#so does posting an edit but idk what else to do here i swear to god

[royalarmyof-oz]

Ava + Barbara ABBOTT ELEMENTARY (2021— )

[mgnifique-tion]

— from the heart.

summary || ``the scientist, y/n l/n, finds the key to the god of mischief’s hardened heart.``

pairing: 2012!loki x gn!scientist!reader song recommendations: i’ll be your man - btob / covered by park jeup, choi suhwan, and kim seunghun (build-up) lowercase is intended… »» read part 1 here

— themes and warning/s: open-ended (yet again), very mild swearing, the enemies have turned to complicated lovers, religious/christian metaphors, angst, death of family member (mentioned), thor mentioned 🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥🔥 (just a heads-up)

— a/n: entry for april! what the hell, y’all… how did i get so active writing about loki, i’m not even into the mcu that much anymore (idk, probably because he turned into a tree and that was sad?) anyway, this is the second part to “human reaction” so if you haven’t checked that out, just click the link on the title for some backstory. this has also turned out longer than earlier so wow, i think i’ve gone crazy for loki (thanks a lot, tom 👍) — edit: hello, so this was supposed to be up for april but i'm posting it now on july because, unfortunately, i have a very busy life with unexpected events taking place. enjoy reading!

[ total words: 2.5k ]

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───── ❝ ❞ ─────

it was past midnight and that self-proclaimed god had brought you to the top of a hill, telling you to wait for him as he’ll be taking some time to converse with his allies.

allies in ruling the world? yes.

“faen!” you heard him growl into the darkness, which startled you from the rock you were sitting on. but of course, that sudden shock died down due to how tired you already were; sleepless and alert from anything that could happen if you’d ever close your eyes. there was that fear that you may never open them again if you had left them closed shut even for just a little minute. 

there was a long pause until you decided that it’d be somewhat of a good idea to say something. a single word at least just to fill in the silence. “... so, did the meeting go well?–”

“oh, will you just not question it!?” loki grunted, startling you again. well, he did say he wouldn’t lay a finger on you so erupting like a volcano right at you wasn’t technically breaking any rule. “don’t you see? it’s obvious that nothing else had gone well, you imbecile! what else would i have to offer you in exchange for your eternal silence!?”

then, he proceeded to take in a deep breath, closing his eyes to collect himself and his emptied patience while you just stared at him. yes, of course, you hated his guts and the fact that you couldn’t really do anything against him but you never intended to offend him; that question was genuine.

in fact, every single response you’ve ever given him was genuine.

“sorry,” you blurted out, “i was just asking. i didn’t mean to hurt your feelings or something... just wanted to know what went on.” the way your voice sounded so hazy and somehow breathy had given him the impression that you were already exhausted, not just mentally but rather physically. you couldn’t think of the words to respond anymore and maybe it would’ve been better if you had just said nothing.

but surprisingly, this was just another reason for loki to take interest toward your gift: humanity, as he’s said. “... did you just?–”

“yes… i did. i did apologize!” you didn’t even notice how your tone had changed; you’ve never raised your voice at him for the sake of him doing the same for you but you’ve had enough. you weren’t a friend, you weren’t even anything to him. you were just a total mortal stranger he spared, which does not give any reason for both of you to yell at each other but that rule has been broken.

after all, you’re just human and that is natural.

“i have never insulted after you’ve spared me,” you reminded him bitterly, getting up from that rock you’ve been sitting on ever since the past hour. you don’t even know why this god had brought you here and something about it was just familiar to you, just like the sacrifice of isaac. “i couldn’t sleep... i couldn’t eat... i couldn’t even ask you to stop whatever the fuck you’re doing to my world anymore but the moment i asked you about your stupid meeting, you just– you just blow up at me! is this what i get from saving you!?”

and that was the first time you’ve ever startled a god.

loki was stunned. slightly amused but completely out of words. just by staring at him, you’d know that he would start thinking of something with a smug smile but there was nothing on his face; he was fazed by you. 

“right,” he said with a low chuckle, “i must’ve forgotten you were human with feelings all over the place... natural... real.”

as the scepter started glowing again, panic rushed in your head and you damn knew that you had to run – just like the many times you’ve thought of that scenario but it just never took place. “you want a meal and an hour of sleep?”

“make it at least two–”

“four, it is.”

and despite the second peak of terror just occuring, that was also the second time he’s ever shown actual generosity. “you humans are too fragile,” loki commented with yet another chuckle as you huffed since that’s all you could do; you don’t trust his promises after all and you might never will. “... you really do need a proper leader. a god you can see, feel, and touch… not some written messiah.”

oh.

that statement must’ve crossed borders.

“... where do you want to eat?” he asked softly, almost as if he’s returning that genuine question he didn’t even bother to listen to. you were starting to wonder whether this was a symbol of your last meal. the last thing you’ll ever eat before your execution. 

who knows what else he could do with that scepter of his. “... well, in-n-out is open for twenty-four hours so…” you trailed off, looking away for a bit as your eyes scanned the area. every hill and path already turned into several landmarks in your mind as if you were the first person to discover it. “... would that be okay?”

once those uncertain words left your lips, the god of mischief smugly smirked back and nodded once. “i have one condition, however.” loki, of course, had to have some benefit from allowing you to take your basic needs as he stood before you, his hands clasped together and shown rather than his usual. “you’re not allowed to eat alone, therefore, once you purchase your cheap delicacies, we’ll come back here.”

so, a total bummer? of course, loki would know how to ruin your chances of escaping even if you hadn’t plotted against him… yet. “i wouldn’t want my apprentice to attempt freeing themselves, would i?” he knew what he was doing and you just had no choice; you needed to eat. you needed sleep. you needed to survive and in order to do so, you must abide by his rules.

he did spare you, didn’t he?

and as time passed by, you were now seated in the same mountain area, eating a take-out burger with a god. you didn’t know whether this was an early breakfast or a late dinner but nonetheless, you were somewhat grateful. “... are you not hungry?”

“gods don’t need to–”

“i bought you one, too.”

for some reason, loki just couldn’t say no to that as he continued to sit down next to you while your hands scrambled into the paper bag, searching for the other burger. at the moment, this was the only thing you could afford since he’s taken you under him once he’d given you that offer: wherein he or his blue-eyed minions couldn’t hurt you yet you still had to be somewhat his subject; a witness and a bystander.

after all, how could he lead humanity without being familiar with one?

“why aren’t you making attempts yet?” loki asked, “this is your perfect and only way of taking the hit and setting yourself free from my commands.”

“because i stick by my words,” you said back effortlessly, “i’ll be here until you let my co-workers– my friends go.”

he was silent again. in some way, he expected you to tell him that you were staying because you simply wanted to but a whiplash of reality quickly swept him away from his delusions. “so, you’re telling me that you’d wait until i let them go, huh? you’re willingly waiting for ages, then.”

the god hardened his heart and set aside any chances of letting your friends go as he chuckled before taking a bite from his burger. on the other hand, you just sat there, rethinking your choices; there’s no way nothing could convince him to let them go, right?

“yet i do admire your everlasting… hm… patience,” he pointed out, later letting out another low chuckle. “now that is something i don’t have… how do you do it?”

for the very least amount of times, he actually was genuine with that question. “well, i had a baby sister and she definitely trained me a lot with my patience.” you laughed, the delayed silence seeping in little by little, which made him cock his head to the side, curious about the matter.

“... had?” he just had to ask about it. “she passed away.” and you just had to tell him.

hearing your solemn, guilty answer was enough to make loki hooked to that story behind your younger sister’s passing. it wasn’t something you’d openly talk about but it surely was the only thing you endlessly blamed yourself for. 

“... oh,” loki uttered with a rather bitter tone, “i’m sorry for your loss… how old was she?”

“twelve.”

considering the fact that he was thousands of years old, his eyes widened after finding that out. “... that’s young,” he commented rather blankly but the look on his face was otherwise; you weren’t the only one terribly heartbroken about the incident. loki took the lives of eighty individuals in two days but never did he think of taking the life of a young child.

so, that was terrifying to think of. “and that happened because of?”

“... terminal disease.”

no matter how casual you sounded to him, your heart shattered. “well, actually, it could’ve been her twenty-second birthday last month if she made it… i’m a bit sappy now, aren’t i?” reality woke you up and told you to snap out of it; you weren’t talking to a friend, you were talking to a dictator. an alien. the god of mischief.

this story was not supposed to be and shouldn't be disclosed with him. “be sappy all you want,” he said, taking a sip from the straw of his cola. “after all, a god should be able to listen to his people’s messages, right?”

narcissistic? yes. but empathic? weirdly, that too.

“... that thing you used earlier,” you took a pause, letting out a sigh and then, a laugh. “it was supposed to be for her… well, for people like her at least.”

loki was giving it his best to not feel sorry – guilty for using the thing you’ve made but who knew that a sibling tragedy would soften his heart? he wouldn’t admit it, of course, but it was there. present at the moment and served as a reminder that he too had a sibling.

well, has.

“it was up for testing but of course, it was used for something else,” you said, eyeing him down as he managed to fake a chuckle; he couldn’t let himself show weakness after everybody else in his life made him feel like a nuisance – a tiny, little problem they’d have to deal with every day. not ever. never again. “... but i guess i still saved someone? and i still don’t know if i should be happy about that but it still provided its purpose.”

“oh, please.” he laughed, facing you more than he ever did before. “you saved me, your god and not anyone else… you should be celebrating this for your whole life.”

“you’re not the god i worship, loki.”

“well, i suggest you must. it’ll make this all easier for you.”

and he talked like a noble deity while eating a french fry. cheap and comical but it didn’t lower his status. “and, oh, if you do, there would be a lot of kneeling that’d occur.” that statement made you turn around and look at him with your brows either furrowed or raised; you had no idea how to react properly to it.

“... what–,” you were then stopped midway.

“i meant in praying.” he choked out.

this was one of your weirdest, most out of place conversations with the god so you just had to slowly turn away again and face the hills below both of you while munching on the burger in your hands. and then, he told you the truth you’ve kept deep in your chest, “... oh, i see it clearly now… you saved me because you want to prove yourself that you’re capable of keeping someone away from death. that you’re… worthy of things.”

it felt like time had stopped the moment you listened to him say that. for the first time, he was actually right with what he’d told you. he’d always claim the most bizarre things about humans and gods but this time, he was so close to the truth that he just blatantly told you what it was.

you were guilty because you couldn’t save her.

“i have a brother,” he added, “that’s why i… um… figured it out.”

“well, where is he, then? did you kill him?”

loki laughed at that. despite the hatred and fueling anger he had for his older brother, he wouldn’t end up killing him even though he’s close to it. the scars of the past made him into who he was now but the wound that his brother’s death would leave him absolutely destroyed. alone. all by himself. consumed by nothingness. just like what his old, so-called friends would tell him.

“he’s alive,” he said so soothingly, “and he’s living against what i had planned for this world.” those following words were much bitter, angrier than what he’s said before. it’s almost as if he’s relieved to see his brother again but upset enough to know that he wasn’t on his side.

“oh, you totally miss him.”

“... silence, peasant.”

and yet another unexpected scenario happened: sharing a laugh with the god of mischief who wants to rule over your world like a second hitler. “... but you can’t show that, can you?” you questioned and he nodded right away, politely letting you finish despite already expecting that you’d ask that. 

when the cold air and the rustling leaves collided, it was time for you to ask him the question that might just change the entire situation.

“is everything all from the heart?” you asked, pointing towards your chest as you stated him down. “... are you saying all of this from the heart?”

it took loki a while before he accepted it; he did speak about all of it from the heart. all of it. no lies were told for once and it was chilling for him. he didn’t even know that he was capable of opening the doors to the secrets he’s kept locked and buried in but that was the effect of the midgardian sitting next to him; the human who made him realize why thor loved jane.

the human he was willing to rule and to love. “... if i asked you now, would you kiss me?”

and for some reason unknown, your lips did brush against his, caressing them softly while you brought your hands to the back of his head, tangling your fingers around his waved locks. maybe you had been caught up by the moment but for him, this was real. this was the moment he understood why thor wanted to protect this world.

because humans spoke from the heart. 

but how could he take everything back when the damage had been done? when the chaos had taken over?

he pulled away and asked with teary, glistening eyes, “what have you done? why did you do it?”

one thing about him was that his need was also his one and only fear; it was love. 

you were startled once again, still keeping your hands behind his head. was it a trick? was it some test? you didn’t know anymore. you were bound to do whatever it took to save your friends and if a kiss that you’ve been longing for could do it, then what else could go wrong?

well, things may have not gone wrong for you but to loki, this was his one and only wake-up call.

wake up, loki.

you’ve fallen for the human.

[wildechild3]

Some character memes to celebrate my fanfic being finished! I’ll have it posted on AO3 later today after I’m finished with my classes. For now though, enjoy my rambling bullshit lol.

I’ll put some explanations below the keep reading so no one gets a wall of text on their dash.

Maurice:

OH MY BOY. MY DARLING BOY. I am him and he is me. Every time I read the book or watch the movie, I see so much of myself in him (excluding the misogyny). Hence why I cannot treat him with any gentleness nor care. I have to dissect him and see what’s going on in there, because maybe if I can understand him, I can understand myself a bit better too. We should also both go to therapy. That should definitely happen.

(Headcanon: he is autisitc. That’s it that’s the headcanon. I will not be taking any criticism but if you want an explanation just lemme know.

EDIT: I am kicking myself in the face for forgetting this. I also headcanon Maurice as a househusband if/when they can afford it. He just gives off that vibe and I love that for him.)

Alec:

HOLY FUCK DID FORSTER PUT COCAINE IN THIS MAN WHEN HE MADE THIS CHARACTER???? He is my favorite character and my current king blorbo. I want nothing more than a small version of this little lad to carry around in my pocket. I adore him. He’s perfect. Desperately looking for a woman like him in the real world to wifey. I’m in love. I am an Alec Scudder stan first, a lesbian second, and a person third. Maurice has an A+, lesbian approved, shiny gold star, taste in men. The fact that Alec calls himself ‘rough and ugly’ makes me want to sob because he’s NOT. He’s literally a sweetheart and the goodest cutest boy around.

(Headcanons: 100% a wife/husband-guy. Literally loves his spouse more than anything and finds any form of ‘i hate my spouse’ joke stupid. Is definitely a mama’s boy. Also, he likes poetry about nature (Walt Whitman especially) and wants to visit the US some day. He is a total nature nerd and had he had the resources, I swear this man would’ve been a naturalist or something of the like.)

Kitty:

Look. I know there’s barely any information about her in the book and movie. But what if I told you I was in love with her? She stands up to Maurice when he’s being a world-class asshole, and isn’t afraid to chew his ass out in the epilogue for leaving the family (although he was justified in doing so). Something something passionate smart women something something incredibly attractive. Also, because there isn’t a whole lot stated about her in canon, I can go insane and project :)

(Headcanon: the hottest femme lesbian you’ll find in 1910s england ;) )

Clive:

TikTok come get ya mans. Look, I’ll be dead honest I don’t like Clive, but I don’t like the complete villainization of him either. He made a choice many queer men had to make during that time period. I will NEVER dislike Clive because he ended the relationship with Maurice. He was trying to keep himself safe and out of prison.

I WILL HOWEVER hate him for HOW he went about his relationship with Maurice. Throughout the book/movie he dismisses Maurice’s feelings (including when Maurice was expressing suicidal ideation). He treats Maurice as someone who will always be there when he needs him, but does not reciprocate this for Maurice, going so far as to leave Maurice at his estate alone for days at a time like some sort of pet. He isn’t as bothered by the end of their relationship, because for him it was never really THE end. He never expected Maurice to find someone else.

Clive couldn’t love Maurice in the way he needed to be loved, Alec could.

(Headcanon: Clive was incredibly bitter and upset once he realized that Maurice had left for good with Alec. He wouldn’t learn about Alec and Maurice still being together after all these years until Chapman mentions that Ada told him that Kitty (long game of telephone going on here I know) saw Maurice with some man. He’d put two and two together really quick and would probably have another breakdown. Idk. He seems like the type to get pushed over by a strong gust of wind so I wouldn’t put it past him to breakdown over his first love still living happily with someone else, when it could’ve been him.)

[villainship]

[Writing WIP Questionnaire]

Reflecting on my drafts folder w/ the previously-skipped section of the questions I was answering here.

If you read this: . . .don’t look @ me. LOL. (Exposing my secrets -- and also hiding from them.)

-

Sum up one or more of your wips!

Most aren’t for tumblr-posting, mind u. But:

(Divided up by which character has narration rights)

-a Vette story I keep forgetting abt, where she is trying to figure out TD’s post-binge fate on Nar Shaddaa, having decided she’s actually invested in this weird Sith’s wellbeing.

-Quinn experiencing TD’s response to betrayal (TD: “I’m not mad, I just want you to acknowledge your life is in /my/ hands. Forever.”)

-like 4 separate WIPs of ‘joint midlife crisis’ Zahied & TD engaging in their unsanctioned fraternizing in early times/getting to know each other -- however eagerly (TD) or reluctantly (Zahied). -Alliance-era, mid-50s Zahied thinks hard abt where he is, tells TD he ready to dump him (probably. Soon. --For real, though. NO relapses. When it’s done it’s /done/, 100%. Swearing off this shit- . . . Yes, he’ll still teach ur damn kids their hand-to-hand fighting.)

-Alliance-era TD, fraught with relationship issues/feelings(???) beyond his comprehension (dumped by his boyfriend; wife still touchy that he is hot for his boss; boss ignoring him b/c 1. she has never considered him significant or attractive 2. she’s busy with the happiness of being reunited with her bug husband), takes a team (incl. his Apprentice) to Hoth for a mission, where they lose contact with home base & can’t send an update to confirm they’re still alive. --He thinks that’s fine he didn’t want to hear from anyone there for a While anyway-- (but something else Will go wrong.) -Agent Vensys is assigned as chaperone for traitor-on-probation Sith Lord Liio (going Where? idk) -- which may be AU content, or I might make it canon. . . or I might split off into 2 different versions (one where they potentially makeout a little, & one for sailing the crack ship onward to far-distant horizons that veer OOC for at least 1 of them). Lolll. -(?canon?) Kallir has a nice day. -Kallir runs afoul of a posse of Imperial troops privately harboring anti-Sith sentiments in a garrison on Taris (? question mark). (Visiting pumpkin Agent was witnessed holding hands with a Sith who recently came by) -- I’m evaluating how much violence I’ll include as canon. (Less than I wrote. . . but some. He definitely gets bullied. Punches someone in the throat. Maybe knifes a guy a little bit?? I wrote that scene, but I’m not sure it’ll fit.) -Kallir undergoing an entire ordeal living among space pirates & becoming slightly unhinged. -in AU: Kallir (the Minister of Intelligence), dragged away from the tail end of a formal ball, puts up with Vensys plying his charms at him (again)

-total shipping AU: Kallir, Liio, & Zahied, lonely hearts club, attempt to distract one another from mountains of baggage in the only way that comes to their minds when they recognize everyone else is hot and thirsty. (Fellas. . . you’re a mess. Sorry I’m so into that.)

Which story took the most research?

Well- the extent of research I’m willing to do is stuff like “what’s this place/object look like in SWTOR?”, or “what does the internet say about these star wars aliens?”

Which story has the most lore?

TD going to Hoth to blow up a Star Fortress maybe (regrettably, I don’t know the relevant lore & I’ve been incapable of doing the gameplay I want to do to get there).

Current word count of all your main wips?

I do Not track those stats. . . I think I know which are the longest, though.

-Part 1 of Liio/Kallir/Zahied AU is. . . 54 pages (for. . .3-4 scenes, essentially. dkfshgkjf). -Part 2 combined WIPs are 15 + 6 + 3 + .2 (a paragraph) (split up due to time-jumping mid-draft, starting a new file, & returning to unfinished business when I feel like it)

Fic that isn’t a total departure from character canon: -Part 1 (of the in-depth edition) of Kallir’s pirate story is a 32 page WIP, w/ an 18-page side chapter (which might not get any longer) -Part 2: 6 pages so far.  -Aftermath follow-up: 7 so far.

How many projects do you have going on right now? Are there any that you doubt you’ll ever finish?

(My answer to question 1 is more-or-less my entire list) It’s hard to say I Won’t finish anything, but also--I don’t often finish writings.

What was you first major project? How far along is it?

And I wouldn’t necessarily call any of them ‘major’ projects (pirate fic got pretty big--but. idk). . .

My first SWTOR fic was for TD & Quinn, and I got lost on it. lol. It’s one of those drafts that feels convoluted to look at (there’s a lot of patchwork pieces), & I’m not sure exactly how much of it is worth having in there or what I actually Want to write into it. (Quinn is hilarious to write, though.)

What are some tropes and character dynamics found in your wips?

. . . gay little scene-slice stories of charged & intimate interactions--aggressive or/and soothing. Just people having their emotional problems in various Situations (sometimes amid danger/stress. . . sometimes when they are trying to enjoy themselves. . . Sometimes those mix).

So. . . tame (generally tame.) psychological whump (mainly psychological.) I Guess. H/C-aligned.

Describe the setting of one or more of your wips

All my stories are in settings of Convenience, and usually defined more by who is there than details of the place itself. (eg. I’m picturing “Kallir gets bullied for having a Sith bf” somewhere on Taris b/c it seems like the kind of place where the military doesn’t get a lot of oversight). Nothing too exciting (or original).

What are some things that inspired your stories? Real events? Maybe a dream?

Game events sometimes, of course. ehehh.

I also have. . . not uncommonly come up w/ concepts for scenarios based on outfits. (Pirate fic arose b/c I previewed the Belsavis zap collar on Kallir. Vensys’ formal outfit was the starting point for that AU fic with the formal event)

What story are you the proudest of? Why?

I dunnoooo-- I have. . . a weird relationship w/ my writings. I don’t have consistent feelings about them (whether I think anything is so good or absolutely Unbearably terrible/cringe changes based on my own moods), and. . . A lot of the time I’m ashamed even making some/most of them for various reasons.

. . .BUT. I was (and still am) pretty proud of how I wrote our charas in the pumpkin-meets-Severine mini-story from a While back (which I just re-blogged cuz of the improvement edits last night). hehe. On fire w/ that one, writing a couple of my favorite personalities--successfully (I’d say) channeling a character that’s not even mine. 

And I don’t feel like I wasted my time if it’s a gift 4 a friend & I’ve been able to make their day with it. <3 We luv our charas. hell yeaaaaaaa

[golbrocklovely]

When people state in their leaving xplrclub post that there's 'not enough fan interaction' but you know for a fact that both boys have been responding to members feed posts regularly and have been leaping into the chat semi-regularly. Just because it's not happening when you are online does not mean it's not happening.

I do not understand what these people want, do they want them to come on every single day and spend hours chatting and responding? Do they not realise they have work/editing to do and lives to live? This fandom is so unbelievably clingy, my word. Some fans are literally dogs with separation anxiety I swear to god.

If you're leaving xplrclub that's fine, goodbye and have a good life but at least be accurate in your leaving post

idk if this is the same anon five times asking me the same thing, just slightly different. or five different ppl needing my opinion on a fan leaving xplrclub bc snc don't interact with us anymore sksksk

imma be honest with yall, idc. i'm not personally on xplrclub to interact with snc, that's just an added bonus. not to mention there is 2000+ ppl on there, it would take them HOURS to notice all of us. i don't expect that from them. if you feel like you weren't getting your money's worth, then leaving is the best option.

that being said, snc seem to try to interact at least weekly from what i can tell; either in chat or in the member's feed. and i think that's fine enough for me, bc again, i don't use xplrclub to talk to snc (or really anyone for that matter lol).

but outside of xplrclub….. a lot of fans are complaining about snc not interacting with us more. and my thing is, what else are they supposed to be doing? bc according to the twitter heads, they aren't doing enough.

lemme try to lay out what i've read and seen them say:

snc repost fans constantly on their xplr insta account, and also on their personal, but that's not enough. bc a, they only notice fans for merch which just feels like they only care about fans that spend money and b, they only repost hot, skinny, pretty fans.

for YEARS fans wanted snc to repost fans more in merch, and now that they're doing that, it's not good bc it's only fans that spend money that get noticed?????? okay. and the pretty fans only get reposted comment… i've explained how i feel about that. it's horseshit, and you're just insecure. sorry.

also let's be clear here, it isn't "oh snc don't notice fans enough" it's really just colby. bc none of yall bitch about sam. everything colby does is the worst and he's the worst, but sam's allowed to do whatever he wants as long as it's not involving kat or katelyn or a combo of the two, right?

yall wanted colby to like edits/artwork from fans more. he starts liking edits of him and malia. that's not good enough. but when he was noticing fans' work, it wasn't the "real" fans or the ones that "deserve" to be noticed that got likes from him.

you want snc to talk to yall on twitter yet… every day you guys flip flop between being nice to them or shitting on them. it just depends on whether or not they seem online or if you direly need them to wish you happy birthday, or say they love you, or just some other random words of notice.

you want snc to post weekly… which they basically are doing on their react channel…….. and yet again, not good enough. you somehow want hour long vids posted weekly….. when colby's really the only one editing anymore. okay.

why is there a caveat to everything you demand from snc? i'm just genuinely curious. if it's not one thing, it's another. at this point, it would just be better in the long run to admit you're unsatisfied and will never be, and just leave. as i've stated about a million times at this point.

bc for the few 100s that are feeling this way, there are millions of fans (me included) that don't feel like snc need to do more. sure, there are certain things i would love for them to tack onto their business schedule, if they COULD do it. but i'm also not constantly threatening to either leave or off myself if they don't meet my demands.

they aren't going to. so…… LEAVE.

[ihavetoomuchhomeworkforthis]

Ok so I have TRIED to find the post so I can give credit, but I haven't been able to and idk how else to go about finding it. I'm sorry.

While I was browsing the "middle surgery" posts (to try to find it), I ended up typing basically everything I wanted to write into the comments of one of those, so I'll just copy and paste that here I guess? Maybe I'll edit it just a little. Maybe not.

First off, explanation and disclaimer: If you don't have a binder or access to HRT, or maybe only want to cosplay/crossdress - this won't work for everyone, and the people who this does apply to probably won't see it - but I thought of a way to sort of masculinize my body shape, and maybe this will help somebody else.

(this is meant for anyone with smallish boobs [or a binder] and whose waist goes inwards a bit at the sides because that second point is what's being changed, I apologize if you don't feel like it works for you) you will need a tight and stretchy tank top, some socks, and ideally a sports bra.

Basically what we're going for, alt text available, is this:

ok (sorry for the inevitable tone difference) copy/pasting starts here: vvv

ok no but I saw a post about - I wish I could credit it, I'm trying to find it, that's why I m browsing this tag - someone who had - I swear this is relevant - someone who had wanted a ken Barbie but didn't have one so they decided to make one of their Barbies into a guy so that they could make their Barbies have a heterosexual romance, which is really funny all on its own, but the point is that they decided to do this not by cutting off the Barbie's boobs

(because how, they were probably like 5 or 7 or something at the time, they wouldn't have gone for heating up a knife or anything) but by instead wrapping and taping around the middle of the Barbie until its belly was even with its boobs: middle surgery.

and also they cut off the hair too I think. - I really want to find a Barbie so I can make it trans lol - And anyway so I thought it was actually kind of reasonable, so you know what you can do if you happen to have small boobs but your waist cuts in femininely? You can put on a sports bra (or binder if you have one) and then you can fold a long sock in half and tuck it halfway under your bra to even out your belly with your boobs,

and then you can put on a stretchy and tight tank top, and you can lift up one side and put a smaller sock where your waist cuts in there, like an ankle sock, experiment with the best way to fold it or if you want two socks or whatever but that's to fill in the gap that makes your body not rectangular, and then you carefully put the undershirt back down over it so as not to dislodge the sock, and also to hold it in place, and then very carefully do the same on the other side

and Ta-Da! Middle Surgery. Now you will fill out more masculine clothing better, and generally have a more masculine shape! Maybe a bit lumpy though, so put on either layers or baggy things maybe. Also obviously this doesn't apply to all body types and you might not have the things. It worked for me yesterday and today though! It was pretty neat, 10/10 would recommend.

[mischief-lies-and-stories]

Reacting to Animated Marvel Shows 1/?

Taking a break from my Loki rewatch to react to another animated Marvel show because I saw SIGYN in the thumbnail of this episode and got excited. Is Loki going to treat Sigyn poorly? Almost definitely. Is Marvel going to treat both of them poorly? Almost definitely. Am I going to watch it anyway because I'm a glutton for punishment? Absolutely. Let's get started.

[Post-watch edit: Sigyn is NOT in this. It is a case of mistaken identity in the thumbnail because this is the only episode of this show I've watched. I've been bamboozled and I'm still pissed about it. Sorry if I got your hopes up. I got mine up too.]

Spoilers for Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes 2x15

Okay so already in the recap I'm seeing they buried the lead and this is NOT the only episode of this show Loki is in. So once again I will be consuming Loki content backwards. Cool.

Fuck yeah Surtur, crush Amora in your fiery hand!!

Okay recap over

New York always just has tanks casually rolling around

Fuck no I SWEAR TO GOD IF I THOUGHT AMORA WAS SIGYN IN THE THUMBNAIL I'M GONNA BE SO PISSED

Loki that was the most chill groan of pain I've ever heard. Isn't this shit supposed to HURT? It seems like you're more annoyed than anything else.

Fuck I'm sorry y'all. Sigyn is not in this. Goddammit Marvel. IT'S THE VENOM MYTH [not Venom like the character] AND YOU PUT AMORA THERE INSTEAD OF SIGYN??? THE BITCH WHO BETRAYS HIM TIME AND AGAIN INSTEAD OF HIS WIFE. FUCK Y'ALL.

How fucking rude to replace Sigyn with AMORA. Just add to his fucking torture, Jesus.

Amora has Maleficent horns. Bitch take those off you ain't shit. You can't hold a candle to Maleficent. Get the fuck out of here and go get Sig.

Wait why does Thor still get to be buff but not Steve?

Dude the theme goes too hard for this show

The balls on Thor to call his fucking bodybuilder shit a frail form in front of Cap's asthmatic, wrinkly ass

Eew Amora stop touching Loki's face

WHERE IS SIGYN MARVEL I'M STORMING YOUR HEADQUARTERS

SHE JUST GAVE HIM THE ARMOR SIGYN WENT TO GREAT LENGTHS IN THE OLD COMICS TO GET FOR LOKI'S SOUL TO INHABIT (I mean it might be the Destroyer armor but I'm angry anyway so I'm going with the first option)

THEY JUST TIT FOR TAT REPLACED SIGYN WITH AMORA FUCK THIS WHAT THE HELL

Goddammit am I gonna have to write an AU for this episode specifically, where Sigyn shows up and punches Amora's lights out, like Get away from my husband, bitch!

Cap looks like he's both eleven and ninety

Damn it is the Destroyer, but I think Loki possesses it which is the thing that happens in the old comics? Idk, I only know this secondhand.

Steve I'm begging you to lose your temper just once. Thor is towering over you, at least twice your body mass, can still walk with a broken leg and hasn't once complained of the pain, but anytime the fucker opens his mouth it's to complain about how weak he is. Meanwhile you could drop dead any second, polio has been eradicated in the US and you've already gotten it, but you could probably breathe wrong and immediately need an iron lung in 2010 with your luck.

Thor says "That voice" like he didn't grow up for thousands of years with Loki by his side. Like this isn't fucking, I don't know, Ultron, someone you've fought once (I know they tend to fight him more in the comics and animated shows), that's your BROTHER

Tony saving Steve was cute

THOR FUCK OFF DID YOU JUST PLACE THAT VOICE YOU DUMBASS

Good job, Clint. You helped.

Well do we call that Sigynbait? Healthy relationship bait? Whatever it is I'm fucking pissed and I'm going to have to change my intro for this post to reflect it because I don't do clickbait (which you already know because you aren't reading my draft).

[twinhood-2dot0]

My Turn Ons (in fiction) aka Attack On Titan/Chainsaw Man obsessive appreciation post

I started writing this post about what I liked to see in works of fiction, but uhhhh it quickly devolved into just praising every aspect of those previously mentioned mangas. Look I swear I like more than these two, they just seem to hit every single one of my spots??? These are the first works of fiction I really obsess over because of the plot and the storytelling and not just characters and worldbuilding. Like, most of my favourite franchises are mostly because of characters. DC, Rick Riordan stuff, one certain novel series that feels fills me with rage just thinking about, you know the one, you get the point. Also, I'm writing this while watching a video overanalysing Attack On Titan story arcs :P. Okay, that's it for my explanation for why this turned into a post singing praises, the rest is what I started writing and am too lazy to edit the intro for.

I spend a lot of time on TVTropes. And significantly more time obsessing over the new work of fiction that I just discovered and fell absolutely in love with. And recently, I’ve found out a few things that make anything instantly a favorite for me. Lemme list them in no particular order.

1.Death. Obviously. You probably saw that coming from lightyears away. I really love works of fiction that do not shy away from killing off fan favorites and well established characters unceremoniously. Examples include Attack On Titan, Chainsaw Man, The Walking Dead, Avengers: Infinity War to a lesser extent because of the events of Endgame, The Suicide Squad, the Arkham Series, I mean uhhh do games count, since Batman has died at least like 20 times by my hand and other characters too because I just wanted to see them die? Anyways, the Arkham series also has a huge canon death count of huge characters.

2. Sudden Tonal Shift. I love when stories start off as goofy and comedic and suddenly shift to dark and depressing in a matter of seconds. Examples include Chainsaw Man, Attack On Titan (yeahh, it’s kind of spoiling it, but dw, you won’t see it coming), AoT to a lesser extent because it is one tone throughout, but shifts how it is approached suddenly and quite often, and Your Name.

3. Female and LGBTQ+ characters. I… don’t really know how to explain this. Basically uhhh I want every single character treated the exact same way. Idk how to really explain it, so lemme use some examples. I feel like Attack On Titan has the best female and LGBTQ characters. Okay, okay, I know I say that AoT is like the best work of fiction ever created a crap ton, but really, I’ve yet to see anything that did female characters soooo well. One of the few things that made me despise anime is their female characters. Let’s see here. Death Note, there is one female character in the main cast and her whole purpose is… fawning over the main character. There is literally nothing else that she does. And another manga that I had the displeasure of reading as a kid is Fairy Tail. It’s led by a female character, which you might think is a good thing but… she’s so sexualised like oml like wtf the solution to every problem is not “sex appeal”. I’m not even joking, the phrase “sex appeal” is probably more used than “Fairy Tail”, and My Hero Academia is good enough ig? They have pretty strong female characters but not very well written imo, and, well, this character’s outfit exists.

Also yikes I found this.

She’s a minor, for god’s sake. There are quite a few more characters with questionable outfits and questionable writing but I don’t want this post to get gigantic. To be clear, I am not singling out just a select few mangas and calling the whole industry sexist. There are a lot of stories with strong women who aren’t overly sexualised, but shounen is pretty much the most popular demographic, written by mostly men aimed for adolescent boys, so that lends itself to these issues (Also, sidenote, I have no idea where the line between shounen and seinen is. I’ve read just one seinen, Parasyte: The Maxim, and I’ve read shounen like Attack On Titan, Chainsaw Man, and Fire Punch, and that felt like they had more sexual themes and nearly as much gore and violence?).

So why do I like Attack On Titan’s female characters? The story never really concerns itself with gender. It is pretty much true equality, and it actually has female characters that contribute so much to the plot and stand on their own apart from the main character (don’t you dare say Mikasa, that’s a can of worms you do not wanna open even among the piles of worms that are all my posts.). Also, look at the art of the characters.

(Actually, I prefer their manga art. Much more androgynous. As perfect as the anime is, I hate that they made them female. I loved the fact that their gender was up to the reader's interpretation in the manga. Hajime Isayama even got mad at the translators for using female pronouns for them in the English translation.)

Okay, not exactly the best picture, but I just loved that panel so much :P.

Also they are explicitly called male in the manga and then female in the anime?

Those are just a few examples, but no one has very gendered features in the main cast. It’s a thing I noticed recently, but no one grows a beard??? And so many male characters have long hair so even that’s not a distinction you could make. Anyways, my point is, there is no distinction. Strong women fighting against male domination is all well and good but like, I want stories like these more, where women are equals. And the one (maybe two) lesbian characters are so like natural too.

Chainsaw Man also does this surprisingly well. The main character, Denji, is a certified pervert.

A few panels from the first few chapters.

So safe to say, I wasn’t expecting great female characters. And I was proven wrong. I don’t want to give away too much, but it has some very top tier female characters. Some western examples include DC, obviously, with Batgirl being my absolute favourite, and characters like Harper Row, Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown also being some of my favourites. American comics generally don’t have a great reputation when it comes to female characters, like look at some of the costumes from older comics

I started reading Batgirl: A Celebration of 50 Years and holy hell, did men not know how to write women at all, like what in the actual hell is this

Down to her "pretty toes"??? Seriously?

Ah yes, women put on makeup while fighting.

Ah yes, women apply makeup while fighting. But I’m glad to see how far DC has come, with how much of a badass she is now. I’m not going to get into novels, there are a crap ton of novels I could cite for having good female characters, and a lot of being written by women too.

4. What the F did I just read. I like dark humor and dark stuff in general. So I love reading stuff that make me just pause and take in what I just read. All of Tatsuki Fujimoto's works (Chainsaw Man, Fire Punch, Goodbye, Eri, Little Sister's Elder Sister) get more and more deranged than the last, and The Boys too get very insane, and James Gunn stuff also tend to be uhhh weird, to say the least.

5. Extremely careful storytelling..? idk what to call it. Basically, a combination of the extreme opposite of writing by the seat of their pants, an extreme version of Chekhov's gun, and a good mystery. See, every story has it's twists and turns, but what I love is when there's a ton of foreshadowing and one that makes you go "OMG THE CLUES WERE THERE ALL ALONG, HOW DID I NOT NOTICE ANYTHING WHAT THE HELL" on a rewatch, and stories where every single moment and small detail contributes hugely to the plot. I've experienced the story of Attack On Titan three times... kinda? I kinda simultaneously read and watched Attack on Titan the first time, like reading season 1 then watching a few episodes, reading a bit, then watching, you get the point, then I went back and watched the episodes that I read and read the episodes that I watched and I'm currently rewatching it all because the last season came out like an year ago??? MAPPA takes on too much work and then make their workers suffer, anyways, not a can of worms I wanna open now. Anyways, what I'm saying is, every single detail is thought out and have some kinda symbolism or foreshadowing. Damn, I'm trying to find a meme, but I can't, but it's basically someone getting mad with the text saying something like "When your friends don't pay attention to the flowers and the birds (it is foreshadowing)".

Also, I'm also rewatching Chainsaw Man... after finishing watching and reading it less than a month ago, and most of the words spoken take on a new meaning after finishing it.

:P I'm sorry, idk any western media that has done this so well, so these are the only two examples you get.

6. Music. I can't believe I didn't remember this till now. I don't think I need to elaborate again? I've written like three posts about this already. That said, nothing even compares to Attack On Titan.

Yeah that's all I can think of :P. I'm about 14 hours late but meh.

[five-rivers]

Thread: PHANTOM: MUTANT OR CRYPTID?

Content warnings: some bad grammar and spelling (on purpose), implied swearing, cyber bullying (sorta)

.

AMITY OF AMITY PARK: A Friendly Helping Hand

Ghost Activity Map, Forums, Local Business Directory, Advice Blog

Forums -> Ghosts -> Phantom -> Speculation

Thread: PHANTOM: MUTANT OR CRYPTID?

Original Poster: Roswell’s Child

Roswell’s Child (OP): (Video clips for reference and evidence) ok so according to the ghosts phantom isnt one. question is what is he? you all know my initial thought is alien but phantoms referenced growing up here a few times and hes way too chil with memes to be completely out of nowhere. that leaves mutant or cryptid and its our duty as amigos to decide

Cynosure: This is a really impressive video compilation, OP, but I always got the impression that it was because he was fighting them? Like, how, idk, someone from an enemy country or an enemy gang might be called ‘not one of us’ or ‘different.’ Or maybe he’s just a different species of ghost?

Valorous1: His name is Phantom, he’s pretty solidly a ghost

passthemike: I VOTE MUTANT. That would be so cool. Do you think he got it from ectoplasm exposure?

passthemike: Do you think other people could get it? I have been slimed a few times by the Fentons. I want powers.

passthemike: Maybe he drank it?

ashtree: could get some from ghost fights it isn’t like it’s hard

Pharaoh (MOD): @passthemike @ashtreeWe highly recommend that you DO NOT consume ectoplasm left from ghost fights. While purified, denatured ectoplasm has little effect on humans when consumed, that is not the case when dealing with ectoplasm sourced directly from ghosts. Please see the Advice Blog article on ectoplasm for more information.

Photosynthesis (MOD): Even ignoring the blatant phasmovory, don’t eat stuff from the ground. That’s gross. @ashtree this is your second strike. Review the AAP forum rules and FOLLOW THEM this time, or you’ll be hit with a ban.

FootballPoet: I thought Phantom was already a cryptid??????

Valorous1: He’s a ghost he’s a ghost he’s an ******* ghost. He does the same things as all the other ******* ghosts he calls himself a ghost what more proof do you want it isn’t exactly a mystery

Roswell’s Child (OP): the topic guys mutant or cryptid

West of West: JFC [EDITED BY MOD] you call ME crazy and THIS is what your posting?

West of West: Also, stop trying to make amigos happen just call us Amity Parkers like everyone else.

Roswell’s Child (OP): **** off [EDITED BY MOD]

Phantom (MOD): @Roswell’s Child @West of West No real human names, guys. We’re still hiding out from the GIW here.

passthemike: NAME THIEF

ashtree: it’s the name thief

Phantom (MOD): Come on don’t do this again.

FootballPoet: Name thief!

tubahater: name thief!

Cynosure: Name thief!

Point25back: name thief!

Thecooltwin: anime their

The Smart Twin: Name theif!

The Smart Twin: @Thecooltwin anime their?

Thecooltwin: shut up

Point25back: then change your name you ******* nerd

Point25back: [COMMENT DELETED BY MOD]

Point25back: [COMMENT DELETED BY MOD]

[@Point25back has been banned for seven (7) days.]

Phantom (MOD): Why.

Valorous1: THey think you’re insulting their “hero” by “stealing” his “name”

Cynosure: @Valorous1 Why did you put quotes around ‘name’?

Valorous1: Because……….. it’s obviously fake???????? Why else???????

Phantom (MOD): I’ve stolen nothing.

The Smart Twin: @Phantom (MOD) Your username is literally Phantom.

Phantom (MOD): Yeah, I get that. But the rule is no real human names.

FootballPoet: ????????????????????? Explain?

Cynosure: What.

West of West: Oh come on the mods are clearly [EDITED BY MOD]

[@West of West has been banned for three (3) days.]

passthemike: @Phantom (MOD) ARE YOU PHANTOM IS THAT WHAT YOURE SAYING????

passthemike: @Phantom (MOD)

passthemike: @Phantom (MOD)

passthemike: @Phantom (MOD)

passthemike: @Phantom (MOD)

passthemike: @Phantom (MOD)

passthemike: @Phantom (MOD)

passthemike: @Phantom (MOD)

[@passthemike has been banned for one (1) day.]

Phantom (MOD): Does no one read the forum rules?

The Smart Twin: Wait, are you serious? You’re Phantom? As in the ghost Phantom?

Valorous1: Don’t be stupid, he’s just doing a bit to get you back for the name thief thing ghosts don’t use computers

Thecooltwin: @Valorous1 do you not remember technus? And the robot guy?

Phantom (MOD): Why would I joke about this? I thought the name thief thing was a joke. I mean, I share this account with a human and they're the one that's usually on, because I’m a ghost, but like.

Phantom (MOD): I'm actively giving them permission to use my name so they aren't a thief. And I'm not apple I don't try to copyright random words.

Valorous1: Are you telling me you aren’t [EDITED BY MOD]

Phantom (MOD): NO REAL HUMAN NAMES.

Tubalover: Oh my god is this real

tubahater: You’re really phantom?

Cynosure: Oh, god, no one let CasperQueen know about this.

merknlurk: the name thief… is not a name thief…

Lovetheshow: @Phantom (MOD) dude, you’ve got to tell us how yu do those effects.

nobineryginger: lol you guys are all so wild with your Phantom obsession I vote mutant guys gotta be with all those fast changes no other way lol also good job kicking my bro off guy needed some fresh air

CasperQueen: My <3 is on this site? @Phantom (MOD) DM me <3 <3 <3

Cynosure: I think he left...

Roswell’s Child: at least ive got my answer i guess

Roswell’s Child: definitely a cryptid

[THREAD LOCKED BY MOD.]

.

Mod Chat

Photosynthesis (MOD): Why did you do this?

Pharaoh (MOD): Not a great move for keeping your ID secret.

Phantom (MOD): I was tired of the name thief stuff OK?

Photosynthesis (MOD): Should have picked a different username then.

Phantom (MOD): Phantom is my name. I wanted to use my name.

Photosynthesis (MOD): Yeah, just maybe our secret Amity Park website shouldn't be the place you do it. At least not as yourself.

Phantom (MOD): But it's my name.

Photosynthesis (MOD): Why are you so hung up on this

Phrontist (MOD): It's a ghost psych thing, don't sweat it.

Photosynthesis (MOD): stop stealing your sister's phone.

Phantom (MOD): No <3

Pharaoh (MOD): your funeral

.

AMITY OF AMITY PARK: A Friendly Helping Hand

Ghost Activity Map, Forums, Local Business Directory, Advice Blog

Forums -> Human Affairs -> Locals

Thread: IS FENTON A CRYPTID?

Original Poster: Roswell’s Child

[ramadoodles]

I'm posting this from the top of a castle, as one does. I went on a lovely hike, so y'all are going to get a photodump of all the plants that I saw. Enjoy!

Clitoria terneata, aka butterfly pea, aka my favourite flower. This can be boiled in water to make a blue dye, which turns pink when you add lemon juice. This flower rules, 10/10.

Cool five petaled flower which I will find the name of, these were on bushes lining the path at the base of the trek. Very cute but idk what else they can do, 7/10

These were everywhere! I think they are Terda? It's the flowering season for Terda right now though, but other than the lack of flowers they fit the bill. I liked the red colour of their stems, 5/10.

These banana-looking plants were also everywhere, and I could swear that they are bananas or plantains, but banana flowers apparently don't have flowers on the ends of their stalks like that. Maybe a relative? (EDIT: This is in fact a banana plant! I HAVE BEEN VINDICATED) I wanted investigate the flowers, but the only flowers we could find are the ones on the withered stalks in the second image. These were fifty feet below the slope which were on, and I did not like my odds. Cool plant tho, 6/10.

A cute gourd-adjacent plant! Pumpkin flowers are edible, and the leaves can also be eaten if you try hard enough and believe in yourself. So I hope that this can be eaten too. Cute plant, 9/10.

I'd add more but apparently i've hit an image limit for tumblr, oh well. Here's one last photo for good measure, idk what the plant is but it looks pretty.

That's all for today!

[syndxlla]

Part eleven of the More To Love series

Summary: You get a chance to reflect on who you are, where you are with your relationships, and what you really want in life with the help of your mother, the Queen of Corellia. You meet some new seemingly friends, who quickly prove you otherwise.

Word Count: 7.1k, NO USE OF ‘y/n’

Warnings: Non-consensual kiss, swearing, alcohol

Author’s note: i am LIVID. why tumblr only lets you have a certain amount of paragraphs in a post IDK! it’s dumb haha and the only reason i went over is because there is so much dialogue in this. BASICALLY. I am making the decision to go easy on myself. I know earlier today I said part 11 would be split into two, but i am going to just make the second half be part 12. SO. i made a new moodboard for this chapter! i hope you like it :).

i wanna say a big THANK YOU to @stinky-child for helping me edit this chapter and getting it out on time!

PART 12 WILL BE RELEASED THURSDAY, MAY 27TH AT 6pm PST, 9pm EST.

part ten

Koska escorted you back to your quarters, the castle corridors were finally starting to calm down a little bit, however, more and more special guests who would be staying in the palace over the weekend walked in and out of doors, most of them not paying any attention to you because of your drab attire. You hoped the knight made it to his meeting on time and dry. There was no way to know until tomorrow morning, however. Koska was silent as she walked behind you, her footsteps much lighter than the knight’s. Your hair was thick and frizzy from the effects of the elements, and you kept your face down out of a foreign sense of shame.

Keeping your face down can’t hide that sense of shame from everyone, however, and before you can make it to your room, you’re hearing a joyful gasp and footsteps pattering in your direction. You look up from your walk of shame to see someone very important to you, it’s not your Knight, it’s not even Soniee, no. It’s your mother, the Queen of Corellia. She’s accompanied by three Corellian guards and she’s wearing the most beautiful yellow gown you had ever seen. It was clearly a gift from Bo-Katan. You smiled brightly, relieved to see someone you love. It had only been a few weeks but it felt like an eternity. You had completely forgotten she would be coming to your engagement ball. You’ve been so preoccupied with the plans and teaching the Knight how to dance that it completely slipped your mind. Your mother had a wide smile on her face, too, and wore the traditional Corellian crown. You ran to her and embraced her fighting around the waist, something that was not appropriate for royalty in public like this but you couldn’t care less. You had been so emotionally confused over the last few weeks that there was nothing you needed more than a fulfilling hug from your parent. She hums with joy when you come into her arms, and she runs her slender fingers through your beautiful hair. You sigh of relief in her embrace.

“I had forgotten you were coming.” You admit, holding back tears of relief. She chuckles in response.

“You look a mess.” She replies and you’re the one to chuckle this time.

“I’ve had quite the day.” You smile, blushing as you remember who you spent it with. “Come, I have so much to tell you.” You pull away, holding her hands in yours and then leading her to the closest sitting room. You were finally starting to understand the layout of the Mandalorian palace, it only took two weeks. This room was the same blue as the royal color, you guide her to sit by you on the sofa, and Koska awkwardly follows. You look over to the handmaiden before standing and walking in her direction. “Lady Reeves, you are dismissed.” You nod while speaking in a regal tone, but after stating it, your voice hushes and you whisper to her, “Is he going to be alright?” You ask in reference to the Knight.

She nods once, “Even if he was late, he’s bound to duty by the Queen, he’ll be okay.” Your stomach twists.

“What does that even mean?” You ask, there is much he is not telling you.

Koska sighs, she seemed to regret saying that. “I’ll worry about him, you enjoy your time with your mother.” She nods to the Queen who was patiently awaiting your return. You smile a “thank you” and walk back to the Corellian Queen. When Koska closes the door finally, you slouch into the couch, feeling pure relief as you were alone with your kin.

“You look absolutely exhausted.” Your mother says.

“I am, life here is exhausting. There are so many rules, much more than back at home.” You awkwardly shrug.

“We miss you.”

“I miss you too, more than you know.” You were so homesick these days. “I had to spend four days learning all the rules and customs and I still take private lessons from the literal queen so I don’t embarrass her anymore.” You roll your eyes, knowing that you couldn’t express this arrogance to anyone else in the palace and taking advantage of the chance now.

“Oh, I'm sorry love, I worried that there might be a bit of a culture shock.” She takes your hand with hers, stroking the stop of it with her own cold hands.

“Is father here?” You ask, your eyes hopeful. That glimmer immediately fades when she sighs, her eyes leaving yours. “What? What’s wrong?”

“He’s not coming…”

“What? Why?”

“He’s… sick, I didn’t want to tell you but it’s your right to know. You would have eventually found out anyway.” She somberly explains.

“Is he okay?”

“Yes, we think so. But traveling and socializing in his condition was not realistic. We understand that rumors will start, but his health is necessary before an impending war.” She frowns, and you try not to let it upset you too much. “Enough of that, tell me about this place.” Her tone immediately flips.

You smile, “It’s so hot, much hotter than Corellia. I mean the heat is exhausting and the dresses are heavy and the tea parties are always outside and I always feel overheated.” You complain.

“Do you at least like the prince?” She asks. “Is he cute?”

Now you must choose if you’re going to lie, like you have for the last fortnight, or be truthful with the only person you feel that you can be. You sigh, and just look at her, defeated, hoping that would be enough to tell her.

She hums empathetically. “Oh dear.”

“Yeah…” You sigh, happy she understood and you didn’t have to make the decision of communication.

“Well, keep your head up, I didn’t really like your father all that much until we had you.” She chuckles.

“What?” You ask, your eyes showing surprise. “I had no idea…” You weren’t sure how much you liked that thought, your parents had always been an example of a couple you’d like to experience for yourself. “Why had you never told me?”

“There was no reason for you to know before now. The older you get, the more you’ll learn what you need to hear.” She explains. You supposed she was right. “And remember, it’s supposed to be a partnership—marriage that is— it’s not so bad if you work at it.”

“Well, he certainly likes being solo.” You humph. “He’s very kind, and it’s clear he cares for his kingdom but-“ You knew you weren’t being completely truthful with her.

“But what?”

You debated your next words. You wanted to tell her, more than anything you wanted your mother to know what was really going on, but you knew you couldn���t. You knew she wouldn’t understand. This marriage is a diplomatic solution to an oncoming war of her home kingdom. She wouldn’t understand the strife. “Nothing.” You feel untruthful to yourself, but you can’t do anything about it. “I just feel like I will be unhappy in our marriage.”

“Marriage isn’t supposed to make you happy.”

You hated that, it wasn’t the first time she had said it to you, either. When an arranged marriage was first brought up, she said it then for the first time. The other time she said it to you was about three weeks ago, just before you were going to leave Corellia and come to this ornate prison. It was your last attempt to try and get out of it, but she uttered those words and you had to live with it.

This time, you pulled your hand away from hers. “But what about love? I thought you loved my father!?”

“I do love him, but that didn’t happen for a long time, like I said, not until you were born.”

“So then what’s the reason for all this? For sending me here for a big ball and a fancy wedding if I am not supposed to love the man I’m sharing these parties with? How am I to enjoy marriage before children then?” You stand up on these words out of frustration. You hated feeling like your only purpose in this world is to bear children, to produce an heir.

“Love between royals is not a natural thing, it can’t just happen between any two people. There must be that connection there and it often isn’t developed for a while.” She chuckles. “What? Did you think you were going to live inside one of those fairytales your wet nurse used to tell you before you went to sleep?” She asks, looking up at you, surprised.

“What do you mean ‘between royals’?”

“We must do what’s best for our people, it’s selfish to marry for love when you are royalty.”

You feel defeated.

“No… No, there's so much more to love. Love is not selfish, in fact, I believe that loving someone with our hesitation and unconditionally is the most selfless act one could ever do.” Your voice raises just a bit. You meant every word you said.

“If you feel this way about love, then surely you must love the Prince. What’s the problem then? We’ve been preparing you for this reality for years, it’s not a new concept that you would not love immediately, I can only imagine you would feel so emotionally because you have those feelings for someone.”

Did you?

You consider what she was saying, your eyes trailing to the side as you thought. You supposed she was right, there would be no reason for you to feel so passionately about it if you hadn’t experienced it for yourself.

But you weren’t having that experience with Korkie, the hell you weren’t.

Did you love the Knight? You don’t know his name, you don’t know his face, you don’t know anything about him and yet you are starting to think that infatuation has grown into adoration. Your legs feel weak, and you have to slowly lower yourself onto the couch again, feeling woozy from the realization. How did you let it get so far? Your confused face turns to look at your mother’s, eyebrows furrowed and mouth slightly open.

“I sense you realized something you didn’t already know.”

You slowly nod your head. Unsure of how to react, you fiddle with your fingers, trying to gain your bearings again. You expect your mother to speak up but she never does.

Before the conversation continues, however, the door is pulled open and three Knights are walking in, a Butler steps in, “Her Majesty, The Queen.” He says before nodding and stepping away. Bo-Katan glides into the room, regal as ever. You and your mother stand up from where you sat, curtsying for your hostess.

“Your Majesty.” She takes your mother’s hand, both of them smiling and kissing one another on either cheek. “I trust your travels were comfortable?”

“Yes, your coachmen were very hospitable.” Your mother nods.

Korkie then enters the rooms with another young Prince who you hadn't met before. He was blonde, and skinny as a twig. He wore a white and gold ceremonial cloak that covered his right shoulder. You smile at Korkie out of Obligation, and he and the other prince bow to the women in the room.

“Princess!” Korkie cheers, “This is my cousin, Prince Hugo of Bespin.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Your Highness.” He takes your hand and kisses the top of it, his smile charming and blue eyes bright. You were flattered by the gesture, humming.

“The pleasure is mine.” You follow royal protocol. Then, another woman enters the room. She’s tall, an intricate headpiece adorns long, black hair and she has hypnotic, black eyes hidden by deep set, hooded eyes. She’s beautiful, with toned skin and red dots drawn under her lips making her stand out from everyone in the room.

“Ah, Her Majesty Queen Clarya of Naboo.” Bo-Katan introduces. The Elven Queen Ahsoka then enters the room, and everyone, even the Queens bow out of respect before the door is closed. The parlor is suddenly very full, and your intimate moment with your mother is lost entirely. You are suddenly very aware of your disheveled look, and try to run your fingers through your hair a few times.

“It’s lovely to finally meet you.” Clarya says, smiling. “I’ve heard so much about you.” Taking your hand and giving you a friendly squeeze.

“Oh… I’m afraid I haven’t heard much about you.” You apologize.

“No troubles, You are all the gossip among the other Kingdoms.” The eastern queen explains.

“Yes, It appears you are.” Korkie says, moving to stand by your side. “How wonderful that my beautiful wife-to-be is regarded so highly across the world.” He tries to take your hand but you pull it away, not necessarily meaning to, but it was a reflex that you failed to suppress after realizing you were in love with an entirely different man. He clears his throat, and the aura in the room is awkward, you aren’t sure what to do, so you just say the first thing to come out of your mouth.

“Have any of you gone to the beach? It’s lovely!” You awkwardly smile before walking over to the drink cart underneath a portrait of a Manda’lor of a past generation. You try to ignore all the people, feeling a little embarrassed that they were all seeing you dressed like this. You didn’t even think of what suspicion could be born out of that phrase.

“Oh yes, our sandy beaches are widely loved by all.” Bo-Katan takes a seat on the sofa in the place you had sat at just moments before, crossing her ankles under her gown. You shakily pour amber liquid into a crystal glass, your hand shaking as you bring it to your lips, taking a sip of the alcohol.

“Nothing like the Corellian beaches, I assume?” Your mother asks. “Our beaches are rocky and often frozen over.”

“Ah yes, but the Corellian ship fjords are lovely, what a wonderful exposure to culture you raised your daughter with!” Ahsoka sings.

“She turned out alright.” Your mother teases and everyone chuckles warmly. You turn around after drinking, and sheepishly smile. Gods you hope she meant that.

“Well, we are all very excited for the ball tomorrow.” Clarya says, “My assistant worked on a mask for hours the night before we left. It will be an extravagant sight to see everyone dressed so festively.”

“Of course, but we all know none of us can compare to the fashion and extravagance of the Naboolians.” Korkie hums. Everyone chuckles again. You nervously looked out to all of them, you had just made possibly the biggest mistake of your life and none of them paid any attention to you despite it. You had just shown Korkie your first and only sign of true disinterest the night before your engagement ball and you desperately wished you could go back in time and take his hand instead of denying the act of affection, even if you didn’t feel good about it.

“I think you will all be pleased to hear that it was the Princess who came up with the Masquerade idea.” Bo gestures to you. You smile with your teeth, trying to act normal and not like you were secretly dying inside. There is general amusement when that is said, and you can’t help but fidget with the crystal alcohol glass, wanting to leave the room and return to the comfortable embrace of the Knight on the beach.

“Beautiful and smart!” Korkie’s cousin laughs, putting emphasis on the ‘and’. “It’s not every day you find a woman like that!” Everyone laughs again, and this time you force out a faux chuckle to seem more involved in the eyes of the others. “You better hang onto her, Kork!” Korkie smiled at his cousin's words, looking over to you. You feel weak, not liking all the attention. If this much attention was making you feel this way, what would the ball with hundreds of guests tomorrow night be like?

“Yes but, I can’t seem to remember going to the beach with you?” Korkie asks, his diplomatic voice cutting through the laughter. You nervously laugh. He knew something was up. How could you be so careless?

“What? Did I say something about the beach?” You try to play it off cluelessly.

“Oh come on, we all know you aren’t that ditzy.” His cousin groans

“Your fiance asked you a question, dear.” Your mother prods.

“Yes, did you go to the beach sometime during your time here?” Bo-Katan is the one to ask this time, and your legs are starting to feel unsteady.

“It’s not a bad thing, we just want to know.” Korkie takes a step in your direction, making you feel closed in. “We all love the beach here and we are happy you have gotten the chance to enjoy it.” You sensed there was an undertone with his true meaning.

You weren’t sure if you believed him when he said this, “Is it hot in here?” You chuckle, “I think I’ll have another drink, would you like one, Korkie? You ask before turning around and pouring another glass of brandy. He can see how shaky your hand is as you try to fill the cup. He stands behind you, wrapping his arm around you and cupping your hand with his in an attempt to make the pouring more steady. The action startles you, and you flinch as a reaction, dropping the crystal glass in your hand. It was already partially full, and it falls down to the floor in slow motion, golden drink splashing out of it as glass shatters on impact, making a loud, crashing sound that sends shards out across the floor and leaves a puddle of alcohol to soak into the bottom hem of Koska’s sister’s dress. The women of the room gasp from shock, and Hugo walks quickly over to see the mess. You look down at the glass in shock of what you just did, your heart sinking and stomach churning. Lady Tano is the next one to walk over to you, taking you by the shoulders and guiding you to one of the arm chairs, helping you sit down. The room was deathly silent now, you could hear your pulse ringing through your ears. Ahsoka crouches before you, ruling your hand with hers and trying to comfort you from the unexpected shock. Korkies hands are balled into fists. Was he angry with you?

“No worries.” Hugo laughs, trying to be an entertainer, “Butler!” The Butler opens the door.

“Is everything alright?” He asks after bowing.

“Yes, we just made a little mess, would you be so kind as to clean it up?” Hugo walks Korkie, who seems to be just as shocked and embarrassed as you, over to another armchair. The butler snaps and then whistles and three young maids come in, each one getting on their hands and knees to pick up the pieces of glass.

“Princess?” Your mother says, “Do you have something you would like to say to the Manda’lor?” She awkwardly asks, clearly trying to make good from the situation, side-eying Bo.

Your pale face turns to look at Bo, who had that same disappointed frown that you always see on her.

“My deepest apologies, your Majesty.” You clear your throat before painfully looking over to where Korkie sat, his hand resting in his palm and expression down turned.

“Well!” Hugo takes the center of the room. “No use in sitting here in silence, mistakes happen! Right Auntie?” He says to Bo.

“Of course.” She smiles, physically accepting your apology with a reassuring nod.

“Lovely, would anyone like some music?” He asks.

“That would be lovely, Hugo.” Lady Tano says in her ethereal voice. He smiles and walks over to the baby grand piano in the corner of the room, the same baby grand that you played at for your Knight a few weeks ago.

“The Princess plays!” Your mother says, trying to alleviate any tension.

“She does?” Hugo makes direct eye contact with you. “Would you like to play a duet with me?”

“Hugo, she just-“ Ahsoka begins but is interrupted by your mother.

“Oh won’t you play for us Dear?” She asks, smiling.

“Please! I have wanted to hear you play since I was told you could.” Bo-Katan asks. It would be rude to decline a request from the Queen and the Host of the night.

You nod and stand up, that could be just the thing you need to feel better. You walk over to the piano, stopping just before Hugo.

“Bass or Soprano?” He asks, muttering so quietly that only you can hear it.

“Soprano.” You say. He pulls the bench out and sits first since he would be playing the lower part. You then sit next to him, your hands still slightly shaking.

“Do you know the ‘Dathomirian Waltz’?” He asks. You nod. “Lovely, key of D minor then, I’ll follow you.” He pulls his hands up to the keys, and you follow, taking two deep breaths, the first to calm your shaking hands, the second to conduct both of you in at the same time. Together you play a set of intricate chords, Hugo emphasizing on the bass notes, playing a complex scale that brought his left hand over his right several times. You carry the melody, playing just slightly louder than him and allowing yourself to fall into the trance of performing. Your hands finally quit shaking after a few phrases of the music, allowing it to soothe your nerves. Music has always done that for you. All of the nobles in the room smile, the Naboolian Queen sighing at the beauty of the complicated piece. You can’t keep the smile from pulling on your lips. Korkie’s cousin was very talented, much better than you. His hand brushed against yours several times and you couldn’t help yourself from thinking about the Knight when Hugo touches you.

This was something you would never get with him. You would never get to share a memorable moment with others, never get to rub hands against each other in front of three Queens, never get to look one another in the eye without shame or secrecy. The thoughts start to overcome your consciousness, causing you to play a sour note. No one seemed to notice, but you were more aware of it than you should have been.

A beautiful piece, carefully composed and rehearsed, performed with the intent to dazzle, the intent to impress. However there will always be the sour note, an incorrect chord that the audience might not hear but those giving the show will dwell on undoubtedly.

Like the Kingdom of Mandalore.

——————————————

“Rise and Shine your Highness!” A sing-songy voice calls out to you before pulling the long, draping curtains apart and letting the warm Mandalorian sun pour into the room. You groan and flip over onto your side, your body is still exhausted from yesterday evening and you would like to sleep in a little longer.

“Oh, don’t give us that.” A more brash voice groans and you recognize it as Koska’s. You can hear a number of other bodies file into the suite, maybe three or four. The handmaid's pull in the elven dress and a light breakfast. You can still smell the salt water on your forearm as you swing your hand over your eyes. You were not a morning person. Koska walks up to your bed before sitting on the edge of it, placing her tan hand on your shoulder. “We’ve let you sleep in long enough, we have to get you dressed and ready for tea with the Queens.”

“Queens?” You mumble, slurring the ‘s’ out.

“Yup, both Bo-Katan and your mother as well as the Queen of Naboo and Duchess of the Felucian mountain Kingdom are all eager to spend brunch with you in the Garden.” More guests arrived this morning while you were still sleeping, but it wasn’t until Koska explained to you about the women waiting for you that you remembered what day it was. You opened your eyes wide, flopping your arm onto the mattress beside you and looking up at her drowsily.

“The masquerade is today.” You say out of realization. She smirks and slowly nods her head. Soniee budges into your conversation, sitting on the opposite side of the bed.

“We have two dresses for you to wear today! This one,” She pulls forward a gown that isn’t quite as full and round as the dress for the ball, but is still a lovely dress with a pretty skirt and pearls embroidered into the bodice. “And of course the elf dress.” She nods to the pink and gold gown that sat on a sewing-bust, shimmering in the light. “We won’t get you into the ball gown until later tonight.” She hums.

“Now, we have to get you cleaned up, your hair is a mess.” Koska stands up and pulls the heavy down comforter from off of you. The loss of warmth elicits another sleepy groan from your lips and you stare up at the ladies in waiting frustratedly. “Up!” Koska’s serious voice commands and you’re scared enough of her that you jump up out of bed, pulling the nightgown sleeve up that has been slowly slipping down your shoulder and showing more and more skin. “That’s better.” Koska hums, “Let’s get you a bath, yeah?” She walks towards the bath room, opening the golden gilded doors and into the naturally-light room. You will always admire the beauty and effort put into the Mandalorian palace despite the internal battle with living here. You follow her into the room, still sleepy and walking slowly but eventually making it to the tub in the center of the room. The bath has already been drawn, which they must have done in your sleep (they’ve never done that before). You strip out of the cream-colored nightie and dip into the warm water. It smelled of lavender and honey and you allowed your muscles to relax into the bubbles. It was perfect, exactly what you needed to clear your racing and stressful mind. Your muscles were sore from yesterday and the warm water and flowery oils soaked them blissfully. You sigh at the sensation but before you can enjoy it anymore, Koska is dumping the warm water over your head, wetting it completely. It’s unexpected and you gasp from shock, your eyes glued shut to keep the water out of them. Damp hands come up from out of the water to wipe your eyes but then another dump of water is pouring over your head and you’re back at square one. Koska was a much harsher bather than Sonnie was.

All is forgiven however when she starts massaging your scalp, cleaning your hair. You relax back into the tub and enjoy the seawater and wind getting rinsed out. The other ladies come in, one on either side of the tub who files your nails, and Sonnie brings in a towel and silk robe. The other handmaiden works at your calloused feet with a pumice stone and you try not to let it tickle too much. It was true pampering and you loved every second of it. Usually there’s only one maiden to bathe you but five was divine. You assumed this was the treatment the Queen always received.

After you are properly cleaned, your Corellian tea is brought in and you’re left alone for as long as you like. You slowly sip on the purple shaded drink, waking up from it’s comforting properties. You sigh deeply, allowing the fragrant air to fill your lungs while you look out of the tall, narrow window in the center of the outside wall. You could not see the ocean from here, but instead the distant roofs of Keldabe. It was a beautiful summer day, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and you could hear the birds who have nested in the nooks and crannies of the towers chirping. You knew you had a long day ahead of you, and you wanted to try and enjoy it as much as you could. You never really enjoyed the social aspect of royalty, and that’s all today will be, but you’re ready to brave it head on.

An hour passes before you are finally dressed in the first gown of the day. Your hair is braided back so that it will have a desirable wave for the ball tonight. You are snuggly tied into the pearled bodice of the dress, and you run your hands up and down the beading, allowing it to tickle your soft palms.

Koska pulls open the door, and you’re expecting to see the Knight standing there stoically as always, but he isn’t. The hallway is completely empty, in fact, and you can’t ignore the dreadful feeling that overcomes your body. Where was he?

You clear your throat, and look back at Koska, who was adjusting the skirt of your gown as you walked.

“Where is he?” You ask, your voice hushed almost to a whisper but not quite. There were a million possibilities behind his absence and not a single one of them was ideal. Koska lifts up from her crouched position, smoothing the front pleats of her dress.

“What?” She asks and you sigh out of frustration, there was absolutely no way she didn’t know what you were talking about but you had to be vague because of all the ladies in waiting listening in.

“Who will be accompanying me to the garden?” You say with a forceful tone, trying to prod at a deeper meaning to the question.

Luckily, Lady Reeves picks up on it, and she looks behind you. You felt like she was avoiding eye-contact and it only made you more stressed and confused. “I’ll be escorting you, Highness.” She nodded, moving a step forward and then taking the lead down the corridor. You follow hesitantly, and wait until you are far enough down the hall from the other ladies back in your suite to speak again.

“Don’t horseshit me.” You mutter behind her. She keeps her chin up high as usual. “He’s in trouble, isn’t he.”

Koska doesn’t answer.

“Koska, you promised me he would be okay.” You try not to let the emotion show through your tone but that was a challenge. You felt guilty for some reason. If he was in trouble, it would be entirely your fault. The words shake in your throat and maybe it’s the tight corset and the fact that you are descending the stairs but you’re out of breath and it’s hot, so hot.

“He’s fine, I swear to the stars.” She whispers, saying it straight forward instead of turning back at you in an attempt to stay calm and unsuspecting to watchful eyes.

“Well then why didn’t you tell me that?” You ask, twiddling your thumbs.

“I couldn’t… there’s more to it but-“

“But what? What could be so secretive that you have to keep it from your future queen?” You say through gritted teeth and immediately after, Koska is spinning around on the staircase and looking up at you with a furrowed brow. You felt like you were being scolded by an impatient tutor despite the fact that you out-ranked her.

“You don’t even want to be the Queen.” She says in a whisper-shout, starting to sound as angry and emotional as you were just moments before.

“You’re right, I don’t-“ You bite back.

“So why are you here, then?”

You aren’t sure how to answer, the obvious answer is for Corellia. You were promised something in return for your ability to produce an heir and look like a porcelain figurine on a high shelf. But you also knew it would make your family happy, and your Kingdom. You would be making them proud by marrying so rich. You made a promise.

But now you think you’re starting to stay for an entirely different and unethical reason. Something that is inherently a trap and you know it, and yet here you are, fussing over it at every change you have.

Koska rolls her eyes and scoffs before continuing down the stairs.

“Who spit in your porridge this morning?” You reply.

“You did.” She groans in response.

“I’m sorry, but what did I ever do to you?” You ask when you complete the steps down and start down another corridor, one section of the massive palace closer to your destination.

Koska is the one not to answer this time.

It infuriates you that everyone is keeping secrets from you, your entire experience in Mandalore feels built on deception and being left-out. And now, the two people who finally seemed to be on your side aren’t with you in one way or another on such a big day. Koska is angry with you for no reason and you have no idea where your knight is.

The rest of the walk to the Gardens is silent, and before you know it, you are plopped down on an uncomfortable wicker chair in the hot sun, sipping on lukewarm lemon tea and wondering how much longer you have to suffer. Your mother and Bo were giggling about something, the rest of the court buzzing with conversation and ignoring you as always. Was it possible that you were the problem? You ask yourself this after another sip of the tea, a lemon slice bumping up against your upper lip a few times. As you think, you hold the dainty cup against your mouth, losing yourself in thought without realization. Your pretty eyes stare down at the green grass of the Garden. The grass never gets green back home.

You start subconsciously bouncing your leg as you thought to yourself. Everyone seemed to ignore expect for Korkie and your Knight— who both want to fuck you. Maybe that was the only desirable thing about you. This wasn’t the first time you felt insecure about the relationship you have developed with the Knight. He’s so quiet, so different from you. Were you falling for a trick?

Was he?

Tea must have gone by fast because just before the pearls of your dress start to burn against your arms from the heat exposure, you’re excusing yourself and wandering back inside.

“Strange girl.” One of the noble ladies says to Bo when you walk away. You don’t hear it, you can’t hear anything except for your deafening thoughts.

“Are you sure she’s the one for your nephew?” Another asks. If you had known your mother was silent for all of this in fear of losing her reputation or even the deal between Corellia and Mandalore, you would have been furious.

“Well his father was an outcast, too.” One chuckles. “I guess you Kyrze’s attract the wallflowers.” A few hummed in amused response.

“Well his father wasn’t just an outcast, he was a downright scandal-“

“My sister loved him, and that is all that matters.” Bo interrupts. The laughter quickly dies out.

“Don’t tell me you believe in love, too.” One laughs.

“You aren’t married, what could you know of love?” The same one bo interrupted says.

“I do believe in love, which is why I am not married.” The Queen reiterates. “And I don’t think she’s the right fit for my Nephew, she’s too… outspoken. He needs someone who won’t outshine him.” They chuckle again, all do but your mother, who is still meekly silent.

“Well with the engagement Ball tonight, it is far too late to back out now.” One teases, and the laughter only grows.

Bo-Katan stares in the direction you left.

You huff down the hall, your arms folded and neck sweaty from the heat. You are looking back and forth, studying the layout of the hall in search of something. You’re looking for the smallest idea of where the knight could be but you aren’t very successful.

While all the fully armored guards of the Mandalorian palace are dressed identically, you are almost certain you would be able to spot your boy in a crowd of a thousand of them. You aren’t sure why, but there is something different about him, something that sticks out from the rest. Somehow you two were connected, and it made it so he was always plaguing your mind, even when you are with your literal fiance. Even when you are far away from him and have no clue where he is for the first time in two weeks.

Separation Anxiety.

You aren’t watching where you’re going, which makes you run into a tall, lanky boy. You yelp out in apologetic surprise, looking up at the person blocking your stressed search. A blonde boy flips around to look at you and you’re half expecting to see Korkie but it isn’t.

His Cousin, Hugo, looks down at you with his same charming smirk as always.

“Princess!” He bows.

“My apologies, Hugo!” You exclaim.

“Oh please, you are perfectly fine. You looked distressed? I hope It was not something I did?”

“Of course not!” You reassure, awkwardly smiling. “Uh- may i ask what you were doing in the center of the corridor?”

He chuckles, “Admiring this art.” He nods to an expansive, framed oil painting on the wall. It was of a tall man with a long face and alarming smirk. What stuck out to you, however, was that he held in both hands the same black sword from the royal portraits upstairs by the war room.

“The art is beautiful here.” You smile.

“Yes, my Aunt Satine worked hard to make it culturally rich.”

“Did you know her?”

“Yes, I am a bit older than Korkie, and I knew her for several years before she passed.”

“Are you… second in line?”

“I am.” He says with a classic amused smirk.

“So maybe you can answer a question for me, then.” You ask as you look up at the art. “What in the world is that?” You ask in reference to the blade.

“That, my foreign Princess, is the Dark Sword of Mandalore.”

“The what?” You cluelessly ask.

“A sacred weapon that the rightful ruler possesses, it’s rather powerful.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it before.” You look up at it in awe.

“Hah, yes. It is made of pure obsidian. The white is enchanted quartz veins. It is practically invincible, an elven Mand’alor forged it when he was just a boy.”

“What? There were Mandalorians who were part elf?” You ask, your eyes peeling off of the art and onto your companion.

He looks at you almost confused, “There is much you do not know about my Kingdom?”

“No… I’m afraid not.” You shamefully admit.

“Most don’t,” He shrugs and returns to the conversation unbothered, “It’s history is rather complicated.”

The two of you were quiet for a long time. Your eyes were glued to the stern face of the man in the portrait. You wondered who he was. Hugo is the first to speak up.

“You played beautifully last night.” You doubted he didn’t notice the incorrect notes and mistakes you made several times, maybe he was just being polite by ignoring them. You turn to look at him and smile kindly.

“As did you.” You return the compliment. He looks at you, and you must have been distracted by something other than him because you weren’t aware that his eyes were darting between your eyes and your lips.

Hugo forces a kiss on you.

Just like how Korkie did a few weeks ago in the library. It’s fast because you angrily pull away just as fast as he placed it on you.

“What?” You say like an idiot, looking up at him in shock.

“Oh come on, don’t tell me you don’t feel it?” He gets defensive immediately. The worst part is that it wasn’t even that bad of a kiss, much softer than Korkies, but nowhere as tender as the kisses the Knight would lay on you in the water or behind a closed door. Your entire body seemed to seize up, and you couldn’t get any words out. Not any words that you wanted to say. You just looked up at him, vulnerable and confused. He leans down to do it again but you’re able to turn your head to the side, keeping his lips off of you.

“I am… in love with another man.” You say, clearing your throat.

“You and I both know that isn’t my cousin.”

No use denying it at this point, “yes, but I am still engaged to him. I cannot just be disloyal to the future Mand’alor.” You mutter, embarrassed but trying to keep your cool. You knew you were lying, because you weren’t staying loyal to Korkie. No, you were outright cheating on him and you were falling in love with the boy you were cheating with. You were falling in love. You were very exposed, after all. Anyone could turn the corner or look through the windows and see you. It was different this time, however. Usually hiding your kisses are exciting, but that was only with the Knight. “Please,” You voice betrays you, and the emotional shake is heard through your clenched jaw, “Excuse me.” You push passed him frustratedly, making sure to shove him over a little with your shoulder. You angrily walk back to your room, finally getting there without help for the first time.

When you turned down the Corridor to your suite, you were hoping to see the beskar-clad boy who held you last night, but he still wasn’t there. You hold back emotional tears, but not seeing the one who brings the most comfort to you makes you break. Two crystal tears roll down your cheeks.

You have been taken advantage of too many times in this forsaken castle.

You pull open the door, the golden afternoon light reflecting warmly off of the gold-leafed furniture and decorations is a stark contrast from the bleak hallway. Your bed has been made, and things have been tidied up since you were in here last. You flop onto the mattress, your arms stretched out from your sides, looking up at the sheer canopy above where you lay.

Two hours pass. You think you fell asleep but you cannot remember. If you did, no dreams were had.

Soniee opens your door with trepidation after two soft knocks, “Princess, It is time to prepare for the ball.” Her voice is so timid. You twist your head to look at her, the other ladies from this morning were behind her. Koska was not with them.

You sit up from the bed, rubbing a crook in your neck from how you were laying...

—

authors note (again): i know this isn’t the best chapter ending but ya know... IT WASNT SUPPOSED TO BE

Anyways..... see you tomorrow? i guess? haha

Taglist: @remmysbounty @snow30285 @what-iwish-you-knew @softly-sad @carbonated-beverage @frogllady @baileys-corner @song-of-sea-and-sky @leaiorganas @weirdowithnobeardo @ginger-swag-rapunzel @bewitchedbodyandsol l @mograh @justavolcano @theokatz @lowkeytesss @hallway5 @dat-girl-in-corner @news4bees @istealyof00d @songofcosplay @waffles4lif3 @mcueveryday @310ra @thatonedindjarinfan @songofseraphine @callmekane @theelilbritt @bbwithaknife @firstofficerwiggles @jedi-jesi @ironbabey @minttchipp @bel-ppa @honey-hi @cp11 @venomous-ko @bbwithaknife @lunatic-sunsets @1800-fight-me @foundtheavacados @elphabaforpresidentofgallifrey @florenceivy @theanothersherlockian @spideysimpossiblegirl @mandomistress @floraandfrost @paradoxpictures @stinky-child

“if you are included in the taglist, you are expected to interact with the post you are tagged in (ex. reblogs, comments and notes), if I notice that you are not interacting with the applicable post, you will be removed from the taglist”

—

part twelve

[hematomes]

I saw your post about ppl losing their shiz about Kaeya fanart being “whitewashed” when it’s literally darker than he is in canon. I agree btw I love like basically all Kaeya art out there I love one eyepatch man.

anyhoo, I have a story. I once saw a tiktok about a kaeya art. it was specifically labeled “IN PROGRESS” or whatever so you knew the artist wasn’t done. it was a gorgeous piece of art btw. So far, the only thing that had been colored was his hair and some of his clothes.

pretty much everyone in the comments started harrasing her about how he was whitewashed and the artist had to be a white supremacist and i think someone said “see I knew everyone who played genshin was racist just delete the game at this point.”

i was just like 😳 wow jeez it’s literally IN PROGRESS the artist legit said so.

the artist eventually posted the final version (after having to delete the first video and deal with several threats) it did turn out beautiful, but on the comments there and on every post of theirs after people are lurkign in the comments bad-mouthing them.

as much as I definitely am for characters not being whitewashed (especially Kaeya bc I love him your honor) I think some people take it way too far when the person they’re yelling at literally just wanted to get people excited about their WIP.

hi! sorry im so late this issue became quite sensitive lol i had to work up the courage to come back to it. it's gonna be a bit long, but i really need to say all this

if there's one thing i noticed about the genshin community on tiktok and twitter, it's that there is a whole, whole lot of social justice warriors and overall it's extremely toxic. it's something that surprised me because the people i interact with on tumblr are all super sweet and not one bit toxic so? idk, tumblr is just a different breed i guess

your story is extremely saddening. everytime there's a kaeya fanart, people forget about the color theory and the artists' style and claim it's whitewashed and i genuinely don't understand why. if someone could explain it to me, am i missing something? im not an artist so perhaps im mistaken, idk, but i've never seen a fanart where kaeya was whitewashed.

the thing that pisses me off the most is that most of the time it's white ppl calling something whitewashed. i'm not saying you shouldn't call out racism if you see it just bc you're white, just that these people aren't even right - and often you see poc coming into the debate and explaining it's not whitewashed/saying it doesn't bother them. moreover, i've literally seen fanart of beidou as a black girl, which isn't representation in my opinion - beidou is already a poc, and asian people need at least as much representation as black people, so it's plain racism. same thing with kaeya, i've seen edits of him with stereotypical african features, and it's really sad that no one is calling this out but yelling about whitewashing as soon as he isn't the exact same color as the official arts. hell, someone even said "so what if it's darker? it's still whitewashing" and i??? am flabbergasted. whitewashing is absolutely disgusting, but ppl keep misunderstanding what it means and just using it to gratuitously harass artists.

now, don't get me wrong. i believe that you can draw whatever you want. but the thing is - if you get mad when someone draws kaeya white (if they really do, i mean), you can't just applaud someone else's that draws another character black. racism goes both ways, and it's bordering on fetishism. i, as a poc (mixed-race, caucasian + african), am extremely uncomfortable everytime i see this double-standard.

but anyway, the fact remains that sjw have plagued the genshin fandom. and it's not just about kaeya's skin color (we don't even know if he's really a poc - we know he's tan according to paimon, and i believe she called him "exotic"? so idk) but also about the ships. everytime i see a shippy tiktok, there's plenty of ppl out here saying it's wrong, claiming their own ship is the most canon. if i'm not mistaken, kaeluc is the one that gets the most hate, and i genuinely, once again, don't understand why.

i talked about them before and explained how it's not incest bc they really aren't brothers, but i swear every now and then i see people throwing death threats and slurs anytime someone hints at them. idk if you are familiar with the eng va's fandom, but sometimes they play among us together, aether's va does some livestreams where he invites different voice actors. but diluc's va is never there, and i was wondering why - recently i learned that it's because he retweet a fanart of kaeya and diluc fighting alongside each other (not even a shippy fanart, apparently) and people harassed him and excluded him from the fandom. and now the same thing is happening to griffin burns, childe's va, bc he retweeted (or liked, idk) a fanart of lumine and childe fighting or something and people called it pedophilia bc lumine would be a minor. i'm not even gonna dive into this bc the travelers are canonically like 30 times childe's age, but what i mean is - people are so full of hate and i can't fathom living like this?

the point is, i totally respect anyone who doesn't ship something i ship. i myself don't like certain ships - like zhongli/xiao, jean/diluc - but im not gonna harass ppl who do just because i can? that's messed up, i just don't get it. i wish the fandom wasn't that bad bc i really enjoy this game

anyway, im really disappointed but still grateful, bc my followers & people i've interacted with here have been nothing but sweet and respectful. i hope none of y'all come across the toxic side of the genshin fandom. stay safe y'all!

[serowotonin]

LiPS𝐓1CK St4𝐈NS ! (💋)

❝ having lipstick and giving him a kiss and he doesn't realize he has it on his face until his teammates are all like 0-0 ❞ — @/luna-in-luv

++ fem!reader x oikawa, kuroo

| wc. 1.3k 

| note. djslsdf it took so long to edit this post T-T,,,,, when ur indecisive af and can’t decide on a post format :D anyways just wanna say reblogs are greatly appreciated and i hope u guys like this<3

( ➷ ); ― OiK4WA

another day of school, another day of.. well, another day of boredom

you had to admit though, school had become a lot more fun since you and oikawa got together;)

altho you were in different classes, you’d still pass each other in hallways and see each other during breaks

and ofc every interaction, no matter how small, definitely made your day brighter

the smaller interactions consisted mainly of random head pats as he walks pass by, or a smirk and a wink whenever you two make eye contact 

when there weren’t as many people around,,, maybe a hug or a kiss if either of you felt like it

and very rarely.. 

a makeout session in an empty classroom or staircase

its rare but it does happen

and it was happening… right now

school ended about half an hour ago and everyone either left or went to do their club activities 

which was what oikawa should probably be doing too,, but today he just “felt like going in a little later”

and so there you two were, in the dark corner of an abandoned classroom grasping at the other as if you haven’t seen them in years

idk how to describe a steamy makeout sesh okkk

anyways,, after about 6 ignored calls from iwaizumi tho.. you two figured it was probably time for him to go to practice

you two straightened yourselves out; cleared the ruffles from your uniforms, tidied your hair, etc.

oikawa texted iwa that he was on his way while you touched up your makeup

“you gonna walk me to practice?”

“of course,” you smiled. “altho i have my own club activities today too so i can’t stay and watch :( ”

“dont worry babe,,, just walking me there is enough” he replied with a grin

then he slung an arm over your shoulder and the two of you walked out of the classroom as if nothing happened

as you neared the entrance of the gym, you slowed to a stop and tugged at oikawa’s shirt

he turned and you leaned to give him a kiss on the cheek

“good luck with practice” you said before giving him a small wave and walking off

did you see the dark mark your lipstick left on his cheek?

yes.

were you going to say anything about it?

well,,,, you already turned to walk away and oikawa was already entering the gym

so no.

anyways,, as oikawa entered the gym, the first thing he saw was his beloved iwa-chan

looking not very happy

oikawa waved sheepishly as he turned his head to the side to look at where everyone else was

this for some reason made iwaizumi look even more not happy

makki and mattsun then walked over and snickered upon seeing oikawa

“ah was y/n here? why didn’t you invite her to watch hmm?~” makki teased

“she’s got club activities too you know..”

smh

they probably realize oikawa doesnt know bout the kiss mark

the three of them were just staring at oikawa like (￢_￢;)

and oikawa's just standing there like (◕‿◕)?

“can we go practice now..?” 

iwa: (￣︿￣) “wipe that stupid mark off your cheek”

huh? mark? he was pretty sure he wiped off any evidence from ahem what was happening earlier…

at this point some of the younger members started staring at them

and oikawa spotted them out of the corner of his eye and could practically feel the awkwardness in their gazes

he put a hand on the cheek everyone was staring at and removed it to see the same color that painted your lips

oh...

a slow smile spread on his lips at the realization of what you did

he laughed to himself

‘she’s gonna be the death of me..’

and with that he wiped off the remnants of your lipstick and hurried over to start practice

later tho, he asks you to kiss him again wearing that lipstick

and you do

and he snaps a selfie,,, which is now his phone wallpaper ;3

( ❣︎ ); ― KUR0O

today, you’re boyfriend, the one and only Kuroo Tetsurou, had a volleyball match

and ofc being the amazing, supportive gf you were, you were present in the stands, cheering him on

you didn’t get to meet or even talk to him before the match started, save for a few quick texts 

so when he came on to the court for warm up and spotted you in the crowd,,,

he gave a cheeky wink and wave

you could practically feel the confidence roll off him in waves but you knew, deep down, he was the tiniest bit nervous too

afterall, the opponents weren’t a weak team by any standard

they were strong and known for their relentless attacks

which were put to display almost immediately after the game started

nekoma held on though, and managed to put in a few attacks of their own to level the game

you could see the hard work behind each of the members’ skills, having witnessed a lot of it yourself

it was most clear in kuroo tho

and as he jumped to block another spike, you were on the edge of your seat

the boys just needed one more point… which came when kuroo shut down the last spike

you and the rest of the people in the stands around you erupted into cheers

and as they were leaving the court, you ran to steal kuroo away for a more personal cheer

the two of you walked the halls of the stadium talking abt the game

you were gushing about this block and that and he was smiling at your gushing cuz damn was his y/n cute 

N E WAYSSS,,, he received a text from kenma saying that they were all waiting for him at the bus

“i should go.. don’t wanna keep them waiting long”

“yeah.. you should”

before he could move tho, you tiptoed and placed a big fat kiss on his cheek

you swear you saw a blush on those cheeks as you backed down

he grinned and gave you a kiss of his own on your forehead before saying bye and running off

as he did, you realized you forgot to mention the lip-shaped mark on his cheek 

oops… its too late now ┐(︶▽︶)┌

anyway,, kuroo arrives all smiles to where the team are waiting 

and make no mistake they all CLEARLY see evidence of ur “little” kiss from back there

they just kinda,,,, don’t say anything at first?

kenma rolled his eyes and went back to doing whatever on his phone

yaku glared at it out of spite or some similar emotion

the others just choose to ignore mainly cuz they assume kuroo already knows and chose to keep it there

to them its just kuroo being a cheesy mf who was rubbing the non-single life in their faces or smth

ofc he has no idea tho

which just makes it all the more better when lev says

“y/n has nice lipstick”

and kuroo’s just like wtf ?? whatcha goin on bout my gf’s lipstick hUH

and he says that.. or something similar at least

and lev just points to his cheek like

“duhh i can see it right there”

he grabs his phone, opens the front facing camera, and is met with the outline of your lips on his cheek

and thats when he obviously started blushing

but then he just kind of smirked once he realized you knew about the mark

when yaku sees the smirk he went “OMFG JUST WIPE IT OFF ALREADY !! WE GET IT !! YOU ARENT SINGLE YOU GET KISSES STFU”

not like that but practically exactly what he was trying to say anyway

tbh kuroo’s a little reluctant to rub it off cuz idk,, he likes it ?? 

but he does anyway cuz they were still in public and there were teachers who were gonna come soon and all the other reasons

once hes comfortably seated in the bus tho, with a clean cheek, he sends u several texts

‘ saw that gift you left on my cheek… ’

‘ wouldn’t mind if u gave me more tmr afterschool ;) ’

| taglist. @lilikags @luna-in-luv ... send an ask if u wanna be added !!~

[solcheeky]

our secret

summary: fratboy!donghyuck turns paperboy! when he needs some extra money for college stuff like textbooks. he thinks delivering way outside of campus will save face from being a measly paperboy, but little does he know, the front yard light he hits (and breaks) belongs to his significantly well off classmate... (3k)

warnings: strong language here and there genre: enemies to ..friends? a/n: I’ve merged these two requests together! meaning I have and haven’t included aspects of each, hope that’s okay! (2021 edit: hi I found this in my drafts from last year and idk why I never posted it so yeah, here we go)

“You’re late.” Your professor calls out as Donghyuck fails to sneak into lecture hall unnoticed

You sigh, you’d think he’d at least look ashamed to step foot into class at such a late time

You suppose with Lee Donghyuck, things were always different

The boy winces comically, inhaling between his teeth brazenly, and students stifle their laughter

Then with a simple raise of his hand, he gestures a flimsy ‘my bad’ and a ‘continue, continue’ before charmingly wiping the sweat off his brow and sitting in the empty seat saved by his friends

The professor frowns, “you’re late.” He repeats as if to encourage the young rebel to at least say something

“I’m Haechan,” the rebel says under his breath, flopping his backpack onto the desk, “not ‘late’” a sarcastic smile stretching his lips as his friends snicker at his dumb joke

You roll your eyes, he was unbelievable.

“Alright, alright, that’s enough.” The professor claps his hands. “And Mr. Late,” he emphasizes, “don’t think you’re getting away with anything.”

So he drops it on him like a bomb: “For the rest of this week, meet me in the office an hour before classes start.”

The grin on Donghyuck’s face immediately wipes off his face and his heart drops to his stomach

“Prof!” He whines back

Karma, you think. That’s what he gets for being so up his own ass

It wouldn’t kill him to wake up a little bit earlier. He relied so much on his ‘so loveable’ personality and popularity, you couldn’t stand it

If you even attempted to do half the things he got away with, you’d be expelled by now

You drop your pen and lean back into your seat with a sigh, you had no choice but to sit back and watch him waste valuable lesson time over this insolence

“You can’t do that!” Seriously, Donghyuck would do anything else other than doing extra hours in the morning

“And you can’t be late to my lectures all the time. What are you not getting here Mr. Late?”

“But I can’t.” Donghyuck immediately regrets saying that out loud like that; the vulnerability in his voice a little too close to home

“And, why not?” Your professor bounces back thankfully brushing past the genuine desperation in his students voice

The reason why not was something ‘Lee Haechan’ couldn’t say out loud. If he did, he’d lose everything

So instead, he sticks with his usual tongue-in-cheek mannerism, “because I don’t want to.”—A sneaky beat around the bush on his part because, little did everyone know, Lee Haechan, the star player and everyone’s favorite goofball, was a measly paperboy

Why?

Because he was dumb broke.

It was a job that required him waking up extra early to race around neighborhoods on his bike, something he had to do regardless rain or sun just tossing as many papers onto people's front porches,

Something he already was finding so much of a difficulty doing: racing to class and acting as if his muscles weren’t burning or the fabric under is backpack wasn’t drenched in sweat

But now this ‘meet me in the office an hour earlier than classes start’ bullshit

That would mean he’d have to wake up even earlier than he already did!

“Doesn’t matter if you don’t want to, you’re going to.” Is the last thing your professor says on that topic before swiftly moving on.

Oh to be born with a silver spoon in his mouth, is what he always thinks as he cycles his rounds in the wealthy neighborhood

If there was one thing he didn’t have, it was this. 

He looks at the blaringly affluent homes that surrounded him and heaves another sigh, the same road he rides every morning (and now this extra early morning) effortlessly reminding him of how absolutely poor his ass was

Grumbling under his breath in a tantrum about his professor in his head, he angrily hurls newspapers onto doorsteps

It was the fact that he had to deal with this at ungodly hours in the morning—as if this job wasn’t already enough

Donghyuck frustratedly hurls another newspaper, but this time around, it shoots straight into someone's front garden post light, knocking it over and completely disrupting the perfect order in which the other trail of foot lights were set in

What the heck?

Immediately, he hits the breaks, his tires screeching loudly in the quietness of the early morning

Profanities frantically leave his lips as he hurriedly drops his bike onto the sidewalk in a clatter, and runs ahead to see the damage he’s made

The lamp was perfectly struck to its side.

Well, that’s just great—he can’t afford college textbooks let alone the broken path lamp on some rich persons lawn

So, his first thoughts are to pull it back into the place, completely irrational, but it’s the only thing that runs through his mind when he’s on a time crunch to get off private property

Except, the damn thing is stuck; literally cemented into this lopsided tilt

Man, Donghyuck swears he could tug all day and it wouldn’t get back into place

It was like the universe was having fun being against him

You, on the other hand, were watching this boy struggle to fix your light back into place from the comfort of your window.

He looked ridiculously cute trying to tug that lamp back into place, curled almost into a ball in the middle of your lawn, his eyebrows sewn into a line of frustration and lips pursed

You knew he was your paperboy from the start of his laborious cycling trips, but did Donghyuck know he was delivering papers to his very own classmate every morning?

You guess not.

...Until now

You knock three times from behind the glass, successfully capturing the boy's attention before mouthing, “what are you doing?”

The agitation on his features drops and immediately his eyes widen at your familiar face

Except, he isn’t given much time to reply before the lamp between his fingers gives in to his weight and recoils back smacking him right in the nose

“Holy shit!” You forget you’re only in socks when you open your front door and race towards him

Donghyuck automatically drops the (now broken) piece of your lawn to cup his bruising face

“Ah- Fucking shit- Ow!” He bends forwards on his knees into the grass, forehead pressing into your lawn before he rocks back up again to scrunch a deep frown up towards the sky. “Jesus-”

“Are you okay?!” Dropping to your knees, you place a cautious hand to his back

“Yes.” He groans into his palms, rocking back down towards the grass again

He definitely wasn’t.

But he needed to get out of there quick; there’s no way he’d let you recognize him

Yeah, you weren’t that stupid.

“Let me see,” you carefully bring him up by his shoulders, your head leaning down towards his to see the damage

“No- Ow! Crap-”

“You’re bleeding!” You try to pry at his wrists but he rips away from your hands

That’s when Donghyuck finally looks up to scowl at you; a frown stitched hard into into his forehead, eyes watering, hair all ruffled, but most alarmingly—a scarlet ribbon of blood running down his wrists

“I’m okay.” He muffles into his hands.

And wow did he look like an idiot.

“Sorry about your-” 

“Jesus Hyuck, you’re not fooling anyone.”

The boy visibly stiffens at your choice of his name

“Haechan.” You quickly correct yourself

He gulps

You glance away

“Let’s just put an ice-pack on that.” Then you’re dragging him into your house

“Quit moving!” You dab a wet cloth across the cut above Donghyuck’s lip

“Well, it hurts.” He tries to complain without moving his mouth too much

You purse your lips and Donghyuck attempts to adjust the ice pack on his nose despite your warning

With a sigh, you take his wrist and bring his arm down to his lap, “Hyuck, if you keep-” you feel him stiffen under your touch. “Haechan.” You keep doing that. “Sorry.”

He just diverts his eyes elsewhere and mumbles, “It’s whatever.” under his breath

So, you bring your attention back to cleaning his cut, your cheeks heating up at the thought of how much of a creep you probably were by calling him by his old name

“I’m-”

“Y/n.” His voice was a little clearer this time, a soft frown on his face, “I remember.”

He kind of wished you didn’t though. This was so embarrassing.

You pull the cloth away from his reddening cheeks, that annoyed flustered look on his face pulling at the nostalgia in you

It was only natural to call him ‘Hyuck’ because you had been going to the same school as him for years

Ever since you were kids, through highschool and now somehow, still impossibly in college, you’ve been with him

You almost had every class with the loud idiot back when he was still ‘Donghyuck’

For as long as you could remember, he had always been the center of gravity in every class, his punchy personality and almost too friendly way of speaking easily giving him the ‘popular’ tag 

It made you have a bit of a crush on him when you were younger, but who didn’t? 

Now, you found him irritating. 

The only thought you had about him consisted of wishing he’d stop using his status to his advantage and just come to class right instead of wasting your lesson time

“Can I ask you something?” He dodges your hand for a second, eyes looking down as if to hide away his embarrassment 

“Sure,” you naturally reach forward again to dab his cut, but he stops you at the wrist

“Can you,” you lift your focus away from his lip to the slight grimace on his face, “not tell anyone about this?”

You blink at him, and a muscle works in his jaw

“Seriously, people can’t know about this.” 

But you simply pull your wrist out of his grip and go back to tending to his wound

You hadn’t told anyone since you’d found he was your paperboy, and that was weeks ago. So why was he so worked up?

Hadn’t the situation already called for it anyway? Who in their right mind would tell anyone after this? For you, it was obviously common courtesy

But before you can reply, he tilts his face into your line of vision. “Are you listening to me?” The frown on his face deepens and he instantly brings the ice pack in this hand over his face at the sudden pain through his nose

That attitude of his easily drove you crazy.

“That was a stupid question.” You give up on cleaning the blood on his lip and push the ice-pack deeper into his face, “if you used that stupid, egotistical brain of yours-”

“Ah! Ow- Ooow-”

“Maybe you’d realize I’ve never told anyone about your paper rounds before.”

“Ow!” He wrenches away from your frustrated grip, the look on his face just as annoyed as you. “You’re going to break my nose!” 

“You broke my yard lamp!”

He looks at you with a huff; a slight puff to his reddened cheeks, furrowed brows and tears ever so slightly brimming his eyes

If that lamp didn’t cost about five times the price of his bike he’d say something back.

You easily read that off his expression

“You don’t have to pay for it.” You start to pack up the first-aid kit you’d opened up on your coffee table just to not look at him in the eyes when you say that

As much as he irritated you, you weren’t that petty

“Really?” The genuine doubt in his face relaxing the annoyance in you a little

“Yeah.” Money wasn’t a problem for you, it was his attitude

But the casualness Donghyuck catches in your tone reminds him of the starkly different worlds you live in

So he musters it up within himself to at least show some kind of gratitude, “...Thanks.” 

And it’s almost inaudible when he says it under his breath like that

But you catch it as you pull a bandaid out of the box before you close it

“On one condition.” You turn to look at him dead in the eyes.

One of his brows slightly quirk up in interest

“Hand.”

He opens his palm to you and you purposely slap the bandaid into it.

“Stop coming late to class, you’re wasting everyone's time.”

Instantly, his jaw goes slack. 

Unable to say anything he stares as you rise from your seat in content, first aid kit in hand, before walking behind the sofa towards the kitchen

You didn’t have to say it like that.

He swings an elbow over the back of the couch, “Sorry for bringing you the paper every morning!” Maybe he was a little offended

You turn on your heels to face him, noticing the bandaid now crushed in the fist of the hand he had over the couch and ice-pack abandoned on the coffee table (the full glory of his bruising nose and cut lip on show)

“I said ‘don’t be late’ not ‘don’t bring me the paper’.” Then you disappear into the kitchen.

Donghyuck has to close his eyes for a second, exhaling a frustrated sigh before standing up in a huff and following your footsteps.

How could you say something so insensitive? Yeah, maybe he broke your lamp or whatever, but he tried to fix it!

And sure, he was sort of bleeding over your couch and used your ice pack, but he totally said thanks

“That’s just- You’re so,” He’s standing at the doorway by the time you’re done, bandaid still stuck in the frustrated grip of his hand

“So what, Hyuck?”

Seeing the all star, team favorite class clown crumble at the simple play of his old nickname made something in your stirr

“Insufferable.” 

You? Your lips turn up in amusement. He was the insufferable one, you almost scoff

“You and your big house, fancy first aid kit, stupid lamps on your lawn,” he takes a bold step forward at every reason until he’s one step to being chest to chest, “I’m just trying to do my job, and go to class.”

You look at him straight in the eyes. “Well, you’re hardly succeeding at either of those.”  

You...

Donghyuck runs his tongue across his inner cheek before biting down on his bottom lip in a brazen attempt to act unfazed by that fatal side comment

A coppery, metal taste pricks his tongue, and he realizes he’s reopened up the cut on his lip again

But that was the least of his worries. You had no idea what it was like being broke. If there was anything he didn’t have, it was everything you did. You probably couldn’t even fathom the type of shit he’s had to go through and even more so: hide.

The way you acted as if his biggest problem in life was as easy as brushing the dust of his shoulder just pissed him off.

“Have you ever thought of waking up earlier?” 

Ah, there it was again, Donghyuck wants to roll his eyes

“I sleep late.” He says dryly.

“Then sleep earlier.”

“I have other shit to do, like study.” 

“Then, manage your time better.” If he really wanted to ‘do his job’ and ‘get to class’, he could’ve done it by now.

He was always messing about with friends and organizing parties, stories spread around like wildfire on campus about the things he occupied himself with other than ‘having shit to do like studying’, you weren’t stupid

It was by the end of high school, when you began to see him as a person who valued himself with the amount of friends knew or the amount of partying he did

And at first you were mad that he had the things you never did, but seeing him easily get washed up by it all made you think maybe you didn’t need what he had

Now you figure his ego was so far up his ass he couldn’t even sit right—that’s probably why he couldn’t cycle to class on time

“And don’t use your bike, you’re clearly slow on it.” You tack on.

“I don’t even have a car!” He snaps back

He made you want to pull out your own hair. “Jeez, first this, then that, god Hyuck, you keep-”

“You say that as if it were so easy,” his words overlapping yours as you continue

“-making up so much bullshit because the only thing you really put effort into is your image,” Your words running over his too.

“-if I could get a car, don’t you think I’d have one already?”

“Then I’ll just take you!” That puts both of you to a stop.

“So, quit giving me stupid excuses to ruin my lectures every day.” If the things money could buy were what he needed, you had it

You snatch the bandaid out of his fist, rip it open and harshly stick it across his bottom lip. It was annoying to see him ignore it like that.

“You usually finish an hour before class right?” You frown up at him

Donghyuck opens his mouth then closes it again.

“Because if you reroute and make me the last house, I’ll take you with me by car.”

“What?” He manages to say. What the hell just happened?

a/n: okay so there was a lot more to the story and character development but it ran too long I had to cut it off bc I cba to edit lmao 

also I seemed to have gone way out of the request lines near the end my bad my bad, but I at least hope you’ve enjoyed it! thoughts???? a part 2?

[har-rison-s]

stellars: 4

a/n: so. times are a-changing in the glade and between the oc and the boys… let’s see where the night takes us, shall we? ;) oh! i have some bad news. well, bad for me, not for you guys :D my laptop has completely died, i can open exactly none of the programmes, and while studies are on-campus instead of online, my school won’t compensate me with a laptop for the school year (it’s not like my laptop died because of the horribly big and battery, time and storage consuming programmes i needed to get just for school, no, not at all)… so currently i can’t do any of my homeworks and have to write in my ipad and phone, which is VERY irritating. swear to god, editing and posting on tumblr and on ao3 is so annoying through my ipad. ofc i’m thankful for one, but everything was much easier on a laptop. i hate capitalism and my school. anyways, happy reading!

my paypal if you’d like to support me like that (i’d appreciate anything, as i’m saving up for uni next year :’))

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warnings: bit of angst, descriptions of alcohol consumption, mentions of fears, idk?? nothing else

Now, every Glader knows that during or right after dinner, the Doors to the Maze close. They always do, with no exception. The only thing that might change in that routine is how much on time Frypan manages to make meals for everyone. As mentioned, the Doors close either during or after dinner, but they always close on precisely the same time. Every day, all week, all month, all year and so forth.

Remembering about their friends out there, Newt and Thomas can barely eat dinner. The girl has to almost force them to eat. Thomas’ leg is bouncing up and down next to her under the table, and Newt is checking both his watch and the Doors and the placement of the sun almost every second. She has to talk them into eating at least half of their portion, and eventually they only have a few bites, and she gives the rest to Chuck and Frypan himself, who are both the hungriest of the bunch.

The two boys can’t wait a second longer, with the Doors about to close any second, so they jump up from the table, almost flipping it over from the impact, only managing to juggle it a bit and getting a response of groans and slight protests from the others, before they make a run towards the nearest doors. She sighs, letting them do whatever they need to, though the worry and anxiety are both growing inside of her, too. Minho and Alby out in the Maze, lost, tired, alone, potentially hurt—stung—by the creatures Thomas called the Grievers. After finishing her meal, she decides to join her friends at the entrance.

She’s not the only one, though, as most of the Gladers round up behind Thomas, Newt and her at the Doors, and they all intently watch the hallway. She realises it’s the first time she’s standing so close to an entrance of the Maze. She takes note of how tall and high the walls are, how far the hallway goes, and that there are hallways sectioning off from the main one, both to the left and the right. Ivy is crawling over the walls here and there, and the stone is green or a darker grey at parts. It’s dirty, and has probably never been washed, the whole Maze. Who would think to do that, anyway?

A wind blows from the inside of the Maze. Cold wind, it whistles as it goes past the Gladers’ ears, it moves the ivy slightly where it touches upon. The wind is lonely, cold, but feels like a warning to her. A sudden thought comes into her mind. It’s the north wind. Could be around ten to fifteen miles per hour. How does she know that? How can she tell that much just from a breeze?

The concrete walls start to move, taking everyone aback with its suddenness and loud noise. “They’re really screwed now,” one of the Gladers says aloud, talking about Minho and Alby. She bites her lip out of worry. Once those walls close, they can’t get out until morning. And if those creatures are out there with the boys… Who knows what can happen. There’s no sight of Alby and Minho, not even in the far distance. The walls slowly move towards each other, leaving a good minute or two until they touch together and close completely for the night.

Newt and Thomas intently watch the Maze, and Thomas finally spots some movement at the furthest end of the main hallway. “There!” He points, and everyone looks to where his hand is leading. There are groans to be heard, even over the incredible noise of the grinding walls, groans of pain and even shouts. Then Newt spots the moving figures. And she finally sees them, too. It’s Minho and Alby, but they’re moving so slow. Why are they walking so slow?

She realises in a moment that they’re barely walking at all. The one who is walking is Minho, and he’s carrying Alby at his right shoulder. Alby’s form is slumped and not moving at all. Could he be unconscious? “What’s wrong with him?” She voices her worry, her voice full of it.

“Has Alby been stung?” Thomas asks, looking to Newt. But the second-in-command only looks towards his struggling friends in the Maze, not saying anything. If he starts to speak, he fears he might just break down. The walls move closer and closer to each other.

“Come on, Minho, you can do it!” Comes an encouraging yell from Chuck, and other Gladers join him in cheering for the Keeper. But the two boys aren’t moving closer to the Doors. Well, they barely are. She almost cries out at the frustration she feels. How can we help them?

“They’re not gonna make it,” Thomas states quietly, and a single bizarre, horrifying idea pops into his mind. Alby and Minho need help. They have to get home. They’ll die if they stay in the Maze over night, so will anyone else. Maybe he can make a difference. Thomas takes a deep breath and exhales it just as deeply, readying himself for what he’s about to do.

Everyone around him is so focused on cheering for Minho and hoping he’ll make it back with Alby in time that it takes a few seconds for them to realise what Thomas is doing. He moves towards the Doors, squeezing inbetween them in the last seconds. Upon realising what the boy has done, the girl screams in terror, her and Newt’s arms both reaching after Thomas, but knowing they shouldn’t. Knowing that they can’t follow him, or help him, anymore.

The Glader crowd erupts into chaos of screams and yells after Thomas, and the last glimpse she catches of him is his dark sillhoutte squeezing through the moving Doors and then being enveloped by the darkening Maze. The Doors close with a loud boom right after Thomas gets inside, and a dead silence falls upon the crowd. They can’t believe what just happened. She can’t even blink, she feels like she can’t breathe, she feels like Thomas took all her breath and heartbeat with him when he entered the Maze. All the other Doors have closed, too, and Thomas has been left inside the deadly Maze with two other Gladers, one of them wounded.

She is the first to act out from all the Gladers, she hits her hands against the stone walls before collapsing in front of them. Her cries and sobs come next, her chest heaves with ragged breaths. She can’t believe what’s happened. Thomas willingly ran into the Maze at the last second. He ran, perhaps, straight into the welcoming arms of death. Who knows if he’ll survive, or how long he will. Had he hoped to get inside and back out with Minho and Alby in time? Who knows if she’ll ever see him again.

She screams Thomas’ name, hoping he can hear her. For what, she doesn’t know, there’s nothing a scream will do for him in this situation. She hits her palms against the walls and barely sees herself doing so, her hot tears burning her eyes and blurring her vision. Out of her shock, she can’t even feel Newt’s gentle, tugging hands on her shoulders. He lifts her up and pulls her away from the walls, as long as she is willing, as long as she’s in this sort of catatonic state. Thomas just left, shocking Newt and her as good as any other Glader.

And yet, perhaps in some selfish way, they hold a closer bond to Thomas than the others. And Newt’s wondering why did Thomas run out there, knowing well the danger that lies within the Maze, especially at night. “That was bloody stupid of him,” he says aloud, not really to anyone in particular, or for ears to hear him, anyway. His eyebrows are drawn together and he changes his hold on her shoulders to just putting a comforting arm around her. She hooks her arms around his torso, holding onto him for almost her dear life. They walk, or rather Newt walks her, to the bonfire place, where torches are laying around, waiting to be set alight by fire. The finished totem hangs on a support system made from other branches, the empty, black eyes of its skull head looking more ominous than before. The festivity.

Newt sighs as he sits her down on one of the benches. He doesn’t really know what to do. He doesn’t want to leave her alone, but he has to have a talk with the other Keepers, the ones left in the Glade. Minho and Alby were two of the most important Keepers, and now they’re in the Maze, their fate as obvious as anything. And Thomas… losing such a young and striving soul due to his own stupidity. Newt feels lost. His best friends are all trapped in the Maze, with no way to escape and a slim chance to survive. What a waste.

Newt looks for any signs of life or response in her eyes, and finds barely any. He squats down in front of her and puts his hands on her shoulders again, and she turns her slow gaze to him. “Don’t go anywhere, alright?” He requests in a soft voice. “I’ll have a talk with the other shucks, and we’ll…” he draws a breath in, looking away for a moment. It serves nada to her own courage or hopefulness, “we’ll decide what to do.” She nods her head and draws her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and making Newt’s hands fall back to his sides. He stands up, gives her a court look and walks towards the crowd of Gladers, sighing deeply. “Please, settle down, everyone…”

His words fade away to her ears, almost as if she’d swam under a surface of water, and now every sound above it is bubbled and smudged. She stares at the totem, she seems to do so for an eternity. Thomas left. Thomas went into the Maze, and there’s zero chance of his return, moreso a succesful one. She sighs, her lip trembling and her eyes threatening to gather with tears. But before she could have begun to cry, Newt’s soft touch to her shoulder returns, as does the boy himself. She forgets her worries for a millisecond and looks to him, scooting to the side to let him sit beside her. Newt stares at the not-yet-ablaze bonfire and sighs quietly.

“Well, there’s… nothing we can really do ‘xcept wait,” he tells her, pulling his lips together in nervousness, wary to meet her eyes which he know will be disappointed. “The others don’t mind having the festivity, especially Gally.” Newt looks to the boy in question, who has gathered his friends around the torches and is even seen smiling and laughing, across the bonfire place where Newt and the girl sit. She sighs, clenches her jaw to avoid tears from spilling and sobs from breaking out. She can barely look at Gally, wondering how he’s so cheery in a situation like this. “Wouldn’t be right without Alby,” Newt says, “or Minho,” he shrugs, admitting the fact to himself, “or Thomas.” He sighs again. She can’t imagine how he must be feeling. His friends, who he’s known for a long time, out in the dangerous Maze.

“Alby’s the leader, yeah?” She asks in a soft whisper, and Newt looks at her, his brown orbs connecting with her glassy eyes. He nods.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Newt says and exhales deeply, “but, then again,” he argues, “everyone could use a little distraction for their worried minds.” He states, and then looks at her, gently poking her foot with his knee. “Including you.” She gives him the attempt at a smile, blinking away her tears and looking to the bonfire.

“You more than me, Newt,” she tells him. A look flashes over Newt’s eyes that she can’t quite explain. Gally has rounded up his mates to set the bonfire ablaze, all of them standing around the totem in a circle, lit torches in hand. With a count to three, they set the bonfire alight and cheer.

“To the Greenie!” Gally calls out, and raises his torch to her, as if in a salute, and she nods back at him with a shy smile. She watches him walk away, towards where Newt, Thomas and she placed the boxes of jars and glasses. He walks over to Newt and her only a few moments later, giving them each a glass full of something the color of brown. She raises her eyebrows, confused, and looks up at the Builder. “You look strong enough for this. Cheers.” He says and raises his own glass in a cheer before walking away.

Newt’s lips hold a fond smile on them, and he looks to the girl. He doesn’t want to jump to any conclusions, but amidst the misery of their evening, she seems to be a beacon of all things good. He bumps her glass with his own, and they lock eyes again. “To you,” he says, “Greenie.” Newt grins, already having noticed that she’s not completely fond of the nickname. She rolls her eyes jokingly and gives his shoulder a gentle push with her elbow. “Perhaps this will jug your memory a bit,” he offers, raising a suggesting eyebrow and she just shrugs.

“What is this, after all?” She asks, her mind swirling with not really memories, but concepts of drinking, concepts of parties. Has she ever been to a party in her life, before this? Who was she with? Was she drinking? Has she ever drank alcohol before? Should she? She doesn’t even know how old she is. Maybe this won’t be for the best… But then again, her world’s almost coming to an end, so what’s this silly old drink gonna do to make it worse?

Newt shrugs. “Gally’s recipe.” He tells her casually. “A trade secret, apparently.” He adds.

“Drink it first, then,” she ushers, “I still don’t know if I can trust you. You might be trying to poison me, after all.” She shrugs, and sends Newt a wink. He laughs, glad to see her back on her feet, even if partly, and leans lower so only she could hear his next words.

“Ladies first.” Newt tells her, and she looks at him with a gaze that questions him being serious.

“Together, then.” She states her final offer, and Newt agrees with a nod. They both straighten their backs and clink their glasses together before taking a swig each. She still keeps an eye on Newt to see that the liquid touches his lips first. It does, and she smiles as she takes her first sip.

The drink is fine at first, but then comes a horrendous, shocking aftertaste of stale that makes her almost spit it all out. But she keeps it in and masks her suffering with a strong facial expression, and masters it quite well. Newt is once again, for the millionth time in the day, pleasantly surprised by her, and, sort-of taken off-guard, as well, he watches her gulp down half of her glass like a champ. “Good job!” He pats her on the back as he cheers for her. She wishes he wouldn’t have done that, because now all the Gladers at the bonfire heard his cheer and are joining him, all shouting encouragements and words of welcome to her. It makes her flustered, she blushes incredulously, but nods and thanks them as much as she has breath for.

She leans closer to Newt and whispers to him, suddenly smelling the aroma of wood and grass in his ginger-blonde hair, “can we go somewhere off?” She requests, and then draws back to look at him, to see his reaction. He’s surprised that she wants to leave the festivity thrown for her, but nods. He has an idea of where they might go. They both stand up, glasses in hand, and Newt leads her away from the bonfire. She looks shyly to him as they walk, a gentle smile on her lips as she watches the tall boy. She likes him, she’s decided that. She likes Newt quite a lot, and will continue to until he’ll give her a reason not to. Which, for now, she doubts will ever happen.

“Might be a far stretch, but,” he starts to say once out of earshot of the others, “we can sit by the Doors and try to stay up until sunrise.” Newt proposes his idea, and she hums.

“That’s a great thought,” she compliments him, and he smiles sheepishly to himself. They soon reach the entrance to the Maze that Thomas disappeared through only some twenty or thirty minutes ago. The night has set in quick, a cloud of stars already clearly visible in the dark blue night sky. She looks up. She finds a visual sort-of home in the sky, looking at the stars and constellations. Like she’s returning to it. Constellations? How does she know those? Looking at the stars, looking intently at them seems so familiar to her. She finds an urge to write something down, find something out. But what? “I won’t be able to sleep tonight, anyway, so might as well stay up for a cause.” She admits quietly.

Newt finds a spot for them in the tall grass and sighs out as he sits down. She places her glass by her left leg, knowing it’s safe there, a couple centimetres away from her, and lays down on her back, crossing her arms under her head to have some support for it. Newt leans back on his elbows and looks up to where her eyes are looking. The sky. “Did you know that… there are at least eighty-eight constellations in the sky that we can see?” She asks him in a soft, wondering voice. She questions where this knowledge even comes from.

“Uh…” Newt tries to find the proper words to say. “Honestly, no.” He admits. “Constellations… how do you—“

“The most common ones that we can see from here are… Ursa Major and Minor.” She continues, without any hesitation, as if she hadn’t heard what he’d said at all. “The Minor one is… Hmm. Do you see the bright star, the brightest of them all?”

He spots the one she’s talking about, and it helps that she’s pointing at it, too. “Yeah.”

“Well, that’s Polaris. Supposedly, the North Star.” She clears her throat. “Wherever you might be in the world, if you can see Polaris, it will guide you to the North. You can always see it once the sun sets, because it’s one of the first stars that appears brightest up there.” She gulps. “So, Ursa Minor begins with Polaris, and goes a slightly crooked line upwards, that ends with an uneven rectangle of other stars. Can you see it?”

Newt has to concentrate, but he does spot the figure. He nods. “Amazing…” he ponders. There truly is a small box form with a sort-of tail at its bottom in the sky, all made out of stars. “Sorry, but how do you know all this?” He turns his head to look at her, wanting to see her true reaction, her true feelings. She shrugs, her face looking more cheerful than before, she’s still looking up at the sky. It seems that either the glow of the stars or the moon, or both, casts a pale light onto her face.

“Don’t you? It’s… I thought everyone knew this,” she admits in a whisper. But Newt shakes his head, his brown eyes meeting hers afterwards. To his knowledge, he and the Gladers know about the existence of a sun, a moon, and a sky full of stars. Nothing further. “I have no idea how I know,” she says, “it just… came out.” Her shoulders shrug. “As if it’s always been there, but was somehow locked or… put away.” She explains.

“Well,” Newt settles into a sitting position, leaning his torso over his bent knees, “whatever’s inside Gally’s drink, it’s working.” He tells her, and they both chuckle. She nods.

“Must be.” She agrees. “Maybe I should drink more, and I’ll just… remember everything.”

“And then forget it the next morning,” Newt jokes, to which she laughs again.

“And you know what…” she says after indeed taking another sip from her glass, “there are ten other planets in our universe, in the Solar System.” She puts her hands behind her and leans on her arms, sighing. “Two of them have shown potential for hosting humans and over-all life on them.” She gasps, wondering what the hell it could mean. Her having this knowledge, knowing these facts… There seems to be something else there, something that comes after it, but what? It seems like a balloon that she’s chasing in the wind, the thought or next facts are the balloon, but it’s flown too far away for her to reach anymore.

Newt looks to her over his shoulder, and allows himself a smile. “D’you mean we live on a planet right now and could travel and live on another one, if we had what we needed?” He makes sure and she nods, her eyes alight and eager. Newt shakes his head with that boyish smile still on his lips. “That’s too much information to process.” He admits with a deep exhale, and she only chuckles.

“I have a feeling there’s more where that came from.” She admits, and then sighs, looking at Newt. “I think the drink is working. I feel a bit… fuzzy.” She says and sits up straight, like Newt, hoping it will clear her head a bit. She looks around them, looks at the Glade behind them, at the bonfire in the center. Everything moves slower, including her own head. “This place…” she shakes it, “it’s scary.”

“Scary?” Newt echoes, shocked. “If you think this is scary, you’ll never make two steps into the Maze.” He tells her.

“No, I know, I meant…” she sighs, feeling like she can’t say exactly what she wants to, “there’s something… something under all this that is very scary. I don’t know, perhaps it’s just a feeling, but… everything is, really.” She shakes her head softly, and then realises she’s told Newt something that she’d only prefer to tell Thomas. Maybe Newt now sees her as suspicious. “Sorry, I… didn’t mean for that to slip out.”

He blanks a bit at this remark, thinking her words nothing really out of the ordinary. Definitely not at all dangerous, but instead… interesting and, perhaps, even telling of this place. Maybe she knows something useful. “It’s… fine,” he tells her, his voice hitting a slight crack towards the end. Newt shrugs his shoulders and turns to sit facing her, his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. He leans backwards on his arms, much like she has done, and looks at her. Her eyebrows are furrowed.

“I’m not fragile, you know,” she tells him, quickly glancing up to his eyes for half a second, and Newt tilts his head, trying to grasp onto her thought, “everyone here treats me so… nicely, as if they’re afraid I’ll break from a raising of someone’s voice.” She says and chuckles to herself. “Just because I’m the only girl… the girl.” She states and looks up at the sky again. Newt watches her, intently and gladly listening. “Gender stereotypes must still be imprinted into our minds, I suppose,” she shrugs, “and to some extent, I think you’re all afraid of me.”

Newt grins wide. “Why?” Now she feels like she’s said too much.

“Well, maybe you should be, I know myself as little as any of you.” She shrugs. “But… I don’t know, maybe some of you think things will be different, now that a girl is sent up here. You don’t know whether to be excited or scared.” Her words start to slow, almost slurring together, and Newt’s grin stretches wider. She situates herself on her side, pushing her bent arm under her head for it to rest more comfortably. Newt tilts his head slightly. Her eyes are drooping closed. “But not you.” She says in a voice that suddenly reminds Newt of honey. Or the concept of it. Has he ever tasted honey before? Do they have it here? “Not Thomas.”

He sighs quietly at that, Thomas’ name bringing back the events of tonight. His teeth poke at the inside of his lips, wanting to gnaw at the flesh out of stress. “How are we two different from the others, then, do you think?” He questions, his own voice growing softer than usual. He can’t help doing that around her, especially when she’s in such a sleepy and lovely state. Her shoulders shrug softly.

“You’re protecting me, that’s what I think,” she says, “you’re my friends, I’d like to think.” She smiles, her eyes closed, and she can’t see, but Newt is smiling, too. “But… I don’t know. Don’t you think Thomas is different, anyway? Like…” she snuggles into herself more, her knees gently pulling upwards toward her chest, “like over-all different from everyone else?”

Newt tilts his head from side to side, then nods. “I guess he is.” He agrees. “Think I noticed it right off the bat, when he came up, but didn’t… acknowledge it until you just asked.” He admits, and a smile tugs at his lips. She, having drifted off to sleep almost completely already, also smiles.

“I like your voice, Newt,” she whispers, “I could listen to you talk forever, about whatever…”

He hums. “I don’t have half as much to say as you do,” he argues, “you with your constellations and planets.” Newt shakes his head, and looks up at the sky above them again. So many shining white spots up there, so far above them, above the ground. Do they have purpose being there, like the Gladers do, living in the Maze? What do the stars shine for? Or who?

Naturally, Newt awaited some sort of response from the girl laying in front of him, and upon not hearing anything, he looks back down at her and discovers she’s drifted off to sleep. He sighs quietly, but smiles as he does so. She needs the rest. Sleepless nights are the worst, and Newt’s even surprised she could last the whole day without just falling asleep while eating lunch with the others or wrapping the branches together at the bonfire. He allows himself a grin, but then rises to his feet—stumbling a bit and almost falling over as he does so—to walk over to the sleeping quarters. She’ll need a blanket.

Maybe he should just carry her to her assigned hammock, he thinks then, and pulls himself to a stop. He looks over his shoulder at her sleeping form, and even hears soft snores from her. Not really snores, though, just loud breaths in and out. He sees that her and Thomas have already formed some sort of bond. They seem somehow connected. Newt sees the unexplainable, fascinating stares they give each other, and he recalls what Thomas told him during the day.

“There’s something about her that I can’t explain. Some… pull.”

Whatever which way he meant that, Newt knows that it isn’t anything ordinary. First girl ever, and Thomas feels drawn to her? It can’t not be a coincidence. And her saying Thomas is different from all the rest, too. And Newt afterwards realising it himself. There’s something about them both that he can’t explain.

He decides to not carry her to the sleeping quarters, calculating his limp in, and that he’ll instead bring blankets from the place for them both. If Thomas makes it, if he walks through those doors tomorrow morning once they open, she’ll want to be there first. And to sleep by the incredibly loud Doors will be a good enough place to wake up on time to witness Thomas, Minho and Alby’s return. If there will be one. Newt sighs, heavy thoughts burdening his mind as he stalks towards the hammocks. These have been some weird past two days.

He watches the calm expression of sleep on her features as he pulls a blanket over her form. A strand of her hair has fallen over her face, but Newt doesn’t dare to move it off. He wouldn’t risk waking her up, and giving her another sleepless night. He’s glad she’s fallen asleep. Perhaps it was Gally’s trade recipe, perhaps it was him talking to her, and maybe it was her telling him about the constellations and planets, even if not a lot. Whatever it was, it helped lull her nervous mind to sleep.

Newt situates himself a good two feet away from her, and lays on his better side, draping the blanket he chose for himself over his figure. He discovers it too short for his long legs, which he hopes won’t be frozen off during the night. But he’s much too tired to move again, to get himself a different one. His body is calling for sleep, too, so he complies.

part five?

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[woahajimes]

 i just think that even with powers, the team of young justice in the same high school is such a wonderful concept because they’re teens and they most definitely have the potential and right now i can’t place many words together but like.. i MUST elaborate on most aspects of these little shits being high school freshmen/sophomores.

Bart literally writes everything with just a pencil and then you have Kon who just likes to write in blue/red/black pens, tim is a mix of blue/pencil/ocassional-marker -he-steals-from-cissie, Cassie writes with like.... purple and blue pens,,, Greta just has a black pen but her notes are literal heaven because she steals everything from cissie and cissie is 1000% the sorta bitch that has her markers categorized by color but then bart borrows them and mizes up the caps and also cissie has gel pens and her handwriting is pretty af so like everyone copies of of her

As unlikely as it sounds, Bart does NOT cheat at tests, because then max would like... give him SO many lectures and it’s SUCH  pain in the ass so he just doesn’t (this does not limit chaos). Cassie doesn’t cheat because nO but then Cissie and Kon???? they’re buddies in that sorta thing and you know EXACTLY what i mean when i say that Kon has written answers in the skin that shows from his ripped jeans (the ones that he always gets in trouble for wearing, because as much as the school protocole just says ‘jeans’, they do NOT mean ripped jeans that have paint on them), and Cissie on her thighs and under the uniform socks, and they do the whole bandaid trick, and they even have their own weird sign language that takes WAAAAY too long to like even send the word ‘wassup’ because it goes letter by letter but its subtle so it works

fucking HOME EC is kon’s favourite subject and you’d think that kon would be in like... woodworking because most guys are in woodworking but NO kon went in home ec because ‘the chicks are there’ but NOOOO KON JUST LIKES BAKING AND HE GOT SHAMED ONCE FOR NOT KNOWING TO SEW A BUTTON ON HIS SHIRT SO NOW HE WANTS TO LEARN and guess what he absolutely LOVES it and he’s in with greta because cissie is with cassie and tim in woodworking, and besides, they don’t even have the same classes

they always make like cookies and kon hates it because he can’t eat his mf cookies in peace because he has home ec right after the lunch hour and while cassie does like to go out of class bart and cissie just eat all the cookies and leave kon to split with tim 

FUCKING VOLLEYBALL TEAM BITCH but also literally all sports the school has to offer because Kon LOVES his jock reputation (that also bakes cookies and is kicking ass at home ec) and tim desperately needs to deal off anger with sports because the big bad wolf drake demands he also gets involved

Cissie quit the cheerleading team like the first month but greta loved it, and cassie just hates it SO much but he likes watching practices because girls (oh and greta gets really excited all the time and they love it) 

,,,volleyball yj,,, is something i MUST HAVE OKAY PLEASE DON’T TAKE IT AWAY FROM ME I JUST SAW THIS BEAUTIFUL PIECE OF ART SO I MUST ELABORATE OKAY also volleyball’s the only sport i semi-know how to play so like bear with me but i havent played in like a year so shut up (here’s the link)

KON JUST DOESN’T KNOW A LIFE IN WHICH HE DOESN’T SPIKE THAT BOY LITERALLY WILL SPIKE ANYTHING YOU THROW AT HIM OKAY i don’t make the rules (but you know who does? cassie. cassie makes the rules because she’s scary and the rules include no fucking powers on the court--unless they’re losing then kon can use his tAcTiLe TeLeKiNeSiS)

CASSIE IS MIDDLE BLOCKER because shes TALL and also she gets front view of the opposing teams and like. girls. AND ALSO YOU NEED CORE STRENGTH FOR BLOCKING AND LIKE cassie is close to having more abs than kon i swear im not making this up

TIM SETS BECAUSE he’s the only one that can mantain that boring position also he’s good at it (also he wears fingerless gloves because iT hElPs hIm but really he want to look badass

BART IS LIBERO ALL THE WAY THROUGH OKAY BOY LOVES DIVING AND also he can heal quicker from like hits in the face (he has his kneepads that he wears EVERYWHERE and he even has a headband for his hair and his arm thingies and everything and his jersey is just written with signatures because everyone loves him

CISSIE IS ALSO LIBERO OKAY SHE LOOOVES VOLLEYBALL and she can DIVE and sometimes she forgets to bring up her kneepads so you KNOW that her knees are broken but she doesnt care (she also switches with server and her serves are literally like from fucking hell its beautiful

greta doesn’t play she refuses to play and everyone respects that but she also has like the bags with water-bottles and the jersey ones 

EDIT: FUCKING DUMBASSES HERE GOT THEIR UNIFORMS MIXED UP AND TIM IS LIKE ONE SIZE SMALLER THAN KON AND CASSIE AND CISSIE AND BART ARE THE SAME (and tim but like bear with me) AND THEN ONE DAY THEY GOT THEIR UNIFORMS MIZED UP AND THERE WAS KON WITH MINISHORTS and dumbass didn’t notice but like everyone else sure did 

BECAUSE they’re in the same team they just... share a locker that wasn’t used, with a little dollarama (dollar tree? idk but the dollar store) lock and then bam that’s the team locker (team as in them not the volleyball team) and there they keep like... bags of chips and chocolate bars with like... gym clothes and sneakers (which if you ask me is a horrible idea to like... place around 12 stinky shoes with granola bars and snacks and gym clothes but like hey dont ask me its them)

AND I READ THIS ARTICLE BUT I ALSO SAW A POST ON INSTAGRAM ABOUT THIS GIRL, Erin DiMeglio, WHO PLAYS FOOTBALL AND IS THE ONLY GIRL ON THE TEAM AND ALSO HER GIRLFRIEND IS A CHEERLEADER SO LIKE.,,,,, TELL ME THAT YOU DON’T IMAGINE CISSIECASSIE (or plain old cissie and cassie if you dont feel like shipping them) but like... cissie quit the team... and she doesn’t want to go back... and cassie’s like wow okay i see you AND ALSO TIM IS ON THE FOOTBALL TEAM and kon doesn’t wanna join (tbh he’s more of a football dood yk?) and bart called cissie a chicken and went cheerleader for cassie himself (skirt and everything, max was proud) so like cassie has her own team of cheerleaders and then tim is just :/// (here’s the article go read it)

my brain is crying at me to stop but i want to KEEP GOING so PLEASE add more and if you guys wanna like draw 👀👀👀👀 PLEASE TAG ME OKAY THE YOUNG JUSTICE CREW IN THEIR LITTLE OWN SAME HIGH SCHOOL IS SO IMPORTANT TO ME