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calamitykaty · 5 years ago

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A Twist of Fate

Charlie x Fem! Reader

Word count:7670

Warnings: Slight Swearing, I think that’s it?

Requested: Sorta? It’s a multi writer topic by @vicesvsvirtuesfanfic revolving around the idea of y/n finding an ad to rent a date for Thanksgiving. *You can find the first writers fic HERE

A/N: HUGE thank you to @dream-a-little-bigger-x for reading every rough draft of this that I sent her, along with bouncing ideas with me! Also a huge thank you to @vicesvsvirtuesfanfic for supporting me when I got stuck and reading my super rough draft!

I wasn’t gonna post this until tomorrow but now I have a Christmas Reggie fic that I want to post tomorrow so...Happy Reading.

Y/N wrapped the buffalo plaid scarf around her neck and pulled her favorite slouchy red beanie over her thick mop of curls. Her cellphone was pressed between her right shoulder and ear as she buttoned up her navy peacoat and half-listened to her mom rattle off the preparations she needed to make for Thanksgiving.

“Mom, I really need to…” Y/N attempted to interject only to be cut off by her mother. She placed the phone on speaker and set it down on the counter while she slipped her feet into a pair of black boots. She had stopped listening to her mother’s droning voice nearly a half-hour beforehand, but her ears perked up when her mother asked the dreaded question.

“Are you bringing Noah this year honey? I know you guys like to alternate holidays with his family, but your Aunt Martha is going to make it this year and she is just tickled to finally get to meet him.”

Y/N pursed her lips and ran a hand over her face, she hadn’t told anyone that Noah broke things off with her two months prior. She hadn’t meant to keep it a secret for so long, but her mom loved Noah and she just knew she would blame her for ruining a good thing. She had been dating Noah for three years and it was perfect until Noah started talking about marriage and Y/N began to realize that she couldn’t picture her entire life with him. Noah felt like a moment in time to her, not an eternity.

“I’ll have to check, Mom, I don’t know what Noah is doing yet.” Y/N settled on a half-truth to buy herself some time. She placed her elbows on the edge of the counter and rested her head in her hands.

“Honey, I need to know by the end of the week, okay?”

She could hear the irritation in her mother's voice at the non-answer that Y/N had given to her. Her mother was a meticulous planner and she could not stand curve balls making a mess of her perfect holiday plans. Her mother treated every holiday as if the editors of Better Homes & Gardens were going to drop in at any moment and do a two-page spread on her decor and perfect meal.

“Got it, mom! I have to go!” Y/N quickly ended the phone call and shoved her phone into her pocket. She huffed out a heavy sigh and made her way to her front door, grabbing her keys from the catch-all bowl on the table next to the door. She quickly locked up her apartment and rushed down the two flights of stairs to the small community lobby. She adjusted the scarf around her neck and reached for the door but stopped as a new flyer on the community board caught her eye. She took a step back and ripped the paper from the thumbtack that held it to the cork board and shoved it into her coat pocket before pulling the door open.

Her hair whipped around her face as she stepped outside and was met with the cool autumn breeze that had settled in over the last month. Y/N looked both ways before stepping off of the sidewalk and hurrying across the street where her best friend, Leigha, was already waiting for her inside the small corner cafe.

“How is it that I have to drive from the other side of town and can make it on time but you literally live across the street and can’t?” Leigha teased as Y/N unraveled her scarf and took her coat off, draping both over the back of her chair before sitting down.

“Sorry! Sorry! My mother…” Y/N rolled her eyes as she recalled the phone call.

“Enough said!” Leigha laughed, she had one of those laughs that turned heads. Her laugh was always a little too loud and sometimes she would snort, it always caused Y/N to break into a fit of giggles. Leigha had been Y/N’s roommate all the way through college and they had been inseparable since the very first day they had met.

“So,” Leigha crossed her arms on top of the table,” did you work up the courage to tell her about Noah?”

Y/N shifted her gaze across the cafe and bit her lip “not exactly…”

“You are unbelievable, y/n ” Leigha sighed, exasperated.

Y/N snapped her eyes back to Leigha and held her hands up in defense “I tried! Well...I mean…I tried to try…”

“You know if you show up stag and your mother already has a place setting for a plus one, you might as well just go ahead and bury yourself, honestly” Leigha tutted.

“That’s why I have a plan!” Y/N turned around and rustled through the pockets of her peacoat before placing the crumpled flyer on the table. She smoothed her hands over the paper and pushed it towards the middle of the table.

Leigha snatched the paper up as the waitress came over and took their orders, Leigha ordered a blueberry scone with a chai tea while Y/N ordered a croissant with a side of strawberry preserves and a coffee.

“I mean…” Leigha read over the paper before sliding it back over to Y/N, “you’ve got nothing to lose.”

Y/N bit her lip and stared down at the flyer, re-reading it for the fourth time before she pulled out her phone and scanned the QR code to bring up the app.

“I can’t believe I am actually this desperate to try to literally purchase a date a week before Thanksgiving.” She muttered as she began to fill out her profile.

“Wait! Thanksgiving is next week? As in a week from today? I haven’t even made my Thanksgiving Pinterest board yet!” Leigha panicked and grabbed her face.

Y/N looked up from her phone and shook her head at Leigha’s antics “why do you need a Pinterest board? You literally do the same thing every single year.”

“Yeah…” Leigha jutted her bottom lip out in a pout, “but I want people to think that I am making all of these intricate and super cute appetizers and stuff. It’s the illusion that I care about!”

Y/N looked up and thanked the waitress as she set the food and coffee down in front of her before turning her attention back to Leigha who was eagerly biting into her scone.

“Help me answer these?” She passed her phone over to the girl and picked up the knife, spreading the strawberry preserves onto her croissant.

“Beach or Mountains?” Leigha readout with her mouth half full.

“Mountains!” Both girls yelled out at the same time and burst into giggles. They continued down the row of questions, passing the phone back and forth until Y/N finally hit the submit button. Leigha practically yanked the phone from Y/N’s hand as the algorithm began to shoot out potential matches. Her thumb scrolled through the pictures at lighting speed before she stopped and slowly scrolled back up before thrusting the phone in Y/N’s face.

“This one! Oh my god, this one! And if you don’t select the platinum package so that boy can say he loves you then I will literally never speak to you again!”

Y/N wiped the jam from her chin and grabbed the phone from Leigha. He was cute, there was no doubt about that but unlike Leigha, she cared about what his profile said about him. She scrolled through his pictures, one of him playing guitar, one hiking, one surrounded by friends around a campfire. Lover of nature, endless adventure, campfire songs, and sharing the love with my friends. I’ll jump if you jump, let’s take this plunge together?

She felt her lips curl up into a soft smile as she whispered his name to herself, liking the way that it rolled so easily off of her tongue.

“I told yooouuuu!” Leigha sang out and crossed her arms over her chest, a smug look on her face.

Y/N placed the phone on the table and tried to control the blush that she could fill rising to her cheeks, “calm down,” she rolled her eyes, “I’m paying for a Thanksgiving date, not falling in love.” She selected the platinum option and typed in her credit card number before clicking the purchase open without a second hesitation.

“I better be your maid of honor!” Leigha teased as the two girls dropped the appropriate amount of money onto the table and began to layer their coats and scarves back on. Y/N pulled the girl into a hug and placed a kiss on her cheek before heading back across the street towards her apartment.

She had just placed the keys back into her catch-all bowl by the door when her phone began to ding. She felt her heart begin to race as she saw the approval message on her screen that Charlie had accepted her request to rent him as her Thanksgiving date.

“Oh my god...okay...okay, this is fine...everything is fine.” She muttered to herself as she received another notification that Charlie had messaged her. She set her phone down on the counter and peeled her coat and scarf off before slipping her feet out of her boots. She wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans and grabbed her phone, refusing to look at it until she had settled in on her couch. She crossed her feet under her and pulled a throw pillow to her chest before finally sliding up on the notification and reading the message that he sent.

Let's get to know each other? Lunch tomorrow?

Y/N hesitated for a moment before her fingertips began to slide across the keyboard on her screen.

Sounds good! How do you feel about chicken & waffles? I know a place!

She read over what she had sent several times, worried that she sounded too eager. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears as she waited for his response, watching as several dots appeared and disappeared several times on her screen before he finally sent his response.

A girl after my own heart! How is 12:30? Send me the address?

She felt her cheeks grow warm at his response and mentally reminded herself that he was just being kind and that she was quite literally paying for him.

500 Rue Kennedy Dieppe, NB. and 12:30 is perfect! I’ll see you then!

Y/N took a deep breath and closed the app before her thumb hovered over her mother’s contact. She quickly clicked on her number and quietly whispered to herself “please don’t answer, please don’t answer, please don’t answer.”

“Thank god!” she exclaimed as the phone sent her to voicemail. She rolled her eyes at her mother’s elaborate message before finally being told to leave her message at the sound of the beep.

“Hi, mom...it’s me...I just wanted to let you know that you will need to make sure to set an extra place setting for thanksgiving. Love you.” She rattled off, keeping the message vague but to the point.

The following day Y/N stood inside of her closet staring at her assortment of clothes trying to decide what said “I'm cool and definitely not desperate even though I paid for a date for Thanksgiving because my family is insane.”

She pulled a mustard yellow cable knit sweater from a hanger and laid it out on her bed before heading back to her closet. Her fingers sorted through the variety of skirts before settling on a silky, pleated navy skirt that was cinched at the waist. She laid the skirt out next to the sweater before moving over to her vanity.

She sat on the poof chair and stared at her reflection for a brief moment before pulling the small drawer to the left open and lining up her primers, eye palette, eyeliner, mascara, and her signature red lipstick. She grabbed the mason jar that sat on the right tableside of the vanity and grabbed the appropriate brushes, lining those up as well.

She used her middle finger of her right hand to gently swipe the eyeshadow primer onto her eyelids before dusting the brush across a shimmery gold eyeshadow. She used a maroon eyeshadow on her crease and slowly blended the colors until she achieved a golden and subtle smokey eye.Y/N shook her hands out to steady her nerves before slowly pulling the liquid eyeliner across her eyelids and flicking it softly at the end for a subtle cat-eye before she carefully built volume on her eyelashes with the mascara. Finally, she grabbed the matte red lipstick and carefully swiped it across her lips before blotting them with a tissue.

Y/N jumped at the sound of her phone vibrating on her nightstand. She moved across the room and grabbed the phone from the charger.

See you soon!

She felt the nerves settle back into her stomach and wiped her clammy hands on her pajama pants before quickly undressing. She pulled the yellow cable knit sweater over her head, careful not to let it touch her face. She followed that by pulling on the pleated navy skirt, the fabric falling just above her knee. She pulled on the fabric of the sweater at her waist so that it slightly hung over the waistband of the skirt before she slipped her feet into a pair of black pointed flats. She took one last look at herself in the mirror and pulled her curls over her shoulders before grabbing her purse and slinging it across her body.

Y/N entered the bustling restaurant and let her eyes wander across the tables trying to find Charlie. She wrung her hands together and pulled her lips into a thin line when she didn’t see him, her heart dropping at the thought that she had been stood up or even worse, that she had really fallen for a scam. She turned on her left foot and reached for the door, barely pulling it open before she felt a hand on her shoulder. She let go of the door, resulting in a soft thud as it closed.

“Y/N? You weren’t about to bail on me were you?” The soft voice teased as she turned around.

“I thought you had stood me up, actually.” She could feel the blush that dusted across her cheeks at the accusation. Her left hand fell to her right wrist, her fingers loosely wrapping around it as she looked up at Charlie through her eyelashes and offered an apologetic smile.

Charlie’s green eyes crinkled at the edges and his nose scrunched up as he laughed “take the money and run, I wish I would have thought of that!”

“Oh..” Y/N looked back at the door and then back towards Charlie, “if you don’t want to do this, it’s fi--”

Charlie smiled softly at her “I was just teasing, I didn’t want to sit at the table by myself in case you didn’t show and have to do the walk of shame, so I was at the bar.”

Charlie placed his right hand on the small of her back and guided her to a table in the middle of the bustling restaurant. He pulled her chair out for her before taking a seat on the opposite side of the table. Y/N tucked her hair behind her ears and glanced at the menu, though she already knew what she was going to order. The waiter, a young kid, probably seventeen stopped by their table and quickly took their order.

Y/N finally looked up to find Charlie staring at her, his face cradled in his hands with his elbows propped up on the table.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m just trying to figure out why a very beautiful girl would need to rent a date for a Holiday.”

Y/N felt herself blush at his compliment and shrugged her left shoulder “I got dumped.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry”

She smiled and waved him off “It’s no big deal, we wanted different things out of life. He wanted marriage and I,” she hesitated, she hadn’t talked about this with anyone other than Leigha.

“You what?”

“I want adventure and I know that sounds silly. Like, of course, you can have adventure and marriage but Noah,” she paused, “that’s my ex.”

Charlie nodded and gestured for her to continue, “Noah works in the financial district and he wanted marriage and kids and stability….and I barely know what I want to eat for breakfast let alone what I want for eternity.”

“You’re a free spirit, nothing wrong with that!” Charlie interjected and Y/N felt her first genuine smile of the night spread across her face.

“You get it.”

“I do get it.”

Y/N thanked the waiter as he sat down two beers along with their orders of chicken and waffles, before turning back to Charlie.

“So, tell me about your family. What should I prepare myself for?” Charlie lifted the pint glass to his lips and took a sip of the amber-colored beer.

‘Well,” Y/N blew air into her cheeks and sighed, “my mother thinks she’s Martha Stewart. So be sure to compliment the decor as soon as you see her. You’ll win her over for sure...and maybe don’t mention the whole free spirit thing or you will definitely end up on her list of terrible suitors that I have brought home.”

“Noted.” Charlie nodded before adding, “and your dad?”

“My dad is easy going, just talk about beer and hockey and you'll be fine.”

Charlie threw his head back in laughter and Y/N couldn’t help but smile at the way his whole face lit up when he laughed. She felt a flutter in her stomach as Charlie leaned forward so that his forearms rested on the table and his fingers lightly brushed across hers before he pulled back. Y/n pulled her hands off of the table and dropped them into her lap, her fingers lightly traced over the silky fabric of her skirt.

“Is everything okay?”

Y/N inhaled a sharp breath and rolled her bottom lip into her mouth before exhaling, “yeah, but I should probably tell you something,” she looked up at Charlie through her eyelashes.

“Well, c’mon then..” Charlie teased after several seconds of silence.

“My folks don’t exactly know that Noah and I are….done...and I know there’s going to be a big event made of it when they find out.”

“Oof…” Charlie sighed and took a swig from his beer and a bite of his food.

Y/N felt her heart beating in her ears, “I understand if you, I mean if this is too much and you want to back out.”

Charlie looked at her with a playful smirk, “are you actually going to eat that or?” He pointed at her untouched plate of food with his fork.

“W-what?” Y/N looked down at her food and back up at Charlie before letting a smile slip onto her face. She didn’t understand how someone she had just met could put her nerves at ease without even trying.

Charlie let his fork clatter on his plate before leaning forward on his elbows. Y/N watched with furrowed brows as he grabbed the maple syrup and poured it in a circle over her chicken before he leaned back into his seat and met her eyes with a soft smile on his face.

Y/N picked up her fork and knife and cut into her maple drenched chicken before popping a small bite into her mouth, “are you happy now?” she teased Charlie before putting her fork back down.

Charlie tried to hold back the smile that threatened to take over his face as he nodded his head.

“So, what’s our story going to be? It’s gonna have to be a good one if I have to upstage Noah to win over your folks.”

The two spent the next hour concocting a believable, but very romantic story of how they met. They talked about their likes and dislikes, their quirks and habits, and all of the little things that couples are supposed to know about each other,

Y/N felt butterflies erupt in her stomach as Charlie walked her to her car, his left hand just barely brushing against hers. She mentally scolded herself for feeling jittery over a guy that was simply fulfilling his job, but she also couldn’t help but hope that maybe he was feeling their connection too.

“I’ll pick you up next Wednesday at 4 pm, yeah?” Charlie asked as they arrived at her car. Y/n tucked her hair behind her right ear and nodded.

She felt her breath hitch as Charlie leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her cheek before walking backward and sending her a wave.

A week later and Y/N found herself pulling on a green sequined, long sleeve dress, the hem set just above her knees. It was her go-to holiday dress, classic but not too formal. She painted her face with gold eyeshadow, a sharp winged eyeliner, and her classic red lips. Her hair hung over her shoulders in cascading curls. She sat on her bed, fastening a pair of strappy black heels when her phone dinged. She fastened the buckles of her heels and grabbed her phone, a smile instantly sliding onto her face at Charlie letting her know he’d be at her place in five minutes.

She stood up and checked her appearance one final time before grabbing her gold clutch handbag and shoving her phone into it, just as Charlie knocked on her door. She quickly made her way to the front door and turned the lock before pulling the door open.

“Wow…” Charlie breathed out as she came into full view.

Y/N shyly smiled back at the boy, thankful that the blush she had on her cheeks already would mask the red glow that she could feel heating up her face.

“You’re not too bad yourself,” she teased, her eyes trailing from his brown wing toed shoes up to his pristine white button-up and finally to his slightly coiffed hair.

“Shall we?” Charlie extended his arm out to Y/N after she locked her door. She looped her right arm through his left, her hand resting lightly on his forearm as they made their way through the corridor and outside to Charlie’s car.

He opened the passenger side door for her and waited for her to get situated before closing the door and running around to the other side of the car. Their forty-minute drive was mostly silent as Y/N worked to calm her nerves down. She knew that she was going to have a lot of explaining to do when she showed up with Charlie in place of Noah and she was trying to memorize all of the details that they had agreed on a week prior.

“Are you okay?” Charlie glanced over at her for a brief moment before returning his eyes to the road, his left hand took hold of the steering wheel as his right hand settled on her bare knee.

His hand was warm against her cold skin and Y/N wasn’t sure why but she found her left hand moving to settle on top of his hand. Without hesitation, Charlie flipped his hand over and let her palm fall into his before his fingers slid between hers and gently curled.

“Just nervous…”

Charlie lightly squeezed her hand before letting out a small chuckle “if I didn’t know any better, I would think that you’re the one about to meet my family.”

“Oh, I’m not nervous about them meeting you, they’ll love you,” Y/N clarified,” I’m nervous about the terrible things that I know my mother is going to say to me about ending things with Noah.”

Charlie licked his lips as he pulled into her parents’ driveway. He pulled his right hand free from hers and put the car in park before turning slightly in his seat to face her.

“You know that nothing she says is going to be true, right? You don’t have to live by someone else's timeline for your life.”

Y/N pushed down the warming feeling in her heart and nodded her head at his words.

“Yeah, I know...are you ready?”

Charlie smiled brightly at her and pulled the keys from the ignition before getting out of the car. He double-stepped around the car to the passenger door and pulled it open for her, waiting for her to get out before closing the door.

He slid his left palm into her right hand and tangled their fingers together before placing a soft kiss on her hairline and whispered “let’s put on a show.”

Y/N could feel the nervous energy erupting in her stomach as they stood outside of her childhood home. She took a deep breath before twisting the doorknob and pushing the red front door open. They were met with the warm heat of the home and the smell of cinnamon as soon as they stepped inside. Charlie let his eyes wander across the walls of the entryway, scanning the line of pictures before tugging Y/N over to one.

“This is you, yeah?” The question was rhetorical as it had been obvious that it was her in the picture. She stood on a cliffside, at the top of a mountain with a bright smile on her face, her childhood dog, Rex, beside her and the ocean behind her.

“Yeah, I was seventeen and went backpacking by myself for the first time. My mom was so mad. This family that was passing by was kind enough to capture the moment for me and my dad insisted that it be hung on the wall of accomplishments…” Y/N rambled off the story before letting her eyes move from the picture and up to Charlie.

Charlie smiled down at her and laughed, “this is gonna sound insane, but I think that was my family that stopped and took the picture.”

Y/N pulled her brows forward so that her forehead was pinched in the middle “shut up! No it wasn’t!” she finally exclaimed.

“Rex….the dog’s name was Rex. I remember because I thought you were pretty and I got flustered and I said something dumb about Rex from Toy Story.”

Y/N’s eyes grew wide as Charlie recounted the story and she felt her cheeks growing red at the revelation “well, this is a weird twist in fate--”

She was cut off by the sound of her dad’s deep voice bellowing her name as he turned the corner. Charlie pulled her into his side and let his right-hand rest on her hip, while her right hand rested on his chest.

“Well, this certainly isn’t Noah!” Her father exclaimed a large smile on his face and his eyes soft. He had never been the biggest fan of Noah’s to begin with.

Charlie dropped his hand from her waist and stepped forward with it stretched out towards her dad, “Charlie Gillespie, sir.” He was taken aback when her dad threw his head back in laughter and pulled him in for a full bear hug.

“Nice to meet you, son”

Y/N giggled at her dad’s antics, he had always been the type to do things like that. He was a stout man with laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. He had graying hair and a well-kept beard and he radiated kindness.

“And you, little missy, are going to have a lot of explaining to do to your mother.” Y/N pulled back from her dad's embrace and blew the air out of her cheeks.

“Yeah, I know…”

Her dad gently squeezed her arm and gave her a reassuring smile before leaving the two to grab a beer from the kitchen.

“Why do I have the overwhelming feeling to call your dad pops and ask him over to mine to watch hockey?” Charlie joked.

Y/N shrugged and tangled her fingers with his, “I told you he was the easy one. Are you ready for the rest?”

“Lead the way, beautiful.”

Y/N tugged on Charlie’s hand and he followed behind her as they made their way to the den where her brothers were corralled around and a card table, intense looks on each of their faces as they held their cards close to their bodies. Their wives were set on the opposite side of the room. Y/N could feel the three women’s eyes on her as she entered the room with Charlie and she knew their hushed whispers were aimed at her and the fact that Charlie was very much not Noah.

Her youngest brother, Josh, was the first of the three boys to look up and notice her. He dropped his cards on the table, face down, and scooted his chair back against the hardwood floors.

“Junebug!” He yelled as he practically launched himself towards her. Y/N exploded into a fit of giggles as her feet left the floor and he twirled her around in circles. Josh was three years younger than her, sitting at nineteen but she had always been the closest with him. Her giggles quieted down as he sat her back down and turned to Charlie.

“Well, you’re not Noah.” Josh quipped with a playful smirk on his face.

Charlie rubbed the back of his neck and laughed “I have a feeling I am going to be getting that a lot today.”

“You play poker?” Josh eyeballed him.

“I know my way around a deck of cards, yeah.” Charlie shrugged.

Josh turned to Y/N and lightly punched her shoulder, “looks like you got yourself an upgrade, Junebug!”

Y/N rolled her eyes at her brother and wished Charlie luck as he was pulled over to the table and introduced to her two older brothers, Samuel and Michael. She felt her shoulders relax for a moment as the table erupted with laughter from something Charlie had said. He looked up from his cards and shot her a wink before turning his attention back to the game at hand.

Y/N glanced back at Charlie one last time before making her way over to the prying eyes of Amy and Melissa, the wives of Samuel and Michael. The two women each held a mug of her mother’s homemade cider in their manicured hands.

“Who’s the cutie?” Amy was the first to speak, her left eyebrow raised as she asked the question.

Y/N looked over her shoulder for a moment with a smile before turning back around “Charlie…”

“Oh! Well, you’ve certainly never said Noah’s name like that before!” Melissa looked at Y/N with wide eyes.

Y/N shook her head at the two gossipy women “like what?’

Amy and Melissa both shot knowing looks to each other before Amy quipped, “sweetie, that boy’s name left your lips like honey falling from a spoon.”

“It did not!’

“You can deny it all you want, but we both heard it!” Melissa declared and brought her mug up to her lips, taking a sip of the warm cider.

“Looks like I’m out boys!” Y/N heard from the other side of the room. She glanced over her shoulder to find Charlie laying his cards down on the table before he slid out of his chair. She smiled at him as he made his way over to her. He stood behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist and tugged her back into his chest, his head resting on her shoulder.

“Charlie, these are my sister-in-laws, Amy, and Melissa.”

“Very nice to meet both of you.” Charlie beamed at the two women.

Melissa and Amy stood up at the sound of heels clicking against the tile floor of the kitchen. Melissa made her way around Y/N and she gently squeezed Charlies’s bicep, “good luck honey.”

Charlie pressed a kiss to Y/N’s cheek and tightened his arms around her waist as he felt her body tense in his arms.

“You’ve got this,” Charlie reassured before loosening his grip on her and letting her grab his hand.

Y/N sucked in a deep breath and gently pulled Charlie behind her as she navigated through the formal dining room and towards the kitchen where her mother was sure to be found.

She stopped just inside the doorway to the kitchen and turned to face Charlie, “you can still get out of this, ya know?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Charlie placed his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her around, nudging her into the kitchen while he followed.

Y/N stood silently for a minute as she watched her mother pull the green bean casserole from the oven and wipe her hands across her floral apron. Her mother was a thin woman with auburn hair that was almost always pulled into a chignon.

“Mom? Can I talk to you?” Y/N hesitantly asked, suddenly feeling less like a twenty-two year old woman and more like a twelve-year old child.

“What do you want to talk about, dear? Because if it’s about Noah,” her mother grabbed a wooden spoon and stirred the brown gravy that was simmering on the stove, “then I frankly don’t have time to listen to your childish reasons for ending the only good thing you had.”

“You know?” Y/N choked out

Her mother grabbed the pepper grinder and began to twist the top over another pot of food, “I called Noah after we spoke last week since you couldn’t give me a straight answer when I called you.”

“Oh…” Y/N placed her hands on Charlie’s chest and gently pushed him backward. Her eyes pleading with him to give her a minute. She didn’t want him to bear witness to the reprimanding she knew was about to come. Charlie hesitantly left her side and waited on the other side of the door.

Her mother finally turned around to face Y/N. She placed her hands on the edge of the counter, her knuckles white from the tight grip.

“Honestly, y/n. I don’t know why you can’t get your life together. You graduated college just to throw away your education for this silly photography hobby of yours and now you threw away a perfectly acceptable relationship because you want to travel and have adventures? You’re not a child, anymore, y/n. When is this going to stop? When are you going to grow up?”

Y/N stood silently as the words washed over her. She could feel the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes and let out a shaky breath.

“I…”

“What? You what, Y/N? What explanation could you possibly have this time?” Her mother cut her off.

Charlie pushed himself off of the wall he had been leaning on from the other side of the door and quickly made his way back into the kitchen. He felt her mother’s eyes on him as he quickly pressed a kiss to Y/N’s cheek, his hand sliding across the middle of her back before he put on his best smile and made his way over to her mother.

“You have a lovely home, Mrs. Y/L/N. My mother would be insanely envious of the spread you’ve created, it’s magazine worthy!”

“Thank you, dear. You are much too kind! I am so sorry, but I don’t believe I caught your name?”

Y/N looked down at the floor and smiled to herself at the charm that Charlie exuded as he introduced himself to her mother and offered to help her bring the endless amounts of food to the formal dining room for her.

“I’ll go gather everyone.” Y/N shot an appreciative smile to Charlie before she made her way back to the den to gather the rest of the family into the dining room.

Y/N made her way over to the empty chair next to Charlie, the latter getting out of his own chair to pull her chair out for her before sitting back down. He placed his hand on the inside of her thigh and let his thumb rub circles on the top of her leg.

Her dad stood at the top of the table and carved the turkey while small talk was exchanged between her brothers and their wives and suddenly the question finally came from her mother.

“So, how did you two meet?”

Y/N glanced over at Charlie not sure if he was going to take the lead or not and was surprised when he started spitting out a story that was definitely not the one they had agreed on during their lunch meeting,

“I met your daughter several years ago on a hiking trip with my family,” Charlie paused and looked over at her before continuing, “my older brother, Patrick actually took that photo that you have on your wall in the entryway!”

Y/N’s heart was beating erratically as Charlie squeezed her knee before turning his focus back to her mother “your daughter took my breath away that day and I kicked myself for weeks for not getting her number and just having this missed connection. I guess you could call it a twist of fate, really, that I found her again.”

Y/N’s mother smiled at the two of them and Y/N felt her body tense for just a moment before relief rushed over her at her mother’s words “that may be the most romantic thing I have ever heard in my life.”

“Can we eat now or?” Josh hesitantly asked as he grabbed the plate of yams and began piling a portion onto his plate.

Y/N felt at ease for the rest of the evening as their shared meal went off without a hitch. Her family shared embarrassing stories of her with Charlie and she sipped glasses of wine as he endlessly complimented her. Her heart felt full as the night drew to a close and her dad pulled out the last Thanksgiving tradition. The wishbone was passed around the table until it landed in her hands. She turned to Charlie and gestured for him to grab the other end of the bone. They both tugged on the bone with their eyes closed until it snapped.

Y/N opened her eyes and looked down at the fractured bone in her hand and then over to Charlie who was holding the larger side.

“Make a wish,” she whispered to him with a soft smile on her face. Charlie shook his head and kissed her forehead.

“I don’t have to, I’ve got everything I want right here.”

Y/N dropped her eyes to the table and reminded herself that as much as she felt the connection between her and Charlie, that he was just playing a role.

She looked up as the sound of chairs sliding against the floor filled the room. She followed suit and slowly stood up from her chair.

“Do you need help, mom?”

“You go ahead and head out honey, I know you have a long drive.”

Y/N made her rounds of goodbye to her family before looking back at Charlie and grabbing his hand. They silently walked to his car and he opened the car door for her. Y/N hummed along to the songs that played on the radio during the drive back to her place. She tried to ignore the heat that she felt in her stomach as Charlie’s thumb ran across her knuckles every now and then. She watched the cars that passed by them, red tail lights lighting up her face as they drove on the highway. Before she knew it they were parked outside of her apartment.

“I guess this is it then…” Charlie looked over at Y/N as she unbuckled her seatbelt.

“I guess so.” Y/N agreed, her right hand rested on the door handle as she looked at Charlie, her eyes searching for any indication that he didn’t want her to leave. She let her hand pull on the door handle when Charlie didn’t respond.

She swung the car door open and stepped out into the street before making her way to the sidewalk. She turned around at the sound of another car door shutting and was taken aback by Charlie running over to her side

“I should walk you to your door,” Charlie answered the silent question

Y/N smiled and led the way through the apartment corridor until they stood outside of her door, her keys dangling in her left hand. She looked up at Charlie and smiled, “you didn’t have to see me inside, ya know?”

Charlie rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand and shrugged, “all part of the job.”

Y/N felt her smile falter and turned around to place the key into the lock of her apartment door. She quickly turned the key and opened the door before stepping inside. She turned to look at Charlie one last time, “well, thank you for giving me my money’s worth,” she let her eyes fall from his.

“Goodbye, Charlie.” She closed the door and dropped her keys into the catch-all bowl before kicking her heels off and making her way over to the couch. She let her body slump into the soft cushions and pulled her phone out to call the only person that was going to understand.

“Tell me everything!” Leigha demanded as soon as her face appeared on the phone.

‘Well,” Y/N sighed, “I think I accidentally started to fall in love with him.”

Leigha couldn’t stop the giddy laughter that erupted from her small frame “I knew this was going to happen! I so called this!”

Y/N rolled her eyes at her best friend and poked her bottom lip out in a pout “it’s not funny Lee...I’m never gonna see him again and now I have all of these feelings to deal with.”

“You don’t know that!” Leigha argued

“I appreciate that you’re a hopeless romantic, Lee, but I was nothing but a paying customer to him...he basically said so himself.” Y/N frowned, thinking back to Charlie’s words as he walked her to her door.

“Oh...hun, I’m so sorry.”

Y/N let a sad smile slip onto her face, “I’m gonna go to bed, coffee tomorrow morning?”

Y/N hung her phone up and pulled herself up from the couch. She shuffled through the apartment until she reached her room and slowly peeled the sequined dress from her body. She made her way to the vanity and grabbed a makeup wipe and slowly removed the makeup from her face before she crawled into bed and pulled the covers tight around her body.

It was 8 am when Y/N was pulled from her slumber by her phone blaring the ringtone that Leigha insisted she set for herself. She rolled over with her eyes still closed and fumbled around for her phone before slowly cracking her eyes to hit the green button.

“What?” Y/N grumpily answered

“Don’t what me!” Leigha chastised, “there’s a cute boy at the cafe and he just ordered your order! Like to the T!”

Y/N set up in her bed and pressed her fingers into her eyes, rubbing the sleep away in small circles.

“Ok? And?”

“AND?! AND!!! His name is Charlie! I swear to god if you don’t get out of bed and make yourself look decent, I will literally kill you!”

Y/N dropped her phone onto her bed and pulled the covers back. She quickly made her way to her bathroom and brushed her teeth. She stared at herself in the mirror and ran her fingers through her messy bed head, her curls tangling together between her fingers.

“Shit..okay….okay…” She muttered to herself and opted to twist her hair up into a top knot. She secured it with a hair tie and ran back to her room where she threw on a pair of black leggings and an oversized jumper. Her heart nearly leaped out of her chest when she heard a knock on her door.

She wiped her hands on her leggings and quickly made her way to her front door. She took a deep breath to settle her nerves before reaching forward to unlock the door. Her hand shook as she turned the doorknob and slowly pulled the door open. Stood on the other side was Charlie with a small brown bag and a hot coffee extended out to her.

Y/N stepped to the side and opened the door wider, allowing Charlie to come in.

“What are you doing here?” She asked as she took the bag and coffee from his hands. She sat the bag on the counter and pulled the cup to her lips, taking a small sip. She hummed to herself as the warm liquid slid down her throat.

Charlie stepped forward and hesitantly took the drink from her hands, setting it on the counter behind her. Y/N watched anxiously as Charlie’s eyes moved across her face, flickering between her eyes and lips several times before he lifted his hands and placed one on her right cheek while the other cradled her neck.

“I’m gonna kiss you now,” Charlie whispered into the space between them before catching her lips with his. Charlie pulled away before Y/N had a chance to react, his face glowing red as he held his bottom teeth between his top two teeth.

“Is this free of charge?” Y/N joked as she placed her hands on Charlie’s chest and leaned forward, bringing her lips back to his.

@straywonpil @siennanoelle01 @choppedhoundsludgeclod @cool-ultra-nerd @hxney-bunches-x @crybabyddl @sorryyoureoutofmyleague @dream-a-little-bigger-x @kcd15 @all-in-fangirl @ifilwtmfc @onlygetaway @iainttakingshitfromnobody @angryknightstatesmantrash @jazzyhales @bathtimejish @lanasfandoms @miranda0102 @emotionalbruv @aliandthephantoms @multifandombabies @kinda-really-lost @5sosmukefan @alexpjoyner @mo-d3ans @hannahhistorian92 @sunsetcurvenotsunsetswerve @i-should-be-writing-my-own-fic @sunflowerbecca @n0wornever @vicesvsvirtuesfanfic

#charlie gillespie x reader #charlie gillespie #luke patterson #charlie gillespie one shot #charlie gillespie fanfic #jatp #julie and the phantoms #julie and the fat ones #julie and the himbos #julie and the phantoms fanfic #luke patterson fanfic

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galaxina-the-pyro · 5 years ago

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Here, have some PnF School related HCs!

-Phineas isn’t the best in school, not because he doesn’t know the subjects, but more due to the fact that, as a creative kid out to break boundaries, school simply doesn’t interest him. He’s not the best at following instructions, and will often lose points in assignments for taking creative angles. He excels at math (to the point of correcting his teachers on a few incorrect equations), and his weakest subject is Grammar. He never fails a class, usually passing at a C point average. He does do well on tests, however (to the point where he has been accused of cheating).

-Phineas claims he can understand subjects better when Ferb (and Isabella) explains it to him

-Ferb and Baljeet always get A’s in their assignments, and take their study time seriously (Baljeet most of all; Ferb doesn’t mind getting anything lower than an A, but will feel shame if he feels he could’ve done better, while Baljeet will go into panic mode if he gets anything less than A+).

-In hindsight, Ferb is actually far more intelligent than Baljeet, but prefers to stay in the same grade as his brother; he was even given the option to move up grade levels, but politely refused

-In spite of Isabella eye rolling Baljeet’s fear of failure, she has similar meltdowns when she fails an assignment (to which Baljeet offers zero sympathy; do unto others, baby)

-Baljeet attends Highschool with Candace, Stacy, and the others, though Buford still manages to bully him even at such a radius. He does, however, tutor students in the school his friends go to, so he always sees his friends during after school activities.

-Phineas and Ferb always end up in the same classes every year...except for the school year after the canon series. That marks the first time both of them end up in different classes.

-There are school related patches for the Fireside Girls to earn, and as the episode “Ferb TV” states, being a part of the Fireside Girls gets you extra credit in middle school

-Out of all her friends, Isabella is part of the most extracurricular activities, including but not limited to, Debate Team, Junior Student Government, Mathletes, Glee Club, Drama Club, and of course Soccer

-Isabella is the head editor of the school newspaper, which she names “The Danville Eagle” (not to be confused with “The Fireside Gazette”)

-Isabella is the most prone to daydreaming during class, and often zones out; usually this is due to Phineasland, but her mind tends to drift to other places as well.

-Phineas, on the other hand, always distracts himself with drawing during classes, whether it be blueprints, or doodles in his textbooks - he often has his pencils and pens confiscated

-Buford tends to be the one most likely to interrupt the class for some reason or another; apparently it’s a requirement in The Bully Code, but everyone is certain he does it purely out of boredom

-Django and Jenny are both homeschooled, though Django does end up going to highschool with Phineas and the others

-Jenny only takes one college class before dropping out to continue her hippie/protest lifestyle; ironically, she starts a business that goes very well involving the buying and selling of...well...a certain type of plant, per se

-Buford has the lowest grade point average among his friends, but excels in art-related activities (and contact sports, of course); it’s very possible that he’s smarter than he lets on

-Buford is the only person among Phineas and Ferb’s friends who doesn’t join the school soccer team (this is due to confusing the sport with football)

-Recess time in the Dwampyverse is longer than recess in the real world (they already have longer Summers, so why not?), explaining how Phineas and Ferb can still complete certain Big Ideas during that time; they usually come up with ideas during or before lunchtime

-According to “When Worlds Collide”, Candace isn’t allowed to bust her brothers during the school year, but manages to find a loophole that allows her to attempt to bust them during Weekends (bar that she and her brothers finish their homework beforehand), and School Breaks. Linda often ponders over rewriting the Bust Accord, but is a mother of her word.

-Phineas and Ferb have a teacher who hates their existence, and is literally their antithesis; he sees their creative activities as a form of rebellion, and craves structure and discipline. On the other hand, he’s a total sadist and a crackpot who’d give Denzel Crocker a run for his money. Phineas and Ferb, much like towards their sister’s busting attempts, pay him no mind and probably treat him better than anyone else does.

-Phineas and Ferb are always paired up in school assignments; they’ve never gotten a perfect score on it in spite of how impeccable each project is, due to the assignment involving both participants giving short lectures. As we all know, Phineas always does all the talking, thus deducting points (this was a headcanon stolen from someone else, but I forget who)

-Phineas and Isabella’s favorite subject is music, Ferb’s is history, Baljeet’s is math, and Buford’s favorite subject is theatre (though he’ll always tell you it’s football, even though it’s not an actual subject)

-Ferb and Baljeet are on the A honor roll, Isabella is an AB honor roll (her weakest subject being history, the only subject keeping her from being on the same level as Ferb and Baljeet), Phineas is a C-average, and Buford is an F average (though he always gets just enough passes to make it to the next grade with his friends)

-Out of all the Fireside Girls, Gretchen excels the most in school, while Katie is on the lower end of the spectrum alongside Buford

-Candace always tries to sit next to Jeremy during classes they’re together, but someone always steals her seat before she can

-Candace’s favorite class is music class, like Phineas and Isabella, and is on the AB honor roll; her least favorite subject is home economics, due to always failing assignments while also somehow, someway setting herself on fire

-Candace’s grades are better than Phineas’, but worse than Ferb’s. Out of the three Flynn-Fletcher children Phineas has the hardest time with school

-Doofenshmirtz becomes a school teacher regardless of the Prof. Time/secret agent nonsense; he either becomes one due to community service, as a coverup for being an agent for OWCA, or by complete and total accident due to teleporting Vanessa’s real highschool teacher to another dimension

-He ALSO somehow becomes the defacto school counselor (I think he’d be really good at it, darn it); a lot of the kids seem to vent to him a lot for some reason (he thinks it’s the universe making him pay them back for ranting to Perry for so long [they also like to vent to his daughter, too, isn’t that weird?])

-Either way, Vanessa will always have him as a teacher, much to her dismay; the difference is whether Candace and her friends are ALSO a part of his class or not

-Doofenshmirtz sometimes does fun little experiments with Phineas, Ferb, and their friends, and has even helped them with a few of their projects after school

-Doofenshmirtz still uses his Inators during class, though he claims they are specifically used for GOOD this time around...even though they cause a whole slew of problems

-Due to these Inators, Perry has to involve himself and save everyone without revealing his identity to Candace or his other owners should they and their friends somehow get involved with the chaos (thank the great Platypus Lord for Stacy and her being somehow skilled at covering his beaver-butt)

-At some point, the entire PnF cast unintentionally reenact the events of “The One Thing”; Adyson is the one who steals antique photos specifically because they’re “the one thing you can’t replace”

-Phineas and Isabella have study dates together (Isabella is the only one who calls it a study date, however, though technically Phineas never corrects her, so it’s pretty much a study date, don’t you dare take this away from her, Ginger!)

(I’m probably gonna add more later, but feel free to add some of your own school-themed headcanons~.)

#phineas and ferb #headcanons #pnf #phineas and ferb headcanons #hcs #Phinabella #school

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tzeetzeethirteen · 3 years ago

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Here’s a short sad story:

Be me, using FFnet’s docmanager to post stuff to AO3

Uploading documents to the docmanager and copy pasting the text from the document in it to AO3′s Rich Text Editor

Wants to stop using FFnet’s docmanager to avoid having to depend on an online site

Starts to copy paste directly from Microsoft Word and Libreoffice to the AO3 RTE; all works well... apparently.

Catches an error in one of the recent chapter updates, goes to edit with the HTML editor, discovers the HTML code is a eye-watering mess and it’s almost impossible to read.

Discovers that copying and pasting from Libreoffice/Word causes the HTML to become bloated in the first place. Copying and pasting from the FFnet docmanager the same document nets clean HTML code instead

Has borderline obsession with cleanness, can’t tolerate the HTML to be as ugly as it is

Tries multiple methods to solve the problem, including but not limited to:

Trying different WYSIWYG word processors to see if copying and pasting from them nets better HTML; some applications simply crash upon opening the pre-existing stories or even by just copying pasting the stories into a new document, others bloat the HTML code when copy-pasting to worse, almost nightmarish levels.

Trying to find solutions to clean the code directly. Wants to avoid online tools since that was the whole goal in the first place (not having to rely on an online site), which conveniently removes 95% of solutions as a result

Tries google docs. Discovers it has the same exact HTML bloating problem as World/Libreoffice when copying from it and pasting to AO3.

Tries scripts to install into google docs to clean up the HTML, specifically made for AO3. Doesn’t work, the code is still bloated with <span> tags.

Tries to find offline scripts to clean the HTML code locally on the computer. Most don’t work or require installations of dependencies or software I’d have to learn from scratch and spend days doing it.

Tries various options within Libreoffice to stop the bloating from happening in the first place. None work. Find people with similar problem, apparently it’s a known Libreoffice Writer issue that’s been around for years and was never fixed.

Tries creating a document from scratch in Libreoffice and write from zero, discovers the bloating comes up literally as you write. You can’t avoid it.

Realizes it’s 1 AM and I haven’t written a single fanfic word for the next chapter of one of my WIPs as I originally planned to do this evening

Cries

Tests a crude alternative method, finds out it somewhat works, decides it’s enough and dives into the bed

The morning after, here’s the final verdict: to get clean HTML - without losing the basic formatting I sometimes use - going back to using FFnet’s docmanager appears to be my best bet. Besides me being stubborn about keeping things clean, shorter and less bloated HTML code would also mean that some of the offline downloads generate way smaller files that are less likely to give issues when opened for reading, it would make the webpage of the fics itself lighter, and it would make things for myself much easier when editing out mistakes, so there is (somewhat) a practical reason for doing this and I’ll try to stick to it.

In the event that FFnet ceases to exist, I’ll fall back to the alternative method I found in the end. It’s as simple as copying and pasting the text from the word processor to a notepad-equivalent text editor. That way you’re sure there are no HTML tags whatsoever, so the bloat is removed. Then, I can substitute newlines with double-newlines (\n --> \n\n) and then manually add the <em> and <strong> tags for italics and bold to get an AO3-ready HTML text to copy paste into the HTML editor. Other minor details can be added back directly on AO3 with the RTE.

It’s slow, but it works and it is not unreasonably slow, so it’s fine for me. Was it worth the hassle? Probably not :O

TL;DR: Random internet user and fanfiction writer loses an entire evening spending hours finding solution for a minor problem with HTML code

#fanfiction #ao3 #ffnet #html #random #i don't even know html that much or use it for work #i shouldn't even be concerned by this #but i couldn't help it

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ponyguru · 4 years ago

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Tonight I watched all of He-Man: Revelations and most of Centaurworld (I watched the first three episodes like, a week ago?) and I have ... opinions. (And it’s 4:37am, might as well share them while they’re fresh!)

(Warning, this got very long and ranty, sorry for stretching out your dashboards if that’s even still a thing anymore?)

He-Man was entertaining, but it did feel like (as someone with like, less than a passing knowledge of the characters) someone’s super-angsty fanfiction more than like ... a continuing series. They killed off multiple well-known, beloved characters, to drive home the point of how SERIOUS and how HARDCORE this series is, and instead it felt like being a little kid in the 80s watching Optimus Prime get murdered to sell more toys. Like, WHY DID THEY DIE? Oh right, to show the viewer how SERIOUS the bad guys are! And to give the other characters things to angst over, to show you they’re no longer just shallow 80s muscle man stereotypes to sell toys! But then you gotta wonder, where will they go from here? Who’s even left to continue the storyline? Is it still He-Man if half the supporting cast is dead?

Like I said, I’m not a He-Man fan by trade, but aside from the pointless murder, it did seem like it delved into the backstories that a lot of people have probably wanted since the 80s, and it made some very interesting points. So, hey, maybe it’ll be beloved by its fans! And it was very entertaining, especially as someone who wasn’t a childhood fan so I didn’t have a lot of nostalgia that I had to watch die. It doesn’t end on a happy note, there’s definitely the ‘what if the villains WON’ theme going, so maybe my opinion will be less dour when the next part comes out. (I did like that it focused more on the female characters, which was a very unexpected change, and in that aspect I felt it was very well written; that could explain why I’ve heard other screechingly negative feedback elsewhere online, heh. He-Man fans probably don’t appreciate the heavy preference paid to Teela.)

Centaurworld was ... well, I watched the first episode with my mother, which was a Huge Fucking Mistake. I heard that it was a thrilling combination of something akin to Adventure Time and a more serious cartoon like Avatar, and instead I got 10 minutes of that, and then 16 minutes of continuous ass, fart, and poop jokes, combined with a couple of great tunes and a lot of tuneless recitative style “songs”.

If you follow this blog, you probably know toys; you know the Poopsie Surprise toys? The ones which were so obsessed with uncomfortably sexualized poop/fart/barf references that entire scholarly articles were written about the sexualization of children with scatology-themed toys? Yeah, that’s what Centaurworld felt like, almost the whole time. Like just ... an uncomfortable amount of poop/butt/fart “jokes”, to the point where it felt like it had to be one of the writer’s fetishes. Like, it was clearly not funny, and the main character is clearly uncomfortable with it ... and it just keeps going.

I say jokes in scare quotes because jokes are supposed to be funny, and a lot of Centaurworld just wasn’t funny. You could tell it was meant to have jokes, but it was very much dated early-2000s type humor, I want to guess? The kind where it’s not so much ‘setup-punchline’ but the more ‘awkward reference awkward reference awkward reference drawn out wooooord’ type of “jokes”. And most of those “jokes” were just - you guessed it - drawn out references to butts, or farts, or some combination of the two. I felt like an aged boomer watching it. I like to think I’m hip and with the times, but it felt like it should be aimed at a middle schooler - but like, an oversexualized middle schooler? It was uncomfortable to say the least. (One character talks to his farts, claims they talk back to him, and he addresses them as ‘Daddy,’ while another character expresses how uncomfortable that is, and implies he has “issues” to unpack. Because that’s hilarious, I guess?)

Centaurworld did, beneath the heavy layer of scatology, have an intriguing storyline. A warhorse from a LOTR-style world is thrown into a wacky Adventure Time-type land made up of silly centaurs, and has to try and find her way back home. It was thrilling at times, if you could slog through everything else that beleaguered it. There were some really good jokes! But I couldn’t quite muster up a laugh, because I was still wondering when the next butt reference would sneak in. After ten terrible jokes, the one good joke couldn’t manage to lift me from the depth of despair I’d sunken into. It really only felt like the show got ‘tolerable’ around episode 7 (out of ten!!!!), which was an episode heavily focused on cats. (Which, again; wasn’t the internet very much about LOLCats in the early 2000s?)

If six episodes of a ten-episode series is nigh-intolerable, is it a successful show? Should you bother watching something that is 60%+ garbage? (And DON’T FUCKING WORRY, the poop/butt/fart jokes continued UNTIL THE FUCKING FINAL EPISODE.)

I suspect that, if there was a “goal” for all of the fetish stuff (beyond fetish stuff for fetish sake), it would be to illustrate to the viewer how uncomfortable the main character feels in this strange new land, and for us to share in her discomfort. Which, fine, sure! Secondhand embarrassment is definitely a trope. But the sheer uncomfortable volume of the poop/butt/fart jokes clearly went way beyond mere discomfort, and veered into ‘why is this coming up so much, is someone getting off on this?’ territory, at least for me. A couple butt jokes an episode, fine, okay. Entire five minute bits devoted to farts and butts? Entire songs about butts? I start questioning why it’s such a beloved subject for you to write about.

Plus, and I may be reading into this too much, but several of the only Black-coded characters felt racist. I’m talking neck-snapping, tribal body paint type racism, although only one got the exaggerated “soul” type music to sing, which I guess is a relative win? (Waterbaby and Judge Jacket, if you’re wondering who I’m referencing. One of them is a literal hippo centaur, giving us shades of Madagascar.) It wasn’t obvious, but combined with everything else, it felt ... bad. (There are multiple other nonwhite voice actors who aren’t stereotypes, so maybe it was just a bad case of ‘trying to represent different culture while being clueless white people’, who knows?) There was also some classic fatphobia, with one of the villains being shown as a fat neckbeard collector/nerd. Wasn’t that relevant in - wait for it - the early 2000s? They redeem themselves very slightly by having maybe two other characters who are visibly fat, but one of them is also viewed as an antagonist.

Anyway, I was disappointed enough with the show to feel like I should say something, so - there it is. Centaurworld did have some good moments, some lovely songs, and there was some really heartwarming and tender character development that I liked, sandwiched between huge swaths of discomfort. There might be a season 2 (there shouldn’t be, LOL) and hell, I will probably suffer through it because I want to see what happens to them. But I can’t recommend that anyone else do the same, in all good conscience. It’s not good. It’s just not. But if you have 5 hours to kill, there’s worse stuff out there?

If you want to watch one episode to see the best of the series, I recommend episode seven, “Johnny Teatime's Be Best Competition: A Quest for the Sash.” It’s themed after the CATS musical, and the extended number at the end gave me shades of MLP or Fashion Star Fillies. (I found an official clip of the song posted here.) There’s also other lovely songs in the series, but you’d have to suffer through entire bad episodes to see them. The lovely “You’re Okay” shows up in the very first episode, so if you’re curious give that a watch... just be aware it never gets better, only worse.

This series genuinely upset me, because I wanted it to be something much better, and there were glimpses of it; you just had to try and close your eyes to the obsession with butts and farting to see pieces of what it might have been.

One notable fact that I thought was kind of like ‘wow, oof’ was that Meghan McCarthy, of MLP:FiM fame, was a story editor for Centaurworld. And considering how MLP went downhill in later seasons, I gotta say I’m wondering if there’s a commonality there. Maybe her fetish is bad writing? There’s worse fetishes to have, AS CENTAURWORLD CLEARLY DEMONSTRATES.

#ponyguru chat #in which I ramble #in which it's 4am and I ramble lmao #OH GOD I HAVE A 4AM RAMBLE TAG OKAY TIME FOR SLEEP TTYL ALL #long post #VERY long post

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geekygoddesss · 5 years ago

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The Boyfriend Tag [Calum Hood Edition]

Summary: an unfiltered interview featuring Calum Hood and his girlfriend.

Words: 4.7k

“Hello! I’m Calum Hood, from 5 seconds of summer” He greets to the camera.

“My name is (Y/n) and I am dating this guy. Today! we are going to be answering this tag thing” I answer in a more excited tone, as I point at the camera.

“The whole band has done it, it’s only fair I do it as well” He mentions “We’re currently at home, where we all should be” He says, looking at the surroundings of our sweet home “...so we have more than enough time to get to this”

I smile “And here it is”

_______

How did we first meet?

“Through friends” Calum explains shortly “it was nothing super special, sadly, she just happened to be friends with one of my friends and that’s how it happened” he shrugged.

There was really not much to tell, Our story simply happened in a very natural way.

“My friend invited me to LA and I met him in...If I’m not mistaken it was at a brunch party?” I explain.

“You’d be right” he nods “then a series of things happened and she ended up joining our team”

I smile to the camera “In case you didn’t know. I’m a music editor, I like producing and tweaking, so you could say we would see each other a lot” I shrug.

“And things happened, went on a couple of dates, did my magic…” he added, moved his fingers in front of the camera in a funky way and finished with a “...and here we are”.

Where was our first date?

“We went to a concert” I exclaimed, growing really excited at the memory “it was crazy, we literally started with a bang”

“Yep and it wasn’t planned at all” he laughs, rubbing his jaw with his hand as he spoke “I originally had the plan to go with Ashton to this Chainsmokers show, we wanted to take advantage of that to talk with Drew and Alex after, but Ashton got really sick and since I had the ticket and couldn’t just let it go to waste, I asked this beauty to go with me” he said, reaching over to squish my cheek.

I move away as an instinct, but I love it.

“It was awesome, those guys really put up a good show” I add, smiling as I spoke “I got really drunk that night”

Fun fact. I don’t know what came over to me the night of our first date, but for some reason, alcohol played a big part that night, it was embarrassing, but it was worth it. After all, we made a great memory out of it.

“Tell me about it” Calum said, rolling his eyes.

I blushed, but before he could say anything else, I swang over to him and covered his mouth “Shhh” I giggle, scotting over to his side “He kind of babysat me, sorry babe” I said, uncovering his mouth.

“Kind of?” he asked with a sarcastic tone “Geez, I can’t even answer to that. Next question, I don’t want to tell this story” he said, shaking his head.

I roll my eyes “Drama queen” I shrug “I got drunk and he had to take care of the rest, it was both fun and weird”.

“Next” he states, passing on to the next question.

What was your first impression of me?

I have to take a moment to answer this question, not because I don’t know what I like, but because I struggle remembering what exactly was that caught my attention. It only took me a few seconds to answer.

“My first impression of you was that you were really quite but still very present in the room” I speak first “it’s hard to explain, because we literally met in the middle of a conversation but basically” I try to explain, shifting a little in my place “I remember standing in one place and hearing stories from other people, I was completely not familiar with anything, I didn’t know any of them so everything they said was pretty much new, but you always had a fun insert to add, even though you barely spoken that was something that stood out for me a lot” I say, nodding towards him.

“Mine was more or less the same, actually” he says, acting surprised about my answer “because you’re always very quiet when being on a crowd and that stuff, you always stand back from having too much attention” he explain. “it’s funny because, the first day I met you I remember, I greeted you and all, we didn’t really talked to each other and I didn’t hear you talk either, however, when our food delivery came in the first thing I heard you say was ‘yo, I bet you can’t sniff of this paprika’” he says, a smile growing on his face, until full giggles starting coming out of his lips.

“Did you really had to say that on camera?” I sigh, acting annoyed, but I really wasn’t.

“It was hilarious” he says, still laughing.

I know this is a fact that kind of embarrass me, but watching laugh it off was completely priceless.

When did you meet my family?

“I met your family on the day you launched your third album” I start answering the question, as soon as he finishes reading. “it was such a big moment and you flew everyone in, it was the first time I ever got to interact with your mother and -well- everyone, as your girlfriend and not just a friend” I explain “also it was the first time I stayed over at your place for more than two nights”

“It was a extended pijama party” he mention, nodding at the camera with a serious look “no, uh, there’s a reason behind all that. When it came to this situations, I very much preferred for her to stay at mines while my family was in there than to have her alone at her apartment, so I took the chance” He shrugged, reaching over to pat my tight. “It was fun!”

“It was very fun” I nod agreeing “I love how your mom takes the lead in the kitchen and no matter what you say, she is the one in charge” I laugh, remembering all those discussion for who was the first cooking dinner at the house.

“Mom doesn’t love my cooking” Calum admits with a sigh.

I nod “I don’t know why, if I’m honest” I add“She makes some exceptional fish and chips though, it’s just...”

I have to close my eyes to add some drama into all these. I loved food, and that was definitely one of the best meals I’ve had in a long time. I knew Cal’s mom loved to cook, and it was an honour for me to try her meals, they were heaven on earth.

“Yeah I know” he chuckles “How did I meet yours?” he asks to himself and sighs “I didn’t”

My jaw tenses a little, I don’t know how I didn’t see this coming but I didn’t care at all.

“I’m an orphan, don’t cry for me, I’m fine, I don’t need to talk about it” I state, moving over to his side and hugging him “you are my family”

He smiles softly at me. “Yes I am, baby” he says kissing my forehead. “Next”

Who said “I love you” first?

“Eh...I did” I admit, with a shy smile on my face “guilty” I add, raising my hand.

“She did” he seconds, pointing at him. “it was adorable”

That phrase made me cringe for some reason. Not that I denied it wasn’t adorable, it was just some awkward moment that I came out of me and I still feel unsure of. I am not often the one who speaks up, so doing this was pretty ballsy.

“Was it?” I ask, unsure “It was too soon, I dont know...”

“It was alright, really” he says, shaking his head and going over to rub on my arm a little “we were having one of our famous, drink and watch, where we watch movies and every time something specific happens, we drink a shot” he starts telling the story, also making the fun add on of our usual date nights.

“And I was like, woooh woooh” I say, trying to imitate that very moment. I lean over him, and leaning my head too close to his, I press my head on his cheek and whisper “I loaf you, Cayum” making it coming out as a loud muffled sound.

“God dammit” he giggles moving away just a little “I mean, it did sound like that, but it was cute and I said it back” he says, rounding his arm around my shoulders and pulling me closer.

“At first I felt weird because I thought I shouldn’t have said it right there at that moment, but if I’m honest” I add “I was fine”

“We were fine” he continues, leaning in to kiss my temple “more than fine”

What dressing do I always wear?

I look at him up and down. It’s kind of funny, because with this whole situation, we both happen to be in our pajamas, so our dressing code has been turned around for the moment. My vision of what he could be wearing on the daily has been distorted.

“Pfff” I sigh “I don’t know, I really don’t” I confess. “You are very weird with fashion, I must say, I don’t think you often wear the same thing” I say, looking over at him.

“I sure do, I can think of a couple things” He says, smiling at me with a teasing smile, silently encouraging me to think.

“Well, you do wear hoodies often, at home mostly” I say, being the first thing I can think of

“Like this one, actually, it’s like your morning hoodie” I giggle, reaching over to tug on the hood.

He was wearing that very soft white hoodie he would reach over to every morning, if there was a little bit of a breeze out there. She loved it, it was a nice piece of clothing to hug him in.

“There you go, see?” He chuckles, shaking his head “Mine is easy because every day of your life you wear socks that reach your ankles and beyond” He smiles, looking down at my feet and staring at my socks.

“Ding ding ding!” I celebrate, smiling at him “You are so right!” I laugh.

He nods, he knows he was right.

“Show the public, please” he suggests, giving me the honours.

“I have pineapples today” I say, lifting my foot as much as I can and holding it up to the camera. “Yesterday I had dogs and I have all kind of patterns, I love collecting socks” I smile, looking down at the pretty pattern and admiring it.

“It’s a fun thing to collect, I like it a lot actually” He admits, staring at it too “Do you have your 5SOS socks already?” he asks, as I lower my leg to its previous position.

I roll my eyes “Oh, shut it” I groan, he breaks to laugh and he knows why. “you didn’t let me design socks for your merch, now I don’t want anything” I say, scooting away from him

“Right” he laughs, shaking his head and laughing “Next question”.

Weird habit of each other?

“I know one of yours” he says before I can even answer. He turns to me, looking at me with a mysterious smile. “I’m going to leave it at your choice, should I tell or should I not?”

I look at him with the same look he gives to me, trying to see in him what he had in mind. I might have some weird habits, I was just hoping he wouldn’t pull out the worst.

“Shoot” I say, glaring at him.

“Everything you do, you find a way to relate it to a meme” he says, looking straight at me and laughing as he speaks “I don’t even know how you do it, you just do”

“Oh man! that’s not that bad, but I wasn’t expecting that at all” I laugh as well, finding it kind of funny that we went in with this one “I don’t think you have a bad habit, but, if I must say one, I would say your silence” I say slowly, not really sure if that even count. “you are one quite soul, Cal” I add, bumping our shoulders together

“Am I?” He says, raising an eyebrow up as he spoke.

I nod “It’s like, sometimes I ask you something and you just do this” I explain, resting my head over my chin and looking straight at him, saying nothing but still saying much. “I’m not a mind reader, pal” I mumble, still looking at him.

He leans over and touches my forehead with his, looking at me straight in the eyes and mumbling. “You should know what it means”

I roll my eyes. “Uh huh”

He would never admit his silence was weird, but that’s okay, it was something of him that I really liked.

How long have we been together?

“Almost two years” Calum says, his voice sounding sort of surprised as he spoke.

“It doesn’t feel like two years, how scary” I add, leaning my head on his shoulder “I feel like time really flies lately, these past two years between working with you, having all these changes and moving to this city, I felt like it’s only been a couple months” I mention, reflecting about all of the little things that have led us to this moment.

“That happens when you’re having fun baby”

I smile, bumping my shoulder to his “It’s been the best two years, I hope you know that”

What was our first road trip?

“Here’s the thing” he says, taking the lead “We often do small road trips to little parts of the city, so I would dare to say our first road trip together was... Mexico?” he says, looking at me in doubt.

“I think so, I’m not sure” I say, thinking about it as well. “but I think our most special trip was not even a road trip, it was a full on trip, remember?”

He frowns a little, turning to look at me looking for more clues. I didn’t gave more information away, if he knows, he knows.

“Which one?” He asks, still thinking about it.

“The first trip we did together, we were around 8 months, I would say” I say, still maintaining the mystery, until I decided to drop it. “We went to Australia, made a stop for three days and then New Zealand” I explain.

“Oh that’s right! yeah, you are right” he nods energetically at my answer. “We went visiting my family and exploring, it was a whole deal” he explain, now with a smile on his face.

“I think that even counts as a road trip, we used your uncle’s jeep, visited some awesome places” I say, smiling as well “I loved it, I always wanted to go to Auckland and having the chance of exploring the city was the best thing ever”

He nods, agreeing with me. That particular trip was the first trip we ever did together as a couple and it was worth every second.

“I had fun too, it was a very special time” He agrees. “Fun fact, a song came out of that trip, and you would never guess which one, but if you do, let me know and I might tell a story” He states, pointing at the camera, and looking at it with a completely serious look.

“Please do, guess” I chuckle at that statement “That story is going to fuck me up”

First thing you noticed about me?

“Now this is a question I like a lot” Calum states, sitting up straight and getting excited about his answer “Here’s the thing, the first time I met you was on this brunch thing and it was... a private event” he starts “it was interesting because in this event they had like a whole dancing thing, musicians, a DJ... the thing is, there was a particular moment of the event where they were playing jazz and the way she lost it while listening to that... that was priceless” he noticed, smiling at me “the way you lose yourself with music it’s something I won’t ever get tired of” he said in honest words.

That statement made my heart warm up. Those were one of the most adorable things he had ever said to me.

“Thank you” I said, with a hand on my chest. “The first thing I noticed about you is how good you are with words” I said, as part of my answer “I think some people, especially guys, sometimes come out as assholes when they want to cause a good impression, but surprisingly, he was the first guy who when he first came up to me, I felt comfortable” I shrug, looking at the camera and smiling softly.

There was really not much to say, I felt like my answer said a lot.

Calum smiled softly at me and reached my place, and while he caught me in his arms he mumbled “Come here”.

And then we fall onto the floor, as we washes me in kisses.

Tell us a fun fact about you

We both stare blankly at different points as we think of an answer. It should be easier than this, but for some reason, it is being more difficult than we thought to come up with a good answer to fill in this question. We could say so many things, but none of them would be the most appropriate one for this.

“Fun fact” I start, after our moment of silence “the first time we kissed, very first time, I was really drunk, but I would say, it wasn’t that noticeable or at least that’s what I thought”

I see Calum notices what I am saying right away, because once I start my story, his face goes from a frown to a surprised expression very quickly. Suddenly everything taking a bit of sense for him.

“I know where you’re going” he says, shaking his head.

“He asked me how it felt, like the kiss, how I felt about it” I continue “and I said ‘Ew’”

I wish I could help it, but everytime I tell a story like this, I can’t help but breaking to laugh, without having enough control over myself. I almost have to lay back, because I am laughing so much I can hardly sit still, but I don’t do that, I just hold on to my boyfriend and do my thing. I was such a fun story, the embarrassing part of it worn off completely by how funny it was.

“That was the most discouraging moment of my life” He explains, joining as well into my little laughing fit and shaking his head.

“I know, I’m sorry” I said, cleaning a small tear off my eye “I didn’t mean it! I was drunk, plus, I think I say ew and ouch out of its context more times that I could count” I mention.

“Now, that is very true” he says, laughing as well as he turns his look back at the camera and mumbles “Next question”

Tell us a secret

“No” Calum says.

So we move on to the next question.

What am I good at?

“She’s excellent at cooking the best things in the worst times” Calum explains as soon as he’s given the chance “and what I mean by this is that, most of the time when there’s a storm or, just like a month ago, we were confined and she would do deserts like everyday, It was so good I would forget for a second about what was surrounding me” He admitted, looking at me for a second before going back at the camera.

“I’m glad you like it” I smile, suddenly feeling very excited. “I do instagram lives every time I cook, It’s a lot of fun” I add.

He nods “You see me in the back, like, ‘what’s that white spongy thing?’” he mentions, making a weird voice just for laughs.

I giggle. “What’s that white dust on the table?” I follow, completely being aware of the double-sense.

“Is that mint? Or cilantro?” He adds.

“Oh geez” I laugh, at that last one. “People roast me in the comments all the time, because I make stuff like, burritos, or maybe chicken teriyaki, and then you come over and can’t eat anything” I roll my eyes, shaking my head at the camera.

He presses his lips together at my mention and nods.

“I don’t eat meat” he mentions, shrugging “but I don’t mind at all, I don’t care if you eat meat”

I nod “I always prepare like one ratio and leave some for if you wanna try, but…” I shrug “I wouldn’t tease you into it”

“I know babe” He says, going to reach my cheek and pinch it.

I move away from his touch as I say “I’m not even going to answer this so… next!”

Favorite feature about each other?

“His face is the stretchiest ever” I say with excitement in my voice.

Without a doubt, I get up and walk right behind him, because I just need to do something. It's a necessity, this is something I do on the daily, showing the public was something I wanted to do so badly.

“Look at this” I said, placing my hands on his cheeks and squishing them…stretching… squishing… stretching… squishing… I had so much fun.

“I have so much fun doing this, it’s like playdough in my hands” I say, caressing my boyfriends face.

“Okay, alright” he laughs, taking my hands away from his face. “My favourite thing is this” he says, still holding onto my hands and suddenly tugging on them hard.

Before I even noticed, he was grabbing both of my arms together, and with great skill, he pulled my whole body over his shoulders, and as he got up from his seat and walked back.

“What?!” I yelled loudly “Put me down!”

He does as I said, and as he walked to the back of the room, he let me down right beside him.

“She’s so tiny” he laughed, ruffling my hair playfully “I can carry her in my bag”

I rolled my eyes “No, I’m not” I whined “Stop”

He laughed again, and as he lifted his arm, and rested his elbow on my head. “See this (Y/n) to Calum ratio” he mocks “I’m half a person”

“Perfect size” I giggle, pushing him aside playfully. “Now that you’ve exposed my height, can we keep going please?” I say, almost begging.

If we kept going with this, I could easily turn from funny to not so funny anymore.

What do we argue about the most?

Once again, we stay quiet for a good second, but not because we don’t know, it’s because there was really not an specific answer we could give. I don’t we even knew what to say.

“I would say, the majority of times, we argue for the most dumb things you could imagine” I say, answering for the both of us “But about serious things, it’s something very rare” I shrug.

“I think our trending topic when discussing about something, it’s about me misspelling words when writing, and her losing it” he says, pointing at us and totally throwing me a look.

“Dude” I sigh “Because then people will read and take it the wrong way, not cool” I argue.

“It doesn’t matter, you just explain” he shrugs, completely not caring.

“You need to listen, that’s what you need to do” I roll my eyes “Read a book, punk” I let out.

His eyes widen at my answer. “Oh is that it?” He says looking at me directly.

I crack a smile, going to hug him, before he thought I was serious about this. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding” I let him know.

I would never tell him something like that on purpose.

Nicknames for each other?

I sigh. “Sadly, I don’t have anything other than Cal, and all the regular sappy nicknames” I shrug “I know I’m terrible, sue me, I don’t care”

I speak honestly, all super creative nicknames were over thought and they could be weird sometimes. I was too classy to use anything overly new.

“That’s mean, because I do have a couple of names for you” he mentions “Sweetie pie, Baby… The others I can’t reveal” he says slowly, patting my thigh with his hand.

my nose scrunches “Why?” I ask.

“They’re very confidential, you should know that” he says, shaking his head.

I shrug. “If I’m honest, I don’t know” I giggle “But I’ll keep the secret if that’s what you want”

He smiles, and leaving kiss on my cheek, we move on to the next question.

Complete this sentence “You’re my……..”?

“Oh, this is the famous question” he says after reading the question out loud. A smile cracking on his face as he looked at me.

“Was there a famous question?” I asked, raising my eyebrow.

“All the guys were talking about this one, I’m sure you guys are enjoying this” he smiled at the camera and pointing at It. “Luke’s girl cried” he mentioned to me.

My eyes widen “Did she?” I say, my mouth forming a pout “Oh man, I haven’t seen that” I sigh “You first”

He nods, already knowing that he would be the one taking the lead first.

“You are my saviour” he says, going to grab my hand. “I know it might sound sappy and you hate it, but it’s the truth. Before you I was a lonely guy, even when I had friends, I still felt pretty lonely, and I really appreciate the fact that I found someone who I can talk to, share moments… someone who I can lean on, It’s something that really gets me thinking… If it wasn’t for you, I would be sad” he says, pressing his lips together as he looked at me.

“Really?” I asked in a whisper. He nods. “Cal…”

I wish I could keep it together, but hearing him say something like this… I’m front of a camera. It doesn’t seem like a big deal, we’ve been in these kinds of situations before, but right now, it felt different, and it felt special.

“No, baby, don’t” he chuckles when sees my eyes starting to Glow. “See?” He tells the camera with a smile.

“I don’t even know what to say…” I sigh, shaking my head “You’re my partner” I say smiling. “Probably sounds weird, because it’s obvious, but I mean it, you’re my best friend, I love spending time with you, I always look forward to be with you and have you by my side, I can tell you everything and I trust you more than anyone, I think being with you is without a doubt, the best decision I have ever taken in my life” I admit.

The grin on his face is a real one, and once I finish with my words, he gives a squeeze to my hands, and leaves a kiss in both of them.

“Come here, baby” he whispers, pulling my into his arms. “I love you, I love you, I love you” he says, kissing my cheek a lot.

“You’re squishing me” I laugh “I love you so much, a million times, more than you do”

And more than he could imagine…

_____

“So, this was our version of the girlfriend and boyfriend tag, I hope you enjoyed” I say first, as I smiled to the camera.

“We also hope this brought you enough entertainment during this time, we for sure had a good time doing it” He continues for me, waving at the camera. “Until the next time, and remember to stay safe, bye!”

With this, we both lift our hands, and wave energetically at the camera, we turn of the camera, and our version of this tag was completed.

It was a wrap!.

#calum hood imagines #calum hood blurb #calum hood blurbs #calum hood x reader #luke hemmings imagines #michael clifford imagines #ashton irwin imagines #luke hemmings blurbs #ashton irwin blurbs #michael clifford blurbs #5sos fanfic #5sos blurb #5sos blurbs

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the-last-teabender · 4 years ago

Text

FANFIC: Oxventure - Duel Destinies

RATING: G

WORDS: Just under 7k

SUMMARY: Corazón gets hit on the head.

A/N: This isn’t my first time writing fanfic, but it’s my first time in literal decades writing something that a) isn’t going into a charity anthology and b) isn’t single-sentence goofs in my Gchat window with @randomthunk. So I actually am a little nervous to just yeet my work out into the world without an editor/publisher frontline protecting me from looking foolish. I do have plans to fic more tho.

I approached this as though I was writing an official tie-in because that’s my comfort zone (and occasionally my job). Which was a little challenging because there’s a lot that’s not part of the story but is part of the viewing experience. I have not mastered it in one story but the attempt was fun. Also I haven’t smashed alt-codes this obsessively while writing since I wrote about Señor 105.

Thanks aforementioned Ginger for being my beta reader and basically sitting on me to post this instead of hide it in my writing folder.

Anyway, if you like what I’m throwing out here, I have actually a lot of stuff in print and even more coming.

----------

“Right,” Dob said, pacing the length of the deck, “before we go, let’s review. Prudence, what happened yesterday?”

“We found a bad man killing off local slimes to make slime booze.”

“Good. Corazón, what happened yesterday?”

“I began my awesome new career as a detective and threw someone out a window.”

“All right. Merilwen?”

“Mow.”

“Excellent. Egbert?”

“I set a tavern on fire and got my seal very drunk on slime gin.”

“All right, that’s us caught up.”

That wasn’t the entire catch-up, but all of them knew the events of the day before well enough. The forest outside the town of Esterwell was in turmoil, according to the wizard Binbag after he tumbled unexpectedly out of a pantry. It was suddenly bereft of slimes — the cute little blobby creatures generally used for target practice by up-and-coming adventurers. As it happened, slimes had other uses. Serving as the base for a delightful high-end alcoholic brew, for one. Serving as the base of the entire local food chain, for another. If the slime population continued to plummet, eventually the other animal populations would follow suit.

An investigation of the local slime hunters (led by DCI Jeff Crimestopper, a pseudonym Corazón was becoming increasingly attached to) turned up that they were all in the employ of the same man: one Alonzo Horgan, owner of the Horgan Distillery. One especially talkative young hunter revealed that Horgan intended to “wring all the slimes out of Esterwell Forest” before upping sticks to his next hunting ground.

The goal was, in short, to stop Horgan’s machinations before he destabilized the entire local ecosystem and went on to do the same to others. Somewhere along the way, Dob had got it into his head that the goal was to start a brewery of their own and hold a cider-making contest in the Esterwell town square… an idea the group at large now referred to as “Plan C.”

Plan A, currently underway, was to continue the detective lark and either talk sense into Horgan or (more likely) run him out of town. Plan B was burning down the distillery.

“I’m still very much in favor of bumping Plan B up to Plan A,” said Prudence, wiggling her fingers as the group made their way back into Esterwell.

“Mrow,” Merilwen the cat grumbled from Dob’s shoulder, which translated to something like, “But that doesn’t actually solve the problem of making him stop.”

“Oh, fine,” Prudence huffed. “Detectives it is.”

Corazón pumped a fist low and (he thought) out of sight. “DCI Jeff Crimestopper back on the case, bay-bee.”

They arrived at the home of Alonzo Horgan — a palatial manor in a town that really wasn’t the sort to have palatial manors. At least half a dozen residences would have to have been knocked down to make way for the place, which stood half again as high as the buildings around it that had survived.

Merilwen hopped lightly from Dob’s shoulder, turning back into an elf again, as the half-orc tapped politely on the door.

“No, no.” Egbert shoved past him, balling up one scaly fist. “You’ve gotta really punch it.” He slammed his fist against the door several times, making it bow slightly under the pressure.

“Open up!” Corazón shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. “We have a warrant!”

“Don’t just say we have a warrant!” Merilwen hissed.

The door was opened mere moments later by a tall, rail-thin man with an upturned nose and a downturned moustache. “Mmcan I help you?”

Corazón pushed past the man. “Yeah, you can take us to Alonzo Horgan. We’re taking him down to the station for questioning.”

“I’m afraid Mr. Horgan is not—” But the man was cut off as the rest of the group piled past and into the house.

“Where is he, then? Upstairs?” Corazón pointed up the stairwell, one foot on the steps.

The man at the door, to his credit, did his best to maintain his decorum. “Mr. Horgan is not taking visitors.”

“We’re not visitors,” Dob said gruffly, looming over the man, “we’re detectives.”

“Is that so? Well, I do hope you meant what you said about having a warrant. Otherwise I may have to take you to the authorities.”

Alonzo Horgan’s voice silenced the group, but had it not, his presence would have. Fully six-foot-four, a stocky mix of fat and muscle generally only seen on back alley brawlers, stuffed into a fancy suit. His glare was imperious; his moustache was excellent.

Corazón swiveled and approached the master of the house. “Alonzo Horgan?”

“Yes, I’m… not sure who else I would be.” Horgan seemed put out for a moment, but recovered himself. “May I ask what business you have here?”

“DCI Jeff Crimestopper.” Corazón pulled a piece of paper from his coat, flashed it briefly, and put it away again. “This is my DI, Dob Tyler.”

Dob grinned toothily; had it not been Dob, it might have looked threatening. “Here to make sure my loose cannon superior does things by the book.”

Corazón gestured to the rest of the party. “DS Prudence, DC Merilwen. And, er, PC Egbert, he mostly makes the tea.”

“It’s really good tea,” Egbert piped up.

“No offense, sir…” Horgan gestured to Corazón. “But you look more like a pirate than a detective.”

“Deep cover, obviously. I wouldn’t expect a civilian to understand.”

Horgan waved a hand dismissively. “Even if I were to entertain the idea that you’re who you claim to be, I feel I’ve done nothing to warrant an investigation.”

Merilwen narrowed her eyes. “Nothing, Mr. Horgan?” Her voice was tense, hitting that slightly higher octave that her friends knew meant violence was quickly becoming an option. “Killing off an entire species for your own benefit is ‘nothing’? Allowing the local wildlife to starve is ‘nothing’?”

“Oh, it’s about the distillery, is it? I promise you, my dear, I’ve heard it all before.”

Dob gritted his teeth, giving Horgan a highly dramatic, highly knowing look. “I’d be careful if I was you, sir. DC Merilwen has a license to… er. Bear.”

Still, none of this seemed to faze Horgan. “If you think complaining about my methods is going to have any effect… let me assure you, it hasn’t yet. Now, unless you have any actual business with me…”

Prudence stepped up. “All right, look. Fine. We’re not actually detectives.”

“You don’t say,” Horgan deadpanned.

“That said… the whole slime issue is a real thing, and we really do need you to stop hunting them out completely. Or at least cut back.” Prudence looked back at Merilwen. “Cut back? Would that be good enough?”

“I prefer the idea of him stopping completely,” Merilwen seethed.

Prudence gestured to Merilwen. “Yeah, what she said. But I mean, it affects you, too. Do you like, uh… wild boar? I guess? Rabbit? Pheasant? I don’t know.” She spread her hands in an exaggerated shrug. “Screw up the food chain and you don’t get any of those.”

Horgan looked them all over, one by one. “You come into my home. You pretend to be something you’re not. And then you make demands of me that would effectively shut down my business. Give me one reason why I should even listen to what you have to say.”

Egbert had mostly detached from the scene in front of him, his eyes scanning his surroundings in search of something entertaining. They lighted on a pair of crossed swords on the wall, with a bronze plaque underneath: Esterwell Annual Fencing Championship, Second Place. Without thinking, he blurted out, “A duel.”

“I beg your pardon?” Horgan asked. The rest of the party fixed Egbert with confused looks.

“A duel,” the dragonborn repeated, with a little more confidence this time — confidence filled in a lot of blanks, in his experience. “If one of us bests you in a duel, you have to at least give us a proper audience.”

Much to the group’s surprise — including Egbert’s, truth be told — Horgan seemed to consider it. “Hmm. Well. I suppose it makes more sense than… whatever we’ve been doing.” He gestured at the room in general, then turned to Corazón. “On the condition that I fight this one.”

Corazón grinned. “Hell yeah. I’ll fight you. Prepare to have your whole scene wrecked by Corazón de Ballena.”

“I thought you said your name was Jeff Crimestopper.”

“I told you. Deep cover.”

Horgan sighed wearily and turned to his doorman. “See them out. Tomorrow at sunrise on the lawn. Come alone, whatever your name is. And pray you do not lose. I have no patience for time-wasters.”

The five were ushered out without another word.

“Not sure it’s wise to challenge a prizewinning fighter to a duel,” Merilwen noted when they were outside town again. “That sort of seems like the main thing he’ll be ready for.”

Egbert waved a hand. “Pff, it’s fine. The plaque on his wall said he was only second place. That means there’s at least one person better than him in town.”

“Still… What’s going to happen if Corazón if he loses?”

Corazón laughed. “Pff. Hah. Nothing. Because Corazón won’t lose.” He unsheathed his rapier and stopped to take a few jabs at a nearby tree. A heavy branch, near to breaking, creaked overhead. “You know what my crew used to call me?”

“Yes,” said Prudence, “you’ve complained about it several times.”

“I mean in battle. You know, when we captured ships. My swordsmanship is second to none. They used to call me Corazón the—”

There was a crash, and silence.

Egbert stopped walking, waiting for the punchline. “Corazón the what?”

“Er.” Merilwen pointed back toward the tree hesitantly. “Corazón the unconscious, apparently.”

Prudence turned and lifted away the branch, wincing at the sight of the pirate splayed out on the ground. “Oh, dear…” Then she looked up at the group. “So does this mean I’m captain now?”

---

The general consensus had been to let Corazón be once he’d been carried back to the Joyful Damnation and bundled into bed. He would likely be full of opinions and complaints as soon as he woke up. That, and he’d need his rest before dueling Horgan the next morning.

There was no bleeding as far as they could tell. Just a big bruise that would get bruisier over the next few days. Egbert dropped a quick bit of healing on Corazón which, while it would likely be helpful in the long run, did nothing to wake him. Eventually, Dob took up a seat by the enormous bed in the captain’s quarters, keeping an eye on the patient and picking out a few chords to pass the time. Just as he was getting a good riff worked out...

“Ow.”

“Ow?” Dob leaned over the bed. “Did you say ow?”

“Yes, I said ow. Because I’m in pain.”

Dob jumped up from his seat and threw the door open. “Guys! Guys! He’s awake!”

Prudence was the first to run in. “Is he okay?”

“Sounds like it.”

Egbert followed, with Merilwen bringing up the rear. They crowded around Corazón’s bed, realized at the same time that that would probably look weird from his vantage point, and backed off a bit.

“Corazón?” Dob leaned in slightly. “How’s your head?”

He squinted up at Dob. “What did you call me?”

“Oh, right.” Dob laughed. “Silly me. How’s your head, DCI Crimestopper?”

This just seemed to confuse him more. “Who… what are you talking about?” Then he pulled himself up to sitting, perhaps a little more quickly than he ought, and pressed a hand to the top of his head, looking around. “I feel like I’ve been beaned with an entire tree. Where the hell am I?”

“Your room,” Prudence offered. “We figured you’d want a nap after the bludgeoning.”

He shook his head, still sounding a bit dazed. “No… this isn’t my room. My room is bigger. And it doesn’t rock and creak. Are we… are we on a ship?” He looked up at the others again, as though seeing them for the first time.

“... who the hell are all of you?”

There was an awkward silence.

“He’s messing about, right?” Egbert grinned nervously at the others.

“It’s Corazón,” Prudence said quickly, “of course he’s messing about. Just humor him, he’ll be on to something new when he’s tired of it.”

Dob was already on board at humor him. He pressed a hand to his forehead. “Oh, no! Corazón! All our precious memories, lost forever! Please say it isn’t so, old friend!”

If Corazón was acting, he was really leaning into the deadpan delivery. “Is this some sort of prank? It’s not a very good one, if…” His gaze wandered down to his hands resting on the bed sheet, his sleeves wrinkled back somewhat. His eyes went wide, and he made a sort of choking, stammering sound.

Then, again far more quickly than he probably should have, he threw himself out of bed, shoving past Egbert on the way to the largest of his mirrors. Carefully, he pulled his collar aside. And gasped.

“Oh, my God, I’ve been tattooed in my sleep!”

“Gosh,” Egbert said with an admiring smile, “he’s really devoting himself to the bit, isn’t he?”

Merilwen shook her head slightly. “I… don’t… know if it’s a bit.”

“Which one of you did this to me?!” Corazón pointed at the tentacle tattoo emerging from under his collar. “Why would you do that? Why… what happened to my hair!? How long have I been asleep!?” He grabbed the nearest person — Egbert — by the collar. “Are you trying to change my identity!? Am I going to be sold off to the highest bidder!? What’s your plan!? You have to tell me!”

Dob grabbed for his lute, a nervous grin plastered on his face. “Ooooh! Oh, dear! Looks like someone could use a nice lullaby.”

Merilwen held out a warning hand to Dob. “No? No. One second.” She waved a hand to Corazón, the way one might a skittish fox. “Hey, over here.”

“What!? What do you want now!?”

“Just. Okay. Calm down for a second. Calm…” Merilwen inhaled and exhaled slowly, guiding the breathing with her hands. Corazón, surprisingly did the same. That in itself was a sign that something was off.

“Okay, just keep your eyes on me, all right?”

“Sure.” Corazón’s voice was strained.

Merilwen rooted around in the pocket of one of Corazón’s jackets, folded neatly over a nearby chair. She found what she was looking for — a little leather pouch of gold coins — and poured the contents out into her hand. She showed them to Corazón, as though setting up a magic trick. He watched and nodded tensely, his jaw set.

“Dob,” she said with a sweet smile, opening the cabin window. “Would you do the honors?”

“Would I?” Without hesitation, he took the little handful of coins from Merilwen, slid over to the window, and chucked them out into the sea, one by one.

All eyes turned toward Corazón.

“Yes, and?” The nervousness was tinged with irritation. “What?”

Another awkward silence, this one longer. And awkwarder. As they all, in their own time, came to terms with the fact that Corazón was not, in fact, acting.

Prudence tapped him experimentally on the shoulder. He flinched away, balling his hands into fists and holding them in front of his face.

“Hey, hey, whoa! No, no, we’re your friends! It’s us!” Prudence smiled, gesturing around the room. “You know. The Oxventurers! Can’t you recognize us?”

Corazón lowered his fists. “If you mean could I pick you out of a lineup, then yes, I certainly could.”

“Corazón…”

“Hff… and stop calling me that! It’s weird!” He brushed off his sleeve where Prudence had tapped him. “If you’re my kidnappers, then I would hope you already know who I am.”

“Y-Yeah.... Sorry.” Prudence frowned, then smiled. “Percy?”

“Thank you. That’s more like it.” And Corazón made a break for the deck.

---

“All I’m saying,” said the half-orc with the large hammer and the very nice hair, “is that we could be having a cider-making contest in the town square right now.”

“Or burning things,” said the tiefling, as a pair of ancient tomes played around her heels like rowdy puppies. “We could also be burning things right now.”

If this was a kidnapping, it was a very civilized one. Percy hadn’t had any practical experience with being kidnapped, to be fair. His father had suggested that it might happen once or twice in his youth, because that was just how life was for the children of rich and influential people. But after making it to adulthood without ever waking up in a dingy cellar surrounded by leering mercenaries, he’d just put it to the side.

He’d also been a bit disappointed, as escaping from said mercenaries could have been fun. But in retrospect, he might not have done as well at that as he liked to pretend.

He wasn’t tied up, or locked up. At worst, he had been prevented from leaping off the ship by all four of his kidnappers (and a seal, he was still contending with that information) piling themselves on top of him. They’d bundled him back into the captain’s quarters while they consulted with each other. Percy took the time to shave — the itch from his stubble was frazzling his already-frazzled brain — and change into a shirt that still had functional buttons.

The change had gotten a slight stare of disbelief from his captors, as though he’d gone and swapped heads, but no actual comments were made. And now, the dragonborn was sitting by him on the deck and handing him a cup of tea, and it smelled suspiciously like what he drank at home, and yes, this was absolutely one of his teacups.

“So!” the dragonborn said with a toothy grin. “Cora-... er, Percival. Percy? Mr. Milquetoast? Sorry, not sure what to call you now.” He had a cup of his own, but rather than sipping from it, he opened his long snout and splashed the contents inside. Judging by the reaction that followed, the tea was still very hot.

“Just, er… whichever? I guess?” Why was he sitting on a ship drinking tea with his kidnappers while they asked what to call him? Why had his father not been mentioned yet? Was that still incoming? His teacup rattled against the saucer.

“Mmmm… Percy. I’ve always thought you looked like a Percy.”

“Always?” Percy put his teacup down shakily on its saucer. “Then you’ve been spying on me? For how long?”

“No!” The dragonborn waved a hand frantically in front of himself. “No, no, I mean… we’re not…” He looked behind him, where the other three were peering at the scene thoughtfully. “Um, guys, I’m not doing great. Someone else try.”

The elf stepped in and tapped him on the shoulder, as though relieving him from duty. Good. As far as Percy could tell, she was the most logical of the group. She wasn’t panicking… not that he could see, at least.

“So you’re Good Cop, then?” Percy eyed her warily.

“No…” The elf sighed, a sort of long-suffering sigh that made him feel like this was not the first long-suffering sigh she’d issued him. “We’re your friends, really. And we’re just trying to figure out how to help you.”

Percy narrowed his eyes. “My friends.”

“Yes.”

“Not magical kidnappers looking for a piece of the Milquetoast fortune.”

“No. Not magical kidnappers looking for a piece of the family fortune. I promise.”

“I mean, I have friends at home. I can just go home to my actual friends, and not whatever you guys are pretending to be.”

The elf’s face settled into an expression that somehow managed to be both neutral and confrontational, her lips pressed into a line. “Name four friends you have at home.”

Damn. “Uh, th-there’s, uh… there’s Steve… F-Friendsman.”

“Yeah.”

“There’s, a-um, Roger… M’buddy.”

The elf pressed a hand to her face. “Please, at least let us try to help you.”

She seemed absolutely genuine. It was making his head hurt. This was not how criminals acted. As far as he knew. “Fine, help me, or whatever it is you want to do.”

“All right, so…” The elf clasped her hands together. “It’s probably just a matter of jogging your memory. You got a little bop on the head, it shook things up, but we can help you connect things up again. Right?”

“Sure,” Percy said hesitantly, now with the added wrinkle of wondering when and how he’d been hit over the head. He considered asking, but he could already hear the answer. No, we didn’t hit you over the head intentionally. It was a love tap. Something like that.

The elf smiled. It didn’t seem like a kidnapper’s smile. But again, he had nothing to go on. Maybe kidnappers had really nice smiles. “Okay, good. So let’s just rattle out a few of the high points, and see what your brain latches onto.”

Percy nodded, taking a sip from the teacup he still held in a death grip.

“Okay. Spicy rat?” She paused, and he wasn’t sure what for. After a short silence, she picked up again. “No? Okay, that was a while ago, admittedly. Uh… baby-making watch?”

“Babies don’t come from watches,” Percy scoffed. “They come from under cabbage leaves.”

The elf ground to a halt in her questioning, but picked up again with a shake of the head. “What about the party? The one where you went dressed as a sexy nurse and made a teenage girl cry.”

Percy scowled. “I would never do that!”

The half-orc chuckled. “Oh, you very much did.”

“I will not allow you to paint me with the same brush as you, you… s-scoundrels!” Percy felt a chill down the back of his neck. “That’s what this is, isn’t it? You’re trying to convince me I’m one of you and whisk me away to do unspeakable crimes, is that it?”

“Hasn’t taken much trying so far, mate,” Merilwen grumbled.

“Waaaait wait wait wait.” The tiefling squeezed up next to the elf. “We’re coming at this from the wrong angle. He’s clearly forgotten stuff from before we met him, too, right? What we need to do is remind him of why he became a pirate.”

Percy looked around the ship. Then down at the clothes he’d woken up in. And the tattoo on his wrist. “I’m a pirate?”

“Yep, you are a pirate.”

“So… this really is my ship?”

“Er, our ship, yes.” The tiefling seemed to take a lot of pride in saying that. Well, being co-owner of a ship was something to be proud of… if it was true, he’d probably let himself feel a bit proud, too. “So, maybe if you can summon up the feelings that made you want to run away from home and be a pirate, the rest will follow. So, tell us about your dad.”

“He’s… dumb?” Percy shrugged. “He’s annoying? I don’t know, it’s a lot of effort to run away from him for being dumb and annoying. I’ve got nothing.”

The tiefling leaned in conspiratorially. “Nothing about what a bad dad he is? How he has ridiculous expectations of you? Doesn’t want you to have fun and live your own life?” She paused. “How he’s got a stupid wig and he’s all stuffy and bossy?”

Percy leaned away from her. “You seem to have plenty against him already.”

“Oh, no, no. I don’t hate him. You do.”

“No, it really does sound like it’s you.”

The tiefling laughed, waving a hand. “Oh, no, that’s just because he bothers you. It’s a support thing. I’d totally love to live in his big ol’ house.”

“So you’re telling me you don’t like my father, but you do like his money, and that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

The tiefling’s face twisted into a confused frown. “Oh, man. Yeah, we do kinda sound like we kidnapped you for ransom, don’t we?”

Percy flinched away, nearly dropping his teacup. Oddly, the tiefling was once again trying to reassure him. “Which we didn’t?? Which we didn’t. I’m just saying.” She sighed. “I guess he forgot whatever happened that made him want to run away, too. How about you, Egbert? Got any paladin magic for him?”

“I’ve got something better!”

All eyes, Percy’s included, turned to the dragonborn — who was now swinging a mace from one clawed hand.

“So, you know how in all the stories, right? Someone gets knocked on the head and gets amnesia, but then they get hit in the same spot and all their memories come back. Let’s just do that!”

The dragonborn strode over to Percy, winding up the mace. Percy stumbled backwards, his teacup falling and shattering on the deck. “Don’t you dare!”

“Egbert, not that mace!” the elf shouted.

“Oh, it’s fiiiine. I had to hit whatsisname loads of times before he actually turned into a seal.”

Percy looked at the seal. The seal looked back.

“Eg.”

The dragonborn raised his mace over his head. Percy stumbled backwards towards the door to the captain’s quarters, eyes locked on the cursed weapon. He reached behind him for the doorknob and twisted frantically. The door wouldn’t give way.

The elf flung herself at the dragonborn, turning into an octopus in midair. The two hit the deck, the mace rolling harmlessly across the deck as the octopus held the would-be attacker in place. Percy finally managed to yank the door open, racing into the captain’s quarters and slamming the door behind him.

“I meant a spell!” Percy heard the tiefling yell from the other side of the door. “You’ve got more healing spells, don’t you?”

“Oh, riiiight…”

There was a gentle tap at the door. Percy eyed it nervously.

“Heeey, buddy. You okay?” It was the half-orc. “Can I come in?”

“No, you absolutely cannot come in. You’re all insane and there’s a seal man out there saying egg.”

“That’s cool, that’s cool. I’ll just sit out here, how’s that?”

Percy heard a gentle thump against the other side of the door. “So… you really don’t remember anything, do you? About us, or your pirate crew, or any of that?”

“Last thing I remember is going to bed at Milquetoast Manor and thinking tomorrow night’s party was going to be very boring. Then I woke up in bed on a strange boat, with all of you standing over me looking ready to dissect me or something.” Percy sat down, leaning on the other side of the door. His head still felt foggy. “So? Which one of you blackjacked me?”

“You blackjacked yourself with a tree.”

Percy frowned. “Is that the sort of thing I’m likely to do?”

“Oh, yes,” the half-orc said cheerfully. “Merilwen had a stack of tree puns ready to go, but under the circumstances it seemed, uh… bit tasteless.”

“Merilwen?”

“The elf. Don’t worry, you can hear them later. You know, when your head’s right again.” A pause. “Oh! Haha. Of course. I’m Dob, by the way. The tiefling is Prudence, and the big dragon man is Egbert. And we’re all your friends, and we all do super cool things together.”

Percy nodded, still not completely convinced. Then he realized Dob wouldn’t be able to see him on the other side of the door. “If you say so.”

“Gosh. Introducing myself to you. That brings back memories.” Dob stopped himself, fumbling, as if he’d just said something extremely offensive. “I mean… you know…”

Against his better judgment, Percy got up and opened the door. Dob, leaning heavily on it, tumbled backwards… but turned the tumble into a backwards somersault and landed lightly on his feet. He gave a little bow, and Percy felt he ought to clap. Just considering the effort.

“You ready to come out and talk to the others?”

Percy leaned to one side and looked out onto the deck. Egbert was on his feet again, with Merilwen (now an elf) still clinging to his back, as though uncertain whether the dragonborn could be trusted on his own yet. Prudence wore a friendly smile that seemed to say “I’m not going to sacrifice you to my eldritch god, but I’m also not not going to sacrifice you to my eldritch god.” His trusted friends. Apparently.

Before Percy could answer, Dob slapped him on the back and walked him out onto the deck. “All right. We’ve all had a little breather, a little think, and I think… and this is just me… we should back-burner the memory loss issue and focus on the bigger problem.”

“There’s a bigger problem?” Percy looked at Dob incredulously.

The group at large winced. “Yeah…” Dob continued to speak for the group, and no one seemed to mind being relieved of that duty for the moment. “See, Percy. Percival. Friend. Our good friend of so long…”

“Just tell me what’s going to happen to me.”

“You have to duel someone tomorrow morning.”

Percy extracted himself from Dob’s friendly side-arm. “What? Why? Why would I do that?”

“Again,” said Dob, “if it makes you feel better, it is extremely on brand.”

“Hsfd… it doesn’t make me feel better! I have to fight someone tomorrow and I’m not me! I mean, I am me, but I’m not this other me who went and did a thing I didn’t do!”

Amongst them, Percy’s friends(?) laid out the entire situation. All he managed to retain were slimes, collapse of the natural world, very large man, and imminent swordfight. The rest was a sort of blur, and one he was in no mood to attempt to figure out.

“I can’t do this.” It was a statement of fact. “Maybe this Corazón guy can do this, but I can’t. Horgan’s going to be expecting some jerk pirate who can swordfight.”

“We can try another refresher,” suggested Merilwen.

Egbert reached for his mace. “I could try—-”

“No,” said everyone, possibly even the seal.

“Look,” Dob said gently, “we’ll have puh-lenty of time to work on the memory thing, right? All we have to do is get through tomorrow, and if it hasn’t cleared up by then, we’ll find someone to help you, no problem.”

“How can you be so sure?” Percy asked, the fretting feeling coming back even stronger than before.

Egbert shrugged. “It’ll happen. That’s how it tends to go. A problem comes up, and then a couple days later someone comes along with a quest that’ll fix it. It’s really handy.”

“Okay, that’s great for after tomorrow morning. But what about me, tomorrow morning, with swords? What’s my guarantee I get past that alive? Because I’ve never actually stabbed a man.”

“Yes you have,” Prudence pointed out.

“Like a lot,” Merilwen added.

“Apparently you kicked a man to death once,” said Egbert. “I mean, I found out later, but I believe it.”

“But I don’t remember that!” Percy flailed an arm helplessly. “It’s… hds… that’s some future guy and I’m not the future guy, I’m the me guy. How is the me guy going to survive?”

The group fell silent.

“... did I actually kick a man to death?”

They all nodded.

“Oh…”

“And see? That’s why we believe in you, Cor… er, Percy.” Dob threw an arm around Percy’s shoulders again. “We know what you’re capable of. We know it’s in here.” He jabbed at Percy’s chest with one finger. “And in here.” At his head.

“Ow!”

“The head, Dob,” Merilwen hissed, “watch the head.”

“Right, right. Look. We’ve got tonight to train you up into a believable Corazón de Ballena. You’ve already got the look, you’ve already got the voice. That’s more than most people start with.”

Percy let out a weak groan.

“Hey! No, this is good! We can do this! And maybe, somewhere along the way, something will trigger the ol’ bean and the memories will just come flooding back. Right, guys?”

The rest of the team seemed to believe it about as much as Percy did. Which wasn’t much.

“Are you sure we can’t just…” Percy motioned to the anchor rope. “Leave?”

“No,” Merilwen said firmly. But her expression was still hesitant. “No, we have to stop Horgan. More than anything else, that has to happen.”

She was insistent. This was important to her. Percy groaned again.

“Come on, buddy.” Dob lifted his arm from Percy’s shoulders, grabbing him by both arms and staring him in the eyes. “Look me in the eye.”

“Yeah. Looking.”

“Now. Are you a Thieves Cant, or a Thieves Can?”

Merilwen, at least, seemed to appreciate what Dob was going for.

---

Plan B no longer stood for Burning. Plan B, as indicated by a wild-shaped Merilwen taking up a spot behind the topiaries on Horgan’s lawn, now stood for Bear. And possibly Bomb, and Blast, and Bard Casts Thunder Wave, depending on who got trigger-happy first.

No amount of swordfighting or storytelling brought Corazón’s memory back. Nor did any amount of actually insisting on calling him Corazón. Their last ditch hope — that he’d wake up the next morning acting like nothing had happened — didn’t pan out, either. Dob gave pep talk after pep talk as Corazón fretted uncharacteristically, the latter eventually wrapping the uneaten bacon sandwich he’d made for himself in a piece of paper and stowing it in a jacket pocket. Finally, though, they’d all had to take up their positions and leave the rest to luck.

Corazón was left to make the walk up the lawn alone, but the other four had formed a perimeter: Merilwen in the topiary, Dob in a nearby tree, Prudence behind a fence, and Egbert peering over a hedge. Dob promised to shoot Corazón an occasional prompt if things got hairy; but, by and large, it was all him.

As the sun began to rise, Corazón walked up the paved path to the appointed spot. He’d not quite gotten his own swagger down, instead walking slow, measured steps with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

Try to look like you’re too cool for the room! Dob thought; Corazón looked up and around, surprised, then seemed to remember what Dob had said about sending mental messages. He stopped where he was, pulled his hands out of his pockets, squared his shoulders, and walked even more awkwardly up the path.

Fine. It’d have to do.

Just as the light of sunrise hit its best and most aesthetic hue, Alonzo Horgan and his servant walked out. The former wore a rapier at his belt.

“Corazón de Ballena,” Horgan said broadly, his voice dripping with fake friendliness. “Or are we going by something new today?”

“No, er, that’s me.”

Dob thought another swift message.

“I mean… that’s right! That’s me, Corazón. The mighty pirate. Here to run you through like a tasty kebab and grill… grill you on the fires of justice? What the hell does that mean?”

Just go with it, Dob thought irritably, but the moment had passed. Shame. He was rather proud of that one.

Horgan eyed Corazón with amusement. “I can wait if you need a moment.”

“No, no. Erm. Yes, that’s me.” Corazón’s hand hovered over the hilt of his rapier. He was tense. He was ready. He might have been about to faint. It was hard to tell.

Horgan’s retainer’s voice was soft. None of them could hear it from their respective points along the perimeter. Corazón didn’t look especially surprised by any of it, which hopefully meant there was nothing odd about the rules of the duel.

From their spots, separated though each of them was, they all had the same thought at the same time: what would it take? What hadn’t they done? Would they need a spell? Some sort of quest? A skilled healer? Would another bop on the head really have done it?

A shrill whistle blew. Each of them was shaken out of their thoughts to see that the duel had begun, and Corazón was already flagging quickly. It was less of a duel and more of a chase, the enormous Horgan lumbering across the lawn after his smaller opponent. Corazón, for his part, was holding his ground… though “his ground” was constantly moving backwards across the lawn in zigzags.

His heel came dangerously close to a stray root, nearly hidden by the grass.

“Look out!” Egbert shouted. Merilwen, Dob, and Prudence shushed him. Horgan looked up and around for the source of the voice. Corazón, on the other hand, missed the warning entirely. His heel caught on the root, and he windmilled backwards, landing flat on his back.

Merilwen hesitated behind the topiary, one huge, clawed paw creeping around the side of the greenery. Was it go time? The others were in the same state of indecision, poised to attack but waiting to see what happened.

Corazón lifted his head slightly. The massive form of Horgan hovering over him, blade raised threatening, blocked out the faint light of sunrise. The sword hung there for a moment… then was flung across the lawn, accompanied by a disgusted sigh from Horgan.

“How very disappointing.”

The group shot each other quick glances. The message was clear. Well, clear-ish. “Stop Horgan before he can leave” was clear enough, but what would be done with him once apprehended was likely still up in the air. Corazón, unaware of any of this, propped himself up on his elbows.

“Where are you going?” he asked weakly. “We’re not done here.”

“I rather think we are.” Horgan shook his head in… amusement? Disappointment? It was hard to tell. “What a shame. You were so full of piss and vinegar yesterday, and today you’ve got no real fight in you.”

“I’ve got fight… I’ve got plenty of… hhhh.” Corazón put a hand to his head.

“Serves me right, thinking I’d get a good fight out of some puffed-up fake pirate.”

“... what did you say?” Corazón’s voice was suddenly oddly sharp and cold.

Horgan chuckled. “You heard me. You’re less convincing than the chap I hired for my niece’s seventh birthday party.” He waved a hand to his servant. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve not had breakfast yet and I’m peckish. Think I might go to the kitchen and have a bit of a graze.”

On his next step, Horgan’s booted foot slid forward, sending him falling backwards into a puddle of grease that had absolutely not been there moments ago. Now it was his turn to look up at a looming silhouette: Corazón de Ballena, sword pointing down threateningly in one hand, bacon sandwich in the other.

“How appropriate. You fight like a cow.”

Horgan spluttered, eyes bulging. “You… what nonsense is this!?”

“It’s called the power of grease, that’s what nonsense this is. Now get up and fight me so we can have our little talk. Or would you rather we just go ahead and burn your whole scene down?”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Yeah, you’re right, I wouldn’t. I think Prudence might, though.” Corazón shouted toward the fence. “Prudence! Plan B for burn?”

Prudence threw her hands in the air. “Plan B for buuuurn!”

Horgan had managed to pull himself up to one knee, the grease still dangerously slick beneath him. “I said to come alone!”

“Yeah, well, pirate. Don’t know what you expected.” Corazón stepped back, taking a bite of his sandwich. “So, I’m calling this a win for Team Oxventure. Which means it’s time for some negotiations concerning your, er, current business model.”

“But…” Horgan looked in the direction of his servant. He was long gone. Whether he’d run off, or whether the large bear standing where he’d stood had disposed of him, Horgan couldn’t tell.

“Oh, yes. That’s our sustainability advisor, Merilwen. She’ll be taking over from here.”

Merilwen growled.

---

“So what you’re saying,” said Egbert, “is that my plan was the best and would have worked.”

“Hff… no! Absolutely not.” Corazón was rubbing a hand over his chin, displeased with the lack of facial hair. “A one-in-six chance of being turned into an animal is not a best plan. Why did you let me shave? I hate it.”

“It’ll grow back.” Prudence poured out a mug of slime beer… the last remaining barrel, which they’d taken with them as a gratuity after aggressively convincing Horgan to discontinue his fermented slime line. She offered the mug to Merilwen, who waved a hand in front of herself emphatically.

“No, I don’t want to drink the poor baby slimes…” The rest became too high-pitched and tearful to translate.

“I’ll drink the poor baby slimes.” Dob grabbed the mug and necked half of it, much to Merilwen’s chagrin. “Anyway, what snapped you out of it? Was it hitting your head again?”

Corazón wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “Don’t know. I know I got really mad when whatsisname called me a fake pirate, and I wasn’t having that.”

Prudence’s eyes lit up. “Ohh, spite! Literally the one thing we didn’t think to try!”

“Well,” said Dob, passing Corazón his mended teacup topped off with beer, “I think we’ve all had a chance to learn something about friendship and patience and being true to ourselves.”

Egbert poured himself a pint. “I haven’t learned anything.”

“I have.”

Everyone looked at Corazón. “Have you?” Dob asked.

“Yep.” Corazón took a sip of beer from the teacup. “We are absolutely terrifying.”

Merilwen nodded sagely.

“Yeah,” Prudence said dreamily. “It’s good.”

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to my room, and I’m not coming out again until my good facial hair is back.” The door to the captain’s quarters slammed behind Corazón.

And that is the story of how the Oxventurers brought down a corrupt businessman with a breakfast sandwich.

#oxventure #outside xbox #i'm supposed to be writing other things but i won't tell if you won't #anyway yes i write stories a lot i do them for a living #please read them #i love approval from strangers

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sapphicbookclub · 5 years ago

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Author Spotlight: Natalie Cannon

Recently I had a pleasure of reviewing an interactive novel for the first time! I read (played?) Moonrise by Natalie Cannon and it was an interesting experience for me! So I'm happy to spotlight the author herself today as she tells us something more about interactive fiction.

Making Games Gayer

-art by Yacky Arts @AvAcTonyS

First off, I want to start by thanking Lara for giving me the opportunity to make a guest post for her wonderful site! I’m a new follower, but I enjoy every post.

Recently I had the pleasure of inviting Lara to play the interactive novel I wrote and coded, Moonrise. It’s about sapphic werewolves trying to find love and balance between the “natural” and “supernatural” aspects of their lives: the choice between hiding or revelation; humanity or beast. I had a ton of fun creating this work, but my journey there was less than straight (pun intended).

Interactive novels inhabit an odd space. They’re not quite novels—there’s an ongoing debate on Goodreads whether they belong on the site—but they’re very different from visual novels, which have a thriving community who equally enjoys the visual art and wordcraft. I describe Moonrise as the choose-your-own-adventure books of yore, but digital. I first heard about interactive novels when a colleague started working on one—which led to me stumbling upon the Choice of Games site, which lead to midnight squealing that my volatile lesbian Navy officer received a kiss from the dashing butch captain in Choice of Broadsides.

Among all the newness of Choice of Games, I saw an opportunity. While the Choice of Games company commissions writers to pitch and make games for them, they also have a subsidiary called Hosted Games. Similar to self-publishing a novel on Amazon, anyone can write and code a game, and Choice of Games will “host” it on their platform. Within certain content guidelines, any game concept can be written, coded, and posted. There’s 25% royalties and a built-in audience of interactive novel fans on the Choice of Games forum.

I’d done video game writing before, freelancing was only job, gamers were calling for more wlw games, werewolf characters rattled around in my brain, and the ChoiceScript coding language was literally designed to be used by newbies. I realized I could…make one of these?? And I could put whatever I wanted in there?? Everyone could be wlw and enbylw??? And I didn’t need anyone’s approval but my own.

Creating Moonrise was intoxicating. In my other writing projects, I must think about how an agent or editor will see the work. That can be limiting—especially since I chose historical fiction, which is a genre dominated by white cishet authors. With Moonrise, I set out to fill the desires of queer women gamers—my own desires. So the world is not quite ours, the racial and gender identities of characters are diverse, and there’s lots of allusions to other werewolf media because no one could stop me.

Fast forward a year later, and Moonrise is out and the queerest piece of fiction I’ve ever penned. It’s been a joy to watch it grow, and the best thing has been watching others find themselves in this sapphic amalgamation of Hozier and Vampire: the Masquerade. The release brought me deeper into the Choice of Games community, and other titles drew me like moths to the flame, like Melissa Scott’s A Player’s Heart and RoAnna Sylver’s Dawnfall. Since COVID-19 hit,

Choice of Games has made several games free with ads, and Nicola R. White’s Jazz Age is swinging closer and closer on my TBR.

Interactive novels are now one of the staples of my gaming experience and writing life. There’s so many stories out there to explore; new horizons to be reached. They’re an opportunity for diversity and change. Go out there and play.

#author spotlight #guest post

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artificialqueens · 4 years ago

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Galactica, Chapter 37 (Group Fic) - TheDane/Veronica

A/N: Click here if you’re looking for previous chapters (or here if you’d rather read on AO3). 💫

Last Chapter: Things looked up for Violet as she finally settled into the new normal of working in design.

This Chapter: One of New York’s most illustrious editors-in-chief turns 40--in style.

***

Shit.

It had been an absolute hell week, Courtney being run ragged all day, everyday. She’d missed more meals than not, barely slept, had gotten used to only using the bathroom when Fame was occupied.

It was really the first time that she and Miss Fame had to interact directly for more than a few words, and if Courtney thought she was high-maintenance before, she had no idea how weird it would get.

On Tuesday, Courtney had been torn a new one for ringing the doorbell when she had dropped off a package at Fame’s house, Fame looking at her like she was absolute vermin.

How was Courtney supposed to have known that it was a deathsin not to just let herself into her boss’ house, Fame explaining to her like she was a retarded toddler that she valued her family life and private time too much to be interrupted, not at all catching the irony of the fact that she was imposing on Courtney’s private time by forcing her to come to her house at 10 pm.

And now, a casual text from Adore that she’d be there around 7:30 reminded her about Bianca’s party and she was absolutely panicking. She had less than an hour to make herself presentable with literally nothing to wear.

She’d meant to ask Ivy about a dress, days ago, and then again yesterday when she was arranging the delivery of Miss Fame’s present to the Marie Claire offices, but it had slipped her mind amongst all the other things she had to remember.

She jumped up and raced into Raja’s suite, a cramp in her side, relieved to find the redhead still at her desk.

“Courtney? Are you okay?” Ivy rose from her seat, a concerned look on her face, ever the empath.

“I just...I forgot…” Courtney tried to catch her breath.

“Okay, take a breath. Whatever it is, it’s fixable. I promise.”

Courtney gulped. “I forgot that I’m supposed to go to this party tonight at the Guggenheim and it’s super fancy and my ride will be here in 40 minutes and I don’t have anything to wear and I don’t even know what the dress code means and I was just wondering if I could borrow something and I promise I’ll have it cleaned and returned by Monday but-”

“Courtney, breathe. Okay?” Ivy took her hand, inhaling deeply and then blowing out dramatically.

Had this job really killed so many of her brain cells that she needed assistance breathing now? Regardless, Courtney followed Ivy’s lead, taking a few deep breaths to slow her racing heart.

“Now,” Ivy began. “What does the dress code say?”

“Creative black tie?”

“Ah. Okay. Follow me.”

Courtney nearly cried with gratitude as Ivy led her into the wardrobe closet.

“Luckily, you’re a sample size, so this shouldn’t be too much of a challenge,” Ivy said. “It’s Bianca Del Rio’s party, right?”

“Yeah,” Courtney said, watching her paw expertly through the racks.

“Are you going for anything in particular?”

“I guess I wanna look…” Courtney racked her brain, unsure of what to say, when the word, “older” slipped from her lips.

Ivy paused, clearly not expecting that answer, and gave Courtney a curious look before nodding.

“I can work with that. Now, Bianca likes bold colors and dramatic silhouettes with clean lines, so I think something like this…” Ivy pulled a stunning, beaded blue cocktail dress out off the rack. “This will look good on you.”

Ivy was truly a gift from god. Not only did they find a dress that fit perfectly (they settled on a short, fire-engine red silk number with a plunging neckline), along with shoes, accessories, and a glamorous faux-fur wrap, but she even stayed to help Courtney with her hair and makeup, giving her a chic updo and dramatic winged liner.

“Ivy, honestly, if you ever need anything. Someone to cover your desk...a kidney...whatever...you know who to ask.”

“Good to know.” Ivy laughed, checking her makeup one more time, adding a little more glimmering highlighter to her cheekbones, and then proclaiming, “Alright, I think you’re done.”

“Thank you so much,” Courtney said again, pulling out her phone. She hadn’t heard from Adore in awhile, and wondered if she was stuck in traffic or something. She seriously hoped that she hadn’t rushed like crazy, inconveniencing Ivy and nearly giving herself an ulcer worrying, just to sit around waiting for an hour.

COURTNEY: ETA?

ADORE: Soon, I think. I’m on my way to Pearl’s, then we’ll pick you up. Do you want a gyro?

COURTNEY: I’M A VEGAN

ADORE: Oh yeah. Gross. I’ll text you when we’re close.

***

“Bianca! Darling!” Fame reached out her arms to pull Bianca in for a tight embrace. “Happy Birthday!”

She and Patrick had just arrived at the stunning event space a few minutes earlier, and were immediately whisked off to a VIP area with a private bar, where Raja and Raven were already relaxing on sofas, Sutan and Violet standing at the bar chatting with Detox and Jujubee.

It was perfect, removed enough from the chaos of the dance floor, but with a perfect view over the railing. And the speed with which Bianca had arrived to greet her told her that she’s given special instructions for the staff to alert her to Fame’s presence--exactly the kind of preferential treatment that Fame expected.

“Thanks, blondie,” Bianca grinned, “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Fame smiled widely, fluttering her lashes. “So do you. I love this dress!”

“Yeah, your tits look great!” Raja chimed in.

Bianca was wearing a sinfully tight black bandage dress, the neckline showing off her breasts and glowing skin, the hem just above her knees, her legs one of Bianca’s best assets.

“You can barely see that you’re turning 40.” Fame grinned, which earned her a pinch from Bianca, the other still keeping her in her arms.

“Shush.”

“Please,” Fame squeezed Bianca’s forearm, “So, tell me the truth, do you like the ring?”

Bianca held up her hand, where it glittered on her index finger.

Yesterday, Fame had had Bianca’s birthday present delivered to her office at the exact time of her birth, 3:57 pm. Fame knew Bianca liked her statement pieces, so she had custom ordered a cocktail ring, but not just any cocktail ring. Instead of the usual single band, a stone in the middle, Fame had gone for a three part twist in gold, sparkling garnets adorning it.

“It’s perfect, I love it,” Bianca said.

“Wonderful!” Fame clasped her hands together. “You’re impossible to shop for.”

“No I’m not! I love stuff,” Bianca countered. “Plus, you know...I’ll never say no to a present that’s unavailable in stores…”

She grinned wickedly, dimples deep, hand drifting down to Fame’s ass. Fame swatted it away with a scolding look.

“Really, Bianca.”

“What, it’s my birthday!” Bianca said. “You gotta give me something.”

“Fine, a tiny something,” Fame laughed, leaning in and giving her a sweet kiss on the lips, then following up with a light smack to her cheek.

“That’s not where I like being spanked,” Bianca said.

“Oh my god, you’re impossible!” Fame exclaimed, breaking away and stepping over to the bar while Bianca laughed gleefully behind her. “Now come on, tell me about your presents.”

***

“And a drink for the lady.” Sutan smiled as he handed Violet a glass, his date taking it with a sweet smile and a thank you, Sutan putting his arm back around her waist as they walked around.

He had picked Violet up at her apartment, his heart almost skipping a beat as she had pushed the double doors open and walked down the steps, her dress of the night absolutely stunning, the back open and taunting with it’s promise of bare impossibly soft skin.

“So,” Sutan rubbed his thumb up and down, gently caressing Violet’s back, “are you having fun?”

Sutan was happy that she was there, enjoyed spending time with her, but as he got to know her more and more, he slowly realized how little she actually enjoyed big crowds.

“Yes.”

“Okay.” Sutan bit his lip, hiding a smile at Violet’s quick but short reply.

***

Alaska giggled delightedly, letting Jinkx twirl her on the dance floor. If you’d told Alaska a few years ago that she’d have a friend who she could have this much fun with sober, she’d have laughed in your face. But, even though Jinkx didn’t mind it, Alaska really didn’t enjoy drinking around her. So when they were together, Alaska felt like it was the least she could do to hold off on the booze. What she did enjoy was being with her, sober or not, looking into her sparkling brown eyes as they tripped all over their feet.

“For a Broadway star, you’re really uncoordinated,” Alaska laughed, and Jinkx pretended to be offended, then giggled.

“It’s hard to be mad when you call me a Broadway star.”

“Well, you are!” Alaska said, wrapping her arms around Jinkx’s neck and gazing at her happily. She loved these moments, just the two of them having the time of their lives, dancing and laughing and ignoring every other person in the room. They always had fun, but tonight, Jinkx seemed to have an extra bounce in her step, radiating a kind of joy, and it made Alaska feel so grateful to be around her.

“Thanks Lasky...you’re the best.”

They whirled and stumbled around the dance floor some more, until they were both breathless and needed a break.

“What are we feeling like tonight? Ginger ale? Cranberry and soda?” Alaska asked.

“You choose,” Jinkx said, clinging to her arm.

Alaska ordered a couple of drinks for them and then turned back to Jinkx, who was looking at her with the cutest little dreamy half-smile. She couldn’t help the tingling rush that went down her spine as she lowered her eyes and asked, “So...what’s going on with you tonight?”

“What do you mean?” Jinkx asked, eyes widening innocently.

“I mean...you’re just very...I don’t know...” A smile tugged at Alaska’s lips. “...twinkly tonight.”

“Well...I wasn’t gonna say anything because...it’s kind of silly, but,” she lowered her voice, eyes shining. “I ran into her again. Ivy.”

Alaska felt her whole chest deflate, forcing a smile as Jinkx continued.

“At Zabar’s! It’s like the universe is just conspiring to help us get together, you know?” Jinkx giggled happily.

A lump rose in Alaska’s throat and she nodded, using all her willpower to keep the smile painted across her face. “Oh, wow. That’s...that’s cool. Did you talk?”

“Yes. You’d be so proud of me, I even got her number!”

“Wow. Awesome!” Alaska felt like she was going to throw up, shifting her gaze to the bartender, grateful for the distraction as he slid two ginger ales across the bar. She couldn’t help wishing that half the glass was Jack Daniels. She handed one of them to Jinkx and took her own. It tasted just dust.

“Yeah, but she was still a bit formal, you know? I think I need to see her in a more relaxed setting. Do you think she likes opera? Maybe I can ask her to Madame Butterfly?” Jinkx chattered, away, oblivious to Alaska’s shift in mood.

“You really think the Met is a relaxed setting?”

Jinkx threw back her head and laughed, squeezing Alaska’s arm. “Omigod, you’re right. I’m such a dingbat. What would I do without you, Lasky?”

“I don’t know…” Alaska stirred her drink.

“What do you think she likes?”

“Uh, I’m really not sure,” Alaska said. And it was true. She knew that Ivy was sweet, and professional, and did her job with a kind of calm efficiency. But she didn’t know her very well on a personal level, their professional paths rarely crossing directly.

“Hmm, maybe you can ask around? If that wouldn’t be too weird?” Jinkx looked so hopeful and earnest that Alaska couldn’t help but smile for real in spite of herself, immediately agreeing to help her on this quest to capture Ivy’s heart.

“Of course. I’ll ask around.”

Jinkx sighed happily, leaning on Alaska’s shoulder, eyes falling closed for a moment. “You really are my favorite person, Lask.”

“Back atcha, Jinxky.”

***

Adore walked into Bianca’s party, feeling like a million bucks. Everyone that was anyone and even some who were nothing were there, and Adore knew she looked better than all of them with her purple hair, her pouty red lips, her short black leather dress, fishnets, and best of all… Pearl, the sexiest fucking goddess she’d ever seen in her life at her side.

She hung on Pearl’s arm, enjoying the jealous looks she got; knowing that everyone at the party wanted to be in her place. She even got a nasty look from some models, who were clearly all in love with her girl, but Adore didn’t care.

Pearl was here with her and only her. Pearl glanced at her every few seconds with a smug grin on her face, like the cat that just ate the canary. Well, if the canary was Adore’s pussy. Which would mean the cat was… Well whatever, Adore wasn’t an English scholar. She was in love.

The only thing that sucked was that Courtney looked so fucking miserable. They’d been a little late picking her up, due to getting, well, sidetracked for a while at Pearl’s, and then stopping for food. She thought that Courtney would be a bit more understanding, but she’d barely spoken two words in the car, even Pearl picking up on her obvious anger.

And now, even though she was at the coolest party in Manhattan, she didn’t look happy at all. Adore caught her eye, offering a hopeful smile, but received only a resigned nod in return. She reached out to touch her hand.

“Have I told you how gorgeous you look?” Adore asked, hoping that a compliment and a charming grin would be enough to lighten her mood.

“You think?” Courtney asked, adjusting one of her straps nervously. “I don’t look out of place?”

“Bitch, you put all these other girls to shame,” Adore promised, and was rewarded, finally, with a pleased smile from Courtney.

“Thanks.”

“Pearl!”

Adore looked over at the group of giggling socialites who were approaching them, only slightly annoyed when they swept her girlfriend up. She pouted as Pearl dropped her hand, but smiled again when she doubled back to whisper into her ear, “I’m gonna try and squeeze some gossip out of these hoes, and then I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Okay, but don’t be too long!” Adore pulled her in, branding her cheek with a dark red kiss before taking Courtney’s arm and sauntering away, pleased with herself. She scanned the party, looking for her sister and finally spotting her holding court near the bar. She cupped her hands over her mouth to shout through the crowd. “Bianca! Happy birthday, you ancient whore!”

Bianca turned towards her sister’s voice, barking out, “You’re late!”

“Whaddaya mean, we’re right on time for a grand entrance!” Adore countered, laughing.

“Well-” Bianca stopped, completely losing her train of thought when her eyes landed on Courtney. She was wearing a short red dress, the first time Bianca has seen her in a color other than pastels, and she looked absolutely fucking stunning--legs a mile long, one blonde curl falling into her eyes. Damn.

“You look cute, B. Very boobalicious,” Adore said, giving her a hug. “Not bad for an old lady.”

“Yeah, thank you,” Bianca said, eyes still locked on Courtney. “Hi, Courtney.”

“Hi. Happy birthday,” Courtney said, giving her a sweet smile. “Sorry we’re late.”

“Oh, that’s alright,” Bianca told her. “But here, uh...this’ll help you catch up.”

She took a couple of the signature drinks from a passing tray and handed them over. Adore immediately began to suck hers down, but Courtney hesitated.

“Um, what’s in this?”

“Courtney’s afraid of tequila. It makes her messy, right bae?” Adore bumped her hip.

“Something like that.”

“It’s called a Madras. Vodka, orange juice and cranberry. No tequila, but it will fuck you up. Be warned,” Bianca said with a wink.

“Well...cheers,” Courtney said, giving an adorable little laugh.

“Cheers.” Bianca took a sip of her own drink, then leaned in closer. “You look amazing, by the way.”

“Yeah?” Courtney’s eyes shone, her fingers twirling that stray lock of hair.

“Yeah.” Bianca tried unsuccessfully to wipe the stupid grin off her face, and instead broke the tension with, “I’m shocked that someone who’s friends with my sister has such good taste.”

“Hey!” Adore exclaimed.

“Don’t be too impressed. It’s a loaner,” Courtney replied drily, causing Bianca to throw back her head and laugh.

“Fair enough.” She downed the rest of her drink, waving off a couple of acquaintances who were trying to get her attention.

“Be right back,” Adore said, scampering away towards Pearl, of course jumping the second the blonde so much as crooked a little finger.

Courtney reached out for her, but she was already gone. She sighed slightly, looking a little bit dejected, and Bianca cleared her throat.

“So listen, I heard through the grapevine that you’re looking for a way to avoid your, uh, Galactica employers while you’re here?”

Courtney looked up, startled. She seemed shocked that Bianca was still talking to her, and she stammered uncomfortably. “Oh. Yeah, no, I just-”

“Listen, it’s understandable, you wanna have a good time. Can’t do that while your boss is breathing down your neck, right?” Bianca flashed her dimples.

“Well...yeah,” Courtney admitted, laughing a little.

Bianca stepped closer, slipping an arm around her shoulders and lowering her voice conspiratorially. “Fame and Raja are well contained, don’t worry. I made a VIP section since those two need a velvet rope to feel like they’re having a good time.”

Courtney giggled. “Like a rich person playpen?”

“It’s a prison of their own making,” Bianca affirmed, giving her a wink. “Trust me, they’re looking down on everyone the way they prefer, and they ain’t leaving.”

“Well...thank you.” Courtney bit her lip. It was hard to tell in this light, but it looked like a slight blush had crept into her cheeks, and Bianca found herself even more enamored.

“Anytime.”

A second later, she felt someone tap on her arm: one of the Marie-Claire board members, who she sadly couldn’t ignore.

“Sorry, I have go...do hostess shit,” Bianca said, regret flooding her chest, and Courtney nodded.

“Of course.”

She turned towards the middle-aged man and his young wife, saying her cursory hellos and giving air kisses, making small talk with them both. As soon as she could manage, though, she spared a glance back at Courtney.

The plan, from the moment Adore told her that Courtney was coming, had been to seduce this smoking hot friend of her sister’s. And she figured that the “rough break-up” that Adore’d reported would make it a sure thing. An easy and fun little fling--a birthday present to herself.

But now, something about the wistful, faraway expression on her delicate face as she smoothed down her skirt made her look vulnerable, in a way that gave Bianca pause. As stunning as she was--and fuck, she was an absolute knock-out--it didn’t make Bianca want to seduce her. Instead, it made her want to protect her. Ugh, why did her fucking conscience have rear its ugly head tonight, on her birthday of all nights?

“Thank you so much. Be sure to check out the raw bar!” she said, finally escaping and ready to head back to Courtney--but Adore beat her to it.

She watched as her sister came bounding up, Pearl in tow, and grabbed Courtney’s hands to pull her onto the dance floor.

Well, good. She should have a good time. Lord knows, anyone who worked for Fame deserved to blow off some steam. Bianca snatched another drink from a passing tray, trying to redirect her attention to the Welsh model who’d been giving her bedroom eyes all night.

***

Violet was having a surprisingly good time, taking small sips of her champagne. She had hurried home from work, almost ready when Sutan had texted that he was downstairs, the smile on Sutan’s face when he had seen her dress almost, almost, almost worth it’s price tag.

She had never been to an event of this size without having to worry if catering ran out of ice, or if she’d need to get taxis for whoever got way too drunk. It was nice to just stand by Sutan’s side, nice to be allowed to just be, without having to entertain or constantly think about everything that could go wrong.

“Ah, yes, of course.” Sutan smiled, his thumb rubbing up and down the small of Violet’s back. He was talking to one of the models from Elite, Violet vaguely recognizing her from some of the headshots she had presented to Fame for the fall collection. “I’ll be sure to tell Marcel about that.”

“Excuse me,” Violet turned, her eyes falling on a man with a camera, the card around his neck instantly telling her that he was from OK! magazine. “I was wondering if I could take a few pictures?”

“Oh,” Violet didn’t know what to do, her stomach instantly tightening.

“Sure,” Sutan grinned, turning towards the camera. “Right girls?”

“I-” Violet didn’t want to be in the picture, didn’t want someone she didn’t know documenting where she was, didn’t want to risk it ending up online. “I don’t-”

“Oh of course,” Sutan took her glass, handing it off to someone. “There we go.”

“Sutan”

“Come here,” Sutan put an arm around the model, posing both of them.

“Please-” Violet could feel Sutan’s hand on her hip, holding her tight, keeping her trapped, her throat closing up.

“Should we smile?”

“No,” The photographer looked out from behind his camera, “just be natural.”

Violet pushed away, forcing Sutan to let her go as the camera went off. She didn’t hear Sutan say her name, a quick flicker of a question on his face, didn’t see him smile apologetically to the photographer and pose with the model, didn’t notice any of it as she made her way outside, escaping the only thing she could think of.

***

Juju strolled through the crowd with Raven. She appreciated the whole VIP setup as much as anyone, but this was a massive party, and they’d decided to come spend a little time where the action was, maybe dance a bit -at least as much as her poor pregnant body would allow. They were stopped by a group of models, Raven proudly showing off her engagement ring and letting the other girls fawn all over her.

Juju put up with the schmoozing for a couple of minutes--after all, those girls were potential clients, until she spotted Bianca nearby and politely excused herself from the group, knowing that Raven would be perfectly content with her little fan club.

Bianca was chatting up some sweet young thing (typical), and Juju couldn’t resist messing with her a little. She wrapped her arms around Bianca’s waist from behind, asking in a low, husky voice, “Tell me I’m your favorite, Daddy.”

It was a joke between the two of them, something that had started years ago when Juju and Detox were first dating. They’d shown up at brunch one morning in the middle of a heated argument about whether it was appropriate for her to call him “Daddy” during sex--ironically, only a few months before she got preganant with their first child. It wasn’t a kink thing, exactly, it was just that she thought it was funny, and especially so when she saw his freaked out reaction. The group agreed that right or wrong, if it bothered him then she probably shouldn’t say it. But Bianca, ever the good sport, had pulled the smaller woman into her lap and declared that if she really needed to call someone Daddy, she was ‘willing to take one for the team.’

Juju accompanied her breathy greeting by biting gently on Bianca’s ear, adding, “Pwease?”

Bianca burst out laughing, pulling her close and introducing her to a very confused looking girl. “Tayce, you must know my friend Juju Sanderson. The brilliant hairstylist who owns Jujubee’s downtown?”

“Oh, yeah! It’s an honor!” Tayce said, her brown eyes lighting up as a dazzling smile spread across her face. “I’ve been trying to get an appointment with you, but you’re booked up for months!”

Juju had to bite back her laugh when she heard Tayce speak--Bianca always was a sucker for an accent.

“Well, play your luck with Daddy here, and you might jump the queue,” Juju said with a wink.

“Among other benefits,” Bianca cackled. “You know you’re the only one who I’d let get away with that Daddy shit, right?”

“Yes, thank you. You’re a lot more fun than my husband.”

“In so many ways,” Bianca said, turning to Tayce and giving her a playful smirk.

***

Violet took a deep breath, letting it out through her teeth as she could finally feel her heart slow down, though the knot in her stomach wasn’t going away.

She knew she couldn’t help it, but it was impossible not to feel an inkling of shame travel up her spine, the feeling that she was being ridiculous impossible to push down.

Sutan hadn’t meant anything by it, taking photos a part of his life, being in the public eye something that simply came natural for him.

Violet took a last breath, pushing away from the wall she had been leaning against to go back to the party, hoping that Sutan hadn’t noticed how strange she was acting.

It wasn’t that Violet liked acting this way, that she wanted to feel the panic rising in her body whenever she saw a camera in a stranger's hand, but she couldn’t help it.

She was an adult now, she had her own life, her own money and even her own job and her own apartment, but it was hard not to hide, impossible not to react to the instinctive fear that welled up in her at the risk of being found.

Violet walked back inside, the noise and the amount of people feeling so much more overwhelming when she wasn’t at Sutan’s side. She made her way through the crowd, easily spotting both Fame and Pearl, avoiding both of them.

She was starting to think Sutan had left, Raja nowhere to be found either, when she saw him sitting at a table, surrounded by models. He was laughing loudly, his arm around one of the girls, several of the models’ phones taking pictures of everything that was happening.

Violet’s stomach did a flip, the panic from earlier rushing through her body. She couldn’t go over there, couldn’t be a part of that part of Sutan’s world, so instead, Violet did what she always did.

Turned around, and walked away.

***

[Raja?] Sutan put a hand on Raja’s hip, turning her around. Sutan had been sitting with a group of models, doing shots and having fun right up until one of them had touched his legs under the table, and he had abandoned ship instantly.

[Have you seen Violet?]

He hadn’t seen her in over an hour, and while Sutan was more than sure that Violet could take care of herself, he had started to worry.

[Sutan!] Raja grinned, stepping into his space, looping her arms around his neck. [Hello brother dear.]

[Hello.] Sutan smiled, once again reminded of how much he truly loved Raja. She was tipsy, her eyes swimming slightly, which was probably why she hadn’t responded to his question. [Have you seen Violet?]

[Violet?] Raja tilted her head, her hand fiddling with the hairs at the nape of his neck. [No?]

[Shit.] Sutan bit his lip, his hands resting on Raja’s hips.

[Maybe she just left?] Raja smiled, running her fingers through his hair. [There’s no need to worry.]

[Maybe...]

[She can handle herself.]

[Mmmh.] Sutan knew that Raja was probably right, but it still felt weird that VIolet hadn’t said goodbye, and if he was honest, he was disappointed that they wouldn’t be going home together at the end of the night. [I’ll send her a text.]

Sutan was just about to reach into his pocket, was just about to get his phone out, when he saw a photographer to his left, just outside the VIP section. The paparazzi always loved to get photos of him and Raja together, and while he was sure Raja hadn’t noticed, he made sure to twist her slightly to the left, getting her good side as he smiled at the camera.

***

“Every guy here is drooling over you, bae,” Adore giggled, spinning Courtney on the dance floor before accepting another drink from Pearl.

“Not just the guys,” Pearl added with a wink.

Courtney laughed. In spite of her hesitation in tagging along, she’d been having a pretty good time. The attention was fun, of course, but Courtney’d barely noticed the alleged guys drooling over her. She couldn’t help thinking about the way she’d felt when Bianca put that arm around her, the way her brown eyes had sparkled in the dim light. The way goosebumps prickled her skin as Bianca’s fingers grazed her shoulder.

Her gaze kept being pulled in Bianca’s direction. Eyes drifting over her enticing curves in that tight dress. And occasionally, to her absolute thrill, Bianca would be looking back at her. Every time their eyes met, her stomach flipped around like crazy.

It was silly, she knew that. She knew that Bianca was only being nice to her because she was Adore’s friend. A nice kid. That it didn’t mean anything deep. This was, after all, a woman who dated supermodels and Oscar winners. Like the gorgeous girl by her side most of the evening, who had a face that Courtney instantly recognized from last month’s British Vogue cover.

Still.

The reality of the situation didn’t stop her from pretending, even just to herself, even just for the night, that maybe there was something there, that warranted all these confusing feelings swirling around inside her like a tornado.

And later, when they were saying goodbye, she allowed herself to enjoy the way Bianca’s palm pressed to the small of her back. She even let her lips linger for a few moments on Bianca’s warm cheek, kissing her goodnight.

***

SUTAN: Did you leave?

[MISSED CALL]

SUTAN: The party is still going.

SUTAN: Did you get home safe?

[MISSED CALL]

SUTAN: I can’t find you.

[MISSED CALL]

SUTAN: Violet??

VIOLET: I’m fine.

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