find out for myself opening night. I unabashedly like the ambition of the flawed Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and I’m eager to see what the Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon have come up with. Behind-the-scenes it will be interesting to see if the two directors have combined their powers to create an unexpected movie. Regardless, the kid in me who watched reruns of Superfriends and the Justice League cartoon can’t wait to see the team realized on the big screen. 

  Roman J. Israel

  Stars: Denzel Washington, Colin Farrell, Carmen Ejogo

Director: Dan Gilroy

Official Synopsis:

“Roman J. Israel, Esq.” is a dramatic thriller set in the underbelly of the overburdened Los Angeles criminal court system. Denzel Washington stars as a driven, idealistic defense attorney whose life is upended when a turbulent series of events challenge the activism that has defined his career. Colin Farrell costars as the ambitious, monied lawyer who recruits Roman to his firm.

The premise of the movie speaks to my inner social activist and Denzel is one of the best in the biz. But for some reason the trailer for this doesn’t quite do it for me. However, it’s hard to imagine a bad flick from Mr. Washington and this seems like a movie with the right thing to say for today. 

      November 24th

    Coco

  Stars: Anthony Gonzalez, Gael García Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Sofia Espinosa, Luis Valdez, Edward James Olmos, Selena Luna

Director: Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molina

Official Synopsis:

Despite his family’s baffling generations-old ban on music, Miguel (voice of newcomer Anthony Gonzalez) dreams of becoming an accomplished musician like his idol, Ernesto de la Cruz (voice of Benjamin Bratt). Desperate to prove his talent, Miguel finds himself in the stunning and colorful Land of the Dead following a mysterious chain of events. Along the way, he meets charming trickster Hector (voice of Gael García Bernal), and together, they set off on an extraordinary journey to unlock the real story behind Miguel’s family history.

The new upcoming flick, Coco, hasn’t all gotten a ton of advanced hype, however there is little reason for concern. Pixar rarely fails (The Good Dinosaur aside) and is probably the most reliable studio in the entire film industry. Add to the fact that it’s been a slow year for animation along with the colorful Latin flavor and this should be a solid family watch.

  When you see them, let us know what you thought of November’s movies in the comment boards, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter! Share our stories by clicking below!

Source: ComingSoon