#this one was so fun. I am so close to finishing this arc!! :D

[peninkwrites]

A Patchwork Powder Keg - Ch 12 of 14

Tubbo learns to drive. A car gets blown up.

[CW: injuries]

crossposted to ao3

Ch 1

Ch 11

Ch 13

Mafia AU Masterpost

~ Another Collective ~

Quackity stumbles back from the impact, heart no longer pressed to his lips.  He hits the ground hard as a second shot rings out, Quackity vaguely seeing the wood of the coffin splintered as the shot embeds itself there instead of in his chest.  Quackity also focuses on Jack Manifold pinning him to the ground with grim, irritated determination.

The room has devolved into utter chaos, more screams, more gunshots.  The moment Quackity was hit Tubbo’s gaze had instead turned to the crowd, where he saw one man standing with his pistol raised, pale and eyes wide with horrified fury.  He knew that face.  He’s one of Schlatt’s.  Tubbo wants to follow him, watching him struggle to flee the scene among a crowd of hysterics.

“Tubbo!” Jack shouts.

Tubbo turns back to Jack, to Quackity still bleeding on the floor despite Jack’s current attempts to slow it.  There is blood on Quackity’s mouth and for a moment Tubbo is panicked by the thought of how deep an injury must be for blood to fill his lungs that fast, until he realizes, the bloody thing which remains clasped in his hand.  Oh.

From the crowd, a few of the party are not running away from the stage and instead to it.  Ponk wants to help, but all the knowledge in the world doesn’t change the fact that their arm is in a sling, they had started running, grabbing Foolish’s sleeve, pulling him along with them, Foolish following meant Puffy followed, Eret and HBomb behind Ponk, Bad and Ant following suit, Fundy is also there, from his panicked expression largely because he doesn’t know what else to do and doesn’t want to be alone right now.

“Foolish, help carry him into the back, someone call an ambulance, we’ve got to get pressure on it,” Ponk says quickly.

Foolish, who Tubbo does not remember being this big, scoops Quackity off the ground like he weighs nothing, uncaring as his pale clothes are rapidly stained with blood.  Quackity’s weak groan at least tells them that he’s conscious.  The group crowds into the back room, Tubbo frantically clearing off a table so Foolish can lay him down, Puffy grabbing the phone off the wall to call for an ambulance, Ant and Bad currently watching the doors, but there has been no more fire from the crowd, the chaos now largely in the civilians attempting to flee.  Fundy now holds onto Eret’s arm, largely to reassure himself rather than help her.

“Okay, Puffy is calling, we’ll get an ambulance, and he’ll be alright.  Beacon Hospital isn’t far.  And they’ve seen a lot of bullet wounds, he’ll be– He’ll be better in no time,” Ponk tries to offer reassurances as everyone continues to remain at least slightly panicked.  Other than that, no one is acting.  “I said put some goddamn pressure on it!” Ponk says again more sharply now, frustrated that they can’t do it on their own with their arm in a sling.  Jack reaches forward.

“No,” Tubbo stammers, others gathered give him a bewildered look.  “I– I can do it,” he clasps his hands with almost practiced precision, clamping down on Quackity’s shoulder, wincing when Quackity cries out.  “Jack, I need you to reach into my jacket pocket.”

“You what?!” Jack says panickedly.

“I’m a bit fucking busy, so yes, Jack, get into my jacket pocket, there’s a list, there’s a list with mug shots, get it out, please!” Tubbo says frantically, still pressing down onto Quackity’s bloodied shoulder.  The bullet wound is higher than he initially had feared, cutting through his chest a few inches below his collarbone.

HBomb leaves Eret’s side now that they’ve stopped running, Eret piecing together what’s happened the best she can, knowing there isn’t time for someone to explain properly.  HBomb tears off his jacket.  “Here, use this,” he passes it to Tubbo, who accepts gratefully and uses it to soak up the blood.

“Okay!  Okay, I have the bloody list, Tubbo, what’re you on about?!” Jack says with a hint of hysteria, the paper crackling in his fist as he shakes it.

“Go through it!” Tubbo says frantically.  “Faster, please!  No, stop!” Tubbo nods to the mug shot of the man he had just seen flee the church, smoking pistol in hand.  “Jack, I need you to go outside and follow that man.  If you can’t find his face, he drives an ugly as shit brown Pontiac.  Do not engage, but don’t fucking lose him.  If he stops moving you find a payphone, you call the house, got it?”

Jack nods, shoving the papers into his pocket, half falling over himself to do as he asked, scrambling out the door.  Tubbo feels like the past minutes have been hours, and he knows even this time is enough for that man to have disappeared.  His only hope is he got stuck in the crowd trying to cram through the front doors and Jack will be able to catch up running out the side door.

“Quackity?  Big Q, you still with me?” Tubbo says frantically.

Quackity’s eyes are shut tightly jaw tense, he manages something like a nod and a weak hum in the affirmative.

“Ambulance is on its way,” Puffy calls.

“Good, good, you’re gonna be fine, Bossman.  You’re good,” Tubbo says.

“I know…” Quackity says raggedly.  “I know I’m good…”

For a moment, Tubbo almost expects Quackity to continue with something sentimental about knowing he’s in good hands.

“...didn’t get me in the face, so… so I’m still hot… don’t even worry about it…”

Tubbo laughs a bit too loudly, his arms starting to burn from how hard he’s pressing down on the blood still seeping slowly through his fingertips.  “Y-Yeah, you’re good.”  Tubbo has known Quackity for a long time, but he’s getting a bit tired of panicking over his injuries while waiting for an ambulance to arrive.

“You… you wanna swap out?”  Foolish’s voice is more like what Tubbo remembers, not at all gruff, almost sweet.  “Look, man, I bet you can do it, just, your arms are starting to shake.  A little bit.”

Tubbo feels like Quackity is his responsibility.  He doesn’t want to let go.

“Fucking hell, Tubbo, let him…” Quackity rasps.

Tubbo reluctantly lets go, allowing Foolish to take over.  Not long after, they hear sirens.  Most present are surprised.  This is an East Side church.  It usually takes longer for ambulances to get over here.  Tubbo connects some dots, realizing that former Police Captain Puffy had been the one to call.

“I-I’m gonna go outside.  Show them where to go,” Fundy flees the bloodied scene.  The man has never done well with blood.

“I’m gonna go make sure he doesn’t just panic and run,” HBomb follows.

“Hey!” Fundy says indignantly.

Ant and Bad seem to be having a silent conversation, exchanging looks by the door.  Some conclusion must be met, as Bad speaks up.

“We’re going to disappear before they get here.  You know the drill, we aren’t much use to you anyway, and we’re not sticking around to talk to the police,” Bad at least sounds apologetic.  “Badlands policy, I’m afraid.”

“Thanks,” Tubbo nods shakily, far more focused on Quackity as the pair of Badlanders make their leave out the same side door as the others.  Puffy and Foolish remain, Foolish particularly occupied, Ponk and Eret stay as well, and not just because their driver just ran out with Fundy.  Tubbo remains beside the table, tense and ill, he goes to hold Quackity’s hand before stopping himself, pulling back as if he’d been burned by the sight of the messier gore still clutched in Quackity’s fist.

“Anyone got, like, a baggie?” Puffy says dryly.

“Why would… why would you need a baggie?” Eret frowns.

“I don’t know if you want to know,” Foolish says, voice just a bit higher, still focused on his bloody task, just as his father replies instead.

“Quackity has… something he took out of Schlatt,” Puffy explains.

“Uh… what?”

“It’s his heart,” Quackity isn’t looking at any of them.  He stares at the ceiling, trying to ignore the pain in his left shoulder.  His right hand remains curled around his chosen souvenir.

“And… and Quackity is the one who was shot, yes?” Eret asks.

“Yeah, he was–” Ponk turns to look at her, baffled.  “You didn’t know who got shot?!”

Eret shrugs, irritable, “how the hell would I?!”

“You could’ve asked–”

“There was a lot going on, seemed like, so I thought I would just wait!” Eret huffs.

Their bickering is background noise, Tubbo far more focused on Quackity, not quite judgemental, but still wary.

Quackity glances over at him, he grimaces.  “Yeah… yeah, I know,” he says, taking a painful, deep breath.

“Know what?” Tubbo asks quietly.  Foolish, despite being right there, unable to move, is doing his best to look away and pretend he can’t hear them, looking around the boring back room with excessive focus like it’s the most interesting thing he’s seen.

“I shouldn’t have… shouldn’t have done that without asking you,” Quackity doesn’t clarify if he means the spectacle or taking the heart at all.

“That wasn’t what I was thinking,” Tubbo says.  He sounds weary.

“No?  It’s… it’s not?”

“I should’ve talked to you.  Before I… before I did what I did with Schlatt.  He was yours too.  And I took that from you, so,” Tubbo nods to the heart before quickly looking away.  “You had to improvise.”

“Huh,” Quackity almost laughs, before sharply stopping himself with a wince, breathless from sharp pain piercing his chest.  He takes a moment to just breathe.  “Actually, Tubbo… I’m glad you… I’m glad you didn’t.”

Tubbo looks him in the eye once more, eyebrows furrowed together.  “You are?”

“I dunno for sure, guess we… we can’t know, can we?  But I’m… I’m scared I might’ve tried to stop you.  So, I’m glad you didn’t.”

Before Tubbo can attempt to piece together a reply, the side door bursts open, Fundy and HBomb enter, followed by two medics.  Quackity almost looks annoyed by the interruption, even as they take over for Foolish, and get him properly prepped for the trip to the hospital.

“T-Tubbo…” Quackity calls, reaching out for him even as the medics try to move him onto a stretcher.

“Yeah?” Tubbo goes to follow, assuming Quackity wants him in the ambulance with him.

“No, no, you…” Quackity needs to talk fast, even as every breath sharpens the pain.  “You go help Jack with… you just go help Jack.  I know you want to, and honestly, I kinda want you to too,” a weak, bitter smile.

Tubbo only now notices Quackity has taken his hand.  His right hand, still bloody, but currently only holding a pair of car keys, which he presses into his palm.  Tubbo accepts.  “I’ll see you at the hospital later.  I promise.”

“We’ll go with him,” Ponk speaks up as Quackity is taken out to the ambulance.

“Thank you, Ponk, I- I mean that, thank you,” Tubbo nods, staring down at the slightly bloodied car keys.  He scans the rest of the room, particularly the floor, as the others begin to leave.  It isn’t exactly something he wants to find, but the last thing they need is to leave a bloody old heart laying around.

Puffy glances back toward the ambulance, “I’ll talk to the cops, that should give you enough time to leave.  They can just assume you ran with the rest of the crowd.”

“Thank you, Puffy.���  Tubbo waits for her to leave first, and only once alone does he take out a small, clear trash bag full of plastic communion cups and used napkins, brace himself, and pick up the heart through it, wrapping it up and tying it off.  He thinks Quackity has lost his mind a bit, surely, but he also firmly believes it’s Quackity’s insanity to choose.  He at least owes him that.

Tubbo is quick to make his exit around the other side of the building, away from the flashing lights and urgent crowd.  He goes to Quackity’s car, keeping his head down, incredibly grateful that they had swung back for Jack to get his car before the funeral so Jack hadn’t needed to take Quackity’s.  The thought of having to ask some of the fancy rich people and-or mob people for a ride might have killed him.  He already doesn’t know how to feel about them all rushing to his and Quackity’s aid, especially considering the events leading up to the gunshot.  Puffy maybe he can understand, Quackity had gotten her out of some trouble around her retirement from the Police Force, Ponk as well, but the rest of them, Tubbo doesn’t understand.  There’s no fucking way they’re actually forming some sort of community here or whatever nonsense.  Bad and Ant following the group doesn’t change that they are still in regular disputes with Manberg over territory.  Manberg.  It’s an antiquated, bullshit name that Schlatt made to pretend like he was the king of his own little country, but Tubbo has no idea what else to call it.

He’s stalling, sitting in the driver’s seat of Quackity’s car, that’s both literally and figuratively stalling, as one tiny issue is, Tubbo is not a very good driver.  To be fair, no one had really been around to teach him, save Quackity once or twice in a parking lot, and Niki letting him drive the delivery truck for all of five minutes before Tubbo went over a curb and he told her she should drive instead.  Tubbo has a license, but, well.  One he bought off Ponk for ten dollars.

“You… you just got to get home.  It’s like, it’s like ten blocks, how hard can it be?” Tubbo, one last shred of procrastination, shoves the plastic bag into the glovebox.

~

“Nice one!” Tommy cackles, looking at Wilbur’s messy efforts to carve into the side of an old mustang that Tommy swears he saw parked outside Tubbo’s place one time.

Wilbur has, poorly, written Cunt in cursive in the door of the car, adding a heart at the end for a bit of flair.  The kid is at least taking his mind off of things.  Such as the utter obliteration of all of his plans for the future.  They were limited plans, far from long-term, but nonetheless.  Not an ending by any means, but certainly a road block.  There’s plenty of other danger to find in this city.

Tommy scuffs his feet, this time serving as lookout while Wilbur cleans up his work.  Niki had been kind enough to give Wilbur his own key to the flat, and he is a bit worried he’s going to break it doing this.  Tommy doesn’t have any keys at all, he’s making do with a sturdy, short blade on a multitool he conjured from his many pockets, which he said was his key to many, many places.

Tommy isn’t particularly creative today, but at least he’s consistent.  All their other target vehicles are now adorned with at least one dick.

“There!” Wilbur stands, satisfied.  “Who next?”

Tommy eyes a familiar and incredibly fancy car, sleek and black with tinted windows.  “That one doesn’t belong to any of Schlatt’s, but… well, it does belong to a rich fancy fucker.”

“Eh, fine by me,” Wilbur takes a step toward it.

“I dunno.  She’s blind and shit, that feels fucked up and pointless.  She can’t even see it, and she won’t know it’s there to like, take care of it or whatever with her buckets of money,” Tommy explains.

“Oh, that’s Eret’s car?” Wilbur presses on brightly.

“You know Eret?” Tommy is quick to keep up.

“Yep!  They hung around Niki a lot.  You know, with their cool voice and handsome face and-and charming good looks…” he crouches down beside the car door.  “Prick…”

“Did you have a crush on ‘er?”

“What?! No!” Wilbur blusters.  “They were– She was annoying!  And, uh, snobby.  But no, Niki thought she was so cool,” he rolls his eyes.

“You had a crush on Niki, then?”

“No , no she’s like my little sister!”

“Dunno about little.  She’s way stronger than you.”

“Yeah, now she is, Niki– I mean, she wasn’t then,” Wilbur assesses the car door.

“Come on, now, it’s not like Eret can see it…” Tommy still has doubts.

“But her driver will, obviously, and then she’ll have to take care of it!”

“Oh, yeah.  Forgot she had a driver.”

“Forgot she–?  Yes, yeah, she’s not blindly driving herself, oddly enough.  Honestly, it’ll probably make her laugh, considering money is no fucking object to her,” Wilbur scratches one line into the car door before he hears a muffled gunshot.  “The fuck–” Wilbur grabs Tommy’s sleeve, dragging him to the ground.

“Don’t worry, it was a ways off, I think,” Tommy is unbothered, perhaps a bit cautious as he cranes his neck to scan the carpark.

That’s when the screaming begins, and the parking lot floods with people dressed in black.

“Oh, fuck, come on, kid, we should not stick around to see what all the fuss is about,” Wilbur grabs onto Tommy’s jacket, head down, dragging him through the cars.

“Wait–” Tommy pulls against him.  “M-My– My friends, they’re in there–”

“What?” Wilbur glances back.  “Then you’re better off clearing out and not getting in the way,” he continues to drag Tommy by the scruff, about to take off down the street with him stumbling in tow.

“Oi! Wait a fucking minute!” Tommy roars furiously, yanking away.  “Who the fuck do you think you are?!” He snarls.  “My friends are back there, and you’re here, and you’re fuck all to me, so don’t fucking touch me!”  Tommy looks like he has half a mind to start swinging, but Wilbur doesn’t move, just stares at him, wide-eyed.  “What gives you– You don’t have the fucking right.  And you’re not gonna get in your thick head that you can stop me!  If you wanna run like a little bitch, feel free,” Tommy roughly fixes his collar, “but I’m not,” he turns around, storming determinedly back toward the throng of hysterical civilians.

Wilbur paces from foot to foot, torn between running for the streets or after Tommy.  “Oh, fuck it,” he grumbles, jogging after the boy before he loses him in the crowd.  Tommy actually makes a sharp left, Wilbur struggling to keep up.

“Jack Manifold!” Tommy shouts, slipping through people easily, well-versed from stealing wallets, in pursuit of a face Wilbur finds familiar.

“Tommy?!” Jack jumps, almost dropping his car keys, barely sparing either of them a glance, eyes instead locked on a brown Pontiac that most definitely has the word Cunt carved into the driver’s side door.  “A-And Wilbur Soot– Okay, fine, fuck, that might as well happen–”

“Hello?!  Jack, where’s Tubbo?!” Tommy grabs Jack’s shoulder, turning him around whether he wants to be or not.

“He’s fine, Tommy!  Safe, but he asked me to– oh fuck,” Jack scrambles into the driver’s side, and without question, Tommy gets into the back seat, so Wilbur follows.  “What the hell are you doing?!  Oh, fuck it, I don’t have time for this,” he starts the car, all but ignoring them, eyes still locked on the ugly car struggling to get out of the lot.

“What’s going on?!” Tommy leans forward, still shouting in Jack’s face.

“All you need to know is, that man shot Big Q– he’s gonna be okay, don’t worry about it, they’re getting an ambulance and shit–” he says quickly as Tommy looks like he has half a mind to duck and roll out of the car, “and Tubbo has sent me after him, alright?” Jack turns sharply as the car forces its way out, running over some scraggly bushes on the way.  Jack keeps him in his sights.

Among the many other cars currently fleeing the scene, the Pontiac doesn’t show sign he knows he’s being actively pursued.

“Oh, we’ll fuck him up, alright,” Tommy growls.

“What?!  No, we’re– Tubbo said to keep an eye on him and call him when he settles.  You wanna help?  Just– Do what Tubbo asked, alright?” Jack says.

Tommy grumbles wordlessly, “alright, fine!”

Wilbur leans forward to greet an old friend he hasn’t seen in quite a few years.  “Ayup, Jack.  How’ve you been?”

“Oh, alright, thanks, mate.  Er, you know, new job and all that,” Jack glances at him, very much embracing an attitude of this might as well happen as Tommy “Innit” and Wilbur Soot have decided to make themselves at home in his backseat, unprompted, among the chaos already rioting throughout the day.  He continues to drive methodically behind the Pontiac, keeping his distance, occasionally risking a turn and rejoining another block down.  Thankfully, the chaotic traffic of funeral-goers gives them some coverage, but it won’t last.

“Oh, fuck,” it takes five minutes for Jack to mess it up.

“What?!”

“I’ve lost him.”

“You had one fucking job, Jack Manifold!  One fucking job!”

“It’s not my fault!  I am doing my best here, why are you even here?!” Jack shouts back frantically.

“Both of you shut up!” Wilbur shouts.  “Christ… Jack, just… just circle the block, work your way out, he can’t have gone far.”

Jack nods, tight lipped and tense, doing as he says, even Tommy grudgingly keeps his silence.  They almost miss it.

“Oh, cunt!”

“What?!” Jack turns back to look at him bewilderedly, almost hitting a curb.

“No, Jack, look,” Tommy rolls his eyes, pointing to what Wilbur had just spotted.

Jack stares, mouthing hanging open slightly, at the car he had been following, plainly marked out as he can now see by some foul language cut into its side.  The car itself appears empty.

“Right, that’s… great.  Where the fuck is he, then?” Jack sighs.

“Can’t have gone far,” Tommy starts to open the car door.  Jack has not stopped, even as he’s moving slowly down the side-street.

Jack and Wilbur’s protests overlap, Wilbur scrambling to reach over him and shut the door.

“What the fuck were you planning on doing?!” Wilbur says scoldingly.

Tommy gives him a look.  “You know, looking around?”

“No, no, this is my job, I’ll– I said I was gonna call Tubbo and tell him, and you lot should clear out,” Jack, the car now stopped and parked a halfway down the street from their target, gets out of the car.

“I want to help Tubbo, man, come on, let me!” Tommy whines, following him.

“No!  No, this is getting really dangerous, and you’re not dying on my bloody watch!  You and… and Wilbur, who you’re hanging out with for some fucking reason that I cannot fathom, and… you’re both gonna clear the fuck out of here, aright?  And I dunno, I’m gonna find a payphone!” Jack storms off toward the payphone he’d spotted just around the corner, shouting over his shoulder one last time, “keep your distance!  I mean that!”

“Ugh, fine!  Fuck off, Jack Manifold, we’ll clear out!” Tommy groans dramatically.

Jack shouts one last, “don’t mess this up for me!” Before resuming his irritated pace.

Tommy watches him go, rolling his eyes.  “Ready for some reckon-essence, Soot?” Tommy nods smartly.

Wilbur looks at him, baffled and a bit endeared.  “Reconnaissance?”

“That’s what I said, dickhead,” Tommy scoffs, creeping forward, intent on lurking in the alley as near to the car as he can get.

“I thought we were supposed to clear out?” Wilbur repeats Jack’s warning mockingly.

Tommy snorts.  “Day I take orders from Jack Manifold is the day I die.  And Tommy “danger” Innit doesn’t die.”

Wilbur has no retort.  He is wildly aware this is not a good idea.  He follows anyway.

~

Tubbo has a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, hypervigilant as he slowly moves through the streets, the traffic of others fleeing is both terrifying and a useful guide.  He just has to try not to hit anyone.  All other traffic laws are a footnote.  He stops the car in the middle of the street outside of the townhouse, halfway down the block.  He runs the rest of the way, inside the house, and down the hall to Schlatt’s– to his office.

He opens his desk drawer.

He takes out his bomb.

Tubbo stares at it, his heart beating louder in his ears.

The phone rings, and Tubbo gets so scared he almost drops it, pins and needles of cold-blooded panic rushing through him as for a moment he’d been convinced he’d been about to get blown up.  He sets it down carefully on the desk before scrambling for the phone.

“Y-Yes, hello?!” Tubbo manages to speak coherently.

“Hey, Tubbo, er, Boss.”  It’s Jack.   “We’re stopped by his car, he’s not in it.  I’m guessing it’s a hideout or some shit.  I’m watching the car, though, and if he comes back I’ll keep following, but nothing yet.”

“Okay, right– yeah, of course.  I will– Where are you?  I’ll be there soon,” Tubbo stares at the bomb.  He really cannot risk crashing the car this time.

~

Quackity passes out some time getting wheeled into the hospital, but he manages at least to rasp out the phone number for his apartment, Ponk promising to call Karl, that last comfort is enough that he stops fighting to stay awake.  Karl will be here soon.

Quackity hasn’t been in the hospital for a while, especially not for something severe enough he blacks out, but he wakes soon enough, fortunate that he’d stayed unconscious long enough for some doctor to dig the bullet out and stitch him up.

Quackity wakes, and the first thing he feels is someone holding his hand.  He opens his eyes, squinting in the white lighting, Karl coming into view.

“H-Hey, babe…” Quackity mumbles hoarsely.

“Quackity… you are totally the worst sometimes,” Karl smiles weakly.

“Aw, you don’t mean that,” Quackity grins back, sheepish.

“I do.  I do mean it,” Karl sighs, leaning forward, kissing Quackity’s hand.

“Aw, but you love me anyway.”

Karl gives him a weary look, eyes watering, and Quackity realizes Karl had been crying.  “I do,” Karl says softly, a wavering in his voice he half tries to bury.  “I love you so much, you know that, right?”

“I do.  I know,” Quackity softens, reaching out, brushing against Karl’s face.  “Hey, I’m okay, Karl.  I’m not going anywhere.”

Rather than prevent tears, Quackity’s attempts at gentle reassurances seem to usher them in.  Karl leans forward, a sob escaping, quiet, just a shuddering in his chest as he cradles Quackity’s face.  “Y-You’re– You’re not okay, Q, you’re not okay, you– you got shot.  You got freaking shot in the chest.   In what world is that okay?!”

Quackity leans into Karl’s touch, covering his hand with his own.  “I’m sorry,” he whispers gently into his palm.  “I love you too.”

“You’re… you’re the worst.  Totally the worst…” Karl says, not meaning it in the slightest.

Quackity smiles.  “Yeah.  And it wasn’t… it wasn’t really my chest.  It’s more like… more like my shoulder, okay?”

Karl sighs exasperatedly, gesturing to his bandaged shoulder.  “Oh, alright, in that case, never mind!  You’re fine, then!”

Quackity laughs, trying to bury a wince as it sends sharp pain through his bandaged shoulder.  “Y-Yeah… told you I was fine.”

Karl sighs, taking Quackity’s hand again.  “Are you gonna tell me what happened?  I saw Ponk earlier, I think they went with Eret and HBomb, but like, they didn’t explain, really?  Just like, talked about some general weirdness at the funeral, that somehow ended in you getting shot.”

Quackity winces.  Maybe he should feel like he’s made progress in some way with communicating with Karl.  He’d told him about the funeral, at least.  Even if it had been mostly to explain why he didn’t want him there, not in terms of danger, but more so, “I don’t want you to be in that part of my life, Karl.  I want that part of my life to die with him, and after this– it’s– it’s almost over, okay?”

Karl had grudgingly accepted that, although he seemed to be regretting it considering.

“I went…” Quackity sighs.  “I went a little… a little overboard at the funeral, y’know?”

“A little overboard?” Karl repeats skeptically.

“Believe me, I’m kind of regretting it…” Quackity mulls it over, trying to think of how to tell him.  He’s tired of secrets, especially from Karl, but it’s not exactly easy.  “I will explain, Karl, I mean that, I just… I don’t know how to just yet, alright?”

Karl grudgingly accepts this, nodding.  “Alright.”

Quackity looks at him, always so patient, so understanding even when Quackity scares him half to death.  Karl will give him shit when he deserves it, and Quackity wouldn’t have it any other way, but Karl will also wait and give him time, especially with things like this.

“Do you wanna–” Quackity stops himself.  Now isn’t the right time.  It’s not the eloquence Karl deserves, but Karl can clearly see he wants to say something.

“What?” Karl looks so earnest, too genuine and open and sometimes Quackity almost can’t bear it when he looks at him like that.

“Uh, never mind, don’t worry about it,” Quackity lays back down.

“Don’t worry about what, Q?  You don’t like, you don’t have to tell me about it right now, but you don’t need to… to hold back for my sake or anything, okay?”

Quackity takes a deep breath.  He wishes he had planned ahead, that he had a ring or something or anything or he at least didn’t feel this yearning in his chest right now, that this feeling could wait for a moment more beautiful, more worthy of everything Karl had done for him.  Lying pathetically in a shit hospital bed will have to do.

“Now, don’t feel pressure just ‘cause I’m wounded, only say it if you mean it, Karlos,” Quackity gives his hand a gentle squeeze.  “Karl, will you–”

The phone on the bedside table rings, scaring the hell out of both of them, Quackity being startled hurts more, jumping enough it strains his injured shoulder.

“Do you… do I answer it?” Karl stares bewilderedly at the phone.

Quackity groans, annoyed, “shit, yeah, I’ll– Can you hand me the phone?  It’s probably important.”

“Important?”

“Yeah, let me– Once I get news, I’ll… I can fill you in on that bit, just–” Quackity motions for the phone.  Karl passes it to him.

“Hey, Quackity?”

“Jack?”

“Yeah, I just updated Tubbo, he’s coming to join me.  I just thought– Well, we’re following the guy that shot you.  I’m watching his car.”

Quackity processes Jack’s uncertain and meandering reply.  “You’re… okay, okay where are you exactly?”

“A side street of Centennial.  Like, right past that one Deli with the ugly cow on the sign.”

“Yeah, yeah I know it, okay, I’m coming–”

“Here?!  You just got shot?!  Are you– Really?!”

“Yes, fucking really, Jack!  Don’t– Don’t do anything I wouldn’t–” Quackity struggles to sit up, “or anything I would!”  He adds sharply into the phone, hanging up before Jack’s stammering protests can continue.

“What do you mean?” Karl stands, looking almost panicked.  “Q, why does it– Why did it sound like you’re planning on–”

“Going somewhere?  I gotta, alright?”  Quackity swings his legs over the edge of the bed.  “Oh, shit-” he immediately regrets it, “oh, fuck–” He stops, wincing, a hand going to his shoulder.

“Whoa!  Whoa, careful!  What– What is it?!” Karl paces from foot to foot, reaching out like he wants to help in some way but doesn’t know how.

Quackity grimaces, giving him an apologetic look.  “I know you’re already putting up with a lot of shit, Karl, but I gotta go–” Quackity tries to stand.

“Quackity– Quackity, oh my god, you can’t actually be–” Karl moves like he wants to stop him, but unwilling to grab him considering his wounded shoulder.  “Quackity, Q, don’t!” Karl actually shouts at him.

Quackity stops, staring at him, surprised.

Karl almost doesn’t know what to do with an attentive audience, but Quackity isn’t moving.  He waits, listening, if not weary.

“Quackity, please.  You can’t keep–” Karl stops, taking a shaky breath, “you can’t keep doing this.  And– And I can’t keep doing this.”  Karl stares at him, waiting for Quackity to give some sign of taking his words to heart, all he gets is that Quackity is at least still listening, still waiting.  “Where…” Karl gestures uselessly, his hands falling back to his sides.  “Where are you even going?”

Quackity looks remorseful, but that isn’t enough.  He clearly hasn’t changed his mind.  “I… I need to go help Tubbo.”

“With what?  Why?” Karl is demanding answers, and Quackity knows he won’t be able to get past him without giving some.

“Tubbo is going after the man who shot me,” Quackity’s voice remains level, accepting of whatever reaction Karl will give.  “His idea, not mine, although I’m not exactly opposed.  He is there, so is Jack, but I think he still needs me.”  A weighted pause, Quackity trying to find the words, and definitely not the words for a proposal, especially not now.  “I am going to get out of this, Karl.  I mean that.  Not just– Not just some bullshit hypothetical I’m stringing you along with, not anymore.  Schlatt is dead and I fucking swear to you that means something.  I just–”  He sighs, eyes closed for a moment.  “I need to know Tubbo can do this on his own first, that he’ll be okay.  And after that, I’m done.  No more Manberg or whatever the fuck, none of it.  We buy the old bank across the river, and… and I live a morally upstanding life as a casino owner,” he gives Karl a weak smile.

Karl sighs, stepping forward, pressing a kiss onto Quackity’s forehead.  “I don’t care about morally-whatever, I care about you being safe.”

“I know, Karl.  I am so sorry you’ve gotten stuck in all this,” Quackity murmurs, hands resting around Karl’s waist.  “If you tell me to stay here, I will, but I need to–” He stops.  “I want to go help Tubbo.”

Karl sighs, looking grim.  “I’m driving.  Obviously.”

“You’re–?”

Karl cups his cheeks, gentle, insistent, unyielding.  “I’ve decided.  We’re going, Q.  We are both going, okay?  I’m not gonna stop you, but there’s no way I’m not coming with you.”

Quackity feels weak, holding onto Karl’s hand against his own cheek, looking up at Karl, his hair a bit messy, cheeks red, and eyes gleaming.  Beautiful.

Breathless and lovesick, Quackity can’t stop himself.  “Marry me?”

Karl giggles, even as his heart beats a little faster.  “Oh my gosh, Q, is this your idea of a proposal?”

“Maybe?”

Karl kisses him, tender and a little giddy, Quackity can feel him smiling.  Karl pulls away.  “Ask me again later.”

“Oh– Okay,” Quackity is in a bit of a whirlwind, unsure of how to take that.

“I mean, you know what I’m gonna say,” Karl bounces back on his heels, “but ask me again anyway.”

Quackity staggers to his feet, Karl putting a hand lightly around his waist, sure not to hold on too tight, keeping him steady.  Quackity puts his good arm around his shoulder.  “Of course, mi amor.”

~

Tubbo gets to the sidestreet Jack told him, alive and in one piece.  Well, mostly in one piece.  He loses Quackity’s right mirror getting too closed to a car parked on a side street, but considering Quackity’s crushed front bumper, he’s not too concerned with the condition of the vehicle.  He parks just around the corner, outside the nearby deli which is thankfully closed.  The side street is deserted, which does make all of this simpler.  Jack is sitting in his own car, slouched down in his seat, keeping the shitty Pontiac in his sights.  He screams when Tubbo knocks on the window.

“Uh– Uh, hey.  He– He hasn’t moved,” Jack tries to pretend he hadn’t just jumped out of his skin, getting out of the car.

“Good,” Tubbo stares, puzzled, at what might be letters carved onto the driver’s side door of the targeted car.  “What’s that say?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jack waves him off, then he notices the large box in Tubbo’s hands.  The box lacks a lid, exposing wiring and metal casing in a rather recognizable array.  “What’s that?” Jack stares at it, despite it being quite obvious.

Tubbo adjusts his grip on the box, holding onto it tighter.  “...a bomb.”

“A– a bomb?!” Jack sputters.  “You– oh, fucking hell–” He spins around, as if hoping someone will appear on the street to make this less of a nightmare for him.

“Yep,” Tubbo says grimly.  He makes towards the car, Jack frantically trying to cut him off.

“Whoa whoa whoa, hey!  Hey, Quackity said don’t do anything he wouldn’t,” Jack says warningly.

“You called Quackity?!” Tubbo says exasperatedly.  He ducks past Jack, “well, that doesn’t change my plans, currently,” he says sarcastically.

“Hey!  He– He also said don’t do anything he would!”  Jack points at him like he’s raised some grand epiphany.

Tubbo gives him a look, mulling it over.  “Well, Big Q’s motivations and machinations are often a mystery to me, so!” He raises the bomb cheerfully and continues over to the car.

“W-What are you planning on doing?!” Jack follows him, voice just a bit higher.

“Gonna crawl under the car, and I am going to wire this thing into the ignition.”

Jack’s voice is cracked and hoarse as he says something incomprehensible, that might just be incredulously repeating what Tubbo had said.  Jack tries again.  “And– And you know how to fucking do that, do you?!”

“In theory, yes.”

“In theory?!”

“I suggest you stand at the other end of the block, Jack Manifold!” Tubbo says brightly.

“The other end of– No!” Jack says smartly.  “No, actually I’m not gonna do that.  I am– I am gonna stay right here, and you are not gonna blow either of us up!”

Tubbo is touched by Jack’s willingness to die beside him, even as Jack’s hopes were probably to convince Tubbo to abandon the bomb idea, so nonetheless he continues.  “That’s the spirit,” Tubbo has placed the bomb on the sidewalk, dug out some pliers and a small torch from his pocket, and is now crawling underneath it, small enough he just manages it.

“Oh my god…” Jack says weakly, once again looking desperately around the deserted street.  Quackity nor Tommy and Wilbur appear to save him.

“Hand that to me, will you, Jack?” Tubbo’s muffled voice reaches him.

“Hand what–? The bomb?!”

“Yeah, what else?”

~

Tommy and Wilbur had quickly abandoned their watch of the car from the alleyway.

“This is boring,” Tommy whines.  “And stop smoking!  You’re gonna blow our cover,” he slaps the cigarette out of Wilbur’s mouth.

“Oy!” Wilbur says indignantly, startled, but not surprised by Tommy’s audacity.  “What cover?  There is no one here.  I think Jack might just be taking the piss.”

“Jack doesn’t have the smarts to trick me.”

“Right, sure.”

Tommy sneaks a look around the corner, the car remains empty a few yards away.  “What building do you think he went into?”

“What?  I dunno, could’ve been any of them.”

“Probably the one he parked in front of.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Um, yes necessarily, there are like, no other cars parked here, he didn’t have to park there, so that’s probably the building he went into!” Tommy nods smartly.  “It does look like it’s got a garage, maybe a warehouse or storage building or something?  Dunno why he didn’t park his car inside of it then, that would’ve been smarter.”

“Right.”

Tommy scans the alleyway, assessing the side of the building he’s deemed most likely to contain whoever they’re after.  He starts treading toward the back of the alley, where a rusted fire escape hangs with half a broken ladder swinging forlornly from the bottom of it.  “Get over here, Wilbur!”

Wilbur glances agitatedly from the car they’re actually supposed to to be watching to Tommy.  He sighs, following the kid.  “What is it?  And shouldn’t you not be shouting in case you blow our cover?” He says teasingly.

“Yeah, yeah sure, come on, give me a boost up,” Tommy nods to the ladder.

“Why?”

“Because, dickhead, do you not see how busted up that window frame is?  I can totally get in there,” Tommy nods to the second floor again.

“Into the building.  Where we think the guy who shot your friend is hiding?” Wilbur says skeptically.

“Yes, obviously.  Reconnaissance, remember?” Tommy bounces from foot to foot, having made up his mind and now restless to get up there.  “Fine, if you’re gonna be a pussy about it…” Tommy backs up down the alley, eyeing the ladder carefully, before running at it at a full sprint.  He actually makes it, jumping high enough to grab the second to bottom rung, which with an agonizing screech, promptly becomes unattached in a shower of rust, Tommy instead smacking into Wilbur at dangerous speeds.

Wilbur squeals, hitting the ground hard, Tommy unharmed as he basically lands on top of him.  Tommy laughs, staggering to his feet.  Wilbur remains laying on the filthy alley floor for a moment, weary.

“Thanks for the catch, Wil,” Tommy says smugly.  “I mean, I could’ve made it if you’d just given me a boost like I asked.”

“No, no even this is better than you getting up there, ‘cause you would get yourself shot, and it would be my problem,” Wilbur says grumpily, slowly sitting up, not wanting to put his bare hands on the dirty pavement, its foliage made up of broken glass and even a few old needles, thankfully Wilbur did not land on any.

“Perhaps,” Tommy shrugs.  “Come on, then, let’s go back to keeping watch,” he offers Wilbur a hand off the ground.

Wilbur stares at it warily, recalling earlier that same day Tommy brightly confessing to offering him a hand up just to let him fall.  Wilbur accepts it, deciding if Tommy tries to let go and drop him, he’ll drag the kid down with him.  Tommy doesn’t, he doesn’t even seem to try, just pulls him off the ground and heads back down the alley.

“Let’s check out the back.”

~

Karl parks around the corner, near the deli, scanning the street carefully.  “Okay, so, we’re just–  They followed the guy that shot you?  Now what?”

Quackity winces, and not just from his freshly bandaged shoulder being jostled by the car stopping.  “I mean, I doubt Tubbo is planning on throwing the man a birthday party.”

Karl nods, “yeah, alright.  Honestly,” Karl glances over at his wounded boyfriend.  If the bullet had been six inches lower, Quackity would be dead.  “I’m kinda on board with that.”

“That’s the spirit,” Quackity says, going to get out of the car.

“Whoa, whoa whoa, just– Oh my gosh, babe, just let me do some of the work, please,” Karl reaches out to stop him, before quickly getting out and circling the car, his arm around Quackity, supporting him as he leads the way down the street.

The two of them almost crash right into Jack and Tubbo, Jack looking like he’d rip his hair out if he had any, and Tubbo covered in dirt and motor oil.

“What’re you– What’s going on?” Quackity asks.

“Me?  What’re you doing here?” Tubbo stares at him.

“Making sure you’re not getting yourself fucking killed!” Quackity is having a harder time sounding authoritative, even walking around is enough to sharpen the pain from his shoulder.

“Uh, guys, I’m guessing that’s the dude–?” Karl nods behind them, where the face Tubbo had seen, livid and horrified and holding a gun, is quickly going to his car, duffle bag in hand.

“Oh, fuck, come on,” Tubbo grabs Jack’s sleeve, pulling him around the corner of the deli, Karl and Quackity following.

“Weren’t you gonna kill the bastard?  Why are we running?” Quackity asks.

“Because I’m killing the bastard a bit elaborately,” Tubbo hisses, pressing himself against the brick wall.  “I have no clue how big of an explosion we’re gonna get, so–”

“Explosion?”

~

The alley ends with no other entrances into the building.  Tommy is doing his best not to feel disappointed.

“Come on, then.  We should resume our watch,” Tommy kicks an old beer can, turning on his heels and rewalking the length of the alley.

“Yeah, like we were supposed to be doing?” Wilbur bumps shoulders with him.

“Oh, like you knew what you were supposed to be doing.  Not like you know Tubbo or Big Q!” Tommy scoffs.  He approaches the corner and stops, reaching out to hold Wilbur back.  “Hold on, he’s out!” He hisses.  Tommy watches him carefully.  The man gets into his car, throwing a duffle bag in the back seat.  He’s definitely planning on getting the hell out of town.

“What’s he doing?” Wilbur whispers, unable to see around the corner from here.

“He’s just getting in his car.  He’s probably gonna fucking disappear, and Jack Manifold is nowhere to be found, of course, not doing his fuckin’ job,” Tommy huffs.  “He’s j–”

Wilbur does not hear what the man was doing next, as instead Tommy is once again thrown against him, both of them flung to the alley floor.  Wilbur’s ears are ringing.  It takes him far too long to realize an explosion had just taken a chunk out of the building and thrown the two of them back.

“F-Fuck–” Wilbur’s own words come out muffled.  Tommy is still laying back against him.  “Come on, we should– We should clear out before this pulls in more trouble–” Wilbur starts to stand.  Tommy doesn’t.  “Tommy?!” Wilbur shakes him, turning the kid around, coughing in the smoke, it stings his eyes but he can still see clearly Tommy is bleeding.  There’s a cut across his forehead, his eyes are closed.

“Oh shit, you cannot be fucking dead, that would be so fucked up–” Wilbur fumbles for Tommy’s wrist, weak with relief to find a pulse.  “Oh my god, Tommy, you’re– Fucking hell, oh shit, just– I’m gonna get you help, alright?” Wilbur’s hands are shaking, sticky now with Tommy’s blood.  He’s weak, he’s shaken up, he still can’t hear properly, but he struggles to pull Tommy into his arms, standing and staggering toward the only way out, a destroyed street.  “You just… you stay with me, man, you’re… you don’t die, remember?” Wilbur cannot bring himself to look at Tommy’s unresponsive expression, he looks only into the smoke.  He doesn’t bother shouting for help.  He can barely breathe, and if he collapses now, neither of them get out of this.  “You… you don’t die.”

[jq37]

FH Junior Year Post-Season Thoughts

With another season of Fantasy High in the books and my recaps all finished, I wanted to do an overview of my thoughts on the season as a whole. Even though I feel generally positive about my experience with the season, there are a few things I think maybe could have been done differently narratively or mechanically. This isn't to criticize the way the season went down or to backseat DM/Play. More my combined ten years of college for textual analysis and storytelling bleeding through, haha. 

I first want to start with the things I thought worked really well.

Fantasy High has "High" right in its title but, in past seasons (and especially Sophomore Year), not as much time as you'd think was spent actually at school and even if it was spent at school, there wasn't much time spent in class or engaging with the realities of being a student. This season really dug into the academic consequences of skipping your classes all the time and the realities of needing to do a ton of extra stuff to try for a scholarship and I think that was a refreshing thing to highlight for a change. Being more scared at flunking out than the dragon that's trying to eat you feels very emotionally resonant. Real "High School Is Killing Me" vibes for anyone who's a fan of NPMD. 

Even though Fantasy High is a show that has some deep emotional beats and strong character arcs, it's first and foremost a comedy show. From the jump, everyone was generating bit after bit that had me cracking up as usual. "Little girly dog collar" is one of the funniest combinations of words I can think of. I think it was Siobhan who said that this was the goofy season and, having seen it, I'd have to agree with her. It never failed to make me laugh and it was always a highlight of my week.  The cast just has great table chemistry that I love to watch no matter what they're doing. 

Watching some of these high level combat encounters is as close as I'll get to understanding people watching sports. Even though combat is generally my least fave part of D&D, I think the cast really killed it this season with how cleverly they played and Brennan came up with some really great combat encounters. Special shout outs to Baron's Game and The Last Stand for their unique mechanics.  

This is going to be one that's on the other list as well because my feelings are mixed, but I genuinely do like the downtime mechanic and how it forces hard choices. I think it's an interesting way to connect a mechanic to the story and cultivate stressful atmosphere for the season.

I have problems with the execution but I love the Rat Grinders in concept. I think as early as season 1 I was hoping that we'd meet a party that was like the Bizarro Bad Kids and the idea of a party that's farming XP instead of going on crazy adventures is a strong concept. Likewise, I think a character that's jealous because of your "cool" (read: tragic) backstory is also a fun trait for an unhinged antagonist in this kind of setting.

This is me absolutely showing my bias but I adored the Abernant Sisters content this season. I dunno if Siobhan specifically asked Brennan to not put her on a bus with the other beloved NPCs or what but I'm so glad she stuck around and we got the development we did. It was almost entirely ancillary to the plot but there was this clear pattern of Aelwyn getting softer and sweeter towards Adaine over the course of the season, from the guarded, "Enjoy the nemesis ward," to, full I love you's and, "I'd take them to get you." It was way more focus than I expected considering that Aelwyn completed the bulk of her arc last season and a lot of the time, a redemption arc basically ends after the big gesture (in this case, Aelwyn taking a magic blast for Adaine in Sophomore Year). So the fact that we got to see all of these sweet moments of them reestablishing their relationship outside of do or die moments was such a pleasant surprise. Again, I fully admit I am extremely biased, but this was my top wishlist item and the season overdelivered so there's a baseline happy I'm always gonna be with Junior Year. 

OK, so moving on to things I things I think could have been tweaked.

Even though I liked the downtime system and the pressures it created, it also squeezed out the chance for more casual PC to NPC interactions that would usually be more common because they were semi-locked behind the relationship track and there wasn't an obvious benefit to roll for Relationships (as opposed to something like Academics which was crucial for not flunking out). Making the mechanical benefit more clear would have helped that (even if it meant Brennan didn't get his reveal--which he ended up just telling them anyway so might as well do it early). The other thing is that the consequence of a rage token was so bad that of course they spent all season avoiding getting one. Things might have gone differently if the consequences had been a bit more obscured, like in Neverafter. And it could have been a nice parallel to the Rat Grinders to take this unknown resource that makes things easier for you but is also having this negative effect. Then it could be like dang we did the same thing they did unknowingly. 

I mentioned this in my recap but I'll talk about it again. It is a little confusing to me that we did the Ankarna subplot right after we did the very similar Cassandra subplot. It took up so much time this season which I don't think is an issue in and of itself, it's just that we literally just went through some extremely similar beats last season. Why double up on this same storyline when there's so much new ground to cover? Or if we're going to raise a god, why not make it a different kind of god? One theory I had early on was that the Rat Grinders were trying to raise their own god to one-up the Bad Kids but instead of raising a chill, misunderstood Cass type, they accidentally raised a god who was erased for a good reason and got in over their heads. 

It's fun for there to be connections between seasons but sometimes it's like, OK that's a *lot* of coincidences. Like the god who your rivals is trying to raise *happens* to be the wife of your cleric's god and also *happens* to be the god of the fiend trapped in your friend's mom's chest and that fiend *happens* to be the relative on your bard's dad's side which is *also* the reason she is randomly cursed? That's a LOT of red string connecting plot points. As unhinged as Kipperlilly is about coveting Riz's backstory if I saw that go down I'd be like you have *got* to be kidding me.  

The mystery elements didn't feel like they clicked as well as they did in other seasons. I think that's partially because Porter's plan was so convoluted (seriously, I made another post about how haphazard his plan was) and had all these moving parts and we didn't get clear answers for a lot of mechanical things like how the rage crystals actually work and when they were implanted and stuff. You had stuff like Devil's Honey which I think is super cool as a thing that exists in the world but ended up being an element that just led the players down the wrong path and had a relatively small payoff (that Porter was using it to lie to Ankarna). I think it's plausible that a forgotten god would be willing to listen to anyone saying the right things without introducing this element. (As opposed to, for instance, Ambrosia which has a very clear connection to what's going on and is a solid clue that someone is flirting with aspirations of godhood.) 

The Porter reveal came so late in the season that even though it was a fun/challenging fight, there wasn't a lot of emotional weight behind killing him. It was basically just dunking on a teacher Fig has always hated who was also mean to Gorgug so screw him. Which, valid of course. But the Bad Kids were never going to react as strongly to Porter as they were to the Rat Grinders so putting Porter in the prime villain spot isn't necessarily what I would have done if I wanted the fight to be more than just a brawl--especially since we've done "School admin with student minions" already in S1. I don't mind the full circle callback but it would have been nice to pick something else for the sake of variety. We haven't had a child mastermind yet and I think Kipperlilly could have been a great candidate for that. My friend suggested that it would have been fun if Kipperlilly was trying to become a god instead of just being Porter's underling and I agree. "I'm not anyone's chosen one so I'll choose myself," is still within her established jealousy and Type A tendencies. If we want to keep Porter involved since that was Brennan's gift to Emily, maybe have it be that instead of Kipperlilly working for him, he's working for her. Like Artemis Fowl vibes! And the Rat Grinders can be varying levels of on board--from true believe to redeemable. I don't think Brennan planned for the Bad Kids to ever redeem her so might as well go full megalomaniacal mastermind with her and make her The Villain if she's not gonna be nuanced anyway. If My Little Pony can do it and send a literal child to Tartarus for pony treason (or whatever Cozy Glow did), Fantasy High can too. 

Continuing from the above, if we have the Porter fight in place of the Grix fight (a la Daybreak) and don't use Ankarna, that gives way more time for the Bad Kids to investigate the Rat Grinders throughout the season and it would mean that they would have their personalities developed a lot more. With the limited downtime, they Bad Kids didn't have a lot of time to spend on these kids who were just hating on them for no good reason (valid). But if you cleared their plate of the god hunt stuff, they'd have more time for this. And if they weren't all rage zombies to varying degrees, it would be easier to see them as characters. Besides Kipperlilly (and, funnily enough, Mary Ann) we don't really have a good read on what these kids are actually like. The little time we spent with them all season was kind of a wash if them breaking out of rage means their personalities got laundered too. Anyway, regardless of how their loyalties ended up shaking out, it would have been fun for them to be more than the minions that they were in canon. As funny as it is for them to just kinda be XP farming losers, they did have the potential to be more interesting in their own right if they weren't just Porter's minions. And again, we've done adults forcing or coercing children into being minions in Freshman and Sophomore Year already. Lemme see some self-created child maniacs! (Or, peer pressured child maniacs. That's cool too. The Lucy/Kipperlilly dynamic is way more interesting to me if it's like girl, I would take a bullet for you but I CANNOT walk this path with you any further in response to *I* will be a god and you can be *MY* champion.)

Anyway, those are my thoughts! Like I said, I have my points that I think could have been tightened, but overall an enjoyable season and I will be glued to my screen if they decide to close out with Senior Year! 

[mattmurdocksscars]

Would it be possible for you to write something with black widow reader and daredevil? 👀 Maybe something like the reader still being in the red room but wanting to leave because Matt told them that they were more than just a widow?

Okay, Nonnie. I'm sorry this took so long and I hope it's not actual trash BUT! Here you go.

Warnings: death, vomiting, stereotypical violence

"You should leave. You hate working for Dreykov and what he makes you do. You're so much better than that."

You scoff, looking over at the man standing across from you. His red suit cuts an imposing figure against the night but you've fought worse than the Devil in front of you.

"And do what, D? What does an assassin do once they leave they're only purpose?"

It's the Devil's turn to scoff and shake his head.

"Thats not your only purpose. You could get away, live a normal life-"

"And just how am I supposed to live a normal life? Do you have any idea how many people I've killed? Not exactly a dinner topic. Then there's the whole sterilization thing. That's another fun conversation piece. Just drop it, D."

You go to turn away but the Devil's there, grabbing your arm and turning you back.

"What about those other Widows you know. Natasha and Yelena? They got out and are trying to save the others. You could go to them."

You sigh, shoulders sagging. In truth, you wanted nothing more than to get out, to be normal. But you feared that no one would ever see the good in you like the Devil did.

"D, please..."

The Devil takes your hand and moves close, a hairs breadth between the two of you.

"I can't make you leave, you have to decide for yourself. But, please. At least consider it. I know there's good in you or I'd already be dead." He says the last part with a wry little smile. He knows who would win in a fight, not for lack of trying on his part. You're just willing to go all the way, never have been able to stop like he does.

Daredevil had been your mission once. You hadn't been able to finish the job, your loyalties already wavering at that point. When faced with someone as good as him, you hadn't been able to pull the trigger. You were forever scared that now someone else would be sent in, someone without your hesitancy. Someone who wouldn't care about spilling the Devil's blood on the streets of the Kitchen.

And almost as if your thoughts summoned them, a knife came whistling through the air. The two of you just barely dodged, having been so focused on each other. You jumped away from the Devil, thinking the other Widow was after you but when they advanced on him instead of you, you froze. This was the moment you'd feared. Your loyalties had finally been called into question, your time spent 'tracking' the devil having taken too long.

You watched in horror as the other Widow and the Devil exchanged blows. For a few moments, it appeared the Devil had the upper hand but the Widow was craftier, willing and more than able to kill. She managed to get a knife between his ribs and you gasped at the same time as him. He stumbled back, one hand going to the wound, before he fell to his knees. The Widow stood over him and prepared to deliver the killing blow and you had moments to decide what to do.

The Widow's hand arced down.

You made your choice.

The thump of a body hitting the ground was one you'd been forced to get used to but it didn't make you feel any less sick in that moment. You turned and reached, emptying your stomach right there on the rooftop.

You startled when a bloody hand pulled your hair out of your face.

"Easy. It's just me." The low rumble of his voice made tears well up and you forced them down in favor of turning to him. His face was pale and drawn tight where you could see and you knew the wound he had would require medical attention soon. But that didn't stop him from cupping your face and pressing his forehead to yours.

"Thank you." He breathed, knowing what you had just sacrificed for him.

"What do I do now, D? I-"

"Matt."

"What?"

"My name is Matt. And you come with me. Let me take care of you." You let out a watery laugh.

"You don't seem to be in any shape to be caring for anyone but... okay. Guide me and I'll get us there so we can patch you up."

You had no idea what your future would hold as you helped Matt from the rooftop, but you knew two things.

One, Matt would stay by your side as long as you let him, his loyalty demanding it.

And two...

You really needed to get into contact with Natasha and Yelena. And soon.

[hehearse]

ARE WE TALKING ABOUT ORV SONGS.... this is my time to shine i have an entire playlist dedicated to this

the first one that comes to mind is the right wrong by dear hunter. the yjh song of all time.... i don't think i need to provide lyrics for this one because it's? the entire song? there isn't a single lyric that doesn't capture his character so wholly. also it's just. really good. i would recommend listening to the entire album because this is not the only song that fits. in particular all is as all should be makes me so ... i don't know if it fits secretive plotter or 51% kdj more. i lean towards the latter but my friend prefers the former. it's the way it feels like such an uplifting song sung by someone who is miserable.

another one i like a lot is icarus & apollo by ripto for yoohankim. all of the lyrics fit for this one as well but in particular i'm reminded of the start of the story/dkos arc for the first verse, 1863 for the second, and oldest dream/49/51 for the third. and that's without mentioning the implications of apollo as hsy and icarus as hsy. something about apollo being a creative god but also one of healing who presides over the passage of children into adulthood. something about icarus being protected by his father, who created the labyrinth they were trapped in, but still choosing a fate that would inevitably doom him in spite of his father's warnings, just for that small chance of getting the one thing he wanted.

this one is unfortunately not in english... but mephisto by queen bee. good lord. i'll hold back on reccing any other yjh songs since this is already the second but i can't go without bringing this one up. even just the chorus is. I’ll risk my life, I’ll give my life to you / After all, you gave me time, didn’t you? / Once I fulfill all my desires, ah, once I achieve them / I want to see you / So I wish upon a star .... it makes me so insane. i wish i could provide more coherent thoughts but i feel like i'm transcending to another realm whenever i listen to any of these songs

divine loser by clem turner. oh kim dokja... this one is about his relationship with both wos/kimcom and himself. just. I don't know how I am / I'll pay you handsomely / If I should drift away / Please don't revive me ... My god, you break the skin / But may I be thy heaven? / Will you take my sickness / While I deprive you of your health? ... My habits wouldn't heal / I had to have killed god / And my body remains / But the person is gone - all of these lyrics make me so insane. just. Agh. ow.

ok i don't want to completely overwhelm you so i will stop there ^^' i hope you enjoy these songs as much as i have!!

I'M SO SORRY MY PERSONAL ORV BABYSITTER ADVISED ME TO CLOSE MY EYES i have not finished the novel yet so i'm guessing i won't be able to enjoy the songs to the fullest yet :""D (or rather i will listen and reverse engineer all the themes which might spoil the fun)

so i'm keeping this for the future and also posting for those looking for music

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUGGESTION THOUGH <3 keeping them as a future treat to enjoy when i will probably be half dead due to Feelings

[thegeminisage]

ok ok ok it's star trek update time. last time we watched tng's "liaisons" and ds9's "the circle."

liaisons (tng):

the summary of this one put me off soooo bad but i actually give it an enthusiastic pass because i loved the b plot but conned myself into also liking the a plot. allow me to explain

the b plot of this is of course the fantastic riker e worf e deanna showing the ambassadors a good time on the enterprise. this arc satisfied me from start to finish because it started with riker telling worf he looked good in a dress and finished with worf beating that annoying guy's face in, and in the middle there was also a poker game and whatever the FUCJ was happening in their little meeting room which was extremely fun and flirty

i have not forgotten btw that worf e deanna is supposed to happen in s7. im so sorry the actors hated it but rn it is Fueling me. bring it on.

the a plot is more complicated and the summary of this plot is what initially put me off

like, of Course it's picard and a woman. again.

here's what i didn't know: one, this woman was batshit insane and not to be trusted, and 2, she wasn't real but a fake roleplay character made by this alien. who is a man

THAT MEANS. NOT ONLY DID PICARD FINALLY GET HIS OWN CLOSE ENOUNTER

BUT IT WAS WITH A MAN

picard has canonically kissed a man. or um been kissed by one i guess

and all of that would have been just borderline and barely ekeing out with a pass EXCEPT

i had the thought near the end of this episode: q would be absolutely SICK

as we know. the funniest thing about q and indeed perhaps his only redeeming factor. is how bad he wants to fuck sir patrick stewart. which gets ONLY FUNNIER the more that sir patrick stewart is like, i would fuck literally anyone else in the galaxy first

and now here picard is, having liplocked with another guy, and he STILL hasn't fucked q. i spent so long giggling about this that i simply must give the episode a passing grade

also, i would like to note i figured out they were the same person before the episode told us. i am JUST that good

the circle (ds9):

KIRA MY BELOVED.....................................

absolutely tickled to pieces with the ensemble scene at the opening. first we had this nice little prolonged kira and odo moment 😍 which was so wonderful because of their like general dynamic and history being hinted at and then EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF THE CAST SAVE SISKO got their sitcom intro. it was the most beautiful thing i've ever seen. they were like, you simply cannot be dismissing major kira unfairly. so true. once again it is so cathartic to see them rallying around her whether they're federation or not. literally treating her really niceys

AND SISKO! his little scene with her in the garden down on the planet...wah. he's literally constantly trying to get her back. his support even when she's no longer technically working for him...EVERYBODY treats her really niceys

um except that vedek guy...idk whether he's on the level or not and i DID NOT like whatever sexy stuff was going on in that orb vision. putting aside the hilarious reality of orbs in general for a second are the prophets saying she has to fuck that guy? not my beautiful queen.

um and also except the circle. i didnt actually see the plot twist coming this time about that minister guy being in on it which is very fun. also i'm sooo glad they staged a speedy rescue

ODO THE RAT! i love when he turns into stuff

also odo blackmailing quark into being his deputy lol i LOOOOVE what they have it's SO funny

anyway i hope vedek winn chokes on her oatmeal when she finds out the cardassians are funding her little r*n d*santis campaigns. i thought that was a fun plot twist if not very surprising ultimately like of COURSE they are. it's crazy how relevant some of this still is

and on a final note, i like that sisko has chosen to Rules Lawyer his way into disobeying the prime directive because it is the right thing to do here. GOOD FOR HIM!

tonight: tng's "interface" and ds9's "the siege," finally concluding this little three-parter.

[coralhoneyrose]

for the questions meme! 4, also pick one you wanna answer, and unrelated question: who are your favorite shepherds?

4. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

Technically already answered (5-ish), but no reason I can’t share another one! I think I’ve alluded to it in very vague terms, but I've done some work on a sort of ‘prequel’ to Half Orange. Since H.O. picks up pretty close to where Chrom starts to realize his feelings, I thought it would be fun to go further back and imagine some of the earlier stages of his friendship with Robin that led up to that. The plan is for it to be alternating POV and I have a few of the scenes for it partially drafted. Not sure if it’s something I’ll ever wind-up finishing or posting, but it’s fun to return to when I have an itch for writing the two of them in really early-stage pining.

Free Choice - 17. Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

Picked this one because my answer to it is kind of a mess LOL. I do not write the scenes in order, though for long fics, I do put a limit on how far ahead I am allowed to work where I can only put concentrated effort into scenes planned for some point within the same chapter. I think weirder than that though is that most of the time I don’t even write the scene itself from start to finish. My drafts tend to be just like chaotic clumps of a few sentences for a bunch of disjointed ideas from all over the scene that I then have to go back and re-order and string together with connective tissue.

I have actually been making an attempt lately to change this and not jump around quite so much, but it’s definitely not what comes most naturally to my brain or how most of my stuff has been written.

Unrelated Question - Who are your favorite shepherds?

Oh boy. Excluding Chrom and Robin (because otherwise it would obviously be them LOL) and assuming ‘Shepherds’ is referring to only gen 1 units, I would probably say (in no particular order) Frederick, Lissa, Gaius, Sumia and Cherche. The first three are probably not surprising at all given the frequency I include them in fics, and Sumia gets featured a fair amount as well. Since my writing is almost always set pre-Valm arc, I have not yet found an excuse to include Cherche, but she was actually the character I married on my first play-through of the game! Crazy to think how normal I was about Awakening back then :’)

There's a lot of others I contemplated listing too, but those are probably my stand-outs! The Shepherds are such a fun and dynamic group of personalities and one of the rare cases where I'm sincerely fond of pretty much all of them <3

Thank you so much for sending this in! It was a lot of fun answering them :D

[sineala]

sin! what did you think of the new spider-verse movie? :D

I liked it a lot!

So far I'd say I liked the first one better; I thought this one was maybe a little on the long side and could have run a bit shorter, but I also don't think I can make a definitive judgment about which is better because we haven't seen how the cliffhanger is going to resolve yet and it seems unfair to compare them when the second one only has half a plot arc finished.

I am not really a person who likes the Spider-People side of Marvel at all, mostly because I hate spiders and I hate looking at spiders or pictures of spiders and a whole lot of the Spider-People put big ol' spiders on their costumes and also we tend to get a lot of origin-story pictures of spiders so that's kind of a big personal nope for me. I make an exception for Jess Drew -- who is in this Spider-Verse movie, hooray -- because her costume is not very spidery and also even though her origin story does involve genetic material from spiders, Marvel doesn't make me look at pictures of spiders mostly. I would also like to read more Black Widow comics at some point but I am not sure how much spider is in there -- I know she's not actually a Spider-Person -- or if it's more of a metaphor.

I mention this mostly so you will understand the extreme barrier to me liking Spider-Anything, but I think the Spider-Verse films are great and I really like Miles and I think they've captured how cool multiverse comics plots are in a way that the main MCU so far seems unable to do, in my opinion. Like, I have watched a whole lot of superhero movies and I understand that they all have varying goals with respect to what kind of adaptations they want to be and how close they are to canon -- but so far the Spider-Verse movies are the only movies that, for me, have captured the exact feeling of reading one of those massive summer event crossovers with dozens of tie-ins and a giant escalating plot. Not so much in the exact canon faithfulness or anything, but just the way it feels. I walk out of the movie theater thinking that this movie understands why it is fun to read comics and I like that about it.

Also, I really like Spider-Rex. His name is Pter Ptarker. I'm still not over this.

[no-naem]

Now I shall put some of my favorites of the unfinished art from the 100 Kayano Days challenge. [Rubs hands together]

These are all in order from old to new, from September 2022 to January 2023.

It's a hot day. Karma: "I want cuddles, and I can't cuddle Akari (she'd kill me). So..." Nagisa: "You're too hot." Karma: "I know I am." Nagisa: "YOU KNOW THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT!!" Karma: "Cuddle time." Nagisa: "IT'S 31 C!!! AKARI, HELP!!" Akari: "Sorry Nagisa! I have another love to attend to. You're on your own."

(Lol the dialogue is kinda off but I like what I was trying to go for.)

Aguri lives AU but at what cost. Akari is this 🤏 close to losing it.

Adults Kayano, Kanzaki, and Karma went to that one cafe that was doing that collaboration with a popular video game.

GoM AU, with Akari slowly turning into an antimatter creature. It took a long time for her to transform, and there was no cure to stop this. It wasn't fun, but at least her friends were there for her.

Kayano and Akari, Deemo AU, based on that one art for ANiMA from the game.

Okay, THIS one I still like a lot. It takes place in the Okinawa arc, and the concept was that there'd be a montage where each student would use Korosensei's Ultimate Defense Form as a blunt weapon to knock out all of the guards. And then end with Karasuma taking out Takaoka the same way.

GoM AU again. Nagisa excitedly shows off one of his partners. ...and yes I made antimatter Akari 10 feet tall. :D

Surprise Koro Q! Based on that one episode from the anime. Imagine if the transformation was permanent.

Baby shark doo doo doodoodoodoo...onesie.

Shirt reads: "I am completely normal and not insane I have no desire to harm anyone I am not carrying a weapon." I like the potential chaotic vibes in NagiKae. They're besties.

Eldritch AU!!! Context: some of the 3E students are eldritch beings, and Kayano is the reincarnation of an ancient being that ruled a whole other dimension filled with other eldritch monstrosities, which she can summon. This AU gave me so many brain worms, yet not enough to help me finish any of them. 😩

I have a bleak zombie apocalypse AU. Takes place after their high school graduation, probably after the events of Korotan D? Kayano's half-infected, Nagisa's a zombie, Karma has severe head trauma that he can't fix and it's making him go wack, and Gakushuu's trying to keep everything together.

I wanted to draw more than one birthday art for Akari and this was one of them. Just her and her big sister...

This one was gonna be a prank. Forgot about it though LOL.

The concept was Kayano arriving in limbo, dazed, after getting killed. But Aguri tells her to go back. It's not time yet.

Aberration AU. Takes place 4 years after canon, right around the time they're in college. The monster behind them is basically both of them. Their memories and DNAs make up the monster. Kayano and Nagisa are unhealthily codependent after being kidnapped and used as experiments for...3 years. 😐 But it's okay. They eventually get rescued and get therapy.

Kayano twins AU. I was gonna draw a short comic about the twins but I had to give up because I was struggling for some reason. (Why is this pic so LONG???)

One of the Christmas/Karma birthday ideas. It'd have Karushuu kissing under a mistletoe. Kayano's just here for the desserts, man.

Eldritch AU. This would be a sequel to Day 88, featuring Kanzaki (she's a time god) instead, but I didn't have enough motivation to finish it.

This is just Day 93, but Aguri and Korosensei were supposed to be there with her, along with the rest of group 4!! But I ran out of time.

And finally, this is another limbo situation where the Yukimura sisters would hug each other one last time. But then I thought it was too sad and went for the "Aguri lives" ones.

If you made it all the way to the end, then WOW thanks for reading!! Hope y'all liked reading about my thoughts! There are actually more arts that are unfinished but those are like...really messy lol.

[todayisafridaynight]

CANNOT BELIEVE IT'S TAKEN ME SO LONG TO REPLY YOU'VE ALREADY FINISHED THE SECOND MOVIE LOL BUT

I LOVE showing The Mole Song to people because it's like, love it or hate it, you can't possibly have a lukewarm reaction to it. I'm thrilled you liked it so much!!! Hong Kong Capriccio definitely has its moments and I'm glad you enjoyed it too; on that note, I haven't seen Final yet, and it doesn't seem to be hardsubbed online, but I was able to find a raw and subs separately. They seem okay from the scene I skipped to twenty minutes in but not positive lol

It really does set the tone early! I love the cutaway gags too The manga has a lot of absurd non-sequiturs and it was a fun way to adapt that to a new medium. As an adaptation as a whole, Undercover Agent Reiji in particular definitely has the tone down and I appreciate that it kept a lot of the Moments I liked.

Hiura had me from the blood oath… one of the guys of all time… despite how I sound from what I just said, I actually didn't even know there was a manga or a sequel when I first watched it, so I was SO relieved he survived the explosion. I was honestly 100% convinced he'd crash the plane at the end though lol, but I guess that ended up happening in Hong Kong Capriccio anyway?

BUT YEAH LIKE THE GUY JUST HAS A HYPERFIXATION AND I HAVE TO RESPECT THAT. Which, you know, in-universe, to have the whole butterfly motif and then dress your man up in florals… I repeat, Reiji was slaying in that dress… I love everyone's costuming in these movies. SPEAKING OF THE AUCTION, the PSP segment onward was insanely RGGcore wasn't it… good god……

It's kind of funny how little Reiji changes--I guess that's how you keep a manga going for like 900 or whatever chapters so far--because he'll pretty much Always have things he needs to figure out. Still very much fun to watch, though!

ALSO the drugs reminded me (I was expecting them to be In The Dogs too lol), shoutout to manga Tsukihara for having the exact same character arc as Mine and ending up an invaluable ally. Also getting to beat up Ryuji Leo (sorry my boy but Mine is overall the stronger combatant to me and I am tired of the Reddit-y discussions on the wiki saying otherwise </3). Living vicariously while Mine's status is still uncertain lol

P.S. I Too Treat Your Blog Like The Morning Paper and it means a lot to me to have the opportunity to write in and talk! I would also love to join a stream if you ever go for it!

P.P.S. NOOOOOOO PLEASE THE SLOW DANCING…….. UNWELL. I've imagined the same thing but at home… in the light of the refrigator… Jo is still tense as hell both because of the situation and it's such a waste of electricity and they really should close the door as soon as possible… but Arakawa insists if it's only for the duration of the song, it's fine……

YEAH THE MOLE SONG MOVIES WERE REALLY FUN thanks again for recommending it to me (I found out it had a manga series the moment I went to look it up, but I haven't read a lick of it. I'd say I'm surprised it's still running but I mean... manga like One Piece have over a thousand chapters at this point, so I shouldn't be too surprised. Maybe I'll give it a read sometime just to check out how the movies and manga compare-and-contrast with each other)!

1.) BIGGEST HONOR I'm glad my blog can entertain a lot of people (and a big part of that is due in part to people writing in and giving me a chance to chat a bit, so of course I always have to thank you and everyone else for sending me asks as frequently as you all do. They're absolutely the highlight of my day whenever I get the time to answer them ^^)!! I've always liked the idea of streaming (I've attempted to years back but I never tried again afterwards), though I always end up getting too anxious about it (plus I tend to get performance anxiety and I end up taking a lot longer to draw whenever people are watching me). I hope to get over that anxiety one day though- I bet it'd be fun to respond to people in real time or take quick doodle requests mid-stream :)

2.) AW THEM DANCING IN THE KITCHEN THOUGH I CAN SEE IT..... Jo being worried about the electric bill though that's so accurate..... I'll definitely think on the concept of Slow Dancing AraSawa with all the apparent enthusiasm around it.. I promise..

YAYA my friend (who made the post) told me a moment after I told her (also PLEASE I was so heinous reading the name- first thing I said to her aside from 'new movie night plan' was 'how many times does this man play a dude named 'Jo' ☠️☠️)! I wasn't able to find any recordings of the actual play (I know a trailer was posted last year so I don't know if they've actually performed live since then) but here's to hoping one day there's a recording of it posted somewhere...

[shrinkthisviolet]

AO3 asks 3,6,19,24 and 29

3: What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

Definitely i still love you (i promise). No exaggeration, I’ve been working on that nearly the entire year, ever since roughly March. Summer was busier than expected, so I didn’t get as much writing done as I thought…and I was committed to finishing writing it this year, starting to post it. And, thankfully, it seems like it’ll be posted in its entirety by the end of this year too! It’s also the longest multichap I’ve ever written 😅 and…not quite the angstiest/saddest, but close.

6: Favorite title you used

come in, the water is(n’t) fine! Words like is/isn’t, was/wasn’t, would/wouldn’t, can/can’t, etc are so fun because you can twist the lyric for your own purposes in a fic :D and this fic in particular is one of my favorites

(also, I straight-up forgot I wrote that this year?? Go me 😅)

19: What’s one pairing you want to explore next year?

Westallen!! I miss them, I wanna write something for them. I’ve written a few fills here and there, and a small ficlet here, but I wanna write a proper fic for them.

Also, platonically, Savitar & Morgan, if I can make it to the s3 arc next year. I’m sooo excited to start writing for them…y’all have no idea. And Jesse & Morgan, since I've only just scratched the surface of their dynamic

And Barry & Morgan ofc, I’m excited to write more about them and explore their dynamic further, but that’s just always true tbh. Still...as with Jesse & Morgan, we've only scratched the surface of Barry & Morgan!

24: Did you write any gifts this year?

I did! i hate to look at your face (and know that you’re feeling different) and time was(n’t) in our favor, both for ohsalamanders as a two-part birthday present (only one of those was posted on her actual birthday tho 😅 but it's the thought that counts)

One of these (the latter, more specifically) kicks off the “childhood friends AU”, which I’m absolutely in love with. It’s gonna be so fun :D and for once, I don’t mean that as code for “it’s gonna break your hearts”, because although it will still have angst, it will have less angst than the main AU! Easy enough to guess why, I think.

(And it's sooo Barry&Morgan-centric...surprising no one, I'm sure 😅 it's an entire AU about them, that's how obsessed with them I am)

29: Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

"Barry!” Mom screamed, and someone close to his heart—Jesse, he realized—was screaming too, and then Dad had him by the shoulders and urged, “Run, Barry, run!” and then gold lightning surrounded him, and then… Then he was outside, miles away from home.”

~time was(n’t) in our favor

As established, I love Barry&Morgan…and writing baby Jesse Morgan as being “close to [Barry’s] heart” literally and figuratively (because, ofc, he’s holding her in his arms right now) made me so emotional 🥺

ao3 wrapped!

[blondrichclosetwitch]

People try to put us d-down

O judge

O Mom and Dad

And the voice said:

This is the hand, the hand that takes

Here come the planes.

And the voice said: Neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night shall stay these couriers from the swift Completion of their appointed rounds.

There's always force.

How can I try to explain?

When I do, he turns away again

It's always been the same, same old story

Forgive us now for what we've done

It started out as a bit of fun

Here, take these before we run away. They've hosed you down, you're good as new And they're lining up to inspect you

Poor old Jim's white as a ghost

He's found the answer that we lost

I once was blind but now I see

Was held in chains but now I'm free

I knew this would happen

You're angry and you're captured

And I feel the rapture

You're happy on Friday

By Monday you're crying

I need to book a flight tonight

Looks like the hour is upon us

If you could find an easier road, you'd take it today

Divine intervention couldn't keep the word from leaking out.

When the kids had killed the man I had to break up the band

Diagrams—early 17th century: from Latin diagramma, from Greek, from dia ‘through’ + graphein ‘write’.

Cause what I really meant is when I'm being honest

I'm tired of this shit

And what I never said, why there's a price on my head

It's nothing to do with them, it's my karmic lineage

(oh, let 'em talk about me)

They're just yesterday's news

Your interest really made stacks out of it for me

Lucid as a doll

Kick down the legs

High on the shock

I’m working on erasing you

I get hammered, forget that you exist

There's no way I'm forgetting this

You’re the shit and I’m knee deep in it

“What do you want me to say about 2:01?”

“He is there.”

Where are you?

Become yourself.

So I can see you.

So I can -see- you.

Lied in a minor key which makes one's soul swoon,

In the shadow where her long fingers bring death

So beautiful amongst the pots and plans

There is nothing he can’t cook

I keep my eyes wide open all the time

For you I know I'd even try to turn the tide

Sing a song of praise for your elders

Check out that expiration date man,

It’s later than you think

You can’t enjoy yourself I can’t enjoy myself

Will I get to move on soon?

I think I can, I think I can, I think I

I swear I've lost the last drop of whatever kept me awake, alive.

Strange shadows from the flames will grow til things we’ve never seen will seem familiar

Maybe you’re too close to see

Now I’m doing time

So don’t you lock up something you wanted to see fly

Hands are for shaking, not tying

The butler knew about the fragility

I seem to be caught while in motion by a secret enchantment.

The muted pains

The glass bell covered all the people living in the house.

As if something that could never be repeated

Nothing exists beyond our alliance

We cannot live without each other.

if I get sick, they get sick

their opinion of me and mine of them is our only standard

If I ever said to John” you did a petty thing””he would kill himself

There is no place for such feelings in modern life , that is our tragedy.

and so we died.

We were living in another world.

We have no ordinary sensual life.

My brothers marriage is meaningless. I felt pain detachedly.

What we like is to have long conversations from room to room without seeing each other. It pains us to kiss each other in that stupid normal human way.

And complete death would be so enjoyable.

I can’t bear to see them as bodies.

everything was really finished long ago.

We are far away from husbands wives and children.

John doesn’t understand why his wife weeps sometimes.

She weeps and we despise her for it.

The only thing I feel sometimes is fear, like a fit of madness.

And other times I seem to go blind.

Sometimes I say to my husband “do you know sometimes I believe I am supremely intelligent? “

And he says “how vain you are.”

I am a descendent of Joan of arc.

Nothing can touch me

You’re convinced of the hex

Call me a telepath(oh look it’s the song of the day)

[yusei-clownington]

SO I FINALLY FINISHED 5D’S! And what better way to celebrate than to go through my favorite characters as…briefly as I can

Slight spoilers I suppose?

Let’s work it up from 10 to 1

10- Jack

Was gonna go with lucchiano but who am I kidding Jack’s great. He’s a drama queen with an even more dramatic wardrobe. Never afraid to express himself and just bluntly blurt out what he thought.

His obsession with Cup ramen is on another level but what can I say? Love is love, Jack x cup ramen for life *wipes tears*

But seriously speaking he’s great. His very first line was enough proof of that. He just… apologized for being late then declared “I AM KING” like the…king he is.

My favorite Rival character still remains Manjoume… and… Yeah I still prefer Kaiba over Jack but damn was he a good rival.

Like he has to be the only Rival so far with an actual past with the Main character, no? That was pretty interesting because usually, the protagonist meets the rival somewhere during the first season and we go off from there. But here we had to go through their backstory to know what their relationship was fully like. Nice touch.

9- Aki

Hands down my favorite female protagonist so far. I adore Anzu and feel neutral enough about Asuka but Aki? NAH MAN AKI’S AMAZING. I think 5D’s just does the best job with its female characters. Like it actually gives them big enough roles. I loved how Aki got her own episodes…be it the D-wheel ones or just… fillers.

Her crush on Yusei was justified, at least it seems so to me, and honestly never got obnoxious. Sure she had a moment here and there but it was honestly never a bad thing. Hell faith shipping in general isn’t exactly a bad Idea.

Speaking of shipping, is anyone going to talk about her little frienshipmaybemore moments with Crow? No? Ok…

But anyway, overall, SHE’S AMAZING AND I LOVE HER. There was more to her than some boring pining love interest and it shows with each episode. So when people say she has a great personality, they’re actually talking about her personality. AKI RULES

8- Mikage

Would’ve been way WAY higher on the list if the thing with Jack was thrown out the widow.

That being said I think she’s the more mature of the Jack-crazy trio. Like sure she was just as into him as the other two, but in some scenes she was a lot more tolerable.

But that honestly might just be my bias towards this amazing woman speaking.

She’s devoted to her work, gentle, caring, gorgeous and just all around a wonderful character to see.

I loved most of her scenes in the series, and the fact that there was more to her than just the jack part. She actually had an important part to play in many episodes and honestly proved herself to be a very fun character. I just wish they gave a her little more screentime than what she got.

A lot of lost potential there- I mean come on.

7- Rua /Lua

He reminds me of Judai WAY too much. LIKE WAAAAY too much not to be on this list. The guy’s adorable. And I love how they made him the emotional one. Like they could’ve gone with the “the boy is always rowdy and tOUGH” stereotype, but they didn’t. Sure, ruka (who I don’t like as much) was much more gentle, but it was much easier to see Rua cry than it was to see her do so. It’s just fun is all.

I also adore his deck and that little theme that played whenever he dueled… Plus his relationship with Jack and Yusei…GOLD GOLD.

6- Ushio

I made a whole post about Him, You think he wouldn’t be in my Top 10? Well think again. Great development would see through again.

5- Sherry Leblanc

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA SHERRY.

What you just witnessed in the line above is my internal reaction to literally any scene this beautiful badass woman happens to be in.

She’s just amazing. She has this really… tough energy IDK HOW TO DESCRIBE IT BUT SHE’S A REALLY INTIMIDATING WOMAN. But not in a bad way, oh nonononono in a REALLY REALLY GOOD WAY OKAY.

Her character arcs and episodes somehow felt…really separate from the whole team 5D’s shenanigans even though they were basically connected…

Like she had her own motivation that didn’t particularly rely on bonds, but was still willing to accept and even form a bond with the whole team.

Revenge is kinda hot ngl.

Okay no it’s not. But seeing a vengeful character that WASN’T played off as evil or particularly wrong amidst a bunch of friendship is magic ones was pretty refreshing.

The moment she took her helmet off when dueling yusei I was HOOKED and so was Aki but shhhhhh.

But damn I love what they did with her at the end, Rushed as it may have been. It took her joining with Z-one briefly and dueling Aki and Crow ( a very underrated duo btw) to realize that maybe thinking of the past and only the past was not a very good idea.

Anyway love her. And her duels are always a delight to watch.

4- Placido

Before he showed up, sherry was supposed to be 4th but here we are. Placido Placido Placido. I want to make it clear that…I really couldn’t care less about Aporia as a whole. But Placido and Lucchiano were pretty fun characters.

Now I finally get to talk about my beloved.

This dude was…the biggest mood. EVER.

He would hang up in that third one’s face like it was nothing and constantly ignore his boring ass. Oh. You have a plan? Ok. I don’t care. It’s boring. I’m placido and I’ll do what I want. Kiss my D-wheel ass.

He has a lot of hilariously sassy lines, which include and I quote:

“I don’t know what god wants you to do.”

“But I won’t accept it!”

The guy just does not care and I’m living for it.

Not to mention his bee analogies which- Why have I not seen anyone point out????? BEE ANALOGIES COME ONNNNNNNN

aNYWAY PLACIDO’S GREAT

3- Kiryuu

Edgy dude with pretty hair. Also gay. Also the crash town arc. Need I say more?

I will anyway.

Honestly dark signer Kiryuu was pretty fun to me with all the crazy laughter and stuff…

Then past/ flashbacks Kiryuu was just as interesting but in a completely different way. Sure he didn’t get as many episodes or screentime as the rest, but what I saw of him was more than enough for me to care about the Character. Like unlike the old satellite gang (Rally and the other two whose names I can’t even remember) I actually gave a shit about this guy when bad stuff happened to him.

Not to mention his growth. Like…He went through reverse/ negative development, then uphill by the end of the signers’ ark with all the…dying in your hands gayly stuff, then downhill again by the beginning of the crosstown arc….aaaaand back up and higher than ever by the end of it. Basically the fact that his development wasn’t always constant just added some spice.

Plus his dynamic with his ex-teammates…team….satisfaction (Try saying that with a straight face) was always pretty entertaining, especially his with Yusei.

Speaking of which...

2- Yusei

With all my talk about him…and…my profile picture…and URL, it may come as a surprise that he’s not number 1 here, but honestly it’s so close you could call it a tie.

As for why I love him….Have you- Have you seen my blog????? Do I even..need to say anything????

1- Crow

Now there’s a lot I have to say about Crow honestly hE’S JUST THAT COOL, but I’m saving it to talk about later still. All I’ll say for now is this:

Flashy guy with an amazing sense of style, an earring and an incredible amount of cockiness and charisma. What’s not to like?

[puppy-phum]

#10YearPromise - pingxie blabberings

bc i wasn’t able to answer these questions throughout the week (as i’ve been traveling around while being extremely busy), i decided to just collect all of my answers under one post! i never tire talking about pingxie so this was extremely enjoyable ♥ am also practicing some very shameless self promo in this so be prepared!

thank you for @laireshi​ for organizing this event (i take it’s you alone? am not sure, sorry for my laziness) and being amazing in general ^^ i won’t be able to join as i am still very busy and summer is always pure chaos for me, so i can only hope that other ppl have fun! if you are not aware of 10 Year Promise Pingxie Exchange, you can find the original announcement post here. join in if you have the time and inspiration ^^ 

and then to my answers which i will be placing under the cut bc i don’t want to flood anyone’s dash with me going bonkers over these two idiots. enjoy tho if you decide to read this :’D ♥

I. What made you ship pingxie?

Back when I got into Reboot bc of ZYL (as has happened to many ppl probably) and then saw stuff about pingxie once I started going through that drama’s tag on tumblr, my first thought about them was that they had to be a crack ship. The way Reboot portrays them as well as their actors and their huuuge age difference affected this a lot, and I was actually cackling at them bc all their moments in Reboot made me just go “oh, socialist brotherhood at its best” in my head. But then I finished watching Reboot’s 1st season (as the 2nd one wasn’t out yet) and started reading some fics. I learned more about them and the canon storyline. I learned how damn devoted they are to each other, and after that, many moments in Reboot gained new meaning in my eyes. So, I think what made me ship pingxie was a mix of Reboot (especially the hallucination moment where Xiaoge dies and Wu Xie loses it bc that’s my jam as I later on became to notice) and then the amazing fics I dug out during that time. After that the love grew stronger as I watched the other dramas, and these days I’m a lost cause. I feel like I spend most of my awake time thinking about these two and their love. They are amazing. I cry rivers for them.

II. Which pingxie version is your favorite?

After finding pingxie, I fell in love with them properly during TLT2. There is just something about that stage of their relationship for me, the stage where both of them are still very tentative about everything but they have deep down accepted that they’re tied now. Wu Xie is figuring out so many things, coming to terms with being betrayed by his uncle and slowly realizing that something bigger is going on behind the scenes. Meanwhile, Xiaoge is learning how to trust Wu Xie and how to accept that he cannot leave this naïve boy behind. It feels very fragile, and I have so many emotions about TLT2 bc of this. Xiaoge is so soft and feels very multilayered. Wu Xie is still his naïve self but is slowly gaining some sharper edges as he comes to face the cruel world. I like how Cheng Yi and Hou Minghao have portrayed this dynamic. Also, TLT2 is just very extra with all the pingxie scenes, who would be able to resist loving them? So, I have to admit that my favorite pingxie is these two, tho Ultimate Note comes very, very close.

III. What’s your favorite pingxie headcanon?

Headcanons are a bit hard for me as I don’t know enough of the canon. I have not read the novels so most of the story I’ve just patched together from all the bits I’ve read from somewhere (here, on twt, in fics) and through the scenes the dramas have shown me. I feel like the whole world is lowkey made of headcanons for me :’D But hmm, my favorite pingxie headcanon… I’d say there are two and then one bonus bc it’s more a Wu Xie related headcanon than just pingxie. The first one is that the pingxie confession happens after the Bronze Gate. It feels like the only moment when they’re both ready for such a thing. I’d say Xiaoge comes to realize his own feelings a lot earlier and he might tell something to unconscious Wu Xie before leaving for ten years, but he will not actually leave Wu Xie with such a burden. He doesn’t want to ask anything when it sounds like he doesn’t even believe that Wu Xie will be willing to wait for him, and I’d say that for him, his feelings are going to be fine even if Wu Xie never learns about them. He might even wish that Wu Xie never learns about them bc he’s not able to promise much as an immortal and amnesiac being (he outlives Wu Xie, most likely forgets him). For Wu Xie however, I’d say he needs time. He really is way too naïve and I’d say that he needs those ten years to realize that he’s in love with his best friend. I dunno who confesses first after Xiaoge returns but I think that only after that decade their relationship is “mature” enough to hold the weight of a confession (even if I also love to play around with the thought of them getting together during the events of Ultimate Note bc that drama offered many good chances for that). Another headcanon for me is that Xiaoge will find a way to die when Wu Xie does. After learning about them more, I feel like Reboot implies this too. Xiaoge is very accepting of Wu Xie’s death but in the last moments, when he really thinks that this is going to be it for Wu Xie, he hesitates. We see a spark of desperation there, and I’ve come to think that his initial plan, the plan he came up with once he got that call from Wu Xie and knew he would join Wu Xie on his last adventure, was to see this through for Wu Xie’s sake and then leave and die alone. I don’t know how much there would be left for Zhang Qiling after Wu Xie is gone. I feel like this is also what Wu Xie fears. But would he really resent Xiaoge for joining him in death after living such a long and hard life? I’d say no and I’d say that even Pangzi accepts this as one of the most likely outcomes. The bonus one then feels very personal to me. I don’t usually talk about this bc I feel so unsure of even mentioning this but I’ve seen others with similar thoughts so am sharing! I’ve never before gotten any vibes about a character’s sexuality in a drama I’ve watched but Reboot Wu Xie looked at me once in the eye and all I could hear was my brain yelling “asexual”. So, that is just my personal headcanon for Wu Xie. He’s ace and proud of it. He can flirt etc. but sex makes him go naah. He doesn’t need it or want it. He can appreciate beauty and hot ppl without wanting to sleep with them and I think his relationship with Xiaoge fits very well into this. I don’t have any personal experiences with being ace but I feel like Wu Xie has read the name once, shrugged and gone, “guess that’s me” and continued on with his life. He’s badass like that and I love him for it. (take a very relevant meme lol from this post)

IV. What’s the ideal pingxie date?

Ah, christ. I dunno if I’ve ever thought about them going on a date? In the middle of tomb raiding, hospital trips and fighting against powers bigger than themselves, I’ve rarely seen any time for them to do something like that lol. But after Ultimate Note, I’ve thought about star gazing a lot. Just them, the infinite night sky and some lonely hilltop. They would probably take a blanket with them, huddle together and talk about things in hushed voices. Wu Xie would go on a ramble about all the constellations and their meanings and mythology behind them and Xiaoge would just nod at him and watch Wu Xie talking. Maybe he would offer some tidbits in the middle of the rambling, making Wu Xie smile brightly. It would be relaxing and comfortable and loving. They would make out a lil bit. Would maybe lie down and play with each other’s hair. All their worries would feel insignificant. Wu Xie would fall asleep for a moment and Xiaoge would wake him up with a kiss to get him moving again so that they don’t need to sleep on the cold ground. They would return home and drink something warm and then go to sleep, cuddled together and happy. relevant edit x

V. What’s your favorite pingxie getting together scenario?

I guess I already talked about this a bit but let me elaborate then! As said, I’d see it happening after the Bronze Gate. I am not sure if it would be right away (they’re both going through so much trauma at that point) or if it would happen after Reboot (maybe we would still need Wu Xie almost dying for them to get their shit together), but I’d say it happens in a rush either way. It’s one of those “I have to tell you something before it’s too late” -type of moments. Or one of those “Bc I love you, you idiot!” -type of moments. I feel like I keep thinking that maybe Wu Xie would have to confess first bc as said, Xiaoge wouldn’t like to burden Wu Xie with his feelings when there’s so little he can give in the sense of normalcy. But then again, I have written a oneshot where Xiaoge is the first one to confess and that always feels better for me. That at some point Xiaoge feels secure enough to tell Wu Xie about his own feelings. That he feels confident and comfortable enough to say it out loud while still expecting nothing in return bc he knows that Wu Xie won’t abandon him either way. But no matter how that happens, I always see it as this dam breaking. The emotions finally become too strong. Something happens that reminds them that life is too short. Something happens that makes them finally talk it out and ah, Pangzi can finally take a break, what a joy

VI. What’s your favorite pingxie moment?

Every adaptation has its own good moments so let me make a list (like I saw someone else do too):

The Lost Tomb:

Xiaoge rescues Wu Xie from the shibie

Wu Xie worrying over unconscious Xiaoge plus taking care of him in the hotel room

The Pingxie MomentTM aka Xiaoge saving Wu Xie from falling and then cradling the boy to his chest while thumb rubbing his shoulder

The Lost Tomb 2:

Xiaoge revealed to be Baldie and Wu Xie yelling at him about it

Lowkey the whole underwater tomb arc bc holy shit that’s gay

Wu Xie losing it when Xiaoge doesn’t come up from the underwater tomb, diving after him and then almost dying himself + Pangzi getting angry at him for being stupid

pingxie ft. magical skype in the bronze tree cave (and Xiaoge being emo about the 1000yo warrior guy right before that)

Xiaoge rescuing Wu Xie from drowning (they shared air, you cannot convince me otherwise) + Wu Xie giving Xiaoge his watch in the hospital (relevant edits x x)

Wu Xie’s face when he sees Zhang Buxun in the coffin bc I love pain :)

Xiaoge not shooting Wu Xie despite not remembering him in the mountain village

Wu Xie grabbing Xiaoge’s jacket after being kidnapped and the Iron Triangle reunites in that old Chen guy’s cabin, asking, “Is that you?” from Xiaoge to make sure that he remembers again while looking like the biggest puppy (relevant edit x)

also some relevant memes x

Ultimate Note:

The hand over mouth reunion in the Golmud Sanatorium

“Xiaoge will ignore anyone else but you”

Xiaoge pretending he isn’t Losing ItTM throughout the whole time Wu Xie is in the Devil’s City with A-Ning

more hand over mouth with the gigantic snake

“The goddess has ascended”

Wu Xie protecting Xiaoge after he returns from the jade meteorite 

“Do you remember me?” “Wu Xie.”

Wu Xie promising to help Xiaoge find his memories no matter what bc Xiaoge’s business is Wu Xie’s business 

“Maybe you can return home with a wife today.” Wu Xie: proceeds to stare at Xiaoge, horrified

“Take me home.”

The sword gifting scene (especially Xiaoge denying the possibility of him killing Wu Xie or them harming each other, relevant edits x x)

other relevant edits for ultimate note x x

Reboot:

Wu Xie telling Xiaoge about his sickness and then Xiaoge coming back and promising to join Wu Xie on his trip (relevant edit x)

the death hallucination bc am a masochist 

Wu Xie’s death dream where Xiaoge calls to him but then accepts his choice to move forward bc am a masochist pt. 2

pingxie reunion in the Thunder City forest where Xiaoge saves Wu Xie & co. from the poisonous gas 

the moment in Thunder City where Wu Xie sits outside at night, eating the peanuts Pangzi gave him and then notices Xiaoge, offering him the peanuts and smiling 

when Xiaoge leaves for the last time and then gets reunited with healed Wu Xie against all odds

the train scene and their softest smiles to each other  

Time Raiders:

Wu Xie being the best bean and just wanting to befriend this mysterious man while seeing right under his skin and making Xiaoge baffled and fall in love in approximately 0.5 seconds

Xiaoge, catch! *proceeds to save only Wu Xie when they fall into that shibie horror chamber*  

Xiaoge’s desperation to save Wu Xie from the crumbling ground 

their death waltz at the end of the movie plus Xiaoge’s sacrifice

+ Sand Sea: 

“Don’t you dare call him Xiaoge!” 

Wu Xie offering his friends and then himself as comfort to Li Cu when he’s scared while smiling very softly at the memory of Xiaoge 

“But isn’t his surname Wu?” Hei Xiazi: You have seen nothing yet, you sweet summer child

Wu Xie talking about Xiaoge’s past in the temple (aka the Tibetan Sea Flower story bc I just adore how pretty they’ve made those scenes) 

VII. What is the best gift Wu Xie and Xiaoge could give each other?

I haven’t really thought about this type of stuff either bc we have already seen a ton of gifts being exchanged! I love the watch Wu Xie gives to Xiaoge in TLT2 as mentioned (it’s so silly but also so sweet) and I love it that Wu Xie gifts Xiaoge with a new sword in Ultimate Note. Also, I feel like I can count the food Wu Xie leaves for Xiaoge in Ultimate Note and that one moment where Xiaoge offers his knife for Wu Xie as a “pen”. They would give anything for each other as long as the other asked (which they never do) so I dunno what type of gift would matter the most. As it’s so hard to say, let me talk about one more headcanon that I’ve been thinking about ever since the infamous Bazaar photoshoot for Ultimate Note/XYL & ZSX. So, we see them having matching rings and necklaces in that photoshoot. I think jewelry would be kind of difficult for Xiaoge to wear when he needs to fight, as jewelry could be a hindrance in that type of situation But my brain won’t shut up about “pingxie married!!!” when I ask this question from it. To be honest, I do not see pingxie getting married in the traditional sense. They don’t need something like that after everything they’ve gone through. But I like to play around with the thought of promise rings. Just them exchanging rings for fun, for their own sakes, to have something concrete that reminds them of their promise to each other and of their feelings. Maybe even Xiaoge could wear that ring under his gloves idk. But am a sucker for that thought so my answer to this is then simply: a ring. relevant edits x x

if you read this far, thank you so much! I hope this gave you something and thank you once more for organizing this and allowing everyone to share their love for pingxie ^^ ♥

[reogou]

Dating HCs with Kotaro Bokuto

pairing: kotaro bokuto x fem!reader

genre: fluff, nsfw at the end

warning/s: nsfw, smut, pegging, finger-fucking (?), overstimulation

a/n: this is for @janellion for her prize! I'm so sorry it took me so long to make your prize 😭! I think the nsfw was a lot longer than the sfw, just like what you wanted. i hope you enjoy this! ily bb!

credits: to @westxrlund​ for the header’s bg

SFW

Relationship with this owl is tiring but fun. For real. You will have no sleep. You will literally wake up at 3 am because he messages you to say he misses you.

3 am escapades are your relationship goals. He's craving for ice cream? He'll message you in the middle of the night that he'll be there in front of your doorstep in 15 minutes. You miss him? He'll take you to the beach and will make you sit in front of the car while he wraps his arms around your waist, sharing both of your favourite drink while staring at the sea.

But maybe if he's too lazy to drive, movie marathon in the living room while watching your favourite movie with a single blanket covering the both of you. Or if you want to, he'll cuddle you in bed if you cannot sleep.

But if there's an important event tomorrow, like a practice or official match or exam, you'll be the one to make him go to sleep or study because this man has no limits in his clinginess. Baby just want hugs and cuddles please spare him from the pain of having to study-

But even if he's clingy sometimes, he does know that school and match is important. He, after all, wants to become successful for you and your future together.

When you're inside the school, little notes and love letters are never forgotten when it comes to Bo. He'll slid in small notes inside your locker or your bag after you both finished eating lunch together. This man, despite his chaotic self, has good penmanship. And y'all can't tell me otherwise. Though there might be a few messy strokes here and there.

His notes and letters are a bit over the top but that's what you love about him. Though all the contents of it are just him telling you how beautiful you are and how much you love him or just some lame pick-up lines or vines he thought of or saw in the internet.

Mornings with him will probably consist of you being awake so early in the morning because Bokuto wants to jog with you. I swear your legs would be dead by the end of your jog because of how far this man jogs.

This guy loves to eat your cooking. May it be good or bad, he won't let the chance slip of getting to taste the food you cooked no matter how bad it is.

Also, expect music marathon with him too. You'll both be sharing a single earphone while eating chips and reading books or blasting them in the speakers while you two dance under the afternoon sunlight from the windows.

He knows you love reading so when he became a professional player, he uses some of his money sometimes to buy you books you're dying to buy. Will also bring you in a reading café so you both could read while chilling.

During summer, expect beach dates too. He will invite his friends over to go on a vacation with the both of you for a week or two. He loves barbecue so there'll be like barbecue party every two days. Will sneak inside you out on the shore to invite you over a walk by the sea.

Texting with Bo is sweet and funny sometimes. But often times, you just send cheesy text to each other or he'll just send you random funny videos or memes he saved on his phone.

You always make sure to be on his every game to support him and cheer for him. Everytime he scores, his names escapes your lips in a shout to show your undying support for him. Whenever he feels down, you always make sure to cheer him up so that he wouldn't sulk during the game. You are his energizer and personal cheerleader after all. When the game ends, hugging him has always been a ritual for the both of you. If they won the game, you always give him a kiss in the lips as a reward. However, if they lost, your shoulders are always ready for him to cry on while you calm him by running your hands on his back.

Whenever he's down, ice cream with you is always the solution for him. Sitting on the couch while you both enjoy the cold sweet treat as he snuggle close to you and become the small spoon have always been perfect for him.

But of course, there's no such thing as perfect relationship. There will always be a time where you both will have a fight or a misunderstanding, and during those times, you both try your hardest to understand each other and explain both of your sides. Bokuto doesn't like fighting with you. Because he believes it's pointless. But even so, whenever you two got into a fight, Bokuto may be pissed and you may be angry too, but a day or two of clearing up the both of your heads has always been the answer. After a day or two, one of you will step out of their comfort zone and say sorry to the other, depending on who's fault it is.

NSFW

warning/s: please be warned that after this note, nsfw content will greet you. Read at your own risk.

As calm as you both are in the outside, sex with Bokuto was never vanilla. You both always manage to spice things up weather it may be major suck as blindfold or minor such as changing positions. And you always love it. After all, this man has big d energy and you can prove it down there.

His favourite position is you, on all fours, while he rams his cock inside you. He likes seeing your sweaty back, just like how you love his back too. The way your back arc when he hits that sweet spot inside you, he loves seeing it so much, resulting to him pounding you even harder than he already is.

Most times, he likes it sweet and slightly slow. The first time you did it, he was so slow and caring that it was the best experience for you. He likes to see you squirm beneath him while you moan in pleasure, sometimes begging him to go faster. Of course, he would give it to you since he wants you to feel pleasure.

However, this guy can also be so so rough when it comes to the sheets. He'll be ramming his cock deep inside your wet cavern until you can't say anything other than chant his name over and over again. Marks and bruises would be present on your hips and neck cause why not? He loves marking you.

Overstimulation? You got it. This man can make you come almost two times just by his fingers alone. The squelching sounds motivating him to go deeper until he hits that spongy spot you love the most.

He can also be a little shit sometimes. Teasing you by brushing his fingers to your overstimulated front, giving you orgasm denial just so he can see those pretty crystalline tears rolling down your cheeks.

He loves putting hickies all over your body. So much. He will literally bite you everywhere just so he can gaze up and stare at his beautiful handiwork. He also have sensitive neck, and the first time you bit him on the neck, a loud whine escaped his lips from the pleasure.

Sexts is also an often occurrence in your relationship. When he feels horny and you're not together, he would text you in ungodly hours and will tell you how much he misses the feeling of your walls around his fat cock. You would shush him, saying its inappropriate to send horney text, but one message from his commanding you to take off all of your clothes and send him a lewd photo was all it took for you to get horny and obey him. You both end up on a video call while you masturbate and he watches you, hands palming the beast under his boxers as his eyes ogled on your fingers thrusting in and out of your hole, lewd expressions forming on your face.

He's a dom, all the way through. But he has a dirty little secret that he hides from you. He can't see you dominating him, but it's not really impossible. Bokuto hides it, but he's curious about pegging. He had so search the meaning of it in google and when he knew what it meant, he lowkey got hard when he imagined it. You, behind him, while wrecking him with tat straps of yours.

He knows how much of a sub you are, that's why he hid at most of the time. When he tried to tell you about it while you two were cuddling on the bed after 3 rounds, you were a bit shocked. You? Dominating him? Bokuto, who's a hard dom? You were stunned. So shocked that you can only nod your head when he asked you if you're okay with it.

The first time you two did it, Bokuto was so shy that you have to come out of your shell and convince him that it's okay. You both don't know what to do, but Bokuto did some research to help the both of you.

When you put on the strap, it was kinda...awkward and uncomfortable at first. Add the fact that you don't know how to put it on, Bokuto have to help you. When you get somewhat used to it, you reached for the bottle of lube and squirt a good amount on your hands.

Bokuto was lying on his stomach in front of you, his ass high up to help you somehow. When you pressed your fingers on his puckered hole, he jolted in surprise that you almost jumped to. Once he was calmed down, you started spreading the lube around his hole and slowly inserted your finger.

Bo's moan was so good, so erotic that it made your cunt wet just by hearing his moans. When you started thrusting your finger in and out, his moans got more louder from the new pleasure he's feeling. After a while, his hole started relaxing and it was now super easy to insert your finger inside him.

You tried to insert another finger, attempting to imitate his motion when he's the one finger-fucking you. And the reaction made your hole clench, your juices dripping down the strap on your hips. Once Bokuto gave you the go sign that he's already prep enough, you started inserting the dildo inside him.

As first it was a bit hard, since it was your first time and you're still not used to using the strap. But when you found his hole at last, you started inserting the dildo inside him. A loud moan escaped Bokuto's lips, one that's so erotic that even porn actors would envy. It was so erotic, so cute that you got lost in the moment and inserted almost half of it in, making him squirm below you. When he looked over his shoulder to tell you to be more gentle, his face was full of tears, cheeks so red from crying and from too much pleasure he's feeling.

You can't help but to feel so good and started fucking him, but still in a slow way so as to not hurt him any further. His moans were echoing on the four corners of the room, so lewd and so good that you can't help but to thrust a little bit faster. The whole experience was so fun and enjoyable to you even though it was a bit uncomfortable using the strap. But it was worth it nonetheless, since you get to see another side of Bo that you've never seen before.

But man, the aftermath was that your hips and legs were hurting so much as well as your back when you both finished. It was so painful that all you could do was lay on bed. Bokuto felt a little guilty but you assured him that you're okay and that it wasn't his fault. To make up for it, he decided to eat you out.

You were on your back, your legs spread apart as Bokuto dived in on your cunt and licked your clit, making you squirm. He held your thighs firmly to keep them apart and started fucking you using his tongue. The pleasure was so good that tears started forming on the corners of your eyes as Bokuto pleasured you.

Bokuto has always been so good in using his tongue that it was not a surprise that you squirted on your 3rd orgasm. He doesn't want to tire you even more so he stopped and cleaned you up before lying beside you and pulling you close to him, naked bodies locked together between his strong arms.

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

I am curious: what are your favorite scenes from your main ships (date, dair, derena...)?

scenes involving milo don't count, sorry!

for me, it's really not just scenes, but body language & just in general, how they are with each other, you know? dan and serena grin at each other and hug SO much, you can tell that being around each other in s1 made them both so happy, and even after that glow fades the way they look for comfort in each other... top level stuff. the way blair looks at dan... we never see her as radiant at any other point. she was not looking at anyone else like this. and gosh, dan and nate. they're both so comfortable around each other that there's absolutely nothing weird about like. discussing that one ex girlfriend whom they both share AND both were in love with. there is literally no other duo who trusts/enjoys each other's company so much that they're comfortable in a love triangle. (probably because they're more in love with each other than with the girl, but that is not the point. or is it?)

anyway, more specific answers. under the cut. this is one of the longest answers i've ever written on this blog possibly but you KNEW that would happen when you sent this ask, didn't you? (affectionate)

derena: i tagged one of my ds reblogs as 'the grumpy one is soft for the sunshine one' and like. look at them! this hug from 1x10 kills me in the best way. they are both the literal embodiment of :D when they see each other! i love 1x10 as a whole moment, their entire thing at cotillion is so sweet and they're both so happy. the fact that he is talking about his chemistry teacher during this kiss in 1x07. that bit at the end of 1x05 when they talk about their siblings (being there for their sibling because of fallible parents being a derena parallel makes me simultaneously really sad and really soft, tbh). 1x05 gives me SO MUCH SECONDHAND EMBARRASSMENT but the way they walk off together arms around each other does something to me - these are two people who are still getting to know each other but who really like what they see, and who trust each other and. are just having a good time together! back when derena was my OTP, the 1x11 "your story's about me?" was absolutely a fave, too, and i still adore it, albeit in a different, more nostalgic way. i like a dan who writes cute stories about serena. no empty shell sabrina van skoneker bullshit. she is so much like you, daniel! you'd be shattered if she did this to you. don't do this to her. tbh, most derena moments from s1 are just A+ romance. the bit in 2x02 in the jitney is so funny, they're SO bad at being exes. the bit in... 3x03 i think?? i don't remember... on the contrary. when they're talking about dan's fling w/ georgina and serena's relationship with carter, the ease with which they talk and how happy/supportive they are of each other's new relationships... yeah. love to see it.

i also really like any instance of them having honest/open conversations. 1x13, talking about how serena is concerned about blair. 1x08, serena talking to dan about feeling jealous of vanessa. this bit from the touch of eva or whatever that episode is. 4x04 i think. this is the conversation everyone is trying to get dan to have and he's avoiding EVERYONE else. derena interactions in 3x21 (can't find a gif right now) - the fact that dan is with serena when her dad abandons them, the fact that he goes all the way there with her. 2x07, "i'm really glad you're nate's friend. he really needs someone like you right now" (though i'm cheating, that's technically a d/n moment too klhdflkgf). there's a bit in s4 where he's advising her against having an affair w/ colin, i don't remember the ep number, but the way he takes her side so easily and naturally and puts due blame/responsibility solely on her professor... yeah. 4x10 i think this ep is?? idk. but like my tags say, im sentimental about this moment because while what dan was doing was irresponsible, sneaking her out of the ostroff, he was the only person in this episode who was actually talking to her and listening to her and taking her seriously. nobody else was doing that!!

i probably have more moments i'm not remembering, but we're only 1/3 into this answer and LOOK AT THE WORDS, good lord, i'm sorry.

dair: my favourite dair episode is hands down despicable b (5x21) which i have heard is an uncommon answer. i just love the conflict resolution of it all, okay!!! 1x04 & 2x08 are like. standard answers any dair shipper will give, and i'm no different. i love dan being able to give blair advice and blair actually taking his advice even though they're not friends yet!!! be right back, yelling at the intimacy of it all!! 5x16, with their getting together (this little kiss and dan being so startled by it), blair admitting a flaw she genuinely does have and dan saying it's not awful because it's her, which is just. romance at its finest. those vows, good lord. 5x18.... they're having fun! blair showing up at the loft in lingerie for dan... the delight on her face.... (i know this moment blows up in their face but when she's there she looks so happy and proud of herself and this was like THE moment when i was like. oh. dair is really the heart of this garbage show huh).

i think for me, the thing that really sells dan & blair together is the serena of it all. both of them love serena more fiercely than anyone else, and that is what brings them together. (fwiw i definitely think nate loved serena this much and this deeply, too; the writers just wanted to pop the serenate balloon, which even i think was extremely unnecessary and ooc.) but (& i have so much meta about this) their relationship grows beyond serena. their entire s4 arc is SO good. i love how comfortable around each other they are, in such an adult way, in the sense of like. they both bring so much stability to each other? morgan tagged this edit "the marrieds" and like. yeah. b offers to help him shave. they're having breakfast & reading the paper together.

all the love declarations we got that weren't a simple 'i love you.' be your charming wonderful self (how could she not love you/ tell me what would make you happy, dan) i told chuck he doesn't have my heart anymore (you spent your life earning the keys to set you free when you were free all along!!!!) dan's pep talk to blair in 5x21 (already linked a gifset earlier, here's another one if you want i guess). there's definitely more... but honestly, the way the dair arc was executed was so good - while i do have my complaints, i also think keeping those aside, it was SO close to perfect. i love dan & blair's banter and gradually becoming closer and closer and closer. it felt very organic and real and GOSH. the way penn & leighton looked at each other while playing dan and blair...... it's just SO MUCH.

date: this is the hardest, because it's. *screams*. maybe you saw me losing my mind over those 2 seconds of nate handing dan a waffle? i love almost every scene with these two, even the hellish s6 breakup scene. my favourite episode for d/n (& also favourite gg episode in general) is 2x06 - i love the homoerotic subtext of it all. nate pretending to be dan because dan's name is the first name that came to his head. dan flirting w/ nate while tied to that thing, in his underwear. them becoming friends. and 2x07 as a follow-up to that! dan getting nate to live in the loft with the humphreys for a while. i am so soft.

4x09 is a terrible episode in general, especially for serena my beloved, but the d/n moments in that one? off the CHARTS. this weird overly macho flirting, in some ways THE most iconic d/n line. this entire finish each other's sentences nonsense. someone (i think it was ana but im not sure?) compared the energy of those scenes i just linked to the book blairenate love triangle resolution, blairena choosing each other over nate in the books, date choosing each other over serena in the show (if only! RIP.) after the saints & sinners ball, this cute little moment of 'youre the only one who understands me. please tell me they went home together. i mean. how could they not have.

3x07, them watching vampire porn together. a tag i used on ao3 (& also on here, once) is 'nate brings out the himbo in dan'. here is a prime example. 'is she levitating?' i don't fucking know, dan, what do you think?? (i was telling my partner that that's what i love abt dair vs date. around blair dan is an intellectual, a librarian, an art historian, a museum curator. around nate it's like dan is competing to be #1 himbo on the show. can my girlfriend actually fly? i don't know, dan. i can't believe you're seriously asking such a question.)

3x12 pep talk. (sorry about the shitty quality!) essentially nate telling dan that he (dan) is hot and that he shouldn't talk himself down so much.

dan making nate gay in his book. you know. his book from which blair found out he was in love with her. nads (who i will not tag in this billion word long gushy meta, because i value her sanity) once called inside "wish fulfilment' and. i mean. yeah

nate checking dan out at the derena wedding continues to be hilarious. hilarious in the same way as dan sexually fantasising about nate. canon really went 'let's give ivy some special easter eggs' and i appreciate them a lot!

i love the way they are around each other - so quietly attuned to each other. i showed my sister my date!husbands gifset, and she was like. yeah they're so married. and it's just stuff like how dan looks for nate over his shoulder, it's not even an active action, it's as easy and natural and intuitive as breathing, checking to see if nate is still there.

oh, that wasn't as hard as it could've been! okay. cool. im SURE there's more things i could scream about, because it's DN, the fact that they're non-canon makes me THAT much fiercer about them than dair/derena, to be honest. so many dots to connect!! anyway.

[winryofresembool]

Things We Lost in the Fire, ch 35

aka Caleo uni au

Fic summary: Calypso starts studying at a new university, but to her annoyance her new flatmate is a loud mouthed mechanic who also likes to sneak his dog in whenever. But as she learns to know him better, she realizes they might have more in common than what she first thought. Eventually, even the darkest secrets come out…

Chapter summary: Final Waystation chapter, yay!

Or: In which Leo and Calypso both make some progress.

A/N: OK, first of all, within these 3 weeks we have hit 3 pretty big milestones! 1) It was this fic's first anniversary this friday so hooray for that! Can't believe this story has been in my life so long already. 2) We've reached 7000 hits on ao3! It's crazy to think so many of you are reading this even though not all that many seem to like Caleo! And 3) We have also reached 90k words with this chapter! No, when I started planning this fic I definitely did not plan to make it over 100k words but that really seems to be the direction it's going to :'D I /do/ however hope that once we finally get the flatmates back to their flat, we are (slowly) starting our journey towards the 'final arc'. But how many words will that take? Only Apollo knows, I guess.

Alright, enough rambling! Now, enjoy and please, please, please, let me know what you think of this chapter (and the previous one if you haven't) because I /really/ do want to know what you think. Was it about time? Are these two being too sappy? And all that stuff!

Words: 4287

Genre: romance & hurt/comfort

Warnings: none

previous chapter / AO3

...

After the whole ‘kitchen episode’ Leo and Calypso went back to spend some time with Leo’s family who were playing Monopoly in Waystation’s small library. Calypso had expected to be questioned about what had happened in the kitchen. To her surprise, though, Emmie just briefly asked if the flatmates had managed to resolve their issues, to which they answered a quick ‘yes’, and that was the end of that conversation. Even though Calypso was grateful that she or Jo hadn’t asked more, at the same time, one part of her did want to tell them.

Once a new round of Monopoly was finished (with Leo winning, even though the others kept whispering to him that he should let Georgina win), it was already pretty late and Leo and Calypso withdrew into their respective rooms. When it got quiet in the hallway, though, there was a knock on Calypso’s door.

“Who is it?” Calypso asked from her bed where she had been resting, thinking about the events of that day.

The voice from the other side of the door said: “Just me, Leo. Can I come in?”

“Sure, as long as you don’t do anything funny while in here,” Calypso replied, half joking, half serious.

“What, nothing funny? But Leo Valdez and fun go hand in hand,” he claimed through the door.

Calypso rolled her eyes at him even though he couldn’t see. “Ugh, you know what I mean. Listen, I know we are… um…” she stopped to taste the word in her mouth, “... dating now, but I have decided that I want to take it slowly. Too many bad experiences in the past. I hope you get that.”

“Alright, I understand,” Leo said to her relief. “Don’t worry, I won’t be trying anything ‘funny’ as you called it. I’m a man of my word!”

“In that case, you can come in here,” Calypso told him, sitting up on her bed.

Leo entered the room, still wearing the day clothes (surprisingly, jeans and a white shirt this time, and not his favorite overalls. While Calypso loved the overalls, she did have to admit that he looked pretty nice in the current outfit) even though it was already pretty late. Calypso herself had changed into her pajamas, a pink flannel shirt and pants that matched it. She followed Leo to a small couch opposite to her bed, sitting down next to him. At first she kept some space between them but after some hesitation and some encouraging looks from Leo, she finally snuggled up by his side, leaning her head on his shoulder. Her hand was laying on her pajama pants and he lowered his on it, tracing the outline with his thumb. Calypso was happy to notice he felt nicely warm on the cool winter night.

“I am glad we can do this now,” she said quietly, watching their hands.

“Me too. Although, we could probably have done it a whole lot earlier if we weren’t so damn stubborn,” Leo reminded her.

“Ouch. Yeah, that is probably true,” Calypso admitted, closing her eyes.

“So… it’s been a day,” Leo said when a silence fell between them. “It has…” Calypso agreed. “Weird how this morning seems to have happened like a year ago.” “Yeah…” Calypso shifted slightly on her spot by Leo’s side. “Can I ask you a question, though? How are you feeling now? You know… after… everything...”

“I… it’s hard to say,” Leo answered. “I’m not gonna claim that us kissing fixed all of my problems. Nah, it doesn’t work like that. Don’t get me wrong, it was awesome but - woah, am I really saying this? - I think the opening up part was more important. It clarified some things in my head. You know, like what I want to do and what I should do. And the fact that you have experienced something similar… This is probably gonna sound awful, but I was kinda relieved to hear that. Don’t get me wrong; I wish that you wouldn’t have had to go through any of that, but since you have… it means we understand each other. I can trust that you won’t judge me, which I honestly can’t say about all the people.”

“Yeah.” Calypso nodded slightly, not removing her head from his shoulder. “I know what you mean. I feel the same way.”

“And…” Leo continued, and Calypso imagined a grin spreading on his face, “Now I have some good memories to associate Christmas with. That definitely doesn’t hurt, right?”

“I’m glad I managed to give you something else to think about, then.” Calypso smiled.

“You certainly did. For real, I’ve had to pinch myself a couple of times this evening,” Leo confessed.

“Why?” Calypso frowned.

“Because it’s hard to believe it’s true. I mean this. Us.”

“And why is that?” Calypso wanted to know.

“Because you’re great in practically every possible way while I’m… me?”

Calypso raised her head from Leo’s shoulder and gave Leo her best ‘are you kidding me’ look. “Listen to me now. Aside from your guilt complex, you really should work on your self esteem some more. You’re a good person, Leo, even though you don’t always seem to think so. Of course you have your flaws just like I do, but I don’t love some superhuman version of you. Me from a few months ago is probably shaking her head so hard right now, but here’s what I think: you’re smart. And funny when you’re not trying to. And persistent. Hard-working. You make fixing things seem effortless. And you’re ready to put your loved ones’ happiness before yours. In fact, I think sometimes you care so much that it hurts you. But it only makes me care about you even more."

Leo was quiet for a while, probably still trying to swallow Calypso’s words.

“Woah, um… Thanks, Sunshine. I guess two people can really see the same thing very differently.”

“Yes, we can,” Calypso agreed. “I bet your view of me is also very different from how I see myself.”

“You’re probably right there.”

Calypso decided to change the topic when it got quiet. “Do you think that your family has any idea? About what happened between us?”

“I think we did our acting pretty well.” Leo grinned against her hair. “It’s pretty suspicious, though, that they didn’t ask us anything.”

“Well, better that way than trying to answer some awkward questions,” Calypso noted. “Um… I hope you know that I would really like to tell them about us, but… it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“I know. You just want to protect me, right? I would also want to protect you if I was in your situation.”

“Mmmmh.”

A comfortable silence fell between the couple. Calypso was happy to notice that Leo was so relaxed in her company that he didn’t even swing his legs back and forth like he often did. Eventually he spoke:

“Hey… you asked me how I am doing but what about you? I know I haven’t made this day easy for you…”

“I appreciate you asking. To be honest? I’m doing pretty well now. This night has been… unexpected, to say the least. I didn’t think I would be brave enough to get over my worries, but here we finally are. It’s a bit scary…” Calypso noticed Leo’s hand twitching slightly on hers, so she was quick to add: “... but like you said, also relieving. Don’t worry, I will be sticking to my word. There are no take backs now,” Calypso reassured him.

“Good.” Leo nodded.

“Hey... “ Calypso said when she spotted something on the nearby desk. “I, uh, know that we both have been really testing our boundaries today, but there’s something I would still like to try. That is, if that’s OK with you.”

“Alright. What is it?” Leo asked curiously.

“My mum always used to light up some candles by the windowsill on Christmas night when I was a kid. She said she did that in memory of those who weren’t there to celebrate with us anymore. That’s a tradition that’s stuck with me until now. Emmie put some candles over there…” Calypso nodded towards a desk by the window, “... earlier today, but I didn’t know how you would feel about me using them, so I didn’t. But… What do you say? You could take it as a part of your training.”

Leo didn’t seem to love the idea at first but finally he gave in.

“Alright. But just one. And it needs to be far from all the other objects.”

“Yes. Don’t worry, we both will keep a watchful eye on it.”

Calypso felt Leo’s eyes on her the whole time as she rose from the sofa and lit up the candle. He was seemingly relieved when she sat back down next to him and wrapped her arm around his shoulder. “You know all about the fire’s dangerous sides…” Calypso started with a calming tone, “... but it can be very useful too when used right. It can ruin, but it can also help to build new things. A lot of your precious machines wouldn’t exist without fire, right? Have you ever stopped to consider that?”

Leo frowned at her, taking her words in. “Are you trying to say that fire has many different sides to it, just like us people? But if we only choose to see the negative, we will never understand the positive sides?”

“Yes, basically. We are both very judgemental towards ourselves, but today was a good example that not everyone sees us the same way.”

“Yeah… You’re not wrong there… I’ll try to remember that.”

“Me too.”

Calypso noticed Leo glanced at the candle briefly before his eyes returned to her. He was still a little stiff but a lot less so than when Calypso had lit up the candle.

“I was thinking…” he said suddenly. “Since we are official now and all that… Should we, you know, do something together… you know, outside our flat… sometime? When this vacation is over?”

“You mean like a date?” Calypso asked, surprised by the chance of the topic. But then again, she figured it might have been his way to try to distract himself. “Hmmm, let me think…” Leo already looked a bit worried for a moment before she finally started smiling at him. “Alright. I suppose we can do that.”

“And will we resume our movie nights? And cooking sessions?” His eyes lit up almost like the candle on the desk.

“Of course, you weirdo. I don’t think I have any reason to avoid you anymore, now that you know…”

“Know what?” Leo grinned. “That you think Leo Valdez is pretty damn hot?”

Calypso knew that Leo was most likely expecting her to lash at him, so she decided to use a different kind of tactic. She gave him a flirtiest smile she could muster, and replied:

“Sure. Let me tell you a little secret: when you are wearing those overalls you always do, my heart feels like it’s doing somersaults in my chest…”

Leo blinked at her a couple of times as if he couldn’t believe what he had just heard.

“Wait, what? What did you just say?”

Calypso snorted. “Just playing your own game, you know.”

“Oh, alright. I see now.” Leo’s ears went red, which amused Calypso a lot.

“You’re cute when you’re flustered,” she chirped at him, poking his cheek playfully.

“Har har.”

Calypso pressed a kiss on his cheek.

“I hope you know I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t 100% comfortable around you. I had already decided that I would not… I would not allow myself to go through what I already did several times before, but you just had to make me break my promise to myself.”

“And you know what?” Leo turned his head so they were eye to eye. “I’m not sorry at all that I made you do that.”

“Of course you aren’t,” Calypso rolled her eyes at him. They kept gazing at each other for a moment before Calypso’s urge to kiss her fool of a boyfriend got too strong. It was a light and gentle kiss, one that she hoped told him that she was happy to be where she was and also proud of him for being able to handle the flame of the candle.

“Whoa, what was that for?” Leo asked once Calypso had pulled away.

“Just to shut you up for a moment,” Calypso lied.

“Nah. You wouldn’t want me to do that,” Leo grinned at her knowingly.

“Alright. Maybe I wouldn’t. So keep talking,” Calypso encouraged him.

“Okay,” Leo obliged. “About what?”

“Anything, really. Something silly and light, Leo Valdez style.”

Leo seemed to think about Calypso’s request for a moment.

“Hey, have you heard about the time when Jason had a party at his father’s house without him knowing and Piper…”

Leo continued telling her silly stories about his friends (even though a few involved also Percy, that didn’t ruin Calypso’s mood). From that they moved onto other things, such as what an ideal date would be for each of them (their opinions differed less than expected, to Calypso’s surprise), the favorite place they had ever visited (Calypso remembered Malta and the nearby islands quite fondly), and how fast Georgina would build her 1000-piece puzzle. The time flew by as they talked and Calypso was surprised to notice at some point that it was almost 3 AM and the candle had gone out a long time ago without either of them noticing. Leo snuck back into his room as quietly as possible, but not without giving Calypso one last good night kiss in the dark hallway before they separated.

…

The Christmas break was coming to an end and it was Leo and Calypso’s last full day at Waystation. Calypso felt a little bitter sweet about it; on one hand the vacation had been a bit of a rollercoaster emotionally, but on the other hand everything had ended better than she had dared to expect. She knew that she and Leo still had plenty of work to do when it came to their communication skills and of course she was also worried something would go wrong – specifically, regarding her father – but it still felt so freeing to be able to tell what she really thought and to be able to love and be loved.

She would of course miss the people of Waystation. Georgina was adorable and seemed to have basically adopted Calypso as her big sister at this point. She enjoyed teaching things to the girl; baking, gardening, sewing, even a little bit of singing… She was also pretty quick-witted for someone of her age and Calypso was quite certain that she did know that something was going on between her and Leo no matter how hard they were trying to deny it. Leo’s mothers were also great people and they had already told Calypso that she was welcome to Waystation any time she wanted. They also mentioned that they didn’t mind if she kicked Leo’s butt a bit sometimes when he deserved it. She had thanked them and told them that she’d keep their advice in mind.

The final day didn’t go entirely without surprises. Emmie had quickly mentioned that they would be getting more dinner guests that day, but Calypso hadn’t been prepared for the entire Hunters of Artemis crew to show up. They were old acquaintances of Jo and Emmie, the group’s former coaches, and the older women still asked them to drop by whenever they were nearby. To Calypso’s surprise, when she heard about the visit, her instinct to flee was not quite as strong anymore as it had been when she had last seen Thalia and Reyna.

“Are you OK with this?” Leo asked after Emmie had gone back to greet the visitors. “I remember that you weren’t eager to talk to them at the Halloween party and now I understand why… If you wanna, like, go out and check the foster animals or something like that, we can do that.”

“I think… I think it’s time for me to face my past,” Calypso replied. “I can’t do that if I hide every time I see someone who used to know Zoë…”

“That’s a fair point,” Leo agreed. “But still, don’t push yourself too hard.”

Soon the couple was in the hallway where everyone had gathered.

“Oh, there you two are!” Jo exclaimed when she saw them. “I was already starting to wonder if you had gone back to your flat earlier than planned.”

“Oh, nah,” Leo denied, waving his hand nonchalantly. “We just had some things we needed to discuss.”

Jo looked at him suspiciously, probably wondering what exactly they had discussed. “Hmm. Well, it’s good that you seem to be on speaking terms again. Anyway, Calypso, I believe you haven’t met these people before, so say hello to the Hunters of Artemis. Thalia Grace…” She pointed at a young woman with dark, spiky hair, whom Calypso remembered from the Halloween party. “Reyna Ramírez-Arellano…” Another dark haired girl, with a long braid, however, nodded at Calypso. “And here’s…” Jo continued her introductions but the names simply went through her brain and didn’t stay there. Maybe it was the Leo influence, she wondered; she didn’t remember having issues with focusing earlier.

“Hi, all.” She tried to sound confident but she didn’t think she succeeded very well. Surely Reyna and Thalia remembered how she had spent a whole night trying to avoid talking to them, getting drunk and throwing up in Piper’s bathroom in the end. “Hello,” Reyna spoke first. “I believe I’ve seen you once before. At Jason’s place last month, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Calypso had to admit reluctantly. Well, at least she wasn’t drunk in a mythology themed costume right now, she thought, so she had a chance to give them a bit better picture of herself than earlier.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you properly now,” Reyna said and shook her hand.

“Likewise,” Calypso told her, although she still felt like she was not living up to the meaning of her name, ‘she who conceals’.

“And you probably saw Thalia at that party too. Jason’s sister. My… friend.” Reyna glanced at the other girl quickly when she said the word ‘friend’.

Calypso noticed the slight hesitation and remembered Leo and some others as well mention that the two girls most likely had something going on even though they had to hide it because of their status on their archery team. She knew better than to bring that up, though.

“Hello, Thalia. Yes, I remember seeing you there,” she replied, mainly to be polite.

Before anyone had time to say anything else, Jo told the group that the guests were free to explore the house or do anything they wanted while she and Emmie were finishing the dinner and setting the tables. Many of the Hunters headed back out to the yard to see the animals or do a little bit of exercising before the meal, but Reyna and Thalia had apparently spent their afternoon practicing so they needed a little down time. Leo asked Calypso if she would have preferred to go to help Emmie and Jo but she remained stubborn. If she couldn’t do this now, she didn’t know she would be able to do it, so she guided Leo to the living room where Reyna and Thalia had gone.

When Thalia heard they had entered the room, she turned towards them.

“We didn’t really get a chance to talk the last time I saw you,” she noted bluntly.

“Sorry about that; I was having a bit of a rough day back then, to be honest,” Calypso replied vaguely.

“To me it looked like you were having the most fun out of all of us,” Thalia said, but Reyna elbowed her in the ribs. “Hey!”

“Don’t worry about it,” Calypso sighed. “I wasn’t acting like myself that evening.”

“We all have those days…” Reyna reassured her.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Calypso shrugged.

“Someone mentioned that your last name is Astal,” Thalia noted when it got quiet again. “Is that true?”

“Yes, unfortunately it is,” Calypso replied, getting a bit anxious because she knew where this conversation was heading to. “Why do you ask?”

Her hand quickly reached for Leo’s, who was still standing next to her, and even though she couldn’t hold it in front of the others, feeling his fingers right next to hers felt reassuring.

“Because it’s probably not a very common last name, right?” Thalia inquired, “and we used to have someone on our team whose last name was Astal before she took her mother’s last name. Zoë Nightshade, does that ring any bells?”

“Yes. She was my older sister,” Calypso confirmed, feeling herself stiffen a bit.

“Oh… I’m so sorry… I mean, I heard what happened to her… Just horrible.” Thalia shook her head.

Calypso was struggling to find the right words, but Leo quickly tapped on her back with his fingers when the others didn't notice and that helped her to root herself. “I don’t think there are any words to describe it,” she mumbled. “Um, did you know my sister well?”

“Not as well as some others on our team, to be honest. I had only been on the team for a few months before we heard the news about the accident…” Thalia said. “But she seemed like such a great person. One of our most talented archers for sure, and really determined. She was always the first on the field and the last to leave.”

“That… that does sound like her,” Calypso smiled a bit sadly. “Did she… did she ever talk about her home life to you?”

“Not much.” Thalia shrugged. “A bit.”

“Oh… What did she say?” Calypso wanted to know.

“I did get the impression that she really hated her father. And her mother lived somewhere far, apparently? But she did mention her sisters every once in a while. Did she have any other younger siblings besides you?” Thalia asked.

“No, she didn’t. She was the second youngest and I am the youngest of the group. Big family… But is there a reason why you ask that?”

“You see, she did sometimes talk about her baby sister. I remember that she always wished she could do more for her because she thought her sister deserved better than what she… Wait, what’s wrong?” she stopped when she noticed Calypso’s reaction.

Even though Calypso had tried her best to stay calm, once she heard what Zoë had said about her, she couldn’t stop the tears anymore. Leo quickly stepped in front of her while she tried to recover and glared at Thalia angrily.

“Calypso was there when the accident happened,” he blurted. “Do you think she really wants to talk about her the whole time?”

“I thought she would be happy to hear that her sister respected her a lot,” Thalia attempted to defend herself.

“But…” Leo wanted to continue the debate but Calypso stopped him.

“No, Leo, it’s OK.” She put a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s not OK!” Leo exclaimed.

She took a deep breath and withdrew herself from Leo’s arms. “It is. I mean… It's not easy for me to talk about her, but it’s like I said earlier. I need to learn to live with this. Does it hurt? Yeah. But I’m also thankful for hearing her say that about me. She wished I could experience a better life than she did prior to her joining the Hunters. I hope that if she’s watching me right now… from wherever she is… she’s happy for me. Well… I’m not out of the woods yet, as you can surely see right now," she chuckled ironically, referring to her teary face, "but… you know. I’m getting there. I’m feeling better than I have in a long while. And that’s what counts.”

“I don’t know what your source of happiness is, but whatever it is, I’m sure she would be happy for you.” Thalia nodded approvingly.

“Some things are better kept secrets,” Calypso replied mysteriously, turning to Reyna. “Did you know my sister?”

“No, unfortunately not,” Reyna replied. “I joined this group only a couple of years ago. Thalia’s been on it way longer. But I’ve heard a lot of stories about her from some of our older teammates, and it sounded like she was someone everyone looked up to. Even our coach complimented her sometimes and she never compliments anyone unless for a very good reason.”

“It sounds like she was really enjoying her life and had great people around her before… you know. It’s… great. I saw how hard she fought to get out of our father’s grip and do what she really wanted. She was happy with you guys.” The evil side of Calypso’s brain wanted to add that ‘she was happy until I messed it up for her’. She considered the fact that she managed to call herself out before she said that sentence aloud as some kind of progress.

“Yeah. I really think she was,” Thalia reassured her.

Calypso gave her a small, sad smile. “Good.”

After that the group started talking about other things. Thalia told Calypso some stories about Jason. Reyna explained why she had decided to join the Hunters even though she had already been doing well on another team before that. Leo also contributed to the stories sometimes and at some point, Calypso noticed that she was feeling quite at ease with this group. Even though Zoë was still briefly mentioned on a few occasions, it didn’t bother her as much anymore. Some kind of lock had opened inside her and she didn’t plan to close it anymore.