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oh-katsuki · 1 year

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i finished songbirds and snakes and i can honestly say that i really enjoyed it except for like one major thing that bothered me through the entire thing.. so spoilers under the cut.

i understand that as a character.. lucy gray is a driving force for snow’s emotional changes away and eventually right back to the capitol but for the sake of this argument.. i’m going to ignore her as a narrative device (which she undoubtedly is) and look at her as a character overall and how she fits into the archetype of women in books, mainly the “manic pixie dream girl”.

i liked her but i also found the way she was written... deeply irritating. she’s essentially boiled down to a girl who loves music and freedom but who also falls deeply in love with one of the people responsible for her suffering in the games. she continuously ignores snow’s wrong-doings, makes passes and excuses for his (on occasion) cruel behavior, and then is glad when he shows up in district 12 to be with her? sure, he fed her bread through the zoo bars (while she was on display like an animal, mind you), but he also treated her as a spectacle and paraded her around without any real belief that she would win until she has to ask him outright.

i mean.. she had to ask him to be seen as someone capable of surviving and not just an animal to be paraded around. she had to ask that of him. and then still.. after he parades her around, feeds her through bars like he’s at a petting zoo, and repeatedly demonstrates that he thinks of her as nothing more than something that “belongs” to him.... she decides that she loves him? that she wants to be with him forever? that she wants to abandon her life with him?

and then at the end.. it is the fact that he betrayed sejanus that deters her from loving him (if that).. and not the fact that he is and always has been in favor of the oppression and punishment of the districts?? even if it was barbaric??? it makes absolutely no sense to me. she’s a woman who has been written into this story for the sole purpose of loving someone and being a “free bird” and being “strange” to snow.... like.. that’s her whole thing. she represents freedom, but all of that is lost on the way that she completely ignores how her humanity is disregarded in favor of falling in love with this man to serve as what??? a lesson to him??? i hated it.

now, i’m also aware that lucy gray is meant to be a compassionate force on snow. like her narrative purpose is to be the “what if” to his “what is”.. but that doesn’t really change the fact that she (a lot of the time) comes across as nothing more than a silly girl who likes to sing and be free, but can’t because of what the capitol and the people snow supports does to her. but then she LOVES HIM ANYWAY??? im sorry... i hate it when women are put into positions like that... like they’re too emotional to know what’s good for them. or like they become absolutely unable to defend, vouch, or think for themselves because a man is in the equation.

i also understand that because the narrator is snow.. it makes him unreliable. he’s an unreliable narrator and we only see lucy gray through his idealized view, one that includes her as something he “owns” rather than her own person. it makes the betrayal at the end feel all the more sudden, because snow may not have been noticing the things that hinted to her feeling that way... (and i could probably talk about this aspect of lucy gray for a while bc from this lens its more palpable to me) still though.. if that’s the goal, it doesn’t come across that way.

as i read the first two parts, i understood lucy gray’s flirting and return of snow’s affection as a survival tactic. ie; she pretends to love him so that he does a better job of ensuring her survival in the games. bc that is what made sense to me reading her as her own independent person. that would also absolutely fit with how katniss interacts with peeta in the first games (though the situation is different because snow and lucy gray are perpetrator and victim, while katniss and peeta are both victims). so i was absolutely SHOCKED to find that when snow appeared in district 12, lucy gray was glad to see him. it genuinely surprised me (in not a great way) to see that she was not only actually in love with him, but glad to have her time in the arena and her zoo keeper (bc that’s essentially what he was) follow her back to her home and her covey.

when it became clear that she DID value snow, she went from being a character who might have her own motives for things, to someone with very little actual motivation. she’s a girl motivated entirely by music and love... how dreamy :/ im going to be sick. i guess i was just off put because it seemed like she had no goal of her own outside of survival and snow, which are inexplicably intertwined even through “the peacekeeper”. this could be attributed to the book being told from snow’s point of view... or it could be attributed to writing a manic pixie dream girl into the series. compared to katniss and the other victors in the original series.. she falls so flat that it’s almost disappointing.

maybe tho... my problem isn’t really with any of that but just that i HAATEEE the whole “peace and love and music” and “can’t fight violence with violence” and “if we just loved it would be better” way of thinking in the face of that type of SEVERE oppression.

idk i just.. i have a lot of thoughts about it that im kinda conflicted with. i enjoyed it though and would def recommend it to anyone who like the original series.

#i only just finished the book right before typing this out #so my opinion may change #but that's what stuck out to me immediately #TBOSAS #TBOSAS spoilers #the ballad of snakes and songbirds spoilers

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michiruze · 5 months

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Before the Coffee Gets Cold - Thoughts

It seems that I've been doing something shocking.....reading a book! Well, it's been a while since I read a book, and I had a sudden urge to spend my Eid holidays reading a book....a simple book, of course. I liked it, but hoo boy, I have thoughts.

So, I've been spending my week reading Before the Coffee Gets Cold (2015) solely for the premise. It's not quite sci-fi, but grounded enough to put me in a breeze.

At a glance, the premise of "a cafe that can get their patrons back in time but it can't change the present" intrigued me. Not to mention that I have the perfect album to listen to while reading, to immerse myself in the wistful, warm feeling of the premise.

The fact that the cafe cannot change the present gives the premise an opportunity to provide meaningful insights on how the looking into the past might not change the present, but it will give us will to live in the present and build our futures. Previously, I really loved Petite Maman (2021) for exploring a similar premise with similar insights and I was so stoked to hear that there are more stuff like this. Also, stories like this IS my bread and butter after all.

Now that I finished it....whew, it was a mixed experience. Full thoughts under the cut.

Absence makes the heart lose wager. 'Till love breaks down, love breaks down...

I grabbed the first book a few days ago and finished it. To tell the truth, I liked it, but the first and fourth story left a bitter aftertaste in my mouth. I hated how Fumiko was written and described in the first story.

It's just that....I'm not feeling it at all. I don't like how Fumiko is written as this smart genius omniglot woman who flails herself completely for a guy who isn't worth much? And making her entire angst revolving around wanting to marry someone because her siblings had gotten married? That's a rather weird way to write a female character to me. And I have to admit that her physical description gets....weird. This I feel, is an artifact left from the book's original form as a stage play.

For a book that sells itself as full of heartwarming sad tales, the first story didn't do a lot for me. Maybe it's that the character's problems are quite trivial compared to the other three stories....kind of fitting as an introduction to the book's small world of Cafe Funiculi Funicula, I guess?

While I teared up at the end of the fourth story, I am admittedly growing tired of the glorification of "give birth anyway even if it kills the mother!" stories, especially those that are written by men. Which is a shame considering that I liked the focus character even though her characterization slides close to a manic pixie dream girl a few times. I do admire how the fourth story did explore the time travel concept further...I just wish that it was used in a better story.

While I loved the second and third story, the way Hirai is written in the end where she basically gets a complete 180 to her parents felt way too unrealistic and a little insulting. I just...don't feel great seeing Hirai just leaves her independent life to serve her parents even if it's her shared dream with her sister and she's doing it to honor her. It CAN be done...but not this sudden. It should've had more time rebuilding Hirai's relationships with her parents.

I didn't find anything objectionable with second story besides the maiden name thing (i find it rather off) --- and I did cry at the end of the story. It's the best part of the first book for me, and it's why I decided to continue on with the book series, since the book series apparently gets better and better by each sequel.

Another thing that held back the first book's potentials besides the writing of the first and the fourth story is the writing style. This book was adapted from a stage play, and you can tell that writer Toshikazu Kawaguchi struggled with translating the story from stage form to literary form. The writing felt like someone who is writing a book in a language they're not fluent at (in this case, a playwright writing literature), and as a result, some parts can feel too 'stage-y' instead of occurring naturally.

Rain on me, like no other. Until I drown, until I drown...

The book's tone is....stage-y. And sometimes feel corny in a similar way that The Fault in Our Stars is. However, this book manages to cultivate an atmosphere that feels like being in a cafe, so it's not that corny after all....wait, I have a better description.

If i can describe this book's tone as music, I would describe it as an emotional, easy-listening 80s ballad with a melancholic tone, complete with synthesizers (by someone like Thomas Dolby.....like in the song I linked above). The kind of 80s ballad you'd hear in a peaceful cafe at night, but in book form.

(I say 80s ballad since it's NOT for everyone. In fact, 80s ballad feels like one of those things that people tend to dislike about the 80s....feels fitting for this book, honestly, since people are mixed or feeling conflicted about it despite their enjoyment or dislike!)

Neverthless, it's still a unique light read for a rainy day, or a wistful night at the cafe. It did say what it wanted to say pretty well.

We all wax poetic about fixing our present and future but what if we get to do it? What are we going to say? What are we going to feel? How are we going to look at our past, even? And if the present can't be changed, what's it all for, then? This book gives nice insights about this dilemma without having to worry about pesky concepts such as 'grandfather paradox' or 'time crash'.

Ultimately this is why I still liked this book despite the glaring faults. The premise is really good, and with the right writing, it could be something amazing (Celine Sciamma has proven that it could, after all!) and heartfelt. The story's approach to time travel is still something pretty rare, and the almost-anthological nature of the series makes me sure that there are better stories in the sequels.

Reading that the sequels gets better and better makes me excited to dive more into Cafe Funiculi Funicula and eventually, Cafe Donna Donna.

Take a sip, and go back to the past. Say what you want....say your feelings.....before the coffee gets cold.

When love breaks down, the things we do, to stop the truth from hurting you. When love breaks down, the lies we tell, they only serve to fool ourselves.

....Overall, I had a good time in the unique coffeehouse that is Cafe Funiculi Funicula. This was a pretty difficult review since I rarely write book reviews so oh well.

I'm off to read the second book, while imagining what I'd do if I could go back before the coffee gets cold....

#michiruze.txt #book review #before the coffee gets cold #cafe funiculi funicula #toshikazu kawaguchi #michiru reviews

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lobakmerahs · 3 years

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Sulk & Horse Riding (Parent Levi)

Summary: Levi who is charge to take care of his kids, unintentionally make them sulk with him and so he tries to reconcile with them.

A/n: I’m sorry for the length. I got carried away hehe

It was another normal weekend at the Survey Corps headquarters where the cadets would undergo training and doing chores while the higher-ups would finish their paperworks, creating plans and attending meetings. This morning, you left your twins with Levi who would spend his days in his office to fill up reports. You were called to attend a meeting with Commander Pixis and some of the higher ups from Garrison Regiment and Levi was gladly accepting his turn to take care of his kids inside his office thinking that there wasn’t much space for them to run around so it wouldn’t be a difficult task for him. Or at least that was what he thought.

At the moment, Levi was sitting on his office chair, his daughter on his lap and his son sitting on the table with a pen and a paper given by the father for him to do something to fill in the time. Levi had been sipping his hot tea for quite some time now and the little chubby hands of his daughter that had been attempting to reach out for his cup didn’t go unnoticed by his sharp eyes. Every time his daughter tried to reach for the cup, that was when he lifted his cup higher, not allowing her daughter to get what she wanted.

“No. You can’t drink this tea.” He warned her.

“But why...”, she pouted.

“You drank tea last time and then you had stomachache, remember?”.

“No. I don’t wemember.” She confidently answered while shaking her head making Levi to let out a deep sigh.

Levi’s daughter no longer tried to reach for the cup but instead chose to sigh loudly whenever her father took a sip, purposedly letting her father know how sad she was, for not being able to drink the tea. Of course, the captain noticed her passively aggresive attempt to try winning his heart but that only made him hid his smile behind the brim of the cup.

With one last sip, the tea was finished and Levi carefully put the empty cup on his office table where his daughter’s eyes followed closely. Noticing the empty cup, she immediately cried out of frustration and sadness which made both her father and twin brother to look up at her in confusion.

“I don wan fwen(friend) daddy,” she said as she got up and left her father’s lap, walking towards the window with her arms crossed. She stomped on the floor for every steps that she took making her chubby cheeks bounced every time, all while putting her lips in a long pout. Levi was too stunned with her daughter who seemed like starting to give him a cold shoulder that he didn’t notice his son had scribbled on his reports. The reports that was neatly written now had smiley faces, weird symbols that who knows what they meant and his son signatures. So, he immediately grabbed his reports as well as his other paperworks and put it somewhere else causing his son to cry. Great. That’s twins for you. One started to show tantrum and the other followed as well.

“Here here, you should draw on this paper. Not on mine.” He panickly tried to calm his son down while giving him the paper from earlier that was still clean. At the same time, he stole glances at her daughter, trying to think of a way to persuade her.

“NOOOoo. I wan MY paper!! I don wan this! What’s this?!,” his son started to cry louder and babbling some incoherent words that Levi was sure his son made them up all on their own.

“You can’t. That is MY paper. See, just draw on this.” He drew a few things on the paper while his son watched between his sobs.

“Look! I draw something on it. How about you try drawing on it as well?”, He suggested, trying to win his son but the little boy just gave him a infamous boring look.

“Daddy, what’s that? It’s ugly.” He commented on his father drawing. Levi tried his best not to roll his eyes. His son better be grateful because he was his son or else he would definitely stab the rudeness out of him.

“Tch, don’t be a bra--” Levi said but immediately got cut off with his son’s cry and his wailing saying his father didn’t love him entered his ears. Feeling absolutely clueless, he took his son into his arms while got up to walk to his daughter who was still pouting. From behind he could see the curves of her plumpy cheeks and quitely tried to approach the little girl with the same shiny black hair as him and her twin brother. Right now, Levi hugged both of his twins but they just didn’t seem to want a hug right now as they struggled to release their little bodies from their father’s strong grip.

Then suddenly the office door was knocked twice before the person barged in. The figure behind the door was Hange who was looking for you and the twins imeediately ran from their father towards her direction and each one of them hugged her long legs.

“Geeeeeee!~~,” the twins said her name.

“No no not gee, kids. It’s Han-ge.” She corrected them with a smile.

“Geee.” They repeated with a beam, showing their baby teeth.

“Okay try follow after me. Han?”

“Han”

“Ge?”

“Ge.”

“Okay, now try to say Hange.”

“Ge.” They repeated, eyes stared at the Section Commander.

“Ahhh that’s fine. Just Ge is fine, I guess.” She chuckled while patting their heads.

As she was leaving the room, the twins didn’t seem to want to let her legs go and they kept giggling as she walked. They looked way too happy from when they were hugged by their father and Levi noticed all of it.

“Sorry Hange, but can you take the kids forawhile? I know for sure they would start to scream and crying again if I take them off of your legs.”

“Yeah sure. I’ll be in my office when you need them.” She replied excitedly as she could spend more time with his cute kids.

“Thanks. I’ll take them back after I finish these paperworks.” He said remembering his reports that had been ‘corrected’ by his son.

“Okay kids, want to say goodbye to your dad?,” Hange said trying to get a reaction from the twins.

“Hmmph,” was the reply said in unison by the twin while moving their faces to avoid their father’s eyes.

Had Hange spent a few more moments in Levi’s office, she would able to meet you who dropped by to see your husband in his office. You walked towards the man with frowned eyebrows who was staring at you ever since you opened his office door.

“You okay?,” you asked with a concern. Levi was always wearing a serious face but this time, he looked seriously devastated.

“Those kids will be the end of me.” He replied with a sigh which caused you to giggle.

“No they won’t.” You said while placing his one hand in yours.

And so Levi told you everything that happen between him and his kids which made them sulking with him and you were paying your full attention towards his story all while smiling understandingly.

Later on, you walked beside Levi to Hange’s office and was greeted with a sight of your twins on her large table, your son had his cheeked stuff with baked potato and your daughter had bread. They looked....content, as expected. Upon noticing your arrival, the twins immediately grabbed you while wailing, dramatically letting you know how they don’t want to be friends with their dad and their dad don’t love them anymore and other sort of bratty things that only made Levi felt disappointed. You knew your kids well enough to say that they were just acting clingy and being overreacting and so you gave them a few words regarding their behaviour.

You were supposed to spend the evening with Hange regarding her experiments with Sawney and Bean. So she left you, Levi and the twins at her office to allow you guys to have some privacy as she would be waiting at the experiment site. Levi who just submitted the report and now had some free time, planned to spend the evening with the kids at the horse stable as an attempt to reconcile with them.

“I’m sorry I had to leave you again, see you tonight okay?,” You said to Levi as well as your son and daughter. You left a soft kiss on each of your twins fluffy cheeks while comforting them who were starting to cry since you were about to leave them with their father who they were sulking with.

“Have fun,” you whispered to Levi and leaving a long loving kiss on his cheeks. He said nothing but still gave you his handsome stare that never failed to bring butterflies in your stomach and grabbed the end of your Survey Corps jacket.

“Levi, I really need to get going.” You said with an apologetic tone and you placed one hand on top of his hand that was still had no sign of letting go of your jacket. You felt sorry for them because it was a busy week and you had to spend your weekend on works. You wished you could spend time altogether doing family things but that would abandon your duty and abusing the rank that was assigned to you.

“Tch.” He gave you one last hug, inhaling your scent and placed a sweet kiss on your forehead before letting you go to fulfill your duty.

Levi’s squad was present at the horse stable when he arrived. He also asked Jean to bring out his horse. The twins, refused to be carried by their father were walking on his sides. Usually their tiny hands would fit about two of their father’s fingers but since they were on cold war with their father, they just grabbed one of his fingers and only a small part of it as they were walking. Yeah, Levi noticed this too but chose to say nothing about it.

Levi greeted all the members of his squad and introduced them to his twins.

“This is Eren.” He pointed at the green-eyed boy with dark brown hair and the boy smiled eagerly at the twins.

“Eyen....,” the twins repeated.

“This is Mikasa.” He showed at the black hair girl with red scarf and Mikasa gave them a warm smile.

“Kasa......”

“This is Armin.” Indicating the blue-eyed boy with blonde hair.

“Min......”

“Hellooo~,” Armin greeted them with a huge beam.

“This is Sasha. You must remember her right, you used to steal her food.” Levi showed his twins the girl with ponytail who nodded her head at the little twins. “Sha......”

“This is Connie.” The shaved headed man lowered his body to greet the twins and the twins immediately tried to reach his head.

“Connniie.......”.

Not long after that, Jean arrived with a black shiny horse, belonged to Levi. Wasting no time, Levi brought the twins closer to the horse as well as introducing his cadet to the kids.

“This is Jean.”

None of them repeated the said name like the other cadets. They just kept staring at Jean and then looked at the horse alternately, but said nothing. Then, they changed a confused look with each other.

“HAHA! Jean! Even the Captain’s kids knew your face looked like a horse!,” Eren suddenly chirped in and broke into laughter. (I love Jean ok, don’t get me wrong :p)

“HAAAAAAAA? Say that again?!! I don’t have a horse face you idiot!” And they started to quarrel for a short moment before they got silenced by their Captain’s simple “oioi”.

Levi brought both of his kids into his arms to the same level as the horse’s face. He encouraged his kids to try put their hands on its head, which they obliged silently. It did surprised Levi a bit over the fact that none of their kids showed any signs of fear of the horse and they seemed to bond pretty well in such a short amount of time. Then, he slowly put his twins on the horse saddle, the son was in the front and the daughter sat behind while hugging her brother tightly. A few soft taps on the horse, signalling the horse to start walking slowly while Levi walked beside it and ensuring his kids’ safety.

As the horse started to move, the kids giggled and their little body shivered with excitement. Levi, upon noticing this, felt relieved to able to hear his kids laugh again instead of crying and throwing tantrums like when they were in his office. He then calmly asked his kids not to laugh loudly all of a sudden and try to remain calm since a sudden noise could make a horse shocked and nervous which would be dangerous for them. So, his daughter placed one of her hands on her mouth while keep giggling while her brother hunched his body, putting both of his fists on his chest as if the feeling of enjoy was too much for his tiny body.

“Hey, open your eyes.” Levi said to his son, slightly worried that his son might actually felt scared. “Are you scared?,” he asked. The said boy immediately opened his eyes and vigorously shook his head.

“I’m happyyyy,” he broke into a huge smile that made his cheeks pushed his eyes to closed again.

Levi shook his head softly and chuckled with his kids’ reactions. And so the dad and his two twins keep circling around the training field under the evening sky with his horse for multiple rounds as his twins would keep saying “daddy again, daddy again” whenever the horse stopped forawhile and who could decline the wishes of the Captain’s cute twins? No one. They also started to become cheerful around their father again, much to Levi’s pleasure.

“I never thought there comes a day where I am able to see the Captain’s soft side.” Jean said while eyes following the said figure with the horse.

“I never thought Captain had a soft side actually.” Connie replied.

“You guys.... Captain is a human afterall. Of course he would have a soft side.” Armin joined, showing his support on his respected Captain.

As the time passed by, the twins became quieter and Levi knew that was a sign that his kids were starting to feel tired so he decided to bring back the horse to its stable and he would return the chamber to bath his kids that were now all sweaty and dusty.

“HEHhee Daddy that tickles!”, the little boy said while laughing as his dad was trying to soap his armpit.

“Okay, you wash that yourself.” Levi said while smiling. Right now, he was sitting on a small tool inside the bathroom with only a towel around his waist, both of his kids were fully naked as he was on duty to give his kids a bath, making sure they were extremely clean before going to bed.

“Daddy, I want white head as well,” his daughter said, referring to his brother’s head that was covered with shampoo foam.

“Okay come here.”

“Daddy! I want to wash your back”

“Daddy, why is your back so bumpy?”

“It’s muscle”

“What’s mushel (muscle)?”

“Daddy! I want to wash your hair!”

“Okay. Use that shampoo.”

“Poopoo? Euwww daddy poopooooo.”

“No, I said shampoo.” Levi broke into smile, trying to stiffle his laugh. His bath time this evening had been so cheerful thanks to his kids that were now came in good terms again with him. He felt warmth all over his body despite being shirtless inside a bathroom and he was definitely content, having tiny hands rubbing and soaping his body, taking care of him while attacking him with all sorts of questions, none that annoyed him since everything about his kids were just criminally adorable.

“I love you”, he suddenly blurted out perhaps due to being overwhelmed with joy.

“I wuv you too, daddy”

“Yeah, I wuuv you too”

Levi just chuckled upon hearing his twins’ answers, and smiled warmly at each one of them, including the person who was peeking quietly behind the door--you. The “I love you”, smiles and chuckles were not entirely just for his kids, but for you as well and you knew it. It was expected for the kids to not notice you, who had been peeking and resting your head at the door frame since their backs were facing you and were too busy washing their father while asking this and that.

The sight of your handsome husband lovingly giving bath to your kids and having your cute naked babies returning the favor to their dad really helped in making your day felt better despite it was pretty hectic and stressful in the beginning. It was these kind of days that made you felt grateful for being alive, and thankful for the decisions that you made in life especially the one that having Levi to be yours.

So, you returned the warm smile with a loving one and mouthing back “I love you more.”

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lilcoffeecup · 3 years

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Family Lost,Family Found

This is my entry for the fluff/angst Maribat April. This is the angst piece to @i-love-being-weird‘s fluff piece. Its not very long, I hope you enjoy it and if you have a chance go check out the fluff piece (it’s really good) :) @maribat-angst-fluff-april

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Life on the streets had always been hard for Jason, not knowing when his next meal would be or if he would have to endure another beatdown when he wouldn’t pay the ‘monthly tax’ to the two-bit criminal working for Black Mask. He hadn’t expected to have this weird feeling in his chest that made him want to protect her from all the bad things in life. In Crime Alley it was survival of the fittest and if you wanted to survive you were only supposed to look after yourself, only yourself. Somehow though, there she was, shivering in the rain and looking as thin as a twig which would break if simply touched.

“Hey, its raining out, you should go back home, it’s not safe to be out here”

“I-I don’t ha-have a-a home or any wh-where to g-go”

“Well come on then, I know a place” “Wh-where?” “A lil’ up ahead, you’re shaking like a leaf so hurry up”

Upon reaching the building, Jason could see that the little girl was still shaking, it made sense though since unlike him who was only a little bit wet, she was soaked to the bone.

“Here, blueberry” Jason hands Marinette a blanket, “warm up, this place doesn’t have heating, so these blankets are all we got” gesturing to the pile of worn-out blankets which had definitely seen better days. For the first time in a long time both Marinette and Jason feel asleep knowing that they were not alone.

Over the next few weeks, Jason and Marinette, who Jason had taken to calling pixie, became inseparable, things were somewhat good, running errands for some thugs got Jason money for food and he didn’t feel lonely ever since pixie came into his life. Jason should have known that it wouldn’t last, money was dwindling as fast as it was coming and the time for the monthly payment was coming up. He hadn’t realized how hard it would be when it wasn’t only him that he had to look out for, but also pixie, his little sister not by blood but by love.

Over the next few days Marinette could see that something had been bothering Jason, but every time she asked, he said nothing and tried to change the subject.

“Jay-Jay, what’s wrong, you seem so much more on edge for the past few days?” “Hmm, oh its nothing pixie, I scored this somewhat fresh loaf of bread today, here” Jason said, giving the loaf to Marinette and only ripping off a tiny piece. Marinette heard the rumble of Jason’s stomach and looked at him questionably, he had been getting thinner and she couldn’t help but think that it was her fault. Ripping off a big chunk of the loaf, she handed it to Jason, “Jay-Jay you need to eat, don’t think I haven’t noticed you giving me most of the food, you need it more than me” “No pix, I already ate, I brought this for you” “Bu- “. Jason cut Marinette off, “No buts pixie, you need to eat or you’re going to be a twig forever!” “Hey! I’m not a twig” “Then eat pixie” Marinette huffed then mumbled out a “fine”.

Marinette had been meaning to do something for Jason for a while now and she found her opportunity when she came upon a fruit stall, the owner was busy talking to someone, so she quickly swiped an apple. While walking away she beamed, “Jason’s gonna love it!” she thought. She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn’t notice the two men looking at her with knowing eyes.

“Hey! Isn’t that the kid whose been hanging around with the Todd brat these days?” “Yeah, I’ve word on the street is that she’s his sister or somethin’” The taller man, Mark, smirks, “well, well, well, guess we found the Todd brat’s weakness now”. The other man, Bill, smirks as well “collection time is coming up soon anyways, why not send a lil’ reminder”

2 blocks away from her and Jason’s hideout, Marinette was sure to hide her loot so that no prying eyes would see anything, this was for Jason and no one else. All of a sudden, she heard a holler behind her and spun around, immediately on edge.

“Hey kid! you’re with that Todd brat aren’t cha, his sister?” They didn’t wait for a response, just barreled into her, knocking her to the ground. “See, ya brother usually ends up comin’ up late on payments so we thought a lil’ incentive would nice, saves us the hassle of having to track the brat down and him a beating, ya know”

Before she could get up and run, she felt the wind get knocked out of her by a kick to her stomach, then her ribs, she curled into herself as tight as she could, but they kept on kicking her. She hadn’t even realized when they had stopped and left, she hurt all over and farther ahead was a mushed apple with a section bitten off suggesting that someone had taken a bite then crushed it with their shoe.

Crying, bleeding, and defeated, Marinette limped back to the abandoned building she and Jason had huddled up in. As soon as she got in, she was faced by a worried Jason. “Pixie!! Where were you, I came back and you weren’t here, I was so worried something had happe- “Jason cut himself off. “Pixie, what happened to you? Where did all these bruises come from, just give me the name and I swear they won’t ever touch you again”

“I don’t know their names, but they said something about beating me up as incentive for them not having to track you down for payments and for you to avoid a beating”, Jason felt a cold shiver run down his spine. He had been worried about this month’s payment date was creeping closer and closer and how he didn’t have enough, again. He had heard that the tires business had been doing well in the Black Shack, the place where most stolen things were fenced. He would have to make sure to try and score some, and cash in a few favours to try and scrounge up the money. Batman usually stuck to the city and here, in Crime Alley, there was no Batman that was gonna swoop in and save him or pixie if he wasn’t able to pay up in time.

Jason spent almost all of the next day trying to scope out any potential places he could hit and while he was able to get some loot, it wasn’t enough. It was already after dusk and the night had set in, and he knew he better get back soon since the later at night, the more dangerous it is. Just 1 or 2 buildings before his destination, he saw it, the bat-mobile, basking under the moonlight like a gift from above, and just by looking at it he could tell that they were custom. This would easily be able to cover the rest of the payment and he could get that plushie pixie had been staring at the other day.

He first made sure that no one was nearby, it wouldn’t do for someone to try and claim his prize before he could. Confirming an all clear, or as clear as it could be for the time of night, he got to work on the tires. He was almost done taking out the 3rd tire when he heard someone around him and whipped around so fast, he was sure he would feel it in his neck later. He couldn’t see the person but definitely felt someone’s eyes on him.

“Whoever you are, beat it, I found this first so it’s mine, go find your own!”. The response startled him, as the person came out of the shadows, “This is my car, so I don’t think I’ll beat it”, it was the Batman, and Jason felt as if those white lenses were piercing into his very being. “Ho-Holy shit, you’re the Batman!” “Yes, yes, I am, now could you put the tires back on my car?” “I-I can’t, I need the money, not all of us can afford to live lavishly like you, judging by your custom tires” “Why do you need the money, kid?” “None of your business” Jason sneered, he was getting sick of this, he had hidden the other tires well so he could come back for them tomorrow, he needed to get out of here ASAP. “Where do you think you’re going kid?” Batman asked just as Jason was about to turn and make a run for it, Jason didn’t bother to give him a response just made a mad dash for it.

He didn’t get far when Batman caught up to him, “Kid, I need you to put my tires back on” ‘this isn’t worth it’ Jason thought and decided that he would put the tires back then get back to pixie straight after. As soon as Jason had finished putting back all the tires, he was just about to get the hell out of there when he heard Batman “Get in kid” and knew that he couldn’t leave pixie all alone.

“No, I’m not going with you, you sicko! I already fixed your tires, what else do you want from me!” He struggled “The streets aren’t a safe place for kids, you’re coming with me” “No, let me go! I can’t leave her alone! You don’t understand! Let go!!” “Who her? Is there someone living with you?” Jason mentally hit himself, ‘how could he expose pixie! No, he couldn’t tell him about her!’. “No-one” Jason said as he was huddled into the bat mobile.

It was a few weeks until Jason was able to get out of the Manor and back to Crime Alley to check on pixie. When he reached the abandoned building, there was no pixie in sight, and almost nothing that would tell that anyone had lived there. Finding out through the grapevine, it turned out that pixie had been sold to a tourist couple in the façade of an adoption to pay off the debt that had built up in Jason’s absence. He had failed to protect her, failed to keep her away from all the bad things and now because of Jason’s mistakes, she was paying the price. He swore that he would find her and that when he did, he would never let her go, ever.

It had been years since that fateful night, Jason missed and thought of his little sister every day, he had given up hope on finding her after the first 2 years. Lost in thought, he didn’t realize bumping into a petite black-haired girl carrying a coffee walking out of a café that he and pixie would go to on special days if the had enough money. “Sorry mister, didn’t see you there, would you happen to know where the Wayne Enterprises building is?” “Don’t apologize, it was my fault too, lost in thought, I was just heading there myself, I can show you”. “Thank you so much!”

Jason couldn’t help but be reminded of his little pixie when looking at this girl, he felt his chest tighten up at the thought. “Hey mister, are you okay? you seem to have spaced out a bit” the girl asked. “No, I’m fine, you just remind me of someone who I miss a lot” “Funny enough, you remind me of someone I used to know and cherish a lot when I used to live here”.

“You used to live here?” Jason asked, he would definitely not have been able to tell had she not pointed it out. “Yeah, but it was a long time ago, I used to live in Crime Alley with my brother but got separated and haven’t seen him since” the girl said with a sad and pained face.

“We’re here!” Jason said as they reached the building, “Thanks for all the help mister!” said the girl and was about to walk away when Jason’s had realized that they had never introduced themselves, “Hey! What’s your name?”. The girl turned around and smiled “Sorry, I totally forgot to introduce myself, Hi, I’m Marinette” Marinette stuck out her hand, Jason shook it and said “Hey, I’m Jason”. Both thought ‘that’s her/his name! It can’t be thoug-‘ they didn’t have time to finish their though before a teenager about the age of Marinette with a coffee cup in hand and a younger child came into view.

What the younger said, shook Marinette to her core, not going unnoticed by the rest, “Todd! Finally, you show up Father and Drake have been waiting for you!”. “Marinette? What happened? You look like you’ve seen a ghost”, Jason looked concerningly at Marinette, “You-you’re na-name is Jason Todd?” “Yeah…why?” Jason was getting worried now but felt as if the word has stopped when he heard what Marinette said next.

Her voice cracking, Marinette spoke so quietly, almost as if whispering “Jay-Jay? Is that you?” Jason almost broke into sobs right in the lobby of W.E., could this really be happening? “Pixie, that you?”. Marinette immediately threw herself into Jason’s chest, and nodded “Ye-yeah it’s me, oh my God, jay-jay I thought I would never be able to see you again, are you really here, tell me this isn’t another dream because I don’t ever want to wake up if it is”. Jason started rubbing soothing circles on her back while shedding his own tears, “Shhh, it’s okay Pixie, it’s me, I’m really here, this is real and I thought I would never see you again either” “God pix, I’m so, so, sorry I left you all alone, I looked for you everywhere but never found you”. “Please don’t leave me again” Marinette sobbed, “I don’t want to lose you again”. Jason felt even more tears pooling and dripping from his eyes, “Never pixie, I will never leave you, ever.”

Jason tightly hugged Marinette, “I missed you Jay-Jay” “I missed you too Pixie, I missed you too”.

~fin.

#sibling jasonette #angst fluff april #reunited siblings #dc #mlb #maribat #there's gonna be a lot of crying #Mari even looks like a Wayne so she's gonna get adopted by bruce in the near future most likely #maribat angst and fluff april #boba writes

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life-with-hogwarts-students · 3 years

Conversation

Thread of Dorcas playing Persona 3: Portable whilst Regulus watches (Very Out of Context)

(Dorcas is playing as a female protagonist)

Regulus: This unknown boy is creeping me out

Regulus: OO PRETTY GIRL SHES HOT Mitsuru queen

Regulus: Awe Yukari’s cute

Regulus: WHY DOEES SHE HAVE A Gun

Regulus: HOBBYY???? WHAT HOBBY NEEDS A GUN

them: was everything okay?

Regulus: NOTHING WAS OKAY!!! THE STATION WAS WEIRD AF

Regulus: when the game says you need to sleep you sleep

Regulus: 'dont tell anyone what i saw???' tthats not concerning at all!

Regulus: HELMET MAN!!!

Regulus: 11TH GRADE???? THE PROTAGONIST IS SO SMALLL

Regulus: sexism??? in this economy??? its more likely than you think

Regulus: GOOD GODS THE PRINCIPAL IS SO CREEPY WTF

Regulus: 'SMIRKING CLASSMATE????' THATS WHAT THEY CALL THE LIAM OBRIEN???

Regulus: OMG HE LOOKS LIKE A FRAT BOY AND HES GONNA BE OUR FRIEND!!!

Regulus: yukari didnt havve to come for junpei like that but she really did

Regulus: omg junpei sweetie, hes such a himbo but also not a himbo???

Regulus: LIN MANUEL MIRANDA????

Regulus: I dont need to but im gonna ask ALL THE QUESTINs

Regulus: HES GASLIGHT GATEKEEP GIRLBOSSING US HOW DARE

Regulus: idk why but whenever he talks i hate him

Regulus: mysterious old gentlemen?? thats me

Mitsuru: the moon is beautiful tonight

Regulus: SO ARE YOU

Regulus: I THOUGHT SHE WAAS GONA CONFESS

FOR A HOT SECOND

AND THEN I REALIZED THAT WOULDNT HAPPEN CAUSE PEOPLE ARE COWARDS

Regulus: THESE MONSTERS ARE FIGHTING CAUSE THEYRE DISTRESSED??? WELL IM ALWAYS DISTRESSED TOO YOUU DONT SEE ME STARTING FIGHTS EVERYWHERE

Mitsuru: are you ready

Regulus: never

Regulus: DEPRESSION IN THE BUILDING BAYBEEEE -ooo blood

Regulus: FIGHT THE GHOST MOPS YASS

Regulus: oof them good beats im vibing

Regulus: merlin, this game takes the english out of me

Regulus: smollenemy boisss

Regulus: ITS A GHOST PIXIE WITH A HAND

Regulus: THAT HAND HAD A FACE ON IT??? or am i SEEING THINGS??

Regulus: we love the mcfucking stairs, thanks Dorcas

Regulus: aweee ghosties wearing cute pink pyjama pants

Regulus: i wish these hand things fought with their middle fingers, would be so mucch more interesting

Regulus: Shuffle time -EVERYDAY IM SHUFFLING

Regulus: junpei's me; burning my mouth with the hot food knowing FULL WELL THAT ITS FUCKING HOT

Regulus: yukari??? tired?? EXCUSE ME???

Regulus: im love fortune telling lady

Regulus: EAVESDROPPINGGGG TIMEEE

Regulus: apparently rio is Dorcas' beloved lmaoooo

Regulus: YUKARI FLIRTING WITH USSS YESSS

Regulus: FRIENDS THAT ARE GIRLS??? NOPE YUKARI IS OUR GIRLFRIEND (remember they're playing as a female protagonist)

Regulus: akihikos mood changes tho; one minute hes like 'you better be training' and the next hes like 'go have some fun'???

Regulus: YUKARI FLIRTING WITH USSSSSSSSSS

Regulus: WE GOING ON A DATE WITH MITSURU!!!

Regulus: YUKARI DATE WITH US ON A DATE SHE SWEETIE SHES POURING HER HEART OUT TO US THIS IS TOTALLY A DATE

Regulus: LOVERS ARCANA??? I WAS CORRECT THEYRE DATING

Regulus: HORROR HOUSE??? I THOUGHT SHE SAID WHORE HOUSE!

Dorcas: are you ready to hang out with junpei

Regulus: im always ready

Regulus: hes stopping to stare at us??? well, we are beautiful

Regulus: sausage fest??? JUNPEI WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK

Regulus: what type of life has theo been living??? wtf??? spoonfuls??? my guy does he need help??

Regulus: fuck tanaka, and not in the fun way

Dorcas: you wanna take theo out on a date

Regulus: FUCK YES I LOVE HIM

Regulus: men are cowards

Regulus: the way junpei talks about akihiko is like hes in love with him like dude you tryna set us up or yourself???

Dorcas: you can date any man in this (as a female character)

Regulus: disgusting

akihiko: i dont want u to rely on me during fights

Regulus: thats completely fine we have Dorcas

Regulus: i love being talked about behind my back

Regulus: SIT YOUR ASS DOWN AKIHIKO

Regulus: MOTORCYCLE??? IM EVEN GAYER NOW

yukari: what are we gonna do?!

Regulus: cry

junpei: what type of messed up ride is this??

Regulus: a fun one

Regulus: YAS STRIKE A POSE JUNPEI GOOGLE MAP ALWAYS TAKING PHOTOS BAYBEEE

Regulus: does someone know how to drive a train???? i feel like that would be a good skillset to have

Regulus: Dorcas' making us cry and now junpei's freaking out, great

yukari: how did you know which ones the break

Regulus: ITS CALLED GUESSING -or Dorcas has played this before

Regulus: a yawn-b-gone??? do you mean energy drink???

Regulus: someone pls get akihiko high, he needs it

Regulus: Theo, my sweet boi i love him

Dorcas: someone was injured their car fell-

Regulus: nice

Dorcas: ????

Dorcas: i will cheat to get these questions right

Regulus: not Dorcas losing her cool over rio

Regulus: not Dorcas tryna murder headless ghosties while they couple dance

Regulus: lets get us some boiiisss and by bois i mean personas and not actual bois cause yike

Regulus: oh no, drunk man. we don't love drunk man

Dorcas: Translate 'pan' into english

Regulus: BRAID!

Regulus: Wait- I MEANT BREAD

Dorcas: BRAID?????

Regulus: i cant believe we have to do the test

Dorcas: REGULUS YOU'RE NOT DOING ANYTHING IM ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS

#regulus #regulus black #dorcas #dorcas meadowes #marauders #hogwarts high #persona #persona 3 #persona 3 portable #marauders playing persona basically #very out of context but lot of fun #regulus watching dorcas play and highkey acting like hes definitely playing #regulus should be doing his assignment that is due at 9am tomorrow but this works too

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victimhood · 4 years

Text

My TOG cast and crew movie reviews

Ok so watching TOG revived the part of me that LOVES indie-ish/European Arthouse films and I blitzed through a bunch with more to come! Idk who this review serves but I just had to explode in writing or...the feelings would go nowhere.

Love and Basketball

My movie rating: 4 / 5

Favourite parts: the conflict between a tomboy sports loving protagonist and a conventional homemaking mother. To sound cliched, this is the sort of thing only a woman filmmaker can bring out in her films. There’s so much nuance and tension expressed in all the individual women in the film and where that lies in the enforced dichotomy of woman/not a woman--thereby highlighting that IT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN A DICHOTOMY all of these are in the broad spectrum of womanly behaviors bc they come from women!!! The ending where a husband supports his wife in HER basketball game? LOVE THAT. Music choices are also A++ in this film.

The film also provides some insight into respectability politics--here we have an NBA player who wants his son to do something more conventionally “respectable”. I am not American nor am I Black so someone with more insight would be able to speak to this better, but even so as an audience I could feel it!

TOG cast rating: none, bc it’s the director!! This is Gina Prince-Bythewood’s breakout film but you can palpably feel that she poured her heart and perhaps some of her life experiences in this film!

Martin Eden

My movie rating: 3.5 / 5

Don’t understand the movie, slightly put off by the Nietzschean individualist philosophy. Doubly so after I read that the author of the book (Jack London) is a socialist?? (FTR so am I so like...I’ve had enough of white male indivudalism!!) Stuff like that always reminds me of (500) Days of Summer which is anti-manic pixie dream girl and yet is beloved by aspiring MPDG-philes. Here is a quote from the author himself: London wrote, "One of my motifs, in this book, was an attack on individualism (in the person of the hero). I must have bungled it, for not a single reviewer has discovered it."

Though I have not read the book, I hope the movie is a little more pronounced, in the unraveling of the eponymous protagonist. Luca gives an impressive show of his Acting Range as the protagonist moves through life and goes through a whole bunch of political beliefs in reaction to the situation around him.

I love movies that show the impoverished side of Europe though. The movie does a good job of showing the class conflict within society--at the end of the day, the Martin Eden that has risen through the social ladder is a self-despising man. The bread mopping scene is great, and truly, there is no love for Luca Martinelli like the camera’s love for Luca Martinelli. I love Luca’s bad teeth in this too. Dental health is possibly one of the most obvious, yet most unremarked markers of social class. Nice detail.

TOG cast rating: 5/5 Luca really carries this film on his broaaaaad shoulders. Thank you Luca. Thank you Pietro, for making a movie that lingers so lovingly on Luca’s face, inspiring many a writer to pen horny paeans to the Roman nose and the Byzantine eyes. I even saw one about the lop of hair over the eyes. Yes….watching Luca is a very physiological experience.

They Call Me Jeeg (Lo Chiamavano Jeeg Robot)

My movie rating: 4 / 5

Ok this movie is quite male-gazey in the conventional action movie way. Moments where the damsel is in distress are filmed in a somewhat titillating manner. That aside, the damsel in distress does get a moment of glory, though it shortly precedes her death. The hero of the film I also found not too groundbreaking. He starts out as a thief but is given superpowers, and he’s mostly a sad loser who watches too much porn in his free time, though the damsel’s belief in him helps turn him around to the greater good. The story moves at a quick pace and with twists and turns at each corner which help the enjoyability rating.

Really, the standout of this movie is the villain. Fabio (Lo Zingaro) is fantastically deranged, in a style that surpasses the Joker. The only thing I truly have to say about this movie is that the moment where Lo Zingaro barges in on the hero and the camera POV switches from third person to first person and the hero is on the verge of fainting but all he sees is Lo Zingaro saying “Ciao”.........reader, I am speaking from the afterlife. Again, truly, there is no love for Luca Marinelli like the camera’s love for Luca Marinelli. My heart stopped when I saw Fabio’s face in such a tender, loving proximity...and yet...he is deranged...he wants to kill you….TAKE ME NOW FABIO I AM YOURS *lovelorn Victorian sigh*

Perhaps I might issue a CW that there is a trans character in the film. The character doesn’t appear for too long, and I think the portrayal is mostly neutral to borderline negative for playing to stereotypes. The damsel in distress’s story carries a huge TW for sexual abuse and incest.

TOG cast rating: 5/5 just for that 1st person POV scene alone--that was life changing. I did not expect to be greeted so intimately by a completely deranged motherfucker. I want it as my phone wallpaper.

A Bigger Splash

My movie rating: 4.5 / 5

I loooooooved Bigger Splash so much?? But this is because I love Tilda Swinton and I love Ralph Fiennes. While watching this, I don’t know why, but I just kept thinking, aaaaand this guy is also Voldemort (Fiennes). I love the implausibility and yet here we are.

Matthias is so boyfriend-shaped in this movie, I wanted to snuggle up against him and have him care for me. He’s a wonderful boyfriend, and Ralph Fiennes’s character truly, is the Most Annoying Mansplainer type ever, like, you’ve probably met that type, who thinks he’s slick and loves the sound of his own voice and I 100% related when Matthias’s character just...has had enough of Ralph Fiennes’s character. But oopsie, the rest is a spoiler.

THE SOUNDTRACK IS AWESOME also it’s got St Vincent covering the Rolling Stones and St Vincent is the lesbian guitar hero of your dreams, please give St Vincent more love.

TOG cast rating: 5 / 5 Matthias is butt naked in the opening scenes of the movie, and then he appears full frontal nude later on. But mostly he just looks so snuggly like a big boyfriend hoodie.

Rabat

My movie rating: 4 / 5

Wow ok I LOVED THIS ONE A LOT. Idk what I was expecting, but it was a beautiful, beautiful ride. It’s a perfect expression of the “roadtrip story” form. It’s got the adventure, the hijinks, the conflict and the “transformative growth” that comes out of the conflict. It’s about the MENA immigrant experience in Europe, and though from a different community as someone who’s had the immigrant experience myself I loved the part where they talk about people back home thinking they’re rich for having moved abroad. Yet--in many white-dominated countries, non-white immigrants live under an incredibly bulletproof glass ceiling and moving “upward” in society is a pipe dream. I loved when the main character Nadir mentions his dad’s taxi being a reliable source of income for the past 15 years. I think it’s such a warm and human film played by very warm and human characters, and [mild spoiler] I CACKLED SO MUCH at how Nadir “resolves” the question of marriage--I can’t go into too much detail bc the movie builds up to this but I LAUGHED SO MUCH. It’s the blend of total inappropriateness delivered in the most sincere package played to perfection.

TOG cast rating: 3/5 criminally underused Marwan bc he is not the main character. Marwan is a womanizing, alcohol-loving Tunisian friend in this story who buys a...bootleg? Hugo Boss suit for 200 Euros and then rips it up to form shorts bc the weather is too hot. The story implies he has a more complex backstory re: his relationship to his father as well as having impregnated a girl and escaping paternal responsibility for that but doesn’t give us much more. At one point, one character remarks that he would do “horrible” things (implying sexual interest) to Marwan’s character and ALAS I MUST AGREE.

...AAAAAND we’ll have more to come!! I promised a friend to watch Beale Street together so it’s gonna take a while for that to happen thx covid.

#the old guard #the old guard cast #tog cast #Gina Prince-Bythewood #luca marinelli #matthias schoenaerts #marwan kenzari #love and basketball #martin eden #a bigger splash #lo chiamavano jeeg robot #they call me jeeg #rabat

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femreader · 5 years

Text

Slowly but surely - Maleficent

Request: can you write a fem!reader x maleficent where the reader was found injured in the moors and maleficent decided to take care of her, not wanting to fall in love but in the end she does??

Summary: The reader is from our world and is found by Aurora and the co. In the middle of the Moors. Some explanations are demanded on either side.

Pairing: Maleficent x fem!reader, mom!Maleficent x daughter!Aurora

Warnings: none I think except my crappy writing

A/N: Been listening to lots of Elton

Song: Tiny Dancer by Elton John

“I am not-”

“Mother please,” Aurora looked up at her with her big blue eyes. Her hand was still resting over the unconscious’ woman’s hand. Her pale skin was dirtied by mud and blood, and her breathing seemed to be rather heavy. Maleficent grimaced at the thought of helping another completely unknown person.

“Just heal her, please. We will handle everything else.”

“Where did she come from,” Diaval furrowed his eyebrows, and Aurora turned her head to look at the crow at the end of the bed.

“We do not know,” She sighed and glanced at Philip. “We were riding and found her in these weird clothes in a pitch.”

The princess turned to Maleficent once more and cocked her head to the side, knowing she had the fae wrapped around her little finger. Maleficent held back an eye roll and swished her hand, the golden swirl settled on the stranger’s body, healing her wounds and cleaning her appearance.

“I want to meet her once she wakes up,” Maleficent informed to the people in the room. She glanced at the weird-looking woman on the big bed and squinted her eyes. Where did you come from?

Where am I?

...

And what am I wearing?

Y/N blinked furiously as she sat up, on the creaky bed, her abs were aching. Furrowing her eyebrows she slowly got up, cracking her toes while she was at it. Jesus, how long had she been out? Y/N walked slowly, pushing the heavy wooden door open and taking a peak from the hallway outside. She seemed to be in some sort of castle. It kinda reminded her of one of those Taylor Swift music videos. Her eyes set on the small pitchfork for the fireplace.

She stepped outside and skipped over to the window by the end of the hallway, a very medieval-looking village opened before her eyes. Y/N clutched the pitchfork in her hands even tighter.

“The hell...?”

“Oh, good you’re awake,” A female voice spoke up and Y/N jumped around in her spot. She held up the pitchfork up and was met with a blonde looking woman. Y/N gulped down and tried to put up a strong face.

“What the hell is this place? Who are you?”

“You’re in my home. We found you injured in the woods,” The woman answered with a kind voice. It was so soft and innocent Y/N involuntarily let the pitchfork fall back on her side.

”Your home as in...?”

”The Moors of course,” she answered with a slightly confused smile. Aurora couldn’t comprehend how this strange woman couldn’t know where she was. Everyone knew the place, no one ever talked about anything else.

”My name’s Aurora?” She said in a slightly questioning voice, thinking the stranger would have maybe recognized her already.

Y/N let her grip on the pitchfork loosen and it fell on the floor with a loud clank. Aurora slightly cringed at the loudness while Y/N was freaking her mind out in her spot. She blinked rapidly and felt her chest move up and down rapidly with her breathing. Her hands brushed through her hair, a nervous habit she had.

”You’re not... I-I mean your- Was your father named Stefan?” She rambled, very confused and very scared.

”Why, yes. He was,” Aurora was taken back. ”How did you know?”

”Aurora? What is this?” A new voice joined their conversation and Y/N was ready to jump through the window. When she turned around and was faced with a... fairy of sorts, Y/N was ready to actually jump through the glass. She looked at the woman, eyes wide and mouth open but in return did not get more than a bat of an eye. Her heart was going through the roof, Y/N was sure she was going into cardiac arrest.

“Godmother,” Aurora walked next to Y/N and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. The human looked at the blonde and then the woman, and back at Aurora.

“This is...” The princess looked at Y/N in question, realizing she hadn’t even gotten her name yet. It took good 30 seconds for Y/N’s brain to function properly once again.

“Y-Y/N,” she blabbered and blinked furiously.

“I’m sorry but... how, did I get here?”

Aurora and Maleficent shared a look, this was going to be a long night.

Days passed, then months and soon Y/N realized she had been in the world of fairies and pixies for almost a year. Still, there was no evidence on how she managed to detach herself from her original world, nor how could she ever get back. Y/N did her best to be useful and help around the Moors and the castle until she’d depart, but given the long wait, she had grown used to waking up in her bed in the castle (Maleficent still would not let her spend more than the daylight at Moors), smelling the sweet baked cakes and cookies when getting breakfast and smiling and chatting with the villagers. They were such lovely folk and very understanding. Trade was common, so gold wasn’t really that necessary. Y/N admired that, the community was tightly knit but they didn’t even hesitate to take her in.

So it did confuse her when one of the first people she had met didn’t want anything to do with her.

“Miss Y/N, would you like some bread?”

“oh shut it, George, she clearly is in the mood for apples, freshly picked,” The town villagers bickered playfully to which Y/N chuckled and politely said no.

“Fresh shrimp! Fresh shrimp, straight from the sea,” A merchant walked past Y/N with a stroller full of shrimps and crabs. Y/N smiled to him also and continued her stroll towards the music shop.

“Ah, Y/N, yes, yes, come in. I have it right back there, sit, sit I’ll be right back,” The older man, Thomas, exclaimed as soon as Y/N stepped inside the shop. She chuckled at the elder’s antics and leaned to the counter to wait for her ukulele. Y/N had no idea if that was what the people here called it, but after drawing a picture for them, Thomas was eager to build her one. Music was something Y/N was missed dearly from her old world.

“And here, she’s a beauty. You chose the wood perfectly,” Thomas showed her the final product. Y/N looked at it in awe, it must have been the most precise and beautiful ukulele she had ever held. The dark wood was smooth and almost silky in her hands. The strings worked together perfectly, Y/n couldn’t hear one note out of place.

“Here you go,” She gave Thomas his money and played a couple of chords.

“It’s amazing, thank you so much.”

Thomas looked at the ukulele with pride and nodded to the girl.

“You must play at the fall festival,” he boasted, holding his thumbs underneath his suspenders. “You sound rather dashing.”

Y/N blushed a little and hung the ukulele around her neck from the leather belt.

“I-I’m not s sure of that. But thank you, really,” She dismissed herself as another client came into the shop.

Now very content with the ukulele around her neck, and feeling much more at home, Y/N sneaked out of the village and near the edge of the forest, where the Moors was hidden. She sighed, wondering if anyone would mind her going in at this time of the day as the sun was setting. She’d love to see the sunset from the waterfalls someday, but a certain someone immediately crossed her mind from thinking about it.

So Y/N ended up staying by a lonely tree in the middle of the field. There was a strong branch, not far away from the ground where she spent most of her time, watching the sunset down the horizon. When the golden and pink rays hit her face and made everything a tad bit magical.

“And you can hear me. When I say softly... slowly” Y/N played with he strings and finding the right tabs. She cleared her throat, watching the sunset and sang to herself quietly.

“Hold me closer tiny dancer” A couple of strings weren’t right and she corrected herself.

“Count the headlights on the highway. Lay me down in sheets of linen. You had a busy day today.”

“What a sad song,” a familiar, but a very unexpected voice spoke and Y/N stopped playing. She looked behind her from where Maleficent flew to the branch with ease. Y/N felt her cheeks tint a little, very much taken aback by the fact that the fae even talking to her.

“I-I guess,” She mumbled with slightly tinted cheeks. “It’s beautiful.”

Maleficent squinted her eyes a little as she scanned Y/N’s sudden change in her demeanor. Red was splashed on her cheeks and ears, it was almost adorable how flustered she got. The fae hummed in response.

“How was your day?” Y/N suddenly piped up, while playing with the strings of that weird instrument. She bit her lip when they sat in silence, hoping she didn’t sound awkward.

“Busy,” Maleficent said cleverly, a slight smile tugging her red lips. Y/N didn’t suppress her laugh but let it out. Her teeth were pearly white even in the setting sun. Her skin seemed to glow in the golden rays.

Y/N huffed silently and rolled her lips together, continuing to play the song. Maleficent noticed faint, white line going down her side of neck when Y/N rolled her head to her side to see the strings properly. Her voice was very beautiful, even though Maleficent didn’t understand anything that she was singing about. she was a very odd woman.

Still, she couldn’t help but love her more every day.

#Maleficent #maleficent fanfic #maleficent 2 #maleficent headcanon #maleficent x reader

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luckyjak · 5 years

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Why I Don’t Ship Widojest: A Master Post

An anon sent me an ask about this topic, and I debated for quite a bit about how to answer it. Then I decided the best way was to do a long post like this. I put a lot of thought into why I don’t like it, and I thought to share it.

A few things: 1) I am not telling you not to ship it. The goal of this is not to say “Don’t ship Widojest! It is a bad ship and you are a bad person for shipping it!” That is not my goal, okay? The internet and fandom in particular is meant for fun, and if you enjoy Widojest then more power to you! Don’t let me or anyone else stop your fun! Lord knows I have shipped significantly more problematic things. All I ask is that you tag shit more but that’s beside the point.

2) I am not particularly interested in argument. You are not likely to change my mind. I am not trying to be hostile, but if you know reading this is going to piss you off, then don’t read it. A question was asked of me, and so I thought to share my opinion. Unfortunately for everyone involved I am a high school English teacher, and so I cannot think about anything without completely overthinking it.

About my shipping preferences: generally, I like all the ships! I was particularly fond of Widomauk before Molly died, and I now I really enjoy Shadowgast, but I also like Fjorclay, Fjester, Beaujester, Beauyasha, Widofjord, Clayleb, Lavorclay, and, as the only person on earth, Yasha/Caleb. Hell, if Astrid gets a good redemption arc? Caleb/Astrid or even Caleb/Astrid/Edowulf. Any of those ships could become canon and I’d be tickled pink! You can even throw Nott into the mix, even though I mostly ship her with her husband. Nott/Fjord? Delightful. Nott/Caleb? Weird flex but why not? Nott/Jester? Absolutely! They are the best detectives!

I just don’t like Widojest and I don’t want it to be canon, and here’s why:

Doyalist Reasons First:

1) Laura and Liam played twins for years, still act like siblings even though they aren’t related by blood, and it squicks me to think of them together romantically.

Laura and Liam are fantastic actors. If they were hired to play a romantic couple, I have no doubt in my mind they could knock it out of the park.

But why on earth would they want to pretend to be a romantic couple, in a game they both play for fun?

It would be weird. I play D&D with several guys I consider my brothers, and I can’t imagine pretending to romance either of them in d&d for that same reason. It would be weird.

Maybe it wouldn’t be weird for Liam and Laura. Maybe they are more dedicated to their RP, and they’d be able to push that aside for the sake of fictional romance. But for me, that would be the last thing I’d want to play, and I suppose I project that onto Laura/Liam.

2) A lot of “evidence” for the ship is the way Liam looks at Laura.

To which I say...did you watch Vox Machina?

That’s how Liam looks at Laura all the time. He’s the president of her fanclub. He’s her twinsie. He always looks at her with hearteyes. I have a hard time seeing that as “evidence” for him having feelings for her when...that’s just what his face looks like.

Now, for Watsion reasons:

3) It has all the benefits for Caleb, and none for Jester

Seriously. What does Jester get out of a relationship with Caleb?

Don’t say someone who understands her, because Caleb certainly doesn’t. In fact, the only person who routinely “gets” Jester is Beau. (see: their conversation on the ship.)

Lots of people accuse Widojest as being a Manic Pixie Dream Girl ship because...let’s be realistic, it has all the makings of one. Tortured, broody man meets young, innocent girl who teaches him to enjoy life once again? Wikipedia’s definition is “[girl with] eccentric personality quirks and are unabashedly girlish. They invariably serve as the romantic interest for a (most often brooding or depressed) male protagonist.” Guys, that is textbook Manic Pixie Dream Girl! It gets even worse because Jester’s character is a healer! You want her to heal him? That is squicky!

And yeah, I trust Liam and Laura to be more nuanced than that, but do you know who I absolutely do not trust to be more nuanced?

The fandom. The fandom that is already producing mass amounts of Manic Pixie Dream Girl fanfic. And as that’s where I spend a lot of my free time...egads. I do not want that.

The few Widojest fics I have read (which, admittedly, are not a lot, because again, I don’t like the ship. The few I have read have been tagged as gen and then come to find out, weren’t.) have the distinct problem of woobie-fying Caleb so that Jester can take care of him, and gosh, I do not want that to become a trend.

4) Age Gap

Yes, thirteen years is not that major of an age gap. Yes, Fjord/Jester also have a large age gap.

However, there is a world of difference between “20 year old girl displays romantic interest in a 30 year old man, who decides he likes her back after getting to know her for months” vs “33 year old man decides to pursue a 20 year old woman after they danced one time when he was drunk and held hands and she showed general concern for his well-being.” One is decidedly more creepy.

(And would Jester be the one to pursue a relationship with Caleb? I almost think she’d have to, but again, why would Jester ever pursue Caleb when Fjord/Beau are right there.)

(Also, side note that I thought about making it’s own point but then decided it was petty: if Jester’s type is Fjord--tall, broad-shouldered, dark haired, muscled, then Caleb--skinny, red-head, shorter than Fjord--decidedly isn’t her type.

You know who is tall, dark, and handsome though? Beau.)

And do not say Jester is mature for her age, because she absolutely isn’t! In fact, the whole point of her character is that she’s not mature, she’s very immature and childish on account of her being locked away and being incredibly sheltered most of her life!

Also not a good excuse: Caleb spent 11 years in the asylum and therefore he’s only mentally in his 20s. Uh, no he’s not. He was in an asylum: he was not brain dead. He lived those years. He might’ve been crazy, but he was alive then. Nothing Liam’s done suggests that Caleb is mentally in his 20′s.

5) What would they even talk about?

This is probably actually the one that bothers me the most out of all these reasons, but uh....what would Caleb and Jester talk about, if they were in a relationship together?

Seriously.

They could talk about books? But Jester only ever reads terrible romance and smut. We saw when she tried to pay attention to the dunamancy lessons that she struggles to be interested in that academic stuff that is Caleb’s bread and butter. They could talk about their childhoods? That will go over well. Jester was locked away from society and Caleb straight up murdered his beloved parents. If they manage to avoid that, I’m sure they could fight again over income, what with Jester being a rich kid and Caleb being a poor farm boy. Pranking? Caleb enjoys a good prank now and again, but I can only imagine he’d tolerate getting banned from so many libraries.

They are a cat and a dog, literally. Caleb is an introvert and his idea of a good time is a quiet night at home with a good book. Jester’s idea of a good time is a party with lots of people! Yet I’m supposed to believe they’d have a happy and fulfilling relationship? Don’t get me wrong, many introverts and extroverts do get married in real life, but like...I have a hard time seeing this one working out. How many dicks do you think Jester draws in his spellbooks--which are expensive and time-consuming and require precise work--before that becomes a point of contention?

6) He doesn’t trust her enough to tell her his secrets

Hey quick poll! Who in the Mighty Nein doesn’t know that Caleb murdered his parents?

Fjord. Caduceus. And look, Jester.

I have a hard time buying that he sees her romantically when he can’t even tell her one of the biggest things about him. And he’s known her for months at this point.

If I liked a guy, and I found out he had this big secret, and he had told Beau but not me this secret? I would think he didn’t trust me.

I suppose you could argue that he’s trying to protect her. But then that just goes back into the whole “he doesn’t trust her” argument. He even had the opportunity to and he didn’t during their whole hand-holding thing a few episodes ago!

7) What does their ending look like?

Listen, my ideal ending for Caleb at the moment is “maybe after ten years of friendship he lets Essek tenderly hold his hand for just a moment but no longer” but that’s just me. I see a lot of people who seem to think Caleb’s going to settle down and marry Jester and they are going to have kids, and I just--

Caleb? Having children? Caleb, who murdered his parents and has severe PTSD surrounding that? Caleb, who was abused by his mentor daily for many years? You want to give that Caleb children??? Children who he would constantly worry may grow up to kill him, like he did his own parents, or worse, that he’d do something to accidentally hurt them in a fit of madness?

I could see Caleb maybe adopting a kid if one was forced onto him, but I cannot see him going “ah yes we should procreate!”

Jester, meanwhile, needs like approximately fifteen kids ten years from now, I think. She’d love them. She’d just adopt an orphanage and let the kids run wild and be the best at playing games with them.

Also, character arcs are important. Because Caleb’s ideal ending is stability and Jester’s is exploration.

Caleb, traumatized child soldier who has spent the past 15 years in an asylum and also fighting for his life, and before that spent time traveling between the Zemni Fields, Ikithon’s home in the country, and the Empire’s Capitol, who then escaped the asylum and spent all of his time running, trying to avoid being caught by Ikithon. The best ending for Caleb is to find peace; peace that involves not having to move around anymore, and having a home again, something he hasn’t had in almost twenty years. Maybe that home is a tower in Nicodranas. Maybe it’s a house in Xhoras with six other people. Maybe it’s a quiet bookstore in Zadash, or a little cabin in the Zemni Fields. A garden/graveyard in the woods. Either way, it doesn’t involve a lot of travel from place to place.

Meanwhile, Jester, who was trapped in exactly one place for her entire life, deserves a chance to explore the world. Even when the Mighty Nein disband, I can’t see Jester being happy to just go back to Nicodranas and stay there for the rest of her life. She may settle down eventually, but uhhh, not for several decades, I don’t think. Part of why my two big ships for her are Fjord and Beau: Fjord wants to be a sailor again, I think, which involves travelling the world, so I could see Jester going out with him. Beau, likewise, is an Expositor whose job is to seek out corruption, which again, means travelling, which Jester would be happy to do with her. Hell, the three of them could go together, sailing and punching evil for all of time! It would be great!

(Also: her god is called the TRAVELER why would you want her to settle down and be a mom??? What part of her story makes you think she needs to stay in one place?)

Lastly

I apologize if this post offends anyone. I’ve just been thinking about it for a while, and while Widojest as a ship has surged in popularity, I suppose I wanted to make a counterpoint about my feelings towards the ship. This isn’t meant as an attack on anyone, again, and please, if you like the ship then don’t look at this as a reason to stop liking it! Fandom is for fun! Keep liking what you like!

And I can’t promise I’m always going to feel this way about the ship--hell, the VOD of Thursday’s episode may come out on Monday, and I may watch it and be converted myself. Who knows! I didn’t like Vax/Keyleth at first either, but it grew on me and now it’s one of my favorites from Vox Machina.

(ALTHOUGH Mr. O’brien I swear to God if you romance Jester while flirting with Essek in a direct parallel to Keyleth/Vax/Gilmore I’m going to fly to LA just to punch you.)

Part of me wonders too if it just comes down to character interpretation, if there is something about their characters that is clicking for some people but isn’t for me. Admittedly, I love Caleb and Jester’s friendship, and I see them more as growing like siblings that romantically, but I’ve been wrong before and who knows, I may be wrong again. But if it is a character interpretation, I just wonder what they are seeing about the characters that squicks me but appeals to them.

#critical role #cr discourse #anti-ship #anti-w*dojest

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nyadversary · 4 years

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30 questions meme thingie... tagged by @autumnalserenade sort of ehehehe

(1.) name / nickname:

kester / kes

(2.) gender:

oh haha no thank you :)

sometimes i think about how im both a transgender bisexual and a bigender transsexual and how thats so epic of me

(3.) star sign:

aries but i think astrology is stoopid i don’t like it. watch as that turns out to be an aries stereotype or something though

(4.) height:

5′9

(5.) time:

6:37 am EST

(6.) birthday:

04/17

(7.) favorite bands/groups:

oh fuck i’m definitely going to forget something important but

mother mother, metric, the decemberists, alt-j, echo & the bunnymen, x, pixies, hole, nirvana, clipping., my chemical romance, blondie, mindless self indulgence, studio killers

(8.) favorite solo artist:

again i’m definitely gonna forget someone important here

emilie autumn, amanda palmer, fiona apple, patti smith, marina & the diamonds, yungblud, poppy, slayyyter, hozier, mika

(9.) song stuck in my head:

i’m so sorry to have to say this but. dr3 despair arc ending theme

(10.) last movie:

genuinely no idea. i try not to watch movies if i can help it

(11.) last show:

it was either hannibal or better call saul, i don’t remember which of those i watched most recently

(12.) when did i create this blog:

sometime in late 2019, i think? don’t remember exactly. i know i announced i remade in early 2020, but i’d been active on this blog for maybe about six months beforehand

(13.) what do i post:

all kinds of stupid and gay shit

(14.) last thing googled:

“in a world where clowns are real” (i was trying to find a particular tumblr post)

(15.) other blogs:

@catboyebooks (liveblogging; we’re playing dr1 right now) @sexytesting (portal sideblog)

also. i did hoard a url the other day to use as like, a danganronpa sideblog maybe? so i don’t have to be unhinged on main maybe? so i can turn search engine indexing off and hide from the fandom at large maybe? it will probably be like some percentage shitposting some percentage sloppily written meta posts i don’t really know. might drop the url if i do anything with it

(16.) do i get asks:

not often, but from time to time! i think most of my followers are mutuals so when we talk it’s mostly through DMs or something rather than asks

(17.) why did i choose this url:

no deep reasons, it’s just nya + adversary although my lovely mutual litzo junkheaded did point out it could be read as “NY adversary” which also fits, i like that too

(18.) following:

92. i’ve never been one to follow a lot of blogs, as long as my dash isn’t super slow i prefer to keep my following count low — i think most of the blogs i follow are mutuals actually

(19.) followers:

116. again i think the majority of these i’m in mutuals with

(20.) average hours of sleep:

i have bipolar disorder so no

(21.) lucky number:

1, 4, 9, 11, 17, 55, 69 (nice), 93, 95, 101, 417, 420 (nice), 428, 666 (nice), 4673

(22.) instruments:

i’m mainly a singer but i used to play fiddle (would like to pick it up again sometime), i know some very rudimentary piano/keyboard (i can do basic chords), i’m trying to learn ukulele and i’d also like to try learning guitar

also my school did force us to play the recorder but we got sort of hardcore with it, broke out the alto/tenor/bass recorders and all that. i used to play alto and tenor mainly but i’ve played like every type of recorder probably lmao

(23.) what am i wearing:

shrieking shack t-shirt with a really deep fried image of harry holding dead dobby on it

black and white checkered pants

boxered shorts

(24.) dream job:

i don’t dream about having jobs simply <3

but no ideally i wind up being some sort of author i guess?

(25.) dream trip:

anywhere. ahaha. let me out <3

(26.) favorite food:

some favorites no order: soft pretzels, like all pasta but my fave is tortellini, virtually all seafood honestly but especially crab, mussels, salmon, and anchovies, udon, ramen but not instant ramen i’ve had enough of that for one lifetime probably but will continue to eat it bc money, cheesecake, pizza but specifically like really good italian style pizza (new york style is also pretty good), garlic bread, really anything with garlic, salty foods in general

(27.) nationality:

american 😔

in terms of more specific cultural background, just for funsies: mom’s side is irish catholic mainly, her dad’s family is from county tipperary, i’m 3rd gen. she grew up on staten island and most of her family lives (or did live) in the tristate area. dad’s side is scots-irish with left welsh and has been here a while, since i think the mid or late 1600s? my paternal grandparents ended up settling and raising their family in socal (san diego) but both their families are from the southern appalachian region (grandfather on that side grew up in rural northern alabama, F to pay respects, and i don’t remember specifically about my grandmother)

(28.) favorite song:

i cannot pick. uh. the most played song in my itunes library is infinitesimal by mother mother, so, whatever that says about me

(29.) last book read:

does... does the komaeda manga count

(30.) three fictional universes you’d like to live in:

Three??? most of the fictional universes i like / am invested in are horrible nightmare realms. the only one i can think of that seems like an overall good time is pokemon and i don’t think i need to explain why that would whip ass

i tag: the girl reading this <3 or, like, whoever, you can do this if you want and say i tagged you, no obligation

#my nyas?

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mysterylover123 · 5 years

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BNHA Rewatch: Episode 41 “Kota”

mysterylover123

OK so just a few comments about my last post before we get into it!

First of all, like I predicted, it did get flagged, but quickly restored. Secondly, an ask pointed out that the scene with Bakugo reprimanding Deku about Tomura is not, actually, in the episode. I’m not sure why I thought it was, but oh well. I’ll try and double check next time before I post the recap. Anyway, off to recap-ville. Episode 41 time!

Quirk training! The anime seriously elaborated on this from the manga, where it was just a few pages.

WOOF. At this point Todoroki has spent more screen time in season 3 without clothes than with.

wow that looks like good cake. They did not skimp on the desserts here.

FULL VERSION! Gotta say, Ragdoll and Tiger really round it out; it just looks kinda silly when it’s just Mandalay and Pixie Bob. They have a really impressive clatch of quirks too, ngl.

I wish they’d given Deku more than basic boot camp training. I’m kinda split on how they handled Tiger being trans; on the one hand, he’s a cool hero who kicks serious ass and has respect, on the other the characters make a slightly disparaging remark about him...but that could be what a transgender person would deal with in reality, and this series isn’t exactly presenting a utopia...I don’t know, it’s the same way I feel about Pixie Bob’s age thing. I’d like to give it the benefit of the doubt and it could be a lot worse, but it could be a lot better, too.

Oh my. Breathless, finding-his-resolve Deku is giving me rather impure thoughts.

I’m not sure what purpose making them cook for themselves serves, honestly. Iida tries to come up with one, but it kinda comes across like the WWP are just being lazy. The kids are training hard all day, wtf is wrong with having food pre-prepared for them?

Maybe it was just for another excuse to humiliate Bakugo. At this point, he hasn’t even done anything. Karma just hates him.

Or to give us this shot of Momo and her main love interests. Momo standing up for Shoto’s rights, cute TDDMM moment!

Aw poor Kacchan!

Feels overload! Also, kinda low-key ship Todo/Ochaco sometimes. I dunno, they seem like they’d have a good repertoire.

Wow Momo’s getting a lot of moments this episode ain’t she!

Deku is inexplicably drawn to pissed off, antisocial spiky-haired punks who seem like they need saving from their own temper, ain’t he? (Good god Kota looks like a BKDK lovechild in this scene, doesn’t he? Same Kacchan eyes).

BEHOLD, THE SINGLE SADDEST IMAGE SET COMMITTED TO SCREEN! OMG THE FEELS. (Someone give me a firebending Deku au fanfic, please!)

Toga’s complaining about how not-cute her outfit is. I think the fanbase would disagree.

Dabi sure loves monologuing, doesn’t he? Maybe he isn’t Toya after all; the other Todoroki’s don’t like to talk this much. Anyway, cute sleeping babies!

OMG Bakugo’s shirt. It’s like he wanted to remind us that he’s cut too, ya’ll. Deku isn’t the only one with abs of steel. (I think Kaminari’s the one under the pillows).

Poor remedial course babies! I feel them. I’ve been having bouts of insomnia lately, like, 4 hours of sleep type, and I can’t imagine that schedule they’re on. Honestly, I know they’re trying to make ‘em stronger, but depriving them of good food and sleep is not going to help with that. I’m pretty sure most workout advisors advocate keeping your basic needs provided for for maximum performance.

Aizawa is telling Ochaco and Aoyama that they nearly failed. I think this is an important point that all the people who try and excuse the Uraraka/Aoyama v 13 fight need to remember. Even Aizawa called them out on their mess up. It was a fluke, and there’s something deeper getting in the way of their success. Everyone else either passed by changing, or failed by refusing to change. These two need to be challenged in the same way, or they’ll never change for the better.

The dream 3some is finishing each other’s thoughts! Wow, that used to just be a BKDK thing, but Shoto has effectively nudged his way in there. Also, I love the symbolism of Kacchan looking at his own reflection here. Visual metaphors!

“Is All Might - I mean, the other teachers, coming?” Haha Deku don’t even pretend like you care about any of the other teachers.

Oh I see that’s why we had to have them cook their food! So we could prove who secret best girl really is. And tease Kacchako a little. At this point I’m not sure who most wants a threesome with the Wonder Duo, Uraraka or Todoroki.

Ooh, Shoto’s gaining on her!

Honestly, this is one of my favorite Tododeku moments. I kinda like their smaller moments even more than the “big” moments with these two, where they’re having dramatic stuff. The little stuff like Shoto giving Deku such emotionally intelligent advice. It’s very strong.

Expectations vs reality

Team Animal Bromance Solidarity

Team Just F*ck Already

Team Maximum Cuteness

Team Saved Bakugo and Tokoyami’s Asses

Team Femslash Initiative

Team Poor Ojiro

Team Polar Opposites

Oh no my bbs all alone! I’ll be your teammate Deku!

Everyone on Team Ojiro is unsatisfied.

Tsuchaco begins!

OMG THEY’RE SO CUTE! (THE TODOBAKU ARC!)

NGL, Yui Kodai is really pretty and has a legit awesome quirk. Underrated Best Girl of Class 1B.

Holy Shit that Music tho! The League of Villains is In the Building! (Metaphorically, anyway)

This is the arc where I stopped thinking of the LOV as boring obstacles and started seeing them as kinda awesome.

“Kota” really picks up the momentum of Season 3, throwing us straight into a “holy crap” plotsplosion with little adieu. There’s a little more setup to go before we just jump straight into the chaotic, violent and transformative Training Camp Arc in the upcoming episodes. I pretty much binge-watched the whole first 12 episodes of Season 3 in one sitting the first time I watched it, so I don’t know what it would be like to watch these week to week. Next up: BEST BOY DEKU’S ARMS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME.

BKDK CORNER:

Nothing really in the actual episode, but I wanna acknowledge Best OP’s heartbreaking BKDK nod:

“don’t come deku” OMG episode 45 is gonna break my heart all over again in’t it?

Also the ED:

“Cause I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this place” (Todoroki’s sitting with them too for some bonus TDBKDK points.) Subtle, Bones. We know which way your bread is buttered.

BEST GIRL OF THE EP: Mandalay!

RANKER: The Test of Courage Teams

8. Ojiro and Mineta (poor Ojiro!)

7. Iida and Koda (normally Iida’d be pretty cool, but this team does basically nothing)

6. Jiro and Tooru (get knocked out pretty quickly.

5. Momo and Aoyama (they seriously saved everyone)

4. Solo Deku (who is better than most on his own and also saved Kota)

3. Tokoyami and Shoji (who are seriously metal)

2. Uraraka and Asui (another seriously awesome duo)

1. Todoroki and Bakugo (just add Deku for maximum perfection)

#my hero academia #season 3 episode 3 #kota #midoriya izuku #shoto todoroki #katsuki bakugou #himiko toga #kota izumi #katsudeku #bakudeku #this episode is heavy on the slash ships #they're all over it #femslash #ot3 slash #just slashiness all over #that kickass ending theme tho #pretty much overpowers everything don't it?

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dragons-bones · 5 years

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FFXIV Write Entry #29: Names

Prompt: free write (identity) | Master Post | On AO3

WARNING: Spoilers for throughout Shadowbringers MSQ!

She wondered, sometimes, if her parents had had another name for her, one carefully considered and picked. Would she have been named after a relative? A grandmother, perhaps, or a great-aunt or even a close family friend. Perhaps a name from a story, one that caught her mother’s fancy, or maybe something her father heard in the marketplace. Was it a name they had always called her? Was it a name they had whispered to themselves in the dead of night after the soldiers of Eulmore came for her?

Or, from the moment of her birth, with a tuft of blonde hair on her head and fathomless cerulean blue eyes, had she only ever been Minfilia?

To General Ran’jit and the soldiers of Eulmore, she had only been Minfilia or Oracle of Light or, more simply, Oracle; perhaps, my lady to the nervous new recruits or the respectful veterans. Lady Minfilia, to the servants who came to her luxurious prison deep beneath the City of Final Pleasures with food or fresh laundry or a set of books (approved, and censored as necessary, by Ran’jit, or more likely by one of his lieutenants). Once, when she had been presented to Lord Vauthry when she had been…eight? Perhaps nine summers? She had been addressed as Lady Oracle and oh, she had hated it, the way it oozed off Vauthry’s tongue, condescending and triumphant. Something to call a pretty caged bird.

But it hadn’t been incorrect. She had been a pretty caged bird.

The superfluous titles had mostly fallen away after Thancred had stolen her away from Eulmore and Ran’jit possessive grip. Oracle of Light became, primarily, not a term of address, just a description of who and what she was. Minfilia, though…

That name suddenly acquired a new weight.

To Thancred, and Urianger, and Y’shtola and Alphinaud and Alisaie, Minfilia was someone else, first and foremost. They had known the first Minfilia, the original, the savior from another world who gave up her identity and her life to save Norvrandt from the Flood of Light.

When Ran’jit, and many other residents of Norvrandt, looked at her, they saw a legacy, an unbroken line of girl-children warriors against the sin-eaters, born to fight and die and do it all over again in the next life. When Thancred looked at her, he saw regrets and missed chances, the shadow of a woman for whom he had wished he had done more. Urianger looks at her with sorrow in his eyes, too, but that doesn’t stop him from speaking kindly to her, to throwing open his library to her voracious appraisal.

It’s not until the Crystal Exarch brings the Warriors of Light of the Source to the First that she began to feel…well, herself.

Rereha accompanies her for their share of the chores the pixies give them in Lydha Lran. After the third bit of ridiculous busywork, she was tired and frustrated, and ready to scream. As one of their pixie ‘hosts’ gave the pair their third task, however, she remembered a story she read in Urianger’s library, from a bookend of Lakeland fables.

“I’ve never done this before,” she said earnestly, making her eyes as big as possible, her expression as innocent. “Could you show us how to do it properly?”

Rereha took her cue from her, the dwar—lalafell smiling and nodding agreement. “Aye,” she said, “we don’t want to cause a mess!”

The pixie had narrowed their eyes at them, before slowly nodding. “Well, all right then,” they said, “you do it like this.”

And after the pixie had shown them how—

“Oh, I’m not sure I understood, I’m so sorry. Could you show us again?”

And again, and again, until the chore had been done. The pixie had sulked as their friends whooped and laughed and lauded her for a trick well played.

As they had gone to rejoin the others, Rereha had said, “That was brilliant, Minfilia!”

She had blushed and shrugged, suddenly shy and unsure once again. “I had read about something similar, once,” she said, “a story about a fox named Reynard outwitting his foes and tricking his friends and laughing the whole time.”

“Well, you might not have been laughing,” said Rereha, grinning, “but that was well done, little fox kit.”

Synnove had been the next to give her a nickname, on the journey back to the Crystarium. The older woman had been patiently answering her questions about the Source, about arcanima, about the carbuncles. How did she make them? What did they eat?

“Technically, anything,” Synnove had laughed. “As aether constructs, they don’t have the digestive system of a beastkin. But they do have preferences, and what I cook for myself, I feed to them, too.” She had gently stroked Galette’s tails, the emerald carbuncle draped around her neck. “Be careful with this one, duckling, she’s got a sweet tooth the size of a mountain and no shame in getting her next fix!”

She had tilted her head curiously at Synnove as they had walked. “Duckling?”

“It’s something I call the baby first year arcanists,” Synnove had said, a rueful smile on her lips. “The braver ones follow the senior assessors and professors around like ducklings, quacking questions and gobbling up the answers like bread crumbs, though their shier classmates trail along, too. If you don’t want to be called that—”

“No!” she said, then almost immediately ducked her head. “No, I don’t mind. I rather like it, actually. I like the idea of being a student.”

Synnove had smiled, warm and gentle. “Well, then, so long as you don’t mind, I’ll keep calling you that.”

Her third nickname had been straightforward. A few days of walking under true sunlight in Il Mheg, Lakeland, and then wandering the Crystarium had turned her pale skin bright red and achy. Dancing Heron had come across her in the market, taken one look at her miserable expression, and hustled her to Heron’s room in the Pendants.

“Oh, poor Sunshine,” the roegadyn had said ruefully, braiding her hair out of the way before helping to slather her face and shoulders in a thick, clear salve called aloe vera. “You aren’t the first person here in the Crystarium to get a sunburn.”

She hadn’t reacted to the name, mostly because like the others, she liked it. It was just about her. She had also had more important things on which to focus. “The sun can burn you?” she’d said, absolutely horrified.

Heron had laughed. “Aye, it can! Too much of a good thing can quickly turn bad, even the sun. Pale skin especially is more susceptible, but even someone as dark as I am needs to be careful; on you, at least, it’s easy to see when the damage occurs! Synnove and Rere have been showing the folks at the Mean how to create sunscreen—that’s a cream you put on your skin that helps prevent a burn from happening at all. In the meantime, we’ll get you a wide-brimmed hat, and you’ll need to keep putting on the aloe vera. That’ll soothe the burn and the itch when the skin starts healing, and keep your skin moisturized, too.”

Oh, the itch had been awful. And the peeling skin had just been…gross.

Alakhai, of course, had eventually given her a nickname, too. The Xaela was quiet, in the way of someone who just didn’t prefer to talk, at least not when it wasn’t necessary. In the shadows of the Rak’tika Greatwood, Alakhai had shown her a few more knife tricks, the proper way to bend and flick her wrists to get her knives to dance.

“Thancred’s good with his blades,” Alakhai had said quietly, demonstrating the movement in slow motion, “and he didn’t do half-bad training you. But he hasn’t been as short as you or I in a long time, günj, and there are just some things he can’t properly demonstrate.”

She heard ‘günj,’ but in her mind, thanks to the Blessing of Light, she knew the word meant princess. It had slipped out, the same way it had with Synnove and Heron, tinged with soft, genuine affection, and again, she decided not to draw attention to it.

Instead, she went through the move Alakhai had just shown her slowly, at first. When Alakhai nodded, she did it again at full speed, her knives driving into the target at neck height on an adult male hume with the right and at kidney height with the left.

Alakhai had grinned, proud and vicious at once. “Very good, günj. Now, again, and again, until it’s as second nature to you as all the rest.”

It had been those nicknames, bestowed on her without a second thought, for a girl they had barely known, that had helped sustain her through Amh Araeng, when the doubts began to eat at her and who she actually was. Those nicknames, that were just for her, that rang in her head when the first Oracle of Light, the first Minfilia, had asked her what her choice was. When she accepted the chance to be her own person.

Red hair and grey eyes. A surge of power, of Light that was gentle and warm. A purpose, and the determination to carry it out.

Thancred, after they had vanquished the Lightwarden of Amh Araeng, had taken her aside privately and said, “There are no words to express the depths of my sorrow for how I’ve treated you these last years. I will do better. I hope one day you can forgive me, but know that you don’t have to. Not know, not ever. That’s my burden to bear.”

She had thought he had hated her for so long, but he had been sincere. She knew she could trust him, and the forgiveness…the forgiveness would come one day.

After all, he had given her a name.

And as Ryne well knew, names were precious things indeed.

#ffxivwrite2019 #dt's writing #final fantasy xiv #shadowbringers #spoilers #ffxiv spoilers #5.0 spoilers #ryne #oc: rereha reha #oc: synnove greywolfe #oc: dancing heron #oc: alakhai noykin #thancred waters

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jq37 · 5 years

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Have you done breakdowns of the last few episodes yet? If not 👀

**spoilers for a new york wedding**

Prologue: I had a partially free day today (as in the day I started writing this which is now two days ago) so I decided to swing by Central Park and check out the Bethesda Fountain where I saw both a proposal and a man on a segway with a live snake around his neck so, yeah, New York is just Like That.

"Here's a possibly magic crown. Why don't we ask the butt stuff guy about that?"

The face Brennan makes when Emily says, "I used to do colonics at the salon," is great. Like, "We are two minutes into this ep, your sentence isn't even complete, and I already can't handle it."

So they get out of the sewers and Bethesda Fountain has been attacked (which is a shame just aesthetically because, having now seen it in person, it's a really pretty fountain). Em is devastated and explains that the fountain is like a Important magical symbol of good change and a source of divine purification magic.

Another side note about the fountain: There are these little cherub figures around it in additional to the Angel. I wonder if those are sentient too. Also-also, the promenade across from the fountain has these cool murals of the seasons. My point is, there's a lot of fodder for possible lore just in that small area of the park.

Misty finds ashes by the fountain (concerning) and wipes it on Kugrash's fur (rude).

I love that Emily thought Pete was pouring one out (one being one bag of cocaine).

"Sophie, your magic is that you're a wonderful person and you jump really good."

"The Bread Wedding"

Kudos to Brennan for all the wide range of crazy voices he had to do in this ep. Don Confetti. The Golem. Perry the Pigeon. That can't be easy on the throat.

Sophie is fully ready to fistfight Don Confetti over their last names which is wild for a lot of reasons we're not gonna get into.

So Brennan has everyone roll a Wis save and everyone did OK except I think Ricky. Brennan never explains why he had them roll that. Concerning. I'm wondering now if it was something that would have needed a nat 20 to save from it or something where the people who saved didn't realized they saved from it and the people who didn't are just ticking time bombs or sleeper agents or something else awful.

Pete is such a dangerous friend to be around when you're emotionally compromised. His solution to everything is drugs.

"It's an off-white!" --Misty upon being called out for wearing white to a wedding.

Brennan has Perry go on a wild 39 second monologue about relationships that Pete interrupts by stuffing drugs down his gullet--see again my previous bullet about Pete.

Sophie notices that a lot of the pixies recognize her which pm confirms her brother is In This which, to use the word of the day again, *Concerning*.

Emily having Sophie get really emotional but also struggling to keep the laughter out of her face is always super funny to watch.

So Pete finds a table of vampires. Brennan spends a couple of minutes describing them before he gets to it outright but it's pretty immediately clear they're vamps. Well, vamps plus a suspicious older guy and a girl (Melissa) who seems to be playing Renfield to the vamps. Getting high so they can drink her blood and get high. Pete brilliantly confirms this by getting the suspicious guy (Rob, as far as we know) to go off on Politics and then deep mind-reading the girl. That's one of the most clever RP things I've seen a player do. Pete also sees that Rob is hanging out with the vamps but he doesn't seem to be one.

Pete fails his wild magic check but nothing happened that we know of. A lot of stuff on the wild magic table is situational though (like the reincarnate spell from Bloodkeep with the potion Sohkbarr drank).

Rob implies he knows what happened with Pete's dad. Pete goes into a tailspin, as if he isn't constantly in one.

Everyone dancing so they can talk in public instead of just, like, having a sidebar. Just that entire sequence is peak comedy.

Ricky, the good boy, is dancing with his pigeon date while everyone else is mystery solving (or, in Soph's case, crying in a closet or something).

Rob is supposedly in finance. Last time there was a character involved in finance/banking in D20 it was the whole KVX fiasco in FH.

"Did I use up my favor? I could have had anything in the world."

Sophie upon seeing anything young woman in any kind of situation immediately springs into action, ready to drag them out by any means necessary. I love her.

Robert works at a hedge fund and Kug recognizes him. Brennan explains how he knows him in a very vague way which the rest of the table clocks instantly. Murph asks if Rob knows Gabriela. He does. Who the hell is Gabriela, Misty and I wonder.

Emily goes galaxy brain and theorizes that the bad guys are laundering souls which is equal parts bonkers and brilliant. The camera unhelpfully *doesn't* cut back to Brennan so I can attempt to read his DM poker face. I am reminded of Emily wondering if [redacted] was in the sword in a recent ep of Naddpod and Murph just deciding that they were on the spot because it was cooler than what he had planned. I know you can't win at DnD but I think Emily is winning at DnD.

I mentioned this in passing I think last recap, but Pete's magic is really interesting to me because Pete doesn't know what his character sheet looks like and he's not someone like Kingston or Ricky who's been doing their thing for a while and knows that they can do and what the things he can do are called. So Ally has to get a little creative about activating abilities (like True Strike in this ep) without being too meta, if that makes sense.

Kug knows Rob from a while ago (from the 80's he later says) but he doesn't seem to have aged. The group is thinking vampire, but he wasn't drinking blood in the memory Pete saw. Suspicious. Put a pin in that with everything else on my conspiracy board.

Misty: Eyyyy Macarena!

Kug kisses the pigeon. Sure.

Misty/Siobhan also does a clever thing and suggests taking a selfie with the vamp table in the background to see who shows up. Only Melissa and Rob do, so they're not vamps for sure.

So they go back to Kingston's place and he, Pete, and Sophie cook for everyone which has basically nothing really to do with the plot but I think it was a nice character beat for them.

Kingston and Misty fought a mummy on Long Island back in the day. As you do. Sidenote, when I was in Central Park today (two days ago), I passed by a big-ass obelisk that apparently exists and that I am *certain* Brennan has lore for, even if it doesn't come up.

Misty, a very wealthy Broadway star: If you pay for the Metropolitan Museum, you're a Goddamn fool.

Sophie had not put together that Misty is a fairy before now and I was like ??? for a second but, actually, with the info she has, that's not necessarily the conclusion she would draw. She could just be a really short lady with magic. It's been that kind of week.

Kingston presses Kug on how he knows Rob and Kug reluctantly confesses that HE USED TO BE A GUY. Zac blindly guesses that he was a stockbroker which is ALSO CORRECT.

"movie horse breeder" is such a specific job to pull out of thin air.

Siobhan, making a choice: Let me tell you about my good friend, John Wilkes Booth.

Brennan's total break of composure when Zac/Ricky says, "I wasn't always a firefighter." Zac lowkey has the best comic timing of everyone on the squad. He's just really understated about it.

Anyway, there are levels to this. How long has Kug been a rat??? I feel like it must have been a while because of all the weird ass stuff that he does. Also, he excuses a lot of his behaviors due to being a rat considering he's actually a rat-MAN, emphasis on the man. The stock broker thing surprised me more considering that Kug is introduced doing some pretty altruistic, non-stockbroker-y things. Did Kug piss off a homeless witch and get Beauty and the Beast-ed? He never actually answered the question about how he knows Rob since everyone got sidetracked by the fact that he used to be a whole-ass HUMAN MAN. Did Rob curse him for less moral lesson reasons? What's going on here????

Esther and Ale have been researching. The grey baby is apparently named Nod, just like the place, and it (it specifically, not him or her) like the ruler of there.

There's this whole group bit Brennan, Ally, and Siobahn do about how you can take the L train really far and then catch a shuttle bus that can only be seen by the pure of heart to get to Nod and it's really funny but how funny would it be if they actually tried to do it in a dire moment and also Ricky could do it for sure send tweet.

Kingston is trying so-so hard to keep everyone on task all episode. Bless him.

Kug asks Esther about her mom, which surprises her. He says they used to be friends (Did *SHE* curse him????). Esther says she hasn't seen her in a long time, since she was 5 or 6. Of course, it's easy to want to connect this to the Gabriela he was asking about earlier but we'll see about that. I think I saw some people speculating that he's Esther's dad which I'm even more skeptical about considering what we learn later but wouldn't that be wild?

Ricky decides to shoot his shot with Esther. His brain is full of love, determination, civic responsibility, and absolutely nothing else, bless his golden retriever heart.

Brennan as Esther drops the best stealth joke (though, it has a very high likelihood of crossing from joke to plot point) in D20 so far with the Imperial Axiom/Sinatra's Law explanation. It was a full, "Wait. What? Oh!" Big gold star for Brennan for that one. I had to take a second and recover from that when I heard it the first time. Beyond the joke, it also seems like a likely hook for the eventual Big Bad of the campaign. First NY, then the world, you know?

The fact that the highways go against the grain of magic leylines of NY in this world is such a good detail and it makes a lot of sense intuitively.

Zac breaks Brennan again with the, "Traffic's really bad," comment.

Please let Ricky's big dumb puppy self win over Esther. "It's really hard for me." Riiiickyyyy.

So Kingston goes to see Willy, the Williamsburg golem about Lazarus from the Bible (New Testament). Aren't golems de facto Jewish? I think. I am correct. However, as much as Willy doesn't know about the New Testament, he *does* know about the Statue of Liberty which is convenient because--shoutout to the people who figured it out in advance--Lazarus is not Lazarus from the Bible. It's Emma Lazarus who wrote the poem on the Statue of Liberty. This of course means that I need to do a close read of that poem at some point but not today baby because I need more information before I start going full Pepe Silvia. Sidenote: What a great place for Kingston to be when figuring out that info. Close enough that Willy can just point out the statue. It's cinematic. Fantastic.

(Also, I made a post about the fact that Siobahn just knew Emma's name off the top of her head, but when it cut to the other side of the table, Emily's eyes got all big too).

Emily gets a nat20 which RUINS her plans because she runs into Isabella aka the woman her husband left her for. They have an adult Means Girls stand-off where Sophie finds out they're getting married (or at least having a ceremony bc Dale didn't send her divorce papers yet). Big ups to Emily for staying in character and ditching all the sleuthing she was going to do because there is no way Sophie would be stable enough for that to be her top priority at the moment (even though I really wanted her to do all that stuff!)

Also, I'm looking forward to watching Sophie rip her to shreds when she inevitably turns out to be a succubus/demon/fiend/whatever. Honestly, she can just barfight her and I'd be satisfied.

So Misty goes home and finds a present waiting for her. It's a big ass mirror. Correction. It's a big ass mirror that Titania immediately uses to angry Skype her. Yikes.

It seems like her shoes of Titania are literally that, stolen from Titania (love that Titania was barefoot in her character art btw). I know they let her cast a certain spell in an earlier episode but I'm wondering why she stole them. Maybe they helped her cross over from Faerie (which happened ~400 years ago we ind out)?

Titania is pissed that Misty is stealing "glamour" that should be hers (via playing her in the new show). Glamour in the fairy sense is like a disguise. Glamour in the DnD sense is a fey-based bard option (which is the class I'm guessing Titania will be if they have to fight her). Curious to get a deeper explanation on that later.

Misty is able to cover back up the mirror but she breaks a hip in the process because of Titania's mojo and has to call Kingston. I already said this but I love their relationship.

(Sidenote, I meant to mention this earlier, but I think whiffs of the undead came up a couple of times in this ep which makes me wonder if the mummy situation Kingston mentioned is going to come back).

"Please, use any one of the guestrooms."

I FORGOT ABOUT KUG'S STUFF AT THE END

Ugh, this ep is an emotional roller coaster

"Wherever you are Rat Jesus, know that I love you. From Wally." What a good boy.

Everyone reacting to Murph's reaction to Wally before they Find Out is like, an experience. It's like that airpods meme.

OK, I'm not going to go through a whole play by play because nothing I could say would be better than watching the scene but I guess Murph/Bren decided in for a penny, in for a pound because we find out via a conversation between Wally and his businessman brother David that he is Kug's SON. HIS SON. S O N.

Wally is convinced that their dad wouldn't have just left them. David thinks Wally is being naive. I want to die.

Everyone around the table except maybe Ally is so visibly upset at this new information and Ally goes, "FUCK!" at the end so you know we all express emotions in different ways.

God, it's so sad! And I'm not gonna say, "I knew it!" because I didn't. I super didn't. But when Wally was introduced (man that scene hits differently now) I remember thinking, this is such an oddly specific NPC. Like, you know when you're playing a game and the stuff you can click is slightly better rendered and you can kind of tell what you should focus on and what's background art? That's how he felt.

Anyway, again, I'm sad. (GMYeah!.gif)

Watching *OVER* you Murph. OVER you. That's how you make it not creepy!

Meanwhile, Pete lets a bunch of bug monsters out of his dream into real New York City which, tbh, I'm not surprised. This seems like the kind of thing that would happen. Pete is exactly the worst kind of person to be the dream avatar in terms of being responsible.

I love that Siobhan is like, “I have a broken hip” as if all but one of them don’t have literal magic powers. That’s a very fixable problem compared to other stuff they’ve dealt with that day alone.

Anyway next time, a wasp centaur (thanks, I hate it) and a nat 20! See you then.

#dimension 20 #the unsleeping city #asks #a-salty-alto #there are for sure mistakes in this but I am on a whirlwind schedule rn #and I wanted to get this out before the next ep #so I wasn't too behind

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xladyxfatex · 5 years

Text

Chapter Four (FMITN BOOK 1)

That night's dinner consisted mostly of meat, bread for their carbs, and of course water. Melissa’s health seemed to be okay considering she was only using a tonic at this time. It wouldn’t be long till Holly would be able to remove the cancer and things would be back to normal. When Melissa had spoken to Gwendolyn about the visit she didn’t hide the fact that she was in need for surgery and what it was for, it was at that point that instead of coming for a month turned into the mother and son pair staying till the start of September when she would get Aleister back home for schooling. She had also told Gwendolyn what her daughter was because she didn’t want them to be taken by surprise on the first full moon of their stay. Gwen was more than excited, this was the first in thousands of years and she was going to be able to help teach the young girl it was beyond a great prillivage.

“Daddy! Is mama apart of our pack? Can she hear us in her head too when we’re in our wolf forms?” Jesse’s question broke Melissa from her thoughts as she was so excited for everything happening tonight, and honestly it was a great question. Melissa looked to her husband while covering her mouth to try and hide her giggling,

“Princess, yes your mama can hear us, but you know that we can’t hear through the mindlink correct? We can hear her voice, this is the same with other creatures and begins in a pack. Most packs now a days aren’t just werewolves, witches, pixies, and so on, they have a mixture of all. So you can mindlink with the others in a pack if you join one, and they’ll hear you, but you’ll have to use your hearing to hear them back.” To say Gilbert was shocked by his daughter’s question wasn’t good enough to express what he felt. Neither son had ever wonder if a none werewolf could mindlink with them and how it would work. Jessica was smart and wanted to know how this world works in more ways than anyone else. He was certain once she started elementary school they were going to ask to have her skip grades and that was something for the family to talk about as a whole.

Dinner finished and Melissa went to pack bags of clothes for the boys and her daughter. Melissa walked with Jessica to the meeting spot. “Now little one, this is the spot, your bags will be in the cave and I’ll head back out here before dawn break, so I can grab your bag. You must remember to always stay with everyone if not just one of them, you also have free run over all of the woods here, we own hundreds of acres, but DO NOT wonder off alone. You don’t know your way yet.” With that the boys made their appearance. The moon hung full in the night sky, and with that Jesse began to whimper as her bones started to crack and reshape, Jeff’s first instinct was to try and comfort Jess through her shift, though in all honesty he had no idea what to do. He sat behind her, and held her close, this seemed to soothe the pain, but he knew he couldn’t hold her through the full shift he could feel his own starting.

In front of Jessica stood a big silver and gray wolf, with golden eyes, she knew the smell of coffee and ginger, this wolf was her daddy, next to him a smaller wolf, all black with bright blue eyes, he smelled of sage and honey, her brother Matty. Shifting from behind revealed a small blonde wolf with bright golden eyes, her brother Jeff Jessica’s body continued to reshape, reform, and cries and whimpers, were heartbreaking. Her mother could hear her muttering “I know you don’t mean to hurt me, please say this will be over soon.” Once her fur broke through her reformed body Melissa and Gilbert were stunned, there curled in the grass was a tiny, pure white wolf with bright silver eyes.

“Jesse, its mama. I’m going to touch you okay?” Melissa really had no idea how to approach this, when Jeff shifted he ran once it was done, and jumped but Jessica was just laying there as if she was in pain and she wanted to help her daughter in anyway she could. Jessica’s head snapped towards her mother and the whole pack could hear her response. “Not needed mama my legs are just not use to this yet, I’ll be ready to run soon, I’m just trying to get ready”

All three wolves looked at each other and nodded, Matt and Jeff each standing on one side with Gilbert stood behind her and scuffed her by the neck, picking her up and carrying her off. Jessica did not like this one bit but she couldn’t fight it, it was almost some kind of calming effect to be picked up in such away, so she huffed. “Daddy! Put me down please? I’m ready to run now.” Gilbert gently put down his daughter and stood on her paws and looked around she walked over to Jeff and stood behind him, keeping in mind she was NOT to wonder alone. She pushed his hind leg signalling to go and he happily did. Jessica took off running, behind her brother the noises in the woods more crisp and clear, one had caught Jesse's attention, effectively stopping her in her tracks. She tried to call out to her brothers, and father but received no response. Huffing she went to find the noise.

“I can just smell my way back to the meet up, geez why aren’t they answering me, daddy said all pack members could hear each other.” The issue Jess was really having was this was all private land owned by their family no others should be here. As drew closer she found a wolf, somewhere between the size of Matt and Jeff’s wolves, it had dark fur and golden eyes, she knew right away it was another alpha, but it seemed hurt. She had no idea if her magic would work in her wolf form but she was going to do all she could to try to help. She lowered head showing she was of no threat to the alpha. Once she reached him she nuzzled his head and inside her head began chanting a spell, since she couldn’t use her hands for inncantions at the moment.

“Where is Jess, and why do I hear her reciting magic?” Matt questioned he had just noticed his baby sister wasn’t with himself and Jeff and was now panicking especially if she was trying to use magic in her wolf form no one knew if is was possible and if she’d get hurt doing so.

“WHAT? Dang it Jessica! Find her scent we have to find her, she could be in trouble.” Jeff sniffed the air, Cituts and candied ginger the smell of his baby sister was faint but he was able to find and follow it with Matt hot on his heels. They picked up on whimpering that wasn’t Jessica’s and the smell of mint and ink. Whatever the smell Jeff and Matt both could agree they did NOT like it near their baby sister. Running faster the smells of who ever this was and their sister became stronger along with hearing her chanting.

“Stop! They're hurt! Let me finish and I’ll take my punishment when we’re back to normal.” Jessica was always a softie with a good heart she didn’t care that this could show what she really was she just didn’t want this werewolf to suffer. Even at four years old she had a good grasp on the ideas of right and wrong. “I tried to call out to you two when I heard the crying but you never answered so I came on my own. I’m sorry, please just let me finish?” The brothers just huffed, they knew they would all be in trouble later on, but Jess wasn’t going to leave till she knew she helped. A few moments later the wounds healed and the other wolf, stood up and bowed before running off.

Jessica was made to stay between her brothers no more running, the night sky started to give way to pinks and oranges showing signs of a new day rising. Matt scuffed Jessica as he and Jeff ran to the meeting place to get ready to shift back and have clothes. Their father was already there and dressed, and wanted to know what Jess did to be brought back by the scruff, but he’d find out later. Matt placed Jessica down and went into the cave, Melissa came out with fresh clothes for her daughter and patted her fur. Jess focused on turning back into a human, which surprisingly to her was less painful then turning into her wolf form. Once back to being a bi-ped Jess dressed and hung her head. She knew was in trouble but she only did what she felt was right. Matt and Jeff came out full dressed to see Jessica crying. Turned out Jess had admitted her fault in taking off alone and using magic on another wolf who was hurt. She described the wolf and their smell, but of course not a pack member they couldn’t talk. Melissa was beyond pleased that her daughter had such a kind heart though it could have gotten her hurt, though the real question in everyone's mind was. “Who was the random werewolf that find their way to their land.”

Once home the kids washed up, and ate breakfast Melissa took Jessica to the workshop and worked on the more complicated spells, while Gilbert, Matt, and Jeff, went to the spot where Jess found the random wolf. They followed the route the best they could that the wolf took off in, that was when an older gentleman and boy appeared.

“I thought you said they had a female who healed you?” The older man addressed the boy. “How rude of us, I’m Bob Orton, this here is my son Randall, I do apologize that he was trespassing last night on your land, it's hard to keep him cooped up when he shifts, plus traveling on the road with me can’t be easy.” He reached his hand out to shake Gilbert’s as Randy stared at Matt and Jeff.

“Those two showed up when the pure white wolf was helping me. They must be part of the same pack, I want to thank her please?” Randy’s voice rang out and Gilbert was unsure of what to do his daughter had broken a huge rule of not wandering off but she had done so to help someone in need. Matt and Jeff shifted on their feet not sure if bringing this alpha to their house was wise. That was until both boys looked up at Randy’s father.

“I’m sorry sir, did you say your name is Bob Orton, as in Cowboy Bob Orton the wrestler?” Matt asked wondering if he had heard the information correctly. Mr. Orton broke out into a hearty laugh.

“That is correct, as you can imagine traveling with my son here till he starts school back up isn’t easy on him, especially during his shifts. He took off last night saying he scented something and he needed to find out. I am truly sorry for this. But is there a female wolf in your pack that helped my boy?” Mr. Orton wasn’t sure what to believe there weren’t hybrid healer werewolves but if somehow this girl did save his son the least he could do is thank her personally. Jeff stepped forward, always protective of his baby sister.

“That depends..” Jeff snapped, “How old are you and why should we take you to her?” He didn't want to let on this is was his sister I mean that could put her in danger. Randy just rolled his eyes and huffed.

“Geez I just want to thank her, and I’m seven if that really matters.” Randy didn’t like being talked to like this, basically people just gave him what he wanted. While the three boys continued their talk, the two fathers spoke and Gilbert finally relented and allowed them to follow to their home. On the way the two fathers spoke of random things, life, raising werewolf sons, what his career was like. Randy and the Hardy boys didn’t speak in fact Jeff had offered to run ahead and make sure Jessica was still here. Which Gilbert gathered was his way of saying he was going to get her out of the workshop and not be practicing her magic when the others arrived. Jeff grabbed Jess by the wrist causing her to drop the potion she was working on and having it spill everywhere.

“HEY! That was rude! What did I do to make you ruin my potion, do you know how hard I worked on that? I’ve been trying to master that one for a day and a half you ruined all my work.” Jessica was angry and on the edge of tears. Jeff hugged her and gave a small apology before dragging her out of the workshop and telling her to put on jeans and a tee shirt and not to ask why. She stalked off sulking but doing it anyways. She changed, brushed her hair, and teeth and went back downstairs.

“So why did I do this and why are you interrupting my practice?” The four year old asked, and Jeff huffed grumply.

“Because the wolf you saved last night is on his way with his father to thank you. So you cannot do any magic right now..” Jeff was worried this wasn’t something that should be happening, yet his wolf wasn’t mad, in fact he was oddly quiet and calm. Jeff didn’t understand why, maybe it was the fact he was with his sister, she normally was able to calm him. Moments later their father came in with Matt and two people Jessica didn’t know. Jess ran to her brother Matt and held him tight,

“Matt! I’m happy you and daddy are back. Did you find what you were looking for in the woods?” Jessica knew what she was trying to do but it was odd for her. Her wolf was pacing and whimpering it only did that when Jeff and daddy were yelling at her, which to be honest wasn’t that often. She looked at the two whom came into their home and bowed.

“Hi, my name’s Jessica! Whom are you?” She smiled brightly trying to be friendly to the two new people. Mr. Orton extended his hand.

“My name is Bob Orton little lady, how are you today?” Jessica shook his hand and gave a sweet reply.

“Well its very nice to meet you Mr. Orton, I’m doing good today, I hope you and you……” She trailed off truth be told she knew the boys scent from the night before and in his human form he was very scary.

“Ah I’m so sorry Jessica, this is my son, Randall.” Jessica stepped back and went behind Jeff, doing so however caused her wolf to snap at her, and she sighed.

“Its ….Its nice to meet you Randall.” Jessica’s voice was meek the boy was scaring her no matter what her wolf said she didn't want to hear it. Randy knew the smell of citrus and candied ginger, to see the small girl there, strawberry blonde, bright jade green eyes, pale skin, he didn’t know anything anymore. Jess poked Jeff in the back and whispered something that caused him to shake his head ‘no”.

“Jessica, thank you for last night, I’m not sure what you did, but you were able to heal the wound I got while running on your lands last night I never should have been there.” Randy spoke and Jessica just nodded.

“You ...You're welcome.”

“Why do you hide behind your younger brother and not your father Jessica?” Mr. Orton asked in all honesty he did find that rather odd behavior. .Jess tilted her head to the side, she honestly didn’t know why it was just something she had always done. Luckily she was made to answer as Jeff did.

“Dunno, she’s always hidden behind me when scared, we’re closest in age, her being four and myself six, so we just have that kind of bond.” Jeff smiled almost smugly as the words came from his mouth.

“Well Randall you’ve met her, you’ve thanked her, is there anything else you’d like to say? We do have to get going to the next city.” Mr. Orton wasn’t trying to be rude and Gilbert was already aware they were on a schedule.

“I just wanted to apologize again for running on your lands, and …” Randy stepped towards the youngest Hardy taking her hand in his smiling “...and thank you again for helping me. I’m sure we’ll meet again.” Randy gave a small bow before turning to his father ready to leave.

The rest of the day Jess couldn’t focus on her spells, her wolf kept saying something about that boy being her ‘mate’ and she told her wolf to be quite she was only four and she was not going to hear about that. That night Jess skipped dinner and just went to bed. She wanted her wolf to shut up, and she wanted to stop the echo of “we’ll meet again” from playing in her head.

___________

Thank you @theworldofotps for your help proof reading and editing.

#wwe #find me in the night #jeff hardy #matt hardy #randy orton #wwe au #supernatural au #original characters #magic #werewolves #witches

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stahlop · 5 years

Text

Must Love Dogs (3/?)

It’s time for chapter 3! Thanks again to @profdanglaisstuff for being my beta, especially since she posted like 3 stories this week and was being a beta for so many others. I really appreciate all your help.

Chapter 1 2

Also on Ao3

Chapter 3

“So,” Mary Margaret started as she dished some spaghetti and meat sauce onto Emma’s plate. Emma was thankful that Mary Margaret had invited her over for dinner, as her cabinets and refrigerator were woefully bare. She would have to make a much needed shopping trip tomorrow.

“So…” Emma said back. David gave a snort from beside her, as if he knew exactly what his wife wanted to talk to Emma about. Mary Margaret shot him a dirty look.

“So, I talked to Ruby,” Mary Margaret said, composing her face back to normal. She sat down at the table after dishing out dinner to David as well and began to serve herself. David started to pass around some garlic bread.

“And?” Emma huffed. She knew exactly where this was going, knew it would be a topic of conversation regardless, but she also secretly liked torturing Mary Margaret.

“She said you had some news to share?” Mary Margaret said even more delicately.

“Well...I did catch my skip the other day. Idiot decided to go visit an ex -girlfriend who did not want to be visited.” Emma smiled smugly knowing this was not what Mary Margaret was fishing for.

“Oh,” Mary Margaret said, blowing out a puff of air that made the brown bangs of her short pixie cut fly up slightly. “Ruby said that you might have some other news.” David was having a hard time suppressing his laughter.

“Oh,’ Emma said coyly, “You mean about the guy I met online?” she asked as if it were an afterthought.

Mary Margaret squealed in a register that Emma was sure that if Ditie was there, only she would be able to hear.

“We want to hear everything!” Mary Margaret said finally taking a big bite of her spaghetti.

“Just for the record, some of us don’t want to hear everything.” David said pointing his garlic bread at Emma before biting into it.

Emma rolled her eyes, “We emailed through the site and he asked me for my number and personal email.” She tried to get her face to stay neutral as she said it, but she couldn’t help the corners of her lips from turning up slightly. She started to twirl her spaghetti so that her mouth might be full for the next barrage of questions Mary Margaret was going to ask her. But Mary Margaret just stared at her with the biggest grin on her face that Emma felt guilty for trying to avoid her questions.

She pulled out her phone and brought up his profile before handing the phone over to Mary Margaret to read.

“I knew that site would help you find someone Emma! Oh, he’s cute!” Mary Margaret exclaimed earning a sound of indignation from her husband.”What? He is. But don’t worry, I only have eyes for you, David.” Mary Margaret mockingly pinched his cheeks, making him blush.

“The email is already pulled up.” Emma stated taking a bite of spaghetti.

Mary Margaret swiped over to the email she had received from Killian. Emma could swear there were tears in Mary Margaret’s eyes.

“Oh, Emma, he sounds perfect for you.” Mary Margaret said in a watery voice. Emma rolled her eyes again.

“I haven’t even met him. He could be all talk. He could be a serial killer.” Emma protested but even she knew she didn’t mean it. She’d known from the minute she saw his profile that this man could be the one, and that scared the hell out of her.

“How can I be this head over heels over a profile and an email? I’m not that girl. I don’t do relationships. Even if my past online dating experience hadn’t been awful, it’s doubtful that any of those guys would’ve made it past a night in the sack.” Emma said exasperated.

“That, for instance, is one of the things I don’t want to know about.” David said with a mouthful of bread. Emma and Mary Margaret ignored him.

“There’s something about him, the way he writes and the way he describes things, that gets me all shy and nervous. I feel like he could really be the one,” Emma looked up and saw the foolish grin plastered on Mary Margaret’s face, “which is really dumb because I haven’t even met him yet.” she finished quickly.

“Send him your email and your number,” David advised. Emma gave him a bewildered look. “I know it seems a little personal, but he sounds pretty direct. And you’re usually more direct when you’re not playing this weird damsel in distress thing you’ve got going on right now.”

Wow! Emma hadn’t expected David to be doling out the dating advice. He tended to treat her like his little sister most of the time, even though she was Mary Margaret’s friend. So pushing toward a guy she met online was really not in character for him.

Emma’s expression must have given all that she was thinking away because David continued with, “Emma, all we want is to see you happy. Plus, we all know you could kick his ass ten ways to Sunday if he pulled any crap on you.” He finished with a huge bite of his garlic bread and then grabbed another from the plate.

Emma grabbed her phone back from Mary Margaret. David was right (who knew she’d ever think that?). She’d been looking at his profile and email as if he were a relative who lived far away and she wanted to show off his picture, but he wasn’t. He was a living, breathing, man who was interested in her.

“Excuse me.” Emma said, backing up her chair from the table and heading over to the couch. “I just need to send him an email real quick with my information.”

Mary Margaret looked over at her husband, a huge smile on her face. Then she and David continued to eat while Emma sent her message to Killian.

EKEKEK

Killian eased the key into his apartment door and was practically run over by Jolly rushing to greet him.

“Sorry, girl.” he said as she jumped up to try and give him kisses, eventually just licking his hands instead.

“I know I’m a little late getting home. Did Henry from across the hall take you out?” Killian checked the leash and saw that it was laying on the front table instead of hanging on the wall, his and Henry’s code so that Killian knew that Jolly had been taken care of. Henry was a good kid. Killian would usually give Henry $10 anytime he needed Jolly walked because he was running late from work, like he was today.

He walked over to the kitchen table and set down his laptop and Chinese take out he’d brought home. He preferred to cook, but it was already 7 o’clock. Too late to get something defrosted, so Chinese it was. Besides, who could argue with egg rolls and Orange Chicken (no one, that’s who)?

He lived in a small one-bedroom apartment, though it was barely more than a studio. His bedroom barely fit his queen-sized bed and a dresser. But the rest of the place had lots of windows and a balcony, and it was an open floor plan, so it really wasn’t so bad. He could also see the ocean from his balcony, so that was a plus. In the summertime he could open all the windows, and the breeze coming off the Atlantic was amazing.

Killian grabbed some dog food from it’s container in the pantry and poured some out for Jolly. She immediately went over and started chowing down, even though he was sure Henry had given her some earlier as well. He added some water to her water bowl as well before settling himself down to eat his own food.

He wondered what Emma was up to tonight. She had said she worked in bail bonds, so maybe she was on a stakeout tonight. Maybe she had a late night class at BU (he wasn’t sure if she was taking online courses or regular courses), or maybe she was studying more for the police exam. Was she wondering what he was doing as well?

He finished up his meal and threw the rubbish away, packing up the leftovers for his lunch tomorrow. Then he walked over to his recliner intent on catching up on some of his shows. He hadn’t heard from Emma in two days. Maybe he had spooked her by asking for her personal information so soon. He just wanted to cut to the chase, cut out the middleman, so to speak.

Jolly, having finished her dinner, came over to get her ears scratched, one of her favorite pastimes. Killian absent-mindedly scratched her ears while flipping through his queue of shows, trying to decide which one to watch. It was then he realized that his backside was vibrating.

“Bloody hell!” he grumbled, realizing that he hadn’t taken his phone off of silent since leaving work. He grabbed it and began looking at his notifications. It looked like Will had been texting him to see if he wanted to grab dinner.

“Too late for that, mate” He texted back to him. He then noticed he had an additional notification.

He had another email from Emma.

In his actual email account.

Not from the MustLoveDogs website.

Killian got up and grabbed his laptop from where he had left it and quickly pulled up his email. He preferred responding to emails on his laptop than from his phone.

Killian,

I’ll admit, I was a bit nervous that you asked for my email and phone number. The other dating websites I’ve been on usually had an instant messaging feature, so it was a lot easier to communicate without giving out personal information. Not that I’ve been on a lot of dating websites. They all suck by the way. A story for another time. But I’ve realized through just your profile and email that I’d like to get to know you better. I’d prefer email over texting as texting is basically meant for small talk. I have included my phone number though. Do with it what you will. I’d definitely like to know about your time in the Navy and boxing and how you ended up in Boston and with Jolly.

Hope to hear from you soon (I really hate these lame ways of basically saying write back),

Emma

She had also attached a picture of Aphrodite asleep in a dog bed.

“What should I do, Jolly? Call her tonight or send her an email?” He showed Jolly the picture of the sleeping Aphrodite. Jolly gave him a ridiculous look which Killian took to mean “How would I know, you idiot, I’m only a dog.” Killian liked to imagine that Jolly had a British accent like himself and sounded like Helen Mirren from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. She then padded over to the bed and laid down to go to sleep.

Killian snapped a picture of Jolly on his phone and decided that he would send it to Emma since she’d sent him one of her dog. It was amazing how similar their dogs looked. A beautiful, strong woman with the same taste in pets, how much more perfect could she be?

Emma,

Jolly is sleeping too. She was not as impressed by your correspondence as I was. But then again, she is only a dog. Maybe she’s jealous that I have another dog on my phone. Even though her profile said she wanted a doggy friend, she’s only had me for the past year and a half. I hope our dogs get along as well as we seem to. I prefer talking on the phone to email or texting (I completely agree about texting), so expect to hear from me some time tomorrow. I hope the rest of your night is satisfactory.

Killian

EKEKEK

“I can’t believe we’re finally meeting,” Emma said as she sat down in an oversized, plush armchair.

“I know. It feels like we’ve been emailing forever,” Killian said to her as he set down his coffee on the long table and sat down in another armchair. His did not look as comfortable as Emma’s.

Anticipation fluttered in Emma’s stomach. It seemed like they had been missing each other left and right. It had taken weeks to align their schedules to actually get to meet up. But something about this didn’t seem right.

She looked over in the corner to see two black and white dogs tussling with each other.

“Did you bring Jolly with you?” she inquired.

Killian nodded, taking a sip from a comically large cappuccino mug. Except that there was a flowery teapot on the table.

“You brought Ditie too,” he added. She looked back over at the dogs and noticed that one of them was indeed Ditie. Something still wasn’t sitting right. She wondered why she would bring her dog to a coffee shop.

“Do they allow dogs in here?” Emma inquired, and then she realized, “How do you know I call my dog Ditie, I never mentioned it.” Her bail bonds instincts were starting to kick in.

She looked over at Killian who was now pouring an obscene number of sugar cubes into his cup. He opened his mouth to respond but all she could hear was The Police singing “Every Breath You Take”.

What the..?

That sounded just like her ringtone.

It was her ringtone.

She searched the long table for the phone but didn’t see it anywhere.

Killian was still putting sugar cubes into his tea and singing her ringtone.

And that’s when Emma finally realized she was dreaming.

She rolled over, still half-asleep, to try and feel her phone on the nightstand. Someone was obviously calling her. By the time she felt the phone, it had stopped ringing. She checked the time. It was 8 AM.

“Who the hell is calling me at 8 AM on a Friday morning?” she wondered. She checked the number. It wasn’t work or anyone whose name was saved in her phone. The number looked slightly familiar, but she wasn’t sure why. Well, if it was important they would leave a message.

“No more Alice in Wonderland before bed,” Emma thought, realizing that the tea party from the cartoon was featured heavily in her dream. She had come home from Mary Margaret and David’s late last night after watching the aforementioned movie, along with copious amounts of wine, because Mary Margaret was insistent that if they were going to eat somewhat Italian food, they had to have wine with it as well. Emma’s head was not happy with that. Thank goodness she’d decided to Uber it to their apartment rather than drive her bug.

Emma was debating whether to lounge around some more or get up (she only had to put in half a day today, just filling out paperwork) when Ditie padded in and started to whine.

“Ok, girl, I know what that means.” Emma said getting out of bed and scratching Ditie’s head. She quickly grabbed her workout clothes from off the floor and put them on. She and Ditie headed to the door so she could attire Ditie for the walk. Emma also grabbed a lightweight hoodie as the weather had a bit of a nip to it in the mornings now.

When they got to the dog park, Emma grabbed a cup of coffee, per usual, and brought out her phone to check her email and see if whomever had called had left a message. They had.

“Hello Emma Swan. This is Killian Jones, from the Must Love Dogs website.” Emma quickly paused the message. Her heart was about to start beating out of her chest.

He’d called!

He’d called and he sounded incredibly nervous. Coupled with his accent he sounded adorable.

And then it dawned on her.

He’d called and she missed it!

She dragged the message back to the start and pressed play.

“Hello Emma Swan. This is Killian Jones, from the Must Love Dogs website. Sorry, that sounded really doltish. I had said I’d be calling you in my email last night, so hopefully you’re not screening my telephone call. I had hoped to catch you before I got into work. You’re probably getting ready for work. It’s Friday, so I’ll be getting off at 4 today, so…. I’ll try you again later. Bye.”

“Shit!” she gasped looking at the phone. Killian Jones had called her and she’d missed it because she’d been sleeping. And it was still too damn early to call anyone to talk about it! And then she remembered that he had said he’d emailed her the previous night.

“Shit!” she said again, because she hadn’t checked her email last night or this morning. She opened her email app and saw, that yes, indeed, he had responded to her email at around eight the night before. And he’d included a picture of Jolly sleeping.

“Awww!”

Normally, Emma would lounge at the park for a little while longer, but now she was a bundle of nervous energy. She just wanted it to be 4 o’clock so Killian would call her back. She should have put his number in her contacts when he gave it to her, then this would not have happened. She felt like the biggest idiot. Of course, the wine and late night Disney had not helped the situation. She immediately added his number so she would know it was him when he called later.

“Ditie! Come!” she yelled over the thrum of the dog park. Ditie looked at her and whined as if to say “But we just got here”. “Ditie!” Emma said a bit more impatiently this time. Ditie bowed her head and slunk over to her owner. She knew when Emma meant business.

“Good dog!” Emma said kneeling to clip the leash to Ditie’s harness and scratching behind her ears. Ditie gave her a half-hearted lick.

“I know you didn’t get as much playtime as usual, but mama’s got things to do.”

The day seemed to drag on forever. After getting home from the park, Emma got dressed for work. She knew she only had half a day of work to do, but she needed to keep her mind off of the fact that Killian was going to call again.

Her mind started drifting while she was doing some of, what she considered, pointless paperwork. She really hadn’t dated much. Growing up in the foster system had not left room for relationships. Any time she’d made a friend, she’d end up leaving. And living in a world before email and the internet, it wasn’t easy to keep in touch. So she’d stopped trying. When she’d ended up in Boston and meeting Ruby, friends had started to come more easily. Ruby wouldn’t take no for an answer when she’d invite her places. Asking didn’t mean she had a choice. Emma was thankful for that now. Without Ruby she wouldn’t have met Mary Margaret, who had been a good friend of hers in high school, and had moved to the big city with Ruby to go to college while Ruby waitressed in her grandmother’s diner. Ruby’s grandmother had called them the Three Musketeers, but after awhile Mary Margaret met David and Ruby had met Dorothy. Sure they had tried to set Emma up, but just because they knew people who were single didn’t mean they were the right person for Emma (she grimaced when thinking about Graham, a friend of Ruby’s, who happened to be in law enforcement, and that was all they had in common).

But Killian, there was just something about him. She hoped it wasn’t all a facade. Something constructed for his online persona. That his picture wasn’t a fake and everything he wrote was copied from somewhere else. Her bail bonds instincts were not screaming at her that she was being catfished though. Her heart was practically singing and telling her this guy was it. Something she never thought she’d ever think in her life. Not after life had let her down so many times before.

“Hey, Emma!” The voice of her boss broke her out of her trip down memory lane. He was a short, grumpy man named Leroy, but he’d taken her under his wing when she was tired of waiting tables and taught her everything she knew about bail bonds. “Are you done with that paperwork yet? You’ve been staring at your laptop for the past half hour and you haven’t moved a muscle.”

“Um, yes. Sorry. Just thinking,” Emma said. She finished printing out everything that was needed and handed it to Leroy. She checked the time: a little after noon. She decided to text Ruby to see if she was available for lunch. She was.

“Bye Leroy. See you Monday.” Unless something important came up, Emma had most weekends free. The weekends were for committing crimes, not jumping bail apparently.

Emma entered the diner and saw Ruby in their usual booth in the back that was usually reserved for the manager during lunch. Ruby now managed the diner that her grandmother owned. Emma slid into the booth and immediately started to freak out.

“I missed a phone call from him this morning. I was asleep and I missed his damn call,” she lamented. Emma banged her arms and head on the table.

Ruby, with her wolfish grin, said nothing, just motioned for the server to come to the booth.

“Give me the roast beef sandwich with french fries and a Coke, and my friend here will have a grilled cheese, onion rings, and a hot chocolate with whipped cream and cinnamon.” Ruby turned back to Emma as the server walked away to prepare the order.

“Thanks.” Emma said.

“Look, Emma, I know you have it bad for this guy, which is so weird because you never fall for men like this, but you have to get yourself under control.” Emma attempted to interrupt at this point but Ruby gave her a look which shut her down. “Did he leave a message?”

“Yes.”

“Did he say he’d call later?”

“Yes.”

“Then what are you getting all out of sorts about?” Ruby asked taking a sip of the soda that had just been placed in front of her.

“I’m just...nervous. This is not me. You’re right, I don’t get nervous over men. David said I was playing the damsel in distress the other night and to cut it out. What if I meet him and he’s nothing like I thought?” Emma asked slightly anxious. She restlessly swiped her finger through her whipped cream and licked it off.

“And what if he’s better? What if he’s the ultimate perfect man for you, Emma?” Ruby challenged back. “You need to stop asking ‘What if?’ because that will lead you down a path you don’t want to go.” Ruby stared at her until Emma nodded her understanding.

“Now stop freaking out so we can eat lunch together, because I have a feeling that once you two meet, I’ll never get to have you to myself again,” Ruby said with a huge grin on her face.

It was two by the time Emma and Ruby finished lunch. Emma headed back to her apartment and then took Ditie out for a walk. She might have gone back to the park, but she had too much nervous energy to work off. They walked around the neighborhood. Emma wondered where Killian’s work was. Most likely near the shore since it was a boat touring company. Although, maybe he worked out of a corporate office somewhere else. Technically, she could just look up the address, but she wanted to find things out organically, rather than research.

After an hour of wandering around, Emma and Ditie finally headed home. Ditie immediately lapped up the water in her bowl and then padded over to her dog bed. She huffed a few times while she circled around and then flopped down for a nap.

Emma would have loved to take a nap as well, but she was not going to risk missing Killian’s phone call. Instead, she put on the Food Network and mindlessly watched one of their many cooking competition shows.

At exactly 4 o’clock, Emma’s phone rang.

“Be cool, Emma, be cool.” she said to herself. She let it ring twice before she picked it up, not wanting to come off like she was desperately waiting for his call.

“Hello?” she said casually.

“Emma Swan? It’s Killian Jones. It’s great to finally hear your voice,” he said.

“Yours too. I’m so sorry I missed your call this morning. A little too much wine last night and some weird dreams had me completely out.” She said.

“Weird dreams?” he responded. God, his voice was so much better than on the voicemail. She could only imagine how it would be in person.

“My friend, Mary Margaret, and I decided to watch Alice in Wonderland, while drinking wine. So, I dreamed that we were on a date and it had some overt tea party themes going on.” Emma said.

“Dreaming of me already?” Killian responded with a slight hint of arrogance, but nothing too off-putting. She did just tell him he was in her dream. Emma responded with an eye roll but also and embarrassed giggle.

Killian thought that giggle was the most beautiful sound in the world.

“Look, Emma,” Killian began, “I know this is extremely short notice, but would you be interested in going out with a dashingly, handsome man tonight?” He held his breath.

Emma paused thinking of how to respond, “Is George Clooney in town? I thought he was married?”

Killian let out a barking laugh. “Ok, I deserved that.” He paused to regroup, “But seriously, are you available tonight?”

“Yes, “ Emma began, not even giving any pretense that she might have to think it over, “I would love to go out with you tonight, Killian.”

Please leave comments and reblog! Also, let me know if you want to be tagged when other chapters post.

@profdanglaisstuff @thisonesatellite @mariakov81 @hollyethecurious

#cs au ff #cs online dating #cs pet dating #are they every going to meet #guess you'll just have to keep reading to find out #and yes I did sleep through the first time my husband called #no way was I awake at 8 in the morning on the weekend

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