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[emosyzoth]

wow Orihime they will never make me hate you

[onlydreamofmysoul]

Let Them Eat Cake Part VI

Here we go!!! I’m so so sorry about the extra wait for this one guys, but thanks for sticking with me!!! I hope you like it!

Tonight on The Great British Bake Off…

“Are you talking to yourself?”

“Now get out of here you cheeky buggers.”

“The person not going to the final is-”

The morning of the signature and technical challenges, Remus woke up with Sirius in his arms. 

Remus smiled down at Sirius still asleep, his dark eyelashes brushing the tips of those high cheekbones. Ever so carefully, Remus reached to grab his phone and turned off his alarm - it only had two minutes left in it anyways and now Remus could wake Sirius up slowly instead of subjecting him to that heart stopping adrenaline rush that came from having a blaring noise announce the dawn on a new day.

“Sirius,” He whispered, kissing the other man’s forehead. “It’s time to wake up, love.” 

Remus watched, unable to take his eyes away as Sirius’ breathing changed from that deep relaxed state to one more aware of the world. His eyes flickered open and focused immediately on Remus’ own.

“Re?” He mumbled sleepily, moving forward to press his face against the hollow of Remus’ throat and securing his grip around Remus’ waist. “Time is it?” Remus slipped his hands under Sirius’ shirt, relishing the feel of Sirius’ ridiculously warm skin against his hands. “It’s a little past seven, we have to get up, we’re filming today.”

Remus shivered as Sirius’ sigh was warm against his skin, but soon Sirius sat up, stretching high into the air, his joints cracking. Remus laughed and threw a pillow at him as he slid out of bed and padded to the bathroom. 

“I’m just going for a shower, I’ll just be a few minutes.”

Sirius nodded, still yawning. “I should go back to my room anyways, before the world is awake and all that.”

Remus nodded and returned to his side to kiss him goodbye. “See you tonight?” He breathed. Sirius rolled his eyes laughing, “Re, you’ll see me in like, an hour.”

“Yeah,” Remus pouted, “But then everyone will see you. Only I get to see you tonight.”

Sirius smiled, lazily twining his arms around Remus’ neck, leaning against him. “That’s very true, I suppose I’ll see you then too.”

Remus grinned, then pushed his boyfriend away gently. “Go,” He said reluctantly, “Before anyone sees.”

Sirius kissed his cheek, then shoved his feet into his shoes and vanished out the door. Remus wandered to the steaming bathroom in a daze, not quite sure if this was all still just a long, elaborate dream. 

He and Lily wandered down to the tent together, as was tradition at this point.

“I’m not superstitious,” Lily was saying, “But I mean, I’ve gotten this far and if there’s anything I’ve done that’s helped me get here well I’m not going to risk it.” She turned and changed the topic so quickly, Remus was pretty sure he’d get whiplash if he wasn’t so accustomed to her ways. “So how’s Sirius.”

The topic of himself and Sirius was a secret to the world, bar two people - Lily and James. Sirius and Remus had both agreed they wanted a little time to see let their relationship grow a little before being exposed to the public, but there was no denying that both of them needed to tell their best friends. In Remus’ opinion, getting to tell your best friend was one of the very best things about even being in a relationship.

Remus knew the smile on his face was ridiculous and yet he just couldn’t help it. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

Lily stuck out her tongue at him. “Very funny. You know what I mean, how are the two of you getting on?”

Remus wrapped his arm around her shoulder and gave her a little squeeze before pulling away. “So fucking good.”

“Well you sure as hell look like a love-struck idiot.”

It was Remus’ turn to stick his tongue out at her, but his cheeks flushed a little. “Oh hush. You’re one to talk, you’re not too far away from being a love struck idiot yourself.”

Sirius and Remus had a bet to see when James and Lily would finally get their shit together and start dating. Remus said before Bake Off ended. Sirius said after. Remus was trying to do everything in his power to make sure it happened before the end of filming the final (The official ‘cut off’ time) because if there’s one thing to know about Remus Lupin, it’s that he liked to win.

(And also that he thought he might be falling in love, but it was far too early to entertain such thoughts).

The tent was cooler today than it had been other weeks and Remus was glad for it. It was always chilly starting off, but the tent quickly warmed up and Remus would take any reprieve from the overwhelming heat that he could get. Tonks was already at her bench and Remus and Lily went to her, chatting before they had to get in their places.

“It’s weird without Peter isn’t it?” Tonks said, glancing at his vacant station. 

“So weird.” The others agreed, all looking over. Can you believe next week is the final?”

“Shh, Lily don’t jinx it.” Remus said, covering her mouth and then ripped it away cringing. “You licked me!” He rubbed his hand on his apron before going to the sink at Lily’s station and washing his hands.

Lily just shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You totally just licked me, ew.” 

Tonks blinked, the picture of a perfect alibi. “Lily is far too civilized to ever lick people Remus, don’t be ridiculous.”

Remus pointed a finger at Lily. “I’ll get you back for this.” He swore, not at all satisfied when she just stuck her tongue out at him. 

“I look forward to it.” She chirped before Marlene called time and everyone went to their own stations. Remus snuck dirty looks at Lily when the camera’s weren’t on him (and once accidentally when they were - Remus could only imagine the ‘Lily and Remus Fight?’ all over bake off twitter). Sirius and James headed to their spot at the front of the tent and suddenly they were off.

“And we’re back! Welcome everyone to The Great British Bake Off!” Sirius started, smiling broadly for the camera. “Things are getting exciting, aren’t they James?”

“Oh yes,” James continued seamlessly, “Things are really heating up, we’ve made it to this season’s semi-final! I almost can’t believe it, it flew by didn’t it?”

Sirius nodded along. Remus had to smile a little at the extra bits of banter they had to slot in now that there were fewer bakers to cover. Sirius’ eyes flitted to Remus, just for a second and then he scanned the rest of the tent, but Remus knew Sirius was really looking for him. “For sure James, for sure. I think no one expected such a good year!”

Lily snuck him a little smirk and Remus rolled his eyes, miming licking his own hand to turn her mind to other things. Tonks was far more perceptive than people gave her credit for and Remus wouldn’t be surprised if she figured out about himself and Sirius just from a couple of well placed looks. 

“Our lovely judges have decided that today marks the start of biscuit week!” James said, motioning to the two judges standing to the side. “Any words of wisdom for our bakers?”

“They should taste good.” Dumbledore said pleasantly, as if it wasn’t the entire point of the competition and Remus had to couch to cover the sound of him snorting. 

“Well thanks for that absolutely useless piece of advice.” Sirius said with a brazen grin. “For our signature challenge, our judges would like you to prepare twenty four short-bread biscuits.”

The camera’s turned to capture the baker’s reactions while James continued. 

“They should be crisp and crumbly, but still able to maintain their shape, with a golden bake, but be careful that they don’t burn.”

The bakers nodded, more than ready to begin, just waiting for the official go-ahead. 

“On your marks,”

“Get set,”

“Bake!”

“So Remus,” Sirius said as he came up to Remus’ station a little bit in. “What’re you baking for us this week?”

‘You’d think you’d remember, considering I’ve been hand feeding them to you all week.’ Remus wanted to say. But of course instead he just smiled and continued weighing his sugar.

“Lemon and lavender.” He said, offering a sprig of lavender to sniff. “It tastes good, but it also smells so good. It’s a win-win really.”

Remus very pointedly did not look at the way Sirius crushed the flower between his thumb and forefinger before lifting his hand to his face to take a delicate sniff. Remus had to bite down a retort about his etiquette and instead began grating the lemon rind. 

“Well it certainly looks good so far,” Sirius said, so perfectly camera-ready and ready to make some wholesome family entertainment. Remus just smiled at him and returned to his work as Sirius drifted off to chat to some of the others. 

Remus made the biscuits in a bit of a haze to be perfectly honest. He had originally been surprised when he discovered the challenge was shortbreads - he thought they might be a tad simple for something as grand as the semi finals, but he learned pretty quickly that if you looked away for a second, these little bastards would go and burn on you. 

“You look all nice and innocent now,” Remus said to his dough as he folded in the lemon and lavender. “But I know it’s all for show.”

“Remus, sweetheart?” Marleen asked, coming up to his station. 

“Yes?”

“Are you talking to yourself?”

Remus flushed. “No… I’m talking to my dough,”

Marlene nodded bemused. “Because that’s much more normal.”

Remus bit his lip. “Yes?” He said again a lot more hesitantly. Marlene just laughed and began to move on.  “You sure are one hell of a man Remus Lupin.”

Remus just chuckled as he started rolling out his dough. 

“What’ve you done now?” Lily asked, half teasing, half curious as she came back from the bathroom. “I leave for five minutes and I miss everything.”

Remus flicked a bit of extra flour at her as he passed by, leaving tiny white flecks speckled like snow in her hair. “Nothing you haven’t heard a hundred times before.”

“Oh were you talking to your cakes again?”

“Yup.”

“I should’ve known.”

Remus sat with his back against Lily’s station as he stared at his oven. 

“Remus?” James said tentatively.

“Yeah?”

“Did you ever hear that expression - ‘a watched pot never boils’?”

Remus just raised an eyebrow, but didn’t look towards James. “Likewise I think you could say; a watched shortbread never burns.”

James laughed as he slid onto the floor next to him. “You know what? That’s fair, I can get on board with this.”

Remus knew several cameras were trained on them but he didn’t look. “Oi, James, I think you’re using talking to me as a chance to sit on your arse.”

James slung an arm over Remus’ shoulder. “Oh Remus, my love, my life, how you wound me.”

“You can stay if you make us tea.” Remus offered and nearly choked on his laughter when James half-flew from his perch to boil the kettle. 

“You drive a hard bargain, but you have yourself a deal Remus.”

Remus smiled and a few minutes later he happily accepted a steaming mug from James as they both just stared into his oven.

“Psst, Remus,” James whispered. Remus gleaned over at him wryly. 

“Yes?”

“Is it supposed to be this boring?”

“Doing practically nothing and getting paid for it? Why yes, yes I believe it is.”

James laughed but didn’t say any more for a moment. Remus was suddenly very aware that he was sitting next to one of the very few people who knew about himself and Sirius. He liked James, he liked him a lot and while they got on great, they had never really spent any time just the two of them. And while this wasn’t exactly the two of them hanging out - they were literally working, surrounded by people and being filmed nonetheless, it still felt a little important. Remus wished he could say something, but there was no real way to say ‘Hey, I’m falling for your best mate, let’s get to know each other better’ and be totally discreet. But James reached over and ruffled his hair once and when Remus shoved him off, laughing, he knew. 

James was thinking that too. 

Remus kept staring at the oven, but on the inside, he was smiling. He and James would be good friends. 

James moved on after a little while, but Remus stayed where he was. At one point, he took the tray out of the oven and covered it loosely with tin foil.

“You cover it lightly, like this, see?” He explained for the camera, “This is a good trick for cakes especially - it’ll keep cooking but it prevents the top from burning. Our oven when I was growing up was a bit dodgy and it loved to burn the tops of my cakes while the inside wouldn’t even be cooked, that’s why I picked this trick up.”

Marlene grinned and gave him a thumbs up. “That might be the longest time I ‘ve filmed you without you cursing.”

“Fuck yes! Wait shit, I mean fuck, I mean, ugh just go.”

Marlene left laughing and Remus popped his tray back in the oven, making sure the tin foil was only covering the top - not secured around it, otherwise the cookies would just sweat inside and go soggy. 

Remus had just taken them out of the oven to start plating them when Sirius called the ten minute mark. 

“Christ this will be interesting.” Remus muttered, again to himself as he started transferring the, still hot, biscuits onto the plate.

“Don’t break, don’t break, don’t break.” He chanted, managing to get ten transferred successfully until the eleventh split in two.

“Oh you fucker.” Remus cursed, rearranging everything so he could hide it under the others. The rest however went well and in the end he had twenty four pretty good looking biscuits, all stacked neatly.

The judges came in, smiling at them. Remus had thought they might become more open when there were fewer of them, but it had seemed the opposite. He figured they must to want to get attached to anyone, let it influence or bias their decision. That was the best call, but Remus was still a little disappointed, he’d looked up to them all his life and he had barely interacted with them ever since he’d arrived. 

“Mr Lupin,” McGonagall greeted as they arrived at his station, “What’ve you got for us today?”

“Lemon and lavender.” Remus said and it only took about seven weeks, but his voice didn’t tremble at all.

Dumbledore took one first, breaking it in half. “It doesn’t have the ‘snap’ we were looking for, but that’s probably just because they’re still a little warm.”

They both took a bite and there was the awkward sound of nothing but their chewing for a moment. “These are excellent.” McGonagall said and Remus thought this was it, he could die happy now. An ‘excellent’ from McGonagall, he was set.

“The flavours are lovely, and you balanced it quite well, I was worried the lavender would be too overpowering.”

Remus laughed, remembering the first time he had tried it, using so much lavender they had tasted more like soap than cookies. “A little goes a long way.” He admitted. 

They both nodded, smiling as they chewed and then they were gone. Remus sighed as he sat down, those challenges were getting simultaneously more and less nerve wrecking. He was growing accustomed to them, which helped, but the stakes were infinitely higher than they had ever been before. 

Remus welcomed the lunch break gratefully, all of them taking the hour to relax. They had all done really well on the challenge. Which was good, Remus supposed, but it meant there really was some tough competition if he wanted to stay. 

They grabbed a spare tablecloth and threw it on the grass, collapsing down on it. Lily lay with her head in Remus’ lap and Remus had to hide his laugh when both James and Sirius looked slightly put out by it. Tonks spent the entire time trying to re-do her hair which had all fallen from the tight braids she had that morning, until Kingsley offered to take over, his fingers quick and nimble, even with Tonks’ short hair. 

“Damn Kingsley, a man of many talents.” Sirius said with a low whistle.

“I think,” James began grandly, “I think that we should all just go to sleep.”

“That would make a riveting episode.” Remus agreed, I can see it now, half an hour of footage of us just sleeping.”

Lily snorted. “I mean, we could finally clear up the ‘does Remus snore’ issue. I vote yes.”

“Nah, he doesn’t.” Sirius said, Remus’ eyes snapping to him, heart pounding in his chest as he watched Sirius realise what he said. “That’s what I’d vote for anyway.” He said quickly, rushing to recover. "Look at him, does he look like someone who snores to you?”

Remus laughed, trying to move past the moment. “It’s Lily who snores.”

“I do not!” Lily protested, sitting up. “You know who snores? Tonks.”

Tonks flicked her newly plaited hair. “I shall neither confirm nor deny.”

“Translation,” Sirius added, “She definitely snores.”

“I think everyone snores, they're just all in denial.” Kingsley said, and everyone laughed, continuing eating. 

“Except for me.” James said, breaking their silence and everyone just groaned. Remus lay back, staring up at the sky through the trees. All was good. 

“Welcome back for our technical challenge!” Sirius welcomed as soon as the cameras had begun recording. “For today’s challenge, our judges would like you to make jammie dodgers.”

A burst of surprise lit in Remus’ chest, he had never actually made jammie dodgers, but they were a favourite of his grandmothers, so he used to always have them whenever he would go visit her. 

“The biscuit should be buttery and hard, with a jam filling of your choosing.” James elaborated, clasping his hands together. “Judges? Anything to say?”

“We’d also like to see a shape in the centre of the cookie.” Dumbledore added. “Which is of course, of your own choosing.”

“Okay well thanks for that.” Sirius said, beginning to shoo them out. “Now off you go, you cheeky buggers.”

The entire tent burst out laughing and Remus knew he’d have to mock Sirius for that one later. 

“Alright well, if no one see’s Sirius after today it’s because McGonagall has given him detention.” James quipped. 

“Ready?”

“Set.”

“Bake!”

Remus lifted the white and blue checked cloth to peep at his little pile of ingredients and equipment. 

“I don’t think I’ve had jammie dodgers since I was ten and visiting my gran.” Lily called and Remus chuckled, turning around. 

“That’s literally exactly what I was thinking.”

“Hot take,” Tonks said, throwing a tea towel in their direction to get their attention, the cameras circling them all like vultures. “Only grannies like jammie dodgers, McGonagall set this challenge and hence, she has big grandmother energy.”

“Um, no,” Remus sassed. “If anyone’s the granny of the pair, it’s obviously Dumbledore.”

“Remus is the granny of our group so I think he knows best.” Lily agreed, gesturing wildly at Remus’ cream knit cardigan. Remus just laughed as he rolled up his sleeves and washed his hands. 

“If I’m a granny then I’m those cool ones who teach the kids curse words and give them ice cream even when the parents say no.”

Kingsley looked up from where he was intensely studying his recipe and nodded. “Remus is a cool nan; confirmed.”

Everyone applauded and Remus took a little bow. “Thank you, thank you very much. It's such an honour and as much as I’d love to address it and give you guys an hour long speech, I’m not gonna ‘cause we have a fuck ton of work to do.”

“Remus!” Marlene shrieked and he blew her a kiss. All in all, things were going well.

“These biscuits are going to be the death of me.” Remus half sang to himself as he coated his cookie cutter with far more flour than one would ever deem necessary but the dough kept sticking and Remus’ perfect circles were looking a little less than perfect. Or circular. They were more like strange blobs. His actual grandmother would have found them charming. McGonagall on the other hand, well Remus figured she’d think otherwise. 

“Come on you little fucker.” He murmured and finally he managed to cut one out properly. “Oh thank fuck. Okay right let's keep this going.”

His dough seemed to agree that holding it’s shape did indeed seem to be the best course of action and pretty quickly, they were ready to be filled with jam.

“Hey Re, how’s it going over here?” Sirius asked as he came over, leaning his elbows on Remus’ counter. 

“Alright, I’m just about to put the jam in.”

Sirius perked up, peering into the pot waiting on the hob. “Ooh, what kind of jam did you make?”

Remus grabbed a teaspoon and gave it to Sirius. “Try it and see.”

Sirius eyed him, “Just so you know, I’m sure your jam is excellent but I will have no idea what flavour it is.”

Remus laughed, grabbing a spoon himself to start coating the biscuits. “Just give it a go, I think even you will get this one.”

Sirius looked dubious, but did as he was told. Remus didn’t watch the way his boyfriend’s lips closed around the spoon, nope, no sir. He was a perfect professional. 

(But for the record, Sirius had lovely lips). 

Sirius hummed for a minute, taking his time. Taking so long in fact, Remus had assembled four whole biscuits by the time he finally, tentatively mumbled; “Raspberry?”

Remus grinned. “Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!”

Sirius’s face lit up with such excitement, Remus would swear he was like a little puppy. “Really? Is it actually raspberry?”

“Yup.” Remus affirmed, popping the ‘p’ as he placed the top on another cookie. “You’re doing amazing sweetie.”

Sirius grinned and moved on just as Remus finished putting all the pieces together. E had to say, he was pretty happy with how neat the all looked, finally shaped like actual circles with a perfect little hole in the middle. He sprinkled some castor sugar over the tops and popped them in the oven, setting the timer and then he could finally relax for a moment. 

“Does anyone want a cup of tea?” He asked the crew and spent the next few minutes boiling and reboiling the kettle as he took orders and made more cups of tea than Mrs Doyle in ‘Father Ted’. The remainder of all their biscuits from the last challenge were still hanging around, so Remus and the others passed them out too, everyone enjoying a nice tea break in the middle of filming. None of this section would make it into the actual final cut anyways, it never did. No one wanted to spend their night watching a bunch of strangers stare into their ovens. 

The puff of hot air when Remus opened the oven was intense, but it softened and soon the tent smelled warm and welcoming. Remus transferred his biscuits carefully (none of them breaking this time) and put them on the plate just before Sirius called time.

“Alright bakers, please bring your biscuits to the table at the top of the tent.

The table looked strikingly empty with only four pictures on it. In Remus’ mind there were still ten of them, but moments like this swiftly brought in back to reality. His place today was the last in the line, furthest away from the judges, just after Kingsley. They all took their seats and then; the judges were brought in. 

“Hello again everyone.” McGonagall greeted. “I hope you all haven’t been cheeky buggers.” She said with a glance towards Sirius. Sirius shot her a wink and Remus hand to cover his mouth to stop himself from laughing. 

“Right then,” Dumbledore cut in, “Let’s get started shall we?”

Lily was first and her blueberry jam went down nicely. Tonks’ elderberry jam wasn’t quite as well received - she had been a little light on the sugar and it was a tad tart apparently. Not that Remus would know but, he took their word for it. Kingsley’s was ‘unexpected’, a salted vanilla jam that Remus absolutely had to try and finally, it was Remus’ turn to be judged.

“These are a lovely golden colour to start,” McGonagall said as he picked one up, biting into it. And then she smiled. 

Remus nearly stopped breathing, he got a smile from McGonagall.

“These remind me of my youth.” Dumbledore commented, unaware of the absolute chaos that was Remus’ brain in that moment. 

“Me too, I love the raspberry - sometimes it’s nice to stick to the classics.” McGonagall said and then they were finished and talking quietly amongst themselves to rank them. Remus was holding hands with both Tonks and Lily, Lily on his right and Tonks on his left. 

“Okay right, let’s start.” McGonagall said and once again, they were off. 

“I can’t believe you called McGonagall a cheeky bugger.” Remus said as he lay with his head on Sirius’ chest that night, tucked under the quilt all snuggly and warm. 

“I regret nothing.” Sirius hummed, squeezing Remus’ waist. “You know what I can believe? That you won the technical.”

Remus let out an amused huff. “You’re an eejit oh my god.”

“A loveable eejit though.” Sirius countered. Remus rolled his eyes but agreed. “Yeah, a loveable eejit.”

“Half way through this week’s episode.” Remus commented, stating the obvious. Sirius’ chest rumbled gently beneath him when he would speak. 

“Woah, we’re halfway there-”

Remus twisted, resting his chin on his hands so he could peer up at Sirius. “Are you really singing Bon Jovi right now?”

Sirius shrugged, smirking. “Living on a prayer, baby.”

Remus traced Sirius’ bottom lip with his thumb. “I always hated ‘baby’ as a pet name, but you say it and I just…” His words left him so he just pressed forward, kissing Sirius. The arm around his waist coiled tighter and his hair was lovingly pushed back as he pulled away.

“So it’s good?” Sirius asked softly. 

“Yeah sweetheart. Yeah, it’s good.”

“It’s time for our showstopper challenge!” James announced, looking far too peppy for seven o’ clock in the morning. Remus made a little mental note of that - Lily was a morning person too. 

He was still tying his apron when Sirius continued; “For this challenge, our lovely judges have asked you to make any 3D structure or statue of your choosing.”

James picked up right where Sirius left off, the pair in perfect sync. “Your structure can be made of any kind of biscuit, and as many different types as you like, but it must be 3D and unsupported by anything inedible.”

“Basically,” Sirius translated for the audience, “We need to be able to eat it all.”

“On your marks,”

“Get set,”

“Bake!”

Remus cracked his knuckles and set to work, moving quickly. He had managed to perfect his idea in practice, he had even managed to do it all within the time limit, but he was cutting it close. He could do it all, he just had to move fast.

“How’s the house going Lily?”

Lily grinned, looking up from where she was measuring flour. “Well I’m not gonna lie Remus, currently, it’s not looking great.”

Remus laughed and went back to weighing his own ingredients. Lily was making a little replica of her house back at home. Or what she said was a replica. Honestly she could build Buckingham Palace and claimed she lived there and no one would be any wiser. 

Remus was working with a lot of gingerbread today. For no particular reason, aside from the fact that it was easy to work with and good for holding its shape. Gingerbread houses were made of gingerbread for a reason. He also knew however, that everyone else had gingerbread in their structures somewhere, so they were all working to try to find ways to make theirs just that little bit different. 

Remus had just put his first batch in the oven and was melting chocolate on his Bain Marie when Sirius arrived at his side. 

“So Remus, what’ve you got for us today?”

“I’m making my bike.” Remus said, sliding the reference picture he had brought across the table. He saw the camera’s zoom in on it as Sirius looked it over. 

“You ride a bike.” Sirius was saying. “Of course you ride a bike.”

Remus blushed. “It’s a good method of transportation I’ll have you know.”

“Can you drive?”

Remus glanced up from his chocolate at that. “Technically? Yes. Legally? No.”

Sirius laughed and all Remus wanted to do in that moment was lean forward and catch it, taste that laugh on his lips. Instead, he gave the chocolate a bit of a stir. 

“Well I’ll leave you to it.” Sirius said and with that, he was gone. Remus left his chocolate melt as he went to make the biscuit for the wheels. They were going to be matcha an white chocolate and Remus just hoped they tasted okay because none of them were gluten free so he had never tasted them himself. The ‘metal’ part of the bike was gingerbread that would be coated in chocolate. 

He took the gingerbread out of the oven right as he put the matcha in, taking a deep breath of the warm spicy scent. He quickly set them out on the cooling racks, as spaced out as possible because he needed to get them cooled quickly. While he was waiting in everything, he began setting up the plate he could be presenting it on, brushing it all with edible paint to look like grass with a country lane cutting through the middle. He grabbed one of the biscuits he had made just for this purpose and crumbled it up, sprinkling it over the plate to look like dirt. 

After cutting the gingerbread ever so carefully into the shapes he needed, Remus coated them all with chocolate before pulling the matcha cookies out of the oven. He let them cool while he melted white chocolate and dark chocolate separately.

“Wow Lupin, you’ve got a lot going on here.” James said with a low whistle, standing back to watch Remus go back and forth between his several little tasks, stirring and cooling and assembling. 

“Hi James. Can’t really talk - lot’s to do.”

“No worries, we’ll leave you to it. Just a heads up - there’s twenty minutes left.”

“Fuck, okay, thanks.” Remus said, not even glancing up as he went from the white chocolate to the dark. 

He dipped the matcha in the white chocolate, setting those aside to cool as he ‘glued’ the bike together with chocolate, holding them in place as they dried. 

“Fuck, fuck, I need more hands.” Remus glanced up frantically and spotted Sirius just leaving Tonks’ station. “Hey Sirius? Could I borrow you please?”

Sirius nodded and half jogged over. Remus sent him to wash his hands first, and then Sirius took his place holding the bike together while it dried so Remus could work on everything else.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” He said, coming so close to kissing Sirius’ cheek before freezing and just moving past him. 

“That’s alright.” Sirius grinned. “I’m here for more than just my good looks you know.”

“Oh really? What reasons would those be? Certainly not your sharp wit anyways.” Remus quipped, tapping Sirius’ hip lightly with his own. 

“Oi! I could just leave you know!” Sirius said in mock outrage and Remus laughed as he filled his piping bag with dark chocolate. 

“No, no, I’m sorry, please stay.” He met Sirius’ eyes and there it was just a second, but it might as well have been forever. 

It would be easy to fall in love with him, Remus thought. 

He blinked and secured the nozzle on the piping bag, pulling the matcha cookies close and piping the spikes and wheels of the bike on, trying to keep his hands steady and lines clean as possible. 

“Okay Re, these are dry.” Sirius said, pulling his hands away to reveal all the pieces holding together on their own. 

“Oh my god, amazing, thank you so much, I hereby set you free.”

Sirius brushed back a stray strand of hair, flashing that iconic Sirius Black smile. “No problem. Okay, this is your five minute warning.”

“Oh Christ, okay thanks go away so I can work please.”

Sirius’ laughter filled the tent but Remus wasn’t even smiling as he focused on setting the finishing touches. He added the wheels and carefully transferred the whole thing onto the plate-

“Bakers! Your time is up!”

Remus let out a sigh of relief as he stepped back, his bike looking pretty good, all assembled and plated. He was just pulling out his stool and sitting down when the judges walked in. 

They loved Remus’.  They loved all of them to be perfectly honest. This was the final, and everyone had brought their A-game. Tonks had made the leaning tower of Pisa. Kingsley had made a lovely little bookshelf, complete with little novels. Remus was more than a little jealous of that one, he had to admit. The judges were gone as quickly as they had come and the four contestants moved to sit at the top of the tent as they waited for their return.

“This is it.” Lily murmured. “Here we go.”

For the first time that day, Remus’ stomach was rolling. He wanted this so bad. It wasn’t even about winning - he just wanted to make it to the final. To prove it to little Remus, to his younger self who had dreamed about this. To his future self who could look back at this. 

The judges emerged with Sirius and James, their faces blank and impossible to read.

James spoke first; “Today I have the honour of announcing our star baker.” He looked around at the four of them, pausing for dramatic effect. “Tonight, our star baker is… Kingsley.”

Remus grinned and patted Kinsley’s shoulder in congratulations. He nodded at them and at the judges, a little smile on his face, but his eyes were sparkling. 

“That means I have the horrific job of announcing who’s going home.” Sirius said, his face looking actually drawn. Remus’ chest clenched, was it him? Was his boyfriend about to tell him he hadn’t made it?

“The person who won’t be joining us in this year's final is… Tonks.”

Remus’ heart soared and fell at the same time. He was staying, his friend was not.

He turned and pulled Tonks into a tight hug, her arms slipping around his waist.

“It’s alright,” She was saying, ever the positive presence, “I’m just happy to have made it here in the first place.” She pulled back and kissed Remus on the cheek before hugging Lily, the judges and presenters coming over to join them. Remus could hear McGonagall and Dumbledore talking to her, telling her how close it had been and that she was a truly fantastic baker and Remus smiled to himself. He met Sirius’ eyes and suddenly he wanted all of this to be done with so he could give a hug to the one person he actually wanted. 

He sent Sirius a quick text a little later that he and Lily were going to be with Tonks, helping her pack. He laughed when Sirius responded with “Help her pack, or watch her pack?” Before he set his phone aside and went with Lily to Tonks’ room. 

“Knock knock.” Lily said aloud, pushing the door that had been left slightly ajar, open. “It’s me and Re.”

“Hey guys!” Tonks said, her bright head popping out from the bathroom. “Come on in!”

Tonks was packing her toiletries so Lily and Remus threw themselves on her bed. 

“We brought hot chocolate.” Remus boasted, luring Tonks out to them.

“Of course you did.” She said, sighing fondly. “I would expect no less from the two of you.”

Remus and Lily pulled her onto the bed, sitting her between them. They all sat with their backs against the headboard, legs out in front of them as they sipped their drinks.

“I can’t believe you’re not coming with us to the final.” Lily sighed, resting her head on Tonks’ shoulder.

“I know,” Tonks said, sliding her arm around Lily’s shoulder. “But I’ll be watching from home don’t you worry!”

“Any advice?” Remus joked. 

Tonks raised an eyebrow, knocking her foot against Remus’. “I don’t think I’m the best person to get baking advice from, considering I’ve just been sent home, however I do have one or two things to say.”

“Oh?” Lily prompted.

None of them were even looking at each other, just staring straight ahead, but it was nice, peaceful. The window was cracked open ever so slightly, but the room was still warm and snuggly, made all the better by the abundance of hot chocolate. 

“You, Lily Evans, need to get your act together and ask James out.”

“What?” Lily cried at the exact moment Remus enthusiastically nodded his head in agreement.

“Sorry Lily,” He said, leaning forward so he could see her. “But you totally do. The pair of you are mad for each other.”

“Oh you’re one to talk.” She scoffed, then covered her mouth, her eyes wide. Remus waved her off.

“It’s alright, I was going to tell her anyway.” He said to Lily, before turning to look at Tonks. “Sirius and I are dating.”

Tonks nodded. “Oh I know. I was just waiting for you to bring it up.”

Remus blinked a few times. “Wait, what?”

Tonks nodded like it was obvious. “Yeah, since like, the first week, right? It was so obvious, sure you were worse than Lily and James.”

Lily blushed, but Remus flushed harder. “We only started going out last week.” He spluttered, skin burning. That was the first thing that had surprised Tonks all night.

“Wait really? Fuck, why are boys so dumb?”

“Hey!” Remus protested, looking to Lily for help, but his friend just shrugged.

“It’s true.” She said, “They are.”

Tonks turned to look at her in accusation, pointing a long finger at Lily. “Exactly. Boys are dumb. You know this. That’s why you have to be the one to put James Potter out of his misery before you make the rest of us go insane just from watching you.”

Remus just laughed at Lily’s face and pulled Tonks in for a hug. “I’m gonna miss you.” He murmured as he kissed her iconic hair.

“Me too, but you guys can come visit, yeah?”

Remus smiled. “Oh, just try and stop me.”

Remus crept to Sirius’ room carefully, checking the hallway was clear before knocking on the door. Sirius opened it straight away, stepping aside to let Remus in before pulling him in for a kiss as soon as the door was closed. 

“Hi,” Remus said, all breathy and amused. “I missed you.”

“You were with me all day.” Sirius quipped. 

“Ah yes.” Remus agreed, wrapping his arms firmly around the shorter man, “But as you pointed out so astutely, there were other people there today.”

Sirius hummed happily into another kiss. “I do make an excellent point.”

Remus laughed and guided them both to the bed, the pair exhausted after a long day on their feet. 

“Wanna watch a movie?” Remus asked softly as Sirius curled into his side. Sirius nodded and Remus grabbed the TV remote, turning it on with the press of a button. 

“You made it to the final baby.” Sirius whispered, his voice smooth with sleep. Remus smiled, running his thumb soothingly over the skin of Sirius’ waist, just under the elastic of his sweatpants.

“I did. Now sleep love, I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Night Re.”

Remus smiled and brushed back Sirius’ inky hair as a movie began to play.

 “Night darling.”

[olliepig]

Centre Stage - chapter 8

A bit of a change of scene for this chapter - it’s now Virgil’s turn to get a bit of attention and start getting to know Cat. 

Massive thanks are due to the wonderful @willow-salix for her betaing prowess, and to @misssquidtracy for listening to me complain about it.

As always, the whole thing is available on AO3 here. 

*****************

“Virgil,” Lily called, running up behind him as they crossed through the giant space directly behind the Royal Opera House stage and grabbing his hand to get his attention. “Come and look at this. It’s the set for The Nutcracker.”

“That’s right,” Cat smiled, as Virgil turned, his eyes wide as he took in the massive ornate staircase and walls that towered over them, amazed that he had been so engrossed in conversation with Lily’s mom, Karen, that he had managed to miss spotting them himself. “That’s the Kingdom of the Sweets in Act Two.”

“I knew that already,” Lily informed her earnestly. “We saw it last year and I recognised it from then.”

“Not much gets past you does it?” laughed Cat, her eyes sparkling in amusement as Karen shook her head, suppressing a small laugh at her daughter as she did so.

“No, everyone says I’m very observant,” Lily informed her, confidence oozing out of her now that she had something to focus on, despite having been slightly overawed by the dancer when they had first met at stage door only twenty minutes before. “And look, there’s the Christmas Tree, and the big wheelchair from the battle against the mouse king, and the gingerbread house.”

Allowing her to drag him behind her as she pointed things out, Virgil smiled at how different she was from the little girl who had clung to him, terrified and whimpering for her mum as her home burned around them, a collapsed roof beam blocking their way to safety. He’d never admitted it to anyone but, while they were trapped together waiting for Gordon to arrive, there had been more than a few moments in which he had worried that the outcome might be very different. Trying to distract her as they sat in her bedroom, wet towels blocking the worst of the smoke from entering, he asked about the multitude of ballet posters on the wall and was surprised when she lit up and seemed to enter another world, talking animatedly about her trip to see the Royal Ballet the previous year and how she wanted to be a ballerina when she grew up.

Her passion for it had shone through and that, combined with her bravery in coping with the rescue, made him want to treat her to something special so, as soon as he had been able to, he had contacted Cat to see if there was anything she could do. He had to admit that both she and the company had really gone above and beyond what he had expected, and the fact that Lily had insisted that he accompany her on her special day had made his heart swell.

Her excitement was infectious, and Virgil could feel himself getting caught up in it as he looked around, seeing bits of sets from various different productions all stacked up together, awaiting their next turn on the stage. The space was enormous, much larger than he had imagined it to be based on his previous experiences of being backstage in a theatre during school productions. He’d enjoyed helping to build and paint the sets for those, but the craftsmanship that clearly went into what he saw in front of him made them seem amateur by comparison, the thought making him smile as he realised that, of course, they were.

What looked like a Victorian street scene stood off to one side, attracting his attention and, as Cat talked through The Nutcracker sets with her other guests, he wandered over to take a closer look. Scrawled writing on the back of one of the pieces told him that it was from Act Two of the opera La Boheme, and he lightly ran his fingers over the paint, marvelling at the level of detail that was there, especially as it would never even be visible from the auditorium.

The sight reminded him vividly of an argument he’d had with his art teacher about just that, where he had wanted to make everything as realistic as possible but was told not to bother because it wouldn't be seen anyway. Despite the fact that nearly fifteen years had passed since then, part of him dearly wanted to take pictures and get back in touch to show that he had been right all along, but somehow it didn’t really seem worth it. He was vindicated and ultimately, that was all that mattered.

He could feel the buzz of creativity throughout the whole building as he stood there, dancers making their way past him in costume on their way to the stage for the matinee performance that was already underway. He longed to sit quietly, soaking it all in but as Lily bounced over to him and took his hand, once again dragging him behind her as they made their way up to the rehearsal studios, he was shaken out of his reverie and reminded why he was there in the first place.

Maybe if he spoke to Cat nicely, he thought, she’d let him come back himself another time and truly get to explore and experience all that the theatre had to offer.

-x-

Settling down on seats at the front of the light, airy studio as the dancers conferred with their coach before beginning the rehearsal, Virgil could feel the excitement continuing to radiate off Lily in waves. She was fidgeting in her seat and had been told more than once to sit still but neither he nor Karen were certain that she’d be able to manage it.

Cat, her dance partner, Mark, and the man who had been introduced as their coach, Alexander, moved around the space, marking out what Vigil assumed were bits of choreography. Words of their discussion floated over to him but much of it seemed to be both technical and in French so he quickly gave up trying to make sense of it and sat back to take in the experience instead.

Despite his interest in the rest of the scene before him, his eyes were repeatedly drawn to Cat as she worked, her serious demeanour in contrast to the fun, playful girl that he’d seen when she was on the island. He had no idea why, but now that she was changed into her leotard, tutu and pointe shoes, it had given him a totally different perspective on her, as if his brain had previously not quite put two and two together and realised that she was actually at her place of work and would naturally be dressed accordingly.

It was a regret of his that circumstances had meant he’d not managed to spend more time with her when he had the chance, especially given the apparent seriousness of her developing relationship with his brother. Being allowed to meet one of Scott’s partners was a new experience for all of the family, and getting to spend time with them one to one would have been unthinkable up until now, so this was completely new territory for him. His protective streak for his older brother was well known but Scott’s uncharacteristic openness about her and the way he lit up whenever her name was mentioned made him think that she was perhaps someone who would be around for the long haul and that he should make the most of this opportunity to start getting to know her better.

Movement beside him as Alexander sat down brought him out of his reverie and he looked up just in time to catch Cat flashing him a smile as she and Mark took their places for the start of the Grand Pas de Deux. As the music started, he watched in amazement as she transformed from the woman that he knew into a regal fairy, dancing with her prince. On the stage, he could imagine how effortless it would look but in the confines of the studio, there was no question over the amount of sheer grit and determination it took to get through. The slow movement was followed immediately by two solos and then a coda, and by the time it was over, he could see both dancers dripping with sweat and breathing heavily as they took the applause of their small audience. The fact that they were still on their feet made Virgil fairly certain that both dancers were superhuman. However, the panting heap on the floor that followed their bows suggested that they were, in fact, just like everyone else.

“Very good,” called Alexander as they struggled back onto their feet at the sound of their coaches' voice, catching their breath in preparation for whatever would come next. “Take a moment and we’ll go through a few corrections.”

Virgil smiled at Lily, getting as much enjoyment out of watching her, as she looked on in rapt attention as correction after correction was given out, changing the inflection of a gesture here and the tiniest hint of a movement there. It was painstaking work and, as each adjustment was given and worked through by Cat and Mark, he became more and more aware of how much of a perfectionist Cat must be. He had to admit, she even put Scott to shame.

“Right, we’re not going to run it again so I think it’s time for our newest Sugar Plum to show us what she can do,” Alexander turned to Lily who jumped up straight away, so desperate to join in that she had already put her ballet shoes on in preparation.

“I’ve been practising the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” she told him excitedly, speaking so quickly that it was hard to keep up.

“How wonderful,” Cat jumped in with a smile. “If you’re willing to show us, I’d love to see it. It’s a really difficult solo and I always love seeing how other dancers interpret it.”

Lily beamed and quickly nodded her assent, pride radiating out of her at the suggestion that her dancing was on a par with the two experienced professionals, as she ran up to the back of the studio to take her place.

“Are you ready?” Cat asked, smiling at the enthusiasm and confidence in the young dancer, knowing that she’d have absolutely gone to pieces if given the same opportunity when she was that young.

With a nod of confirmation from Lily, the music started, familiar strains of Tchaikovsky filling the studio. With no hesitation, the young dancer moved through the dance, her natural ability shining through. The fact that she kept to a comparatively small area in the studio told Cat that she had likely taught herself the dance in her own home rather than working on it with a teacher in a larger space.

A smile passed across Cat’s face as she watched her, reminded of all the times that she had studied recordings again and again, learning the dances by herself and dreaming of the day that she would get to perform on the stage instead of in her bedroom. Sitting forward to watch her critically, Lily’s lack of formal training was clear but, given her age and obvious talent, she knew that there was absolutely no impediment to the girl having a successful career if the right opportunities were made available to her.

“That was fantastic,” Cat declared as Lily’s applause died down. “You really danced that beautifully.”

“I agree,” Virgil concurred. “I think it’s a tough call to decide who did it better but I think Lily might have just nudged it. Sorry Cat.”

“I’d agree with that,” Mark chipped in. “It was a close call but I think Lily had a softness to her that you don’t have yet Cat.”

“Well, I guess I’ll just need to work on it a bit more then, won’t I?” smiled Cat, thoroughly enjoying the confidence that was shining out of the girl. “Now, how about we teach you the start of the adagio and you can dance it with Mark?”

“Really?” Lily cried, her eyes lighting up.

“Really. I’d be honoured to be the prince to such a beautiful Sugar Plum Fairy,” Mark said, stepping forward with a bow, making Lily giggle.

“But if I dance with him, who’s going to dance with you?” Lily asked, turning to Cat, her forehead creased in worry.

“Nobody, but that’s OK. I don’t mind,” Cat replied with a smile.

“I think you should dance with Virgil. He could be a prince for you,” Lily continued, fixing Virgil with a pleading look that he knew he was powerless to refuse.

“I’m not sure Virgil really wants to be a prince,” Cat replied gently, looking over questioningly at him, surprised to find that he was already taking his shoes off in preparation.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” he replied with a shrug, a grin creeping over his face. “Today is all about Lily, so if the young lady wants me to dance, then I shall dance.”

“OK then,” Cat laughed, turning back to Lily and ushering her into the centre of the studio where Mark was waiting for her. “Well then, Lily, it looks like you’ve found me a new prince so you don’t need to worry about me.”

Cat held out her hand to Virgil, tugging him into the centre of the studio and helping him to organise himself into the closest approximation he could manage of the starting position that Mark was already demonstrating.

“So, the first four counts of four are really just the preparation, so take that time to walk around in a small circle, stepping up into fifth position on demi pointe in the final one as Mark bows to you,” Cat began, directing Lily around the space. “Then you want to take a step towards him, back up into fifth position croise, holding his hand for support and then use that front leg for a developpe devant. Good, just like that. Now, bring that working leg back through retire and into attitude derrière. While you’re doing that, Mark is going to spin you around slowly OK?”

Cat demonstrated the sequence to Lily, using Virgil as her partner, effortlessly maneuvering him into place with a gentle, but firm, guiding hand and verbally running through the steps once again, more for Virgil's benefit than Lily's, then returning to assist her and Mark.

Lily nodded, hanging on every word as the two dancers fussed around her, correcting her position and making sure she was comfortable.

“Once you get there, put your hand on his shoulder, and use that for balance if you need it while he lets go of your other hand so you can untangle it after the turn,” Cat continued, watching with critical eyes as Lily tentatively reached up and placed her hand on Mark’s shoulder, looking back over to Cat for confirmation once she had done so. “That’s perfect. Now he’s going to promenade you around so just hang on and try to keep your balance while you hold that position. Let him do the work.”

“Do you understand a word they’re saying?” Virgil asked quietly, shuffling closer to Lily’s mum, Karen so he wasn’t overheard.

“Not a single thing,” she smiled, glad that she wasn’t alone in being baffled.

“I hope you’re paying attention, Virgil,” Cat called over, somehow having developed eyes on the back of her head. “It’s going to be your turn next.”

Virgil jumped guiltily but grinned as he returned to his designated position with a cheeky, "Yes, ma'am."  

***

“So, what made you want to do this for a living?” Virgil asked, gesturing to the studio as Cat pulled on a tracksuit over her rehearsal clothes, their time in the studios having come to an end.

Lily and Karen had been whisked off for a tour of the theatre now that the matinee had finished, after which they were being treated to a meal and tickets to the evening performance of Coppelia. Mark had already left for another rehearsal, leaving just the two of them until Scott and Selene arrived for dinner later.

“It was my grandma,” Cat told him with a small smile, standing and shouldering her bag. “She brought me to see Swan Lake here when I was six and from then on I couldn’t imagine not being a part of this world.”

“Aww that’s lovely,” Virgil grinned, remembering all the things he'd done with his own. “Grandma’s are the best.”

“They sure are,” Cat nodded, holding open the studio door and ushering Virgil out into the corridor, making their way down to her dressing room. “I couldn’t stop talking about ballet afterwards so she started sneaking me to classes. My mum didn’t approve and thought it was a waste of time but if Grandma paid then she was happy to go along with it.”

“I’ll never understand why people think the arts are a waste of time,” Virgil commented, remembering well how he felt his love of painting had been treated at times.

“Me neither,” Cat agreed. “They can give kids so much freedom of expression and a confidence that they don’t get anywhere else and it really annoys me when art and theatre get dismissed.”

“I can relate to that,” he nodded. “So, did you go to classes all the way through school then? I don’t really know how it all works I’m afraid.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Cat reassured him, suppressing a grin at the appreciative glances that were being thrown an oblivious Virgil’s way as they dodged around a group of dancers heading back from the stage. “My dance teacher suggested I audition to become a Junior Associate of the Royal Ballet School when I was eight and when I got in, Grandma snuck me up to London for my class every Saturday morning, bless her. Then, when I got into the school at eleven, she took on my mum and stepdad and convinced them to let me go.”

“Were they not keen on the idea?” Virgil asked, knowing that Cat didn’t speak to any of her family and wondering if that might have had something to do with it.

“You could say that,” Cat laughed, opening the door to her dressing room and ushering Virgil inside. “They hated the idea of fee-paying schools and thought that full time training at that age was a waste of time. After a lot of arguing, they told me that if I took the place, I wouldn’t be part of the family any more and that they’d do what they legally had to until I was sixteen but then I’d have to figure it out for myself. Grandma reassured me I’d always have a place with her so I went, but she passed away when I was halfway through my first year and I was pretty much on my own after that.” “That’s terrible,” Virgil gasped, wondering how anyone could be so callous to their own child.

“Yeah, it wasn’t ideal,” Cat agreed with a shrug as she dropped her bag on the floor and took her seat at her mirror, gesturing to Virgil to take his pick of the other seats scattered around the room as she did so. “Luckily, Penny had taken me under her wing by then so I was OK in the end, but it wasn’t great.”

“Do you have any contact with them at all any more?” Virgil asked, intrigued enough to ask despite his uncertainty about whether he was treading a little too close to the edge of what was acceptable or not. From what he’d seen so far, she seemed very open and willing to answer anything, but he knew only too well that appearances could be deceptive.

“My mum occasionally comes crawling out of the woodwork when she wants something,” Cat shrugged, pulling pins out of her hair and shaking it out so it tumbled around her shoulders. “I’ve not spoken to my stepdad since I was sixteen, thank God, and my real dad walked out when I was five. I don’t even know if he’s still alive or not, so he’s not in the picture either. I don’t have any brothers or sisters that I know about either, so I’ve probably got the easiest family history to trace ever.”

“It’s quite the difference from our family,” Virgil mused. “Obviously we lost our mom when we were all quite young, but at least we had Dad on our side until we were mostly grown. It was tough after his accident though, and Scott had to take on a lot.”

“Yeah, I can’t even imagine how hard that must have been for all of you,” Cat sympathised. “I think it was probably easier for me because I always knew that it was coming so I was able to prepare myself for it.”

“Well that’s one way of looking at it,” Virgil laughed, amazed at the relentless positivity that Cat seemed to exude about what must be the darkest moments of her history.  “Changing the subject slightly, can I ask you something?

“Ask away,” Cat invited, taming her hair into a long plait as she watched him in the mirror, wondering what was coming her way next.

“Does it cost a lot to become a dancer?” he asked tentatively, knowing that finance was not always something that people were comfortable talking about. “It’s just that, when we were waiting for Gordon to dig us out, Lily told me that she wants to be a ballerina but her mum had said it was too expensive for her to go to a proper ballet school. I wasn’t sure what she meant at the time but I assume she was talking about one of the full-time ones?”

Cat sighed, knowing only too well that funding was a massive issue for the arts in general but ballet was a profession that needed specialist training from a young age that not everyone could afford.

“Unfortunately, depending on her circumstances, she may be right,” she agreed reluctantly. “Local ballet schools are fine for the first bit of training and for dancing for fun, but for most kids, if they want to be a professional, then they need to go to one of the big residential schools and they can cost a fortune. I was lucky enough to get a scholarship but there aren’t many of them to go around so a lot of talented kids never even get the chance.” “That’s such a shame,” Virgil sighed, his brain immediately kicking into gear to think up ways that he could help.

“Yeah, it’s something that’s bothered me for years,” Cat agreed, happy to find someone to talk to about a subject close to her heart. “I wouldn’t be sitting here if I hadn’t had the financial help, but the reality is that someone else probably lost their chance at being a dancer because it was given to me instead. I’ll never know who it was and whether they made it in the end, but I’ve always felt a bit guilty about it and it pushes me to be the best I can to prove to the people that made the decision to give it to me that they made the right choice.”

“Well, I don’t think anyone can say you’ve not made the most of it,” Virgil laughed, taking in the multiple production posters hanging on the walls, many featuring pictures of Cat, staring back at him.

“I hope not anyway,” Cat smiled, unable to hide the hint of pride in her tone. “It just seems a shame to me that training can’t be on merit alone. I know it costs a lot and that the schools need to make money to survive, but it’s not right that so many are excluded just because it’s beyond their families' means.”

“I’d agree with that,” Virgil nodded. “Is there not much help available from the government?”

“Not in this country anyway,” Cat shook her head sadly. “Places like Russia are different, but here there’s a definite lack of funding for the arts in general, not just ballet training, and I guess it’s not a very glamorous investment for private firms. For every Darcey Bussell or Margot Fonteyn, there are plenty who never make it through so it’s not something that’s going to give a guaranteed return.”

“Yeah, I can see why a lot of companies might not go for that,” Virgil mused, a germ of an idea starting to form in his head.

“Plus, having a scholarship puts a lot of pressure on kids,” Cat added as she watched Virgil closely, curious as to what he was thinking, having seen the same look on his brother when he was planning something. “It’s something I thrived on but not everyone does. But it’s a real shame for Lily if she’s not going to be able to pursue it. From what I’ve seen today, she’s got real talent and a good eye for detail, that’s almost as important.”

Before Virgil could reply, a loud chime from Cat’s phone interrupted them, announcing the arrival of Scott and Selene at the stage door. Hurrying out of the room to meet them, Virgil’s mind continued to turn over the information he’d been given, a more concrete plan beginning to coalesce.

[fireinmywoods]

the heart of the matter (is Leonard McCoy)

Followers...friends. I come to you today, hat in hand, to ask for your support in a certain fandom matter, a trifling concern of little real consequence which nevertheless has been driving me absolutely cross-eyed bonkers for some years now.

Simply put: can we please all agree that Bones is the heart of the Enterprise???

In AOS, I mean. I’m not aware of any debate over this when it comes to TOS, where the roles of the triumvirate have always been explicit, though there are a few different ways to identify them:

Spock = logos = superego = head

Bones = pathos = id = heart

Kirk = ethos = ego = soul

So clear! So clean! So universally accepted by Trek fandom at large!

Oh, but things get murkier in AOS, and there are plenty of posts floating around which suggest that it’s Kirk, not McCoy, who serves as the heart in the Kelvin timeline. Even the writers of the first two AOS films have outright stated that their interpretation of the triumvirate had the original roles switched, with Kirk as the highly emotional one and McCoy as the arbiter between Kirk’s passion and Spock’s logic. It’s true that this technically counts as a Word of God pronouncement by the actual creators of 2/3 of the series thus far, which some would argue renders it canon. However, it’s equally true that those same creators also felt that Kirk was a fuckboi and that Benedict Cumberbatch wonderfully embodied their vision for Khan Noonien Singh, so honestly, who gives a hot hollerin’ fuck what those dingdongs think. This seems as justified a time as any to invoke Death of the Author, and in fact, it’s my firm belief that despite the writers’ intentions, Star Trek and Into Darkness both support the original triumvirate breakdown.

Under the cut you’ll find a long-winded and self-indulgent ~*~character analysis~*~ of the Kelvin-timeline incarnations of Jim Kirk and Leonard “Bones” McCoy, reviewing why Leonard is still unmistakably the heart, unpacking what the hell Jim’s deal is, and finally taking a look at some key examples from canon, because ya girl believes in showing her work.

Let’s get down to business.

[A quick warning, as this is starting to spread beyond my own followers: if you don’t like McKirk as a romantic pairing, you ain’t gonna like part IV, so I’d bow out before then or just take your leave now.]

i. Leonard

Independent of Jim’s characterization, it should be blindingly obvious that Leonard is the heart. He’s by far the most nakedly emotional of our seven core crew members, a trait we see writ large and small throughout the films. He’s reactive; he’s passionate; he’s humane. He cares, first and foremost.

Not about Starfleet, of course. Leonard doesn’t give a damn about playing the game or advancing his career, or even really about the Enterprise’s mission - he has no desire to explore strange new worlds, he’ll pass on seeking out new life and new civilizations, and he spends half his time trying to convince everyone else that boldly going where no man has gone before is a great way to die horribly. Fuck exploration, fuck space, and fuck the Federation while we’re at it. Leonard is perhaps the most improbable of the Enterprise’s senior officers for the simple reason that he seems to resent everything about the job.

Well. Almost everything.

See, what Leonard cares about is people. He cares about their lives, about their stories, about their hopes and dreams, about their suffering. That’s why he entered and has stayed in an extremely taxing caring profession, and it’s why he’s still on the Enterprise despite his incessant bitching about everything they do. He wouldn’t trust anyone else to take care of the crew he’s become so attached to, and he finds fulfillment in helping the people they encounter out there in the nightmare of space.

In every timeline, Leonard McCoy defines himself by what he can do for others: the pain he can ameliorate, the wounds he can heal, the diseases he can cure, the small amounts of good he can bring to a galaxy filled with so much absolute horseshit. Unlike most of his colleagues, he��s not motivated by curiosity or an adventurer’s spirit or a burning desire to make sense of the universe. (Fuck the universe, too, as a matter of fact.) Instead, he’s driven by the incredible depths of his compassion and empathy and concern for the people he serves alongside and those they meet along the way.

Sure sounds like the heart to me.

ii. Jim

I actually totally get why some people characterize Kelvin-timeline Jim as the heart. He’s quite literally a different man than the original timeline’s Kirk, and he definitely has more of the pathos qualities to him. Early on, he’s a total spitfire, fierce and hot-blooded, quick to anger and other sharp-edged emotions we’re not used to associating with James T. Kirk. Even as he grows into himself and leaves some of those traits behind, he remains spontaneous, passionate, protective, and self-sacrificing - easy enough to mistake for the heart if you squint.

But let’s not confuse having a heart for being the heart. Sure, Jim is more openly emotional and reactive than his TOS counterpart, but there’s still a marked difference between the way he and Leonard express and act on their emotions.

AOS Jim definitely has a lot of feelings - big ones - but at the end of the day, he’s not driven by his heart. He’s driven by his gut.

Whenever there’s trouble, Jim makes a beeline right for the center of it. He’s impulsive as hell, rarely pausing to think past his first instinct, because he just wants to be doing something, no matter the odds, no matter what it costs him. He explicitly calls himself out on this in ST:ID when arguing with Spock: “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. I only know what I can do.” He doesn’t have the patience or the constitution to sit and debate all the options, either internally or with his crew. If there’s a path forward from where he is, even a bad one, Jim’s gonna take it.

[Sidebar: One could make the case that the roots of Jim’s instinct to act reach back to his childhood traumas - canonically ignored abuse and neglect on the one hand, and the Tarsus IV famine and massacre on the other - but that’s a whole post on its own and we ain’t got all day here.]

Jim can’t not act, and while that gets him into a lot of trouble, it also saves lives. Sulu probably appreciated that Jim’s gut drove him to leap off Nero’s drilling platform without a moment’s hesitation after a man he’d only just met. He may have been a real shithead about it, but Jim’s impassioned insistence on going after the Narada and not wasting time on the possibility of a better option was key to saving Pike and Earth itself. And I don’t know why Spock was so surprised that Jim intervened to save him on Nibiru, considering that the reason they were there in the first place was because Jim couldn’t sit back and watch the Nibirans die when there was something his crew could do to help them, even if it meant risking a violation of the Prime Directive.

Jim is a good man with a big heart, and he cares about people, absolutely. But he cares most of all about Doing The Right Thing - which in the heat of the moment often translates to Doing Something, Anything, Hold My Beer.

iii. heart vs. gut (i.e., time for some receipts)

I think one of the main reasons Leonard and Jim’s characterizations get confused is because they both tend to act on instinct, only lightly informed by higher reasoning. However, I’d argue that their motivations and the nature of those actions are super distinct, and those distinctions remain relatively consistent throughout all three films. (And y’all know I really mean this shit if I’m out here calling ST:ID consistent.)

Jim is a big picture guy, figuratively and often literally heaving himself full-body into the mix of whatever problem the crew has encountered for lack of any better alternative. That energy propels the plots of all three films: the chaotic path he carves through the events of Star Trek and ST:ID, and the slightly calmer but still undeniably bananas course he charts for himself and his crew in the second half of Beyond.

As the heart, Leonard operates on a more micro level. His concern invariably lies with the individual people caught up in those grand events Captain Chaos is busy dragging them all through. While Jim’s zooming around flipping plot switches, Leonard can always be counted on to bring it back to the personal.

We frequently see this juxtaposed right there on film. Think of that slow pan through medbay in the first movie after the Narada’s ambush and the destruction of Vulcan: while Jim is stewing over what to do about the Big Bad, Leonard has stepped into the CMO role without fuss or fanfare to care for the wounded crew and traumatized survivors.

Or jump ahead to Beyond: during Krall’s attack on the Enterprise, there’s a gorgeous cinematic shot of Jim sprinting down the corridor with two crew members to take on the invaders - and then we cut to Leonard moving slowly through those same ghastly red-lit corridors, searching for casualties in need of help, visibly affected by what his scanner is telling him about the downed crewman he tries to save.

Actually, Beyond as a whole does terrific justice to each of their roles. (Perhaps because it was not written by dingdongs.) The first act finds Jim flailing around for a sense of purpose and forward momentum - an understandable consequence of a gut-driven character having stalled out for too long - and he ultimately gets his mojo back by spending the rest of the film careening through one insane seat-of-his-pants ploy after another. Meanwhile, in the quieter moments between all the mayhem, Leonard serves as the empathetic sounding board for both Jim and Spock as they struggle with deep emotionally charged secrets and Big Life Questions, helping them untangle their feelings and reminding them of the emotional attachments which are ultimately key to their respective decisions to stay on the Enterprise.

More examples, you say? Don’t mind if I do!

Star Trek

GUT: Jim hurtles around the Narada, improvising almost every step of the way and paying the price for his and Spock’s scheme in bodily harm, and ultimately succeeds in rescuing Pike. HEART: Leonard calls out for Jim as he runs into the transporter room, overwhelmed with relief that he’s made it back, and takes Chris Pike’s weight literally and figuratively onto his own shoulders to begin healing him while Jim runs back off to the center of the action.

Star Trek: Into Darkness

GUT: Jim argues with Leonard, Spock, and Scotty in quick succession as he’s preparing to drag them all off to Qo’noS, immune to their attempts to reason with him because, unraveled as he is by grief and pain, he can only focus on his visceral drive to Do Something. HEART: Unlike the others, Leonard is upset not about the larger moral questions of whether it’s right to go after John Harrison or bring torpedoes aboard the ship, but about the fact that Jim himself is hurt and hurting and won’t accept help.

GUT: Jim makes a snap decision to sacrifice himself by hurling his body against the warp core to realign it and save his crew. HEART: Shellshocked by the emotional grenade of his best friend’s death, Leonard suddenly realizes, through the haze of his own numbness and upswelling grief, that he might still be able to do something for this lonely radiation-ravaged body he’s been brought and the life it represents.

Star Trek Beyond

GUT: At the tail end of an improvised plan to out-maneuver Kalara, Jim quite literally shoots first and asks questions later, igniting a fuel tank and setting off an explosive series of events which he and Chekov just barely escape. HEART: The next time we see Leonard, Spock is opening up to him about Ambassador Spock’s death and his own plan to leave Starfleet for New Vulcan - and while he’s empathetic toward Spock (I can’t imagine what that must feel like), Leonard’s thoughts go immediately to the emotional impact of Spock’s plan on the other people he’s closest with. (I can see how that would upset [Nyota]. / I can tell you, [Jim]’s not gonna like that.)

GUT: Jim frantically strains to reach the final switch in the life support hub, believing that he’s going to die either way since the vent has already opened, but spurred on by the knowledge that his ability to move that switch is the only thing standing between Yorktown and annihilation. HEART: Knowing exactly what’s at stake, with the fate of the station and millions of lives hanging in the balance, Leonard’s greatest concern is that Jim won’t make it out in time.

iv. never bet against the heart

Let’s wrap this up with a deep dive on one of the absolute best examples of Leonard as the heart: his decision to sneak Jim onto the Enterprise in the first movie.

As relentlessly as I drag him for the, you know, poisoning and kidnapping aspects of that whole deal, there’s no denying that it is a god-tier heart move. Is it logical? Absolutely not. Is it really the right thing to do for either himself or Jim, as far as he knows at the time? Nope. It’s 100% the wrong choice for his own job security, reputation, and relationships with his fellow crew, and it’s almost guaranteed to get Jim into even worse trouble. Leonard is a smart dude who must understand that this course of action will likely end up coming back on them both in a real bad way. For someone who argues loudly and often in defense of self-preservation, this is a shockingly bad idea.

But none of that matters, because Jim shakes his hand and tells him to be safe with that horrible empty-eyed smile, and it gets him right in the heart, one-two-three.

One: sympathy, worry, and affection for Jim - his best friend, his wild and troublesome stray, his only family.

Two: guilt over adding onto Jim’s pain, and the instinctive urge to fix whatever‘s hurting him.

Three: fear of heading out into the unknown by himself, the agonizing uncertainty of not knowing what’s coming, craving for the security and reassurance Jim’s presence would give him.

“Dammit,” Leonard says, as his heart wins out over his brain. He knows this is a garbage plan, and he doesn’t care. His heart chooses Jim. That’s all that matters.

So he goes back for Jim, and to his own surprise it turns out that this Very Bad Idea was actually a Very Good Idea because Jim’s impulsive instincts end up saving Earth, and Leonard’s not in the habit of fixing what ain’t broke so he figures he may as well keep on chasing Jim’s crazy ass around the galaxy for a while, through jungles and off cliffs and into the goddamn afterlife when need be, until finally one day Jim’s gut drives him right into Leonard’s arms and he suddenly realizes that this is what his heart was choosing all those years ago: Jim’s wide terrified eyes, Jim’s voice breaking over his name, Jim’s hand pressing hard against his chest, reaching out for what’s his.

But that’s another story.

[obeymeluv]

Ohhh how about the boys reacting to a lower demon hitting on reader? Like aggressively hitting on them that it’s already quite uncomfortable? Or it could be the shy, almost sweet type?

Hey there! Holy wow, how long has this been here? I usually check Tumblr from my phone and I guess message notifications don’t come through? So sorry T_T

Either way, Nonnie, this isn’t good :o

Divider from Glitter Geeks

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“It cannot be helped, for I am born of sin and they inspire it in me.”

♥.·:*¨¨*:·.♥.·:*:·.♥.·:*¨¨*:·.♥ ♥.·:*¨¨*:·.♥.·:*:·.♥.·:*¨¨*:·.♥ ♥.·:*¨¨*:·.♥.·:*:·.♥.·:*¨¨*:·.♥

Lucifer

This is the BIGGEST, ULTIMATE NO

Like, all of Mammon’s past transgressions don’t POSSIBLY add up to this insult

At first Lucifer pays no mind because you seem to be integrating into the Devildom and furthering Diavolo’s grand plan. Good!

Then it starts to gnaw at him and he really pays attention. Call it the keen eye of an ex-angel, to watch over humans

Half of him is earnestly trying to plan things to say on the way over, not hearing how his own footsteps echo thunderously with impending doom, but half of him can’t even concentrate due to the overwhelming sense of wrong.

You seem very uncomfortable, this lesser demon is more incompetent than he thought possible, and there’s something hot and nauseating burning in him. It almost hurts to clear his throat, honestly

It feels like the part he’d forgotten about...almost all that Satan was. He honestly thought he didn’t have any wrath left in him, for pride seemed far nastier a thing to be stuck with

He lets those big black wings, once the pride of the Celestial Realm, unfurl in a great and terrifying display. He used to shine in the Celestial Realm when he revealed his true form, but in the Devildom it translates as pure heat

He fans his wings to cool the air around you but the lesser demon now knows his looming shadow and his terrifying presence

If the demon is bold enough to stick around, Lucifer introduces you as the resident human transfer, discourages them from making you late, and suggests any further interaction happen in the presence of one of your seven guardians (“Of which I am one.”)

Although he mentioned seven guardians, it’s clear that he’s the key guardian. The one who will oversee all, and that’s enough to send the demon skittering away.

It takes a few minutes for the air to cool and his wings to fold back in and Lucifer uses that time to glare a burning hole into the lesser creature.

Finally he looks at you and asks you how you’re feeling. Nothing bad happened? Do you need to file paperwork?

Would probably consort with Diavolo to cast a minor enchantment so you could protect yourself if one of the brothers weren’t around

Mammon

You think another demon’s going to get close enough to talk to you? While in the presence of your NUMBER ONE MAN?! Ha!

Mammon may complain about having to go to classes and tries to convince you to ditch more often than not, but he really does look out for you

And boy is Greed’s Avatar so he’s not going to skimp on the company

That also means he’s not going to share your company when he doesn’t feel like it

Mammon may not be openly flirtatious like Asmo, but he knows all about swindling people for their heart (for it is just as valuable as money) and he knows when this demon comes slithering up that he’s BAD NEWS

He’s clever with money-making schemes, has successfully stolen from almost all of his brothers to pawn things, and has brokered deals with witches in such a way that he’s barely affected. Boy’s going to know how to dodge a creep

And for a while, it works. He teaches you back passages and all sorts of little things

But, inevitably, you have to face it alone. He’s not going to always be there.

And he kicks himself when he’s not. Seems he’s only minutes late but ANYBODY who knows you--like your number one man!--knows you’re uncomfortable and THE GREAT MAMMON has to do something!

What does he do? The biggest, loudest, flashiest thing possible. THE BIGGEST SIGN YOU COULD GIVE ANYBODY

If the demon isn’t discouraged from Mammon yell-talking at you halfway down the corridor, Mammon gets to see the delicious way he deflates after he throws an arm around your neck and starts apologizing to ‘his human’ about being late

If he’s in a bad mood that day, he’ll probably toss the demon a single Grimm and tell him to get lost or go buy himself something nice.

The height difference is probably pretty significant so it’s easier for him to just scoop you under his arm and carry you down the hall. Or let his tail wrap around you and walk you down the hall.

Leviathan

I’d be interested to see Levi in this position, honestly. Part of me thinks he’d be too shy to do anything, instead sulking in his room, but part of me thinks once he sees you as a friend (or something more) he’s going to go to bat for you

If it’s that second one, he’d be slyly demeaning. Being the third-born, he’s probably got an intelligent sarcastic streak like Lucifer and a subtle underhandedness like Mammon.

As the Avatar of Envy, his main game is to make the lesser demon feel insignificant by pointing out how little they know you. They’re not your real friend like him so obviously they’re nothing.

He’s much better, anyways. They’re an NPC, he’s Player 1.

I’m also very, very curious about his position in the Devildom Navy. Is that some kind of a switch-flip moment where he can command a room no questions asked, or is it some kind of wickedly good strategy innateness?

Being a background person (and having Asmo as a brother), he probably overhears a lot of gossip. He’d probably drop some real gossip, something embarrassing. Probably say you were needed by Lucifer, as that’s more to-the-point and believable

The aim of the game is to send the demon away, to create distance. Mission accomplished.

Satan

He won’t intervene until he gets the idea that you’re uncomfortable. It’s a whole process with this one.

On the one hand, he wants you to be able to handle yourself. If you are not enough to send the creature away, then he’ll intervene. Partly because he’s technically responsible for you, partly because he cannot stand idly by and entertain this idiocy.

Satan has many tricks but his favorite one is to freeze the demon out by ignoring him.

Totally dominates/inserts himself into the conversation. Makes the demon feel like he isn’t there.

If that doesn’t work and your scrambling to corroborate him or just back out of the conversation, Satan speaks for you. (”We’re studying later.”, etc.). If the demon tries for another day, Satan just coolly adds ‘and tomorrow’ or ‘for the rest of the week’ until the point is made.

The longer this issue continues--despite his help--the more the Avatar of Wrath begins to reveal himself. That aura alone is usually enough to send anything running.

Kinda feels like he made an ass of himself no matter what, and apologizes after you two are alone. Is very cute and embarrassed.

Gives you a biting book. It’s an enchanted tome you can train not to bite certain people. You two are the only ones that can hold it. He looks forward to seeing how many people it bites before the week is over (a little too happy). 

Asmodeus

Oh the many ways this could be handled! Asmo has so many ideas!

At first his little heart skips a beat because how cute is this?! A cliche romance unfolding in the halls of RAD between a human and a demon? Then his little ‘radar’ begins to ping and he realizes not all is well or cute

He was kind of glad, honestly. You could do MUCH better (like him!)

It could be as easy as Asmo sliding in and charming the lesser demon to leave you alone, walking away in a stupor, or more complicated and sinister

Asmo’s never done anything truly, intentionally sinister but rumor mills can be pretty devastating. The lesser demon may find himself at the center of some unsavory rumors that cause him to slink around the general populous

The narcissistic fifth-born probably has something of a following. He may appoint some of his followers as body guards or just extra eyes to keep you safe

Or he could do a total 180 and make this lesser demon seem totally dreamy to others so they get chased and leave you alone. Yes, he quite likes that one!

Then there’s the traditional route, the most obvious (which Asmo prefers because, honestly, you two would be the CUTEST couple) where he’s your boyfriend and you guys didn’t want to tell anyone but OOPS! SECRET’S OUT! Great, now go away! Wait, take a picture for his Devilgram first! Okay, now go. 

Beelzebub

Probably takes Beel a bit to notice your discomfort. If he’s not distracted with food, it’s because he didn’t want to act in bad faith. What if you actually liked talking to that demon? What if you were just awkward like Levi? It’s a delicate matter.

Beel is no fool, though. He’s very friendly. If he introduces himself and the lesser demon doesn’t quit his behavior, Beel will then turn serious.

Tries to emphasize to the demon that you’ve said no

May show muscle or offer up a challenge. Sometimes people are hard-headed like that and need action.

“You want to date them? Beat me in an arm-wrestling competition.” (they won’t)

Beelzebub can be down-right crafty. “You want to date them? Beat me in an eating competition.” (he’s the undisputed champion).

I think he’d use his size in a good way. If this demon keeps cornering you/pestering you, Beel’s going to make a habit of walking between you or just picking you up until the demon gets the hint that if Beel’s around, he’s not talking to you

Belphegor

The smallest part of him is too tired to deal with this but he’s powered by the sheer amount of HELL NO and decides he has to fix it.

Fix it once and it stops

Belphie, like Satan and Lucifer, has  a low tolerance for stupid things. This demon is one of them.

Very cut-throat and point blank. “They’re not interested. Go away.”

Lord Diavolo and Lucifer expressly mentioned they couldn’t use their powers on YOU, not other demons. Belphie can probably make people really sleepy. He’d make this demon so deliriously tired that he couldn’t flirt with you

Definitely the type to make the demon pass out in the hall and leave him there. Head injury? No clue, he had to go to class. It’s okay, the other RAD students probably won’t step on them.

So mad about the demon. “Honestly!” as he fluffs his pillow angrily after you two have settled in your next class. It’s the angriest nap he’s ever taken.

I don’t think he takes his pillow to school but you can bet he’d but a brick or something in it and whack them. Maybe try to suffocate them. Probably wouldn’t risk his precious pillow like that.

I bet he’d fake nap if the demon tries to flirt with you in class. LOUD, OBNOXIOUS, GRATING fake snoring.  

Hope you liked it :)

[virtueangel]

limitless.

chapter nine.

wc: 2,350. original publish date: october 19, 2020. 

The morning fog is crisp against the windows of the car, condensation bubbling against the glass.

"Do you actually have a plan, or are we just driving willy-nilly?"

JFK grins at his reflection in the rearview mirror. "I have a plan!"

Van Gogh glares at the boy playfully.

"Okay, that plan might involve driving willy-nilly."

"Well, I guess that's still technically a plan..." Vincent laughs. And then, "Wait, I actually have a legitimate idea."

"No you don't," Kennedy jokes.

This earns him another glare from his best friend. "Did you see the general store when we first drove in?"

JFK nods. "You think they'd have stuff there?"

Vincent shrugs. "It's worth a shot. I mean... someone's gotta be living in this town, right?"

"Well, they don't have to do anything. It really could just be abandoned."

"So why are the roads so fresh?"

"Fresh?"

Gogh rolls his eyes impatiently. "You know what I mean. Clean. Maintained."

JFK goes silent, and at first Van Gogh worries that he's been too pushy, too pretentious, but Kennedy is only thinking.

"Maybe there's a groundskeeper," he suggests, and Vincent looks up at him with knit brows.

"One, for a whole town?" He sits back in his seat. "That hardly seems feasible."

John shrugs, keeping his eyes on what he can see of the road. "The wear in the houses is... I don't know. Formulaic, I guess is the word."

Vincent raises an eyebrow at the boy. "Maybe you mean fabricated?"

JFK nods eagerly. "Yes! Fabricated! That's exactly the word!"

Van Gogh snorts. "What, like someone built this hellhole to look the way it does?"

"It doesn't sound ridiculous coming from your mouth."

"Maybe not, but it would sound ridiculous coming from yours."

Kennedy shoves the boy playfully. "Asshole."

Vincent shoves him back, but doesn't throw an insult.

The boys drive in pleasant silence for a few moments longer, both sitting contentedly in their pyjamas, the seat heaters turned up to high. The windows are fogged over and Van Gogh draws a smiley face with his finger, dotting the eyes so firmly his bent finger turns yellow.

"You know that won't come off without, like, Windex or something, right?"

Vincent flashes his most innocent smile. "Oops."

JFK grins without looking at the boy, and Gogh's breath catches at the sight of his Colgate-white teeth.

"We're here," Kennedy says not a minute later, the low rumble of the car engine ceasing. He and Van Gogh unbuckle their seatbelts at the same time; they seem always to be in unison.

The wooden porch is wet and soft, lichen eating away at it. The door is hanging lopsided off the hinges, but only just enough; there's nothing wrong with the hardware.

"Looks like someone hung it like that on purpose," Vincent mutters as he walks through the door.

JFK turns around, his lips parting in satisfaction. "Told you."

"No, John, you did not 'tell me' anything. This is one bang-up job. Next you're gonna say someone planted the lichen on the porch?"

Kennedy lengthens his gaze to the deck. "It's possible."

Van Gogh rolls his eyes. "You're incorrigible."

"And you're fastidious."

"That's not even how you use that word!"

"Fastidious!" JFK insists.

The boys bicker all the way through the store, picking whatever looks edible off the shelves. Vincent checks a few expiration dates, and most of the refrigerated items have gone bad, but the shelved items are still safe to eat. He makes JFK carry it all, and to his pleasant surprise, the boy doesn't protest.

"Are we just supposed to steal all of this?" Gogh asks, concern washing over his face.

"There's no cashier."

"I know. That's what prompted the thought."

John looks around some more. "We could leave a note and check back tomorrow," he suggests, which is a real solution. Van Gogh didn't think he had it in him.

"Do you have a pen and paper?"

JFK peers over the counter and nods toward something. "Behind the cash register is a stack of Post-Its and a Sharpie. I obviously can't get it, with all the shit you made me hold."

Vincent rolls his eyes. "Everything's so difficult."

"Hey, I'm doing a good thing for you!"

Van Gogh turns around to show his best friend his smile. "I know that. I'm just kidding."

"Sometimes it's hard to tell."

"I guess that's one of my many shortcomings." When JFK doesn't reply, Vincent adds, "That was a joke. You can laugh."

But John doesn't.

Van Gogh doesn't seem to notice his best friend's silence as he scribbles down on the Post-It. He turns around and takes bags of chips from Kennedy's arms, recording the prices and the quantities. "Can I have your phone?" He asks.

"What about yours?" JFK replies, holding the snacks against his chest with one arm while pulling his phone out of his back pocket nonetheless.

"It's dead. I forgot to charge it last night. And you know its battery doesn't do well in the cold."

"Neither does yours, apparently," John says under his breath, but he doesn't mean it as a jab.

Vincent ignores the boy's comment, choosing to interpret it as a joke. He begins punching numbers into Kennedy's calculator app, adding up the prices and writing down a grand total at the bottom of the Post-It. He peels it off from the rest of the pad and is about to stick it to the desk computer before deciding to leave their names and JFK's phone number, just in case.

John glances over Vincent's head at the neon green paper stuck to the computer and snickers to himself.

"What?"

"Nothing, just... are they going to know that we're clones? They might just think we're trolling them."

Van Gogh looks back at the Post-It and can't help but giggle. "God, you're right. Here, we can give ourselves fake names."

"I'll be Jack Kensington, FBI detective."

Vincent laughs, scribbling over the boy's real name. "I'm not writing the last part."

Kennedy shrugs. "Suit yourself." And then, "Who are you going to be?"

"I'll be Victor Hughes."

"That's so boring."

"Who should I be instead? Victor Frankenstein?"

"Yes! That's better."

Van Gogh rolls his eyes, but there's still a smile on his rose-painted lips. "No, that's ridiculous. I can't steal Mary Shelley's OC."

"OC!" Kennedy laughs. "Frankenstein is a classic novel!"

"Mary Shelley still thought of Victor Frankenstein herself! That's what an original character is."

JFK shrugs. "Fair enough."

John and Vincent walk back to the car in favourable silence, smiles still pulled taught across both of their lips. Van Gogh has to channel every ounce of restraint in his body to keep his lips from parting into an overeager grin. He can't remember the last time he was this happy. It's always been him and JFK, but never like this. There was always someone else in the picture, someone Kennedy had to get away from to tend to Gogh. But now, it's just the two of them without any responsibility. Just the boys and a shiny red convertible, with all the time in the world.

"Oh, wait, I have to run back inside real quick," John says, dumping his armfuls of snacks into the backseat.

Van Gogh freezes, his arm hovering above his seatbelt. "How come?"

Kennedy shifts uncomfortably, trying to pull a secure lie out of thin air. "Uhh... I think I left my phone on the counter in there. I'll be right back."

When the boy turns around, Vincent can see his bright red, caseless iPhone tucked into the back pocket of his khakis.

Vincent waits in the car, staring out the windshield and picking at a loose thread in his flannel pyjama pants. God, I can't believe I'm wearing these out, he thinks. They're so ugly. Who even wears flannel anymore?

Kennedy comes out of the general store four minutes later, hugging two pairs of dark green rain boots to his chest.

"It's not raining, John. It's just fog," Vincent says with a smirk as the boy gets into the car.

He passes the smaller pair of boots to his best friend. "I had to guess your size. Six, right?"

Vincent takes the boots skeptically. "Yes... What are these for?"

JFK looks at Van Gogh with a wide grin. The grey light from the fog bounces off the white of his teeth. "You'll see! Just put them on."

Van Gogh obeys, and begins untying his Keds. His socks only go up to his ankles which may be a problem in the boots, but he doesn't care. His stomach is doing that whirlpool thing again, but this time, it feels good. He could drown, but it wouldn't hurt because he knows he'd be drowning in Kennedy.

John exchanges his sneakers for the boots before buckling his seatbelt and starting the car. He holds one hand over the clutch, the other draped over the steering wheel. He turns to his passenger, the orange of his hair bright against the cool paleness of his skin. JFK sinks in his brown eyes, but it's not suffocating like it usually is. His stare is soft, inviting. Kennedy relaxes, his eyes smiling in conversation. "Ready?"

Vincent nods eagerly. "Yeah. Yes, I'm ready."

The boys drive through town, and Vincent is convinced that they're lost. He's about to open his mouth in protest, but JFK shushes him. "We're almost there, I promise."

"Do you actually know where we're going?"

John giggles. "Yes, I know where we're going! I know you're not used to not being in control, but please trust me."

The comment stings, Vincent has to admit. But paired up with please trust me, he lets it go. He does trust JFK. He didn't always, but he does right now. Their silence is pleasant, and Kennedy says he knows where they're going.

Kennedy stops the car at the far end of town, past all the houses. The thick grove of trees is spread out through the windshield, but there's still a fair bit of marshland in front of them, sticky and wet under the car.

"Your tires are going to get so dirty," Vincent comments.

JFK leans forward to pinch the boy's cheek. "Nobody cares about that except for you, Vinny." He opens the car door and climbs out, the mud of the marsh oozing around his boots.

Vincent, still in warm and gooey shock from the nickname, melts into his seat until Kennedy knocks on the window. "Hey, Minivan! You coming, or what?"

Van Gogh pushes the door open, playfully knocking John in the hip. "I'm coming!"

The boys slosh through the marsh, the mud squeaking beneath their boots. Vincent nearly slips and has to grab onto Kennedy's arm for support. JFK sneaks a glance at the boy, smiling to himself as he struggles to keep steady through the wet earth. John stealthily wraps his arm around Vincent's torso, pulling him close and holding him firmly. Van Gogh slings his own arm across John's back, letting the boy support him as he walks through the uneven terrain.

"Thank god you bought us boots," Vincent laughs nervously, an unsure headache starting to set in. His nostrils are clogged with the scent of JFK; this, too, is uneven terrain.

John glances down at the boy affectionately, his gaze soft. "I know you don't like to get dirty, Vincent."

Van Gogh looks up at Kennedy then, and it's a miracle the taller boy had looked away before Vincent could catch him staring.

They walk through the marsh, commenting and giggling, pointing out frogs and funny-shaped pebbles and whatever thoughts pop into their heads. The boys sneak glances at each other as they walk and talk, their stomaches lurching with excitement and nervousness each time they think the other might've caught them staring.

At one moment, though, Vincent and John glance at each other at the same time, their cheeks immediately flushing pink as they look into each other's eyes. Neither of them look away, waiting for the other to say something, to know if this is safe territory or not.

Van Gogh takes a deep breath in preparation to speak at the same time that Kennedy says, "Vincent."

His voice is breathy and serious, and Vincent can't look away. He swallows. "John."

Gogh takes a deep, shaky breath, summoning all the courage he has left in him. "I really want to..." He lets his voice trail off into the cool April air, his eyes flicking between Kennedy's lips and the rest of his face.

"I know," JFK replies. He opens his mouth to agree, but his voice gets stuck in his throat. Instead, he repeats himself. "I know."

"Can I?"

"Yes," John replies too quickly.

It doesn't matter to Vincent. Consent is consent, and he's been waiting for his best friend's for years. He hasn't known it until now, but it's an explanation for all of his stomachaches, all of the twisting he felt in his chest when he saw JFK with Cleo, with other girls.

His eyes flutter shut as he raises himself to his tiptoes, shifting his arm from Kennedy's back to cradle the nape of his neck. John leans down to meet him halfway, his arm still wrapped tightly around the boy's abdomen. Their lips brush softly, innocently, and Vincent is immediately filled up with butterflies, their wings eager and flapping rapidly against the inner walls of his body.

JFK kisses back just as softly, and it's a different kiss than anything he's ever felt. His stomach knots itself with excitement, and he's falling through the sky, but he knows he's going to have a soft landing.

Vincent breaks away first, his eyes staying shut for a millisecond longer than they need to.

"I've been waiting years for that," JFK replies, his voice low and his eyes twinkling.

"How long?" Van Gogh whispers back, his tone just as light.

"I don't know."

"Me neither."

"Can we go again?" Kennedy asks after a moment, his eye contact with Van Gogh never breaking for a second.

Vincent nods, and John leans in. They are arms wrapped around torsos and around necks, hands in hair and on faces. In this moment, Van Gogh doesn't mind the ooze of the mud beneath his feet, and Kennedy doesn't mind the stillness of the kiss.

[kmelanin]

Condo

Hello beautiful people, and welcome to another bs one-shot. haha. I seen this picture and just wanted to write something for it. Let me know if you like :)) 

“...even though this dress is hot. It looks uncomfortable.” 

You stare in the mirror, unable to recognize yourself. Your best friend of four years came over demanding to give you a little makeover. She supposedly heard about a party going on downtown in one of the most wanted condos. You thought she was crazy until she showed you the invitation. Then she went on and on about how she hooked up with a guy named Namjoon, and how he supposedly obsessed with her. 

    You know the only way to shut her up about it is to agree, or else she’ll start to guilt you into it. 

    And that's how you end up here, in a tight black leather dress, hugging every fucking curve you have just right. Your body was more pear shaped, wide in the hips and thighs, and smaller breasts. You have a belly, but you loved the way it poked out some in the dress. The dress clearly holds everything in. Your friend, Shayla, gave you some black sheer leggings and some black booties to wear with it. 

    She put you in one of your long black, straight lace wigs, and put a couple of clips in. She did your makeup in a natural beat, giving you hoops and gloss to wear. You can't lie, you looked good. Which kind of scared you because you hate the body you are in, you always wished you had better. Just knowing that you ass and thighs were not going anywhere, it saddened you. 

    But this dress, her little makeover she gave you, it made you love the girl in the mirror. You were actually excited for tonight. 

    “Girl, you look go as FUCK!” Shayla yells from the doorway of her bedroom. You look over to her. She had on a red slip dress with a small chain around her waist. She also wore some Gucci shoes. Her hair was a lighter brown, almost orange, pairing well against her light skin and freckles. “Come on, the car is outside.” She waves you on, you grab your phone off the bed and you frown up at her. 

    “Car?” 

    “I told you girl, he is the REAL deal.” She laughs walking away, towards the front door. You follow along, realizing that you were in for a long night. 

    It takes you two about fifteen minutes to get into downtown, thanks to the driver. The car was so nice and smooth, his driving so perfect, he dodged traffic like a pro. Definitely would've taken him a half an hour or longer, at this time of night. 

    You two get out on the side of the street. Right in front of the building that held the party. Out front there was a group of people waiting outside of the door. You assumed that because of what they had on. There were at least fifty people outside. Your heart started to race really fast. 

    You followed Shayla up to the front door. The guy outside of the building looked down at us. 

    “If you are here for the party, it's invite only. No lounging in the lobby, if you can't get in, join the wannabes over there.” he points at the group standing there. 

    “I also know Kim Joon, known as Shayla.” She says simply, and shows her phone which you assume had the invite on it. His eyes widened a bit, nodding. He steps aside and lets you through. He obviously knew she was coming. Wow this Namjoon, or Joon guy is the real deal. 

    You follow her to the elevator. 

    “Okay, so these people are the real deal. Okay, soon to be real deals. Everyone around us is going to be the children of the Real deals, okay. I'm talkin celebs, politicians, actors, models. Which means they are celebs too. You picking up what I'm putting down?” She asks. 

    You nod, wondering what the fuck you got yourself into.

    “Do I look okay? I am totally not going to blend in.” You start to let out your insecurities. You both step out of the elevator and into the hallway that had one door. She looks at you. 

    “Girl, that dress is worth over two grand, those shoes are Gucci, and your wig, is how much?” She points out. “And don't get me started on that body. Sure you are a little plumper, but bitches are out here spending thousands to get that ass, which you were gifted naturally. You are hot asf. Now get in there, and find some hot guy and dance with him.” She goes on. She really hated when you talked badly about yourself. You knew her words were right, they had to be. She always says it. She hated that you stayed inside most of your days, afraid to leave and be judged on by eyes. 

    “Yea, get in there and dance.” You hear a voice behind you two. You were listening to Shayla, you didn't realize that the elevator opened. You looked over and saw three two guys standing there holding a black bag. 

    “Joon!” Shayla bounces over to his arms. “Why are you just now getting here?” She frowns a bit.

    “Jeon forgot his personal bottle, so we went to get it. Also wanted to see his new car.” He nods over to the man standing there looking at you. He had a bucket hat on, which covered almost all of his eyes. He tilted his head back and to the side a bit to get a better look at you. 

    “Do you like 1942?” He asks you, his voice matching the first one that spoke. The third guy was shorter and had blonde hair. 

    “Never had it.” You squeak out. He smiles a bit and nods. He looks back at Joon and Shayla, and back to you. 

    “Lets go have some shots and dance, yea?” He asks, holding out his hand to you. Your eyes widen at that. What? Did this-Did this fine ass man just ask you that? Your eyes trail down his body, peeping the black and white flannel and the leather jacket on his shoulders. He had small silver hoops in. Yours eyes then go to Shayla who was silently going off on you, practically begging you to go with him. 

    “Okay.” You grab onto his hand and he pulls you along inside. The condo was dark except certain parts like the bathrooms and the kitchen. There were LED lights along every wall flashing pretty colors. The music was going crazy, and everyone was on the same level. You recognize some of the models and singers, and some of the kids of singers. You are pulled past them, you try to keep a straight face. You want to blend in, not look like a fan. 

    You look forward, who is this man? He pulls you into the kitchen and sets the bag on the island. He pulls out two bottles of 1942. He opens one and takes a huge drink of it. Some of the people who were standing around, soon walked out joining everyone else. 

    “Come here.” He nods you over. You move from your spot, and walk forwards, standing in front of him. He pulls off his hat and runs his fingers through his hair. He looks up at you and hands you the bottle. 

    You look down at it, this was it. You were going to be fucked up. Your mind thinks of ways you will go through to get home. 

    “Did you want a glass?” His voice pulls you out of your head. Your eyes snap up to him, he starts to pull it away. You quickly shake your head, grabbing it from him. You take a big drink and hand it back to him. He has a small smile on his lips and he takes another drink. 

    “What's your name?” He asks leaning against the counter. You can feel his eyes all over your body. Usually when this happens, you feel absolutely disgusting. But this time, his eyes, he made you feel sexy. You felt hella confident. 

    “Yn.” 

    “I'm Jungkook.” He hands you the bottle back and he grabs the other and opens it. You frown at his actions. “You can drink off of that one and have fun. I'll watch after you.” He nods at it. You shrug, knowing Shayla will find you at some point, she tends to be very protective, even when she's drunk. 

    “I'm drinking because I want to, not because I trust you.” You sass him, taking another drink. He smirks at you. God he is so fine. Did he really find you attractive? 

    “You know, Joon and Shayla have been wanting me to talk to you for a while now. I never wanted to because I hate being set up with girls. But i'm currently regretting not doing it sooner.” He sets his bottle down and he grabs you by the waist gently, making sure you were okay with it. When you step forward a bit, he pulls you in faster. 

    “I don't look like this all the time.” You laugh softly, hoping he didn't actually think that. If he did, you might as well walk away now and don't let his hopes down. He looks down at you with dark eyes, he bites his bottom lip a bit. 

    “I would hope not, even though this dress is hot. It looks uncomfortable.” He laughs a bit, his chest vibrating against you. It was weird how comfortable you felt with him. It also scared you, he was technically still a stranger. You push yourself off of him a bit. You take a huge drink, passing it back.

    “Lets dance.” You try not to stumble, putting your confident face on.

[masquerade-story]

Chapter 4 - Memories

Lillian awoke late into the evening, after everyone collectively agreed to take a nap and process everything Crystal told them. Her throat was dry and scratchy, so she carefully rolled out of bed to avoid disturbing Grey, who'd crawled into her bed for comfort like he always did when he was upset, and padded quietly out of the bedroom.

Since there wasn't going to be any sort of heating bill, they'd left the mysteriously working heater on to combat the unexpectedly cold weather. Lillian stopped by a window to peek outside, and was momentarily startled when she could pick out individual leaves on distant trees.

"Right, our vision got all fancy." Lillian laughed softly at herself, turning her gaze from the trees to the starry sky.

An unfamiliar sky.

Three moons scattered across the horizon, a couple of planets close enough for their rings to be distinct to the naked eye, and a brilliant aurora ribbon streaming across more stars than Lillian ever remembered seeing when she looked up back on Earth.

"There's no North Star," she whispered to herself, her warm breath briefly melting some frost on the window glass. "Different constellations, different horoscopes... I wonder how long a year is here? Or a season? Can we... Even communicate with people to find out?"

An oppressive sense of loneliness settled in her chest. Lillian blinked back a few tears and turned away from the window, resuming her earlier mission of a glass of juice. She slipped downstairs into the kitchen, drank an entire glass, and went to bring her second cup upstairs in case she woke up again, when a soft sound caused her to pause mid-step toward the stairs.

Sobbing. Wretched, mournful sobbing, from the living room which currently had no light on.

Lillian felt her heart clench in sympathy, and changed route.

Rayne sat on the couch, curled into the corner with a blanket around her shoulders and a phone in her hands. She glanced up when Lillian approached, hurriedly dashing her tears with the corner of the blanket. "H-hey, what's up?"

Lillian had the sense to put her juice cup down on an end table before sitting heavily on the couch, encroaching on Rayne's personal space with reckless abandon. "I was gonna ask you the same thing. Why are you down here alone in the dark?"

"Oh, I..." Rayne muttered, her gaze flicking back to the phone. Lillian glanced down, and saw a photo of Rayne and her boyfriend trying on mouse hats during their trip to Disneyworld. His expression was exasperated, but his affectionate gaze was fixed on Rayne's laughing face.

Rayne locked her screen and set the phone down, but it was too late and she knew it. She retreated further into the warmth of her blanket, faking a shiver to cover the fact she was trying to hide her face.

Neither Rayne nor Crystal appreciated it when other people saw them cry, but Lillian knew that it was sometimes exactly what someone needed, whether they wanted it or not. So she leaned on Rayne's shoulder, resting a gentle hand on the other woman's knee.

"You know," Lillian said softly, closing her eyes. "There's three moons."

Rayne was quiet for a moment. Then she sniffled, before whispering: "Really?"

"Yeah. And some ringed planets, and an aurora. Wanna see?"

The bundle of blanket shook in a hesitant nod, and both Lillian and Rayne moved to sit on the window seat overlooking the front yard, keeping throw pillows between them and the frozen glass to seal in their bodily warmth.

Silence stretched on between them as they stared together at the foreign night sky. Whenever Rayne gave a soft cry or pained whimper, Lillian reached over to squeeze her hand without turning to look at her, giving the other woman a measure of privacy while still providing comfort until she was ready to talk.

"It's unfair," Rayne whispered finally, reaching out of the blanket to draw a frowning face on the frosty glass.

Lillian nodded. "It ate our bonds so they all forgot us, but we still have to remember them? It's totally unfair."

"Actually..." Rayne looked over, locking gazes with Lillian, her dark brow furrowed. "That's the thing. Lils, do you remember your parents?"

"Of course. Robin and Larry-"

"Their faces, Lils."

Lillian opened her mouth, then immediately shut it. Her curious expression turned to one of realization, then panic suffused with horror. "No, I... What...?"

"I don't remember his face if I'm not looking at the photo," Rayne said, crossing her arms tightly under the blanket. "I don't remember his voice anymore. I did at first, but... Every passing moment, it's harder to remember the times we shared. The bad, the good. Even while looking at the photos! And I just... I felt like I should have a good cry, while I still felt enough lingering emotion for him to do it."

Lillian felt as though her heart was caught in her throat. She swallowed, swallowed again, then wheezed as she tried to remember how to breathe. Rayne hurriedly wrapped her arms around Lillian's shoulder, squeezing tight in a hug that contained all her comfort and sympathy.

"We'll do everything we can to remember, them, okay?" Rayne whispered, her voice shaking with emotion. "Let's go wake Grey and Crystal, then we can all start writing stuff down. Alright?"

Nodding, Lillian clung desperately to Rayne's hand as they both hurried upstairs, rolling their respective siblings out of bed for an emergency meeting. Grey's horror was contrasted starkly by Crystal's numb nodding, as she apologized for not realizing it would happen. They dug into the boxes of personal belongings, finding some notebooks and pens, and sat together in the master bedrooms writing down everything they remembered about Earth and their loved ones until well into the next morning.

"On the one hand it's a mercy," Grey said sleepily, as he doodled another picture of his parents in the margins of his notebook. "So we won't be grieving our loss very long, I guess? But it still feels..."

"Wrong," Lillian mumbled, looking through her phone for a picture of her cat to use as a reference.

"It's not like the time was wasted," Rayne said, adding another bullet point to the list she was writing. "Our experiences shaped who we are whether we remember them or not. It does feel pretty crappy, though..."

"I wonder, will they forget us like this?" Lillian asked, unable to stop the words in her heart from escaping. Her hand paused above the page, the pen in her hand shaking violently. "Will they just... Slowly forget us? Or was it sudden and merciful? Because this... This is cruel."

"Cruelty implies intention," Crystal said softly, her voice shaking almost as much as Lillian's pen. "That... Thing. The Eater. It didn't have any malice, it was just hungry. But I dunno if that makes things better or worse..."

"I dunno man, you ever seen a cat catching prey? Pretty sure eating something alive has some inherent malice in it." Grey grumbled, trying to force his chicken scratch handwriting into something legible.

Crystal, who'd already given up on her own handwriting and embraced the chaotic glyphic nature of her lettering, nodded sagely in agreement. "That's true. I got the impression the Eater wasn't exactly sentient or sapient though. More like a force than a being, if that makes sense? Or maybe I just can't conceive of it, since that thing exists outside our dimensions of understanding."

"You say that so easily, do you even know how wild that whole statement was?"

"Do you even know how wild this whole situation is?"

"Look, we've passed absurdity at this point. Now I'm just down with whatever weirdness comes our way."

"We don't have to pay bills anymore," Rayne said slowly, staring at her paper. Her handwriting was the neatest by far, and she'd finished writing down most important events she could think of, but she kept having a nagging feeling she'd left something out so she kept reading the pages over and over hoping to trigger another memory. "We won't have to buy groceries unless there's things we want specifically that wasn't in our house to begin with. The electricity will never go out, damage to the property will be repaired, and even though we're in a new world with unknown levels of development and technology, we will never have to worry about toilet paper. In exchange for a very comfortable standard of living, we lost our connection to our home and families."

"Personally speaking I think it's fair," Crystal said with a scoff. "But that's because our family sucks so I'll be glad to forget them. All my most important people are here with me! I know Robin and Larry will take good care of all our cats, my exes all sucked, and my other friends will get along just fine without me. I don't have anyone to worry about, just regrets for stuff I never got to do. Like visiting the Grand Canyon, or going on a long cruise."

"I wanted to hike around Europe someday..." Rayne said wistfully.

"I wanted to vacation in the tropics. Or maybe Spain? For like, two years. With some hot guys and infinite fruity alcohols." Grey said, staring off into space with a dreamy look in his eyes.

"I wanted to be famous enough for us to visit the space station," Lillian sighed. Grey snorted, and everyone started laughing in a combination of absurdity and delirium from lack of sleep. They started listing everything they could think of, starting with shopping sprees and game show appearances, and ending with complex bank and casino heists to dismantle capitalism.

When Crystal started dozing off while sitting up, they all agreed to get some sleep for real. The notebooks were stacked lovingly on one of the end tables, which reminded Lillian to run downstairs and chug her long-forgotten cup of juice in the living room before trudging back upstairs into bed.

------

"We can't just stay in the house forever, right?" Grey muttered as he stared out the living room window later that night, curled up on the window seat with his knees hugged to his chest.

"Technically we could," Rayne said, drumming her fingers against the recliner arm as she waited for her laptop to boot. "Infinite food and basic supplies, stuff for our hobbies... We have our instruments, we have our computers and game consoles and several external drives worth of movies and books and music since you and Crystal obsessively insist on collecting or hoarding anything of interest for later use."

"Hey, hey." Grey wagged a finger and feigned an offended scowl. "Look at our situation. How bored would we be if the two of us didn't hoard everything? In fact, maybe our desire to hoard entertainment was preparing for this day!"

"Damn psychics always preparing for everything they couldn't possibly know about," Rayne muttered rebelliously, and Crystal laughed. She'd stretched out on half of the corner couch taking up an entire section of the living room by itself, looking cozy with a pile of blankets and her special edition Switch.

"It's only gonna get worse from here, Ray."

"Open your town, I need to sell my oranges," Lillian interrupted, nudging Crystal's feet from her spot on the other side of the corner couch.

"Alright, lemme finish making this waterfall first."

"Your villagers are never gonna have scurvy again for like, three generations."

"That many oranges? Isn't that a bit overkill?"

"If they don't want an entire island nation's agricultural sector's worth of citrus they should learn to adjust their economy for inflation."

"You know the shop is run by literal children, right?"

"It's good to learn early that nepotism leads to ruin. The business world is harsh and so am I."

Rayne chuckled at the sound of Lillian's low, malicious cackling, but her expression swiftly turned serious. "What do you mean it's gonna get worse, Coco?"

"All four of us have abilities for real, right? Being in this world is gonna make them grow exponentially, whether we try to train them or not. New ones will pop up too, or existing ones will change a little as they grow. Okay Lils, gate's open." Crystal spoke nonchalantly, but every word drained a bit more color from Rayne's face. Meanwhile, Grey turned away from the window with an excited glint in his eyes.

"So psychic powers can get real strong in this world?"

"Yeah. The impression I got when we were coming over was... Magic exists here, and it's something anyone can learn to use with practice. But abilities like ours, psychic powers? Those you have to be born with, and it's rare. That's about as much as I know about it though," Crystal sighed and shrugged.

"Can you list everything you know about our situation?" Rayne said, opening a new document on her computer and typing away with her nose inches from the laptop screen. "I wanna write it all down. I got the thing about our bonds and memories, and the house being indestructible-"

"It's not indestructible, just protected." Crystal seemed startled as soon as the words left her mouth, as though the information was somehow new. She furrowed her brow, nose wrinkling as she carefully examined her thought process. "I see, protected... Like a barrier, almost? It'll always rebuild itself and restock supplies overnight no matter what happens, even if it's all burnt to ash, but the property itself is also shielded unless we draw attention from a big threat."

"A big threat? Like what?"

"I don't know. Big animals like those Nessies on the beach yesterday. Or monsters like the Eater, maybe?"

"Monsters?!" Lillian sat up straight, pulling her feet under her body. "There's monsters!?"

"There's magic, why wouldn't there be monsters too?" Grey pointed out, but his twin just stuck her tongue out at him.

"It's just an assumption," Crystal hurriedly explained. "For my power to work, I'd have to come into contact with stuff related to what I want to know about in order to get more information, I can't just pull stuff out of the ether whenever I have questions!"

"Then how do you know what you know already?"

"Well, we were in contact with the house. The house is made with really powerful magic, so I learned magic exists, and that it was used to make the house echo and ensure our supplies remain the same. I think I also learned about the barrier then, but didn't think about it or really absorb the info cuz I was thinking about other things, so it only just popped up." Crystal shrugged and let out a half-hearted laugh.

"What about the Eater?"

"The Eater was menacing us directly and I looked at it so I was able to get some info on it and the bond-eating shenanigan, but not much else because it's way stronger than me, I think? And my power activated as soon as we started our... Transfer, I guess? Away from Earth. And you all were in the room with me, so I knew you all had powers as well as myself, got the basic gist of how mine work, and that we'd all get much stronger whether we wanted to or not. That's really about it for what I know. I told you it wasn't much."

"Why the house though?" Rayne muttered. "It just wanted to eat our bonds and it did that. So why did it drop us on another planet, and why give us this cushy house echo thing?"

Crystal shrugged again. "I honestly have no idea. I think I could know if I got a lot stronger, but... That won't be any time soon. I can tell there's a reason, though. I just dunno what."

"Maybe it's compensation?" Grey said, his expression hopeful.

"Or bait, like a beacon, so it can find us again..." Lillian whispered with a shiver, and everyone's faces fell. Seeing their reactions, she hurriedly straightened her spine and forced a smile to her face. "But it didn't hurt us, and we're all still together. Imagine if we'd been flung to different planets instead of staying together!"

"That'd really suck," Grey agreed. "So like, Crystal, your power activates if you come into contact with stuff?"

"I think so. I'd have to test it to get the hang of how things work, precisely."

Grey chuckled, a mischievous grin spreading across his face. His expression made the three women exchange worried glances, especially once he started rubbing his hands together like a two-bit cartoon villain. "Looks like we got ourselves an excuse to head to that town for some reconnaissance!"

"In the snow?" Rayne asked, raising her eyebrows.

"With only summer clothes in our wardrobes," Crystal pointed out.

"We wore hiking boots for the walk up here so that'd be fine, but the warmest clothes we have right now are..." Lillian trailed off, then suddenly doubled over and started giggling.

Realization dawned on the others soon after, and Rayne covered her face with her hands. "Oh no."

"Oh yes!" Grey hissed, pumping his fist into the air. "That'll make one heck of an entrance, wouldn't it?"

"Our music video costumes? In PUBLIC!?" Rayne wailed while the others laughed.

"That might not be what we want to do though," Crystal said after her moment of laughter had subsided. "We don't know what kind of world this is. If they'll be friendly to strangers, especially ones who can't speak their language - or any language on this world. They won't know English, you know."

"But do we really have a choice?" Lillian asked, putting down her console and staring up at the ceiling. "We don't know anything about this world. About magic, except that it exists. About the people. And hiding here in our safe cozy house will be fine short term, but what about long term? Are we gonna spend our whole lives holed up in here?"

"I, for one, embrace the forest witch hermit lifestyle," Grey said. "And I know Crystal does too."

"Sure do. Cottage life."

Rayne sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I don't wanna be caught completely off guard by whatever nonsense comes our way. We know it's winter, but we don't know what the other seasons are like yet. What if they have a raining magma and diamonds from the sky season? We can't apply Earth logic here! Or if we can, we don't know to what extent! There were dinosaurs on the beach!"

"That's a fair point. There were indeed dinosaurs on the beach. Counter points?"

"There were dinosaurs on the beach."

"A fair counter point as well. I do want to see the dinosaurs up close."

"From a safe distance."

"Up close from a safe distance, of course."

"Plus, we don't know what's gonna happen with our powers. You said they'll get stronger, what does that mean?"

"I don't know. More powers will manifest, I think? And the ones we have already will be more potent. But I don't know how potent, or what exactly will happen."

"Exactly! You psychically downloaded only a little info about our situation and it gave you a nasty seizure! Right?"

"Pretty much."

"So what if something worse happens? A big huge infodump? If you can't control your powers, or shut it off when needed or whatever, what if..." Rayne's shoulders sagged.

"What if I have a big seizure every time I use my powers now?" Crystal finished, a wry smile on her face. "Yeah, I was wondering about that too. Honestly, everything about our situation has me so terrified I've circled back around to just feeling numb about it all."

"That's a hell of a mood," Grey sighed, stretching out on the window seat and propping his feet up against the wall. "Everything's happening so much, am I right? It's hard to be freaked out about everything simultaneously. It's easier to just phase out of existence, mentally speaking."

"I... Have an idea."

Everyone turned to look at Lillian, who sat perched on the edge of the couch. She glanced at all their faces, then offered a shy smile.

"Well? What's your idea, sis?" Grey encouraged, when his sister kept fidgeting in place instead of finishing her thought.

"Well, those warmer clothes we have... They're our costumes, right? And Crystal said we dunno how people would react to that sort of outfit, or to strangers in general, but what if... I mean... We have our instruments? What if... We pretended to be minstrels?"

[floofiestboy]

Senyuu AU Masterpost

I asked if I should do this on Twitter but Twitter is trash for big posts like this so I’m posting it on Tumblr. 

I’m calling this an AU masterpost but I’m including canon alternate versions of characters too. I’m writing this assuming you don’t know anything past S4, but it will contain spoilers for F5 and the Haruhara Robinson Channel content.

Since the majority of these AUs are entirely fan-based with only the slightest bit of official content, I’ll also discuss common fanwork concepts, including things like special ship names for particular AUs.

Table of Contents

Common AUs

Web

SQ

High School

Magical Girl Alfo-chan

Visual kei

2P

Less Common AUs

High School Detectives/Police

Himura + Yami

Rosicks + Hialba

Sheepba

Wild West

Obscure AUs/Outfit Changes

Feral Ros + Adventurer Alba

Formal Wear

Karaoke

Kindergarten

Saeki-san

Scientist Ros

University

Urashima Tarou

Vampire Ros

Wedding

Canon-Adjacent AUs/Canon Alternate Characters

Albatross 

Boss + Sleepiez

Creasion + Maoruba

Elf’s Universe (”0verse”)

Meta Ros

This got super-long so I highly suggest using CTRL/CMD+F to jump to just the ones you’re interested in!

Common AUs

All the AUs in this category are universes you see everywhere in fan content, regardless of how much official content there is for it. 

Web

Alright, this isn't an "AU", but including it for completion's sake. This is the main canon, the original Alba and Ros from the original webcomic. The anime and the Main Quest manga can be considered to be equivalent to the web-verse.

Official Japanese | English Scanlations 

SQ

(Image from Jump SQ’s website.)

SQ is an “official” Senyuu AU - it’s basically Senyuu if Alba and Ros kept their Season 1 dynamic forever and nothing really bad ever happened. Haruhara has said a number of times that an important thing about SQ is that everything sad has gone poof, which is why he decides against giving a sad dramatic reason why Ros’ name went from Sion to Ros in SQ-verse. Other notable changes in SQ include Januar being human, Elf being a demon, and Foyfoy being cute and shy.

Senyuu SQ originally ran in the Jump SQ magazine for thirty chapters (Official Japanese | English Scanlations), named as such because of the magazine it ran in. More recently, Haruhara began releasing SQ Senyuu! on his channel, where the SQ stands for Super Quality and definitely not anything copyrighted (Official Japanese | English Scanlations.) The chapters released on his channel were sometimes in draft form, so he additionally inked some and released it in doujinshi form (Official Japanese | English Scanlations), along with a doujinshi-exclusive chapter.

Senyuu SQ Alba (seen above) looks identical to Web S1 Alba. SQ Senyuu! Alba (seen below) looks like Web S2 Alba but short and without the Red Fox scarf. SQ Ros doesn’t change appearances between Senyuu SQ and SQ Senyuu! He has the Web S1 Ros hairstyle, but lacks his armour and sword - his bat is his most defining feature.

High School

There’s actually two different high school AUs:

SQ Academy: There’s three omake chapters in SQ Senyuu where everyone is in high school - see here and here, in volumes 1 and 2 respectively. In the SQ High School AU, Ros, Alba, Hime-chan, Foyfoy, Januar, and Rudolf are students, while Rchi is a teacher. Alba is the president of an unnamed club with Ros as a club member. 

(Image from Haruhara’s twitter.)

Soccer Club Drama CD: This drama CD was released with one of the MQ volumes. You can only buy the original Japanese on auction sites now, but you can listen to the audio and read a translated transcript here! This AU features only Ros, Alba, and Crea, who are all part of the same soccer club. Alba is the club president.

In both AUs, Ros calls Alba “Prez”. The canon content for both AUs is rather sparse, so the Prez thing is usually the only thing that’s retained in most fanworks. Reincarnation stories are pretty popular in fanworks, but there’s no hints or implications in either official High School AU that it’s connected to SQ or Web canons. Usually people use the Drama CD designs (probably because they don’t want to draw Ros with S1 hair.) Sometimes they use the SQ Academy designs at the start, then change to the Drama CD designs in second-year or something.

There’s also the Senyuu Light Music Club from one of the web omakes, which features Crea and Elf. I haven’t seen any works incorporate it though.

Japanese terminology glossary

High School AU: 学パロ - Gakuparo

Prez:  部長 - Buchou

---

Magical Girl Alfo-chan

This is the mahou shoujo parody of Senyuu, featuring Alba as a girl - Alfo-chan - and Ros as a cat - Roll.

(Image no longer available online.)

Roll is usually made into a cute catboy that can transform into a cat, because I mean, why wouldn’t you. And also presumably people want a Roll they can ship with Alfo-chan. For some reason there’s also a lot of works that ship Alfo-chan with Creasion, though I’m not sure where it came from.

The “official title” of this parody is actually Magical Princess Alfo-chan, not Magic Girl Alfo-chan, and most fanworks on pixiv are found under this name.

Japanese terminology glossary

Magical Princess Alfo-chan: マジカルプルンセスアルフォちゃん

Alfo: アルフォちゃん

Roll: ロール

Alfo/Creasion: アシルフォ - Ashirufo

Alfo/Roll: ロルアル - Roruaru

---

Visual kei 

Visual kei is a music genre - you can read about it here. This AU started because Haruhara drew a pic of Alba and Ros in visual-kei-like outfits, and then it all spiraled from there. There’s three images that fuel this entire AU:

(Image from Haruhara’s twitter. Note that you can find a higher quality scan of this art if you download this artbook scan here.)

(Image from Haruhara’s twitter.)

(Image no longer available online.)

The Alba and Ros in the first image were dubbed Visual-ba and Visual-ros, the Ros in the second image “Roppongi” (because his t-shirt says “Roppongi Hills”, and the Alba in the last image “Kuroba” (because Kuro means black and he’s black-haired.) Why were the bottom two images lumped in with the first? That’s a mystery that may never be solved.

There’s two common variations of the AU in fanworks. 

The first is where Kuroba + Visual-ba and Roppongi + Visual-ros are two pairs of brothers, and typically the pairings go Kuroba/Visual-ros and Roppongi/Visual-ba. In this variation, Visual-ba basically always gets to be Alba, while Roppongi and Visual-ros often take the names Ros and Sion respectively. 

The second common variation is where Kuroba and Roppongi are just the civilian identities of Visual-ba and Visual-ros, which doesn’t have a pithy shipname in Japanese.

With regards to their visual kei identities, I’ve also usually seen two main variations - either Alba and Ros are currently in a singing group together, or Ros used to be a famous singer and Alba is currently trying to get famous under his tutelage. 

Haruhara has also recently posted a glow-up pic of Visual-ba, bringing the grand total of official art in this AU to... four.

Japanese terminology glossary

Visual kei: ビジュアル系 - vijyuaru kei  (Note that while technically ヴィジュアル is the correct term in Japanese, in the Senyuu fandom, ビジュアル is used for everything, probably because it’s easier to type and say.)

Visual-ba: ビジュアル - bijyuaru

Visual-ros: ビジュロス - bijyurosu

Roppongi: 六本木 

Kuroba: 黒髪アルバ - Kurokami Alba (lit. Black-Haired Alba) --> クロバ

Kuroba/Visual-ros: ジュロ黒 - jyurokuro or 黒ジュロ - kurojyuro

Roppongi/Visual-ba: 六ビジュ - rokubijyu or ビジュ六 - bijyuroku

Visual-ros/Visual-ba:  ビジュロスアル - bijyurosuaru, 派生ロスアル - haseirosuaru

---

2P

“2P” is used in many fandoms to refer to alternate character designs that are often associated with different personalities as well. In Senyuu, the official 2P designs are all alternate colourings:

(Image from Haruhara’s pixiv.)

(Image from one of Haruhara’s artbooks which doesn’t seem to have an online scan, sorry for the bad quality.)

Likely because the bottom two are only available in an artbook, I haven’t seen many fanworks with them. 2P AUs tend to be only 2P Alba and Ros, with some occasional 2P Rchimedes or 2P Crea (who’s typically drawn as 2P Rchimedes with short hair.) 2P Ros is usually drawn with blue eyes, presumably to match with his red Mana Maker. 2P Rchi is also common enough - she tends to be drawn with a blue and black scheme, to contrast with her canon pink and white scheme (example). 

2P Alba and Ros have varying personalities in fanworks, but the one consistency seems to be that their personalities are nothing like canon. 2P Ros tends to be the silent serious type or a yandere. 2P Alba tends to be an innocent happy boy or a yandere. You may be seeing a pattern here.

Note also that 2P Ros is usually referred to as 2P Creasion, for obvious reasons.

Japanese terminology glossary

2P Alba/2P Ros: 2Pアシアル - 2P ashiaru or 2Pアルアシ - 2P aruashi. Both are sometimes shortened by removing the “2P”.

Less Common AUs

These AUs aren’t seen quite as much as the juggernauts above, but you’ve probably still seen them around occasionally.

High School Detectives/Police

There’s a few different detective-related fanworks floating out there, based on one of the three official chapters: Detective Ros in Senyuu SQ, Senyuu Police from the webcomic, and High School Detective Teufel in Main Quest Vol. 6, which hasn’t been scanlated yet (runs):

I haven’t seen too much art of High School Detective Teufel, but I’ve seen a couple fics and art out there for both Senyuu Police and Detective Ros, mostly Senyuu Police.

Himura + Yami

(Image from Haruhara’s Skeb.)

This isn’t really a Senyuu AU, but it shows up enough to include it here. Himura and Yami are two characters that Haruhara drew - you can see this original picture of them on page 12 of the artbook here. Himura is the redhead - at first, he meant to draw Alba, but he decided in the end it wasn’t Alba anymore and renamed the file to “Himura,psd.” Yami is just a fan-name - he’s only referred to as “the boy that shouldn’t be seen” in the artbook. Himura and Yami eventually appear in Gakumon! with the names Rahimu and Damia respectively.

Senyuu fanworks that include them usually have Himura being an Alba that fell into despair after Ros’ disappearance, while Yami is a physical manifestation of his despair.

Japanese terminology glossary

Himura-kun: 火村くん

Himura-kun/Yami: やみひむ

---

Rosicks + Hialba

This is yet another AU that was born from a mere two pieces of official art:

(Image from Haruhara’s twitter.)

(Image from Haruhara Robinson channel.)

The first picture is entitled “Soldier Rosicks” - Haruhara posted it saying it was a Ros beta design. The second picture is an scrapped Alba design for web season 2. Hialba was originally revealed on the NicoNico channel Hiaruron that Haruhara shares with a couple other artists, and so he got the name “Hiaruba” --> Hialba from the channel name.

Fanworks typically have Hialba as dead inside and sad because of Ros’ disappearance, and Rosicks as a gruff irritable guy who isn’t Ros and doesn’t like being compared to him. Cue angst because Hialba sees Rosicks as just Ros, etc.

Japanese terminology glossary

Hialba: ひあるば

Rosicks/Hialba: ロシひあ - Roshihia

---

Sheepba

Sheepba originates from a New Year’s illustration Haruhara made for the year of the sheep:

(Image from Haruhara’s pixiv.)

While Haruhara has done this for multiple years - there’s illustrations of Alba as a dog, a rat, etc. - Sheepba in particular became particularly popular. Why? Is it the floofy body? The innocent expression? Nay. I say there’s but one reason for Sheepba’s popularity in comparison to other Chinese Zodiac/Alba hybrids-

Haruhara has produced a crapton of Sheepba merch over the years.

I believe he’s made coloured sheep versions of other characters too for merch, but I unfortunately wasn’t able to find any of them. I was, however, able to find outlined drawings of them:

(Image from Haruhara’s twitter.)

Enjoy this flock of Senyuu sheep. And be prepared to see some uh... questionable things if you choose to browse the ひつじるば - Hitsujiba tag.

Wild West

This AU comes from the Wild West parody in this chapter. The fanworks I’ve seen tend to have Ros be some dangerous outlaw with a huge bounty.

Obscure AUs/Outfit Changes

These AUs tend to be only used as outfit changes, or aren’t seen often at all.

Feral Ros + Adventurer Alba

Basically a Tarzan AU. Based on this Haruhara Channel comic: Official Japanese | English Scanlation.

Formal Wear

You may sometimes see Alba and Ros wearing suits. There’s two pieces of art this originates from:

(Image from Haruahara’s twitter.)

(Image from Haruhara’s twitter.)

There’s also a corresponding Ros-in-suit-with-striped-shirt photo that you can see in the artbook here.

Karaoke

You may have seen characters dressed up as what seemed like waiter outfits. That may have come from the Senyuu Karaoke collaboration that happened around when the anime aired:

(Image from collaboration website.)

Kindergarten

This comes from the recent Haruhara Robinson channel comics - Senyuu Kindergarten Story #1 and Story #2.

It features Alba and Rchi as kindergarten teachers to the rest of the Senyuu cast.

Saeki-san

Haruhara was the writer for a manga called Dignified Asleep Saeki-san (Official Japanese | English Scanlations), which was a romcom that featured a girl called Saeki determined to sleep in class, and a boy called Tokimiya who sits next to her. 

When the manga began serialization, Haruhara drew a parody sketch of the manga where Ros is Tokimiya and Alba is Saeki.

(Image from Haruhara’s twitter.)

Scientist Ros

You may have seen art of Ros wearing the glasses + lab coat combo from when he made the Mana Maker in season 3:

Or from when Alba had his... questionable body measurement exam in Senyuu+:

Or when they both wore glasses in the Haruhara Robinson Channel doujinshi Crea-kun Has Cheerfully Fallen to the Dark Side:

University

A while back, Haruhara drew a picture of Alba and Ros in the winter wearing coats:

(Image from Haruhara’s pixiv.)

A little more recently, he was commission to redraw the image:

(Image from Haruhara’s pixiv.)

Fanworks that use Alba and Ros in these outfits often treat them as university AUs (and usually have them on a date.)

Urashima Tarou

Urashima Tarou is an old Japanese fairytale which Haruhara used as the setting for one of his omake segments. If you’ve seen turtle Alba:

Or Ros in old-timey fishing clothes:

That’s where it’s from.

Vampire Ros

The typical Vampire Ros design comes from an SQ chapter where Alba and Ros disguise themselves as demons after chasing Elf into the demon world.

Alba is usually either a werewolf (presumably because werewolves and vampires are a common pair) or some hapless human that Ros sucks blood from. 

Wedding

(Image from Haruhara’s twitter.)

Haruhara drew this when he was getting married(?) because it apparently felt less embarrassing to draw his protagonist getting married than to draw him and his wife. 

Fans promptly used the outfit to marry Alba off to Ros, likely galvanized by the Mana Maker + Hero Symbol combo on Alba’s head.

Canon Adjacent AUs/Canon Alternate Characters

Moved to an overflow post here because this one got big enough that Tumblr stopped saving my post.

[kevinskorner]

2020 VMA’s Recap!

Every year, I always look forward to a few things and one of those things is definitely the MTV Video Music Awards. The VMA’s have been iconic every year since it’s inauguration in 1984 with Madonna’s Like A Virgin performance. As the insanely obsessed pop culture person that I am, the VMA’s are like a national holiday and I prepare myself heavily before they happen. For this year, obviously things are different because of a little thing called the Covid-19 Pandemic but anyhow, I was still excited. When the nominees got announced I was a very mixed bag of emotions. I was very excited because Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande got the most nominations of the year (9) but, I was disappointed because Harry Styles and Dua Lipa only got technical nominations and didn’t get any in the main category. One of my friends shared the same disappointment with me and they said how every nominee in Video of the Year was from North America and I didn’t even think of that. I wish they didn’t nominate some things... but that’s alright. As the weeks went on, I voted for my faves and MTV announced Keke Palmer was hosting whichreally got me excited again because she is a queen. Also, when they announced the performers, my favorites being Miley, Gaga, Ariana, and Doja, I became thrilled.

Now, here I am with my Rain on Me shirt on, a few hours after the ceremony ended and I got to say, I am IMPRESSED!!! That was an AMAZING ceremony. For an award show during a pandemic, I got to say MTV pulled, it, off. Let’s get into it!:

OH. MY. GAGA. 

Lady Gaga was the star of the night and I am NOT disappointed one bit. Going into the night as the most nominated artist (tied with Ariana) I had high hopes. When I heard she was performing, I screamed because I couldn’t believe we were FINALLY getting a performance in the Chromatica era. Knowing that she had so much planned for the era, it’s been sad to see none of it come to fruition. Now let’s live in the present. THIS PERFORMANCE?!? FREAKING INCREDIBLE. I don’t even know where to start. The beginning of the performance with the old television, her laying down on the couch (mask on!), and seeing the TV have the 1999 VMA’s (with BRITNEY mentioned!) was when I knew it was going to be one of the best performances of her career. THEN, she WENT DOWN THE POLL and Chromatica II started playing and I almost threw up. I was so excited that she chose to do that interlude and sing some of 911 (maybe the third single?)! I was shook. Next, she had a quick change and started singing Rain on Me, and I immediately was hyperventilating. When Ariana came out, I really thought I was gonna pass out. In that moment, I was just seeing a dream come true in front of my eyes. I saw two of my ultimate QUEENS come together and give me all the life I need. I mean, the outfits, the masks, the chemistry, ARIANA’S HIGH NOTE?! GAGA’S VOCALS?! I can’t even. After that, when she started walking to the Brain piano, I thought she was about to do 1000 Doves (Piano Version) but I was mistaken! It was the first single, STUPID LOVE! Honestly, I was so happy she performed Stupid Love and got it’s moment because that wasn’t even performed live yet before tonight. Her speech in between the Stupid Love performance was beautiful and I loved when she brought the beat in and danced her ass off. Ugh, I just love her so much. 

Onto the actual awards, I cannot believe that she won FIVE! I expected Best Collaboration and was hoping for Artist of the Year but I was NOT expecting Song of the Year! The one that I didn’t even know was happening thought was the FIRST EVER, TRICON AWARD?! The fact that MTV gave Gaga her OWN award for being an icon, a legend and a triple threat was filling my Little Monster heart with such PRIDE and JOY! Seeing her go up on that stage in a new look with a new mask each time, gave me a little boost of serotonin each time. She is just a goddess. There is no one like her and there NEVER will be. 

GOOD GOLLY, MISS MILEY

It feels amazing to be a Miley stan tonight. Miley has been one of my absolute role models since I was a child. I have followed her and supported her my whole life even when people didn’t and I got to say, tonight felt really good. Her performance was PHENOMENAL. Starting off with her GORGEOUS silhouette in that STUNNING black dress and  cross necklace with the red chrome light shook me because I was not expecting that. And, that break before the first chorus?!? LOVED. After, it went to a blue chrome and she started walking while it went full color. When I saw her walk towards some stairs, I had to catch my breath. Suddenly, I see a disco ball. Then she took the bottom half of the dress off and hopped on the disco ball and I SCREAMED. LOUDLY. The fact that she has such an ICONIC moment like Wrecking Ball where she can do something eerily similar and EVERYBODY knows it, is fucking SENSATIONAL! HER VOCALS WERE ON POINT, FACE BEAT, BODY SNATCHED. She just gave the most perfect glam rock pop star performance that I’ve ever seen. Miley having this mainstream moment again just made me so happy. ALSO?! SHE WON TWO AWARDS TONIGHT. I cannot believe Miley won two VMA’s tonight. She doesn’t win a lot of awards (which is extremely disappointing) and to see her win TWO for MOTHER’S DAUGHTER a single from last year that peaked at #54 on the Billboard Hot 100 felt incredible. I just love when she gets the recognition she deserves.   

Other Thoughts:

The Weeknd’s opening performance was so great!! Recently, I have gotten sick of Blinding Lights but this performance totally revitalized for me how great of a song that is. I don’t know how he was up so high but he did an awesome job and the fireworks were great! Also, I’m happy he finally won his first two VMA’s for Best R&B (even though it’s a pop song) and Video of the Year. 

Keke’s hosting was entertaining as hell. She was the perfect host for a time like this for many reasons. She’s funny, relatable, beautiful, entertaining and so many more positive things. I found her really funny and I just love her presence as a whole. Even her little performance was cute too! 

Doja Cat actually blew me away. I was not expecting her to serve that hard. The performance was so futuristic and felt like I was in a new universe. I loved her outfit and LOVED the Say So mix! Also, so happy she included Like That because it’s such a jam. I love Doja and ever since I discovered Juicy last year I've been stanning and this definitely solidified the stan for me. I am so happy that she won (RIGHTFULLY SO!) for Best New Artist. She has had a great rise and her performance definitely gives me high hopes for her future. 

My rankings of the performances are:

Pre Show:

1. Chloe x Halle - Ungodly Hour (THESE QUEENS ARE THE FUTURE!)

2. Machine Gun Kelly w/ blackbear & Travis Barker - My Ex’s Best Friend/Bloody Valentine (I have become really obsessed with his new music recently and love him)

3. Tate McRae - You Broke Me First (surprised by this cause I didn’t know anything about her before but she did a good job!)

4. Jack Harlow - What’s Poppin (cute ig)

5. Lewis Capaldi - Before You Go (🙂)

Main Show: 1. Lady Gaga w/ Ariana Grande - Chromatica II, 911, Rain on Me, Stupid Love (FUCKING AMAZING. SENSATIONAL, &, UNREAL)

2. Miley Cyrus - Midnight Sky (MY QUEEN SO ICONIC I LOVE HER SO MUCH)

3. Doja Cat - Say So/Like That (SO FUTURISTIC AND SOLIDIFIED HER WIN AND SHOWED THAT SHE CAN SERVE)

4. The Weeknd - Blinding Lights (really made me love the song so much more)

5. BTS - Dynamite (I like these boys but the fanbase is so much it stresses me out).

6. JP Saxe & Julia Michaels - If The World Was Ending (so cute, love Julia)

7. Dababy - Peep Hole, Blind, & Rockstar 

8. Maluma - Hawái (loved the drive in aspect)

9. Keke Palmer - Snack (wish she had more time)

10. Black Eyed Peas w/ Nicky Jam & Tyga - Vida Loca/I Gotta Feeling (no one can take Fergie’s place)

11. CNCO - Beso

To end this, I’m just gonna leave this picture here. :)

[phoebehalliwell]

still not over the way Prue, Piper, and Phoebe all got multiple episodes where they got to build their relationships with Patty (as much as they could considering she was dead), and Paige got one five-second scene where she called her Mom and that was the sum total of their interactions on the show. Would it have been so hard for the writers to give us an episode or two where Paige got to work through her feelings about Patty giving her up, and forming a relationship with her?

honestly paige’s whole relationship with not just her immediate family but her extended family as well was always just a lil rushed. like paige and victor never really had any establishing moments he just showed up again and was Dad™ and they would always dance around having any moments with him and Paige. like you could have offered us a single heart-to-heart scene of Victor being like “I know I’m not your real father and I know you had a father who raised you but you’re a part of this family and I want you to know that I view you not as a replacement of Prue but as your own individual person and I do consider you to be my daughter” like y’know just a lil something to smooth over they fact that they definitely never established a relationship but still act like almost family.

i liked her moments with both penny and sam where she’s like i already have a grams / a father and they were actually the ones who raised me i feel like both could have gone more in depth especially paige and penny’s relationship while paige was on her superwich kick like hello?? but i’m glad they gave us something.

but to your question: paige and patty. wow was there something left to be desired there. first off, i am not adopted and therefore i don’t know for sure what it would feel like to meet my mom who gave me up at birth but i’m pretty sure i would want a little more that just a hug and a “welcome home” like patty died when paige was one they could have given us a lil thing bit of patty watching paige grow up, offering a little bit of spirit guidance from the other side like?? they could have implied that it was maybe patty’s spirit that guided her to p3, that gave her the obit (especially seeing as the elders didn’t know). it was even established that kit the cat used to hang out near paige’s apartment, which is weird because paige didn’t have her powers and leo explicit said - and i quote - “ I can't sense where she is because she's technically not a witch yet”. (which is also like such bs but like that’s a grievance for another time) so like maybe they could have implied that patty guided a familiar towards her lost daughter yknow? they had options to introduce her more into paige’s life but it seems like they never felt the need.

(also one more thing sam, i am and the lost picture show were like the only interactions paige had with her father and they were both basically the same interactions like they could have made sam much more of a victor figure (also he had whitelighter powers are you telling me that never came in handy??) and intergrated him more in the show rather than have him show up a grand total of twice 64 episodes apart  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

[razberryyum]

The Untamed/陈情令 Rewatch, Episode 10, Part 2 of 2

(spoilers for everything MDZS/Untamed)

[covers MDZS chapters 29, 30 and 48…kinda]

WangXian meter: 🐰🐰🐰+ 🐰🐰🐰+ 🐰🐰🐰🐰+ 🐰🐰🐰+ 🐰🐰+ 🐰🐰+ 🐰+ 🐰🐰+🐰🐰🐰🐰+🐰

Continued from Part 1:

I love this scene from the episode so much because for me it was absolute proof that Lan Zhan had totally fallen for Wei Ying: he actually SMILES because of him...not once, but TWICE...  

...and then the way he says good-bye to Wei Ying just about murdered me with sweetness. Even though he did smile once before, during the lantern raising moment at Cloud Recesses, one can argue that he was just reacting to the picture of the bunny because he loves bunnies; but here, there is no question whatsoever that he is smiling because of Wei Ying. I think it shows that despite maintaining a generally stoic façade in front of Wei Ying, his heart was already captured by him. Personally, I still don’t think he was actually in love Wei Wuxian yet but definitely crushing hard on him.

When I first time watched this scene, I remember being a downright distressed that Wei Ying was missing all of Lan Zhan’s little signals here because he was too busy getting drunk. At the time it felt like an opportunity lost for another lovely WangXian moment, but now I understand that the purpose of this scene really was to give us a glimpse at Lan Zhan’s feelings. That’s another aspect about The Untamed that I appreciate a lot: the fact that we are getting to see Wei Ying and Lan Zhan’s love story from Lan Zhan’s point of view. In the novel, the focus was mostly on Wei Ying‘s point of view, which makes sense of course since Wei Wuxian is the main protagonist of the story, but I think by giving us Lan Zhan’s side of the story and allowing us to see in real time what he was experiencing emotionally actually adds to the poignancy of their story because for me it basically reinforces how helpless Lan Zhan was: in terms of falling in love and then eventually in not being able to do anything to save the person he fell in love with. I felt the tragedy of his situation so much more as a result.  

Odds and Ends

My first impression of Nie Mingjue: damn, he looks like a hardass. I immediately felt bad for Nie Huaisang, it’s no wonder he was so afraid of his older brother. Compared to his novel and donghua counterpart, I think he was pretty well-casted. Even though Wang Yizhou had a relatively limited number of scenes, he had a pretty strong presence so that I couldn’t help but pay attention to him whenever he was on-screen. Word is the second online movie might actually be centered on the Nie brothers, which means we might get to see much more of him and Ji Li’s NHS. Although at first I was just a teeny bit disappointed that we might not be getting more of the Yi City boys’ story instead, the more I think about it, the more I actually like the idea of getting more of the Nie brothers’ story because I actually don’t remember if much was said about them in the novel other than just their basic introduction, so I would love to see more of their past and their relationship. I think it’s fascinating that even though on the surface NHS is utterly afraid of his brother, he obviously intensely loves and respects NMJ at the same time considering the lengths he went through to avenge his death. I hope we get to see NHS’s side of the events in the live action, especially during the 16 years between Wei Ying’s death and resurrection when he realized Jin Guangyao’s true nature and guilt, and then started to put his grand revenge plan into motion. I hope this also means we might get to meet the real Mo Xuanyu before he gave up his body and soul to bring Wei Ying back. It would be so damn cool if Xiao Zhan played him as well! If they are indeed constructing these two specials on scenes they’ve already shot but couldn’t fit into the series due to pacing issues, there might very well be a chance of XZ playing Mo Xuanyu. Holy crap, that means we might get to see Xiao Zhan play a FOURTH personification in the show, since young Wei Ying, his Yiling Patriarch and Wei Ying-Mo Xuanyu are already three distinct personalities! Oh my God, I’m getting excited, but I really shouldn’t yet since it’s all just rumors and my own wishful thinking now. Guess all I can do is keep my fingers crossed that that’s the direction they’re heading for the second special.  

By the way, I just have to mention something about the captions on the show: whoever inserted those captions with the characters’ names was clearly on speed or something because they would appear and disappear so damn quickly there was hardly a chance to even read them. I’m surprised I even got Nie Mingjue’s so clearly in the screenshot because usually half the name would be gone before the rest of it had even finished appearing. It’s a minor technical issue but it did bug me at the beginning because I was trying to read the damn names.

Seeing the Twin Prides of Yunmeng actually acting like twins who are completely in sync (giggling at how NHS is reacting to his big bro) just makes my heart feel so heavy now. They will never be like this again.  Makes me want to cry.  

Lan Zhan’s look was interesting though. Whenever I see him watching Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng, I sometimes wonder if he’s slightly jealous of the bond they share or of the fun they’re having. Or maybe it’s neither and he just enjoys watching him laugh and smile. Honestly with Lan Zhan, it might be a combination of all three.

These three gossiping dorks. I love them. They’re just so adorable when they get together; I love their interactions and I wish this wasn’t the beginning of the end for all the fun between them cuz there’s really not much more time left for any shenanigans after this.

I also love that Xue Yang is like cracking up in the foreground there but it’s not even certain if it’s because he can hear what they’re saying (about Meng Yao/JGY) or if he’s just being his usual psycho self. I really like that even when Xue Yang is not the focus of the scene, Wang Haoxuan (who portrays Xue Yang of course) is still constantly acting and reacting. I’ve seen folks criticize him for doing that, but I think that’s a little unfair since that had to have been the direction given to him. Not to mention, I think it’s entirely reasonable for Xue Yang to be extra like that, all the time.  

I don’t hate Jin Guangyao, similar to how I feel about Xue Yang, I simply can’t hate him, but I do absolutely hate what he did to Wei Ying, especially when I see this scene again and am reminded of how Wei Ying had also treated him with sincerity and respect, just like Big Bro Xichen did. And yet, while JGY was only protective and caring toward LXC, he basically chose to fuck Wei Ying over. I know the difference is in whom he loved, but still, damn him for that. Wei Ying deserved better from him.   

This was an interesting scene because of how great a risk Jin Guangyao was putting himself in. Wen Zhuliu could have totally accidentally killed him. Even though his aim originally was probably just to injure Nie Mingjue, JGY is not as strong as NMJ so a strike that may only injure the other man could have easily been fatal to JGY. So I guess in this instance, JGY’s intent on saving his master was sincere? But that’s still such a HUGE gamble. He is really so fascinating as a character. And his relationship with NMJ is fascinating as well because there were obviously genuine feelings between them as well—NMJ was freaking crying when he was banishing JGY—and yet the way JGY ultimately ended NMJ’s life was so damn brutal. I know there’s a fine line between love and hate but because their lives continued to be intertwined afterwards, I wonder when exactly it was the two of them crossed over to hate completely. I mean, I have an idea, which I will eventually give voice to, but I still feel a little uncertainty because of certain events that happen immediately afterwards.  

I wish we got to see just how Jin Guangyao found and rescued Big Bro Xichen and oh my God would I LOVE to see the time they spent together, presumably alone, in hiding while Lan Xichen was recovering from his wounds. I feel like we were royally deprived of some serious XiYao time by the live drama. Considering the fact that they seem to thoroughly support this ship, I’m honestly surprised that they didn’t use this opportunity to creatively fill in that big blank. I mean, instead of giving us all those unnecessary scenes of Wen Ruohan and his stupid zombies, they should have given us some XiYao-in-hiding scenes instead dammit.  

Questions I Still Have

Why didn’t Wen Zhuliu go for NMJ’s golden core? Especially since he clearly had an opening when NMJ was busy with the injured JGY? Also, how strong is Wen Chao supposed to be that he could even injure NMJ that seriously? I now he was already weakened and Wen Chao did attack from the back like a coward, but still, his cultivation level can’t be higher than NMJ so I’m just a little surprise his hit made any impact at all, especially since he seems mostly weaksauce in all other instances. This whole fight scene was just a little weird to me. And also, damn is JGY a shitty liar at that point. I actually laughed out loud when he full on denied that he was the one who killed that dude (who I thought was a total dick tbh so I kinda don’t blame JGY for killing his ass) even though he was still holding on to the murder weapon which was dripping with the guy’s blood. Guess he still hadn’t perfected his lying skills. 

Overall Episode Rating: 9 Lil Apples out of 10

[dapper-ships-herself]

Dapper!!! :0c Tell me about your Fairy Tail s/i?

So! I technically have two for Fairy Tail, except unlike my BSD s/is where they’re each very different, the main difference here is simply the backstories, present day during the story the personality and most of my relationships are the same.

For personality in general, kind and soft spoken, with a subtle mischievous nature too, snark with a sweet smile you could say, but her teasing is never mean. Like so many members of the guild, she is fiercely protective of their family. The only way to actually make her mad is by threatening an innocent person. Her hobbies include reading, art, and staring at Erza. The exact nature and start of that friendship changes a little depending on the backstory, but basically they have been best friends since childhood, with my s/i harboring a secret crush all that time. I went into more detail on her relationships here.    

First backstory is the Dreyar backstory. In this she is Laxus’s little sister. She and her brother are close, he’s super protective, and my s/i looks up to him, in fact due to an incident when they were both children (which I want to write about) she vows that one day she will “grow strong enough to protect even you.” Though after their father was banished from the guild and Laxus changed, there was a rift between them, but she still knows her kind brother is buried in there. She also greatly respects her grandfather, not growing to harbor that same resentment as Laxus did. As for their father, I haven’t actually gotten to where he’s properly introduced in, I believe, the grand magic games arc, but I know that backstory and stuff, so I think she has mixed feelings about him, her being so young when he was banished that she really hardy remembers him and only really knows he did something bad to be kicked out. This is also the default backstory that I use most often.

The other backstory is the library backstory, and this one is a lot more me making shit up. In this, she was actually born far back in the past, in to a village that still feared most magics except for a few types of holder magic. My s/i was born as the grand daughter of the village leader, and she was also born able to use magic. She couldn’t do anything impressive as it was mostly only like magical potential, but still her grandfather wanted to banish her for it, but her parents managed to convince him that she was safe so long as they made sure she never used it. Still, rumors spread about her being “strange” and she was a black sheep of the village. She only had one friend, a girl a little bit older than her named Rimis, or Ri for short. Her childhood wasn’t great, but her parent’s cared for her and she had Ri, so it was fine. One day though, a magical monster attacked their village. In the chaos, she and Ri found themselves confronted by the beast and Ri was killed by it protecting her. In her sorrow, she blindly unleashed a wave of her magic, reaper magic. This took care of the monster, but all her village saw when the dust cleared was one little girl on the ground and the black sheep angrily crackling with dark magical energy. They were convinced that she used her power to bring that creature to their village in the first place, and no amount of protest and pleading would convince them otherwise. Her grandfather, in front of the angry mob her village had turned into, announced that she was a demon and needed to be sealed away, and he presented one of the few magical items the village held, a key to open the library of Nairat, said to be a vast library assembled by a demon that contains book from the past, present, and future, and exists technically as a pocket dimension outside of time. It sounds pretty great until you get to the part where it can only be opened to allow inside on person at a time, and that once someone goes in they can only get back out by reading every single book held inside, and if they give up then they are turned to stone. She pleaded that she had no part in the monster attacking, but no one listened, and even her parents only cried as they silently watched her get thrown inside. She spent the next 936 years trapped in there, not ageing physically or mentally, until she finally read the last book in Nairat’s collection and the door reopened. She found herself in a strange land, and stranger still the people here actually seemed to celebrate magic. She wandered from city to city until eventually she made it to Magnolia, where master Makarov found her alone in the streets and invited her back to the guild. After being alone for nearly a thousand years, she had kind of forgotten how to talk to people, and so was effectively mute for months. It took her a while to feel comfortable in the guild and to trust that they wouldn’t banish her, and for her to feel safe training her own magic.

After her backstory is revealed to the other characters, I imagine a sort of running joke is that they always expect her to have like some wise knowledge about a situation like she’s a scholar or something but she’s usually like “I wasn’t actually studying any of those books, I read them as fast as possible so I could get the heck out of that place, also I was like eight so   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ “ and she mostly only remembers vague knowledge and random useless trivia she loves to share.  

Fun fact, in this backstory, the cloak she wears was sewn as a gift from her parents.

As for what magic she uses, I used to switch it based on my mood between three different types, except now I think I want her to be able to use all three normally. Sounds op but I think I balance it alright and justify the why well enough also everyone in this show is op. Anyway, the magic types are the already mentioned reaper magic (basically controlling and shaping a dark energy, able to stabilize people in a critical state but not actually able to heal, with moves such as reaper’s scythe, reaper’s hand, reaper’s mercy, and reaper’s minions), sweets magic (a much lighter form of magic, takes the shape of pieces of candy, one capability is she can summon a giant lollipop that can hover off the ground but not actually fly, and like licorice whips, a tidal wave of sugar, etc), and crystal magic (able to grow crystals up from surfaces that jut up like jagged spikes or rise up like a shield). So each magic has different benefits and uses depending on what kind of fight she’s. I could probably explain them a bit better but I am a bit tired rn.  

Dreyar! Gillian can use these three because she was implemented with lacrima like Laxus by their father, except she’s not a dragon slayer and got two smaller lacrima that allowed her to branch her magic like that. She was born with the sweets magic. Some people have called her a protege because of this and she becomes embarrassed and a little ashamed, knowing that that strength is from the lacrimas. 

Library! Gillian learned crystal magic from a book in the library to then draw out most of her reaper magic and seal it within a crystal she created out of fear and shame, leaving only a formless magical potential inside herself, and then when she started learning magic at the guild properly, she used some techniques she remembered from some books to reshape the magical potential she had to present itself as something far less threatening, the sweets magic. During her personal arc early on in the story (I picture it being the arc before the Tower of Heaven arc), when her backstory is revealed (and I kind of want to type out what I picture for this arc because I got like a whole thing), that’s when she breaks the crystal sealing away her reaper magic and begins to realize that it’s okay to start accepting this part of her she’s been so afraid of even still. 

Maybe some of this actually wouldn’t fully work within the story, but like I said I haven’t actually seen the whole show/manga and while I do know at least generally what happens my knowledge isn’t perfect especially about lore things although I did try and do research. 

I tried to keep it a pretty basic overview but it still got long! Anyway, I love my FT s/i so I’m always happy to answer questions and stuff~

(Forgive any spelling or grammar mistakes please, it’s late rn and spell checking is for whimps (translation: I’m totally gonna reread this ramble tomorrow and kick myself for mistakes)) 

[twonewkidsonesouthpark]

Chapter 3: A Class Act

So let me get this straight; we moved in during the most intensive, town wide, elementary school LARP session the world has ever known, you’re all fighting over a goddamn TREE BRANCH, and all of you seem to think that me and my sister are the same person. Oh, and also boys, point for mom and dad, I guess. Have I covered all of the craziness happening here or am I missing something?

Lynnea knew she wasn’t going to get an answer -- Kyle seemed like a nice enough kid, besides the whole ‘quasi-abducting her under false assumptions’ thing, but Alyssa was the only person who she could really ever communicate with. Came with the twin territory, she supposed. Or just being raised in the same weird way.

“So? Will you join us?”

Part of Lynn wanted to say no, wanted to just go home and finish unpacking and not get involved in this mess… but Kyle sounded so damn hopeful and…

...when was the last time she ever got to have fun like this? As her, not her-pretending-to-be-Lyssie-pretending-to-be-the-same-person. And... well, dad DID tell them to make friends…

Fuck it. For once in their lives, she was doing something she wanted to do.

Lynnea nodded.

Kyle grinned, “Awesome! Okay, so first things first, you can choose from a few classes,” Kyle told her, leading her over to the well labeled shop, “You can be a ranger like Stan, a warrior, a mage, a healer… you can’t be a Bard unless you know how to play an instrument, that’s why Jimmy’s the only one.”

Well, that’s right out then unless being able to play a really shitty recorder counts. Go back to that healer class, can I heal AND hit things or is it just one or the other? She picked up the healer headband and the sword, holding them both out toward Kyle quisitively.

“Dude, that’s not the warrior armor,” Stan says. Lynn gave him a flat look, gesturing again to both, and hoping this wasn’t about to turn into a frustratingly stupid game of charades --

Kyle tilted his head, eyes going from the headband to the sword before something seemed to click, “Oh! You want to heal and hit shit?”

Ding ding, we have a winner!

Kyle looked contemplative, “We don’t really have a class for that, but… hm,” he tapped his fingers against his opposite arm, “I think we can manage that. Cartman’s got Butters as a Paladin, but he made that class human only, so we’d need to think up a different name for it. What do you call a healer who hits things?”

“A really bad healer?” Stan offers up.

“Ha ha, very funny.”

Lynn tapped him on the shoulder, helpfully showing him her phone screen with the wikipedia page for Cleric opened up on it, I think THIS is what you’re looking for.

Kyle read it, then nodded after a minute, “Yeah, we can totally swing that. It’s… ugh, it’s essentially the...” he mumbled something under his breath, “Class.”

Lynn blinked, then tilted her head, putting a hand up to cup behind her ear, Wanna run that one by me again, I think I just SERIOUSLY misheard you.

“Ugghhhh, Cartman called it the Jew class, alright?” Kyle said, with an exasperated roll of his eyes, “Cleric’s a way better name, though, so that’s what we’re going with.”

Wow. Ooookay then.

“Yeah,” Kyle sighed, clearly seeing the shock on her face, “Right, let’s get you geared up.”

It was a little surprising to see just how MUCH stuff the shop had accumulated, and how creative the boys had gotten with their homemade weapons. Well, if a zombie apocalypse ever hits, these guys are set. It was a little annoying to have to spend her allowance for her ‘staff,’ though. At least Kyle gave her the armor set for free, mostly because they had to pick and choose pieces from their already established classes, and helped her get the fake pointed ears on.

“Just don’t futz with ‘em too much, we tried gluing them on but well -- a couple peoples’ moms got mad,” he shrugs. Lynn dropped her hand from where she was playing with her hair, trying to get it to settle around the pointy appendages, “Okay, so, we’ve got your class, your equipment… oh, right, add me on facebook so you can stay in contact,” Kyle said, “It’s how I usually give orders, Cartman keeps trying to assassinate me every time I leave my yard,” he rolls his eyes.

Oh. Thaaaaaat was going to be a problem…

Kyle raised an eyebrow at Lynn as she fidgeted awkwardly, “Dude, what? I know you’ve got a phone, what’s the issue?” Well yeah, her parents learned that lesson that their while daughters would concede to share many things - a room, clothes, an identity - a phone would not be one of them. It had only taken a few fights for them to cave and get a second phone. But only one of them had the Facebook app downloaded, and that phone? Was in Alyssa’s possession at the moment.

Sighing, Lynn pulled her phone out of her pocket and handed it over to Kyle, who looked confused as he flipped through the screens, “...you don’t have Facebook?” He finally asked when he put two and two together.

Technically, no. But it’s not like I can explain that me and my twin sister have to share a facebook page that’s heavily monitored by our parents, sooo… Lynn took the phone back, opening up her contacts, and tapping the screen next to her parents’ cell numbers, “Ohhh. Overprotective parents?” Stan guessed.

Close enough, she nodded.

“W-well, we won’t t-t-tell if yyyyyou d-don’t,” Jimmy grinned. She gave him a flat look, and the grin dropped slightly, “S-ssorry. Sore sp-pot?” She shrugged, willing to let it slide. At least he apologized.

Then her phone wasn’t in her hands as Stan took it out of her grip, “Here. I’ll make you a Facebook page, that way your parents can’t get mad at you for doing it, right?”

I am pretty sure that is NOT how that works, Stan. But she didn’t try to grab it back, letting Stan fiddle with it.

“Dude, what do I put in for your name?” Stan asked, looking up at her, and Lynnea’s brain froze up. She couldn’t tell them her real name -- for a number of reasons, the current top of the list being they thought she was a guy.

“Well not his real name, obviously, if we don’t want his parents finding the page,” Kyle saves the day, “We do need to call you something, though. Unless you want to keep going by ‘New Kid’.”

Preferably not, but I can always change it later, right? She shrugged, motioning for the phone back. She’d send all the relevant people a friend request in a minute if they didn’t beat her to it, But first, let me take a selfie, she thought with an inward giggle as she held the camera up and snapped a picture. At least she didn’t feel too out of place as the friend requests flooded in -- it looked like all of the boys had their costumes on in their profile pics, at least for the moment.

It struck her, about then that, for the first time in possibly her whole life… she had friends. Friends that were hers, not hers and Lyssie’s. Lynn blinked rapidly -- she didn’t know MUCH about these guys, but crying in front of a bunch of boys probably wasn’t going to win her points. She shoved her phone in the pocket of her new robe, looking up at them.

So… now what?

‘Now what’ was apparently teaching her the rules of the game, and how to fight -- that one, at least, she already knew. She’d gotten into enough scuffles with Lyssie over their lives to know how to defend herself, at least. And that was without the solid, somewhat sharp metal rod she now had to hit people with. She also got the privilege of holding onto a slew of health and power ‘potions’ -- snacks. At least Kyle lent her a backpack for those.

“Now that you’re fully initiated into my army, I have your first task for you,” Kyle said, hopping back up into his throne once he felt she wouldn’t make a fucking fool out of herself, “The humans will stop at nothing to retrieve the stick, so we need to take it somewhere they won’t look. Stan, I want you and the New Kid to escort the Bard back to the Inn of the Giggling Donkey. Jimmy, I’m putting you in charge of guarding the stick. We’ll get our men set up inside to keep you safe.”

“Yes, Your Majesty!” Jimmy and Stan said.

Kyle grabbed the stick off the arm of his throne, handing it over to Stan, who took it with a firm nod, “Guard it with your lives. The Grand Fatass canNOT get his hands on it again,” Kyle said, “Now, go! Before they have time to regroup.”

“C’mon, New Kid, we’ll show you around town while we head to Jimmy’s -- er, the Inn,” Stan said, tucking the stick in his belt and heading toward the back door. Jimmy followed after him, pausing to shake mud and grass off the ends of his crutches before going inside. Lynn practically bounced along behind them.

Maybe this move wasn’t going to be so shitty after all.

[therainroguefanfiction]

⁂ Echo [o1/o3] (Daniel Bryan)

Genre: Friendship, Crack, Family, Slice of Life

Word Count: 2,017

Pairing: Reader, Daniel Bryan

World: WWE Monday Night Raw

Song Lyrics: “Echo” by Bad Meets Evil

Author’s Note: This was written back in the day when I was obsessed with Monday Night Raw. I looked forward to it all week long and never missed it, it was fucking hilarious lol So here’s some teenage sass-filled crap haha

━━━━━━༻🌧️༺━━━━━━

“As. He Takes. A Bow. And They All Know. All the Girls. The Boys. They Chase. The Noise.“

Monday Night Raw hadn’t even started yet, but there were already quite a few people standing around the arena. It was about eleven in the morning, and the show didn’t begin until a little after eight that night, but even so, there was a large crowd gathered outside the arena, despite the freezing cold temperature that wrapped tightly around them like a blanket. Most of them were clad in apparel supporting their favorite wrestler, and most had a camera in their hand, ready to take a picture at a moment’s notice.

Most of the crowd consisted of teenagers and adults, the parents not wanting to subject their small children to the cold weather until the show actually started. Of course, everyone had their seats already, so why were they gathering as if it was a race to see who could get the best seats first? Simple. Every once in a while, you could catch a glimpse of one of the wrestlers as they entered or exited the building. And some of them even went so far as to walk out to the crowd – of course, they kept their distance, and several security guards were standing in between; you can never underestimate a rabid fan.

Now, what kind of person would be willing to stand out in freezing cold weather for hours on end when there is such a small chance of them seeing their favorite star? A crazy person. An out-of-their-mind, possibly drunk, crazy. ass. person.

Your eye twitched in annoyance as your best friend tugged roughly on your wrist. Your eyes were narrowed at the arena that towered over you, wondering why, in satan’s name, you were there at eleven in the morning. To be technical, the pair of you had arrived a little past six – you didn’t even know there was a six am until today! – and had been walking around out front since. It wasn’t that you were unhappy because it was freezing, no, you loved the cold. The problem was that you’d much rather be sleeping than spending some fourteen hours standing around doing nothing.

What the hell was this boy’s problem?

And better yet, why the hell were you friends with him?

“Y/N~!” Kyle, your best friend and current object of your annoyance, tugged on your arm, a pout set on his childish face. “Come on~ This is exciting!”

“Exciting?” you questioned, feeling your patience begin to snap. You pulled your arm free to use it to motion around you, “Exciting?! What the hell is so exciting about standing around doing nothing for hours on end, when I could be sleeping!?”

Kyle looked at the crowd, which had turned silent and was looking at you as if you were a crazy person wildly waving a gun around. And, of course, you picking up on that look had to retort, “And what the hell are you lookin’ at?! You’re the crazy ones, coming out here at a time I didn’t even know existed, just to hold onto a fleeting hope that you might catch a mere glimpse at the object of your undying fan love!”

The group flinched back in surprise, some in fear. Before your outburst, it had been a small ocean of fans gathered in front of the arena, but now there was a large circle around you and Kyle, where the others had backed away.

“Y/N~!” Kyle moaned, his hand set firmly on his forehead, which was covered by his orange locks. “You promised!”

“I didn’t promise shit.” You scoffed, looking away from your pouting friend, “I told you I didn’t want to come in the first place, and yet you still dragged me down here. You knew I’d be less than pleasant, and you said you were fine with it, as long as I came. Remember?”

“Well… yeah, but…”

“No buts. I didn’t want to come to this stupid thing, to begin with, and now you’re dragging me down here when I could be sleeping? Honestly, Kyle. Did you really expect me to act nice?”

His bottom lip stuck out, eyes shining like a lost puppy dog. You could just imagine dog ears and a tail on him; the imagery was perfect. This was a technique that no one could resist… except one person.

You simply rolled your eyes and turned your back to him, “That may have worked when we first met, but it don’t work no more.”

“Wahhh, really?!” he asked, genuinely shocked at the news.

“You overused it, my friend.”

“Ahhh, damn. And that was my best weapon against you!”

“Best weapon? It was your only weapon!”

Before he could retort, the doors on the side of the building burst open, and a large man wearing the security shirt walked out. Everyone fell silent, turning to watch the man as he made his way towards the black SUV that was pulling up. Two more security guards passed by, moving to stand between the crowd and the vehicle. The car shut off, but the person inside did not step out until the guards had placed a security rope around the area, stopping rabid fans before they could think to jump the person within the tinted car.

The door was opened and, as if in slow motion, Chris Jericho – dressed in a crisp dark, blue suit – stepped out, pulling his sunglasses from his face. Within the crowd, there was a mixture of cheers and boos, as their usually was, and a few of them even began to chant “Y2J”.

Kyle leaned forward on the red velvet rope, his eyes shining like that of a small child on Christmas morning, his hands folded under his chin. You could swear you saw something akin to sparkles in his eyes.

The screaming was getting on your already short nerves, but you kept your mouth shut. They were just happy to see one of their favorite wrestlers. Of course, every time they got too close to you, your glare sent them scrambling away, once again forming a circle around you and your friend.

Were you the only one that didn’t want to be there?

Of course. Who in their right mind would go to such an event if they really didn’t want to?

Stupid, crazy-ass Y/N.

You had figured Kyle’s whining would have been just a bit more annoying than what you were currently going through. Of course, there was one thing you needed to be able to keep your cool.

Pushing your way through the crowd, you looked up lazily at the towering guard at the door. He looked down at you with a mean look, akin only to security guards. When he spoke, his voice was gruff and deep, “What do you want?”

“Look, I need a soda in order to not kill someone and I’ve got a long day ahead. Now, I know you guys have soda machines back there.” You paused, digging into your pocket for some change and then holding it out to the man, “You can either let me back there to get one, or you can get one for me.”

The man’s eyes narrowed, “Move back, kid.”

Your eye twitched and your hand clenched tightly around the money. You loathed being called a kid.

The crowd behind you started cheering loudly and, when you looked over your shoulder, you saw Jericho standing behind you. He glanced at you as he passed, entering the building in front of the two security guards who were right behind him.

The large man in front of you roughly pushed you back before turning to follow.

“Teme – !” Before you could rush after and kick his ass, Kyle grabbed you from behind, arms locked around your waist as he attempted to hold you back. Finally, the doors closed and it was safe to release you. You kicked the door roughly, screaming out an ‘asshole‘ before turning away. Kyle sighed, shaking his head. “What?!”

“You and your temper,” he responded simply, moving to sit on the ropes.

“Bitch pissed me off. Better be lucky you held me back.” You growled, moving to sit next to him so that you were in between him and the large double doors, “You should have brought Raven. You know how she loves wrestling.”

“True~, but I wanted to come with me bestie~” he grinned, putting his arm on your shoulder.

You sent him an ‘are-you-kidding-me?‘ look, but said nothing. You never did understand why Kyle liked you so much, despite the way you were. Most people would spend a grand total of five minutes with you and decide they hated you, whereas Kyle had been your friend for almost five years now. To be completely honest, he was the only person to put up with you that long, and in a way, you were grateful to him. Though your pride would never let you admit it out loud, Kyle knew better.

The screaming resumed, catching the attention of the two seventeen-year-olds. You both looked towards the crowd, who were screaming and looking at the door, but before you had a chance to look at what they saw, a can of soda was shoved in front of your face. Looking first at the cherry Pepsi, then the hand, and finally up the arm towards the face of the person who was offering your drug of choice.

Standing before you was Chris Jericho, his face blank. He made a motion for you to take it and, with a raised brow, you took the ice-cold beverage from his hand. A small smirk overtook his lips before he turned and re-entered the building. The crowd was staring at you with a mixture of emotions; envy, anger, curiosity, and wonder. They looked like they wanted to jump you and steal the soda from your hands but, at the same time, they looked afraid not knowing what the easily angered teen was capable of. And clearly, none of them were willing to find out.

“Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

Both of them were staring down at the soda, which had a small ice cloud rolling off of it due to the cold of it mixing with the cold temperature outside.

“Chris Jericho just gave you a soda. He… He actually touched it.”

You slapped his hand away as he made a grab for it, glaring at him angrily. “No one touches my soda.”

His bottom lip stuck out and he rubbed the back of his hand, “You’re so mean~”

Popping the top, you stuck the cold can to your lips, closing your eyes in pure bliss. Soda was your drug and it was the only thing that could make you do almost anything to get one. You were addicted and, as pathetic as it was, you weren’t afraid to show it. But, what’s worse? Being addicted to soda or being addicted to an actual drug? Soda doesn’t kill.

In most cases.

“I just thought of something,”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s stupid.”

“You’re so mean!” he stuck his tongue out, “Anyway, I was thinking, how much could we get for that can if we put it on eBay?”

You raised an eyebrow, “No one’ll believe that he touched it.”

“So we get his fingerprints lifted and include it with the order, offering a thirty-day money-back guarantee.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Plus we have all of these witnesses.” he motioned towards the crowd, who was still watching them intently.

“You’re fucking crazy,”

“Come on! Can’t you have faith in anything?”

“I have faith in soda.” You paused, “And sleep. Sleep is good.”

Kyle facepalmed, slamming his hand hard against his forehead.

Every person was crazy in their own right. Some just stuck out more than others. Either way, every person is crazy, it just doesn’t always show unless you look real hard.

Of course, crazy isn’t always a bad thing.

WWE Monday Night Raw was a perfect example of that.

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[alastar-wyatt]

Never Have I Ever... (Prompt)

Asked someone to marry you? —

A grunt followed, with a side-ways sweep of his eyes. “No.” [He was getting ready to when the person left him after a few years.]

Kissed one of your friends? — “Yes, a girlfriend.” [Before they were dating, he did kiss her, but that ended up being his way of asking her out.]

Danced on a table in a bar / tavern? — Alastar laughed. “I’ve been told I have, but I don’t remember.) [Only if you get him black out drunk will he do this, and only if he’s dared.]

Ever told a lie? — “Everyone tells lies.” [He lies to everyone he meets.]

Had feelings for someone you can’t have? — “Of course, that’s how the dating world works. And in turn, I’ve had people confess to me, when, in fact, I knew my heart belonged to another.” [He’s bad. He will lead people on if he thinks someone likes him. So when he feels something for someone, he has a tendency to believe they will do the same to him and refuses to proceed further.]

Ever kissed someone of the same sex? — “In sparring, its unavoidable. Its best to pretend it didn’t happen when someone screws there footwork up and suddenly limbs are flying. ” [Actually no, and hopes it will never happen]

Kissed a picture? — “People do that?” [No. In fact, I don’t think he realized people did that!]

Slept until 5pm? — “Yes.” [He’s a night owl. Honestly, if a childhood of routine wasn’t set up, he probably wouldn’t even be waking up just before noon nowadays.]

Worked at a fast food chain / restaurant? — “No. Not with my skill set. You couldn’t get me into the bar tending business or food business. Though, it might be more stable pay, if it wasn’t so routine.” [He’s tried before, but quit after two days.]

Stolen something? — “No. I’ve never found any reason to steal anything that was worth the trouble.” [Technically he has stolen from the dead. After-all they don’t need swords, boots, belts, armor, daggers, so on and so forth.]

Been fired from a job? — “Who hasn’t?” [Yes, Dear me. In fact, I remember getting an ask once why Alastar jumped guilds a lot. That was mostly because he got ‘fired’ from those jobs!]

Done something you regret? — “Maybe, but I doubt you’ll find out.” [There’s a very specific scene that comes to mind that he wishes he could back in time and just fix it.]

Laughed until something you were drinking came out of your nose? — “Yes. But I don’t remember the jokes or the scenarios. It usually involves a bar and some alcohol.” [He’s pretty in control of himself, unless, there’s alcohol or drugs involved.]

Caught a snowflake on your tongue? — “When I was a child, but now, I find that as a sign to avoid that individual.” [The first straight-answer of this questioner!]

Sat on a roof top? — “Its’ where you can find me most days.” [He is a people watcher. When he isn’t in the mood to be seen, but not be alone, he’ll find a perch where he can sit and watch.]

Kissed someone you shouldn’t have? — “Probably, I’m not sure. I don’t think so really.” [No.]

Sang in the shower? — “I don’t sing outside of the shower.” [He sings only when he’s drunk.]

Been pushed into a body of water with all your clothes on? — A dark look crosses his face. Its clear, he won’t be saying another word. [Yes. Omg, I’m dying. There was a specific character rp with a friend of mine that purposefully teleported Alastar into a pool of water in Dalaran simply because Alastar refused to do as he said. It was the funniest shit I’ve ever experience. Alastar was also piss-drunk during that time.]

Shaved your head? — “No.” [He has not.]

Made a boyfriend / girlfriend cry? — There came a lengthy pause, a moment of thought, and eyes that grew tight and sorrowfully. “Yes.” [He assumes, but he doesn’t actually know.]

Shot a gun? — “Yes.” [He carries a concealed pistol on him]

Still loved someone you shouldn’t? — “No, because if I shouldn’t have, there was probably a good reason I backed off.” [He’s actually pretty hard in relationships. He’s quicker to dismiss someone he loves than to love someone he shouldn’t.]

Have / had a tattoo? — An eyebrow perked up. “Yes,” he said holding up both hands and showing the front of hands. Not a single piece of white skin showed, except on the fingers, and it was a picture depicting a wolf, a bird, and the rising of the sun. “I also have two more. One of an blue anchor and one of a silver sword.”  [He got one, then went crazy.]

Liked someone, but will never tell who? — “Yes.” [Always and forever, he’s bad with words.]

Been too honest? — “Ye--No. No.” [Never. Though in anger, he has been very close to just attacking someone faults simply to hurt them.]

Ruined a surprise? — “Not sure. But probably. No one ever tells me secrets like that.” [No actually! But for some reason people think he would. Which is a grand laugh for me.]

Been told that you’re beautiful by someone who totally meant what they said? — “Yes.” [And by many people, different sexes, races, and ages.]

Stalked someone? — “Unfortunately, that was the name of the game for a while. Got paid for it.” [He makes it sound like it was a job, and while yes, he was hired to spy on people, he did go out of his way and stalked a specific doctor for several long months until he got caught, not by said doctor but by someone else.]

Thoughts about murder? — “Ha!” He breathed, “You first. Have you thought about murdering anyone recently?” [Yes, many times, and has attempted a few times.]

How about mass murder? — “No. I don’t think I even have such a talent for such things.” [Though, he does have a skill set to do such things, he is not a murderer by heart. He kills only if he is threatened, or back in the good old days, when he got paid for it.]

Cheated on someone? —   “Never.” [Not in a relationship no.]

Gotten so angry that you cried? — “I’ve gotten angry enough to punch a brick wall and break a few fingers.” [Yes, in fact, if he gets angry at all, he’ll start crying as soon as he knows he’s alone.]

Tried to stay away from someone for their own good? — “Their own good in what way?” [Yes, but also for self-punishment.]

Thoughts about suicide? — “That’s is what war is all about right?” [Yes.]

Had a girlfriend / boyfriend? — “Yes. A few girlfriends.” [He has had a few, but only one that was a serious relationship for him.]

Gotten totally drunk during a holiday? — “Ever holiday is tavern day.” [He gets drunks on non-holidays.]

Tagged by: @caladhel-iarian​ (Yeah another tag! Though this one didn’t appear in my notifications. Strange.)

Tagging: @savianblackwood​ @patiencekindnesscourage​ @desperate-prayer​ @killerkyara​ @joraleimoonstalker​