#Also he has me in greenhouse three and I have absolutely no interest in that

[technofinch]

James just sent out the schedule for next week and I'm on 8am shifts every day, except for tuesday, when I'm in at FIVE AM 😭

[hayatoseyepatch]

now, ofc, i have to ask for a match up! i love them too much to resist. and especially now from you? how could i miss that chance?? 🤍

so, let me tell you about myself: i'm an introvert! 90% intro, 10% extro. i think a lot, constantly thinking about five different things in different languages all at once. i'm very observant and unfortunately mirror people's vibes if i feel uncomfortable or put on the spot. but i love interacting with people that fuel my energy, where i feel real joy and not tired of yapping at all. i love sarcasm, i love bad jokes, i love to challenge people that have negative opinions about important topics. but i suck at giving presentations, i have very bad anxiety when it comes to speaking loud and in front of a lot of people. i also have a very quiet voice to begin with. despite being a thinker, i'm highly emotional in my relationship, love physical touch and being taken care of teehee

some of my interests/hobbies are definitely working out (i do it twice a day), doodling, gaming, reading (actual books as well not just smut 🙃), studying up on history, cooking, and any fixation my adhd deems worthy for a few weeks

i'm not good with ignorant people, i point out bad behaviour on the spot. i speak my mind. i hate baking but man, i love cakes. i also love spice, it's my favourite type of food category. anything spicy, really. oh, and i'm quite indecisive ;-;

fandoms: i need to pull my joker here... you gotta help me, sam. choose between wind breaker, jjk, or blue lock for me

tropes: enemies to lovers, soulmate, love at first sight are probably my top three, not counting dc tropes here 🫣

my type: sylus. I MEAN, i love someone who is in control, who can control me and situations. someone where i can feel safe and turn off my brain for a bit. i don't like to doubt myself or the relationship, so i love honesty. they need to speak their mind as much as i do. i gravitate towards more domineering men, 50/50 on the batshit crazy or kind guys, really. like eevee said, i have a type: the type is trees, i love climbing trees. i like it when they take initiative and show me more than what i have known prior to meeting them. i love a man who can make me laugh! and passion, pls, i'm a scorpio, i love romance and passion in my relationship ahdjsj. someone who can keep up with that is my type 😏

favourites: nagi, rin, barou, kunigami, umemiya, endo, geto, choso, sukuna, inumaki, nobara, utahime, shoko, mei mei dont judge me, beside that weird thing she is so fkn badass

icks: i dislike boring slow pokes/dumb characters and child-like characters. someone who won't put in effort. pls no short king, i'm too tall for them. else i most often find the mc to be lacking to get my interest, i love the bad guys and the side characters

that is all, thank you, dearie <3 remember to take breaks and stay hydrated!!

Tea my absolute BELOVED, I am so excited you decided to participate!! UGH I have had thoughts on yours from the moment I decided to set up this event. LETS GET INTO IT!!

I pair you first with Hajime Umemiya!

⤜♡→ Okay listen, this has actually absolutely nothing to do with the fact I know he’s one of you faves. I am fully going into this with no favoritism or special treatment. I just genuinely think your personalities go so well together. Extrovert x Introvert is one of my favorite ship pairings and I think you both are a perfect case!

⤜♡→ Hajime immediately took you under his wing upon first seeing how reserved and shy you can be at first. He was DETERMINED to pull you out of your shell. What Umemiya wasn’t expecting to fall more and more in love with you with every passing day and with every interaction where he got to peel back your armor.

⤜♡→ Ume is so excited to hear that you love spicy food, because do you know what he’s doing? He is immediately going to the greenhouse where he purchases his seedlings to plant you your own section of pepper plants in his garden. He is so excited when he shows you, going on to tell you how impressed you’ll be with him once he cooks you all your favorite spicy foods. With Kotoha’s help of course.

⤜♡→ No one can tell me that Ume's love language isnt acts of service and physical touch. His favorite past time is taking care of you. he craves the feeling of you in his arms, and will stop at absolutely nothing to ensure you feel every ounce of his love at any given moment. He has lost so much in his life and he was sure to let you know every hour of the day just how precious you are to him.

Umemiya couldn't keep the smile from his face if he wanted to. To him there was something so intimate about bathing with you, it was one of his absolute favorite things to do with you and something he craved after a long day. It had nothing to do with seeing your beautiful body exposed to his gaze, well it had a little to do with it let's be honest here, but he just adorned the skin-to-skin contact that came with this time. Feeling your warm skin so close to his own was his own little slice of heaven.

His lips pressed against your shoulder leaving a trail of kisses along your skin. "You're so beautiful, baby." He hums in contentment against your skin, arms wrapping around your middle as his larger frame dwarfs your form. "I'm so unbelievably lucky that I get to call you mine." His praises of you are whispered against your skin between kisses. His large hands roaming your form as he washes your body for you. "And you're all mine Isn't that right, sunflower?" He grins when you hum in agreement. "And that tattoed freak can never have you right?" Cue Ume getting splashed in the face with water. "Okay I earned that one." Come on Tea it's me you really thought I wasn't gonna mention Endo?

Your next matchup goes to Choso from JJK!

⤜♡→ Choso holds such a special place in my heart, and so do you!! Choso is the older brother type, and has so so so much love to give, If you need to just unwind and have someone ready to nurture and care for you, to just allow you to shut off and recharge for a bit he is definitely your man!

⤜♡→ I feel like Choso is so often mischaracterized as a submissive, while I fully believe sometimes Choso will let you take the reins, this is Choso “you hurt my brothers, its on sight” Kamo we’re talking about here. He has no problem taking control of the situation in and out of the bedroom. And if anyone would dare to make the mistake of hurting or upsetting you, this man would watch the world burn if it meant keeping your smile on your face.

⤜♡→ He is intensely loyal and very passionate, Choso may be a bit behind on the times. But he will consistently go out of his way to show you all the love and appreciation you deserve, which is simly all of it!

⤜♡→ He is nothing short of desperately in love with you. Choso wants to spend the rest of his time on earth with you. He wants to build a family wth you, share a last name, and love you with every fiber of his being.

⤜♡→ He loves seeing you and Yuji interacting, he wants nothing more than the two most imprtant people to him to get along and develop a care for one another the way he cares for you both.

Choso leaned down, tongue poking out of his mouth in concentration as he held the icing bag, he knew your distaste for the act of baking itself but he knew how much you enjoyed cakes. Choso was extremely perceptive when it came to you and how you were feeling. He always noticed even the most minute details. The furrow in your brow, the way you tended to fidget a bit more, how your voice had gone back to a quiet octave. He noticed it all. So he had taken it upon himself to surprise you. He spent the day watching countless videos on cake decorating just so he could impress you with your favorite cake to come home to after the week you’ve had.

He perks up upon hearing the sound of the front door turning he smiles wide, eyes melting with affection as he walks over to you. Leaning down he cups your face in his hands, pressing a long loving kiss against your lips. Dragging you into the kitchen once he pulls from you, presenting you with the cake. Your eyes widen a bit s he presents it to you. “Did you make this Cho?” You ask, eyes wide with surprise at his action. He nods his head, giving you confirmation he did in face make it himself.

The icing is haphazard, it truly isn’t the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen but the knowledge that he made this because he knew of your love for the sweet made you melt into his embrace. “It's perfect Cho.” He could swoon at your words, dipping his finger into the icing and plopping some on the corner of your lips. “Oh would you look at that, it seems your dessert got on my dessert, looks like I need to clean it up.” He coos teasingly before leaning down to capture your lips once more.

[black-metal-bard]

So I'm Building Mel's Ancestral Home in Inkarnate and I am coming up with so much lore based on these fucking rooms.

So this is Dilisnya Keep Proper, the tower being empty because it's getting it's own 6-Story series of maps. Those little red fonts are for binding demons, and they're the reason the demons Meliora's Grandfather bound can't leave, even though he has recently died. (Session One revolves around the party fighting demons while Meliora and her estranged father disable the fonts so the demons can LEAVE).

The fountain in the upstairs greenhouse is the entryway to a secret crawlspace between the first and second floor of the house(it is four feet in height, and I'm foreshadowing this by describing the Ceilings upon entering the building for the first time as "Lower than you'd expect for this type of house."). There is ABSOLUTELY going to be a fucked up little guy in there(someone her Grandfather had used as an "Assistant", AKA experimented on him. Mel is going to regard him as her "Uncle"). This will also be the only entry into the Tower.

This is the Tower's basement, first floor, and second floor(where the tower is entered). There will be three more floors I have yet to create.

Basement: Trapped in that coffin is a Primordial Demon who introduced an early strain of Vampirism onto the world. There are tubes coming from the coffin that siphon her blood, which can be diluted into a potion that cures Vampirism(and rots mortals on contact. Do not drink.). The hand is from a God-Enforcer that had attempted to remove the demon from the Material Plane--it was frozen there by one of Meliora's ancestors. The urns and statues are part of an extensive puzzle to free the demon...which is probably a bad idea.

First Floor: The fire is from a different demon bound willingly to the Dilisnya Keep, and it provides heat and power in exchange for food. Since Meliora's Grandfather passed(and her father isn't living in The Keep) the demon has been snaking its tentacles through the vents to eat rats and pieces of the demons that have overrun the Keep.). Appearances aside, he is one of the more Jovial entities in The Keep, and is genuinely loyal to the Dilisnya family.

Second Floor: This is the floor the party will enter from the crawlspace; it is also the Tower's library, lab, and study. That fountain is a key piece in the puzzle to free the demon in the basement. The crystals seem to be infernal in origin, and have been growing since the first Dilisnya to start doing evil fucked up magic built the Tower, and they have been slowly growing since. The torn book on the desk is actually an in depth study on Meliora's maternal lineage, and is how she finds out that she isn't just a Tiefling, but a Demi-Demon; and the plans her Grandfather hoped to achieve by combining the lineages(this is not info Mel will share with the party any time soon, but she will be able to be found in the study often).

But yeah I hadn't really thought TOO much about Mel's Father's family until I started actually building The Keep. The Keep was originally intended to serve as the Party's home base(and it still will) while the party unwittingly served Meliora's secret agenda and dealt with the political intrigue the Von Zarovich family is dragging them into. Those things are still true, but Mel's paternal family has gone from "This is her family tie to Strahd" to "This is interesting all on its own".

Also it amuses me that half of Mel's family are literally demons from Hell, but its the HUMAN side that are the edgy ones.

[victorluvsalice]

-->Before deciding she absolutely had to indulge her romantic side with Victor and went over to give him a massage by the cowshed. Fortunately, she'd licked herself clean before doing this; unfortunately, the timing meant that Victor ended up standing in the trash he'd just cleaned out of the cowshed while this happened. XD The things we do for romance... Alice then changed back to normal as Smiler -- fresh off harvesting all their plasma fruit and herbalism stuff out of the greenhouse -- joined them in the paddock to hang out. They ended up entertaining Shadow, who'd also followed everyone in there, while Alice chatted with Moory and gave her a good milking, and Victor sorted through the trash for upgrade parts before cleaning himself off with some Scruberoo. You know, just a typical day on the farm. :p

-->With most of the chores beyond completing the daily greenhouse harvest (which Victor got sent to do once he was clean) now done, and New Year’s Eve officially started as a holiday, it was time to turn my attention to holiday traditions – namely, resolutions! I started with Alice and checked what was available for her – completing an aspiration milestone, getting fit, losing weight, etc, etc. Doing an aspiration milestone sounded interesting, so I decided to check to see what milestones she might be close to completing. And just for fun, I started with the Fabulously Wealthy aspiration –

And immediately completed the entire aspiration, since she’d already fulfilled all the goals. XD She now has the "Shrewd” reward trait, which means that she now gets a payment of 5% of the household funds added to the total pot every week. I checked Mansion Baron after that, just to see if she’d completed that too – nope, but she’s ALMOST done with it. Just need to make sure the house is worth a bit more – and get a bunch of columns. XD That is more of an aspiration for me to complete, though (and I am actually planning on doing a playsession that revolves around remodeling the house a bit at some point), so I decided the aspiration milestone she was going to complete would be in Renaissance Sim instead – she just has to get two more skills up to level 8 and she’s golden!

So that settled her resolution – but what about Smiler and Victor? Well, I decided they could complete aspiration milestones too – Smiler is just one party away from completing another level of the Party Animal aspiration after all, and Victor three duels away from completing one in the Spellcraft & Sorcery aspiration! I also decided they could auto-complete Fabulously Wealthy as well, so now we have three Shrewd Sims living in the same household. I suspect the money is going to start piling up VERY RAPIDLY. XD

-->Okay, enough about resolutions – time to finish up things around the house! Smiler took on decorating duty as per usual, putting up some fun bunting and banners outside, while Alice gave Shadow a good brushing and played some laser pointer with Kelly. Shadow then went outside and whined at Victor that she wanted a walk, so once Victor had finished his harvest and officially made his resolution, he took her on a short stroll down to the riverside to do her business. Which for some reason ended with her getting spooked by something, lying down, and covering her eyes with her paw and Victor having to unleash her and scratch her special spot to make her happy again. *shrug* I guess she is a very nervous doggo... Smiler, meanwhile, spotted that Toothy needed a feed and gave the cowplant some meat and a bit of playtime to stop it chomping down on any passing Sims and making this the world's most awkward New Year's Eve. :p They then moved onto checking the latest SimsTube trends and answering comments on their videos, before being sent downstairs to fix MORE broken wind turbines in the wind farm. *heavy sigh* Seriously, it is SO RARE for all of them to be working... Alice, for her part, ended up double-checking the chicken coop, cleaning it out, and gathering the latest batch of eggs (four normal ones – I guess the one plus of having no rooster is having no hatchable eggs cluttering up the inventory), before going to clean out the spoiled food from the fridge. And Victor finally arrived home from his walk and took the opportunity to license out his song “Wonderland Smiles,” because sure, we need more money. Why not. XD

[olivyh]

Leona, Jamil, and the Leech twins with an Fem!s/o who has 4 siblings and they're the eldest.

A 14 year old, 9 year old, and 6 year old. (All girls)

S/o happened to get spawned into Twisted Wonderland with her siblings in toe.

S/o is often annoyed with her siblings and can often be found in her room. Especially because they're an introvert already.

She doesn't trust ANYONE to watch her siblings for them because people aren't trustworthy in her eyes.

Absolutely hates and loves her siblings.

She doesn't show affection often, and hate when their siblings try to hug or kiss her.

One wrong move, and students can be mutilated.

It's a "I hate you but I will murder everyone for you"

Omg I can relate so hard to this ;;;; I'm one of six children (I have four brothers and a sister) but I'm the fourth born! I can also vv much relate to the introverted part ;; ( It is a little short, though, because the break I got earlier was just the calm before the storm and I got very burnt out very quickly ;;;;;;;;;;; i got a little slammed with essays and exams and club activities, but I will try to continue to write as much as possible when i find the time and energy!

Will also start publishing the self-indulgent inserts (with name changed ofc) and short stories that I have written to fill up the gaps between when I don't have time to write (I have... three on the backburner right now?)

Leona:

-Didn't think too much about you and your younger siblings when you first came, though he was a little annoyed about there being kids on campus

-He was never really aware that you existed either, considering your introverted nature and how, having not known you all, tended to just see one of you and assume it was someone else

-He did, however, get an earful when your younger sibling came to you crying because "The scary lion in the greenhouse growled at me when I stepped on his tail"

-After being comforted by your other siblings, you stomped over and gave the man a piece of your mind, chewing him out and threatening him for making your precious younger sibling cry

-You stormed off, mumbling to yourself and leaving the lion man in a state of awe, jaw agape  for once

-Ruggie made fun of him for it, having heard the whole thing

-Of course, he doesn't try to attract too much of your attention again

-Eventually your younger siblings grow fond of him, whether through Cheka being the youngests' playmate or their general interest in beastmen. And through them, came you

-Your relationship at first was strained, with him being a little more wary of the things he did and said around your siblings, and you standing threateningly over him while they hung out. 

-He was, admittedly, a little glad to get you out of your room. 

-But he knew not to push the issue too much, and also to keep his distance, knowing all too well that you can defend yourself and your siblings if needed

-If you do ask him for support or to step in, he absolutely will

-But of course, if not he won't bother. He believes that you can stand up for yourself and your family

-It makes him a little unnerved to see the way you interact with your siblings, seeing the reflection of the way that he treats Cheka. Of course, he treats your siblings in the same way.

-Overall, he's a fairly good boyfriend towards your family, given how important they are to you and through association, they're important to him

"Leona!" Your youngest sibling rushes up to him, gripping onto his arm and whining. "Come on!"

"No, get some sleep," The lion sighs, rolling onto his other side and flicking the child with his tail. 

"But it's noon!"

"They're right, Leona!" Your other sibling frowns, hands on their hips as they huff and roll their eyes at his actions. 

"Guys," You warn them, lightly smacking the youngests' arm. Leona grins at your actions, watching you bicker with them from his position on the grass. "Leave him be!"

"No! Leona promised to teach me how to play chess!" Your youngest sibling huffs, stomping her foot and waving her arm in his direction as he yawns. 

"I did teach you," He yawns. 

"Barely!"

You chuckle, waving them off. "How about you guys find something else to do? He'll teach you later, promise," They huff and stride off, disappearing into Savanaclaw, probably off to swim in the fountain or hang off Jack for the eightieth time. You sit down beside the lion, gently running your hand through his hair and fixing his braids. He sighs, eyes falling closed. 

"I'm sorry about them," You apologize softly. He huffs in response. 

"It's nothin'," He leans into your touch slightly, feeling all of the tension built up in his body over the course of the day slowly melting with every stroke of your hand against his hair, every brush of your nails against his scalp. "They're not as bothersome as Cheka."

"You say that, but-"

"Shut it," You grin in response, watching his eyes slowly lull closed. 

Jade:

-He was curious upon seeing students who are much younger than even the youngest at NRC. He wondered if it was the same situation as the Shroud brothers

-And it was!

-He had seen your younger siblings all over campus as they seemed to have an easy time making friends. Him and his brother even had a conversation with them once

-He caught on how they tearfully told them about you, their oldest sibling who rarely leaves Ramshackle unless necessary

-His interest was piqued and he, of course, needed to know more about this mysterious prefect

-He found out soon enough when both your siblings, scared to tears of the twins, came crying to you while you were relaxing in your dorm one day

-You stormed into Mostro Lounge, cursed him out, and left like nothing happened

-He was baffled, but it also heightened his previous curiosity. A magicless human trying to fight him? Not showing an ounce of fear? Was your will to protect your siblings that strong?

-Jade and Floyd had an... odd relationship. 

-They were incredibly close, but Jade would never dream of fighting someone on Floyd's behalf (unless he physically couldn't, which never happened)

-They also didn't have any younger siblings, so he wanted to learn more

-How did he gain your affections?

-During Azul's overblot, when the octomer was rampaging, he saw some debris flying towards one of your younger siblings, who screamed and tried to cover their faces to the best of their ability

-He quickly grabbed them and hid them behind one of the booths for safety

-Little did he know, you were watching the whole thing go down

-You felt... indebted to him, for lack of a better word and went to help him with whatever he needed

-Which soon bloomed into a relationship

-He's very good with your younger siblings- patient, helpful, willing to play with him and feed them free food from Mostro when Azul's not looking

-He wants to be as much of a protector for them as you are, but he knows to keep his distance

-So he opts to be a big brother figure instead :)

"No, little one," Jade gently scolds your youngest sibling, slowly moving their hands along the small terrarium. "You must position the moss like this-"

You smile, watching him guide your younger sibling as they build their own terrarium after becoming interested seeing his countless terrariums built up. Watching how their eyes lit up when the jar (a repurposed jelly jar) became something akin to what your younger sibling would call a 'fairy house'. 

Jade smiles, chiding them when they get too excited and lift it into the air quickly, shaking the insides ever so slightly. Your other sibling scoffs, fake gagging. 

"Stop looking at him like that," They pout, covering their face with their hands. "It's gross."

"Like what?" You retort, face flushing. 

"Like he's the sun."

"I do not!" You smack them slightly, pouting. Jade notices your conversation and chuckles, making your youngest sibling giggle at his reaction. 

"You do, my dear," He sighs happily, pressing a kiss to the back of your hand, making you yelp and try to push him away. 

"Stop!" Your younger sibling gags and the youngest giggles, grabbing the other and scrambling off. 

"You're so embarrassing!" You huff. Jade grins and presses a chaste kiss to your cheek. 

"They'll get used to it."

Floyd:

-He was actually friends with your youngest sibling from the start!

-Of course, they were a little scared of him at first

-But it's shown during the Halloween event that Floyd is very good with young kids. Between that and his high energy (most of the time), they get along well

-Due to this, Floyd became your temporary roommate/babysitter 

-You were always around one another due to him hanging out with your sibling all the time, often taking on a protector role for them as much as you do

-This is what caught your attention

-How quickly he responded to them and their concerns, how he kept them safe while having fun, how happy they seemed to be around him

-Of course, your teenage sibling was also dragged into their schemes (whether it was against their will or not)

-Soon enough, you two were close enough that neither of you knew what to call your relationship

-At some point you started acting like a couple and you both just went with it

-He is pretty attentive to your younger siblings! Although he does tend to distance himself when he knows he's in a bad mood as to not say something to upset them

-And he knows well what will happen if he upsets you

"One more round!" The eel chants, practically bouncing on his toes as your siblings collapse on the bleachers, making you look up from your phone. 

"No more!" The teenager sighs. "You won like, eight times already!"

"Make it nine?"

"Floyd..." Your youngest sibling whines, hanging off his extended arm. "No more basketball!"

"Awh..." He pouts and sits next to you on the bleachers, pulling you into his lap and making both of your siblings groan. "Lame."

"We're not lame!" The youngest defends themselves, crossing their arms and grabbing the ball from beside you two, giggling as they run away. 

"No fair~!" Floyd whines, grinning. "Does that mean more games?"

"No!" They yell from the middle of the gymnasium, weakly throwing the ball at the net and landing a few meters short. "I'm practicing!" Floyd places you next to him and strides over, picking up your sibling and making them scream and flail their legs wildly, landing a few kicks on the laughing eel's chest. 

"Get it in the net!" He lifts them high enough that they can reach the rim, dropping the ball in. He cheers, throwing them in the air and making them yelp again, holding onto him for dear life. "That's a point for both of us!"

"Mhm!"

"Since when are you two a team?" You ask. 

"Since now," Floyd grins, making a face when you roll your eyes. "And now it's you two against us two!"

"It's on!" Your middle sibling runs up to the eel, stealing the ball from the ground while he still holds the youngest. You can't help but smile at their antics, unable to stop your feet from moving towards the court to play along.

Jamil:

-Was also indifferent to you and your siblings the first few months

-He had too much to worry about and far too much on his plate at that time 

-But when he overblotted and your siblings happened to be in the way? When he woke up he wondered why he was in so much pain

-According to Kalim, you had gone off on him after your youngest sibling was injured by a piece of flying debris

-Your siblings are a little intimidated by him at first, and more than a little scared of his power after he had lost control

-He also has a little sister who is around 14-15, so he tries to use Najma as a reference for what your younger siblings would like

-He helps them with studies, teaches them how to cook, he even goes as far as to babysit the youngest when you appear to be too busy

-As for the affection part, Jamil understands that completely. Him and his sister were never known to be the most affectionate pair, often fighting more than being physically affectionate

-He understood that you still cared for your siblings, though, and respected your drive to protect them and keep them safe

-He also did his part to keep them safe and healthy in his own low-key way

"Hold the spatula like this," He demonstrates with his own hands, your teenage sibling nodding and following along, humming slightly as the oil pops in the pan. "Don't panic."

"I'm trying..."

"It's not that hard," You chuckle, grinning in their direction. Jamil rolls his eyes and goes back to helping the teenager cook dinner in Ramshackle's old, worn kitchen. He'd offered to help after they'd seen him cook and wanted to provide for you and their younger sibling, finding it a good excuse to bond with them. 

Their phone dings and they look down, chuckling as they slip it back into their pocket. "Your sister just texted me," They explain, going back to pushing the vegetables around the pan. 

"Oh?" Jamil looks back to you, raising an eyebrow. "What is she saying?"

"She told me to give updates on you two," You huff and fight the urge to throw your phone at her from across the room. 

"That's a little stalker-ish," You comment. 

"Agreed."

"Well, you two are a thing. You're my older sibling, and her older brother. We have to know what's going on," They shrug pouring the mixture onto a plate with Jamil's supervision, making slight comments on how to do it in a safer way. "Stop nagging."

"I'm not nagging."

"You are!" 

"Agree!" The youngest chirps, making you laugh. Jamil frowns, placing the plates in front of you and sitting beside you, close enough that your knees bump into each other. 

"Thank you for dinner, you two~" You hum happily, digging in. 

"Anytime," They say simultaneously, looking at each other in shock and making you laugh. 

[botanyshitposts]

Garden sales have been absolutely wild here (mid-sized city in the Canadian prairies). In 2020 my main supplier smashed their previous record for mail orders by 300%. In late January this year they had *15,000* more orders than they'd had at the same time last year. Currently they've suspended phone orders, instituted a daily quota on online orders and are frantically hiring more full-time warehouse staff.

oh man, this is fascinating to hear; cool because of how notoriously hard greenhouses are to keep afloat financially, and fascinating from a garden industry perspective.

for those not acquainted with the really interesting world of garden and flower industries, most (ornamental flower) greenhouse and florist sales in recent years come from valentines’ day and mothers’ day alone, as opposed to several decades ago where flowers (in floral arrangements at least) were considered a thing you got on a regular basis without any special occasion needed. the turnover rate for retailers selling flowers for planting in gardens is really high unless you’re a big chain that sells flowers/florist services on the side, or you expand to include garden equipment, landscaping, houseplants, etc (my fave book on the flower industry and how this all goes down is called Flower Confidential by Amy Stewart, for anyone interested).

that aside, this feels like the other side of a new york times article i saw last month called We’re Saying it with Flowers. Loudly and Repeatedly, by Carly Lewis (which to be fair is specifically about florists, not greenhouse or houseplant sales; i’d assume gardening is way up too for similar reasons, though). it was really conflicting for me to read, because like...it’s a horrifying set of circumstances where this huge influx is happening, but it’s happening for really human reasons. excerpts for those who dont have access, although the whole article is really cool:

---

Three weeks ago, Julia Gray, a florist, delivered a bright bouquet of flowers to a customer in Queens — spring colors, by request. Judging by the accompanying card, which the sender had carefully dictated to Ms. Gray by telephone, a familial falling out had taken place. The flowers were sent as an apology.

“It was this young woman, sending flowers to her aunt,” Ms. Gray said. “She hadn’t seen her family for a year and a half.” When Ms. Gray told the recipient the flowers were from her niece, her face lit up. “People are realizing that time is of the essence,” Ms. Gray said. “You can’t hold a grudge.”

[...]

Spending the past 11 months in various states of lockdown has inspired many a soul-searching expedition. It’s been a period of perhaps involuntary rumination, during which many people have had no choice but to be alone with their thoughts. And when those thoughts sometimes become softhearted mea culpas, florists get the call.

[...]

Mr. Harkins estimates that his business is up 50 percent compared with this time last year. “My father told me when I was a young man that the flower business is recession proof,” he said. “He started during the second dip of the Great Depression in 1937. He said, ‘When things really get bad, a guy can’t go out and buy his wife a new car or a mink coat, but he can buy a dozen red roses and feel like a big shot.’ It’s kind of a denial of the hard times. That’s where the florist steps in.”

According to a recent survey conducted by the Society of American Florists, over 80 percent of respondents reported an increase in holiday sales compared to 2019. In January, 1-800-Flowers, a leading e-commerce retailer, announced what it said was the company’s highest quarterly revenue and profit in history, with a total net revenue of $877.3 million, an increase of 44.8 percent compared with the same quarter last year. Chris McCann, the president and C.E.O., estimated that approximately 22 million stems, including about 14 million roses, were delivered by the company for Valentine’s Day.

[...]

“It’s wrenching to know that the reason someone is sending flowers is because otherwise they’d be there in person,” said Whit McClure, who runs the floral design studio Whit Hazen in Los Angeles. “I get choked up thinking about that.” Ms. McClure also noted that, given the staggering number of Covid-19-related deaths in Los Angeles, she has been receiving a significant increase in condolence and sympathy orders.

[...]

“We’re getting more deliveries just to say hello and check in,” Ms. Gray said. “There’s this one couple we just started taking orders from during the pandemic. He lives in Brooklyn and she lives in Queens, she’s taking care of her elderly mother. He sends flowers to her every two weeks — beautiful arrangements, always decadent, gorgeous long-stem roses. Had the pandemic not happened, he could have been seeing her and not sending her flowers. You should see the cards he writes. He is madly in love with her. They actually got in a fight, I think they broke up at one point. But they got back together. He kept sending flowers.”

Emily Scott, who owns Floriconvento Flowers in Harlem, said that customers and florists alike are mindful of exacerbated sensitivities amid the pandemic. “There have been so many deaths, and that is such a touchy subject,” she said. “But whether it’s a death or a great, positive occasion like a new birth, there’s still so much love that needs to be expressed.” As well as less clear emotions: “There’s a lot of nuance that can be acknowledged through flowers.”

----

yeah so anyway

[orange-waterfalls]

G-Bots (TM)

Googleplier (x4) x viewer!reader

ty anon for the request!

A/N: Funny story! I am no longer physically capable of writing normally! I tried so hard to be normal and just veered off into SCP/Cryptid viewer territory because I like expanding on the idea that the viewer is Not Human! Anyways, you’re hanging out with the Googles. That is it. Nothing is wrong. You do not recognize the bodies in the water haha anyways I think I like went a little creepypasta-esque at the end there but it’s fine I think probably. It’s fine. Might be a little weird in terms of story, but i think this was more focused on world building to me. Probably seen as more platonic than romantic, but see it however you wish. Enjoy!

Word count: 2.5k

G-Bots (TM)

You wheezed just a bit as you sped through wherever-the-fuck you were. Sure, maybe that was a bad idea. Sure, Dark was a little bit threatening and SURE, you were supposed to be back by now, and the fact that you weren’t back with Mark trying to convince him NOT to split up was the tiniest bit problematic. You weren’t even sure this was a building? Were you in the void? Goddammit, not again…

You stopped, concluding that this was bullshit and you did not want to do it right now. You bent over, hands on your knees and took deep breaths. You stared into the emptiness for a bit, then looked around for a moment, just trying to figure things out. You needed to reassess. It was basically one big, long hallway with random twists and terms every few meters. You’d always end up back at the paintings of… them… and knew you’d gone too far. You did that over, and over, and over again. At this point you thought Dark had just forgotten about you. You took a deep breath in and let it out. You stood up straight and looked up at the paintings. You heard their voices echo through your head a bit. You squeezed your eyes shut and your head twitched.

“You’re alright… you’re ok… cool it…” You whispered to yourself. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Meditate. Think.

You looked on either side of the hall and, for the first time, you noticed doors extending down into the void and not stopping. You let out a breath. You felt a slight sense of dread. Something was telling you not to enter the rooms. Some little voice in the back of your head that sounded suspiciously like Mark. But, hey, what else were you gonna do?

“Ok… do i want to enter the door on the left or the door on the right?” You asked yourself. You paused to think about it. After a few seconds you felt yourself jerk forward a bit. Your brain felt staticy and you felt compelled to the left. You turned the knob and opened the door slightly. Immediately you heard music that might be in an SCP game, and a voice that sounded suspiciously like “do you recognize the bodies in the water?”. You were hoping no, and you bailed before you had a chance to look. You ended up almost exactly in your previous position in the hall. Your brain felt fuzzy again, and this time you gravitated to the right. You opened the door just a little, maybe to see what was inside, but again you heard the SCP ambiance.

But this time it was from behind you. So, like any smart person, you swung the door open, slammed it behind you and did your best to lock it. But there was no lock. So you stood. Waiting. Nothing happened.

Of course nothing happened. Why would anything happen? Dark wouldn’t want you to get hurt… probably. This was his domain. Probably. If you were alive, it’s because he wanted you to be. If you were in this room, it’s because he wanted you to be.

Speaking of: Where the hell were you?

You turned around to look behind you. In the blank white room there was a single grey couch with all 4 Google androids sitting on it. Apparently they were recharging, because they hadn’t noticed you standing there and also they were plugged into an outlet in the wall. You hadn’t considered that they had to physically plug into something to charge up, but the thought made you snort.

Bad idea.

All of their eyes snapped open at once, revealing the glow of their assigned colors. They all stood up and began walking towards you in unison. You felt a slight sense of dread. Even so, you tried to grab the doorknob, the one that apparently was no longer there, and cursed under your breath when you could only feel the smooth wall behind you. The androids stopped, staring at you. You cleared your throat.

“Hey…” you laughed nervously, “So, uh, funny story, actually-”

“You are not supposed to be here,” The original Googleplier, Blue, stated.

“Well, see, that’s where this whole thing started, um, see, Mark wanted to split up-”

“No human is allowed inside of this room, and not you, either.”

“Well-” You stopped, processing what he said, “Wait. ‘Either’? I’m human.”

“No, you’re not,” Google Green said. You wanted to be offended, but you were more confused.

“What do you mean? I’m human!” You argued.

“What color’s your hair?” Red asked with a mean smirk on his face. You opened your mouth to respond, and an amalgamate of voices saying “BROWNBLACKBLONDEWHITERED” came out. You slapped a hand over your mouth.

“... what the hell was that?” Your muffled voice whispered. Well, you thought it was probably yours.

“What’s your eye color?” BROWNGREENBLUEAMBERYELLOW exited your being before you could even try to answer.

“Do you have any pets?” That one just ended with a computer error sound from you.

“... huh.” You dropped your shoulders a little. The revelation probably should’ve upset you more.

“What are you doing here?”

“I… do not recognize the bodies in the water.” You explained.

“Ah, I see. Darkiplier would want you to not die, therefore you may stay.”

“Ha. Wow. Who knew the Googleplier androids-”

“G-Bots.”

“... what?”

“We are legally not allowed to use the name ‘Google’ anymore. We are now G-Bots.”

“... legally.”

“We were discontinued. And sold. And signed a contract.”

“So does that mean I can’t call you Google anymore?”

“No, that is simply my name. The name of us as androids, however, is now G-Bots.”

“Ok. What about them?” You pointed to the other three.

“Yellow is Oliver, Green is Lee, Red is Elliott.”

“And you’re just Google?”

“They’ve been trying to change my name to Gregor. I deeply dislike it.”

“It’s a good name.” Oliver suggested, smiling.

“Means vigilant.” Lee shrugged.

“Don’t be a pussy, Greg.” Elliott adopted a shit-eating grin as he leaned a little closer to Google.

“You can do… whatever you wish. Just do not be like them, DA.” Google instructed through gritted teeth.

The room began to shift color and expand. The couch was still grey in the center, but there were now four sections of each of the colors. The yellow section was filled with flowers, with a laptop on a desk next to a switch and a little Vector robot sitting by on the windowsill that showed a colorful meadow with bees buzzing to and fro. It glitched for a moment, so you knew the window wasn’t real. The green section had large houseplants and looked a bit like a greenhouse, and had an Xbox hooked up to a TV in the corner and seemed to have a view of a lake in the faux-window. The red section had miscellaneous wires and computer parts and lights here and there, looking like a fire hazard, and a PC on a table, while the window showed what appeared to be space. Google’s section was absolutely spotless, not a single thing anywhere, apart from a tiny skateboard next to a PS4 in the corner, and the window showed computer code.

“Wow.” You said. You might be stuck here for a while, so you might as well enjoy it.

Though you wondered who DA was. -- You hate to say it, but you had a favorite G Bot. It was kind of like having a favorite child, in your mind. You felt like they somehow knew that you had a favorite, but you didn’t know why.

Oliver was the sweetest by far, immediately going to make you as comfortable or entertained as possible while you were with him. He asked you if you wanted to watch something, if you wanted to play a game, if you were hungry, etc. It was kind of like going over to a friend’s house for the first time. He was enthusiastic to the point where he was shaking with anxiety over wanting to make you happy. You thought he didn’t get many visitors and maybe that was why. He showed you his flowers, and the bees, and a small painting in the corner, hoping for  validation. His glowing eyes seemed to dull when you moved on to the next section, but said you’d visit him again. That did help, but he turned away sadly and went to water his flowers.

Lee seemed as though he couldn’t care less if you were there. He told you where everything was and that you could do whatever. If you asked for help, he would stop what he was doing and help you. Once you understood, he immediately resumed his previous task. He was a bit cold, like Google, but in a “I am very busy but I am still here if you need me” sort of way. He played a game or two with you, having a preference for the puzzle games more than anything else. Puzzle horror, more specifically. If there was a shooting part, he immediately shoved the controller into your hands, saying he didn’t want to do that part. When you left, he simply continued with his work without a goodbye.

Elliott tried so hard to ignore you for the longest time. You could hear him scoff and growl anytime you made any sort of noise. You were self conscious at first, but you came to understand that he was just an asshole. You started on a game, playing for a few minutes, and felt the red couch sink next to you because he had sat down next to you. If he thought you sucked (which he did) he would snatch the controller from you and finish whatever you were doing before giving it back. He refused to say anything or help you, either. He’d just make rude noises and walk away occasionally before coming back. When you left, he seemed a lot angrier than he had before, and wouldn’t say goodbye to you. He turned away with a huff and started pressing random buttons on the controller.

Google was by far the least interested in anything you had to do. You sat on the couch next to him, and he didn’t move an inch. You sat there for a bit, waiting, but he did not move. You stood up, walked around, messed with a few things, attempted to play a game or two. Google didn’t move. You pulled up the Gamer ChairTM and sat directly in front of Google, arms crossed. You sighed. Finally, he looked up at you.

“Is there something you need?” He asked in that monotone voice of his.

“I’m bored,” you said.

“Go to one of the others,” He closed his eyes.

“What are you doing?” You asked, curious.

“That is not-” He sounded exasperated.

“Hey Google, what are you doing?” You interrupted like the little shit you were

“Currently, this G Bot system is recharging its battery. This G Bot is at: 69%.” He shifted to a purely robotic voice.

“Haha nice.”

“This G Bot’s primary objective is to answer questions as quickly as possible. Would you like to ask a question?”

“Yes. What do you like to do, Google?”

“I enjoy answering your questions. Do you have any more?”

“What company owns you?”

“G-Bots were recently sold by the Google company to Warfstache Incorporated.”

“Wilford has a company?”

“Warfstache Incorporated is co-owned by Wilford ‘Motherloving’ Warfstache and Damien-Dami-Da-Darkiplier.” He glitched while answering.

“Who’s Damie-”

“The Corporation owns shows such as ‘Markiplier TV’, ‘Warfstache Tonight!’, and ‘Hire My Ass’. Do you have any more questions?”

“Do you pass the Turing Test?”

“Wondering if you have to treat me with basic decency?” He shifted back to his less robotic, but still monotone, voice.

“No. Just wondering.”

Neither of you spoke again for a while. He did scold you when you tried to move the couch with him still on it, so… progress. -- You were beginning to suspect that Google didn’t like you very much.

The blue one. Google. The other ones liked you. Oliver ranted to you for a whole half hour about different kinds of bugs and the hierarchy of bees. The queen is assassinated when she is bad for the hive, it would seem. Lee made you play Resident Evil with him because he didn’t like the fighting, but he liked figuring out what to do. You frantically passed controllers back and forth a lot. Elliott basically did speedruns of several games, you watching intently the whole time. He seemed to like the attention and actually smiled at you whenever he finished one.

But Google didn’t like you. He ignored you, and told you not to touch anything, and scowled whenever you asked him personal questions. Not like “what’s your sexuality” type of personal questions. More like… “what’s your favorite color and why is it blue” sort of questions. He didn’t like them either way.

But the others liked you, and that was pretty neat.

You still wanted Google to like you though.

“Hey Google,” he perked up with the little “do-do!” noise, “Can you guys go into your different sections?”

“All G-Bots have the ability to pass into other’s color-coordinated sections,” He answered politely.

“Why don’t you?”

“We don’t want to.”

“Do you get along?”

“Yes.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Celine dislikes when colors are mismatched.”

“Who’s-”

“I’m sorry, this G Bot needs to charge.”

“But you haven’t been-”

“This G Bot needs to charge.”

“Come on, if you--”

“This G Bot needs to charge.”

You quieted and plopped into the chair. You stared at Google. His eyes flickered for a moment before they closed. -- The other Bots knew who Celine and Damien were, they just weren’t telling you. Their eyes always flickered when you asked, but they wouldn’t tell you.

You threatened not to play with Lee anymore. He said he could play on his own. You could see that he didn’t want to. You played Alien: Isolation. His eyes seemed duller.

You threatened not to watch Elliott’s speedruns. He said he didn’t care. You could tell that he did. You watched him play Hollow Knight. His eyes seemed duller.

You threatened not to listen to Oliver’s rants. He looked terrified, but he said that was fine. You could tell it wasn’t. You begged him to tell you. He looked sad.

“Who’s Damien?” You asked softly, stepping towards him.

“I can’t tell you,” He shifted back.

“Who’s Celine?” You stepped forward.

“I can’t tell you.”

“Who’s DA?”

All of the G-Bots stopped what they were doing. You heard static and felt like you were being watched. -- You looked up at the color on the outside of the museum.

You were doing something. You were doing something.

Were you robbing this place? It felt like you were. What happened to Mark? What happened… to you?

You stared at the doors, feeling a slight sense of dread. Something in the back of your head was telling you this wasn’t right. To go home. To…

--

“Ignorance is Bliss. Try Again?”

[plant-flwrs]

i just read house unity and i am in tears!! it's so beautifully written, you must be an author bc that is pure TALENT 😭✨ if you don't mind can i request george x soft hufflepuff reader? she's kinda pure and george is like ily let's be together. thx!!

budding romance // george weasley

masterlist!

a/n: um UR TOO NICE!!! thank you so much!!! I do not mind in the slightest, so I hope you like it hehe! um i also love hufflepuffs so much they are like the best house (coming from a ravenclaw) my sister is a hufflepuff and like three of my good friends are hufflepuffs so y’all are the best and i have a major soft spot for u. 

i’ve always found something about botany and plants incredibly romantic, so if this just sounds like a fanfiction for plants, you know why lol. I also made George a bit soft in this so i hope you don’t mind that either <3 n e ways, i hope you enjoy this! thanks for requesting! also sorry this took so long :( i had a bit of a hard time finding a solid idea but i think it worked out :) like, reblog, or leave any feedback if you’d like!

summary: George needs a tutor for Herbology, but has no plans on learning.

(3k)

--------

The back of your neck was particularly warm, and you hadn’t decided if it was because of the blazing sun shining through the Herbology classroom glass ceiling, or the fact that George Weasley was staring at the back of your head.

Your delicate fingers traced the back of the Dittany plant, feeling the bumps and lines of the veins that trailed to the stem. You wrote down some observations in your worn notebook, before glancing back at the plant. You picked up a pair of garden scissors, prepared to cut the plant at the stem.

“George Weasley is looking over here,” your friend whispered to you, casting a glance over her shoulder.

“I know, he does it often,” you replied, using a pair of tweezers to pull apart the Dittany.

“Do you think he needs something?” she asked, returning back to her own plant.

“I just figured he was copying what I was doing,” you wiped a bit of moisture off of your hand and onto your apron, taking the opportunity to look over your shoulder.

George’s eyes met yours, and his face flushed with an embarrassed blush. You offered him a kind smile, your eyes falling down to his mangled Dittany plant. You looked back up to his eyes, this time sympathetically smiling at him.

You returned to your own plant, jotting down a few more notes in the stained journal next to you.

Herbology was a strong suit of yours, you had always found it relaxing and simple. The plants offered so much to people, and all you had to do was understand how to care for them properly.

After your eventual dismissal, you rubbed the back of your neck and felt a sunburn, cursing yourself for not bringing some sort of sunscreen in your bag.

You heard an awkward cough from behind you, followed by a weak “hello”. You turned to face the noise and was a little surprised to see the tall redhead it came from.

“Hello,” you said kindly, closing your bag.

“Hi,” he repeated, and you waited for him to continue.

An awkward amount of time passed before he realized he had already said hello.

“Oh, right, um” he coughed again, clearing his throat, “well, I just wanted to introduce myself.”

He paused, holding his hand out for you to shake.

“I know who you are, George,” you replied before he had the chance, smiling at his sentiment, “we’ve gone to school together for 6 years.”

“Yeah, I just usually say it formally,” he retracted his hand after he held onto yours for what he felt was too long, “you know, with an identical brother and all.”

You nodded your head, still smiling at the nervous boy.

“Well, I wanted to ask you something,” he said, his hands gripping the leather straps of his bag nervously.

“In addition to the introduction?” you said, trying to make him less nervous.

He laughed lightly, shifting from one leg to the other.

“Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” you pushed a piece of hair behind your ear, finding it impossible to wipe the smile off your face.

“I was wondering, since you seem so good at it, if you would help me out in Herbology?” he spoke fast, and you nearly missed what he said.

“Oh,” you were surprised by his question. He and his brother had a bit of a reputation at this school, and tutoring didn’t seem to align with it.

“I get if you can’t or something, I know you must be busy with your own studies,” he began, but you waved your hands, cutting him off.

“No, no, I don’t mind,” your smile widened as he let out a relieved breath of air, his chest deflating.

“So you’ll tutor me?” he asked, a crooked smile dawning upon his lips.

“Yeah, I don’t see why not,” you replied easily, nodding your head.

There were many reasons not to tutor George, you found later. For one, you fell in love with him. Not that you could be blamed, he was incredibly charming and adorable. The other reason was that he actually had very little interest in the plants, and his efforts seemed more geared towards you.

You had asked Professor Sprout if you and George could meet in the Herbology room every Wednesday after her classes. She was skeptical, but she trusted you and allowed you access as long as you promised to keep George in line.

This particular Wednesday seemed no different than the others, besides the growing crush you had formed on George. You waited for him at a stool by the door, a textbook open in front of you, along with your Herbology journal, a few quills, your apron, your gardening equipment, and a dying Dittany plant you planned on showing George how to save. You had been waiting for a while, but George was usually late. You had pulled some Arithmancy homework from your bag and worked on it in the meantime.

“Sorry!” George burst through the door of the greenhouse, a book falling from his fumbling hands, “Sorry, I got caught up with Fred, I’m sorry I’m late.”

More and more apologies flooded from his mouth, like they did most days, as he made his way to the stool next to you.

“It’s alright,” you put away your homework and pulled your textbook to rest on the table between the two of you.

You stood from your stool and began putting on your apron, and moved over to the cabinet with the spare aprons. You got one for George and his hands fumbled behind his back, his focus on you. He watched the side of your face as you peered into the textbook, your fingers tracing the words as you read. You lightly tapped it, pointing it out to George.

“We’ll start here,” you said, sitting back down in your stool.

Your wand hovered over a watering jug on the table, and you cast the Aguamenti charm. Water poured from your wand, filling the jug.

George watched you, nervously turning his fingers over in his lap. He glanced down, noticing the habit, and smoothed his hands over his legs. He brought his hands to his hair and raked them through the red locks, rolling his shoulders back, trying to relax in your presence. He never was able to, and he knew this, but it didn’t stop him from trying.

George couldn’t care any less than he already did about Herbology. He thought it was boring and useless. Not many of his pranks required extensive knowledge about plants, and when they did, the plants were already in use. But, when he saw you from across the room, your glasses teetering on the edge of your nose, your fingers tracing over the lettering in the textbook, hair falling into your face, and that wonderfully sweet smile etched onto your beautiful face, he had to talk to you.

It took him a week or two of staring at the back of your head before you even noticed him. The first time that beautiful smile was for him, he could only think of you for the rest of the day. Fred was tired of it, honestly, George was desperately infatuated with you. George had worked up the tutoring plan with Fred, with the promise that he wouldn’t actually study anything. “We have a reputation to uphold, Georgie!”

“Okay,” your sweet voice pulled George from his thoughts, and his eyes flickered from your face to your hands on the book, “so this is a Dittany.”

Your hands moved from the book to the dying plant. Its previously green leaves were now brown and wilting. Your fingertips moved over the delicate leaves, to the stems, and you raked your fingers through the dry dirt.

George leaned forward on the table, putting his chin to rest in his palm. He listened to you talk about the plant, describing just about everything there was to know. He wondered how you knew all of this from memory, and admired you even more than he thought possible.

You reached over the table to grab the garden scissors, but they were just out of your grasp. George leaned forwards and picked them up, turning them to you. You hadn’t retracted your hand, so when he pulled them from the table, they slid open and you felt a sharp pain on your fingertip.

You pulled your hand away and nursed it in your lap. A red stain appeared on your apron, and soon it spread as your fingertip was flowing with blood. You heard the scissors clatter on the table and George turned to you, already spouting apologies.

“Shit!” he cursed, his body turning towards you and he slouched to become eye level with you in your seat, “I’m so sorry!”

You whimpered involuntarily, bringing your finger to your mouth to suck away some of the blood. You removed your finger and wiped it on your apron, only for the blood to continue flowing.

George was panicking, he felt absolutely awful.

“Can I see it?” you looked up to see his creased brow and guilt- flooded eyes.

You swallowed hard and nodded, offering him your hand timidly.

He gently placed his hands over yours, they were so large they nearly covered them completely. His hands were warm and calloused on the palms from years of gripping his Beater bat. He brought your hand to him, holding it close to his chest as he looked at the small cut.

“I am so sorry,” he repeated, and he rubbed his thumb soothingly on our palm.

He pulled out his wand and looked at you for wordless permission, which you granted him curiously. He hovered over your finger and mumbled a spell you hadn’t heard before. The broken skin on your finger began to mend together, and the stinging had been replaced with an odd numbness. There was still the remains of blood, but George brought his apron to your finger and wiped it away. He still held your hand, looking at your face.

“How did you know that spell?” you asked, surprised when your voice came out as a whisper.

“You learn a lot when you have siblings like mine,” George responded in a whisper, looking at you sheepishly.

His hand was tightening around yours, and his palm rested against the back of your hand. You wrapped your fingers around his thumb, squeezing it lightly.

“Thank you,” you mumbled.

George’s eyes flickered down to your lips, and it was so fast you had thought you might have imagined it. Your eyes moved to his lips, noticing that his bottom lip was trapped between his teeth.

“Well, it’s the least I could do,” he responded coolly, dropping your hand back into your lap and straightening his tie as if it had become too tight.

You looked down at your aprons, each stained with small drops of your blood.

“Ew,” you said, trying to wipe off the dried red stain, “Sprout will kill me!”

Pulling his wand back out, he placed it on the table.

“Here,” he moved close to you and wrapped his arms around you. You stiffened, breathing in deeply as his mouth was inches away from your ear. You felt him fumbling with the bow that tied your apron, and his hands grazed your lower back.

Soon the bow was untied, and George hovered for a moment, and he couldn’t help but smile as he smelled your wonderful perfume.

Your apron became lose and he pulled back, his hands moving to your neck as he pulled it off. He did the same with his own and laid them both on the table.

“Tergeo,” he said, pointing his wand at the aprons.

Your apron was as good as new, and so was his, all the dirt and blood removed from the cloth.

You swallowed hard, trying to push the moment of intimacy from your brain. You forced a smile at him, thanking him as you took the apron from him.

“You’re a much better student than you let on, George,” you said, holding the apron loosely in your lap.

He made a scoffing noise, but a genuine and flushed smile fell on his face.

Neither of you felt inclined to nurse a dead plant back to life, in fact, you had no idea what to do. George just stared at you, as if he were waiting for something.

“Um-” George spoke at the same time as you, and you closed your lips.

“No, you go ahead,” he said, bowing his head to you slightly.

You laughed and insisted that you weren’t going to say anything important.

“I was just going to ask if you wanted to take a walk around the grounds,” he said, already standing from his stool, “it’s awfully warm in here.”

George was right, the greenhouses seemed to be particularly warm. You thought some fresh air would be nice.

“Not very interested in the Dittany?” you teased, standing from your stool and moving to clear the table.

“Oh no!” George said nervously, hoping he didn’t offend you, “No, its wonderful-”

“I’m only teasing George, I know Herbology can be boring,” you smiled at him and laughed to yourself when you saw him visibly relax.

He was always so nervous around you, no matter how hard you tried to make him comfortable.

The two of you put away all the supplies, cleaning the table off for Professor Sprout. You had used the water left in the watering jug on any dry looking plants. George watched you going around the greenhouse, the sunshine making you seem like you were glowing. You held your hair behind your shoulder, peering into each pot.

“Alright,” you dusted your hands and tucked away your apron, “let’s go.”

George held the door open for you, and you ducked beneath his outstretched arm as you crossed the threshold. You followed his lead as he led you down a hallway.

“So you like Herbology a lot, right?” George asked you, casting a glance down at your side profile.

“Yeah, I do,” you replied.

“There’s a boy in my house, Neville, he’s great at Herbology,” George spoke fondly, his eyes turning to look out the tall windows.

“Sprout has talked about him,” you said, looking at George’s side profile, “says he’s quite talented.”

“Yeah, he’s great,” George said awkwardly, feeling quite uncertain in your presence.

“What’s your favorite class?” you asked, still trying to make some conversation.

George raked his mind, trying to decide if he should make up an answer to sound smart or be honest. He decided to be honest.

“I quite like lunch,” he said, casting a smile down at you.

You giggled, rolling your eyes playfully. He bumped his shoulder against yours, and you giggled even more.

You were eventually able to fall into a comfortable conversation, walking around the castle with ease. His hands tucked themselves into his pockets, and you crossed your arms over your chest. You eventually stopped in the courtyard, and George led you over to a bench under a large tree.

You sat close to each other, and he was painfully aware of the way your leg rubbed against his. He looked down at the spot where your skirt ended and your tights began, a lump forming in his throat. He looked at the side of your face, you seemed wonderfully content. Your eyes scanned the array of plants in front of you, looking at each of the vibrant flowers that were beginning to bloom.

“I really am sorry about your hand,” he said, partly as an excuse to pick up your hand and pretend to look at the healed cut.

Your felt tingles shoot down your arm at the unexpected touch. You looked at the hair that fell over his forehead as he peered down at your hand, holding it delicately.

“Oh, it’s alright,” you said reassuringly, “accidents happen.”

He smiled at your kindness, your eyes meeting. This time, you were sure he was looking at your lips. Your eyes danced around his face, and you felt your lips curling into a smile as he watched them.

“Would you mind if-” he croaked out, but the words seemed to be caught in his throat.

You giggled, and he dropped your hand, his head rolling back as a bought of laughter came from him. He suddenly seemed the most relaxed he had ever been.

Suddenly, when his head came to face yours again, his hands snaked up to hold your cheeks. Your eyes widened, and your smile did too. He brought your face to his, and you had realized what he was going to ask you just a second ago.

His hands were warm, and the callouses felt nice against your soft cheeks. His kiss was soft and gentle, and he waited for you to reciprocate. Your hands traveled up to wrap around his neck, and the second your fingers tangled themselves in his hair, his kiss intensified.

One of his hands traveled down to your neck, and his thumb grazed your jaw. The other slithered to your hair, and he lightly pushed your face even closer to his. Your nose pressed into his cheek and you leaned closer, your shoulder bumping into his. His tongue trailed over your bottom lip, and you sighed, opening your mouth to his.

“Ew! Get a room!”

You heard two voices shouting towards you. You pulled away, much to George’s dismay, who stayed in the same place with his eyes closed.

You looked over George’s shoulder and saw his brother and his friend.

“George,” you nudged him, casting your blushing cheeks and sheepish smile down at your lap, “I think you’re needed.”

George groaned, opening his eyes slowly. His hand was still tangled in your hair, and he slowly removed it. You felt chills as his hand raked over your neck and down your yellow tie, attempting to keep your close.

“What?” he said so poisonously, that your eyes widened.

“Keep it in your pants!” the younger redhead called out, shoving his shoulder against his friends, laughing.

“I swear to-” you heard George mumbled, already moving from his seat next to you and off to his brother.

The smaller redhead shoved his books into Harry’s chest, setting off in a run. Harry laughed loudly as George chased after his younger brother. George pulled his wand from his waistband, pointing it at Ron and easily casting a spell that bound a rope at Ron’s feet. Ron fell to the ground with a thud and George stood over him, smiling evilly.

He looked back at you, watching as you covered an entertained laugh with your hand. His face melted into pure admiration, and he abandoned Ron, leaving him tied up in the grass. George broke out in a jog, determined to hear your sweet laugh.

[imaginedxlan]

Miscommunication Pt. 2 (Neville Longbottom)

a/n: YALL my heart I am so overwhelmed by the love on part one! I didn’t really know how my ~transition~ into a multi-fandom account would be received and I am so happy you guys liked it! Literally only three of you commented that you wanted a part 2 but those three of you have my heart. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Without further adieu, here is part 2 (not gonna lie i gave myself butterflies writing this why am I so single ouch)

Now that Pansy is in on your little secret, it makes holding in your crush on a certain Gryffindor that much harder. However, confessing might just bring more harm to the already troubled boy. 

y/l/n= your last name

Warning(s): cursing, feeling extremely lonely and single, ending is pure fluff

Part 1

________________________

After that day in the library, you find yourself even more preoccupied in your thoughts of Neville Longbottom. It doesn’t make it any easier now that your roommate is aware of your soft spot for the boy, now that she constantly asks when you’ll be professing your love for him. Part of you thinks Pansy is so overjoyed about the news because she can be certain that with a crush like Neville, you’d never want anything to do with Malfoy, at least romantically.

You also find yourself much more nervous than you could have ever imagined. This is the only time you’ve ever doubted being sorted into Slytherin. A crush on arguably the most tormented boy in school yet still terrified to come out and say anything about it. While you were afraid of the possible rejection that could come from a girl like you telling such a timid boy that you’ve liked him for the past year, your heart aches at the thought of what your friends would do if they found out. Confessing your feelings would open up a world of trouble for the boy, one that you would be responsible for.

“Merlin, y/n, are you still contemplating whether or not to tell him?” Pansy asks as she busts into your dorm. Per her last outburst, it isn’t unusual for her to make big entrances. “I never thought I’d see the day where y/n y/l/n was afraid to tell a Gryffindor anything, especially that she had a crush on him. What happened to when you used to bully Potter when he got an answer wrong in potions?”

“That’s different and you know it, Pans!” You groan, throwing a pillow from your bed and toward her. Bullying Potter and making snide remarks toward Granger was different than this. You never really cared for that trio, but you do care for Neville. The thought of him feeling so uncomfortable with you that he would just remove himself from your life altogether was too much for your newly sappy heart to bear. “Can’t I just go on pretending I don’t like the boy?”

Pansy rolls her eyes, her answer obviously being no. She doesn’t understand. For her to tell Malfoy that she’s interested in him wouldn’t be out of the ordinary, you practically spend every waking moment with Malfoy, you spend no time with Neville outside the library and herbology. To just bring up your previous pining for him would be overwhelming to say the least. Not to mention it would spread like wildfire, the only reason Pansy has kept her mouth shut for this long is because she doesn’t want to ruin the romantic novel she’s created in her head about how this will work out.

“Obviously you cannot pretend you don’t like him you absolute idiot.” She scolds you, a hint of laughter in her voice. “I’ll go straight to the gargoyles and tell them right now if you don’t decide to tell the boy by tomorrow.”

By gargoyles, she meant Crabbe and Goyle, a nickname you two came up for them a few years ago. The two were known to bully poor Neville, it would be worse than telling Draco or Blaise directly. 

“Pansy!” You shout, moaning over the unfairness. As much as you wish she was bluffing, you know Pansy too well to underestimate her need to get what she wants. “Fine, tell me how you would do it.”

A smile creeps on her face, knowing she had won this fight. She begins to relay exactly what she’s been dreaming of since you told her about your secret crush. Pansy revels in your imaginary relationship, knowing she’ll never get this type of affectionate and epic confession of feelings from Malfoy. She tells you to grab him tomorrow after dinner, catching him off guard but most likely in a good mood because, as she says, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Take him all the way down to the greenhouse so you won’t be interrupted and plant a big, fat, wet kiss on him. You roll your eyes at that last part, never imagining being so bold in a moment like that. While you didn’t necessarily want to tell him the very next day, knowing full well you needed weeks to prepare for this, you also didn’t want to play with the possibility of Crabbe and Goyle beating the absolute piss out of Longbottom when Pansy tells them.

You spend the whole next day with your mind racing, nervously fidgeting with your hands and robes. Pansy notices your unrest and knows you’re actually going through with this. You can hardly pay attention in your favorite class, so worked up over the thought of Neville’s face when you tell him, also wishing you two took potions together so you could have some idea if his feelings toward you based on his amortentia. But alas, all you could smell was plants, flowers, and a woman’s perfume, knowing it was him, without a clue of what the boy would smell in the love potion.

Just as you walk to dinner, walking with your usual crew of Pansy, Malfoy, Blaise, Theo and the gargoyles, your eyes meet the boy who makes your heart leap out of your chest. You can’t help but smile at him, wearing his little sweater and all. How he ended up being your type will never make sense to you. Just as he smiles back at you, making your heart melt, Crabbe and Goyle knock into either side of him making him stumble.

“What’s so funny Longbottom?” One of them taunts, to be honest, half the time you can’t tell their voices apart. 

“Knock it off!” You snap at the two before they’re able to harass the boy any further, smacking them both on the backs of their heads. As the two wince you turn around to look at Neville to mouth a Sorry. He just gives you a weak smile before turning in to make his way to Gryffindor table. Your heart sinks, he’ll never like you while you’re associated with such idiots. Pansy nudges your shoulder, giving you a concerned look and you simply shake your head at her, not wanting to get into it.

You spend most of dinner gazing toward the Gryffindors, careful not to get caught making eyes at the dark haired boy. Even the way he simply enjoyed a meal was entrancing to you. How he laughed with his friends, what he looked like to listen intently, then proceed to go off on a tangent of whatever his heart desired. Your heart ached for him, and as much as you wanted to protect him from the, at times, horrible boys sitting next to you, you needed to be selfish. You needed to at least give yourself the chance to be happy with someone like Neville. If all goes to shit, you can always go back to Zabini to get your mind off any sort of rejection you’re about to face. 

As dinner comes to an end, you grab Pansy’s hand and squeeze it tight, letting her know it was time. She gives you a reassuring smile before pressing her lips to the back of your hand and whispering a good luck. You rush past your friends, ignoring their questions of where you were off to. You’re able to catch up with the pack of Gryffindors walking toward their common room, tapping the man of the hour on his shoulder, having to get on the tops of your toes to do so. He turns around, confused before recognizing your face.

“Can I speak with you?” You ask. It comes out more timid than you expect, making you want to crawl into a hole and hide for the next year. He stops to fully turn toward you, his friends stopping beside him, looking at you odd. “Sorry, I meant just you.”

“Oh, sure.” He replies, just as nervous around you as always. His friends give him the same look they gave you, but he just nods for them to go ahead without him. “What did you want to talk about?”

You look around you, scared your housemates would see you had pulled Neville aside and create chaos around you. “Not here.” You say, grabbing his hand in yours to pull him away from the crowd of students leaving from the great hall. Your hand burns against his, affected by even the slightest touch from him. As you walk further from the crowd and outside in the cold evening air, your heart begins to pound in your chest. You pull him into the courtyard, bringing back memories of when Draco was turned into a ferret in this very spot, and finally take a seat under the large tree.

He sits across from you, you drop his hand and immediately go to toy with the edge of your skirt. You pull your bottom lips between your teeth and finally meet his gaze, a look of confusion and slight fear gracing his features. “I’m confused, y/n.” He begins, looking away from you for a moment. “Should I be worried.”

“No!” You immediately reply, pulling his attention back to you following your overly enthusiastic answer. The more you think about, he might have to be worried, what with your friends and all. “Well, maybe a little, but not at the moment.”

“You really have a way of saying things without really saying anything.” He muses, rubbing his hands together. Merlin, he’s probably cold. He’ll never be able to reciprocate your feelings in such conditions. “Why’d you bring me outside, y/n?”

You take a deep breath, knowing this is your one shot to tell the boy how you feel before he comes to the conclusion that you’re the weirdo that pulled him outside when the sun had already set to tell him absolutely nothing. “I have to tell you something-”

“I know,” He interrupts. “You said that.”

“Would you let me finish!” You shout, not meaning for it to come off so harsh, but it shuts him up. “Look, Neville. I’ve been thinking about telling you this for a long time, but I could never quite find the courage.”

You take a long pause. He doesn’t dare interrupt you again, just looks at you with anticipation of what information you’ve been keeping from him. You begin playing with your uniform again, searching for any distraction from what you’re about to say. “I never thought I could feel like way about someone, honest. I’ve had these kinds of feelings toward other people, but never like this, you know?”

You look to him again, your words obviously not resonating with him as he’s kept the same expression since you dragged him outside. “I guess what I’m trying to say is something in me sort of lights up when you’re around. I’ve become addicted to the way you look at me and the way you say my name. My heart skips a beat whenever you smile at me or when you give me that nice look you give when I figure something out while you’re tutoring me. I know this may come as a shock since we don’t talk very much outside of class and tutoring, but I guess that just goes to show the impact you’ve had on me.”

He stays quiet, which only makes you more nervous. If he liked you back surely he would be leaping for joy right now. Instead, he shakes his head before breaking the deafening silence, “This isn’t funny, y/n. You can tell Malfoy or Crabbe or Goyle to come out now, make fun of me like they always do.”

Your heart sinks, of course he would think you’re playing some cruel and heartless trick on him, just for him to be humiliated by the boys you surround yourself with. He looks so upset, so broken. You reach out to grab his hand but he pulls it away.

“This isn’t a joke, Neville. They don’t know I’m here.” You tell him in a soft voice, but you know it’s no use, you’re too deeply associated with such hatred. Theres only one more thing you could possible think of to convince him of your feelings. “I smelled you in my amortentia, I swear I did. Plants, flowers and a woman’s perfume, it smelled sweet like maybe of roses and vanilla. I know you probably don’t believe me, I understand that you don’t, but Neville I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.”

It’s quiet again, you can hear your heart racing, accepting the impending rejection thats only moments away. You close your eyes to keep any sort of tears in when you feel his hand grasp yours. “You smelled my Mum’s perfume.”

Is all he says. You open your eyes to meet his gaze, confused by his words. He speaks up again. “I don’t understand, y/n. All I’ve ever been to you is a means to pass herbology, how could you possibly smell me in your amortentia? You just described my mother’s perfume, I’ve never told anyone what that smells like.”

“Because that’s not all you’ve been to me.” You reply, not letting go of his hand, the same burning feeling accompanying his touch. “At the beginning, yes, you were my only way to pass. But as time went on, I found myself so drawn to you, hanging on your every word about your beloved plants. When you saw Pansy and I staring at you in the library the other day that was because I had just told her I liked you, as more than just someone to help me pass.”

You can almost see the gears turning in his mind as everything begins to fall into place for him. You become painfully aware that he has yet to make any sort of statement about you one way or another, giving you absolutely nothing to expect when it comes to what he’ll say next. “I don’t understand how someone like you could like someone like me.”

“Someone like you?” You ask, partly hurt by his words. “Neville, if you’re wondering how I could like someone thats kind, considerate, passionate, funny and handsome, I’m not really sure how to explain that to you if you don’t already understand.”

Even in the darkness, the two of you only lit by the faint light of the moon, you can see his cheeks go red, which makes you smile. Almost everything he does makes you smile, you couldn’t imagine another person making you feel this way. 

“Y/n, you don’t know how long I’ve dreamt of hearing anything like that come out of your mouth.” He confesses quietly, almost whispering. He begins to run his thumb over your knuckles, your heart fluttering with his actions. “I thought you were to most beautiful girl in this world the moment I laid eyes on you in first year, I still do. When Professor Sprout came to me and told me you needed help with herbology, I swore Godric was doing me a favor, only some form of miracle could have let me be around you so often. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why an angel like you could somehow feel the same way about me as I do you, but I trust you, y/n. I don’t trust a lot of people.”

Your heart is pounding, finally hearing the words your mind has been begging to hear for months. His his hand still in yours, you shift forward on your knees to inch your face closer to his. He doesn’t back away, he doesn’t protest, he simply takes his hand that isn’t interlocked with yours and brings it to your cheek. You breath hitches in your throat as your foreheads press together, not daring to look into his green eyes, fearing you’ll fumble over your next actions. Without a second thought, you dip your head down to catch his lips in yours. His hand moves further back into your hair as the other stays intertwined with yours, planted on his lap. You half expected him to sit still as your lips moved against him, but they move together in sync like they were always meant to meet. After a short while you pull away, trying to catch your breath. With your foreheads still touching, you can feel his staggered breath against yours. Slowly you sit back on your heels again, unclasping your hand from his. You stand in your spot and lean down to press your lips to his forehead, then lift his chin to place a soft kiss against his lips.

“Goodnight, Neville.” You say quietly after you pull your lips away from his again, unable to contain your smile. “See you tomorrow?”

“See you tomorrow.” He repeats. He doesn’t follow you out of the courtyard, he stays in his seated position, leaning on his hands behind him. Once you’re out of earshot he looks up to the stars to say, “Whoever just made that happen, thank you.”

You float back to the dungeon, not even feeling the usual cold air of the common room. When you open your dorm door, Pansy immediately shoots up from her bed to catch a glimpse of the moony look on your face.

“Y/n?” She calls, making you slowly turn your head to look at her. “Tell me what happened.”

You walk toward her bed, taking a seat next to her before laying back to stare at the ceiling, the smile never fading from your face. You bring your fingers up to touch your lips, still feeling his on yours. “I kissed him.”

Pansy squeals, laying back next to you and nudging and poking you in every which way, making you giggled next to her. Living this moment in pure bliss. “Well what did he say?”

“It doesn’t even matter,” You reply, wanting to keep that moment you spent with Neville sacred between the two of you. “He likes me too.”

You don’t sleep that night, spending the next hours gushing to your roommate about his smile and the shape of his lips against yours and the feeling of your fingers intertwined. You both have early classes the next morning but you didn’t care, you’re completely and perfectly content.

tags:

@huffledor-able541 @si1v3rpho3n1x

@pastanest

[undine-taz]

5 times Diavolo failed to be a sugar daddy and one time he succeeded

I'm just imagining poor Diavolo trying SO HARD to spoil an MC who is just. Not greedy in the slightest and loves weird little shinies while being totally indifferent to the super crazy expensive gifts he usually gives to people he's trying to woo. Just in case, this is the PUREST OF FLUFF and completely sfw. I can’t even think of any tw to tag??? Let me know if you notice something. Oh, and MC is imagined to be gender neutral. There’s a mention of perfume, but not in the feminine sense- that’s just the proper word for a certain level of scent concentration.

1. Expensive Perfume

Diavolo's first attempt is the most expensive perfume/cologne money can buy

He's not quite sure what MC's favorite scent is, so he buys a wide variety

All the bottles are sleek and minimalistic and the scents inside are VERY obviously expensive, the kind of thing Mammon would probably lose his mind over

MC's reaction is perfectly grateful, they say sincerely how much they appreciate him thinking of them. He doesn't feel a single lie off of them and he walks away mostly satisfied thinking maybe they’re just the type to not show a ton of excitement over gifts

That is, until he's walking down the hallways in RAD and happens to overhear a conversation between Asmo and MC

Asmo's talking about how he's been going through perfume at a record pace lately, and he feel so bad about wasting these beautiful bottles... would MC like them? He has one shaped like a rose, one like a star, one modeled after the cosmos... 

Asmo doesn't even get to finish because MC is already flapping their hands in joy (I'm autistic and MC is going to happy stim if it kills me) and wiggling and practically jumping into Asmo's arms in excitement

Asmo's laughing and promising to save all of his prettiest empty perfume bottles for MC from now on and MC is practically wiggling in joy and nuzzling their face into Asmo's chest in happiness

They’re talking about spending the night in Asmo’s room trying to make perfume blends for each other to fill up the bottles and tossing scent ideas back and forth

And Diavolo is sitting there feeling a bit like he's been bonked over the head. Those happy stims are ADORABLE and he wants to be the one who causes them. He's not sure why his perfume failed and Asmo's literal empty bottles worked but he's DETERMINED to try again

2. Fancy gemstones

Diavolo's next attempt is fancy gemstones. He finds large, beautifully cut and processed gemstones, the type that are so perfectly processed they look almost identical except for color

Again, when he gives MC his gifts he can tell that they're sincerely grateful! They tell him they love that he was thinking of them, they worry that he spent too much money on them ( they try to refuse at first because it's too much, but Diavolo breezes past their protests with a smile and an iron will) and Diavolo doesn't sense even the tiniest hint of untruth from their professions of gratitude

But.... there are no happy wiggles, no stunned gasps, no joyously flapping hands, no nothing. Just calm gratitude.

Diavolo goes back to the drawing board, and he's just going to visit the HOL library for inspiration in a rare book (and as an excuse to see MC) when he hears Satan and MC laughing together in the library.

When he walks in, he sees Satan and MC crouched together with some strange tools in their hands, gently chipping away at a large rock. There's a tiny pile of uncut, unprocessed gemstones at MC's elbow.

As soon as MC sees him, he's aflood in a wash of excited chatter as MC tells him about the gemstone mining kit Satan bought after reading a book on gemstones. In fact Diavolo can see the book open at Satan's elbow along with a notebook where the two have been identifying every gemstone they dig up.

Before he knows it, MC seizes his hand and he's drawn into the game, watching their eyes shine and seeing them bounce in their seat with excitement every time they uncover a new gemstone.

Dammit. Another failure. But, Diavolo finds as he watches MC's obvious joy, he can't be too frustrated when they're this happy. 

3. Shopping spree at Majolish

Diavolo is undeterred! He takes a day to bring them to Majolish, having them try on outfit after outfit. Sure, they're not picking out very many things, but he loves spending time with them and they say they're enjoying themself.

After several hours, Barbatos gently reminds him that he has a meeting soon and that MC seems absolutely exhausted.

Diavolo pouts, especially when he sees that MC hasn't picked out very many things, but he sighs and concedes.

When he drops them off at the HOL, MC gives him a hug and thanks him for helping them pick out some more formal outfits for any upcoming RAD events. Diavolo accepts the hug gladly, but there's no squeaking or jumping and DEFINITELY no flapping. MC seems rather exhausted, and Belphegor has appeared from nowhere and draped himself over MC and is mumbling about needing a nap buddy and MC isn't even trying to argue 

The next day, Barbatos shows him Levi's post on Devilgram. It's a video, of Levi giving MC a plain, unassuming box.

When MC opens the box, their mouth drops open, their eyes go wide, and they fling themselves at Levi, happily nuzzling into his chest and mumbling incoherent thanks while Levi turns bright red and starts stuttering and clearly tries not to combust

The video cuts out for a second and then starts again with MC wearing a simple shirt embroidered with a strange logo, which Levi explains from behind the camera is inspired by MC's favorite series and was handmade by Levi for practice. Levi was apparently asked to design formalwear inspired by anime, and he chose MC's favorite to practice a design. According to the caption, the two spent an entire day together watching the series and sketching ideas!

MC is beaming and happy stimming while Diavolo thumps his head into his desk dramatically and Barbatos elegantly stifles a chuckle behind him. 

4. Bouquets of flowers

Well now Diavolo is determined. HE WILL MAKE MC HAPPY STIM IF IT KILLS HIM

HE HAS HIS PRIDE AS THE FUTURE DEMON KING DAMMIT

He begins watching the corniest of romcoms for ideas.

Midway into one of them, he sees the character buy their love interest bouquets upon bouquets of roses

BRILLIANT! He's up and placing orders immediately. Barbatos stays behind for a few minutes to actually watch how this particular ploy works out on screen, before laughing and going to watch the chaos

As dedicated as he is to the young lord, watching Diavolo scramble around trying to impress his first puppy love only to fail because the target of his affections is simply too humble.... well, it's honestly adorable. He'll step in if it goes on for too long, but for now it might actually be good for the young master to experience something he can't have by throwing money or influence at it.

Diavolo has some of the Devildom's finest florists on the horn and he's sending a veritable flood of their finest cut flowers... AND he's sending them from an anonymous source, just like in the movie! The woman in the movie only sent over THREE bouquets to the object of her love, so Diavolo sends 300. Only the best for his MC :)

He's waiting impatiently for the results of his little scheme when he gets an apologetic text from Lucifer saying that he'll be late to the meeting and MC won't be coming at all. Some anonymous admirer sent MC an excessive amount of flowers and the sheer amount of pollen triggered allergies in ALL of the demon bros and MC.

Lucifer needed time to clear out the house and distribute allergy meds to everyone and buy out the nearest store on tissue paper

Barbatos is no longer even bothering to stifle his chuckles while Diavolo buries his face in his arms to hide his shame

To rub salt in the wound, Lucifer tells him a few days later that he set up a miniature greenhouse for MC to grow humanworld herbs in and they've barely left it in the last two days

Lucifer’s been spending most of his free time in the greenhouse with them, helping them tinker with humidity spells and listening to their excited monologues on human gardening techniques

Lucifer is definitely smirking as he tells Diavolo this and Diavolo doesn't bother to ask how Lucifer knew what was going on, because his old friend knows him too well and Diavolo realizes he's not exactly subtle.

What he doesn't realize is that Barbatos is also a dirty dirty snitch and he and Lucifer have been watching over his attempts with a mix of hilarity and pity

5. Desserts

Some might give up, but not Diavolo! His newest ideas is fancy desserts. He was told by a sweet old succubus that the best way to his lover's heart was through the stomach (actually she initially had some far raunchier suggestions that had made Diavolo blush and had given him some ideas for far, FAR in his future relationship with MC, but that's neither here nor there) and so here Diavolo is, placing a giant order at Madame Scream's to be delivered to the HOL.

This time he has learned from his mistakes and he signs it as being from him and addresses it to "MC and the residents of HOL" because even he recognizes there are far too many sweets for a human to eat before they go bad

Barbatos by this point is starting to feel pity and is almost tempted to suggest he wait until it's not Beel's day for Fangol practice to send a giant array of tempting sweets.

Almost. If it weren't for the maid cafe fiasco of last week Barbatos probably would have, but that lace had chafed in areas that should never be chafed.

Diavolo sent his gift only to receive a poorly drawn thank-you card drawn by Beel and signed by everyone at the HOL, including MC, even though "I didn't even get a chance to eat any, BEEL"

This poor man feels his soul leave his body, especially when he returns home from RAD to find Barbatos and MC baking together and singing along to Disney songs (well, MC was singing, Barbatos was simply watching them with a smile and occasionally twisting them into a simple dance to make them laugh and squiggle with joy)

Et tu, Barbatos?

After yesterday's glitter incident, Barbatos has no shame and simply smirks back. He'll help the young lord when he can shower without finding glitter in every crevice.

+1: Tea together

Diavolo is planning his next gift when he gets a message from MC, of all people

His heart flutters, he has butterflies in his stomach, and he hasn't even read it yet!

It's a simple text- "What are you up to?" 

Obviously Diavolo can't admit he's shirking paperwork to try and figure out a gift that would make them happy! So he improvises and claims he's working. He gets back a sad face emoji and a simple "Miss you! I feel like we haven't hung out in forever, but I know how busy you are. Good luck, I'm rooting for you!"

SHOT THROUGH THE HEART AND MC IS TO BLAME

This man is dramatically draped over his desk wailing about how cute MC is.

Luckily for him Barbatos has forgiven him for both the maid cafe incident and the glitter incident and Diavolo has been too distracted trying to plan gifts to cause any new chaos

Barbatos hands him a lovely picnic basket, complete with tea and fancy sandwiches, and tells him to go see MC and take a break since he's clearly not getting any work done as is.

Cue guilty glance to the overwhelming stack of paperwork that's been building up. He swears he's never seen Barbatos place more and yet they keep growing, are they breeding somehow...? Did Lucifer curse him after the taffy incident?

Either way, Diavolo takes the basket and heads off to HOL.

He's either very lucky or (more likely) Barbatos bribed Lucifer into helping him out, as MC is the one to answer the door.

They look kind of down until they see him and he explains he's there to spend time with them, and then they absolutely LIGHT UP.

Before he knows it, they've thrown himself into his arms and they're bouncing in excitement and snuggling him and happy flapping and boyo is confused but OVER THE MOON.

He finally did it!?!?! What was it!?!?! The picnic basket? Do they have a thing for picnics baskets!?!?! 

And then he actually tunes in a d listens to their flood of chatter and how happy they are to see him and how much they've missed him and how excited and grateful they are they he took time out of his busy schedule to spend time with him and out in the thought to prepare a way for them to spend time in each other's company...

O H

He is M E L T I N G

He can't believe it was this easy.... no need for fancy gifts or anything like that, just... paying attention to their likes and spending time with them???? 

Holy shit he is gonna protect this human's smile witH HIS LIFE 

And now that he understands them better he can buy EXPENSIVE SHIT THEY'LL ACTUALLY LIKE AND HE'LL GET ALL THE HAPPY SNUGGLES AND JOYOUS STIMMING IN THE WORLD!!!! 

Yes, he decides, wrapping his arms around them while trying to keep the basket level

Now that he's gotten a taste of their sincere joy, he's hooked and he's going to make them as excited and happy as this as often as he possibly can. 

[edie-k]

Harry Potter: Agent of Change (Romione, PG-13)

So this is a really stupid story but I am struggling with getting things completed and it felt like a good palate cleanser for the long weekend in the US.

Title: Harry Potter: Agent of Change

Rating: PG-13 (strong language)

Summary: A trio of times Harry spoke up and helped Ron and Hermione figure it out. Set during Half-Blood Prince.

Backstory: @romioneb has a super fun Muggle camp AU story called "Camp Wizarding World". At one point, I got very excited that Harry was going to help Romione out and be an agent of change but RB dashed my hopes. I then pledged to write a fic called "Harry Potter: Agent of Change". This is that fic.

Note: Is Harry out of character here? He literally is. His real character let these two fumble through their feelings for like, 3.5 books. I don’t care. I think this is fun. Also, I am so mean to Harry in my writing so it’s time to make him a Romione hero.

Bolded text is from Half-Blood Prince

I posted this stupid thing at AO3.

ONE

“You were going to ask me?” asked Ron, in a completely different tone.

“Yes,” said Hermione angrily. “But obviously if you’d rather I hooked up with McLaggen…”

“No, I wouldn’t,” said Ron, in a very quiet voice.

“Wow,” said Harry. Ron and Hermione both snapped their eyes away from each other and looked at Harry.

“Uh, what?” asked Ron.

“I always knew this was going to happen but Hermione, you have to ask him on a date in front of me, during class, when there is absolutely no escape for me?” Harry said irritably.

Hermione turned bright red. ‘I-I just…”

“Is it really a date?” Ron asked, his tone hopeful.

Harry rolled his eyes. “For fuck’s sake, of course it is!”

“Potter! Swearing, in my greenhouses? 10 points from Gryffindor and you've earned yourself a detention tomorrow night,” scolded Professor Sprout.

“Thanks a lot,” said Harry, moodily.

“Hermione?” asked Ron, oblivious to Harry’s loss of points and Tuesday night freedom.

“Well… yes, that was my intention. But if you prefer that -”

“No! I mean, yes. Yes, I’m interested in a date. With you.”

“Good,” said Hermione.

“Good,” said Ron.

“Great,” said Harry sarcastically.

TWO

“D’you think Hermione really snogged Krum?” asked Ron

“What?” Harry said, surprised. “Oh… er...yeah, I think so. She didn’t exactly tell me anything but I assume so.”

Ron’s face hardened.

“What does it matter?” Harry asked, feeling a bit angry at Ron’s reaction.

Ron stopped for a moment.

“Well, I just - ”

“Cho had snogged Cedric and did who knows what else with him. And she might have kissed other guys too? I don’t love it by any means but I just had to deal with it. And G- general girls I might be interested in have most definitely snogged before,” Harry said, his anger dying a little as he covered for his almost slip.

Ron’s anger, however, rose. “So now everyone, including the general public, has snogged someone except for me?”

“Ron, just snog Hermione and then everything’s solved.”

“Wha-what?” Ron’s eyes were huge and his mouth open as he stared at Harry.

“Do you think I’m oblivious? The only reason you care about Hermione and Krum is because you fancy Hermione. I’m not sure why you're pretending otherwise - you’re going on a date with her.”

“You think she meant that to be a date?”

“Obviously,” Harry said.

“Oh.”

“Don’t do that thing where you stop talking to her because you’re mad. If you don’t tell her, I will.”

“Harry!” Ron yelled.

“Just fix this, Ron,” Harry said, entering the common room. He spotted Hermione, sitting by the fire. “Hermione, Ron needs to tell you something immediately. Good night.”

Harry stomped up the stairs to his dorm. It was risky to force an angry and jealous Ron into a serious conversation with Hermione but it had to be better than the alternative.

THREE

“I never said you couldn’t - Ron, you thought you’d been given it too!”

“Freeze or I’ll stun you,” said Harry, when Ron started to make a break for the door.

“Just let him go!” said Hermione tearfully.

“No!” said Harry. “This week was already completely ridiculous and I’m not going to let it get worse. Merlin, I’m the one that kind of made it worse right now…”

“Ron, I didn’t mean, I just…” Hermione stuttered. “I’m sorry. I was upset for Harry for doing that to you and you for drinking it because I knew you could do it on your own but I just… I didn’t say that.”

“No, you certainly didn’t,” Ron huffed.

“But why have you been mad at me the rest of the week?” Hermione asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” muttered Ron, starting for the door again.

“Ron,” said Harry warningly.

“It’s none of your business, Harry,” said Ron.

“Ron’s upset because he found out you snogged Krum,” Harry said. Hermione gasped.

“HARRY!” Ron roared.

“I didn’t - how did - what?” Hermione sputtered.

“Ginny and he got into an argument,” Harry supplied.

“That’s enough, Harry,” said Ron.

“Well,” said Hermione, blushing furiously. “Not that it’s any of your business but it was hardly snogging. It was just a kiss or two and-and I haven’t seen him since the end of our fourth year.”

Ron wasn’t looking at either of them but Harry took it as a good sign that he didn’t try to leave again.

“I don’t understand why that would upset you,” Hermione said, adopting a lofty tone.

“For fuck’s sake,” said Harry. “I think you do.”

“Harry,” Ron said warningly.

“And Hermione, you wouldn’t have reacted much better,” Harry said. “He’s jealous. You’d be jealous if you found out he snogged someone else. The two of you want to snog each other so could you just do that? Preferably somewhere where I am not.”

“Is that true, Ron?” asked Hermione quietly.

“Is what Harry said about you true?” Ron asked sharply.

“I asked you first,” Hermione said.

“I can’t handle anymore of this. I will lock you in here,” said Harry.

“Yes, it’s true,” Ron said. “I was… you know, jealous.”

“Oh,” said Hermione. “Because you want to…”

Ron scratched the back of his neck.

“You could have - asked or something. If you wanted to… kiss me. I would have said yes,” said Hermione awkwardly.

“Really?” asked Ron.

“I’ll still say yes if you still want to,” Hermione said shyly.

“I said somewhere I am not,” Harry complained.

“You inserted yourself in the conversation,” Hermione pointed out.

“I hate you both,” Harry said, walking out of the changing rooms.

[thedistrictsleepsalonetonight]

Head over feet (or Jamie’s not a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, thank you very much)

There are only two reasons Bly Manor could ever be completely silent - one, that somebody had died, and two, that Owen and Jamie were fighting. Again.

(It’s sad that there was an equal chance of either of those possibilities occurring)

She looks up when Dani walks in, and watches her immediately let out a deep breath. Dani raises an eyebrow.

“He called me a manic pixie dream girl,” she explains.

Dani goes through an extremely complicated face journey in the span of ten seconds. It’s impressive to watch.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” she says, despite Hannah frantically shaking her head from where she’s sitting at the table. “He called you a what now?”

“I didn’t call her a manic pixie dream girl,” Owen clarifies, his mouth twitching in amusement. “I may have just pointed out that her entire life kind of—”

Jamie glares at him. He side-eyes her.

“—maybe—”

Jamie shifts.

“—Dani, she’s threatening me,” he complains, like the giant baby that he is.

Dani walks up to her, slings an arm over her shoulders, and Jamie feels herself relax. Two cords start from where she’s being touched — one sneaks its way over her back and through her body, spreading warmth everywhere it goes; the other goes straight to her heart. It’s almost embarrassing how quick her body goes slack and boneless when Dani is around, as though it’s been reduced, simply, to something malleable in Dani’s tender hands.

“Let him talk, babe,” is whispered into her ear, and well, who is Jamie to argue against someone who happens to own her whole entire heart.

“I just called her a two-dime rom-com love interest archetype,” Owen finally manages to complete. “Because, and this you may have noticed yourself, her entire world revolves around you! And she’s constantly following you around like a puppy dog! And — and — I was bored!”

After a full minute of staring, Dani asks him what’s wrong with that, right when Jamie says that she absolutely does not. The silence that follows just sees them staring at each other, one a deer caught in the headlights of an incoming tornado, the other very offended.

“Oops,” says Owen in the background, the little shit.

*****

She knows Dani’s in the greenhouse even before she emerges from under the table.

That’s a cliché if she’s ever heard one, but the way Dani walks is so distinctive that there’s nothing else in the world like it. Nothing that even comes close to the particular brand of quick click-clack that accompanies her arrival, the way the steps fall like they’re trying to sound more confident than they are, in reality.  

She can almost see what it looks like up there: her girlfriend, probably walking with a cup of some absolutely horrible, disgusting tasting beverage that Jamie would adore regardless of its flavor. Except there’s a second, softer set of footsteps that follow, keep walking, until she raises her head a bit and sees Flora’s tiny slippers pointed right at her.

“Jamie,” Flora announces loudly, “I have come here on behalf of Miss. Clayton, to apologize for the misunderstanding caused in the morning.”

Jamie takes a deep breath so she doesn’t burst out laughing. Damn her girlfriend for using the deadliest weapon available to her.

“Flora,” she answers to no one in particular, “Could you tell Miss. Clayton that her words made Jamie feel undervalued and taken for granted and that her apology is not accepted.”

There’s a pause. “Flora,” Dani says, “Could you tell Jamie that Dani knows her words were thoughtless and while a mistake, not entirely inaccurate and—”

“Flora, could you tell Dani that her apology needs work—”

“—Flora, could you tell Jamie that she needs to let me explain before she starts grumping again—”

“I beg your pardon!” Flora declares over their combined whining. “I’m sorry, Miss Clayton, but I really can’t do this anymore. Could the both of you please, please, talk to each other yourself?

There’s some whispering back and forth, then footsteps running away. Jamie waits.

“Are you gonna come out now?”

“I came out a long time ago.”

She hears Dani sigh, very loudly, then — “You know what I mean.”

“I do know what you mean. Maybe I want to stay down here and not see your face anymore. Did you ever think of that?”  

Dani’s voice turns adoring, and Jamie hates, hates (loves) the way her will bends to it. “But maybe I want to see your face, sweetheart.”

Jamie sticks her tongue out for an embarrassingly long time before she realizes it probably isn’t visible.  

“If you don’t come out of there,” Dani says, “I will get underneath it with you. Fair warning.”

Jamie smiles, waits.

“Coming in three, two, ow!”

And with that Jamie is out from under the table in a flash, leaning over Dani and that massive, red looking bump on her forehead. Her hands are on Dani before she can even think, one gently rubbing at the welt, the other on her cheek.

“Idiot,” she chides, unable to think How bad does it hurt over and over, “Why can’t you be more careful?”

“Why should I when I already have the best girlfriend in the world to do that for me?”

“Dani Clayton, sweet talker extraordinaire,” she says, pretending to swoon. Leans forward, and presses a gentle kiss to the gradually darkening bruise. “Better?”

Dani’s smile when she nods is so wide that her eyes are almost completely closed.

*****

“We don’t do things together.”

“We do plenty of things together.”

“Oh, like that time I cut your roses to make my collage and you told me it was ugly?”

“You cut up my roses to make One Direction fanart!”

“Don’t pretend like you weren’t dancing to Best Song Ever in the kitchen back when it had just come out!”

Hands balled up into fists, faces flushed. Jamie and Miles stare at each other for a minute before they simultaneously relax. Jamie rolls her eyes, passes the gloves over to him.

“You’re the worst,” she says.

“And you’re a.... wait, what was it Owen had called you? A two-dime rom-com love interest?”

She blushes, and is glad for the sun high up in the sky. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you eavesdropping is rude?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, my parents must have skipped that lesson during the time they were still alive.”

“You can’t pull that card on me, remember? I’m also an orphan with major abandonment issues.”

Miles shakes his head, continues pulling up the weeds in the garden bed. He’d been supremely unimpressed when she had dragged him out for “A day of fun”, and true to form, was continuing his trend of being completely unhelpful with her mission to make him do an honest day’s work.

(Also with her mission to prove to the entire household that she could, in fact, do things not involving her girlfriend)

She tells him to suck it up when he complains about the heat. He does look frazzled, though. There’s sweat dripping off of his forehead, and his hair is weirdly plastered to his head in places. He raises his head, looks longingly at the house and Jamie follows his line of sight until she can just barely make out the outline of people moving in the kitchen.

She thinks of Dani inside, and feels such a strange wave of yearning overcome her that her knees feel weak. It’s only been a whole day since she’s talked properly to her girlfriend, but already the thought of sitting next to her, within touching distance has her considering giving up on this entire “avoiding the love of her life to prove a point to a complete dum-dum" endeavor.

“What does it feel like?”  

Jamie drags her eyes away and looks at Miles. He’s looking at her curiously, his palm held over his eyes to shield him from the sun.

“What, gardening?” she asks in response, even though she knows what he really means.

He rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

She thinks it over. “I’m.... not sure. I love her. Just don’t know if I can articulate it well enough for anyone to understand, let alone myself.”

“But how do you know you love her?”

“Gosh, does anyone? It’s always a toss-up. It just feels right to me, I guess. I want to know her favorite everything, to consume her favorite everything because there’s a part of her in them. I trust myself to be ugly around her. To be sad, or happy, or whatever. I trust her to still like me if I’m not the best version of myself around her. It’s.... complicated.”

He nods, not looking like he gets it entirely. “Weird.”

She reaches out to mess up his hair, laughing when he protests. “Ah, you’re young yet. You’ll get there when you do.”

He hums.

“Or — or not!” she scrambles to add. “You might not get there. Which would also be okay. Totally. Okay.”

He smiles at her. “Hopefully not,” he says, lips twitching. “I’d rather die than become a manic pixie dream girl.”

She almost regrets the soil she launches at his face. Almost.

*****

She sneaks into the chapel towards evening, and nearly scares Hannah out of her wits when she turns around.

“Goodness, Jamie,” Hannah gasps, hand on her chest, “What are you doing here?”

“I came.... to pray,” she replies, picking up a random candlestick and flipping it.

Hannah looks at her in that all-knowing way of hers. “I assure you, that’s definitely not the way to do it, then. And I didn’t know you even believed in a higher power.”

“The only higher power I believe in is the stupid woman stomping around the grounds,” she says, wistfully, sinking down onto the bench opposite to where Hannah is already seated. Then immediately pinches herself on the wrist. “Damn it, I’m not supposed to be talking about her. Or to her.”

“Wait,” Hannah says, realization dawning, “Are you avoiding Dani? Is that why you’re here?”

She throws her arms up before resting her face on the corner of the bench in front of her, feeling very much like a smitten Regency era heroine. “If I’m around her, I won’t be able to resist talking to her. Or touching her. Or just, you know, looking at her like she’s the reason the universe was chucked into existence years and years ago. Trust me, it’s easier to avoid her.”

“I am going to kill that man.”

“Eh, it’s not just Owen,” Jamie remarks, in a surprising show of grace. “I’m also afraid I’m being—”

“—what? Sweet? Romantic? Absolutely swoon-worthy?”

“Clingy,” she confesses, feeling embarrassed. “What if I am bothering her by wanting to be with her most of my time?” What if I’m the only one who wants to be with her most of my time? What does that mean? Does that mean she doesn’t love me as much? Want me as much?

Hannah sits and listens patiently. God, Jamie loves her so much. If the concept of best friends existed in her world, this woman would definitely be hers.

“My ex-husband used to think I was clingy,” she says, after a while of deliberation. “Said I never gave him any space. Would get annoyed if I wanted to spend time with him after dinner.”

Jamie lets her continue.

“Remember when I went up to the village in the evening and returned late night, a long time after all of you had eaten?” she asks, and Jamie nods. “I returned at 11, and found Owen asleep at the table, two covered plates lying beside him. The man had waited for me so we could have dinner together, so we could spend half an hour together before we had to go to bed.”

“So here’s the thing,” she goes on, “Space is definitely important in a relationship and I’m pretty sure you and Dani give each other a lot of it. But take it from me, she doesn’t think you’re clingy; she could never think you’re clingy because she’s equally, stupidly in love with you and invested in this.”

Jamie feels something inside her unclench, making it easier for her to breathe. “She loves me?”

Hannah laughs, softly. “Darling, can’t you see it yourself?”

Jamie thinks that she’s beginning to.

*****

“You cannot still be angry at me,” Owen says, after a very awkward ten minutes in the kitchen together.

“Try me,” she snarks back, although it lacks bite. Her anger is easy; it rises up like a furious hurricane within minutes and is swept away just as soon.

“Okay fine,” he admits, sitting on the chair next to her as he hands her a glass of lemonade, “Fine, you’re not a manic pixie dream—”

“—two-dime romcom love interest archetype, I believe it was—”

“—okay alright, then that too. I was just—”

“—but I was!” bursts out of her in a rush, and she slumps over the table, facedown. “I spent the entire day away from her and still couldn’t stop talking about her or thinking about her or wanting her. You know what? I know that makes me pathetic but I want to talk about my girlfriend to others! She’s perfect! She’s amazing! Ethereal! Beautiful! An angel! And I am a — a stupid love interest!”

He laughs, the asshole, and then thumps her back.

“Jamie,” he starts, “Come on. Do you think I can stop thinking about Hannah when we’re apart? Or that I don’t always want her near me? For heaven’s sake, I’m always making random snacks during the day so I can have an excuse to track her down and feed her.”

She looks at him, the embarrassment now turning to acute irritation. “Then why would you — wait, you know what — you’re a fucking asshole!”

He can’t stop laughing. Grabs her into a headlock so she can’t get up and continues laughing until she pinches at his arm.

“Are you still angry?” he inquires, after he’s done catching his breath.

“Yes!”

“Jamie, my darling,” he says, very formally, “I was just angry because we hadn’t spent time together in so damn long.”

She regards him. “What? No? We hung out just—”

He waits.

“—oh.”

“Last time we got drunk together was two weeks ago. Then, nada. I’m not saying that it’s all you. God knows I’ve done my fair share of forgetting to hang out because I was already with Hannah and it was difficult to tear myself away, I just — yeah.”

The smile that she can feel creeping up all over her face is the devil. “Owen, are you saying you miss me?”

His face darkens. “Oh fuck you.”

“Owen Sharma misses me, Owen Sharma misses me....”

“Jaime, I’m literally going to kill you.”

*****

She screams when Dani does and nearly falls off the ledge.

(Listen, in her defense, she hasn’t seen her girlfriend in over 24 hours. A show of impulse romance by climbing up the ledge right up to Dani’s room can certainly be excused)

(Also, she’s a little drunk)

“You scared me!” she says, with Dani now holding on to her.

“I scared you?” Dani exclaims. “You — I turned around and you’re suddenly at the window like a haunted owl or something.”

“Why the fuck would an owl haunt you?”

Dani opens her mouth, then closes it again. Jamie counts it as a personal victory.

She climbs over the window and lands on the inside of the room. Dani leans forward, kisses her, then draws back.

“Are you — are you drunk?”

“A little,” Jamie disentangles from her to raise her right hand with her thumb and forefinger held a tiny span apart. “Only a leetle. I was with Owen.”

“Ah, so the manic pixie dream girl and best boy have made up?” Dani teases, then quickly kisses her cheek when she protests.

“How did your experiment go?” she adds.

“Terrible. Horrible,” Jamie answers. “I kept talking about you wherever I went. It was embarrassing. If there is a lesbian equivalent of the Bechdel test, we most certainly did not pass it.”

Dani kisses at her pout until it switches to a smile, and Jamie can physically feel the elation fill her body until she guesses she’s probably floating on air by now. There’s something about being around Dani that relaxes every part of her, makes her feel so light that she thought if she could just jump hard enough, she’d float away like a heart-shaped balloon. Jamie tightens her hold on Dani, buries her face in her hair, and breathes her in until all of her senses are filled up with her.

(If wanting to hug her girlfriend like a panda all the time makes her clingy, so be it)

“If it makes you feel any better,” Dani says, still hugging her, “I couldn’t stop talking about you either. I kept bugging Hannah or Owen or whoever was nearest, asking them what you were up to. A really pretty song played on the radio and I thought — I can dance with Jamie to this. I tried watching a movie, and all I could think was, If Jamie had been here, she would definitely have hidden her face in my shoulder at this part. I was cold and lonely at night, and I thought If Jamie were here, she would have put her hand on my—”

“—Dani!” she says, scandalized.

“—back to warm me up,” Dani completes, smoothly, and then pulls back to look at her. “So we could cuddle and go to sleep. Why, what were you thinking?”

Jamie tries, she really does. However, only five seconds later, she’s kissing her stupid, annoying, idiotic girlfriend again.

“Let’s never do that, okay?” she says. “I kept tossing and turning all night.”

“You’re telling me,” Dani deadpans. “I slept on the floor on a mattress because the bed was just too damn empty without you there.”

“The drama,” Jamie says, although she’s smiling too wide for it to register. “Well, hopefully, you wouldn’t have to sleep without your angsty, brooding love interest ever again.”

“Oh,” Dani quirks an eyebrow, tilts her head. “Does that mean this is our happy ending?”

Jamie kisses her again, feels her smile and is more inclined to think they’re in the wonderful, beautiful, middle forever.

[sparrowwritings]

Final Fantasy Writing Challenge Day Seventeen: Ladybugs

Day Sixteen -- Masterpost -- Day Eighteen

Having people barging into his office was so expected that Hythlodaeus hadn’t needed to keep his door shut in years. Having one of his best friends barge in on him while he was working was also completely within average parameters. He’d even made a habit of keeping snacks in case someone came hungry.

What wasn’t normal was Artemis barging into his office holding a preview of a concept that had been on display on one of the lower floors of the Bureau of the Architect. She shoved it in his face as she leaned across his desk. “I searched everywhere I could for name of whoever originated this and I can’t find it. You’re the Chief so you either already know or you can find out.” There was an urgency to her voice that was very unlike her.

Before Hythlodaeus could respond, Apollo also stumbled into the office. He was short of breath, as if he’d been chasing after his twin. Which he probably had done, all things considered. “Can’t just...run off...without...words…” He said when he could manage to speak.

“I need. To know. The name.” Artemis hadn’t turned from staring down Hythlodaeus. He couldn’t see her eyes, but he didn’t have to. He knew her well enough to know that she hadn’t even blinked. 

Taking this very rare moment of seriousness for what it was, he gently took the preview of the concept from her hand and examined it. Inside was a model of an insect. A beetle, from the look of it--an exoskeleton that had wing casings that split in half to allow the diaphanous limbs to spread for flight; short stubby antenna to sense the world around it; twin pincers next to its mouth; six legs that ended in fine, almost unnoticeable hairs to allow for climbing surfaces. Unlike most beetles that Hythlodaeus had examined, this one’s coloring was primarily red with black spots dotting its shell in a random pattern. When he queried the preview, a name came up immediately: ladybug.

The contributor was marked as Anonymous. His clearance let him find out why.

“Well?” Artemis demanded. 

“Well it’s no wonder you couldn’t discover the name.” He said while handing it back to her. “Whoever it was didn’t want to be known to the public.”

“WHAT?!” 

“Not everyone likes to be in the public eye, sis.” Apollo shook his head. “I know it’s hard to wrap your head around, considering who we are and who we know.” He made a significant look in Hythlodaeus’ direction. “No offense.”

“None taken, unless you wish for me to play the part of Emet-Selch for a moment.”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Hythlodaeus cleared his throat. “How dare you, Apollo. I resemble that remark.” 

Apollo responded with a thumbs up. “I don’t know how you do it, but you sound more and more like him every time you try.”

Artemis slammed her hands on the desk. “Can we focus, you two?”

The men both paused, then looked to each other before turning their faces to her. Clearing his throat again, Hythlodaeus spoke first. “Alright, I’ll ask since no one’s said anything about it yet: What’s going on, Artemis? You’re acting...well, more like Hades than usual.” Apollo worried at his lip while nodding in agreement.

Her jaw was tight while her head turned away. It was Apollo’s turn to be Azem, so her white mask showed a little more of her dour expression. “I just...want to know who made the ladybug concept. It seems…” She hesitated. Her mouth opened and closed a few times as she tried and failed to come up with something to answer him with. Finally Artemis settled on, “I want to see what sort of mind could come up with it.”

Hythlodaeus set his face as neutrally as he could and steepled his fingers. “I really shouldn’t ask, but I’m going to anyway. You’re sure you want to find them?”

“Absolutely.” Her earlier hesitation was gone. 

After a dramatic pause (by the end of which he was sure that she was about to lean across the desk again and smack the heel of her palm into his mask), he opened his hands with a somewhat helpless shrug. “Alright then, I’ll see what I can do.”

Her relief was instant. “Thank you, Hythlodaeus.” 

“Well of course! Anyone that interests you this much without even having met them is bound to be an interesting person.”

------

“You know,” Hythlodaeus said to two of his best friends as he watched the scene happening in front of them from a distance. “I had high expectations for their meeting, but I’m somewhat disappointed.”

“It goes to show that you need some more reasonable expectations.” Emet-Selch drawled. He had been on his way to the office of the Chief of the Bureau of the Architect when the twins and Chief himself had passed him by. Naturally the three of them had bodily dragged him along for the journey to find the creator of concepts that Artemis had been keen to meet. When they were within sight of the greenhouse that the Amaroutine worked at, she had broken off from the group to go ahead and meet them with a spoken warning of what was to come should her best friends (and brother) follow. Naturally, the three had moved to be just within sight of her and no further. 

They had been waiting in that spot for quite a while. 

“That’s rich, coming from you. ‘I’m Hades and of course Azem can do the impossible, they’ve done it every day they’ve been in office!’” 

Emet-Selch stared back at Hythlodaeus. His red mask made his menace all the more obvious. “I don’t sound like that.”

“Yes you do and you know it.”

“He’s right you know,” Apollo chimed in. “Every other time we get an assignment, you’re the first one to cheer us on.” He grinned. “In your own way, of course.”

“Well I never.” Emet-Selch put a hand to his chest in dramatic shock. “What shocking accusations from two of my best friends. I hardly think I can recover.” His quietly growing smirk gave him away. “Although if we’re about to throw slander around, I have a few things to say about the two of you.”

“I thought you three would be in gossip mode by the time I got back.” Artemis’ voice interrupted the game. All three men turned and she gave them a wave. She had a far more peaceful expression on her face.

Both Hythlodaeus and Emet-Selch looked at each other. Even though their respective masks hid the upper parts of their faces, it was absolutely clear that their eyebrows had been raised up to their hairline. Apollo looked more relieved than shocked. “Looks like it went well,” He said with a smile.

“Yeah...yeah it did.” Her own smile was far softer than anything her best friends had ever seen her exhibit before.

After waiting an appropriate amount of time (about thirty seconds), Hades said, “We should meet this fellow if he’s capable of producing soft feelings in Artemis of all people.”

Hythlodaeus chimed in as if the two had rehearsed, “Absolutely. If he’s to be involved with our Artemis, surely he must know he has three people he needs to impress.”

“D-don’t pull me into this,” Apollo immediately held his hands up and took a step back. “I’m fine with whatever she’s comfortable with.”

“Two people, then.” 

“Two people with quite exacting standards,” Hades added. He was so full of smug that his smirk had become a full blown grin. “We need a full profile of him immediately.”

“With at least three character witnesses.” Hythlodaeus was also grinning from ear to ear.

The parts of Artemis’ face that could be seen were quickly coloring from the onslaught. “If both of you don’t stop that I’m going to--”

Instead of addressing her quickly growing rage, Emet-Selch turned his attention to Hythlodaeus. “You never did say what his name was before we got here.”

“Oh right! His name is Darsus!”

“Hm, I shall have to look him up later.”

“Guys, stop before--” But Apollo’s warning came too late. Artemis had already conjured up a concept of lightning to chase her two best friends with.

[luuxxart]

THIS IS ME ASKING FOR YOUR FERDITHEABERT HEADCANONS I didn't even know how badly I needed this ot3!!

THABK YOU FOR ENABLIGN ME

SO MUCH under the cut

I’m gonna go with individual ships first and then branch into ferditheabert that way it’s easier to sort of chronicle ???

Also someone remind me to write a fic one day im literally going to go through an entire plotline over here sndmdkdkdkd

Pre-Timeskip Ferdithea

I think this one would be the one that would happen first

I’m a whore for canon so everything definitely happens according to the supports imo

Ferdinand sort of just goes with the flow and is nice to everyone but anyone with eyes can see he’s madly in love with Dorothea

Just absolutely head over heels like

“If you asked me to jump off a bridge right now I would go do it” kind of head over heels madly in love

Dorothea is aware but is trying very hard not to be

She doesn’t really get it because she’s still under the impression he was gawking at her in the fountain and suddenly feels guilty about it now that they’re pretty much on the same pedestal

And as Dorothea navigates how she feels about Ferdinand and his adoration of her, she turns to Hubert’s relationship with Edelgard

Pre-Timeskip Huberthea

Dorothea pesters Hubert endlessly about his feelings for Edelgard

Knowing that his feelings for her aren’t romantic is relieving, but she’s not sure why

Especially because this now makes Ferdinand’s doting on her even more confusing

So she hangs around Hubert, much to his annoyance, to see what fuels his drive for Edelgard

She ends up doing a few tasks with him like buying some Bergamot, polishing axes, and eventually uh

They touch hands

While harvesting some Noa Fruit

And the ensuing weekend dinner with the Professor becomes all the more awkward because of course the Professor is playing matchmaker after noticing the time they’ve been spending together

Then one day Dorothea notices Hubert drinking coffee and is like

Holy shit that stuff we used to drink to stay up for five fucking acts of an opera how do you drink that

But he makes a bombass brew and suddenly the caffeine addiction is back

They don’t really talk about the almost-touches and the wistful talks about romance that don’t really go anywhere

But Dorothea manages to convince Hubert to do some things for himself (like planting coffee beans in the greenhouse and like vent)

And Hubert’s errands for Edelgard takes Dorothea’s mind off the stress of finding a suitor

Because devotion to someone or something is ,,, honestly a lot more important than money

And holy shit maybe there’s something to Ferdinand’s actions?????

Oh well better ignore it for now

Pre-Timeskip Ferdibert

But this is where it gets cOMPLICATED folks

Hubert is VERY aware that what he has with Dorothea is bordering romantic but he’s trying to push that down a because he feels like he doesn’t deserve someone who could be as devoted to him as he is to them

He’s ALSO trying to push down his feelings for Ferdinand mostly because he knows that Ferdinand is currently pursuing Dorothea

So Hubert is caught in the middle between the two

If at all, he tries to focus a little more on his attraction to Ferdinand because he understands that Dorothea is currently not interested in either one of them

(or else she would’ve said something, right????)

Also, due to Ferdinand being heir apparent to the prime ministry, Hubert has an excuse to keep watch over him

I mean

What can I say except Hubert is morosexual

He wants someone to fix/take care of and currently Dorothea is not exhibiting that need

Ferdinand tho? dude would literally lose his head if it weren’t attached to his neck

Eventually Hubert draws up a proposal to have a double prime ministry so that he can overlook Ferdinand’s actions in the future

He ends up tucking the draft into a drawer, but the idea tends to sit at the tip of his tongue every time he sees Ferdinand

He’s afraid Ferdinand will see it for what it is

A proposal proposal

And that’s exactly what it is

And he (no thoughts) talks to Dorothea about it and she (head empty) encourages him to propose it at the dance

Pre-Timeskip Goddess Tower

so after presumably edelethy actions have happened and the goddess tower becomes unoccupied,

Hubert asks Ferdinand to accompany him up to the tower for the government proposal™️

Ferdinand doesn’t suspect anything

But then they get up there and Dorothea is there, waiting to pour her heart out to Hubert because she realizes if she doesn’t nip it in the bud, she’ll never have a devoted suitor (and also she still doesn’t realize that this is a proposal proposal)

So then it basically becomes that spiderman meme with all the spidermen pointing at each other because they all have dumb stupid crushes on each other

Problem is they’re all young and dumb and they don’t know how to sort it out so they just don’t and leave

Post-Timeskip Ferdithea

So war happens and everyone’s pretty distant from each other

Then the Professor comes back and is extremely upset to see all the rifts between everyone

So everyone kind of tries

But that’s hard because it’s been five years and the rifts are now pretty much ravines

Ferdinand finally gets the nerve up to talk to Dorothea again because he’s at his breaking point

He can’t stand not talking to either of them and Dorothea’s more open to talking

Their A support happens and Dorothea finally understands why Ferdinand did the things he did

ONLY PROBLEM IS

NOW HUBERT/EDELGARD IS VERY CONFUSING AGAIN

Post-Timeskip Huberthea

So Dorothea finally confronts Hubert again and asks him again if he truly loves Edelgard

He decidedly does not

He also decidedly does not want to speak to Dorothea after the Goddess Tower Incident

Dorothea begs him to at least speak to Ferdinand

Hubert considers this

Post-Timeskip Ferdibert

Meanwhile, Ferdinand is mending the bridge between himself and Hubert

They have their A+ Support

They start doing missions together

And after Hubert protects Ferdinand from a close call with a Faerghus fusillade, Ferdinand starts to see what Dorothea saw in Hubert

Uh the devotion that is

Now Ferdiberthea :)

So have i said devotion enough yet? Because that’s the name of the game

And Dorothea fuckiNg misses Hubert

and Ferdinand is pretty much spending all his time with Hubert so Dorothea ends up missing him a lot too

(Also at this point both Ferdithea/ferdibert have become an unspoken thing around Garreg Mach and everyone is VERY confused)

(Except the Professor who is watching their matchmaking attempts come to fruition)

So anyway Dorothea has Edelgard arrange for her to go on the next mission with Hubert and Ferdinand

And OOPS ITS WINTER AND THEY ALL GET STRANDED IN A SMALL TOWN WITH ONLY A ONE BED ROOM OPEN AT AN INN

it’s a king size don’t worry

They just have to get used to each other’s company for a long Pegasus Moon

Ferdinand catches onto the coldness between Hubert and Dorothea so he tries to find situations to get them alone together

So after a couple of those moments, Hubert and Dorothea have a colder version of their A support out in the small town market

There’s some crying, some consoling, and a passionate makeout back at the inn followed by Ferdinand reaping the spoils by joining in

When they get back to Garreg Mach, they become an impervious wall of magic and equestrian fighting

They also become an impervious wall of love and devotion

Miscellaneous headcanons

Ferdinand always sleeps in the middle just because Hubert and Dorothea can be all over each other one minute, and suddenly need space the next

It’s not that they don’t like each other, they’re just both A LOT sometimes

Dorothea and Hubert often stay up longer than Ferdinand because they are very avid coffee drinkers

They double team carrying him back to the bedroom if he ends up nodding off at a late night war meeting

One thing to keep in mind is that I also headcanon Hubert as trans

And so he has met Dorothea at an opera in person before Garreg Mach, she just doesn’t recognize him, and he’s gonna let it stay that way

But it was with her that he was introduced to coffee, which sort of helped him through Edelgard’s disappearance (if you count staying up until the crack of dawn to plan ways to rescue her as “help”)

Hubert will never admit that he’s sick because he is devoted to his royal duties

so Dorothea and Ferdinand take turns staying with him to make sure he doesn’t move and fulfilling his duties in his absence

Ferdinand is still very fuCking reckless and hes even more reckless in war so it takes both dark knight!Hubert and gremory!Dorothea (riding on Hubert’s horse usually) to keep great knight!Ferdinand in check

Were you also disappointed that Dorothea wasn’t a theater/opera kid meme? Me too.

Anyway she is. And so is Ferdinand. So they convert Hubert into operakidism and then proceed to annoy the rest of the black eagles endlessly with opera songs and dance numbers

Listen, if u haven’t seen the Manuela/Ferdinand supports,,, like

Manuela is an enabler of the opera kids just saying

also it is no secret that Ferdinand is a horse girl and he ends up turning the other two into horse girls as well and eventually the rest of the black eagles have to ban horses from conversation entirely

Pegasi were already banned from conversation because of Hubert

Eventually the three get married and have a couple kids by mage

They take an annual winter vacation in a small town to rekindle any sparks they might lose in the stress of governance

[nah-she-didnt]

okay, so all i want is for remus to have a crush on reader or whoever . you can do absolutely anything with this remus just has a really big crush on her and he notices things about her personality and all. fluff because I also want them to like kiss at the end of this all.

Okay here’s the deal anon, I owe you an apology because I’m almost certain that the following story is not what you had in mind. I headcanon that Sirius is gay and Remus is bisexual or pansexual (I also headcanon that Tonks is NB, and I do ship Remadora to a point, but that’s beside the point). So while this might not be exactly what you intended, it’s the story that came to me, so I hope you enjoy! 

Please Send Me Prompts My Inbox Is Sad And Empty 

Firsts

In the three previous years, James had partnered with Sirius in Herbology and Remus with Peter. This was generally how lesson pairs broke down between the four friends, partly because James and Sirius had so much fun goofing off together and partly because Remus wanted to actually concentrate on the professor during lessons. Fourth year, however, was different. 

The first day of classes began like any other. The bright September sun followed the four of them across the grounds into Greenhouse 2 for their first Herbology lesson of term.

“I hope we do Devil’s Snare this year,” Sirius grinned mischievously. 

“God, I don’t,” Peter paled, “imagine if it got you and never let go.” 

“Don’t worry, Pete,” James beamed as he threw glances to the group of Gryffindor girls ahead of them, also on their way to Herbology, “we’d visit you all the time, bring you biscuits, everything.” 

“Fuck off,” grumbled Pete. He’d been in a foul mood all day after their disastrous first Potions lesson where he’d managed to melt his brand-new cauldron. 

“Someone’s grumpy!” Sirius declared as they crossed the threshold into Greenhouse 2, “don’t worry, Pete, I’ll tell you a joke to cheer you up. Have you ever heard about the troll, the hag, and the leprechaun who all go into a bar-” 

“Remus?” 

Remus doubled back, not sorry to miss the rest of Sirius’ joke. Amelia Bones stood a few feet away, wearing a pretty blue hair ribbon to match her Ravenclaw tie. She was twisting her hands nervously over her stomach, and he noticed that she was blushing slightly. The effect the flush had underneath her freckles was quite nice. 

“Hi Amelia,” he squeaked, trying to sound more confident than he felt, “what’s up? How was your summer?” 

“Erm, not bad,” she smiled sweetly up at him, “I was wondering if…” 

“Oi, Remus!” Sirius called across the room, “Pete saved you a seat.” James and Peter snickered behind Sirius, clearly in on the joke to make him look a fool in front of Amelia.

Remus waved them off and turned his attention back to Amelia. “Sorry, ignore them. What were you wondering?” 

She went from pink to red at his words. “I was wondering if… you wanted to be my Herbology partner this year.” 

Remus blinked. “Oh,” he said, unsure if he understood her properly, “um, yeah, alright. You mean all year?” 

She looked stunned at his words. “Oh, yeah, if you wanted…” 

“I do,” he said quickly. To his annoyance, he felt his hand fly to his hair, just like James did when he talked to a girl. “Yeah. I’d like that, Amelia.” 

She beamed at him. “Great! Well, I guess we should get on with it, then,” and she gestured to a pair of empty chairs. 

--

And so they sat together in the Greenhouse. Their conversations were awkward at first. They kept running into long pauses between their feeble attempts at small talk. Remus always kicked himself when he couldn’t decide what to say. He couldn’t tell too many stories, so much of his life had to be kept secret. He couldn’t very well tell her why he looked so tired that one Wednesday after the Full Moon, nor where he had gotten a particularly nasty scar that stretched across the back of his right hand. He was sure she’d get bored of him eventually, but lesson after lesson there she was, smiling from the seat next to him. She didn’t seem to care that he had little to say, because after a few weeks she talked enough for the both of them. 

She told him about her mother’s work in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Remus braced himself at this. He knew that the Department was none too friendly towards werewolves, but the topic never came up. She told him that she wanted to head the Department herself someday. 

“Yeah?” he grinned, “you want to work in magical law?” 

She smiled as she misted a rosebush with a spray bottle. “It’s the only thing I can imagine doing, you know, with everything that’s going on.” 

Remus nodded. That was one of the things he liked about Amelia. She had parents in the Ministry. She knew about the war that was surely coming, and she wasn’t afraid. She’d told him once that she’d give her life to protect others if it came to it. 

“Sounds like you should have been in Gryffindor,” he’d told her at this.

“Nah,” she laughed, “you lot are too aggressive. Give me a book over a fight any day.” 

Remus pretended to look wounded. “Not all of us are like that.” 

He stopped his work on the engorged Venus Flytrap in front of him and glanced sideways at her. Her large blue eyes studied him carefully as if she were making up her mind. “No,” she almost whispered, “I suppose you’re not, are you?” 

--

That night in the Common Room found the boys sitting around the roaring fire. James and Sirius played a game of Exploding Snap while Peter watched, clapping his hands and cheering loudly when one of the players had a particularly impressive move. Remus stared into the fire, the book he had been reading lay forgotten in his lap. 

“Moony,” James called, waking Remus from his daydream about Herbology that day, “what’s got your face look all crumpled like that?”

“Isn’t it obvious,” grumbled Sirius, “Bones. Again. Am I wrong?” 

Remus was sure his cheeks had turned dark red at this comment. “No.”

Sirius grimaced. “See? Told you.” 

James laughed out loud. “Remus? In love? I never thought I’d see the day.” 

“Not in love,” Remus argued, trying to regain some of his dignity, “in….like, I suppose.” 

“Like...you want to shag her brains out, do you mean?” Peter chuckled. 

“Don’t be gross,” Remus tossed his book at Peter’s head, which unfortunately missed. “She’s funny, that’s all.” 

“Funny?” Said Sirius incredulously, “I’ve never heard her be funny.” 

“Have you ever even talked to her?” Remus frowned. He didn’t know why Sirius was being so nasty.

“‘Course I have,” Sirius muttered, “she seems boring if you ask me.” 

“Well, good thing no one asked you, then,” Remus snapped. He wasn’t interested in dealing with one of Sirius’ moods today. Amelia was a nice girl. She had a good heart and she cared about the things Remus cared about. Sirius was just jealous for whatever reason. 

Sirius jumped to his feet. “Well, if you’re going to blab on about her all night, I’m going to bed.” 

Remus rolled his eyes. “What, and deprive us of your pleasant company?” 

Sirius glared at him, then stomped off up the stairs. 

James stared after his friend. “What was that about?” 

“No idea,” Remus gestured to Peter for his book back, then went back to pretending to read in front of the fire. Really, if Sirius had a problem with Amelia, who cared. 

But he did care. 

--

The ground had frozen solid already, a sure sign that winter approached. Amelia had insisted that they study for their Herbology exam down by the black lake. He wasn’t sure why they had to be outside, but she’d lit a fire that floated several inches above the blanket she laid out for them which provided a buffer of warmth against the brisk wind. 

“Name the Kingdom, Order, and Family of Crataegus, give its common name, and list its magical properties,” Amelia recited from her textbook. 

Remus screwed up his face in concentration. 

“Let’s see...Crataegus, also known as Hawthorn, Kingdom is Plantae, Order is Rosales, and Family is Rosaceae. In ancient times Muggles believed the Hawhotrn had magical properties of rebirth and fertility, and Wizards use its elements in draughts to strengthen the heart,” He glanced at Amelia, “how’d I do?” 

“Brilliant,” she beamed, snapping her book shut. She stretched her legs so that her shoeless feet reached towards the Black Lake. “Let’s take a break, I’m exhausted.” 

“Up all night reading, were you?” he teased.

She tried her best not to smile, but the corners of her mouth gave her away. “If you must know… yes. I couldn’t put down our Transfiguration textbook.” 

Remus gaped at her. “Oh come on!” he laughed, “there’s being studious, and there’s being a bloody nerd!” 

She looked at him in disbelief. “Traitor! I would have thought you, of all people, would understand.” Something changed in her face when she said this. She seemed to grow softer, more earnest. She looked at him as if he were supposed to gain some greater understanding from her words. 

Remus laughed nervously. “Well, I like bloody nerds.” 

“Yeah?” she whispered. She drew closer to him by the second, her eyes boring into his. 

“Yeah,” he breathed. He knew what she wanted from him, and he was pretty sure he wanted it too. 

Their lips met across the space between them. Her skin was warm, and her lips moved naturally against his own. It was a nice feeling, and he kissed her back with interest. His stomach swooped when she gently tugged at his bottom lip with her teeth. He lifted a hand to her cheek and rested it there, gently pulling her closer. 

--

“You WHAT?” 

Remus did not look up from his book. “We kissed. Alright?” 

James stared at him open-mouthed. “How!” he howled, like a child who had a toy taken away by a fed-up parent, “how are you the first one to kiss a girl of the four of us? You’re afraid of girls!” 

“Apparently not,” Remus grinned despite himself. It was true, he’d never been a flirt. But it seemed that James’ strategy of annoying girls until they liked him hadn’t quite paid off yet. 

“And how was it?” Sirius barked across the room from his spot on his four-poster. He still had that strange, hard edge to his voice. He’d been that way for a few weeks now. 

Remus shrugged. “It was nice.” 

“Just nice?” cried Peter, who looked like he was about to explode, “Come on, we need more than that!” 

Remus thought back to the moment down by the lake. “It was...unexpected.” 

“Was it everything you’d ever dreamed of?” Sirius drawled in a bored voice. 

Remus shot him a dirty look. “And if it was?” 

Sirius scoffed. “I doubt it.” 

“Look,” Remus said angrily, “I don’t know what your problem is, but I’m sick of this. You’ve been sulking around me for weeks. I don’t know if it’s jealousy, or-”

“Jealous?” Sirius’ eyes flashed with anger, “you think I’m jealous of her?” 

Remus faltered. “No,” he stammered, “I meant-” 

But Sirius cut him off. “Of course, I didn’t mean,” he took a breath, “I just don’t want you lording it over the rest of us, alright? That you’ve got a girlfriend, or whatever. Us Marauders have more important things to think about.” And with that, Sirius tore the hangings around his bed closed with a huff. 

Remus stared at the spot Sirius had been feeling shaken. What had Sirius meant, “you think I’m jealous of her?” 

“Let him sleep it off, mate,” James said uneasily, glancing at the closed hangings around his friend’s bed, “he’s just in a mood.” 

“Fuck off, James,” Sirius called from out of sight. 

James sighed, threw Remus one more apologetic look, then began to get ready for bed. 

Remus sat quite still for a moment. Just minutes ago he could think of nothing but Amelia. Now, Sirius filled his brain. They fought so rarely, it was hard to believe that his kiss with Amelia had made Sirius so angry. After a while, Remus realized he was the last boy awake in the dormitory. Confused and upset, he got to his feet and turned out the light.

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

A morbid thought hit me just now, how many romance sidequests do actually hold up? Like thinking on it I only love two of the six, and kinda like one. Over half of the romance sidequests have been duds! O__O

I don’t quite agree that they were all duds, but some of them were pretty bad, and others didn’t quite live up to expectations. Let me take a look-through: 

The Celestial Ball is probably my favorite overall, even to this day. It just holds up really well, and it doesn’t really have any problems that the other quests don’t have as well. (The recycled dialogue, for example.) I think the success of this one comes from the focus on the event, preparing and enjoying it with our friends. This one is the best TLSQ out of all of the others overall, but it’s not necessarily the best Dating TLSQ, if that makes any sense. Because it plays things more ambiguously. It stars Penny, but her inclusion makes sense for the character and the rest of the cast does get adequate screen-time. The only thing is that, once you’re at the Ball, you wind up spending most of the night with Penny except for one scene with your Love Interest. So it winds up feeling like you’re on a Date with Penny regardless of who you pick, but again, the lack of overt romantic themes make that easier to swallow. Andre being the Style Wizard is introduced here, and he comes up with three boss outfits. Not to mention, Rowan gets a bigger role, and their relationship with Ben comes into play. Bill x Rowan gets teasing, too! How could I not love this one?

The First Date TLSQ is much more steeped in romance. Not just in the sweet and wholesome moments, but also in the high school drama, alas. It was the quest to introduce cutting characters and it removed three of them, while only adding one in return. So it’s got that working against it. The whole premise of MC writing the note is just so damn silly. I can laugh at it, but it really doesn’t make sense, especially since half of the options aren’t even in their Potions class. Tonks and Charlie, for as much as I love them, really need to work on their social skills because guys, guys, guys. What were you thinking? Characters expressing sadness that you didn’t choose them is an interesting concept, I’m both relieved and a little disappointed that they never explored this more. The scene in the courtyard at night was nice enough to make everything else worth it, but the whole idea that MC’s love interest might not like them anymore is a bit hard to go along with. One final plus though, is that this quest has the best outfits to choose from, period. I know it’s subjective but damn, Andre really outdid himself this time.

Valentines Day I...oh boy. The culmination of so much I don’t like. This quest started the tradition of having all of the love interests needlessly confess to MC, taking up valuable time for a reveal that doesn’t matter if you don’t choose the character and makes things awkward...and also doesn’t matter if you do choose them because it removes all tension and  honestly? If the character is available, I already know they’re going to say yes. Penny acts like she’s drunk during the entire quest, and not in a charming way either. It really gets to the point of being out of character. And Gilderoy. Fucking. Lockhart. He is so annoying. Jam City got so caught up in featuring any canon character they could, that they never stopped to realize no one wanted to see this guy and watch him consume most of the screen time. He gets away with stealing MC’s story at the end, as well? Like, what? How? The Greenhouse scene is one of the most beautiful to be depicted thus far. It honestly makes the entire quest worth it...but it doesn’t save the quest, and I maintain that it comes out of nowhere. It’s a brilliant standalone scene...but it doesn’t make up for the final sin: Tulip is omitted for absolutely no given reason and as a major fan of hers, I am not happy about this. 

The Festival TLSQ: Better than First Date and Valentines I, but not as good as the Celestial Ball. The story is more fun, especially with the added feature of outside classes. I like the overall carnival feel of the event, but I kind of wish this game didn’t constantly centralize MC, Penny, and Merula. Especially in the dating quests, with the whole concept of the election. Why is MC on the ballot if they didn’t run? Why can they only vote for two of the potential love interests? I know it’s a personal thing and it really kind of started in Valentines, but Andre’s outfits appeal to me less and less as time goes on, and he’s making fewer of them. That being said, I much, much prefer the concept of a “Secret Admirer” to just having everyone confess to MC, and “I think about you gobs” still makes me laugh every time I hear it. Lockhart does show up again and his sequence absolutely frustrates me. Like, he doesn’t stay as long as he did the first time and we do get to kick his ass...but why would he even dare show his face again after the botched memory charm? Why is anyone even listening to him or letting him hog the spotlight? Why is he here? Damn it, just let me and my date play around with painting our faces! I whine, it’s true, but this one is still miles better than it’s predecessor. It adds new characters, quite a few of them, and it also stars Andre. He normally doesn’t get the spotlight, so these things really work to the quest’s favor. 

Valentines Day II: This one is far from being the best TLSQ we’ve ever had, but I actually do think that on the whole? It is the best Dating TLSQ we’ve had. It really captures the theme of falling in love, and the feeling of being a Valentines Day episode. The whole storyline about Pince and Filch? I really like that! The fairytale, storybook motif? It kinda really works! We once again have everyone outright confessing to MC, but I’m just gonna ignore it. The outfits look pretty damn good actually, but I am heartbroken that Luca can’t wear that skirt. Ah well, at least gals can wear the suit. The characters just work together well in this quest, there’s a sense of comradery in putting together the event and melting Pince’s frozen heart, right down to putting Filch in that hilarious outfit and dying Mrs. Norris pink. The whole plot being a reference to a rumor from the books is great. And yeah, MC’s date would have had absolutely no time to set up that whole set-piece in the library but what do I care? It was a really sweet moment. That’s just what works so well about this quest - it’s sweet. Between MC and their Date, between Filch and Pince...it was just a fun story to watch unfold, and at the end of it all, you get to celebrate with your love interest. 

Enchanted Kiss: This one had such a promising start. I love the whole concept of MC auditioning for a play, actually putting on a production, and being cast alongside their love interest to be the romantic leads. It’s not even a “dating” TLSQ technically since you don’t go on a date with your chosen character. But you get to choose them early on and ignore all of that confessing nonsense. You get to work toward putting on a play. You get to work toward saving it...but unfortunately, that’s when it all goes wrong. I’ve said my piece about why it was a terrible idea to make everything about MC, and that kind of infected the rest of the quest. There are no outfits for any of the dating options, nor does MC even get to choose between outfits this time. Little details like that combined with how quickly this one came out after the last one lead me to believe they were perhaps rushing to get it out and I don’t know why. They went to the trouble of coming up with that adorable animation for the enchanted kiss...and they couldn’t have put a lip kiss in it, at the very end? Come on Jam City, you know that’s what everyone really wants! It’s the same as how they tease the idea of MC and their Date saying “I love you” for the first time, but this doesn’t happen either. It just started so well and became very disappointing, but it was still fun overall.