#sure you could read the earlier one by clicking it but aesthetically it looked terrible on phone

[princessofprocrastination]

You Live In Sweatpants And Hoodies (GeorgeNotFound)

MASTERLIST

pairing : georgenotfound / george x influencer!reader. 

summary : george and your fans realize that under all the sweaters, you have a body. 

a/n : if you are wondering what dress i was talking about, search up jennie short black dress :)

before social media, you studied law and got a degree in it but ended up not using it due to your social media career sky rocketing. 

but you never thought studying was a waste, that could be your backup, after all. social media doesn’t last forever. and you were ready to accept any difficulties since you knew you had plan b. 

you, till this day, could not describe what you do on social media. it started with tiktok. everything nowadays started with tiktok. but you were one of the first people who was on it. 

and then tiktokers would make their way onto youtube to sustain their “career” and grow. so that’s what you did. you never abandoned that app, though. especially not now, everyone on that app is seriously hilarious. 

your content on youtube was all over the place. once, for a video, you talked to weird men on omegle and tinder. another time, you would try different aesthetics on yourself. 

but here’s the catch, you’ve never really worn revealing clothes. your mum had always told you to never deprive yourself from what she says “fun young girl things” which is dressing up, or down, in her say and go have fun with your friends. 

but since the pandemic hit, you have had no where to go anyways, and you never really liked to show off your body. it’s not that you felt uncomfortable doing it, it’s just that you’ve never had the reason to. 

you also didn’t grow up girly. you hated dresses, especially short and tight dresses. and you weren’t a fan of wearing shorts either. you always opted to go comfy. 

whenever you post a tiktok, you always wore your signature hoodie and sweatpants that were clearly sizes too big for you. but you liked it, it’s comfortable to sleep in. 

and whenever you had to pan down to show your outfits on youtube, you were always caught wearing jeans and a baggy shirt, just styled differently, according to the aesthetic of the video you were filming for. 

you heard your phone ring from the couch. you picked it up, knowing who it was anyways. “morning, cutie.” you stared. 

“morning b.” george greets you, hair everywhere, clearly just woken up. 

you and george met on tiktok, just like all good friends do. he had duetted a tiktok of yours and you found him hilarious. you quickly followed him on every single social media platform he was in. you even set an alarm in case he ever streams and you’re asleep. 

you two are close. some would say you two are dating, but you two haven’t figured it out yet. you two didn’t really want to disclose it anyways, you two knew your not so secret feelings for each other, anyways. 

remember when he called you ‘b’? yeah that stands for ‘bub’. he thought it would be cute for him to have a different nickname than the usual “baby” or “babe”. 

you two actually live very near each other, making it way easier as a couple, but since england was put into a quarantine order, you two didn’t meet often. 

some would probably ask why you’d have to set an alarm when he streams when you two clearly are in the same timezone? well, that boy had no sense of time and a terrible sleeping schedule. it amazed you at how early he got up today. 

that facetime call lasted about half an hour before you told him you needed to stream on twitch today, to which he responded to you that he’s watch it later. 

today, you had a surprise. for the world. you can’t believe you even thought about this but it was about time you showed off to the world what assets you’ve been blessed with. 

speaking of showing off. no, you weren’t a particularly insecure person, you were just comfortable in the clothes you’re in. but celebrating the long time you’ve been on social media, and it being your birthday, you thought it might be fitting. 

george and you agreed to not make anything special about your birthday. you hated parties and large gatherings, and since you were still in the middle of a pandemic, you used that as an excuse to not go out. 

you spent the longest time searching for a good enough outfit for this day. and you found it. you decided to pick a pretty simple dress, a black short dress that went to your mid thigh, that showed off your waist, spaghetti strapped and a little backless. 

you walked out the shower, your robe on as you walked to your bathroom counters to dry your hair. you didn’t really bother to style it, just leaving you straight long hair down. 

you put on the most basic white sneakers you could find to still make it casual, and you thought it went well together, anyways.

you finished you makeup and took a good look at yourself. you had been aware that you only wore baggy clothes, so this was a huge change. you twirled yourself, feeling confident. 

you couldn’t wait for people to have heart attacks. 

you sat on your gaming chair, getting ready to start your stream. 

before you started your stream, you made sure you left your facecam turned off first. 

you went live. chat was confused since this was the first time that you’re not on facecam. all they could see at the moment was the caption “IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!” that you typed on your notes app on your computer.

“hi, chat.” you said, to calm them down a little. 

you heard your phone go off, a text notification. which you knew was george since he had a special notification ping on your phone. 

it said “did you forget to turn on your cam?” 

you laughed at that. “no, chat, i haven’t forgotten to turn on my facecam, just wait for a sec, please.” 

you felt giddy, excited for the reactions. 

instead of wearing your cute cat headphones, you wore your airpods instead to get the whole look going. 

you let out a sigh before moving your mouse cursor to linger on the ‘start recording camera’ button. you clicked on it, before moving your chair back to fully say hi to your chat. 

you brought your hands up to wave to the camera. you tilted your head slightly. “soooo, it’s my birthday.” you said. 

chat was going crazy so you stopped reading them so you wouldn’t get a headache. the donations went crazy too, but you tried your best to read them all. 

you thanked the people who subscribed to you or gifted you subs. 

“360 of this dress? sure, i’ll give you a twirl.” you replied a dono. 

you stood up, and rolled your gaming chair away so that they can see your whole outfit. you spun around once, quickly telling them where you got the dress from. 

you tried to hold your foot on one hand, balancing yourself to show them that you could go casual in this dress too. 

what you noticed was that, your phone hadn’t stopped beeping from a text notification, which belonged to the one and only georgenotfound. 

and since maybe he noticed that you won’t check your phone, he sent a donation instead. 

“WHAT THE FUCK.” the monotoned voice read out the donation, which was from george. 

you facepalmed, knowing exactly what his reaction is like at home. 

“I’M COMING OVER.” the voice said again. you laughed at his antics. 

“see you then.” you replied, laughing, knowing he was joking around anyways. 

-

GEORGE’S POV 

she thinks i’m joking, isn’t she? 

well, she gave me her spare key for a reason, and this would be the best reason. 

i knew i wanted to come around anyways. just after her stream. i promised her no going out, but not no gifts and ordering in. 

sneaky, i know. 

i had a plan brewing in my mind. to walk in her house as quietly as possible, to surprise her. 

after seeing her in that dress, i don’t think i can stand our fans not knowing we aren’t dating. 

i know, i haven’t really asked her out, but we kinda both agreed that there was no use, knowing each other’s feeling was good enough and that we didn’t need to do anything extravagant. 

i don’t know what she’s tell her fans but i’m sure i hadn’t disclose our relationship. the fans shipped us, sure, but i don’t think i’ve ever said it out loud. 

we knew we’d have to say it someday. so i thought, why not today? as i surprised her at her own house. 

her fans watching her stream are tweeting at me like crazy. no one had seen her like that. she practically lives in sweats and hoodies, constantly. 

the most fitting thing i’ve seen her wear is skinny jeans, but she would always wear a baggy top with it. people always say she drowns in her clothes, but i never complained, she looked good either ways. 

but seeing her in that dress, damn. i needed to be there and hug her, kiss her. i couldn’t wait to see her in that dress, right in front of my eyes. 

our observant fans or close friends have asked if she dresses the same at home, and my answer always stayed the same. that she lives in baggy clothes. 

there are some creepy people out there who would ask that question in a sexual way. thinking i’ve seen her in less. but truthfully, i haven’t. we’re not pass that stage, and we prefer it this way. 

what the fans see is what i see on the daily, too. 

and no, me going to her house to see her more clearly in that dress doesn’t mean we’re doing anything. i just want to observe her beauty. see what she’s hid from me. 

-

YOUR POV

chat was going crazy over george’s donation. but you still laughed it off. it’s all a joke anyways, him coming over. 

he was coming over later, after noon, so he wouldn’t just drop everything to see you right now. 

“geez. chill out, chat, george was joking.” you told them. 

you sat on your gaming chair more comfortably as you started playing a couple rounds of among us with your fans. you told them not to cheat and watch your stream as they’re playing ad lucky you, they listened. 

for some reason, your chat still kept blowing up with george comments. maybe they were still caught up on that comment he said earlier. 

but you hadn’t thought that he’d be behind you the entire time, telling the chat to not make it obvious. 

“happy birthday, b” you heard a very familiar voice from behind you. 

you almost had a whiplash from how quick you turned your head to see who was behind you. 

you stood up to hug him, almost falling to the floor, stumbling on your own feet.

with the way you ran to him, he almost fell to the floor. “you’re here, you’re here.” you kept repeating it to him, not believing that he actually came. you knew he’d come later, but not this early. 

george moved you back gently to see your full outfit. you two were aware that the facecam is still on, and pointing to you two, seeing every move. 

“come here.” he whispered to you before grabbing your waist, to kiss you. 

you two took a little while enjoying each other’s company, still in front of everyone on twitch. 

he moved you back a little, turning you to face your gaming monitors. “MY GIRLFRIEND, EVERYBODY. isn’t she so hot, oh my god.” he said to the stream. 

you laughed at his stupid antics, covering your face with your hands as you blushed. 

your chat didn’t stop talking about the interaction, not believing that their ship was finally sailing. 

you played a couple more rounds of among us with them, george taking over sometime or making funny comments to entertain your chat while you played. 

after the stream, george and you took time to enjoy the time alone, ordering in your favourite food and opening gifts that he bought you. 

you forgot to mention that both of your twitter was blowing up too much that you had to mute it for a while. you knew that a lot had screenshot the cute moment. 

you took note to screenshot some of the photos on twitter later. 

[qqueenofhades]

Fake dating AU for the idiot Heartrender Husbands! I beg of you!

As ever, I am preposterously easy to enable, and since they will eventually make an appearance in A Phantom in Enchanting Light, I decided to write their backstory for that verse. Also, “fake dating but it’s only fake because they’re both idiots” is an Aesthetic. I love them.

Moscow, 2010

The guy is most definitely late. Fedyor got here early – probably too early, since they’re supposed to meet at eleven and he arrived by quarter past ten – but it’s now 11:08 and still no sign of him. Fedyor has claimed a corner table in the coffee shop just off Red Square with its splendid old tsarist-era décor, surrounded by the murmur of conversation and clicking laptop keys as his fellow Muscovites get on with their daily lives. The rule is fifteen minutes, yes? If Ivan Sakharov doesn’t show up in another seven, Fedyor is free to bail. But it’s been so long, and Nadia, the mutual friend responsible for this set-up, has begged Fedyor to give him a chance. And since it is understandably difficult to date as a gay man in Russia, Fedyor’s patience must be tested longer than usual. He sips his flat white and glances at the door again. Still no Ivan.

Fedyor opens his phone and checks the photo that Nadia sent him, trying to decide if this man is attractive enough to compensate for his tardiness. It’s hard to tell. It is 11:14, and he is absolutely about to pack up and leave by no later than 11:25, when a tall, grim-faced man in a red windbreaker strides in. He stops short, glances around, spots Fedyor, and powers over with such single-minded determination that Fedyor fears he’s about to be arrested. “Hello,” he says curtly. “I am Ivan Ivanovich Sakharov. I believe you are waiting for me?”

“Ah – ? I am Fedyor Mikhailovich Kaminsky, yes,” he manages, offering a hand, which Ivan crushes in a Terminator grip. “It’s – nice to meet you?”

Ivan snorts, pulls out the other chair, and drapes his jacket over it, then orders a small plain coffee (black like his soul, evidently). Then he returns, sits down, and claps his hands as if he is calling a misbehaving class to attention. “Where are you from?” he barks. “How long have you lived in Moscow?!”

Fedyor continues to gape. He’s genuinely not sure if this is Ivan attempting to get to know him on speed-run, or if he’s being interrogated by a FSB agent who can’t even act for two seconds like he’s not. It’s ominously possible. Dmitry Medvedev is the president and there are hopes that there might be a social liberalization, but the Orthodox patriarchs and the far right have been increasingly agitating against Russia’s embattled LGBTQ community, and things could just as easily get worse. Is this a setup or a setup? Nadia would never knowingly put him in a dangerous situation, of course, but maybe she was likewise fooled. You’d think that if this was a sting, they could have found a guy who was actually capable of pretending to be on a date, but maybe that’s the point? What the hell is going on here?

Fedyor opens his mouth, then shuts it. As a matter of fact, he is originally from Nizhny Novgorod, but moved to Moscow for university and has lived here for seven years, but if Ivan is with the FSB, he probably already knows that. Is this a trick? Is Ivan trying to match him to some police intelligence file or see if he’s a liar? Fedyor is seriously about to get up and walk out (or maybe sprint out) when Ivan, perhaps realizing that he’s blowing this to a heretofore unprecedented degree, says, “Sorry. I am from Krasnoyarsk. I enjoy rugby.”

Of course he likes rugby if he’s from Krasnoyarsk. This is a disaster. “Uh, what side?”

“Krasny Yar,” says Ivan, in the tone of a man about to stand up and belt out the fight song. “I also enjoy football. Yenisey Krasnoyarsk. Though I have begun supporting Lokomotiv since I came to Moscow. That was five years ago.”

So, he’s definitely a hooligan. Fedyor does his best to keep smiling. In the flesh, Ivan is definitely not unattractive. His hair is crisp and brown, there are glints of hazel in his eyes, and he has that hard, chiseled handsomeness that Fedyor always ends up getting suckered into. Except for the fact that he is lively, extroverted, and outgoing, likes clubbing and mingling and making friends, and this man does not appear to have ever heard of a single one of those things. What was Nadia thinking? It’s not like her to whiff this badly. Or did she have to be so circumspect in asking Ivan if he would like to meet Fedyor that, even if he’s not an undercover cop, he is in fact clueless about the true nature of this social engagement? Thinks it’s guys being pals?

“Did you have somewhere you were coming from earlier?” Fedyor asks, after another excruciating silence. “Is that why you were – ?”

“My apologies. The bus was late. I am normally very punctual.” Ivan scowls ferociously, as if the bus ever dares to do such a thing again, he will personally murder it. “What hobbies do you enjoy, Fedyor Mikhailovich?”

“I think you can call me Fedyor, yes?” They are clearly nowhere near “Fedya” and “Vanya” just yet, but “Fedyor Mikhailovich” always makes Fedyor look around warily for his grumpiest professor at MSU. He tries to think of subtle conversational gambits to find out what Ivan knows, without being obvious. Oh God, he really should just cut his losses, but something – perhaps the pathetic conviction that even a terrible date is better than no date at all – keeps him in his seat. Presuming that he does get out of here alive, he will call up Nadia straightaway and ask her many, many questions, mostly consisting of Why??! “Well,” Fedyor says at last. “I like having fun?”

“I also enjoy fun,” Ivan says, stone-faced. “I am very funny.”

Russian humor is normally extremely deadpan, to the point that Fedyor does wonder if Ivan is in fact a diabolical troll genius, but somehow he doesn’t think so. The rest of the conversation proceeds in this fashion, but by the end of an hour, Fedyor still has no idea if he has just been on a date or a trip to the gulag. Ivan gets up, administers another bone-crushing handshake, thanks him for his time, and marches out. Fedyor can practically hear the Red Army Choir thundering some patriotic anthem in his wake.

When he gets home that afternoon, Fedyor is resolved to write off the whole thing, except it was weirdly kind of not as bad as he first thought, maybe, somehow. If nothing else, he’s fascinated by this, like watching a slow-motion train crash. He takes out his phone with the intention of calling Nadia, only to see a text message from an unfamiliar number. When he opens it, it reads, Hello. Your company was agreeable today. Thank you. Perhaps we could meet again next week. Please reply yes or no. The message uses the formal styles of address, and some of the spellings are slightly old-fashioned. He has also signed it – Иван Сахаров – in case there might be some confusion with another Ivan the Terrible at Dating of Fedyor’s recent acquaintance. It is a bit like getting a text from the undertaker.

Fedyor stares at it, insanely tempted to burst out laughing, and finally, just because now he’s too curious to refuse, texts back his gracious acceptance. Still chuckling, he makes dinner, and then, as his phone pings with Ivan’s response, wonders in horror what on earth he is getting himself into.

This is how things continue for the next six weeks. Ivan and Fedyor meet up for the second time, stroll sedately around one of Moscow’s many city parks together, then part ways, and this time it’s Fedyor’s turn to ask if he would like to do it again. He isn’t sure exactly why, except that Ivan is unexpectedly easy to spend time with, and he nods in stoic approval of whatever Fedyor says. Of course, they follow the usual rules of dating which are especially important in Russia: don’t talk about politics, don’t talk about religion, don’t talk about America, don’t talk about Ukraine, don’t talk about Chechnya. From what Fedyor can glean, Ivan’s views tend to the doctrinaire, but he is surprisingly undogmatic, and willing to at least act as if he has an open mind. If he was an FSB agent, it feels like he would have busted Fedyor by now, but maybe he is waiting for him to do something unmistakably gay. That’s not it. Right?

Nadia calls, wanting to know how it’s going, and Fedyor grills her for forty minutes over whether Ivan is a law enforcement plant, a lonely guy looking for a friend, the world’s most method practical joker, or just extremely stupid. Nadia insists that he is actually very nice once you get to know him (HA, thinks Fedyor) and has no particular affection for either the ruling classes or the oligarchs. He can certainly be an acquired taste, but he is not evil.

Forced to accept it, still chickening out of asking Ivan whether he knows they’re dating, wondering if they are dating, if Ivan knows that Fedyor knows they’re dating, if Fedyor only thinks he knows that they are dating while they are not actually dating, or if Ivan thinks he knows that they’re dating while they’re… whatever the fresh-fried fuck is truly happening here, Fedyor trudges off for what has become his almost-weekly rendezvous with Ivan the-Maybe-Not-Quite-So-Terrible. They manage to have a few conversations verging on meaningful, and Fedyor has found himself telling Ivan about his family and Nizhny Novgorod and other such things. Fedyor likes to talk and Ivan likes to listen, though he breaks in now and again with a bone-dry quip. He’s still never what you would call loquacious, or easily forthcoming, but Fedyor likes that. Ivan is tough, complex, enigmatic, guarded, occasionally willing to let down his walls but only if the other person is worth it, and Fedyor finds, to his surprise, that he wants to be worth it. If this is a long-con mind game, he almost doesn’t care. (Almost.)

The problem, however, is that they’ve been seeing each other regularly for a month and a half and they haven’t gotten any closer than walking through a park, outdoors, in full view of their fellow comrades. Even the first time Fedyor takes the plunge and invites Ivan to his apartment, they sit three feet apart on the couch, watching a badly-Russian-subtitled version of Die Hard and providing critical commentary. Fedyor’s English is a lot more fluent than Ivan’s, and his middle-class family, while not exactly wealthy, is definitely better off than Ivan’s hardscrabble clan of miners and loggers in Siberia. That upbringing certainly does explain, to some degree, why Ivan is the way he is, and Fedyor wonders anxiously if Ivan views him as an insufferably posh city boy. Ivan barely finished high school and went straight to working in a Krasnoyarsk aluminum factory. He definitely did not faff around Moscow State University and attend global development seminars in Paris.

Nonetheless, despite their obvious differences, they do get along, and Fedyor is unable to deny the fact that he would, if it’s all right with everyone, like it to be more than that. Of course, finding out if Ivan knows, etc. etc., has been the paramount challenge, and there is no way to find out other than to go for it. Fedyor is 75% sure that they’ve been going steady for two months, but if it’s actually the other 25%, this is going to get awkward in a hurry. Is this essentially a fake relationship, or is it only fake because they’re both idiots?

After having duly commended his soul to God, Fedyor invites Ivan over on Saturday night. He rents a tiny flat by himself since he’s been burned on rooming with strangers, but Ivan is used to it by now, and it doesn’t feel too small with the two of them. Fedyor strains his limited culinary skills to cook supper, probably making his babushka cluck her tongue and sigh in a judgmental fashion back in Nizhny Novgorod, and they sit down and eat in silence for five minutes. Then Fedyor says, “Vanya?”

The consistent use of the diminutive has started sometime in the last few weeks, neither of them remember quite when. Ivan doesn’t correct him. “Yes?”

Fedyor clears his throat. “Do you…” He winces. “Do you… like me?”

“Yes?” Ivan says again, looking confused. “I would not have spent so much time with you if I did not, don’t you think? We are friends.”

“Yes, I know that we’re friends, but…” Fedyor looks at the ceiling. It doesn’t help, so he looks back at Ivan. “Are we… special friends?”

Ivan continues to look blank. “Are we?”

Fedyor resists the urge to tug at his collar, thinking that it’s a damn good thing that he didn’t go with his other idea of just leaning across the table and passionately kissing him. With absolutely no change of tone or expression, Ivan says, “Please explain. Special friends how?”

“Friends who want to…” Fedyor takes a deep breath. “Be… more than friends?”

“How?” Ivan orders again, ruthlessly. “Be clear, Fedya.”

“Are we maybe… boyfriends?” Fedyor’s voice squeaks on the word. “As in… we have feelings for each other that aren’t just… friendly? Like… feelings which are… romantic?”

Ivan continues to stare at him like a statue for several more seconds, and Fedyor contemplates the feasibility of tunneling directly through the floor of his apartment and running all the way to Latvia. Then at last, Ivan throws his head back and – startling Fedyor deeply – breaks into real, genuine, belly laughter, the kind that he has never heard from Ivan before. “Oh my,” he chortles, slapping the table. “Your face. You were sweating bullets.”

“WAIT, WHAT!?!” Fedyor pushes his chair back and stands up with a clatter, incandescently outraged. “Are you – were you messing with me?!!”

“Maybe a little,” Ivan says, wiping his eyes. “You know, all this time, I have not been sure if you are shy or a terrible prude. Why haven’t you kissed me yet?”

“God’s Mother in Heaven – ” Fedyor feels another prick of disloyalty to his babushka for swearing on the Bogomater, but some people deserve it. All inhibitions forgotten, he charges at Ivan like a runaway train, as Ivan springs out of his own chair in readiness, and starts pounding on his chest in transports of fury. “You are the worst! You are the worst person ever! For two months, what have we been doing?! I have been afraid this whole time that maybe you don’t know what’s really going on, and now – ?! You are the worst!”

Ivan catches Fedyor’s flailing arms, holds them away from him, and picks him up bodily, swinging him around and pushing him against the wall. “Maybe I am just a dumb country boy from Siberia,” he remarks, “but even I am not that stupid, Fedyor Mikhailovich.”

“I hate you,” Fedyor pants, their faces and their mouths an inch away from each other. “Get out of my apartment.”

“Mmm?” Ivan cocks an eyebrow. Then he plants both hands on either side of Fedyor’s head, leans in, and deeply, savagely captures Fedyor’s mouth with his own.

Every remaining vestige of barely rational thought in Fedyor’s head evaporates in screaming shock. He still wants to shove Ivan away, knee him in the balls, or break a chair over his head, but if he did that, he would have to stop kissing him, and he can’t do that either. He moans, Ivan’s tongue takes the opportunity to slip into his mouth, their hands clutch and claw and their legs melt out from under them, they turn away or break contact only to gulp a breath before diving back in again, and the next time Fedyor is aware of anything, they have collapsed on his kitchen floor in a wrung-out, entangled, gasping heap. Ivan says in his ear, “Do you still want me to leave, Fedya?”

“No,” Fedyor manages. “Because now, I am really going to make you suffer.”

Ivan’s smile is dark and full of promise. He pulls back, gets to his feet, and holds out a hand. “Then I’ll meet you in the bedroom.”

(Ivan doesn’t leave Fedyor’s apartment that night. He doesn’t leave it the next night either. At the end of the week, Fedyor calls up Nadia and informs her that he hates her so much, and when they do next see each other, he’ll shake her by both shoulders and then thank her for introducing him to the no-good, truly awful, very bad love of his life.)

[prettywarriors]

Ok ill bite whats the worst mg series

alright, whats the worst magical girl series in your opinion?

Thanks you two for letting me do some yelling. The obvious guess would likely be one of the recent edgelord shows right? Magical Girl Site or something similar? But nay I say, for while MGS and Day Break Illusion and such and what not generally tell you what to expect right away. Don't like super violence and suffering? Watch something else is the clear message from the get go. One of the bait and switch series then like Madoka or maybe Yuki Yuna? For what faults they may or may not have, at least these series do something and are interesting, even if you're not huge on what goes down in the series. A parody then? They range from affectionate to banned in New Zealand but regardless of quality and their feelings for MGs, it's a parody. It's a joke and shouldn't be taken seriously (plus they're usually short so you can just forget about them forever).

So what makes a series terrible then, I am sure you are asking. IMO? Setting expectations for an interesting and enjoyable series, and then dashing them to hell.

Come with me below the cut, as I talk about Key Princess Story: Kagihime Eternal Alice Rondo!

Spoilers abound so if you care about those for a 15 year old series, click away.

Background: Kagihime was a 4 volume manga that ran from 2004-2006 that was picked up for a 13 episode anime adaptation near the end of its run. The manga is created by a pair (Kaishaku) who you may know for making Magical Nyan Nyan Taruto. Kannazuki no Miko, and Steel Angel Kurumi, and the anime had a script written by the same writer (Mamiko Ikeda) for Tenshi Ni Narumon who also did some script writing for Princess Tutu and Seven of Seven. The anime also had 6 character music videos which are fairly simple but a nice addition to the series for the main girls. Discotek has been publishing the anime in the states in recent years, and the manga was brought over by *squints at book spine* Dr Master Publications.

The Premise: Girls transform and enter weird outside of reality spaces to fight each other with giant keys to take each other’s stories to create a third Alice In Wonderland story.

Well, an off-brand Alice story written by Alternate L. Takion, rather than Lewis Carroll/Charles Dodgson, that while the series uses all the aesthetic hallmarks of the tradition Alice, the little we see of the in universe Alice story is clearly different. Which is fine, at the end of the day, it’s still about someone who loves the Alice stories and wishes there was more, and even makes his own fanfiction version. His? Oh yeah, while the girls do all the fighting, the main character is Aruto, a teen boy who loves Alice, and for reasons we don’t know till late game, can enter the liminal spaces that the ‘Alice Users’ fight in. He chases a girl who looks like the Alice he sees in his story, who is named Arisu, and gets roped into this fanfic battle royale. He is also the older brother of the very needy Kirihara, who also ends up being and Alice User. As does Kirihara’s bff Kisa. To round out the group of enemies-turned-friends-who-will-work-together-to-collect-the-Eternal-Alice-without-having-to-fight-eachother group is a young genius researcher Kirika who wants to know more about Aruto’s connection that allows him to enter the spaces where the girls fight.

Then there’s all the other girls, some of whom still have real importance to the story and some who have a few panels or 2 scenes total. But with a whole bunch of girls to design, the creators reached out to a whole lot of other people to have them create designs! Eventually the battle gets down to the last few girls, there’s a confrontation with the guy running the whole thing, and while the anime and manga vary quite a bit the whole time, in both version Aruto ends up with Kirihara. Oh and Arisu was created by Aruto’s super imagination powers.  

The Promise: Here on is subjective, particularly with what I personally saw as potential from this series. because I need you to understand how much I want to like this series. 

~Alice in Wonderland themed: I know some people aren’t alice fans and that’s fine you do you but as a big alice fan this is great. We have a few alice episodes and themed characters amongst series like CCS and MGRP, and even Alice themes in other series like Tweeny Witches and Alice 19th. But damn it I am down for Alice series.

~Giant Keyyyyyyyys: Yeah yeah Kingdom Hearts but these keys are much more staff like for a lot of the characters which ads and air of elegance rather than the KH ones that for me at least feel well designed for big ol props rather than actual weapons. We also get...

~Weapon variety: It counts as a key if it’s a thorn whip that can be shaped like a key right? How about a giant pocket knife? Crossbows can also be keys. Hush. And we have this variety because

~Guest Artists: For magical girl series where we have a variety of outfits designed by different people, we have Kagihime, Uta~Kata, and uhh I guess Magia Record? But that’s a mobile game with a hella number of characters and with how mobile game works I wouldn’t count it just because it’s less the intent of the series to have variety and more the nature of having lots of girls. (Precure doesn’t count because unless I missed a memo each season’s set is still by one designer). If a series isn’t about a team and therefore doesn’t need cohesion, bringing in other artists is a great way for variety and new looks. 

~The long term goal: Fighting with other people who love the same piece of media you do in hopes of creating new material that will be viewed as official? That’s just fandom nowadays. But it’s a legitimate interesting concept, and opens up so many doors for a message for the series, be it ‘what you create is no less valuable than the canon work’ or ‘it’s hard to let go when something you love doesn’t have more to it but you can still love it for what it is’ or ‘bond with the people who like the thing you like ya idiot instead of fighting about it’. The concept is interesting and there are so many narrative ways you can take this.

~Gays: Between the anime and manga, we have at least 5 wlw. Is it a magical girl series without some gays? (side note- the manga had a short thing where the MC wears a girl’s uniform and is pretty comfortable in it and while there is no way this was the intent, between that and the emphasis on the stories that live in girls and how the fight zones have no men, I’m just saying, Trans girl Aruto.)

~Greater Fairy Tale Premise: We meet a Little Match Girl based MG who is obsessed with Andersen rather than the Alice books, and touch on a Sleeping Beauty character in the manga. The manga at least implies that classic stories and fairy tale authors uh. Live on in a liminal space as immortals with world warping powers within that world and there could be opportunities for other girls in the real world to fight for Little Mermaid 2: Electric Boogaloo.

The Good: Everything has positive points, no matter how bad it is.

~Character Designs: Some of those looks slap. As do most of their weapons. 

~Backgrounds: I have a strong opinion on backgrounds in anime that can be easily boiled down to old watercolor backgrounds good, modern filtered photos as background bad, and as a 2006 series, this might not be Memole nice but they’re quite attractive. 

~Splash Pages: Easily my favorite thing after the designs, each chapter’s title page for the manga just has a character standing in a setting. Which is not everyone’s thing I’m sure but it’s a nice simplistic way to let the characters breathe imo. Even if at least some of the settings were deffo traced. But that’s how backgrounds work to some extent? If I ever get to the Met again, I am tracking down this exact photo, but here is a likely candidate for an example.

~Different Versions: I do not understand the need to make an adaptation that tries to be a 1:1. Kagihime had the same ideas and characters and did some of the same beats but very much had a different finale story and a lot of changes in the middle (like the Alice cops in the manga). Again, not something everyone probably wants I’m sure, but I very appreciate this, especially since the Anime kept good pace with the number of Manga chapters (reading the manga again while watching the anime at 3.8x speed just now was very interesting to see the different interpretations of events in a different medium.)

The ‘Fine’: Yeah.

~Anime Visuals: Look 2006 was still early enough into digipaint that I will give it a total pass on these. The colors are too bright but in a very bland way, the lineart is nothing interesting, and the faces are. Iffy. But it’s not total garbage to look at (probably helped by backgrounds and character designs...) it just came out in an era where not enough people knew how to stylize things to account for the weakness of the tools of the time. (It was 4 years earlier but I feel Kagihime is the polar opposite of Chobits with its painfully bland color palette while still being just. Flat. Sorry for the drive by Chii.) 

~Music?: There sure were songs. Obviously, they are nothing to me.

The Bad: CW for.... somehow all the big things to an extent. 

~Fanservice: Look, I am fine with fanservice, especially for a series that’s, ya know, not targeted at kids, big Mai Hime fan here even if I would recommend skipping the panty thief episode. And honestly the series generally isn’t fanservicey, at least by the modern standards of having the camera choosing under the skirt rather than an over the shoulder shot like I’ve seen plenty in other shows. Even the sexier outfits like the rose whip dominatrix aren’t bad BUT. When the girls fight. One takes her phallic key and drives it into another girls chest between the boobs while the loser cries in pain and then her book comes out and when the victor rips out pages, the loser’s clothes also rip. It is very SuperS Amazon Trio assault metaphor-y. There’s also a bit of fanservice with the sister becauseeeee....

~Incest: If you read the premise up there, first wow good job because I’m sure not re-reading that, you might have noticed I said MC ends up with his sister. As someone who is a big mythology fan and watches plenty of anime, I have a decent tolerance for your obligatory ‘oh we’re siblings but actually cousins so our feelings are okay’ or whatever the fuck Citrus has going on I don’t know that series and I don’t vibe BUT. I have limits and boy did this series go beyond that because multiple episodes are dedicated to the sister being in love with the brother? And the brother returns her feelings but knows that they are wrong so he put everything he likes in his sister into his version of Alice who, of course, physically manifests as Arisu who he creates accidentally with his uh. Magic imagination powers. But again in both versions MC still ends up with his sister. Hey, at least the manga eventually said the boy was adopted when the sister was like, 3, so if nothing else no blood relations? The anime did not ad this. -_-

~Under Utilized Characters: Arisu’s gradual revelation that she has no childhood memories because she isn’t a real person is so interesting and they don’t do nothing with it but also? That’s the kind of thing I personally would love to dig into and Kagihime, while touching on this world shattering revelation, easily loops back to So Anyway She Should Fight For The Man and to hell with developing a life or personality outside of what has been written for her. The rest of the main 5 were 2 note characters which. Could be worse? The most interesting character ends up being the child genius who accidentally murdered her childhood bestie (and/or lover? depending on version) and her coming to terms with that (the friend is alive but the version changes how and why she thinks she’s dead). Then the villain has the motivation of ‘i lost my creativity and now have become an immortal living outside of normal space and am getting girls to fight each other because that’s like a story so I’m still relevant right?’. But shoutout to the anime for then taking death of the author literally. The numerous other girls are canon fodder outside of like. The manga version of the dead gf and the little match girl.

~Battle Royale: This is not a thing I have an issue with generally. Again, but Mai Hime fan, I need to read MGRP 11, BUT by not developing the non-main girls there is no emotional connection which makes them just canon fodder and that’s boring as sin for a royale system. The initial main character fights revolve so much around the MC guy being there that they fall flat, and the 2 or 3 final battles in both versions still feel without any stakes. Also for a royale thing most of the characters don’t actually die, which cool! Neat! Except when they do? Some nobodies and a somebody are murdered (at least in the manga) and the tone never feels like it’s supposed to be upping the stakes, it’s just. Some people are dead now. And do you want to guess which of the main characters died?

~Gays: Oh boy the best friend of the brother-complex sister is in love with her and (in the manga) dies. She does apparently get better for the last chapter but the death itself is only felt by the rest of the cast for a page or two before we go back to feeling sad big brother wants to kiss his mentally generated sister clone rather than his actual sister u_u. Bury your gays is nothing new, but I wonder if it was also intended to be justified because Guess Who Is Creepy and a bit Perverted? Oh look the lesbian keeps the used swimsuit of her beloved and manipulates events to get an indirect kiss and when she sees the sister trying to strange Arisu for a moment she decides to do it for the sister? It’s not good. You want bad gay rep in a magical girl series, well here ya go. We also had a nobody in the first(second?) episode whose story pages reveal her having a kiss with a girl, and then we also have the prodigy again and- in the manga- her. Uh. childhood lover who she thought she killed but the girl has been wiping her mind over and over so prodigy remembers ‘killing’ the friend and not the she’s alive so she can keep? fucking with her? Toxic!

~Sexual Content: But wait you say, you already covered fanservice! Ah but that is sexual content for titilation. This is sexual content for dramatic backstory! The red riding hood character was sexually assaulted, another character was manipulated into sex first as a teen and then more often to ‘get into the publishing industry’, and the same writer forces some aggressive kisses on the MC. None of it is gratuitous which is nice, but also, was it necessary? Not making a new point for this but read riding hood’s dog was also murdered so unnecessary animal death gets tossed on in there. 

~Male Lead: You can have a male, non magical character as the main character surrounded by magical girls. This is not how to do it. If I can make a vicious and hopefully not understood reference, Aruto is basically Tate from the Mai Hime Manga. If you understood that, I am so sorry. If you didn’t, congrats! Don’t read the manga. Or do and send me asks about the iconic final page of the first volume (18+). Anyway, this dude is boring, everything revolves around him, BUT I’ll be generous and say at least this isn’t a harem series? It looks like it out of context but it’s just a triangle with a fun attached scientist and token lesbian.

~Premise: They didn’t make good use of it. The initial goals of ‘take other girls pages from their soul books because if we get enough we unlock a third alice book’ is good! And then we add the twist that that was never going to happen and either if we get all the pages we can grant a wish, or these fights are just happening for the amusement of and asshole. Either way, yeah okay I guess. But at no point do we ever achieve this forbidden wish granting book and the asshole just. Lives. Nothing happens to him. His peers don’t even dunk on him. The only real changes from the beginning and the end of the series are: the siblings are now chill with dating, and the scientist lady won’t turn into a child in magical spaces. Oh. Yeah.

~Why did we make this adult a child sometimes?: I think we know why. Stop trying to get those types of folks to watch your already meh series. I also could have sworn at points in the past looking up images for this series I’ve seen extra art for Yuuri the Thumbelina-y Alice User that seemed like it would fit alongside anything by POP. You know, the Moetan guy. If you don’t know, god I wish that were me. 

Wrap Up: I have definitely forgotten some points and am well within my rights to ad to this whenever I remember more points but uh. Yeah.  

Listen you want an alice themed battle royale with nice outfits? Rozen maiden is right there. Battle Royale magical girl series that’s good with fanservice? Mai Hime. Series with different outfits while being based on a classic story? Pretear.

Hope anyone who read all of this at least got what I was saying, even if they don’t agree with it. And thanks for reading because whoops. 

[in-tua-deep]

Daemon AU? Yes PLEASE!

I will give u the pre-canon material exploring Five and his daemon’s relationship ;3c 

---

Pancha prefers small forms. Five never knows for certain why, and when he asks her she just tilts her head and shrugs at him because she doesn’t know what to say, either.

She likes being a hummingbird, flitting around Five’s head and hovering in front of his face before nesting in his hair. She likes being a mouse, scurrying up Five’s arm and tucking herself into the pocket on the front of his blazer.  She likes being a rabbit, feet thumping against the floor as she zoomed around the room at top speed.

Five never knows, or maybe just never vocalizes why the representation of his soul prefers to be small. 

But when Reginald Hargreeves gives him scathing performance reviews, his cane clicking against the floor in time with the soft clicking of Aryia’s claws as they look down their noses, as Five stands with his back straight and proud while - 

While Pancha curls up tight in his pocket, a mouse biting the end of her own tail so that she would not whimper aloud. They know then, even if they never voice it aloud. The reason that Pancha prefers to stay small.

---

The thing that people learn early is to watch daemons. Not directly, that would be rude, but to keep them in the corner of your eye and observe. Daemons are the representation of a person’s soul after all, and souls can’t lie. 

If someone is nervous, their daemon will shuffle anxiously. If someone is angry, their daemon will puff up in fury. When someone is scared, their daemon will cringe and cower. It’s easy to spot a liar in a world where the heart lays outside of the body.

Five’s very good at lying with his own body. He stands up straight and proud. He bares his teeth in furious smiles, licking blood from his lips and refusing to back down. He speaks loudly, with purpose, with challenge in his voice and in his words. Five is hard-headed. Five is disobedient. Five is an unruly little monster.

Pancha shifts into a hummingbird, because everyone knows hummingbirds flit around to keep aloft. It doesn’t look like nervous energy when it’s for a purpose. Pancha shifts into an australian tiger beetle, because they don’t have lips to draw back in wordless snarls. Pancha shifts into a gerbil and hides in Five’s pockets, because what you don’t see cannot betray you.

They call her adaptable, laugh when their siblings’ daemons begin to settle. They tolerate the speculation about who is going to settle next and what they will become.

They both dread the day Pancha will settle, even if they don’t say anything to one another. They don’t address the fact that she changes from one form to another, cycling through dozens within the space of a day even though their siblings stick to perhaps three. They don’t talk about the buzz under their skin that drives Pancha racing around their room at top speed until they crash on the bed panting together with something clawing desperately inside their soul. 

They don’t talk about a lot of things, but they don’t need to. They’re two halves of the same whole. 

---

Luther snaps at Five for cheating, for running ahead on a mission. They’re twelve, and Andromeda looks down on Pancha with something cold in her eyes and says, “Of course they can’t obey. They’re still unsettled.”

She says it like an insult, lip drawing back to show off too sharp teeth, says it like it’s something for Five to be ashamed of. Says it like what she’s really saying is that Five is a child. Like they aren’t all twelve-years-old and just settling into their own skins. 

She says it like it’s Five’s fault that Pancha can flit through forms like she can’t shed them fast enough. Even as Andromeda speaks, Pancha is a bat, is a wren, is landing on Five’s shoulder as a sugar glider, is curling around his neck as a ferret.

She says it like it’s his fault that he’s twelve-years-old and his daemon is unsettled. Like half the twelve-year-olds running around aren’t doing so with daemons just as unsettled as his. 

(Five read once, in a book, that trauma can make daemons settle earlier. There are so many cases of children as young as nine, seven, six with daemons tiny and scared and permanent.

The same book mentioned that abused children’s daemons often fell into one of two categories: large predators, to protect themselves and bare their teeth and intimidate any who try and hurt them. And the small ones, who are tiny and scared and do their best to be beneath notice.

Luther and Diego’s daemons are large, with teeth that can tear flesh and muscles beneath their skin.

Pancha likes to take small forms. Five doesn’t think about it too much.)

Five curls his lip and snarls back at Andromeda in a way that he never does when they’re in front of cameras, because etiquette says that people don’t talk to other people’s daemons, “If you weren’t so slow then maybe I wouldn’t have had to go in alone.”

Pancha shifts from a ferret to a squirrel to a kangaroo rat. The others are used to her rapid changes, but they also mean that they can’t pin down Five’s mood based on his daemon’s body language. She’s shifting too rapidly for that, clawing down his jacket as a hispid cotton mouse and settling into his arms as a pika, as a pygmy rabbit, as a stoat.

“Maybe I should hear a rumor about everyone calming down.” Allison threatens, her hands on her hips and tapping her foot impatiently. Amraphel is wrapped around her shoulders like a scarf, lazily flicking his tongue out.

(Allison has been of ill temper and short of patience ever since Raph settled a month ago. The whole house had heard her shouting about it, and none had dared to address it when they came down to dinner with Raph draped over the back of the chair instead of his customary place in Allison’s lap. 

Raph and Allison haven’t sat properly together since he settled, and no one talks about it.)

But Allison’s words settle Andromeda and Luther, both of them backing up in a way they wouldn’t for any other sibling. 

Pancha is a bush baby now, climbing up to Five’s shoulder and tugging lightly on the hair behind his ear. 

Five holds his hands behind his back and twists his fingers together to the point of pain.

“No need for that.” Pancha says, voice clear and level and almost haughty. “They’re only jealous they can’t be as adaptable as us.”

Luther snarls and lunges forward, only to be blocked by a bristling Andromeda. “They’re not worth it.” She growls, low and deep in her chest with flashes of white teeth. Luther and his daemon try so hard to be respectable, to be cool and aloof like their father and his daemon. It’s almost sad, really.

Pancha is a manipur bush rat, scurrying to Five’s other shoulder. Five untwists his hands from behind his back and reaches up to grab her when she shifts into a black jackrabbit. 

“Have you looked in a mirror lately?” Five says, with all his twelve-year-old wit, “Your face isn’t worth it.”

The black eye he sports for three weeks is, in fact, worth it.

---

Pancha is the last one left unsettled. It shouldn’t bother them, they don’t even really want Pancha to settle, but it does in some terrible inexplicable way.

Pancha flits between forms, and none of them feel right.

“We’re obviously going to be something that can jump properly.” Five muses, tapping a pencil against a little black notebook as he thinks. “You said the kangaroo mouse didn’t feel right?”

“Nothing will feel right until the moment we settle.” Pancha points out, flicking the tail of her current ginger-tabby-cat form back and forth, “Val was definitely a wolf a few times before she settled.”

“Yeah, well, I’m like 90% sure Val settled out of pure competitive spirit.” Five dismisses rolling his eyes. 

Valencia had settled two hours before Andromeda had, and has lorded it over the other daemon ever since. Diego still preens about how he was the first of the siblings to settle before even Luther.

(Five kind of wants to tell them both that Tamaya settled a week before Valencia and Andromeda both. No one noticed because Ben hadn’t brought it up, and Tamaya had always favored hiding to confrontation. Instead, Tamaya ‘officially’ settled around three days after their siblings.)

“I’m probably not going to be a big animal.” Pancha says, her claws pricking into his skin through his pajama top as she leans against his shoulder to peer at his list. “You can cross kangaroo off.”

“I thought you said you couldn’t be sure?” Five says, eyebrow raised.

Pancha just stares at him blankly. He stares back. Pancha shifts into a Florida king snake.

“Not having eyelids is cheating.” Five scowls, crossing his arms.

Pancha easily swaps into a possum, shaking out her fur. “It wasn’t cheating, it was adapting.” She tosses his words back in his face, “Besides. You thought I could be a kangaroo.”

Five grudgingly crosses an entry out. “Well why are you a possum now?”

Pancha shrugs as well as she can as a possum. “Dunno. It’s a marsupial or whatever, isn’t it? Besides, I’m sort of digging the fingerless gloves aesthetic.” She offers a foot out for Five to inspect.

“You look like you just climbed out of a trash can.” Five informs her.

“No, that was last night.” Pancha shoots back, shifting into a pine marten to crawl into Five’s lap and bat at his notebook. He just holds the notebook a little bit higher, making her huff in irritation. 

“Dad really needs to feed us more.”

Pancha nuzzles against Five’s stomach as comfortingly as she can, even though she can feel the slight pang of hunger gnawing at her belly as well as he can. Their power takes so much out of them sometimes, it’s difficult to justify taking more to a man who sees them as an experiment instead of a person.

“I could turn into a tiger and eat Aryia.” Pancha offers, shifting into an otter and making another grab for the notebook that Five easily avoids.

“You don’t like taking big forms.” Five dismisses easily, as though it’s nothing. As though it isn’t something they don’t discuss between them.

Pancha is silent for a few minutes, and even Five stops scribbling away as he waits for her response.

Finally she says, very carefully, “Just because I don’t like to, doesn’t mean I can’t.”

They both are silent after that, Five lowering his arms to curl around Pancha’s latest form in something just a little bit too loose to call a hug. 

“It’s safer.” Pancha whispers, breaking the silence between them, “I don’t know why, but it’s safer this way. Smaller daemons - they aren’t looked at as closely. When a tiger daemon bristles, people pay attention. When a mouse daemon bristles, no one even notices.”

“Is my soul really mouse shaped?” Five huffs a laugh, but they both know that he wouldn’t be disappointed in her being a mouse so much as he would her being trapped a mouse.

Pancha nudges at his chin with her broad muscular head, “Hey, don’t knock mice. They’re survivors. Practically anywhere you go, you’ll find mice. Inside, outside, they know how to get around.”

Five hums, dropping his notebook on the bed and bringing his hands up to run them through Pancha’s fur.

“Maybe we should be something with a beak.” Pancha whispers, knowing that Five will hear her no matter how softly she speaks. “No one bothers to look at bird daemon expressions, either.”

“Maybe you’ll be a swan, able to break someone’s arm and look pretty while doing it.” 

Pancha snorts, “Yeah, you’d like that wouldn’t you. Vicious representation of our soul, that.” 

Instead of saying anything more, Pancha shifts from an otter into a meerkat. She curls into a tight little ball in Five’s lap.

“Not this one either, then?” Five says with a smile.

“Shut up.” Is Pancha’s intelligent response. “Next time you ask, I’m going to bite you.”

---

The moment they figure out what they can, theoretically, do, the buzzing under their skins gets louder than ever.

“Ask dad again, please.” Pancha begs, shifting from a budgie to a canary to a superb fairy wren as she flits about close to the ceiling of their room.

“You ask Aryia!” Five shoots back, bouncing lightly on the top of his bed even though it’s sort of childish. If anyone comes in though, he’ll just say he was trying to catch Pancha and they’d probably believe it.

Pancha turns into a magpie and immediately tries to divebomb Five in irritation, who stands there unimpressed and she’s forced to veer back towards the ceiling or crash into him. “You know she’s a mythic bitch!”

“And you think dad isn’t?” Five asks incredulously, bouncing a little more frantically.

“You don’t get lectures on how you’re -” Pancha flies to the floor and shifts into an impressive rendition of a marble fox identical to their father’s daemon, “Still unsettled Pancha, honestly, I expected better of you. Why can’t you be like the others, you’re so unruly and disheveled and I have no idea why dear old Reggie didn’t do away with you long ago -”

Five is cackling, his bouncing having come to a stop so he could slap a hand over his mouth to muffle his laughter at Pancha’s, frankly, spot on impression of their father’s daemon.

Pancha grins, shifting from a fox into a jack russell terrier and jumping on the bed with Five. “Spot on, wasn’t I?”

“Absolutely impeccable.” Five manages, sticking his nose haughtily in the air, “Why, I almost thought our dearest Aryia was in the room with us!”

Pancha nips at his heels, making him flop down onto the bed with her automatically. The shift in weight and position makes them both bounce a few times before they settle down. They’re still buzzing with energy though, even sitting still.

“I bet time travel would fix us.” Pancha says finally, voice strangely serious in the face of their previous jostling and cheer.

“We aren’t broken.” Five says equally seriously, watching as Pancha shifts into a grey collared chipmunk, then a harvest mouse, and then an antelope jackrabbit. She uses that form’s legs to launch herself from the bed to the desk across the room and back again. 

“There’s something wrong with us, Five.” Pancha corrects him fiercely, clawing up his arm as a pallid bat to his shoulder. “The others weren’t like this. We’re thirteen, now. Statistically, we should have settled by now. Or - or slowed down at least.”

Now she’s a margay, precariously balanced on his shoulder with her tail whipping into his face. Five brings up a hand to gently grasp at the twitching appendage, “The average is twelve to fourteen, technically.” He corrects her gently, “We practically just turned thirteen, we have time.”

Pancha hisses, hopping down off his shoulders in the form of a mongoose. “If we just - we have to try, Five. Can’t you feel it?”

Five bops her gently over the head, half scolding. “Of course I can, I’m you aren’t I?”

The buzz under their skin gets stronger by the day, and Pancha hasn’t been able to hold a form for longer than five or ten minutes in almost a year. It takes more effort not to jump than it does to actually jump, these days. Pancha shifts into a brush rabbit and levels him with an unimpressed look.

Five heaves a sigh, foot bouncing against the floorboards as though Pancha has transferred her nervous energy to him. “You know what dad’s gonna say, anyway.” He brings a hand to his chest and put on a nasally fancy tone, “Maybe we can revisit this topic when you’ve matured a bit, Number Five.”

Pancha gnashes her teeth together as a beaver. “You know what that’s code for.”

Five’s look is just as bitter as his daemon’s tone. He does know. Everyone knows. It’s a whole thing - people have weird ideas about what it means to settle. That it means, in some weird way, that it’s a transition into adulthood and responsibility.

How many hospital dramas and detective shows make it a point to draw attention to a child actor’s shifting daemon? How many true crime shows have grieving parents wailing about how the daughter or son wasn’t even settled yet, as though it might have been less of a tragedy if the kid’s daemon had been permanently stuck as a woodchuck. How many courtroom dramas have dismissed eyewitness testimony on the basis of the kid isn’t even settled yet.

Five and Pancha thinks it’s stupid, the emphasis put on settling. Thinks it’s dumb that he’s somehow considered less mature than a nine-year-old with a settled hedgehog daemon, even though he’s thirteen. But his age doesn’t matter. Just his daemon’s settled status. 

“What if time travel fixes us.” Pancha proposes again, fluttering over to the desk in the form of a cardinal. “What if it helps. What if it’s what we need to - ”

Settle, she doesn’t say. Because to settle is to know yourself, and they don’t even know they extent of their powers.

Five shakes his hands out, blue sparks flying down his wrists as he does so. Anything to try and get the buzz out from under his skin. 

“I’ll ask dad again tomorrow.” Five says finally, “And if he says no - ”

“Then we do it anyway.” Pancha is a coyote, lips pulled back in a wordless snarl before blue lightning runs down her form and she’s suddenly pressed against Five’s side.

“Then we do it anyway.” Five confirms, grim.

---

Time travel does not fix them.

Time travel breaks them.

They stand in the rubble of the end of the world, howling for their family with something that tastes like desperation on their lips, and no one answers. Dust swirls across the ground, glittering and gruesome as the smoke chokes the air from their lungs.

They claw through ruin until they find what they’re looking for, until Five shoves a piece of debris off of a face that belongs to a wrist with a black umbrella inked upon it, dark and final.

He finds Luther. He finds Allison, finds Diego, finds Klaus. He does not find their daemons.

Pancha is a falcon, is a racoon, is a wolf howling desperately into the crackling air, hoping, praying for an answer. But the only thing they hear are the quiet roar and crackles of the fires and their own footfalls.

It’s eerily quiet, at the end of the world. There’s no movie soundtrack, or screams, or howling winds. It’s just the pops of distant fires and the sound of rock across rock as their feet dislodge pieces of the wreckage.

“We can fix this.” Five says feverishly, “We have to go back.”

“It’s not working.” Pancha grits her teeth, pushing and pushing and pushing against the wall of their powers. It’s about as useful as trying to break down a brick wall with her shoulder.

“We’ll make it work.” Five vows, “We’ll go back. We’ll save them all.”

Pancha nods, equally grim and equally serious. 

“What we need,” Pancha says slowly, sounding out each word. She has Five’s full attention on her, “Is an equation.”

Math isn’t something they technically need anymore. It’s a crutch from their younger days, something that soothes them and calms them and helps them focus. They can jump without it, their brain doing most equations automatically.

But when they’d first been figuring out their limits on distance, when they’d first figured out the differences between jumping in water and jumping in air - they’d used math. When they were figuring out time travel was possible, they’d looked at the math.

“Okay.” Five says, breathy and small and scared, “Okay.”

---

They don’t figure out until a week in that the buzzing under their skin is - not gone, but lesser somehow. 

In their defense, they have a lot bigger things to worry about.

Five is scooping cold spaghetti-o’s directly into his mouth with a spoon he’d buffed against his shirt when he finally looks at Pancha and realizes that she’s been a barbary macaque for… hours now. She has a box of children’s sidewalk chalk by her side and is concentrating fiercely on writing while Five takes a break.

“Pancha - ” Five starts, and then finds himself at a loss for words when she looks up at him. 

“Hmm?” She asks absently, little monkey face still scrunched up in concentration. Five can’t help but wonder when the last time Pancha stayed in one form long enough for him to pick up proper expressions from her face.

“...Never mind.” Five says, and watches Pancha turn back to her work. 

They have more important things to worry about now anyway.

---

“This is a bad idea.” Pancha informs him, tongue lolling out the side of her mouth as she pants in the scorching heat. She’s a dingo today, has started experimenting with bigger and bigger forms.

(Five is seventeen-years-old. She still hasn’t settled.)

“We’re literally starving to death, Pan.” Five says dryly gripping bright packaging between thumb and forefinger like he would prefer not to be touching it himself, thanks. “Look, I definitely remember something about these things never going off.”

“That doesn’t sound right.” Pancha frowns, “But then again, I don’t know enough about twinkies to dispute it.”

They both look at the innocent little treat that Five has managed to unearth from inside of what looks like it used to be a child’s backpack. They don’t think about the child the backpack might have belonged to.

“Don’t those things have like, cream in them or something?” Pancha asks doubtfully, leaning forward to sniff the treat suspiciously, “Pretty sure anything with dairy in it went off like, years ago.”

“They’re like, 90% preservatives probably.” Five says, bringing it closer to his face so he can sniff it as well. “What do you think?”

“I think this is a terrible idea.” Pancha shrugs, which looks strange with a Dingo’s shoulders, “But then again, we are starving to death. Not sure we can afford to be picky.”

“We also can’t really afford to be sick.” Five points out sensibly. 

They both take another pause to consider the twinkie. 

“We’re so going to regret this.” Pancha sighs, laying down and putting her head on her paws. “But hey, if we die, we die.”

“We’re not going to die.” Five scolds her, peeling open the twinkie finally and giving it a distrustful look, “We totally aren’t going to regret this. Power of positive thinking, right?”

They absolutely regret it.

They don’t die, though.

---

The bright side of Pancha being unsettled is that she’s actually very useful in the apocalypse. She can take on the form of an elephant, acting as a one-daemon construction crew to clear out debris when they need a place to stay. She can run through the rubble as a mouse, squeezing through cracks in search of anything useful.

She takes the form of a chameleon, snagging insects from the air and offering them to Five when his skin starts looks paper thin and his ribs stick out prominently. 

Pancha lays in the body of a tiger, curled around her human to protect him from the cold nip of the night air. The weather is turning, and soon enough there will probably be snow on the ground.

“We’re twenty-one this year.” Pancha says quietly.

Five hums, fingers twisted into her fur. “Five more years and then we’ll have officially been here longer than we were there.” 

“Doesn’t matter how long it takes us.” Pancha says, squeezing her paws around his shoulders in warning, “We’re going to get back to them.”

Neither of them are sure they really believe it anymore, but oh how they want to.

They let the silence sit for a while between them before Five speaks up with a snort, “Not this one then?”

The question is almost an old joke at this point. Thirteen was a late bloomer. Sixteen was maybe-we-should-get-you-checked-out territory. Twenty-one was practically unheard of.

Pancha gives him a punishing lick with her sandpaper tongue over his forehead, making Five squawk with outrage. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to, idiot.”

“You know, calling me an idiot is really only calling yourself an idiot.” Five bites back, but they both know he’s not really offended. If he was, he wouldn’t still be cuddled into Pancha’s fur. Even their arguments are performative these days. 

“I can call you scruffy without offending myself, I suppose.” Pancha says dryly, “What is wrong with your face.”

“If you can find a good razor kit in the apocalypse then be my guest.” Five says grumpily, but he ruins it by nuzzling his face into Pancha’s chest fur making her huff with laughter.

Pancha squishes him closer, mindful of her big paws and powerful muscles. But even in this form - her hip bones are too prominent and her ribs can easily be felt through her fur. They’ll go out scavenging again tomorrow, but for tonight they can just… lay here. Bask in one another’s company. 

“Stop thinking so much.” Five draws his head back a little to sleepily scold his daemon, “You’re going to keep us both up.”

“Shut up then.” Pancha shoots back.

“Night, Pancha.” Five’s words are muffled against her fur, but she hears him loud and clear.

“Night, Five.” Pancha says softly.

---

Pancha hops tentatively through the first snow of the season, her white fur blending in well. “Five,” She says, not sure how she’s planning on following up.

“I know.” Five says quietly, reaching down to pick her up. She rubs her face under his chin comfortingly, feeling the scratch of his beard across her fur. “Happy birthday to us, I guess.”

“Twenty-six.” Pancha whispers.

“It was - it was 2019, right?” Five asks suddenly, “When the apocalypse happened?”

“April 1st, 2019.” Pancha confirms solemnly.

Five hums. “They’d have been, what, thirty?”

“It was still April.” Pancha corrects, shaking her head gently, “Our birthday is in October. They’d have still been twenty-nine.”

Five is very quiet for a long time, and Pancha keeps her own silence as they trudge through the wasteland. They’ve been doing a little better food-wise recently. They’ve discovered that while Five doesn’t get much out of Pancha eating, they get something out of it. She’s taken to wearing herbivorous forms and munching on grass and other plantlife where she can. The coming winter may make that trickier, though.

“If we go back before we hit thirty, we’d be about the same age.” Five says finally.

Pancha hums in agreement.

“But - ” Five hesitates, “We have to go back to, to before Ben dies, right?”

“They were what, sixteen?” Pancha taps at Five’s chest in a request to be put down, which he readily complies with. “Maybe we could get them out. Be the responsible adult.”

Five snorts, “Adopt our siblings?”

Pancha grins, “Hey, don’t tell me you wouldn’t enjoy the hell out of bossing Luther and Andromeda around.”

“We’ll see who’s the kid then.” Five chuckles before they both fall silent.

After all, Luther’s entire thing about Five being a brat was because - well. Pancha silently shifts into a husky with thick fur, coming over to nudge at Five’s leg as they walk side by side.

“We never really talked about what we’d do about - about me once we get back.” Pancha says carefully, warily.

They don’t need to change like they used to. Don’t shift between forms with the blink of an eye. They’re more solid now, Pancha tends to take a form for hours or entire days now unless she finds another form more useful to their current situation.

But they aren’t settled.

Five offers her a strained smile, “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

“Maybe if we get back, it’ll fix us.” Pancha offers, but her voice is soft and a little bit wistful. She doesn’t believe what she’s saying any more than Five does. They already travelled down that road before, and look where it got them.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” Five repeats firmly, before his face softens a little bit, “Happy birthday, Pancha.”

“Happy birthday, Five.”

---

“Do you remember how old we are now?” Five whispers, his hair and his beard have gotten streaked with grey. Pancha’s not exactly a spring chicken herself anymore, allowing Five to card his fingers through the feathers in her wing and straighten them out.

“Too old.” Pancha complains, “What’s the point in keeping track anyway? It’s not like we know what day it is.”

“We should probably keep track in general.” Five sounds amused, “Gotta remember how far to go back after all.”

“Fuck it.” Pancha declares, nipping at Five’s fingers when he’s a tad rough with a tender spot, “Just overshoot. Either we’ll pop out when the family are babies, and we can just steal everyone, or we don’t and bam we’re right on track.”

“You’re suddenly finding a motherly bone in your body, somewhere?” Five removes his hands from her wings to brush them off on his pants. Pancha gives them an experimental flap or two. “I, for one, could not be paid enough to deal with a baby Diego. Can you imagine?”

“He’d have fantastic aim when he’d throw his toys at you.” Pancha snickers.

“Can you imagine baby Allison?” Five demands, and they look at each other for a heartbeat before they both break down into laughter.

“Oh my god,” Pancha gasps, burying her face into her own wing, “Can you imagine what she’d rumor? Everyday would be Disney world day and she would be the prettiest princess of all.”

“Ruling the world with an iron fist and a sparkly tiara.” Five manages to get out, his own face buried in his hands as he wheezes.

“Klaus would be right next to her, tiara and all.”

“Fuck you’re right.” Five laughs, a deep belly laugh they neither of them hear very much these days, “There would be so much glitter.”

That statement makes Pancha dissolve into giggles again where she was just getting control of herself. 

“If we ever get back, I’m going to buy both of them the sparkliest tiaras available. No, wait. Gonna buy the whole family a bunch of those little kid birthday tiaras, and never explain why.” Five declares, grinning, “They’d be so confused.”

“When.” Pancha corrects, and the mood suddenly turns serious. “When we get back.”

Five doesn’t apologize, doesn’t sputter or claim it was just an error of speech. He just inclines his head a little bit and says, “Right. When we get back.”

---

They’re old and broken and creaky and tired when their endless days of bouncing math off of each other and testing at the boundary of the blue that stays frustratingly solid to them changes.

Five’s hair is entirely grey now, and his beard is long and scraggly where he hasn’t taken a knife to it in a while. 

Pancha is a european hare and she’s the one that first senses danger.

The thing about living in the apocalypse, is that it’s quiet. There’s no hum of electric lights. There’s no brawls between stray cats or dogs. There’s no squirrels or rats or mice scurrying around. 

So when Pancha’s sensitive ears pick up the sound of footsteps she feels such an intense sense of - of something that it makes Five drop his chalk and swing around to look at her with alarm.

She’s glad her form today is swift, because she’s across their little ‘camp’ in seconds and in his arms, clawing her way up to his shoulder to press her mouth to his ear, “There’s something out there.” She whispers, somehow terrified and she doesn’t know why.

To his credit, Five doesn’t even hesitate despite the impossibility of her words. He scoops her under one arm and turns and picks up the gun (they don’t talk about why they have a gun) with the other. He turns around and points it at - 

A woman. They both freeze like deer in headlights.

“Hello!” The woman calls, picking her way down the debris in high heeled shoes.

“Five.” Pancha swallows, making her human look at her, “Five, where’s her daemon.”

Five’s head whips back around, and they both stare. It’s entirely possible that the woman’s daemon is just small, just out of sight and out of mind. It’s even possible that she’s a witch, and her daemon is off gallivanting about.

But Pancha can feel a scream trapped behind her teeth, feel her ears go back as she fights the urge to run run run away from this terrifying woman who tastes of empty empty empty. Something is wrong. 

She can see the way Five’s fingers tremble as the sense of wrong wrong wrong reverberates through their bond. 

“Who the hell are you!” Five snarls out, and Pancha takes the opportunity to squirm and wriggle so that she’s balanced precariously on Five’s shoulder, freeing up his other hand to steady the gun.

“I’m here to help.” The woman says brightly, still picking her way towards them.

“Five.” Pancha whimpers, and as she feels her paws tremble she watches his hands go still and steady.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t just put a bullet through your head right now.” Five raises the gun further, but the woman doesn’t even hesitate. 

“Because,” The woman says, smiling a carefree smile as she adjusts her hat and pulls her sunglasses from her face. “Then you wouldn’t hear the offer I’m about to make you.”

Five and Pancha are more tense than they’ve ever been before in their lives, and considering some of their childhood missions - that’s saying a lot.

“Which would be rather tragic given your…” The woman looks around and even though she doesn’t look disgusted the implication is there anyway which makes them both bristle, “...Current circumstances. I work for an organization called the Commission. We are tasked with the preservation of the time continuum through manipulation and removals. 

“Why are you telling us this.” Five manages to grit out, never letting his gun drop.

The woman just looks at him like he’s a child and she’s disappointed he asked such an obvious question.

“I’ve come to offer you a job, Number Five.” She says simply. 

They don’t miss the way she only offered the job to him, not to Pancha. 

There’s a lot after that. The woman explains that she wants to hire him - them - to, to eliminate threats to time caused by humanity’s free will. She tells him that her organization has had their eye on him. That he has potential. That Five can retire with a pension plan for the low low price of his soul.

Well, he’s paraphrasing. 

She at least allows him a moment of privacy to discuss things with his daemon, telling him that she will be back in an hour to pick him up and that he should take the time to gather what possessions he wishes to take with him. She seems awfully confident he will take her deal.

“She doesn’t have a daemon.” Pancha shudders against him, “She’s so empty inside. She scares me, Five.”

“I know.” Five says, smoothing his hands over her fur comfortingly, “But - Pan, the chance to get out. If they know how to properly time travel - ”

“Then we can finally get out of here.” Pancha says softly, longingly. “It’s been so long, Five.”

“I know.” He whispers. 

“She wants us to kill for her.” Pancha tells him, “Removing the problems - she just wants us to become an assassin. She wants us to be a weapon.”

“Would we kill to get our siblings back?” Five asks, but it’s a rhetorical question. They both know that they’d probably let the world burn all over again if only it meant saving the people most important to them. 

“We’d have food.” Pancha offers finally, “If it’s a job, we’ll have money. No more scavenging. We could focus more time on, on - you know.”

Five nods solemnly, “So, do we take the job?”

A shudder ripples through Pancha’s body, “What about me, Five?”

“What about you?” Five asks, brow furrowing.

“I’m not normal.” Pancha states tightly, watching Five’s face light up in comprehension. It’s been a long time since they discussed Pancha’s ability to shift. After so many years, it almost seems normal. “She’s already seen me as a hare. So do I just - pretend to be a hare?”

Five bites his lip, “Just until we figure out how to get back.”

They both know that’s not a real answer. They both have no idea what they’re going to do when they show up, old and decrepit and still unsettled. 

“She can’t know.” Five says, because at least that much is certain. “She doesn’t have a daemon. She can’t know.”

Pancha sighs, but they both already know what their choice is going to be. “Okay. Okay let’s become assassins.”

---

They’re in a hotel room, and Pancha shifts a few times just to prove she can. She likes being a hare, but sometimes it just gets itchy. Wrong. Sometimes she needs wings, or fangs, or something. 

She feels like she needs fangs a lot around the Handler. Or like she needs to be something small, like a mouse and curl up in Five’s pockets again to hide away. Usually she just hides behind Five and lets him deal with the woman, which is perhaps unfair of her but Five hasn’t protested yet.

(Actually, Pancha doesn’t speak to anybody. Not after the doctor and his capuchin daemon looked entirely scandalized when she addressed him instead of his daemon. Apparently missing out on socialization for an estimated forty-five years led to… some not so great manners.)

Five methodically cleans his gun as Pancha shifts from a lion to a gazelle to a pallas cat and back into a hare to jump onto the bed with him. 

“Today?” She asks him.

He looks up at her and frowns, his hands pausing.

“Something feels different. More right.”

Five tilts his head a little bit in though and then nods. He’s been quiet, since they got back. When they’re alone together at least. The opposite of Pancha. Sometimes she wonders if they’re just switching off, the way they do when it comes to shows of emotion sometimes. 

Pancha crawls into his lap, nudging at his hands until they put the gun aside and bury themselves in her fur. 

“We’re going to save the world, Five.” She says, projecting as much confidence as she can into her voice, as much confidence as she can into him. “We’re going to save them all.”

Five’s hands tremble in her fur, and they both politely pretend that they don’t.

“You aren’t going to do this alone, because you have me. We’re a team.” She cranes her head back so she can offer him a smile, “Team Adaptable, right?”

“Right.” Five rasps out, touching the silver patches in her fur. 

And then they get up, and move out. They’re on a mission now.

[willddheartt]

26 Days | Wilbur Soot

30 days to fall in love with someone? Sounds easy right? It would be if that person wasn’t so unbelievably annoying in almost every sense.

You’re not sure how you found yourself in this situation, but you were positive there was no backing out now…

Series Warnings: Mostly fluff and angst, and a very poorly constructed enemies to lovers plot.

Word Count: 2264

Masterlist Series Masterlist

26 Days

God, you hated him so much! You wanted to scream it from the top of a building how much you truly hated Wilbur. But you couldn’t

Lately, no matter what you did or said on stream, he always had a problem with it. You had been streaming Minecraft together, on the SMP. You were just messing around, no lore this time. You suggested you made a house together in L’manburg, no matter what you did, the two of you couldn't agree on a material, you wanted to build it out of birch wood and cobblestone but he insisted on dark oak logs and spruce planks would look better together. You gave up and let him have what he wanted because he was so persistent and you knew had it gone on you would have blown up on him in front of all your viewers, and that’s the last thing you needed right now. 

You were up late, last night, planning out when you were going to meet up, and just a few hours ago the two of you got along perfectly. Laughing over the phone as you were laying in bed, chatting mindlessly. You wondered what happened between then and now.  You and Will planned to meet up in the middle of next week, you were going to drive down to see him and stay at his place. Although you brought up getting a hotel room, Wilbur insisted you stay with him, too tired to resist you agreed, but now you're starting to think maybe getting a hotel room might be for the best. 

You and Wilbur ended your streams at the same time, and you sighed as soon as you were sure it was off. 

“What?” Wil asked, still in the voice chat.  “What was that back there? Why the hell are you so disagreeable?” You let out.  Will scoffed, “Me? You’re the one who kept on insisting birch and cobble when that wouldn't even fit in L’manburg!”  “Jesus Christ,” You sighed, leaning back in your chair and running your hands down your face. “How in the hell are we going to get through this month?”  “Maybe you should stop being so uptight and argumentative.” Wil shot  “Fuck you,” You mumbled before clicking out of the chat and leaving your PC. 

You needed to get out of the house and away from any form of contact you had with Wilbur and social media. You had been cooped up inside your apartment for close to a week at this point, maybe some fresh air would do you good.  You grabbed a jacket and keys before leaving the apartment, leaving your phone charging on your desk. You didn’t want to bring it with you because you didn't even want to think about getting a text or any kind of notification from Wilbur right now, you knew you would have blown up at him completely. 

The weather was just beginning to turn nice, the air was warm but the wind still had a slight winter chill to it, although all the snow was long gone Jack Frost still made his lurking presence known.  Buildings lined the walls of a small square common area where teens mostly hung out after school and on weekends. The square had a fountain in the middle of it, the water had been shut off for the winter but with the warm temperatures from the last month, it had recently been turned back on.  You sat on the ledge of the brick wall around the bottom pool for the fountain, looking at everyone passing through on this nice Wednesday evening. Older couples out for an evening walk, middle-aged business people speed walking their way home from the office, teens scattering the open area, sitting on blankets and laughing in their small groups of friends. You found watching people be interesting, it made you think. 

We are all living our own lives at the same time and most of us on this small planet don't even know of one another, or if you know of them you don't know them, you only know their name. It's weird how that works.  It's astounding to think about though, what are the chances of meeting exactly who you did, at the time you did, and what a gamble it is for them to stick around. 

You had been sitting on the fountain for close to five minutes and when the wind had just started to pick up, sending a slight shiver down your spine.  Your mind was clearer now and you were no longer angry with Wilbur, it was stupid what you fought about and as much as it pained you to admit, he was right.  You were being stubborn and didn’t take into account the surrounding aesthetic of the area. It was your fault that the disagreement broke out in the first place. 

You got home and saw your phone had been basically blown up by notifications from Wilbur, asking if you were really mad at him or if it was for a bit that you took too far, but when you didn't answer he slightly snapped you, asking if you were okay and where you were.  You answered immediately, scared he might have been worrying.

Hey! You typed, Sorry I went for a walk after stream, needed to get out. 

There you are! He responded within seconds, I got worried. 

I’m okay, I left my  phone home, needed a break from the internet and things. You know? 

You mean you needed a break from me? 

You could have sworn, had you been on a video chat with him you would have seen him frowning. You weren't sure what about that message got you, but you found yourself almost with tears in your eyes, you didn't mean to hurt him and you hoped you didn't -what were you talking about. Wilbur didn't mean anything to you, he was just someone you kept in contact with because you were in the same friend group. 

No, you typed, not the whole thing at least. I just needed to clear my head, and i'm sorry for being such a dick on stream, I didn't mean to cause that, and you were right about the blocks. 

You sighed when hitting the send button, never in a million years did you think you would be telling Wilbur, The Wilbur Soot, that he was right about something. I’m sorry. 

Christ Y/N it’s alright, really. Just don't scare me like that again, I was starting to think something bad happened to you. 

I didn't mean to scare you, Wil. 

You found yourself feeling bad about leaving him in the dark while you were out, you didn't mean to worry him, you just didn't want to hurt him by blowing up at him. 

Still call tonight, yeah? He messaged 

You nodded, even though he couldn't see you. Yeah, I'd like that very much. I'll call you before I go to sleep. 

In the time that you had been a fake couple, you and Will had started calling while you were getting ready to fall asleep in bed, you usually ended up falling asleep before he did, the sound of his raspy sleepy voice lulled you to sleep like there was no tomorrow. You'd wake up in the morning to find that Wil left the call going, you thought it was cute. Sure it might have been some highschool relationship stuff but it was cute nonetheless. 

-

“Hello, Y/N” Will said through the phone, his voice sounding tired and soft  “Hi Wil,” You smiled, giggling slightly. Although you had just been on a voice chat with him earlier you loved hearing his voice when he was tired, it sounded like stirring honey into your morning cup of tea, or reading an old book, but specifically an old book that smells of must and age of being stored at the back of your grandparents bookshelf that hadn't been touched in years.  “You sound tired,” you mumbled, laying down with the phone resting on your stomach as you looked up at the ceiling.  “I am,” He hummed, “You don't sound very tired though, did you drink a lot of coffee today?” He asked  “A little more than usual, but I’ll be fine.” You sighed, your voice almost coming out in a whisper. There was something about talking to Wilbur before going to sleep that made you feel soft and loved, but you couldn't put your finger on exactly what it was. Maybe it was the thought of having someone there, or maybe it was just as simple as it was Wilbur and it was you.  

“Are you excited for next week?” He asked  “Right now it feels too far away to be real,”  “Who’s talking here, is it you you or is it us you?” He asked, unsure if your thoughts were good or bad “Its both,” You said. “It feels so far away to me right now, but so close at the same time and a side of me cant wait for it to get here, so we can finally meet in person. But another side of me feels like it’s good that it feels so far away because maybe something will come up and I wont be able to make it and i don’t want to think that or even say it because thats a terrible thing to say but you know how it is.” You rambled, trying your best to explain it to him in a way that he would fully understand the crossroads your mind is at, and not sound like a dick while doing it. 

Although you couldn’t see it, you could tell he was nodding along. “How about we make a deal, alright?” He started, “In these night chats, we don’t have to put on the face of the characters we play on stream and through out the day, Alright?”  You rolled over to your side, putting an arm under your head and setting your phone on the mattress by your head. “I like that. Deal.”  “Okay now tell me how you really feel about all of this” 

All the thoughts ran though your head a mile a minute, you didn’t know where to start honestly, you had a lot of thoughts but if you really looked at it and narrowed it down most of them talked circles around the same thing just using different words. 

“You promise what ever I say wont hurt you or make you flip out?” You asked  “Swear on Tommy’s life.” You could sense the smirk that tugged at the side of his mouth when he said that. “Okay,” You started with a sigh. “So I din’t really know where I stand on it anymore, at the beginning I thought this was going to be insufferable, but now that we’ve gotten into it for a few days, you’re really not that bad, but I’m still on the fence.”  “I hope come meeting, your opinion has changed a little bit more. But I do understand where you’re coming from. Its weird being able to talk off stream and such with you and not be fighting twenty-four-seven. It’s nice, I feel like I’m getting to know you better.” 

He was right, you had told Wilbur more in the last five days than you had ever in your years of knowing him. You were surprised to find out that he’s actually not as bad as you thought, but you would never tell him that bit. 

“Do you have to put on a character when we do those streams and such, Wilbur?” You asked, 

“I don’t think I do, and if I do it I don’t know what I’m doing it. It’s just something thats easy to do, I’m not sure how to explain it.” He replied “Do you have to when we’re talking like this?”  “No. Not at all, this is 100% me.” 

You’re not sure what part hit you the most, when he said he didn’t have to put on a full character mask when showing your ‘relationship’ to the public, or if this Wilbur, the tired one was the real Wilbur who you've been falling asleep with for the past three nights. You weren’t sure what you though you wanted to hear when asking him that but it definitely wasn't what you go, but maybe it was what you needed. 

The line went dead for a couple of minutes, you had the radio playing softly in the background to help you sleep better, and Wilbur seemed to be enjoying listening to you breathe through the phone.

“Hey Wil,” You yawned  “HM?” He hummed, you could tell he had his eyes closed with the phone by his face, like he did on one of your face time calls the other day.  “I’m soon gonna pass-out,” You whispered  “Thats alright, go to sleep. Get your rest, I’ll be here when you wake up, love.” He was so sweet it almost made your heart hurt.  “Okay” You nodded, but don’t hang up, okay? I like it when you’re here with me when I fall asleep.” 

You struggled to keep your eyelids open, feeling heavy and light all at the same time. You felt so light it was as if you could float away but you were too heavy and weighed down to get up and move, even if you absolutely had to move for whatever reason you don't think you could have. 

“Goodnight Wilbur, love you.” You mumbled into your pillow  “Sweet dreams.” 

[the-mandalorian-clone-lover]

Aces in Spaces Chapter 3

Hey everyone! I think my plan going forward will be to post new chapters on Mondays so in light of that, here’s the next one! 

Summary: Roman gives Butcher the run down and explanation of Asexuality and how it pertains to Erica, warning for excessive cuteness from both. This takes place within a week of the last chapter.

(Chapter 2 can be found here and Chapter 1 here)

Tags: @princessxkenobi @sunshinepascal @rentskenobi @maybege @obaby-wan

If anyone else would like to be tagged let me know?

“Butcher, Erica is an Asexual”. The other man blinks at him and he realizes this may not be an easy fix. “It means, she doesn’t experience sexual attraction.” He takes the moment that the other man spends in confusion to turn on the projector on the table and stands so he can see the slides and Butch in the same space. The first slide is the only opening template that Microsoft power point had that didn’t make him want to roll his eyes so hard they rolled back into his skull, but now that he’s standing in front of Butch he’s convinced it really was just as bad as the others. ‘Asexuality, what it means, what it’s like, and what our response should be’ is written across it in big bolded letters and he takes comfort in the fact that Butch has always been a good listener before, and certainly seems to like Erica, so he should have his attention. He clicks to the next slide, intent on making sure not a single detail is missed, he starts to read the definition he’d gotten of the internet before turning to Butch.

“Did you read the title? I suppose since it’s the two of us this could be more of a discussion, it’ll have to be a briefing when I give it to the boys.”

Butch’s thoughtful face hasn’t uncrumpled itself, nor have his eyes left the screen but Roman’s patient, this is important and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to help Erica.

Butcher closes his mouth to purse his lips before speaking. “So, she likes you for your personality?”

Roman shrugs “I know. I was surprised too.” He says it casually and Butch huffs a laugh, Roman pauses before joining him, it is a funny thought, for how many people have told him he’s incredibly disagreeable. Assuming Butch has absorbed the definition on the screen he continues. “I’ve known for a little while now, but I wanted to be sure she was comfortable coming out before I briefed everyone.”

Butcher nods again. “How do we, is she like a nun?” he leans forward to emphasize the question and Roman turns back to the screen taking a breath.

“Well, that’s the thing. Asexuality is a spectrum, there’s a lot of different types.”

“Like a box of chocolates.” Butch says sagely, and Roman considers it before nodding

“Yes, well. I suppose so. The common denominator is that they don’t experience sexual attraction. Some still enjoy sex, some only with certain people, and some not at all, those are sex-repulsed.” He clicks the button to switch slides again, “Let’s outline the different types of attraction quickly.”

Butch is nodding again, “Yeah, that’s a good start”

“Sexual attraction is wanting to have sex with someone” Roman says it despite how crass it sounds and carries on “Platonic attraction, is wanting to be friends with someone. Aesthetic attraction is thinking something is pretty, wanting to look at it, a painting maybe.” He pauses, having gone through a slide for each definition that featured the pictures he thought best explained each and a few that Erica had suggested in her edits. He turns to Butch “I’d like to add this isn’t all inclusive by any means, I’m still learning, which is why I found a support group that I’d like to start going to, I don’t think I’ll need a guard but you do like to be aware of my schedule.” He turns back to the screen to resume before Butch cuts in, eyes never leaving the slide. “I’ll be along with you then, can’t let you wander around the city alone.”

Roman almost wants to ask if Butch heard what he said but the man says it with such a finality that he doesn’t see the point in arguing. “Well, in general, since Aces, that’s another name for them, don’t experience this attraction, it’s quite common for things that allude to it to go over their heads. The car ride earlier this week for example, Erica hadn’t meant to approach me in that way and was incredibly confused when you left.”

Butcher now looks horrified “Oh, Boss, I never meant—”

Roman shakes his head “She took no offense, it’s just not a place her mind goes.”

The sentiment obviously does little to comfort Butcher and he says as much before adding “I feel like I called her, a, well a whore Boss. I never ever would do a thing like that—” Butcher’s gentle upbringing where women are concerned is making itself known and Roman really needs to send his mother a ‘thank you’ card because it really does help them work well together. “She didn’t feel that way about it at all, I’m mostly telling you this so you can watch for if others try to suggest things to her.” Butcher’s face clears a little in understanding before Roman goes on “She’s handled herself extremely well before knowing me, we both know that, but, well, if someone is getting, well you know, and she isn’t understanding then just get rid of them, yes?”

Butcher’s face is now completely serious and even a little threatening “Consider it done Boss.”

Roman maintains his business demeanor but inside he’s positively thrilled, this is going even better than he thought. “Now I want to talk about Erica specifically, she told me a bit about how she fits into the ace spectrum and its vital for our forward plan.” He hopes Butcher is appreciating that he’s using the same format they do when they discuss upcoming business meetings and the protocols necessary for each one (location, parties involved, and prior contact, etc.) because this really is just as important to him as business. This next part is going to be the hardest though, he spent a whole night on it, because how exactly do you talk about someone’s sex life (or lack thereof) and not make it seem demeaning or judgmental or any other terrible thing? In the end he’d thrown himself on Erica’s mercy and asked how she’d prefer it to be done. He’d even offered to let her come talk to Butch herself, but she had told him she was certain Butch wouldn’t judge her.

“Now, without invading her privacy, she is an ace; so, I want to keep sex related things away from her as best we can. No dirty jokes, no crude gestures, no crass people if we can help it.”

Butch is nodding along with each condition and Roman wants to breathe a sigh of relief because being vague was the best way he knew to keep her dignity. “Any questions?” Butch pauses and shakes his head before pausing again and opening his mouth “Are there, slurs, we should know? Like, if someone calls her a nun, do we get to hit them?”

Roman beams. “That’s my next topic.” He clicks the remote again and he’s suddenly realizing he missed clicking buttons, Butcher usually gives these briefings as the head of security, have to file that away for later. “Some responses aces get when they come out is that they just haven’t met the right person, they’re a later bloomer, or that they haven’t had sex with the right people. Obviously, all of these are incredibly insensitive and downright rude. If someone says these things, feel free to immediately remove them from the premises.” Now its Butcher’s turn to beam, and Roman clicks the remote again “On a lighter note, some aces really prefer food to sex and this definitely applies to Erica. She has said, and I quote, ‘sex may be great but have people ever tried beefy 5-layer burritos?’. Aces also seem to have claimed dragons as their mascot, big ones, little ones, all colors, wings or not, dragons are where it’s at.” The slide for this section is a collage of dragons and when he’d seen Erica light up at viewing it, he’s so glad he included it.

Butcher interrupts his daydreaming with a raised hand “Are stuffed dragons acceptable?”

Roman smiles, “Yes, Erica loves small soft things. I, however, am an outlier and should not be counted.”

Butch snorts at this but Roman decides to ignore him. “As always, it’s no one’s business what she and I do together, but if someone does start giving her a hard time about this, I want you to step in. Only if she gives you a direct signal not to, should you wait.” Roman pauses then, giving an amused hum “but, if she does do that, that means she’s already got a plan to absolutely destroy the person herself so stick around for the fun because that gorgeous woman knows her way around a good insult.”

Butcher furrows his brow at this, “Are you allowed to say that? Can you, say things about her, physical, ness?”

Roman pauses before answering because this was a conversation he’d had with Erica after she came out. He had called her sexy once before and noticed the small bit of hesitation before she had smiled and changed the subject. When he brought it up in light of coming out, she had said she didn’t want to lead him on. She knew her body fit under society’s definition of ‘sexy’, but she didn’t have any intentions of performing the action, so she shied away from the designation. He’d tried to compensate afterward, only complementing her personality or intelligence before Erica had once again set him down and said she didn’t mind being told she was pretty, he’d taken the moment to ask if this meant he could compliment her aesthetically instead of sexually? She had grabbed in him in a hug. He learned this was one of her favorite words and that yes, she would be thrilled to receive compliments on her aesthetic. It’s this sentiment that he conveys to Butch, though he isn’t sure he likes the idea of Butch complimenting her. He swallows the jealousy though, he’s an adult and so is she, he trusts Butch, and Erica, and that extends to conversations they may have.

“I don’t plan to butter her up boss, just looking to make sure I understand all the circumstances that warrant the use of force.” Butch affirms calmly and Roman knows it’s the truth, he scolds himself for thinking otherwise.

“I want to move on to something else that I think is important to mention. There is another sexuality called Aromantic. It means that someone doesn’t experience romantic attraction. Erica defined romantic attraction as ‘I would slow dance in the kitchen with that person in my pajamas as we wait for coffee in the morning’. While it is possible for someone to be both Aromantic and Asexual, aro/ace is the abbreviation, Erica is not. She has said she does experience romantic attraction. Albeit very rarely.” Roman softens a bit picturing himself and Erica in the scenario he’s just described, it’s warm, easy, and while it’s probably too soon to ask her to move in so they can share their mornings, he’s definitely jotting slow dancing down for a date idea. He forces himself back to the present again and fixes Butch with a look “Any questions?”

Butch leans back in his chair and folds his massive arms across his chest as much as his jacket allows before pursing his lips and narrowing his eyes again. “This support group you mentioned, where’s that at?”

Roman clicks the remote again, this slide has a map of about five city blocks as well as the floor plan of the local library that is adjoined to the community center (he may find some of the security briefings a little too detailed but he knows what essentials Butch likes to have by now). “it’s at the local community center, heard about it on the internet” He leaves out that he spent four hours looking for one before he found a random Facebook post about it on the fourth page of chrome results but he figures his dedication is obvious either way at this point. Butch is already typing on his phone, no doubt tasking someone with retrieving more information about the whole affair.

“Do you want a scout to go in first?”

“No” Roman has already thought about this, the likelihood of it being a setup is pretty slim, and he wants to keep the business part of his life out of this as much as he can, for the sake of the other attendees. “I think it’s safe enough to go ahead.”

“Date? Time?”

“Fridays, noon, and its usually about an hour but I’d like to clear the whole afternoon indefinitely”

Butch nods along to the sentence, still typing on his phone before finishing and putting it back into his coat. “Anything else I should know?”

“Yes, I want you to schedule a meeting with the rest of the team, anyone who’ll interact with Erica, I don’t intend for there to be any misunderstandings.”

Butcher grimaces at that, “I really didn’t mean to upset her about that boss, any chance I can apologize for that?”

Roman knows Erica would say it was unnecessary, maybe even brush Butcher off, but he also wants her to know he’s taking the utmost care (Butch is too) to make sure she’s comfortable; so he nods before answering “I know she isn’t offended, but I wouldn’t mind if you did”. It has the potential to build trust between them if nothing else, and if Erica decides she wants to stick around, trusting Butcher will be integral to that process.

[thorne93]

The Softest Fire (Part 7)

Prompt: Rosaline Vaughan had it all: fame, money, power, glory, a high status job. Until, one day, she woke up, and realized something was missing from her life.

Word Count: 1575

Warnings: dealing with animals(??)

Notes: First Fantastic Beast fic! I could NOT have done this at all without @arrow-guy. They have created a counterpart to this fic, writing it from Nora Vaughan’s perspective (Rosaline’s cousin/adopted sister). Fic aesthetic done by @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo​.

We were at the alchemists home. Newt and I had just finished taking care of the zouwu, trying to calm it. Once that was done, we ascended the steps and I stood in the living room of the house, peering around when a commotion from upstairs hit. I frowned, glancing to Nora. 

“What was that?” I wondered. 

“Jacob probably getting into something.” Nora’s gaze met Tina’s. “Tina, we should go check on him.” 

Tina began nodding when I frowned at my cousin. She gave Newt a pointed look and shooed me towards him. My heart skipped a beat as I realized what she was referring to. With a thumbs up, she turned to catch up to Tina.

I took a few steps away from Newt, checking to see if the two women were out of earshot -- they were. 

I wondered if now really should be the time I shared something that had been brewing in my mind since Tina had shown up. It would be now or never with the increasing risks and dangers that were piling up against us.

“Rather odd turn of events, hmm?” Newt questioned.

But I wasn’t in any mood for small talk, not right now, not with what we were facing. I took a deep breath, my heart racing faster than it ever had, palms sweating. 

“Newt, I’m about to tell you something and I feel my timing is terrible but I may not get another chance… so here goes nothing.” I stared at him, hoping I had his undivided attention. “I’m in love with you. Have been for a long time. It took talking to Nora to realize what I was feeling. I found out a few months after you left for your voyage. I planned on telling you the day you came home but you were so excited about Tina I didn’t tell you. I couldn’t rip your happiness away for my own.” 

He stared at me, his face unreadable. 

“I know my timing is awful. I know you feel for Tina, how deeply, I’m not sure. But I’ve been keeping my feelings for you inside for two years, and I just can’t do it anymore just because Tina is here. You have a right to know, and I have a right to get this off my chest…” 

He was quiet a moment, so I continued.

“I understand if you don’t feel the same, I don’t expect you to. I feel like if you had any feelings for me at all, by now you would’ve said something… If I’m wrong, let me know.”

All he did was frown though, his teeth playing with his lips for a moment. He appeared in a conflicted state of thought, so I waited. I was giving him a second to process this, but after several moments, I got the hint. 

I shook my head, biting my lip. “It’s okay, Newt. You don’t have to say anything. We’ve known each other a long time, grown pretty close in these last six years, I think. I’ve seen your heart break and I couldn’t do anything about it, even though I wanted to. So if you felt the same, I think you would’ve said something before now. Just thought you should know how I feel, but I don’t want to be a last resort.” 

I thought I heard a creak on the stairs so I stopped, shaking my head. 

Fantastic, I had just made an ass out of myself for apparently no reason at all. Now Newt knew how I truly felt, so it would inevitably be awkward working together, if he didn’t fire me, that is. Well, at least I could move on now. This was it, the final straw. I’d waited very patiently, but this was just ridiculous at this point. 

A second later, Nora, Tina, and Jacob hit the landing of the stairs. 

“We should go to the ministry,” Newt suddenly said, breaking the tension that hung thick in the air. 

“I’m going with you,” Tina and I said at the same time. I couldn’t help the cold stare that came from my gaze as my face whipped to hers. She eyed me up and down quickly, gathering courage to square her shoulders.

“How about I divvy the teams?” Nora offered. “I go with Tina and Newt, you stay here and protect Jacob and the man from earlier.” 

“And why am I staying behind?” I demanded in a cool voice. 

Nora raised one eyebrow, smirking. “Because you’re our best line of defense. One of you is worth three of us.” 

I straightened my posture, standing taller, tilting my chin upwards. “I can’t argue with you there. Very well then. I’ll stay with them…”

“Good, we should get going,” Nora encouraged. Without another word, the three of them left, each of them doling out a different look at me. Tina’s was weary, Newt’s was unreadable, and Nora’s was one of warning. 

As soon as we were alone, I could almost feel Jacob staring at me from the side as I examined the alchemist’s library collection. 

“So uh… You’re like super powerful, huh?” he asked, seeming nervous.

“I suppose, yes,” I answered, not looking towards him. 

“My girl Queenie’s nothin’ sniff at either. She found me a block away one time just ‘cause I was thinkin’ about her.” 

Immediately, I turned my head and looked at him. “Your girl’s power is incredibly handy.” My gaze returned to the shelves as I admitted, “Wouldn’t mind having it myself.”

Jacob made a face. “Nah, I don't think anyone would want it. Stresses her out more often than not. Big crowds are a problem for her.” 

My body pivots to face him once more. I look him up and down, a sad expression coloring my face. “I imagine it would feel lonely, and hard to control... Hearing thoughts you may not want to hear..." I snapped myself out of the path I was heading down. "Nonetheless, an impressive offensive power. I don't tend to have many people around me anyway, so reading minds probably wouldn't become overwhelming for me. Queenie seems very... empathetic though. She must absorb a lot of emotion around her, I bet that wears on her."

“Yeah, hearing all those voices is rough for her…” He seemed to look off in a far place for a moment.

A sad smile pulled at my lips. “You’ll find her. We will get her back. She’s very strong. You are too. Not many muggles could handle this sort of world and not snap or call it complete lunacy.” 

“Believe me, some days I still think I’m dreamin’ or in a looney bin somewhere,” he stated with a laugh. 

I joined him with a chuckle. “No, you’re very much awake and sane. Remember, Queenie needs you too. Women talk about being angry, talk about needing space, but I think deep down, all they want is their beloved to stop them and beg them to stay. It’s nice to know you’re wanted.” I smiled softly down at the floor in thought. 

“Thanks...I think I needed to hear that…” 

I nodded softly, granting him a smile before he said he was going to sit down a second. I excused myself to go upstairs and make sure everything was alright up there. I was gone for maybe five minutes, returning downstairs to see that the mysterious man was gone and Jacob was asleep. 

“Jacob!” I cried out, anger barely touching my tone. “Where did the man go?”

He snapped awake. “Huh? Hmm? Oh, jeez. I feel asleep. I’m sorry.”

I shook my head. “It’s fine. It’s not your fault. It’s mine. Merlin, years as an auror and hit witch and I can’t keep someone detained properly any more…” With that, I heard the click of the front door. I spun to see a rather old man, so old he started to appear paper like. “Hello, is this your home?” I asked evenly.

“Yes, I do. I’m Nicolas Flamel,” he informed, reaching forward. I took his hand delicately, followed by Jacob who held his hand a little too hard.

“So nice to meet you. I hope it’s alright we came in. My friends and I were in trouble and Dumbledore said we could use this as a safehouse,” I explained quickly.

“Mmm, yes, he told me someone may be dropping by.”

“Ah, good. It’s great to finally meet you. I’d heard about you in my studies, at Hogwarts.” 

Nicolas started to make his way over to his work area in the front of the flat. “That’s flattering,” he noted. 

The three of us chatted a bit more, even allowing me a glance at the Philosopher’s stone in his safe, a very peculiar item indeed. Just as I was about to ask Nicolas about working with me on some potions, his crystal ball seemed to start to glow and he made his way towards it, followed by Jacob and myself. 

“What is it?” I questioned, peering at it. “What’s happ--” 

But then we saw it, rapid flashes of imagery that was far from ideal. 

My face snapped up. “Where is this? How do I get there?” I demanded quickly. 

“The Lestrange Mausoleum,” he informed, looking worried. 

I nodded and grabbed Jacob’s hand. “We need to go. Now. Thank you so much, Mr. Flamel. You’ve been a wonderful host.” I grabbed Nicholas's hand hastily before Jacob, and we apparated out of his home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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[one-of-us-must-be-crazy]

I gotta. I just gotta... 23...

“We have to be quiet.”

this is pretty not okay for reading in public and I’m on some serious cold meds. Good Luck! AND I AM SORRY.

Layover at Gateway Station wasn’t on the booking information for their vacation to Mars. The only active resort on the budding colony for tourism rather than general agriculture development. But there was a beautiful and crystal clear blue ocean, with stellar entertainment, and Amanda had never been to Mars.

It’s not a honeymoon, he wants to think, continues to think as an annoyed Amanda starts unpacking her suitcase in their cramped cabin that made the officer’s quarters on the Torrens look like luxury. But this is their first vacation since Davis had broken into Luna’s government archives to slip in false documents for him, for them both, including a marriage certificate. Amanda Tei Ripley-McClaren and a Christopher Samuel McClaren. “We’ve got the last name of your stupid typo, be glad I love you.” Didn’t matter, not really, not to either of them.

“You’re only going to have to pack that up again in a couple days.”

“And until then, I want something nicer to sleep in,” she fishes out a crumpled wad of pink tissue paper, and he watches intently as she shoves them into a shower caddy and takes her robe from the case too.

“Where are you going?”

“Showers.”

“Why?”

“Well we’re stuck here for a full twenty-four hours,”

“Only another twenty,”

“I want to freshen up.”

“Okay…” 

An hour and she still isn’t back, hopefully washing off her annoyance. He writes a little, in the nice leather journal with the antique fountain pen Amanda had gifted him the previous holiday. The light’s low in the cabin but his eyes don’t need too much. There’s a slight reflection off of the new-gold of his wedding ring. Wedding ring. Something like that should never be placed on something like him, but here he was, his nature both ever present and something only vaguely brought to the surface when necessary. 

The door clicked open with a slight hiss and a slide, and Amanda walked in. He could tell from the sound of her footfall, the rate of her breath and heart, exactly who it was. He’d know her approach fully blinded and possibly even deaf. 

But he wasn’t deaf now, and his hearing picked up the soft plush sound of her robe hitting the floor. 

“Amy?”

“Yes?”

So this was what she wanted to keep wrapped in the gaudy paper while he was packing. True, he infinitely preferred her in nothing at all, but she liked this…prelude, these rituals to romance. Black straps of some shiny material criss-crossed her cleavage and nearly-flat stomach, hooking into maddening patterns of more crisscrossing over lace shorts that left little to wonder–not that he had to, with perfect fidelity memories of her in every state of dress and situation. Her black painted nails on display flat against the door behind her, eyeliner on too–not that he particularly cared, again, one way or another about her aesthetic choices, he wasn’t conditioned that way, and found her, in any healthy form, appealing for her own sake, but this was a lovely shift from her short-fused anger from earlier in the day.

“Christopher?”

He takes one more full moment to drink this view  in, her sharp lines and soft curves the lace panels of the top over her breasts connected with corset hooks. Human hands would tear them, but he could still make quick and careful work of them.

“Yes?” gods, the shadows playing on her skin along with all those alien lines was wreaking havoc in his visual processing and he loved it.

“Do you like it?”

“That…is an absolutely…ridiculous question.” It occurs to him, that this was her attempting to seduce him, and some hiccup of warmth boils in his chest. He’d blush if he could, but he can’t, and Amanda’s cheeks get a touch rosy in a way he thinks suits her fantastically. 

“How long do you want me to keep them on?” her cocky smile could decommission him. Two years together, and he’s not sure how it hasn’t yet.

“But I thought–”

“That I promised we’d actually get out some on this trip?” she bit her lip to keep from smiling too widely. 

“Yes. That. When we stayed at that cabin on Terra, we spent….most of it indoors.”

“Not fair, entirely, if it didn’t snow so badly, it wouldn’t have been so bad.”

“Bad wasn’t the word for it…” he doesn’t know a word for what that had been, the snow was terrible, fine, but four days trapped indoors with her, he vaguely recalls Odysseys being stranded on the island of a sea goddess. Amanda would laugh if he tells her though, and he says nothing. 

“Well, why don’t we just get it out of our systems now?” She trails her finger tips down the outfit, if the collection of lace and cords could be called as such, and goosebumps rise on her soft flesh as he takes a step closer. 

“I wouldn’t mind a few late mornings between our excursions once we’re there,”

“Good. But now I’m really worked up and I fought myself into this fucking thing, and the surprise is ruined,” her eyes change from playful to full of some softer emotion that drills into him. “I want you.”

“Take me,” he says, half unaware of what he said, but his hands don’t start on her corset hooks before she has his belt undone and pants open, her hand down his boxers and wrapped around his stiffening length. Her hand moves slowly up and down a couple times, before he frees her from the top half of the outfit, and shoves, a little rougher than he would have liked to admit, the pants part down. Forcing off his shoes and kicking his pants off while he groans that her hands abandonned their previous efforts in favor of working off his shirt, his kisses her hard, a hand on her lower back, another on the back of her neck.

She squeaks at it, almost instinct now, but lets it go; it doesn’t bother her to be touched there anymore, at least not by him. 

Any upper hand he hoped to get is gone, her tongue in his mouth and her hands on his chest pushing him onto their blessedly double bunk. 

“Are you ready?” she asks, kissing his earlobe and down his neck. “Becuase I’m pretty sure that I am,”

“I am,” static already creeping into his voice, and he’s a little afraid at how long he’ll last; she eases onto him, slow enough that it’s maddening, and he gives up trying to stop the groan at the feeling of her soft, hot, and very wet inside. Her hands trace gently over his chest as she tenses around him.

“Amy–��� he sees her abdominal muscles ripple slightly looking up at her, as she starts to move on him, he’ll do something for her next, something nice, something, “Oh, hell, please keep—that’s it…” she lifts herself up until he’s almost out of her, teasing possibly, going by the look on her flushed face, but he bucks up to her again, prompting a slight gasp in reply that he likes the sound of very much.

“You….” she moaned, strangely, almost silently, when she’s usually not held back around him, not vocally, not anymore. “We,” she said through gritted teeth as she started to move on him again, “have to be quiet.”

“Amy–I don’t give a fuck what the neighbors hear,”

“Sexy, but I don’t want to lose this cabin.”

“…ooh. Fair,” he knots a hand in the back of her grown-out hair as she bends forward to kiss him, grinding gently as she does, coaxing stifled and static-ridden moans from his mouth into hers. “You….” he can’t think exactly what he was about to say, what he wanted to say, but his edge seems closer than hers and it won’t do. She rises back upright on him and he tries to lean up a little as well, reaching to just above where they’re joined, to rub circles around her clit.

“Chrissss, this was supposed to be–” she puts her weight onto her hands on his shoulders and pushes him back down, closing her eyes and lips against another pleased sigh as the angle shifts. “–for you.” 

“And I love the feeling of your climax,” she was still just long enough for him to start rocking back up into her, earning him a low purr. 

“fuck. I’m–” she can’t fake one, hasn’t ever to him, and hasn’t in general since she was an underclassman in college. She’s close to the real thing though, and rolls her hips hard against him, feeling his cock throb inside her, close, his admittedly generous design fits her like he was a custom make. “Harder,”

The sound of a broken motor comes from his throat along with growl that sounds as if he turned down his audio volume rather than trying to keep quiet; in one inhumanly quick motion he’s sat up and turned them over, Amanda’s gasp of shock the loudest noise they’ve made so far. 

Another, gravelly whisper at her ear, “tell me if this is too hard,” he drives into her even as she’s still trying to lock her ankles around his hips and she gives up, gives in, pushing back up against him at a pace that’s more her favorite than his.

“Oh….oh…oh fuck.” she tries to hold to his torso, tries to get a grip on him, on time and space in general but he’s got two years of data, of trial and error down to a fine science to undo her, and his soft kisses on her throat don’t match the rougher pace he’s been leading, but his moans are urged back out from her nails down his back, artificial muscles tensed under skin that feels so natural to her she’d probably recoil from the touch of human flesh.

She crashes in a rush, turning her head into the pillow to stifle the sounds, and as she feels him slow, feels him easing up, but he’s not there yet himself. 

“Keep going,” it’s overwhelming, too much, so much she’s seconds from telling him to stop when his head falls into the crook of her shoulder, his audio silenced; she wished she had gotten to hear his final reactions, but he slows down farther, and rests.

“Hell, Amanda….” his voice sounds like a radio with tinny reception but it turns her back on in a second; she’s the only one to hear his vocals react like this, it’s something between them, private. Her legs tighten around him, and he lets a little more of his weight on her.

“Good?”

“Fantastic, love…” he says with wonder, as if this hasn’t happened for weeks, not days.

“If we can stay quiet–”

“You mean if you can stay quiet?” he smirks down at her and she playfully pushes at him, and he rolls off her, lying next to her for a second before gathering her close, his arms around her waist, chest to her back, and face in her sweet smelling hair. 

“Not fair, I can’t turn off my voice–but if we can stay quiet..”

“Yes?” he bids her to continue, nudging her hair aside to kiss the back of her neck.

“Want to try it on the desk next?”

She feels his answer at her back and grins.

[slowgo123]

Persona 5 Familiar AU

@ren-amamiyaa (hope you don’t mind me tagging you since you were interrested in the AU)

This will be just a more in detail post from the AU I brought up.

This AU was created and developed by me and my friend @oracle-nila. 

More under the “read more” because this is long because I don’t know when to stop

The basic idea behind it is that each of the PT’s persona have an animal form they use in the real world to follow around their user, look after them, give them advice or be a be a nuisance if they want to be.

Each of the persona’s can only be understood by persona users, normal people will only hear animal sounds. Each persona has the general needs of the animal they are and not taking proper care of them can affect fighting inside the Metaverse, meaning that each Phantom Thief has to properly research of how to take care of their respective animal. Depending on animal and personality they are varying degrees of hard to keep alive, they can get sick and even “die”.

Death is not that permanent for Persona. A Persona dying in the real world means that they will be unable to be used for a short while and be weaker than normal until growing back to full strenght. During this time the user of the respective Persona will also be affected, they suffer from a lack of energy and will be pretty tired, their Persona dying will also cause an emotional imbalance. (Using persona uses SP more often then not which is pretty much “mental energy” or at least it’s referred to such in pq  so I think it makes sense for their death to affect their user mentally)

Now I’ll just go into detail about each persona for a bit:                                           Also hope no one is bothered my unrealistic desings and hhhh art abwfk also tumblr sucks and likes to resize images so rip me

Arsene:

Arsene is a Raven (not a crow as some heathens from shujin would like to make you believe) I mostly made him one because of Arsene’s majestic wings (also fun fact: a group of ravens is called an unkindness or a conspiracy)

Arsene stays around Ren 24/7 having a habit if sitting on him (I mean Ren’s hair is basically a nest awnflfw) which confuses some students at Shujin and does bother some of the teachers (though I can’t recommend trying to throw a piece of chalk at him)

He is smaller than the average raven making it easy to mistake him for a crow

He also has the habit of stealing things from students at Shujin (he steals a lot of different things, mostly food, but he has stolen a wallet before)

He’s also a pretty good spy if need be

It isn’t suprising to see Mona or Loki get annoyed with him (he does get along with Carmen tho so not the entire cat squat wants him dead awfbkbw)

Zorro:

[ He’s a small bug and I didn’t have the energy to make a desing for him so there’s nothing here]

Zorro is a mosquito. Why you ask? because he reminded me of a mosquito when I first saw him and was 100% convinced he looked like one. (and because it’s funny)

He is the most fragile of all of the Persona (even if he says otherwise) this is used to tease him most of the time

Zorro is a male mosquito so he doesn’t drink any blood, though that doesn’t mean that that everyone isn’t going to be worried if he were to complain about hunger

Stays in Mona’s fur most of the time for safety reasons

Kidd:

Kidd is dog, more specifically a border collie. The border collie is a dog breed originating from the scottish border, we thought it’d fit more than some other dog breeds because: scottish breed - scottish pirate

Both eyes work fine, but he has the eye patch because pirate aesthetic

also has a scar on his right hind leg but my idiot butt didn’t reallly make any kind of ref for how the scar looks and didn’t really draw it in the only drawing I have of him

Carmen:

Carmen is a calico cat and also extremely fluffy

She’s a little taller than Mona

She often comes to school with Ann and charms people into giving her food (she’s quite talented at it)

She uses her close connection to Ann to her advantage when she can by manipulating Morgana or making small deals with him (that almost always end up with her not actually holding up her end of the deal)

Goemon:

Goemon is a ferret and possibly the least realistic and most colorful desing of all of them

[haha he hasn’t actuallly gotten that much development]

Johanna:

[also hasn’t gotten a proper desing/drawing made yet]

Johanna is a swan

HONK HONK

one of the least convinient persona to care for since Makoto not only has to explain to Sae why a swan keeps following her around at some point, but also is way too big or heavy to be carried via bag (though the latter thing could also be said about all of the other bigger/heavier persona)

Makoto can usually be found around the park because of her persona

Makoto is team mom and I’m 100% convinced Johanna is team mom for all of the persona

Necronomicon:

Neccie is a bat (the desing was based of a brown bat specifically)

They’re nobinary and I’d give my life for them

Futaba and Neccie have both terrible sleep schedules due to both staying up when they should be sleeping (being the only nocturnal one of the group is hard)

They try to make Futaba go to bed at more resonable times, but often get too invested in whatever Futaba is doing at the time

They also like cuddling (which is good with Futaba’s tendency to manhandle animals)

has a tendecy to swear when angry

Milady:

Milady is a fox, looks cute but can be still quite dangerous (her desing is mostly based of a red fox)

[she also hasn’t gotten much development, sadly]

Robin Hood:

[doesn’t have a desing yet]

Robin is a golden retriever (golden retriever RH ftw)

He is trying his best to help Akechi (he has gotten both gotten the nickname of “Akechi’s self control” and “what’s left of Akechi’s moral compass” by me)

He actually likes to cuddle

Robin is also larger than the average golden retriever

Robin and Loki can bud heads from time to time, but they can still get along

Robin urges and tries to get Loki to interact with the other Persona whenever he can

has a habit of picking up Loki by the neck when needed

He also follows Akechi during bike rides (being a dog means that he needs proper daily exercise)

Loki:

Loki is cat, he’s a lot bigger than the average cat and is a short hair. (and also gets second place in least realistic desing) 

I like describe the relationship between Loki, Robin and Akechi as: Loki gets Akechi in trouble and Robin tries to get him out if it

He has the habit of pushing stuff of tables, annoy Akechi and in general be the asshole cat he was meant to be.

He likes to play the tsundere game strong

He avoids social interaction most of the time

He can be a bit chaotic and mischievous, you know, trickster god and all

He has the highest death count of all of the persona (suprising seeing how one of them is a mosquito)

Welp, now with the basic info about the persona and how the entire familiar thing works I might aswell go a little more into detail about scenarios and story and other shenanigans.

Akechi in this AU is found out way more quickly, at least the multiple persona and that he has a persona part, making him join the party earlier than in canon.

He is pretty much the first person they got to when they have questions on the whole persona thing since he had to deal with Loki and Robin for quite a while now. For example, if a persona were to get sick and they don’t know if it’d be better they can ask Akechi about or maybe even ask questions about how the whole “death” thing works. (how helpful he actually is can depend on the question and situation awnfljf)

Further on the topic of Akechi, he doesn’t get as strong of an effect if one of his persona then rest of the PT (because he only has one dead and the other is still alive), but if somehow both die he will barely be alive, because the effect is way stronger than the any of the PT would have. His brain would be short circuiting while the extreme exhaustion would make him almost pass out the entire time. (and let’s not forget that Robin and Loki are pretty much his only proper emotional support that he can genuinly talk to)

Btw, the first time Loki died was a shitshow, because that was during Akechi being really lonely and still young having no idea they could just “come back”. 

The general story wouldn’t actually change that much give or take a few death and persona related shenanigans, even with Akechi getting to be part of the PT earlier and getting to know all of them better than in canon.

The interrigation room pretty much plays out exactly like canon with Robin being a good amount of disappointed that it had to end like this.

Later on while Loki is off on his own when Akechi, Robin and him where somewhere near the Diet building he notices the PT being a lot more active than they should be and aproaches then, realizing that Ren is actually alive, he makes sure to try and dissuade them from continueing doing what they’re doing, which ends up with Loki killing Arsene and then just legging it, trying to weaken their leader before getting the news what’s going on to Akechi asap.

Akechi is super worried at how bloody Loki is and it takes a moment to click what Loki is telling him. Akechi enters Shido’s palace and the traitor fight happens a bit earlier in the palace than in canon, meaning that they aren’t in that cursed boiler room. Cognitive Akechi shows and instead of any kind of sacrifices being made the PT just beats the shit out of it. (also I like to think that Ren can still use persona even with Arsene having freshly died, just that attacks take a lot more energy and he has to struggle with the effects)

From then on Akechi join the PT again and the awkward, tense road to redemption is now opened to him (with Loki having to apologize for killing Arsene)

Also might I also say that through my endless need to insert Shuake into everything I make, just imagine their persona trying to be their respective wingman/men, Robin would have good intentions, but I’m mostly conviced that if anything Loki would just use knowing about the crush to be a little shit.

PS: thing that that nila noticed was that Arsene was a raven and that’s really similiar to a crow and I’m sure there’s something you connect with crow and Loki a cat and there’s a certain character people often compare to a cat.

Alright, I don’t know what to add currently so I think this is it for now until I decide to maybe edit it incase I make some more proper desings and/or this AU gets more developed [edit 1] fixed problem 

[pinkchannies]

cheesier than cheesecake

i got inspired to write this on my 5 hours flight to hong kong bcz i ate cake on my way to the airport and miraculously wrote this on my flight in one go

also heading to hong kong eh wink wink nudge nudge @ agust d //slapped

well here's a jin oneshot because kim seokjin is my number one man and bias in bts and we need some shoulder man love in our lives amirite

laksndowxjoe i couldn't post this earlier bECAUSE WIFI AND MY COM WASN'T COOPERATING :(( sob well ok here i am posting it now LMAO bless wifi pls live

genre:  fluff , is this considered comedy, crack has slipped into this fic again

requested:  no 

pairing:  seokjin x reader

author notes: reader is a baking/walking disaster bcz mood, jin screaming and being a mama hen, idk how i wrote this in just one flight, chiru probably needs creative writing classes at this point, how do you come up with good titles

----------

the clock read, 2.09am. i groaned. it was one of those days again. or rather, one of those nights. of grueling hunger and cravings. and there was one way to solve it(or make it worse) without actually eating. though it may not be the best way. do u kno da wae-chiru get out i snatched my phone from my bedside table and loaded instagram, heading straight to the buzzfeedtasty instagram account. yes, tasty. the number one guilty pleasure where their food looks so good even with the simplest ingrediants, and when you recreate it it somehow looks like shit. or maybe i'm just a shitty cook. or maybe plating food to make it look aesthetically pleasing is just that difficult. or maybe both. to "satisfy" this sudden craving for sweets, i started watching videos of their deserts. god help me they look so good. the way the cream cheese blends with sugar and turns into a smooth white paste under the electric mixer, with heavy cream added to that mix and that generous teaspoon of vanilla essence that you can literally smell (jin: mMMMm sMELL) through your phone, those cheesecakes and oreos and cream and just all that fattening goodness- y'all this whole instagram account is straight up porn. i already feel fat just by watching these videos. but i'm still hungry af. the struggle is hella real who else can relate "ughhhhhh i wanna bake these godlike creations but i'm scared that i'll accidentally blow up my kitchen..." i groaned into my pillow. yeah, i’m a bit of a walking disaster, luckily i haven't reached namjoon's level. i think. one time my cookies almost turned out spicy because i was cooking spicy noodles at the same time. please don't ask. someone please just buy me a huge cheesecake to binge eat whilst i cry over my bad life decisions, one of which would be eating a whole 1542 calorie cheesecake at the asscrack of dawn. an imaginary or rather, imajinary-chiru stob light bulb went off from my head. there was one man made for this situation. one shoulder man, to be exact. i clicked on the contact "worldwide shoulders" and started typing.

(y/n) 2.30am

shoulder man take me by the hand lead me to the land that u understand

worldwide shoulders 2.35am

ya, its like 2.30am, shouldn't you be asleep? don't make me confiscate your phone

(y/n) 2.35am

sorry mom

worldwide shoulders 2.36am

yA tHIs chILd what's up, u usually don't text this late

(y/n) 2.37am

r u free tmr i wanna bake cheesecake pretty please

worldwide shoulders 2.38am

what a *cheesy* date if i do say so myself

(y/n) 2.38am

jIN its too early for puns :(

worldwide shoulders 2.39am

excuse you my puns are jinius

(y/n) 2.39am

SO cAN U BAKE WITH ME TMR :((( well actually it’ll be later today pls i owe u one

worldwide shoulders 2.40am

fine make sure u have the stuff ready, i'll come over at 10 go sleep its late

(y/n) 2.41am

yAY THANKS JINNIE

worldwide shoulders 2.41am

EXCUSE ME I AM OLDER THAN U (y/n) 2.42am :p see u tmr!! gnite shoulder man *finger heartu* worldwide shoulders 2.43am the disrespect i swear ----- "jin this is too tiring..." i groaned, my arms aching. "just a little bit more... just beat it harder." "look, must i really use my hands for this?" i whined. jin deadpanned. "(y/n) it's becoming white already, just continue. you wanted me to teach you right?" "why the hell can't i just use the electric mixer for the egg whites? its much faster than hand beating it..." i grumbled. "this is as good as doing 240 push-ups like jungkook," i whined. "my child there will be no shortcuts in this house when it comes to baking or cooking," i snorted at that. says the one who uses seasoning in his food. i mean, who doesn't? "i guess we can say that the cake will be eggcellent." he let out a windshield-wiper laugh at his own joke while i groaned at the terrible pun. "jin pls." ----- "DON'T CHOP THE BUTTER LIKE THAT OHMY GOD (Y/N) YOU'RE GOING TO CHOP YOUR HAND OFF LIKE THAT NO YOU'RE WORSE THAN NAMJOON SLICING ONIONS." jin shrieked at my horrible attempt to slice the frozen solid butter. i had forgotten to take the butter out to thaw, so now i had to face the consequences. of slicing, no, chopping, through rock solid butter that is stubborn about becoming smaller pieces. go me

he sighed and went behind me, his larger frame engulfing mine as he positioned my hand to hold the knife properly. "rest your index on top of the blade and your thumb and middle on its sides. this way, you'll have a better grip on the knife. and it reduces the chances of the knife slipping and chopping your finger off." he guides my fingers to hold the knife, while rambling on the precautions to take-which entered one ear and left the other. how am i supposed to concentrate when i've never been in this close proximity with the man until this moment? gosh he was warm and it feels real cozy, his chin gently resting on my shoulder to oversee the process, his larger hand on my smaller one guiding me to chop the butter. how domestic, i chuckled at the thought. i wonder how his hand would look like with his fingers entwined with mine- -which is what i did with the hand unoccupied by the knife. without me even registering it, i grabbed his free hand. our hands were clasped together and our fingers were tangled with each other. “omg (y/n) what are you doing” i screamed in my brain. do y’all ever just get intrusive thoughts like this and regret everything leading up to this moment. jin gave me a quizzical look that screamed "what are you doing." ok but same jin, same. well this turned awkward. in my panic, i let go of his hand. and the knife. good job, (y/n). "OH MY GOD LOOK OUT" jin yelled for what must be the 182297318th time today at my screw up and pulled me away from the knife which fell to the floor with a clang. i was pressed flushed against his chest as he pulled my body closer to his, almost as if we were snuggling. except that now is not really the time to snuggle with the situation at hand. thankfully the knife didn’t hurt any of us, but i knew, i was in deep shit with jin. i mentally braced myself for the lecture i was going to get. oh boy this is going to be ugly. "look (y/n), i dont care if you cant cook for shit." his face was starting to turn red from the incoming rant, and i had to stifle a giggle at that. there was always something amusing about jin scolding-maybe it comes from the fact that even if the mood is serious, he still wants to make everyone laugh and doesn’t want an atmosphere too damp. so his scolding just somehow turns comical. i bit down on my bottom lip harshly to stop the giggles, lest the lecture becomes longer. "but you are handling something sharp, please be careful." "i understand." i sighed. "look if i'm not here, you could have been seriously injured, you can't just play while handling knives. luckily i was around and could pull you away before it landed on your feet and cause you to internally bleed in your toe. do you even know how nasty it looks to have that black blood clot under your nail?" i nodded sheepishly. "loOK, WHAT IF YOU WERE ALONE? YOU COULD HAVE BLED TO DEATH AND THEN I WOULD NEED TO HAUL YOUR ASS TO THE HOSPITAL WHICH WOULD NOT END WELL MAJOR BLOOD LOSS IS NOT A FUN THING OK YOU NEED BLOOD TRANSFUSION SO PLEASE BE CAREFUL WITH THE KNIFE DONT BE A SECOND NAMJOON." "yes mom." "excuse you i am not your mother." "alright you're excused mr worldwide handsome... mom." "YA THIS BRAT." ----- thankfully, that was the only major incident-or as the drama queen puts it, life threatening incident-that happened while baking the cheesecake. after 2 hours of screaming together and jin telling me how to carry out baking procedures properly, we finally put the cake together. "jin, she's beautiful." i shed a fake tear at our finished product. fake tear-fake love tear-chiru why are you so lame "yeah, but im more beautiful amirite." ".....you're inedible so obviously the cheesecake is prettier than you." he looked at me with a mock look of offense and i giggled at that. "well at least my face doesn't need to be caked with makeup to look good." "jin, why are you so lame." just like me "hey at least i'm still walking." "oh my god." "i mean that's not my name, but god's also a good name for someone as handsome as me." "........i give up." there was a tense moment of pregnant silence that settled between us. suddenly, we both burst out laughing at our ridiculous banter filled with bad puns, courtesy of jin. "let's eat the cheesecake, shall we?"

[eggutamaplz]

Hey guys, ユーリ!!! On REEDS is finally out with the first chapter!

I’m really proud of my first work, though it’s actually pretty mediocre compared to the better known writers in the YOI fandom like @boxwineconfession but hey, it’s my work, and I’m going to be proud no matter what!

Feel free to click on the link to start reading it! I’ll reblog my inital yuri on reeds post with the link again in a bit so you can get the premise.

IDK how to put cuts in mobile so enjoy~

The band built up to a rallying crescendo, then the sound faded out, the trombones, tubas, and baritones the last one to release the last note.

Silence reigned for a brief spell, then the audience burst into applause. Many gave standing ovations.

“And that concludes our last program for the year! Thank you for supporting our high schoolers in their journey throughout the school year,” BD Feltsman proclaimed. “And a special thank you to our graduating seniors, Katsuki Yuuri and Victor Nikiforov for helping compose the band arrangement of our last song, History Maker!”

A Japanese baritone saxophone with glasses and slicked back hair stood up, followed by a french horn of Russian descent with sea-blue eyes and silvery locks. They both exchanged looks, then took a bow, receiving more applause.

Feltsman continued on with his post-performance speech. “Now remember, parents of incoming freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors, marching band camp is coming up so you will want to ready your children for that. Please check the bulletin board, the website, or ask me for more details on band camp.”

The band director turned to his students, an approving look on his face. “Your children have exceeded my standards this year, and I am so grateful for their talent in the band. I cannot wait for the incoming freshmen to display their talent with us soon.

And with that, the performers were released to meet their families, stack their stands and chairs, and of course migrate into their home away from home.

Of course, that home away from home is the band room.

(Although many claim the trash can next to the door to the stage is their real home.)

°.·.°.·.°.·.°.·.°.·.°.·.°.·.°.·.°.·.°.·.°.·.°.·.°

As a devoted band student, the band classroom is your shelter from the storm that is your needs for college; 5 other periods to meet your A-G requirements, most of the time never really finding the topics that interesting.

But when the period for band rolls around? You’re sucked right into the music, the effort everyone takes to get a section right, the satisfaction on your band director’s face when the timbre of a section is perfect and everyone hits their notes and articulation correctly.

(Phichit claims Mr. Feltsman looked like he was about to have an orgasm when a crescendo was executed in the right way.)

To many students, band is just another elective that seems unimportant. But to the kids who have fully experienced playing an instrument, being part of a section, being part of the band, many of them have found the two L’s because of this one elective.

Life. Love. And everything in between.

Kids have devoted their life to band, most never feeling unsatisfied. And sometimes because of band, they might have found their significant others inside of this one elective.

Of course, for many of these talented students, these rules have applied since they’ve picked up their instrument of choice…

“Alright guys, everyone in for the group photo!” Phichit called out, waving towards every student in the band room. “You too Yurio, you’re not escaping my camera lens this year too.”

A blond flute player in the corner just snorted in response. “Sure, Mr. ‘I Watched "The King And The Skater” Once And I Thought I Could Land a Quadruple Toe Loop.’ Your form was terrible when you attempted it, by the way.“

The Thai alto and everyone in the room just stared at Yuri at that remark. "Now go peg yourself in the asshole with your mouthpiece cover.”

Phichit let out a breath of frustration, then turned to Mila Babicheva, a euphonium player. “Mila, Plan B?”

The redhead nodded. “Already on it buddy.”

She marched over to Yuri (her rolling was top notch), picked him up by the legs, and slung the fellow Russian over her shoulders.

“OI BABA, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! PUT ME DOWN THIS INSTANT!” Yuri screeched, punching Mila on her back.

“Geez Yuri, you’re pretty light,” Mila replied. She was smiling, but her eye twitched ever so slightly. “Now can you please surrender and stop trying to break my back? I want to go through marching band season without any injuries.”

“YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT MY KNIFE SHOES!”

“Ice skates, Yuri-”

“KNIFE. SHOES.”

“Sure Yuri, knife shoes,” Mila said in exasperation, finally succeeding in dragging the flute player into the mosh pit of band students.

Yuri finally gave up on trying to escape, instead putting on an aggravated face in front of the camera.

“All right everyone, move closer in together,” Phichit directed, moving his hands in a squishing motion. “Aaaaalllmoooost- Mickey you need to move to the other side for the frame to be PERFECT.”

The Italian burst out. “B-but Sara and Mila are together and if I leave them alone they’ll-” Michele Crispino sputtered.

Phichit cut him off. “It’s just one picture Crispino, and I want it to look better than last year, damn it. It won’t kill you.”

“Says you who wants to move me to the other side for aesthetic purposes!”

“… You got me there,” Chulanont admitted. “Still though, pleeeaaaasee? I’ll buy you new reeds.”

Michele, being a clarinet, immediately agreed. “Just make sure they’re size 2.5 Vandorens!” And he quickly scurried over to the other side next to Emil, who waved to him, but ignored.

“HEY, WHY DOES HE GET NEW REEDS?! I DEMAND PIROZHKI OR TENOR REEDS!” Yuri yelled at that deal. Besides, he was dragged into the picture like a sack of potatoes.

“I’ll deal with this later, now can we please just take the picture already? We’ve been arguing here for almost 3 minutes already,” Phichit said, again exasperated, and got himself into position.

He got the timer ready, then hit the button. “Everybody say band fam!”

“BAND FAM!” Everyone screamed, some of the band kids changing their positions. Some were holding up victory signs, some were dabbing, some were making the weirdest face they could conjure up.

When Phichit went over to his phone to check how the picture came out, he noticed Yuuri was redder than a tomato. Victor was looking all smug, giving the smaller Japanese man a shoulder hug, while other kids surrounding them were just smiling, and cooing in their direction.

One of the girls were just straight up screeching and having a fangirl attack. One of her friends had to clasp a hand over her mouth to shut her up.

Wait, what has everyone riled up? Hmm, let me guess… Phichit thought, as he went to check his phone for the picture.

When the picture came up, the Thai screamed aloud, “I KNEW IT!”

Right there, documented for everyone’s viewing pleasure, was the picture, but there was something that stook out like a sore thumb.

When the picture just got taken, Victor had seemingly planted a kiss on Yuuri’s cheek, the spectacled young man blushing heavily and doe-eyed, surprised at the sudden contact.

Classmates surrounding them looked at them in happy surprise, especially Victor’s best friend, a baritone named Christophe, who had a smug smile on his face.

Yep, this was definitely going on Phichit’s Instagram page.

“Dang Victor, smooth move. You really know how to make Yuuri flustered! I’ve never seen him THIS red!” The alto sent a knowing wink to the brass player and a mischievous smile towards his best friend.

“P-Phichit-kun, s-sore o yame, sora wa hazukashī!” Yuuri ended up slipping into Japanese like he tended to when he was flustered.

“Nope, Mr. Katsuki, you have been accused of having Victor Nikiforov fall in love with you,” Phichit teased. “Now, claim yourself guilty and serve out your sentence as Vitya’s lover.”

And with that, you could swear there was steam coming out of Yuuri’s ears. “Oyasumi” was all he said before collapsing onto Victor.

“Bozhe moy, Phichit, you killed him-” Victor started. But however, he was cut off by the Thai playing Careless Whisper on his alto.

“Chert voz'mi…”

°.·.°.·.°.·.°.·.°.·.°.·.°.··.°.·.°.·.°.·.°.·.°

It was an hour after the concert ended. All the remaining band students were hanging out in the band room, except for Victor and Yuuri, who had woken up from apparently fainting into Victor’s arms, sitting on the stage.

Yuuri leaned on Victor’s shoulder, their fingertips laced together. “Our final performance as high schoolers, huh…”

“Hm?” Victor tilted his head to lean on Yuuri’s, his thumb rubbing his boyfriend’s hand. “Something on your mind moya lyubov?”

“Mmm,” Yuuri replied, scrolling down his Instagram feed. He came across Phichit’s picture he took earlier and giggled.

❤74 likes phichit-chu Blessed to be part of another successful year of band! Love you guys! (@v-nikiforov @katsudon-yuuri #victuuri AM I RIGHT BAND FAM) · #band #bandfam #historymakers

yuri-plisetsky hEY YOU STILL OWE ME FOOD OR REEDS PHICHEETO Jjleroy!15 Nice pic of me and Isabella! It’s JJ style! +guanghongji+ Another amazing picture of the class Phichit! Here’s to the next year!

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“Y'know, 7th grade me would have never imagined he’d be dating the french horn that Mari said to look for on the first day of school,” Yuuri thought aloud, lifting his head to look at his lover’s face.

Victor smiled at that remark. “Is that so?” And he leaned in to kiss Yuuri once again.

[sweetandunholy]

“Remember this feeling. This is the moment you stop being the rabbit.”

A marvelous character exploration on a team composed of broken, angry people. Misfits in their society coming together to become one great, holy mess— with nothing in common with great passion for a sport and terrible pasts of crime coming to haunt them.

3.5/5 Stars Recommendation: This book is great but it is once more, not for everyone.

—First and foremost, I apologize for doing two reviews of this type of “good but for a niche crowd” books back to back, but I find out and binge read this book yesterday—

A book recommended for those who loved the Raven Cycle! Strongly character driven books with an assortment of original and complex characters taking the narrative along each character arc. This first book does not include a romantic subplot so those who are expecting that, at least in the first book, will find themselves disappointed. This is also for those who don’t mind a book that’s average in its writting style at best, and instead is fully worth it because of its plot. Unlike Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle, the prose is poor and non-existing, but it is what the book has to say that matter.

Let’s get something super straight: I only read this book because of the name. To the point that fact is, I only found out about this book when googling J. Maas’es A Court of Thorns and Roses and getting in return: Frequently asked questions “What is the Foxhole Court?”. My immediate thoughts went over to our lovable fox Lucien from the aforementioned series and the fact it had “Court” written on it. I did not look up the cover, I did not look up reviews or the summary, and I instead I got myself a digital version and began reading.

Boy was I wrong.

In fact, the Foxhole Court is one of those books that I simply have no idea why I kept reading or why it had me so enthralled and glued to it page after page, but the matter of fact is it did. Being honest, it might’ve had something to do with the fact that when I was halfway through the introductions, I realized two things: 1) This book was going to be about a sport 2) All of the main characters were men. Which may or may have not lead me to the conclusion this was going to be gay, and that pleased me very much (Again, I was wrong, though the book does include LGBT+ characters AND I keep my hopes up for the next two books). But the truth is, the book did keep me reading, and the book did keep me hooked from beginning to end. So let’s get to it now, shall we?

The Foxhole Court is the story of 18 year old Neil Josten who for years has now lived as a runaway. Changing his appearance, name, aliases, cities, schools, there is nothing left from the person Neil was before he began a life on the run from the criminal mastermind known as “The Butcher” that his father is. Nothing left but one thing, his passion for the fictional sport known as Exy. An Exy star in the rise as a child, Neil left behind an friend old friend and is haunted when he comes back eight years later, ready to recruit him into Palmetto State Universtiy’s Exy foxes. Despite having no idea who he is, Kevin insists Neil come play with them and for the first time in his life takes a decision for him and decided he won’t leave him behind a second time.

The entire situation is bad, the team is high profile and the sports broadcasts are slamming his face all over the news as a new rising star in the world of Exy. Things are turning bad for him in every angle… But Neil isn’t the only fox with secrets. The magic of the Foxhole Court is in its members, a team filled with misfits, broken people who come from pasts or homes equally as broken as them who are given a second, third, fourth or even fifth opportunity through the sport. A place right where Neil belongs… If only his past and Kevin’s wasn’t beginning to come running after them.

The Foxhole Court to some extent is an easy read, in the sense that it is only 260 pages long and reads like fanfiction. And no, it doesn’t mean the main character is a self insert, a Gary Stu or loved by everyone (in fact, almost all the opposite), fought for or wanted by all men/women all around the glove. I haven’t done too much research as to confirm, but the writting certainly felt amateurish. Most of the book reads like this:

  He said. He asked. She said. She asked. Without much character interaction or emotion portrayed in the dialogue, for example. It isn’t exactly something terrible, but my point is there isn’t anything creative about the writing, or anything innovative and lyrical. However, Sakavic perfectly manages to write fully immersive characters and a great story that trails right behind them. If anything, the book only receives such a low rating from my part because of its quality as a book. It’s a great story, just not a greatly written one. Not to mention the book included more than a few incongruences that were nowhere near making sense, but that is a spoiler heavy rant I will go in detail below.

So without futher ado, spoilers below and my fanart sweet kids! (Click read more) and see you on the other side 😉

The Foxhole Court rants:

—The Amount of things that are just not doable, possible, or simply lack sense. This probably just adds to my earlier point of this reading like fan fiction. ➜ Bodies can not burn out with gasoline that fast, no matter how much you douse it in gasoline. Funerary homes need very, very powerful ovens to be able to reduce a body to ashes in a matter of hours. ➜ Niel would’ve never been able to burn that car and wait long enough for the body to become bones no less without any sort of authority finding him first. ➜ It’s extremely difficult wearing contacts for bed, or regular aesthetic contacts since they’re heavier and very uncomfortable. ➜ It is most likely impossible to make up a sport and have it played at university level,  professionally and with that much media coverage and rabid fans in simply 30 years. It’s chill that Exy is a big deal but, there’s no way it could be that huge in not even two generations.

➜ Andrew doing drugs and still playing professionally, is barely passable and very much anti regulation, but even if I were to let it slide, there’d be no way drugs could be done so recreationally because of a little something called antidoping. ➜ May be because I’m not a fan of sports, but how Exy worked was very difficult for me to follow. I’m glad they didn’t sit down and gave us an info dumpy explanation on how it worked (since some parts of the book, specifically the beginning was very info dumpy indeed) but that doesn’t mean trying to get it throughout the story made it any easier. I was really thinking hockey the entire time, and even that, it was probably wrong. Sin on me. ➜ Professional players don’t actually train without their trainers but you know, pass because its YA and it isn’t really actually trying to take itself too seriously. But like, there’s no way a coach would allow players to not get sleep to train instead but. Whatever at this point you know. ➜ Strapping knives to yourself in a contact sport…? Why, just why. ➜ Letting your players get on fist fights would get any coach fired. Straight up, even while I very much liked that one paragraph about letting them do it and then punishing them with laps. Loved it in fact, but still gonna point out how unrealistic it is. — All the characters were thrown into my face way too fast in very little time. I’m talking about Andrew’s crew. The characters merged one into the other in the beginning, I had no idea who was who and I was very confused regarding their dynamics and why Neil seemed to know or not know some and I was just very confused throughout Neil’s entire arrival to the state. — The rest of the team was introduced correctly and I had no further problems with them though. — Despite the previous points though, the book rather felt like… A huge build up? To the rest of the series? Instead of like an actual book with a plot that you can say has an introduction, a knot and then a climax before ending. It’s sort of stuck in the entire introduction portion and laying basis. — No, I’m not counting the entire Riko drama or Yakuza fallout the plot of this group as that also simply counts as introduction and establishing pasts and dynamics. It was well done and I enjoyed it a lot, but that still doesn’t count for even little semblance of a formal plot. — The lack of research. Just- The overall, noticeable, and practically tangible lack of research. That’s like author’s homework number one.

Now let it be known, I absolutely love this book. I really do, and I’m certainly extremely excited to read the rest of the series. It doesn’t mean I am not entitled to be critical of it. I like it, a lot, it has flaws, many. It’s that simple. The admirable thing about it is that its mistakes are not making my like it any less and the author deserves kudos on that basis alone. Thank you.

The Foxhole Court PRAISE:

Now onto the less coherent and smart part of this review, I’m just gonna fangirl it out. Excuse me.

— I’m a sucker for psychopaths, abusers, bullies and specially when taken to a super edgy extent. I recognize he was unnecessarily edgy but that made me love him all the better. Andrew is my new book husband holy fuck. I can’t explain just how much I hate him and that makes me love him so much. — This book went from 0 to straight up 100 in no time and holy fuck was that was amazing. Specially considering I didn’t read the back part or any summaries and I had no idea what the book was about in the least. God fucking bless me. — I came in sure this was gonna be gays, give me my gays — I came in for the Kevin x Neil considering the set up, but I’m pretty fucking sure we’re currently leaning towards Neil x Andrew. I will hold this as my ot3 no matter how many people I offend 😎 — Halfway through the book I was mentally whining about how every character felt so faraway from Niel. I’m used to very pure and unbreakable bonds forming between characters, specially male characters, that I enjoy a lot and look forwards too, and it almost made me feel… Jealous. About how most other character received that but not Neil. It was then when I realized that was exactly Niel’s mindset and I just really want to praise the author for conveying his feelings in such a way. I was able to feel all of his pain in practically first person. — Neil’s meticulous point of view felt very real and raw, I found myself rooting for him the entire novel, and I usually have a terrible time doing that for such morally headstrong characters. — Andrew is literally a combination of Ronan Lynch and Joseph Kavinsky. My favorite Raven cycle character and my most hated Raven cycle character respectively. That drew me in like a moth drawn to a flame. Considering how needy I feel of said three book husbands. — What the fuck, Andrew is my new husband.

And last but not least, some fanart of my ot3 because no one will ever be able to convince me otherwise. Foot straight to the crotch for you, Neil. I headcanon the interactions between these three and my heart simply flutters. Don’t judge me, thank u

        [Review] The Foxhole Court + Fanart “Remember this feeling. This is the moment you stop being the rabbit.” A marvelous character exploration on a team composed of broken, angry people.

[davidpires578]

A Ming-Inspired Cabinet (95)

I've been working on the final steps in preparing the bonnet assemblies for these two cabinets. The bonnet provides a visual way to 'crown' the cabinets, so they don't end up looking simply like a pair of boxes on stands. It's an unnecessary thing from a functional perspective to fit bonnets, but vey much a necessary thing, it seems to me, from an aesthetic one. This is where I leave minimalist/modern behind, not that I even see eye to eye with it anyhow. If I remove the bonnet from the composition, something seems missing, and not in a good way. It's not shibui, it's simply incomplete: something is lacking. I did tone down the lines of the bonnet top beams, as detailed in an earlier post, and what I was left with was a raised section on of framing on a shedua stand off, and there was as a result a bit room in there for a storage compartment.  "Oooh, a hidden compartment" raises now into a specter of the possible. The thing is, while concealed compartments at one time served a necessary security function - in the case of early American secretary cabinets, for example - or, in the case of pieces made by the Roentgen's for French nobility, an entertainment function, when it comes down to what makes sense today, it was less a fixation on a secret compartment than it was on having a discrete compartment. This is a compartment which is not entirely obvious to view, though if you went looking for it (what kind of nut bar does that but a furniture maker?) the access would be obvious enough. I didn't want some sort of obsession with secrecy to affect the aesthetics of the cabinets, or to become a central idea of the cabinets, or to require any complex means to achieve realization. Just wanted to make use of available space in a practical manner, and wanted to create a space where things might be tucked away, requiring only occasional access, perhaps got at once in a while for the fun of it. This made more sense to me than the 'secrecy' aspect. If you truly want to hide stuff away from those who might pry, then get yerself a heavy duty iron safe with some complex lock, and make it clear to view (then hide your stuff elsewhere, perhaps, thus providing a fake target with the safe (?)). Anyway, I wanted a compartment with a removable lid, and wanted to have the lid openable by simple means, and, oh yeah, all parts in solid wood. A lid in bubinga, keeping it decently thin, still ends up being a bit of a lump. So, working out a catch mechanism took some mulling over to be sure. I thought I had worked out a good solution and then spent a day and a half milling up some mounting blocks in brass. This was the result:

I've learned a bunch about milling brass in the past few days. A closer look at one of the temporarily-clamped side-mounted blocks, with the fitted spring pusher mechanism:

That set up proved the basic concept of catch paired with two blocks and sprung pushers did work, however further consideration let me to conclude that the system may not be the best over time: I was worried that the constant pressure of the sprung pushers on each corner of the lid, relative to the catch in the middle, might, over time, induce the lid to become deformed. It was enough of a concern to lead to the scrapping of the above machined brass blocks. So, out with that, setting aside the fallacy of sunk costs and all that, and onto the Mark II design, which incorporated both catch and spring pushers into one wooden block. Here, I'm tapping for the M12 threads required for the sprung pushers, using a center punch in the chuck to keep the tap handle plumb:

As you can see, an insert (1/4" x 20TPI) had already been fitted in the middle. The completed mounting blocks:

The spring pushers are a device from the CNC fixturing world, and are from Misumi USA. They are good to deal with. I also obtained the tool to screw the pushers into place:

In the middle is the pointed marking pin which had served duty earlier with the bifold doors. It's nice to find it useful again.... These are the second set of spring pushers I had to obtain. They come in four strengths of spring, and the first set proved to be too weak. A while later, I have mounted one of the blocks to the inside of the compartment using inch-scale stainless fasteners, namely #10-24 Allen cap screws:

One of the quirky things about inch scale bolts arises when you go below 1/4" in size. Unlike metric, where everything is on a even round 1mm incremental pattern, like 10mm-8mm-6mm-5mm-4mm-3mm, etc., with inch scale, it's a tad more complicated. While larger sizes of bolts from 5/8" down are on even 1/16" increments, stepping along 5/8"-9/16"-1/2"-7/16"-3/8"-5/16"-1/4", when you go below that 1/4" mark you do not arrive at the next 1/16" division (3/16") as might be expected: suddenly it switches to a #12x24TPI designation.  That #12, however, is an uncommon size, and the next regular sort of size you come across at the hardware store is #10-24TPI. And #10 is not exactly 3/16" (0.1875"), but a hair larger at 0.1900".  Hah-hah-hah..... Take another drink Jim. It's one of those weird things, which, if you are 'used' to it, is not terribly consequential - you go to the hardware store and find the appropriate fastener which fits what you need - however if you are not used to it, being used to, say, the metric system, this standard will seem baffling and illogical, maybe ripe for a suitable amount of derision even. I understand, and please feel free to refrain from extended soliloquies in the comment section relative to this point. I get it. I didn't create this system, I merely live within it, and a little kookiness is okay I guess, keeping poor blighters like me on my toes at the very least. When you dig into it, you find that threads which are smaller than 1/4" are defined by wire gauge standards, and the sizing is based on a sweet l'il formula:

The following formula is used to calculate the major diameter of a numbered screw greater than or equal to 0: Major diameter = Screw # × 0.013 in + 0.060 in. For example, a number 10 calculates as: #10 × 0.013 in + 0.060 in = 0.190 in major diameter. To calculate the major diameter of “ought” size screws count the number of extra 0’s and multiply this number by .013 and subtract from .060. For example the major diameter of a 0000 screw thread is .060 – (3 x .013) = .060-.039 = .021 inches.

Okay, you can wake up now. The above quote is from the wikipedia entry on the Unified Thread Standard. I chuckle as I read it. Some things in technological societies get fossilized while some do not, what can you say?

Anyhow, I used 10-24 stainless bolts to mount the blocks to the framing. I could have gone with 5mm, which is fairly close to 0.1900" at 0.1968503, but whatever, it worked out and I got to amuse myself with thinking about archaic thread standards which are used today in the US instead of more apparently 'rational' systems, and I have a 10-24 tap already so let's move on. It gave me a certain amount of perverse pleasure - I'll admit that much.

In the next photo I'm marking the underside of the compartment panel to the sharpened pin temporarily fitted to the position in the block (a position later to be occupied by the catch itself):

Once the location is marked, I could proceed to mortise for the catch using a couple of different forstner bits:

The underside of the board is similarly mortised, and the catch is secured by a fairly large brass nut:

The catch itself is a custom made piece from Quik-latch products - they make latches designed to hold the hoods of hot rods down at the front. I did extensive research to find something suitable, and this turned out to be the best thing I could find - and I am more than happy with the product. Quik-latches are normally made in aluminum or steel, however at the time I got in touch with them they were in the middle of fulfilling a large order from a Scandinavian furniture company for a series of door latches in brass, and they were able to make me a set in a few days, also from brass. They sent me the 'mini' latches in parts, and I patinated them, sent the pieces back for assembly and then the complete units were delivered a week or two later. Quik-latch is one of the best companies I have ever dealt with in all my life: excellent, prompt communication, a 'can-do' attitude somewhat rare to find these days, and an excellent product shipped in a timely manner. Was it a weird dream, I wonder? All the same, highly recommended! Here's a closer look at the latch and its 1/4"-20 pin, with the catch itself flipped upside-down:

The rod engages with a satisfying snap!:

Another view show how tolerant the latch is of misalignment:

Here's the Quik-latch installed and about to be closed for the first time:

'Click':

This mechanism worked just as I had hoped, providing a discrete means of accessing the upper compartment in the bonnet:

I later added a small relief cut to provide easier purchase for the fingertips:

A few views of the top with the latch installed, and in order to see this view in the completed cabinet you would need to stand 6'-8" or more (203cm):

All for this round. The second cabinet is about half an hour away from reaching the same stage, and then I will be doing the final assembly on the bonnet and last coat of finish. Then a little more work awaits with the bifold doors as the magnets have now arrived. More to come, so please stay tuned....