#immature wind shenanigans

[kelpieice]

Jelsa Ship Thoughts

      I am not surprised that this became a popular ship. For the start, the Snow Queen and Jack Frost are traditional counterparts. Jack Frost is the winter spirit who is winter’s personification. The Snow Queen on the other hand is the winter spirit who is winter’s expression. With these new adaptations of these characters with Rise of the Guardians and Frozen, people really fell in love with these versions of them.

       Some people dislike the ship because they believe they are too alike to an annoying level.

Example: Jack Frost was originally a human. After saving his sister he dies and gets resurrected as the spirit of winter. The death of Jackson Overland and the birth of Jack Frost.

Elsa goes to ahtohallan, dies and later falls through ice into water and gets resurrected as the fourth spirit? She becomes a spirit...even though she already had magic?

    Other people say they are too different, saying Jack is too immature for a relationship and Elsa is painted as the biggest ms. priss. Sometimes it is because people are annoyed at Elsa’s popularity and think her a lesser responsible character who froze her kingdom ect. So for being extremely flawed perhaps these people feel Jack who is a very selfless character being a reward for a character like Elsa who is kinda...a little selfish. Kinda of an attitude of, “hey Elsa, you are a sucky sister who froze her kingdom! Here’s a great boyfriend for your troubles!”

     I don’t think people are entirely wrong, I am not gonna be blind to the faults of either character. They both have flaws and similarities. However, Elsa was the cause of the problem of Frozen and Anna was the protagonist. Jack Frost was the protagonist of his own story. Overall, I guess thinking of these two as twin flames makes a lot of sense. They have similarities enough that I can see them get along and enough differences that I am sure not every thing would be sunshine and roses. They are allowed to be their own characters.

       The biggest plus for this ship is that I don’t think they would have a power imbalance in their relationship. That is because they both have magic and are now both spirits. Yes Elsa prefers to use ice and Jack is always using his freezing wind ability but magic being something they both have makes them level out, unlike Jarida in which magic is something I can see causing problems.Though how these two would meet is always the limit of the fan and I have found some interesting HC’s from the Jelsa shippers.

I do however think Elsa would make the first move. She is aware of magic and magical creatures, but running into another spirit who is also not a horse, lizard or stone giant? She would like to talk to him. Her curiosity would just be too much. Though, if Jack was unaware of her presence and whipping all over the place. She would have a hard time catching him without the assistance of gale. Not to mention she would be a dork...not a miss. priss. Like what do you say to another human winter spirit? Particularity if you are using your spirit friends just to catch his attention for a chat?

There relationship would start out slow, friendship eventually to a relationship. They would also be able to fall into a pace comfortable for the two of them. Both not use to physical contact off the bat, but for different reasons. Shenanigans would be amusing and if they ever did get magical kids. They would both be able to handle it. Though, Anna would have a hard time baby sitting. The magic in their lives would always keep these two at a balanced level.

[coupleofdays]

Rewatching Tron in anticipation for Identity, there was one line that I found particularly interesting. At first I got the impression that Alan and Kevin were suposed to be more-or-less bitter rivals, competing with each other in the field of computer programming (and perhaps unconsciously for Lora's affection), two technical geniuses of basically equal skill. But then, when Alan and Lora visits Flynn's Arcade, Alan says: "Geez. The best programmer ENCOM ever saw, and he winds up playing space cowboy in some back room."

In other words, while Alan seem to think that Kevin is immature and annoying, he also aknowledges that Flynn is the smarter of the two, apparently actually admiring his talents and thinking he's wasting them by leaving ENCOM and starting an arcade instead (at this point, he's unaware that Kevin had a legitimate reason to leave due to Dillinger's shenanigans).

While the characters seem to be of almost the same age, this line makes it seem that Alan sees himself as something of a father figure, or perhaps a big brother, to Kevin, being disappointed in him and wanting him to not waste his talents on what he considers immature frivolities. Or, yes, perhaps as a former lover still caring about the wellfare of his ex boyfriend. So while he's acting all "I don't see why I have to do that guy any favors", deep down Alan really does care about Kevin.

[axolotlsupremacyowo]

First Ten Lines

Rules: share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written less than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway!

I was tagged by @udaberriwrites for this, and I decided to try it out! I shall be tagging @mikaharuka, @danceswithdarkspawn, @zkang288, @tsunderewatermelon, @hylianjo, @bleepbloopbotz, @mrsmungus, @kayedium-writes, @alpaca-clouds and @0nelittlebirdtoldme!

Now, let's get on shall we! I'll go from most recent to least.

A Chaotic Reunion (Fandom: Star Wars Rebels)

Lothal was a beautiful planet. During the time when Kanan still had his eyesight, he didn’t get the chance to admire the planet for very long, they were always too busy with their rebel scum shenanigans. When he did get the chance to admire Lothal, it wasn’t for very long, though Kanan still did appreciate the simple beauty of this planet. Even without his sight, Kanan still could enjoy the peacefulness of the planet they had decided to settle in. He could feel the soft, cool breeze on his skin, hear the rustling of the surrounding grassy plains as they swayed back and forth along with the wind. As Kanan sat on the porch of their house, he could even hear the sounds of a few critters scurrying about amidst the tall blades of grass.

The Reasons That I Love You (Fandom: Ace Attorney)

When Maya had first heard Franziska's real laugh, she fell in love even harder. She was watching a comedy movie with Franziska, something that Franziska had protested to at first, but eventually gave in. Despite her prior protests, Franziska seemed to be enjoying herself. And then it happened. Franziska laughed.

Orange Dyed Hair (Fandom: Stardew Valley)

Sebastian had been staring at Dickon’s hair for what felt like forever. Now he was to admit that he always liked how Dickon’s hair looked, despite the fact that he usually preferred dark cool colors over bright warm ones. Really, Dickon’s fluffy orange hair suited him, and his extroverted and kind of odd personality. Though sometimes, Sebastian wondered what Dickon would look like with other hair colors, especially dark colors. Sebastian didn’t have to imagine the last one.

The Things I Notice (Fandom: Ace Attorney)

The first thing Klavier noticed was the adorable habit Apollo had whenever he was thinking. Whenever Apollo was deep in thought, he would press his index finger to the bridge of his nose. It was a habit that Apollo did even when they weren’t in the courtroom, like whenever Klavier would give Apollo a nonsensical riddle. It was a small thing really, something that he should have not noticed, but he did. Klavier watched as Apollo did that same habit in the courtroom.

A Bold Gesture (Fandom: Ace Attorney)

Phoenix had no problems with PDA. While he wasn’t as lovey-dovey in public as Maya was with Franziska, Phoenix still loved to show the entire world how much he loved Edgeworth. Edgeworth appreciated it, he really did, but he still wasn’t used to being so openly affectionate with someone, especially Phoenix Wright.

Yours Truly, Franziska von Karma (Chapter 1, Fandom: Ace Attorney)

To my sweetest daughter Franziska, I know that the past few months have been difficult for you, Franziska. I’m sure that your father and I’s divorce has not come as a surprise, you’ve always been a smart girl, that still does not make it any less difficult for you. I’m sorry you ever had to see us fight, I’m sorry we ever dragged you into our arguments, it was immature of us and no child should ever go through that. I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me, as I struggle to forgive myself for ever making you go through so much.

Ace Attorney: Maya Fey (Chapter 1, Fandom: Ace Attorney)

The blow had been enough to kill the woman, and she collapsed on the ground with a thud. A dark red puddle formed at the woman’s head, staining the floor of her cheap dingy apartment. The mechanical voice of the clock he was holding rang in his mind over and over again, becoming an unbearable constant ringing that hurt his ears. The man dropped the clock, and it let out a deafening thud as it hit the ground. There was no way the neighbors wouldn’t have been able to hear that. The once lively eyes of the woman now stared at him, dead and lifeless. It was proof that he was a murderer.

What Evil Looks Like (Fandom: Ace Attorney)

Franziska winced as she heard the sounds of her father and Edgeworth arguing. They argued often, so often that she should have been used to it at this point. But she wasn’t, she wasn’t used to it. Franziska wondered why Edgeworth didn’t just surrender to her father like she had, why he continued to fight against him in what was undeniably a losing battle. She heard the sounds of angry stomping, and then Edgeworth’s door slamming shut. Franziska tried to ignore any desire to go to Edgeworth, she knew better than to involve herself, knew better than to go against her father’s wishes. Sometimes, Franziska wondered what evil looked like.

The Garden at von Karma Estate (Chapter 1, Fandom: Ace Attorney)

Miles Edgeworth was a brilliant child, it was something he inherited from his father. He had a sharp mind, an insatiable curiosity of the world around him, and an absolute love for reading books. His father was Gregory Edgeworth, a rather popular defense attorney in the area. His mother he knew little to nothing about, all he knew was that she had supposedly died during childbirth. Gregory was proud of his son, and he would often show off to his peers just how brilliant Miles was. He would boast about the fact that Miles was reading books far above the reading comprehension of an average 10 year old. It was embarrassing for Miles, but it had always made his father happy.

Ain't No Sunshine When They're Gone (Fandom: Ace Attorney)

“Hey, Franziska?” Franziska was lying down on the bed next to Maya. She looked up from her book. “Yes, Maya Fey?” “Um…I need to tell you something.”

[casliveblog]

Custom Toonami Block Week 116 Rundown

Kaguya-sama: Love is War: This episode’s a cute little trilogy about Kaguya getting sick trying to give Miyuki a ride in the rain, I mean she kinda fucked up his phone, she deserved it a little. Second bit the show briefly becomes Higurashi again but this time it’s not the murder side of Higurashi but the insane level of Machiavellian cheating in a normal game with a weird punishment game prize to getting to go to Kaguya’s house while she’s sick since apparently when she’s sick she basically becomes Chika because no thoughts head empty. And last but not least we have the trip over where Miyuki brings Kaguya her shit and shenanigans ensue where they sleep in the same bed. Considering how cagey the two of them are to each other this should change their whole dynamic but I’m guess it probably won’t.

Inuyasha: Renkotsu’s on his shit again, Koga wakes up and Renkotsu’s ready to steal his jewel shards again to hopefully get enough jewel shards to fight Bankotsu so he won’t kill him for hoarding Ginkotsu’s shard. There’s really two problems with this, 1: Renkotsu legit could not move after Koga’s attack and had to juse Ginkotsu’s shard to get out of there so I don’t think Bankotsu would be super mad if you were like ‘hey I had to use the shard for a bit to make my escape but I can give it to you now if you want’ but Renkotsu’s just like ‘no, gotta get more shards and kill him before he kills me’ and 2. Renkotsu buddy I don’t think you could beat Bankotsu even if you had a dozen more jewel shards than him, like he’s able to facetank the Wind Scar and you breathe fire and shoot bazookas, not sure how jewel shards are gonna help even that gap any. Anyway he leads Inuyasha away and the fight and shit but Renkotsu just fucking has dynamite and is hoping to use his zombie status to kamikaze everyone in the cave but Koga and Inuyasha get him out of the cave so he has to throw away the dynamite and yeets himself down the river while Koga and Inuyasha see who is the more immature. Miroku and Sango’s sidequest gets them to Naraku’s lair in the mountain core so Kagura and the reject demons are ready to intercept, honestly that sounds like a good fight since Sango/Miroku and Kagura are both characters that haven’t been relevant power-level wise after their introduction.

Yu Yu Hakusho: Yusuke vs Toguro is still in full swing and Toguro is stomping ass, like legit the only reason Yusuke’s still alive is because Toguro is actively trying to pull the Super Saiyan out of him for entertainment purposes. He just kind of… grows vents and starts sucking the souls out of all the mook demons in the crowd to fuel his 100% form which will eventually grab Keiko through Puu’s barrier and Koto almost gets it but Chu helps her out (I still ship it). Toguro barely misses Keiko in order to piss of Yusuke enough to go but it’s not enough so Genkai possesses Puu to tell Toguro to kill one of Yusuke’s friends to get him to go Super Saiyan. That should feel like a lot more of an asspull than it does but since it’s something Yusuke did as a ghost it makes sense that Genkai could too and it does kinda turn the whole fighting for Genkai thing on its head since now she’s being a bitch and encouraging Toguro to kill someone despite him kinda heading in that direction anyway. Also Sakyo put up iron walls around the arena so… yeah guess he just installed those in case this exact sort of thing happened so now it’s funny watching the audience cheer for Yusuke because if he doesn’t win they literally die. So long story short Toguro kills Kuwabara and Yusuke goes Super Saiyan but in a neat little twist he doesn’t look pissed off, he looks epically sad, like that’s kinda neat that the area just turned really blue and he’s just so broken and depressed with grief that he can’t hold anything back anymore.

Fate/Apocrypha: The battle’s still going full force and we get a lot of little skirmishes that don’t add up to much, Semiramis vs Astolfo, Mordred vs Astolfo, Chiron vs Achilles, Spartacus vs Atalante, Shirou vs Fran, most of them are the standard ‘Ha, so this is your hero thingy you hero’ that early Fate fights are so they can have some light shows without putting anyone in mortal danger before season 2. Sieg is evacuating the Homunculi because he… asked nicely I guess? Like I get why the ones fresh out of the tubes are following him but the normal guards and shit apparently have NO loyalty to Team Yggy and are just ready to dip out with him as soon as he says anything despite the main Homunculus girl being pissed at him for saving her last episode. Fran gets a vision of Dr. Frankenstein from Shakespeare and it… takes some liberties to say the least. Like it kinda takes the hackneyed ‘the doctor was the real monster’ approach that most middle school professors will give you when if you actually read the book the doctor was a dude that didn’t deal with shit well but also the monster murdered five people then demanded to claim a woman that hadn’t even be made yet as property because someone of equal physical unattractiveness wouldn’t reject him which is kind of a huge dick move, but that would be weird to put in Fate so in this case Fran is just a sweetheart that got confused and pushed around so she murders the Frankenstein doll and has to be Command Seal’d out of her rage. Last but not least Sieg comes to save his boyfriend Astolfo from Mordred and bro is gonna get his ass fucking punted because Mordred’s just way stronger.  

Nisemonogatari: So we’re halfway through Tsukihi’s arc and we’re still on Karen… like Karen’s arc took up two thirds of the season to begin with but we’ve mentioned Tsukihi like once so far in her own damn arc. Anyway at least we keep the incest shit to a minimum this time and there’s weird linguistic shit and bets that result in Karen cutting off her ponytail and letting Kiyomi ride her… shoulders. Also a sexy girl is looking for Oshino’s old hideout so after implying Hanekawa is spying on Kiyomi they get here there and drop Karen off at Suruga’s so they can go be best girls together. Meanwhile we resume Sexual Harrassment with Kiyomi Araragi as he goes on for WAY too long about molesting Mayoi before they get jumped by a girl who narrates her life like a book except she only has one line and can both she and the other girl can read the past apparitions of the girls he’s with while looking for Oshino’s place and they just kinda make a play on the fact the same thing just happened twice.

Speed Grapher: This episode is basically a character study of Kagura’s mom which is odd because she’s barely in it. Basically Mrs. Tennouzu was a model who married a super rich businessman but almost eloped with this doctor dude she liked before they got separated and he got murdered either by people trying to keep her from marrying him or BY her for making her think he jilted her. Also we find out that her mom, Kagura’s grandma basically has Alzheimer’s and thinks her daughter Shinsen is still a teenager which makes her point out how old she looks whenever she sees her which can’t be doing much for her age complex that makes her abuse Kagura even harder out of jealousy of her youth and make herself feel desirable by blackmailing people into fucking her brains out with money. Kagura and Saiga let go of their doctor buddy who says he’ll have DNA results for Kagura in a week that may help analyze the whole giving people superpowers thing and may help with the tumor that’s killing Kagura. So they’ve got a week to bum around with and go to the hot spring where they find out the whole story about her mom’s affair and Kagura starts to take great solace in the fact she may be the product of an unmarried but loving affair instead of a cold business arranged marriage which whether she is or isn’t explains why her mom hates her so much in addition to the youth stuff either she’s a reminder of her late husband that she hated or a reminder of the guy she almost eloped with but jilted her/was murdered. Also Hibari is still on Saiga’s trail and is leading around a CSI dude having him be her Watson despite him being way out of his depth and she gets laughed out of the room when she tries to blackmail/bribe Suitengu despite him being worth the net worth of a country. Suitengu then resolves to go to the hot spring himself to crash Kagura’s party right after fingering her mom into unconsciousness. (Also for some reason he’s still faking injury to her despite being up and about a few episodes ago so idk why he has to pretend to have bad legs for her) meanwhile Tsujido and the team rocket gang are on the trail literally following Kagura’s scent and contemplate the idea that the 30ish old photographer may be banging the fifteen year old girl which Tsujido dismisses because apparently Euphorics need some kinky shit to actually get off I don’t think I wanna know what he’s talking about and then Saiga refrains from taking a picture of a half-naked sleeping Kagura which… good, I don’t know why that was a dilemma but I’m glad that’s not a thing that happened.

Durararax2: Shit’s really starting to go down now, Kasane infects Shinra with Saika and Celty goes BERSERK and chases her while she spider-man’s her way through the city, basically becoming a ball of shadows and bees while chasing her down before she hands Shinra and a box presumably containing Celty’s head to Varona to drive off with because apparently Kasane’s goal is to just push all of Celty’s buttons at the same time for some reason. Masaomi and Chikage escape Izumii who says he’s hunting down Masaomi on Mikado’s orders which may or may not be the whole story but they’re good for now. Meanwhile Celty’s horse comes up to Shizuo and takes the form of a children’s bicycle so we get the hilarious image of a grown man wearing a bartender suit riding a bicycle half his size that’s actually a horse belonging to a rampaging dullahan embodied as a dust cloud chasing a woman that grows swords out of her fingers. Shizuo’s just like ‘idk what’s going on but I’m sure it’s Izaya’s fault’ which… kinda? I guess? Like Kasane seems to be pulling more stings here and Celty’s head getting out seems to not be against his plan but not directly in line with it either so who the fuck knows.

[asdfgjhgfd]

Our director, discussing details of the competition we're entering: okay so we have 69 musicians in our band

Everyone else: *muffled snickering*

[mystery-skulls-ghost]

oh no.

Anne-Marlene

Twisted from: Candle Cove (the show itself)/The Skin-Taker

Dorm: Terrovania

Year: 1st

Birthday: June 9th

Pronouns: They/Them

Relationship Status: Huh?

Age: 16(50)

Height: 179cm

Dominant Hand: Ambidexterous

Origin: Rose Kingdom(...?)

Club: Art Club

Favorite Subject: Conjuration

Likes: Antiques, pirates, loud noises, puppets, the sound of white noise

Dislikes: Long-winded tangents, storms, people who don't like pirates

Favorite Food: Tuna Sashimi

Disliked Food: Squid

Special Skill: "Improvised sewing"

An eccentric fellow with a knack for adventure, Anne-Marlene is a very enthusiastic... person. Their entire demeanor is like a children's show host. Always putting up that unnerving smile, finds joy in everything they do (to the point its hard to tell if they're being condescending and passive-aggressive or sincere), and that very, VERY, unnerving stare of theirs. Could there be something else about them beyond that...?

Unique Magic:

"Going Inside"

Erases specific memories that involve Anne-Marlene. If the memories include other people aside from themselves, then it results in "...huh, I think [name] was here, but I'm not sure...", but Anne-Marlene themselves are still a static void. It only works on adults and anyone above 18. Additionally, very immature people are unaffected by it.

Relationships:

Dusty - Funny man! The look on his face is so...!

Kandice - Interesting girl! Her facts are always interesting to hear!

Clay - What an unfriendly man!

Agnar - This person needs to be less cold! How can they have fun that way?

Samuel (@crestbaby) - Finally, someone who can handle their antics! They'd go along well, that's for sure!

Annie (@twsted-princess) - Another one who can also handle their antics! They'll entertain her anytime she wants!

Tiny Tidbits:

Anne-Marlene has an oddly stiff way of moving. It's like their limbs are wooden, or something.

When they were first sorted, they were honestly hoping to be sorted into Piraticus (@piraticusdorm). Regardless, they like to stalk their members and watch their shenanigans from afar. They just can't resist adventure! Their handmade coat is a poor attempt in copying their dorm uniform.

Their face is stuck in a "(OvO)" position. They don't seem to emote anything else other than that soulless, wide-eyed stare.

They look so similar to something from a very old show from the 70's...

...Wait, where exactly do they get the fabric for their sewing?

[regrettablewritings]

How They Spend the Quarantine (Tadashi Hamada, Lucifer Morningstar, Dewey Finn, Wade Wilson, Harley Quinn, & Benoit Blanc)

Just a fun (?? is that even responsible to say?) little thing I’ve been thinking about while slogging through this neverending hellscape of an extended lockdown.

Tadashi Hamada

When San Fransokyo was ordered to go into a lockdown, there were mixed feelings.

At first, Tadashi had a hint of optimism that this would mean more time to work on his prospective projects . . . But then he quickly realized that his projects mostly required tools and space offered by the campus. He could technically make do at home, but it wouldn’t quite be the same considering the garage was considered Hiro’s space.

Somberly had to clean out his lab and take whatever he could home.

Cue the rest of the group (sans Fred and Hiro) griping that at least his style of science could travel well enough to be somewhat continued off of university grounds.

Helps do delivery for The Lucky Cat. It helps him get out the house, and it’s simply helpful altogether.

Uses Baymax frequently to make sure everyone down to Mochi is sanitized, and nobody’s running a fever.

Nearly as frequent a sanitizer as Aunt Cass.

He starts most days prepared to be productive, only to stop and poke fun at Hiro, who’s almost always got his eyes trained on a video game.

Tadashi realizes three hours later that he, too, has been playing the game as Player 2.

Learned how to make facial masks with Aunt Cass. He already knew how to sew a little but frankly, making the masks made him realize he could have a new hobby on his hands. He’s currently trying to figure out how to make Mochi a little vest . . .

Lucifer Morningstar

B o r e d. A s. F u c k.

At first, he thinks everyone being forced to go home would work in his favor -- surely some rule-breakers would sneak out and try to bunk up with the Devil, right?

Well . . . Kinda? Once Chloe found out and scolded him about it, the idea died real fast. Plus, he realized he wasn’t quite fond of the possibility of being around someone who could pop up with a disgusting human sickness at any point during their time with him. Smearing their snot all over, coughing into his Egyptian cotton sheets . . . Nope, never mind, he is perfectly content having the penthouse to himself, thank you very much!

Except he’s not.

The poor bastard is going crazy by himself -- he’s just not used to being without some kind of company!

“At least in Hell, you could tell there were people around you based on the screaming!” he’d whine at his phone during his hourly video chat with Chloe.

Oh yes: The video chats. He tries to make them hourly with anyone he can get a hold of (namely, his long-suffering detective) but this clearly never plays out as he would like for it to: If he had it his way, everyone would respond in an instant and let him bounce mainly one-sided conversations off of them -- basically, what he did before all this went down.

What usually winds up happening is he gets hung up on or nobody answers him at all out of sheer annoyance over his clinginess.

Ironically, he’s not exactly crazy about when Amenadiel initiates those “family calls”. He insists it’s healthy and normal for them to do this and even calls Luci out on the hypocrisy, but let’s face it: Lucifer finds it obnoxiously gushy and weird.

He works his way into Linda’s video appointment books to help him cope with his boredom and admitted need for interactions. She doesn’t mind offering him counsel, but once Lucifer starts attempting to butt in during others’ appointment calls, it becomes an issue.

Has, at some point, gotten buzzed down in Lux and streamed himself attempting to pole dance. It drew quite a bit of attention.

He’s managed to gain a bit of a following and some companionship by streaming himself playing piano and singing. It’s not the same thing as having an actual audience, in his opinion, but it will have to do for now.

He’s never been one to binge with regards to TV shows or movies, but after the first week, he decided to binge watch every work action star Wesley Cabot was ever in.

Makes sure his staff still gets paid well. After all, he’s pretty well-off; there’s no need to make an innocent bartender’s life a living hell just because some other rich bastard fucked up, yeah?

Going off this, should he need to order to-go or anything, we already know he tends to tip as handsomely as he looks.

Dewey Finn

Kids were being sent to Horace Green on tuitions worth more than what some people saw in half a year -- of course the school was going to continue classes online!

While technically an afterschool instructor, the program is popular enough for parents to expect it to continue, and for Dewey to be kept on payroll.

Initially, he was pretty smug: He’s one if, if not, the youngest teacher-figure at Horace Green, so surely that means he’s more tech savvy than his older, stiffer coworkers, right? For once, he’s ahead of the curve!

Wrong: Figuring out Zoom was a headache, and then there was the realization of just how dependent his classes were on actual physical presence.

Plus, let’s be real: Dewey’s Internet connection was decent on its own, but craptastic when compared to those of his wealthier students. The lag is strong with this one.

Has definitely accidentally messed up the background on his screen. Somehow wound up with the Beetlejuice background and got so frustrated, he wound up keeping it there for two whole sessions.

In spite of the slight issues regarding lag, they pull through and try to resume lessons as best they can.

Tries to keep optimism by pointing out how this is a new form of entertainment they could be pioneers in.

Some days, it’s just going so wack or everyone’s so bleh that Dewey just assigns for them to watch a music documentary or something.

“Okay, kids, Mr. Finn’s hungover and clearly Summer is the only one who went to bed before 3am. So what I’m gonna have you do is watch . . . Prrrbbbb . . . Amadeus.” “How is Amadeus rock-related?” “It had a rock single, shut up. Anyway, we meet back next class and talk about what we saw, m’kay? M’kay. Over and out.”

Next class, he’s filled with dread as Summer produces an in-depth analysis of the relationship or lack thereof between character and the presence of talent as evidenced by Mozart’s abilities juxtaposed with his immature presentation and -- Dewey just can’t keep up. Sure, Summer, why not?

When he’s not busy teaching, however, he’s using the lockdown to work on some new material. Or just screwing around.

Otherwise, let’s be real, Big Boy’s living the high life in a place of his own: Playing video games (Animal Crossing, recently got back into Team Fortress 2, is trying to finally finish Ocarina of Time); eating a not very great diet; staying up late, napping at weird times; all in the name of quarantine.

If he orders delivery or to-go, he tips the best he can.

Wade Wilson

On one hand, murking never goes on lockdown. But on the other . . . He’s already technically not well, why risk that even with his mutation?

Oh, fuck I just remembered he lives at the X Mansion, never mind turn back turn back oh god give us free --

The situation is tense to say the least. There’s Wade, who’s sensible enough to know why the quarantine is in place . . . and then there’s everyone else, who knows Wade’s full of shit.

And by everyone, I “coincidentally” mean Colossus, Nega Sonic, Yukio, Domino, Cable, and Russ because the already small world of the sequel just got smaller by the fact that everyone is bound to a large but nonetheless single estate whose size has probably decreased from that of the First Class timeline.

You know those videos of the usual Quarantine Characters? Wade is somehow yet still unsurprisingly all of them, save for the frequent sanitizer. He raids the pantry frequently, sleeps at all hours, considers scooting a swivel chair down the halls exercise for the thighs, blasts video games, and so on.

Going back to the sanitizer thing, it’s not that he’s just not exactly known for being tidy. Colossus occasionally does drag him out of bed at a decidedly decent time (read: any time before 11am) to try and get him excited about cleaning up around the mansion, but it rarely ends well. At this point, the safest option is to just remind Wade to wash his hands for 20 seconds as necessary.

Has acquired a Switch and visits everyone’s island, often to bonk them on the head with a net or gift them with weird crap they don’t necessarily want. For the “friends” from Sister Margaret’s, he has somehow acquired their Dodo Codes. Nobody knows how he did this. 

Facetimes Dopinder frequently.

“Precious, you’re the beacon of light in this cold, cruel world.” “I miss you, too, DP --” “Sshshsh! I’m having a moment . . .” *weeps*

On the many occasions he orders delivery, he tips by giving the delivery person something expensive from the mansion that they can sell. Prof. X is loaded, after all. Plus, he more or less isn’t even present in this universe, it’s not like he’s gonna miss anything he can’t see/probably doesn’t even know exists in his house. The problem is, Colossus does exist and does notice and does care when things go missing. Leading to many a delivery person getting caught up in shenanigans at that weird school in the boonies that they either don’t get paid enough to deal with or couldn’t pay to make up.

“Oh, pawn shops are closed?” asks the man who looks like a skinned avocado if avocados had human skin. “Don’t worry, lemme hook you up -- I know some guys --” “DEADPOOOOOLLL!!” roars a Russian accent from inside the house. “WHERE IS THE BRONZE BUST OF THE PROFESSOR!?” The poor delivery person’s eyes widen as they realize that the odd cargo they’ve been presented with apparently holds some value of some kind. But before they can flee, the avocado man blurts, “Shit! Leave the pizza in the bushes, look me up on my Youtube page, byyyeeee!!”

In his defense, Wade does hold up his end of the deal. Much like the Dodo Codes, nobody knows what strings he pulled. They just accept it and move on.

Harley Quinn

Surprisingly compliant.

She’s crazy, not stupid: Staying at home may suck, but what sucks more is making things harder on people who may not fair so well. Besides, she’s spent time in a maximum security prison -- she can handle staying cooped up in her own home. At least home has TV, books, and snacks.

When she hears people are still going out without masks or plotting to have a protest, she strongly considers firing up the old Fun Gun and popping the next sign-carrying Karen she sees with a tit full of cadmium yellow powder.

Seriously, stay the fuck home and fuck up your own hair; this is the perfect time to make mistakes with your looks, it ain’t like you got anywhere to be or anyone to impress.

“STAY THE FUCK HOME, BITCH!” P O W!!! “JUST GO GREY ALREADY, WE ALL KNOW YOUR HAIR AIN’T THAT COLOR ANYMORE, YOU’RE THREE YEARS FROM BEING IN THE GODDAMN AGE-BRACKET!!!” P O W!!!!

Only leaves her new apartment to grab groceries and to take Bruce on a walk. She actually refuses to steal or cause a scene during this shitshow because she may be a bad guy, but she sure ain’t evil.

So far, there haven’t been complaints about the fact that she’s walking a hyena down a public street. Maybe it’s because there’s hardly anyone out? Maybe it’s because Gothamites just can’t be bothered to be fazed by it . . . Or maybe it’s because she made him a little mask for his snout.

“In this house, we wash our hands for at least 20 seconds, kid.”

Lets the forest reclaim the earth, so to speak. She was never really shaving anything for anyone but herself before, but now it just seems especially pointless.

Spends almost every day in a kigurumi. To give her a semblance of routine, she has a pink bear one she calls her “Sunday Suit.” She doesn’t know it’s not Sunday because the days just blur but Cass just doesn’t have the heart to tell her; she seemed so proud of herself . . .

Like everyone else, she’s gotten Animal Crossing. She’s trying to create an all-preppy island with a few exceptions (Astrid = Aesthetic, m’kay?)

Tips nicely when ordering delivery.

Benoit Blanc

As young and spry in nature as the gentleman sleuth would like to think of himself, he would really rather not test the dangers of the situation and go about all foolhardy -- he’s staying home!

In theory, it’s only logical and therefore perfectly fine. But in practice . . . God, he wishes he’d invested more in things to occupy himself with when home.

It wasn’t that Benoit was never home, he just never felt too much of a need to invest in a fancy entertainment center -- the fanciest he ever got was an iHome.

The beginning of the quarantine served as the perfect time for him to read over case files, catch up on paperwork, even catch up on some reading he’d been putting on hold since God knows when due to cases popping up left and right. But that dried up quicker than he’d assumed, and that’s when he was faced with what a man of his mind dreads the most: Boredom.

Finally caved and decided to hook up Amazon Fire.

Expected to use the one-month free trial on Netflix and be just fine but once the lockdown in his area got extended and he realized he wasn’t going to be able to catch up with Crazy Ex-Girlfriend at this rate, he caves even further and buys a subscription.

Fully delights at the influx of platforms uploading Broadway recordings; when The Show Must Go On put on Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, followed by The Phantom of The Opera, it was a treat, I tell you!

Sanitizes often, despite hardly ever leaving his house besides to have a smoke or to go grab groceries. Honestly, it’s less about cleaning at this point so much as it is finding something to occupy his focus when he feels there’s nothing else to so.

Takes zinc after every meal to help lessen the intensity of any ailment that might hit him.

Definitely owns a facemask. There’s a good chance it’s from Marta or one of his relatives, and there’s another good chance the pattern is as flamboyant as his clothing. He’s delighted.

Benoit tries not to rely too much on delivery,  as he’d much rather just cook. On the rare occasion where tipping comes up, however, he gives as generously as he can.

Bonus: There’s a slight chance he might have acquired a companion to foster early on in the quarantine. Benoit hadn’t had a pet since childhood, a crime of which he was admittedly melancholic of his own involvement. However, his surprisingly busy lifestyle just wouldn’t suit a four-legged friend, now could it?

Well, now there’s time to. Besides, it would certainly ease the potential feeling of loneliness to have someone or something with whom he could interact with.

Admittedly, when shelters began encouraging people to invest time in taking home a companion, he’d been looking more for a comrade on the canine side of the spectrum -- but darn, if Duke wasn’t a handsome cat.

A lovely grey-and-white cat with eyes that matched his own, Duke has become the one Benoit monologues to (because in all honesty, the man is a performer at heart, in need of an audience to speak his mind to and portray a thought before). Plus, he doesn’t appear to mind it when Benoit finds himself belting out in tone-deaf notes to showtunes while washing the dishes: The mark of a true companion.

At this rate, he’s probably not going to keep fostering Duke when things calm down -- he’s probably going to just straight up adopt him.

Stay safe & healthy!

[firelord-frowny]

i’m binge watching dr phil (bc i ran out of Lynn Toler’s divorce court 😭) while i knit, and just 

i’m on this episode with a girl and a guy in their early 20s who had a baby AFTER they broke up, and everybody involved is being extra immature and stupid and annoying, and she’s mad that he’s dating somebody else even though she broke up with him??? complaining that ~he shouldn’t be focused on another woman, i’m not focused on another man~ and it’s like GIRL YOU AREN’T EVEN TOGETHERRRRRRR!!!!! and the dude is being dumb and not wanting to go out of his way to be in the child’s life, and they’re both hella stupid, and the guy’s new girlfriend honestly seems way too mature to be dealing with that shit, but i guess she isn’t, otherwise she wouldn’t still beeeeeee in a relationship with a guy who’s behaving dumbly in a dumb situation, but i digress...

LMAO I COULD NEVERRRRRRRRRRRR! oh my god i could LITERALLY NEVER have a child with someone i wasn’t already certain i wanted to spend the rest of my life with, LET ALONE someone i had ALREADY DUMPED oh my god!!!! which, i mean, i don’t want kids ANYWAY, but i for DAMN sure would have to be very happily and very comfortably married to a dude for a WHILE before there would even be a fraction of a chance that i’d change my mind. 

i truly do not understaaaaaaaaaaand how anyone could be so casual about having a whole child with somebody they already decided they didn’t like and subsequently broke up with. Assuming you plan to raise the child, and assuming the other parent plans to participate in that as well, you’re LITERALLY agreeing to have a permanent and profound connection with someone you don’t like FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!! 

for at least the next 18 years, you’re going to get into stupid arguments about How To Discipline Your Child. for the rest of your life, you’re going to have to engage with this person at your kid’s recitals/performances/sports games/honor roll assemblies/graduations/etc. your kid is gonna prefer one of your homes over the other and they’re gonna throw a fit when it’s time to go spend the weekend at mommy’s. 

i mean, i KNOOOOOOOOOOOOW that there are plenty of parents who are able to be fantastic coparents with each other, and they remain good friends, and they’re supportive of each other’s relationship with the kid, and they make decisions together, and they both take responsibility for the child’s emotional, financial, and physical needs, and when/if they ever pursue new relationships with other people, it doesn’t cause any issues because all the adults involved are mature and responsible and care deeply about the wellbeing of the child. I know there are situations like that. I know not every set of single coparents have an awful experience. 

BUT YOU CAN’T COUNT ON THAT OMGGGG!!!!! 

you could date a dude for a month, think he’s the most responsible, respectful, gentlemanly gentleman who ever gentleman’d on earth. you discover on the 32nd day of dating him that he’s an insecure, passive-aggressive, untrustworthy mooch who becomes a complete asshole when you disagree about the smallest things. 

you could date a lady for a month and think she’s compassionate and understanding and supportive, and on day 32 you discover she has no respect for boundaries, she thinks it’s okay to hit you when she’s mad on account of She’s Just A Weak Little Woman So It’s Impossible For Her To REALLY Hurt You. 

You don’t knoooooooooooooooowwwwww people well enough after just a few months of dating them to decide that you should have them in your life forever! shit, i honestly don’t even think a few YEARS is enough time to make a choice like that. You need to know how somebody behaves in adversity. You need to know if they’re financially responsible. You need to know if their long-term goals are compatible with your own. You need to know how they respond to YOU when YOU are experiencing adversity. How do they interact with you when you’re depressed? Afraid? Overwhelmed? You need to at least have an IDEA of how they grieve when they lose a loved one. You need to know how they cope with sudden and drastic changes. You need to observe them long enough to learn their habits and behavior patterns. You need to be able to reliably predict the kinds of choices they’ll make. 

So like, it can take YEARS to finally gather enough data about a person to predict what a lifelong relationship with them might be like. You can date someone for 2 years and everything is fantastic, but then you get to the 3rd year and they lose their job and they respond to the stress by becoming abusive. You can date someone for 3 years and discover in the 4th year that they begrudge your success and try to take you down a peg every time you achieve something that you’re proud of. 

If I got knocked up by some dude I haven’t known and trusted and loved for a few years already, there is no. fucking. way. that i would have that baby. there is no way i would even get up to any hanky panky with them without being on birth control and using condoms in the FIRST place, so the odds that I would get knocked up by anyone are super slim, but if I got knocked up anyway, i would fuckin teleport to a clinic right fuckin quick and have that motherfucker yoinked out of my uterus SO fast! *aretha franklin voice* ain’t no way.

i caaaaan’t. i CAN’T! IMAGINE!!!

and i am SURE this is a biased assumption due to the fact that I mostly hear about these kinds of parents on court tv or talk shows or whatever, but it seeeeems almost like a rule of thumb that people who have a baby very shortly after meeting each other tend to be stupid and irresponsible as FUCK. And that makes sense to me bc like... only an irresponsible person would make the long series of unwise choices that would lead to them having a baby at a young age with someone they don’t know they can trust. I feel like responsible people tend not to let that happen! 

and PLEASE don’t get me wrong - i don’t think people who get into situations like that are Bad People. like, you can be irresponsible and immature and make shitty choices and still be a good person who’s kind and whose heart is always in the right place and who always tries to do the right thing, even if they’re not very good at figuring out what the right thing even is. 

i only mean to express how dumbstruck i am by the very CONCEPT of On Purposely linking yourself permanently with somebody you already know you don’t like, or who you may DISCOVER you don’t like in the near future. even just the THOUGHT of it mkaes me anxious. 

like omfg if i got knocked up and raised the child of that one ain’t shit motherfucker i had a Thing with in college?????? disaster. a lifetime of fuckboy shenanigans. a lifetime of missed appointments and broken promises and probably also a lifetime of being under the constant threat of a fuckin police raid lmfaoooo dude was LITERALLY a drug dealer. no way. no way. AIN’T NO WAY!!! 

ohmy goddddddd. young adults (and even Adulty Adults, tbh), PLEEEEAAAAAASSSEEEE value yourself enough that getting on a ride without knowing where it’s headed is WHOLLY out of the question for you. Permanently attaching yourself to a near stranger should not be viable option. ESPECIALLY if you still haven’t built a stable, self-sufficient life for yourself. like, if you DO wind up having a child with a near stranger, you should at LEAST have steady, good-paying employment, and safe and comfortable housing. I mean, those are things that you should try to have before you have a baby REGARDLESS of who you have it with, but if you DO have a baby with a near stranger/someone you don’t like, it’s ESPECIALLY important that you’re able to support yourself so you’ll always be okay in spite of any potential fuckery, tom foolery, or shenanigans from the other parent. you’re not up a creek if they won’t pay child support. you can afford daycare if the other parent is unwilling to take care of your child when you’re not at home. 

i caaaaAAAAAN’T!!!! 

[sasorikigai]

Taken from an independent source, 'dummy thick' or 'dummy thicc' refers to a person who's very distinctly curvy and thick in the right places. 'Himbo' indeed means a very attractive male that, sometimes may manifest himself as a bit dim, but in general is good and respective man. Combine these terms and I believe you'd get the whole picture.

Random Inbox Shenanigans || anonymous, mention of @sonxflight || always accepting!

💥 || Upon the seemingly Eureka moment as his suffocated dimmed uninterest of before had ephemerally sparked its curiosity nonetheless, the polished river stone of his glistening gaze lingers indeterminately, as settled motionlessness of his ire turns into a brewed conflagration, licking the niches of his heart, rapidly scorching within him. It seems to define the version of Ryou Sakai in their absolute privacy, in their solemn, blissful ecstasy of shared affection and coalesced breaths. And here and now - Hanzo Hasashi feels tenebrous shadows in these bones and he doesn’t know how to rid himself of it. With his unshackled, free will was compromised beneath the chronic clawing grasp of his depression, as if he had been regressed to let himself be relinquished under the severe temptation of destructive darkness and compromise of a tainted heart gone astray. 

To have completely relinquished his own impassioned fever to seek betterment, to return to the surface of the lost joy and happiness of life as both his trauma and imagined nightmares would torment him forever. He had once convinced himself that he would never sink himself into the immature stupidity of acting out in scalding wildfire of bitterness and vindictive grudge without considering the threshold of his whim, as brutal conflagrations of his acerbic ripostes. 

The love he now offers is no longer corrupt, as Hanzo Hasashi’s best efforts will prove him otherwise against his gruff demeanor and hardened, assertiveness of his iron resolve that is not so easy to break initially. For once familiarizing, his love is unconditional and unselfish and desperate, and his clear mind knows its intentions far too well for it to be distracted by the hollow promises held in its favor. In paradox, Hanzo Hasashi’s eternal, unhinged love is what makes him so flawed and magnanimous. And after all, his love encompasses all the facets of love; not only through their fondness of familiarity, but with strong bond that comes from people who share common values, interests or activities, and of course, the virile physicality they encompass through strenuous trainings and rigorous regimen.

Breaking the pensive trance of his silence, an idle stroke over his stubbled cheek sinks with further realization, as once-graceful depths of his hazel eyes sharpens, the glare flickering like fire in his amused eyes. As if the draw of unknown had suddenly become a stark realization, stirring his insides as a wild wind whips at his face. “Are you accusing me of being a dummy thick himbo?” 💥 || 

[littlesmartart]

Same anon as before, thank you so much for answering! Happy Louis and Lestat brightens my day~. If you’re willing I answer another question or two, I wanna know what Marie and Claudia’s relationship is like? And what Marie is like?

so Marie and Louis have a pretty big age gap - Marie was in her mid teens when Claudia was born. She and Louis always got on well, but they got closer after Paul died, and when Louis accidentally outed himself Marie stood up for him against their mother. like in canon, Louis can put up with a huge amount of terrible behaviour against himself, but it’s not until someone he loves is hurt/threatened that he finds the energy to take action; Louis endures his mother’s homophobia for years until she finds out about the baby and starts talking shit about Lestat - at which point he literally just gets up, leaves her house, and refuses to answer her calls or speak to her again. Marie wins his eternal devotion when she not only takes his side against their mother and extended family, but does her best to help in any way she can with Claudia and later, through the breakup.

Marie adores Claudia, and throughout her childhood Claudia proudly declares Marie to be her best friend. She’s essentially somewhere between fun auntie and big sister. Marie also gets on really well with Lestat - Louis likes to joke that it’s because they both have “youngest sibling syndrome”, and they frequently gang up against him. Marie also gets on well with Gabs, but is also kind of terrified of her (Louis reassures her that everyone is).

In terms of personality, Marie is just as bookish and nerdy as Louis, but is much less introverted. She goes on to study history and get into archaeology. She was the one who pointed out to Louis that he was dating Lestat, THE Lestat, teen pop idol, HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW WHO HE IS LOUIS OMG, and generally she’s the one who makes it her mission to get Louis to try new things.

MORE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS FOR THIS AU UNDER THE CUT

yes, she is their bio daughter. she… wasn’t exactly planned. at the time, Louis was struggling with alcoholism and his degree, and Lestat was desperately trying to revive his career, and then in their mutual hot mess they decided the baby was A Sign and would fix everything by giving them the motivation to get their shit together.

…obviously, things weren’t anywhere near that simple.

Lestat and Louis break up when Claudia is about two or three - and honestly it’s impressive that they last that long, because neither of them were anywhere near ready to be parents. Their relationship falls apart because Lestat is immature and uncompromising, and Louis is resentful and bad at communicating, and they wind up splitting for the sake of Claudia, sharing custody. They actually become much, much better parents apart, because Lestat has to step up and be more responsible, and getting more time to himself means Louis is able to figure out who he is again.

I don’t want to go into TOO much detail on how they get back together and how Claudia is involved in that, because that’s the plot of “the Roadtrip Reconciliation Romcom aka Claudia Watched Parent Trap One Time aka Two Exes Discover How Deeply Inconvenient It Is That They’re Still Attracted To Each Other” AU and I’m very tempted to write it, but a very basic summary is: Claudia decides she wants both her dads together for a family christmas at Gab Gab’s cabin in the mountains (Gabs hates being Gab Gab, but Claudia started calling her it as a toddler and good god she loves this kid more than anything in existence, so… Gab Gab it is), and uhhhh… tropey tropey shenanigans ensue, and by christmas day Louis and Lestat are somewhat more…………. chummy.

and Claudia’s there like: exactly as planned >:3c

[jootsmcgoots]

Like the Sun and the Sea (Abbacchio x F!Reader) SFW

So of course the first fic that goes up during my Fanfic Writer Appreciation fic-posting spree is, well, the very first fic I wrote for this fandom.

This was my very first work for JJBA and it was based off of a match-up i got from @headoverjojo (Sorry to tag you again Tricia ^^; while i’m here tho, love ur work and all that you do!) It was my very first match-up and I still remember it extremely fondly ;w; So here we are again boys to throw the first baby back onto this blog. 

I’m not gonna repost the matchup because I abandoned my old blog due to personal and safety reasons, but the tl;dr is that I got Abbacchio and I was like “wow that’s neat I didn’t see that coming but hell yeah i’m down to clown!”

And so I wrote a fic based off of it.

I’ve written way more work since and I can see the bits of my style that I kinda miss or feel like I’ve lost in a way, but at the same time I’m proud to have come as far as I have. I don’t really write that much (as I only write on a ‘when i feel like it’ basis), but I can see where I have improved. 

More on that later. We’re here to read cute shit now.

===========

Rating: General

Genre: Fluff

Word count:  2194

Summary: You spend a nice quiet day at the beach with Abbacchio after everything that happened with Diavolo.

Except you’re a big dumb and your boyfriend is a big grump, so things hardly stay quiet.

Banter, fluff, and shenanigans at the beach.

AO3 Link!

The gentle crash of waves, the distant cawing of seagulls, and the wind brushing past you were some of the few noises that you registered as you sat on the beach in relative silence. You absent-mindedly drew some random doodles in the sand with your finger while you waited for Abbacchio to come back from the car with the ice box.

The two of you had decided to take some time off together and decided to spend the day at the beach. It was currently vacant, as the spot you had chosen was a little out-of-the way and not very well-known. But for the two of you, it was perfect. After all, you simply wanted a bit of quality alone time with your lover; he deserved at least that much after what he had gone through with Diavolo.

You recalled the memory with a shudder and shook your head. Pressing harder, you sketched more lines into the sand to distract yourself. Sure, the journey wasn’t pleasant for anyone involved; you’d had a few close scrapes and near brushes with death yourself. But the very thought of Abbacchio’s near-miss with the boss sent shivers down your spine. You didn’t even want to begin to think about what could have happened to him.

Thankfully, your thoughts were interrupted by the soft thump of the ice box against the sand. You looked up to see Abbacchio setting it down and rising back to his full height to survey the scenery in front of him.

“Not too heavy?” you asked, tilting your head at him. He looked back to you and scoffed at your words.

“Of course not.”

“Still, I told you I could help...” Even though you knew Abbacchio was probably the most physically fit member of the gang and could probably handle the ice box just fine, you always felt bad whenever it felt like everyone else was doing all the work.

“I can handle it by myself.” He bent to ruffle your hair a bit, to which you couldn’t help but give soft laugh. “And anyways, I don’t know how much help a little twerp like you would have been.”

“Hey now, I might be littler than you, but you know I’m stronger than I look!” You offered a confident look on your face that made Abbacchio chuckle. While you rummaged around the box for a drink, he looked down and stared at the drawings you had made in the sand.

Abbacchio raised a brow. “What are those? Is that one supposed to be me?” You mumbled out an affirmative as you took a swig from the juice bottle you had selected.

Wiping your mouth with the back of your hand, you responded, “Yeah. I was bored while I was waiting for you. See, that’s you,” you pointed at the grumpy face with long hair that pointed upwards at the ends. “Bruno, Trish, Mista, Fugo, Narancia, Giorno, and me.” You pointed to each drawing as you listed off the names, one by one.

Crouching down, he inspected the crude drawings and hummed. “Do you always do dumb little things like this when I’m away?”

You huffed at him, indignant. “They’re not stupid!”

“They’re stupid and ugly,” he shot back, egging you on.

With a short “Ha!”, you responded, “I’d like to see you do better.”

“Maybe on a proper medium.”

“Ehh? Art is art. It doesn’t matter what medium it’s on. And anyways, art is subjective! I think you’re just being an ass.”

Abbacchio just chuckled in response as he sat down next to you on the towel, staring out at the ocean. Not saying much, he chose to just enjoy this moment with you. Then he felt you plunk your head down onto his shoulder, leaning on him while you puffed your cheeks out in that adorably huffy way. He reached for your hand, which had been resting in your lap, and moved to lace his fingers with yours. Abbacchio smiled to himself when you offered no resistance and in fact eagerly reciprocated the gesture, holding his hand in yours on your lap.

A moment passed before you broke the silence. “Well, it’s fine. It’s not as if my drawing skills are what…drew you to me.” Your face split into a stupid grin as you heard Abbacchio groan in exasperation.

“Ah great, here we go…” You heard him say, and you turned to see Abbacchio tilting his head backwards in annoyance.

“You’re just envious because I’m quicker on the draw when it comes to these things.” The grin on your face grew wider as you returned your gaze back to the sea. You didn’t even have to look at his face to know that he was grimacing now.

“(Y/N). (Y/N) please.”

“It’s not my fault that you’re so draw-matic about it! I’m just having fun!”

The last one earned you an even louder, even more annoyed groan. “Really?” he deadpanned, unamused. You merely flashed him a cheeky smile full of teeth and giggled as he released your hand to pinch his brow in annoyance.

Once you had come down from laughing at your own jokes, you took a breath and continued. “I swear, it’s amazing that you haven’t thrown yourself into the ocean after all of these dumb jokes,” you said with that stupid, cute sunny smile of yours. He both adored it and wanted to smack it straight off your face. “Honestly! I would have expected you to go into one of your fits by now.”

He snorted and began to stand, a wicked idea coming to him. “Why would I do that,” Abbacchio said the words slowly, and suddenly you felt his hands grabbing for you. In a swift movement, he had you hoisted into his arms as you squeaked in response to suddenly being lifted and being much higher up than you were before. “When I can just get rid of the nuisance myself?”

And with that, he began striding towards the shore with you in his arms. You kicked, struggled, and squirmed the entire way while pleading to him in-between your laughter.

“Leone! Leone, no! Don’t! Leone Abbacchio, you wouldn’t dare!”

Alas, your struggle was futile as he kept an inescapable hold on your wriggling form and your complaints fell on deaf ears as your boyfriend waded out into the shallower waters, deemed his position to be a sufficient launching point, and chucked your screaming form into the air. You soared a short distance before plummeting straight into the deeper waters with a large, satisfying splash.

Waves lapping at his shins, Abbacchio stared at where you landed in quiet amusement while you emerged from the water, splashing and gasping for air. Even then, you couldn’t help but give him an incredulous laugh. “What was that for?” You shouted from the waves. He huffed, calling back, “You know damn well what it was for.”

You pouted and made a whining noise. “That’s mean! What if I drowned or something? That would be on your conscience forever, you know.”

Abbacchio merely shook his head at you, a grin of his own forming on his lips. “Well, at least if you drowned, I would never have to deal with your stupid jokes ever again,” he teased. You feigned shock and hurt with a dramatic gasp.

“Yeah? Well, I’d just come back as a ghost and then you’d never ever be free of me.” You wiggled your fingers in a way that was meant to be spooky or creepy. “I would do nothing but whisper puns into your ear all night.”

“Then I would just ignore you and pretend that I never noticed you. Then you would be left haunting me the rest of my life, but would feel alone for the entirety of it.”

“Whaaat!” You drew out the word. “You’re such a mean boyfriend.”

He threw you a somewhat smug look. “Am I?”

You pouted and idly splashed around in the deeper parts of the water for a bit before a dumb idea surfaced in your mind. “Okay, let’s test it then!” you proclaimed in a cheery voice, and put on the highest, cutesiest voice you could muster.

“Oh no, Weone! Pwease hewp me! I’m dwowning!”

You could see Abbacchio tense up in annoyance in response to your antics. It was subtle, but you could see his lips flatten into an expression of irritation. You knew he hated that joke, but you pressed on.

“Pwease Mr. Abbacchio! Pwease hewp! I’m dwowning!” You couldn’t hold back your giggles anymore as you kept pleading to him in an obnoxious, sing-songy voice. “W-Weone! Weone, I’m dwowning! The water is wising! Ub-bwub-gwub! I won’t wast wong!” At this point, your words started to peter out as you had fallen into full-blown peals of laughter that filled the sky as you struggled to keep your eyes open from the tears forming in them.

Which is probably why you hadn’t noticed Abbacchio wading out farther and farther into the water where you were until you noticed your surroundings getting darker and felt him firmly grasp the back of your head. He held you there for a moment, and, without missing a beat, you threw him a sultry look and commented, “Oh. I wasn’t aware you were into…underwater sports.”

Abbacchio scowled slightly at you, muttering, “Ugh, (Y/N), you immature, little…” You could see his brow crinkle further in annoyance as you tittered in sheer amusement at your own dumb joke. Before you could make an inappropriate joke about regular “watersports”, you felt your head being forced downwards. His annoyed expression was the last thing you saw before Abbacchio roughly dunked your face into the water and held you underwater for a moment, watching the bubbles rise up to the surface. After a second, he raised your head up from the water, gave you another second to breathe, and then dunked you once more.

“Aughh--!” SPLOOSH!

“Leo--!” SPLOOSH!

“Come on---!” SPLOOSH!

“It was just---!” SPLOOSH!

“A joke!” SPLOOSH!

Once you had ceased all talking and were reduced to coughing, sputtering, and the occasional giggle, Abbacchio released his grip on your head and settled his hand on your shoulder as you leaned up against him. You were still giggling from your own shenanigans, as well as the sudden rush of playful (albeit somewhat rough) actions from your boyfriend.

He sighed out, “You really are a silly idiot. What am I going to do with you?” Despite the bite in the words themselves, you heard the teasing and loving tones in his voice and smiled to yourself.

You peered up at him, slicking back some of the hair that was covering your eyes. “Apparently you’ll throw me into the ocean like some sort of cursed object, and then dunk me in the water several times. What kind of boyfriend does that? Do I look like a Lebowski? Do you want me to tell you where the money is?” you quipped with an impudent grin that only grew wider when you saw his expression crack into a grin of his own as he shook his head at you once more.

Then you felt the hand on your shoulder dip lower to your back as Abbacchio pushed you close to him, pulling his arms around you into a hug. You shuddered as a pleasant warmth enveloped you, contrasting against the cool water you two were standing in.

“Hmm? Haha, Leone…” you breathed out. “What’s this all about?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions.”

“Pffft. To you, everything I say is stupid. So I get to say damn well what I please.”

“Hmm.” He seemed to ponder your statement. “That sounds about right. So, fair enough.”

“You asshole.”

During your exchange of words, you had wrapped your arms around him and held him tightly in a hug of your own.

“Hey, Leone?”

“Hm?”

“I love you. I really do. I’m glad that you’re here.” Your grip on him had grown tighter at these words.

Abbacchio closed his eyes for a moment, committing the feeling of your arms around him to his memory. In those seconds where you two just held each other in silence, the water splashing against him gently, he began to think to himself. After everything that had happened, he was glad to be able to spend this time with you like this, to be able to listen to your silly jokes, to be able to just banter and tease each other like this, to see the corners of your eyes crinkle with mirth and your lips turn upwards into an unashamed, jubilant smile that would give way to a laugh that would cause his heart to flutter and threaten to cause his lips to pull into a small smile of his own (no matter how unamused his reaction seemed to be).

You were a stupid little fool, bright and brilliant. And you loved him.

He hummed affirmatively in response.

His voice came out as a low rumble that you could feel emanating from his chest. “I love you too.” And his heart blossomed with warmth when he opened his eyes to see you smiling widely at him, for him. 

[queenlua]

trusting fiction

tl;dr: wow, uh, this got long. literary musings ahead, if that’s your thing!  but the upshot is, this manga is really good so far and someone should read it with me :P

“Trust” is a word you hear thrown around a lot, when readers talk about particular authors.  Le Guin once wrote about her first time trying to read José Saramago’s Blindness:

“. . . I began to get scared. The story was, to put it mildly, a nightmare.  Tough-minded thrillers I’d read were custard sauce to this.  The idea of everyone in a city suddenly going blind, not all at once but at random over several days, is fairly horrible in itself; Saramago’s even, quiet narrative tone brings the horror home as he describes it through the eyes (all too literally) of one ordinary person after another.  Despite or because of governmental efforts at control, the city soon begins to break down—cars driven by blind drivers, fires in homes, panicky soldiers faced with panicky citizens.  A disused mental hospital where the early blind are locked away very soon becomes a hellish concentration of the worst that terror and weakness can bring out in people—bullying, enslavement, gratuitous cruelty, rape... At this point I stopped reading the book.  I couldn’t handle it.

To read on, to be willing to read about terrible cruelty, I had to trust the author unquestioningly, the way one trusts Primo Levi.  I had to know that Saramago was not merely putting on a horror show, exploiting his power over his readers.  I was quite ready to admit the power, his Dostoyevskian gift for communicating suffering, but I needed to trust him enough to let him tell me this fearful story in the confidence that he’d make it worth enduring.  The only way to find out if he deserved such trust was to read his other books.  So I did.”

He did end up earning that trust, by the way.

I most recently heard about this “trust” in a different context—a notable editor for a short story magazine said that a really good first page, even a really good first paragraph, can make you trust the author, make you say: damn, they are going someplace, someplace good, and I know they’re going to take me there.  

Firstly because it’s competent writing—no grammar errors, no words badly out of place.  But mere competence doesn’t earn trust.  (That was another interesting bit from this editor; rarely does he get story submissions that are obviously lacking.  But you can’t get a story published that’s just fine.)

Rather, the trust is usually bound to some keen and startling detail, some striking turn of phrase, or something that makes you laugh—a thing that convinces you an author has absolute command of their story.

You can probably think of such a moment, in something you’ve read.  I think of the finest short story I ever had the pleasure of workshopping in college, centering around an arranged marriage in Hassidic Jewish community in New York City—a culture and a city that I knew nothing about—but they portrayed it with such keen detail (they either had firsthand experience, or researched the shit out of the subject) and such tenderness, that by the time the central couple spoke their first words to each other as a married couple (and those words were so perfect—awkward, and nervous, and kind), I realized, by God, this is gorgeous, it’s only been a few pages but I want so much for these humans and I’m going to read every other page about them that’s here.

(...I wonder if she ever published that, now that I think of it.  Hm.)

I think very dense or inventive fantasy/science-fiction has to earn your trust, in a similar way, and it has to do it before your bafflement overwhelms your trust.  I remember reading Too Like the Lightning, a novel with ridiculously dense worldbuilding—and I remember laughing so hard at a relatively early bit, where deep in the midst of a tense multinational political discussion, I realized one character was panicking in Lovecraftian manner over a doomsday prophecy in the form of a damn mathematical economic model!  That’s probably the moment when Palmer “won” me—this is the kind of book that blurs the fantastic and the mundane so smoothly that I may not even realize it until I’m halfway through a chapter, and it’ll make me laugh—though she won me over in a hundred other smaller ways roundabout there.  (I’m far from the first to comment on the whole “I don’t know what you’re doing but you have me in your clutches” allure that book has.)

((Similarly, shouts to Cat Valente’s Silently and Very Fast, which won me over the second I realized the super-AI had once been a house built by an eccentric genius on the coast of Shiretoko, with foxes and bears snuffling in the night outside.  How oddly, charmingly specific.  It helped that I’m in love with Hokkaido, of course.))

Anyway.

I was thinking about all this, because I’m trembling with excitement after finishing volume one of “Go with the Clouds, North-by-Northwest,” a manga I bought on total impulse this weekend, because I was at a local store and the shopkeeper was nice and there were birds on the cover.

It’s not trust—at least, not in any of the senses that I mentioned above (the author being horrific but not gratuitous, the author convincing me via some crucial detail that this story is going someplace solid, the author convincing me if I just “go with” the worldbuilding it will pay off beautifully).  It is probably far harder for a manga/comic author to earn my trust, probably takes far longer, because even if the art is gorgeous—and my God, the art in this volume is gorgeous—well, we’ve all read our share of comics that were visually gorgeous but ultimately proved hollow, and failed to connect.

For me, the thing that will earn my trust is the story, and since comic panels move more slowly than the written word, it takes longer for me to feel like I really know any given character, or the shape of the plot, well enough to trust them.  I managed six volumes of Pluto, for instance, before I gave up, realized that it just wasn’t my thing.

The feeling I got out of this manga wasn’t trust, exactly—much more like the feeling of a giddy, nervous, but overall-splendid first date.  It helps that he’s good to look at (did I mention the art is gorgeous? and such a fun setting; I’ve never thought overmuch about Iceland, but the vast panoramas of windswept grasses and winding roads we see made me want to go there, badly).  The story’s primary conceits (our protagonist’s grandpa can talk to birds; the protagonist himself can talk to machines) are subtle so far, and border on magical realism—it’s not like the car talks back to the protagonist, not in any way we can see.  But he banters as he drives, as if to no one in particular, but afterwards just knows things about the car, stuff he couldn’t know any other way.  He leverages this little talent into a knack for finding shit for other people, teenage-detective-style.

There may be other characters with similar knacks, too—we get a hint of it in the last chapter—but it’s hard to know for sure, and I like it that way.  I don’t want it to veer into supernatural shenanigans; I like the idea of lots of only-very-slightly-magical people making sense of what their sixth senses are telling them.  But that subtlety means I need to watch it longer, so I can see where it’s going with all this, quietly-oh-so-quietly.

There’s a bit of the haha-grandpa’s-kind-of-a-pervy-old-man humor going on in this volume.  Mercifully very little, but still, sigh.  (It’s a first date and his sense of humor seems a little immature—is this a triviality to be overlooked? or a sign of deeper trouble?)

And, as is all-too-common in manga, the first volume ends just when I feel like we’re digging into something meaty—what’s the deal with his younger brother?—and now I’ve gotta either wait until August or go scrounge up a fan translation to read what happens next.

So no, I don’t trust North-by-Northwest absolutely yet, but it got a lot right, and I’m just thrilled by the possibility of this thing, this serendipitous gorgeous little book.  I smile when he texts the next day, I’m rereading the pages of what just happened, maybe it just ends up being a weirdly-paced standard detective manga, or maybe he’s The One.

Meanwhile I trust that next Friday it’ll give me a good time, something new to change up the pace a bit.

[thelibrarbian]

Spicy Pasta - Chapter 1

I wrote a thing!!

Yup, leave it to the Undertale fandom and its amazing content creators to inspire me to try my hand at writing again ^^

This is the first of a series of loosely connected oneshots I will be writing for @sfw12-days-of-papcest. I probably won’t be writing for all 12 days, but I would like to do something for at least half of them ^^

Future chapters will be much shorter; this one got a little out of hand ...

Side note: I have not written anything "creatively" for about two years, and I have never written fanfiction or a story in English before, so I'm curious to see how (badly) this goes xD If you find any misspellings, grammar mistakes, or just strange expressions in my writing in general, please let me know so I can fix it!

Rating: T (for language)

Pairing: platonic Edgepuff (UT!Papyrus & UF!Papyrus)

Tags: Multiverse Shenanigans, some drama, Snowstorms, Mild Language

Word count: 2358

Prompts this chapter is (very loosely) based on: Betrayal / Bitter / Relinquish

Read on Ao3

On most days, walking home from Undyne’s house on the Surface was a good way for Papyrus to clear his head. Today was not one of those days.

“Um, Paps … about that guard thing …”

On most days, he would enjoy the clear winter breeze around his head, and greet both monsters and humans on the streets with a bright smile. He would not, normally, replay the last conversation with his friend and ex-trainer in his mind.

“That ‘special training’ back then, it, um, it really was just cooking lessons.”

A young bunny monster called his name from across the street, and it took Papyrus a second to put his smile back on his face – when had it dropped? – and wave back at them.

“What I mean is … I never actually trained you to be in the guard, Papyrus.” Undyne looked aside sheepishly, running a hand through her hair. “Sorry, I … should have told you sooner, I guess. I just thought you’d figure it out, y’know? That it was just cooking, not guard training.”

“OH. OH! OF COURSE. HOW SILLY OF ME. HAHA.”

It really was silly, wasn’t it? He should have realized that making spaghetti was not truly a necessary skill for a future guardsman. Anyway, it wasn’t a big deal, right? The Royal Guard had been disbanded when the barrier was broken. Even if Papyrus could have joined them back in the Underground, it wouldn’t make any difference now.

He shook his skull to clear his mind. There was no use dwelling on this! So he wouldn’t! Straightening his spine, he quickened his pace.

It was only a matter of minutes before he found himself at his own front door. As he fumbled for the keys in his pocket, he looked up the familiar facade. The house was built almost identical to the one in Snowdin, and now the building seemed almost nostalgic to him, a reminder of the time back before everything had changed.

Not that the changes were bad! Things were just … different now.

Very different.

Not only had Frisk the human freed monsterkind from their underground prison, but a malfunctioning machine in his brother’s basement had recently led to the accidental discovery of alternate universes – and had sent both Sans and Papyrus on an unplanned trip into a more murdery, more dangerous and much more spiky Underground. Eventually, they had found their way back home, but not without the help of the local Sans and Papyrus, dubbed Red and Fell to avoid confusion. It turned out they were actually rather nice monsters, once you got past the initial death threats!

Also, his own alternate self was second-in-command of the Royal Guard.

Papyrus quelled the spontaneous pang of misplaced jealousy. He had been there, he knew what Fell’s duties in his world encompassed, and he did not envy him for it. If anything, Papyrus was glad that at least one version of himself had succeeded in joining the guard.

He took a deep breath and put on a smile again before unlocking the door. No use dwelling on it, he reminded himself.

“I’M BACK, BROTHER!” he called as he entered the living room.

Sans, half buried in the couch cushions, gave a small wave. “hey, bro. how was your stay at undyne’s?”

“GOOD! AS ALWAYS!” he said cheerfully. His cheekbones were starting to hurt.

Frowning, Sans extracted himself from the couch. “is everything okay?”

Darn it. Apparently, Papyrus’ smile was not as convincing as he had thought. And when Sans looked this worried, there wasn’t any point in lying.

“IT’S NOTHING IMPORTANT.” He tried a chuckle, but it sounded forced even to himself. “DID YOU KNOW THAT UNDYNE HADN’T ACTUALLY BEEN TRAINING ME FOR THE GUARD BACK UNDERGROUND?”

An expression of guilt flashed over Sans’ face. “aw, paps …” He reached out to comfort him.

Papyrus took a step back. “DID YOU KNOW?” He tried to keep his voice neutral, non-accusing, but Sans’ shoulders still slumped down.

“listen, paps, i’m sorry, really –”

“NO, IT’S ALRIGHT. I UNDERSTAND.” He did, really. They hadn’t wanted to hurt his feelings by outright telling him that he wasn’t suited for the Guard. That he was “just too nice to send into battle” as Undyne had put it earlier. And maybe they were right! But that they thought he couldn’t handle the rejection and would rather keep lying to him for years – he couldn’t help but feel slightly offended.

Sans looked up at him like a sad puppy. “you were always so happy when you talked about the guard. didn’t want to take that away from you, y’know?” For as guilty as he looked and sounded, there wasn’t a lot of regret in his voice.

Papyrus felt the remainder of his smile slip. This was no use. He needed to get away. As much as he appreciated his brother’s concern for him, he had enough of being coddled, like everyone here seemed intent on doing. He was the Great Papyrus, for stars’ sake, multiverse-traveller and vice-ambassador of monsterkind! And yet this whole Guard fiasco was just the last of many recent events that made him think not everyone had quite realized that he was, indeed, an adult. (The fact that the bunny lady from the inn was still offering him lollipops was the least of his concerns.)

Why was it so hard to find someone who took him seriously?

His thoughts traveled back to Fell.

No, that was silly! He couldn’t just flee the entire universe over some maybe – slightly – hurt feelings.

But neither did he want to stay and argue – and the machine was just down the stairs. It wasn’t like he was running away, really. Just taking a short break. Paying a quick visit to his multiverse friends, like he had done before.

“um, paps?”

Papyrus cleared his nonexistent throat. “I! JUST REMEMBERED! FELL AND I HAVE ARRANGED FOR A PAPYRUS MOVIE NIGHT TODAY THAT I CLEARLY FORGOT TO TELL YOU ABOUT! SO! I MUST BE OFF!”

He didn’t wait for Sans to call him out on his threadbare excuse and was already down the stairs before his brother could get out a single word to stop him.

Papyrus stepped out into a basement almost identical to the one he had just left. If anything, this one looked a little more dusty – whether it was traces of dead monsters or just regular dust from disuse, he couldn’t tell. He hoped for the latter.

Even now he was almost sure that he had overreacted. He was being childish, avoiding the situation like this instead of staying and talking things out. But if he turned around now and went back home immediately, wouldn’t that seem even more immature? No, he would just stay for a few hours, hopefully clear his head, then return home, and everything would go back to normal.

And while he was here, he could just as well have the movie night he just made up! It had been a while since their last inter-dimensional meet-up, and he was curious what the skeleton brothers from this darker world had been up to.

He should call Fell and let him know about it.

The phone was picked up on the second ring. For a moment, the sound of wind was all Papyrus could hear, before Fell’s gruff voice came through the speaker. “Creampuff?”

Papyrus brightened at the moniker that had long since turned into an affectionate nickname. “FELL! HOW NICE TO TALK TO YOU! SAY, DO YOU MIND IF I COME OVER?”

“Not at all –”

“WONDERFUL! BECAUSE I MAY OR MAY NOT BE ALREADY STANDING IN YOUR BASEMENT.”

There was a pause on the other side of the line, then a huff that sounded somewhere between amused and exasperated. “I’m on my way home. Stay there, I’m coming to pick you up.” Fell hung up before Papyrus could answer.

Papyrus put the phone back in his inventory and settled down on the edge of a workbench. Just like his old house in Snowdin, the basement here did not connect directly to the living room, and after a certain … incident a while ago, him and Fell had agreed that Papyrus should not walk out to the front door on his own.  

While waiting, he listened for sounds outside the basement door. It was something the previous visits to this universe had taught him: always stay alert and aware of the surroundings! Thankfully, no fights seemed to be taking place outside the basement. As a matter of fact, he didn't hear any monsters at all. It sounded like there was a storm coming up, if the occasional howling of the wind and the patter of light hail against the wall was any indication. Everyone who didn't need to be outside had probably left the streets.

Suddenly, the snow outside the basement crunched under heavy footsteps. Papyrus stood up straight. The footsteps came to a halt, a key clicked in the lock, and the door swung open.

With a blast of air, a tall skeleton stepped into the basement. Snow was clinging to his scarf and to the pointed shoulder plates of his armor, but he made no move to brush it off as he pulled the door closed behind him.  His sharp teeth were set, his expression watchful under the old scar that ran down his eye socket. Red eyelights quickly scoured the room and settled on Papyrus.

“HELLO, FELL! “ Papyrus greeted.

Slowly, Fell’s posture loosened and his face relaxed into a genuine smile. With two long strides he was in front of Papyrus and pulled him into an almost bone-crushing embrace. His metal breastplate was damp from the snow and cold enough that Papyrus could feel it through his clothes as he returned the hug with just as much force.

“It’s good to see you, Creampuff,” Fell muttered against his skull before releasing him.

Papyrus stepped back just far enough that he could look Fell over. It hadn’t escaped him that his alternate self seemed more tense than usual. “IS ANYTHING CAUSING TROUBLE?”

Fell gave a noncommittal grunt. “Not yet, but there might be soon. If the weather keeps getting worse, our food transports will have a hard time getting through to Snowdin. It wouldn’t be the first time, and we are as prepared as we can be, but it is always a recipe for disaster.” He ran a hand over his skull. “We will have to wait and see. But what brings you here so suddenly?”

“OH! WELL, I JUST THOUGHT WE COULD HAVE A SPONTANEOUS PAPYRUS MOVIE NIGHT!” Papyrus stifled the impulse to wring his hands. “IF YOU HAVE TIME, THAT IS.”

Fell narrowed his eye sockets at him. “And why are you really here?”

Papyrus and Fell had moved their conversation to the living room. They were on their second cups of sea tea when Papyrus had finished recounting the events that lead to him turning up unannounced in Fell’s basement.

“ANYWAY,” he said. “I DON’T SUPPOSE THIS IS SOMETHING YOU, THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE LIEUTENANT FELL, HAVE EVER HAD TO DEAL WITH, CONSIDERING YOUR WHOLE …” Papyrus made a vague hand gesture, trying to encompass Fell’s entire intimidating appearance.

“I did, actually.” Fell took a sip from his own tea. “But my Undyne never bothered to lie to me about it. Back in the day, she made it very clear that I was much too soft to ever become a guardsman.” His mouth twitched.

Oh. “REALLY? HOW DID YOU CONVINCE HER OTHERWISE?”

Fell opened his mouth, but whatever he was going to say was interrupted when suddenly the lights went out.

Papyrus blinked a few times. All he could see were Fell’s eyelights looking back at him from the other side of the couch. He reached over the armrest and flipped the light switch back and forth. Nothing happened. The floor lamp was equally non-functional. “ALRIGHT,” he said slowly. “DO YOU OFTEN HAVE POWER OUTAGES HERE?”

“Sometimes,” Fell answered. The couch cushions rustled as he stood up. “There’s a flashlight and candles in the kitchen, I’ll go get them.”

Papyrus stood as well, carefully made his way to the window and peeked behind the curtain. The storm had gotten worse. It was only afternoon, but with the dense snowfall blocking the artificial daylight almost entirely, it was dark enough to look like nighttime. Thick snowflakes and hailstones pounded against the window.

A door opened on the upper floor, and Papyrus spun around, dropping the curtain. He looked up to find Red, as they had chosen to call the Sans of this universe, standing at the railing, flashlight in hand. He let the beam of light wander across the living room, and Papyrus squinted as it came to rest on his face.

“heya, creampuff.” Red narrowed his sockets, but thankfully, the flashlight moved on. “the hell is going on here?”

Fell returned from the kitchen with a box of candles and a flashlight of his own. “We have a visitor. And a power outage.”

“i’ve gathered as much.” In the blink of an eye, Red was standing next to them. “one related to the other, or not?”

“I DON’T THINK SO?” Papyrus rubbed his chin. “I CAME HERE WELL BEFORE THE POWER WENT OUT, AND I HAVEN’T MESSED WITH THE MACHINE …” He trailed off as another thought struck him. The machine. His only way back to his home universe. The machine that certainly needed power to run. He swallowed. “SAY, HOW LONG DO POWER OUTAGES LAST HERE, USUALLY?”

“That depends on what exactly caused them,” said Fell. “With this weather, at least a few days before any repair work can start. Why?”

Papyrus opened his mouth to respond, but apparently Red had followed his train of thought. “the machine,” he mumbled. “fuck.” Before Papyrus could react, he was grabbed by the elbow and dragged through a shortcut into the basement.

It did not take long to confirm that, with the power cut off, multiverse travel was indeed impossible. Red gave the machine a final kick before turning back to the other two skeletons.

“well, creampuff,” he said with a wry smile, “how long were you planning to stay?”

[teentitansrpgarchive]

Speedy App

Canon Character Application Form

Roleplayer’s name: Fe

Age: 20

Gender: Gal

Predicted average weekly activity level: I should be able to meet the requirements of all characters, but occasionally, if my schedule is particularly busy I will have to prioritize replies based on who’s needed most. In those cases, I will make sure I do at least one reply per character that week. I am almost always online if anyone needs me ooc. I’m a student, so occasionally if I have some crazy amount of assignments I may have to take a short hiatus.

Time zone: Eastern

Anything else you want us to know?:

iM SO HYPE

—

Character’s superhero/villain name: Speedy, may change in the future

Character’s civilian name: Roy Harper

Alignment: Superhero. He can walk the line of antihero if pushed hard enough.

Affiliated with: Formerly Titans East. Speedy now considers himself to have ‘graduated’ the Titans, and has pursued a more solo career.

Age: 18, almost 19

Physical characteristics: Speedy is tall, with a slew of red hair carefully styled on his head, which he heavily prides himself in. He’s rather fit, with muscles particularly evident in his arms due to being a skilled archer. He’s known for his condescending smirk, and chiseled jaw.

Personality traits: Roy is, well, a bit of an asshole, but he generally means well. He fights for what is right, on a broad scale (he’ll happily take down criminals, for example), but his remarks can border on offensive (or sexist), and he’s not always the brightest. He usually doesn’t mean to, but his words can unknowingly cause harm. It may take a bit of correcting from his friends for him to change his bad habits. He is a bit selfish, and tends to think highly of himself. Roy is in the process of finding himself, and is not always as upbeat as he once was. He can be hot-headed, rather stubborn, and moody at times. He also can be immature, although he would never consider himself as such.

Having reached adulthood, he thinks he is much more mature than any of the Titans who are still ‘children’ (he even thinks he is more of an adult than the Titans that are his age). He likes to poke fun at his friends, and often has a witty or sarcastic zinger ready. He however, does not always take criticism in return too well. He also likes to make jokes, usually at the expense of others. Roy is a big flirt, and always has his eyes out for beautiful women (and the occasional guy). In that department, he does not always respect women as much as he ought to, and this gets him into trouble.

Special abilities: Speedy is an excellent archer that can easily hit most targets. In addition, he is fairly tech-savy, and has designed a multitude of trick-arrows. And does either beautiful hair or seduction skills count?

Character history:

Roy Harper’s father was a ranger in a forest that bordered Navajo reservation lands and was killed in a forest fire, leaving 3 year old Roy orphaned. A medicine man of the name Brave Bow took Roy in after the young boy wandered onto the reservation lands. Brave Bow trained Roy to be a superb archer and was Roy’s caretaker until his death 5 years later. Then, Roy was adopted by Oliver Queen and became the Green Arrow’s sidekick under the name Speedy. At age 13, Roy helped found the original Teen Titans with Dick, Wally, Garth, and Donna, but they were too young to lead their own team and it disbanded fairly quickly.

For a while, he returned to his role of Green Arrow’s sidekick until Roy decided to part ways with his mentor to become a solo hero (not unlike a few other teen superheroes at that time). Teen Titans East was later formed with Speedy as a core member when he was 16. Speedy remained a member of the team for over 2 years, but towards the end began continuously clashing with Bumblebee, the team’s leader.

Roy had different ideas for the team, and being told what to do frustrated him; it reminded him of his times as Green Arrow’s sidekick. Speedy not only had disagreements with Bumblebee, but he started to feel that the Titans were child’s play compared to other super heroes, and decided to become a solo-hero not associated from the Titans. He has turned in his communicator, but in the age of technology he can usually be contacted if needed. He remains in close touch with Aqualad, and Robin particularly. He has had some interactions with the Justice League, but they are not interested in adding him to their team. Roy now pursues criminals on his own, but sometimes assists the Titans if he’s around or needed. He has also contacted the Titans on occasion for assistance with a mission.

He goes wherever the wind takes him, and has currently found himself in Jump City. While obviously this is an area with Titans, Roy had noticed an increased amount of crime in the city and has come to help out. Roy additionally feels more comfortable with interacting with Titans West than his own former team of Titans East, and often visits the Tower. He is especially fond of some of the newer inhabitants of the Tower, which has been an extra incentive for visiting.

Place of residence: A little bit of everywhere, but right now Jump City. Lately can often be found bumming on the couch at Titans West Tower.

Other:

In-character writing sample :

Roy rolled his eyes under his mask at the villains remarks, and responded to him by launching an explosive trick-arrow at the man. Roy was becoming particularly irritated now, and wanted to put an end to this exchange. It seemed like villains these days were coming up with even worse one-liners than ever before. Sometimes, Speedy didn’t mind a bit of a playful back-and-forth with a criminal (especially if they were a pretty lady), but there had to be decent enough material to actually work with. And the evil-doers in Jump just weren’t up to the comedic standards that Roy was used to. It was just another thing that made Roy feel like he didn’t quite belong on the West Coast.

The man laughed; the plain-looking arrow had hit a few feet to the right of him, and he evidently assumed that Speedy had missed. 3… 2… 1… The small explosion hit, knocking the masked man over, and now Roy was the one chuckling. Being a newer face in town, many of the local goons genuinely did not understand that there was more than meets the eye with his arrows.

The villain coughed from the smoke, and shot his own weapon at Speedy. Roy quickly dodged, but he felt a breeze ruffle his hair.

“Hey, watch it!” he accused as he flung an ice-arrow at the man. The criminal tried to scurry away, but the arrow almost immediately caused ice to travel up his body, quite literally freezing him in his place. “That’s what happens to people who fuck with my hair. You’re headed to jail now, bud.”

Other questions:

Why are you interested in joining TTRPG? More specifically, why do you want to roleplay this character?

I’ve played Speedy for two different groups, and I adore playing such an annoying jerk of a character. He’s a lot of fun, and has such great interactions with other characters. I’m looking forward to portraying a version of his character that draws from a later issue of the TTGO comics, as well as other DCU media: a Speedy that feels as if he has out-grown the Titans, and wants to do his own thing. However, Speedy will find that it’s a lot harder to cut ties than he’d imagined, and will get dragged into much of the same shenanigans as before, except with a different perspective. 

If your character is not part of a Titans team:

In what ways do you foresee your character interacting with the Titans and other characters? Speedy has parted ways with Titans East (and the Titans as a whole) not too long ago, so he will try to avoid his old team and distance himself from the Titans label itself. However, most of his bad blood was specifically with Titans East, so he is comfortable enough interacting with the other Titans on occasion. He still considers many of them his friends, and generally has no problem helping with something if he’s around. He is currently staying in Jump City, where there has been an increase of crime, so there is ample opportunity to interact with Titans West and anyone else in the area. Sometimes he directly collabs with Titans West, and other times he simply shows up at the same mission by coincidence.

However, his attitude has shifted a bit now that he has gone solo, and he is not always the most enjoyable to be working with. He often thinks he has the best way to go about missions, and will try to lead when it is not his place to do so, so there may be some butting of heads.

Depending on how the main plot evolves, Speedy could potentially rejoin the Titans in the future.

Do you have any ideas regarding how your character will be introduced to any of the other characters or what characters they will frequently be interacting with?

I think it will just be known to most other characters that Speedy is just sort-of hanging around Jump City, and that he’s gone solo, so they won’t be surprised if he ends up tagging along on missions or just showing up at Titans Tower. I’m sure some of the characters will gladly give him shit about how he’s solo, yet still hanging around, though. I think that Speedy will end up interacting a lot with Titans West, at least until we get a bigger cast of characters. As soon as we get more characters, I’d like to have him branch out to develop closer relationships with them, especially with ones he hadn’t really interacted with in canon.

I’d also like to see him take on villains by himself, or even hanging around some villains (hello Kitten).

I look forward to him interacting with Ravager for sure, since they’re both such interesting characters. I would also like him to have some interactions with Terra (or clone!Terra) as soon as she gets more established into Titans West. I’m not sure how that will work since I play both of those characters, but I’ll make it work. I’m not above roleplaying with myself.

I’m hoping we get a Cheshire, because I would love to have spicy, dramatic interactions between those two. I’m also not opposed to having some crack-ish ships like KittenxSpeedy either >.>

[poisonousfey]

“You heard me. Take. It. Off.” for Jaina/Garrosh, if you'd like? Could be funny, shippy, or even both! *blows kiss* (for your lovely writing style. love that purple prose)

in place of purple prose please accept this humble shitpost

(takes place in the same AU as this one but contains no actual explicit content, just implications of it)

—

So here’s the thing: Garrosh is awful at jousting. There’sno getting around it- he’s just fucking awful at it, and he knows it. Everyoneknows it. Horses are too small and too flighty and weird and wolves weren’tmeant to fucking joust, alright? And jousting is a useless sport, anyway. It’s stupidand pointless, and they should be using their resources to go after the LichKing, but no, apparently they have tocharge at each other with sharp, pointy objects and try not to kill each other because it’s symbolic, or something, whatever garbage Thrall (and then Jaina)had told him about the sport.

Anyway he’s supposed to be practicing because he and somealliance champion fuckhead are supposed to start off the tournament by“symbolically” fighting each other to try and foster good relations betweenHorde and Alliance, it’s such a load of horseshit honestly. Who the fuckthought that pretend-fighting was going to end three decades-plus of war?Tirion Fordring, apparently, the doddering old fuck.

Right, so Garrosh gets up on a mount for the umpteenth timeand eats shit in like, thirty seconds. It’s a record, probably.

It’s the worst landing he’s had in a couple tries, to thepoint where Thrall and the medic on hand actually jog over to see if he’s okay.Luckily, most of the people in the stands, as sparse as they are, aren’t reallypaying attention. They’re too busy chatting amongst themselves. Except forJaina, of course, who’s watching the proceedings fascinatedly. She was talking to Thrall up until he landedin the fucking dirt, this being one of the few times they can actually speak toeach other, but again, that was until he was pushed off of his wolf and landedin the fucking dirt. The other jouster he’s practicing with- a huge-ass trolldeath knight, because that’s fucking fair, pitting him against someone whoalready knows how to play this stupid game on a mount that was literally madefor it- cringes.

“You alright?” he calls across the field.

“Does it look like I’m alright?” Garrosh snaps, making avaliant effort to talk despite having the wind knocked out of him. Out of thecorner of his eye, he can see Jaina cover up a snicker. The troll shrugs.

“Why would I ask if I didn’t already know?” he calls back.“You got up alright every other time.”

“Fair enough,” Garrosh mumbles grudgingly after a moment. Hetries to get up, and stabbing pain shoots through his chest, so he just laysback down. The medic- a troll, Shuuna, he should say, given that she’s a medicfrom Warsong Hold and has already dealt with his shenanigans- sighs under herbreath and kneels down next to him.

“What hurts?” she asks succinctly, giving him a cursoryonce-over before attempting to move him.

“Think I cracked some ribs,” he replies.

“Surprised you haven’t already,” she says. “Alright, let’s getyou to the first aid tent. Can you get up at all?” she asks, as if sheliterally didn’t just see him lie right the fuck back down. He gives her anexasperated look, and she raises her eyebrows at him expectantly.

“Try turning over and then getting up, so you’re liftingwith your legs instead of your chest,” she advises. It works, frustratinglyenough. He’s still hurting, to be fair, it’s just not as bad as it was before.He manages to shuffle over to the first aid tent okay, though. Jaina gives thema little wave as they make their way over, and he and Thrall wave back.

The tent isn’t particularly big, but it’s warm, probablyenchanted to be so judging by the runes hastily painted onto the canvas, and itdoes what it’s supposed to do while the actual first aid area is underconstruction. There isn’t really a need for a bigger tent when there’s not verymany people around aside from those putting up the buildings around them, andthe construction workers have their own across the way. No, this one was thrownup pretty hastily, and for the express purpose of the horde championspracticing to open up for the tournament in a week or two. They needed a spaceto practice, as did the alliance champions, and they needed to be out of theway. Hence, their own tent, small as it may be.

“I need you to take off your chest plate so I can take alook at you. I’ll be out here,” she tells him, motioning outside the tent as hewalks in. “You let me know when you’re ready.” He nods, and she closes theflap.

Now this is all well and good, until he actually peels offthe armor, and remembers what’s under there.

There are several marks that… didn’t necessarily come fromthe jousting. The bruising he can cover, sure, hell he’s been getting more andmore as the day’s been going on, but he’s not sure if getting knocked off amount will explain away why there’s some dotting either side of his neck. Or,furthermore, why there’s multiple long, narrow scratches going up his back,that in no way can come from falling off a mount.

“You ready?” Shuuna asks.

“No,” he snaps, panicking slightly. He hears her sigh, andshe and Thrall mutter amongst themselves, which only makes him panic more.

“You alright?” Thrall asks. “Do you need help?”

He hesitates.

“I’m coming in,” Thrall says.

Fuck. Shit.

He scrambles, and manages to get one of the towels stackedup on the small table wrapped around himself before Thrall sees his back.Moving that fast fucking hurt, but itwas worth it.

“Are you alright?” Thrall asks, closing the flap.

“I’m fine,” Garrosh snarls. Thrall squints at him. “I’malright,” he tries again, calmer. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.” This onlymakes him raise an eyebrow at him.

��Five minutes ago you could barely get up, you’re not fine,”Thrall points out.

“Thrall, I’m alright,” he asserts. Thrall watches him for amoment. As it turns out, he can feel sweat beads forming on his body in realtime. It is not at all a pleasant experience.

Thrall pokes his head out the tent, and Garrosh, knowingthat it’s his demise he hears, hears him say, “Can you give us a minute?”

“Garrosh, what’s going on? You’re acting strangely,” Thrallasks him, genuine concern in his voice. Garrosh absolutely does not need hismisplaced martyr horseshit right now. “Are you alright?”

“Thrall, I’m fine. Really,” he insists. “I just had the windknocked out of me, that’s all.” It doesn’t appear to convince him; Thrallfrowns and his brow furrows with worry.

“That looked like a really bad fall. At least let me take alook if you won’t let the medic do it,” he pleads, guilting and bargaining inone. And Garrosh knows there is really nothing he can say to that, that isn’tincredibly suspicious. Not that this isn’t already incredibly suspicious, buthe can at least say he tried.

“Fine,” he allows, and lets Thrall help him take the toweloff. Thrall takes one look at the massive amount of bruising around his sternumand winces.

“You really took a beating out there, huh,” he sayssympathetically.

“Yep,” Garrosh says.

“I’m going to feel around and see if anything’s out ofplace,” he tells him. “Let me know if I hurt you.”

“Uh-huh,” Garrosh says. Dread is written in every line ofhis face, and he’s not sure how the fuck Thrall hasn’t noticed it yet. Hedoesn’t worry about it; he will. It’s only a matter of time.

Thrall is exceedingly careful with him, which is about whathe expected, and is able to pinpoint the actual injury in question relativelyquickly.

“It doesn’t feel like anything was moved around too much,but you do probably have some cracked ribs,” Thrall says. He moves around tothe back.

“Looks like you have quite a few cuts back here, too,”Thrall continues conversationally. Garrosh says nothing. “Hmm. These look alittle old to be coming from the fall; they’re already scabbing over.” Garroshcontinues to say nothing. This is by far the single most painful thing he’sever had to endure.

Actually, no, scratch that; the very second that Thrallrealizes what they are is the single most painful thing he’s ever had toendure.

There is a marked change in Thrall when he does; he stiffensabruptly, going silent from disbelief and what is most likely rage. Thrall doessay a single goddamn thing to signal this, but he doesn’t really have to, to befair. There has already been an actual change in the atmospheric pressure ofthe tent, courtesy of the weather broadcasting his emotional state for him.Perks of being a shaman, apparently. Garrosh might be dying a little bit fromit, but that’s okay, he had a good life. It can end here, literally at anytime. Now would be preferable.

“What the fuck,” Thrall says. He’s not really sure if he’sever heard him utter those words before. It’s a little unreal, to be honest.

“Uh,” Garrosh replies intelligently.

“What the fuck,”he says again, because once wasn’t enough. “Are you fucking kidding me rightnow, Garrosh? You didn’t want the medic to look at you because of these?”

“Sort of,” he doesn’t reply, electing to sigh deeplyinstead. “It’s more complicated than that,” he continues to not say. Thrallonly enrages further. Apparently, when he’s angry, there’s a lot more talkingwith his hands, which are now gesticulating wildly with every word.

“This is so- immature,first of all, why the fuck would she care, she has already seen so much worse from you,” he hisses athim, stomping around to look at him. That’s. That’s true, actually. He thinksshe actually might have taken chunks of metal shrapnel out of his body at somepoint, but honestly he’s gotten grievously injured so often that it’s sort ofhard to remember who’s putting him back together.

“And second of all, whythe fuck do you care? I have literally seen you walk around bare-assednaked around Grommash Hold without a care in the world, and now all of a suddenit matters?”

Okay, no, that one’s not fair. It was the middle of the nightand also a heat wave; he was just getting some water. He can’t be heldaccountable for that. Also:

“I wasn’t completely naked,” he protests. Thrall throws uphis hands, exasperated.

“You might as wellhave been,” he asserts. “I shouldn’t be in danger of seeing your entire ass out in the breeze because youcouldn’t be bothered to put on pants.”

“Well you wouldn’t have if you actually were asleep at threein the fucking morning like the rest of us instead of working all night,”Garrosh points out. Thrall squints at him, and it’s a look Garrosh recognizes.It translates to something along the lines of, of all the inane shit you could have picked to argue about you wentwith this?

“Don’t change the subject,” Thrall says, jabbing a finger inhis face. “I am not the one under fire here.”

“I didn’t realize I was under fire for wanting privacy,” Garrosh snaps.

If looks could kill, Garrosh would be a smoldering pile of ashat the bottom of a crater.

Thrall takes a moment to compose himself, turning away fromhim and breathing deeply. It doesn’t appear to work; he looks more restrainedthan relaxed.

“Garrosh,” he starts slowly, turning back around. This issomehow worse than the manic flailing and hissing. “Is there some reason that,despite you being open about literally every other liaison you’ve had, you needto keep this one so private that you can’t even let a medic look at you to dotheir job?”

“Yes,” he snaps impatiently, mulish.

“Okay,” Thrall says, taking another breath. “Can you tell mewhat this reason is?” Garrosh hesitates.

“No,” he grumbles. Thrall sighs.

“Okay,” he says again. “That’s fine,” he continues, itclearly not being fine, but he won’t fight Garrosh about it. “Let me just takecare of this, then.” He nods grudgingly, giving Thrall his assent.

Getting healed with magic is always a slightly jarringexperience- it’s not really a common occurrence to feel your body stitch itselfback together in real time- but the injury isn’t actually too bad as far asThrall can tell, and heals easily enough.

“I should probably take care of these, too, while we’re atit,” he says, gesturing to the scratches. “Wouldn’t take long. It would helpyou cover your tracks, too,” he continues, reaching for them. Garrosh grabs hiswrist just before his hand makes contact with skin.

“Don’t-” he starts. But he can’t finish that sentence,because there is literally nothing he could say that could make this better.Thrall is dead inside.

Thankfully, this particular moment doesn’t overstay itswelcome, as it’s interrupted by Jaina checking in on them.

“Hey, you alright in there?” she calls through the canvas.“I have to leave soon; I was going to meet back up with Varian.” Thrall looksat Garrosh; Garrosh nods.

“You can come in, it’s alright,” Thrall replies. She comesin a moment later, careful to close the flap behind her.

“Everything alright?” she asks, looking between the two ofthem. She looks at the bruising on Garrosh’s chest and cringes.

“Yes, he just took a little more of a beating than wethought he did,” Thrall explains, and it’s really remarkable how well he canhide the fact that he’s dead inside. As a friend, Garrosh feels thatfundamentally he should be really worried about that. But later, later.

“I can see that,” she replies. “Thought I suppose it’s notthat much of a surprise, seeing as you’ve been getting you’ve been gettingknocked around the whole arena,” she says, teasing. Garrosh scoffs.

“Don’t you worry- I’ll be back on my feet in time to putyour champion in their place,” he says, playing back.

“Oh, I’m sure,” she replies, mock-agreeing. “You were veryintimidating when you were knocked flat on your back.” Garrosh rolls his eyes.

“Anyway,” she says. “I’ve got to get going. I’ll see youlater, alright?” She goes in for a quick hug with Thrall and a kiss on thecheek, with the kind of casual intimacy that siblings have.

“Good luck,” she says cheerily, sing-song. “You’re going toneed it.” Garrosh scoffs again, and she leaves. Thrall, without turning back tolook at him, says:

“It’s Jaina, isn’t it.”

It’s not a question; it’s not even phrased as one. Thrallalready knows. He doesn’t even have to look at him, and he knows. It’s probablygood, because Garrosh seems to have completely lost the ability to reply. He’smostly just frozen in place at the prospect of Thrall putting two and twotogether. He finally turns to look at him, and Thrall looks like he just gotsaddled with telling all the kids at the orphanage that Winter Veil is cancelledforever because Greatfather Winter isn’t real; a nice, hearty mix ofexasperation, resignation, apathy, and a world-weariness that goes all the waydown to his soul.

“Could be worse,” Garrosh finds himself saying, for somefucking reason. Garrosh watches approximately three years get shaved off ofThrall’s lifespan.

“Don’t say that,”he says. “Why would you say that? Don’tput that evil on us,” Thrall pleads with him, slightly angry and slightlyhysterical. Garrosh shrugs.

“I’m just saying,” he says, unable to stop himself frompoking the bear. “It could be a lot worse.”

“Yeah, she could be pregnant,” Thrall jokes morbidly,already in a full self-destructive spiral.

The two of them freeze.

“Garrosh,” he starts again, slowly. “Please tell me you areusing some kind of protection.”

Garrosh hesitates. They are, but he kind of lives for thelook on Thrall’s face when he’s staring straight into the abyss.

“Garrosh,” Thrall says, the threat of violence palpable inthe air. He is a man with nothing left to lose.

“Obviously,” Garrosh says.

“You are literally killing me,” Thrall tells himmatter-of-factly. Garrosh just nods. He’s not sorry.

[c7pher-blog]

giant squids and turtlenecks

↳ harry potter au

◇ prompt: “you know, i was joking when i suggested you jump into the lake and see if there really is a giant squid, and i’m still not sure why you needed to take your clothes off to do this” (x)

◇ pairing: jeongguk x reader

◇ word count: 1.3k words

◇ genre: fluff

◇ a/n: ahh my first fic! feel free to leave requests and to give me some feed back!! this was so cheesy and cliche so i might rewrite it later but i hope you guys enjoy it nonetheless.

lowercase for stylistic reasons

“i don’t believe it,” you say, not bothering to look up from your “history of magic” textbook. jeongguk scoffed and turned around, examining the lake, before turning back to you.

“why not?”

“a giant squid? in a lake? not to mention the water is freezing? it doesn’t add up,”

“y/n, we’re literally wizards. just yesterday, taehyung turned himself into a frog-cat hybrid. does that ‘add up?’” he mocked. you rolled your eyes.

“i’m just saying, anyways why don’t you go jump in and check? don’t drown,” you say sarcastically. silence engulfs the two of you as you flip to the next page of your textbook and jeongguk examines the pristine lake once more, before you hear a loud squeal and an “omigosh! look! it’s jeon jeongguk!” you immediately grown and smack your forehead with your book. 

“can’t you, i don’t know, control them?” you ask, glaring in the direction of the giant group of girls. jeongguk only grins.

“why? you jealous?” he teases. you reach out and smack him with your book, receiving an “ow!” from jeongguk and a loud gasp from his fangirls.

being friends with jeongguk wasn’t necessarily bad, but it wasn’t easy either–at least for you. you two were childhood friends, having been neighbors before this whole “you’re a wizard!” shenanigan kicked in. 

first year, for you at least, was easy. you were too immature to recognize what a crush was, too childish, just living in the moment. adding to the fact that you two were separated into two different houses, it just made you two lose contact. but when first year ended and you two returned to your homes, you found you and jeongguk’s fates tangled up together once again.

third year rolled around and thanks to the magic of hormones, you found yourself falling more and more for this raven-haired boy. although you two were in different houses, jeongguk always made an effort to talk to you and wow, you had never realized how beautiful his voice was or how looking at his smile made your heart somersault into your stomach. then, after the incident of you having a panic attack while you practiced defeating boggarts in defense against the dark arts during a joint class between slytherins and ravenclaws, and him leading you into the empty corridor and enveloping you in his arms, rocking you back and forth and humming a soft tune, it was safe to say that you had developed a huge crush on this boy from your childhood. 

fourth year, was when things started getting a bit difficult for you. by now, jeongguk was a fourteen-year-old boy, and although still young, puberty was starting to hit him and although you once shared the same height, he was now a whole head above you and starting to develop muscles (”admit it y/n, you want to squeeze these biceps. come on, i know deep down you want to!” you had smacked him with your newspaper profusely). losing his baby fat and losing the bowl cut he once had, you often found it hard to look him in the face without becoming flustered. after encouraging him to try out for the quidditch team, he started to develop a fanclub, and although you hated it, some of the girls in it were very attractive and you couldn’t help but feel pangs of jealousy when you saw them interact with jeongguk.

now that you two were fifth years, it was nice to spend quiet moments like this with jeongguk, by the lake. his presence calmed you down and although you two always bickered, you couldn’t help but smile at how cute he looked with his oversized turtleneck shielding him from the autumn chill, with the wind messing up his hai–

“omigosh! HE’S TAKING OFF HIS SWEATER! EEEEEEK!” 

you immediately whip your head up, staring wide-eyed at jeongguk as he stands over your sitting form, turtleneck off and a cocky smirk on his lips. 

“well y/n, just like you suggested, i have decided that i will jump into the lake,” he said, squatting down so his face was dangerously close to yours. you immediately back up.

“did you really have to take off your clothes to do this?” you ask exasperatedly, “and jeongguk! it’s freezing! you’re going to catch a cold!” you said, looking anywhere but at him. he rolled his eyes and cupped your face in his hands, squeezing your cheeks together.

“awh~ is y/n worried about her dear jeonggukie?” he says as he gets up and stretches, getting ready to take off into the lake. you hear the fangirls squeal as jeongguk turns towards their direction, waving sweetly and flexing. they start chanting his name and you see jeongguk’s ego start to inflate.

you quickly grab onto his wrist, shaking your head. “don’t do it jeongguk. you’ll catch a cold,”

he shakes his head before giving you a salute. “awh. but that would disappoint my audience,” jeongguk winks and takes off running and you try your best to run after him but wow, he’s really fast and you curse yourself for spending so many years of your life sitting in the lounge room and eating chocolate frogs instead of getting in shape.

“jeongguk!” you scream as you see him jumping off of the dock into the cold water.

“you!” smack, ”stupid!” smack, ”idiot! i told you that was a bad idea!” you say, smacking jeongguk’s head one last time with the rolled up newspaper you had in hand. he groaned as he wrapped the blankets around him even more securely. you sighed and plopped down in the seat next to his bed in the infirmary. 

“but it proved to you that there’s a giant squid in there. and plus, i didn’t think it would hold me underwater like that. i would’ve gotten out quicker if it left me alone so if anything it’s the squid’s fault for making me sick,” he complains, “if anything, i thought there was going to be some spell that would cure me quickly,” he said quietly as you helped him sit up, grabbing the cup of water at his bedside and slowly draining the water into his mouth. he was sweating as if he had just gotten back from a rigorous evening of practice, and although he didn’t show it, you could tell he had a major headache and stomachache. you couldn’t help but feel empathy. sighing, you pressed a cold, wet towel to his forehead and gently brushed out the tangles in his damp hair. 

“you know… i’m really glad we’re friends,” he whispers and you roll your eyes. 

“i am too, you dork,”

“to be honest, i thought you were so cute when i first saw you. i still think you’re cute,” you bite down the urge to squeal, trying to play it off. “well, i think you’re very attractive too, gukkie, but you already know that since you have a fanclub and everything,” you reply teasingly. jeongguk smiles.

“so are you saying you like me? because it’d be sad if you turned me down right now, especially when i’m on my deathbed,”

“ugh, that deathbed comment just ruined the mood. nope, i’m out, adios, sayonara,” you scoff, getting ready to get up but jeongguk quickly grabs onto your wrist. 

“you loser. you’re supposed to kiss me. stop playing hard to get, i’ve been waiting four years for you to give in and confess,”

you grin and lean in, your heart cartwheeling around your chest before you abruptly stop. “but… i don’t wanna get sick,”

“i can’t believe a fucking giant squid just cockblocked me,” jeongguk whined.