#officially confirmed cat person your honor

[vandalizedai]

SOUND VOLTEX OFFICIAL YURI MASTERPOST:

Compilation of (most) of the small instances of Girls Love/yuri/lesbianism in SDVX. This is by no means a full detailed list of all yuri occurences in game (at least for Kononana in which there are many scenes which I still have to go through translation, for others these scenes are small and not much known!) The ship names are by their english name only, as I'm not fully aware of the japanese ship names.

Konoha x Nana (Kononana):

Relationship status: canonically a couple

Konoha official profile: "It seems that she is attracted to Nana, as occasionally they can be seen together on campus."

Valentine's Day event 2019: "No wonder the students are restless! In the corner of the classroom, there's a black cat girl and a vampire girl being all lovey-dovey, you know?! Talk about a youthful romance! Gyahahaha!"

"This year's confession is very unique! "Ah… I was looking for you. Do you accept this?" With a shy smile she held out her gift. Yes, today is Valentine's Day, the day in which you tell your loved ones about your feelings. Just the two of us in a classroom, we pledge our hearts to each other."

Fluorine x Flowry (Fluoflow)

Relationship status: mutual love (not yet to be confirmed as a couple)

Fluorine official profile: "She went undercover to find out what was going on in the Ludwigian State, but she fell in love with the voice of the diva, learning about the truth in the lyrics of her songs, so she helped in her escape."

Flowry official profile: "They are very close and always think dearly of each other."

Hiyuki-chan x Ondine Shifika Chiha (Onyuki)

Relationship status: one sided love (implied liking from Ondine's part, not much is known about Ondine in general, but their relationship is very yuri)

Ondine official profile: "When she met Hiyuki, she witnessed the ephemeral beauty of glittering ice formed from the water droplets she controls. 'For the first time, tears came out from my eyes… Realizing that it is okay for me to exist.'"

Ortlinde=NBLG=Valkyria x Satan-P*L-Iblis (Satanlinde)

Satan-P*L-Iblis (which I will personally refer to with it/they pronouns) has canonically an unknown gender identity, implied to be out of the binary. nblw can still be yuri.

Relationship status: one sided love from Satan's part, they seem to know each other for a very long time.

Satan official profile: "It seems to have taken a liking to the silver-haired Valkyrie since her days as a human." Honorable mentions: Mystérieux Rouge x Cinema Storia: They seem to be together in a lot of jacket art, in their profiles it is mentioned that they spend a lot of time together. Ms. DD x Sherry F. Arresters: They are coworkers and are always together because of that, Sherry seems to be the only person who knows of DD's true self rather than the flirtarious front she puts on for work.

Kureha x Tsubaki x Mitsuruko: Old ship based on the fact that the three of them are very close friends and were always together in older official artwork.

[thefanficmonster]

Stranger In The Crowd

Corpse Husband x Reader (Female)

Warnings: None

Genre: FLUFF, Humor, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: Having recently ended the process of moving, Y/N is rightfully very tired but also very excited for the new chapter of her life. Funnily enough, this new chapter includes a newly formed long distance friendship/crush with a very special person from San Diego.

Requested by @boiled-onionrings Hi darling! Thank you so much for your wonderful request and I’m really sorry you’ve had to wait so long for it to be posted but here it finally is and I hope you enjoy the read! Love, Vy ❤

I let out a heavy sigh, relieved to finally be at home after such a long day of standing around in the Georgia heat with only a thin layer of fabric to protect my eyes and head from the scorching sun. Yeah, anyone who says that tent did well at protecting everyone under it today is nothing but a liar. I was in a short, strapless white summer dress, the fabric of which barely had any weight and consistency to provide heat of its own yet I still damn near melted. Ok, I’ll admit, some of the roasting heat probably came from the energy and force I put into singing the songs of my band’s new album ‘Starting At The End’. 

The mini concert we held in this large open field was meant as an introduction to the city of Savannah where all the band members - myself included - are actually from but we all moved to the West Coast to pursue our music career. And now that we’ve grown, and the majority of us are married, one of us is a father now as well, we’ve decided to return to our hometown. The decision was so spontaneous and was executed so quickly due to no one objecting to it that it still hasn’t me that I’m no longer in LA. The heat isn’t helping my ‘processing’ process but I’ll get to it eventually. Do I miss LA though? Not sure I do - I think I more miss the people I was closer to while I was there.

Suddenly, as if perfectly timed, my phone dings, notifying me that I’ve received a message. I don’t have to look to know it’s from - there’s only one person I actively text and his name is....

C ~ Your virtual buddy Corpse here, making sure you didn’t die of a heatstroke today. If you did indeed survive, just reply to this message, if not....don’t do anything, I guess.

I can’t help but giggle at the sight of the message. I promised Corpse I’d text him after the concert to let him know I was ok, but the even dragged out for longer than anticipated so I’m guessing he got worried.

How cute.

Me ~ Alive and well, but I do feel like a popped tire of an overloaded truck. Hope that’s a visually appealing description

Corpse and I met on the charity livestream Jacksepticeye organized and invited our band to so we could play Among Us with some of the best gamers and streamers on the internet. It was a huge honor and a ton of fun, definitely an event I’d like to repeat in the near future because I had such a good time and I know all my bandmates did too. We all got acquainted and even became official friends with the gamers that were practically our hosts, Corpse becoming the closest friends I’d earn. That livestream happened months ago and we still text just as consistently.

C ~ Oh I know EXACTLY what you mean. Anyway, as to not exhaust you further to force you into typing, how about you send me pictures to sum up your thoughts and emotions and plans for the evening

This is OUR THING trademark, mine and Corpse’s and no one can take it away from us. It’s a significant element of our friendship that enables us both to understand one another when one of us feels the way I described in my message - a popped tire or a deflated balloon. I’m usually the exhausted one - blame the many shows we do and the many meet-and-greets we organize for our lovely fans. It’s the type of exhaustion none of the band members mind at all, but we definitely need some time to recover from it.

As I go to sit down on my couch, the flower crown I’ve been wearing slips off the top of my head, falling on the floor, creating a soft noise that attracts the attention of one of my many cats - Sasha. She’s the youngest and most curious kitty in the family, always protected by the other four - Luna, Cassie, Silver and Lynn. Those four are far lazier and a lot more disinterested in comparison to Sasha who immediately runs over to see what’s fallen.

I smile to myself, taking the flower crown and undoing it to lessen it by a few stems to make it smaller, all the while being watched by the curious Sasha whose interest is rewarded in the end when I put the now adorably tiny flower crown on her head.

While she still hasn’t shaken the thing off I manage to snap a pic which I send to Corpse who opens it mere seconds after it was delivered. 

C ~ Sasha’s pulling off your aesthetic better than you. Sorry, someone had to let you know

I burst out laughing for two reasons - 1.The message itself, damn it! It’s hilarious; 2. Corpse has learnt the name of each one of my cats and never mixes them up - not even Luna and Lynn who look almost identical. That amount of attention to detail is astonishing and very meaningful to me, it genuinely warms my heart and that may or may not be dramatic but it’s definitely not exaggerated.

Me ~ You think I haven’t caught on yet? 

C ~ Well, if it makes you feel any better you pull off my aesthetic better than I do

He’s referring to the e-girl look I did for one show the band had in downtown LA one night. I was drunk and looking forward to trying new things so I improvised the hell out of my outfit but I apparently looked presentable enough to leave a good impression on Corpse despite the pic I sent him being a bit blurry and being a mirror selfie in the bathroom of the very bar we were performing in. It goes without saying that the mirror was dirty too - had a bunch of writing on it which Corpse said only added to the aesthetic. Looking back on it now I kinda agree, and luckily so did the fans in the comments of that same photo when I posted it on Instagram.

Me ~ Means a lot actually. Nowhere near enough to aid the burn of having a cat pull off cottagecore better than I do, but still helps XD

As if sensing that we’re talking about her, Sasha hops on the couch, poking her head over my phone to look down at the screen.

Now this is gonna be golden.

I take a selfie with my phone in my lap, the camera capturing both me and Sasha at a rather unflattering angle which has me losing my mind laughing when I send the picture to Corpse who immediately sends back a string of cry-laughing emojis.

C ~ I can’t tell which one of you is cuter

Me ~ If that was a compliment, I gotta say I appreciate it greatly

C ~ Just telling the truth ;)

It’s times like these that the butterflies in my stomach remind me just why I’ve started catching feelings for this man despite all the distance between us and despite barely knowing him - he knows me more than I know him but I don’t mind it, oddly enough.

I’m fond of our connection and though I sometimes dream of something more, I’m also content with what we already have considering that ‘something more’ seems rather unattainable as of now.

My phone dings again, clearing the fog of thoughts and presenting me with a new message from Corpse.

C ~ Oh, by the way, look what I got....

That message is followed up by a picture of a ticket. A plane ticket to Georgia! 

While I’m still busy stomaching this and dealing with my quickly rising excitement, he sends another message.

C ~ I hope to catch a The Silver Rays concert while I’m there. Heard they had an adorable frontwoman ;)

My breath catches in my throat as a wide grin spreads across my face. The thought of having Corpse so close to me sends those aforementioned butterflies in my stomach into a raving mood and they practically explode my insides with excitement and joy like I’ve never felt it before. I can’t wrap my brain around the fact that we’re about to go from having an entire country between us, to being just some ways away - him in the audience and me on stage without a single clue of who to look for. That’s part of the excitement though, I guess, part of the guessing game that’s gonna make our meeting all the more interesting.

He’ll be a stranger in the crowd and I’ll be a performer on a stage - seemingly two people who have no relation whatsoever. But damn does it go beyond that: No one has to know how hard I’m falling for that stranger in the crowd.

Me ~ I’ve heard so too, can’t confirm it though

If this is gonna be a guessing game, I’ll flip the tables a bit - I won’t take any guesses. I’ll let the answer come to me. I’ll give the first move over to the stranger in the crowd, let’s see what he does.

C ~ I’ll check and let you know, don’t worry

Not worried whatsoever, Corpsie. I’m not worried at all.

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[writingwhimsey]

Lady of Azuchi Ch. 1

A/N: My Nobunaga fanfic based off of the romantic ending (minus the epilogue).

Chapter One

I walked the streets of Azuchi carrying my last delivery for the day. When I arrived at the residence, I was greeted by a maid with a deep bow. "Welcome Lady Ava. Please come inside."

"Thank you." I replied taking the invitation and walking in. This was unusual. Most of the time when I made my kimono deliveries, the Lords and Ladies of manors preferred to have their maids greet me and accept the package on their behalf.

"My lord and lady wish to see your work right away and thank you in person Lady Ava." The maid said, confirming my thoughts. She then led me to a room where the lord and lady sat drinking tea.

"My Lord, My Lady, Lady Ava has arrived with your delivery." The maid said with a bow before leaving.

The couple smiled at me. "Welcome Lady Ava, please come in and sit with us." The lord greeted. He was a local daimyo who had come to stay in Azuchi for a few weeks.

"Thank you." I said with a bow and brought forward the package containing their kimonos. I opened the package and pulled out their custom orders, displaying the beautiful fabric. "Here are your pieces, I hope you like them."

The couple looked them over. "How beautiful...and such string stitching. These are the finest quality I have ever seen." The lady gushed.

"Very well made indeed." The Lord agreed.

"It appears the rumors are true." The Lady said. "If you want quality work come to Azuchi and request a piece by Lady Ava."

I felt the blush rising to my cheeks as a smile of pride spread across my face. "I am pleased you like my work, though I don't know if I am all that special."

"Oh my dear lady, you are." The lady gushed. "Not to mention what an honor it is to have you deliver them personally."

"Yes, a true honor." The lord agreed.

"And now when we return home, I shall be the only one to have a piece created and delivered to me personally by the Lady of Azuchi Castle. I'll be the envy of all my friends." She gushed further.

Now their treatment of me made more sense. Just a little over a month ago Nobunaga decided being my boyfriend wasn't enough and wanted me to marry him. And I loved him so much that I eagerly jumped at the idea. Especially since we already were living as if we were. It more or less just made things official being his wife.

I believed them though that they did love my work. I had many of the same compliments from customers before I even fell in love with Nobunaga. I gave them a smile. "I am so happy you are pleased. If you ever need any more pieces just place another order. I would be more than happy to make another."

"You really are as hard working as they say." The lord said.

"I only wish to do my part." I replied.

We spoke a little further before I finally was able to get away. Thankfully they had been my last delivery for the day. Looking at the sky I saw that the sun was beginning to set. I decided to stop and grab some dumplings as a treat to take back with me for an after dinner treat to share with my husband.

I grinned to myself as I thought the word husband. It felt both strange and completely right to think of him as such. We'd been together for around six months, which I know seems like a short time, but my heart was his.

As I stepped out of the shop I heard a familiar deep voice call to me. "There you are, Ava."

I turned to see Nobunaga walking up to me. My smile became even wider as he approached me and took my hand in his. "Did you come out all this way just to walk me home?"

"Of course, these streets can be dangerous at night. I can't allow any harm to come to my most precious wife." He replied bringing my hand to his lips and placing a kiss on the back.

We began walking back toward the castle, hands still clasped as he remembered my request from when we first declared our feelings for each other. He remembers everything I tell him.

"So, what is it that had you smiling when you stepped out of the dumpling shop?" He asked. "I take it your deliveries went well?"

"They did, but that wasn't what had me smiling." I replied.

"Then what was it?"

"Just thinking about getting home and sharing these dumplings with my husband."

Nobunaga smiled. "I don't think I shall ever tire of hearing you call me your husband."

"Nor I you calling me your wife." I replied.

We arrived home at the castle and made our way to the tenshu where dinner was delivered to us. "How did you deliveries go?" Nobunaga asked me as we ate our meal together.

"Really well." I answered. "I have a feeling that before they leave, Lord Yoshikai and his wife will be ordering more...especially his wife."

"You are the best seamstress...I mean fashion designer around." Nobunaga told me with a smile.

I smiled. His remembering everything I have told him about the modern day makes me so happy. It also makes me miss it less. Though just being with him I could never regret my decision to stay in the past. "I do think some of these orders come from people's curiosity over me though."

"Why do you say that?" He asked.

"I think many of them wonder why the wife of the powerful Nobunaga Oda chooses to work as a seamstress." I answered. "I believe when I first arrived here you even told me to spend my time on cards and makeup or whatever...which is what I think most other wives of these lords spend their time on."

"You are a unique woman." Nobunaga agreed. "One of the many reasons I love you." He was then leaning over and placing a kiss on my forehead.

"And I love you."

After dinner we changed into our night clothes and sat out on the balcony, overlooking the castle town. Nobunaga pulled me into his lap when I went to sit down beside him. I let out a giggle. "Beside you is not close enough?" I teased.

"Never." He answered. He was then pulling the collar of my night robes aside and playfully nipping at my neck.

A shiver of pleasure ran down my spine. His touch was always full of heat and electricity. "Mmn..ah!" I moaned as he continued up my neck and to my ear where I was so sensitive. His lips, teeth, and tongue all stimulating me as his hands slid beneath my robe to cup my breasts, his fingers tracing my nipples.

I let out another cry and arched my back as he continued to shower me with his touch. Soon we were back inside and he had me lying back on he futon. He captured my lips in a passionate kiss as he undid my robes and pushed them aside. I reached my own hands to remove his robes and run them over his string chest and back.

Nobunaga gave me a devilish grin when he broke the kiss. Then he kissed down my neck, showered my breasts in kisses and nips, over my ribs, down my stomach, before stopping to lavish my thighs with his lips and teeth. He worked his way back up my thighs and then went to the spot I was hottest for him and when he reached there, began to use his tongue to stimulate that most sensitive cluster of nerves.

"Nobu...naga!" I cried out as I reached my hands down to wrap my fingers in his hair. He continued to lap at me, making me come undone. I clenched my thighs around him as wave after wave of pleasure washed over me.

"You taste sweeter and more delicious than my most favorite sugar candies." He said upon finishing giving me yet another wave of pleasure. He smiled at me as he began to kiss back up my body.

I didn't even have the words to respond nor form a coherent thought. Before my mind had a chance to clear, he was capturing my lips in yet another passionate kiss. At the same moment I felt him enter me and fill me so completely.

I moaned into the kiss and clung to his back. My hips moved with his, our bodies one. Each thrust brought me over the brink and I moaned and cried out. Every time we made love it was just as amazing as the first time. Nobunaga had memorized the map of my body and always knew where and how to touch me.

We crested the final wave of pleasure together and then fell back into the futon. Nobunaga quickly pulled me back into his arms, holding me against his chest. He then kissed my forehead. "I will never tire of hearing you cry my name." He said, his lips at my ear.

I felt my face flush. "That's good considering how good you are at making me do it."

He chuckled. "And to think just nine months ago, you stubbornly refused to do so."

"Yes, well that's before I knew you." I replied, remembering our early days. "Though you did make me cry out several times then, too...I just refused to say your name."

"Or admit you enjoyed it."

"Well...I wasn't used to being conquered."

"And yet you are the one who conquered me." He replied. "The woman who could tame the devil."

I pulled back and eyed him. "You're saying you're tame now? I somehow don't believe that."

Nobunaga laughed. "Only for you."

We snuggled up together and soon fell asleep, still wrapped in each other's arms. I awoke he next morning rather late. Nobunaga was already up and gone to get started on his work for the day. I found a note on the bed beside me from him.

I am sorry for you to wake alone. But you looked so peaceful sleeping that I decided not to wake you. I know you have the day off. You should rest and enjoy it for I intend not to let you rest tonight once I am finished with my work for the day. I love you and I will see you tonight.

I smiled as I read the little love note. A thrill of anticipation shot through me at the promised pleasure of the night. Especially once I thought of last night's pleasure...and the night before that. Pretty much every night ended in Nobunaga making love to me and holy cats was it always amazing!

Deciding I should get up and get ready, I sat up, but almost fell back down immediately as a wave of dizziness hit me. "Woah...where did that come from?" I wondered aloud to myself.

I kept one hand back on the futon keeping myself propped up and the other on my head. Once the dizziness passed, I slowly turned to look at the room. I saw a tray nearby with my breakfast on it. Slowly I stood up and wrapped myself in my robe. I could tell that my breakfast had long ago grown cold. Yet the thought of food hot or cold seemed to make my stomach churn.

I looked out at the sky and took note of how high the sun was. Just then there was a knock on the door and my maid was poking her head in. "My lady...have you just now woken up?" She asked, looking at me.

"Yes...I must have been more tired than I realized." I said waving it off.

"I'll take your breakfast and be back with a new tray." She said. "Since this went cold. It appears it is a good thing you have the day off. Clearly you needed the rest."

"Yes, I guess so." I replied. "But don't worry about the breakfast...I'm not feeling very hungry."

"Are you feeling alright my lady?"

"I'm fine." I answered giving her a smile. "Just probably a little exhausted."

"You have been working very hard." She agreed. "I'll draw you a bath. That should help you feel a little better and more refreshed."

"A nice warm bath does sound nice. I think that will help. Thank you, Kinu."

Kinu bowed and took my breakfast tray. "I'll take this to the kitchen and then get your bath ready."

True to her word Kinu drew a bath for me and I was soon resting in the nice warm water. It felt nice to have the soak. Kinu grabbed a small wash basin and set it at the back of the tub. She grabbed a sponge and some soaps. "Allow me to wash your hair my lady."

"You don't have to do that." I replied.

"I know, but I want to. Just to make sure you are truly relaxed, alright?"

"When you ask like that, how can I say no to your kind offer?" I replied.

Kinu smiled. "Now, lie back and close your eyes."

I did as instructed and Kinu pulled my hair back over the edge of the tub. She poured the warm water over it until it was completely soaked. I sighed and relaxed as she began to comb the soap through my hair. It reminded me of getting my hair done at the salon in modern day.

There was a pause in her movements and then I felt fingers in my hair once again. Though these didn't feel quite like Kinu's fingers. They felt larger, but were somehow gentler. I opened my eyes and saw those familiar carnelian eyes I knew so well looking at me, full of warmth and love.

A smile spread across my face instantly. "I thought you had work to do?" I asked.

"Is there any work more important than tending to my lovely wife?" Nobunaga countered.

"I thought your plans for world domination were quite important." I teased.

"There is enough time I can take a break." He told me. "Besides, I missed seeing you this morning." He was then kissing my forehead.

"Sorry about that." I replied sheepishly.

"No need to apologize. You've been working rather hard. You deserve to sleep in." He told me. "Though I hear you slept in rather late today."

"More tired than I thought, I guess."

Nobunaga shook his head. "Do I need to speak to the head seamstress about reducing your work load?"

"Don't you dare." I replied.

Nobunaga chuckled. "Just remember to take care of yourself, my love."

I looked into his eyes, seeing that they looked somewhat sad and concerned. "What is it?" I asked. "There's another reason you've come here and not just to take a break, isn't there?"

"Sometimes I forget how well you see me." He said.

"Another battle?" I asked.

"One of the daimyo has come forward reporting some riots in his fief. I am going t have to go and help settle things. I will be taking Masamune and Ieyasu with me." He replied with a sigh. "And I was very much looking forward to not letting you rest this evening."

"We will have plenty of nights for you to keep me up." I replied with a smile. Though I would miss him and hated whenever he had to go off to battle, I didn't want him leaving with a heavy heart for my sake.

"You always know where to find the bright side." He was then kissing my forehead, my nose, and then my lips. "I'll finish washing your hair and then we can have lunch before I have to leave."

"You don't have to finish my hair. I can do it." I replied.

"I want to." He told me in a tone that left no room for arguments.

He finished scrubbing the soap into my hair, massaging my scalp with his long calloused fingers. Then he rinsed it out, scrubbing my scalp more to get the soap out. I sat up and let him wash my back as well before my bath was complete.

I stood up to climb out of the tub and nearly lost my balance once again as another wave of dizziness washed over me. Nobunaga caught me and steadied me as he wrapped a towel around me.

"Are you alright?" He asked, nothing but concern in those beautiful eyes.

"I'm fine. I just slipped a bit when I was standing up." I lied. I couldn't let him know about the dizziness. I knew he would worry and I couldn't let him worry about me when he had a battle he needed to focus on.

He looked into my eyes, as if he could pull the truth from their depths. "Are you sure?"

"I promise, I am totally fine. A bit clumsy, but you know that already."

"I shall have to tell Hideyoshi to keep a close eye on you while I am gone."

"As if he's not already enough of a mother hen." I teased.

After a few moments, Nobunaga finally set me back down on my feet. He helped me to finish drying off before I changed into a kimono and then we went back out to enjoy our lunch. It was a rather delicious looking meal of smoke salmon, rice, and roasted vegetables. One of my favorite meals, actually. But the sight of the salmon made my stomach churn just as the thought of breakfast had when I had first woken up.

However not wanting to worry my husband, I picked at the fish and made sure to eat the rice. "Is there something wrong with the meal?" He asked.

Damn, nothing escapes his notice. I thought to myself. "Nothing. It's just that I am not very hungry. I did eat breakfast not that long ago...since I slept in so late." I lied once again, hoping that no one had told him I hadn't eaten my breakfast.

"That would make sense." He agreed finally. "How long do you think you will be gone?" I asked, changing the subject from myself.

"It's hard to tell for sure. The fief is a three days journey from here. I imagine it shouldn't take long to quell the riots once we discover the problem. But that could take a while." He answered me. "Though I have already sent Mitsuhide ahead to start investigating."

"If anyone can find out what's going on it's definitely Mitsuhide." I replied.

"Exactly."

After finishing up the meal, Nobunaga prepared to for his journey. I helped with what I could and then walked with him to the gates, where Masamune and Ieyasu waited along with a portion of the Oda army.

"Come to see us off, lass?" Masamune greeted from astride his horse.

"Oh you guys are here too?" I replied, my tone teasing.

Masamune put a hand over his heart feigning taking a wound. "Oooh, Lass that one hurt a bit."

"This is pointless." Ieyasu said in his usual prickly tone. He then turned his horse around so that his back was to the rest of us.

"You still make aims at my wife?" Nobunaga said, eyeing Masamune.

"I lost that bet a long time ago." Masamune replied. "Course not as hard as Mitsuhide or the lass did." He then winked at me.

"What bet are you talking about?" Nobunaga asked.

Heat rose to my cheeks as I recalled the bet he was referring to. "It wasn't even a real bet."

"So, you're saying you only take bets over games, then?" Masamune teased.

"What are you two even talking about?" Nobunaga asked, clearly irritated that there was something that he didn't know. It was kind of cute how jealous he seemed over something so small.

"It wasn't long after you made your bet with her. She came to deliver a kimono I ordered. Mitsuhide bet she would fall madly in love wit you only to be left crying. I bet that I could swoop in and steal her before that could happen...oh and I believe her exact words were, I bet you both that the world will end before I ever fall in love with Nobunaga Oda."

Nobunaga looked at me. "You really said that?"

"In all fairness that was after suffering my first loss and I still thought you were a big scary ogre." I answered honestly as my face reddened further.

Nobunaga laughed and then pulled me into his arms. "And now?" He asked, his lips at my ear.

"You're a slightly less scary ogre." I teased.

He laughed. "You're the only one I will let get by with that." He was then pulling me closer and giving me a deep kiss.

I felt the kiss all the way down to my toes as I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling myself as close as I could. When we finally broke the kiss, Nobunaga looked into my eyes. "When I return we will continue this further...and I believe I will have to punish you for thinking me an ogre."

I felt a thrill of electricity through my entire body at that. "Just what will that be?" I asked, wanting desperately to know what he had in mind.

"You will just have to wait and find out...let your imagination come up with all sorts of ideas while you wait for my return." He then kissed me again before mounting his horse.

"Lord Nobunaga gets all the fun." Masamune laughed. He then winked at me.

I returned a playful glare at him. "Just shush you."

Nobunaga turned to his soldiers. "Men, we depart. We will finish this battle victorious and all return home. None of you are to die."

Cries of, "Yes, my lord." Sounded throughout the group and then I watched as my love left with the other war lords and the soldiers.

I sent up a silent prayer for them all to return safely and swiftly. I stood at the gate until they were well out of sight. Then I turned to head to the castle, a wave of dizziness hitting me once again.

I was about to fall when I felt someone catch me. "Are you tripping over thin air now?" A familiar voice asked me.

I turned and saw Hideyoshi standing beside me. He helped me to stand and steady myself. "Something like that." I answered with a smile.

Hideyoshi eyed me like a mother eyeing her child she knew was lying. "Are you alright, Ava? You do know Lord Nobunaga didn't just ask me to look after the castle, but after you as well."

"I know...and that's all something you would do without him having to ask, I know." I replied.

"Do you need a doctor?" Hideyoshi asked me.

"Nope. I am fine." I answered. "Just a little moment of clumsiness on my part."

Hideyoshi sighed. "Alright, but I think you should get back inside and rest for the rest of the day. Just take it easy. Then after that you Mitsunari and I will join you for dinner. You definitely need to eat."

"Alright." I agreed, although food still didn't sound appealing.

Hideyoshi released me and then walked me back inside, watching me the entire time. He was such a worrywart. He walked me all the way back mine and Nobunaga's room. Once he left me, I realized how tired I still felt, despite sleeping in so late.

I decided to take Hideyoshi's advice and rest. I laid down in the futon and quickly fell asleep, though I did ask Kinu to wake me before dinner so I wouldn't worry Hideyoshi and Mitsunari when they came with dinner.

Kinu managed to wake me with just enough time to make myself presentable before the pair were joining me for dinner. I managed to eat more of the food than I had earlier in the day and, though I was forcing myself to eat so that I did not worry either of them.

After dinner they stayed and we played a few card games and chatted. I found myself able to forget about my uneasy stomach and the loneliness I felt with Nobunaga gone for just a little while. It was indeed so nice of them to visit with me for so long as I knew they had work to do.

"I think we have imposed on you long enough Ava." Hideyoshi said, taking note of the time.

"Yes, we should be letting you rest." Mitsunari agreed.

"Thank you both for coming to share dinner with me and keep me company for a while." I replied. "It was nice."

"If you wish while Lord Nobunaga is gone we can come by every night. We can't have you getting lonely."

I smiled. I knew that's why he did it. "Thank you. I would like that, but if you two are busy then don't worry about it. I know when Nobunaga is gone there is even more work for you to do."

"You let us worry about that." Hideyoshi said.

"Yes, you have nothing to worry about Lady Ava." Mitsunari agreed.

Once they were gone, I really was alone in the tenshu. I looked over at the futon which seemed cold without Nobunaga there. I sighed as I readied myself for bed and then slipped beneath the covers. I usually had a hard time sleeping when he was gone, but this night I had no troubles easily falling into a deep and dreamless sleep.

I woke the next morning, but not of my own accord. Kinu was having to wake me. "My lady, you need to be getting up and eating your breakfast. The head seamstress said more orders have come in for you even while you were off for the day."

I sat up, my head pounding. I pushed through the headache though and got myself up out of the futon. I managed to eat some of my breakfast, my stomach roiling the entire time. I dressed myself for the day and headed down to join the rest of the seamstresses.

I managed to ignore my headache and the roiling in my stomach by focusing in my sewing. It was amazing how many orders were coming in specifically for me, though. I was honored by how many people loved my work.

"You're doing so well, Lady Ava." Ohatsu, the head seamstress said to me. "All of Azuchi and beyond knows that if they want quality clothes to come to you."

I smiled. "I just really enjoy the work." I replied.

"And it shows." She said with a smile. "In all my years, I have never seen anyone as passionate about sewing as you are. Nor anyone's eye for colors and patterns as trained as yours."

"Well...thank you. I am honored by your words." I replied. It was then at this very moment I was no longer able to ignore the roiling in my stomach.

"Lady Ava..."Ohatsu asked, noticing a change in my face.

"Uhm...if you'll excuse me for...a moment." I was then dashing out of the room and finding the most discrete place I could to empty the contents of my stomach.

"Maybe I am getting sick." I muttered to myself. "But I till have work to do...and I can't have anyone worrying about me."

I made my way to go get some cold water and then composed myself before returning to the seamstresses. "My lady, are you alright?" Ohatsu asked.

"Perfectly fine. I just needed to get some air for a moment."

The next week was spent in a similar fashion. I was having trouble waking up in the morning and easily falling asleep at night. My stomach did not like the sight or smell of most food. I found that rice and chicken were easy on my stomach and typically stayed down.

If I just stuck with those things, I could keep how I was feeling to myself. I was eating dinner with Hideyoshi and Mitsunari again when a messenger arrived with a letter from Nobunaga. They had managed to calm things down for the daimyo and would be heading back for Azuchi in the morning. Which meant that in three days he would be home.

"Thank heaven." I said once Hideyoshi had finished reading the letter.

"Oh my lady, I believe this letter is specifically for you." The messenger said, handing me another letter. "Lord Nobunaga said you should probably read this alone."

I smiled as I took the letter from him. "Thank you."

"Well, if that's the case, I believe we should leave you alone then so you can read your letter." Hideyoshi said.

"Yes, have a good night Lady Ava." Mitsunari said.

"Thanks, you guys too."

Once they were gone I opened the letter and read it.

Ava,

I will be home soon. This last week without you has been terrible. I miss you and your warmth. As soon as I am home we will continue where we left off...and don't forget I have to punish you for calling me an ogre. I hope you are ready. There are some...interesting things that the local daimyo we just helped gifted me for the assistance. I think you just might enjoy them. I will see you soon. I love you.

Yours eternally,

Nobunaga

My mind went so many different places as I read his letter. "What in the world could the daimyo have gifted him? I wonder." I pondered aloud to myself.

Just as I was beginning to imagine a number of BDSM scenarios, I felt my stomach roll and then I was retching. "I hope whatever this is is over by the time Nobunaga gets back." I spoke to myself.

I managed to drag myself to bed and kept a pot beside me just in case. I fell asleep with no troubles, thoughts of Nobunaga returning filling my head.

It was finally the day before Nobunaga would be returning. I was working with the maids to get the castle perfectly clean and ready for the banquet we would be having to celebrate his return and his victory.

"Lady Ava, are you sure you don't need to take a break?" One of the maids asked me. "You have been working very hard today."

"I am just fine." I answered, though I was still not feeling well. I had to push through.

"You really should take a break, my lady." Kinu said looking at me with concern.

Though I had been trying not to worry anyone, I had worried Kinu. She alone knew how little I was eating and that I had been getting sick. She was also the one who had to wake me in the mornings.

I gave her a smile. "I will finish cleaning this hall and then I will take a break if it will ease all of your worries?" I replied.

"Alright." Kinu said, though the worry did not quite leave her eyes.

"Maybe I can convince her to take a break." Hideyoshi said coming up behind Kinu.

"I'm just wanting to make sure everything looks good for tomorrow when Nobunaga gets back and we have the banquet." I replied. I was then turning to finish dusting when I suddenly felt dizzy. This dizziness was stronger than any of the previous waves I had experienced.

I felt myself falling back. "Ava!" I heard Hideyoshi and Kinu shout, but I couldn't stop myself from falling nor could I respond. I am certain I felt Hideyoshi catch me before the world went black.

I woke to the sound of Kinu's voice and a man's voice talking, but not a voice I was familiar with. "I knew I should have said something sooner." Kinu said on the verge of tears. "But she kept insisting she was fine...I was thinking that maybe she was just missing Lord Nobunaga. She always gets a little melancholy when he is gone."

"You did nothing wrong. You were only listening to what your lady and mistress was telling you." The unfamiliar male voice said.

"He is right." That was Hideyoshi. "Your loyalty to Ava is quite admirable."

"She just didn't want to worry anyone." Kinu said. "But she hasn't been eating very much and she's been incredibly difficult to wake in the mornings and she has been going to sleep almost as soon as you and Mitsunari leave after dinner...and then the retching."

"I am sorry." I found myself speaking up as the room came into focus. I was lying in the futon in the tenshu. Hideyoshi and Kinu were next to my bed and then there was a third man to my other side, looking me over. "I really didn't want to worry anyone."

"I knew something was wrong." Hideyoshi said. "You should have told us sooner. We could have brought the castle doctor to you sooner."

"Now that she is awake, will you two leave?" The third man who must have been the caste doctor spoke up. "I need to speak with the lady and also perform an exam."

"Right, of course." Hideyoshi said. "We will be right outside the door if you need anything, Ava."

"I'll go get you some rice porridge." Kinu said. "You've been able to keep that down."

"Alright...thank you, both of you."

They then left the room and I sat up and looked at the doctor. "What do you think is wrong?" I asked.

"Tell me how long have you been having these symptoms?" He asked.

"A little over a week. They started with some light dizziness and fatigue the day Nobunaga and the others left." I answered.

He nodded. "And you've had fatigue and retching as well?"

"Yes." I answered.

"Forgive me for this question, but when was your last bleeding?" He asked.

"My last bleeding?" I asked furrowing my brow.

"Yes, the one you experience monthly."

"Oh." My period. I thought as realization hit me. I then started to think about it. "It was...uhm...a month before the wedding, I think." Had it really been that long?

"Then I think you and I both know exactly what your illness is."

"Wait...you mean...I am..."

"With child yes." He answered. He was then reaching into his robes and pulling out something. "This herbal mixture will help with the uneasiness in your stomach until it subsides on it's own. Sprinkle a bit in with your meals twice a day and it will settle your stomach."

"Thank you." I said, not sure what else to say.

"Get plenty of rest as well. Your body needs it."

I nodded. "Right."

"I will leave instructions with your maid and with Lord Hideyoshi that you are to rest and eat." He said. "But don't worry I won't tell them the nature of your condition. I am sure you want to be the one to tell our lord upon his return and I am sure you want him to be the first to know."

"Yes...thank you." I said, though I admit I wasn't thinking that far ahead. I was still in shock.

The doctor bowed and then left. Hideyoshi and Kinu quickly returned soon after, Kinu with my rice porridge. "The doctor said you have a small stomach ailment and that it should clear up soon, but until then he gave you some medicine?" Hideyoshi asked.

"Yeah." I replied, still in shock.

Kinu was then taking the medicine from me and sprinkling some in the porridge. "You need to eat my lady." She said.

"Yes and neither of us is leaving until you do." Hideyoshi said.

Something about the way Hideyoshi spoke to me snapped me out of my trance and I nodded. "Right." I need to eat. I have more than just myself to worry about now. I thought as I took a bite of the warm porridge.

Both Hideyoshi and Kinu stayed until I finished the entire bowl. "You are not to lift a finger or move from that futon for the rest of the day." Hideyoshi said, sounding so much like a worried mother.

I'm going to need to take lessons. Thought to myself with a smile. "Alright, I will stay in bed and rest."

"Good." Hideyoshi said. "I think you should stay in bed tomorrow as well."

"If the medicine works though and I can eat, I should be fine to get back to things tomorrow." I protested. "Besides, Nobunaga will be back tomorrow...I need to be at the gate to greet him."

"We will see how you are feeling in the morning and then decide from there." Hideyoshi said. "I am sure Lord Nobunaga will understand if you are ill."

"I know he will understand." I replied. "But I just want to be there."

A soft smile lit Hideyoshi's features. "Sometimes I forget just how much you two love each other." He said. "But still you need your rest and you know as well as I do, Lord Nobunaga wants you to be happy and healthy. So, we'll just see how you are feeling tomorrow morning and go from there."

I let out a sigh. "Alright."

After a bit longer Hideyoshi and Kinu left to let me rest. I lay back in the futon, but there was no way I could rest. "How am I going to tell Nobunaga? And will he be happy with the news?" I whispered to myself.

I rested my hand over my stomach and smiled. "I am sure your father will be happy to hear about you." I spoke to our baby as I imagined Nobunaga's warm smile and loving gaze. As I pictured that, I knew he would be happy. I just had to find the right way to tell him.

See what happens next below!

https://writingwhimsey.tumblr.com/post/659723839623905280/lady-azuchi-ch-2

[maxismatchccworld]

Patch Notes

PC: 1.71.86.1020 / Mac: 1.71.86.1220 Console: Version 1.38

Coming of Age at 21 in ‘21

As of February 4th, The Sims™ is officially 21 years old. To be quite honest with you all, I have a lot of feelings regarding that as not only it confirms that I'm getting older, but also it makes me think about everything that The Sims has meant to so many people over these past 21 years.

My own personal - professional - journey in The Sims started in 2010 and since then I have seen every pack, every feature, and every comment from our wonderful community. Most importantly I have made great friendships with coworkers (former and current) and I have enjoyed a lot of the content our community shares and talks about on a daily basis.

This year we have nine amazing creators from The Sims community sharing their talent with all of us in honor of this joyous occasion. As of today, you can see in your game 21 new creations present in your game, some in Build Mode and some in Create a Sim, designed by these members of our community. They are in both game areas with a Green Icon representing a present and they are tagged with the Special -> Birthday filter.

We have partnered with the wonderful

HeyHarrie, peachyfaerie, storylegacysims, peacemaker_ic, Luumia, icemunmun, grimcookies, FeralPoodles, andAHarris00Britney. They have created unique and fun items for everyone to enjoy, so we hope that you like them as much as we do.

Along with these items we have a number of fixes and tweaks that we managed to deliver in this update. So thanks as always for your patience and support in reporting and helping our Live Operations team review and set these fixes in motion.

On behalf of Maxis I want to wish everyone a Happy 21st, and remember that You Make The Sims!

Happy Simming,

-SimGuruRusskii

Bug Fixes Console

Fixed an issue in the control scheme screen - if you are not familiar with this screen, press L3 (Playstation 4) or LS (Xbox One) it’s awesome... anyway! The issue is that the screen did not display the “Edit Color” option when in Create a Sim. We also fixed an issue in which the options for the L1 (PlayStation 4) and LB (Xbox One) were not showing up on the same screen.

When randomizing Skin Tone colors, pressing the X Button (PlayStation 4) or the A Button (Xbox One) will select and apply the correct tone.

We have cleansed the Create a Sim of the “Play button” control option that would appear randomly in the dynamic controller layouts.

Made some alignments on the Main Menu Home and Packs tab as they were not looking quite right when Simmers switched to Mouse and Keyboard.

Sims 4

Fixed an issue in Create a Sim that did not allow Body presets to be present as an option for Children and Toddler Sims.

For Simmers that experience a Last UI Exception error in Create a Sim while selecting Skin Tones, the issue has been resolved.

The UI team has fixed a few imperfections in Create a Sim/Pet:

Gallery Notifications on the Main Menu needed to be more opaque as they were a bit unreadable and quite… ghostly. Good to know that was the resolve because this editor was second-guessing her contacts’ prescription for a while there.

As always this editor and the Localization team made some adjustments and perfected some of the text in-game across all packs and previous updates.

Pet breed’s thumbnails will no longer look disproportionate in the Coat Color/Pattern section in the case of Simmers that own Cats and Dogs.

Sims’ makeup sliders will no longer overlap with color swatches and highlighting color swatches will no longer make them look offset.

Fixed an issue in which the Skin Tones sliders didn’t appropriately hide when changing to other parts of the Sims to customize.

Saving customized color swatches will no longer create duplicates of the base color swatch used to create the custom color.

The Save button will no longer function inconsistently when utilizing the opacity sliders. Did it save? But did you save it? Did it actually save? But did it save?

Get to Work

We were contacted by the Aliens, and they have helped us reinstate their missing Skin Tone color in Create a Sim. Now all 8 Alien skin options are visible again.

Cats and Dogs

We did some maintenance on all Robot Vacuums so now they will actually clean up messes instead of just roaming around your Lot. Especially those created by Children and Toddlers - Big Yikes! Glad that the warranty was still in place though.

Seasons

Was your game save feeling the pressure to not continue with the Winterfest spirit? So were we. We have applied a fix that should help with the culling of extra Father Winters... affecting some saves. The Culling (it’s like The Happening, so something will happen… we hope) should start when loading into a Lot. Simmers with low-end machines and many, many Father Winters... in saves, may take some time (possibly hours… that is real-life hours, not Sim hours… just in case) for The Culling to complete. Afterward, Simmers should see an improvement in performance when playing these saves.

Eco Lifestyle

The “Store No More Home Fabricator” will now properly display the number of Bits and Pieces that are owned by Sims.

Nifty Knitting

Children will no longer look like they have put a leg through a rocking chair when reacting happily to rocking. Nothing to see here… nothing to see here folks.

[naferty]

Tony wakes up groggy, disoriented and with no recollection of where he is. At first, he thinks his room, but his room isn’t as white or spotless or has a strong sterilizing smell. It hurts his head just smelling it. Or maybe that’s just his head hurting in general from waking up somewhere unknown with no recollection of it. 

He finds Rhodey sitting next to him, holding his hand and looking at his phone with his other. When Tony squeezes it Rhodey looks up and is relieved to see him awake. 

“Tones,” he moves to sit on the bed. “How are you feeling?” 

Tony frowns in thought. His head hurts and there’s a bit of throbbing pain in his left leg, but other than that it’s not too bad to warrant Rhodey’s concern. 

“My leg hurts,” he admits, voice cracking. Rhodey quickly grabs the cup of water and a straw. Tony inhales the liquid in like a scorched animal in a desert. 

“What happened?” he tries again, grateful his voice didn’t nearly send him into a coughing fit. 

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Rhodey moves strands of hair away from his eyes. 

“I don’t - I don’t know.”

“That’s okay, that’s okay. Take your time. No hurry.” 

Tony works his brain to remember something. Anything. The last thing he recalls is welcoming a new student to the academy. Hellcat if he remembered the name correctly. Something about hell and a cat is somehow involved. Sounded about right. After that, nothing. He had been with Pepper welcoming her, returned back to his tower and then he woke up in this bed with a headache and Rhodey next to him. 

That had been in… August? Or sometime around there. 

“We were welcoming new people. Hellcat? Daredevil?” 

Rhodey frowns. Not a good look and not a good sign. “That’s what you remember?” 

“Yeah, why? Did something happen?” Tony gives the room a quick scan. “Why am I here and why does my leg hurt?” 

Rhodey squeezes his hand. “You got hurt, Tones. Got taken down while flying. Your suit took a lot of the damage but your leg still got nicked. Stress fracture. Not too bad considering everything. You’ll be getting a cast for it, though. Hope you’re ready.” 

“Only if you carry me.” 

“No carrying on my end. Someone else has that covered now.” 

“Aww, Honey Bear, I don’t want anyone else carrying me but you. You know that.” 

Rhodey shook his head. “Not these days, Tones. The honor of carrying around your ass goes to someone else now. Someone, I might add, that you absolutely love being carried by.” 

“What are you talking about?” Tony lifts himself up to sit upright. Hurt like hell but now he’s able to get a better view of Rhodey. He notices his best friend has more of his War Machine suit on than usual. Where before he had been getting used to it. Now he’s wearing it with the same confidence as Tony does his own. 

Not only that, but he can also almost swear that Rhodey looks a bit older now. He can’t put a finger on it, but somehow Rhodey looks as if a fair amount of time had gone by. A bit bulkier. Strong posture. 

Where the hell as his Platypus been training recently for him to gain those muscles so fast?

“Well, uh,” Rhodey scratches his head. A nervous habit. A very telling tell. “There’s no easy way to say this.”

“Say what?” Oh shit, did something really bad happen besides him breaking his leg and not remember? Did whoever he had been fighting with do something to him? Run off with his spleen or kidney? Stolen his fridge of cheese? Hacked into his systems and stolen everything? 

“Tones, what year is it?” 

Tony blinked. Oh… crap. Usually, people only ask that question when memory loss is involved. Did his head get injured in the fall? How many years has he lost? It can’t be too many since Rhodey still looks more or less the same and it seems like they’re still in the Academy.

“It’s twenty-sixteen,” he says, fear slowly growing as his mind ran through scenarios after scenarios of what he could be missing from memory. 

“Crap,” Rhodey rubs his forehead. Not a good sign. Never a good sign. “It’s okay, it’s okay, not too bad. Memory loss happens. Nothing we can’t handle together.” 

“Honey Bear, what year is it?” His heart rate starts going faster. He’s terrified of the possibility of so much time going by and not remembering any of it. 

“Tones, calm down. It’s not too bad. It’s twenty-nineteen. Only three years. We can handle this.” 

“Three?” Tony repeats. Sure three doesn’t sound like a large number but it’s years! So much could happen in one year let alone three. 

Rhodey hugs him. “Hey, it’s okay. We’ll handle this together. I mean it. Not much has changed. We’re still in the Academy. It just has more students than before. You’ll run into a lot of new faces but it’ll be okay. You’ve made a lot of improvements on your armor and mine. You’ll get used to it again. I’ll help every step of the way.” 

Tony takes deep breaths. It’s all easy to say, but it’s still a lot of time taken away. People change. Is he still friends with Pepper? What about Jan? Loki? Do people who used to tolerate him hate him now? Is he still helping around in the Academy or has Nick kicked him out of board meetings? 

As if knowing exactly what he’s thinking, Rhodey tells him, “Pepper was here earlier, but she got called away. I’m sure she’ll be back soon. Jan couldn’t skip another class. It’s Thursday. She’s already skipped all day yesterday. Couldn’t do another.”

Rhodey pulls away. “You know Loki wouldn’t be caught dead caring for someone where everyone can see. He’s getting updates from Jan, but he does occasionally skulk around here.” 

“Oh,” that answers some. What about the others? “Anything big happened?” 

“A bit,” Rhodey admits. “Besides the Academy’s weekly attacks, some big events have happened. Nothing that’s changed your life too much, though.” 

Tony exhales. Doesn’t sound too bad.  

“Jarvis has a body now.” 

He blinks. “...what?” 

“Jarvis has a body now,” Rhodey repeats slower. Hands out and at the ready to catch him should he fall at the news. “Walking, talking body with working arms and everything. It’s really cool. You’re really proud of it.” 

“He… he has a body?!” That’s… that’s incredible! Jarvis has always behaved like a person, even with his digital coding, and Tony has always considered him as an individual all his own. Sassy, sarcastic, but still loyal and humble. Jarvis getting a body? That’s got to be the greatest thing that’s happened to him, and Tony can’t even remember it! 

It absolute sucks. 

“Where is he? The body, I mean.” Jarvis is always with him, but physically? Where is that? 

“In the tower preparing everything for you. Make it cast friendly,” Rhodey gives his left leg a pointed stare. 

“Okay, is that everything?” 

His eyes go back to Tony. For a millisecond Tony can see them land somewhere on his shoulder before they go to his face. It’s enough for Tony to shakily raise his left hand to touch it. His shirt is thin enough to feel everything underneath. Nothing out of the ordinary on his shoulder but when he runs it over his neck he stops. The skin under his fingers isn’t as smooth as his shoulders. Marks are present. Barely noticeable really. Faded but still there. Located where one would place a bite to mark a mate. 

Rhodey knows the moment he realizes what it means. He gives rapid nods in confirmation. “Yeah, it’s exactly what you think.” 

“I got mated?” Tony nearly screams in hysterics because - holy shit! 

“Not fully mated,” Rhodey is quick to correct. “You haven’t signed marriage licenses or had any kind of wedding. You marked each other to keep people off you. You’ll get officially hitched once you’re both ready. At least that’s what you’ve told me.” 

“Off me?” That’s a very odd reason for it. Who would even be on him anyway? Tony has no suitors, no interests in him. Did he somehow offend someone and they’re sicking people on him? Is the mark meant to do damage control for it? “Did I screw up and pissed off someone?” 

Rhodey’s mouth falls open. “What - no! What? - how did you come to - no, of course not! Shit, Tones, how can you come to the worst conclusions?” 

“Doesn’t the worst usually happen?” He doesn’t mean to sound pitiful. It just sort of happens.

Story of his life.

“Not recently, no.” Rhodey puts a hand on his shoulder. “Yes, you get the short end of the stick sometimes - actually, you get it a hell of a lot more times than I’d like, but it’s not every day and certainly not for this. This mark,” he points to it, “you have this because you and your mate just happen to have the hots for each other.” 

“Just the hots? That’s not encouraging,” Tony looks down. “So it’s a temporary thing.” Once this quick hot honeymoon phase is over they’ll separate no doubt. 

“You both call it love but I’m not about to feed that disgusting fire you have going. You both need to cool it with the affection. It’s traumatizing some of us.” 

“Who am I even mated to?” The million-dollar question. Who ended up getting stuck with him? Who did he manage to convince to give him a try? From what he remembers, no one he knows has really caught his eye. In and outside of the Academy. No one, except for a certain Captain that he may or may not have had a crush on since his childhood. Odds are pretty low, the bottom of the barrel low, that Steve is his mysterious mate. 

Oh, but how strong he could hope. 

When Rhodey doesn’t answer right away Tony asks again. “Who’s - who’s my mate, Platypus? A new face? Someone outside the Academy? Who’s the unlucky person?” 

“I don’t think he considers himself unlucky mating you, and don’t talk about my best friend like that.” Rhodey gives him a playful hit. “He’s a good guy. Don’t disrespect.” 

“I love you, too.” 

“Careful he doesn’t hear you say that. He’s a possessive asshole.” 

“So a guy,” that doesn’t narrow down the list much but it is surprising. Tony really thought he’d get a girlfriend, but turns out he went and got a boyfriend instead.

Howard would be so proud of him for proving that right. ‘Why have a broad when you’ll probably be the broad?’ 

He didn’t know how to feel if he ended up mating to a male alpha. With the posturing and the aura of dominance he couldn’t create just waiting to be smacked across his face everyday, taunting him. Howard did always say he was a sorry excuse of an alpha. Better suited to be another alpha’s... well, you know. 

At least he and this guy love each other, right? 

“Who’s this guy?”

“Well, it’s -” 

“I’m here! I’m here! Tony?” A voice interrupts. From outside the door, in came the one and only Steve Rogers. He’s breathing heavy and looks like he ran a marathon getting here but he’s smiling. Large and shining. “You’re awake.” 

“Hi, Steve,” Tony says. It’s all he can think of saying. He honestly didn’t expect Steve to be here. They’re not exactly close from what he remembers.

Steve’s about to say more but Rhodey quickly stops him, dragging him back out the room and the two proceed to have a very hushed conversation. So hushed that Tony can’t guess what they’re talking about, but he does hear a very clear but very hurt, “oh” at the end. Then the two don’t realize their voices have gotten louder.

“Yeah.” 

“So he doesn’t remember.” 

“No. Sorry, Steve.” 

“Now what?” 

“We help him. Any way we can.” 

“Would I be of any help, though? I’ll just cause problems.” 

“Will you be able to keep away?” 

“...no, I won’t.”

“He may not remember, but he still cares for you. Always has. Just gotta help him fall in love with you all over again.” 

Hold on. One. Second. 

Fall in love?

All over again?

Him?

With Steve??

When?

How?

Tony stops breathing.

The two return. Their hushed conversation over. Tony must be bug-eyed as he stares at them.

Steve stops in front of his bed. “Hey, Tony. I -” 

“I mated you?!” 

His shouting surprises the two. “Oh, you heard that?” Steve says. 

Tony is speechless. It’s not a denial. Meaning, it could be very much true. He’s mated to Steve? 

“Yeah, I’m you’re mate. Two years now. Could’ve been near three but you’re very stubborn,” the famous omega says so freely. As if being mated to Tony isn’t the worst thing in the world for him. “Rhodey told me you don’t remember anything in the last three years. So you don’t remember our time together?” 

No, I - no.” 

“Okay,” Steve looks down. Hurt. “I understand if you want me away while you heal -” 

“No,” Tony says rather quickly. “I mean - help me understand. How did we end up together? How did I win you? No - shit, that came out wrong. You’re not a prize. You’re a hero and an icon. I just don’t get how I got this lucky.” 

Steve has a smile. It’s small, but it’s there. “I don’t know about you being lucky. I think I’m the luckier one here. If you have to know, it took a lot of work on my part. It also took a lot of help from your friends. You’re really determined to ignore the signs right in front of you, Love.” 

Tony makes a choking noise. Steve just called him Love. Steve Rogers just called him love! He couldn’t believe it. This is all a dream. It has to be. He’s never this lucky. 

“Tony?” Steve frowns and moves around the table. Closer to him. He reaches a hand out. Rubs a thumb under his eye. “Honey, you’re crying.”

Is he? Steve pulls his thumb away. Glistening from a tear. Oh, looks like he is. 

“I’m just overwhelmed,” he inhales, “and in pain.” 

“Your leg?” 

“Yeah.” 

“I’ll go get the nurse.” Steve turns to do just that but Tony grabs his arm before he can take the first step. 

“Wait. Stay. Please?” 

“I’ll get her,” Rhodey offers and walks out the room, leaving them alone. 

Steve sits on the bed. He grabs hold of his hand. “Okay, I’ll stay. I won’t go anywhere.” 

“Thank you.” With his shirt, Tony wipes away the tears. “Could you - could you tell me how it happened? How did we -?” 

“Get together?” The omega pipes in.

“Yeah. I just don’t believe it. Feels like a dream.” 

“You better believe it, Mister. This is no dream and I worked really hard to get you. I’m not letting go.” 

Tony laughs. It’s so surreal to hear Steve say that. For him of all people!

“Okay, while we wait for Jim let me tell you about the first time I tried asking you out. A lot of people got upset about it and trust me, it wasn’t because I was trying to get off the market.” 

[mallowstep]

I just thought about this

Do you think the Clan cats might ever have some form of PTSD from eather witnessing another cats death in any form like in battle or another disaster or even killing another cat themselves

I really do want to expand on this

okay matthew from the end of this post here it turns out i have a lot of thoughts and talked for like, almost 2k words about this. sorry. there's a tldr at the end.

hmmmmm

my official answer is, "sure, anything is possible, especially if you want to explore that."

my more rambly answer is...kind of.

we're just going to jump straight in with serious cat talk here, but cats? those mofos are killing machines. they are highly efficient hunters. kind of like people and creating things.

on the other hand, cats are also huge cowards who don't like to fight. hence cat and mouse: the cat doesn't want to go in for the kill unless they're sure they can execute it.

i like to think of them as a very krav maga idea: "we don't fight unless we absolutely have to, but once we go in, we go all in."

so...on one hand, "do cats experience ptsd from killing each other?" feels kind of like asking, "do humans experience ptsd from making things?", and yet, that's clearly extremely reductive.

it's also worth talking about what ptsd is. it's easy to think of ptsd as equivalent to trauma, but it's not.

trauma is, well, traumatic events, ptsd is one possible response. most people who experience trauma do not develop ptsd.

(there's also c-ptsd, but i'm getting to that.)

ptsd is, basically, an overactive adrenaline response, basically. it can look similar to depression and anxiety, but it's not the same. things like flashbacks and triggers are not exclusive to ptsd, or even any specific mental illness. it's normal to experience ptsd-like symptoms after a traumatic event. that's a traumatic response.

ptsd is, instead, the unhealthy extension of that, in time, and possibly severity.

before i go any farther, i just want to say, this is not to say you need to have ptsd to have trauma, that you can't have ptsd/trauma if XYZ, etc., so please, give me the benefit of the doubt here. it's always tricky to word these things in a way that is both clear about what i mean and not harming people.

mental illness is always a tricky subject. trying to fit a sum of many symptoms into boxes will never work, but i am going to lean on it as a tool to categorize and discuss experiences in a general sense.

i also want to mention c-ptsd, or "complex post-traumatic stress disorder." this is a debated diagnosis, in that where it fits into mental illness boxes is argued and it's yet to be included in the dsm, but for now, it's sufficient to think of it as ptsd's fraternal twin.

c-ptsd develops when trauma is prolonged, and there's little/no chance of escape. think kidnappings and child abuse.

it shares a lot of symptoms with ptsd, but it has its own unique cluster of symptoms, especially surrounding relationship issues.

right. we can rule that off for things cats typically experience from battle. but i still want to talk about it.

but ptsd is in reference to human reactions to trauma, which is fine! all warrior cats are at least a little anthropomorphised, or it wouldn't be fun to read about.

okay, before i lose the thread, circling back to my point, the conditions for ptsd are a prolonged response to a traumatic event. i, personally, don't think that your everyday warrior is going to experience this. some amount of battle is normal for cats, yeah?

but i do think ptsd/ptsd-like conditions are quite possible. i'm going to move into a discussion of various characters, now, and i'll put that under a read more.

okay, let's examine a few different cats, starting with mudfur.

why mudfur? because he chooses to be a medicine cat specifically because the battles of being a warrior are too much for him. does this mean he's experiencing ptsd? no, i don't think so. we never see any indication of him having flashbacks or hypervigilance. mind, i have

okay sorry you uh

i took a break to read mothwing's secret

see i've been putting it off bc i knew it was going to make me feel things and lord it did

phew

well i was going to talk about mothwing but first, back to mudfur

i can now confirm that we don't see any evidence of ptsd in him. trauma, maybe, but not ptsd.

which...checks.

next cat, ivypool.

but my ivypool, not canon ivypool, because i gave ivypool ptsd.

if you haven't read it, hedera helix is my canon compliant ivypool series, and you can get the Deets there, but i think "fair is the night" is the piece to focus on here. specifically,

The dark is the same, and the heat, and the way she slinks through the shadows, trying not to take notice. The way every pawstep is echoingly loud, and how she can't catch her breath or find her thoughts over the noise. All that's missing is.

Him.

Maybe Ivypool does still dream.

She hisses, her belt bristling, tail lashing, and raises her paw, claws extended.

what's going on here is that she mistakes tigerheart for hawkfrost.

yes, she has ptsd.

she also has c-ptsd in my writing, but i don't want to talk about this at the moment, because ivypool is complex, and i don't feel like bringing dovewing into this. but no, this is her having ptsd from her (dark forest) mentor trying to kill her. a cat she, at least on some level, trusted turning on her and attempting to kill her.

so for ivypool, it's the unexpected that traumatizes her.

which i think makes sense: cats don't generally expect to be attacked by those they trust. which leads me into...

character three: bluestar.

now, bluestar is complex because of the dementia, but i think it's pretty easy to say: tigerclaw (a cat she trusts) betrays her, she gets hypervigilant and stops trusting people.

i'm deliberately going short on this because i'm at almost a thousand words and uh,, i just want to talk about mothwing.

mothwing. my baby. my beloved. my beautiful.

fuuuuck okay so i should not have read mothwing's secret because this is going to turn into me writing mostly about that, but i actually knew 90% of what was contained in it through moonkitti videos + doing research for various mothwing related projects.

i think the only thing i learned was the moonkitti scene about bees is actually completely canonical, as written, and that it was possible for me to love mothwing more than i already do.

usually, i'd want to also talk about willowshine, but i'm going to keep my focus on mothwing. willow my love is going to come up, but i'm keeping my focus tight.

mothwing! onto my purpose: mothwing and c-ptsd and religious trauma.

she will get her own essay i have a document titled "mothwing and religious trauma" but with trope-bingo i've been writing the essays less, so bear with me.

anyway. i'm not waffling, i'm just trying to set up a good starting point so i don't ramble past the purpose. and i think...the scene with mudfur and mothwing near the end is what i'm honing in on. (spoilers, duh, but also, you don't need to have read it.)

so mudfur comes to mothwing after the battle, and she turns him away. he doesn't understand, but i do.

religion has been used against mothwing her entire life. her clan used it (inadvertently) to keep her from her purpose, hawkfrost used it to maintain his control over her, and mistystar used it to again keep her from her purpose and passion. (and yes, i have strong feelings about what this does to willowshine, but i'm trying to stay on-topic.)

and then, the first tangible proof she has of starclan is the dark forest. and her brother. attacking the nursery. and her.

and then mudfur has the audacity to say, "yeah sorry we don't know anything! but like why are you still rejecting us?"

(makes me want to rewrite the ending of "if you love me any, let me know it now" actually, i'm angry. not going to, but i want to.)

adfskjl mothwing is my new purpose for existing. i may actually consider changing my blog title from "in this house we lovewing dovewing" to something mothwing themed. i love her. expect a mothwing focus sometime soon-ish.

right, so, i don't think mothwing's perspective needs to be explained here. but...she is very self-aware of her position. she struggles with it. she doesn't want to talk to willowshine about her beliefs — she's grateful when willowpaw just accepts it and doesn't discuss it with her.

mothwing as a character has always been appealing to me. but. again, trying to keep focused, her brother is manipulative and cruel.

(i'm not saying abusive because i don't know if he really is. i'd want to do a proper analysis for that, not just ramble in a blank document for a while. he's toxic, but i try to reserve abusive for abusive characters. i think he is, but i don't know how i would defend that, ergo, i'm avoiding it for now.)

just. her whole life.

she spends a long time trusting others, looking to starclan for answer and salvation, and it keeps letting her down, and others keep using it against her, like a weapon. there's a lot to mothwing, but i'm really trying to stay on topic.

before i get to my closing arguments, some honorable mentions for characters i didn't talk about, but could have:

squirrelflight

feathertail, stormfur, and mistyfoot

dovewing

briarlight. okay she's such a good honorable mention i just have to explore this for a second, but the scene in bramblestar's storm where she's afraid of falling trees is good. i don't know, she seems fairly functional, but she's definitely not "over it."

anyone captured by twolegs.

tawnypelt

bramblestar. before you gasp, he too trained in the dark forest and was manipulated by hawkfrost and tigerstar.

probably a lot more.

so anyway, if you hung around for nearly 2k words to listen to me talk about cat trauma, here's my closing statement:

i think ptsd in clan cats is definitely going to be a thing, but i think, more often than not, it's not going to come from the battle. we looked at several examples where the incident happened during a battle, but i think it's the betrayal that's more shocking than the actual fighting.

i didn't address ptsd from cats killing each other, other than mudfur, and that's...frankly that's because i don't know. it is very hard for me to sympathize with those characters long enough to think critically about it.

like, i can write villain pov, but i don't think i can actually say, "what if XYZ feels bad for killing someone?" even if i was going to write about like, firestar killing scourge, i don't think i could.

not in this context, anyway.

similarly, i think a lot of what we'll see is trauma. cats are already extremely vigilant, and while it's possible to get hypervigilant cats, i'm not sure how often it's going to come out. cats are good at hiding physical pain, ipso facto, i imagine they're good at hiding emotional pain.

which isn't to say that they...you know what? you know what? if you want to come argue with me about human ptsd, you can do that on my main. but i'm talking about cats, and i say that they probably don't experience ptsd because they probably shove away a lot of the external symptoms, and that's mostly how we identify ptsd. this is not an end-all be-all, nor does it apply to people, but i don't know how to begin couching this, and i'm tired.

alright, well...

tl/dr: yes, trauma and maybe ptsd occur in clan cats, but i think it's more likely to be from betrayal than fighting.

dkjl this was a lot if u have follow up qs or just wanna discuss this my ask box is open! <3

[thesims4blogger]

The Sims 4: New Game Patch (February 25th, 2021)

There’s a new Sims 4 update available for PC/Mac and Consoles. 

 Remove all MODS and Custom Content before updating your game

PC: 1.71.86.1020 / Mac: 1.71.86.1220 Console: Version 1.38

As of February 4th, The Sims™ is officially 21 years old. To be quite honest with you all, I have a lot of feelings regarding that as not only it confirms that I’m getting older, but also it makes me think about everything that The Sims has meant to so many people over these past 21 years.

My own personal – professional – journey in The Sims started in 2010 and since then I have seen every pack, every feature, and every comment from our wonderful community. Most importantly I have made great friendships with coworkers (former and current) and I have enjoyed a lot of the content our community shares and talks about on a daily basis.

This year we have nine amazing creators from The Sims community sharing their talent with all of us in honor of this joyous occasion. As of today, you can see in your game 21 new creations present in your game, some in Build Mode and some in Create a Sim, designed by these members of our community. They are in both game areas with a Green Icon representing a present and they are tagged with the Special -> Birthday filter.

We have partnered with the wonderful HeyHarrie, peachyfaerie, storylegacysims, peacemaker_ic, Luumia, icemunmun, grimcookies, FeralPoodles, and AHarris00Britney. They have created unique and fun items for everyone to enjoy, so we hope that you like them as much as we do.

Along with these items we have a number of fixes and tweaks that we managed to deliver in this update. So thanks as always for your patience and support in reporting and helping our Live Operations team review and set these fixes in motion.

On behalf of Maxis I want to wish everyone a Happy 21st, and remember that You Make The Sims!

Happy Simming,

-SimGuruRusskii

Bug Fixes

Console

Fixed an issue in the control scheme screen – if you are not familiar with this screen, press L3 (Playstation 4) or LS (Xbox One) it’s awesome… anyway! The issue is that the screen did not display the “Edit Color” option when in Create a Sim. We also fixed an issue in which the options for the L1 (PlayStation 4) and LB (Xbox One) were not showing up on the same screen.

When randomizing Skin Tone colors, pressing the X Button (PlayStation 4) or the A Button (Xbox One) will select and apply the correct tone.

We have cleansed the Create a Sim of the “Play button” control option that would appear randomly in the dynamic controller layouts.

Made some alignments on the Main Menu Home and Packs tab as they were not looking quite right when Simmers switched to Mouse and Keyboard.

Sims 4

Fixed an issue in Create a Sim that did not allow Body presets to be present as an option for Children and Toddler Sims.

For Simmers that experience a Last UI Exception error in Create a Sim while selecting Skin Tones, the issue has been resolved.

The UI team has fixed a few imperfections in Create a Sim/Pet:

Gallery Notifications on the Main Menu needed to be more opaque as they were a bit unreadable and quite… ghostly. Good to know that was the resolve because this editor was second-guessing her contacts’ prescription for a while there.

As always this editor and the Localization team made some adjustments and perfected some of the text in-game across all packs and previous updates.

Pet breed’s thumbnails will no longer look disproportionate in the Coat Color/Pattern section in the case of Simmers that own Cats and Dogs.

Sims’ makeup sliders will no longer overlap with color swatches and highlighting color swatches will no longer make them look offset.

Fixed an issue in which the Skin Tones sliders didn’t appropriately hide when changing to other parts of the Sims to customize.

Saving customized color swatches will no longer create duplicates of the base color swatch used to create the custom color.

The Save button will no longer function inconsistently when utilizing the opacity sliders. Did it save? But did you save it? Did it actually save? But did it save?

Get to Work

We were contacted by the Aliens, and they have helped us reinstate their missing Skin Tone color in Create a Sim. Now all 8 Alien skin options are visible again.

Cats and Dogs

We did some maintenance on all Robot Vacuums so now they will actually clean up messes instead of just roaming around your Lot. Especially those created by Children and Toddlers – Big Yikes! Glad that the warranty was still in place though.

Seasons

Was your game save feeling the pressure to not continue with the Winterfest spirit? So were we. We have applied a fix that should help with the culling of extra Father Winters… affecting some saves. The Culling (it’s like The Happening, so something will happen… we hope) should start when loading into a Lot. Simmers with low-end machines and many, many Father Winters… in saves, may take some time (possibly hours… that is real-life hours, not Sim hours… just in case) for The Culling to complete. Afterward, Simmers should see an improvement in performance when playing these saves.

Eco Lifestyle

The “Store No More Home Fabricator” will now properly display the number of Bits and Pieces that are owned by Sims.

Nifty Knitting

Children will no longer look like they have put a leg through a rocking chair when reacting happily to rocking. Nothing to see here… nothing to see here folks.

[brain-jarred]

Prologue, part 2

BREAKING NEWS Interview with Justice of the Meteor Brigade October 24, 1992

 I was lucky enough to catch Justice after the Meteor Brigade’s battle with a mutant bear today, and I kept him long enough to ask for an interview with him about life as a superhero and some questions all of us want to hear answered. You’ve all seen the news lately, and now, it’s time for it to be confirmed. Sitting down in the top floor of an apartment building, I conducted the interview everyone has been waiting for. Here is a sitdown interview with Justice, the leader of the Meteor Brigade. 

Interviewer: Good afternoon, Justice. Thank you for agreeing to this interview—really, it’s more of an honor than I could ever express. Is it difficult leading the Meteor Brigade? With all the monsters you have to fight all the time, I imagine it must be tiring.

 Justice: It’s not as tiring as you’d think! Really, I enjoy it. I get to hang out with my best buds all the time, and really, it’s great! Keeping you guys out of danger is what we live to do.

 Interviewer: I see. I’m glad you all don’t see it as too much of a burden. Have you ever worried you all will fail to defeat the mutant creatures? They look terrifying. 

Justice: There have definitely been some times where I was worried things weren’t going to go as planned, but with that sort of thing, you have to keep your head up and act like nothing bad is going on. The team and I all have our superpowers for a reason, and we’re going to use them. We’re here to protect everyone. That’s our responsibility. 

Interviewer: Scientists as of lately have done more research on the mutant monsters, and they’ve found connections to meteorites that came from space. The properties in the creatures’ blood seems to match those of the meteorites. Would you happen to know anything about this? 

Justice: I do, actually. That’s something Vrain has told us about. Vrain is an alien from outer space, you know. Those meteorites are very powerful, actually. They’re what gave the Meteor Brigade superheroes our superpowers, and they’re also, unfortunately, what’s mutating these creatures. I

Interviewer: A double-edged sword. We were very lucky that you all had your own encounters with the meteorites, or else our city would probably be destroyed.

 Justice: I don’t like to imagine that! I’m very grateful that the team and I found the meteorites, too. Protecting you guys may be a full-time job, but it’s very rewarding, and the team has all learned so much since we formed three years ago. Learned enough that I’m able to be here with you answering questions. 

Interviewer: It is a privilege. You all have been named public heroes, celebrated in the streets, spoken to schools and at conferences…we’re all very lucky you encountered those meteorites. Do you think the power of those meteorites could be harnessed by other humans like you all? Except for Vrain, of course. 

Justice: Well…I don’t doubt it could be…

------

BREAKING NEWS Billionaire Investments Allow for Anyone to be a Superhero November 29, 1993 

Due to recent groundbreaking developments, contributions from a local billionaire and a team of eager scientists have led to a new possibility that will let the Meteor Brigade fight alone no longer— harnessing the power of the mysterious powerful meteorites that gave the Meteor Brigade members their power, scientists have created a way for anyone to become a superhero, no matter who you are. 

“It really is an incredible feat,” the man in charge of it all, who chose to remain anonymous, told me when I asked for comment. “Upon the formation of the Meteor Brigade, I was asking myself the question. Why? Where did they come from? Why are they so powerful? I’ve been following the team closely, learning all I can about them, and now I understand. Those mysterious meteorites contain DNA-altering molecules that empower anything they touch, and it works most effectively on humanesque creatures. 

That’s the reason why all of these mutant animals keep attacking our city. Those molecules work differently on those animals. They’re not like us humans. And now, any human that wants to be as powerful as a member of the Meteor Brigade can become one at little cost. Anyone can be a superhero! It’s a child’s dream come true.” The billionaire’s dream has already produced results. I’ve seen people jumping abnormally high, super-climbers, and more running around the city. They even help fight against the mutants that try to attack. I watched the Meteor Brigade attack a mutant cat recently with the help of at least five new heroes—they all looked like civilians, but they had super abilities. 

I could see that the Meteor Brigade seemed to be faltering a little bit. Understandably, they must be stunned by the new additions to their protection of the city. After the battle, when the large, mutated cat was lying on the ground, defeated, I saw the heroes all descend to flat ground. The new heroes all gave each other high-fives and laughed gleefully, looking very prideful in their assistance with the battle. The Meteor Brigade, however, all huddled together in one big clump, all eyeing the new heroes closely. We haven’t heard much from the Meteor Brigade about the new research and heroes, so I took this opportunity to try to find their thoughts.

 I tried to request commentary from Justice after the battle, but, unfortunately, he leapt away from me rapidly after giving me a strange look. I wouldn’t be surprised if soon, every single person in the city has superpowers. Perhaps we all could become a new era of the Meteor Brigade ourselves with these new, incredible abilities, and it’s all thanks to the billionaire and his investments in such a complex field of research. With the new heroes, the world will have even more protection against the strange, mutated creatures that plague our city. Now, any human, regardless of where they came from, can be the hero they dreamed of being when they were a child. Let’s all save the world together, but this time, as superheroes.

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

BREAKING NEWS President Ruthson, dead! A tragedy befalls the nation. January 1st, 1994.

It is with a heavy heart we must announce the death of our nation’s leader, President John Ruthson. He was murdered last night, at exactly midnight. The new superheroes that had helped the meteor brigade have betrayed us, led by the no longer anonymous Billionaire beneficiary, Lincoln Little.  What's worse, they are being headed by their own leader, who has sought to call himself “Superego.” This real life super villain broke into our office early this morning, and demanded an interview be published, or else our brave reporters would be killed. Viewer’s discretion is advised in the following interview.

Interviewer: So why? Why did you murder the president? Superego: It wasn't a murder. It was an execution. But I will tell you the reason he had to die. I will tell you now. Our goal as the utopians is to usher in well...a utopia. *Chuckles* It's simple, really. The president, and his cabinet, the jury, every secretary, every government worker, and their allies, are standing in the way of that. Interviewer: So you…”executed” them.

Superego: Yes. Interviewer: Just what kind of utopia are you trying to create? Superego: democracy is a sham. It works well enough on a small scale, but on a national level? No. It's too slow, too inefficient. It only serves to stop the natural course of evolution. To put it bluntly, and perhaps in a way that fails to capture its beauty, we seek totalitarianism. One ruler, who knows what to do, what best course of action to take the nation. Now, a normal human has flaws, they make mistakes. But a superhuman? Well- A superhuman would make the perfect leader. If we can just find out how to give one the perfect combination of powers, a perfect leader could be born, and would lead our species into the next step of evolution. Interviewer: (it was at this point i was too horrified to say anything.) Superego: I will be taking my leave then. (I was disturbed at how gently he said these words, almost shamefully)

And with that the interview ended. I will leave you all with one final warning. If you are a politician, seek shelter immediately, the goals of the utopians are no doubt to take over the world, and their first step is the murder of every single goverment worker and politician.

And for everyone else...be safe, and may god be with us all.

-----

BREAKING NEWS Thousands dead! January 27th, 1994

Over the past month, thousands of politicians, government officials, and workers have turned up dead. From small town mayors, to the supreme court. Every official who has worked at the white house is dead, killed by the 10 superhumans who make up the utopians. The meteor brigade has tried to protect them, but unfortunately, they failed to save them. A dark age has descended upon the USA, and other countries are reporting their politicians dead as well. We had no time to conduct a full interview with the meteor brigade, as they are busy protecting who is left, but we did manage to get a few words from justice. “Everyone...everything is looking dark right now. And I know it all seems hopeless, but we are going to get through this. We may have failed to protect those who have died, we may have our backs against the wall, but I can see that the utopians are getting reckless. They think that you, the people, are weak. They think they can just push you around. They can't. I know that even if their plan succeeds, even if they manage to take over the world, you will not stand by. You will not watch as they slaughter freedom. You will fight back, even without powers. Because, because everyone is a hero, and everyone has the power to save the world.” Thank you Justice. 

Thank you meteor brigade. We must have hope.

BREAKING NEWS

Justice has died.

January 30th, 1994 Justice, also known as Quincey James Vonyant, died yesterday at the age of twenty four years. 

There are no words to describe the light that we as the people have lost. No words can describe how utterly horrific his death was. He was murdered by Superego, and his body was found under rubble, headless and mangled. He died saving the mayor of Wichita, kansas. His twin sister, Clairity, who has revealed her civilian identity to be Clair Lily Vonyant, gave a few words at his funeral today. She asked that they not be printed, to which we obliged. Quincey’s funeral was short, for fear that it would be attacked by the utopians. He now rests in Southwillow graveyard. 

Quincey Vonyant was a bright young man, full of life, full of bravery and courage. He was saddled with the duty of protecting the world at only 19 years old, barely an adult. And yet despite his young age, managed to do it with grace and with a smile. He gave up his pursuit of going to college and becoming a doctor in order to be a hero fulltime. 

He had a beautiful heart, and loved kids. He often read to them at public libraries across the world. But despite all these good traits, it is important to remember that despite all his powers, his public image, and his heart, he was human, like us. He wasn't just a perfect person with no flaws or sorrows, he had them. I knew him well, speaking to him and interviewing him often has that effect. I lost a friend. And the world has lost a hero.

But we must remember his last words given to the press, and words he said often. Anyone can be a hero. And it's at times like this, we must rise to the challenge that the world has thrown at us. We can't give into despair, we must honor his memory, and hold onto hope.

BREAKING NEWS: Superego and utopians defeated, and the end of the meteor brigade.

February 17th

In a field out in Nebraska, Clarity avenged her brother and the thousands of people that superego killed. There was snow on the ground as I looked on at the catatonic body of Superego. He was not killed, but his brain was utterly shattered. I think we can all safely say good riddance. He will never use his mind to hurt others again.

[tsuki-chibi]

Marinette March Day 26: Comfort

Behind? Catch up on AO3: Under My Umbrella

-------

"It's time," Plagg announced.

Marinette's heart turned over. "Is it really?"

"It's 1:45am," Plagg replied, glancing from her to her computer. Adrien turned around, looking pale. He'd been officially working on homework, but Marinette suspected that he had gotten as far on his homework as she had on her design for Jagged. Which was to say, they had made no progress at all.

After she'd talked to Chloé, she'd realized that going back to Alya's was pointless. Her parents and sisters would be home soon, which meant that Nino, Adrien and Marinette couldn't hang around for long without some uncomfortable questions being asked. So Marinette had gone home, figuring that it couldn't hurt for her parents to see her face for a bit. She’d pretended that she’d slipped out early that morning to meet Alya before school before rushing up to her room.

Because Adrien couldn't go home, of course - even if he'd wanted to, none of them would've felt comfortable with Adrien or the Black Cat miracuous being under the same roof as Hawkmoth. So Chat had been waiting for her on her balcony, and she'd slipped him into her room with her parents none the wiser. They had shared Marinette’s supper, and otherwise wiled away the time as best they could.

"Are you sure you're ready for this?" Marinette asked, twisting to get a better look at her partner. He looked as tired as she felt, but sleep had been out of the question for both of them.

"As ready as I'll ever be," Adrien said, very quietly. Plagg and Tikki exchanged worried looks, and Marinette bit her lip. Chat had always been much better at words than she was. Whereas her tongue twisted and stumbled around, he seemed to know what to say to make every situation better. It was frustrating to know that she couldn't comfort him the way he deserved. Then again, was there anything anyone could say that would make this situation better? Probably not.

"Okay," she said finally, deciding that now wasn't the time. "Tikki, spots on!"

"Plagg, claws out!"

It was very strange to see Chat standing in her bedroom and know that Adrien lay beneath the familiar mask. Ladybug held her hand out to him. Chat closed the distance between them without hesitation and took her hand. Rather than leave, she took a moment to pull him into a hug. Remembering her earlier desire to give him more hugs made her feel both sad and determined, because it turned out that Chat got even less hugs than she could have ever imagined. She hugged him tightly for as long as she dared before reluctantly letting go.

"You get the miracle box. I'll get everyone organized?" she said, touching his cheek.

"Right. I'll meet you at the school," Chat said, and she nodded and stepped back, searching his eyes. Transforming and the hug seemed to have calmed him down a little, which was good. She wished she could say the same for herself.

They went their separate ways once they were outside. She, Nino, Adrien and Alya had talked it over and ultimately decided against inviting the police along. Adrien had pointed out that it was dangerous to have what were essentially civilians along when dealing with Hawkmoth and Mayura; if something went wrong, the battle could turn nasty very quickly and the Agreste mansion, while not small, would still be a confining space. Alya had promised to bring her phone along so that she could take some incriminating pictures just in case the word of Paris's superheroes wasn't enough.

Ladybug landed just inside of the gates of the school a couple minutes later. Alya and Nino were already there, and so were Kim and Max. Seeing them helped to ease Ladybug's nerves and she smiled as she walked over. Before she could say anything though, Luka and Kagami emerged out of the shadows and came over. Right on their heels was Chloé, who crossed her arms as she approached and looked like she was trying very hard to pretend that she had accidentally stumbled upon their meeting as opposed to having received a direct invitation. Everyone looked expectantly at Ladybug, who swallowed.

"Thank you for coming. I appreciate it more than you know," she said softly. "We're just waiting for two more people."

"Wait, two?" Alya said, looking confused. "I know we're waiting for Chat, but all of the other miraculous holders are here."

"Uh, I've only used my miraculous like once," Kim said, half-raising his hand.

"Me too," Max admitted, straightening his glasses. "I don't know how helpful we'll be."

"Hopefully, everything will go smoothly and Chat and I will do the bulk of the work. You're all here for back-up," Ladybug reassured them. "And if you don't want to be here, I understand. None of you are under any obligation to stay."

Chloé scoffed. "I want my miraculous. I'm not going anywhere."

"Of course we're going to help," Luka said, giving her a gentle smile. "Hawkmoth has put everyone in this city in danger. The least we can do is support you and Chat Noir now that you're finally getting the chance to take him down!"

Kagami nodded her agreement. "I would be honored to help," she said quietly.

"That's great and all, but who else are we waiting for?" Nino said.

"Uh... me?"

Several people jumped, which had Ladybug biting back an amused smile. Alix, for all that she was loud and sassy, was very good at sneaking up on people. Judging by the smirk on her face, she had done it on purpose. Alya looked utterly baffled by the sight of her, and Ladybug could tell that Alya was running every akuma battle through her head in an effort to figure out where Alix had come into the picture. Of course, that was something Alya wouldn't be able to figure out no matter how much she thought about it: the future Bunnix had, for the most part, only interacted with Ladybug, Chat, and Alix.

"Alix? Wait, what?" Alya said finally.

"Dude, you never told me you had a miraculous!" Kim exclaimed.

Alix rolled her eyes at him. "That's because I technically didn't. My future self has one."

"Your... future self?" Max repeated, eyebrows furrowing.

"Alix is, or will be, the holder of the Rabbit miraculous. Much like the Snake miraculous, it deals with time," Ladybug said, figuring that she'd better explain before everyone got even more confused. Luka suddenly looked very interested in the conversation.

"The Rabbit miraculous, huh? I haven't heard of that one," Alya said, frowning.

Alix shrugged. "Like I said, I've technically never held it. I always knew that I would someday, but I didn't think it would happen so soon."

"From what I can tell, Bunnix is usually our last line of defence," Ladybug said. "I asked her to come here tonight as a precautionary measure. If something goes wrong, then Bunnix can go back in time to tell us not to do whatever we did that made things go wrong."

Nino squinted. "I hope that sentence made sense to you, because it didn't to me."

"I get it," Luka said, and of course he did. Ladybug shot him a smile.

"I get it too," Alix said. "And I can definitely do that." She looked small but determined, standing there with her hands shoved in her pockets.

"That's good, because we're going to need all hands on deck," Chat said as he dropped down next to Ladybug. He had a bunch of miraculous in his hands, which he quickly passed out: the Snake to Luka, the Dragon to Kagami, the Monkey to Kim, the Horse to Max, the Fox to Alya, the Turtle to Nino, the Rabbit to Alix, and lastly, the Bee to Chloé. Ladybug watched closely as Chloé affixed the Bee miraculous into her hair.

The street lit up with an array of brightly colored lights as the kwamis appeared. Over the general murmur, Ladybug couldn't hear what Chloé said to Pollen. But whatever it was made Pollen smile, and then Pollen flew up and kissed Chloé's cheek. Ladybug didn't think it was her imagination that Chloé's eyes looked a little shiny as Chloé brought her hands up and hugged Pollen close.

“Okay, everyone. You know what to do,” Ladybug said.

“Trixx, let’s pounce!”

“Waayz, shell on!”

“Sass, scales slither!”

“Longg, bring the storm!”

“Xuppu, showtime!”

“Pollen, buzz on!”

“Kaalki, full gallop!”

“Fluff, clockwise!”

Alix was last, her voice uncertain, but she was swallowed up in the same light as the rest. When the light faded, Ladybug was left looking at several different superheroes. Seeing them all in one place was a little overwhelming. She had never given out so many miraculous before, and suddenly she understood why Master Fu had always been apprehensive about letting too many miraculous be active at once.

But then Chat’s hand settled on her shoulder, giving her a comforting squeeze like he could sense exactly what was going through her head. He smiled at her and she smiled back, reminding herself that there were their friends. She trusted every single person here – even, she realized, Queen Bee. They were all united over a common goal, and they wouldn’t let her or Chat down.

“Okay,” she said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Pegasus, you’re going to create a portal into the Agreste mansion.”

“The Agreste mansion? Wait, is Hawkmoth –” Ryuko’s eyes went wide.

“Hawkmoth is Gabriel Agreste,” Ladybug confirmed grimly. “And Mayura is Nathalie Sancoeur.”

“Oh my god,” Queen Bee said quietly, and Ladybug knew she was thinking of Adrien. She thought, glancing sideways at her partner, that it probably wouldn’t be long before Chat told Queen Bee the truth about his identity.

“Focus,” Ladybug said, clapping her hands lightly. “Queen Bee, Ryuko, Viperion, you’re with me to go after Hawkmoth. Rena Rouge, King Monkey and Carapace, you’re with Chat Noir and you’re going after Mayura. Bunnix and Pegasus, the two of you are going to wait in the hall. If something goes wrong, you’re our back-up. So Pegasus, make sure you feed up your kwami if you have to.”

“Right,” Pegasus said.

“Everyone ready?” Chat said. His grip on her shoulder now was tight; he didn’t like the idea of them splitting up, but it made the most sense. And there was no way in hell she was letting him go after Hawkmoth. Not after what had happened in the alternate timeline.

Hearing the agreeing rumbles, Ladybug took a deep breath. “Then Pegasus… do your thing.”

“Voyage!”

[ironwoman18]

The Worst Third Date Ever final part.

Chapter 32: A Clean Sweep for Team Reid.

Mount Pleasant Women's Correctional Facility.

"Hello Dr. Reid, it's been a while since I saw you" said the prison guard as he and Max walked in.

"Hello Officer Grey, it's good to see you, of course I would prefer it could be in better conditions" the man nodded.

"I'm agree. Please put your weapon here and everything that could be use as one for the prisoners" Spencer does it "who is she?"

"My wife" said Spencer.

"Oh congratulations doc. I didn't know you got married"

"We just got married so it's still something new" he smiled and the couple walked thru the metal detector and the officer lead them to the room where Catherine Adams will die "officer I would like to talk to her before you take her to her execution"

"You sure? I know she did some bad things to you"

"Yes sir, I'm sure" the guard nodded.

"Ok, ma'am the room you must go is at the end of the aisle then turn to the left" he pointed where she had to go.

Max nodded and kissed Spencer before said "be careful, she will try to get under your skin one more time before she left this world"

He looked in her eyes and nodded "I know but you will be in my mind" he smiled and left with the guard as Max walked where the office said so.

Spencer took of his wedding ring for the first time in a month. He wanted Cat to know that he got married while the needle was under her skin.

The officer left him in an interrogation room. The feeling of being in a prison again was terrible but he knew he would never return there.

Some mini later the guards sat Catherine in front of him "Spencie you came!" She said in an exciting tone and he rolled his eyes "you're one of the few men who fullfil their promises"

"Yeah, after everything we had been thru, it's the less I could do" he said with his poker face on "sadly I can't be the one who do the honor of stick that needle in your arm"

"Don't be mean Spencie, I know you will miss our little games" she said in a little girl tone "it's a shame... Maxie didn't end up here, huh? I guess you didn't send her to prison" he clenched his fist and Cat did a noise with her tongue "Spencie, a good FBI agent never pick sides" she smirked.

"I'm not here to talk about Max, I'm here to make sure they say you are gone for good and won't ruin another relationship I might have"

"I will be always in your mind Spencie, as you told me skating" she winked at him as some officer walked in to get her ready for the execution "bye bye Spencie... I had fun with you" she left smirking, thinking their score was 2-1, she lost against him twice in her mind but at the end she felt like she took away his chance to date someone.

Spencer took a deep breath, relaxing his muscles, he felt tense with her, he put back on his wedding ring and kissed it gently like if he was remembering that everything was fine and Max was his forever.

He stood up and walked back to Max. When he arrived she was there with some other members of the team. They wanted to see Cat finally gone for good.

Spencer walked straight to her and kissed her, it was needed, like he was a dying man and her lips were the water he needed to survive.

After it Max asked against his lips "How was it?"

"As annoying as you can imagine" he rubbed her cheeks gently and then they sat with their friends.

Spencer held Max's hand when the officers walked in with Catherine Adams and a priest to gave her some final words to see if she will change.

Max was annoyed to see her again but she decided to go there and witness her dead and to rub on her face that she outsmarted her.

After some words from the priest the execution started. An officer put the tourniquet around her arm, the doctor cleaned the area with a cotton with alcohol and then stick the needle after finding a vein.

They released the tourniquet and Max decided to make her move. She stood up and walked to be in front of the window. Cat's eyes showed the surprise of seeing her there.

Max put her wedding picture with Spencer against the glass with one hand and with the other a message.

"3-0. Perfect score, bitch. The Reid Family"

Cat's eyes were full of hatred and anger that everyone thought the killing liquid flowed faster.

"NOOOO.... I WON... YOU KILLED YOUR BOYFRIEND!!!" Cat screamed out at her.

Max smirked and shook her head. Cat's eyes realized what happened months ago and her face calmed down. You could read in her face that, a woman, a sister in this men's world betrayed her.

Then after several minutes Catherine Adams was declare dead. Spencer and the team hugged with Max. Finally the most dangerous hit woman they ever faced was dead.

After that Spencer felt like he could finally rest, he will stop looking his surrounding because everyone could be working for Cat, he was free and not only him but his wife and their children.

Some weeks later, they have an appointment to know the gender of their babies. They were excited about this. Max already ordered to paint the room. They painted it white and she decided to paint something on the wall.

If they have a boy and a girl, she will paint a train on a wall and a beautiful princess with some flowers on the other wall.

The doctor checked her blood pressure, weight and ran some blood test then they were to the ultrasound room where the doctor checked the babies.

"Ok Max and Spencer. I confirm that you will have twins. I can see them now. And I can tell you the gender of your babies. Do you want to know?" She asked. The couple nodded "ok, baby number one is a boy!" The couple had some tears of joy "and baby number two is a girl!" More tears of joy "congratulations, I will print the result for you. Do you want some copies" the nodded "ok I will get you some of them. You can clean the gel and walked back to my office" the doctor stood up leaving the couple alone.

"I still can't believe we will be parents" said Spencer helping Max sat down and kissed her forehead hugging her.

"Me neither but we are and it's the best feeling ever" she hugged him tight.

The rest of her pregnancy was calm. Her students cried the final day of classes and they gave her some toys they don't use for her kids, something they planned with their teachers.

Her co-workers at the school organized an early baby shower and each gave her a little present for the kids and for her. Max was hormonal all day and cried a lot.

She was thankful for that job and will miss them. They all hug and Spencer picked her up.

They decided to sell Spencer's old car and with that money and some more they saved, buy a bigger and more modern one for the babies.

As promised, Penelope hosted the official baby shower with all the BAU people and Max's family.

Dave and his wife gave them the cribs, one blue and the other pink; the Simmons gave them two baby bags and a first edition copy, signed by all of them plus David, of the "Simmons' Stories for Children"; Luke, Tara and Penelope joined to give them a set of feeding bottle with the engraving "genius babies" on each, three pink and three blue.

Derek and Savannah gave them Hank's first car seat and bought one for the extra baby; Max's family gave them a double baby stroller; Diana promised them some days ago knitted blankets for her grandchildren; Jack and Aaron gave them his collection of favorite books.

"My mom used to read me those" he said with some tears in his eyes "please read it to them" they nodded with tears in their eyes too.

JJ and her family gave them two changing tables for the kids. Ashley, the new team member, gave them some onesies, with different designs that matched Spencer and Max's personalities.

Last but not least, Emily and Andree gave them a rocking chair, Emily told them it was her mother's favorite when she was a child and she wanted to give to her BAU little brother. Spencer hugged her tight with tears in his eyes.

After that, the men helped Spencer moved everything to the babies rooms. The following week Max asked Penelope, her sisters and JJ to help her paint the train and princess with the flowers.

Spencer was teaching that day, they were having a good time with music and some ice tea. It was the third week of November and the babies were expected that week.

When they finished they decided to go to the living room and talk some more when Max showed a painful face. The women panicked but them JJ and Michelle recognized it... "My/Her water just broke" the three women said at the same time.

"Ok Max breath" said JJ with her 'unsub with a gun pointing at her' voice "Penelope go upstairs to get her bag with clothes and Eloise turn on the car" both women nodded and ran to do what she ordered "let's go Michelle, help me" they walked with Max, who was struggling to keep calm and breathing, to the car.

Penelope ran downstairs with the bag and she was calling Spencer but his phone was turned off.

"Damn it... Boy wonder must be in class" she said as they got in the car.

"It's ok. Leave him a message and he will go to the hospital" said JJ as she started to drive.

She drove fast to the hospital. Meanwhile Penelope sent a text to the team 'Houston we have a baby delivery x2' and hit sent.

They arrived to the hospital and immediately took Max to a room where she asked for her husband.

He arrived some minutes later. JJ decided to pick Diana up, her son was about to be a father, she needed to be there.

Michelle called her father to drive to the hospital with her son.

After some more hours waiting, Spencer finally walked out the delivery room with a big but tired smile.

"They are both perfectly fine. A handsome prince and a beautiful princess" he said and each of his friends and family hugged him "it's a small room so first my mom, Max's dad and sisters, JJ and Derek" they all nodded and follow Spencer.

In there were Max holding on of them, and the other was held by a nurse.

The nurse handed the baby to him "hi everyone" he said as if the baby talked "this is Jason Alexander Reid" the BAU members recognized the name of their former friend and co-founder of the unit and Max's family recognized the name of their uncle/ brother.

Spencer passed him to his mother, then Max said "and this is Rachel..." She held a sobb saying her mom's name, and so did her sisters and father "...Diana Reid, mommy's princess" she handed her to her father.

The two babies were sleeping and quiet, Diana had some tears in her eyes "I never thought I would see this day coming... My boy had two children and I couldn't be prouder" she kissed Spencer's cheek and then Jason's forehead.

She handed the boy to JJ and Don did the same to Michelle, each held the babies and left the room except JJ and Derek.

"JJ and Derek, you are like a brother and a sister to me and Max and I thought it could be fair to make you godparents of Jason and Rachel"

"Really?" Said JJ with tears, she held Jason in her arms and whispered "maybe I can call Caltech or Yale but I'm sure will take you to the zoo" she laughed and kissed her new godson and did the same with Rachel.

"Thank you little brother and I promise to spoil them with lot of sports" he laughed and hugged him.

Then the rest of the people walked in to meet the babies. Dave even cried when Spencer said the name of his son. He know Gideon would be proud of his boy.

"Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone; we find it with another." — Thomas Merton.

Fin?

OOooOOooOO

The final chapter! What a journey! Thank you for reading, thank you for commented it, thank you for recommending it. I enjoyed this experience, my first long story in a long time and in English!

I learned so much and made some friends with this. Hope you all read my new story Double Dates (mostly Garvez but with some other couples)

Again, thank you, gracias, danke! To @nerys2 @andiebeaword @dreatine @aperrywilliams @moviequeen51

[lilyvandersteen]

Out of the Blue: Chapter 4

Cover art: @redheadgleek​

Beta extraordinaire: @hkvoyage​

Links: AO3, FF.net

Author’s Note:

Snarky Kurt is coming out to play... Ooh, Blaine, you picked the wrong person to anger!

Chapter 4: Called Out

“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.”

(An excerpt from Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Kurt was quick to welcome their guest of honor, who’d apparently brought his BROTHER to the wedding -hmm… Did that mean he was single at the moment?

One quick look confirmed that Mr. Anderson was still the handsomest man in all of North America. And if the rumors were true, he dated men as well as women, so Kurt actually stood a chance with him. Therefore, he made sure to mention he was single and very available while bringing him to the brides and officially introducing them.

Kurt adjusted his cravat and checked his coif while Mr. Anderson was congratulating the brides, and then graciously accepted Mr. Anderson’s praise of the decorations as he steered him up the fire escape and towards the circle of chairs they’d set up for the ceremony.

“It’s going to be pretty informal, as you can tell,” Kurt said, “Santana didn’t want to make a big production of it. Wanted nothing stiff or formulaic. That’s just not them.”

Mr. Anderson grinned. “I’ll like it all the better for that.”

Kurt shot him a quick smile and dashed off to Elliott to tell him to start the ceremony, sent Rachel over to Artie for the procession song, warned Tina to start taking pictures and then told bridesmaids Mercedes and Quinn as well as Britt and San to walk to their assigned spot.

As Rachel sang “The First Time I Saw Your Face”, the brides walked into the circle hand in hand and smiling – Brittany widely and Santana tremulously. Tina’s camera shutter clicked at a fierce pace, and Kurt stood there taking it all in for a moment, his throat thick with emotion.

Then he jumped back into action, taking the ring box out of his inside pocket and tying the rings around the necks of Lord and Lady Tubbington. Carrying their basket, he moved to stand next to Elliott.

Brittany and Santana’s vows made Kurt tear up, and by the many sniffles in the audience, he knew he wasn’t the only one affected.

Thankfully, the cats were as good as gold and stayed put throughout the ceremony, and when the right moment came, he held out Lady Tubbington to San for Brittany’s ring and Lord Tubbington to Britt for Santana’s ring.

After taking the ring off of his neck, Britt pulled Lord Tubbington closer and kissed his head.

“Oh, was that supposed to be the groom?” Elliott quipped. “Then we’ll need to start over!”

The terrace rang with laughter, and Lord Tubbington wriggled out of Kurt’s arms and fled. Lady Tubbington followed suit, but seeing as their task was fulfilled, it didn’t matter much.

As soon as Brittany and Santana had shared their first kiss as wives, to loud applause, Kurt gestured to Rachel to follow him to the kitchen, where they arranged champagne glasses on trays and filled them with an excellent spumante Kurt had found in Little Italy. Kurt got out the first batch of hors d’oeuvres, too, and they went around the terrace with their offerings.

Mr. Billionaire Anderson did not seem snobbish in the least, eating Kurt’s finger food with relish and complimenting him on the spumante, even asking to write down its name and where he got it.

When Kurt brought out his masterpiece, a three-tiered wedding cake decorated with rainbows and unicorns, as per Brittany’s request, Mr. Anderson whooped and hollered the loudest of them all, and his moan when he started eating cake made the tips of Kurt’s ears redden. He left only crumbs on his plate, and clamored for seconds, which Kurt hurried to give him, beaming.

                        Now that everyone was on their second piece of cake, Kurt took a minute to eat something himself. There wasn’t much left of the hors d’oeuvres, but what there was, Kurt decimated in seconds, and he ate one of the marzipan unicorns as dessert.

He took a glass of spumante to wash everything down in style, and surveyed the party with satisfaction. Yes, he had done it once again. The wedding was a resounding success. Now there was only the first dance to go, but that was up to Britt and San themselves.

Kurt made another round to fill up the guests’ glasses again, and then told the brides to get ready for their dance, Mercedes and Artie to sing, and Tina to catch all the magical moments on camera.

“Oh, I LOVE this part!” Rachel whispered loudly in his ear as she wound her arms around his waist.

Kurt kissed her head and hugged her back as they both watched their friends shine in their first dance.

“Look how happy they are,” Rachel sniffled. “Ah, this is amazing!”

“It is,” Kurt agreed. “Worth all the work and then some.”

“True. Though I’m going to dance a bit before I start on clean-up duty.”

“All right, then. Off you go, Miss Berry! But you will help me later!”

Laughing at her grimace, he pushed her towards the dance floor and then picked up the cake tray to wrap up what was left and put it in the fridge.

The party went on, and his friends took turns claiming the microphone for a song, until Santana took it to give a speech, thanking her wife for her promise of forever, thanking the guests for coming to witness their union, and thanking Kurt nicely for all his work organizing the wedding. He sent her an air kiss, and she half-laughed, half-sobbed, overcome with emotion.

He’d just stepped towards San to give her a hug when another voice piped up. Mr. Anderson’s brother. And for some reason, he was LIVID, accusing Britt and San of faking a wedding to swindle his brother out of an expensive gift, seeing as their family wasn’t even there, ranting and raving at the fake brides for taking advantage of his brother that way, and taking advantage of their friend to organize the whole event, too. He dissed all of Kurt’s careful wedding planning and hard work, pronouncing everything too cheap for an actual wedding.

Brittany shrank away from the venom in the guy’s voice, and even Santana seemed tongue-tied for a moment. The rest of Kurt’s friends, who had all been dancing and laughing a minute ago, now stood staring at the younger Mr. Anderson in shocked silence.

Kurt, however, felt his hackles rise. No way was this guy going to ruin everything at the eleventh hour. No way!

He fixed the man with a glare and gritted out, “Way to make snap judgments, Mr. Snob! For your information, Santana’s family is homophobic. As in, they don’t approve of her choice of spouse. They threw her out when she told them she was in love with Brittany, and are still expecting her to come to her senses and marry a man. Santana was crying this morning because her abuela wasn’t going to attend her wedding, so thank you very much for opening that wound again.”

The Andersons’ eyes flitted to Santana, who swallowed with difficulty and looked down. Brittany put her head on Santana’s shoulder and squeezed her hand in sympathy.

“And Brittany’s parents told her only last week that they’re getting a divorce,” Kurt continued. “She was so mad at them that she uninvited them to the wedding. And she’s the only child of two only children, and her grandparents are dead, so no other family. Any more questions?”

Mr. Snob rubbed his hand over his neck, his animosity all but gone. “I guess… I guess I just don’t see why people would tie the knot when they’re only twenty years old. That’s something for when you’re settled, not when you’re barely starting out.”

Kurt chuckled. “Believe me, I told them exactly the same thing when they came to me and asked if I’d plan their wedding. But they said they were sure of each other, and they didn’t want to wait. So I agreed, and made it as fabulous a small, low-budget wedding as I possibly could.”

“You did a wonderful job!” Mr. Anderson boomed, clapping Kurt on the shoulder. “This place looks like a dream, the brides are gorgeous, the ceremony was perfect, the music is lit, and I never had better hors d’oeuvres in my life. And the wedding cake! Beautiful AND scrumptious! If you ever plan a wedding again, do invite me, will you?”

Other guests chimed in with praise for Kurt as well, and soon they were all laughing and chatting and dancing again.

Kurt sent Mr. Anderson a small smile, grateful to him for defusing the tension, and then focused on Mr. Snob again. “Your assessment of me was spot-on, though, bravo. Yes, I’m the pathetic single gay who lives vicariously through his friends. Yes, I’d rather focus on their romance than fail at it myself. So far I’ve planned a wedding for my father and stepmother, for my show choir teacher and the school counselor, and now for Santana and Brittany. Because it made me happy to see them happy. And maybe that makes me a silly romantic, but it’s certainly better than thinking yourself far above anyone and being sarcastic and mean.”

Mr. Snob bit his lip and lowered his eyes for a moment, then looked Kurt straight in the eye and said, “You’re right. I was in a bad mood, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on all of you. I’m sorry.”

Kurt nodded coolly. “Apology accepted.”

Mr. Anderson put his arm around Kurt’s shoulder. “Do you know, I wouldn’t even have cared if this wedding were fake! Blaine can say what he wants, but you throw a damn good party, worth every cent of the gifts we brought! So, I’m serious, any event you’re planning in the future, send me word of it and I’ll be there.”

Kurt smiled wider at him this time. “I promise I will.”

Then he leaned in and whispered into Mr. Anderson’s ear, “And if you want to help things along, encourage Sam to propose to Mercedes. He’s been thinking and talking about it for ages, but he never makes a move. They’re over there, both of them.”

Kurt surreptitiously pointed to Sam and Mercedes so that Mr. Anderson would know whom he was talking about.

Mr. Anderson winked at Kurt and whispered back, “On it!” He sauntered back to the dance floor, bowed for Mercedes and swept her away in a quickstep.

Sam, who’d been dancing with his girlfriend until Mr. Anderson cut in, glared at his perceived rival.

Kurt grinned, and granted Mr. Snob (Blaine, apparently) only the merest glance before turning his back on him and starting to collect empty glasses and plates to take them to the kitchen. The guy was back to looking sullen, but Kurt didn’t give a hoot about that. He could sulk the whole night through, as far as Kurt was concerned.

Only, he didn’t. On his second run to the kitchen, laden with plates and trays, Kurt felt a presence behind him, and suddenly, his load was a lot lighter. Blaine had taken half of the stack and was carrying it to the sink.

“Where’s your dishwasher?” Blaine asked.

Kurt snorted. “None of that here. We wash up by hand. And by that I mean I wash up, nine times out of ten. The girls only help out when I force them to.”

“I’ll help,” Blaine offered.

Kurt quirked an eyebrow at him. “You’re a guest. The snooty kind that finds fault with every detail of the wedding I planned. Why on earth would you help me out now?”

Blaine had the grace to blush. “Hey, I said I was sorry. I was out of line, and I’m trying to make up for it. Throw me a bone, would you?”

Kurt stared at him until he started to squirm, and only then did he say, “All right, then. You wash, I’ll dry.”

They worked together in companionable silence, Blaine softly singing to himself as he scrubbed and rinsed. Meanwhile, the party petered out around them, and one by one, Kurt’s friends said their goodbyes and left.

Once the dishes were done, Kurt thanked his helper and offered him another piece of wedding cake as a reward. They sat down on the sofa and ate their cake.

Kurt felt his eyes droop, and hoped he wouldn’t have to stay up much longer. He wanted to lie down and sleep for a week on end.

He woke abruptly, because he got jostled and his head lost its comfortable pillow all of a sudden.

“Uhm, wha?” said a voice very close to him.

Kurt blinked his eyes open and found that he had fallen asleep against Blaine, who had dozed off too, if his slow reaction and slurring speech were any indication.

“You coming, squirt?”

“Don’t call me squirt,” Blaine snapped, rubbing his eyes like a five-year-old.

“Aw, Blainey, why are you still tetchy? You just got to spend some time alone with a gorgeous guy.”

Blaine rolled his eyes. “Washing the dishes.”

“You know what Nana used to say.”

“Yeah. ‘Share your life with someone you like doing chores with.’”

“And did you like it?”

Blaine blushed and lowered his eyes. Oh, wow, he had beautiful long lashes. In his own way, he was quite as handsome as his brother. While washing the dishes, he’d been singing under his breath, and his voice was lovely. And he’d washed the dishes efficiently and without complaint. Pity he was such a curmudgeon.

Mr. Anderson waggled his eyebrows until Blaine let out a plaintive “Cooooop!!”

“Blaaaaaaaine!!”

“Okay, let’s go before you embarrass me even more. And keep it down, will you. Don’t wake Kurt. He must be exhausted.”

Blaine’s eyes swept from Coop to Kurt, and he visibly started when he saw that Kurt had woken up.

“Too late for that,” Kurt drawled, sitting up. “But I can always go right back to sleep.”

Blaine looked shocked. “You don’t want to move to your bed?”

Kurt shook his head. “Nope. Whenever Britt stays over, she and San get my bed, and I sleep on the sofa. Usually, San sleeps here, but it doesn’t fit two people. When Britt stops touring with Mercedes, San and Britt will look for their own place, but for now, this works.”

Blaine bit his lip. “You know sleeping on a sofa is bad for your back, right?”

“Oh yeah. I don’t know how San has dealt with it for so long. One night here and I’m stiff and aching all over for a week.”

“So why don’t you buy an extra bed? Or at least a decent sofa bed?”

Kurt shrugged. “It’s on the list.”

“What list?”

“The list of things we need to save up for.”

Blaine raised an eyebrow. “Why did you ask for a 25K pet pavilion for your cats as a wedding gift when you can’t even afford decent beds for yourself?”

There he went again, Sir Judgy McJudge-a-Lot! He did have a point, though.

Kurt grimaced. “The cat stuff was all Brittany’s idea. We should never have let her compile the registry. We didn’t notice what kind of silly stuff she’d asked for until after your brother had bought the pet pavilion. It’s a stupid waste of money, I quite agree. If you’d like your money back, you can cancel that gift. Please do. We’ve been feeling awful about it.”

Wasn’t that the truth…

Blaine seemed slightly mollified, but still continued his questioning. “Also, if you have no money for something as basic as a bed, where did you get the dough to plan a wedding?”

Kurt flushed. Rude much? “I did a lot of it myself. I also called in a lot of favors, and borrowed stuff. And we all worked extra shifts.”

Blaine nodded, seemingly accepting this explanation. Insufferable snob!

“Well, you did a wonderful job!” Mr. Anderson boomed. “I had a splendid time, so thank you very much! And Brittany can keep the pavilion for her lovely cats. Don’t you worry your pretty heads about that!”

Kurt got up from the sofa and shook hands with Mr. Anderson. “Mr. Anderson, thank you for coming.”

“Oh, please call me Cooper. Or Coop for short. I hope to see you again soon for another party. And it’s ME who should thank YOU!”

Kurt smiled at Cooper, and then turned to Blaine. “Thank you for helping with the dishes.”

“It was my pleasure,” Blaine assured him. “And sorry again for my rant earlier. I was wrong.”

His earnestly repentant face made Kurt feel a bit guilty.

The brothers left with a smile and a wave. Kurt pulled at the heavy door to close it and then sank down against it, whispering, “You weren’t, though. You were absolutely right. We did it all for the presents.”

[adelheidvonschicksal]

Fine the Way You Are [Todoroki x F!Reader]

It took me awhile to figure out how to end this to incorporate both prompts so it’s a little fast in the middle to jump deeper into the relationship.

[37, “You’ll make an amazing mate one day, I know I’d be honored to be bonded to you.”]

[25, “I want you to be the father/mother of my pups, and no one else.”]

You made the decision to stay late into the evening and put in some overtime at work. It was nothing difficult, just going through some accounts and finalizing a few documents for Endeavor.

You had been working for the hero for about eight months now. It started as a program to build relationships with your agency overseas by having you and a few others work there temporarily. After the period was over, you eventually just stayed because you were offered a better position and enjoyed working for the agency. It was the best decision you made for your financial future but not so much for your social one.

Despite your time in Japan, you were still struggling with finding a proper place in the country. You had only learned enough to do your job so you were still a bit fuzzy and clumsy with the more advanced parts of the culture. It constantly felt like there was this invisible barrier between you and everyone else that made you uncomfortable, and you couldn’t really find a lot of other people that looked like you who might have been able to sympathize with your problems.

All this meant it was harder for you than the common citizen to make friends, let alone find a mate.

You saw everyone else with their own mates and making families, and you realized that you desperately wanted that too. You didn’t have anyone to come home to at night nor anyone to give your affection. You went alone during your heats without an alpha’s touch or scent to comfort you.

You tried to get out there to find an alpha, but you always got judgemental of yourself when you saw someone attractive. You could only wonder if they’d think you weren’t traditional enough or if they would think you were pretty or not, and if they did would they consider you material for a permanent mate, and you’d lose your nerve. The dates you did manage to go on, although nice, didn’t really click with you personality wise or you’d do or say something considered weird without realizing it while a very small few were a bit creepy towards you.

You sighed. Maybe you should just be patient and stop trying to force fate. Maybe you should just move back home, but this job was fun and the people in the agency were much nicer than the people in your old one.

“Are you staying up late again, (y/n)-san?”

You smiled softly at the owner of that voice. It was your boss’ son leaving for the night. He was the prime example of the type of alpha you had hoped to find. Polite, handsome, fairly calm temperament, and his scent was absolutely amazing.

Todoroki had caught you on his way out the door, noticing that you were still here as usual. Honestly, he wasn’t sure when you rested, if you ever did. It couldn’t have been good for you. When you let out an adorably sleepy yawn, he mentally had to scold himself for wanting to wrap you up to sleep right there.

“Someone has to get all this done,” you explained, shuffling the stack of papers on your desk. Shouto immediately noticed the tiredness in your eyes and the slight lag in your usual upbeat voice and grew worried.

“It’s not good to overwork yourself, you should take a break,” he suggested, but you shook your head.

“It’s no biggie. I’m almost done.”

“It’s getting pretty late as is,” he mentioned. “You wouldn’t want your alpha to worry.”

The entire reason for working late was to avoid going back to an empty house. “The only thing waiting for me is my cat, and he’s probably happy I’m not there bothering his nap.”

“Oh...” he exclaimed, and you cleared your throat, having meant to make it sound more like a joke than something so...serious. “I’m sorry, I just assumed,” he trailed off, looking away from you awkwardly.

“No, I get it, most omegas our age are usually taken,” you laughed bitterly. “I mean, I try but it’s kind of hard to walk up to people myself while I’m not usually the first person people come up to looking for a date since I don’t exactly fit the mold, you know?” you explained, not really expecting him to get it. It wasn’t the best idea to share personal problems with someone of his station, but you supposed you just needed to vent to somebody, anybody, after holding it in all this time even if they wouldn’t understand it.

The truth is he didn’t understand it though.

It was hard to understand why someone like you wouldn’t be claimed or dating, let alone have a difficult time. Todoroki understood that you were foreign and different than what was usually seen as pretty for the country, but you were still attractive just in a slightly different way is all. He thought that it was interesting that your own traditions were different while as an individual you were so warm and caring and your soothing scent and pleasant smile was something he looked forward to when he came into work every morning. He didn’t see why anyone would pass up the chance to have you to share a home. The only reason he hadn’t was because he always thought you would’ve been with someone, be it here or overseas.

“You’d be an amazing mate, its their loss if they can’t see that.” he said before thoughtfully whispering, “I know I’d feel lucky to be bonded with you.” You blinked owlishly at him. Todoroki’s eyes widenened when he realized he said it out loud and that you heard. He tilted his head down and away, hiding a faint blush. “No, I, uh didn’t mean...” He grimaced. ”I apologize. That was inappropriate.“

You shook your head. “It’s fine, I shouldn’t have brought it up in the first place, but thanks for saying that.”

“It’s the truth,” he replied, and you both nervously held eye contact.

You bit your bottom lip, thinking over his confession. You never smelled anyone consistently on him to say he had a mate. Maybe he was in the same boat. Oh, what the heck, might as well. You already laid it all out there anyway, what’s the harm of embarrassing yourself further. “Todo—“

“(y/n)—“

You both stared at each other. You cleared your throat. “You go,” you offered. Shouto nervously rubbed the back of his neck.

“Do you, uh, would you like to have lunch sometime, (y/n)-san,” Shouto questioned, and you tilted your head curiously, making him swallow hard, “with me, I mean, outside of work...”

“Like a date?” you confirmed hopefully, and he nodded. You smiled, trying to scale back how embarrassingly excited you were. “Sure.”

Todoroki released a breath he didn’t know he was holding in. “Oh, uhm, good, great...” he repeated. “So, what did you want to ask?”

You scratched your cheek shyly. “The same thing actually.”

Todoroki flushed. “I-I see, so I’ll just see you tomorrow then,” he paused. “Are you going to be okay to go home?””

You nodded. “Yes, I’ll be fine, you go ahead.”

“Good night.”

You gave a small wave. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

You waited until he left before cheering in your head with a “hell yes”. You gained new energy to blow through the last of your work, wanting to go home. You actually couldn’t wait to go to sleep so tomorrow could come sooner.

Little did you suspect that small conversation and date with Todoroki would finally gain you a relationship with a very loving Alpha.

It started with dates then kissing and cuddling a few weeks later. A few months down the line you had him scenting things for your nest then ended with having him in your nest more often than not.

Todoroki was always patient with you, tried to encourage you to try new things even if you were a bit unsure at the time, and introduced you to his friends. He was also helping you out by telling you when you would do things you didn’t realize were rude or explaining topics you didn’t quite understand. Then, you noticed you started to fit in pretty quickly with his help.

It was also very quickly that you became part of the family. You were finally happy to have somewhere to feel like you belonged but being part of the family also meant showing up to more events.

You thought that fitting in with the everyday citizens when you first moved was bad enough but a bunch of fancy, rich business moguls and government officials in one room was even worse. The entire party you were a nervous wreck and barely managed your way through every awkward conversation. Some people started addressing you less after your first few failed anxious attempts at joining in, and the ones who did you’re sure only did so because you were with Endeavor’s son.

Your alpha was the first to notice your discomfort, seeing as you clung to him and refused to leave his side for long. Todoroki also knew that your delicate situation wasn’t making it better as your instincts told you to stay near him for protection more than ever. Every so often, he’d rub your arm, trying to reassure you with a quick scenting, only for you to go back to trying to shy away behind him from the other guests. He wished he didn’t have to show up at all or asked you to come with him because of the stress it was causing you.

Deciding enough was enough, Todoroki decided to take you out of the situation and excuse yourselves from the rest of the dinner party. His father could scold him later if he wanted. Todoroki wrapped an arm around your own and quickly led you back to his car.

The car ride was silent as you distanced yourselves from the party and passed by the first few street lights on the way home. You were the first to break the silence with a small sigh.

“I just stuck out like a sore thumb, didn’t I?” you said, rubbing your fingers along your dress as he drove down the dimly lit streets.

“At least you tried to talk about something besides politics and stocks,” Todoroki said, but you still felt down about it all. Todoroki frowned, upset that he had to bring you into that situation in the first place. He didn’t even like to go to these things for the same reason. Very quickly, he saw your face take a downward tilt towards your lap as you fiddled your thumbs. “(Y/n), don’t pay them any mind. I promise you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Yeah...” you solemnly answered, but you just didn’t know how someone like you managed to get such a mate. He was handsome despite the scar on his face, he had a noble career, more money than you’d ever need, and he was gaining popularity with the public. Despite everything he’s told you, times like this you questioned why out of all the possible omegas he could’ve been with that he chose to look your way. “You would do so much better with a Japanese omega.”

Todoroki brought the car to a sudden stop on the side of the road, putting it in park, and looked at your disheartened face. Your heart raced as he reached out to brush his hand over the mark he made long ago on the crook of your neck. His thumb gently caressed the bond mark but his expression was completely stern as he scowled.

“(Y/n), I don’t ever want to hear you say something like that again,” he ordered.

“But, it’s true, you know that...“ he cut you off with a soft kiss to your lips, tenderly moving them with your own before pulling away.

“Listen to me, you’re my mate,” Todoroki began and moved his hand to rest against your cheek. “No matter what I’m going stay with you because I love you, I don’t care about anything else or what someone else thinks. You’re the one I want to be with,” he promised, sliding his hand down to your stomach. “And you’re the one I want to mother all my pups, no one else,” he said, tenderly rubbing your stomach to reassure you. It hadn’t began to show yet, but it made you calm down all the same when he would touch you there in a silent promise to keep you and the tiny pup growing inside you safe.

“Shouto, I—” You held back a small moan when his lips pressed to your bond mark.

Todoroki softly kissed and licked the dark spot on the crook of your neck before pulling away to look at your flustered face. “I don’t want you to be different or feel you should be. You’re perfect just like this.” 

You anxiously played with the collar on his dress shirt before pressing your palms flat against his chest. “Do you really think so?”

“I know so,” he answered confidently.

Weakly smiling, you slowly brought your hand to the spot he kissed, making him grin.

Todoroki cupped your chin, refocusing your gaze on him. “Let’s go home, omega. I want to show you just how much I want you,” he whispered before capturing your lips with his for the first but not only time tonight.

[rkevent]

It’s a brand new weekend and a brand new episode of the Mnet Global Auditions. It’s already the third one and, for the first time in years, the show brings back the duo challenges to check what the contestants have to show for themselves when they’re with someone else. Some of the more memorable performances from the previous episode get a second to shine as small cuts appear on the screen before the public is reminded of who was sent some. In a survival show, not all will survive.

“What were your thoughts on last week’s episode?” The interviewer starts asking the contestants. “I thought my heart was about to explode. No, seriously!” LEE SUWOONG lays a hand over his chest and feigns exasperation. “I was terrified,” CHWE HANSOL comments. “I really thought that it was the end of the road for me. The fact I’m still here… I’m grateful for it every day.”

It’s CHOI MINHO’s face on the screen now. “I think there’s a lot of talent on the show this season and it’s amazing that the judges can narrow down the top 3.” HWANG YEJI appears next. “Getting told by Tiger JK himself that I am a good dancer- made me really happy and honored, honestly, I never imagined that I would be mentioned in the top performances. Let alone chosen the best dancer?” She nods her head. “I was confident that I wasn’t going to be grouped in with those who were eliminated,” JEON HEEJIN says, “but I wasn’t expecting to be picked as the best that day- like, not at all. I can only hope to keep meeting their expectations as we go forward.”

The camera spins around the set, showing the small modifications for the new episode. The contestants are all seated next to their partners and, as majestically as always, the CEOs make their way to their seat, officially starting the episode. From one of the corners, a judge picks up his microphone.

“Let’s bring the first performance of the day, please.” Hyun Bin asks and a camera zooms in on the duo sitting in the furthest corner. It’s pixelated, but it’s clear that one is a tall man and the other is a much smaller girl. The two make their way to the stage, and their identities can be confirmed. “CHOI MINHO checking in,” the man says with a grin. “I’m LEE NAKYUNG! Please watch us nicely!” 

There’s a couch prepared for them and the girl is the one to lay down on it while the man chooses to lay on the floor. Before the song can start, the screen shows Minho in his interview. “How was it working with your partner?” They ask him, and he opens a wide grin. “Nakyung is the best. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner for the duo stage.” And then it’s the girl’s turn on the interview. She places a hand on her chest, her eyes shooting up while she smiles. “Ah, I really…” She looks back to the front where the camera is. “I’ve been a big fan of Convex since before their debut so this is… this was really something to me!”

They focus on her face while she’s laying down before showing Minho again on the floor. The audio around them is of someone leaving, closing the door behind them, and then driving off. The man takes on the role of a dog and goes pester Nakyung, the cat. At the start, their performance is cute and theatrical, incrementing their animal’s behavior to the dance. Suddenly, instead of running to the other’s arms, the girl pretends to hit him in the face. With this, the song takes a complete turn to something more energetic and the duo truly gets to show off what they got. In the end, however, had left at the start of the song comes back, and Minho drops his partner on the floor before laying down as he had at the start. To pay him back, Nakyung steps on his stomach before reclaiming her spot on the sofa. 

It all ends as it had started, and the man appears again on the screen for some final comments. “We got to show different sides of us. Doesn’t Nakyung make a cute cat? I hope we get to work together again someday.” And the girl appears again, adding her own thoughts. “I hope that if there are more group opportunities in this season, that they pair him with someone else. I think most contestants could really learn a lot from working with him, just like I did.” Before they can call out the next duo, the camera shows the two in their seat once again. “I think we did well,” she’s the one to whisper to him.

“I enjoyed their performance a lot,” PARK WOOJIN says, “and I think that kinda routine needs good teamwork to pull off.” He stares blankly at the camera before continuing. “From an audience’s standpoint at least, it was just enjoyable to watch.”

The second duo to perform is two girls who make their way to the stage together. On their way there, KIM MINKYUNG gives CHOI YEWON an encouraging pat on the back. For their introduction, the two speak in unison. “Hello, we are Minwon.” Then, they move on to their personal introductions. “I’m Yewon the cutie rapper,” she says her words as cute as possible before winking at the judges. “I’m… just Minkyung, but I’ve never received any complaints!” The other jokes and then both move to get in their positions.

Choosing a song from Global Icon meant that you needed the charisma to make it work, and both girls show no problem with it. Yewon is in charge of the rap, and Minkyung is in charge of singing, and the dance isn’t too hard for both of them to follow along. If that wasn’t enough, the dance break is given to their cute rapper who shows off the skill she decided to move away from the last episode. She does her moves cleanly before stopping with a hand on her hip and a smug look on her face.

Once the song ends, the two share a hug before leaving the stage. Soon it was time for another pair. CHOI YOONA and WANG JACKSON take on the stage, and before they get to introduce themselves, the man appears seated for his interview. “Oh, I really enjoyed working with Yoona! She’s a really nice person and she’s also dedicated.” The girl also gets her turn. “Jackson's a sweetheart,” she says smiling. “We got along great — I think I got lucky getting paired up with him.” 

She’s the one to open up the stage, the rapper in their duo. Their standing side by side, holding to one of each other’s hands. They get close a lot during their performance. There are times when one will cup the other’s face, while others when someone will touch the other’s nose, or pull them closer together. Therefore, the dance choreography is saved mostly for the chorus. It’s nothing too challenging, probably to fit their skills. Overall, it’s clear that they’re having fun from start to end. The performance ends with finger hearts that are aimed at the judges up on their seats. They hurry off the stage when they're done, but their faces appear again for some final thoughts.

“I think it was easier to work with one person, rather than a group?” Jackson comments. “Last year… there were a lot of opinions, and a lot of tension, but when it’s only me and her, it’s really easy and fun to work. We can only hope we delivered a good performance.” Yoona is shown as well. “Is it okay if I say I think we did well? Jackson and I wanted to do something fun and upbeat, we wanted to enjoy ourselves onstage — and I think we did. I did, at least.” She says, smiling.

Two more make their way to the assigned spot on the floor. The girl makes sure to give herself a proper introduction. Waving both hands, she grins brightly. “Do you see me? I’m SIA KIM!” When the camera moves over to her partner, CHWE HANSOL, he’s smiling. “Hey, I’m Vernon. Hopefully, this gets you thinking about your first love in the best of ways.” While they get ready to start, the boy appears somewhere else. “How was it like working with your duo?” They ask him.

“With Sia? She’s amazing.” He says without hesitation. “It was like two peas in a pod. Our heads were always in the same space.” Sia gets to share her thoughts as well. “I was a little nervous at first? I’d never met him before. We ended up working well together, actually! I helped to pick a song that I thought was good for both of our skills. We just really complemented each other, I think.” And so the lighting changes to accommodate their performance.

The girl is the one who starts by singing. Instead of going with a complete cover of their chosen song, they do some of the smaller movements so that it fits their own skills. The colors of their outfits match as if they’re a real couple and their voices work together to show their puppy love story. It’s during the chorus that they truly make use of the original choreography. It isn’t too hard to keep up with and it matches their skills well while they have fun. In the end, Sia rests her head against Vernon’s and looks out to the cameras, her hands lifted up to show a pair of finger hearts. “How do you think you did?” It’s the boy on the screen again being asked questions.

“I mean… isn’t that for the judges to tell me?” He scratches his head lightly before they move on to his partner. “I think we managed to show a bright side of ourselves today, and it was really fun to work with Vernon. Either way, I won’t have regrets but I’ll… cross my fingers. I think it’s all I can do.” HWANG YEJI appears to share her thoughts. “Chwe Hansol’s performance with Sia really had me captivated when I watched. They looked like a couple in love, right?” She smiles.

Followed by them, is two boys this time: DO KYUNGSOO and KIM YUGYEOM. They introduce themselves briefly before getting ready to perform. The two wore plaid shirts, but Yugyeom had a beret on his head, while Kyungsoo simple let his hair messy. “I will admit, I’m a pretty shy person.” Kyungsoo is the one to say it in his interview. “So I was nervous about the fact we were going to work in pairs.” Yugyeom seemed to have shared some of these thoughts as well. “I was nervous at first, you know? He’s a singer who I haven’t seen any dancing from. We both went into this unsure of what to expect. A singer and dancer paired who can’t do the other skills? Talk about a work in progress.” He laughs a bit at his joke.

When their performance starts, though, it’s clear that they plan on showing all of the skills they own. They’re both dancing, and they’re both singing, even if there was a claim that they weren’t good at each other’s skills. At some point in the chorus, Kyungsoo walks forward and shows the palm of his hand. On it is a red heart taped right at the center, and the boy shakes his hand excitedly before returning to the rest of the choreography. Once the chorus is over, Yugyeom puts in more energy on his dance, showing what he got. The ending pose is a heart that the two make together. “This was the most difficult performance for me to date,” Kyungsoo says. “I haven’t danced much in the past and it was hard. I think it is important to keep challenging yourself. One does not grow by staying comfortable.”

Yugyeom says the last few words. “I think we really came together as a good team.” LEE NAKYUNG appears to comment. “Kyungsoo didn’t have the skills to keep up with Yugyeom and it didn’t feel like they had harmony at all. Kyungsoo’s performance last week was so creative and eye-catching… I’m sure it was Yugyeom’s fault, though. I don’t even remember his performances, at that. I doubt he’ll make it far, and if he brings Kyungsoo down with him then that’ll be a shame, really. I liked him.”

The camera zooms in on HA SUNGWOON as he wipes his palms against his tights. “Nervous?” He asks the one beside him, his partner for the week. NA JAEMIN looks over to him and smiles a bit, humming as he nods his head slightly. “It’s now or never, though…” It’s the first of the two who takes on the interview. “I only vaguely knew of Jaemin in previous rounds,” he admits. “When our pairing was first announced I was pretty anxious. I didn’t know if we’d be able to work well or not. And admittedly, some of my fears were valid — I mean, we definitely clashed in the beginning. We both have strong opinions and we’re stubborn not to back down.”

Returning to the two on their seats, their names are the ones called. Sungwoon gives his partner a double thumbs up and a smile. “Let’s get it done!” They make their way to the stage, and start off with introductions. “We’re your lucky stars, Sungwoon and Jaemin.” Sungwoon is the one to finish it. “We’ll be performing with our own spin, courtesy of Jaemin. We hope you enjoy!” They choose to perform a rearranged version of a song originally performed by a female vocalist. The change in keys makes it easier for him to sing it, and while he does so, Sungwoon looks Jaemin’s way from time to time. The rapper gets to show off his skills in a long verse, and after their performance is done, the two share a one-armed hug. 

After them comes what could be considered one of the more unusual combos. HWANG MINHYUN and SONG YUQI stand on the stage together as partners for this week’s mission. “I had fun,” the male admits in his interview. “I wasn’t sure what to expect when the names were called, but we got along well, and I think it translates well in our performance.” They take their seats on the stage this time, Minhyun holding onto his guitar. He gives her a nod before he starts playing.

They chose an acoustic version of a group song and, while he plays, Yuqi moves her head around waiting for the cue to her first lines. While the lyrics are gloomy, they try to keep the melody somewhat upbeat. They change glances throughout the song and move their bodies along to the rhythm. After they’re done and have to leave the stage, the two hug each other. “I’m so proud!” Yuqi tells him. “No matter what…” the girl holds onto his hand. “You’re amazing.” And so they show the man back in his interview. “I’ll be cheering her on for the indefinite future. You can count on me, Yuqi,” he says to the camera with a thumbs up.

“I could’ve done better, shown more of myself maybe, and I have some regrets looking back. It was nice to be able to play on stage.” KANG DANIEL appears on the screen next. “I really liked Minhyun and Yuqi’s performance. Their arrangement was really nice, and I thought it showed off their styles well. They’re both really strong and it was… a bit graceful? Elegant.”

This time is for HWANG YEJI and PARK JUNHEE to take over the stage. “Junhee oppa has been amazing,” the girl nods in her interview. “He has a great voice and is very underappreciated. He is in the same boat as Minho… not as known maybe but he’s amazing as well.” Junhee introduces himself first, followed by the girl. “Today, I want to show another side of myself.” She looks over to her partner who nods her way, and just like that they’re ready to perform.

The boy starts in the center singing acapella. After his first four lines, the song starts to play, and Yeji appears from behind him. She starts to sing as well, this time also dancing along to her words. Even with their song being in English, the duo does a good job at it, expressing the strong feelings that came with the musical song. When they finish, the two are standing side by side. Junhee swings an arm around the girl’s shoulder as they bow, and then exit. “I’m so proud of you,” he says to her. “We did well, didn’t we?” The girl chuckles, this time back in her interview. “I don’t think I can talk about how thankful I am to Junhee oppa. Thanks to him and my hard work I can say that I’m proud of myself.”

“Yeji had a lot of confidence when she walked on that stage,” DO KYUNGSOO comments on the performance. “I think that helped with her performance. Honest, I think she might win this whole thing.”

The next few names are called: JEON HEEJIN and KANG DANIEL. The boy looks over at the one beside him and gives her a grin. “Let’s do this.” He slings his bass over his shoulder as he stands up, and the scene cut to show him in his interview. “Heejin is great. She’s younger than me, but I admire her a lot. She’s self-assured and knows she’s meant to stand on stage, and she is. I was really scared of her at first,” he admits with a laugh. “Just because she- she won the title of best singer! And that’s entirely justified!”

“Working with others has never been an issue with me,” the starts on her own interview. “But I will say I do tend to perform better when I’m able to do exactly what it is I want to do- no one knows your strengths and weaknesses as best as you do.” They both stand on the stage, each with a different instrument. While Daniel chose his bass, Heejin carries an electric guitar. Just as worthy of the title given to her, the girl starts off by singing. The duo also decides on changing a more popular song into a dance remix, making it their own. While Daniel sings as well, the boy is also given some rap to perform as he did in the previous episode. Their voices eventually echo around the room, finishing off strongly. “I’m really proud of this,” the boy is the one to say it.

“I feel like this is where I really shine. I’ve put ‘instruments’ as my main skill on my MGA form for two years ago,” he laughs. SOHN YOUNGJAE appears on the screen. “If I remember right, Daniel hyung was involved in a band remix last year as well… Doesn’t it feel like a repeat? Honestly, I can’t help but wonder what he’s doing in a competition like this. Him and the rest of the band guys as well. I mean are they trying to become idols or do they just want to promote themselves? If they’re just here to promote their band… I think they should have let people who actually want to be here have a chance instead.”

“Let’s do this,” LEE HOHYEON mutters under his breath, sending a small nod towards JO YURI, his partner. Once on the stage, they take care of introducing themselves. “Hello, we are Riot!” The boy continues alone. “I’m Riot’s cool rapper, Lee Hohyeon.” And the girl finishes it off. “Hello, I am Riot’s main vocalist — Jo Yuri.” She smiles and waves towards the judges. “Please enjoy our performance.” Before they can actually start it off, it’s time to show some of the boy’s interview first. “I have to admit, it wasn’t easy at first.”

He lets out a small laugh. “We really didn’t hit it off on the right foot. But we managed to make it work and with a lot of hard work.” The cameras are back on the stage, focusing on each of their faces before their chosen song starts to play. “I want to see you all moving in those seats.” Hohyeon starts by looking at the CEOs before turning towards the other contestants. Yuri is the one who starts singing, voice deeper than what she had shown before. While the girl is in charge of reaching each pitch, the boy takes on the rap. When their gazes meet, they smile. During the chorus, the duo decides on following the choreography which is simple but adds a little extra to the whole performance.

They bow in thanks at the end of their performance before returning to their seats. Yuri gets her moment, too. “I was honestly surprised that we ended up working together. Plus, we definitely killed that stage, so uh…” she shrugs. 

The next performance is by two girls, KIM JUNGEUN and JUNG EUNJI. “We’re Kimjungeunji,” Jungeun says in the safety of her interview, not in front of everyone else. “I haven’t shown much of my singing yet but she encouraged me to do my best.” But then a rather different question is asked. “So, did Shin Yuna’s comment about your dye get to you?” The girl who, now, has brown hair rolls her eyes and the scene is perfectly cut to show one from the previous episode. “Jungeun was a trainwreck.” One of the eliminated contestants, SHIN YUNA, says in the black-and-white filter. “Even her dye job couldn’t help her performance.” Back to the present, Jungeun comments about it. “Well, it seems to have helped. I’m here still,” the girl states. “She isn’t. Maybe she should have dyed her hair blonde, so she could stay in the competition.”

On the stage, both Jungeun and Eunji stand with their back to the camera, a hand on each other’s hips. With the start of the song, the girls turn around, and Jungeun is the one who starts singing, something she hadn’t shown before. They dance throughout the song, but it’s after the end of the chorus that things get serious. There’s a switch on the song, and what’s happening is a dance break which incorporated many aspects such as floor choreographies, wacking, and tons of hair-flipping. When Jungeun attempts a high note, Eunji joins her soon after, showing off her own set of abilities.

“It was a perfect remix to showcase their vocal talent.” CHOI MINHO says. “I think I was hooked the whole performance.”

Next up is a couple of boys, KANG HYUNGGU and SEO CHANGBIN. “How was it like working with your duo?” They ask Changbin first. “Oh, with Ggu - I mean, Hyunggu-ssi?” He laughs awkwardly at his response. “Please cut that first part out.” It’s on his partner’s interview that the other’s supposed mistake makes some sense. “I was surprised that I was partnered with Changbin, actually,” Hyunggu says. “I didn’t think that out of all the people here that I would be paired with someone that I’ve known for most of my life?” He grins then cups his mouth, leaning closer to the camera. “Binnie-ssi, I know you like to pretend you don’t know who I am, but we both know it’s a lie.”

They are each standing on their spots before their introduction. Hyunggu starts by screaming, running, and then doing a cartwheel, before hopping into Changbin’s arms. “The floor is on fire!” His partner replies appropriately. “It’s okay, I’ll freeze the floor, then.” Changbin spins, pretending to get rid of the lava and sets down the other boy back on his feet. “Hello, we are fire and ice!” They properly get into position this around, waiting for their song to start. It starts off with them both singing together. There’s a choreography that goes along with it and they start together with it as well. While Changbin raps, Hyunggu stands to the side, adlibbing and moving his hands to the beat. The dancer eventually gets his own chance to shine with a dance break of his own.

After being done, they high five each other before sitting down.

“Prepared, hyung?” KIM SEUNGHUN asks the one beside him, KIM HYOJIN. “I’m as prepared as I could be,” the other replies. It’s their turn on the stage, and they stand there together before introducing themselves. “Hello, we’re Spicy Pork! I’m Kim Hyojin,” he says. “And I’m Kim Seughun!” The other says. “Like our team name and our hair colors,” Hyojin gestures at their head, his with a red color and the other with ash brown. “We’ll make sure to burn the stage with our spiciness!”

Before they can start their performance, Hyojin appears in his interview. “It was like a dream,” he laughs. “Have you seen Seunghunnie? He’s handsome, tall, good at singing, charismatic - wow. He’s like my soulmate. I love you, Seunghunnie.” The boy flashes a finger heart to the camera and the other side of this romance, Seunghun, also gets to add his own thoughts. “I call him my soulmate,” he can’t help but cringe. “I’m embarrassed!” The boy hides his face behind his hands, laughing at himself. “Hyung, I love you!” he ends it with a playful and exaggerated tone.

The moment the instrumental starts, the two begin to sing in harmony. They carry fiercer, more serious expressions than the ones they were showing off before. It’s a rock remix of a more recent song that plays, and they have to live up to the part. The playful duo of soulmates has a new intense gaze to show off. Their tones are different but they don’t crash. They harmonize for the high note and then intercalate. When it finally comes to an end, they hold their charismatic poses before leaving the stage.

The next duo walks over to the stage, LEE CHAERYEONG, and NAM JOOHYUK. “To the top, we’ll be iconic!” The two say at the same time before introducing themselves individually. “How was it like working with your duo?” They ask the male of the group, Joohyuk. “Honestly, a bit daunting,” he admits. “I mean, you know at the end of the day you’re working not just for yourself anymore but for someone else’s dreams too. But I’m insanely grateful to be paired up with Chaeryeong-ssi. She was amazing to work with and she’s one of the most talented contestants around.”

They smile at each other before the start of their chosen song. It’s a popular song even these days, proven by the fact they had chosen it. The two manage to carry the skills to execute it properly, Joohyun with singing, and Chaeryeong with rapping. Having ranked as one of the Top 3 in dancing the week before, she also manages to show off in that area, even if the choreography isn’t the hardest for someone like that. Once they’re done, the girl gets to share some words from her interview as well. “It was very interesting to work with a complete stranger, but I think we worked together well and created a really nice performance. It was also really nice to show everyone on stage!”

Two more appear for their turn. It’s LEE SUWOONG and WONG YUKHEI wearing matching outfits. “Prepare for trouble,” Suwoong starts. “And make it double,” Yukhei continues, both of them pointing to the camera. “I’m Lee Suwoong,” the first one introduces himself by pointing a thumb to his chest. “And I’m Wong Yukhei!” Just as it often goes, there’s a break for comments, this time starting with a few words from Suwoong’s interview. “It’s like we’re platonic soulmates! At first, I was a little intimidated, because he’s tall and handsome, but he’s easy to talk to and doesn’t get stressed at all!” An image of his partner appears on the screen, a heart matching the ones on their matching shirts floating around him.

Yukhei appears after him. “I hope we can remain friends.” The heartbreaks, but the boy continues to speak. “He’s a fun guy and I think we go well together. It was sort of like working with an old friend.” And so they’re back on the stage, a bench appearing behind them. Yukhei starts off by singing first. Suwoong brushes his chin, and this wouldn’t be the only romantic moment between the two of them. They take a few steps back, sitting on the bench. When Suwoong begins to sing, the two hold up a sign with ‘I ❤ U’ written on it and then pretend to kiss behind it. They dance together, and the romantic duet carries on like that. It ends with them sitting back on the bench and a hand heart.

Taking a bit of a twist in the performances so far, two beings walk to the stage. They both have boxes on their heads as they bow down and then finally take them off, revealing their identity. It’s MIYAWAKI SAKURA and SHIN RYUJIN. “How was it like working with Sakura?” They ask the other member of the duo. “It was honestly the best thing that has happened to me in this show so far!” Ryujin says. “I enjoyed my time with her the whole time and whether we were practicing, out shopping for our outfits or making our cute boxes I had a pleasant time.”

The song they chose is fun and different. Both girls get to show off their rapping skills, starting with Sakura, and then eventually getting to Ryujin on the second half. When it’s the chorus and instrumental is what takes over their performance, the two girls dance together in a dorky, goofy way, feeling the rhythm of the song. It’s silly but refreshing. When they’re done, Sakura appears in her interview. “She really complimented my style of rapping, she has a deep voice that meshes with my soft voice!” She giggles softly, placing her hand over her mouth.

“Ryujin and Sakura were both cute. DO KYUNGSOO comments. “I appreciated the change from regular hard rap songs.” HWANG YEJI also has thoughts to share. “I doubt anyone imagined two girls to pull that off so well. It was like made for them and they had fun on stage. It was contagious.”

After the two girls, come two men. There are only three duos left, and with the boys come two chairs to the top of the stage as well. They introduce themselves as PARK JINYOUNG and YOON JEONGHAN. They each take a seat but, right before the song starts, it cuts to Jinyoung’s face. “We worked on musicals together in the past. I looked forward to being with him on stage once more,” he pauses. “I think we connected easily and shared ideas that strayed away from our main comfort zone. We took a risk. He made taking that leap a lot easier.”

Back to the stage, the song starts to play, and the two follow the same choreography, except mirrored. Jeonghan is the first one to sing. The dance is sensual but not sexual, and the two try to keep it like that. Without the presence of backup dancers like in the original choreography, they are bound to use each other instead. Jinyoung cups Jeonghan’s chin, one of the changes needed to be made for them to fit. They stand up from their seat and the dance gets more intense while they harmonize together. Their expressions follow the concept of the song with intense gazes and grins. With its end, Jeonghan appears in his interview as well. “I’m very happy with the stage Jinyoung and I put on. I don’t think I could’ve had a more suitable partner.”

With each performance closer to an end, the next duo is composed of PARK WOOJIN and ZHOU JIEQIONG. “I hope I don’t embarrass you up here.” She grins, elbowing her partner as they rise from their seats. “Let’s have fun, yeah?” And to that, the boy replies with a “yeah.” They are up on the stage now, and the girl is the one who starts them off by speaking in Chinese. “Hello!” She greets. “We’re the Cuties.” As she says this, the look on Woojin’s face is of pure regret. “We spent the week choreographing this ourselves so we hope you all love it!”

The look on Jieqiong’s face is of excitement during her interview, though. “I was so. freaking. excited.” She says. “I love working with other dancers, and Park Woojin and I worked really good together. He’s a cute and a talented kid.” Woojin shares his thoughts right after. “Her talent for choreographing is really cool. I’m grateful to her for guiding me along. I know I must’ve been a bit of a drag,” he chuckles nervously, rubbing at the back of his neck. Back on the stage, the two are crouched next to each other, side by side while the song starts to play around them.

They interact with each other, which is a notable amount, just as much as they do with the audience at the start. The choreography starts strong, and that carries along as the song progresses. They aren’t scared to get close to each other either, but it all stays in the lines of playfulness. The fun and upbeat song seems to be a good pick and one that matches the name of their group with their dance. Even at the end, they get to play a bit, following the fading music.

“They did a great job.” LEE NAKYUNG comments. “There was a lot of interaction between the two of them. They didn’t worry with getting close and I think that helped make it very refreshing.”

When it’s time for the next duo, SON HYEJOO giggles as SOHN YOUNGJAE offers his hand for her to take. They link hands and sway between them on their way to the stage. They bow dramatically before the start of their introduction. The girl introduces him first. “Give it up for our main boy, Sohn Youngjae!” And then he is the one to introduce her. “And this is Son Hyejoo, AKA Olivia in the house! Together we are Sons of Anarchy!” The team name is a pun on both of their surnames. “Please take care of us!”

The girl takes her position on the floor and the boy remains standing. With the start of the song, the two start stretching and yawning. When Youngjae lays down, Hyejoo sits up and starts to rap. Youngjae had his lines to sing, and then jumps into the chorus, both figuratively and literally. The original choreography that served for nine people was adjusted to fit only the two of them. When the song ends, the two of them fall to the ground dramatically. “Noona is a really cool person, don’t you think?” The boy says in his interview. “I think girls who rap are totally awesome!”

Hyejoo speaks a bit as well. “I’m really pleased with how this week turned out. I think we were able to show a different side of us.”

The final performance arrives. “It’s nice to see you again!” TAKADA KENTA greets with his partner, YOO TAEYANG, by his side. “We are Taiyo. It means ‘sun’ in Japanese, which is our name because we’ll be burning you up today.” The other boy wraps up their introduction. “Please enjoy our stage.” They face away from the judges, prepared to start.

Kenta starts it off by walking away, turning around and walking towards the judges this time as Taeyang comes rolling in beside him. They move around each other, following the same routine but giving each of them the chance at the spotlight. Taeyang gets his time to dance alone, followed by Kenta’s turn. They reach toward the judges, making a gesture with their hands. For the last piece of the song, they dance next to each other, but with their movements mirrored. In the end, they stand back to back in the middle of the stage. “I think that we did good,” Taeyang comments with a few small nods. “I think we complement each other well.”

“I think, um…” Kenta says in front of the camera. “We were really sexy. That’s all I can think about.” LEE SUWOONG appears again. “When you look at them… you don’t really think ‘sexy.’ Taeyang is always too serious, and Kenta’s cute. I told them to show off their abs during this part, but they didn’t listen!” SON HYEJOO has some thoughts to share as well. “I really enjoyed the powerful dance duo. I think it’s the perfect opportunity to watch these amazing dancers both of who have their own styles within the same category come together and produce something that sharp and precise.”

Bringing an end to the performances, the camera pans over the judges slowly before Tiger JK picks up his microphone. “There were a total of 20 duos, and you were all judged as a package, not individually. All of you gave your best here today. Even so, we’ve come to an agreement that some did better, and some did worse.”

“Who do you think is the most likely to make it to the next round?” The interviewer asks. “I mean, isn’t it kinda obvious?” JO YURI comments. “I feel like everyone who placed first in their skill will. Other than that, it’s a game of chance, really.” DO KYUNGSOO adds his own thoughts as well. “I think SUWOONG and YUKHEI had great energy together.” He puts an emphasis on the last word. “I really thought they looked like a couple.”

LEE HOHYEON comes next. “Also…” he chews on his bottom lip. “I do think it’s a little unfair. Of course, Mason is going to be one of the best. He was previously a debuted idol and had proper trainee training. How is everyone else supposed to compete with that?” CHWE HANSOL appears on the screen this time. “People keep mentioning Minho having been in Convex before makes the playing field unequal but wouldn’t it be held to a higher standard for him competing with rookies when he already debuted? He had expectations that had to be met and now he has to exceed those plus the expectations of others here too. Plus his fanbase is no joke. Even I am a fan of Convex.”

The screen shows the set again, this time slowly coming closer to the judges. It was time.

“We’ll start off today,” Tiger JK continues, “by announcing the top 3 performances.” The camera shows the contestants this time, all of them probably wondering if it’s their name that will be called. “I’d like to invite to the stage three duos. These are CHOI MINHO and LEE NAKYUNG, CHWE HANSOL and SIA KIM, and LEE SUWOONG and WONG YUKHEI.” The man nods slowly as the top best contestants of the week make their way to the stage. On each of the duos, one half was part of the top 3 on the previous week, each for a different category.

With all of them lined up, the man proceeds with his speech. “All of you showed that you could not shie on your own, but that you could also complement each other well. The six of you managed to show your own skills, as well as highlight that of your partner and deliver a good performance. However, only one of you can be considered the best of the week.” He takes a pause, staring at the contestants below him before he shares what’s on his mind. “The best duo of the week is… CHOI MINHO and LEE NAKYUNG.”

The man nods again, the corner of his lips only raising slightly. “You did not only show off your abilities regarding performance skills, but you put on a creative performance. While the two of you are very different, you managed to come together and use that to your advantage.” His gaze moves to the other contestants on the stage. “Of course, the four of you also did a great job. Congratulations to all of you.”

With the end of the announcement, all were looking forward to, it was time to break the news people were trying to avoid. Another judge picks up his microphone getting ready to speak.

“Unfortunately, not everyone can win.” So Jisub nods, scanning the room with narrow eyes. “Just like last week, there will be eliminations today. You were all evaluated on your performance as a duo and, because of that, we’ll be eliminating both members that took part in the performance.” This was already known information but that the CEO makes sure to remind everyone of. “While last time 10 contestants had to go home, this time it’ll be 6 of you. This means that from the 20 duos here today, 3 will be eliminated.”

The camera pans over some of the contestants' reactions before returning to the judge. “And the first duo to leave us is…” The usual tense song that plays exactly in moments like these gets stronger, everyone in the room nervous to know who it’ll be. “PARK JINYOUNG and YOON JEONGHAN.” So Jisub nods in their direction. “While you two seemed to have worked well together and complimented each other, I think you just complimented in a way that made you both seem mediocre. You’re both talented individually, but it felt like your performance overall wasn’t as great as we had expected it to be. We hope that, in the future, you’ll find something that works best for you.”

Jisub looks down once he’s done, confirming who is next that he needs to call. “The second duo to leave us is… CHOI YOONA and WANG JACKSON.” The screen shows some of the random reactions from the other contestants. “While it was clear that you were having fun on the stage, there are more factors to a good performance than that which, of course, you didn’t get to reach. You can’t just do what you like because you like it, but it needs to be something good, too. We may have had some expectations for you so, this was truly a shame.”

And so there can only be one elimination left. “The last duo to leave us today is… HWANG MINHYUN and SONG YUQI.” If the last duo could have been considered a surprise, this is at least a little bit harder to believe. “Considering Yuqi was one of the top contestants on her skill last week, this was a tough choice to make, but one we all agreed with. We could see that your previous stages could be considered a bit different from the other, and we were looking forward to seeing what you could come up with. It’s safe to say that wasn’t what we expected and also not better than it, either. It’s a shame that the result had to be this, but it’s what it must be.”

When the man finishes speaking, someone else picks up the microphone. This is usually the time they congratulate the ones who passed and say goodbye to the ones that are gone, but Katie Lee says something instead. “Except… this may not be the end of your road just yet.”

To see all the of this season’s contestants, click here!

And now, let’s see what’s in store for our fourth episode!

After the announcement of the latest eliminations, those who moved on to the next challenge were once again organized in duos, but this time with different partners. Both of the people involved should show at least one of their performance skills. The theme is to impress and to manage to show your colors even when sharing the stage with someone else. A list of the duos can be found below:

#5050 - ZHOU JIEQIONG #5032 - LEE SUWOONG

#5048 - YOO TAEYANG #5035 - NAM JOOHYUK

#5047 - WONG YUKHEI #5038 - PARK WOOJIN

#5045 - TAKADA KENTA #5033 - MIYAWAKI SAKURA

#5043 - SON HYEJOO #5029 - LEE HOHYEON

#5042 - SOHN YOUNGJAE #5027 - KIM YUGYEOM

#5040 - SHIN RYUJIN #5026 - KIM, SIA

#5039 - SEO CHANGBIN #5011 - HWANG YEJI

#5037 - PARK JUNHEE #5023 - KIM MINKYUNG

#5034 - NA JAEMIN #5013 - JEON HEEJIN

#5030 - LEE NAKYUNG #5022 - KIM JUNGEUN

#5028 - LEE CHAERYEONG #5014 - JO YURI

#5025 - KIM SEUNGHUN #5002 - CHOI MINHO

#5020 - KIM HYOJIN #5017 - KANG DANIEL

#5018 - KANG HYUNGGU #5007 - DO KYUNGSOO

#5015 - JUNG EUNJI #5008 - HA SUNGWOON

#5006 - CHWE HANSOL #5004 - CHOI YEWON

Eliminations will be made in duos which means that if a performance is considered sub-par, both contestants will be eliminated. Therefore, make sure to work well together and choose something that fits the two people involved. Or not! Take your risks if you’d like to.

The twist this time seems to be that those eliminated on this episode may still have another stage to show what they got. Those six people were organized into three new duos and will arrive earlier than the rest for the recording of their part of the episode. Only one duo will be allowed to return. After the results are announced to them, they’re allowed to wait backstage where a TV can be found and watch the rest of the recording. Those who don’t get a chance back on the show will only be allowed to leave after the other contestants are already on set to avoid breaking the surprise that’ll be the revelation of the returning duo at the end of the episode. Both of the people involved should show at least one of their performance skills. The theme is to impress and to manage to show your colors even when sharing the stage with someone else. A list of the duos can be found below:

#5049 - YOON JEONGHAN #5010 - HWANG MINHYUN

#5046 - WANG JACKSON #5036 - PARK JINYOUNG

#5044 - SONG YUQI #5005 - CHOI YOONA

All contestants are supposed to make their own way to the recording studio prepared specially for this episode. The set will be the same as last round and will look something close to this. On each side, 18 chairs will be prepared for the contestants to sit on and watch each other’s performances. The duos should sit together and, to ensure so, the seats have been marked with their numbers. Starting from the first chair on the left and going all the way to the last one on the right, the numbers will follow the list of duos found above. There will be an empty pair of chairs which are to be taken at the end recording with the announcement of the returning duo. Just because most eyes will be on the performance doesn’t mean no one will be paying attention to you. A set of cameras will have their lenses ready to capture any sort of interesting reaction from those watching (beware of the evil editing) while a couple more will allow different angles of the main performance to be captured.

Sitting on the higher ground, much more comfortable chairs are lined in front of the stage — five in total. This is where the CEOs of each big company will be sitting to make sure only the most captivating contestants will continue their journey to make this the best season yet.

                          Tune in next Saturday, the 20th, for our fourth episode!

MGA Season 5 episode four preview: It’s the second week of duo performances, and things couldn’t be more interesting! Will the contestants get to work well with new people, or will this be their new demise? If your favorite contestant got eliminated on the last episode, will they manage to come back? Tune in next week to find out!

[ All of the performances were aired in their entirety. Cuts from the show itself were uploaded to Mnets’s Official Youtube Channel. ]

If you made it this far, either if you were eliminated on this episode or not, you may add +3 POINTS IN A PERFORMANCE SKILL to your points tally. Make sure to link back to this post for verification.

Contestants have until midnight EST at the end of Friday, the 19th, to post their 200+ words solos about the duos challenge in front of the CEOs. Please tag all related posts with #rkmga5 and #rkmga5duos2. They’ll have two minutes to perform their chosen skill to capture the attention of the CEOs (as long as it doesn’t break any laws). Good luck! Song choices should be submitted to the rkevent inbox. Two duos performing the same song will not be allowed and this will be chosen on a first come first serve basis. This applies to the returning duos as well.

After the last performance is done, the CEOs will leave to discuss their thoughts privately. While this happens, the contestants will be taken one by one into a small room to be interviewed on their thoughts of the current state of things. They will be asked a variety of questions and some may be included in the list found below! Feel free to come up with your own questions if you think they can be fitting.

What did you think of the results last week?

How was it like working with your duo?

How do you think you did?

Were there any performances you liked?

Were there any performances you didn’t like?

What did you think of ___’s performance?

Which duo do you think complemented each other the most?

Was there anyone you think that brought their partner down?

Who from those eliminated last episode do you think will return?

Is there anyone you are certain will move onto the next phase of the MGAs?

Is there anyone you are certain will be eliminated today?

Once they’re done, they’ll be taken back to their seat to wait, or may go to the bathroom if needed.

You may also write an extra 200+ words solo about your muse’s interview, as explained above, to also be posted until midnight EST at the end of Friday, the 19th. For doing so, you may earn +2 CHARISMA OR CREATIVITY POINTS and these can be added to your points tally as soon as it is posted. Please tag all related posts with #rkmga5 and #rkmga5duos2. Please link this post as verification.

[rulesofthebeneath]

how bout a dance: part 3

<AN> Hi friends and welcome to another installment of how bout a dance! I’ve been so happy to receive all this positive attention on this. you guys rock! i hope you enjoy this part. part 4 will probably be up monday night! As always, endless credit to @euphonyinestetica. Tagging:  @pixelburied, @ajaysbhandari, @lilmissperfectlyimperfect, @witchiegirl, @ravenclawpokegirl25, @aidenzhous, @itsbrindleybinch, @catlady0911</AN>

Grace’s phone rang, unceremoniously waking her up at 10 on Saturday morning. She grumpily hit the ‘Accept’ button and raised it to her ear.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this Grace?”

“Yeah. Annette?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, hi. How’re you doing?”

“Just fine, thank you. I hope I didn’t wake you up?”

“Just a little. But don’t worry. What’s up?”

“I wanted to speak to you for a moment, about our new director. Because you’re one of the leads, so you’ll be working closely with him.”

Grace suddenly sat up. “You found a new director? God, I was terrified you were calling to tell me I was unemployed.”

“Oh, no, nothing like that.”

“Thank God. So, what did you want to talk about?”

“Well, I was able to hire a new director last night. He’s young, only a couple years older than you. He’s got a lot of good experience, though, and I’m feeling optimistic.”

“Okay…” Grace trailed off, not sure where this conversation was headed.

“His name is Ajay Bhandari. He said you two went to high school together.”

“Holy shit,” Grace said reflexively, then immediately clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, my god, I didn’t mean to say that, please ignore that.”

Annette laughed, but then quickly became more serious.

“He told me that you two dated in high school. He assured me that it wouldn’t be a problem to work with you, but I wanted to check with you to make sure that’s true.”

“Whoa. Theatre really is a small world.”

“Yes. So, is it going to be a problem? Working with him?”

“I- no,” Grace decided. “Definitely not. We didn’t have a messy breakup or anything. It might be a bit awkward, but we can move past it.”

“Good, I was hoping you’d say that.” Annette sounded relieved. “Then I’ll see you on Monday. And let me know if anything changes, alright?”

“Alright. Thanks, Annette. See you Monday.”

Even though she heard the dial tone, Grace kept the phone to her ear until she came back to reality. She dropped the phone on the mattress beside her and flipped over so she could stuff her face into a pillow. Her gray cat, Isra, jumped unexpectedly onto her back and curled up there. For her part, Grace just screamed into her pillow.

Isra’s warm weight calmed Grace down. She turned over, accidentally dislodging the cat, when a soft knock sounded at her door.

“Grace?” asked a soft voice, belonging to her roommate, who cautiously stepped in the room. “You okay? I heard… screaming.”

“Mayleen. Um, yes. I’m fine.” Grace said unconvincingly.

Mayleen’s expression fell, and she perched on the edge of the bed. She waited silently for Grace to start talking.

“I’m not… upset. Really. I was just a little surprised by something.”

“Yeah? Something at work?”

“Yeah. Our director quit, and they were working on hiring a new one. That was my producer, just letting me know who they ended up hiring.”

“Who was it?”

“My ex.”

Mayleen’s eyes immediately narrowed. Grace caught the change in expression and rushed to fix her mistake.

“No, no! Not her, my ex from high school.”

Mayleen’s face softened with relief. “God, I can’t even tell you what was running through my mind when you said that. I don’t want you to have to see her ever again.”

Grace looked away. “No, I know. And you’re a good friend. My ex from high school—his name’s Ajay—we only broke things off because he went to college. Honestly, it was the least painful breakup I’ve ever had.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“I mean… it’s definitely gonna be weird. I don’t think I’ve seen him since we broke up, and now he’s suddenly my director?” Grace sighed, but her mind was racing. Another reminder of a failure: the failure of her first relationship, her failure to keep her first love, the first in a long line of failures throughout her adolescence. She absently noticed that her hands had started shaking.

Mayleen put her hand gently on Grace’s left one. Isra, apparently having forgotten the earlier slight against her honor, tentatively curled back up in her lap. Grace ran her hand through the cat’s fur, then made eye contact with Mayleen.

“I think you might be panicking. Should we do the thing where we go distract you for a bit and see what you think after that?” Mayleen offered.

“I think that’s a great idea.” Grace smiled and shifted her hand to squeeze Mayleen’s. She hoped it would convey how grateful she was.

“Wii bowling, then? I’ll kick your ass.”

“You won’t!”

“I always do.”

An hour and three bowling games later, the roommates were laughing on the couch, trading anecdotes from work.

“So I get to work three hours late because the person who literally asked for my shift didn’t show, and my manager is just completely red in the face,” Mayleen said between giggles. “She won’t make eye contact with me, just points at a register and makes this grunting sound. So later, the store’s quieter, I ask another cashier what happened. And they said that the person who was covering my shift really did come in, but the manager–”

She was cut off by a sudden noise from the intercom near the front door. They exchanged confused looks, and Grace got up to see who it was. She pressed the button to let her talk to whoever it was.

“Hello?”

“Grace! Thank god. I was hoping I read your handwriting right.”

“Rosa? Hi, what are you doing here?”

“I made too many campechanas. Also I wanted to hang out with you.”

“I’ll buzz you in,” Grace said immediately after she heard about the pastries. “Third floor, 306.”

Two minutes later, Grace let in a grinning Rosa toting a small basket of pastries.

“Oh my god, you’re officially my favorite!”

“Um, hi?” called Mayleen’s bemused voice from the couch she still hadn’t gotten off of.

“Oops, sorry. Rosa, this is my roommate Mayleen. Mayleen, Rosa’s also in Bonnie & Clyde.”

“Nice to meet you, Rosa! What’s this I hear about campechanas?”

Rosa set the basket down and laughed. “I went to a family breakfast this morning, but most everyone was too busy to stay for very long. I had a ton of leftovers. Try them, I’ve got apple, guava, and vanilla.”

Mayleen grabbed one and bit into it, revealing a pink filling. After slowly savoring the first bite, she ravenously tore into the rest of the pastry.

“Oh my god,” she said between bites. “Can I worship you now? Is that allowed? Please, be my pastry goddess, I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

Rosa’s face turned a little pink and she shyly giggled. “I think that might be going overboard. But I love the enthusiasm.”

“What, doesn’t everyone react to your baking this way?”

“Honestly, you’re the first.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“Me neither,” Grace chimed in, having just taken a bite of an apple campechana. “This really is amazing, Rosa.”

“You guys flatter me.”

All three laughed for a second, then Grace’s hand fell to the table.

“Rosa! I completely forgot, I got a call from Annette this morning. We have a new director.”

��Oh! Wow, okay, good! Do you know anything about them?”

“Well, I actually know quite a bit. His name’s Ajay Bhandari, he’s really young, like only a few years older than me, he’s directed some pretty successful productions in the city, and he’s my ex-boyfriend,” she said, as nonchalantly as she could. The information took a second to hit Rosa, but when it did, her eyes widened and her mouth almost dropped open.

“Wait, excuse me? Your ex-boyfriend? Really?”

Grace nodded. “Really.”

“And you’re… okay with this?”

Grace shot a glance at Mayleen, and smiled tentatively. “Yeah, I think I am. We didn’t have a bad breakup or anything. It might be a little awkward at first, but he’s definitely a great director. I think it’ll be really good for the show to have him.”

“Wow…” Rosa sighed. “That’s… crazy. But I’m just glad we have a director. And Grace…”

She moved to take Grace’s hand.

“I hope you know you can rely on me to support you. I know we haven’t been friends for very long, but I have your back.”

Grace pressed her lips together, trying not to betray the emotion in her voice.

“Thank you. That means everything to me.” She cleared her throat, trying to swallow the thickness. “But I really don’t think it will be a problem. Ajay’s genuinely a good guy.”

All three smiled at each other around the table, overwhelmed by the sensation of pure and unconditional friendship flowing between them. It was a feeling so strong none of them needed to say anything to confirm it. Grace had almost opened her mouth, surely to say something sappy, when Rosa squeaked.

“Oh my… who’s this?” she squealed, picking up Isra. “Did you smell the campechanas?”

As if in response, Isra meowed directly at Rosa. Mayleen and Grace broke into laughter and Rosa touched her nose to the kitten’s head.

“That’s Isra. She’s our needy little baby.” said Grace. Mayleen rested her chin on her hand, captivated by watching Rosa play with the cat. Grace wiggled her eyebrows and Mayleen blushed.

“She’s precious,” Rosa cooed, pressing kisses to the cat’s head.

Grace smiled as she watched Rosa play with that cat. Mayleen turned to her.

“So, you’re feeling better?” she whispered.

“Yeah. There’s nothing to be worried about, other than a little awkwardness.”

“Good.” Mayleen smiled.

“Thank you,” Grace said, looking down and playing with her hands.

“Hey, no problem. I do it too.” Mayleen pulled Grace into a hug.

Grace squeezed Mayleen tightly, thankful for her friendship and feeling good about rehearsal on Monday.

[reallystellacadente]

The Wicked Game (excerpt)

Tumblr informs me that this will be my 25,000th post, 98% of which are reblogs of shitposts, cats and the Tumblr Apocalypse. So for #25,000, I thought I should make an original post about my favorite obsession, Star Wars: The Old Republic. 

So, in an effort to stay motivated to complete my Sith Warrior Spies!AU, I present a piece of Chapter 2 from The Wicked Game, wherein Spy!Quinn meets Spymaster!Baras. I still don’t think I’m going to start posting to AO3 until the whole thing is done, to avoid plot screwups, so this is just a taste! 

Chapter 2: A series of meetings and entanglements

Quinn meets Baras (again)

It had been almost an hour, Malavai Quinn realized as he adjusted his collar one more time. True, he’s an important Sith lord, but Darth Baras clearly needs a better assistant to keep his schedule.

He hoped this was nothing like their first meeting. Quinn’s stomach lurched as he thought about it.

  “Come in, Quinn.”

The voice was cold, clinical. Not inviting. Quinn expected nothing more. But just hearing someone call him by his name, after weeks in a dark cell, waiting for death … it was enough to make him almost feel welcome.

He entered the room, gray and stark, barely any warmer than the prison he’d just been escorted out of.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I called you here.”

“I’m just grateful to be alive, my lord.”

“That’s a travesty we can discuss at a later time. I have need of your talents, and I won’t let an incompetent like Moff Broysc see them thrown away.”

Baras moved to the far side of his massive desk. There were several chairs, but he did not invite Quinn to sit down.

“I won’t lie to you. The assignment will be difficult. And dangerous. Balmorra is ostensibly an Imperial colony world now, but the Republic fuels the locals’ rebellion at every turn. They know we know it, but think we cannot prove it.

“That is actually false. We are letting the Republic continue to fund and arm the rebels because they have no idea how much intelligence we are gathering at their expense. I need someone there who can funnel that information to me with the utmost care. I believe you are the best person for that job, Quinn.”

He wanted to lay out the many reasons why Baras’s assessment was correct, but thought better of it. Instead, he just quietly bowed his head. “I will serve wherever I am needed.”

 Baras had become the unofficial head of the unofficial Sith intelligence apparatus. To date, the Dark Council had rejected his many requests to have the Sith take over Imperial Intelligence and put him in charge. He was renowned, but mostly feared, for his uncanny ability to know everything about his enemies. And he had many enemies.

Quinn knew better, though he would never say anything for fear of losing more than his rank and posting, but Baras was anything but uncanny. He was methodical and thorough, relentless, merciless unless mercy was convenient. Though he was also usually unsettling.

He’d been merciful to Quinn after the clusterfuck that was Druckenwell. Quinn was a young political officer – the second youngest on a flagship, bested only by the favorite daughter of Darth Ravage. He’d cross-trained in tactical response and intelligence, arguing to his academy sponsor the two were intimately connected. Though he had intended on a career as an analyst, not as an enforcer of the Imperial Code of Loyalty. And certainly not for a malcontent like Moff Broysc.

Quinn couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been set up to fail. And he wondered if whatever it was Baras wanted now would be the same thing. Though he had distinguished himself on Balmorra over the years of his exile, that wasn’t an accomplishment one bragged about.

Eventually, that assignment was over. Quinn had been quietly returned to Imperial Intelligence, where he racked up an impressive tally of successful missions of multiple types. He had planted evidence, seduced targets, stolen data, prepared dossiers, analyzed reconnaissance data – anything he could do to impress upon his superiors that he was serious about advancing his career and that Druckenwell had been a fluke.

Baras had not contacted Quinn at all during the intervening months since his return, so he did not expect this meeting to be a courtesy call. Baras wanted something. He wanted something from Quinn. That was something that made any rational person nervous.

Baras was not one to obfuscate when he had a plan to execute, so he confirmed Quinn’s suspicions right away.

“You served me well on Balmorra and the Empire well since your exile ended. I wish to empower you to run your own team of experts that will help me on my quest to support the Empire in the coming war with the Republic.”

Quinn shivered involuntarily; technically, the two entities were at peace, although it was a chilly peace at best. On worlds like Balmorra, it was as close as you could get to an actual conflict without an official declaration of war. What darkness would descend if real hostilities were resumed?

“You will of course continue your current assignment as an agent with Imperial Intelligence; if your duties conflict with my assignments, I will inform your superiors. Naturally, the tasks you undertake for me will come first. But there will be considerable downtime, as this is a long game we are playing with our adversaries. And I do not wish for you or any of my agents to lose their edge.”

Quinn bowed. “Thank you, my lord, for this opportunity. I am honored.”

“I have a first assignment for you, to retrieve a special asset we’ve just acquired from the Republic: a young Jedi who wants to defect. You will be working with a team of agents already under my purview. I am certain you will find them more than capable.”

~~~~~

After Quinn departed, Baras finalized the arrangements. He wanted Quinn and his new team to have the best equipment and an enviable facility.

He removed his mask, a mithril-plated durasteel simulacrum of a face. He didn’t need to wear it, not like some of his contemporaries who had been severely maimed, or who required breathing assistance. No, he kept the mask on so no one could see the extent to which the Dark Side corruption had manifest itself on his aging face.

Never let your enemies know your true strength. And everyone was his enemy, if not now, then later.

But for now, he had Quinn chasing his string. Baras had no doubt the young man would be able to find out the secret that had eluded him for two decades now.

He only had to put him together with the target. And they were about to see each other at their best.

There were two things the mask would normally have kept hidden: The extent of his corruption and therefore, his strength, and the rare times like this when he smiled.

[newstfionline]

California wildfires rage, killing at least nine and putting tens of thousands at risk

By Joel Achenbach, Katie Mettler, E. Aaron Williams and Lindsey Bever, Washington Post, November 10, 2018

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif.--California is on fire again, north and south, the flames deadly and swift, fanned by ferocious Santa Ana winds and fueled by dry tinder. The fires have killed at least nine people, immolated a mountain town and jangled the nerves of many tens of thousands of residents forced to evacuate their homes.

The fires have thus far proved to be unstoppable, operating at flash-flood velocity. The big wildfire here in Southern California, known as the Woolsey Fire, quadrupled in size Friday, covering more than 22 square miles, with no containment. It easily jumped eight-lane Highway 101 and rambled over the Santa Monica Mountains to posh Malibu, where it torched homes and cars. The wildfire then finally ran into its only match so far: the Pacific Ocean.

The bulletins from the northern part of the state were even worse. At least nine people died in or near their homes or vehicles as they tried to outrace the Camp Fire, which devastated the mountain town of Paradise, about 90 miles north of the state capital, Sacramento.

Paradise was anything but, with block after block of destruction, downed power lines, charred cars in the middle of roads, utility poles still smoldering and spot fires around the town, though there wasn’t much vegetation left to burn. Random buildings still stand in the town of 27,000, but for every edifice that survived, dozens that did not.

Marc Kessler, 55, a science teacher at one of Paradise’s middle schools, said the smoke was rising from the Sierra Nevada foothills when he arrived at work Thursday.

“The sky turned black; you couldn’t tell it was daytime,” he said. “It was raining black pieces of soot, coming down like a black snowstorm and starting fires everywhere. Within minutes, the town was engulfed.”

Kessler said authorities told teachers to forget seat belt laws and start piling the 200 or so students who showed up for class Thursday morning into the teachers’ personal vehicles. Some frantic parents showed up to get their children, he said, and bus drivers drove through flames to help save children’s lives.

Kessler said one of the students in his car said, “Oh, look at the moon!”

“I said, ‘That’s not the moon. That’s the sun,’ “ he recalled, his voice breaking. “There were times when there were flames near the vehicles. There were times when you couldn’t see through the smoke. Some of our teachers didn’t think they’d survive.”

About 23.4 million Californians were under red-flag warnings into Friday, and officials warned that flames could reach the city of Chico, a college town of more than 90,000 about six miles from Paradise. People scrambled to evacuate.

The Camp Fire had covered 110 square miles and was just 5 percent contained as of Friday, state officials said, warning that there might be additional deaths that they cannot confirm until they can safely enter smoldering neighborhoods. It is a terrifying situation for family members of residents who were last heard from when the town and others nearby were ordered evacuated.

“We didn’t have much time; it came too fast,” said Cory Nichols, a barber who fled his home in Paradise. “We were going to sell the house. Don’t have to now.”

California has experienced debilitating fires of unprecedented regularity in the past few years, many of them encroaching on towns and cities built up to the edges of forests in areas prone to wildfires. In August, the Mendocino Complex Fire became the largest wildfire ever recorded in the state, burning more than 400,000 acres. The previous record was set less than a year before, when the Thomas Fire burned through more than 280,000 acres in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. In October 2017, some 21 wildfires burned nearly 95,000 acres and 7,000 buildings in Sonoma and Napa counties in the heart of California’s wine country, killing 40 people.

The California fire season normally begins in late spring and lasts through summer. But hot, dry weather has persisted this year well into autumn, and the winter rains have yet to arrive. The Santa Ana winds, which blow out of the Sierra Nevadas and toward the western coastline, are building into howling gales that dry the vegetation and the soil, creating potentially explosive fire conditions.

In Thousand Oaks, 40 miles from downtown Los Angeles, residents have endured a brutal week.

This city, cherished by its residents for clean air and low crime, already was in mourning after Wednesday night’s mass shooting at a country music bar. At a vigil downtown Thursday night, people had lit candles and pondered an unspeakable crime. Just hours later, the same area was choked in smoke and imperiled by the Woolsey Fire.

In the pre-dawn darkness, a gusty wind whipped American flags flying at half-staff in honor of the shooting victims. An orange glow could be seen throughout the city, sometimes leaping into bright flares along the ridgelines. Emergency bulletins buzzed cellphones in the middle of the night, sometimes urging evacuations.

“It’s dangerous to sleep all night,” said Sergio Figueroa, 34, who was dropping his wife off at a hotel where she works on Friday. Late Thursday and into the early hours Friday, he watched television, knowing his home was in the “voluntary” evacuation zone. He said he allowed himself one hour of shut-eye--but not actual sleep.

“You just close your eyes and stay alert,” he said.

At 3 a.m., streets normally empty at that hour were filled with parents, children and pets evacuating as the orange glow crept closer.

“Don’t wait too long. Get out when they tell you to get out,” said Uber driver Brent Young, 52, who was about to take a client from Thousand Oaks to the Los Angeles International Airport through a roundabout route that would circumvent closed freeways and dangerous conditions.

The problem was figuring out which way to go. There were fires in many places. Even before the Woolsey Fire kicked up, another wildfire, the Hill Fire, threatened homes west of town. Highway 101 was closed in both directions at various times for two different fires. The only thing inhibiting the Hill Fire was that it ran into the footprint of a 2013 fire and lacked fuel, officials said.

Longtime resident Peggy Smith, 64, was filling her gas tank at 4 a.m. Friday at a Mobil station in an area under voluntary evacuation. She said people began flocking to Thousand Oaks in the 1960s after airline pilots on the flight path into Los Angeles noticed that there was no smog here. The pilots moved in, and then police officers, and firefighters.

She was ready for the fire. She needed only 10 minutes to load her car with her favorite family photos, important documents, clothes and food.

“My son’s a fireman. I was married to a fireman. I’m not scared,” Smith said. “I have full faith in our fire departments.”

They were busy. The trucks rolled through neighborhoods and zoomed down Highway 101. People had fled, power was out, and the only light came from the fires.

“This is crazy,” said Paige Gordon, a real estate agent who was checking on a friend’s multimillion-dollar house in Westlake Village as flames devoured the parched brush. “We have all aspects of Ventura County on fire.”

As he turned on sprinklers in his friend’s backyard, an eruption of flame on the hillside caught his attention: “There’s the fire right there!”

Smoke loomed over Thousand Oaks like a thunderhead, the black cloud slowly advancing toward the sea as it crossed hills covered in blackened stubble.

In Malibu, film and television producer Ben Rosenblatt, 35, took one look at the approaching fire and knew he had to get out fast. He had just enough time to walk the dog first. There aren’t many ways in and out of Malibu, with the roads that wind up through the canyons impassable because of fire. That left the Pacific Coast Highway, where traffic moved at a crawl. The drive to Santa Monica should have taken him 35 minutes, but the navigation app on his phone said it would be 2 hours 35 minutes.

“It’s like a slow-motion race with massive fire clouds behind you and bumper-to-bumper traffic in front,” Rosenblatt said. “Think of any disaster movie you’ve seen where you’re trying to outrun the storm but it’s happening so slowly.”

Back in Thousand Oaks, the smoke would recede and then billow up again as a spot fire flared anew. At a teen center, set up as an evacuation site for those fleeing the fires, people became nervous when they saw flames on a nearby hillside.

In the parking lot, people slept in their cars beside their cats and dogs, their belongings packed in the back.

Mary Leighton, 57, of West Lake, had just gone to bed Thursday night when her brother heard on the news that they needed to evacuate.

“You think, ‘What do you take?’ “ She said. “My mind went blank.”

Five minutes later, carrying her husband’s ashes and her cat, Pumpkin, she and her family were gone. They slept in a shelter overnight and woke Friday morning to news that homes in their neighborhood had burned. Leighton didn’t know whether her home survived.