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into-september · 1 year ago

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"Destruction" is the worst episode of Miraculous Ladybug

Oh hey guys, remember way back in April or something when I said I was doing this? Well, the one year anniversary of its premiere is a suitable time to post this, particularly since yesterday saw the airing of the last piece of canon to come out in a while, which happened to be set immediately after these events.

With the always obligatory reminder in place that I generally think that “Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir” is in fact a good TV show whose appeal potentially reaches beyond its merchandise-mandated target group, it has an unflattering pattern of introducing the juiciest story threads and then just… do nothing about them.

The topic of today’s sermon isn't in isolation the worst offender. But it is thanks to this that the worst offender happens at all, so I'm not gonna be nice about it.

Scroll past to skip the negativity.

So, “Destruction”, possibly the most eagerly awaited episodes of out S5 if you don’t count all the false advertisement that was “Revelation”. I remember finding this episode uncharacteristically charmless for this show when I first watched it. They've been onto heavy topics before, but those episodes still had that je ne sais quoi that gives this show such heart. But re-watching "Destruction" I found it lacking already from the first scene, and felt it only in glimpses. It's just not fun.

The episode is also poorly paced, no way around it. It is inexplicably a flashback to two episodes ago which is not evident from the start. More than half the runtime technically consists of Marinette and Alya having a sleepover. The battle and its game-changing outcome is over at 12 minutes into the episode, which is barely past the halfway point. After that, we spend five minutes - a quarter of the episode's full runtime - on a flashback re-playing the same battle but now with verbal exposition explaining Marinette's clever plan. Mind that the confrontation between Marinette and Gabriel lasts for all of seven minutes, meaning that the flashback is nearing the length of the battle itself.

To top it of, it's bogged down with lengthy exchange between Gabriel and the kwamis just to make clear that the haters on the twitter were totally wrong when they bitched about Orikko being OP because actually its powers were something else than we established last season. Here's a bonus plot hole which has nothing to do with everything else I'm going to nag about: Orikko allegedly can't give out the powers of time-travel because no kwami can replicate another kwami's powers. Except for Nooroo and Duusu, I guess, who have done so on several occasions. One of the more remarkable being the episode which first heralded the event that "Destruction" set in motion: "Timetagger".

And who can forget that this was the second time in three episodes where Ladybug and Cat Noir had Monarch at their mercy but spent so much time giving triumphant speeches that he gets away.

Or that that in fact was the second time on the same night.

But while those things certainly make the episode poor, they are not what makes it the worst.

What makes this episode the worst isn't its technical failures, but about the way it leaves its feces all over the themes and the character arcs it seemed like the show had been building up until this point. Moreover: in the role it plays in S5 and the Agreste storyline, and how the show's refusal to touch it again creates a black hole in the season at large, and arguably in the show as a whole.

I. THE INESCAPABLE CONTEXT OF WHAT CAME BEFORE IT

The art of telling a story is the art of highlighting what matters and leaving out what doesn’t. In a well-crafted story, no matter the medium, no detail is insignificant. Every word is carefully chosen, every line or hue made with intention. The curtains aren’t blue just because, and Miraculous Ladybug has made too many meta jokes to hide behind the claim that it’s just a silly rom-com for kids. It has trained its older audience into looking for context and connections; after “Mr. Pigeon 72”, you can’t insist that nothing that happened earlier in this show matters for what happens later. Titles matter a lot in a show where episodes are titled after the villain-of-the-week who usually is the thematic mirror to what our heroes are going through.

“Destruction” is the fourth episode somehow named after Adrien, and the third somehow named after Plagg. You bet this matters.

As some might know, "Kuro Neko" is not my favourite episode. That's not to say I don't like it! It's cute! It's playing a really interesting scenario! We get Plagg hanging out at chez Marinette! But to enjoy it, I have to willfully ignore the storytelling incompetence it flagrantly displays. Because the moment you peek beneath the surface of the events happening to consider theme, motifs, and narrative parallels, it's just

"Kuro Neko" is the second episode that is named after Cat Noir. The first one was "Cat Blanc". There is a thematic connection between the two; not a very clear one and probably not an intentional one, but all the same: both episodes are about an alternative to Cat Noir. One is the result of his father's violence; the other is Adrien's own attempt to become more like the person he presents around his father. They also both show us Plagg and Adrien negotiation Adrien's relationship to Ladybug, and how Ladybug and Cat Noir negotiate that same thing.

"Cat Blanc", for all its apocalyptic visions, starts and ends with hope. It starts with Marinette’s hope at confessing to Adrien, to Adrien’s hope in finally knowing Ladybug’s identity and knowing her like he’s yearned for for three seasons. Those hopes lead to disaster, but the episode ends with Ladybug finding Cat Noir on the Montparnasse Tower, where he is singing his lullaby about the kitty being "all alone without his Lady". As is fitting, Marinette breaks the pattern: after having just witnessed a world turned to destruction because the two of them loved each other, she leans her head on his shoulder in perhaps the most romantic gesture she's ever given him.

"Kuro Neko", in contrast, starts with Adrien resigning the job when he realises that Ladybug no longer needs him and that makes him feel bad. It ends with him coming back and verbally accepting that Ladybug doesn't owe him any exclusive treatment; he isn't her unique partner, just one of many. Where the final scene of "Cat Blanc" seemed to confirm that Ladybug is indeed the answer to Adrien's solitude, the final scene of "Kuro Neko" and its continuation in the first scene in "Risk" both make clear that the opposite is now status: Adrien has to accept the painful fact that as much as Ladybug might be the most important person in his life, Cat Noir does not hold a similar space in Ladybug's.

(The end of “Strike Back” of course claims to remedy this, but those words don’t ring very true when to Marinette’s knowledge, nothing of what went wrong today had anything to do with her keeping secrets from Cat Noir. More damning: Marinette never follows up on her purported regret. In all of S5, she never once sits down to share all those secrets with Cat Noir. Status from "Kuro Neko" still stands, and Adrien is fine with that now. This has nothing to do with the many problems “Destruction” creates, but talking about “Kuro Neko” by necessity means talking about how it wasn’t fixed even if they put the words in Marinette’s mouth. And now back to our scheduled programming)

"Cat Blanc" and "Kuro Neko" by their very existence bring up a thorny topic: That Adrien being Cat Noir isn't wholly unproblematic, and that both Adrien as an individual and Ladybug as the Guardian might have legitimate reasons to question that choice. This has always been obvious to the viewer who knows Hawkmoth’s identity, but the show itself eventually starts calling attention to that from an entirely different angle - namely that of his powers.

Lest we forget: The first episode of S4 that aired wasn't the first episode chronologically: It was "Furious Fu", wherein we learn that The Order of the Guardians has it out for Plagg specifically, and where Ladybug's status as The Guardian is almost revoked on the grounds that she's letting him run around unsupervised. This question of Plagg's whereabouts comes up again in the only episode that is named after Adrien sans Plagg: "Ephemeral", a re-play of “Cat Blanc” except not good. This whole subplot is quickly forgotten, though it being the only one of Su-Han's complaints that weren't about him being a boomer, it's also worth remember that "Destruction" technically happens a couple of hours after he made his last appearance. One might expect that his one consistent lesson would be important enough to echo a bit in the episode where it’s proven to be justified.

"Destruction", as not only one very early episode of the season promising to finally bring about some significant and not the least permanent changes to their lives, but indeed an episode happening on the same night as Ladybug's declaration of regret and Cat Noir's renewed declaration to be her partner, would by its title and its topic seem like the obvious place to finally resolve what "Cat Blanc" and "Kuro Neko" both asked us to question: The existential terror of Plagg's powers, why it is that Adrien is uniquely chosen to temper them at Ladybug’s side, and how Adrien feels about being the one to carry that responsibility.

Yeah. Well.

II. ADRIEN'S PRESENCE IN "DESTRUCTION"

Where "Kuro Neko" and "Cat Blanc" place significant focus on Adrien Agreste in his civillian life, in "Destruction" he appears on screen for a total of 25 seconds - most of which are another flashback to a previous episode, and whose purpose is to highlight Gabriel's hurt from the cataclysm, not Adrien's thoughts about what is happening.

Cat Noir's presence is also marginal. Three minutes of screentime pass from his first appearance until the battle is over. Said battle is the turning point in the war between the heroes and Monarch, thanks to neither Ladybug's powers nor Monarch and all the kwamis, but Monarch using Cat Noir's powers for an impulsive act of self-mutilation. Cat Noir is distraught over this, turning desperate when Monarch first start toying with the idea and being near tears after he carries it out.

I'll get back to the impact of this event, but for now I'll point out that the aftermath is brief: After Monarch escapes, our heroes have this exchange:

LB: We had him, we almost had him! The kwamis were safe, they were right here! CN: I cataclysmed him! I can't believe this, I just cataclysmed someone! Granted it was Monarch, but - there was a real person behind that mask, and it must have hurt him terribly! Milady, you gotta fix this! LB: Cat Noir, Monarch just ran away with my lucky charm! Without it, I can't fix anything. I can't call on my powers and undo the effect of the cataclysm. There's nothing I can do...

We then cut to the slumber party, where Marinette tells Alya that she and Cat Noir "split up" immediately after, and Alya comforts her. From this point in the episode, Cat Noir and Adrien only appear in flashbacks. First a fifty-second flashback wherein Marinette sets up her convoluted plans, then a few seconds of him moving his statue in the wax museum before Monarch appears.

In the episode that more than anything should thematise Adrien, Plagg's powers, and his relationship to his father, Adrien is on screen for a whooping four minutes and twenty seconds.

And because I am that devoted to proving my point, I went and timed all of Alya's on-and-off appearances, which clocked in at a total of five minutes and six seconds.

Alya is of course core to the slumber party which frames the setting of the entire episodes. Moreover, it is with Alya that the emotional arc of the episode ends: it starts with Marinette tormenting hersef watching a Ladyblog report about Monarch's recent win, for which Alya chastises her. The last scene (before Gabriel pulverises the miraculous) has Alya reassure Marinette that she will get the kwamis back. When she regrets her lack of superpowers, Marinette in turn reassures her that Alyas true superpower is being her friend. The journey of the episode was for Marinette to stop blaming herself for messing up, and learning to rely on Alya's support in the new turn the war has taken.

...

IN THE EPISODE WHERE ADRIEN KILLS HIS FATHER.

III. SIR NOT-APPEARING-IN-THIS-FILM

In the episode where Gabriel commits suicide on his son's miraculous, here are some things that got more screentime than the son forced into using his only source of liberation to kill his father:

Flashbacks to past events (four minutes and fourty-five seconds)

Alya (five minutes six seconds)

The kwamis (six minutes and nine seconds)

Bet you can't guess which one is the only kwami who doesn't appear in this episode!

...okay, and Duusu, but you get the point. In the episode detonating the nuke that is the gruesome potential of Plagg's powers, and the potential damage Adrien might deal with them, Plagg never appears on screen.

In the episode highlighting the presence of the kwamis and their importance to their holders, the kwami whose presence is the most thematically tied to his holder's character arc is completely absent.

In the episode irreparably going into the only kwami whose powers is straight up murder, the kwami who The Guardians have singled out specifically as particularly dangerous, the kwami whose irresponsible nature has previously caused problems both to Adrien privately and Cat Noir professionally, said kwami is never even mentioned.

It's almost as if we're not supposed to remember that it is because of his presence that this whole tragedy was possible.

IV. THE EXISTENCE-DEFINING HORROR OF A CATACLYSM GONE WRONG

And ain’t that a funny one, when the gruesome potential in Plagg’s powers was the driving factor in Adrien’s first true crisis as a hero?

Marinette faced her moment in "Origins", where she gave up on her miraculous after the first disastrous attempt. She knows that she is the only one who can do something about the situation, but refuses out of her own lacking courage. She only becomes Ladybug of her own choice when she realises that she can save Alya's life. After this, Marinette never again questioned her place. She would grieve the burden on occasion, but she never once thought anyone else could do better.

Adrien, as we all know, was the polar opposite: he jumped right into it without reading the manual, had to have Ladybug pick up the pieces after a rash cataclysm, and never doubted his calling again until he realised what Plagg’s powers could do when used on a living being.

The NYC special has Adrien quit for reasons that had nothing to do with being unsatisfied with Ladybug's HR policies. It is in part because he effed up his duty as Paris' substitute guardian, but it's certainly also because of the recent horror he just witnessed: his hand forced by someone else nearly killed Ladybug, and killed Uncanny Valley instead as she stepped between them. Adrien just saw a mother weeping over her daughter's corpse, and how only the lucky presence of Ladybug's powers could undo the damage caused by his, unintentional thought it might have been. Adrien would of course never kill anyone on purpose, but Uncanny Valley’s temporary malfunction was a brutal display of what would happen if he stumbled the wrong direction with the gun loaded. Ladybug might have the duty to protect Paris, but Cat Noir has the duty to not to disintegrate people on touch.

The show never before discussed the weight of this burden in Adrien’s presence. “Cat Blanc” did it from Marinette’s side, but this never was a consistent story thread, only briefly brought up as her remembering why his knowing her identity is a bad idea. The sabbatical in “Kuro Neko” has nothing to do with Plagg or with Adrien’s sense of duty, and where you’d think this would be where Marinette finally brings up the issue bridging the NYC special and “Cat Blanc”, neither of the two are as much as alluded to. That Adrien has the power of murder has yet to be explicitly discussed in the show proper, but in combination with his personal relationship to Hawkmoth being a ticking irony bomb, the question of can he even bear it is inevitable.

That Adrien’s post as Cat Noir wasn’t as given as Marinette’s as Ladybug is echoed in the amount of times that Adrien has either quit or at least contemplated doing so (“Syren”, NYC special, “Wishmaker”, “Kuro Neko”). He likes being Cat Noir more than Marinette likes being Ladybug, but he lacks her iron certainty in the role. It is notable, then, that THE ONE TIME where Marinette questions her part, it is after Cat Noir has quit. She says this, out loud, in words. When Cat Noir’s powers become too heavy for Adrien to carry, then Ladybug, too, disappears.

So surely "Destruction" must be the point where this is finally comes together - where Adrien's history of quitting meets his ultimate crisis, where his powers abused on a human being of flesh and blood forces him into confronting the potential cost of being this particular hero, which will foreshadow the ultimate choice he’ll have to take: between being Cat Noir and being his father’s son. And where his choice, in turn, will define whether Ladybug can exist.

Or not.

Maybe we'll never again have Adrien think about how he probably murdered a man. Maybe we'll just - oh I don't know.

Have him start trying to cataclysm people?

Repeatedly?

While showing none of the horror at himself which he clearly had in the aftermath of accidentally cataclysming the villain responsible for his later victims’ possession?

And in the end, after never calling attention to Adrien’s new and trigger happy ways, we’ll have him give in to his fear, claim that he isn’t strong enough to responsibly use Plagg’s powers, and send his miraculous away for Ladybug to use alone, because it turns out that “Kuro Neko” was right and the NYC special was wrong: she can be Ladybug without him.

Growth, amirite.

V. IN THIS HOUSE WE DON’T TALK ABOUT PATRICIDE

Dramatic irony was the main engine driving "Miraculous Ladybug" from the start, and it was Adrien who bore the brunt of it. Not only did he spend four and a half seasons in unrequited love with a girl who rejected him for himself; he spent five seasons doing weekly battle against his own father.

The superpower war between father and son isn't just a source of story tension, however: it is inextricably mirrored in their relationship as family, where the father is openly abusive and the son is magically incapable of protesting. The show repeatedly makes A Point about how the freedom Adrien so wants, is one that he only gets through being Cat Noir, and the only way Adrien is capable of fighting his father - albeit ignorant of it - is with Plagg's powers.

Cat Noir defeating Hawkmoth was necessary not just for his story as a superhero, but as his character arc as a normal boy.

And in "Destruction", this is exactly what happens. Thanks to Plagg's powers, the path to Adrien's freedom is finally paved, in the most gruesome and unwanted manner possible. Adrien might not get the big cathartic show-down with his evil father, but technically he was the one to bring him down.

But we don't talk about that. Except for his one (1) line after Monarch escapes with Ladybug's lucky charm, Adrien never again brings up the fact that his being careless with a cataclysm certainly maimed a man, by precedent (Aeon) possibly killed him. Rather than a story arc about Adrien being afraid of his own powers, it’s only now that he starts aiming it at people when he’s under emotional duress. This could of course have been one hell of a story point if it was intentional, but by all accounts, it wasn’t. When Adrien never again reflects on his having probably murdered a man, or reasons that Monarch is probably fine since he’s clearly still around so maybe a cataclysm isn’t so bad, and he never dwells on his nearly murdering two of his friends, there can’t have been any connection intended here. Moreover: when Adrien is scared of his miraculous towards the end, it’s not about its capacity for normal murder when he’s having a bad day, but its capacity of ending the world if he happens to be akumatised.

Gabriel is likewise disinterested in the cause of his impending disintegration. You’d think the man would feel some kind of special resentment towards Cat Noir and his powers, you could think this was where he’d get to re-thinking his relationship to the two people who are sitting on the keys to solving all his problems. Maybe he’d start doubting himself now, bearing the ultimate testament to his magical hubris. But no. The cataclysm wound is there and it’s a problem, but the reason it happened is completely irrelevant to the man who did this to himself and unknowingly, to his son.

That is almost as mind-blowing as the fact that they really had a straight up patricide happen on screen. Sure, death was never the intention of either of the two parties, and Adrien certainly holds no blame for what happened. But Gabriel must have at least known what he was risking, and even if the soft-hearted Adrien would somehow reason away the gravity, Plagg would certainly now. By its very nature, this one cataclysm drags out and distils a plethora of questions about both Adrien’s role as Cat Noir, about Gabriel’s vision of himself and his goals, and about their relationship not as father and son, but as villain and hero. The gruesome narrative irony looming over all this is in that regard just the icing on the cake.

There is certainly an Oedipal layer to the drama of Gabriel and Adrien, though the often more scandalous incestuous angle is considerably downplayed here. Even so: By the denouement of S5, Adrien has successfully killed his father and set up a home with his mother. That really happened, but we’re sure not going to investigate how this influenced the relationship between two nemesis, between father and son, between Adrien and his kwami.

The cataclysm in “Destruction” turned Adrien from anguished shoujo love interest to the hero of a greek tragedy, but the show is dead set on pretending that it didn’t.

VI. SO THEN WHAT WAS THE POINT

In isolation, "Destruction" comes across as weird more than anything. It's named after Adrien's kwami, it spends an inordinate amount of screentime on Adrien's father, it reaches back to Adrien's perhaps most defining moment as Cat Noir as it fundamentally changes the game between our heroes and our villains as one of them is finally dealt a damaging blow - which in turn sets Adrien's life down a path towards tragedy that must be interfered with for him to have a happy ending by the end of the season.

And yet, Adrien is a peripheral presence in it. Marinette and Gabriel dominate the screentime, Alya and the kwamis are consistently present as the thematic chorus at their respective sides throughout, the episode plays its events twice in order to make it clear that Ladybug is too clever for Monarch's miraculous, the emotional arcs that are followed are the follow-up on where Marinette and Alya stand after the disaster in "Strike Back" as well as Gabriel's renewed vigour. Adrien's only contribution to the episode is to follow Ladybug's instructions and to make clear that his relationship with his father is still awkward. The episode depicts probably THE most important event of the show, but this event is treated almost as an afterthought, and the horrors of it are confined to one (1) line of dialogue from Cat Noir.

The only thing in “Destruction” that is brought up in later episodes is that Gabriel is now actively dying. If they wanted for Gabriel to live on a countdown for his date with the grim reaper, there were countless other ways about it: Have it be his use of too many miraculous which backfires, have him having used the peacock before it was fixed, have it be too much evil on the hands of Nooroo, have him get a serious call from his doctor, have him screw up Tomoe's machinery, have him develop a drug problem. This is a fictional narrative; its twists and turns are absolutely in the hands of the writers, teenage girls being irredeemable or not. It was never vital that this happened by cataclysm specifically.

So what was the point, then? Did we truly turn our magical girl show into a Greek tragedy for the shocked pikachu faces only?

The one thing I somehow haven't seen people bring up, is that "Destruction" makes it impossible for Adrien to learn Monarch's identity. According to the writers themselves, the reason lies in two of the other episodes named after him: "Cat Blanc" and "Ephemeral", wherein he learns his father's identity and is promptly akumatised. This is of course bullshit: both these cases relied not on Adrien learning his father's identity, but on Gabriel specifically scheming to traumatise Adrien with both the Hawkmoth reveal AND the fact that he's been living in the same house as his mother's dead body for the last year or two (timeline here is spectacularly contradictory). There was anothing inevitable about this. You're the writers. You could've set up a scenario where Adrien didn't learn about his father's crimes as an act of psychological warfare, and where he'd have the time to absorb it, to grieve and to find support by the time he'd confront him with it. Having every person close to Adrien keep life-defining secrets from him “for his own good” is, by god, not a good look on anyone involved here. Still it’s understanable, at least for those who aren't either adults or gods of destruction.

"Destruction", however, serves as an explanation for the gaping plot hole in the epilogue: Marinette tells Alya, she tells Su-Han. The one she doesn't tell, though?

The partner who was at her side before Alya or Su-Han ever appeared, and stood by her in far worse storms. Because telling Cat Noir the truth would mean telling Cat Noir that he dealt Gabriel Agreste the killing blow, and ain't that a nifty way to ensure that Marinette won't. Because if Adrien does learn Monarch's identity and the truth about his fall in future seasons, Emilie better hide those garment pins.

The truly damning part of "Destruction" isn't so much what the episode itself does. It's what it doesn't do. It's the storylines it cuts short and leaves behind, and it is the storyline it by its very existence introduces, but which the show refuses to touch.

Per title and content both, "Destruction" should be the culmination of thematic storylines from "Cat Blanc", the NYC special and "Kuro Neko". It’s not; it’s not even about Adrien, and Plagg isn’t even present in it. Moreover: its lacking presence on future episodes make it painfully evident that ambitions, there were none. Those storylines were either aborted like Adrien picking up Felix's spyglass in the S4 finale, or the show never did mean for there to be such a thing as "layers" to this story about a boy who becomes a hero to unknowingly break free from his superhero father.

The real reason why "Destruction" is the worst episode of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir is that it obliterates the most cohesive character arc this show had going for it, and that this was done on purpose.

#miraculous ladybug #ml criticism #mlb meta #blah #adrien agreste #gabriel agreste #storytelling #mira

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humorisstoredinthetits · 15 days ago

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The Heathers + Veronica Youtuber! AU

I'm gonna be trying to post more consistently, hopefully once a week on Fridays

In this AU the events of Heathers happened somewhat similarly, Veronica never joined the group but she still got together with JD and he murdered Kurt and Ram but failed to kill Chandler before the ending playing out the same. JD is also more movie-like in that he isn't as obsessed with Veronica and just wants to kill.

The Heathers are the most popular Youtuber group in the history of the platform

Their channels combined have over 200 million subscribers, and ask any person on the street and they would be able to tell you who the Heathers are, think like Mr. Beast levels of people knowing them and double it

The group consists of three members

The first is Heather Chandler, aka Mythic_Bitch, who has a beauty/drama channel and is by far the most popular of the three

A weird combination of topics sure, but one Chandler makes work

She'll often review beauty products, and while applying them to herself she'll talk about Youtube drama

Beauty companies line up to have their products tested out by her, and she will only accept sponsorships from those which she feels are the best of the best or those which she wants to warn her viewers about

As part of her sponsorship contracts she demands that she be free to give her true opinion about the product, a term which the companies are forced to accept if they want their products recommended by the most popular Youtuber in the world

And of course she is always in the know of all the juiciest drama

Her word is treated as gospel among the population of the site, when she gives her opinion on the matter its closed and public opinion shifts to whatever Chandler's opinion is

She started out just reviewing products, but she quickly ran out of things to say while showing her viewers how to use them which led to awkward pauses

Knowing that she would have to find something to fill that blank space, she tried doing timelapses, telling personal stories, jumpcuts, and when none of those seemed to really work she decided to talk about what she knows best, which was drama

Her modest audience was boosted by an influx of new subscribers who sought out her opinion on the latest drama

And since this is Youtube, there's always new drama going on so she never runs out of things to talk about

Her views only skyrocketed when it was announced she would be collaborating with two other Youtubers who also happened to be named Heather

They would appear in her videos, acting as canvases for her to test out products on or to help talk about a big piece of drama news

Next up is Heather Duke, aka Shut Up Heather!, who runs a channel which focuses on literature

One would expect this to be rather boring content, I mean she's just talking about books, but her unique sense of humor combined with her insights into the books she discusses creates interesting videos for even those who wouldn't normally be interested in reading

She often tries to search out lesser-known books by unknown authors and reviews their work to try and bring attention to them

Mainly the kinds of books she looks for are by LGBTQ+ or POC authors

She also accepts submissions of writings for her to review and critique to help them improve their stories and with her advice several writer viewers have managed to get their stories published, an accomplishment she always celebrates by making a video about said book

For the longest time she's been trying to write her own book but keeps pushing it back out of fear that it's not good enough, but her viewers wait in anticipation for that day

Once she began collaborating with the other Heathers, she introduced a new segment to her videos, the skit segment

When trying to explain a key scene from a book she's reviewing, she and the other Heathers will act it out in a succinct yet humorous manner

They spare no expense either, getting costumes, doing their hair and makeup, the whole nine yards

At the end of the video there's a blooper reel of all their failed attempts

A fan-favorite of her channel has nothing to do with literature, its her pet snake, Cornelius

He was included in a skit involving a scene where a character was bitten by a snake, and ever since that video her viewers begged to see more of him

So she now starts every video by giving a snake update

To round out the trio, there's Heather McNamara, aka Mac & Cheese, who makes variety content with her golden retriever, Cheese

She hated the idea of being stuck into this box of 'gaming Youtuber' or 'drama Youtuber' or whatever, so she posts whatever she feels like with no cohesion

Normally this wouldn't be the best move, after all to have a consistent audience one should focus on a single type of content that those same viewers would come back for, but Mac's bright bubbly personality helps tie it all together

She has several ongoing series in between her other content, including a Minecraft Let's Play and a series focusing on her pets, of which she has several

Of course there's Cheese, but also Munchkin the Rabbit, a Parakeet named Tweety and a Maine Coon called Heather Catler, who was adopted after the collaboration with her was announced

The latter is technically Chandler's pet but she hates her so for all intents and purposes she's Mac's

In these videos she'll show her routine for caring for them and give the audience updates, but mostly its just an excuse for her to get paid for playing with her pets

From week to week her content can shift wildly, it all depending on what Mac feels like doing that week

The one constant is Cheese, who the viewers often call her twin because Mac always dresses in yellow

The dog was named Cheese because he loves cheese, to the point that if she cooks with it he'll jump onto the counter to nab some

The three of them also have a collab channel, simply called The Heathers, where they post content involving the three of them

When the collaboration was announced the three of them bought a house together and all moved in, an experience which they vlogged and created the channel to post the vlogs to

They post the occasional vlog, but also their gaming videos where they play games like Mario Party, or Duke's infamous prank videos, like the time she put her snake in Chandler's makeup cabinet, capturing on film the moment she opens it up and screams upon seeing a snake slithering through her things

As time passed their fanbases grew and grew until they became the largest group on the platform

They were invited to official Youtube events, went to conventions like VidCon, started their own merch line, major news companies started reporting on their big developments, things were only going up for them

Unbeknownst to the public, however, the three of them were dating, and had been long before starting their channels

Of course there was always speculation, there was plenty of evidence that the three of them were in some way LGBTQ+, but no one could agree on which two were dating and the Heathers never confirmed or denied anything

They were at the top of the world, they were extremely well-liked, had no major controversies and most importantly to them, they were happy

But one day, things changed

Veronica Sawyer, aka Detective Sawyer, ran a small channel of around 150k subscribers focusing on true crime and unsolved mysteries

Her small fanbase admired the sheer quality of her videos, as it was clear they were well-researched and well put together

A big part of her content was the motive behind the crime

Veronica was studying criminal psychology at her university and she applied what she learned in class to these cases to try and understand what drove these people to commit these heinous acts

If a case was unsolved, she would give her best guess on what she think happened

She took audience submissions for people they wanted her to cover, which helped boost her views as she was looking in to who her viewers wanted to see

Because of how long it took to research, analyze, and film, she did not upload very often, but her videos were always greeted with plenty of fanfare

**Line break**

She also always wore this monocle and a old-timey detective's hat, helping her to build up this character

However, there was a reason she created this channel, a reason she chose to cover what she did, hell even a reason that she was studying criminal psychology in the first place

Initially she was never planning on covering it on her channel, sure it fit in with the rest of her content but it was deeply personal to her and she wasn't sure if she wanted to share it with the whole wide world

But eventually she decided to do it, having it serve as a warning to those in similar situations

The video was titled "The Tale of Jason "JD" Dean and the Girl Stupid Enough to Follow Him"

As soon as the video started it was clear that something was off

She wasn't wearing her usual get-up, and it took her several seconds to compose herself before she was able to speak

She started by saying that this situation is different than all others she's covered up until this point, because it involves her personally

She went on to explain that this was more so than others a cautionary tale, of fear and lust and pride based on actual events where people died (People died)

She started at the beginning, spinning a tale of a loser girl and a guy who took interest in her, infecting her with his lies that they personally could choose who lived and who died because they knew better than everyone else

She spoke of his crimes, from attempting to poison the most popular girl in school by spiking her coffee with drain cleaner to shooting and killing two jocks after luring them to a graveyard at the dead of night, and his 'jokes' about killing her too if she went to the police

She told of how she was enthralled by his ideology, the idea that bad people deserved to be punished and that they were the ones tasked to do so, letting her finally get revenge on the people that had wronged her for years

Eventually she reached the end, with her realization that he was insane after telling her of his plan to blow up the school, leaving them the sole survivors, and how after she left him he almost killed her and was forced to fake her own suicide to get him to leave, only to confront him at school and remove the bomb, only for him to then take it back and blow himself up on the football field, claiming that he was too damaged and that she deserved better

She then went on to speak of the aftermath, the countless police interviews, the trial where she was found not guilty as she had not actually participated in any of the crimes and was found to be under major duress and threat of harm, explaining why she hadn't acted sooner, her stay at a psychiatric institution, the hours and hours of painful, upsetting therapy, her return to school, her anger at everything and everyone, and her eventually resolve to figure out what drove JD to do the things he did, leading to this channel

Eventually she reached her segment where she discussed the why behind his actions, where she attempted to dissect his rationale, speaking of the death of his mother, his abusive father, his constant moving around, ending up with a simple 'he thought he was better than everyone else and was the one to dish out punishment' being unwilling or unable to go any further

The video ended there, Veronica clearly in tears and just wanting to be done with this

Unexpectedly her video blew up, reaching the front page, going up to #1 Trending at it's peak

Veronica was surprised to see her comments sections filled with supporting comments, telling her that she was so brave for going through that and coming out on the other side, saying that JD was a master manipulator and that she shouldn't feel bad for falling for him, and that they are proud of her for being able to get up here and tell her story despite how much she suffered

But what really surprised her was a single comment from a Mythic_Bitch, asking her if they could talk

The replies to it were filled with questions and theories, but all were ignored

Of course Veronica knew the Heathers ran the most popular Youtube Channels on the platform, how could she not, but she wasn't expecting Heather fucking Chandler to see her video, much less ask to talk to her

But she couldn't be all that surprised, after all it was her that JD tried to kill, the situation involved her as much as it did Veronica

Of course she didn't name her or anyone besides herself and JD, but she still knew who she was talking about

With much anxiety she sent her a reply, starting a chat with the Demon Queen herself

Private Message Between Mythic_Bitch and Detective Sawyer

Detective Sawyer: Hey, you wanted to talk?

Mythic_Bitch: Yeah, I saw your video.

No messages are sent for about 5 minutes

Detective Sawyer: And?

Mythic_Bitch: I have to say I was pleasantly surprised

Detective Sawyer: What

Mythic_Bitch: You took complete accountability for your actions, never once trying to downplay your role in the events but instead explaining why you did what you did

Mythic_Bitch: Honestly I expected you to just deny deny deny and blame it all on JD, but it seems that you've grown up a bit

Detective Sawyer: Of course I took accountability for my part, even if I didn't actually do anything to hurt anyone I still enabled him to do what he did

Mythic_Bitch: I have a proposition for you

Detective Sawyer: Well that was an abrupt change of topic

Mythic_Bitch: Just take the compliment and listen to my proposition

Mythic_Bitch: I want you to interview me, on your channel

Mythic_Bitch: You can ask me literally anything about my perspective on the situation, my experiences, whatever you think will add to your video

Mythic_Bitch: It'll be a great way to get some views, plus when have you gotten the opportunity to interview a victim of one of your video's subjects before?

Detective Sawyer: And you're ok with this? It kinda seems like I'd be forcing you to talk about your trauma

Mythic_Bitch: I trust that you won't just ask "Hey Heather how did it feel to almost get fucking murdered?" or something like that

Mythic_Bitch: Besides, my therapist says I need to "open up more" and I guess this counts

Detective Sawyer: I guess that makes sense, but why are you being so nice to me? I enabled the guy who almost killed you, you should hate my guts

Mythic_Bitch: Its a twofold situation

Mythic_Bitch: Not blaming you, but since you put out that video its only a matter of time before people find out who his victims were

Mythic_Bitch: You tried to hide my name but its the internet, things like that don't stay secret forever

Mythic_Bitch: And don't apologize either, this is just what happens, and it probably would've been found eventually

Mythic_Bitch: Also I'd like to talk about it on my own terms, before the horde of fans demand an explanation

Detective Sawyer: Understandable, but I'm still sorry about that

Mythic_Bitch: And I don't really blame you

Mythic_Bitch: You were young and dumb, and there was this guy who made you feel special and important and that nothing else besides him mattered, and because of that you ignored all of the red flags

Mythic_Bitch: I know what its like to be in that situation, and it would be hypocritical of me to judge you for it when I am guilty of it myself

Detective Sawyer: Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I didn't know

Mythic_Bitch: Don't. Just don't

Detective Sawyer: Ok....

Detective Sawyer: Well, I guess I accept your offer, just let me know when you're free

Mythic_Bitch: Alright

Veronica didn't exactly believe her when she said that she didn't blame her

Of course she had no choice but to take what she said as the truth, but she couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to it than what she was told

She considered that this interview was just a chance for her to yell at her for all that she's done, to tell her that she hates her and for everyone to beg Youtube to delete her channel, the possibilities for humiliation were endless

Even so, a small part of her hoped that she was telling the truth and simply wants to tell her side of things, however unlikely that may be

The scheduled time for the interview arrived and Veronica booted up a livestream

There had been massive hype when it was announced, and even before the stream started there were millions waiting

It was widely theorized that Chandler was the victim that survived, after all why else would she comment on the video?

She sent the link to Chandler before sighing and turning on her camera

She explained, to those who didn't already know, that she would be interviewing Mythic_Bitch about her part in the JD Case, and asked them to please remain respectful as this was gonna be tough for both of them

She also added that any donations made would be donated to a anti-child abuse organization and that Chandler had agreed to match and double the amount

With that she pulled up Chandler's screen

She was sitting on a rather expensive looking couch, Duke and Mac on either side of her, and Cheese laying on the couch with them

Veronica decided to start out with some pleasantries, asking the three of them how things had been going, trying to diffuse the obvious tension

She received three identical oks, and sensing this wasn't going to work she decided to just move on to the interview

Before she did that she reminded Chandler that at any point she could end the interview or refuse to answer a question that makes her uncomfortable

To start, she decided to ask Chandler why she wanted to have this interview, already knowing the answer but asking for the audience's sake

Chandler responded that she was the victim who was fed drain cleaner and survived from her latest video

Veronica then asked if she could give her account of the event

Chandler explained that she woke up with a hangover from a party the previous night and went to make herself a prairie oyster

Unbeknownst to her, JD had switched out one of the ingredients with drain cleaner, making sure to clean up his fingerprints after doing so, and when she went to drink it she felt a burning sensation, quickly stopping drinking

Looking in the cup she could see that it was bright blue, and so she quickly called 911 and was taken to a hospital where she went into a coma

When she awoke it was several months later, and she was told that she had tried to kill herself, much to her confusion

It was hard to talk, as she had gotten several surgeries while in a coma to replace the damaged tissues and organs, but thankfully because she didn't drink that much and called 911 quickly she was able to make a full recovery

She told the doctors that she didn't have suicidal thoughts, and thats when they brought out the suicide note

Veronica interjects here, explaining that she was the one to forge it, the actual words being JDs and her just using her skills at forgery, all done under threat of something happening to her if she didn't comply because "she knew too much already"

The police came and took a statement and while searching for evidence JD blew himself up and Veronica turned herself in, clearing up the situation

She ended up staying in the hospital for months after, going through physical therapy to help her re-learn how to talk and walk after so long in a coma, actual therapy for her many issues, and monitoring, but eventually she was allowed to go free

She told the audience that she wasn't exactly the nicest person in high school, quite the opposite, and thats probably why she was a target for JD, but after almost dying she had a newfound perspective on life and on the way she had been acting, and decided to try to make up for the wrongs she's done

She felt like she didn't do enough, and thats part of why she made a Youtube channel

Entertaining people, giving advice on things she knew enough about to help people with, thats some good she could do, right?

Tears are pooling in her eyes as she finishes speaking

Mac and Duke, seeing the tears, took the opportunity to tell Chandler that of course she did enough, they witnessed firsthand her bending over backwards to earn forgiveness from all the people at Westerberg, and even now she donated most of their earnings to different charities and holds fundraisers constantly, and that she's more than made up for her actions

Chandler starts crying before pulling both of them into a tight hug, telling them that she loves them so much and that she couldn't imagine a life without them, before giving them a big kiss

Veronica just stays silent before the realization hits her

They're kissing

Thinking about it, it should've been obvious they had some kind of polyamorous situation, they were wayyy too close to just be friends

Then a second realization hits her

They're recording

She makes some noises in an attempt to get their attention, and when they turn to face the camera they all have the realization at the same time, and their faces burn bright red

Duke mutters that they're gonna have to make a video on this, but Chandler says screw it and that they'll just talk about this now

She tells the audience that her, Mac and Duke are all dating each other and had been since freshman year for her and Mac and junior year for all three of them, and that the four of them went to the same high school

She promises to make another video elaborating on their situation, but this is Veronica's stream and they don't want to take the attention away from her

Veronica feels super awkward, like she walked in on them having sex or something, but quickly comes to her senses and moves on with the interview

She asks Chandler some questions about what she can remember of JD, even going to ask Mac and Duke what they remembered

This is actually how Veronica found out that JD blackmailed Duke to pass around a petition that was later found to be a group suicide note

For her part Chandler asks Veronica some questions about what about him drew her in, what he threatened to do to her, what he did to her, and eventually her final question, why his ideology appealed to her?

It takes a minute for her to respond, but she eventually settles on saying that everyone knows that she wasn't exactly the most popular in high school and she always thought that it was unfair that who she perceived as bad people got to live good, fun lives while she struggled, and so when he came by and told her that her feelings were right and good and that she could use them to change things for the better, she jumped at the opportunity

Chandler muttered 'that's what I thought' before taking a deep breath and saying that after all these years there was one person at Westerberg that she never apologized to, and that was Veronica, and she feels that out of everyone she's the one owed an apology the most

Veronica is taken aback as Chandler begins listing off all the things she needed to apologize for, like bullying her and her best friends, having others target them and so on, but Veronica interrupts her, telling her that she's the one who should be apologizing, her boyfriend literally tried to kill her and she was a part of it

**Line break**

Chandler then said "who do you think pushed you to that point?", telling her that it was obvious the 'bad people' she referred to earlier meant them, and maybe if they weren't such bad people then she wouldn't have felt the need to do what she did, essentially telling her that she blamed herself for everything that happened

Before Veronica could get in another word Chandler told her that she knew that words could not ever begin to make up for all the pain she went through because of them, and that's why she has something to offer her

She invited her to join the Heathers, move in with them in their house in California, become part of their events, the whole fucking package

Veronica is stunned and is silent for a good few minutes, just taking it in

Mac eventually asks if she's ok, which breaks her out of her stupor

Veronica tries to deny the offer, saying that she doesn't deserve it, but all three of them start trying to convince her, eventually wearing her down and getting her to say Yes

The livestream eventually ended, and Veronica flopped on to her bed and screamed into her pillow

In the meantime, the Heather started their preparations to have Veronica join their group

They added her to all of their groups, linked her channel to their shared channel, bought her a plane ticket and arranged delivery for her things

They then made a quick announcement on their Twitters and filmed a short video announcing her invitation for anyone who didn't see the stream, but it was pretty redundant because every news outlet was covering this news

The idea to invite her was actually Chandler's, she had always wanted to apologize to Veronica since the moment she heard her testimony at the trial, but with her isolating herself and deleting her social media she never got the opportunity, so when this situation came up she saw it as a sign to make up for what she believed was her biggest wrong

And now she could not only boost her channel and bring her plenty of clout and attention, but also get her out of that horrible town where everything went down, in Chandler's opinion a win-win situation

Fast forward several weeks, and Veronica has gotten everything arranged on her end

She applied to a much better university in California, known for its astounding criminal psychology program, and was transferring there next semester

The Heathers agreed to cover the cost of her tuition, so the only thing she had to worry about was actually getting it, but with her videos she was able to prove to admissions that she would be an excellent fit for their program

As she got on the plane to head to California she started feeling unsure again

It was something she kinda pushed to the side while she worked on getting everything settled, but now that the day was here it came back in full force

She barely knew these people, and despite everyone, even Martha telling her that the Heathers had changed, she couldn't escape the feeling that something was going to go horribly wrong

On top of that, she hated the idea that her channel was going to grow off the backs of other people

She wanted her channel to succeed due to her own merits, not promotion from people who already made it big

And while her channel had grown after the first video on JD, it grew exponentially faster following the interview with Chandler and her endorsement, but how many of these subscribers subscribed because they liked her content or because she was part of the group?

These thoughts swam around her mind the entire plane right, the stress only building as she landed in LA

As she got off the plane she was able to find the three of them dressed inconspicuously as to not draw attention to the fact they were the Heathers

Inconspicuously for them at least, to any onlookers they looked like they were going to the Met Gala

Upon seeing her Mac rushed up and pulled her into a hug, the force of which knocked the wind out of Veronica

They went to pick up Veronica's luggage, of which there wasn't much as she had shipped most of it a week earlier, and then they got into Duke's infamous dark green Jeep, her "baby"

The tension during the car ride was so thick one could cut it with a knife

None of them really knew what to say to the other, Mac trying to start conversation but all attempts receiving a short, curt response that didn't leave much for her to work with

Plus Veronica had jet lag, having taken an early flight to avoid any fans who may want to see the Heathers greet her at the airport, so she was exhausted beyond belief

After a 2 hour drive they reached the mansion the Heathers called home

This thing was massive, being 3 stories tall and having huge grounds surrounded by a electric fence, which Duke explained had to be installed after some fans tried to break in to their house

They had planned on showing her around but they could see that she was exhausted, so they decided to postpone that and just show her to the guest room (her stuff hadn't arrived yet) While they headed to the room Veronica was amazed at the sheer luxury of the home, she knew the Heathers were rich but not this rich

As soon as she basically fell into the bed she thought 'this is the most comfortable I have ever felt in my entire fucking life' before falling asleep

When she woke up she saw a little yellow sticky note attached to the nightstand, telling her to come down to the kitchen whenever she was ready =) <3 - Mac

She just shrugged and headed down, after spending 20 minutes trying to find her way around the house, seeing the three of them sitting at the kitchen table, scrolling their phones

They look up and see her, and ask her to sit down

Feeling like she's already done something wrong, she nervously sits down

Chandler starts by welcoming her to their home, before saying that they have to talk business before they can do the fun stuff

They just have a couple of suggestions of how to improve her content and to let her know the expectations they have for her

Internally she thinks that maybe they should've talked about this before she moved across the whole country to work with them, but she digresses

Over all its not too much, they tell her that she should send her videos to be edited by someone else, they have several amazing editors who will accommodate any specification she has, plus it'll save her some time

They also tell her that she will have to be in some group content like vlogs and Duke's skits, but they wouldn't pry too much into her personal life and that they would work around her school schedule

That also meant that if she needed them to be in her videos that they would be available to do so

However there are 2 major problems

The first is that they want her to upload more frequently

Currently she uploaded about once every other week, sometimes more if it was a smaller video or the evidence was easier to obtain, but the Heathers wanted at least 2 a week

Veronica said that she felt like it would compromise the quality of her videos if she was to do that, plus with her college she's gonna need to devote even more time to studying than she did at her old community college

They were able to negotiate it to once a week, but she would start making shorts going over some cases she's already covered

The final issues was a big one

The Heathers' channels were family-friendly, at least to some extent

Veronica's was not, often going into detail about the heinous actions the subjects of her videos committed to paint the full picture of the nature of the crimes

The Heathers were worried that this could cause Youtube to take action against her channel, and that maybe she should tone it down a little

**Line break**

Veronica was vehemently against this, stating that in no uncertain terms would she be censoring her videos

Duke told her that they figured as much, but they had to do something because Youtube really doesn't like that kind of thing on their platform

It didn't matter so much when she was a smaller channel, but now she is likely to become the 4th biggest channel on the site, meaning it was more likely that Youtube would be willing to demonetize her or give her channels strikes

Veronica retorted, saying that 'so it's about the money then?'

Chandler explains that its yes and no, obviously they want to make money and more importantly want her to make money, but they also don't want her to lose her hard work over it

They know Youtube isn't a perfect platform, but its what they have to work with and they kinda have to play their game and follow their rules, no matter how ridiculous they are

She then told her that they wouldn't force her to do anything, but to just think about it

They had a few more things to discuss, mostly about money (25% of profits from all of their channels went into a shared account to help pay for the groceries and bills and that kind of stuff, and the money from their shared channel would be divided evenly between the four of them), which Veronica felt was fair and agreed to

With all that settled all that was left to do is start recording

They were planning on filming a vlog for that day, detailing the process of her moving in and getting settled

Initial filming attempts go badly, to the shock of no one

Veronica is an introvert and is in a completely new place with people she barely knows and trying to do content she is wholly unfamiliar with, of course she didn't do great

They did that mainly to see what areas of her performance needed improvement, and yeah she needs a lot of work

They postponed the video and spent a few days walking her thought how to act on camera around other people

She was fine when alone and in her element, but in unfamiliar situations she really struggled, so they needed to work on getting her more comfortable around them and around the camera

To help with this, they had a game night that night, a staple for their shared channel, but they told her that they weren't going to film it, just play

They were filming, they just didn't want her to know and were planning on including it as a segment in a larger video

They decided on Wii Sports, as they knew how rowdy they (Duke) got during other games and they didn't want to scare her

It took a minute, but after a while Veronica started to let her guard down and get into the game

She even ended up winning at bowling, much to the dismay of Duke and Chandler

Once they finished they pulled out the camera and admitted that they recorded the whole thing, just to show her that it wasn't that hard and she just had to act like the camera wasn't there

She was pretty upset about this, they had told her specifically that they weren't filming and they did it anyway, was this how things were going to be living with them?

The Heathers were quick to explain no, this was just to help her get accustomed to the camera

Veronica understood their reasoning but told them that if this ever happened again she would be leaving, no questions asked

If she was to be filmed, she must know that she is being filmed, firmly establishing this boundary with them, to which the three of them apologized and agreed to

Despite how upset she was at them for it she was actually kind of glad, because when they went to film the other parts of the vlog she found it easier to be in front of the camera

Still not easy by any means, but she no longer felt like a wild animal being recorded by researchers

To make it up to her the Heathers let her pick what movie they watched that night, and not a single complaint was heard when she picked The Princess Bride

From there her new routine started

She had class three times a week, and she would get up early

The Heathers told her that she didn't have to worry about driving, they paid for a chauffeur, which while making her feel a little uncomfortable at just how rich they were also was freakin' amazing when she had a 7am class and the college was an hour and a half away, meaning that she could sleep the whole way there

She also had security with her at all times, another thing she had to grow accustomed to

The Heathers had told her that because of their popularity they almost never went anywhere without security, there were some crazy fans out there willing to do anything to meet their favorite Youtubers

It was that that made her realize just what she was getting into

She was a celebrity now, a person of note, she needed security and chauffeurs and all this crazy rich people stuff because as much as they loved their fans some took it a little too far

This was none more apparent from the moment she stepped out of the car

Some people with too much free time had realized that she was moving in with the Heathers, and knowing she was attending college for criminal psychology found the nearest university with a good program for it, and had been coming for several days in hopes to catch a sight of the one of the biggest content creators

She was bombarded with people taking photos of her, asking for autographs and answers to their questions, one really dedicated fan even trying to ask her on a date

Thankfully security forced them all back, and campus police arrived not too long after to remove those who refused to leave her alone but the experience stuck with her, making her question if she had made the right choice

What she didn't question was coming to this university

The class was much more intensive, with a professor who really knew what she was talking about and classmates who wanted to be there and put their all into learning

They didn't even care that she was Detective Sawyer, hell they actually helped her by pointing out some mistakes in her videos, giving her an idea for some new content, to go back over her old videos and update them

And sure she probably had triple the work to do, but it wasn't like she needed to work a part-time job anymore to help pay for rent while balancing her channel

Inbetween homework she would research topics for her channel, relying more heavily than ever on viewer submissions to find new subjects, but as a result of her better education her analyses became much more detailed and accurate

But the most interesting part of her new life is the Heathers

She had imagined rich people life to involve hundreds of servants running around, waiting on the beck and call of their masters, going to balls and other events for snobby rich people, sipping martinis on the beach, you get the idea

But in reality, they were nothing like that at all

There was not a single servant anywhere in the house, the only hired help was the chauffeurs and security, which they said they only have for their own protection

All of the household chores were divided up amongst themselves, everyone doing their fare share

They also seemed to genuinely enjoy each other's company, which yeah they were dating but even so she had always imagined them as coworkers in their job of being popular and shit, but it was the exact opposite

Despite their busy lives, between filming, chores, dealing with business aspects of their channels and their own personal projects, they always made time for each other, and she would usually see them at night cuddling on the couch watching a movie, or playing a game, or just talking to each other

**Line break**

And they seemed to have a really strong relationship

She never really saw them fighting, if one of them had an issue with something the other two always listened, if they needed each other they would immediately put down what they doing to go help

There were no "Shut up Heathers", no shoving, no rude comments, no yelling, they were kind and caring and sweet

If you told Veronica that she entered the Twilight Zone she would've believed you

Maybe that drain cleaner messed with Chandler more than she thought

And the weirdest thing was that they extended this kindness to her as well

Whenever she came home stressed they would fuss over her, making her hot cocoa

They would listen whenever she came to them with problems with sponsors, Chandler even getting on the phone with them personally to deal with it

Sometimes they would invite her to watch a movie with them, or take her to events that they had been invited to but she had not, making sure to let the whole world know that they did things as a group and she was part of the group

And she appreciated all of it, don't get her wrong, their help was invaluable in helping her navigate the world of the top echelons of Youtube, but she felt weird

Not only did she not feel like she deserved the kindness afforded to her, she literally helped in the attempted murder of Chandler, but seeing them all happy and loving made her feel.... jealous, in a way

She's only ever had the one relationship, and that was the disastrous one with JD

He wasn't exactly the most touchy-feely or even loving of partners, and oh yeah he was a psychopath, so she's never had the experience of real love and seeing the Heathers being so in love made her a little upset

She knows she's being irrational, she no longer thinks that they're bad people and knows they deserve to be happy, but she still wants that feeling of love more than anything and hates the constant reminders of what she doesn't have

She tried to go on some dates, but her dates were mostly fans who sought her out or were really creepy, so that was a bust

The Heathers always comforted her after a failed date, being there with open arms, which only makes her feel worse

She also considered asking them to tone it down, but this is their home and as much as they try she doesn't feel like she belongs here just yet, so it feels unfair to ask them to watch their behavior in their own home

Eventually she internalizes the idea that she's meant to be alone forever, a repentance for her wrongs with JD, and she starts to withdraw herself

Of course the Heathers know that something is up

Veronica clearly never got the help she needed after the incident, the trauma never being confronted

When Chandler asked her if she needed help finding a therapist upon moving, she was surprised to hear that she didn't need one and never had one

They saw the bags under her eyes, saw her grades slipping, noticed her attempts to avoid interaction, only talking to them when they needed to film, and even then it seemed like the progress they had made over the past few months had vanished overnight

They watched her videos, and while they didn't know much about child psychology they could tell that her analyses were off and not accurate, the comments confirming their suspicions

However, they debated on just how to help her

Chandler was adamant that they just confront her outright, but Duke told her that it would only scare her or piss her off

Mac suggested that they bring it slowly during a normal conversation, but Chandler said that she was too smart for that and would see it coming from a mile away

Eventually they came up with a plan to get her to talk

They told her one day that they were making a video about mental health and the stigmatism surrounding it, and if she was ok with it she would like her to talk about her experiences

Veronica looked weary, but Chandler told her that the rest of them would be talking about their issues and none of them would judge

She eventually agreed to do so, and headed in front of the camera

What Veronica didn't know is that the camera wasn't actually on

The plan was that by opening up themselves, Veronica would feel more comfortable talking about what was going on

They imagined that before making the video on JD she was repressing it all, but with it blowing up she was unable to escape it, which combined with the fact that she never dealt with the trauma to begin with was probably the source of her current issues

Chandler started by speaking about her parents, both abusive and non present, her need to be better than everyone else, and the things she needed to do to maintain her popularity, before moving on to the whole almost getting murdered situation and how she got helped by the mental health staff while waiting to recover from her injuries

Duke then spoke about her bulimia and self-image issues, how it invaded her every thought, every action, every waking moment but also how, with the help of her gfs, she was able to get the courage to do something about it

Mac then spoke about her troubles with self-harm and suicide, even to the extent that the only reason she was here today was a child-proof cap on a pill bottle preventing her from taking the meds before Chandler found her, and how even though she didn't want help and just wanted to fade away she eventually found something to live for

Hearing all of this, Veronica only felt worse

These were people with actual problems, who have gone through some shit in their lives, not like her who chose to get together with JD and willingly took part in his demented lies

She deserved what she went through, she didn't deserve the help

She stood up before bolting out of the room before locking herself in hers

Chandler said "goddamnit, we're moving on to Plan B", much to the other two's confusion

Chandler raced up to her room, and upon finding it locked asked Veronica to 'open the door please'

Those words brought her back to that awful day when JD banged on her closet while she huddled up scared, using the exact same words to order her to come with him, and she started to feel lightheaded and her breaths became rapid

Hearing the telltale signs of a panic attack, Mac used her cheerleader strength to kick the door in just the right place to force it to swing open without it breaking, before rushing over to find Veronica curled up in a ball on the side of her bed

She quickly pulled her into her arms and after a bit of struggling Veronica gave up and began to sob into Mac's shoulder, the other two sitting beside the pair stroking her hair as she cried

Eventually Veronica was able to calm down and as she looked at the three women looking at her with concern written across their faces, she felt deep shame for bothering them and needing comfort like a child

Duke asked her if she wanted to talk about it, and when Veronica shook her head Chandler stepped in, telling her that she probably needed to talk about it

Veronica was able to choke out that she was fine, but Mac was quick to ask her if running into her room having a panic attack was her definition of fine

After a bit more persuasion she gave in, and began to explain what was wrong

The Heathers were shocked to hear what was actually bothering her

They knew she had been on a few dates and that they hadn't gone well, but they never realized just how much love, both past and lackthereof, had a negative impact on her mental health

They assured her that they didn't think her struggles made her weak or were bothering them, and they were here for her if she needed to talk, and that she deserved to get help, her past be damned

**Line break**

Chandler also told her that she was going to therapy, and her tone of voice indicated that this wasn't optional

The Heathers also agreed to help her with dating

They all sat down one night and Mac asked her if she was looking for guys, girls, nonbinary people, or it didn't really matter

Being bisexual Veronica responded that it didn't really matter, but she would prefer a woman

Duke then pulled out a sheet of paper and asked her what she was looking for in a partner

It took her a good minute to think about her answer, but she eventually responded that they would have to be kind, protective, cognizant of the world around them and their place in it and accepting of her past misdeeds and willing to look past them, but also willing to stand up for what they believe in and being intolerant of injustice

They also need to be ok with her Youtuber lifestyle and of the subject matter of her channel

It was only later when reviewing the list that Duke realized that all of these these things lined up with them, which she brushed off at the time as a coincidence

Unbeknownst to her Mac picked up on this immediately, and decided to keep a closer eye on how Veronica acts around them

After talking a few things over Chandler decided that it was probably best if she dated a fellow Youtuber, someone who knew the struggles of their career

Using her many connections she was able to secure dates with several different Youtubers

The dates were framed as collaborations and all took place in public areas with the Heathers present, and of course they were filmed

They knew that Veronica had bad experiences with previous dates, and they just wanted to make sure nothing fishy went down

However, she already knew these dates wouldn't go anywhere and just went along with them, her heart being set on a certain color-coded trio despite knowing the absurdity of her feelings

Most of the dates ended with both Veronica and her date agreeing that the spark just wasn't there and parting ways as friends, but not all dates ended so amicably

The Heathers had found someone who made similar content to Veronica, hoping that the connection would help foster a relationship

Instead, the Youtuber went on to berate Veronica every time the camera was turned off and the Heathers had their backs turned, telling her that her analyses were all wrong and that there was no why behind the crime, they were just evil people with no reason to why they did what they did, and even going as far to tell her that she was stupid for falling for JD and should've seen right through him and gone to the police

Veronica initially stayed quiet, knowing how much thought work the Heathers put into finding a date for her, but the last comment set her off and she punched the Youtuber right in the nose

The Heathers quickly rushed over, asking Veronica what was her damage?, to which Veronica explained what she told her

The Heathers were livid, telling the Youtuber to get the hell out and never talk to them again

The Youtuber threatened to sue for assault, but Chandler gave an evil cackle and told her that if she tried she would ruin her career, get her channel removed, blacklisted from every sponsorship opportunity, basically forcing her to get a normal job

The Youtuber looked terrified and scurried away

Mac quickly pulled Veronica into a hug, apologizing for what just happened

Veronica brushed it off, saying that they couldn't have known her true colors, blushing the entire time Mac had her arms around her

Mac took note of this, seemingly confirming her suspicions

After that debacle Veronica decided to hold off on dating for a while, a sentiment which the Heathers couldn't help but agree with

Mac took this opportunity to test Veronica's reactions to things

When they would sit on the couch she would get really close to her, just barely touching, noting how Veronica's heart would start to beat louder and faster when she did so

If they needed to go somewhere during a video she would grab Veronica's hand and pull her along, seeing how she would blush and (poorly) try to hide it

Things seemingly pointed to that she had a crush on them, but her suspicions were confirmed when she accidentally got a peek at Veronica's diary

Tweety had flown into Veronica's room and she was running around trying to catch her, and while attempting to do so she bumped into her nightstand, knocking a book over

The book had fallen in such a way so that when Mac picked it up it was open to pages where Veronica detailed her feelings towards the Heathers soon after she arrived, the notes on them being written in their signature colors

She wasn't intending to read it, but when she saw her name written in a sparkling yellow hue she couldn't help herself

March 16th, 20XX

Dear Diary, I've been living with the Heathers for about two weeks now, and I've got to say I was pleasantly surprised. I was sure that the interview was gonna be a prank, and even more sure that this situation was an even bigger one, but in the time that I've been here they've been nothing but kind and caring and supportive. They've helped me so much with Youtube and getting things settled, they'll never know just how much I appreciate their help.

And the weirdest thing is just how much they've changed;

Heather Chandler - I used to think she was a real bitch, a Regina George-type who just cared about herself, but the person that I've seen is nothing like that. She is dedicated to making up for her wrongs, hell she apologized to Martha, MARTHA of all people! She showed me her donations, and she is donating tens of thousands a month to various charities. HEATHER FUCKING CHANDLER is donating to charities about bullying and domestic violence and honestly I feel like I entered an alternate dimension. And she's so passionate, she's so hot when she goes on her tirades or yells at people god I wish she would talk to me that way

What I meant to say is that she honestly believes in the causes she supports, the other day she was livid because she watched a video about some Youtuber coming forward with allegations against their previous partner who was another Youtuber and how she planned to invite that person onto her channel and hear her side of the story, and how she was planning on working to get her ex's channel taken down. Yes, Heather Chandler is helping an abuse victim, what a world we live in. Something probably went on in her past involving abuse, but I don't want to pry at it, we've really only known each other for two weeks.

If you thought she was hot normally SHE LOOKS EVEN BETTER IN PERSON, HOLY SHIT when she has her makeup on its like Aphrodite herself walked in

I don't normally look for looks when I'm trying to find a partner, but GODDAMN she is hot

I need to stop, she is already in a relationship and even if she's poly there's no way that anyone would want me as a partner, not after what I've done... Anyway

Heather Duke - I think I was the most wrong about her. I always saw her as just kind of there, no personality, just a servant to Chandler's bidding. I couldn't have been more wrong. What I saw back at school was just a front, just like the other two.

She's really caring, always offering me advice or help even when I don't ask for it, its like she can tell when I need help and is just there ready to offer it. She does this for her gfs too, helping them look at frustrating situations logically and work through a solution. She's not the most open person in the world, but she's there and willing to help. I can really admire this about her, I would've killed for someone like her when I was dealing with (the next word is scratched out to the point of being unreadable)

I've found myself really liking her videos too. I always imagined a channel talking about books to be rather boring, sure I like to read but how much is there to talk about? But I see the effort she puts into every video, the time spent rehearsing skits so they're funny and informing, the amount of research she does, it all astonishes me.

And what really surprises me is how funny she can be. Mac can be funny but its unintentional, with Duke its purposeful. Apparently she's played pranks on the others before, but its never mean-spirited or harmful, its something silly like putting her snake into Chandler's makeup cabinet. Chandler was upset for a little while but they all have a good laugh about it now.

I think I was wrong about the boob job too, I got a look at those things on accident and they are real and just so big

Heather McNamara - She's just so precious. She reminds me of her dog, they're both always just so happy and excited about everything and when I'm around her it seems to rub off on me. No wonder people call them twins.

But in all honesty, she's just been a really good friend to me. She asks about my day, listens to everything I tell her intently and even though its clear she doesn't fully get it she still tries to ask me questions. She's done her best to make me feel welcome in her home and that I'm wanted here, and while I don't feel that way just yet I appreciate the gestures.

She's also super affectionate, she's always holding someone's hand or arm and is usually having some kind of physical contact with her gfs or even me god I wish she would do it more it feels so nice to be

The blush forming on Mac's face is wiped as the diary is swiped out of her hands by a mortified looking Veronica

Mac tries to offer up an apology and explanation, but all she manages to get out is a unidentifiable noise before bolting out of the room and heading to hers, locking the door behind her

Veronica on the other hand, is terrified as the looks at the pages that Mac was reading

It was from early on in her time living with them, and the first time that she realized that her feelings towards the Heathers may be something a little more than friendly, and now Mac read all of that

A small part of her recognized that she was blushing while reading that and maybe there was some hope, but it was quickly shut down

She literally wrote in her diary about how she wants to fuck the three women who are already in a relationship, and after all they did for her

They were probably gonna kick her out of their home, but it didn't even matter, she deserved it after all she's done

She sunk to the floor, back against the door as she curled into a ball and began to cry

It was after about 15 minutes that Duke realized that she hadn't heard anything from Veronica or Mac in a while

For Veronica that's the norm, but for Mac going 15 minutes without seeing one of her gfs was unheard of, so she went to check up on her

Mac was lying down on her bed, face buried in several plushes

Duke went over to sit on her bed and rub her back as she asked what was wrong

Mac replied, her voice muffled by the plushes, 'don't wanna talk about it'

Duke became really concerned with this, Mac always would tell her or Chandler what was wrong, for her to refuse meant that this was a real bad fuck-up

She texted Chandler and within 30 seconds she bounded up the stairs and reached Mac's room, concern written on her face

After a bit of coaxing Mac sat up and faced them, and began to go on a tangent explaining that that Tweety got into Veronica's room and she knocked into her nightstand and her diary fell down and when she went to pick it up she saw that it was open to a page talking about them and she got curious and looked at it and it had some parts where she was talking about how she found them attractive and that she had been suspecting this for a while but this confirmed it and she wasn't able to apologize to her because she was so shocked and she probably hates them and and and

She bursts into tears

Eventually she is able to calm down and is able to slowly to explain to the other two what transpired

Once she gets over the initial shock Duke realizes that this was kinda obvious, but Chandler is dumbstruck, saying that she would've never seen this coming

The other two tell her that they love her but that she's oblivious as hell

They decide that Mac needs to go and apologize, but the question of what to do with this information is still up in the air, none of them sure how to approach the situation

Mac is the one to break the ice, saying that she would be open to the possibility of having Veronica join them

She says that she already lives with them, does everything with them, is in their videos, and people already suspect that she joined the polycule, it wouldn't be that much of an adjustment to bring her into the relationship

Duke and Chandler remain in thought for a minute

Duke is the first to respond, agreeing with Mac's assessment of things, adding on that Veronica is pretty cute

Chandler admits that they both make a compelling argument, but says that its a big step to go from friends to gfs, and they haven't talked this through or planned it, they're just rushing into things

She doesn't think her joining is a bad idea or even that she's opposed to the idea, she just doesn't think the time is right

Duke responds that they have to tell her something, they can't just go on like everything is normal, and they definitely can't tell her "we want you to join but not right now"

Chandler then asks 'then what are they supposed to tell her?'

Mac, getting frustrated, proposes just sitting down with her and talking it out, working with Veronica to plan out how things will go and help integrate her into the relationship

She goes on to say that it seems like they are in agreement that they want her to join or at least aren't opposed to it, but if she is going to join they need to treat her like an equal, that includes including her in their talks

The other two look a little ashamed that they had tried to have a talk about Veronica's future without her, but they brush that aside and head over to Veronica's room, only to hear the sounds of muffled sobbing

Thankfully this time her door is unlocked, but unfortunately she's also sitting against the door, so when it is opened she falls onto the floor, looking up at the Heathers who are all clearly concerned

She quickly gets up and wipes her eyes before asking what they wanted

Mac is the first to enter, sitting awkwardly on Veronica's bed before beginning to apologize for reading her diary without permission

Veronica had kinda forgot about that with the whole panicking about her secret crushes thing, but regardless she was still upset with Mac, and rightfully so

She told Mac that she had no right to look through her diary, even if the part she looked at was about her, the diary was meant as a place for her to write down her private thoughts and to have someone look through them was a major invasion of privacy

Mac had the decency to look ashamed of how she had acted before going on to promise to not even go in Veronica's room without explicit permission again

Veronica was satisfied with this, but she went on to question why the others were here

She already knew the answer but she wanted to hear it from them

Duke squirmed but eventually said that they three of them kinda sorta talked about what Mac saw in the diary

Veronica's blood turned cold as she heard the words, fearing for what comes next

Chandler, noticing the panic seep into her expression, told Veronica that there was nothing to worry about, a sentiment which only worried her even more

Noticing that she was on the verge of a panic attack, Chandler moved down onto the floor and pulled Veronica into a hug, sushing her cries

Duke and Mac then followed her lead, holding Veronica tight, apologizing for making her panic

Once she calmed down the Heathers went on to explain that while they didn't feel quite the same just yet, they would be willing to invite her into their relationship and give things a try, Mac interating her earlier points about how integrated into their lives she already was

Veronica was completely stunned

This was not the outcome she was expecting in the slightest, and it took everything she had to not start sobbing again

From there they went to the kitchen table and had a long talk, not too different from the one they had when Veronica joined the Heathers, about how their relationship worked and what was ok and what was not, but Veronica picked up on it really quickly

Chandler was surprised at how well Veronica was handling this, and reconsidered her previous belief that they weren't ready

Once that was settled, they declared themselves girlfriends and went to consumate the relationship *wink wink*

Of course they made a video telling their audiences the good news, with the consensus being 'it took them long enough'

Not much changed with the change in relationship

They still had videos to make and upload, sponsors to deal with, Veronica still had class, but she found herself feeling much better mentally

Combined with some advice from her therapist Veronica felt the best she had since before JD, and maybe even her entire life

**Line break**

But of course, something had to ruin that good feeling, and this time it was actually her fault

Veronica woke up one day to check her email, only to see a notification from Youtube notifying her that her channel had been taken down for Community Guidelines Strikes

No warnings were given, one day it was there, the next it was not

She just felt numb

Of course as soon as she gets something good, something else has to be taken away, she can't just be happy

Duke came up to greet her, joking that she thought she had slept in and was brining her come coffee, only to see the email spread across Veronica's PC

Duke's hand curled up so hard that the mug shattered in her hand and they had to rush to the ER to get her stitches

While that was happening the three of them sat in the waiting room (Chandler couldn't even be in the same room while they did that, she is terrified of needles), and discussed what they were going to do

Chandler was adamant that she would raise hell if they didn't reinstate her channel immediately

Mac added in that she would rally the other Youtubers and have them say the same, and that this was completely unfair and bullshit

Veronica just stayed silent, done with everything

Duke eventually emerged from the room, her hand covered in bandages and they headed home

Chandler and Mac filled Duke in on their plans, but she was more concerned about how Veronica was handling this, noticing the blue-clad girl staring silently out of the window

As they got home Duke puled her onto the couch and asking her what's up

"Asking" in quotations, she basically demanded that Veronica tell her the truth

Veronica eventually spit out about how unfair this all was, telling Duke all of the things she had thought about earlier

Duke heard all of this but quickly debunked it all, telling Veronica that of course she deserved to be happy and that happiness wasn't limited to just one area of life at a time

She also admonished that she could come to them for help, they were girlfriends and that meant that they were there for each other

Chandler quickly put out a video explaining that Veronica's channel had been taken down with no warning, before detailing her plan of action to deal with this

They were going on a Youtube blackout, none of them would be posting any content until Veronica's channel was re-instated, and she encouraged all their fans to not use the platform either

In the meantime they would do some streams on Twitch (link in the description below) so that they could get a fill of Heathers content

She also invited every other Youtuber to join them in the protest

Youtube quickly took the video down and put up a stattement saying that Veronica's channel had been taken down for violating community guidelines policy and would be staying that way, but none of them were deterred

Big name Youtubers joined, all refusing to interact with the platform

In just a week the site saw a 75% reduction in ad revenue with no signs of stopping, a move which scared the higher ups so bad that the CEO was ousted and many more upper management members were replaced, before it was announced that Veronica's channel would be re-instated

Seeing all this occur made Veronica come to a realization

She could trust her girlfriends

She's known that she has trust issues from what happened with JD, but didn't realize just how deep they go until this

She was ready to just give up on Youtube, not even considering the advice from her gfs, only doing so after Duke sat her down and forced her to do so

And why didn't she, she should've known that they want nothing but the best for her and just want to help

But in the end she was paralyzed with fear of what they were going to do, having absurd thoughts like them kicking her out of their house and breaking up with her, things that weren't even close to reality

But her girlfriends proved time and time again that they were people who could be relied upon and trusted and wouldn't just abandon her at the drop of a hat, and with that Veronica felt the anxiety that had made itself home in her chest since the day she met JD evaporate

As she walked into the room to record her welcome back video with her gfs, she smiled, envisioning the future the four of them would have together

This didn't turn out as well as I would've liked but I've been working on this for ages and I just wanted to be done with it lol

#heathers #heathers the musical #heather chandler #heather duke #heather mcnamara #veronica sawyer #poly!heathers+veronica #poly!heathersxveronica #heathers headcannons #heathers au

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redundant2 · 2 years ago

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The hottest tea from Lady C in 2023

God knows why and I'm clearly a masochist, but I had a whim to watch all her 2023 videos and have transcribed the juiciest bits. (Watching them at 1.5 speed helps...a little.)

1/19/23:

“I am telling you everybody is sitting on a massive secret. . . Massive! They have been doing so for awhile. The family didn’t know about it! For quite awhile! They were actually enlightened by the public in dribs and drabs. More than that i do not wish to say at this juncture. There is nothing the RF have to apologize for.”

"I know what each side has on the other and let me tell you something - Harry and Meghan have nothing compared to what is had against them."

1/10/2023

"Harry seems to have never understood in his 38 years on this Earth that there's a reason why the Buckingham Palace press office exists. He ought to know it only too well.

"They were busy putting out fires to preserve his reputation and presenting it from being scorched. Until he left the royal family and then started to attack them, at which point they've let him speak for himself.

"I'm telling you, I know as a fact of one huge (when I tell you 'huge', I mean HUGE! Bigger than his ego or Megan's ego) story that Buckingham Palace has been, behind the scenes desperately trying to douse.

"One. At least one."

1/7/2023

Diana had an affair with the Earl of Pembroke after William's birth but before Harry was born. "The 17th Earl of Pembroke was a tall, slim, dashingly handsome movie producer, with the ideal looks for a romantic hero. According to Barbara Cartland, his ancestral home Wilton House, in Wiltshire near Salisbury, was one of the most beautiful homes in Britain. Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, was top drawer.

"He and the rest of his family had always mixed in royal circles as I can personally attest, having met him in 1975 at a party given by Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia. He was also the producer of the movie that destroyed Koo Stark's chances of becoming the Duchess of York. He didn't flip my light switch, but he flipped Diana's."

1/5/2023

Viewer Question "I want to know whether you can assure us that Harry and Megs will get their comeuppance this year."

Lady C: "You don't have to wait that long. Sometime this year, on more than one location, Harry and Megan are going to discover that what goes around, comes around and if you prod the bear long and hard enough, he will not only get up and growl, but he will swipe at you and he might even tear your raiments and remove your masks, and you will be revealed in all of your ingloriousness for what you truly are.

"Take it from me, you don't have that long to wait. A few months - there's a lot in the pipeline. "

"Oh, people are going to get their just desserts. They're going to discover that attack was not the best form of defense. Sometimes coming clean is a far better policy.

"(The Royal Family) came to the conclusion, quite justified it has to be said, that Harry wanted them to breach the rules governing the press and the royal family for his and Megan's convenience. It wasn't only for their convenience, to the best of my information. It was more than for their convenience. More than that, I do not wish to say on that particular point." (Implying that Harry wanted them to cover something up?)

1/3/2023

"I'm choosing my words very carefully. There are persistent reports from extremely well-placed people, some of whom are long-standing friends of Harry's, that Harry and Megan lead entirely separate lives. They are de facto separated, although they are living supposedly and ostensibly and superficially and very occasionally under the same roof.

"Harry is trying to make tracks back with friends, many of whom have spurned his attempts but he's not trying to make tracks back with the family because he is insistent that he is in the right, he's always been in the right. incidentally Harry's always had a massive ego, and has always been pretty uncontrollable.Tthat was one of the virtues of Meghan: she was able to control him, as we've seen, but that allure seems to have become water to a large extent under the bridge. I think William has a far more realistic attitude of what the outcome of all of this is going to be: very sad."

"Remember, Meghan she told the queen, 'Use me as you will, as if the queen was a John. Very interesting, that comment that she made."

Bonus: 12/31/2022 - New Year's Eve

"I don't think Harry's book is going to stay on the best sellers list for any length of time, unless of course Harry and Megan start to come clean." (raises her eyebrow.)

"Meghan's like an egg beater in one's brain, but I'm going to leave you with a sword. You're going to see Megan in all her shorn glory. That's right -depend on it. Megan is going to be revealed to the world as she truly is. That's gonna be something worth seeing."

12/20/2022 - (This is the one that intrigues me most.)

"Harry and Meghan were absolutely right to be terrified (in Liverpool), and I have no doubt she was playing every card in the book in case what had gone down, came out. Let me put it that way. But he didn’t, and they are really dumb to be belaboring the point. Because now, it’s only a matter of time before what went down, it does come out. Let’s see if she commits suicide then, because what went down is definitely not going to be something he or she wants to come out. I make that point for what it’s worth.

Netflix is laying the ground for assisting in what is the most flagrant sleight of hand and manipulation ever perpetrated upon the public."

What is Harry looking down at? This was their visit to the Wirral, near Liverpool. Is this what Lady C is referring to?

#harkles #lady c #liverpool #royal family tea

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catofadifferentcolor · 9 months ago

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Terrible Fic Idea #85: The Old Guard, but make it Assassin's Creed

My brother has always been a big fan of Assassin's Creed, but I never gave the games a shot until recently, when it seemed a natural progression from all the Crusades research I've been doing for The Old Guard fic I want to write but probably never will. Once I realized Isu bullshit could be a perfect explanation for TOG immortality, this (incredibly self-indulgent) crossover was born.

Or: What if Merrick Pharmaceuticals was a competitor of Abstergo Industries?

Just imagine it:

Pharmaceutical research is an expensive, cut-throat business. Viagra is a $2 billion dollar a year industry. Humira, the blockbuster drug of 2018, sold nearly $20 billion in the US alone. So I imagine if you're a pharmaceutical CEO of limited morals and great ambition, it might seem like a better idea to steal ideas from your competitor who seems to hit it out of the ballpark every time instead of pouring billions of dollars into what may turn out to be an unfruitful venture.

Enter Hugh Merrick, father of Steve Merrick and founder of Merrick Pharmaceuticals. Needing a blockbuster and desperate to get one over on Abstergo, he hires a hacker to slip into Abstergo's servers and find him the ripest, juiciest plum they can sometime in the early 2000s, before the (modern) events of the games or the 2019 TOG movie.

The hacker comes back with the schematics for the Animus.

The idea of genetic memories seems absurd, but Hugh figures that if Abstergo has been using the Animus since the 1980s to get ahead, there's no reason he can't do it too - all he needs is a single Piece of Eden and all his problems are solved.

Hugh builds the Animus and has the hacker go back into Abstergo's systems looking for a candidate to put into it. But finding someone with Assassin blood seems dangerous - they're likely to be an assassin too and could be dangerous if they try to escape, plus the Templars killed off nearly all of them. Templar descendants are out because most are Templars themselves and if Hugh's plan is to succeed he heeds to stay off their radar for as long as possible.

The hacker returns with Abstergo's list of people who may be useful if all other avenues fail. It contains a list of people who were peripherally involved during the invents that interest them - mainly high-ranking courtiers close to Popes Alexander VI and Julius II - and their descendants. They might know things about events of Ezio's time.

Enter Joe and Nicky.

For the past few hundred years, their primary cover identities involve being the children or grandchildren of their previous cover story, all the way back to their first deaths. There are fewer questions and you get to "inherit" all your old stuff.

This method has worked quite well for them - until Merrick learns that their "ancestors" were part of the court of Pope Julius II from 1497 (when he was still Bishop of Ostia) until his death in 1513. Nicky was his private secretary, Joe was a court painter, and contemporary sources suggest they were highly placed enough to know whatever Pope Julius II knew about Ezio's apple. Such as where Ezio might have hidden it.

It's not an unreasonable plan, except for the pesky fact of Joe and Nicky's immortality. After all, the animus is designed to draw on genetic memory, not the subject's own memories. And even if it can be used to view memories laid down in their own genes 500 years ago - which is doubtful, - there's a high likelihood of it killing them - and if Hugh were to learn of their immortality, things would only get worse for them. But they have little choice once they're captured and brought to Hugh's secret research bunker somewhere north of Inverness.

What follows is a largely self-indulgent stroll through the more interesting episodes of Joe and Nicky's life together.

Nicky's first go in the animus is a jumbled, confused mess as Hugh's tech minion learns the ropes as she goes. Nicky ends up hopscotching through his early memories - for instance, a memory where he's learning how to use a sword as a young squire jumps to him using the same move during the Siege of Jerusalem. That strand of memory continues on for a bit until another interaction gets him sent into the memory of another battle/training session/conversation with the person in question and so on.

Joe's first time in the animus goes a little better, as Hugh realizes that his minion needs to learn how to program the animus before they put their most valuable subject into it, and so let's her learn with Joe. Hugh's minion (who is really beginning to regret taking this job) succeeds, pulling Joe into the genetic memory of one of his ancestors: al-Kahina, an Amazigh religious and military leader who led indigenous resistance to the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb. There should be suggestions of a Sword of Eden somewhere in events, but since they don't share Precursor knowledge, Hugh's not interested in letting the memory play out.

Nicky's second session gets them to the time period they want, but his memories have next to nothing to do with the PoE. The same holds true for Joe, when his second session puts him through his POV of that time period. And though Hugh has his minion take them up and down every memory of that time period searching for the smallest hint of anything that might point them in the right direction, there's nothing to find.

Or, rather: Nicky and Joe did meet Ezio once or twice, in waiting rooms or reception areas or the like, but they spent that time talking about art, or the weather, or philosophy - nothing about politics, or Ezio's travels, or PoEs at all.

Otherwise, most of Nicky and Joe's memories of early 16th century Rome involve Joe's rivalry with Michelangelo, who among other things persisted in flirting with Nicky even after he made it clear he wasn't interested. (Joe was, among other things, responsible for getting Michelangelo the commission for David in Florence to get him out of Rome and away from Nicky.)

There's some Vatican politics as well - Nicky's part in organizing the Swiss Guard, Joe's in organizing the Vatican Museums, and the removal of the Borgias from power - and some global politics - the 1503 dispensation for Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, etc. But most of their memories are largely Joe and Nicky being Joe and Nicky in the High Renaissance (and rather hating their jobs, as neither of them particularly like working for Julius II but were blackmailed into it to avoid being labeled as Ottoman spies.)

This goes on for several days until Hugh orders his minion to start looking for the memories of other "ancestors" - essentially, to refine the animus and her technique while he gets his hacker to find better candidates for the animus. And if this accidentally destroys Joe and Nicky's minds in the process? So be it. The plan was always to kill them at the end of their usefulness anyway.

Hugh's minion spends a day doing as asked - there's a few tantalizing glimpses of Joe and Nicky at the court of Kublai Khan in the 1270s - before she has an opportunity to act on the guilty conscious that's come to plague her.

The minion helps them escape - destroying the animus, wiping the records, and blowing the place sky high to cover the bloody swath they have to cut to get out of the secret research bunker. Amongst the casualties is Hugh Merrick, propelling his son Steve into position as youngest CEO in Pharma.

Joe and Nicky rejoin Andy and Booker - who'd been doing their best to cut their own bloody swath through anyone tangentially related to the mercenaries who kidnapped their brothers - and decide to turn their attention to tracking down PoE and destroying animus technology wherever it can be found, believing there are no peaceful uses for either. As a glad you escaped present, Booker tanks Merrick Pharmaceutical's stocks so badly the company never recovers, eventually going bankrupt.

As for the minion? Maybe she's a young Rebecca Crane prior to her recruitment by the Assassins and it’s her experiences with Hugh's animus that get her recruited by the Assassin Order. Maybe she's just a random OC who sets herself up with a new identity halfway around the world and watches gleefully as Merrick Pharmaceuticals and Abstergo Industries both eventually crash and burn.

Bonuses include: 1) Joe and Nicky being the most passive aggressive kidnapees in the history of kidnappings - on the face of things, going along with exactly what Hugh asks of them, but doing their best to focus on innocuous memories and figuring out how to purposefully make memories "skip" between similar episodes without Hugh ever noticing the glitch. Also, playing up the Bleeding Effect so that by day three they're only speaking in Medieval Italian; 2) Hugh being a better class of villain than his son. Immoral? Unethical? Yes, but in a sophisticated businessman way, not a jacket and hoodie, stab a man with a letter opener type way. For some reason I'm imagining him as Jean-Luc Picard, if Picard ever had a Mirror Universe alternate; and 3) Interludes of Andy and Booker searching for Joe and Nicky after they've been kidnapped. This should be part action-thriller along the lines of Taken, part buddy comedy, and involve an arc wherein Andy learns of Booker's deep unhappiness with his immortality and helps him come to terms with the feelings that would have otherwise eventually led to the events of the 2019 movie.

And that is surprisingly more than I thought I would have had. As always, feel free to adopt this bun, just link back if you decide to do anything with it.

More TOG Fic Ideas | More Terrible Fic Ideas

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cuubism · 1 year ago

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wip update

since I have a good number of actively-posting WIPs that some lovely people have been very kind about and invested in (and which I am very slow in updating), I figured it might be only polite to post a little update on where those are.

the melting press of the sun (dreamling) - Never intended this as a longfic, there may or may not be more than the 2 chapters it has now. I have a bit more written but it's disjointed and incomplete. I intentionally didn't leave any brutal cliffhangers on what I did post for this reason. We'll see if that one comes back.

Deja vu, Deja connu (dreamling) - The slowness in updating probably belies how deeply emotionally invested I actually am in this fic. Chapter three is just a major challenge--it's very long, covers a lot, has lots of fluff in the first part (fluff is kinda my Achilles heel, though not quite as much as wedding scenes, which this chapter also has) and a lot of heavy content later. But I have the whole fic outlined, a bunch of chapter 4 and 5 written in advance, and I'm super excited about the stuff that comes later, so it will definitely be finished, just... slowly. At least for this chapter.

In Waking Dreams (dreamling) - My current priority for an update. Chapter 4 just hit 10k and will probably hit 15k before its done (god help me), and I feel somewhat obliged to finish chapter 5 as well so I can post them in quick succession. Chapter 4 necessarily ends on a cliffhanger as it catches up to the events of chapter 3, but I feel bad about two cliffhangers in a row. But that one soon, I hope. (chapter 5 has a lot of the juiciest, long awaited scenes promised by the fic's premise, so I hope you will like that one when it's finally done 😅)

IRL (malec) - Fic that I have a tendency to get stuck on for 15 months, then write a ton of all at once, repeat. But I actually picked it up again the other day for the first time in ages, and I think I know all of the events of the chapter now, so who knows! Maybe I'll actually manage an update!

Subject: I Love You (malec) - Fic that I shamefully left with ONE CHAPTER remaining for a full year now. Honestly not sure why. Someday I will pick it up tho, I swear to god, or maybe I'll just cut the chapter short and make it an epilogue. (Actually maybe I do know why. It's another damn proposal/wedding scene. My absolute weakness and failure, I should stop writing them entirely)

mind & heart, body & soul (malec) - This fic haunts me, it follows me around 24/7 like a vengeful spirit that can't find rest. I can't wrangle it back into making any sense in my head, but for the sake of both my own sanity and the story's frankly frightening number of readers (I love you but you scare me), I've been trying to do one final chapter to offer some kind of wrap-up. Hopefully I can manage it.

Leviathan (malec) - My long held passion project that I have, in classic form, not touched in months. In fact I've been stuck on the same chapter I'm on now since probably 2020, when I first started writing the fic. This particular middle part of the fic is just vexing me to no end. At some point, I will decide on a course of action, inevitably flawed, and just power through that chapter (I say, for the 2nd year in a row). Why did I give this story two big villains again? Or think having a whole separate story arc in the middle of the fic was a good idea? Ah well.

in the palm of your hand (malec) - The one and only multichapter I finally caved and marked abandoned. I learnt my lesson with this fic about letting a oneshot expand into a completely unplanned longer fic. Boy did I...

----

I feel like I don't express it enough, but I really appreciate everyone who's ever read one of my fics, commented, kudos'd, chatted with me about them on tumblr, made podfics or art or translations, shared headcanons in my inbox or your own fics with me... I'm always blown away by the kindness and interest, and love getting to share little (or big!) stories with you and am so happy when you enjoy them ❤️ I love doing fandom with you.

#i'm bad at expressing emotion ack #my fics

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numberth1rte3n · 1 year ago

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TH1RTE3N'S TH30R1E5: The Paldea-Kalos War and GameFreak's Subtle Storytelling

BY NUMBER TH1RTE3N

Pokémon is not known for its storytelling. The creature-collecting titan doesn’t have a history of crafting complex narratives in their main series games. There have been exceptions to this trend throughout the series’ twenty-seven years. Pokémon Black & White and sequels Black 2 & White 2 tell a bittersweet tale that grappled with a compelling question; which was better: a world built of truths, or ideals? In the Sinnoh Region, Cyrus led Team Galactic to terrorize the people and was barely stopped before his goal of using Dialga and Palkia to destroy the current universe and create another to replace it as its new god was achieved. No big deal!

Pokémon does have a history of making references to serious, sometimes dark events that occur in the world. Lieutenant Surge is Vermillion City’s gym leader, and a… war veteran? What? Where’d “war” come from? Does this imply that there are wars in this fictional world, and that both Pokémon and humans fight in those wars, and sometimes they may even DIE in those wars and need to be buried in places like the Pokémon Tower in Lavender Town? Is that a RAICHU???

Despite this endless potential for exploration, Pokémon strays little from its timeless (some Pokémon fans may say “tired”) story formula: start in Place A, pick starter, battle rival, catch Pokémon on the way to Place B thru Z, battle random trainers and a team of bad guys, become the biggest, baddest trainer in the region, rinse and repeat until there are no more Pokémon to catch nor trainers to fight. Pokémon Scarlet & Violet broke away from this tradition more than any previous title with its open-world gameplay though this formula is obviously still widely accessible and fun for at the very least 22 million people as of May.

What about other Pokémon fans that see its narrative potential? The ones that pour through all the game text, looking for the messages hidden by the developers inside of every trash can, lore book, and NPC conversation in every game? Those people sense something buried deep beneath the surface, and as of this latest entry in the series, they may finally get their wish. They'll just have to look inside… a crater?

Enter: The Paldea-Kalos War.

In Pokémon X & Y, the player learns that the Kalos Region was at war with a “neighboring nation” in ancient times. Desperate to decisively end the war, AZ created the Ultimate Weapon, and used it. The Ultimate Weapon released enough energy to create mega stones and spur mega evolution, and it is heavily theorized the Ultimate Weapon was the catalyst for the timeline split referenced in the Delta Episode of Pokémon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire. Something that powerful had to leave a mark, right?

In Scarlet & Violet, Area Zero is a post-game zone located within the Great Crater of Paldea. In the game, the player learns that Paldea was a mighty empire brought low. This begs the question: brought low by what exactly? Maybe something that breaks timelines? Given that there is some evidence that Paldea and Kalos are geographically connected within the world of Pokémon, if it is true that the Great Crater of Paldea was caused by the Kalos Region's Ultimate Weapon attack, it would be the juiciest mystery to ever be thought up by GameFreak, and allow for some absolutely thrilling storytelling through its implications.

If Pokémon were to ever expand its storytelling potential, now would be the perfect time. If the events of several mainline Pokémon games were influenced by firing a weapon so powerful it tore a hole into the Paldea Region, and the Pokémon timeline itself, that would be nothing short of narrative genius. Pokémon will always be timeless, but it has the opportunity to be so much more if it embraces its storytelling potential: immortal.

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welcome-to-oslov · 5 months ago

Note

Malsha always thought (joked?) that Tilrey would be the one to take down the Republic. What would surprise him about Tilrey's thoughts, emotions, actions, advantages, weaknesses right now, now that Oslov is unravelling at his hands?

Love this question! Would Malsha be a Tilrey/Gersha shipper or a Tilrey/Bror shipper or just want Tilrey to break hearts everywhere? I can see him being torn. 😅 Mainly, he would just want the juiciest, most entertaining triumph-of-the-underdog story.

Malsha would love Einara and want her to cause plenty of chaos, but he would also want Tilrey to prevail in the end. He would definitely want Tilrey to be more vengeful and bloodthirsty. If he were around, I’m sure he’d advise Tilrey to execute/exile any Council member who doesn’t immediately comply with the revolution.

He might wish that Tilrey could play Stefan’s role and give that speech on the table and be loved by the mob. But he would still hold out hope that Tilrey could be some sort of mob-adored dictator. He would roll his eyes at Tilrey’s moderation and scruples while conceding that being a tyrant just isn’t in Tilrey’s nature. He would bemoan Gersha’s goody-goody influence on Tilrey.

He would take way too much pleasure in the whole torture scene while also cheering Tilrey on for enduring it, and then he would savor the hurt/comfort that comes after it.

He would congratulate Tilrey on unraveling Oslov and then say, “Actually, your worst torture is about to start if you choose to actually govern this miserable society and try to be fair and ethical and make everybody happy, which I know you will.” 😁 And he might be right, but Malsha never did quite understand the satisfaction that can come from building something instead of tearing things down.

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labcrowndiaries · 11 months ago

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Hunger Games AU

Eng

So yesterday I watched the Ballad of Songbirds and Serpents movie and decided I would share with you a Hunger Games AU I thought out a couple of months ago while on a Hunger Games collab.

Hydron:

I'm still undecided on his origin, I'm torn between the following three:

He was from the Capitol but, after an ugly argument with Zenoheld, he got kicked out of the Capitol to the Districts. I'm considering he may have amnesia and not remember most of his life in the Capitol, although he has a few bits and pieces.

He is from either District 1 or District 2, the son of a former victor of the Hunger Games, but the relationship with his dad is awful. Zenoheld always compares Hydron to himself, claiming Hydron is not masculine nor strong enough to survive the Hunger Games.

He's Zenoheld's bastard son, either from his time as a peacekeeper or once he visited the Districts for some kind of business. He's always known who his father is and resents him for never acknowledging him as a son of the Capitol, condemning him to a life of poverty in the Districts.

Either way, his name gets called in the Reaping as the male tribute for the Hunger Games. He's the juiciest gossip in the Capitol (either because everyone knows his origins or because he's the one tribute from either District 1 or District 2 who doesn't seem to have a chance at making it in the Hunger Games), everyone looks at him with curiosity, everyone speaks of him, he's the one that catches everyone's attention, but there is one person who is more interested in him than everyone else in the Capitol.

Clay Fermin:

He's the owner of a big pharmaceutical in the Capitol and one of his closest contacts is president Snow himself. He instantly became interested in Hydron, ever since he laid eyes on Hydron when he got Reaped. He moved enough contacts to have a moment alone with Hydron where he offered him one thing: Being his most loyal sponsor, the one who would ensure his survival. But this huge sponsorship is not for free, oh no, he ain't giving that just like that. In exchange for his survival, Clay wants sex.

The idea:

Hydron gets Reaped and survives the Hunger Games bc he's crazy and resentful af and he's a little bit psycho. He has mental health problems that make him quite the murderer and, since he accepted Clay's offer, he is the tribute with most sponsored resources. He wins the Hunger Games, yes, but that doesn't solve much since now he has to live like Clay's bitch and his relationship with his father stays the same. Every time he goes to the Capitol, he has to reserve some time to get fucked senseless by Clay. He doesn't regret killing people, but he is getting weary of surviving the games only to be some old man's bitch. But every time he complains, Clay always reminds him that he survived the Hunger Games because of him, if it wasn't for Clay, Hydron may have starved or died of dehydration because, although he's good at killing, he's not good at surviving on his own in the wild.

Will Hydron kill him in the end or will he just resign himself to being Clay's living sex doll? That I haven't decided yet, but the story will be mostly Clay and Hydron fucking nasty and Clay abusing the power he has over Hydron to get sex, sex, and more sex 😏

Regarding Hydron's origins, which one do you think is the most interesting? Also, what do you think of this AU? What would you add to make it more spicy? 😏 I'm taking suggestions to improve it.

Esp

Anoche me vi la película de La balada de pájaros cantores y serpientes en el cine y decidí compartirles un AU en Los juegos del hambre que le hice a esta hermosamente rancia ship. El AU se me ocurrió en un collab en el que participé de Los juegos del hambre, pero, como era de selfshipping, no lo pude aplicar 😔 Pero ahora se los comparto aprovechando el momento.

Hydron:

Aún no me decido con respecto a los orígenes de Hydron. Estoy indecisa entre las siguientes tres opciones:

Hydron nació en el Capitolio pero, después de una pelea fuerte con Zenoheld, fue expulsado a los Distritos. Estoy considerando la idea de que tenga amnesia y no recuerde mucho de su vida en el Capitolio más que una o dos cosas.

Hydron es del Distrito 1 o el Distrito 2 y es el hijo de un Vencedor de Los juegos del hambre. La relación con su papá es horrible, y Zenoheld siempre se compara con Hydron, diciéndole a Hydron que no es lo suficientemente masculino o fuerte para sobrevivir los Juegos.

Hydron es el hijo bastardo de Zenoheld de cuando estuvo en los Distritos, ya sea como Agente de la Paz o alguna otra clase de visita oficial. Hydron siempre supo quién era su padre y siempre lo resintió por no reconocerlo y darle una vida de lujos. En lugar de eso, Zenoheld lo dejó a su suerte en una vida de pobreza en los Distritos.

De cualquier manera, Hydron es llamado en la Cosecha como el tributo masculino en su Distrito y es el chisme del Capitolio (ya sea por sus orígenes o porque es el único tributo de los Distritos 1 o 2 que en serio no se ve preparado para sobrevivir los Juegos del hambre). Todos lo miran con curiosidad y morbo, todos le tienen un ojo encima, todos hablan de él, todos están interesados en él de una forma u otra, pero no tanto como un sujeto en particular.

Clay Fermin:

Clay es el dueño de una muy exitosa farmacéutica en el Capitolio y uno de sus contactos más cercanos es el mismísimo presidente Snow. Hydron le llamó la atención desde el primer instante que lo vio en pantalla y movió los suficientes contactos para tener un momento a solas y ofrecerle una cosa: Ser su más fiel y presente patrocinador asegurándose que tenga todos los recursos posibles para sobrevivir los Juegos del hambre. Pero, claro, este patrocinio no es gratis y Clay pide una cosa a cambio de asegurarle su supervivencia a Hydron: Sexo.

La idea:

Bueno, el punto es que Hydron sí gana los Juegos del hambre porque está loquito y tiene mucho rencor en él que se volvió su motor para sobrevivir. Tiene problemas fuertes de salud mental que al final lo vuelven un asesino muy eficaz y, como aceptó la oferta de Clay, es el tributo con más recursos patrocinados de los Juegos. Aunque gana los Juegos del hambre, la vida de Hydron realmente no mejora. La relación con su padre sigue igual y ahora tiene que ser la perra de Clay. Cada que va de visita al Capitolio, tiene que apartar un momento en su agenda para ser follado hasta el cansancio por Clay. Sinceramente, Hydron no se arrepiente de haber asesinado personas, pero como que sí cansa la idea de haber sobrevivido los Juegos sólo para ser la perra personal de un viejo rancio. Y obviamente se queja, pero cada que lo hace Clay le recuerda que sin él Hydron no habría sobrevivido los Juegos ya que habría muerto de hambre o sed. Hydron podrá ser muy bueno para matar, pero no lo es realmente para sobrevivir en la naturaleza.

¿Qué será de ellos al final? ¿Matará Hydron a Clay o se resignará a ser el juguete sexual viviente del mayor? Eso, honestamente, no lo he decidido, pero la historia será mayormente Hydron y Clay haciendo puercadas y Clay abusando el poder que tiene sobre Hydron para tener sexo, sexo, y más sexo 😏

Bueno, ahora unas preguntitas. ¿Cuál de los orígenes de Hydron se les hace más interesante? ¿Qué opinan del AU? ¿Qué le agregarían para hacerlo más interesante? Acepto sugerencias para mejorarlo y que sea su mejor versión.

#bakugan #bakugan battle brawlers #bakugan new vestroia #clay fermin #hydron #prince hydron #labcrown #professor clay #⚗️labcrown👑#alternate universe #the hunger games #hunger games au #claydron

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invisibleraven · 2 years ago

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The more the merrier

A series of ficlets for @polyshipweek 2023

Day Five: Epistolary-Regal Jewelry <-AO3 link

Dearest Reginald,

We are well, considering the circumstances. I would ask if you are well, but I’m sure the conditions there are just ghastly. I hope you get the care package we’ve enclosed and it improves matters at least. Everything seems so quiet without you here dearest, and no matter how much pianoforte Carrie plays, nothing really fills the silence of your absence. Though I suppose you would live for a bit of silence given all the guns and cannons on your end.

I’ve been wandering the halls a lot, not knowing what to do with myself. There is only so much needlepoint I can do to distract me from the thoughts of you. It’s agony knowing you’re out there, fighting for God and your kingdom with no idea when it will all end. When you’ll be here with us once more. Everyone preaches patience, but they don’t seem to understand the pain of being separated from you.

I won’t ask how things are there, as I know you won’t answer, due to what you seem to think are my tender sensibilities. I just hope you are staying safe and you will return home soon. Just know you are missed here dearest and we are praying for an end to this idiotic conflict soon.

All my love,

Julie

PS: I made Jane smuggle a bottle of that blackberry jam you’re so fond of into the basket-treasure it for I fear the season for them is quite over.

Reggie,

I keep forgetting you’re away at war sometimes you know? I keep thinking that maybe you’re out riding Old Red-who is fine before you ask, we’ve been feeding and grooming him daily, and I think he misses you almost as much as we do. Or perhaps on a morning stroll through the gardens, maybe even asleep with a book in the library. Anywhere but where you are. Which is not with us, where you should be.

Flynn came to visit last week, if you couldn’t guess. Trying to raise our spirits I suspect. Or perhaps in search of a good gossip, she was always the type to have possession of the juiciest stories. Asked after you, and Luke. I think mainly because Robert has been pestering her, and he’d rather ask his employer than his own cousin. Why the both of you volunteered is beyond me, but I suppose the draft will come for us all eventually. I told her what I knew, hopefully that will set his mind at ease. Though I know I will not be eased until you’re home safe in our arms my sweet one.

Come home soon, I need a worthy croquet partner, as Julie is terrible at it and Flynn gloats too much to keep playing piquet with her.

Missing you fiercely,

Carrie

PS: I sent a book for you to read. I know you must not get much downtime, but I figured that if you did, it might keep your mind off the hell around you.

My darling girls,

I am only allowed so much post so you’ll have to forgive me for not sending you individual letters. I miss you both most ardently, so much that it aches. I would give anything to leave this muddy ravine and be home in your warm embrace once more.

Things here are hard, as it is cold and dirty. I have seen horrors I would not wish on the worst of men. But I know that I am fighting to keep us safe, to keep you both free. And that thought warms me enough to get through the frosty nights. Though a book or two of matches wouldn’t go amiss.

I hope that I should be home on leave soon, but I can make no promises. And yet even that brief respite will be bliss in order to see you both again. Even if I will have to return not long after. Keep strong my loves, I’ll be with you soon.

All my kisses,

Your Reg

PS: Please send more socks, and perhaps some chocolate, I can trade it for other goods.

Darling Reggie,

I wonder if this letter will reach the front before you do, as I am writing it right as you hop onto the train. It was so nice to have you home, even if our time together was short. I keep praying that this war will end soon, so you can be home for good. But then I question how any loving deity could allow such an awful conflict to occur in the first place.

Especially as I see the young men come back to flood the hospital. A gruesome sight, it turns the stomach. But I still go every day, to help. I can do that much so I stop feeling so useless in this whole thing. Carrie has voiced helping as well, but perhaps at the school instead. I’ve never known her to be interested in education or children, but I think this whole thing has given her a new perspective. Once this war is done, we all can be wed… well I know I wouldn’t mind a brood pattering around the halls not long after.

Come back soon my love, safe and whole. Just please-come back.

Te amo,

Julie

Sweetheart,

The last of the staff got called up today. We all wept when Bobby departed, but perhaps he and Luke will find each other on the battlefield. Perhaps he will be shipped home before either of them has a chance. I hope you return with them, your crooked grin as blinding as the sun.

The children at the school house don’t quite understand it, why their fathers and brothers are gone. Why some of them will never return. It breaks my heart trying to explain it to them. But I keep my tears at bay, keep strong for them. For Julie. For you.

I’ve knitted you a hat to wear. I know my knitting is atrocious, but I couldn’t bear to think of your head being cold as the winter months draw nearer. Be brave my love, but not foolish. Foolish men make poor bedfellows.

Besides, we have a wedding to look forward to after all.

XOXO,

Carrie

My dearest loves,

I hate this bloody war. The horrors I have been subject to-there are no words. Even as it ends, I know I return to you a broken man. For I can never unsee all the dying comrades in my arms. Too many to count as I tried valiantly and needlessly to save them. Never know what it is to have never taken a life. To know another’s blood is on your hands simply due to their geography.

I fear I will be haunted by this. My dreams are all nightmares of the battlefield, the smell of gunpowder and blood, the sounds of the cannons, the lieutenant shouting orders. The smoke and mud and death everywhere. I do not sleep much these days, but perhaps some fresh country air and your gorgeous smiles will help soothe me back to slumber.

I am writing to you from a hospital some ten leagues away. I hope to arrive home shortly after this letter does, so don’t rush to my side on any account. A bullet to the thigh, I’m afraid. I may need a cane to walk down the aisle come June. But rest assured, I am coming home to do so.

I don’t care if I have to crawl down that blasted aisle, I can’t wait until the three of us are wed.

I’ll see you soon my darlings,

Reggie

#polyshipweek23 #my stuff #writing #fanfic #regal jewelry #julie and the phantoms

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lily-blue · 2 years ago

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Between you and me

☆ characters: boun & prem ☆ genre: enemies to on-screen lovers au ☆ summary: the anecdote their fans have already heard a thousand times: to prem, everything has started at the kaset fair ☆ words: 9,6k ☆ also: i’d like to dedicate this story to @dat-town ♥ i wish you the happiest day, love

Prem had a love-hate relationship with the Kaset Fair. On one hand, he liked that he didn’t have to study for exams or work on assignments for a whole week. He might have needed to leave his dorm early to get everything ready for the 10AM opening with his peers, he might have felt super sticky after the first hours by the grill, but he would have rather bathed in sweat all day than prepare for his theory exams in a crowded library on such a beautiful, sunny day in February.

On the other hand, he absolutely hated interacting with strangers who were down to initiate random conversations with him while he was grilling their pork. He was an introvert. He didn’t want to know about the juiciest gossips on campus or his customers’ personal life just because he couldn’t turn his back on them and walked in the opposite direction. Still, day after day, every second person seemed to have the same misconception about his polite attitude. It was tiring. The noise, the crowd, and that stupid milkshake booth that was across the walkway.

Once Prem served the petite brunette who had paid for two portions of grilled pork before she had started to curse her ex for being so controlling throughout their entire relationship, he let out a tired sigh, which caught his friend’s attention.

Pun closed the metal box they kept the money in and patted Prem’s shoulder in a lazy manner once, twice, three times.

‘You know, if you scoffed at them like you always do whenever I ask for your notes, they would stop acting like you’re their emotional trash can,’ the boy advised, earning a displeased scoff with his comment, similar to the one he was referring to.

Obviously, Prem still had his usual sass to his personality. It was only that he was also pretty competitive and he hated to lose.

‘Yeah, and they would also stop buying our grilled pork,’ he sulked as he brushed his friend’s hand off his shoulder and fixed his uniform. He didn’t want any of his professors to see him with a messy shirt or listen to their comments on how his loose appearance undermined their university’s prestige. It had happened with Ple the year before and her Maths professor didn’t let her live it down up to this day. Prem was already walking on thin ice whenever he entered his Economics 101 class. The last thing he needed was another reason Mr. Pakorn could have picked on him.

‘Would they? It’s tender and savoury,’ Pun retorted with a cheeky smile before he gave a wai to the next person who stopped by their stall. The boy smiled at their new customer like he knew him as he leaned closer to Prem’s ear and lowered his voice. ‘I’m sure anyone could bear a few minutes of silence for it.’

Prem elbowed into his friend’s side with a tight-lipped smile and pushed him further from the grill just in time for their customer to make his order.

‘No, I won’t risk it. See those guys?’ He whisper-shouted, fierce gaze kept on the medium sized pieces of raw meat that he placed on the grill one by one with utmost care. ‘They’ve already stolen too many of our customers,’ he claimed, hoping that his reasoning was enough for his friend to stop pestering him because of his over dramatic sighs. Because if he couldn’t have had at least those to cope with the chattiest customers, he might have truly lost his will to live by the end of the week.

‘Who?’ Pun asked without the tiniest effort to mimic the boy’s hushed tone, which made Prem almost as annoyed at himself for having expectations as annoyed he was because of the laugh that left their customer’s mouth. He shouldn’t have engaged into this conversation in front of others, not when his friend clearly didn’t know how to be subtle.

Pressing his lips together and trying his best to maintain a believable smile, Prem flipped the pork pieces on the grill and reached for a paper plate just to appear to be busy.

‘Who are you talking about? Psst! Prem!’ It took more effort for Prem to shut out his friend’s demanding questions then he would have ever admitted. ‘Prem! Who?’ But at least he had a good enough excuse to disregard his curiosity.

Or so he thought while he was checking the meat every ten seconds.

‘Here! Don’t hesitate to tell everyone about our booth or come back for more,’ Prem handed a full plate of grilled pork to the customer, mentally counting to five, eight, then twelve, before he took a deep breath and turned towards his friend.

As expected, Pun was already with his back to the metal box, eyes pleading and lips pouty as though his puppy face had ever worked on Prem. His walls were more massive and higher than that.

‘The celebrities’ booth,’ Prem claimed with a frown, the mere thought of those people pissing him off. He didn’t need to look at them to be sure they were winking at every passer-by who was close to them in age or that they were sweet talking them out of their money while letting them take pictures with them. ‘A bunch of show-offs.’

‘I’ve heard your grilled pork is really good,’ someone said in a honeyed voice, urging the two boys to pay attention to its owner. And while Prem was ready to put on his pseudo-happy face for whoever their potential customer was, one look at his friend’s bobbing Adam’s apple was enough for him to assume the worst. ‘Is there some left for me?’

Admittedly nervous, Prem turned towards the familiar boy and took a step closer to the grill to resist the urge to gift him with his judgemental stares. Not because he was only brave when there were no consequences, but because his senior was about to pay for their food and Prem was the type of person who had a hard time being disrespectful with people who spent their money on something he was selling.

That, and he wasn’t an idiot. He knew that this guy could have destroyed their booth with a single bad review on his social media.

‘I guess so,’ Prem mumbled as he picked up his grilling tongs and placed the raw pork pieces on the grill. He didn’t want to think about all the ulterior motives the guy from the milkshake booth must have had when he had walked up to them and had even less willingness to give him what he had truly come for, but his palms got embarrassingly clammy, hence he almost dropped a piece of meat when he stole a glance at him.

‘Good. I’ll have two portions, please,’ he ordered with a lopsided smile, but despite the added please and his good manners, Prem felt like this dude was bossing him around on purpose. As though, he had only asked for an extra portion to see him sweat behind the grill.

Calling him a jerk in his head, Prem bobbed his head and made sure the pork was delicious and plenty when he handed the two paper plates to the guy. Then, he watched like a hawk as the older elbowed his way through the slowly growing crowd with a soft, apologetic smile plastered on his face and took a seat next to a girl behind their own stall.

The guy offered some of his grilled meat to the students around him and the sight, for some reason, only made Prem more furious.

‘He doesn’t seem so bad,’ Pun chirped, his amused voice muffled as if it had come from under heavy layers of water; that focused Prem was on the outrageous scene in front of him. There was something in the way this guy carried himself that rubbed the younger in the wrong way and while a part of him felt repulsed just by looking at him and his fans, another part of him wanted to figure him out and beat him in his own game.

‘He obviously came here to spy on us. Now, they’ll come up with new ways to beat us,’ Prem claimed, confident in the conclusion he had come to.

Obviously, he knew their grilled pork tasted amazing, but could it have been delicious enough to make people as calculative as those guys willingly pay for it and advertise it through their purchase? Highly unlikely.

The boy behind Prem let out a disbelieved puff of air.

‘Or… but this one will be wild, so listen!’ Prem tore his gaze from the celebrities’ booth and turned towards his friend, eager to hear his take on the problem. Pun might not have been the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he always had reasonable and interesting theories when he was talking about his favourite manga, so Prem was obviously intrigued. ‘Maybe he was just hungry.’

The boy’s whisper-like suggestion felt like a mockery and Prem - with the vivid memory of their senior’s smug grin in the back of his mind - wasn’t having it. Therefore, he narrowed his eyes and hissed at his friend to shut him up.

‘You’re already one of his followers,’ he insisted, disappointment creeping into his voice and facial expressions. ‘I’m telling you, he’s trying to turn us against each other.’

‘You’re overreacting. It’s not even a real competition,’ Pun tried his best to talk some sense into his friend. However, his logical reasoning didn’t seem to reach the stubborn boy. Instead, if that was possible, it made Prem more determined to win this imaginary battle Pun seriously doubted their senior was even aware of.

‘Of course it is,’ the boy spat and the unusual fire in his eyes made Pun genuinely concerned; he just wasn’t keen on breaking it down to the younger that the students at the other booth weren’t interested in them. He would have been stupid to risk angering Prem when his grades strongly depended on his notes.

Pun would have rather gone to war with him and fought than fail his classes.

Thus, when their next customer walked up to their stall, he rushed back behind the metal box and gave a wai to the girl. He even initiated a conversation with her about her favourite parts of the fair, so that she wouldn’t have talked to Prem. In theory, this should have helped the younger boy to let go of his frustration.

If only he had known, Prem spent every undisturbed minute coming up with an unbeatable strategy to diminish the celebrities’ booth!

(Even though he was clearly playing a losing game.)

Prem had always been good at holding grudges. Still, he wasn’t aware of how marvellous he was at it until his eyes fell on a familiar, cheeky figure from across the room at the casting of Until We Meet Again.

The boy obviously hadn’t wasted his breath on cursing at or talking about his senior after the end of that particular university fair - no matter what his friends would have said -, but he had a fairly good memory. Not to mention that it was also hard to forget someone as charming (derogatory) as this dude with his ear-to-ear smile and smug attitude, so it really wasn’t his fault that he immediately recognised the older. He wasn’t obsessed. Hah! Prem would have never been obsessed with someone like him. He was simply annoyed that no one had believed him when he had warned them about his cunning ways with people.

Yes, that was about right. He was annoyed because the other seemed to already have a couple of people wrapped around his finger. Poor souls. They had no idea who they were up against.

Determined to keep his distance, so that the guy couldn’t have sabotaged his audition, Prem didn’t exchange a single word with his university senior. He kept an eye on him, though, to make sure he was prepared in case the older boy approached him. But he might have chosen to play a different kind of mind game this time, because he stayed away from Prem, too. He didn’t walk up to him like the younger boy had predicted based on their previous encounter nor did he acknowledge their history. In fact! He didn’t show any sign of recognizing Prem, which obviously irked the younger.

Knowing how much connections and good manners mattered in the film industry - after all, no company would have protected a troublemaker actor once the public turned against them for whatever reason -, Prem pushed aside his negative feelings and decided to focus on the task at hand: the casting. If he couldn’t have pretended to be on neutral grounds with the guy, why should anyone have chosen him for the role he intended to play?

He could do better than sending daggers into his senior’s way from across the room when he wasn’t even watching.

But it was hard. Not because Prem’s mind was hyper aware of the other boy’s presence - he hated how he had learned his name was Boun without the guy speaking a single word to him -, but because the older boy deliberately ignored him even when the two of them were made to stand next to each other.

It made Prem feel small, insignificant.

It made him furious.

Boun had no idea how lucky he was that Prem had his priorities straight. Otherwise, he might have taught him a few important lessons that his parents had clearly failed to teach him while raising him. For example, how ignoring someone who had served you the most tender grilled pork that had ever touched your bratty mouth was extremely disrespectful and petty.

Yeah, he was lucky Prem wanted that supporting role more than anything at that moment. Or else, he would have made sure Boun had never forgotten his face again.

To say Prem wasn’t happy about the fact that Boun had gotten the role of his own character’s love interest was an understatement. Whenever he thought of the upcoming shootings, the obligatory media appearances where they had to act all lovey-dovey and friendly, the skinship and the affectionate glances… he felt something bitter on the tip of his tongue. As though, his achievement meant less now that the older boy was a part of it, too.

He seriously didn’t understand what had convinced the casting director that they were a good match with Boun when Prem himself couldn’t have pictured himself even holding his hand, but it wasn’t like a rookie actor could have complained about such (outrageous) decisions. A part of him was also convinced that if he had spoken his mind, if he had put his concerns and disappointment in words, he would have lost his chance to play the challenging role of Team in UWMA as they would have immediately looked for a more suitable co-star for Boun.

Why would they have chosen to side with him when they had someone from the celebrities’ booth under their wings?

This conclusion turned the juice sour in Prem’s mouth when following behind P’Paaty during their nth workshop, he refused to interact more with Boun than it was absolutely necessary to keep his place in the cast. He was never hostile. And he put extra effort into his acting so that Team’s slowly forming bond with Win would have looked believable, but once the director called for a break, he refrained himself from any intimacy let it be physical or emotional. Unlike others such as Fluke and Ohm who were playing the main leads, Prem didn’t share personal stories about himself and his family with his co-actor and neither did Boun seem too eager to tell the younger about his childhood, his dreams and motives.

They were lovers on screen and strangers when the attention wasn’t on them anymore.

It wasn’t how Prem had imagined his first role in a BL drama - or in any show to be honest. He must have been naive for thinking: every couple maintained a friendly relationship when the cameras weren’t rolling.

He was naive for thinking that actors weren’t playing roles in front of their fans, too, just to gain a bigger fandom and earn a name for themselves in the industry through these faceless people’s blind support. Despite its misleading name, fan-service wasn’t only for the fans. It was for the sake of the actors’ career, too. It was pure mutualism; the symbiotic relationship in which both parties benefited. Or so Prem would have liked to believe that it wasn’t just them living off on the young and manipulable.

It was P’Kae’s familiar voice that pulled the boy back to reality and he immediately snapped his head in the writer’s direction, keeping a neutral albeit respectful face despite the boy who was standing next to the woman.

‘I promise I’m not here to reprimand you,’ she started and her calm tone and friendly smile made the younger one believe that she hadn’t walked up to him to scold him for acting on his own instincts regarding his character.

Prem watched as P’Kae turned her head towards his co-star and adjusted her position so that she could have looked at them both at the same time. The whole situation felt a bit unnerving, how it almost felt like the world was moving forwards in slow-mo, but the boy tried to keep his composure and not panic when he stole a glance at his senior and their wary eyes finally met. It seemed Boun was just as clueless as Prem, which should have been reassuring, since it meant Prem wasn’t the only one who was kept in the dark. Yet, somehow, the realisation was as nerve-wracking as it was relieving.

‘You guys have to act together. Please, talk to each other more,’ P’Kae pleaded and the laugh that was scratching the back of Prem’s throat almost found a way to the surface. Oh. So they weren’t about to threaten him to follow the script word by word from now on if he had really wanted to keep his job. P’Kae hadn’t brought Boun along to remind him which one of them would have stayed if he had kept improvising his gestures or to ask the senior to show Prem how he should have acted better.

The woman was simply worried about their lack of communication.

‘We will do our best, P’Kae. Sorry for making you worried with our behaviour,’ the older boy took it upon himself to apologise on both of their behalves and Prem mimicked Boun’s body language as he also pressed his palms together and bowed his head respectfully.

‘We’re really sorry, P’Kae,’ the younger one repeated and even shot a reassuring smile in the woman’s direction when she narrowed her eyes at them, a bit suspicious, but overall pleased with how cooperative the boys were.

The writer’s reaction made Prem wonder just how distant they seemed with Boun compared to other couples to worry the woman enough to take matters into her own hands, but he didn’t have much time to dwell on this matter. He didn’t, because as soon as P’Kae left them alone, Boun turned towards him with his entire body and cleared his throat, demanding Prem’s full attention.

‘Should we grab some dinner after this?’ He asked and Prem’s eyes widened in surprise due to the senior’s straightforwardness. Boun spoke with so much ease as though it was perfectly normal for the two of them to spend time together after work, but to their misfortune, every bone in the younger’s body knew it wasn’t the case.

They had never spent time together without the rest of the cast.

The mere thought felt weird and intimidating and so unnatural, it tugged on Prem’s insides in an unpleasant way. Still, he knew he had to put his negative feelings aside to not disappoint those who had put their trust in him when they had chosen him for Team’s role.

‘I mean, I’ll most probably be hungry anyway, so… sure. Why not?’ Prem agreed, earning an amused scoff from the older with his answer. He tried to pay no mind to how annoying Boun was when he had fun because of his discomfort, but no one should have expected him to pull a full 180 on the older boy so suddenly, so in the end, Prem allowed himself to scoff back at him before he turned away.

This only made Boun smile wider and Prem wished he wouldn’t have caught a glimpse at the blinding sight from the corner of his eyes. So annoying.

To say their first dinner together had been awkward would have been a huge understatement, because Prem had regretted saying yes even before they had ordered and his discomfort had only grown as time had gone by. In hindsight, it might not have been the best conversation starter to ask Boun about the Kaset Fair, but the younger boy had just couldn’t have helped himself and the realisation that his senior had really forgotten their first encounter had poisoned the atmosphere.

The second time had been less tense. They had been having snacks and ice cream, but Prem had still had a relatively hard time to open up, hence Boun had done almost all the talking. He had shared things with the younger boy that weren’t overly personal: things that Prem could have easily gotten to know about him if only he had paid attention when his co-actor was talking with others during team-building group programmes. The reason why he had become an actor, that nowadays he was interested in directing, too, and how he hadn’t believed that his current career was something that could have given him financial stability.

If Prem wanted to be honest, by their third dinner together, he was aware that Boun wasn’t as awful of a person as he had made him to be in his head. And not just because he always insisted on paying for the food with the unbeatable excuse that he was older. No. The more Prem listened, the more he understood that his co-actor genuinely cared about those around him. To an extent that was actually alarming to someone like Prem who religiously tried to avoid not only being dependent on others, but being used by people who pretended to care.

In exchange, he opened up about his love for golfing, his different dreams throughout the years - how he had been a part of a boyband, too, at one point of his life - and told Boun about the ultimate he had given himself a bit over a year ago: he had two years to either achieve something promising in the entertainment industry that he could have built a career on or find a new path that could have actually taken him somewhere in life.

Luckily, he had been chosen for Team’s role months before his personal deadline and despite playing a supporting role, the project so far seemed promising.

‘Na, I did pretty well, didn’t I? Much better than you expected!’ Boun claimed with a pout that soon turned into a smug grin as he nudged the younger boy with his elbow.

The two of them were sitting in a relatively peaceful corner of the room, munching on their lunch that had been brought for them by the staff members during shooting. Due to the tight schedule, that day there wasn’t a fixed lunch break in their call sheet when everyone could rest in the canteen. Instead, they were having a running lunch, which meant both the crew and the actors ate when they weren’t needed on set.

‘Stop fishing for compliments!’ Prem grumbled, even though the barely visible smile in the corner of his mouth made it obvious that Boun’s little dancing between their chicken pad thai and mango sticky rice had indeed entertained him.

Still, Prem wasn’t stupid enough to flatter his ego. Because if not him, who would have kept his senior on his toes?

‘Just admit you’re impressed,’ the older boy insisted, mimicking the choreography of Magic by Goblin Project with his hands and upper body. It should have been annoying, the thought crossed Prem’s mind once again, but seeing Boun’s wide, almost proud smile stirred a dozen of different emotions in him instead.

He felt shy and somewhat touched that after mentioning their band to his senior once, he had taken his time to search them up and memorise the steps.

‘Fine. I’m not not impressed,’ Prem gave in, busying himself with his dessert although he did not avoid eye contact. That would have given Boun the (correct) idea that he felt bashful due to the sudden attention on him and his unsuccessful singer career; despite how his senior was slowly albeit steadily growing on him, Prem didn’t want him to know that he considered him a friend.

‘Meanie,’ Boun mumbled, his pout too exaggerated for Prem to believe his partner wasn’t amused under the surface. The older boy might have been a talented actor, but when it was only the two of them with Prem, he never put real effort into tricking the younger. Which often made Prem wonder how could someone this cringe and touchy be so cool in everyone’s eyes.

The chuckle that escaped the younger’s mouth was so quiet, it was barely audible, but Boun sat close enough to him to feel it through their touching shoulders. Therefore, he joined the laughter with his own, louder giggles before the comfortable silence enveloped them again.

It didn’t take long until the first assistant director called for Prem as the next scene was an interior one in the school building that he shot with Sammy and Fluke, the actors who played the role of Team’s best friends. Not quite finished with his mango sticky rice, Prem shoved the plastic container in his senior’s hand and told him he could have had it if he had wanted, then bowed his head out of habit and rushed after the tall, middle-aged man.

Unlike many others, Prem didn’t have more scenes for the day. Still, he was determined to give an excellent, neat performance, so that those who were scheduled after them wouldn’t have to stay longer due to an uncalculated delay. It happened more often than most people would have assumed, but just because it was a natural part of shooting, it didn’t mean he couldn’t have tried to save valuable minutes for the rest of the crew.

Although he was bound to make mistakes - everyone was - and sometimes the estimated time for a scene was well thought out, he tried every time.

The soft trembles of Prem’s hands went unnoticed by every crew member and the rest of the cast until the stylist deemed Boun’s outfit for the next scene perfect - a plain white tee and a pair of dark soft-looking pants, nothing groundbreaking - and the older boy took notice of them as soon as he sat next to him. Not that he was trying too hard to hide how nervous he was; he believed that everyone would have felt jittery before their first kiss. Still, his senior’s attentiveness was appreciated.

‘Just tell me when it gets too much and we’ll take a break,’ Boun said, his gaze stuck on the younger’s drumming legs while Prem was staring ahead, at their reflection in the huge vanity mirror a few metres from them. They were in one of the wooden houses they had booked for the shooting. However, unlike the one in which Team would pull Win close for a drunk kiss, this one was lacking essential furniture and was full of clothes, make-up items and hairspray.

It was more crowded, too.

‘I’m fine,’ he retorted after a couple of silent heartbeats, because even though Boun’s offer was considerate of him, they shouldn’t have taken deliberate breaks just because the younger boy’s heart was drumming in his chest, throat and ears at the thought of kissing another guy.

He had known what he had signed up to when he had auditioned for the role. And it wasn’t like he had anything against Boun anymore. The senior might have been touchy and dorky, but he was a good friend and a person he felt safe and comfortable with.

‘I’ve never said you weren’t,’ the older claimed as he shifted his gaze from Prem’s legs to his face. He put his hand on Prem’s and gave it a little squeeze before he rested his head on the younger’s shoulder. ‘I’m saying we can take breaks.’

Prem let out a sigh. He was contemplating whether he should have thanked the other that he was prioritising his comfort or scold him for encouraging him to disregard the call sheet.

In the end, he did neither. Instead, he puffed his cheeks and squeezed his senior’s hand back, holding onto him until they were asked to do a quick rehearsal before rolling.

Boun was the first one to react: he stood up and pulled Prem up into a standing position as well, not letting go of him until they were in the wooden house where the cameras were almost set. As they got in position, the blond boy shot an encouraging smile in Prem’s direction, earning an eye roll from the younger that soon turned into a dopey smile.

P’Kae was monitoring them when Prem’s back hit the soft blankets and the dreaded scene, albeit without anyone else really paying attention to them, began.

“I’m lazy,” Prem recited his lines, slowly pushing himself up on his elbows, staring at Boun who kept looking down at him. “Why? Am I disgusting?” He asked, his mind slowly merging with his character’s fuzzy brain.

And so when Prem ceased to exist, Team came alive.

The shock on the younger’s face was masked by his supposed drunkenness when Win pushed him on his back again, into the sheets. Suddenly, the whole world reduced to the two of them and for a passing moment they did nothing else, but let themselves get lost in the other’s hazy eyes.

When Win’s warm lips brushed against Team’s neck: the pulsing vein that throbbed under his hot skin, the younger boy gulped to clear his mind.

“Not really,” Win claimed and that was the cue, they both knew it. Everyone around them did. Still, Prem’s hands were shaking and he fell out of character as he belatedly reached out to pull his senior’s head towards his own.

It was clumsy and out of pace, but eventually Boun’s lips landed on his and cages his lower lip with his, nibbling on it softly. Soft. The boy’s lips were softer than Prem had expected a man’s lips to feel, not that he had been daydreaming about kissing his senior too much, just to prepare himself mentally.

Lost in his own thoughts, the younger boy barely registered when his co-actor pulled away. It was the worry in Boun’s eyes that he noticed first. Then, the older boy’s soft caresses on his cheek.

‘You forgot your line. Was it that good?’ The blond boy asked jokingly and while the teasing tone of his voice made Prem scoff, he was grateful that Boun knew babying him would have caused more damage. This way, he could ground himself while rolling his eyes and push Boun off himself without feeling flustered.

‘You’re just too heavy,’ Prem complained, lighthearted but pseudo-grumpy, relieved to get to know from P’Kae that they still had a couple of minutes before the lightning crew finished the preparations.

Kissing Boun didn’t get easier immediately, but by the time the camera was rolling, Prem felt more confident. Therefore, most of the retakes the director deemed necessary were the result of the man’s new ideas and those unplanned angles he wanted them to try out.

“You’re always like this. You always fool around,” Prem recited when his character and Win came up for air after their kiss, his gaze accusatory, but weak for the man who was towering over him.

It was an intense moment. A make or break for the couple.

The tension in the air made the younger boy’s chest feel heavy.

“If I’m serious, will you promise me? That you won’t run away,” Win’s dark eyes bored deep in the younger boy’s before he leaned forwards, faces so close, the two boys’ breath mingled before their noses touched momentarily. “In this world, you can be afraid of anything, I’ll be right beside you,” Win started and Team’s entire body was buzzing with excitement and anxiety while the older boy delivered Prem’s favourite lines from the entire episode. “But you cannot be afraid of me. Do you understand?”

The silence that followed the question grew longer than it was supposed to be, but somehow it felt right. Especially when the older boy reached out for Team’s hand and slowly lifted it to his own heart.

“Especially my feelings for you,” the confession rolled off from Win’s lips and Prem decided to go with the flow since no one in the room had called cut.

Changing their position and pushing his senior into the sheets would have been more difficult if Boun hadn’t caught up with the younger boy’s intention, but during the past few weeks, the two of them had grown closer, so it came almost naturally. And it fitted so well with the rest of the scene, with their characters and how the two swimmers felt not just for each other at that moment, but themselves as well.

Longing, dread, want. They all mixed together, in their eyes, when Team promised to not run away, but begged his lover to catch him if he did.

They wrapped up the shooting sooner than Prem would have liked, however, they were mere supporting characters with Boun, so it was natural that it had felt short. A part of the boy was convinced it would have felt the same even if they had had more screen time - which was a silly and useless thought. Especially because the project was still far from being over.

The promotions of UWMA left the young boy with little time to concentrate on anything else, let alone a new series, but he wanted to make use of the sudden popularity he had gained with the show before his fifteen minutes of fame ended. He feared the moment the public forgot about Team as he was still a newbie actor, hence he couldn’t put forward too many successful roles that could have convinced other directors to work with him.

So he might have messed up and had forgotten to eat or drink before one of the interviews he had with Boun because he had gotten too lost in the script that his manager had gotten him for consideration, but Prem seriously hadn’t noticed he was starving until it was too late.

The cameras were already rolling. They had been rolling for a while by then, actually.

‘What are the secrets you know about each other, but others don’t?’ The woman asked, the answer of her previous question lost somewhere in the white noise that rang in the boy’s ears. He felt dizzy, but he refrained from reaching out to Boun and seeking support in his presence.

The older was already doing enough, keeping up the conversation on both of their behalves.

‘I know a good one!’ Boun started, nudging his partner with his shoulder lightly to pull him back to the present without being too direct about his intention or worries. It was clear, at least to Prem, that his senior didn’t want to put him under the spotlight, but that he wanted to know he was alright and with them. So the boy shot a small albeit reassuring smile in his direction. Still a bit doubtful, Boun’s gaze loitered on Prem’s features briefly before he turned back towards the woman and the crew. ‘Prem sleeps with the lights on. He keeps the lights in front of the bathroom on,’ he shared, his eyes turning softer immediately when he swung his arms over younger’s shoulder, teasing him with exaggerated, cooing noises.

Prem felt too tired to push him away or pinch his side with just enough force for the older to pull away on his own.

But he still resisted the urge to lean into his body and let him support a part of his weight.

‘He does?’ The woman asked, her giggles ringing in the younger boy’s ears. ‘And how would you know that?’

Prem had the answer; it was on the tip of his tongue, really. It would have been so easy to admit that he had slept over at Boun’s place after a particularly draining workshop, then tease the older with how whiny he had gotten when he had refused to turn off the lights. The boy was confident that their fans would have loved the story. Yet, Prem’s mouth felt dry and his mind a little fuzzy while he unconsciously leaned against his senior.

He could feel the muscles in Boun’s body tense when the other pulled him against his side with a firm hand on his hip.

He should have been smarter and eaten before the interview.

‘That’s a secret for another day,’ Boun joked, his intention to gain everyone’s attention in the room nowhere near as smooth as he must have believed. Still, his silly albeit considerate attempt tugged the corners of Prem’s lips upwards.

The boy tilted his head backwards to be able to look at his senior’s face and when their eyes met, he shot a grateful smile in his way that he regretted only a little when he was reminded of the interviewer’s presence. Because the woman clearly misunderstood the gesture or was too eager to misunderstand it on purpose.

‘Na?’ She cooed before she clicked her fingers with a knowing smile as though she had just discovered something groundbreaking. ‘That explains why K’Prem looks so tired today,’ she stated, clearly making fun of the younger’s pale complexion and the concealed bags under his eyes.

Lacking a good retort and energy to deal with the question politely, Prem let out an awkward laugh and shook his head. He wasn’t about to start a scandal, acting rude and disrespectful, but it would have been a lie to say he wasn’t afraid of the potential tsunami this live interview could have started. What if their fans had taken his flustered reaction the wrong way and genuinely believed that there was something real going on between Boun and him? What had this woman been thinking?

Prem heard the growling sound that came from his right first. Then, he realised that it was his senior who failed to contain his anger. It wasn’t a particularly new phenomenon that Boun’s protective instinct kicked in when it came to Prem, but it was definitely new that it happened in front of cameras. Thus, Prem needed a moment to put himself together and think through his options.

He could have denied the implication in his usual, blunt manner, but that opportunity might have been already out the window due to how long it had taken him to organise his thoughts. He could have also diverted the topic, but seeing the fire in the interviewer’s eyes, Prem had a hunch that the woman wouldn’t have let go of the current one without a fight. And he was too tired for that, which meant that he had to approach the situation from a different angle.

He had to calm Boun the hell down.

In hindsight, pinching the older in his side was a very stupid idea, but Prem was running short on time and there was no way he could have hugged him from behind like he usually did on set. That would have only added oil to the fire.

‘Won’t you tell them why I look like a zombie today? As K’Joy kindly implied,’ Prem asked, his voice a bit on the raspy side due to the lack of use. It took everything in him to maintain a somewhat teasing attitude when all he wanted was surrender to gravity that turned his limbs as heavy as a rock. Or a pile of rock. A goddamn mountain.

The panicked yelp that escaped the interviewer’s throat was satisfying to hear, but it didn’t do much to ground the younger boy, hence Prem lost the thread of the conversation somewhere between Boun rambling about a dinner with the UWMA cast that he had no recollection of and P’Kae’s request that had left them no choice but to get to know each other better in their free time. Neither of these had anything to do with Prem’s exhaustion, but breaking down the disappointing truth for their fans wasn’t their responsibility.

If being an actor had paid so well in Thailand, there wouldn’t have been a reason for so many of them to start their own brand after their debut. Likewise, just because they had a successful project behind their back, neither Boun, nor Prem had a stable footing in the industry.

Acting might not have been as challenging as working on a boat in the middle of the sea, but they also had to work hard to earn their place, to earn money.

They also had to decide whether they put in extra effort to be able to chase their dreams or slept a couple of hours more.

‘It was a pleasure to meet you guys. I think I can confidently say we all wish you a successful comeback in the near future. Until then, please give a lot of love to Until We Meet Again,’ the woman’s professional outro echoed in Prem’s mind before he felt a pair of firm hands on his upper arms and someone turned his body a few degrees to the right.

‘When was the last time you ate? Did you forget to bring a water bottle with you again?’ His senior asked and Prem let out an amused huff when the older took his face into his hands, the soft pads of his fingers doing wonders to his tired skin.

‘Breakfast,’ Prem admitted without agreeing with the obvious. Clearly, he still needed to get used to carrying a water bottle with himself when he knew he would have a long day. But it was more difficult than Boun made it to be. Building new habits was always difficult.

‘Your next schedule?’ Boun asked, his voice neutral despite the worry that was evident in his eyes. A part of Prem wanted to apologise for messing up their interview so badly, but another part of him knew his senior didn’t need his apology. He simply wanted Prem to take better care of himself.

‘In two hours, but it’s on the other side of the city,’ he informed his partner who processed his words with a firm nod and let his hands fall from Prem’s puffy cheeks to his shoulders, then back by his own sides.

Although he deemed himself an independent person, Prem let his senior pull him towards the changing rooms and didn’t complain when Boun claimed he would accompany him to the audition of the new series he was eyeing. He knew even his manager wouldn’t have a bad word about it as the old man found the blond actor a respectful nong who was caring and trustworthy. He knew Boun wouldn’t have tried to sabotage him and if anything, he would have cheered Prem on even if he had performed poorly.

But Boun was determined to do more than that. He ordered food at the location of the casting and made sure Prem was well-fed and hydrated by the time it was his turn to act out a part of the script. He encouraged him and chatted the minutes away to take the younger’s mind off the mistakes he had frequently made during practising.

He was there and in a way, it made everything a bit easier for Prem even though he knew his scolding was yet to come. Boun didn’t forget his carelessness. He just pushed his frustration aside temporarily, so that he could have prioritised the younger boy’s needs.

He always did that when it came to people he cared about.

No matter how tiring it could get, his schedule during the promotions, Prem didn’t want it to end. However, time waited for no man and the young boy obviously wasn’t an exception.

Head leaning against a firm shoulder and arms heavy from the alcohol in his system, Prem made one last attempt at reaching out for another piece of crispy chicken skin before he gave up and accepted that it was too much work.

‘You should eat some more,’ Boun’s voice came from the boy’s left while someone else let out an obnoxious laugh on his right. It took Prem a couple of embarrassingly long seconds to remember: he was out with a few members of the UWMA cast, celebrating after their very last show together.

He didn’t see what was there to be so happy about.

‘Are you even listening?’ Boun asked, this time, a little louder, although Prem had heard him clearly the first time as well. He just found it weird: answering to a statement he agreed with, but was too tired to carry out. Would it have been ridiculous if he had asked the older to feed him with some delicious, crispy chicken skin? Hadn’t the two of them been already over that point in their friendship when trivial things like embarrassment and shame mattered?

‘Maybe we should call him a taxi. He’s pretty much half-asleep already,’ Sammy said with her phone in her hand. Her eagerness, albeit coming from a kind heart, made the tipsy Prem want to scowl at her. Who had told her he wanted to go home and sleep? He was hungry and about to ask Boun to give him some bar snacks before the next round of alcohol.

‘I don’t want to,’ he grumbled, his voice barely audible because of the constant background noise at the pub and the fact that his head was hanging low, gaze fixed on his knees instead of his friends.

‘I’ll take him home,’ Boun claimed, completely disregarding the younger boy’s wishes as if Prem was a child who couldn’t make decisions on his own. If he had wanted to drink himself under the table and fall asleep in public, he had just as much right to do so as everyone else! Well, not that he had such plans for the night. But he didn’t want to leave so soon, either.

‘Are you sure, phi?’ Fluke’s voice sounded borderline amused and it confused Prem’s already overwhelmed brain. Shouldn’t he have been disappointed that their senior was leaving or annoyed with Prem for drinking too much and unintentionally ending the party for Boun so soon? In his shoes, the younger boy would have clicked his tongue, displeased, that he had needed to say goodbye to his partner before time because of someone else’s irresponsibility. ‘Text us when you’re home.’

‘I said I don’t wanna,’ Prem pressed, linking his arms in front of his chest to give emphasis to his words, but it didn’t work. No one was listening to him and Ohm even had the audacity to steal his straw basket full of crispy chicken skin as if Prem didn’t need it anymore. He was so hungry, though.

Getting up from the table was a challenge in itself, giving a wai to everyone without losing his balance an even bigger one, but Boun put the boy’s hand on his shoulder once they turned their back to their friends and supported him on the way out of the place. He kept Prem close until the taxi arrived and let him rest his head on his shoulder throughout the ride.

The boy couldn’t have told whether the traffic was exceptionally light that night or he had fallen asleep at one point during the drive, but the next thing he took notice of after giving himself to the tranquil atmosphere in the backseat was the warm breeze against his skin while they were walking towards his building. Time really didn’t want to go easy on him and stop for his sake. If anything, it was outright mocking Prem with how quickly each hour slipped through his fingers.

‘Here, you’re good to go,’ Boun said, a sigh escaping his mouth as he straightened his spine. Prem furrowed his brows in confusion just to follow the older’s line of sight for answers and realise that his shoes weren’t on his feet anymore.

They stood in front of the front door for long seconds before Boun patted the younger boy’s butt and nudged him forwards, one clumsy step closer to the bathroom.

‘If you’re too tired to take a shower, at least wash your teeth,’ Boun said with an endeared grin, drawing Prem’s attention to the importance of basic hygiene, which obviously wasn’t a new concept to him. However, it was late and the thought of undressing and dragging himself under the showerhead had never been so unappealing.

He would have much preferred to drown in his fluffy blankets.

Still, tipsy Prem was powerless against his senior who took his hand in his and led him to the bathroom. Boun made sure the younger boy was able to keep his balance after he had helped him sit on the toilet lid and held his toothbrush under the running water before he put some toothpaste on it and shoved it into Prem’s hand.

Still a bit grumpy because he couldn’t have stayed at the party, the younger boy wasn’t happy about the fact that he was treated like a baby even in his own home, but he followed Boun to his bedroom after rinsing and didn’t push the older’s hand away when he hovered over him to tuck him in. Mostly, because it meant Boun was still there, hence the night hadn’t come to an end. Not yet.

Prem’s body acted on autopilot when he reached for the blond boy’s hand, his fingers curling around his wrist firmly at the first sight of Boun leaving. His thoughts might have been a bit mushy, but he felt it in his core that he wasn’t ready to let go of the past months.

‘Stay,’ he pleaded, watching as Boun’s other hand tentatively touched his fingers and peeled them off himself. The action, albeit gentle, tugged the younger boy’s lips downwards. ‘I don’t want it to end,’ he explained, willing to show vulnerability if that gave his senior a reason to give another thought to his request. It wasn’t that they had never slept at each other’s place before. In fact! Prem was sure if they had looked into his wardrobe, they could have found one of Boun’s oversized tees there, waiting for the boy to sleep in it again.

Prem’s eyes widened in surprise when Boun leaned down to him and took his right cheek in his hand, caressing his skin softly. Even without filters, Prem had the decency to ponder: maybe he was acting too clingy, but the pillowy touch of the older’s lips against his forehead diminished all of his insecurities that started to scratch themselves into the surface.

‘I’ll be quick, I promise. Just let me wash up first,’ Boun whispered against his hair before he pulled away with a cheeky grin and grabbed a random piece of clothing from the wardrobe along with that green towel he had claimed as his on the first night he had slept over.

Prem watched him walk away, a grateful smile blooming in the corner of his mouth when he noticed that the older turned on the lights in front of the bathroom. Oh! He had completely forgotten about them, which was ridiculous. He had been sleeping with the lights on since he could have remembered. It was a huge part of his existence the way snacks were Team’s.

Prem was feeling nostalgic, his mind full of memories about the shooting and his character, when the bed dipped behind his back and his body rolled from his side to his back without any particular command from his brain. He looked up at the person who was looking down at him, weight supported by his elbows, and smiled. Boun had kept his word. He was as quick as those comic book characters with superpowers.

Or Prem was too drunk to perceive time.

‘Are you okay? Do you want me to bring a bowl or something?’ Boun’s voice came through a thick fog, but Prem was quick to shake himself out of the momentary numbness. He wasn’t sleepy. He was not sleepy. He hoped if he had repeated it enough times in his head, his body would also believe it.

His eyelids shouldn’t have felt so heavy.

‘Do you think we will have other projects?’ The younger boy asked quietly, determined to fight the tiredness in his bones at least for a little longer.

‘Together or in general?’ Boun answered with his own question, making the boy realise there were more than one option. Up until this moment, his thoughts zeroed in on only one of them, the one that made him more comfortable and less stressed about what ifs. What if the script had pushed him out of his comfort zone too much? What if the cast members hadn’t been as welcoming as their little UWMA family? What if his new partner had only liked him in front of the cameras?

Prem turned his head to the left, watching as Boun fixed the fluffy blanket over them so that it would cover the younger more, from his toes all the way to his chin. He acted like Prem’s mom when she wanted to make sure her son didn’t catch a cold during monsoon season and the resemblance made him chuckle. Especially because they had had an entire week without rain. The weather was rather warm despite the late hour.

‘Together. I want to work with you again, phi,’ he answered, convinced that even if his acting had improved over the years, he wouldn’t have been able to feel as comfortable kissing another man as he was when it was Boun who was touching him. Because when it was him, Prem knew he would have never gone overboard for the sake of the show without consulting with him in advance.

‘Dunno. I was actually thinking of becoming a director. You know, since I’m already a bit old for a rookie,’ the blond boy admitted, his tone casual yet practical like he didn’t have many regrets and those he had didn’t hurt him much. Meanwhile, what he was saying shook Prem’s entire world with the force of a bullet train.

He sat up quick enough to make his head hurt and turned towards Boun with his entire body, palms finding a home on the older’s upper arm.

‘What? No, you can’t!’ He said, panic creeping its way into his entire being. Prem had known that it had always been an option that he might not have had another role like Team. He knew the public could have forgotten about him before he could have really made it. However, not having Boun at least as a fellow actor? That had never crossed his mind. ‘You need to keep acting so we could work together again,’ he pleaded, throwing the remnants of his inhibition and dignity out the window.

Prem’s eyes were teary - and later, when sober, he would definitely blame everything on the alcohol that amplified his stress -, when Boun reached out to him and fixed his messy hair. The palpable gentleness of the gesture made the younger feel as though he was about to be lectured on how certain aspects of Boun’s life didn’t necessarily concern him, so he swatted his senior’s hand away and turned his head to the opposite direction.

He didn’t want to hear it, because then he might have actually accepted that the blond boy was right and he was acting ridiculous.

‘I’m serious. You can’t leave me alone,’ Prem mumbled, the sound quiet and whine-like even though he was trying his best to not act more pathetic than he had already felt.

The silence that embraced the boys was heavy with tension before Boun pushed himself into a sitting position and put both of his hands on Prem’s shoulders. He turned the younger boy towards himself and waited patiently until he looked at him.

‘Fine,’ Boun said, his characteristic, endeared smile giving the younger hope and tugging on his heartstrings at the same time. ‘If we come across another chance to play a couple, I’ll be there for you. Right by your side.’

‘Promise?’ Prem whispered, earning a nod from his senior. ‘Always?’ Another nod followed without any hesitation. ‘You would stay? For me?’ The third and the fourth nods urged Prem to launch at the older, kicking the air out of the blond boy’s lungs with his speed and the force he clinged onto him.

They stayed in that clumsy hug until Boun’s caresses on the boy’s back made Prem believe that he wasn’t dreaming, then the older tucked him back under the blankets and pulled his head atop of his own chest.

Like this, finishing their first project together didn’t make Prem so anxious anymore that it kept him awake for hours. Instead, he felt protected in the present and excited about the future as he fell into a dreamless sleep.

the end.

#boun #prem #bounprem #until we meet again #between us #thai bl #bounprem scenarios #enemies to friends au #ssbyme #prem warut #boun noppanut

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