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writer-room · 3 years

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Siblings: Chapter One

AO3

Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

Summary: The Bats reflect on how their thoughts about siblings have changed over the years. Some opinions stayed, others didn't.

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Dick always wondered what it’d be like to have a little brother or sister.

He recalled asking his parents why he didn’t have one. Not accusatory, just curious.

His mother had smiled and said that they had their hands full plenty with Dick, and he was all they needed. His father, while still kind, said that they didn’t really have the time or resources in the circus at the moment to add another child to the family.

Dick was disappointed, but he understood the reasons.

Even still, he’d find himself staring at the kids that watched the acts with awe. Older kids lighty taunted their younger siblings, ruffling their hair and pretending they were too good for it all, and that they were doing their siblings a favor by being there. Kids who nudged their brother or sister to distract and steal the snacks from concession stands, later whispering words that’d make the other gape or giggle. Young children holding their sibling who was of toddler age or younger, pointing towards parts of the acts, their glee growing upon seeing the excitement of their sibling.

Dick hadn’t been lonely growing up in Haly’s Circus, he had his parents and the other people who worked there, from the handlers to the clowns to the tricksters.

And yet, he still found himself watching the kids who’d come in with one, or even two or three, brothers and sisters, taunting and laughing and sharing their wonder.

A sibling would’ve been nice, he thinks mournfully. It might’ve even been fun.

Ah, well. At least he had the circus.

“Hey, hey Dick. Dick. Dick, lookit.”

“If I turn around and I see you about to push Damian off the roof, I’m breaking your helmet.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Dick sighed, turning back from where he was keeping an eye on the streets below. Jason, who’d only been a few feet away, immediately took this moment to seize Tim, who had been too busy looking through his binoculars to care about whatever the two had been doing, and proceed to chuck him off the roof.

Dick pinched the bridge of his nose with a groan as Tim’s undignified shriek was cut off by him catching himself on a fire escape below, scrambling to get a good hold on so he didn’t fall the rest of the way.

“What?” Jason huffed. “You said not to push Damian, and I didn’t push Damian.”

“Of course,” Dick replied sarcastically. “My mistake, I’ll be sure to rephrase it as don’t push anyone off the roof.”

“Now that’s just unreasonable,” Jason huffed, hand on his hip as Steph and Cass snickered from the nearby chimney they were perched on. “I can think of plenty of people who deserve to be pushed off roofs. Like Scarow, for example. Bastard made me break my good hand last month and I still need to shoot a bullet in his back for that one.”

“Then don’t push your family off roofs, is that enough for you?” Dick sighed, standing up and peering over the edge of the roof. “You alright down there, Tim?”

“Names,” Damian finally chastised, not once having glanced over to the others from where he was on the corner of the roof, farthest as he could get from them.

“Oh, sure, now you worry.” Tim grumbled from the fire escape, finally pulling himself to his feet and brushing himself off. “Dick, please tell me I have permission to stab out Jason’s eye.”

“You do not.”

“He’d be fine!” Tim complained, snagging a hand on the stairs and instead pulling himself up along the outside of the fire escape instead of walking up the steps like a normal human being. “Harper could probably make him a new functional one in two days if she's in a good mood.”

“I’m not making him a new eye in two days. Maybe two weeks.” Harper informed from the other side of the roof, also ignoring the others as she tinkered with some gadget.

“Get anywhere near me and I’ll cough on you,” Jason threatened, also peering down off the roof. “You have basically no immune system, you’d die in a week. A long, painful death. Poetic cinema, really.”

“If you say it's poetic because you were beaten with a crowbar for two hours, I’m dropkicking you.” Steph warned, eyes narrowed.

“You’re so mean to me,” Jason gasped, placing a hand on his chest as he turned. “What did I ever do to deserve this? I’m nice to you!”

“No, you’re not.” Chorused Dick, Tim, Damian, Steph, and an extra voice through their earpieces.

“Wow, thanks, Babs.” Jason grumbled. “Showing up just to bully me, typical.”

“Names,” Damian warned a second time.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Babs crackled through their earpieces. “You’re not the only one I bully.”

“Everyone please stop harassing Jay,” Dick pleaded, though it came out more as an exhausted sigh.

“Names,” Damian growled a third time, losing his patience.

“I know it's fun,” Dick continued, ignoring him. “But this is supposed to be a scouting mission, and I’d rather he didn’t start taking out petty revenge during patrol.”

“I have no idea why he’s so surprised we get bored when scouting,” Steph mumbled quietly, to which Cass simply shrugged.

“You have no faith in me,” Jason snorted, and Dick could tell he was rolling his eyes under his helmet.

“I have plenty of faith in you,” Dick soothed. “I also, however, know how you are.”

“Don’t worry,” Steph raised a hand. “I already lost faith in you when you tried to kill Tim.”

“Which time?”

“Steph, don’t taunt him. Do it back at the Manor.” Dick lightly scolded.

“How many times do I have to repeat this?” Damian snapped, whirling from his post to glare at the others. “We do not use names on patrol!”

“Doesn’t Jon call you D on patrol?” Harper raised a brow, glancing towards him.

“That is different! He does not use my actual name!”

“Hypocrite,” Jason coughed under his breath.

Tim finally swung back onto the roof, skillfully rolling and dodging when Jason attempted to immediately kick him off again. Tim rolled close to the chimney, quickly pulling out his bo staff and crouching, glaring at Jason. It was reminiscent of two cats in a standoff, arched backs but neither of them making the first strike yet.

“Do not fight,” Cass said calmly.

“Thank you, C--” Dick hesitated, glancing at Damian for a brief moment. “--Orphan.”

“Fight in Cave,” Cass continued cheerfully. “We have sparring mats for reasons.”

“And I take that back.”

“You wanna hang with the cool kids?” Steph asked, leaning off the chimney to offer her hand.

“Yes. Have I mentioned you’re my favorite person?” Tim grinned, putting his staff away as he took the offered hand and was pulled onto the chimney beside Steph and Cass.

“You could stand to say it more often,” Steph teased.

“Cheaters,” Jason grumbled, relenting that fighting both Steph and Cass to get Tim was a losing battle.

The three were rather squished on the chimney, but none of them seemed to mind. Harper only rolled her eyes and went back to tinkering.

“We really need to bring D--Signal on one of these things.” Dick muttered, shaking his head.

“Because he’s sensible, or because you want him to suffer like the rest of us?” Tim raised a brow.

“Because he deserves the same family bonding time.” Dick said simply.

“Duke and Cullen are next to me listening in on this,” Barbara said through the communicators. “I am here to inform you that Duke is both touched and terrified.”

“The bumblebee was awake and didn’t even bother to join us?” Harper snorted. “Rude.”

“Cullen agrees with you.”

“He better,”

“I’m taking a ten hour nap after this,” Dick complained, sitting back on the edge of the roof, legs dangling in the open air as he leaned back dramatically on his hands. “I deserve it. Self-care and all that.”

“That is the length of a normal amount of sleep.” Damian raised a brow.

“Not in this family, it’s not.”

“Preach!” Tim pumped a fist.

“You don’t count, Tim.” Dick chastised, leaning his head back to look at Tim upside down. “Everyone here remembers to sleep at the latest once every two days. You don’t sleep for five.”

“I’m being harassed,”

“You’re being bullied into a proper sleep schedule.”

Damian suddenly whacked Dick over the head, startling him with a yelp as Jason hid a snicker. Harper and Cass looked over for a moment before continuing with whatever they had previously been doing.

“Names!” Damian hissed. “Do you all want your identities revealed?”

“Literally nobody is here,” Harper pointed out.

“If Gotham hasn’t found out our identities by now, they never will.” Steph snorted.

“Especially finger-stripes over here.” Tim added, a smug expression on his face.

“A nine-year-old finds out your identity one time and you never hear the end of it.” Dick muttered under his breath before sitting up and proceeding to snatch Damian, who had been previously stalking towards the others, by wrapping an arm around his chest and tugging him closer as the boy squawked.

“You were using a Flying Grayson move, dude.” Tim deadpanned. “You gotta pay the price for being flashy for no other reason than because you can.”

“That’s his entire personality.”

“Why do you all hate me?” Dick whined, holding a squirming Damian close as he gave the boy a noogie. “What did I do to gain such torment?”

“You want the list?” Harper looked up, finally putting away whatever she was tinkering with.

“We alphabetized,” Cass added.

“Wrote on the front and back,” Steph nodded sagely.

“I’m adding three more to the list when we get back,” Damian growled, looking ready to bite Dick if he didn’t stop soon.

“You better be joking about that list,” Dick warned, releasing Damian for his own safety. “Because if I ever find a list of reasons to be mean to me, I will not show mercy.”

“Do you mean you’re gonna attack us physically or emotionally?” Jason inquired.

“Emotionally,”

“You sick bastard.” Steph whispered in horror. “I can’t believe you would use your powers for evil.”

“Does it make it any better if I tell you the list, if it does exist, would probably only exist so that when we notice someone looks like they’re gonna do something stupid, we use the list to remind them of something you did so they take it out on you and not, say, turn all of Gotham into a gang war zone.” Harper said slowly.

“I hate you,” Steph glared. “You mess up one time--”

“You died, Steph!” Tim exclaimed, before getting a batarang chucked at his head that Damian somehow snuck into his utility belt.

“She didn’t even die,” Jason snorted, crossing his arms. “Both of you two had lame fake-out deaths.”

“Why am I the one who’s become the punching bag?” Dick complained, holding Damian back again when he tried to grab the batarang Tim had dodged and threw it again.

“Because you’re actually good at feelings and everyone else is emotionally constipated.” Harper deadpanned.

“And the Ric incident.” Damian added right after, giving up in his thrashing. A shutter passed over the Bats at the mention of the name.

“Aw,” Dick’s face softened, ignoring the Ric comment. “You guys care about my advice?”

“Congrats,” Barbara chuckled slightly. “You’re the therapist brother.”

“Don’t tell him that,” Jason groaned, flopping backwards on the roof. “Now he’s going to be mushy and clingy all week.”

“Lord knows you idiots need it,” Harper huffed as Dick practically glowed.

“I’m sicing him on you later.”

“Jokes on you, he hasn’t found my apartment yet.”

“Yes I have,” Dick raised a hand, turning towards her. “Well, Robin found it, but I still know it.”

Harper stared at him for a few moments, momentarily turning her head to Damian for a moment before going back to Dick, and then turning to Jason.

“You’re a monster,” She whispered, a look of true horror on her face.

“I know,” Jason cackled gleefully.

“None of you are leaving the Manor when we get back.” Dick said matter-of-factly, pointing a finger to his siblings. “We’re gonna bond, and you’re going to like it.”

“We’re already bonding right now!” Damian protested.

“You’ll have to kill me first.” Steph hissed, shying behind Cass.

“Bold of you to assume you can keep me confined to the Manor.” Tim huffed in offence. “Orphan, I’ll stash you in one of my safe houses if you promise to be my bodyguard.”

“Deal,”

“You guys are so dramatic--”

“Hey, guys? Crazed pyromaniac with flamethrowers to the north.”

The group immediately dropped whatever they had been doing, heads snapping up towards the direction Barbara had tiredly informed them of the attack.

It was only a few moments before the sight of flames peaked over one of the buildings, dying out almost immediately. Shouts and rumbles were steadily growing in volume, especially the cackling of Firefly, likely revving up whatever weapon he’d acquired this time.

“Fantastic, can’t even keep watch with you morons.” Damian growled.

“Oh you are not the only one trying to work here!” Tim snapped. “Orphan, for example, is doing a wonderful--where’d she go?”

He and Steph looked around rapidly, their sister suddenly missing from the chimney. How they hadn’t noticed she’d left their crowded space was a mystery that’d likely never be solved.

“Over there,” Jason said boredly, upholstering a gun and pointing across the rooftops.

The outline of Cass’s body could be seen sprinting across the roofs towards where the fire had been spotted, leaping with reckless abandon.

“Life lesson for the rest of you,” Harper hummed, getting to her feet. “Be like Cass.”

“Stop using real names!” Damian barked.

“Last one there is on cleanup duty!” Steph hollered, shoving Tim and taking off in the same movement.

“Asshole!” Tim yelled as Jason, Harper and Damian all bolted after her without a moment's hesitation.

Dick laughed, just getting to his feet as Tim stumbled up and after the others, swearing obscenities.

He quickly ran after his siblings, though he strayed a little further back, nobody paid attention to who showed up last anyway, his eyes darting from each of his siblings. Someone had to make sure they didn’t face-plant off a roof.

They shouted over each other as they descended down to take out Firefly. The guy had really picked a bad night to start causing trouble. It’d be over in no-time.

Even still, Dick paused on the roofs, scanning the streets below as the others ran to and fro, yelling over each other as Barbara switched between the coms to talk to them. It was a chaotic mess and Dick found himself grinning at it all.

His siblings were a hot mess, and it was amazing.

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why-this-kolaveri-machi · 3 years

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we are our family, even if we don’t want to be.

Titans 3.07

a bit over halfway through the season, and we still don’t have all of our main characters on the board! i love this show.

as always, typing this up as i watch. live reaction, baby! *shadowboxes*

SPOILERS AHEAD

1. i don’t think i’ve mentioned this before, but i kinda miss the old ‘dc universe’ intro. it was cool! the whole idea of it was wild and waaaaay over-ambitious, but also very very on-brand because of it.

2. this is... the third time we’ve seen dick sleeping this season? that’s a record! checking another thing off my s3 wishlist...

2.5. i guess i rag on titans all the time for its wafer-thin plotting and bad pacing, but i have to admit that this season has been a step-up from the last one in this regard. titans has very reactive rather than proactive protagonists, and a lot of the last season seemed to be: x happened, the team reacted badly, then y happened, they reacted badly, etc. this time around, it’s not a huge leap up by any means, but at least they’re doing something about it.

i do appreciate the focus on character arcs over everything else. and when i say everything else, i mean it: arcs that started two seasons ago with no big cathartic moments, intermittent payoff and multiple relapses. big bads have ranged from interdimensional demons to superpowered assassins to whatever in the world scarecrow is, but trigon’s big weapon against the titans was to... use their worst fears against them. slade’s was to... use their fears to break them up. crane’s is to... use red hood to use their fears to break them up. even the threat of gotham’s citizens being in danger doesn’t feel real: gotham is mythologised into an entity of its own, infecting our heroes like a parasite. like. this is not to say that most other superhero media aren’t big character arcs intertwined with the main plot, but titans doesn’t even make pretend that it’s anything but.

anyway. that’s my entry #2345 to ‘give a grand unifying theory for titans’. thanks. i’ll be back with more.

3. “anger is just fear in a little black dress.” god I HATE HIM

(what’s he doing with barbara’s likeness? oh... oh god. a terrible thought just occurred to me. what if they introduce hush at the very last minute for plastic surgery shenanigans? would you put it past this show?)

3.5. jason, nooooooooo

3.75. i mean, they’re making it very clear here that scarecrow is the one in control--the one who’s always been in control--and is manipulating jason and literally poisoning him, but i hope it doesn’t end up erasing nuance or jason’s autonomy. if jason’s to reckon with the issues that brought him here, then the lines of responsibility will need to be set somewhere.

(this applies to dick as well but more on that later, i guess.)

4. just--the phrase “40% loss of income” is so funny to me. like, gotham is full of these larger-than-life characters who are idiosyncratic beyond belief, colourful and dramatic and creating chaos just for the sake of chaos, and then there’s the regular criminals and their henchmen who just want to make a quick buck sitting down with pie charts and graphs, griping about the joker reducing their returns or debating high risk investments in, i don’t know, two-face’s next scheme.

“yyyyeeeeeaaah, my financial advisor is telling me that going all-in with a guy who literally makes decisions on the flip of a coin is probably not the greatest idea.”

4.5. god i hate smug!smarmy!scarecrow so much

4.85. as big plans to “control” gotham go, it’s pretty bog-standard. clearly scarecrow has some bigger plan in mind but it really feels like we’ve got no clear insight into him and he’s this generic creepy mystery-man who knows more than he lets on and springs a twist/cliffhanger every now and then. i liked the scenes with him and dick in 3.04 where it seemed like he was genuinely on the backfoot and things weren’t going as he predicted. for all of his faults, dick is at least familiar with scarecrow’s bullshit and knows not to give what he wants.

5. i mean... i see where dick is coming from with the “he’s not jason anymore; he’s red hood” because his immediate glaring concern is scarecrow’s drug and the damage it could potentially cause gotham? i do not doubt that it’s something batman drilled into him, too, but when you’re expected to take point on a situation where the lives of an entire city weigh down on your shoulders, it’s better to simplify things and prioritise. i’m not saying it’s great or healthy! gar is absolutely right to consider this facet of the situation. it’s just dick can’t.

6. hmmmmmmm. HMMMMMMMMMMM.

i don’t know that i’m super fond of this iteration of oracle???? it looks like a cross between cerebro from x-men and jarvis from iron man. it’s giving me second-hand embarrassment. somebody help me.

(at least they remembered dick’s middle name is actually “john”. i like to think bruce printed D in that contract because for a while he genuinely thought richard “dick” grayson was his full name. duck duck goose, dick dick grayson, i don’t know alfred, the kid was in a circus, maybe they thought it was funny. or maybe it was a test in anger control, who knows.)

6.5 “maybe you two would like some time alone?” even AI can’t help hitting on dick grayson in this universe.

“oh mr grayson, if i only had another eye to see you better...”

6.8. on one hand, it’s a bit disconcerting that the title of ‘oracle’ has gone from barbara herself to this gigantic machine; from my impression of the comics-verse, barbara had an extensive computing and surveillance system, true, but she was very clearly the brains behind the operation. on the other hand, i’m kind of glad that the ethical boundaries that this kind of surveillance violates is a sticking point for barbara. (tho let’s be real, the nsa would kill to have this in their arsenal).

6.9. also it’s now obvious that scarecrow’s big plan is to take control of oracle itself. it’s why he had lady vic take that picture of her eyes, or why he’s meddling around with it on his computer.

6.95. if only i could ‘command sleep’ anybody overstepping their boundaries re: personal information...

7. “you can just sit back and watch as the titans destroy themselves.” i mean... he’s not wrong

8. “dick’s parents were killed by a criminal mob; he won’t work with them.” it’s wonderful that you have this insight into dick, kory, i just wish we could’ve watched some of these conversations actually happen on-screen.

8.5. i’m glad that kom’s being treated with such nuance and understanding, though it’s obvious that she definitely has a Plan of her own. (and did i entirely imagine her ability to mimic other people flawlessly at the end of s2? or is that going to come into play at some point?) i think her story has the potential to be genuinely poignant, and in a universe where being Different, either because of mental health or physical differences or whatever else, leads a straight line to Evil, it’s important to acknowledge and then emphasise that the mere fact of your existence as a Different Person doesn’t predispose you to evil. maybe your act of destroying a system that has destroyed you and not scrambling to “fit in” is only evil as defined by that system.

8.8. “you’re trespassing, i should call the authorities, i feel unsafe.” now this is a villain lady who’s definitely aware of her privilege.

8.85. kom smirking knowingly at her sister is everything.

“oooh that’s the kory i remember”

9. conner and dick working together woo!

9.25. god i hate a villain who’s always just a step ahead, no matter what. so crane anticipated dick using oracle to track his personal communications and set him up? how did he know when exactly dick would get to do this? how long did he have that poor man tied up in that van?

(the “save me, grayson” is a nice touch, tho. send dick spiralling even further! because if there’s one thing dick will do, it’s take responsibility for every goddamn thing that goes wrong.)

9.5. ahem. i’m going to need a million gifs of conner yeeting dick across that yard, fandom, thankyouverymuch.

(i understand conner is invulnerable to explosions, but how do his clothes survive??)

9.8. oooh crane is already in oracle! i’m just sitting here laughing helplessly because they’re overpowering this goddamned guy so much. he can build a lab in arkham’s basement! he has access to lazarus puddles! he has minions working across gotham, including a fully functional chemical laboratory staffed by chemists who only answer to him! he has the crime families of gotham quailing in his very presence! he has assassins at his beck and call! he’s enough of a manipulative bastard to have red hood under his thumb! and now he has enough of a tech know-how to not only be aware of oracle, but know how to hack into it! i’m sick of exclamation marks! i’ll shut up now!

9.95. dick leaving behind that smouldering grave for a person he failed to save without taking a second to process how he feels about it and running towards his next plan to corner scarecrow: a microcosm of where his head’s at right now.

10. really hammering in the themes of this season, aren’t we.

10.25. the interesting thing is the titans repeatedly call themselves a family this season (none more so than dick) and while that found family has helped encapsulate and put away their traumatic experiences with their ‘original’ families, it’s meant that they’ve not really dealt with those issues. and dick and gar and jason come from ‘found families’ of their own: they are twice removed, traumatised two times over. they still cling to this identity however, and because of it they’re losing each other. a family isn’t static. it’s an ever-evolving dynamic and you have to put in work constantly to keep it healthy.

10.5. anyway, that’s entry #2346. i’m here aaaalll night.

11. lookit gar the detective! half-transforming and using his powers to deduce things! what a hero! i’ve said this for a long time, but gar is the bedrock of this team, and an unsung one at that.

11.25. i’m confused about him calling this room jason’s though. it seems to me that this is dick’s room that jason later used, and one that dick’s using now. so the unmade bed isn’t really jason’s fault; dick was woken by barbara that morning, and in his hurry, he left without making his bed.

(it still confounds me that bruce didn’t find jason another bedroom in that gigantic mansion of his. you really didn’t give this kid a chance, did you?)

12. oh well. so much for the oracle.

13. ... sorry, wait. you didn’t think i wasn’t going to address the bit with dick right now, did you?

12.5. i honestly don’t think it’s very complicated: dick’s been reeling from one traumatic thing to the next, and just when it seemed like at the beginning of the season, he felt happy and secure with his team and his place in the world, bruce ups and leaves gotham to him, specifically naming him a successor and calling him a ‘better batman’. he’s lost garth and jericho and donna and jason and now hank and dawn. he’s not even sure where rachel is or what she’s doing. after being told that batman was a psychopath for moulding him into a weapon, he’s also been told that his failure to be a ‘better batman’ lead to further disaster. of course he’s going to get batman-goggles. of course he’s going to be a prick.

12.8. i don’t know what to say. i feel his frustration acutely. i don’t think he should’ve said what he said to barbara (can people stop pushing her around this season????) but that pressure to step in where your parent fails? to clean up their messes and try to think like them? to fall into habits drilled into you when you developed them as coping mechanisms growing up? I FEEL THAT.

every step he’s taking he’s putting 110% of himself in it and scarecrow’s still playing mindgames with all of them: i absolutely feel his desperation to take control of that game and turn it on scarecrow, no matter what it takes.

and he did apologise almost immediately, and finally--finally--actually works with barbara.

12.9. again, not excusing him! but i get it. and i think that’s a sign of great character writing.

“did you know i just reminded emmram of all of her daddy issues? what the fuck????”

12.95. i love that dick&barbara, kory&kom, and gar are all approaching solving this mystery from different angles, each as valid as the other. also, conner is there as... emergency bomb defuser man?

13. it’s like all fancy rich people in fancy rich houses do is pour fancy rich alcohol into fancy rich glasses on pristine, untouched tabletops. i wonder what it’s like to live like that.

13.25. I KNEW IT! poor michael. it was nice knowing you.

13.5. man, kory is contending with a lot of issues that she’s successfully bottled up and compartmentalised until now. the cold reality that a child can seek out their parents as refuge and they can view the child as a piece to be moved in a greater game (never out of cruelty, though, never, and somehow that makes it worse), that truth of blackfire’s treatment on tamaran because she’s different, and her own culpability in what happened. she exchanged one family for another, after all, and left that family to die and her sister to suffer. like dick, like gar, kory’s being forced to reckon with what the titans are meant to be, the larger implications of creating their found family in their own space.

14. it’s probably because it’s one in the morning and i’ve had two glasses of wine but i did not follow that bit of exposition at all and victor freeze??? what?

anyway. look at them solving things! together! go team!

“you made a deal with the mob?” oh the sense of betrayal on his face! fuck off, dick, your issues aren’t kory’s.

15. conner is really sweet and a bit of an awestruck crush on kom is to be expected. especially after that power rangers-esque transformation (i say this as a former huge power rangers fangirl. i’ve seen every series until 2007 including the original japanese versions and written fanfic for all of them. so i love a cool costume transformation, is what i’m saying.)

also?

FUCK YEAH

16. i love the gotham crime families just chillin’ around eating ice cream. I LOVE THEM

16.5. that was a fun fight sequence, if marred slightly by that bit of awkward flirting between conner and kom. i wonder if she’s really planning to use him in a larger scheme to get kory back to tamaran, or maybe something else.

16.75. so i’m assuming that scarecrow has jason either so paralysed by fear that he can barely move, or jason’s withdrawing from the drug that he’s been sucking in every few minutes.

17. it’s nice to see them chill after a successful mission! and it can be awkward, but conner’s crush on kom and him striving to impress her is also, well, uh... cute.

17.5. i guess the dick/barbara scene was inevitable, especially given the... unresolved nature of their relationship in the flashbacks? and they’ve been through a rollercoaster together this episode, discovering and then destroying an incredible tool within a matter of hours, re-discovering just how well they work together as a team. dick’s swimming in the nostalgia. i don’t expect it to last as a long-term relationship, but i totally get why this is happening now. and hey, they’re cute!

i have a weeeirrrrd feeling that kory is going to leave to tamaran at the end of the season and that dick and kory will rekindle--or rather realise--their relationship just before that. it’s going to be devastating and beautiful and painful and i will be writing essays about it which would be me just wailing into the screen.

18. gar found molly!!!!!!! MOLLY’S BACK! \o/ gar is the BEST

19. that was a fun episode! i love this silly show, even if it does destroy me sometimes <3

#titans #titans spoilers #meta #dick grayson #barbara gordon #koriand'r #komand'r #garfield logan #jonathan crane #conner kent #a byronic cupcake #badass strawberry truffle #manic pixie pop tart

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coffeebeannate · 4 years

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Nate Watches Things: A Saga

Or in this case, one thing. One thing that was far too long of a thing, but such a bizarre venture that I felt rather compelled to put an actual review of said thing together.

Why? Because I can and because others HAVE to experience this..this journey. A nice lil journey called Die Pfeiler der Macht/ A Dangerous Fortune. And I watched it solely because Luca looks cute in Victorian clothes, and I was intrigued by the gifs.

Curiosity has always been such a great human motivator, eh?

And..guys. I just. I don’t know what the 3-4 hours (it’s two movies, and I took a couple days to watch it) WERE, exactly, but they were..a thing? I know that it’s based on a book by Ken Follett and that this production is German. Despite being based in England.

Oh, and Luca’s character Mickey Miranda, is uh, Spanish. Make of that what you will.

So the summary is this:

A shocking secret behind a young boys death leads to three generations of treachery in this breathtaking saga of love, power and revenge, set amid the wealth and decadence of Victorian England.

And no it does not do this thing justice whatsoever.

Review under the cut. It’s too long *again, two movies here*, and I took far too many screencaps of this absolute wtfery, and uh, it’s probably better suited for a real-time live blog but nah. You can have this instead.

Some images under the cut are NSFW because nefarious boning is a key point in this..thing.

SPOILERS. So many spoilers. This thing is a spoiler fest. The caps have a very obvious Luca bias, I know why we’re here everyone. Hehe. There’s also some triggering stuff in this thing, so be warned there too.

BEHOLD:

So, a point I want to make is that the costuming in this movie is LEGIT. If absolutely nothing else works? Note that the costuming absolutely does.

The opening credits are very nice, Luca’s very pretty, this cap serves purely to showcase that because I’m a very serious man doing a very serious review.

Pretty.

So the beginning is..confusing. We have a girl, Maisie Robinson. (Around 10-13 here?) Her father is very poor and it’s her and her two siblings. He works for a man who is part of our main characters, the Pilasters? and they run this bank. The head of the bank commits suicide, since they’re having financial troubles and he cannot repay his workers. He pens a note to his young son *under 12 at this point*, Hugh.

Hugh never finds out about this letter, but anyway. At the moment, it’s 1866. Maisie’s father was one of those employees. Destitute, he leaves Maisie to..raise her siblings, and goes to America.

We never hear from this man again.

Hugh goes to live with his aunt (Augusta/Augustina?), uncle Joseph, and cousins, Edward and Clara.

THEN IT’S 1877 (we jump ten years)

Maisie’s two siblings have died, and she has a daughter, Rachel now. Who is also dying. This movie is very keen on people dying. I’d also like to point out that there is like, endless plots all happening alongside one another, and it took me until mid-way into part two to even really grasp what the main plot is.

The movie has a LOT of bank talk as well. I cannot express this earnestly enough, there is SO MUCH bank chatter. SO MUCH. This thing does not have to be as long as it is but again, bank stuff.

Anyway, the one plot is that Maisie is from the poor area, she’s had a horrible life and has struggled from day one. She’s in a constant battle with Hugh, and they argue a lot. A lot. (They like each other, they met as kids, but they’re from very different worlds. Hugh has money, she doesn’t, but Hugh has suffered as well and basically it’s your normal class struggle social commentary thing).

Maisie and Hugh in 1866, as kids, after Maisie’s father left for America. This is the funeral for Hugh’s father. So that’s the theme I mean.

Anywho.

Back in 1877, this is Samuel *left*, Joseph *middle* and Edward. The Pilaster’s get marched into work like they’re freaking army Captain’s and not just rich ass bankers. Imagine saluting your CEO. At work. Outside of the military. WHERE IS THIS A THING? Maybe this was a thing in Victorian England I have no clue I’ve certainly never come across it in my studies. Ffs.

Anyway.

So while all this is going on, there’s this man that wants to marry Maisie.

And his name is,

(That’s Rachel, Maisie’s daughter). Anyway, Solly here loves Maisie and wants to marry her. But Maisie loves Hugh, and neither of them realize this yet. Solly is a himbo and we mostly like him, but stay tuned because that doesn’t stick. Sorta. Depends on how-

Nevermind I’ll just keep going.

ANYWAY, more plot.

Here’s Edward again, doing drugs, being gay, and overall..useless. Edward is..Edward is kind of like a person who would make an interesting wall decoration. Fun enough to look at, but utterly freaking hopeless, and useless, and so dumb. Just so dumb. This character is given the substance of ash fault. Kinda like, only vaguely solid enough to be entertaining. Kinda.

I don’t know guys, BUT LOOK!

It’s his good old pal Mickey! And he’s slapped Edward awake out of his drug coma (okay he grabs his face and shakes him rather than slapping but given how much slapping happens in the rest of this movie I think I can be forgiven) and he has PLOTS.

Mostly it’s his dads plot, but it’s a plot. A very devious scheme and he needs our favourite wallpapers assistance!

(Sorry Edward, but it’s true)

So keeping in mind that the ‘theme’ of this movie is bone-and-soul crushing sadness paired with periods of intense chaos and insanity that you never see coming, our plots continue to thicken.

What Mickey means here, is that Edward’s family denied Mickey’s father what he wanted *weapons deal*, and beat the crap out of Mickey in a carriage. But that’s fine that’s fine Mickey is not deterred! BECAUSE.

*sigh*

So.

OK.

This scene.

Remember what I said about how this movie goes from being incredibly boring to so off the walls bonkers without actually WARNING YOU that it is going to do this? Yeah.

Edward, you see, really does not ‘do’ women. He’s gay. He’s extremely gay. Edward’s mother wants him to marry Florence Stalworthy for idk rich people reasons.

So..Mickey. Uh. Mickey’s solution is..this.

What is this, you ask??

Fuck if I know.

Anyway, no, uhm. This is a brothel. So (not) pictured here (I can’t post the scene on tumblr guys we have a ban) is Edward on a couch across from mask-and-feathers MIckey and this tied down woman, with another woman who is not tied down. And this is Mickey..showing Edward..how to.have sex with women. Apparently. Sort of. His lesson falls very flat. It is not a good scene, Mickey’s ‘instructions’ get increasingly louder, and he at one point makes this noise that sounds like a Joker laugh.

It is...it’s something.

(Also note there’s some extremely uncomfortable, misogynistic name-calling on Mickey’s part here..so yeah).

Oh, and it doesn’t convince Edward. At all. IMAGINE.

Around all this time, the Hugh/Maisie/Solly plot is also ongoing. And that also encompasses bar fighting (bare knuckles boxing and wrestling I think? And gambling)

Hugh has gambling debt we’ll get back to this. (He’s also obsessed with getting Russian bonds into the bank, again, the banking plot losses me a LOT)

So meanwhile, Mickey meets up with Edward’s mother.

But why Edward’s mother, you ask??

Well. *sigh*. Something I didn’t mention earlier is that Mickey likes Ed’s mum. A lot. A lot a lot. Mickey wants to take that woman to town and then some, is a very basic way of me putting it and-

Fuck it. Mickey wants to bang Ed’s mum. BADLY.

(She’s not opposed either, at all)

So their little scheme here is that Ed’s mum wants Ed to take control of the bank, but with the father-in-law alive, that’s not going to happen. So they’re plotting to take down the next person in charge who would succeed said father in law, (Samuel) who is in a relationship with the secretary mentioned above, Michael.

Yes, another GODDAMNED PLOT.

(Samuel is fairly unpleasant like all of these people, so I don’t feel that bad for him. He also kinda treats Michael like garbage, and is called out for this by Joseph later in the movie)

So the scheme here is to get rid of the father-in-law, and get Ed married. Cake walk!

(Also, while ALL THIS is going on, Mickey’s got his own mini-plot about doing these things for his father, the weapons and stuff but we don’t actually find out about the main goal of that whole thing till the end, you’ll see)

Oh, and since we’ve not had a good dose of ‘WHAT THE FUCK’ lately, Solly proposes to Maisie with an honest-to-god Alice in Wonderland party.

Yeah.

Meet the Mad Hatter! He’s a guide, he says nothing. Other people are in costume too, but you know-I have enough caps as it is.

So anyway, Maisie and Solly get engaged, Maisie and Hugh meet up at some point and bang instead.

And while that’s happening, Edward is convinced by Mickey to marry Florence.

So he does.

Lookit this shit faced smug ass grin.

(Also ahead is Samuel again, and Hugh)

BUT THEN the bank finds out about Hugh’s gambling debts. So he leaves. Taking his cousin Clara (Edward’s teenage sister-at her insistence) to the USA. And just like Maisie’s dad, another man abandons her for the States.

So the father in law is still alive, so!

It’s murder time.

Perfect wedding time event yeah?

So Mickey murders the father-in-law. (He jumps on him, suffocates him with a pillow, gets caught by Augusta and then they do this..weird ‘tensely make the bed thing’)

Murdered.

And then, exactly five seconds or so later..

Nothing like some murder pre-boning with the dead guy two feet away amiright?

Anyway at this point I was just:

And yelling at my ceiling. Not pictured.

I was a Hannibal fan and I STILL went !?!?!?

END PART ONE.

Part two starts out in 1912, and then cuts back to 1882. So in this messy timeline, note it has been six years since part one. And Hugh is married now to Nora, an American singer, and Clara is older and pregnant. (Father is never determined, but he’s a married man and that’s why Clara didn’t stay)

SO the three of them are returning home. Maisie and Solly have a son, David, and Maisie is depressed and distant, so Solly is the one who spends all the time with David. He’s shown as a legit good dad and it’s quite cute watching them.

(The kids Hugh’s, btw, he and Maisie both know this, Hugh does not, it’s revealed dramatically later but we still have so many plots)

Edward and Florence are childless. Edward doesn’t sleep with her. Everyone knows this.

(At this point I kept asking myself when this would end, I cannot stress how LONG this thing feels at times)

So Hugh and Nora meet up with Maisie and Solly, and they chat and there’s more love plots, more bank plots and a masquerade party where at some point Maisie thinks a little girl at the party is Rachel (who died in the end of part one, sorry!) and there’s a fire and Maisie and Hugh make out and Nora and Solly are both upset and it’s a whole thing.

Samuel now does something of a side business that’s unspecified with Michael, and pregnant Clara is being persued by the only man who might be a good match for her (she’s not keen on getting married. But he’s also..really old.) PLOTS.

And Mickey and Augusta are..still a thing. And Edward being chlidless is becoming an issue. So what is the solution dear friends??

*BANGS HEAD INTO A WALL*

Why the fuck not.

Absolutely flawless! Eddie will NEVER notice.

SO with this plan in motion, Mickey sets out to seduce Florence, Eddie’s neglected wife. He starts in a church, and I have to admit, this one line he gives is quite funny.

“I don’t go to church.”

Cannot begin to imagine why.

Also, around this time is when we get the infamous scene about how he fcked the wives of the three men and then made the guys suck his dick one by one. I didn’t cap that since it’s in gif form, but yeah.

Hugh and Solly and Nora and Maisie are still having their love issues. And there is still bank stuff as all this is going down.

But while on his Florence quest, we see Mickey beat up a guy who was abusing a small boy, and Florence see’s him do this as well and:

He looks so baffled.

‘Me? GOOD? I really don’t think so.”

She’s also holding a baby, and he gives the infant this face:

“Eugh, what is that?”

He also finds her in church again at some point and comes alongside her like this:

”Sup? Whatcha prayin’ about?”

Anyway, while doing all this, he’s still having some issues. He needs Eddie’s signature for a bank transfer (for his father, his father’s plot is STILL a THING) and so it is time to seduce someone ELSE. This time it’s Edward. This won’t be hard. Edward wants him so bad you could probably see it from fucking space.

Mickey is well aware of this.(I don’t think it’s one sided either, he looks at Edward all wide eyed half the time, but he’s so manipulative it’s hard to judge).

Actually me right now tbh.

So that’s this followed by the infamous gif set.

Edward takes him up on it.

‘Come along my dear there’s nefarious boning to be done’.

Absolutely vital screencap below (which is the most we get anyway and I didn’t cap the line about the freaking signature because fuck plots over nice images okay)

Vital

Anyway Edward gives him the bloody signature. And then Mickey goes along to talk to Augusta. But at this point Mickey is very much beginning to unravel. His goal seems to be more centralized to finishing whatever long ass convoluted job his father has been making him do for the last six years (possibly more tbh) and he’s sort of done with everything.

And Edward see’s this exchange. Le. Oof.

SO! IN BETWEEN ALL THIS. There’s some party where there’s drama and then basically Nora..willing gives up Hugh so he can be with Maisie and Solly just..I don’t even know, single dad for life and all. Edward knows that his family has basically been doing shit all around him, and Mickey STILL seduces Florence. He has her meet him outside that night at two am and they get together, but when he’s with her he kinda has these doubts but she wants him anyway so they bang.

Yeesh.

AFTER that there’s Edward again, because Edward knows shit is up, Mickey goes to a room to grab a bag and see’s Edward there. He tells Edward goodbye, but Edward pulls a gun. Mickey just...drops the bag, tells him to shoot. Edward doesn’t, instead he turns the gun on himself and then Mickey shoots himself in a chair.

Yeah.

DEATH! SADNESS! REMEMBER-THIS MOVIE LOVES DEAD PEOPLE~!

At some point in all this, Augusta goes to her daughter, Clara, apologies for being an absolutely evil mother for her entire life and then the movie sort of begins to wrap up.

Maisie and David were going to leave for the States together, but David wants to stay with Solly, who well DID raise him despite him being Hugh’s kid. So Maisie and Hugh are alone and David lives with Solly and the Pilaster bank has discovered the ACTUAL FREAKING PLOT OF MICKEY’S DAD AND THE ENTIRE BACKGROUND THING. Which was this:

THIS DIDN’T NEED TO BE ALMOST FOUR HOURS, GERMANY.

SO Hugh lets the mob inside. We don’t see what happens after that, but Augusta comes in to tell Joseph Edward shot himself.

Lots of sadness.

So the movie ends in 1912, with David and Hugh meeting up. David never saw Maisie again *she’s deceased now, as is Solly.* they talk, there is some moral lesson or something about love. The goddamned end.

OOF.

SO overall?

I don’t know.

It’s a movie. It has a script and plot and..it was put on screen? The costumes are legitimately amazing. They might be the best thing about this thing. But it REALLY feels like Ken really wanted to make a movie about banking, noticed that’d be boring and tried to make it spicy.

It’s so bizarre. So depressing. So many people are horrible. So many bad things happen. So much slapping, so much weirdness. There’s nothing happy in this thing. Not one. The so called ‘good’-ish ending falls flat amongst a sea of depression and I re-iterate, IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE SO LONG.

I distinctly recall lots of clock watching at times, wondering how I could POSSIBLY have more to go. It then goes so completely off the rails that you just don’t know what is happening and it’s just WEIRD.

At times that weirdness makes it fun, but overall it’s really not great. I probably would never rewatch it, and I can say that it’s an uh, experience in movie-watching.

A good one? I don’t know. But an experience, none the less.

#a dangerous fortune #nate reviews things #nate reviewing #look don't expect coherency here ya'll this thing is A TRIP #long post #too many screenshots #am i legit posting this thing at quarter to four in the morning #yes because i dont want my drafts to eat it askjdnkas #i'll just rebagel later in the day if needed ok

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is0gild · 3 years

Text

Ice Cream and Fire Oven Pizza - Bonus Chapter 3

Pairing: Elsa x Lea/Axel || Side Pairing: Riku x OC

Summary: Modern AU. She's an introvert ball of nerves who works at Ice Palace, a mall food court ice cream shop. He's the outgoing, sassy goofball who works at the Pizza Planet across the way. Hilarity, snark, and fluffy romcom hijinks ensue.

Word Count: 7,838

FIRST CHAPTER || PREVIOUS CHAPTER || NEXT CHAPTER

Credit for super friggin’ cute and super friggin’ amazing cover art goes to the super friggin’ talented ky-jane here on tumblr!

"Are you sure we're allowed to do this?"

Lea tossed me a grin over his shoulder, giving my hand a small, reassuring squeeze as he pushed through the door and led me inside. "Course! Trust me, I've done it dozens of times. It's called auditing a class," he whispered.

"Oh," I breathed softly, taking a second to glance around the theater we'd just stepped into, which was slightly bigger and nicer than the Sunset Hill Auditorium. Class was already in session it seemed, with the teacher (who luckily hadn't appeared to notice us sneaking in) up on the stage and currently mid-lecture to the smattering of students dotted across the audience seating. I felt Lea tugging my hand again and I followed him as we ducked into the back row, gingerly slipping by in front of a couple people occupying the end chairs.

I'd of course heard of auditing a class, but had never actually done it before, so I didn't really know what it entailed. Still, I at least had a guess at an idea of how it was supposed to work. "...so you contacted the professor and got his okay for us to be here then?"

"Nah," he chose a pair of empty seats towards the middle, plopping down into one. "Don't need to, ya just show up."

My lips pursed to one side as I lowered myself into the one next to him. "...now that doesn't sound right," I muttered as my fingers absently fidgeted with the zipper on the sleeve of his leather jacket that I was wearing.

With a snerk, he settled his elbow on the armrest between us and propped his chin on his knuckles as he eyed me. "Look, did you or did you not say how much ya'd like it if you could get a sneak peak at Twilight U's Intro to Acting course before deciding if you were gonna enroll?"

"Well yes I did, but-"

"Then don't look a gift audit in the mouth, dollface," his fingers tweaked my nose. Still, I frowned uncertainly. With a chuckle, he slung an arm around my shoulders, hugging me into his side and smoothing a hand up and down my arm as he pressed a kiss to my temple. "Relax, we're fine. Just remember, this guy? Right here?" he jabbed a thumb into his collarbone. "Done it hundreds o' times, so I know my shit."

I squinted up at him, whispering, "...you said dozens of times a second ago."

"Nu-uh, maybe it's 'bout time ya had your ears checked. Ah, for the hearing to already be going in one so young such as yourself. Such a tragedy," he sighed, still keeping his voice low as he clasped a hand to his chest, fingers splayed. "My heart, it weeps for you, lil one."

"Whatever," I gave a quiet scoff, rolling my eyes.

Right then and there, I should've stopped talking and paid attention to the lecture.

And I tried. Believe me, I really did try. I needed to be listening to whatever it was the professor was saying. That was the whole point of being here after all, wasn't it?

And yet-

" ...pretty sure you needed to ask the professor first," I mumbled out of the corner of my mouth.

"Shh," Lea held a finger up to his smirking lips, his eyes glued to the lecturer as he slouched down into his seat now. "Some of us are trying to learn here."

I narrowed my gaze over at him. "...what are you doing?"

He turned his head towards me, giving me a flat look. "Didja not hear what I just said? Wow, maybe we really do gotta look into getting you a hearing aid, grannie."

My hand lightly shoved his shoulder. "No, I mean it looks like you're slouching."

"Seems your vision's still twenty-twenty. Sweet, least ya got that going for ya."

My eyelids drooped, "It would almost seem as if you don't want to be seen. One might even go so far as to say you look like you're trying to hide."

"An astute observation," was all he said with a noncommittal little shrug.

Leaning away from him slightly, I crossed my arms. "If it's okay for us to be here, why oh why then, pray tell, would you be worried about being spotted?"

Slumping down even deeper into his chair, he gave a lazy, dismissive wave of his hand, "We don't want to draw attention to ourselves and interrupt the class. It's a matter of course auditing etiquette, El. I'd know," he grinned and winked at me, "done it thousands of times."

"And the number keeps growing," I shook my head with a derisive snort. "What, are you auditing all these classes even as we speak?"

"Why yes, yes I am. Wait for it…" he held up a finger and paused for a couple beats. Then, "Bam. Just audited another one."

I facepalmed, "You're ridiculous."

"Bam, bam. Two more down. Lookit me go, I'm a course auditing wiz!"

"I'm rethinking taking this class," I grumbled under my breath.

Lea jolted, sitting up straighter, "Wha-? Aw c'mon, we were gonna take it together though!"

I shot him a rueful grin. "That's why I'm rethinking it. You're too distracting."

Smiling, he ducked down next to my ear and whispered, "You mispronounced the word delightful. Don't worry, babe, it happens to the best of us."

I was this close to smacking his arm when a throat cleared loudly in front of us. We both stiffened and froze before slowly turning our gazes towards the source.

A tall, lanky man eccentrically dressed in purples and yellows who hadn't been there a second ago was now in the row before us, knees perched on his seat cushion with him backwards in the chair so he could face us. Elbows propped on the backrest, his shoulder-length black hair framed his smirking face as he rested his goateed chin in his palms and simply watched the two of us.

And it was just suddenly coming to my attention that all eyes in the theater were on us now and the whole place had fallen eerily quiet.

Maybe because the professor was no longer talking on stage.

Maybe because he was the man now directly in front of us with a bright grin and predatory gleam in his eye.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," he batted his eyelashes at us, his toothy smile stretching even bigger. "How rude of me to interrupt you while you're talking. Please, do go on!"

"We're done!" Lea chirped back, mirroring the man's expression. "Don't mind us back here, we're just auditing the course."

"Ah! Auditing the course, I see, I see! Well that explains it!" he perked up with a chuckle. "Just if you could then, my dear boy, answer me one simple lil question… who am I?"

I sensed a trap.

One that I might be able to sneak my way out of, given the lecturer's full attention seemed to be on Lea at the moment.

I discreetly moved over one chair.

"Pop quizzing me already, eh Teach? Pft," Lea waved a dismissive hand. "That one's a no brainer. You're the professor!"

"No, no," he hummed a small laugh and waggled his index finger. "Who am I?"

"Oh, I see." Lea squinted at him with a frown, "...well, that's a rather deep and complex question. Did we wander into a Psych class by mistake?"

We? What is this "we" business? Oh-ho no, you're on your own, bucko.

I quietly slipped over into the next seat.

A tiny, amused huff escaped the man's nose. "No, silly boy. My name. What is it?"

One corner of his lips quirking, Lea gave a small shrug, "Well if even you don't know, I'm not sure how you expect me to help ya with that one."

He shook his head and tsked several times. But then his face immediately lit back up once more as he placed a hand over his breast and slowly enunciated, "Clopin Trouillefou."

Lea's eyes widened. "Shit, you having a stroke there, buddy?"

"...it's my name."

To Lea's credit, while "Clopin" deceptively reads like it only has two syllables, the professor had said it in a way that somehow stretched it out to four and-

...and why am I wasting valuable seat moving time by explaining this right now?

I made up for it by pulling the rather slick maneuver (if I do say so myself) of shifting over two chairs.

"Something you'd know if you'd audited correctly and contacted me first," Professor Trouillefou tacked on in a lightly chiding singsong.

Ha! I knew it!

My chair scooching became a tad smug as I crept over to the next.

"Ya know what, I actually did? Was just testing ya." Lea shot him a double thumbs up, "Well done, my dude. A-plus!"

He laughed, "Nice try, my dear boy, but I'm pretty sure I'd remember you if we'd spoken previously."

Lea heaved a dramatic sigh, "Woulda thought so too and to be perfectly honest, Clarabelle, I-"

"Clopin," he corrected dryly.

"Right. To be perfectly honest, Clip-Clop, I'm a lil hurt that ya didn't. But ya know what?" he flashed a huge blinding smile. "I'mma let ya slide on this one, bygones and whatnot. Just don't let it happen again!"

One more seat over and I was as far as I could go. I was now sitting next to the pair of students at the end of the row that we'd passed on the way in. Aka my new pals. That redheaded nutjob over there? The one who seemed to be taking perverse pleasure in pushing the professor's buttons and was probably nano seconds away from getting kicked out? Yeah, no, zero clue who that was. Never seen him before in my life, and I certainly hadn't shown up with him. No, I'd come here with my two friends here, Chet and um… Karen.

...yeah, they looked like they could be a Chet and a Karen, so that's what I'm going with.

"You're too kind," the professor deadpanned before his lips took on a wicked upward curve. "Well then, since I'm clearly mistaken here and you obviously did in fact contact me, I've no doubt in my mind that you've also paid to audit my course?"

Both eyebrows shot up Lea's forehead. "Crap, we hafta pay?! What the hell then is even the point of auditing?!"

His sinister grin twitched wider and he said in a sickeningly sweet tone, "Get. Out. Now." He then pointed a finger directly at me, "You too."

I stiffened.

Fudge.

"What? No, I-" my voice broke in a squeak. Clearing my throat and plastering on my sincerest teacher's pet smile, I tried again, "No, I don't know him. He just sat next to me and started bothering me."

"Traitor," Lea hissed at me.

I ignored him, still addressing the professor. "I'm actually here with my friends," I leaned slightly towards said friends. "Isn't that right, Chet?"

Ah, Chet... my ol' chum, my ol' buddy, mi amigo, my-

"Er… my name's not Chet."

...you're dead to me, Chet.

"Alright, let's go, you two," Professor Trouillefou put one hand on the backrest of his chair and vaulted himself over it into our row. He then yanked Lea up out of his seat and started dragging him by the scruff of his shirt towards the aisle. As they passed where I was sitting, he pulled me up to my feet as well and kept going, towing me by the wrist.

Lea staggered along, trying to dig in his heels, "Aw, c'mon, man! Throw me out if ya gotta, but can't you give her a pass at least? She's totally innocent!"

"Which is the worst crime of all!" the lecturer shot back gleefully, not breaking stride.

We were almost to the doors leading back outside. Heart thudding and desperate not to be forcibly removed from the class, I blurted out, "We're planning to take the course next semester!"

At that, the professor slowed, glancing back at me with one eyebrow cocked. "Pardon?"

...wow, that actually worked?!

Swallowing hard, I gave a small, hesitant nod. "We only… we stopped by today just for a quick peek. We, um… wanted to know what we would be getting ourselves into, if… if that's okay? That is, uh… p-please?"

He didn't answer at first, his gaze just darting back and forth between Lea and me several times, eyes calculating. Then he beamed so big and so abruptly, it startled a small jump out of me. "Well, why didn't you just say so?!" Before I even knew what was happening, he'd shifted his hold on the both of us to instead grab Lea's hand in one of his and my hand in the other before he happily skipped - yes, friggin' skipped - off towards the front of the theater with us stumbling behind him. "Come one, come all, class!" he gave a boisterous trill. "Up on the stage for warm-ups, everyone!"

Oh dear, what had I just gotten myself into?

Maybe just getting kicked out would have been the better call.

As he led us onto the stage, my feet tripping over the steps the whole way, I stammered out, "Th-thank you, I really ah… appreciate this opportunity, b-but I was thinking we could maybe more just, hrm… observe?"

The teacher gave a booming scoff as he pulled us to a stop, the rest of the students in the theater filing up the stairs as well to join us. "Don't be silly, you don't observe an acting class!" He paused before declaring with dramatic emphasis, "You act an acting class!"

Oh.

Well then… my mistake.

"Gather 'round, boys and girls, we've got ourselves some fresh meat to play with today!" Professor Trouillefou cackled as he finally released Lea and me with a small shove towards the center of the ring of students grouped up with us now. Producing (from where, I know not) what looked to be some sort of theater prop in the form of a long scepter with round jingle bells dangling from the top end, he tapped it to his shoulder pensively as he asked, "Now, what lil drama exercise should we use to break in our sweet, young, starry-eyed would-be thespians here with, hm?"

One undergrad's hand shot up as she called out, "Topsy Turvy?"

"Court of Miracles?" came another suggestion from somewhere else in the small crowd.

"Hush, let's not throw them in the deep end right out the gate! There's no need to upstage each other for the toughest game, we wouldn't want it to be curtains for the newbies so soon! Heh… lil theater humor for you there," the professor chuckled with a wink. "No, I was thinking we could warm up with something a lil easier, something like… ah, yes! How 'bout a rousing game of Stroking the Animal?"

Lea snerked beside me, crossing his arms, "Dirty. Didn't realize we were in that kind of class."

That earned him a bonk to the skull from the jingly scepter.

Flashing his pearly whites, the teacher went on as if he hadn't been interrupted, "Stroking the Animal is an excellent lil game for drama beginners! Each of you are going to pair up and choose some sort of beastie - secretly, mind you, don't tell your partner! Then you'll each take turns acting out holding your critter, petting it, caring for it - not saying a word, just purely miming - until your partner correctly guesses what it's supposed to be."

"So… it's kind of like charades?" I asked slowly.

With a triumphant point of the jingly scepter in my direction, he proclaimed, "Precisely, my dear, precisely! Now everyone, take a minute to decide on an animal while you find your partners! Hop to it, chop chop!"

"Dibs on my acting buddy!" Lea snagged my hand and raised it high, showing he'd staked claim.

As the rest of the students began pairing off around us, I scrunched up my nose and muttered, "I'm terrible at charades."

"What?!" his brow furrowed. "But charades is just kinda, sorta acting, isn't it? And you love acting!"

"Yes, acting. Musicals, plays, scripts," I emphasized, my hands twisting at my braid momentarily before restlessly shifting back to fiddling with the sleeve zipper once more. "You know, lines and directions I can memorize and follow. Charades is more like improv's distant cousin twice removed. I hate improv… whenever I'm put on the spot like that, I just sort of freeze up and draw a complete blank. So yeah, I'm not exactly the biggest fan of charades. It's a game that just makes me feel silly and-"

"Time's up!" A ringing filled the air, coming from the dreaded jingly scepter. I was really beginning to hate that noisy little stick. Once Professor Trouillefou had everyone's attention back on him, he called out, "Begin!"

Crud, I hadn't even picked an animal yet!

Alright, brain, go time! Think, think, think! Conjure me up a creature! Go on, spit out the first thing you can think of! Just give me something! Anything!

Naked mole-rat!

...okay, maybe not that one.

We're looking for something nice, simple and obvious here, something that'll only take seconds to guess, something like a… a cat! Yes! Perfect!

Hey, don't judge me! It's not like I was trying to earn points for creativity here, I just wanted to get this ridiculous game over and done with quickly!

The other students had already begun. Not wanting to fall behind, I hastily struck up a finger to Lea to indicate I was ready. Then I looked away with a frown, my hands hovering in uncertainty for a few seconds. Okay, a cat… how do I show that I have a cat? Grimacing, I awkwardly scooped one arm in front of me like I was cradling something close to my belly and used my other hand to start petting the air where its imaginary head would be.

Eh, good enough, right?

Lea's face brightened, "Oh, a puppy!"

Alright, close! Come on, you got this. Not a dog, but a…

He squinted. "...bunny?"

...sorry, not the answer we were looking for here. Would the contestant care to venture another guess? Third times a charm, after all! Surely he'll get it this-

"Porcupine!"

Wait, what?

"Snake!"

For the love of… in what possible universe could the make-believe thing in my arms ever be a friggin' snake?!

"Turtle? Penguin! Oo-oo, this has to be it… hyena! No? Armadillo? Puffin! Skunk! Capybara!"

Okay, now the jerk was just doing this on purpose to mess with me.

"Naked mole-rat!"

Are you kidding me?! Shoot, I should have gone with my first instinct!

Narrowing my eyes at him, I made a growling little huff in my throat and started petting at the pretend feline's head more aggressively.

As if that would actually help.

Did I mention how completely bad at charades I was?

"El, ya gotta give me something to work with here," Lea groaned, rubbing at the nape of his neck. "I mean c'mon, you're just petting air there, that doesn't tell me any-" he cut himself off, blinking a couple times. Then he snapped his fingers with a victorious smile, "Ah-ha! Got it!"

My whole body froze.

Wait, did he really?

"Air elemental! No, no, air spirit!"

Gah, that's not even a real animal, you dork!

I scowled at him, my hands moving to strangle the air in his direction as I pictured his throat between my fingers.

He looked horrified. "Don't do that to the poor creature! That's animal abuse!"

I give up! I puffed out a loud sigh, tossing my hands in defeat.

"Well now ya just dropped the critter." He gave a soft tsk. "Worst. Pet owner. Ever. Well… I mean, unless of course it's a cat, then that's fine cuz it'd just land on its-"

"Ah!" My heart leapt in delight. "Yes! That's it!" I laughed, barreling into his chest and hugging him around the waist.

He grunted softly from the impact, then quirked an eyebrow down at me. "Are you serious? Ya couldn't get me to guess cat? Well shit, babe, you really do suck at this game! If we ever play charades in the future, Anna will be the one who gets stuck with your undeniably cute but useless butt on her team."

Face pinching, I poked him where he was ticklish just below the rib cage.

"Hey, no fair!" he squirmed, jumping away from me. Then clearing his throat, he straightened up with a dignified sniff and grinned, "Alright, my turn now!"

...oh yeah. He gets a turn too.

I completely forgot that part.

Well fudge, I should have simply let him go first and saved myself the mini panic attack.

Lea closed his eyes and bowed his head, his hands rising and falling with a deep inhale and slow exhale. He was clearly and quite visibly honing, as if preparing to act out some great Shakespearean monologue. Finally, he snapped into action. He flourished his arms to one side, as if proudly presenting something standing next to him. Then his hand moved to start stroking empty space somewhere at about his eye-level.

Okay... so the mystery animal was tall.

I tipped my head to one side. "...a horse? A camel?"

He raised his hand up higher so it was above his head, still petting away.

Even bigger, huh?

"Ostrich?" I wrinkled my nose. "Moose? Giraffe?"

Lea went up onto his tippy-toes, his arm stretched as far as he could reach and fingers now… possibly giving under-chin scritches? Maybe?

Jeez, just how huge was this thing?

I shook my head with a tiny, unsure, "...whale?"

He lowered back down onto his heels, resuming the stroking at a height not quite as far up there, but still above his head.

Alright, so… what was smaller than a whale, but bigger than a giraffe?

"...a really, really big giraffe?"

Elsa, Queen of Thinking Outside The Box.

His eyelids drooped. But seemingly undeterred, he set about moving over to where I'd roughly guess would be the side of this ginormous creature. He mimed climbing up it and slinging his leg over its back.

Big and rideable, huh?

"Ah! A… A… An elephant!" I stammered to get out past my sudden excitement.

Lea was still going, bending forward to give his mount a couple pats on the shoulder (I guess?) before pointing up. Then he stretched his arms out wide to either side of him like he was… soaring?

"A flying elephant!"

Wait, no, that'd just be silly.

We were looking for a real animal here. A large animal that could apparently fly. It had to be some kind of bird, right? But… pretty sure there weren't any elephant-sized birds out there in the world… were there?

Note to self: google "elephant-sized bird" later.

Tuning back into reality, I realized Lea had moved onto showing me something else now. It seemed he'd dismounted and returned to petting the thing's… head, maybe? But then he elicited a tiny, pained tch and retracted his finger like he'd been burned. But no, that couldn't be right… no animals in actual existence burned people, so what could it… oh! It must have just bitten him… yes, that'd make more sense!

Now he was looking at the ground and rubbing his hands together before turning his palms forward, holding them there for a few seconds. Then he balled both hands, stacking one on top of the other and lifting the top one up in a long, straight line. With one hand still fisted, he then cupped the other upward and arced it over until it was upside down a few feet over his fist. Finally, he stretched his fist out in front of him while using his other hand to occasionally poke and pinch at the air above said fist.

I stared blankly at him. "...yeah, no, you've lost me."

The jingly scepter rang out loudly as the professor shook it high above his head, announcing, "Game over, boys and girls!"

Lea snorted and sighed, "Clearly I was roasting marshmallows there."

"...clearly." Not. "But why?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Well what else am I gonna do with the fire that my good, big dragon boi here breathed for me?" he asked, once again gesturing to the vacant spot next to him.

"A dragon?" I huffed, marching over to him to glare down (or rather up I suppose) my nose at him. "You were supposed to pick a real animal."

He grinned and folded his arms beneath his chest. "Teach never said it hadta be real."

I blinked, then glanced towards Professor Trouillefou, who shrugged and echoed, "Never said it had to be real."

"Told ya!" Lea razzed his tongue at me.

In retaliation, my hand shot out to tickle him again, but he caught it. "Ha! Too slow!" he crowed, smirking as he shifted his hold to lace our fingers together.

So instead I just tickled him with my other hand.

He spasmed, hissing swear words under in breath before scrambling to get out of my reach. I crossed my arms and - in peak maturity, mind you - razzed my tongue back at him before looking away with a small harrumph.

The professor clapped his hands together, "Alright, well done, class! Gold star for everyone!" From his pocket, he pulled out a small, glittery star sticker that he slapped to the forehead of the nearest student. Pointing a finger to it, he tacked on, "That's the only one I have, so you'll all have to share! In any case, now that we've had a chance to flex and loosen our acting muscles a bit, onto a slightly more challenging game…"

Wonderful! Now I could put this horrible improv portion of the class behind me. I wondered what would be next… monologues or scene work or script readings or-

"Alphabet Improv!"

...or more improv.

Swell.

You know what? Maybe acting class just simply wasn't for me. Since, you know, it seemed to be nothing but improv, a thing that I was terrible at.

...to be fair, one might argue that acting class would be the way to help me get better at it.

On the other hand, one might also argue to hell with acting class!

Not going to lie, I felt that the latter argument made a very compelling and well thought out rebuttal.

"We'll be doing this in groups of four," Professor Trouillefou went on, a wicked grin slowly stretching across his face. "And just for funsies, I'll be the one picking the groups. Now, who will start us off…"

Not me, not me, oh dear god, not me!

He pointed that cursed jingly stick directly at - you guessed it - me. I paled, my heart plummeting into my stomach as he decreed, "Congratulations, my dear, you are our first lucky winner!"

...fudge.

Gulping, I stuttered out in a tiny voice, "No, b-but I… I can't-"

"Oh, but you can and you will! Next up, your partners will be… hmm…" he pursed his lips to one side as he scrutinized everyone else.

Lea's hand shot up high over his head as he bounced on the balls of his feet.

"Kuzco!" the lecturer jabbed his scepter towards the opposite end of the line of students from us.

A guy with long black hair jumped forward with a cocky laugh, "Boom, baby!"

Right. Guess that'd make him Kuzco.

The teacher slowly swung the jingly scepter past the students one by one, preparing to select his next victi- erm, participant. Lea kept jumping in front of it like an eager puppy, saying, "Oo! Oo! Me!"

Jerking the prop to Lea's immediate left, it landed on a short girl in a white sundress trimmed in black lace, her red hair tied back into a pair of pigtails that fell past her waist. "Strelitzia!" he cried, seemingly taking great joy in rolling the R as he did so.

She merely smiled sweetly at her name being called and stepped forward.

"And last but not least…" Professor Trouillefou squinted as he gave his students another once over. Lea bounced up in front of him yet again, both index fingers pointing up at his own face as he favored the teacher with a big, ear-to-ear smile. Rolling his eyes with a small huff, the teacher grumbled, "Fine. You, I guess."

Oh, thank goodness!

Don't get me wrong, this game was still going to absolutely murder me.

But with Lea's help, maybe it'd be just a tad less murdery.

As my boyfriend moved to stand beside me, taking my hand with a squeeze and a grin, the professor made a sweeping gesture with his prop, "Everyone else step aside and give our stars center stage! Now, Alphabet Improv is quite simple really. I'll give you four a scene prompt and a letter. Then one of you will begin with a line that starts with that letter. The next person will continue the scene by saying something that starts with the next letter of the alphabet. You will each take turns working your way through the alphabet until you're back around to the first letter, then work your way backwards through the alphabet."

I think he had more to say, but his words began to fade to the point where I couldn't hear them anymore. No, all I could hear now was the hammering in my ribcage and hiss of my rapid, shallow breathing through my nostrils. My mouth was dry and my hands were clammy. Yup. No doubt about it. This was anxiety. And not the good kind like I usually felt before a show. This was just plain bad. All bad. Nothing but bad, bad, bad. So bad that-

"Nervous?"

I gave a start as that soft voice broke through my thoughts, my head whipping towards it to discover the girl from earlier - Strelitzia, I believe - now standing next to me. She tilted her head to one side, grinning warmly at me.

A scoff from Kuzco had me jolting in surprise yet again. "Psh, like she has reason to be! Not with me in the group! Just simply bask in the awesomeness and perfection that is me and be at ease!" he smirked, puffing out his chest and stretching his arms out wide, curling and uncurling his fingers a couple times. "Go on, bask. You know you want to."

Lea snerked. "Check out the ego on this guy."

Heh… look who's talking.

"Just ignore him, that's what the rest of us do," Strelitzia giggled softly before turning her kind eyes on me once more. "And don't worry, I was nervous too when I first started taking this class. I still am, actually… but I've gotten better. Some day, I hope to be as good as my brother!"

Lea blinked. "Brother? Wait a minute…" he squinted down at her, rubbing a curled finger over his chin. Then he snapped his fingers. "You're Bubble Yum's baby sis!"

Her eyes widened at that, then she laughed, "Oh dear, don't let Marluxia hear you calling him that."

"Too late," Lea shrugged.

"But yes, he's my big brother. He's majoring in Theater Arts here, while I'm just taking this class because I want to be a little more like him. He's so confident and brave…" she trailed off shyly into a thoughtful pause. Then her face brightened, "I just wish I had a little more courage so I can make him proud of me! I think this class has helped me a lot with that, and it could help you too."

I think this girl was about to give me diabetes from sweetness overload here. It was almost enough to lure me into a false sense of security. Almost. But then-

Jingle-jangle!

Ugh, those damn little bells were going to be the death of me! Immediately, my pulse spiked and I inhaled sharply.

"Now that you've all had a lil time to get acquainted, let's move this along, shall we?" Professor Trouillefou beamed from where he'd taken a seat at the edge of the stage to watch us. The rest of the class had done the same, giving the four of us plenty of room to work with. Oh gosh, so many eyes on me, about to witness my epic failure at improv. Was it getting harder to breathe in here? "The letter you'll be beginning with: Q!"

I started desperately tugging at Lea's hand and he glanced down at me. "I can't do this," I told him in a whisper, the loudest I could muster through my constricting throat. "I can't… I just can't!"

"The scene," the lecturer went on, "...Kuzco here has just been transformed into a talking llama!"

Lea stepped in front of me, taking both my hands in his and drawing light circles along their backs with his thumbs. The sensation sent a soothing warmth up my arms and into my chest where it clashed with the icy panic pumping out of my heart. Ducking down to my eye-level, he said, "It'll be okay, El. I'll be right here with ya the whole time. You got this, trust me! Don't think, just say the first thing that pops outta your head. Simple as that!"

"But-"

"Annnnnnd action!" Professor Trouillefou roared.

Kuzco wasted no time, turning to the three of us. "Quick question guys…" he held his hands up and waved them back and forth in front of him with a chipper, "Why do I suddenly have hooves?" That earned him a few tiny chuckles from the students watching.

Fighting a smile herself, Strelitzia gasped, "Randy! You're a llama!"

"Sweet! New pet!" Lea went over to start patting Kuzco on the head. "Think I'm gonna name him Cheez Whiz." A few more snorts from onlookers.

Then there was dead silence.

...that was my cue, wasn't it? Crud, what comes after S again?! How do you alphabet?! I couldn't remember! So instead I just stood there, stock-still and rooted to the spot, hyperventilating and my eyes round as I stared out into our small audience.

...do...something…

What was it Lea had just told me? Don't think, er...

Don't think, just… uh…

…

Well I'll say this much for me - I had the 'don't think' part down pat. I was totally not thinking like a pro! Nothing was going on in my brain right now. Nope, not a goddamn single thing. Not even so much as a tumbleweed rolling through the barren wasteland that was my thoughts at this very second.

"This has ruined my face! My beautiful, beautiful face!" Kuzco suddenly burst out, covering for me.

Ah! T! That's what comes after S!

Dang it, I knew that!

Strelitzia hesitated for only a split second before coming up with, "Um... your face was never really all that beautiful to begin with…" There were a couple snickers from our audience at that.

"Veronica!" Lea suddenly grabbed me by the shoulders, forcing me to look at him instead of the people watching us. "Tell us, what should we do?!" His thumbs were stroking up and down my arms as he gave me a single, encouraging nod.

I tucked in my bottom lip, listening to a couple pounding beats of my heart before giving him a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of my head.

Still nothing going on up in the ol' noggin except for crickets and paralyzing, soul-crushing fear. Sorry, bud.

Then I realized his lips were silently moving… was he mouthing something to me? Looked suspiciously like… W...?

Oh! Right! The next letter!

Now I just needed to think of a word that started with W! Simple, right?

"W…" I began shakily sounding it out, hoping the rest of some word would just magically follow. "W…" Mm-hm, yup. "W…" Got nothing here. "W…" Absolute zilch.

Apparently that was deemed acceptable. "Xavier, can't you see she's petrified cuz I'm an ugly, stinky llama?!" Kuzco wailed as he fell to his knees.

"You have a point there!" Strelitzia chimed in, struggling to keep a straight face now at his overdramatic antics.

Lea smacked himself in the forehead, "Zounds, can't believe I forgot about her crippling llama-phobia!" …llama-phobia? At that, a tiny snerk managed to break through the all but suffocating anxiety and escape through my nose. Then he was grabbing my face with both hands, "But it's okay, you'll get through this! ...you'll get through this." The last part was repeated more softly as he gave me a small reassuring smile.

Something in his touch, his voice, his steady gaze… actually had me calming down a bit. With a tiny gulp, I closed my eyes, breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly, letting some of the tension go with it. Alright, after Z came… ha! Yes! So easy, even my useless, panic-scattered brain could do it!

"A…" I began weakly, but then hesitated.

Don't think, just say the first thing that pops outta your head.

"Alpacas!" suddenly exploded from my lips as my eyes snapped open again. Lea's head rocked back slightly at my little outburst, a bemused grin tugging at his lips. Gaze shifting, I scrambled to expand on it. "Don't, um… don't forget I'm... d-deathly afraid of those too..."

Kuzco was quick on the draw, snarling, "Both of you shut up and help me fix this already!"

"Can it!" Strelitzia snapped, planting her fists on her hips and narrowing her eyes on him. "We're not taking orders from you!"

Lea stamped a foot down and raised his fist at him, "Damn right, you demon llama!"

That statement had me hiding a smile behind my fingers. And with that, a little bit more of the anxiety was banished. I could do this… especially now that I'd regained the power of the alphabet! Especially with Lea's hand finding mine once again, sending more warm tingles straight to my heart.

Don't think, just say the first thing that...

"Everyone, let's…" Okay, good strong start. Now, where are we taking this? "...exorcise?" Sure, let's go with that. "...the, uh... the demon llama?"

Success!

"Fiends!" Kuzco yelled, pointing an accusing finger at us. "Traitors! Evil criminal masterminds! This was your plot all along, wasn't it?!"

Turning to look up at Lea, Strelitzia told him, "Go on, say the words that'll expel the evil spirit!"

Not missing a beat, Lea joined Strelitzia's hand with mine before taking my other back in his once again. Then he led us into a skipping daisy-chain that circled Kuzco a couple times, all the while happily chanting, "Hocus pocus! Shazam! Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo! Nutella! Benedict Cumberbatch!"

This was all just so... utterly… ridiculous.

I spluttered, then erupted into full blown laughter.

Oh gosh, how did Lea always do it? How did he always know how to get a laugh out of me, no matter what? How did he always manage to calm me down and help me feel safe?

As he slowed our skipping to a stop, his eyes crinkled down at me as he prompted, "That oughta do it! Whatcha think?"

Ah. Right. I was supposed to be doing something… or saying something… something to do with the letter I. But I couldn't quite remember what. I was too distracted by his gaze on me, causing all sorts of warm fuzzies to flutter throughout my chest and an extremely silly smile to pull at my mouth. Alright, letter I… letter I… my lips parted...

Don't think, just…

"I love you."

The words had barely left my mouth when my whole body locked up and I swear my heart skipped two full beats as Lea's wide-eyed stare landed on me.

Crud.

That… had not been part of the game.

I knew it.

He knew it.

Everyone in the whole goddamn theater seemed to know it too.

That is, if the awkward, deafening hush now permeating the air as no one said or did anything was an indicator. Several eyes just slowly shifted back and forth between Lea and me, probably curious to see what either of us would do next.

Lea was the first to recover, snagging my hand in his. "Excuse us for a quick sec," he struck up a finger to the others, flashing a polite smile. Then he walked off backstage, gently tugging me along behind him. My knees had gone numb, causing me to stumble a couple times as I followed. I frowned at his back, feeling my insides shrivel with dread.

...oh gosh, he was about to break up with me, wasn't he?

Neither of us had ever said… said… gah, the L-word to each other before! And I'd been okay with that! I'd been just fine! I didn't even know whether I was in L-word with him or not!

Or rather… I hadn't known...

...but I guess I did now?

Apparently?

Not that that mattered any more! Not now that my stupid mouth had gone and screwed everything up! Lea wasn't the L-word type! He was the one-night stand type. This thing he'd been doing with me this whole time had been a one-off. A fluke. A wonderful fluke. An amazing fluke. A fluke that I had just totally and completely ruined.

It seemed he'd found a spot he deemed quiet and private enough, for we abruptly came to a stop. As he turned to face me now, I swallowed hard. This was it. He was about to tell me it was all over. My vision blurred slightly and I squeezed my eyes shut against it.

Maybe if I couldn't see him, he couldn't break up with me. Ha! Take that!

...okay, that sounded a bit desperate, even for-

My thoughts were silenced as I suddenly felt his arms wrapping around my waist, hugging me tightly up against him. Then there was the familiar scent of cinnamon before I felt his warm lips on mine, causing my eyes to fly open and my hands to unconsciously grip at the front of his shirt.

Wha-

...oh. Wait, no I get it. He was trying to let me down easy. This was a goodbye kiss. One final kiss for the road. The kiss of relationship death.

Yup. This sealed it. He was definitely breaking up with me.

All too soon, his lips were pulling away from mine, although he didn't release his hold on me. I couldn't look him in the eye. I was too scared. So I just stared hard at his collarbone instead and waited for him to say it. It's over between us. Just go on and get it over with already. Put me out of my misery. It won't be hard. Just four little words. Just-

"I love you too."

I blinked.

Okay… not the four words I'd been expecting...

I slowly dragged my gaze up to meet his, giving him a blank look. "...this has to be the most confusing breakup ever."

I felt his body tense against mine as both his eyebrows shot up his forehead. "Break up?" he repeated incredulously. Then a laugh burst out of him and he shook his head, "How did you even-? No, El, this isn't a break up! I mean, I certainly hope not anyway."

"Oh." Well that was a relief! But then my brow furrowed. "Wait…"

...back up… had he really just said he-

My heart flip-flopped and face glowed red hot.

"...you…" Dear lord, it was so hard to even say it. The struggle was real. "...love me?"

"Mm-hm!" he hummed, squeezing me closer and nuzzling his nose into my neck. "Known for a while too."

His breath tickled against my skin and I squirmed, my arms inadvertently wrapping around his neck now. "You did? Why didn't you say anything?" The question came out almost somewhat indignant.

Raising his head so he could once more look me in the eye, Lea gave a sheepish chuckle. "Didn't wanna spook ya or make you feel pressured into saying it back if you weren't ready."

"Well that's…" I paused, my mouth clicking shut as I looked down to mull it over for a second. Then my gaze shyly lifted once more and I mumbled, "...a fair point. And actually kind of thoughtful… thank you…"

His expression softened and he pressed his forehead to mine. "...say it again."

This time, my heart skipped three full beats. He wanted me to say… that again?! What, once hadn't been enough? I didn't even know if I could say it again. I didn't even know how I'd said it in the first place! "I…" Oh gosh, how did couples tell each other this all the time? There had to be some trick to it. What was the magic secret? "I… I'm not like you, Lea. I'm not sappy and mushy and… and I know how to do corny stuff like giving romantic speeches about lantern festivals or walking into lampposts or-"

"I don't want a speech. I just want to hear you say it again...please..." he coaxed in a low murmur against my ear, turning my legs to jelly.

Well when he put it that way…

As our eyes locked once more, my pulse raced and I opened my mouth. Then immediately shut it. Nope. Alright, take two. Again, my lips parted. And again, they snapped shut. Gah, this was impossible! Was almost surprised I couldn't smell smoke at this point, considering how badly my cheeks were burning. Finally, I turned my head to one side, gripping at the collar of his leather jacket and pulling it up to hide my face in it as I at last muffled out a quick, "I love you."

He bit back a grin, tugging the collar back down so he could hook a finger under my chin and tilt my gaze up towards his again. "One more time? Couldn't quite hear you."

I wrinkled my nose at him. I couldn't do it. Not with the way those beautiful green eyes of his were watching me with such intensity.

So I did the only thing I could think of.

I clamped my hand over them, blinding him and blurting out before I could stop myself, "I love you!"

He stiffened. Then snerked, letting my hand stay put over his eyes as a huge, dopey grin spread across his face, "Love you too. And eagerly awaiting the day when I can look at you while you say that."

Despite feeling flustered, one corner of my lips lifted. "...yeah, well... you might be waiting a while there."

Now he removed my hand from his face, weaving our fingers together and pressing a kiss to my palm before clasping it to his chest just over his heart as he smiled down at me.

"Take all the time ya need. I know it'll be worth the wait."

...maybe acting class wasn't so bad after all.

I mean, if only one session had helped me get this far...

...just imagine what I might be able to accomplish after completing the entire course!

Author's Note: Relationship milestone, woooo! Achievement unlocked! xD Not sure if ya'll even realized that these 2 dorks had yet to say those three lil words each other :P Like Lea said, he's known for a while - the goob might've even fancied himself in love back while they were fake dating - maybe it was still just really strong infatuation back then, but eh... does it really matter? xD As for Elsa, she's been in love for a while now too, she just didn't KNOW that's what it was until her mouth did what it does best, took the reins and blurted out her feelings for her XD On another note, yay for Elsa exploring theater further and pursuing acting classes! Hehe, these bonus chapters are quickly turning into an excuse to squeeze as many cameos in as I can. The professor was originally supposed to be a smaller, faceless part but then I came to the conclusion that I should have more fun with it and tried to figure out who would be good fit for a drama teacher - I think I made the right call with Clopin xD In case anyone didn't recognize him even with all the lil hints I dropped, he's the jester guy from "Hunchback of Notre Dame" which I wouldn't blame you if you read the name and went "uh…who?" - the guy only says his name once in the whole movie and it does legit sound like it has 4 syllables when he says it! My whole life (right up until I looked it up for this chapter) I've thought his name was something like "Cleopelle" haha oops xD And I'm glad I found a place to squeeze in Strelitzia at long last! Not to mention Kuzco - fun fact, he was originally gonna be Selphie, but this was before I came up with the scene prompt for the Alphabet Improv bit. I was looking up acting class prompt suggestions on the internet before I was like "screw it, I should just pick the plot of a Disney movie or something", started scrolling through the long list of Disney movies until I landed on "Emperor's New Groove", stared at it blankly for few seconds, then DING! Off went the lightbulb, Selphie was yeeted out of the scene, and Kuzco bounced in to take her place x'D Also, yes, both Stroking the Animal and Alphabet Improv are real drama class exercises - I know this from WAY more time than I care to admit spent on the internet trying to figure out what I wanted to happen this chapter xD Stroking the Animal is also sometimes called Ironing the Animal, but (1) I don't even understand that title and (2) Lea couldn't have made his dumb innuendo if I'd called it that xD

Thanks for reading, I super duper appreciate it! And an extra BIG thank you to those of you who’ve liked, reblogged, and followed so far, seeing those lil notifications always brings the biggest, goofiest smile to my face!

Be back for next week's bonus chapter, which is a for funsies one-shot! Your hint this time for what's to come will be *drum roll*... blindfold ;D Ooooo, the intrigue is real! Stay tuned!

FIRST CHAPTER || PREVIOUS CHAPTER || NEXT CHAPTER

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courage-a-word-of-justice · 3 years

Text

Maou-jou 9 - 12 (FINAL) | Idolish7 s2 10 - 15 (FINAL) | SLS 2

I’ve been holding off new seasonals because of other things, but after I post this I’ll have enough time to get around to them. That’s why I can’t guarantee winter 2021 seasonal tags on this post...maybe the next one will have them...

Maou-jou 9

…it seems shopping channels even are the same in the demon world.

Now even the demons have quests! (The frame is different to the princess’s, though.)

Oh! The quest failed.

Neo Alraune: in flower language, “the 2nd coming of happiness”. The worry from a little while ago was, “I’m worried about my brother.” The worry from recently: “I didn’t think about being happy that the princess didn’t kill my brother.”

The penguin demons are pretty cute!

Don’t you know how parents forbid children from sleeping until they finish all their homework? Must be something like that.

Yoku ganbarimashita! – Syalis worked hard!

LOL, mental age: 3. Poseidon likes cute things…I can’t read a lot of this…the hardsubs cover the JPN text.

They…both succeeded! (…LOL?)

Maou-jou 10

Owarinocity = Endopolis. It’s a good equivalent, if I do say so myself.

…oh yeah. What happened to Alraune? Update: There she is!

Also, that blonde guy in the infomercials doesn’t look too bad…*makes chef’s kiss gesture with one hand* Nice.

I wonder, was Twilight once human…?

LOL, there’s a goat symbol on the cleric’s pyjamas. Also “first time”, LOL.

I think they were playing shiritori at one point.

Hanamaru saikou yoku dekimashita!

Maou-jou 11

…How does one “sleep cheerfully”, anyway?

I think I saw Twilight drop something…some kind of paper…

Aw, Twilight blushing is kinda cute!

LOL, 70s shoujo style. Also, “It cannot be!”

Whoa, she cancelled it?!

I read up on this series on TV Tropes…and apparently the Demon King captured the Princess in her sleep.

Kagemusha? Like a ninja or something?

Apparently the Demon Cleric is much older than he looks.

Ooh! Hypnos is back!

A-whatsit really is abysmal levels of stupid!!! (LOL)

Maou-jou 12 (FINAL)

Who’s that one tiny guy occupying one of the Ten Kings’ seats?

*watching after Christmas, about a week after the anime finished* This is not seasonally appropriate!

…*thinks for a second, then spits* That’s the 2nd Nemu in the fall 2020 season!!!

Ooh, the head paladin doesn’t look that bad, either.

“…is it good to be…”

“…has seized the princess!”

“…that demon king is rather cute.” – See? Someone agrees with me.

Anyways, that was a fun series. See you soon!

Idolish7 s2 10

…Back at it after so long…(I can’t help it though – Crunchyroll, per month, is about double the local Funimation sublicensor’s fees, and for much less content that’s worth my money to boot!)

I’ve always thought Momo was like Sasara (HypMic), so seeing him anguished hurts me in the kokoro too…

I know Banri was involved with Re:vale somehow…this must be it.

…Male idols are also popular among men? Is this why there are 8 (!!!) idol anime in winter 2021 alone…? (Also, that’s why HypMic became popular? Multidemographic appeal crossed over with obvious merchandising opportunities?)

It’s kind of scary how Momo stepped the formality towards Yuki like that (to -san).

I guess in his heart Momo still reveres Yuki, some way or another.

The rakugo curtain really sold the moment that they (current Re:vale) were acting like an old married couple.

Yay! Silver Sky is such a cool song! Of course I recognised the intro when it came on.

…I see. The elder Kujo is entrusting his dream to Tenn, so that’s why he banned Aya from seeing Tamaki. However, it’s hard to know what to feel when Aya speaks in the vaguest terms possible.

I think that was a special ending for only this episode. I don’t know what its name is, but I guess I might recognise it on Spotify one day.

Idolish7 s2 11

LOL, Nagi’s reaction.

Considering the ‘rona is getting worse outside our very windows as we speak (type?), I think it’s correct to be concerned about your future right now.

Looking at these narrow streets reminds me of going to eat hotpot at the end of my Japan trip…only Japanese streets look like that, I think. Hong Kong’s streets are more crowded than that and America likes their suburbia.

Of course, when you say hajimemashite (nice to meet you), someone’s gotta say it back, hence the reply.

Considering there are people all over the world watching the Idolish7 anime, I would say you are telling the world about I7, Riku.

Oh! Restart Pointer! There was an MV for that one…I think it was around the time Idolish7’s MVs started getting better.

So this is the context around the new outfits! Cool!

There have been way too many puns about “idol” being…y’know, “ai (love) doll” and stuff like that…

I have one Twitter person who I follow (DejiNyucu, part of the creative team for Autumn’s Journey) because I don’t get much I7 content and they keep mentioning this “Haruki” person…and suddenly a “Haruki the Betrayer” showed up in the graffiti…they might be the same person, I think. Not Deji, but Haruki. Update: Sakura Haruki, perhaps…?

Sougo’s such a bad liar…

Sometimes, the best way to deal with things is to be direct…(I’m not very good at that, I naturally talk in a very roundabout sort of way.)

Sougo with long hair like Yuki would be really pretty… (<- has an obvious thing for guys with long hair)

Idolish7 s2 12

Nagi’s stupid accent is generally what he’s best remembered for (for me), so seeing him speak normally, and do a press conference on top of that, is…impressive.

A kabedon on top of all this! Whoa!

Shibuya 109 parody…? (I’ve seen that once or twice – parodying that means people know their stuff about Shibuya.)

I think the “it’s overflowing!” is referring to the hype in the “room”.

…this dejected Momo is worrying…(well, he is worrying and I am worrying about him.)

Oh, I see. The person responsible typed the letter so that they couldn’t be traced back. Kind of like those old movies where the culprit would cut letters out of newspapers to make threat mail, but…with even less traces than that, because cutting letters out leaves evidence.

…wow, it took a while for this ep. to have an intro…

…LOL, I just spotted Kenjiro Tsuda cited as the “fake Zero”, meaning the real one might never show up this season.

There’s something really stupid and infectious about these managers’ enthusiasm for drinking energy drinks. It puts a goofy smile on my face.

Is Musubi Tsumugi’s mother…? Update: Yes, she is.

…Wait, so the Chiba Shizuo guy is actually important?!

Idolish7 s2 13

Whenever someone says “by the way”, it means they’re changing the subject. I hate to state to obvious, but Sougo is clearly deflecting the topic of conversation from being about him.

I wonder if this guy (Haw9) is the actual Zero graffiti vandal…?

Hmph, I didn’t realise Tenn doesn’t refer to Kujo-san as his father, but…like that (“Kujo-san”) instead.

Oh hey! These are shots from Vibrato!

Most dramas can be solved with the power of Good Communication. That includes this one.

I feel like “he has a dark side” describes both Tenn and Kujo-san.

“Everyone, remember to wash your hands and gargle thoroughly.” – This is always a good thing to remember in the time of ‘rona. Reminds me of Jakurai’s line in ARB (<- this game started just after the ‘rona came down).

What did Sougo go to uni for (what specialisation)?

Idolish7 s2 14

I just realised Banri calls Momo -kun. Hmm…

Denki = electricity, LOL.

I feel like Tenn is basically Ramuda, give or take actual pink hair…guys in musical groups with pre-existing angst that they become the “centre” of. The fact Fling Posse have Saito Soma and so do Trigger strengthens the connection.

I would watch the heck out of a musical like that! Make it come true, Idolish7! (Also, today is I7 day! I’m not much of an I7 fan outside the anime, but…that’s cool!)

That shot of them jumping! I remember seeing it on the official site before!

Idolish7 s2 15 (FINAL)

There you go! I was wondering where Banri’s injury was – that was the only bit that didn’t add up for him to be Yuki’s old partner.

Hmm…Momo is 4 years younger than Yuki but 2 years younger than Banri…

This episode has a real concert vibe to it, to the point where I got startled by how loud the yell was at one point. (Even if it is mostly stills.)

LOL, lookit Okazaki!

Apparently, if you’re a hako oshi, you like all the members of a group. Someone with a green light and a pink light likes both members of Re:vale.

LOL, Usagi for Asahi beer.

…I forgot Nagi is 19.

…Ooh, I think that’s the kid from ZOOL. No wonder they needed a season 3!

That’s all. See you next time!

SLS 2

“fine and upstanding person” – That’s…hard to believe, Hayato.

I wonder how many bois Toboso designed for SLS…?

…The episode title is actually “Blank”. Not “Break”.

One of the guys’ shirts says moteki on it. That’s a period in one’s life where one enjoys more romantic attention than usual, literally “popularity season”.

The subs missed an I, so initially I knew Kiriyama’s name as “Kiryama”.

There are meant to be 2 wings, right…?

“He who controls information controls everything, right?” – For once, I’m surprised Hayato is right (and not just in that smug way of his).

“…I’m being treated like a manager.” – But Hayato is a manager! (In a sense.)

The plait guy jumps to nicknames really fast…also, why do I get the feeling Maeshima will lose the key?

I hate to say this Maeshima, but I side with your childhood friend (Kiriyama) here. As much as the anime wants me to back you, I’m watching for everyone else at this point.

That blocky building looks pretty cool. I think Zel (Archi-Anime) would like it.

Sasugai’s setup looks pretty cool, including his chair.

…hmm, Maeshima’s like me in a sense. I learn best by copying others, but memory is my best asset. If I don’t regularly train the fundamentals, I suck at everything. That said, I don’t have an eidetic memory. Also, I didn’t quite figure out Ken = Ken(sei Maeshima) until I watched long enough to connect the dots.

LOL, Derry’s. (<- reminded of a word for “butt” <- derriere)

Well, the guy’s (Souta…?) shirt does say moteki…

Kiriyama kinda looks like Jyuto (HypMic), come to think of it…Right down to his angry streak (although Jyuto has a reputation to keep as a “cool dude”, while Kiriyama is more of a Manza (Boueibu HK) and he’s more angry than he looks).

…This ED is nothing special.

…Hmm? Is that a small Terauchi and Maeshima…?

I think I’m sold for now, but I’m rooting for the other team, not Maeshima’s…not yet, anyways.

#simulcast commentary #skate-leading☆stars #idolish7 #Idolish7 Second Beat!#Maou-jou de Oyasumi #sleepy princess in the demon castle #Chesarka watches I7 #Chesarka watches Maou-jou

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bgn846 · 4 years

Text

Wonder Boy FFXV Younger Clarus, Regis, and Cor

“Will you stop doing that!” Regis hissed under his breath as they walked down the corridor.

“Doing what?” Clarus asked looking behind them once more.

“Turning to look at nothing, that’s what!”

“I’m telling you he’s following me,” Clarus spit out as he resumed his pace.

“Gods, we are back to that again,” Regis groaned. “You are seeing things, you should get your eyes’ checked, old man.”

“I’m only five years older than you, so I don’t think my eyes are the issue,” Clarus grumbled as he watched Regis wave him off with a frown. Clearly the prince wasn’t interested in his plight. He was being followed, he was sure of it. “You’ll see him one of these days and then you’ll have to admit I’m not crazy.”

“Lookit, Clarus,” Regis exclaimed, throwing his hands up in frustration, “Cor the wonder boy is not following you.”

“Yes, he is.”

Regis shouted something rude at his comment and resumed walked to their next meeting.

Turning one last time Clarus was sure he’d spotted the shadow of something moving. Torn between wanting to check, and keeping up with his charge, Clarus decided he’d rather not get yelled at by the king for abandoning his son. Sighing in defeat he spun on his heel and ran to catch Regis.

Despite Regis’ disinterest in the matter he decided to kill the time during the next meeting by texting him unhelpful questions. The first message had come through as they sat around the large meeting room table being ignored. They were the two youngest members in attendance, and the council never liked hearing what their teenage prince had to say. The king had been arguing with a council member for ten minutes straight, and Regis, it seemed, thought this was the perfect cover to zone out.

Reggie 3:43pm: How do you know it’s Cor?

Clarus 3:45pm: I saw his little beret once.

Clarus knew he’d read the message when Regis’ barely contained snort sounded nearby. Sighing at the foolishness of it all he waited to see what the prince would say this time.

Reggie 3:50pm: The crownsguard issued beret that all cadets wear? Sure that really nails down who it was -_-

Astrals, Regis was a jerk sometimes. Rolling his eyes Clarus typed out a response.

Clarus 3:53pm: The beret I saw was on a short person. Cor is short, he’s still practically a baby. That is how I know!

“Is everything in order?” King Mors asked pointedly, startling Clarus.

Curse his prince! Clarus looked up to see the king glaring at him. Damn, that question was meant for him. Thinking fast he nodded and managed to speak without turning beat red. “Yes majesty, I was checking on a security issue. All is well.”

“Very well, let us continue.”

Clarus pocketed his phone for the remainder of the meeting. The next time he trained with Regis he wouldn’t go easy.

Regis still didn’t believe that Cor was following him, but Clarus had proof now. He’d actually seen his face twice already. The skittish kid had locked eyes with him only to bolt a second later. This odd behavior had been going on for nearly two weeks now and Clarus was at his wits end. He could never catch Cor, and when he went to talk with him during training the young cadet would always find a way to slip out unnoticed.

How someone so young could be that difficult to track was a mystery. Cor was barely thirteen and had just joined the guard. That process alone had caused controversy. Apparently, Cor had refused to leave the signup office until he’d been admitted. The king himself had to come and talk to the youth before he was willing to go home that day.

However, Mors must have seen something special in the kid because when Cor came back the following day to again, demand entry into the crownsguard he was allowed. It helped that he’d dragged his mother with him the second time. She’d signed all the needed paperwork at the insistence of her own son. Cor was determined, that much Clarus knew. Aside from that, the kid was an enigma.

Even the reasoning for following him was unknown. Clarus was not about to get outsmarted by a kid. He could stage an ambush of his own.

This was how Clarus found himself, sitting in wait, behind an enormous potted plant in the corridor. He knew Cor had to come this way when he left training. This time he’d be the one stalking his prey! True to any plan, nothing went his way. Not five minutes after stationing himself in his appointed spot, did Regis show up.

“Why in the name of the astrals are you hiding behind a pot?” Regis asked with a smirk.

“Waiting for Cor, why?”

Regis sighed loudly and rolled his eyes, “You are such a dork. You seriously think jumping out from behind a pot will give you the upper hand?”

“I tried to talk to him before and it never works. So I’m switching my tactics.”

“By jumping ou--.”

“Yes! Shut up! I know it’s dumb!” he hissed. “Are you going to stand there and blow my cover or are you going to help?” The prince acted all high and mighty but he did love a good game. Clarus watched Regis feign annoyance at the whole situation, before quickly ducking down next to him. “Good now be quiet and keep an eye out for him.”

They didn’t have to wait long before the training room doors opened and cadets began piling out. Today was an instruction day so Clarus knew none of the trainees would go to the locker room, there was no need. Watching as the men and women filtered past Clarus couldn’t find Cor. Had that little stinker managed to slip away again?!

Grumbling in irritation Clarus made to stand up, “Come on I give up, I guess I’ll have a shadow tracking me for the rest of my life.”

“Is that such a bad thing?” Regis questioned with a thoughtful expression.

“Well I’d be nice to talk to the kid, otherwise, the relationship is a little one-sided.”

“So now you want to get to know him better?” teased Regis.

“From what I’ve heard he’s a very promising student. Nothing wrong with surrounding yourself with good people Regis.”

“True, true, I could always ask dad to set up a meeting for you. I don’t think Cor could refu--.”

“Don’t do that!” a voice from behind them blurted. “I don’t wanna make the king mad at me.”

Clarus flinched, but not before Regis yelped like a little girl. Six, he’d be teasing him about that later. Turning quickly they spotted an alert, slightly nervous-looking young man staring at them. Cor Leonis had managed to avoid being seen and snuck up on him instead. Maybe Mors wasn’t nuts for letting the thirteen-year-old enroll.

“Any reason you’re trying to scare me half to death?” Clarus uttered in disbelief. “I’m old kid cut me some slack.”

“You’re only twenty-three, that’s not too old,” Cor replied with a pout.

“Gee, thanks kid,” Clarus deadpanned.

“He’s old don’t let anyone tell you anything different,” Regis quipped.

“You’re only eighteen, he could call you a kid if he wanted, just like me,” Cor replied in a flash.

“Excuse me, I’m not a kid.”

“Your dad says otherwise,” Cor shot back with a knowing look.

“Enough about me!” Regis snapped. “Why are you tormenting my shield?”

This time Cor clammed up and ducked his head.

“What, no more smart things to say?”

“Highness, be nice,” Clarus sighed. “Come on I won’t be mad, why were you following me?”

Cor shrugged but still didn’t lookup.

“He’s clearly tongue-tied let's go before he finds it again,” Regis suggested as he stepped out into the hallway and straightened his vest.

“Hey! I’m not tongue-tied. I just don’t know how to ask my question,” Cor added, looking up to glare at Regis.

“Isn’t that the meaning of tongue-tied?”

“Shut up, you’re mean.”

Clarus had no success in suppressing his laughter at the exchange. Cor was putting Regis through his paces and it was amusing the watch. “I don’t care how you word it, but go ahead and try asking me your question,” he interrupted in hopes Cor would speak his mind.

Cor took a deep breath and leveled a look at Regis that rivaled the most beleaguered of mothers. Finally, after a few seconds, he turned to Clarus. “I wanted to know who trained you.”

“You mean to fight?” Clarus waited for a second as Cor nodded in acknowledgment. “My father trains with me along with a few other glaives. Why?”

“Can I train with you too?”

Oh, that wasn’t what Clarus had been expecting. “Uh – don’t you have trainers already?”

“Yes, but I want to train with you. You’re the shield to the future king. If I’m to be the best then I need to train with the best.”

Any previous feelings of doubt regarding Cor’s character melted away in that instant. The kid wanted to train with him because he was the best. How could Clarus turn down a request like that? “It won’t be easy; I get tired and worn-out too.”

“I’m committed you won’t find me lacking!” Cor exclaimed.

“Hear that Regis, the kid here wants to train with me, unlike a certain prince I know.”

“Shut up, not everyone is made to be a fighter. I’m more of a thinker.”

“Is that what you do during the meetings you go to? Think?” Cor questioned. “Cause your dad describes it differently; he said something about you needing to take your head out of--.”

“Enough!” Regis shouted. “How do you even know all of this? Do you hang out with my dad often?”

“Yeah, he’s overseeing my progress in the crownsguard program and comes to check on me. We talk about funny things. Actually, you come up pretty often.” Cor added with a smug look.

Regis merely shook his head and started walking away grumbling about disrespect. Clarus knew that Mors was a strict father, but he also knew he loved his son. The king wanted Regis to become a great leader one day. Smiling at the sight of his prince sulking away Clarus looked over to Cor once more. “So you only wanted to train with me? That’s the only reason you were trailing me?”

“Yeah, I mean it’d be cool if we could be friends too.”

Chuckling at the thought of little Cor Leonis driving Regis nuts at every turn was too good to be true. The prince needed to be put through his paces every once and a while, maybe this little kid had a bright future after all.

AO3 link

#ffxv #fanfic #clarus #regis #cor

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bbcmyhero · 5 years

Text

Car

Got a little free time, so I might as well get started on this one. Into the episode with the giant continuity error, because I distinctly remember them having a car before this episode. At least I’m about...95% sure they did.

Are weetabix anything like the mini-wheats cereal? Cuz, if so, I’d honestly like to get my mitts on some. Frosted mini-wheats have the best crunch, ever.

Also, I hate eating odd numbers of things. I maybe wouldn’t eat 20 giant wheat cracker things, but maybe...4?

Standing in the corner and howling is very #relatable. I get you, Arnie

Again with the fat jokes. Lovely.

No need to rub in Arnie’s lack of powers by doing an equipment test right then and there. George is worst cousin.

Still get a giggle out of that George and Ella interaction.

“No, don’t kiss me.”

“Thanks very much, Ella, I really appreciate that.”

I really think if left to their own devices, George and Stanley would get along. Even if they had to bond over not liking Ella.

Oh, the weird guy in the corner is friends with George? Not a shock.

There it is, the part about them not having a car. But, again, I coulda sworn they had one in an earlier episode.

Yeah, just checked. Janet’s getting groceries out of a car in the pilot episode.

Did they have to sell it?

OMG, George, stop talking. You look like the saddest gold-digger in the world. Mooching off someone as apparently broke as Janet.

“You make me ashamed of my sex!”

“Ella knows you try your best, Stanley.”

BRB, dying

Nice. Now there’s two howlers.

Poor Janet.

See, right there. Tyler does the same thing George does later, when he erases his own memory, while trying to remind himself not to talk about Thermoman. Like Tyler’s erasing his own memory.

Tyler is a transgender alien. Change my mind.

That poster of Piers is the definition of Cringe. But, also, yeah. No. The man is gorgeous, but I wouldn’t trust him to operate on anyone. No one should book a surgery with him.

But dear sweet fluffy LORD, this is precious!

The genuine smile. The jumping into the car like an excited kid.

The blue shirt.

Did he need to be a smug ass? No.

Do I enjoy seeing the precious actually happy? Yes.

Can’t say I blame Mrs Raven. Don’t want anyone in my face with the flu, either.

I get sick, I crumble like a jenga tower.

“There is no Mr Right. There’s only Mr Crap, Mr Tit, and their friend, Mr Total Tosser.”

Wisdom.

That is a beautiful tie.

And lookit Piers! For one brief moment, having none to give about anyone’s opinion.

Because he’s got a really flash car, and you haven’t.

“You needn’t worry, Mrs Raven. Janet says most germs are afraid of catching you.”

And Janet just...runs…

Again, howling in the corner is a totally normal reaction to having no money.

“I could clone myself, but we’d keep on fighting over who gets ya on a Saturday night.”

Retroactively disturbing line, considering Hilary the creeper clone.

WTF, George? Why did your mind jump straight to the idea that Janet was suggesting eating Arnie?

What the actual hell goes on up there on Ultron?

Aw, Janet and Arnie celebrating together. Another case of “could have been adorable friends.”

Except Arnie is a creep, so…

Yet again, Janet laughing at the weird alien custom.

Which, granted, does look like camp gay “I’m a little teapot,” but still. Rude.

Okay, I definitely see the fat Freddie Mercury resemblance.

Doesn’t mean I have to like the joke.

Also, frozen Janet is the stuff of nightmares. Is no one going to thaw her out?

I’m not 100% convinced Tyler isn’t hearing actual alien words in the radio static.

Poor thing. I know he meant “present life,” as in reincarnation, but I still think “faded memories of being Ultronian.”

This lady’s gold blouse is awesome.

But ew with Arnie looking through her clothes.

I know they immediately sniffed a disaster, but that alone should still have gotten him a warning. Considering his hero test question was about sexual harassment.

Piers has on a stupid hat. I love it.

It makes the boring shirt more attractive.

BUT! Dude bragging aside, bby, we all know you didn’t take any ladies for a “test drive.” Except in your own mind.

Bless. Janet and George are so happy about his four customers, but everyone else is completely unimpressed.

And the weirdest courting ritual in the world begins in 3

Mrs Raven gets bitchy, Arnie gets...a boner, apparently.

Insult. Insult. Hand lick. Both parties clearly need a cigarette.

I ship it.

And George basically just insulted Mrs Raven by saying it was fair how she hated everyone. And she just looks pleased as punch.

Bits of shipwreck all over the living room and helmets not in the helmet cupboard. You know your life is weird, when…

Um, no. Bad George. We don’t imply the little woman is a nag when she doesn’t want you trashing the house for her to clean up.

At least he cleaned up without complaining.

Oh, I love this part.

“She’s queen of here...YOU’VE STOLEN THE CROWN JEWELS!”

GDI, Arnie

And there went Janet’s morals completely out the window.

YOU’VE STOLEN THE CROWN JEWELS

But I want a car

Okay, theft is staying on the dl for now

Stanley doesn’t even blink at George wearing a crown. It’s just one more weird thing George does.

That was weirdly polite. “Oh, it’s you. You’ve come outta your corner.”

Like, nice to meet you, weird guy. What’s up.

Love that delayed reaction...oh. Wait. George is wearing a crown.

Oh, of course this weirdly similar crown isn’t part of the crown jewels.

Good thing George was so completely convinced of that, or Stanley probably wouldn’t have been.

Tyler still in the corner counting the oats. Apparently no one finds that a bit strange.

At least that guy behind him threw some side eye at calling George “master.”

Also, I would dearly love it if I could find a magical alien healer to fix everything that is fubared in my stupid body.

No more broken thyroid gland. No more kidney pain. No more stress puking.

Sounds fake.

Mrs Raven wanting the phone to ring, then getting annoyed when it does, is me bored outta my mind and wishing someone would text. Then resenting it.

Janet’s face says she really believes Mrs Raven would kill all the patients and bury them in the car park.

“Bye, baby, daddy’ll see you very soon.”

I react to this the same way I react to bearded Hugh swinging his belt on Taskmaster.

Incoherent whimpering and nail biting, mostly. At the calmer end.

Jesus!

Okay, I’m cool.

“I am always...we’ve got no patients.”

Blue! Shirt!

It’s not nice to say sexy things while wearing a blue shirt. Sir. Not fair.

I’m fine.

Piers just watching Arnie and Mrs Raven’s mating ritual like...wtf am I seeing here? And then just nodding, like, yeah, that was definitely the most disturbing flirting I’ve ever seen. I’m leaving before it gets worse….

Wait…

Is George curing my patients?

How very dare he? The nerve!

Mrs Raven’s little quick change with the stolen scarf. I think it has to be in the lost and found more than one week before you can claim it, ya know.

Bless him, I think Piers is going to cry. And back to caring what everyone thinks, again.

Another thing that was nice while it lasted.

Theft cat is out of the bag. But he’s right. That is one ugly necklace.

Even if all that stuff was just stolen and hidden in their flat that day, how did no one notice a bedroom full of corgis? They’d surely have started barking at some point.

Rule of funny.

George at least has more morals than Janet.

I mean, I know a car would be useful, but I can’t believe either of them trusted Arnie in the first place.

Howling sadly in the corner is contagious. Poor Janet. Nice going, George. Just couldn’t be a little more optimistic, could you?

Lovely problematic cinnamon roll in a blue shirt is at the door.

“You have all my patients, I want them back….Not that I like them, they just go with the job.”

I love him.

If looks could kill, I’d have murdered Janet and George ten times over by now.

Couldn’t just take the check and get yourselves any old car.

No.

I mean, someone hands me 8k, I’m not gonna be a greedy prick about it.

But, it’s the throat-clearing and the slumped shoulders that Piers has going on, while handing over his car keys. Like a little kid that just got conned out of his favorite toy.

And the fidgety hands.

God save me from this man’s little sad hand fidgets.

“Can we give you a lift?”

You ever see A Fish Called Wanda? The way whenever Otto crashes his car into someone else’s he always screams “asshoooooooooole!”

That’s me, rn.

I mean, I laughed the first time. But that was before...the incident. The moment that changed everything.

Also, flying the car over traffic isn’t very subtle and secret-identity.

Douchebags.

#my hero #george sunday #thermoman #ardal o hanlon #emily joyce #bbc's my hero #Piers Crispin #janet dawkins

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lore-a-lie · 6 years

Text

Chapter 2, Act 3: A Sonata by Moonlight

Daily Life

Kaede made her way through the gates of greed and lust, only to find Ryoma waiting at the top of the spiral staircase on the other side, candy cig in hand looking out at the two buildings before them as he looked over his shoulder to give her a nod.

“So, things getting any easier on you yet there boss?”

“With what, Angie? Not a chance, there’d be no point in trying to reason with her right now. And please don’t call me that, it’s weird.” Kaede replied, scratching her cheek a bit in embarrassment.

“Whatever you say. Time to get move on I take it?”

“Yeah, I’m not really sure what to be expecting though.”

“My best guess? Literal blackjack, minus the hookers." Ryoma began with a roll of his eyes and a shrug. "But barring that I know there are slots, a fishing game, some car racing, and color crusher type game. Pretty standard arcade stuff more than a genuine casino, they even use tokens instead of chips. They barely even look different from the monocoins.”

“Are casinos really so different? I only kinda know about them from western movies.”

“Yeah, I’d been to a few when I’d have competitions that’d take me overseas, so while this place definitely has the look of a casino down, and the slot machines do help, the lack of actual dealers makes it feel a lot different than how’d they work in America. Kinda weird how legal it was over there.”

“Sooo, you been to America often?” (Now’s my chance to find out more about his previous lady friend~)

“You know you’ve got a ways to go before you’ll be any good at being subtle. It’s kinda refreshing, with how guys like Kokichi can be, but your thoughts are an open book. Even your hair gives you away.” (Drat. But what does he mean my hair?... It’s the cowlick isn’t it? Stupid hair. I can never get it to behave right.)

His words rang true as Ryoma began to chuckle at the sight of Kaede’s not-so-inner dilemma. The wry smile didn’t leave his face as he slowed his pace at the fork in the road between the Kumasutra and their destination, causing her to match him until both came to a stop as he gave her a knowing look.

“Though before we head in, if a certain pink pianist has anything to do with a black and white bat-winged toy going missing in front of the fountain room, she might want to take a quick look near the entrance of the Love Hotel. Might find a similar prize wandering around in the bushes if she catches my drift.”

“W-what, why would I be picking up weird little Monokuma dolls? It’s not like there aren’t enough toys in the Monomachine, r-right?” (Damn, he’s onto me! But that’s a place I never thought to check before…)

“Right, of course there are. Must have been my imagination it just happened to disappear after you showed up... Or maybe someone else has been collecting them?” Ryoma’s words didn’t match the smug look on his face though, and it didn’t take long for Kaede’s attempt at indifference fell apart.

He paused for her to catch up as he watched her scamper down the right-hand path in search of another doll to join the two on her back and his chuckle broke into a full deep laugh. It didn’t take long for her to find it either, now that she had a proper hint.

AND HE’S SO CUUUTE! Lookit him with his little bellhop hat as he struts around, like he’s got himself a widdle job! … Ahem. I’ll… just put him in my bag with the others for now. And go thank Ryoma for this. Who is my new favorite person. Sorry, Kaito.

Kaede couldn’t wipe the stupid grin off her face as she made her way back, rambling her thank yous and giving half-hearted requests for him to keep from sharing her odd little hobby with the others. But all he could do was chuckle and nod as they made their way to where Kaito and the others were.

Kiyo was already in the exchange area, looking at the different bottles in the bar and upon noticing the two of them indicated everyone else were downstairs in the game room. Ryoma went on ahead to make sure Kaito wasn’t getting into too much trouble but Kaede took the time to look at the prizes she could try to save up for first.

Hmm, well the Crystal Bangle is nice but a lot of these look expensive, I wonder how hard it is to earn these medals. The Ladybug brooch is also pretty cute, Gonta might even like one as a gift sometime. A Travel Journal might be fun to look through and I could also probably find someone who’d like it when I’m done with it, like Kiyo sounds like he’s been to a bunch of places...

Tennis Balls are easy to have fun with when you’re bored but I could probably just borrow some from Ryoma’s lab rather than buy my own set. Don’t need any more Teddy Bears, even though it is pretty cute.

The Factory game could also be a fun little time killer, and the console’s design is nice. I think it’d be good to have something to take care of daily so the Banyan Tree could be a good investment, but what would I call them? Plants gotta have names-

Holy shit look at those Headphones! Oooh, those would be great to use with my lab’s CDs, they even look like they dampen sound if I just need some quiet time. But it’s a bit pricey... The Space Egg is pretty but I’d rather use that money for the headphones. Oh wow, look at that key!

Ugh, that’s even more expensive though! What does it mean “something good might happen if you keep it”? Gah, I wanna know~

“See something in particular that catches your interest?” Kaede jumped a bit as Kiyo’s voice interrupted her thoughts. (Ryoma really wasn’t kidding when he said I was like an open book huh? Maybe I should work on that. At least a certain someone’s bothering to “read” my feelings this time! Still mad at you.)

“Y-yeah, kinda. But the good stuff looks like it will take a lot of playing to save up for. Like those headphones. Or that mysterious “Key of Love”. Is that the only way to investigate the hotel area?”

“I highly suspect so but it doesn’t sound like you can really use if for “investigating”. Even with the key, you can’t unlock the doors before their “opening hours” and Monokuma indicated their use is rather limited in practice.” Kiyo said very matter of factly, despite this being the first Kaede ever heard of this.

“Huh? When did he ever talk about them before? You see him here earlier or something?”

“No, not at all, I already bought one the day before you see. Apparently, when you have one in your possession he sees fit to wake you at some unholy hour of the night to see if you might be interested in participating in an unusual scenario. How it was explained doesn’t particularly appeal to me though, so if you’d like it I’d be more than happy to give it to you.” (What?! But it’s so expensive! Why give it away?)

“A-are you really sure? I mean you must have spent a lot of time to buy it didn’t you? How bad is the “scenario” he offered you exactly?”

Despite her concerns, Kiyo had no issue with taking the decorated key out of his pocket, so Kaede gladly accepted the trinket dropped into her waiting hands. Seeing how confused she still was he explained.

“It’s hardly like any of our currency matters in this place, and it isn’t “bad” as much as it simply doesn’t interest me, intriguing as his offer was. You have no control who here may join you on your “visit” to the hotel, and whoever does will see the keyholder as some sort of “ideal” partner for their preferred sexual or romantic fantasy while the keyholder must act in accordance to this forced roleplay lest the other party feel terribly dejected. I’m not particularly fussy in regards to gender in cases like this so I don’t find the random element too distasteful, but it’s the lack of control the keyholder has that bothers me.”

“I see. And any purely romantic scenes might be kinda awkward the day after right? You said you took this sort of stuff rather seriously before, when you and Ryoma were talking about your past girlfriends.”

While her question was innocent enough Kiyo looked rather panicked by the mention of his previous partner. It took a moment to settle his wide-eyed staring, and lose the bit of hostility in the air, before he calmed down enough to respond. (Jeez, it’s like that time when I just asked him about if people had thought he had a siscon thing before. It’s pretty hard to not get nervous when he has freakouts like this.)

“Right. I… It has been awhile since Her passing but I’m not at all comfortable with that sort of intimacy. Particularly one that is forced for the sake of someone that should the scene play out right won’t keep many memories regarding the night previous. I’m unsure how that is meant to work, drugging perhaps? I wouldn’t put it past Monokuma or his kin.” (Yikes, why is that not the bigger deal breaker for you?!)

“M-maybe it’s more like a weird shared dream? That can happen right?” (And be maybe be less rape-y? Please?!)

“Perhaps, but then how would the partner be selected I wonder. Or the “dream” controlled. A most peculiar means to bear witness to a friend’s hidden desires. I can’t help but wonder what my own scene could contain. Nothing in regards to Her I’m sure, as that ideal would be too intricate to match to my satisfaction; I know Her too well to be fooled by a fake.” (It must still be hard to for him to accept she’s gone if he’s still using present tense for her like this. Though I wonder what mine would be like too.)

“So was she like a childhood friend of yours?”

“I… suppose you could say something like that. I do hope you enjoy whatever beauty your nighttime visit may reveal to you. You would let know if I was your visitor, wouldn’t you? Simply for curiosity’s sake of course.” It was clear he wanted to drop the subject as he teased her, which still got Kaede flustered at the implications.

Luckily for her, she wouldn’t need to respond to this as Kokichi came up the stairs with a childish pout.

“What are you two still doing up here? Come on you’re missing the good stuff! No more of your dilly-dallying, the prizes don’t even matter right now! This is supposed to be a good time together. Isn’t this what you wanted Kaede? Or does that only count for if it’s something Tenko invited you to?” Kokichi pointed at her accusingly as he complained. (Okay, yup he knew. At least he’s not actually mad about it.)

It was fairly obvious any annoyance he was feeling was fake, he even stereotypically crossed his arms as he humphed for emphasis, but his adamance that she come down certainly wasn’t. Seemed rather odd to her considering she should be the more optional person for his gambling crew than Kiyo was, seeing how Kokichi claimed this was meant to be a guy focused event and Kiyo was the one who invited her.

Rather than respond she rolled her eyes with a giggle as he took her by the hand tugging her down the stairs and half-heartedly encouraged Kiyo to follow them so they could see “just how much Kaito sucks at gambling” as he put it. The transition from the warm golds of the Casino’s main hall to the neon-lit blues of the game room down the stairs was odd as ever but she was beginning to see what he meant.

Maki was clearly trying, and failing by the looks of things, to encourage Kaito to stop playing the slots to at least try something less random as he must have been on some sort of losing streak. Regardless of his own luck she still managed to have a fairly large pile of tokens beside her, which was probably part of how Kaito could continue playing at all, while Ryoma was messing around with some of the other games. It looked more like he was investigating than playing though, and Kokichi caught that too.

Upon reaching the bottom he suggested that Kaito and Maki switch machines so the six of them could sort out what games would be played by who had the most “luck” at slots first. Everyone would get to pick a game in the order from who won the most to the least, and he even had a bunch of card games on him to give them a few more options “in case the arcade games here suck ass”. (Which probably means his choice really will be Blackjack just to be cute. Not that I know how to actually play Blackjack.)

Kaede wasn’t entirely sure how this “competition” was really working, as all she knew to do with these was pull the lever and leave everything to chance. If anyone asked her what any of the combinations on these machines meant she wouldn’t be able to tell them, but since she was getting more medals than she put in (and she put in as many as she could each time) she figured she wasn’t doing too badly.

That was more than Kaito could say as he quickly burned through the last allowance Maki gave him putting him dead last. Ryoma proved to be nearly the opposite not long afterward, as his machine started to practically sing as it spat out medals for him at a ridiculous looking rate. Kokichi wasn’t quite that good, but he also did fairly well.

According to his huffy attitude, Kiyo managed to do better though, and Maki gave up at some point to take jabs at Kaito so she was considered second to last while Kaede was considered third last. (Oh well, I never was all that lucky anyway. Not really unlucky either, but still this was fun.)

Kokichi was obviously very impressed by Ryoma’s skills and luck to do as well as he did which just earned some sore losers griping from Kaito much to Kaede’s amusement. She did try to muffle her giggles best she could, but that quickly became an impossible effort. Even Maki couldn’t wipe the sly smile off her face as a thought crossed her mind.

“It’s hardly either of their faults you happen to be the idiot who doesn’t know how to quit even if he does manage to get ahead.”

“Come on Maki Roll, stop calling me an idiot! It hurts my feelings ya know...”

“Then stop acting like one. There’s hardly anything smart about gambling in the first place. There’s a reason it’s illegal and I’m not going to bail you out if you get addicted to it.” Maki chastised him, and with her aura, Kaede could almost believe her false talent of child-caregiver wasn’t wholly misplaced.

“Hey now, you’re talking to Kaito, Luminary of Stars! No way I’d do something as uncool as get hooked, I can stop whenever I want! My instincts were just off today is all.”

“That’s not the best argument for your case my friend, and there’s more this than instincts and luck,” Ryoma said, as he stared at his coin pile at a loss for how he would actually carry any of his winnings.

“Luck’s just a superstition, it doesn’t really matter if you try hard enough!” Kaito exclaimed, though Kiyo only shook his head at that as he began his own ramblings.

“And how exactly do you believe you can “try” hard enough with slots of all things? Surely you must see that the other options here have some level of skill about them yes? And besides that, it’s hardly as much a superstition as you may believe-”

“How is it that after we got stuck in a school without any teachers we still managed to end up with a guy who’d end up giving us all lectures anyway? I didn’t wanna learn today…” Kokichi groaned.

“Kehehe, then why invite me of all people? My inclination towards education is hardly an unknown fact here. But back on topic, it’s odd someone who puts so much faith in the power of personal belief to try to denounce the power of superstitions. If you truly don’t believe in the supposed superstition their effects should hardly affect you, much like many practices in religions like Voodoo.” Kiyo continued after Kokichi’s interruption, though upon the mention of “Voodoo” Kaito looked rather ill again.

“The reason they last in the cultural consciousness as long as they do is but a testament to how many of its people still believe in them, rather than proof of any grains of truth to be found. This can get to the point idioms can exist in common usage for long after the meaning of their words have been lost to the people that use them in favor of the concept they are thought to represent. Humanity often puts a lot of faith in the power of words and the hopes that by using them to influence the hearts or minds of others that they can sway the powers of fate in any manner of ways. Luck is more often based on observation and personal perspectives, as what counts as “lucky” or “unlucky” is incredibly subjective and fickle.”

“Basically. Though confidence can change how something’s going to go too." Ryoma agreed. "You can’t expect to win a match if you go in thinking you’re going to lose. The mind’s a powerful thing, that’s why things like placebos can work at all. That’s why in sports it can get easy to develop personal patterns or pre-game rituals, you get to thinking if it worked well before it will again.”

“But luck isn’t a superstition because it’s only there if you want to see it and superstitions are more complicated than that? Ugh, this stuff is confusing! Let’s just have some fun with the games! It’s Ryoma’s pick, right? So shoot.” Kaede suggested in hopes of finding something to lighten Kaito’s mood.

As Ryoma also saw the problem he offered to play the 1-on-1 mode in Outlaw Run against him, while at Kiyo’s request Kokichi finally got his game of blackjack. Implicitly under the threat that Maki would throttle him if he tried using the joke that started all this again. Maki turned out to be pretty good at it while Kiyo didn’t fare as well. As Kokichi was willing to share the rules to it as they went along Kaede at least got the hang of it before they moved onto the other arcade options.

It was a nice night overall as they fell into idle chattering, seeing how much they could win. Kaede quit after she earned enough for her headphones though, but she stayed with the others after trading for her desired spoils just to enjoy this atmosphere for a little longer.

When Kaito called it a night Ryoma left with him, with some light-hearted bantering with Kokichi as the latter tried to give him a “Death Flag” under the pretense of it being like a Jolly Rodger dissolving into a brief debate about space pirates.

As Maki left some time afterward, apparently having gotten herself the Space Egg Kaede noticed before, Kaede went with her so neither girl would be wandering around on their own at night. (What can I say, some instincts are hard to break. And it’s not like they’re really out of line in this place now are they?)

The walk back was fairly quiet, as Kaede didn’t really know what to say and Maki wasn’t often one for conversation, but it was a pleasant silence between the unlikely pair. A far cry from how tense things could be around the revealed assassin before, which in itself was a hopeful sign of progress.

But not one that was able to last, as Kaede began to hear arguing coming from behind the doors to their dorms. Kaito’s voice first as his was louder and deeper, and given how things have been going the second was likely Angie’s.

Kaede sent a nervous look to Maki, to see if she should go first to make sure things wouldn’t be too hostile to her friend, but Maki paid no heed to it and opened the doors herself. Kaito and Ryoma still hadn’t gone to their rooms yet and Angie, Tenko, and Tsumugi were standing near the opposite wall.

“So what if we were out a bit late? There ain’t any official curfews and we’re more likely to wake someone up by talkin’ here than we would have if you let us be. You’re all overreacting, back off.” Kaito complained.

“Official curfews? Maybe, maybe not, but there will be one for us all starting today." Angie said. "Atua thinks the next murder would most likely happen at night, like Himiko’s did before, and as such the student council will be responsible for making sure everyone else is safe in their rooms when nighttime comes from now on.”

“And let me guess, for you guys to “enforce” it this rule won’t be actually applying to any of you does it? So this would only be keeping half of everyone here inside. Not sure how that would prevent anything.” Ryoma said, being one of the few keeping his volume lower than normal for the sake of those sleeping.

“Of course it would when that half doesn’t include anyone we know has a penchant for violence!” Tenko barked, placing herself between Kaito and Angie.

“Seriously, this again?! And that’s bullshit, you’re the one here most prone to throwing us guys around! Not to mention Kirumi’s outburst. Ryoma and Maki haven’t threatened anyone, not even when she had her video freak her out back then… Well okay, she says scary stuff sometimes, but she doesn’t mean it!”

Kaito was clearly making the effort to keep his voice down, but with his personality, it was hard to keep his enthusiasm from causing his voice to raise. But at least no doors opened to see what the ruckus was.

“I don’t need anyone defending me here, Kaito, so stop it. But I agree with Ryoma. Even if your Atua isn’t a lie with so many people still being allowed out during this danger period the odds haven’t really changed. You’ve just limited the potential murderers and victims to put your own people at the greatest risk.”

“Fine, fine~" Angie sighed. "Then I’ll ask Monophanie if she and Monodam will do the rounds for us with their Exisals tomorrow night, okay? Since she’s sleeping like Atua is right now and I don’t know where he would be.”

“What the fuck?! You’ve got to be kidding, you can’t seriously be trusting these clowns! Basic wilderness survival tip: Never. Trust. A. Bear. With absolutely anything! EVER.” (Exactly! And that reminds me-)

“So, should I ask Monodam to reopen the manhole cover while we’re taking the risk of asking them for favors? I saw what you guys did earlier, this isn’t something you should be deciding for everyone alone.”

“THEY DID WHAT-” Kaito stopped himself mid-yell as he remembered himself and tried again. “You guys did what? That’s going way too far-”

“Come on, let’s all just go to bed okay? It’ll just plain bother everyone if we wake them up like this. Why don’t we talk about things tomorrow after we’ve all had some rest and time to think?” Tsumugi offered to try and settle things down, as she began nervously looking at the rooms around them.

“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea too. This needs to be discussed with everyone, we won’t accomplish anything here otherwise.” Kaito gave Kaede a worried look but backed down at her request. They didn’t say anything of where the other council members were or when Kokichi and Kiyo would be coming back.

Kaede thinks she heard their footsteps signaling their return a short time later as she was trying to sleep, as neither set sounded as heavy as Gonta or Kibo (despite the latter’s small stature) and both lacked the gentle clicks of Kirumi’s heels so she assumed the other members had already gone to bed.

But that wasn’t her only interruption as she heard a squeaky set of knocking at her door. She ignored the first few sets of rapping, but after the fifth set of three squeaks she gave in and found Monodam on the other side wearing a sleeping cap and a blankie. (What the actual hell, didn’t I see enough of you today?)

“Err… Hello. I’m-Sorry-If-I-Woke-You-Up-But-I-Heard-You-Have-An-Item-You-Could-Use. I-Thought-This-Would-Be-A-More-"Polite”-Way-To-Ask-You-About-It. May-I-Come-In?” (... Is this about the Love Key?)

He took her moving to the side as permission and puttered his way in like a sleepy toddler, giving Kaede’s collection of dolls an odd glance as he took a seat on the couch, patting at the seat beside him. With a sigh she humored him, and he began to explain while swinging his feet from side to side.

“This-Is-My-First-Time-Doing-This, Normally-Father-Didn’t-Let-Us-Help-Since-It’s-Past-Our-Bedtimes. But-Monosuke-Didn’t-Want-To-And-Monophanie’s-In-Angie’s-Room-So-It’s-My-Job-Now. So… Do-You- Have-Any-Ideas-On-How-This-Works? We-Know-You-Didn’t-Buy-It, Only-Kibo-And-Kiyo-Have-Bought- Them-So-Far-And-Only-Kibo-Used-His.” (Woah, what? KIBO??? Not like… Miu or Angie or something?)

“I, Uh… Kiyo gave me the general idea of it sure. If I go I’ll meet up with one of my friends at random and play out some sort of “scene” with them. That’ll… Probably be suggestive. But they won’t remember anything about what happens in there if I go.”

“Correct! Except-It’s-Not-Actually-Random, We-Choose-Who-Goes-With-You. We-Try-To-Make-It-With- Someone-We-Think-Makes-A-Good-“Ship”-With-You. Monophanie-Got-Really-Into-That-Part, She-Has- Charts-For-You-All-And-Everything-Now! We-Think-Father-Went-According-To-Popular-Demand-Too. Do-You-Want-To-Use-It-Tonight?” (“Popular demand”? According to what? Or who? What even is this?!)

“... That depends, can I just tell you who I’d like to meet? Or ask who you have in mind?”

“It’s-Not-Fair-For-You-To-Pick! Even-If-Kibo-Would-Have-Picked-Miu-On-His-Own, Father-Still-Didn’t-Let- Him-Choose. But-According-To-Monophanie’s-Charts… I-Think-Kaito-Had-More-“Ship-Tease”-With-You-Today-Than-Kokichi-Or-Kiyo. But-Which-Of-Those-Three-Is-Still-Up-To-Me.”

NOOOPE. NOT HAPPENING. Either Maki kills me or I’ll wish she did. No matter how nice Kaito is I’m not doing that to her. And heaven forbid I get either of those other two, definitely not interested. I don’t want to think about that stuff with Miu, but if Kibo didn’t forget… That might explain some things. But it’s just too sad to consider right now.

“Yeeeah I think I’ll pass.” (Potential for embarrassment and self-preservation beats curiosity this time.)

“Oh. That’s-A-Shame, We-Don’t-Really-Know-How-This-Works-Yet. Sorry-Shuichi-And-Rantaro-Aren’t- Here, They-Were-Monophanie’s-First-Picks-For-You. And-Kokichi’s-Too, Which-Was-Kinda-Weird-To-Me. Maybe-Things-Will-Be-Different-Tomorrow-Night.” (I… I’ll just forget I heard that. For multiple reasons.)

“Do… Do you even understand what a “love hotel” is ?”

“Of-Course! It-Is-A-Place-Where-Things-Like-Father’s-Videos-Happen. The-Ones-With-The-Delivery-Men- And-Women-Who-Keep-Ordering-Things-Without-A-Means-To-Pay-For-Them. I-Don’t-Understand-Why- They-Keep-Doing-It-Though, And-Monokid-Would-Always-Kick-Me-Out-Before-The-Payment-Issue-Was- Resolved-So-I-Don’t… Miss-Kaede-Why-Are-You-Holding-Your-Face-Like-That? Did-Your-Eyes-Fall-Out?”

“No, it’s fine. I’m not sure what I should have expected here really.”

“Okay. It’s-Fine-If-They-Did-Though, It-Happens-To-The-Best-Of-Us! But-With-That-Question-Answered- I-Have-Another-Thing-To-Ask…” Monodam got a bit nervous so Kaede nodded for him to continue. “Is- It-Okay-For-Me-To-Stay-Here-Tonight? Monosuke-Says-He’ll-Do-The-Announcements-By-Himself-Now- When-He-Kicked-Me-And-Monophanie-Out-And-Angie-Said-It-Was-Okay-For-Her-To-Stay-With-Her. So- I-Thought-I’d-Ask-Is-All...” (Good grief, seriously? Why me? I can’t go kicking a kid out this late, even if he’s a cub. That’d just be fucked up. So is a bunch of childish robotic-teddy-bears kidnapping us, but still.)

“Fine, You can stay. Just for tonight, I’d rather you not get in the habit of this. Hopefully, you can work things out with your family tomorrow or something.”

He wasn’t really listening as he just gave her side an awkward hug. But any moment had was quickly lost.

“Thank-You. I-Also-Hope-This-Will-Just-Be-For-The-Night. Your-Collection-Of-Tiny-Not-Fathers-Is-Rather- Disturbing-To-Me. Shuichi’s-Room-Has-Shelves-For-Those-If-You’d-Like? So-You-Can-Get-Them-Off-The- Bed-So-You-Can-Sleep-Better-”

“But they’re teddy bears, why shouldn’t they be on my bed with me? Who keeps plushies on a shelf?!”

“... Miss-Kaede-You’re-Worrying-Me. Why-Do-You- Like -The-Not-Fathers? How-Do-You-Fit-In-That-Mess- Anyway? Are-You-Okay? Is-This-A-Cry-For-Help-”

“Do you want me to kick you out? And why did I become a “miss” instead of a “bastard” if you’re going to keep being rude about how I keep my own room?”

“No-Miss-Kaede, I-Will-Stop-Questioning-Your-Creepy-Not-Father-Pile. Monophanie-Said-Angie-Told- Her-That-If-We-Want-To-Be-Friends-Calling-You-Bastards-“Bastards”-Is-Bad. Am-I-Doing-Okay?” (NO.)

“Well, uhh, that’s good progress for you? “Miss” is much more respectful. So just… Keep working on it.”

“... Is-It-Complaining-If-I-Ask-To-Use-A-Different-Bed? Like-This-Chair? It-Is-Comfy-And-I-Fit-Well.” It was pretty clear he just wanted to be as far away from her Mini-kumas as possible, further helped by the chair facing away from it. Being a rather bouncy seat for him was just another plus he was enjoying.

“Sure, just give me a minute.” Kaede went through some of the Monomachine prizes she had to find something to help make a better bed. (A rude uninvited guest is no excuse to be a poor hostess, right?)

As she came back and gestured for him to get down so she could make his bed she realized the blank stare he kept giving the toys on her bed was probably his best attempt at a glare. With a chuckle, she laid down a wearable blanket as a little nest and added her Helping Yachi for some company, which he appreciated as he snuggled into place with another set of “thank yous”. It was almost cute, all things considered. (Ignoring how he’s a murderous little brat only here ‘cause no one else can stand him.)

Nothing else came up as she tried to go to sleep again at least. Not even her previously racing thoughts about the current motive’s potential dangers or unpleasant memories of the days previous, as she chose to focus on her unwanted roommate’s odd sounding snoring to help ease her into slumber at long last.

First Chapter Previous Chapter Index AO3 Version Next Chapter

#New Danganronpa V3 #ndrv3 #ndrv3 spoilers #drv3 #drv3 spoilers #drv3 fanfiction #fanfic #multi chapter #kaede akamatsu #ryoma hoshi #korekiyo shinguji #kokichi ouma #kaito momota #maki harukawa #angie yonaga #tenko chabashira #tsumugi shirogane #monodam #monophanie

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odderancyart · 7 years

Text

The Cherry Chronicles pt. 4

(I renamed it. Earlier it was only called Cherry. For explanation why, check out AO3)

First Chapter 3 Next

AO3

Warnings: past abuse, alcohol, PTSD

Summary: Another Sans appears in Underfell. The only problem, except getting him home, is that this one’s showing signs of abuse, and is terrified of Papyrus.

Papyrus frowned as he carried the unconscious Sanses toward their house. The few monsters still outside at this time of night immediately scuttled out of his way as he marched by. He knew he was made for an intimidating picture, even if he wasn’t wearing his battle body now. One single, dangerous scar, instead of the thousands of smaller scars lesser monsters had. High heeled boots, designed specifically to work as a weapon, clothed completely in leather – which wasn’t easy or cheap to come by, and that he wore so much of it witnessed of his power – and scarf swinging in the wind behind him. He didn’t really need to dress to impress in Snowdin, but he had always enjoyed doing so, ever since he was a babybones. The two smaller skeletons in his arms might’ve made the picture a bit less scary, but not remarkably so.

He didn’t show it, but Papyrus felt quite uneasy. Cherry’s actions at the bar was highly worrying. How the other had begged him not to hurt him, and showed such submission, before passing out. So different from his own brother. Sans would never show that kind of weakness. Sans didn’t show fear for anybody. He had literally laughed in the king’s face more than once. Had it been anyone else, they would have been executed immediately. Luckily enough, King Asgore seemed to have something of a soft spot, or at least a lack of caring, for his brother. And, Papyrus guessed, as the Royal Judge and Spymaster Sans had to be able to say what he truly thought to His Majesty, or he wouldn’t be to much use.

He growled and let his eyelights flash dangerously at one of the bunnies who was on her way to Grillby’s. She didn’t get out of the way quick enough, making him slow down. The bunny, Molly, squeaked in fear and quickly jumped away, mumbling a “Sorry, Lieutenant” as she left.

When they reached home, Papyrus had to put down Cherry to be able to open the door’s three locks. The risk that anyone would break in was slim, but one couldn’t ever be too cautious.

Just as he had opened the last lock, Cherry began to stir. He opened his eye sockets, and was shivering in the cold. He blinked a couple times before his eyelights became focused, staring at Papyrus. The gaze was unnerving, almost completely blank. Then, without warning, the eyelights magnified, and shuddered. Cherry began to shake, quickly averting his gaze from the taller. Instead he looked around, his shaking getting worse as he realized that he was sitting on the porch.

“p-please,” was the first thing he said once he had collected himself enough to speak. It was more of a gasp than a word. “d-d-don’t l-l-leave me o-out he-here a-again. th’ dogs’ll… they’ll… not a-a-again, please Boss, i'm sorry, p-please let me i-in. i’m s-sorry.”

Papyrus stared at him in shock.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” he asked, making Cherry flinch violently. “OBVIOUSLY I WON’T LEAVE YOU OUTSIDE. IT’S THE MIDDLE OF THE WINTER. YOU’D FREEZE TO DEATH, IF SOMEONE DIDN’T DUST YOU FIRST.”

“t-t-thank y-y-you, B-Boss.”

Papyrus opened the unlocked door, and made a move to pick the other up again. With how Cherry’s eyelights nervously traced his hand, he thought better about it, though. Instead he simply swept out with his hand, silently telling the other to get inside. With a grateful, worried smile Cherry didn’t even stand up. He just crawled in on all four.

Papyrus stared after him until the other had curled into a small ball on the floor, watching him. He then checked that Sans was still asleep, and went inside himself.

Sans woke up with a headache. That was normal. Nights spent at Grillby’s almost always gave him a hangover of some kind. Only a headache was a mild punishment for his drinking-habit. He rolled out of bed, and stood up. He swung slightly, it took a while to find his balance. Sans yawned. Checked the clock. 11:00. Quite early then. For him, at least. Boss would disagree. Sans was starving.

As he already was dressed – Boss had given up at undressing him before putting him to bed when he was drunk – he only shrugged his jacket on before making his way out of his room. He was in an oddly good mood, and it felt great. He grinned as he stepped out of his room. He and Cherry had the house for themselves now. Boss was always at work by now. Cue napping and punning all day.

Now when he thought about it, had Cherry told a single pun? He had laughed at Sans’, but… had he come with any of his own? Sans couldn’t remember it, if he had.

As he reached the stairs and looked down, he froze.

Downstairs, Boss was sitting in one of the armchairs, head in his hands. Doomfanger was lying in his lap, purring loudly in what looked like a try to comfort him. Why wasn’t he at his job? Cherry was on the floor, fast asleep. And bound. His hands were tied together, and so were his legs. What. The hell? Sans shortcutted down, standing in front of his brother. Papyrus looked up as he appeared. He looked so infinitely distressed, it hurt Sans’ soul.

“hey, hey, boss?” He immediately forgot whatever he had been planning on saying. He needed to comfort his bro. “what’s wrong?”

Papyrus looked like he had been sitting here all night. Sure, he didn’t actually need sleep, but it still wasn’t good for him.

“He’s scared of me,” Boss whispered. “Yesterday. He was so sure I was going to hurt him, begged me not to beat him. Called himself disgusting. He became terrified when I was about to touch him. He begged me not to leave him on the porch. In the middle of a winter’s night.”

Sans stared at his brother in shock. What? Why would Cherry… stars. No wonders Papyrus was so upset. Neither of them minded people fearing them. Hell, most of the time they loved it. Fear was delicious, and safe, and empowering. Nevertheless, seeing how Cherry was another version of him, it was a disturbing thought. He tried to imagine a Papyrus acting that way. It was impossible.

“I had to tie him up,” his brother continued, voice slightly shaky. “He wouldn’t stop scratching himself. There was marrow. And when I tried to put him on the couch he had a panic attack. That’s why he’s on the floor. But the scariest part is that even when panicked, he obeyed everything I said.”

“there’s somethin’ seriously fuckin’ wrong with his ‘verse,” was all Sans could say.

Boss only nodded in reply.

Cherry woke up slowly. His head was spinning slightly. Right. He had spent the night at Grillby’s with the native Sans of this universe. He tried to move, and felt his arms and legs being restrained. He let out a sigh, slightly relieved. The familiarity of being tied up was comforting. The last two days had been so weird. No beatings, no degrading words. He had gotten food, sleep, and even jokes. He wasn’t complaining exactly. It was kind of nice. Still. It was so weird, and he was even more at tenterhooks than before. Just waiting for the coin to drop and Boss to punish him for being so weak, such a disappointment. It was really taking a toll on him.

He heard voices, one of them belonging to him, and what sounded like his new nickname. As soon as he moved, though, they stopped. Cherry slowly opened his eye sockets, only to see his doppelgänger and Boss staring at him. They almost looked worried, which was a laughable thought. Or well, Sans he could possibly see. They were the same monster after all, it was natural to be worried about yourself. But that Boss would be worried about a pathetic disgrace like him was ridiculous.

“mornin’,” Sans eventually said. “didya… sleep well?” He sounded unsure, eying Cherry’s tied up limbs. He shrugged as well as he could. It had been decent. No nightmares at least, he had been too out of it to dream. “that’s… good.”

“MIND EXPLAINING WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY?” Boss asked, an odd look on his face. Cherry wasn’t sure what that was, he hadn’t seen his Boss in other moods than angry, smug and amused for more years than he bothered to remember. Well, there was the time when he got promoted to lieutenant by the King himself. That time there had been pride. Cherry had long since lost the ability to know what his Boss was thinking.

Cherry frowned worriedly. He didn’t know what there was to explain. What did Boss mean? What if he gave the wrong answer? Boss always had a certain answer in mind when he asked him things, and if he gave the wrong answer it never ended well. It was usually ‘yes Boss’ or ‘as ya wish, Boss”, which was easy enough, but to questions like this that didn’t really suffice.

“w-w-well,” he stuttered. “i – we – w-w-were b-bein’ disobedient. w-we weren’t allowed ta go ta grillbz’s. a-and not ta g-get d-drunk.”

Wait. He wanted an explanation, not a resumé. Cherry was so stupid.

“w-w-we worked at th’ machine, and t-then g-got tired, so w-we thought we’d t-take a pause, a-and forgot th’ time.”

“THAT’S… NOT WHAT I MEANT,” Boss blinked, and stared at him. Cherry could hardly stop himself from trembling.

The cat from earlier – Doomfanger, if he remembered right – suddenly stood up, and jumped of Boss’ lap. It was a weird sight to see anything trust Boss enough to be that close to him. Especially something that small and helpless. When they were babybones it could’ve happened, but then their world got to him. Papy became Boss, and they survived thanks to it. Cherry was too weak to protect his baby brother, after all, so Boss had to protect them both instead.

The cat walked over to him, climbing on top of his stomach, and lied down. Purrs shook his entire body. It was weird. Cherry froze, prepared for the thing to sink its claws into him. When it never came he couldn’t stop himself from relaxing. The warmth and purring was oddly calming.

“ey, lookit, boss. doomfanger likes ‘im,” Sans commented, sounding amused. “good job, cher.” Cherry almost twitched at the nickname of his nickname. “took me months.”

“THAT WAS ENTIRELY YOUR OWN FAULT, BROTHER,” Boss pointed out, sounding slightly annoyed. That was another thing. Cherry hadn’t heard Boss sound more than annoyed during the two entire days he had spent here. No anger. “IT WOULD HAVE GONE QUICKER IF YOU HADN’T GONE OUT OF YOUR WAY TO DISLIKE HIM YOURSELF.”

“heh. ya got me.”

Suddenly Sans’ face turned serious again, and he stared straight at Cherry before walking up to him. He began to untie him. As soon as he was free from the ropes Cherry began to rub his wrists. The ropes had been unusually, and unnervingly, loose, but they had still rubbed at his bones uncomfortably. Doomfanger jumped down on the floor, which allowed him to it up instead. The cat began to rub himself against his leg, and Cherry tentatively petted him. He threw glances in Boss’ direction to make sure he didn’t mind, and got a little bolder once Boss almost looked… pleased. There was still that odd expression on his face, though.

The next words Sans’ uttered made cold spread in Cherry’s bones. Those words had never, not once, meant something good.

“i think ya owe us an explanation, buddy.”

An hour later, the three skeletons sat in the living room again. Sans and Papyrus on the couch, Cherry on the floor. He had seemed so nervous at sitting in the couch or an armchair that they’d given up and allowed him there.

Papyrus had insisted they’d eat breakfast before having this talk. Said everything seemed a little lighter when you weren’t half-starved. Especially seeing how two of them were more or less hungover. Heh. Sans chuckled to himself. His brother was such a sweetheart sometimes.

Breakfast had been an uncomfortable event. Cherry had kept glancing at Boss like he thought the food would be taken from him at any moment, devouring it quicker than a street urchin would. The brothers, on the other hand, had been too bothered with what they knew and almost-suspected to bother trying to ease the mood. At least what Papyrus almost-suspected. Sans refused to believe it. There was no way that any world had made his brother into what it seemed like. Impossible. Papyrus’ kindness was one of the constants in his life, that hadn’t changed no matter what happened or how much LV he gained. His brother wasn’t often nice, but he was so heartbreakingly good. He quickly dismissed the idea that anything could change that.

Cherry nervously toyed with the hood strings as he waited for them to say anything. Finally, Papyrus spoke up.

“NOW,” he said, sounding determined. “I WANT TO KNOW WHAT EXACTLY IS GOING ON WITH YOU AND YOUR BROTHER.”

#i decided that i've posted too little actual stories #lately #because i've been bad at ideas the past days #so have chapter 4 #even though i only was planning on posting the links now #cherry #the cherry chronicles #cherry pt. 4 #underfell #undertale #uf sans #uf papyrus #abuse #alcohol #ptsd #multiverse #undertale multiverse #universe hopping #my writing

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forestwater87 · 7 years

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CULT CAMP MASTERPOST PT 3: DAVID DAVID DAVID DAVID DAAAAAVVIIIIIDDDDD

I’m sick and in pain. I cannot hold a conversation, work on my writing, or even watch TV. But you know what I can do?

Scream. Scream and scream and screeeeaaaaaam. We shall put the cicadas to shame on this fine June evening.

Again, as with the previous posts, there will be spoilers for season 2 ep 1. They’re under the cut. You know the drill.

Join me as I shriek incoherently into the void, mmkay?

David’s (bro?)crush on Daniel, guys. Max has no patience for it, but it’s my favorite thing in the entire world right now.

You know what? I thought this was funny. I know Dolph is one of the least popular characters, but he’s never bothered me much and look at his little cute face. Also look at Neil’s little cute face. There are lots of little cute faces here.

I just adore these kids, and they’re especially entertaining when terrified. More traumatized children!

The fact that QM is the only one (besides David) not to get brainwashed makes me bizarrely happy. Not very helpful in a crisis, though.

He also has the best line of the episode. I will not be argued with on this one.

Can we just appreciate the way the sky gets redder as Daniel ups the creepy factor?

“I’ve had it up to here” -- literally Max’s height. David has exactly Max amount of patience (yes, it’s a unit of measurement now) and it’s all used up today.

You know how I kept saying this post would be full of David faces? And how the previous parts of this bad boy failed to deliver? That’s because they were being saved for now. This post is just ass-full of David, because all of his best faces were kept in the ass end of the episode:

His little eyebrows! They’re so delightfully expressive.

Poor Max. This is why he avoided caring so much in the first season: look where it gets him.

(Real-world advice, btw: Don’t be David. “Don’t be David” is just a good motto to live by in general, but especially in this kind of situation, err on the side of listening to the children. They’re vulnerable and the only thing they can do is turn to you.)

Don’t be David. Don’t make the sad little boy’s face look like this.

The moment when Max decides he is done with your shit.

Can we just talk for a moment about how awesome these two are? They have the best expressions in the show and they come out the most when interacting with each other.

Also can we talk about the weird Hazmat shit in the background?

I’d once again like to direct everyone’s attention to David’s face. Ahem:

Lookit his sad little mouth! He has such a purdy mouth Okay that sounded much less prison-shower-y in my head. Moving on.

David lying to himself that everything is fine: the best. The worst, I mean, because it makes me wanna cry forever, but also the best. (I’m really sick, okay? It’s hard to come up with comments when I’m sick.)

This sad little sunshine boy. Max keeps insisting on breaking him and I hate it so much. That being said, Max’s face in that last picture is perfect.

Below is a collection of faces that will be accompanied by no commentary, because I have nothing to say. If you’d like, just scroll through these while screaming “DAAAAAAVVEEEYYYYYY” over and over again at the top of your lungs. That’ll really give you the full Forestwater Experience.

Interrupting to point out that he’s so shocked! Like it isn’t his own imagination. David, get ahold of yourself you dork.

Anyway, back to shrieking: DAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAVVVVVVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

EEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!

Better? Good. Get ready for yet more David:

Hey, did you know David can do an excellent impersonation of Beeker from the Muppets?

Uncanny.

This man is the physical embodiment of the word “bunny.” He is fluffy and bouncy and soft and I want to protect him.

FEAR THE ANGRY BUNNY

ANGRY BUNNY WILL FUCK YOU UP

(Also let’s be real: everyone assumed David would beat Daniel to death with the guitar, right?)

But instead we got FURIOUS ACOUSTIC GUITAR PLAYING. IT IS MOST INTENSE!

He’s so smug! Look at his proud little smile and swoon.

Also David's diss tracks are entirely compliments. We know you’re an asshole, just own it!

There are no words. Just screams.

(I have now taken meds for my cold, which means the following comments are a little less illness-impaired and a lot more drugged. You will probably notice no change.)

Remember when I said we’d see how awesome the animation is later in the episode? We’re there. Look at how awesome this is. It’s like . . . shading and stuff. I don’t know how art works, but it’s cool.

“You’ve sung my praise but not your own / and well, I think that’s pretty telling”

Look at how he shrinks in on himself at that line, how he hunches his shoulders and looks away.

LOOK AT IT AND SCREAM WITH ME, MY CICADAS.

This animation is good. This is good good animation.

IT’S SO DRAMATIC AND BEAUTIFUL!

David’s Fighting Stance. With his I Really Don’t Enjoy Fighting and Would Prefer We Talk This Out (and Hug) Eyebrows.

Every time I put another picture in here, the post zooms up to the top and makes me scroll all the way back down, like it’s asking “are you sure you wanna keep making this thing longer? Look at how long this is and really think about what you’re doing. Is this what your life has become, Forest?”

The answer is yes.

I regret nothing.

Anyway, the evil has been vanquished, I’m basically out of David faces, and everyone looks excited.

Also how did Max’s hair get like that? Who ruffled the Max?

But we’re not done, because GUESS WHO’S BACK, BITCHES?!

YAYYYYYYYYY! I missed her!

“DAVID, FIRE THAT FUCKING WEIRDO! :D”

Her words and facial expressions never match and it’s my favorite thing about her.

Chipper Gwen is everything that is good and pure in this universe, and I’m glad the episode decided to remind us of that at the last minute.

And that’s episode 1! Will I do this for every single one? Probably! Is that a good idea? Absolutely not! Play us out, kids!

#campcamp #campcamp season 2 #cc david #cc gwen #cc daniel #cc max #this is really just me cataloging my mental breakdown in the form of screenshots #sorry about it

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askblackleg-sanji · 7 years

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Rules: Answer the questions and tag 20 followers jfc i’m not tagging 20 ppl that’s cray

Tagged by: @askshanknow & @treasuregal21 >//w//> N-Nami-swannnnn!!!~ <3

Gender: gurl

Star Sign: GEMINI aww yis

Height: 5ft 1.5in

Sexual Orientation: Straight

Hogwarts House: HUFFLEPUFF ye (DO I HAVE ANY FELLOW BADGERS OUT THERE?????)

Favorite Color: I flop between Red/Blue depending on my mood, I also really like Cyan/Teal

Favorite Animal: River Otters, Tigers, Sharks

Cat or Dog Person: Siberian Huskies

Favorite Fictional Characters: Sanji, Zoro, Robin, Pell, Sun Ce, Flynn Rider

Sanji: he’s a stupid dork

Zoro: also a stupid dork

Robin: OKAY LEMME JUST TELL YOU HOW I FEEL ABOUT THIS WOMAN OK. SHE IS LIKE MY QUEEN IN ONE PIECE. LOOKIT HER BEAUTY AND GRACE AND ELEGANCE. I DON’T CARE IF PPL SAY THEY SCREWED HER UP POST TIMESKIP, I STILL LOVE HER TO BITS AND I WILL FITE YOU. I DON’T SHOW MY LOVE FOR HER ENOUGH BECAUSE I WASTE ALL MY ENERGY SPAZZING OVER THE TWO DORKS I MENTIONED EARLIER INSTEAD. MAMA ROBIN MUST BE LOVED AND PROTECTED. I LOVE HER LOTS.

Pell: OKAY LEMME JUST YELL ABOUT THIS GUY OVER HERE AS WELL OK. LIKE ROBIN I DON’T SHOW MY LOVE FOR HIM ENOUGH BECAUSE I WASTE ALL MY ENERGY SPAZZING OVER THE TWO IDIOTS I MENTIONED EARLIER. BUT I ALSO CAN’T REALLY DO MUCH BECAUSE THERE’S NO NEW CONTENT FOR HIM AND JUST WOW I LOVE HIM A LOT OK. PELL WAS MY FIRST ABSOLUTE FAV CHARACTER IN ONE PIECE. THIS MAN IS LIKE THE BIG BRO I’VE ALWAYS WANTED. HE CAN FKING FLY HOW FREAKING COOL IS THAT. AND HOLY SHIT THAT BOMB SCENE I REALLY THOUGHT HE DIED I WAS SO SAD BUT HE CAME BACK THANK ODA BUT Y U DO DIS TO ME #sorryacefans #mycondolences

(Okay I went a little cray on Robin and Pell, but I really love them ;w; Baroque Works Saga is also one of my favs in the series so yeh.)

Sun Ce (Dynasty Warriors): charismatic leader, Big bro I wished I had, jfc I’ll never get over his death, Wu fam 4 lyfe, Big Tiger bro bro, also his goatee yus.

Flynn Rider: Disney’s evil scheme of making him into an attractive guy character worked for me and just //flips table. Probably the only Disney prince I spazz over lmao. Your reluctant hero, he’s so smug all the time that I want to punch him but is an actual softy. I love his playful, carefree attitude. I also just really like Tangled ok. yeah. Let a girl like her Disney princess movie.

Dream Trip: (Not exactly a trip... more like places I’d like to visit) Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, (revisit) Hawaii

Dream Job: Being a Graphic Artist for an animation studio (//cough Pixar) but I also wouldn’t complain if I spend the rest of my life in my field doing Graphic Design work (I like both, idk what to choose at the moment)

When was this Blog made: Feb 2012 (aheh)

Number of Followers: More than I can ask for, every single one of you are cool and kind hooman beans for sticking around <3

What made you decide to create this blog: I originally ran another ask blog for a character from a different fandom and enjoyed the experience. I jumped into the OP fandom through this blog without thinking and was lucky that during the period I started there was no active Sanji lurking around haha. I was also very lucky @ask-zoro was there to interact with which motivated me to stick around for longer kekeke.

#ooc #sorry for screaming #about robin and pell lmao #i'm trying my best to work on questions a;dfja;dlsfjkdlsfd;#thank you guys for being patient #THANKS FOR TAGGING ME :D

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hgfstreamchats · 4 years

Text

Zootopia

thenightetc joined the party.

thenightetc 10:23 PM Hello!

highglossfinish 10:23 PM Hello there!

thenightetc 10:23 PM I'm getting picture, but no sound.

thenightetc 10:23 PM Wait, there's sound

thenightetc 10:23 PM It's just quiet

highglossfinish 10:23 PM Wonderful!

thenightetc 10:24 PM I turned it up just in time to hear a TINY mrow

highglossfinish 10:24 PM Wouldn't want to miss that.

thenightetc 10:24 PM Goodness no!

highglossfinish 10:25 PM I'm completely stumped for what to show. It's pride month and I've exhausted all of the good movies I can think of and quite a few of the bad ones.

thenightetc 10:26 PM Hmmmmmmm

thenightetc 10:27 PM Yeah, I'm not sure :u

highglossfinish 10:28 PM Right? Exactly.

thenightetc 10:29 PM And I'm not SUPER in the mood for tragedy

highglossfinish 10:29 PM Likewise.

highglossfinish 10:29 PM And they're *all* tragic. tik joined the party.

thenightetc 10:31 PM I mean, not ALL, but... disproportionately Teik joined the party.

highglossfinish 10:34 PM Any non-pride suggestions?

thenightetc 10:37 PM How abouuuut... Spirited Away?

thenightetc 10:37 PM Me trying not to immediately blank on every movie I have ever watched or wanted to watch :')

highglossfinish 10:39 PM Hmm, I don't think we've ever streamed Zootopia.

thenightetc 10:39 PM Oooooo!

highglossfinish 10:39 PM Done!

thenightetc 10:39 PM Sounds like a g....

thenightetc 10:39 PM Hmm

thenightetc 10:40 PM Police-themed, though

thenightetc 10:40 PM but then it IS furries

thenightetc 10:40 PM and it's a fun movie

thenightetc 10:41 PM *wheeze*

highglossfinish 10:42 PM Afterwards we can watch a few clips from the version they almost made as a palette cleanser. You know, the one that was brave.

thenightetc 10:43 PM Front row will get wet.

thenightetc 10:43 PM With the shock collars?

highglossfinish 10:44 PM Oh yes.

thenightetc 10:44 PM That's not exactly what actuaries do I don't think but you go kid

highglossfinish 10:44 PM Oh, honey. Thebes joined the party.

Thebes 10:44 PM hello!

highglossfinish 10:44 PM It's okay, it's also not what the police do.

highglossfinish 10:44 PM Hello there!

Thebes 10:45 PM awww, Zootopia~

thenightetc 10:45 PM oh WOW

thenightetc 10:46 PM Little on the nose there

Thebes 10:46 PM dreamcrushing: the prerogative of most if not all Disney parents

thenightetc 10:48 PM How the heck do they MAINTAIN that

thenightetc 10:48 PM *cringe*

highglossfinish 10:49 PM She's a rabbit, they eat their own waste. She'll be fine.

highglossfinish 10:51 PM Politics aside, it *is* full of charming little details.

highglossfinish 10:53 PM This isn't a hopeful song.

thenightetc 10:53 PM It's a bop tho

highglossfinish 10:55 PM Oh yes, this still counts as a pride movie, it has a gay couple!

highglossfinish 10:55 PM And there they go!

thenightetc 10:55 PM Rude

thenightetc 10:56 PM Ewww

thenightetc 10:58 PM it's her FIRST DAY

thenightetc 10:58 PM It would be dumb to put her on something important and dangerous

highglossfinish 10:59 PM Really making the world a better place, bunny.

highglossfinish 10:59 PM I forget which iteration it was, but didn't they originally have her on parking duty for longer than a day before she snapped and threw a baby tantrum?

thenightetc 11:00 PM I'm pretty sure that's what happens :u

thenightetc 11:00 PM Ewwwwwwww

highglossfinish 11:02 PM Very.

Thebes 11:02 PM So if anyone wants to brain-bleach away the image of anyone eating nose ice cream later, there are adorable videos of fennec foxes eating fruit all over the place

thenightetc 11:03 PM oh god

highglossfinish 11:03 PM Oh, shut up.

thenightetc 11:04 PM I wonder if he hammed it up BECAUSE she's a cop

thenightetc 11:05 PM Okay that's gross

thenightetc 11:06 PM Heheheh

highglossfinish 11:06 PM I like him so much.

thenightetc 11:06 PM Same.

Thebes 11:07 PM He smirks so... smirkily. I love it

thenightetc 11:08 PM F

highglossfinish 11:08 PM It's fantastic.

thenightetc 11:09 PM F!!!

thenightetc 11:09 PM haha that's just harsh

highglossfinish 11:10 PM It's her *second day.*

thenightetc 11:10 PM Hhahaha

thenightetc 11:11 PM Dibs

thenightetc 11:11 PM ...Okay so is there a separate police force for tinytown?

highglossfinish 11:11 PM Woudn't that just be adorable?

thenightetc 11:11 PM I mean, obviously the rhino, for example, isn't going to be running around in there

thenightetc 11:13 PM Look! Plot!

thenightetc 11:15 PM That's so sinister, considering

highglossfinish 11:15 PM It really is.

thenightetc 11:16 PM No wonder his was the lowest-priority

Thebes 11:16 PM WHAT A COINCIDENCE

thenightetc 11:17 PM Ha!

highglossfinish 11:18 PM Is that legal?

thenightetc 11:18 PM God, his FACE

highglossfinish 11:18 PM Or that?

thenightetc 11:18 PM Probably not

thenightetc 11:18 PM Although technically we don't know anything about Zootopia's laws

highglossfinish 11:18 PM True.

Thebes 11:21 PM This shock and disgust is rather less effective than planned given the TOTAL LACK OF GENITALIA

highglossfinish 11:22 PM It really is.

thenightetc 11:23 PM f

thenightetc 11:25 PM f

thenightetc 11:25 PM pffffffff

Thebes 11:25 PM He is SO SMUG about the aggravation he's causing

highglossfinish 11:25 PM I love it.

thenightetc 11:26 PM It's. Torture

highglossfinish 11:26 PM Hah!

Thebes 11:27 PM it's almost like he was coerced into being here!

thenightetc 11:27 PM gasp!

thenightetc 11:31 PM His face

highglossfinish 11:31 PM She's bad at every second of this job.

thenightetc 11:33 PM cmon I'm sure her mafia connections will come in handy

highglossfinish 11:34 PM That's gruesome.

highglossfinish 11:35 PM Or not, his eye is fine, apparently?

thenightetc 11:37 PM f

thenightetc 11:38 PM f

thenightetc 11:39 PM Nice

highglossfinish 11:39 PM Very nice.

highglossfinish 11:40 PM You know, they really muddied the issue of who's opressing who over what.

highglossfinish 11:41 PM I do love how one of them is a hippo.

thenightetc 11:41 PM f

thenightetc 11:41 PM where did they GET that

highglossfinish 11:43 PM One of their parents' closet for reasons they didn't question.

thenightetc 11:44 PM oof

thenightetc 11:46 PM He assumes he understands the gestures because he's used to working with a partner

thenightetc 11:46 PM She has no clue because she isn't

thenightetc 11:47 PM Good lord they're naked

highglossfinish 11:48 PM Not that one.

thenightetc 11:49 PM f

thenightetc 11:50 PM Ewwwww

highglossfinish 11:50 PM ...Do they think they're going to use them?

thenightetc 11:50 PM Wait do they just dump their sewage directly into the ocean?

thenightetc 11:52 PM awww

Thebes 11:52 PM I think they DO

thenightetc 11:53 PM Uhhhhh

thenightetc 11:53 PM Oh dear

highglossfinish 11:53 PM Oh dear.

thenightetc 11:53 PM oh my god judy

thenightetc 11:53 PM Nick reading the room there

highglossfinish 11:56 PM Because that's what happens at peace rallies.

highglossfinish 11:56 PM And that's what cops do.

highglossfinish 11:56 PM And that's the worst things can get.

highglossfinish 11:56 PM Oh, at least they put some pants on him.

highglossfinish 11:57 PM "Please bring back the Zootopia where we were all just as prejudiced but slightly quieter about it."

thenightetc 11:58 PM Oh like a mascot

highglossfinish 11:58 PM This hasn't aged well, has it?

thenightetc 11:58 PM Like milk.

Thebes 12:01 AM I mean it was already touchy when it was released, NOW it's a whole lot of unfortunate implications

highglossfinish 12:01 AM The shock collar version was ahead of its time.

thenightetc 12:03 AM *cough*

highglossfinish 12:05 AM That was fast.

thenightetc 12:05 AM See! Those mob connections DID come in handy!

thenightetc 12:05 AM Very fast. Like, three days?

highglossfinish 12:05 AM Always do!

thenightetc 12:05 AM Wait, I guess it was a few weeks

highglossfinish 12:05 AM What's the gestation period for shrews?

thenightetc 12:06 AM Looks like 17-32 days. Huh

thenightetc 12:06 AM Breaking baaaaaad

highglossfinish 12:06 AM Hah!

thenightetc 12:08 AM Heheheh

thenightetc 12:14 AM Nice.

highglossfinish 12:15 AM Why are you there, Judy?

highglossfinish 12:16 AM "Everyone's racist, but that's fine, because there are no real systemic stakes!"

thenightetc 12:17 AM Sharing a chair

thenightetc 12:18 AM So is he faking the slow reflexes thing, or

highglossfinish 12:18 AM Good question.

thenightetc 12:20 AM Moment of silence for those sexy tigers

thenightetc 12:23 AM ...man

thenightetc 12:26 AM holy shit Thebes joined the party.

thenightetc 12:29 AM Nick's face

highglossfinish 12:30 AM ...I think the world needed that movie.

Thebes 12:30 AM messed up

thenightetc 12:30 AM yeah

highglossfinish 12:31 AM Any light notes to end on?

Thebes 12:32 AM someone posted video once of a fox on a trampoline irl

highglossfinish 12:32 AM Perfect!

thenightetc 12:32 AM That sounds cute!

Thebes 12:33 AM LOOKIT THEM PLAY

thenightetc 12:33 AM Yessss

thenightetc 12:34 AM awwww Jerusalen joined the party. Jerusalen joined the party.

thenightetc 12:36 AM Isn't this how everyone gets a pet

highglossfinish 12:36 AM It's how we got Starscream.

thenightetc 12:37 AM awwww <3

highglossfinish 12:37 AM Well, that's all I've got!

Thebes 12:37 AM Though to be fair if you tried to get rid of Starscream it'd be a lot less Homeward BOund and a lot more The Cat Came BAck

thenightetc 12:37 AM And it was all great!

Thebes 12:38 AM yes! thank you very much!

highglossfinish 12:38 AM As though we'd ever try to get rid of Starscream.

highglossfinish 12:38 AM ...Huh! Never thought I'd be saying that one unironically.

highglossfinish 12:38 AM Thank you for coming!

thenightetc 12:39 AM And thank YOU for hosting!

Thebes 12:39 AM thank you! Good night!

highglossfinish 12:39 AM Always a pleasure!

highglossfinish 12:39 AM Good night!

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