#2) an adult think about dating their friend’s kid. It would have just been extremely inappropriate and weird

[thephantomcasebook]

do you think it would had been really out of character in any circumstances for heleana to be more active in dance of dragon with her dreamfyre

i just feel dreamfyre is literally old as vermithor and yes vermithor went to battles and dreamfyre’s past rider rhaena was not involved in any fighting as well

but i wished of the alternate reality where heleana in her own way with dreamfyre survives and wins the dance, not acting like rhaenyra or heleana but acting like herself in an authentic way but still involved in it because yes she lost her baby jaehaerys incredibly traumatic way but she had two other kids , what about them!??? They were still right there heleana why why why would u give up

and when i heard that george martin had changed that heleana and aemond had died different days instead of same day like how george wrote at first. My heart broke and i felt really upset at that. As i feel that was the evidence of heleamond to me

I just don't see Helaena in either the books or the show having the heart or the nature for war.

I get the strong sense from her character that Helaena doesn't like killing any living beings, animal, bug, or human. Though, I do wish the show would do something with her character.

It seems that when she was a tweeny in the show that she was lucid, intelligent, and kind of a prissy princess. She just had weird hobbies and flashes of foresight. But it seems that Phia plays adult Helaena like she's on the spectrum and has decided to go full weird, most likely not reading the book and realizing that Helaena is supposed to be one of the most popular and beloved queens in the history of the Seven Kingdoms. Her death started a revolution that drove Rhaenyra to her death.

I hope in Season 2 we see a bit of Queen Helaena "The Beloved" out amongst the people. It is really important for the plot to show that both Helaena and Daeron are extremely popular figures among the smallfolk and commons.

I do offer a bit of comfort in that "Rise of the Dragon" - the book that changed several things recently - is not actually written by George RR Martin, but by his friends and editors Ellio and Linda, who run "A Wiki of Ice and Fire".

Also, having my contentious run-ins with one of them over the past 13 years, They both have a history of ... "Fudging" continuity that they don't like and styling themselves the arbiters of what is real and fiction in continuity ... most of the time without GRRM's opinion on the matter. They have, on occasion, tried to squash popular fan theories and canon that they don't like or agree with.

So, the new "continuity" that mixes up the dates of Helaena and Aemond's death and the reason that Criston dies, is not exactly law, because "Rise of the Dragon" was not written by GRRM himself. It is a compilation and cliff notes version of "Fire & Blood" written by his friends.

So, in the official GRRM written canon of "Fire & Blood" Aemond and Helaena still die on the same day.

If that helps.

[fountainpenguin]

If you were given the opportunity to reboot FOP from the ground up, what would you change, shake up, or put your own spin on?

I'll have to give this a short answer, I no joke spent over 2 hours replying to this, then added a Read More and Tumblr told me that my post was too out of this world and it broke the editor. It kicked me out in a split second without any opportunity to save. Sorry to everyone who has to scroll past my stuff in the future, but I'm not living through this again. Read Mores have no place on my blog.

I'm furious because 1) I tried to copy-paste out of this editor like I always do and save in an external place, but the new editor is busted and only copies one paragraph when you do CTRL-A so I gave up, and 2) literally the last sentence I wrote before typing that was "Before my hiatus, Read Mores broke stuff, but I'm willing to give this another try." It's not even the same error it used to be. I can't. I can't.

At least we're friends and I think you know a lot of my thoughts anyway. Sorry it took so long to write an answer to this message, but I've already let it sit for so long that I HAVE to get it out of my inbox now or I'll never go back to it after losing everything :/ I can't believe that just happened. How ironic that one of the main reasons I went on hiatus was because stuff kept breaking and then it's worse when I return. Bleh.

So... Here's the short version of things I can remember talking about:

Update world lore, especially regarding Anti-Fairies. Anti-Fairies debuted in Season 2 and didn't reappear until Season 5; Anti-Fairy World itself made its first appearance in Season 6 because the Anti-Fairies were only seen in jail before that. Anti-Fairy World is kind of barren and stereotypical, and the general vibe of Anti-Fairies is that they are all evil because their magic revolves around bad luck. I'd prefer some gray area. I also feel like the characterizations for Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda were rushed and we should say it.

Logically I know that Anti-Wanda can be said to parallel Wanda's high-class mafia upbringing, but I doubt that was planned since Wanda's family only showed up in Season 5. In another universe, we could have had a classy evil queen. I love the grubby gal, but there are so many cool aesthetics she could have had instead. The Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda vibe doesn't bring anything to the table that Cosmo and Wanda didn't already have unless you take creative liberties.

Maps. Maps would have been great.

Designs. Cosmo, Crocker, and Dad really don't need the same shirt. Wanda's outfit is pretty bland too, and it's honestly a shame that Anti-Cosmo got a unique outfit but Anti-Wanda's is just a recolor of Wanda's. See also, classy queen.

Also I've never liked Timmy's Channel Chasers adult design; I just don't think it's in character. I feel like his body type would be much closer to his parents, and the existing one is just too extreme for my preferences. Doesn't say "Timmy the average kid" to me.

"Fairly Odd Baby" - As much as I enjoy the idea of Fairies placing a ban on babies because they're destructive and Fairy World likes to push away its problems, I'd have introduced Poof as part of an announcement that Cosmo and Wanda had been expecting a baby for 100 to 1000 years. Their lifespans are so long, it wouldn't be out of the question. A reveal episode could have been fun.

I also don't think I would have chosen to leave Poof a baby who can't speak for that long; I think he has a fun personality (Sasses Foop, deliberately puts Foop in harm's way, but also he's super chill and nice and likes sports) and I would have liked to see more episodes where he talks. I don't love how he was shipped to boarding school as soon as he was able to talk and dialogue was needed.

Vicky takes Mark back onscreen. She canonically decided she wanted to start dating him again, after she found out he was an alien and she broke up with him. She made the choice to take back her alien boyfriend and she loves him and we should talk about it. I'm obsessed with them and will forever treasure the deleted "Foul Balled" scene of them holding hands at the senior home while Mark is in his squid form. I support Vicky becoming the shapeshifting queen of a violent planet and being extremely in love with her squid husband.

Chloe / A.J. friendship. A.J. ended world hunger in Season 2 and he built a time machine a few seasons later, I feel like those two would have really hit it off.

More episodes of Timmy playing soccer. I will not re-elaborate.

More of side characters I love, like Molly and Kevin. I love them. I love Kevin falling farther and farther behind his uncle when they walk together, I love Timmy introducing himself to Molly's fairy by shaking her hand... They might be side characters but I feel like they add a lot more to the world and character dynamics in their few scenes than many of the characters do.

Sharing fairies. Timmy sharing fairies with Chloe (or Kevin) as part of a temporary program (like she was just here for one school year before her parents moved again). I think one of the issues people have with Chloe is that it feels like she's here for the rest of Timmy's fairy-related life, and I think a few months of hanging out with her would have been plenty and then there would have been a reason for her to leave the canon afterwards.

Make Chloe Dinkleberg's niece. My favorite headcanon. Also a perfect explanation for why Chloe's family would move to Timmy's street. Also a hilarious parallel of Timmy seething with frustration at his "perfect" neighbor despite spending the entire series making fun of his dad for doing the same thing.

More Timmy/Chloe "step-sibling" interactions. I support Timmy "I will sit with you while you have an hour-long panic attack" Turner in "The Booby Trap" but I cannot emphasize enough that I equally support Timmy "Will take a call from Chloe, listen to her explain that she vaporized a juice box, then hang up and go to bed" Turner. They are step-siblings...

Timmy, Chloe, and Kevin. I support Timmy - Chloe - Kevin trio interactions in general. They're a comedic trio and I want them to support each other.

Gary and Betty. Unironically, we need to talk more about Gary and Betty canonically being aware of the magical world. Or at least they adjusted really fast to being teleported from California to Florida and back again. Also we should talk about that time Gary rang Sanderson on his cell phone, which gets funnier the longer you think about it. Also I love them and we should talk about the deleted "Totally Spaced Out" scene where they tried to flee to Mexico together.

Ending the series with a proper send-off. I'm not a fan of Timmy keeping his magical memories after losing Cosmo and Wanda. Being the protagonist doesn't make him immune. I feel like there are so many ways this could have been done in a sentimental way that people would have loved... I'm sad we didn't get a proper send-off.

On the list of things we don't need to change - Imaginary Gary, Norm, Mark, Molly, Jorgen, the Pixies, Flappy Bob, Foop, and Ed Leadly. They are flawless, 10 of 10. We also do not need to change Chloe casually swearing, but meanwhile Timmy will call you out for saying "Moron" on the radio, and we definitely don't need to change "This isn't a fancy French restaurant- this is a black hole!"

I love the Pixies. If they didn't exist, I would have come along and prepped some worldbuilding about characters who maintain magical paperwork. I love my snarky monotone wasp boys.

Also I just want to shout-out Chloe and Kevin and their personalities being hilarious. I think there are several Chloe-centric episodes that have flawed storytelling, but I do genuinely enjoy the character you're left with after brushing off some of her exaggerated perfectionism.

Kevin has some of the best dialogue in the entire series, and those two just seem to write themselves when you pit them together. I like the mental image of Chloe venting to Timmy about how unfair it is that Crocker shows him favoritism and then it slowly dawns on her that she also has a history of getting a lot of favoritism.

Thanks for the ask! I'm sad I lost the full responses, but I think I've learned my lesson and will draft in an external doc first. Please learn from my mistakes, I will not take back my venting >:(

Even if I lost it, it's nice to take some time and think about some answers to these things. I'm also pretty satisfied that I was able to make this post long enough to feel like a good answer. Yay.

[whiskeyswifty]

I wanna know what you think of Olivia's vampire?? Please and thank you 💖 I'm obsessed with your replies

i'm so sorry to report, dear anon, that olivia has never been and is still not For Me, to say it politely. It's very much music For The Kids, and that's great! Younger generations always need things that are their own, separate from the adults in their life. That's not to say it's lesser than anything else because it's for the kids, not at all! It's just for a demographic I'm not a part of and don't feel any kinship to right now (which is a good thing lmao i'm an adult i shouldn't be in spaces for kids). It's also not to say as an adult, you can't enjoy her music! If you're able to connect with it via the younger version of yourself, that's beautiful and i'm so happy for you that teenage you gets to feel validated. So many of my friends love it for how as a teenager, they would have related to it. I connect to a lot of other younger artists right now for the same reasons and because taste-wise, they're doing things that really click with me, so it's just not a good match, olivia and I. that's all!

A number of factors probably are why i don't enjoy her music writ large. 1. my youth was NOTHING like what she sings about. Like polar opposite teenagers truly and my younger self doesn't connect to or relate to anything she sings about. it's entirely too earnest for me then and now, but thats just my personal thing! not a value judgement. 2. she has the post-lorde whisper/raspy/talk singing voice that makes me SQUEAL with laughter when i hear it. idk your age, or if this is now a dated reference, but it's the bananies & avocadies vine voice lmaoooo sorry! It sounds so silly to me because of that vine (rip) and HE WAS prophetic was he not??? sooooo many gen z girls sing like that and it's borderline unlistenable to me because of my brain worms. 4. at this point, if all of the above are also true, and all you have left is "sad story about a boy happened to me", sorry to say but genuine heartbreak songs about boys from girls are just white noise to me. I've been a full blown lesbian for so long at this point, NEW content about women genuinely, earnestly weeping over men just doesn't connect and i can't sympathize or relate or bring myself to feel any type of way about it. that's just not my world, sorry you're going through all that or sorry that happened to you, it sucks and it's terrible, but i'm not interested in engaging with that content. men, straight ones especially, are ancillary at best in my world. you have to be a legacy artist to move me whilst singing about A Man, someone who snuck in early and earned my favor before i realized i was a lesbian (hence the topic of this blog lol). again, not a value judgement! just my personal taste.

about the song itself, it just sounds like driver's license the sequel to me, which is great and not a knock! it makes sense to me strategy-wise. it worked the first time, so if it ain't broke, use the same release strategy for the next album. seems like she has a decent team behind her who are setting her up for success which is great! there are some solid lines in it, but at my geriatric age (over 30 lmao) i'm extremely sensitive to clunky lyrics. blame the near perfectly threaded and composed early taylor work for that i suppose, although i'm sure there are others at fault. a half-formed idea or a half-committed idea turns me off so quickly, and the mixed metaphors in the chorus (?) of the song really make me itch. "sold me for parts" and then the vampire metaphors about consuming conjure totally different imagery and dynamics and the friction between them i find jarring. both are interesting and i would have loved to have seen the depths of each plumbed creatively! commit to one and explore the ways you can weave that metaphor with reality to really pack a punch! however it sounds like a very sensitive situation that she went through so perhaps clarity in songwriting is not possible for this event in her life. idk much about her but that's what i gleaned at least. (WCS is wayyyyyy better and more fully formed and articulate than dear john, to give you an example)

I totally recognize her prominence and am happy for her and all her success! This is not a hater post, i don't have any ill will towards her. i'm not annoyed by her. I don't think about her, unless asked, tbh. i think she's an amazing figure for younger fans to have in their pop culture life and i wish her all the success and happiness in the world!

[tinylittlecubby]

I just had the WEIRDEST fucking dream about jj like?????????????????

Okay it was tied into another dream cause thats how dreams work but that part isn't important (I will say that someone was wearing 2 bags of frozen vegetables like they were dresses and yes there were still vegetables in the bags and yes they did get in trouble) but anyway!!! It changes to some brawl in the parking lot of someone's business and everyone needs to get the fuck out (but it was like a bunch of children and some adults I do not know why I was there or any other of the adults. I think the kids were trying to do some legit property damage so the adults were trying to stop them?) So jj (in a tesla for some reason I feel like THAT was unrealistic) drives me and him away from the scene but bro this nigga was SPEEDING!!!! Like got the attention of the police speeding. Like two other cars did aggressive u turns to avoid him speeding!! I literally started hyperventilating cause I HATE when people speed (specifically men, women scare me less when they speed in a car so my reaction is realistic) I tell jj to pull into a busy mall parking lot so we blend in with the rest of the cars and that somehow works. We are now just sitting in the car and I start talking about our relationship (didnt know we were involved but we roll) and I said "I'm scared you're going to hurt me" (yo I FELT SO for real vulnerable saying that in the dream it felt so real im never dating irl I woke up pissed off) and HE GOT POUTY AND UPSET 😡 he said "oh because we are getting more serious you are getting worried about these things" (first of all bitch! I have clinical paranoia issues and anxiety okay I've done been worried about this and 2 I can feel however I want to feel at any point in time and 3 you LITCHERALLY just out ran the police okay I do NOT find that hot its only hot when I do it,its irresponsible when other people do it. Unfortunately I did not say any of this in the dream.) What I said in response was essentially that "im not worried about you hurting me with your hands or words -even though fucking high key his reaction fucking pissed me off which is a type of hurt but I digress- which only leaves one type of you hurting me left and that is physically losing you. Like you dying" and then we started talking about it and he tried to break the tension by making a comment that I wont write here because I feel like its a comment that I shouldn't even be dreaming about (its enough im dreaming about the nigga but im not trying to read his life like that either) and during this i saw my older sister in the parking lot with her friends????? And then she saw me????? And then she came over and was like "haha ******* is with a guy romantically!" And honestly to that I say based,she was valid in that reaction cause outside of this dream thats never going to happen intentionally!! I will make sure of that!! But yeah thats pretty much where the dream ends but it was weird as fuck and whats sticking out to me is how pouty he got when I was vulnerable I felt like saying "fuck you!! I'm out" I was absolutely anticipating him being like "omg honey what have I done for you to think that oh no nono" but instead I had to pivot. I know in real life I would've gotten out the car and been like "yknow what bye boi im walking home have fun speeding in your iPad car" but I felt feelings for him???? Fucking gross. Not gross cause of who he is,he is an extremely attractive man in real life and I would most likely,like 98% break most of my rules for him in real life BUT it was just so antithetical to his public persona his reaction (but then again I dont know the man so it could've been actually spot on) honestly the first red flag that it was evil jj was the speeding away from the police,don't think he would do that irl. Anyway anyway anyway this is what you get when you stay up all night listening to the podcast amongstotherthingsthatilegallycannotdisclose

[questionable-decision]

Now that Laments of a Sellout Author is done I can finally apologize to the people who thought this was going to be Bingqiu!

[jade-parcels]

Hello!! I started following you recently and I have to say I ADORE your headcannons! I'm kinda addicted to reading them now I love the way you write the characters!

I hope you don't mind me asking something:

I recently read the ones about how the characters would react in an argument and I was wondering how they would react if Y/N didn't forgive them or ended up breaking up with them? :0

I'd love to see a headcannon about this, ofc you don't have to if you don't want to or if you're too busy! Tysm if you read this! :)

Not forgiving them after an argument/breaking up with them

Referencing these posts: 1 and 2

With: Xiao, Kaeya and Childe

I will do more parts for this if anyone wants them!! But writing everyone at once is a bit draining 😅

—————————

Xiao:

Xiao is extremely self deprecating so every time you two fight he expects you to break up with him

But when you actually do?? You can clearly see his heart break, he almost wheezes from the immediate pain in his chest. What is this feeling??? Why is it so intense??

He’ll respect your decision, he did snap at you pretty badly this time, he doesn’t blame you for wanting him to go away. He could never truly be mad at you…He’s angry at himself

Xiao will disappear from your sight only to reappear in front of one of the Geo Archon’s statues. He kneels in front of it and rests his forehead on the marble base

“Why am I this way…What do I do? How can I change?” Xiao won’t cry, he hasn’t cried in decades, but he still feels like shit “Why do I always end up alone…”

From now on he’ll avoid you like the plague, it’ll be impossible for you to even catch a glimpse of him unless you call out his name, which he doubts you’ll do since you’re so upset with him

Kaeya:

He’ll feel terrible…He’s doing his best here and to have you not forgive him feels pretty shitty

And now you’re breaking up with him too? The icing on the cake really

He doesn’t want to fight so he’ll purse his lips and pack up his stuff wordlessly

Kaeya’ll camp out in his office at the knight’s headquarters and drink until he passes out :/

All his life he’s been left behind. His father dumped him on Diluc’s doorstep, Crepus died, Diluc tried to kill him and kicked him out. Over after over he’s been kicked to the curb so part of him knew this would happen. It doesn’t matter if it’s his fault or not, he’s upset either way

He writes countless drunk letters to you that never make it to your doorstep, instead they’re thrown in the fire once he’s sober. He misses you terribly, he’s truly sorry too :( he loves and respects you so he’ll do his best to stay out of your way from now on

You’ll notice that he isn’t dating around the way he did before you and his jokes and laughs seem a bit more forced than they used to be…

Childe:

Extremely bitter if you don’t forgive him. It doesn’t matter that he just wandered around for hours while thinking about his actions, taking time to calm down- he’s now no longer calm about it

“What the hell do you mean? I was just kidding around earlier! C’mon, let’s talk this out like adults” he says that as he throws the adult equivalent of a tantrum :/

Ajax doesn’t have many friends, especially in his line of work. He pretty much just has you, his parents and siblings so he does noooot want to lose you

If you break up with him it’ll be even worse, he’ll sit on your doorstep all night long and even sleep there so when you have to leave in the morning for commissions, he can stop you so you can talk

He doesn’t ever give up but after some persuading from Zhongli and his superiors in the Fatui ranks, he’ll finally leave you be. But as a result of his heartbreak he’ll become even more ruthless on the battlefield.

You’ll hear all about how the 11th Fatui Harbinger wiped out a whole clan of treasure hoarders in the middle of the night without warning, photos of the blood covered soldier will be in the local newspapers and he’ll write to you to make sure you saw, that’s his way of trying to impress you

‘I’ve gotten stronger as a result of that terrible heartbreak you caused. I hope we’ll get to spar again soon so you can see me in action, love’ oh boy…

[msookyspooky]

Random Headcanon's for the Scream Character's

Billy really was a normal sweet kid and a good boyfriend before his mom left. Everyone paints him as always being crazy and his mom just triggered him but I honestly don't think that's true. Sidney and her parents would not have been okay with her dating a bad boy from Sophomore year onward. Sure it happens and maybe she saw past it but If Sidney would have seen how Billy acted with Randy in the videostore; instant break up imo. He could not have hid that side of himself for two years straight. Remember, they were dating a whole year prior to Maureen cheating. My theory is he may or may not have had a 'side' to him or other undiagnosed disorder in his gene pool (Mrs Loomis snapping too.) but Billy's psychotic breakdown was mostly situational + groomed by Roman and there were other things in his life that probably were boiling over and Debbie leaving him completely broke him. So, he was in an extremely vulnerable state when Roman came around and molded him. THAT is why Sidney trusted him so much in Scream before the phone incident and even somewhat after. Because Billy was a good boyfriend before her mom's murder and she would have never suspected it. Now how her or no one else could see him tumbling into madness or at least deep depression before Roman sank his talons in is beyond me. Maybe she did and he shrugged her off? Either way, the situation made him shut down all empathy towards other people and changed him. His empathy is towards his mom, possibly his dad since Hank never died and that is it. He has symptoms of a psychopath and even though that is usually genetic I 100% think a psychotic breakdown could do it as well.(Don't come for me bitch I'm not trained in any of this just using what I know from research 🧍‍♀️) If his mom never left and Roman didn't come along; Billy would have never been a killer

Contrary to Billy's situational psychological crazyness. Stu was always going to kill. I don't even think it's is he a sociopath vs a psychopath argument as much as he is just disconnected from reality. (Though he would most likely be a Sociopath if he was bc of his lack of boundaries as well impulsive behavior. Thinking killing was a game.) Stu possibly suffered abuse as a child. He was terrified of his parents more than the law. Either A. They abused him and permanently terrified him. Or B. He really has a stunted mentality and thinks of killing as a game and fears his parents more than the law bc the consequences are just not clicking LIKE A KID. He's like a giant little kid with no sense of how things work. He still could have been abused and that is what stunted his growth mentally. However, his violent tendacies were always there. Never preplanned just urgent anger or sadistic glee he couldn't control. Billy just suggested the killings and he was instantly down. Like, hell yeah cool. Most ppl no matter what mental illness they have or how severe are not that easy to convince. Whose to say he hadn't killed before or was planning to? My theory is he is so disconnected from reality that killing really is a giant fun game to him and he would have eventually murdered someone even without Billy.

Idk why this isn't more thought of throughout the fandom. Billy and Stu did not rape Maureen bc the evidence would have pointed to someone other than the guy they were framing. Cotton Weary had sex with Maureen, left, Billy and Stu taunted her on the phone and lured her away, they killed her, police suspected rape bc A. they didn't know about the affairs. B. Cotton's semen or her discharge or bruising being there. They naturally assumed it was rape but in actuality no one raped her. Cotton's dna from their affair incriminated him even more. Not saying that Billy and Stu would think of rape as morally wrong enough not to do in their book BUT it would have been stupid on their part and made it obvious there were other suspects besides Cotton.

Stu isn't a lapdog. Stu literally revealed on the phone he was going to throw Billy under the bus. He hesitated giving him the knife. Stu is like a kid. He most likely suffered trauma that regressed his mental age. He's eager to please, desperate for attention and most likely fawns over people he feels close to in an obsessive way. He could have even been in love with Billy and vice versa which is why he was so eager to please him. However, he was not nearly as stupid or a lapdog as much as the fandom makes him out to be. I think Randy saying it in the videostore sealed the deal for people even though he was only acting like that bc he was helping Billy too and covering their tracks. Billy was the one with the plan. Stu just tagged along out of the urge to kill. But he 100% had his own plan to kill and bail if needed. My mind is made up on that.

There was a third killer in Scream and it wasn't a teen or Roman. You're telling me two 17-18 yr old guys could come up with every detail? Roman only told Billy the basics. How did they get tactical police shoes? How did they get to the houses so fast and leave just as quickly? How did they both take down and restrain Steve or Neil by themselves enough to tie them up? Sure, Stu was deranged and tall but these two lanky teens were able to take on a football player with muscles and a grown man? Possible but stil meh to me. Their plan was too thorough for two teen boys to come up with on their own. Both crazy. One completely unhinged and disconnected from reality and the other so blinded by revenge he was stupid at times. (Fucking stabbing yourselves before killing Neil and Sidney. Not even thinking to AT LEAST tie Sidney up as well...Really? Jill was smarter in 4 in that respect tbh.) I truly think their was an adult involved in Scream helping them or guiding them. I would say Roman if it wasn't for him going back to Hollywood. But Billy and Stu had help DURING the killings 100%.

Randy is not this mecha survival final boy like the fandom thinks. The kid watched one too many horror movies and based them on real life. Scream itself is making fun of slasher movies and Randy was supposed to be the narrator setting most of the dumb rules up into play. Everyone is like "omg that's so out of character how he died in 2" no its not. If the rules work then him losing his virginity did him in. He was drinking, he was pissed off and not thinking. Plus Mrs. Loomis attacked in broad daylight, something no one thought of. (And the whole debate how a middle aged woman could pull him in. LOOK. Randy is a fucking small guy and she grabbed him backwards, using momentum to haul him back into the van. PLUS she was enraged at what he said about Billy. Adrenaline is a hell of a super drug as far as testing the bodies limits. I have seen tiny girls become the hulk when they are pissed I'm jus sayin) Point is, Randy was just a teen boy that loved horror movies. He was not some survival guide especially since it showed him even on the couch not aware of Ghostface behind him. He was a giant satire showing how even he didn't always follow the rules of slasher movies and how dumb the rules are.

Tatum loved Sidney and had more chemistry with her than Billy. I am not saying they weren't just BFF's and I don't want to ruin female friendship with constantly thinking "omg they are gay together" any time two women are close. BUT it is strange that it was only those two as friends especially since Sidney didn't fit into Tatum's popular social circle. It's like Tatum went out of her way to be friends with Sidney. Maybe they were childhood friends and that's why? But I think it's entirely possible that just like it's speculated that Stu and Billy were secretly in love; Tatum possibly was at least bi and in love with Sidney.

[shihalyfie]

About the Adventure: reboot, the likely reason why it exists, the question of target demographic, and whether I would recommend it or not

I think this reboot has been kind of a strange outlier in terms of Digimon anime in general, in terms of...well, just about everything. I also feel like everything surrounding it has kind of been giving us mixed signals as to what the intent and purpose behind the anime is -- well, besides “cashing in on the Adventure brand”, but looking at it more closely, that might be a bit of an oversimplification.

I’m writing this post because, having seen the entire series to the end for myself and thinking very hard about it and what it was trying to do, I decided to put down my thoughts. This is not meant to be a review of what I think was good and bad, but rather, something that I hope will be helpful to those who might be on the fence about whether they want to watch it or not, or those who don’t want to watch/finish it but are curious about what happened, or those who are curious as to why this reboot even exists in the first place, or even maybe just those who did watch it but are interested in others’ thoughts about it. I'm personally convinced that -- especially in an ever-changing franchise like Digimon -- how much you like a given work is dependent on what your personal tastes are to the very end, and thus it’s helpful to understand what kind of expectations you should go in with if you want to watch something.

With all of this said and done, if you want to go in and best enjoy this series, I think it is best to consider this anime as a distinct Digimon series of its own. The relationship to Adventure is only surface-level, and by that I mean it’s very obvious it’s doing things its own thing deliberately without worrying too much about what prior series did. Of course, I think everyone will have varying feelings about using the Adventure branding for something that really isn't Adventure at all, but we are really talking about an in-name-only affair, and something that’s unabashedly doing whatever it wants. So in other words, if you’re going in expecting Adventure, or anything that really resembles Adventure, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. But if you’re able to approach it like yet another distinct Digimon series, and the other aspects of it fit your fancy, you’ll probably be able to enjoy it much better. And, conversely, I think it’s also important to remember that this series seems to have a writing philosophy with a fundamentally different goal from most Digimon series, and since it’s understandable for most long-time Digimon fans to have their tastes built on those prior series, it’s fine and completely understandable that this reboot may not be your cup of tea, for reasons that probably don’t actually have much to do with whether it’s an Adventure reboot or not.

There are no spoilers in the following post. (Although I use some emphatic language for the duration for it, these are mostly just my personal thoughts and how I see the series and the overall situation.)

On what exact relationship to Adventure this series has, and why it’s an “Adventure reboot”

If you ask why they did an Adventure reboot, the easiest answer to come up with is “Adventure milking, because it’s profitable”, but that’s kind of an oversimplification of what the issue is. This is especially when you take into account a key fact that official has been very well aware of since as early as 2006: most kids are too young to have seen Adventure, and therefore have no reason to care about it.

That’s the thing: Adventure milking only works so well on today’s children, and Toei and Bandai know this. This is also the reason that the franchise started going through a bit of a “split” starting in around 2012 (after Xros Wars finished airing), when the video game branch started making more active attempts to appeal to the adults’ fanbase with Re:Digitize and Adventure PSP. (Although they were technically still “kids’ games”, they were very obviously aimed at the adults’ audience as a primary “target”.) The generation that grew up with Adventure and other classic Digimon anime was getting older and older, and targeting that audience would require tailoring products more specifically to them -- ultimately culminating in 2015 and the solidification of “very obviously primarily for adults” media in the form of both games (Cyber Sleuth and Next Order) and anime (tri.). Note that Appmon ended up getting its own 3DS game, but since it was targeted at kids, it seems to have been developed by a completely different pipeline/branch from the aforementioned adults’ games, so even that had a split.

So if we want to talk about full-on nostalgia pandering, that’s already being done in the adults’ branch. In fact, Appmon development specifically said that they felt free to not really care about the adults’ audience because that was tri.’s job. Of course, the hardcore Digimon adults’ fanbase is still keeping an eye on the kids’ shows, and it’s good to not upset them -- and, besides, even if we’re all suffering under the hell of capitalism, people who work in kids’ shows still tend to be very passionate about the content and messages they’re showing the kids, so they still put an effort into making good content that adults can enjoy too. But, nevertheless, adults are still the “periphery demographic”, and a kids’ show is not a success if the kids (who have not seen and do not care about Adventure) are not watching it or buying the toys. Appmon ended up being extremely well-received by the adults’ fanbase, but that all meant nothing since the kids didn’t get into it.

Most kids are not super incredibly discerning about so-called writing quality (it’s not like they don’t at least unconsciously know when something is good, but they’re much less likely to be bothered by little things adults are often bothered by), so there’s a certain degree you have to get their attention if you want things to catch on with them. Critical reception does matter a lot more when we talk about the adults’ audience, but for the kids, the more important part is how much you’ve managed to engage them and how much fun they’re having (especially in regards to the toyline). Moreover, there’s the problem of “momentum”; Digimon’s sister shows of PreCure, Kamen Rider, and Super Sentai have sometimes had really poorly performing shows (critically or financially), but have managed to recover it in successive years to avoid getting cancelled. Digimon never managed to get to that point, with sales nearly dropping to half with Tamers and again with Frontier. So in essence, Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon were all attempts at figuring out what was needed to just get that “kickstart” again -- but things just never lined up for it to work.

So if kids don’t really care about Adventure, why would they do Adventure nostalgia pandering? The answer is one that official has actually openly stated multiple times: they want to have parents watch it together with their children. Both Seki and Kinoshita said this in regards to watching the reaction to Kizuna, and it was also stated outright as a goal for the reboot, but, believe it or not, there’s reports of this having been stated back as early as Savers (followed by an admission that maybe 2006 was a little too early for people who grew up with Adventure to be old enough to have their own kids). So the little nostalgia references in Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon aren't really meant to magically turn the series into Adventure as much as they’re supposed to be flags waved at the parents to get them to pay attention, so that they can introduce their kids to Digimon and watch it together with them, until the kids eventually take an interest on their own and they don’t need to rely on that kind of standby as much. (I say “as much” because of course PreCure, Rider, and Sentai all are still very indulgent in their anniversary references, but they’re not nearly as reliant on it to the point of life-and-death.)

This is also why Kizuna’s existence and release date two months prior to the reboot is a huge factor in this. The reason tri. wouldn’t have done it is that it never actually reached a properly “mainstream” audience. It’s a huge reason I keep emphasizing the fact that tri. and Kizuna are two separate things with completely different production and release formats, because tri. being a limited OVA screening released in six parts over three years means that, although it was a moderate financial success that did better than the franchise’s other niche products, in the end, it didn’t actually reach the “extremely casual” audience very well. We, as the “hardcore Internet fanbase”, all know people who watched all six parts, and the difference between tri. and Kizuna’s release formats doesn’t hit us as hard because of international distribution circumstances, but even on our end, if you talk to your casual friends who barely remember anything about Digimon except what they saw on TV twenty years ago, you will almost never find anyone who got past Part 1, maybe 2 at most. (That’s before we even get into the part where a good chunk of them got turned off at the character design stage for being too different.) Sticking with a full six-part series over three years is a commitment, and if you’re not someone with a certain level of loyalty to the franchise, you aren’t as likely to put aside the time for it!

Kizuna, on the other hand, was a full-on theatrical movie with full marketing campaign that was aimed at that extremely casual mainstream audience, including a lot of people who hadn’t even heard of tri. (due to it being too niche) or hadn’t bothered to commit to watching something so long, and thus managed to “hype up” a lot of adults and get them in a Digimon mood. (Critical reception issues aside, this is also presumably a huge reason Kizuna isn’t all that reliant on tri.’s plot; Adventure and 02 both averaged at around 11% of the country watching it when it first aired, but the number of people who even saw tri. much less know what happened in it is significantly lower, so while you can appeal to a lot of people if you’re just targeting the 11%, you'll lock them out if you’re overly reliant on stuff a lot of them will have never seen in the first place.) We’re talking the kind of super-casual who sees a poster for Kizuna, goes “oh I remember Digimon!”, casually buys a ticket for the movie, likes it because it has characters they remember and the story is feelsy, and then two months later an anime that looks like the Digimon they recognize is on Fuji TV, resulting in them convincing their kid to watch it together with them because they’re in a Digimon mood now, even though the actual contents of the anime are substantially different from the original.

So, looking back at the reboot:

There’s a huge, huge, huge implication that the choice to use Adventure branding was at least partially to get Fuji TV to let them have their old timeslot back. Neither Xros Wars nor Appmon were able to be on that old timeslot, presumably because Fuji TV had serious doubts about their profitability (perhaps after seeing Savers not do very well). This isn’t something that hits as hard for us outside Japan who don’t have to feel the impact of this anyway, but it’s kind of a problem if kids don’t even get the opportunity to watch the show in the first place. While there’s been a general trend of moving to video-on-demand to the point TV ratings don’t really have as much impact as they used to, I mean...it sure beats 6:30 in the morning, goodness. (Note that a big reason PreCure, Rider, and Sentai are able to enjoy the comfortable positions they’re in is that they have a very luxurious 8:30-10 AM Sunday block on TV Asahi dedicated to them.)

Since we’re talking about “the casual mainstream”, this means that this kind of ploy only works with something where a casual person passing by can see names and faces and take an interest. This is why it has to be Adventure, not 02 or Tamers or whatnot; 02 may have had roughly similar TV ratings to Adventure and fairly close sales figures back in 2000, but the actual pop culture notability disparity in this day and age is humongous (think about the difference in pop culture awareness between Butter-Fly and Target). 02, Tamers, and all can do enough to carry “adults’ fandom” products and merch sales at DigiFes, and the adults’ branch of the franchise in general, but appealing to the average adult buying toys for the kids is a huge difference, and a big reason that, even if they’re clearly starting to acknowledge more of the non-Adventure series these days, it’s still hard to believe they’re going to go as far as rebooting anything past Adventure -- or, more accurately, hard to believe they’ll be able to get the same impact using names and faces alone.

This advertising with the Adventure brand goes beyond just the anime -- we’re talking about the toyline that has the involved character faces plastered on them, plus all of the ventures surrounding them that Bandai pretty obviously carefully timed to coincide with this. One particularly big factor is the card game, which is doing really, really well right now, to the point it’s even started gaining an audience among people who weren’t originally Digimon fans. Part of it is because the game’s design is actually very good and newcomer-friendly, but also...nearly every set since the beginning came with reboot-themed Tamer Cards, which means that, yes, those cards with the Adventure names and faces were helping lure people into taking an interest in the game. Right now, the game is doing so well and has gained such a good reputation that it probably doesn’t need that crutch anymore to keep going as long as the game remains well-maintained, but I have no doubt the initial “Adventure” branding was what helped it take off, and its success is most likely a huge pillar sustaining the franchise at the current moment.

Speaking of merch and toys, if you look closely, you might notice that Bandai decided to go much, much more aggressively into the toy market with this venture than they ever did with Savers, Xros Wars, or Appmon (Appmon was probably the most aggressive attempt out of said three). They put out a lot more merch and did a lot more collaborative events to engage the parents and children, and, presumably, the reason they were able to do this was because they were able to push into those outlets with the confidence the Adventure brand would let them be accepted (much like with Fuji TV). Like with the card game, the important part was getting their “foot in the door” so that even if it stopped being Adventure after a fashion, they’d still have all of those merchandising outlets -- after all, one of the first hints we ever got of Ghost Game’s existence was a July product listing for its products replacing the reboot’s in a gachapon set, so we actually have evidence of certain product pipelines being opened by the reboot’s precedent. (The word 後番組 literally means “the TV program that comes after”, so it’s pretty obvious this was intended for Ghost Game; in other words, the reboot’s existence helped ensure there be a “reservation” for this kind of product to be made.)

I think one important thing to keep in mind is that Toei and Bandai have as much of a stake in avoiding rehashing for their kids’ franchises as we do. Even if you look at this from a purely capitalistic perspective, because of how fast the “turnover” is for the kids’ audience, sustaining a franchise for a long time off rehashing the same thing over and over is hard, and even moreso when it involves a twenty-year-old anime that said kids don’t even know or remember. Ask around about popular long-running Japanese kids’ franchises and you’ll notice they practically rely on being able to comfortably change things up every so often, like PreCure/Rider/Sentai shuffling every year, or Yu-Gi-Oh! having a rotation of different series and concepts, or the struggles that franchises that don’t do this have to deal with. And, after all, for all people are cynical about Toei continuing to milk Adventure or any of the other older series at every opportunity, as far as the kids’ branch of the franchise goes, this is only capable of lasting to a certain extent; if they tried keeping this up too long, even the adults and kids would get bored, and there is some point it’ll be easier to try and make products directly targeted at the kids’ audience instead of having to rely on the parents to ease them into it.

So it’s completely understandable that the moment they secured a proper audience with the reboot and finished up their first series with this, they decided to take the risk with Ghost Game right after. And considering all that’s happened, this is still a risk -- they’re changing up a lot (even if not as much as Appmon), and there’s a chance that the audience they’ve gathered is going to shoot down again because they’ve changed so much and they no longer have the Adventure branding as a “crutch” to use -- but they’re taking it anyway instead of going for something at least slightly more conventional.

Which means that, yes, there’s a possibility this will all explode in their face, because the Adventure branding is that huge of a card they’re about to lose. But at the very, very least, Ghost Game is coming in with the “momentum” and advantage that Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon all didn’t have: a brand currently in the stage of recovery, all of the merchandising and collaborative pipelines the reboot and Kizuna opened up, a fairly good timeslot, and a premise somewhat more conventional than Xros Wars and Appmon (I’m saying this as someone who likes both: their marketing definitely did not do them many favors). There are still a lot of risks it’s playing here, and it’s possible it won’t be the end of more Adventure or reboot brand usage to try to keep that momentum up even as we go into Ghost Game, but it’s the first time in a long while we’ve had something to stand on.

Okay, so that’s out of the way. But the end result is that we now have 67 episodes of an Adventure “reboot” that actually doesn’t even resemble Adventure that much at all, which seems to have achieved its goal of flagging down attention so it can finally going back to trying new things. This series exists, we can’t do anything about the fact it exists, the period where its own financial performance actually mattered is coming to an end anyway, and we, as a fanbase of adults hanging out on the Internet keeping up with the franchise as a whole, have to figure out how each of us feels about this. So what of it?

About the contents of the reboot itself

One thing I feel hasn’t been brought up as a potential topic very much (or, at least, not as much as I feel like it probably should be) is that the reboot seems to be actively aimed at a younger target audience than the original Adventure. It hasn’t been stated outright, but we actually have quite a bit of evidence pointing towards this.

Let’s take a moment and discuss what it even means to have a different target audience. When you’re a kid, even one or two years’ difference is a big deal, and while things vary from kid to kid, generally speaking, it helps to have an idea of what your “overall goal” is when targeting a certain age group, since at some point you have to approximate the interests of some thousands of children. Traditionally, Digimon has been aimed at preteens (10-11 year olds); of course, many will testify to having seen the series at a younger age than that, but the "main” intended target demographic was in this arena. (Also, keep in mind that this is an average; a show aimed at 10-11 year olds could be said to be more broadly aimed at 7-13 year olds, whereas one aimed at 7-8 year olds would be more broadly aimed at something like 5-10 year olds.) Let’s talk a bit about what distinguishes children’s shows (especially Japanese kids’ shows) between this “preteen demographic” and things aimed at a much younger audience (which I’ll call “young child demographic”, something like the 7-8 year old arena):

With children who are sufficiently young, it’s much, much more difficult to ensure that a child of that age will be able to consistently watch TV at the same hour every week instead of being subject to more variable schedules, often set by their parents, meaning that it becomes much more difficult to have a series that relies on you having seen almost every episode to know what’s going on. For somewhat older kids, they’re more likely to be able to pick and pursue their own preferences (the usual “got up early every week for this show”). This means that shows targeted at a young child demographic will be more likely to be episodic, or at least not have a complex dramatic narrative that requires following the full story, whereas shows targeted at a preteen audience are more willing to have a dramatic narrative with higher complexity. This does not mean by any shake of the imagination that a narrative is incapable of having any kind of depth or nuance -- the reboot’s timeslot predecessor GeGeGe no Kitaro got glowing reviews all over the board for being an episodic story with tons of depth -- nor that characters can’t slowly develop over the course of the show. But it does raise the bar significantly, especially because it prevents you from making episodes that require you to know what happened in previous ones.

The thing is, the original Adventure and the older Digimon series in general didn’t have to worry about this, and, beyond the fact that their narratives very obviously were not episodic, we actually have concrete evidence of the disparity: Digimon has often been said to be a franchise for “the kids who graduated from (outgrew) a certain other monster series”. Obviously, they’re referring to Pokémon -- which does have the much younger target demographic. That’s why its anime is significantly more episodic and less overall plot-oriented, and Digimon wasn’t entirely meant to be a direct competitor to it; rather, it was hoping to pick up the preteens who’d enjoyed Pokémon at a younger age but were now looking for something more catered to them. This is also why, when Yo-kai Watch came into the game in 2014, that was considered such a huge direct competitor to Pokémon, because it was aiming for that exact same demographic, complete with episodic anime. When Yo-kai Watch moved to its Shadowside branch in 2017, it was specifically because they had concerns about losing audience and wanted to appeal to the kids who had been watching the original series, but since they were preteens now, they adopted a more dramatic and emotionally complex narrative that would appeal to that audience instead. So you can actually see the shift in attempted target demographic in real time.

Adventure through Frontier were aimed at 10-11 year olds, and here’s the interesting part: those series had the protagonists hover around the age of said target audience. We actually have it on record that Frontier had a direct attempt to keep most of the kids as fifth-graders for the sake of appealing to the audience, and so that it would be relatable to them. You can also see this policy of “matching the target audience’s age” in other series at the time; Digimon’s sister series Ojamajo Doremi (also produced by Seki) centered around eight-year-olds. Nor was Seki the only one to do this; stepping outside Toei for a bit, Medabots/Medarot had its protagonist Ikki be ten years old, much like Digimon protagonists, and the narrative was similarly dramatic. The thing is, that’s not how it usually works, and that’s especially not really been how it’s worked for the majority of kids’ series since the mid-2000s. In general, and especially now, it’s usually common to have the protagonists of children’s media be slightly older than the target age group. This has a lot of reasons behind it -- partially because kids are looking to have slightly older characters as a model for what to follow in their immediate future, and partially because “the things you want to teach the kids” are often more realistically reflected if the kids on screen have the right level of independence and capacity for emotional contemplation. Case in point: while everyone agrees the Adventure through Frontier characters are quite relatable, it’s a common criticism that the level of emotional insight sometimes pushes the boundary of what’s actually believable for 10-11 year olds...

...which is presumably why, with the exception of this reboot, every Digimon TV series since, as of this writing, started shifting to middle school students. That doesn’t mean they’re aiming the series at middle school kids now, especially because real-life 13-15 year olds are usually at the stage where they pretend they’ve outgrown kids’ shows (after all, that’s why there’s a whole term for “middle school second year syndrome”), but more that the narrative that they want to tell is best reflected by kids of that age, especially when we’re talking characters meant to represent children from the real world and not near-immortal youkai like Kitaro. In fact, the Appmon staff outright said that Haru was placed in middle school because the story needed that level of independence and emotional sensitivity, which is interesting to consider in light of the fact that Appmon’s emotional drama is basically on par with that of Adventure through Frontier’s. So in other words, the kind of high-level drama endemic to Adventure through Frontier is would actually normally be more on par with what you’d expect for kids of Haru’s age.

But at this point, the franchise is at a point of desperation, and you can see that, as I said earlier, Appmon was blatantly trying to be one of those “have its cake and eat it too” series by having possibly one of the franchise’s most dramatic storylines while also having some of the most unsubtle catchphrases and bright colors it has to offer. Moreover, one thing you might notice if you look closely at Appmon: most of its episodes are self-contained. Only a very small handful of episodes are actively dependent on understanding what happened in prior episodes to understand the conflict going on in the current one -- it’s just very cleverly structured in a way you don’t really notice this as easily. So as you can see, the more desperate the franchise has gotten to get its kids’ audience back, the more it has to be able to grab the younger demographic and not lock them out as much as possible -- which means that it has to do things that the original series didn’t have to worry about at all.

Having seen the reboot myself, I can say that it checks off a lot of what you might expect if you tried to repurpose something based on Adventure (and only vaguely based on it, really) into a more episodic story that doesn’t require you to follow the whole thing, and that it has to break down its story into easy-to-follow bits. In fact, there were times where I actually felt like it gave me the vibes of an educational show that would usually be expected for this demographic, such as repeated use of slogans or fun catchphrases for young kids to join in on. That alone means that even if the “base premise” is similar to the original Adventure, this already necessitates a lot of things that have to be very different, because Adventure really cannot be called episodic no matter how you slice it.

Not only that, even though the target audience consideration has yet to be outright stated, we also have interviews on hand that made it very clear, from the very beginning, what their goals with the reboot were: they wanted the kids to be able to enjoy a story of otherworldly exploration during the pandemic, they wanted cool action sequences, and they wanted to get the adults curious about what might be different from the original. Note that last part: they actively wanted this series to be different from the original, because the differences would engage parents in spotting the differences, and the third episode practically even goes out of its way to lay that message down by taking the kids to a familiar summer camp, only to have it pass without incident and go “ha, you thought, but nope!” Moreover -- this is the key part -- “surprising” people who were coming from the original series was a deliberate goal they had from the very beginning. They’ve stated this outright -- they knew older fans were watching this! They were not remotely shy about stating that they wanted to surprise returning viewers with unexpected things! They even implied that they wanted it to be a fun experience for older watchers to see what was different and what wasn’t -- basically, it’s a new show for their kids who never saw the original Adventure, while the parents are entertained by a very different take on something that seems ostensibly familiar. 

On top of that, the head writer directly cited V-Tamer as an influence -- and if you know anything about V-Tamer, it’s really not that much of a character narrative compared to what we usually know of Digimon anime, and is mostly known for its battle tactics and action sequences (but in manga form). In other words, we have a Digimon anime series that, from day one, was deliberately made to have a writing philosophy and goal that was absolutely not intended to be like Adventure -- or any Digimon TV anime up to this point -- in any way. And that’s a huge shock for us as veterans, who have developed our tastes and expectations based on up to seven series of Digimon that were absolutely not like this at all. But for all it's worth, the circumstances surrounding its production and intent don't seem to quite line up with what the most common accusations against it are:

That it’s a rehash of Adventure: It really isn’t. It’s also blatantly apparent it has no intention of being so. The points that are in common: the character names and rough character designs, some very minimal profile details for said characters, Devimon having any particular foil position to Angemon, the use of Crests to represent personal growth, the premise of being in the Digital World and...that’s it! Once those points are aside, it’s really hard to say that the series resembles Adventure any more than Frontier or Xros Wars resembles Adventure (which are also “trapped in another world” narratives) -- actually, there are times the series resembles those two more than the original Adventure, which many have been quick to point out. The majority of things you can make any kind of comparison to basically drop off by the end of the first quarter or so, and trying to force a correlation is basically just that: you’d have to try forcing the comparison. The plot, writing style, and even the lineup of enemies shown just go in a completely different direction after that. So in the end, the base similarities can be said to be a marketing thing; if I want to criticize this series, I don’t think “lack of creativity” would actually be something I would criticize it for. (Of course, you’re still welcome to not be a huge fan of how they’re still guilty of using Adventure’s name value to market something that is not actually Adventure. We’re all gonna have mixed feelings on that one.)

That they don’t understand or remember Adventure’s appeal: Unlikely. All of the main staff has worked on character-based narratives before, which have been very well-praised while we’re at it. The producer, Sakurada Hiroyuki, was an assistant producer on the original series, and I would like to believe he probably remembers at least a thing or two about what they were doing with the original series...but, also, he’s the producer of Xros Wars, which definitely had its own individuality and style, and, moreover, was more of a character narrative that people generally tend to expect from Digimon anime. (Still a bit unconventional, and it has its own questions of personal taste, but a lot of people have also pointed out that this reboot has a lot in common with Xros Wars in terms of its writing tone and its emphasis on developing Digital World resident Digimon moreso than the human characters.) All signs point to the idea they could make a character narrative like Adventure if they really wanted to. It’s just, they don’t want to do that with this reboot, so they didn’t.

That they misinterpreted or misremembered the Adventure characters: There’s been accusations of said characters being written in a way that implies misinterpretation or lack of understanding of the original characters, but the thing is, while I definitely agree they have nowhere near the depth of the original ones, there are points that seem to be deliberate changes. (At some points, they’re actually opposites of the original, and certain things that operate as some very obscure references -- for instance, Sora complaining about having to sit in seiza -- seem to also be deliberate statements of going in a different direction.) The lack of human character depth or backstory doesn’t seem to be out of negligence, but rather that this story doesn’t want to be a character narrative to begin with -- after all, we’re used to seven series of Digimon that are, but there are many, many kids’ anime, or even stories in general, where the story is more about plot or action than it is completely unpacking all of its characters’ heads. In this case, this reboot does seem to have characters that are taking cues from or are “inspired by” the original, but, after all, it’s an alternate universe and has no obligation to adhere to the original characters’ backgrounds, so it stands to reason that it’d take liberties whenever it wanted. (Again, the head writer outright stated that he based the reboot’s Taichi more on V-Tamer Taichi than the original Adventure anime Taichi. He knows there’s a difference!) Even more intriguingly, the series actually avoids certain things that are common misconceptions or pigeonholes that would normally be done by the mainstream -- for instance, the Crest of Light (infamously one of the more abstract ones in the narrative) is fully consistent with Adventure’s definition of it as “the power of life”, and, if I dare say so myself, Koushirou’s characterization (emphasizing his relationship with “knowledge” and his natural shyness) arguably resembles the original far more than most common fan reductions of his character that overemphasize his computer skills over his personal aptitude. In other words, I think the staff does know what happened in the original Adventure -- they just actively don’t want to do what Adventure did, even if it’s ostensibly a reboot.

That it’s soulless or that there’s no passion in its creation: Well, this is subjective, and in the end I’m not a member of the staff to tell you anything for sure, but there are definitely a lot of things in this anime that don’t seem like they’d be the byproduct of uninspired creation or lack of passion. It’s just that those things are all not the kinds of things that we, as Digimon veterans, have come to develop a taste for and appreciate in Digimon anime. That is to say, there is an incredible amount of thought and detail put into representing Digimon null canon (i.e. representing special attacks and mechanics), the action sequences are shockingly well-animated in ways that put most prior Digimon anime to shame, and the series has practically been making an obvious attempt to show off as many Digimon (creatures) that haven’t traditionally gotten good franchise representation as they can. Or sometimes really obscure “meta fanservice” references that only make sense to the really, really, really, really hardcore longtime Digimon fan (for instance, having an episode centered around Takeru and Opossummon, because Takeru’s voice actress Han Megumi voiced Airu in Xros Wars). If you follow any of the animators on Twitter, they seem to be really actively proud of their work on it, and franchise creators Volcano Ota and Watanabe Kenji seem to be enjoying themselves every week...so basically, we definitely have creators passionate about having fun with this, it’s just that all of it is being channeled here, not the character writing.

So in the end, you can basically see that this series is basically the epitome of desperately pulling out all of the stops to make sure this series lands with the actual target demographic of children, dammit, and gets them into appreciating how cool these fighting monsters are and how cool it would be if they stuck with them even into a series that’s not Adventure. The Adventure branding and names to lure in the parents, the straightforward and easy-to-understand action-oriented narrative so that kids will think everything is awesome and that they’ll like it even when the story changes, and the merchandise and collab events booked everywhere so that they can all be reused for the next series too...because, remember, they failed with that during Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon (I mean, goodness, you kind of have to admire their persistence, because a ton of other kids’ franchises failing this many times would have given up by now), so it’s a bit unsurprising that they went all the way to get the kids’ attention at the expense of a lot of things that would attract veterans, especially since the veterans already have a well-developed adults’ pipeline to cater to them. This does also mean that this series is more likely to come off as a 67-episode toy commercial than any previous Digimon series, but it’s not even really the toys as much as they’re trying to sell the entire franchise and the actual monsters in the hopes that they’ll stick with it even when the narrative changes.

Nevertheless, here we are. The series is over. Ghost Game -- which, as of this writing, is looking to be much more of a conventional Digimon narrative, complete with older cast, obviously more dramatic atmosphere, and pretty much everything surrounding its PR -- is on its way, presumably thanks to the success of this endeavor. It’s hard to gauge it; we have it on record that they also intend it to be episodic, but remember that this doesn’t necessarily prevent it from having an overall dramatic plot or nuanced drama (especially since the abovementioned Appmon and Kitaro were perfectly capable of pulling off this balance). Nevertheless, it seems to be a lot more of the conventional kind of Digimon narrative we usually expect, so, as for us, adult long-time fans of the Digimon franchise (many of whom don’t have kids anyway), what exactly should we make of this? Well, as far as “supporting the franchise” goes, you’ll get much more progress supporting Ghost Game than the reboot; I highly doubt view counts and merch sales relative to an already-finished series will do nearly as much for the franchise’s health as much as the currently airing series, and, besides, it’d probably do us all a favor to support the endeavor that’s actually new and fresh. So when it comes to a “past” series like this, it’s all just going to come down to a question of personal preference and taste: is this a series you, personally, want to watch, and would you find it entertaining?

For some of you, it’s possible that it just won’t be your cup of tea at all -- and since, like I said, the majority of us here have based our expectations and preferences on up to seven series of Digimon that were not like this, that’s also perfectly fine, and in that case I don’t actually recommend you watch this. Of course, I’ve never thought that it was ever fair to expect a Digimon fan to have seen all of the series released to date; the more series we get, the more inhumane of a demand that’ll become, and I think this franchise becoming successful enough to have so many series that most people won’t have seen it all is a good thing. (It’s actually kind of alarming that the percentage of people who have seen it all is so high, because it means the franchise has failed to get much of an audience beyond comparatively hardcore people who committed to it all the way.) But I think, especially in this case, with a series for which adult fans like us were probably lowest on the priority list due to the sheer amount of desperation going on here, it’s fine to skip it, and if you’re someone who lives by a need for character depth or emotionally riveting narrative, the fact this series is (very unabashedly and unashamedly) mostly comprised of episodic stories and action sequences means you won’t have missed much and probably won’t feel too left out of any conversations going forward. That’s before we even get into the part where it’s still completely understandable to potentially have mixed feelings or resentment about the overuse of the Adventure brand for something like this, especially if Adventure is a particularly important series to you.

But for some of you out there, it might still be something you can enjoy on its own merits. I’ve seen people who were disappointed by the limited degree of Digimon action sequences in the past or the fact that the series has gotten overly fixated on humans, and had an absolute ball with the reboot because it finally got to represent parts of the franchise they felt hadn’t been shown off as well. “Fun” is a perfectly valid reason to enjoy something. It’s also perfectly possible to be someone who can enjoy character narratives like the prior Digimon series but also enjoy something that’s more for being outlandish and fun and has cool Digital World concepts and visuals -- and, like I said, it does not let up on that latter aspect at all, so there’s actually potential for a huge feast in that regard. I think as long as you don’t expect it to be a character narrative like Adventure -- which will only set you up for disappointment, because it’s not (and made very clear since even the earliest episodes and interviews that it had no intention of being one) -- it’s very possible to enjoy it for what it is, and for what it does uniquely.

[sorry-i-ship-drarry]

hi! hope you're having a great day. just dropping in to say I absolutely love your writings.

prompt request: 15 from 300 followers appreciation post.

have a great day. absolutely love your work <3

Thank you so much anon. Ngl since the moment I put out this list, I had been most excited to write this one out and I don't know how this one turned out.

Just petty things

Dialogue prompt- 15. You couldn't handle me even if I came with instructions | Fluff ( ig) | ENEMIES TO LOVERS |

"oh yeah, watch me malfoy " harry sneered taking the bottle of expensive champagne and pouring it down the drain with draco watching him with horror Struck upon his face

" oh, oops. Hope the bottle doesn't empties- oh wait- it already is empty " harry shook the bottle over draco's face in mockery

" you moron. It was fine champagne imported from France. Do you even know how much it costed ?" draco sneered at harry grabbing his wrists harshly

" what you gonna do about it? Ruin my food ? No wait, you actually already did that " Harry raised his eyebrows grinning viciously

Draco scowled at harry angrily before he jerked away Harry's hand's away.

" ruin my food one more time and I'll throw you out " harry threatened

Draco clenched his jaw angrily murdering harry inside his head..

" you wait and watch " draco challenged harry before he storming back to his room.

" oh yeah. I am sure I can handle you " harry yelled.

Draco turned around dramatically, his face red from all the anger " you couldn't handle me even if I came with instructions " he yelled and slammed his bedroom door shut.

Harry too stormed away in his room slamming the door after him, angrily. Bless those door hinges.

Despite the rivarly dying out ages ago and the reconciliation followed after that, they still annoyed the living death out of each other with petty fights almost everyday. Originally the apartment is Harry's but after Blaise had came to live with him, it partially became his until the moment Blaise wanted to settle down and move in with his girlfriend. So being the nice flatmate he was he got harry an anonymous partner who by claims had been extremely nice, organised, clean and a great friend. Of course Blaise didn't mention " also your childhood enemy " or he necessarily didn't. Either way it didn't work out of course but since the rent act started stirring up in the public, it became Incredibly hard for draco to find another apartment and now here they were, 2 months in living together, messing each other's daily life and petty fighting.

" I'm telling you Blaise, he drive's me nuts " harry groaned as he pointed at Draco.

" oh I drive you nuts, excuse me, you drained my entire fucking bottle of champagne, of course I'll drive you nuts " draco narrowed his eyes at harry.

" you Drained his bottle of champagne ?" Blaise asked harry with an amused reaction sitting on the centre couch.

" well- he- he cut all my avocados, scooped out the insides of it and left the seed and not only that, he added Scotch to my lasagna " harry accusing-ly pointed his finger at draco.

" you did that ?" Blaise laughed looking at Draco

" Blaiseee " harry sternly voiced

" oh, no you're Right. Of course, you shouldn't had done that no matter how good it actually was,you shouldn't had. You know he loves avocados " Blaise nodded.

" but-"

" no really draco. I mean it. He's very serious about his food, even when I lived with him " Blaise added

" I need him out of here " harry added

" what ? You can't do that-"

" I can, if you're forgetting this apartment is originally mine " harry interjected draco.

" okay, whoa whoa, calm down. Nobody's getting thrown out alright. Just take a deep breath and we'll talk about this- well your differences alright "

" you know it's all your fault. You should've never bought a flatmate without asking me "

" me? I thought I was helping you out " Blaise defended himself

" well clearly not " harry shook his eyes head with wide eyes, crossing his arms over his front.

Blaise huffed a breath gulping down the rest of his coffee and turned to draco.

" you want to move out ?"

" what- no. I mean yes I don't want to live with him but I don't want move out " draco replied furrowing his eyebrows.

" see, Harry, he doesn't want to move out-"

" he's doesn't want to live with me Blaise. Clearly we're on the same side " harry faked a smile at draco.

Blaise looked up at the ceiling in annoyance before he got up from the couch to make his point " do you both realise you're adult's. Because it seems otherwise. I'm tired of listening to your petty fights and the pranks and the revenge. Why can't you two just like normal civil people? I thought you both had reconciled "

" look I know it's hard for both of you but you guys are the most incredible flatmates I've ever had alright and I know you two are better than this. So please, just please starting acting like you're actually 22 and if you can't be around each other then just- just ignore another alright. Don't talk " Blaise raised his eyebrows waiting for a reply before harry did

" I can work with not talking " harry mumbled.

" I'm good at ignoring " draco mumbled too.

" see, now that's the spirit. Now I have to go,I have a lunch with Sophie's parents, can I trust the two of you to not get involved into another fight ?" Blaise asked with raised eyebrows.

" good " he huffed when neither replied and took his jacket and decided to walk out with harry and draco following after him.

" just " he breathed " be nice to each other alright. You don't even have to talk "

" we can handle ourselves. We're not kids " draco rolled his eyes

Blaise opened his mouth to say something but shut it right off and gave draco a firm smile and left, with almost zero hope that it worked out.

Well it only worked partially. They ignored each other of course but still couldn't bear the thought of the other, which was somehow a progress and Blaise was rather proud because for the first time in 2 months they didn't wanted to kill each other.

Or so he thought thing's were better until a week later when Draco found harry making out with someone on the couch in the living room. Well he was decent enough not to shout till the date left.

" I sleep on that couch sometimes " draco disgustingly said as a shiver ran down his spine.

" well that's your problem. You have perfect bedroom for sleeping " harry rolled his eyes opening the water bottle and drinking from it..

" I don't care, the couch is off limits " draco snapped

"you don't tell me what is off limits and what's not-"

" i sure can. This is as much as of an apartment as much as its your " draco threw at harry.

" well this is my house, I can kiss anyone I want, wherever I want and whenever I want and you cannot boss me " harry Snapped back stepping closer to draco to make his glaring more threatening.

Draco flared as he stepped closer " you can not "

" yes I can " harry titled his head

" you cannot " draco widened his eyes

" what you gonna do about it ?" Harry egged him on.

Draco breathed sharply before he stepped back throwing his hands in the air " I can't believe you. You think this, everything is yours. Why am I be surprised though, it has Always been yours , hasn't it. Oh I'm harry potter, the world is all mine, I am praised everywhere I go with posters still upon the wall with my huge fanbase and everybody gushing over me. I'm so great, I'm brilliant. Maybe I should get a pedestal to stand on, oh wait I already built myself one " draco shouted

Harry crushed the bottle in his hand before he jerked forward grabbing draco by his collar " you- fucking- asshole. You take that back "

" oh I'm sorry did that hurt you? I won't take it back, you wanna punch me for that " draco asked raised his eyebrows, his hands steady by his sides

" you do not fucking know anything about my life. I'm giving you a warning to shut up-"

" or what? You're gonna punch me, as if you have the guts " draco sneered

" don't tempt me malfoy-"

" oh, I am scared. Save it potter. You can never punch me " draco narrowed his eyes at harry

Harry heaved heavily as he grabbed onto draco's collar tighter but didn't make a move to actually punch him, though his anger was getting out of control.

" you know what, you were better before I got you out of prison. Should've left you there to die " harry didn't mean to say it out loud but he did and it took him exactly a second to realise what had he done and regret immediately flooded in him as he saw draco's lip twitch and the look of pain crossing his features.

" you're right. You should've left me there to die " draco Snapped before he jerked away from harry easily as he had loosened his grip and stormed out of the apartment taking his coat with him.

Harry huffed in annoyance, rubbing his hand over his face, swearing in himself and kicking the chair nearby in guilt and anger.

Despite living in the same apartment, harry didn't see draco at all for at least a week or more until harry was returning very late from work and wanted to silently sneak in after having thought the entire way back home how to makeup to draco when he realised he didn't had to when he saw draco sitting in the balcony with all the door's open..

" you could've at least shut the door. The entrie apartment will be cold now " harry cautiously said as he approached draco and Stood by the door.

Draco sniffed Before he mumbled a soft Apology and within a second harry realised something was wrong and went into the balcony where draco was now standing.

" hey, you alright ?" Harry asked as he carefully placed his palm over Harry's shoulder

" yeah- just something at work " draco mumbled turning away from harry.

" hey hey hey, it's alright, you can talk to me if you want"

" yeah like you'd want to listen " draco scoffed dabbing his face with a tissue.

" of couse I will. Why wouldn't I ?" Harry asked frowning.

" why would you ?" Draco questioned back

" well- i- because I do care and there shouldn't be a reason why not to " harry raised his shoulder before dropping again.

Draco looked at him for a moment before he looked away, chewing the insides of his cheeks.

" you don't have to. I understand. I just want you to know I'm here " harry said softly tilting his head so he knew Draco saw him through the corner of his eyes.

Harry Stood with him for a few minutes in silence until he understood that perhaps he wanted to be alone and decided to step back inside.

" I lied "

" what do you mean you lied ?" Harry asked as he turned around and stood next to draco again with his hands on the railings, watching him..

" I lied about what upset me. It's not my work. It's my parents " draco side glancing at harry.

" oh " harry Only replied

" they sent me a letter that they took down my name from the final will. So I'm well not going to get the manor "

" so you were crying because you don't get the manor ?" Harry pursed his lips to control the little laugh wanting to escape his lips.

Draco shook his head, in " I can't believe I even tried " and he stepped off the balcony to go back inside

" I'm kidding, obviously " harry stopped him, holding out his wrist from going.

" just trying to lighten your mood " harry shrugged. Draco looked at him nonchalantly for a moment before breathing out and standing next to harry again.

"so they took your name off the will ? What else ?" Harry asked as he leaned on the railing watching draco.

" it's-" he breathed " it's not about the manor or any other thing. I stopped caring about that a long time ago, it's just, after all this time I thought they'd accept me. And-" he bit the inside of his lip, closing his eyes " they still don't "

Harry's gaze softened and he spoke up " they probably never will and you'll have to live with it even if it's hard "

" I know but it's just- their acceptance matters the most to me even if I don't say it out loud but It hurts sometimes knowing that I can't stop caring. First they abandoned me, then disowned me from the joint account at gringotts, sold the cottage house under my name and the last thing I had left- they took my name off that. It's like they're doing everything possible to make it believable that I- I just- never existed , like simply erasing it " draco's eyes sparkled with tears and harry watched as draco tore down his walls unknowingly and only then harry approached a simple physical touch of holding his hand over the railing.

" your existence is with you draco. They're all just papers. Your life or your name or anything about you isn't decided by a piece of paper. Hell I'm the hottest bisexual in Britain by the witch weekly and I can bet my ass that I've seen hotter but it's just a paper "

Draco chuckled and harry gave him a smile.

" I know it upsets you and I understand what losing a family is like but you can always create your own family " harry contagiously smiled

" I'm gay potter " draco rolled his eyes with a smile.

" not the actual reproduced family. I mean your friends, they can be your family. It's time you choose your family, who doesn't take away a manor from you "

Draco smiled softly " but it still hurts"

Harry stepped closer to him looking him in the eye " it always will, but one day you're going to look at the whole thing and be like I still have a family and much better one infact"

" you really think so ?" Draco asked

" I know so " harry whispered smiling.

They stared at each other long enough until they realised how close they had been standing in that small balcony and harry cleared his throat to break the moment of unusual staring.

" you wanna stay out here for a while. I'll grab the blankets?" He asked

Draco opened his mouth to deny but instead he nodded with a smile and harry quickly went in to fetch the blankets and pillows with something to eat and joined draco back in the balcony..

" wait, you just came back from work, aren't you tired ?" Draco finally asked

Harry shook his head shrugging " I'm good " and they settled into the area with his back supported on the glass, sitting close enough..

" you're not always an asshole then " draco teased as they opened the packet of chips and sipped some butter beer..

Harry chuckled " well yeah " and he took some chips from the packet.

After moments of eating in silence draco finally turned to harry again and mumbled a small thanks.

" you don't have to thank me" harry replied looking back at Draco and keeping his gaze still at him.

" listen I'm sorry about the other day. I was just angry and you sort of boiled me a little and it just-"

" it's alright. I forgive you " draco gave harry a tender side smile and harry smiled back equally tender.

" can I kiss you ?" Draco asked after having stared at each other long enough to know that kissing was what was left.

" do you really want to ?" Harry asked looking at Draco's lips wanting to do the same.

" yes " draco mumbled as he leaned closer to harry.

" this changes everything draco" harry whispered when they were Only an inch apart, breathing in small breaths..

" I know. I want to " draco mumbled..

Harry bought his hands to draco's face, stroking his cheeks " are you absolutely sure ? I don't want you to regret this next morning "

" will you ?" Draco asked looking in Harry's eyes as a confirmation.

" I won't " harry replied as his heart beat More loudly.

" I won't either " draco mumbled and before Harry could've further asked anything else, he kissed him over the lips, sweet and slow at first then escalating to it becoming a need, leaving them both panting.

" you really are sure ?" Harry panted as they separated for air..

Draco rolled his eyes straddling harry, cupping his face " you ask me one more time and I'll make you question your entire life harry" and he kissed harry again tugging at his hair as harry encircled his arms around Draco's Waist pulling him closer, leaning his head upwards to kiss him more thoroughly..

And they remained there as Long as the night was still young, kissing each other, panting each other's breath, fighting for air, for Dominance and moaning. Just there, in the moment.

I understand I didn't necessarily made harry and draco already having feelings for each other but it seemed nice for a change to go with their flow.

(I don't know if literally anyone notices but my writing style varies a lot, personally not liking recently what I've been writing tho )

300 followers appreciation dialogue Prompt requests open

Angst prompt requests open

[shirophantomvox]

Leorio, Hisoka, Illumi, and Chrollo Head Canons #2

What’s up y’all! Thank you so much to the people who have given me feedback about what posts you all would like to see! This post will be about the “Adult Trio” and Leorio about how they would help their significant other with a subject in college. This one is a good suggestion! I’m going to incorporate fluff in this, as I am a sucker for fluff. I hope you all enjoy this! I most certainly do. This post is about 2687 words but don't worry, it's worth the read! These head canons came from my mind its a coincidence that some of these pictures match the thoughts. Portentous (old English) means wonderful or marvelous (in modern English) FYI: I am thinking about creating a discord server for both Voltron and Hunter x Hunter fans. I don’t know how to use the fancy perks of discord yet, so if you know how to and can help me out, send me a message! Alright, let’s get to it! Obviously these images are from Pinterest.

Discord Server for Voltron and HxH fans!

Leorio

“Mr. Leorio”, as we all know, is a sharp guy. He dresses in a suit, carries a suitcase, and wants to be a doctor. This man knows everything about academics, especially math and science. He will need to know these subjects to be a successful medical doctor.

Leorio received an A- in Calculus II and a B+ in Organic Chemistry. He was the only one that passed with flying colors while everyone else barely made it. He didn’t gloat in their faces but as soon as he got into the hallway he jumped for joy.

He was extremely happy about his progress and counted the days until graduation even though that was in 5 years. Wow! Don’t we love graduate school?!

He deserved the high grades because he spent countless nights studying missing parties, football games, and being with you just to make sure he was on the right track to graduating on time.

As we all know, Leorio wanted to pursue this career because he witnessed his best friend dying in front of him powerless to save him. The care for his friend would have been too expensive. Obtaining his degree was in honor of his friend; he’d save countless children, women, and men who’d all thank him for his hard work.

Leorio didn’t socialize much, but he did find himself hanging around a group of classmates that were a part of a co-ed fraternity that provided information on scholarship money for graduate school and job opportunities. This is where he met you. You didn’t want to be a doctor but instead wanted to be a computer scientist and decided to volunteer for this fraternity job fair.

As he rejoiced, his smile faded when he saw you walking down the hallway; tears falling from your face not caring who stared at you. He quickly walked up to you, put his arm around your back, and gave you a soft hug.

“What’s the matter,” he asks.

You were failing Calculus, a class you’ve been taking since the 12th grade but for some reason, you couldn’t pass it. Everyone else had A’s and B’s, while you had a D. D’s aren't accaetable in college; most make you retake the class.

“Don’t worry. I’ve just passed my midterm. I can help you study. You’ll pass; trust me.”

Later on that evening, he kept his promise but gave it a unique twist. He kept the lights off and lit 4 Yankee-sized candles in the room that smelled like Lavender. In the background, he had piano jazz playing on his speaker. You felt confused for a moment. You and Leorio weren’t necessarily dating but you both flirted with each other here and there. He wasn’t a social butterfly, but he felt comfortable talking to you.

“Um...what’s the music for?”

“It helps me concentrate. Believe it or not, it helps my brain flow. You like it don’t you?”

“No, actually I don’t.” Truth be told you loved it but you wanted to pull his strings a little. He looked up with a confused look.

“Ok. I’ll turn it off.”

“I'm kidding! It’s great!”

Whenever he cannot solve a Calculus question, he reviews similar problems from Algebra II. He applies this knowledge to your problem.

“Perform the indicated function evaluations for f(x)=3−5x−2x^2 . I’ll solve the first part for an example: f(6+t) simply means you will exchange “x” for 6+t. It will look like f(6+t)=3-5(6+t)-2(6+t)^2=-49 . You’d distribute -5 and -2 to the numbers inside of the brackets in which they are next to.”

Wow, that was easy! Wait, not he must think you’re stupid.

“You must think I’m stupid, don’t you?”

“Of course not! It took me a while to understand it too. You’ll apply the same knowledge for the rest.”

After what seemed like 4 hours (which was 2), you finally finished your homework! It was probably wrong but at least you made it past the 1st question! As you blew out the candles and turned on your LED lights instead, you see Leorio sleeping on your couch. Something about his soft face made you smile and place your hand over your heart.

“My little doctor,” you whispered to yourself.

“Well, come give this doctor some company then. I’m freezing over here!”

The throw blanket was large enough for you both. Snuggling on the couch was a great end to a stressful day.

Chrollo

To everyone else Chrollo was “Boss” or “Boss Man” but to you, he was Chrollo. Big C was known for his love for poetry and language.

He read poetry any chance he had at lunch and even dinner. It had gotten so bad that you had to tell him for the millionth time “No books at the table!”

Given his past, he always read at least 2 hours a day or one book a week. Reading is what got him through the day.

He was staying in your dorm for the day to relax because he had taken and passed his midterms to. The young thief thought about hiding in the closet but he didn’t because he sensed that you’d be tense because of midterms.

As you walked through the door, you looked angry, so angry that you could punch a wall. He immediately rose to his feet, threw his arms straight out in front of him, and motioned for you to stop. You just stared at him blankly.

“Come here,” he said like you, on cue, melted in his arms. He was warm and the deepness of his cooing voice vibrated against your neck. “What’s the problem?”

“I’m failing this stupid Shakespeare class!”

“Really?”

“Yes and if I don’t pass this midterm I’m going to fail the class for the 3rd time. I want to drop out! Who needs this scam anyway?!”

Chrollo held you a bit longer until you were ready to sit down and get to business. You pulled out your college’s book about Shakespeare plays and how he used Old English. Chrollo was the perfect man for the job! He’s read Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet several times!

Chrollo read a few stanzas and explained them. He then had you read some on your own and explain them...still you can’t.

He notices the problem immediately. He catches you snuggling comfortably against his toned arm, nearly falling asleep.

Chrollo laid at the very corner of the couch as you lay horizontally placing your head against his chest. You were comfortable but you weren’t able to focus. He notices this and slightly demands that you go sit at the table. When it came to academics, he was serious.

For as long as he had been reading, he has an arsenal of vocabulary words ready to be of use. He created flashcards for you and had you flip them over for nearly an hour. You start to memorize the words!

But you’re not done yet.

“Say the word ‘portentous’.”

“Por-ten-trious…?”

“No. Por-ten-tas.”

“Tias…?”

He moved his chair next to you, just an inch away from your face. He cups your mouth and moves it as he speaks again. This wasn’t a hard clutch, it was soft and he wasn’t irritated but he could sense that you were becoming irritated.

“Por-ten-tas,” he said again.

Instead of letting your cheeks go, his eyes diverted to your lips. They were moist and plump, ready to be met by his.

“Your lips are gorgeous. Kisseth me quite quaint.”

Oh no. Look at the monster you’ve created.

Chrollo created a reward system. Whenever he did things right as a child, he was rewarded with money and jewels. For every word you pronounced and defined correctly, he kissed you once. For each word you got correct in a row, he’d kiss you twice.

Soon enough he had kissed you so much that you couldn’t see straight!

The kisses worked because you passed your midterm! Each kiss placed a stain in your brain that made you remember the definition and how to pronounce it.

You and Chrollo celebrated by drinking champagne and listened to him read Sonnet 23 and 57.

Hisoka

As unusual as it seems, Hisoka is gifted when it comes to Chemistry specifically. That is why you two work well together...there is some chemistry going on between you two.

His hair down and his glasses were his alter ego, it was something that made him act completely different than what you were used to.

When you all were freshmen, he would skip class, attend parties, and would be hungover almost every week but once he was called into the Dean’s office, he changed.

You slightly missed that edgy side of him, but you enjoyed having a serious beau.

Hisoka is a social butterfly and is the life of the conversation and you loved him for it but sometimes it was awkward.

While he was chatting away about Calcium (Ca) and Iron (Fe), you stood there nodding like an idiot. You had NO IDEA about what he was talking about and that is why you were going to drop your chemistry class.

“I saw an imbecile put aluminum foil in the microwave and it burst into flames. How did they not know that Microwaves are the radio waves falling under frequency around 2500 megahertz? Any metallic object detected by radio waves inside the microwave acts as a reflector of radio waves.”

You shove his arm hard. He was acting arrogant in front of his friends. You were used to this but it got on your nerves. You made mistakes, everyone does!...even those that almost burn down the entire dorm room.

You two leave the party and head to his dorm room. Once you were settled, you released a can of anger and threw it all over your boyfriend.

“Hisoka? You just humiliated me.”

“Oh? No one knows that I was talking about you, my dear.”

“Don’t ‘my dear’ me! I asked for your help and you’re ignoring me. I don’t appreciate that. I didn’t ignore you when you sprained your ankle, did I?”

“No, you didn’t, dear. I supposed I have a few hours to kill. What do you need help with?”

Hisoka’s way of studying was much different from other students. He exercises like crazy before he opens his textbook.

He listens to EDM instrumentals while on the treadmill and when he lifts weights. You weren’t standing there like a trophy, he made you lift too.

“Being healthy will help your brain flow more easily. Lift this dumbbell as heavy as you can.”

He ran a mile on the track upstairs. Sweat dripped from his face like he had been standing outside in the rain.

By the time you returned to his dorm, you were beyond tired. You laid your head on his pillow but just as you closed your eyes, he pulled you up on your feet.”

“Not on my watch,” he tutted. “It’s chemistry time.”

You were having trouble memorizing Chemical Formulas and this by far was the most difficult concept you had come across.

To make you stay awake, he turned on a bright LED light and faced it towards the table. The bright light nearly made your head fall off from the pain it reflected in your eyes.

Hisoka grabbed his book and began to write down the major chemicals on the periodic table and their charges.

“Pay attention to the following abbreviations and charges: Calcium is Ca, Chloride is Cl+2, Carbide is C+2, and Carbon Dioxide is CO+2. Read these over and I’ll test you again.”

He did just that but you still weren’t understanding. You were ready to give up.

Stupid scam. Why do I need a piece of paper to determine what I can do? You thought to yourself. Well, it’s obvious. If you can’t do the work now, what makes you think you can do it at a job? Harsh, I know.

“Let me try this,” He said. He carried you to his bedroom and gently placed you on it. He took off his shirt and removed his glasses. “Aluminum has a charge of +3 and Oxygen has -2. If there were three of me and two of my clones disappeared, how many of me are left?”

“Just you, right? One”

“Correct! Excellent.”

Wow, everything started making sense once he took his shirt off.

From then, he just inserted himself into the equation and then it started to make sense! He apologized for running his mouth earlier and promised to keep any more secrets between you two. The night ended with you sleeping in his bed wrapped in a cotton blanket just cuddling and that was it. And bam! You slept as sound.

Illumi

Dating the “hot” quiet history buff was a flex of its own. Sure Illumi didn’t talk to anyone besides you, but it didn’t matter. People swooned if he looked in their direction.

History was a popular major during your era. People were not like their grandparents; they wanted to learn about other cultures besides their own. Illumi’s specialty was in world history and civilizations. The class was very interesting to you but there was so much information, you could barely process it.

Illumi often wrote his essays in one day proofread and all! He often charged people to look their essays over.

One time he made $500 in one year!

Glancing at your transcripts, he notices that you have a C- and offers to help.

“Why are you looking through my stuff?”

Hey, he’s your boyfriend! But still, he should ask.

“Sorry. It was up on the screen,” he said, throwing his hands in the air.

You began to blush in embarrassment. The hottest smartest man in the building now knew that you were failing one of the easiest classes on campus.

Placing his thumb under your chin, he lifted your head to meet his gaze. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I can help you.”

“How? I am so behind! I zoned out after chapter 2!”

“We’ll watch a movie.”

“Oh, God! Not one from PBS is it?!”

“Yes. How else are you supposed to learn?”

He turns on the movie and allows you to lay your head on his shoulder but not too much. He is aware of your tricks and he wants you to pay attention.

Every 15 minutes, he pauses the movie and asks you checkpoint questions. If you got them wrong, you had to stand up with your underclothes on (t-shirt and shorts) in the cool room for 10 minutes. If you got the questions right, he allows you to lay more comfortably. You were already in your underclothes but you were under the blanket.

He made you write down key definitions and the embarrassment of each section.

After the movie, he blindfolds you and reads out a term. Surprisingly, you got them all correct!

As a reward for your past midterm, he takes you to dinner at a restaurant where he slips a promise ring on your finger containing your birthstone.

[crazy-loca-blog]

Disclaimer: Please note I’m neither a psychologist, nor a psychiatrist nor an expert in mental health. Everything I’m writing here is based on some reading I’m currently doing on this topic and on some personal experiences.

Even though I’m really, really happy and my heart is exploding because most of the LIs FINALLY stopped treating our MC as a friend and began to treat them publicly as a significant other (because you’ve deserved it for a long, long time guys!), I know that those people who are romancing Ethan are actually hurt and mad because he seems to be pushing our MC away AGAIN. But what if I told you I’m beginning to see this as canon for him? Like he’s actually not pushing the MC away because he wants to but because he is showing a part of his personality or something that is a result of his experiences as a kid instead?

A few days ago, I found a psychology article about attachment and how self-sufficiency can be very negative when taken to the extreme. For some reason, the article really stuck with me because I had never heard something like that and because I might have felt that some of the stuff on it represented me, to the point that I talked to some psychologist friends because I wanted to know more about it. And after reading the latest Open Heart chapter, I couldn’t stop wondering “what if this is the actual reason why Ethan seems to be pushing the MC away? What if he doesn’t even realize what he’s doing?”

These are some excerpts from the article (the original one is in Spanish):

“Being excessively independent and self-sufficient is a sign of having suffered great disappointments, to the point that we feel that we cannot trust anyone but ourselves.”

Sounds familiar? Another one:

“[…] when we show ourselves to be hyper-independent -and we don’t resort to the help of third parties- we are actually revealing something deeper. Some defense mechanism to protect us against the eventual possibility of rejection, damage or suffering.”

And what do you think of this longer one?

“[…] as adults, [these children] stick with their careers and what they feel they can control. Deep and intimate relationships turn into threats. Being vulnerable is not an option, because if they are rejected […] they may find the loneliness they know well. When they grow up, people who create bonds from avoidant attachment find it difficult to recognize their own needs. They are extremely independent, they can do everything on their own, but they really fear not being good enough for others, and ultimately they fear rejection. They are adaptive people, who can even be very successful in a society, but when it comes to intimate relationships, it is difficult for them to overcome those barriers.”

And a bonus, just because I can’t leave this out:

“This hyper independence can be linked to traumatic situations, even unconsciously. These experiences can translate into greater difficulty when setting up a couple project or a work project, or when committing to someone or something. Because of course, committing also means showing yourself vulnerable.”

Did you read them all? These quotes have the name Ethan Ramsey written all over the place! All of them are from professional psychologists who based their opinions on the Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development by Donald Winnicott and on the Theory of Attachment by John Bowlby. Based on this theory, Ethan would be an avoidant attachment type of person. In very simple words, he is “someone who […] often sees himself as independent and able to ‘go it alone’. He often maintains strict boundaries, can be emotionally distant, and has a hard time opening up to their partners or making and keeping close relationships.”

So based on all of this, I think Ethan may not even notice that he’s pushing the MC away because that’s part of who he is. He is so used to solve everything by himself, to be independent and to not rely on anyone when he has a problem (because that’s how he has managed to survive all of his life), that even though the MC constantly tells him that he’s not alone anymore he has trouble processing the message. The fact that he is also an only child may have even helped to exacerbate this behavior because, as he has no siblings, he had no choice but to deal with things by himself (and here I’m talking from the experience, I was an only child until I was 14 and I left my parents’ home right after turning 18, so you can tell I know a thing or two about growing up on your own).

His relationship with his dad also had an effect on him. Alan even described Ethan as a perfect son for a single parent. He always did his homework, helped at home and worked during summer. And he even said he didn’t have to motivate Ethan to do anything, that he did all of that by himself. But then the article says: “Parents who generate avoidant attachments with their children are mostly caregivers who are not fully emotionally available to them and therefore are concerned that they function from autonomy. That makes the child act in a certain way, to try to attract or to please those unavailable dads.” So what if Ethan did all of this not only because he wanted to do it, but also because he was involuntarily trying to please his dad? The article adds: “It is not a lack of love [from the parents]; it has to do with the caregivers having difficulties on terms of affective connection, so these children learn to adapt and be complacent.”

Should we also analyze Ethan’s social skills? We all know he hates parties and having to socialize could be a nightmare for him. Do you remember that he became friends with Dolores just because she kept in touch with him and she was the one who invited him to have a coffee? Or how Naveen took him under his wing not only as his mentee, but also as his putative son and friend? Or more recently… have you ever noticed how he basically never mingles with our friends, especially in book 3? Have you ever seen him at Donahue’s talking to anyone but the MC and Reggie? Did you notice that during Ines’ wedding he wasn’t with Harper and Tobias, with Naveen or with Baz? He is always by himself!

Let’s move on to his romantic relationships. Besides the MC, the only relationship we know about is with Harper. Have you ever wondered how their relationship was? For some reason, I’ve always felt it wasn’t as serious for him (we don’t have her side of the story). Sure, he cares about her a lot, but he never loved her, even though they dated for a long time. In fact, when I hear him talking about his relationship with Harper, I kind of feel like the only reason they were dating was to keep each other company. Did they have plans as a couple? Did they ever live together? Did they meet each other families? Did they ever talk about marriage? Did he ever tell her he loved her? I have too many questions, but for some reason I think the answer to all of them is “no”.

Finally, have you noticed how focused he is on his job? And please let’s forget about Ethan in book 3 because we all know the MC is solving every single case… I mean… he must have been an intern or a resident when he wrote his book! Let’s also remember how he was obsessed with diagnosing Naveen in book 1 or how in book 2 he focused himself on helping as many patients as possible before Edenbrook’s closure. Of course, let’s add that the man is a perfectionist as well (do you remember when he was mortified and ashamed for misdiagnosing a patient ONCE?).

So yeah, I’m beginning to think that all of this is not about Ethan being mean to the MC and repeating the same story over and over again on purpose. Instead, I think it has to do with his personality as a character and with his childhood experiences. But of course, we all know there is no way that PB makes any reference to this, I just needed to get it off my chest (and to stay awake until 5:30 am writing this) because when I connected everything I was like "OMG!" 🤯

Where can you find more info about this topic?

https://bit.ly/3toNBaA (this one in Spanish, but Google Translator might help you to understand it)

https://bit.ly/33qmbGP (this one is in English)

[soup-du-silence]

If you are comfortable with it, I'd love to hear your critiques of the finale, ESPECIALLY with how they handled Webby and Lena's final interactions with each other. I'm seeing you talk about it a bit on twitter, and I'm vigorously nodding my head to much of what you and others are criticizing the finale for. Obviously, if you'd rather just ignore this whole fiasco, I completely understand, and I look forward to the stories you continue to make about Webby and Lena!

god. okay.

ducktales spoilers below

SPECIFICALLY the weird webby and lena moments -- Lena calling team magic sisters and Webby snapping at Lena for her strong reaction to getting her string on the board cut -- mean absolutely nothing to me. i simply reject them. i dont know where they came from. Lena and Webby havent called each other sisters since their first episode together. It feels...unlike Webby to snub a Lena apology like that.  

And then they didnt really....interact again much, after that, right? unless im forgetting. there was a lot to be mad about.

and I guess, like. Here’s the thing. aside from some really powerful moments in season 2, the romantic subtext surrounding webby and lena was EXTREMELY dialed back. we had Lena’s hyper-powered jealous freak out in friendship hates magic and...what Ive always counted as an indirect kiss in nightmare on killmotor hill, but there were no more leslie-knopisms. Far less of Webby waxing poetic about lena’s virtues. Adding Violet meant less shared capital-L Looks or hugs or hand holds. So By the time season 2 wrapped up and a lot of that stuff wasnt as apparent, and they never bothered mentioning Lena ONCE before she came back, it became kind of clear that this was not a thing that was happening any more.

Then we got Penny’s “outing” which was not at all an outing. And seeing that penny not wanting to date earth men was a “compromise” that needed to be “fought for” really nailed that coffin shut for me. If we couldn’t get an openly wlw totally original tertiary character, we weren’t going to get it from Webby.

I dont know if they got unhappy executive notes about season 1 or if there was someone around championing the relationship early in production who left to work on other things, or if they just decided it wasnt important, but any hope held out for it after late season 2 was just me being delusional. I wanted to believe, I really did.

maybe I was delusional all along. Had my shipping goggles on. I dont know. I mean, it happens. it wouldnt be the first time and it wont be the last. 

I just really, REALLY wanted it, you know?

we couldnt have gotten like...one last ...something? Something just for them, to harken back to the energy they had in season 1?

sigh.

i havent written in a long time because i dont really have any stories left to tell, but I do brainstorm many projects with PCS. while I, and especially he, have often taken canon reveals in stride (when he first started writing Longest Shadows, we did not yet know about Violet. He was able to add her in fairly seamlessly, i think) I dont think we’ll be paying attention to any of this, ESPECIALLY some shit about Webby being Scrooge’s clone. (dumb dumb stupid dumb) I mean, you can ask him about it, but I know we’ve already shared some choice words, lol. Even if I operate under the assumption that the clone thing is and has been true all along, I’ll simply be working in a universe where it never came to light.

i can’t believe we would take this story about found family and make it about genetics in the 11th hour. what the holy fucking fuck is this nonsense. ugh.

I dont want to say I cant believe i wasted the last 5 years of my life on ducktales, because I didnt. It meant a lot to me. I had a lot of fun, i met some really awesome people, and in particular one person I can count among my very best friends in the whole world. so it wasnt a waste. And im not going to go on one of these weird tirades against frank where I try to hold him accountable for my emotional damages or whatever because Im an adult and not delusional. Thats the story he wanted to tell, for some reason I will never understand. We’re going to keep writing and daydreaming our own. And maybe, if Im lucky, I’ll live long enough to see the next reboot headed by some queer kid who grew up seeing themself in little baby gay webby vanderquack and makes it canon. N...not that we need another reboot. But i would watch that one. Just saying.

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

Strangers (Part 2)

Summary: A month after meeting Dr. Winchester, the reader finds herself back in the hospital and her new boyfriend is not happy to see her there...

Masterlist

Pairing: Doctor!Dean x patient!reader

Word Count: 2,100ish

Warnings: language, crazy-ex boyfriend, mention of surgery/injury

A/N: I hope you enjoy!

_____

One Month Later

“Hello,” said a familiar voice as they walked around the curtain with a chart. “I’m Dr...sweetheart?”

“Dr. Sweetheart, huh?” you giggled, wincing a bit. Dean immediately looked down at your chart and was frowning. “What are you doing down in the ER?”

“Slow day upstairs which I always consider a good thing. Helping out,” he said.

“Hello, Dean,” said your mom, getting up and giving him a hug. 

“Hi Alice,” said Dean as he returned it, pouting at you. “You’re experiencing stomach pains?”

“Yeah. My parents freaked out cause you know, still a new digestive system,” you said, closing your eyes. “Living with your parents as an adult is just awesome.”

“Why didn’t you call me?” he asked, lifting up your shirt and pressing his hand around.

“Cause you’d worry. You’re a worrier boyfriend, Dean,” you said. 

“Alice, could you go over to the main station and tell them Dr. Winchester would like to see Dr. Mace for an emergency consult on Y/N? He’ll remember her,” said Dean.

“Of course,” she said, up and out of her chair like that. Dean pressed down gently over the scar on your stomach and glanced at you.

“Boyfriend huh. I haven’t heard that yet,” he said.

“It’s been a month and the fact that you have been totally cool with having dates at my parents house with me tells me it’ll be very difficult to get rid of you,” you said. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“I don’t mind at all. You had a major surgery. You need to rest and have someone take care of you, sassy,” he said, pressing down on your right side. Your hand caught his wrist and glared at him. He pressed down more gently and you hissed. “Alright. Good news or bad news.”

“Bad news.”

“Good news is your transplant is fine,” he said.

“I said bad news first.”

“I know,” he smirked. “Bad news, your appendix is taking it’s swan song. They probably should have taken it during your first surgery but it wasn’t bothering anything then so they saw no need. I’m gonna have Dr. Mace look you over while I get you booked in the OR. My buddy Donna is on general surgeries today. She’s great. You’ll love her.”

“We gotta find a better way of me meeting your friends than surgery. Maybe like a party,” you laughed. He took a seat on the edge of the bed and smiled. “How much is this gonna set me back?”

“About a week, a little less. I know you’re tired of getting carved up like a turkey.”

“It’s cool. I’d rather have it out if it’s not working anymore,” you said. “I was supposed to start looking at new apartments with my mom this afternoon.”

“Where were you looking?” he asked.

“East Manor.”

“I’m in there, one of the townhouses. It’s a really good place,” he said. “I’ve never had any problems.”

“Oh, that’s nice to hear. I loved my old place but I can’t stay there. It’s too, you know...”

“I understand,” he said, a doctor coming over and grabbing his shoulder.

“I have a torso impalement on a ten year old. I need you in ER 2 now,” said the other guy.

“Shit,” said Dean. “I gotta go sweetheart. You’re gonna be just fine. I might have to miss our date tonight.”

“S’good. Go to work, babe,” you said. He gave you a kiss on the cheek and ran off with the other doctor just as your mom came back over. She smirked as she sat back in her chair. “What?”

“You know the whole bleach thing might be a blessing in disguise,” she said.

“Ma. I almost died.”

“I know but you didn’t,” she said. “Plus he’s a doctor. Even dad likes him and he was ready to have you never date again.”

“Mom. I’m an adult,” you said. “One crazy ex doesn’t mean all guys are like that.”

“Where’d he run off to anyways?” she asked.

“Gonna go try and save a kid,” you said. “Fingers crossed. I’m fine, bad appendix is all.”

“Well fingers crossed for you too. We could do with some good luck around here.”

One Week Later

“Hey,” you said, an exhausted looking Dean answering his front door. 

“Hey,” he said, rubbing his face off. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I wanted to go out for a drive and I know you’ve been working like crazy on all the surgeries for that kid. I wanted to stop by and see if you needed anything,” you said. 

“Y/N, come on, you’re still recovering. You ought to be at home in bed,” he said.

“I’m perfectly fine to drive. Let me make you some dinner quick before you crash for bed yourself,” you said. 

“I’m only saying yes because the thought of making something to eat makes me want to cry right now,” he said. “I’m so fucking tired.”

“Then let me in and I will take care of you for a change, boyfriend,” you said. He moved aside and he showed you past the living area to the kitchen. 

“That’s the pantry,” he said, pointing at a cupboard.

“Alright. I will find you something really yummy to make and in the meantime, go shower and sleep. I’ll wake you up when it’s done.”

“You’re a lifesaver,” he said.

“That’s more your department than mine,” you said. “Go on, I got this.”

You let him nap for an hour, Dean tired but better looking when he wandered out of his room into the kitchen in a pair of sweats and a henley.

“I ever mention how perfect you are?” he asked as he sat down in front of a giant plate of food.

“No but it’s appreciated,” you said. “I haven’t cooked in forever.”

“It smells great,” he said, rubbing his eye. “I don’t know if this kid is gonna make it or not. So much was damaged or destroyed.”

“What number surgery will tomorrow be?” you asked.

“Seven,” he said, starting to eat. You didn’t ask anymore questions and let him eat quietly, eventually Dean pushing the empty plate away. “I’m stuffed.”

“Now back to bed with you,” you said, helping him to his feet.

“I could get used to this being bossed around by you thing,” he smirked.

“In your dreams, Winchester. I’ll lock up after myself,” you said.

“Y/N,” he said as you started to leave. You turned around and he had this gentle look on his face. “Thanks, for coming over tonight. My day wasn’t great. You always seem to make it better somehow.”

“As long as you try your best, that’s all you can ever do. Get some sleep, Dean.”

“You too, sweetheart.”

The Next Night

“Hi,” you said as Dean walked up the driveway at your parents house. You were sitting on the front porch in the big chair reading a book. He was in his scrubs and a hoodie, not saying a word until he sat beside you and rested his head on your shoulder. “Did you lose him?”

“Almost. His system was so wrecked it was killing him. We had to gut him. I just did my first pediatric liver and kidney transplant,” he said. “Mace assisted me. It’s gonna be rough but the kid’s gonna pull through.”

“That’s great,” you said, giving him a hug. He hummed and shut his eyes. “You happy?”

“Yeah. After the girl last month, I needed this,” he said.

“Well you don’t always have to save a life to have a good day,” you laughed. He snuggled into your side and your shirt rode up some, revealing part of your scar. “Dean. Back at the hospital when I asked about my scar...did you mean that?”

“This?” he asked, lightly grazing his finger over the pink skin. A shiver ran up your spine and he smiled. “I may be biased but to me, scars are pretty cool. It means you’re a survivor. What you went through...most people don’t walk away from that and even then, most don’t walk away happy. If I were you, I would be terrified of so much.”

“You save children’s lives. You work in fear every single day. I don’t think you’d have one problem in my shoes.”

“I was prepared for that though. I knew what I went to school for and what I was trained for, for years and years. You though...nothing prepares you for someone you trust to hurt you like that,” he said.

“I don’t want to live my life afraid I suppose,” you said. “I trust you. You make me feel safe. He was one bad person and he’s away forever in a mental ward. Plus I got you. Wasn’t all bad.”

“How are you so...half-glass full?” he asked, sitting up but sticking close to your side. “I want to be more like that.”

“I wasn’t always. When you flirt with death like I did, the fact part of me refused so adamantly to give up when it would have been the easy thing to do...it’s really hard not to think of that as the worst thing I’ve ever gone through because honestly, it is. It sucked. I remember the pain and all of it. But compared to that extreme, the rest of my life is amazing. My appendix went bad? So what. That was nothing compared to my surgery before. My badass pediatric surgeon boyfriend is having a bad day? I can cook him a home cooked meal, even if it made me a bit tired myself. He showed me kindness time and time again. He never once complained about how there’s been a certain lack of privacy or intimacy so far with us. He’s not complained about the time my new medication made me throw up the dinner he’d cook me. He sat with me while I was freaking out that I’d just torn open my stomach or something by doing that. He explains all the medical questions my parents have in an easy to understand way. Dean, talk to Mace. I was not a happy camper when I woke up with some other guy’s digestive system in me. Someone else dying is the only thing that kept me alive. That’s incredibly difficult to deal with. But if I got through that, I can get through most anything I think. Also you are very cute so that helps.”

“Thanks,” he laughed quietly. “You’ still different though. I’ve met a lot of inspiring people and kids and all that. You just...you’re different. You asked if I was okay. Strangers don’t do that really.”

“I don’t like when you’re not okay,” you said with a shrug.

“Do me a favor. Next time you’re at a hospital, it’s just cause you’re visiting me on my lunch?” he asked.

“I will do my very best,” you said. You kissed him and he returned it, his finger tracing over your scar lightly. “It doesn’t bother you?”

“Not one bit. Let’s try to not get any new ones for a while though?” he asked.

“I would be more than happy to,” you said. As you sat, a light rain began to come down and Dean tucked his feet up underneath himself. 

“You want to stay over my place tonight?” he asked. “I got the next few days off.”

“Yeah. I’d love to,” you said. “I uh, I’m not…” 

“I just want you to stay over is all. I can be a gentleman,” he chuckled.

“You don’t have to be a gentleman gentleman,” you laughed. “I’m not on anything at all right now though and I’d prefer to wait until I was. There’s plenty of other things though.”

“There are,” he said, a coy smirk crossing his lips briefly. “Tonight I want to have a quiet night with you if that’s alright.”

“More than,��� you said. “Let me pack a bag. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Sounds good to me, sweetheart.”

_________

A/N: Read Part 3 here!

[amysteryspot]

Better With You - Thomas Shelby x Female Reader

Request: If you can could you please do one about Tommy having a sort of possessive claim over you (not in an abusive way of course) even though you’ve never looked at him in that way, and when Michael comes into the family again you two get close, which makes Tommy extremely jealous.

Requested by: Anonymous

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

Pairing: Thomas Shelby x Female Reader

Summary: Thomas has known (Y/N) for all of her life and loved her for most part of his, always disguising his claim on her as friendly protectiveness. What happens when Michael makes his way back into the family and starts to get a little too close to her for Tommy’s liking?

Warnings: swearing, mentions of war, mild smut (?).

Word Count: 3526

A/N: I had a lot of fun writing this. Hope you all have fun reading it too. An especial thank to @the-friendly-editor​ for helping me edit this, it meant a lot to me. Tags are at the end of the post, if you want to be add send me a message. I would love to hear what you think of it, your feedback is always appreciated.

 Things you should consider before reading this:

1. I named the Shelby’s mother Anastasia because I felt like I needed to do that. Also, I know that there is a lot of discussion about Finn and the rest of the Shelbys having the same mother or not. I just assumed that they all have the same mother and she died a little after giving birth to Finn. It is not something groundbreaking for the fic but I wanted to clarify just in case.

2. The boys went to war right at the beginning of it; I just ignored the information given to us by “The Ballad of Tommy Shelby”.

3. I probably forgot to warn you about something, I’m sorry.

 (Y/N) = Your Name | (Y/N/N) = Your Nickname | (Y/L/N) = Your Last Name | (Y/E/C) = Your Eye Color

If you asked Tommy how long he had known (Y/N) (Y/L/N), he wouldn’t know how to answer—fuck, it seemed like the woman had been in his life forever.

He remembered the day his mother had brought him to the (Y/L/N)’s house for them to meet the new baby. Four-year-old Tommy had complained all the way to their neighbor’s house, much to his older brother’s amusement, until their mother had given him a scolding. (Y/N)’s birth had been the talk of Watery Lane. They finally had a sweet little girl for the neighborhood to dote on.

With two sons, Anastasia was more than happy to welcome the little girl into their lives, not so secretly longing to have a daughter, and that was the reason for Tommy to be fussing over going to see the newborn—jealousy.

However, nothing could have prepared little Tommy for what was about to happen when his mother sat him down on the couch and Mrs. (Y/L/N) put the bundle of covers in his arms—his icy blue eyes stared down at baby (Y/N), who stopped crying instantly when she looked up at him with bright (Y/E/C) eyes of her own. From that moment on, Tommy knew that he would always love her.

And love her he did, since that day and throughout all of their lives. He would raise hell at home for his mother to bring him to the (Y/L/N)’s home so he could see (Y/N), and the three adults would all be astonished at how easily the baby would stop crying when she was in his arms. It wasn’t really a surprise that the first word she babbled was “Tom” or that when she started walking, on wobbly feet, it was Tommy she was seeking.

As they grew up, they grew closer, until it became almost impossible to have one without the other. When Ada was born, Tommy was worried about the possibility that (Y/N) would forget about him, that she would be too enchanted by having another girl around. Instead, as the time passed, he discovered that his little sister was one more reason for (Y/N) to spend more time at the Shelby home.

Even when he started messing around with the boys on the street, and she befriended other girls at school, they would still seek each other out whenever they could. They stuck together when their teenage years came, when Tommy started fooling around with girls from school and secretly scaring down most of the boys that showed any interest in (Y/N).

At least, he did until the day she came crying to him about not being good enough or pretty enough for anybody, not like the girls he would go out with, and breaking his heart; that certainly wasn’t what he had in mind when chasing down the boys. All he had wanted was to protect her, to make sure that she wouldn’t exchange him for some other boy. He wanted to ensure that she was his and his only.

That was actually the reason that led to their first kiss—her first kiss—(Y/N/N) had asked him, pleaded with him, through all the tears to just kiss her and get it done. Fifteen-year-old (Y/N) was sure that nobody would ever want her, and she wanted to experience it at least once. She told Tommy he was the only one she trusted with the task.

“It will mean nothing to you, Tom. You have kissed a million other girls already—I will just be another one for you—but it’s important to me. Please, Tom? Please, please.”

Her pleas had won him over, but (Y/N)’s words couldn’t have been further from the truth—the kiss had meant something for him. It had meant more than he predicted when he gave in to her begging, because the moment their lips touched, Tommy realized he was in love with his best friend and the worst part was that she didn’t had a fucking clue about it.

Then Tommy did what he did best; he pretended that it never happened, pushing it away and never talking to anyone about the kiss or his feelings. He stopped chasing down the boys who would show interest in (Y/N) and watched as she eventually started going out with some of them, laughing with him about how stupid she was to think that no one would ever like her.

When her first boyfriend got too handsy and she broke up with him—not before giving him a good left hook that left him with a very black eye, just like Tommy had taught her—(Y/N) had gone straight to the Shelby home, looking for comfort in his arms. Tommy pretended that the gnawing feeling in his chest was nothing but brotherly protectiveness instead of anger, jealousy and possessiveness—a destructive combination, especially on a Shelby boy.

(Y/N) had stayed with him that night, and the both of them slept together like they used to when they were kids. First thing in the morning the next day, right after he left her at her own house, he found her now ex-boyfriend and beat him up. Arthur and Freddie had to get him off of the guy, afraid of what he would end up doing if they didn’t stop him.

After that, Tommy had focused on channeling his frustrations into going out with every girl in town that wasn’t her. It wasn’t difficult, he was good looking and charming and he was very aware of it; that’s how he met Greta, and thought that he could get over his feelings for his best friend with her.

Greta’s parents were against their involvement at first, but he charmed them, so they started dating. His heart broke down when (Y/N) found out and showed genuine happiness for him having finally found somebody to settle down with.

Tommy’s plan was to end things between them. However, Greta fell ill and he didn’t have the heart to break up with her, so he stayed by her side until she passed. (Y/N) gave him support in the only way she knew how: by loving him.

Just not in the way he wanted her to.

When they thought that things would go back to normal, the War exploded and Tommy did the only thing he considered right in his eyes: he enlisted alongside his brothers. Their first fight had taken place on the night he told her he was leaving for France in two weeks. (Y/N) had hit and screamed at him until he was able to take a hold on her and then, then she cried in his arms the whole night, afraid that she would lose him forever.

They did the best they could with those two weeks. Once more, nothing could have prepared Tommy for (Y/N)’s appeal the night before he was shipping to France. She had come to him right after dinner. Her father was preparing himself to leave, too, and both of the (Y/L/N) women were enjoying whatever time they had left with him before he was gone.

As they both laid there in his bed, resting in each other’s arms and staring at the ceiling, (Y/N) made the decision that would seal his fate if he could survive the war.

“Make love to me.”

It wasn’t a question, nor a request—she was simply telling him to make love to her like this was the most logical thing in the world. His breath caught in his throat, preventing him from answering at first, and (Y/N/N) took that as a cue to reassure him.

“It will be like my first kiss, Tommy, just something I have to get over with. I want it to be you. I trust you. Let me give you at least one last good memory of me before you go.”

Again, he caved in, not needing much more convincing than the certainty in her eyes as she looked down at him, propped up on one elbow. Her hand rested unintentionally above his heart. Granting her wishes, he let himself dive into his own desires, touching her the way he had wanted since they had kissed for the first time.

He worked her body like a delicate instrument and pulled at her strings smoothly, engraving every beautiful sound that he coaxed out of her and the feel of her under his fingertips in his memory. When morning came, they were still a mess of limbs intertwined together, trying to hold on to a last thread of hope and imprint the last few hours on their memories.

In a way, (Y/N) was right. The boy that entered that train in 1914 wasn’t the same that got out of it in 1918. Yet, his love for her never faltered; it just became a tad more… dangerous.

Thomas lost count of how many letters they had exchanged during the past four years. He lost count of how many times he dreamt of her, of coming back home and telling her how he felt. However, any courage he had gathered vanished the moment he saw her waiting for him at the train station. He couldn’t condemn her to a life by his side, he had already taken enough from her.

Polly had told him in her letters how (Y/N/N) had helped her with the business, with the house, with Finn, and with any other thing she could. Especially after her mother, who had given up on life after Mr. (Y/L/N) was killed in combat, passed. A part of him felt guilty for not being there for her as much as she was for him when his mother passed and his father left.

“She’s a Shelby now.”

That’s what Polly had said when he asked her if (Y/N) had any remaining family.

Not much changed when they returned. (Y/N/N) still worked with them. She spent more time at the Shelby home and the gambling den than at her own place. The two of them still sought each other out, not talking much, but enjoying each other’s company. It was in those quiet moments with her that Tommy had a little peace.

Thomas drowned himself in work to forget it all, wanting to expand the business, unleashing his ambitions so long smothered by the war. They found the guns, in a strike of luck, he thought. Both Polly and (Y/N) advised him to let it go, but he just couldn’t. It was too good of an opportunity.

Campbell had come because of it, and with him, Grace. At the time, he didn’t know who she really was. He thought that the beautiful, blonde barmaid was just that: beautiful and innocent, everything he and his family were not. So he fooled himself, fell for her, and then she betrayed him and left for America.

Again, (Y/N) was there for him, and again, he found himself sinking into his love for her. The only good thing that came from all this mess was that the business was never better. He thought that it was time to start planning for an expansion, and with that came another thing that he hadn’t quite predicted—Michael.

He had planned to find Polly’s children for her. She had been suffering quite a lot lately. Even if people thought that his heart was as good as gone, he wanted his family to be okay. He wanted them to be happy.

Thomas found the boy and he came to Polly, making his way into the family and the business quickly. That included starting to get close to (Y/N) – too fucking close for his liking.

It was supposed to be natural, he knew that. (Y/N) kept the books at the shop. She was better with numbers than most of them, so it was natural that she would be the one to help Michael when he assumed the position of accounts clerk.

After they came back, he learned that (Y/N) had become very good at sneaking around without getting caught. It was rare to see her with any men whose last name wasn’t Shelby, or wasn’t closely related to the Peaky Blinders. That didn’t mean she didn’t have men swooning over her all the time, or that he was finally okay with that—much like when they were teenagers, he wanted to chase them all down—the only difference was now he was more deadly.

“I couldn’t have done it without you.”

It was Michael’s voice that brought him back to reality, and his gaze fell immediately on the boy. They were all gathered on the snug in the Garrison. (Y/N) was sitting between him and Michael, Tommy’s arm casually rested on her shoulders.

(Y/N) said, “Oh, no, you would totally get it... after a few more weeks.”

Everyone burst out laughing at her remark, but the only thing he could think about was the hand Michael rested on (Y/N)’s thigh. His own hand clenched around his glass before he downed the rest of its contents.

He didn’t notice Polly’s gaze on him. Despite what most people believed, Tommy had never been a good liar. He could get away with omitting information to people and redirecting the conversation, most of the time, but a direct confrontation was a completely different thing. Polly was always able to read him first, to know the things he wasn’t willing to share.

“Maybe we should just hire you instead of Michael, then.” He ignored the look (Y/N) gave him, taking another drag of his cigarette and looking away.

However, he couldn’t miss the lingering touches, or how (Y/N/N) leaned into Michael when he talked to her, and how she was just so comfortable with him. It made his blood boil.

When (Y/N/N) said she wanted to get home he offered to walk her, and was fairly surprised at how she didn’t say a word to him until they reached her front door.

Then she turned to face him, features painted with anger, and asked, “What the hell was that, Tom?”

He actually rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

(Y/N) huffed, turning around to unlock the door before entering the house, leaving it open for him to follow. She went straight to the dressing room, shedding her coat and throwing it at the table with her purse as he followed her closely.

“Oh, you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

She was taking her shoes off, and Tommy took advantage of the moment to let his eyes follow her movements. God, was he in love with that woman.

“I’m talking about your attitude with Michael at the Garrison. That was completely unnecessary,” She said.

“Someone had to put that boy in his place,” Tommy said.

(Y/N) turned to him then, and he would be worried with that look if he hadn’t been at the receiving end of her anger for so many years.

“Oh, please enlighten me, Thomas. What is his place?” (Y/N) asked.

“For fucks sake, (Y/N/N), he was all over you!”

She rolled her eyes. “He is a boy, Thomas, a boy. He’s family…”

Tommy never thought that what would make him snap would be hearing her say that Michael was family, but apparently it was.

“He’s family, huh?” Thomas said. “He is fucking family! Then he should know better and stay away from you.”

She stared at him for a moment, brow furrowed, as she seemed to put the puzzle together in her head. “Why would he stay away from me, Tom?”

He turned around to face away from her for a moment, rubbing a hand over his face. “No, no. You won’t make me feel guilty for that.”

“Make you feel guilty for what, Tommy?”

He recognized the hint of annoyance on her tone and couldn’t ignore it anymore, the alcohol giving him the courage that he had lost that day on the train station, as he turned around and shouted, “For loving you!”

She held her breath, eyes widening as she stared back at him.

Tommy continued, “Michael should stay away from you because you’re fucking mine and I love you.”

“Tommy, I’m not your property, and you know that I love you…”

“No, you don’t,” he interrupted her, making her look at him with confusion, “You don’t love me the way I love you. The way I’ve loved you since the fucking day you asked me to kiss you when you were fifteen!”

He saw her flinch before murmuring his name, trying to gain his attention but he couldn’t stop now. The truth was finally out there and he just had to go on with it, let it all out before he lost his mind.

“You said to me that it would mean nothing, that it would be just another kiss for me, but you were wrong,” Tommy said, his breaths short.

She looked bewildered, and Tommy held onto a strand of hope he didn’t even know still existed.

“That kiss meant fucking everything. From that day on, I’ve never seen you in the same way as before, because I realized I was in love with you and you didn’t feel the same. So I ignored these feelings while I saw you going out with boys, and I’ve thrown myself into fucking every girl that wasn’t you because I knew I couldn’t have you, not the way I wanted.”

Tommy didn’t notice that he was walking to her until they were just a breath apart.

“Then I found Greta, and I thought that I could forget you, but it only reminded me that you are the only one I want. I was going to break up with her, but she fell ill. You stayed by my side, and just when I thought that I would have a chance to tell you everything, the war happened and I just couldn’t. I couldn’t, because there was no way in hell that I was going to risk going to fight in France and die. I couldn’t leave you here to suffer because of me, either because you felt the same or not.”

“Tommy…” (Y/N)’s voice was all but a whisper.

He couldn’t resist anymore, his hands brought her to him, his eyes observing hers from up close, not giving her time to talk or he would lose his courage.

“I was ready to go there and die, and never let you know how I felt. But you had to give me hope that night before I was shipped off to that fucking hell. You had to…”He took a deep breath, his eyes closing for a brief second, a flood of memories making his heart race faster. “You had to give yourself to me. You had to give me a taste of what I thought I could never have, to make me want to survive the fucking war, to come back to you, and to let you know about all of these stupid feelings.”

Tommy couldn’t wait anymore. He did the one thing he had wanted to since he had returned from France—he kissed her. It wasn’t gentle or patient; no, it was urgent and filled with passion and he didn’t know how to stop, not when she wasn’t pushing him away. He devoured her as a man starved, teeth clashing and hands grabbing at anything they could touch. They were both out of breath when they finally parted.

“You said that you wanted to give me one last good memory and it was that memory that kept me alive during most of the nights when I was stuck in the fucking mud,” Thomas said.

(Y/N)’s fingers were clinging to him like her life depended on it, like she was afraid to lose him to the War again.

Tommy took the moment to let the words spill out. “The memory of you and the feeling of you under my fingers, and all around me, and the way you tasted.”

His lips brushed against hers, fingers clawing at the flesh of her hips like they had done the night before he left for France.

He backed her up against the wall, hands trailing down to the back of her thighs, picking her up and trapping her with his body.

Tommy looked straight to her eyes as he spoke again, “How you writhed under me, all the beautiful sounds you made, and I just wanted to come back to you and make some new memories.”

(Y/N) shivered at his words. She gave him just a brief second to observe the rise and fall of her chest and her expanded pupils before he felt her fingers at the back of his head, forcing him to really look at her as she said, “Then let’s work on those new memories.”

Their lips clashed again, and every doubt that he ever felt vanished for a moment. That night their bodies moved together like old acquaintances, skin sliding against skin, hands gripping at each other, lips kissing every patch of skin while chanting a sinful choir of moans and curses alongside their names.

When Tommy woke up the next day, (Y/N/N) in his arms, he realized that he was finally home.

Taglist: @captivatedbycillianmurphy, @internalmess3

[cablesscutie]

34. “I just want to be there for you.” Zutara, For the fluff prompt list please ☺️

Hello!! You sent me this a very long time ago and then my brain was bad and ground to a screeching halt, but I have been thinking about it this whole time! And now my brain has finally allowed me to make words again these past few weeks, so here it is:

PART 1 \\ PART 2

Even after seeing pictures of Zuko convinces Katara to tentatively agree to Ty Lee’s hairbrained scheme, she still tells herself that she has time to bail. If she really decides that she doesn’t need a date after all, she can just cancel on him and tell Aang her date had food poisoning or something. If worst comes to worst, she can claim that she has food poisoning too and escape the entire mortifying ordeal altogether. Zuko is just an option.

This is the constant refrain in her mind week after week as the date of the wedding approaches, and Katara gets somehow less enthusiastic about it with each passing day. She thinks it as she lets Suki shove her into a fitting room, laden with figure-hugging dresses. She thinks it as she scrolls quickly past Instagram posts counting down the days, politely liking them faster than she can process the sight of fairy lights and mason jars. She thinks it as she impulsively adds a leg waxing to her bi-monthly spa day with Toph. Zuko is just an option.

Just an option with arms that look like they would feel strong and secure around her, and a shy smile, and who’s sweet and playful with kids. Katara lets out a long, frustrated groan and presses her forehead to her desk, rolling it back and forth in a futile attempt to rub out the impending headache of a Friday afternoon. A moment later, she hears the telltale rattle of Suki’s office chair, and then her friend is rolling to a stop beside her.

“You good?” she asks, brushing aside Katara’s hair so she can see her face.

“No,” she sighs, annoyed.

“Is it the rehearsal dinner? Because if you don’t want to go, I can just say you got held late at work.”

“No, no. That’ll be...fine, probably. It’s this whole wedding date thing.”

“Oh do not tell me you’re still being all wishy-washy about it.”

“It just feels like a weird thing to do! I’m just going to show up at my ex’s wedding with this random dude? How will that look?”

“Um, probably like you’ve moved on? Which you have. Objectively. You even had a whole other relationship.”

“Really? Because I think it’ll look like I’m jealous and trying not to be.”

Suki fixes her with disbelieving eyebrows and a laugh. “Trust me, babe. Nobody is going to think that you’re the one that left that relationship pining. You were basically his mom. If this was Jet’s wedding...eh, maybe? But you tend to settle.”

Katara isn’t quite sure if Suki is trying to insult her or compliment her with that statement, and she isn’t sure if her kneejerk, “Hey!” is out of a desire to defend her judgement, or her past partners’ character. Regardless, she doesn’t have much after that to refute the point. Aang seems like a functional enough adult now, a few years out of college, but when they had dated, the “teen” in his nineteen years definitely showed. As for Jet, her much more recent cut, he was...vibing.

“Hon, you’re gonna be fine. I’ve heard Ty Lee and Mai talk about Zuko before, and he sounds like a decent guy. At worst, you have a meh date and escape some social awkwardness, but-” the upward tilt of Suki’s voice had Katara on edge, knowing what was coming next.

“Please, no -”

“- it could be good.”

“No, it can’t be.”

“Ty Lee seems really confident about you two, and you know she’s got a creepy good love radar. After all, she’s the one who convinced me not to block your brother when he slid into my DM’s. Even you told me to block him.”

“She does not have love radar. I love her, but the girl is an unstoppable meddler; she was bound to have a hit once,” Katara dismisses. It’s true that Sokka and Suki are adorable now, and perhaps evidence of the existence of soulmates, but Katara maintains that Ty Lee is a hopeless romantic who believes anything could be the start of an epic love story.

“Fine, be a cynic then. But you’ve already acknowledged that he’s hot, so just go to the wedding with him, and maybe finally rebound from Jet.”

“Hmm,” Katara hums noncommittally.

She’s something of a serial monogamist. She’d left her first real relationship with Aang intending on a summer fling to cleanse her palate before going back for her senior year. After a whirlwind month with the mature and worldly Jiang, she’d been looking into online classes, all but ready to move onto her houseboat and sail away into the sunset. Until Suki pointed out that it was an insane plan, and the ultimately parted ways as planned when Jiang set out to sea again. From there, she had fallen in with Jet as a friend with benefits to blow off steam through her last year without leaving herself open to distraction.

He wasn’t the kind of stable presence she could see herself settling down with, but wasn’t looking to be babied either. No, Jet was more of a feral creature. He knew he was dysfunctional and was fine with it, because function was the system and the system was bogus. Then, she got to know him, and realized that he kept people at a distance for much the same reason she was always pulling them too close. Suddenly, she had grand dreams of showing him the healing power of love, and both of them breaking free of their pain, never needing to fear being alone ever again. He cheated on her, and even as she was shouting at him, she’d known deep down that they had both just repeated their same bad habits all over again.

Now, there is Zuko. Zuko, with tragedy in his scarred eye, and sadness in his smile, but gentle hands on little legs resting on his shoulders. Katara thinks she could make many bad habits out of Zuko, and she is not too proud to admit that it terrifies her. Her stomach turns, and she thinks it might not even be a lie by the time she tells Zuko she’s suddenly too sick to attend the wedding.

The nausea gets worse at the rehearsal dinner, when she walks in to find Jet there, grinning at a bridesmaid. Suki hauls her over to Aang to give him a dressing-down for inviting him, and Katara is somehow reminded in the span of five minutes why she is extremely glad to be rid of both of them.

“I didn’t think it would be a problem!” Aang says, his usual defense. “And he is my friend - we go rock climbing together.”

“Small world,” Suki snarls, and Aang goes wide-eyed, leaning around her to look beseechingly at Katara.

“I swear, I didn’t think you were avoiding each other! After all, we’re exes, and it’s my wedding, but that’s not weird. So I figured you wouldn’t have a problem being in the same room as your other ex.”

Katara grits her teeth behind glossy lips that she forces into a smile, and despite Suki’s murder eyes and the voice in her head telling her not to - to swallow her embarrassment and tell the truth - she finds herself falling back on those old bad habits. “It’s okay, Aang. You had good intentions. We can be adults for one day.”

“Thank you so much Katara,” Aang gushes, lunging forward to wrap her in a hug that pins her arms briefly to her sides. “You’re the best!”

Suki shakes her head in disappointment as he bounds away. “You made your bed,” she reminds Katara. “Guess now you have to decide who to lie in it with.” She glides away to join Sokka at the bar, leaving Katara standing dazed and confused.

“Katara, hey,” an all too familiar voice greets her almost immediately after, and Katara closes her eyes. Suki totally hung her out to dry, and she can’t even be that mad because she’s right.

“Jet,” she says evenly, turning to face him. This shouldn’t be hard for her. While she doesn’t forgive him, she’s also very over him and understands that she’s an idiot for not making Aang ask him to leave. “How are you?”

“Not bad, not bad,” he says, bobbing his head. His clothes are formal but rumpled by disdain for their formality, an effect which once had a liquifying effect on Katara’s insides, but now just feels rude. “I was actually coming over to ask you the same thing,” he says, as though it is a profound inquiry and not the root of all small talk. She opens her mouth to offer a brusque reply and make an excuse to join Sokka and Suki at their table, but he knocks the wind out of her sails with his next words. “Ex’s wedding and all. Brutal.” He gives her a look that she is all to familiar with: his I-see-your-pain look. It was another thing about him that used to push all the right buttons on her, but now she just feels insulted at the presumption that she needs or wants his pity.

“Aang is actually a very dear friend,” she says, trying to sound as impenetrably chipper as possible. “Like a little brother.”

Jet is not deterred, leaning closer to her, his hand just brushing her elbow. “I feel bad about how things ended between us,” he says softly. “I should’ve done better by you.” Katara is momentarily stunned. Is she actually getting a sincere apology? “Which is why I think we should go to the wedding together. I just want to be there for you.”

It’s like a bucket of cold water down her spine, dousing both the fire of her anger and the tiny kindling warmth in her stomach. Katara pulls her shoulders back, straightening her spine, and snaps, “I already have someone to be there for me.”

Jet blinks and rears back a little. “Alright. I’ll, uh. Be looking forward to meeting them then.”

As he slinks away, she feels a moment of deep satisfaction. Only to nearly aspirate her sip of wine as she realizes she has officially painted herself into a corner. Zuko is coming to this wedding.

Thank you! If anyone wants to send me a line or prompt (from this list or your brain) I'll keep it going!

[justkending]

The Slip Up. Chapter 7.

Series Summary: After a last hurrah to graduating college with a future to be a family practitioner, a little slip up happens… Seven years down the road, just when things finally seem to be going smoothly, Y/N approaches that slip up from all those years ago. She’s not looking for anything right now. She is just where she wants to be in life. It seems the universe has a different idea though. One called James Barnes. 

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x (Single mom) Reader

Word Count: 2900+

Warnings: Language, adulting, mentions of sexual past.

A/N: Guy’s writers block has been an actual bitch lately. For some reason this series has been so hard for me to figure out where I want to go at this stage of it. I have a few ideas and end parts made up, but this middle part is like a blank space in my mind... Anyway! I hope you enjoy what little I was able to throw together, and I’m sorry it took so long to get out!!

Chapter 7:

Rori had a soccer game that weekend, and though Y/N planned on just going with Hope and Scott since Doris was in the age group up, she saw it as a great safe place for Bucky to meet her. 

They had agreed to not quite tell Rori that he was her father considering they wanted it to be the right time. Y/N more apprehensive of things working out and scared that she would give Rori false hope of a father figure. Bucky just wanted to ease into it and not scare the little girl away. Though in the back of his head he for sure was ready to step up to the plate. But he respected Y/N’s wishes and told her that he would wait until she was ready. 

That was the thing about Bucky that Y/N couldn’t quite wrap her head around. He was so relaxed and understanding of it all. Almost too understanding. She wanted to sabotage the whole situation in her head, but every time she thought of a test for Bucky, he would pass it with flying colors. 

Asking him to wait to tell Rori the truth, she expected frustration and impatience of the idea. Instead she was surprised with agreeance and a sweet response of, “Whatever you think is best.”

When she told him about how she thought way back when possibly terminating the pregnancy when all this happened, she expected rage and disgust. And once again she was approached with understanding and empathy. 

Even still, she was always going to stay on her toes. It was the instinct of being a mother. 

“Ok sunshine. First real game today. You excited?” Y/N asked as she pulled Rori’s little jersey over her head. 

“Yes! Coach Maximoff said to kick some petunias when I get out there!” she said excitedly jumping up and down once the shirt was on. 

“Of course Pietro would say that,” Y/N laughed with a sigh. “Ok, go grab your cleats and bag, and I’ll go get the cooler of snacks for the team.”

“Yes ma’am!” Rori fake saluted, and ran to the living room where all her things were. 

“Dork,” Y/N chuckled, standing up and going to the kitchen for the last few things. 

______________________

“So what time will he be here?” Hope asked as they walked to the field. 

“Said he would be here right when Rori’s game starts. He had an important meeting or something beforehand, but was going to cut it short for her.”

“Wow, cutting off important meetings for a child you just figured out was yours 2 days ago. Color me impressed,” Hope smiled nudging her friend. 

Y/N rolled her eyes as she began setting up a seat and pulling up the cooler next to her, Rori already in the field and kicking a ball around with a friend. 

“Heads up. Coach is coming your direction,” Hope patted Y/N’s back as she began setting up a seat herself.

“Oh God. I forgot about his flirting-”

“Hello Miss. Y/L/N. You look as radiant as ever, but what’s new?” Pietro Maximoff, the coach of Rori’s team, smirked and sauntered up to the girls. 

“Piet, how are you doing?” Y/N smiled politely. She never actually hated the little comments he would make. She usually just laughed them off, and Pietro was kind about it. It was more playful banter than anything to her. 

“Always deflecting the compliments. I’m good though. How are you ladies doing this evening?” he smiled crossing his arms across his wide chest. 

“As good as ever. Doris is sad she isn’t on your team though,” Hope said plopping down and smiling up at him. 

“I know. They always grow up and leave me. Breaks my heart seeing them graduate from the Blue Jay’s to the Hawks. Next thing you know she’ll be in the Eagles,” he pouted. 

“Ugh, I’m not ready for that moment. Rori’s got one more year with the Blue Jay’s before she moves on,” Y/N said looking out to the little girl with braided pigtails. 

“I’m not ready for that either because that means I won’t be seeing much of you either,” Pietro said with an exaggerated pout. 

“That does suck for you, doesn’t it?” Y/N bantered back, getting a laugh out of him. 

“Love your spirit Y/N/N,” Piet winked, shooting a finger gun at her. 

“Don’t you have kids to coach or something. We have our first game today sir, and if I remember correctly, you told my daughter she was going to kick some petunias,” Y/N said with a smirk and raised eyebrow. 

Pietro’s genuine laugh turned to a nervous one as he started stepping backwards. “You’re right. I have to go get the girls in a huddle.”

Watching the man quickly run back to the girls, he blew the whistle bringing them in. 

“You know, if you let him. He would a hundred percent ask you on a date,” Hope chuckled, grabbing a water bottle and an apple out of the cooler. 

“Exactly why I won’t let him. I don’t need that right now.”

“Oh, I know. I’m just letting you know he definitely has a crush on you.”

“Who has a crush on who?” a voice said from behind.

The two girls turned to see the brunette and blue eyed man. He was earlier than Y/N expected. As he walked up to the two he had a boyish grin littering his face. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to intrude. Just sounded like some juicy gossip,” he chuckled, hands in his pockets. He had on a pair of jeans and an old band shirt on. He looked extremely casual for having an important meeting beforehand.

“You’re fine!” Y/N laughed with a blush at the conversation he had walked in on. “We were just goofing around.” He smiled in return and nodded his head before looking over at Hope. “Oh, this is Hope. My friend from high school and college that I told you about. Her daughter was-”

“The one you were picking up that day. You said her name was Doris, right?” he reached out his hand to Hope and smiled. 

“That would be my munchkin,” Hope smiled back standing and shaking his hand. “You must be Bucky.”

“That’s me.”

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m glad you could come watch Rori play today.”

“I am too. I’m glad Y/N let me in on the fun activities,” he smiled a little wider turning to look at Y/N. 

“Uh, Hope’s husband will be here later. His name’s Scott. Fair warning he’s kinda a dork,” Y/N chuckled, crossing her arms. All of a sudden nerves overcoming her, like a high school girl on a first date. 

“Kinda is an understatement,” Hope laughed sitting back in her seat. 

“Well, I’m excited to meet him,” Bucky said, beginning to rock on his heels. Awkward silence filling the air. “So, uh, where’s she at? I’m assuming already on the field?” he said, peering forward and scanning the grass. 

“She’s number 11,” Y/N turned trying to find her herself. “Um, there!” she pointed. “Little brown pigtails whipping in the wind.”

They were still warming up some, but for 6 year olds it was mostly just running in circles and kicking a ball. No actual warm up happening. 

“Wow,” Bucky said softly to himself. He was squinting some trying to get a better look at her. “She, uh, she looks-”

“A lot like you?” Y/N chuckled. 

“I was going to say you,” Bucky said looking back at Y/N with his own grin. “But yeah, she definitely has me in her.”

“She definitely does,” Y/N mumbled to herself when she thought of those bright blue orbs.

A few moments of silence go by as they watch the group of 5-6 year olds running around with no structure on the field for “warm-ups”. 

“So, uh, someone has a crush on you?” Bucky said, clearing his throat while looking straight forward. Trying his best to come off nonchalant.

“Crush?” Y/N questioned, before realizing what he meant. “Oh! Ha, Hope thinks Rori’s coach has a crush on me, but he’s just a flirt,” she chuckled.

“Oh, I see,” Bucky smiled softly nodding his head as he put his hand in his pockets again.

Another moment of silence, but this one a little more awkward. 

“Uh, so I brought an extra chair for you if you want,” Y/N spoke up. 

“Thanks,” he smiled turning to her. “I didn’t even think about grabbing a chair.”

“Sure thing,” she smiled heading back to the set up her and Hope had started. “I always try and keep an extra in the back of the car cause you never know what parent is going to forget.”

They got situated while they waited for the game to start, and to say it was kinda awkward was putting it lightly. Y/N didn’t really know what to talk about, and Bucky was watching Rori intently on the field wanting to soak up every moment as if he couldn’t miss anymore like this. 

“So, Bucky? Y/N tells me you're an architect,” Hope spoke up.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, breaking his concentration and smiling kindly at her. “It’s been something I’ve loved doing since I was a teenager. Figured I’d make a career out of it.”

“Makes sense,” Hope smiled. 

The two getting to know each other for the next few minutes before a whistle blew and the game started. 

Like Y/N had warned him, it wasn’t much of a soccer game as it was kids just running and trying to get a foot on the ball. Rori though was competitive and actually tried making it to the goal unlike the other kids. Bucky was impressed with her coordination for such a young girl, and found himself smiling through the whole experience. 

That was his daughter. His blood. 

Y/N looked over when she saw Bucky fully immersed in the sport, and a smile of her own grew. She could see the pride and excitement on his face. Clearly he was happy about this new part of his life. Clearly he was excited about hopefully becoming Rori’s father figure. It almost made her wish that all those years ago Bucky had been there… She wished she hadn’t gave up so fast on bringing him into their lives. 

“Y/N,” Hope nudged her. “Y/N?”

“Hmm, what?” Y/N said snapping out of her daydream.

“Games over. We’re about to start packing up,” Hope said.

“Dang, today’s game seemed faster than the rest,” Y/N shook out her head and stood. “Scott, didn’t make it,” she said looking around just now realizing.

“Yeah, he called saying he would be here for Doris, but couldn't make Rori’s. Sorry,” she pouted. 

“It’s all good,” Y/N waved off. 

“Hey,” she looked past Y/N seeing Bucky was still watching the field. “You guys should go celebrate her win. Just you three. Don’t worry about staying for Dori’s game. She’ll have more.”

“No, we never miss Doris’s games. You guys-”

“Go, Y/N. Introduce Bucky to Rori and vise versa. That was the whole point of the today,” Hope egged on, seeing her friend begin to get nervous. Y/N opened her mouth to argue and stall. “Nope,” she shook her head before looking over at Bucky. “Hey Bucky! Rori, Y/N, and you should go celebrate with ice cream. Y/N and her usually do that after a win!”

Bucky turned to the girls and his eyes widened as if coming back to reality. “Oh, I don’t want to impose-”

“Nonsense, that was the reason for today. Right Y/N?” she elbowed her friend.

On the outside Y/N looked completely normal, but on the inside she had more nerves than anything. 

“Right,” she nodded with a kind smile. “That way you and Rori can get to know each other. She would be confused if we didn’t get her celebratory ice cream.”

“I would love that then,” Bucky smiled excitedly. 

“Well, you guys have fun!” Hope grinned. “I’m going to make sure Doris is ready to go. It was nice meeting you Bucky!” Hope began walking to the field waving a quick goodbye to Buck. 

The two walked to the field where Rori was jumping up and down with her teammates as she congratulated the little girl who made the winning goal for the team. 

“Hey sunshine!” Y/N said bending down and opening her arms for Rori. 

“Mommy!” Rori shouted, running over. “Did you see that assist I did?”

“I saw them all baby! You were so good out there!” Y/N congratulated as she ruffled her hair. 

“Hi,” Rori said next looking up at the man standing behind her mom with an awestruck face on him. 

“Oh, sweetheart. This is my…” A pause as she figured out a word.

“I’m a friend of your mom,” Bucky said snapping out of his staring and smiling at the little girl. “My name’s Bucky,” he waved. 

“Hi Bucky. That’s a cool name! My name’s Rori!” she smiled walking out of her mom’s arms and reaching a hand out for him to shake. 

Bucky’s eyebrows raised at the gesture, and he slowly took her little hand and shook it as gently as he could. Almost like he was shaking a porcelain doll’s glass fingers. He looked over to Y/N who was still squatted and turned to them. She had a quirked smile and laughed lightly at his response. 

“Nice to meet you Rori. You have a pretty cool name too,” he said with a smile that he just couldn’t hold back looking at the little girl's face. 

Up close he really did see him in her. Her eyes looked like he was staring straight into a mirror. She had little freckles flecked like gold specks across her nose. Maybe that was her mom in her. Her hair was also like his. A dark brown hair almost black, but under the sun, the highlights of lighter brown and almost reddish tints peaking through. 

“Uh, Rori? Would it be ok if Bucky joined us for our little ice cream date?” Y/N asked, standing and coming over.

“Yeah!” she jumped. “Have you ever been to Moo Moo’s?” she asked Bucky.

“Uh, I can’t say I have,” he laughed at her excitement.

“Don’t worry! I’ve tried basically all the flavors now, so I can help you pick one out,” she said grabbing her bag and throwing it over her shoulder.

“That sounds perfect,” Bucky grinned looking at the giant bag that was basically her size. “Since you’re going to help me out, do you want me to carry that for you?”

“Um, actually, yeah. It’s a little heavy today cause my friend gave me an early birthday gift. But she says I can’t open it until then,” she said, handing off the bag to Bucky’s outstretched hand.

Y/N came up to the side of them grabbing Rori’s hand, leaving the little girl in the middle of her and Bucky as they walked to the car.

“Which friend?” Y/N asked.

“Jenny. She said she wasn’t going to be in town for the birthday party, and her mom told her to give it to me now so they wouldn’t forget,” Rori went on to explain as they walked. Perfectly casual with the new man next to them.

Y/N looked over at Bucky seeing him smile at the little girl as he looked back and forth at her and the sidewalk. Y/N was always going to be a little apprehensive about a man she hardly knew coming in and taking the role of her daughter’s father. I mean you never know who people truly are, so defenses are usually high. But something about his grin was genuine and made her feel at ease about the situation. She started to realize anytime she was with him he didn’t give her bad feelings or make her uncomfortable. How that was possible with a practical stranger, she wasn’t sure.

Rori had moved on to talking about the game by the time they got to the car, and Bucky was nodding as she looked straight to him to explain her position, which Y/N was sure he already knew. They paused realizing they took two different cars. 

“Hey Bucky. If you want we can all drive in my car to the ice cream shop since it’s down the block, and I can bring you back here when we’re done,” Y/N offered.

Bucky looked up and the grin he had while looking or talking with Rori was stuck on his face. “Uh, yeah, that would actually be great,” he chuckled looking back to Rori. “That ok with you?”

“Oh! If you do, I can show you my DVD collection!” Rori jumped running to get in the back seat.

“DVD collection?” Bucky chuckled. 

“She has almost every Disney movie you can think of,” Y/N laughed back, taking the bag from him and throwing it in the trunk of the SUV. “She’s very proud of it.”

“I can see that,” Bucky laughed. 

“Wait ‘till you see how excited she gets when she shows you all the kinds of ice cream she’s tried. She calls herself the expert.”

“And I’m sure she is.”

The Slip Up Tags:

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My Lovelies forever:

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